Monitoring for Windows Event Logs and the Untold Story of Proper ELK Integration - <AUTHOR> http://www.ubersec.com/2017/12/03/monitoring-for-windows-event-logs-and-the-untold-story-of-proper-elk-integration/ <comment><USER2> SysMon is the next step after changing the default audit policy.

[https://github.com/MHaggis/sysmon-dfir](https://github.com/MHaggis/sysmon- dfir)

As of September 2017, v6.1 supports monitoring WMI subscribers.

[https://rawsec.lu/blog/posts/2017/Sep/19/sysmon-v610-vs- wmi-...](https://rawsec.lu/blog/posts/2017/Sep/19/sysmon-v610-vs-wmi- persistence/)

Unfortunately I can no longer point to a canonical "best practices" configuration as the original has been neglected; however it may serve as a starting point: [https://github.com/SwiftOnSecurity/sysmon- config](https://github.com/SwiftOnSecurity/sysmon-config)

</comment><comment> gm-conspiracy Using Logstash, is it possible to queue events in case the machine in question temporarily loses network connectivity?

<comment><USER3> Yes. Newer versions of Logstash have an on-disk queue that will store events that haven't been ACK'd by ElasticSearch.

On the other side, every Beat (or nearly every Beat) can write to a messaging product like Kafka. That allows you to get logs off your client in the face of failures in either Logstash or ElasticSearch.</comment></comment>


Ironists of a Vanished Empire - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/06/22/marjorie-perloff-ironists-vanished-empire/ <comment><USER2> Kakania is a triple pun. It's also a country of peasants' paradise in european folklore.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockaigne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockaigne)

I'm not even sure it was ever about excrement actually.

<comment><USER3> I would have imagined Musil was thinking of the Greek kakistos (κάκιστος; worst).

This is for example the root of the word Kakistocracy: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakistocracy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakistocracy)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Have we stopped changing immigrants' names for no fucking reason? I knew some Malaysian students in the '90s who had incongruously whitebread American first names, but I'm not clear if it's something people choose to do to fit in. (Or maybe whitebread English names are common in Malaysia, for all I know.)

<comment><USER5> _You_ clearly have not stopped, for any reason, using " _we_ " to mean "Americans".

<comment><USER4> In all seriousness, I would like to know why you object to me using "we" to refer to the nation where I live and hold citizenship. I feel like you're implying some kind of nationalistic sentiment on my part, but I have no idea why, especially given the context.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the best resources for becoming great at interviewing people? - <AUTHOR>

One of my primary goals this year is to become excellent at interviewing. As an Engineering Manager, I do a number of interviews per week but I don't feel like I'm very good at it. I'm mapping out a plan to improve my skills and as a part of that I'm looking for some good resources (e.g. books) to consume. Googling around is tough for this because most of the books are from the interviewee's perspective. <comment><USER2> Best way to get better at interviewing, is to do more of it, preferably with someone to critique it. I doubt that books are going to help much. It's a very on-the-job-training thing.

The more you interview, the more you get clarity about what you yourself value, and how you'd look for that in the candidate. That's true of coding as well as non-coding skills.

You are already getting a chance to interview several candidates at your job. I'd suggest you shadow some good interviewers for a few interviews. Pick someone who you think conducts an interview very well, and follow them in the interviews as well as debrief sessions. Stay quiet all through the interview and the debrief and take notes. After the debrief, talk with the person to reconcile any observations. That way you're not interrupting, you get ample thinking time of your own, and you also get to calibrate it with the person you were following. It's bit of an art.

Alternatively, if you can come to Sunnyvale, feel free to visit us: [http://InterviewKickstart.com](http://InterviewKickstart.com). We are an interview training bootcamp and do ~75+ interviews a month, all for core software engineering roles. I'm happy to have you shadow some with our very experienced interviewers.

(Me: email@example.com)</comment>


Wi-Fi patent troll hit with racketeering suit emerges unscathed - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/wi-fi-patent-troll-hit-with-novel-anti-racketeering-charges-emerges-unscathed/ <comment><USER4> This kind of stuff will go on, all the way down the slippery slope of craziness, until Congress acts and does the only logical thing - <USER2> software/methodology/business process patents in their entirety. Meanwhile the patent trolls will continue to enrich themselves to the tune of billions of dollars. (Around $20B in 2012 by the way - that last comment isn't hyperbole).

<comment><USER5> Not necessarily. If you amend the way in which patents are granted, tighten the criteria for a grantable patent, and change the ways patents are enforced, you have a chance to reform the system.

What you say could be true, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water until you've tried other ways first.

EDIT: This is also a technology issue. If patent offices had a better understanding of Wi-Fi and practical applications of public internet, a patent wouldn't be granted to Innovatio that would give them a legal position, and this circumstance wouldn't arise.

Keep the patent system, but educate the system on rapid technology advances. It's stale, but amendable.

<comment><USER6> I personally now believe the patent system deserves to die in its entirety. It is not producing any value, it is not resulting in any innovation, it just strikes fear into the hearts of those of us who would dare attempt to make something meaningful.

<comment><USER7> This is a common belief in the software industry - and almost _only_ in the software industry.

Software patents != all patents

There are fields where R&D costs are astronomical, and patents are a barrier that allows this enormous amount of money to be spent.

Keep in mind that software patents are only a tiny slice of the whole patent pie.

<comment><USER4> I agree with this last part. Pharmaceutical patents for example come to mind. Those are clearly not software/methodology/business process patents though - <USER3> don't think recognizing them would be difficult.

<comment><USER8> I have a different take on pharmaceutical patents: the research costs could largely be covered with NIH grants, and the pharmaceutical companies should only be in the position of producing the drugs that grant-funded research discovers. Why should the public have to pay absurdly high prices for medication because of the special treatment big pharma gets from the government? Let the pharmaceutical companies compete, and we can get our medications at a fraction of the price (and maybe not have to rely on the notoriously abusive health insurance companies just to do what our doctors tell us to do).

While we are at it, let's disband the DEA and stop protecting the pharmaceutical companies' market from drugs we could be growing in our backyards.

<comment><USER7> > _"While we are at it, let's disband the DEA and stop protecting the > pharmaceutical companies' market from drugs we could be growing in our > backyards."_

Drugs != marijuana - the DEA's mandate extends well beyond that of policing pot use. There are plenty of chemical substances of substantial and extreme harm that are currently under the umbrella of the DEA and shouldn't leave it.

It's somewhat funny that this is in the same thread as "a small segment of patents are bad, specifically the patents _I_ deal with personally, so let's dismantle the whole system", since your stance seems to break down to "some drugs are wrongly regulated, specifically the drugs _I_ deal with personally, so let's dismantle the whole system".

<comment><USER9> Sorry, but I'll have to disagree. The DEA operates in the criminal realm and doesn't care about health (it only cares about itself, really).

The only drug enforcement we need is an FDA that ensures that what is on the label matches what is in the product itself, and that standards are set for _guidance_ in their use.

If you want to worry about dangerous drugs being available on the streets you should start with alcohol and tobacco.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As an interesting thought experiment, I wonder how lawyers would feel if legal "processes" could be patented and the practice of law itself was subject to claims of infringement? Particularly if relatively basic uses of basic legal principles were being patented and individual lawyers, rather than their firms, could be held liable.

Because that's the sort of nonsense being inflicted upon computer scientists.

<comment><USER11> I'm sorry, but you'll need to license the patent for a "method of patenting basic legal processes" first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Patent trolling is exactly that - protection racket. It's a shame that the judicial / legal system is so broken that it can't apply the existing laws to smash these racketeers for good.

<comment><USER13> As much as I would like to see a patent troll smashed, I think that a company asserting rights that are challenge-able in a court is not racketeering.

Greedy, despicable and morally bankrupt, yes.

<comment><USER14> The problem is that the _entire_ legal system is a protection racket. If you don't have deep pockets, you are 100% subject to the whims if whatever kind of troll that comes knocking.

But why should this be surprising when the people who pass the laws are mostly members of the group that gets rich either way.

<comment><USER5> I was with you up until the last sentence.

I don't intend to be mean, but you should really try to avoid seemingly partison statements like that unless you make them less vague, more relevant and add citations. It's not simply that your statement isn't true (you didn't specify enough for it to be one way or another), it's that it amounts to just spouting cynical minutia.

It gives people an excuse not to listen to your point if you tag a bland political statement on to an otherwise substantial point.

<comment><USER15> Is it partisan to point out that pretty much anyone in politics is in a different economic class than 98% of the country? I'm pretty sure he meant that when he said group, not Dem vs Rep.

<comment><USER5> No, that isn't. But that's also being much more specific and is closer to citing something substantial. You provided numbers, and that's the first step to relevance.

<comment><USER16> I think he meant that the people who write the laws are _lawyers_ \- and thus there is an inherent conflict of interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Many manufacturers claim to have licensed the relevant patents from Broadcom, in which case their customers are not infringing by "exhaustion". Presumably there are some manufacturers that didn't license, so parties who purchased equipment from those would not have that defense. Does the troll in this case have any reason to think that the hotels it's targeting have unlicensed and thus infringing equipment? Or is this just an RIAA-style dragnet, in which you're guilty until you prove all your equipment is licensed? Is there really no means by which courts can rein in this type of abuse?

<comment><USER18> Very good point but how does one determine if the manufacturer of one's wifi equipment has licensed the relevant patents? I assume you can ask them after you get sued.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> In my country, if I remember correctly, you need to pay 5% up front to court for the money you want. Meaning If I want to sue McDonalds for 1 mil, I have to pay 5k. This keeps away nonsense cases. If I lose, court keeps money. If I win, I can add this sum to the total amount.

This keeps cases real and amounts realistic.

<comment><USER20> What if the person is very poor and doesn't have 50k to put up for a lawsuit? Should no plaintiff ever be able to sue someone for more than 5% of the plaintiff's total net worth?

The real issue is that since corporations don't have the same responsibilities as real people, they shouldn't have the same rights.

<comment><USER21> Surely if they can find a lawyer who honestly thinks they have a case, they could get a loan for that amount.

<comment><USER5> Yes but that takes more time. It's an interesting system, but we can't pretend it doesn't have its own drawbacks.

<comment><USER21> I'm thinking the loan could be from the lawyer themselves and built into their standard payment contract (similar to that "pay nothing if we don't win!" deal perhaps), but yes, it isn't a perfect system.

<comment><USER5> I suppose that would depend on the lawyer's financial position and personal integrity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can anyone offer advice on the best response from a small business that is sent a letter from a troll like this? Particularly since in this case it sounds like the patents themselves are valid, but have been licensed by the tech provider - how should end users protect themselves?

I realize there are plenty of rants against these practices available to read in many forums, but given the progression of this case, what options are available to the defendants?

<comment><USER23> Ignore it. They send thousands of letters for the same reasons e-mail spammers do, they anticipate a huge percentage of people to ignore them, lose the letter, have no money, etc. Be a part of that group.

This doesn't help the societal problem, but unless you're a well known company and/or have very deep pockets, your best bet is to just ignore the letters.

<comment><USER24> That really depends on what kind of letter you get. If you ignore an actual lawsuit, you may find a judge ruling in default against you, which is what the article mentions at the bottom.

> _A few days after Holderman's order came out, Innovatio lawyers filed a > lengthy series of notices regarding the dozens of hotels it is preparing to > ask for a "default judgment" against, which suggests those hotels haven't > yet defended themselves against the infringement allegations. Now there's a > hearing approaching next week, on February 21, and Innovatio has put the > hotels on notice that it intends to ask for judgments against them of $5,000 > each._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How is it that the end consumers are being hit with a lawsuit that resulted from their equipment manufacture not being properly licensed? Is it my responsibility to vet that every piece of consumer electronics was properly licensed for the technologies that they use?

<comment><USER26> Technically, yes. Simply using an infringing technology without permission qualifies as patent infringement. You'd probably have an excellent case to sue the manufacturer for damages if this happened, but you aren't automatically shielded just because you're the end user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This sort of stuff makes me feel approximately pure despair. I'm no lawyer, but I would think that the prevalence of patent trolls would be enough of an indicator to a judge to shut this sort of thing down hard.

<comment><USER28> They've got to work within the law, and the law hasn't caught up yet. I'm sure this sort of thing will be sorted out eventually, but in the meantime a lot of small businesses will still get hurt or destroyed.

<comment><USER15> And yet when people complain about being stuck working for giant shitty corporations, they get told to just start their own business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Startup opportunity: patent troll insurance.

This is a disgusting abuse of the legal system and current patent laws. It puts innovation in jeopardy by way of stagnation - small businesses won't offer WiFi as much if they know they can be sued by a company that has no practical connection to the technology. And if it isn't used as much by as many entities, how will it improve?

I think it's a joke that Innovatio bluffed not attacking home Wi-Fi as if it's an intentional "strategic position" like that. As if a single obscure company with flimsy title deeds on technology could really take away something so integrated from the public. They would have a reaction akin to SOPA.

<comment><USER29> Patent troll insurance skirts the line of being just as bad as patent trolls themselves: "Pay us some money and maybe you won't get hit by patent trolls." It's a great idea, but when I look at it closer, it looks pretty similar to trolling: "Pay us a little bit of money and we'll go away." It's not quite that bad, because it adds on "...and we'll make other people go away," but it's still interestingly close.

<comment><USER29> One additional thought: anyone who buys patent troll insurance instantly becomes a highly-cooperative target. Why fight it? Why ignore it? Just send the contact info for your insurance company, and let them pay it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The real problem with patent trolls is that this entire spectacle is completely out of the public's eye. Outside of business/startup circles, the concept of a patent troll is completely foreign. It would be amazing if Vice or someone of the like did a documentary on this modern day mafia to educate the public on this new form of crime.

Once the public is actually conscious that this issue exists, congress would be pressured to act in order to keep their voters happy.

</comment><comment><USER31> Does anyone know the identification numbers of the patents that Innovatio IP are using, or even the specific claims that are being used? I'm interested to compare with some prior art that I am aware of.

<comment><USER32> U.S. Patent Nos. 6,714,559, 7,386,002, 7,535,921, 7,548,553, 5,740,366, 5,940,771, 6,374,311, 7,457,646, 5,546,397, 5,844,893, 6,665,536, 6,697,415, 7,013,138, 7,710,907, 7,916,747, 7,873,343, and 7,536,167

Source: [http://morrisjames.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/cisco- systems...](http://morrisjames.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/cisco-systems-inc- and-motorola-solutions-inc-v-innovatio-ip-ventures-llc.pdf)</comment></comment>


Google: News sites may lose 45% of traffic if EU passes its Copyright Reform - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/eu/2019/02/07/google-copyright-reform-eu-article-11/ <comment><USER2> FTA:

 _Article 11 in its current form will limit news aggregators' abilities to show snippets of articles. According to Google's own experiments, the impact of it only showing URLs, very short fragments of headlines, and no preview images would be a "substantial traffic loss to news publishers."_

 _"Even a moderate version of the experiment (where we showed the publication title, URL, and video thumbnails) led to a 45 percent reduction in traffic to news publishers," Walker explained. "Our experiment demonstrated that many users turned instead to non-news sites, social media platforms, and online video sites — another unintended consequence of legislation that aims to support high-quality journalism."_

This holds true if and only if the user is starting at Google, where its market share + ads + SEO gave rise to content mills. It's 45% reduction in "start at Google, click an SEO'd result link."

Once upon a time, people bookmarked sites with high-quality content, and would go directly there.

Google's experiment assumes the user starts with Google, and doesn't account for users going directly to a smaller number of higher quality sites, which can then do the NYTimes approach of first party ads and high quality audience to achieve higher revenue.

Sounds like the legislation could have precisely the desired effect.

<comment><USER3> > Once upon a time, people bookmarked sites with high-quality content, and > would go directly there.

Anecdotally, as a late-millennial close to the Gen Z cutoff, I cannot tell you the last time I or my peers have bookmarked a site. Older relatives have said their children in highschool who are part of an otherwise probably(?) the most technically proficient generation don't even know what bookmarking is (another fun experiment: ask anyone in Gen Z what the www. before a website domain stands for, you'll be surprised by some answers).

I personally can't see myself or others who previously didn't habitually bookmark starting to bookmark sites en masse just because Google has to change their algorithms; that's like saying people will go back to MySpace because Facebook has so many privacy scandals around it.

<comment><USER2> I agree with you.

I wrote about this 9 years ago (2010) when ReadWriteWeb noticed people were getting to Facebook by typing Facebook into Google. _So_ many, that when ReadWriteWeb outranked Facebook for the term 'facebook', masses ended up on their article, and started complaining in the comments it wasn't Facebook:

 _A decade ago, I switched to Google because it offered me a search box that led to nothing but results. That 's all I wanted, and all it did. This match made in heaven catapulted Google ahead of Excite, Lycos, Altavista, and Inktomi._

 _While the search box has stayed the same, Google 's users have not. Today's Googlers don't know the difference between a URL and a search term, or even between a browser and the Internet._

 _By focusing on features such as real time web search or categorized results for tech-savvy users, Google is stranding its mass audience – a mistake its advertising business model absolutely cannot afford. Google needs to cater to the folks who ended up on ReadWriteWeb through their typical use path, making Google work for them and get them where they 're trying to go, instead of trying to retrain them to adapt to Google._

 _Google needs to refine the "I feel lucky" button until it's good enough to be the default, helping the Internet's least savvy users find where they want to be even if they're doing it wrong._

AOL was doing this before the turn of the millennium, so it's not just you and your "late-millennials" friends, it's also your grandparents.

Before the bookmark, you could type a single keyword in, and go directly there. BnL, these amount to the single word of a domain name. Last few years, browsers are gradually bringing back the keyword, even toying with URL bar to drop "www", ".com", and the path. So I agree with you, it's not really about bookmarks.

Surely we can imagine another way of going directly to a trusted brand than the extra clicks needed at a "search engine" or "portal".

For instance, Page Rank itself used to just be a meta view of which sites were most linked to as a proxy for most authoritative, meaning, the audience that followed references or links would organically find the most cited or linked sources, and then know to get back there by name or by bookmark.

The point is, high quality "destination" brands can benefit from fans reaching them directly, without having to play the SEO and SERPs traffic funnel game.</comment></comment></comment>


Entrepreneurs Will Save America - <AUTHOR> http://willobrien.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/entrepreneurs-will-save-america/? <comment><USER3> Inspiring.

But if consumers won't spend money on anything a startup offers, how does that startup succeed?

<comment><AUTHOR> Consumers will buy what is good. From what I've seen so far entrepreneurship is not encouraged anywhere I have been as much as in the US.

<comment><USER4> Or something that saves them money.

Or saves them time.

And people will _always_ spend on entertainment too - although, less pricey choices at times like this. And - let's face it - net-based entertainment is pretty much a bargain compared to movies, concerts, Broadway shows, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> i think he's trying to say that iphone apps will save america

<comment><USER4> No. He's trying to say that the solution to this situation is to move back to an economy that actually grows from organic growth of businesses, and not just from the unsustainable expansion of asset bubbles - whether those assets be stocks or real estate. And it's a well-known fact that small business is responsible for the lion's share of organic business growth in the US - <USER2> always has been.</comment></comment>


Norwegian Air Shuttle to offer $69 Transatlantic flights - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2016/12/07/norwegian-air-low-cost-carrier-newburgh-stewart-airport-portsmouth-providence-portsmouth-737-max-base/95085448/ <comment><USER2> I am Norwegian and I have stopped flying with this airline because of safety concerns. They are cutting costs everywhere, and they are leasing cheap flight crew who are not up to par.

Discussion of recent incident in Norway on a professional pilot's forum: [http://www.pprune.org/rumours- news/587827-norwegian-b738-kri...](http://www.pprune.org/rumours- news/587827-norwegian-b738-kristiansand-04-nov-2016-a.html)

<comment><USER3> The flights must be incredibly uncomfortable. They are packing many more passengers into their planes[1]. E.g. that article linked to a previous one where Norwegian Air was unable to fly into Vegas during the summer, because their heavy planes couldn't legally take off in hot weather.

[1] _Norwegian packs 291 seats on to its Boeing 787 -8 models and 344 on to its bigger 787-9s. By comparison, United 's 787-8 and 787-9 Dreamliner models seat 219 and 252 passengers, respectively._ [http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2016/11/17/too- hot-fly-norwegian-air-suspends-summer-las-vegas-flights/94025902/)

<comment><USER4> The seats in economy are the same size (ok United is 0.1 inch wider), but Norwegian only fly two-class and their premium section is smaller.

[https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Air...](https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/United_Airlines/United_Airlines_Boeing_787-800.php)

[https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Norwegian_Air_Shuttle/Norw...](https://www.seatguru.com/airlines/Norwegian_Air_Shuttle/Norwegian_Air_Shuttle_Boeing_787-8.php)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Stewart Airport is surprisingly awesome, it has a decent terminal, and some of the most impressive runways ever, as it is a training Air Force base for C-17's and was an alternate landing option for the space shuttle back in the day.

With that said it is a place that historically interesting airline ideas have gone to die. It's not really accessible via transit, and despite being sort of kind of close to NYC, it's in the direction that has the least population density and lowest income. Every time interesting service has been announced there it seems to be quietly discontinued not too long thereafter. Maybe this time will be different but I am skeptical of their ability to break the curse.

</comment><comment><USER6> > These are the routes that will launch with $69 fares and have average > (round-trip) fares of $300 (to) $350, including taxes.

The $69 number is only a launch promotion it seems.

<comment><USER7> $300 r/t is still damned cheap.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. And, fwiw, I've found cheaper flights booking the same leg through [https://www.norwegian.se](https://www.norwegian.se) as opposed to [https://www.norwegian.com/en/](https://www.norwegian.com/en/)

<comment><USER9> Make sure prices are quoted in the same currency when comparing websites.

<comment><USER8> The price offered on .se was totally different and much lower after exchange rate conversion; .se was quoted and charged in SEK(kr) as opposed to the .com, quoted and charged in USD($). My browser was connecting from USA without VPN, heh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The article implies that using a narrow body keeps costs low, which seems unlikely, and then later contradicts it and says that cost per passenger is higher on a narrow body, which seems likely. Any explanation? Does the 737MAX have some additional secret sauce over a 787/A350?

<comment><USER11> Nope. I mean, it has latest generation engines which are a significant fuel efficiency improvement on the engines on older 737s (which is what Norwegian were drawing their attention to in the original announcement about the MAX making these routes viable, since their MAXes aren't delivered yet) but so do the 787/A350. Similarly, for older generation engines transatlantic crossings are right on the limit of narrowbodies' range, which becomes less of a problem with the newer generation.

It seems to clarify the real reason for preferring narrowbodies later in the article by pointing out that Norwegian would be reasonably confident of filling a 737 on a Dublin/Stewart route whereas they couldn't guarantee the same for the larger 787s without excessive price cuts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is just awful. We have 800 gigatons of CO2 emissions left for having a 66% chance of staying under 2 degrees C of warming. We currently emit 40 billion tons of CO2 per year. We need to cut emissions drastically, starting yesterday.

Frequent flyers emit a disproportional amount of green house gases.

<comment><USER13> Any solution that doesn't involve producing fewer people in the first place is just window dressing.

<comment><USER12> The billions of poor people on this globe have nothing to do with the current crisis. The vast majority of green house gases have been emitted by countries with a relatively stagnant population growth curve. The pareto principle roughly applies here as well.

Here is a conundrum for you: Research shows that an increase in quality of life is inversely proportional to a drop in birth rate. Fossil fuels are also the cheapest and easiest way for poor countries to develop their economies.

So if you are truly interested in stopping population growth the solution is rather simplistic from a carbon budget perspective. Meaning: rich countries need to drastically reduce their carbon emissions (read: 10% per annum starting now) while developing countries have a window of maybe 10 years where they can still increase their carbon emissions. After that they too have to start reducing emissions (you can think of a scheme where the reduction rate increases each year).

Put more bluntly: Whenever you take a long haul flight you directly rob a child in Africa from using fossil fuels to better his or her life.

<comment><USER14> > Research shows that an increase in quality of life is inversely proportional > to a drop in birth rate. Fossil fuels are also the cheapest and easiest way > for poor countries to develop their economies.

If decreasing carbon footprint is the goal then presumably the "easiest way" (spending more carbon) may not be the preferable option.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Would these be the first 737s used for transatlantic in an economy configuration? JetBlue also plans transatlantic on their new A320Neos.

</comment><comment><USER16> Our environment is dying and we celebrate luxury that accelerates it. :(

<comment><USER17> Ah, but I get the benefit of a nice vacation or business trip, while everybody gets a worse environment.

What's there not to like? After all, if the market doesn't solve something, there can't be a problem?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Nice</comment>


Worldbuilding - <AUTHOR> http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/worldbuilding.php <comment><USER2> _" When you are trying your hand at worldbuilding, please try to avoid ice planets, desert planets, swamp planets, farm planets, volcano planets, and other single-biome planets. The pejorative term for this mistake is Monocosm..."_

What about arguably the most famous and most successful planet in science fiction? Dune, a desert planet, was a monocosm.

<comment><USER3> That's a trope, an overused cliché. Dune magnifies it, as can often be done. But if your universe involves travels between places, it is a waste to make a planet a single place with no variation. That would be like saying that USA is just a giant corn field.

I find Starwars stupidly annoying about it, where a planet is usually a single place and present no variation. Seeing that there are swamps on Dagobah, I expect there also must be nice sunny beaches somewhere.

<comment><USER4> Star Wars (the original film and its two sequels) uses this (and similar shortcuts in other aspects, like making the storm troopers wear full body armor to be completely interchangeable, or putting the main characters in a small insular group with no outside friends or living relatives, or giving the evil empire an unspeakable super weapon, or giving the Jedi characters arbitrary convenient magical powers, or making the robot R2D2 able to do almost anything in the empire's computer systems) as a way of simplifying and clarifying the story. The universe of Star Wars is not supposed to be a realistic one. It's a mishmash of previous (terrestrial) movie plots, themes, characters, and scenes lightly painted over with a space setting.

The different planets _are_ single places, with settings chosen to fit the needs of the storytelling. Think of them as backdrops in a stage play. As far as the films are concerned anything not on screen might as well not exist, and the rest of the various planets don't need to be consistent with a realistic broader universe. Trying to paint them all in would waste scarce screen time and confuse the audience.

Arguably this is one feature that made the "Star Wars universe" hopeless to adapt to try to tell stories with broader context. If you start trying to flesh out the details, the planets, galactic government, spaceship technology, concept of the Jedi, etc. all start to fall apart, because they were never very carefully designed in the first place, but just hacked together to meet the particular needs of the original story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Worldbuilding has its own Stackexchange which sometimes has interesting discussions about difficulties in creating internally consistent fantasy worlds. [https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com)

<comment><USER6> Wanted to mention that as well. This stack exchange is incredible, it's like soundcloud for science fiction. I don't contribute myself, but I'm subscribed to weekly newsletter, I always enjoy it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know what's inspiring all these worldbuilding posts to make the HN front page, but I'm enjoying the hell out of it.

<comment><USER8> What other posts have there been?

<comment><USER9> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14989538](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14989538)

There was recently a thread about crafting plausible maps (aka "mapmaking", a related topic).

<comment><USER8> Thanks! These are titles that I imagine didn't catch my eye at the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Greg Egan has recently released another novel, Dichronauts, which features another universe where the laws of physics are changed due to a sign change. (The first one is the Clockwork Rocket trilogy.)

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30351492-dichronauts?fro...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30351492-dichronauts?from_search=true)

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9756310-the-clockwork- ro...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9756310-the-clockwork- rocket?from_search=true)

<comment><USER11> Greg Egan is the only sci-fi author in my adult life who makes me think "I like this, but I'm not smart enough to really understand it." Feel free to take that as a recommendation either for or against. :)

<comment><USER12> I recently had an existential crisis reading an Egan book where a brain modification allows people to control the collapse of quantum waveforms and therefore the protagonist can "smear" into infinite possibilities and then "collapse" to the one where the desired outcome occurs. Do we already exist across an infinite number of dimensions and we are just limited by our ability to comprehend a single possibility? it's a fun thought.

<comment><USER13> Which book is that? I'd love to read.

So far, _Incandescence_ is the toughest of his novels that I've read, and the main world is an extreme and beautiful conception where the ambient forces are all peculiar and the inhabitants are figuring out their cosmology as the novel goes on.

That said, I really could have used more diagrams while I was reading. I only found out after finishing that Egan has a whole bunch of Java applets on his website explaining the experiments that the main characters in the novel carry out, and why they give the results they do.

<comment><USER12> Quarantine it's a full novel. I feel like minded and the Egan books hit upon so many of the things I dream about. This author along with William Gibson and Neal Stephenson really resonate with a lot of the cutting edge concepts we deal with. I had no idea Egan was a programmer but it's apparent he is a genius reading his books so it fits.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Really cool subreddit for this type of discussion: [https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/)

<comment><USER11> Also a Stack Exchange! [https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just an FYI, I am one of the supporters of this guy on Patreon:

[https://www.patreon.com/nyrath](https://www.patreon.com/nyrath)

There are a few things I really liked on the site and believed very strongly were important to continue disseminating. My particular interest was in some of the rocket designs and space colonization material. The author has done a good deal of genuine original research and covers some very granular design details.

</comment><comment><USER11> If you like this, be sure to flip to the bottom of the page for the site's full table of contents. The (literal) Worldbuilding section is just one small part of Atomic Rockets, which covers practically every aspect of sci-fi and the real science (or lack thereof) behind it, in wonderfully well-researched and illustrated detail.

</comment><comment><USER16> What a gorgeous site! The Internet is an amazing place; thank you!</comment>


Tell HN: Responsive layout broken on some devices - <AUTHOR> Greetings HN audience and admins
The attempt to improve the mobile layout for this site seems to be underway but, like the previous aborted attempt, it doesn't seem to have started well.
In the images [1] and [2] below are the screenshots (taken on an iPhone 5 with the latest iOS) of HN homepage (where the changes seems to have been published) and article page (where it seems to be unchanged) to illustrate the problems:
1. There is a padding in the body (the white space around the content) that wastes precious screen real state.
2. The font size in relation to the screen width was increased without the proper adjustments in the layout. That caused:
a. The top links to become cluttered and disorganized
b. Both the top and bottom links to span multiple lines without the proper spacing between then, making it easier to click the wrong link
c. The article links and other information to reach the end of the line more often and, associated with the lack of right padding in that area, makes it touch and sometimes spill over the right margin over the white background.
It is very important to have a better layout for mobile devices on HN specially because it is very hard to interact with the site (upvote, click articles or submit) but IMO it should be properly designed, implemented and tested in multiple devices and OS before deployment.
This last point is the most important of all. It is very tempting to implement responsive design via media queries and to neglect tests in the bottom and top range causing screens too wide or too narrow to fail.
Apologies for the long and public post. Hope it helps
[1] http://imgur.com/4uPlzPB
[2] http://imgur.com/18mp2TH <comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, didn't notice there were already a top post about this. Will post there instead.

</comment><comment><USER2> really, hacker news?... Can I help?</comment>


A footnote about the publishing industry - <AUTHOR> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2014/05/a-footnote-about-the-publishin.html <comment><USER2> "(Bezos) picked publishing because it was obviously the most dysfunctional. " , from what I remember from a biography he picked books because they could be bought by users without checking them out first, they are easy to store and mail and you didn't have to pay for them until you sold them.

From Wikipedia: "After reading a report about the future of the Internet which projected annual Web commerce growth at 2,300%, Bezos created a list of 20 products which could be marketed online. He narrowed the list to what he felt were the five most promising products which included: compact discs, computer hardware, computer software, videos, and books. Bezos finally decided that his new business would sell books online, due to the large world-wide demand for literature, the low price points for books, along with the huge number of titles available in print"

</comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunately a new balance is not easily achieved. Take "editing" as an example:

Most of us read "well edited" books, therefore we take "editing" for granted. I am an amateur book reviewer & blogger. And I regularly come across badly edited or not-at-all edited books/stories. IMHO, editing can be (at least for me) the difference between greatly enjoying a story and parking a book on the side after a few dozen pages.

Then publishers also come with some sort of brand loyalty. I have my favorite publishers (and editors for that matter). For example, when I hear about the book rights acquisitions of a new author from my favorite publishers or imprints I get really excited. Because I know they've been publishing the type of content I enjoy.

So, all in all, it's shortsighted to see publishers as just "middle-man". This ecosystem has evolved to be more complicated than that.

<comment><USER4> 1\. Editing can and will still happen outside of the traditional publishing relationship. Authors should hire editors directly before releasing their books. Many authors already trade editing with other authors.

2\. You're an incredible outlier for even being cognizant of the publisher of your favorite books, let alone having any kind of loyalty. Readers who are not industry-insiders never hear about book rights acquisitions.

<comment><USER5> > You're an incredible outlier for even being cognizant of the publisher of > your favorite books,

I don't know what kind of books grandparent had in mind (fiction or non- fiction?). For me, I have a general awareness of _technical book publishers_ and their strengths. Some examples... In general an Addison-Wesley or Morgan- Kaufmann book is better edited than an Apress book. Also, some publishers tend to gravitate towards certain strengths such as MK's line of books on big data & data mining. O'Reilly and Manning publishers tend to respond very quickly to the latest technologies (some might say "fads") with a topical book whereas Addison-Wesley is much more conservative.

Of course, there are exceptions to all of the above but the general tendencies of tech publishers can be used to signal the potential quality of a book (especially for unknown authors.)

I don't think the HN crowd would be outliers by having a sense of where the various tech book publishers fit in the marketplace.

<comment><USER4> If you set aside technology books, I think you'll find the situation quite different. Can you tell me the publisher of the last fiction book you read? How about the publisher of A Game of Thrones? Or the publisher of Piketty's book "Capital in the Twenty-First Century" or any of the NYTimes Bestsellers?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Like the OP, I think the big publishers are going down in flames soon. They just don't provide enough value in the value chain.

Unlike the OP, however, I think the _publishing industry_ is on the verge of a great renewal. The only people that matter are authors and readers, and eBooks and print-on-demand can make this connection happen, without the need to pay any middlemen. More on this here [http://minireference.com/blog/techzing- interview/#opportunit...](http://minireference.com/blog/techzing- interview/#opportunities)

<comment><USER7> The missing thing here is editors.

A lot of books, regardless of format, would be a lot less enjoyable without a good editor to make sure the story is consistent, well-paced, etc. A number of authors thank their editors in the afterword.

That said, there's still room to disrupt the industry a bit.

<comment><USER8> Well, and discoverability/signalling. The more books that are available, the harder it is to choose a book to read. And right now, the major imprints are a signal of quality -- such-and-such publisher decided this book was good enough to spend money on. Not to say that can't be addressed in this new world, but it's unclear how it's going to be addressed and what the tradeoffs are.

Also, by democratizing books, you may end up drastically altering the compensation structure. Right now, you have a relative small number of people like Stross who are able to make their living writing novels, and a larger number of people who don't ever "make it." A more open book-publishing market may mean fewer Strosses can make a living as an author, and more and more people who are novelists do it in addition to their primary job, rather than as their primary job.

So yeah, there's a very real chance that this new world of publishing does "destroy" something. And something else will get built. And there'll be tradeoffs, and some people will win, and others will lose. Right now it's really hard to say whether or not society as a whole will be better off. The thing about Stross's argument is that historically, there's very little precedent for being able to stave off social changes instigated by technological disruption. So even if he's "right," I don't know what's to be done about it in the long run.

<comment><USER6> > Well, and discoverability/signalling. The more books that are available, the > harder it is to choose a book to read.

That's a problem, yes. I'm not sure how this will work out for novels, but for non-fiction I think this will be solved by authors going after very specific niches---the long tail.

This is unchartered publishing territory because previously publishers would never take on a niche subject because it wouldn't make economic sales to pass it through their pipeline.

> fewer Strosses can make a living as an author

Your point about the dilution of attention and book revenue is valid, but let me partially offset it / counter it with an argument on margins. By self- publishing, authors retain 60% of the list price (say $15) as compared to 5-10% of profits (=3-5% of list price) regular publishers offer. It wouldn't be too wrong to say authors make as little as $3 per copy sold, so if you do the math, it's actually good for everyone:

      Superstar author, monthly:
         Previously:    10000*3    =  $30k royalties
         In new world:   3333*15   =  $50k royalties  (assume 2/3 readership loss)

      Less known author, over the same period of time:
         Previously:     0
         In new world:   300*15    =  $4500  which is a make-me-wanna-write salary

It's not zero sum if there are gains to be had from efficiency.

<comment><USER9> "I think this will be solved by authors going after very specific niches---the long tail... This is unchartered [sic] publishing territory because previously publishers would never take on a niche subject because it wouldn't make economic sales to pass it through their pipeline."

Publishers have been doing this for a very long time. A lot of sales to publishers are built on the idea of having a built-in niche--even if it's not a smash hit, 'people who like x won't be able to pass this up because it's all about x.' Might sound crazy to the HN crowd, but this is still how the industry functions--baseball books might be a good example, though I'm not sure it's niche enough for you, they represent almost a guaranteed amount of copies sold to certain (acquiring) editors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't know why the idea that there might be a "better way" to produce fiction would even occur. It's a work of art, not a product. Are we worrying about the inefficiencies of cottage industries in, say, the production of music, painting, sculpture, or other literary forms such as poetry and the various forms of theatrical writing? It seems an odd lament for a writer, though I don't know that he actually meant it that way.

<comment><USER11> While the story itself might be art, the book, ebook, audiobook or DVD is a product. Publishers aren't producing art, they are in the business of distributing. (Most don't even sell to the customer but need either the bookstore or Amazon to do so.)

<comment><USER9> Writers, including critically acclaimed ones, can't produce their art without a legit publishing house making sure that their books are readable.

There is a long chain of people in publishing working to ensure you maintain that perception, so I guess that's on them, but everyone knows they're awful distributors and most of the value they create comes from elsewhere in the 'creative' process.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Markets for artistic works are unique in that the creators are often (usually) not primarily motivated by money. Everyone else in the business is, more or less (meaning many authors write as an avocation, while very few people would consider doing extend work of a tedious nature like editing for no money).

With the rise of ebooks they are also subject to the wildly counter intuitive aspects of markets for digital goods. High fixed costs with near zero marginal cost, leading to a fat head, long tail market structure.

Authors such as Stross who are commercially successful are in a highly elite group, so I tend to discount their concerns as being generalizable as a societal concern. Not to say that I don't empathize. Or envy:)

It's unclear to me how the disruption of the publishing industry would affect the quality of published work. The services publishers provide, funding, editing, marketing, legal, are essential to the creation of good work.

If there is no mechanics to pair such services with gifted authors, then it seems a certainty that the quality of published work will go down in the aggregate.

But as far as I can tell, the profound change in publishing due to the changes in media itself has yet to shake out into a new stable structure.</comment>


U.S. tech startups face new government controls in 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/12/u-s-tech-startups-face-new-government-controls-in-2019/ <comment><USER2> Can anyone confirm this? It looks really scary</comment>


St: Simple terminal implementation for X - <AUTHOR> http://st.suckless.org/ <comment><USER2> _fonts (you can use xfontsel(1) to generate a valid XLFD)_

No no no no no. Stop using core X fonts. Just... stop. If this is supposed to be a "modern" replacement, it should be using fontconfig and client-side fonts with an appropriate renderer.

<comment><USER3> That's really not the Suckless way. It is hard to really describe in a nutshell, you should just check out their philosophy page: <http://suckless.org/philosophy>

I guess the best way to describe it is they are along similar lines as the 'cat -v' folks.

<comment><USER2> I get that using client-side fonts adds dependencies and complexity, but XLFDs are not "simple"... for the user, anyway.

I dunno. The Suckless guys may feel that simplicity of implementation is king; I believe that simplicity for the user is more important. Each to their own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's definitly the right direction. Our software stack is getting too complicated, and is carrying so much stuff that is almost never used (e.g. obscure entries in terminfo's db). But of course, real world does not give us much time to rethink/refactor our computing structures.

<comment><USER5> Maybe people will start to refactor the worst offenders. It takes more than a slight improvement to displace software that's widely used, but I'm sure there are things that we use that could be an order of magnitude better (according to some metric). Gmail was able to win converts because it was an order of magnitude better than the competition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a big fan of Suckless software, check out Sandy too: <http://tools.suckless.org/sandy>

<comment><USER7> Why do you use Sandy? I use dwm and I'm also a big fan of suckless, but I've never heard of Sandy before, and I'm genuinely curious why this would be preferable over vi or emacs (depending on which camp you're in).

<comment><USER8> Because vi and emacs are just too complex and do things that should be done by separate programs, like formatting?

<comment><USER6> Exactly: I tried learning both Emacs and Vi/Vim and it's just too complex, I have better things to do at the moment: I just want a simple text editor that works in CLI.

Joe is a similar text editor.

<comment><USER9> vim, too complex? you could say that about practically any CLI interface but it's merely a relatively steep learning curve, not a case of too much complexity. In fact vim is pretty concise and compact in terms of design

<comment><USER8> vim comes with a built-in program language vimscript and its very own spellchecker. If vim is not complex, than what is?

I could argue that nvi may be not too complex, but vim is certainly too complex.

(An good example of an editor that is not too complex but works well with external tools is Acme.)

<comment><USER7> In what sense do you dislike complexity? Is it "this software has too many features," or "this software has too many lines of code," or "the code isn't well-organized", or all the above, or something else? Don't take this as an argument; I'm likely to be highly sympathetic to whatever you say.

I tend to dislike complexity in terms of user interface, and for the most part, "out of sight is out of mind." That's why I have to use dwm over a more typical desktop environment. So I don't really mind a command line program that has a lot of options I don't use. Same thing for vim: I can easily just ignore the features I don't use (the vast majority), because of the way vim is designed.

<comment><USER8> All the above; but they are closely related.

If the program has too many lines of code, it tends to be not too well organised (because it usually means it does too much) and it usually means it has too much features (thay could be easily moved into separate programs).

        > I can easily just ignore the features
        > I don't use (the vast majority)

Please excuse my blasphemous comparison, but how this is different from how people use MS Word? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is an awesome terminal, and I think I'll just switch to it from urxvt.

Don't be deceived by its light-weightedness. It has very sensible features, it seems. Including full xft (anti-aliased fonts) and unicode support, _and_ shortcuts to: zoom in, zoom out, and paste from clipboard. Typically, only very heavy-weight terminals (like gnome-terminal) would support these things.

I'm charmed. Great stuff.

</comment><comment><USER11> Just to give you an impression of how small it is,

xterm 64K LOC rxvt 32K LOC st 3K LOC

(these numbers ain't precise)

<comment><USER12> * Not including the Haskell runtime.

<comment><USER11> The suckless community are die hard fans of the good old UNIX and C. They only release projects written in C and RC(a bourne shell clone ported from plan9).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Does it support transparency/tint for background?

(Yes, I know, but it's not '97 and I would actually like to have the thing I'm constantly looking at a bit more visually appealing.)

<comment><USER14> <http://lists.suckless.org/dev/1009/6046.html>

Don't let uriel read your request, though ;)

<comment><USER15> I imagine that would be unlikely. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4654125>

<comment><USER14> Oh. Crap, that's a shame, I had no idea. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you resize the window, does outputted text scroll (like OSX's terminal) or does it stay where it was (like xterm)? This is a feature I've been after for a while on Linux but have been unable to find a terminal that supports it.

<comment><USER17> gnome-terminal does it and probably the others based on the VTE widget also do.

<comment><USER16> Not from my experience. Last tried in Ubuntu 10.10 and it didn't, unsure of the exact version. Will double-check though as I may be wrong. I use the XFCE terminal (also VTE based I believe) and that doesn't do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Try surf from suckless for single-page, distraction free browsing. That and practically any other of the suckless tools; the standard of both design and execution with suckless is just out of this world, and when they say in their mission statement that they intend to comply with the unix philosophy they really do hold up to it with their code.

</comment><comment><USER18> As an ardent DWM/dmenu user, I'm ashamed I didn't know about this earlier.

To fellow ArchLinux users, it's worth noting the AUR package is broken. I have uploaded a working PKGBUILD here: <https://gist.github.com/4417214></comment>


Ph.D. recipients in computing fields are primarily non-US residents in the US - <AUTHOR> http://cra.org/crn/2015/10/ph-d-recipients-in-computing-fields-are-primarily-non-u-s-residents-in-most-states-in-the-u-s/?utm_source=Computing+Research+News&utm_campaign=6c070b446d-October_2015_CRN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_26c4052606-6c070b446d-40722449 <comment><USER2> The comments in this discussion that talk about how foreign nationals look at a PhD as a short-cut to getting permanent residency infuriates me.

I have a CS PhD from a reputable mid-west school. I am also not a US citizen. When a person is considering investing 5-7 years of his/her life into a PhD program, I am quite certain the US immigration policy is not a motivating factor by any measure. You can apply for permanent residency under the EB-2 quota even with a Masters. The EB-1 quota is for "outstanding researchers" with truly exceptional skills, and who have made significant impact in their field of research. All the non-American PhD students I have met in my life (and I have met a LOT of them) have a real drive to innovate and be someone in their field of research. Sure, higher salaries (if they decide to enter the industry, as opposed to academia) are a strong motivation to some of them, but I doubt if permanent residency is.

<comment><USER3> I agree that it's possible to overstate the influence of immigration policy but I really don't agree that it is "not a motivating factor by any measure". When I was in grad school at Berkeley (didn't finish, dropped out with an MS), many international students were quite open about the benefits of a grad degree in gaining US residency, and expressed irritation that other fields weren't as open as STEM.

These are just our anecdotes, but there is some data to support this.

Take a look at this study from the RAND institute (historically a very pro- immigrant think tank) that compares STEM PhD programs to other options available to highly educated people _with choice_ and concludes that the decision to avoid STEM graduate programs (PhD in particular) is a rational response to market conditions relative to the professions.

[http://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241.html](http://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241.html)

A more general audience report on this research:

[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-07-08-scien...](http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-07-08-science- engineer-jobs_N.htm)

Here's the thing - those "professions" are much more closed off to international students than STEM graduate programs. This absolutely influences choice!

It's pretty clear that some fields and paths to graduate study in the US are far more open to non-citizens than others, and that visa programs targeting STEM fields do provide an extra incentive for non-citizens to go into STEM graduate programs rather than other study paths. This doesn't make it the only reason, or the main motivation, but I'd say it is a motivating factor to go to grad school.

I tend to agree with you that once the MS is achieved, the motivation would be lower, but it still influences the field of study.

<comment><USER4> > It's pretty clear that some fields and paths to graduate study in the US are > far more open to non-citizens than others, and that visa programs targeting > STEM fields do provide an extra incentive for non-citizens to go into STEM > graduate programs rather than other study paths. This doesn't make it the > only reason, or the main motivation, but I'd say it is a motivating factor > to go to grad school.

What? This is the weirdest reason I've seen about why foreigners do STEM. Are you suggesting that it is because it is easier for them to get visas in STEM?!?

You are clearly ignorant of the gaping difference between STEM and non-STEM education in India and China. There are too many good STEM schools and too few non-STEM programs in these two countries for there to be any other reason for people doing STEM in US grad schools.

I continue to be surprised by the casual anti-immigrant bigotry on HN. Stating that they choose STEM because it is easier to get visas sure is an unfair stereotyping and second guessing of someone's motives based on their ethnicity.

<comment><USER5> You appear to be assuming either all non-US grad students are from China and India or that geebee was only writing about them. I see no reason to believe either is true.

I read geebee's comment to mean that it is possible that citizenship may be a factor. I happens to know someone, from Europe, who attended grad school in the US who also wanted to get his green card.

On that basis is it not conceivable that geebee may have a point?

<comment><USER4> India, China, and South Korea (all countries with heavy STEM emphasis) together make up close to half of all foreign students in the US [1]. At just the graduate level, India and China contribute ~70% of all science and engineering students [2]. It would be disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

[1] [http://www.iie.org/Services/Project-Atlas/United- States/Inte...](http://www.iie.org/Services/Project-Atlas/United- States/International-Students-In-US) [2] [http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/pdf/c02.pdf](http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/pdf/c02.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is because of the field itself more than any other policies. I have an undergrad degree in Computer Information Systems. That was VERY appealing when I knew nothing about programming, the field, etc.

After having been in the field for 15 years, there are a few things that become very clear:

1\. I did not need an undergraduate degree to do this. Some fields you need formal education in a controlled setting. This isn't one of them.

2\. There is virtually nothing in this field that I feel I couldn't learn given books and free time

3\. I am married with 2 kids and a good job. To pursue a PhD I've got to either put my job and my income on hold to go pursue it (while taking on the expense) OR pursue it in my spare time and encroach on my children's childhood. Neither are worth it.

4\. Virtually nothing to gain FROM the PhD

I also have a Master's but I got that in a business field instead, which is tremendously harder to just get from books. Experience and connections in business are huge and that degree was worth every penny.

At this point, if I went back to school for anything it would probably be Law, Statistics or Finance. There's just nothing in the field of computing that I believe couldn't be better learned by experience.

<comment><USER7> > There's just nothing in the field of computing that I believe couldn't be > better learned by experience.

The rest of your post makes sense, but you lost me at this sentiment. There is a lot more to computing that information systems and programming. I'm glad your career worked out, but there is certainly much in CS that you will simply never learn in the field.

<comment><USER8> My thoughts exactly.

The worst part is: you don't even know what you are missing in the first place.

Since we are all into anecdotes today, let me give you mine:

My co-founder once called me with some aggravation, because he was developing a feature for a client that needed, in a nutsheel, to figure out which points, out of a few million, were inside some arbitrary geographical boundaries.

His naive algorithm was taking minutes to process all the data, but the requirement was for real-time(ish).

Turns out I didn't even get to apply the space partitioning techniques that I learned in class. Just explaining to him the concept of pre-calculating bounding boxes was more than enough for him to implement a solution in less than an hour.

Since he had not even heard of them, he didn't know what to look for, or that there was an entire class of algorithms and data structures in computer graphics dedicated to that sort of problem.

Don't even get me started with things like dynamic programming, or mathematical logic. Are you seriously going to study something like that for months, if there's no-one pushing you?

<comment><USER9> That's a lack of higher education... or of Google-fu: [https://www.google.com/search?q=algorithm+find+points+inside...](https://www.google.com/search?q=algorithm+find+points+inside+geographic+area)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is primarily a problem with immigration policies and bureaucracy that make it difficult to remain in the U.S. after graduation. Rather, the U.S. should be actively recruiting such high skill people and trying to handhold them through the paperwork.

I went through this process with my wife (who also holds a Ph. D. in a technical field, though non-computing), and even being married to a U.S. citizen, the process is so opaque and convoluted and petty, that only the most dedicated would-be immigrants follow through with it.

<comment><USER11> I work with some very capable foreigners. Some of them have been here for almost 10 years and still haven't gotten through the citizenship process. There is something wrong with that.

<comment><USER12> > There is something wrong with that.

To your employer the system is working as designed.

<comment><USER11> What is the benefit? When I look h1b salaries they seem higher than normal but do they no include benefits or something?

<comment><USER12> I couldn't really say anything about the H1B program that hasn't already been said (you can see my post history as I've posted about it a few times myself)

Basically the way the program is run gives a lot of power to employers and very little power to employees.

In terms of salaries there are a few tricks employers use to suppress wages. Wages are set* by the department of labor but the data is very inconsistent which means you can hire someone as a level 4 software engineer with a market salary of 130k or you can hire her as a level 1 systems analyst at 65k... which do you think the employer picks? A big problem besides the nebulousness of it all is there isn't anyone responsible on the other side to verify.

* actually employers can submit their own wage data to support the wages given, which is just insane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a major reason for reform of the visa system. If you get a US PhD you should be guaranteed a US visa. Studying a STEM PhD is free and mostly paid for by public grants aka tax dollars. If you force these people to leave you are using tax dollars to train them to go back and contribute to another country's economy. Instead they should be heavily incentivized to stay in the US and grow the US economy since we already wasted time training them.

For years China and India have been suffering brain drain to the US with their best researchers and engineers coming to the US but at least in china there has been a shift with more and more Chinese PhD grads choosing to go back most of which is because it is just too hard to stay in the US. They go back and work for upcoming tech giants like alibaba and other companies that are competing with US companies. So US companies are facing more competition from companies whose workers are trained in the US with grant money from US tax payers

</comment><comment><USER14> Isn't one of the drivers of this something to do with it being a path to work in the US after they (non-resident) get a degree?

I could be wrong, but I don't think a PhD is as attractive to people who are already residents. (Generally poor ROI, lack of job prospects, etc.)

<comment><USER15> > Isn't one of the drivers of this something to do with it being a path to > work in the US after they (non-resident) get a degree?

This applies to undergraduate degrees, too. Therefore the argument that restricts it to Ph.D degrees is moot.

Furthermore, the 'path to work' is temporary. You still need a a work visa to work once your OPT has expired.

<comment><USER16> >> Isn't one of the drivers of this something to do with it being a path to work in the US after they (non-resident) get a degree?

>This applies to undergraduate degrees, too. Therefore the argument that restricts it to Ph.D degrees is moot.

You seem to have ignored his second point. Yes, it applies to undergraduate degrees, but undergraduate degrees are attractive to residents as well. An undergraduate degree is helpful for getting a good job, whereas a Ph.D doesn't doesn't do much in that regard.

<comment><USER15> > You seem to have ignored his second point. Yes, it applies to undergraduate > degrees, but undergraduate degrees are attractive to residents as well. An > undergraduate degree is helpful for getting a good job, whereas a Ph.D > doesn't doesn't do much in that regard.

That's a fair point but I'm not sure the conclusion is necessarily the right one. The US has some of the best universities in the world. It makes sense, if they're unattractive for residents in terms of job prospects, for most of the clientele to be foreign nationals. My point was that it's essentially no easier to get a job (not on OPT) in the US because you were a student in the us. H-1B applicants go through the same process either way, the only difference being that applicants on OPT are already in the country which, I reiterate, doesn't really make the H-1B application any easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> When you start enrolling more foreign students, is it a surprise when more of your graduates are foreign students?

During the recession colleges and universities focused on non-resident student enrollment as a way to sustain budgets.

[http://www.bing.com/search?q=ratio+of+foreign+to+native+in+c...](http://www.bing.com/search?q=ratio+of+foreign+to+native+in+college)

<comment><USER18> You're talking about undergrads. PhD foreign students are paid by the university, not payers into budgets. So it's actually the opposite effect.

<comment><USER19> The recession was 6+ years ago, perfect timing for those undergrads to become grad/phd students. I think his point still stands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "an internal report in the National Science Foundation, a key government agency, actually advocated the use of the H-1B program as a means of holding down PhD salaries, by flooding the job market with foreign students. The NSF added that the stagnation of salaries would push domestic students away from PhD study, which is exactly what has happened".

[http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b10min.html](http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/h1b10min.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> Many of the best research universities in the world are in the US. 95%+ of the world's population is not. The best schools have access to the global talent pool, so if the system is working even fairly well to identify great students, you would expect most PhD candidates to be from elsewhere.

</comment><comment><USER22> Good thing immigrants go to graduate school or CS research would completely cease in this country since everyone else is trying to cash in.

</comment><comment><USER23> There was a joke in the Stanford economics department a few years ago: "There are two American professors in the department, and one of them is named Bhattacharya"

</comment><comment><USER24> It is not just Ph.D; it is the case in M.S in STEM fields. 99% of Masters students in STEM are foreigners, most of them are Indians and Chinese. Usually, these foreign master students puzzle why American citizens don't pursue masters.

<comment><USER25> Because masters degrees are for suckers? Especially paying for one?

<comment><USER26> Really, really unconvinced that's the case for computer science. Graduate level classes are definitely yet another cut above undergrad classes, and a lot of the sub-fields that are heating up right now are currently graduate- level only, and in many cases, likely to stay that way. You just aren't going to get into serious machine learning or computer vision in an undergrad course, without rewriting the entire required curriculum for that explicit purpose. (The prerequisites for those things are already considered senior- level courses.)

Disclaimer: I have one, but they paid me for it. I got it 2000-2002; a moment's thought will reveal why I thought that was a good way to spend those years.... (Spoiler: Which is better, being paid to get a grad-level degree or unemployment?)

<comment><USER25> in my experience the grad classes are whatever the professor can slap together at the last minute. the reason to get a graduate degree is for the research and mentorship and maybe you can get that out of a masters degree but probably not most of the time.

edit: if you can get paid to get a masters, then why not. support is usually tiered so that phd students are covered and whatever is left over can go to masters students though...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> From my anecdotal evidence in grad school, this is largely true across many other engineering fields as well. I think some of it is driven by immigration policies and some by culture. A Ph.D. in the US doesn't get you as much respect these days as it used to. Other cultures place more value on higher education.

Also, in a lot of other countries, you can't do much with just an undergraduate degree.

<comment><USER28> This is pure speculation, but I think the devaluation on PhDs in America might have to do a lot with the large of influx of people in college just attending to "get a degree". I feel this made colleges more of a business than a place of learning with the large increase in revenues, and thus leading to PhDs and fields that aren't as respected or really don't have a basis for being around other than people are willing to pay for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Interesting data, but it seems like the CRA could use some data visualization help.

Instead of a rich gradient of color to indicate percent, it chooses a small subset of shades (and texture). I know- this is common, but since many percentages are close to 50%, it makes them stand apart too much. And then there is the mostly useless indicator of metric distance: the U.S. uses miles as the standard not km, and if you don't know how big the U.S. is, then the data in this map is probably of no use to you. Finally, a dotted texture was used that looks pretty 1990s, so it stands out too much with the others being solid colors. The colors aren't even in the same palette or color family. And the orange dots seem too fat and clash with at least one of those greens.

</comment><comment><USER30> As a tech recruiter this does not surprise me. I have met exactly 1 CS PhD in the last 9 months that was a US born Citizen.

<comment><USER31> That is a bit surprising. When pursuing my CS PhD the breakdown felt closer to 60/40 non-US vs. US citizens. US born citizens were certainly outnumbered, but not to the degree that you observed. This was in NYC, however, the breakdown could vary geographically, perhaps?

<comment><USER32> I did my PhD in mid-west, and I literally only met 2 American PhD students during my entire PhD (majority was Chinese and Indian students who pursue a PhD as a gateway to a top job). I guess location is a big factor.

<comment><USER33> Mid-west is probably a good choice since you can afford to live there on a stipend. Other coastal places not so much.

<comment><USER32> It also makes sense why there are less American PhD students in those kind of locations when you look from their perspective. If I were an American, there was no way for me to spend 5+ years of my life in mid-west with 1500K a month (instead, I could just lend to a top company in a good location with $$$$). But for most of the foreign nationals, such an experience is OK to bear with in return for a better life standard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'd imagine it's at least in part cultural. I got a job developing after receiving a two year degree almost ten years ago now, and have felt almost zero pressure to pursue further degrees. My career has grown beyond what I ever imagined too. American development shops and developers in my experience value degrees far less than actual experience and ability. You can jump right in and start having actual experience or you can spend 6 years in school and come out behind your peers. My 2¢ anyway.

</comment><comment><USER35> Something that wasn't mentioned here: a Ph.D. in the US is a great way to increase your chances for an offer for professorship back home in Europe (or anywhere, really). That will skew the number towards people who fully intend to leave after getting their Ph.D. as naturally US naturals can derive no such benefit. In fact, if we imagine the opposite holds, they might well be penalized for getting their Ph.D. at a US university.

<comment><USER21> This effect could be explained by the international standing of the university without recourse to inverse-nationalist bias. A Stanford degree is better for an Italian than a Sapienza Rome degree. But a Cambridge degree is better for an American than a Georgia Tech degree. Since the US has lots of top-tier universities, you see lots of American-trained professors in European schools.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> A reason why some people get PhD is it makes it easier to get residency. Citizens don't have the same incentive.

</comment><comment><USER37> I've seen people arguing that you don't need a degree.

I think getting a BS in Comp Sci was the best decision I've made.

It made me well rounded and I've done many different things within the field of comp sci (web dev, full stack, mobile, etc...).

But I'm going back for a master in statistic so I can do data science. I don't believe a master in comp sci would help much because I have the foundation of BS in Comp Sci to pick up most comp sci book and further myself in CompSci.

</comment><comment><USER38> A study forwarded by another HN member in another similar discussion. Very interesting statistics.

[https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/07/12/new-report- sh...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/07/12/new-report-shows- dependence-us-graduate-programs-foreign-students)

</comment><comment><USER39> Not surprising. I went to a public (UC) school for undergraduate and a private school for a graduate degree. > 90% of my TAs (who were on the PhD track) in both programs were from abroad.

</comment><comment><USER40> I think this is true for PhD's in all male-dominated fields. (And it has a lot to do with male domination because the foreign students lean strongly male)

</comment><comment><USER33> One factor is the hot job market which US citizens have direct access to.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't know much about the doctorate process but do these people get scholarships/sponsorships? Most of the time those appear to be favored towards foreign students.

<comment><USER41> The opposite is true. Many federal research scholarships are open only to U.S. citizens or at least permanent residents.</comment></comment>


P = NP - <AUTHOR> http://feedly.com/k/1bh7aoX

<comment><USER2> [Meta: please submit the direct link, not a link-shortened version]

This arXiv paper[1] is apparently from 2012. A good meta-resource and summary of attempts on P ?= NP, including this one, can be found at [2]. From [2]:

> Among all these papers, there is only a single paper that has appeared in a > peer-reviewed journal, that has thoroughly been verified by the experts in > the area, and whose correctness is accepted by the general research > community: The paper by Mihalis Yannakakis. (And this paper does not settle > the P-versus-NP question, but "just" shows that a certain approach to > settling this question will never work out.)

[1] arXiv summary: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.0954](http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.0954)

[2] [http://www.win.tue.nl/~gwoegi/P-versus- NP.htm](http://www.win.tue.nl/~gwoegi/P-versus-NP.htm)

</comment><comment><USER3> Some context would be helpful. Is the a credible computer scientist, or just another crackpot? What has been the response of the mathematical community to this? What, if any, are the criticisms of it?

It looks like there have been a number of versions of this paper since last year: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.0954](http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.0954)

So, has anything changed?

</comment><comment><USER4> Wasn't this submitted this morning? At which point the community agreed that it was a crackpot?

Why do I get the feeling the same person submitted it again hoping to catch the late-night readers off-guard...

<comment><USER5> Do you have a link to that please?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://sites.google.com/site/sergeyvyakhontov/home/peqnp- pa...](https://sites.google.com/site/sergeyvyakhontov/home/peqnp-paper-status)

</comment><comment><USER7> ...this would be a huge deal if verified. Anyone with the background to understand this able to reduce the paper presented into more manageable terms?

</comment><comment><USER8> chrome can't verify authenticity of this link

<comment><USER9> What does that even mean? It looks like an authentic link to me.</comment></comment>


Tell HN: Chromium nightly (linux) appears to have stable support for Flash - <AUTHOR>

It must've been added within the last couple days. <comment><USER2> If that's true, then it's a first. Firefox still doesn't have stable support for Flash on Linux. (I kid. A little. But not really.)

<comment><USER3> Firefox _never_ crashes for me because of Flash since I started always using nspluginwrapper. All that happens at most is the Flash plugin process dies (npviewer.bin). I can also just killall npviewer.bin anytime I want to killall Flash processes. I'm telling everyone!

My sleep timer (for long running Flash streams)

        #  wait 1 hour     kill flash       turn off LCD
        sleep 3600; killall npviewer.bin; xset dpms force standby

<comment><USER4> Moreover, when running on a 64-bit OS nspluginwrapper is mandatory, so I have pretty much forgotten how bad Firefox stability used to be.

<comment><USER5> what are you all talking about? I've been using 64-bit firefox 3.0 (debian's iceweasel) with 64-bit flash (ever since 64-bit flash became available), no nspluginwrapper, and I have no firefox stability troubles at all.

I restart FF every week or so to keep its memory usage down. I typically have 30-50 tabs open at a time. Is it because I use flashblock?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Link: <http://build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots/>

Seems to work on my machine, for the most part.</comment>