My Google Interview and Lessons Learned - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@tomgoldenberg/my-google-interview-and-lessons-learned-43109881c521#.h71nifn79 <comment> brian-armstrong I've noticed a trend where Javascript people are unwilling to learn other languages, confining themselves to being in one small little niche forever. Hasn't it always been said that good programmers will make an effort to become familiar with multiple languages?

<comment><USER2> That may be true, but I languages can be taught and learned on the job, and frequently are. When giving an interview, you're generally more concerned with processes, how the person thinks and solves problems, how they learn on the fly, etc. In each interview we give, we generally set them up for JS and PHP (we are a PHP shop), depending on the question but also give them the option of switching to a language they are more comfortable with. We can teach you PHP relatively easy; I came in with no PHP experience and was able to start building in Silex in under a month. What we care about is understanding basic architecture, database interaction, OOP principles, some design patterns, etc.

So I think his choice to stick with what he knows and focus on learning algorithms was a good one. He could learn Java or Go or Ruby prior to the interview and then find out that he was placed on a project developing in Python, assuming he took the job. Languages are generally easy to learn and teach; best practices, algorithms, design patterns, etc. are what's hard.

<comment> brian-armstrong How would you know how easy or hard it is to learn a different language if you haven't done it yet?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "After the usual explanation that it was a "close call", I asked what I could have done better and was told that I needed to be more consistent."

Probably he just gave another "usual explanation" from his handbook. That's the problem when you have a recruiter as a proxy between you and your interviewer, specially when you get the negative answer. When they get the "No" answer, you are not profitable anymore. You are now a liability. A time- consuming problem they have to deal with. With that couldn't-be-more-generic- feedback, it seems to be your case.

Would be better to reach your interviewers directly and get feedback from them.

<comment><USER4> Google gave me the answer "Unfortunately, we can't provide you any feedback from the interviewers." A couple weeks later, they sent me a questionnaire for me to provide _them_ feedback.

I suppose that if I'd made notes of each interviewer's name, I could've taken a guess at their Google e-mail addresses and tried to contact them directly, but that's definitely not something they would've made easy for me.

<comment><USER5> Or you could ask for their email. I give my google email to the candidates I interview, if they ask.

<comment><AUTHOR> I asked for the email addresses of my interviewers to thank them personally but was told they weren't allowed to give them out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> He didn't get the decision he wanted, but he got it in a week and a half, which is a lot better than I've come to expect.

<comment><USER7> I have one, and only one, expectation from companies after an interview:

 _Please respond by the time you say you will, more or less._

It is amazing how many companies seem to be "unable" to come through on this very modest expectation.

<comment><USER8> In Google's case there are a lot of people in the pipeline that all need to respond before you get an answer. All your interviewers need to get their feedback in. Any internal or external referrals need to provide feedback. And once that's all together, it needs to be presented to a hiring committee (and there are more steps after this that can take time).

(Good) recruiters at Google strive to get their candidates answers as soon as possible, but the most they can do, at times, is hound the person that is holding up the process.

<comment><USER7> These companies can take _all the time they want_.

The problem is that they continually bait candidates with promised turnaround times that very seldom have anything to do with reality.

<comment><USER4> My second interview out of college with EMC led to about a month and a half of waiting, but resulted in an offer at higher pay than I had expected.

A more recent interview with Google got me a "no" in about 4 business days. Whatever else I could say about the process, at least they stuck to their promised window.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am not sure how Google/Amazon/Facebook judge a programmer by asking to write "production ready" code on few sheet of paper where one can not rearrange blocks, edit. How many does it in real world ? Unless its 1977 and you are doing FORTRAN in punch cards.

<comment><USER10> Much of the interview process is used to determine if the candidate can program a computer at all. It's pretty obvious in the opening minutes if I ask you to write out a simple function in your chosen strong language (such as strlen, if you said C) whether you can or cannot do this. If you can stand there and write out something like:

      size_t strlen(const char* str) { [return something] }

Then at least I know that you've ever programmed in this language before, which sets you apart, strangely enough, from 95% of the applicants. I won't even care if you write the return type as int instead of size_t, as long as you're obviously aware that every function declaration must have a return type (or whatever the requirements of your language might be).

From there we can start talking about graph traversal or whatever, to determine what you know about complexity analysis.

It's really not about "production-ready code" but fluency. When you speak your native language you don't constantly bumble and make errors and leave out important words. It should be the same when you write code in your favorite programming language, and whether you can or cannot do so becomes readily apparent in technical interviews.

<comment><USER11> Is it true that they don't care what language you know, and that it doesn't have to be one of either - Java, C or C++?

I have heard that what they are looking for is your problem solving skills and your ability understand the problem space and the tradeoffs.

But then I've also heard that if you are not proficient in a statically typed language that will hurt your candidacy. I am not sure if this true. I would that is someone has good CS skills and good problem solving ability that they could pick up any language statically typed or not.

Curious what someone more in the know regarding Google/FB/AWS has to say on the matter.

<comment><USER10> I did my google on-site interview entirely in Perl which at that time was my strongest lang.

<comment><USER11> So the idea is that as long as you have good CS fundamentals and problem solving skills, what language(s) you know doesn't matter as you will likely be able to be pick those up as you go?

Is that still true then?

Did you get the job?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've seen Google interview questions before, and I don't find them unreasonable except for the fact you're forced to write things out on a whiteboard. The bigger problem I have is the 5 on-site interviews. Coming up with a solution that is 100% correct and optimal and well-coded for all 5 interviews would be physically and mentally exhausting for me. I have two young children, so sleep deprivation is my constant reality. Not to say no one else in my position can do this, but I certainly can't.

</comment><comment><USER13> You know, if I knew nothing about the law, but assumed that I could skim a couple books and pass the bar exam, I'd have to be some kind of combination of arrogant, disrespectful, and crazy.

<comment><USER14> That's not a great example. There's a six week bar exam course that most law graduates take because law school doesn't do anything to prepare students for the bar exam. Take any reasonably intelligent person with strong written English skills, have him take one of these six week courses including doing all the homework, and he'd likely be able to pass the bar.

Practicing law is a different story. Although a significant percentage of law school has very little relevance to the day to day practice of law it would be an exaggeration to claim that law school doesn't do anything to prepare you for practice as I claimed for the bar exam.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "In each one, I was given a technical problem and asked to whiteboard my solution."

Can't believe Google is still doing this crap. 5 whiteboarding exercises, seriously? How dumb is that. One OK, two why not. But maybe part of the interview could be spend talking about, you know, architecture, past experience, workflow, etc.

<comment><USER16> I've talked to a research scientist at facebook who commented on this exact issue. They've debated this, the issue is that architecture, past experience, workflow are all things that can be taught to anyone.

Google and similar companies aren't in the business of hiring anyone who can just learn anything. Given enough time anyone can develop skills to be a programmer. However, google is in the business of hiring people who are intellectually superior. People who can do things that can't necessarily be taught.

You complain about 5 whiteboard problems because most likely you won't be able to solve 5 whiteboard problems. This does not mean you're a bad programmer. However, the guy who can solve those problems without an issue has a higher probability of having higher intelligence and better programming skills than you.

<comment><USER17> But the whiteboarding questions and their successful completion by the author clearly shows Google is hiring for skills that the author was able to learn in 1 month. Architecture, workflow, use of proper design patterns, etc. are things you learn from past experience.

<comment><USER4> There's "successful completion", and then there's what Google is looking for. They want optimal code, and they want you to explain your thought process as you're writing. They want you to hit all the subtle corner cases without being prompted (and for you to verbally note why you coded it that way).

You solved the problem if you give them the O(n^2) answer, but they're looking for the more complicated O(n) answer, because then they'll get to present you with the 2nd and 3rd variations on the question, rather than spending time refining the first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've noticed that some people seem to way overprepare for Google interviews in particular. I get that they're hard, but how much practice do you really need for, say, a phone screen?

<comment><USER19> Given that the acceptance rate for on-site interviews is under 20%, I'd say the vast majority of us who have interviewed actually underprepared.

<comment><USER20> I wonder how many people realize, halfway through the phone screening, that they don't care enough about Google to jump through those hoops.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I interviewed a coding bootcamp person in SF and found them to be quite competent and able to handle stuff at a level I've seen from engineers with 3-5 years of experience in the field, along with their CS degree. Other interviewers also had a positive experience with this person and we made an offer, but in the end they decided to take a competing offer...from Google.

</comment><comment><USER16> Seriously one month of studying algorithms and he's prepared? I had the impression google interviews were a lot harder than this.

<comment><USER22> Well, he wasn't offered the job. So, we'll never know how prepared.

Practice does help for these whiteboarding style questions.

I completed a bunch of [https://www.hackerrank.com/](https://www.hackerrank.com/) problems prior to my last set of technical interviews and it definitely helped keep me sharp. My day to day CRUD work is rarely helpful in that regard.

<comment><USER23> Don't you feel strange knowing you may be asked number theory question when you might end up writing casual CRUD ?

ps: hackerrank is neat.

<comment><USER16> It's strange but why hire a rocket technician when you can get a rocket scientist with the same skills (+more) for the same price?

<comment><USER23> Because a boredom frustration depressed scientist may not be the best thing in life ?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Rise of Panera Bread - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@startupsapience/the-rise-of-panera-bread-abcb541a03f <comment><USER2> "To keep reading this story, get the free app or log in."

No thanks.</comment>


Safer, Better, Faster: Addressing Cryptography's Big Challenges - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081204074806.htm

<comment><USER2> _"There are three big issues facing cryptographers," says Bart Preneel, a professor at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and president of the International Association for Cryptologic Research. "Cost, speed and long-term security."_

Funny, I thought the primary problems are usability, usability, and usability.</comment>


Why Does the FBI Keep Arresting Asian-American Scientists? - <AUTHOR> https://news.vice.com/article/why-does-the-fbi-keep-arresting-asian-american-scientists <comment><USER2> When stories like this appear in the press, it is always the victims, who have already been smeared by the FBI, whose names appear. Why not the FBI agents involved in a sketchy raid? Who are the macho men who manhandled a professor? They deserve their own fame.

<comment><USER3> _Who are the macho men who manhandled a professor?_

Here's a crazy stereotype. I'm willing to risk the downvotes just to say it:

The football jocks from high school are the ones who become FBI agents. Of course, they'll always resent the nerdy Asians who got better grades.

<comment><USER4> That's an unusual analysis of high school dynamics and the persistence thereof.</comment></comment></comment>


Jason Hoffman says 5 years or full refund for lifetime Joyent customers - <AUTHOR> http://discuss.joyent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=241234#p241234

<comment><USER2> '1) 5 years of a 512MB Smartmachine for per lifetime account. Not lifetime. 5 years. Because lifetime is not a "legal" or "financial" term.'

He might want to have a chat with a lawyer. Glad I have never had to deal with joyent.

<comment><USER3> There are numerous obvious examples that are exposed to non-lawyers. Lifetime has legal force in everyday contracts and agreements in addition to the "lifetime guarantee" that upstanding organizations such as Sears/Craftsman uphold.

Trusts can be created that have a term that expires a stated number of years after the life of one or more named individuals, and can benefit an individual during their lifetime, with a trust remainder interest going to someone else.

A life estate in property, typically created via a will (to a spouse for example, with the children becoming owners of the remainder interest in the land), or created by a simple deed, allows a person to live on and use the property during that person's lifetime, but not sell the property, because they do not hold the land in fee simple (fee simple meaning they have a full interest in the land).

Life insurance is a contract describing payments relating to a lifetime, and annuity contracts are the inverse contract, payments during the lifetime to the beneficiary / owner.

These are common and everyday uses of contractual English that mean "lifetime".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well that is like a much better deal. Although it would have been much better if they have done this earlier.</comment>


How do you design a no-code platform? - <AUTHOR> https://builtin.com/product-management/temboo-building-no-code-iot-platform <comment><USER2> We have been struggling with the siren song of no-code ideologies for a while. We have managed to make so much of our platform data-driven that it seems like a natural evolution to make it 100% so.

Unfortunately, the closer we get the more dragons seem to appear. The hardest thing I have seen that will need to be addressed is handling the mapping of business facts from an internal representation to representations required by external systems we are interacting with. In many cases this isn't a simple 1:1 map, and we have to write imperative code to handle that last mile of wiring various things together. Also, developing business rules and validations is incredibly difficult without proper code if you are dealing with any sort of complex logical combinations of facts or entities.

The most sustainable model I have been able to come up with (at least for our products and customers) is to push as much we reasonably can into the data- driven realm, and then explicitly expose standardized coding contexts for mapping/validating/etc various combinations of data-driven entities.

For our purposes I would say the 80/20 rule applies fairly well. Approximately 80% of our platform can be data-driven, with the remaining 20% absolutely requiring code to connect the dots.

<comment><USER3> With a data-driven system, you basically end up with the data as a sort of intermediate code which is then interpreted by the "environment". The interpreter still needs to support the domain objects that implement the required behaviours. If you keep extending such a system until it meets all the requirements, you end up with yet another programming language and interpreter.

A far more practical approach is to have clearly demarcated, library of reusable domain specific objects which are then assembled as required. Thus the majority of the functionality (the 80%) ends up being written in a sort of embedded domain specific language.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is the interview process for MEng in Cornell Tech like? - <AUTHOR> Would like to ask any current Meng Cornell Tech student about the interview process for selection to the programme. Thanks for the help. <comment><USER2> I'd recommend contacting the department and asking. I would not be surprised if it would put you in touch with current and/or former students.

It might also be useful to research the work done by students studying under the faculty members you are interested in working for.

Good luck.</comment>


Code Like a Chef: Work Clean - <AUTHOR> http://www.tablexi.com/blog/2012/08/code-like-a-chef-work-clean/developers/

<comment><USER2> Thomas Keller and Alinea's kitchens are a minority position in the world of fine dining and also have the luxury of being able to maintain an almost 1:1 ratio of cooks to diners.

Most kitchens, even kitchens of good restaurants, maintain themselves on an edge of controlled chaos, with order and disorder in constant battle.

It's a cute analogy but I wouldn't draw too much into it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Alinea has about 20 cooks for 60 diners. Each diner gets 20 dishes, each dish with 10-20 components.</comment></comment>


How We Thought We Could Use Scala and Clojure and How We Actually Did - <AUTHOR> http://ontwik.com/clojure/how-we-thought-we-could-use-scala-and-clojure-and-how-we-actually-did/

<comment><USER2> I like Scala, but I'm a bit troubled by this comment in the blurb

 _The talk will briefly cover the conceptual hurdles that the team experienced when changing from a purely object-oriented mindset to a more functional approach._

I think herein lies the problem with Scala, while it's great to do some functional programming, the functional element is largely idiomatic and not enforced.

You can easily rewrite a Java application in OO Scala with mutable state. Or you can do it with immutable objects and so on but I don't like the way that it's so easy to combine the two that it kinds of turns into a mess if you're not an expert in either camp.

The Java interoperability is a nice touch but again, it mixes the two paradigms for me

Unless I'm just doing it wrong? I'm not sure but for me I'm always wondering what the "right way" is in Scala and it irritates me. Don't get me wrong, it's a great language and much better than Java (a lot better) but it sometimes feels like a mix of ideas.

That's why I'm learning Haskell now, to try and embed myself in a world that's purely functional and not a half way house.

<comment><USER3> Agree with your premise. Disagree with your conclusion.

What you've effectively called a bug is in fact a feature.

The whole point is to take the proper-superset aspect of Scala ( ie. every java OO pgm will qualify as a scala pgm ), and then gradually migrate the OO parts to a functional paradigm over time. This allows you to retain giant Java codebases that are in production currently, while gradually moving away from Java by taking these baby steps. One very practical example - there's a boatload of concurrent code in Java out in production. Unfortunately, threads are not in the average programmer's toolbox. Multithreading, mutexes, locks, schedulers etc used to be stuff that OS guys who wrote IPCs studied. Now all of that has unfortunately become part of the Application Programmer's toolset, simply because Java exposes the threading API & makes it insanely easy to create, suspend, group & destroy threads. So the application programmers go wild & create all manner of multi-threaded Java apps & when stuff gives inconsistent results ( same method accessed by multiple threads, no lock etc. ), they wonder why. With Scala, you can rewrite just those bits using the Actors framework & not worry about relatively low-level constructs like mutexes.

Here's a simple example:( <http://bit.ly/kOczaj> )

<comment><USER2> Oh yes, I definitely agree that Scala has a much better approach to threading with Actors and so on and there's definite improvement over Java with lamdas and functions as first class citizens.

What I'm moaning about is, for me, I tend to like doing things "the right way" (i.e. The Scala Way) and it irritates me that there's nothing there to enforce you to do that.

That isn't necessarily a problem with Scala per se, it's an issue with myself, but it's one of the reasons why I've stopped doing development in Scala for now and going down the Haskell route.

Who knows, perhaps once I've got some decent Haskell behind my back, I might be able to transfer those ideas over to Scala and write Scala how I'd want to write it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The original blog posting for the video:

[http://blog.fogus.me/2011/01/10/dancing-monkey-gibbers-on- ab...](http://blog.fogus.me/2011/01/10/dancing-monkey-gibbers-on-about-scala- and-clojure/)

</comment><comment><USER5> If someone watches the video, please comment on whether it was worth 30 minutes of attention. =)

<comment><USER6> I personally found it well worth the 30 minutes. And then some!

<comment><USER7> Hello Michael - heard in your talk that you work at SAIC - good company, I was there off and on for 20+ years.

<comment><USER6> I was working for SAIC at the time of the talk, but I've since moved on to another company. I suspect SAIC now has at least one opening for a Scala programmer. ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wish the abstract gave some hint of what conclusions were reached.</comment>


Improving CSS text decorations - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.adobe.com/webplatform/2013/02/19/improving-css-text-decorations/

<comment><USER2> It's always hard to get excited by such new 'fancy' CSS features when the examples (espcially the gradient and pattern ones) look like Word Art renderings.

But I recall such kinds of post flourishing when people were discussing box- shadows, text-shadows and background-gradients a few years back. Examples also tended to exaggerate the effects for the sake of demonstrating the capabilities. Anyway, these CSS features ended up being useful for designers like me. So I'm trying to overlook the visually strong examples of these CSS properties and envision their future implementations in a more subtle way.

</comment><comment><USER3> Using gradient seems to be key in a lot of design. Does anyone have a few resources that explain in detail how to design them to get the various effects? Choose the colors and offsets? For example, the raised look in text or buttons. From looking at many examples, it seems that there's always a transition after the first few percent (e.g 3%).

</comment><comment><USER4> I've been looking at exactly this issue this last week. I have a logo with a gradient and a small border outline for increased legibility. I'd much rather do this in html/css than as an image, but I'm going with an image for now since these text features are a moving target.

I agree the examples are a little garish, but if you look around, most logos are some mix of these attributes (font, stroke, fill). And it would be much easier (for me) to resize and update logos in html/css than to have to supply 3 or more versions every time I need to create or update a logo.

</comment><comment><USER5> The strokes look like they'll mess up the kerning something fierce.

Word Art for web indeed.

<comment><USER6> Proper kerning in browsers is still "work in progress" anyway - there's the text-rendering[1] property, which when set to optimizeLegibility enables kerning. However, there's some bugs with how it behaves, and only Firefox enables it by default (to fonts over 20px in size).

Anyway, proper outer stroke should not affect the actual text positioning, so it shouldn't really do anything to the kerning. If some people want to use huge stroke sizes and widen the gap between letters, they could always mess with the letter-spacing property.

Here's an example[2]. 50px Constantia, with kerning and ligatures enabled (using text-rendering: optimizeLegibility), with the bottom having a thick 5px outer stroke (example produced with HTML5 Canvas).

As the article mentions, Webkit has prefixed text-stroke CSS properties, but these _suck_. The reason? They use centered stroke, not outer stroke. This means that a 4px stroke renders 2px inside the glyph, and 2px outside the glyph. On larger stroke sizes or with thin glyphs, the results look _awful_. Just take a look at this second example[3]: It has 3px centered stroke on top, 1.5px outer stroke in the middle (to demonstrate how much of the 3px centered stroke is actually outside), and 3px outer stroke on bottom. A world of difference, no? Ideally, you should be able to control what kind of stroke you want (inner, centered or outer), but it should most definitely default to outer or be outer-only if there's to be just one option.

[1] <https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/CSS/text-rendering>

[2] <http://puu.sh/2776P>

[3] <http://puu.sh/277nM>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I love how Adobe are contributing to web standards. They're doing great things for CSS and its support for beautiful typography.

</comment><comment><USER8> Between the Adobe proposal and this, the future of stylish typography on the web seems very bright:

[http://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/02/svg-in-opentype-new- appr...](http://robert.ocallahan.org/2013/02/svg-in-opentype-new-approach-to- svg.html)

I can hardly wait for either, not to mention both, to become widely supported.

</comment><comment><USER9> It looks like Word Art</comment>


House of Reps to post all bills, resolutions, amendments as XML from 01/01/12 - <AUTHOR> http://cha.house.gov/sites/republicans.cha.house.gov/files/documents/hearing_docs/2011_12_16_posting_standards.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe they _are_ listening?

Perhaps I should start demanding other stuff on here...</comment>


Ask HN: Is Alan Turing more influential than Einstein? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I think Einstein was more influential, since he changed the fundamental way we understand how everything in the universe works.

Also, while Turing made very important contributions to the fundamentals of computer science, there were others who were working on similar models of computability, such as Alonzo Church. I have great admiration for Turing (especially after having read his biography by Hodges[1]), but I think that if Turing had never come along, we'd still have computers and computer science today.

Turing's most influential work may have been his wartime cryptanalysis, which may have been pivotal in the Allies' victory in WWII. On the other hand, Einstein (and others) urged President Roosevelt to develop nuclear weapons before the Germans did, which certainly influenced today's world in significant ways.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/dp/069116472X](https://www.amazon.com/dp/069116472X)

</comment><comment><USER3> As mentioned, they are different domains.

How about Claude Shannon? He has the right to be called as influential as Turing within the information engineering world. Basically his work laid the foundation for making digital ALUs possible. Not to mention his enormous contributions to information theory.

How about Alan Kay, who invented (or discovered) object oriented programming?

How about John McCarthy who invented Lisp? And, moreover, the idea of macros. Many of the things we take for granted on modern platforms (for example, garbage collection) originated with Lisp, so the invention of Lisp laid a foundation for the evolution of programming languages.

</comment><comment><USER4> Completely different domains, there is no way I can come up with any completely objective way to compare them.</comment>


The open source DIY laptop for hacking, customization, and privacy - <AUTHOR> https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/reform <comment><USER2> My main concern with this DIY laptop is if they are mainlining everything for Linux and U-boot. It looks to be entirely open source (due to the use of the NXP/Freescale i.MX8MQ and the work going into that).

This unfortunately happened with the Novena. It was entirely open source, but there were a lot of out of tree patches that had to be applied to get a kernel fully functional. This meant that it was effectively frozen at 4.4 without someone to dedicate a lot of time to port the changes to a newer kernel (I say that as someone who tried, and gave up, to try to port the changes to 4.9).

<comment><USER3> So this is a bit off-topic, but I pulled out my Novena this past weekend to work on an SDR project and after updating the installed packages I started wondering about the process of keeping these devices running up-to-date software and the community around it.

Are you able to offer any insight about how I, a developer with only a little embedded experience, could learn enough about the process to meaningfully contribute to keeping the Novena up-to-date? Is there still a community around the Novena?

<comment><USER2> Sure! Look at my github:

[https://github.com/chris4795](https://github.com/chris4795)

I tried to document what I did as much as possible for others to look at it. I recall I was able to update it to Stretch (with linux 4.4, not linux 4.9) and I was able to make the whole boot process/update process more debian friendly.

u-boot-novena is where I put all of the scripts needed in order to get the whole process to work with Debian Mainline.

The forums:

[https://kosagi.com/forums/](https://kosagi.com/forums/)

Also have most of the good bits of nuggets to figure it out too (that's how I figured out most of what I did). I don't know how much of a community around it there is anymore though (I really haven't looked in years).

EDIT: It looks like jookia actually did a lot of work and upgraded the Novena to Buster:

[https://www.kosagi.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=542](https://www.kosagi.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=542)

I may try it sometime.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! I'm not sure how I overlooked the forums. It looks like there is someone there who has ported everything to Buster, so it looks like there is at least enough of a community to see some new software releases and hopefully offer some more pointers in how to contribute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Previous discussion (3 days ago): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23113430](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23113430)

</comment><comment><USER5> i am an owner of a purism and this seems great if only to push forward full openness down to the hardware/schematics level. i also like the trackball.

but... that enclosure looks kind of thick and blocky for a heavy travel setup. it also weighs about .5 kg more than a librem v4; that's non-trivial. it's nice that it's passively cooled, but i'm just having trouble seeing myself working with that laptop as i would others, for some reason.

</comment><comment><USER6> The idea looks exciting, but the details are less so.

In particular, I have a hard time believing the CPU (4x1.5GHZ A53) and memory (4GB RAM, non-upgradeable) will be sufficient for a lot of the more interesting uses.

<comment><USER7> Combine that with the thickness. This thing is chonky...4cm / 1.575in thick. I get that compromises are needed in favor of openness, but this is a lot of concessions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Philosophically cool but the comparison chart made me seriously consider a Pinebook at 20% of the cost.

<comment> sh-run I have an original pinebook and it would be usable for light computing tasks (note taking/light programming in vim, web browsing with FF + no script) if not for the awkward keyboard layout. The other issue with the pinebook is the Mali 400 GPU is not open source, so if you are after a fully open device the pinebook is not it. IIRC there are also some video acceleration issues caused by the Mali 400 drivers.

The new pinebook pro looks like a better product, but I don't own one so I can't really comment.

<comment><USER9> You might indeed be interested in the Pinebook Pro. I recently ordered one, and it's supposed to ship later this month. There is active work on an open source GPU driver[1], and OpenBSD lists it as a supported device on their arm64 port[2]. I'm excited to get my hands on it and see what I can get to run on it, as well as potentially replace my current AMD64 laptop with it.

[1] [https://xdc2018.x.org/slides/Panfrost- XDC_2018.pdf](https://xdc2018.x.org/slides/Panfrost-XDC_2018.pdf)

[2] [https://www.openbsd.org/arm64.html](https://www.openbsd.org/arm64.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This laptop is supposed to be an upgradeable machine for hacking. Why can't I upgrade the RAM? 4 GB is not a lot these days.

<comment><USER11> Whence do you infer that the RAM can't be upgraded?

<comment><USER12> The linked page says the memory is part of the SOM chip which to me implies it's not upgradable. Though the i.MX8 reference website does appear to support external devices for memory, so you may be able to upgrade it, by attaching another device to the board (but that's unclear to me)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In the current climate it feels like a better decision would have been to include a camera and microphone with physical disconnect switches.

<comment><USER14> Just buy USB Web-camera with mic

That way you get as good (or bad) of setup as you can afford rather adding the price to every laptop

<comment><USER13> Good idea, I love carrying peripherals around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 1k USD vs 1.1k vs 1.4k vs 1.43k - says the comparison table near the end. Since they are in the same ballpark I want to know the numbers for benchmarks as well. If they are in the same ballpark then this is worth buying, otherwise I don't value my privacy just for the sake of it and lose instead 100% performance. So, any links to benchmarks as well?

</comment><comment><USER11> Any chance of a keyboard option where the left control (at caps-lock position) and the shift keys are full (or fuller) size? In principle I like the economic layout very much, but I fear splitting these keys would hamper normal typing (for me). Perhaps you could offer combining caps, so the splitting becomes optional, if that would work.

</comment><comment><USER11> I didn't see anything about firmware. Does this have an intel-management- engine-like firmware-backdoor or not?

<comment><USER16> Maybe you missed it, its right there on the first page - " and the system has no "management engine" or other remote control features that could be used to attack you"

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> They made it blob free by omitting the storage ...

</comment><comment><USER18> on related note: what did become out of the network-admin laptop desing that was proposed by some guy on habr?</comment>


Thomas Cook insolvency leaves 150,000 travelers stranded on holidays - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2019/sep/23/thomas-cook-travel-chaos-insolvency-leaves-150000-stranded-on-holidays-live-updates <comment><USER2> I heard on the news that the government will stump up the 150M needed to help the travellers. Does Thomas Cook or the traveller have insurance?

<comment><USER3> There are industry schemes such as ATOL and the Air Travel Trust Fund, which should cover most of the costs, not the taxpayer, even if operations are managed by the government.

> _As at 31 March 2018 the ATT fund had a surplus of £170 million._ [1]

That should do.

[1] [https://www.caa.co.uk/ATOL-protection/Air-travel- trust/About...](https://www.caa.co.uk/ATOL-protection/Air-travel-trust/About- the-Air-Travel-Trust/)</comment></comment>


The case for fake LaTeX [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://farmdoc.illinois.edu/irwin/research/The_Case_for_Fake_LaTeX_Body_Feb%202018.pdf <comment><USER2> This research paper is essentially a recommendation to use the Latin Modern Roman font in Microsoft Word in such a way as to "trick" someone into thinking the document was typeset in LaTeX at first glance. It seems like using pandoc or something similar would make a lot more sense for achieving what the author had in mind.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is so sad. Real latex:

\documentclass{article}

\begin{document}

All your words

\end{document}

Is that so hard?

</comment><comment><USER4> Lol, low cost alternative. Latex is free!</comment>


Standard library for JavaScript and Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/stdlib-js/stdlib <comment><USER2> I only skimmed the github page, but this seems to be more of 'what the author commonly uses' rather than what you'd normally expect of a standard library. For example, I'd expect that many of these features be more in a separate dedicated library rather than the 'standard':

\- 40+ PRNGs (You might want one or two, but do you really need so many varients?)

\- Plot API (Definitely more suited for a separate library)

\- 50+ Sample Datasets (Often useless and _a lot_ of wasted space if not used)

\- Native BLAS Interface (Extremely niche usecase)

Edit: To be fair, it does say right at the very beginning "with an emphasis on numerical and scientific computing applications". So they are upfront about it, but the library name and HN submission name are confusing because they don't make this obvious.

<comment><USER3> Have a look at BlasJs also [https://github.com/R-js/blasjs](https://github.com/R-js/blasjs)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh. This one. I discovered it a couple weeks ago, and since then I keep wondering - how what's essentially a statistics toolkit can get called a _standard library_? In every language I can think of that actually has a standard library, the library has very little to do with mathematics.

<comment><USER5> Notable exceptions are R, Julia, MATLAB, Mathematica, etc. Namely, environments/languages which focus on numerical and scientific computing applications. One of the project's goals is to provide similar functionality on the web and in Node.js as those environments. Accordingly, in order to realize that goal, one needs to offer quality ("standard") implementations for doing mathematical operations (see [https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_mo...](https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_modules/%40stdlib/math/base/special)).

Aside: calling the library "essentially a statistics toolkit" is a mischaracterization given that the bulk of available functionality is _not_ statistics. For example, lodash/async style utilities ([https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_mo...](https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_modules/%40stdlib/utils)), iterator utilities ([https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_mo...](https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_modules/%40stdlib/iter)), assertion utilities ([https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_mo...](https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_modules/%40stdlib/assert)), benchmark framework ([https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_mo...](https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_modules/%40stdlib/bench/harness)), etc. While certainly a WIP, might prove informative to peruse: [https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_mo...](https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_modules/%40stdlib).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel spoiled enough by the ecosystem to expect that libraries which wants/advertises itself to be a standard for Node.js to be backed by native code instead of pure Javascript, especially if the use case is complex, numerical computation.

Aside from that, the collection presented here is actually quite remarkable, kudos to the developer(s).

<comment><USER5> Re: native vs JS. I'd say it depends. For certain implementations, such as operations on large arrays, native implementations can provide performance benefits (see [https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_mo...](https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_modules/%40stdlib/blas/base/daxpy/benchmark)). However, for other implementations, including common mathematical functions, implementing them in pure JavaScript can be more performant when running in Node.js, as you do not need to cross from JS to C/C++ (see [https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_mo...](https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_modules/%40stdlib/math/base/special/hypot/benchmark)). Lastly, even if functionality is backed by native code, would still need JavaScript fallbacks in order to, e.g., allow for bundling and use in non- Node.js environments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This looks like just the thing I've been looking for. I'm interested in getting into Mike Bostock's Observable notebooks to do data visualization research but am afraid of the potential frustration of manipulating data frames in JS. This looks like it could make that a lot easier (I see you have a groupby function)

<comment><USER5> For an example of using stdlib in Observable, see here: [https://beta.observablehq.com/@kgryte/stdlib-real-time-k- mea...](https://beta.observablehq.com/@kgryte/stdlib-real-time-k-means- clustering). Other notebooks can be found here: [https://beta.observablehq.com/collection/@kgryte/stdlib](https://beta.observablehq.com/collection/@kgryte/stdlib).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So is this a way to help reduce the risk of leftpad type problems in NodeJS? [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/23/npm_left_pad_chaos/)

<comment><USER9> As another comment mentions, this is less of a standard library in the traditional sense and more a collection of functions the author finds useful in their specific line of work on a regular basis - it has a heavy emphasis on numerical and statistical functions that most people probably aren't going to use terribly often.

So in a generic way... maybe? It does offer a set of standard functions that aren't available natively, though personally I find Lodash to be much more of a traditional standard library than this.

In a specific way? No, as I don't see any kind of padding function and there will always be instances in which you need a small module that may be overlooked - that's the nature of any packaging system.

<comment><USER10> padding functions and other string utilities are available under the "string" namespace: [https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_mo...](https://github.com/stdlib- js/stdlib/tree/develop/lib/node_modules/%40stdlib/string)</comment></comment></comment>


Jewish legacy inscribed on genes? - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/news/la-sci-jewish-iq18-2009apr18,0,3315759.story?track=ntothtml <comment><USER3> "But the idea that some groups of people are inherently smarter is troubling to many. Some scientists say it has such racist implications it's unworthy of consideration."

Why is this troubling? What are the racist implications? I thought being more intelligent is a virtue. Or are people afraid that, if there's someone who is smarter than average, clearly there must be someone else who is dumber? In any case, though, a hypothesis does not become more or less valid because of its political or social implications.

Everybody can see that blacks in general (or I suppose with a certain genetic history) can jump higher than average white. The average European descendent can jump higher than the average East Asian.

So what?! You still get Obama and you still get Yao Ming. As long as the rules are the same for everyone (as they should), it's all about individual effort and luck. The average is irrelevant for policy or social efforts. It should be only of scientific interest.

<comment><USER4> "Everybody can see" is exactly the problem. Can you really see? Can blacks really jump higher, or are there just more blacks playing basketball because it was the best way to get into a good college to play basketball (so more jumpers -> more high jumpers)? Are Europeans better in soccer than Americans because of their genes, or because more people play soccer in Europe, so it is more likely to discover the soccer talents?

Are blacks better musicians, because of their genes, or were there simply more black musicians because not many other professions were open to them - <USER2> there being so many good ones was just a result of statistics?

Are jews genetically disposed to be good with money lending, or are they good money lenders because they were not allowed to take on many other professions? So many jews became money lenders and ended up getting rich?

Not claiming that genes don't affect IQ, but to claim that it is not dangerous to talk about such things? I don't care much about jumping high, but if somebody would claim that my IQ is most likely 10 points less than that of somebody with another race, I would not like it much. I suppose you don't see many black scientists pushing the "genetic IQ" hypothesis. What is your race, just wondering?

Worse, as is explained very well in "The Logic Of Life" by Tim Harford, there is such a thing as rational racism. It goes like this: if employers expect on average black applicants to a job would be less qualified than whites, it would make economical sense for them to ignore black applications. In turn it would make sense for blacks to not care much for education, because employers will ignore them no matter what. It is explained better in the book (they run a test with randomly assigning black and white names to CVs, the CVs with black names received significantly less job interview invitations). Meaning: if it was known that a certain race had a lower IQ, it would be economical for employers to not consider them for good jobs, even if there could be occasional outliers of smarter people.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps "everybody can see" was a bit offhand, since I don't specialize in these matters. But the point I was trying to make actually was this: In general in daily life, we should not care about the average but about the individual. I'm East Asian born in Europe so I've been aware of all kinds of stereotypes from both sides, good and bad. And you know what: It's just a blur and too broad a brush to paint the picture of my life or my decisions or capabilities etc. Same for other people. Of course I make snap judgments about them if I don't know them but they usually have to do with demeanor, language, clothing, anything and race is no factor usually (unless on a basketball court ;)

As for your last paragraph, however, I've grappled with that too and actually did not come to any conclusion. Obviously, you build filters as you go through life. In fact, if you face the same type of decision problem over and over, it's probably better to make it on a statistical basis rather than evaluate always fresh. But where is the line to discrimination and actually pushing people (who unlike most things adapt) into your framework, I don't know. Positively, statistical decision-making is "accumulating experience" faster; negatively, it's stereotyping. I don't know where the line is.

Still, I hold the line that the fact and truth is what it is, and should not be influenced by "what happens if the conclusion is A?". If we're afraid of truth, whatever it is, then something deeper is wrong and we better try to repair this rather than doctor the truth or our perception of the world.

<comment><USER4> I am definitely in favor of not letting political correctness get in the way of research. Just thinking certain claims should be extremely well validated before they are being blurted out. And just because there is opposition to some "research" because of political correctness also doesn't imply the correctness of that research.

A flashback in history: some decades ago it was believed that the form of the skull could predict whether you are a criminal or not. Harmless research? Surely not, if you had the wrong kind of skull.

P.S.: I take it with Asian family background you are on the safe side of the race IQ debate, as Asians are deemed to have an higher IQ than Caucasians on average.

<comment><USER3> Come on, I don't see why the original authors were "blurting out" their hypothesis. From the article, it sounded like a normal, legitimate way to come up with something in the scientific research process. Science needs communication and as they themselves put it, they expect other researchers to examine the evidence more closely. Just to clarify this: I don't actually have an opinion on this issue; my problem is with the argument that somehow there is legitimate "overhead" to science in terms of social or political consequences or even people's personal pride. We are not in the middle ages anymore.

<comment><USER4> Sorry, didn't refer specifically to the research from that article, just to the general research surrounding race/IQ. I read the Bell Curve years ago (didn't find it as shocking as expected), and even bothered to dig up some of the articles on twin studies in the libraries (most not being that convincing after all, it is hard to find a lot of twins that were separated as kids). As for the article linked here it is hard to judge it based on the facts given in the article alone. Just wanted to say that it doesn't become more likely just because people are opposed to it out of political motivation.

Don't get your middle age reference: are you claiming that people don't have prejudices anymore? What about your "everyone can see" statement? People still have prejudices, and they affect peoples lives, often in a bad way. You think something like "recognising criminals by their skulls" could not happen anymore today? I think it could - just think of the immunisation/autism debate.

Edit Re "blurting out": there are so many silly claims with respect to genetics, it is so easy to claim things must be so and so because of genetics. Hence my "blurting out" blurt.

<comment><USER3> The middle age thing was just a reference to the general struggle between the church representation of the world and the emerging scientific approach. I agree with you on the racial prejudices. They are definitely not dead; many people seem to need them somehow. I suspect, though, that genetic profiling will become a more potent issue in the future.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sounds like pure speculation to me. But hey, the researcher has read 15 textbooks on genetics, so he must know what he is talking about. Not saying it is impossible, but there are a lot of other factors to consider, too.

<comment><USER5> It's far from speculation, very reasonable in fact. The genetic diseases were all related to fat metabolism. There have also been studies that show the quality of insulation on neurons (from fat) correlate strongly with intelligence. It's not a very big leap at all to see a connection between those disorders and increased intelligence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Jews didn't intermarry, keeping their gene pool closed. They were subjected to periodic persecution, which kept the population from outgrowing its professional niche."

It hasn't been pleasant, but we have to be smart in order to survive.

</comment><comment><USER7> This story is a perfect example of flawed logic that we see so often here on hn that whenever someone points it out, they immediately get downvoted.

So, one more time, here goes:

correlation != causation

It goes something like this...

"We have observed a and b together very often. Therefore, a must have caused b."

Kinda reminds me of the garbage strike in New York City years ago. Garbage piled up on the streets and rats appeared everywhere. One of these "experts" probably would have said, "Look at all the garbage these rats brought."

Maybe we need a new "correlation != causation" flag.

<comment><USER8>
       > Kinda reminds me of the garbage strike in New
       > York City years ago. Garbage piled up on the streets
       > and rats appeared everywhere. One of these "experts"
       > probably would have said, "Look at all the garbage
       > these rats brought."

:-) I also like: "Most traffic accidents are caused by people who have a driver's licence. Therefore, the driver's licence is responsible for traffic accidents."

<comment><USER4> Uh, actually the driver's license causation seems to make sense (in an environment where drivers have to have a driver's license). If yu took away all driver's licenses, accidents might go down. If you took away the rats, the garbage would stay.

<comment><USER8> well, if you take away _all_ driver's licences, I guess that includes the driver's licences of police officers. Which would make it relatively difficult to enforce the rule that "drivers have to have a driver's licence"... [Porsche vs police bicycle...] :-)

<comment><USER4> roadblocks?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> single page: [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci- jewish...](http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-jewish- iq18-2009apr18,0,4055412,full.story)</comment>


RetroMiner - Bitcoin Mining on an NES - <AUTHOR> http://retrominer.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought you guys might like this hack.</comment>


The EU Is Keeping Poor Countries Poor - <AUTHOR> https://fee.org/articles/the-eu-is-keeping-poor-countries-poor/ <comment><USER2> This is a razor-thin editorial drawing a tenuous connection between arguments against the EU's global agricultural trade policies to pro-Brexit parochialism. The author is "a Research Executive at Get Britain Out." The host publication receives hundreds of thousands of dollars of funding from the Koch Brothers.[1] The first thing that loads before the article is a full- screen modal advertising an Ayn Rand newsletter.

From the HN guidelines:

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're > evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Ideological or political battle > or talking points. [2]

How do stories like this keep making it to the front page?

[1] [https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Foundation_for_Economi...](https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Foundation_for_Economic_Education#Ties_to_the_Koch_Brothers)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER3> > How do stories like this keep making it to the front page?

In this case, it's probably because the decidedly pro-EU mainstream media rarely publish EU-critical articles. It's sad that so many truths that are fundamental to understand how the world works are only told by dubious organizations to further an unrelated agenda.

<comment><USER4> I have read dozens if not hundreds of EU-critical articles in the "mainstream media" during the last few decades. Maybe you should just read more, if you're missing EU critique. (Why people who already dislike the EU so badly want to read more critique of it is another matter - maybe to feel better?)

<comment><USER3> My point is that for every article that exposes EU protectionism, there are ten articles praising the importance of so-called "free trade".

<comment><USER4> And what's the problem with that? People are entitled to their opinions, including journalists writing editorials.

Besides, the whole EU critique is such an old hat. In the 80s and 90s there was overwhelming critique on the EU from the fringe left in many countries. Now it's also coming more from fringe right-wing parties. Apart from that, not much has changed. The same old story, using the EU as a scapegoat to get voters, while the majority does the right thing. Then, when those parties get to power, they usually change their mind in light of the facts. (Typical example: The Green party in Germany, which was, of course, very anti-EU in the 80s. Now it's the AfD from the right-wing with the same silly arguments.)

Anyway, stop blaming journalists for not sharing your opinion. It's not their role to please you, and if you want to hear what you already believe, there are plenty of 'non-mainstream' media, i.e., personal blogs and politically coloured news aggregation sites, to confirm your opinions.

The idea is patently absurd that people don't get enough choices in the media nowadays and therefore could be mislead.

<comment><USER3> The problem is that the mainstream media are, for the most part, rationalizing an economic order that keeps poor countries poor. It's hard to deny that policies imposed by the IMF on third world countries play a role in ruining their agriculture and harming industrial development, to the benefit of the EU bloc and other rich countries. Why shouldn't I blame journalists for not informing the public about the actual reasons why millions of people are kept in poverty? These issues never make the mainstream media headlines, so there's nothing absurd about the claim that people are systematically mislead.

Also, just because an argument is made by people from the far left or far right doesn't mean that it's wrong. Guilt by association is a cheap rhetorical device.

<comment><USER4> You're wrong, I believe. The EU does not keep poor countries poor. They are poor because of structural weakness of their economy or because they are in a transition phase. As I've said, there will always be poorer and richer regions in Europe, and this has nothing to do with the EU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's an opinion piece by someone who is "Research Executive at Get Britain Out".

So, propaganda.

<comment><USER6> Side Reference: Donors to fee.org (Foundation for Economic Education) [http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/foundation- for...](http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/foundation-for-economic- education/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The opening words of paragraph 2 are informative as to the bis of the source:

> As ever with the EU, the truth is much uglier.

The main thrust of the article may be correct, but broad-brushing every activity of an organisation like the EU in this way does not instil confidence.

<comment><USER8> The fact that it showed me a pop-up advert for an Ayn Rand book was also indicative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In other words water is wet. The Eu benefits the strongest predator ( the german conglomerates ). We can see it all over the europe how mainly germans bought and bribed everyone they could.</comment>


Behind the Scenes with Chicken Scheme and Spock (Part 2) - <AUTHOR> http://spin.atomicobject.com/2013/06/19/chicken-scheme-spock-part-2/?utm_source=twitter-sv

<comment><AUTHOR> Part 1 of the post ([http://spin.atomicobject.com/2013/05/02/chicken-scheme- part-...](http://spin.atomicobject.com/2013/05/02/chicken-scheme- part-1/?utm_source=sv)) focused on CHICKEN, this one focuses on SPOCK, a Scheme that compiles to JavaScript.

</comment><comment><USER2> For those who haven't heard of SPOCK (I hadn't), it's a BSD-licensed Scheme- to-JavaScript compiler based on Chicken Scheme:

[http://wiki.call-cc.org/eggref/4/spock](http://wiki.call- cc.org/eggref/4/spock)

</comment><comment><USER3> Best scheme implementation ever!</comment>


Steve Jobs or Kevin Flynn - <AUTHOR>

Not sure if I am the only one who sees the comparison here but I'm pretty sure Steve Jobs just rode his motorcycle to Flynn's arcade and went on to do something bigger. RIP <comment><USER2> I got the same vibe too. Just a vibe though, nothing more.</comment>


Variable identifiers can effectively include whitespace - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jagracey/Awesome-Unicode#user-content-variable-identifiers-can-effectively-include-whitespace <comment><USER2> After having looked 20 minutes through that, you convinced me. Unicode is indeed awesome.

</comment><comment><USER3> I shall use this for so many pranks :)) Awesome discovery dude.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't forget to redefine numbers!</comment></comment>


Laser-Heated Hard Drives Could Break Data Density Barrier - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/mar09/8367

<comment><USER2> Pretty spiffy, but is there an application? Massive storage is all well and good, but I don't know of anyplace where it's a limiting factor. Consumer harddrives seem far more likely to keep going to solid-state, I think. Is there some industry application that'd see significant benefits to a giant storage-density boost?</comment>


A Coloring Book about Group Theory - <AUTHOR> http://www.coloring-book.co <comment><USER2> Showed this to my wife (a math/physics high school teacher). She loved it! Not sure if she will use this in her STEAM club, but it is possible. Thanks for the link!

<comment><USER3> Ha! As it they would allow kids these days to even so much as look at a book that's not specifically designed to help them pass their standardized tests.

<comment><USER2> Happily not all teachers teach to the tests. STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Art Math) is all about trying to stoke interest in these paths. She's holding her first event today.

FWIW: I've seen districts where parents don't care, and she's student taught in some of these. It is terrible, as the kids aren't there to learn, the teachers are stressed out and unhappy, and the parents don't give a damn. The place where she is now is a college prep school. Hard core academic criteria to graduate, not just passing tests. Strong incentives from parents to kids to work hard, though not all do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not sure why it got flag-killed. I vouched it.

(The flagging system is in serious need of review or overhaul. At the very least, users should be required to provide a reason, which is then made publicly visible as anonymous comments.)

<comment><USER5> Nah, it's working fine. You vouched it. That's democracy, and one of my all- time favorite features of the site.

Mods also override flags and rollback the submission time on certain stories, particularly when they're substantive or offer new information.

FWIW, I couldn't figure out how to use this site. I tried scrolling down and clicking around and nothing was happening. Eventually I spotted the "next page" link at the very bottom, but I imagine some of the flags came due to similar reasons.

<comment><USER4> No, the problem is that if I had not vouched it when I did, it would probably have fallen off the front page and never seen by most of the readers. Timing makes a huge difference and that's why the feature is broken and regularly abused.

In any case, page usability has never been a valid reason for flagging a site. Flags are usually reserved for sites that are grossly off-topic, sleazy, etc. Which again makes me wish flag reasons were a thing.

<comment><USER6> Agree. I've decided to go mostly readonly and this is one of the reasons.

I now read HN mostly through either @hnrobot at Telegram or [http://hckrnews.com/](http://hckrnews.com/)

Both those will let me see everything I find interesting that has been posted while nit having to worry about checking twice an hour to catch interesting stories before they are flagged to death.

<comment><USER5> hckrnews is good. I like the linear nature. But look at the actual articles that are currently dead.

Their silly CSS makes it impossible to copy-paste and filter by [dead], but suffice to say the headlines aren't flattering. The system seems to be working quite well.

The idea that a massive amount of quality is slipping through the cracks due to flagging is suspect at best. Anyone who spends significant time on /new will know just how much cruft is caught by flags. You just don't see how well it's working because wading through /new is tedious (to put it very mildly).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Not about group theory _per se_ , but a nice illustration of some translations, rotations and reflections applied to 2D shapes, which have group-theoretic descriptions (that we can learn about in some other book).

<comment><AUTHOR> (I'm the author) I've really been struggling with how to frame it! It has group theory concepts but is really about symmetry and other parts of math. I'm looking for ideas of how to talk about it and frame it -- please share your thoughts!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The small animation when changing page makes me dizzy and almost sick. Might want to remove that and allow regular scroll. The "pages" are not even full height, you still need to scroll anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> (author here) Thanks for the feedback. The idea was to mimic flipping through the pages of a book.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not free, but related + possibly complementary: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11745486](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11745486)

</comment><comment><USER10> This is awesome, but can't I just buy the thing?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's still a work in progress so it's not yet published, but it will be by the end of the year! Thanks for asking! Until then you can print the PDF for free or play online: [http://coloring-book.co/book.pdf](http://coloring- book.co/book.pdf)

<comment><USER11> Are you the author? This is a great idea - I've been thinking about doing this with graph theory.

Here's an example:

[https://plus.google.com/+AlexKudlick/posts/MWNRWTRATgA](https://plus.google.com/+AlexKudlick/posts/MWNRWTRATgA)

I've been building tools lately; for now, a graph editor.

Hit me up if you're interested in talking about tools for creating this sort of content, I'd be interested to know more about your approach.

My email is in my profile.

<comment><USER12> My kids enjoyed this: [http://jdh.hamkins.org/math-for-eight-year- olds/](http://jdh.hamkins.org/math-for-eight-year-olds/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is awesome. I've never really understood group theory before, but this helps a lot

</comment><comment><USER14> wait, is the thing in the shapes & symmetry page a dragonfly? Don't dragonflies have a thinner body and longer more separated wings? [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/Me...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ef/Mesurupetala%2C_dragonfly%2C_Late_Late_Jurassic%2C_Tithonian_Age%2C_Solnhofen_Lithographic_Limestone%2C_Solnhofen%2C_Bavaria%2C_Germany_- _Houston_Museum_of_Natural_Science_-_DSC01817.JPG/440px-thumbnail.jpg)

<comment><AUTHOR> I wish I had had an earlier consultation from an insect specialist. Thank you for catching that!

<comment><USER15> You never asked!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Any prerequisites? Age or education? Can this be given to high school kids?

<comment><USER17> Try reading it. Definitely accessible to HS kids if not younger.

<comment><USER18> And they won't learn any group theory from it.

<comment><USER17> Why do you think that?

The basic ideas of group theory are definitely accessible to grade schoolers, and even the fancier parts of an undergraduate group theory course (Sylow theorems, etc.) are accessible to high school students who go through the work.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Nathan Carter's lovely book _Visual Group Theory_ to any bright 15 year old. But for a (say) 10-year-old, just learning about the symmetries of shapes and tilings is plenty of useful and interesting math.

<comment><USER18> The Sylow theorems are by no means "fancy". If you don't understand them, then you don't know group theory, plain and simple.

Now, we can debate the merits of exposing children to groups before they can understand group theory. But learning group _theory_ means learning (0) the axiomatic definitions of group, subgroup, coset, etc. (1) the main theorems in group theory and their proofs.

<comment><AUTHOR> some of those things are on the book's Theory Reference page, which is linked to be some of the underlined concepts in the book: [http://www.coloring- book.co/#!/theory-reference](http://www.coloring-book.co/#!/theory-reference)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Why do sites still hijack the back button?

<comment><USER8> They also hijack the scroll for a hard to see "next page" button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Warning: on Chrome, anyway, this is a clicktrap from which you cannot back- navigate out.

<comment><USER21> Same in firefox

<comment><USER22> Also coloring doesn't work, and uBlock Origin kills the app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A "book on group theory" with no reference to the Sylow theorems, Lagrange's theorem or Cayley's theorem?

Maybe this should be called "a book that illustrates gadgets that happen to have group structure".

<comment><USER23> According to the author the book is still work in progress, it would be more productive to raise an issue or make a PR on github.

[https://github.com/aberke/coloring-book](https://github.com/aberke/coloring- book)

<comment><USER24> The problem is that the author of the book and the previous comment are talking about different books with a different scope, because each one has a different idea of what "group theory" means, it depends a lot of your background.

This book is about symmetry and group definitions, but it has no or very little details about generic properties of groups.

The previous comment is about a book that no one has written, that is a coloring book for students of a math major in the university, probably in the 2nd or 3rd year. In this (unwritten) book the idea is to study the general theorems about groups, and in each case give some visual examples to color and apply the theorem.

<comment><USER18> Only one of those is group _theory_.

<comment><USER24> As a mathematician, I agree. But when you talk with people that work in the applications, they usually have weird definitions.

In particular, in this book they don't use $Z_2$ that is the usual notation in math (at least here). They use $C_2$ that is more usual in physics. And for the selection of the groups I guess the author has some interest in crystallography.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes the motivation was crystallography and giving a small amount of group theory background was about providing the groundwork for talking about it.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Women in startups...Where are they? - <AUTHOR>

I've noticed that all of the "Leader" postings are, or seem to be(by screen name) male, and was wondering where all the women are? if you're female  hacker let me/us know your thoughts... <comment><USER2> Here are some stats showing that younger women are closing the gender gap in high tech startups (although there's still a long way to go)

[http://libraryhouse.net/blog/2007/05/16/younger-women- close-...](http://libraryhouse.net/blog/2007/05/16/younger-women-close-gender- gap/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I bet women are asking the same question about guys on their Mika message boards.

<comment><USER4> What is a Mika?

<comment><USER3> (typing over the hoards of screaming girls that are messaging me in his forum right now)

Mika is almost like a certain children's television show character, except instead of a purple dinosaur, you have a Nick Carter-pre Tommy Lee phase substitute.

It's where I go to wind down.

<comment><USER4> blored, ever heard of Prince Albert in a bottle?

<comment><USER3> not really

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We're here, and we perceive heirarchies differently than you do.

<comment><USER6> how so?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> <http://augustsfnewtech.eventbrite.com/></comment>


Pepsi explain why you'll never find a mouse in Mountain Dew - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-cetera/pepsi-explain-why-youll-never-find-a-mouse-in-mountain-dew-2012015/ <comment><USER2> It really should come as no surprise that a citrus-based beverage contains acid. I imagine this trial will spark a cry of "what is this doing to my body!?". It's citric acid. Mt Dew is not a healthy drink, but many "all natural" drinks and foods have a great deal of acid as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> So my first thought here is to do a mythbusters type of experiment with a mouse and can of mountain dew and see if it proves true.

<comment><USER4> PETA might have a fit. But I'd be interested to see the results.

<comment><USER5> Mythbusters use pigs frequently, and if PETA has had a fit, it wasn't a big enough one for them to care, apparently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Did he not take any pictures before they came and took the mouse? I find that odd. I would certainly taken pictures of what came out of the can.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm sure they use really good strainers!

</comment><comment><USER8> This just in: acidic cola drinks will dissolve things over a long enough period of time! Stay tuned for our shocking revelation that water is wet.

<comment><USER9> MD isn't a cola drink.</comment></comment>


Google's policy of banning Android apps without giving a reason has to stop - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/+MikeWallaceDev/posts/PUJ2qyRvTj3

<comment><USER2> This goes for any google product, adwords, adsense, g+ accounts, gmail accounts and so on. Why would your android app developer status be treated any different?</comment>


A "Rat" Every 14 Seconds: Analyzing NYC 311 Calls - <AUTHOR> https://www.omnisci.com/blog/a-rat-every-14-seconds-analyzing-nyc-311-calls <comment><USER2> I made a front end to search for individual buildings' rat inspection records. Working on predicting risk too - needs some tuning, the "rat model" is less accurate than the one for code violations, which you can try now.

[https://beta.getaugrented.com](https://beta.getaugrented.com)

<comment><USER3> Now for LA

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love it! Will try to make a request for the same type of data from Oslo municipality (Norway). We have a law where they have to hand over the data. Think we have a lot to learn from NYC.

<comment><USER5> > Will try to make a request for the same type of data from Oslo municipality > (Norway). We have a law where they have to hand over the data.

Is asking them to spend time getting this data for you honestly a good use of precious public money?

<comment> yjftsjthsd-h Transparency is _always_ a good use of resources.

<comment><USER5> Always? No exceptions? You can't conceive of any situation whatsoever that spending time responding to a frivolous freedom of information request is a better use of a civil servant's time over meeting an actual immediate need of a member of the public?

<comment><USER6> Freedom of information is not frivolous.

<comment><USER5> I can see you editing your comment out from underneath my response, removing your abuse of public servants.

No individual freedom of information request can be frivolous? I can't understand how someone can think it can never be a waste of finite time and resources to respond to a request.

<comment><USER7> Transparency does not inherently require a request.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is it acceptable to have unmarked advertisements on HN?

<comment><USER9> I like questions that show how useful it is to have only one thing you're optimizing for. They're easy to answer and the answers are sometimes surprising.

On HN, the only thing we're optimizing for intellectual curiosity, so to the degree that a post gratifies intellectual interest, it's fine. Actually you can take this even further. If the 30 most interesting things on HN happened to be ads, then the best front page that day would be all ads. Of course that won't likely happen before HN (or the universe) ends.

The problem with content marketing is that it tends to be lame. If someone produces a genuinely interesting article in the genre of "we used our product to do X", that's not only ok, it's interesting in another way too: "we managed to make content marketing not be boring".

One thing that's _not_ ok, of course, is for people to get others to upvote their content marketing in order to promote it. But that applies to every submission. And the votes on this story look clean.

<comment><USER10> As a good example, I remember a whole string of _great_ Priceonomics articles showing up on HN—well-written, interesting investigations into cool topics. They might have been part of a content marketing campaign, but they were also consistently in the top 10% of articles I saw on the front page.

<comment><USER11> And they were mostly all plagiarized from other sources.

<comment><USER12> dang and the other moderators are happy to update submissions to original sources when folks leave a comment and the original source better satisfies HN's goals.

But I do acknowledge that's a relatively recent change (last few years).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm just glad NYC 311 turned out to be useful for someone.

<comment><USER14> I actually had an experience where 311 was extremely useful! A couple of years back, my grandmother visited New York, and when we got back to her hotel after dinner, she realized she had forgotten get pocketbook in the cab. Since I had paid for it with my credit card, I was able to get the cab number from my bank's app, but I was stuck without a way to get the cab driver's contact information. I was fairly new to New York at the time, so I didn't actually know about 311, but the hotel concierge recommended I try it, and I was able to get the phone number of the garage for the cab. I called them and let them know what happened, and they called the driver and gave him my phone number, and he drove back to return the pocketbook. I'm not sure if there were any other ways of looking up the garage from the cab number (I spent a good amount of time googling without any luck), but 311 was able to do exactly that, which was pretty astonishing to us.

<comment><USER13> That's a good story, and I'm glad again, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> cached: [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tPeRrJ...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:tPeRrJpSRHsJ:https://www.omnisci.com/blog/a-rat- every-14-seconds-analyzing- nyc-311-calls+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari)

<comment><USER16> And for basically an advertisement for the Omnisci product written by a "developer advocate" (which we used to call a solutions architect at Sun but was really just a sales person).

TL;DR version - If you can import your data into our product [here let us show you how] you can visualize many different things [here let us show you how] and using your new insights take actionable steps [here let us show you how.]

I keep hoping for the equivalent of the Jepson call me maybe series but for data visualization packages. That and perhaps a 'youtube of data' which are data sets loaded into a common visualization framework so that you can browse different data sets like you do videos on Youtube.

<comment><USER17> I, too, would like to see the OmniSci Community team make a Call Me Maybe lip sync. I'll post the suggestion in their Slack channel (disclosure: I'm an engineer at OmniSci).

A challenge for us with a "YouTube of Data" is that our backend requires GPU instances for the dataviz that we focus on. Scaling that to YouTube heights would take a really well concerted effort, more than a fun side project. We've talked about the idea a lot though. Our backend (OmniSciDB) is open sourced so anyone else could do it with their own resources and a custom dataviz client.

I know I'm sounding like a commercial, but I thought you might actually like an answer. That's basically how we play with the app internally. I like using our Pokémon data set for debugging whenever possible :-)

Our paying customers are big enterprises right now who are well supported by the kind of sales team you'd expect. Our Community team is totally separate from sales and they genuinely likes helping people use our open source offering, hence the demo. We're pretty happy for Sean that his post made HN.

But yeah, we're still a business. But we're kind of a family too. And data junkies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Other threads on NYC 311 calls:

2018: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18316622](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18316622)

2010: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1870111](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1870111)

<comment><USER18> Unrelated, but one of my favorite things about HN is going back and reading old threads like this. It's a fascinating anthropology of how we view tech over time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is awesome. Love seeing people dive into publicly accessible data, make sense of it, and highlight features which really stand out.

Good use of a data set and illustrates what's possible.</comment>


Larry Page's 2012 CEO Update - <AUTHOR> http://investor.google.com/corporate/2012/ceo-letter.html

<comment><USER2> "It may sound nuts, but I've found that it's easier to make progress on mega- ambitious goals than on less risky projects. Few people are crazy enough to try, and the best people always want to work on the biggest challenges. We've also found that "failed" ambitious projects often yield other dividends."

Loved this comment! Out of curiosity, are there any other failures at Google (apart from the ones he mentioned) that are used for different purpose than the one intended?

<comment><USER3> Code Search is no longer public, but we use it internally. It's great for developer productivity to be able to search millions of lines of code in a second. (On my first day, I did a search for jrockway and found code I wrote at a company that Google bought. Yay!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "In addition, we gave many of our products, such as Google Search, a visual refresh, and they now have a cleaner, more consistent, and beautiful look. "

This is just bizarre.

As pg said in his essay "Ambitious Startups"

"Google used to give me a page of the right answers, fast, with no clutter. Now the results seem inspired by the Scientologist principle that what's true is what's true for you. And the pages don't have the clean, sparse feel they used to. Google search results used to look like the output of a Unix utility. Now if I accidentally put the cursor in the wrong place, anything might happen."

<comment><USER5> I agree. "Clean" in terms of design seems to have become a word that's tossed about without too much meaning attached to it.

Whatever claims other you make (faster return times, less time spent on search results what not), there is no way it can be described as "cleaner". They have got more cluttered, but it is up for discussion if this clutter is good or bad. For some, like PG, it's a bad thing. I personally like +1s and social results.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What I find interesting is that there's no mention of "organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and useful".

<comment><USER7> I understand your point, but it is pretty clear that the topic comes up multiple times in the letter, most obviously in

> There is a huge amount of data in the world that isn't publicly available > today. Showing it in our results involves deep partnerships across different > industries in many countries. It's very similar to the work we did to get > Google Maps off the ground.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "So the one-sentence summary of how to change the world… work on something that is uncomfortably exciting!"

</comment><comment><USER9> What about quality?

</comment><comment><USER10> As an ex-googler, that was the funniest thing I've read all week...

<comment><USER11> Elaborate

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This was definitely a letter for the Pinks. I found it hard to take seriously.

</comment><comment><USER13> Just the length and number of headings put me off.

</comment><comment><USER14> Note the shortest section in that whole thing is about the employees. A company is nothing without its employees. Interesting.

<comment><USER15> I find this interesting because Google is still famous for having famous hiring practices and is considered by the general public to have THE top tech talent in the largest amounts (although that may no longer be true).

Seems employees and hiring would be important...</comment></comment>


Show HN: UserNurture.com Feedback Requested - <AUTHOR> Hi Everyone,
Im in the early stages of launching a new saas product. I was hoping to get the eyeballs of the HackerNews community to see if you guys can quickly perceive the value proposition and might see a need for it based on the landing page I've created.
You can find it at www.usernurture.com
I've already got a list of 100 people who gave their emails as potential beta users and I'm going through contacting them one by one to create the user stories that will ultimately drive the functionality of the software.
Would love to get any additional tips, insight, watchouts, impressions you may have.
As always Thanks HN Community! <comment><USER2> It's an interesting concept, yet without a prototype or mockup or video, it is hard to comment beyond the landing page. Because it only asks for an email, it doesn't convey much about the product...and for me as a person with casual interest, sign up for more information calls to action create a negative impression because my experience has been that providing an email address creates an incentive toward monetizing at the expense of the harder work of actually building a product.

Anyway, good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks brudgers, all great commentary you'll hear no argument from me.

The landing page was the starting point to get the ball rolling. We've had signups and I've been conducting customer interviews and surveys since its been up to deepen my understanding of the core problems.

I definitely could have jumped ahead and launched an MVP with the landing page but some of my conversations thus far have already impacted what we plan to launch with.

Hopefully the landing page wasn't too off putting that you might consider checking back in on our progress. I'll be sure to share with HN as we release the prototype and mvp.</comment></comment>


Is the end of Netflix's golden age in sight? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jan/01/is-this-the-end-of-netflixs-golden-age <comment><USER2> Netflix would have dominated the Cannes Film Festival this year, but the french producers threw them out. So they dominated the Venice Film Festival a few months later, with the best film of the year "Roma", the best screenwriting with the new Coen Brothers movie on Netflix, and the best Italian drama. This caused a similar uproar in Italy as in France before, the Director of the Italian Producers had to resign, because he had co-produced the Italian Netflix movie.

Such hit pieces by the film industry will appear again and again, they are in big trouble. Last year the best film of the year was from Amazon ("Manchester by the Sea"), the big studios cannot produce anything of value anymore. Same thing happened with the TV shows before: "Sopranos", "Mad Men" not made in any big studio.

So the article should rather question the demise of the big studios who cannot attract any talent anymore.</comment>


Meetup in Boston - <AUTHOR>

I'm in the process of looking for co-founders, and I thought it would be very constructive to organize some kind of meet up in Boston.  Anyone out there interested in swapping experience, and maybe a beer or two? <comment><USER2> Yea I'm interested, always nice to meet new people in the community

My name is Elliot, I'm a rails guy and UI designer.

</comment><comment><USER3> Might be useful to include your name, credentials, background, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, my name is Steve I'm a .NET developer currently working for a company that specializes in developing large data websites, and CMS implementations. I also have experience with PHP, and a little bit of ROR. I'm leaning towards ASP.NET for the ease of creating web services, and my own familiarity with it.</comment></comment>


Elon Musk on Entrepreneurship - <AUTHOR> http://vimeo.com/13915685

<comment><USER2> Elon concludes the interview saying that starting a company is like "eating glass and staring at the abyss of death".</comment>


My First Day with Go - <AUTHOR> http://ruoyusun.com/2013/08/31/my-first-day-with-go.html

<comment><USER2> This is a great place to find go packages

[http://go-search.org/](http://go-search.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> IntelliJ has plugin for Golang and it works - even with autocompletion and syntax check. Not without bugs, but IDE is very good.

</comment><comment><USER4> Basic Go rule: when googling, always use "golang".</comment>


Show HN: A simple script to help with those abstract Mac application names - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nathancahill/python-scripts

<comment><USER2> Thanks for this! A quick note that if you're using Alfred, it reads Spotlight comments too although I haven't tested it to see what effect it has on results.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool! I was disappointed that Quicksilver doesn't index Spotlight comments. Glad to hear Alfred works.</comment></comment>


NIH Spending vs. Diseases That Kill Us - <AUTHOR> http://moalquraishi.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/nih-spending-versus-diseases-that-kill-us/ <comment><USER2> As a physician and researcher, I look at these and see two categories: poor decision-making and genuine molecular biology problems.

Heart disease, COPD, and type 2 diabetes are tractable now. Eat less, don't smoke, exercise. The other diseases are horrible luck played out at the molecular level. Type I diabetes belongs in this other category.

HIV treatment is pretty well at a management phase. A vaccine would be great, but this goes to the general problem of human molecular biology still being not entirely known. Funding is to some extent molecular biology research.

Cancer is a molecular biology problem. Same as HIV.

Neuromuscular diseases are molecular biology problems.

My dad has prostate cancer. I'm working on prostate cancer. But the studies involves pathways in the embryogenesis of fruit flies and tested in zebra fish, and a lot of the work on these pathways has been funded by breast cancer research, agriculture companies, DoD looking for dual use agents, all sorts of weird cross-talk.

Meh.

</comment><comment><USER3> The very interesting linked article only counts death, not suffering, lost employment or quality of life, as charted factors. Because the ultimate issues are political, a chart that included these factors would be more informative.

<comment><USER4> Some data for you:

[http://www.chronicdiseaseimpact.com/](http://www.chronicdiseaseimpact.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some items for context:

1) Almost all high risk, new, next generation early stage research is funded by philanthropy. Major funding institutions won't give anyone money unless they can essentially demonstrate a proof of concept, and that what they have works. Similarly the for profit world doesn't tend to fund high risk new fields, but steps in at about the same point as public institutional funding.

2) Almost all funded research for the major killers involve diseases of aging, and almost all of that research is aimed highly inefficient ways of producing marginal gains. Which is to say that researchers work backwards from the very complex end state of a disease, attempting to produce a treatment from each new proximate cause they uncover. These treatments largely involve attempts to manipulate a very complex and poorly understood state of metabolism / biology. Only a very, very tiny slice of all this research funding goes towards prevention or repair or other ways to address the root causes of these diseases of aging, which is to say the processes aging itself. Until this changes, progress is only very loosely coupled to levels of funding. You can spend a bunch of money paying people to drain a lake with spoons, or you could spend a lot less doing something better and more effective, and that's really a fair analogy for where medical research is with respect to the diseases of aging. A disruption is underway, but it is going very slowly, as things tend to in the research world, and hasn't yet had much of an impact on the bulk of the mainstream.

<comment><USER5> Re #1, you are mostly correct that only philanthropic organizations will accept grants that are explicitly high-risk. But the way it works in practice is that most investigators write a NIH grant with conservative aims, then use the money however they want, including projects they see as high-risk, high- reward.

Re #2, from our previous conversations I know that you and I would both like to see increased funding for aging research. Still, you must agree that there are many ways to treat heart disease, cancer, etc, without addressing the aging connection. To give a simplistic example: the heart is a pump, and you can fix it either by identifying and preventing age-related damage, or simply by repairing or replacing the heart itself, e.g. with an artificial heart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's far more interesting (IMHO) is research spending vs disease/condition costs.

For example, diabetes may not be the primary cause of your death, but you (or someone on your behalf) will spend a LOT of money managing the condition & associated complications.

</comment><comment><USER7> The title is completely bogus. The chart is of private donations as far as I can tell, NIH expenditures are completely different. I havent tried to tally the figures across the various diseasecategories, but heart disease is huge, aids is quite large, while breast cancer is more modest.

[http://report.nih.gov/categorical_spending.aspx](http://report.nih.gov/categorical_spending.aspx)

<comment><USER8> Doesn't this post attempt to make a corrected chart using that data?</comment></comment>