Tweet in bold, italics and strikethrough text - <AUTHOR> https://tweetfancy.io <comment><USER2> and then blind people won't be able to read said tweets

<comment><USER3> Yes all you hear from a screen-reader is 'Mathematical bold $someletter' instead of the actual word. Although I've been told some screen-readers attempt to convert those glyphs into ASCII or otherwise _normalize_ them.</comment></comment>


The Future of Work in the Age of the Machine (Brookings Institute Conference) - <AUTHOR> http://www.hamiltonproject.org/events/the_future_of_work_in_the_age_of_the_machine/ <comment><USER2> Interesting point: "when we think about how technology interacts with labor market we think of substitution of labor with machinery. [...] What is neglected is that it complements us as well. Many activities require a mixture of things. it requires a mixture of information process and creativity, motor power and dexterity. if those things need to be done together if you make one cheaper and more productive, you increase the value of the other."

Transcribed here [http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/one-where-larry- summers...](http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/one-where-larry-summers- demolished-robots-and-skills-arguments)</comment>


The Psychology of Security (2008) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/academic/paperfiles/paper-psychology-of-security.pdf <comment><USER2> > People exaggerate spectacular but rare risks and downplay common risks.

I've met multiple people who claim to know someone who only survived a car crash because that person didn't wear a seatbelt and was able to "jump out". Based on that, they think it's actually safer to not wear one.

This is so ridiculous it almost makes me angry.

<comment><USER3> > People exaggerate spectacular but rare risks and downplay common risks.

I've heard it said that when you hear about some event in the news (burglary, kidnapping, etc...) you almost should _not_ worry about it -- the very reason that it's being reported in the news is almost always because it's a rare and unlikely event.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Related, _Folk Models of Home Computer Security_ , [http://www.rickwash.com/papers/rwash-homesec- soups10-final.p...](http://www.rickwash.com/papers/rwash-homesec- soups10-final.pdf)

 _> Home computer systems are insecure because they are administered by untrained users. The rise of botnets has amplified this problem; attackers compromise these computers, aggregate them, and use the resulting network to attack third parties. Despite a large security industry that provides software and advice, home computer users remain vulnerable. I identify eight 'folk models' of security threats that are used by home computer users to decide what security software to use, and which expert security advice to follow: four conceptualizations of 'viruses' and other malware, and four conceptualizations of 'hackers' that break into computers. I illustrate how these models are used to justify ignoring expert security advice._</comment>


This molecular sensor fits in your hand, reads your food  - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/02/tech/innovation/molecular-sensor-fits-in-your-hand/index.html?hpt=hp_bn5 <comment><USER2> The perfect device for detecting chaumas and chaumurky at the dinner table!</comment>


Facebook now offering "test accounts" for app developers - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/11/17/facebook-test-users/

<comment><USER2> The article is a bit misleading. Test accounts have been available to developers for a while, but the system of creating them is being replaced by one where they are created with the Graph API.

</comment><comment><USER3> Test accounts that can interact with real users are available to anyone with a digital camera, a government ID, and The Gimp.</comment>


'Star Wars' Episode 7: Carrie Fisher To Return As Princess Leia - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/03/06/star-wars-episode-7-carrie-fisher_n_2817168.html?utm_hp_ref=uk?ncid=GEP <comment><USER2> When Carrie Fisher was cast as Princess Leia in 1976, the reason was simple -- she could be hired for almost nothing.

Carrie Fisher is being cast as Princess Leia in 2013 for the same reason -- she can be hired for almost nothing.

Nevertheless, I think a lot of people will see her casting as a perfect choice -- I certainly will.

</comment><comment><USER3> I also heard that Harrison Ford is going to be coming back too, I'm not sure if I should be excited or afraid. I just don't want to be disappointed.</comment>


Bruce Sterling: Fantasy Prototypes And Real Disruption [video] - <AUTHOR> http://nextberlin.eu/2013/04/bruce-sterling-fantasy-prototypes-and-real-disruption/

<comment><USER2> Wow, is it easier or harder to go to a conference in a different country and call out all the attendees as doing the wrong thing, being complicit in pseudo-colonialism, and needing to change their tact? Large balls, this man.

Edit: Is it just me, or is there this underlying current of hostility coming from him. He says ingratiating things the the attendees occasionally ("you're smart", "you're an organized group"), but it feels like he's mocking them somewhat.

<comment><USER3> The mocking, crotchety tone is Sterling's thing. I appreciate the critique of the scene that I have been working in and around.

<comment><USER2> So, asking him to speak is sort of like inviting a subtle insult comic? :)

I can see a use for that. If you can get someone that has a true insight into your industry, and can combine that with the ability to subtly (or not subtly, whatever works) get you to reassess some of the less useful industry behavior, there can be a real benefit. A keynote speech at an industry event also becomes one of the best avenues for delivery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> tl;dw:

Design fiction orgs to look up: Superflux, Near Future Lab, Arup Foresight, Royal College of Art, Art Center College of Design, Arizona State University eMerge.

Don't need to write science fiction about future possibilities, just make a low-budget high-polish design fiction film and release it online.

Science fiction is a form of fiction, design fiction is a form of design.

The cycle: question mark -> rising star -> cash cow -> dead dog. Those that live by disruption die by disruption.

In the startup world you work hard and move fast to make other people rich. Then these financiers buy governments and destroy the middle class with "austerity."

</comment><comment><USER4> This is like a beat poetry version of "Who moved my cheese?"

</comment><comment><USER2> Annoyingly, there's no volume control on the embedded video.

<comment><USER5> The original source does have one: [http://nextberlin.eu/2013/04/bruce- sterling-fantasy-prototyp...](http://nextberlin.eu/2013/04/bruce-sterling- fantasy-prototypes-and-real-disruption/)</comment></comment>


Meltdowns at NSA spy data center destroy equipment, delay opening - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/10/meltdowns-at-nsa-spy-data-center-destroy-equipment-delay-opening

<comment><USER2> I am having trouble imagining what would cause a two foot arc within a server?

I've never heard of this issue among other high performance server racks. What could the NSA be doing that is consistently causing this issue?</comment>


Show HN: I implemented seamless copy and paste of images, and wrote a tutorial - <AUTHOR> https://erkaman.github.io/posts/poisson_blending.html <comment><AUTHOR> In this artice, I describe a technique that can be used to seamlessly copy- and-paste one image into another. I also provide source code([https://github.com/Erkaman/poisson_blend](https://github.com/Erkaman/poisson_blend)), that demonstrates the concepts in the article.

<comment><USER2> Looks very cool, am I correct in thinking this won't produce images that are seamless without a good mask to go along with the image?

If that's the case I'd be curious to see how it works with masks generated with e.g. photoshops smart edge detection.

<comment><USER3> Check the masks here, compare them with those that you can generate fast and then please write about what you've found:

[https://github.com/Erkaman/poisson_blend/tree/master/img](https://github.com/Erkaman/poisson_blend/tree/master/img)

I'd also like to read what you can conclude.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The blurriness around the edges gives it away --- and blurring the edges is incidentally the same technique that Photoshoppers use when they can't quite get the borders right.

</comment><comment><USER5> For people that already work with ImageMagick and would prefer an ImageMagick Poisson blend solution, this is a great resource:

[http://im.snibgo.com/seamlpm.htm](http://im.snibgo.com/seamlpm.htm)

It contains the windows .bas script that makes ImageMagick implement Poisson blending. It should be easily enough portable to shell code.</comment>


Grasshopper 500ft Hovering - <AUTHOR> https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starhopper-flawless-final-flight-second-try/ <comment><USER2> OK, that was the worst headline ever. It's not "grasshopper" (a previous test rocket for SpaceX), it's "Starhopper" (a test device for their newest rocket). And it's not 500 feet, it's 500 meters, or about 3 times that high. Awesome video!

<comment><USER3> Actually it was 500 feet or around 150 meters.</comment></comment>


Human children are the best learning machines in the universe. - <AUTHOR> http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/gopnik09/gopnik09_index.html#video

<comment><USER2> seriously, the whole universe? better than a vulcan or borg baby? A few days ago, an HN article claims "my dog is smarter than my child". I just don't know what to believe anymore.

<comment><USER3> Don't forget about the story of the problem solving bird posted this week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We should make more, then. All the time, or at least try.

</comment><comment><USER5> It is great that the full transcript for the video is shown on the web page.

I never bother to sit though a whole video. I can read much faster than anyone can speak.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think children learns fast for necessity. We could do the same. I see proofs every day in Italy where immigrants learn italian in a few months without school and only for necessity.

<comment><USER7> You also pick up a new programming language or framework much faster if you are forced to learn it for work or study than you do by choice.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Build Server Alarm/Siren/Toy - <AUTHOR>

I read somewhere a while back about a wifi product that talks to your build server and sounds an alarm or does something funny when a build fails...  Anyone know what I am talking about or where to find this thing?  I tried googling it but couldn't find it. <comment><USER2> This is trivial to build. Buy an Ardunio [1] and add a WaveShield [2]. Build them.

Create an SD card with a bunch of interesting alarm sounds. There are lots on- line, if you're lame you can walk out of an alarmed door with your phone in 'sound recorder' mode.

Now write a 'sketch' (its a program but they call them sketches) which runs a simple loop that watches the serial port and takes requests to play various sound files from the SD card. It could have the syntax where it prints

        Ready>

To the serial port in response to a carraige return. And if you send it:

        p soundfile<cr>

It plays that sound file.

Now on your server when the build breaks include this in the script that watches it.

        echo '\n\np alarm.wav' > /dev/ttyUSB1

when it gets an error.

Oh and you will want to connect the Waveshield to a speaker of some sort. Simplest is to dig up an unused pair of powered PC speakers but the Waveshield's amp can drive a simple 8 ohm speaker as well.

Have fun!

[1] <http://www.makershed.com/product_p/mksb013.htm>

[2] <https://www.adafruit.com/products/94>

</comment><comment><USER3> Where I work we use CruiseControl.net and using their tool CCTray, we have rigged a red revolving light to a X11 port so that when a build fails, we are warned that there is an emergency with the light. It's really easy to set up and I've seen other kind of hacks using CruiseControl.net if you can set it up (or if you are already using it)

Kind of the same thing built with a pair of lava lamps : [http://www.pragmaticautomation.com/cgi- bin/pragauto.cgi/Moni...](http://www.pragmaticautomation.com/cgi- bin/pragauto.cgi/Monitor/Devices/BubbleBubbleBuildsInTrouble.rdoc)</comment>


Understanding Linux CPU Load - <AUTHOR> http://blog.scoutapp.com/articles/2009/07/31/understanding-load-averages

<comment><USER2> This neglects open handles.

Systems whose primary role is serving data requests, typically databases, webservers, and fileservers, can see high load but it is driven by IO rather than processing. Similarly, disk contention and or swapping can also result in high load.

Lesson: also look at iowait, swapping, and VM statistics.</comment>


Self-Control Is Just Empathy with Your Future Self - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/self-control-is-just-empathy-with-a-future-you/509726/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> This seems like trivialization. The concept of future self emerges from the larger context of executive function which includes comprehension of a situation, possible outcomes and metrics for rating their desirability, and plans for reaching desirable outcomes including preconditions, required steps, and possible additional consequences of taking action. There is a lot more going on there besides mere empathy with projected future self even if that is central.</comment>


Craigslist Now Charging for Service Ads - <AUTHOR> https://diapmedia.com/craigslist-charging-more-fees/ <comment><AUTHOR> I had recently renewed a free service posting and was wondering why I had not received any work. Craigslist didn't send me an email, they just took down my post and waited for me to notice...

I think it will improve the quality of service listings dramatically. I happily paid the $5 fee, but their lack of communication with registered users is odd.</comment>


My genetics are making me miserable - <AUTHOR>

I just turned 25 several weeks ago, and I just became aware that I'm losing my hair (male pattern baldness)...I feel like an old man already and I still have 50+ years in this world (give or take)!
I always assumed as I got older things would start to go wrong, but at 25 I feel like this is way too early for me to be losing my hair...it's making me extremely miserable, especially the fact that no one in my family ever mentioned it to me and it's supposedly been happening over the last few years, which made me think maybe it's work/stress related, but maybe that's just me being in denial of my own genetics...my mother's father was a victim of MPB, and that's usually who you inherit it from.
Is anyone else in the same boat?  How do you cope with getting older/things not going your way?  This situation is making me extremely depressed and I can't seem get passed it <comment><USER2> Just turned 26, been loosing hair since middle school (16-17), a few more years and I'll be rockin' a Balmer look :)

How I cope with it? I've accepted the situation a long time ago and I don't let it get to me anymore (it did when I was younger tho, had huge self- confidence problems because of it).

Hair isn't all that important, just be a good person... :)

Maybe watch the patrick stewart interview, maybe it'll help a bit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXOK- ZVJMaU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXOK-ZVJMaU) ;)</comment>


Profit Profit Profit - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/08/23/arrington

<comment><USER2> Not everyone needs to be Apple, or to do things the Apple way. Apple makes big margins on their $500 hardware. Why can't HP or some other company be profitable by making small margins on $200 hardware, moving a lot of units, and taking a cut of app sales?

<comment><USER3> HPQ's top line is $31Bn/quarter. Cuts on app sales are a rounding error. Meanwhile, they're selling tablets at cost, devaluing the space they're competing for, and they remain at a structural disadvantage to Apple and Samsung, both of whom are handheld supply chain giants.

How does this work out well for HP?

It's easy to see how it works out well for Hacker News: there's a third viable tablet platform! Yay! But HPQ can't make decisions to maximize hacker morale; they are legally obligated to serve HPQ's bottom line.

Incidentally, your comment addresses only half of Gruber's point; the other half is that a $500->$100 discount's success doesn't prove demand either for a $200 price point or for a product with a $200 BOM.

<comment><USER2> Spending $195 to deliver a $200 platform, and then making an additional $5-10 per customer on app sales, is not a terrible spot for a business to be in. It's not Apple territory, and maybe it's not worth the risk or opportunity cost for HP given their profitability in other spaces. But one need not be a "big dummy" to think there might be room for a profitable player to use that model.

Incidentally, I only addressed the part of Gruber's post I thought needed responding to. He's right that the fire sale doesn't prove anything about market viability for an at-cost device.

<comment><USER3> First, HP makes $3Bn/quarter in gross profit. The tablet business you propose is a major strategic initiative that, EVEN IF it pulled neck and neck with the prohibitive market leader, makes only $23mm/quarter†. That's a disaster.

Second, when you're making $15 per customer and the prohibitive market leader is making $200 per customer, your business exists at the pleasure of the market leader; they can cut their prices by 10% and put you out of business; the can plow an order of magnitude more money into marketing and product development and still beat you easily on the numbers.

† _And even that assumes that the money from the app store is pure profit, which it isn't for Apple._

<comment><USER2> I don't understand where you're getting the $23mm/quarter number. The last quarterly numbers I saw for Apple were just under 10 million iPads sold; using the $200/tablet and $15 profit numbers I gave before, that'd be $150mm profit on $2Bn revenue. Those aren't "blow your socks off" numbers, but they're not "disaster" numbers either (whereas what actually happened with the TouchPad _was_ a disaster.) Numbers like that are at least viable for a major strategic initiative for a company like HP, provided there's sufficient _motivation_ for such an initiative.

With the market leader making $200/unit and you making $15/unit, they could put you out of business _if_ they're at a comparable price point. But if the competition's $600 iPad cuts its price to $550 or even $500, it's not going to pull a lot of customers away from your $200 hPad; you're serving very different segments of the market. Similarly, a 10% price cut by Maserati wouldn't threaten Cooper Mini sales.

I'm not saying HP necessarily made the wrong move here. I'm just saying, I don't think you have to be a "big dummy" to think there's room for a low cost, low margin tablet that makes some profit from software.

<comment><USER3> You're forgetting that those 10 million iPads were sold over many quarters. Re-do your math.

There is absolutely room for a low-margin low-cost tablet. The Kindle is one of them. But there isn't room for the HP Touchpad at HP. I kind of doubt there's room for the HP Touchpad anywhere, because it's intrinsically positioned against a superior product sold by an extremely competent company.

<comment><USER2> > _"You're forgetting that those 10 million iPads were sold over many > quarters."_

"Apple sold 9.25 million iPads during the quarter" -- [http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/07/19Apple-Reports- Thir...](http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/07/19Apple-Reports-Third- Quarter-Results.html)

My math is fine.

> _"there isn't room for the HP Touchpad at HP"_

There, I agree. The HP TouchPad is trying to be direct competition for the iPad, and that's why it was a total disaster.

If instead HP made the WeakerPad, with higher capability than the kindle but lower than the iPad, and targeted the $200 price point (where their main competition is a bunch of 7" Android 1.5 tablets with resistive touchscreens), they _might_ find a sweet spot in the market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I also disagree with Arrington on the Touchpad, but Gruber and other Apple acolytes' disregard for high-volume low-margin markets seems misplaced. Yes, Apple makes a lot of money by tailoring devices for high profit margin markets. That's clearly a lucrative way to do things, if you can pull it off. But, obviously, not everyone can. Surely there's room in the market at large for both models? And surely it's good for everyone to see competition at all levels?

<comment><USER3> There is no room in the market for selling products at a loss, and without a clearly lucrative business model behind it, there's also no room in the market for selling products at cost. Those aren't pundit opinions; they're laws of physics.

There's a back and forth to be had about the value of the app market for HP, but the best available evidence suggests that by itself it is nowhere nearly large enough to justify a strategic investment in tablets.

So if you want to make the point that there are other strategies besides Apple's, sure. Nobody can argue with that; it's not falsifiable. To make your comment useful, propose a way for HP to make real money on those tablets.

<comment><USER5> The Xbox is sold at a loss but overall is a profitable division for Microsoft. There is room in the market for loss-leaders, it's just a question of where to build a revenue model from.

Unlike Android, HP could have run an end-to-end product, controlling the hardware, software, and app ecosystem, but could have tried doing it at a lower price. There's no guarantee the market would have supported it, but seeing how eagerly people snatched up the fire-sale tablets, it's kind of disappointing not to even see them try.

<comment><USER3> The Xbox is only useful in tandem with its consumable $30 games. It's a prime candidate for a razor/blades strategy.

In comparison:

(a) Tablets are useful without buying a single app.

(b) The price point on apps is _far_ lower than on Xbox games.

(c) Apps are on the whole less consumable than games, most of which lose much of their value after just a week or two of use.

(d) The sole use case of the Xbox is to facilitate games, which means that _everyone_ who owns an Xbox buys them. The key value propositions of a table are "watch video, browse web, read books", and in each of these three categories the apps to facilitate them are either built in or free.

I share your disappointment, but don't believe my disappointment rebuts economic reality.

<comment><USER6> Don't forget the vast quantities of accessories for consoles. Extra controllers, Xbox Live, downloadable content, are huge profit centers for the Xbox division.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I see Amazon and B&N taking a big chunk out of the low-cost tablet market, and it will be hard for anyone else to compete.

They can sell direct to consumers and capture more revenue. They have a vested interest in locking customers into their ecosystem, so they can sell at cost. Finally, they are trusted brands and can use their online stores to promote product.

A company like HP and Samsung would make most of their profits on the sale of the device. $200 tablets will never be profitable on their own, so unless you have another revenue stream, it's not worth doing.

That leaves cheap clone systems probably running Android with crappy build quality and nonexistent engineering.

You can be sure that Amazon noticed the frenzy over $99 Touchpads and the strong sales of the Nook color.

</comment><comment><USER8> I tried briefly to find actual numbers on the manufacturing run(s) of the Touchpad. I wonder how many of these are really out there. Is this just a blip on the chart compared to iPad numbers?

I'm a bit concerned about what this will do to the real Android tablet market numbers. How many Touchpad buyers would have otherwise bought a low-end Android tablet? That market is already fragile enough without HP blowing out tablets well below cost. (It's not that different than the Borders liquidations hurting Barnes and Noble's numbers when they're already struggling.)

Oh, and when does the RIM Playbook fire sale start?

<comment><USER9> yeah, even a million touchpads wouldn't be anywhere near apples numbers AFFAIK. I've heard numbers ranging between 250-350k for touchpad inventory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _I knew Mike Arrington was a dummy...didn't think he was this big a dummy_

I usually discount any argument that begins with name calling

<comment><USER11> Well, it IS Michael Arrington he's talking about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This all goes back to the Jack Welch theory: either be number one or two in your industry, or find something else to do. What the heck did HP hope to gain by building a crappy version of the iPad and charging the same price for it? The lack of innovation at these companies is truly confounding. If I had any HP stock I would be dumping it with both hands.

</comment><comment><USER13> While I agree with Gruber on HW sales being very profitable must he really resort to "dummy"? Its one thing to see Jersey Shore say things like this, but Gruber?

<comment><USER14> This is not out of character for him. John has a long tradition of calling out a "Jackass of the Week," generally awarded for idiotic Apple/tech punditry: [http://www.google.com/search?q=jackass+site:daringfireball.n...](http://www.google.com/search?q=jackass+site:daringfireball.net)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Your short rant, on the other hand, is so elaborate, so unique, so daring and so enlightening!

<comment><USER3> Do you disagree with it? Why or why not? Or do you just want to share your emotional response to it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The average iDevice has less than ~$20 of software on it. (Simple math on earnings call stats.) 30% of $20 is $6. That's, well, rat spit.

</comment><comment><USER17> Can anyone point me to numbers regarding the app store revenue vs. hardware revenue?

I'm surprised that the app store revenue would be "just a drop in the bucket" compared to the hardware revenue.

<comment><USER18> Recently Steve announced 2 billion paid to devs. That makes apple's cut close to .9 billion. Meanwhile in _a quarter_ Apple has profits of 7billion.

<comment><USER3> Over what time period? Is that a top line of 30% of $2Bn over 10-12 quarters? That is a microscopic amount of money for HP.

<comment><USER18> As I understood, thats since the beginning. So basically nothing compared to HP or even Apple

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> $99 tablets would be quite a boon to consumers. Having a viable competitor to the iPad would be good for the market. I wanna believe.

</comment><comment><USER20> God tech bloggers are an insufferable bunch.

</comment><comment><USER21> >"I knew Mike Arrington was a dummy"

huh, interested.

>(daringfireball.net)

Oh, nevermind.</comment>


Slim your wallet. Slide your favorite card. The MostRad Minimalist Wallet - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2137162749/the-mostradtm-minimalist-wallet-integrated-rfid-pr Launched on Kickstarter yesterday with little promotion to an overwhelming response.  Thank you for checking us out.<p>Brandon <comment><USER2> This would be really nice if it had more room for coins. But then I guess it wouldn't be particularly slim anymore :\

<comment><AUTHOR> I have surprisingly fit a fair amount of coins in the 3rd card slot without problem. Check the bottom of the page for some storage possibilities :)</comment></comment>


Zero Knowledge Proofs: An illustrated primer (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2014/11/27/zero-knowledge-proofs-illustrated-primer/ <comment><USER2> A thread from 2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13102738](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13102738)

Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8669840](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8669840)

(Links for the curious. Reposts are ok after a year or so: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html))</comment>


As Java Slips, C Is Number One Again - <AUTHOR> http://www.developer.com/daily_news/article.php/397458/As-Java-Slips-C-Is-Number-One-Again.htm C may be an old programming language, but it's back at number one on the TIOBE Index as more and more developers turn their backs on Java. <comment><USER2> Additionally, many in the embedded space are moving back to C out of C++ after its many faults and difficult working environment (i.e. you have to fire people who can't handle your subset of C++) disillusioned them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is Java "the language" slipping because folks are moving to other languages based on the JVM?

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm glad we're sticking to fundamentals.</comment>


American Schools Are Training Kids for a World That Doesn't Exist - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/10/on-learning-by-doing/ <comment><USER2> Just my rant on schooling:

My Son just recently graduated High School and now is in his first year of college for dual major in Aviation Science (to be an air traffic controller) and Business. His high school (Valhalla High School in El Cajon California) gave him a test to determine his aptitude that said he should go into "building maintenance" (being a Janitor more or less) and wouldn't move up his classes to more difficult ones so he was in classes with kids who didn't really want to be there and were continually disruptive.

Looking for a solution for this problem I found Grossmont Middle College which is a high school on a 2 year college campus. My son was able to get into that and finished high school with about 34 units in college classes most of which transferred to the 4 year university he now attends (University of North Dakota... why he wants to move from California to the freezing cold I have no idea!).

Common Core can't fix the segregation of high schools between the rich high performing kids and everyone else who isn't allowed into the higher level of learning at schools. Every school is essentially 2 schools and if you don't get into the right classes you are screwed big time.

Reading the article, personally I see what is wrong in schools more about getting kids to where they want to be in life. Either college or a trade. For those who want a trade they should get 2 years of High School and 2 years of trade school along with some additional classes.

<comment><USER3> Alternative view here:

While I don't doubt that your kid was hilariously unappreciated from the school based on one test, I was a relatively lazy middle school student, scoring B-C ranges on most of my classes as well as pretty much failing the first aptitude test (pretty sure it said that I should be a truck driver). As a result, I wound up getting placed into non-honors classes freshman year. After a few weeks of finding the classes mind-numbling boring, I offhandedly mentioned to my advisor that I wanted my classes to be more challenging, and she immediately moved me to honors courses because of the fact that I had taken the prerogative to tell her that I wasn't being sufficiently challenged. Currently I'm studying Computer Science at a large state University.

Because both our examples have an n = 1 sample size, it's definitely not correct to generalize high schools across an entire nation. However, in my experience, high school advisors were more than willing to toss out aptitude test results if the student had taken the prerogative themselves. While I agree with the idea that "Every school is essentially 2 schools", the barrier between them is honestly so low that it's not realistically a problem.

<comment><USER4> You were lucky. At my high school someone from the regular track had to jump through hoops and speak up loudly to be allowed into an honors English class. Separately, my high school guidance counselor "lost" the application of a student who wasn't doing very well in high school (it was the student's only application to college, so this may very well have messed up her life for a while), while constantly harassing me in the cafeteria to apply to more/better schools. I believe (somewhat cynically) that her motivation was to make the high school's acceptance rates look better.

But the real crime of the traditional education system, in my mind, is to condition students to be so focused on jumping for gold stars that they don't think about what they really want to accomplish and what activities (stars or no) will get them there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article lost me immediately when it started mentioning food production in Malthusian terms. It read more as a brochure for a cult than a fact based essay.

<comment><USER6> You don't like Malthusian population doctrine?

If we add 2 billion people or 30% to the world population over the next 20 years it raises some interesting questions about feeding these new 2 billion people. Especially since most of the projected population boom is coming from countries who already have problems feeding their people:

> During 2005–2050, nine countries are expected to account for half of the > world's projected population increase: India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Democratic > Republic of the Congo, Bangladesh, Uganda, United States, Ethiopia, and > China > ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growt...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth))

<comment><USER7> Because feeding people is not a production problem, it's a economic and distribution problem. We already produce enough food to feed 2 billion extra mouths, and there's no evidence to the contrary, there's issues with how climate change will affect food production, but those models are still being worked out and are on much longer timelines than 20 years.

<comment><USER8> No matter what kind of problem it is. It's still a problem.

<comment><USER7> Yes, but it makes it not a Malthusian problem. Malthus specifically stated that population would grow at a rate greater than food production, of which he was wrong. Neo-Malthusianism may take into better account the political and economic aspects of the problem, but it's an important distinction.

<comment><USER6> I doubt that Niger, which is projected to quadruple in population by 2050, will be able to scale their agriculture on their own. If they're even sustaining themselves at this point.

Countries like that are able to increase their populations faster than their food production because of trade, and their agricultural leaps are because of outside help as well.

If the entire world was averaging 7+ children per woman I could see us hitting a food ceiling pretty quick.

<comment><USER7> >If the entire world was averaging 7+ children per woman I could see us hitting a food ceiling pretty quick.

That's the thing, as it turns out there is a very high correlation between "birth rate" and "infant mortality rate", so as you reduce the infant mortality rate, the number of children per woman reduces drastically.

As for looking at food production solely with a country, it's a bit silly since we know all countries have international food trade (heck, even North Korea). The real question would be if Niger can _afford_ to feed their population.

<comment><USER6> It's an important question whether or not these countries can grow their agriculture (which implies infrastructure and institutions as well) at an exponential rate. If they can't, then Malthus was right. If they can, Malthus was wrong.

Seeing as sub-Saharan African countries are struggling to feed the billion people they have already, no they can't handle another billion. We're talking about the poorest people on the planet here. Somehow we're so caught up in being PC that we can't tell people it's a bad idea to have so many kids for numerous reasons.

> there is a very high correlation between "birth rate" and "infant mortality > rate", so as you reduce the infant mortality rate, the number of children > per woman reduces drastically.

No. Correlation does not imply causation. A third factor is that infant mortality rates drop as modes of living change. It's apparently urbanization that causes people to choose to stop having so many children.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The author ironically talks in one breath about feeding another two billion people, and in another breath about how our educational system of "learning" then "doing" doesn't work. How exactly do you think we've gone about making the scientific advancements in food production that have allowed us to feed 7+ billion people? It involved teaching a bunch of kids basic biology, then teaching them advanced biology in college, then teaching them gene splicing techniques as well as research skills in graduate school, then having them chip away at how to get more productive, hardier crops at a research lab. That's also how we put a man on the moon, developed semiconductors, developed several generations of nuclear power, hybrid and electric cars, etc.

There's certainly a place for learning by doing, and "discovering" but most of the science that moves society forward is a very deliberate process involving incremental accretions to the collective knowledge. And our educational system is superbly designed to facilitate that process.

<comment><USER10> It is trendy to say the system is broken.

Perhaps we rely on the system more than people used to.

Hard work and dedication to learning is what created all those breakthroughs you mentioned. The education _system_ contributed here and there.

<comment><USER9> > Hard work and dedication to learning is what created all those breakthroughs > you mentioned

Sure, but hard work and dedication is not a sufficient condition for building a modern scientific society. What's crucial is also building the infrastructure for passing along institutional knowledge to enable incremental advances. The modern educational system is very well-designed to facilitate that.

E.g. I studied aerospace engineering in college. You spend 4 years in college + 5-6 years in grad school learning everything about the state of the art. During your PhD you push something forward a little bit. Then you go to Boeing and figure out how to make the turbine blades withstand 5% higher temperatures so you can get 3% better combustion efficiency. And at every step the system is there to keep things moving dutifully forward. Eventually, you'll see you started with a 737 and are staring at a 787.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> That's cool and all, but maybe we should make sure kids have the basics down first.

An elementary school in my town had an attachment for sixth graders being held back from advancing to middle school because they were functionally illiterate. Somehow, none of their teachers in five years of school noticed this.

Once all students are literate and have a grasp of basic mathematics, then maybe we can talk about teaching "discovery".

<comment><USER12> This is so true.

When my eldest was in 2nd grade I asked when they would be learning how to (finally) start learning cursive. The school's response was that they don't need cursive anymore because soon everyone will just be typing. Great, I said, so when are you starting your touch typing class? School response: oh, we won't need to teach that either, because in the future people will just talk to their computers...(this was in Florida, one of the top school districts, highly acclaimed A+ elementary school). I don't think banking on the Singularity and a benign AI should be the education system's only policy... I could barely decipher the 3rd-4th graders' texts. Spelling mistakes everywhere ("Don't want to stifle their creativity").

The daughter of a neighboring family did terribly at math. The school thought she needed to repeat 5th grade. They got a tutor who concluded that she did not know her multiplication table. Are you serious? Five years and no basic, fundamental skills taught (but it's all about self-esteem, creativity, exploration...). The girl started memorizing the times table, finally, passed the last exams already improved. At the middle school they evaluated her 6 months later and found that she was "way ahead of the class" \- this is sad!

The ongoing war on memorization and lack of basic and elementary skills like proper writing and mental math (from what I could see as a German expatriate) makes it all unnecessarily hard for students.

<comment><USER13> > The school thought she needed to repeat 5th grade. They got a tutor who > concluded that she did not know her multiplication table. [...] The ongoing > war on memorization

This might be down to different personal experiences, but... Is the "War on Memorization" the same as the perennial "War on Christmas", while both become more and more popular?

My memory is that memorization (like Christmas) was _rife_ throughout the test-centric establishment, because it was the easiest thing to make multiple- choice tests for, demanded relatively little from the teachers, and made it simpler to create state-wide tests than more subjective fare.

What if there's plenty of memorization, but none of it takes because there's no application, and because the student just moves to the next thing they have to memorize?

<comment><USER12> Interesting. We had very little multiple choice tests at school (Germany) and did not consider learning for it "memorization". Memorization was trained for on purpose by memorizing passages of text, famous/important works of literature/poetry. The idea was the the skill of memorization would be helpful generally speaking. Most tests where free form - i.e. you had to be sufficiently capable of spelling/writing/explaining yourself on top of answering the question at hand. In math/physics this included, obviously, knowing equations and formulas by heart as they were not given. Several such hour long written exams had a huge impact on your term grade. The other emphasis was on oral exams (in front of the entire class), which were also quite frequent and typically involved being able to express in your own words questions related to topics covered over several months.

<comment><USER14> Im curious, how would the German system in your experience handle students with poor memory, severe social anxiety, dyslexia, ADHD, etc?

<comment><USER12> They used to separate kids at every corner - thus the various school types. Same for Austria. This is ca. 2-3 decades ago. ADHD was unknown. Kids that had consistent learning problems would keep repeating classes until they reached the minimum age at which they would train at vocational/trade schools.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Having nearly exhausted nature's ability to feed the planet, we now need to > discover a new food system.

Source for this?

<comment><USER16> It's bullshit, of course. We exceeded "natural" food production capacity (if you take agriculture to be "unnatural") a long time ago.

The only hard limits on food production are the amount of energy and carbon/nitrogen/oxygen/etc. we can get our hands on. We are nowhere near these limits. We still have plenty of room for growth left with current popular agricultural technology. If that is exhausted, we have plenty of room for growth through hydroponics, GM, etc.

<comment><USER17> Yes, the real limit on food production is profitability. Plenty of America's arable land lies fallow or has condos built atop it.

I will say however that it seems some of our large food supply sources may be in danger and the economic and human cost of pivoting a food supply chain will be astronomical.

<comment><USER18> Only about 3% of the US is urbanized:

[http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/eib-economic- informatio...](http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/eib-economic-information- bulletin/eib89.aspx)

There is certainly lots of additional land that could be utilized with modern farming practice. Water is probably the bigger problem.

<comment><USER17> The condo comment was kind of a joke. It's a Montanan joke so I probably should've gauged my audience better.

My main point, which seems to have been lost here is that the main impediment to increased food production is economic. Whether the economic pressures creating the situation are born out of greed, over-regulation or something else I didn't speculate.

The land is there. The water is there. The equipment is procurable as well as the labor. It's a simple factor of motivation. Our semi-free market produces the current amount of food. A more free market would likely (but may not) produce less. A more regulated market could (but may not) produce more.

<comment><USER19> I look forward to a time when micro-machines (chips?) produce proteins, carbohydrates etc from raw materials (air?) Then energy, water and food become one fungible thing.

Imagine cutting out the whole supply chain for staples (farming, machinery production, transportation, middlemen, processing, distribution and sales) and turning it into a machine on your kitchen counter that emits rice. Changes the whole game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The author accidentally reveals the solution and it's not 100% congruous with his own efforts:

"We "learn," and after this we "do." We go to school and then we go to work."

The actual solution is to continuously learn, after leaving school. That is the formula for success. Getting fascinated by looking at 3-d printouts ("people enter words that turn into architectural forms") is a small part of motivating people to do continuous learning- but no one will learn calculus in a culture lab.

</comment><comment><USER21> Learning "stuff that matters" should not be the goal of school. Most of the details students learn will be forgotten after a year at most.

But during all this time in school the students develop the mental infrastructure necessary for higher studies. In that sense even dead languages can be of benefit, even if the students never use them again.

At the very least, sitting still and focusing on mental work trains the prefrontal cortex which is essential for impulse control and discipline.

But today the focus is too much on learning practical skills, which often aren't that difficult to learn and easily forgotten. Rote learning is despised, even though it is the only way to build up the necessary memory skills for certain subjects.

</comment><comment><USER22> Where have I heard this before...

Take up the White Man's burden– The savage wars of peace– Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease; And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought, Watch sloth and heathen Folly Bring all your hopes to nought.

</comment><comment> at-fates-hands _" Over the next twenty years the earth is predicted to add another two billion people. Having nearly exhausted nature's ability to feed the planet, we now need to discover a new food system."_

Why does the author sound like he's saying we're going to add another 2 billion people to the current population over the next 20 years?

With a big chunk of the population being aging baby boomers, adding another billion people over 20 years wouldn't seem like its going to tax the planet any more that it is today.

I'm off course banking on a large aging population with falling birth rates.

<comment><USER19> Exhausted? Nonsense. Iowa grows enough food to feed 2 United States. America could feed the world, right now. No, its societies that have failed to feed their people, not Mother Earth.

<comment><USER23> The point remains. People, and the societies they comprise are a part of the Earth.

It's really funny how people view themselves as separate from the Earth. Aside from the thousand or so people that have had the opportunity to travel to orbit, when was the last time we left Earth?

If anything, we are just a unique geographic feature.

<comment><USER19> No point remains. The earth is not some exhausted husk, as implied by the OP. Its fecund and fertile and ready to produce orders of magnitude more food as required.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Here I was thinking this would be an article about how the education system fails to educate our children on how the world and the economy actually works instead of an idealization from yesteryear.

<comment><USER25> Indeed. It's hard enough to define curriculum around the world as it exists right now, so how are we to steer this big ship toward designing curriculum for the world to come?

The answer is that we (very probably) can't - so we should focus on preparing our young people to be resilient, flexible, and motivated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> How does the Flynn Effect enter into this? [1] Because it seems unlikely that we're getting both dumber and smarter at the same time.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)

<comment><USER27> From your own link it doesn't seem to enter into it much if at all. Not only has it had the least effect on school subjects but some of the increase has been shown to be because of improved test taking skills rather than actual intelligence improvements.

>There is debate about whether the rise in IQ scores also corresponds to a rise in general intelligence, or only a rise in special skills related to taking IQ tests. Because children attend school longer now and have become much more familiar with the testing of school-related material, one might expect the greatest gains to occur on such school content-related tests as vocabulary, arithmetic or general information. Just the opposite is the case: abilities such as these have experienced relatively small gains and even occasional decreases over the years.

>Researchers have shown that the IQ gains described by the Flynn effect are due in part to increasing intelligence, and in part to increases in test- specific skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's a small peice of the article and probably meant to be a throwaway line but it still irks me whenever I hear people write/talk about how we are reaching the end of our capacity to provide food for ourselves. There are some 7 billion people in the world right now and America by itself has the capacity to feed all of them. The fact that there are still countries where people are starving is kind of actually ridiculous. Another 2 billion people wouldn't even be noticed. They would probably still all starve because hey there's people starving now that we could feed but that has nothing to do with our ability to produce food.

</comment><comment><USER29> Americans 'discover' just fine. What they need to learn is to have the political will to act on discoveries that require taking something other than the path of least resistance. A culture of people raised in these magic new labs is meaningless if society's professional decision-makers (politicians) are allowed to continue their sport of stalling any change.

In short 'discovery' is not enough. Implementation is also important.

<comment><USER25> My only gut instinct is that we need to drastically expand our society's understanding of systems thinking.

If we could develop (even...barely...just a little) common understanding that what you do impacts those around you (and those who will live in this place after you) then perhaps we could regain some sense of common purpose, vision, or responsibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> > together, they are redefining what it means to learn in America.

This happens every 10 years or so. Google "Why Johnny Can't Read" and "New Math" for examples.</comment>


Bacteria on the Brain - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/07/bacteria-on-the-brain <comment><USER2> I honestly don't understand the reason why it's so hard to try to help terminally ill patients with unproven methods as long as everyone agrees that there is no other, better way to help and as long as the patient wants it. Prohibiting this seems like a lose/lose decision to me.

<comment><USER3> It's a very long tradition, with well-trodden philosophical background: "Primum non nicer" (first, do no harm).

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

Given the consequences of mistakes, a conservative approach has been considered the best. "It was nature killed her, not me" being easier to stomach than "oops".

<comment><USER4> Except "do no harm" is woefully inadequate because it fails to take into account opportunity cost. They are doing TONS of harm by failing to allow willing people to try new medicine and advance science and the human race, all because they have some warped sense of morality that's got horse blinders on.

<comment><USER3> They are absolutely not ignoring opportunity cost. This issue has been discussed very carefully by sophisticated people for thousands of years.

The current system does allow for experimentation, but provides a conservative framework for it.

It's huge personal hubris to announce that you know better and they haven't thought it through. Which is one of the things the approach is aimed to protect us from.

<comment><USER5> > The current system does allow for experimentation, but provides a > conservative framework for it.

Which most people seem to think is wrong. The vast majority of treatments that get prescribed by doctors are unproven in terms of safety and efficacy. The main differences between the status quo and a proper experiment is that we're not recording any data or allowing for informed consent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think this article could have gotten to the point more quickly.

Was it that bacteria on the brain can cure cancer and also ruin you life? It then went on to talk about a reverse engineered virus that was also tried in some completely unrelated study.

The article seemed to have no structure and make no point. The doctor seems to have done some very unethical things here but it is treated as if it was the right thing to do? Maybe it's just the woolly language...

<comment><USER7> In my reading there were three parts of the article:

Part I: Optimism. Is this a new curative treatment for a cancer with an extremely poor prognosis? We get to see Muizelaar's perspective on why he (presumably) thought he was doing the right thing.

Part II: The Fall. Deaths, lawsuits, the expose, resignations.

Part III: Resolution. Maybe there is some value in an alternative approach that focuses on mechanism and iterates towards human trials via animal studies. But also, maybe there is something to be said about Muizelaar's approach that our current medicolegal system isn't equipped to handle.

To me, the structure of the article helped to underscore that Muizelaar might have been right, which is key for using this article as a way to learn about science and rationality as opposed to solely for its object-level information. Just listing the facts almost certainly would not have been as useful for getting that point across.

<comment><USER8> I liked it. Much better than the simple "LET ME TELL Y'ALL ABOUT AN UNETHICAL DOCTOR" opening to an article.

<comment><USER6> I'm more frustrated that there wasn't a clear editorial take in the article. I'd like to have seen some research done by the journalist into what the correct ethics are in a situation like this. My feeling is that without the option to have euthanasia (should things get worse) you are promising a tiny tiny chance of a possible cure but a large chance of increased suffering too.

The tiny chance of 40 more years of life _might_ be worth it but its crazy to try experimental treatments as a first roll of the dice!

<comment><USER9> > I'm more frustrated that there wasn't a clear editorial take in the article.

I'm glad there wasn't. I think the issues raised are difficult ones, with no simple, obvious resolution. Sometimes we're better off living with complexity and ambiguity.

<comment><USER6> It's not complex at all! The doctor did loads of immoral things and the article sympathised with him.

He even says that he wouldn't attend training because he knows best. After his treatment caused several patients to suffer more or die earlier.

Sometimes we are better off calling bad medical practice illegal and immoral rather than trying to say "whaaaaa it's complicated".

<comment><USER9> I don't think it's nearly that black-and-white. The doctor performed a procedure _he would have wanted performed on himself in the same_ (exceedingly desperate) _circumstances_. He was careful to fully inform the patients of the risks. Above all, he had his patients' welfare at heart; he wasn't doing it for money or fame or even knowledge. What he did may have been illegal, but I don't agree that it was clearly immoral.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well this was a good read. Pretty long and dense for the tech focused audience here I would guess.

And to address the top comment, reason people don't like doing this is you get sued when it goes wrong just like in this case. It's safer for yourself to just stick to the protocol ...

<comment><USER2> I understand that that's a reason why it's not done. However, my question was about why their legal system is like it is.

<comment><USER11> There are some good training modules on citiprogram.org. Just plug in your institution and select the Key Research Personnel module. You will be beaten over the head with the numerous historical events that have driven us to this point. Tuskegee is but one of the many, many examples.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Thanks for this, I'm drafting an amendment to my IRB protocol right now. Made me re-read the whole thing. Cricky...</comment>