Post-crash economics: have we learnt nothing? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06608-6 <comment><USER4> Such a shame nature lends it's name to this absolute drivel. There are reasonable 'mainstream' explanations for the crash. I was fortunate to attend a lecture at my alma mater on that. It had to do with insurance and the difficulty of doing risk analysis and communicating this down the line. The only thing she is right about is that economics is not as exact as physics. But that should be taken as a sign to develop better numerical analysis methods rather than to embrace 'that's just your opinion man' level bs. She does not belong in science at all.

<comment><USER5> I agree. There's a case to be made that traditional macroeconomic models should incorporate more of the findings of experimental microeconomics that show how humans differ from idealized economic agents --- but this article is not such a case. Instead, it's just postmodern ideological drivel that suggests replacing numbers with advocacy, done under the guise of "ecological economics" and "feminist economics" and emphasizing "the collective over the individual".

This article in Nature is exactly the sort of dead weight that accumulates during economic expansions and that we discard during economic contractions. The article is a move in a tiresome academic status game. It is not useful for describing, predicting, or governing society.

You see this nonsense in every part of academia. The worth of theory is its predictive power, not its ideological purpose or its "values".

<comment><USER6> I disagree. A traditional economics education is problematic: It naturally (and ostensively ineluctably, from first principles by logical deduction) leads to libertarianism.

> The worth of theory is its predictive power

Naive economics predicts that deregulation leads to higher welfare. That prediction did not pan out.

James Kwak has elaborated on the above points in his book _Economism_ [1].

> It is not useful for describing, predicting, or governing society.

Well, governing society better is precisely what is at stake here. This article might not be the best manifesto for reform of economics education, and might have gone over board a bit with the more fashionable and silly "<adjective> economics", but the fundamental point stands:

People that have taken traditional highly technical undergrad or even graduate economics classes without further context in economic history, political philosophy, etc. should not be left in charge of shaping policy.

[1] [https://economism.net](https://economism.net)

<comment><USER5> The author's proposal is neither necessary nor sufficient for educating the next generation of leadership in philosophy. It sounds like you think it's "problematic" if economists end up being libertarian. Why is that? Your point about regulation is misplaced: both under- and over-regulation hurt welfare, and there are many instances of regulatory loosening leading to better outcomes, e.g. in cryptography and air travel. Is your position that libetarianism is itself problematic and that education should stamp it out?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This author doesn't really explain how their proposed additions to the curriculum would have predicted the subprime mortgage crisis. If the author is going to criticize mainstream economics for being irrelevant, it seems reasonable that they show how using their methods, it could have been predicted.

<comment><USER8> Isn't it better to not teach something that is wrong than teach something just for the sake of teaching?

<comment><USER9> If you're a hyper-wealthy property owner of the type who can afford to fund an entire economics department, the answer is "no."

<comment><USER10> So, outside some very obvious heterodox economics departments, I haven't seen this. Do you have some examples mind?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the author falsely assumes that academic economists and the people who go on to work in big business, governments and central banks were not aware of the shortcomings of their discipline. I would assume instead that they were. But greed and power was their motivator nonetheless. So I wish good luck for her but I don't think awareness will change the hunger for power or greed in any way.

<comment><USER12> Probably so. At some point I won some maths-heavy economy textbooks in an undergraduate probability theory competition. It was last updated a few years before 2008 (I would guess no later than 2004), and it is mainstream enough to be a gift agreed upon by large-finance sponsors and financial-applied probability theory professors.

While explaining the market models, the book had quite a few footnotes that briefly mentioned incentive structures at different levels (individual traders, groups inside a company, mortgage-issuers that unload all of the risk…) Sometimes it stayed politically correct («it remains to be seen how this incentive structure will affect market stability»), sometimes not (especially when there were enough historical examples of exactly the same incentive structure leading to the same problems), but it made clear that principal-agent problems in the then-current (and now-current) economy are well-known and easy to describe in mainstream economics.

<comment><USER13> What book is that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Economics isn't science. In science you have the scientific method, control and experimental studies that can validate a hypothesis. that's pretty impractical to do as an economist. Economists often describe their field as the study of human incentives, which is basically the study of human decision making, which is basically reading minds. It's a worthy subject of study, but we put far too much faith in it that what's warrented.

<comment><USER15> What controls and experiments can you do in astronomy?

The scientific method is a thin veneer best left at in the high school curriculum where it belongs. Actual science is vastly more messy and interesting.

<comment><USER16> You can figure out that there is no luminiferous aether between the planets with an interferometer. You can observe that the light of distant stars is bent by the sun's gravity during an eclipse. You can check that the planets appear in the sky where your celestial mechanics predict them to be. You can find out what elements the stars are made of with a prism.

There are lots of experiments you can do.

<comment><USER15> The ether was a part of dynamics.

Elements in a star is part of chemistry.

The rest of those are not experiments, they are descriptions of natural phenomena we have no power of repeating. Which goes to show that you can have a science that does not have experiments but does have observations.

<comment><USER16> We clearly have different definitions of "experiment". Having a theory (e.g. light is affected by gravity), making a prediction (that star that should be behind the sun will be visible) and then doing an observation fits my definition of experiment. It's more difficult to reproduce that measuring the speeds of falling apples, but eclipses are not _that_ rare and you can always come up with other predictions from you theory and do the corresponding observations.

I would rather argue that we can in fact do experiments in economics as well. It's just harder to draw conclusions from the observations because there are lots of variables you can't control for easily.

<comment><USER15> >I would rather argue that we can in fact do experiments in economics as well.

Fair enough. At least you're consistent. My point was that economics should be no less a science than astronomy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's a very large body of work in fields like critical economic geography (as an extremely introductory and nonrepresentative example, [1][2]) that discuss the affective, pluralistic dimensions to global and local economies, of which I think orthodox economics barely touches on (slightly, somewhat, in neuroeconomics).

I think this is really important. With a better understanding of the limits of human rationality (which is chief among other things) we can begin to unravel the original axioms and assumptions of the neoliberal era, the ones that basically treat humans merely as selfish, individualistic, perfectly-rational economic agents. With a better understanding of this, we can begin to build a society for humans instead of capital.

[1] [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f10a/6bae34ac59c7be9b7741fe...](https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/f10a/6bae34ac59c7be9b7741feef9c1566757caf.pdf)

[2] [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/978111838449...](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118384497.ch34)

<comment><USER18> > With a better understanding of the limits of human rationality (which is > chief among other things) we can begin to unravel the original axioms and > assumptions of the neoliberal era, the ones that basically treat humans > merely as selfish, individualistic, perfectly-rational economic agents.

Your comment is the equivalent of saying astronomers need to consider models in which the planets rotate around the sun.

Just as one bit of evidence, we can ask if anyone has ever been awarded the Nobel Prize for studying the things you claim "economics barely touches on". If someone received a Nobel Prize, the field hasn't "barely touched on" it.

2017: Richard Thaler for behavioral economics. His entire career has been devoted to studying the limits of human rationality.

2013: Robert Shiller for his work showing financial markets are not efficient.

2002: Kahneman and Smith for using experiments to study the decision making process.

2001: George Akerlof, whose Nobel Lecture included "Behavioral Macroeconomics".

1978: Herbert Simon, the guy responsible for bounded rationality.

These are just a few names off the top of my head that won a Nobel Prize for work that you say economists aren't doing.

<comment><USER17> But I think that precisely misses the point.

Yes, orthodox academic economics focuses very deeply on the psychology of decision making, but it doesn't focus very broadly on all the other things I mentioned. I love the work of Kahneman and Tversky (among others) as much as anyone else, but I would still further argue that there's so much more to do, that as far as I know, orthodox economics still mostly ignores other components of society within which economics is imbricated, such as the cultural (overviewed by the John Pickles paper I linked) and the affective (e.g. the unremunerated emotional and affective labor that the author mentions as integral to the functioning of the economy).

Can you argue that this is scope creep? Sure, but you can also go the other way, and argue that any reductionism will always make the model inaccurate. Striking a balance is obviously important here, but I would argue that it is necessary at the very least to try widening the scope, at least a little bit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Golly, if I didn't know any better I'd think that maybe the field that deals with questions of power and resource allocation might not actually be apolitical, but may be primarily driven by the need to justify existing distributions of power and resources.

<comment><USER10> Economist here. I think you're mixing political science (power distribution + more) with economics (efficient resource allocation + more). Happy to talk more if you're interested.

<comment><USER19> You may or may not be fully cognisant of how your field is actually practised, which the original commentator obviously is.

I have lost count of the times that senior people in your field, have happily admitted how their research is targeted towards the desired outcome of its funding source. Which the people funding the research are fully aware of, they just go economist shopping for whatever result they want to back their policy decisions.

The real issue with current economics isn't that it's not a science, it is that it's not practised scientifically. Those who do look at the field scientifically, have learnt a very great deal from the 2008 debacle - <USER2> they're not getting published where anybody is going to read them. But that is far from new. Let me present one of the great, sadly overlooked papers of your field:

David Jones, Emerging problems with the Basel Capital Accord: Regulatory capital arbitrage and related issues

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037842669...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378426699000527)

Written by a researcher at the Federal Reserve in 2000, he pretty much nailed the causes of the 2008 crash, at least 8 years in advance. His reward was that he got to be part of the cleanup judging by his subsequent career - <USER3> resource allocation indeed.

<comment><USER20> I think you're overestimating the homogeneity of the field and underestimating the degree to which most economists understand (and in many cases agree with) the issues you're raising. Plus, finance is not the same is economics and you seem to be conflating the two.

<comment><USER9> Their definitely is a difference between academic economists vs the "economists" who direct policy in the halls of power.

<comment><USER10> Please name some individuals that come to mind.

<comment><USER6> Not GP. Krugman frequently makes this point though, and highlights the economic incompetence of Trump's "economists", eg here:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/23/opinion/federal- reserve-j...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/23/opinion/federal-reserve-john- taylor.html)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/opinion/trump-trade- war.h...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/opinion/trump-trade-war.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The real lesson of the 2008 crash is that long periods of prosperity inevitably produce an accumulation of poor investments, parasitic false beliefs, and outright fraud. At first, the economy is strong enough to shrug off the burden of this detritus, but it eventually accumulates and overwhelms growth. We end up one day having a Minsky moment and clean up the crud accumulated during the growth phase.

The best way to minimize the pain associated with this necessary process is to commit to reason, empiricism, and truth during the growth phase, minimizing the accumulation of uselessness that the eventual economic contraction must discharge.

</comment><comment><USER21> We have known for hundreds of years that over expansion of debt causes crashes. Maybe I'm missing the point, were economists supposed to stop the expansion of debt?

</comment><comment><USER22> I liked her comment about mainstream economics' bias toward maximizing "efficiency". It definitely felt like eliminating sources of "deadweight loss" was the primary goal of introductory microeconomics. Nevertheless, most societies today have substantial tax rates, suggesting that there are other priorities than efficiency in the real world.

Interestingly, though, mainstream macroeconomics would probably have predicted (and could have been used to prevent) the 2008 crisis if it had actually been used. Instead, well-positioned economists supported policies that ignored the rapid growth of a housing bubble and the fact that it was driving a substantial portion of total economic output. I would not, for example, call the analysis in Baker's 2002 paper [1] a heterodox analysis, indeed, it was pretty mainstream. It was, however, contrary to the pronouncements of the Federal Reserve.

1\. [http://cepr.net/publications/reports/the-run-up-in-home- pric...](http://cepr.net/publications/reports/the-run-up-in-home-prices-is-it- real-or-is-it-another-bubble)

</comment><comment><USER23> Mainstream macro economics is 'captured', and they have been behaving like high priests justifying dubious policies. [1]

The 80s onwards have seen massive CEO pay increases, financialization, asset inflation, deregulation, the vulgar celebration of greed by economists and on the other side wage stagnation, increasing inequality, the 2008 crisis and endless bailouts.

Greenspan and others are happy to gloat about cornering labour in Congress [2]. This is an odious statement made without protest from members.

Macro economists can continue to be tone deaf and believe the narratives of emh, rational expectations, 'freetrade' and 'assumptions' that are disconnected from reality but there is now significant dissent and resistance to these narratives. [3]

Evonomics is a good place to start getting a perspective of the scale of problems, and people need to do this untill there is a complete meaculpa and clean up of corporate and vested interests, untill then every single thing macro economists say needs to be questioned and verified.

[1] [https://paulromer.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/WP- Trouble....](https://paulromer.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/WP-Trouble.pdf)

[2] [https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/hh/1997/february/te...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/hh/1997/february/testimony.htm)

[3] [http://evonomics.com/economyths-five-stages-economic- grief/](http://evonomics.com/economyths-five-stages-economic-grief/)

</comment><comment> your-nanny The idea that economics is formulated as it is to protect the status quo, or to justify the distribution of wealth and power is only partially correct. Economists have a lot to say that elites do not want to hear. The political class, in fact, routinely ignores economists' prescriptions, eg a carbon tax.

Instead, I would say that:

(1) on some issues there is a diversity of opinion among economists and so people pick and choose their ecomist to justify their position

(2) non academic employed economists' pronouncements tend to reflect the interests of their employers (for variety of reasons)

(3) as a class economists defend not the status quo but an ideology that justifies that status quo. for example pareto optimal policies dont really work out when distributions are already highly unequal.

</comment><comment><USER24> A good book written by members of the student society Maeve discusses here, for those interested: 'The Econocracy' by Earle, Moran and Ward-Perkins

<comment><USER25> Mentioned in TFA FWIW.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Sure, the world has learned hard to swallow truths that business media won't adopt because it's not aligned with their narrative.

</comment><comment><USER27> The crash wasn't really about economics, it was more about people abusing financial instruments for short term gains. There would need to be some sort of meta-field that combines economics, finance, banking, politics, etc to properly analyze the cause/effect and predict this.

</comment><comment><USER28> I think a big problem is that economics - as defined by culture from the enlightenment to about 1980, with markets created by locally rational transactions - isn't as important as the culture that defined it made it to be. For example, the market and the function of the market was seen as an absolute / starting point for an economy. In China it was not possible to simply establish a market, but instead what has happened is that the state created pseudo private enterprises outside of a market system / in the absence of a market system which then underpinned further economic activity. The market of ideas - which is the construction that we put on democracy has been further challenged. The Chinese government employs more than 50m people, and this wide participation in a structured and hierarchical mechanistic system provides another way of managing and legitimising capital allocation.

<comment><USER29> A functioning free market is the best system we've come with for capital allocation and benefits to consumers.

Even China tends to create competing corporations and to let them compete. In many industries they actually let private players create companies independently.

<comment><USER30> This is a rhetoric that is being repeated and repeated, but the simplification renders it obsolete. In my opinion. What market is free? Who is your consumer? What about ((yet) unforseen?) externalities? We've come up with a lot more systems and are sticking with this "free" market one, but being technicians, we know that more often than not, not the "best" system endures.

<comment><USER29> A functioning free market, or at least the best approximation that we can have in practice, requires state intervention.

I think this is a crucial point that is too often overlooked.

Many people think that "free market" means no intervention. While this might be the theoretical definitions, in practice that does not work and the system degenerates.

If a good approximation of a functioning free market can be achieved then it is indeed the best option we have.

<comment><USER28> I think there is a choice element around "free" as well. I think functional markets can be relatively free (and regulated) but they can also be not free (closed to certain actors, structured with elements of compulsion) and yet also be functional.

Efficient allocations are theoretical (in the sense of not computable within the lifetime of the universe on a real machine) when you move past a handful of actors and a handful of goods. Functional markets don't make efficient allocations - they make allocations that the actors can sustain.

<comment><USER29> Free markets make efficient allocations in the sense that resources are allocated to what is in demand and competition forces players to increase their own efficiency.

Markets exist no matter what you do. Everything is a market.

<comment><USER28> Markets are one mechanism for social regulation; there are many others. For example it was common for rulers in past societies to bury large hordes of treasure as offering to the gods. This was done not to store it, but because it increased prestige while reducing actual power. This is not a market. Not everything is a market and attempting to apply market mechanics to things which are not markets (like relationships, education) is a major source of inefficiency and unhappiness.

<comment><USER29> Everything is a market. Problems arise when this is ignored and, worse, when rules are created that go against the market.

Education, for example, certainly is a market. Demand is high and all parents try to get the best the can for their children, which creates an imbalance between demand and supply for the best education. Where school places are allocated according to catchment areas, houses prices immediately reflect the value of certain schools. That's the market talking.

In the UK, there used to be "grammar schools", which were selective secondary state schools. Most of them have been abolished but not all of them. Getting a place means top free education. Result? Insane competition and huge industry of private tuitions and training books that lockout the poorer. Again the market is at play and tells us that a grammar school place is extremely valuable.

Supply and demand, therefore markets, shape everything.

<comment><USER9> Everything is NOT a market, that's a profoundly ideological statement. Check out Karl Polanyi and the distinction between a society with markets vs a market society. We live in a market society, but that is a historically unprecedented state of affairs - historically, many important aspects of society were distributed and regulated through other social forms. It is capitalism alone which commodifies everything under the sun, including land, housing and labor. Many of the most awful aspects of our society are rooted in this historic aberration and the creative destruction it brings with it.

<comment><USER28> Specifically the interests of the unborn cannot be represented in a market. The unborn have an interest in the use of resources and the exploitation of the environment, and it is a legitimate moral interest, but they are not market actors and their interests cannot be accounted for in a market framework.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> your-nanny it's not that we haven't learned, it's just that the forgetting is so good.

</comment><comment><USER31> We learned nothing.

<comment><USER32> Betteridge's Law of Headlines: No, we haven't learnt anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Related from 2003 by Jim Sanford: "Confessions of a Recovering Economist" [http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue21/Stanford21.htm](http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue21/Stanford21.htm) "I am an economist. It is seventeen days since I last uttered the phrase "supply and demand." But the demon still lurks untamed, within me. Economics is an addiction. Every other addiction has a Twelve Step program, laced with tough love and blunt self-honesty. Why not a Twelve Step program for economists? God knows, we have done enough damage with our arrogant, drunken prescriptions. Here's how each and every economist can face up to their inner demons, and make their own small contribution to setting things right. ..."

From 2010: "They Did Their Homework (800 Years of It)" [https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/economy/04econ.h...](https://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/economy/04econ.html) "But in the wake of the recent crisis, a few economists — like Professors Reinhart and Rogoff, and other like-minded colleagues like Barry Eichengreen and Alan Taylor — have been encouraging others in their field to look beyond hermetically sealed theoretical models and into the historical record. "There is so much inbredness in this profession," says Ms. Reinhart. "They all read the same sources. They all use the same data sets. They all talk to the same people. There is endless extrapolation on extrapolation on extrapolation, and for years that is what has been rewarded.""

Or from 2011: "Economics for the Rest of Us: Debunking the Science That Makes Life Dismal" by Moshe Adler [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7197448-economics-for- th...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7197448-economics-for-the-rest-of- us) "Why do contemporary economists consider food subsidies in starving countries, rent control in rich cities, and health insurance everywhere "inefficient"? Why do they feel that corporate executives deserve no less than their multimillion-dollar "compensation" packages and workers no more than their meager wages? Here is a lively and accessible debunking of the two elements that make economics the "science" of the rich: the definition of what is efficient and the theory of how wages are determined. The first is used to justify the cruelest policies, the second grand larceny.Filled with lively examples-from food riots in Indonesia to eminent domain in Connecticut and everyone from Adam Smith to Jeremy Bentham to Larry Summers-Economics for the Rest of Us shows how today's dominant economic theories evolved, how they explicitly favor the rich over the poor, and why they're not the only or best options. Written for anyone with an interest in understanding contemporary economic thinking-and why it is dead wrong-Economics for the Rest of Us offers a foundation for a fundamentally more just economic system."

Or harder hitting from a trial lawyer: [http://conceptualguerilla.com/essays/essays-on-economics- and...](http://conceptualguerilla.com/essays/essays-on-economics-and- ideology/mythology-of-wealth/) "Old habits die hard. In fact, we still have a "leisure class". As capitalism has grown so has the wealth and privilege of our leisure class. The old mythologies – gods, the "great chain of being" etc. – are no longer available to justify the existence and perpetuation of our leisure class, something our elites are definitely interested in perpetuating. What was needed was a new "rational" world-view that justified the existence of privileged elites. That rationalization came in the form of a brand new science known as economics, which included a brand new mythology."

Or from 1999: "The Market as God" by Harvey Cox (Harvard professor of religion): [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/03/the- mar...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1999/03/the-market-as- god/306397/) "A few years ago a friend advised me that if I wanted to know what was going on in the real world, I should read the business pages. Although my lifelong interest has been in the study of religion, I am always willing to expand my horizons; so I took the advice, vaguely fearful that I would have to cope with a new and baffling vocabulary. Instead I was surprised to discover that most of the concepts I ran across were quite familiar. Expecting a terra incognita, I found myself instead in the land of déjà vu. The lexicon of The Wall Street Journal and the business sections of Time and Newsweek turned out to bear a striking resemblance to Genesis, the Epistle to the Romans, and Saint Augustine's City of God. Behind descriptions of market reforms, monetary policy, and the convolutions of the Dow, I gradually made out the pieces of a grand narrative about the inner meaning of human history, why things had gone wrong, and how to put them right. Theologians call these myths of origin, legends of the fall, and doctrines of sin and redemption. But here they were again, and in only thin disguise: chronicles about the creation of wealth, the seductive temptations of statism, captivity to faceless economic cycles, and, ultimately, salvation through the advent of free markets, with a small dose of ascetic belt tightening along the way, especially for the East Asian economies."

See also: "The Impact of Inequality: How to Make Sick Societies Healthier" by Richard G. Wilkinson

And: "The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger" by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

And: "The Price of Inequality" by Joseph E. Stiglitz

Another petition/manifesto by students from 2009: "The True Cost Economics Manifesto" [https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-true-cost-economics- manif...](https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-true-cost-economics- manifesto/2009/08/09) ""We, the Undersigned, make this accusation: that you, the teachers of neoclassical economics and the students that you graduate, have perpetuated a gigantic fraud upon the world. You claim to work in a pure science of formula and law, but yours is a social science, with all the fragility and uncertainty that this entails. We accuse you of pretending to be what you are not. You hide in your offices, protected by your mathematical jargon, while in the real world, forests vanish, species perish and human lives are callously destroyed. We accuse you of gross negligence in the management of our planetary household. ..."

There is at least one other petition I saw from around then (though with softer words) mainly by economics professors and grad students -- can't find it at the moment.

Or to go way, way back, see Marshall Sahlins: [http://www.primitivism.com/original- affluent.htm](http://www.primitivism.com/original-affluent.htm) "Hunter- gatherers consume less energy per capita per year than any other group of human beings. Yet when you come to examine it the original affluent society was none other than the hunter's -- in which all the people's material wants were easily satisfied. To accept that hunters are affluent is therefore to recognise that the present human condition of man slaving to bridge the gap between his unlimited wants and his insufficient means is a tragedy of modern times. ... The world's most primitive people have few possessions. but they are not poor. Poverty is not a certain small amount of goods, nor is it just a relation between means and ends; above all it is a relation between people. Poverty is a social status. As such it is the invention of civilisation. It has grown with civilisation, at once as an invidious distinction between classes and more importantly as a tributary relation that can render agrarian peasants more susceptible to natural catastrophes than any winter camp of Alaskan Eskimo."

Even in the 1980s when I was in college it was clear to many that much of economics was, essentially, am apologetic branch of mathematics with little connection to the real world. My own take on that from around 2008: [https://pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity- princeton.html#Some_com...](https://pdfernhout.net/post-scarcity- princeton.html#Some_comments_on_the_PU_Economics_department_and_related_research_directions_from_a_post- scarcity_perspective)

</comment><comment><USER34> Economists can't even agree on what caused the Great Depression.

</comment><comment><USER35> Wow, what Socialist crap that article is, and in Nature of all things! Probably best to steer clear of those books on economy! Anyway, if you look into how trading is done today, and how big firms – especially banks – are allowed to operate, then it's no wonder it goes as it goes. First off no company should be too big to fail. That should be your first warning sign that it's become too oligarchic, if not completely monopolistic. But no, most governments chose to go in the opposite direction, and further corporatize and monopolize the behemots. Well, good luck with that! Now we're probably just moments before the biggest crash in history. People talk about 2008 being this century's 1929. Ha! That was peanuts!

</comment><comment><USER36> The author's true colors come out when he rails for post-Keynesian economics as an alternative worth studying.

As much as economics ("mainstream" or "orthodox economics" is an expression like "allopathic medicine") is a struggling pre-science that has just in the 90s begun to adopt RCTs, etc -- the alternative these people are saying is snake oil. "Post Keynesian economics" isn't even trying -- it's just a justification for the kind of irrationally exuberant policies that caused 2008 in first place.</comment>


Continued Sad State of PHP Development - <AUTHOR> http://fosterburgess.com/kimsal/?p=390

<comment><USER2> This just in: The PHP developers have an ad hoc approach to problem solving and it shows in everything about PHP, from core language features to the standard library (all 3000, or so, functions in the default namespace). I'm all astonishment.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're using PHP you've already subscribed to the idea that using a real programming language doesn't matter, so this kind of thing is par for the course.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't understand everyones problem with PHP. If you don't like it, don't use it.

Plenty of interesting and useful apps have been built on PHP.

<comment><USER5> I don't understand your problem with constructive criticism. If you don't like it, don't read it.

Plenty of interesting and useful points have been raised, points from which the entire PHP community could benefit in the long run.

<comment><USER4> I don't have a problem with it - just didn't look constructive to me (I don't and never have used php, but I just hear a lot of people bashing it, which is fine, but I use some good apps daily that are PHP).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Actually, PHP 5 with all its object orientation and reflection features is quite liveable despite being filled with kludges around every corner.

<comment><USER2> Not without first class functions, it aint. And don't give me no guff about create_function().

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> PHP is still one of the best when it comes to web development.

<comment><USER8> In the sense that every human is one of the 7 billion best...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why don't more people post their startup ideas on HN? - <AUTHOR>

After rereading PG's article on the value of an idea, I scratched my head and asked myself this question.  Why, if the value of an idea is so low, don't more people post their startup ideas on HN?
Here is a play-by-play of how my thought process went:
1) The value of an idea is very low; the value of a strong team is very high
2) I should try to meet more smart people who share my vision and like my idea
3) The best way to meet people with similar interests is by telling others about my interests
4) Wouldn't I meet more smart people who share my interests if I posted my idea on HN?
I quickly realized that it isn't that people are afraid to tell others about their ideas-- heck, I've been telling everyone I meet about my idea without hesitation-- rather, I hypothesize, that people are afraid of the unknown, the risk that there may be someone out there who is more capable and who doesn't need them to execute their idea.
But, I then wondered, are the risks significant enough to offset the benefits?  What do you think? <comment><USER2> It depends on whether people want to profit from their ideas themselves (usually people that have no capability to actually execute are in this mode) or whether you'd be happy to see the idea realized at all, no matter whether you had a hand in it or not.

People that have ideas and are good at executing them usually have their hands full anyway, not much loss to them if they can get other people to run with their ideas. Also, they probably realize that their ideas are not all that unique.

If all you've done in your life is get this one 'great' idea then you're going to be much more protective about it.

And that probably kills the one chance you had at realizing it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you think the benefits of posing an idea on HN offset the risk of seeing someone else run with your idea? Assuming that you're capable and interested in profiting from your idea.

<comment><USER2> Absolutely. After all, you've had a long time to think about the implementation details, most others don't have that-start.

Also, without a doubt someone somewhere is currently thinking about exactly that same idea. But he/she might not have access to the crowd at HN, which is a huge asset.

An alternative to test the waters a bit would be to mail a couple of people and see how they respond. That way you get something in between without putting your idea out for the world to see.

Worst case it's a bad idea, knowing that sooner will save you time and possibly $, best case you might find yourself some enthusiastic co-founders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> People used to - we used to get "review my startup" posts every couple days, and for the first few months people would actually get really good feedback on them. Then more people started doing it, and the average startup became lamer and lamer, until eventually people just stopped reading & voting up "review my startup" posts. Then people figured it just wasn't worth submitting them, so it sorta stopped, mostly.

<comment><USER2> There have been some cases lately where I think the 'review my startup' line was just a ploy to get a spam link in under the radar. It seems to give a free pass to get a lot of people to look at some commercial proposition. Effectively it is hacking HN, in itself a funny thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For me, there's a simpler reason: I don't have one.

</comment><comment><USER5> I know for some people that talking too much about something is a means to avoid actually doing it. I know one individual who seems to feel no need to really accomplish anything as long as they are getting sufficient attention for whatever the heck they are doing. I don't think that is all that unusual. I mean if you are looking primarily for an emotional payoff, why bother doing something hard if there are easier ways to get it?

I also think some things need to "incubate". And during incubation, it is detrimental to have certain kinds of inputs.</comment>


Brilliant Hackers wanted for Caribbean Codefest 2015 (Free Trip included) - <AUTHOR> http://www.hackersagency.com/ IT'S PRETTY SIMPLE. IT' A FREE TRIP TO THE CARIBBEAN.
Submit at site.
Looking for A-list hackers with hackathon/hackfest/codefest/hackday experience to compete in first Caribbean International Invitational Codefest to be held in Curacao in March 2015.
As this is the first event, it's an unpaid gig, but all expenses and travel will be taken care of. <comment><AUTHOR> IT'S PRETTY SIMPLE. IT' A FREE TRIP TO THE CARIBBEAN.

Looking for A-list hackers with hackathon/hackfest/codefest/hackday experience to compete in first Caribbean International Invitational Codefest to be held in Curacao in March 2015.

As this is the first event, it's an unpaid gig, but all expenses and travel will be taken care of.

It may also be filmed for a pilot for an unscripted docudrama so extroverts preferred.

Quite simply, we want a dozen of the best, most dynamic, characters from the scene to come down to the Caribbean Islands for year one of an annual event which will help drive innovation in the islands. We will assign 12-24 developers from the various islands to work with you and proteges as well as give you five partner positions via Skype within your own networks (designers/UX/UI/Biz Dev) so you also have a virtual team behind you.

Are you game? Are you "The One?"

It's not about your Ph.D. from Stanford in Computer Engineering, it's about the passion and creativity you bring to the table. And your willingness to share your intelligence with kids in the developing nations of the Caribbean. It's just a totally cool thing to do and we want totally cool people to come onboard.</comment>


Two coffee pots or one?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/toilet_paper_algorit.html

<comment><USER2> Just keep your supply of rolls in the bathroom?</comment>


Ask HN: What do you use to model things? - <AUTHOR>

For a long time now I've wanted a general purpose modeling tool. I looking something that's a mixture of a programming language and a visualization engine. Some features:<p>- create hypotheses that affect bits of state in the model. hypotheses are expressed as functions which get run on an interval<p>- connect hypotheses to external data sources .. web scraping / RESTFUL APIs et al<p>- visualize all pieces of state <comment><USER2> With PyModel you write models (simulations or executable specifications) in Python. There is an analyser that generates and displays graphs (finite state machines) that demonstrate samples of model behavior (the model itself does not have to be finite state machine). The analyzer can also check whether the behavior reaches unsafe states (according to a definition you provide) or intended goal states. Another tool uses the models to generate and check tests. (Disclaimer: I am the author)

[https://github.com/jon-jacky/PyModel](https://github.com/jon-jacky/PyModel)</comment>


Google Open-Sourced Kubernetes to Boost Its Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/06/google-kubernetes-says-future-cloud-computing/ <comment><USER2> I've been working with Kubernetes a fair bit (I'm contributing to porting it to AWS). It's an exciting time: I believe that we'll be running everything in containers within the next few years, and Kuberentes solves some of the big missing pieces with actually running Docker in production across a cluster. There are other competing systems trying to do the same thing (including Docker Inc itself), but I think Kubernetes has a huge advantage by having years of experience of what did and didn't work well in Borg.

Most importantly of all though, I have found it a great project to use, and a really great project to contribute to. I think that contributions are the lifeblood of open-source projects, and I give Kubernetes 10/10 for their community and processes, which I think bodes very well for the future.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am a little surprised that Google is join this route. Making Google Cloud into a huge business must be a high priority. I used Borg for a while in 2013, and it was amazingly, specially the logging for tracking down runtime problems.

<comment><USER4> Why? Google hands out all sorts of papers and such a few years after the fact.

This is just another example, an open source version of Borg that will always be a few years behind.

<comment><USER5> While it is true that Borg is 10 years ahead of Kubernetes, we have the benefit of knowing where Borg arrived rather than following the same winding course.

<comment><USER4> Of course, but unless there is a massive maintainability flaw in Borg, its unlikely you can duplicate 10 years of effort AND maintain pace with Borg's/Borg's successor(s) progress.

Well, without a huge influx of developers to the open source side.

<comment><USER5> First, there are a LOT of people working on Kubernetes right now.

Second, of course it will be asymptotic for a long time. But keep in mind that we don't want or need everything that Borg has, and Borg does not have everything that Kubernetes does. Kubernetes is not a clone of Borg - it is inspired by the lessons and experiences we got by doing Borg. Often that means we learned how NOT to do something.

If we can get 75% as functional as Borg in 1/3 the time, we'll be doing pretty darn well. I think we're on track for that.

<comment><USER4> > If we can get 75% as functional as Borg in 1/3 the time, we'll be doing > pretty darn well. I think we're on track for that.

I'm sure you can do that. That doesn't invalidate my statement that it isn't surprising Google would do this _precisely because it 'll only be 75% as functional as Borg at any given point in time_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is it me or does anyone else interprets all the recent wave of open sourcing as a trend to not create open standards anymore, but instead open source the technology altogether (without even creating the standard).

Have standards failed ?

<comment><USER7> My 2c, not speaking as a Google rep but as myself, is that if you have a problem only a single actor needs to solve, you're going to end up with software, not a standard. To get a standard, you have to have a situation where the value of cooperation is higher than the cost.

There are plenty of people _now_ who need to solve the container problem, but Googlers been working on this shit for years, before it was really on anyone else's horizon. Google employees incepted the cgroup feature way back in 2006, to solve problems that were already being felt acutely at that time within Google. Folks have been working on this stuff a long time before it mattered to anyone else, and that's why what's coming out is software rather than standards. There is no way a big company is going to delay solutions to an urgent strategic problem in order to be part of a democratic process for the sake of a few people's ideals. Maybe if they'd seen it coming five or ten years in advance, to give enough time for the standardization process to occur, but Google was far too small and the future far too uncertain in 2001 to predict what might be needed in 2006.

<comment><USER8> Almost every problem that containers solved, was solved with EclipseBSD [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.25.8...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.25.8401) way back in 1998

<comment><USER9> Yes, the concept of resource control wasn't new. Getting it from a research project to the form where it was production-ready and supported for inclusion in the mainline tree of Google's kernel of choice took a bit longer.

<comment><USER8> I used EclipseBSD, it was production ready. The community wasn't receptive at the time for getting it into the mainline FreeBSD tree.

For this I applaud Google for making it in, even when the masses don't see the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Kubernetes is alpha software right now. I was at a meet up last month and there are a lot of missing features from what I recall. They're planning to fix one of these feature with some project call Ubernetes.

While people are raving about containers, there are still security issues with containers no?

I think VM will be here to stay for a long while and while we might have to pay a performance and memory hit for them, they offer better isolation.

<comment><USER11> > there are still security issues with containers no?

In Linux, perhaps. However FreeBSD jails and illumos zones are rock-solid. There's this crazy hype around containers these days and people just ignore the stable, secure, and tried technology, I don't understand it at all!

FreeBSD and illumos are not Linux, but their still Unix-like, it's not like you'd have to use OpenVMS. Plus you'd get other benefits too, like DTrace and ZFS. And on illumos now you can even run Linux binaries in a zone.

So why do people simply pretend these secure technologies don't exist? Can someone explain?

<comment><USER12> Because there are lot more Linux users / developers than BSD.

<comment><USER11> I don't think that "X has more users than Y" is a valid complete argument in itself, otherwise nothing would ever change. Of course it matters in the grand scheme of things, but the causal relationship is more complex, involves many degrees of freedom and goes both ways.

Before docker came, Linux had LXC, which wasn't as popular as docker is now, but it was certainly known and used by people. So when docker came, LXC had more users than docker, and yet docker surpassed LXC in popularity in weeks, so the "X has more users than Y" state can be changed by various factors and it's not enough to keep the system in equilibrium.

So yes, the fact that Linux is more widely used than FreeBSD and illumos in the developer community is certainly an important factor, but I don't see anyone ever saying "FreeBSD is great but we want to use something supported by a larger community", or "illumos is great, but we don't have expertise with it", which are certainly important arguments to consider when making a decision.

But I hardly see anyone making these arguments, or any other arguments really. It's like these systems don't even exist. At first I attributed this to the "X has more users than Y" factor, but then I see people having particular problems with Linux container technology, in areas such as security, virtual networking, etc. And these are problems already solved by FreeBSD and illumos. Surely when you have a problem you look for alternative solutions that don't have these problems?

But I don't see people looking over the alternatives at all. As I said, there are many valid reasons not to use these other technologies, but I am very perplexed that people refuse to even acknowledge the existence of them.

And now that illumos can run Linux inside a zone (and FreeBSD did this too 15 years ago, and still does for 32-bit binaries, I believe work is well underway to extend this to 64-bit as well), I think the "I only know Linux" argument loses some potency, you _can_ run Linux after all...

<comment><USER13> LXC and Docker are operations technologies. It takes the same codebase and just generates a different product from it.

Switching to a different OS, however, requires different _development-time_ technologies. Some third-party dependencies like libraries you're used to using might not even exist on the other platform.

Effectively, developers are locked into a pretty _tiny_ development-time ecosystem: all the devs I know develop on Ubuntu (or on OSX with testing on Ubuntu, if they can get away with it.) They depend on the apt package graph, including PPAs.

Half of the renewed enthusiasm behind containers isn't about security; it's about the fact that a lot of operations people prefer RPM-based distros, and it was always really annoying to try to keep a given piece of Linux software portable between deb-based and RPM-based distros. You needed to figure out how to specify operation-time dependencies against at least two package graphs, and also compile-time dependencies using autotools or similar.

In contrast, Docker and similar ops software are interesting (from one perspective) precisely because they let devs _learn fewer things_ : you develop your software on your Ubuntu machine, create a container that basically replicates your development environment, "install" your software in there, and then distribute that. Now your software can be run on some other dev's (Ubuntu, OSX) machine, or deployed to a production (RHEL) machine. The other deployment scenarios are pretty minor in comparison.

Or, in short: devs and ops are separate jobs. Containers make ops people do more work/learn more things, but let devs do less work/learn fewer things. That's why devs are enthusiastic about them: it pushes the work of packaging their software (or writing autoconf scripts) for various platforms off their plate.

Devs are interested in learning one thing—e.g. how to write a Dockerfile—that lets them drop an entire stream of continuous work/learning/keeping-up they have to do, e.g. handling changes in the multiple platforms their software supports.

<comment><USER14> _> Now your software can be run on some other dev's (Ubuntu, OSX) machine, or deployed to a production (RHEL) machine. _

What about dependencies between user-space and the host kernel? Aren't all containers forced to use the same kernel as the host?

The packaging scenario thst you describe has existed for years with VMs, where the VM _can_ have a kernel or even OS version that is different from the host.

<comment><USER13> The main difference (besides overhead) is that a VM contains a running collection of OS services along with your app. Because of this, the ops team needs to be involved in keeping the VM up to date, the VM usually needs to be "managed" with orchestration much like a physical machine, and all-in-all it's big interdependent mess where the devs can't just forget about deploy-time concerns.

Idiomatic usage of containers forces one particular solution for this: a container contains one service; multiple services means multiple containers, and the orchestration of those containers is up to the ops people and their software.

VMs _can_ also be done this way. EC2 ephemeral instances work great for doing a CoreOS-like "upgrade by starting up new AMIs instances and killing the old ones" strategy.

However, since ops people can't be _guaranteed_ that random VMs they're handed do not, in fact, have arbitrarily-old services running in them with possible security vulnerabilities, they have to be conservative about deploying random VMs created by devs. Thus, VMs don't tend to get created by devs; thus, the devs still have to solve the deploy-time problem some other way to get the ops people something they can _build into_ a VM. This isn't as much of a problem with containers.

Unikernel VMs, on the other hand, are effectively equivalent to containers: they both provide "just one service in a sandbox"-level granularity, that ops can then manage as it pleases. If Unikernels had come around 10 years ago—if Linux had been factored into a rump kernel, for example—I don't think we'd be nearly as interested in containers today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Any references to the publications containing the real blueprint?

<comment><AUTHOR> Borg: [http://research.google.com/pubs/pub43438.html](http://research.google.com/pubs/pub43438.html) Omega: [http://research.google.com/pubs/pub41684.html](http://research.google.com/pubs/pub41684.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This has nothing to do with the article, but I absolutely hate the way wired underlines their article links. It might fit with their magazine style design but it's so incredibly distracting. I always want to bump it 1px up or down!

</comment><comment><USER17> Google open source projects in general are just shitty. The reason is that they don't open source the whole thing and the code ends up being full of assumptions that don't hold because you are either not running things at google scale or are missing certain key bits of the "secret sauce".

In any event google compute is a terrible user experience compared to the likes of AWS and other cloud providers. Heck, even the shittiest VPS providers tend to be better than google compute. So open sourcing their "secret sauce" as the article puts is still missing key bits so I don't know how many people actually fall for the good will part.

<comment><USER18> disclaimer: i am a founder of the Kubernetes project and did the article with Cade at Wired. i also was product lead for compute engine back in the day fwiw :).

I am not sure which projects you have looked at from Google in terms of Open Source, but in the case of Kubernetes we have worked pretty hard to engage a community outside of Google and work with the community to make sure that Kubernetes is solid. One of the things that I like about the it is that many of the top contributors don't work at Google. People like Red Hat have worked very closely with us to make sure that (1) Kubernetes works well on traditional infrastructure (2) that it is a comprehensive system that meets enterprise needs, (3) that the usability is solid. People like Mirantis are working to integrate Kubernetes into the OpenStack ecosystem. The project started as a Google thing, but is bigger than a single company now.

Another thing worth noting: building a hosted commercial product (Google Container Engine) in the open by relying exclusively on the Kubernetes code base has helped us ensure that what we have built is explicitly _not_ locked into Google's infrastructure, that the experience is good (since our community has built much of the experience), and that the product solves a genuinely broad set of problems.

Also consider that many of our early production users don't run on Google. Many do, but many also run on AWS or on private clouds.

\-- craig

<comment><USER19> I'd be interested to see whether Google follow's Pivotal's lead and donates its IP to an independent foundation, as happened with Cloud Foundry.

Disclaimer: I work for Pivotal, in Pivotal Labs.</comment></comment></comment>


Nonce-Disrespecting Adversaries: Practical Forgery Attacks on GCM in TLS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nonce-disrespect/nonce-disrespect <comment><USER2> This is a great paper. Basically, AES-GCM fails when nonces are repeated. If that sounds like a impossibility, it isn't. The authors found several TLS implementations that had faulty nonce generation algorithms. Notably, one device would send the same 8 bytes of uninitialized memory as it's first and second nonce in a connection.</comment>


Kulitta: A framework for automated music composition (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://donyaquick.com/dissertation/

<comment><USER2> Name alert: Kulitta sounds like ass in some languages.</comment>


Another reason you should learn to code: Python for Excel - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2012/06/08/another-reason-you-should-lean-to-code-python-for-excel/ <comment><USER2> VBA is one of the best languages and environments for beginners ever. Why using Python instead would give the beginner anything, is beyond me.

Here's a shortlist:

\- VBA is case-insensitive. If you don't know the significance of this, you've never taught beginners \- VBA hides event binding and namespaces for the user. Major obstacles removed \- VBA has full autocomplete \- VBA has F1 context- sensitive help \- VBA automatically formats and indents your code \- VBA is more verbose, and verbosity aids comprehension \- VBA finishes most of what you type, so you don't actually have to type much more than in Python \- VBA was designed for Excel, and vice versa. The object models fit \- There's tons of online resources for using VBA in Excel

And finally, VBA is dead-easy to learn, even for Microsoft-hating open source hackers. You just have to learn to get over yourself.

<comment><USER3> With the same argument you would easily arrive to the conclusion that the best way to learn grammar is a spell checker.

Actually it depends, if those beginners are supposed to become programmers then you're wrong, if they just want to write one piece of software once in their life and never do it again then maybe you're right.

<comment><USER4> An important part of teaching a beginner is making sure they don't get bored or frustrated. Their first language may not give them all the experience they'll need down the road, and may not be something they'll ever use again, but what you need is something that's not frustrating and gives them the idea that they themselves can actually make something. Spark the interest, and they'll want to press on.

<comment><USER5> Yup. Scheme and Scratch fit that description well.

1\. <http://www.trollope.org/scheme.html>

2\. <http://racket-lang.org/learning.html>

3\. <http://scratch.mit.edu/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am fairly sure that the first oReilly python book had several chapters devoted to COM and excel/word. I know I wrote articles on it, got a job based on scripting PowerPoint. Almost every dynamic scripting language I can think of has COM automation ( or whatever it is called these days)

using IronPython to access COM components seems another unnecessary layer. And in my experience what is useful is calling from excel to python and then using vba to manipulate it. (VBA inside excel is fine. Might I suggest that if you are Reading this and thinking "great, anoter way I can program exclusively in Pythin everywhere" you have fallen victim to the yet to be named syndrome and should forcibly use any other language. I still get relapses

</comment><comment><USER7> This is probably a net good: new ways for people to apply their Python knowledge are good, and new means and incentives for people to get into coding or make life easier are good, and Python is looking more future-proof than VBA at this point.

But the main selling point for this on the linked page and video is that the resulting code is shorter, and the code is only really shorter because the VBA code declares its variables. The video narrator even says that writing VBA is slower because you have to declare variables before use. I'm sure HN has had plenty of debates about declaring variables in the past, but personally I don't feel it slows me down much more than just thinking of a variable. Anyway, by default you don't have to declare variables in VBA, though it is good practice, especially for larger projects.

Also, that 40-line+ heap of VBA they show being changed into 14 lines of Python is rather unfair. They've written a function for finding the minimum in a range and then loop through a range when they could use worksheet functions (also accessible via VBA) for both. I make it around 12 lines of VBA if you do it that way. Or you could just use 3 worksheet functions and no macros at all.

OK, so these hypothetical beginners may not know the best way to do things in VBA - but they probably aren't going to use lambdas in Python as in the example, either. (Though I do like the possibilities of lambdas for various Excel tasks I've done in the past!)

</comment><comment><USER8> Two articles on HN, yet still no answer to "How is this better than using Python and Excel with COM?"

I'm almost disappointed that so many people think this is an impressive new thing.

<comment><USER9> Maybe many people were unaware this was possible. My coworker was certainly excited.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Previous discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4085052>

</comment><comment><USER10> Also see PyXLL <http://pyxll.com>, which has been around for a while and is more comprehensive.

It lets you write Excel addins in Python in a very straightforward way. Python functions can implement functions, menu items, macros. Supports asynchronous functions in the latest Excel.

See examples here: <http://pyxll.com/introduction.html>

</comment><comment><USER11> Also see Pyvot, a similar tool that was created by Microsoft:

<http://pytools.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Pyvot>

</comment><comment><USER12> I've never actually scripted with VBA but I have looked at the VBA environment. Does using IronPython mean basically giving up that environment? Is that environment (easy form creation with point and click event code attachment) important for VBA devs? It has certainly always looked compelling but since I'm not a VBA dev I have no idea.

</comment><comment><USER13> I can see what the author is trying to get at, but I can't help but think the example is not so good.

If you use Excel and want to take it a bit further I would suggest that RExcel is probably a better choice. The R environment has abundant, relevant functionality for those who use Excel frequently.

When I encountered tasks that were tedious in Excel or beyond the abilities of Excel I went searching for a solution. After looking at VBA I eventually tried RExcel. I barely used RExcel as I found it more convenient to work in R itself. Now I use R and a database via ODBC far more than I use Excel. I can see using R as a gateway to other programming languages.

<comment><USER14> "I can see using R as a gateway to other programming languages."

So true. A fairly common path is Excel to VBA to RExcel to R to C++. R is great for exploring and prototyping but then C++ is often used to hard-wire the final R code for speed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I find it interesting that the piece doesn't cite Hacker News as how the author discovered Iron Python. There is only this: "I'm glad I stumbled on to this project." For whatever reason, authors are generally good about citing other blogs as sources – even just for links, not commentary – but aggregators like HN are almost never acknowledged.

<comment><USER16> Agreed. I imagine bloggers like John Gruber find a good bit of material on HN, and never reference it, even though he's adamant on citing other bloggers. Strange.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The author is trying to shoehorn this post into the "everyone should learn to code" debate, but that is a totally unrelated issue.

This post talks about switching from (VB to Python). That only happening after they've learned to code.

</comment><comment><USER18> The article does not focus on how IronSpread is doing a cool or unique job but it focuses on how beautiful Python code can be. Just a few lines of it can do so many cool things that make non coders want to learn to code.

</comment><comment><USER19> Been available in perl for years.

<comment><USER20> You got any links?

<comment><USER21> At a glance

<https://www.google.com/#q=perl+excel>

seems to surface both a bunch of links from the beginning of the last decade, and some current stuff. I would be more familiar with the former, so it may be best to form your own opinion on the current state of things. But I'm commenting here, to the effect that there is much information readily available.

P.S. At least of a decade ago, it helped to have a good understanding of Excel and its programmatic interface. One or more Perl modules made it easy to call into this interface, but you still needed to know what was available and what it would do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I absolutely love Python and absolutely love VBA for Excel apps. Eevn though it is interesting to see how Python fits in with excel, I am totally fine to keep using VBA for MS-Office apps.

</comment><comment><USER23> On the front page of a website named _Hacker_ News, there is a link saying that people _should learn to_ code?

Excuse me, but shouldn't we expect hackers to already know that (or at least be knee deep in Thinking in Java or it's like)?

<comment><USER24> It refers to the controversy started a few months ago by NYC mayor Bloomberg saying people should learn to code, and then Jeff Atwood insisting the opposite ([http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/05/please-dont- learn-t...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2012/05/please-dont-learn-to- code.html)), and the countless follow up blog posts debating the issue

<comment><USER23> Ah, drama! :)</comment></comment></comment>


GNU Emacs 24.1 released - <AUTHOR> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2012-06/msg00164.html <comment><USER2> New features:

\- New packaging system and interface (M-x list-packages) for downloading and installing extensions. A default package archive is hosted by GNU and maintained by the Emacs developers.

\- Support for displaying and editing bidirectional text, including right-to- left scripts such as Arabic and Hebrew.

\- Support for lexical scoping in Emacs Lisp.

\- Improvements to the Custom Themes system (M-x customize-themes).

\- Unified and improved completion system in many modes and packages.

\- Support for GnuTLS (for built-in TLS/SSL encryption), GTK+ 3, ImageMagick, SELinux, and Libxml2.

This looks great. :)

<comment><USER3> Complete list <http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/NEWS.24.1>

<comment><USER4> You can also find out about the important changes from:

      C-h r m antinews RET

This provides a changelog in the opposite direction, which is entertaining:

      For those users who live backwards in time, here is information about
      downgrading to Emacs version 23.4.  We hope you will enjoy the greater
      simplicity that results from the absence of many Emacs 24.1 features.

\-----

It can be found online here:

[http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Ant...](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Antinews.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Woah, emacs lisp now has lexical scoping

<comment><USER6> Yes, this is pretty radical. More info from the manual:

[http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Usi...](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Using- Lexical-Binding.html)

from [http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Lex...](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Lexical- Binding.html) -

 _Such code is also much more friendly to concurrency, which we want to add to Emacs in the near future._

Exciting times ahead ...

<comment><USER7> Indeed, will be nice when something blocking in one window doesn't lock up the whole emacs process.

<comment><USER8> YES! E.g. try running emacs on $host and run bbdb; go to some other machine and ssh ~/.bbdb $host:~/.bbdb; then ssh $host emacsclient. Now it's unresponsive until you walk over on your feet to $host and answer the revert- or-not question :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This means that I can finally try out Emacs Prelude [1]. Fantastic!

I've been wanting to check it out for a while, but I haven't been brave enough to run a non-stable release of GNU Emacs.

<http://batsov.com/prelude/>

<comment><USER10> What functionality does prelude provide? Unless I'm missing something, the website suggests that you can find out by "reading the source."

I had a similar experience once with the emacs starter kit [1]. Though it's a noble effort and probably _does_ have a ton of great features, there are some problems: you pretty much get all or nothing (ESK split it out into a "core" and "per-language" set of libraries but still, there's a lot of stuff) and it's hard to tell which things are emacs builtin and what is customizable. If you disagree with a customization you're SOL; I knew enough about emacs to know that some things had been customized, and I didn't like them, but it was nigh impossible to find out where they were customized and how to turn them off.

It reminds me of the libraries vs frameworks discussion [2]. Emacs works well with libraries (with little elisp functions counting as "mini-libraries"), and the ESK/prelude seem like frameworks.

I'm not trying to pick on these toolkits in particular. They are probably a good way to start out with emacs--I know that the ESK provides a bunch of features to make it more "friendly" out of the box for someone who is coming from something like TextMate.

Most "old-school" emacs people I know have their own .emacs that have accumulated over years and years of trying to solve specific problems or customize that one thing that's annoyed the crap out of them for a while. My .emacs is not pages and pages, but it does have some good stuff in it.

What I'd love to see (and maybe I'm inviting myself to do this) would be a tool (maybe ELPA is this tool, though It's hard to know) which allows you to search for, browse, and install elisp snippets to help you out. ELPA is good for bigger libraries (i.e. major modes) but not for "how do I create an unfill-paragraph function?"

[1] <https://github.com/technomancy/emacs-starter-kit> [2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2762280>

<comment><USER11> Author of the Starter Kit here.

For what it's worth, I've come around to this viewpoint. I rewrote ESK for version 2, and the emphasis was on packaging as much functionality in independent packages as possible. So as of v2, the Starter Kit is _mostly_ just about providing a default set of packages and turning on a few flags that it's just crazy to leave off (like ido). But this way more of the functionality is available to everyone, not just users of ESK.

Anyway, it certainly needs more documentation, but these days I recommend the Starter Kit more as a source of inspiration than something people should just use outright, at least if they're not in a hurry.

<comment><USER12> Thank you so much for ESK! It's really helped me get started in emacs. Also, could you think about adding undo-tree as a default for ESK? I really feel like that would be a worthy addition.

<comment><USER11> Glad you like it. I think rather than further development on the Starter Kit, effort would be better spent towards coming up with a good overview of the ecosystem, documenting available packages and how they work together.

<comment><USER13> And pushing improvements (like saner defaults, and documentation for some of the under-documented built-in packages) upstream to Emacs itself.

For those reasonably comfortable with Emacs, I think you should build it from source, and get into the habit of fixing tiny documentation problems as soon as you come across them. Mind you, I have submitted a couple such patches to the ido built-in help and they have languished un-noticed for 2 months.

P.S. Another thank-you here for the starter kit -- I no longer use it, but I did for a year or so and it did teach me several features I wouldn't have known about otherwise.

<comment><USER11> Pushing upstream is absolutely the best way to get things more widely used, but unfortunately changes to the defaults often get strong pushback from long- time users. It's a very politicized process; if improving Emacs itself were easier the Starter Kit never would have existed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's a slightly annoying regression (to Emacs 22, behavior, I believe) in the Mac version. Some Unicode characters (like —, ", and ") cause the line to expand in height slightly. Does anyone know of a fix?

<comment><USER13> If you modify the default font, you also have to change the default "fontset", because merely changing the default font doesn't install it as the font for unicode characters.

I use:

        (set-face-attribute 'default nil :family "Menlo" :height 120)
        (set-fontset-font "fontset-default" 'unicode "Menlo")

<comment><USER14> Perfect. Thank you so much. Guess I don't know as much about Emacs as I thought. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Precompiled binaries for Emacs 24.1 are already available for OS X at <http://emacsformacosx.com/> .

<comment><USER16> You caught that quick! It only finished compiling a few minutes ago... (I generally kick off the release builds manually)

<comment><USER17> Last I checked your builds didn't had `ns-toggle-fullscreen`. Is that still the case?

EDIT: Looks like emacsforosx does not compile Emacs with support for above command. Will you consider it? I totally understand distributing plain vanilla version though!

<comment><USER16> No, I don't want to support a bunch of little patches on top of emacs.

But it's frustrating for me, too, because I want the feature as much as anyone else. I've been making do with "(setq ns-auto-hide-menu-bar t)" which is _close_ to the desired behavior, especially when combined with maxframe [1]. It still has the window's title bar, so it's not exactly there.

[1] <https://github.com/rmm5t/maxframe.el> I use it like this (where super is the command key):

      (defun toggle-frame-maximization ()
        (interactive)
        (if (frame-parameter nil 'mf-maximized) (restore-frame) (maximize-frame)))
      (define-key global-map [(super return)] 'toggle-frame-maximization)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Awesome release! I've been waiting for this for a long time now. It will be in Arch Linux's repositories in a few hours.

The package system is awesome, no more hassle installing plugins and extensions!

Great job GNU, thank you!

</comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone know if/when it will be available via Ubuntu Software Center or some PPA? I am on Ubuntu 12.04.

<comment><USER3> There is a PPA for the snapshot

<https://launchpad.net/~cassou/+archive/emacs>

<http://emacs.naquadah.org/> (Debian)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Any idea when the precompiled Windows version will be released? Currently there seems to be no build <http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/emacs/windows/>

<comment><USER9> For what it's worth, the Windows binaries are now available: <http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/windows/emacs-24.1-bin-i386.zip>

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Someday there will be a version where the new feature will be an actually useful wiki :p

<comment><USER22> There is a "next generation, better structured and improved wiki" at <http://wikemacs.org/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> And it doesn't see control modifiers when used through Lion OSX screen sharing (seems a lot like this bug: <http://xquartz.macosforge.org/trac/ticket/180> ).

</comment><comment><USER24> I've been using the pretests for a while now, and the built in package manager has been an absolute joy to work with.

If I were to begin writing extensions, I'd also probably enjoy the lexical scoping a lot more.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> At the end of <http://wikemacs.org/wiki/GNU_Emacs_24> page, there are links to posts that describe changes in new version

</comment><comment><USER25> So does that mean it's officially stable? This is great news.

<comment><USER26> Yep.

        The current stable release is 24.1.[0]

[0] <http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/>

<comment><USER25> Fantastic, thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> OSX build seems to work really well:

./configure --with-gif=no --with-ns make make install

<comment><USER23> Ouch, sorry others are having trouble. Mine happened to work- but I don't know a lot about controlling the build config.

And the formatting didn't survive pasting. Should have been: ./configure --with-gif=no --with-ns; make; make install

<comment><USER27> I built it from the sources in the emacs-24 branch without a problem. For some reason only the tarball sources threw up that config error. Strange.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> So what is your favorite new feature?

<comment><USER29> Having ELPA built in is really nice. If I'd had a package manager back when I was first learning Emacs, I think I would have resented it a lot less. And even now, having it available without fiddling with anything will be such a nicety.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> the only time i hate the packaging system [apt] is when a new version of some software is released

<comment><USER11> It should be in nix shortly: <http://nixos.org/nix>

Nix and apt are very complementary to each other; apt has all the stable never-breaks stuff, and nix has all the latest new code. And when you pull in something too new that breaks, you can roll it back trivially.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Great news!

</comment><comment><USER32> wait for long time, really great!

</comment><comment><USER33> oh frabjous day!

<comment><USER34> Callooh! Callay!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> any decent mode for java yet? :-\</comment>


Kosmos Looks to Establish K-12 School That Exists Entirely in VR - <AUTHOR> https://vrscout.com/news/kosmos-k-12-school-exists-in-vr/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm a founder of Kosmos and the story covers our intention well. I think the most counterintuitiv thing for people who don't have a lot of experience with VR is that VR is a fundamentally social technology.

For use cases where the social aspect is important, it is already better than video calls and this is just the beginning.</comment>


A font for clients who do not understand Latin - <AUTHOR> http://blokkfont.com

<comment><USER2> Lorem ipsum is used a lot for typography, as well, so this wouldn't work in many (probably most) cases.

Pretty cool, nonetheless. It would be useful in some situations, certainly.

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting idea... but I can just see the client asking "What are those lines for?"

Still, I think I might give it a go, I would like to be wrong.</comment>


Show HN: Chatible – Anonymously Chat with Strangers in Facebook Messenger - <AUTHOR> http://www.chatible.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, Chatible is a project I've been working on this past week. I wanted to explore the idea of using bots to connect humans together. I'd love any feedback.

<comment><USER2> A couple quick questions:

Does it require a Facebook account to use?

If so are my chats stored for later reference?

Is it text only?

Is it regional for connections, so I won't be paired with somebody from a different country?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) It requires a Messenger account. (I believe FB decoupled FB and Messenger recently)

2) We don't store any messages on our backend.

3) We support text and stickers.

4) It's not regional. We pair you with random people throughout the world. However, if there's a demand for regional pairing, we will explore that as well.

<comment><USER3> For #1 all I know of is that Facebook and Messenger are separate mobile apps now. There's still just one kind of Facebook account.

<comment><USER4> You can use Messenger without a Facebook account (just your phone number I think).

<comment><USER5> This. Only need your phone number to use the Messenger app.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It'd be interesting if you could connect humans who share an interest together. I feel like platform need to direct and steer the human conversations.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I agree. We've already implemented that functionality, but right now we're brainstorming ways to roll it out without clunky UI. We want to keep it extremely simple to use for now.

<comment><USER7> Share this dev approach with Facebook proper and MAYBE I'll come back to the site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm surprised how easy it is to set up, since I already have the Facebook Messenger app on my mobile device. I actually thought it was am official Facebook service for a minute.

</comment><comment><USER9> Neat, though I fear you've created an easy way for spammers to "connect" with people anonymously. How do you plan on dealing with bots using your bot?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that's a reasonable concern. We haven't yet implemented anything to avoid spam, but that has been on our todo list. We have been thinking about giving users the ability to flag an account after their conversation ends. Maybe implement some sort of penalty system.

<comment><USER8> It's somewhat difficult to create tons of new Facebook accounts, so you can ride off this perk of Facebook to handle spam yourself. Flagging conversations is a good idea, so after three or so flags, you can automatically ban the account, and I think that would auffice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> So basically Omegle, but implemented on Facebook?

<comment><USER10> Not exactly :P Omegle had some chat servers of it's own but this one doesn't even need that :P it just has to relay messages hiding info</comment></comment>


How Developing SPA Influenced Me and My Code - <AUTHOR> https://netguru.co/blog/posts/how-developing-spa-influenced-me-and-my-code

<comment><USER2> Marionette is a "Rails" for Backbone?</comment>


Cheat-Sheet for SwiftUI that Makes iOS app Development even easier than ever - <AUTHOR> https://apps.apple.com/de/app/cheat-sheet/id1507455384 <comment><AUTHOR> About the Cheat-Sheet on the App Store Cheat-Sheet for SwiftUI shows all UI elements and the needed source code. Each UI element is presented in one or more variations. You can try the control and check the functionality. You can see one or more examples for working SwiftUI elements & the source code to get it. Corresponding UIKit elements are listed. It's easy, try it!

To allow experienced coders an easier changeover to SwiftUI, all elements from UIKit are assigned to the corresponding SwiftUI elements.

SwiftUI Cheat-Sheet is an Xcode Developer App to creating apps for iPhone and iPad using the cheatSheet app. Our app will be help through every step of the process for building an iOS app, from first idea to App Store.</comment>


Eye Contact - <AUTHOR> http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/complaint-box-eye-contact/?hp

<comment><AUTHOR> _"... I want to be looked at. And honestly, I'm not an exhibitionist. It's just that eye contact has gone the way of proper enunciation, a good handshake and a hug that means something — casualties of modern life. ..."_

Gaining eye contact - the face and body as well - means people can see what you are saying matches what you actually think. This type of analysis is understood intuitively by some but there is some science behind the gestures of which the work of Paul Enkman is most interesting ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ekman> TV watchers might recognise his work in _"Lie to me"_ ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie_to_Me>

The _"handshake"_ and _"hug"_ serve numerous functions, one I've always found interesting is the _"oxytocin"_ hack ~ [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-moral- molecule/20081...](http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-moral- molecule/200810/handshake-or-hug-why-we-touch)

<comment><USER2> *Ekman

<comment><AUTHOR> _"... Ekman ..."_

Thanks DTrejo, you would think I'd get the name right. I was thinking Venkman ~ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Venkman>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> One thing I noticed about France vs. the US is that in the cafe culture in France means it's fine to "stare" at passersby as you sit, slowly sipping your espresso. (Often, all the chairs face the street -- such as in this photo <http://www.luminous-landscape.com/images-99/cafe-thumb.jpg>). No one minds you "staring" as they walk by.

In America, if you watch passersby on the street you can tell they get uncomfortable.

<comment><USER4> On the other hand, the stock photo on that page is a good example of somewhere the French don't make eye contact -- on the Metro.

I am told it has something to do with the fact that you don't have a choice in being there, so people want the illusion of privacy.

<comment><USER5> It may has to do with adaptation in human behavior when others enters their "personal space", in a crowded metro train, for example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've noticed that people make more eye contact outside of New York. For New Yorkers, this means that you'd like to consider sex, fighting, or some combo of the two. As such, a trip outside of the city can be quite jarring.

<comment><USER7> I have heard this, but not noticed it--I make eye contact all the time on the subway, and I have not once had someone talk back to me, much less initiate sex or violence. This might be a size thing (too fat to be sexy, too big to be worth fighting), but I honestly suspect that New Yorkers exaggerate the city's hostility in this respect. Eye contact is too primal to change this fast, or to vary this much by geography.

<comment><USER8> I htink it depends on when someone lived in NYC and which train they took. If you were here during the late 80s early 90s, you heard a lot more of "What the fuck are you looking at!?". I saw at least 3-4 fights start that way.

Now this is a purely anecdotal correlation, but I noticed less and less of this kind of crap at the same time as crime was purportedly going down in the city. I know that there are a million ideas floating around about the reason for the drop in crime (abortion, "broken windows", etc.), but I'd like to see at least one of them incorporate the "chill out factor". Maybe for some reason NYC residents just became slightly less aggressive ?....Nah that's just crazy talk :)

<comment><USER9> Why was there a big drop in crime for NYC in the '90's? Sometimes just one man can make all the difference. From Wikipedia:

 _Rudy Giuliani served two terms as Mayor of New York City... He was credited with initiating improvements in the city's quality of life and with a reduction in crime._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The rule of thumb for eye contact with strangers (this is what I learned in a character analysis for film) is that beyond a time limit of 3 seconds the two characters will either A) get into a fist fight or B) start making passionate love.

</comment><comment><USER11> It seems that the human race is the only one that does not feel threatened by eye contact longer than half a second.

An accident happened in Rotterdam Zoo early 2007 a gorilla jumped over 4 meter of water to attack a woman who did look too much at him. [http://www.metacafe.com/watch/605817/the_great_escape_of_gor...](http://www.metacafe.com/watch/605817/the_great_escape_of_gorilla_bokito/) Special weird-looking glasses are now distributed to avoid this kind of problem again. [http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/17/gorilla-viewing- glas.ht...](http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/17/gorilla-viewing-glas.html)

This might be linked.

<comment><USER12> Are you sure? Go and stare for several minutes right into the eyes of the biggest, toughest-looking stranger you can find, and see what happens. Eye contact is always an effort to communicate _something_ , and it can easily be interpreted as a challenge.

<comment><USER11> Sorry, what I say was probably not clear enough. I agree with you, eye contact is a way to communicate something. It may be defiance (that's what I meant by "it might be linked"), but it could also be seduction, fear, friendly etc. And we can accept most looks much longer than animals.

I just had a strange experience in Paris subway : a complete stranger on the platform (seemed tough) and I on the train did catch each other looks for a good few seconds and ended up smiling at each other. It was not the first time that I put myself in a friendly mood and got friendly looks back at me. Pretty unusual, as shown in this (french) cartoon [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7fp4s_18-baston-de- regard_...](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7fp4s_18-baston-de- regard_shortfilms) (you don't need to understand French to get it)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Generation ADD

I don't know what NJ is like, but come to SF. You won't see an eyeball for months ... unless you wear an iphone on your face.

<comment><USER14> It has to do with asian population also. They tend to look away, and not stare, or feel uncomfortable with it. Since asians are about 30-40% of the area, it sets the tone that eye contact is rude.

<comment><USER15> That's a pretty sweeping generalization there. If you could substantiate it more, I might like to hear what you have to say.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've been doing this eye-contact experiment, i.e., making eye contact with random people in public places and waiting to see how they react. Reaction in Poland: look away. Reaction in Switzerland: look away. Reaction in California: smile and say "Hi!"

<comment><USER17> Swedes avoid making eye contact with strangers like it was the plague, a lot of effort is put into not getting caught looking at someone on public transportation or as you pass people on the street.

My friends from CA were really bad at keeping eye contact during conversations and was really off putting at first as I figured they weren't interested anything I was saying, so I kept switching topics until I figured out what was happening and asked them about it and if I was staring ("little bit").

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does anyone else think the ranking algorithm should put additional weight to comments than it currently does?

Increasingly I see stories with a lot of upvotes and few to no comments. Big downer for me--I tend to get as much if not more from the discussions than the story itself. If a story isn't provoking discussion(relative to the upvotes), that should be a notch against it.

<comment><USER19> I actually disagree. A high upvote to comment ratio is usually indicative of a great link.

<comment><USER7> It's indicative of a link that answers a question, not one that asks it. So what you should weigh is controversy / (votes / comments). A high-vote, low- comment article about abortion has clearly resolved the issue; a low-vote, high-comment issue about creationism has probably just asked stupid questions in a provocative way.

<comment><USER20> _A high-vote, low-comment article about abortion has clearly resolved the issue_

Well, perhaps that's a bit optimistic on _that_ topic... :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've noticed this about America. My formative instincts about eye contact and communication come from my Russian upbringing as a small child; we left when I was 6 1/2, but by that point I had acquired (and continued to acquire) the mannerisms of my parents and close acquaintances from that culture. So, all that the author describes strikes me as strange and inhuman. I would say the Russian urban viewpoint on this is rather inspired by Western European principles - and especially French, given the Francophilia that characterised turn-of-the-century aristocracy from which many of these normative attitudes flowed downward.

I always unconsciously look at people, and very occasionally catch myself and wonder if they think I am "staring," although I generally carry a friendly expression rather than the sort of impersonal neutrality that seems to me to be what people mean when they describe "creepy" staring. I must surely be branded a "weirdo" more than I realise, though.

</comment><comment><USER22> Eye contact and a warm handshake go a long way. Whether you are try to get the VC to give you money or the pretty girl to go on a date.

</comment><comment><USER23> the biggest change in how people reacted to me (coming from an extreme introverted childhood) was making eye contact with people.

<comment><USER24> Change, how so? Would you care to elaborate?

<comment><USER23> people opening up to me and being friendly in general. as another commenter mentioned, people use your eyes to gauge things like sincerity and how much you like them (pupil dilation). let me put it this way: NOT making eye contact sends strong signals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sorry to be a bit killjoy here, especially since the article is interesting and entertaining.

But what does this has to do with hacking ?

</comment><comment><USER25> An interesting experiment to try is to spend one day walking around making eye contact with everyone who passes by, and another walking around not making eye contact with people.

In my experience, my day always ends up being better when I'm making eye contact. Not only do I not bump into people (because I can tell where they are going), generally you get better responses from people, as they see you as being more approachable/honest/etc. People remember you.

On the flip side, if you have a desire to be invisible, walk around not making eye contact. Hardly anyone will remember who you are.

That's purely anecdotal, but try it for yourself.

<comment><USER25> But it is weird to just stare at people, you have to also smile and say 'hi' or 'hello'.

then again, that might vie into the range of basic human hospitability.

<comment><USER12> Level of acknowledgement of strangers is a function of population density. In a big city you can't possibly acknowledge everybody you pass, so you acknowledge nobody. There's one exception: people who go for walks early in the morning are often keen to greet one another; partly because you might be the first person they've seen today, and partly because early risers are somewhat of a secret sub-society within the city.

Combine the "small town" thing with the "early morning" thing and you've got trouble, though. In a small town in Maine at six in the morning I encountered a guy who thought it was incredibly rude that I wouldn't stop and discuss (a) the weather and (b) where I was from as I walked past his house. Sorry dude, there's four million people in my home town, can't chat with all of 'em.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I didn't feel comfortable looking somebody in the eyes while talking them until I was 22 or 23 and had just re-read How To Win Friends & Influence People for the 3rd or 4th time.

</comment><comment><USER27> One of the best articles I've read in a long time... well done. NYTimes for the win.

</comment><comment><USER28> How is this not off topic?

<comment><USER29> You're new here and you've asked what seems to you a reasonable question. You've been down-voted because you haven't done your homework.

From <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html> :

        On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find
                  interesting. That includes more than
                  hacking and startups. If you had to
                  reduce it to a sentence, the answer
                  might be: anything that gratifies one's
                  intellectual curiosity.

I've re-up-voted you because I don't think your question deserves to be at -4, even though it doesn't really add value to the site.</comment></comment>