Is Juul the Startup World's Greatest Long Con? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theringer.com/tech/2019/1/10/18167364/juul-big-tobacco-tech-startup-long-cons <comment><USER2> As always, Betteridge's Law of Headlines: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

<comment><USER3> As always, as well:

> As with similar "laws" (e.g., Murphy's law), it is intended to be humorous > rather than the literal truth.</comment></comment>


Flying with Machine Guns? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wolfram.com/2014/12/05/flying-with-machine-guns/ <comment><USER2> The article directly refers to Munroe's What-If article, and Munroe is pretty clear that he relies heavily on Wolfram Alpha for his calculations (see end of "Falling With Helium" [1])

So it's rather amusing to me that things are coming full circle, and that Worlfram's guys are now using Munroe's topic to demonstrate SystemModeler, another Wolfram product.

[1] [https://what-if.xkcd.com/62/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/62/)

<comment><USER3> The page you linked says that he normally uses Mathematica, and fell back to Wolfram|Alpha for that piece when it started locking up.

 _While researching this article, I managed to lock up my copy of Mathematica several times on balloon-related differential equations, and subsequently got my IP address banned from Wolfram|Alpha for making too many requests._

<comment><USER4> Mathematica and Wolfram|Alpha are developed by the same company, if you weren't aware.

<comment><USER5> Oh, suuuuuure, some kind of magic mathematics company run by a reclusive genius who got a Ph.D. from Cal Tech when he was twenty, and/or college dropout and/or megalomanaic bald silicon valley mogul.

answer for those following along: all of the above :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Trivia: the rifle's momentum comes not only from (M_bullet x V_bullet), but also significantly from (M_gunpowder x V_gunpowder). The burnt gunpowder is often 1/3 to 1/2 the weight of the bullet, and traveling faster than the bullet.

</comment><comment><USER7> XKCD did a whole article along with the math about this topic specifically. Great read.

[https://what-if.xkcd.com/21/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/21/)

<comment><USER8> [https://what-if.xkcd.com/imgs/a/21/jetpack_speeding.png](https://what- if.xkcd.com/imgs/a/21/jetpack_speeding.png)

Best part.

<comment><USER9> I've just realized that it's curious how the cop pulled him over. Pretty sure tanks aren't fast enough or durable enough to make pursuit, and unless he stops firing while changing lanes, he likely strafed the cop getting off the road.

Frankly, I think the scenario is just too unbelievable. Perhaps a souped-up SWAT van clad with ablative plating and 12 inch thick laminated windshields, but definitely not just some ordinary cruiser.

<comment><USER8> I dunno. The gun is not aimed downwards, and i suspect the bullet drop is fairly limited for some distance, allowing for the cruiser to potentially pull in underneath the stream. Whoever is driving said cruiser will have some big metal balls to pull it off.

Checking Wikipedia it seems the round drops 1 meter pr 400 meters of travel.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger#Accuracy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger#Accuracy)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> bra-ket that's the idea behind Project Orion (nuclear propulsion): [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propul...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_%28nuclear_propulsion%29)

<comment><USER10> Great reference! A thermonuclear explosion drive - not elegant, but damn would that be a sight to behold!

Bonus points for EMPing vast swaths of the launch region.

<comment><USER11> "but damn would that be a sight to behold"

I imagine it would be quite something to experience as well!

<comment><USER12> From inside the ship you wouldn't really know that you were being propelled using nuclear bombs. Between the pusher plate and the ship are extensive shocks that would be designed to smooth out the pulsing power of the bombs into a smooth acceleration. Anything else wouldn't work very well and induce loads of stresses up the ship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> He seems to make it unnecessarily complicated. Average thrust (momentum flux) is m_bullet x v_muzzle x fire rate, which needs to be higher than m_rocket x g for it to work.

<comment><USER14> The point here is to advertise Mathematica, not to solve a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Reminds me of that Neal Stephenson book, Anathema, that had a space ship that was propelled by setting off nuclear bombs just outside its hull.

<comment><USER16> Niven & Pournelle's Footfall also had an Orion-type ship. It was a desperation tactic on the part of the overmatched Earthlings, but it worked.

<comment><USER17> Ha! Great reference, iirc the humans put a pusher plate under a battle ship (uss missouri?), launched into orbit and pummeled the aliens. I also recall something about fighter craft and 16 inch cannons. Great read.

<comment><USER16> I recall mainly the jury-rigged pipes that a character based on one of Niven/Pournelle's friends kept working at the cost of his own heroic death. Apparently they asked him what the fate of his character should be, and he picked death.

Based on physical appearance, he surely was also the prototype for the question-asker in "What Can You Say About Chocolate-Covered Manhole Covers?" That basically obscure story was big in my life because it's one of the things that introduced me to Roger Zelazny (it referenced his Agnostic's Prayer).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There is a game that puts this into concept called Jetpack Joyride (made by creators of Fruit Ninja): [https://appsto.re/us/TybrB.i](https://appsto.re/us/TybrB.i).

My physics class actually did a lab report to find the relationship between the # of bullets and distance propelled in the air with the game. While it was nowhere near as accurate as this simulation, it was definitely interesting to see the results.

<comment><USER19> An automatic-fire weapon in _Cave Story_ also allows you to fly by firing it downward (though there is a separate jet pack item available as well).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This analysis and the xkcd one linked below both neglect the concept of staging - which could get you higher. As a first order try you could replace the human on the bed of guns with a smaller bed of guns supporting a squirrel - now you're twice as high! Of course at that point there is nothing stopping you from reaching the moon except for your gun budget and how much unobtanium you can get for the bed connecting structure.

</comment><comment><USER21> Relevant video at 0:24 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRp3S8OOeZc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRp3S8OOeZc)

</comment><comment><USER22> Come now, everyone knows you use asparagus staging for this kind of thing. What happens when you start jettisoning empty machine guns as you go?

<comment><USER23> The ammunition mass is a more effective way of increasing your stored energy than extra rifles, so it is at least addressed implicitly in the section that examines the ammo to carry (1 gun with 2 bullets obviously beats 2 guns with single bullets, I guess more complicated situations would follow).

You always want to fly with the minimum number of guns necessary to provide your desired thrust and then as much ammo in addition to that.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, but the optimal amount of thrust need decreases as your mass decreases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There is a jet aircraft, the A-10, with a gun so powerful that it provides more thrust than the jet engines.

<comment><USER24> "The average recoil force of the GAU-8/A is 10,000 pounds-force (45 kN), which is slightly more than the output of one of the A-10's two TF34 engines (9,065 lbf / 40.3 kN each). While this recoil force is significant, in practice a cannon fire burst only slows the aircraft a few miles per hour in level flight"

Source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger)

<comment><USER8> And then thanks to a certain XKCD what if article: [https://what- if.xkcd.com/21/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/21/)

We learn about a certain russian gun: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gryazev- Shipunov_GSh-6-30](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gryazev-Shipunov_GSh-6-30)

That can apparently produce 40G of recoil force...

Towards the end of it all, it is starting to look like the premise of a certain mobile game: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.halfbrick....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.halfbrick.jetpackjoyride)

<comment><USER25> > The airframe vibration led to fatigue cracks in fuel tanks, numerous radio > and avionics failures, the necessity of using runways with floodlights for > night flights (as the landing lights would often be destroyed), tearing or > jamming of the forward landing gear doors (leading to at least three crash > landings), cracking of the reflector gunsight, an accidental jettisoning of > the cockpit canopy and at least one case of the instrument panel falling off > in flight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> An alternative video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKOrpyO0z48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKOrpyO0z48)

</comment><comment><USER27> I think someone could have a hit building a flappy-bird clone off this concept.

<comment><USER28> There's this old split-screen real-time worms clone called liero, it has rifle weapon that allows this in-game.

They play with reload times set to 0, so this is a little extreme, but just to give an idea:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6rfXFyssbE#t=695](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6rfXFyssbE#t=695)

This game is great BTW, very playable, strange that nobody did html5 online clone.

<comment><USER29> He's playing against the ridiculously bad AI in that video. Here's the more impressive "mortars only" style in the LieroX remake:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx3ivYFY4ig#t=67](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx3ivYFY4ig#t=67)

I had a couple of years at uni where we played this on LAN in one of the computer labs during every lunch break. We even made some maps!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm going to file this under: I've always wanted to know this, but never knew I did.</comment>


What is a dickbar? - <AUTHOR> http://dickbar.org/ <comment><USER2> Bordering on incoherent, though it may just be the hangover keeping me from grokking it. I take it that his point is, Costolo promised we'd be impressed with Twitter advertising, and so far we aren't?

I remain at a loss for why we take Winer so seriously, but that too may be a bias, from Maciej writing about his cashew snorfling.

<comment><AUTHOR> His writing _is_ idiosyncratic and very stream-of-consciousness. I posted this particular thing because I was interested in the origin of the dickbar and I found the comparison of twitter advertising to google advertising intelligent. I certainly won't argue with anyone who prefers a different delivery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> A dickbar is pretty much any bar after a certain point in the evening.

<comment><USER4> In some exceptional cases, they'd serve any time of the day, not just in the evening

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cached version via NYUD: [http://scripting.com.nyud.net/stories/2011/03/06/whatIsADick...](http://scripting.com.nyud.net/stories/2011/03/06/whatIsADickbar.html)

Though it is funny that Dave Winer's site went down under the HN load. You'd think he'd have a slashdot-proof (or HN-proof) server by now?

<comment><USER6> Actually, I'd expect him to stubbornly stick to something nearly obsolete that doesn't quite work.

<comment><USER7> That's not a very nice thing to say about Apache.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A dickbar is a site that does not load.</comment>


What VPN service do you use? - <AUTHOR> I'm shopping for a good VPN service.  What do you use and recommend? <comment><USER2> See the previous thread here for some suggestions: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7029845#up_7042268](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7029845#up_7042268)

If you go the DIY route, check out these shell scripts for installing+configuring PPTP and OpenVPN servers: [https://github.com/cwaffles](https://github.com/cwaffles)

If you're not sure where to get a VPS suitable for VPN service, look at lowendstock.com or lowendbox.com or lowendtalk.com/categories/offers

If you choose a VPS provider which uses OpenVZ for virtualisation, make sure they let you enable TUN/TAP and PPP from the control panel. Almost all do. Some mention it explicitly.

If you want a cheap non-DIY solution look at [http://vpn.sh/](http://vpn.sh/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been using PIA ( [https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/](https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/) ) for more than an year and it has never failed me. High bandwidth & availiblity

</comment><comment><USER4> Amazon EC2 Micro instance. It costs a little more a month (but less than $15 even with heavily bandwidth utilisation) but the security and flexibility is worth a little higher cost.

I've actually ran a sniffer on a VPN service before and I could monitor other user's traffic (although that is of limited use as I couldn't MITM them nor decrypt HTTPS traffic).

Regardless I'd be looking for an OpenVPN provider if you can find one. By far the more flexible type of VPN since it can be accessed over a lot of free wifi which offers only HTTP/HTTPS traffic.

<comment><AUTHOR> I will check it out. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://www.hidemyass.com/](https://www.hidemyass.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Ironsocket. They provide VPN (support OpenVPN, L2TP and PPTP), http/socks5 proxies all over the place and a DNS proxy - in the one package. Can't fault them.

</comment><comment><USER7> Another vote for PIA. Have been with them for almost a year and can't complain.</comment>


Quick-ng-repeat - <AUTHOR> http://allaud.github.io/quick-ng-repeat/

<comment><USER2> very impressive! is this all achieved simply through specifying the object to watch on it's own rather than in an expression?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you cope with non technical product owners? - <AUTHOR> As software developers / producers, how do you deal with non technical product owners who do not understand the intricacies of how the software works, troubleshooting etc?
A recent example is where a product owner always blame latest deployment whenever something went wrong in the system - even if the issue was caused by a release several months back.
Also, is it a good idea to have the PO on Skype, reporting bugs and glitches on the go?
How do you deal with such stress? <comment><USER2> Having people blame the latest deployment is only natural. And the fact an issue is found during testing on the latest deployment but your research finds the problem was introduced months ago doesn't matter. If the user just found it, their perspective is it was just introduced. You cannot fault people for having that opinion with no other facts. And if the user found the problem prior and reported it and you didn't address it, then many people will report it again and again wanting it fixed and this usually turns into them distrusting the engineers so they want to sit on calls to make sure you hear them.

As for having real time Skype type reporting of issues, this can go both ways but usually happens for a reason. I personally prefer they produce a document with their first cut of issues, and then we look at them and get on a quick call to go over it and then if we see something isn't clear we can walk through it right there. Usually when they do this as a rule, there is either a past history where they felt engineering didn't listen or they feel they have to be directly involved or things aren't getting done.

Non-technical Product owners is the norm in most enterprises and as companies grow you will almost always have non-technical product management. Some are better than others, but part of the job of engineers is to manage those relationships and expectations. That is partially why senior engineers or team leads are paid more and have advanced further, they know how to manage the business side of the tech job better. Not that they like it, but they get it and do it.

If you want the person to stop doing real-time reporting, give them a way to report issues clearly and in a way that makes them feel in control and that you are listening. For example, give them a simple (not complex) template to fill out for the defects, and then setup a meeting with them in two days (or some short timeframe) to go through everything they reported and give them an update. That meeting may only be 20 minutes for you to walk through each defect with them verbally and see if there are any questions or follow ups and for you to categorize the problem for them. But doing this makes the product owner feel that you are listening and that you understand which is most of the reason I have found they like to try and report on a call in real-time etc. You categorizing the problem is part of what they usually are wanting, e.g. low impact to high impact, it doesn't mean giving timeframes until you have time to investigate more, but telling them this is a complex problem versus a simple problem helps them feel good about what is happening.

99% of tech to business is learning to communicate in a language the other side understands, and I don't mean treating people like they are stupid, I mean putting it in terms that helps them understand how it impacts them. For tech to business, it is in terms of time, money & complexity. Complexity being the biggest because if they ask you for a fix but it only affects 5% of clients but it will dominate the schedule for the next month, they'll punt on it 9 out of 10 times to get everything else done first.

Managing the stress is learning how to communicate and understand what the product owner wants and giving it to them before they feel compelled to come to you.</comment>


Google DNS is currently down - <AUTHOR>

Google DNS appears to be having problems and has been going up and down for the last hour. So if you rely on 126.96.36.199 and 188.8.131.52 it could be the cause of some problems for you today. <comment><USER2> GDNS has always been problematic. I monitor it from a variety of locations and its often slow and doesn't propagate changes properly sometimes. I also monitor ODNS and its ok, but not tons better. Fortunately ODNS actually pays attention to customer support issues (unlike Google) so they're likely to fix any problems.

L3 DNS (22.214.171.124) is pretty much on the ball all the time, and has been like that for over a decade so I think its probably the way to go if you're not going to use your ISP provided DNS servers.

Frankly the lowest latency will usually come from your ISP provided DNS servers, so using a 3rd party is really not all that useful...

</comment><comment><USER3> There is a thread on the _public-dns-discuss_ support group [1]. The last entry says " _Hello, we just confirmed that there was a short period of outage in certain east coast area. The service has been recovered by now_ ".

[1] [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/public-dns- discuss/Y...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/public-dns- discuss/Y21LOZ6ms50)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some good alternatives are openDNS - 220.127.116.11 or 126.96.36.199

<comment><USER4> keep in mind openDNS does nasty things like replacing NXDOMAIN replies with adservers, which breaks tons of things.

<comment><USER5> If you have an account with opendns you can turn that off, as well as do some nicer things like block adware and others (it won't stop the most determined of users but it works).

Without an account opendns is no better than all the shady things many ISPs do nowadays so Google DNS and Level3 or running your own are the better options.</comment></comment></comment>


What 16 successful people read in the morning (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.inc.com/alison-griswold-max-nisen/what-successful-people-read-in-the-morning.html <comment><USER2> Well _I_ read HN in the morning. And in the afternoon. And in the evening...</comment>


The Major Limitations of Blockchain Technology - <AUTHOR> https://www.toks.tech/the-major-limitations-of-blockchain-technology/ <comment><USER2> This post is missing lots of information and explanation. It doesn't mention any of the solutions to the problems that he describes, and most of them have variety of solutions.

</comment><comment><USER3> IMO the two major issues blockchain faces are 1) the oracle problem, and 2) competing with simpler legacy solutions.</comment>


Why do PCs load their boot sector at 7C000h linear? - <AUTHOR> http://www.glamenv-septzen.net/en/view/6 <comment><USER2> I feel old for recognising that address and knowing the answer to the question before I even read the article...

You can see the actual bootloader code in the PC's BIOS here:

[http://static.pcjs.org/pubs/pc/reference/ibm/5150/techref/19...](http://static.pcjs.org/pubs/pc/reference/ibm/5150/techref/1981-08/pages/IBM-5150-TECHREF%20214.pdf)

The address is mentioned in lines 44 and 45 here:

[http://static.pcjs.org/pubs/pc/reference/ibm/5150/techref/19...](http://static.pcjs.org/pubs/pc/reference/ibm/5150/techref/1981-08/pages/IBM-5150-TECHREF%20196.pdf)

(It would be so very awesome if this was the sort of documentation you got if you purchased a new computer, although perhaps on a disc instead of hardcopy.)

</comment><comment><USER3> I love this kind of software archeology. I think I first came across this term in Vernor Vinge's book "A Deepness in the Sky".

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure which Zones Of Thought book it was (probably Deepness in the Sky), but my favorite software joke in SciFi is when someone deep-diving into the system discovers that at the deepest layers timekeeping is still calculated from the UNIX epoch on the long lost human homeworld.

<comment><USER5> Reminds me of this: [http://abstrusegoose.com/323](http://abstrusegoose.com/323)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It is 7C00h linear.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, it's not 7C00:0000, it's 007C:0000 (or 0000:7C00)

 _shudders_

<comment><USER8> 07C0:0, actually :)

<comment><USER7> True, too bad I can't fix in the original comment

"The 16-bit segment selector in the segment register is interpreted as the most significant 16 bits of a linear 20-bit address"

However, Wikipedia has a funny quote on that

"Once the BIOS has found a bootable device it loads the boot sector to linear address 7C00h (usually segment:offset 0000h:7C00h, but some BIOSes erroneously use 07C0h:0000h"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booting#BOOT- LOADER](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booting#BOOT-LOADER)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can someone provide a TL;DR? I'm finding it very hard to understand the article.

<comment><USER10> IBM's BIOS put the boot loader at the end of the minimum amount of memory at the time (32KB). 7C00-7DFF get the boot sector, and 7E00-7FFF are scratch space.

Also once upon a time SCP tucked it into 0200-03FF because that ram was otherwise unused.

<comment><USER6> the minimum was 16KB I think (they used 4116s).

<comment><USER10> Well, I'm just summarizing.

> "DOS 1.0 required a minimum of 32KB, so we weren't concerned about > attempting a boot in 16KB."

> (Note: DOS 1.0 required 16KiB minimum ? or 32KiB ? I couldn't find out which > correct. But, at least, in 1981's early BIOS development, they supposed that > 32KiB is DOS minimum requirements.)

<comment><USER6> There are different configs of IBM PC, the cheapest which relied on the ROM BASIC and cassette tape.

<comment><USER10> Right, but we're worried here about the ones booting DOS, while they were designing this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So it was the same guy who came up with Ctrl+Alt+Del.

</comment><comment><USER12> [http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/Opt/Boot/BootMHD.html](http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/Opt/Boot/BootMHD.html)

[http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/Opt/Boot/BootMHD2.html](http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/Opt/Boot/BootMHD2.html)

[http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/Opt/Boot/BootHD.html](http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/Opt/Boot/BootHD.html)

<comment><USER13> Do you intentionally leave out parens in the #define for MODULE_SIZE?

If it was used in a context with higher precedence than multiplication, it'd be a bug.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> TerryADavis might have something meaningful to say here if given the chance. Can YC selectively un-auto-[dead] people?

<comment><USER15> Quoting his comment:

TerryADavis 2 hours ago [dead] [http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/Opt/Boot/BootMHD.html](http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/Opt/Boot/BootMHD.html) [http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/Opt/Boot/BootMHD2.html](http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/Opt/Boot/BootMHD2.html) [http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/Opt/Boot/BootHD.html](http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Adam/Opt/Boot/BootHD.html)

\---- [End of Quote]

Thanks, Terry!

<comment><USER16> And today I learn about Terry Davis, TempleOS and showdead. Moderation and censorship is a travesty online. Fortunately showdead allows us to bypass it somewhat.

<comment><USER15> There's a distinction between going out and censoring people, and not letting them post anything they want on your domain.

<comment><USER16> No there is not.

<comment><USER15> I'll book a trip to your house and write on your walls, then.

<comment><USER16> I have kids. I'm already there.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Inside a Failed Silicon Valley Attempt to Reinvent Politics - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-20/inside-a-failed-silicon-valley-attempt-to-reinvent-politics <comment><USER2> There seems to be an assumption that low voter turnout is driven by something other than the poor quality of the candidates offered and a rational assessment of the value of voter time versus the marginal value of a single vote.

It's not obvious to me that higher voter turnout leads to better governance.

<comment><USER3> > It's not obvious to me that higher voter turnout leads to better governance.

Higher than what?

Anyway, I think you're projecting a lot of rationality where there's just apathy.

In any case, low voter turnout tends to harm the democrats, as demonstrated by the ludicrous variety of ways various state republican parties have made voting difficult for working people, poor people, non-english speakers, felons, etc etc.

<comment><USER4> A few authoritarian regimes have been known have high voter turnout. Russia recently had 67% turnout, Cuba 90%, Turkey had 85% though turkey is compulsory. So, turnout is kind of an independent index.

Also, statistically speaking, if the turnout is "representative" then high or low makes no difference with regard to what would occur with full turnout.

When people say we want high turnout, I think they really mean I want my side to have full turnout and the opposition very low turnout —as this is the only situation where this quest makes sense.

<comment><USER3> Yes, turnout by itself is not a good index. But that seems like a strawman.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Take it from a political organizer (who has a day job in tech): there is in fact a large opportunity for tech to play a role in affecting voter & civic engagement. But knowing what those opportunities are isn't going to come from a tech vacuum. It will come from working closely with organizers and recognizing their pain points, vs. treating voters like customers & assuming there is a universal solution.

<comment><USER6> a calendar event in the morning with a location and the entire ballot's answers in a single place on your phone would help.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. Or maybe the day before, but the key being an extremely simple solution to a core piece of the problem. Even if apathy were low and engagement was high, it seems like a lot of effort for any given person to know when and where they are up to bat for voting and what they're voting on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> In 2011-2012, I built my first iPhone app, called SuperVote [1], a social ballot app that showed your Facebook friends' endorsements for upcoming elections. I was motivated to build the app for state ballot measures more so than political office elections, because in California you could have 10+ ballot measures to vote on, and I wanted a crowdsourced way to see where my friend's sat on the different measures. I built the backend model to accept a ZIP code and return back a custom ballot for each user, since your Facebook friends may live in other states, so at most you would share the national portion of the ballot.

I worked with a small core of friends to refine the app's features. I spent much more time than I should have building the website using some software called Freeway Express. I blogged regularly [2] and shared those links on various state/city subreddits. In the end, I spent about $100 on Reddit ads to get a total of 100 registered users and few endorsements. As not a designer, I recognized the app was not flashy, so it may not have been appealing to download. I also realize that the website doesn't do a good job in selling the app, and that I focused more on the ideas rather than the app itself. I wonder now how well a more polished version of this app would have played out in 2016 elections, although I recognize that the mix of politics and social media has gone downhill since 2016.

[1] - [http://www.supervote.org](http://www.supervote.org) [2] - [http://blog.supervote.org](http://blog.supervote.org)

<comment><USER9> This looks interesting and something I have thought about for some time.

What code base did you develop the web app in? And do you have an android version? I'd like if there were a slicker web app and possibly android app that I could play with.

Maybe even I would help refactor this one day in the future.

<comment><USER9> Oh I just saw you shut down the app.

What was the reasoning? Were you not getting enough use and participation? No downloads? Did you fail to execute the concept in some way?

<comment><USER8> > What code base did you develop the web app in?

The app itself was an iOS app written in Objective-C.

> And do you have an android version?

Unfortunately there wasn't. It probably would have been helpful to write it in something like PhoneGap (now Apache Cordova) to increase engagement, but I was using it partially as an exercise to learn Objective-C and iOS.

> What was the reasoning? Were you not getting enough use and participation? > No downloads? Did you fail to execute the concept in some way?

At around 100 registered users, I felt it wasn't enough interest in the app to keep going. Some of the feedback I got through the App Store included not seeing all the available candidates (like lesser third party candidates) for a given election. Since I was entering elections by hand and not using a third party API to get the information, there was alway some information missing from the lesser elections. Also, after the 2012 election was over, I didn't see the purpose of maintaining an app that wouldn't be used for at least another 2 years. Its something you need to be dedicated for in the long haul.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Mark Pincus decides game design is the unique value he can bring to politics — and then promptly ships a clone of another game. Too real man, too real.

<comment><USER11> <The founder of Zynga> ... ships a clone of another game. Why expect anything else?

<comment><USER10> Joke, meet the airspace over zentiggr's head. ;)

<comment><USER11> Yep, just couldn't resist saying it I suppose. I'll try to be more original.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It seems ironic that the current press cycle is that tech both has too much influence in politics (Russia, the alt-right, Infowars/QAnon conspiracy theories, Google's supposed left-wing bias) and is totally ineffective at politics (this article, various articles about how big tech is now under fire from both left and right).

I think a more accurate narrative is that the Internet largely succeeded at what it set out to do: democratize information flow, communication, and social organization. And the consequence of that has been a shift in power from groups that previously had hegemony to new upstarts that previously never had a voice. If you aligned yourself with either one of the establishment parties (as most people writing the traditional news do), then the situation today _sucks_ , because your star is clearly on the decline. If, however, you found that both parties of 1980s-America left you excluded and unrepresented, the Internet has been a godsend for finding like-minded people. Unfortunately that sometimes includes groups that we wish would _stay_ excluded, like white supremacists.

Unlike areas like information, economic activity, or personal liberty, control of existing institutions is zero-sum. If your party controls Congress, that means the opposing party _doesn 't_ control it, and their agenda gets short shrift. If a new group (or 20) arises to challenge your control, that's a threat. That's the situation we're in now: there are dozens of different new tribes organizing for political power, and all of them are a threat to establishment institutions like existing political parties or the news media - hence the sense that the sky is falling.

</comment><comment> temp-dude-87844 This is pretty shallow for an "inside" look, rattling off one-liners about various big money actors feverishly scrambling to hinder Trump or help progressives or Democrats, and how none of them seemed to have a lasting impact, but the bulk of the focus is on some plausibly-satire yet actually submarine app for a comedian, presumably laced with the sort of absurdist humour that people on the cusp of Millennials and Gen Z appreciate. In doing so, it succeeds in being a more half-hearted attempt at journalism than the political swaying of the businessmen it tried to cover.

The only true insight is the throwaway comment by the Virginia candidate for Delegate, where he lost by a handful of votes, and laments the Democratic party's increasingly obsolete and wasteful rules for advertising. Ironically, that has little to do with Silicon Valley, but there's real meat there that's worth exploring.

</comment><comment><USER13> In the wake of Obama's 2008 and 2012 elections, there was a ton of angst in Republican circles as they woke up to the seemingly insurmountable gap between the innovation of the Obama campaign and the pre-internet tactics of the GOP. Added to the early rumblings against the perceived unfriendliness of the large social networks, this resulted in a huge scattershot investment in a lot of poorly conceived and equally poorly executed projects run by PACs and by the party organization. Romney's election-day tech disasters come to mind as an obvious example. Some sort of oral history from the people involved at the time would be really fascinating.

Anyways, the shoe seems to be on the other foot today, as the Democrats appear to have convinced themselves that they're behind the eight ball on tech matters (a position I find silly, considering the massive advantage they have in potential recruits and sympathetic developers).

Despite all the changes wrought by technology, politics is still played more or less as it has always been. Charismatic politicians (Obama, Trump) carry their party, hiding its weaknesses and exposing the weaknesses of their opponents. "Social networking" is an extremely poor avenue for political organizing (as distinguished perhaps from political rabble-rousing). Politics is still a game of people and personality, and investments in internet technology can only perhaps have an impact at the margins.

<comment><USER14> Instead of tech maybe they should have a real message that appeals not only to upper middle class or tech millionaires. The 2016 campaign showed to me how out of touch the Democrats are with most of the country. Silicon Valley has even less of an idea what's going on outside their bubble. As long as they have such disdain for the working class they will keep losing. At least Obama had a message. That's something I don't see today.

<comment><USER15> A "disdain for the working class"? What, pray tell, might that be?

If the Democrats can gain 20+ seats in congress without a "message" I'll count that as a success.

<comment><USER14> A "disdain for the working class"? What, pray tell, might that be?

Calling people racist and bigots?

<comment><USER15> There are lots of working class people that aren't racists and bigots (and in terms of bigotry against people of color, many working class people _are_ people of color) and everyone accepts that there are many elites that are racist and bigoted. I'm not sure where the "working class" comes into the equation here.

<comment><USER14> I know plenty of liberal white collar people who immediately call someone who thinks about gun rights, has doubts about immigration or same sex marriage a racist and bigot. Independently of the merit of these opinions writing these people off is not a good idea.

<comment><USER15> Remember when Obama said that thing about clinging to guns and religion? He ended up winning Pennsylvania by 10 points! Don't pretend this is a new phenomenon or that anybody actually cares that much about it.

<comment><USER16> > or that anybody actually cares that much about it.

I assure you, those of us for whom gun rights are a central issue - an issue of basic civil rights - care.

As it is, I have no particular love for the Republican Party, but I simply cannot see myself voting for a Democrat for state or national office given their history of voting as a bloc against gun rights.

Objectively, I have no idea if gun control is a net positive for the Democrats at a national level - but I'm confident that by branding themselves as the party of gun control they are driving away a large number of people who would otherwise be reachable.

<comment><USER15> I don't even disagree with you - but given that Obama won ~53% and 51% of the vote (a higher vote share than anybody since HW Bush in '88) it's not as important as some would think.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The Democratic Party continues to fawn over tech barons despite the fact that the general public has a negative view of the Silicon Valley elite.

edit: you would think 2016 would have taught the tech elite that they can't just downvote their way to an outcome...this is so typical of HN

<comment><USER18> Sentiment towards "Silicon Valley elites" on HN tends to be highly critical and negative.

Downvotes for comments like this are most likely due to lack of substance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Just out of curiosity, how did Trump win? (From what little I know, I've read his team focused on getting electoral votes while Hillary's team focused on some fancy data science strategy that ignored important districts. But, everyone else keeps saying it was fake news and Russian covert ops.)

<comment> rm_-rf_slash Specifically, he won the election by edging a thin margin of electoral votes in key swing states, while losing the popular vote by millions. How exactly that came to be is stil a matter of debate.

<comment><USER17> There is no debate - we do not elect the President by a popular vote.

<comment><USER20> Well, there is debate on the tactical decisions that lead to that. I've heard that Clinton's campaign chose to make non-optimal decisions for winning the presidency to try and help downticket races, because they assumed presidential victory was assured. Whether that was the right strategy is up for debate, kinda I guess, I mean, we know who won.

<comment><USER17> > Whether that was the right strategy is up for debate

Given that she lost, not really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> People elected Trump, and that is indeed a serious problem. But Silicon Valley thinks the right way to solve that problem is not to address the root grievances and problems of Trump's supporters, but to outmaneuver them via technology.

And of course, you have the profoundly amoral Mark Pincus and the hateful Samantha Bee spearheading this.

</comment><comment><USER22> They say what the app does five paragraphs in:

>> _" The app, intended to be a kind of social network to spark political activity,"_

Most of the big change in politics in the last decade has come from apps that make it easier to do good old-fashioned grassroots organizing. It's why the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) is making waves now. They usually just use Twitter for the social network part.

The rest of the article talks about other attempts at apps for political organizing, and the politics of political apps. Not a bad read if you're into the subject, but I expected a look at the technical failure it opens with given the title.</comment>


Give researchers a lifetime word limit - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/news/give-researchers-a-lifetime-word-limit-1.22835 <comment><USER2> > Lifetime limits would create a natural incentive to do research that > matters. Researchers would have to ask themselves, "Is this project I'm > pursuing worth the words it will cost me?"

Well, researchers already have a natural time limit: everyone will die/retire. Sensible researchers ask themselves, "Is this project worth the lifetime it will cost me?" \-- I don't see why a word limit would cause a substantial change in the answers to either question.

</comment><comment><USER3> The lifetime word limit should not apply to papers publishing negative results.

You may all congratulate me (financially) for solving the replication crisis.

<comment><USER4> Hah, people would find a way to hide some novel findings in an otherwise "negative result" paper and then extensively cite it in all future papers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's amazing how much hand wringing is done about the symptoms of problems in academia (especially life sciences) without anyone actually addressing the root causes. The reason all of these problems exist is because the space is over populated, ruthlessly competitive, and under funded. It's really that simple.

Create many more professorship positions for post docs, raise the NIH, NSF, and DOD research budgets to where they should be, and all of these problems will go away. Trying to solve these problem by throttling the number of papers people can publish is putting a bandaid on a gunshot wound.

<comment> T-A "I firmly believe that this problem cannot be solved by more government money. If federal support for basic research were to be doubled (as many are calling for), the result would merely be to tack on a few more years of exponential expansion before we'd find ourselves in exactly the same situation again."

David Goodstein, "The Big Crunch" [http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html](http://www.its.caltech.edu/~dg/crunch_art.html)

<comment><USER5> I had not read this before and that's a valid point, thanks for sharing.

I think I would say two things to this. First, theoretically we could attack the problem from both sides. We could constrain supply in the way that med school prevents an oversupply of physicians while also increasing the total amount of resources available to those practicing science.

More practically, I tend to believe that basic and translational science is a huge boon to global prosperity and also an economic engine for the United States. Ergo, if we run into the same problem down the road again, just keep raising the budget and make more positions. We have a long way to go before we exhaust the benefits of additional research, and the money we spend on research is a drop in the bucket compared to what we spend on other less useful ventures.

<comment><USER6> The supply constraints med schools impose most certainly are not to prevent "oversupply" of doctors. Depending on who you ask, there are two main reasons they exist. One view is that there's a finite amount of doctors willing to work at academic hospitals, and thus there's a limited amount of new medical students that can be adequately trained. Another view is that medical schools collude to form a guild to better separate the American populace from their money, by ensuring that doctors are always scarce relative to the demand for their services. This allows doctors to demand a dramatically higher compensation for their efforts than in other countries, despite being no better here than elsewhere.

<comment><USER7> In a normal economy the only thing regulating supply, is demand.

The kind of organization that imposes supply constraints to sarcastically prevent "oversupply" are called cartels. You know, like a drug cartel?

<comment><USER8> True to the definition of the word, but you have a wrong example. "Drug cartels" are anything but, and the only _actual_ cartel in the drug trade is the United States government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this problem has to be tackled at the level of the journals. Journals should not reward "interesting" or catchy results with publication. Instead, experiments should be accepted for publication before they are performed, and then published regardless of result. The criterion for evaluation should be methodological rigor and proven replicability, not potential for journalistic headlines. Change the incentives and you change the outcome. If scientists are rewarded for rigor (and they currently are NOT), they will bring rigor to their experiments. If they are rewarded for cutting corners, corners they will cut.If they don't they themselves will be cut from the profession as their CVs lag behind their less scrupulous peers.

</comment><comment><USER10> Please no. Papers are sufficiently terse, jargon-filled and hard to follow as it is

<comment><USER11> Further, in some fields (biomedical) research takes so long, and top-tier journals are so selective, that a lot of work just never gets published. Slowing that process even further would wreak havoc on already way-too-long graduate careers. A really pernicious effect of some bosses who 'only publish top-tier-quality work' is many students get stuck with years-worth of negative results, and do not get to either move on _or_ publish their work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a terrible idea. Here is a better idea:

\- Change tenure criteria to something closer to "number of students * average quality of dissertation"

\- Expect fewer (0-2) but higher-quality publications from grad students applying for tenure track positions.

<comment><USER4> I think it might be equally, if not, more important to graduate only a suitable number of students/postdocs so that the majority of those that want academic positions will find those openings available.

I'm not sure how to balance these issues.

<comment><USER12> Fair point. This is a real issue in most non-engineering fields.

Maybe add a "% that get a job" factor.

<comment><USER4> Also, in STEM fields.

<comment><USER12> There's definitely a glut in mathematics and science PhD's. Universities keep cutting tenure track positions and cranking out more students per professor. It doesn't hit technology and engineering as badly, since there is a steady supply of industry jobs.

Some people make the jump from science and mathematics to industry, but it is harder.

<comment><USER4> I think it doesn't seem as bad in tech/engineering due to the availability of industry jobs, at least you aren't unemployed. But in my opinion as a science/engineering PhD grad many of these positions don't require PhD they could just train undergrad engineers and be fine. The companies are taking advantage of the glut of PhD grads to get cheaply trained highly educated labor without incurring the cost to train them themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This would be great because it would shake the foundations of the principal investigator model, which I think it's doing a lot of harm to research in Medicine and Biology.

</comment><comment><USER14> Reminds me of some Warren Buffet advice on investing: Imagine you could only make 5 investments in your life. Would <your latest idea> be one of them?

</comment><comment><USER15> The article jokingly mentions that papers function as a "pubcoin" allowing you to buy various benefits.

What if it each researcher started out with a limited amount of a cryptocurrency, "pubcoin", which must be spent to be published? More would be awarded based on success (citations?).

There is a Pareto distribution in the number of papers people write, as well as the number of citations papers get.

<comment><USER12> The really good papers often have few citations at first, then ramp up exponentially about a decade later. These papers advance the field 5+ years, and it takes most researchers about that long after the fact to notice massive shifts. This even happens in "fast moving" fields, like CS, where the joke about science progressing one funeral at a time still applies.

That lag is enough to end a career.

Superficial, but well marketed papers(republished in spammy ways) tend to have lots of citations at first, then die off, flash-in-the-pan style. The system already over-rewards those papers.

The rare researchers that can produce really good papers and also market them get turing awards, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> For every paper you publish, you must repeal two.

</comment><comment><USER17> Restrict researchers to communicate using only the word "novel".

<comment><USER18> If I can only use "novel" how do I talk about how "robust" my work is!?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> On the subject of short papers: [http://fermatslibrary.com/s/shortest-paper- ever-published-in...](http://fermatslibrary.com/s/shortest-paper-ever- published-in-a-serious-math-journal-john-conway-alexander-soifer)

</comment><comment><USER7> I got a better idea. Force the researcher to create and submit a little mini documentary on the subject along with the paper.

<comment><USER19> That's actually already done to some extent. See New Journal of Physics for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Would math and/or source code count?

</comment><comment><USER21> This is a dupe but the first couple of attempts got nowhere.

I left my views here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15495448](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15495448)

</comment><comment><USER22> Noam Chomsky.

</comment><comment><USER23> Yes.

<comment><USER24> Is your answer an example of the possible outcome of the proposal? Shorter papers with less content (but more frequently)?

<comment><USER25> 1</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are the things that you buy to save time? - <AUTHOR> Hello all,
In the past I was a minimalist, and today I'm growing to appreciate the need for extra time to be productive.
I'd like to know what are the things that you buy, in life, in order to make more time available.
Examples: dishwasher (kitchen), mixer (kitchen), Synology (NAS, automatic backups), etc.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Not necessarily buying, but I took a pay cut when I changed jobs in order to work remotely. Saves 3hrs/day in commute time, so the cut was well worth it to me.

<comment><USER3> On the other hand. I moved closer to school to live on my own (not with my parents) and I thought the 2hr commute would make up for it. Turns out that my time was eaten up by doing a LOT of stuff on my own that normally my parents would do for me (cook diner, wash clothes, clean, etc.).

This new experience made me appreciate my parents efforts a lot more :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Personally, I think continuing to be a minimalist is the best strategy, but that may also depend on your personality. I need my environment to be tidy, so keeping maintenance manageable is a priority. Apartment Therapy, the konmari method and the book Home Comforts are good resources for this.

In terms of gadgets, my rice cooker (with timer) is essential for me. I eat steel cut oatmeal every breakfast. The timer allows me to cook it overnight so it is ready in the morning. If you are only doing oatmeal the microwave works well, but I also do a lot of rice.

Speaking of which, (again) if you do cook, the microwave is also fantastic. Fast and nutritious for whole foods. Try sweet potatoes(yams) in the microwave.

</comment><comment><USER5> I bought a Vitamix and make smoothies in the morning. I buy 40lbs of bananas at a time. I combine 8 bananas with strawberries and nutritional yeast. I have so much energy in the morning.

<comment><USER6> How do you clean your Vitamix?

I have a Vitamix and I love it, but I find it a bit difficult to clean well, and that limits how often I use it.

<comment><USER7> I use it everyday too. Depending on the smoothie I can just rinse it right after using it, while everything is still liquid. Other times I fill 1/3 with water, a bit of liquid dish soap, put the blender in the MAX setting and turn it on.

<comment><USER6> I think my trouble is letting it sit for even 10-20 minutes after the smoothie is done, which makes it much harder to rinse.

Thanks for the suggestions.

<comment><USER8> Fruit cement begins to form very quickly. I usually rinse blenders before I start to drink whatever I've blended.

<comment><USER6> Huh, I also don't think it ever occurred to me to transfer the smoothie to another container to allow washing the Vitamix sooner. But that's easily done, and the other container could go in the dishwasher later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Following a meal plan and preparing your meals for the whole week (or 3-4 days at once). Or buying Soylent.

Maid Service (Cleaning/Laundry).

Home Gym equipment.

</comment><comment><USER10> Here is a useful list [http://matt.might.net/articles/productivity-tips-hints- hacks...](http://matt.might.net/articles/productivity-tips-hints-hacks-tricks- for-grad-students-academics/#philosophy).

The title is targeted for academics, but I find the list items general enough for anyone.

</comment><comment><USER11> An unlimited data plan for my phone, and a hotspot. I never realized how much time I spent looking for a good wifi-signal / cafe until I didn't have to do it anymore. Being able to just stop wherever I am, open the laptop and address the issue (or take the video call, etc), has been a huge timesaver.

<comment><USER12> Location? Carrier? Plan? Cost?

<comment><USER11> Location: US, mostly California. I travel constantly. Never had a problem with coverage anywhere in the continental US.

Carrier: I've used Sprint, MetroPCS and Tmobile for phones. I've used Verizon and Tmobile for hotspots.

Plan and Cost: For phones I get unlimited-everything plans which cost between $65 and $100 a month, depending on the carrier and the phone. For hotspots it's hard to find anything like an unlimited plan, so I usually pay per GB. Costs range from $5 to $10 per GB. But obviously if you can figure out a way to tether your laptop to your phone (the difficulty of which will depend on the your carrier and phone) then you don't need a hotspot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I take a picture of important documents,receipts, and tax info and upload them to the cloud. It saves time when I have to pull up a documents or do taxes later on. It beats having to sift through mountains of paper.

So to answer your question, a phone with a good camera and a unlimited data plan

</comment><comment><USER14> Multiple displays for my desktop.

<comment><USER2> So true...the lack of resistance allows for a more fluid thought and design process too

<comment><USER15> IMHO, it is more so that one can see multiple windows without messing around with tabbing.

When dealing with desktop publishing as a technical writer, I frequently need multiple application windows, a terminal window or two, a client window for the app, my editing program and it's attendant windows, and several misc application to support my work (eyedropper, wireshark, screen cap, gimp, a text editor).

Three monitors would be ideal, but I just don't have the space on my desk. I'm considering a triple wall-mount, another monitor, and rearranging my space so the desk is pushed up to the wall.

<comment><USER2> Yes, that's exactly what I meant by lack of resistance - by not having to tab around.

<comment><USER15> That's it exactly. If I had four sheets of paper I needed to refer to while writing on a fifth, I sure wouldn't stack the four and shuffle them to see the next bit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I won't drive out of my way to save a few percentage points on my purchase. This saves me time. I also signed up for google fiber, thinking I would spend less time waiting for wired.com to download their bloated pages.

</comment><comment><USER17> Cab fare instead of bus fare.

</comment><comment><USER18> housekeepers

Bonus it also reduces tension in any/all co-habitation situations.

<comment> bro-stick Plug de rigueur: HomeJoy (YC S10)

[https://www.homejoy.com](https://www.homejoy.com)

<comment><USER19> They closed last month. Some alternatives off the top of my head: [https://iamexec.com](https://iamexec.com) and [https://handy.com](https://handy.com)

<comment> bro-stick TL;DR: beyond cleaning -> [https://www.amazon.com/services](https://www.amazon.com/services)

Ah thanks, it's been a while. I met some of the founders and thought the space was a capital-intensive, uphill battle without a biz model defensibility- component on its own. Also, I think the brand has to be crystal clear, and PathJoy / HomeJoy didn't do that. HomeJoy was again unclear as opposed to MerryMaids and the other million maid services. CleanJoy was nice, but I don't think they got the 0->1 solid first before pivoting the brand to something more general. Then, there's the threats of Amazon and Google are dropping in to offer all sorts of home services, WalMart and Costco will also want in, either acquiring established players per vertical or building their own.

It's a double-ended marketplace of getting customers and providers... it takes big bucks/hustling to inform customers _and_ loads of sales time convincing small/medium providers to prenegotiate fees, terms and conditions. (Small business people can be a PITA to sell to, but it's possible with obvious, immediate examples of bringing them more business.). And, how do you vet thousands of suppliers meaningfully and keep only the good ones (feedback, reviews, certifications, training, etc.)? Google, Amazon, AliBaba have the scale to do this where a startup would be hard-pressed to match the meatcloud scaling of human-involved business processes where automation isn't quite there yet, but it's getting better (and lots of startups should focus on automation of service industry and white-collar corporate processes).

<comment><USER19> For sure - there's a ton of these services but not a lot of differentiation. There's even a subreddit[1] with over 10k readers based around home services like this mostly copying the same model.

I had no idea about those big players wanting in. Very interesting. Thanks.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/entrepreneurridealong](https://www.reddit.com/r/entrepreneurridealong)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Accountant services

</comment><comment><USER21> Yard mowing.

</comment><comment><USER15> patch cables</comment>


People not liking open source (and it's not Oracle) - <AUTHOR> http://weblogs.java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici/archive/2010/11/07/people-not-liking-open-source-and-its-not-oracle

<comment><USER2> in my experience, it's common in academia for code to "float around". often it's not officially open source or distributed, but you know someone who has the code for some paper, so you can use it. there's even a few textbooks in this state (for years).

i think the real reason for not releasing this code is time---you might be surprised at just how much effort goes into making a paper/talk/article polished. sure, you could just release the hacky code you used to do your calculations, but you'd like so much more---for it to be useful, for it to be a credit to you, for it to also do XYZ. research code is efficient in that it gets exactly what you want for the paper; it's rarely usable by anyone else. there is essentially zero payoff in academia in publishing code, and so there's no time to fulfill these desires.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. In my experience, if someone wants to look at your code, they will e-mail you and ask for it. Then you e-mail it to them.

Sharing on something like sourceforge just simple isn't done. It's not because scientists are "cheating," it's because it's not part of the culture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another conclusion is that scientists gain very little by publishing their code. In research terms, they're evaluated on published papers, receiving grants and graduating students. The incentives just aren't there.

<comment><USER5> Are there incentives to have a lower/higher barrier for someone else to reproduce your findings and build on them?

<comment><USER6> If you have no reputation and results that contradict expectations, you definitely want someone to reproduce your work. Otherwise, people may follow a Bayesian argument and decide the mostly likely conclusion is that your work sucks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think it's worth pointing out that taking someones code and running it again on the same data does not constitute an independent verification of the original work. Just like scientists don't go using the same lab to verify an experiment, they shouldn't use the same code.

That said, it is often useful to release code for other reasons. For applied areas, releasing the code in the form of a software tool is fairly common. This allows people from the target area, who may not be computer scientists, easy access to the new method.

Code review seems to be nearly non-existent in the scientific community, although it does happen occasionally when one researcher uses another's code base for further experimentation.

</comment><comment><USER8> Investigating the world through computation is a relatively new phenomenon for science.

Science is discussed and advanced through papers. These papers aren't an exact recording or rendition of what was accomplished, but a discussion of the idea, methods used, and eventually a conclusion. Methods may be algorithms, but it doesn't necessarily mean the actual source code.

The idea is that the actual code that a scientist used isn't terribly valuable. If another scientist wants to verify the conclusions, they should just whip up another bit of code (or, do the same experiment) themselves.

Asking for scientists to contribute source code is not wrong, it just isn't done (to my knowledge) with other modes of scientific exploration.

<comment><USER9> This isn't something new at all! Chemists have been using computers extensively since the 70's, and this can be evidenced by the fact that several physical chemists at my university still use Fortran. Computers have been used in science from their inception. Only now are they becoming indespensible for molecular biologists--but they still have a long way to go in both terms of parallelism and the related tools to be really practical for the intense intermolecular interactions we deal with.

Why don't we publish our code? Do you publish one-off shell scripts or database migration code? The only important code is already open source or is (unfortunately) commercial in nature.

<comment><USER10> I regularly see dotfiles in github repositories.

Maybe there is a barrier to adoption in the form of git. A more polished version of Gist - marketed to scientists and researchers - would increase uptake.

<comment><USER11> What do you mean by "see[ing] dotfiles"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > I can only conclude that many scientists are not confident at all with their > theories, or they are purportedly cheating.

That's really not an insightful conclusion. I think it's rather a question of pride and effort: the code probably needs to be cleaned up before release, and the reward for investing that time is very low (career-wise). Researchers are going to publish their source code when it becomes required by most major journals and conferences.

</comment><comment><USER13> I've worked as an academic hacker.

Amongst dedicated biologists, there's no motivation to release your source code. It's the job of a biologist to publish papers so that he or she can pull down the next grant. Anything that doesn't further this goal is going to get zero traction.

Publishing it doesn't help you get into Nature or Science. Sure, Sean Eddy (www.psc.edu/general/software/packages/hmmer/) is going to release his code, but he's a methods guy. The software is the focus of publication. The only way code is going to get published is if the journals refuse to publish results without code.</comment>