Elon Musk says college is 'basically for fun and not for learning' - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/10/elon-musk-college-for-fun-not-learning <comment><USER2> First, Elon Musk has an incredibly skewed version of the world.

Second, for people without educated parents (which most people who go to college can't comprehend because most people going to college had parents who also went to college), I believe a STEM education has way more value and you do in fact learn valuable things in programming, electronics, biology, chemistry, etc. from experienced people very very rapidly. It's hard finding good intro books on your own, and even harder finding people with expertise who can answer questions (if you look at a circuit and wonder what one particular capacitor is doing, it can be a rabbit hole).

Third, software, is (perhaps an unpopular opinion), not that hard to pick up. You can basically Google everything. Using Google you can even solve problems in languages you don't know. A ton of people do this. That's also part of why you see so many people programming who don't have a C.S. degree. I personally don't have a C.S. degree and feel like a lot of the projects I work on I would have been capable of learning back on middle school. You don't need years of scaffolding like you do in in physics, where each year they layer on more math and theory until they finally build up to the ability to grasp the concept you're interested in.

I think if you want to be a chemical engineer and you don't go to college, you're going to have a bad time. Same for physics. Same for electrical engineering.

For the humanities (and I'm lumping in software, because for Christ's sake, we even call them languages), I'm not really certain college provides much education. The real value is getting hired by a tech company that requires a degree (for the actual humanities... not even that I imagine).

<comment><USER3> >> For the humanities , I'm not really certain college provides much education

I am not sure about that; like you said, you can't google your way out of those problems when they arise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> At the expense of playing devil's advocate for most responses in this thread, I really disagree with this statement. I went to a reasonably good (top 25) state school. I studied a lot of hard science: physics, astronomy, CS, math. I can wholeheartedly say that without the structure and rigor of college I would not have learned as much as I did. Sure, I might not use all that knowledge in my personal day-to-day, but it is a lot more complete than if I had tried to teach it to myself.

On top of that, colleges really were the place to find information prior to the internet. Maybe Musk's statement is more relevant today, but in previous generations you needed something like a university to do research (try looking for physics journals that are up to date at your local library).

Last, Musk's actions speak louder than his words: most of his companies' jobs currently require degrees, they mostly recruit from tier 1 universities, and Musk himself _completed_ 2 degrees, and started a third. Obviously he values the signalling a degree grants.

All of this to say that despite that, some of the best developers I know have little or no formal education. So the caveat is true: you don't necessarily need a degree to learn and be successful in the modern day for at least some (or maybe many) things, I just personally find a lot of value in a formal education.

(Sorry for any poor grammar, just had LASIK done and its a little hard to see)

</comment><comment><USER5> Warning: I'm a salty dropout from an incredibly bad Computer Science program at a private Iowa school.

> The main value of college, he said, is to be found in proving discipline by > completing "annoying homework assignments" and in hanging around with people > of the same age before entering the workforce.

In my anecdotal experience, I find this statement to be _incredibly_ true. Effectively it was party and do the busywork it takes to get by in your classes from professors who have lived the majority of their professional life in academia. They berated me for learning web dev because, "web software just won't be a thing" \- this is in 2005-6ish where it absolutely _was already_.

I worked in-industry at the time as a rookie sysadmin and web developer. It was a _huge_ waste of my time to go to school vs. spending time learning on my own through my career and personal projects. I know this doesn't apply to all trades - I've always been focused on web development, automation, and ecommerce. Those were/are incredibly easy to self-learn if you enjoy it (even in 2005ish when I was in school)!

I resent my schooling because I had a FT job with real responsibilities, living at home helping to support my cancer patient mother (bio dad died years prior), and trying to keep my head above water socially/academically. As someone saddled with responsibility I felt I was in a playground for children riddled with booze, partying, and sex while professors demeaned my career telling me to "not to write software for the internet". It was bad.

<comment><USER6> I have to agree. Some of the full professors I know are real embarrassments. They refer to teaching web development as something a "trade school" would do. Then they fill up the classes with inane type theory that's obsessed with weirdo contrived cases that never occur in real life. Then to top it off, they trot out some nihilistic proof that "proves" the type systems can never be complete. What a bunch of maroons.

<comment><USER7> > They refer to teaching web development as something a "trade school" would > do.

I kinda agree. I think that you could learn all you need to know to be able to work in a FAANG junior web role (i.e. programming, algorithms, distributed computing, UNIX, databases etc.) in a focused 2-year trade school program.

<comment><USER5> Absolutely... I've been wondering why the FAANGs don't just take education into their own hands and do this.

The problem is when people talk down about it, which trust me is real. Wanting to make software that works great for people and is incredibly accessible utilizing the internet as a distribution/communications platform makes me less of an engineer than other more "traditional" ones... but the truth is I can add _a lot_ of value to a company just by "getting things done" whereas I see a lot of the more academic-focused engineers pigeon-holing themselves into a one-dimensional career.

Even though I think you could teach the basics of what I do professionally in a 2-year program I don't think it should be devalued by 4-year institutions/people due to market value alone.

<comment><USER8> The large tech companies do basically take practical education into their own hands. When you are an engineering manager and you get new graduates in your team, you have tools like code review and mentorship from tech leads to teach your new hires practical skills. It's wise to expect a new grad new hire to spend some time just getting up to speed on practical programming methods, and not necessarily be super productive day 1.

Startups are different, but Facebook or Google love to hire new grad engineers who don't contribute much for six months as they learn from coworkers, then slowly develop into a top-tier contributor over the next year or two, then perform at a very high level consistently for the rest of their career. They prefer that to someone who can write medium-low quality code right now, let's say enough to be a consistent 25th percentile performer at Oracle, and will continue to write that quality of code for the rest of their career.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> College was valuable for me, even though I didn't study CS. And I suspect it is valuable for many, for the same reasons.

It forced me to study and practice many things that I would not have done on my own: mostly writing, tons of writing.

And there are a lot of other subjects that, had I not been forced, I would mostly have never been exposed to.

</comment><comment><USER10> I agree with Musk's point, but I think he should have been more clear: most people treat college as 'basically for fun and not learning.'

I personally got a hell of a lot out of my degree, but I was working my ass off, and studying with focused interest. I was working in the field I was studying full time as well.

For me, college was a way to be forced to study topics I would not have chosen to study on my own. I think most people are like that, and that's why forced curriculums can be beneficial in some way. Do I think college as it is today is the best way to achieve this? No I do not.

I think so much about university is just a waste, and the cost just keeps skyrocketing. Most people are not serious academics, and that's honestly what it takes to do well in university. Are you a person who is deeply, seriously, curious and will just read book after book after book? Good, go to college. If you are not, then you'll be better off learning some other way (catch, there is no other way right now, but there should be!)

<comment><USER5> > catch, there is no other way right now, but there should be!

Depends on your field... I've self-learned myself into a 6-figure career because programming, web, automation, Linux/UNIX, etc. resources have always been freely available for me to find on the internet.

Also it helps to be able to _show_ your work vs. relying on the piece of paper. Killing it in the interview, being competent with basic algos/problem solving, and a solid portfolio will take you _far_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you extend this to its logical conclusion, then he's claiming that there is no value in teaching. Put another way: learning by yourself is equally effective and efficient as learning from an expert.

I think anyone with a trade (like plumbing) or an engineering degree would wholeheartedly disagree. At some point, you don't know what you don't know, and your own biases will blind you to the full breadth of any topic.

Perhaps with lots of wealth, we'd all have enough time to teach ourselves advanced skills, try them out, and learn from mistakes, but most people don't have that luxury. College gives that framework to everyone who can attend.

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure your "logical conclusion" is accurate, nor do I think that's what Elon Musk is saying at all. Also, I'm not sure your background, but I would definitely raise a red flag at the idea that all college professors are "experts" in the field they're teaching.

I would argue this post is more in favor of online schooling, MOOCs, etc. And against the traditional college experience.

<comment><USER5> > I would definitely raise a red flag at the idea that all college professors > are "experts" in the field they're teaching

Real-world: they're often not... or at least in my anecdotal experience.

I had professors who were shoving Pascal my throat in 2005-6 saying "it will come back because it's such a good language"... they told me that "writing software for the internet is a waste of time" when it was obvious that was the direction of the industry... they told me "MS Access is just as good if not better than other SQL solutions because it's accessible to the office worker".

<comment><USER13> I broadly agree with what you're saying, but it wasn't obvious to most people in 2005 that web apps were the direction of the industry. Visionaries were predicting it, and I think they did know what they were talking about and weren't just making lucky guesses, but the vast majority of software users still had the attitude that a serious program was something you bought at the store and installed.

<comment><USER5> I _sorta_ disagree here - it's neigh impossible to argue but I definitely feel like it didn't take a visionary in 2005 to predict that the web would be the next transport/distribution layer for software.

My argument: I was in HS from 2001-2005 and when I started it was the end of the Win98/IE era with highspeed internet being one of those things few people had (middle class Iowa). When I got out of HS nearly everyone lower-middle- class and above had a broadband internet connection, online gaming was booming, we were seeing offerings like Gmail, Google Docs happened, online courses were starting to be a thing, blah blah...

If you were an educator of the era trying to prepare people for a real-world career in CS you ABSOLUTELY shoulda had your fingers on that pulse noticing that the internet use was growing exponentially for everything from business, to socialization, to entertainment.

If anything, they shouldn't have been discriminatory against a student's choice to specialize in it saying "software on the internet isn't a thing" when it clearly already $#@%ing was with an obvious growth trajectory.

TLDR: "Software users" \- totally agree don't expect them to have seen the wave coming in 2005. Collegiate computer science educator claiming to prepare students for real-world careers should have seen it coming from a mile away if they weren't tone-deaf to the industry (they were).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Well, yes for the most part you can self learn anything they teach you in college and even universities and yoir information would be even much more to date. But the problem is not just with the material you have to learn. But the discipline. Not many people posses the discipline needed to self study and college provide the framework for people to at least have a schedule. Albeit an expensive disciplinary measure.

</comment><comment><USER8> For me the most valuable part of college was discovering how much I liked computer science. If I had picked a career when I was 17 it would not have been software engineer. Once I was in college, it was pretty simple to take a computer science class to see if I liked it, and I really did like it, even more than I had enjoyed teaching myself to program during my k-12 years. When I got bored with my original choice of major, it then seemed like a good idea to switch into computer science, and I've been happy with that choice ever since.

It is a shame that college is so expensive, but to me the real problem is people taking out loans to go through degree programs that don't give you a high expected income. If you take on a lot of loans to get a CS degree from MIT, it's probably going to be a worthwhile investment. If you take on those same loans to get a philosophy degree from Tulane, it's a bad idea.

</comment><comment><USER15> This seems to be far more true now. Thirty or forty years ago, there was no other easy way to get access to a professional-level computer and software that one could write programs with. These days, of course, one can pretty much have it for free, along with a wealth of educational material.

In addition, for people that had motivation problems, a University is a nice framework for forcing yourself into working through a lot of not-always- interesting material.

That said, if I was graduating high school today, I'd probably already have five or ten years of solid learning and programming experience, and just join a startup directly rather than trudging through a BS.

</comment><comment><USER16> In India it is to fulfill the ego of professors nothing more. Unlike America professors are paid lower than the industry and those who can't get jobs in Industry become professors and treat students like slaves. I did not understood while in college but now i get it, it is a coping mechanism for incompetence. One good thing about Corono is that it forces online education like the recent MIT online classes, hope this will set a chain reaction and take the monopoly on education from traditional colleges.

<comment><USER17> I'm pretty sure that in the U.S. professors are paid way lower than what they could get in industry. They probably get at least six figures but so does anyone in the industry, especially with as much experience as a professor would.

<comment><USER15> Depends on the field and on the individual. In many fields, the professors would be all but unemployable. And even in hot fields like CS, some professors would not be very useful. It's hard to remember now, but back in the 80s, a PhD in CS was almost a strike on your resume rather than a plus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> not so sure. the way of thinking i got from university professors has been invaluable. it is the meta-skills that count

</comment><comment><USER19> For those that are interested in the intellectual version of this argument, its basically this book:

> Case against Education: Why Our Education System Is a Waste of Time and > Money

It is basically a deep dive on the point 'you get a stamp on your head' rather then 'you learned these skills'.

</comment><comment><USER20> I feel that. I've had no trouble learning the skills I've needed to succeed in the workplace, but I wish I'd gone to college for the social environment and the girls and the connections. The stuff I'm NOT good at on my own, basically.

</comment><comment><USER21> Of course it is. But you go for the checkbox item for interviews. That's why you save as much and penny pinch. Also don't fall into the trap that schools have your best individual interests in mind. They just want your money and nickle and dime you at EVERY corner.

<comment><USER5> > Also don't fall into the trap that schools have your best individual > interests in mind.

But can ya blame 18yr old kids/their families who are idealist believing that they do? I mean I say this having FELL for the trap!

I mean - I worked with the school I dropped out of doing their .edu as a web developer. When I went from being a "student" at the school to being part of the marketing effort it was a night-and-day difference on what the narrative was.

All I'm saying is that the marketing, the admissions counselors, the academic advisers, etc. all are devoid from telling you "HEY! We're a business FIRST and an educational institution SECOND." Perhaps projection, but I feel like lots of people learn this the hard way just like I did.

<comment><USER21> I sort of learned it after running the gauntlet the first time, however I went to a technical college and my family was low enough income that grants basically paid for it all through financial aid.

Going back, I had a plan in place, prepped for over a year, asked like ten million questions to them making sure I knew exactly how everything was gonna play out. The saddest part wasn't even coming back to college, but that I realized my college is so lacking it sort of makes me wish I could've somehow knew that for this program beforehand.</comment></comment></comment>


Phineas Gage, Neuroscience's Most Famous Patient - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/05/phineas_gage_neuroscience%5Fcase_true_story_of_famous_frontal_lobe_patient.html

<comment><USER2> For people interested in these things - another patient that I love reading about is Henry Molaison (HM). A coworker (a neuroscientist) told me a bit about the man and his condition, very interesting case.

<comment><USER3> Another similar case (albeit a more modern one) is Anatoli Bugorski, who caught his head in the path of a particle accelerator beam:

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

<comment><USER4> I currently work in a beam instrumentation project and jokingly refer to him as the patreon of beam instrumentation.

However, I don't think his case is very interesting in a neuroscience pov. He did not forego any major psychological changes after the incident.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Apparently HN loves neuroscience, but if we are to go through patients one by one it's going to take a long time. Better propose some introductory books.</comment>


One wrong stitch and it's a reject: the pain of making the perfect shoe - <AUTHOR> http://www.humansinvent.com/#!/10420/one-wrong-stitch-and-its-a-reject/

<comment><USER2> I find the title a bit vague, since most of the article was about, one man's story instead of stitches. Nor did I see how the shoe was perfect? maybe its just me.

I was hoping to find some tutorials, I would really love to make(or try to) my own high quality shoe, just for fun. But good shoe making tutorials are hard to find, especially any help with procuring cheap second hand machine and equipment.</comment>


Redux ARC – lib to handle async requests in redux apps - <AUTHOR> http://redux-arc.org/ <comment><USER2> Nice. FWIW, there's actually many existing libs like this out there. My Redux addons catalog has sections for "Action/Redux Generators" [0] and "Entity/Collection Management" [1], which both include a wide variety of utility libraries for abstracting out various aspects of fetching data and loading it into Redux. (I actually already had Redux-ARC listed in that first category.)

[0] [https://github.com/markerikson/redux-ecosystem- links/blob/ma...](https://github.com/markerikson/redux-ecosystem- links/blob/master/action-reducer-generators.md)

[1] [https://github.com/markerikson/redux-ecosystem- links/blob/ma...](https://github.com/markerikson/redux-ecosystem- links/blob/master/entity-collection-management.md)</comment>


Show HN: Do "How to" or "Why to" articles make it to the front page more often? - <AUTHOR> http://tortillasinbed.tumblr.com/post/21766667619/does-hacker-news-prefer-how-or-why

<comment><USER2> It would be much more interesting to see the numbers as a percentage of total "How" and "Why" submissions that made it to the front page.

I was sad that yesterday I did a "Show HN" with a fun website I made for DJing youtube videos and it got a single upvote [<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3890935>] - sometimes front page is just not in the cards I guess.

<comment><USER3> Maybe 'cause it's not as good as this one I made in 2009 ;) <http://turntubelist.com/>

Nah, but seriously - timing is everything with HN submissions - and if you don't get a few votes in the first 10 minutes of submission, then it's down the tubes. I find that posting early in the morning NY time (I'm not from the US, so it's actually late afternoon for me) is the best. I don't know if there's any data to back that up though!

<comment><USER2> HAH, nice website :)

Yeah I figured for a music thing, mid-afternoon eastern would be the best bet. But the other posters are correct, you only last about 10 minutes on the "new" page at peak times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a fantastic first project to get started with Python! If, in the future, you make another scraper (or anything else that requires retrieving data from the web) I'd recommend using the Requests [0] library. It's much cleaner and easier to use than urllib, and it makes it very difficult to do something wrong.

[0] : <http://docs.python-requests.org/en/latest/index.html>

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd like some data on if there are more 'why' posts that actually deliver an explanation of a comprehensively analyzed technical/business problem, compared to that common derivative opinions ping-pong.

</comment><comment><USER6> Perhaps this can be attributed to a greater amount of submissions with the word "how". As gravitronic mentioned, it would be interesting to see everything as percentages.

</comment><comment><USER7> For these numbers to make any sense at all, you need to scrape the new posts. Now you can only tell what you measured: How many how/why stories were submitted. By scraping the new posts and count the ones that make it to the homepage, you can tell which HN users prefer, if HN users prefer how/why stories versus other stories, and how many how-stories versus how many why- stories are submitted (probably closer to how many are on the web, so you might get an impression of that too). The current numbers are meaningless data, not information.

Oh and you might as well track 'show HN' and 'ask HN', or just create a wordcloud. THEN we have really useful info!</comment>


Google AdSense revenue flat - what does it mean - <AUTHOR> http://blog.trade-radar.com/2009/01/google-adsense-revenue-flat-what-does.html <comment><USER2> I'd have to agree with the thrust of the article. Although it does not clearly state it, adsense is probably flat because of signficantly increased competition in the pay per click market.</comment>


Journalists of color are speaking out about racism in the industry - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/NiemanLab/status/1271083849188081665 <comment><AUTHOR> Over the last week, journalists of color have been talking about the racism and discrimination they've faced while working in newsrooms. Their experiences show that racism in news media is institutionalized. Nieman Lab is collecting their tweets.</comment>


I Sold My Entire Investment Portfolio One Hour Ago - <AUTHOR> https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/i-sold-my-entire-investment-portfolio-one-hour-ago-f71a6ed534c7 <comment><USER2> The problem I have is pulling my money out immediately reduces it by 15-30% because of taxes. So for every $1000 in stocks gains, I will only have $850 to invest in the future. So taking money out is a guaranteed reduction of your investment portfolio.

<comment><USER3> That portion is a basically a sunk cost. You don't have that money you're just holding onto it for the taxman. Assuming any future gains will be taxed at the same rate, in effect you are not earning anything more off of it by holding it as the proportion of tax will be the same. The only way it would be different is if you expect the tax law to change in the future in your favour.

<comment><USER4> Your tax bracket could change also if you lose your job or retire, or suffer other losses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> But did he consider that Jerome Powell has a money printer that goes brrrrr?

<comment><USER6> Good one, very insightful. Inflation should definitely be considered as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Note that while interest rates remain low almost every asset manager is going to remain invested. So are people like Buffet. Invest in Index. Don't pick stocks.

<comment><USER8> Interesting you should say that. That is exactly my theory as well. If you sell you have to put your capital elsewhere. Historically, interest rates gave a decent return in cash and bonds. That doesn't exist today. That's why you're better off sitting out any falls - as the one in March has shown, they are very short term.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sitting in USD is more risky than tech.

Tech is still the future. Recession isn't hitting tech as hard as others, recent financial results prove that.

The dollar is being printed on a massive scale. That's what's pushing up stocks. It's not a bubble as much as it is moving the baseline value of stocks relative to USD.

Property will also be going up in the near future (this has already happened in today's super low interest rate environment). Property historically holds its value; this article reeks of recency bias. Because most investments aren't doing well now, real estate is an attractive place to park all of those "on paper" printed gains (which are not real gains, of course).

</comment><comment><USER10> Nitpicking, the pandemic was hardly a black swan. People around the world have predicted it since forever, it was only semi-black swan in the amount of preparation for and willingness to deal with it that the US mustered.

<comment><USER11> I don't get this. Then no crisis is ever a black swan, as we're always expecting the next one. Financial crises, pandemics, meteorites, terror attacks? All expected.

A black swan must be an event that is unpredictable in the sense that it happens suddenly with little warning signs in the immediately preceding period.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Largest analysis mistake here is looking at past events CDOs as mentioned and believing the exact same thing will happen again. The outcome won't be the same, because if it were to be then the fact that we know the outcome would be the same changes everyone's investment decisions.

Sitting on cash is almost universally a bad idea in my opinion (more than a few months of emergency or if you are saving for something). It means you think you can predict the market. You can't.

</comment><comment><USER13> The author makes some good points, but glosses over USD valuations as a risk factor.

<comment><USER14> Yeap. You're never « exiting » all the markets. You're moving from one market to another. Betting on the dollar vs company's share is one strategy, but i wouldn't say it's totally risk-free either in the current environment.

<comment> matt-attack It cannot be described as risk free. It is 100% guaranteed to lose money to inflation at the bare minimum.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A 100% cash portfolio is highly exposed to inflation.</comment>


Leaked documents reveal Huawei's operations to build NK's network infra - <AUTHOR> https://beta.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/leaked-documents-reveal-huaweis-secret-operations-to-build-north-koreas-wireless-network/2019/07/22/583430fe-8d12-11e9-adf3-f70f78c156e8_story.html <comment><USER2> Why shouldn't they build network infrastructure there?

There are millions of poor people in NK, and international sanctions are a big part of what keeps their quality of life in the gutter. Giving them access to information and communications will improve the lives of millions.</comment>


Google's conflict of interest with Uber - <AUTHOR>

http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2014/11/google-maps-your-best-accessory-this.html
Given Google Ventures is an investor in Uber, this is a clear conflict of interest.
Google is supposed to be an unbiased search engine. So in this case, Google maps should either return fares from a number of top services(uber, lyft, taxi) or return the cheapest(which is what a user might want).
Just returning results from one service is a clear violation of user trust. As a user, I can no longer trust Google to give unbiased information based on algorithmic ranking. Seems Google ranking is now influenced clearly by its monetary interest as a corporation. That is fair(since a corporation's goal is to make money), but then all the bullshit about doing no evil goes down the drain. That also makes sense, since they have officially given up on that manifesto. <comment><USER2> As a user, I completely don't care. If Google's results are not on par with some other, better service, I'll simply use it instead.

What does it even mean for a maps app to be "unbiased"? How is it "evil" to partner up with another company? Google's supposed to be useful.

Whether they should return worse results than possible due to incompetence, cost cutting, conflict of interest, poor management... really doesn't matter. Only results matter.

<comment><USER3> If the fastest way to go from point A to point B is via lyft or sidecar, only providing uber as an option might not return the most optimal(and hence useful) result. Just like for some stocks, google web ranking returns Yahoo Finance as the first result(since that is what the ranking algorithms come up with), for maps as well they should determine the most optimal way for a user to go from one point to another - regardless of whether that service is owned by Google or a rival.

<comment><USER2> If the fastest route to go from A to B is different than whatever Google says it is, then there's room for a better service. It doesn't matter whether it's a result of Google favouring Uber, or just not doing a very good job. The internal cause is completely irrelevant to the user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Use DuckDuckGo!</comment>


Piu-Piu-Sh: 'Shoot Them All' Game in Bash - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/vaniacer/piu-piu-SH <comment><AUTHOR> To those who understand Russian, here are two blog posts (with screenshots) the author wrote on how he developed the game:

[https://habrahabr.ru/post/335960/](https://habrahabr.ru/post/335960/)

[https://habrahabr.ru/post/337896/](https://habrahabr.ru/post/337896/)

</comment><comment><USER2> If it wasn't working for you locally in your mac, and you have docker you can do the following:

      docker run -it ubuntu bash
      apt-get update
      apt-get install wget
      wget https://github.com/vaniacer/piu-piu-SH/raw/master/piu-piu
      chmod +x piu-piu
      ./piu-piu

Controls are WASD for arrows and P for select or shoot.

<comment><USER3> Probably wise to run in a vm or container anyway, running random shell code on your machine that does "nc" and "ls" among other things.

That said, it's nicely commented.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not as spectacular, but allow me to plug my Arkanoid clone for bash:

[https://github.com/zenoamaro/arkanoid.sh](https://github.com/zenoamaro/arkanoid.sh)

</comment><comment><USER5> The name of the game seems to be a pun on the PPSh, a WWII submachine gun.

<comment><USER6> It could also just be the phonetic spelling of "pew pew" in Russian.

<comment><USER7> And it is.

The 'sh' is only a hint about the language (shell).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Works also well on Windows (lxss), though the FPS is not too high.</comment>


Beautiful mini language for outputing HTML in Python - <AUTHOR> http://shpaml.webfactional.com/examples <comment><USER4> I no longer fall for languages that only change the syntax for something the author thinks it's cuter...

<comment><USER5> Right. I don't see any use case for this syntax especially that modern IDEs offer auto completion .

<comment><USER6> Modern IDEs inject close tags and angle brackets into the source document. The SHPAML preprocessor injects that syntax into the target document. The use case applies to the person who wants clean syntax in the source document and executable syntax in the target document.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why are most comments here negative? HAML already shown this technology does have value to a significant amount of people. Someone took the time to write this, seems to have done a pretty nice job and is releasing it for anyone to use. I can't see why anyone would feel the need to put it down in the comments. If you don't like, just don't use it.

<comment><USER8> Because;

1) by posting link to it on discussion site you are assumed to be soliciting opinions.

2) it was called "beautiful". A claim so false as to require immediate and forceful contradiction.

<comment><USER7> 1) As an HN submission, it's certainly better than most. Anything with code in it beats "Startup lessons from J-Lo".

2) Beauty is a matter of taste. It might not be the Bar Rafaeli of languages, but I wouldn't think it's so ugly as to require "forceful contradiction".

<comment><USER9> I like what I see of the DSL, but I don't believe meritorious beauty is a matter of taste.

Coke vs. Pepsi - <USER2>

Python vs. PHP - not-taste

For a better explanation, see: <http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html>

<comment><USER7> I think we're in agreement. My distinction is:

Beautiful vs Nice - taste.

Beautiful vs Ugly - not taste.

So, since it's obvious this DSL isn't ugly, being less than beautiful doesn't really merit HN's negative response.

In any case, the negative comments seem to be doing great, which is sad for HN. My experience is that people who actually produce stuff (in any field) aren't usually publicly critical of other people's work, since they can appreciate the effort involved, and don't want to be at the same spot when they release their own work.

<comment><USER10> Criticism is not a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not a big proponent of all of these new HTML replacers. They don't really buy you anything--this one just gets rid of angle brackets as far as I can see, and adds CSS style #id and .classname. Now, instead of angle brackets, we have to use tabs, or spaces, or some other delimiter (I saw | in there for continuing a line).

The best way I've found of representing XML/XHTML or even HTML for that matter, is with X-Expressions--a subset of S-Expressions. But, they are most useful in a language that fully supports S-Expressions, like Lisp, since you can then use standard functions to generate your markup for you.

<comment><USER12> Yes, I think that for HTML, "better tools" is the right answer. HTML is something that can be shared between people with various backgrounds, skills, and toolsets. I can write it in Emacs on Ubuntu, and send it to some guy who will work on it in Windows with Notepad, who can send it to someone else who will open it with Chrome on a Mac.

These things might be ok for small, tight teams, but I don't see them as buying that much in the long term, as opposed to tools that let you be more productive with HTML.

<comment><USER13> I believe that I see your point, and I would agree that the verbosity of HTML leads to sharability, and that is a strength.

But the verbosity is also one of its weaknesses for large projects; it adds a great deal of overhead in terms of keeping track of the tags, especially if the HTML needs to be re-arranged. And with no language-supplied rules for how much whitespace to use or where (beyond "all adjacent whitespace is compressed"), there is too much flexibility for a large team to work smoothly. My usage case doesn't mesh with your example, because I'm working in an environment with version control and multiple developers. The guy using Notepad will be told to get a tab-aware text editor, because his changes will mangle the whitespace in the file and lead to unnecessary noise when he commits.

When structure in your whitespace is already desired (to avoid making your version control noisy), you can leverage the fact that you are structuring the whitespace to make it a semantic element. This greatly decreases typing, makes the code easier to eye-scan, and allows details such as proper closing bracing to be left to the compilation tool and not to the developer. I agree with commenters who have noted that HAML has been proven useful for some developers.

I would categorize both SHPAML and HAML as tools that let you be more productive with HTML.

<comment><USER12> It's not the verbosity or lack of it that makes it shareable, it's the fact that it's a standard.

Some of these inventions are a bit nicer than the original thing, but not so much that I'd give up being able to share the code with pretty much anyone and everyone.

I can do HTML pretty quickly with Emacs' psgml mode, and I'm sure there are other people who specialize in it who can do it even faster with other tools. I think that's the place to look for improvements, rather than generating it like machine code.

<comment><USER6> When you run SHPAML through the preprocessor, it produces HTML that you can share with other people. So it's not that big an issue. Your greater point is well taken, though--using SHPAML is particularly suited to small teams.

<comment><USER14> Things can get messy if people sending you patches for something generated, rather than patches for the original source, though. Most such transformations aren't trivially reversible.

<comment><USER6> I understand the use case, and if people are frequently sending you patches for your HTML, you probably want to make HTML the authoritative source. Do people frequently send you patches for HTML that you author? SHPAML does not allow you to trivially reverse HTML patches, but it does allow you to manually apply them without too much pain, as it lets most HTML pass through unmolested. I actually source control my HTML output to be able to see diffs on the HTML, for what it's worth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I like HTML. I like the way it looks. I like writing it.

On the other hand, I don't like new DSLs for writing what is already a simple markup language.

<comment><USER16> HTML is a bit verbose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I kinda like it.. sure it is one more level of abstraction, and good editors will help with the tag balancing, but let's face it, (X|HT)ML syntax isn't exactly natural to write, and I say this despite having written it by hand for well over a decade.

This probably appeals more to people who have made the Python jump and like that whitespace means something, as that's what really makes it terse.

<comment><USER6> SHPAML is definitely targeted at Python users and people who like meaningful whitespace (and associated terseness).

Glad you like it! I have also been hand writing HTML for well over a decade too (as well as other means of producing HTML), so my goal in SHPAML was simply to relieve pain points for an everyday task. It has worked for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> One reason to use this would be to get well indented HTML.

Finding the potentially missing closing </div> tag has been a common problem I have seen some people face.

</comment><comment><USER19> this could _almost_ be embedded, which would be much cooler i think. you'd have to define objects with names from html tokens and do some ugly hacking with python's operators. you'd also have to add something other than space between strings (a "+" might be ok).

but once you've done that, this could be very neat. no processors - <USER3> constructing html in python.

(i don't know if this sounds crazy or not, but you can see the same kind of approach in lepl, which i wrote. the main problem is operator precedence.)

<comment><USER6> Other folks have tried to solve the problem of cleanly creating HTML from within Python itself, which I think is what you are alluding to. It's not a goal for me. To the extent that my markup is pretty static, but the content is dynamic, I try to use a templating language beneath SHPAML. If the structure of the page itself needs to be dynamic, then I probably want to serve up JSON to the browser, not HTML, and then let Javascript manipulate the DOM, taking HTML (and SHPAML) mostly or completely out of the equation. I think there are some cases when you want the power of the server-side programming language to help you build documents, but that is often a smell that your documents are overly complex, or that your templating language is weak, or that your UI is too complicated for browsers, or that your client-side code isn't pulling its weight, etc.

<comment><USER19> so, if i understand right, you think it's better to implement it as a separate language to stop people doing things that you don't think they should do, or think they don't need?

apart from stopping people from doing things, are there any what you might call "positive" reasons - advantages - to doing it your way?

<comment><USER6> If my post made it sound like I am trying to stop people from doing anything, then it just came out wrong. I do think there are legitimate reasons to mostly build documents within a full-featured programming language, and I wouldn't stop people from doing that. I prefer to build the markup itself in a markup language with lightweight syntax, because documents should be readable, and markup languages have syntax specifically tailored for document readability. Then I supply dynamic content via the templating language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > If HTML were truly awesome, then you would not have Wikipedia; you would > have Htmlpedia.

I don't buy this. The problem with HTML is not that it isn't expressive enough or that it's too hard to use; it's that arbitrary user code can easily compromise the integrity of your website.

<comment><USER6> I wrote the comment about Wikipedia only to illustrate that HTML, like any standard, is not perfect for every use case.

I find HTML expressive and generally easy to use. I wrote SHPAML in a way that I hope preserves the useful expressiveness of HTML, while eliminating some of the 1990s-style syntax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Browsers care about how html looks. We should think of html and css as the assembly language--generated by some server-side process.

</comment><comment><USER22> I prefer XML Builder templates (in Rails or Groovy) to this approach. It's similar, but SHPAML just drops enough stuff to have to be learned. You basically already know how to write Builder, it's that simple.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm disappointed they resorted to a one-way preprocessor. Is it really not feasible to make a first-class domain-specific language like this in Python?

<comment><USER6> The reason I made SHPAML a one-way preprocessor is that my use cases haven't yet given me a compelling reason to write a round tripper, and preprocessing is simple to automate.

I do not know what your criteria are for judging a "first-class" DSL in Python, so I cannot comment on the feasibility. My goal was to create a simple markup language that maps well to HTML and plays nice with templates. SHPAML does that.

<comment><USER23> Sorry, I misread the title "Beautiful mini language for outputing HTML in Python" as a DSL to be embedded _in Python code_ rather than a separate text file (which is actually language agnostic after the preprocessor is done).

<comment><USER6> No worries. I am actually curious to your thoughts about DSLs. I love Python, but it is not really optimized for DSLs. You can obviously implement a DSL in Python, but embedding it is another story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The language may be prettier than HTML but the name looks rather ugly to me. Doesn't sound as bad though :-)

</comment><comment><USER25> Is HTML that hard to write?

<comment><USER26> Good HTML is hard to write. Look up HTML source of several major websites, and you will see how badly indented it is. 95% of them won't validate. Look at this page. It doesn't even have a doctype.

<comment><USER9> That's largely because it's hard to care.

Browsers don't halt when fed less-than-good HTML the same way an interpreter/compiler dies when fed bad syntax.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> There's just something wrong about creating a language with a language to produce about in a third language. As Brian Kernighan told Dustin Hoffman one time, "Learn to code!".

<comment><USER28> While your language^3 comment is technically true, this seems to be simply shifting one markup syntax to another, using a language to perform the translation.

In addition, using something like SHPAML requires knowledge of the final output syntax, so the person using it must already know how to code.

Edit: In reading my response, it seems too curt. I definitely see your point, but more so in contexts other than this.

<comment><USER6> It is not a promise, or even a goal, of SHPAML that it will relieve you the burden of understand the final output syntax, whether that is HTML or HTML combined with some template language.

SHPAML users are expected to be literate in both HTML semantics and syntax. The semantics of HTML are not abstracted away at all. The syntax is only abstracted away where it is redundant.

As a couple folks have pointed out, HTML is a pretty simple language. The problem with HTML is not its lack of simplicity; it is its verbosity.

So, if you use SHPAML, you undeniably get the terseness of SHPAML and the powerful semantics of HTML. So the question then comes down to simplicity. Does SHPAML eliminate too much of the simplicity of HTML syntax in trying to achieve terseness?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't see why I would use that over this: <http://lab.xms.pl/markup- generator/> Not only does it have the same syntax (with some improvements), but it also gives me the CSS to work with. AND I don't have to install python. Hooray.

<comment><USER6> You don't technically need to install python to use SHPAML. You can try it online:

<http://shpaml.webfactional.com/tutorial/7>

SHPAML is mostly targeted at Python users for now. If you are not using Python, but you like the idea of having a syntax layer on top of HTML, then you should consider other solutions like the markup generator or haml.

<comment><USER29> Still, the markup generator gives you CSS markup as well.

<comment><USER6> Ah, that is indeed a nice feature. When I first looked at haml, I was all about the indentation (being from Python) and rather skeptical of the CSS sugar. But once I ported the CSS sugar to SHPAML, I found I started writing better markup. I haven't bothered to automate any CSS generation from SHPAML, not because I don't think it would be a useful feature, but because I have a lot less experience with CSS to know what the pain points are. (I have pain points with CSS, but they are either just due to my own ignorance or problems not easily solved.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Inside China's audacious global propaganda campaign - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/dec/07/china-plan-for-global-media-dominance-propaganda-xi-jinping <comment><USER2> One of the interesting things about Chinese propaganda is that the Chinese language is so ambiguous. You can telegraph one message internally and an entirely different one externally. For instance during Nixon's original opening to china the US incorrectly translated ba (fourth tone). Thinking the PLA generals saw the United States as a leader. But ba doesn't really mean leader it means something closer to tyrannical overlord.

<comment><USER3> I'd love to read a source for that if you can find one. What did they confuse? 霸 and what?

<comment><USER2> Sure take a look at page 9 from this Senate testimony.

[https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/111417_Pillsbur...](https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/111417_Pillsbury_Testimony.pdf)

Michael Pillsbury also wrote a book where I learned about this. It's called the hundred year marathon. I highly recommend it.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: ParePdf, an app for comparing pdfs - <AUTHOR> https://www.parepdf.com/ <comment><USER2> Looks like a great app you built! And love the idea of simply using a color overlay to visualize the difference.

You might want to also look at the verification of contracts as a target market. Often the addition of digital signatures or scanned pages will avoid md5 checksums to check for any tampering. Bacause you approach is visual it might be a great way to validate a contract has not been altered.</comment>


Dish-O-TRON – No more dirty dishes thanks to AI - <AUTHOR> https://blog.codecentric.de/en/2020/09/dish-o-tron-no-more-dirty-dishes-ai/ <comment><USER2> Hopefully a good bot will write an awesome article about taking nude pics at the dirty dishes in your place, as long as you mind at such nonsenses' issues while people needs a job to do.

<comment><USER2> 'couse I guess you won't mind at those projects and no one might (yet) care at what would do all those workers whom dishwashing is actually them main job.</comment></comment>


Ahead of Facebook I.P.O., a Skeptical Madison Ave. - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/ahead-of-facebook-i-p-o-a-skeptical-madison-ave/?hp <comment><USER2> Most of the NYC trading firms are 60 blocks south and at least 3 avenues east of the advertising firms on Madison... physical and logistical proximity don't matter though, traders are working on their strategies now.

All of this hype in the IPO only helps the pros profit - no advertiser or marketer on Madison has 9ms access to the exchanges.</comment>


Ask YC: What's your Advice on Performing Market Analysis for a Startup? - <AUTHOR> I'm in some early stages of a startup concept, and part of the conceptualization involves some pretty intense and detailed market analysis.  I would need to contact various hosting vendors and dedicated server individuals and gather information like data transfer rates, processor usage, hardware acceleration, very detailed stuff that goes beyond your ordinary analytics (like what's your typical bounce rate of a user coming from x site).<p>What's the best way to gather this kind of data without raising the red flag? <comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all the suggestions and feedback guys. A lot of people are concerned with me saying market analysis versus industry analysis. I use 'market' analysis because I'm not exactly reinventing the wheel any less than I'm redefining how it's used and open up a new sector of the market.

I've bookmarked the links and will be reading them.

<comment><USER2> "It's a completely new market," and "we have no current competitors" are usually looked upon with suspicion by sophisticated investors. It's rare to have a completely new market--Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook... they all had competitors and were going after a specific market.

Update: I'm not saying you _haven't_ discovered a completely new market, just that it's very rare.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps new 'market sector' is more appropriate? I plan to have a writeup of my idea done sometime by the end of next week so hopefully it will make a little more sense why I use the rhetoric I have. But I certainly understand what you're saying.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Not to nitpick, but I wouldn't call that a marketing analysis. Marketing analysis is more like how big is the market segment? Who are the biggest players in the space, what are their products, and what are their weaknesses? These are questions you'll be asked by any VC (even though they usually know the answers). I managed to land my first round without knowing that data, but I looked bad because I didn't.

You get that kind of data from research companies like Forrester or Tower Group. They do reports on different market segments every so often and charge upwards of $10,000 just for a single copy of the report.

Startup Tip: If you have a friend at a big company or venture capital group, they may have access to their company's research subscription. If so, they could get you the report(s) for free.

</comment><comment><USER3> I did the same as thorax. Often if you say you are considering becoming a customer, they will give a one to two week free trial. You learn a lot from salespeople and their sales consultants.

You may enter this trial thinking that you will compete, but you may also learn a lot -- like info to feed into your product strategy -- in my case realizing that I'd like to outsource some components of what I'm doing and focus on what is original/unique about my idea.

</comment><comment><USER4> On the business side, there is lots available online from the sec for public companies that can help you do things like size a market, list the top competitors, etc. See <http://www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml> . You can also use the google for talks by top execs, esp to analysts (esp. wall st.). That's a great quick way to get a sense of how they think about their different markets. You're giving yourself a huge mountain to climb of research. Can you focus on a subset of issues? Note that customer info can be simplifying - if people are convinced something has poor performance, then that defines the market reality.

</comment><comment><USER5> What it looks like you're trying to do is go beyond market analysis and into industry analysis for your startup. Your market is much broader and includes your industry as well as your consumers and everything that affects both of those.

Probably the best way to get the information you want is to get a job working at one of those places for a few months. You will learn the industry inside and out if you keep yourself open to gathering information.

Another (probably obvious way you've already considered) is to call the companies as a potential customer. Ask them questions about their products/services that you would expect them to answer for a regular customer.

That should be enough to get you started. Good luck!

<comment><USER6> Good suggestion on acting like a potential customer.

Furthermore, I agree that these questions may be at an "industry analysis" level. As such, I'd advise looking into utilizing <http://www.marketresearch.com/> or <http://www.gartner.com/>.

<comment><USER7> Honestly, you'll waste your time. They'll see you coming from a mile away.

A fantastic source of market research is from larger public companies. Look up their most recent 10-K (annual report). They are legally obligated to give a fairly detailed market analysis (that synthesizes the research from folks like Gartner etc.) in each annual report. It's a great starting point.

Also, for most startup 'markets' there isn't actually a market. It's completely new. So 'market research' in this sense is not very useful and you should examine the premise that you need to do market research at all (versus say concentrating on whether consumers actually have a problem that you can solve).

<comment><USER8> Totally agree w/ nikiscevak. I abandoned one of my ideas for a wireless MVNO after analyzing the 10-K's of some publicly traded wireless companies. Just reading through the summaries will give you good nuggets of information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I did it simply by renting from the bigger companies at their smallest levels for the shortest periods, asking their support team about the service and gleaning what one can from those. Does require some money to do that, though.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think it is important to pay attention to the market in an effort to better understand who your core customers are and anticipate their future needs. In doing so, you create early opportunities to differentiate yourself which makes it easier to compete. It's not just about raw numbers and figures, often these figures don't exist yet in new markets.

RivalMap (previously Competitious) is an excellent tool that helps us organize and discuss market analysis in our startup. There is a free edition for 3 users and I think they are adding news soon too.

</comment><comment><USER11> To get accurate answers and hard data, it's best to talk to someone on the inside i.e. who has spent some time in that industry.

A couple of good starting points: \- www.webhostingtalk.com \- www.streamingmedia.com

</comment><comment><USER12> _data transfer rates, processor usage, hardware acceleration_

(Market Analysis?) Since you don't seem to have the vocabulary down, I recommend starting with the basics:

[http://www.va- interactive.com/inbusiness/editorial/sales/ibt...](http://www.va- interactive.com/inbusiness/editorial/sales/ibt/market_analysis.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> also, i'd like to comment is that you are doing 'market analysis' third-hand -- the products that companies offer are a combination of their opinion of what the markets need, and their own response to customers.

IMHO, true market analysis is going to the real end-customer (the customers of the hosting vendor). If it is obvious what the very they need and what they are willing to pay for, then no need to do this. But let's say as an example, the true end-customers are large IT departments. I'd look around and find someone in that IT department to interview and find them across industries, and see what they are willing to buy. Often these customers are listed as references on their website.

</comment><comment><USER13> you are a startup, the only market analysis you need are sales. overtime update your business plan with things you find on the web, and compare them to your sales figures.

the only customers you should trust are the ones willing to actually pay you for your product.

<comment><USER14> I would have to agree. What you want is market exploration: who is your customer. Start talking to them. Ask their opinion of what's missing from current solutions. Don't try and chase existing players, talk to dissatisfied customers and folks who should be customers but aren't--find out why. If you chase the existing players you end up with a large feature set and the need for a large development effort that looks more superset than distinct. Think about features you can delete from existing solutions and still appeal to a segment of users. Think about one or two missing features you can add after you have deleted many of the existing ones. A really good book on this is "Four Steps to the Epiphany" by Steve Blank, cheapest place to buy it is here <http://www.cafepress.com/kandsranch>

<comment><USER15> "Four Steps to the Epiphany" is a must-read. Also, get "Bootstrapping" from Greg Gianforte.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> launch.

<comment><USER17> apt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why be concerned about raising red flags? I don't think I would be. As PG has reminded us, the idea is far less important than its implementation.</comment>


Why Recessions Suck More Than Expansions Rock - <AUTHOR> http://www.georgesaines.com/?p=424

<comment><USER2> It's simple really. If you increase the value of 100 by 10% and then decrease the resultant by 10%, you get an overall reduction in value (even if you do it the other way around) ;)

</comment><comment><USER3> Point 3 refers to loss aversion: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion>

<comment><AUTHOR> I have read that in studies, people require a gain of $2 to make up for the loss of $1, and it would have illustrated the point beautifully, but I couldn't find a citation. Alas!

<comment><USER3> I first read about it in Dan Ariely's "Predictably Irrational".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I enjoyed the post but I'm struggling to figure out exactly the point it was trying to make?

<comment><AUTHOR> I found the result worthwhile as a counterweight to negative thinking. I showed the draft to a close friend and he had a similar reaction which was "so what?" I fleshed out the conclusion a bit more, but you're right that it still doesn't have a strong takeaway. I might just be too wrapped up in my interest in empirical studies of human happiness to write a really useful blog article on the topic, but I've got to keep trying! :)</comment></comment>


Hackers, I Hope This Isn't Your Life...or is it? - <AUTHOR> http://voices.allthingsd.com/20101112/geek-we-hope-this-isnt-your-life/

<comment><USER2> Flagged. Pointless unfunny comic.</comment>


Why Your Startup Shouldn't Hire Seth Godin - <AUTHOR> http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/3658/Why-Your-Startup-Shouldn-t-Hire-Seth-Godin.aspx

<comment><USER2> I did a start-up some years ago where we were four founders. It was a pretty good match, a technical guru, a marketing guy, a sales guy and me to bind it all together. The sales guy was employed at a fortune 500 company and was managing a sales budget of around 300 mill. $ at an age of thirty. An absolute hotshot. Unfortunately it turned out that he was used to managing large budgets and lots of people, and he simply dragged us down. He couldn't make the transition from a large corporation to a start-up where the rules are very different.

It all worked out well in the end - we bought him out and he went back to corporate. And we still have a beer together every now and then.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is probably the first genuinely valuable article I've read on OnStartups. This is dead-on, and cuts across pretty much every aspect of running a software company:

* Engineering --- BigCo rockstars can be process-bound, require 30 page MRDs to start projects, and gummed up in the tar-pit dev platform choices of their previous project; your startup should not be using J2EE or ACE.

* Marketing --- You know you're fucked when you're pre-revenue and your marketing plan involves dropping 20k on vanity booth kits to take to conferences, or when your marcom person spends more money on mailing lists than on organizing meetups.

* Sales --- Just having an account manager backs you into a corner on pricing; now you have to make 50k off a customer to make them "worth having". BigCo sales rockstars need armies of sales engineers to be effective, and may spend more time selling you on why they should be promoted to Global All-Encompassing Executive VP Of Worldwide Sales.

A big difference between Microsoft and your company is that, for better or worse, everything inside of Microsoft is at least designed to help people do what Microsoft thinks will improve shareholder value. At a BigCo, you can work your MRDs and add $50MM to the year. Nothing at your company is designed to make people successful. If you sit back and do what you're supposed to do at a startup, you die.

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen I'd consider hiring people right out of highschool. I'm thinking of the kids who are obsessed about college admissions and are in that very intense competition to make into Harvard or MIT or what have you. From what I've seen, the kids who make it to these plaaces worked harder in high school than in college, and they work pretty hard in college. It's like, once they get in, they feel like they made it already.

A kid without a college degree is pretty undervalued nowadays, IMO.

<comment><USER4> a kid without a college degree that's been racking up job after job on his resume is way undervalued. hiring some kid that partied all the time but with a piece of paper is the safe bet. but startups aren't in it for the safe bet.</comment></comment>


Millennials earn 20% less than baby boomers did–despite being better educated - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/05/millennials-earn-20-percent-less-than-boomersdespite-being-better-educated.html <comment><USER2> Seems to be deliberately cherry picking data for the purpose of contraversey.

>median earnings for those 18 to 34 are lower

This is to be expected since people are spending more of that time in school rather than working full time. Better would be to compare them after they've completed school... Which they do, but...

>The average millennial's wealth in 2016 (ages 23 to 38) was 41% less than those who were at a similar age in 1989

Now they've deliberately switched from "earnings" to "wealth". And that's to be expected if someone has spent the last 4-6 years in school rather than working.

The article is going out of their way to avoid an apples-to-apples comparison.

</comment><comment><USER3> Having more degrees per capita or higher levels of degrees doesn't necessarily mean "better educated."

<comment><USER4> Yes it does. That is exactly the definition of Education.

<comment><USER5> More != better. If it was, Princeton/Yale/Stanford/MIT/etc would not exist.

<comment><USER4> More information is not better than less?

<comment><USER5> Quite obviously. Google search would not exist if that wasn't the case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Education is only one factor. An economic boom based on the exploitation of wartime technology for consumer benefit fueled the boomers wealth growth.

<comment><USER7> Can you give a little more detail about what wartime technology fueled boomer wealth and the economy in general?

My limited understanding from HS was that the boom in the 1950s/60s was due to other nations rebuilding from WWII and needing goods and/or the Cold War causing lots of investment in rockets etc. so I'd love to hear more details than my previous knowledge.

<comment><USER6> The internet was initially funded as a wartime technology, amongst other things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Despite having more years of schooling would be more accurate. The watering down of the curriculum over the last half century likely makes it very difficult to get a 'better education' today unless you intentionally work to make it for yourself. However, it is also much easier to do that today, if one is so motivated - what's needed here is a better proxy for quality of education than years of schooling or degrees obtained.

<comment><USER4> What do you even mean when you say quality? The access to information, experts, knowledge today is absolutely unprecedented and curriculum's are much more science based and people are exposed to so many different ideas.

I would argue education has never been better.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, I should have clarified - On the one hand, we have an unprecedented level of maturity and quality in the materials of instruction available to be curated. This is what I meant by saying that a motivated learner combined with a good curator/teacher has greater opportunities than ever. However, the standards of testing, the methods of evaluation, and the requirements of learning for a given grade level have all been slowly backsliding for nearly a century on average. So while we have some of the best access to materials ever, we have lower expectations of what their abilities should be, and cruder methods of evaluating them being applied more broadly (algorithmic essay grading, anyone?).

Or perhaps I'm seeing this wrong, and comparing high standards of education for a different era and cohort group against a much broader cohort group that, if I were comparing them against an earlier era, are in fact much better off than they used to be?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When everybody has a degree the value of a degree plummets. It's... logic?</comment>


Facebook paid £2.9m tax on £840m profits made outside US, figures show - <AUTHOR> http://guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/dec/23/facebook-tax-profits-outside-us <comment><USER2> old story, the point is how can you differentiate this as between abuse of law and staying under it. Cayman is the tax heaven, all guys with big pockets use it, so the point is, allowing a legal way for people to channel their money is wrong? or right, because those who earn more, usually work harder and more efficiently, so why tax them hard and remove the reward?</comment>


Old age and treachery will beat youth and skill every time - <AUTHOR> http://ridiculousfish.com/blog/archives/2006/05/30/old-age-and-treachery/

<comment><AUTHOR> Taken from here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=467141>

</comment><comment><USER2> I never got around to digging in to the guts of grep to see what makes it so fast, that 'end of the string' match trick is a very nice one.

They guys that came up with that one must have been sitting there being pretty smug and wearing a silly grin. That's one neat hack.</comment>


Apartable pulls back curtain on landlords' management histories - <AUTHOR> http://inman.com/2013/06/17/apartable-pulls-back-curtain-on-landlords-management-histories/

<comment><USER2> I don't understand the last line in the article:

"Would you be comfortable with having a landlord's management history posted on your listing?"

If we are talking about rental listings... if it's my listing, am I not the landlord?

</comment><comment><USER3> This is much needed in the UK.

<comment><USER4> Go for it. Your UK 'inFlatable', charges a modest user fee, finds a flat(apartment), renter years later leaves the rental, you return the fee with modest interest(as a model to recast damage fee abuse), and in the meantime, earn on the float, when ex-tenant/user fills their experience on unit/landlord review form, you return the fee with modest interest.

Old and new users-renters love your reliable vast database, hilarious scathing reviews, you go viral, and you're on the cover of The Economist and Punch.</comment></comment>


New Alexa Healthcare Skills - <AUTHOR> https://developer.amazon.com/blogs/alexa/post/ff33dbc7-6cf5-4db8-b203-99144a251a21/introducing-new-alexa-healthcare-skills <comment><AUTHOR> Alexa can now help you make Dr. appointments. Given the strict rules and harsh punishments around HIPAA, I'm surprised that Amazon is attempting this. On the other hand, maybe this is a good opportunity to get in on the ground floor and create some Skills in a multi-million dollar space.</comment>


Nginx, erlang, golang, java http server benchmarks - <AUTHOR> http://timyang.net/programming/c-erlang-java-performance/

<comment><AUTHOR> See relevant comments here [http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/a3lh8/c_erlang_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/a3lh8/c_erlang_java_google_go_web_server_performance/)

</comment><comment><USER2> I'd love to see node.js added to that.

<comment><USER3> A single instance of node.js running the sample hello world code from the site will not fare well as it will not be able to use multiple CPUs/Cores. Multiple instances need to be run with a load-balancer to make it comparable.

In my own previous benchmarks I've found node's performance to be close to Netty's when I ran 20 instances of node behind nginx on a quad core system.

I also found that there always was a single request which took several seconds. I suspect this has something to do with nginx/JMeter as I found similar behavior with nginx+php-fpm too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As much as I appreciate the effort that goes behind benchmarks like these - it's important that these should not be taken as some sort of holy grail. Every project is different, and those factors are far more important than generic tests like this to decide on a particular technology stack.

</comment><comment><USER5> Note: The article is a year old (It was posted exactly a year ago today).

The Go language benchmarks have probably improved considerably).

<comment><USER6> I'd like to hope that the Go performance improved, but I doubt it. My guess is that Go wastes most of its time in memory management and in goroutine scheduling, and I don't think either of those have improved significantly in the last year. I could be wrong, though.</comment></comment>


Filmmakers Created Fake Newsreels in the 1920s - <AUTHOR> https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/how-filmmakers-created-fake-newsreels-in-the-1920s-1832866878 <comment><USER2> This is surfacing now with relevance to the debate about fake news, but it's really more about what we would call reconstructions today presented without disclaimer at a time when it wasn't necessarily assumed that everything you saw was real (or maybe the accepted ethics on doing this hadn't quite settled down yet...)

It's still relevant though as reconstructions or animations can easily be used to mislead even if they are clearly not original footage.

</comment><comment><USER3> no vid?

<comment><USER4> FTA: "As far as I can tell, there are no surviving prints of this newsreel."

<comment><USER3> thanks, didn't read that :)</comment></comment></comment>


Common Problems with Technical Articles - <AUTHOR> http://remotesynthesis.com/general/2016/02/11/common-problems-with-technical-articles/ <comment><USER2> Great advice, bookmarking this one.</comment>


We are 10x engineers – The real way to spot them - <AUTHOR> https://www.michaelagreiler.com/we-are-10x-engineers/ <comment><USER2> I always thought of 10x engineers as a specific type of engineer that follow the 10x rule, as detailed and discussed by Grant Cardone in his book `The 10x rule`. More on that book here: [https://jamesclear.com/book- summaries/10x-rule](https://jamesclear.com/book-summaries/10x-rule)

> _The 10X Rule says that 1) you should set targets for yourself that are 10X > greater than what you believe you can achieve and 2) you should take actions > that are 10X greater than what you believe are necessary to achieve your > goals. The biggest mistake most people make in life is not setting goals > high enough. Taking massive action is the only way to fulfill your true > potential._

<comment><AUTHOR> Great book. Great read. Thanks for sharing. The 10x wasn't meant that way in the article though. But, yes that's a better goal to have. Be your own 10x engineer!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If you're an engineer, the best way IMHO is to work with other engineers on a trial basis or tiny project if you can. Interviews are usually of low utility, especially non-engineers doing the hiring or interviews that don't delve into real engineering problem-solving. You will develop a better gut sense and know good engineers when you see them: relentlessly resourceful, picks-up concepts fast, asks good questions, cleverly pragmatic, anticipating "gotchas" and hopefully bearable/approachable.

PS: "10x" seems like a buzzword blogger fashion than anything useful.

</comment><comment><USER4> I do a fair bit of the interviewing for my office and if I hear the phrase 10x engineer coming out of an applicants mouth, its an insta-rejection(unless they are joking obviously).

I know it sounds harsh, but I translate self-described 10x engineer as: egotistical prick who has never been check on their design principles. I'm looking to grow a team not feed the ego of an individual who literally think they 10x as good as everyone else.

You can keep the two cents.

</comment><comment><USER5> "10x engineers" do exist but generally-speaking it's not worth the effort to pursue them because to do so means you're taking your eye off the real concern: building a 10x _team_. I can tell you from personal experience and the anecdotes of several of my colleagues that a group of 10x engineers _do not_ make a 10x team. Often quite the opposite. Remember, it's _teams_ that deliver software, it's _teams_ your company is depending on. Focus on making 10x teams.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel like the well has been poisoned as far as the "10x engineer" term goes, maybe from the start.</comment>


How Disinformation Hacks Your Brain - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/how-disinformation-hacks-your-brain/ <comment><USER3> The most impressive application I've seen of this lately is the "all journalists are bad" idea. Having hidden under a rock for the last few years (deleted twitter, no social media except here), I was surprised when I started seeing that sentiment appear on HN: "Sure tabloid X is all lies, but NY Times/WaPo/etc don't check facts", "They only print what generates clicks - <USER2> they're all terrible".

The third time I saw that sentiment repeated here I googled around a bit, and it seems like that originated a couple of years ago - and was repeated enough that it worked really really well. No one believes any journalism now and every publication is equally wrong!

I'm jaded enough that I don't care about too much - but damn that has a scary "history repeating" feeling about it.

<comment><USER4> Why exactly is this sentiment wrong? I've been holding it for many years now - I consider every mainstream news article individually to be bullshit until proven otherwise. I base this on my personal experience. Gell-Mann amnesia is a thing. And deleting social feeds perhaps made this more difficult for you to notice - one nice feature of some social networks (like HN or niche subreddits) is that for almost any news story, either the subject of the article, someone with first-hand knowledge, or an expert on the topic will chime in to thoroughly debunk the article. It's hard to not draw conclusions from this pattern.

EDIT: The conclusion also hold under reasoning from first principles. The basic idea behind critical reading is considering who's writing and why. The reason news media publishes anything is to make money, they don't really keep any pretense of a civil duty anymore. How do they make money? Predominantly by advertising. Which creates a strong selection pressure that favors outrage- inducing stories, and disincentivises truthful and accurate reporting.

EDIT2: I just remembered I actually made a diagram of this before:

                 BULLSHIT SCALE
       |[</comment></comment><comment>]</comment><comment>----[</comment><comment></comment><comment>---]-->
       |    |                        |       |
       |   the range people think    |      fake news
       |   news publications         |
       |   operate in               the range
       |                            they actually
       |                            operate in
      as close to truth
      as one could get

See [0] for more explanation.

\--

[0] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627258](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21627258)

<comment><USER5> You may certainly hold the sentiment yourself but that offers no insight into whether it is valid. I have to wonder for example, do you research the claims of every mainstream news article and if so what have you found? How accurate are they after you've researched their claims? What's the accuracy rate on mainstream news articles? How does that compare to the accuracy rate of "non- mainstream news articles?" I know if I had such a strongly held belief as this that I would want to investigate if my belief was correct or not and if not, change my belief.

<comment><USER6> Yes, you should always try to disprove your beliefs rather than to confirm them if you want to know if they are true.

I've researched the claims of many "mainstream" news articles and found almost zero falsehoods which would stand up in a court of law (courts are very lax and consider many statements to be matters of opinion that I would consider to be matters of fact); however, I've found pretty much every article, most sentences have excessive manipulative framing that taints or spins a story, leading the reader towards beliefs which are very often untrue, unproven, or judgemental (normative). I noticed this as a teenager in the 1980s and deliberately tried to 'unspin' stories, but gave up after realizing how much work that was going to be. This isn't something that happened in the last four years... at least not for right-leaning people. Maybe it's a new idea to some left-leaning people (other than Noam Chomsky/Edward Herman).

As for "non-mainstream" most of them are much worse, often containing actual provable falsehoods. But some of them do seem to be more accurate and less manipulative. I have to say "seem" because the ones I respect the most have the same biases that I do, so I can't see the mistakes as clearly.

<comment><USER7> > I noticed this as a teenager in the 1980s and deliberately tried to 'unspin' > stories, but gave up after realizing how much work that was going to be.

This struck a chord with me.

Few specific lessons from school stuck with me. There was one though that was powerful enough that I have tried to not just remember it, but practice it ever since. The lesson was simply to watch the evening national news and pay special attention to words, phrasing, and tone that could sway the opinion of those watching, apart from the facts being presented, then describe what we found in class the following day. Even when seemingly just presenting the facts of the story you can almost always pick out the views of the presenter. The idea was to instill in people how to separate the facts from the opinions of those presenting the facts so one can form their own opinions. You can then also judge how honest the news source seems to be about their biases.

A speech that is described as a "standard policy speech" compared to a "powerful appeal for change" can affect how people think of it, then discuss it with others. Only if we are paying attention to these details can we split out fact from opinion.

Every source of news attempts to influence people. Everyone has opinions and they can come out in very subtle ways. The key for me is how open and honest they are about it. I think the problem we have today are so many news outlets that claim to be objective and unbiased when they are anything but, intentionally. Too many people never had the lesson I did and were never made to realize how much other people are trying to manipulate them, including (especially) those they trust.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Same thing applies to advertising, which for the most part (as practiced today, not in theoretically ideal, benign form) is also disinformation, albeit with less political undertones.

</comment><comment><USER8> > crowdsourced judgments

That depends on who's allowed into the crowd. One only needs to look to reddit to see what happens when you crowdsource "truth" but also allow the "unenlightened" to be kicked out arbitrarily with no transparency. This only works if _everybody_ gets a say, even if they don't have fashionable viewpoints.

<comment><USER9> Self-selection bias also plays a part.

There are some subreddits that pride themselves on not banning users, but their entire userbase is nothing more than users banned from more mainstream subreddits.

So while they aren't kicking out anyone, they still aren't getting a say from "everyone".

<comment><USER10> Unmoderated forums are sometimes the most biased, because they are dominated by the loudest voices: the ones with the strongest feelings, the ones with the most free time, the ones who repeat arguments that have been debunked, the ones who will deliberately cause offense. Once people realize that they will make no headway there, they leave.

<comment><USER9> That is also a good point.

It's why most "general discussion" forums become unusable. You mostly wind up people who only have expertise in "free time".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Disinformation is widespread. Even this article contains some.

What the authors should have said about the "pedo ring" theory was not that it was "fake news" and "debunked" but that major portions of it were "fake news" and "debunked." Comet Pizza having a basement was clearly debunked. Bots being involved has shown much of it to be untrustworthy. Yet some of it has some support: Several claims about Jeffrey Epstein came back up and he was re- arrested and famously committed suicide; There actually was a child pedo ring, with at least Jeffrey Epstein involved; Bill Clinton flew in Epstein's plane and was reported to have been on Epstein's island by Virginia Roberts, a victim.

I don't think it's smart to take an absolute one-sided approach to this story. The story is complex and you have to hold some of it as ambiguous and be comfortable with that.

<comment><USER9> While "pedophiles exists" is a fact common to both stories, there are no credible links between Comet Pizza and Epstein's sex trafficking.

So, no support.

<comment><USER6> I didn't follow the story at the time but I was under the impression that the Comet Pizza theory and the Epstein theory were the same theory. If the Comet Pizza / Hillary Clinton / Satanic baby eating stories did not mention Jeffrey Epstein than I'm sorry that I got them confused. I'd have to research deeper to sort that out; memory works in weird ways as it's partially reconstructed from fragments.

<comment><USER11> Epstein was an already known sex offender and had previously done time for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting is to understand how disinformation started the first world war. Something that is proven, but not publicly known. Here is some information about it: [https://www.corbettreport.com/wwi/](https://www.corbettreport.com/wwi/) (check the historical records on it) "babies on barjonets" was a clear propaganda slogan.

It was also used in the invasion of Iraq. Where we had WMD's, that did not exist. (except for some old US-produced ammunition) "babies being killed in incubators"

And the Afghan war? While Bin Laden was in Pakistan, as everyone knew?

Now we see something similar around Douma, where the mainstream publishers are trying to keep a narrative. [https://www.corbettreport.com/the-douma-hoax- anatomy-of-a-fa...](https://www.corbettreport.com/the-douma-hoax-anatomy-of-a- false-flag/) Later confirmed via whistleblowers and via wikileaks how the UN- watchdog was making up evidence. Probably because the Pentagon threatened their families just before?

This all shows how disinformation is often used to push for war. So the "good guys" can bomb poor people that have almost nothing to live for.

George Carlin: [https://i.imgur.com/D621y7S.png](https://i.imgur.com/D621y7S.png)

Solutions: 1: Get money out of politics, so that big military industry cant push decisions. (Also limit how much they can influence the media). 2: Get CIA out of the media and politics. Let them defend the country, instead of control its politicians and citizens. 3: Protect whistleblowers, also those who expose war-crimes. 4: Instead of bombing/destroying other countries, one can setup non-destructive infrastructures. A bit like the Romans did. 5: The US should stop blaming their internal political problems on the rest of the world. 6: The US should protest against befriended countries that are clearly abusing human rights.

</comment><comment><USER13> How should social networks like Facebook and Twitter fight all the disinformation? Seems like it is pervasive.</comment>


Pokemon Yellow Total Control Hack - <AUTHOR> http://aurellem.org/vba-clojure/html/total-control.html

<comment><USER2> I'm not a gamer myself but I have come across several of these types on hacks... I am always impressed with the dedication of gamers to understand the execution to this extent. Really is a cool aspect to video games.

There's a cool story of a guy who beat Mario 64 without ever jumping... [http://kotaku.com/the-man-who-does-the-impossible-in- super-m...](http://kotaku.com/the-man-who-does-the-impossible-in-super- mario-64-1656869221)

<comment><USER3> The explanation on the "water level overflow" is marvelous...

> I had been wondering if raising/lowering the water level could help me > collect this star in 0 A presses, and then it suddenly hit me: what if I > raised the water level to the maximum possible value? I theorized that if I > did this, then the water level would actually overflow onto the lowest > possible water level. Using hacks, I tested this and found it to be true. > Consequently, I then raised the water level using TAS until it reached a > very special water level, which I'm naming the "overflow water level," at > which the water level oscillates between the highest water level and the > lowest water level. I make use of this to ascend and descend in the town, > thereby allowing me to collect the star in 0 A presses.

> To raise the water, I make use of a glitch, which works as follows. The > water in the town raises and lowers periodically. Whatever water level you > unload the town on becomes the median water level for the next time you load > the town. So if you consistently unload the town while the water is at the > top of its cycle, then the water will gradually rise, and that's what I do > in the video.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There was also the recent Twitch chat inside Pokemon at AGDQ 2015: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv7RqnT0_Wo#t=508](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv7RqnT0_Wo#t=508)

<comment><USER5> Oner of my recent favourite things has been watching people do these tricks live. Here's another AGDQ video, the guy executes an elaborate buffer overflow in mario 3 _by hand_ to make it skip to the credits. It's called a 'wrong warp' or a 'credits skip' and it's completely ridiculous.

[https://youtu.be/c-bkDz0wPsI?t=3774](https://youtu.be/c-bkDz0wPsI?t=3774)

<comment><USER4> Same, I pretty much leave AGDQ open on a secondary monitor for the whole duration.

I didn't see Mario 3 live but it seems pretty insane. In a similar technique of wrong wraps is the glitch run of Zelda 2 ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXEx9zIEoJw#t=288](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXEx9zIEoJw#t=288)) - the speedrunning community has an insane level of dedication, there are so many of these frame perfect tricks/exploits and it's just like... how do you even discover it!?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No matter how many times I encounter this it never ceases to amaze me. Maybe it's because I played these games growing up, or maybe it's just my interest in low level bit twiddling like this, but probably a bit of both. The process he uses to figure it all out is just as impressive as the hack itself.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is incredible. I have always wanted to get into this type of thing, but it seems so incredibly difficult without a large amount of experience.

<comment><USER8> Try Matasano's Microcorruption CTF. It is designed for people with no experience. You will do the same things the author of the post did.

uctf strips away the layers of complexity related to a specific environment, giving you a clean place to learn the first principles. Whereas, if you tried this on a Gameboy, you must learn a lot of domain specific things, and learn how a computer works at a rather low level. For example: once you have built an exploit payload or two, it isn't so magical how using an inventory of items that are represented with integers can become code.

<comment><USER9> I've gotten to the second or 3rd level with it. I just wish they gave a little more hints as to what I could learn about to help progress along with the levels.

<comment><USER8> Usually if you can figure out the type of vulnerability you are going after, you can search for it and then use the first principles of that bug type and apply it to the current level.

The first few levels are just to get you used to thinking in machine code, reading and thinking in hex, and used to reversing. They are a little tougher for some, depending on your background.

<comment><USER9> That's good to know! My background is in CS, so I've done a bit of computer architecture and assembly(been quite awhile though). Very new to reversing; I've tried out Lena's tutorials and decided to give this a shot instead. I'll keep that in mind :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reminds me of the trick that was first used to make a TI-85 execute arbitrary assembly code. Someone disassembled a ROM and found that the CUSTOM menu was actually implemented by an unchecked jump to (presumably) the code of the function the user selected. Normally, the interface will only let you select built in functions, but by hacking a RAM backup, it was possible to make it jump to the data held in a STRING variable and execute it as code. Typically, this was populated with a bootloader that executed a shell stored within a PRGM. That shell provided a menu to execute arbitrary other code also stored in PRGM data.

</comment><comment> slipstream- There's also this: [http://forums.glitchcity.info/index.php/topic,6638.0.html](http://forums.glitchcity.info/index.php/topic,6638.0.html) (featured on HN before)

and this (G/S ACE, through a translation error): [http://forums.glitchcity.info/index.php/topic,6716.0.html](http://forums.glitchcity.info/index.php/topic,6716.0.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, got this from a list posted on the top one: [http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/articles/accidentally_turing_complet...](http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/articles/accidentally_turing_complete.html)

You may find more interesting items such as:

       Apache Rewrite Rules
       Sendmail
       BGP

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Are there any good Youtube channels which look at these hacks and explain a bit about how they work?

I found this one: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClgilE1XxsorM1iX9YtS4FA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClgilE1XxsorM1iX9YtS4FA) in the related videos of the Pokemon Yellow video which looks pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER12> +1 for use of Clojure

+2 for use of Clojure's UTF-8 flexibility for direction arrows

</comment><comment><USER13> Similar deal with super mario world, using programmed controllers to poke arbitrary code into memory and execute it. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPcV9uIY5i4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPcV9uIY5i4)

<comment><USER14> You no longer need a special controller: a person has abused this glitch to skip straight to the credits on real hardware on an actual SNES controller.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> nitpick: should be labeled (2013)

</comment><comment><USER16> wow</comment>