Why I decided to skip college, and how I've fared (10 months later) - <AUTHOR> http://joshmlewis.posterous.com/why-i-decided-to-skip-college-and-how-ive-far <comment><USER2> First of all,

 _I'm not an idiot_

No, you are. Everyone is an idiot; it's a sliding scale. Some people are more or less depending on their circumstances. And you become a little less of an idiot the older you are and more mistakes you make. But that's beside the point.

Skipping college has nothing to do with whether you're successful professionally (unless you plan to work in a field where degrees are prerequisites). Anyone can make something of themselves without that piece of paper. You can be the next Bill goddamn Gates without going to a single lecture. I think being successful is relatively straightforward, and that achievements are just a product of how much effort you put into them.

On the other hand, college can give you all the weird shit that matters later accidentally. For example: _[Steve] Jobs later said, "If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts."_

It's really like a really tiny specific version of the internet with walls and faces and casual random interaction that you don't get if you're on your own. People need outside stimuli that they would not normally obtain just by living their life and trying to get a specific job or going after what they think they're expected to. Jobs was a big proponent on experimenting and exploring (not trying to suck Jobs' dick here, but he was right about how outside influences are so... influential)

And it's also a great place to get laid.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I'm not an idiot.

Yes, I am an idiot in those terms. My point was, I'm not just making a mindless decision. And to some my reasoning may be off by scores, but it's still a choice that I have made after hours of thinking hard and research.

<comment><USER3> You've made a decision to shut yourself off from knowledge and insight that are hard to come by any other way. Spending a few years in college is the easiest, shortest route to some pretty profound insights, and you say, "nah".

I'm not saying that you won't have a fulfilling life, and I'm certainly not saying that going to college could influence its outcome. I'm just saying that you've made your decisions based on some very stupid assumptions. It would have been better to say, "I'm not going to college because I don't feel like it, and I want to see where life takes me". I can actually respect that. But making such a decision, or any decision for that matter, based on false assumptions - actually, criminally negligent and outrageously stupid assumptions - is just... dumb.

Actually, you know what? It probably wouldn't have made a difference. You look at life from such a practical point of view - jobs, "achievements", "lessons" etc. - that it would have been hard for you to really gain much at college, and maybe most people are the same way, even if they do go to college. I can only pity them, because successful as they may become, they lead a pitiful life: the life of the willfully blind.

<comment><USER4> _Spending a few years in college is the easiest, shortest route to some pretty profound insights, and you say, "nah"._

I strongly disagree that this is a universal truth. As just one example, I'm finding the Stanford and Udacity courses I'm taking more rewarding than any of the courses I took in college, for a fraction of the time investment.

 _But making such a decision, or any decision for that matter, based on false assumptions - actually, criminally negligent and outrageously stupid assumptions - is just... dumb._

Really. So college apparently doesn't always effectively teach civility in discourse.

<comment><USER5> I felt your comment about civility in discourse to be spot on. What would some of the denser communities of highly-educated people look like if this were hammered on for the first two years of university?

I'm certain hn would benefit from it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a fortysomething I can tell you that I had a few friends who did this back in the day: Over the short run it didn't make a difference -- but in the long run it did impact some people in a very bad way.

The lack of a degree often became a stumbling point mid-career: People without degrees often wouldn't be trusted for mid-level management jobs. Now if you're a solo act or working for a small company that isn't an issue -- but in a larger company (you know the ones with benefits!) it becomes a dead end.

In fact I'm ashamed to admit it but I now feel at a disadvantage because I lack a postgrad degree; and what makes that depressing is that I'm a creative professional which should in theory be as "hands on" as you get in a career. I also had to say that I've watched folks with ivy university degrees have doors open to them which are often closed to others (look at the last four Presidents of the United States).

Another thing for techies to think about is the fact that there's a ton of ageism in tech that nobody talks about. So yes if you're a twentysomething who can program you don't have to worry, but twenty years later even if you keep up you may not get hired. And at that point having a college degree can open up doors that might have been closed.

But you say that you're the next Zuck: Well one should also keep in mind is that the natural state of startups is to fail. So even if you're brilliant, your company may still fail. In fact even if your company does well there's nothing that says that it can't go south after a few years. And if that is the case having a degree won't hurt you.

Lastly I'd leave everyone with this thought: The value of an education isn't a career unless you are studying business. The value of an education should be to make you a better and more rounded person. And knowing more about the world will make you better at everything that you touch. If you want an example think about Steve Jobs learning about typography in college and how it shaped the original Mac.

<comment><USER7> No offense but I think your post is wrong in pretty much every respect (and I say this as someone with an ivy league undergraduate degree and nearly done with a Top 10 law degree).

You say people are harmed in their careers by lack of a college degree. This may be true in some of the more traditional, salaryman-type career paths. But there's lots of people who are harmed by college/graduate school! Tons of debt and years wasted on useless degrees are a tremendous drag on people's development and growth in their knowledge and careers. And if one has a positive and open attitude, there's way better opportunities one can find than the traditional salaryman type office jobs.

Also, as someone with an Ivy league degree I find your citation to "doors opening" and the recent Presidents just kind of amusing. It's true that you can go to an Ivy League school and do well and do things coming out of it. But the people going into an Ivy League school are often either 1) hard-driving people who'd do well in any setting, or 2) connected people whose families are going to make their lives easy no matter what. So it's not the school doing any of the heavy lifting in terms of these people's success. And on the flip side, there's way more Ivy League barristas then Presidents!

Finally I've always found the "well-rounded person" thing to be a huge myth. I've gotten way more out of the Internet -- reading forums, learning about books, interacting with interesting people, doing online courses etc -- than I ever did in college. And not like 50% more, but orders of magnitude more. The "well-rounded person" thing is just some sort of conventional meme/rationalization for school attendance that doesn't have much content. They don't teach quality ideas in the humanities or social sciences (except _maybe_ economics) -- so you don't really become a well-rounded person, and if you're not in some hard sciences or math program you don't really learn anything at all in general (for context, I was a social sciences major). You just become a person who's been exposed to some weird mixture of stuff taught because of Tradition, and whatever faddish developments are going on in your field.

And yeah, Jobs took a typography class before dropping out. But if you want to learn stuff, there's way more effective ways than college now.

Our culture has a very strong pro-school bias, though that's starting to break down (LSAT takers were down 16% this year!!) People bucking the norm like OP are a big step towards a better and more critical attitude towards education, and one which I think would help lots of people be happier in their lives.

<comment><USER8> >>> They don't teach quality ideas in the humanities or social sciences...

I stopped taking you seriously right here. That is really one of the silliest things I've ever heard.

<comment><USER9> You should have asked him to explain why he think they don't teach quality ideas instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is too soon to write articles like this. Let's talk again in 10-15 years. Contrary to the recently frequent rhetoric, a good college education does much more than getting you an interview.

It shapes your mind, teaches you to teach yourself, to research, to think analytically about unknown problems. It matures your and gets you to think in ways more "senior" and well balanced. It gives you the foundation to shine and go from being an hourly contractor to a desired full-time employee after a few months of work (and not the other way around as exemplified in the article).

It gives you a chance to meet and spend time with numerous interesting, brilliant peers of your own age. It also puts you in an environment where you can learn from smart, accomplished people much older than you.

If you go to college just to get the diploma at the end, you'll gain and learn less than what otherwise would be optimal. Even so, it is not time wasted at all.

</comment><comment><USER11> College may not be required if you're sufficiently self motivated, however I still feel that for the majority of ordinary people, college still makes sense.

If you leave aside a field like tech, which has ample resources for those willing to teach themselves, this is simply not true for most other skilled professions

Regulations aside, would you go to a doctor who was self-taught or live in buildings built by architects and engineers who didn't go to college?

Atleast for the STEM fields, I still feel that college should be an absolute requirement.

Of course this is not meant to criticize your choice, just feel that the whole 'brilliant people don't need college' thing is taken a bit too far.

<comment><USER12> While I'm in the boat of not needing to graduate college, I do feel that going to a good school is important. It's hard to make it on your own and meeting equally motivated, and inspired roommates would do well for someone with an entrepreneurial mind. Most of the stories about top CEO's starting their dorm businesses instead of graduating college still went to great schools.

Of course, if you have plans to work for yourself, then college may or may not be an issue. If however, you only plan on working for others, at some point you WILL hear about positions that are only open to people with a college degree. I have a friend who stepped out of school early to get a job, now he's working nights and weekends to finish his degree so he can advance within his own company, and field.

Again, if you plan on being judged by others, you need to play the game and get the proper badges.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I was a philosophy major, and dropped out after 2.5 years. My career had been evolving throughout that entire time, and at some point I had to make a choice. After my second job, of six or so, nobody was even remotely interested in my education background, to the point where I deleted the entire section out of my resume with no material consequences whatsoever.

In this profession (excluding academia and high R&D, or specialisations requiring scientific background, or management layers that are still highly credential-driven) , it's all about what you can do. It's amazingly democratic. A degree is only used to differentiate a candidate from a random person off the street, and only in the absence of any other information about them, any meaningful experience, etc. The moment any of that comes into play, the degree becomes vanishingly insignificant.

The caveat, of course, is that if your career path takes you in that direction of doing something more than slinging code or running a small company, which gets increasingly likely as you get older, conservatise, want to get married, the works, you will be faced with severe barriers to entry in many places that are highly credential-dependent, if only through sheer institutional inertia, the force of custom, habit, and tradition, etc. While I do find it likely that these barriers are likely to become less durable in the future, in keeping with the general existential crisis of the received universal higher education narrative and the tendency toward greater meritocratic transparency in many professions (assisted by technology-fostered structural changes), there are certain things you will almost certainly never be able to do without the piece of paper, whether or not you'll ever need to use what you learned to get it.

</comment><comment><USER14> That's amazing how well it worked out for you.

But after I dropped out of college in '98 things didn't work out nearly so well for me, and it was many years before I was able to get some kind of software development career going, even though I had useful skills before I was in the 10th grade. Still not going great (OK though) and people always hold the lack of a degree over my head.

If I could go back in time and put in those two more years of school I would. Not because I think that college really makes a lot of sense, but in the context of our dated society it is still a better choice I think if you can put up with it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't actually see any reasoning for why you haven't gone to college. It sounds like you're doing cool stuff, but I hope you're not trying to argue 'at 18, without college, I'm doing cool stuff, therefore college is unnecessary for people'. Have you heard of the 'gap year' idea, which is common in England/Australia? (maybe other places too, but that's where I'm familiar with it). Many people argue that there are cool things you can do at 18 before you go to college, which will then give you some more experience in the world to decide whether you need college, and how you could most gain from it. Personally I'm a big fan of all high school grads being able to take at least a year off before college to learn a bit more about life, it's great that you have taken this opportunity. I'd love to see some more discussion of 'why I decided to do this, and where I think it'll take me'.

[edit: word choice]

<comment><USER16> The "gap year(s)" idea is very common where I am from as well (Sweden) and I am a strong proponent of it. Traditionally you squeeze(d) in half a year to a year of military service (not as common anymore as it is now voluntarily), one or two years of some shitty job, and maybe half a year of traveling. Personally I traveled the world as a musician in a band for a while, then I worked two years at an airport throwing bags and then I traveled some more! This way I got both perspective, experience, money and maybe most important of all, I got a strong motivation to take on higher studies. I was longing for the world of academia after standing on the "factory floor".

With that said, I have friends who went directly from high school to university and I have friends who skipped it all together. All of them are doing brilliantly and work with things they are passionate about. Things tend to work themselves out if you have a burning passion for something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congratulations.

I'm surprised to see so much negative feedback here for someone who is hacking our (messed up) education system.

It's true that not having college credentials will be a hassle or an outright barrier for a lot of things. You sound capable of dealing with or working around the hassles.

It's not as if you can't get a college degree later if you decide you want one. (I do recommend making that decision before starting a family though.)

<comment><USER18> He did not hack the education system, he _opted out_ of it. Hacking something is using it for a purpose the the providers of the system/item did not intend it to be used for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> As an 18 year old and soon-to-be-graduated senior, I am nearly at a loss of words in response to this article. He left high school with little practical knowledge ("HTML/CSS and some Photoshop skills"). To think of jumping into the real world with no experience and no skills? It just doesn't seem wise to me.

I'm going to college next year, and I'm glad. I'm in five AP classes this year, and I've taken four already. To think that I am educated enough to end my formal education here...well, it seems insane. I have much more to learn, and I can learn it in college without worrying about deadlines for jobs that will allow me just barely to make ends meet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting.

I have guts and determination. And disclaimer: unless you have money or want to split your time working, don't expect to be living in a nice apartment with a nice car your first year or two. It's not that I'm broke, I live decently, it's just in the real world I've realized there are things called bills :o.

I have crazy determination and I've come a long way. I had the guts as a 15 year old to walk into a business with a contract, all dressed up and get my first web design client. I was 17 when I drove to DC by myself to do the internship.

You and I are different sorts of people. You chose to take AP classes and get ahead, which is great by the way, and I chose to spend my time learning real world working skills in preparation for jumping right in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The fact that you think you can understand the outcome of such a huge decision in just 10 months is telling. Come back in 10 years.

<comment><USER21> so i'm basically that kid in 10 years.

all i wanted to do is code, code and code some more for ethical orgs and thats all i've done for the past 10 years.

but now (literally now, i'm procrastinating while i should be doing an assignment) i am back doing a degree via distance ed to get a piece of paper... and the only reason i'm doing that is i want to work in japan which is a bit hard without a piece of paper.

anyway, if you want to code and have the skills and opportunities infront of you then take them, uni will be there waiting for you whenever you want.

<comment><USER22> > uni will be there waiting whenever you want.

Exactly! I decided not to go to university and got a job at a small company instead. For me this was the best option. I was bored with formal education, I much prefer to teach myself. Opting out of university has not prevented me from revisiting that decision if ever/whenever I see fit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Friends. The best friends of my life were all in my all male dorm at an engineering school. We would geek out in the computer lab on friday nights, having the time of our lives. The bonding that can happen in an environment where you can just relax and let your mind wander is hard to duplicate. Start a company with someone and at best your lucky to be amicable, because there is no way you can both always be in agreement with such large stakes. Staying up all night to finish a school project? True bonding.

The person with the most friends at the end truly is the winner. And now is the time to find them, so that when your 60 you'll have 40 years of awesome memories to share together. It's far to easy to start a company and slide away from being with or making friends.. that's time you'll never get back.

High school friends are a completely different category. In highschool you meet people because they happen to live near you, but then you go home for dinner and to sleep. In college you are smushed together with a couple hundred 18 year olds with no parental supervision who all chose the same school as you. And your together 24/7, so you find stupid and highly memorable ways to entertain each other, creating epic lifelong memories, so that even if you don't see each other for 5-10 years you pick up right where you left off. That's bonding.

You can always drop out if it's really not for you. Either way, make sure you have really good friends around you at all times.

<comment><USER13> I made those same friends at work, though admittedly, work did consist mostly of college kids at that time. Still, college isn't the only way to form those kinds of connections and experiences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> It sounds like you've had a great post-education career! Keep it up! That said, as a current senior undergraduate computer science major, I still think that college is an invaluable resource, or at the very least post-secondary classes. Working is great--it teaches you skills for working with others, how to use tools, and how to live in the real world. But education is not necessarily those things.

Go to college if you want not just a technical background, but theoretical grounding in ideas. I'm not going to college because I want to learn how to write code in JavaScript. (I learned that on my own time.) Introductory classes may do that (Arizona State gives you Introduction to Java as a freshman CS course), but nearly all my other computer science classes have been about just that--computer science. Computer science is not programming. It's applied mathematics. Computer science teaches you not only what is possible through computing, but how to judge ideas about computing and how to apply computing through computers.

Again, college is not a necessity. If you don't need it for your career, I have absolutely no objection to that. However, I'm incredibly grateful for the education college has provided me. (Make all the Arizona State jokes you want, but we have a fine CS department.) Computer science gives students an engineering toolset. Programming is not engineering; rather, programming is accomplished through engineering. This is why I believe in college for programmers; good programmers are engineers, first and foremost.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hey man, great job. Wonderful blog post, the only thing that bothered me about it was this part "I chose not to have much of a social life. That's because I want to go somewhere." As if to say that people with a social life aren't successful. Aside from that, great blog post, and good luck on the journey.

Can you explain the open government intern a bit more in detail? How was it that you were able to acquire it...I too would like to do something similar and I have felt an inclination to abandon post-secondary education.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, I'm an introvert. I think if I had any more friends than I have now, it would take away from what I do. And hey, if you like having friends, you can figure a way to fit it in, but I like keeping things lean and simple.

The open government internship was actually found on HN through a link to a networking, chat roulette of sorts. It had something to do with Brazen Careerist and DCTech? (maybe, I forgot the exact name.) I would higly recommend finding somewhere where you can stay for a few months and have a solid experience and reference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> First off, I wanted to say congratulations to your fast growth and determination to succeed. I've personally decided to skip college myself and have never looked back. I'm going to share my thoughts with you, feel free to let me know what you think:

Three years have past and I've gone from having a $700 limit on my credit card to a 7-figure/yr marketing business. I'm not saying this to show off, but to show you that it doesn't take a college education to become "successful" in this lifetime. However, I'm not saying that you can sit pretty without a degree and still become a success; you've seriously gotta work your ass off. It's probably a lot harder for us, since we're not accepted in society as a person with a Bachelor's would be, but this is where resourcefulness and persistence kicks in.

There's a certain stigma around dropping out, as I've seen the past three years. People look at you differently and treat you differently, until you prove to them otherwise. I suppose it could be due to the fact that we've been encouraged and pushed to do well in school and to graduate; it's the "normal" way of doing things. I look at all of the YC founders and most are graduates or undergraduates of prestigious universities like Stanford or MIT. This didn't faze me one bit. I'm used to this kind of competition and I'm ready to prove to PG that I'm worth his attention. Come with this attitude and you can't lose, most people don't expect this from someone who has dropped out. Be unexpected.

Good luck to you and your ventures, looking forward to seeing some more good things from you soon, Josh.

<comment><USER27> > a 7-figure/yr marketing business

Revenue or profit?

<comment><USER26> Last year it was all revenue, but we'll be approaching the 7-figure profit mark this year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Two years ago I had to make a similar decision compared to what the OP did. I was about halfway through a top US university degree as an international student but suddenly excrement hit the fan, in the financial sense. I was faced with the choice of finding work in my home country, or spending another year trying to get enrolled at a university in my country that is worth going to (there aren't that many around here). Out of a whim and despite my lack of real world experience in software development, I posted my resume around and got a temporary job. It led to a better job, which led to another better one and another better one.

While my classmates are graduating this semester, I got to do real world software development, most of the stuff had to be learned on the spot. I frankly don't know if the outcome should I have sticked with college would be better than the path I took, but my choice certainly has been worthwhile. In terms of theoretical foundations, I admit that I'm lacking some, but I constantly supplement it with reading (and this recent wave of online courses has been great!) and self-studying on the side, most of which I try to apply immediately at work. I hardly think enrolled college students get to do that and get feedback from real users (instead of professors/TAs).

On the other hand, most prize the concept of college-life, dorm-life etc, which is great. I did have the opportunity to experience some of that. The problem is when people think that getting into significant debt and the uncertainty of not being able to be employed upon graduation is worth more than doing something else just because society dictates everyone should go to college, then something is wrong.

</comment><comment><USER29> _10 months later_

I'd be interested in seeing the same evaluation 10 years in. I think that's where it makes more of a difference, not in the short term.

</comment><comment><USER30> Here's another aspect of what you might miss if you don't go to college.

Everywhere I have worked (including Google), I've been surrounded with great developers, some of which who came from college, others who dropped out early and just learned on their own because they were passionate about software.

Both types of engineers are doing a great job, but when it comes to being involved in important decisions, or choices that will impact the company or the infrastructure for a long time, either the non-college people have very little to contribute or they are simply not invited to the meetings. Practically, they are good at getting things done based on what they are told but not much more beyond that.

Our profession needs both types of backgrounds, but you are vastly, vastly underestimating the amount of opportunities that will just never present themselves because of your choice of not going to college.

</comment><comment><USER31> As long as you stay busy, that's the key. I left high school after one year to do my own thing and since then have had some pretty extraordinary experiences. I recently left the institution where I had a full scholarship and will instead be getting my second degree (first bachelor's) within a year somewhere else– because the other things paused. I wish you the best of luck, but make sure that you don't let anything that happens close your mind. To stay on top of your game you have to be able to see when the game changes. If work ever dries up and you find yourself idling, don't be afraid to go back and do some of the things you didn't need before.

This message has been brought to you by Clonazepam and too much late-night circuit analysis... (I'll save the regret for not waiting to write later until the morning)

<comment><AUTHOR> I definitely think that's a key point in all of this. And really I'm just 18. That's the really, really cool part. If I totally :facepalm: fail in two years, I can say, "Ok, college might not be a bad idea."

<comment><USER32> Unfortunately, you won't have the time to go back in 2-3 years. You'll be too busy trying to pay your bills, keep the apartment, deal with your psycho girlfriend, have some semblance of a social life, and deal with that stupid used car that needs to pass inspection. Oh, and dont forget about that crap client who won't leave you alone. Good luck dude.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Kudos to you. I tried to go down this path, and ended up going back to school after I ended up dealing with an unfortunate amount of ageism and related flack for being young and not having a degree (I graduated HS at 16 and dropped out of college at 18. At 21, I've returned to school full time.) Additionally, in retrospect, I wasn't mature enough to make the plunge. You seem to be.

If I may presume to dispense a little advice. Work on your writing skills. I read your blog and lots of little errors jumped out at me. Strunk and White is invaluable. I find myself consulting it daily. While I have a fairly large skill set, writing is the most useful.

</comment><comment><USER34> I don't think any of what you wrote justifies not going to college. You could have easily done all the same things you did in the last ten months while taking classes at the same time. That's what I've been doing my entire college career, and I've had well-paying jobs, great internships, networking opportunities, travel for cool conferences and hackathons, and all the rest, all while earning a degree.

It's great that you're making all these things happen in your life, but it doesn't make sense to think of it in terms of "this is what I'm doing _instead_ of college." You can easily do both.

</comment><comment><USER35> First of all, congratulations Josh and thanks for posting. It's great to hear a young person taking such a deliberate path and I'm sure it will be valuable to other to hear about. Please keep posting.

Slightly tangental, the reason college is/will be so hard to replace is that we are not sure or can't agree what it's even for. If we had a thread about it everyone would have very different opinions. In some sense it feels like trying to replace parents or peers. You can't really break down what they're for and try to replace it.

</comment><comment><USER36> I went to college for four years but didn't graduate. Today I'm having a great time coding and sys adminning in nyc. I enjoyed college times, but there's no way you could con me today into thinking it was at all necessary from an economic perspective. I think of college as a luxury good spot, not as an economic investment. So I kind of agree with you on one hand, even though I have a softspot for college. Point is this: college has positives, but an efficient way to spend 4yrs developing skills is not it.

<comment><USER37> Well, since you didn't graduate, you are missing an important part of college. As others have mentioned, this may be a problem later in life. I would agree with your main point.

Also, I am not sure how you could go to college for 4 years (my comp sci * maths courses were 3 years), and not graduate?

<comment><USER38> Some colleges have longer plans of study. My school (Georgia Institute of Technology) was ~120 semester-based credit hours, and if you took 17-18 credit hours a semester you could graduate in 4 years. After freshman or sophomore year you really didn't take more than 13-16, which automatically puts you on a 5 year plan. That's also assuming you didn't fail any courses, which was extremely possible in some programs of study. Aerospace Engineering was a 5-6 year major for most, and it wasn't uncommon to see 7th year Aerospace majors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For clarifications sake, I consider myself a front-end dev and user experience guy. I like to stay between full fledge designing and full fledge programming. I understand the difference between fairy tell design, and what stuff can actually do. I think that's an important mindset to have.

If you plan on doing hardcore engineering, college is the way to go. I would also say if you are fortunate enough to get into a really good school, and get good scholarships, go for it if you feel it's what you want to do.

<comment><USER39> You know, there's an awful lot of psychology in interface design. Its not taught in very many places either. It might be worth investigating if you could start learning this kind of stuff on a distance basis so that you could future-proof yourselves to a certain degree.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I have looked into some new-agey type of degrees for interaction. I'm very intrigued by such.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I think it's fantastic that things are going well for you. I wish you the absolute best.

I do, however, wonder how much of the backlash against college is coming from liberal arts majors that ran up crazy debt while earning a degree that doesn't immediately lead to high paying work. I did a lot of the same sort of things the OP is talking about when I was his age (it was 14 years ago, though, so there were some differences, but it was similar), and I managed a college course load. I graduated in 2003 without debt (state school, didn't go crazy on the weekends, worked hard), and while I would have loved to have the extra time that you have now, over the last decade having a degree (even a silly BA Political Science like I have) has been really, _really_ useful. Most of the jobs I've had since graduation wouldn't have even looked at my resume without that degree on it.

Things are changing and it's becoming easier to show off your skills without a piece of paper proving that you meet some university's curriculum requirements, but given the relatively low real costs of a college education, I'd be hard pressed to recommend anyone not get one.

</comment><comment><USER41> Keep on writing and working on your writing skills. There were times at which I felt that your writing got in the way of the ideas you were trying to express. One other thing that stuck out to me was that it seems like discouragements from others have really gotten to you despite your insistence that they don't matter. Don't mind the haters and keep on working hard! Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER42> I had friends back in college in the 90s who did this. Their rational being "the job market is so hot, why bother getting a degree when I can start making money right now." Back then it seemed like anyone with a CCNA could start making 60k a year. Then the bubble burst, and suddenly it wasn't so easy to get a job anymore.

It's during the down times that I think more weight gets put on degrees. Not necessarily because they're the best metric, but because they're one more metric you can use to filter against when you have a vast pool of candidates. Of course, any decent engineer is unlikely to be competing against a 'vast pool of candidates' right now, because the competition for talent is so fierce. But just because that's the state of the job market today, doesn't mean it will be that way tomorrow.

All that being said, some of the best programmers I've known were self-taught and had no degree. Either way, I wish the OP best of luck.

<comment><USER43> Most of the best programmers I've known were initially self-taught, but also have university degrees. Which after they are 30-35 is crucial if they want to move up the ladder to executive within a corporate environment.

Having spent the last few months back in Toronto, I'm quite surprised by the number of people I meet (some old friends) who have MBA (from a top school), CA/CMA/CPA, CFA, CSI* courses and ten plus years of good quality work experience who are unemployed or significantly under-employed. Luck, or lack of it, has played a part for some of them not currently having a job, with companies they joined cutting teams or closing down.

There is an 'arms race' here for more advanced degrees & designations that makes it really tough to either keep up or get back into the race if you fall out of it.

* CSI = Canadian Securities Institute, CFA = Chartered Financial Analyst, CA/CMA/CPA = Accounting designations

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> A good college experience is better than a bad college experience or no college experience. No college experience is better than a bad college experience.

What is a good college experience? One that opens doors; one that provides specific knowledge and skills; one that gives you a background of knowledge and skills that you can build upon; one that leads you to a strong network of like-minded professionals; one that leaves you with debt that you can manage reasonably in the profession that you have been prepared for.

What is a bad college experience? One that does not lead to meaningful skills and knowledge; one that does not give you a foundation you can build upon; one that leaves you a debt that is not manageable within the profession you have prepared for.

I support people going to college when it is set up to be a good experience. I support people avoiding college when they are headed for a bad college experience.

</comment><comment><USER45> GREAT decision. I just recently graduated with a BA in English. I loved it, but it was ultimately a waste of time. My biggest qualm with higher education is that there's not enough DOING encouraged.

Having said that, two months after graduated in English, I taught myself web development and UI and now work at an SEO agency.

</comment><comment><USER46> This was me in 1998.

I ended up halfway around the world, in New Zealand. Getting paid well, enjoying what I'm working on.

You won't really have more free time than you have now, your life starts filling up with things that demand your time. So studying will be harder to pick up later.

But doable, I'm studying on the side, inching my way to finishing my degree.

I don't earn less than college graduated peers.

And in the job, if anything, I'm probably more inclined to delve deeper and get a more in-depth understanding because I'm curious as hell and have always had a bit of an inclination to try prove myself vs those who had the benefit of a college education :)

I just lucked out that I was able to get a job doing this, and that programming as a career is so amenable to self-learning, otherwise I'd probably have ended up a lawyer or accountant, or some other job requiring degree study.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER47> Right on Josh! Engaging in the real world is a bit scarier that sticking with your peers and remaining institutionalized, but your growing the most vital asset any of us can have in this world... BALLS!

I hope you continue to kick ass and maybe inspire some more people to pursue a similar route.

</comment><comment><USER48> As a high school student, the article was engaging and inspiring, as I have been also debating whether not to go, take an off year, or just go.

One thing I worry about for people who don't go is the lack of fundamentals that going to college can give you - about algorithms, low level languages, etc. The only way I've thought to solve that problem is to take (religiously) MIT OpenCourseWare courses, coursera, or some equivalent for 2 to 3 years.

But like others have said, you can always learn as you go and then go to college later if you feel like you need it. There are so many options -- it's a fascinating and difficult decision (and I've even left out the problem of societal pressure).

</comment><comment><USER49> It is an impressive list of items that you have been able to do. It is very practical and something a college/univ education might not provide.

At some point in life (there is still a lot of time for you) you will have to make a decision, whether there is some benefit going to school to improve your theoretical knowledge. The hard part is knowing if that is useful for you :-). It is becoming irrelevant each day with initiatives like coursera/udacity.

Wishing you all the best for a great future ahead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I have heard this. I come from a more design background, I don't plan to get into hardcore programming too deep. As someone said, without a CS degree you probably can't design the next Javascript, or up-and-coming language. This is probably true, but not something I plan on doing anyway.

<comment><USER49> True, if you intend to work on creating applications (rather than say systems programming), it makes more sense to hone skills with how to work with frameworks/tools.

Obviously having the gift to design as well will put in you in an elite league :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Well done. I am in the same boat that you find yourself. I've made great success for myself basically doing what I love (writing code) without a college degree.

It's very much as the second commenter (on your site) said, (though I've used this phrase all along and have never heard anyone say it's equivalent):

"Education gets you the interview, skill and experience get you the job."

</comment><comment><USER51> what people generally miss about dropping out of college is that guys like bill gates, mark zuckerberg, etc drop out because they are working on something that is turning out to be absolutely massive.

ie the alternative of staying in college was a small opportunity by comparison.

</comment><comment><USER52> This is a really brave thing you're doing, I'm glad it seems to be working out for you.

A nitpick on spelling/word usage (sorry): I think instead of "in times of desparity" you want "in times of desperation". "In times of disparity" would be applied to something like a country.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed. Thanks. Not the best writer in the world.

<comment><USER53> it's still "desparation"

you should change it to desperation

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed. Now it's just getting late. heh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> What if he live in a country where hacker news is hardly known and the society values a degree very highly and no matter how well you perform and that there is always a glass ceiling to block non degree holders from rising up.

Will he be as successful?

</comment><comment><USER55> It really depends on your motivation to be successful. If you make a mistake learn from it.

</comment><comment><USER56> Congrats Josh. You are DEBT FREE! Just that puts you light years ahead of most your age.

</comment><comment><USER57> If you are a computer geek, you don't NEED a degree if you are properly motivated, but good luck job hunting for a lot of careers (accountant, civil engineer, teacher, historian, psychologist, ETC). I personally think that technical schools are great. Skip all the elective and arts garbage that you have to take in college.

BTW, I was just talking to a civil engineer last night at the gym (after a game of basketball). He said that he (and other civil engineers) learned the majority of his skills on the job, and not during college (I have found this to be true in software dev as well). The problem with many of the jobs that I listed though is that you can't even get your foot in the door to those careers without a degree.

<comment><USER27> > He said that he (and other civil engineers) learned the majority of his > skills on the job, and not during college (I have found this to be true in > software dev as well).

That may well be the case, but these skills often build on material that _was_ learned in college.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> > I started out just knowing the basics: HTML/CSS and some Photoshop skills. > Hardly any knowledge of JS or any programming language.

What did you do during your high school years? Why didn't you learn to code then?</comment>


Using Foundation-Style Time - <AUTHOR> https://sandyuraz.com/articles/foundation-time/ <comment><USER2> I've been using epoch time for everything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes!!</comment></comment>


Show HN: Freeciv WebGL 3D - <AUTHOR> http://play.freeciv.org/blog/2017/12/freeciv-webgl-3d-models-redesigned-and-updated/?smp <comment><USER2> It looks great (and is playable on HiDPI, which FreeCIV native isn't, or wasn't last time I tried), but I still find the controls in the WebGL version entirely unusable. They're so fidgety, click-drag to move doesn't work (at least in Firefox on Linux), and I keep unintentionally interrupting my workers or just selecting the wrong unit to move.

I want to like it; as I love FreeCiv and have played it off and on for years (when I get bored with Civ, I might fire up a FreeCiv game for different mechanics), but it's really tedious to explore and do things. Hotkeys work, and I might be able to get comfortable enough with them to be efficient with them if I play a little longer to get my muscle memory back (it's been a few years since I really had much time for long Civ games), but the mouse is almost worse than useless.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I accidentally zoomed out and it's almost impossible to zoom in on Firefox on Mac

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Perhaps someone can come up with a WebVR / A-frame variant.

<comment><AUTHOR> -Anaglyph support: [http://play.freeciv.org/blog/2017/08/freeciv-webgl-now-has-a...](http://play.freeciv.org/blog/2017/08/freeciv-webgl-now-has-anaglyph-3d-support/)

-Google Cardboard support: [http://play.freeciv.org/blog/2017/06/freeciv-webgl-with-3d-v...](http://play.freeciv.org/blog/2017/06/freeciv-webgl-with-3d-vr-cardboard-and-speech-recognition-beta-support/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Incredible work! Forgive me if I overlooked it in my excitement, but what technology handles the networking of this masterpiece and could something like socket.io handle it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The technologies in Freeciv-web are described here: [https://github.com/freeciv/freeciv-web](https://github.com/freeciv/freeciv- web) Some techs used are Nginx, Tornado, the server is implemented in C and there is a proxy implemented in Python. The 3D engine is Three.js.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Freeciv WebGL has been updated with new 3D models today. Please post your feedback here on HN.

[https://play.freeciv.org](https://play.freeciv.org)

<comment><USER6> First few times I tried to start a game, I entered my name as required. But then it would prompt me for a password while still telling me I could play without an account.

After trying an few times with no luck I tried a more complicated user name, and it let me it. You should give people better feedback when they selected a user name that is already taken. Personally using a user name to create an account is bad, better to use an email address which is unique.

<comment><USER6> Gave up a couple of turns later when I got into map moving mode and we unable to get out of it to move my units.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Please allow for easy registry via integrating Google or Facebook logins. I know that many are philosophically against that, but it sure makes it easy to sign up and remember the password.

<comment><USER8> Yep I'm against it. Please don't require me to hand over my private information in order to play your game. Same thing for Google Captcha (though Freeciv isn't using it); please stop using this.

<comment><USER9> That's actually why I prefer to log in with Google; my passwords stay safely hidden away from whatever site I'm logging into, plus I can easily revoke that site's login if I choose to.

<comment><USER10> How about a password manager instead?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Senate bill amounts to death penalty for Web sites - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20062398-281.html

<comment><USER2> This bill will be used to censor any form of information and data on the internet. Whether it be legal or not. It will be used as a tool to threaten and intimidate people, organizations and corportaions. It will be used by government agencies against other organizations/corps and people. Think of this as the "watchlist" currently used by the TSA. This bill is not harmless. America is no longer the symbol of freedom and truth it once stood for. Americans are not free any more.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is certainly a way to go about taking websites off of the most commonly used web. And cutting off ad funding is like strangling them. But this power can very well be misused and used to quiet organizations. I dont believe the government should have the power to dictate who is allowed to do business with who. Also filtering DNS is only a precursor of what is to come with internet censorship.

<comment><USER4> Could you imagine if corporations were required to blacklist all companies that had done anything illegal? Everything would crumble. This is such a ridiculous idea.

<comment><USER5> Good question, I never thought about it this way. Why does IP get such special protections? Why not blacklist companies that cheat on their taxes, or violate EPA regs?

<comment><USER6> > Why does IP get such special protections?

A lot of expensive lobbyists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> jim-greer Here's EFF's take on the bill: [http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/protect- ip-act-coica-re...](http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/05/protect-ip-act-coica- redux)

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't see how this is constitutional under the first amendment. Even if it passes, it will probably be overturned after wasting vast amounts of taxpayer and non-profit (ACLU, EFF) dollars.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure how most of the DMCA is constitutional but there it is.

I agree with you, except for the part about "it will probably be overturned". I'm much more pessimistic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Based on what happened to the gambling sites recently, I expect it to be used as a tool against adult content on the web because the politics are so easy.

<comment><USER3> yes that is a very valid point. In general non conforming content is endangered along with freedom of speech and press. See a couple of posts above

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Implement vague and capricious laws that criminalize large swaths of the target population. Enforce them only against your enemies and use the threat of prosecution to eliminate dissent.

</comment><comment><USER11> Except this death penalty we can fix by creating new protocols.

<comment><USER12> Good point as far as DNS access goes but new protocols won't get the sites advertising money or search engine views.

<comment><USER13> That's a secondary issue in the grand scheme of free speech.

It's also the kind of thing that the market is good at solving. E.g., the ad revenue business will simply leave the US like many others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is it time to build the darknet yet?

<comment><USER15> Already exists. It's just waiting for population <http://www.i2p2.de/>

<comment><USER16> The site's not showing up...

<comment><USER17> so the darknet is working then?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [Warning: Snark] Will Google be forced to block youtube and remove advertising?

</comment><comment><USER18> so people will just have to bookmark IP addresses if it comes down to it? and then someone will come up with an alternative to DNS that will help people remember these IP addressees... and then we'll have that new updated infrastructure for DNS we all wanted anyway?

it seems to be attacking everything but ISPs, so as long as the sites still have internet access, people will find a way around it.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'd love to hear grellas' input on this (thanks for submitting the link btw).

</comment><comment><USER20> In the longer run it seems likely to me that inexpensive subscription services are inevitable, and this will wind up being largely moot.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is scary.

I run a popular forum on which users sometimes post links to copyrighted materials – despite the fact that it's explicitly against the rules. Because of this I occasionally receive DCMA takedown notices regarding links that were posted 3-5 months prior (even though the links are often expired by that time). The last time it happened my hosting company was involved and threatened to suspend my account in less than 48 hours if I did not comply (harsh).

How easily could this bill result in an innocent site (such as mine) being taken down? Obviously the bill describes "steps" that have to be taken up to that point, but considering I was less than 48 hours away from my site being suspended for a 3 month old expired link to a video, I don't have much faith in the people entrusted to make these decisions.

Besides, isn't the DMCA enough?

<comment><USER22> You were given 48 hours notice because that is what the DMCA dictates, not because your webhost were being dicks... They legally have to give you 48 hrs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Isn't it awesome that the "democracy" can be bought by bribing a small number of politicians in charge. Whoever set that system up, didn't think it through.

<comment><USER24> This is a well known result of public choice theory.

<http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoice.html>

Well, maybe this is not well known enough, because school civics lessons usually don't teach this. I'll refrain from speculating about what interest groups might be influencing the school curriculum.

As Winston Churchill said, "Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill>

Or as James Madison put it, "But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."

<http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa51.htm>

If it really becomes impossible for people to operate legitimate, opinion- promoting websites (as contrasted with copyright-infringing websites, which I don't operate), then the way out of the problem is the same as it has always been, people power.

<http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations98ce.html>

<comment><USER23> Well, there are many truly democratic systems that nobody has tried yet. For instance a system where any citizen can vote on any issue. To prevent the tyranny of the majority, there can be rules set up. A system where people decide where their taxes go, how much to spend on healthcare, science, education, warfare.

<comment><USER24> Initiative and referendum

[http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Initiative_and_referen...](http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Initiative_and_referendum)

are old ideas of the Progressive movement of a century ago, and they are blamed by some observers for the mess that California is now in.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2489519>

<comment><USER25> Illinois is in an even worse mess and they don't have initiatives.

<comment><USER26> absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Tale of Two Techs - Salt Lake and Las Vegas - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mashery.com/content/tale-two-tech-cities-api-hackday-salt-lake-city

<comment><USER2> As a Computer Engineering student in the SLC area (Provo), I'm surprised that SLC is characterized by "hardware hackers". Maybe he means embedded systems guys, because digital and analog design jobs are much less common than software positions around here.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "The Vegas Tech scene that I encountered revealed a burgeoning entrepreneurial community anxious to collaborate with an openness to sharing ideas and pursuits with others."

Damn proud to be part of this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Having spent the last 3 years in SLC, it's amazing to see the growth that is going on in both locations. Vegas specifically though, the momentum that #vegastech has is like nothing else I've ever seen.

</comment><comment><USER4> Go #VegasTech!</comment>


A Little Big Adventure 2 (Twinsen's Odyssey) reimplementation in JS/React/Three - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/agrande/lba2remake <comment><AUTHOR> Live demo: [http://lba2remake.xesf.net/#scene=42](http://lba2remake.xesf.net/#scene=42)

Editor mode: [http://lba2remake.xesf.net/#editor=true](http://lba2remake.xesf.net/#editor=true)

</comment><comment><USER2> very good remake! Keep up the good work xesf :)</comment>


All Systems Down (2003) - <AUTHOR> http://www.computerworld.com/article/2581420/disaster-recovery/all-systems-down.html

<comment><USER2> Url changed from [http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/Blogs/AIXchange/March-2015/More...](http://www.ibmsystemsmag.com/Blogs/AIXchange/March-2015/More- Terrifying-Tales-of-IT/), which points to this.</comment>


The Tyranny of the Rocket Equation (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/expeditions/expedition30/tryanny.html <comment><USER2> Right. This has been known for a long time. It's why rockets aren't much better than they were 40 years ago. Chemical fuels are as good as they can get. Space travel with chemical fuels is just barely feasible.

In the 1960s, it was assumed that nuclear power would be necessary for space flight. Everybody involved knew the rocket equation. The original plan for Apollo included a nuclear upper stage. The engine (NERVA) was built and tested. A Nuclear Assembly Building at Canaveral was planned. But, because the goal was so narrow ("man, moon, decade"), the solution chosen was a disposable rocket the size of a 50-story building to send an RV-sized payload to the moon.

The crash of a nuclear rocket would produce a radioactive mess. Not Chernobyl or Fukishima sized, but at least small-town sized. Launching from an isolated island would help.

Various schemes have been tried or proposed to beat the rocket equation. Launching from a balloon was tried early. Launching from an aircraft is still used by Virgin Aerospace. It helps a little.

A space vehicle that's an air-breather while it's in the atmosphere and transitions to rocket mode once out has been proposed many times, but making something that's both a rocket and an airplane is hard and adds a lot of weight. As an airplane, it has to go hypersonic to get up enough speed that it's worth doing this. Building a hypersonic aircraft is very hard; so far, only a few small demo craft have done it. The National Space Plane (hypersonic single-stage-to-orbit) was proposed in the 1980s. Ben Rich, head of the Lockheed Skunk Works and the designer of the SR-71's propulsion system, declined to let Lockheed bid on it. (His comment: "We used titanium (on the SR-71). You know anything stronger?") Remember, it has to be strong at a few thousand degrees.

The same problems apply to launch track systems. Going hypersonic near the ground is possible; the Holloman AFB test track, 50,000 feet of very straight railroad track, has been used to reach Mach 8.6. The required acceleration is about 14g. Far too much for humans.

The "space elevator" requires not only unreasonable strong materials but the ability to put so much mass in space that you wouldn't need a space elevator if you had that kind of launch capacity.

<comment><USER3> Everyone Knows™ that putting stuff into space is expensive. Then Everyone Assumes™ that it's because of all the fuel. But no, fuel is cheap, hardware is what's expensive. If you look at the costs involved in putting something into orbit, the cost of fuel is a trivial detail, on the order of 1% of the total costs. Compare that to an airliner, where fuel is around 1/3rd of the total costs, or a car, where fuel can easily be over 50% of the total costs.

I happened to be reading up on rocket efficiency and I was surprised to learn that rockets are fairly efficient for launching stuff into orbit. Wikipedia uses the example of the Space Shuttle, where 16% of the energy in the propellants ends up in the kinetic and potential energy of the orbiter. That's pretty good!

The problem is that you use a rocket once and then throw it away. Imagine if your car was one-time-use. How often would you drive somewhere? How often would _anyone_ drive _anywhere_? It wouldn't matter how efficient they are and it wouldn't matter if they didn't even require fuel at all.

Now, the rocket equation still comes into play here, because it means you need a lot of rocket for a little bit of payload. But the main problem is the one- time-use thing. A nuclear disposable rocket wouldn't improve things much. A reusable nuclear rocket would be great, but then so would a reusable chemical rocket.

This is the genius of SpaceX. For decades, rocket designers have looked at the rocket equation and tried their hardest to save fuel. SpaceX looked at the economics of rocketry and realized that fuel costs more or less don't matter, and instead concentrated on building their machines cheaply, and on making them reusable. We'll see how it works out, but if they succeed in making reusable rockets then they'll cut the cost of launches by an order of magnitude or more.

<comment><USER4> People have been trying to make reusable rockets since the beginning. The problem is that a reusable rocket is more complex, what means it's heavier, and that it needs much more fuel to launch, thus a bigger rocket, and the rocket equation makes everything astronomical.

Like everybody else, I cheering for SpaceX to solve this problem, but the challenge is not making a reusable rocket - it's making a light enough reusable rocket.

<comment><USER3> I'm not so sure. The Space Shuttle had a pretty big payload capacity. It had a lot of problems as well, but those were mostly due to being underfunded and hit with weird requirements beyond simple reusability. And that's really the only serious attempt at reusability that got beyond the early stages. It's still a pretty unknown area at this point, but I don't think building stuff sufficiently lightweight is necessarily the challenge. SpaceX doesn't seem to think it is, anyway. Their engines are not particularly high performance (meaning they need more fuel for the same job) and their rockets are engineered more for cost effectiveness than light weight. They seem to be making great strides precisely because they're _not_ concentrating on weight. For example, their first stage reuse system involves carrying a bunch of extra fuel, where virtually every other attempt at reusability involved some sort of unpowered or nearly-unpowered landing after expending all fuel on the launch phase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "If our planet was 50% larger in diameter, we would not be able to venture into space, at least using rockets for transport."

I thought this was quite though-provoking from a Drake Equation standpoint. From what I've gleaned, the earth-like planets we know of seem to be a big bigger than Earth. Perhaps if there's civilization out there, they are hampered by the misfortune of being on a planet that's practically impossible to escape from. If they find it hard to put up a Hubble Telescope, perhaps they'll just not be as likely to bother.

My other remark is to the engineering. There's a quip that you have to be an engineer to make something that only just satisfies the requirements. Plenty of people build houses without much in the way of calculation. Even cars can be built by enthusiasts without degrees. This is what makes the space stuff such amazing engineering.

<comment><USER6> We're still very early in the development of spaceflight. If you compare with the car industry, we're at the early industrialized phase, where large companies carefully start to develop the necessary technology. Now, 100 years later, a lot is standardized and the knowledge is so common that everybody has the basics, and people can build cars in their back yards. It's the same development that happened with airplanes.

At its core, a rocket isn't more complicated than a car. The challenges are just different. My dearest hope is that eventually rocket components will be as commoditized as car parts, so people can build and maintain their own spacecraft. I want to see rockets held together with duck tape and spit, because that's the point where spaceflight is available to everybody and gravity stops becoming a hurdle.

A quick disclaimer: I have the greatest respect for rocket engineers. They are taking the first steps, the most difficult ones, and I don't believe for a second that they their work is easy. I just believe that eventually, they'll become obsolete to the majority of spacetravel :)

<comment><USER7> You might be interested in Copenhagen Suborbitals (copsub.com): A danish group trying to reach space in a DIY fashion financed by donations. It's quite impressive what they've already achieved with not that much more than duct tape!

<comment><USER8> as the article says, space != orbit. i don't see how you can get 8 km/s delta-v in a garage.

edit: doesn't mean it's not interesting, but orbit is so much more challenging than just space it's not funny.

<comment><USER6> It's true that orbit is more challenging, but you have no hope of getting there if you can't do a suborbital jump first. Aiming for suborbital first might see them get a lot more funding if they succeed. You need to learn to crawl before you can run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _The common soda can, a marvel of mass production, is 94% soda and 6% can by mass. Compare that to the external tank for the Space Shuttle at 96% propellant and thus, 4% structure. The external tank, big enough inside to hold a barn dance, contains cryogenic fluids at 20 degrees above absolute zero (0 Kelvin), pressurized to 60 pounds per square inch, (for a tank this size, such pressure represents a huge amount of stored energy) and can withstand 3gs while pumping out propellant at 1.5 metric tons per second. The level of engineering knowledge behind such a device in our time is every bit as amazing and cutting-edge as the construction of the pyramids was for their time._

That's awesome, I had no idea.

</comment><comment><USER10> > In the 1970's, an experimental nuclear thermal rocket engine gave an energy > equivalent of 8.3 km/s. This engine used a nuclear reactor as the source of > energy and hydrogen as the propellant.

That was intriguing, but didn't go into detail on why a nuclear thermal rocket hasn't been tried since. The obvious explanation is that there could be serious consequences if such a rocket exploded, spreading radioactive material, etc. And rockets tend to explode sometimes. However, it sounds like while that is certainly a concern, it is not as great of one as it might seem:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_thermal_rocket#Risks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_thermal_rocket#Risks)

And indeed there is still work ongoing on such designs.

<comment><USER11> > And rockets tend to explode sometimes.

Chemical rockets -- the only ones we've ever actually used -- explode because that's what they're intended to do. The only difference between a successful rocket firing and a catastrophic rocket failure is the speed at which the explosion happens. A nuclear rocket engine has basically no risk of explosion; tearing itself apart at speed maybe, if the aerodynamics aren't done properly or there's a structural weakness. But that's about it.

<comment><USER12> Normal rocket operation is a burn, not a detonation, and there's a clear difference between those that's not just about speed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> People that have played different versions of Civilization will remember the Triremes.

They couldn't end a term in the ocean, only the coast. However, you could take a punt and travel over the ocean - with only the hope there was land on the other side.

Horribly expensive, but discovering new land or another civilization early could be transformative for the same.

</comment><comment><USER14> This rocket equation is not shown, just it's consequences.

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

for the equation (ignoring gravity),

and: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta- v_budget](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget)

for a diagram of the consequences.

</comment><comment><USER15> Lest you despair of ever making space flight routine, a rocket is not the only way to get into orbit.

Virtually all of the needed velocity is tangent to the surface, not away from it. So you can accelerate the vehicle along the ground at least part of the way, and only then turn heavenward and burn fuel to get into orbit. With this boost you _significantly_ reduce the amount of fuel needed.

There are many way of doing this. You can have magnetic propulsion (very futuristic and powerful), you can have a simple motor on the vehicle, powered by contact with rails on the ground (but motors have a limit of how fast they can work). You could have fuel "guns" fired into the back of the vehicle as it passes them, which would then capture the container and burn them as a normal rocket would. This has the benefit of not requiring a large rail, just fuel stations that the rocket would pass over.

These are just some basic ideas, there are many more.

<comment><USER16> Given that earth is a ball, aren't you always pointed heavenward if you are between 0-180 degrees. So you might as well start of by pointing directly heavenward, i.e 90 degrees. Plus, turning requires acceleration you cannot just capitalise on the velocity you have built up otherwise you would violate the 1st law of thermodynamics.

<comment><USER15> You don't want to turn. To orbit you need to have velocity tangent to the earth (i.e. along the ground), not directly up.

You only turn ever so slightly heavenward, mainly to avoid air resistance.

<comment><USER16> I'm still lost. Isn't being tangential along the equator less advantageous than being perpendicular at the poles. When you start tangential, as soon as you cover a distance equivalent to the radius of the earth, you are then perpendicular (maybe not directly so but there is no practical difference as far as the gravity well is concerned).

<comment><USER17> When going tangentially, you'll maintain tangentiality until you're going so fast that gravity isn't pulling you down fast enough to keep you pressed against the track you're on (because the Earth's surface curves downwards like the widdle spheroid it is). At that point, you're in low earth orbit (though you might want to fire the rockets a little bit to give yourself an orbit that doesn't intersect the planet). The whole point is that you gain your velocity while you're pushing off the earth, instead of your own propellant. That way, you don't have to carry so much propellant.

> When you start tangential, as soon as you cover a distance equivalent to the > radius of the earth, you are then perpendicular (maybe not directly so but > there is no practical difference as far as the gravity well is concerned).

If you were assuming the tangential take-off would continue going a straight line instead of curving in an orbit, I still don't get what you mean -- after covering one Earth radius, you'd be traveling at a 45-degree inclination relative to the surface of the planet, not perpendicularly.

<comment><USER16> I see it this way. You have to accelerate the mass to the escape velocity. You also have to achieve a net effect of being in orbit (some distance x above surface of earth). The most direct vector to that distance is perpendicular. The two combined should give you the minimal energy requirement. Any engineering (and aerodynamics) creativity cannot give you anything better.

<comment><USER18> It's escape velocity, not escape speed - and it's orbital velocity that matters here, we're not escaping entirely. If you're in the same place, travelling at the same speed, but pointed down, you're not in orbit, right? It's the same if you're pointed straight up. You need to be at an orbital altitude and travelling at the right speed _in the right direction_.

(well, any combination of speed, direction, and position will be an 'orbit' in some sense, in that there's a conic section you're on that you would follow if you were in freefall. But if you're sitting still over a planet then it's the degenerate ellipse that's a straight line down to the planet's core).

So in the absence of atmosphere the ideal ascent trajectory would look pretty much like a Hohmann transfer orbit: you'd accelerate horizontally until you were in orbit at surface level, and then you'd do the minimum energy transfer from that orbit to a higher orbit. In reality it's worth getting to altitude where the air is thinner before turning horizontal, but even so, the vast majority of a rocket's acceleration is horizontal, not vertical.

You can do the maths, but if you want to really understand these things, play Kerbal Space Program. Seriously.

<comment><USER8> escape speed is technically correct. you need to go fast enough, direction doesn't really matter.

<comment><USER19> Some directions may require more speed than others.

Or perhaps you are having a bad problem and will not go to space today.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I really enjoyed this. It lays out in some very accessible ways, the challenges of getting into space. The recoverability of the Falcon9 will cut its costs dramatically as it reduces the cost of the launch by several tens of millions of $. I'll mention on-orbit refueling as well since you don't need recoverability per-se if you can refuel in orbit. Then your Mars lander / Crew Module can launch with enough fuel to get to Low Earth orbit, refuel, and then head out to Mars.

Air launched (Skylon, Pegasus, Et alia) are also interesting, laser boosting (using lasers to add energy during the initial launch) would also help. As Elon points out though, a multi-gigawatt laser for boost to orbit is impractical both from a construction standpoint and a diplomatic stability standpoint.

If the quantity of water on the moon is accurate, then it should be possible to create a 'refinery' on the Moon which could more easily get material into Earth orbit. We'll see though if we can get a group established there.

I had hoped to visit the Moon at some point (I was assured by NASA in my youth that would be able to :-)) but I don't expect that to come to pass unless something amazing changes.

<comment><USER21> If you do the math, air-launch does not save much in fuel costs, while it adds a great deal of complexity to the launch system, and you do not save much in terms of reduced energy requirements. Most of the rocket fuel and oxidizer are used to increase velocity; comparatively little is used to gain (the first 30k') altitude or lost to atmospheric drag. The main benefit to air-launch is reduced range safety costs, and ease of scheduling, as the launch vehicle can be taken out over an unoccupied stretch of ocean, and range rental/lease costs are basically eliminated.

<comment><USER20> An interesting paper that is doing that math : [http://mae.engr.ucdavis.edu/faculty/sarigul/aiaa2001-4619.pd...](http://mae.engr.ucdavis.edu/faculty/sarigul/aiaa2001-4619.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Why not assemble some rockets in space?

Get the pieces up there as efficiently as possible, and then assemble a more efficient rocket that's not designed to leave the gravity well.

<comment><USER23> If you skip the middle step, that's called staging.

It's really expensive to try and keep a permanent base in space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> If anyone is interested, these researchers from Russia have proposed a way to accelerate a spaceship while in flight – firing a ground-based laser up its backside

[http://www.osa.org/en- us/about_osa/newsroom/news_releases/20...](http://www.osa.org/en- us/about_osa/newsroom/news_releases/2014/supersonic_laser-propelled_rockets/)

<comment><USER25> Well that seems less preposterous than my own idea of using lasers to accelerate a ring of air, generating a plasma circuit that would pull the craft up magnetically. (Version 2 would have a series of plasma rings that the craft would fly through like a coil gun.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The soda can analogy is horrifyingly informative. I wonder what kind of efficiencies could be obtained with semi-science-fiction fuels like the Orion nuclear-explosion propulsion system (which is different from a nuclear rocket) or even straight-up antimatter.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_a(nuclear_propulsion)

</comment><comment><USER27> If you've got a poor mind for Math but want to understand rocket science on a more intuitive level, check out Kerbal Space Program. It's the most educational game I've ever played that still retains being fun.

I usually avoid video games because I feel like I'm wasting time, but I make an exception for KSP.

</comment><comment><USER28> Fascinating read. Are there more blog-type posts like this from NASA? I'd be interested in reading more but I can't seem to find them from the main page and can't find links to these posts...

</comment><comment><USER29> >Currently, all our human rated rocket engines use chemical reactions (combustion of a fuel and oxidizer) to produce the energy.

Yes, however, for completeness: an explanation of why we must limit designs to chemical rockets ought to include an explanation of why the dozen or so fusion projects underway around the world will _all_ fail, i.e. let's inject some rational optimism. Note that the Apollo programme began before its tech was ready.

<comment><USER12> The fusion projects have been running for a long time with little success. Apollo was built on scaling tech that already worked (1940s rocketry could reach space although not achieve orbit)

<comment><USER30> If you consider exponential progress since 1970 or so to be "little success," you're right. Fusion has a very high threshold before it becomes useful, but we've come a long way, and we're not that far from the breakeven point now.

NASA is currently working with John Slough's company on a fusion rocket for interplanetary travel.

[http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2012_phaseII...](http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2012_phaseII_fellows_slough.html)

[http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/04/04/rocket-powered- by-...](http://www.washington.edu/news/2013/04/04/rocket-powered-by-nuclear- fusion-could-send-humans-to-mars/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> What about firing the rocket from Jules Verne's space gun[0]? Now, I don't mean an actual gun what with the high g-forces and so, but only some machinery that gives the rocket high initial speed. Maybe a super sonic evacuated tube maglev that ends with a ramp? Put it on Mt. Everest for less air resistance.

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

<comment><USER23> You still get a massive hit from the atmosphere when you exit the tunnel if you've built up any significant speed. Air pressure up there is still a third of air pressure at sea level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> So this is something I've always wondered about.

Can anyone explain the equation for getting to an earth sun Lagrange point?

Since were already on earth orbiting the sun it would seem we already have the correct orbital velocity to hang out at a Lagrange point. So we could really approach these points at any speed no? Is there potential to use less fuel than you'd need to reach an earth orbit?

<comment><USER33> By "orbital velocity", I assume you mean orbital velocity relative to the sun. The need for this clarification should be the first indication that we do not already have the necessary orbital velocity (as there is no particular reason to use the sun as the reference other than the fact that it is the more massive body). This diagram [0] shows the Earth-Sun Lagrange points. As you can see, they all have a slightly different orbital radius around the sun, and therefore will have different orbital velocities (larger radius=slow velocity). Additionally, (most) of these points have a different direction, which would means a different velocity. (However, we can change direction for free simply by orbiting, and as long as our orbit is different from Earth's we will change our direction relative to Earth as well).

The bigger issue is 'escaping' Earth's gravity well[1]. The most efficient way to do this is through an orbit. To see this, consider the effect of gravitational drag. That is to say, the speed lost due to the force of gravity. If you are in orbit, the net gravitational drag is 0 [2]. Suppose you are at point P of an orbit, travelling at speed V. If you accelerate with X delta-V at this point in the orbit, your new orbit will still contain point P, and you will pass through P with velocity (V+X), indicating that there was 0 gravitational drag. Intuitively, this is because you are accelerating perpendicular to the force of gravity.

Another way to look at this is to remember that there is no particular reason to prefer using the Sun as a reference point, in which case we can see that Lagrange points are also in Earth orbit.

However, your idea does point to a (theoretical) way to reduce fuel usage. When calculating the fuel needed to establish an orbit, we assume that Earth is the only massive body. However, we can (in theory) use the gravitational force of the sun to reduce the needed fuel to reach Earth orbit (in a way that has nothing to do with Lagrange points). However, the effect is not significant enough to be worth talking about.

[0] [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Lagrange_...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Lagrange_points2.svg) [1] Of course, by definition of Lagrange points, we are not actually escaping [2] Unless the orbit is circular, gravity will change your speed, but the acceleration/deceleration will balance out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I found the Slingatron to be a particularly novel approach for launching small amounts of unmanned mass to LEO - I am curious to know what came of their concept.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/391496725/the- slingatro...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/391496725/the-slingatron- building-a-railroad-to-space)

</comment><comment><USER35> " _If a vehicle is less than 10% propellant, [c]hanges to its structure are readily done without engineering analysis; you simple weld on another hunk of steel to reinforce the frame according to what your intuition might say._ "

This is why you don't let cabinet makers build ships.

<comment><USER36> The point is that they can actually. A cabinet maker could build a fairly large boat at least (maybe not a ship...) entirely by hand and mostly using very simple rules of thumb. It probably wouldn't perform very well but it would float and be able to sail around.

Amateurs build small boats that cross the Atlantic and even the Pacific all the time, precisely because ship building is easier than building rockets.

When I say it's easier, that doesn't mean that naval architects aren't as smart as rocket engineers, but the ratio of engineering effort to performance is much more favourable.

<comment><USER35> I read this story[1] once, although I don't remember where:

Someone somewhere needed a large number of cargo vessels built quickly (think WWII liberty ships, but those weren't made of wood), so they brought in a bunch of cabinet makers to bolster their shipwrights. It worked great, until the ships built by normal woodworkers saw significant wave action, at which time they broke up and sank. The punchline being that, on land, rigidity is the primary constraint; if you build it not to be floppy, it will be plenty strong. At sea (and especially in aerospace), strength is primary; if you build it to be rigid, it will be too heavy and if you build it to be not- heavy, it will probably fall apart.

An amateur can build a fairly large boat (although usually to plans by an actual naval architect), and a small boat can make it across an ocean, but if you're serious about schlepping things around, the design constraints for ships aren't much looser than those in aerospace.

[1] Maybe this, although that's not the cover I remember: [http://www.amazon.com/Structures-Things-Dont-Fall- Down/dp/03...](http://www.amazon.com/Structures-Things-Dont-Fall- Down/dp/0306812835/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414781193&sr=1-1&keywords=structures)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This might be interesting for those that haven't come across it yet [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator)

</comment><comment><USER38> "If our planet was 50% larger in diameter, we would not be able to venture into space, at least using rockets for transport."

Don't tell hollywood.

</comment><comment><USER39> what about the feasibility of injecting energy on the ground (say a maglev rail based launch) such input wouldnt be contributing to the rocket's weight and therefore would reduce the needed fuel consumption quite a bit I would imagine.

</comment><comment><USER40> just a noob question: why transport all the fuel, and not start from a cannon/catapult, something that make you start with some speed?

edit: it's not clear, I was talking about partially using a cannon, not about a complete ballistic launch.

<comment><USER41> If you were in a vacuum, that could be a wonderfully efficient way of converting mechanical movement into kinetic energy. We have to deal with atmospheric friction, though, and the places where the cannon would launch from (the surface) has the thickest part of the atmosphere, so the most friction.

<comment><USER40> what about vacuuming the cannon? like those ping pong ball cannons?

<comment><USER42> What happens when you leave the cannon? Either the cannon exit is near ground level, in which case you still have the air resistance problems; or it's not, in which case you have the problems of building very a tall cannon.

<comment><USER40> you don't have to exit the cannon at high speed, the v^2 drag will kill you. You're just trying to put some kinetic energy in the rocket in a way that doesn't make you carry it. you don't have to put all the energy in it that way, the current system works, it's just a tentative improvement.

But your answer makes me feel you've not seen the ping pong ball cannons, because they have very good results with a very low mass.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> How hard would be building small size space fouintain model?

</comment><comment><USER44> the rocket equation with fusion engine expelling alpha-particles at 0.05c doesn't look that bad, and at least it is good enough for Solar system colonization and for sending a probe to the closest star.</comment>


Create a blog in 30 mins with Django 1.3 (Screencast) - <AUTHOR> http://arunrocks.com/blog/2012/03/05/building_a_blog_in_30_mins_with_django_%28screencast%29/

<comment><USER2> I always like presentations like this. I think most languages really just need screencasts where people show you, "here is how you start using this language." One of my favorites was Ryan Dahl's introduction to Node.js, which had the same general form:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo_B4LTHi3I

So thanks for that.

I still don't like Django so much, precisely because of the fact that you're sitting here navigating through these massive config files -- and you even need Django's bundled applications to make those files in the first place. Libraries seem much cleaner to me. I guess what I'm dreaming of is a version of django where this whole talk becomes a little simpler, a sort of cookie- cutter formalism where you just start writing:

        #!/usr/bin/python
        import django

        serve = django.server(port=8080, db=('sqlite3', 'mysite.db'))
        serve.url('/admin/.*', django.admin_site())

        blog = serve.app(model={
            "some json model": "I don't know exactly how it works"
        })
        serve.url('/blog/.*', blog)

...to accomplish the same thing that you're doing in this talk. I mean, it's okay that applications often get their own folder, but shouldn't they _grow_ into that with import statements?

An open question to HN: are there libraries which do this sort of thing which I should know about?

<comment><USER3> > sitting here navigating through these massive config files -- and you even > need Django's bundled applications to make those files in the first place.

what do you mean??

<comment><USER2> Just about the second thing he does in that video is to start editing settings.py, where he edits line 14, line 15, line 119, and deletes lines 118, 120, and 121. He then jumps over to urls.py and deletes lines 12, 13, 14, and 15 while uncommenting lines 4, 5, and 16. He makes the observation that he's just going to ignore all of the other crap in settings.py.

That workflow is very particular to a Unix config file. It's, for example, what you have to do if you want to use Tor: you browse slowly through a torrc file that sets every setting with comments explaining what it does, and you uncomment or change these lines depending on what you want to happen.

That's not a bad workflow, but when I'm in a programming language I have a better option: I don't need to think about the world as "here is this monolithic application which I have to configure," but instead I can think, "oh, here are some methods which I might like to use -- methods which make servers listening on sockets with various protocols, and so forth."

The thing about config files is that if you don't embrace the Unix philosophy of "small tool which does one small job well", then the config language can come close to being Turing-complete. But if your config files are Python applications, that's already Turing complete. You don't need to build a new language on top of Python. Why should I be trying to describe in a data structure what my database is? Why make me write a data structure containing 'sqlite3' rather than mydb = django.dbs.sqlite3("filename") ? (There are a couple of reasons, actually -- one of the biggest is that they want to have a 'syncdb' command -- but I'm still not convinced that this is the best way to implement that.)

<comment><USER3> Django is not a 'monolithic application which I have to configure', but settings are, well, settings - stuff you have to set. Urls.py is routing, you'd have to config it somehow anyway. There is a lot of room of improvement how the settings could be handled in Django to make them more flexible and get rid of that overhead in settings.py and afaik the core team is planning to work on that, but for the moment you take it as it is. Django has a nice learning curve, you get to know how it basically works while writing your first apps, but maybe it's not for you - if you're looking for something raw and lightweight, you can try Flask. If you want a mature framework which solves most use cases for synchronous web programming and you can build powerful stuff on top of that, it's Django.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am saddened that this video is not punctuated by the narrator yelling "Whups!" every fifteen seconds.

</comment><comment><USER5> Didn't the rails "make a blog" video do it in 15 minutes?

</comment><comment><USER6> Instead of a blog a better example to showcase a web framework would be a wiki, forum or even HN.

Not bashing the OP but tutorials and screencasts like this fail at the first step by teaching the beginner a blog should be dynamically generated.

Tutorials and screencasts like this are a great resource for beginners as an introduction to a new framework. And the "blog" has been the de facto standard web app to showcase the framework. But as developers we should know that web apps like blogs should be statically generated and saying otherwise is setting a bad example to beginning programmers.

<comment><USER7> Blogs are like the "Hello World" of dynamic web apps. No one is implying that this is where web dev ends at.</comment></comment>


The Future of Digital Biology - <AUTHOR> http://www.openworm.org <comment><AUTHOR> The roundworm C. elegans has one of the simplest nervous systems of any organism, with its hermaphrodite type having only 302 neurons. Furthermore, the structural connectome of these neurons is fully worked out. There are fewer than one thousand cells in the whole body of a C. elegans worm, each with a unique identifier and comprehensive supporting literature because C. elegans is a model organism. Being a model organism, the genome is fully known, along with many well characterized mutants readily available, a comprehensive literature of behavioural studies, etc. With so few neurons and new calcium 2 photon microscopy techniques it should soon be possible to record the complete neural activity of a living organism. By manipulating the neurons through optogenetic techniques, combined with the above recording capacities the project is in an unprecedented position to be able to fully characterize the neural dynamics of an entire organism.</comment>


Google ready to unleash spiders and expose your Google Docs - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/2009/09/18/google-ready-to-expose-google-docs/

<comment><USER2> This is the option I believe that would cause your doc to be indexed: _Allow anyone with the link to view (no sign-in required)_

Simple as that. Just don't check off this option when sharing.

I don't know why everyone is so worried about this security wise.

<comment><USER3> Before, you controlled who could get the link. Now Google is giving it out too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As people have pointed out, it is fairly easy to keep your stuff private still, but this does represent 'one more thing' that you need to do to ensure personal privacy. There is getting to be more and more overhead online taken up with making sure you have all the correct boxes checked/unchecked in order to ensure privacy. Facebook being a great example of a really obtuse system. I wonder what kind of startup opportunities these companies will carve out for little guys as they continue to slide towards the 'we own your data' side of things - after a certain point more and more people will desire a simpler, more private set of tools.

</comment><comment><USER5> Worrying. Even if by accident, private or confidential docs could end up listed in Google's search results. There surely will be cases of this happening.

[http://www.timacheson.com/Blog/2009/aug/google_apps_are_a_ri...](http://www.timacheson.com/Blog/2009/aug/google_apps_are_a_risk_for_business_users)

[http://www.elasticvapor.com/2009/09/is-privacy-in-cloud- illu...](http://www.elasticvapor.com/2009/09/is-privacy-in-cloud- illusion.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> How's this play out if one organization (with subsidiaries) has multiple FQDNs? Sharing across those domains makes the doc public?

</comment><comment><USER7> Why not send an email to each domain with a list of everything they find? Or create an administrative 'audit' tool that will show all domain documents that are being shared publicly.

Do that a month or so before they push the hits into Google results and no-one would have any reasonable basis to worry or complain.

</comment><comment><USER8> Its only for documents that are publicly published. If you don't want to share, don't publicly publish.

</comment><comment><USER9> Do no^H^Hmore evil.

<comment><USER10> Well yeah. They're releasing _spiders_!</comment></comment>