A Modest Proposal for Hourly Billing - <AUTHOR> https://daedtech.com/a-modest-proposal-for-hourly-billing/#more-12456 <comment><USER2> When I negotiate consultant work that I don't want to do that much, I tell my hourly rate and estimate. That usually scares people off.

When I think the job would be fun/interesting/challenging(intherightway) I tell "I will do this, it will cost you $LARGE_SUM, and in the odd case I can't fix the problem, you pay nothing." Companies are usually very happy with this arrangement, as they can quickly consider whether having their problem fixed is worth $LARGE_SUM, especially since the not-fixed scenario means no risk for them. My hourly income from those tasks is sometimes very small, sometimes very very large, and on average, I earn more pr. hour than I could ever charge on a $/h deal.

</comment><comment><USER3> ...I think the author has several strong arguments, but I'm really having trouble getting past the tone.

Business is business, but the people who work for you deserve to be treated with some degree of empathy and respect. If the author thinks how he writes, I would _not_ want to work for him, ever, regardless of how I billed him.

<comment><USER4> I think the tone is intended to mimic the acerbic and deadpan style of satire of the original "A Modest Proposal".

<comment><USER5> Through the years, referencing that title has indicated author understands the proposal in question is a truly terrible idea, satire, deliberately ludicrously bad (solving hunger by eating babies) in order to point out it's a seriously skewed problem.

It's not clear this author thinks his proposal is ludicrously bad, or satire.

<comment><USER3> I believe the author thought the proposal itself ("I will bill you hourly for the time I spend I spend reviewing your hourly bill") was a terrible idea, and in that section, I understood the tone. But he kept it up for the rest of the article as well, despite explicitly saying "Alright, that was fun, but now I'll break character." I don't think he was being satirical at that point.

I feel guilty for complaining about the tone rather than addressing the substance, but it was really hard to concentrate on the substance through the tone, and I think the tone speaks to the level of empathy the author has for his colleagues. That matters a lot when you're making an argument like this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Long post of someone making an ass of themselves because they demand every cost be knowable up front.

<comment><USER7> The article explicitly mentions _predictable_ work.

<comment><USER5> And says that's what you pay hourly for. Says that in detail. Misunderstands that the experts are generally hired to "discover" or "invent" an answer that wasn't known, and discovery / invention often isn't estimable.

Further, author goes into risk, the real risk is of course acceptability of the expert's answer, which involves the buyer "being brought along" with accepting the answer, a process the expert genuinely cannot predict.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Note: link leads to halfway in the article. I don't know if this is intended.

</comment><comment><USER8> Author wants everything to be like some grocery store. But if there's no such thing in store, there's no fixed price for this.

Seems like author has no logic in head.</comment>


FBI files on Nikola Tesla - <AUTHOR> https://vault.fbi.gov/nikola-tesla <comment><AUTHOR> Part3 is here: [https://vault.fbi.gov/nikola- teslahttps://vault.fbi.gov/niko...](https://vault.fbi.gov/nikola- teslahttps://vault.fbi.gov/nikola-tesla)

<comment><USER2> Your link is broken this one works [https://vault.fbi.gov/nikola- tesla/Nikola%20Tesla%20Part%200...](https://vault.fbi.gov/nikola- tesla/Nikola%20Tesla%20Part%2003%20of%2003/view)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> deeep learning model to extract the text out of the images? you can't even read that.

<comment><USER2> Download the PDF, they are quite readable but not very interesting.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to handle date, time and timezones for an MVP - <AUTHOR> I'm building an mvp that has core functionality that involves setting date and times for future reminders. I have become completely overwhelmed by what I've read online. One can't just use UTC time, nor can they just track timezones, because of daylight savings. There are tools like pytz, which is just one more tool I have to learn that'll delay launching.<p>Given I can limit my scope for an MVP, what do you all think is a reasonable approach to handling date and time, for scheduling purposes, for an mvp. <comment><USER2> It seems you're using python. The standard lib's date and datetime classes are... not great.

A purpose-made library like Delorean [1] or Pendulum [2] will help with handling dates, datetimes, and timezones greatly, despite being another tool to learn. Even Arrow [3], which is popular because of its Moment.js-inspired API, is better than using the builtins, despite muddying a few concepts and making some design choices that I (or the Pendulum author [4]) don't agree with.

In the Java world, Java 8's builtin Datetime API and its predecessor Joda-Time are quite possibly the most thoroughly thought-out, expertly designed datetime libraries that exist today. In my opinion, none of the python libraries quite measure up, but Delorean and Pendulum are pretty solid.

[1] [http://delorean.readthedocs.io/en/latest/quickstart.html](http://delorean.readthedocs.io/en/latest/quickstart.html) [2] [https://pendulum.eustace.io/](https://pendulum.eustace.io/) [3] [http://crsmithdev.com/arrow/](http://crsmithdev.com/arrow/) [4] [https://pendulum.eustace.io/faq/#why-not- arrow](https://pendulum.eustace.io/faq/#why-not-arrow)

</comment><comment><USER3> Make an API call to Google? ][1] [https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/timezone/st...](https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/timezone/start)

An API call is going to be easier to implement than learning a new library.

[1]: Alternatives here: [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16086962/how-to- get-a-ti...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16086962/how-to-get-a-time- zone-from-a-location-using-latitude-and-longitude-coordinates)

<comment><AUTHOR> This particular solution requires Lat/Long and I'm not sure that makes a ton of sense for my particular mvp.

If it ever does make sense, I'll be sure to check this out. It's a very convenient API.

<comment><USER3> A couple of alternatives I considered before suggesting an API.

1\. Just use UTC and that it's a feature for the next vesion. It might be a way to start a conversation with early users.

2\. Make a system call to the users operating system to determine future dates.

3\. Make a system call to the server operating system to determine future dates.

Finally, time zones are hard. How hard? Really hard. By really hard I mean that Apple screwed up on it a few years ago: [http://wccftech.com/iphone- daylight-saving-time-bug-how-to-m...](http://wccftech.com/iphone-daylight- saving-time-bug-how-to-manually-set/)

People got over it. Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Store in whatever format your scheduler uses, which is probably UTC or crontab format, no? For an MVP it doesn't matter as long as it works.

After you outgrow your MVP the standard way to store datetimes for scheduling and rendering is:

1\. _Always_ store datetimes as UTC. You keep seeing this because it's correct. Yes you can store in UTC and display or schedule in another timezone. Scheduling is easy when everything is in UTC.

2\. Keep an Olson timezone string (America/Los_Angeles) for each user server- side. Create a template filter for django/flask to render your datetimes for the given user's timezone. This is trivial for pytz and the built-in Python datetime library.

3\. Use Moment.js and Moment-Timezone to render utc datetimes in the user's current browser timezone. You can choose to use the server-side timezone or the browser's timezone when rendering. I personally always use the server-side timezone.

Always do 1 and 2. 3 is optional if you prefer rendering datetimes server- side.

Edit: Why the downvotes? Anyone care to comment on why you think this way is wrong? It's been working great for [https://wakatime.com](https://wakatime.com)

<comment><USER5> Well, I didn't downvote, but I will say this about #1: The trouble with always storing datetimes in UTC is that the UTC offset observed in a given location is not predictable for future dates.

\--

Concrete example:

I am in Massachusetts. Currently, Massachusetts observes two UTC offsets during the year. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT), which is UTC-4, and Eastern Standard Time (EST), which is UTC-5. EDT is our time zone for Daylight Savings Time (DST).

Currently, there is some discussion about how much this arrangement sucks due to the early sunsets we experience being on the edge of the time zone. Some (including myself) are pushing for Massachusetts to switch to Atlantic Standard Time (AST), which would keep us at UTC-4 all year.

So, let's say I want to schedule a meeting for November 18th, 2019 at 12pm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I want a reminder 15 minutes before the meeting so that I do not miss it. I put that into your scheduling system, and you store it as the UTC datetime 2019-11-18T17:00:00Z because Massachusetts' current time zone observance rules say it will be in UTC-5 on November 18th, 2019.

Now, let's say I get my wish, and Massachusetts switches to AST year-round some time between now and my scheduled meeting. When 2019-11-18 comes around, Massachusetts will not be in UTC-5, as predicted, but in UTC-4! I will receive my meeting reminder at 12:45pm local time, a full hour after I wanted to receive it, and I will have missed my meeting.

\--

There are different ways around this, such as storing the datetime with the predicted UTC offset, or storing a localtime (time-zone-less datetime) and the location of the event. The key point is that you need to be able to account for calendar changes.

Of course, there is no fool-proof way to store a future date. For all we know, 12pm November 18th, 2019 may not ever occur in Massachusetts because some decision may cause the commonwealth to switch forward past that time entirely. A calendar change could cause even more bizarre situations. In the British Empire, the day after September 2nd, 1752 was September 14th, 1752 due to the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar. Realistically, you are not going to be able to account for that sort of calendar change, but time zone observances change all the time.

<comment><USER4> If the meeting time is also stored in UTC then both meeting time and reminder time get an updated display offset and are still the same time apart from each other. Yes, the meeting time would be automatically changed from 4pm to 5pm in your timezone, but would have no change for people in other timezones.

I would argue this is the expected behavior, and your app should notify users when timezones change which affect their meeting times.</comment></comment></comment>


Implementing Advanced Math Functions - <AUTHOR> http://spin.atomicobject.com/2012/04/24/implementing-advanced-math-functions/ <comment><USER2> Unfortunately, Taylor series are just about the worst choice possible for implementing transcendental math functions, due to the highly non-uniform error distribution. You end up doing far to much work to get good accuracy near the edges of the domain of interest. Much better choices of polynomial approximations for almost any such situation are (in increasing order of goodness and difficulty to work with): Chebyshev series, Cathedory-Fejer, and Minimax.

<comment><USER3> If your goal is accuracy, you are absolutely correct. But in the instances where I've wanted to implement my own versions of transcendental math functions, accuracy was actually pretty low on my list of priorities. Often just a couple terms of a taylor series was accurate enough, fast, and easy to implement.

<comment><USER2> It's true regardless of what your goal is (unless your goal is to play with Taylor series approximations). Even if you're going purely for speed, you can often replace a third-order Taylor series with a second-order minimax polynomial, and deliver the same or better accuracy with significantly fewer operations.

<comment><USER3> Do you know of good resource for how to compute minimax polynomials that approximate transcendental functions? My Google foo appears to be failing me.

<comment><USER2> The standard approach to minimax approximations is called the "Remez Exchange Algorithm" (or Remez algorithm, or Remes algorithm). It can be fussy, however, and often requires a knowledgeable user to product good results, which is why Chebyshev and Cathedory-Fejer approximants are often used instead -- they are very nearly as good, and much easier to compute.

<comment><USER4> Mathematica, if you have access to it, can give you the minimax polynomial in one line.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This article lacks a discussion about floating-point vs real arithmetic. Naively implementing these functions is bound to produce nasty rounding problems.

<comment><USER6> The problem isn't in rounding or floating-point, these implementations won't be good enough to get even close to have to consider the issue of having to round correctly.

You really need to reduce the argument to a sane range, otherwise the `n' required even in infinite precision would be huge.

If someone is interested in how to do it, check out <http://www.netlib.org/fdlibm/>

<comment><USER7> It's worth pointing out that Netlib, along with glibc, uclibc, bionic and probably the BSDs too, is just using the SunPro code from the early 90's for its trancendental functions. I'm honestly not aware of anyone who isn't.

And most of these are doing more than simply reducing N in range. They typically have a transform (or three) which maps N onto a function which is very close to linear, so they can use a 5-6 term polynomial approximation to get full precision across the whole range. It's all very clever, really.

But it's terribly documented (and, at this point, ruthlessly forked). I'm honestly shocked there hasn't been an effort made to clean this code up, put it into a single project and get all the divergent libm implementations using it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is the type of stuff I come to HN for. This is so refreshing to see after days worth of press releases about Apple, new gadgets, and other mainstream news regurgitation.

<comment><USER9> If you want to see some crazy math stuff, look into axiom[0]. It's an open source computer algebra system programmed in Common Lisp. The manuals for the project add up to be ~10,000 pages[1]. It's all done in the literate programming style and it's being actively developed. I am probably going to write an idea up in a month or so, but if a computer programmer wants to learn some advanced Math beyond first year calculus quickly, downloading axiom and working through the first tutorial is the way to go.

[0]<http://www.axiom-developer.org/> [1][http://www.axiom-developer.org/axiom- website/documentation.h...](http://www.axiom-developer.org/axiom- website/documentation.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I tried to write a library to calculate vectorized trig functions. Minimax or least-squares polynomials are much much better than Taylor series. But here's the thing: The majority of the computation required is _not_ in the calculation of the kernel (i.e. f(x) for -pi/2<x<pi/2) but getting accurate reduction to this range for all possible floating point values. If you're using single precision numbers, you really only need the first 9 terms of the minimax polynomial (=x+x^3+x^5+x^7+x^9) to get within two ulps of accuracy. But doing extremely precise division of large numbers is not so quick.

If you're interested, I have the test code here: <https://github.com/jeremysalwen/vectrig>

</comment><comment><USER11> I have the feeling that a naive polynomial approximation would give lower relative error than a naive Taylor series approximation—at least for the same number of clock cycles. Or am I just crazy?

        float sin(float const x) {
            float const y = (4 / pi) * x + (-4 / (pi * pi)) * x * abs(x);
            return y + 0.218 * (y * abs(y) - y);
        }</comment>


Quiet, please: In praise of the British Library - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/nov/22/quiet-please-in-praise-of-the-british-library-celebration-users-love-it-olivia-laing <comment><USER2> I'm sure it's a fantastic resource, if you qualify for being granted the sacred Reader's Card.

University students are granted access automatically. Journalists just need to present their professional credentials ( and a utility bill for proof of residence ).

The rest of the commoners? Depends on the attitude of the assessor as to whether your topic of research is subjectively 'worthy'.

I've tried once, didn't gain approval and there is no appeals process.

What good is a ( tax-funded ) library if you can't use it?

<comment><USER3> They allowed me in with an American passport! I just wanted to look at their secular music books 1500-1800.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a library lover, but my only two (attempted) visits to the British Library left me annoyed (at best). The first time was in the 80s. I joined a queue to go into the library. I thought that was weird, but what the hey. After many long minutes we went into the library. Great. Time to start exploring the rooms, wander through the aisles, have a great day fossicking about right? Wrong. It turned out what I was queuing for was the opportunity to be marched into the reading room, stand there for 30 seconds or so, then be marched straight out again. One of the true WTF moments of my life.

In London again in 2014 I decided to check out the new British Library, heavily promoted. Surely things have changed. I rock up. There are any number of guides, promotions, pamphlets, exhibitions, whatever on offer. After a while though I realised that I wasn't going to be in luck this day either. I approached the friendly ladies at the information counter. "I just want to go into the library and read some books. That's not going to be possible is it?". "No, no it's not" she replied just slightly sheepishly.</comment>


Ask HN: What % of your home is a tax writeoff? - <AUTHOR> My wife and I both work from home. A large part of our apartment is our workspace. Generally, when we are "off" work we go out or sleep. Just curious for tax purposes what others have used as a percent of their home being considered their work space, and what did you do to make sure you were following guidelines. <comment><USER2> Are you self employed? As a result of the TCJA, for the tax years 2018 through 2025, you cannot deduct home office expenses if you are an employee.

see also: [https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/small-business- taxes/th...](https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/small-business-taxes/the- home-office-deduction/L1RZyYxzv)

I strongly caution you to talk to a small business tax expert.

</comment><comment><USER3> The best answer you can be given is: consult a tax attorney.

Why is this the best answer? Because doing the wrong thing can result in expensive penalties.</comment>


Fission Fragment Nuclear Propulsion Variants and Technical Details - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/09/fission-fragment-nuclear-propulsion-variants-and-technical-details.html <comment><USER2> I like this. It's a design that doesn't require fusion power and has very high specific impulse. I imagine it would be perceived as dirty though.</comment>


Prime After Prime (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://bit-player.org/2016/prime-after-prime <comment><USER2> Actually, even the first two tables comparing the frequency of 1,2,3,4,5,6 when obtained using primes vs. a fair die suggest that consecutive primes do not give a truly random (uncorrelated) way of choosing congruence classes mod 7.

If I throw a fair die 10^6 times, the probability of getting any given single outcome should behave according to Poisson statistics. On average, if I repeat a trial of 10^6 die-throwings many times, the number of outcomes of "4" (let's say) should be on average 10^6/6 = 166,667 , as mentioned in the article.

However, the exact number of times "4" comes up in a given trial itself follows a distribution around that average whose spread is about sqrt(166,667), or about 400. So the typical "error" in the frequencies given in the table should be ~few hundred.

By this reasoning, the deviations in the top table, the one given by the primes, are surprisingly small -- of order tens rather than hundreds. In other words, primes are _more_ equitably distributed among congruence classes than we would _expect_ independent die roll outcomes to be.

<comment><USER3> Yes, at the bottom of the article is an Addendum that covers this:

 _Addendum 2016-06-14. I noted above that the distribution of primes mod 7 seems flatter, or more nearly uniform, than the result of rolling a fair die. John D. Cook has taken a chi-squared test to the data and shows that the fit to uniform distribution is way too good to be the plausible outcome of a random process. His first post deals with the specific case of primes modulo 7; his second post considers other moduli._

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> 6x±1: 5,7,11,13,17,19,23, _25_ ,29,31, _35_ ,37,41,43,47, _49_ ,53, _55_ ,59,61, _65_ ,67,71,73, _77_ ,79,83, _85_ ,89, _91_ , _95_ ,97,

101,103,107,109,113, _115_ , _119_ , _121_ , _125_ ,127,131, _133_ ,137,139, _143_ , _145_ ,149,151, _155_ ,157, _161_ ,163,167, _169_ ,173, _175_ ,179,181, _185_ , _187_ ,191,193,197,199, _203_ , _205_ , _209_ ,211

Is this just a poor sieve for odd-number pairs or is there something more going on within the factors of 6x±1?

<comment><USER5> I think it's just a sieve that removes multiples of 2 and 3, leaving false positives that are multiples of 5, 7, 11, etc.

<comment><USER3> Right, which is why as the numbers get larger and the primes get more sparse, 30 eventually takes over from 6 as the sieve (2x3x5).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://web.archive.org/web/20191202152434/http://bit- player...](https://web.archive.org/web/20191202152434/http://bit- player.org/2016/prime-after-prime)

</comment><comment><USER7> Now I've got Cyndi Lauper in my head.

<comment><USER8> Strange thing about that song - I can _never_ remember what the verse melody goes like. I can remember the bridge and chorus always. Usually I would just sort of play through the song in my head until I get back to the verse but never seems to work. If I hear it I will have forgotten it again the next day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting. It seems to me that the two consecutive primes, modulo 7, are more likely to be an odd and even pair (i.e. the total of the 2 modulo is more likely to be odd) than an odd odd or even even pair.

</comment><comment><USER10> Discussed at the time: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11837511](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11837511)</comment>


UK renewables generate more electricity than fossil fuels for first time - <AUTHOR> https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-renewables-generate-more-electricity-than-fossil-fuels-for-first-time <comment><USER2> As I am typing the UK electricity production is: 31% renewables, 17% nuclear, 41% gas [1]

Basically the UK could have been 0 emissions today if it had decided to stick with nuclear.

[1] [https://gridwatch.co.uk/](https://gridwatch.co.uk/)</comment>


The Future of Search Can Be Found in Dungeon - <AUTHOR> http://theinnovationist.com/2011/03/the-future-of-search-can-be-found-in-dungeon/

<comment><USER2> I don't think anyone besides geeks would use something like that. Google says very few people use the filtering functions built into their search. You have to take it to the Monkey Island level first, perhaps, where there is a way to build a query? The average person won't take the the time to learn or remember a complex syntax for a search engine.

A powerful search syntax is a good idea. It could be something as simple as a frontend to another search engine's API. As far as natural language search, though that's the goal of sites like ask.com which have been around for a long time now.

</comment><comment><USER3> Getting Watson to process a single natural language query in under three seconds with a reasonable degree of confidence was a huge technological accomplishment with today's technology.

I think it will probably be several years before the technology exists to be able to do the same thing with sub-second response times, on a much larger inconsistently-structured data set, with a higher degree of confidence, for millions of users.

<comment><USER4> I think he's just talking about a parser that can convert

      jarin's latest comment on YC news

to something like

      site:news.ycombinator.com "jarin" sort-by:date

(pseudo-syntax mine of course)

<comment><USER5> so..

It needs to understand that "jarin" is the username on a website called news.ycombinator.com, which allows comments, and these comments are different to the stories posted on the site.

But of course "Obama's latest comment on CBS news" means the president's comments on the CBS TV channel's news service.

An equally obviously "Brook's latest comment on Fukushima" would refer to a blog post by Barry Brooks on the Fukushima reactor problems on his blog <http://bravenewclimate.com/>

Oh, and that "sort-by:date" bit needs to understand the difference between comment date, published date and any dates referenced in the comment or post.

Easy!

The truth is that currently Google doesn't do too badly on any of those queries, _without_ any special parsing or "understanding".

<comment><USER4> I agree with all that, to be honest. Google does a good enough job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From my understanding of language parsing (one college class plus a little work lately) its an incredibly difficult problem that is NOT easy to solve. It always worked for something like Dungeon or Zork because the language was incredibly limited. There is a huge difference in the number of verb/nouns you would consider in Zork versus in a search string.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is one of those suggestions which I usually decide to file under the sub- heading "hey, all we need to do is write some software which understands English!".

Right now this matches a definition of "hard" which is very close to "can't be done" despite whatever Jacques may say :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I was aiming more for, "Hey, all we need to do is write some software which understands how to parameterize a query based on the location of a basic subset of English!"

The software I was speaking of, is purely meant to digest a few known signifiers. The one spot I do understand is trying to interpret "Louis Gray," into something meaningful. An example:"

On source today about query elements" returns "from:'source' date:'today' query"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I tried to search google images earlier for 'map of south america in 1836'. I got a few maps and a whole lot of bird pictures. Even after busting out some google-fu, I was still getting birds. Fed up, I tried the same search in Bing -- no birds. Still no idea what all the birds were about.

<comment><USER5> Are you sure you didn't search for 'parrots of south america in 1836'? That returns birds for me. 'maps of south america in 1836' returns some maps, of south america, from various historical periods around the year 1836.

<comment><USER8> I did the same search shortly after making the above post and no birds showed up that time. I'm not sure what was going on, but I certainly saw half a page full of birds on that search term earlier today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bahahaha. Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo.</comment>


The greatest bug I never fixed (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.makandra.com/2010/04/the-greatest-bug-i-never-fixed/ <comment><USER2> Blizzard added a function to get around this, in response to this sort of chat-tunneling: SendAddonMessage [1]

It stops the drunk text-transform, and also doesn't have to worry about hiding the text from the channel you're trying to talk into.

Overall, Blizzard has been very good about adapting to what their addon community is trying to do. They add official support for hacks if they like what the addon does for the game, and deliberately break some if they don't like its effect.

[1]: [http://www.wowwiki.com/API_SendAddonMessage](http://www.wowwiki.com/API_SendAddonMessage)

<comment><USER3> During the beta, the way we used to release CosmosUI was to send modified versions of the game interface files. On every patch, we had to manually go over all the changes we made and re-apply them to the new files. This process took several hours and in the process, no one could really play because they didn't have all their mods.

Since it was becoming a real pain, I figured out that we could modify the existing functions from a new file instead of modifying the actual files[1]. I spend several weeks transforming all our code into "mods", essentially the first addons :) Once this migration was done and patches were no longer a pain point, Blizzard officially introduced the notion of addons.

[1]: [http://blog.vjeux.com/2011/javascript/hook.html](http://blog.vjeux.com/2011/javascript/hook.html)

<comment><USER2> Nice! I didn't get into WoW until around 1.9 (I think), and I had no idea that CosmosUI was the genesis for the addon system.

Imagining a parallel universe where we stuck with a process in which installing a new "addon" involves applying a .patch to your base UI and hoping that it'll kinda-sorta work with the other patches you applied... terrifying, really...

<comment><USER4> The third-party addon story for Asheron's Call, a MMO which pre-dated WoW by around five years, was like a dark, gritty crapsack world version of that parallel universe.

There was no supported add-on mechanism; instead, a player-written framework called Decal hooked into the executable at runtime, and Decal exposed an API for plugin authors. I can't remember all the details, but I think did a mixture of intercepting function calls inside the client, injecting calls to client functions, parsing client memory to expose data to plugins, and either parsing the network stream directly to capture events or hooking into the client's packet parser.

Oh, and this wasn't a nice safe Lua or Ruby API. It was an unmanaged COM API, so you had all the headaches which come with dealing with reference counting, pointers, and all the rest.

Every month (and every interim patch), there would be a great whine and moan from the players until the memlocs file was updated, and all the plugins started working again. (Unless something more substantial in the client had changed, of course, requiring more work.)

It was a seriously impressive technical achievement by the people behind it. And looking back on it, rather scary...

<comment><USER5> The Minecraft modding scene is also this scary.

<comment><USER6> Minecraft has the advantage of (relatively) easy decompiling and recompiling of java. There is still the large amount of breakage on each new release, however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So getting drunk makes it _harder_ to make new friends? Oh computers, you so crazy!

</comment><comment><USER8> As a Game Master we could see all these hidden communications betweens addons, and it would dwarf the amount of true communication a player would participate in. A raid group could be filled with 1,000 lines of addon chat a second, often contributing to lag that they would then complain about. Addons were powerful, but were certainly a source of many issues, and nobody wanted to hear that they needed to disable their addons to fix their issue.

<comment><USER9> If this had been explained exactly as you did here, we might have listened. All we ever heard was, "Disable your addons", which from a technically- inclined user's point of view is akin to your ISP saying "power cycle your modem" for a problem that seemed unrelated.

This is one of those times where I have to wonder why so many companies feel it's such a bad idea to get technical with their users.

<comment><USER10> I think one of the main problems would be that the loud and angry forum types wouldn't care about know why disabling addons (by the entire raid) would fix the issue.

They would still see it as a problem with "the devs" and not a problem with the addon.

Communicating it clearly to addon developers, that may have helped I think. You know, use the com channels sparingly and for short, targeted messages only, because "lag".

From what I remember there was quite a bit of pride surrounding having the most used addon. And the ability to say "my raid addon doesn't cause lag like the old favourite" would have spurred on some devs to get even more creative with limited resources.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The author is the principal of the company which produces RailsLTS, which I was involved in as a customer. I wasn't aware that we shared the WoW connection, but that makes me like them even more. (I sort of hope we do not need an advisory about RCE via session cookie tampering because Rails is drunk.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Patrick :) I had to quit my WoW guild when I discovered I could only run a single company at the same time.

Speaking of RCE: Distribution of new FriendNet versions was such a pain that for a while we considered a P2P auto-update mechanism where FriendNet users with newer versions would whisper Lua code to users with older versions, who would then eval() it locally.

It seemed like a much better idea then than it does today...

<comment><USER12> If you signed the updates properly then it would probably be fine :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can verify that, when inebriated, I am a terrible judge of character, and trust many people I shouldn't (even when my friends try to warn me off)... The number of times I've gone out questing while drunk and ended up in the company of some loser (while wearing sub-optimal gear) is uncomfortably high. The next morning my memory is almost always corrupted. Only by sheer luck have I not yet been fragged in a PvP area (and having rolled female this life, I wouldn't have much chance of defending myself.)

Clearly, this is not a bug, but a feature.

<comment><USER14> That was too funny not to upvote! Nicely argued!! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is one of the most clever ways to blame a bug on booze I have ever read!

</comment><comment><USER16> That's a great story. How would you have fixed it without having to find another channel to transmit over? Could the plugin sense the character's condition and delay until it abated?

<comment><USER17> Send a known-good line to test for it.

"FriendnetStart: Hello, I am speaking normally and am not drunk," as the first message. If the application sees anything but that as the first message it should assume drunk and retry in an hour. Or implement a checksum at the end of every line.

I imagine he also had issues with the profanity filter as well. Some usernames may set it off if they have a string of characters in them like username "Breshith," which would set off the filter for the text "shit."

<comment><USER18> The character could possibly become drunk immediately after sending the "I am not drunk" message, so you'd need to check if the character was still not drunk after sending the FriendNet messages. But assuming that drunkenness lasts much longer than it takes to send the FriendNet messages, you could be sure that if the character was not drunk before and after, then the messages in between were also valid.

<comment><USER19> > so you'd need to check if the character was still not drunk after sending > the FriendNet messages

Just send a checksum with the message.

<comment><USER20> Yes this would work, even though the message could get garbled including the checksum, you make the first set of characters be a checksum for the rest. If the checksum or message became compromised it would fail validation. This is the best solution so far. Send it with every message.

<comment><USER21> Or use error-correcting codes so you can get your list accross even if you're drunk :D

<comment><USER20> What do you mean by error-correcting codes?

<comment><USER22> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_detection_and_correction#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_detection_and_correction#Error- correcting_code)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Ahhh, how I do miss the times of WoW pre-1.3, when addons could trigger spells and such at will.

I wrote a (likely very unsuccessful, as it's now disappeared from the internets) addon called DancingGnome, that allowed one to bind arbitrary input series to spells -- it was meant to bind dance pad moves to spells. Up-Up-Up for Fireball, Down-Up for Fireblast, those were (some of) my binds.

More successfully, though, I wrote Chatr, which popped up "IM" windows for private chats.

And another addon that allowed covert chats that looked like (to people with the addon) they were being said in public channels.

Ah, those were the times (for a given value of times).

</comment><comment><USER24> There is a newish add on called oqueue it does a similar p2p hack to form groups across servers for rbgs and now raids (no in game feature for rbg forming). Very fun to hack the code and give yourself impossible stats for jokes and invites. Haven't done much more than that but the hack was useful when you are playing an under geared alternate character that punches way above its weight and can't find groups due to gear level.

I'm almost certain you could get yourself invites and hijack group leadership with it (the addon takes over those functions)

</comment><comment><USER25> I wonder if this could be exploited by registering usernames that accord with the errors? The user would[0] then be trojanned in to people's friend list with a presumed level of trust they did not deserve.

Not sure if this would have any value, but I'm sure someone enterprising could find a way to exploit others trust. That's not a new concept.

[0] (This of course assumes that the only lisped-up content is the usernames, not the whole syntax, which I think is an acceptable assumption given that it's fully out of date anyway)

</comment><comment><USER26> Not to be that guy, but how was this hard to find if WoW was adding the ...hic to the text? Couldn't you examine the exchange, see the ...hic and immediately recognize that would be added because drunk?

<comment><USER27> I would assume it scrambles it more then that. Lol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> MIM attack from the server! Great post; I've never played WOW but I can see how this would be very hard to track down.

</comment><comment><USER29> I wish I had thought of this when I was trying to develop a WoW Addon. I was building an advanced party gui and wanted to communicate the whereabouts of each user, but was stmyed about how to send information between each instance

</comment><comment><USER30> I wonder if there would be a way of sending drunk text that forces it to sober text?

<comment><USER31> It appears to add characters, so I doubt it.

If it sometimes removes characters, then perhaps so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> So you're saying it's a lossy format.

</comment><comment><USER33> Careface.</comment>


The Coalition acknowledges the issues with Gears 5 - <AUTHOR> https://metro.co.uk/2019/09/10/gears-5-players-are-getting-apology-rewards-for-significant-launch-issues-10716905/ <comment><AUTHOR> It's nice when a development team not only acknowledges the issues but decides to make good. Giving out Scrap, the in-game currency is a nice move. What do you guys think?</comment>


Show HN: Ask for help today - <AUTHOR> https://holddor.com <comment><AUTHOR> After much experimentation, it seems like the messaging of "Helping others today" does not resonate as much as "Asking for help today". Also to encourage sign-up, you have to "give" something in return.

Most of this correlates with Dan Ariely's behavioral economics studies. We were a little disappointed that people in general are not that excited about giving back. Perhaps this could change when we expand our app coverage. Ultimately, our goal is to help spread kindness and help bring people closer together. Whether we succeed or someone else does, we think it is a worthwhile goal to strive for.</comment>


Children of older fathers have lower IQs - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/10/child-intelligence-older-fathers

<comment><USER5> With an average difference of only _3_ IQ points that this study found, these children appear to be missing out on little with regards to intelligence.

I would be more inclined to believe any differences in intelligence, if there really are any, are due to the environment in which the child was raised, rather than genetic advantages and disadvantages. In today's world, I would guess that children born to 50 year old men are being born into a family where the wife is not the father's first wife, and the father is not as likely to be as dedicated a father as the younger fathers plan to be. This is a sweeping generalization, but I would wager that for those 50 year-olds who are remarried (once, twice, or more), by the fact that they did not care to keep the family intact the first time (excluding cases where the wife died), these men and their current wives would be less likely to provide a nurturing environment compared to a young father.

A sweeping generalization, but my gut feeling, based on the likely fact that many of those 50 year old fathers are remarried once, twice, or more, indicating to me that they are not as good a father as the SOME of the 20 year olds will be.

Also, statistics on society's accepted geniuses do not seem to show a correlation between fathers' ages and the intelligence of the offspring.

Here is a list I have compiled. IQ scores may be disputed, but the intelligence of these people generally are not.

Genius IQ Father's age

\</comment><comment> -- </comment><comment></comment><comment>

Einstein about 160 31

Galileo 185 44

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

Bobby Fischer 187 Likely father, Paul nemenyi: 48

                             Birth certificate father, Hans-Gerhardt Fischer: 35

                             http://www.nndb.com/people/455/000024383/

</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

Madame de Stael 180 33

Ludwig Wittgenstein 190 42

Blaise Pascal 195 35

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 205 49

John Stuart Mill 200 33

Emanuel Swedenborg 205 34

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 210 39

As you can see, one of the highest IQ's, Leibniz's, had a father who as 49 years old.

Einstein's, considered the lowest at 160, had a father of 31, the youngest in this list.

So this is opposite the study's findings. However, I don't really see a correlation overall.

With the study's difference of only 3 IQ points on average, I am inclined to believe that age makes no difference in the intelligence of their offspring, especially in those families that provide a nurturing environment, regardless of the parents' ages.

<comment><USER6> > I would be more inclined to believe any differences in intelligence, if > there really are any, are due to the environment in which the child was > raised, rather than genetic advantages and disadvantages.

Intelligence measured by the general intelligence factor is _highly_ heritable. The general intelligence factor is a factor analysis of intelligence and is a measure of "innate" intelligence and attempts at "boosting" this fails. The test that measures this the best is Raven's progressive matrices which is culture and language negative. The general intelligence factor is highly correlated with IQ and highly correlated with future success. The performance of a person in these tests has to do with the physical make-up of the brain (there are a lot of online articles by (dr/prof) Haider that is fairly readable that sheds light on this subject.)

> Here is a list I have compiled. IQ scores may be disputed, but the > intelligence of these people generally are not.

A note about your cited IQs – it is probably not correct. The popular press like to "guesstimate" the IQ of historic persons – but this is of little value. Rigorous intelligence tests (such as IQ tests) is a 20th century phenomenon. Leibniz lived in the 17th century – well before these tests. So to try and determine any IQ or measure of intelligence from him is a waste of time.

Also – you collected only a point sample - I bet someone could get the same example with selecting a different group of famous persons. You also only selected the top 1% and not the general populations – so to draw assumptions of this sample to the general population would be wrong.

I do agree with you that the study is somewhat worthless. Here are several conflating factors:

People involved in menial labour (i.e. without tertiary qualifications) generally get children at a younger age. A lot of older financially secure men would generally marry younger less intelligent women (trade-up/Russian bride phenomenon). The age of child bearing of different social classes differs significantly.

Also - a three point IQ difference with all these conflating factors would probably fall under the heading "not statistically significant".

<comment><USER7> _The test that measures this the best is Raven's progressive matrices which is culture and language negative._

I've attended a lecture by John Raven, the publisher of that test, and he doesn't make that claim.

The long, careful examination of what the Raven tests show, in conjunction with other evidence, can be found in James R. Flynn's excellent book What Is Intelligence?, which is about to come out in a new, expanded edition.

[http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Expanded-PB- Beyond/d...](http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Expanded-PB- Beyond/dp/0521741475/)

Also very good for reconsidering the importance of IQ tests is Keith Stanovich's What Intelligence Tests Miss.

[http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=97803001238...](http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300123852)

[http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Tests-Miss- Psycholog...](http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Tests-Miss- Psychology/dp/030012385X/)

<comment><USER6> > I've attended a lecture by John Raven, the publisher of that test, and he > doesn't make that claim.

I never said that he made that claim. Several other people compared RAPM and other intelligence tests to determine the g-loading. It was found by other people (not Dr. Raven) that RAPM has a high g loading. Testing for the general intelligence factor and the use of RAPM is widely accepted. Here is an example of a recent article: "Just one g: consistent results from three test batteries", (Wendy Johnson, Thomas Bouchard, etc...) 2004. Using Google scholar you can find several other results. Even if you reject RAPM as a measure of g, there are less g-loaded tests (such as IQ) that can be used that predicts more or less the same thing (heritability of intelligence, etc...).

> The long, careful examination of what the Raven tests show, in conjunction > with other evidence, can be found in James R. Flynn's excellent book What Is > Intelligence?, which is about to come out in a new, expanded edition.

My problem with most of Flynn's books is that he is a political scientist and a passionate left-wing campaigner. He is basically a Gould-light – distorting science to fit his own world view.

I usually prefer to read papers or books on intelligence matters from people with a PhD in areas such as educational psychology or neurology when it concerns brain structure (e.g. prof. Haier).

<comment><USER7> _My problem with most of Flynn's books is that he is a political scientist and a passionate left-wing campaigner. He is basically a Gould-light--distorting science to fit his own world view._

There are a lot of Ph.D. psychologists who disagree with that statement. Here is what Arthur Jensen said about Flynn quite a few years ago, and he hasn't retracted this statment: "Now and then I am asked . . . who, in my opinion, are the most respectable critics of my position on the race-IQ issue? The name James R. Flynn is by far the first that comes to mind." Modgil, Sohan & Modgil, Celia (Eds.) (1987) Arthur Jensen: Concensus and Controversy New York: Falmer. Here's what Charles Murray (all right, not a psychologist nor a geneticist) says in his back cover blurb for Flynn's book I mentioned in this thread: "This book is a gold mine of pointers to interesting work, much of which was new to me. All of us who wrestle with the extraordinarily difficult questions about intelligence that Flynn discusses are in his debt." As Mackintosh (1998, p. 104) writes about the data Flynn found: "the data are surprising, demolish some long-cherished beliefs, and raise a number of other interesting issues along the way." Flynn has earned the respect and praise of any honest researcher who takes time to read the primary source literature. Robert Sternberg, Ian Deary, Stephen Pinker, Stephen Ceci, Sir Michael Rutter, and plenty of other eminent psychologists recommend Flynn's research.

As for what we can conclude about the Raven Progressive Matrices test, one thing we certainly can't conclude is that it is not influenced by the cultural background of the test-taker. The test publisher says culture matters in Raven scores.

[http://www.eyeonsociety.co.uk/resources/RPMChangeAndStabilit...](http://www.eyeonsociety.co.uk/resources/RPMChangeAndStability.pdf)

<comment><USER6> > are the most respectable critics of my position on the race-IQ issue?

The race-IQ issue is separate from the issue of general intelligence and neuroscience of the brain. Even if he is a successful political scientist, it would not make him an educational psychologist or neuroscientist. Much of the popularity of Flynn is his opposition to certain views of Intelligence - <USER2> his research.

> one thing we certainly can't conclude is that it is not influenced by the > cultural background of the test-taker

With language and cultural negativeness I meant that there is no cultural specific references. One of the main complaints of the IQ test was that it contained western concepts and examples and language (i.e. it was culturally loaded). For example – the pictures in RPM are the same and contains the same meaning from whatever culture you are. Here is a quote from "How Biased are Culture-Loaded Tests?" (Jensen, A):

> Probably the best known and most widely used of such tests s Raven's > Progressive Matrices (citations). Such nonverbal tests are expressly > designed to reduce item dependence on acquired knowledge and to keep > cultural and scholastic content to a minimum while getting at basic > processes of intellectual ability.

Also note that that study did not just use RPM but included a verbal section.

The study you gave me showed differences in RPM between what they labelled "cultures" - other authors used other "labels" to try and explain the difference between groups. Here is a quote from the study you gave me:

> On the one hand, the absence of cross-cultural differences in RPM scores > between cultures which do differ on a variable

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the reply. My friendly response to the suggestion that I should consider mostly what subject a person has earned a Ph.D. in as the basis for whom to believe on what subject is that sometimes good ideas for one subject come from people who learned another subject. Sometimes that's the best way to make progress in a subject that has become stuck in outmoded theories. I observe that Ph.D. psychologists

1) were taken by surprise by Flynn's research on IQ test score trends over time, having initially predicted precisely the opposite trend,

2) proposed very stringent standards for acceptable data before believing the trend was real (and Flynn credits Jensen, who has just the sort of credentials you have recommended, as being especially tough in demanding certain kinds of evidence),

3) reviewed his publications before allowing them to appear in the leading journals in the field of psychology,

4) invited Flynn to attend major conferences written up in specialized monographs with acknowledged experts in psychology,

[http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Intelligence-No-233-Novartis- Fo...](http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Intelligence-No-233-Novartis- Foundation/dp/0471494348)

5) praised his work in standard textbooks on human intelligence,

6) devoted whole monographs specifically to his findings,

<http://books.apa.org/books.cfm?id=431712A>

and generally accorded Flynn greater honor as a researcher on psychological phenomena than most psychologists gain in a lifetime.

[http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=978...](http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521741477)

Anyway, scientific issues aren't decided by credentials, but by data. Flynn found and analyzed some very important data that caused a lot of psychologists to reexamine their assumptions. John Raven takes care to write, "The results surprise many psychologists. Eductive ability has turned out to be more easily influenced by appropriate educational and developmental experience than reproductive ability." In other words, what Jensen and others took as a "culture fair," "g-loaded" IQ test turns out to reflect modifiable educational experiences that children have or do not have.

<comment><USER6> I agree with you that my comparison of Flynn with Gould was not entirely fair. Flynn found the Flynn effect which is an important part. But a book by Flynn is _not peer reviewed_ and may be influenced by his political views (he is author of "How to Defend Humane Ideals: Substitutes for Objectivity" after all).

> Anyway, scientific issues aren't decided by credentials, but by data.

This is true – but data in peer reviewed journals not books.

> In other words, what Jensen and others took as a "culture fair," "g-loaded" > IQ test turns out to reflect modifiable educational experiences that > children have or do not have.

The majority of psychologists believe that the g-factor is an innate and immutable property. The g-factor correlates with reaction times, glucose metallisation rate and is highly heritable. This indicates that the g-factor most likely have a neurobiological basis (see articles by Haier for example).

In a recent article the g-factor also appeared in a battery of 42 tests (Johnson,W Bouchard, TJ, "Just one g: consistent results form three test batteries"). Here is a quote from the abstract:

> The concept of a general intelligence factor or g is controversial in > psychology. Although the controversy swirls at many levels, one of the most > important involves g's identification and measurement in a group of > individuals. If g is actually predictive of a range of intellectual > performances, the factor identified in one battery of mental ability tests > should be closely related to that identified in another dissimilar > aggregation of abilities. We addressed the extent to which this prediction > was true using three mental ability batteries administered to a > heterogeneous sample of 436 adults. Though the particular tasks used in the > batteries reflected varying conceptions of the range of human intellectual > performance, the g factors identified by the batteries were completely > correlated (correlations were .99, .99, and 1.00). This provides further > evidence for the existence of a higher-level g factor and suggests that its > measurement is not dependent on the use of specific mental ability tasks.

<comment><USER7> A definitive reply to most of that outmoded thinking about g can be found in Nisbet's new book,

[http://www.psychologicalscience.org/convention/program_detai...](http://www.psychologicalscience.org/convention/program_detail.cfm?abstract_id=15178)

or in Stanovich's.

[http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=97803001238...](http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300123852)

Stanovich is very clear on the distinction between "intelligence" (he is a mainstream psychologist in calling "intelligence" what I would simply call "IQ") and "rationality," an aspect of human cognition hardly tapped at all by most IQ tests. Stanovich comes at these issues from the framework of cognitive science, which also informs much of current behavioral economics. He previously wrote a textbook on understanding psychological research that has gone through a number of editions.

<comment><USER6> > A definitive reply to most of that outmoded thinking about g can be found in > Nisbet's new book,

If you feel that these views are outmoded – give me peer reviewed research articles (not books). I do not have immediate access to books and books are not peer reviewed. The article that I referenced above was written in 2004 – you can find more recent articles in Google Scholar if you want to. I did not see that the above article (or any of the others) have been refuted. I doubt that you can refute thousands of research articles (a lot of them recent) and a discovery that is probably the hallmark of modern psychometrics with a simple reference to a book (calling anything that you oppose "outmoded").

> Stanovich is very clear on the distinction between "intelligence" (he is a > mainstream psychologist in calling "intelligence" what I would simply call > "IQ")

Also I think you are confusing "intelligence" with the general intelligence factor (g) (also intelligence does not equal IQ. IQ is just a standardised intelligence test that is fairly well correlated with the g factor). The general intelligence factor is a factor that is common to almost all different tests on intelligence. While the general intelligence factor is immutable other parts of intelligence can be changed by training/learning (i.e. by the environment).

> "intelligence" (he is a mainstream psychologist in calling "intelligence" > what I would simply call "IQ") and "rationality," an aspect of human > cognition hardly tapped

The purpose of intelligence tests is to test intelligence – not factors such as rationality, emotion and inter-personal skills such as Stanovich's book suggest. The latter are all factors that is undoubtedly environmental and the value of such tests are doubtful to the intelligence debate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if the study controlled for the selection bias inherent in the decisions of males of various ages to reproduce and in their preferences for mates. Presumably, 50 year-old men are not procreating with women their age. Do older men choose younger, but dumber women to mate with? Do dumber men end up having children later in life? Are 50 year-old men worse parents?

<comment><USER9> While I was reading this article I felt almost the exact same thing - <USER3> whole article feels like bad science because they present the conclusion that "many scientists believe that genetic mutations that build up in the sperm of older men are to blame." Presumably, the only thing this study has shown is that lower intelligence is correlated with older fathers but the cause could be any number of factors like what you said or even, for example, that people with lower intelligences are predisposed to postpone having children.

Basically, thanks Freakonomics for bringing correlation/causation to my mind every time I read an article like this.

<comment><USER10> Correlation - <USER4>

<http://xkcd.com/552/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> As far as I know, a three point IQ difference doesn't have any practical effect. It may be statistically significant, but it's hardly a huge advantage to score three points higher than someone else.

</comment><comment><USER12> I have always wondered - when reading articles like this - whether it would just be better to freeze one's sperm at age 20 and then save it for when you want to have a child. In fact, it might even be better to save sperm from age 14 or so to reduce even further the chance of generic mutation.

I don't know if this is easy or even possible to do (or whether using frozen sperm brings its own complications), but it's worth researching further.

<comment><USER13> I have wondered about this too, but I recall reading that sperm quality also varies with the current bodily state. Maybe the end of high school would be the best age. But it is a strange thought to have: you are essentially depositing unborn babies into a bank, and retrieving them when you decide you want them.

To take it further, you could freeze enough sperm for 100 conceptions, then get a vasectomy. Which probably yields an even more efficient outcome, with stranger connotations.

<comment><USER14> My stepfather has said a few times that he wishes he had taken the "further" option.

I'm not sure if I ever want kids, but something about freezing my sperm and getting a vasectomy worries me. A fire at the sperm bank, and my genetic legacy is lost forever.

(Of course I could go in for a reversal, but those don't always take, etc., etc.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can we draft a law preventing journalists from trying to interpret statistics?

<comment><USER7> First let's teach college teachers of statistics (who usually aren't statisticians) how to teach statistics. One of my favorite articles on that subject

<http://statland.org/MAAFIXED.PDF>

is so thoughtful that I reread it from time to time just to savor the language. Another good article about how to teach statistics

[http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=10...](http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=uclastat/cts/tise)

is helpful in guiding people who have studied statistics before to rethink what they think they have learned. It is by a very eminent statistician.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _The same study found that children's IQ was marginally higher if they were born to older mothers, a finding scientists have put down to those women spending more time caring for and nurturing their infants._

Maybe younger fathers are more nurturing.

</comment><comment><USER7> It looks like several journalists need to read the new book Intelligence and How to Get It by Richard E. Nisbett,

<http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/winter09/006505.htm>

which I am reading just now. Nisbett reviews the best recent literature on IQ testing and what it means, and punches holes in the fallacious reasoning used by many advocates of a strong hereditarian view of influence on IQ.

A really good book for background reading on IQ testing and how it works is IQ and Human Intelligence by N. J. Mackintosh,

[http://www.amazon.com/IQ-Human-Intelligence-N- Mackintosh/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/IQ-Human-Intelligence-N- Mackintosh/dp/019852367X/)

which includes very clear explanations of how IQ tests have developed historically, how they are currently constructed and validated, and what we still don't know about human rationality despite a century of IQ testing.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is purely anecdotal but my grandfather was 60 when my dad was born. By all accounts my dad was a highly intelligent man who achieved well in the Navy despite not finishing high school (needed money).

<comment><USER17> On the anecdotal side. A friend was born when her father was 75. Some people say she is a genius (clearly an exaggeration) but she s smart any way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> You are a product of your environment. --Clement Stone</comment>


The Wuhan Virus: How to Stay Safe - <AUTHOR> https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/25/wuhan-coronavirus-safety-china/ <comment><AUTHOR> Gloves, not masks.</comment>


Testing the effects of hiding downvotes in r/politics - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7odapz/we_tested_the_effects_of_hiding_downvotes_in/ <comment><USER2> Was hoping this had some effect, making it less of a one track cesspool of ideology but alas, not yet. There used to be some sort of discussion that took place on there but now it's all "fall in line" with the Narrative.

<comment><USER3> Their methodology was garbage considering that mobile users were not affected (since they can't hide down voting on most mobile clients).

In any case WRT to political Reddits down votes are essential for subscribers to remove troll posts (which are very frequent) since mods are hesitant to remove posts even when they're obviously intended to incense the subscribers.

It's a difficult situation to try to make a decision.

<comment><USER2> Just curious, isn't there some sort of "contest" or competition mode that hides scores? Or is that only for a particular post and can't be applied for all posts going forward and hence not applicable here?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there an online politics and policy forum that for its topics matches the quality that HN achieves on technical topics (or does better)? Specifically, I mean the knowledge value of comments, the expertise and sophistication, and the lack of flaming and trolling.

I have yet to find one with a signal to noise ratio that is even nearly worth my time. Most are filled with misinformation, partisan spin, and propaganda attacks, none of which I learn much about (except what the latest misinfo, spin, and propaganda is). I want a forum that's focused on informing its members.

<comment><USER5> Give /r/NeutralPolitics a shot.

It's a heavily moderated subreddit focusing on well sourced content.

Essentially, if a comment(fact) doesn't have a respected source attached it gets booted.

<comment><USER4> Thanks! At first glance that looks pretty good. At least, no flames or propaganda (so far).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find it impossible to believe that there are no bots or paid marketing shills on Reddit.

If you were to hide downvotes, this would only affect "honest" users, and not bot farms using APIs or web extensions.</comment>


CDC to cut by 80 percent efforts to prevent global disease outbreak (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/02/01/cdc-to-cut-by-80-percent-efforts-to-prevent-global-disease-outbreak/ <comment><USER2> > Countries where the CDC is planning to scale back include some of the > world's hot spots for emerging infectious disease, such as China, Pakistan, > Haiti, Rwanda and Congo.

Why was the United States subsidizing China which is the world's second largest economy and has a military budget of $228 Billion making it the second largest military spender ( [https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries- with-the-bigge...](https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the- biggest-military-expenditure.html) )

<comment><USER3> To get a seat at the table for policy decisions. For example, we want them to stop sick people flying to the US. Paying for part of an operation is a common way to have some influence. Also, some deals require them to spend a fraction of it on US suppliers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The survival of the current US administration is at risk. Especially from anti-science policies like this health one and more abstract ones like climate change.

I say "Good riddance!". We can only hope this happens in time to save more lives.

</comment><comment><USER5> Why is the US apparently responsibile for this financially in the first place? For the future, will other countries join financially to up our global defenses against future outbreaks?

It sounds like the US took up a global cause on its own and when the clock ran out they didn't renew because that emergency had subsided.

Is this what was being pinned as Trump's "fault" in recent press and social media?

<comment><USER6> He did a few things to eliminate the pandemic response team in 2018. This was one of the things that happened:

[https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic- team/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/)

The US used to pay for this because the downsides of not doing it are higher than the cost. Also, initiatives like these increase the US's political and economic power overseas.

<comment><USER7> "Trump's budgets have proposed cuts to public health, only to be overruled by Congress, where there's strong bipartisan support for agencies such as the CDC and NIH. Instead, financing has [bold]increased[/bold].

Indeed, the money that government disease detectives first tapped to fight the latest outbreak was a congressional fund created for health emergencies.

Some public health experts say a bigger concern than White House budgets is the steady erosion of a CDC grant program for state and local public health emergency preparedness — the front lines in detecting and battling new disease. But that decline was set in motion by a congressional budget measure that predates Trump." [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-cut-cdc- budget/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-cut-cdc-budget/) The blame game is beyond getting old...it's moldy.

<comment><USER5> I'm at a loss how my good faith reply gets immediately downvoted away. The game has broken our collective ability to make sense of anything. The wrong scent gets pushed away without any authentic attempt to cohere.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Edge: LIFE: WHAT A CONCEPT - <AUTHOR> http://edge.org/documents/life/life_index.html <comment><USER2> Edge is awesome for deep science. I'm putting this on my list of things to read in an airplane.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been reading Edge for about a year now. There are so many geniuses that release articles on Edge that it's unbelievable...there's never a dull article. Edge is _the real deal_ when it comes to intellectual stimulation.</comment>


Why the novel matters in the age of anger - <AUTHOR> https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2018/10/why-novel-matters-age-anger <comment><USER2> I read novels for escapism. If the evil dragon in the story is supposed to be a metaphor for capitalism, please do not tell me. I don't want to know.

I realize that some people can find politics in anything. I'd rather not, thanks.

<comment><USER3> Why is the dragon evil? What is it doing that is evil? Why is what it is doing considered evil? (Making an assumption): does a man attempt to stop its evil ways? A woman? Individuals? A collective of some sort?

(Switching slightly to ideology, obviously one of the roots / informers of politics) There is, I doubt, anything outside of the realm of ideology, in regards to anything within human perception [a rock may be a rock, but a rock considered by the human intellect will always be something more, in one way or another]. And the deepest point of ideology (as with the old saw about asking a fish how the water is today) is when we don't recognize it at all.

So the valiant knight rescues the princess (a story that most [at least at one time] would find apolitical, common-sensical, and non-political and non- ideological). But if the princess rescues the princess, _now_ we've become political. If the prince and princess get married at the end, the same. But if the prince and the prince...

<comment><USER4> _cough_ Iron Dragon's Daughter _cough_

At this point I just translate "I want apolitical art" to "I want my politics re-affirmed" in my head. The majority of people are still stuck in the whole End of History/"We are post-ideological" trap and it is a remarkably sticky ideology. I'm not sure if it is the deepest point of ideology or just an innovation of this particular one that makes it very successful.

It isn't unreasonable to want to read some un-challenging escapist fiction after all, and if you have this world view you don't know how to express that. When admitting they are taking a political stance, especially a pro-status quo one, is itself a challenge to their politics ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My all too general rule of thumb: Whenever a piece of writing mentions _the Other_ with a capital O, I can safely turn my attention elsewhere.

<comment><USER6> Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.</comment></comment>


Why you would want to program at fifty (or any other age) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.vivekhaldar.com/post/34386970746/why-you-would-want-to-program-at-fifty-or-any-other

<comment><USER2> Please change the font. The word "meme" looks like "mcmc".

As a developer that is much closer to 50 than many here are, I can say that it's a crapshoot whether I will be programming when I'm 50. I tired of it after a handful of years, but decided to stay on with it because I can't afford the paycut, and am still am going with it, getting close to 15 years now. But everyday, and I've tried another employer, I still can't stand it. I enjoy the freedom and art and creativeness, but when things don't work, which happens a lot, I waste time on it and feel stupid and depressed. Feeling smart 1% of the time and stupid 99% of the time and worrying about whether you will be able to continue it without getting fired is a horrible way to live. It has affected my health, my attitude, and makes me drink more than I should at times. But, we justify this with "we are making a good living".

Common things I think about doing are (1) buying and running a bar, but then I would have to deal with the alcoholics, prostitution, drugs, and other crap that goes with it (not worth it) and would feel that I was contributing to an evil in our society even though I love beer and good times, (2) selling old computer equipment and games (there is little money here, and I'm not a hardware expert, so screw that), (3) getting involved with my church (but they don't need more IT, I'm a developer anyway not IT, and I have no idea what else I have to offer), (4) helping humanity get into space (but I have little to offer there also), (5) developing Indie games (which I've done in the past to some extent, but I think that writing games just means that people will waste time away from their family and solving problems playing them), (6) going to work for a non-profit development group (but I'm a conservative, and I can't work with tree-huggers even if I have a very liberal opinion that software should be free or open source, which I realize is not the same). So instead, I take care of my family.

<comment><USER3> The pain in programming is that we have this 21st-century superpower but the only way we can make money is to suit 19th-century industrial masters who don't understand what's _possible_ with technology. They just want us to point our magical tech wands at their existing machines and make them run faster. If we do this kind of thing for too long (and it's the only way to get a reliable income) we lose that "superpower" and become ordinary due to creative atrophy. Then we're fired and replaced by young idiots who think the all-nighters and low autonomy are paving the way to millions, and who will therefore tolerate more bullshit because they haven't seen yet that all the suffering leads nowhere.

Markets and capitalism are supposed to fix this fundamental problem (archaic, stupid leadership) by reallocating resources where they can be best put to use, by this isn't a problem that mere computation (as in a market) can solve. The problem is that power is held by the wrong fucking _people_ , most of whom are total imbeciles with no vision, and the runaway feedback loop where power and wealth beget same is too far gone for talent to break in and change things.

US-style corporate capitalism is an outright disaster but, while EU-style socialism makes life suck a lot less for average people, it doesn't solve the underlying problem either.

Eventually, the discrepancy between _what's possible_ with technical creativity and what's being _actually_ done out there will reach a critical point and, like an insulator breakdown, sudden and powerful change will happen. I have absolutely no idea when that will happen, though. We have to purge and recreate the whole industrial ecosystem in order to get to the kind of world that people like you and me want-- a world driven by creativity and challenging problems rather than subordination and nonsense.

<comment><USER4> Huh, what's all this capitalism talk... as far as I know, his main pain in programming was just this:

> I enjoy the freedom and art and creativeness, but when things don't work, > which happens a lot, I waste time on it and feel stupid and depressed. > Feeling smart 1% of the time and stupid 99% of the time

Yeah guess what, that same thing gets at me ever since I started programming. I still like doing it, but that aspect is truly increasingly an issue in the activity since late 20s / early 30s now. How enjoyable you spend big chunks of your lifetime does matter after all, and you increasingly get that horrible nagging "time's flying faster every day now, I'm running out of a fixed resource one compiler error at a day" feeling..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A colleague of mine who is 62 has, in 6 months, become incredibly effective in C#. He has learnt it faster, and his output is better than the 24 year olds who had to make the same switch.

He has been there and done it all: punch cards, assembly, VB6, managed a development team and worked for 20 years as a Project Manager.

He told me a few weeks ago that he never wants to retire. Work less - sure - but he doesn't want to stop. And with an ability like his, he won't need to.

In 30 years, when I'm 62, I want to be like him :)

<comment><USER3> I don't think programmers necessarily decline with age. With the ones who keep their curiosity about them, I don't see it-- not even at 50 or 60. The ones who lose their curiosity and creativity start declining much earlier than that.

The problem older programmers face is that the world as-is still defines engineering as a subordinate role, and people know from experience that it usually ends badly when an older person has a younger boss. Maybe it "shouldn't matter" in some PC fiction world, but in the real world we actually inhabit where people are primates, it matters a lot.

Just as tall women and short men are "diagonalized out" by being contrary to society's expectations regarding height in coupling-- there are much more politically incorrect diagonalizations in dating, but I'll side-step them-- young people don't often get to manage (even if they could) and old people are disqualified for subordinate roles. The business world invented advisory positions for this purpose (the semi-retired older employee is effectively non-subordinate, because he doesn't need the job to retain an income, but isn't a full-time executive). That's how it finds a use for active older people who are ineligible (often because they just don't want it) for full- time executive positions but have extremely valuable experience and relationships. Advisory positions keep skilled older people from being diagonalized out by the traditional subordination model.

What's needed to fix this problem is for engineering to become closer to an advisory relationship than a subordinate one. If engineers had the level of autonomy seen at places like Github and Valve, age wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue. Right now, people look at a 55-year-old code monkey as a chump-- he's that old and he's _still_ taking orders? But there is absolutely no reason why a 55-year-old can't program; it's the subordinate context rather than the work that is the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm fifty and full time programmer. What the OP is missing is that while we have much more experience and are thus wiser on some aspect, our brain is much less agile to adapt and learn new things. If we would learn faster, we would also forget faster and loose the power of experience.

Any task where our experience is of value would be satisfying for me to do. Unfortunately we have all these stupid kids around in our way thinking they know it all better than us. The worst is the regression of html, xml and javascript we are forced to use but are shit. All the good thing of "old" languages are lost.

Note that the languages will change, but the fundamental concepts and principles remain the same.

<comment><USER7> LOL I'm 46 and just got a gig writing in C again and I love it. I stay current, I am fluent in Python, Perl, PHP, C++, Java, Javascript etc. But it has been nice returning to a nice warm pile of C code. Now before everyone piles on to tell me how horrible C is realize this, in our environment we're handling 500,000 queries per second and have under 100ms to complete a round- trip transaction. Yes you can attempt that in Java with 20x the servers. Sometimes you just need good old fashioned low level languages to eek out every penny of low-latency power from your servers. (I can already hear the arguments about Elang, Haskel or whatever is popular this week).

@chmike Personally I still learn very rapidly and when I integrate it with past experience it's very powerful. I make the joke that I'm like a diesel engine, one crank is equal to 10x the lawn mowers some younger programmers are using. That said I love learning new stuff from the younger crowd, I'm convinced they keep me young because they inspire me and I try harder to keep up while sharing with them the mistakes I've made so they hopefully avoid a couple of them! :-)

<comment><USER8> Why C as opposed to C++?

I'd love to know because my current understanding is that C++ has the same performance as C, but includes the STL which prevents you from having to reimplement more convenient data structures that handle memory nicely (like vectors) yourself.

The ability to create classes/objects is nice too and the language doesn't take away any of the freedom you're given in C either.

Am I missing something about it? Is it just more familiarity with the older language that makes it more comfortable?

<comment><USER9> For the same code, C++ is generally measurably slower. One reason is how exceptions, which are not optional, are handled at run time.

Having written some seriously high-throughput low-latency code in C++, you have to turn on bunches of compile flags (e.g., ignore exceptions) to get the best out of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A great wisdom: "You don't match your age to your job. You match your motivations to your job."[From the article]

<comment><USER11> This is exactly why I'm a programmer.

I've been in jobs that I have no motivation for. It's a bad deal for me, and my employer, but especially for me in terms of opportunity costs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Consider Peter Neumann, who has been hacking since the early 1950s. At age 80, he is beginning work on the 5-year DARPA-funded Clean Slate project to "build something new from the bottom up" to respond to security problems. Recent HN posts link to NY Times stories:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4714328>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4722781>

</comment><comment><USER13> Creative programming at times can give me pleasure that's only equaled by a really good workout or really good sex.

</comment><comment><USER14> Probably also keeps the risk of Alzheimer's down - mental stimulation is believed to have that effect.

[http://www.helpguide.org/elder/alzheimers_prevention_slowing...](http://www.helpguide.org/elder/alzheimers_prevention_slowing_down_treatment.htm)

<comment><USER15> Sounds right, yes. Most elderly people I've met who still were mentally fit have been using their heads their entire life. Obviously this is anecdotal but I think it's just like a workout for your brain in order to keep in shape, just as being physically active keeps your body fit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> In my opinion, you have a lot to offer.

1) From a user experience / marketing standpoint - (target demo's have a better grasp of their own likes and "dislikes" when engaging an application.) - if one of the targeted demo.

There are "discoveries" that usually happen through conversation. A mature programmer can provide an entrepreneur perspective or another idea to improve the product due to the architecture of other programs (built in the past).

2) Depending on the Programmer; the older way of training code revolved around meticulous detail) - also very helpful sometimes in avoiding bugs.

</comment><comment><USER17> I am well over 50. It has been a while since I took up a wholly new programming language, but I keep my hand in with quite a few. I tend to vote with radicalbyte's friend--being able to choose how much and when to work would be nice, but getting out of the house and working is definitely a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think it's different for people that started to program at young age compared with those who started late. Also compare the professional 9to5 developer with the academic, scientific or entrepreneur programmer. Sure I hope to be programming at fifty because programming isn't my job, it's my joy.

<comment><USER18> for the sake of the discussion : Ask HN: Is 36 too late to start into programming? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1444486>

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I am 44 years old and on disability. I still try to write programs, but I write small ones. Due to a mental illness and a stroke, my abilities are limited, and I cannot work a job, but I keep on trying.</comment>


Clear and Present Leadership - <AUTHOR> https://blog.davidtate.org/clear-and-present-leadership/ <comment><USER2> Having been an executive myself (in the past), my theory is the "clear" part of this is the root cause of ageism in tech. On anything more complex than Minesweeper, unless you've done it a couple of times in the past you won't be "clear" on anything when you lead people. You can create the _impression_ of clarity, but it'll be clear as mud to you all the same. Younger people don't see through this facade, so they take your bullshit at face value. Older people for whom it's not the first rodeo see right through it and most "leaders" feel really insecure in this situation.

When I was younger myself, I sort of assumed competence on the part of everyone. The older I get the more I see that people around me (as well as myself) don't really know much about anything and don't care to know. This includes "leadership" and, as painful as it is to say, myself.

Coincidentally, the article doesn't mention "honesty" even once. I've found honesty to be the best policy. I can't _always_ be honest when I lead (everyone would quit and go into depression if I were perfectly honest), but I try to minimize the blind spots and somewhat accurately give people a sense of difficulties and tradeoffs without making the situation look as hopeless as it usually looks to me when running "hard" projects. That way, if they care at all, they'll steer things in the right direction on their own, and focus on the right things.

I'm in my mid-40's though, so I sort of assume (knowingly incorrectly) people around me think like I do, and bullshit doesn't work in the long term.

<comment><USER3> This is an underrated comment IMO and hits on a critical point that people complain about but don't really understand.

That is, "The people at the top don't know what they are doing."

For IC's and other people actually doing most of the work, they interpret this as base incompetence on the part of leadership. It's certainly fair to say that there is a lot of incompetency at the top. However, even for very competent senior leaders it's often completely unclear how to get from "Here" to "There" because the organization may not be positioned to actually get there.

It's an extension of the technical debt problem, what made you successful in the past may not be what makes you successful in the future - and as a senior leader, it's your job to help the organization make that transition. The costs/risks to getting "There" might be considered impractical or devastating to the current organization. You can see this with any major company that fails to capture some huge new market.

On one hand you want to take care of your people, and a complete pivot with a 20,000 person organization might see huge layoffs or "restructuring." Is doing that, not knowing if it's going to work in the long run the right plan? We praise those who made the right pivots, but forget those who mistimed them, so corporate survivorship is real - and it's not about pure genius competence.

Now, try and communicate all of that to everyone on the team, considering all of the market dynamics, funding personnel issues etc... for context, and it's just not something that is feasible to communicate with everyone in a way that doesn't totally spook the whole organization.

That said, it doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Communicating WHY smaller decisions are made and what the assumptions and context behind them are made is something feasible at some levels generally. This is where competence and maturity do play a huge role, and where great leaders distinguish themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Let me how I can help"

Besides not forgetting the word "know" make sure that you are actually prepared to honestly listen and act on what people tell you. I hear this phrase quite a bit but when you tell them how to help they promptly ignore it because it wasn't what they wanted to hear.

A lot of today's management phrases are totally empty and just sound good without any meaning. "Let me challenge that assumption" or "but what if we had an anti-gravity drive?" are fashionable phrases that sound insightful to the person saying them but really aren't.

<comment><USER5> > "but what if we had an anti-gravity drive?"

What does this one mean? I know you said you think they're meaningless, but in what context is this one used?

<comment><USER4> I have been in several meetings where somebody said that a thing is simply not possible and a manager asked "but what if it was possible?". How are you supposed to respond to that? It's just a silly thing to say. Now if somebody says "I think it may be possible because of A, B and C" you have something to discuss. Otherwise it's just an empty phrase.

<comment><USER6> > somebody said that a thing is simply not possible and a manager asked "but > what if it was possible?"

I've been an Individual Contributor, and a Manager, and am back to being an IC.

I've been on both sides of this conversation.

One of the benefits of being a manager is being able to see the forest from the trees while your team members may be so focused on their tasks they do not see the big picture.

Sure, sometimes the answer to "but what if it was possible?" if just "it's not."

But a lot of times, the good managers I've had would propose an approach to MAKING it possible that I just simply didn't see. And I've been able to do the same in their shoes.

Sometimes it requires a paradigm shift -

Q: "How do we get to the other town faster?"

A: "The horses are running as fast as they can"

Q: "What if we found a faster horse?" (e.g. a car)

But honestly in day to day office culture it rarely needs to be so revolutionary -

Q: "Could we finish the project faster if Bill's team helped us?"

A: "No, it's not possible. Bill's team said they are completely swamped"

<Goes off to do some managerial work>

Q: "Okay, I've chatted to Bill, and his team is fully available to help us finish the project."

I'll leave you with this "Expert" saying that something is simply not possible: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg)

And an actual expert showing how it can be done: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7MIJP90biM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7MIJP90biM)

<comment><USER7> interestingly, your examples revolve around making things faster. Which basically is understood as : "well, we've already too much pressure and our PM wants to put even more pressure on us". Going faster (or being more efficient) always mean being able to take more work.

<comment><USER8> No, it doesn't. For instance, at a place I worked at, we wanted to build a particular ad tech product to reinforce strength in a different area. The correct answer to "how do we make this faster" was "buy the guys who do it and then integrate via a bunch of CSVs on GCS and some RPC". We canned our forays into the space and bought them. Less work for all the engineers and data scientists. More work for M&A but they like doing that so it's not upsetting.

At a more granular level, in a different project, the answer to "how do we develop this faster" was "lose these requirements, and just use AWS services for those". Less work in total.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >Vision, goals, key results, what we are allowed to do and not do, are clear. Likely written down, understood, repeated frequently, taught to new members of a team.

On the nose.

Amazed by how many leaders that I've worked under that can't seem to set direction. That's all - communicate what's important, what's going to make the company differentiate itself, and then allow the smart folks you have hired to set their priorities accordingly, execute, and then adjust where needed (but sparingly).

</comment><comment><USER10> I value clarity. But I fear some of this advice about being present could be badly misinterpreted by those inclined to micro-management.

</comment><comment><USER11> If they're not clear and present it's a good sign of clear and present danger

</comment><comment><USER12> You shouldn't use a phrase just because it sounds familiar, without considering the meaning of that phrase.

It wasn't a bad article, but in my head I was hearing "danger, danger, danger!"

</comment><comment><USER13> _" Let me how I can help" isn't just a phrase, but means what it says_

Does it. Does it really.

<comment><USER14> From the HN guidelines:

"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER13> I can see why you might think it was a shallow dismissal, but it actually has depth. You see, the words I was highlighting for their lack of meaning are themselves talking about meaning. It's possible this was an accident on the author's part, but it's also possible that it was deliberate, in which case the author is using irony (actual irony, not that rubbish the kids say is irony) to make their real point, and I'm applauding it. Hardly a dismissal.

Either way, the reader extracts extra layers of meaning at this point. Remember all that stuff in school about literature and how to read beyond the literal, that HN tends to ignore in favour of pretending to be rational cyborgs? It was for this sort of thing.

You missed the _possible_ original point of the author, and my point as well. On the plus side, this comment could well have been a learning experience for you, so you should be happy with it.

<comment><USER15> Honestly, I think you are seeing things here. Nowhere in the original message do I detect even a hint of irony.

Maybe this is something that is only visible for you because of your particular situation (e.g. someone always uses that phrase)?

To be honest, I'm more bothered by the lack of a question mark though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why is this the only spot where a gender pronoun is used

`The leader is aware of her staff as complete human beings and has empathy towards them.`

Reinforcing the stereotype that female is the emphasising gender.

The rest of the article is gender free from what I can see.

<comment><USER17> I noticed that in the text too.

But could you elaborate on the expression "female is the emphasizing gender"? My search skills failed me here.

<comment><USER18> Believe they meant "empathizing gender."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> One way to strive for clarity is to not make structural errors in a blog. Like

"Avoid a having a hard conversation because of how uncomfortable it is, or fear for how poorly it can go."

<comment><USER20> A rather simple mistake should not be used as a reason to dismiss the overall message.

<comment><USER21> I wonder what the correlation is between people who feel threatened by a message and those who nitpick at it.

There's a certain number of people in any crowd who get lost in the weeds, regardless of 'sides'.</comment></comment></comment>


Web Startups with a subscription based business model - <AUTHOR>

Are there any founders here who are building Web Startups with a business model to sell subscriptions (or at least a free+premium model and not an advertising driven business model)?<p>* How difficult was is to acquire paying customers? * What type of customers are these -- individuals or small
  organizations? * What kind of objections did you typically face before
  they signed the check? * And for the benefit of the startup community, can you
  describe how you acquired these customers (i.e., personal
  contacts, cold calling, selling at relevant trade shows, etc?). <comment><USER2> I found a web startup here on HN that is based on a subscription model :: <https://www.timesvr.com/> . They were using PayPal subscription services when I joined and left.

I am interested in these questions as well as security and data retention issues.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's another question:

How do you handle billing?

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm interested in all of those questions because I have two ideas for apps that are in the same market but one targets consumers and the other targets professionals...</comment>