Our obsession with elite colleges is making our kids feel worthless - <AUTHOR> http://qz.com/577827/our-obsession-with-elite-colleges-is-making-our-kids-feel-worthless/ <comment><USER2> Our obsession with fame/celebrity is the root problem. We want to go to famous colleges, work for famous companies (or start our own famous startup) and companies want to hire famous employees (at least at the executive level).

Fame is a fairly reliable way to quickly evaluate the quality of something (without knowing anything about the subject matter) but it severely limits your options and it's expensive.

<comment><USER3> Your comment reminded me of PG's "Cities and Ambition" essay. [http://paulgraham.com/cities.html](http://paulgraham.com/cities.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> HN seems pretty sure that the only difference between a top-20 residential college and a rural commuter school ranked in the 300s is the wealth of the people attending.

We recognize vast differences in quality between engineers, managers, companies, and code... but not education? Why?

<comment><USER5> Imagined quality differences shouldn't be recognised where don't actually exist. To quote the story:

"in David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell draws upon research that shows it's actually more advantageous for a student to attend a college where they can be in the top 10% rather than in the bottom half of the class. It's the top students at every college who receive the kind of attention from faculty and access to special programs that pave the way to more opportunity after college."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Two thirds of CEOs didn't go to top schools... That means that 1/3rd of the CEOs were drawn from 2% of the schools. Similarly you find that a disproportionate number of entrepreneurs went to a top school. The network and credibility you get are clearly important. I think most parent realize how tough it has gotten and they saw the shortcoming of their own careers.

<comment><USER7> Expecting your kids to become CEOs is another way to make them feel worthless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Growing up, it felt like I was raised with the sole purpose of attending an elite college. I took AP classes, did SAT prep, and signed up for all the right extracurriculars, but my heart was never in it, and I couldn't force myself through in the end.

I ended up getting rejected from all but my safeties when applying to colleges. It felt like I was dead inside; I'd go through my daily motions, but I basically lost my interest in living for a while.

<comment><USER9> A friend of mine is in a similar situation. When we talk about it I often find myself frustrated because I'm the complete opposite.

I was raised in a kind of hippie-environment where I could do what I wanted as long as I got acceptable grades and didn't get into trouble. While perhaps as a result me and my siblings are not the most ambitious of people (at least not conventionally so), I can say that I've had a very happy and even successful life so far. Definitely less stressful than that of many of my friends who were raised to be ambitious (and then weren't able to 'satisfy' this ambition).

Could you tell me more about what you did or what happened to you since that 'for a while' period that you describe? I have no desire to prescribe to my friend what he should do, but I'm kind of expecting a personal crisis of sorts in the near future as he seems to be able to only barely managing the ambitious environment he's in and the anxiety-filled, high-pressure life he's led so far. If/when he doesn't succeed, it might shatter his high expectations. I'd love to hear how others dealt with similar situations.

<comment><USER8> Sure, I'll share. After my rejections, I kind of fell apart during senior year of high school. I was extremely depressed and ended up almost failing all of my classes. In the end, I barely made it to graduation and was more relieved than happy about finishing.

Post-graduation, I went straight to college and tried to put the past behind me. I started off pretty strong, but it was clear that I still lacked maturity, and my grades took a nosedive during my second semester.

I ended up being disqualified from my scholarships, so I left school for a year to figure things out. I worked full-time and took courses at community college to keep myself busy. It took a lot of effort and introspection, but I finally transferred back to college and started working on my computer science degree.

Now I'm doing much better, having grown a lot as a person. I've also landed two internships since then and gotten involved with plenty of extracurriculars and social activities on the side. My path wasn't as smooth as it could've been, but I don't regret much about my experiences. Failing at a young age taught me to shrug off shortcomings and made me a stronger person for the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, look at YC's stats on success rate vs. founder went to an elite school.

<comment><USER11> if there's a positive correlation it can be due to:

\- VCs biasing toward founders with an elite school on their resume

\- Elite schools offering more opportunities for building a start-up (Stanford, CMU, etc. have separate funds dedicated toward investing in student start-ups)

\- Those who go to elite schools usually come from a place of privilege allowing for higher risk opportunities

\- Those at elite schools have more connections to get their foot into a VC's door

and so on..

<comment><USER12> So, are you arguing against elite colleges being worthwhile, or in favor of them? Are we not supposed to use every opportunity we get? That's cute ;)

<comment><USER13> VCs are probably missing opportunities by biasing in favor of elite universities. Just desserts, of course.

<comment><USER14> This argument is also commonly made in the context of the pool from which companies search for candidates to hire.

The problem with both situations (VC/entrepreneurs and employers/employees) is that there's a cost associated with evaluating a candidate.

I don't think anyone doubts that good opportunities (and candidates) exist at all at lower tier schools, but it seems very likely that there are fewer of them.

If your resources are already constrained by something other than the number of opportunities you can afford to fund/hire (e.g. time to evaluate/interview), then it doesn't make sense to expand your search if it means lowering your success rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't think any HNers aspire to become Chris Christie.

</comment><comment><USER16> > "Moreover, in David and Goliath, Malcolm Gladwell draws upon research that > shows it's actually more advantageous for a student to attend a college > where they can be in the top 10% rather than in the bottom half of the > class. It's the top students at every college who receive the kind of > attention from faculty and access to special programs that pave the way to > more opportunity after college."

I thought this theory—mismatch theory—was discredited?

To clarify for future responses, check out this amicus brief sent to the Supreme Court in the affirmative action case Fisher v. University of Texas. [0] There is a particularly exhaustive section pp. 14-16.

I bring this up (and prepare myself for the inevitable downvotes) because I feel like this mismatch theory exists only in the particular social debate around affirmative action, not because it necessarily is or is not true (even though mismatch theory is probably not true). Malcolm Gladwell's two stories in David and Goliath and in Outliers—general musings about private schools and musing about football players [1]—plus the one study by a journalist and an economist [2] arguing for Fisher are the entirety of the basis of mismatch theory. There may be two more articles supporting it since the Fisher case went to trial years ago. The amicus I link above must reference a dozen studies refuting it, from a variety of researchers in a variety of contexts. You'd have to believe there was a huge multi-academic conspiracy to simply ignore that evidence—you know, the kind that people think exists with climate change research.

Mismatch theory may be the only argument that is persuasive to these parents, because on the face of it, mismatch theory is consistent with their values for improving their children's positivist success. But what if it's not true? Trying to ignore the reality that the rat race pays off is not going to reduce suicides.

[0] [http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/LCCR- an...](http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/LCCR-and-Mintz- Fisher-Amicus-Empirical-Scholars.pdf)

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/books/david-and-goliath- by...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/books/david-and-goliath-by-malcolm- gladwell.html) "As usual, Mr. Gladwell's science is convenient. He has charts to back up his premise about academic success, but how is success measured? In happiness? Salary? Getting jobs, or keeping them? Read the annotations if you must, but they won't get you far. Mr. Gladwell needs a David-Goliath school story, so he creates one. His version happens to have common sense on its side, even if it is in no way definitive or complete."

[2] [https://www.utexas.edu/vp/irla/Documents/ACN%20Richard%20San...](https://www.utexas.edu/vp/irla/Documents/ACN%20Richard%20Sander%20and%20Stuart%20Taylor.pdf)

<comment><USER17> That's not my understanding, for example: [http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/the- pain...](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/the-painful- truth-about-affirmative-action/263122/)

One site I found to 'debunk' mismatch theory focuses solely on graduation rate as a measure (ie students graduate more at more selective colleges). But that could be due these students transferring out to easier majors or simply graduating with lower grades (as discussed in the Atlantic article above).

<comment><USER18> One of the co-authors of that Atlantic article is Richard Sander, who's the leading proponent of the mismatch hypothesis and routinely overstates the evidence for it. His original study is based on outcomes for law students who started law school in 1991 -- not necessarily applicable, I'd argue, to undergraduates starting college in 2015 -- and his methodology has been pretty much discredited anyway (see the amicus brief that doctorpangloss cites).

This is off-topic from the original post, but I think the whole mismatch controversy has been kind of a scary illustration of how one determined academic can shape the narrative around an issue: because he's a professor, and because media outlets trust professors (and like controversy), he can easily find a platform to represent the debate in a way that's favorable to his side (e.g. [0]). I don't think it's a crazy hypothesis or anything, and it's definitely worth debating, but I'd be skeptical of claims coming from someone who's staked so much of his career on its validity.

</rant>

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/201...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh- conspiracy/wp/2015/12/10/an-emerging-scholarly-consensus-on-mismatch-and- affirmative-action-ideologues-not-welcome/)

<comment><USER17> I think the mismatch theory is catching on because

1) It simply makes intuitive sense 2) There is simply lack of hard data that would disprove it

Ie when you place a group of students whose SAT scores are 250 points below the average, in a competitive environment, they will struggle because there is no AA once inside the university. So this is the default 'makes sense' theory.

If it is actually not true - you have to bring data to bear.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What is the history of 2% as the target inflation rate? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/wintonARK/status/1170013297392795649 <comment><USER2> I was under the impression that it is in consideration of population growth, so that per capita prices would stay the same.</comment>


Can Repelling Magnets Replace the Spring in a Pogo Stick? - <AUTHOR> https://www.kjmagnetics.com/blog.asp?p=pogo-stick-spring <comment><USER3> Seems like electromagnets could help compensate for distance by drawing more current when far apart, and less when close together. A microcontroller could essentially make the force linear like a spring. Of course, then you need wires hooked up to your pogo, and that might be scary if the microcontroller has a bug (or somehow fails) since you are now essentially hopping onto a railgun.

<comment><USER4> About as scary as my Tesla on autopilot going around a curve at 75mph. Every time I ask myself, what if there is a bug or if it turns off...

<comment><USER5> Consider not going on a modern airliner. Every commercial passenger jet since the A340 has been fly-by-wire.

(military jets have been so longer).

<comment><USER6> But you have more time to react on a plane and switch to manual override. It's not like people fly with just a few meters distance to other airplanes. There's also a good distance to the only other thing you can crash into, the ground, as opposed to driving between walls or with a cliff to one side.

<comment><USER7> OP said "fly by wire", meaning there's no non electronic systems to fall back on. If the electronics fail there's no "manual override".

<comment><USER8> Of course there's a fallback. If the fly-by-wire system fails, there's another whole fly-by-wire system ready to take over. Usually this is safer than the old redundant hydraulics systems where all the lines ran close together, making them vulnerable to localized impact damage and fire.

<comment><USER7> I specifically said "non-electronic" fallback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _For the 4, 5 and 6 magnet stacks, the outermost gaps tended to be a bit > larger than the inner gaps. Why?_

> _As we add more magnets to the stack, the maximum pull force alternates up > and down. If 2 magnets repel with some force, 3 is a little less, but 4 is a > little more 3, but 5 is a little less than 4, etc. Why is this so?_

Shouldn't these guys have figured it out pretty easily? Both seem to be readily explained by the fact that it's not just the adjacent pairs of magnets that interact. Given magnets ABCD, the A magnet is repelled by B and D but attracted by C. B is equally repelled by A and C, but attracted by D. And so on.

<comment><USER10> Seems like they missed a trick by arranging the magnets above three so that some of them are paired. You'd probably get more travel but not sure how the force would be affected and neither did they.

You could try A BC D, AB CD, AB C DE and A BCD E.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The core issue that's not mentioned is that we want a certain kind of a curve for deceleration because that what determines how the spring works. Little resistance first and lots at the end means it's not much different from just falling down!

</comment><comment><USER12> Seem like an attempt of replacing a large, fine-tuned, atomic scale electromagnetically interacting system with a much simpler, less fine-tuned one.

<comment><USER13> The Universe is already running the best code for the job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Fully compressed I believe the opposite poles fields begin to attract each other, counteracting the matching poles repelling one another, and explaining the alternating pull force.

<comment><USER15> This is easily solved by including a minimal height spacer between the two magnets to prevent them from getting too close.

<comment><USER16> They spacer could even be a spring to add a bit of springiness.. Oh, wait.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Loved the video. Didn't love the loud beep near the end, that's at about 3x the volume of the speaker the whole video...

<comment><USER18> YouTube desperately needs an audio compressor feature. Can't imagine why they haven't implemented that yet, it's more or less trivial.

<comment><USER19> I agree that they should, but it's pretty reductionist and arrogant to call it "trivial". There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all dynamic compressor. You would also need a fairly sophisticated content detection system (don't distort anything that is music, which is a huge use case on YouTube for example). Not to mention adding _any_ steps to their intake pipeline requires more processing power and data moving than you and I will ever touch in our lifetimes.

<comment><USER18> Speaking as a reasonably-experienced audio and DSP programmer -- and considering that the feature has existed in just about every home theater receiver for the past 20 years -- yes, it's trivial.

YouTube has the advantage of being able to preprocess the audio track in its entirety, although most implementations work on a block basis and don't need that. A 'night mode' feature would take about one weekend's worth of work from start to finish.

 _You would also need a fairly sophisticated content detection system (don't distort anything that is music, which is a huge use case on YouTube for example)._

No, you need a button that the user can press to turn the feature on and off. It should default to 'off.' For extra points, make it a slider.

 _Not to mention adding _any_ steps to their intake pipeline requires more processing power and data moving than you and I will ever touch in our lifetimes._

Compared to the work needed to process the video itself, it would be a total non-issue.

<comment><USER20> The audio compression / limiting can be done client-side, at playback time, offloading the cost of the operation

<comment><USER18> True, but that would involve modifications to the decode side of the audio codec. That's where the feature should be implemented (if not in the OS itself) but it's apparently not there. It needs to be supported on every platform, and deploying it wouldn't be anyone's idea of trivial.

On the server side, they could maintain a separate compressed audio track and switch to it when requested. They should have the ability to do that anyway for alternate languages and commentaries and such. Whether it would be more cost-effective to maintain a separate set of compressed tracks or to decode/compress/re-encode on the fly, I don't know.

It might be tempting to maintain caches of compressed tracks created on demand. That way they'd almost never incur a runtime penalty on the server, and also wouldn't have to pay a lot for storage. More than a weekend's worth of work at that point, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The response could be a closer approximation of linear by using six tubes, two magnets each, with varying initial distances. As the stick compresses, additional magnets contribute force, but not all at once.

<comment><USER22> Just have two fixed magnets and two moving ones:

[+- +-> ===== <-+ -+]

As long as the open-wide distance is capped you should have a smoother distance-energy diagram.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Unsurprisingly, an inverse-square mechanism can't replace a linear one over a wide working range.

<comment><USER24> I wonder if there's a Fourier transform equivalent that'd let you stack up various inverse square curves to appropriate a linear curve?

<comment><USER25> yes. any set of complete functions form a vector space and can be used in a linear sum to appropriate other functions in the same space. the dot product tells you the value of the coefficients. The fourier transform is just a special case of this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Could you use a lever to multiply travel distance while working with very strong magnets close together to make the force curve a bit more linear?

</comment><comment><USER27> Where does the heat go? The spring will have a much larger surface area to dissipate the heat. Maybe surrounding the magnets with a copper tube will conduct some eddy currents.

<comment><USER28> A lot of science museums have a display showing how magnets and copper pipes interact. In short, because of Lenz's Law, the magnet's motion induces an opposing magnetic field in the pipe ... which suggests another possible way to make a pogo stick with the right kind of resistance curve as well as addressing the heat issue.

<comment><USER29> A mechanism that absorbs any kinetic energy would make for a very disappointing Pogo stick.

<comment><USER28> If it absorbed _all_ of the energy that would be a problem, but any child who has seen one of those science-museum displays I mentioned can tell that's not the case.

<comment><USER29> You don't really want a pogo stick to absorb any energy, it'd be like trying to make a pogo stick out of mud.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> They should try this with electromagnets, and make the curve linear using electronics (and perhaps find the optimum curve in terms of fun when jumping around).

<comment><USER31> Wouldn't that consume a lot of electricity?

<comment><USER30> Probably yes, but it would be an interesting experiment. By the way, they could use superconductor magnets :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I would still like to see someone build a pogo stick with many magnets with alternating polarity. This article indicates that it would work. Seven strong magnets with a 1" initial gap between each of them should work.

</comment><comment><USER33> If you really wanted to do this, I reckon the way would be to have one set of magnets on the moving shaft and another set surrounding it, so the the repulsion tends to keep the shaft centered. Then you make the shaft surround taper towards the top, so that the further the pole is pushed in, the closer together the magnets are forced. You should be able to achieve any force curve desired with this setup by making the taper non-linear.

<comment><USER34> Just use current designs which, I would think, mechanically constrain the pogo stick except in one direction. Replace spring with powerful magnet (pair), and make sure there's a stop pin or something similar to keep the magnetic pogo stick from disassembling itself.

I think you're making things too difficult and expensive if you're trying to magnetically suspend and stabilize the pogo stick in multiple/all directions.

Also, magnetic radial stabilization would be stable only in a rough sense. The pogo stick handle would still wobble and be disturbingly/unexpectedly unsteady. I think for pogo sticks you'd really want a mechanically confined, piston-like design. You could still have magnetic stops on both extremes.

<comment><USER33> Although it's an interesting idea, I didn't mean to suggest _only_ using the magnets to center it - I was merely clarifying the geometry.

Another advantage of my design is that it allows (requires, in fact) one to use many small magnets in place of a few large ones, which is safer and easier to engineer. But as for expense - I think that once you decide to replace springs with magnets in a pogo stick, you have left the path of economy anyway and might as well go for broke.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Maybe a series of magnet pairs, spaced at different heights, could approximate the spring effect. Each pair would be bound together (e.g. with strapping) with the negative charge being on the outside, since Earth has a negative charge. The bottom of the stick would have the strongest magnet, negative charge facing up.

-

+

+

-

The pairs could then repulse each other at a closer distance, approximating the spring function. I accept royalty donations :-)...but it's probably patented by now.

</comment><comment><USER36> What about a hybrid system with springs for the longer travel but magnets for when you are about to bottom out?

</comment><comment><USER37> I've often thought it might be interesting to replace the springs in a piano's action with electromagnets so you could have control over the exact touch profile.

<comment><USER19> I don't think pianos typically have any springs, everything is gravity powered with counterweights. The only springiness comes from striking the strings as far as I know. Only the really cheap electronic keyboards use springs. Even halfway decent electronic pianos still rely on counterweights.

<comment><USER38> I cannot speak about any piano, because I had chance to tinker with only one, but that piano had springs.

Keys itself return into their normal position because of gravity, but part of key action mechanism was powered by a spring. I discovered it while trying to fix some keys which was too slow to "recharge", to return to a normal position after a soft note, so I was unable to make a sequence of a short duration soft notes from the same key. I fixed it by stretching springs long enough for a plastic deformation to occur. Loud notes worked ok, because their "recharge" was driven fully by springness of the strings.

Though it was just one piano, I do not know how different the mechanics can be between different pianos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Would it be possible to put the magnets in some kind of tube which blocks magnetic flux, in order to get a linear relationship instead of the square law?

</comment><comment><USER40> How can they stack three magnets with the repelling side facing each other on all three magnets? Isn't one side repelling and the other attracting?

<comment><USER41> You can do some interesting things with magnets. Consider the Halbach array ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halbach_array](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halbach_array) ) often used for refrigerator magnets.

That said, the 3 magnet configuration would be:

NS - SN - <USER2>

From the article:

> We added a third magnet, alternating which way the polarity faces with each > magnet. Each magnet repels any adjacent magnets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Can we make an electronagnetic-sprung mattress?

<comment><USER43> That would really suck in a power outage.

<comment><USER44> Or if you wet yourself

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I literally can't wait for N-Gate's distillation of this thread.

</comment><comment><USER46> permanent magnets tend to demagnetize when you beat them around, too

</comment><comment><USER47> could some kind of conical shape offset the different power curve?

</comment><comment><USER48> Don't magnets lose their magnetism with repeated drops?

</comment><comment><USER49> TL;DR Yes but not very well. A spring made from magnets doesn't have a close to linear spring rate like a traditional coil spring does.

<comment><USER50> But is it linear, from the data? They had two datapoints and projected from that sparse data a regression line.

<comment><USER51> There are far more than two data points on all of the charts in the article. What chart are you looking at?

<comment><USER50> The youtube video mostly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> In the similar vein I wonder if exploding lithium ion batteries can be used as small rocket fuel

</comment><comment><USER53> they did freedom units math! quite a feat

<comment><USER54> Yep, still quite hard to read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> The ability of permanent ferromagnets to resist (or survive) attacks on their permanent field orientations is related to their intrinsic coercivity Hci. In general, rare earth magnets are much more resistant, however, radiation, excessive heat, serious EM pulses, extreme magnetic field pressure as in this case, will degrade magnets. The degree of symmetry is relevant, as highly asymmetrical designs are much less resistant to magnetic field pressure such as in the case of Halbach arrays. I have constructed several Halbach arrays from N35 Neo magnets purchased from K&J magnetics 10 years ago that have lost approx 50% of their force compared to when newly built. Magnet manufacturers can produce a custom run of a high, extremely high, or even ultra high Hci magnets for a price. In past times this was done by increasing expensive dysprosium content, but now there are multiple ways, and I would suggest the Japanese lead in these efforts. I believe Ames Labs patented a form of nitrogen doped carbon which has an Hci that is rather astounding, but to date it is not a stable product.</comment>


Gamblers bet on marbles and trotting as pandemic hits sport - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/71aa11ad-cf3e-47b3-8cfe-9233c436ea32 <comment><AUTHOR> De-paywalled: [https://archive.is/9Ln7q](https://archive.is/9Ln7q)</comment>


Ask HN: How to fight a suspicious web-site? - <AUTHOR> I registered at dateplanet.nl which seems to be a typical dating web-site and purchased the membership and additional features. I have noticed that a lot of "persons" who send me messages seems like bots. They basically asked me to send a photo and this action is not free, one has to pay for it. Finally I started to ask "persons" in the chat if they are robots. Suddenly my account has been blocked with a reason "Negative publish texts on the dating website.". The support does not respond my emails. It seems to be pure fraud. I was wondering if there is a way to get my money back at least..I recently paid 50 euros to be able to send pictures and the blocked shortly after that. <comment><USER2> This is a business model that goes way back.

[http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2002-11-29/news/02112900...](http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2002-11-29/news/0211290076_1_beautiful- women-membership-fee-bogus)

</comment><comment><USER3> There are basically two things you can do:

Look up their registrant info on WHOIS, or look up their host by IP address, refer to the hosting provider's terms of service and email their abuse@ department if there's been a violation.</comment>


Earbits (YC W11) Brings A Twist: Online Radio Where Bands Can Pay For Playtime - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/09/yc-funded-earbits-brings-a-twist-to-music-startups-online-radio-where-bands-can-pay-for-playtime/

<comment><USER2> How is that an advantage for listeners? Payola was made illegal for a good reason. Pay to play live venues are treated with derision by music fans. I really don't see why any music fan would choose this over a model where music is chosen based on merit alone.

<comment><USER3> Hey 9999...I understand your skepticism. The advantage for listeners is no commercials or fees, and flexibility and features that are prohibited when you rely on statutory licenses. We haven't seen that current outlets rely on merit alone, and we're tired of seeing bands waste money on fliers just hoping someone goes home and listens to them online. I think you'll see that the artists on our platform are incredibly talented and high quality, and when you get your first free album by hitting one of our site's triggers, you'll see how working direct with artists benefits listeners.

<comment><USER4> Ironically one of the few services I happily pay for is Pandora in order to listen ad free. I don't really find the earbits model any better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Users, he explains, will be exposed to high quality music they haven't heard yet, and bands obviously get the exposure they're fighting so hard to find._

But the richest bands don't guarantee high quality music. In fact, as mainstream music suggests, often it's the contrary. Similar situation with low budget vs. high budget movies.

<comment><USER3> Hey Sev,

Our algorithm, much like Adwords, will be a combination of ratings, relevancy to a particular user, and only after those things help determine a fit would their bid affect anything. Also, a band who spends more may be introduced to more people, but will not necessarily saturate the experience for a single user, as is the case in regular radio. Also, we don't sell pipe dreams to artists with low quality material. Everybody has to be approved, and I think you'll find that even if you don't love everything you hear on Earbits, it is all high quality, professional-grade music.

<comment><USER5> That sounds good. It's just that it's easy to get carried away with an algorithm you own which produces money by "selling out" and doing what your highest bidders want you to do in this kind of business. As long as it's monitored and done in such a way to make money and be appealing to non- mainstream as well as mainstream styles, this will be very useful.

<comment><USER3> Yeah...we're forcing ourselves to focus on quality by not charging the band until someone has listened to 30 seconds. If we get a lot of skips, we lose money, so we're forced to focus on the right matches and high quality music. We want to do this right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there any permissions/information you guys don't request on Facebook Connect? The long list scared me off.

<comment><USER7> I understand the hesitation, we try to avoid asking for anything that we don't need to make the user experience better. We don't post anything without you explicitly performing a "share to facebook" action, so you can rest easy on that front. And we ask for your profile info so that we can see what bands you already like.

<comment><USER6> That's good to know. I still wish Facebook offered a feature where you could explain why you need a permission, or better yet, let you pick which ones you agree to instead of all or nothing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As an old guitar player I really have a gut aversion to this whole idea.

I find trying to wring cash out of, what are likely, struggling indie artists sucks.

As a consumer I _do not want_ crappy music by the bands that paid the most in my stream.

<comment><USER3> Hey Mike, I hear you...my partner and I spent thousands of dollars trying "traditional" music marketing tactics - fliers, ads in the LA Weekly, and all of the normal social media that bands use now. What I am sure you know is that nothing sells an artist more than hearing their music and deciding for yourself if you like it. If a good artists gets into rotation enough on radio, they will build a fan base. We can play a band to a targeted user for $0.01 and that's plenty for what we need to operate. That's 1/15th the cost of a flier. We're so committed to treating artists right that, if that user skips you in the first 30 seconds, you're not charged.

And in terms of the quality, we also don't sell pipe dreams to bands who will not benefit. We focus just as much on listeners as bands. Fire up a channel. You may not like everything you hear, but there is no "crappy music" on Earbits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Isn't this exactly what we already have with Clear Channel?

<comment><USER9> Nah. Clear Channel has a very complex legal system to maneuver so they don't look like they're accepting Payola. Earbits simplifies the payola scheme quite a bit.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. With personalized streams for every listener, bands with a $10 budget can have the same (albeit scaled down) opportunity as someone with $1000. With terrestrial markets there's no way to start small. Additionally, anyone with a split focus on advertisers and an attempt at this model are not going to compete with someone who has 100% focus on treating artists like clients.

<comment><USER10> You realize that's not a compliment, right? Payola was terrible for music and terrible for musicians. On behalf of myself and all the other musicians I promote: You're hurting music.

<comment><USER11> It is not true. Distribution and promotion is broken at the moment. By helping find the right audience and right sound $10 at a time, you don't have to be 50cent to evolve your music in the street.

If you are promoting music, is there any reason why you wouldn't use earbits to test new audiences?

<comment><USER10> Because pay-for-play is the very worst of the music industry and I won't support it in any form.

<comment><USER11> On one hand, pay-for-play is repulsive because it allows deep pocketed promoters to promote bands ahead of others. Is this why it is repugnant?

Playing the devil's advocate here:

From a business sense, pay-for-play is like advertising, isn't it? It is a way of building an audience.

In the end, there are audiences that radio stations have built up, and pay- for-play may be cheaper than plastering the streets with posters, or paying promoters, or touring, which is just as expensive.

One equivalent in the search engine world is SEO vs PPC listings. Each has its cost. If you didn't know the people looking for a particular genre of music, but somebody did, and they did it as a business - i.e. quit their jobs, put in risk capital, why wouldn't you pay them for the information?

<comment><USER3> Thanks. As someone who managed $48M in performance marketing, I was destroyed to see what musicians go through when I started promoting my album. I used to drop $2 CD's off at head shops because I thought stoners would like our music. People can complain about this all they want, but we believe this will be the PPC of music, and if I can play someone's music to 200 people for the same $2 that we spent giving it to one person, I will sleep very well at night.

<comment><USER11> Congratulations. It is an unintuitive solution to a persistent problem. Is it serendipity that you were doing PPC and making music at the same time? Most broke artists wouldn't have thought about spending money this way to get exposure, but this can really solve a very fundamental problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Only _one_ category for singer-songwriter? and only three (two of which are quite similar) for electronic? How does the genre-list expand? How big (and who!) is your editorial staff? Also, are online sales through Amazon only?

I'm not complaining as a listener, because my listening needs are already very well met. But as a musician and somebody who would really like to recommend Earbits to other musicians, this information is very important to me.

<comment><USER3> Hey grncdr! As you can imagine, when you are building a catalog from scratch and working with every label and artist directly, you can't just fast forward to a massive selection. We wish we could! Almost every artist has been directly recruited, and every album is classified by our team. You can read all about them on <http://www.earbits.com/play/#/about_us>

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This has THE best sharing flow of any site I have ever seen. If you actually like making money _check their site out_. I'm absolutely rolling it out across our products in the next whack of updates.

Bar at the bottom showing friends' faces, filter to find someone in particular, requiring like to share, posting to wall instead of Newsfeed- perfection.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Note: You are liking the band when you do that, not us. Bands are going to LOVE us. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Congrats guys. I have been very impressed with the quality of the music. Going in I figured the music was going to be crap but you do a great job of filtering. Goes to show how much good music is out there that doesn't get played through the typical channels.

<comment><USER3> Thanks! You will definitely hear music you know, though. I think you'll be surprised who is trusting us to deliver them value.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't know that I honestly would have given much weight to this idea if I'd heard it pitched to me, but as they've already got 1300 artists across 90 labels, I'd say it's obvious that I'd have been in the wrong.

I don't know if they'll ever get the bigger labels, and for my money, I hope they don't. I mean, I'd love to see that nut get cracked, because honestly, something like this COULD (I don't think it will) be the end of the RIAA. But if that happens, then I'll be just as sad as I was when eMusic turned coat and started bringing in bigger fish.

<comment><AUTHOR> They've got 1300 artists... but so far no one is paying. So that part of the model remains to be seen.

If they can build a huge audience, I'm sure some artists will pay... will certainly be interesting to see how it all plays out (and if any major bands get discovered through Earbits)!

<comment><USER16> I'm just kind of unclear as to how they'll build a huge audience, given that any pay-for-play scheme, as a rule, is not going to be playing the music that I most want to hear.

I guess I'm wondering, where's the filter? What will make the music that I hear at this site better, on average, than the music at any other site?

Because it sure as hell isn't the fact that artists will be able to pay for exposure. IMO there's just no way around it, pay-for-play is a listener- hostile dynamic, there's absolutely no way it could improve the quality of what I listen to.

Actually, maybe that's a lie, there's one tiny way it can help: if pay-for- play is limited only to the acts that have not had enough exposure for the "market" to figure out whether they're any good, then it can improve what I hear by letting the artists pay to make sure that they've actually been listened to by enough people to be fairly judged. The real problem with payola schemes is when artists that have already had plenty of exposure can use money to make sure that they have more exposure than even the organically successful acts - this is something that Earbits needs to make sure it avoids, and if it is successful, this will mean some tough decisions, because they'll have to start turning down money that their biggest customers want to give them ("What's that, Mr. Combs? You want to buy up 90% of our play time for the next two months and fill it with your label's shitty music, and you'll pay us six times what we made last year? No thanks, that would be _unfair_.").

In any case, I think more needs to be done to figure out a compelling pitch to users. The payola side of it is not the right thing to emphasize - it's going to offend musicians, and it's not going to attract users.

<comment><USER3> Hey Bermanoid... We understand all of these dynamics and we know that we have to prove we're not going to go down that route. What you're describing would be very short-sighted of us. Look at it this way, what we're proposing is very much like Google Adwords. You wouldn't put an irrelevant product next to a keyword for the money because nobody will click on it. To enforce the right incentives on us, we're making 30 seconds the "click" for our artists. If someone skips your music within the first 30 seconds, you don't pay, and we lose money. Further, if we do what you're describing, we kill our audience. We're in this for the long haul. We understand there will be skepticism. We look forward to proving ourselves and I think if you check out our credentials, you'll see that this isn't our first rodeo.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow, I would invest in this. It is an excellent idea, and it will further disrupt the existing music industry for the better.

<comment><USER2> One of the few good things about the existing music business is that you technically can't just buy your way onto the airwaves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Am I just blind or is there no volume control?

<comment><USER3> What kind of computer do you have? It's either on the front or the side.

But seriously, I told the team we needed one and they were like, we have more important things to worry about. Haha! We're on it asap! Thanks for the ammo!

<comment><USER18> Ha! Thanks. Always prefer to do it in software if I can. I guess my computer has a hardware control, somewhere, but I never use it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I am on a 1024x768 laptop and apart from the horizontal scrollbar being a little annoying, I can only see "Ch" something link in the top-right of the screen.

Its your choice as to what screen sizes you support, but it seems possible to accommodate dinosaurs like me with little extra effort.

Nice site otherwise, listening now.

<comment><USER20> The design is headed in a good direction but there are definitely quite a few little things like this that could be improved. The top bar can still be fixed position at the top without requiring an enormous minimum width. Similarly, the idea of showing only the portion of the image that will fit on the visible page is good, but the calculations are a bit off I think so it ends up looking a bit like a mistake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I just sent my friends in Stellarondo over there. If you're into great indie folk music you should check them out: <http://stellarondo.bandcamp.com/>

<comment><USER15> Your friends in Stellarondo remind me of Albert Castiglia, and I can't think of many things more complimentary than that.

Thanks for the link.

Edit: Still, thanks for the link, but I'd apparently had another tab behind that one that I was actually listening to when I turned my sound on.

They sound absolutely nothing like Albert Castiglia, however, I'm still really enjoying it, just in a completely different way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'v been in many original bands and I can tell you as a fellow musician and band leader that this will not work. If your business model is based on the bands paying you...good luck. We're broke from day 1!

<comment><USER3> I hear where you're coming from but bands spend money on fliers that cost $0.15 a piece, just hoping you'll go home and listen to their music online. We know, because we have done all of that stuff for our own band.

For $0.15, we can play you for 15 people who love your genre of music and put links to your show's box office right there on the homepage. That means for $15, we can play you for 1,500. You won't find better value anywhere, and if you can't sell one $15 concert ticket with the links to the box office right there, God help us all!

<comment><USER21> I see what your trying to do but I just don't think it will work. Your tapping the wrong stone. There's always going to be more fans then bands. You should be finding a way to bring new music to your fans and bringing new fans to your bands. Figure that out and you will have something no one else has. That has value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> No title tag at <http://earbits.com/> ?

Looks great though and I listened to a fair few songs. Quality is pretty decent for a random music feed.

</comment><comment><USER23> Seems like you all have quite a few employees! I was under the assumption that YC accepted groups of 2 - 4 founders...

<comment><USER3> It's easy to build an awesome team when you have a vision people can get behind. Look at our advisors...they are some serious heavy hitters. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Congrats! Wish there was an alternate to FB connect to save songs...

<comment><USER3> There will be soon. Thanks for the feedback.</comment></comment>


Hillary Clinton says she wants to be the CEO of Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnet.com/news/hillary-clinton-says-she-wants-to-be-the-ceo-of-facebook/ <comment><USER2> She gonna run the company from a nursing home?

<comment><USER3> No, she will get passed over by the board in favor of someone else, probably by a narrow margin.</comment></comment>


No More Fame for Mass Murder - <AUTHOR> http://www.nomorefameformassmurder.com/ <comment><USER2> Yeah, because people who go on mass murders are looking for fame and power.

Yeah. It's not that they're mentally ill, need help, or are lashing back out on their community for the pain they've incurred from it. It's because they're looking for fame.

What a joke.

<comment><USER3> Not that much a joke actually.

According to University of Alabama criminologist Adam Lankford[1] the causes include fame:

        factors include a chronic and widespread gap between
        Americans' expectations for themselves and their actual
        achievement, Americans' adulation of fame, and the
        extent of gun ownership in the United States.

[1] [http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn- united-s...](http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-united- states-mass-shooting-20150824-story.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A mass shooting occurred today by an unknown person. Don't worry, authorities are rounding up people with similar profiles for extra surveillance/interrogation.

</comment><comment><USER5> > Petition the United States Congress to enact a law prohibiting the > publication or revelation of either name or identity of mass murderers.

I agree with the principle of not encouraging fame-seekers to mass-murder, by making making such murders a sure path to fame, but this is a blatant violation of the First Amendment and the principle of free speech.

We need to figure out how to instill a sense of decency in the mass media.

</comment><comment><USER6> I notice there's no actually penalty being advocated for the words they'd be banning.

</comment><comment><USER7> While a noble idea, this seems quite incompatible with the first amendment.</comment>


Google Effect - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_effect

<comment><USER2> Socrates said the same about the invention of writing:

"And now, since you are the father of writing, your affection for it has made you describe its effects as the opposite of what they really are. In fact, it will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own."

[http://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-1-literacies...](http://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-1-literacies- on-a-human-scale/socrates-on-the-forgetfulness-that-comes-with-writing/)

<comment><USER3> Nice find, and good reminder about the static nature of written words. Socrates would have been fascinated with online forums and Wikipedia where words are constantly updated, fought over, defended and attacked by anyone with a soul!

<comment><USER4> > by anyone with a soul

And a lot of people without souls, such as myself.

<comment><USER4> Why in the world was this downvoted?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What were reference books for then? Sneaky cheats of some sort?

For some things relying on memory is not the best way. To exaggerate the point, pilots have procedures written down to follow, a check list. They deliberately do not rely on memory. When I was doing things like upgrading server OSs I always looked for the latest check-list and procedures. I could usually remember the steps, but I didn't want to rely on that in case something crucial had changed or something new added.

Another thing that springs to mind is that courts don't accept memory as perfect or reliable.

Personally I do everything possible not to rely on memory, as I consider my self to have a poor memory, and google helps massively with that. And yes, I considered my memory poor way before google existed.

</comment><comment><USER6> The one true strength of humans over all other species is we adapt like no species before. This is simply another adaptation, and if we suddenly lose the internet, we'll adapt again. I don't fear the consequences, because we'll either have the internet "forever", or we won't, and whatever causes it to go away will be a far bigger problem than our ability to remember quotes.

<comment><USER7> _"if we suddenly lose the internet, we'll adapt again"_

If we suddenly lose the internet, say by a solar or asteroid thing, we have bigger problems to worry about...although tips of making shelter and fire could come in handy ;).

But I almost agree with you, I am afraid that this dependence on Search Engines will translate into less research and eventual advancement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The classic way of learning has evolved with history. Before having books, everything was memorized with a few exceptions. The Google era is just another step in this evolution. Why would we waste time memorizing stuff if we can just look it up? Might be argued that Googling takes time. Of course it does, but there will come the next era where our thought could prompt a query and get an answer without physically doing it. That will be the next step in human learning.

Sounds like sci-fi? So did the idea of having all the information available on the tip of your hands 30 years ago.

<comment><USER9> The problem I've found is I've become so used to no "waste time memorizing stuff" I've forgotten how to memorize things.

Which is a problem when I need to learn things that can't just be looked up online when you need them, like a new language. When I try to learn new vocabulary or something my brain just refuses to leave its default lazy "aww, just look it up on Google" mode. It's annoying.

<comment><USER10> I agree with you, it is quite annoying. I found an interesting quote from a PG's essay "Great Hackers" [1]: "Several friends mentioned hackers' ability to concentrate-- their ability, as one put it, to "tune out everything outside their own heads.'' I've certainly noticed this. And I've heard several hackers say that after drinking even half a beer they can't program at all. So maybe hacking does require some special ability to focus. Perhaps great hackers can load a large amount of context into their head, so that when they look at a line of code, they see not just that line but the whole program around it. John McPhee wrote that Bill Bradley's success as a basketball player was due partly to his extraordinary peripheral vision. "Perfect'' eyesight means about 47 degrees of vertical peripheral vision. Bill Bradley had 70; he could see the basket when he was looking at the floor. Maybe great hackers have some similar inborn ability. (I cheat by using a very dense language, which shrinks the court.)"

[1] [<http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html>]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Wikipedia editing-needed tag on this article: "This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. The specific problem is: poorly written. Please help improve this article if you can."

No kidding. The sources are not good-quality sources by Wikipedia standards

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:RS>

for the kind of assertions found in the article. This needs a lot more work in reading reliable secondary sources to be worth discussing here. In general, Wikipedia articles as articles to be submitted for discussion in Hacker News are usually not a good first choice of a submission source--I write this as a Wikipedian.

AFTER EDIT: From another top-level comment in this thread, I see the "quotation"

 _"Never memorize what you can look up in books." -- Albert Einstein_

Are you sure that Albert Einstein really said that? The memory of his life is plagued by falsely attributed "quotations" of sayings Einstein never said. The particular "quotation" you mention is listed as unverified on Wikiquote.

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

</comment><comment><USER12> "Never memorize what you can look up in books." -- Albert Einstein

<comment><USER13> Never memorize anything you can derive.

<comment><USER14> Yes. Memorizing answers when learning the method is possible. Takes longer, but you tend not to forget. The reams of notes I used to watch people take to avoid learning the method and equation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hang on - isn't it widely accepted that spatial information represents our greatest mental bandwidth, both in terms of input and in terms of memory? The ancient Greek orators' "memory palaces" (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci>) provide one early recognition of this mental faculty.

With the preponderance of meatspace-spatial terms used for electronic services ("room", "space", "site", "zone", "stream", "page", "locker", "file", etc.) doesn't it follow that spatial reasoning will begin to function on nonspatial environs, based upon mental conceptions?

On an interesting and related tangent I recently saw a presentation in Jarkta, Indonesia by an Arizona-based academic who analyzed the twitter words used around recent conflicts and determined a heavy spatial semantic bent:

The argument IIRC was that the general population of twitter are responding to oppression against high-level cognitive concepts such as human rights with spatially reasoned dialogue: '"The Cloud and the Ground: Political Activism in the Digital Media Age"' @ International Conference on Communication, University of Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia, 6-7 December 2012. <http://merlyna.org/appearances/>

Unfortunately it's not available online. Oh, the irony!

PS. After the conference I hassled the keynote speakers about the lack of a program incorporating Wikileaks and government surveillance. Furthermore, Participants needed to register with the university in order to access censored internet. Later, Creative Commons Indonesia threw a party within the US-run '@America' facility (designed to manipulate the perception of America by Indonesian muslim youth - source: NYT), a disgusting venue given that they are currently pushing TPP. I did complain to Creative Commons' ethics board.

</comment><comment><USER16> I am not sure why they call it Google effect, when it can be called generically "library" effect. It's the adaptation of our brain to store externally certain data, generally speaking.

What it means: our brains should be used to process and derive from raw data and not hold the raw data, as well as the pointers to the certain not important ( read: life esentials) processes or data.

Once you learn how to find ( in a library, or google, or whatever ), you can offload your brain with remembering stuff that you know how to reach it in a matter of seconds ( or any other useful time unit ).

On the other hand, own survival insticts will help us learn and remember without any books what to do in certain dangerous or life-threatening situations. This doesn't exclude that you may die from stupidity :).

This is nothing new, and the purposless of learning a poem while in school seems to me now even greater. At the oposite, stays my techical university where all the exams were open to documentation on table, and encouraged to use them while in exams. I guess, for me, searching in google is a natural extension to this.

</comment><comment><USER17> See also: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Extended_Mind>

</comment><comment><USER18> vannevar-bush's idea of memex (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush#Memex_concept>) is _very_ notably missing from discussion here as well as the referenced article.

</comment><comment><USER19> This reminds me of the difference between pointers and actual values - it is more efficient for you to memorize where the detailed and possibly complex information can be found. Memorizing all the long-winded data just doesn't give you that much advantage anymore in this era of information explosion. I think it is fairly natural that most people accept this trade-off. This is comparable with the invention of cars vs. walking. Cars might increased the rate of obessity but we certainly did not forget how to walk. It is very interesting to see how human adapt to these big changes without the biological evolution rate anywhere near the rate of change in technologies.

<comment><USER20> It's probably because the successful technologies are adapted to humans, as opposed to the other way round.

They are also built on top of technology that we are already familiar with. For example, QWERTY keyboards because typewriters used QWERTY.

A technology that humans can't understand, perhaps because it's not yet time, will struggle to gain any real traction outside a select few.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Same thing is happening with the GPS... we are loosing our sense of orientation...

</comment><comment><USER22> Similar to losing a friend? How about similar to losing a portion of my brain?

<comment><USER14> Better! Although its a corner of one's brain that harbours some pretty nasty stuff that can spring to the fore at the slip of a key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I buy into this -- I very rarely remember a fact or tidbit of information that I quickly search for, especially when compared to what I remember when I read an article or news story and pick up a factoid from that.

Am I better or worse off from it? I'd almost assuredly argue better off, as quick access to virtually any information is one of the biggest highlights of our time.

</comment><comment><USER24> Slightly irrelevant, but how valid would it be to be asked the SVN commands in an interview? Should I go an memorize the SVN manual just to succeed in interviews, although I use a graphical tool?

<comment><USER25> It depends, are you trying to get a job contributing to SVN? I would say no.

Bringing it back on topic, I was just thinking the other day how I've been using git for the last two years straight, and still have to google Every.Single.Time when I have to do a command I don't often do, like unstaging a deleted file. And it's usually the same link to a StackOverflow post that my eye instantly zooms to because it's purple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is particularly true for all thing programming-related.

</comment><comment><USER27> I have this tendency with the spelling of the java class names because of expansion of the the camel case abbreviation by eclipse.

</comment><comment><USER28> Don't you just hate it when you notice something, talk about it amongst your peers and go on talking it then ten years later someone gives it a name after doing a study which wasn't really needed because its so visible.

I was interviewing people with a view that they didn't just rely on Google, but if they did need to use the google effect they could find answers very quickly. if the Internet wasn't available they could use whatever other resources to find the answer.

<comment><USER29> I don't know that I "hate" it, quite the contrary, seems like an affirmation that I was onto something quicker than other people which is probably a good thing. I must admit I was pretty shocked that the year in the linked article was 2011.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Using IDE in programming makes you forget the class methods and type of arguments. Is that the same thing?

</comment><comment><USER31> Scumbag Google: Gives you access to infinite information, ruins your memory for accessing information.

</comment><comment><USER32> I saw the title, but I had to look it up.

</comment><comment><USER33> Nicholas Carr wrote a book on this, right?

<comment><USER23> The irony of quickly searching for this made me chuckle:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is- googl...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google- making-us-stupid/306868/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> So what happens when I forget what the Google Effect is and I have to Google for it?

</comment><comment><USER35> i have this problem ;)

</comment><comment><USER36> This happens to me and I think is related to learning habits for general subjects. I remember my association to information more than the information itself. It's why I'm bad at learning history (despite finding it fascinating) unless it's an issue that I can link to myself and relate to personally and build a connection. Similarly, on a weekly basis I Google for `site:news.ycombinator.com drivebyacct2 <some keyword I know I used>` to get back to a post or discussion that I want to reference.

I feel kind of bad about this as I introspect, I'm sure this reliance on third parties has a detrimental effect on my ability to remember information that I could compose to build new knowledge or apply to new situations.

<comment><USER29> You shouldn't feel bad, it is us optimizing, we're making use of our limited mental faculties to focus on what we're good at - complex/creative/rational thinking, offloading the data to whatever is convenient.

I'm so rarely optimistic about things, I feel my initial optimism in this regard means I must be right... apparently I'm being optimistic about that too! ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> True but we're remembering (and using our brain for) more important things. Like....ummm...uhhhh....

How about the spellcheckers? Can we even spell correctly after all these years without them?</comment>


Schismtracker: an oldschool sample-based music composition tool - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/schismtracker/schismtracker <comment><USER2> Could you please add screenshots? I myself was a huge fan of FastTracker and Impulse Tracker back in the 90s, but I don't think people are going to download this tool just out of curiosity without seeing pretty pictures of the music app in advance.

PS I apologize if there were screenshots, but I just failed to find them.</comment>


Say hello to Google Home - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/04/say-hello-to-google-home/ <comment><AUTHOR> As a huge Alexa fan, the big differentiator for me is the Chromecast integration. The ability to walk into my apartment and say "Play the latest Colbert" while I do a couple chores is a holy grail for me.

Alexa accomplishes this scenario well for audio (music/news/audio books) but not video.</comment>


HTML5mash: Twitter Bootstrap + HTML5 Boilerplate + Awesome - ely-s https://github.com/Ely-S/html5mash

<comment><AUTHOR> What I don't understand is that sources are zipped on github? Goes against the very nature of git (or any versioning system for that matter).</comment>


Is Apple Now Blocking Contributions To GCC? - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=ODU4Nw

<comment><USER2> Apple isn't blocking contributions, they just don't care about them anymore since they're going with LLVM/Clang. And since they don't care they don't have the legal framework in place anymore to do copyright assignments.

The FSF could have these changes if they wanted if they didn't require copyright assignment.

Personally I don't contribute to FSF projects because copyright assignments are a PITA. I can see how a company that doesn't _need_ to contribute to GCC anymore just doesn't care enough to initiate the requisite legal work.

<comment><USER3> What part of the copyright assignment process do you find bothersome?

<comment><USER4> Compare a normal workflow, like submitting a bug to Git:

* Commit your bugfix

* 'git send-email --email@example.com -1'

With the GNU model:

* Commit your bugfix / make a patch

* Send your patch to the maintainer of the project

* The maintainer has to look in a central file if you already assigned copyright to the FSF

* If not, they send you an email 'would you be willing to do this'

* You reply, "sure, send me the form"

* They send you this: [https://gforge.inria.fr/scm/viewvc.php/misc/www/request-disc...](https://gforge.inria.fr/scm/viewvc.php/misc/www/request-disclaim.changes?view=markup&root=mpfr)

* You fill in the form, and thus hand over your snail mail address to the maintainer and the FSF

* They send you another form (snail mail!)

* You fill it in and send it back (snail mail!)

* They receive your form and add it to the list

* Your bugfix is now allowed to go into the GNU repository

<comment> loup-vaillant Yes, but, after the first shot:

* Commit your bugfix / make a patch

* Send your patch to the maintainer of the project

* The maintainer has to look in a central file if you already assigned copyright to the FSF. Since you did, you don't have to do anything.

I'm confused though: Apple already have assigned copyright. Yet, they say they will stop doing it, as if it wasn't automatic, even when done once. Either they assign copyright in an unusual way, or they actively _stopped_ it. Somebody knows which it could be?

<comment><USER5> Just because Apple has a copyright assignment on file (i.e. saying that they are able to assign copyright to the FSF) does not mean that every piece of code Apple writes--even if it's connected to GCC--is assigned to the FSF.

So Apple can write GCC patches, Apple can release GCC patches, but it does not follow that those patches are assigned. I guess that means they've actively stopped.

<comment><USER6> Sort of the relationship of Android with the Linux kernel, for me this is the same as publishing a GPLed patch to OpenSSH or something like that, this is immense disrespect towards the developer community of a project, which does have its culture.

FSF has done this as well by changing the license of their software from GPL2/LGPL2 to GPL3/LGPL3 and turning the GameSWF (released under public domain) into the GPLed Gnash.

<comment> loup-vaillant Are you saying that forks are rude? But they're the _point_ of both Free Software and Open Source!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The headline is misleading. Chris Lattner's post actually just points out that FSF's own copyright-assignment policy may be a blocker:

 _"...In practice, since the FSF cares about copyright assignment, this probably means that..."_

<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html>

<comment><USER8> direct links to thread: <http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2010-09/msg00109.html>

"Apple does not have an internal process to assign code to the FSF anymore. I would focus on the code that is already assigned to the FSF." <http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2010-09/msg00132.html>

<comment><USER7> So let's say a man asks for some food, and Apple says "well, we've got some beef jerky here, but I know you're a strict vegan so you'd probably be more interested in the tofu we set aside for you yesterday", and the headline is "Apple blocks starving man from food".

<comment><USER9> Er, no. Apple built off the existing code base. This isn't charity, they chose to use free software in the first place.

And actually, when they made that choice, it was Apple that was starving. But I'll let someone else draw up the parable. ;-)

<comment><USER7> Actually actually, it was NeXT who made that choice.

And the license itself does not require copyright assignment. Rather, the FSF does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Although the underlying story is interesting, I'm not going to vote up this particular article due to the horribly misleading title.

<comment><USER11> I am under the impression that phoronix usually does poor "journalism". I still need to understand why file systems get tested using compression and compilation benchmarks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Phoronix. The tabloid of free software geek news website. Their best known speciality: sensationalist articles based on ridiculous benchmarks.

</comment><comment><USER13> Seems to me that the original article writer is flamebaiting and being deliberately inflammatory with his assumptions. I'd say the main issue here is that Apple does not agree with the GPL license family (which we all know since long; they've voiced this before), and that they don't really care for GCC anymore now that they have set aim for Clang-LLVM.

<comment><USER6> I think your opinion is too strong, OS X still ships with many GPL licensed software, bash, smbclient, nmblookup and I'm pretty sure that OS X server includes the GPL3 licensed Samba, OS X still comes with gcc, and I believe it will for the next two releases at least. CUPS, the printer daemon that Apple bought some years ago is still a GPLed software and it appears that Apple has done nothing to change that.

Things can change and Apple is a great contributor to LLVM, but Apple appear to have no trouble with the GPL, only trouble with gcc, but that is easy to understand.

<comment><USER14> The current issue with Apple and GPL stems from the App Store. FSF says you can't limit distribution of the code, which is reasonable since they own the license to the code. Apple says we want to limit the distribution of the app, which is reasonable since they own the channel.

Just like I tell my kids, if you can't get along with the neighbor, don't go play in their back yard. Sounds like Apple is taking that advice and people in the free community are offended.</comment></comment></comment>