Square now in Japan - <AUTHOR> https://squareup.com/jp

<comment><USER2> I swear I'm never going to catch up to the fact that Square no longer means the folks who created Final Fantasy.

<comment><USER3> I've always known them as Square Enix.

<comment><USER4> Square Co. merged with Enix approximately 10 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At the HN meetup in Tokyo just last week people were complaining about the lack of something like Square in Japan. I guess things will get better now.

Transforming your iPad/iPhone into a register is also pretty neat. I wonder if they'll look into putting an NFC reader in there and interface with all the IC cards here. Most people don't pay for their coffee by credit card.

<comment><USER6> Coming from somebody who has always wanted to visit Tokyo, I can only imagine what the HN meetups are like.

<comment><USER7> The HN meetups in tokyo might not be as you imagine. :-) Japan is not as startup-friendly as you might suppose based on the amount of technology that comes out of the country, but things are changing here. In the past few years we've seen a lot more interest in entrepreneurship and startups, VC's, and incubators.

We run a casual, low-pressure mixer kind of event about once a month. If you come to Japan, you can follow our blog (<http://www.makeleaps.jp/blog/en/>) or signup on Doorkeeper to get notified of events. We get lots of visitors from abroad swinging through and we're always looking to help support other startups in Japan or small businesses trying to enter the market here. It's a really good crowd of people.

There's also a meetup for HN readers in the kansai area of Japan if you're visiting there.

<comment><USER8> How's the tech meetup scene in Tokyo these days? I'm there 3-4 times a year, but in previous years, I haven't really found much to crash.

<comment><USER7> As I said, it's starting to get more interesting. Sign up for our meetup newsletter and you'll get emailed about events and/or look me up when you come though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So I take it that Japan doesn't have EMV chips in their bank cards yet? I'm curious to see how Square tackles that when they hopefully expand to Europe and Australia.

<comment><USER10> Many don't, and basic debit accounts don't offer 'standard' cards (VISA, etc...). Japan also has a culture of using cash everywhere (I have seen people handling the equivalent of 1000s $ in cash numerous times), and it will be interesting to see what square can do there. Interesting challenges, and definitely something that needs improvements in Japan.

<comment><USER11> Cash usage is mostly because people feel they are more likely to get cheated by the banks then be robbed (which is probably a pretty fair assessment of risk ;).

I remember in the past making a $6,000 bank transfers by going to the convenience store ATM taking out money and going to the bank ATM. I don't know anywhere else in the world where I would feel safe doing that.

There is also a lot of electronic money usage. Many people carry hundreds of dollars on their rail cards.

Credit cards are considered risky in Japan. My understanding is that chargebacks are not enshrined in law so its not guaranteed and whether it is or not most people presume they will have to pay if their credit card is fraudulently charged.

Convenience store payments are also popular because they are low risk and convenient.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is definitely cool, but I'm really holding out for Stripe to come to Japan. An easy API for web app monetization would make a big difference.

</comment><comment><USER13> A topic from yesterday "Apple Is Using Sass, And They're Doing It Wrong"…

Also Square? [https://divoqsdr0fzyc.cloudfront.net/assets/core-f5784136cd1...](https://divoqsdr0fzyc.cloudfront.net/assets/core-f5784136cd1228c990aba8ee86b517b8.css)

</comment><comment><USER3> It's interesting how their homepage design 'looks japanese'. The woman's shoes; squeaky clean, almost artificial skin in the hand portraits; the tiled colorful boxes; flat buttons & footer. Something reminiscent of Uniqlo.

<comment><USER14> "almost artificial skin"?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, look at those last two shots. Lots of retouching, no human hands look like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm looking forward to having them launch in the UK! Does anyone here have access to the beta?

<comment><USER16> I don't think Square can come to the UK in their current form. The card reader, although could technically work, will not be allowed by the credit card companies here. Square would need to make a small chip and pin reader for phones, similar to what PayPal have done.

Are confusing Square with Stripe? If so I am in the beta and its brilliant. You can get in the beta by emailing them.

<comment><USER17> And you can't 'just' have a small chip reader. The PIN can only be entered in hardware, so you end up with something ridiculous like this [http://www.ingenico.com/en/products/payment- terminals/mobili...](http://www.ingenico.com/en/products/payment- terminals/mobility/ismp/)

<comment><USER18> This is curious, why can it only be entered in hardware? Is it a safety precaution?

<comment><USER16> Yes, if the pin number is entered into the software running on the phone then that software can easily be changed to log people pin numbers.

<comment><USER18> True, but eventually the hardware PIN has to become a software PIN that will be transmitted. Why is it more difficult to sniff out hardware PINs?

<comment><USER19> The PIN is only transmitted to the chip embedded in the card. If the PIN matches, the smart card chip authorizes the transaction. So the PIN is never transmitted to the card processor, just the authorization message from the card. They only allow specialized tamper-proof terminals for Chip and PIN cards as that's the only place you could sniff the PIN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Great work!</comment>


Attacking Z-Way Controlled Home Automation Devices - <AUTHOR> http://randywestergren.com/attacking-z-way-controlled-home-automation-devices/

<comment><USER2> This is a gaping security hole, thanks for sharing, OP!

I'll have to play around with this and see if I can execute a PoC against my friend who has Z-Wave everything.

I'm surprised this hasn't gotten any HN love.</comment>


The fallacy of DRY - <AUTHOR> https://www.entropywins.wtf/blog/2017/09/06/the-fallacy-of-dry/ <comment><USER2> Yes too much DRY can result in the wrong trade-offs. For example, change one line of code and, in certain cases, you may need to test all the places it's used. For UI, this can be challenging in certain cases because UI often has use case-specific quirks.

That said, I think erring on DRY is generally good. It's just that when one is a little more sophisticated, one should be more thoughtful about the trade- offs in certain cases.</comment>


Doctors Call for Overhaul of Electronic Health Records - <AUTHOR> http://www.nbcrightnow.com/story/38341827/doctors-call-for-overhaul-of-electronic-health-records <comment><USER2> Glad to see doctors want improvements to EHRs as much as patients like I do.</comment>


When should you consider a potential acquisition in tech decisions? - <AUTHOR>

In the early stages, the consensus in advice seems to be:
- Building an MVP: Use whatever is quickest.
- After you've got product market fit: Use whatever the team knows best/is best for the medium to long term.
But at what point do you start to consider potential acquisitions? Not necessarily a single company, but should you avoid using an (relatively) obscure language that would be slightly quicker in favour of a tried and trusted language that you know a lot of the big companies that may one day buy you use?
There has to be a point when this comes in to consideration, when would it be for you? <comment><AUTHOR> And how big an influence should it have?</comment>


Krita 4.1.3 Released - <AUTHOR> https://krita.org/en/item/krita-4-1-3-released/ <comment><USER2> The wonderful thing about Krita isn't it's features (although they are excellent); it's the fact it's the only graphics program with modern capabilities that someone could transition into from Microsoft Paint without needing to load up a series of YouTube tutorials.

I commend the Krita team for not merely copying Photoshop/GIMP, but actually writing a program an idiot like me can pick up and actually be productive with.

<comment><USER3> Paint.NET/Pinta and XPaint are made as enhanced Paint, so someone that wants a not-trivial graphics editor will find those perfect.

>I commend the Krita team for not merely copying Photoshop/GIMP

Krita (as well as MyPaint) is mainly a painting software whereas Photoshop/GIMP are mainly photo editors. You can do similar things in both, but they target different niches.

<comment><USER4> Photoshop STARTED OUT as a photo editor but it has grown to become a sprawling beast that has long since incorporated painting tools. Photoshop does not target any one niche any more; it can do photo editing, it can paint, it can animate, it's got some vector capabilities... there's a ton of professional artists who use Photoshop for a painterly workflow.

Do not be fooled by its name. That merely tells you where it began; it does not tell you what it is useful for after nearly thirty years of adding on one feature after another.

<comment><AUTHOR> These days, Adobe is even nicking features we did first in Krita for their application! Apparently, painting is a focus again...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> infinitely more features than Slack and uses infinitely less memory :p

<comment><USER6> Does anyone who uses Slack actually _like_ Slack, aside from people who work at Slack?

I use it at work and church and I have yet to find anyone who likes it (including myself).

<comment><USER7> At my last startup in SF, when slack was really starting to takeoff, most of the business/marketing folks who spent the bulk of their time chatting and sharing memes on slack loved it.

They simply didn't know any better, and were enamored with the new level of internal communication vs. previous jobs.

Man it was such a time sink. Between the open office floorplan and slack this was the least productive environment I'd ever seen for an engineering company, and it's largely caused me to walk away from the industry.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Slicknode – Modular GraphQL Framework and CMS - <AUTHOR> https://slicknode.com/blog/graphql-cms-application-framework/ <comment><USER2> Just a heads up: [https://slicknode.com/docs/data- modeling](https://slicknode.com/docs/data-modeling) seems to be returning a 403

[https://imgur.com/a/elSjysC](https://imgur.com/a/elSjysC)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the report! The link that linked to the non existent page is now fixed...</comment></comment>


Map of America's Racial Segregation - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/design/2013/08/how-segregated-is-your-city-this-eye-opening-map-shows-you <comment><USER3> I watched once a lecture on Coursera about Schelling's model of segregation, which I found extremely insightful.

If you see maps like that with strong segregation, one of the first attempts to explain it is "racism". However, if you divide your neighborhood in 9 blocks such that you are in the center, you have 8 neighbors.

Schelling's model now shows that even in cities where most people say:"I'd like to live next to only 35-40% of people who are similar to me (whatever that means exactly, could be ethnical background, skin color, income, ...) and I'd accept 60% of neighbors who are different from me", you would still get a segregation of 80-90% in the city.

So, the reason for strong segregation is not necessarily that people are racists. People can be very tolerant, but if you try to fulfill the minimum requirement (40% like me), you end up with strong segregation patterns just because there's no other way to fulfill the minimum requirement for most people.

Note: Numbers aren't exact, but pretty close.

Edit: Link to lecture: [https://class.coursera.org/modelthinking-003/lecture/16](https://class.coursera.org/modelthinking-003/lecture/16)

<comment><USER4> Yes, this is a "map of America's racial _distribution_ ". Calling it a "map of America's racial _segregation_ " means someone is pushing a political agenda. Calling it a map of racial integration would be just as accurate but probably didn't support the right narrative.

As a map of _distribution_ , you would expect significant clustering from randomness alone. We've all seen the "which of these dot patterns is actually the random one?" tests, where few people guess the correct answer: the one with all the clusters.

If you take that clustered map as a seed, then add _any_ affinities, you get positive feedback, increasing the clustering. Those affinities don't have to be racial selection but can just be in the general form of, "I make decisions based on what I hear, and I hear more from people I know than from people I don't know."

So, you hear from your cousin that there is a new apartment building opening across the street from him. You hear from several members of your church that X is the best school district. A factory in your town closes and the laid off employees discuss their options and decide to go check out a company in the next town that is hiring (with lots of reasonably-priced apartments nearby).

Just getting more information from people you know than people you don't know could be sufficient for Schelling's model, but add to that the tendency to get more information from people from your background (whether you actually know them or not), because it's likely to be more relevant to you, and you magnify the effect significantly. An urban liberal and his soccer-loving Mexican gardener don't have to dislike each other for the former to read more NY Times and the latter to watch more Univision, and the information about where the opportunities are as presented in those two media outlets are not the same.

This doesn't mean that there is no race-based component in deciding where to live. It just means that, as the Schelling model demonstrates, you can't tell how much there is by looking at how much clustering there is on a map.

<comment><USER5> >Yes, this is a "map of America's racial distribution". Calling it a "map of America's racial segregation" means someone is pushing a political agenda.

isn't racial segregation is a very significantly skewed racial distribution?

>This doesn't mean that there is no race-based component in deciding where to live. It just means that, as the Schelling model demonstrates, you can't tell how much there is by looking at how much clustering there is on a map.

you very well described why race may be not a direct (or a reliably traceable at all) cause of observed segregation. And i'd agree that claiming strong causation here would require more strong arguments than just a map which to me clearly shows correlation.

<comment><USER6> The English language _word_ "segregation" means something like "a multi-modal spacial distribution".

But the most common (and very well understood by anyone educated here) _use_ of that word is to describe the regime of laws in the US south designed to prevent racial interraction and preserve white priviledge.

Basically: it means something very similar to "apartheid", which is another word that probably had a neutral meaning once but now can only mean one thing.

<comment><USER5> yes, segregation-by-law doesn't exist anymore in the USA (personal preferences of police officers in LA aside), yet there is a phenomenon of poor black and hispanic kids in Oakland going to school which is predominantly attended only by other poor black and hispanic kids. Segregation-by-de-facto-conditions-of- life?

<comment><USER7> Segregation in common English, at least to my ears, implies some degree of malicious intent. We don't have _laws_ that do this anymore, but there are other possibilities such as racist real estate agents, or the 'strategic' placement of highways between neighborhoods (see Chicago, from what I understand).

Your usage is technically correct, but I think it carries an implication that is not necessarily supported.

<comment><USER8> I dunno -- there's a lot of talk of self-segregation in the last decade or two. I think that gets lumped in with general segregation in this day and age (certainly it didn't 50 years ago), and I don't think that form of segregation implies any malicious intent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here is the actual map, which you can zoom into, scroll, pan, explore your neighborhood, etc. -- [http://demographics.coopercenter.org/DotMap/index.html](http://demographics.coopercenter.org/DotMap/index.html)

EDIT: Exploring, I see the island I live on -- Manhattan -- has the four main dot colors well represented, though mainly in blocks. The main mixing is between whites and Asians and between blacks and Hispanics. Notably parts of the Upper West Side, East Village/Lower East Side, and Midtown west show significantly more mixing, at least by eye -- it would be interesting to quantify the data.

Some parts of Queens and Brooklyn show mixing of all four dot colors within the same city block.

Still, on the whole most dot colors remain in blocks with less mixing on the edges. Some dot colors rarely mix with other dot colors.

EDIT TWO: How they made the map is here -- [http://www.coopercenter.org/demographics/Racial-Dot- Map](http://www.coopercenter.org/demographics/Racial-Dot-Map) \-- which describes the data sources and links to the code on Github.

<comment><USER10> The actual map is an amazing piece of work, but let's give credit where credit is due!

Bill Rankin posted maps in this exact visual style back in 2009. You can see them (and many other amazing maps he's done) at his blog -- [http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?chicagodots](http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?chicagodots)

Eric Fischer picked up Bill's project and ran with it, composing maps for most of the major US cities with census 2010 data. You can see them all on his Flickr page -- [http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/sets/7215762481267496...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/sets/7215762481267496..).

I love great maps, but it's a little disheartening that these precursor projects aren't mentioned anywhere in the article/comments.

<comment><USER11> Thank you. I saw this article and had a feeling of "Hmm, where have I seen this before? The URL says 2013, but this is definitely old..." I think it must have Eric's flickr.

(Link somehow got truncated; it should be [http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/sets/7215762481267496...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/sets/72157624812674967/) )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is segregation really the appropriate word here? Separation of the races is coded into our genes and happens naturally without any malicious intent too. It's not much different from the fact that all of us prefer to surround ourselves with people who are similar to ourselves, usually in terms of thinking, hobbies, and interests. Physical attributes influence us as well, whether it's bikers and leather jackets or punks and black spiked clothes. In evolutionary biology this is referred to as "kinship".

Not to say that racism isn't worth fighting against, but the more free our societies become the more people on average will follow their natural instincts. A non-racial example of this is Norway, which is likely the most gender equal country in the world, but has also extremely skewed gender distributions in professions such as engineering and nursing; with almost only men in engineering, and women in nursing, despite massive attempts to balance the situation. This could be easily misinterpreted and claimed as evidence that Norway does not respect gender equality, but in fact it's more likely evidence of the opposite! People in Norway are more free to pursue what makes _them_ happy.

When we use terms like "segregation" for cases where it might actually be just "separation", we risk causing unnecessary hatred and overblown illusions of racism - misleading us from what actually matters: freedom and equality.

<comment><USER13> Can you point to sources that answer any of these questions:

* What mechanism does this racial separation take?

* What sort of evidence shows that skin color or other ethnic identifiers in genetics are the thing that causes tribal separation vs them just serving as a simple proxy to more complicated factors?

* What explanations of exigent factors are there... for example why are there black and hispanic republicans, or white members of traditionally "black gangs". How do these less common (but not rare) group membership issues override the claimed genetic selection?

* What genetic factors explain the fracturing of groups within groups of seemingly genetically similar (at least on a racial/ethinc level) people?

The claim made here doesn't actually answer any of those questions - I'm not sure the validity of "separation of races is coded in our genes" makes sense given the scenarios highlighted in my questions.

<comment><USER14> Why bother with research when everything can be explained by the natural tendencies of the blood? Research just perpetuates racism by allowing for the possibility that it may exist.

<comment><USER13> I don't understand your comment, can you expand?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Thomas Schelling [0] has shown that even if your most preferred neighborhood is a perfect mix of races, it is a dynamically unstable equilibrium (assuming that if the balance tips one way or the other, you prefer it to tip towards your own race). That is, segregated neighborhoods are not necessarily a sign that people prefer segregation -- it is also a natural outcome when people want to live in a mixed neighborhood. There are many interesting simulations of the phenomenon. [1]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Schelling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Schelling) [1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_XtboyO8jc&noredirect=1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_XtboyO8jc&noredirect=1)

<comment><USER16> Do people pick their dwelling by racial mix? I would expect this to be much more of a function of income and means.

<comment><USER17> Apparently you have never tried to "rent while black."

<comment><USER18> Can you expound upon that? What exactly happens?

<comment><USER19> Here is an article on the subject: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/business/economy/discrimin...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/12/business/economy/discrimination- in-housing-against-nonwhites-persists-quietly-us-study-finds.html?_r=0)

> In one test, a white customer looking for a two-bedroom apartment was shown > a two-bedroom and a one-bedroom and given applications for both, while a > Hispanic customer who arrived two hours later was told that nothing was > available. In another, a real estate agent refused to meet with a black > tester who was not prequalified for a loan, while a white tester was given > an appointment without being asked if she had prequalified.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I feel like you would get a similar result if you did a map of Paris or other big european cities, I'm not sure it's an american thing. I think over here we just don't like/can't compile that kind of racial data.

I would be more interested in counter-examples: cities were the melting pot is the rule.

<comment><USER21> Making race maps in Europe would get you shot, your family hanged and all your friends deemed social outcasts forever.

For example: the Swedish crime prevention board (BRÅ) no longer publish crime statistics containing ethnic background information. They stopped a few years ago (2006) when the PC media found out that africans and arabs were way, way over-represented in all crime categories.

This is due to political correctness - something that the US seems to have been spared from. So far.

<comment><USER22> You can go too far from reality with political correctness but you can go just as far in the other direction with the "lack" of political correctness.

The US has a much higher tolerance for what in Europe would be considered pretty blatant racism.

I think that Political Correctness for the most part says we should treat everyone equally whether we like them or not which is the rational approach as I'm sure there are groups that don't like me (I'm a white middle class hard- line atheist so that probably gets me on a few lists right there).

I'd sooner live in a country with "political correctness gone mad" (a frequently cry of the right wing press here) than one where it hasn't.

We have politicians here condemning the Human Rights act because it makes them guarantee the rights for everyone even people "the majority don't like" which is _exactly as it should be_ since the people "the majority don't like" can change so rapidly.

Of course in America you have been spared the political correctness gone mad but you are still executing mentally retarded people in some states so maybe you could do with the political correctness going a bit "mad".

"You can judge a society by how well it treats its prisoners". - <USER2>

<comment><USER23> Perhaps you and I have a different idea on what "Political Correctness" actually is.

My view is that many mistake Scientifically Correct from Politically Correct. It is Scientifically Correct to say that there is very little difference, genetically, between Europeans, Asians, Africans, Latin Americans, etc. It also happens to be Politically Correct. However, it is also Scientifically Correct to say that there are huge disparities in victim reported violent crime rates between Europeans, Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans. However, this is not Politically Correct. This is an example of where a problem is identified, but unable to be discussed in the public sphere. If a problem can't be discussed, it can't be solved.

An African-American male is over 7 times more likely to murder a person than a Hispanic or European-American male. He is also over 6 times more likely to be the victim of a murder. This is elementary statistics based on data collected by the FBI. If this problem (which in my opinion is cultural rather than this phony construct called "racial") can't be discussed in an honest fashion due to political organizations which will threaten politicians with boycotts/villification/etc due to their refusal to acknowledge inconvenient truths, then the problem will simply continue. Not talking about it makes the problem become uglier, because non-Black Americans in general have internalized the fact that poor Black neighborhoods are vastly more violent and dangerous. Any realtor can tell you this. They deal with people's ACTUAL prejudices every day, rather than the Politically Correct, aspirational notions of the desire to live in a diverse neighborhood.

I say this as a white guy who grew up in various poor parts of the south, and spent large parts of my childhood with mostly black friends in mostly black neighborhoods. Political Correctness prevents us from collectively helping the predominantly black victims of a large sub-culture of black America that celebrates crime, dehumanizes women and gays, views educational/career achievement as betrayal of black identity, and tolerate men who willingly abandon their families.

America will not succeed as a nation unless black Americans succeed, and political correctness throws them to the wolves by pretending a problem they are victimized by doesn't exist.

<comment><USER24> * This is elementary statistics based on data collected by the FBI. If this problem [..] can't be discussed in an honest fashion due to political organizations which will threaten politicians with boycotts/villification/etc due to their refusal to acknowledge inconvenient truths, then the problem will simply continue.*

These statistics _are_ discussed in an honest fashion, from Saturday mornings in the barber shop to academic works. The problem isn't _discussion_ , the problem is that too many folks don't realize "blacks are overrepresented in crime" is not the same as "most blacks commit crimes" and use those statistics to justify policies like "stop and frisk" and "it's okay to follow a black kid a night because he's wearing a hoodie."

 _Political Correctness prevents us from collectively helping the predominantly black victims of a large sub-culture of black America that celebrates crime, dehumanizes women and gays, views educational /career achievement as betrayal of black identity, and tolerate men who willingly abandon their families._

This sentence would be equally true without the word "black." Political correctness indeed.

<comment><USER23> "This sentence would be equally true without the word "black." Political correctness indeed."

Sorry, but the phenomenon of being accused of betraying your cultural identity by peers if you succeed in school and get a job is mainly a phenomenon found in a sub-culture of black America. Anyone who has been immersed in an African- American community for any length of time can tell you this. The typical insult among school-children is "acting white" or "Oreo" and it is widespread enough to warrant heavy discussion within the mainstream black community. My best friend growing up was harassed and bullied constantly in this way. It was a particularly vicious kind of bullying that I've never seen Asian, Hispanic or white children ever have to deal with.

<comment><USER24> _is mainly a phenomenon found in a sub-culture of black America._

You only have to watch prime-time television to know that phenomenon is common amongst many demographics.

 _Anyone who has been immersed in an African-American community for any length of time can tell you this._

I'm black. I went to an upper-class mostly-white private school, and there was some pressure to "fail" but it came from both whites and blacks. One the other hand, my peers who went to the local inner city high schools found extremely supportive environments, so much so that I really regret that my parents sent me to the private school.

 _The typical insult among school-children is "acting white" or "Oreo"_

It might be "typical" yet I never heard anyone say it out loud IRL. However terms like "nerd," "geek," "dweeb" etc were common occurrences IME. And it wasn't coming from black kids.

 _it is widespread enough to warrant heavy discussion within the mainstream black community._

Heavy discussion is not academic rigor. It's been studied by a lot of people (not just Ogbu) and as might be expected, the results are complicated. Quoting from an older post of mine:

Tyson et al found that reduced academic achievement was generally for a variety of reasons ("fear of not doing well academically" being the biggest) and not "acting white": [http://www.tc.columbia.edu/students/see/events/Darity_et_al_...](http://www.tc.columbia.edu/students/see/events/Darity_et_al_Understanding_Burden_Acting_White.pdf)

Cook and Ludwig as well found that "acting white" was not much of a factor in academic perforamnce: [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291520-66...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/%28SICI%291520-6688%28199721%2916:2%3C256::AID- PAM4%3E3.0.CO;2-H/abstract)

I had quoted from two other papers by Erika White and Roland Fryer (who is a proponent of the "acting white" hypothesis but had to adjust his definition to show any trends) but those links are dead now.

<comment><USER25> _I 'm black._

Holy shit, sir. I salute your patience and compassion as you dealt with this self-appointed expert on race relations. Your capacity for longsuffering is legendary, and if you are ever in the Bay Area, please contact me.

Seriously.

I would buy you a keg of beer.

<comment><USER26> That's a bit much, don't you think? FWIW, I'm also black and I agree with JPKab more than I do with Anechoic probably because his experiences (second- hand or otherwise) are closer to mine. Where does that get us?

They both make valid points, likely because they're coming at the issue from different directions. Listen to them both and balance your viewpoint but try to be a bit less snarky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> "African American" and "White". This is grotesque. Either say black & white, or african american & caucasian american. Pick one.

</comment><comment><USER28> HN has a policy against numbers in titles as they come off as link-baity...I wish a similar policy applied to titles with such absolute statements as "the best ever" or "what you never knew about..."

This map is not the "best" map ever of racial segregation, though it may be the most comprehensive. I'd argue that a more effective map would include some kind of time element, to show how formerly integrated areas slowly became segregated.

<comment><USER29> If that data could be collected/found/cross referenced. I doubt that is a possibility, and thus this probably is one of the 'best' maps of segregation (for some definition of best).

Also, this is what a history of segregation looks like. Its worth remembering that small towns, at least in places like Ohio, were so inhospitable to African Americans that they were referred to as "sundown towns" ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundown_town) ).

When people think that racism is over, maps like these serve as a pretty good starting point for asking them to reevaluate their POV.

Of course, there's always this you could start with too:

[http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/13/white- definiti...](http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/08/13/white-definitions- merit-and-admissions-change-when-they-think-about-asian-americans)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Looking at the Bay Area in this map, I noticed a very dense African-American region near Dublin CA that looked out of place. I investigated what it was and was shocked to discover it was the Santa Rita Jail. The map really made it clear how racially skewed the jail population is.

</comment><comment><USER31> One of the interesting things about this map is that it shows not just _distribution_ , but also _density_. Non-Caucasian ethnicities are not only concentrated in certain "neighborhoods", they also tend to live in households with far more people per square foot than whites.

From the map, overview of the Bay area: [http://hackeress.com/ethnic- distribution-bay-area.png](http://hackeress.com/ethnic-distribution-bay- area.png)

</comment><comment><USER32> It's interesting that you can almost always spot the university areas in a city on this map by looking for the cluster of asians.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Russian here. We won't see a similar map of Moscow for two reasons:

1) Immigrants can't afford any housing.

2) Most rent is private and not reported anywhere; most immigrants are illegal and not accounted anywhere.

Moscow won't segregate because people are awfully un-mobile.

If this changes, we may share the fate of cities in USA/Europe.

The problem is that a lot of immigrants are flowing in (from central asia) and there is no political will to limit their influx / control their quality.

Right now all the immigrants work and only resort to crime in dire situations, but I'm afraid this is bound to change if measures are not taken.

</comment><comment><USER33> That's hilarious, I was wondering if my hometown (ATL) would be broken down, and it's the second one. When I moved back there after college I wanted to do some sort of study of the racial segregation in that city. It's totally along that east-west axis, more precisely at Ponce De Leon Ave. All these upper- class streets that run through the nicest neighborhoods in north Atlanta even change their names as they cross over Ponce.

God, I miss that town every now and then. I'd kill for a hot Krispy Kreme right now.

<comment><USER34> Also from Atlanta here and I'm always most aware of this when riding MARTA to the airport. Once you get south of downtown, it becomes hard to ignore the strange fact that the only white people still on the train are those with luggage.

And in case it consoles you to know that others are living your dreams, I just had two donuts at the Krispy Kreme on Ponce earlier this morning -- in fact right around the time of your comment. They were delicious but I should really stop going so often.

<comment><USER33> Aww man. I used to live right around the corner on 3rd street. I don't know if midtown is still as colorful these days, but about ten years ago if you saw an attractive female walking around after dark you could rest assured it was a man. Rural Jersey is slightly less exciting..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> These guys did an amazing job with the interactive element, but a lot of this is borrowed work! Let's give credit where credit is due:

Bill Rankin posted maps in this exact visual style back in 2009. You can see them (and many other amazing maps he's done) at his blog -- [http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?chicagodots](http://www.radicalcartography.net/index.html?chicagodots)

Eric Fischer picked up Bill's project and ran with it, composing maps for most of the major US cities with census 2010 data. You can see them all on his Flickr page -- [http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/sets/7215762481267496...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/walkingsf/sets/72157624812674967/)

I love great maps, but it's a little disheartening that these precursor projects aren't mentioned anywhere in the article/comments.

</comment><comment><USER35> Oh god, I read the comments. I know comments on news sites are awful, but I didn't expect that on Wired.

<comment><USER36> Rookie mistake. Standard rules apply [https://twitter.com/AvoidComments](https://twitter.com/AvoidComments)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> What I find interesting is that the racial breakdown is still so racist.... White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, Other/Multi-racial ??? It's shameful! It's racist because only the White cohort shares any measurable uniformity. Blacks are African-Americans of slave decent, North, East, South, West, and several other groups in between Africans, Asians are even more differentiated. Really??? Tadjiks, Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Malaysians are all just Asian?

It's such a degenerate, lazy, white-centric breakdown. It's a disgrace.

Nice map though!

<comment><USER38> Italians, Germans, Russians, Irish are all just White? It's such a degenerate, lazy, anti-white breakdown. It's a disgrace.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is a really cool map! I have a few questions about it though. Racial Segregation are very strong words to use when describing this map. I have lived in Chicago for my whole life. I have heard people say that Chicago is the most segregated city in the US. That line might be true. But when I look at this map it is very hard to draw the assumption that Chicago is incredibly segregated. Looking at this map you could easily say white people live here african american live here and asian / hispanic live here etc... But it is much deeper then the top overview. Chicago has a huge polish , german, irish community. I'm talking about people who have moved from their home country to live in the US. I notice a trend that when polish people move to chicago they move to where polish people live not any old "white" neighborhood they move to a place where they feel comfortable and have common ground. Never in my life have I or the city say white people need to live here and african american live here. There must be a reason that Chinese live on the south side Vietnamese live on the north side and Korean live on the further north side. Latino is the same. I forgot where i was going with this point. But I feel the way we see racial segregation is that some higher power says that we must not live next to each other. When in truth people want to live by their people.

<comment><USER40> When people talk about segregation in Chicago, they are mostly referring to the black south and near west side, and to a lesser extent the hispanic near- southwest and Little Village areas.

Look closely at the map on this thread, and match it up to a Chicago neighborhood map. Look at the border between Beverly (where I grew up) and Gresham and Brainerd. Look at the borders around Hyde Park. Look at the border between Austin and Oak Park (where I live now). For that matter, look at Lawndale vs Little Village. The borders are sharp, they follow regular lines, and generally involve a 90+% majority black neighborhood on one side.

There are a bunch of reasons this happened:

* The Great Migration, during which Chicago was a giant magnet for rural black southerners

* Redlining, the overtly racist/segregationist practice of refusing home loans to black families in "non-black" neighborhoods

* The construction of the Ryan, which displaced black families who ended up moving to places like Englewood

* The construction of the CHA high rise housing projects, which were concentrated in areas that would eventually become majority-black

* The subsequent flight of white families from places like Englewood, which went from 10% black immediately after WW2 to 98+%(!) black in 1980

It's important to note that with the possible exception of Beverly, which really is a white Irish enclave, the non-black non-hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago aren't intolerant, and have black representation roughly in line with their representation in the population as a whole. If you live in Avondale or Rogers Park or Lakeview, it probably doesn't look at all segregated.

Also, Chicago isn't the most segregated city in the US.

<comment><USER39> Thank you for responding. I just feel that "racial segregation" are the wrong words to use when describing this map. and yes the reasons you have posted are for the most part true. They are now a little outdated but they were things that happened in the past that have contributed to our present. I would like to believe that chicgoans have made many strides in certain areas of the city to become more diverse. But who knows. If we continue to try we can hopefully change our present to a better future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I love this map, but really hate the implementation. Dots overlaid on white makes dots really hard to see. I'd love to be able to set the background to black or something.

Also, last time this was featured on Fark the map became quickly unusable. Would be nice if they could generate some KML files or something that could be used outside of their website.

</comment><comment><USER42> After seeing Los Angeles and the map of the west in general, I believe the Latinos are significantly under-counted.

I had anticipated this to some extent in daily life but it was driven home a few years ago. I lived in a very "latino" neighborhood, unusual to see anyone else...

When election time came around, I got in line of perhaps 50-100 people at a very busy polling place. Bored, I looked down the line at each person. Gone were the folks I was used to seeing every day, in fact I was hard-pressed to find any. I counted one or two latinos in the whole line, and they were not from the migrant-worker class... i.e. poorer Mexican or Central American Indians.

It is probable a larger percentage of these folks will submit to the Census bureau than registering to vote, but how much? As a whole they are not well integrated.

</comment><comment><USER43> Before this comment forum devolves into the usual level of strife trying to grapple with what race "is," I'd like to offer two articles.

What We Mean When We Say 'Race Is a Social Construct' \- [http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/what- we-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/what-we-mean-when- we-say-race-is-a-social-construct/275872/)

The Point Is Not To Interpret Whiteness But To To Abolish It by Noel Ignatiev - [http://racetraitor.org/abolishthepoint.html](http://racetraitor.org/abolishthepoint.html) (the stuff about "White Studies" (obviously contextual) and Marxist tie-ins are totally optional to understanding the central points, I believe)

</comment><comment><USER44> If there was not hatred (not gonna happen, by the way), would segregation still be a bad thing?

Is there something inherently _WRONG_ with people gravitating toward and feeling most comfortable around people who look like themselves?

</comment><comment><USER45> I ran a check with Google using "define: segregation" and the definition included, "the act of setting". The title uses the term segregation perhaps innocently but incorrectly. People live where they choose. If the government said they had to live somewhere then it would be segregation. So it's really a map of where people tend to settle. HN should not have allowed the title to stand as is. Perhaps HN feels it's necessary to engage in sensationalism like some of the other similar sites I never or rarely go to any more for technical news.

<comment> mkr-hn Words rarely have a single definition. Those definitions often have substantial history behind them.

<comment><USER45> I gave you the step to find the top level, world-wide definition in Google. You say there are other definitions. Ok let's check the Wiki:

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

"Segregation itself is defined by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance as "the act by which a (natural or legal) person separates other persons"

If people separate, or group, themselves according to their own desires then that is not segregation according to Google and according to the Wiki which sites at least the "European Commission against Racism and Intolerance".

You may disagree with me but I've provided two worldwide known references both in agreement with each other and with me. The use of the word segregation was wrong by the original author and wrong by HN for posting it that way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I'm surprised they didn't use Washington D.C. as one of the featured images. The contrast is nearly as start as Detroit's.

<comment><USER47> Me too - for the lazy:

[http://i.imgur.com/dBIBuCD.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/dBIBuCD.jpg)

The Rock Creek Park divide is just as noticeable on the map as it is driving around the area. On a larger scale, the SE/NW divide is exactly what you'd expect. Keep in mind that the city itself is (or at least was, before gentrification) predominately black, and the SE areas are the poorest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Interesting project but it seems only useful at all for large cities. I zoomed in on the rural area I live in and there wasn't anything. They mention toggling between color and black and white but there still wasn't anything there.

</comment><comment><USER49> Given the reservations in the US, it would have been nice to see Native Americans have their own color. It would be a nice touch to compare reservation vs. urban conclaves.

</comment><comment><USER50> Take a guess where 8 Mile Road is in Detroit:

[http://cl.ly/image/2m0u3y282M1H](http://cl.ly/image/2m0u3y282M1H)

</comment><comment><USER51> I'd like to see a similar map that explores other attributes such as income, family size, etc.

</comment><comment><USER52> Dang. I have been looking for a GIS/BigData project, and this was one of my ideas.

<comment><USER53> Try doing this for previous datasets, so that you can compare maps and extrapolate trends over time. Say, the 2000, 1990, 1980 census data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Hispanic isn't a race

</comment><comment><USER55> Stop trying to force people to like one another. Social engineering is not like other forms of engineering; it depends on values outside a count of interchangeable parts. Many of humanity's worst outcomes have emerged from such well-intentioned but oblivious social engineering.

<comment><USER14> Stop projecting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Oregon looks like a nice place to live </sarcasm>

Cool and interesting maps.

<comment><USER57> > _Oregon looks like a nice place to live </sarcasm>_

Not sure why you applied a sarcasm tag. I can't speak for all of Oregon, but Portland is quite nice.

<comment><USER56> The sarcasm tag was because Portland is all white. I didn't want to offend anyone.</comment></comment></comment>


The web developer making millions selling jQuery image slider plugins - <AUTHOR> http://juststartworking.com/the-web-developer-making-millions-with-jquery-image-slider/ <comment><USER2> It fascinates me that there are million dollar marketplaces that many people would never be aware of.

<comment><AUTHOR> It depends on your location too.

I mean, Blablacar (not a marketplace though) is huge, especially in Europe, but it doesn't even exist in the United states !</comment></comment>


Memorial Day Weekend 24hr Hackathon in Atlanta (free and no vendors) - <AUTHOR> http://hacklanta.org

<comment><AUTHOR> We are co-hosting a hackathon this weekend in Atlanta, GA. The event is completely free (including all food/drinks) and is being thrown by Social Fortress and Triple Threat Strategies (big data) with zero vendors.

If you're in the area and not looking to get caught up in the memorial day travel rush please come on by!</comment>


Jonathan Coulton On how he made 500K as a DIY musician - <AUTHOR> http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2011/05/jonathan-coulton-on-his-business-model-how-now-is-best-time-ever-to-be-a-musician.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2FDqMf+%28hypebot%29 <comment><USER3> I don't mean to be a jerk, but this post was lifted wholesale from Jonathan's actual blog: [http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2011/05/23/on-snuggies-and- bu...](http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2011/05/23/on-snuggies-and-business- models/)

And this is the actual link to the post named in the submission: [http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2011/05/how-jonathan- coulton-...](http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2011/05/how-jonathan-coulton- made-500000-last-year-as-a-diy-musician.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> I love this quote: "It has always been about winning the lottery."

My three rules for becoming a rock star:

1) At least a little talent. 2) A willingness to do whatever it takes. 3) Being in the right place at the right time.

I think number 3 is often underestimated by HN types. If your business model depends on the attention of other people, then there's an inherent capriciousness to the public eye you can't fully mitigate.

</comment><comment><USER5> I feel like Planet Money (as much as I love them) kind of missed the point with their podcast, and it was nice to see Jonathan run with it.

This is indeed the future of music. Fragmentation. From major labels, to indie labels, to individual musicians or even communities. While the rise of Justin Bieber from the bowels of YouTube might be an anti-point, I still suspect it will only get even more intimate as time goes on. Music discovery only needs to get a little more subtle with existing social services.

<comment><USER6> To be fair, it was the NPR Music guest hosts who missed the point, not the Planet Money team (which actually argued that it Jonathan's success was not a fluke).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> He presents himself somewhat as just some geek who happened to write about it - you know, one of us - I think as a marketing thing. So now it's biting him back. I think that's OK; the main thing is it worked.

But apart from his weird material, and although it's a matter of personal taste to some extent, he is really really good. He has a great voice; the melody and guitar are effective folk/pop; the bizarre lyrics at times are a vehicle for guerrilla poignancy. e.g. I Crush Everything <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RFEzpUsUBk> (starts at 0:30)

<comment><USER8> Just for the record: I know Jonathan a bit and he markets himself as himself. The story of programmer to musician is 100% true and both are things he's pretty much always done.

As for the money side of it...the difference between a programmer salary and where he's at now is that his current level of income is probably a spike -- the arc for most musicians is usually steep -- and he's working his butt off for that spike.

So maybe it's a marketing thing, but only if you count being yourself in public as marketing.

<comment><USER9> > and he's working his butt off for that spike.

Yeah, the Things A Week series still blows my mind: writing and recording a song per week for a year? That's both dedication and productivity, especially since most of them don't even suck.

<comment><USER8> It's true. And the current push to record a record while in a busy touring cycle is crazy but apparently working. It's sometimes easy to forget that touring musicians are basically working 15+ hour days of long drives, load- ins, etc -- all away from home and family. I really admire his work ethic, and it's great to see someone enjoy their work so much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Weird Al made millions off of making funny songs. The internet has an abled Jonathon Coulton to do via the internet what MTV did for Weird Al - find his audience. He also worked really hard and did what most great musicians do - <USER2> toured hit butt off.

In short, he treated it like a job, got real good, and at times was at the right place at the right time. Well done.

</comment><comment><USER11> In an amazing coincidence, not 20 minutes ago I came across his version of "Baby Got Back" on a completely different forum (one devoted to investing actually) - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyJeC99QO8A> .

Note the presence of banjo pickin' in this variant on a rap song.

</comment><comment><USER12> > I honestly don't fault Frannie and Jacob for having negative opinions about > me

I listened to that podcast and didn't hear any negative comments about Coulton -- at all! Even the comparison to Snuggie wasn't negative. I like Coulton (I have some of his music and have seen him in concert), but this post did come across as pretty whiney.

<comment><USER13> From the last paragraph (of the original post):

"I should know better than to write this sort of post, because it will inevitably come across as a peevish and whiney response to being called a Snuggie."

<comment><USER12> Yes, I was agreeing with him that it came across that way -- and disputing his claim that anyone expressed any negative opinions about him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is 500k a Net or Gross value?

<comment><USER15> He said "revenue number" at one point, so I think it's the gross.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Yea... Valve.</comment>


Should I Resign from My Full Professor Job to Work Fulltime on Cocalc? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sagemath.com/2019/04/12/should-i-resign-from-my-full-professor-job-to-work-fulltime-on-cocalc.html <comment><USER2> You need a proofreader. Also, to save everyone time, the guy concludes that he probably shouldn't resign, but he's going to anyway, because it's what he wants to do. Also, he comes up with reasons.

<comment><AUTHOR> > You need a proofreader.

Thank you. I did have this proofread by other people, but made a couple of last minute changes. I read through it again and found three typos, which I've fixed. I did not find any other typos.

> the guy concludes that he probably shouldn't resign

I'm sorry if the roughness of the blog post difficult hard to understand. I conclude that I should resign because of (1) the significant legal issues involved with being employed by Univ of Washington, (2) the split in attention required to do two competing things at once, and (3) me being the wrong person to start a foundation funded open source mathematics institute.

Giving up a tenured full professor job isn't just some trivial decision one makes "just because you want to". I've been thinking about this deeply for years...</comment></comment>


Flickering lights could help treat Alzheimer's, according to a mouse study - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/strobe-lights-appear-to-remove-toxic-protein-related-to-alzheimers-in-mice-brains-2016-12 <comment><USER2> The author is not well informed and wrongly states "Alzheimer's research has faced a number of major setbacks – most recently the failure of Eli Lilly's drug trial — after promising results in rodents did not translate into clinical improvements for patients."

The fact is that Dr Dale Bredesen started a new therapy 4 years ago with very promising results: 9 out 10 patients reversed Alzheimer and are still free of Alzheimer four years later. Today the group of patients has grown to around 100 and all patients with early Alzheimer recover completely.</comment>


Dell: Apple should close shop (1997) - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/Dell-Apple-should-close-shop/2100-1001_3-203937.html

<comment><USER2> And almost 10 years later, in 2006, Jobs sent the following note to his employees:

"Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve."

Source: [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/16/technology/16apple.html?pa...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/16/technology/16apple.html?pagewanted=print)

<comment><USER3> And today, Apple is worth well over 10x what Dell is.

<comment><USER4> Actually 12x :)

<http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/28418/>

<comment><USER5> A billion here, a billion there. Eventually you start talking real money!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Please people, put the year in the title when you submit old stuff.

</comment><comment><USER7> To be fair to Michael Dell, this is what AAPL looked like in 1997: <http://bit.ly/fyjoqu>

And this is what DELL vs AAPL looked like in 1995-1997: <http://bit.ly/hhKZGH>

While Dell was clearly wrong in the long run, he was surely not the only person to believe Apple was through.

<comment><USER8> It's interesting to look at those stock charts. By the end of 2004, Dell had earned back about half the share price that it lost in the dot-com bust, but its share price has never been that high since, and in fact is now about the same as when Michael Dell made this comment.

By contrast, at the end of 2004 Apple's stock had recovered entirely from the dot-com bust, and has now reached almost 10 times the price it peaked at during the dot-com bubble.

Of course, you can make pretty much the same comparison between Apple and most any tech company that was around during the dot-com bubble. Very few have ever recovered for any length of time, and among those who have, IBM seems to be doing best, but they're only about 20% higher than their pre-bust peak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "There is some concern that Apple will have a hard time recruiting a top-notch CEO because of Jobs's presence."

I think he's done a passable job.

<comment><USER10> Today: There is some concern that Apple will have a hard time recruiting a top-notch CEO who can replace Jobs's presence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't really understand the rationale behind 'closing shop' in this scenario. Why would they close up shop? To make Dell's life a little easier? They wish! What a difference that would have made! :P

Article isn't very clear either,

"Apple is reportedly planning to come out with network computers that would require high-end servers to function."

I understood the sentence, but its kind of ambiguous. Would these be remote servers, in-house, etc? Did this ever come to fruition?

<comment><USER11> This was written over a decade ago (in 1997), when Apple was in a much more precarious situation than the one they are in now.

<comment><USER5> I wonder how that would have changed the industry if they had shutdown, for whatever reason. Would we all be working on Dells?!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> FYI 13 years in the computer industry is like 65 human years.

</comment><comment><USER13> It is truly astonishing how much Jobs got right. I'd forgotten about the clone market killing and the Microsoft deal, both of which seemed like suicide at the time, albeit for different reasons.

</comment><comment><USER14> business is business, to suggest it was anything else is silly. It's clear he (Dell) understood this, brands are built on confidence, misplaced or accurate.

</comment><comment><USER15> [1997]

</comment><comment><USER16> So? Shall I start investing in poorly performing companies with crap leadership and terrible products, then? Are they all going to turn around in a big way after a decade, like Apple?

It's all well and good to point and laugh with the benefit of hindsight. How about taking a look at Apple's position in 1997 and finding any reason to invest at all? That would make an interesting submission.

<comment><USER13> I suppose the thing to spot was the change in leadership. Oh, and that Jobs wasn't the washed up has-been that everyone (including myself) thought he was. I guess that follows Y Combinator's approach of looking at the team rather than the product / idea.

The other thing would be that Apple always had a devoted following even when their computers were abysmal, which fits with Warren Buffets idea of a big moat.

But yeah, hindsight 100%. At the time I wouldn't have given them a bean either.

To answer your question with a question: What would be the 2011 equivalent? We need a company with big mindshare, doing poorly who just had a change of leadership.

<comment><USER17> A company that's spent a long time getting good at a disruptive technology, something that appears simple yet requires a deep understanding, while the incumbent are all focused on incremental improvements of soon to be legacy technology.</comment></comment></comment>


Googie Architecture - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googie_architecture <comment><USER2> Will probably be discontinued in 2 years</comment>


Chief Digital Officer of Volkswagen AG Is Joining Iota Foundation - <AUTHOR> https://blog.iota.org/iota-foundation-fb61937c9a7e <comment><USER2> IOT is definitely one cryptocurrency to watch this year, together with XRB...</comment>


Ask HN: My web app is better than my competitor´s, how do I pull traffic? - <AUTHOR> I own the site rainychat.com, basically a website that pairs you to chat with another random user. However, while you can talk about anything you want, it also allows the feature to choose to be a "listener" or a "venter", so if you had a rough day, or feel lonely, or just have a problem you´d like to talk about, you can be paired with someone who is willing to be the counterpart - a listener.
In any case, there are variations of this idea around the web, most notably blahtherapy or 7cupsoftea. They certainly have tons of users, but I´m confident my alternative is far better. No ads, good reconnection, minimalist design, backspace doesn´t exit the chat (it´s a line of js, I can´t believe they haven´t fixed that), just the little things that add up over time.
I´m having trouble finding a way to pull new users or those from other sites to my product. I don´t have a prior project from where to get users from, no email lists, no facebook followers. I put a lot of work into this site, I´m honestly kinda lost. Any advice? <comment><USER2> Hey, I really like the design of the site!

Have you tried any targeted ad campaigns on FB/G?

I'm not really a marketing guy so sorry if that's not as helpful or original as you're looking for but it's something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Appreciated!

I haven´t, honestly I don´t know how effective they are. Have you tried them before?

<comment><USER2> TL;DR: I didn't set it up but it's worked well for physical products my clients sell.

I haven't gotten my hands dirty with it but I freelance all types of web stuff so I have (and work closely with) a few people that handle the SEO/Ad stuff. Usually we are promoting physical products (think event tickets, used computers, ect..) with FB and have had a pretty good success rate. FB lets you target with a level of specificity that is kind of creepy IMO but useful.

I'd say it's worth a shot. It's not too expensive and you can run a short campaign to see if it makes a dent. Maybe start with a wider scope and narrow that as you see what's hitting.

I guess the tricky part would be having users on it to talk to when the first timers click through. Also a lot of FB traffic is mobile so that's something to consider. Maybe you can exclude them from your target? Idk.

Hope this helps!</comment></comment></comment>


I'd optimize your workflow for free - <AUTHOR> https://lzvo.com/optimize-your-workflow/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys,

I'm working on a consulting service to help busy entrepreneurs get more done by optimizing their workflow.

We're providing it for free as we're looking to gather some feedback.

The service is a 30 mins consultation, where we provide:

Analysis of your current business process and workflow Actionable insights on doing more while working less Personalized report on the analysis and resources

As for now, we've helped an SEO agency and Ecom store owner save over 10 hours per week.

Comment below if you'd like us to do the same for you.

[https://lzvo.com/optimize-your-workflow/](https://lzvo.com/optimize-your- workflow/)

<comment><USER2> In consulting emphasizing "free" sends a poor message to the kind of client you want because the kind of client you want is one that values consulting enough to pay for it.

Or to put it another way, it is hard to convert a someone who optimizes for free into a well paying client. Particularly since you don't have to convert someone who pays well at all.

Basically, "free" is bait for the kind the person you don't want because it attracts people who are trying not to pay.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> You have a point there. But the thing is we are new and the only way to prove our value is by showing it.

<comment><USER2> Don't prove your value. Sell it. Selling is hard. Giving away your services is easy and that's its only merit.

I'd put it this way, if you can actually solve a meaningful problem in 30 minutes then you can charge $1000s for your service. If you can't then that's what your free consulting will prove.

A consultant's job is to improve the client's bottom line by improving operations. A consultant's job is not saving the client money on their fee.

Don't get me wrong a lot of people go through a phase of reasoning like you are. They either change or get out. Sure sometimes everyone winds up "buying" jobs. But that's only sustainable if there are good projects most of the time.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true. I appreciate your advice!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Modules Matter Most - <AUTHOR> http://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/modules-matter-most/ <comment><USER2> His linked article says of the popularity of dynamic language: " _From what I can tell, it's largely a matter of marketing._ ", that _dynamic_ means fun, and that they are subversive. [http://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/dynamic- lang...](http://existentialtype.wordpress.com/2011/03/19/dynamic-languages- are-static-languages/)

Dynamic languages are popular because you don't need to make decisions about types up-front, nor specify the types, nor change them when you change those decisions. In terms of the act of coding, it's more flexible when you begin, and more flexible when you maintain. He's right of course that static types are more flexible in terms of carving out a particular subset of the space of possible programs (as context free grammars are more flexible that regular expressions).

That is, some simple and well-known facts are unknown to him. I still think he has something interesting to say, it just takes some extra work to get to it, and you have to take it with a grain of salt because although he's supremely confident, he's coming from quite a limited perspective.

 _EDIT_ There's some hints in his conclusion and a comment that he does see real benefits to dynamic languages (without articulating them) - so perhaps he was just trolling or being ironic.

<comment><USER3> It sounds to me like you're coming at the question without understanding all the facts either. Strong static typing doesn't mean you need to specify all your types. That's an orthogonal issue. There was actually a variant of Smalltalk, called Strongtalk, which turned it into a statically typed language but allowed existing Smalltalk programs to run unaltered.

<comment><USER2> Yes, that's part of static types carving out a subspace - just as context free grammars can represent any regular language.

I was saying that, as a question of fact about the world today, one of the reasons that today's dynamic languages are popular is that you don't need to specify types (within the competitive set of mainstream statically typed languages). Not marketing.

\---

But maybe I see where he's coming from now: he's saying that statically typed languages are a superset of dynamic languages. So, therefore, they should be more popular than dynamic languages. But they're not... so, thinks he, it must be for some other reason... like marketing.

This perspective would explain his attitude; but I deeply disagree with it. It's a mistake to expect popularity to measure technical quality. Sometimes they coincide, but not always. I don't agree with the common idea that "marketing" always causes the difference, as in promotion and advertising and advertising a technically inferior product leading to widespread adoption. I do think it is due to marketing, _but not that kind_. It's that the popularity of a product is due to how well it meets the needs of users, compared with the alternatives; it is not technical quality _per se_ , but technical qualities that are needed.

Needs are often ranked, in that users won't worry much about their second need until their first need is met. And after their first need is fully met, they don't really appreciate getting even more of whatever met it. Like being thirsty - a glass of water is great, two, maybe even a litre... but increase the amount enough, and pretty soon, you're just not that excited about drinking all that water.

In other words, popularity is more about users than products - so it can be misleading to measure products by popularity.

To bring it back to the article: the lack of mainstream popularity of his favourite languages is less to do with static vs. dynamic typing, and more to do with the reasons why lisp is not popular (e.g. libraries, familiarity, community, toolchain, intutiveness, etc).

For example, abstraction is a great thing, but if it's more than a user _needs_ to do the tasks they have in mind, then they start to judge it by other factors, like how easy it is to learn. If they absolutely need that level of abstraction, then they may go to the trouble of learning it - researchers and compiler writers (for example) sometimes need this; the mainstream simply doesn't. Of course, some people just love abstraction for itself, above all else - that's their first need.

\---

BTW: I can imagine a static/dynamic combination (like Strongtalk) taking off in the mainstream, provided it didn't get in the way. You just have to ask what needs it meets. One thought I've had is to have dynamic typing within modules, but static typing between modules (think: python with static types in library interfaces). I realize this is a subset in power of optional static typing; but I'm thinking more about the needs of users than the capabilities of technology. Interface documentation gets cleaner, bugs are found more easily; yet within modules, it's still easy to create code quickly and change it. It becomes _harder_ to change interfaces (which are hard to change anyway, when other people depend on them). This is the use of it; the needs it meets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Judging by the first paragraph, the author has a very biased, even aggressive preference for static languages and a contempt for anyone that disagrees with him. I don't like that, and I find that the best and most convincing arguments are those that show understanding of the opposite side. People using aggression or logical fallacies in their arguments are usually the people who can't use logic to convince others.

" ... types (static types, of course, there being no other kind) ... "

This is the statement I'm referring to above. It strikes me as completely misguided and wrong. Most languages that I know of, even most statically typed languages, know dynamic types. Java has instanceof. C++ has virtual dispatch (which is based on an objects dynamic type). Even C (untagged) unions usually have some (bit)field that allows the running program distinguish the type of data in the union.

I believe that in general, types are properties of data, which rarely exists at compile time. Thus, almost all types are dynamic. Statically typed languages simply restrict the data that can be stored in variables to a particular type and subtypes thereof.

<comment><USER5> The author is not talking with the snide condescension of an Internet troll who, after reading the first chapter of a book, feels he's been clued into a grand truth. He's talking with the snide condescension of one of the world's top researchers in the field. Or, rather, he's not putting effort into communicating to people who don't have some background in PL theory and some familiarity with many of these arguments.

Professor Harper typically spends two lectures in his undergraduate PL class developing the idea of dynamic typing, and then demolishing it. If you turn to the section on 'Static "Versus" Dynamic Typing' in his book (<http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rwh/plbook/book.pdf> \-- currently section 22.3, but subject to change), you'll find a summary of his argument. Basically, what dynamically-typed languages do is not really "type-checking" but "run-time tag checking."

You brought up a really good point though -- C and Java aren't really statically-typed languages. Getting a null-pointer error is just not possible in a type-safe language.

<comment><USER6> He may be one of the world's top researchers in the field, but on this point his view is not the consensus view of PLs researchers; _other_ top researchers in the field think that Harper is wrong on the subject. On the other hand it's mostly a semantic dispute over who owns the word "type", which has historically come from multiple sources in mathematics and engineering. The C view of types is closer to the comp-arch view of "typed registers", which isn't really a proof so much as a statement about data-representation capabilities ("this register can hold floats").

It's unsurprising Harper doesn't like that view, because he objects to the entire line of machine-oriented CS thinking, on both the engineering and the theory sides. For example, he thinks computational complexity theory should ditch Turing machines and be refounded on the basis of functional programming.

<comment><USER7> Hmm, yes "type" can mean a lot of things, but would many dispute that the languages with the most evolved type systems are those discussed in the post(ML, ocaml, haskell, F#) plus scala? (Leaving aside coq, agda which I'm not familiar with

<http://blog.tmorris.net/a-brief-point-on-static-typing/>

<http://james-iry.blogspot.com/2010/05/types-la-chart.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been reading eloquent advocacy of FP for over a decade now but significant real-world applications written in FP langs are still very thin on the ground. It's clear that FP languages are good research vehicles and teaching tools but the burden of proof of their general suitability lies squarely on the shoulders of the advocates at this point.

Five years ago people were telling me Haskell was the greatest thing since sliced bread but now more often than not people discuss the tradeoffs of its design, much like most other languages.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm sorry, that was too hard to follow. First give me the qualitative rundown of what you are trying to say, then give the the quantitative formula. And use symbols that a blub programmer can recognize in the formula, please.

There's something in there about wanting a more flexible type system, but without completely hiding it in an implicit / dynamic system, but I'm not quite getting it as presented. Too bad.

<comment><USER10> Sometimes articles are over my head too. Sometimes I work on figuring them out and learn something. Sometimes I give up because I don't have the time or energy. However, I don't blame the author for my ignorance.

<comment><USER11> It's not blaming the author to notice that he doesn't appear very interested in this essay with communicating with most people in terms they'll understand. Sure, it's just his style, but it's hard to be optimistic about how much buy- in he'll get for his plan "to re-do the introductory curriculum in Computer Science to modernize it".

<comment><USER12> I guess I'm not disagreeing with you, but I personally find his style exhilarating. I mean, come on:

 _Dijkstra used to say "beauty is our business", to which I would add that life is too short, and bright minds too precious, to waste on ugly things. And if you take this point of view seriously, the best and the brightest are drawn to, rather than repulsed by, the field. Pace some of my colleagues at a Major Institute of Technology, students absolutely do love to program and do love the beauty of code, provided that the code you ask them to write is, in fact, beautiful. There is nothing more dreary than the corporate bureaucracy of OOP, and few things more lovely than the mathematical elegance of FP._

<comment><USER13> Perhaps I would find it more exhilarating if it didn't directly contradict my own experience, and that of many others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Urgh...

I love static typing and the type safety that languages like Haskell provide me. And I think they have practical benefit too. But I would give my right testicle if static typing advocates would _stop encouraging the criticism that this is all academic nonsense_.

<comment><USER15> I agree with you, we need to frame this in an accessible way. The OP is one of the most eminent academics in the world on static typing. I've taken a class with him, and I learned a lot from him.

His post can be rewritten in non-academic lingo. He is saying this: the module system in SML is better than any form of OOP out there. It solves the right problem in the right way. OOP conflates a lot of problems together and a lot of solutions together.

And I think he's right, so let me start on a non-academic way to phrase this. SML modules require less programmer cognitive load, fewer lines of code, compile into tighter machine code, do not have the fragile base class problem, and can express complex relationships in a cleaner way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I just have to say, I love Robert Harper's blog. He writes like I imagine Paul Graham would, if he were a slightly pedantic college professor--with crisp sentences that make points, dammit.

His book on Standard ML is wonderful: <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rwh/smlbook/book.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER16> I've always wondered why Haskell doesn't support named instances:

[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.87....](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.87.6674&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm sensing that we're on the verge of an SML renaissance. Over the last month I've been building web tools with SML and I have to say, that I'm moving faster than I ever have in any other language, when looking holistically at my project timeline. Dynamic languages give you the illusion that you're quickly developing, but when taking into account bug fixes that you have to exhaust hours of energy on _after your product is deployed_ , they don't seem as "fun" and "free spirited" anymore. Loose(Dynamic) typing costs lives and billions of dollars. If you don't understand your data enough to describe the their types, then you should take a moment and sketch out your understanding. Otherwise, you're not developing quickly - you're spinning your wheels senselessly whether or not you believe it, and demonstrating that you're not the type of developer who has a deep understanding of the systems you build.

Software engineering is not a bunch of sequential statements that _happen_ to deliver results that we desire. Software engineering is artfully encoding your human _understanding_. But that being said, SML is insanely practical if you care about the results as much as you do about the design.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm sorry, but there's something to be said for a good article. A good article isn't one whose first two sentences are flame bait. As such, I couldn't read the rest of the article.

<comment><USER10> I'm sure the author wouldn't mind especially if you copied the article into notepad and deleted the first two sentences before reading it.</comment></comment>


HardenedLinux: The way to the Ark - <AUTHOR> https://hardenedlinux.github.io/announcement/2017/04/29/hardenedlinux-statement2.html <comment><USER2> The points on Linux foundation half-assing or stealing credit are damning. They shouldn't be doing it if it's true. I do have to question or counter a few things:

"The ability to create stuff out of nothing( from 0 to 1) is rare. PaX/Grsecurity is the origin of OS defense mitigation and still is the most effective defense solution."

Secure UNIX goes back to the 80's with commercial releases with security- enhancements back to about 1990 w/ Trusted Xenix. They disappeared except for the Compartment Mode Workstations, which whittled down to maybe two, since neither paid market nor FOSS would compromise on legacy app breakage to reduce attacks or leaks. High-assurance security switched to creating deprivileged VM's for UNIX's on separation kernels with rigorous development, review, and testing. Some were even modifying the CPU's themselves to try to encrypt or authenticate memory pages to spot breaks. This work wasn't the first in OS security, the strongest in OS security then, or the strongest model today.

This author's evangelism aside, it was a great supplement to a Linux box to reduce the risk in many ways. They did a lot of great, tactical mitigations that would certainly stop a decent chunk of exploits. Neater still is that they're complementary to the prior work in high-security UNIX and attempts to automatically obfuscate systems for security. I recommend adding as many as possible long as it performs well.

"Closing the public access doesn't make PaX/Grsecurity a non-free/libre software. Those who purchase subscriptions can access the source code. "

This is what I'm not getting. I've seen the claim in several places. Free/libre software requires ability to read, modify, _and distribute_ the code. It's only free-as-in-speech software if I'm allowed to give it to the whole world for free. If it's freely provided and no source distribution is allowed, then it's free-as-in-beer. If it's paid-source and no redistribution, then it's proprietary software that comes with source. So-called shared source is a business model I encourage for companies that absolutely won't do paid GPL or dual-licensed. Better than nothing if tool becomes popular or necessary. Plus, might let license of specific products or versions expire into FOSS license later.

In any case, it's proprietary, shared-source software if I have to pay for the source and can't redistribute it. So, could any HN readers who really know how their business model works confirm or reject that with data? What exactly do people buy with what rights? I keep hearing different things.

"More importantly, PaX team/Spender generously shared their work with the FLOSS world in the past 16 years."

This is very commendable on top of the security gains it provided. It's why I'm questioning the claims instead of critiquing the team for going paid. I encourage it given companies will just freeload off you until the work is nearly unsustainable. One can always offer perpetual, free licenses to contributors, universities, non-profits, small businesses, and so on if feeling altruistic. Otherwise, they get what quality/security they pay for.

<comment><AUTHOR> > if I have to pay for the source and can't redistribute it.

You can redistribute it. The license doesn't stop you.

You may just find yourself in a situation where grsecurity won't renew your contract next time, if you do that.

<comment><USER2> I appreciate the clarification. Yeah, that's not free software since you have to keep paying for it. Or it's a grey area kind of like charging for distribution but used to nullify a benefit of free software. I'm still thinking of this as non-free, shared-source software for now.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Create your own JavaScript Blockchain implementation in 6 Steps - <AUTHOR> https://www.chainshot.com/challenges/5b3afd70d9f99763e5c4b4fe/ <comment><AUTHOR> Apologize in advance to our mobile visitors. This is interactive in-browser coding tutorial so we anticipate you'll need a desktop in order to fully enjoy the experience. Here's the landing page for more info: [https://www.chainshot.com/](https://www.chainshot.com/)</comment>


Meteor, Docker, OpsWorks Deployment - <AUTHOR> https://blog.sunsama.com/meteor-docker-opsworks/

<comment><USER2> Thanks for posting this! I work on a bunch of Meteor apps, and we're planning to start using Docker.

<comment><USER3> Great! Hope it helps. If you need additional help with meteor infrastructure feel free to set up a video call with either me ([https://sunsama.com/kris/meteor_infrastructure](https://sunsama.com/kris/meteor_infrastructure)) or with Jacob ([https://sunsama.com/jacob/meteor_docker_aws](https://sunsama.com/jacob/meteor_docker_aws))</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is Computer Science too specific? - <AUTHOR> Some background: I'm currently in High School getting ready to apply to college. I've been set on CS for a while though I've been met with criticism from my parents.<p>PG wrote about the idea that it is better to stay upwind. This is the argument presented to me as a case against computer science. I've been told that the skills that I will be taught will severely limit my long term success if I decide to pursue CS. How much truth is there to this argument? <comment><USER2> It is true that enrollment in undergraduate CS is highly volatile as potential students alternate from wanting to get in on the gold rush and then they hear arguments like those from your parents, which do have the kernel of truth that computer people face a "glass ceiling" in many organizations.

CS is an unusual academic field because it is situated between math, engineering, and other things. Part of it is focused on the hardware and software prevalent on Earth today but much of the theory is universal.

If you take CS I would suggest doing a dual major with math, you probably don't need to take many additional classes.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was actually considering going for a degree in Mathematics instead but majoring in both seems much more appealing. Perhaps even something such as Economics and CS could also be viable?

Also, would a PhD in AI be recommended as well considering the potential it has across multiple fields?

<comment><USER2> It depends on you and your school. I carried about a semester worth of AP credits so I had an easy time taking all of the courses for both Physics and Math, the overlap between CS and Math was about the same.

As for the PhD, who knows? After four years of undergrad school you could spend 6-9 years in graduate school. A lot can happen between now and then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> CS, pure math, physics, and applied math are all around the same level of upwind in terms of what your education gives you in terms of critical thinking. In terms or workforce, CS is probably more upwind, especially as an undergrad degree. Even more upwind is electrical/computer engineering (in Canada at least, where engineering is tightly regulated).

It is unlikely that the skills you are taught will limit your long term success; after an undergrad in CS you can still get an MBA or to go grad school in many many fields. However, you'll be ahead of many people with only an undergrad degree: math and physics undergrads often find themselves with a skill set that doesn't apply particularly well to any specific job. CS and comp/elec eng are pretty universal, and you'll have flexibility with who you can work for. If you decide in 7 years that you're done "workin for the man" in "the system" you could go work in IT at Jackson Hole and ski your brains out.

</comment><comment><USER4> Minor in CS. If you want to go into tech, it'll give you a major head start above the boot camp grads both in terms of hiring and as a starting point for further learning. And yes, tech is still a better career bet than the majority of the alternatives.

Major in something that will help you learn critical thinking, learn about how some other aspect of the world works, and become three-dimensional in your intellectual perspective.

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't think there were majors that wouldn't teach you critical thinking.

Would someone with, let's say, an Economics major and a CS minor still have a chance at a Big 4?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> CS is a safe bet. If you study CS at a good school and graduate well, do a bit of portfolio, and study for interview tests, you'll land a job at a large company that pays much better than what most of your peers can expect.

We tend to focus on the richest and most successful, and forget that most people really don't do that well. They don't have much power at work, and don't get paid a lot. CS is a safe bet to avoid that.

You might not like programming, and if that's the case I'd avoid it. You spend a lot of your life at work, so you'd better enjoy what you do.

Where you start your career isn't where you end up. When you get your first job it will be in a particular industry - health, auto, finance. You'll find that you can easily either move to the same role in a different industry, or a different role in the same industry. Your first job is where you start, not where you end up. And things go down as well as up if you take the wrong step.

Developers don't end up on the board of companies. Managers end up on the boards of companies, and finance people. But a developer job can pay for an MBA, and a developer can move into management, of various types, all from the security of a fairly comfy starting place.

A lot of Math majors find themselves a bad fit for any particular job. Same with physics. If they want to get a job after graduation, maybe they can become developers, but it isn't as sure a bet. If they go onto a PHD, maybe they can become quants, or data scientists these days.

Business majors either get onto a grad scheme or they might as well not have studied. That grad scheme will either carry them to the point they need to start a stellar career, or will be grunt work that pays less than a dev job and is significantly more boring.

The scary thing about tech work is how fast technology moves. You have to put time and energy into keeping up, outside of work. And for a lot of people, with families, that's very hard to do. It's really tough. I notice this way of life starting to hit other sectors too.

You are at highschool and don't really know yourself yet though. So my takeaway would be that, if you choose the wrong major, you can always find your way to something else. It's just a lot easier if you're already in a decently paid job that you just don't like much.</comment>


Cross-Browser Development Tips (or how to make CSS work in IE8) - <AUTHOR> https://www.tinfoilsecurity.com/blog/cross-browser-development-tips-css

<comment><USER3> Looking at their usage "graph" (if the relative visuals indicate actual percentages), it appears that IE overall is a very small percentage of their views - perhaps 3-5%. Within that small percentage, IE 8 makes up what appears to be around 20% of all IE users. So they are spending time to optimize for around 1% and maybe 2% of their total views.

I'd suggest that it probably isn't worth it to spend a significant amount of time to support an audience that small. To determine if this is true, the company should track conversions from those using the IE browsers. If they have an average or higher than average number of conversions, one could argue that it is worth the time spent.

Otherwise, you are probably wasting significant engineering and design resources to solve problems for laggards who probably won't give you any money.

<comment><USER4> That's normally very true. What we didn't say in the article was that we have some customers whose corporate IT departments haven't upgraded yet and we didn't want to drop them on the wayside :)

<comment><USER5> I think the latter point of his argument still stands. Presumably you're able to justify the cost of testing for and dealing with IE8 problems because enough of your revenue and conversions come from IE8-bound users. If that's not the case, why would you still support IE8?

<comment><USER6> You're correct. Large corporations take ages to upgrade.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And now I feel old. I remember when I was writing articles like this for IE6. Though I'm betting there are a few of you out there who remember writing articles like this for IE5 or Netscape.

This article is obviously written for beginners, so I won't be too hard on it for lacking comprehensive detail, but I will make a few recommendations.

In the reset section, showing the * reset is okay, but I think it would be good to mention a few of the more popular/established/supported ones - <USER2> the Eric Meyer reset or normalize.css, and link to those. Beginners can obviously google "css reset", but it may be hard for them to discern which results are good and which are bad. Showing a few that are popular or commonly used will help them move forward on this point.

For the vendor prefix area, I would also recommend including a paragraph about checking sites like caniuse.com to see if the CSS property that you plan on using is even supported in browsers like IE8 or IE9.

Since the article is for beginners, too much detail within the article may be overwhelming for them, but links to resources they can use to expand their knowledge on the points you mention would be nice, as it would allow them to build on top of what you've written at their own pace.

<comment><USER8> It's interesting to see how the milestones shift. I started out making websites in IE3 and NS3, and you were glad just to get some sort of basic navigation going across browsers. It wasn't really web "design" back in those days. Then we had the IE4 / NS4 period, where you could actually do design in the browser, provided you built it twice, once for IE and once for NS. I wrote my first web app for NS4. It was a horrible browser, but it was good for its day. Then IE 6 happened, and it was the best browser by far and set a new baseline. It's funny to think back how at the time of its release IE 6 was an amazing browser, with fantastic standards support and stellar performance. The mozilla guys were playing catch-up churning out iterations of seamonkey, until firefox rose from seamonkey's morass, while all that time netscape users kept suffering on with NS 4. And inexorably IE 6 got old, and people like you were writing articles about how to bend back your code to support it. IE 8 was the first MS browser where I felt they really got their standards support right, and where you could build for it without major hackery. I was of course sorely mistaken, and now IE 8 is the old stuff that doesn't support the new hotness. It keeps shifting.

One good thing that happened were auto-updating browsers. You don't see these articles anymore about supporting old versions of firefox. Microsoft has to get onto the auto-update bandwagon, and we can finally stop bending code backwards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> instead of the "nuclear option" of reset proposed by the author, i would go with normalize...

[http://necolas.github.io/normalize.css/](http://necolas.github.io/normalize.css/)

also, an issue that never fails to rear it's ugly head in IE8 and below - trailing commas in javascript. JSLint/Hint will help avoid this</comment>


Teaching Quantum Chemistry with iPython Notebooks - <AUTHOR> http://tmarkovich.com/2015/01/11/teaching-quantum-chemistry-with-ipython/ <comment><USER2> Very interesting... I'm studying chemistry as well, and while there's still ~1 year before I get courses like this, I'd be very interested in peeking at one of the notebooks.</comment>


Dutch "Bird Man" submissions on HN - <AUTHOR>

In case you hadn't noticed, someone claims to have flown using flapping wings.  It may or may not be power assisted, it may or may not be faked, but there are certainly a lot of HN submissions about it.<p>Some of them have a decent analysis, some have some fascinating links to other sites, and other analyses. <comment><AUTHOR> Here are the ones I could find with a quick search (or two):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3730625>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3731058>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3732385> <\- Majority of the discussion

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3732614>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3732872>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3733775>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3734150>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3734368>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3734411>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3734674>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> And more:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3736847>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3735996>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3736261>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> And some more:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3730638>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3735900> <\- "It's a fake"</comment>