The Psychology of Money - <AUTHOR> http://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/the-psychology-of-money/ <comment><USER3> Loved this letter to his son:

       Some people are born into families that encourage education; others are against it.
       Some are born into flourishing economies encouraging of entrepreneurship;
       others are born into war and destitution.
       I want you to be successful, and I want you to earn it.
       But realize that not all success is due to hard work, and not all poverty is due to laziness.
       Keep this in mind when judging people, including yourself."

</comment><comment><USER4> It is worth reflecting that, if Grace happened to be have a world outlook that was a smidge more venal and materialist, she wouldn't have been able to do what she did. This is because dying with $7 million in savings means that she could have spent about $7 million more on enjoying herself in life.

I completely agree with her apparent outlook, and would rather have security and the pride of knowing I'd given a lot more to my fellows than I've taken back. And if everyone thought this way then society would be a lot better about preserving and growing what we have.

However, I've met countless people who behave like the executive in the opening paragraph not because they have 'bad behaviors', but precisely because they are clever and in practice wanted to maximise money spent/personal resources consumed. I doubt they would word that as harshly as I have, but the implicit meaning behind the behavior is very clear.

Now, if you start with a value proposition that the purpose of the economy is to maximise the resources available for individual consumption, it is actually quite hard to argue for dying with savings. The families who try to maintain inter-generational family wealth actually cop a fair bit of flack socially (in times of stress, they seem to near inevitably get branded 'hoarders', and times of extreme stress they have their wealth confiscated).

Basically, I like the argument and the value structure it comes from - <USER2> there are other views of the situation that are reasonable and deserve mention.

 _EDIT_ Fun fact, apparently $7 million gets you very close to the top 1% by wealth [1]. So technically, the sort of people who want "the 1%" to do more have people like Grace in their sights. We all know they don't want that, but it shows the normal attitude to wealth and savings imo.

[1] [https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal- finance/05061...](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal- finance/050615/are-you-top-one-percent-world.asp)

<comment><USER5> Consider the role of luck and risk. If you go to Vegas and gamble, your returns are pretty much luck. But for the casino, the quantity of bets makes their profits a virtual mathematical certainty, even though the outcome of each bet is luck.

Transferring this idea to the stock market, outcomes from an individual stock have a high degree of luck, but an investment in an index of stocks reduce the luck factor by quite a bit and move towards mathematical inevitability.

<comment><USER6> Imagine you invested all of your retirement savings into "the index" a week before black Friday and then describe how the results are mathematically inevitable.

<comment><USER7> That's twisting some assumptions of the comparison. The comparison was to casinos, which do not bet decades of profits on a single day's gambling. The equivalent would be investing in your index every payday for decades, not suddenly moving it all at once. That's where the mathematical near inevitability comes from. You aren't betting on one day, one spin of the wheel, you're betting on a general trend across ten thousand spins/days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > 3\. Rich man in the car paradox.

> When you see someone driving a nice car, you rarely think, "Wow, the guy > driving that car is cool." Instead, you think, "Wow, if I had that car > people would think I'm cool." Subconscious or not, this is how people think.

Just realized that that is how I think... :facepalm:

<comment><USER9> When I see a rich car, I always think "heh I guess this guy likes to rub in our faces that he has more money than us... this is why I could never buy a nice car."

I'll probably drive a used corolla for my whole life just out of unwillingness to make people feel like I'm better than they are.

I have similar troubles flying business class. At least let business class be a separate plane >.>

<comment><USER10> Look at it this way: conspicuous displays of wealth are very cheap signals for the rational members of the human race to pick out what we call, in technical sociological language, "wankers".

Indeed, nice cars say to me: "there's a moron who lacks taste/perspective, and probably is really bad at managing their life and money. They probably have large amounts of debt and leverage.".

You can call me judgmental, but its an infinitely better attitude to take than anything approaching admiration/jealousy.

<comment><USER11> Yeah the guy in a 1982 Volvo spewing black smoke and rusting to pieces is obviously more financially savvy and responsible than someone driving a BMW.

<comment><USER12> Luckily for his point there are the other hundreds of millions of reliable cars on the spectrum between a broken one and a premium one!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In Item 10 it says:

> One study I remember showed that young investors should use 2x leverage in > the stock market, because – statistically – even if you get wiped out you're > still likely to earn superior returns over time.

And the linked paper says:

> The mistake in translating this theory into practice is that young people > invest only a fraction of their current savings, not their discounted > lifetime savings. For someone in their 30's, investing even 100% of current > savings is still likely to be less than 10% of their lifetime savings

This makes a lot of sense to me and says what I haven't been able to about my own risk tolerance. What is OPs counter to this? That the paper's conclusions are flawed, or that no 20-something could execute it?

<comment><USER14> Someone actually tried to follow this advice starting in September 2007: [https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5934](https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5934) . Needless to say, it did not work out well for them and they almost went bankrupt due to spiraling margin debt.

The difference between a mortgage and margin debt is that mortgages aren't constantly marked to market, and you can continue to own the house even if you're temporarily underwater on the mortgage. Whereas with margin, you can be forced to sell if the value of the assets you've bought underperforms.

<comment><USER13> The paper that was linked suggests using derivatives rather than directly taking out loans, which are financially convertible. Specifically it says buying deeply ITM call options for several years out strike date.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > she could have spent about $7 million more on enjoying herself in life

Well no, because it got to that level through compounding.

</comment><comment><USER16> > In what other field does someone with no education, no relevant experience, > no resources, and no connections vastly outperform someone with the best > education, the most relevant experiences, the best resources and the best > connections?

I've seen it happen a bunch in the IT field.

<comment><USER17> It's quite easy to outperform one of the worst performers in an industry. My own financial condition is unremarkably stable and I'm crushing Mr Fuscone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > and you cannot believe in risk without believing in luck, because they are > two sides of the same coin.

Huhhh? Risk and luck are not at all obviously two sides of the same coin. How does this duality work at all??

Risk can be measured, modeled, etc. It may not be accurate, but at least it's something you can define and attempt to model. Sure, sometimes you may behave risky and not even realize it, given that future events may be totally different from what you expected. But in reality risks are much more transparent than luck. You can't go and plausibly seek out luck, but you can seek and easily find risk of any variety. Want some risk? Smoke a cigarette.

Unlike risk, luck is a far less tangible concept. How it occupies the same side of the coin as risk—I have no idea. Where do you go to get luck? Risk may yield reward, but why call that luck and not the "outcome", which like all outcomes carries a certain probability. Luck is just a pseudo-religious moralization of outcome, mostly employed by people who are unlucky.

<comment><USER19> Risk and luck can be two dies of the same coin. In your cigarette example, if you smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day and you did not get lung cancer, that could be considered luck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Richard Fuscone, former vice chairman of Merrill Lynch's Latin America > division, declared personal bankruptcy, fighting off foreclosure on two > homes

It's worth noting (and not mentioned in the article) that this was a Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which is a reorganization of debts, and Mr. Fuscone did not actually lose everything, and probably still has a lot of equity.

</comment><comment><USER21> There is no way that Grace would be able to save so much money if she had to start today.

Now rent is higher, interest rates on savings are nonexistent, salaries for low-skill office people are lower, companies are bigger and have less growth potential ahead of them, employees have more restrictive roles, less leverage over their employers and they rarely have access to high-value inside information.

</comment><comment><USER22> Our mental model and relation to money is incredibly amusing.

E.G:

I travel a lot, and often end up with a few coins from countries remining in my bags. I have friends of mine in the same situation, and they all have "that drawer" filled with various coins that they will one day use again.

Me, I put them in the trash can. Every time I do that, people look at me like I killed a puppy.

<comment><USER23> Destroying coins and bills is illegal. While destroying a few coins won't have interpol chasing you, it's still illegal and the "right" thing to do would be to exchange them, or just give them to someone else who might pass through the country.

<comment><USER24> The waste of productive time this would entail is far worse than the waste of a few bucks.

<comment><USER22> See what I meant about the reactions of others ? We had immediat visceral reactions that it's money and should not be wasted. No matter how realistic it is, money is precious.

It's like this scene in 2012 where they burn notes to keep warm, but for a moment they hesitate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Copied that one into Evernote. That is a lot of received wisdom distilled down into some really useful bits.

</comment><comment><USER26> _> I want to spend a million dollars," which is literally the opposite of being a millionaire. _

As the saying goes, you don't take money with you to the next world. So the goal of spending money (on some good cause of course) is incomparably better than the goal of gaining money itself.

<comment><USER27> If you know exactly when you'll die and the sequence of future expenses you'll incur between now and then. Having money is useful insurance.

It's all about asking the marginal benefit of saving or spending each additional dollar. At some points, you derive more out of spending -- such as when you're spending them on basic necessities, or when you have a large pile that can already cover those 99th percentile emergencies. And, of course, being able to estimate your own utility for those. Which is hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> _She was, by all accounts, a lovely lady. But she lived a humble and quiet life. That made the $7 million she left to charity after her death in 2010 at age 100 all the more confusing._

That made me wonder: Are there charities that are run like VCs?

<comment><USER29> Kinda, yes: [https://app.effectivealtruism.org/funds](https://app.effectivealtruism.org/funds)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Pretty much Orman's thesis the past 20 years, especially early books

<comment> q-base Who is Orman? And which book could you recommend?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I think that almost any motivator for working or keeping society together would have been abused. This is truly interesting.</comment>


Ask HN: Did you learn a language online? How fluent are you now? - <AUTHOR> What worked and didn't work for you? <comment><USER2> My mother says her English became fluent from watching American TV. So, I will suggest you look for subtitled videos online in the target language.

There is a large difference between spoken and written. If you want to be able to converse in it, you need to develop an ear for it. I have an ear for German, which I never studied in school. I never developed an ear for French, though I studied it in both high school and college. I can make conversation in German. I can read and writes little French, but trying to verbally exchange pleasantries in French is hard.

Decide what your goal is. Realize that understanding is easier than replying, both verbally and in writing.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> After playing Duolingo for almost 345 days straight and completing the course (english to french) I tried watching a french TV channel today and i couldn't even understand one single sentence.

I feel that while I have learnt a few basic words it's very difficult to get any fluency using such an app.

I guess the best way to learn a new language is to directly immerse yourself into the environment but that's not possible for me. So I was wondering what other ways are there to learn a new language and what worked for you..

<comment><USER3> I have had the same experience as you. Duolingo in particular I think provides a false sense of progress, as it can be somewhat of a guessing game that is pretty easy. What I have found the best is to use a flash cards type app, creating different categories: verbs, adjectives, nouns, etc. after all, a lot of learning a language is memorization. Supplementing this with watching tv with subtitles has proven to be pretty effective for me, but of course as you say, nothing is better than being in a place and speaking the language every day.

<comment><USER4> After Duolingo, I've been using clozemaster (for Spanish). I paid the USD 40 pa for the audio version. I type responses rather than answer via multiple choice. It's a lot more challenging than Duolingo, and I've learned a _lot_ more vocab.

I don't think language is about memorization so much as it becoming part of your zombie mode, as the learning folks like to call it. Kind of a innate understanding.

Other sites I've used:

* yabla [1] for listening comprehension

* lang-8 [2] for writing

newsinslowspanish [3] do a free podcast of the first 10-15 minutes of each of their shows. Reading Spanish news' sites helps; most have additional videos these days. I read EuroNews in Spanish. They also have an app.

Of course, there's tons of stuff on YouTube.

[0] [https://www.clozemaster.com/](https://www.clozemaster.com/) [1] [https://www.yabla.com/](https://www.yabla.com/) [2] [http://lang-8.com/](http://lang-8.com/) [3] [https://www.newsinslowspanish.com/](https://www.newsinslowspanish.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I learned Javascript and a bit of Python online, but I'd learned Perl years before that by reading the O`Reilly books.

What works for me is learning on a "need to know" basis. JS and Python are not so different than Perl, and most all languages have common traits and features so it comes down to learning syntax a lot of times.

I am not very fluent. I reference APIs and sample code, and head to Stackoverflow for answers a lot, but only when I need to and I don't hesitate when I need to because you can waste a lot of time doing that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha I guess those are languages too, rather this being hacker news it's what comes to mind first. That's great advice by the way. I too started with perl and pretty much followed the same route. I wish learning real languages was equally easy as googling stack overflow and learning it in the process!

<comment><USER5> It honestly never occurred to me this was about "foreign languages". lol!!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If phone lines are considered online, then yes. I learned mostly from listening to conversations. The easiest is just to listen.

If you cannot be around native speakers, try phone calls. Making a phone call stops you from feeling ashamed, but helps you to practice (standard) sentences and listening. It helps that they usually have a specific context. Look up standard sentences for a topic (like hotels or restaurants) and just call. If the call gets awkward you can always hang up.

</comment><comment><USER7> When I moved to France from Italy I didn't speak a single word of French. I spent 5 months on Duolingo (en->fr), hung out with French colleagues, read books and watch cartoons for kids (Asterix and Tin Tin are my favorite).

After 8 months I was able to speak fluently French. A strong advantage was that I already spoke a romance language.</comment>


Repurposing Thin Clients - <AUTHOR> http://www.parkytowers.me.uk/thin/index.shtml <comment><USER2> This website is an amazing collection of information. I love this kind of site: someone with a deep interest gathers a huge amount of information.

It deserves more interest.

</comment><comment><USER3> Favorite thin client I've found is the asus chromebox. It was $150 (now cheaper), can easily install a larger SSD and 2 SOdimms (max at least 16G ram), and is easy to install ubuntu or whatever floats your boat.

Even comes with a ANSI hanger, so you can mount if off the back of common LCD panels.

Avoid the HP version, half the memory bandwidth, half the memory capacity, and less USB ports.

<comment><USER4> I've been keeping radio silence on these because it seems like many Chromeboxes are no longer in production and I don't want to impact availability, but yeah, these things are very impressive.

It's a little more difficult to work with than most PCs because they come with ChromeOS with runs Coreboot. Thankfully Mr. Chromebox has done a bunch of work building UEFI and legacy boot bioses packaged with friendly install scripts - [https://mrchromebox.tech/](https://mrchromebox.tech/) \- but it's still a bit of work. It's really a very interesting effort- earlier this year he started working on upgrading the firmware for the embedded controller too.

This definitely weened me off my crushes for HP thin clients & the AMD embedded processors. Interesting systems, but the price point even in secondary markets stayed pretty high, especially given the modest performance. Back then the small but very competent GPU was a decent differentiator, some old units are probably still better than many of the Chromeboxes (which from experience I can say need more GPU muscle to do an adequate 4k).

Consumer/commercial mini-PCs continue to show up and come down-market. Given how good $400 laptops are (really astoundingly good), it's hard to imagine the mini-PC market keeping what seem like it's plush margins intact. The pressure to go down-market is big, and frankly it seems like a cost saving measure to sell smaller PCs than bigger ones- as consumer adoption increases I look forward to seeing competitiveness among small PCs growing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> In a similar vein, SpritesMods built a cluster out of old Windows terminals: [https://spritesmods.com/?art=wtcluster](https://spritesmods.com/?art=wtcluster)</comment>


Czech Constitutional Court cancels storage of data on all e-mails, calls, etc... - <AUTHOR> http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/news/zpravy/czech-const-court-cancels-storage-of-data-on-all-e-mails-calls/617125

<comment><USER3> It's always good to see news like this when you first wake up. Not my country, but just knowing that some courts in the world can rule intelligently on these issues gives me hope.

<comment><USER4> Yeah really!

The German Constitutional Court had already rejected the law. But the battle goes on in many other countries ...

<comment><USER5> It is indeed inspiring to see other countries behave intelligently on this matter. Here in Norway the struggle is still going, I was out in the streets demonstrating yesterday. I really hope our politicians are beginning to fathom what is at stake here and veto the law. It doesn't look very good right now though, especially considering that the largest and second largest parties (Labour Party and the conservative party) are both in favor. The fact that Norway has yet to veto a single law pushed on us from the EFTA doesn't help either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone know of a site that lists all countries who have either rejected or canceled this law?

<comment><AUTHOR> The wikipedia article on this directive [1] links to [2], which seems to give a fair amount of details on how exactly the directive is being implemented in each country.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_2006/24/EC>

[2] <http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Transposition>

<comment><USER6> Thank you

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I do not fully agree, my neighbour was hit in a car accident. The driver was some young idiot, driving at 90kmph (56 mph) on red on zebra crossing. Later he said that the car had been stolen. The only proof that led to conviction was data gathered from BTSes and data about 2 calls he made (times, location).

But for the Data Retention Directive, this reckless, young man would have been found innocent. Now imagine the same thing happening to someone who is important to you. What would you say?

<comment><USER8> Asking people how they would legislate while in the grip of rare but extreme emotional distress tends to produce the kinds of law that grievously undermines the sorts of open democracies that are - generally speaking - <USER2> safer, healthier, and more peaceful than those in which this kind of manipulative fear-mongering drives policy making.

[Exhibit A] The Patriot Act. [Exhibit B] "Freedom Pats" by the TSA. [Exhibit C] Warrantless Wiretapping. [Exhibit D] Retroactive Immunity for Warrantless Wiretapping. [Exhibit E] Suspension of habeas corpus.

Do you really need me to go on?

And about your neighbor: you say the "only proof" was provided by telcom records. But does that mean this was the only evidence available? Or was this the only evidence the police actually gathered? Specifically, how do you KNOW that, in the absence of this resource, the police would not - and could not - have realized that the story about the stolen car was a lie?

<comment><USER7> Specifically, because they get rid of the car very quickly and it was never found.

But I want to ask you about something. And please don't downvote me.

I believe that 6 months of keeping data about calls/ips/others is reasonable approach. If you're not commiting any crimes, only situation when it might be harmful is some kind of political situation. But then, I'm sure you can provide other means of communication. So what is this actually about?

Listen guys, I just want to know, so no flames, no downvoting please.

<comment><USER8> If that's what you believe, fine.

The sketchy thing is supporting your (presumably well-considered) position with manipulative appeals to un-reason. The "how would YOU feel if [insert random horror here] happened to you or your loved ones?" tactic is one of the worst examples going. Using it is a good reason for downvoting.

The whole point of policy making is to get beyond the (obviously) tortured perspective of a few unfortunates, and ask if the kind of strong emotional reaction these stories provoke will actually lead to sensible policy.

The less likely the actual horror is, the more likely the answer is 'No.' It's just as likely that those closest to the horror will reject this sober and well-considered response, and start spreading hysteria and fear instead, while totally ignoring any negative side-effects that get included in the more rational assessments they're trying to undermine.

By the way, being "close to the horror" doesn't necessarily mean being a victim. It can also mean being in a position to profit from hysterical over- reactions. When this starts to happen, you really start to see the Shirkey Principle in action. Namely, "every institution will seek to preserve the problem for which it is the solution."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "The law inadequately infringes on people´s privacy"

I found this typo/mistranslation mildly amusing.</comment>


Developing micro-services using Clojure, with REST+JSON – Piotr Jagielski - <AUTHOR> http://pjagielski.pl/2014/02/24/microservices-jvm-clojure/

<comment><AUTHOR> Piotr's article is a brief tutorial and includes sample code.

Here's another article about micro-services with Clojure at SoundCloud, with much more depth and industrial scale, by Joseph Wilk:

[http://blog.josephwilk.net/clojure/building-clojure- services...](http://blog.josephwilk.net/clojure/building-clojure-services-at- scale.html)</comment>


Mobile App Economics in 2016 – Not Looking So Hot - <AUTHOR> Just read: http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/2/11140928/app-store-economy-apple-android-pixite-bankruptcy
Reminds me of my own situation and the action I look a few weeks back: Charge, more, like, way more, for my apps.
Example: I recently upped the price of my excellent podcast app (SkipCast) from Free to $24.00. The result: I've made more in the last 2 weeks than the first 6 months when I was at $2.99. Sure downloads are waaaay down, but each sale is worth so much more.
The argument is simple: as app developers we're absolutely screwing ourselves by living in the delusion that what we'll have enough volume to stay afloat at such low prices.
The core problem, as far as I see it, is the app store's search system is incredibly inflexible when it comes to the top three spots, the only ones that have a prayer of making any money. Mix in that in some categories (including mine), there's a feedback loop of the same app being perpetually featured and thus, the only one that get downloads, and we've got a recipe for disaster.
So, you do something else to set yourself apart: charge so much that if someone does scroll down far enough to see you, they'll take pause and wonder why you cost so much.
Free is poison, and completely unsustainable for all but the luckiest.
It's a complex issue but one thing I'm absolutely sure of: I'm sure as hell not giving my hard work away for $1.99 anymore. I may not make any money, but at least I'll do down with dignity : )
*Small update for readability. <comment><USER2> Posts without URLs get penalized, so you should submit the article and then add your text as a first comment in the thread.

Edit: actually it looks like the story was submitted at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11222681](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11222681). Posting your text as a comment there would be a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER3> Here here! I do the same for my line of fitness apps. $3.99 at the moment. The only way for consumers to begin to understand that the software they use everyday costs real money to build and maintain is for us to charge for it. I'll be experimenting with higher prices later this year. Cheers!

</comment><comment><USER4> It sounds like your discussing your demand curve - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_curve](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_curve)</comment>


160% increase in H.264 video online since January - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/05/ipad-may-be-pushing-160-increase-in-h264-video-online.ars

<comment><USER2> As far as I know, Flash supports H.264 video, usually wrapper in a m4v, so it doesn't mean that HTML5 video is taking over. It may be that instead of encoding in a format readable only to Flash, it's becoming more common to encode in a format that both Flash and HTML5 can read.</comment>


Gephi, an open source graph visualization and manipulation software - <AUTHOR> https://gephi.org/features/

<comment><USER2> Now under a more open CDDL license. That's good news.

Mik</comment>


Show HN: Digimail – Simple Letter Mailing - <AUTHOR> https://www.digimail.co/ <comment><USER2> Any plans for an API? How's it work behind the scenes? This versus Lob.com?</comment>


Gowalla: Going Forward - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gowalla.com/post/9378150015/going-forward <comment><USER2> Well.. that's it for me then!

Notes, I don't care about... but the items are (were) a great feature, that made me choose Gowalla over 4sq in the first place and also the one thing that made me use it for such a long time. Without that I might as well switch to Facebook Places or wtv...

<comment><USER3> My thoughts exactly. I think gowalla are underestimating the value of their Item feature. What is "item usage" anyway? I never "use" my items because I just like to keep them. The chance of discovering a new item is the only thing that keeps me using gowalla instead of 4sq.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just hope they will listen to the the users crying out in unison: "keep the items, that's the reason we use Gowalla". That's really how the replies on that post look like.</comment>


Debussy: the musical genius who erupted out of nowhere - <AUTHOR> https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/02/debussy-the-musical-genius-who-erupted-out-of-nowhere/ <comment><USER2> The impressionist movement didn't appear out of nowhere. Romantic composers had been exploring sonority and dissonance for decades by the time Debussy came onto the scene. Liszt's Années de Pélerinage and Nuages Gris had been pushing in this direction for a long time.

Yes, Debussy was a genius, but he didn't invent it whole cloth.

<comment><USER3> If you listen to "Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune" and _do not_ hear Wagner, you are either not listening or don't know Wagner's music.

Also, there's a lots of experimentation in Chopin that surely influenced Debussy. In the Polonaise-Fantasy in A-flat there's a prominent octatonic passage in the melody, plus loads of sequences through his output that make use of octatonic patterns (like the twice-repeated octatonic ascending arpeggios right before the code of the F-minor Ballade). There's the black key etude that made a game out of playing a pentatonic melody using only the black keys (at least at the beginning of the piece).

There is also Chopin's prominent use of the arpeggiation technique where you move up the keyboard by bouncing your pinky then thumb on the same note (or bouncing your thumb then pinky when going down).

Plus all kinds of little games like taking a slow moving bassline from one section and speeding it up 4x in the melody over a seemingly improvised chord progression to transition back to the theme.

Just with those examples you've got all the ingredients necessary for something like "...Brouillards" from Book II of Debussy's Preludes.

I don't think the significant achievement of Debussy is some mythical genius who came out of nowhere. Rather, I think it's someone who was heavily influenced by other composers like Chopin-- so much so that you can _feel_ the influences as you play his music. Yet the sound of the music is mysterious because he's combining those influences in novel ways that don't follow the harmonic or even formal paths of those influences at all.

So "black keys only" becomes "black keys in the right hand and white keys in the left." Harmonies built from octatonic scales don't function to lead to a new key but instead just sit where they there. And Chopin's bouncy arpeggios just drop off and lead to yet another mysterious section of music.

Those are all big chances to take because you can immediately hear the influences, but if you don't continue to investigate the music everything just sounds weird and "wrong." I imagine that explains the kind criticism Debussy was getting from his teachers-- not necessarily, "I don't understand at all what you're doing," but, "I hear what you're doing but I don't think it leads to anything other than novelty."

I think that's an understandable criticism for the time. Imagine hearing for the first time a piece where one type of music interrupts the previous music, then it just goes away. Is that just a parlor trick to laugh at, or is it a burgeoning new way of thinking about musical form? We know the answer because we can read music history books, but that's cheating. :)

<comment><USER4> Yes, Wagner was a big influence on Debussy (covered well in "Afternoon of a Faun" by Snyder). Some say was an obsession. For example, to find what to do after Tristan. Prelude.

Debussy wrote in 1910 - I am neither revolutionizing nor demolishing anything. I am quietly forging my own way ahead without any trace of propaganda for my ideas - as is proper for a revolutionary. I am no longer an adversary of Wagner. Wagner is a genius but geniuses can make mistakes. Wagner pronounced himself in favor of the laws of harmony. I am for freedom. But freedom must essentially be free".

I play a lot of Debussy. His art is wonderful.

Note that March 25 will be 100 years since he died.

<comment><USER2> It's fitting to me that Debussy would take as a starting point the sonorous/pianistic elements of Liszt and his harmonic/orchestration style from Wagner, who in turn built on/derived from Liszt. A beautiful feed-forward loop.

And I'd have to say that Tristan und Isolde went pretty far toward abandoning traditional laws of harmony, waiting three hours to come to any actual resolution.

(Comics at the time portrayed Wagner as a vampire on Liszt, stealing his ideas and money and running with them. I honestly can't blame them.)

Thank you for pointing out the date.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I take some issue with calling _La plus que lente_ a vulgar parody. A parody, yes, but an affectionate, if self-indulgent parody; he said it was written for the taste of "ladies who take tea," and he lavished too much attention on it for it to be vulgar.

<comment><USER2> People today have largely lost the understanding that parody and pastiche are different but related formats.

Both are referential, but pastiches are affectionate and often deferential, while parodies poke fun in a biting, sarcastic way.

<comment><USER5> That's not really true, especially in music. For example, think of the term _parody mass_ ; it's not poking fun at all. It just employs previously- existing material as a part of a new composition.

<comment><USER2> Really? I've seen the terms "pastiche" and "parody" carefully delineated in scholarly works, though these have been commenting primarily in the classical eras and later, long after the parody masses. Charles Rosen (whose The Romantic Generation is now a classic, if controversial text) in particular has pointed out quite a few works he sees as pastiches as opposed to parodies.

<comment><USER5> Maybe I'm especially affected by earlier uses of the term, since I was most focused on parody in the sense of parody masses and musical borrowing in the Baroque. At any rate, I don't think the distinction is as simple as Rosen's usage might suggest (though I really enjoy Charles Rosen).

<comment><USER2> I once saw him perform a recital, including some Liszt. After the recital, I told him I thoroughly enjoyed The Romantic Generation.

His response? "That one has the best jokes."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you want to know more about Debussy the person (unlike the author of this article!), Roger Nichols' "Debussy Remembered" is very good.

<comment><USER7> The summary of his personal life in Wikipedia was also interesting.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Debussy#Personal_life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Debussy#Personal_life)

Thanks OP, Bioshock's use of La Mer introduced me to Debussy and that was a great read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1) "But as I've grumbled before, what is regrettable is that it's still apparently impossible to include music examples in books of this sort. Why is the following sentence (about a piano 'Image') any more accessible than a simple music example? ... Serious, careful and readable writers like Walsh are not helped by this publishing restriction."

The images are public domain and available freely on the internet: [http://imslp.org/wiki/Images,_1ere_s%C3%A9rie_(Debussy,_Clau...](http://imslp.org/wiki/Images,_1ere_s%C3%A9rie_\(Debussy,_Claude\))

So...not sure this is a publishing restriction so much as an author choice -- though I'd imagine that a lot of people who read a Debussy biography can read a piano score, and I agree, it would be nice to include excerpts.

2) His string quartet is magical [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNxVfv_1LIA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNxVfv_1LIA)

3) wow is the Spectator a pretty bad mobile reading experience

<comment><USER9> > So...not sure this is a publishing restriction so much as an author choice

It's not an author choice, it's a publisher choice. More than one author of a book on classical music has complained in recent years of being unable to include examples from the score in a general-audience work because the publisher thought it would scare potential readers away. You and me might think that a reader incapable of reading music might simply ignore such score examples and continue reading, but publishers fear that the mere presence of a score example would make the book seem to highfalutin' for most audiences.

<comment><USER8> Interesting -- source for this claim? Not finding anything to this effect in a quick google...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a nice piece:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N5fvYejvXk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1N5fvYejvXk)

(hard to find a good rendering, this is the best I could find quickly)

</comment><comment><USER11> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKO- ebWS4Ko](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKO-ebWS4Ko)

</comment><comment> noir-york Absolutely fascinating! Thank you for posting.</comment>


Ask HN: My local congressman is deleting my Facebook posts - <AUTHOR>

Recently I have been posting comments on the Facebook page of my local state ca representative and he just deleted all of my critical comments and banned the ability for me to comment on his Facebook page.<p>Other than obviously me being peeved and pissed off about my view of the first amendment, what can I do to get his attention?  None of my constiuent e-mails have been answered so far also. <comment><USER2> Freedom of Expression != Freedom to Express it everywhere.

People are free to put restrictions on expression on things that belong to them. Otherwise the books publishers will have to publish every draft that comes to them and the art gallery will have to exhibit my 2 year old's sketches.

</comment><comment><USER3> You have the right to criticize elected officials.

But the person being criticized doesn't have to allow you to do so in their forum.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe expectations are changing, but I consider a Facebook page almost akin to a public forum now for better or for worse.

<comment><USER4> It feels kind of like a public forum, but it really, really isn't. Facebook owns it, and has complete say over how you use it. It's "private property", despite being open to the public --- there are very few public spaces online (probably because it's really hard to monetize public space). To a lesser extent, the congressman owns his FB page. You're a guest. You shouldn't let yourself be fooled into thinking you have any kind of rights on Facebook.

It's obviously a kinda shitty thing for the congressman to do (unless you were being really disruptive in the comments somehow), but other than getting the attention of a bunch ofhis other constituents I don't see what you can do to make him think it's worth listening to you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea I was thinking if my comments were 'troll like', but upon reflection I just disagreed with some of his posts.

You are right that at the end of the day it is 'his' Facebook page and he can do what he wants. I guess the tradeoff of having a perfectly curated page is disappointing some of your constituents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> All I can think would be to create a webpage on a domain like whyfooisabastard.com & start out with a post detailing his campaign against your personal free speech- maybe invite others he's censored to speak up there. Just a first guess off the top of my head.

</comment><comment><USER6> Contact the local media? Maybe someone will be interested and run a story about it or try and contact the representative for you.

</comment><comment><USER7> Write letters first of all. Can't remember where, but I've read those are much more effective than email. Call their office, or better yet, stop by and ask to speak with them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Through the California state representative website, they encourage us to contact our representatives through e-mail. So far, none have been returned, but maybe it is time to write a good old fashioned snail mail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> try calling his office and explain your positions to his staffers

<comment> 9-to-5-loser Completely pointless ...

BTW capital letters, punctuation marks, etc. are not that expensive and make what you write a lot more readable ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha my apologies. I wrote this late at night and I should have done a better job writing a more readable post :).</comment></comment></comment>


Spotify Examined: What Their Report Really Says - <AUTHOR> http://ayesimo.com/spotify/ <comment><USER2> >A Spotify Premium user isn't the average music fan.

Disagree I consider myself the average music fan and the reason I like this service is that I have all my music with me where ever I go, even if its not my device. Other people I know who use Spotify are mostly average the other half isnt.

Spotify has converted me from a pirate in my younger days to a paid music subscriber.

<comment><USER3> Your use case is why I have iTunes Match. It's finally not buggy, I love it so much it's the reason I got an iPad mini yesterday instead of a nexus 7, and that was a hard decision.

<comment><USER2> I am all about cross platform these days. S4 GE phone, iPad, MBP laptop, and a windows desktop powerhouse. iTunes Match sucked when I used it last but its been a while.

<comment><USER3> I've had it since launch, and it's always been pretty buggy. But for the last 12 months all issues I had (libraries getting weird on one device, streaming choking a bit sometimes) have all been fixed, so I'd gladly recommend it now. 18 months ago? God no ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > They don't pay per play, so most of your money goes to popular artists no > matter how indie your listening habits are.

That's a misleading sentence, it implies that your listening choices do not affect how much money goes to indie artists, which is not true. The proportion that each artist gets depends on how many plays they have relative to the plays of all artists in total in a particular time period, which is a proportion you do influence by what you choose to play.

If you want to be misleading in the other direction, you could just as easily say:

"They don't pay per play, so some of your money goes to Satanist artists no matter how mainstream your listening habits are."

<comment><USER5> I may be appealing to emotion there, but it's certainly not misleading (nor is your claim about Satanists, though I think the proportion going to them is very very small). It's true!

Do you disagree that it would be better for the $10/mo a subscriber pays to go only to the artists they listen to?

<comment><USER6> "Your" $10 _does_ only go to the artists you listen to. If you shift your listening entirely from one artist to another, the artist you left will see their revenue drop by $7 and the artist you adopt will see their revenue increase by $7.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> 1\. "iTunes is also the preferred tool for listening to pirated music, which generates nothing for artists."

Spotify has paid out $1B in 9 years. iTunes is paying out over $1B PER QUARTER. [1]

2\. Spotify also has an ARPU cap ($120/yr) - Not only do none of their competitors have this, but it is likely others will find ways to increase APRU (better video CPMs or iTunes exclusives are just a few options). This will likely make Spotify a less appealing distribution option going forward.

3\. It seems implausible Spotify is the cause for reduced piracy - YouTube has 10x the content, $0 cost, no need to download an application or creating an account and has 50x the user base.

[1] - Don't worry, I'm not including app sales in this figure.

<comment><USER5> Beyonce's latest release on iTunes sold over 1 million copies in less than a week at a very premium $15.99 a pop [1]. And there's no need to pirate it, as videos of her best songs are already heading to VEVO/YouTube now [2]. It's a win-win, and Spotify's not a huge part of that story.

[1] [http://www.cnbc.com/id/101283857](http://www.cnbc.com/id/101283857)

[2] [http://www.vevo.com/watch/beyonce/drunk-in-love- explicit/USS...](http://www.vevo.com/watch/beyonce/drunk-in-love- explicit/USSM21302428)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> One thing that has always surprised me is just how small the entire music industry is.

The entire recorded music industry was $16.5 billion in 2012 (According to the IFPI). To put that in perspective... \- $364b: The TV industry (2009) \- $557b: Our spending on the war in Afghanistan \- $523b: The amount the world spends on beer each year (excluding other types of booze)

The point here is that the cultural value of recorded music is (I believe) not reflected in it's market footprint. For better or for worse (mostly for better I think) music is cheap.

<comment><USER7> also, for comparison: [http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/billion...](http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/billion- dollar-o-gram-2013/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> >We're set to soon see growth of physical sales eclipse the contraction of physical sales completely. Which means the graph, if expanded a bit, might look like this: It goes up a little bit!

I don't understand. To me, the change in physical sales appears to be asymptotically approaching 0. Why assume it suddenly goes positive and then use that guess to make Spotify look deceptive?

>Spotify is playing a little fast and loose here, though. A Spotify Premium user isn't the average music fan. Only 25% of Spotify's active user base pays for the Premium service. .. A fairer comparison might have been the average U.S. citizen against the average Spotify user, since both include people not really paying for music.

No, they're not. They're comparing _paying Spotify customers_ to _US paying listeners_. If you think comparing nonpaying to nonpaying is reasonable, paying to paying should be reasonable too.

>In a year, Spotify makes about $14.67 per advertising-supported user [2], but those folks if considered just typical Americans would spend $25 on average [3]. That's just over $10 per year lost for each cannibalized person.

Why assume those people aren't buying music also?

<comment><USER5> The projection graph _does_ assume flat physical sales. But it's a stacked chart.

Paying to paying is not completely unreasonable, but imagine an airline using the average fares of its Airline Club members (who are often flying first class) vs the fares of average Americans. It's easy to inflate the number when the group of people you're talking about are rich and predisposed to being more engaged.

edit to your edit: It's not clear to me why you would be willing to listen to Spotify for free, but then buy music on the side. Anecdotally, I've never met anyone who does that consistently. I'd be interested to hear contradicting anecdotes though.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, there is also a bit of this at play when Spotify talks about what they pay artists. They say they pay an average of 70% of revenues, but they don't explain that major labels get way better rates per stream, not just because of the volume of streams. It would be akin to Wal Mart boasting an average $22 per hour salary for all workers because their CEO makes $100M a year while all others make minimum wage.

<comment><USER10> That doesn't really square with Spotify's own explanation where equal market share should get equal payout: [http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify- explained/#royalties-i...](http://www.spotifyartists.com/spotify- explained/#royalties-in-detail)

<comment><USER9> In that first graph is says X 4 (Artist's Royalty Rate). So it is based on market share, and some rate, which they would have simply said is Y had it been the same for everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Awesome Post Aston. You know, you can most year-to-year sales data directly from RIAA. You're supposed to pay for the data but usually you can find someone posting them.

Regarding that, I'm not quite as optimistic as your projections on digital sales. I don't think it trends up forever. I don't have a crystal ball, but I have a feeling that downloads sales will actually peak in the next 1-3 years. At which point, the record industry will REALLY start freaking out (again).

</comment><comment><USER12> OP doesn't acknowledge that downloads may have peeked. I used to download quite a bit but haven't in over a year due to the supreme advantage of streaming.</comment>


The End of Facebook (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/06/15/the-end-of-facebook/#74adcd862220 <comment><AUTHOR> Thread from 2011: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2660680](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2660680)</comment>


Ask HN: Start Up Advice Desperately Needed. - <AUTHOR>

Hey All,
I know I don't post on here enough, which I probably should more, but I tend to offer advice when ever I can.
I am getting ready to launch a start up.  Leaving my company in a months time and going at it full time.  I found an investor, that will help pay for these costs while it gets off the ground.  I just don't really have a start-up adviser sort of like what PG is to the YC community.  I need advice on what to do with a converstation I had.
So without an adviser, I turn to you all.  The hacker community, please help me figure this one out.
My start up is still private and I don't really want to discuss the details, but it has the potential to compete with a major broadcasting network.  We either want to be bought by them, or turn our selves into them.
We are focusing on a very small piece of a larger pie right now with this start up.  We have two organizations inside this small piece that own portions of it and are willing to pay for our products.  One organization lets say is 20 people (figurative for how large the organization is) and the other owns about 130 people in theirs.  While both these orgs own a portion of this piece, the entire piece of pie contains about 1100 people (remember I am speaking figuratively).
I had a talk with the smaller org just the other day.  They want our product extremely bad.  We think all 1100 will want the product, but they would like us to give them exclusive rights to what ever we build for a undecided timeframe. Meaning anywhere between 3-6 months. In trade they will both give us extremely good feedback and a designer.  A designer that understands the piece of pie extremely well.  That has been connected to this piece for quite some time.  They would also like to start using our product right away.  We have a Alpha out, but its only functional.  Not beautiful and well it doesn't bring in money just yet.
While I enjoy this excitement, I am concerned about two main things.  This larger organization has the power if they put their money into it to build what we have.  So if they get upset about these exclusive rights for that 3-6 months, they could or have the chance to not use our service at all...  While we are remembering that there are still 900 more people out there that don't belong to either. They aren't affiliated with any organization....
The other main thing is, our funding runs out in about 6 months from me leaving my job.  If I were to give exclusive rights, I can't grow fast...  I am trading my extreme growth for honest feedback and a designer.  But in that time frame, I want to be operational to a point where I can afford my own living expenses.  I don't have any other investor lined up.  I don't know any other investors or even how to get in touch with them.  I know that my current investor has more money sitting around, but I don't want to bleed their pockets dry.
So my question and advice I need is, What do I do?  Do I take the org that wants exclusive rights?  Do I give them 3,4,5,6 months? Or do I just say no, we will keep moving how we are moving and try to push out to the other 900 people first?
My thoughts are giving them exclusive rights because I love honest and hardworking feedback, but also I am a coder, not a designer....  I just don't really know what sort of time frame I should give them for those rights?
Help... <comment><USER2> If the smaller organization wants your product, then exclusivity is not going to be a sticking point - and you can (and probably should) hire design talent when design issues are hurting sales (again slice20 wants your project now despite it's aesthetic short comings).

On the other hand, would slice130 sell a competing product they developed to the rest of the market? If not, then the perceived advantage they gain might encourage sales of your product to the rest of the market.

The other question is, is the pie predominately cut into 130 unit slices or 20 unit slices or an entirely different size? And more importantly, what size slices are you primarily pursuing?

Finally, having the exclusive deal on the table appears to be distracting you from your strategy. Is the deal good enough to pivot for?

IMO, If your project is truly a startup, then it is a no brainer to swing for the fences and forgo an exclusive - growth and market share will probably be more attractive to additional investors to fuel your company than will a competitor moving into the space.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> I know this is a super cliche piece of advice, but a bird in hand is better than two in the bush.

Seems to me you would be best off trying to negotiate as short of an exclusivity period as possible and then working with the small company to improve your product.

<comment><USER4> Exclusivity is always negotiable – length of agreement, type of exclusivity, comparative solutions etc. Non-Competitive clauses may help you reduce risk if your product functionality, as-is, is not exactly what they intend to use and redistribute.

I would push back on exclusivity, if not you can reduce the length of the agreement and maybe include the rights of the IP from the final product will be owned your organisation and licensed back to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Umm, talk to the org that wants exclusivity. Lay it all out so they see your side and figure out if it makes sense for both of you.

If your investor can only provide 6 months of runway, but you project you need more time than that, your investor is an idiot.

</comment><comment><USER6> spoiledtechie, I worked in the media business (Nielsen) before I started my last 2 companies (Piictu, Easy Vino) and your speech sounds familiar but too generic. The broadcasting business is so ripe for disruption but it does have a lot of tricks. Your question lacks too much info to give you a good recommendation but at first sight I'd say NO! Don't take money from other broadcasters/competitors. But we should probably talk about it more. If you want, shoot me a skype call (hugo.bernardo). Just to make sure, I have ZERO interest in that space right now. Just curious...

</comment><comment><USER7> To be quite honest -- you should probably save for at least a year of expenses of your OWN money before quitting your job.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Maybe I should have stated, my job allows me to take a leave of absence, so I don't actually lose my job, I just lose my insurance and paycheck for that period of time.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Goalie, an iOS app for tracking daily goals, reminders, etc. - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/goalie/id579935282?ls=1&mt=8

<comment><AUTHOR> This is my first app, I just wanted to see what you guys think of it.

Here is some promo codes: JXRPHJ4NNRRR 6ETYWM7TXWL3

<comment><USER2> What's the difference between this and other goal trackers in the app store?

<comment><AUTHOR> I found it very frustrating to use the habit/goal tracker apps from the app store. The main reason was they didn't remind me to do the goal or habit I was working on at specific times. They would mainly just remind me to enter in information once a day and by the time it finally reminded me, it was already too late to do the task.

Goalie makes it easy to set multiple reminders for goals or tasks on the specific day of week and time you want. The reminders repeat forever, or until you complete the task. For example, I have it remind me to make my bed at 8:30 am, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and at 7:50 am Tuesday and Thursday.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Clear and simple UI, but do change the icon :)</comment>


Radiation levels  1,000ft - 4.13 mSv/hr, 300ft  87.7 mSV/hr - <AUTHOR> http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201103170201.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the first time I've seen solid numbers with rates in a while. NYtimes is doing a horrible job covering this.

These levels are very high, but still very low when compared to Chernobyl.

<comment><USER2> This [1] is an amazing documentary if you have not seen it.

The comments about "biorobots" is very chilling. The bravery of the soldiers who threw bricks into the hole is stunning.

"Each soldier must throw 4 bricks into the hole. Each brick weighs 50Kg. You have to do this in one minute."

[1] [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=414073095760658789#d...](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=414073095760658789#docid=-5968506788418521112)</comment></comment>


From Ubuntu to Fedora or what distro? - <AUTHOR> I used Fedora a few years ago. Moved to the Mac. Moved to Ubuntu. Back to Mac. Back to Ubuntu. I might move back to Fedora. Any recommendations? <comment><USER2> After years of distro hopping, I settled with Elementary: [https://elementary.io/](https://elementary.io/)

<comment><AUTHOR> this looks very interesting and I like the screenshots but I wonder this is more for general use and not towards development use.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Was on Fedora before. Debian is ok and better than Ubuntu IMHO.

<comment><AUTHOR> What was your main reason from moving from Fedora to Debian. Is it the package manager or any other reason?

<comment><USER3> At that time, Debian Tesing was more stable than a standart Fedora.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's been your reasoning for switching every time? Pick a distro, stick with it, and learn to customize it to your liking.

<comment><AUTHOR> simplicity. used for web browsing, terminal and listen to music. light. I tried installing Debian. Half an hour later the install crashed :)

<comment><USER4> That's odd. No insight as to what caused it?

Generally shouldn't be much of a difference you'd notice for those tasks other than the desktop environment.

<comment><AUTHOR> the install was taking about 30 min. It said something like 'software install' error. Continue. Error loop. On the other hand I tried Fedora and it installed in 5 min. no errors :) yeah you are right not much difference. Ubuntu Unity and in Fedora Gnome 3 look almost the same to me. Although I tried Gnome3 on Ubuntu before too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I moved from Ubuntu to Fedora a couple of weeks ago (on a Macbook pro) and it's has been awesome so far.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am trying Fedora on a VM. It looks similar to Ubuntu. Trying to get use to the package manager. What are a few things you like about Fedora after moving from Ubuntu.

<comment><USER5> I think they were mainly related to my machine. On Ubuntu my laptop was getting super hot all the time, even with extra tools and extra drivers installed. Also I was using Ubuntu with Gnome, and it wasn't so fluid. With Fedora, Gnome just works perfectly, the laptop doesn't get hot and the battery just lasts longer.</comment></comment></comment>


Mind bender: How tall is your coffee mug? - <AUTHOR>

OK, this isn't speficially about coffee mugs, it's about perception.  Stay with me, there are lessons for entrepreneurs, but first you should play the game.
Take your favorite mug.  Look at it closely, and imagine wrapping a piece of string around it once.  Now image taking that piece of string and holding one end against the base.  How high will it reach?
As high as the rim?  20% higher?  60% higher?  Take the time to try to visualise it.
Now do it.
If the result surprises you, then you've got something from this exercise.  But if not, read on.
Now go and try it on people you know, or people you don't know if you have the courage.  See what they think.  See if they're surprised by this result.
I pretty much guarantee that they will be.  And if you weren't, it serves as a reminder that your customers aren't you!
It doesn't matter if you like your product, or think it's usable, or think it's great.  What matters is your customers opinions, not yours.
Of course, it helps if you like what you sell. <comment><USER2> I don't see how this says anything except that people aren't that good at visually comparing height and circumference of cylinders. The people who designed my coffee mug are probably just as bad at it, so it isn't like I as the customer am not seeing the vision they had in mind. They would be just as wrong unless they happened to remember the dimensions. The height to circumference ratio of coffee mugs (considered on its own not in how it affects design) seems completely irrelevant to usability and greatness of coffee mugs as well.

Don't get me wrong, I think this inability to spatially relate height and circumference is interesting. And I think it's interesting that customers view products differently than designers. I just don't think the two ideas are related in even the slightest way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi DanielStraight, thanks for taking the time to reply, as you have helped me clarify some thoughts.

Firstly, I've tried this in person on about 20 people, and almost every one has reacted with "No Way!" and snatching the string from my hand to do it for themselves. They thought it simply _had_ to be a trick, it couldn't be true! They were amazed.

I agree, pretty much all this says is that people are, in general, really bad at comparing height with circumference. The thing that interested me was that every one of them "knows" that _C=pi.D._ They still got it wrong, and it blew their minds.

I was hoping some people here would try it and have a similar reaction. It appears I was wrong.

However, the continuing point is this. The few who didn't get surprised, are surprised that others are surprised. To me, that says that they expect others to think as they do. For entrepreneurs this is the route to a quick and not- very-painless death for their enterprise(s).

I was intending this exercise to be an analogy for people, just as the color of the bike-shed is an analogy. Clearly my intent failed for you. You have taken it very literally, talking about the designers, and how the ratio might relate to usability.

That wasn't my intent, and I clearly failed in my intent, at least with you. So I have learned a lesson.

 _My readers aren't me._

I'll be thinking about that for a while.

Thanks again for your time.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To help visualise ...

<http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=coffee+mug></comment>


Tech companies: Stop pretending to care about Black people - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/90512426/tech-companies-caring-about-black-lives-matter-is-too-little-too-late <comment><USER2> They should not care about black, or white, or female, or male people. What they should care about is hiring the best fit to their needs, regardless of skin color, sex, etc. It is up to the people, regardless, white, black, or whatever, to became the best, to demonstrate and use their ability not a color of their skin.</comment>


The Importance Of Blog Linking Seems to Be Declining - <AUTHOR> http://www.louisgray.com/live/2008/07/importance-of-blog-linking-seems-to-be.html <comment><USER2> blog linking seems to be more about getting better search engine results than actual traffic. In my opinion, it always has been.</comment>


White-Collar Crime: Why Executives Don't Go to Prison - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2017/06/27/executives-prison-financial-crisis-criminal-justice/?utm_campaign=fortunemagazine&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&xid=soc_socialflow_twitter_FORTUNE <comment><USER2> 1\. White collar cases often turn on technical details neither the judge nor the jury really understand. Even if the law's on your side it's a crapshoot.

2\. Defendants have enough money the prosecutors can't just scare them into taking a plea bargain. 98% of federal cases are pled out (which is a good indication of tyranny). Prosecutors don't have the resources to take every case to trial, _especially_ complex cases. It's easy to get people to understand drug distribution and bank robbery without calling dozens of expert witnesses. Financial flimflam? Not so much.

3\. The public cares a lot more about keeping violent criminals behind bars than fraudsters.

Also, this bugs me:

>It's been nearly a decade since the financial crisis, and yet no big-company executives are behind bars. One reason, says Eisinger, is that court rulings have taken away tactics that prosecutors had used to pressure defendants, such as restricting attorney-client privilege and preventing their companies from bankrolling sky-high legal bills.

Prosecutors should not have "tactics to pressure defendants". If you can't get a conviction without taking the defendant's money so he can't afford a lawyer, maybe you don't have a case.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Some of the worst white collar criminals are actually DAs who knowingly prosecute people who shouldn't be prosecuted. They have the power to punish anyone even the innocent with potential prison time even if innocent, and also insane legal fees. If the government loses, they should pay for putting an innocent through so much hardship

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> once you realize that prison _mainly_ just serves to disenfranchise the poor and minorities, the fact executives don't go to prison is obvious.

people will disagree, but you need only look at the facts to see.

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

<comment><USER5> Exactly. Highest per capita incarceration rate in the world, save Seychelles. Slavery 2.0 meets prison-industrial complex and voter disenfranchisement. The US justice system is the opposite of reform-based systems like those in many Scandinavian countries. It's mean, expensive and reinforces a type of social apartheid.

<comment><USER6> The Census counts prisoners according to the "usual residence rule," assigning them to their prison for purpose of location and, of course, redistricting. A prison is a good way to get a lot of bodies to populate a district and ensure they won't vote.</comment></comment></comment>


NumPy makes plans to drop Python2.7 support - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/numpy/numpy/blob/master/doc/neps/dropping-python2.7-proposal.rst <comment><USER2> Ok, I guess it's about time I made the switch too.</comment>


Command-Line Torrent Search Tool for Windows and Linux OS - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kryptxy/torrench <comment><AUTHOR> Command-line torrent search tool. The tool fetches torrents from thepiratebay* and linuxtracker.org.

Project link: [https://github.com/kryptxy/torrench](https://github.com/kryptxy/torrench)

Feedback/suggestions are appreciated.

*Requires configuration</comment>


The Chef Survival Guide Book - <AUTHOR> https://leanpub.com/chef-survival-guide?utm_source=hn

<comment><USER2> Finally a book on Chef. I just purchased it and will be reading it over the next few weeks. Still waiting for one from Oreilly.

EDIT: Bah, maybe I'm not familiar with Learnpub, or maybe I didn't read the fine print, but this book is under active development and is currently only 42 pages long and is pretty skimpy. Oh well. Hopefully it iterates quickly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I plan on doing a batch of updates this week and flesh out more of the content next week. Let me know what topics are of most interest to you and I'll prioritize those. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the response. While I haven't read the book yet and only briefly looked through it, I think the most important areas to cover are 'development process/workflow' and 'testing'. Opscode does a pretty good job of explaining how to actually write cookbooks and things like LWRPs, but the two areas I mentioned are rather fragmented on the web.

I've also heard about the idea of 'Library Cookbooks', and the idea of having a generic cookbook that you can include in an organization-specific cookbook seems very intriguing. If you are familiar with this concept, including it the book would be quite worthwhile.

Another area I would be very interested in is Chef Best Practices. I've gotten myself into quite a bit of trouble by putting way too much information in my roles, only to run into all sorts of trouble with versioning when working in multiple environments i.e, 'dev', 'test', 'prod'.

Anyway, thanks for putting in the effort to get a book out. Chef is a little starved in the way of accessible information (I shouldn't have to resort to IIRC multiple times per day to get questions answered). This is badly needed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this, you have the same concerns as I that prompted the book, which started out as the development of the "Chef Broiler Plate" <https://github.com/jrobertfox/chef-broiler-plate> because there were all these great tools, but no cohesive idea on how to integrate all of them.

I think i'll add a section that goes over the process as you say, because once the framework is set up you could

-create cookbook -build tests -write book -verify quality -test on vagrant -version/promote

something like that.

<comment><USER2> Sounds like we are on the same page exactly. That process sounds good. And if you are able to clearly lay out how all the various tools integrate in to a cohesive whole, you'll have solved a very big problem in the Chef community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Slightly off-topic, but what exactly is the difference between Puppet and Chef? How do they differ?

<comment><USER4> I would say the biggest difference between Puppet and Chef comes down to Chef is basically 'pure' Ruby while Puppet has a DSL derived from Ruby, which is meant to be easy to work with.

I personally prefer Puppet because there's generally one way to do things, while it also allows you to extend the resources and functions available by falling back to custom written Ruby libraries.

The Puppet 'code' looks pretty basic and is all generally derived from the core resource types defined here: <http://docs.puppetlabs.com/references/latest/type.html>

You will also see some examples of what defined resources might look like there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been struggling with Chef for a few months now and it has repeatedly blown my mind how, for something as popular as it appears to be, there is simply no good reading material for it. This is timely and a really big deal.

Good speed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much! Can I quote you on that for the landing page?

<comment><USER5> absolutely!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome. This looks great and I just purchased a copy. However, many of the chapters are listed as "under development." When can we expect them to be finalized and released?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll be updating the content of each chapter and the book as a whole (the plan is) on a weekly basis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> At a glance I thought this was a book on cooking for developers, this idea pleased me. I think when I finally finish being lazy I might write a book about cooking meant for developers.

A book on Chef is also cool.</comment>


Research HN: Is there a data science DevOps? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for people who are working in data science, big data analytics, business intelligence, and related areas, who would be willing to be interviewed (confidentially if you like) about how this type of work is best done in teams.  I'm particularly interested in the infrastructure or the DevOps, so to speak.  We know a lot about the operations management that supports regular software development teams, but I haven't found any good guidelines for which (if any) tools and processes play a similar role in supporting analytics work.  Does anyone here have any thoughts or experience with this problem? <comment><USER2> I was a data engineer for a couple years at one of the largest websites in Europe. My job was to develop applications to handle our data pipline and deploying the infrastructure on Amazon EC2, Redshift, EMR, etc.

What is it that you need and what are the problems you're facing?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm coming at this as an academic, and the problem I'm hearing from companies about the whole idea of a "data scientist" is that it describes a superstar -- someone who knows math, statistics, programming, the business domain, etc, and is self-sufficient. The glowing articles about data scientists focus on the talents and skills they have, and don't tell us much about the operational "work" they do. I can't tell from the literature, for example, what kind of workflow I'd see on a kanban or scrum taskboard for a data science team.

Closer to home, I am also very interested in how a university can train students to do this kind of work... so I want to understand the operational processes and not just a list of technologies the students should learn.

I'm currently teaching a course on software development which touches on workflows and DevOps, and I'd like to do the same for our new analytics major.

<comment><USER2> You mentioned that you know about general software development devops already, why and what do you think is different for data science workflow?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yup. Loads. reach out at wtpayne-at-gmail-dot-com if you want to talk.</comment>


Don Knuth – Constraint Based Music Composition - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_1a6bHGQGo

<comment><USER2> Music starts at 1h5m42s: [https://youtu.be/e_1a6bHGQGo?t=1h5m42s](https://youtu.be/e_1a6bHGQGo?t=1h5m42s)

<comment><USER3> Can't see who's playing. Is it a recording or some sort of MIDI performance?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This was held at the ccrma stage! So many great talks and concerts have been held there. I have used that room to stream phish shows and watch cabin in the woods in 5.1 :D

If you are in the bay area you should definitely go check out one of the events, they are all free and open to the public.

\--> [https://ccrma.stanford.edu/](https://ccrma.stanford.edu/)

</comment><comment><USER5> A comprehensive autobiographical video interview with Knuth from a few years ago:

[http://www.webofstories.com/play/donald.knuth/1](http://www.webofstories.com/play/donald.knuth/1)

</comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone notice Don's piano belt :)

<comment><USER7> I would wager a bet that it is a pipe organ belt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The word "eccentric" springs to mind. (I mean that in the nicest possible way)

<comment><USER9> He reminds me of a Physics professor I had in college. She was taught by Catholic nuns, and she had a lot of the same mannerisms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Gotta love this Christian.

<comment><USER11> I don't understand this.

<comment><USER12> Don Knuth is a Christian, as he sometimes mentions in talks or things he's written. He also wrote this book which discusses each 3:16 verse in the bible [http://www.amazon.com/3-16-Bible-Texts- Illuminated/dp/089579...](http://www.amazon.com/3-16-Bible-Texts- Illuminated/dp/0895792524)

<comment><USER13> A white American being Christian is so common that I wonder why the original poster felt that this was worth emphasizing.

<comment><USER14> As Knuth himself acknowledged in "Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About", it's rare among CS researchers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not meant to be insulting or disparaging but I'm curious: Does Knuth have some form of highly functional autism or related? His body language is very weird to me. Staring at the floor a lot, seems to be lost in thought, etc.?

<comment><USER16> If you find yourself starting a sentence with an excuse, it's a good sign you are on the wrong side of polite behaviour. He's 77 years old.

<comment><USER15> I didn't start with an excuse, I qualified my question in such a way that I had hoped these type of responses wouldn't follow.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Conduct a Step-by-Step Risk Assessment, Together with Your Project Team - <AUTHOR> https://teamsuccess.io/ <comment><USER2> Your landing page should have some indication of what the product is or what to expect.

Closed it as there is no hints on what the product actually is.

Is this about doing a structured risk assessment for e.g. Security risks, safety risks etc? Like a design FMEA, security FMEA try to bring up?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Founder here! I'd be very happy to get any feedback, or hear how your team currently does risk assessments?

<comment><USER3> I expect the biggest issue you're going to have is my answer to your question: we don't do risk assessments. Never in any company I've worked for have I been involved with doing one, or even heard that they existed.

Heck, I'm not even really sure what they are. So your tagline "Identify Project Risks and Issues" \-- that all sounds good, but I don't really know what it is the tool does! Certainly you're not going to say "in the database, we need to model the concept of a production date separately from the concept of the packaging date"; what is it that this product does? Even the online demo doesn't help: it presents two fields (likelihood and impact) and then says "now sign up".

So you might want to do more to convince me I should do one of these. How will it help me? What will it look like?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone hiring for non-technical positions? - <AUTHOR>

I'm posting this on behalf of my wife, but I'm sure there's some other people on this site that would be interested working for a startup, but aren't necessarily programmers or designers.<p>So, anyone hiring in non-tech positions? Ad inventory management, sales, project management, content administration... any of those jobs needed to actually run a site. <comment><USER2> You mean all that stuff that makes sites successful?

<comment><AUTHOR> Precisely!</comment></comment>


Is there a web video autoplay blocker that works like ad blockers? - <AUTHOR> For example: if you go to this CNN Money article, they have "autoplay" set to "true" for their CNN player:
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/07/news/economy/us-treasury-shell-companies/index.html
Has anyone created a browser plugin that works like AdBlocker or UBlock to detect video players that are set to autoplay upon pageload, and force autoplay settings to FALSE?
I recognize there are many different video players, but there are many different ad networks as well. So the list would be long of video player code to look for and modify on the fly. <comment><USER2> Edit: Annoyances aren't the only reason to block Flash. That stuff is still getting people pwned on a regular basis. [https://arstechnica.com/security/2016/04/adobe-flash- update-...](https://arstechnica.com/security/2016/04/adobe-flash-update- ransomware-windows-10/)

Plugins give you more options, but you don't necessarily need them for what you asked for. In Firefox's plugins page, you can set Flash to "Ask to activate" which will disable Flash on each page until you enable it.

In Chrome, scroll down and click "Show advanced settings". Under Privacy, click Content Settings and scroll down to Plugins. Change it to "Let me choose when to run plugin content".

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://flashblock.mozdev.org/](http://flashblock.mozdev.org/) on Firefox blocked the video for me. I see a black area with a play button instead of an auto-playing video.</comment>


Google Glass' awkward interactions parodied on 'Saturday Night Live' - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2013/5/5/4302244/google-glass-awkward-interactions-parodied-saturday-night-live <comment><USER2> not really good comedy but better than nothing</comment>


How to be an artist – Howard Hodgkin - <AUTHOR> http://iainmait.land/posts/howard-hodgkin-how-to-be-an-artist <comment><USER2> Great read.

Here's a short summary of my journey as an artist, making a living:

1\. Originally launched [http://fairpixels.co](http://fairpixels.co) to design logos on a pay-what-you-want basis

2\. To help market this service, I open sourced the unused logo designs I regularly would make for companies over at [http://logodust.com](http://logodust.com). This resulted in a ton of growth, getting covered by sites like TNW and Inc. Giving away stuff for free helped me grow the business beyond myself.

3\. Then I recently launched [http://flypx.com](http://flypx.com), to create a more steady income for myself and fellow artists. Where the goal is to spend less time marketing oneself as an artist to attract clients, and constantly provide value to companies. The designers/artists get to work their craft and constantly improve. While the clients get to work with a single designer over a longer period of time for a fraction of the cost.

I had written about this last chapter of my story as an artist and how I got to #1,596/MRR in 48 hours: [https://medium.com/art-marketing/how-we-launched- a-new-servi...](https://medium.com/art-marketing/how-we-launched-a-new- service-and-got-to-1-596-mrr-in-48-hours-1c5c1b8ca5f0#.xzizva29u)

It can be a struggle to make a living as an artist, but once you combine entrepreneurial marketing strategies to simplify the flow of work, things can work out pretty well

<comment><USER3> not really an artist are you, more a graphic designer

<comment><USER4> Commercial arts employ artists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really enjoyed reading this and was pleasantly surprised to find it on HN. There is a really interesting intersection of art and hacking that I don't think we talk about enough.

If I wanted to find more stuff like this, where should I look?

<comment><USER6> You might enjoy Paul Graham's long essay, _Hackers and Painters_. [http://paulgraham.com/hp.html](http://paulgraham.com/hp.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm](http://www.idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm)</comment></comment></comment>


Small Vegetable Plant to Debut for Use in Restaurants - <AUTHOR> http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20100614/183423/ <comment><USER2> I think that they may want to change their terminology. By plant they mean factory, not... er... plant.

<comment><USER3> I didn't even get the meaning of "plant" as meaning "factory" until I read your comment AND looked at the article.

"Heavy plant crossing" also used to confuse me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> An automated mini lettuce factory. Very cool. 90,000 US$. Not so cool anymore. "Recoup the investment in about five years." Way too long.

Opportunity for a hardware startup? I'd say yes.

<comment><USER5> Not to mention that during the summer you'll be competing with good old gardens. Growing lettuce is as easy as throwing a handful of seeds on a patch of land and harvesting a couple of weeks later.

<comment><USER6> Except for the birds and the rabbits and the weeds and the insects and the mold and the soil and the rain...

<comment><USER5> Hasn't been a problem for me. Yes, the birds eat some of the seeds, but plenty remain. Slugs can be a problem though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> (12 _40) watts_ (24 * 365) hours * 10 cents per kilowatt hour

That comes out to about 420USD per year just to run this thing. And that's at 10 cents per kilowatt hour. In areas which I suspect this sort of thing would be more popular (California, the new england area, New York, etc) it's going to cost you nearly twice as much.

Sure at 90000USD you might break even after 5 years, but you'll still actually be more than 2000USD in the hole at that point that's to power consumption.

That's not even starting to take into consideration the amount of money you'll pay in wages having your employees waste time with this thing.

</comment><comment><USER8> Am I missing something, or is this nothing more than fluorescent lighting and an irrigation system neatly packaged?

Do plants grow faster in this environment? Do the shelves adjust for different plant heights? Does the payback change if you're growing anything but lettuce?

Also, it seems to me that this vegetable factory would only be suitable for a restaurant that had a very predictable and very specific amount of traffic coming in the doors; otherwise, you're growing too much or not enough of what you need.

<comment><USER9> _Am I missing something, or is this nothing more than fluorescent lighting and an irrigation system neatly packaged?_

Try growing your own vegetables for commercial use and then comment on how "trivial" this is. What they're doing provides a lot of value. With their system, a restaurant can reliably provide _fresh_ vegetables to its customers without waste. You just grab up what you need, as you need it, without transport, storage, etc. Do you know what it's like to have a fridge full of rotting lettuce because you've had a slow week?

I hope this makes it big - fresh vegetables with less waste means cheaper and more appetizing vegetables. If this works out, it will make people healthier. Hooray for capitalism and the innovation it enables!

<comment><USER8> I was asking this question because if it is just fluorescent lighting and a built in irrigation system, I think it would be much cheaper than $90,000 to roll your own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The daily maintenance takes an hour. An HOUR. Most kitchens don't have a spare 5 minutes, let alone an hour.

Maybe this will be popular in places with gadged crazy chefs/customers, but I can't imagine it being a raging success. I'd rather get my lettuce from a producer who knows what he's doing and just charges me per head.

</comment><comment><USER11> This looks related to prop 19 :-)</comment>


Why won't the FAA let students fly drones? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/30/5951769/faa-new-drone-policy-raises-ire-of-profs-and-model-pilots

<comment><AUTHOR> For further reading - this is concerning the new FAA policy published recently that is currently in a public comment period. See this post and video by the AMA for a good overview: [http://www.modelaircraft.org/aboutama/AMAInterpretiveRuleRes...](http://www.modelaircraft.org/aboutama/AMAInterpretiveRuleResponse.aspx)</comment>