Female, minority students took AP computer science in record numbers - <AUTHOR> https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2018/08/27/female-minority-students-took-ap-computer-science-record-numbers/1079699002/ <comment><USER2> Increased participation in AP Computer Science courses is only marginally beneficial, I think.

In high school I took the AP Computer Science course after working with Java for years, thinking it'd be an easy A. Was that ever far from the truth.

My issue was that the quality of the course was plain terrible. Any school in my state (North Carolina) which didn't have an in-person teacher could offer the class through our statewide online course program, and the state of the course on there was dreadful. Typos everywhere, incorrect and trick questions on the exams. A friend of mine in a similar situation as me had to email the instructor four times with the message "I DID include what you graded me off for, it's on line 44" before the instructor looked at line 44.

Broadening participation in computing is crucial, but we also need to devote serious attention to cleaning up the curriculum. If we don't, we'll end up making more kids hate Computer Science than like it.

<comment><USER3> I've also worked with Java for quite a while and took the most recent AP Computer Science administration by self-studying the content. What frustrates me about the AP curriculum is that it is focused more on programming than the actual CS concepts behind it (data sctructures, algorithms). While the curriculum does cover sorting algorithms and their best and worst case efficiency, it refuses to use the standard big-O notation to do so.

Needless to say, the test was extremely unchallenging (and frankly, disappointing).

<comment><USER4> Speaking as not a university level guy, I'd really be turned off of programming if there was more focus on CS concepts. I mean sure they came around, but I spent more time making working software, which is much more gratifying than implementing a map or linkedlist (which iirc we also had to do).

<comment><USER5> Ahh, and then you get to industry and you miss the simplicity of it all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The headline exaggerates the gains for women. From the article:

        This year: total. = 135992 up 31% over last year
                   female =  38195 up 39% over last year

From this we can calculate last years numbers:

        Last year: total  = 103811
                   female =  27478

Comparing total participation:

        This year: female/total = 26.5%
        Last year: female/total = 28.1%

African-Americans and Hispanic and Latino students made more robust gains. The gains for women might not even be statistically significant.

<comment><USER7> It would be useful to calculate the percentage difference between n_group/n_population and n_group_course/n_course. This would essentially calculate a "representivity" score for that course.

So, for example, according to the 2010 US Census, Black or African Americans constitute 12.6% of the population. However, according to [1], they constitute only ~5% of the CS degrees awarded. Therefore the score for CS and Black or African Americans is |12.6 - 5|/12.6 = ~60% underrepresentation.

[1] [https://datausa.io/profile/cip/110701/#demographics](https://datausa.io/profile/cip/110701/#demographics)

<comment><USER8> This negates the idea that a certain demographic may be disinclined to a particular subject (which is equivalent to being inclined towards other subjects).

One needs access to courses without unnecessary discrimination, one does not need to be pushed in to courses simply to make their representation scores better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think we should be interested in someone's achievements, not on sex, skin colour, height, weight, clothes etc. of that person.

<comment><USER10> We don't live in a perfect world; we live in a world where people face blatant and systematic discrimination based on their physical characteristics.

Given this, we have two choices: pretend that the world is a fair place where merit is all that matters, or we can attempt to boost those who've been treated unfairly with the hope that society will gradually improve because of it.

Your statement makes me think you're a pretender.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Female minorities are a woahfully under represented at today's software companies. This article is great news and shouldn't be shaded by "well it was harder in my day" BS.

<comment><USER12> Is the goal simply to boost the numbers of some arbitrary group of people clumped together because of their immutable characteristics? Or is the goal to improve the output and speed of innovation in an industry by exposing more people to it? If it's the former, you're probably right. If it's the latter, being concerned about sacrificed quality is not "BS".

<comment><USER13> You get more innovation by having a wider pool of talent to draw from. That likely more than counters reducing the 'quality' of what is at best an introductory course.

It's not about skin color, it's a question of having for example a blind team member causing the team to think about a wider set of issues.

<comment><USER14> But shouldn't we just hire people based on whatever qualifications we deem an indicator to talent, skill, ethic, etc?

Does being a woman, disabled, ethnic, etc bring meaningful insight to designing a network protocol? Is that a quantifiable thing? I suspect both of these answers are a resounding no.

Lets care what talent and interests people have. Lets give them the education they need to pursue those interests. Creating groups of people by what I consider irrelevant details like what organs they have and then forcing them into certain occupations does not seem likely to make better network protocols. I frankly am always puzzled that people who fight for equality, simultaneously care so much about what's between our legs.

Now, if you think the blind, or women, or w/e are interested in STEM/etc but due to culture they avoid it? Great, that's something we can work with. Lets work on trying to change culture for new generations. Don't force them into STEM, but ensure that children who are interested in STEM can follow it, regardless of gender.

<comment><USER15> > due to culture they avoid it

And do you know one of the best ways to change the culture? Get more people from different backgrounds in the room.

> Creating groups of people by what _I_ consider irrelevant details > ensure > that children who are interested in STEM can follow it, regardless of gender

People massively underestimate the importance of role models and empathy in career decision making. At some point you need to jump start it and use contextual signs to plot future potential.

We're not talking about a C grade Person being chosen over an A+ Person, but if you have an A+ grade Person and an A- grade Person, and the latter is from an underrepresented group, then taking into consideration the context of the latter entering an industry that's seen as "not for them" based on the demographic of those inside of it already, can imply they have greater potential for success.

I'm expecting this line of argument to get me downvotes on HN, but contextual recruitment, and that increasing levels of diversity on all teams being a good thing (even if it means, within a few percentage points, hiring for potential than current expertise), is a fairly uncontroversial thing in the world of recruitment.

<comment><USER16> > We're not talking about a C grade Person being chosen over an A+ Person, but > if you have an A+ grade Person and an A- grade Person, and the latter is > from an underrepresented group, then taking into consideration the context > of the latter entering an industry that's seen as "not for them" based on > the demographic of those inside of it already, can imply they have greater > potential for success.

Honestly, we are even talking about making way for someone of equal, or even higher, raw talent but of a different background. To say otherwise takes the (in my opinion obviously not justified) premise that without any intervention hiring functions as a perfect meritocracy.

<comment><USER17> That is where I take issue.

You are wrapping up the measure of raw potential based off gender and skin color. You can't make any assumptions about that based off those two things. You don't know if you are looking at a wealthy black kid, or a poor white kid, you don't know which house hold had a dysfunctional abusive situation based off skin or gender. You can't tell which one was made fun of in school and bullied. You can't even say which one had actually had more exposure to whatever field you are hiring for. You just can't, that is not how it works.

You are being racist and sexist if you make assumptions about a individual based off their skin color or gender. How all the sudden you know somebodies background because you have negative views about what it must have been like to be born a certain color or gender. And don't tell me that you are not doing that, otherwise you would be using some other metric than gender or color to suggest the things you are suggesting. I would be furious if I just got done interviewing with you and you thought I had high raw talent because of my skin color or gender.

I have said many times when this topic comes up. If you really want to make change you have to do so at the beginning of the pipe line, when the kids are young. Support for low income single parent family's (any race). Ensure the environment is well suited for girls to take part in tech activities (e.g. treat everybody the same). I don't buy the "needs roll models" argument at all. Kids / people are either going to like program or not. And if the problems is "there are too many dudes" in tech then maybe we should all stop vilifying the men in tech and create environments where both sexes can learn to calibrate and work together. After reading stuff from vice, and the like no wonder girls/women would be terrified to work with men.

tl;dr Do everybody a favor and stop imagining how disadvantage somebody is based off their skin color, or gender, you really have no clue.

<comment><USER16> You have misunderstood the point so badly it almost seems willful. The scale is already tipped; AA policies are an attempt to fix that, not to promote mediocrities.

For instance consider this work showing that, given the exact same resume, employers are less likely to call back applicants whose names sound black: [https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/mar/15...](https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/mar/15/jalen- ross/black-name-resume-50-percent-less-likely-get-respo/)

> The [identical] resumes with white-sounding names spurred 50 percent more > callbacks than the ones with black-sounding names.

> After responding to 1,300 ads with more than 5,000 resumes, the researchers > found that the job applicants with white names needed to send 10 resumes to > get one callback, but the black candidate needed to send 15 for one.

> It didn't matter whether the employer was a federal contractor or was > described as an "equal opportunity employer," as those also discriminated > like the others.

> "We find little evidence that our results are driven by employers inferring > something other than race, such as social class, from the names," their > paper states. "These results suggest that racial discrimination is still a > prominent feature of the labor market."

<comment><USER17> I have actually read that paper and it is fairly old at this point, and other studies like it more recently have concluded different results.

While your quote mentions class, and asserts that they were not getting signals from class -- one look at the name list chosen for white people will show you how they did not properly control for class. For example they have almost no low class names on the white side. I am sure adding a Bo, Ada, Billy, Bucephelus, Cleatus or Clyde would have for sure changed the callback results on whites.

At the time the study was done I was working at a company that would have never posted a advertisement in a paper, but would have called every single last person both white and black back. The suggestion is that people who posted in papers might have been of a different age group and other means of replying to a job ad such as email at the time may have produced more balanced results.

There is also the issue of the name being disliked and not actually the perceived color of the person. Aversion to unfamiliar ethnic names is entirely different than hating black people. While it is will play out poorly for those with such names it does not guarantee that the same person with a different name would have experienced the same callback rate. This is a phenomena that transcends race. This also is probably a good time to point out assimilation is part of living in a mixed race society. If I recall correctly, the notion of black names started sometime after the 1960s. This happened more so in low- income racially divided areas. It was part of Afrocentrism. While there is nothing wrong with that in general, it can have unintended consequences that are not necessarily racially charged. Meanwhile other immigrants had taken on more traditionally American names, as a result those groups seemed to have done very well in the US (Asians). To keep it short, sometimes it does not pay to be unique.

But none of that matters, because I never claimed there was no discrimination. But I have repeatedly stated how to solve the problem without using more discrimination. That is to pump money and education efforts into low income areas. More aid to single parent families, access to computers (not just access, but actual computers in their names). Classes on personal finance, and dealing with money. Cultivating a notion of delayed gratification. Paid classes for low income parents to learn more about what they can do to make their child successful. Subsidized match savings accounts that are released in full on graduating high school. And 3 free meals at low income schools. I think it would also be interesting to see how to desegregate low income black schools from low income white schools. Don't forget the teachers! Competitive salaries that can support hiring the best of the teachers for these areas.

This is the key because it gives the kids real tools for life that will serve them regardless of how they are treated once they get out of school. A good education also helps with racism in general. If you look the people thinking about these issue and trying things are very educated. If you target poor areas with a relentless education effort both whites and non-whites will be educated, and in return lower the total racial tension, creating a new wave of diversity that will be a lasting one.

<comment><USER16> > There is also the issue of the name being disliked and not actually the > perceived color of the person. Aversion to unfamiliar ethnic names is > entirely different than hating black people. While it is will play out > poorly for those with such names it does not guarantee that the same person > with a different name would have experienced the same callback rate. This is > a phenomena that transcends race. This also is probably a good time to point > out assimilation is part of living in a mixed race society. If I recall > correctly, the notion of black names started sometime after the 1960s. This > happened more so in low-income racially divided areas. It was part of > Afrocentrism. While there is nothing wrong with that in general, it can have > unintended consequences that are not necessarily racially charged. Meanwhile > other immigrants had taken on more traditionally American names, as a result > those groups seemed to have done very well in the US (Asians). To keep it > short, sometimes it does not pay to be unique.

In case you've forgotten, black people were brought to this country against their will and their culture, heritage, and genealogical record was deliberately destroyed. Choosing a black name is a small attempt to reverse that tremendous damage. To turn around and say that if they want to be successful they have to "assimilate" is to me a position that's indefensible. You may also remember that the position of black workers was actually not more equal before the 1960s.

I am also not very reassured to hear that maybe they're merely rejecting people with the wrong class background out of hand.

> But none of that matters, because I never claimed there was no > discrimination. But I have repeatedly stated how to solve the problem > without using more discrimination. That is to pump money and education > efforts into low income areas. More aid to single parent families, access to > computers (not just access, but actual computers in their names). Classes on > personal finance, and dealing with money. Cultivating a notion of delayed > gratification. Paid classes for low income parents to learn more about what > they can do to make their child successful. Subsidized match savings > accounts that are released in full on graduating high school. And 3 free > meals at low income schools. I think it would also be interesting to see how > to desegregate low income black schools from low income white schools. Don't > forget the teachers! Competitive salaries that can support hiring the best > of the teachers for these areas.

All these solutions presume the inferiority of black candidates when we're looking at the reality that _identical credentials_ are less valued from black candidates. The idea that black people are uniquely lacking in "delayed gratification" is also bordering on offensive racist caricature.

It is all well and good to improve the schooling circumstances of black students, but it seems equally important to make it so black candidates do not have to be overwhelmingly superior to even be considered over white ones.

<comment><USER17> > black people were brought to this country against their will and their > culture

This is a nice argument for maybe the first few generations, but all of us, you and me and everybody had no choice where we were born even what color we are. People get shuffled and moved around this earth for all sorts of misfortunate reasons. You also have to deal with the fact that there has been voluntary immigration of blacks since slavery. I was just reading how more sub-Saharan immigrants have came to the US since slavery than the entirety of those shipped here by slave traders. Much of the renewed culture has been attributed to those with a choice and fresh connections to Africa.

> I am also not very reassured to hear that maybe they're merely rejecting > people with the wrong class background out of hand.

Nobody said it was good that anybody would do it, but it is entirely different problem that is not racism, and something that is within the power of change. A person can't change his skin color to get a better chance at a job, but a person can change their name. This goes for people of all color born with a name that does not perform as well. A white Harvard grad with the name Butkiss is likely going to have trouble true. The point is discrimination on immutable characteristics is what we are fighting here.

> All these solutions presume the inferiority of black candidates when we're > looking at the reality that identical credentials are less valued from black > candidates. The idea that black people are uniquely lacking in "delayed > gratification" is also bordering on offensive racist caricature.

Please go read my comment again. My solutions are applied to the poor, not by race, that is my entire point. Fix the poor problem and the race issues described in this thread go away. Why? Because we will have more people educated, including whites that may have grown up to be racist or at least had bias tendencies. Affirmative action is like taking pain killers for a curable problem. Educating the masses and raising the bar for all is the actual cure. I feel you have grossly interpret something from my comments that is totally off basis. The ability to display delayed gratification is one of the biggest indicators of future success in life, and it is something that is probably not taught by the parents of the poor, I know it was not in my household. No assumption about the candidates were being made at all, although many have suggested considering a lower marked minority over a higher marked white person. I don't make derogatory generalization about any group identified by a immutable characteristic. The only sensible thing to do when two candidates who are equally qualified for a position is simply flip a coin. This would remove any bias and over time have a more natural result in what you are attempting to achieve.

> It is all well and good to improve the schooling circumstances of black > students, but it seems equally important to make it so black candidates do > not have to be overwhelmingly superior to even be considered over white > ones.

Again, I said poor, not black students, poor. I am not concerned with the candidates. Quite simply if a qualified black candidate does not get the job because of his race then that is discrimination and should be dealt with, there are means to do so already in place. I am 100% on board with everybody having an equal opportunity. If you can show that somebody is selecting one candidate over another based on things like color (especially to underrepresented people), then we should be going after them full force and ensuring they correct their hiring processes. You simply can't create a right with two wrongs. Once you give people the power to discriminate it is hard to go back.

Nobody should ever not get a job because they had the wrong skin color, and when you say chose somebody based off skin color you are ensuring the number of people who don't get a job because of their skin color goes, not down. We should be striving to remove race based decisions from our society not adding them.

<comment><USER16> If you think everything is dandy if people don't get jobs because their names sound too poor or too ethnic then we just don't share the same basic worldview.

<comment><USER17> You are being completely dishonest. Don't put words in my mouth. I never said such a thing or implied it.

All I am doing is pointing out the difference between that and selcting somebody based off color.

This is the second time you have resorted to paiting a dishonest view of me instead of attacking my points...

<comment><USER16> I don't see what the difference is. Even if the intent of binning "Jamal's" resume and keeping "Jake's" isn't overtly racist the effect is obviously discriminatory.

<comment><USER17> You are right, the result may be the same. But it is important to properly label and address the issues.

This is part of the entire issue as a whole. And partly why I think the there are better solutions to the problem. Intent matters. If you apply a race based solution to a problem that was incorrectly identified as a race based issue it is sure to fail. You could call it discriminatory but the entire selection process is just that. What I think we all care about is why a given individual was chosen or not.

In a attempt to maybe find some common ground. How would you feel about this solution be applied at the end of the pipeline; What if when there are two or more candidates with the same qualifications, the candidate is randomly selected? This will remove any bias by the selector, and over time would ensure diversity would result in matching the local population.

I also figured out why I have such a hard time with blindly selecting a given race in terms of programming. No pun intended, it creates a race condition. In your scenario if a white person and a black person always submitted their resume, and the black person is always selected then then white person might apply to 100 jobs and get selected, if it so happens that 100 black people also applied with the same qualifications. Because there is no global accounting system per individual this very well can happen, and has happened, and is the exact thing we are trying to solve. Nobody can guarantee there will be a scenario when this white person will submit a resume indefinitely and indefinitely not get selected because of the rule of always selecting a minority over a white person. This is why I suggest adding a bit of randomness to it.

So today we have have broken code, we can fix it, but we should fix it with more correct code, not more broken code.

<comment><USER16> > What I think we all care about is why a given individual was chosen or not.

This presumption of yours is presumably why I'm not making any sense to you. I don't really think it's relevant whether someone is consciously choosing to discriminate on the basis of race or doing so unwittingly. Many -- probably even most -- racist outcomes we see do not require overt, intentional racism. Instead they come from unexamined and subconscious bias in circumstances where the judgement is subjective enough that it's possible for the person making it to fool themselves and others about what they're really doing. That's an improvement over open, unabashed racism, but I don't think we can stop there and say we're delivering anything resembling fairness. Having an aesthetic distaste for cornrows or the name Lakeisha is one of the least subtle examples of this happening.

> In a attempt to maybe find some common ground. How would you feel about this > solution be applied at the end of the pipeline; What if when there are two > or more candidates with the same qualifications, the candidate is randomly > selected? This will remove any bias by the selector, and over time would > ensure diversity would result in matching the local population.

In real-world scenarios you never have two completely identical candidates. What John Dovidio has shown is that in these circumstances people doing the judging have a strong tendency to decide which criteria to weigh most heavily in a way that, in effect, favors the white candidate in any given instance where both candidates are plausible. I don't think you can fix this solely by changing the interviewing process except, maybe, by the kind of extremely rigid and uniform government job interviewing process everyone talks about hating.

<comment><USER17> > racist outcomes

Its not racist if race was not the driving factor. I think that is the big part of why there is so much push back. On this topic. You appear to be viewing the outcome as raciest, but are not willing to see how other factors may result in the same outcome. You have to understand how the outcomes came about to being to fix it. I agree that there is discrimination and much of it can be caused by subconscious bias. To repeat, assuming the cause based off the outcome is completely incorrect. I do agree that people are and can be doing exactly what you are saying, but it is hard to prove and not what is happening in every case.

It is completely bad logic to assume racism is occurring because the results are what one might expect had it occurred. You MUST understand the dynamics before prescribing a solution.

> In real-world scenarios you never have two completely identical candidates.

I had a feeling you might say something like this, but I was hoping you could see past my simple example. When I say same qualifications I mean a range that is acceptable for the position at hand. Lets say we had a scale of 1 to 10 for a marking system. And we have a job that requires between 7 and 9. We would randomly select all candidates matching who were marked between 7 and 9. But you do bring a problem I had thought about and why I hate mucking with the hiring process at all, is the judging system. I think you are suggesting that the judges will rank a group more poorly thus wont fit the bracket and thus wont get the job -- thus we must select the underrepresented person by default. If that is the case, then why have a rank at all, you seem to simply say if underrepresented person applies they must be hired, because the person judging the candidates for rank will give the underrepresented person lower marks, and not get the job. I don't think this is the case but there is a solution to make sure it is that still allows for random selection on equally ranked Canada's. That is simply companies must keep a record of rankings and document their decision's why they chose who they chose for a given job position. These records can be audited at any time.

If you are dead set on the only solution is that a underrepresented person must always be selected over a white person then I think we are done, and I don't think we are going to changes each other's minds. I would be interested in any other solutions you might have. While I have more ideas, I feel that I have already struck out with you and can't put any more effort into this.

<comment><USER16> I don't agree with your definition of "racism" here. If it's racially discriminatory in effect, by my reckoning, it's racist, even if no actor has racist intent.

In the question of hiring, what I most favor is measures to reward the hiring of a diverse workforce as a countervailing force to structural forces that lead to racist outcomes. I feel this would work better than trying to impose some method of hiring. This is not really that different from Affirmative Action, which of course does not actually prescribe that minority candidates most always be selected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As someone not from the United States the acronym "AP" really threw me off. Had to look it up. It stands for Advanced Placement and despite its name is an introductory class.

<comment><USER19> It's a college level course offered to high school students. Not sure where you're getting the idea that it's "introductory".

In American schools, the levels of a class on, say, European History would be:

European History -> Honors European History -> AP Euro History

You would just take one of them based on your ability and/or interest in the subject.

Students can complete AP courses and, depending on how they score on the exams, earn actual college credit at whatever school they end up at.

<comment><USER20> > It's a college level course offered to high school students.

I took the AP Physics C MITx course on edx (when I was in high school) and it was way below the level of our college Physics 1 course (electrical engineering, European university). Not saying it wasn't a great course (much better than anything my high school offered), but it just wasn't as mathematically rigorous.

Are introductory college classes in the US really so basic?

<comment><USER21> Yes.

<comment><USER22> I think the answer is "depends on the school."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think it's odd to limit the scope of the "minority" label of a global industry to just the USA.

18.2 million software developers in the world.

only 3.6 million are from the usa. ~5.7 million are from india. 5.8 million from china. etc.

No one race has the majority.

[https://www.computerworld.com/article/2483690/it- careers/ind...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/2483690/it- careers/india-to-overtake-u-s--on-number-of-developers-by-2017.html)

<comment><USER24> doesn't seem that odd to me given that the website is "usa today"...

<comment><USER23> sure, but LA times doesn't use the minority label with white people even though they are a minority in LA.

In other words, the jurisdiction of the newspaper is not always what they use when calculating the "minority" label.

A minority label depends on context, and IMO global context makes more sense when talking about SWE.

<comment><USER24> > global context makes more sense when talking about SWE

why would _any_ specific context "make more sense" when talking about SWE?

<comment><USER23> Because SWE projects and companies are global.

The internet, mobile and desktop OSs are all global.

The top engineering companies have offices all over the world that work together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If you want to learn more about research into broadening participation in CS in the US, I recommend Mark Guzdial's blog and publications: [https://computinged.wordpress.com/](https://computinged.wordpress.com/)

This is a good talk from Mark about his (and others') work: "Meeting the needs for a computationally literate society" (2017) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk9y09mmL9M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk9y09mmL9M)

</comment><comment><USER26> This is a half-truth, because there isn't really an AP Computer Science anymore. From wikipedia:

"Due to low numbers of students taking the exam, AP Computer Science AB was discontinued following the May 2009 exam administration."

Today's offering is, at best, some light familiarity with Java. That one is called "AP Computer Science A". There is even a wholly useless "AP Computer Science Principles" that involves writing small essays about non-technical aspects of computing.

<comment><USER11> I am not sure why you are saying this is a "half-truth." AP classes always had a half-year courses (A) vs a year long study (AB.) The Comp Sci A test has been taught for 20+ years, and looking at the cirrocumuli looks like a punch list of today's typical junior dev interview, and looks equivalent to the real first class (not survey) in any com sci program.

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

<comment> nv-vn In my experience that was not accurate at all to the real class. In reality, we didn't cover about 50% of that at all (since it doesn't appear on the test). Instead, it was all arrays and for loops then 3-4 questions about how inheritance works and the free response questions that are graded based on like 3 specific details that could appear in a solution rather than correctness. This article seems like an advertisement for the class because it doesn't reflect the actual content or exam at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I found a Medium post[1] that this article seems to lean heavily on, but I don't see anywhere we can get the statistics. It would be really helpful as we are trying to get some supporting data on Native Americans in CompSci.

1) [https://medium.com/@codeorg/girls-and-minorities-break- recor...](https://medium.com/@codeorg/girls-and-minorities-break-records-in- computer-science-as-fastest-growing-groups-39d23425810e)

</comment><comment><USER28> AP - advanced placement (no idea what that is)

<comment><USER27> If you are in the US, its a program to take classes at a higher level than the high school has. Its where all those folks with GPAs over 4.0 (4.0 being a pretty standard of A) come from (I guess they go up to 5.0).

If you are in the US and have never encountered AP courses then you experienced the fun of starting about 30 yards back in a 100 yard race for that college admission fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> female numbers sore for comp sci courses, 5 years later we have an over supply of media marketing specialist lmao with no programming or technical skills and a few great female programmers who naturally probably already thought like a programmer bc they were taught to question why rather to accept facts as is.</comment>


Now EPA says it can't find emails because of hard drive crash - <AUTHOR> http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/now-epa-says-it-cant-find-emails-requested-by-congress-because-of-hard-drive-crash/article/2550199

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks like we have the new government version of "Dog Ate My Homework".</comment>


TorBirdy: Torbutton for Thunderbird - <AUTHOR> https://blog.torproject.org/blog/torbirdy-our-first-beta-release

<comment><USER2> If the exit node is shady, that still leaves your emails potentially open to being monitored. All the more reason to still use GPG/PGP and SSL.

I imagine, traffic to the popular mail providers are routinely being monitored by some governments.

<comment><USER3> This is a silly point to make. Exit nodes ARE shady, you should assume that with Tor and encrypt everything. That is not the purpose of Tor.

<comment><USER2> You'd be surprised how many people miss that point. There's a "let's just use Tor first" approach some people use that really undermine their anonymity. I.E. Using plugins like Flash while browsing and even JS. In the West, that's usually not a big deal, but elsewhere, people's freedom could be at stake if they don't take adequate precautions.

<comment><USER4> If you are using either TAILS or the Tor Browser button, both of those are intentionally impossible. Javascript can be enabled, but there's probably not as much issue with it as with Java or Flash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Probably just me but installing this took my TB back to the stone age with version 1.x. Be careful.

</comment><comment><USER6> For those of you using TOR -> VPN. Victory laps for everybody.</comment>


How Wikipedia and Flattr can together change the World - <AUTHOR> http://jyro.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-wikipedia-and-flattr-can-together.html <comment><USER2> _The way it works is, your visitor has a Flattr account that he/she fills with some money each month._

Unfortunately that is where it falls apart.

The fund-raising model that "works" for Wikipedia is very different from the Flattr model. And I am not convinced that the Flattr model can scale up to the Wikipedia level.

(not to mention the fact that donations would be a lot more random, difficult to track and will come in fits & spurts; which is basically useless when you reach the levels of money the WMF is after)

 _If wikipedia adopts Flattr as their micropayment solution, overnight tons of people will open a Flattr account._

I do not think this would happen as easily as suggested.

<comment><USER3> In my experience the rate of flattr donations is not very bursty month over month. Even before they allowed to subscribe to continue re-flattring a Thing each month.

And of course I have lower volumes than wikipedia would, so I'd expect it would average out even more for them. :)

One thing is for sure: If Wikipedia managed to handle their funding through Flattr, Flattr itself would be making a killing with their 10% cut.

<comment><USER4> > One thing is for sure: If Wikipedia managed to handle their funding through > Flattr, Flattr itself would be making a killing with their 10% cut.

A serious issue and a major downside from the perspective of Wikipedia, since people still worry about community effects: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enciclopedia_Libre_Universal_en...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enciclopedia_Libre_Universal_en_Espa%C3%B1ol#Reasons_for_the_split)

Of course, there have been large-scale collaborations that have worked out before, so it's not impossible: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Wikipedia#Off- line_publi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Wikipedia#Off- line_publication)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why micropayments will not change the world: [http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/02/why-small-payments- wont...](http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/02/why-small-payments-wont-save- publishers/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Why don't they have one ad, a homepage big box?

YouTube's big box costs $200-250k/day.

Even at $50k/day they could easily rake in 15 million+ and still be a little undersold.

<comment><USER7> Jimmy Wales has been asked this a few times (probably a lot more than that), and their independence is more vauable than the money they would get from such sponsorship.

<comment><USER8> Instead they have a HUGE beg banner. Gah. It's like PBS donation mongering.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The big problem with this idea (other than the fact that the wikipedia fundraising model isn't broken at all), is that it's asking Wikipedia to use it's hard-earned clout and prestige to "improve the world" in an area that is not part of it's focus (micropayments).

Not to mention that if a banner once a year asking for money looks awkward, a micropayments button next to every single article is going to look a lot worse.

<comment><USER3> It would provide a way to compare that 10k people liked article A, while only 3 liked article B. In many ways that is a more interesting part of Flattr than the money itself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Has anyone else noticed the double entendre in the name, "Flattr"? Flatter the recipient, and create a "flatter" distribution bypassing content middlemen.

I don't know whether this potential interpretation is/was intended. I skimmed their web site / blog, but I didn't see an allusion to the latter interpretation.</comment>


Currency and the Collapse of the Roman Empire (Infographic) - <AUTHOR> http://money.visualcapitalist.com/currency-and-the-collapse-of-the-roman-empire/ <comment><USER2> Wow, some definite parallels.</comment>


The worst agile project management tool - <AUTHOR> http://yodiz.com

<comment><AUTHOR> On my 23" screen, I can only see 4 User Stories at once, plus I can delight myself scrolling like a monkey when the US details exceeds 12 lines.

Seriously guys, WTF ?!!</comment>


Scaling a startup from 0 to 40 hits per second in 3 days - <AUTHOR> http://markmaunder.com/2007/scaling-from-0-to-40-hits-per-second-in-3-days/

<comment><USER2> I'm curious about your previous set up. You said mod_perl2, MySQL and Apache2 weren't cutting it for you, but I've scaled to that level fine with mod_perl2, PostgreSQL and Apache2. The key was database pooling via Apache::DBI, all the perl modules cached in a startup.pl via mod_perl2, keep alive and host lookups (and a few other things) completely off in Apache2, and all queries using indexes and indexes all in memory via postgres.

Early on, like in your situation, I did go to the file system at first because I couldn't "make it work," but then eventually I went back to postgres after I figured out its scalability details. If you have a lot of little files and you hit them a lot, that will eventually probably become your bottleneck. Did you figure out the bottleneck in your db setup or has there just not been enough time yet? Just curious.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, a fellow mod_perl hacker. :)

I'm using Apache::DBI, caching everything via startup.pl on load, keep_alive is on but with a very small timeout, host lookups are off.

Also I'm using the worker MPM in apache2, just FYI. I've found it to be really memory efficient.

I've been using MySQL with Apache::DBI for years and it's usually brilliant - I ran WorkZoo.com, a high traffic job search engine with a combination of MySQL and a full-text api.

With feedjit I'm basically storing weblogs. I either have to dump them into a single table and query that - which is what I was doing and the high query rate with read/write was a problem - or have lots of individual tables which isn't feasible after about 500 with MySQL. So small files works best for me.

<comment><USER2> We're talking one file per unique domain or per unique url?

Also, I take it from your comment that the bottleneck was in MySQL doing the writes. I assume the read side is indexed appropriately so MySQL finds the right part on the disk almost instantly. Do you think it is a locking issue then, e.g. table lock vs row lock? (Forgive me, I haven't used MySQL in a while.)

<comment><AUTHOR> One file per URL. The problem with MySQL is pretty much what you've described. I have (had) an index on a table that gets read a lot by the application. It's amazingly fast - MyISAM table's really rock for fast reads on indexes. But therein lies the problem because it also gets written to a lot. Every time it gets written to MySQL needs to lock the table and rebuild the index.

You can improve things a bit by using INSERT DELAYED. When you use that, mysql doesn't guarantee that it'll insert the row immediately, but the mysql query returns immediately when you do the insert (it doesn't block) and mysql queues up inserts and inserts them in bulk when it feels like it. The non-blocking and bulk inserts that INSERT DELAYED give you speed things up, but only to a point because you're still constantly rebuilding an index on a table that's getting a lot of reads.

Mark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Congrats. It seems like the main bottleneck of webapps is the on-disk database. I'd say that if your app is small enough you shouldn't even start with a database, but that would be a preoptimization.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. A while back I was playing with a ramdisk on linux and syncing the data to non-volatile storage. That worked quite well. I can't use that in this case because there are lots of tiny files and they occupy too much space for ramdisk. But looking at the output of vmstat, it looks like there isn't much disk io, so I think the linux filesystem cache is working quite well.

<comment><USER4> I'm curious how you reached so many Japanese bloggers. Were there some big Japanese blogs that covered you at launch?

<comment><AUTHOR> We got covered by <http://www.100shiki.com/> and then got installed by two very high traffic japanese bloggers and it went viral from there.

Mark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would you mind expanding a bit on keep-alive settings? In what cases would you want to set it to a low value?

Question 2. As a web developer, should I be worried that I don't know as much as you about scaling a web app? What will I do when my web app makes it big?

<comment><USER5> I should have definately posted these questions in his blog's comments. I don't think he's coming back :-(

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, I've been on the road - I'm busy driving from Denver to Seattle (currently in a hotel in Bozeman). I've replied to a bunch of questions and will check back again later today.

Mark.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I noticed if you come to a site using Feejit (sp?) via google, you're search term is included in the coming from URL. Does this present any kind of privacy issues? I remember AOL got in a lot of trouble for releasing search queries from their users.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been thinking a bit about this. I have a couple of blogs of my own, so I always think about feedjit in that context. Am I happy with my readers seeing what search terms are sending people to my site and do I think my readers will get mad because people can see what they're searching on?

feedjit only shows the most recent 10 referrers and clicks, so I don't think theres anything there that'll give a 'competitor' some sort of strategic advantage. Besides, tehy can just google around and find out what I'm showing up for in the SERPS.

As far as privacy goes, as long as I'm not personally identifying people and showing what search terms they're using, I think there aren't any privacy issues. I see my own search terms showing up and my location 'Seattle, WA' and no one knows who actually searched that term.

I haven't really applied my mind to this as much as I should, but those are my initial thoughts and I'd love to hear if anyone feels different.

Mark.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> congrats on the great launch!

</comment><comment> patrickg-zill I suppose I will sound like a troll, but why not consider PostgreSQL?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think at this stage both db's will probably do a fine job. PostgreSQL has been getting faster and mysql has more features. I just know mysql. I know where it keeps it's data files, how to recover from a crash, I know the my.cnf config file backwards and how to tune it, so it's really just down to what I'm comfortable with.

Mark.</comment></comment>


Yahoo's Mayer Said to Explore Bid for Hulu to Add Video Service - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-10/yahoo-s-mayer-said-to-explore-bid-for-hulu-to-add-video-service.html

<comment><USER2> If they go through with it, then how are they going to prevent politics from killing this acquisition.</comment>


Google Titan Security Key - <AUTHOR> https://cloud.google.com/security-key/ <comment><USER2> Discussion (16 hrs ago): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17610516](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17610516)

</comment><comment><USER3> The thing that makes me a bit jumpy about hardware 2FA with things like this or a Yubikey is around what happens if I lose it or it breaks.

It's not so much a problem in a corporate setup (like internally at Google) where you could go to a central admin team to revoke/replace the key.

But if you're a home user using this for a wide variety of sites and the token fails then the failure mode seems to be "go figure out the fallback for every site you use and use that", which could be really painful.

I prefer the, possibly less secure but more flexible option of TOTP applications that let me synch to multiple devices, so the loss of one device isn't very painful.

<comment><USER4> With yubikeys, you can effectively clone them when setting them up initially. So you carry one and keep another spare in a safe location. If your primary fails, you can buy another and promote your hot standby to primary having set the new one up to be a clone.

<comment><USER3> Ahh that is interesting! Do you know is there a doc. on how that's done? Also does that mean that once the clone is done you can effectively just register once with your "live" key and if it fails seemlessly use the "backup" key or do you need to register with both for that to work?

<comment><USER4> When you buy one and follow the basic setup steps it tells you how. Always buy them in pairs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think Google uses this same Titan chip for it:

[https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2017/08/Titan-in- depth-...](https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2017/08/Titan-in-depth- security-in-plaintext.html)

I'm not sure if this is the "hardware security module" they've been touting for Pixel 2 devices, too.

I assume this project was spun-off from Project Vault, or at least they re- used some of the ideas/code from that, but it's still a shame we won't be getting the microSD "HSM" anymore. I guess that idea died when Google and other manufacturers decided to kill support for microSD in their devices altogether.

[https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/29/googles-project-vault- is-a...](https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/29/googles-project-vault-is-a-secure- computing-environment-on-a-micro-sd-card-for-any-platform/)

This is Yubico's response to the Titan Key announcement, if you care to read it:

[https://www.yubico.com/2018/07/the-key-to- trust/](https://www.yubico.com/2018/07/the-key-to-trust/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Meh... "open" [https://www.yubico.com/2016/05/secure-hardware-vs-open- sourc...](https://www.yubico.com/2016/05/secure-hardware-vs-open-source/)

<comment><USER5> Yeah, that stood out to me, too. It's kind of funny that they're using the "open" as a competitive advantage against Google, when they _no longer_ have that competitive advantage.

I bet they wish they had stayed open right about now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Quite neat. Though I'm still dissapointed in the U2F/Security Key market.

The Yubico's cost 50€ the piece or 20€ for the U2F key only. And to get NFC usage you have to buy a worse variant of the other keys that doesn't support 4096bit RSA and some other features.

There is not much competition either, Nitro is just as expensive and doesn't feature a good and cheap key either.

Open Source variants are also fairly rare, I would love to DIY some Yubikey 4-like stick with the same or similar/comparable function set. Only thing so far I found is the U2F zero but that didn't offer RSA.

Quite annoying, maybe some competitor other than Yubikey and Nitro can solve this. (It doesn't seem Google is selling the Titan, I see no pricetag)

<comment><USER7> To be fair for home usage a soft-token is just as good and you can back it up by backing up the seed.

If your phone is compromised by someone who can exploit it then your adversarial outlook is pretty dire to begin with.

<comment><USER6> I'd rather have a hardware solution tbh, I don't think software U2F or smartcard is what I want or fits my threatmodel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> See also [https://www.cnet.com/news/google-made-the-titan-key-to- tough...](https://www.cnet.com/news/google-made-the-titan-key-to-toughen-up- your-online-security/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Why Google 'sell' this as an advantage over 2FA over mobile phone? In this case it works on computer only, or you have to be at some computer, with mobile app, you can be anywhere? I see that as huge disadvantage.

<comment><USER9> Security tokens are more secure and can't be as easily fished as phone-based 2FA solutions. It's not about using the key on a mobile phone, it's about replacing phone-based 2FA.

You're right however that their key doesn't seem to have any interface other than USB so it won't be practically usable on smartphones. Yubico has NFC tokens[1] for that use case but it doesn't seem that Google's version offers that yet.

[1] [https://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-for- mobile/](https://www.yubico.com/products/yubikey-for-mobile/)

<comment><USER10> The page Using Security Key links to mentions that Titan supports Bluetooth & USB, with NFC support in a future update.

[https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6103523](https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6103523)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> They need to do better at explaining what this is.

Is it a physical device like in the pictures, or a piece of software? It does not make it clear. I can make a best guess, but from this landing page it is uncertain.

<comment><USER12> My understanding is that it's a FIDO U2F key, like the ones from Yubico.

<comment><USER9> Judging by the drawings it looks exactly like a yubikey[1]. Did they partner in some way or did they just use the same design?

[1] [https://www.yubico.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/12/YubiKey-4-...](https://www.yubico.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/12/YubiKey-4-1000.png)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Will this be available to normal Google users?</comment>


YouTube easter egg - <AUTHOR>

1. Go to Youtube. 2. Find a video. 3. Pause it. 4. Type 1980. 5. Press play. 6. You're welcome. <comment><USER2> doesnt work for me, stopping video and then typing "1" "9" "8" "0" ? It jumps to start of the video, no game coming up...

</comment><comment><USER3> Here, try it on this: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)

<comment><USER4> The game is especially fun to play with this running in the background :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Previously posted: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6184571](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6184571)

</comment><comment><USER2> So you get back to the start? I don't get the egg.

<comment><USER6> It opens a minigame:

Missile command Blow those missiles out of the sky! Click to continue

and then

Defend this video from attack For great justice!

finally the game

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I found that it only works in Chrome.</comment>


The Day Facebook Lost Half Its Value - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/28/great-moments-in-tech-punditry-the-day-facebook-lost-half-its-value/

<comment><USER2> Out of curiosity, who is Jason Calacanis, and why does anybody care what he says or does?

(Honest question. I see his name pop up on HN pretty often, but can't really figure out what he does beyond mahalo, which looks similar to eHow etc.)

Honestly, this quote just looks like it was boo hooing facebook's success.

<comment><USER3> He's an entrepreneur who is very good at making noise and getting attention. While his public persona is grating, he has actually done more than most of the people who complain about him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Please don't post useless quotes from TC on here. That TC post has no actual content, discussion or information aside from a year-old quote.

<comment><USER5> I take the post as more of a commentary on TC. This is arguably the most powerful startup news source, and it is posting silly gotcha quotes?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> One of those "quotes" that come back to bite the writer in the ass down the line.

</comment><comment><USER7> I always (try to) catch myself when I start speculating in absolutes like this. There is little to no reward in being right about something like this, and if you're wrong, the Internet will remind you every year for the rest of eternity. So, do yourself a favor and start using more conditional words like "maybe" and "possibly".

</comment><comment><USER8> I mean, yeah.

But come on, TechCrunch. Let the whole Calacanis thing go.

<comment><USER5> This makes TechCrunch come across really childish, if it was in the context of an post sure go ahead and post it.

There was talk of TechCrunch having jumped the shark a couple of weeks ago. Is this another sign of that? Certainly seems that way . .

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Google buzz isn't going to be easy to lure people in to. The UI/UE isn't all that great. And I say this as a gmail user. I really think google needs to think about acquiring the next up and coming social service...whatever that may be...

<comment><USER10> I guess the downvotes came because you focused on the real product instead of focusing on Calacanis or TC.

When HNers started downvoting thought that are at least fair and for sure politely expressed?

<comment><USER9> I didn't really get the reason behind the downvotes...but I'm new around here so I thought I was missing something in the rules. Thanks for your post!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> TC must just be bitter that Jason's Launch conference last week was so good, whereas their Disrupt events have been lackluster.

<comment><USER12> Launch was good. But so was Disrupt. What indicates to you that Disrupt has been lackluster?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Anyone got a link to the TED talk the post mentions?</comment>


Ask HN: Teach me to think like an engineer - <AUTHOR>

A few years ago I often heard this advice: go to law school, because it will teach you how to think. Nowadays I keep hearing, reading or experiencing for myself that law school has been replaced with engineering, with many pundits citing someone's background in engineering as the key factor that helped them solve all manner of non-engineering problems. For example, from the WaPo piece on Edward Snowden currently on the frontpage: "Snowden is an orderly thinker, with an engineer's approach to problem-solving." How can I learn to be an "orderly thinker"? <comment><USER2> engineers have all sorts of tricks(mostly math or alogrithems) for solving problems. remember story problems from school. we had them in our engineering classes.

</comment><comment><USER3> _Write unit tests first._

Or rather: Consider for yourself that everything in the universe, from _some_ perspective or other ( _not_ a God's Eye View/Perspective — but assuming you had all the facts of the case, but simply were of a different position to review it), under _some_ context or other, behaves most perceptibly w/r/t a quantized model of interpretation.

Then, do a bubble sort on all of their secondary properties, or even _all of the things_ , whatever in your best estimation viably counts as a thing. Is "hatred" a thing? Is "liberty" a thing? Is the liberty in _this_ woman a thing? Is the liberty in _this_ man a thing? Does this man's liberty follow from this woman's liberty? Do parakeets sense justice? Is my cat the grand chancellor of the litterbox? Do I rob this man of his livelihood if I take his bagel?

Some of these considerations are structurally interesting, but often times go to the back of the list.</comment>


Vigilante hacker creates good virus - <AUTHOR> http://www.maximumpc.com/router-virus-seemingly-fights-the-good-fight/ <comment><USER2> I think the title is a little misleading, note that the article title says "seemingly".

I think a more likely explanation for the virus' behaviour is that removing other malwares or improving its host's security really just improves its own chances of survival.

The article even explains at the end that it installs backdoors, which in my mind rules out the possibility of a benign author.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you get regular people to care about free (as in libre) software? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Good question. One problem is, that you need time to explain implications of non-free software. I found, that I cannot explain it better than Stallman himself, with the 4 freedoms and examples from the past, how the whole argumentation is based on the 4 freedoms and how those were thought of.

If someone wants to know and is willing to invest an hour to actually show interest in something you are enthusiastic about (not so many people usually), I ask them to watch Stallman explain it and help out, if there is a question of understanding.

Other than that, I tell people that in my free time I only do free software for ethical reasons. They can decide, ehether or not they are interested in what I do.

</comment><comment> open-source-ux _" How do you get regular people to care about free (as in libre) software?"_

Make the software easy to install and easy to use. Make sure it's properly documented so users can consulted the help when they get stuck. That's what matters to "regular people".

What is the value of source code to "regular users" when they can't read the source code in the first place? (Publishing the source code doesn't have to be open source either.)

You could try and convince users that having the source code means it can be inspected or audited by programmers. But there is no guarantee that other programmers will inspect the code given the thousands of open source apps available. (How many programmers have the time to audit medium or large codebases voluntarily unless they are actual users of the app?)

We've seen examples of bugs in open source code lying dormant for years, challenging the widely-held belief that "many eyes make all bugs shallow".

The strongest arguments for publishing source code for "regular users" are:

\- it's a guard or protection against malicious code or intrusive tracking. So that even if users can't read the source code of an app, it can still give them confidence the app doesn't do malicious things or spy on them. (Although that can't be guaranteed.)

\- the app, if it's open source, won't lock users and their data into the app. And if the app changes direction or focus, other developers have the options to 'fork' the app. (But again that can't be guaranteed either.)</comment>


Ask HN: A service to monitor SSL expiration? - <AUTHOR>

I'm hoping that someone here might know of a service that monitors for SSL certificate expirations and provides notifications, much like Pingdom does for downtime.<p>I've seen some nice scripts that do just this, but my company would prefer a service with a front end that business users can administer. <comment><USER2> alertsite offers warnings about ssl cert expiration as part of their monitoring service.

</comment><comment><USER3> If there isn't one, it would be a good web app idea.</comment>


Another Reason to Learn Morse Code: Kidnapping - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2018/04/13/another-reason-to-learn-morse-code-kidnapping/ <comment><USER2> The most moving Morse code story I've heard is this one from Somalia: A man writes a letter complaining about conditions in a hospital, and the government imprisons him in solitary confinement, with no one to talk with and nothing to read. After eight months, his next door neighbor whispers across: "Learn ABC through the walls...." and he learns an ad-hoc Morse Code through knocks and taps. Then, after two years, the neighbor begins "reading" to him, via the code, the 800 page novel Anna Karenina.

[https://www.npr.org/2017/09/11/550058353/rough- translation-h...](https://www.npr.org/2017/09/11/550058353/rough-translation- how-anna-karenina-saved-a-somali-inmates-life)

<comment><USER3> Theres also a radiolab episode: [http://www.radiolab.org/story/radiolab- presents-rough-transl...](http://www.radiolab.org/story/radiolab-presents- rough-translation/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article doesn't seem to be exactly about using Morse code when kidnapped, unlike the title, but about instances of Morse and other code used in various circumstances today and in the past.

Having said that, to reflect the title itself I don't think Morse code has a very good bang-for-buck ratio for kidnapping.

Absolutely most people never get kidnapped, it's a very rare occasion statistically. Learning Morse code is not enough: you will have to use it repeatedly to keep remembering it, and I don't think you need Morse code very much in general life so you'll need to exercise your skills intentionally just in case a very unlikely event would happen. Further, to benefit from Morse code while being kept hostage you will need some medium through which to transfer knocks or beeps and you need another party who is both listening and can read Morse code.

It might make sense if your lifestyle calls for higher risks to be kidnapped, but even then I think there are wiser ways to spend your minutes trying to avoid being kidnapped in the first place.

<comment> w-m I think learning just the SOS distress signal (...---...) has a decent bang- for-buck ratio. And because of its frequent use in films there's usually not even much learning involved.

<comment><USER5> If you want, just remember that groups of three of anything are a distress signal. It's why smoke detectors beep in groups of threes for example. Groups of three whistles indicate distress. Three flashes of light. Etc.

Although I don't know how true this is, I've tried to keep to this in other interfaces, avoiding three-blink patters on lights when someone is not in trouble.

<comment><USER6> Just don't panic when the cruise ship you're on signals that it is operating in reverse by sounding the horn three times.

<comment><USER7> There is cause for concern when hearing seven short and one long blast, though. (General alarm; something has happened. Better head for the muster station to find out what...)

<comment><USER8> From the recent El Faro sinking post here on HN:

There's a General Alarm signal (above), but no Abandon Ship signal. The captain gives those manually.

(I may be blatantly wrong!)

<comment><USER7> To the best of my knowledge (not a sailor, but my work has netted me several hundred days on vessels offshore), 'Abandon Ship' is always an explicit, verbal order from the captain (or whoever follows him in authority if he is incapacitated)

The General Alarm typically calls for the crew to proceed (at haste!) to the muster station to be informed of the nature of the emergency and be put to work handling the situation.

Luckily, I've only ever had to abandon ship during a couple of drills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you want to learn Morse it is a lot easier if you don't try to learn it in alphabetical order. Instead you should learn it in order of the lengths of the signals, which corresponds roughly to the frequency order of the letters in English, i.e. learn the one-beep-long letters first (E, T), then the two-beep- long letters (A, N, I. M), then the three-beep-long letters, etc.

E . T -

I .. A .- N -. M --

S ... U ..- R .-. D -..

H .... B -... L .-.. F ..-. V ...-

W .-- K -.- G --. O ---

Z --.. C -.-. X -..- P .--.

J .--- Y -.-- Q --.-

<comment><USER10> This method disconnects it from your normal language processing. Start by learning simple words so you associate it with your language. You'll be at 20wpm no time.

<comment><USER11> So much this. Morse code is not a language of symbolic translation. You need to hear entire words.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> w-m After listening to a Camille album from time to time, I subconsciously internalized the backing vocals of the song "Show Me The Waves". [https://youtu.be/S0PMZg8lZ-M](https://youtu.be/S0PMZg8lZ-M)

Knowing that it's Morse code for the title of the song, I can reconstruct the individual codes for the letters AEHMOSTVW.

If someone were to write a hit song containing the whole Morse alphabet in a way that gets stuck in your head easily like in this Camille song, we might all learn it without trying.

<comment><USER12> If you're familiar with "YYZ" by Rush you know two more letters!

<comment><USER13> I've listened to this song probably hundreds of times over the years, and I never realized that was why it's called YYZ. I'm definitely not forgetting those letters now!

<comment><USER14> It's widely claimed, but most folks can't hear it because the rhythm is totally wrong. Listen to high low freq shifts instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think morse code could be helpful for someone with locked-in syndrome, like Jean Bauby. In 'dictating' his memoir 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly', it took him an average of two minutes to write each word by blinking at the time when the next letter he wanted was presented to him.

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

<comment><USER16> Meh, with an eventual VR/AR headset with eye tracking these patients will be able to look at letters they want to type and then blink to type them out that way.

<comment><USER15> Before you casually dismiss it as a worthless idea, consider that some victims have fewer capabilities than Bauby was left with.

<comment><USER12> I'd genuinely want to be euthanised in this situation. But that's a whole other debate.

<comment><USER17> Nobody asked for that opinion here, and it's not relevant to the conversation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Totally dating myself here.

In the Hardy Boys book "Hostages of Hate", Frank Hardy's girlfriend, Callie Shaw, is kidnapped and is able to send a secret message to Frank by blinking her eyes on a video recording.

Funny what sticks in your mind from a young age.

<comment><USER19> Based on an actual event from the Vietnam war iirc.

<comment><USER20> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Denton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Denton)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Had a question about this for while: Are movies where people communicate using knocks really accurate?

I would assume to effectively use Morse code, you'll need a way to convey short silence, long silence, short beep, and long beep. Knocking misses the long beep.

<comment><USER11> This has been a major annoyance for me my entire life. Of course, you cannot possibly produce a long knock, any more than shooting someone slowly is a vengeful way of killing.

What I guess you can do is vary the acoustics of your knocks (think knuckles vs palm) but this will require the recieving party to do much more processing when decoding.

<comment><USER22> I think that's a little bit pedantic. Complaining loudly about how the knocks technically aren't, themselves, longer or shorter is a digression from the reality that any sane human can detect and recognize consistent patterns in a series of knocks on a door, or beats on a drum.

      shave and-a hair cut... two! bits! [0]

      match in-the gas tank... boom! boom! [1]

      –··–· ··

Everybody recognizes that knock pattern, whether they know the trivia behind its origins or not. The singular instrument leaves the interpretation to the pattern of the beats alone.

Meanwhile, a rimshot, involving two drum hits and a cymbal crash offers two channels of interpretation.

      ba-dum tiss! [2]

The rhythm and the sound could each carry separate messages, which means the carrier signal would have to be agreed upon, before sending the message. Is the cymbal crash the best carrier for the dashes, or is the rest note in between the drum hits and the cymbal crash actually the pause that signals the dash?

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

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5KBVCoKYt0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5KBVCoKYt0)

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Instrument pilots use Morse code to identify ground-based navigation aids such as Instrument Landing System (ILS) or VHF Omnidirectional Range (VOR)[0].

 _The VOR does not account for the aircraft heading. It only relays the aircraft direction from the station and has the same indications regardless of which way the nose is pointing. Tune the VOR receiver to the appropriate frequency of the selected VOR ground station, turn up the audio volume, and identify the station's signal audibly. Then, rotate the OBS to center the CDI needle and read the course under or over the index._

Say a pilot is flying by reference to Avenal VORTAC[1]. She would tune a nav radio to 117.1 and listen for Morse code tones AVE, the station's identifier and helpfully printed on the chart for quick reference. Nice avionics units will perform this translation for the pilot.

[0]: FAA _Instrument Flying Handbook_ , [https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/a...](https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/media/FAA-H-8083-15B.pdf)

[1]: [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/VOR_on_s...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/VOR_on_sectional.gif)

</comment><comment><USER24> U.S. Senator Jeremiah Denton, Jr., was a POW for ~8 years during Vietnam. He did something similar.

> _Denton was forced by his captors to participate in a 1966 televised > propaganda interview which was broadcast in the United States. While > answering questions and feigning trouble with the blinding television > lights, Denton blinked his eyes in Morse code, spelling the word > "TORTURE"—and confirming for the first time to U.S. Naval Intelligence that > American POWs were in fact being tortured._ [0]

You can see the video [1] on Youtube.

[0]: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Denton](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Denton)

[1]: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rufnWLVQcKg](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rufnWLVQcKg)

<comment><USER25> Did you even look at the article? Denton's story is mentioned in it and the video is embedded.

<comment><USER24> Nope. Lesson learned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I learned Morse code (only listening and transcribing, not producing) at the German Army. It was an interesting, but also stressful experience, since we weren't practicing on natural language, but meaningless gibberish.

Alas, I have lost the ability. Everything is gone.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've tried several morse keyboards for android, but all of them seem to be more fun than useful. if only I could get a cross between the hackers keyboard and morse, I could stop finger fucking these tiny screens and actually type what I want

<comment><USER28> Can you actually input morse faster than a keyboard?

<comment><USER29> No.

The world record in sending letters (random 5 letter groups) is 283 for one minute: [http://www.hst2017.org/en/records](http://www.hst2017.org/en/records)

This is with a special key that's made for high speed telegraphy. Anything on a mobile device would most likely be a lot slower.

There are some sample sounds of similar speeds, which you may find interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> There are so many things to learn these days but learning morse code to fight against kidnapping sounds about as esoteric/specific/paranoid as learning shorthand so as to be able to transcribe important conversations quickly without having to rely on audio equipment. Survivalists probably have more practical tips at hand before needing to learn ham radio and morse. Heck, learning to run fast and long is probably more useful for most people.

</comment><comment><USER31> I learned Morse many decades ago and still remember much of it, but if I was in that situation now I'd probably think of FM-encoded ASCII first... and while it might not be as "efficent" as Morse, I think ASCII is much easier to remember and only requires two states to transmit.

</comment><comment><USER32> Any idea where to learn it? Just in case.

<comment><USER33> Here are some resources from the ham organization ARRL on learning Morse code:

[http://www.arrl.org/learning-morse-code](http://www.arrl.org/learning-morse- code)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> The "long knock" problem can be resolved in multiple ways. A dot can be a single knock, and a dash can be two knocks very close together, for example.</comment>


The Role of Software in Spacecraft Accidents (2004) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://sunnyday.mit.edu/papers/jsr.pdf <comment><USER2> See also: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15814189](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15814189)</comment>


Passion-Founder-Product-Market Fit - <AUTHOR> http://www.venturebent.com/2011/08/passion-founder-product-market-fit/

<comment><USER2> "With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk."

\- John von Neumann

</comment><comment><USER3> I think you nailed it - and coined a new term in the process!</comment>


Vodafone Hacker Accesses 2 Million Customers' Banking Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-09-12/vodafone-germany-hacker-accesses-2-million-clients-banking-data <comment><USER2> > A person with insider knowledge stole data including names, addresses, birth > dates, and bank account information, the world's second-biggest mobile-phone > carrier said in a statement today.

Am I correct in understanding that the data stolen is Vodafone's customer payment details (ex: for auto payments)? At first read I thought that Vodafone had gotten into banking but I don't think that makes sense.

> The hacker had no access to credit-card information, passwords, PIN numbers > or mobile-phone numbers, Vodafone said.

Credit card numbers and passwords I can understand as not being accessible (both can be either escrowed or hashed) but I don't see how it's possible to not have access to mobile phone numbers. If Vodafone is anything like US carriers then your phone number is basically your account number (sometimes a couple extra digits, ususally nothing though). Does anyone really think they have a separate account # per customer with the just the above data referenced to it?

<comment><USER3> > _If Vodafone is anything like US carriers then your phone number is > basically your account number_

Although to the customer it may appear that your phone number is your account number, that normally isn't the case. This is for a number of reasons:

* Phone numbers can change either through porting or by choice (i.e, due to nuisance/harassment, etc)

* Single 'accounts' can have multiple phone numbers (i.e, a family plan)

* Some plans may have phone numbers that are opaque to the user (i.e, 3G dongles, etc)

In the carrier systems I've seen / worked on there has normally been a unique account identifier that isn't the MSISDN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Customers punished by Vodafone's stupidity: 2 million Vodafone execs fired: 0 Vodafone execs given raises: several

Status quo is maintained.

<comment><USER5> I don't know why technologists would ever want a social norm of responding to security vulnerabilities by severely punishing the people "responsible" for them. It is highly, highly unlikely that anyone in the C suite made any decision which proximately caused this vulnerability.

Instead, it is likely that you're advocating for firing a modestly compensated engineer whose crime is shared by _substantially every production system everywhere_.

<comment><USER6> I vividly remember reading Cuckoo's Egg where he is describing all the machines in the field that shipped with username "Field" password "Service" that were open doors. I thought at the time that the folks responsible for those deployments ought to get a citation rather than throwing teenagers in jail.

I wonder now how things might be now. Would folks think a bit more about deploying busted web sites?</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How would you become more determined? - <AUTHOR>

If you wanted to become strong-willed how would you do it?
Is it possible? Are there determination exercises you could do? Would you actually do them if there were any? How/what would you measure to see if it was working?
Thank you for any thoughts/stories people have to share. <comment><USER2> There are, but they take a long time.

Basically, you need to take on challenges that are just beyond your comfort zone and see them through to completion, no matter what. No matter how much your brain is telling you that they're pointless, or that there's another shiny project you could be working on, or that you don't _really_ want to do them after all. The point of learning comes when you push through that feeling and resign yourself to doing it anyway, and then you do it anyway and see what happens.

You know it's working when you finish that project that you felt was impossible.

The interesting thing is that determination seems to be intimately connected with self-confidence, emotional stability, and judgment. I've found that very often (particularly early on), the projects I finished this way _weren 't_ worth working on, and there were shinier projects I could've been involved in. But with each success, I became more confident in my ability to take on greater challenges, less neurotic about how I might be wasting my life, and a better judge of what projects were _actually_ worth my time. A lot of recent college grads believe they're going to hit on the "perfect" startup idea and strike it rich, but the fact is that most people are _terrible_ at judging startup ideas until they have taken a few to the bitter end and seen what happened, and picking that perfect startup idea is a learned skill that comes from taking a bunch of ideas that seemed perfect at first but really weren't to completion.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are there any particular challenges, projects or exercises that worked better for you than others? What types of challenges work better than others? Would flossing every night be enough to make you more determined?

<comment><USER2> The type of challenges you want are the ones that your brain shies away from - the ones that cause you intense anxiety, like you'll feel the world will end if you keep doing them and you'll be left totally exposed. (Obviously, assuming that there's no rational reason for the world to _actually_ end.)

So for me - the first major challenge was rewriting the database & website for FictionAlley.org in college. The reason it was challenging was that up until then I'd flaked on every project that I couldn't see the end of. I was great at stuff that could be accomplished in a few hours, but when it came to stuff that took sustained effort over months, I'd start to panic that maybe it wasn't worth the effort after all and what if it failed?

My second major project was Write Yourself a Scheme in 48 Hours, where there was this voice running through my head saying "Who are you to think that you can teach Haskell to the web? You barely know it yourself." It was a fear of being judged publicly.

The third was redesigning the Google Search Results Page in 2010. And that was scary for similar reasons - every whole-page redesign up until then had failed, and we were putting ourselves out there in front of literally millions of users. Luckily I had lots of support from my coworkers and senior management, and it wasn't me leading the project.

The fourth was Gumbo, which was scary because it was ambitious (a full implementation of the HTML5 parsing algorithm), _and_ I was solely responsible for it with nobody backing me up. I'd identified a problem, no organization was supporting me, and I'd embarked on a multi-year 20% project to deliver it.

It's not just technical stuff either; you can become more determined by exercising the parts of yourself that you'd assumed are no good. For example, many geeks are absolutely terrified about talking to women. Or to strangers in general. The 2 years I spent dating, which eventually led to finding my girlfriend, were as educational and character-building as any software project I did.

Flossing every night will probably not cut it unless you have a phobia about flossing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm in my 40's now, and I am a lot more determined than I was in my teens and 20's. One thing that has had a lasting impact on me was spending time with people less well-off than me. I didn't seek these experiences out; I just noticed that people around me had less resources than I do, sometimes starkly so.

I think of these people when I am deciding whether to get something done, or read another reddit thread. There is a myth in the US that people who are less well off must be lazy. In fact, the people who have it the hardest tend to work the hardest. Having spent time around those people, I feel self-conscious even in my own home when I'm not working hard.

That, and find the work that makes you satisfied. Happiness is important, but long-term satisfaction is much more deeply fulfilling. If you enjoy your work, and you find it important, motivation will probably be easier to come by.

</comment><comment><USER4> Give it an appropriate prioritization in your life. e.g. "This is more important than X". And have in your mind the REASON why it is more important than X. The secret, that I have read, to success at difficult things is knowing your "why" \- Why is this thing more important than X? What does success look like, and how does that compare to X?

Your "why" is what makes you get out of bed in the morning, makes you confront that issue you can't resolve, and to resolve it. If your "why" isn't strong enough, you will likely fail.

I read a quote a very long time ago that simply said "Imagine if man learned how to use all of that energy, that determination, all his resources that he uses for chasing women ... for something else more important?"

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, knowing why something is more important than something else is a good point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> >How would you become more determined?

Well, that's easy. Apply recursion: you just become determined to become determined!

(point being you don't need anything to get motivated (the definition of motivation should help, unless you were looking for a different term (efficiency?)))

Will is just a matter of practice and focus. Like a muscle, it can become stronger. Unlike a muscle, you can lose it fast.

"motivation" videos (e.g. inspiresauce.com) may give you a temporary rush, but unless you act on it, you're just eluding your work further.

That's my two cents.

</comment><comment><USER6> Habits > forced tasks. Cultivate good habits wherever possible.

As for building up will power, I've found that distance running is an excellent way to hone your determination. Distance running is essentially the act of pushing yourself when you want to quit.

There are plenty of books on the subject if you'd like to study up on it more. Thinking Fast and Slow, Drive, Switch are all good books on the subject that immediately come to mind.

</comment><comment><USER7> I try to make it a habit; once you force yourself to do something for a number of days in a row you don't need to be strong-willed to do it.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've had some friends swear by cold showers for this. Personally, I'm not determined enough!

</comment><comment><USER9> I think being to strong willed is a bad thing. It's called stuborn.

<comment><USER2> Not necessarily. Strong-willed implies that you won't compromise on the goals; stubborn implies you won't compromise on the means. If you surround yourself with others whose goals line up with you, being strong-willed can be a very good thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The most effective way is to fail and taste defeat.

</comment><comment><USER11> \- I've always respected The Counte of Monte Cristo and looked up to him as my motivation/role model. To become strong-willed, I use other people's negativity to fuel me. To me making it or being determined is an act of revenge on those who have tried to put me down in the past.</comment>


Visualizing Latency Numbers Every Programmer Should Know - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nahurst.com/visualizing-latency-numbers-every-programmer

<comment><USER2> Visualizing these numbers is a good idea, but this is a terrible execution.

\- The line segments go in different directions, making it unnecessarily difficult to visually determine relative lengths

\- The packet send from CA to the Netherlands and back to CA is split over many lines, making it even more difficult

\- The data is split across multiple maps, making it nearly impossible to get a good sense of, say, just how much longer the packet roundtrip takes than a memory reference.

\- It's nearly impossible to see the line segment for main memory reference

\- Having the lines overlaid on a map is more distracting than anything else

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8> is a far better way to visualize latency.

<comment><USER4> That was an awesome lecture. Thanks for the link. I did not know Hopper was such a humorous lecturer. The audience wasn't so lively - I guess they were mostly military.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Rule of thumb for human-perceived "instantaneous" interactivity: 100,000,000 ns (100 ms) [1]

A good metric to compare those numbers against.

[1]<http://www.stuartcheshire.org/papers/LatencyQuest.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> I thought that the whole point of converting these latency numbers was to convert them into something meaningful. Distance traveled by the speed of light is just as abstract as the original number itself.

</comment><comment><USER7> This seems better to me <https://gist.github.com/2843375></comment>


Why homes in the Bay Area are unaffordable - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2020/03/09/why-homes-in-the-bay-area-are-unaffordable/#slide-1 <comment><USER2> Gee, why am I not surprised to not see a single mention of Prop 13, the obvious driver of CA's housing crisis, including the market imbalances that have lead to high home prices across the state

<comment><USER3> I'm no fan of prop 13, and I agree that it contributes to the housing crisis. However, I wouldn't call it the main driver. I still think that a failure to build (actually, this is probably better described as a deliberate success in preventing housing from being built) has been the main driver of the housing crisis.</comment></comment>


The Hype Cycle: What's Next for Google Glass? - <AUTHOR> http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/what-s-next-the-google-glass-hype-cycle#axzz3Km8soMHW <comment><USER2> _One of the first places Glass will show its impact may be the last place people think of for emerging technologies: the plant floor._

Ya know, I don't exactly claim to be a super-insightful visionary, but I've been saying this since pretty much day one. Glass could be amazingly useful in an enterprise setting, especially for maintenance, manufacturing and other "industrial" applications. I think Google kinda screwed the pooch by positioning this as a consumer play first, as opposed to pushing it as an enterprise productivity tool first and foremost.</comment>


E-books will overtake paperback by the end of 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2010-07-29-amazon29_VA_N.htm <comment><USER2> As E books are less than 1% of the market...I highly doubt they will overtake paperback by the end of the year</comment>


Can a web developer get into VR? - <AUTHOR> http://www.globalgum.com/can-web-developer-get-vr/ <comment><AUTHOR> The first time I've attempted putting content of this sort out there.

If anyone on HN is interested in the topic of getting into VR (or AR or MR) from a background in web, I'd love to hear what questions you want answered or any feedback at all. Thanks!</comment>