How to get a Pilot's License in (just about) a week - <AUTHOR> http://www.davincoburn.com/DavinCoburn.com/Fly.html# <comment><USER3> I spent more money than i should getting my license north of Seattle, and i don't regret it. it was a confidence builder and something i really recommend to hacker types - learning to fly is such a perfect combination of the technical and aesthetic, satisfying the need for beauty, freedom, and aventure and challenging your mind at the same time.

 _Flying_ , after a while, can become routine and at a certain point the marginal value is low - it's expensive and if you're not going to be a professional pilot, it begins to seem like a _very_ expensive and pointless hobby. but the experience of learning to fly is worth it.

At the time i got my license it was a minimum of 40 hours so the sport pilot rating makes it a lot easier. however, i'm not sure that at 22 hours it's very safe to go up with someone else - it's easy to get overconfident in the pattern, make a turn a little too tight, and stall, and at 1000 feet above the ground, it's generally not recoverable. i didn't feel super confident in pretty much any situation (crosswind, busy airport, low clouds, etc) until around 80 hours.

edit: pattern is the nice little box you make when you're flying around an airport, preparing to land... <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airfield_traffic_pattern>

<comment><USER4> Of the people I know who have a pilots license, the ones who seem pleased/proud/positive about it are those who are (lucky enough) to own/co-own a plane.

As was pointed out with me, the right planes don't loose value/much value and so once you own a plane your running costs are low. Then you can book a weekend in Tahoe (I'm in SF) and just fly the plane out.

The people for whom flying is expensive is, ironically, those who don't own a plane and have to rent. By the time you've rented (paid + time to organize that, you might as well just fly commercially)

<comment><USER5> It is absolutely impossible to fly somewhere cheaper than commercial whether you own or rent — it's pretty basic economies of scale. Private pilots do not do it to save money; they do it for the love of flight itself.

<comment><USER6> This is something I've wondered about for a while. We have a family of four - where does that economy of scale start to tip the balance? At what point does the increment of cost for private flight get small enough that you say, "OK, for being able to fly out of the local airport on a day's notice, that's worth it?"

<comment><USER7> If your frame of reference is an economy coach ticket, if you say "it's more expensive to fly private", you'll almost never be wrong. (Your economy coach ticket is _heavily_ subsidized by the first-class and other full-fare tickets.)

If your frame of reference is a first-class or full-fare business class ticket, I can often beat or near the airlines on both cost and door-to-door time. (If the keys to the plane are in your pocket, there's no getting there an hour ahead, dealing with the parking garage, the TSA theater, maybe a delay on takeoff for crew or aircraft availability or ATC/ground holds, perhaps changing planes, waiting at baggage claim, etc. Plus, I can often start and end the flight much closer to the "doors" I want to be at, leave my shoes on and carry 4 oz of gel deodorant in my bag if I want.)

As to "that's worth it", I bought a Cessna 182/Skylane (4 seat, single-engine, 160 mph high-wing) a little over 12 years ago, and have flown it for business travel as well as most of our in-US, east of the Mississippi, personal travel, as well as a few trips west of the Mississippi. It costs me under $2/mile on average, and the direct operating cost (aka marginal cost: the cost of an incremental trip within a year) is just under $1/mile. If I had to, I'd pay 2x what flying actually costs me without thinking about it.

If you want to travel in your aircraft (as opposed to just going flying), I'd suggest you take the traditional route and go all the way to the private pilot's license. Far fewer restrictions, and if you enjoy flying anyway all of the "extra" time is hardly wasted. IMO, there are too many restrictions on LSA/recreational pilot's certificate to make it usable to actual go places with 3 friends, etc. It's nice to be able to fly into BWI for an Orioles game, or fly up the Hudson River at night, cross Central park and Laguardi tower and head out on course over the Whitestone bridge. I think it's great that the FAA created the easier licenses, but I don't think they are practical for travelling.

Used airplanes are reasonably cheap now, and loans and insurance are easy to get. (Most airplanes are made of aluminum and have nearly infinite lifespans, with avionics, engine/props, interior and paint being replaceable items over the life of the plane. Think of a 30-year old airplane as much more like a 30-year old office building than a 30-year old car in terms of "acceptable to rely on". They're inspected annually [or ever 100 flight hours for rentals/commercial usage], and no reason a 30+ year old plane wouldn't be perfectly reasonable.)

<comment><USER8> Airplanes have less fudge factor and more stress than Office building so while an office building might last 30-300 years with little problem, all airplanes have a shorter lifespan. (Assuming regular use.)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatigue_%28material%29>

Note: Damage is cumulative. Materials do not recover when rested.

And if you look at the bottom of the page you will find a fairly long list of airplanes that failed.

<comment><USER9> A well-maintained airplane will last a long time. Well-maintained means doing it the right way: RX components to look for fatigue, etc ... Yes, this costs. Tthere is some concern wrt. catastrophic failure due to fatigue & ideally you want to have a full history of _how_ the plane was flown.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow guys, thanks for the link! My tiny site just went from 100 hits/day to 3,800 last night.

As an update to that story, I have continued flying — larger things, to more distant places. (Helping build a Sportsman 2+2 and flying to the Yukon were life highlights.) In fact, as rubyrescue said, that newfound sense of confidence has been key in trying for my latest adventure: Living for a month at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry (<http://j.mp/9gtIuc>). If you're curious, my application video — with stuff about flying — is here: <http://j.mp/a7ESd0>

/shameless plug

Thanks again,

Davin Coburn

<comment><USER11> Dude, that application video is awesome! Thanks for linking it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What I'd like to do is learn to fly in South Africa. Think about it - <USER2> somewhere exotic, explore the place not only on the ground, but also from the air, and go back home a pilot.

Also, I heard South Africa is cheaper and have pretty high quality flight instruction.

<comment><USER13> Hoedspruit in the Limpopo province is a good place to go for this, it has flight school due to it also being the location of an air-force base.

It's also in a central location if you're the type of person who enjoys doing outdoor stuff.

It's close to the Drakensberg mountain range (awesome hiking), like 100km from the Kruger National Park (recommended at least once), there's a lot of rugged touristy stuff to do.

Weather is great.

If you're coming with Euros it will be pretty cheap, just don't go to the tourist traps or decide you need to go do one of the package "safaris" as those are priced to what rich people can bear.

Disclaimer: I am biased, I grew up 3 hours drive from this area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is really inspirational. I've always wanted a pilot's license, and now it seems that at least the first step is easier than ever.

I am terribly afraid of single-engine planes, though. I'd probably get to sport pilot and immediately keep going to whatever the next level was that allowed me to fly twin-engines.

<comment><USER15> You're far more likely to kill yourself due to inexperience, than due to engine failure or any other technical malfunction. You might also consider getting a glider license to fly motor gliders, as they give you more time and options to land if you're worried about that.

From <http://www.schiratti.com/humour.html>:

      Control: You're unreadable, say again.
      Motor-glider: I've turned off the engine, is that better?
      Control: (looong pause)

:)

<comment><USER16> I don't know the pilots DSL, but that link was fun to read :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I was in Japan when I got my first drivers license. It took two weeks of expensive instruction, four separate official tests (two written, two behind the wheel), and I was told I was lucky I wasn't automatically failed on at least one of them which apparently is a common practice.

I find it an interesting comparison, not as a value judgment necessarily. I guess I prefer difficult testing for both drivers and pilots considering that a awful lot of people kill & die all the time as both.

</comment><comment><USER18> If you're looking to get into flying, and put off by the expense, try sailplanes (gliders). I learned first in gliders, and then got my airplane rating a few years later, but I still go out to fly sailplanes on the weekend, because gliding is more of a sport, and more engaging once you already know how to fly.

More importantly, for a lot of people, it's much cheaper than flying airplanes -- typically less than half the cost.

It's also a more social type of activity, as gliding is mostly organized around clubs, which exist to provide instruction and tow planes. You'll meet lots of great people in the club. In airplanes, you typically don't have a whole lot of routine contact with other pilots, because you just drive out to the airport, get in, and go.

If you're interested, ssa.org is the national organization, and they have a list of local clubs.

</comment><comment><USER19> I learned to fly at Winchester Regional. All of these places are familiar. The Shenandoah is a fantastic place to learn to fly if you can.

Once you get the stones to go in and out of Front Royal, drop me a line, we'll go out for a beer and talk about those power lines...

</comment><comment><USER20> Flying is not inherently dangerous, but is terribly miss-forgiving of your mistakes.

IMHO, getting a license in a week is just not enough enough time to get scared enough times to understand the risk/responsibilities involved with flying.

You really need to give your brain the time to assimilate the reality of what you are doing , before you can really be a safe pilot. (Same goes for any other non-forgiving activity.. Skydiving, Paragliding, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER21> The title is a bit misleading. The author mentions in passing that he took an at-home ground school course and passed the FAA written exam before flying. Studying to pass that test, and studying to retain some knowledge that can be useful when actually flying, can take more than a week itself.

The other major omission is learning to fly in or through heavily controlled airspace. There are a lot of rules and procedures, especially radio procedures, to learn and practice, and they really need to be practiced with an instructor to get some of them to stick. An instructor can teach to you to communicate effectively with air-traffic control in ways that home-study courses won't. Expecting to learn that in a week and retain it is nuts.

</comment><comment><USER20> By far the cheapest way to experience flying for the true love of it, is to join a soaring club.

Sailplanes require far less maintenance and are cheaper to operate (try flying 5 hours for the cost of a tow + $20/hr rental) (in the US)

Flying them is enormously rewarding as you are 100% concentrated on what you are doing, is quiet, peace full and depending on where you fly, you may be rewarded with spectacular views of the world from way above.

Finally, for the inner geek, flying gliders competitively is a highly technical/mental activity, top pilots tend to strongly correlate with engineering and science professionals.

</comment><comment><USER22> He made a major mistake with his little "forget the plan, I'm going south" adventure on his last solo.

What really gets me is I don't think he knows how much of a bad idea this really was... and more importantly how much this attitude could burn him in the future.

Admittedly I don't know the eastern US well enough to understand how much of a detour this was, but a mid-flight change with limited daylight hours into unknown weather patterns is a good way to get yourself into trouble fast.

A perfect example that suggests you should take longer than a week to fly an aircraft.

</comment><comment><USER23> Paramotoring looks more accessible <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlbQ0xbbpOQ>

<comment><USER24> I fly a paraglider which is essentially the same thing only unpowered. At around $10/hour it's within reach of most people. Takes around 7-9 days to get a restricted license in most countries. Then you just grab a friend, walk your back pack up the hill and, if the weather gods are agreeable, launch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've been interested for quite a while in investigating flying ultralight / microlight planes, maybe gliders or even pedal-powered planes. Haven't ever done so though, nor do I know _at all_ where to start looking, and have nowhere near the money I'd need to actually do any of it.

Until then, however, anyone here have experience with any of the above? Is it worth it? Anything major to watch out for?

</comment><comment><USER26> an amazing gift I received for a birthday one year was a gift certificate for a beginner flight. Something to keep in mind (or to ask for!)</comment>


Ask HN: Are Startups Exploiting Freelancers? - <AUTHOR>

As a freelancer I've had many small clients delay payments, it's part and parcel. However, over the past few years I've been involved with a few startups and am now owed over $100K. Each startup led me on for far too long, and now it seems none have the ability to cover the costs owed. I'm stuck and at a massive loss.<p>Just wondering if anyone out there has a similar story? <comment><USER2> Once is chance, twice is coincidence, third time is enemy action ^H^H^H an opportunity to improve your business practices.

1) You appear to have been working for startups with no money. There is a word for devs who work for startups with no money. It is "technical cofounder." If a startup does not have sufficient money in the bank to pay you, tell them you're happy to continue the conversation after they have raised money.

2) Startups with money in the bank are frequently amenable to e.g. 25% deposits for first-time clients. You can even offer them a trade: 25% deposit means they get scheduling predictability, otherwise the engagement happens subject to your availability, and -- since we're all businessmen here -- we're all clear that in case of conflicting desires about scheduling the client willing to pay a deposit wins.

3) Your computer just developed a really strange bug where elaborate excuses in emails regarding payment cause it to shut down and not be able to boot until your bank says the check cleared.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm a little curious about how the bill got to $100k. Were the payments going unmade for months while you continued to do work for them?

I usually asked for biweekly direct deposits when I was contracting with startups, and I made sure to add that to my contract as a clause. If the money stopped, so did the work. But I never had anyone pay very late, and if they did it was quickly remedied with a phone call.

Now, as the cofounder of a startup ([http://uphex.com](http://uphex.com)) who uses freelancers regularly, I make sure that my freelancer collaborators know I'm serious about paying on time. I carefully lay out how and when we pay invoices, and usually pay far in advance of when we need to, in order to build up trust. To date, it's worked very well.

</comment><comment><USER4> CONTRACTS...

even you don't have contract...THREATEN TO SUE THE SHIT OUT OF THEM. Emails are proof. Tell them your uncle graduated from Harvard Law.

always take 50% deposit before you start.

i've been consulting for over 4 years. sometimes you need to take out the hammer. Never be the victim, fight until you get your money back.

If all else fails blog about what happened with proof. Use their real names. SEO the shit out of that blog post.

<comment><USER2> _SEO the shit out of that blog post._

This strategy will not redound in your favor with regards to securing mutually fulfilling relationships with good prospects, because it screams a) I'm a chump consultant, b) I will be difficult to work with, and c) there is a huge downside risk of employing me if we run into utterly routine speedbumps. (Freelancers may not perceive "not being paid in a timely fashion" as a speedbump, but that is what it will read like to clients.)

<comment><USER4> Letting the client fuck you over by not paying is being a chump consultant?

Would clients delay payment for their attorney? How are tech consultants any different?

The demand for tech consultant is more than supply. You don't need any clients that are scared of working with you because you call out another client for not payment. There are plenty of work in the sea to put up with this.

<comment><USER5> > Would clients delay payment for their attorney?

 _Yes, routinely!_ That's what Thomas and Patrick are getting at. For better or worse (and trust me, I've felt the "worse" side of it lately+) companies will, for a plethora of boring and stupid reasons, not always get their payables out on time. It's completely normal. They're not trying to screw you. It just happens. You can choose not to work with those companies, or to expend your energy toward making sure your clients always pay you right away, but that's a poor use of your time as a consultant.

What you should do instead is: (a) charge more and (b) consider adding interest on late payments. Lawyers and accountants do that, and then they don't really care if you're late paying because they've been charging you favourable (to them) interest.

\+ I'm in the process of spinning down the consultant thing and getting a "normal" job again for a while, largely because of cash flow errors. It was one of several hard lessons learned, but that's partly why I bothered to comment: it's not realistic to expect good clients to change the way they do business for you, so you need to understand, accept, and plan for the reality of stuff like delayed payment.

<comment><USER6> I don't know if the "late payments" thing works for anyone else, but speaking from my own limited experience: it's better to take any given business concern out of your client's hide in increased rate than to add any complexity to contracts.

To a one, the most lucrative clients all have contracts reviewed by house counsel, and many have purchasing departments trained to do nothing but review contracts. Anything remotely complicated you put in a contract is (a) going to get stripped out and (b) potentially going to add weeks to the amount of time it takes to get a master agreement in place; more than once, a few weeks delay in legal was all it took for the window of opportunity for a contract to pass.

At any rate: you are exactly right. Have you ever seen a thread where Patrick, me, or some other established consultant harangued HN about raising their rates, and about _not_ setting rates based on some double-digit-percentage uplift of what their last full-time job was? _This is why_.

<comment><USER5> It might be a regional thing; every independent professional I've ever hired has done something like "Net 30; 1.5% interest per month on late invoices" so businesses here are used to it. I've never tried it myself (benefit is marginal compared to just raising rates, as you say, plus it's a PITA to actually enforce) but I don't think it would have presented any problems in legal. YMMV, obviously :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For one contract, I did a couple hours of work and never got paid. It isn't worth the hassle to try and collect, so I just wrote it off as a loss and a learning experience.

Even with a written contract, as an individual freelancer it probably isn't worth your time and money to lawyer up and try to collect.

There's only one way to make sure the bill never gets too big. Once the amount owed reaches a certain amount, refuse to do any more work until you get paid. Ideally, you're working on an arrangement where you get paid every 2 weeks. Then, the most you can lose per client is 3-4 weeks' salary.

<comment><USER8> One contractor I worked with recently (hardware design) billed every month or $4k which ever came first. This works well, and keeps everyone aware of how costs are adding up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not in our experience.

</comment><comment><USER9> You should be getting paid on a continual basis. 100k worth of work for no pay is ridiculous.

I have never heard of a startup exploiting a freelancer this way, but wouldnt be surprised if this happens.

I can imagine unethical startups trying to exploit a developer who is too trusting. Don't be that developer. Make sure to have a contract, and make sure to be paid for it biweekly, or monthly.

And if they don't agree to that, then well, you probably shouldnt be working there in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER10> Startups are a dicey bunch, cash flow is always "in flux". With that said, tightly covering your development with staged hours AND/OR deliverables and stopping development completely when payments are missed can help alleviate some loss.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed, it's a long story but I have definitely learnt a lot and do business very differently now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Bill weekly, offer a 10% discount for 100% pre-payment or you take at least 50% of the initial engagement up front. That cuts out clients for whom you've either a) not demonstrated enough value to or b) weren't going to pay you anyway.

</comment><comment><USER12> Why not charge a higher rate to startup's to price in the risk of non-payment and reduce the rate to corporations who are more reliable?

<comment><USER13> Answer: Adverse selection.

If you charge 2x your normal rate for some class of clients (e.g. startups) with no other changes in how you source or engage with clients, then you may end up with only those startup clients who were not going to pay you anyway. The guys who would have paid you will baulk at the 2x fee. Those who accept don't care that the fee is 2x, as they weren't going to pay anyway.

There's no substitute to doing due diligence and limiting the risk (e.g. through contracts and short payment cycles, as others have said).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> That is why you have good contracts in place.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are contracts but no money. There's nothing to retrieve.. yet. So I'm stuck waiting for them to make money or raise.

<comment><USER15> For the future, use escrow. It just looks like you are working for companies that have no money to pay you (and prob. never will). If a company isn't willing to use escrow, run. They either don't have the money or are planning on not paying you anyway. It doesn't have to be for the whole thing, but at least until you have a relationship with them, use it. Start ups in SV (generalising) are run by kids with little head now a days that think they are the kings of the world, and don't care about screwing you over because that is what they learned from Jobs or Zuckerberg or whatever.

<comment><USER16> Will serious companies actually post the money to an escrow? I dont have any experience with this directly, but cant imagine any company with say >100 employees would respond favorably to this request

<comment><USER15> Those companies also usually pay part in advance. If you read a bit about other freelancers process (even here in HN there is a lot of advice) most will ask for some kind of advance.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Is Being Evil, Music Bloggers Say – GigaOM - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2010/02/11/google-is-being-evil-music-bloggers-say/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter <comment><USER2> Scary.. what would happen if Google deletes my GMail account because I shared some random YouTube music video on my Buzz.</comment>


Catfan – A clear and simple social networking - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
I'm Angel, the founder of Catfan.
Catfan is a clear and simple social networking, and you can connect your friends anytime, anywhere with beautiful interface and happy atmosphere :)
We are focusing on providing the best user interface and user experience for you, and managing the warming community atmosphere that make you feel at home. Hope you will like it.
We are now started fundraising. And if you like it and you want to join with us, we are always welcome :)
Please visit:
https://catfan.me
PS: I'm also the founder of Medoo, a kind of PHP database framework project.
http://medoo.in
https://github.com/catfan/Medoo
Sincerely, Angel
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> I closed it the moment I saw a huge anime image coming up as I scrolled. Perhaps give a warning that this is related to that sort of thing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, yes. Most of user are like animation, cartoon and game. They are very well.</comment></comment>


On Chomsky and the Two Cultures of Statistical Learning - <AUTHOR> http://norvig.com/chomsky.html <comment><USER3> Chomsky's one paragraph quote at the beginning of this article is more clear and thoughtful than the rest of this. I feel the author's missing the point.

In the case of language, observing and reporting statistical probabilities in written/spoken language output does very little to explain the cognitive systems used in acquiring and using language. Even one statistical anomaly serves to show that statistical learning is NOT the entire picture when it comes to language development.

There was another article on HN a while back that had another great quote from Chomsky that does well to illustrate what I feel is his main point here: "Fooling people into mistaking a submarine for a whale doesn't show that submarines really swim; nor does it fail to establish the fact". Creating a computer that can produce millions of grammatical utterances does little to show that we understand language systems. Now, if a computer could - <USER2> humans - _learn_ to produce infinite, novel, contextual, and meaningful grammatical utterances, that's a different story. But that story will take a lot more than statistical learning to write.

<comment><USER4> >In the case of language, observing and reporting statistical probabilities in written/spoken language output does very little to explain the cognitive systems used in acquiring and using language.

Unless, of course, those cognitive systems are nothing more than some statistical probabilistic mechanism. I don't know anything about the field, but the article was interesting to me in that it seemed to at least partly argue that. I know, for me at least, I'll frequently produce a sentence and then repeat it to myself a few times to see if it "sounds right." Now, I don't know what is happening to determine that, but perhaps I'm comparing it to some statistical probabilistic model I have in my head?

> Even one statistical anomaly serves to show that statistical learning is NOT > the entire picture when it comes to language development.

1) Does it? Maybe it shows the specific statistical probabilistic model in question is wrong. Consider, as Chomsky did, a model which predicts zero probability for a novel sentence. Clearly, as you say, one anomalous novel sentence is all it takes to disprove such a model. But what about other models which can handle them? The "anomaly" may not be an anomaly anymore.

2) Do you have some anomaly in mind which shows statistical probabilistic models don't work?

\-----

The article was very interesting to me, but I don't know anything about the field. I guess my main question boils down to: Is it possible that language acquisition and production is nothing more inside our heads than a simple statistical probabilistic model?

<comment><USER3> If that was true, then why did humans evolve to speak at all? Why, if speech is simply a reaction to statistics we are tracking and behaviours that have been rewarded, would the first utterances have been made? And how do we make completely novel utterances that attempt to express our otherwise abstract thoughts?

<comment><USER5> _> Why, if speech is simply a reaction to statistics we are tracking and behaviours that have been rewarded, would the first utterances have been made?_

Why not? Look at it from the bottom up:

Communication is a fundament of life, from intra-cellular to inter-cellular to inter-organism interactions (another fundament is the ability to keep oneself in a low entropy state, at the expense of the rest of the world).

Human speech is an evolution of mammal communication. It grew up in complexity, from grunts and other basic noises, along with our way of living, up to what we have now.

 _> And how do we make completely novel utterances that attempt to express our otherwise abstract thoughts?_

Speech is a big collage. New is either the result of

* a recombination of the sub-parts of past speech

* the definition of a new word in terms of older words, or sometimes arbitrarily (for proper nouns).

Nothing fancy AFAICT.

<comment><USER3> There's a big difference between "grunts and basic noises" and language. Or at least, that's my opinion. In this same line, I don't believe dogs/monkeys/birds/bees have language, despite the ability to communicate.

This view is just to simplistic to hold its weight when you really look at the intricacies of language and its evolutionary history which, by the way, I would suggest comes from manual gesture and not grunting.

<comment><USER5> _> There's a big difference between "grunts and basic noises" and language. Or at least, that's my opinion. In this same line, I don't believe dogs/monkeys/birds/bees have language, despite the ability to communicate. This view is just to simplistic to hold its weight when you really look at the intricacies of language and its evolutionary history which, by the way, I would suggest comes from manual gesture and not grunting._

Mu![1]

But you're probably right about gestures.

Wild chimps have a vocabulary of about 66 signs. We can also observe tribes with languages more primitive than ours (no pronouns, for example). But there's a missing link of several millions of years of evolution between both.

What are the (known) intricacies of the evolution of our ability to communicate?

There's no definitive proof for the statistical argument, but a growing amount of (neuro)scientific evidence points to it. What's (are) your alternative hypothese(s)?

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_(negative)>

[2] <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21533821>

<comment><USER3> This is where the debates really begin :)

I think that most people who believe in some form of the motor theory of speech perception will also believe that speech evolved from manual gesture.

Others scoff at the motor theory. In fact, I'd say I'm in the minority by bringing it up with any regularity.

If the question, what is "known" about the evolution of our ability to communicate, I wouldn't have much to point you towards. Most is theory based on modern evidence, somewhat like armchair psychology. Other people point to our ability to integrate non-verbal gestures into our comprehension, activation of our motor cortex prior to semantic/phonetic network activation when disambiguating difficult speech sounds, our ability to synthesize visual/auditory sources of information when the visual information relates to speech gestures (mouth/tongue movements), etc.

<comment><USER5> What's the link between the motor theory of speech perception and your criticism of losvedir's post?

Aren't these issues completely orthogonal?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is not a new debate. Within Linguistics there has been a continuous push against statistical NLP models. Read the introduction of Manning's book, even he seems to be defensive about NLP.

Chomsky is a colossus, his achievements are well-known. However, at one point in many disciplines it comes to pass that the pioneers who pave the way in time become the very impediment to new ideas. His emphasis on Semantics have warped the minds of _many_ generations of researchers (and some other ideas on universal grammar, too).

I experienced this first hand, my advisor, Prof. Raskin, a great researcher on semantics, nevertheless thought that statistical approaches were not the way to go. Sadly, in many Linguistics departments people are just not equipped with the statistical tools necessary to have a basic understand of what's being done in the NLP field. So NLP is generally taught under CS, EE, or CompE.

<comment><USER7> i saw someone once compare chomsky to freud, as a foundational figure whose discipline can't/couldn't progress during his lifetime.

<comment><USER8> Einstein would be another example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "If Chomsky had focused on the other side, interpretation, as Claude Shannon did, he may have changed his tune. In interpretation (such as speech recognition) the listener receives a noisy, ambiguous signal and needs to decide which of many possible intended messages is most likely. Thus, it is obvious that this is inherently a probabilistic problem, as was recognized early on by all researchers in speech recognition..."

This is the money shot especially since speakers are aware of the interpretive activity of listeners, and effective speakers play constantly on the ambiguities in their statements - structural (i.e. grammatical) ambiguities as well as semantic ambiguities. Listeners in turn are aware of speakers' awareness of this.. There is, effectively, an infinity of mutual awarenesses of structural ambiguities. In any instance of communication.

I think most technologists and (especially) businesspeople see this intuitively. I think many academics do not. Not sure how to articulate what I mean but I think I am saying something non-trivial about academics and their perspective on language.

<comment><USER10> Freeman Dyson earlier this year on this type of ambiguity as expressed in the drum language of the Democratic Republic of Congo:

[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/mar/10/how- we-...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/mar/10/how-we-know/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Server's down. Here's a cached link: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http%3A%2F%2Fnorvig.com%2Fchomsky.html)

EDIT: stop giving me upvotes. I've got 11 points now for nothing more than a link. I don't deserve them. Stupid hidden points...

<comment><USER12> Sorry about the intermittent access. My hosting service provides me with sufficient bandwidth, but only provides a version of Apache that forks a new process for every GET, and thus runs out of processes and denies access to a portion of visitors when I get slashdotted/redditted/hacker-newsified. If anyone can suggest a more reasonable hosting service, let me know. -Peter Norvig

<comment><USER13> [cough] I hear Google has pretty good bandwidth and scaling. Ever try App Engine? [/cough]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's funny. Lately I've been working with NLP systems and in the last few years there are a few really good parts-of-speech taggers that are about 99% accurate. All the ones I know of are based on hidden markov models, which definitely would disappoint Chomsky.

Part of the trouble w/ Chomsky is that real language doesn't draw a clear line between syntax and semantics. Even though an HMM doesn't correctly model the nested structures that are common in natural language, it makes up for it by encoding semantic information.

<comment><USER15> Another trouble is that human beings are innately probabilistic when it comes to language. A sentence written/spoken by humans does not have to be gramatically correct, to convey it's meaning, and does not always follow the strict rules that Chomsky talks about.

It's not the language that defines how we communicate, it's how we communicate defines the language.

But I also disagree with peter when he says the why is not important, it is this why or the understanding of the matter that separates us from the machines like watson, since our sole purpose in life is not to win at a game, but play/enjoy the game and most importantly "reuse the understanding" gained in some other facet of life, a feat that I beleive no machine is capable of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "O'Reilly is correct that these questions can only be addressed by mythmaking, religion or philosophy, not by science."

... My jaw is on the floor. It drives me nuts when people go from 'We can't explain that yet' to 'The only explanation is God.'

The tides are incredibly complex when you insist on 'why' all the way back to the beginning of the universe. Everything is!

<comment><USER17> >He doesn't care how the tides work, tell him why they work. Why is the moon at the right distance to provide a gentle tide, and exert a stabilizing effect on earth's axis of rotation, thus protecting life here? Why does gravity work the way it does? Why does anything at all exist rather than not exist? O'Reilly is correct that these questions can only be addressed by mythmaking, religion or philosophy, not by science.

Science doesn't really aim to answer the 'why'-questions, but rather the 'how'-questions. The scientific method boils down to falsifying hypothesis, and it's a lot easier with 'how does the tide work?' than 'why does the tide work (the way it does)?'.

Science can't say anything about 'Why does anything at all exist rather than not exist?', because there is no way to test any of the answers. So it's left to mythology, religion or philosophy to answer.

<comment> T-hawk > Why is the moon at the right distance to provide a gentle tide, and exert a > stabilizing effect on earth's axis of rotation, thus protecting life here?

A possible answer to this stems from the anthropic principle. We evolved in a place with a moon because the moon helped us evolve. We don't see no moon because complex life such as us would not have developed without it. A stable rotation and gentle tide are conducive to the evolution of complex organisms; tides were instrumental in getting life out of the seas and onto land.

"Why is the sun the way it is?" can be answered similarly. A smaller star has too small a habitable zone where liquid water can exist. A larger star would have burned out sooner than the 4.5 billion years it took to develop sapient life. A double star has a much smaller set of stable planetary orbits. That the sun is an appropriate star for our life on earth is not divine providence or an enormously unlikely coincidence; it's the result of a universe-wide scenario of statistical multiple endpoints.

<comment><USER18> _it's the result of a universe-wide scenario of statistical multiple endpoints_

totally agreed with you up to that point which I have hard time understanding.

so you say universe is kind of fractal and we happen to be in the right place on that fractal, where all the ingredients come together?

<comment> T-hawk Yes, but there's a causal relationship that I think you're not quite expressing. We are where we are _because_ here is where all the ingredients came together.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The handshake example was illuminating. Three "equivalent" theories:

Theory A: Closed form formula function.

Theory B: "Algorithm". Still a function.

Theory C: Memoized function (constant time!)

According to the article "nobody" likes C, especially the article's Chomsky straw man. If one had a procedure to convert C to A, then this whole issue would become hairsplitting. Such a procedure would aim to convert a memoized function back into a form that uses more symbols from a mathematical language. A good criteria of success would be the description length of the resulting procedure in the preferred language. One reason this could be useful to science is that once you identify a value that is useful in many theories it becomes part of the language. Making it available to the next problem may speed up the search for a "good" description of the next phenomenon. Identical procedures that appeared in various algorithms might acquire a special name. One such value might be called "pi", another "foldr" and so on.

Of course there may be many good descriptions, just as there are many languages. Also, the example could be extended to statistical modeling situations by adding room for error terms in the suitability criteria.

So if, you have a general procedure to convert a table into a definition you can make money and science at the same time!

</comment><comment><USER20> _My conclusion is that 100% of these articles are more about "accurately modeling the world" then they are about "providing insight," although they all have some theoretical insight component as well._

Before you can figure out _why_ , you have to make sure you can accurately characterize the _what_. So there's a lot of science that is focused on coming up with a descriptive tool like an adhoc curve, before the underlying principles are discovered.

I think Chomsky is afraid that statistical models will cause people to stop looking for the underlying principles.

</comment><comment><USER21> This essay made me think: Lojban (<http://www.lojban.org/tiki/la+lojban.+mo>), among constructed languages, is the categorial language _par excellence_. Every word has a well-defined range of meaning; the grammar can be parsed by the same kinds of parsers used for programming languages; potential sources of ambiguity, like plural references, associativity of modifiers, and negation, have been rigorously (or tediously, depending on how you roll) nailed down.

Can there be such a thing as a conlang that demonstrates the ideal _statistical_ grammar and semantics? ("All the words in this list are 60% likely to be used as nouns and 40% likely to be used as verbs...." But in the absence of a pre-existing linguistic community, how could you get students of the language to use them in the right proportions?)

</comment><comment><USER10> Chomsky's April 8th lecture at Carelton University on language had several thoughts on machine translation:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbjVMq0k3uc>

(I think it even had the same bee-dance example)

</comment><comment> double-z The commentary has nothing to do with what Chomsky proposed. The author defines success as "being successful at accomplishing a task". That has nothing to do with science. Full stop.

</comment><comment><USER22> Are Norvig's comments on the "I before E except before C." really vaild? Why would one use a corpus for analysis of the rule, and not a dictionary? It appears to me that "CIE" (P(CIE) = 0.0014) is more common than "CEI" (P(CEI) = 0.0005) because the words that contain the "exception" "CIE" are used more frequently in the corpus than the words that follow the rule "CEI". Once you know the limited number of exceptions (in the dictionary sense) the rule appears to preserve its relevance.

<comment><USER23> I suppose a the most useful corpus for this rule would be spelling tests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Strangely appropriate is today's XKCD: <http://xkcd.com/904/>

<comment><USER25> Hmm... I never thought of it that way. That sports are a weighted random number generator,but the various weights are unknown. And the commentators are discussing theories as to what the weights are, and how derived. (Although the cartoon seems to be saying the narratives are just about the numbers generated, which is more cynical, and frankly less interesting).

<comment><USER26> Actually, Larry Birnbaum over at Northwestern is doing exactly that: <http://infolab.northwestern.edu/projects/stats-monkey/>

They take the coded sports results, and automatically generate narratives using statistical speech models. They have a startup that is doing it too, don't recall the name of it....

EDIT: I believe this is it: <http://narrativescience.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've been monitoring the page this post points to with a bookmarking tool we've just released in beta. Here are the latest set of changes:

[http://app.bookmarkerpro.com/changes?fmt=html&id=2573](http://app.bookmarkerpro.com/changes?fmt=html&id=2573)

Quite a few revisions since first posted to HN!

<comment><USER27> More revisions... <http://tinyurl.com/3sabdc9>

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This whole theory vs observation argument exists at the very pinnacle of human thought, expressed in the Copenhagen interpretation. If you want to contribute to the human understanding of this, you'll have to beat Bohr and the uncertainty principle.

<comment><USER29> Fourier was there first.

<comment><USER28> My claim wasn't first, it was top. You up-end the Copenhagen interpretation, show the universe really is deterministic, and every other argument on this subject, in every discipline, collapses. As it is, the arguments are almost certainly failed, but it's not quite a cinch. Because probability admits determinism as a special case. One of the deep points of Norvig's essay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It is interesting than on a completely different debate, chomsky takes norvig's position (he is accused of not looking for a "theory" and "whys" and he replies that it is pragmatic results that matter):

[http://mindfulpleasures.blogspot.com/2011/01/noam-chomsky- on...](http://mindfulpleasures.blogspot.com/2011/01/noam-chomsky-on-derrida- foucault-lacan.html)

</comment><comment><USER31> Chomsky called the Watson computer that won Jeopardy "a bigger bulldozer." He goes into more detail about his AI opinions here: <http://www.framingbusiness.net/archives/1366>

</comment><comment><USER18> _And while it may seem crass and anti-intellectual to consider a financial measure of success_

Why are other metrics Norvig provides like articles published or prevalence in practical applications are considered more intellectual?

And besides, I don't think "accurately modeling the world" is the end of it. Classical Newtonian mechanics correctly describe 99% of our activities in the real world and were considered pinnacle of scientific achievement for several centuries. Yet we know today that they're just a subset of General relativity and Quantum mechanics.</comment>


What do you guys think of my Handmade Wooden Watches - <AUTHOR> Hey guys,<p>I've recently started a handmade wooden watch business  and was wondering if any of you guys would like one. Here is a link to one of them: https://www.omichronouswatches.com/collections/frontpage/products/bamboo-watch-w-green-backgroundmen <comment><USER2> If it meets the guidelines, this should probably be a Show HN:

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Woops, Thanks! That's what I was looking for

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm assuming you do the personalization only and are using the standard wooden watches available relatively inexpensively?

<comment><AUTHOR> @davelnewton I do both personalization and construction. That particular design costs me 58 dollars - shipping, personalization, labor and materials are included in this cost.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why isn't Polymer more popular? - <AUTHOR> It makes sense to me that some that allows you to use web extensions today--being that they're supposed to be what people will build web apps with--should super-popular, like Babel is for ES6.
It's also about 100 times simpler than React, and the fact that YouTube is built with it should guarantee that it will be stable/performant/good enough for any project (unless one is working on a site bigger than YouTube, I guess).
What's going on? <comment><USER2> You can't use external component which depends on MyCustomButton 1.0 and then use MyCustomButton 2.0 in the rest of your app (this is called dependency hell and it is no issue for google because of their monorepo design so it basically does not exists at all for them but IT IS issue for me and probably even for you)

Sometimes, there are things you can't express in templates and then it gets really hacky (vdom costs you some performance but it's more powerful)

HMR is dead-simple because the fw already does diffing

You can implement vdom in few dozens LOC so maybe it's not that hard

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment, but I'm still a little confused, though.

> You can't use external component which depends on MyCustomButton 1.0 and > then use MyCustomButton 2.0 in the rest of your app (this is called > dependency hell and it is no issue for google because of their monorepo > design so it basically does not exists at all for them but IT IS issue for > me and probably even for you)

Can you do that with React? The only way I can think of to do that (both in React and Polymer) would be to rename the component, or pass an api-version prop.

As for the rest, lots of acronyms I'm not aware of :-)

P.S.: are you Polish? If yes, where do you live..? I'm in Wrocław.

<comment><USER2> It's just like if you wanted some-datepicker.js which depended on jquery1.1 but the rest of your code was jquery1.8

Polymer suffers from this because they are registering global custom element - just like when jquery registered itself as global $

React components does not register themselves anywhere so this problem does not exists at all.

It doesnt matter for google simply because they are not using anything else outside of google and everything is running from master, they really have one big "git-like" repository with all their projects and everything is always up- to-date (and it's a lot of work to not break anything)

You probably know HotReload already - it refreshes the browser if you make any change.

HMR (hot module replacement) is one step further, it will update the page without refreshing - so forexample you can click the button, and then make changes in modal, and those will get re-rendered - it is also possible to retain form-state...

P.S. Czech, Brno :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I see. Is this the only pitfall?

I'm used to using stuff that depends on other global components (like Bootstrap, for instance, and its non-prefixed classes), and people just solve this with correct naming practices.

<comment><USER2> There's also dependency on shadowdom, which has to be polyfilled in ms edge. Other than that, I think Polymer is getting better but it still feels (subjective) a lot like research project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> >> about 100 times simpler than React

This statement is inaccurate and since its not explained, meaningless.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to know, thanks.

You haven't explained why it would be inaccurate, so your statement is just as meaningless though.</comment></comment>


A genetic code for genius - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324162304578303992108696034.html?mod=WSJ_hp_EditorsPicks <comment><USER3> _"Research into the science of intelligence has been used in the past "to target particular racial groups or individuals and delegitimize them,""_ says a watchdog group eager for money and public support for its pet cause.

WHO CARES?

I mean, from what we understand so far of the genetics of IQ, there might be some slight differences based on ethnicity - which is nothing unexpected, as you can see the same variability for blood groups, hair color, HLA, etc.

Basically different groups of people have a different distribution of some genes than other groups of people, and therefore a show a difference in the expression of these genes that can be aggregated at the group level to show... a difference in the visible characteristics between groups. Wow, what a shocking discovery.

The really interesting thing is these genetic differences between ethnic groups are dwarfed by the difference a good upbringing (alimentation and education) can get. And since there are also promising results about the inheritability of IQ, these inter ethnic group differences might also be dwarfed by INTRA group differences.

 _That_ is the best argument if this watchdog group really want to disprove that "targetting of particular racial groups"

So instead of crying wolf, they should embrace such research- after all, when we have pinned down some alleles that confers good advantages, one can think a drug could be created, or gene therapy, or whatever - in the end, the whole human population would benefit from it.

Stop thinking about ethnicity. Only the end result matters. It's a shame people in north america and europe are such crybabies about these issues. Thanks China for taking such an endeavour that might benefit humanity - <USER2> today naysayers.

(and I say this as someone who does not believe that IQ can be accurately identified or measured with todays techniques, but still there is some noticeable difference between people innate abilities - and trying to understand causes them is a good thing. many genes are likely to be involved, and 10 000 certainly won't be enough, but it's a good start)

<comment><USER4> I suppose people groups who have had hundreds of years of experience of being oppressed with excuses from the Bible, Social Darwinism or the like might care.

As a species we have considerably more experience with racial/ethnic judgement leading to suffering than leading to something beneficial.

Not to say that it's impossible, but it strikes me as very reasonable for us to argue very thoroughly about the potential implications of this kind of research. I hope we _can_ find a way to improve life for all people. When vaccines first became available there were probably jerks like me moaning about imagined terrible consequences. But that doesn't mean every change made possible by science would necessarily be as equally beneficial.

If we find out that people from East Whateveria have a mean IQ 25 lower than the global target, does that mean we have a right or obligation to "fix" them? What if they don't want to be fixed? I'll attempt stop short of pulling a Godwin, but note that this sort of 'fix defective populations for the benefit of the whole human populations' has a mixed record.

<comment><USER3> People are free to do what they want. No moral obligation - just freedom.

But if by any chance I found that I had this same mutation and could take advantage of their fix, _I_ would be interested.

If you found out say your son had the same mutation, wouldn't you be interested as well? Please note we are not taking about East Whateveria or how West Whateveria might gloat about _not_ having this mutation. We are just talking about how oneday we might have the freedom to take such a decision for ourselves.

Because it's all about freedom, and unfortunately without having the scientific know-how it's pointless to speculate about what we might do.

This is why I support such initiatives- it will offer more possibilities, possibilities that we can only dream about now.

<comment><USER4> > People are free to do what they want. No moral obligation - just freedom.

You assume that, I don't. At least not for enormous numbers of humans past and present.

<comment><USER5> The fact that science has scared off a sufficient amount of idiots in the past doesn't make it a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is anyone at all concerned with a Chinese eugenics program? We already know the extent to which China has gone to produce high-caliber athletes, especially for the Olympics. (Yao Ming is basically their Kwisatz Haderach[1]) Let's say for the sake of argument that there _is_ an identifiable genetic component to genius/IQ/intellectual achievement. Is the following sequence of events particularly outlandish?

1) This study and others like it discover genetic components to intelligence.

2) China conducts large scale genetic analysis of the intelligentsia / upper classes etc. to find carriers

3) Strong incentives provided for couples to use IVF/embryo selection/whatever to produce children with the maximum number of these intelligence genes

4) 25+ years from now China all of a sudden has a _lot_ more smart people than anywhere else does

[1] [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1126765,00....](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1126765,00.html)

<comment><USER7> Yes - (1) and (4) are extremely unlikely, though (2) and (3) are certainly plausible :)

More specifically, this study may publish some marginal results about genetics of extreme IQ, but any single effect will likely be so small that nothing actionable will come from it.

If (4) is the goal, I suspect they'll have much more success exploring drugs and other cognitive enhancements. What genetics _can_ do is help inform how to discover those drugs - ie. what genes should you study.

(Shameless plug: if you like genetics and writing python, drop me an email if you want to work on studies like this!)

<comment><USER8> Why do you think discovering genetic components to intelligence is extremely unlikely?

I expect it to be easier to find genetic components for intelligence than for other polygenetic traits like height -- the brain has fewer components influencing development.

<comment><USER7> > the brain has fewer components influencing development

What do you mean by that? I'd argue the opposite. In a sense, we already have discovered genes for high height with Marfan Syndrome.

I think IQ is orders of magnitude more complex. Awesome conversation but probably hard in an online forum, so I'll just cite my favorite example: Dickens and Flynn [1]

I absolutely think this study has a chance of revealing some signal, my skepticism is just that it will have any actionable conclusions. Here's a litmus test: what results would allow you to choose from a group of 10 men and 10 women, _based only on genotype_ , which pair is most likely to have a high IQ child. And how would your power compare to just reading all their resumes?

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Dickens_and_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Dickens_and_Flynn_model)

<comment><USER8> Barring specific diseases like Marfan Syndrome, we can't yet explain most of height -- "Height is a highly heritable trait, with estimates of heritability as high as 90%. Recent genome-wide association studies of height have discovered over 180 common variants associated with height. These variants have small effect sizes and collectively explain approximately 10% of the heritability." [1]

Growth involves many systems with many types of cells interacting -- digestive, skeletal, endocrine, etc. There's a lot of complexity when you have so many systems involved.

By comparison, there are relatively few distinct types of cells in the brain, so the effects of different alleles should be more apparent. In particular, genes controlling sensitivity to and production of neurotransmitters directly impact brain function.

If they find many specific mutations that cause better performance on specific tasks (working memory, pattern matching, verbal ability, ...) it should be possible to predict high IQs.

I don't expect 100% accurate predictions, but to not find _anything_ would be surprising. Maybe that's your point-- if they only get 10% heritability, it's not really enough for breeding decisions.

[1] [http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj...](http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1002439)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One of the fun facts about IQ is that it seems to be highly genetic, but not particularly hereditary. There's a .76 correlation for identical twins separated at a young age, but only .22 between a parent and child, when the child was lived apart from the parent[1]. Compare this to height, which is much more heritable[2]. So they'll probably need more than the 10,000 samples they needed to find height-related genes. It'll be interesting to see the findings.

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Correlations...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Correlations_between_IQ_and_degree_of_genetic_relatedness)

[2]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_study>

<comment><USER10> To me, this suggests that the trait is highly combinatorial, involving potentially large combinations of polymorphisms instead of individual loci acting relatively independently (in an "additive" fashion).

Of course, such combinatorial traits are much harder to tease out of data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'll be curious to see if they pull this off. Finding genetic associations reliably is notoriously tricky, simply because of the enormous potential for false positives.

When there are thousands of possible genes to consider, there are thousands of opportunities for a gene to be "lucky" and have a coincidental correlation with intelligence in your sample. Previously published efforts have produced almost entirely false positives:

"Most Reported Genetic Associations With General Intelligence Are Probably False Positives" - <http://pss.sagepub.com/content/23/11/1314>

Let's hope that BGI doesn't merely torture the data until it confesses, as so many have.

</comment><comment><USER12> There are those (generally average people) that wish to democratize IQ insisting that unlike beauty and athletic ability that IQ is nurture and not nature. But like beauty and athletic ability high IQ and giftedness in science and the arts is mostly genetic. It should also be noted that IQ tests frequently do not indicate true intelligence -- at least among the truly gifted. For example, Genius Richard Feynman was reported to have an IQ of 125 -- clearly not a true measure of one of the greatest minds of the 20th century.

Regarding Ashkenazic Jews (disclosure, I am one) and their high IQ, Jews instituted universal education until 6th grade for all males beginning 2,000 years ago -- about 1,750 years before any other ethnic group. It was required of all Jewish males to study the Old Testament and The Talmud and Jewish law since that time. It was around that time that Jewish males were encouraged to move away from agriculture to occupations that required reading, writing, and math.

The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492 [http://www.amazon.com/The-Chosen-Few-Education- Princeton/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Chosen-Few-Education- Princeton/dp/0691144877/)

<comment><USER13> How can you disentangle upbringing from genetics? They are hopelessly intertwined, especially in your example of Ashkenazic Jews.

Athletic ability is especially sensitive to nurture as well.

Talent is fine; most of accomplishment is application and practice. I can completely believe that Feynman had an IQ of 125. Applied with a depression- generation self-discipline, it can (did) accomplish amazing things. It's disingenious to take a counter-example to an argument and pretend its supporting that argument.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article is not genius - it is nonsense. There is no one "genetic code" for genius - this is polygenic. IQs measured by the stanford-binet or wechsler are actually variable - one can work to bring these scores up dramatically - they are completely game-abale. Furthermore there are many types of intelligence, people with high general intelligences can consciously hone specialty intelligences. Or, people with low general intelligences may possess high specific intelligences. This depends on the structure of the brain from macro to a micro perspectives. Also, intangibles govern the way we interact and as the environment changes around us, as we near a "singularity," "intelligences" we value today may not be the same "intelligences" we value tomorrow. The definition of intelligence will change over time. This article is nonsensical and loserish.

<comment><USER15> Citation needed for the claim that IQ tests are highly game-able. And nobody denies that there are different types of mental abiltiy, so I'm not sure who or what you are trying to argue against.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> When someone reduces human intelligence to one number, that is really a good indicator of that someone's intelligence. We don't know much about intelligence except that it is diverse. There is a bunch of excellent ideas about intelligence, talent and creativity in [1]. I particularly liked a bit where current model of education is compared to strip mining of Earth for commodities i.e. only small fraction of human talents is developed while others are ruthlessly squandered.

[1] TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson, "Do schools kill creativity".

<comment><USER15> When someone trots out the same old "multiple intelligences" line, that is a pretty good indicator of their intelligence. or at least their intellectual laziness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If they are successful I assume this will likely _not_ result in a way to improve the intelligence of existing individuals though gene therapy because their brains are already wired a certain way and unlike other cells of the body the neurons in the brain do not regenerate rapidly. Is this a correct assumption?

<comment><USER10> If they find specific genes or non-coding RNAs with relatively strong associations (a big if), drugs could be designed to alter the expression levels of those transcripts.

Since it is unclear how much of IQ is determined by the "macro" structure of neurons and synapses and how much is caused by intracellular events, it is really impossible to say how much an intervention could do to increase intelligence. The current state of the nootropics field, however, is not very encouraging.

In any case, I would not pin my hopes on gene therapy. The hurdles that would be required for regulatory approval of "cosmetic" gene therapy (as this would be classified) are nearly insurmountable.

<comment><USER17> >"cosmetic" gene therapy (as this would be classified)

Since higher IQ (at least up to a point) correlates positively with good health and other desirable characteristics including overall happiness [1] would this really be considered "cosmetic"?

[1] [https://journals.cambridge.org/action//displayAbstract?fromP...](https://journals.cambridge.org/action//displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8698047&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S0033291712002139)

<comment><USER10> Personally, I agree with you, but the NIH does not. So far, "stupidity" is not a disease (nor is aging, for that matter).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> How did he get that position if he is a dropout? Especially in China where it's metricopia?

</comment><comment><USER19> In future, there won't be any need for interviews and resumes. just send your genome for admission to harvard or a job a google!

</comment><comment><USER20> From the article, which I read in the print edition this afternoon: "The majority of the DNA samples come from people with IQs of 160 or higher." I call baloney on that, as there is no currently normed, well validated IQ test that yields a score of higher than 160. From farther along in the article: "Those samples were obtained through a U.S. project known as the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth, now in its fourth decade." There is nothing so amazing about the genes of the participants in the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (one of whom is my immediate descendant, also a participant here on HN) compared to what is amazing about their upbringing, including having the opportunity to take the SAT college admission test before age thirteen as part of regional Talent Search

<http://cty.jhu.edu/talent/>

to qualify for inclusion in the Study of Exceptional Talent.

<http://cty.jhu.edu/set/index.html>

As another few replies have already noted, IQ is polygenic, and no one can identify any genes with a strong effect on IQ. But there are plenty of educational practices that spare a minority of United States young people the lousy elementary mathematics instruction that most receive, and the pupils who got a good start in mathematics stand out when they take a mathematics test at an unusual age, if the parents think to arrange the test.

A really good bibliography about IQ and human intelligence topics can be found at

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Intellige...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/IntelligenceCitations)

as part of Wikipedia userspace, references to reliable sources that ought to be used by more Wikipedians to update the articles there.

Prediction: the study reported on in the article kindly submitted here will not find any genes with strong effect on IQ. The review article Johnson, W. (2010). Understanding the Genetics of Intelligence: Can Height Help? Can Corn Oil?. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19(3), 177-182

[http://apsychoserver.psych.arizona.edu/JJBAReprints/PSYC621/...](http://apsychoserver.psych.arizona.edu/JJBAReprints/PSYC621/Johnson%20Current%20Directions%20Psych%20Science%202010%20\(G%20and%20E%20in%20IQ\).pdf)

looks at some famous genetic experiments to show how little is explained by gene frequencies even in thoroughly studied populations defined by artificial selection.

"Together, however, the developmental natures of GCA and height, the likely influences of gene-environment correlations and interactions on their developmental processes, and the potential for genetic background and environmental circumstances to release previously unexpressed genetic variation suggest that very different combinations of genes may produce identical IQs or heights or levels of any other psychological trait. And the same genes may produce very different IQs and heights against different genetic backgrounds and in different environmental circumstances. This would be especially the case if height and GCA and other psychological traits are only single facets of multifaceted traits actually under more systematic genetic regulation, such as overall body size and balance between processing capacity and stimulus reactivity. Genetic influences on individual differences in psychological characteristics are real and important but are unlikely to be straightforward and deterministic. We will understand them best through investigation of their manifestation in biological and social developmental processes."

<comment><USER5> >I call baloney on that, as there is no currently normed, well validated IQ test that yields a score of higher than 160.

I know the WAIS caps at 155, but the Stanford-Binet test accomodates 160+, does it not?

<comment><USER21> > I know the WAIS caps at 155, but the Stanford-Binet test accomodates 160+, > does it not?

Maybe, maybe not. Know why there's so much uncertainty? The population of possible subjects is too small. For a population with a mean IQ of 100 and a standard deviation of 15, the proportion above 160 IQ is only 0.003%. For a population of 300 million, that's about 9500 people. And remember that choosing the subjects would be a self-referential quandary -- you need an accurate IQ test even to select the population to submit to the IQ test.

So no, there's no basis for asserting accurate measurement in that part of the IQ distribution.

Extra credit -- Marilyn Vos Savant is supposed to have an IQ of 228. Oh, really? I'm not disputing that it's possible, only that there's no way to accurately measure an IQ like that. It's not reliable science or statistics.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_vos_Savant>

<comment><USER5> I definitely understand your argument and agree with it. Thanks for clarifying; didn't quite get the gist of where you were going with that.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to get people to come back? - <AUTHOR>

I've been involved in a couple site ideas that have been "completed", at least enough to be used as they were intended. They've been successful enough to get 500-1000 hits in the span of a day or two without too much effort put into marketing. After the initial burst of activity, however, they all inevitably fizzle out. I feel like I'm missing something extremely important to include as basic functionality since the feedback from these sites is always positive.<p>What type of things have you guys found that makes people want to come back to your site? Is it gathering emails and sending reminders? Posting blog posts or twitter/facebook accounts that keep people updated? Comments or other community-based offerings? My gut tells me I just have to find a good system to remind people to come back but I'm  not certain what that is. <comment><USER2> Its hard to give some solid advice without knowing what these sites are about. It could just be the nature of the service, or maybe you just need something extra to encourage them to explore more and fully understand the value you're providing.

This is basically a shameless plug, but I'd love to talk to you about your sites and see if we can work together. My startup is IActionable.com and we offer Gamification/Game Mechanics as a service which I think could help your situation.

We recently posted on HN that we have decided to offer our services for free for a select few startups.

If you're interested, check out <http://iactionable.com/free-for-startups> and mention this discussion and we'll get back to you today.

<comment><USER3> <http://iactionable.com/api/example-code> is not working

<comment><USER2> You're right. That link should not be there (yet).

We're working on providing things like JavaScript, PHP and .Net sample libraries and code snippets soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In order to answer that question, you'll need to figure out what people hope to accomplish on your site and whether or not that is actually happening. Have you tried collecting any qualitative information about this? E.g. ask your users questions via KISSInsights, interviewing a couple of users, running Userfly or ClickTale? etc. (This post describes all of this in more detail: [http://blog.launchbit.com/6-tools-to-learn-about-your- custom...](http://blog.launchbit.com/6-tools-to-learn-about-your-customers))

Without knowing more of this information, it's going to be impossible to diagnose what would compel people to come back.

</comment><comment><USER5> There needs to be some sort of incentive for them to come back. Something about your site needs to keep them hooked.

Its really different for every case, but take fb for example. You want to see what your friends are posting. You need new information that they wont see unless they go back to your site.</comment>


It's Real Hard Making an Indie Game in Cuba - <AUTHOR> http://kotaku.com/its-real-hard-making-an-indie-game-in-cuba-1788713142 <comment><USER2> Looks cool. The hand-drawn graphics give the game a unique style which I find very attractive.</comment>


The Perplexing Case of the Female Orgasm - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/mind/stories/s1382386.htm <comment><USER2> There was one argument that I found amusing, because there is a much more reasonable alternate explanation for it.

 _Roger Short: ... if you look anatomically, it's very interesting that the human clitoris is really much, much bigger than the clitoris in any other primate, relative to body size. So I think we've got to say that female orgasm is alive and well for very good reasons, and it's not just an evolutionary accident of something that happened in men._

Color me unconvinced. The clitoris is the female analog of the male penis. Anatomically humans have penises that are several times larger than one would predict based on comparisons with our near relatives. When you add in all of the dirty jokes, etc, there is fairly clear evidence of sexual selection for large male penises in humans. However the genes that cause that are likely to also cause large female clitorises.

Causation could theoretically go the other way - selecting for large clitorises would select for large penises. But evidence from human behavior suggests far more female interest in men with large penises than male interest in women with large clitorises.

<comment><USER3> _The clitoris is the female analog of the male penis._

 _However the genes that cause that are likely to also cause large female clitorises._

I highly doubt both statements. What does "analog of the male penis" mean, anyway? Do you have anything at all to support them?

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://lmgtfy.com/?q=clitoris+analog+of+penis>

<comment><USER3> Wop, big bluff. Sorry, you're right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "All in the Mind" is a fantastic show, main site has transcripts and audio from the recent shows as well as podcasts. <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/allinthemind/></comment>


IETF dress code - <AUTHOR> http://tools.ietf.org/rfcmarkup?doc=fyi17#section-4.4 <comment><USER2> IETF are an odd bunch. I went to a meeting a few years back and was warned that there might be a humming for consensus.

What _is_ humming for consensus you ask? Well, rather than a show of hands, when deciding on measures and proposals they simply ask the room to hum in favor of a measure.

The reason is simply that even if you are sitting next to your boss it will still be possible for you to vote according to your conscience as it's virtually impossible to distinguish the direction of humming in a room of a hundred or so people. It is, however, easy to tell if a measure has the majority support of a group via humming.

It's very geeky and very smart. Very IETF.

<comment><USER3> But someone could have a huge flat speaker to make a humming noise and influence the vote!

<comment><USER2> Well since there's no roll call or concept of membership at ietf a more real problem is companies flooding the room with their employees for critical votes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> For those wondering, "There are those in the IETF who refuse to wear anything other than suits. Fortunately, they are well known (for other reasons) so they are forgiven this particular idiosyncrasy." is a reference to Vint Cerf. Though I did see Vint in a tracksuit once...

<comment><USER5> I hope it was a three-piece tracksuit, at least. Does Juicy Couture make vests??

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love the way the IETF is still issuing reports formatted for ancient mainframe line printers, with hard-coded headers and footers and whatnot.

<comment><AUTHOR> Think of it as future-proofing their documents.

Paper has two advantages: it keeps carbon from becoming a greenhouse gas and quite probably outlasts all our other backup mediums.

<comment><USER7> Except clay tablets and this: <http://rosettaproject.org/disk/concept/>

<comment><USER8> Ugh! Nasty crash on their website; [http://staging.rosettaproject.org/blog/02008/nov/3/macro- mic...](http://staging.rosettaproject.org/blog/02008/nov/3/macro-micro- etching/)

"You're seeing this error because you have DEBUG = True in your Django settings file. Change that to False, and Django will display a standard 500 page."

<comment><USER9> seems they linked to their staging site (publicly accessible!!) by accident. Same page without staging subdomain:

[http://www.rosettaproject.org/blog/02008/nov/3/macro- micro-e...](http://www.rosettaproject.org/blog/02008/nov/3/macro-micro- etching/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Given professional workplace without a dress code/ uniform it is interesting to see the large variation in what people decide to wear. From shit pants and nice shoes down to t-shirt shorts and runners.

</comment><comment><USER11> Never saw this before. Thanks for sharing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank George (really nice guy who tweets mostly in Portuguese): <http://twitter.com/georgeguimaraes/statuses/8705110867>

I never imagined IETF issued memos with dress code...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> fucking fascists!

<comment><USER11> What makes think they are?

<comment><USER12> Obviously, you're not a golfer.</comment></comment></comment>