Americans Losing Faith in College Degrees, Poll Finds - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/americans-losing-faith-in-college-degrees-poll-finds-1504776601?mod=e2fb <comment><USER2> Dangerous trend. A large part of the reason my country (Denmark) is as rich as it is because of education. We too talk about the value of certain parts of academia, like Ancient Greek, and whether or not too many people go to the university.

It's all become very cost-benefit, and while the discussion is a reasonable one to have, most of our entrepreneurship comes from educational environments and a lot of the benefits of education can't be directly measured.

I mean, there is a reason Tesla had to hire a Swedish company to do the interior design of their cars and that Scandinavian design is increasingly more influential in to world. We're not born better artists/designers, but we do have a nurturing environment for those sort of things to grow and a way for the designers to form easy partnerships with business degrees to be successful.

I did project management and later general management autodidactic for a while. It worked perfectly fine, but after taking a degree in management I find myself wondering how the hell it ever worked.

Gut feeling, a clever mind and a willingness to learn on your own will get you a long way, and you can absolutely succeed without education. But academia not only teaches you tested methods it also teaches you why you use them and how to determine which ones are best suited for a given situation.

<comment><USER3> What did you learn from your management courses? Genuinely curious, as I've always found that people with degrees in management were no better (and probably slightly worse) than people that just figured it out. My evidence is anecdotal and limited, so I'd be interested to hear what you found useful about your program.

<comment><USER4> My anecdata from working quite a few years at big tech companies where most of the staff began as technical and then some went off to get business degrees to advance into management, is that the biggest change was they started using a lot of business school buzz words and attached much more importance to spreadsheets and presentations than they used to.

<comment><USER3> "2/3 of HBS is BS" -Ben Rich, former Director of Lockheed Skunkworks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I see a lot of people talking about the increasing cost of college being part of the reason people are losing faith in degreees. I too, agree that this is a large part.

However, did nobody else experience the dumbing down of colleges like I have? I was told growing up that college courses were taught by educated, experienced professors. Yet every year I was there though I got more and more adjunct professors who were working second jobs at supermarkets to make ends meet and TAs who were required to teach a course for their graduate degree but should have never passed the course they were teaching in the first place. The absolute worst I had was an economics course where some TA spent _every_, _single_ class at the whiteboard muttering to herself and trying to draw the charts in our textbook from memory but failing utterly to do so.

The entire class complained to the university and they didn't even respond. We all just stopped caring because we given decent grades anyway and pushed through in our degrees.

It is no wonder that people lose faith in the colleges when they let that happen and still award you with a degree like you learned something

<comment><USER6> do you see the conflict inherent in arguing both that you want to spend less money on a good and that you want the people providing that good to be more skilled?

I mean, it's natural to want both of those things, and sometimes, there's some inefficiency that can be fixed that makes things both better and less expensive, but... not usually. Usually, if you want better workers to do a task, you have to pay more, and that costs money.

My own impression is that instructor quality varies a lot by institution, though I have never met a college professor who wasn't dramatically better than what you'd expect based on pay.

<comment><USER5> Of course I can see the conflict. The problem is that universities have no problem with such conflict. From their perspective they are charging more each year per average student while spending less each year per average teacher.

Some of these schools are teaching things on the cutting edge, but how much of that applies to undergraduate degrees? Most of what you get taught there has been the same for decades if not centuries.

Universities have had rising costs, but much of that is due to things tangential to actually teaching their students. My own college for instance would completely rip out all of the flowers every few months and replace them so that the campus looked nice to prospective students .

<comment><USER6> >Some of these schools are teaching things on the cutting edge, but how much of that applies to undergraduate degrees? Most of what you get taught there has been the same for decades if not centuries.

eh, I think there's a lot to be said for rubbing shoulders with industry notables when you are learning the basics. It can be inspiring.

But then, there's also a lot to be said for teachers who are good teachers; that can be inspiring too, in a different way.

>Universities have had rising costs, but much of that is due to things tangential to actually teaching their students. My own college for instance would completely rip out all of the flowers every few months and replace them so that the campus looked nice to prospective students .

I went to a high school that... looked like a prison. I mean, how it looked was certainly not the first thing I'd change, but it's certainly something I would change. Look at any of the silicon valley tech companies... all of them spend a lot of effort making their campus nice, and personally, I think education is a lot more important to society than advertising.

<comment><USER5> My comment might have implied that these grounds were nice on the outside. The grounds keeping was done anywhere that prospective students could see. On the inside, the school was converting the study rooms in the dorms or pushing them towards a local hotel because they accepted more students than there were rooms for on campus.

I had to live on campus for one year and the room was 182 square feet for 2 people to live in with their bed, desks, clothes, and everything else for the year. With this little space they would also kick you out during summer and holidays so you got 8 months of the year there where they currently charge 6,838. It is not much better than a prison in terms of space or looks on the inside. Even the mattresses were the same as the ones you'd find at a prison or summer camp.

I still agree with you that education is important. Schools are no longer selling an education though. They are selling an overpriced "college experience" and giving you the same amount of knowledge that you could get with wikipedia and some text books, and they charge extra for the textbooks

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If I had the choice of loans for a college degree or skipping the degree, I'd personally skip the degree. My "hack" when I knew I couldn't pay for MIT was to get accepted and then just not pay -- I got to take the classes up then got retroactively deregistered around finals time. I kept that up for about 2y until I found a great startup opportunity. If I had been saddled with $100-200k of debt, I would have been pushed into taking a high cash comp/high stability job rather than doing crazy startups. Ironically unpaid tuition directly to the bursar vs a loan is just regular debt, and would be discharged through bankruptcy (although MIT just forgave mine).

For the very rich (for whom tuition is still insignificant) or the poor and minorities (who win from various forms of non loan financial aid), it seems like college is a rational choice. Otherwise, unless you really need the degree for a specific credentialed career (government, law, or medicine), I would probably discourage college.

I do wish I could do a phd in infosec+economics somewhere today, but that is really the only thing I can't readily do without an undergrad degree.

</comment><comment><USER8> Between the rising cost of a college degree, anti-free speech movements on campuses, and the declining employability of non-STEM degrees it's not surprising. Hopefully, this will work to reduce the overall cost of colleges.

<comment><USER9> Non-STEM seeking students really are not a majority in colleges. Per the National Center for Education Statistics on conferred degrees, the number of liberal arts degrees has been on a decline for quite a few decades while STEM and more vocational degrees have been steadily increasing [1].

Slam universities for many reasons, but the students going aren't graduating in arts; they're doing what employers say they want and still not getting jobs.

Universities have many problems, but they still are useful. We have all these STEM graduates but no one seems to be hiring them.

[1] - [https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_322.10.a...](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_322.10.asp?current=yes)

<comment><USER6> Unemployment is at record lows. Where are you getting that people aren't getting jobs?

<comment><USER10> Unemployment isn't the metric to look at. Just because someone is employed doesn't mean the job is at all related to the degree. Our office cleaner is a recent IT graduate.

Not to mention under employment and people that have just givin up.

<comment><USER6> People giving up is a different problem. If you have looked for work and determined there is nothing for you out there, it's rational to re-evaluate this periodically, no?

If you can't get on the computer once a month, spend some time on dice and send a few resumes, the problem is not the economy; the problem is your mental health.

I mean, I'm not saying those people shouldn't be helped; but having more jobs available won't help them if they aren't looking. They need a psychologist or social worker or something. Depression is way more treatable than it used to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The American Education System is nothing but a slave factory for the bank system. I mean whats the percentage of students in debt? Pretty sure above 50%. Want to be a MD to save lives? Sure here is your 250,000$ student debt oh and don't forget malpractice insurance etc.

</comment><comment><USER12> That's fine, that's how it should ideally be. Market seems to have reached equilibrium now, with collages getting as much money as they possibly can.

<comment><USER13> It's interesting how this forum seems to react so robotically to things that adversely affect the lower class. Yes, it is good that it looks like people will spend less money on something that might have a very poor roi depending on your circumstances. No it is not okay, that the lower class was duped into believing they needed a piece of paper to be financially secure in life and that many went so far as to get literal pieces of paper from diploma mills that only shows that they were duped. It is not okay that they are in debt for substantial amounts of money they can't get out of.

Or let me put it another way. It's like a massive hurricane just ended and you said: "That's fine, that's how it should ideally be. The hurricane lost its energy for some reason that is intrinsic to hurricanes losing their energy."

I hope that this doesn't sound too emotionally charged as I have some very close friends that act robotically to just about everything.

<comment><USER14> Empathy breeds terrible policy.

<comment><USER15> Empathy and compassion are mandatory for sound policy.

Edit because of HN throttling: I haven't seen unsavory elected folks generate sound policy yet, so I'm sticking to my statement.

<comment><USER16> Maybe just compassion: [http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/02/paul_bloom_on_e.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/02/paul_bloom_on_e.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm surprised it took this long. The value is opaque. Education is just selection bias. College should be free up front and cost commensurate with your first few years of income. Incentives would then be aligned properly

<comment><USER18> Yeah! Where's that magic wand that makes it free again?

<comment><USER17> "cost commensurate with your first few years of income"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Finally the obsession with white collar careers is ending. I much prefer the German system of presenting trades and office jobs as equally valid. This is the first step to revitalizing skilled trades in the US.

</comment><comment><USER20> At least in the US the path that will most likely lead to a decent career is still through college. As long as there aren't good vocational programs then people losing faith in college is not a good thing. It's more that people are losing faith in the whole system and just check out.

</comment><comment><USER21> I wonder how much money is spent on students playing catch-up after enrolling into colleges because they can barely read, write or do basic math. I've seen plenty of this kind of thing in study groups during my 2 years of community college and it was really fascinating to witness this level of illiteracy especially having lived in Eastern Europe where even the poorest of poor received good public education. It's absolutely awful and there had to be significant money invested to keep that going. Our public schools are an absolute disaster and cutting costs to higher education should start here. I don't know what this entails. Perhaps paying teachers more in order to attract more talent? Replace GEDs with night schools for adults without age restrictions?

</comment><comment><USER22> There simple needs to be a revolution in this space. I would say, from personal experience, that Galvanize, a software bootcamp/school etc. is the most organized & on point pushing to replace tradition CS programs. But CS is only a micro slice of the job economy. Why can't their (or others) model of short term/extremely focused programs be applied to other in-demand, specialized, fields? Examples? Non-MD Psychiatrists that review specific cases, other mental health specialties, highly technical pharmacist/software/hardware/etc technical jobs (sry lack of clarity) but taught in this new learning style vs 6-8+ traditional college curriculums.

<comment><USER15> > Why can't their (or others) model of short term/extremely focused programs > be applied to other in-demand, specialized, fields? Examples? Non-MD > Psychoatrists

We had these. They were called apprenticeships. [1]

[1] [https://www.dol.gov/apprenticeship/](https://www.dol.gov/apprenticeship/)

Companies became accustomed to making the rules though labor-wise over the last decade (including externalizing the cost of an employee's education). This is slowly changing due to a tight labor market [2] (forcing employers to finally invest in their workforce) but it will take time.

[2] [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-06/it-s- boom...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-06/it-s-boom-times- for-recruiters-as-u-s-job-market-tightens)

<comment><USER23> > We had these. They were called apprenticeships

Apprenticeships tend not to be "short-term".

<comment><USER15> A country cannot bootcamp its way to prosperity. Education takes time.

<comment> ux-app >A country cannot bootcamp its way to prosperity. Education takes time.

I need this printed as a bumper sticker

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The traditional college path just isnt scalable enough anymore, at least for undergrad degrees. Undergrad level education needs to be cheap and attainable from anywhere. Moocs are getting us there, hopefully the trend continues.

<comment><USER6> I'm not saying that MOOCS aren't valuable; they certainly are, but they aren't college. You don't get the socialization, among other things. This is super obvious to me, as someone without an education who works with people who mostly have very high end educations. It's a huge difference, even when I can compete technically, it's really obvious that I am really different and lacking the background the others have.

<comment><USER24> Yea, I agree - I think the challenge is to figure out how to get some or all of those benefits for MOOC users - or those otherwise pursuing education off- campus or remote settings. Lack of college-type socialization (and network building) in MOOCS is a thing that can be solved.

Forking out 10's of thousands of dollars or more in tuition along with all the other life-altering changes required to attend a university for 4 dedicated years is really a poor value for a bit of socialization/networking, IMHO - unless maybe you are at a _really_ elite university.

<comment><USER6> I think the "life altering changes" required to attend a university for four years are... a big part of the point of going.

I think the cost, well, if that is worth it depends largely on what you value and the marginal value of your dollar. I look around my hometown when I visit my parents, not a particularly wealthy place, and I see a lot of those giant trucks, any one of which could have covered four years at a public university.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Good. People shouldn't make decisions about things like whether to go to college on faith, they should make such decisions after earnest deliberation.

<comment><USER26> Everyone should have access to an education. Period.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Hopefully a renaissance in vocational training will follow. We have plenty of English major burger flippers as it is.

</comment><comment><USER28> Fair enough. Thanks to the internet, going to college to study is definitely an antiquated idea.

</comment><comment><USER29> Get a list of jobs. Sort by desc the salaries. Scan for what you _could_ like. Figure out what you need for that particular job and get that. Done.

<comment><USER30> How many of those jobs will exist in 10 years, let alone 40?

<comment><USER31> Which is yet another reason to keep learning and adapting. Going to university should encourage continued intellectual curiosity, not be an end-point.

<comment><USER30> Which isn't exactly sorting and ranking jobs by salary.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are there any mirrors for Rails documentation? - <AUTHOR>

The online Rails docs now point to linkfarms (probably due to the domain squatting issue from earlier today). So where can I get these docs? <comment><USER2> This is a good resource: <http://railsapi.com/>

And this has docs for many different versions of Rails: <http://railsbrain.com/>

<comment><USER3> railsapi.com has v2.3.5

railsbrain goes up to 2.3.2. Still fine for most things though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Or run to terminal, do "gem server", visit <http://localhost:8808/> and check out the built-in RDocs for all the Rails-related gems (and all the other ones installed).

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://apidock.com/> is generally pretty good. Ruby docs are there too.</comment>


Cachemonet - <AUTHOR> http://cachemonet.com/ <comment><USER2> This is absolutely beautiful, and has to be the trippiest experimental website I have seen.</comment>


Offer HN: How can I help? - <AUTHOR>

EDIT: For the sake of clarity I should state that I am willing to meet with as many people as I can fit into my schedule.
Who am I?
I'm Brian!
Seriously though, I've been in technology for a while. I have been through shutdowns,  liquidations, and an acquisition. I've worked with a lot of smart people. I've led teams in both wonderful and awful company cultures.
I'm more of a HN lurker than contributor. Here's to changing that.
I'm not a VC or Angel Investor. I'm not looking to make investments and couldn't even if I wanted to. I'm not a recruiter or head-hunter. I'm just a guy with a range of experience, some free time and an urge to give back.
I really like (decaf) espresso and chocolate.
What can I offer?
I'm offering to meet over coffee, lunch, dinner, in your conference room, at some park somewhere, anywhere in San Francisco or the East Bay. I can probably be convinced to trek down into the valley. Maybe we could even get together in a Google Hangout or on Skype (or whatever flavor of conferencing software you prefer.) I'm more than willing to get together when I'm traveling, if you're in a place I'm traveling to.
I will help however I am able. We can brainstorm startup ideas. Help you think about your technology stack. Help you think about if/who you should hire and help you craft position announcements. Help you interview technical people where I'm competent to do so. Obviously I'm not an expert in everything, but maybe I can help you rope in an expert if I can't cover it.
Maybe you want to talk about how to get started climbing the technology learning curve or want some help with a strategy to get hired into a particular company or want to know how I've navigated awkward conversations about compensation packages. Maybe you want to talk about how I filled the gaps in my education because I dropped out before finishing my degree. Maybe you want to hear me belabor the point of how you can get a college level education free on the internet.
I can even help you practice your chess game.. much in the same way a punching bag helps a boxer prepare for a bout.
There's probably more I can offer, let's talk about it. I don't want to waste your time or mine. If I can help I will, if I can't I'll say so.
What do I want?
If you're a bit cynical, a little suspicious, or do not commonly encounter generosity in your life you may find yourself wondering why I'm doing this. This is a big experiment for me. I like experimenting and doing so on myself instead of others clears up a lot of legal issues. To make things perfectly transparent these are my goals:
1. Meet people and dramatically expand my network. 2. Get out of my own head and see what other people are thinking. 3. Find out about cool new things ( and get invited to awesome launch parties. ;] ) 4. That warm fuzzy feeling you get from doing good deeds. 5. Did I mention how much I like coffee and chocolate?
(Here's the original blog post: http://malfunctive.com/2012/03/07/the-offer/) <comment><USER2> Just came across your offer, hope you still have time, since I'll be sending an email, too- albeit late to the party. Maybe you'll be over the initial rush of emails by now & it'll work out for the best.

Thanks, by the way. And I second sac2171's sentiment. Glad to be on HN today. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I got your email and I promise I am working my way through the queue toward it!

I just wanted to note here for anyone else who feels like they are 'late to the party' that I'm trying to make this an ongoing thing.

People should feel free to get in touch!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi Brian, I'll be sending you an email with a startup idea for a review within 24 hour. Right now I am very busy. Sending email will require proper drafting. Watch out for it. Bye, Kapil

</comment><comment><USER4> I'll take you up on this, moving to sf saturday, so sometime next week?

<comment><AUTHOR> You're on! See my profile or contact info. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Posts like this make me love Hacker News.</comment>


JetBrains offering 75% off all products/upgrades for "Mayan End of World" Sale - <AUTHOR> http://www.jetbrains.com/specials/index.jsp Can't beat that. <comment><USER2> Well, their website crashes all my mobile browsers on Android 4.0 (Chrome, Opera Mobile, Firefox)</comment>


What is this code doing? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@abhinavmanc/what-is-this-code-doing-d92b8e22b32c <comment> java-man All this refactoring, tests, and methodNamesThatAreVeryLong are good, but one piece is still missing: (javadoc) comments that actually _describe_ what these functions are doing.</comment>


IPhone App Developers Gripe About Payment Delays and Dismal Customer Service - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/24/iphone-app-developers-gripe-about-payment-delays-and-dismal-customer-service/

<comment><USER2> Why is Apple dealing with developers with customer service, they should deal with their developers like you would any business partner.

Edit: There's people who've made millions through their Apps, and likely made Apple millions in the process too, so are these guys treated poorly too?

I always thought Apple had a good reputation for customer service, at least they always have been when I've had to contact them. But that could just be because, unlike most companies, I actually get to talk to someone in the same country as me.

</comment><comment><USER3> its about time this started getting some attention. i am currently selling just enough to get by (living in SF, with a taste for good whiskey) and its a pain not knowing when the money will come in. it took them over 2 months to deliver my december US earnings. and when i contacted them i just got back excerpts from some template. since its in violation of their contract, i wonder if its grounds for a class action suit? seems a bit aggressive, but they don't seem too inclined to correct things

<comment><USER4> Maybe you need to send them to collections.

Stop laughing. You're in business now. Businesses issue invoices, businesses pay invoices, if businesses don't pay invoices they get sent about one letter as a polite reminder and then things get escalated from there.

If they fob your collections office off with a form letter then you sue them, get a judgment, and send over the sheriff's department to enforce it.

<comment><USER5> The problem is that Apple can behave as they want since they can prevent him from ever making a sale again if they want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Welcome to running a business, it sucks sometimes. It's often hard to get paid when you're not a W2 employee. The worst stories here are still better than dealing with most affiliate/ad agencies, who constantly try to shift their terms to net-60, net-90, net-120.. and pay late anyway. It seems like this is the default strategy of all B2B commerce.

The good news is that unlike most people who owe businesses money, Apple is too big to get away with sticking it to their developers for too long, and things will probably improve soon. If not, there's always the class-action lawsuit option..

</comment><comment><USER7> Wow, that DocStoc embed actually looks decent and improved the page. Usually I hate that kind of thing.

</comment><comment><USER8> Techcrunch attacking apple? why i am not surprised?</comment>


A History of Early Versions of Adventure - <AUTHOR> https://bluerenga.wordpress.com/2016/08/08/a-history-of-early-versions-of-adventure/ <comment><USER2> This seems like a good opportunity to plug my web port of the David Platt 550-point version: [http://grack.com/demos/adventure](http://grack.com/demos/adventure)

Source is here: [https://github.com/mmastrac/adventure](https://github.com/mmastrac/adventure)

This was a fun multi-year project for me. I had to reverse engineer everything from the Fortran executive and the very incomplete documentation for the game.

</comment><comment><USER3> I learned FORTRAN in at a summer job between jr and sr years of high school from the source code of some version in 1978 on a MODCOMP mini computer with IBM terminals where I saw zeroes with dots in the middle for the first time.

</comment><comment><USER4> People might be interested in Jason Scott's documentary about text adventures: _Get Lamp_ [http://www.getlamp.com/](http://www.getlamp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER5> I like there is a text adventure included in many versions of emacs.

M-x dunnet</comment>


Model-Based Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> http://www.mbmlbook.com/ <comment><USER2> My first introduction to Machine Learning was C. Bishop's book!

So this book must be awesome and I also have been looking around to find more on model-based ML stuff to read.

I guess this is a part of the 2013 Microsoft Research[1] paper

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>---

[1] [http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/cmbishop/downl...](http://research.microsoft.com/en- us/um/people/cmbishop/downloads/Bishop-MBML-2012.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> Uhm? There is another way to do ML.

We have hundreds of algos for ml, and all of them are fiddly with dozens of variables and other details to tweak. One of the first areas when venturing into ml is "you have to put in lots of analysis work".

I disagree.

Instead, I propose the following. Identify the problem at hand, and then select ml algos that you believe will solve it ideally. Use ml to tweak the variables for each algorithm to give best settings, then compare the top for ideal.

Why should I choose the algorithm when discussing ml when the machine can do it for me?

</comment><comment><USER4> Very interesting! A murder mystery seems so much more readable to me than an arcane straight text on machine learning.

<comment><USER5> The style reminds me of E.T. Jaynes' Probability Theory: The Logic of Science[0]. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

[0] [http://www.amazon.com/Probability-Theory-The-Logic- Science/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Probability-Theory-The-Logic- Science/dp/0521592712)</comment></comment>


Startup attempting to use drones to plant 36,000 trees a day - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/exnasa-man-to-plant-one-billion-trees-a-year-using-drones-10160588.html <comment><USER2> This quantity is absolutely nothing. Area of the single forestry, let's say in small Latvia is around 30 000 ha. 1Bn, I assume, is EU milliard. So, drones can plant, say pine seedlings with density of 4 thousand/ha (which is IMHO insufficient), which gives capacity of just 9 ha/day! I can't see anything industrial in that. Chinese mainland reforestation programme plan was 4 mln ha/year 20 years ago. Belarusian Soviet reforestation bot PLA-1 (Designed in Homel) was able to make 12-24 thousand plantings per hour in ... 1977! What is good in aerial drones - you do not need to remove tree stumps. Makes the whole operation real safer and cheaper. But its capacity is still vary far from industrial requirements in reforestation.

Disclaimer: I majored in Forest Mensuration, and did my engineering diploma in Forest Plantations.

<comment><USER3> Can you please share more information about the reforestation bot PLA-1 ?

Also ,why isn't robot use in reforestation more common ? 12-24k plantings/hour sounds fantastic.

<comment><USER4> I've been googling around, and I can't find anything online about the PLA-1. I even tried "russian tree planting machine". General searches for tree planting machines turned up this [1] at the top of the results, but they're only claiming a max of 4000-5000 plantings per day - much less than GP claimed for the PLA-1.

So, I dunno. GP sounds like they know what they're talking about, but I would still like to see some references.

[1] [http://www.damcon.nl/en/machines/tree-planting- machines/tree...](http://www.damcon.nl/en/machines/tree-planting- machines/tree-planting-machine-pl10/)

<comment><USER2> Oh, in the same source there is a new one - МЛА-1А «Илана». Can plant forests at 3,75km/h with same cassette feeder 4000 saplings per load on clearings _with_ tree stumps (if stumps density is below 600 stumps/ha.

<comment><USER4> That seems pretty impressive, actually. Are these machines being marketed outside of Belarus?

<comment><USER2> No. No one tried to the best of my knowledge. I personally know to whom I may address your potential enquiry, but I doubt the existing process of decision making in Belarus will produce any fast answers. The best way is to go there and talk if you are really interested.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the offer, but I was just curious. If the machine is really superior to what's on the market then it seems like a business opportunity for someone with know-how and industry contacts - but that's not me :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Made me wonder if you could get a big plane instead and just "cluster bomb" an area with the tree pods. Then I read the article more closely, in particular the reference to "dry tree seeding by air".

Found: [http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/old- milit...](http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/old-military- planes-could-drop-900000-tree-bombs-a-day.html) ("Old Military Planes Could Drop 900,000 Tree-Bombs a Day")

Although the buzzword here is "drones", it seems (to my amateur eyes) like a big part of the innovation is the pre-germinated tree pods.

<comment><USER6> You missed the part about them being dropped from 3m high, while the drone is presumably stationary? There is no reason to believe the tree pod could survive a harsher impact...

So planes are out, the helicopters too (can't get that low with trees around, and way too expensive to fly anyway). Drones are definitely a very important part of it...

<comment><USER7> Tree seeds regularly fall from greater heights, so the seeds can survive.

The pods will have a much larger terminal velocity, but I don't see how that would make it problematic to toss them from, say, 50 meters high. Attach a cheap piece of pulp paper (= easily bio-degradable) to the pods as an air brake, if needed.

I have my doubts as to its cost effectiveness, too. I can't find calculations on the project's site and I do not have data, either, but I would think those pods must be fairly expensive, or drones incredibly cheap, or places where trees can be planted must be extremely rare for this to be economically the best choice.

<comment><USER6> The pod contain a germinated seed, aka a baby tree, presumably a lot more fragile than a seed. The whole point of the invention is that they get more trees that way than dropping seed from planes...

<comment><USER7> No, the claim is not that they get more trees; it is that they get them cheaper.

I did not claim dropping pods at random would give the same success rate; the thing I question is whether the investment needed to use these drones is more effective than, say, buying five times the number of pods and throwing them out of a plane (or even deploying them with a modified minefield thrower.)

Also, looking at the picture at [http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article10160598.ece/al...](http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article10160598.ece/alternates/w460/3044235-inline-i-1-this- drone-startup-has-an-ambitious-crazy-plan-to-plant-one-billion-trees-a- year.jpg), those germinated seeds aren't large. In my (limited) experience handling such things, they are more fragile than seeds, but dropping them is just fine.

For the rightmost two ones, it would help to plant them right side up, but you aren't going to do that dropping it from a drone, either (hm, looking at it, that picture probably isn't worth much as evidence; there's no way you are going to have a relatively small pod burrow into the ground like that from any height, let alone a few meters)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If the drone is slow, say 50mph, they still need to throw 7 plants per second.

I was a timber in the Australian outback (as a backpacker) and if you plant trees more than 10 feet apart, the sun burns them up, even with a tropical climate/wet season alternance. Like, pitch black wood. You need them close to each other and minimum 5 rows together if you want a self-sustaining hedge (and still the outer rows are doomed to die early). And I'm talking about heavily irrigated areas [1] next to the Argyle lake in the Northern Territory [2].

I guess not all places are like Australia, but those with desertification and ecosystem deprecation will require many trees at once. I wonder how they'll deal with this minimum critical mass problem. Overall this startup idea is excellent, for example thick hedges for areas next to the Sahara can stop the desert from advancing and revive the whole area within the perimeter, by rehydrating the winds and restoring livable temperature.

[1] Heavily irriguated area above 38C all year long: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sandelholzplantagen_Kununu...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sandelholzplantagen_Kununurra.JPG) [2] The whole page, with climate histograms: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kununurra,_Western_Australia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kununurra,_Western_Australia)

<comment><USER9> I would be sceptical about using this to stop desertification. The plants still need to be protected from livestock and kept watered. This doesn't solve the underlying causes of vegetation loss that created the problem in the first place.

<comment><USER10> The underlying problem is humans harvesting wood.

>I would be sceptical about using this to stop desertification.

Take a closer look at the Permaculture movement and the extremely effective science developed around that scene on the subject of stopping desertification - where this article specifically mentions _trees_ being dropped from the sky, that's merely the outer limit. Grassland-dropping drones would also be effective - its not just trees-as-species, but all the other bio-sphere in between that matters.

Farmers using drones to drop mantis-packs is another potential use .. the sky is literally the limit. What we don't have, is the drone systems that can be readily deployable.

Yet.

<comment><USER11> Subsistence farming 48%. Commercial agriculture 32%. Logging 14%. Fuel wood removals 5%.

Source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation#Causes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation#Causes)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Link to startup - [http://www.biocarbonengineering.com/](http://www.biocarbonengineering.com/)

To the Mods. Not sure if this has been posted before. And not sure if link to startup would be better. Please switch link if that would be better. Thanks :)

<comment><USER12> A link to the article is better in my opinion.

<comment><USER13> Article definitely provides more info :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Stupid question, but I've always wondered if it would be possible to genetically engineer trees to consume more C02 then they already do? Seems like a way to multiply efforts.

<comment><USER15> I'd be really interested in this area of research, too. And not just trees- what about smaller plants (even house plants)? I'd imagine an engineered "heavy breather" that people could easily grow in their homes and yards could make a measurable impact if widely adopted. It could also be tied in to a type of carbon-based tax to encourage people towards a carbon-neutral lifestyle.

<comment><USER16> Plants don't just magick carbon away. They store the carbon as more plant. Ergo, to offset the release of a pound of carbon, you need more than a pound of plant. A typical American releases _tons_ of carbon per year (literally, not figuratively), so to offset this will require tons of plant. Thousands of pounds of houseplant per year is... impractical, to put it gently.

80ft tall, 24ft diameter hardwoods can hit 50 tons at maturity (50+ years). So it seems that planting half a dozen to a dozen hardwoods would be enough to mostly offset a typical American's lifetime carbon emissions. Of course, when the tree dies, the carbon has to go somewhere.

<comment><USER17> Probably completely impractical, but this conversation gave me a picture of people raising fast-growing plants in their homes/yards that they continually 'harvest'. This harvested matter than gets taken to a dump site and buried, capturing the carbon underground.

I suppose the whole operation would have to either use solar power or be extremely efficient to avoid burning as much or more carbon based fuel than it buries.

<comment> semi-extrinsic Freeman Dyson proposed this solution a few years back. I honestly think it's not being done because most huge companies prefer to spend a little money (relatively speaking) on CCS research and kicking the can down the road.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _26 billion trees are currently being burned down every year while only 15 billion are replanted._

Glad to see we're replanting a substantial amount of trees taken down every year, this gap looks closable. I had in my mind much closer to 5% or 10%...

<comment><USER19> The US and Europe is more forested now than it was 100 years ago, on average. Wood is no longer needed for fuel and ship building. Most commercial logging now goes on in managed 'tree farms' rather than virgin woodlands.

<comment><USER20> Mind you, that's because 100 years ago a lot of it had been razed to the ground to fuel the Industrial Revolution. "More forested than 100 years ago" really means "slowly recovering from the damage we did."

I recall, about 20 years ago, my father driving us through the forests of West Virginia to visit family, and pointing out that not one of the trees was more than, say, 18 inches across (in my young memory, at least). There was plenty of forest, but it was all _young_ forest. The old growth had been utterly exterminated.

<comment><USER19> North America was inhabited for thousands of years by the time Europeans arrived and land tended to be managed as a matter of living on it. The thick forests early European colonists encountered were the result of massive depopulation of people and not 'natural' in that sense.

The idea of setting aside land for unmanaged old-growth forests is a modern one and we're likely seeing it again for the first time since early colonial times; back then it was inadvertent.

[http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~alcoze/for398/class/pristinemyth.htm...](http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~alcoze/for398/class/pristinemyth.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I love the idea of a company being able to do good like this, but how does it call itself a company if it's just planting trees? Who pays them?

<comment><USER22> Companies that sell carbon offset credits.

<comment><USER8> I love the carbon credits system, traded on the stock exchange. It's the most lightweight and capitalistic incentive we can build around polluting externalities.

<comment><USER23> Ah the irony: and the US government (the US being the pinnacle of capitalist society) is refusing them at every chance. Isn't this what Kyoto was proposing? Has not the US (effectively) killed Kyoto? Whatever carbon trading is taking place in the US, is probably not internationally sanctioned.

The US practices this international tactic of dragging its feet as long as possible, giving time to its companies to catch up with international standards (and to hell with everything else if need be, environment be damned!). At the same time, it will very willingly impose international standards wherever they feel their local companies are at an advantage. This is why lots of European population are skeptical of the TTIP: the US is probably sending us a Trojan horse.

<comment><USER11> its natural that players will attempt to modify the game (or keep it skewed in their favor) . The externalities have always been there, but some industries have never had to pay for them. I wouldnt be surprised if some industries are not even profitable once you account for their externalities.

But macroenconomic principles mean nothing if you have greed. If one is greedy, then its just a matter of maximizing what's on your plate, with no regard of how much you're taking from others (potentially future generations)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For comparisons sake a Canadian tree planter can plant roughly 3k 6" seedlings in a day for a cost of about $400.

>"Fletcher doesn't pretend that the method is as good as hand-sowing, but it's a hell of a lot quicker."

Also for comparisons sake, the expected survival rate of those 3k hand planted trees is 50%.

<comment><USER24> Tree planting is a pretty popular and lucrative summer-time gig for Canadian college students (and other young people). It's paid by the tree, with the price depending on the terrain and the planting rules (spacing, light and soil conditions, depth). There is a lot of quality control done by supervisors, and it takes a lot of skill to plant both well and quickly.

It would be interesting to hear some planters weigh in on the technology described in the OP. Agree the "# of trees planted" is not the best metric-- the real question is how many of those will grow into mature trees.

Some background on the job: [http://www.tree- planter.com/?navigation_id=90](http://www.tree-planter.com/?navigation_id=90)

<comment><USER25> My brother was a tree planter in Northern Alberta for 6 seasons, he was earning in the range of $500 a day towards the end (he was good)

I went out to his camp for a couple of weeks and planted for a while.

IMO the proposed solution looks great. Obviously it's not perfect and needs some refinement, but that's the whole point isn't it - we're always striving to learn more and make things better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Copters take up a lot of power, more so if they need to drill and implant payloads.

We should ponder the possiblity of more efficient lower-tech non-drone options, like tree-howitzers, or maybe an A10 warthog with an acorn gun, or some sort of honey-clusters-of-nuts cluster-bomb type payload for a B-52.

</comment><comment><USER27> Interesting. This guy should look to collaborate with Afforestt, who have a working method to reforest an area in a reduced timescale: [http://afforestt.com/index.html;](http://afforestt.com/index.html;) might be a great outcome!

<comment><USER28> Typo in your link, by the way. The semi-colon breaks the link and we get a 404.

<comment><USER27> Thanks for the heads up. Sadly I missed the edit window for the post.

Fixed link: [http://afforestt.com/](http://afforestt.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I went looking for a video of this in action but only found the following which features some rudimentary animations: [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2mo07q](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2mo07q)

So good job on getting some press- let's see some hardware in action so we have something to get excited about.

</comment><comment><USER30> Is interesting, but there face some major problems that they will need to be aware,

The worst is the big overpopulation of herbivores. We don't want to just feed the goats. The real number is how many trees will survive at least ten years not how many you can plant. I'll suggest to add some biodegradable mesh cover to this capsules.

Other is that many wastelands have been burned and lost his soil and are basically bare rock. A human can search for most favourable crevices but a drone normally can't have this level of accuracy. If we start trowing capsules to bare rock we just will have a lot of plant failures upside down drying at the sun

And of course many birds will do gladly this work almost for free if you just put a fence, some shelter and several birdfeeders with soft fruits, figs or accorns.

</comment><comment><USER31> I know it is too late for this to get fixed, but i am so tires of people saying "drone" when they mean "RPV". This idea in particular would be much more capable if they actually did use Drones instead of RPVs.

</comment><comment><USER32> Speed and automation of planting is one thing, and awesome to see!

The second part is to optimize for the speed of tree growth. I can't locate the post, but a man/company had learned of a way to regrow trees faster, significantly reducing the number of years needed. It definitely had something to do with supplying nutrients, but placement may also have been involved.

I hope this startup communicates and investigates speed of growth, rather than simply planting, so they can have an even bigger impact; however, it's great to see, either way.

<comment><USER33>
      I can't locate the post, but a man/company had learned of
      a way to regrow trees faster, significantly reducing the
      number of years needed.

This might be the post you are referencing:

 _How to Grow a Forest Really Really Fast_

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9074473](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9074473)

<comment><USER32> That was it, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> And how are the pods made? Hopefully it's also somewhat automated and fast, otherwise the drones would quickly run out of pods to plant.

</comment><comment><USER35> 26 billion trees are currently being burned down every year while only 15 billion are replanted. - How did they come to these numbers?

<comment><USER36> It's also a little misleading because trees do get planted without human intervention.

<comment><USER37> Sure, and they die outside of human intervention too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> They should genetically mark these, patent the DNA, and then license the rights to chop down trees.

<comment><USER39> Or, much cheaper and legally unquestionable:

Buy cheap land; plant trees; sell land or logging rights.

No need to try to enforce a property right over something on someone else's land 20+ years in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Is planting trees really a problem? I was under the impression that trees basically plant themselves if you let them.

Also don't think you can simply replant the rain forest.

<comment><USER29> You need to look no further than the third sentence of the article to answer your question:

"26 billion trees are currently being burned down every year while only 15 billion are replanted."

<comment><USER40> That doesn't imply that it's technical issues that prevent replanting. In many regions of the earth, people simply don't care about replanting. And as I said, I don't think you can just replant a burnt down forest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> These pods sound like a new and improved coconut.

</comment><comment><USER42> What is wrong with natural birds?

<comment><USER43> they don't have "drone" in their names

<comment><USER44> Easy. Call your trained birds "bio-drones".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Do this on Mars, then you've got something!

</comment><comment><USER46> But what about biodiversity?

<comment><USER47> [http://www.biocarbonengineering.com/blog/restoring- ecosystem...](http://www.biocarbonengineering.com/blog/restoring-ecosystems)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Good luck Matt!!</comment>


Clojure 1.2 and Beyond - <AUTHOR> http://fogus.me/static/preso/clj1.2+/ <comment><USER2> That was enjoyable. It is going to take me a little time to get used to protocols and reify, but looks useful.</comment>


The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure - ____Sash---701_ https://llvm.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> For those who haven't explored LLVM, it's an incredibly powerful technology and rather approachable for getting started with.

A few of my favorite LLVM discoveries:

\- If you want to build Clang (LLVM C/C++ Compiler), it's really simple to pull down and build with little external development tooling (only a compiler and CMake). Shown here [0].

\- You can pull LLVM/Clang master and use that for a "bleeding-edge" toolchain with a high degree of stability. [0].

\- Clang is used to compile Chromium and Firefox on all platforms. Both have seen great performance gains from Clang's link time optimization. [1] [2]

\- Klee is built on LLVM infrastructure and is used for automatic generation of test cases. [3] See some of their papers for how powerful their results are.

\- Clang can now produce ABI compatible binaries with MSVC and has support for the Visual Studio debugger. [4]

\- Lots of interesting research projects leveraging LLVM [5]

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZI_Qla4pNA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZI_Qla4pNA)

[1] [http://blog.llvm.org/2018/03/clang-is-now-used-to-build- chro...](http://blog.llvm.org/2018/03/clang-is-now-used-to-build-chrome- for.html)

[2] [https://glandium.org/blog/?p=3888](https://glandium.org/blog/?p=3888)

[3] [https://klee.github.io](https://klee.github.io)

[4] [http://blog.llvm.org/2017/08/llvm-on-windows-now-supports- pd...](http://blog.llvm.org/2017/08/llvm-on-windows-now-supports-pdb- debug.html)

[5] [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2017&q=LLVM&hl=en&...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_ylo=2017&q=LLVM&hl=en&as_sdt=0,33)

<comment><USER2> Klee is also a great example of the cost of LLVM's never-backwards-compatible approach: according to their home page, the stable release of Klee runs on 3.4 and 3.8 is "experimental". (The LLVM releases since then have included: 3.9, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, and 7.0.)

Don't get me wrong, LLVM is great, but I really wish that as the project matured they had made more of an effort to provide some level of compatibility. As it is, it's a massive pain for open source projects to follow along.

<comment><USER3> Counterpoint - I implemented a Common Lisp compiler that uses llvm as the back end ([https://github.com/clasp-developers/clasp](https://github.com/clasp- developers/clasp)). I've kept up with the versions from 3.6 to 6.0 and I'm about to upgrade to 7.0.

I'm not sure why other projects find this difficult but I have noticed that if I get too far behind it does get a bit more difficult.

I exposed the C++ API to Common Lisp and write all of the compiler in Common Lisp. The Clang C++ compiler tells me what is broken when I upgrade to a new version of llvm and then I fix it. I talk about it here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=mbdXeRBbgDM&feature...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=mbdXeRBbgDM&feature=youtu.be) at about 13:30

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> LLVM is a great project. I'm writing a programming language based on it.

It is so much easier because: (1) it's easier than writing machine code translation and (2) it's also easier than translating your code to C which would be purely textual.

Nevertheless, it's difficult to learn for people coming from high-level languages, even for me, who knows C to some degree.

The documentation around IR is scarce.

Then, I've stumbled upon a trick where I can just write C code and compile to LLVM IR with Clang. With this trick, I can answer many questions on my own (e.g. how to implement if-else, how to call printf, how to make a dynamic- sized array.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice tip! I've also been watching the Godbolt.org progress improving LLVM IR support which could also be helpful for interactively exploring IR generation.

The results are pretty good today if you select Clang compiler and pass `-emit-llvm` flag.

<comment><USER4> That's exactly what I have been doing `clang -S --emit-llvm <filename>`.

Godbolt.org is even more handy!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The name "LLVM" itself is not an acronym; it is the full name of the > project.

What happened to Lower-Level Virtual Machine?

<comment><USER6> I think that originally, it was indeed supposed to be an optimizing virtual machine. IIRC, Lattner's PhD thesis might have been about it.

<comment><USER7> LLVM was always intended to be a compiler IR rather than a "JIT for C", and the "virtual machine" in the name was named as much to refer to the idea that it's a more direct model of an instantiation of the C abstract machine as any actual ability to perform dynamic optimization.

The big push LLVM made early on was on being able to do ahead-of-time, runtime, and idle-time optimization; the latter of which is mostly reflected in profile-guided optimization. The poor quality of its dynamic optimization [1] and the general reluctance to use profile-guided optimization means that LLVM ended up focusing hard on optimizing ahead-of-time like traditional C compilers. The fact that people got too easily confused about what LLVM actually did caused Lattner to de-acronymize it officially several years ago.

[1] A more difficult problem for C and C++ is that actually collecting enough of the code in a single IR representation is surprisingly hard, as build systems are completely and totally inane, and that's before you start trying to figure out how to glue in things like assembly files or glibc.</comment></comment></comment>


Short Story Club - <AUTHOR> https://www.shortstory.club/ <comment><USER2> Super cool project. Awesome that Hugh Howey is next up. Wool is mind-blowing.</comment>


Scala-js v0.3 released - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/scala-js/scala-js

<comment><USER2> Scala-JS has been making very fast progress lately, the 0.1 release wasn't that long ago. I'm excited to see where it goes and I think there's room for some very cool integrations with Play.

<comment><USER3> With no intention of downplaying it, but I think the biggest "blocker" is the resulting file size, making it unfeasible for production.

<comment><USER4> The "Hello World" example is over 80Mb after compilation.

<comment><USER5> We've managed to get a hello world app down to about 300kb; most of that is the standard library, and even a several-1000-LOC game like [roll]([http://lihaoyi.github.io/roll/](http://lihaoyi.github.io/roll/)) clocks in at about 340kb. Getting this number down is WIP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The title mentions Futures & Promises, but the link is directly to the GitHub project without any further information about those concurrency constructs.

I'm curious if they managed to implement the blocking operations of Future [1], such as the "result" method. And, if so, did they accomplish that using the same Continuation Passing Style transform that Scala's Delimited Continuations [2] plugin uses, or some other means?

[1]: [http://www.scala- lang.org/files/archive/nightly/docs/library...](http://www.scala- lang.org/files/archive/nightly/docs/library/index.html#scala.concurrent.Future)

[2]: [http://www.scala- lang.org/api/current/index.html#scala.util....](http://www.scala- lang.org/api/current/index.html#scala.util.continuations.package)

<comment><USER5> It uses normal Scala `Future`s. You get two `ExecutionContext`s: `queued` and `runNow`. You can't block on a `Future`. That covers just about all the ScalaJS specific stuff, the rest is plain Scala.

Take a look at [Scala.Rx]([https://github.com/lihaoyi/scala.rx](https://github.com/lihaoyi/scala.rx)) or [uTest]([https://github.com/lihaoyi/utest](https://github.com/lihaoyi/utest)) if you want to see code examples of how `Future`s are used in ScalaJS, but I think you'll be disappointed: it's exactly the same code that gets run on Scala-JVM!

<comment><USER6> You said:

> You can't block on a `Future`

Which answers my question. Thank you.

But then you also said:

> it's exactly the same code that gets run on Scala-JVM

That can't be exactly true, since "Awaitable" [1] doesn't appear anywhere in the scala-js codebase. So I guess as long as you don't mention that trait by name, or attempt to block on a future, then your effectively duck-typed Scala- JVM code will be able to run unmodified on Scala-JS.

[1]: [http://www.scala- lang.org/files/archive/nightly/docs/library...](http://www.scala- lang.org/files/archive/nightly/docs/library/index.html#scala.concurrent.Awaitable)</comment></comment></comment>


Why fruits and vegetables taste better in Europe - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10972140/fruits-vegetables-taste-better-europe <comment><USER2> Because they're ripe.

I worked at an outdoor produce stand when I was younger. I've been to a number of distribution facilities where fruits/vegetables are bought in bulk.

For the more expensive produce that goes to grocery stores, they use artificial ripening chamber to make the fruit look ripe on the outside while they're nowhere near ripe on the inside. It guarantees a good looking product that has maximum shelf life.

For other fruits, like strawberries. They're massive size is what contributes to the poor quality taste. Selectively breeding to produce maximum output has a bad effect on quality.

Vegetables become bitter when they get old. Supermarkets have gotten better at keeping vegetables looking fresh for longer but old tastes old, period. Anybody who has never had veggies fresh from the garden has no idea how good they can taste.

Everything about the modern supermarket focuses on presentation over quality. Even the produce section is strategically placed next to the entrance to give shoppers an impression of freshness and vibrance.

It's all for show, keeping consistently full bins of fruits/veggies means a lot of product will go to waste and the supermarket needs to use every means possible to extend the shelf life as long as possible.

A much more realistic, albeit messy setup will look more like Walmart. There will be bins that are nearly empty, variations of quality, size, condition, etc. Real produce (ie not the plastic sold in supermarkets) is sometimes messy, dirty, ugly. You don't buy it for how it looks, you buy it for how it tastes.

If you want really good tasting produce, buy from a produce stand. They can't afford refrigeration and long-term storage so they buy the cheaper and better tasting produce.

<comment><USER3> Do you reckon buying organic vegetables would help alleviate that in the US?

Here in the UK, it seems to be effective for obtaining decent tasting tomatoes. The non-organic ones can taste _very_ bad.

<comment><USER2> I doubt it. AFAIK, organic just means the produce hasn't been treated with synthetic pesticides/herbicides.

Artificial ripening just accelerates the natural process so I wouldn't be surprised if it can be appplied to organics too.

It seems to be especially hard to find good tomatoes in stores, organic or not. Tomatoes become bruised/damaged very easily during shipment. Customers don't buy bruised product so I think supermarkets have responded by offering more dense but less tasteful varietys.

If taste is your concern, growing your own is the best option. If you buy in stores try the smaller varietys and the ones that feel softer to the touch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The author mistakes Europe with Italy. North of the 45th parallel the tomatoe experience is very similar to that of the US. And even in the south - the area of Almeria in Spain is the home of the most mass produced, tasteless vegetables possible. Sadly, Northern Europeans also focus on price and color, not on smell and taste. EU regulations for fruit and vegetable trading classes only consider form, size, color. Nothing about taste. The closest to getting good produce (except for buying at the producer) is to look for organic produce.

</comment><comment><USER5> As far as I remember I never ate an American tomato but I can assure you that even in Europe homegrown tomatoes taste way better than those you can buy at the supermarket.

Let's see whether our supermarket tomatoes will get even more watery when TTIP passes :/

</comment><comment><USER6> So, basically MBA's, and tasteless Americans.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think the key is seasonality, though I'm sure that regulations and customer willingness to pay for quality do play a role. For instance, I find that fruits and vegetables taste better in India too and the typical Indian customer is very price sensitive and generally unwilling to pay a premium for quality. But availability is usually seasonal.</comment>


Attack on sourceforge.net and global password reset - <AUTHOR> http://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-net-global-password-reset/

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is the description of the attack: (<http://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-net-attack/>)

"Yesterday our vigilant operations guys detected a targeted attack against some of our developer infrastructure. The attack resulted in an exploit of several SourceForge.net servers, and we have proactively shut down a handful of developer centric services to safeguard data and protect the majority of our services. Our immediate priorities are to prevent further exposure and ensure data integrity. We've had all hands on deck working on identifying the exploit vector or vectors, eliminating them, and are now focusing on verifying data integrity and restoring the impacted services.

The problem was initially discovered on the servers that host CVS but our analysis indicates that several other machines were involved, and while we believe we've determined the extent of the attack, we are verifying all of our other services and data. As a short term response, we've taken down the following services to prevent any possible escalation:

* CVS Hosting * ViewVC (web based code browsing) * New Release upload capability * Interactive Shell services

Once the immediate response to this attack is over, we will be providing a much more detailed account of what's happened, and what specific actions we are taking to prevent further exploits."

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The page is unavailable it seems here is the blog post content:

"We recently experienced a directed attack on SourceForge infrastructure (<http://sourceforge.net/blog/sourceforge-net-attack/>) and so we are resetting all passwords in the sf.net database — just in case.

Our investigation uncovered evidence of password sniffing attempts. We have no evidence to suggest that the sniffing attempt was completed successfully. But, what we definitely don't want is to find out in 2 months that passwords were compromised and we didn't take action. So, we've invalidated all sourceforge.net account passwords, and to access the site again, everyone will need to go through the email recovery process and choose a shiny new password:

<https://sourceforge.net/account/registration/recover.php>

We have received a lot of support and sympathy from our community, and I know our ops team is immensely grateful for all of it. Thanks again for your patience with us as we work to respond to this attack. We'll be working through the weekend to get things back to normal as quickly as possible."</comment>


Show HN: Gander, Fly through Email - <AUTHOR> http://www.gander.io/

<comment><USER2> Gmail's important inbox requires training to be useful. It also has a very high false positive rate (lots marked as important that really isn't).

We use a combination of algorithms to make a smarter automated split, but can still learn if the user recategorizes an email.

It's not buzzwords - it's science!

</comment><comment><USER3> So, what makes this different from Gmail's 'Important' inbox? The site just seemed to be a pile of buzzwords. I signed up for the beta, and it seems interesting, but I have no idea what it does differently than other email services.</comment>


LineageOS beats Google to the punch, fixes 'KRACK' WPA2 vulnerability in Android - <AUTHOR> http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/10/17/lineageos-beats-google-punch-fixes-krack-wpa2-vulnerability-android/ <comment><USER2> Huge fan of LineageOS, but this isn't a great comparison. While Google probably found out about Krack earlier than the Lineage team. They aren't going to break their normal monthly security release schedule for it.

<comment><USER3> The vulnerability wasn't released as soon as it was found, it was released upon a certain date, and looks like Google is releasing multiple patches a month anyway: [https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/](https://source.android.com/security/bulletin/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Now that's hardly a fair comparison. Huge difference between a fledgeling project and a massive ecosystem that is Android.

<comment><USER5> How is Lineage OS a "fledgeling" project since it has original roots going back more than 8 years? While Lineage OS does not work on all "Android" devices, it does still support a wide range of them.

<comment><USER4> Crap. I got LineageOS confused with PostmarketOS. I stand corrected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> so, who will be hurt if Google releases this time a non monthly security update? E.g. I don't see any sysadmin related tasks to this. Look e.g. on a big competitor: Apple is releasing whenever there is something new/important. Why cannot Google go the same way. What's so wrong when there is a October 17th security update?

I mean... it takes anyway a couple of months until many vendors will implement the upcoming November patch.</comment>


Stamplay: IFTTT for developers - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/06/stamplay-is-ifttt-for-back-end-development/

<comment><USER2> As a Stamplay co-founder, since the thread is getting crowded of many HN users that know this space very well I think that this is the perfect place to share my vision on how programming will evolve

[https://medium.com/@giuliano/programming-easier-better- faste...](https://medium.com/@giuliano/programming-easier-better-faster- stronger-7d5545675a0a)

Feedbacks are welcome!

<comment><USER3> I had to disable Ghostery and AdBlock to get your editor to load properly; I'd recommend taking a look at what resources you're depending on that they're blocking.

<comment><USER2> Hi Darren,

yes we are aware of the issue and already working to fix it. Thanks for telling us btw :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Calling it "IFTTT for developers" is fairly misleading. This doesn't require any real coding or offer any flexiblity and is seemingly drag and drop, with some random backend API's and the ability for a developer to use these on the front end. It doesn't _really_ do anything different than IFTTT for developers except generate endpoints from the things _they_ define you can do. There isn't any customisation for the developer to do what they want to do and it's unclear if you can build your own integrations how you want to outside of what they deem important.

We're building an integration platform at [http://hoistapps.com/](http://hoistapps.com/) that is more accurately reflective of 'If This Then That For Developers' than this is, in a sense that _you_ build the integration you want, using your own code, not off the box one-size fits all modules, then we host and scale your integrations for you (amongst other things).

<comment><AUTHOR> It's IFTTT for the backend, so i suppose it's more developer related then something else (no offence)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This can solve the backend of many simple web apps. That leaves us with the space between Bootstrap and Stamplay. I guess that many customers would accept an interface made by standardized components if that means that they could pay ten times less. Is there any tool like that for the frontend, better if it can work in combination with Stamplay?

<comment><USER6> Yes there is [http://www.froont.com](http://www.froont.com)! We having a major update coming very soon, this is a video sneak peek what to expect: [http://vimeo.com/107843019](http://vimeo.com/107843019)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The $40 (25 GBP) upgrade to the Plus plan to be able to export any of my data really rubs me the wrong way. I thought we'd generally decided that was a bad way to make money...

<comment><USER8> I value my time at $125/hour. If this saves me 20 minutes it is a win. $40 is pocket change.

<comment><USER9> That's a $0.75 comment right there, folks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> would love to see an open source initiative in this space. Might even give it a go, anyone interested? Would love to host my own trigger / web hook service that i can use across applications.

<comment><USER11> [https://github.com/cantino/huginn](https://github.com/cantino/huginn)

<comment><USER12> This is really an open source alternative to IFTT. I don't see it as really in the same space as Stamplay.

<comment><USER2> Yep you're right, that one solve a very specific problem about monitoring resources. We want to empower people to build products in an easier and more efficient way :)

<comment><USER12> While I agree it doesn't solve the same problem, I think Huginn is far more general than just monitoring resources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Tried to signup... it said I already had an account.

Did a password reset... it emailed me a new password in cleartext.

Clicked on the login link... Bad Gateway.

<comment><USER2> Hi binary,

I got your points. We had a short outage that has been restored in a flash. +90% of our users login with Google so password reset has been developed just to give users the possibility to re-enter and define a new one of their choice.

<comment><USER14> But does this mean you are storing passwords in cleartext?

<comment><AUTHOR> That is not what he said, they send a mail with the new password, so that doesn't mean they store the passwords in plaintext (not cleartext).

It just generates a password, mails it and then (probably) encrypts it.

<comment><USER14> Ah, apologies. Misread.

Still could be better, though - with a reset link that then creates a new password.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Literally was just started using Divshot and Parse to solve the problem Stamplay is solving. Just tried it and very cool. Only suggestion is change the name. Extremely hard to remember (had to bookmark it so I didn't forget it) and easy to get confused with Stamply

<comment><USER2> Thanks frequentflyeru,

we're foreseeing that need that's why we're evaluating to build something like Divshot architect on our own (or with a partner already providing a similar service like Froont or Webflowapp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Bootstrap + Wordpress + Stamplay - The commoditisation of the ordinary web developer begins ...

<comment><USER10> its been happening for a while... take a look at expression engine ecosystem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is there a JSON parsing component that I'm missing? I would think a simple JSON component would allow you to hook up any number of API's together to build an application. Assuming it's on your roadmap.

</comment><comment><USER18> Composable Analytics is a similar solution, but users create the apps using a dataflow methodology (sexy apps). Allows for much more flexibility because you can change the guts of the data processing. It's also very performant because parts of the app can be parallelized.

[http://composableanalytics.com](http://composableanalytics.com)

</comment><comment><USER19> "There is no real direct competitor at this time..." perhaps you failed to run some checks on these guys: zapier.com?

</comment><comment><USER20> As one of the partner of Stamplay, we actually wrote an in depth tutorial about Stamplay. If you curious to see how easy it is to use, you can read the tutorial of Stamplay & Pusher on our blog.

[http://blog.pusher.com/integrating-pusher- stamplay/](http://blog.pusher.com/integrating-pusher-stamplay/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I gave it a quick look, and it does seem interesting. A good addition to the "IFTTT for [category]" crop that is popping up like mushrooms lately.

One small nitpick: When you add components, it's not very clear which are usable as triggers and which as actions. Some indication of that would be nice.

<comment><USER22> One of the mushrooms is Node Red ([http://nodered.org](http://nodered.org)) which you can install on you own machines if you don't like hosted services.

Node Red is free and open source and can be combined with the Freeboard dashboard frontend. Give it a shot with Vagrant: [https://github.com/jsilence/vagrant-nodered- freeboard](https://github.com/jsilence/vagrant-nodered-freeboard)

<comment><USER23> I've been using Node Red for a little bit now, and Freeboard looks sweet, but what does Vagrant do here?

<comment><USER22> Vagrant is there for people who would like to give the Node Red / Freeboard combo a quick shot without the installation and configuration hustle. Convenience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Hi Nico,

thanks for sharing this, as a co-founder, I'm here available to answer to every question :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I found the project very intresting to follow up (now and in the future).. And since i use HackerNews as my bookmarking service StamPlay just needed to be here ;)

<comment><USER2> thumbs up!!;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Hi, Great service! How to add a new component ?

<comment><USER5> Do you mean new custom components? I was also asking that question to me. I noticed a "Want More?" box in the bottom right corner of the component list: "Tell us which service you would like to have."

<comment><USER24> I've just submited a message, thanks :)

<comment><USER2> Btw if you need anything special you can always email me at giuliano dot iacobelli at stamplay.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> When I use Stamplay, does it mean they get access to all the data my customers enter into those forms?

If so, no thank you, even if the engineering team is in Italy.

<comment><USER2> Hi Tepix,

thanks for the assessment but it doesn't really means that. We're in the middle of integrating a RBAC logic on the resources while before it was all about setting something as private/public. Since you pointed out the issue I'd like to know more about how you would use such functionality: \- explicitly declare if entries can be private/public \- define if users can fetch entries that they own/made \- any more fine grained logic?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Hi, Great service, love it! How to add a new component to your collection ?

<comment><USER2> Hi Amzil, we're rolling out a developer program but at its fist stage it will be only to add (and sell) App Templates. Components are still on us but we will open that too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> On Stamplay pricing: whenever I see pricing in pounds not dollars on a service like this, I think they are not quite ready for my business. My IP address (pretty) clearly identifies me as a U.S. customer, why not present the pricing page in US dollars?

I'm willing to admit this could be a failing in me, not the website.

<comment><USER27> If I rejected every company that didn't geolocate pricing into GBP then I'd be able to use very few developer focused products ;)

<comment><USER26> Yep - you are emphasizing my point. The default seems to be USD.

Pick a sensible default - if you get more business from the US just show dollars. Or do some simple A/B testing and see if you get better conversions with one versus the other.

<comment><USER28> > Pick a sensible default - if you get more business from the US just show > dollars. Or do some simple A/B testing and see if you get better conversions > with one versus the other.

Maybe they did this, and get more business from the UK?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nobel Lecture: Random Walk to Graphene (2010) - <AUTHOR> https://journals.aps.org/rmp/pdf/10.1103/RevModPhys.83.851 <comment><AUTHOR> I like this quote:

> Frankly, I do not believe that the above success rate can be explained by my > lateral ideas being particularly good. More likely, this tells us that > poking in new directions, even randomly, is more rewarding than is generally > perceived. We are probably digging too deep within established areas, > leaving plenty of unexplored stuff under the surface, just one poke away. > When one dares to try, rewards are not guaranteed, but at least it is an > adventure.</comment>


Elite Grads In Business Flock To Tech - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303661404579180152676790032 <comment><USER2> This phenemona has a name. It's called the MBA index.

It truly is one of the greatest contra-indicators I have ever had the pleasure of observing first hand. It's a wonder to behold.

> _When expensively educated, fashionable young graduates start showing up in > your field, you 're in a bubble._

\- Kevin Marks, [http://epeus.blogspot.com.au/2005/12/key-indicator-for- bubbl...](http://epeus.blogspot.com.au/2005/12/key-indicator-for-bubble.html), derived from Liar's Poker, by Michael Lewis.

> _This year, some 37% of Harvard Business School 's graduate found work on > Wall Street, up from 30% a year ago and 26% for the Class of 2004. The trend > suggests that Wall Street is becoming bloated and the American economy is > ripe for a slowdown.

Mr. Soifer, who retired from Brown Brothers in 2000 and now runs his own consulting firm, appears to be on to something. He advised his friends and colleagues to sell back in 2000, when 30% of the HBS graduating class took jobs on Wall Street. Before that, the last long-term sell he sent was in 1987._

Source: [http://www.nysun.com/business/equities-swing-with-harvard- mb...](http://www.nysun.com/business/equities-swing-with-harvard-mbas/43220/)

> _Mr. Soifer notes that the Harvard M.B.A. indicator has historically been > more prolific as a source of "sell' signals, showing strong results in 1987, > 2000-02, and 2005-08, than "buy" signals. In fact, the last time it reached > the 10 percent "buy" level was in the early 1980s, when the Dow Jones > industrial average traded below 1,000.

The all-time low was reached in 1937, when only three graduates — about 1 percent — braved the market and ventured into the securities industry._

Source: [http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/a-contrary- indicator-...](http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/a-contrary-indicator-on- mbas-and-stocks/?_r=0)

<comment><USER3> Just wanted to say thanks for expanding on Kevin Marks's quote with more sources. This is interesting stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Bypass paywall with a google.com referrer: [http://google.com/url?q=http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...](http://google.com/url?q=http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303661404579180152676790032)

Note that you might have go incognito or clear your cookies if you already tried the direct link and failed (I can't believe how far they'll go to block everyone but search engines).

<comment><USER5> dirty seo tactics that are ignored by search engines for bigger sites.. :/

<comment><USER6> This is called "First Click Free" and it is explicitly sanctioned (and encouraged) by Big Daddy G: [https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/74536](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/74536)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "When expensively educated, fashionable young graduates start showing up in your field, you're in a bubble." Michael Lewis

<comment><USER8> Exactly.

"Students are asking, "Where's the place that I can drive innovation? Where's the place that I can have the most impact?"

Sounds like those students are just rationalizing. They're going into tech mainly because the tech field has been on fire lately, and the risk of trying out the tech field is low. After all, they're still getting paid pretty well.

Once the tech bubble bursts, they'll be hovering around fields that pay the most.

You are not going to be driving innovation by working for Linkedin, Facebook, and Microsoft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I noticed a different effect happen too -- tech people from high ranking CS schools flock to Excel-spreadsheet-on-Wall-Street positions as I call them.

They supposedly spent 4 years studying the hell out of self-balancing trees and kernel process schedulers and then work for a Goldman Sachs like place building excel spreadsheets and writing reports.

<comment><USER10> Seems to be a case of career osmosis. Uncomfortable with the growing popularity of the tech sector, and noticing a distinct exodus of Wall Street- types (who will arrive late to the tech gold rush), they swoop in to fill the gap.

Hopefully they'll attempt to negotiate for better salaries and more reasonable hours, but, according to all my Wall Street friends, this tends to be an effort in futility.

The best of the best will always put in absurd hours doing the tedious work you describe. They need to show off this way to win distinction. In theory, hacker types could buck the system, but that system in high finance, which awards face time and man hours like few other places, is pretty damn robust.

<comment><USER11> Wall Street's issue is one of filtering. Because they are the easiest perceived place to make money, they have to set up absurd barriers to maintain staffing qualities.

The tech world is also at risk of going in this direction as well as the wider economy collapses and startups actually start to look like a somewhat conservative career path. The symptoms are all around us. Look at the proliferation of accelerators and short-form bootcamp style tech programs. Google-style hiring process starts to make a lot more sense in this kind of environment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Personally I don't want people in my domain if they aren't interested in building cool shit and making technology better. If they are, well good for them. Hard for me to see someone who might have been interested in finance compatible with the people I work with though. Maybe they just all want to start startups or get into venture capital.

<comment><USER13> With all due respect... Even a great technical CEO can use the following, even if they're not explicitly motivated by building cool shit and making technology better:

\- For pre-IPO firms: Someone plugged in to all the investment bankers and investment managers, who has both an analytical and visceral feel for how tech firms are valued.

\- For firms with Enterprise customers: Someone who has a large rolodex of non-IT customers with P&L responsibility, who knows how to do their jobs as good as them.

\- For medium sized firms and above: Someone who knows every last legal issue around HR.

It would be great to find folks like this who also have CS degrees and are passionate about technology. But folks with MBAs that fit these profiles but don't love the technology itself can still be valuable.

<comment><USER3> I don't think he's intending to contest those needs. I also don't think he meant to imply that they should have CS degrees. Obviously I can't speak for leokun, but my impression was that he simply doesn't want to see the industry flooded with people who only want to make a quick buck without caring the slightest bit about what they're actually doing. At the risk of generalizing far too much, the people who used to go to Wall Street didn't exactly have a reputation of caring about what they were contributing to the world; it's those same people who are now flocking to the tech sector.

It's a viewpoint I can sympathize with. As someone who doesn't expect to get rich off an IPO or acquisition and therefore will be spending most (all?) of my working life in this industry, I'd prefer to work alongside competent people (whether that be in development or business) who aren't _just_ trying to get rich quick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder how many (if any) of these MBAs had some tech experience before the degree.

 _Tech companies, which once may have dismissed business-school graduates as smooth talkers with PowerPoint skills, are warming to M.B.A.s who may be able to help lead their fast-growing operations as they mature. At the same time, Wall Street has offered fewer opportunities for ambitious young graduates._

also related> [http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/8/8/hbs-employment- te...](http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/8/8/hbs-employment-technology- trend/)

such public info might not portend upside to the equity, tho

<comment><USER15> As a student in an okay program (with many friends in the truly elite ones), I will say "not many". It's very rare to find someone here who lives and breathes the entrails of technology and data rather than just the nice and shiny and sexy parts of it.

That being said, I know some from finance and marketing tyle backgrounds who are totally gung-ho about data and have track records of getting their hands dirty, so I'd say that if you're intent on finding students with non-tech backgrounds who have the cultural instincts for tech, you _can_ find them (maybe about 3% of the class).

edit: That being said, many of my peers would be fantastic at roles like BD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This seems to be as much a reflection of the finance industry's loss of luster as technology being wonderful and whatnot.

</comment><comment><USER17> The most reliable indication of a bubble is when 30% of Harvard grads head into an industry. Top university networks are the first to sniff out unfairly strong financial returns and to take advantage.

<comment><USER3> I think this is pretty interesting and it even makes intuitive sense, but I'm curious if it has been validated in any way through historical analysis?

<comment><USER17> Yes, I think I red it in "Ahead of the Curve" ( [http://www.amazon.com/Ahead- Curve-Harvard-Business-School/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Ahead-Curve- Harvard-Business-School/dp/014311543X) ) and the author backed it up with data from the most recent tech and financial bubbles. The exact quote escapes me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> For all the good that tech does for the world, can we stop the judgment of why people are entering the careers they choose, whether it's finance, tech, or otherwise? Let's judge a person not by the content of their background, but by their actions and what they accomplish. Even if someone's primary motive is to make money, it's too hasty to judge that person without understanding their background and why they're motivated thusly.

Personally as someone who has done both business and technical work, I'm saddened every time this topic comes up. The less judgmental voices get down voted and drowned out, while the posts that generalize based on anecdotal experience prevail. I wish we could just stop having this discussion, as I don't think it adds at all to the benefit of the tech community.

</comment><comment><USER19> Obvious disclaimer: not all MBA's ...

I graduated with a BS in Business (Supply Chain) because I knew I wanted to be involved in startups someday, but I've had nothing but big corporate jobs since then. For the longest time, I've held this idea that because all of the bigwigs got their MBAs, and they got them from top schools, that that was what I needed to do. In other words, to become the person I wanted to be, I had to go get an MBA.

My thoughts have tempered as I moved progressively towards more technical roles: Business Intelligence, Ops Research, Systems Architecture, etc. In fact, I've started to grow a disdain for the average MBA, not unlike the disdain you hear from a lot of people with backgrounds in CS. The thing is, I've never been anything but a business-end guy...I shouldn't feel that way about business-guys.

My own observation on the cause has to do with the toolsets that are given to your typical MBA. Their Root Cause Analysis tools assume that everything has a singular root cause, but those analyses fail when the problem is of combinatorial complexity, where you often have multiple root causes for a problem. Business optimization tends to fall solely on LP models, which again, fail under combinatorial complexity scenarios. Pareto analysis is fine until you have pareto'd your entire business and all that you have left are a bunch of bugs and quality flaws that only affect a tiny minority of orders by themselves, but 100% of orders in aggregate. The entire MBA toolset itself seems to be a result of pareto optimization (a set of tools to use for 80% of the scenarios you will come across as a business leader).

Furthermore, I now feel as though the wisdom of any singular person can very easily become overrated, and in the case of top level execs, is almost invariably overrated. As I became involved with Business Intelligence at my last job, I kept running into execs who always had the same mindset: just give me the data, and I will make the decision that will save the day. The problem is, the skillset to extract, transform, prettify, and graph out data is very often the same skillset that can make provably optimal decisions, or at least better-than-human decisions. Why should they spend so much of their time satisfying executive egos by giving them a precious jewel of data that they will just blow with a swagged decision, when they could be applying Machine Learning or Mathematical Optimization instead?

Your average smart guy with an MBA will continue to provide value in specific scenarios. The Technology industry (as long as "Technology" implies working with intractably difficult problems) will rarely be one of them. And just for good measure, I'll caveat that one more time, especially since my current employer has a ton of exceptions: not all MBAs ...

</comment><comment><USER20> Paywall..

<comment><USER21> Search "Elite Grads In Business Flock To Tech" on Google. The first hit will work.

<comment><USER22> why it works from search result referral and not directly?

<comment><USER21> Because it's a strategy that works.

So, it's working for the tech-savvy using these little hacks, right? That means a certain article is going to gain traction, get people talking on social networking sites, and in turn seduce more people into wanting in on those discussions. But the people who aren't in on these hacks are met with a dilemma: be a part of the in-crowd, or just go away. As it turns out, this human wanting to be in on what everyone else is talking about is very strong, so a lot of people end up buying it. For others, it's the convenience factor of not having to google every article and find it that way... in both cases, a key force was the content not being totally unaccessible, but being there in some small way as a teaser. I should point out that it's working out exceeding well for the NYTimes. WSJ has been doing it for a long time, and the Economist just recently started doing it too. I expect even more will soon follow. It's an interesting and clever evolution of the freemium model in some ways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> There are a few comments in here that demean the supposedly greedy MBAs who come in with no technical enthusiasm or know-how just because the salaries are high. However, I think it's quite possible that this trend is very positive for the industry, and for the world. The financial and social importance of internet companies is becoming more apparent to the mainstream citizen, and as a result, clever people are thinking more and more about how to manage and strategize in this space.

<comment><USER11> Here's the problem:

There's a certain type of person whose apparent intelligence is exaggerated by the reward system of lifetime in a Victorian-era education system that emphasizes obedience and checklists. Such people whether created by nurture or nature, are disproportionately represented in the MBA world. However the type of skills developed there are all about thriving within existing systems, whereas to build a successful startup requires a completely different kind of thinking.

I'm not painting MBAs all with one brush either, there are many brilliant ones I've worked with. But there are also many who think they are hot shit because of a lifetime of being "gifted" and "elite" far out of proportion to their actual ability to contribute to a tech startup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Looking for easy money.</comment>