Should we stop using the Google font service and host on our own? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/google/fonts/issues/1307 <comment><USER2> Yes.

But not for just the reasons given in the link.

When your page uses resources hosted outside your control, you are effectively giving a third-party access to your users. This applies equally to fonts, images from image hosting services, videos from youtube, etc, and especially to Javascript code (including analytics).

At best, you are trading some bandwidth savings for allowing a third-party to analyze your traffic patterns and users in return - maybe that sounds like a good trade to you.

But at worst, your are allowing a third-party (or the people that buy that third-party years from now) to break your site (removing images, etc) at any time, completely outside your control. That is not even considering malicious intent. Google is probably OK right now, but who knows?

TL/DR : Host everything yourself

<comment><USER3> Do you have any suggestions for self-hosted analytics?

<comment><USER4> Piwik[1] is pretty good. For self-hosting, basic features are free and open source, some of the more advanced features are sold as plugins[2].

There's also OWA[3] if that's more to your taste

1 [https://piwik.org/](https://piwik.org/) 2 [https://plugins.piwik.org/premium](https://plugins.piwik.org/premium) 3 [http://www.openwebanalytics.com/](http://www.openwebanalytics.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm really disappointed in the tone of those threads. Attacking a maintainer because you disagree with his decision is never OK. Attacking someone who designed and released a font for free because you dislike his redesign reeks of entitlement.

Both threads have way too much "you're all horrible people because I dislike your change" and not enough constructive conversation. I'm sure a broken layout resulting from an upstream font change would be pretty frustrating, but with all the name calling, it's hard for me to take the author seriously.

<comment><USER6> I particularly liked this comment: "This is not practical for agencies. The sites have shipped, there's no budget for us"

I am sure whatever it costs to go back and fix those sites, it is far less than what it would cost to license a commercial font.

<comment><USER7> Lol that comment. What an entitled douche!

If I were a popular font designer, I would change my metrics every once in a while on purpose, just to spite those people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Tldr: Google says it won't support version pinning for fonts hosted on their CDN.

So, if you want to use a Google hosted font, you're stuck with bleeding edge. If that doesn't work for you, you have to find an alternative host.

Bleeding edge means things like fairly drastic weight changes.

<comment><USER9> > find an alternative host

you can download and host it yourself

<comment><USER10> That depends on the font's license.

<comment><USER11> All fonts in the Google Fonts directory are open source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The more the way things change ...

It's not new knowledge that "Cool URIs don't change" [0], and I sympathize with the desire to not get your rug pulled from under you like that, but the anger

      > I can't even breathe

      > completely broke out design

seems a bit over the top. If a change in font weight completely _breaks_ a design, instead of just making it look odd or different, then I really don't think that's good design.

... the more they stay the same

[0] [https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html](https://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> I understand that what Google did was shitty. But then again, the Google Fonts service, as far as I can tell, doesn't have an SLA. At this point, complaining that they switched font weights without notice is equivalent to complaining that fonts.google.com servers went down on a critical Black Friday night for your e-commerce site.

I guess self-hosting is probably the best solution if you want to more 'control' over what's happening.

</comment><comment><USER14> As a designer I must disagree with some of the arguments posted - the end user might not see a "difference", but ultimately he will have another experience - he just doenst know how it was supposed to look.

Typography is crucial to the appearance of a brand and to the voice of their communication, so having a font in a cdn change all it's weights that drastically _is_ a major problem for designs using it.

That said, as a programmer I can't disagree more with how the issue is raised and the tone towards the maintainers - and absolutely agree with them.

If you want to be sure that your assets will stay the same, point to a definite version of it that you have control of! If you do work for a client and CI compliance is important, license (!) and host those fonts.

Complaining to the author for changing his product is really far off when you've been using a free offer in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER15> Or use normal fonts. I really don't want to have to download your custom fonts.

<comment><USER16> Then configure your browser not to download them.

<comment><USER17> expect this to be disabled in chrome if enough people do this. just like they disabled every single option to omit referer headers.

though referer header is directly tied to their monetization. the font thing is just a good to have to collect some data.

<comment><USER18> so don't use chrome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Yes.

I recently had to help a person with a broken wordpress theme. The reason: The theme used a font from a thirdparty host and that host was gone. The fix: Simple, get the font from the Internet Archive and host a copy locally.

When you include assets on your webpage from third parties you always have to expect that they change. Avoid it if you can.

For fonts this is mostly annoying as you can't control your layout. For Javascript it's outright dangerous: [https://blog.hboeck.de/archives/889-Abandoned-Domain- Takeove...](https://blog.hboeck.de/archives/889-Abandoned-Domain-Takeover-as- a-Web-Security-Risk.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> TL;DR: Designers making drama over a font weight change nobody but them will notice.

It's an inconvenience for sure, but claims about "drastic changes" and "websites looking completely different" are essentially nit picking.

Also, if a slight change in font weight breaks your website, your design / HTML / CSS is wrong. The web is elastic.

</comment><comment><USER21> My approach is to not depend on 3rd party services at all, because I want to be relatively well-assured that whatever I create will still work 10 years later or more without any modifications beyond security updates.

<comment><USER22> How about browser updates? I'm not sure it's feasible to expect any webpage to look identical 10 years from now without any kind of maintenance.

<comment><USER23> Have you visited the website for Berkshire Hathaway?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> For me it's a no brainier, and the answer is yes. Or better: use standard fonts in a creative way.

</comment><comment><USER25> For some perspective, note that many professional designers subscribe to a paid subscription model CDN like Adobe TypeKit.

</comment><comment><USER26> LOL: "please understand , the left project is for sneakers shop , intended to be bold and stick out , now it looks like it was designed for lingerie shop , sexy and thin."

</comment><comment><USER27> So some webmasters are handing over even more visitor metadata to google's surveillance leviathan just to shave 100k or so off their page load, and the takers of this "deal" are indignant that Google's versioning isn't robust enough?

Break out the tiny violins!

<comment><USER7> Not some, but _all_ webmasters, if you exclude a small minority of us who understand the deal in the first place and don't like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> [https://google-webfonts-helper.herokuapp.com/](https://google-webfonts- helper.herokuapp.com/)

You're welcome.

(Not my creation, but I've been using it for every website I have a say on.)

</comment><comment><USER28> personally i block web fonts regardless, particularly on mobile.

<comment><USER29> I've seen people arguing in favor of this but what's the reason?

<comment><USER30> I would rather reframe this question: what is the reason to download fonts? Downloading leads to page rendering lags and to reporting my browsing behaviour to google, while I see no positive effects from those fonts at all. So why I should be interested in downloading them?

<comment><USER31> Fonts are one of the dimensions of design. If you've ever enjoyed, for example, one of Edward Tufte's books on visualisation ("The quantitative display of data" etc), part of their appeal as excellently crafted books stems from the choice of fonts. The same happens on the web. See, for example The New Yorker: [https://www.newyorker.com](https://www.newyorker.com).

Obviously everyone is free to block fonts, just like you can block all images or use a text-only browser etc. But to categorically deny even the possibility that well-chosen fonts can enhance the experience for some people seems disingenuous.

<comment><USER32> The most legible font is the font you're most used to. If I let designers chose fonts for me then I'll have to read lots of different fonts, instead of just my own favorite. It can only harm my enjoyment of the web.

<comment><USER33> But blocking icon fonts makes the web less usable for you.

<comment><USER30> As NoScript does. Or Ghostery. It is problems of web, not mine. I could find another site, if some one does not work properly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's been a while since I really cared about this realm, but wasn't the big deal with Google Fonts in the beginning that licensing was almost impossible to deal with as an individual or small company?

<comment><USER4> Buying fonts is somewhat expensive for individuals, and google fonts certainly helped the free font ecosystem as a great aggregator.

But serving the fonts directly from google fonts instead of downloading the fonts and serving them yourself has in my opinion always been a bad idea. In any case it's not a licencing problem anymore, fonts published on google fonts have clearly displayed licenses that usually allow a broad range of uses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> We need a smarter internet that caches content-addressed objects in a CDN dynamically (based on number of users, or age).

That would solve the whole font service problem.

<comment><USER36> Came in to support this sentiment

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> What is the incentive to have Google host your fonts anyway? It's something that you'd never want to change or update, and something that requires next to no maintenance.

<comment><USER31> The chances of the font already being cached by a first-time visitor is actually quite high for Google Fonts since their use is widespread and they are not versioned.

<comment><USER37> Interesting. I wouldn't think ttf files were big enough for that to be an issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Why would anyone ever think they should link to off-site resources?

My guess is their only real experience with the web is a few years in college.

</comment><comment><USER27> How long before a Google employee snaps from the brazen entitlement of their non-paying users?

Aside from that, hell yeah! CDN is penny-wise and pound-foolish for so many reasons. That, and if people had to go back to using their own bandwidth, perhaps websites would go back to being slightly less bloated.

<comment><USER39> I didn't know it was entitled to want your font to keep looking similar to when you first used it.

That's a pretty basic design ask.

<comment><USER27> Are you paying them?

<comment><USER39> Does it somehow matter? They might not be contractually obligated, but that doesn't mean they should be bad actors about it.

People just want best practices to be used, nothing more. Versioning is one of those. They released what amounts to a whole new font in the namespace of an existing font; they even called it a "major" update and a "complete redesign". On one of their most used fonts.

All people are asking for is that the Montserrat font be reverted back and the new one released as Montserrat v2. They've done it before with major changes to a font, it's not a hard thing to do and there's clearly already policy in place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The internet was supposed to be decentralized, no? Now everyone relies on a few big parties.

Luckily Google is too big to fail now so it'll be rescued by taxpayers should the shit hit the fan.

</comment><comment><USER41> >We want everyone on the latest versions for caching reasons

From a privacy perspective, I'd love to know what the "caching reasons" are.

Purely speaking in terms of big data, I think being able to track users across domains by font requests, even those with ad-blockers, would be in Google's best interest.

I don't think saving money on bandwidth is Google's primary concern at this point.

<comment><USER31> You're going out of your way to paint Google's arguments in the worst, malicious light.

Their interest in caching is not to save their own bandwidth costs, but to lower costs and load times for users. Google's efforts in the web performance space are well documented (see lighthouse as one example).

The reasoning for "only the latest version" also happens to be the only one that makes sense: having multiple versions of each font drastically reduces the ability of browsers and CDNs to cache, quite obviously.

The motive you ascribe to google, namely user tracking, has absolutely no logical connection to the "latest version only" practice: Google's ability to track users would actually be enhanced by versioning, because their servers are only ever contacted for uncached resources.</comment></comment>


Combination of Smalltalk, Self and JavaScript with PHP-Like Tags - <AUTHOR> http://fll.presidentbeef.com/lang/citrine/ <comment><AUTHOR> I always knew there was something good about PHP lol :)</comment>


Mark Zuckerberg -This Week I Talked with Yuval Noah Harari - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10107258620822481 <comment><USER2> Harari is great and I really hope Zuckerberg has read and absorbed some of his stuff.

Harari's most recent book got some negativity for promoting meditation, which I think some took as a self indulgent detour but it actually makes sense...

His point is that the forces trying to manipulate people (eg. on Facebook) have become so skilled that they verge on knowing you better then you know yourself. One way to innoculate yourself against this manipulation is to really get to know yourself and what you believe - in a strong and stable way - much better and he feels that meditation is a good way to acheive that.

</comment><comment><USER3> Audio only:

        $ youtube-dl -f '321685328510993ad' -o - \
        'https://www.facebook.com/zuck/videos/10107258598621971/' |
        mpv -

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Text part of post:

This week I talked with Yuval Noah Harari as part of my series of discussions on the future of technology and society. He's a historian and author of Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons For the 21st Century.

Many historians focus on the past but Yuval has a unique perspective on how technology will shape the future, and that's what we spent most of our time on. We discussed things like whether the internet is connecting or fragmenting society, the different ways artificial intelligence could be developed, how algorithms will continue to impact people's lives, and why it is so important that we don't store sensitive data in countries with weak rule of law or where governments can forcibly get access to that data. Thanks Yuval for such a memorable conversation.

I've included a transcript of a few of my thoughts below, lightly edited for clarity:

Minute 39:27:

When I look towards the future, one of the things that I just get very worried about is the values that I just laid out [for the internet and data] are not values that all countries share. And when you get into some of the more authoritarian countries and their data policies, they're very different from the kind of regulatory frameworks that across Europe and across a lot of other places, people are talking about or put into place.

Recently I've come out and I've been very vocal that I think that more countries should adopt a privacy framework like GDPR in Europe. And a lot of people I think have been confused about this. They're like, "Why are you arguing for more privacy regulation? Why now given that in the past you weren't as positive on it?" And I think part of the reason why I am so focused on this now is at this point people around the world recognize these questions around data and AI and technology are important, so there's going to be a [regulatory] framework in every country.

I actually think the bigger question is what is it going to be? And the most likely alternative to each country adopting something that encodes the freedoms and rights of something like GDPR, in my mind, is the authoritarian model, which is currently being spread, which says every company needs to store everyone's data locally in data centers and then, if I'm a government, I can send my military there and get access to whatever data I want and take that for surveillance or military. I just think that that's a really bad future. And that's not the direction, as someone who's building one of these internet services, or just as a citizen of the world, I want to see the world going.

\---

In response to Yuval playing devil's advocate and asking about non- authoritarian governments adopting data localization policies...

Minute 45:53:

I think someone with good intent might argue, "Hey, maybe a different set of data policies is something that we should consider." The thing that I worry about, and what we've seen, is that once a country puts that in place, it's a precedent that a lot of other countries that might be more authoritarian use to basically argue that they should do the same things and then that spreads. And I think that's bad.

And that's one of the things that as the person running this company, I'm quite committed to making sure that we play our part in pushing back on that and keeping the internet as one platform. One of the most important decisions that I think I get to make as the person running this company, is where we're going to build our data centers and store data. And we've made the decision that we're not going to put data centers in countries that we think have weak rule of law, where people's data may be improperly accessed which could put people in harm's way.

There have been a lot of questions around the world around censorship and I think that those are really serious and important. A lot of the reason why we build what we build is because I care about giving everyone a voice, giving people as much voice as possible, so I don't want people to be censored. At some level, these questions around data and how it's used and whether authoritarian governments get access to it I think are even more sensitive because, if you can't say something that you want, that is highly problematic, that violates your human rights. I think in a lot of cases it stops progress.

But if a government can get access to your data, then it can identify who you are and go lock you up and hurt you and your family and cause real physical harm in ways that are just really deep. So I do think that people running these companies have an obligation to try to push back on that and fight establishing precedents which will be harmful. Even if a lot of the initial countries that are talking about some of this have good intent, I think that this can easily go off the rails. And when you talk about in the future AI and data, which are two concepts that are just really tied together, I think the values where they come from and whether they're part of a more global system, a more democratic process, a more open process — that's one of our best hopes for having this work out well. If it comes from repressive or authoritarian countries, then I just think that that's going to be highly problematic in a lot of ways.

<comment><USER4> I love how Mark posts a video of an hour and a half "discussion" while highlighting two brief points of his own, out of context, supporting Facebook's narrative. Bonus for trying to twist protection of our rights through regulation into authoritarian government suppression we need to be protected from by our billionaire Silicon Valley saviors.</comment></comment>


Do you use Tor everyday? - <AUTHOR> torproject.org has a section called 'Who Uses Tor?' and lists: Friends and Family, Businesses, Activists, Media, etc.
None of my IT colleagues use it, my family certainly doesn't use it, and two guys I know who work in the NetSec field don't bother with it. It would seem the stigma is real.
Do you use Tor everyday?
- Browse HN and reddit with it?
- Do regular search queries and browsing on it?
- Use legitimate .onion sites (DuckDuckGo, Facebook, Proton Mail) instead of their clearnet address? <comment><USER3> The stigma is real, because Tor is actually extremely slow (at least in India) for everyday use. Even when I want to visit sites that are blocked by Indian ISPs, and which do have an easily found .onion address, I don't bother with it - I'd rather use a free VPN instead, despite the lack of transparency involved - Tor is just too _slow_.

Unless it (somehow) finds a way to decrease latency in the future, it will remain as it is today - filling a useful niche for the masses, and even a daily driver for the privacy concerned - but I can't see it _ever_ being in the mainstream. The average users couldn't give two hoots about privacy - <USER2> just want things to work, which is an understandable PoV.

And why would anyone visit HN with it? FB, I can get behind, but what tangible benefits would you get from using Tor on a site which (afaik) doesn't track you, and doesn't sell your data? Genuinely curious.

</comment><comment><USER4> I find Tor most useful as a networking tool rather than a security/privacy tool.

The Hidden Service functionality is great for breaking out of Carrier Grade NAT, normal NAT, or any other restricted network environment.

A prime example of this is being able to SSH into devices running on a 4G LTE connection. You're behind CGNAT so the public IP address is not unique to you, and you definitely can't port forward as you're just a customer and not in control of the ISP systems. If you run a Hidden Service, you can break right out - and it's secure too, as long as you use the new Onion v3 spec rather than the original Onion v2.

I agree that Tor seems to have a large stigma though - I find that the terms 'Tor' and 'Onion' usually make people who aren't aware think of the scary criminal underground. The term 'Hidden Service' isn't so bad. The idea that Tor is simply a networking tool seems new to most people.

</comment><comment><USER5> TOR is something I use only occasionally, when the need is there. Using it regularly would be too frustrating for me as TOR is godawfully slow even on a really fast connection.

</comment><comment><USER6> Using TOR to access a social media site defeats the purpose of anonymity, once you login facebook knows it's you and they can see your messages so TOR was useless. At that point might as well just go the PGP/GPG route to post your message.

</comment><comment><USER7> I use to browse the sites that have been blocked, mostly to download tutorials, and books.</comment>


Colleges Should Flunk If They Can't Train Students for Jobs - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/colleges-should-flunk-cant-train-students-jobs-sylvain-kalache/?trackingId=g4iQMeWUTIb9HOoCdFfKxA%3D%3D <comment><USER2> People should stop think that higher education is training for _job_. It's not. Vocational training and apprenticeship are training for job. Universities were never a proper environment for that. On the other hand, universities are an excellent environment for research and field exploration, which is virtually impossible in a typical job.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe companies should flunk if they can't train workers for jobs. In the US there is a tendency to put pressure on the educational system for EVERYTHING. Eating healthy, sex, keeping our STEM knowledge competitive with the Soviet Union, training a 100% perfect labor force for businesses, etc.</comment>


Biotech entrepreneur Shkreli asking for furlough from prison to research COVID19 - <AUTHOR> https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/06/martin-shkreli-coronavirus-prison/ <comment><USER2> Nah. If prisoners can get enough legal chops in prison to successfully appeal their case, he can do his "research" in prison.

He could even livestream it. [https://www.statnews.com/2015/11/12/martin- shkreli-show-revi...](https://www.statnews.com/2015/11/12/martin-shkreli-show- reviled-pharma-exec-just-cant-stop-talking/)</comment>


The YouPorn Chat leak revealed a lot more than email addresses and passwords - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jgc.org/2012/02/youporn-leak-revealed-lot-more-than.html

<comment><USER2> I'd like to point out that the service that was hacked has nothing to do with Youporn itself, it was run by a third party.

So please stop calling it the Youporn leak, nothing has leaked out of Youporn itself, just a careless third party.

"YouPorn chat, a service operated and hosted by a third party, failed to take the appropriate precautions in securing its user data" - Kate Miller Manwin Spokeswoman.

<comment><USER3> YouPorn chat was located at chat.youporn.com. As a reminder, YouPorn's website is www.youporn.com. Until recently, there was a prominent "Chat" link from the YouPorn website to YouPorn Chat too (which AFAIK didn't disclose that it was run by a different company).

I think people have a legitimate reason to be confused by the line between YouPorn and YouPorn Chat. Until this episode of total incompetence surfaced, I'd say the two firms were quite happy for this line to be as blurry as possible.

YouPorn was clearly making money from this arrangement - otherwise, why allow a different company to piggyback off their high profile brand. It seems only fair that YouPorn's brand now suffer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Didn't the lead software engineer for YouPorn just comment recently on the Redis thread?

Maybe he could chime in here and shed some light.

<comment><USER5> He already did : <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3623079>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So "a lot more" is basically just the faked DOB and faked phone number field? Why does this justify a blog post, especially when those fields were mentioned in the original sophos post?

<comment><USER7> I wasn't aware that blog posts had to be justified.

<comment><USER8> Blog posts no, Hacker News entries yes.</comment></comment></comment>


Releasing an iPhone game: Whack-a-Kitty three weeks later - <AUTHOR> http://www.alexc.me/releasing-an-iphone-game-whack-a-kitty-three-weeks-later/316/

<comment><USER2> I'm sorry that the (very creative and funny) name for your app is causing people to troll here. I think it's an awesome name, and I honestly may not have clicked through to read your article had the name not caught my attention.

I'll pass along some good advice I've heard: Acknowledge and accept suggestions, ignore the haters.

</comment><comment><USER3> So does anyone have any actionable, constructive advice for alex_c in promoting his app store app?

Here are a couple of things I can think of:

* Make some friends on Twitter; give out free copies using App Store promo codes

* Submit your game to the various iPhone game review sites

<comment><USER4> Name it Pet-a-Kitty: no more disgusting tone, plus a wider audience would actually like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What is used for event data?

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://www.localytics.com/> and custom events.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Maybe I'm over-sensitive, but the game sounds like it makes light of animal abuse.

So very, very not cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> I won't get into a long debate, because I doubt it can be constructive (I had a longer post, but it wasn't going anywhere), so I'll just leave it at this: I disagree.

<comment><USER7> Animal abuse is usually illegal, and especially to target an animal that is regarded as a pet makes it more the inhumane. However, there are plenty of games that promote violence in our culture, but do we need yet another one? I don't think so.

They are free to make it, but they also take the responsibility of releasing it. Perhaps from a corporate stance, it may be about social responsibility. However, I mean personal: do you honestly think that putting that forth in the world will result in anything good? Most likely, it will come back to them in one bad form or another.

Or, to make a point, how about further games to sell:

       Rape the bitch
       KKK Kross Alley
       Stone the Adulterer
       Spics Kikes and Pikeys
       Skinhead adventures
       Hitler's Easy Bake oven

I mean, if we dont take responsibility for our own actions, who will?

<comment><USER8> You are simply extending the argument to ridiculousness to make a point. What about the game angry birds? It features suicidal birds with bombs strapped to them that you fling into buildings to kill pigs.

<comment><USER6> It's a stupid, highly overrated game for sheeple.

<comment><USER9> That was arrogant, but to make you happy, why don't we just call this game a "highly overrated game for sheeple" too and let it slide?

Are you one of those people who believe GTA makes kids steal cars, or that sonic the hedgehog makes kids run into walls and try to loop around their ceiling?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Verizon to End Grandfathered Unlimited Data Plans - <AUTHOR> http://androidcommunity.com/verizon-killing-off-grandfathered-unlimited-data-plans-this-summer-20120516/ <comment><USER2> I really wish other governments would take a leaf out of the book of the Australian government (the ACCC specifically) on this one.

Some years ago the ACCC clamped down on the use of the word "unlimited" in advertising ADSL services. They said it was misrepresentation to use the term unless you really could download all you want, there was no traffic shaping, no soft quota and no excess usage fees.

Basically, the "unlimited" moniker all but died overnight. But this is a Good Thing [tm]. It means you don't get shady practices where, for example, AT&T shapes traffic beyond 3GB/month for "unlimited" users.

Basically, in Australia you get what you pay for and you pay for what you get. I think this is an infinitely better system. With current bandwidth limits and technology in the US, mass availability of cheap (truly) unlimited cellular Internet access is simply not economically viable.

Data point: the UK IIRC defines "unlimited" as anything that covers 95% of the population. This led to, for example, a friend of mine getting his parents on Tiscali ADSL, downloading a couple of Ubuntu distros, getting classified as a "downloader" by the ISP and put on their shitty network. Those already on it had figured out the only way to download through BitTorrent and the like was to use port 80/443. So the Web had become unusable at peak times. And this qualified as "unlimited".

Unlimited plans are marketing tools in the US to retain customers. Both AT&T introduced them, removed them and grandfathered existing users. The whole point is to put up a barrier to customers leaving (as they'll lose their grandfathered plans). The sooner we end the charade the better.

<comment><USER3> I wrote to the UK's Advertising Standards Authority regarding misuse of the word "unlimited" as relating to broadband and mobile internet.

Their response was that "as most people wont hit the limits, they can call it unlimited".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh well, sucks to be them. The only reason I'm giving Verizon any money right now is the unlimited data plan and contract. They change the rules, I get out of my contract. So long!

<comment><USER5> They aren't changing your contract; they just won't give you the same contract when your current one has expired:

 _LTE is our anchor point for data share. So as you come through an upgrade cycle and you upgrade in the future, you will have to go onto a data share plan. And moving away from, if you will, the unlimited world and moving everyone into a tiered structure/data share type plan._ [1]

I could see this not being such a bad thing if they let us pay for bandwidth to use however we want. As it is, there are different rates and minimum fees for different types of devices and how that data is used on each device (i.e. "hotspot" feature on phones). Allow me to connect the netbook that I rarely need to use on their network and subtract from my allowance.

1\. [http://www.droid-life.com/2012/05/16/verizon-cfo- unlimited-d...](http://www.droid-life.com/2012/05/16/verizon-cfo-unlimited- data-plans-going-away-all-users-pushed-onto-shared-data/)

<comment><USER4> >I could see this not being such a bad thing if they let us pay for bandwidth to use however we want.

Not in this universe. I'm pretty much convinced that cell phone companies are out to screw you as hard and as long as humanly possible.

<comment><USER6> Verizon: profit margin 5-6%

Apple: profit margin 29%

Google: profit margin 27-28%

Who's screwing who?

<comment><USER7> citation wanted

<comment><USER8> "Profit" is hard to measure. This may be good enough:

Verizon Wireless FY 2011

[http://www22.verizon.com/investor/app_resources/interactivea...](http://www22.verizon.com/investor/app_resources/interactiveannual/2011/mda03_01.html)

Segment operating income margin 26.4%

Segment EBITDA service margin 44.8%

Verizon Wireless 1Q 2012

[http://www22.verizon.com/idc/groups/public/documents/adacct/...](http://www22.verizon.com/idc/groups/public/documents/adacct/2012_q1_fs.pdf)

Operating Income Margin 28.6%

Segment EBITDA Service Margin 46.3%

Interesting things I also learned from this report:

\- Verizon wireless is 55% Verizon, 45% Vodafone

\- $52 ARPU (average revenue per user per month)

<comment><USER6> This is true, I was looking at VZ's chart:

<http://ycharts.com/companies/VZ/profit_margin>

According to Yahoo Finance it's profit margin is 2.6%

<http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=VZ+Key+Statistics>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If I'm understanding this correctly, my 3G iPhone 4 on my currently grandfathered unlimited plan is safe for now, and in February when my contract expires, I should be able to keep the same plan. If Apple comes out with an iPhone 4G and I choose to get it, then it's goodbye unlimited data.

Still, I suppose Verizon is doing things adequately. Their throttling for heavy data users applies only when the tower is at capacity, and speeds return once the congestion is gone. (Compare this to AT&T, which artificially slows data speeds, even when capacity isn't an issue.) As for the plans, any way you slice it it's a worse deal to go from $30/mo for unlimited to $30/mo for 2GB. At least overages are billed at a sane rate ($10/GB seems appropriate to me, although I've only used 0.5GB this month with 4 days left in cycle).

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been using an LTE phone with unlimited data for over a year now.. I wonder if they will just surprise me with a new contract the next time they send me the bill..

<comment><USER11> Let me guess: HTC Thunderbolt?

I have one too, with unlimited data. It seems they are only killing the plans when people upgrade to new phones, which would give us some extra time before our next upgrade.

That said, I am interested in how much these shared plans will cost. I would be much more likely to buy a tablet with data capabilities if I could just include it in my regular plan (knowing verizon, probably with an extra 5-10 dollar per device fee). Otherwise, I would just get something with just wifi, which does limit the usefulness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Unlimited" mobile plans tend to be bullshit.

I know people who have signed up for these and been given heavily restricted handsets that won't allow tethering, won't allow web downloads or app store downloads over a certain size unless of wifi.

Plus they tend to be significantly slower than my 1GB/month account which costs less and I never use even 1/2 of.

<comment><USER13> That's not entirely surprising. There was a post (I think I saw it on HN but I can't find it now, dangit) that put forth the idea that unlimited data plans were bad for consumers, because then consumers' and providers' interests are unaligned. Once you pay for an "unlimited" plan, it becomes in the network's best interest for you to send as few bits as possible. Consumers should actually prefer pay-per-use plans, because it means if the network is down, the service provider doesn't get paid.

Of course, there are many other variables involved, and obviously everyone has different usage patterns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> It seems like the article may be intentionally vague on this point, but I can't tell if already-grandfathered unlimited 4G customers are going to have it yanked this summer (which I guess would let them out of their contracts on their subsidized phones scott free), or if they simply won't be able to renew the unlimited part once their contract is up.

<comment><USER15> Another article that I read earlier today said that it will only come into effect when you renew your contract.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One thing I really enjoy about traveling outside the US is cool and inexpensive telecommunications options. It feels like bronze age here in the good old United Subsidized phones of America. We've got to give up our addiction to subsidies!

</comment><comment><USER17> What does this move signal to people grandfathered into AT&T unlimited data plans? Is the end nigh? Do consumers have any available legal recourse?

<comment><USER18> AT&T has already specifically talked about throttling restrictions on unlimited plans: [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/technology/some- wireless-c...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/technology/some-wireless- carriers-revise-limits-for-the-unlimited.html?pagewanted=all)

Especially as we get into next gen mobile speeds, where mobile could increasingly replace broadband, I can't see this changing. (And I'm not even convinced that pricing shouldn't push heavy usage towards wired infrastructure.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I went to Verizon because for a while it looked like it would have the best Android phones. They had good connectivity too when AT&T sucked.

Now... I guess Sprint?

<comment><USER20> If you're in an area where Sprint's likely to launch LTE soon, go for it. Otherwise, expect speeds like this: <http://www.androidcentral.com/sprints- galaxy-nexus> (halfway down the page)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I got a letter from them about "cheap new data plans" that I could get but I didn't open it. But now I know what it really was :(.

</comment><comment><USER22> Makes sense for Verizon, and if they are being greedy, others will step in to fill the void.

</comment><comment><USER23> Isn't it great to have so many wireless carrier choices? :-/

</comment><comment><USER24> No surprise here.</comment>


The girl in the window (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/the-girl-in-the-window/750838

<comment><USER2> There are a few updates:

[http://www.danisstory.org/](http://www.danisstory.org/)

[http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/three- years-l...](http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/three-years-later- the-girl-in-the-window-learns-to-connect/1186860)</comment>


A new kind of (Mini) Venture Capital - <AUTHOR> http://anzman.blogspot.com/2008/07/new-kind-of-mini-venture-capital.html

<comment><USER2> You have a nice blog. I really appreciate. Hope to see such nice posts in future also.</comment>


Ask HN: Github Native OS X notifications - <AUTHOR>

Am I the only one longing for native OS X notifications for issue filing and comments? This looks like a very cool feature. What do you think? <comment><USER2> Haven't seen anywhere yet.. The implementation is dead easy. where are all the cool kids?

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly!

<comment><USER3> Here's something I've been working on: <http://twitter.com/aqua_geek/status/231979373656420353>

It currently supports notifications when issues are opened/closed and whenever comments are made on issues.</comment></comment></comment>


Billionaire Li Ka-Shing donates $130 million to Israel's Technion - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-09-29/billionaire-li-ka-shing-to-fund-israel-china-academic-venture

<comment><AUTHOR> After a 2011 visit to Technion, Li Ka-Shing's venture fund invested in Waze which sold for $1.1 billion to Google this past June. Fittingly, some of that donation comes from profits from the Waze investment. The funds are used to help establish Technion presence at Shantou University in China.</comment>


Should You Sell Your Company? - <AUTHOR> http://bhorowitz.com/2011/01/19/should-you-sell-your-company/ <comment><USER2> I think the most difficult part after selling your company is walking away with loads of money and still have some employees not have much.

I fundamentally believe that companies should be created to bring like minded people together and solve problems they find interesting. Along with that founders should make it a responsibility to create wealth for all employees. Imagine what it would mean, when you joined a company to be 100% sure it will pay off your mortgage in 5 years.

<comment><USER3> _Imagine what it would mean, when you joined a company to be 100% sure it will pay off your mortgage in 5 years._

Unfortunately in a reasonably efficient market that's fundamentally impossible, in the same way as perpetual motion machines are impossible. The reason why employees get equity in the first place is because they undertake risk - opportunity cost because of lower salary, lack of job security, etc. If employees knew that the startup will pay off their mortgage with 100% certainty, everyone else would know too. That means the startup's valuation would skyrocket, cheap capital would become trivially obtainable, and all of the risk associated with joining a company would go away. This is essentially exactly equivalent to joining a large, stable company today.

It sounds nice, but unfortunately the economics don't work out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "One of the most difficult decisions that a CEO ever makes is whether or not to sell her company." — why "her company", is it about female CEO?</comment>


Bertrand Russell's infinite sock drawer - <AUTHOR> https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.3.20200527a/full/ <comment><USER3> The article provides a nice introduction to the subtleties surrounding the axiom of choice. The last paragraph briefly mentions that there are other flavors of mathematics in which the axiom of choice doesn't hold. For people who are intrigued by the idea of different flavors of mathematics, but all still set-based, a couple months ago I wrote an expository summary of the so- called "multiverse philosophy in set theory". You can find it at [https://iblech.gitlab.io/bb/multiverse.html](https://iblech.gitlab.io/bb/multiverse.html), and I'm happy to answer any questions or comments you might have.

There are also even wilder flavors of mathematics which are not set-based. In those we can have various dream results which directly contradict the mathematical canon (but are internally consistent and have a certain precise relation to the ordinary mathematical world). For instance we can have that every function is computable by a Turing machine, that every real function is continuous or that the reals include infinitesimal numbers. An introduction to these flavors, aimed at philosophers of mathematics, can be found here: [https://rawgit.com/iblech/internal-methods/master/paper- film...](https://rawgit.com/iblech/internal-methods/master/paper-filmat.pdf)

<comment><USER4> > _The only caveat of Theorem 1.3 is that toposes generally only support > intuitionisticreasoning, not the full power of the ordinaryclassical > reasoning._

Why is intuitionistic reasoning blessed as the "universal reasoning," when there are other ways of doing logic that permit even fewer inference rules?

<comment><USER3> Good question! I would disagree that intuitionistic reasoning is blessed as the "universal reasoning". As you say, there are other even weaker but still useful systems around.

It is just a fact of life, without any room for philosophical preferences, that the largest common denominator of all toposes is exactly intuitionistic reasoning, not more, not less.

But there are, besides toposes, also other kinds of mathematical structures which can be regarded as mathematical universes! And the largest common denominator of those other kinds can be more or less than intuitionistic reasoning.

Going up, we have for instance models of ZFC. By definition, their largest common denominator is ZFC, so more than intuitionistic reasoning.

Going down, we have the so called "arithmetic universes". Their largest common denominator is "arithmetic type theory", a predicative flavor of intuitionistic reasoning. (To a very rough first approximation which doesn't at all do justice to this intriguing topic, "predicative" means "no powerset axiom". The terminological convention is that by default, "intuitionistic reasoning" refers to impredicative intuitionistic reasoning.)

And then there are a couple other kinds still.

That said, toposes with their impredicative intuitionistic reasoning do occupy a sweet spot. They are sufficiently general to yield useful applications in several branches of mathematics while not being too general.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Self-reference in logic is named after the ancient symbol Ouroboros, a dragon that continually consumes itself, denotes self-reference [0]. I found out about this when reading about Russell's paradox [1]. The turn of the 19th century was an extraordinary time where logicians, mathematicians and philosophers "discovered" revolutionary ideas that we are still today trying to understand and find proofs [2].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self- reference#In_logic,_mathe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self- reference#In_logic,_mathematics_and_computing)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_paradox)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mathematics#19th_ce...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mathematics#19th_century)

<comment><USER3> The circularity supported in programming, that programs ("quines") can refer to their own source code, illustrates the same issue at heart. Yusuke Endoh created a tantalizing Ouroboros quine cycling through 128 languages: [https://github.com/mame/quine-relay](https://github.com/mame/quine-relay)

<comment><USER5> This is crazy!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm always happy to see solid philosophy show up here. Really, it's an under- appreciated field that gets written off as useless. Looking back at when I was in college, one of the courses that I still make use of was a philosophical logic class. Infact, the prof I had for that course sent me a link to the Open Logic Project, which has come in handy ever since.

I also have a soft-spot for Russell and his student Wittgenstein. Tractatus is an incredible, though later redacted, work of pure axiomatic reasoning. While HN focuses mostly on tech, I think that the kind of reasoning found in Analytic philosophers can be a boon to anyone doing anything that requires the sort of logical design found in the technology field.

<comment><USER7> The Tractatus is couched in language that make it seem like Wittgenstein is laying out a mathematical proof, but many of his conclusions don't follow from his premises. The Tractatus is much more a work of mysticism (in the religious sense) than of logic.

Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.

<comment><USER8> Why do you assume that premises-to-conclusions is the "right way" to go about stuff?

Why can't we go from conclusions to premises?

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

<comment><USER9> Even if you go in reverse, finding premises for your conclusions, your conclusion must still follow from the premises you found.

Saying that the premises don't follow from the conclusions means that, taking the premises as true, the conclusion is may or may not be true, so it is illogical to draw that conclusion from those premises. Or if you prefer the other way around, if, taking the conclusion as true, the premises could be true or false (or taking the conclusion as false, the premises could still be true or false) then the conclusion does not follow from the premises you found.

<comment><USER8> You aren't hearing me.

The difference is the order/sequence in which the events take place.

Regular maths starts with premises then looks for conclusions.

Reverse maths starts with conclusions then looks for premises.

So in reverse maths the premises follow from the conclusions - <USER2> literally.

<comment><USER10> In writing:

> Even if you go in reverse, finding premises for your conclusions, your > conclusion must still follow from the premises you found.

GP means 'follow' in the sense of logical deduction, not follow in time.

Having found the premise (after the conclusion), the conclusion (we started with) must then logically follow from the premises (we later found).

<comment><USER8> Well, obviously! That's by design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Even today it's regarded with suspicion in a way that most mathematical > axioms aren't.

This is a common misconception. You either use it as an assumption, or you do not, as is the case with the parallel postulate. There need be no controversial sentiments. In the same way complex numbers were briefly "controversial", but as mathematicians we shouldn't bring too much opinion into the matter; we should only follow the argument. In the last paragraph the article seems to admits that the approach is you either assume it or you do not.

<comment><USER12> It's controversial in the way addition is not. It's controversial as to which axioms should be the common default in the language, and where research funding should be spent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The way ZFC navigates around Russel's paradox is by adopting the axiom of restricted comprehension [1].

Here's a thought experiment: What happens if we allow for unrestricted comprehension [2] ? What happens if we say 'Contradictions exist and they are empirical. What do they mean?'

The upside is that you attain "unrestricted comprehension" (In the English, not Mathematical sense) with the miniscule downside of having to navigate around contradictions from time to time.

Contradictions exist - if they didn't I wouldn't be able to contradict myself when I want to. I wouldn't be able to trigger exception-handlers in your brain when I want to.

How you handle that exception is a matter of choice.

I like the Dialetheist solution [3]. Basically the Axiom of Unrestricted comprehension is akin to practicing the Principle of Charity.

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_schema_of_specification#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axiom_schema_of_specification#Unrestricted_comprehension)

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

<comment><USER13> Can you provide an example of you contradicting yourself?

<comment><USER8> I don't exist.

Or the Philosophical cliche... I freely believe in the absence of free will.

Scott Aaronson has discussed this in more detail: [https://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec18.html](https://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec18.html)

<comment><USER13> Is that a contradiction or a lie? Genuine question: is there a difference between the two?

Edit: I read the article (and I'm not sure I was able to follow it completely) but it seemed to mostly be about free will, and not people making contradictions (or lying).

<comment><USER8> Good question/intuition.

You are correct in that I am appealing (exploiting?) the Liar's paradox [1]. The gist of which is that the truth-value of the proposition is undecidable.

You could interpret my statement as a performative contradiction; or you could interpret it as a lie, but a far more interesting a conversation would ensue if you simply ask me "Why do you say that?"

Which is why I said that it's up to you on how you choose to handle the exception (which I have intentionally triggered in your brain).

The way I would prefer you to interpret my intentional contradiction is to see it for what it is. I am engaging in cooperative multi-tasking [2]. I am yielding control by triggering an exception. Your turn to steer the conversation.

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

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Relevant:

"Let R be the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. If R is not a member of itself, then its definition dictates that it must contain itself, and if it contains itself, then it contradicts its own definition as the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. This contradiction is Russell's paradox"

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_paradox](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_paradox)

</comment><comment><USER15> I do not really understand why the Banach-Tarski paradox is such a big deal. It does not seem any different from the paradoxes of the Hilbert hotel. If one has two filled hilbert hotels one can fit all hotel guests in one single hilbert hotel by letting guests from one hotel take even numbered rooms and from the other hotel odd numbered rooms.

<comment><USER3> Excellent question.

The Hilbert's-Hotel-style result that the union of two balls consists of exactly the same amount of points than just a single ball is much more basic than the Banach–Tarski paradox.

In the Banach–Tarski paradox, we cut a single ball into a finite number of pieces (incidentally, it can be done with just five). These pieces are then rotated and moved in space, _but otherwise kept exactly as they are._ The surprising fact is that after moving and rotation, the five pieces fit together to form two balls.

<comment><USER16> I don't understand Banach-Tarski, but it seems like the common version which you just explained must be wrong. It is _not_ possible to double the volume of an object by cutting and reassembling. So someone has either made a mistake somewhere, or the "paradox" is using highly perverse definitions of "ball", "piece" etc such that if you understand what bizzare and unphysical concept was represented by them, the surprise goes away. The counterintuitive nature of the popular version is simply a lie, one way or the other.

<comment><USER17> > I don't understand Banach-Tarski, but it seems like the common version which > you just explaing must be wrong. It is not possible to double the volume of > an object by cutting and reassembling.

Well, it seems that you DO understand why it is considered to be very surprising and unintuitive.

The definitions of "ball" and "rotate" are perfectly normal. The definition of "piece" is slightly odd in that the "pieces" don't have smooth surfaces -- they are "jagged" or "fuzzy" down to an infinite level. (This is why common notions like "volume is conserved" don't apply -- such notions don't apply normally even to simpler objects like a fractal Serpinski Sponge.)

What is especially weird about the pieces (axiom-of-choice weird) is that specifying exactly what the boundaries of the pieces are is so hard that no clear description or algorithm can be given that specifies them. It's sort of like if you said "cut a ball so the prime-numbered points are in piece 1 and the composite points are in piece 2", except MORE strange because the definition of "prime" is easy to understand.

My favorite explanation is this one: [https://www.irregularwebcomic.net/2339.html](https://www.irregularwebcomic.net/2339.html)

<comment><USER18> > This is why common notions like "volume is conserved" don't apply -- such > notions don't apply normally even to simpler objects like a fractal > Serpinski Sponge.

No, volume always is conserved just fine, as long as you deal with measurable pieces. Sierpinski's sponge has a well defined volume, and this volume behaves in a sensible manner. Normal sets have well defined volume.

The thing with Banach-Tarski pieces is that they cannot be assigned any volume in any sensible way. It has nothing to do with them being "jagged" or "fuzzy", but rather with their weird behavior when it comes to self-overlapping translations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Logicomix[0] is an interesting graphic novel which talks about Russell's work and life in case anybody wants to learn more

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

<comment><USER3> Logicomix is the best. I strongly second the recommendation.

This novel not only discusses the logical aspects of self-referentiality, it also goes strongly meta on it. At one point in the novel, you see the authors of the novel debating on how to best present a particular story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> My 29 member facebook group, "Reject the Axiom of Choice", will surely see a membership surge now.

<comment><USER8> You are going too far! Reject the Axiom of INFINITE Choice. Embrace the axiom of FINITE choice!

Become a Finitist (can I interest you in some pamphlets to tell you more about my religion?)

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

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Sorry Bertie, but the "sock drawer" paradox has been resolved. [https://youtu.be/_AOeL-QgDco](https://youtu.be/_AOeL-QgDco)</comment>


Dunning-Kruger and Other Memes - <AUTHOR> http://danluu.com/dunning-kruger/ <comment><USER2> I don't understand what point he is trying to make about the Dunning-Kruger effect. The only pop-sci version of the study that I've heard is that the bottom percentile tends to overestimate their abilities while the top percentile tends to underestimate their abilities. The data shown certainly seems to support this interpretation?

edit: I read the article linked in another comment below [1] and now I think I understand what claim the original article was referring to. It seems a common misunderstanding of the D-K effect is that the bottom percentile would think that they are as competent or more competent as the top percentile. However, this is not what the study says, the bottom percentile is overestimating their ability but the estimations are still relatively lower than the self- estimations of those with higher ability.

[1]: [http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the- dunning-k...](http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning- kruger-effect-is-and-isnt/)

<comment><USER3> When I read pop-sci interpretations of it (which is basically all I've ever read) my impression was that the top percentile estimate themselves as _worse_ than the lower-percentile does.

The graphs cited in the article show that the top still estimate themselves better than the lower percentile, which is new to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The author states, as regards the interpretation of the Dunning-Kruger diagrams, that

      [i]n two of the four cases, there's an obvious positive correlation between
      perceived skill and actual skill, which is the opposite of the pop-sci
      conception of Dunning-Kruger.

In my corner of the universe, you don't get to cherry-pick which pieces of data (ie "what instances of two sets of random variables") you bestow the golden twig of correlation upon. If I'm not entirely mistaken, correlation is very much a global feature, not a measure of proximity of two points on a chart.

So, yes, Dunning-Kruger (as evinced from the diagrams sported here) indeed seems to make a weaker claim: that there's _no_ correlation between "perceived ability" and "actual ability". As such, this claim is as far from the "pop-sci conception" of Dunning-Kruger as it is from the author's.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, the valuable conclusion to make from the Dunning-Kruger paper is that self assessment isn't worth a lot.

<comment><USER6> Err, no. There is clearly a pattern to the data, and drawing the conclusion that self-assessment and actual skill are uncorrelated is not what you should do (the simplified pattern being that unskilled individuals overestimate their skill, while skilled individuals underestimate theirs, or a regression to the average if you will).

At any rate, even if we don't take that into account self-assessment is worth plenty as demonstrated by many studies which manage to get coherent data from self-assessments. Sure, you should take them with a grain of salt, and you can expect biases, but no need to throw them out.

<comment><USER5> I apologize for not writing an essay carefully specifying what "worth a lot" means to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> On income/happiness:

"It's a little easier to see why people would pass along the wrong story here, since it's easy to misinterpret the data when it's plotted against a linear scale, but it's still pretty easy to see what's going on by taking a peek at the actual studies."

 __ _Googling_ __

[http://wws.princeton.edu/news-and-events/news/item/two- wws-p...](http://wws.princeton.edu/news-and-events/news/item/two-wws- professors-release-new-study-income%E2%80%99s-influence-happiness)

"People's life evaluations rise steadily with income, but the reported quality of emotional daily experience levels off at a certain income level, according to a new study by two Princeton University professors [...]"

So seemingly that has nothing to do with the scale used, but with the definition of happiness. Guess someone didn't look "at the actual study"?

</comment><comment><USER8> The author only thinks his understanding of Dunning-Kruger is better than average. No, seriously. As others have pointed out, the meme is not that actual ability and self-assessment are negatively correlated. It's just that ignorant people don't know how ignorant they are - i.e. that those at the low end of the scale overestimate their position relative to the maximum. That version is _very_ well supported by the graphs the OP cites. He has scratched the iceberg of skepticism and now thinks he's enough of an expert to tell the rest of us that we're Doing It Wrong.

<comment><USER9> This. I work with a support guy like this. He has, at best, a hobbyist's understanding of the technology we use. He tries to paint himself in meetings as this expert who often tries to correct us and says completely mind-numbing things. When discussing a fairly complex Drupal roll-out, "Oh, why even bother with this open source stuff? We can make an access database on the network shares and give people access to it! I hear it can do web now!" I've sat him down and patiently explained to him why we do these things, how they are common and best practices, etc and he just makes frowny face like I'm the one talking crazy and he doesn't seem to learn as he brings up the same suggestions over and over. Last week he was adament that a dedicated linux server for our Asterisk PBX was overkill and that WindowsXP running some windows freeware pbx on any old desktop would be better because PBXs need so little power and XP is a super lean OS.

At my previous job where I worked and managed a few young-ish support and jr devs, I came accross a lot of the same attitudes. The funny thing is that two or three years in, they tend to shed those attitudes (at least the smart ones do). They realize that this stuff is a lot bigger than the limited experience they've gotten in school or in their hobbyist projects. Suddenly the "lets toss out everything and do it my way" motor-mouting gets turned down a notch or two, especially after I let them do things "their way" once in a while only to have it explode in their faces. Hell, 90% of managing young techies is controlling their D-K until they mature into imposter syndrome. Then you have to manage that, which is a million times easier to deal because you're not being know-it-all'd to death in every meeting.

D-K is real. The graphs he points out literally supports it. Personally, I'm getting sick of this kind of uber-skeptic mentality that's popular here and on reddit. I think there's something ego gratifying for the INTJ male about being this loud-mouth contrarian who tells everyone they're wrong. Especially if its against some popular wisdom and if the argument is unusually pedantic and trivial.

<comment><USER10> _D-K is real. The graphs he points out literally supports it._

What the author says is: _In any case, the effect certainly isn't that the more people know, the less they think they know._ And he's right; the data he shows does not demonstrate that. The more talented people in those plots, at worst, think they know as much as the less talented.

What the graphs do demonstrate is that the less talented people consistently overestimate their ability, whereas the most talented people underestimate. So what's actually negatively correlated isn't actual knowledge and perceived knowledge, it's actual knowledge and the gap between actual knowledge and perceived knowledge.

In conclusion,

 _Personally, I 'm getting sick of this kind of uber-skeptic mentality that's popular here and on reddit. I think there's something ego gratifying for the INTJ male about being this loud-mouth contrarian who tells everyone they're wrong._

Um...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In "Income & Happiness" you're missing that there are two complementary definitions of happiness - "satisfaction" and "affect". Satisfaction, or how you feel about your life, is what is shown in your graphs. "Affect" is your direct emotional experience of your life. What you call "wrongness" is just a failure to distinguish between the two - more money makes increasingly smug, but (beyond a certain point) doesn't make your like any more _fun_

<comment><USER12> > more money makes increasingly smug, but (beyond a certain point) doesn't > make your like any more fun

That's not necessarily money's fault, and I'd point out that there are certainly rich people that don't fall into this category.

People who want to pursue happiness need the freedom to do so. Freedom to pursue happiness can be directly correlated with how much money, or wealth, is available to the person.

It's not money's fault that some people don't know how to be truly happy. Money simply affords freedom.

The problem is that with enough freedom and no idea how to be happy in it, you're going to end up in a worse place than if you didn't have the money in the first place.

Money doesn't automatically make people smug and funless (new word?). People make people smug and funless (when they have the freedom and inclination to (unintentionally(?)) do so).

<comment><USER13> I believe what he meant by money making a person increasingly smug was perhaps that (Western) society holds the expectation that the amount of money a person controls is directly proportional to their overall success or fulfilment in life. This is not always the case but it does create the expectation that a person with money should represent themselves or think of themselves as more successful. This attitude is often interpreted (often correctly) as smugness given that it is rather the opposite of humbly acknowledging the fruits of work or fortune.

Happiness means many things to many people. For some, work itself brings them joy whether or not it results in earning a great deal of money e.g. charitable work. For others it is close relationship with their family, a situation that increased wealth often worsens. Many work their entire lives without recognition or compensation to pursue art, giving up comfortable or successful lives and careers in pursuit of something that, more often than not, they are the only ones who see value in. Religious or aesthetic devotions have perhaps the longest history of eschewing wealth and what most would consider a normal life.

As a society, I think that we are beginning to understand the faults in our current model of a successful life and so we've been seeing more of a trend towards simplifying our lives to make room for these other generators of happiness. We are starting to see that the freedom of money is not the same as the freedom from money.

<comment><USER12> Good points. I've definitely noticed in my own life a pressure to act like I have money. Personally I think the Diderot effect is partly to blame.

I also agree that we seem to be reaching a better understanding of happiness, thought it's still very fragile and may not last.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My personal responses to these are interesting.

The first three I was all like "yes! So glad someone articulate is finally saying this".

Then for type systems I was unable to overcome my current biases, thinking "what a load of tosh! Type systems are obviously a good thing".

Makes me wonder what it would actually take to break the Dunning-Kruger meme

<comment><USER15> You can still say type systems are obviously a good thing (I do too!). But you, sadly, can't say this is supported by scientific studies. It's an opinion based on your own personal experience.

The good news is that this opinion doesn't contradict evidence either! The research just isn't there yet. Some of research I've seen so far is pretty bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Here's a more detailed analysis of what the original Dunning-Kruger article supports and what it fails to support: [http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the- dunning-k...](http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning- kruger-effect-is-and-isnt/)

Key quote:

 _" I suspect we find this sort of explanation compelling because it appeals to our implicit just-world theories: we'd like to believe that people who obnoxiously proclaim their excellence at X, Y, and Z must really not be so very good at X, Y, and Z at all, and must be (over)compensating for some actual deficiency; it's much less pleasant to imagine that people who go around shoving their (alleged) superiority in our faces might really be better than us at what they do.

Unfortunately, Kruger and Dunning never actually provided any support for this type of just-world view; their studies categorically didn't show that incompetent people are more confident or arrogant than competent people."_

<comment><USER17> It's also worth pointing out that you almost never see people bringing up Dunning-Kruger to say that they might be over estimating their own understanding of a topic. It's almost always used as evidence that those that disagree with them are ignorant; that it's a study that only says something about their opponents, not themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> people on the internet misunderstanding a paper? Might that be because 99% of them don't have access to read the thing, since it's suck behind a paywall?

and to end a post about a paper people can't read with "Maybe I'm being naive here, but I think a major reason behind false memes is that checking sources sounds much harder and more intimidating than it actually is." \-- that's just rubbing it in!

<comment><USER19> I find just reading the abstract of a paper is usually enough to debunk the nonsense claims people are claiming it proves.

<comment><USER20> What if they're the ones who've read the full paper while you haven't?

<comment><USER19> Then they'll be able to back up their claims.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> m_y-n_a_m_e I liked Tal Yarkoni's blog post on Dunning-Kruger [http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the- dunning-k...](http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning- kruger-effect-is-and-isnt/) \- even David Dunning posted a comment

</comment><comment><USER21> All: please avoid gratuitous negativity in Hacker News discussions.

Angry venting against someone you think wrong is gratuitous negativity. So are generic dismissals like "This whole article is just a bag of fail."

If you think someone is wrong, please say why substantively, or say nothing.

<comment><USER22> "All: Please avoid generic criticism"

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Scientific reporting _sucks_ , even in quality media that take it seriously. If I had money I'd pay a select group of bloggers to write about how a popular bit of science has been misreported and then colate links to those on some central site.

A bit like Behind the Headlines, but about any science and by a wide range of science bloggers.

[http://www.nhs.uk/news/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx](http://www.nhs.uk/news/Pages/NewsIndex.aspx)

<comment><USER24> One of Norway's biggest bloggers is a guy named Tjomlid[1]. His blog is "skeptical", as in he looks into various things circulating in the media and either backs it up or debunks it.

When media says "X causes cancer", he comes with a level headed blog-post explaining the data. When anti-vaxxers point to a study, he shows that they have misinterpreted it, etc.

Unfortunately, it's in Norwegian. I'm interested in reading more in this vein, so please let me know if you have good, English resources.

[1]: [http://tjomlid.com/](http://tjomlid.com/)

<comment><USER25> Ben Goldacre writes some interesting stuff: [http://www.badscience.net/about- dr-ben-goldacre/](http://www.badscience.net/about-dr-ben-goldacre/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Good article.

However, I disagree with his interpretation of Dunning and Kruger's figures. There is limited data in those figures of course (3 sets with 12 points of data and 1 set with 8 points), and I don't know how big the actual sample sizes were. But in all 4 cases, it clearly and significantly shows that people with low actual ability overrate themselves and people with high actual ability underrate themselves.

> The pop-sci version of Dunning-Kruger is that, the less someone knows about > a subject, the more they think they know.

I can only guess that he is interpreting that too literally. I always took the latter part as "the more they think they know [compared to what they actually do]". You could plot "perceived - actual" or "perceived / actual" instead of the figures in the paper to make it more obvious.

<comment><USER27> > But in all 4 cases, it clearly and significantly shows that people with low > actual ability overrate themselves and people with high actual ability > underrate themselves.

I read the data quite differently. I read that people don't use the full scale when rating themselves. The self rating scale goes from 60 to 90. If you correct for that, people kind of seem to do a nice job in self evaluation.

It can be explained, too. People have social pressure not to rate themselves near 100%, nor in the bottom half of the scale.

<comment><USER5> Presumably the plots represent averages. This hides the actual ranges of the reported self assessments, but it is likely that there is substantial overlap between adjacent test score groups. Just curving out the scale isn't going to address that.

<comment><USER27> True. Without knowing how are values distributed around the average, my observation that people do good self-assessments is poorly justified. Worse, a reduction in scale introduces worse granularity, so the end result is guaranteedly less precise. My observation is on the formality level of back of napkin calculations (i.e. it may be true, given the information provided, but is not proven true)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I always sucked at stats, so can someone clarify the income / hapiness case. From what I understand, we have :

* a straight line on a log scale - which _is_ misleading, since the man on the street is used to straight lines on linear scales - telling that money buys happiness

* a "log-like" graph on a _linear_ scale, which tells you that "money buys happiness a lot at the start, and then it doesn't change things a lot" \- and the graph uses a linear scale on both axis, so there is less deformation.

What am I missing ?

<comment><USER29> People are making the claim that money buys happiness _up to a certain number_ and then stops.

But there is no inflection point. 10% more money always buys you the same amount of happiness.

Nothing makes $75k the point where you have 'enough' money as opposed to $5k. 75 million is just as far ahead of 5 million (at least if it continues to be logarithmic).

<comment><USER28> That's where I'm lost.

10% more money is much more money when you're rich than when you're poor (Captain obvious to the rescue.)

So if you want to make me 10% more happy, that's going to cost you a lot more actual dollars / euros / yuan / whatever ; and the last 10$ are going to make me less "happier" (in absolute) than the first 10$.

Considering people don't buy stuff in percentage of their salaries, but in absolute dollars (if i'm not mistaken), isn't that a case where the absolute / relative difference is relevant ?

I'm pretty sure I'm having a stats 101-level argument, and there is something obvious that I'm missing, so please forgive and educate ;)

<comment><USER30> So the point is that 10% more money always makes you a certain amount happier.

People trot this out and say "look, once you have a certain amount of money you don't get happier by having more!"

Why should dollars buy happiness the same way they buy gumballs? It doesn't make any sense.

The first gallon of water you have every day is pretty freaking valuable. The 1000th gallon of water you have every day is just about worthless unless you're a farmer.

In engineering we use log-log charts to look at how systems respond to a HUGE range of inputs from the very, very slow to the very, very fast. Like filters. You want to know how it looks from 1Hz to 1GHz in a useful way. This is generally done with a Bode plot which is log on both x and y. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bode_plot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bode_plot)

If your plot covers several orders of magnitude (and income is many orders of magnitude) then the most informative way to understand it is by compressing it via logarithm. Here's a good example only on the Y since the company is growing X% per year.

[http://blogs- images.forbes.com/naomirobbins/files/2012/01/li...](http://blogs- images.forbes.com/naomirobbins/files/2012/01/linear_log.jpg)

<comment><USER28> > Why should dollars buy happiness the same way they buy gumballs? It doesn't > make any sense.

Which is _precisely_ the point of the old "money does not buy happiness" adage, isn't it ?

Science that says "This 1000ths gallon of water is gonna be as good as worthless" seems to favor the point rather than oppose it.

I don't know if "happinness == gumballs" would make "sense" to anyone (I personnaly doubt it), but that's the subtext of a lot of messages in a consumer society (and we're leaving the realm of maths from the realm of politics. Stats 101 vs PolSci 101, all over again, I know, sorry.)

As for your graphs, what I was saying is precisely that, unless you've been trained to read graphs (and most people are not), you're going to be "fooled" more easily by the second one, won't you ?

<comment><USER30> > Which is precisely the point of the old "money does not buy happiness" > adage, isn't it ?

Not the way I read it, really. If money doesn't buy happiness, then the graph should be _completely flat_ right? Or at the very least a uniformly distributed scatter plot? But it doesn't really seem to look that way. While I suspect that there's some truth to the adage, it's definitely not absolute.

> Science that says "This 1000ths gallon of water is gonna be as good as > worthless" seems to favor the point rather than oppose it.

That's not the point. The point is that as you have more of a thing, it takes more to move the needle. EVERYTHING has decreasing marginal utility, and money does too. But I don't think the marginal utility of money ever becomes zero, or goes negative. Do you think that? If so, please start sending me your money so that you can be happier!

Here's a great example for you. Raises are nearly always percentages right? Why not just give everyone a $100 a year raise? I mean, that $100 is supposed to be the same to everyone, isn't it? 10% more money increases your happiness approximately the same, no matter what number that 10% increase is applied to.

> As for your graphs, what I was saying is precisely that, unless you've been > trained to read graphs (and most people are not), you're going to be > "fooled" more easily by the second one, won't you ?

I think that if you want to understand the way a system works across many orders of magnitude the only way to do so without fooling yourself is to look at a log/log plot. If you don't, only the most extreme change on the plot shows up and all the rest gets compressed into a "straight" line by the vagaries of turning an infinitely variable thing into a finite set of pixels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I don't get his part on Dunning-Kruger. Where is the "obvious" correlation? Why doesn't he specify which figures he's talking about?

Each figure shows how the bottom quartile is overestimating their ability. And that's exactly what people call the Dunning-Kruger effect.

<comment><USER32> What a gazillion pop-sci articles and blog posts suggest is that there is actually a negative correlation between self-assessment and performance -- i.e., that the higher people rate themselves, the worse they will perform. Looking at the graph we can see that while poor performers overestimate their performance relative to reality, there is still a positive correlation between performance and self-assessment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Looks like only people in the 3rd quartile are any good at estimating performance, and so perhaps they should immediately all become project managers?! :)

</comment><comment><USER34> Oh, it makes me so happy to see this. I have to cringe whenever I hear or see "Dunning-Kruger" these days.

</comment><comment><USER33> I think there's an error in the blog post, because the 4th graph is the same as the 3rd.

It should probably be [http://danluu.com/images/dunning- kruger/dunning_4.png](http://danluu.com/images/dunning-kruger/dunning_4.png) which shows a positive correlation for "perceived logical reasoning ability and test performance". That then helps explain the statement "In two of the four cases, there's an obvious positive correlation between perceived skill and actual skill".

</comment><comment><USER6> This looks like a very uncharitable interpretation of the pop version of Dunning-Krugger. For one, people who use an explanation like that pretty much always talk about unskilled individuals in particular. I might be projecting but it seems like a more charitable interpretation of what they are saying would be 'The less someone knows about a subject, the more they [overestimate what] they know' which is roughly correct.

</comment><comment><USER35> Without commenting on the various claims about memes in this article, I can offer a hypothesis on the closing paragraphs: the most obvious reason why misinterpreted science is much more commonly seen is that sharing an unsupported meme takes far less time and effort (~few clicks) than finding the research paper and reading it, so we would anticipate seeing a lot more of the former.

The pithy version is "a lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on", with thanks to Pratchett.

<comment><USER36> > the most obvious reason why misinterpreted science is much more commonly > seen is that sharing an unsupported meme takes far less time and effort > (~few clicks) than finding the research paper and reading it

I think your comment contains a highly recursive component:

[http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/)

<comment><USER35> I'm aware that it has history. The version I quoted is Pratchett's ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Regarding the "Income & Happiness" section the following section of a talk by Will Self comes to mind, on quantifying people's happiness and feelings: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFNOWnklxAA&t=7m00s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFNOWnklxAA&t=7m00s)

</comment><comment><USER38> The tendency of poorly-informed people to misunderstand the Dunning-Kruger Effect appears to be a clear example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect

<comment><USER39> Indeed, in that the typical usage of DK among the poorly informed is just "hey, I can accuse people of being too misinformed to realize it, without actually refuting their argument, all because I can cite a paper".

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> It would be ironic if the author overestimates his interpretation of the Dunning-Kruger study...

</comment><comment><USER41> The fourth image on the DK effect is identical to the third. Copy-pasted link, maybe.

</comment><comment><USER42> Looks like I should consider moving to Brazil.

</comment><comment><USER43> looks like a troll article to me.

</comment><comment><USER44> He's more right than most people are on the Dunning-Kruger effect. What it actually tells us is that self-assessed competence estimates carry low signal: the correlation is almost zero. This might be a regular, pointwise regression to the mean, or it might be an artifact of the aggregation (i.e. it could be that some people are great self-estimators but others are way off the mark).

What Dunning-Kruger tells us is that, with regard to certain abilities and especially social skills, people are bad guessers of their own competence and that most people think of themselves as slightly above average.

I think that he's also somewhat right on money vs. happiness. Self-reported happiness is not the same thing as actual happiness. You might rate yourself a "7" at two times of life, but be behaviorally different. Your "7" when you are poor might be, "commute sucked, but no one yelled at me at work today"; but when you're rich, it might mean "hotel is nice, but staff forgot to fold the toilet paper into a triangle". Self-reported contentment is the same, but stress levels and behavioral measures of happiness are very different. It is true that after $75k per person, other factors have more of an effect on happiness than money itself. You have to account for cost of living and family size, of course.

Then there are job quality issues. A writer who reliably makes $100k per year is a smashing success; a professor earning that, at 40, is more than respectable; but someone who's a "Software Engineer II", making that, at age 40 is a failure. I think that success is much more strongly correlated to happiness than income. People with Harvard MBAs making $250k per year are often the most miserable people on earth, while famous artists who make a fraction of that often love their lives.

His relating this to type systems is a bit silly. You can't put all "static typing" languages in the same bucket. Java's static typing is a hindrance with little power. Haskell's static typing is extremely effective-- if you know how to use it. Also, quality of the engineers matters more than the language itself: I'd much rather work on a disciplined Clojure or Ruby team than a sloppy Scala team that's still using Java patterns. If it is properly used, a Haskell-like type system can make code quality very high indeed. That said, most businesses aren't willing to budget the time for quality code, and that's a language-independent problem.

<comment><USER45> The income graph strongly suggests to me that increased happiness scales with the _proportionate_ increase in income, rather than the absolute increase in raw dollars. That is to say, a 20% raise will increase everybody's happiness roughly equally, regardless of the absolute magnitude of the raise (eg, $10k for someone earning $50k/year and $100k for someone earning $500k/year).

This probably has to do less with the utility of the money itself and more with psychological positive reinforcement ("I'm smart and successful and my boss recognizes that") as well as increasing the person's relative social status. I've read that, given the choice, people will prefer to (for example) earn $70k while their peer group earns $50k, as opposed to earning $100k while the peer group earns $150k. Income is an indicator of social status and is largely valued relative to the rest of your social cohort.

Interestingly, the Japanese are said to be more efficient because their corporations tend to award social status directly to "salarymen" (sic) rather than indirectly through differential wages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I've always thought the Dunning-Kruger meme went: "The less you know about a given subject, the more you think you know, and vice versa", which I don't think is disputed by those graphs.

It's just saying that people tend to overestimate their knowledge of a subject when they are under-educated and tend to underestimate their knowledge of a subject when they are over-educated.

Of course, the study participants were asked to give their own estimates. What they were actually thinking of their abilities is a matter of debate that would need a more clever study to deduce.

<comment><USER32> How is that not disputed by those graphs? While there is distortion at both ends (particularly the lower end), it nevertheless shows self-assessment is positively correlated with ability.</comment></comment>


Saudi Arabia is trying to move beyond oil to become an industrial power - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/business/worldbusiness/20saudi.html?ex=1358485200&en=74dc77fb5d38b9a7&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> The head of CMU's Robotics Institute made the transition to Dean of the CMU Qatar campus during my time there.

It was interesting to hear about the efforts the emirate was making towards becoming a western country. They have $8M/citizen in natural gas. To put it bluntly: that's fucking insane.

They are paying major US universities, the "best in field", to setup colleges in their areas. Georgetown on political science, Texas A&M for engineering, CMU for business & computer science, etc.

<http://www.qf.edu.qa>

What an excellent use of the ridiculous amount of wealth.

For Saudi Arabia, my intuition is they will never be a real industrial power while half the population lives as second-class citizens (not counting the migrant laborers who could only be considered, err..., third class citizens). It still blows my mind that women can't drive.

<comment><USER3> I still don't know if this will work for them. What matters most is the incentive structure for the students; and I don't think anyone can just engineer it correctly.

<comment><USER2> I'd prefer they build universities over palaces or 7 star hotels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> \-- "What an excellent use of the ridiculous amount of wealth."

True. But keep in mind that real talent in any given society is limited. One thing that has made USA such a great technological powerhouse, is the ability to attract talent from all the corners of the world.

I just don't see Saudi Arabia being able to atract talent at that rate, unless they evolve from their medieval thinking.

<comment><USER5> Money talks.

<comment><USER6> The intangible anti-benefits of living in a dark-ages theocracy are probably worth a lot of negative money, especially to creative-thinker types.

Witness, on the other end of the scale, how much people are willing to pay for a crappy loft in SF (or, even more so, Manhattan!).

<comment><USER5> You're talking about young 20-somethings. But consider older people with children. These Gulf countries are (and have always been, but moreso now) willing to pay a lot of money (tax free) along with a boatload of benefits to experienced westerners who would work with them. It's hard to turn that down when you have children who one day will go to private American universities, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A bit of trivia: A good friend of mine designed one of those new cities, and my cofounder is over in Riyadh at the moment coding. (He mentioned how boring it is there)

</comment><comment><USER8> Whether or not they make it as an industrial power, at least the Saudis are investing for the future instead of squandering their petrodollars like some other resource rich countries, eg. Chavez's rampant spending in Venezuela.</comment>


Intentionally unprofessional: Design techniques that could backfire - <AUTHOR> http://matchstrike.net/strikepad/2010/01/intentionally-unprofessional-design-techniques-that-could-backfire/

<comment><USER2> This isn't exactly the same type of thing the article talks about, but it drives me crazy when I see sites with subtly cut off drop shadows. The sharp edge catch my eye and it drives me crazy.</comment>