There's no good reason for Apple to kill the headphone jack - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/charged-tech/you-can-pry-my-headphone-jack-from-my-cold-dead-hands-f2ee9807e431#.m48fy2r41 <comment><USER2> One of the things that I like about the 3.5mm jack is that it's ubiquitous. I unplug them from my PC, plug into my phone, then into a tablet...

I have no prior experience on wireless headsets. How well does pairing work when there are multiple devices? I haven't had a good experience with other gadgets in the past; I used to dualboot my PC, but pairing my Bluetooth mouse with one OS automatically unlinked it from the other OS.

I don't know if it's just a bugged device or if that's what is supposed to happen. If it's the latter case, I wouldn't see any advantages for wireless headphones over 3.5mm, at least in my case.

EDIT: Typos.

<comment><USER3> As a big music listener, my biggest qualm with wireless headphones is having an RF transmitter so close to my brain for so long...

Prepared to be downvoted for this, however the cell phone studies that show possible brain impact involve a phone strapped to your head. RF of course decreases with the square of the distance. And the typical recommendations for mitigation involve using and keeping the phone away from your head (or gonads as well, for the heat and possible RF effects)

<comment><USER4> Here's a Wikipedia page that might clear some things up: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non- ionizing_radiation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have never had a bad experience with Bluetooth.

I don't use wired headphones anymore, wireless is just better for running.

That said -- I oppose eliminating this jack. My hearing disabled father relies on it for his custom monaural earpiece.

Why eliminate such a functional port in the first place? As someone who took the MacBook plunge USB-C is a pain in the ass.

<comment><USER6> I am just curious to know why USB-C is a pain in the ass?

The connectors are sturdy with no delicate parts like micro USB, most USB-C are USB 3 (or 3.1) with faster bandwidth and it's reversible.

<comment><USER7> The problem that the grandparent has is probably not with USB-C itself, but with the Retina MacBook having only one USB port and literally nothing else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd be totally OK with Apple producing a slightly thicker phone that is 1) Easier to hold 2) Doesn't bend in your pocket 3) Has a headphone jack 4) Has more room inside for a larger battery 5) Has more room inside for a SD reader

<comment> k-mcgrady >> " a slightly thicker phone that is 1) Easier to hold"

This isn't necessarily true. You might be able to get a better grip on a bigger phone - if your hands are large enough. Personally these large screened phones (and I have the smaller of the two iPhone models) are too large for me. If I put a case on it actually makes it more difficult and impossible to use one handed. If they were to make it slightly thinner (I don't know how possible it is at this stage) it would be easier for me to hold as the difference between case/no case, despite being only a few millimetres is actually pretty significant.

<comment><USER9> Consider the SE. On the inside, it's a 6+; on the outside, it's a 5s. I'm finding it very comfortable, and perhaps you might as well.

Oh, and it has a headphone jack, too.

<comment> k-mcgrady I have been considering it actually. I'm still not 100% decided though. I'm going to see if they continue to keep it updated and if they do I might switch when my contract runs out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Not to mention wired headphones work even if there are 200 people in the room with the same headphones.

200 is a large number, even a number as low as 10 in your immediate vicinity causes trouble. Use your microwave oven? Too bad.

(Owner of wonderful wireless qc35's - still use wires)

<comment><USER11> Yup, this. I worked in a shared office space for about a year and my bluetooth headphones were unusable for the entire time. We also had massive problems with bluetooth trackpads/keyboards disconnecting all the time.

Once we got our own office, all these problems went away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Of course there is. They want to shove iTunes DRM down your throat. They can't do that with standard headphone jacks. But with their own solution, nothing is stopping them from allowing only headphones with built-in DRM.

<comment><USER13> What?

<comment> TD-Linux No joke, Intel's new type-C USB Audio spec (why a new USB Audio spec is needed is beyond me) includes provisions for DRM. [http://www.anandtech.com/show/10273/intel-proposes-to-use- us...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/10273/intel-proposes-to-use-usb-typec- cables-to-connect-headsets-to-mobile-devices)

<comment><USER14> That's kind of pointless when analog adaptors are available, though, isn't it? It can only prevent copying of the _digital_ stream, which is nothing new.

<comment><USER15> I think the expectation is that analog adapters will identify as such and programs will be able to specify that they only work with playback devices (speakers, headphones) not analog adapters.

We of course know aftermarket adapters won't care and you will always be able to hack apart headphones to extract the the analog signal.

I don't think DRM is a primary goal though it's just something you include because rights holders will occasionally demand it and if you offer it you open a few content doors for your platform. It doesn't matter if it works really.

<comment><USER14> But Bluetooth analog adapters exist as well (to retrofit wireless audio to older stereo systems etc) - I use one all the time. It's just too easy to dump audio output with minimal effort.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I bought a pair of Bluetooth headphones the other day. Was really excited to have a slick new headset to replace my $3 earbuds & mic combo that I'm using on my PS4.

Turns out PS4 doesn't support Bluetooth. Just the 3.5mm jack.

Oh well, I guess I can use them at work. I whipped em out, paired em up to the Bluetooth on my laptop, and they paired up fine.

Unfortunately, they didn't show up in the list of default devices for sound output or microphone input.

An hour of googling, a new set of driver downloads, re-pairing, this time WITH the extra settings under the advanced menu checked off...

Still don't work. I can't afford to burn any more time on this. 3.5mm at the office it is.

Maybe they work on my phone (Android) ... They do.

It's actually really nice to have no wires between me and my music while at the gym. No worries about the phone call g out of my pocket while doing decline bench press, no annoyance about the phone getting in the way during a deadlift or clean & press (because it can sit on the floor!)

They were about 2 - 3 time more expensive than my regular headphones. Are annoying to charge, and only work in 1/3 of the places I need headphones.

But for the gym, they're not horrible.

Oh! And they're too damned loud with no volume control. I have my phone volume set to 1 and these things are still louder than I'd like.

Anyways, that's a long way of saying I tend towards agreeing with the article.

<comment><USER17> > Unfortunately, they didn't show up in the list of default devices for sound > output or microphone input.

Window 10?

<comment><USER16> My work computer is 7, haven't tried at home

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> New bluetooth is great. It used to be shitty, but my galaxy s6 pairs perfectly with my car every time. no complaints

<comment><USER19> Until you try it with a device that doesn't work.

<comment><USER20> Until you do something that doesn't work? What kind of argument is that? Just 1. turn it on 2. hold down the power button to connect and 3. pair the final device up to it, no password needed. That's a 10 second process.

<comment><USER19> The example given was bluetooth being great because it works well in the OP's car car. One device.

I have tried bluetooth speakers in my flat on. Works fine on two Linux machines. Doesn't work at all on the other. Connects to the windows machine but isn't actually usable as the music skips so frequently. If I have only tried it on the first device I may have came to the same conclusion as you. Fact is bluetooth isn't especially reliable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This sounds to be 5 years out of date.

My Plantronics bluetooth headset works and pairs fine, ten quid. I also have some Bluetooth earphones (Vansky), it has issues but for the most part works really well impressive for fifteen quid.

I got fed up with wires. My main issue is with losing the ear bud gromits, I thought this was going to be an article about the audio quality; not a dyspeptic rant.

<comment><USER22> Feel that the last sentence in the article was the main reason for writing it:

> _I love my shitty Apple headphones that just plug in to anything._

Bluetooth is not ubiquitous _yet_

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> How do you "unplug" bluetooth headphones from one device and plug them into another?

<comment><USER24> > How do you "unplug" bluetooth headphones from one device and plug them into > another?

With difficulty, hence all the stories you hear of people accidentally blasting porn audio over their living room speakers while they think they're in the privacy of their bath/bedroom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It's standard to pair with NFC today. Just tap your headphones on your phone and they're paired.

Example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Aqr4fskGxA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Aqr4fskGxA)

</comment><comment><USER26> What about noise cancelling earphones ? their size really benefits from an external power source - which is in a standard format - so less lock-in games we see in android), they already have a chip inside - so theoretically the new headphone connector shouldn't make them much more expensive, and maybe there's a possibility of co-processing the noise cancelling algorithm on the phone .

Couple that with ,maybe, Apple starting a technology war on that front(and we already see few rivals pre-attack, like leEco, Samsung, Sony) could be a beneficial thing for us.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree powered peripherals are an awesome improvement, but why sacrifice the universal standard at the same time? Both can co-exist, no?

<comment><USER27> They can co-exist, but this is a control issue. USB connections to external devices deprecated to rely on proprietary services; replacing non-replaceable batteries creates reliance on 3rd party services; absence of expandable storage encourages hardware deprecation and high margin internal options; lack of physical keyboard... IDK why, despite my need I am consistently reminded I don't really want it. All these _improvents_ take control away, create future revenue streams, obfuscate the mundane and, best of all, deliver wafer-thin slabs that are a short drop away from replacent hardware. This is why I am waiting on parts to revive my nokia n900(again).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I used to hate Bluetooth as well and my prior experiences have been exactly like the author described. However a few months ago I took the bold step of buying a pair of Power Beats. And I use them with my SONY Walkman. I was pleasantly surprised when the whole setup just worked out of the box and the SONY and the Beats were able to communicate. Hooray.

However this still doesn't eliminate the wires. The beats have a cable between them which annoyingly sticks to the back of my neck when I turn my head and unplugs either ear. Almost as annoying as my original wired head plugs.

And then there's the recharging, which isn't big of a deal of itself but ofc after the recharging I have to reconnect the devices. And obv there's the occasional glitch that it doesn't work the first time and I have to redo it and then it works on the second time.

Anyway, even if Apple does in fact remove the ubiquitous 3.5 mm stereo jack I'm sure plenty of people will bitch and moan _and_ still buy it. Such are the fanboys (;

</comment><comment><USER29> Of course there is; so they can make a killing on the peripherals market.

</comment><comment><USER30> Hmm this could lose them a large chunk of the audiophile/music lovers market (though they may be losing that anyway). A lot of top quality headphones don't have removable wires and carrying an adapter is a pain. Why choose Apple anymore when you've brilliant music phones like the HTC 10, LG V10 and vivo xplay 5 kicking around.

<comment><USER31> By buying Beats, they've already shown that they don't care about the audiophile market... There's not many worse sounding headphones in their price ranges.

The serious audiophile market though already has headphone amps and will just buy one that connects directly to the lightning connector.

<comment><USER30> Hmm with phones like the HTC 10 and LG V10 coming with built in amps there's a number of folk saving external amp/dac for home builds and using top music phones for on the go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Apple's bluetooth has such a high failure rate on laptops, IMO, it simply doesn't work. After trying to get it to work in multiple locations with multiple laptops over multiple years, it's clear to me that Apple does not have the capability to deliver working bluetooth on its laptops (at least one that works with audio for longer than a few seconds at a time). Which makes the push that much more of an asshole move on their part. They've had years to come up with a fix for their bluetooth (and RF and WiFi) and have failed, yet now they're trying to push a technology they're not even competent in.

This is like buying blood testing kits from Theranos at this point. And that's before you start to get to the problems addressed in this article.

</comment><comment><USER33> I have owned maybe seven bluetooth capable device and hosts of bluetooth audio devices. I have not had a single one that I would consider working. Random disconnects, issues pairing, and static interference.

I don't know how anyone uses bluetooth in any serious manner.

</comment><comment><USER34> It's already been leaked that Apple will bundle a Lightning-to-3.5mm adapter with the phone. Most users will stick it on the headphone jack and forget about it.

(PS I'm not saying removing the headphone jack is a good idea).

<comment><USER35> So right back to the days of shitty manufacturer connectors (I know USB-C isn't custom) with shitty, vastly overpriced, converters.

There's a world of difference between a 3.5 jack with about 10mm of plug sticking out the phone and 2" of dangling point of failure, sorry, adaptor snagging every single time you pull the thing from pocket.

Happy memories of Sony Ericcson and Motorola feature phones.

<comment><USER7> Also, how are you supposed to listen to music while the phone is charging?

<comment><USER36> I can only imagine the answer will be "another accessory".

<comment><USER7> Great, so after the Retina MacBook, we have the next Apple device with only one port that is to be operated with a ridiculous daisy chain of connectors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I have a pair of nice headphones at work. (Sony mdr v6). They sound great and I don't want to replace them.

There are 2 things the plug does for me, 1) allows me to easily switch between using my computer for audio or my phone. Prevents my computer from making noise that might bother my officemates (auto play if I forget to turn the volume down)

Also isn't there a smaller/thinner 2.5mm headphone jack? I had a phone with headphones for that (Nokia?)

</comment><comment><USER38> I haven't had significant problems with bluetooth in about four years. Also his steps:

Unbox Bluetooth headphones. Try to put them in pairing mode. Can't figure out how to get in pairing mode. Open Settings -> Bluetooth on phone. Wait for headphones to show up.

Should have "read the instructions" at step one. I know few people believe this but the manufacturer often knows a lot about getting their product to work out of the box.

</comment><comment><USER39> I believe the reason is so they can make them thinner.

</comment><comment><USER40> I've heard it makes waterproofing easier.</comment>


How I Data Mined the top 300 paids apps to create Tehula's icon - <AUTHOR> http://friggeri.net/blog/data-mining-color-analysis-tehula-icon/ <comment><USER2> For a self-identified "data scientist", this is a pretty naive approach to "finding out what worked for others". The methodology doesn't distinguish in any way between "colors that help make apps successful" and "colors that are just used often by everybody".

It could be that _there really are_ some colors that will help an app to be successful in the app store, but without comparing the data from successful apps with that from a control group, there is no way to identify them. If the goal is simply to make an icon that wouldn't look out of place in the top 300, this is a good formula. But that doesn't strike me as a very interesting problem.

<comment><USER3> I'm the "self-identified data scientist". I agree that there are quite a few holes in my analysis, but I was not aiming for an actual increase in sales just by designing the icon this way. I however wanted to have an icon which looked good enough and could blend in, at least from a color point of view.

So I guess it might not be an interesting problem to you, but I actually had quite some fun thinking about it. Which is the most important for a side project, right? ;)

<comment><USER4> Confused about the blending in part. One of my biggest gripes is continually missing an app icon because it's blue (or otherwise similar to another, but generally blue). We just had a conversation in a similar thread the other day - "Make Your App Icons Boring" - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4219164>

You also don't show the icon at the small size that we'd see on our devices. Does it translate well?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you want to develop camouflage then this would be a good way to go about doing it. If you want to develop a brand identity that stands out, this is _precisely_ the wrong way.

</comment><comment><USER6> _Distribution of hues of the aggregate of colors present in the top 300 iOS apps icons._

What would be more interesting is if this were compared to the distribution of hues in a large collection of _unsuccessful_ apps too. If the histograms were somewhat similar, then the hue is probably of little significance.

</comment><comment><USER7> Funny enough, the same two colours dominating movie posters lately: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4279845>. Teal and orange: [http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.ca/2010/03/teal-and-orange- hol...](http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.ca/2010/03/teal-and-orange-hollywood- please-stop.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Couldn't you argue that _not_ having the most widely used color would be a great differentiator for your app? People have been complaining for the longest time how pages and pages of apps on their iPhone are just pure blue icons. Why be another blue icon lost in a sea of iPhone apps?

</comment><comment><USER9> I can't comment on approach or validity, etc. I do have one observation though, the icon looks masculine. I would either make it androgynous or add a feminine addition to the icon so that people don't pigeon hole it as a "guy's" app or something like that.

</comment><comment><USER10> Remember when data mining used to mean 3 000 000 records....

<comment><USER11> In some ways, a smaller data set is harder to deal with than a larger one. For example, the surprising effectiveness of Bayesian statistical analysis is mostly due to the huge amount of data you have to throw at it.

<comment><USER10> On the other hand, with 300 records you can grab a pad and a pencil, and manually tick blue, yellow, blue...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So, starting from an icon that was 90% designed, the OP determined what colors to use from looking at popular app icons.

<comment><USER13> I was kind of disappointed as well. I would love to see a much more complex approach to this same title.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> In the words of Neven Mrgan, "Huh. You made the app icon _blue_? Interesting choice…"

</comment><comment><USER15> Oh, it's blue. I seem to be the only one bothered by it but starting any iOS or OS X device for the first time bombards you with a lot of blue icons. I'm starting to equate blue icons with brown video games, more of the same.

</comment><comment><USER16> Interesting, but did you compare with the colors used by plain non-top apps?

</comment><comment><USER17> Just a nitpick unrelated to the content:

First sentence of the article has a grammatical problem, "lets the user ask _there_ friends". Bugged me, so I thought I'd let you know.

</comment><comment><USER18> Aside from anything else, really? Your app allows a user to send regular, scheduled text messages to friends saying "Where are you?" so that you get the benefit of knowing where they are? That sounds horrible for the recipients of these messages that I effectively have no way to opt out of, without telling my friend to knock it off. I could choose to ignore the request, sure, with the potential for passive-aggressive drama to follow.

What are the use cases for this app that "Hey, where are you?" won't suffice for? "Here, click on this link and I'll see, on a map, verified by your phone - and this website will also get to know."

</comment><comment><USER19> Good job. My thought is after Facebook came to limelight, most of the icons are made in cyan-blue. No wonder your result, as well as your icon is towards that.

</comment><comment><USER20> So you data mined the color? That's a little underwhelming ... from the title I thought you meant the shape...!

</comment><comment><USER21> Boring icon. Oh, all iphons app's icons are boring.</comment>


Do It Yourself Masters in Financial Engineering - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hiremebecauseimsmart.com/post/2860511335/design-your-own-mfe <comment><USER2> """But you pay someone to indoctrinate you with exactly the same methods and formulae that all of your competitors are using. Then you expect to come to not just a different conclusion, but a market-beating conclusion? That just sounds dumb."""

Counter argument: Creativity entails not only novelty (that outside the box stuff) but also utility, and in order to be useful, it has to go above-and- beyond what is already known (that inside the box stuff). It's about embracing what's been done before, because it's practice that gives us the capacity to build on the old ideas to make the new.

If you never venture outside the box, you will probably not be creative. But if you never get inside the box, you will certainly be stupid.

<comment><USER3> The question is, once you get in, how do you get out?

<comment><USER4> I think the answer to that question is genius and hard work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> DIY Financial Engineering:

1\. Sign up for an Interactive Brokers account; state that you want to trade options.

2\. Transfer >25K (day-trading capability) or whatever is reasonable amount money for you. Enough for you to care about but not over the amount where if you lost it all, you'd lose sleep over.

3\. Now use the highest/lowest volatility scanner and buy/sell some options randomly in that list; max out your real cash to accumulate positions (do not go on margin).

4\. Now figure out what the fuck you just did and how much money you are going to lose. This is the most important step, nothing motivates you to learn security analysis, risk management, Black-Scholes/Bionomial Tree option pricing, post-transaction cost analysis than the threat of losing your money.

5\. If you get over step 4, then you probably have a strategy that turn over 7% monthly, or turn over 100% annually. Now automate it as much as you can with IB API.

<comment><USER6> DIY Financian Engineering Lite Edition (TM)

1\. Go to Las Vegas

2\. Transfer >25K in chips (high-roller capability), or whatever is reasonable amount of money for you

3\. Play the tables

4\. Figure out what the fuck you're doing while you're doing it

5\. If you get over step 4, you probably think you have a solid strategy for winning against a casino. Now, automate the task by getting people to pay you for your new book/DVD and public talks.

<comment><USER7> "When I was young, people called me a gambler. As the scale of my operations grew, I became known as a speculator. Now, they call me a banker. I have been doing the same thing all along." -Sir Ernest Cassel

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is exactly what I did with business, instead of getting an MBA or a PhD.

Here's my reading list: <http://personalmba.com/best-business-books/>

Here's the book I wrote, condensing what I learned in the process: <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591843529/>

I now own my own business, work for myself as a business teacher and consultant, have an enormous amount of flexibility in my day-to-day schedule, and make more than professors who teach at top business schools.

Education is changing.

<comment><USER9> Wow, incredible reviews, just picked up a copy ;)

<comment><USER8> Thanks, I appreciate it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> wondering how you compete with the MFEs from MIT / Harvard / Yale / [other top school] for that BSD quant job when on your resume it says "I read a lot of free shit on the internet" ?

you don't pay $100k for the knowledge, you pay $100k for a ticket to the party. everyone knows that.

of course, if you want to be an entrepreneur or trade your own $, that is a different story. but this seems unrealistic for any kind of mainstream career move.

<comment><USER11> Great point, I have experienced exactly this problem.

It's actually the reason I started writing on the internet (note the extremely clever site name).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> You go and get a Masters because of 2 reasons

1\. Signalling to your future employer / Getting past the HR filter. 2\. Networking with others.

Learning something useful is usually a bonus.

<comment><USER11> I would like to hear much more discussion about these two parts of it.

<comment><USER11> In particular, aren't you also signalling that you're a fraidy-cat conformist who can't do things for him/herself?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm deciding between MFE/MS programs and starting independently at the moment. Here's what I've sort of cobbled together.

My understanding is that your value to a firm is directly proportional to your ability to generate alpha. Credentials would be useful for securing an entry- level position, but eventually, it is your ability to develop profitable strategies that will secure your position in this industry.

This is such a secretive business, that I doubt academia will be teaching anything other than the fundamentals/theory . As pointed out in the article, MFE employment stats are murky at best. I haven't had much luck getting confident stats. There's only a few of programs that staff actual practitioners, people who, you know, actually made/make money doing this stuff.

One of my concerns with the credential-path is future career growth. Many of the firms that hire from schools place candidates in specific roles that need to be filled. You might get stuck in an area thats not as profitable as other areas of the market. You will also not be exposed to the firm's intellectual property until they've worked you hard and for many years.

Contrast this with the option to start independently. I've spoken with quite a few people who've started out this way. Some have parlayed their experience and performance into jobs/partnerships at the big firms. Others continued to scale and build out their own fund. They all say the same thing, if you can develop profitable strategies, you will find people more than willing to invest in your strategies.

As far as networking, I think the internet is helping that immensely. Quite a few fundamental investors have received job offers or started their own hedge funds from blogging/posting on forums when it became apparent they had an edge. There's always a few headhunters and fund managers hanging around nuclearphynance, and other forums.

There is a higher risk, perhaps, of getting nowhere. But you also have the freedom, and less dogmatic structure to think independently, and the time to learn things thoroughly (vs. in a degree program).

I'd like to hear other's thoughts on this.

<comment><USER11> Ultimately yes, just like any business what you add to the bottom line is the brick-hard determinant of wage.

But just like in other businesses, perceptions, measurability, and org structure are very important.

It's not as simple as "can you generate alpha". Does your desk manager give you as much leeway as you desire? Does your alpha come only after your position has been underwater for weeks and you were given position to double down?

Measurement is also a huge issue. How much did you contribute to the bottom line? Can you prove it? What if you told Moira about low-discrepancy sequences, which improved her Monte Carlo sims, which somehow affected someone's trading down the line ....?

I met my current (quant fin) employer on the internet. While I was living in a trailer park.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> We live in the so called information age and everyday someone posts something like this on the web. Some road map to better educate yourself cheaper in x or y field.

Ironically, governments throughout the world still struggle to find solutions to education. Please, just teach people to open a book and do some damage.

<comment><USER11> Verysimple, how much actual reading do you think comes out of people bookmarking and voting up these lists? I would guess very little.

<comment><USER14> You can't know that. Reading is highly dependent on your perception of the activity. If you were conditioned to believe that learning is something that happens mostly in a classroom, then you'll perceive a book as "1000 pages to go through", a hurdle.

On the other hand, if you're conditioned to believe and trust in the transmission of knowledge through independent reading, like most autodidacts are, you perceive them as an opportunity to improve.

I, myself, am an autodidact programmer. I had never heard of many resources before encountering them in threads on HN, Reddit, or Stackoverflow. I haven't read all books, or followed all the videos, but at least, now that I'm aware of them, it prompted me to start working toward shifting a few things in my life to allow me the time and opportunity to dig deeper in the material.

It's a process.

<comment><USER11> For me, the more hard drive space I have, the more PDF's I save. Doesn't mean I read them. The more time I spend on the web, the more "to-read should-read" stuff I find. Doesn't mean I read it.

Real reading happens for me when I shut the computer and focus on just one thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I still remember the moment in statistical physics class when my prof wrote down the Black-Scholes model, explained how people made a lot of money using it, added that the inventors had received a Nobel prize _and proceeded to show that it was just the diffusion equation_.

The diffusion equation. It was so underwhelming that I lost any interest in going into financial engineering.

</comment><comment><USER16> > It was hard enough to make you feel smart for knowing that the third moment > of a distribution is its skewness...

If you think that makes you smart, then I want you to be my competitor.

<comment><USER11> Read on, the next clause indicates that I don't think it makes you smart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> It would be great to develop an open directory for all DIY degress. For each degree path you would have a list of freely available resources summarizing what knowledge you need to cram into your head, like you have done. Huurmm... I really like this idea...

<comment><USER11> academicearth.org

Reddit has a lot of such things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Well, since I have a Masters in Financian Engineering (well, technically, a Masters in Computational Finance -- but same difference), I feel like I at least have to comment on a few things.

1\. Just because the material is freely available on the internet does not mean you will have the ability to learn from that material. However, an inability to learn the material does not necessarily indicate a disinterest or an ineptitude. Quite frankly, it took the threat of a grade and the commitment of paying tuition for me to sit down and read through Shreve's Stochastic Calculus books, despite the fact I had picked them up almost a year before attending CMU.

2\. Reading a bunch of books doesn't make you knowledgable on a subject. Deep interaction with the material does. You don't go to school just for a piece of paper -- you go for a structured learning environment. I went because I believed, and still do, that the teachers who understand this material will know the best way to organize and present it to me. Furthermore, most MFE programs stress the importance of an internship, giving students pragmatic experience. Finally, most MFE programs also offer speaker series to provide interaction with industry practitioners.

3\. Whoever is saying 'Girsanov's Theorem' doesn't understand the connection. Girsanov is only relevant from the Fundamental Theorems of Asset Pricing, which is only relevant in that it translates the question of arbitrage into a question of existence of a risk neutral measure. Ultimately, pricing is merely replication.

4\. "So you're trying to get a job where you face the market everyday and disagree with it." This quote tells me you fundamentally are misunderstanding what occurs on most Sales & Trading desks, which is where most people from MFE programs try to place. Don't worry -- most people don't understand what they do. Quite simply, most Wall Street traders do nothing other than execute trades for clients and try to match and offset the risk of the trade with other clients. Sometimes traders will carry some risk in their book (most of the time, it is second-order risk) -- but for the most part, they aren't actively taking bets on market direction (though, rumor has it Goldman is notorious for this…) -- they leave that up to the hedge funds.

5\. This whole notion of independent thought versus 'indoctrination' is ridiculous. I'm sorry, but math is math, whether you read it on your own or are taught by a professor. Independent thought is a characteristic of the student, and they either have it or they don't.

6\. Is the degree expensive? Heck yes. Is it worth it? Only you can answer that. For me, having the degree is priceless because I own my business, and it acts as a certification of qualification when I meet with clients. It serves as one more point for them to check off in their due diligence on me.

7\. You will completely miss out on the opportunity to network with peers. I now know people who I worked with on a daily basis at almost every major Wall Street firm, from investment banks to hedge funds to consultancy firms. That is a priceless network.

So can you learn the material all on your own? Sure -- but I bet it takes you a lot longer than the year and a half it took me. By going to school, I was able to dedicate myself full time (homework and classes well exceeded 40+ hours a week), to learning the material. In my opinion, this isn't really material you can learn 'part time,' and if you try, you certainly won't have the opportunity to develop any practical understanding of it.

<comment><USER11> Thanks for the relevant comments.

I addressed #1 in the article. Suffice to say I disagree.

#2 Who says you interact deeply with material in school?

#3 comes from Emanuel Derman's interviews of fresh grads.

#4 I do understand the difference but I would rather prop trade than make markets.

#5 There are so many sub-areas. Should you study wavelets? Finite element method? Differential geometry? EDA? Bayes? ML?

#6 Perhaps I am more risk-averse than you. Or less trusting.

#2, #7 - I said that's the irreproducible part of an MFE.

Would you mind adding your comments to the Disqus on the site? They're very thorough and as you're an MFE grad they counterbalance what I said. I think your viewpoint is quite valuable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd just like to point out that all those amazon product links have his affiliate ID in there... He's getting a cut, keep that in mind

<comment><USER8> So? He put a lot of effort into that list, and he published it for free. If it sells some books, good for him.

<comment><USER20> I don't think there's any harm in saying that.

It was just something "for your consideration". Nothing accusatory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'll just leave this here:

<http://www.khanacademy.org/>

<comment><USER20> In its current state, Khan Academy's exercises are _very_ basic, once you start following the courses. You learn the basics, but not enough to become an entrepreneur.

I've been mulling over a project to deliver more courses in a similar vein, but I'm still struggling with how I'll manage to collate the user-submitted YouTube-videos automatically without mandatory approval on my side.

<comment><USER22> You're not going to learn enough to become an entrepreneur from any school. You just fucking do it. [http://www.cloudave.com/1171/what-makes-an- entrepreneur-four...](http://www.cloudave.com/1171/what-makes-an-entrepreneur- four-letters-jfdi/)</comment></comment></comment>


Yahoo Closing their Auctions Service - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2007/05/08/yahoo-auctions-closed/ <comment><USER2> I read this news first on news.com.com. I'm surprised this isn't considered big news: it's not on TechCrunch, news.google etc. A major #2 player in a major industry (eBay is a $6B company) has thrown in the towel. Much bigger news than Google Answers closing shop IMO.

We should also discuss failures like this on news.YC: there's as much to learn from them as from successes. Yahoo had a good product, brand, etc. but just couldn't compete with eBay's network effect. eBay had a huge first-mover advantage.

Luckily for Yahoo, Yahoo was the first mover in Japan, and it has much larger market share than eBay there.</comment>


Assange Hearing Day 9 - <AUTHOR> https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-9/ <comment><USER2> The witness quotes a couple of statements by a former warden of ADX Colorado. In case anyone's interested in finding a source for at least one of those, it appears in a New York Times article:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/magazine/inside- americas-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/magazine/inside-americas- toughest-federal-prison.html)

(caution: contains some fairly unpleasant reading)

Edit / clarification: only one of the two quotes appears in the NYT article.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there anyone who has changed their mind in either direction on Julian Assange's actions, guilt, or how different governments are acting, after reading, over the last few years, any of these posts or comments therein?

<comment><USER4> Sympathy I may have had for him evaporated over the years with the response to the rape allegations and the way Wikileaks ended up on the pro-Trump side of the floor.

It's Chelsea Manning who I have far more sympathy for. Somehow she's not promoted so much by Assange supporters, despite being the insider responsible for the leak and already having served in prison for it.

The Iraq war remains a moral disaster, and things have not improved on that front.

<comment><USER5> Chelsea Manning still needed Wikileaks to help bring out the truth, the rape allegations were just that, a total smear it seems, and not rooted in fact.

Regardless of his political leanings, he's an important journalist who ought to be celebrated for revealing some very uncomfortable facts.

<comment><USER4> The rape allegations have never seen a court and should not be dismissed as a smear. Given how these things usually pan out, Cosby and Weinstein passim, I believe they are more likely true than not.

<comment><USER6> Weinstein was accused of 98 events and condemned for 2 of them. So you could say that even for Weinstein, 96% were more false or unsustained.

There _is_ a debate on whether going to a « coke and prostitutes party in exchange for a role in a movie » is an act of consent or such naivety that it is unbelievable, but the immense majority were consenting adults who did take the role in the movie in exchange. But blaming it entirely on men shifts the focus of the major problem here: the number of women who want to become actresses and who are willing to compete on sexuality because they believe it's their only asset. In other words: We haven't succeeded as a civilization in giving women self-confidence in doing a job of science or talent, and they keep falling back on offering what they are, not what they do.

That would solve the problem in a much wider way than giving the power to women to crucify any man around them, because that makes a large percentage of men weary of working with women, and multiplies the problem of female employment. Just saying.

<comment><USER4> > giving the power to women to crucify any man around them

This is a gross mischaracterisation of how difficult it is to get rape convictions.

> We haven't succeeded as a civilization in giving women self-confidence in > doing a job of science or talent, and they keep falling back on offering > what they are, not what they do.

This is a gross mischaracterisation of the pressure is applied to women to do these things.

<comment><USER7> > This is a gross mischaracterisation of how difficult it is to get rape > convictions.

A conviction is not necessary to severely negatively affect someone's life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't believe this blog post paints an unbiased picture.

<comment><USER9> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24478259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24478259) was flagged, which was by a respected journalist with an interest in the case. The Wikipedia article keeps getting reverted. It's really extremely hard to find or curate decent information on politically partisan subjects these days. Maybe a good area for a (positive) OSINT startup.

<comment><USER10> OSINT is a contradictio in adiecto. Like a round square.

<comment><USER9> If INT is taken as per military tradition. If INT is taken as "obtaining actionable knowledge from a mass of otherwise unorganized information" then it makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> martin-t A couple observations (as someone who who doesn't really follow Assange but stumbled upon this article):

\- In the UK, publishing the transcript of a public hearing is a crime - "NB this is not a precise transcript. It would be illegal for me to publish a transcript (of a "public" court hearing; fascinating but true)." \- IMO something is deeply broken with this, needs to be changed and potentially people who created this system need to be punished (for taking steps to undermine democracy).

\- Publishing evidence of (war) crimes (this is what Assange did, right?) somehow appears to be a crime. What happened to failure to report a crime? Shouldn't instead people not publishing this be punished?

\- A video call is too high tech for the UK government; also moving to a different courtroom where it would work is impossible because they'd have to carry over too much paper. They do everything on paper - linking to some other piece of paper means making a physical copy - "Are you saying that I should have repeated his affidavits and all the other evidence in my statements? My statements would have been thousands of pages long." \- Hello, we have the internet and hyperlinks, can we pls use them? To me this feels like the courts are designed as a DoS attack on people's attention.

\- Some US prisons are designed as death penalty without having to go through the legal trouble of saying it out loud - "Suicides in jail are increasing by 18% a year."

\- Assange seems like a political prisoner - "Eric Lewis than gave testimony on the change of policy towards prosecuting Assange from the Trump administration." \- Why does a president have this power? What happened to the 3 branches of government? Maybe this is a US thing, seems very broken.

\- It's not even a public process, except in name - "Public access continues to be restricted and major NGOs, including Amnesty, PEN and Reporters Without Borders, continue to be excluded both physically and from watching online." \- Why is everything not recorded and at least transcript posted online by default?

<comment><USER11> > \- Publishing evidence of (war) crimes (this is what Assange did, right?) > somehow appears to be a crime. What happened to failure to report a crime? > Shouldn't instead people not publishing this be punished?

His "crime" was that he conspired to use a computer without permission. The fact he used it for a noble purpose doesn't get him out of extradition apparently. The fact that no one has been prosecuted for the much bigger crime that he exposed just adds perversity.

<comment> jules-jules There are afaik 18 charges in the indictment. The above is just one of them.

<comment><USER11> You are correct! I thought they'd dropped those charges and just have 18 counts of Computers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's disappointing that publishing about war-crimes is a bigger deal than doing it for governments. Why even governments have this right in first place? It's fundamentally wrong.</comment>


Debunking Myths about Gender and Mathematics Performance - <AUTHOR> http://ams.org/notices/201201/rtx120100010p.pdf

<comment><USER2> It's difficult to fathom how the authors interpret the data on page 14 as _not_ supporting the hypothesis that there is a male/female variance ratio of circa 1.1. Figure 1A is a generally bell-shaped curve centered around 1.1. In Figure 1B, almost all of the points are below the 1:1 line, whereas if you plot a 1.1:1 line, its a perfect fit. In Figure 1C, the x value where the regression line intersects a zero gender gap (i.e. no evidence of cultural bias), is at a variance ratio of about 1.1. All of the evidence the authors present points to an underlying variance ratio near 1.1, yet somehow they conclude the opposite.

<comment><USER3> That's obvious. Culture factors are the main determinant that they could find. It is unrealistic to assume the queried countries have a mean centered around complete gender neutrality, so your analysis is invalid.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I'm starting a free development blog. Would you like to donate a logo? - <AUTHOR>

I am an experienced software engineer, many projects have gone into gathering my little book of notes on algorithms and data structures in many languages. I will be creating a blog which will cover one problem a week and will be free to read or subscribe to. I will also take requests if anyone has a particular problem which will is torturing them at any given time.
I don't have an eye for design though, and I would like to appeal to the community for a user here who does, andwould like to create a logo for me. I can't afford to pay for it as I am currently broke due to thankgs-giving, christmas and other financial commitments.
Maybe you are an up and coming designer who needs some portfolio expansion? Maybe you are just nice enough to do some free work. I have given many hours of my lif to open source development, and would really appreciate if someone could do this for me.
Thanks in advance. <comment><USER2> You don't need a logo. Start the blog, post regularly, and if it's decent then someone will step up and offer to create something.

Not having a logo won't hold you back, so just get on with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, to both of you :)

I will worry about it later then. Can either of you suggest the best blog engine to use for this? I was thinking wordpress. Obviously my experience isn't in web development. :)

<comment><USER3> Go with wordpress, even going with wordpress.com would be a good idea just pay the cheap fee to host your domain there (and maybe pay for ad-free total would be $40/year).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cool, good luck with your blog, please share the URL here once you started it!

Anyway, I don't think you really need a logo right now. Just take a template that looks nice and start creating content. When your blog becomes popular - because of the content you wrote! - you can start worrying about logo and design.

</comment><comment><USER5> Pretty Logo gives away one free logo design once a month <https://prettylogo.com/win-a-free-logo.php></comment>


Asynchronous message passing in Objective-C - <AUTHOR> http://vallettaventures.com/post/15524145312/asynchronous-message-passing-in-objective-c <comment><USER2> These days, why not use GCD and blocks for this kind of work?

<comment><USER3> My thoughts exactly.

            NSOperationQueue *queue = [NSOperationQueue mainQueue];
            [queue addOperation:[NSBlockOperation blockOperationWithBlock:^{
                // do something
            }]];

or

            NSOperationQueue *queue = [NSOperationQueue mainQueue];
            [queue addOperation:[[[NSInvocationOperation alloc] initWithTarget:self selector:@selector(selectorName:) object:param1] autorelease]];

Edit: on re-reading the post in detail, I see the problem he is solving is different from the one the above code solves. Clearly there is value to what he has made. I wonder if it could not be re-coded using gcd and/or blocks, but NSOperationQueue is too high-level an API to be appropriate.

Still, I can't tell you how many times I've used the code above to create simple async systems.

<comment><USER2> How is the problem he is solving different? I guess using an actor chain and messages allows you to repeatedly drop many messages through the same sequence of operations.

While you might express that slightly differently if you used GCD or operation queues, you should be able to make it just as readable. Blocks are pretty cheap, so any performance hit should be more than offset by the gains you get from having the OS manage your thread pool for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also see ActorKit from the inventor of Io: <https://github.com/stevedekorte/ActorKit>

</comment><comment><USER5> This reminds me, for some reason even though it's totally different, of NeXT's Distributed Objects facility, which I think is still floating around OS X but am not sure. Here's how it worked.

In Objective-C, method calls are dynamically bound. So you can make the following call:

[myObject crazyMethodName:x:y:z]

In Java that'd be myObject.crazyMethodName(x,y,z)

However unlike Java, there doesn't have to _be_ a method called crazyMethodName, and the compiler will still compile it just fine. What happens is that at runtime, when this method is called, the message "crazyMethodName" is sent to myObject. If it doesn't have a method which responds to that name, then Objective-C calls the "forward" message on myObject, passing in the "crazyMethodName" method name and the arguments. "forward" can do what it likes with this -- the default implementation of "forward" is (was?) to issue a No Such Method Found error.

What Distributed Objects did was create a special proxy object which has a single method implemented: "forward". The system worked as follows. When machine A connects to machine B, machine B gives machine A its "entry" object (as defined by the user). B thinks it gave A an object, but in fact what A received was a proxy object. Let's say that the entry object responds to a method "foo". A calls

[obj foo]

obj is actually a proxy which responds to no methods at all, except for "forward". Objective-C fails to call "foo" on obj, so it tries "forward", and lo and behold the proxy has implemented that in a special way -- it wraps up the method call and ships it over to machine B and calls "foo" on the _real_ object.

Through this procedure objects get passed as arguments back and forth through these method calls, which in turn wind up generating more and more proxies. Ultimately neither machine knows that the objects it's got access to are fakes. It just feels like you've been given access to call and manipulate another processes objects. Very clean and elegant.

<comment><USER6> No idea why this reminded you of DO -- as you say, it's a totally different thing.

DO still works in OS X. Frankly, it's a neat hack, but it's prohibitively difficult to build anything robust on top of it:

\- Error handling is difficult -- what happens when the other side goes down in the middle of your method call? If you have to add extra exception and timeout handling everywhere, that dwarfs the small convenience of making the dispatch code easy.

\- Hard to make it secure.

\- It's impossible to interoperate with anything else -- what happens when you want to talk to your DO-based server using Java or Windows or Linux?

See "A Note On Distributed Computing" from 1994 for more caveats on this whole approach:

<http://labs.oracle.com/techrep/1994/abstract-29.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> That's really cool. For the heck of it I increased the actor count to 16 and CPU-usage stayed ~50% when running (Core i7, dual core w/hyper-threading). If you comment out the NSLog call, it spikes to ~280% CPU usage, as the overhead introduced by NSLog is likely slowing things down.

</comment><comment><USER8> I greatly prefer PLActorKit by Landon Fuller: <http://code.google.com/p/plactorkit/>

</comment><comment><USER9> Why must these sorts of contributions always be BSD licensed, what is wrong with public domain?

<comment><USER10> The public domain doesn't exist in some places like it does in the US. SQLlite takes a different approach where it is all licensed under the public domain but you can buy a license for $1,000.00

<comment><USER5> The US too.

The public domain is where things go when their copyright _expires_. In most countries -- including the United States -- there is _no legal procedure_ to dedicate something to the public domain. You can claim something you wrote is in the public domain until you're blue in the face, but it's not. You still own the copyright on it.

The closest you can get to a public domain declaration is a bare license: basically a license which says "Copyright 2012 by me: I give you the license to do whatever you want with this." The problem with a bare license is that if your code doesn't work right, people can (and do) turn around and sue your pants off. Because -- remember -- the work is _not in the public domain_. You own it and are responsible for it.

Thus we get to a BSD-style ("academic") license. At a minimum this license says "Copyright 2012 by me: I give you a license to do whatever you want with this as long as you agree not to sue me if something doesn't work".

Always use, at a minimum, a BSD-style license. Public domain is a fiction.

<comment><USER11> The stridency/accuracy ratio of this comment is interesting.

<http://cr.yp.to/publicdomain.html>

<comment><USER12> The GP [SeanLuke] does make one good point, which is that using a BSD-style license is a good idea, because it gives you ammunition to help defeat a "creative" claim that you should be liable for problems other people have with your code.

Otherwise, I agree, there are a fair number of inaccuracies in the GP [SeanLuke] comment.

<comment><USER11> While conceding immediately that you generally do want to take whatever "free" steps that are available to you to avoid frivolous lawsuits, what's your take on how likely it is that someone would prevail with a claim like "a bug in the software code that you abandoned all claims to cost me millions of dollars"?

(I ask because I'm curious, not to further a debate about PD).

<comment><USER12> The odds that a plaintiff would prevail in such a claim are close to zero. _But_ defending against the claim would cost money. "Free" steps such as the BSD license give you a better shot at being able to stop the claim at lower cost --- think Spock with a Vulcan neck pinch, as opposed to Kirk having to slug it out out.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Truisms (1978) - <AUTHOR> https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~field/holzer/truisms.txt <comment><USER2> I keep randomly returning to these, some great stuff in there. I also this quote of Jenny Holzer from another artwork:

> There is a period when it is clear that you have gone wrong but you > continue. Sometimes there is a luxurious amount of time before anything bad > happens.

<comment><USER3> what artwork?

<comment><USER4> Jenny Holzer is an artist who's work contains a lot of text and this text file is lifted from some of her work in the truisms series. It might actually be the entire text of the series.

[https://duckduckgo.com/?q=TRUISMS+(1978-1983)+JENNY+HOLZER](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=TRUISMS+\(1978-1983\)+JENNY+HOLZER)

<comment><USER3> i was asking about OP's "another artwork"

<comment><USER5> A quick search on "artist Jenny Holzer" turns up plenty of results, including a comprehensive Wikipedia page, an Artsy page, and quite a few others. A quick look indicates that a fair amount of her work includes test based pieces, including this example: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Holzer#/media/File:Jenny...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenny_Holzer#/media/File:Jenny_Holzer,_%22Xenon%22.jpg)

<comment><USER3> It appears the OP's quote was from "The Living Series"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seeing Jenny Holzer on here was a pleasant surprise!

        ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE

is probably one of my favorite of her truisms. On a similar note, her _Inflammatory Essays_ (1979-1982) are a good read too [1].

Her more recent work _Projections_ doesn't involve much of her own writing but it's interesting nonetheless (both the texts and the medium). She talks about it a bit in this video [2].

And I quite like her _Redaction Paintings_ that were made from redacted military files [3].

[1] [https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/holzer-inflammatory- ess...](https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/holzer-inflammatory- essays-65434/10)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeOOFKzQxS0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeOOFKzQxS0)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2Cidvahl6c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2Cidvahl6c)

</comment><comment><USER7> DFW in IJ: "The clichéd directives are a lot more deep and hard to actually do. To try and live by instead of just say... So then at forty-six years or age I came here to live by clichés... One day at a time. Easy does it. First things first. Courage is fear that has said its prayers. Ask for help. Thy will not mine be done. It works if you work it. Grow or go. Keep coming back."

</comment><comment><USER8> This doesn't include a lot of post-1983 Truisms which are just as good. My favorite might be "Someone Wants To Cut A Hole In You And Fuck You Through It, Buddy"

<comment><USER9> Here's another list of them: [https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~field/holzer/living.txt](https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~field/holzer/living.txt)

<comment><USER10> Those seem more like musings than truisms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love how there's contradictions, like how for "All good things come to those who wait" meets "Early bird catches the worm".

<comment><USER12> I guess a good response to this is

> A SENSE OF TIMING IS THE MARK OF GENIUS

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> CALM IS MORE CONDUCTIVE TO CREATIVITY THAN IS ANXIETY

Conductive or conducive?

</comment><comment><USER14> I used to eat at her green table sometimes when I worked in the cafeteria right next door [https://stuartcollection.ucsd.edu/artist/holzer.html](https://stuartcollection.ucsd.edu/artist/holzer.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> Some good couplets...

As corollaries for the hardest problem in computer science:

> A NAME MEANS A LOT JUST BY ITSELF

> SYMBOLS ARE MORE MEANINGFUL THAN THINGS THEMSELVES

As advice to myself because I love refactoring:

> ABSTRACTION IS A TYPE OF DECADENCE

> DECADENCE CAN BE AN END IN ITSELF

</comment><comment><USER15> Noting the date and utexas.edu, I was expecting something from the EWD archive. After some mild disappointment, this did seem to actually feed my underlying desire for some curmudgeonly wisdom.

</comment><comment><USER16> "ANY SURPLUS IS IMMORAL" "AUTOMATION IS DEADLY"

... wait, what?

<comment><USER3> ANY SURPLUS IS IMMORAL

if you're operating efficiently, and generate or take only what you need, you aren't generating surplus.

surplus could be read as greed, decadence, or even waste

AUTOMATION IS DEADLY

do it yourself, retain the know-how yourself. self-sufficience. don't rely on externalities. natural processes are more, well, natural. machines tend to exploit and create imbalance.

<comment><USER17> > surplus could be read as greed, decadence, or even waste

Or as a buffer. E.g., who knew that overcapacity in a hospital could be beneficial? So once more, the veracity of such statements depends on the context.

<comment><USER3> Your statement is 100% correct but misses the entire point

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22854475](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22854475)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> [http://catandgirl.com/girl-plays-games/](http://catandgirl.com/girl-plays- games/)

</comment><comment><USER19> > YOU HAVE TO HURT OTHERS TO BE EXTRAORDINARY

I wonder what he meant by that.

<comment><USER20> I presume it's an observation, not advice. That often those who are called exceptional have some skeletons in their closest. That there are more statues of Jefferson Davis than Harriet Tubman.

<comment><USER21> I read it as a warning. Life is full of tradeoffs, to be extraordinary in one area requires you to neglect or ignore other aspects of life. In the end people will be hurt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What is the context/background of this artwork?

</comment><comment><USER23> convertcase.net to the rescue.

</comment><comment><USER24> Truism is a truism is a truism.

I dare you to top this.

</comment><comment><USER25> "The new disease came."

</comment><comment><USER26> > truism: a statement that is obviously true and says nothing new or > interesting.

Just scanning through these I wouldn't label all of them "truisms." For example,

> ANY SURPLUS IS IMMORAL

and

> AUTOMATION IS DEADLY

I wouldn't consider either of these "obviously true."

<comment><USER27> Just to be clear these are not really truisms. This is an art piece by Jenny Holzer and its name is "Truisms" (doesn't necessarily mean that they are all actual truisms, that's just the name she gave to this particular work).

In "Truisms" she created printed versions of an erudite reading list she compiled when she was a student. She distributed them anonymously by pasting printed versions around NYC's fences and walls. ([https://www.sutori.com/story/pop-culture-and-art-jenny- holze...](https://www.sutori.com/story/pop-culture-and-art-jenny-holzer-- zsHvbvCpNY4Ebt9xRjAdpRRV)). She also did leaflets and other printed versions of this.

All of Holzer's art concepts are very much like this. Her goal is to use public venues as a medium to deliver thought-provoking ideas and display daring written commentary.

<comment><USER28> She also created LED signs that cycled through these phrases.

Also for a more artistic rendition on the web:

[https://mfx.dasburo.com/art/truisms.html](https://mfx.dasburo.com/art/truisms.html)

<comment><USER29> Double checked to be sure that "KILL ALL HUMANS" is not among them</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The export and installation of pre-made Irish bars - <AUTHOR> http://www.eater.com/2017/3/7/14839472/irish-pub-design <comment><USER2> I've got to say, compared to a lot of other prefabricated faux-cultural establishments these pubs seem pretty nice. Handmade wooden stuff, things made in Ireland, made by Irish people... doesn't seem half bad.

Sure, in an ideal world the bar would have its own completely genuine charm, and would be handmade, and the carvings would be whittled by the owner's son... but this strikes me as a pretty good compromise given the harsh realities of starting a new pub/restaurant.

<comment><USER3> No, it's all horribly fake. The last time I was in an Irish bar like this I got closer to peer at an interesting photograph and realized that what I had thought was damage to the picture was actually a JPEG compression pattern.

IT's like visiting a Panda Express and feeling like you've been to China. As an actual Irish person it's nauseating and I'm ashamed of whatever one of my countrymen decided to make money out of this tacky fakery.

We _do_ have a hospitable tradition in Ireland I'm proud of that, and I don't see anything wrong with starting a business on the back of that. It's the fakery that upsets me; it presents culture as something to be consumed rather than experienced, which is especially irritating given Ireland's former colonial status..

<comment><USER2> Hahahaha that's actually pretty damn funny. But there are some that are more authentic - I know fiddle music fairly well, and one I visited actually cared enough to have real Irish fiddle music, as well as pretty decent authentic woodcarvings, and no tacky fake-1800s fonts or faux-aged photographs.

The ones they talk about in this article seem to at least be slightly decent: they at least have stuff handmade in Ireland by Irish people. That takes a certain degree of commitment that's at the very least more authentic than a Panda Express.

I think what it boils down to is that people want to go to a "foreign" bar, and Ireland is a nice target. So at the end of the day -somebody- will open one, and you have a choice between this (which is at the least handmade in Ireland) vs some monstrosity decorated with dollar store shamrocks and green accent lighting.

<comment><USER4> _you have a choice between this (which is at the least handmade in Ireland) vs some monstrosity decorated with dollar store shamrocks and green accent lighting._

In Cincinnati in the 90's, Hap's Old Irish Pub sometimes had such decorations, but stopped short of the green accent lighting. Ironically, it was arguably the most authentic pub, in that it came about organically to serve locals of Irish descent. As a result, most of the customers had little interest in Irish trad music and much more in the game on the TV.

I suspect there are a lot of bars of this pattern in the US. I know of one in SF.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reminds me of An Irish Pub Song by The Rumjacks.

"There's a county map to go on the wall, A hurling stick & a shinty ball, The bric, the brac, the craic & all, Lets call it an Irish pub, Caffreys, Harp, Kilkenny on tap, The Guinness pie & that cabbage crap, The ideal wannabee Paddy trap, We'll call it an Irish pub"

<comment><USER6> The corned beef and cabbage was a surprise the first time I visited an Irish- themed bar. The house gave me it complimentary ( for being Irish, I didn't emphasise the northern aspect ) and it was the first time I had ever eaten it...

Even more surprising was that many of them had a cocktail called a 'Carbomb' which they _thought_ I'd find amusing. Pity I didn't have one called 'Wheelbarrow' in response.

Eventually we found a pub in Chicago called Celtic Crossing without adornments and with a Belfast barman who sold Club Orange fizzy-juice and Tayto crisps. Bliss.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for the cultural insight. I always wondered if the so-called "black and tan" beer cocktail was something that would be considered offensive to Irish people, although it's widely served in Irish-themed pubs here in the US.

<comment><USER8> Many of my acquaintances consider it to be named in poor taste.

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

"... In the summer of 1920, the Black and Tans burned and sacked many small towns and villages in Ireland, beginning with Tuam in County Galway in July 1920 and also including Trim, Balbriggan, Knockcroghery, Thurles and Templemore amongst many others. In November 1920, the Tans "besieged" Tralee in revenge for the IRA abduction and killing of two local RIC men. They closed all the businesses in the town, let no food in for a week and shot dead three local civilians. ..."

<comment><USER9> Ironically, the paramilitary Black and Tans were named after the drink, which pre-existed them by like 50 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > assiduous: showing great care, attention, and effort

Just thought I would define the word since I think the OP went out of his way to use a 10-dollar word buried deep in the text that wasn't in the original title.

On the subject of the article, though: next you're going to tell me the Mexican cantina I visited in Milwaukee isn't actually as authentic as the name implies! At least I know Little Bangkok in Philadelphia is the genuine thing. Right?

<comment><USER11> Thanks for that definition. I didn't know the word, but it for some reason carried a negative connotation for me. Perhaps because I linked it with "insidious"?

<comment><USER12> I think it's the way it's used - the headline seems to suggest that these prefab bars are cheap imitations of real culture, but assiduous doesn't actually participate in that connotation.

<comment><USER13> I think it's the exporting that was being described as assiduous. However, since the word is needless we've omitted it above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> And yet I never found an Irish pub in the US that understood music shouldn't be so loud it makes your ears bleed. Or that we have a number of great beers, not just Guinness (Galway Hooker, White Gypsy, and Porterhouse come to mind... though I think the last is available in NY)

<comment><USER14> How could you not mention Magners??? :)

That is my number one favorite I've been drinking since the first time I had amazing fish and chips in howth at beeshoffs.

Second what reallllly irritates me is the food they serve in these "Irish" pubs. Mac and cheese with Guinness in the cheese sauce, or really dumb crimes like calling cottage pie, shepherds pie even though it's made with beef. And absolutely none of them knowing WHAT traditional Irish food is. No soda bread, no coddle, no Apple snow, just ignorance upon ignorance piled on to stealing "Irish culture" by people with money and NO respect for the country they are trying to imitate. I find it appalling and I ream these places in Yelp reviews.

<comment><USER8> To be honest it's because I'm not crazy about Magner's, and because it's called Bulmer's in Ireland. It also seems to be pretty easy to come by abroad all things considered, though I'm partial to Woodchuck myself.

Regarding cuisine, on the bright side I also haven't seen soggy chips with a mountain of vaguely garlic scented mayo plopped on top exported to other countries as an example of Irish cuisine. The first time I had those I really missed Gordon Biersch :-).

There's some good food here (cheeses come to mind) but I think there's a reason the cuisine hasn't exactly been recognized by UNESCO, unlike Italy, France, or Mexico.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A good irish bar is about the only place I can get people to go to where we can have a conversation in a booth with high wooden walls and not have our ears bleeding from loud music. The few _irish_ bars that don't even do that are bound to fail. I don't really care if the bar is a premade transplant, as long as it fills that role well.

I have long wished the US would learn to have more pubs in that booth style, geared towards good alcohol and conversation, rather than music. English, Irish, Scottish, the structure is far too few between.

In the college town I am in I have thought a really cool bar would be a library/bar, designed for study groups, where you could bring a good non- fiction book and get a free drink or discount on one, and have an attached sleep-pod structure to encourage people to not drive drunk. Less sports bars, more intellectual bars...

<comment><USER16> >I have long wished the US would learn to have more pubs in that booth style, geared towards good alcohol and conversation, rather than music.

>Less sports bars, more intellectual bars...

You're in the wrong country for that kind of thing. Americans don't like intellectualism. Just look at our elections.

<comment><USER17> First off - are you like sixteen years old? You're writing off hundreds of millions of people. Many of the best universities in the world are located in, funded by, and populated with Americans.

Americans in college towns probably tolerate or perhaps, yes, even like 'intellectualism'. A bar like that could very well become a community institution and reputable business. Have some perspective.

<comment><USER16> >Americans in college towns probably tolerate or perhaps, yes, even like 'intellectualism'. A bar like that could very well become a community institution and reputable business.

The problem with that idea is that 1) college students don't have a whole lot of money to spend on establishments like that, and 2) the profitability of such places is poor, compared to places that serve a LOT of alcohol and don't require as much floor space. The cost per square foot of commercial real estate these days is very high, so it just isn't profitable to have an establishment where there's plenty of space (so it isn't a crowded, noisy din), people can spend lots of time relaxing, quietly socializing, working on their laptop, etc., and they don't have to spend a lot of money. It's why Starbucks are all small and crowded, and coffee shops that attempt to buck this don't do so well. You can't pay the rent easily when people have nice lounge chairs and camp out with their laptops and only buy a coffee drink and a small snack. By contrast, look at how bars and restaurants operate: bars serve high-priced alcoholic drinks and customers don't usually stay long, and are crowded. Restaurants are fairly crowded, serve high-priced meals and push hard to get you to buy high-priced alcoholic drinks, and are very pushy to get you out the door so they can clear the table for the next customer.

>First off - are you like sixteen years old?

I'm not even going to honor that insult with an answer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Just the other day I was talking with friends about how we all perceived the high quantity of cheap-to-medium-priced Irish bars in virtually every American city we know, especially compared to how much the average person could give a shit if his bar is Irish.

It's almost like those bars aren't even Irish themed, but rather that Irish culture is themed as cheap bars.

</comment><comment><USER19> > "Meet the Companies Literally Dropping 'Irish' Pubs in Cities Across the > World"

They don't literally drop them.

<comment><USER20> Indeed, I was rather disappointed to find out this as well :( Would have loved to read about accidents with cranes and such things :P

<comment><USER19> I'm more disappointed by misuse of the language

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The last "Irish pub" I visited was essentially just a regular bar and grill with a vaguely Irish-ish menu.

After departing, the entire family said (paraphrasing), "WTF was that? That was about as Irish as a mariachi playing a didgeridoo."

They didn't even get a "you tried" sticker.

Mostly, we don't care about authenticity in restaurants. We just want thematic consistency. And the theme for an "Irish pub" is fish and chips, Guinness stew, and marginally classier decor than the rathole bar down the street. We know, deep down, that Outback Steakhouse is really only Australia-themed, rather than authentically Australian. But you'd better not break character when you're running one, buddy. You have to keep those stupid boomerangs nailed up on the walls.

And that's all the phenomenon is. It's a brand identity. It says "inexpensive, but not cheap", and it says "comfort food", and it says "automatic seasonal business every March".

</comment><comment><USER22> In the US, there's a chain of Hibachi restaurants that are made of old traditional-style buildings that were shipped over from Japan. It's called Gasho [0].

[0]: [http://www.gasho.com/about-us/](http://www.gasho.com/about-us/)

</comment><comment><USER23> On a family trip to Disney World we wound up in an Irish themed restaurant that claimed to have been built in Ireland and shipped over. The idea seemed weird, I had no idea one could build a whole business around prefab Irish pubs.

</comment><comment><USER24> People in this thread talking about "authenticity" remind me of this article about Chinese restaurants across Canada: [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/chop- suey-...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/chop-suey- nation/article30539419/)

It's interesting how they came to be so widespread, helped their local communities, and starting creating regional dishes (like Ginger Beef)

</comment><comment><USER25> Prefab faux interiors are common, but they're usually chains. Hungry Hunter (bankrupt 2008) had many identical looking restaurants, including an identical fake stuffed bear. Hollister, the poser surfer brand, built many identical- looking stores. Each with a fake surfboard with the fake signature of a famous surfboard maker, who sued them and won.

</comment><comment><USER26> Whenever I go on holiday I very much enjoy collecting beer mats from "Irish" bars[1]. The jackpot would be somewhere like an airport.

On return I then give these to my Irish mother ...she not being a fan of the "authentic" "Irish" bar experience is what makes this funny.

I am a bad son.

[1] Not counting actual Irish pubs in actual Irland. ;)

</comment><comment><USER27> I had suspected this existed, because it's pretty obvious from just being in the US that "generic Irish bar that could be anywhere in the US" is a thing.

Low-end American-Chinese restaurants are the same way.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm personally waiting for the Nigerian-Internet-Cafe theme to start my own in Canada.</comment>


Groupon's Innovative Accounting: Why CSOI Makes Sense - <AUTHOR> http://www.proformative.com/blogs/alexander-haislip/2011/07/28/groupon%E2%80%99s-innovative-accounting-why-csoi-makes-sense <comment><USER2> The thing is...do any of these types of tricks really work in the long run? Perhaps that is not the point and the architects of accounting tricks either think of short term gain. Or they think they can keep stringing together tricks indefinitely. The reality is that no company can trick wall street for long and in the wake of the last financial collapse I think there are more people out there looking for this type of stuff.</comment>


HN help wanted board (Google Docs) - <AUTHOR> http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0Ao3RpZe396VZdDR2VUVFcjdETm45SElNZnFjOXJxS2c&hl=en&authkey=CNz61JoJ

<comment><AUTHOR> HN help wanted board

Inspired by the success of previous spreadsheets, here's a pet peve of mine.

Startup dating is broken. The skills that are really valuable in getting a business up&running are not malleable to easy proxy measurement (such as CV, or forms, or cover letters). So let's try it from a demand point of view.

Post your most pressing need in your startup business, that you want to get help with strictly on a voluntary basis, along with the larger scope of the project.

The most important column is the "First steps to start with". Put here a _minimum viable_ qualification task, something that would test for the ability to "get things done" for the value of "task" you're looking help with; eg. a git repos, and a bug id; "get 20 customers" for sales, "beat my 0.78% CTR on adwords" for marketing, I'm sure you can think of something.

<comment><USER2> At first I thought this was more a "gigs" board, which I was happy to use but now I'm not so sure. Is it a startup co-founder matching board? If so it should be renamed as such (help wanted sounds exactly like a job board or gigs board)

So we're supposed to post something we want someone to do for free?

Since this is startup focused, and it works out, are they going to be expecting equity and/or payment? Seems odd not to get some sense of that before investing time together.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't know what to be amazed more at:

* 100+ people working on the same document seamlessly in near real time

* The fact that no one is ruining it or deliberately stepping on each other's toes.

<comment><USER4> Right now all I see is two URLs unrelated to the topic and a couple of people using columns A and B to chat. Vandalism, or a google docs issue?

Update: now the whole spreadsheet is completely blank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can you disable editing by anonymous users? jvargas, I just restored your email and product url, someone replaced it with gibberish.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you are a startup or a job seeker, you can also come to our startup career fair and meet other entrepreneurs on August 17th at the Stanford Park Hotel in Menlo Park, CA.

Here is the link to register: www.careerelement.com/jobfair

We expect over 300 tech job seekers and 20-30 startups.

If you are an early stage startup that is hiring, we might be willing to waive the registration fee for you. Send me an email at email@example.com and we can discuss.

Cheers, Paul

<comment><USER7> It seems this overlaps the second half of the Founder Conference <http://founderconference.eventbrite.com/>

That suggests you're not likely to see some of the early-stage startups who might otherwise be interested.

How late do you expect your event to run?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Did someone remove the post I put in there?

Just because it wasn't a "software" need doesn't disqualify it...

whatever.

<comment><USER9> I can see it above mine.

<comment><USER8> yeah i added it back. strange.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Someone add a open source option maybe?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are a lot of open source boards already out there (sourceforge el al); this is more for startup dating with extreme pre-selection.

<comment><USER11> It's rather difficult to find developer interest for new open source projects. Sourceforge, etc, have no real means of high-volume social networking. Besides, I'd really like to find someone from HN that is interested in my area of research (distributed web tech).

I understand if you're going to keep this spreadsheet specifically for the purposes of startup networking, but I politely request that you consider allowing open source projects as well. I don't think it would overcrowd your data.</comment></comment></comment>


Now, What Buffer Could Do - <AUTHOR> http://www.opine.me/what-buffer-could-do/ Would love to hear what you think. In here or on the comment pages. Thanks all. <comment><AUTHOR> Would love to hear what you think. In here or on the comment pages. Thanks all.</comment>


Ask HN: How can I learn English? - <AUTHOR>

Im going to NYC for three month to launch my startup and need to improve my English.<p>Any startup doing something interesting on language learning? <comment><USER2> I've used the Rosetta Stone program for learning new languages and it's really cool. The software uses images, text, sound, and video to teach words and grammar by spaced repetition, without translation. It is used by the United States Army to help troops deploying to the Middle East learn the Arabic language for conversations and phrases important in a military situation. It was available to all US Army personnel, US Military Academy cadets, contracted US Army ROTC Cadets and other special guests with a sponsor. Try: [https://www.rosettastone.com/](https://www.rosettastone.com/)

<comment><USER3> Rosetta stone is very expensive compared to Duolingo (which is free). Also there was study that showed while Rosetta stone was more effective than class room instruction it was only half as effective as Duolingo: [http://static.duolingo.com/s3/DuolingoReport_Final.pdf](http://static.duolingo.com/s3/DuolingoReport_Final.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Checkout Duolingo: [https://www.duolingo.com/](https://www.duolingo.com/)

This and watching English media should get you ready for an immersion experience which is considered by most the best way to learn. If you have the opportunity to speak with native speakers before your departure, do that too!

</comment><comment><USER4> Check out [https://www.verbling.com/](https://www.verbling.com/), its (YC S11)

</comment><comment><USER5> Try [http://www.quill.org](http://www.quill.org)

Quill provides interactive English grammar lessons. The entire site is free.

<comment><AUTHOR> Love the 9 errors game.

I've never seen 'Learning by Proofreading'.

<comment><USER5> You can see all of our lessons here: [http://www.quill.org/lessons](http://www.quill.org/lessons)

We've already built 150 lessons. If you'd like to track your progress, you can create both a teacher account and a student account. Assign lessons from the teacher account to the student account.</comment></comment></comment>


Shawn Pearce, author of Gerrit and Git-related projects, has died - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/cdibona/status/957822400518696960 <comment><USER2> Here is the related thread on the Git mailing list:

[https://public- inbox.org/git/CAP8UFD0aKqT5YXJx9-MqeKCKhOVGxn...](https://public- email@example.com/T/#mf5c158c68565c1c68c80b6543966ef2cad6d151c)

<comment><AUTHOR> And on the Gerrit mailing list: [https://groups.google.com/d/topic/repo- discuss/B4P7G1YirdM/d...](https://groups.google.com/d/topic/repo- discuss/B4P7G1YirdM/discussion)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a damn shame. I wish his family well.

I had the pleasure of having worked with Shawn on a few projects. He was a fantastic person and engineer. On one occasion — and completely unprompted — he mailed me a 0.5 cubic meter box of stuffed Diffy-the-Kung-Fu-Code-Review- Cuckoo plushies to distribute about the office: [https://www.gerritcodereview.com](https://www.gerritcodereview.com)

<comment><USER4> In my limited interactions, he was a great person and incredibly patient, too.</comment></comment>