How Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness (2015) - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2015/12/10/459100751/utah-reduced-chronic-homelessness-by-91-percent-heres-how <comment><USER2> Years ago I read about an excellent effort in Italy to reduce the homeless problems there. They examined what made folk homeless and what kept them there.

A big focus was on re-employment and having a fixed postal address. Those who lost their jobs and then their homes with no fixed address were unable to obtain another job and hence fell into a spiral of chronic homelessness.

One of the big takeaways from Italian policy was to firstly provide temporary housing. The second was to create a 'virtual' postal address for anyone affected by homelessness. This apparently helped a lot in enabling people to climb out of homelessness and back onto the career ladder.

<comment><USER3> I always felt P.O. boxes should be free for those that are homeless. If said box goes unused it is put back into general use.

Verification could be supplied by the county.

<comment><USER4> > I always felt P.O. boxes should be free for those that are homeless. If said > box goes unused it is put back into general use.

They (basically) already are. USPS provides free mailing service for people who don't have a fixed address, and you can use that as your street address (unlike PO boxes, which are invalid for use in circumstances that require a street address). They'll hold onto any mail addressed to you for 30 days.

<comment><USER5> Also, many USPS locations allow you to use the address of the building and to append the P.O. Box similar to an apartment number.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Oh hey, I've been to that shelter. I live in (and grew up in) Utah. My Aunt is severely mentally ill and homeless and relies on the Road Home shelter, I've visited her there a few times. They are doing good work, although being homeless is still pretty shitty, obviously. The hardest part is that the state could take much better care of her if she would allow herself to be diagnosed as handicapped due to her mental illness, but she doesn't believe that she's mentally ill. And of course forcing treatment on her is unethical and probably counter-productive. I don't really know where she's at now, we only have fleeting contact with her.

EDIT: A sad/curious anecdote - at one time she was placed in an apartment. I don't know the details but it was probably using the programs outlined in the article. She lit the apartment on fire and ended up in the hospital. As I understand she believed that she owned the apartment complex and could not understand why the managers would not let her make decisions, so she lit it on fire.

<comment><USER7> > And of course forcing treatment on her is unethical and probably counter- > productive.

Counter-productive is an empirical question, but why is forcing treatment always unethical?

> ...She lit the apartment on fire and ended up in the hospital.

...for example. Do we need to wait for manslaughter charges before the government is responsible?

Often people on the street are at least committing fraud (lying for food, bus fare, cash, etc.). I understand that people do what they need to for survival (at least on their terms), but there is an actual cost to that. For instance, if someone _actually_ lost their wallet and needed fare home, they have to compete with people who say they haven't eaten in days but actually don't want professional help (and may even be unfit to make that decision in the first place). The information asymmetry is enormous in this sort of interaction. To reiterate, the people getting conned aren't the biggest victims here; it's the people who have to deal with a jaded audience and fraudulent sob stories when $20, bus fare, or a prepaid phone is legitimately their biggest need.

Anyway, I'm willing to listen to counterpoints about this, but it just doesn't make sense to me that the government isn't responsible for people who can't (or won't) take care of themselves. I'm talking haven't showered in weeks; open sores on their feet, faces, and bodies; etc. Literally no other group has (or should have!) the power to require someone to get care. If we say it's not the government's job, we're saying it's nobody's job.

I'm willing to hear other thoughts on this. My current conclusion is that the status quo is ethically unconscionable but _politically_ impossible to do anything about, but maybe I'm missing something.

<comment><USER8> > Counter-productive is an empirical question, but why is forcing treatment > always unethical?

Ask most people who were diagnosed as mentally ill by east-german authorities before 1990.

Trust me, however nice they are today, you don't want an authority, a committee, or even "community standards" enforce any medical treatment on someone.

> ...for example. Do we need to wait for manslaughter charges before the > government is responsible?

You need offenses to put charges forward. That's how justice works. You just don't jail people for things you suspect they will do.

<comment> grey-area Most jurisdictions allow involuntary commitment if you are a danger to yourself or others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think this is an excellent solution, but it is one that won't be replicable by cities like NY, Seattle, or San Francisco until they fix their housing cost problems. If you think about it from a systems perspective, with inflows and outflows, you will begin to see the problem.

1) Inflows: higher housing costs increase the inflow into homelessness. Whether it is job loss, drug addiction, mental illness, or whatever...if you have higher housing costs, you are more likely to end up homeless.

2) Outflows: higher housing costs become a higher bar to leaving homelessness. Let's say someone can address, over time, their underlying cause to homelessness. That person will take longer to overcome the bar of housing costs in a high cost area than an equivalent person with lower housing cost bars to overcome.

Both of these arguments seem obvious, almost tautological, but combined what you have is a higher rate of inflows, and a lower rate of outflows. This means two things: ceteris paribus, _you have more homeless people, and the homeless people that you do have take longer to leave homelessness._

Now take into account the fact that in high housing cost areas, housing costs more to build because land prices and construction prices are higher (even taking into account Eminent Domain), and you have: 1) More demand (in terms of quantity of people) for relief housing 2) Higher expected time of use of housing. 3) Higher cost of building housing.

These factors are multiplicative, not additive. Combined, I wouldn't be surprised if the cost of attaining the same success rate is two orders of magnitude higher in San Francisco than it is in Salt Lake City. Construction costs alone take care of your first order of magnitude...now multiply those by the higher inflow rates and outflow rates.

This solution is obvious, but you can't put the cart before the horse. Salt Lake City never had to worry about it...San Francisco does.

<comment><USER10> You're ignoring homeless migration, the nature of mental illness, and the fact that people can move. The majority of homeless people you see on the street in cities like Seattle are not people who want help or will utilize it effectively -- they're people who have burned bridges that keep most people who are down on their luck in secondary homelessness.

<comment><USER9> I'm not ignoring any of that. Chronic and migrant homelessness exist, but they aren't anywhere near a majority of the population. The best data we have available shows chronic homelessness to be between 10-20% of the homeless population. And just because they are chronically homeless doesn't mean they don't want or can't benefit from help. Disability, mental as well as physical, is the largest known contributor to chronic homelessness and most forms of disability _are treatable_ , but treatments are less effective when basic needs like housing are not met.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The reason there are so many homeless is because they can't build slums for themselves like in developing countries such as India. Living in a slum would be better than being homeless. But in America, the police would tear them down.

<comment><USER12> This has come up on a number of HN posts about homelessness I've seen recently.

I'm interested in the topic, and actively worked with an encampment in Seattle (Nickelsville) that intended to build permanent dwellings. They were inspired by Dignity Village in Portland. But like you say, their efforts were demolished. But surprisingly to me, the cops involved were openly apologetic and gave everyone involved an opportunity to leave rather than risk arrest or property confiscation.

Do you have direct experience with homeless communities that have built dwellings for themselves? If so, can you talk about that experience?

<comment><USER11> I barely have any direct experience. I visited Occupy Boston when it was still around and saw their small tent city. I've been to India multiple times and have seen how the very poor live, but I haven't spoken to them. I'm mostly just interested in the topic a lot and have researched it on my own. When I was younger I used to have some homeless friends, but they didn't construct dwellings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I spend quite a bit of time in Utah and just want to reinforce that chronic homelessness is very different from 'the amount of homeless people you see on the streets' because the area around Pioneer Park is actually worse now than I've seen in years in terms of sheer number-of-homeless.

</comment><comment><USER14> homelessness is tough. In our medium size city (Columbia, SC) we have roughly 1,400 homeless and no one (myself included) seems to know what to do. I feel like affordable/free housing has been tried before, and you end up with "projects" with a drug problem. I wonder how they expect this will be different.

Am I off here? Does it not seem naive to say: "they're homeless, so let's just give them an apartment and say our 'homeless' rate dropped"? As if that was the essential problem? What about the mental health and drug (etc) issues that created the environment for unsustainable work...

I'm not saying it sounds like a bad solution, but it seems like a bandaid on a gaping wound.

<comment><USER15> > you end up with "projects" with a drug problem

You could just put them in high quality apartments and give them a stipend. The current proposal for a "projects" style homeless shelter where I am would have each unit cost $4,500 per month, with 90% of the units not having a private bathroom (and most not having a full kitchen).

For that price you could easily afford a high end apartment and give the people a large stipend. And if you spread the units out across the city so that each apartment building only had 1-2 homeless families, you'd avoid the problems of concentrating poverty.

<comment><USER16> Great, but then you'll notice that many other people also like to have a high quality apartment and a stipend. Eventually, you have to give it to a lot of people, and those who work on low salary and pay their rent for a not-so-high- quality apartment will not be happy and many of them will also acquire a status where they deserve a high quality apartment and a stipend.

<comment><USER17> If high quality is defined as having a private bathroom, I doubt you'll see a lot of people opting for it.

<comment><USER16> Then it's probably not "high quality" but more like "decent". However, I don't know about American cities specifically, but even over here in North European socialist utopias, free housing and a "stipend" does attract people in a way that makes low-wage workers unhappy (and even give up / reluctant to take up jobs).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Much of homelessness is caused by the high cost of housing (SF, NYC, LA, Boston, DC, London, ...) which itself is a result of "market failures" of "economic rents" which are the use of politics to create artificial scarcity. In this case, it is the use of zoning density restrictions and the overuse of historic landmark status. These restrictions make rent and the purchase of homes more expensive to the benefit of landlords. Fix the market failure, fix the zoning rules that create artificial scarcity through politics, and you will do much more to create affordable housing.

See Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser, Build Big, Bill an article which explains the high cost of housing is caused for the reasons I stated. [http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill- article-1....](http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/build-big-bill- article-1.1913739)

</comment><comment><USER19> I'll weigh in from a basic income perspective...

I've held for a while that a homeless person getting into housing solves one of the biggest time sinks they have. Once the time is freed up, they are more comfortable, safer and can therefore sleep better, and they can think and make a plan to get re-integrated into mainstream society.

Commenters note that 'housing first' does not work in larger cities like San Francisco and New York because of the cost of housing. Were a basic income in place, homeless persons would be more mobile and could afford basic accommodations in many more places. Therefore, they'd not be so attracted to more hospitable climates or cities with more homeless services. That would increase the options they'd have to move to less expensive housing.

<comment><USER20> The system proposed here is almost the exact opposite of a basic income:

 _What Powered Utah 's Success...And finally, most of the advocates and agencies in Utah know each other and work well with each other. They also know most of the homeless people by name...One person recommends a name from the list...Ed Snoddy, who does medical outreach for Volunteers of America, a faith-based nonprofit, speaks up...."He is notoriously dealing (drugs) right now,"...The group agrees that this individual does not play nice with others, and isn't right for this particular apartment. For now, his name stays on the list._

They assess need/sociability and provide specific rooms to specific people they think will be well suited to them. Each person has a caseworker who helps them manage their life, since evidently these people can't do it themselves.

And these are mostly "supportive housing". I.e. paternalistic organized homes, rather than just handing out money and expecting the homeless to successfully manage their own lives. This housing isn't just regular flats, it's patrolled by off-duty cops, has lots of rules, and you get kicked out if you don't obey them.

This program is run by the guy who organizes paternalistic social programs for LDS - the state literally asked the church if they could borrow him. This is story about how awesome Mormon social technology is, and is completely the opposite of BI.

[http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first- so...](http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first-solution-to- homelessness-utah)

<comment><USER21> It strikes me that the militant egalitarianism of the present age has reached its peak. The intolerant maximalism of its vulgar shamans has made such a grim backdrop that even modest efforts to hold people responsible for their actions create a bright contrast to the sad state of urban America.

<comment><USER22> Please don't post ideological rants to HN.

It's not the sort of discussion we're looking for; and people respond in kind, which produces flamewars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article mentions that they tried this in NYC. Unfortunately, the same approach doesn't work as well in a city that's almost 100 times as large as SLC, and which has a much more competitive real estate market.

The program has ended up being quite expensive to run, and it's not actually cost effective, to the point where homeless advocates actually criticize the program's in effectiveness.

It's also caused negative impact for other residents in the buildings or nearby areas. Depending on what the stipend provided by the government is and whether it's above or below market rate, landlords will either intentionally neglect and blight buildings in order to run them down, or they will refuse to rent to market tenants, with the knowledge that they can make more money from the stipends for homeless housing. This, of course, makes it more difficult to find housing and has the effect of driving prices upwards.

<comment><USER23> Do you have a source for this? It was my understanding that the program was being undermined by landlords illegally refusing to accept the rental vouchers, banking on the city being lax in its enforcement. A pretty good calculation given how in bed with the real estate industry every mayoral administration has been, even an ostensibly liberal one like DeBlasio's (see the recent Rivington housing scandal).

Seems to me housing first doesn't work in New York because the politics around telling real estate are more corrupt.

[http://abc7ny.com/news/the-investigators-homeless- struggling...](http://abc7ny.com/news/the-investigators-homeless-struggling- to-find-takers-for-rent-voucher-program/1123922/)

<comment><USER4> Yes, there are plenty. Here's the first hit on Google: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/nyregion/for-some- landlord...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/09/nyregion/for-some-landlords- real-money-in-the-homeless.html)

> The city's Department of Homeless Services pays many times the amount the > rooms would usually rent for — spending over $3,000 a month for each > threadbare room without a bathroom or kitchen — because of an acute shortage > in shelters for homeless men and women. Indeed, the amount the city pays.. > has encouraged Mr. Lapes to switch business models and become a major > private operator of homeless shelters. He is by most measures the city's > largest and owns or leases about 20 of the 231 shelters citywide. Most of > the other shelters and residences are run by the city or by nonprofit > agencies, but his operation is profit-making, prompting criticism from > advocates for the homeless and elected officials.

<comment><USER23> Thanks for that! I wasn't aware that the end result was essentially a privatized shelter system.

<comment><USER4> > I wasn't aware that the end result was essentially a privatized shelter > system.

For the record, a privatized shelter system isn't inherently a bad thing. Private shelters are an integral part of addressing homelessness in many cities.

The problem is that this particular program is an unbelievably inefficient route to that end result, and it also does so in a way that eats away at existing inventory for long-term tenants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The following blog argues that there is sloppy accounting in the claimed 90+% reduction of homelessness.

"Although overall homelessness has actually increased slightly over the past decade in Utah, such a large reduction in chronic homelessness is still an impressive achievement. But is it real?

Unfortunately, no. I spent some time studying Utah's data and found that the miraculous 91 percent reduction in chronic homelessness appears to be driven by changes in how people were counted, rather than by how many there were."

[http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/9380860](http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/9380860)

</comment><comment><USER25> I have several friends who are homeless or who have been homeless. It's really difficult to overstate how hard it is to get back out of homelessness, once you reach that point, without significant outside help.

Think of all of the stuff most folks take for granted that are pretty much mandatory in most US cities in order to get and keep a job:

1\. ID. So many of the homeless folks I know have had significant trouble obtaining ID after losing it or having it stolen, or having never had one because they left home at a very young age, etc. I can't count the number of conversations I've had trying to assist folks get an ID. Our governments don't make it easy (you need at least birth certificate and Social Security card, and some sort of mail showing where you live in some cases). For people without cooperative family or with no living parents, this step is very tough. It's stupid to think that lack of a tiny thing like ID is why so many people are without work and without homes, but, it's a reality.

2\. Transportation. If you have no car in most US cities, it's hard to have a job. This one reason metropolitan areas are so much more densely populated by homeless folks; mass transit tends to be most accessible in the city center.

3\. Staying clean. Would you hire someone who smells bad or looks dirty for _any_ job? Homeless folks feel invisible because people don't want to be near dirty/smelly people of indeterminate mental health. Even if someone is perfectly able to do a job, being dirty is a guarantee they won't get the job.

4\. No reliable way to reach them, if someone _does_ decide to hire them. When I hear/see someone being hostile to a homeless or poor person because they are lucky enough to have a smart phone (I guess because a phone is an expensive thing), I'm just aghast. How the hell do they expect a homeless person to get out of homelessness without a phone, email, and a way to get online? So many low-level jobs have online application processes and require interaction via email and web in order to get the job.

5\. Not getting a decent night's sleep, ever. Without a home, sleeping is a challenge every single day. If there are enough beds in the shelters (never the case in any city I've lived in), they have to be in the shelter by a certain time and have to be out very early (6AM is the "checkout time" at many shelters). This does double harm. The inflexible schedule prevents folks from holding jobs that conflict with that strict schedule, like second shift and night shift work, which often pays reasonably well, and has low barriers to entry. And, it also means they probably are running on an hour or two less sleep than a human actually needs to thrive. I hung out in downtown Eugene recently, and I was told that there was at least one fight, every single night. One broke out across the street within an hour of that conversation. I don't know that poor sleep is the cause of the frequent violence, but I'm confident it's a major contributing factor (and the science on sleep deprivation backs that theory up). Now, these were street kids, who don't go to shelters because the rules are too strict for them, and they sleep in sleeping bags and tents, but they, too, aren't getting enough sleep.

In short, having a home makes a _huge_ difference in nearly every element of chronic poverty, and that, paired with a consistent income, are the things that most indicate whether someone will be able to become a self-sufficient functioning member of society again. This is a great idea, and it's awesome that Utah has had such great success with it. I hope more cities and states implement these ideas.

<comment><USER26> I currently live in Eugene and have noticed a few peculiarities (near campus and away from downtown, YMMV):

* Homeless rarely have their things with them, suggesting perhaps that housing and storage are provided (at some level) to them.

* Those who panhandle near campus ask strictly for cash, and seem to some extent disappointed when they are given food instead.

* Homeless are never on campus, EVER. This seems strange to me because facilities such as bathrooms, drinking fountains, out-of-sight benches, and rain-cover, are in abundance. Clearly they are kept away, but it surprises me how EFFECTIVELY they are kept away, almost as if they are afraid of it.

* During the various University touring seasons (year round but more coming in Spring/Summer) there appears to be fewer homeless people in the more touristy areas near campus. This is purely anecdotal, but again it appears as if there is some contract with the local homeless to keep them away.

* Every morning recycling bins are spilled with their contents spread out as if someone came during the night and rumaged through them. This is particularly evident in the many alley ways near campus where most garbage/recycling is found. I would think there was some type of reward program geared towards the homeless that incentivized collection of recyclables, but it back fired and led to a large amount of littering in the area.

I have never been even close to homeless but I have always lived around it (San Francisco, Greater Bay Area, Eugene) and am somewhat fascinated by its societal implications. Eugene in particular is unique because it seems like a lot of people are trying really hard to make it better, yet are failing for a lot of reasons.

<comment><USER25> _" Every morning recycling bins are spilled with their contents spread out as if someone came during the night and rumaged through them."_

This one I can explain. Oregon has a deposit/return program; several states have them. The basic premise is that every product in a can or bottle includes a deposit fee, which you only get back when you return the can or bottle for recycling. I think the deposit is .05 on most single serving sized bottles and cans. So, 20 cans collected is $1.00. 100 is enough to buy a pretty good meal. It's kind of a normal part of some homeless folks day to roam around collecting bottles and cans; it's not as profitable as flying a sign at a busy intersection or busking, or even just asking for money downtown, but it is maybe more comfortable for the folks who don't want to beg (I can understand that; I don't know if I could ask someone for money even if I were starving, with this damned American work ethic and foolish pride).

Since there is very little incentive to put the trash back in the bins after they've collected the items that are worth month, they just leave the trash on the ground. I guess there is even a disincentive to pick up the mess; that's time that could have been spent collecting more items worth money. It's annoying, but perfectly rational.

I've never asked any of the folks I know why they don't spend any time on campus; I've never been to the campus, myself, so it's not part of my Eugene experience, thus far. Downtown (and Whiteaker for bus and van dwellers) is _clearly_ the preferred location in Eugene. Springfield's homeless are much more widely disbursed, not sure why, and seem to congregate in a few specific locations near the river. I haven't really made the acquaintance of any of them to ask, but I see them on my walk between the RV park where I'm staying and the co-working space I'm renting in Springfield. They tend to be older, and I suspect they want nothing to do with the kids in downtown Eugene, because of how much drama there is among that crowd.

Eugene _is_ an interesting place, in terms of how visible the homeless population is. There seems to be somewhat less hostility in both directions (i.e. in a lot of places I've lived, homeless folks are treated very poorly, and they tend to be surly in response...that dynamic doesn't seem to play out here; there's maybe less fear in both directions). I dunno. I don't have solutions, really, but I do like to see people treated with basic human decency, no matter what their situation. I judge a city (and its inhabitants), to a significant degree, by how it treats those most at risk and most in need; and homeless folks are certainly among the most at risk and most in need.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is there any kind of communication network for homeless, homeless advocates, homeless volunteers, etc. to communicate various local initiatives that have proven productive in improving the lives of homeless people?

</comment><comment><USER22> Another article on this, from 2014: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7099784](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7099784).

</comment><comment><USER27> Nevada is probably putting their homeless on a bus and sending them to Utah. Not being funny here, they got caught doing that in the past.

</comment><comment><USER28> This title should be made less clickbaity, something like "Utah Reduced Chronic Homelessness by 91 Percent with Housing First Model"

<comment><USER22> We've edited the title above to be less clickbaity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Tl;dr well organized paternalism which also excludes (or at least deprioritizes) the antisocial. Kind of the opposite of everything that is popular with the HN crowd.</comment>


Floating point error is the least of my worries - <AUTHOR> http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/11/01/floating-point-worries/ <comment><USER2> I used to write my own numerical routines to analyze airplane part designs. Sure, modeling errors were a constant problem, as were floating point approximation errors. I've seen the latter cause result errors that were off by more than an order of magnitude.

The solution to detecting and dealing with these kinds of errors was to:

1\. Use common sense. The analysis was usually done to tune a design that "good engineering judgment" had already given a first approximation to. If your analysis was significantly off, you made a mistake somewhere. Good engineers always check the numbers to see if they look "wrong".

2\. Compare the results with the output of using an alternate method (I was doing this at the time Boeing was just starting the transition to computer aided engineering, so it was easy to compare the results with the old ways).

3\. Plug the outputs into the inverse algorithm, and you should be able to reproduce the inputs.

4\. Compare the outputs against known boundary conditions. For example, you know that the sin(pi)=0, so your algorithm for sin() should reproduce that.

5\. And lastly, build a prototype in the machine shop and test it.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Modeling error is usually several orders of magnitude greater than floating point error."

I think one could argue that this makes floating point error more dangerous. When something is off by several orders of magnitude, it tends to stand out either in the form of program failure (OOM error, etc) or in simply being able to eyeball the results and realize they can't possibly right.

When something is off by just a bit, it is something of a lurking horror. It can still bite you in the ass (especially when the error compounds over time), but it may be initially much harder to detect. Those sorts of issues worry me much more than the grander, more obvious ones.

</comment><comment><USER4> While I tend to agree that modeling and approximation error are usually greater than floating point error, floating point error can be more devastating in practice because once you realize you have a floating point problem, it's _much_ more difficult to work around.

When we develop models or approximation schemes, we're usually cognizant of the fact that we're fudging some things - we accept the limitations of the model, or we have an epsilon parameter or five in the approximation scheme that we can tune if we need better accuracy. Since we need to build all the machinery in code to solve the problem at all, it's pretty easy to tune it when we find that machinery lacking.

But we usually have little choice other than to hope that floating point math of some sort will be "good enough", since we're reliant on the hardware for performance there. If doubles don't cut it, it can be a pretty substantial project to retrofit a mathy algorithm so that it has higher numerical precision, and it can be all but impossible if we're already compute-heavy and don't have many more cycles to waste.

<comment><USER5> > While I tend to agree that modeling and approximation error are usually > greater than floating point error, floating point error can be more > devastating in practice because once you realize you have a floating point > problem, it's much more difficult to work around.

There are many well-understood approaches to reducing many sources of floating point error that don't require throwing more bits at the problem.

> When we develop models or approximation schemes, we're usually cognizant of > the fact that we're fudging some things

I think that may be true in some cases, but false in general. To pick one model as an example, it takes a bit of effort to really understand the point where Newtonian mechanics is no longer a valid model of a physical system. In many cases, this is hand-waved away, with no attempt to quantify the contributions of the known model error (Newtonian physics is a flawed model of reality) against the contributions of the calculation error (floating point is a flawed model of reality).

> it's much more difficult to work around.

Floating point error may be more difficult to work around, but in most interesting cases model error is more difficult to detect. This is especially true if we have an incomplete understanding of reality.

<comment><USER4> Agreed on all these points; you're right, I've seriously played down the difficulty of addressing model error, which in reality usually overwhelm the other two sources of error anyways.

I understand this all too well - I once blew more than six months (and also burnt myself out, ending up in a long period of career-related depression, but that's another story) on a fixed-bid contract that I had quoted based on a three week estimate. Why?

Because the last .5% of error to reach the acceptance threshold ended up requiring a model that was several times the complexity (over 5x as much code, _seriously_ mathy shit, too, and I'm saying that as someone with a background in mathematical finance...) of the one that got me to that plateau, which I had assumed would be enough to do the job.

The "lesson learned" there was that it's seriously foolish to submit fixed bids for modeling problems, unless you've previously fully solved the _exact same_ problem (within epsilon) to the required accuracy. I don't care if you have a reasonable expectation that you can hit the target based on domain knowledge, if you haven't seen the data before, you have no freaking clue what you're dealing with - you might need to blow two weeks sanitizing the data before you can even think about modeling (I did), and you might discover that the "3 million" data points that the client promised are mostly irrelevant to the behavior that you're being asked to model, so you spend the next week trying to track down other data sources, and more time negotiating those transactions. Given all that, you're likely to end up doing long term open- ended research, which is fine if someone wants to pay you for your time and is willing to accept a reasonable chance of failure, but those sorts of tasks are most definitely _not_ typical development projects: my rule of thumb these days is, if I would be able to publish an academic paper in a legit peer reviewed journal if I did the project by myself instead of for a company, then it's not a deliverable suitable for a fixed bid.

Another word-to-the-wise: you're doubly stupid if you agree, as I did, to both an accuracy target _and_ a model performance one, triply so if you also neglect to specify in the agreement what hardware they'll be evaluating performance with respect to...

Better yet, just don't do this type of stuff as a consultant unless and until you really know the game, it's way too easy to go wrong and end up screwing over both yourself and your clients.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _The weakest link in applied math is often the step of turning a physical problem into a mathematical problem._

This is even difficult to do when what you're trying to model is not the physical world, but a computer system. (A computer system can count as the "physical world" depending on your view, but I don't think that's what the author meant.) That's what we're doing right now, and me (a systems guy) and a bunch of several applied math / theoretical CS people are having a hell of a time with it. Well, fun in its own way, but, yes, getting a model that makes assumptions that gel with reality is the first order concern, always.

<comment><USER7> Honestly, computer systems should be approached and treated as though they have the complexity of the physical world. They're composed of a bunch of different parts, some moving, some distant, all accumulating all sorts of interesting bottlenecks and errors at the edges. The starting assumption that a given computer system is simple and ought to yield easily to analysis and modeling is a red flag in many situations.

<comment><USER6> I agree, actually, which is why I made that aside.</comment></comment></comment>


How I Used Professional Poker to Become a Data Scientist - <AUTHOR> https://medium.springboard.com/how-i-used-professional-poker-to-become-a-data-scientist-e49b75dfe8e3 <comment><USER2> Cool little trick, if you're strictly curious about knowing which hands rank where in relation to which other hands (say in an AI or whatever).

While there are C(52, 5) different hands you can have, having 4 diamonds and a heart is the exact same thing as 3 clubs and 2 hearts, etc. so it collapses down to ~2.5k hands.

Now the next observation we make is that for most hands, suit doesn't matter, but if it does we still need a way to distinguish it, but again, a flush in hearts is the same as a flush in spades in terms of card ranking. The trick we now pull out is the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic, which says that for some natural number N, N can be factored into primes in exactly one way, excluding permutations of the factors.

We take advantage of this and assign each card a prime number. 2=2 3=3 4=5 ... A=41

Now, by multiplying the prime numbers together, we get things like a 2 3 A K Q hand is 2 * 3 * 41 * 39 * 37, and if they are all the same suit, you multiply by 43. You can then take these 2.5k hashes, rank them against each other in a lookup table, and know in constant time for the number of hands how hands rank against each other by just multiplying their card's values together with either 1 or 43 if same suit and seeing where it falls in the list.

I realize expected value is more widely used as the basis for these types of systems, but I always thought that was a fun trick.

<comment><USER3> I think it should be noted here that this only ranks garbage hands and flushes. Quad 2's is certainly worth more than 3 Ace's yet 2^4 < 41^3.

Edit: I missed

>>> rank them against each other in a lookup table

I'm just confused about the prime factors thing now. Why not just hash the hand itself? "3459To" where o stands for off suit?

<comment> T-hawk Because 3459T is equivalent to 345T9 and 34T59 and all the other permutations.

You need to either hash all the permutations (making your lookup table 5! times bigger) or sort the hand by card value. It is faster to multiply the 5 prime factors in linear time rather than the N log N of sorting.

<comment><USER3> That makes sense. I was making the assumption that hands are given in order. For example, when generating all hands, your inner loops only start at the current index of the parent loop.

<comment> T-hawk The purpose isn't to generate the ranking list. The purpose is to evaluate hands. The list is a one-time cost however you make it, but evaluating the randomly dealt cards would have the ongoing cost of sorting every time if not for the prime-factors trick.

<comment><USER3> Yea, I guess I'm not convinced that the prime-factors is faster than sorting. Sure, linear time for prime multiplication, but you still have to look up the prime number in a lookup. The question comes down to what the coefficient is in front of N for prime factor method and in front of N log N for sorting. As N=5, the coefficient ratio is pretty small to still warrant using sorting. Also, using Radix sorting makes things even more fuzzy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As someone who has played poker my entire life as well as a programmer, and have drifted passively into playing online poker recently over the real game. I found this fascinating and hadn't really considered taking the data science route to playing until I read this article as it's more of a hobby. I always have a minimum I'm willing to walk away losing should I do badly, however this approach has changed my view.

Does anyone else on HN have more resources like this, applying data science to poker. I will google, but on forums like this one, I find personally recommended resources to be very helpful.

<comment><USER5> Holdem Manager is still the best program for it I believe, but it only works for holdem. You're out of luck if that game bores you.

It is most useful for analysing your own game - you have access to your entire hand history so it is extremely valuable for finding out your weaknesses.

<comment><USER4> Thanks, well holdem is my preferred game and doesn't bore me at all. I'll definitely be checking out Holdem Manager.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While reading this I started thinking about how interesting it would be would be to see an AI vs AI poker tournament.

Does such a thing exist? Some preliminary searches didn't bring much up apart from one-off experiments. [EDIT found a recent article about this [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-to-fold- huma...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-to-fold-humans-poker- playing-ai-beats-pros-at-texas-hold-rsquo-em/) which talks about [http://www.computerpokercompetition.org/](http://www.computerpokercompetition.org/)]

Another interesting one would be a table of 8 players. Half AI half professionals but no one knows who is who.

<comment><USER7> The poker competition you linked to is really more academics-oriented, and last time I checked, was consistently won by the University of Alberta.

For a more "real-world" example -- AIs that were actually used in live online poker environments, competing against each other -- there was only one that I know of. It was hosted by the creator of the (apparently now defunct) WinHoldEm software, Ray E. Bornert II. It never ran again, only a small handful of the more experienced bot authors attended, and turnout was poor, with the highest max buy in at $100 ( [http://robopoker.blogspot.com/2007/12/pokerbot-world- champio...](http://robopoker.blogspot.com/2007/12/pokerbot-world-championship- cruise.html)). It was called the 2007 Poker Bot World Championship (PBWC).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8>
        600 hands per hour ... won $1,913.13 over 387,373 hands

That's less than $3/hour, switching to _any_ other career would be an improvement.

<comment><USER5> Nobody is playing for a living at those stakes, I guess he was still learning at that time. It would make his basic analysis easier to bear out though. At those stakes the bad players are loose and passive, and simply playing tight and aggressive is a winning strategy.

There are no sharks at those tables.

<comment><USER9> Lol. It's 2017. At $25 every table has 8 eastern europe "sharks".

<comment><USER10> Really? I hoped so many years after the boom died it would become more relaxing again. Maybe good old times really never come back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > _" I used the data at this level from 2013 where I won $1,913.13 over > 387,373 hands,"_

This does not seem like a lot of money to earn for playing 387k hands!

Not a criticism just an observation - but surely this amount of effort could be better spent elsewhere? Purely from a money-making perspective, obviously there is an element of enjoyment here which might change the picture significantly.

<comment><USER12> For professional low level poker players, a good deal of their income comes from rakeback. That is, for every hand, the site makes $N (the "rake"), and the player gets back X% of N/players, where X scales according to the amount of volume put in. I'm a bit out of the loop but you can assume that N is around $3 and X is probably in the 35% range.

Some people semi-derisively refer to these people as "rakeback pros", in that you can break even (or even lose a little bit) in your poker results, and still make a living wage from the rakeback alone.

Also, 387k hands probably takes less time to play than you think. Many online grinders play upwards of 1000 hands/hr - 20+ tables concurrently X 50-150 hands/hr.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > 'Voluntarily Put Money in Pot' (VP$IP) percentage...is the frequency with > which a player plays a hand when first given an opportunity to bet or fold.

Does a call count, or does it have to be an initial bet or raise?

<comment><USER14> Any money that enters the pot that is not a blind is considered VPIP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nate Silver was for a while a professional poker player.

</comment><comment><USER16> Everyone is a data scientist these days

<comment><USER17> Indeed. Call me a snob, but I am sitting in 2 to 3 interviews weekly at the moment (looking for a big data specialist) and everyone is a "Data Scientist":

 _me_ : You state on your CV that you are a data scientist

 _Candidate_ : Yes

 _me_ : What is your Phd in?

 _Candidate_ : I don't actually have a Phd

 _me_ : <sigh> right, no scientist.

I hate job interviews

<comment><USER18> You are being a snob. There's no degree requirement to be called a data scientist. Even if there were, why would you exclude a B.S. or an M.S.? It's not like they're calling themselves a Doctor.

You'd be stupid to market yourself as a data specialist when every startup is looking for a data scientist.

<comment><USER17> _There 's no degree requirement to be called a data scientist._

There is for one of the positions I am recruiting for.

 _Even if there were, why would you exclude a B.S. or an M.S.?_

Because I am looking for someone with a Phd in Data Science. How stupid of me, for excluding people that don't have the skills I need for my job.

 _You 'd be stupid to market yourself as a data specialist when every startup is looking for a data scientist._

I'd be stupid for hiring a data specialist, when what I am looking for is a data scientist. I'd be even stupider for hiring someone that is _trying_ to pass themselves off as a data scientist with Phd, when they don't actually have one. I recently interviewed someone with "12 years production hadoop experience" (seriously), claiming to have a "data science Phd" (doesn't exist as such) and when asked "can you please explain the relationship between hbase, hadoop, and hdfs" (yes, there is a reason for asking this question in this way) I had to listen to essentially a salespitch for Hortonworks, and to be told "hdfs has nothing to do with hadoop" <\-- this shit, many times a week.

<comment><USER18> But this isn't a problem with the industry itself, it's how you've set yourself up for poor matches. Why don't you title the position "Data Scientist, Senior/Chief/etc. (PhD req)." It'll cut through at least half of the cruft right away.

But really, it looks like you need to hire a new recruiter. If you're wasting your time interviewing a Hortonworks entry dev when you want a guy with a PhD, the recruiter is not doing their job.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Leaked Gamestop conference call on Coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/CAMELOT331/status/1240743954246709265 <comment><AUTHOR> Summary: Gamestop Will Not Pay Quarantined Staff despite staying open on lockdowns, says one store manager had contracted the virus but kept the specific store open, coorporates will take a weeks off while employees will have to work

(according to [https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/flv3t7/leaked_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/flv3t7/leaked_gamestop_conference_gamestop_will_not_pay/))</comment>


Ask HN: How good of a hacker do you have to be to be a technical co-founder? - <AUTHOR> Starting a startup is always daunting. But, as someone who will one day be a the technical co-founder of one, it's hard not to feel daunted by the enormity of the technical task that will be in front of me. Algorithms, database design, version control, deployment environments, design patterns, etc. The list goes on and on. And this isn't even touching on the non-technical aspects of a startup.<p>Is there any way of knowing if I should spend time shoring up my programming/algorithm skills versus trying to launch right away? How do I know I'm a good enough hacker to start a startup?  Are there any good rule-of-thumb metrics for figuring this out, or is this case where you don't know until you actually try? <comment><USER3> There's no such thing as a "technical co-founder". There are founders and there are employees. Usually but not always, one or more of the founders is capable of building the first salable version of the product. A hoary cliche among startups is the company that has matured to the point where its dev team removes commit privs from the founders, which should give you an idea of what the bar is here.

Algorithms, database design, version control, and deployment are all important things (design patterns much less so), but they don't matter a whit compared to building something that someone will pay money for.

Stop procrastinating and get to work.

</comment><comment><USER4> Read the Lean Startup. Then build something. Who cares if you don't have the answers to problems you don't yet have? Startups are businesses first. If you make a product people want, even if it's badly engineered, that's a much better situation than being an expert hacker with an awesomely engineered product that nobody wants. If you have traction, you can hire people better than you to fill in the gaps.

Besides, nobody gives a shit about algorithms. ;)

</comment><comment><USER5> As a long time programmer, I've learnt the mantra "somebody has already solved this, let's go find their solution." That applies to pretty much any technical or non-technical issue that you need to solve. So much of what we need to know is written up somewhere on the internet, leaving us to focus on the 1% of the problem that we alone can solve, and differentiates our value proposition from all the other alternatives.

My short answer would be "know enough to be dangerous, and surround yourself with smarter people".

Recommended reading - [http://www.sacred- texts.com/nth/tgr/tgr10.htm](http://www.sacred-texts.com/nth/tgr/tgr10.htm)

Start from 'Henry Ford was called "an ignorant pacifist."'

</comment><comment><USER6> Lots of good feedback already, but one thing I'll add is that you'll also need to be a hell of a recruiter, which can eventually also take a bit of the pressure off (assuming you're surrounding yourself with people smarter/better than you)

</comment><comment><USER7> Actually I am in the same position you are in. I think the best way to tackle this problem is to see if you can come up with a minimum viable product(MVP as they say) to validate your idea. You can do it either by developing yourself or hiring a programmer(Of course you have spend some money on it). If you see the product idea works and you have some traction, then you can always raise a bit of seed funding and hire some coders to do the development work.

But I think product/software design is only half of the battle. The other half is to find customers, convincing them to try your product and ultimately make them to pay for it.

</comment><comment><USER8> From my experience and from many successful technical founders, or co- founders, you're either not qualified or just qualified for it. Even if you're advanced in specific areas of programming/computing, being a technical co- founder means doing everything related to the product (I'm guessing it's software). Deployment, database, web app, version control, services, server ops, etc... is a lot of stuff to learn and become proficient with it.

Don't be worried about the sheer overhead of skills or knowledge required. Startups is all about learning, maybe just as much as executing.

<comment><USER9> Yep, I totally agree. From my (a technical co-founder) point of view - <USER2> JFDI approach is a master factor here. If you don't know how to do something - that's good! Take the second step and get to know how you can do it, then double check how to do it right and the just do it. Plus: take the responsibility for what you've done.

<comment><USER10> Before I started building my first web app in Rails, I didn't even know how to write Rails! I had only previously been a front-end developer, but I can say I learned a TON. Am I a Ruby on Rails guru? Nope, but I know how to traverse the stack with the knowledge I do have and get as much done as possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the easiest way to figure it out is to try and make your software in your spare time. If you can make progress every day, you'll be fine. An objective measurement of your ability only becomes critical if you quit your job to work on your startup fulltime and have a hard deadline. Don't put yourself in that position.

</comment><comment><USER12> You're good enough, no need to sure-up.

Anyone who even has "design patterns" as a blip on his radar can crank out all the code required for _most_ startups' MVP. It will take you longer than it would take someone else, and that's okay. It won't always be pretty, and that's okay, too.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER13> Better to launch and see if people wants the product than being wasting effort for nothing. As it is stated on the Lean Startup book, any non-validated fact is a waster of time.

The best hackers i've meet there were, "doers".

</comment><comment><USER14> >How do I know I'm a good enough hacker to start a startup?

You try it and see.

</comment><comment><USER15> nobody is qualified to be a co-founder unless they've done it before.

it's a test that you pass by doing.</comment>


We Still Live Within the Mediated, Alienated World of "The Moviegoer" - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/we-still-live-within-the-mediated-alienated-world-of-the-moviegoer <comment><USER2> Paul Elie does a wonderful job explaining the book. This novel indeed takes everydayness and "makes it the subject of fitful philosophical inquiry", which is for many the most rewarding type of fiction.

Almost all readers understand the novel as an exploration of "the sickness of modern Western society". However, that theme is present incidentally owing to the book primarily being an examination of man's existence as a created being, which many readers and reviewers miss. Elie very importantly includes Percy's own words explaining that he set out to persuade the reader of the Christian concept "that man is more than an organism in an environment... He is a wayfarer and a pilgrim".

How does Percy do this? He explores human solitude, being "alone [while] in a crowd", as felt by his main character Binx, a materialist and skeptic who is suddenly drawn to "the pilgrim's search outside himself, rather than the guru's search within" (in the book referred to as The Search).

I ultimately disagree with the wording of Elie's conclusion, as I think would Percy. Binx is befuddled by the mystery of existence, as many of us spend time being. But I don't think Percy means to draw attention to the existence of The Search only to suggest we must forever be searching. I wrote about this aspect of the book in 2015 which you can read here: [http://liamk.org/moviegoer/](http://liamk.org/moviegoer/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Fascinating that it beat out both "Catch-22" and "Franny and Zoey" for the award in 1961. Perhaps, as the author implies, it was its introduction of experience outside of the Heller/Salinger milieu that readers found refreshing for a change.

</comment><comment><USER4> I hoped this would be an article on the issues surrounding the classification of certain people as 'moviegoers'.

</comment><comment><USER5> > "one a bad imitation of Thomas Mann," he later said, "the other a worse > imitation of Thomas Wolfe—which is very bad indeed."

I wonder if he has read about mimetic theory by René Girard?</comment>


Kontain is live - <AUTHOR> http://www.kontain.com

<comment><USER2> Ouch, that's a lot of Flash. Is there a low-fi option?</comment>


Ask HN: What are your thoughts on Master Password? - <AUTHOR> https://ssl.masterpasswordapp.com/
Looking into password managers, what do you think of Master Password? Are there any downsides you can see with their implementation?
It doesn't use a vault and has an iOS app.
Considering KeePassX as well, but as far as I can tell there's no mobile support <comment><USER2> I don't know about that but lastpass is great imo. Also you don't need premium to use it on iOS or Android devices anymore. All of your passwords sync in every devices you have. You should check it.</comment>


Snowden to leave airport: LIVE - <AUTHOR> http://rt.com/on-air/snowden-leaves-airport-moscow/

<comment><USER2> First people had to watch a door and how a driveway. Live media is certainly losing its touch.</comment>


Should I use WordPress or build my own website? - <AUTHOR> http://matthewjeffery.net/2017/08/26/Should-I-use-WordPress-or-build-my-own-website/ <comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your input. I mainly want people to post anonymous comments so I can gather feedback and use to to improve my blog. I did find WordPress to be very useful in setting up a website quickly, but since I know how to build a website, I thought it would be better to build my own so I can have full customisability. Another reason why I didn't like using WordPress originally is because the webpage loading times were terrible, I think this may be because of the plugins on the site. Using Jekyll instead made loading times a lot faster.

</comment><comment><USER2> If you want to learn how to make a CMS or just learn more about web development then definitely have a go at making your own website from scratch. If however your main aim is not to learn about technical aspects I'd strongly advise you to just use a preexisting service.

As per a different comment if you are worried about page load speeds you have some options, you can use Wordpress as your CMS in a headless manner which will let you cache pages for future visitors.

</comment><comment> star-techate > I don't want you to have to sign up to Wordpress just to leave comments and > communicate with me.

Then don't restrict your comments like that. WordPress pages don't gather 8000+ spam links because it's only capable of accepting wordpress users' comments.

WordPress is flexible enough and rich enough in plugins and themes that I wouldn't it an alternative to "building my own website", but rather as one technology you can use to do that.</comment>


SCrapyard Milling Machine Gets Work Done on a Budget - <AUTHOR> https://hackaday.com/2019/09/01/scrapyard-milling-machine-gets-work-done-on-a-budget/ <comment><USER2> Uh...I think that's a typo with the word "scrapyard", there?

<comment><AUTHOR> oh cool, it makes a bit of sense too though [fixed]</comment></comment>


Show HN: Visual Brainfuck Interpreter - <AUTHOR> https://franklin.dyer.me/htmlpage/brainfuck.html <comment><USER2> I did some visualization of brainfuck quite a few years ago. I do an interpretation and generate a pov-ray script that generates frames that generate a video.

Multiplication here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PIZTFrkl0w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PIZTFrkl0w) , repo here: [https://github.com/maweki/brainfuck2video](https://github.com/maweki/brainfuck2video)

The problem I find with basically every brainfuck visualization (mine included): it's only useful with a few memory cells as the tape becomes full. You can't skip over or fast forward specific "widgets" (I've seen multiplication, now move along). At that point, you could find other levels of abstraction and try to allow for some macros that should always take x seconds, independent of the number of actual operations.

And I think most projects would be well-served using some simple termination arguments to prevent some simple not so well-behaved programs (of course, this is in general undecidable). But this shown interpreter for example, just does nothing on "+[]" but whether some program in some state is quiescent is easily decidable.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A Brainfuck interpreter that shows how the cellular automaton behaves as your code runs. A description of the language and some challenging puzzles can be found below.

<comment><USER3> In case you are not aware, there are quite a few people who have done pretty crazy things with brainfuck. For example, there are some really short quines [0], brainfuck compilers and interpreters in brainfuck, and a multitude of macro languages to make writing bf programs faster.

Writing a quine is a decent challenge. you should add that as a final challenge for when you have done the others.

[0]: [https://github.com/itchyny/brainfuck/blob/master/quine3.bf](https://github.com/itchyny/brainfuck/blob/master/quine3.bf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There's something wrong with the status (?) widget at the top of the screen. Here's what I get trying to run a sample .b script - [https://imgur.com/EEcZDym.png](https://imgur.com/EEcZDym.png)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hm. What browser are you using?

<comment><USER5> Not OP but I have the same issue in Firefox on Windows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wish the name wasn't NSFW. OR not safe for teaching kids about programming in mimimalist environments.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that is regrettable. Whenever I talk to someone about BF, they tend to assume I'm just looking for an excuse to cuss.

One time I took a math/number theory class in which the professor had us prove all sorts of theorems but never told us their names (presumably because he didn't want us looking them up). Depending on the context in which you're teaching, you might try something like that - if one of your students were to look up the language and discover that it's called "Brainfuck" on their own time, you wouldn't be to blame.

On the other hand, depending on who you're teaching, the name "Brainfuck" might actually serve as an intriguing hook that captures the attention of less-mature audiences. To be perfectly honest, the clickbait-y nature of the name "Brainfuck" is probably why I discovered the language while surfing Wikipedia in the first place.</comment></comment>


Stop playing startup and start building real shit - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/team-transparentcareer/stop-playing-startup-and-start-building-real-shit-8c22a72f63fe#.qi76035ws <comment><USER2> 1000% this. I've had multiple co-founders over the years that love the idea of being part of a startup, but were unwilling to sacrifice any free time and accomplish anything.

If you've had more than 3 meetings with no commitment of time, walk away.

<comment><AUTHOR> Crazy how many "founders" keep "pivoting" before actually building anything.</comment></comment>


YC Interview Advice, Question 1 - <AUTHOR> http://mattmaroon.com/2012/04/25/yc-interview-advice-question-1/

<comment><USER2> This font type is really hard to read....FYI....light gray on black background really isn't legible.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great advice Matt, thank you!</comment>


Ask HN: Marketing ideas for my book "The Geek Atlas" - <AUTHOR> Next April my 'travel book for people interested in science and technology' will be published by O'Reilly.  Of course, O'Reilly will do their own marketing, but I feel like I ought to be doing my own guerrilla marketing since I'm a geek.
I would love to hear the thoughts of HN people on good ways to build a buzz.
PS I probably should have said a bit more about the book: it's 128 places around the world with significant scientific, mathematical or technological significance without being a list of the the usual science museums (although there are a few good ones in the book).  The book has information about the place, and an explanation of the science behind it.
An example place is The Horn Antenna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horn_Antenna) in New Jersey where the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation was verified (by accident).
To be notified about the book you can put your email address on my little mailing list: http://www.jgc.org/blog/2008/12/geek-atlas-mailing-list.html <comment><USER2> I think you can learn quite a bit from Tim Ferris (the author of the 4-hour work week). He started marketing his book way before it came out by way of:

1\. A website that complimented his book

2\. A blog that talk about things related to the book

3\. He reached out to bloggers and built a relationship ([http://text.co.uk/internet-marketing-news/how-to-market- to-b...](http://text.co.uk/internet-marketing-news/how-to-market-to-bloggers- according-to-timothy-ferris.html))

4\. Get interviewed. Podcasters are always looking to interview people with interesting stories and of course there are many book review sites and podcasts.

All these will build enough anticipation and hype that once your books hits the shelf you should have generated significant buzz.

<comment><USER3> Definitely blog with excerpts. I would also considering giving away the book (as PDF) before it is published to get people reading and reviewing it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I imagine that O'Reilly will do their RoughCuts thing with the book so that people get early access.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have no useful suggestions, but like @pchristensen, you had me halfway through the title. Most excellent idea. I'm reminded of an old Wired piece by Neal Stephenson entitled "Mother Earth, Mother Board" in which he talks about the 'hacker-tourist.' The only thing that could make it better is to suggest nearby non-geek attractions that I can use to sell the trips to my wife. :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually thought about doing that, but didn't have the time. The book will highlight elements of the places that are non-geek oriented (such as they are outdoors and suitable for a nice hike or picnic).

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It would be hard for me to give any meaningful advice since you had me halfway through the title. I even made a note in my calendar for April 2009 that your book was coming out and I need to buy it. (this was when it was on your blog last week).

I would see if you can get on "geek" media: geek.tv, NPR's Science Friday, etc. Science Friday had a 20 minute talk with the people that wrote "My Nuclear Family Vacation" where they visited nuclear history sites.

Not sure if it's in the budget, but you should go to any of the places you can and do a little 2 min video about it, with info about the book in the fade- out. Put them on youtube and on the book site.

Definitely have a site for the book, preferably with a decent blog. This lets people find out more about the book and lets you give periodic reminders that it exists and should be bought. See "Permission Marketing" for more details.

Anyways, good luck and I can't wait until it comes out in April!

<comment><AUTHOR> I really like the YouTube idea.

The plan is to have a dedicated web site for the book (O'Reilly did buy geekatlas.com).

Thank you for the suggestions.

<comment><USER5> I was thinking about it some more and you should probably just look for everywhere where "Nuclear Family Vacation" has been featured and contact them. They did all the marketing research already, follow in their draft!

[http://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Family-Vacation-Travels- Weapon...](http://www.amazon.com/Nuclear-Family-Vacation-Travels- Weaponry/dp/1596913789)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> 128 places!!?? 128 is associated with computer science (like 1024). So you could use this number in a very innovative way.

Whatever places everyone mentioned, poster, website, etc make an ad with '128' that you could put up anywhere. The first thing that comes to my mind is... "128 bytes and 128 places". Some sorta caption for your self-created campaign. Will post later if I hit upon something more creative.

Talking about the future, if you intend to get a 2nd edition and a 3rd edition on the shelf. Then I would have 256 places, 512 places and henceforth for further editions.

<comment><AUTHOR> And that's precisely why I decided to do 128 places instead of 100. It's instantly recognizable to anyone who's had to deal with base 2 as an in joke.

The full title of the book is "The Geek Atlas: 128 Places Where Science and Technology Come Alive".

Of course, for people who don't understand the joke I do explain it at one point in the book where I explain the binary system.

<comment><USER5> That was my first thought, but then I wondered if Boston's Route 128 had anything to do with it.

<comment><USER7> I just checked that out. What a neat connection to make!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the coolest things... actual maps, links to wikipedia, user comments from people who have been there, and so forth, might eat into sales of the book.

<comment><USER9> But is building a following worth losing a few sales?

Also, I'm sure that more people that know about it, the more likely it'll become a birthday gift for that right-at-the-edge-about-to-go-full-blown geeky cousin.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are you most thankful for? - <AUTHOR>

Share the things that make you thankful today.  It can be technology or the simple joys in life. <comment><USER2> I'm most thankful for my health. I believe that a person's health directly affects every other part of their life, so I do whatever I can to stay healthy.</comment>


Social Media Is Not Important - <AUTHOR> http://stratus3d.com/blog/2019/07/18/social-media-is-not-important/ <comment><USER2> Social media is important - I'm tired of all these people claiming the opposite. Maybe quitting social media works for your lifestyle / situation, but I'd hate it.

I have many overseas friends that I can only stay up-to-date with via Facebook. Could they message me directly? Maybe. Would all of them do that? No.

Not everyone is a "best friend" and likely to update me directly, and that's OK - they're still my friends though, and I wanna stay in touch.

And I daresay (gasp) _enjoy_ posting sometimes, and liking things.</comment>


The cows connected to the internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23932259

<comment><USER2> Note that all cows (and some other farm animals) in the EU are already subject to legally-mandated "inventory tracking", of movements between farms. This is for epidemic control purposes following the last outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

I knew someone who did a PhD on analysis of the cattle movements database..

</comment><comment><USER3> Now you just need to create a twitter account for these cows. They could tweet things like "Nice hay today!" or "Feeling a bit gassy, going to lie down." the kinds of things Cows might tweet if they tweeted.</comment>


Ask HN: Non-US founders, are you reconsidering appling to YC due to Trump? - <AUTHOR> Having applied to HN in the past, I have decided against applying due to, both myself and SO, not wanting to live in the US under President Trump.<p>Is there anyone else who feels this way? <comment><USER2> As a Canadian working on a project that may or may not go for funding, the current state of American politics hasn't dissuaded me from the idea of applying to YC.

However, in late 2016 I was interviewing with Palantir, and the political climate, combined with Thiel's involvement, let me to withdraw my candidacy after 2 phone interviews prior to the on-site.

</comment><comment><USER3> I moved to the other side of my country (Australia) for recently for work because I felt I needed to make a short step before the leap to SF (most friends recommended going to SF, talking to a few companies, flying back then doing the visa process which costs a non-trivial amount). Trump administration, rising house prices and a possible bubble bursting are keeping me out of the states at the moment.

However I must say I felt like Melbourne would be a lot more startup adept than it is. I feel like Sydney is quite a while in front, but all of Australia lags behind Israel and London (outside the US anyway.)

</comment><comment><USER4> I am reconsidering due to the invasive and discriminatory border control I fear I might be subjected to on entry. This started before Trump, but seems to be getting worse with the current administration.

<comment><USER5> > ...invasive and discriminatory border control I fear I might be subjected to > on entry ...

This too. Who needs this kind of aggravation? Seriously the bureaucratic process around entering the US is extremely discouraging

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was under the impression that as a YC applicant one is not required to live in the US, just to incorporate there.

The uncertainty surrounding the entire adminstration and it's policies gives pause for thought and has introduced a rogue element into the calculation (at last for me) but only time will tell if many others feel this way and act on these instincts

<comment><USER6> you have to live in the US for the duration of your YC batch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This will only make Trump happy since that's exactly what he wants. Do you want to make trump happy and think about politics first or do you want to focus on your business and compete? That's also a sign for investors... they'll find out quickly you get easily distracted.

<comment><AUTHOR> Being non-white (i.e. could be from a muslim country) it is more to do with the fact that I might face problems coming in and out of the country.

Not to mention living in a country where being openly racist is not something that would exclide you from being president.

<comment><USER7> For the first part - it'll be decided soon I guess.

For the second part, I still believe you're getting too distracted. The US is a huge country with a lot of diversity. If you apply at YC and magically get in, you'd have to come to the san francisco bay area. Here, it's pro Obama. The large majority of California is Democrat. It is an extremely diverse place. This is where tech startups do business so I'd see it as a distraction if you don't get impacted by #1 and still believe the US is not a great place to start a company coming from another country.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Kepler-31b I'm unsure why YC doesn't open up a branch outside the US and offer a vessel to US investors?

</comment><comment><USER8> The president is just a non important piece in the game. They talk about The Establishment.</comment>


UK government seeks expansion of mass surveillance capabilities - <AUTHOR> https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/05/uk-government-seeks-expansion-mass-surveillance-technical-capabilities-via-investigatory-powers-act/ <comment><USER2> More active discussion on same topic: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14271837](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14271837)

</comment><comment><USER3> The security services, faced with the seemingly impossible task of finding a needle in a haystack, appear to be absolutely convinced the solution is to add more hay.

</comment><comment><USER4> > Secondary data includes encrypted data, which means that (in order to > comply) no UK organizations will be able to offer truly encrypted services.

What does this mean for SSL? Would it then be deemed illegal?

If that is the case, would UK companies need to incorporate in Ireland and then move their tech stacks there?

In addition, if that is the case. What does that mean for UK citizens consuming services from abroad? That all UK ISPs must then forcibly remove SSL?

Dear lord, how did we get here?

<comment><USER5> _Dear lord, how did we get here?_

Simple: [http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/15/article-2324823-19...](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/15/article-2324823-19CA6FA6000005DC-626_634x492.jpg)

Also see: [https://www.justsecurity.org/32133/theresa-mays-record- surve...](https://www.justsecurity.org/32133/theresa-mays-record-surveillance- human-rights-counterterrorism/)</comment></comment>


Jessica Fridrich Specializes in Problems That Only Seem Impossible to Solve - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/16/science/16prof.html?em <comment><USER2> She's the person behind the algorithm in this: [http://www.jgc.org/blog/2008/02/tonight-im-going-to-write- my...](http://www.jgc.org/blog/2008/02/tonight-im-going-to-write-myself- aston.html)

And she was incredibly gracious when I emailed her and asked for assistance and she publishes all her research on her web site (<http://www.ws.binghamton.edu/fridrich/>). The stuff about identifying digital cameras via sensor noise is really interesting.

<comment><USER3> jgrahamc, That is some very impressive stuff. Do you know of any good places to start to get into image processing? (specifically the mathematical tricks (DCT's and such))

<comment><USER2> Short answer: No.

I didn't know anything about image processing at all until I read her paper. It took my quite a while to get to grips with all the terminology and ideas. I actually went through that paper line by line as I built my code and looked up every term I didn't understand on Wikipedia and then used links from there to understand what it was all about.

One thing that she needs to be commended on is the clarity of that paper. I was able to follow it and implement her algorithm starting from zero knowledge. She then provided me with the actual images that she had used so that I could verify that my implementation worked.

As with anything I'd suggest finding a project that inspires you and the inspiration will be enough motivation to make you learn anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I thought it was interesting that her name is Jessica -- that's not a Czech name and there's no equivalent. So I looked her up and she was born George (Jiri) Fridrich. She's a transsexual. (Not that there's anything wrong with that. Just interesting.)

<comment><USER2> I'm surprised to see this getting voted up; seems like pure gossip.

If anyone on HN wants a detailed list of _my_ sexual activities my contact information is in my profile. Otherwise I'd be happier if you just looked at my code and writing.

<comment><AUTHOR> Someone changing their gender is not a _sexual activity._ There was nothing salacious about david927's comment. If anything it is an interesting sociological data point, given the small number of prominent women in math and science.

<comment><USER5> Sexual reassignment surgery is not a sexual activity, but it is part of someone's medical history, and I think it is in poor taste to gossip about someone's medical history. If Ms. Fridrich had been hospitalized for depression as a teenager, would that also be suitable for discussing on HN?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Good work, Jessica! Now build an AI.

<comment><USER7> Eliezer, do you think AI is likely to be built, or emergent? I was thinking the other day that the internet (and the services and people who interact with it) are collectively gaining towards sentience: it has memory (archive.org), recall (search), self-awareness (various part of the internet inspecting the internet is _like_ introspection), even something that you might call emotion, or motivation. It seems like an AI is as likely to emerge by accident, as an entity interacting and viewing it's environment (on the internet) as it is likely to be built from the ground up.

<comment><USER8> Eliezer has repeatedly expressed his strong view that "emergence" is crap. You may not agree with it, but at least do a cursory search to see if he's already answered your question before you ask him.

[http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=emergent+site%3Aovercomi...](http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=emergent+site%3Aovercomingbias.com)

<comment><USER9> +1 for the link

-2 for being a dick

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Don't most of the fastest 'cubers use the petras method (<http://lar5.com/cube/>) nowdays?

<comment><USER11> Petrus, and I don't think so, although it has been a LONG time since I checked.

Last I checked most of the fastest were still using fridrich based methods. The most common modifications being, double insertion in the F2L stage (solving two corner-edge pairs with one look) and orienting the last-layer edges while solving the last corner-edge pair of the first two layers, this increases the chances of a "one-look" last layer ( there are only 270 unique positions at that stage ).

Some of the fastest are using petrus based methods, but I would say they're strongly outnumbered by fridrich users.</comment></comment>


How UPS trucks saved millions of dollars by eliminating left turns - <AUTHOR> http://gadgets.ndtv.com/transportation/features/how-ups-trucks-saved-million-of-dollars-by-eliminating-left-turns-1657808 <comment><USER2> > In the US, and other countries where you drive on the right side of the > road, right turns are free, but for a left turn you need to wait for a green > light.

I don't know of any other country than the US where turning right on red is allowed, unless there's specific signage or additional traffic lights to allow it. Indeed, the turn-on-red rule in the US seems to work inverse to how I've seen it elsewhere – i.e. it's always allowed unless there's specific signage saying it isn't.

I was just in the US, and I love their turn-on-red rules, and I kept thinking that sometimes it's got to be smarter to turn right than go straight ahead, when there's a red light, even if it may be a longer drive. Glad to see someone took the time to figure this out.

<comment><USER3> Turning right on red is one of those idea that once you've been exposed to it you wonder why isn't everybody adopting it...

A similar idea is the train system in Munich where they built their platforms such that they can open doors on both sides, making one side of the train the exit, and the other side the entrance. Ever since I saw that, every single time I wait for people getting off a crowded train, I wonder "Why?".

<comment><USER4> > Turning right on red is one of those idea that once you've been exposed to > it you wonder why isn't everybody adopting it...

Because someone who comes from your left may go forward, or someone who comes from your front mau turn left?

Where I live, we do not assume that we can turn right on red lights. Where and when that's possible, we have a blinking yellow light (basically meaning proceed with caution)..

<comment><USER5> Turning right on a red light is only permitted after establishing that it is safe to do so. Obviously you can't just assume that it'll be fine to go. The difference between your country and the US is the default value: do you have a blinking light permitting it in some places, or a sign prohibiting it where it would be unsafe?

<comment><USER4> Blinking light permiting it when it is considered safe to turn (with caution).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > eliminating left turns wherever possible after it found that drivers have to > sit idly in the trucks while waiting to take the left turn to pass through > traffic. So, it created an algorithm that eliminated left turns from > drivers' routes even if meant a longer journey.

Sounds reasonable.

> In 2005 ... the total distance covered by its 96,000 trucks was reduced by > 747,000km. In 2011, ... the company had reduced distance travelled by trucks > by 20.4 million miles. A recent report by The Independent says that the > total reduction in distance travelled by UPS trucks now stands at 45.8 > million miles.

But how does eliminating left turns even it means a longer journey reduce the total distance travelled?

Edit:

The Independent article referenced here explains:

> The efficiency of planning routes with its navigation software this way has > even helped the firm cut the number of trucks it uses by 1,100, bringing > down the company's total distance travelled by 28.5m miles – despite the > longer routes.

<comment><USER7> I think "created an algorithm" is probably overselling it a bit. Clearly they already had a route planner, didn't they just modify it to add extra cost to a left turn?

<comment><USER5> Incorporating turn costs into route planning is actually not that easy! For one it increases the amount of data you need (street layout, type of intersection, etc) and a lookup to add the appropriate penalty. But more importantly, it doesn't play well with many speed-up techniques.

Two papers on the subject, applying turn costs to the two most popular speed- up techniques (I don't know if UPS uses either of these, though):

[https://algo2.iti.kit.edu/download/turn_ch.pdf](https://algo2.iti.kit.edu/download/turn_ch.pdf)

[http://i11www.iti.uni- karlsruhe.de/extra/publications/dgpw-c...](http://i11www.iti.uni- karlsruhe.de/extra/publications/dgpw-crp-11.pdf)

The first author of the first paper now works at Google, and the authors of the second paper used to work at Microsoft Research and now are at Apple and Amazon. Make of that what you will :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's funny because occasionally my wife will tell me to take a certain route to a destination because that is what her traffic app told her was the fastest route. I'll disagree on the basis of this experiment; that the "fastest route" has too many left turns and that my route is better because it has fewer. Needless to say, she is never amused. Maybe after this news I'll be vindicated!

<comment><USER9> Wasn't Waze known to prefer routes that consisted of an incredible amount of left turns and small roads? Haven't checked if they changed the algorithm. Found that Google Maps is hard to beat on their preferred route usually.

<comment><USER10> At least in NJ, Google Maps typically does a terrible job. When I go from my home to Costco, I take one small road to the highway, take the highway, get off, and take one small road to Costco. It's very fast and easy. Makes a big L on the map, basically.

Google Maps ignores the highway and has me make twenty alternating left and right turns on tiny backroads. It's grueling, a lot of work, and you can't even go fast on them. All because Google Maps is trying to cut the diagonal from one end of the L to the other for a shorter distance. In terms of trip duration, it fails horribly, though.

<comment><USER11> That's odd, as Google Maps optimizes on duration, not distance: It takes speed into account.

Maybe it's not taking into account how fast can cars make each of the turns?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is an impressive result, but not exactly a UPS exclusive. Pretty much any vehicle routing software worth using has offside-turn-minimization options, usually as one of several 'weighting factors'. For example, almost every garbage collection service of any size minimizes its offside turns.

</comment><comment><USER13> Does typical navigation software assign the same cost to a left turn as a right turn?

<comment><USER5> Since you _need_ turn restrictions if you want to compute routes that users can actually follow, adding different costs for different kinds of turns (left, right, U-turn) is easy.

See my other comment in this thread on the challenges associated with incorporating turn costs and restrictions in gerenal: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13616676](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13616676)

<comment><USER11> > Incorporating turn costs into route planning is actually not that easy! [I]t > doesn't play well with many speed-up techniques.

+

> Since you need turn restrictions if you want to compute routes that users > can actually follow, adding different costs for different kinds of turns > (left, right, U-turn) is easy.

Does this mean all those speed-up techniques don't produce routes that are actually allowed? What's the point of developing them?

<comment><USER5> Nah, it's just that it took work to integrate turn restrictions, and that that results in a bit of a slowdown.

It's easier to do research on a more limited version of the problem (shortest path in a road graph with a suitably chosen edge weight function) and then generalise than start out with the most general formulation. The results are wild: these techniques are millions of times faster than Dijkstra's algorithms and provably produce the exact same result. It's what makes Google Maps possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> i talked to my friend, a UPS driver, about this last year when this same story surfaced on HN. He said it's not really true and that they turn left all the time -- but he was aware of some training about it.

<comment><USER15> Right. It's a great story, but I've seen many a UPS truck take a left turn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hence the need for more roundabouts.

</comment><comment> d--b > In 2005, a year after it announced that it will minimise left turns, the > company said that the total distance covered by its 96,000 trucks was > reduced by 747,000km, and 190,000 litres of fuel had been saved.

Er... I understand that you may reduce your fuel consumption by not waiting at red lights, but that the total distance driven has been reduced is clearly wrong!

Guys, you have a bug in your spreadsheet!

<comment><USER17> Maybe they also implemented a better navigation algorithm as part of this? The media likes to reduce everything down to soundbites, but IIRC, this is a rather large effort within UPS to improve routes in general. The left hand turn optimization was just one of the outcomes of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Yes they may save money doing this, but when you do that follow your driver for your delivery thing they just came out with, It looks like your driver is on crack the travel patterns make no sense. No order. They are all over the place, similar to how Delta does connecting flights.

<comment><USER9> Worth mentioning that many drivers will be self-employed and have no such software. UPS seems to give all drivers a software with a route to follow, many others won't bother (as they pay the driver by delivery).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> A different article about this was discussed on Hacker News before: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7538316](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7538316). The cited article also references the Mythbusters video.

</comment><comment><USER20> Discussion from a few years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7538316](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7538316)

</comment><comment><USER21> This optimisation must exist at a basic level in all satnav software because journey time must be longer for the route with more left turns, as fed back into the system from previous journeys by other users.

It would be an interesting experiment to see how different consumer grade satnav systems compare on this pure travelling salesman problem.

<comment><USER5> It's not TSP. In TSP, you have a graph and want to visit _every node exactly once_. Here you have a (road) graph and want to visit _some set of nodes_ (the delivery addresses) _at least once_ (it's okay to drive past a house where you dropped off a parcel earlier if that somehow makes the journey shorter).

Also, consumer satnav systems don't support this kind of query. You can't plug in a list of dozens of destinations and ask for the shortest path to get you to all of them, in any order.

<comment><USER22> It reduces to a special case called the _metric_ TSP. If going through node C is shorter than going from A to B directly, then just replace the A-to-B distance with the length of A-to-C-to-B. It's just as hard to solve as regular TSP, but easier to approximate.

<comment><USER5> Well yeah it's clearly still NP-complete. But the TSP (or variant thereof) isn't related to the routing engine at all, as the routing engine only defines the edge weights. They're fairly orthogonal problems. Logistics software needs to solve both, but consumer satnav doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is why I love data science

</comment><comment><USER24> now that's what I'm talking about. good for ups.</comment>


Ask HN: Ideas for virtual gifts for developers? - <AUTHOR> I am looking for ideas on virtual gifts for developers.
Maybe "virtual gifts" is not the proper term.
I mean by this things that can be bought online and there is no need to ship something physical.
The budget per person is around 80USD. <comment><USER2> Amazon gift cards - in their local currency - is a fairly easy one.

Depending on your relationship with them, a subscription to an online learning platform like Pluralsight.

Voucher codes for professional services like Moo are also useful [https://www.moo.com/uk/gifts/cards/](https://www.moo.com/uk/gifts/cards/)

$84 would pay for a year of GitHub Pro - but I don't know if you can buy it on someone else's behalf.

What a great question though!</comment>