Hackathon Be Gone - <AUTHOR> http://brianchang.info/2016/02/28/hackathon-be-gone.html <comment><USER4> In Austin, we started running an event called "Finish Up Weekend" or FU Weekend - [http://fuweekend.com/](http://fuweekend.com/) ;)

We have some simple rules:

* you can't start anything new;

* you have to celebrate something being _done_ \- usually with a round of applause;

* there are no prizes - only the satisfaction of being done.

While there is plenty of coding, we've had designers finish their portfolios, screenwriters finish pilots, an artist finish his display, and even saw a sewing project completed.

And to top it off, we charge a nominal $20 for the weekend - with 4 meals, a great deal - and sell out every time.

We're putting together a howto doc to franchise the idea.. just need to finish it. ;)

<comment><USER5> That sounds amazing! I went to Austin once for a tech conference and the vibe was really amazing.

I could really use something like this, though I feel like 20$ of your food is a lot better than 20$ of our food (I'm in Montreal).

<comment><USER6> Another vote for Montreal. This event sounds like a great idea.

(Already spoke with the organizers about this in another thread. I think they need someone who's organized an event of similar scale. That's not me, but I'm very willing to help out anyone who can take a lead role)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The worst thing I feel about hackathon is that it instills a bad culture of software development into young programmers. People spend a weekend writing crappy code and wiring APIs together, expecting to get money and fame. In the real world, we don't need more crude and fragile apps which leverage most of its work to frameworks. We need more solid, performant, well-designed apps. Sadly, none of these points are priorities at hackathons. We also need more programmers with empathy, perseverance, dedication, and ability to work on large projects without burning themselves out physically and mentally. Hackathon doesn't seem to cultivate these traits either. I hope instead of going to hackathons, more people can try building semester-long, meaningful projects and take time to maintain them, or try contributing to open source software.

<comment><USER8> Hackathons cultivate the _opposite_ of "empathy, perseverance, dedication, and ability to work on large projects".

They make people hypercompetitive and unwilling to collaborate or help just so they can get their `sponsor_api` mixed with `sponsor_api` app done. I'm making a big generalization but IMO sponsored hackathons cultivate some of the worst aspects of our culture.

<comment><USER9> So, basically you violently agree? ;-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The hackathon that they mention in the post (Mhacks) put up an application process and enforced a 50/50 gender ratio. In the weeks leading up to the event, I overheard many defeated conversations from fellow CS students over anxiety of getting rejected from this hackathon because they were male. The females didn't share the same anxiety, but it definitely made them feel down that they wouldn't be able to participate with their male friends who were rejected/waitlisted. Overall, the fact that things ended up this way made everyone feel very awkward, guilty, and discouraged. Hopefully its success makes up for the hidden fractures that will be felt by our student body for quite a while after.

Mhacks lists the 50/50 gender divide on their site followed by the reasoning: "because it's about time for a little change in the tech world"

Disclosure: I am a CS-Eng student at this university. I did not plan to attend or care about this hackathon.

<comment><USER11> Just exploit the identity-political zeitgeist that's overtaken universities lately: claim yourself genderqueer, non-binary presenting as male. With the right incantation, the organizers will fold like a house of cards, lest they suffer the blowback to excluding a "righteous" participant.

<comment><USER12> It actually turns out that cargo culting the language of social justice works about as well as the sovereign citizen idiots that cargo cult legal jargon -- both of these phenomena exist in a broad, clear social context and it's laughably obvious when someone who doesn't know what they're talking about, like you, attempts an "incantation" with the idea that it's magic words because they don't or can't understand what's actually happening.

<comment><USER13> > it's laughably obvious when someone who doesn't know what they're talking > about, like you

You can tell from a single comment?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anti-hackathon has been in full swing for a few years now, but I think it makes sense to recognize that for some people it has social - and some times professional - benefit.

It's neither inherently good nor bad, it's a chance to create with some new individuals over a short time period. Yes, it gets co-opted by corporate marketing, yes you eat pizza for a day or so. But these are minor issues if you find other benefit like learning of new processes, tools, technologies, etc.

More than anything, it just seems inherently "uncool" at this point, a proverbial pet rock for developers. Which is a shame, there is value there if you're willing to separate the concept from the aesthetic that surrounds the events themselves.

</comment><comment><USER15> I really dislike the corporate hackathon format.

It can be great fun as an informal community gathering of developers to work on random pet projects, but the reality of the corporate hackathon trends toward being company sponsored and promoted technical debt creation.

It often seems like the corporate hackathon is the clearest distillation of the "business" people not understanding how to create a mature, healthy culture and continuous process around engineering autonomy, ownership, and innovation. Instead relying on campy caricatures of basement dwelling Mtn. Dew & pizza fueled "hackers".

<comment><USER16> I'm with you. Where I work Hackathons happen because someone in management has heard it's a cool thing to do. Practically nothing that happens in those ever is shipped and nothing is learnt from the experience. It's just a way of wasting people's time and appearing to be cool.

When I was younger I used to work through the night with friends on stuff we wanted to do. It was fun and social. There was no commercial motivation or value. We just had a lot of time on our hands being geeks with no social life and we enjoyed building things. In a corporate setting this is maybe similar to Google's 20% time which as far as I hear isn't really working any more either. The closest thing to this in my day job world is people taking some time to just do whatever they want to do without giving a damn what management thinks. If you can do a little of that in your workplace then you're basically getting the "true" hackathon effect ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think for Hackathons to be a positive experience it depends one two things.

First it has to have an end goal where, even if you don't come in first place, you still leave with something that will be useful. From an incredible learning experience to something that could make you money.

Second it shouldn't cost you anything directly except for time. Working extra hours for your own company? That's costing you more than time because it's becoming a requirement ("Look at Johnny over there, he's gone to all our hackathons and now look at him in a more senior position. Do you not want to move ahead?").

For instance I just finished participating in Launch's Hackathon this weekend. Other than the costs I paid for my travel I paid nothing but time (they provided all food, drinks and not all of it was unhealthy) and in the end, even though I didn't win a prize, I left with the start of a really cool product (if I do say so myself) where, realistically, I think I'm about a week from delivering a decent, beta experience. I even created a Twitter account just so I could post my fun experience as I went: @heysimex

TL;DR: hackathons that cost money, that don't provide you with SOMETHING useful even if you don't win or that are run by your own company are rarely good experiences (unless you win). Hackathons that cost you nothing but time and you have something at the end of the thing? Awesome. I love it!

</comment><comment><USER18> Personally, the main reason I go to these hackathons is just to expose myself to a bigger network and places with stronger CS communities than the one at my really small liberal arts college just to see what I'm missing out on (which is a lot).It seems like a necessary evil and it has worked in a way since I've finally been able to get an internship interview from it.

Otherwise, I agree with his points. Not sleeping for 24+ hours really takes its toll, especially if you need to drive back to where you came from. Food is mostly junk, but this one other hackathon I went to had really well-made food, so there's that. They have been unrewarded since I always lose steam before I get to make an MVP and they do seem to be very commercialized and they're really trying to get groundbreaking stuff from us within a weekend, like the last hackathon had very specific prizes relating to using certain company's API as well has performing "health innovations".

I also like Brian's suggestions to provide more specific hackathons so that I know exactly what to expect from them. These events take up a huge portion of my weekends theI should be using on school, so it seems like a good idea to pick those which seem most useful at the time.

</comment><comment><USER19> At Khan Academy we've been running ours as "Healthy Hackathons" — we kick people out at 11:45pm to get sleep, bring in healthy food, snacks, and activities, and always include our work week as part of the schedule (not just weekends).

We actually just held our Monday-Friday Healthy Hack Week last week ([http://healthyhackathon.khanacademy.org](http://healthyhackathon.khanacademy.org)). One of my favorite weeks ever, particularly because we encourage "hacks" of all kinds that don't have to include coding, and the entire company dives in.

They've been internal only so far. Maybe some day we'll open it up.

After a week of hackathon'ing intensely I'll walk in tomorrow more energized than ever (and eager to figure out how to use some of the team's work in upcoming projects). The commitment to staying healthy while hacking feels like it's paying off for us.

Plus it demonstrates our commitment to long-term investment in teammates.

<comment><USER20> Actually what your so-called "Healthy Hackatons" demonstrates to me is that not a lot of Khan Academy employees are married with kids. I know my wife would be annoyed if I was goofing off at the office until midnight for a week leaving her to feed our kids and put them to bed by herself. But, hey, it's all for the greater good of "disrupting" education!

It's ironic that obviously very few Khan Academy employees have children of their own, but that's probably because it's only a few years since they were children themselves...

<comment><USER19> Not really worth arguing online with somebody who'd make a statement about the demographics of a company they know nothing about -- but for sake of clarifying your demonstrably false claim: we have lots of parents and family folk at KA, at all levels including senior leadership.

We do not require that anybody stays at our hackathon until 11:45, but we do require that people get sleep. These decisions -- and the decision to not only host over a weekend -- come from our family-aware mindset.

<comment><USER21> Can't make statements about things we don't know about, so we gotta go by what we read. It feels like this debate may set expectations and shapes culture about things like hackathons everywhere, so maybe this touches a sensitive spot for many.

So I read that your employees actually do have family (which makes the thing about staying late worse), that you don't "require" that people stay until midnight (as if that was a thing you could require), and patronizingly insist that people get sleep.

Maybe I just didn't read that correctly, language barrier and all that but... I don't know, these extra hours, are those paid overtime or is that a further erosion of the 40 hour work week?

<comment><USER22> > So I read that your employees actually do have family (which makes the thing > about staying late worse)

I think you're being overly negative.

Nobody is forcing anyone to go to these things. If you have other stuff to do, fine. If, like some people, you actually enjoy it, you can go. Maybe you even have an understanding husband/wife who understands that once in a while you might be out as late as 11:45pm

<comment><USER13> Maybe if you don't go you'll be fired to make way for someone more passionate?

<comment><USER23> This is just it. The goal posts are always being moved. Hiring is a farce at this point, and I get sick of these recruiters / employers pontificating about this "passion" nonsense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I takes me the better part of six months to build something worthwhile. I know I'm a slow programmer but it's still hard to see that anything but trivialities can be built in a weekend.

<comment><USER25> Point is to get something done, force you to make choice, have a deadline, etc. -- not something else, like production ready code.

<comment><USER26> The older you get - the less patience you have for tight deadlines and 'forcing yourself to make a choice'.

That's just having more energy than you know what to do with.

The tragedy is young people have lots of energy and are scatterbrained and old people are sometimes wise but too tired.

The future is having older wise folk write out proposals to ambitious projects, and have young people fill in the necessary parts.

Too bad it's just not 'sexy', ambitious projects are long, boring and require upsetting other people who are old, boring and don't want to listen.

Modernizing the medicine field is one simple example of such an ambitious problem.

<comment><USER17> > The future is having older wise folk write out proposals to ambitious > projects, and have young people fill in the necessary parts.

Absolutely not. The most brilliant of minds made their marks on history at 30 or younger. Science has shown that, over time, learning becomes more difficult and slower. The whole idea of an older person being more "wise" is more of an old wive's tale more than anything else.

Young people and old people alive can have great ideas. Inversely young and old can be great at simply cranking away at building things. The future mixes the young and old more and more making the young younger for longer and the old far more capable than ever before.

<comment><USER26> I don't disagree with you - I just mean something else by ambitious projects.

Take politics for instance - can anyone under 30 accomplish anything ambitious in politics? Probably not.

The brilliant minds who've contributed to math/science I imagine oftentimes had great teachers along the way. Not always.

The ambitious projects I have in mind go beyond solving a previously unsolved math problem - I am thinking of something more calculated and long-term like wikipedia.

If we can give a lot of people in the world the best educational materials by the best teachers - that's a massive win.

If we can secure funding for people who show promise and let them affect the real world, not just 'do research' \- that's a massive win.

In other words - the problems we're facing are not really science problems, they're philosophical and societal problems that require a willingness of the current ruling class to say ok, this isn't working, let us try something new here.

That'd be nearly unprecedented - another smart kid solving another science riddle, that's cool too :)

<comment><USER17> Okay we're mostly agreeing here just one point

> Take politics for instance - can anyone under 30 accomplish anything > ambitious in politics? Probably not.

Maybe? It's hard to say considering we have laws preventing the young from getting into politics. President / Vice President have to be 35, 30 to be a senator and 25 for the house of representatives. Most states also have age restrictions for many other political offices that I'm too lazy to look up (some are similar to the federal ones, some are simply 21).

Making it not possible for them to do it doesn't mean they couldn't if given the ability. Many politicians are career politicians. That may not be good but the young folks can't be career politicians, at least not right away.

I would be very curious to see the data if we removed all agent restrictions then let 1-2 generations go by and see if the demographic changes much / some / none.

<comment><USER26> It's nice to agree sometimes :)

I'd say moreso than the laws, is just the hierarchies entrenched in every sphere of life are the real mechanisms preventing any real change.

On one hand, stability is good, but at what cost, right?

Something as small as the apple app store - everyone knows it's bad, nothing has been done about it for years.

If Apple tomorrow, came to HackerNews and said hey, we know the app store sucks, we are going to hire a 20 person team of stars to re-build it. We will give you full autonomy, high paycheques, lots of publicity and a full year to do it.

Wouldn't that be an overwhelmingly positive move? Even if a year later, the team failed to deliver, at the very least it'd generate a ton of enthusiasm and new ideas.

This is a small example of big companies not willing to do anything outside the stale old box, even when there is absolutely no downside. It's those old, bored farts earning a paycheque that are the problem every time.

Apple has the money, just not the wisdom to go outside the box every now and again. Politics is 1000x worse I imagine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The worst is company hackathons. I will always remember the look on my boss's face when I told him I was quite happy to participate in the (mandatory) 24 hour hackathon, as long as he paid me for my time outside of normal business hours. Turns out it wasn't so mandatory.

</comment><comment><USER28> I've never been a fan of "hackathons" for long term projects going back a number of years.

That said, the group I am part of, we regularly engage in focused "hackfests", where there is a clear goal, people work together, and a lot gets done in 3-5 days.

Is it always complete, no, but for solving spot problems, short term deep dives can be great.

Generalizing that, as hacktahons try to, there will be some interesting successes, but that won't be the norm.

</comment><comment><USER29> Your commercial and competitive hackathons are already covered well by TopCoder and similar competitive programming competitions. There are commercial challenges which generally build against some kind of proprietary API. Then there are competitive Single Round Matches (SRM) which are purely data structure and algorithm based.

Grandstanding and networking sound like b-school entrepreneurship competitions. Who can make the best slide deck. Plenty of companies got funding with nothing more than a few presentation slides and some good talk so I agree it's a potentially valuable thing. It just doesn't reward technical prowess so why feature it at all?

Hackathons are a blend of all of this and it doesn't really do any of them well.

My main complaint about hackathons is that they are a poorer recruiting tool than most people want to believe. Corporate sponsors think they'll be able to spot top talent easier. And some participants think hackathons improve their chances of getting hired. In my brief experience, the success rate is very low on both sides. At best, I think a hackathon is a fun, creative, and social collegiate experience for the participants and another avenue for companies to market their brands to impressionable young minds.

</comment><comment><USER30> Couldn't agree more with so many of the views expressed in this. I felt the same way after participating in the LinkedIn DevelopHer Hackathon last August. I came home and was so physically ill from sleep deprivation, eating nothing but oreos, drinking soda for the caffeine, etc.. that I was out for another 2 days. I don't know if I've ever felt as sick as I did after that hackathon, and it was all elective abuse to my body.

</comment><comment><USER31> At my previous company, we had a hackathon where the theme was, more or less, bringing the company more together through technology. ~12 of us made 3 separate teams, came up with ideas, and worked like 12 hours on a Saturday hoping to be declared the winner.

When all was said and done, the judges—all non technical—took about 30 minutes to decide that it was a 3-way tie. If you're going to make something a competition, just pick a winner.

<comment><USER32>
      the judges—all non technical—took about 30 minutes to decide that it was a 3-way tie.

in GGJ, we worked pretty much non-stop with like 5 hours sleep a day for two days and they decided not to make judges. hell, the GGJ ended around 5pm and we couldn't even check other project because everything was so rushed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> _> > Salesmanship is rewarded. The rewards are given strictly based on the presentation_

This is not a bad thing. I've won hackathons partly–but not _strictly_ –because we had a team that could present well in front of judges and an audience.

Public speaking, sales, and presenting to others is an important skill in business and entrepreneurship. The author would be wise to convey this to his students. A hacker who can build a product of value AND sell it well is a force to be reckoned with.

Sorry, but I love hackathons as long as they're run somewhat well. If I don't like the food, I'll go eat somewhere else. I'm too old these days to work through the night so I usually get a hotel room and get a good sleep. But college students are already used to studying through the night, so I don't see what the big deal is.

Beyond the intersection of making <-> presenting (see above), I also love that hackathons force you to work within constraints–most notably time.

Its a great way to network–especially if there are corporate sponsors. I've met some great friends at hackathons and I've received job offers from companies I've met. I've even been offered investment in a project.

Yeah, people cheat. Yeah, some hackathons are poorly run. The pros still outweigh the cons for me though.

<comment><USER34> "Public speaking, sales, and presenting to others is an important skill in business and entrepreneurship."

Not so much with writing software. Communicating with others yes, but not necessarily in a public setting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Is it possible that the value derived from a hackathon depends largely on your age and nothing else? When I was 18 I loved this kind of stuff and would do it for fun, if nothing other to learn and make friends. Now you'd be hard pressed to get me there unless my team was people I know and worked with in the past. And it would be almost irresponsible to see parents there.

</comment><comment><USER26> Hackathons are a fundamentally unsustainable, bad idea that can only thrive on young people having more energy than they know what to do with.

I imagine they'll continue to drag along, like most conferences, like most people, who just don't know what else to do, so they do something that someone else said was a good idea and isn't intimidating.

</comment><comment><USER36> I stopped playing CTFs because the crunch time was too much. Burning a weekend reverse engineering and programming is fun, but then I lose the weekend. I'd like to see some casual CTFs / hackathons. Extended timeline, a few weeks to a month, fine if people with jobs play for fun.

<comment><USER37> Something like MicroCorruption of CryptoPals, then?

(I haven't tried Star Fighter yet, but I imagine it's similar too.)

<comment><USER36> Thanks. MicroCorruption is on my to do list. CTF style can be fun because of the collaboration and the variety of categories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I've always wondered how people with chronic disorders/diseases manage themselves at a hackathon. That 24-hour non-stop insanity has always dissuaded me from attending one. Turns out there _are_ people who see the downsides of one.

</comment><comment><USER39> The point on marketing is spot on. I've seen team won first prize solely based on Powerpoint.

<comment><USER40> They wrote PowerPoint? If so, that's impressive enough to win a hackathon IMO. Lots of people use PowerPoint every day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm sure good work comes out of these, but I think it would probably happen anyway. I really don't understand why people are going to these things still.

<comment><USER42> The ones I go to are free and don't ask for ownership of the product, only pictures and screenshots where applicable to advertise the event.

It's like working in a hackspace for a night (which I often do when on the road) combined with a friendly competition.

I'd avoid a for-profit hackathon like the plague.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Selling Out and the Death of Hacker Culture by Rodney Folz

[https://medium.com/@folz/selling-out-and-the-death-of- hacker...](https://medium.com/@folz/selling-out-and-the-death-of-hacker- culture-fec1f101b138#.b3o5c9x4c)

Previous discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10249887](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10249887)

</comment><comment><USER44> I've participated in three hackathons involving pizza and sleep deprivation, StrathHACK[1] once and Do You Have The GUTS[2] twice.

It's a great way to have a fun weekend, get job offers from local sponsors and learn new technologies in an environment where you can ask get help from experienced people. It's not about writing realistic, maintainable code - <USER2> that isn't really the aim.

On the health side of things: Going to an event and having unhealthy food isn't terrible. It's a short event - having pizza for a day isn't going to kill you, and at these hackathons healthier food (sandwiches, cereal, burritos) was also provided. If you want to sleep, you can, but there's nothing wrong with occasionally working through the night.

[1] - [https://hack.strathtech.co.uk/](https://hack.strathtech.co.uk/) [2] - [http://gutechsoc.com/hackathon](http://gutechsoc.com/hackathon)

</comment><comment><USER45> "There are a lot of teams who bring their existing projects to the party"

I wonder if this can be approached with rules, such as:

* Provide datasets, interesting hardware, or other things that the participants do not have in advance. Release them only at the start of the hackathon. In the judging criteria, have heavy weighting for how well the teams make use of the provided resources.

* Forbid, on honor code, to bring your startup (or any other project you have started before) to the hackathon.

* Prohibit, on honor code, use of any code written prior to the hackathon unless said code has been under an open source license for 3 months, advertised and available for the public to download, AND your team does not represent the majority of the contributions to said code.

* Define one or more problems to solve, within the scope of the hackathon. Don't release the problems until the start of the hackathon. Require all teams to work on a solution to any of the stated problems.

<comment><USER46> You can put the rules in - some of your suggestions are already standard in many hackathons, but I doubt it would make much of a difference.

Many hackathons are judged or attended by major investors, so the incentive to cheat is extraordinary. The last hackathon I went to there were several teams that clearly had everything lined up ahead of time and were there to pitch, and I doubt you can get rid of this without getting rid of the investors.

More than that, many hackathons pride themselves on being interesting for investors, so they're incentivized to look the other way so that the presentations are as impressive/fundable as possible.

I don't think I'll be going to another hackathon for a good long while - <USER3> combination of people who seem to have no interest in the spirit of hacking on stuff, and the incredibly toxic culture I saw (getting smashed, pounding back energy drinks, flying drones around annoying people, nerf gun fights through the hallways, it was like a goddamn freshman dorm but sweatier and somehow more childish), makes me completely not interested at all.

<comment><USER45> Get rid of the investors then. :) Get corporate sponsorship instead to run the hackathon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> YC and hackathons break my ketosis. :(

The downregulation of dopamine is partly my fault, but damn the food is beyond just visually tempting.

</comment><comment><USER48> Where i live i wish we had more of them and that they were more advertised so people are aware of these events. you don't have to go but the one hackathon i went to was a good event. I'd go again. it was small scale, there were few students there mostly people with jobs. half could not code, most were not very good. but it was cool. i impressed a few people with my skills met some interesting international people (who had flown in for this). one of the more memorable experiences of my life. I think the best hackathons are those which mix up the teams. other than that, please bring me more hackathons. people need to spend their free time on something, right? Although I'd not go if i had to be selected for them. the organisers need to be somewhat grateful for the fact people would like to attend and the atmosphere needs to be friendly rather than uber competitive.

</comment><comment><USER49> None of the hackathons that I've gone to seemed to have any of these problems. Hac Phi [1] in Philly and Hac Bos [2] in Boston are both fantastic and have been tremendously valuable to my career. Last year Hac Phi started to distance themselves from the more recent connotations of the word "hackathon" and started using the word "exchange" instead. This switch makes me a little sad because I think the portmanteau of "hack" and "marathon" is still very relevant to those events.

[1] [https://wiki.haskell.org/Hac_%CF%86](https://wiki.haskell.org/Hac_%CF%86)

[2] ([http://www.meetup.com/Boston- Haskell/events/223607923/](http://www.meetup.com/Boston- Haskell/events/223607923/))

</comment><comment><USER50>
      In addition to all the provided stimulants, hackers are
      encouraged to work through the night. Sure there may be
      reminders that you should sleep when tired, but why a 24-
      hour event instead of a 12-hour one then?

Shut off the power and wifi from 10 PM to 6 AM.

<comment><USER51> The one hackathon event that I regularly participate in (GovHack) generally closes down between 11pm and 7am or thereabouts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Well, the motivations to attend hackathons don't seem to be about winning. Many of us students attend hackathons knowing that the chances of winning something is marginal at best, yet we still regularly attend for the singular reason of fun. It's not every day that you can just spend two days of your life, cut off from the rest of the world, working with your buddies on something you all love. Even for professionals, attending hackathons could be a means to break away from the monotony of normal work.

</comment><comment><USER53> This highlights a bigger problem over been mulling over.

How does one without free nights and weekends (eg, has kids and a family) get the benefits (network, exposure, etc) without being able to participate?

That sounds entitled. Let's reverse it. How does a company find individuals who have better things to do than code for free all weekend? This is of course based on the assumption that such individuals are valuable.

The only answer I've come up with is coaching little league.

</comment><comment><USER54> Was at a couple of "internal" hackatons ran by my employer as a part of the offsite all hands meeting. There was plenty of corporate politics involved with judging, other than that it was time well spent.

The angle was to bring new ideas to the table and build an MVP/POC to demo the idea. Overall was a positive experience other than the politics involved.

The event was voluntary, took place in the hotel with beer in the hotel bar and nice catered lunches.

</comment><comment><USER40> The author says this:

>If this sounds like advocacy for mediocrity, instead of merit, it is not. Keep in mind the following facts

And then follows up with a bunch of excuses about how they are not measuring merit by any means because traditional presentations and different project timelines are to difficult to compare for merit.

"it sounds like we don't want reward merit, and that's because we don't have the competence to measure it"

</comment><comment><USER55> The only thing i disagree with in this article is the whole "Everyone participated, everyone gets a prize" thing. Don't get me wrong, I understand these youngsters poured their heart and soul into these projects, but not everyone can win, and people should know this. It creates the young, entitled generation we have now. We dont need more of that running around.

<comment><USER56> The article says the wrong things are rewarded, we also don't need people thinking that slick presentation beats real work.

<comment><USER55> "Despite students pouring out their heart and souls, in the end, the majority do not win a prize. I am a staunch supporter of rewarding participation and effort. If this sounds like advocacy for mediocrity, instead of merit, it is not."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> How about a hackathon sponsored by an open source project? Where everyone spends the allotted time contributing some improvement to that project. Seems like fun, something I would participate in, and the sponsor potentially gets a lot of benefit for cheap/free.

<comment><USER58> OpenBSD hackathons have been held at least once per year for ~17 years [1].

[1] [http://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html](http://www.openbsd.org/hackathons.html)

<comment><USER59> Should also add that they are a very different type of events than the ones outlined in this post. Competition is replaced by collaboration. Prizes by internal reward. Junk food by beer drinking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Going to corperate sponsored hackathons and hacking on your own side project is the way I've really enjoyed myself at a few hackathons. I don't really want to learn $COMPANY's API, so I just hack on whatever and enjoy the atmosphere.

</comment><comment><USER61> This has certainly been my experience. All the hackathons I've participated in have felt very geared toward corporate shilling, and most of the prizes are for "best use of [company's product]".

</comment><comment><USER62> Whatever. Company hackathons are bullshit, but if people do it for fun, who cares if it's unhealthy and unsanitary? (supposedly).

It's like LAN parties, but programming instead of gaming.

I do like the FU Weekend idea, though.

</comment><comment><USER24> The only "thon" I am willing to hack is my own.

</comment><comment><USER63> I've been organizing Hackathons for the past few years. They have been incredibly successful in a number of ways.

The group that organizes them has recognized a few powerful factors:

\- The organizers are diverse and have a wide array of skills

I didnt start the group that I have collaborated with, but I immediately tried to contribute to the best of my ability. We have people who are good at promoting, thinking about diversity, good a logistics, organizing speakers, etc.

\- Intentionally diverse groups in gender/skill/background

We spend time to open applications, then manually select the participants who are accepted. From there, we keep a high touch relationship with 100-150 people, so that they are excited even before attending.

\- Pre-crafted/well-rounded teams

Based on applications, we make pre-crafted teams that have balanced skill sets. We make these teams based on our understanding of the participants, and their own experiences.

\- (most importantly) NO PRIZES

We make our events based on the valued gained from meeting and working with people who are fundamentally interesting. We build the concept of the event based around getting cool people together to work on cool problems.

For the past two years, we have welcomed well over 600+ people in 4 different cities.

\- Partner with awesome organizations with strong brand names

We spend significant amount of time to raise sponsorship. We make a point to involve cool organizations in the space, so that the event attracts high quality participants. Even if a great organization that we like cant sponsor money, we try to involve them as a partner in someway, so we can involve their staff. This has always paid off.

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

Reference:

\- [http://hackingjournalism.com/mobile/](http://hackingjournalism.com/mobile/) (Based on mobile journalism at MIT in Cambridge)

\- [http://hackingjournalism.com/video/](http://hackingjournalism.com/video/) (Based on video production at Conde Nast in New York)

\- [http://hackingjournalism.com/](http://hackingjournalism.com/) (Based on data science at Washington Post in DC)

\- [http://codexhackathon.com](http://codexhackathon.com) (Based on book publishing at SF and Boston)

\- [http://audiohackation.com](http://audiohackation.com) (Based on podcasting with ThisAmericanLife in New York)

<comment><USER64> I'm curious: how do you market these events? I have literally never in my life encountered a hackathon directly and only know they exist because people talk about them; they are a purely theoretical construct in my world. Through what channels do people discover your events?

<comment><USER65> [https://mlh.io/seasons/s2016/events](https://mlh.io/seasons/s2016/events) Is very popular for promotion.

<comment><USER64> Are hackathons just a university thing, then...?

<comment><USER63> No. Not at all. The average age for our hackathons was closer to 35 than 20.

<comment><USER64> Where do you advertise them? How do people find them?

<comment><USER63> We used journo-tech communities like Hacks/Hackers, college boards, company mailing lists (ie. the post design group), or directly in touch with influencers (ie. NYTimes technical evangelist).

<comment><USER64> I ask because I feel like I keep up pretty well with tech news, reading multiple news aggregators every day - and yet I am clearly not connected to whatever information channels people are using to promote hackathons, since I never hear about them. I have no idea whether I'd want to participate in them even if I did hear about them, but it makes me aware that there must be some avenues for tech news communication that I am totally missing out on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> I lump company hackatons in with company team building activities. Shallow attempts at making something happen.

</comment><comment><USER67> This seems like a strange critique because hackathons are so opt-in. Yes there are often problems but no one I know goes expecting to win any prizes. Who cares about the prize? If you're going to try to win something, don't go. There are people who earn their income gaming hackathons with big prizes, and you won't compete with them.

</comment><comment><USER68> Hackathons are cool, but not those company funded ones.

</comment><comment><USER69> I see hackathon as a scam

or how to teach early to young new passionate developers that the "norm" is to work long hours for next to no pay, pizza? yeah good enough.

It also vehiculate the idea that code is a just commodity, that anyone can piss some code over few days and build full working apps supposed to impress people.

Well, understand those poor company, they are not sure you can be a good slave, so they need to test you over a week-end: does he/she complain for not being paid? not sleeping? being forced to use this API vs another?

howdy boy, "slap on the back", here your prize, by the way everything you have produced this week-end is owned by whoever organized the hackathon and they can do whatever they want with it while still not paying you, now go away you need to sleep and you stink.

I saw companies organizing hackathon for their own employee, not something open to other developers or involving a public API, no sir, a company week-end event.

They did those hackathon to allow their own employee to work on "what they like" or "what they did not have time to work on during working hours", but still have to be related to the company business, in exchange of beers and pizzas .. oh and if you don't show up we'll know you are a lazy bastard not inline with the company direction.

So yeah maybe not all hackathon are like that, but most of them has this feel of scam where at the end you want to scream "fuck you pay me".</comment>


Dropbox Developer Terms and Conditions - Paul-ish https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference/tos <comment> Paul-ish It looks like the HN title was changed. To clarify, I posted this to point out that an arbitration clause was recently added to the terms.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Dropbox's ToS for their file storage service also has an arbitration clause: [https://www.dropbox.com/privacy#terms](https://www.dropbox.com/privacy#terms).

> We Both Agree To Arbitrate. You and Dropbox agree to resolve any claims > relating to these Terms or the Services through final and binding > arbitration by a single arbitrator, except as set forth under Exceptions to > Agreement to Arbitrate below. This includes disputes arising out of or > relating to interpretation or application of this "Mandatory Arbitration > Provisions" section, including its enforceability, revocability, or > validity.

</comment><comment><USER2> Lawyers willing to opine:

> 14.5. NO CLASS ACTIONS. Developer may only resolve disputes with Dropbox on > an individual basis and will not bring a claim in a class, consolidated or > representative action. Class arbitrations, class actions, private attorney > general actions, and consolidation with other arbitrations are not allowed.

Is this exact thing what's being considered in some of the more recent Supreme Court cases? [https://www.npr.org/2017/10/06/555862822/no-class-action- sup...](https://www.npr.org/2017/10/06/555862822/no-class-action-supreme- court-weighs-whether-workers-must-face-arbitrations-alon)

<comment><USER3> Lawyer here.

Some of those cases are about the NLRB's authority, not anything else. I didn't look up all of them. Past that so, as far as i know, attempting to waive class arbitration is untested against an explicit state policy, and i have doubts it would survive.

The only case about this so far is whether class action arbitration waivers are enforceable in general in the face of it being "too expensive" to arbitrate individually (no state law, etc, was at issue here), and the answer is "yes, they are enforceable". This is not surprising, these kinds of straight policy arguments rarely are winners in court. A state law would instead be a preemption issue.

It's one thing to say "you must arbitrate", which is clearly covered by the Federal Arbitration Act. That is why state laws that attempt to ban such clauses are preempted.

However, there is nothing that i'm aware in that act (though admittedly, it's been a while since i looked at the act), that preempts state laws prescribing the _form_ of arbitration.

Thus, a state law saying "arbitration is awesome, but banning class arbitration is against our public policy", if they exist, should be valid. Preemption must be very clear.

Again, it's been a while, but when they were first preempted, states mostly did _not_ have such laws on the books (IE they found required arbitration to be against public policy, and that was preempted by the FAA. They did not have laws that said that banning class arbitration to be against public policy)

Of course, if someone knows of a part of the FAA that explicitly allows prescribing the form of arbitration, then yeah, everyone is gonna lose.

Funny story: most of the places that pushed so hard for required arbitration had clearly not thought through the consequences. They still haven't, AFAICT.

I remember having lunch with one of the counsel at EBay and some other companies about a year after the original supreme court ruling on class actions, and he was very happy they could require arbitration (they got a lot of nuisance suits, to be fair to them), and asked me why Google didn't require arbitration (Note: I'm not legal counsel for Google, i haven't been involved in Google's TOS in years, blah blah blah)

I pointed out that class action/courts generally at least required a licensed lawyer to maintain and work on the suit, which was expensive, whereas arbitration could be done by lay people, and that he was essentially betting that nobody could make it cost effective to have a paralegal or someone manage fifty arbitrations at once, or a class arbitration.

I suggested that was probably a bad bet. I still believe it to be a bad bet. (It hasn't changed a lot because the other side of this is still fighting to the death instead of considering new business models. They are very much not used to dealing in volume)

<comment><AUTHOR> > I pointed out that class action/courts generally at least required a > licensed lawyer to maintain and work on the suit, which was expensive, > whereas arbitration could be done by lay people, and that he was essentially > betting that nobody could make it cost effective to have a paralegal or > someone manage fifty arbitrations at once, or a class arbitration.

This depends on the state. Some states still consider that to be unauthorized practice of law, even in arbitration.

Even if a law firm wants to manage hundreds of individual arbitrations, finding individual people to opt in makes that very difficult. In consumer cases, the harm to individual consumers is often very small. The law firm would have to advertise to those consumers somehow and those consumers would have to take the time to opt in and give individual attention to the minimally-valued case - just not very practical or scalable.

<comment><USER3> "This depends on the state. Some states still consider that to be unauthorized practice of law, even in arbitration."

This is almost certain to be challenged eventually, and those states will lose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> interestingly, you can opt-out of the arbitration clause in the next 30 days by emailing here: email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER5> Initial application, still worth reading: [https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/dropbox/](https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/dropbox/)

Personally I'm disappointed Drew (still a CEO) would agree on these changes, but hey! with $1 billion dollars in pocket I assume he doesn't have to care about what anyone says anymore.

<comment><USER6> What about these changes do you think he'd not agree to?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm guessing this has to do with them filing for their IPO.

<comment><USER8> Yup, plan on something not very favorable to their dev community coming out when they go public.

<comment><USER9> Hmm, like what?

<comment><USER8> I'm going to guess something having to do with their revenue model, probably around data sharing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Good luck to apply it internationaly...

<comment><USER11> Suing Dropbox from overseas will be quite a challenge for developers too.

<comment><USER12> Dropbox International Unlimited Company appears to be based in Ireland, and thus subject to EU law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Binding arbitration is societal and legal poison, and must be killed. I strongly encourage everyone in the mean time, to opt out ASAP!

Edit: At least you'll be in court, or part of class action, rather than stuck in their arbitration system!

 _For example they can use it to argue that sending an opt-out mails indicates that you have read the clause. It also indicates that you have read the TOS in general. It also indicates that you agreed to the rest of the TOS. Etc etc._

Edit 2: It doesn't, it implies that you read this thread, or their announcement.

<comment><USER14> I would expect that if you send the opt-out mail that will weaken your standing in court. Everything you give the other side makes the other side stronger and gives them more vectors to argue and attack.

For example they can use it to argue that sending an opt-out mails indicates that you have read the clause. It also indicates that you have read the TOS in general. It also indicates that you agreed to the rest of the TOS. Etc etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Quite simply, if you fail to opt out, you will have almost no chance at all of successfully fighting the arbitration agreement. Period. The Supreme Court precedent leaves little room for dispute on this point. So yes, everyone should follow the instructions and opt out.

<comment><USER14> Nothing in court is simple. It's always humans arguing with humans. Also, the examples you gave in other parts of this thread were from very different types of contract then this one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Given that nobody reads these things anyway, how enforceable are they? People just click 'Accept' and continue doing whatever they want.

<comment><USER16> Very enforceable. You clicked accept, you accepted. If you didn't read it, that's on you.

According to the American Bar Association's wording on "Best Practices for Ensuring Enforceability" [0]

> _There is a check-box that users must click adjacent to an affirmation > similar to, "By clicking on the box, you are indicating that you have read > and agree to the Terms of Use";_

> _The webpage is designed so that if the user does not check the box > manifesting assent to the terms, the user cannot proceed in the > transaction;_

> _In addition to a check-box that users must click, the terms of use are > available either in a nearby scrolling text box or a nearby hyperlink;_

> _Any hyperlink of the terms is obvious, e.g., "Terms of Use" is underlined > and has decent size lettering and visible coloring (not small lettering and > not obfuscatory coloring);_

> _Any hyperlink of the terms has a central or obvious location on the > webpage, e.g., the hyperlink is directly below the "I Agree" button (not > relegated to the bottom of the webpage, which would require the user to > scroll down to a submerged portion of the webpage);_

> _Any hyperlink of the terms immediately displays the terms (instead of > requiring the user to click on a series of hyperlinks to view the terms);_

> _The terms of use are evident in every webpage on the website (rather than > visible on only one webpage), in addition to requiring users to attest that > they have read the terms of use;_

> _The terms are in readable font (at least 12 point); and_

> _The agreement contains all requisite elements of an enforceable contract > (e.g., consideration, sufficiently definite material terms, etc.).58_

[0] [https://www.americanbar.org/publications/communications_lawy...](https://www.americanbar.org/publications/communications_lawyer/2015/january/click_here.html)

<comment><USER15> Seems absurd to me. Companies could claim they put whatever they want in that text and the burden of proof would lie with the end user.

<comment><USER17> > Seems absurd to me.

i'm really interested; what do you think the alternative is?

would you be happier if you had to mail in a signed copy of the contract?

<comment><USER18> You are very correct, the fundamental problem here is not that people don't read the EULA, it is that the world "agree" is not meaningful in this context, there is no equitable power relationship between you and the company you are "agreeing" with, they can insert any demand they wish and you have no ability to negotiate or power in the discussion. You should not have to read the EULAs, because companies should not be allowed to require that you waive your fundamental rights like this as a precondition of using their service. If you have a right to sue but every company can demand you waive it before you interact with them, you actually have no right at all.

If mandatory arbitration is allowed, the right to sue does not exist. You cannot have one but not the other.

<comment><USER17> > they can insert any demand they wish and you have no ability to negotiate or > power in the discussion

you have no ability to negotiate because they have something you want, and you're unwilling to give them anything they might want. would a meaningful fraction of the population pay even $1/mo to receive better contractual terms on their dropbox account?

without looking at it, i expect that the terms for S3 look quite a bit better.

> You should not have to read the EULAs, because companies should not be > allowed to require that you waive your fundamental rights like this as a > precondition of using their service

whoa there. there's allll sorts of stuff that can go into a contract besides waivers of "fundamental rights", that you'd really not want to agree to willy nilly.

<comment><USER18> >you have no ability to negotiate because they have something you want, and you're unwilling to give them anything they might want. would a meaningful fraction of the population pay even $1/mo to receive better contractual terms on their dropbox account?

Yes, you've accurately described the power relationship in the contract "negotiation" and how it allows exploitation and abuse.

>whoa there. there's allll sorts of stuff that can go into a contract besides waivers of "fundamental rights", that you'd really not want to agree to willy nilly.

Agreed, I was being hyperbolic. You should of course read EULAs (though there's an argument to be made that they should be required to be streamlined, or expressed in plain-language and short)

But you don't have to check the EULA for a "slavery clause" that promises you and your children in eternal servitude to the company, similarly you shouldn't have to check to see if you are giving up other fundamental rights.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Indonesia 737 crash caused by "safety" feature change pilots weren't told of - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/11/indonesia-737-crash-caused-by-safety-feature-change-pilots-werent-told-of/ <comment><USER2> This is unbelievable. How can Boeing have processes in place to push changes to production without documentation, training and audit? Surely that is illegal in such a heavily regulated industry? Expect and hope to see significant jail time for those involved.

<comment><USER3> "Expect and hope to see significant jail time for those involved."

Very unlikely. Boeing has billions of dollars and able to afford lots of lawyers.</comment></comment>


Freedom of Choice Is What Sets Capitalism Apart – Not Competition - <AUTHOR> https://mises.org/wire/freedom-choice-what-sets-capitalism-apart-—-not-competition <comment><USER2> Yet what freedom of choice is there without competition?

</comment><comment><USER3> So, I see "choice" through the lens of "school choice". An argument for charter schools is that parents should have a "choice" about where to send their kids. Instead of a government-run school, let multiple schools exist, so they can compete to provide the best services - because capitalism.

This page argues "Capitalism is a system of voluntary exchange, predicated upon the right to own property."

Where is the property ownership in a charter school which rents its space from the government? None that I know of.

Does this mean that we must reject any attempts to associate "school choice" with any benefits of "capitalism"?

I happen to believe the argument for school choice focuses on the wrong sort of "choice". A large school can provide many choices. I can do shop classes, and be in the chorus, and take home economics, and AP calculus. In my junior year I can decide that I would rather not go to college and switch to a vocational education track.

While if there are many schools - which are required to provide a 'choice' of school - I no longer have the 'choice' to change my direction part-way through without changing schools.

So "choice" is a multi-dimensional concept.

The essay argues "Market Competition Brings Choice Out of Scarcity".

Which type of choice does it bring out for secondary education? Which choices are eliminated by not taking advantage of an economy of scale?</comment>


Cohort study of teaspoon displacement in an Australian research institute (2005) - <AUTHOR> https://www.bmj.com/content/331/7531/1498 <comment><USER2> "an estimated 18 million teaspoons are going missing in Melbourne each year. Laid end to end, these lost teaspoons would cover over 2700km.........and weigh over 360 metric tons—the approximate weight of four adult blue whales"</comment>


Ask HN: How to master the Art of Selling - <AUTHOR>

It's very easy to deal with people that need you. I've always had the pleasure of dealing with such clients, always cooperative people that got to know me by word-of-mouth, often technology enthusiasts who want to make their core business easier and pay me to do it.
Yet I want to grow my freelance activity into a business by reaching this promissing but scary thing called market. I've thought for a while and got a good idea of what my revolutionary product will be about - all I need to do now is to code it and sell subscriptions.
I'm absolutely sure that it will be great, but I'm not so sure that my clients, the ones whose doors I'll have to knock and arrange meetings, will agree. We, geeks, are geeky; my potential clients (ie, small business owners) are not. I wonder if we speak a different language, and, if so, how I can reach them.
In other words, I wonder how I can sell them my product. Tips and reference are both welcome.
A related question is how to pick this quality among my potential partners? I've got a friend who swears that he is a great seller, but, frankly, he looks too shy; there are others who are more extroverted, but I wonder if this is a reliable indicator.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> Demonstrate Compelling Value! Deliver something people WANT! Need is good, Want is much better.

Another vote for "SPIN Selling", good one asher!

Remember, if they don't have a need or don't have the money, no amount of persuasion is going to make you a profit. Difficult customers will bleed you on support, complaints, etc. At the end of the day, Sales is a Numbers Game, understand your sales funnel and cycle. If you can optimise it ... great, otherwise just keep filling the funnel.

</comment><comment><USER3> Since about two years I try to learn as much as possible about how to be a salesman. Some of my insights so far:

Try to watch how successful sales-people work. You will get so much fun out of this, after reading some books and spotting their tricks.

Selling is not about logic. It is about feelings.

Do not tell, but ask. Questions are nice to produce images in other peoples head, without being to obvious. 'Where would you place your new $Item?' Implies that the other is already owning the product.

Listen very careful to the answers.

There is some buzz around NLP (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro- linguistic_programming>). As far as I know there is no scientific evidence behind it. In my non scientific experiments, some techniques seemed to work great. But the success could be a result of me focusing more on the other person in general. And I see this as a key to a good sale.

One of my clients is a very successful salesman. Asked about his best advice he told me: 'Expensive shoes. -pause- You will have to walk in them for many miles.'

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds like you're ready for a good sales book or two. I think one of the best is "SPIN Selling". It's not what it sounds like. It's almost the only sales book based on real research.

[http://www.amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil- Rackham/dp/007051113...](http://www.amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil- Rackham/dp/0070511136)

I see advice in this thread to make a great product or know the product really well. I'd say the focus needs to be on the customer, not on you or the product.

Better to know the customer really well than to know the product really well. Of course if you can do both, do both.

Read a few good books on sales and you'll start noticing how inept almost all salesmen are. They just want to talk about their product, and don't ask the "obvious" questions about the customer and his needs.

</comment><comment><USER5> Love your product and know EVERY single facet of it. There is no better selling technique than knowledge and enthusiasm.

Personally, I've never been able to reliably see a product I don't have a passion for. Maybe this makes me a bad salesman, but I know I've had a lot of success over the years selling what I love and have never had to resort to sales 'tactics' or otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER6> Jeffrey Gitomer has a lot of good ideas (and a free weekly newsletter):

<http://www.gitomer.com/>

You might find this helpful too:

[http://www.amazon.com/Outfoxing-Small-Business-Owner- Relatio...](http://www.amazon.com/Outfoxing-Small-Business-Owner- Relationship/dp/1593371578)

</comment><comment><USER7> first things first, product needs to be really good. and when you're selling try to quantify the experience of your product in a simple way. As to what it is, what it does and how it does, in a non-tech,no jargon,no bulllshitting manner. this has always worked for me .period!</comment>


Using Human Wetware to Control Robots - <AUTHOR> http://www.hplusmagazine.com/articles/robotics/using-human-%E2%80%9Cwetware%E2%80%9D-control-robots

<comment> a-priori This reminds me of some other research from a few years back where they hooked up a cell culture to a flight simulator, and found that it was capable of controlling a plane in flight.

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/041022104658.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/10/041022104658.htm)

</comment><comment><USER2> i can't believe this isn't more popular. this blew my mind, i was hoping someone smarter than me could explain the hack.</comment>


Can you trust Chinese computer equipment? - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/security/95398/can-you-trust-chinese-computer-equipment <comment><USER2> I've been wondering the same thing. But would it be so hard to detect? Presumably the information would have to be sent to some server sometime. While I personally don't really monitor outgoing traffic, I think some people do. So they should have noticed something by now?

<comment><USER3> I have also been thinking about this. Makes me want to null-route any traffic headed for China/Russia. However, I'm much more paranoid about the ripoff Cisco equipment made by Huawei.

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't assume the server is stationed in China.

<comment><USER4> No, but it's a start. Raises the barrier, especially in a potential future crisis where the PRC is disconnected from the net.

<comment><USER5> > _especially in a potential future crisis where the PRC is disconnected from > the net._

I don't follow. How does blocking out-bound traffic from going to China going to help you in a future where China is no longer even connected to the 'net?

<comment><USER4> Ah, now I think I remember what I was thinking:

If you force the PRC to establish command and control nodes outside of the country, then you're more likely to know of them ahead of disconnecting the whole country, plus their MO in setting them up and using them, so that finding the inevitable sleeper nodes will be easier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The first thing I thought of was Trusting Trust[1]. If the system is untrustworthy down to its lowest levels, it can also cover its tracks completely or nearly-completely.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backdoor_(computing)#Reflection...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backdoor_\(computing\)#Reflections_on_Trusting_Trust)

<comment><USER7> Actually, as another poster points out, it's hard to fully mask outgoing network traffic unless you control the hub/router as well.

<comment><USER8> Yes, but e.g. data tunneled over DNS is pretty hard to detect. I'm sure the Chinese government could spare some (a lot of) domain names.

Also note that a network card with DMA access has pretty much free reign of the computer.

However, all this is a lot more complicated than just hacking the latest Windows hole; I doubt it would be cost-effective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Can you trust American computer equipment? As far as i know, there are KNOWN backdoors in Cisco routing equipment.

<http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/57070>

<comment><USER10> Simple answer, no.

<http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/06/71022>

When the writer asked a vendor of eavesdropping equipment about the legality of his products, the response ...

"Do you think this stuff doesn't happen in the West? Let me tell you something. I sell this equipment all over the world, especially in the Middle East. I deal with buyers from Qatar, and I get more concern about proper legal procedure from them than I get in the USA."

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The fine people at DARPA are working on this problem: <http://www.darpa.mil/MTO/Programs/trust/index.html>

</comment><comment><USER12> Excerpt:

 _Do I think this is happening? I honestly don't know. I have no proof. What I do know though is that it's easy to do, hard to detect, and the Chinese government appears to be engaging in a massive IT espionage. That's a worrisome combination.

If I were in charge of any enterprise where I thought I had any reason to think that these Chinese authorities might be interested in what I was doing, I'd stop buying Chinese computer products today. Until this issue of Chinese cyber-espionage has been cleared up and cleaned up, I simply couldn't justify buying or using hardware that might be working against me. If you consider it for a minute, I think you'll agree._

Who is his audience? Dumb heads of IT?

<comment><USER13> Don't you know that a Chinese-made circuit board can take over your processor and network card to steal your information? If not, clearly you know nothing about how computers work!!11!

Oh wait...

<comment><USER5> That's child's play!

[http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2114/2083501630_d6ecff43e4.jp...](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2114/2083501630_d6ecff43e4.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My iPhone to-do app phones home with usage stats. After I sold 5000 copies I had a user inquiring about the suspicious network traffic. There is practically zero chance that something like this goes undetected - you just can't hide this stuff.

</comment><comment><USER15> I am truly psychic! <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1095965>

</comment><comment><USER16> This kind of thing is playing with fire but that doesn't mean it can't happen.

There were reports that the Chinese attack on Google involved leveraging the law-enforcement door that is in some Google servers. And there's the problem - any time one entity opens a back door, they run the risk of letting another entity take advantage of it. Despite competing with the West and liking the idea of a quiet back door, the Chinese state would likely be unhappy with something the telegraphs their willing to completely steal all Western IP. That would put a bit of damper on Western investment (why Western companies ever imagined that the Chinese wouldn't just take their IP is beyond me, but I think a lot of companies still think their safe in China and that's a benefit to the Chinese economy).

</comment><comment><USER17> i guess the us state department was ahead of the curve on banning thinkpads once ibm sold the division to lenovo...

[http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/19/state-dpartment-bans- leno...](http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/19/state-dpartment-bans-lenovo-pcs- from-classified-work/)

<comment><USER18> So are there any laptops completely manufactured in US? At least such parts as hard drives, CPUs, motherboards, keyboards, displays...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Paranoia will destroy ya. Maybe you shouldn't trust anything you didn't build.

<comment><USER19> No, just don't trust those who have proven themselves untrustworthy.

<comment><USER12> Yes, that extends to US-manufacturers as well as the Chinese.

If you are dealing with sensitive information then you should be doing some security audit of all the software, hardware and personnel that touch that information. This article adds nothing new and is close to being hysterical about Chinese manufacturers. I don't deal with sensitive information so I have less to worry about when it comes to where my USB key is made.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I can't help but wonder if this article kicked off a ddos from China. They've been pretty brutal about attacking anyone who questions or criticizes them for the past few years.

</comment><comment><USER21> Evidence please?

<comment><USER12> Some people don't need evidence when their mind is already made up.</comment></comment>


I'm Writing a Book Titled, Effective Business Process Management with JBoss BPM - <AUTHOR> Are you looking to understand what Business Process Management (BPM) is and how you can leverage it to improve your processes? Are you interested in Open Source BPM solutions?
I am writing a book to help you become effective with JBoss BPM, to leverages rules, events and processes in your projects.
You can read an excerpt from the book here:
https://medium.com/@eschabell/introducing-business-process-management-5deb7b7b9993#.6p46rkjox
The early access program has started, giving you access to the first chapter for free here:
https://www.manning.com/books/effective-business-process-management-with-jboss-bpm
If you pre-order now you get access to the ebook chapters as they become available, access to the author (me) through the online forums, access to every chapter as it becomes available, access to the source code examples in the book and access to all updates as they become available. When the final book is published you will be one of the first to receive a paper copy.
You can get a 50% discount on the early access program by using this code: mlschabell
I look forward to interacting with you in the online author forum as we discuss the book and work towards a finished publication.
--
Eric D. Schabell @ericschabell <comment><USER2> Because posts without links tend to be penalized in the ranking algorithm, it might be better to post a link to the blog post introducing BPM and then provide thoughts in a comment in the discussion.</comment>


What will happen if we default on August 2nd? - <AUTHOR> http://markmaunder.com/2011/what-will-happen-if-we-default-on-august-2nd/

<comment><USER2> This article actually looks a little too optimistic to me. I see a lot of chaos with millions of desperate people robbing and hurting anyone that has any food or money, especially in inner cities.

"So what good will come of this?" is a little sickening and terrifying.

If the politicians were really serious about the debt crisis, they'd start cutting the military. But they aren't.

</comment><comment><USER3> Mayhaps the US could use some time as the underdog again.

Of course, I have no idea who the top dog would then be...

<comment><USER4> The answer is no one.

I'm a proud American. Great, Great, Great, Great Grandparent and G/G/G/G/G Grandparent both fought in the Revolutionary war and everything. But even I have to admit, as a rational person, the world foolishly built itself around the U.S. post WWII.

We shouldn't be this important. We shouldn't be the world's Reserve Currency AND the World's Military AND the World's Entertainment Center AND so on...

Not only is it hurting the world but it's hurting the U.S. We've been allowed to act fiscally irresponsibly for at least the last 15 years because we're the world's reserve currency and no one wants to see the Dollar's value plummet. So we've come to the point where we're doing things like Quantitative Easing against the wishes of most of our debt holders simply because we can.

The world needs to look at creating an IMF run reserve currency based on a collection of several different currencies along with other acts like building up their military to the point that they can deal with little items like Libya without needing AFCOM's resources (U.S. African Command).</comment></comment>


Building an Ember app with RailsAPI - Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://reefpoints.dockyard.com/ember/2013/01/07/building-an-ember-app-with-rails-api-part-1.html

<comment><USER2> I've built an Ember app...I had a set of tutorials ready to go but I didn't publish them. Here were the parts:

Part 1: Setting up for an Ember App

Part 2: Setting up controllers

Part 3: Duplicating work in views

Part 4: Wondering why they made that decision

Part 5: Cussing at Ember

Part 6: Not sleeping for 56 hours and almost getting a divorce

Part 7: Publishing

Part 8: Switching to knockout.js for every project since

I think my problem is that I've never written a line of ruby in my life and as a result my mind just can't grok why they are jumping though some of the hoops they are jumping though. I believe them when they say there is a long term pay off, but I've yet to actually hear anyone explain it in simple terms.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are some very good reasons to use Rails. In the case of this article I am using the RailsAPI gem which is a very thin version of Rails itself. The README goes into details on why use this rather than a more simple solution <https://github.com/rails-api/rails-api>

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The source code lives here: <https://github.com/bcardarella/ember-railsapi>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Part 2 will be published tomorrow. I'll build out the actual Ember part and deploy to Heroku.</comment>


Web Email Usage Declines, 59% Among Teens - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/07/comscore-says-you-dont-got-mail-web-email-usage-declines-59-among-teens/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

<comment><USER2> I personally don't think that web email is targeted at teens. And since it's mentioned web email - does this mean email apps in smartphones and corporate email aren't included? I just love how the media is always trying to say something is dead based on some simple stats. Good times. Just like how everyone keeps mentioning the death of the web, death of Microsoft, death of Apple, death of Google...

<comment><USER3> Exactly this. My web based usage of e-mail is down -- simply because I usually get my e-mail on my mobile phone. If anything, though, ease of access through mobile devices has increased my total usage of e-mail.</comment></comment>


Elixir: Ruby-like Syntax and Homoiconicity for Erlang VM - <AUTHOR> http://elixir-lang.org/ <comment><USER2> Having rebinding of the vars and dictionary literals are really nice. The syntax feels a bit awkward in general. Commas have to be in non-obvious places, and the "do" keyword is essentially hard-coded. But these aren't huge problems. The homoiconicity looks quite interesting.

The bigger problem is that it still has 90% of Erlang's semantics, and that turns out to be just as different in Ruby-like syntax as it is in Prolog-like syntax. I should note that this isn't a problem for _me_ , but if the aim is to make the language more familiar to others, the syntax change is not much help.

My team and I evaluated using Elixir for game scripting on an Erlang-based engine, but ended up passing because if we were going to teach the scripters Erlang semantics, we might as well just use Erlang. We also looked at LFE and came to largely the same conclusion.

But, I applaud the effort and I plan to keep an eye on the project. We need more of these kinds of developments on BEAM, and hopefully some of their good ideas will trickle into the Erlang language itself.

<comment><USER3> Hey metajack, glad you enjoyed some bits of the language and also thanks for the criticism.

Designing a language requires some trade-offs and the "do" is one of them. It is a keyword and its main goal is to reduce the number of parenthesis. You could write this in Elixir:

      if true, do: (something; then_another_something)

But with do, you can give a many expressions straight away:

      if true do
        something
        then_another_something
      end

So, at first it may give the impression that the commas and do are aleatory, but after you get the hang of the syntax, it will hopefully make your code less noisy.

Finally, yes, the semantics in the end are Erlang semantics. My previous attempt at writing a language for the Erlang VM machine was fighting against Erlang semantics and that didn't end up well. :)

In the future though, you may choose to go with Elixir instead of Erlang because of its features. Macros and protocols are good features to make you more productive and your code more extensible. I am available for discussion at #elixir-lang on freenode.

<comment><USER4> Why isn't this possible?

        if true: (something; then_another_something)

        if true: do
          something
          then_another_something
        end

Then "do … end" is the same as "begin … end" in Ruby. Also, you might be able to get rid of that colon too.

<comment><USER3> That was a very simple example to explain which problem do/end is trying to solve. We also need to consider how your changes would fit with if/else, if/elsif/else and other macros like case/switch.

That said, please join #elixir-lang on freenode and I would love to talk with you about your suggestions. Maybe we can figure out some improvements?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ah, unfortunate name clash with <http://elixir.ematia.de/trac/wiki> which is a python wrapper on top of sqlalchemy made me confuse for a second.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'd like to know the performance of this compared to erlang and ruby

<comment><USER3> Benchmark the performance of this on its own doesn't provide much insight. In any case, early benchmarks of the web server I am working on are available:

<https://gist.github.com/1582864>

Note it is still experimental, take everything in there with a grain of salt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like the ruby syntax and I played a bit with Erlang in the past. This looks just like the perfect mix of both worlds.

<comment><USER8> If this accomplishes what it seems to be attempting and makes erlang/OTP and the BEAM more accessible to the ruby, python and js communities while smoothing some of the language/platform's rough edges, I will be a _very_ happy camper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In the Ruby world my ordered policy for picking libraries (gems) is:

1) Jose Valim (+ Plataforma) wrote it

2) Ryan Bates covered it recently

3) It is doing well on the Ruby Toolbox

I've been meaning to quaff Elixir for a while (am frenemies with Erlang). Maybe I'll write a HAML in it :).

</comment><comment><USER10> I would put a link to the mailing list on the homepage. For those interested, it's here: <http://groups.google.com/group/elixir-lang-core>

<comment><USER3> Just did that, thanks for the suggestion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> That macro system isn't exactly homoiconicity. Maybe a first-class AST?

Whatever it is, I like it.

<comment><USER3> That's a good discussion. I could not find any concrete specification of what homoiconicity means. But there are other languages (like Erlang, Julia and others) which provides the same kind of "first-class AST" and are called homoiconic.

In any case, I believe we can agree what it is called doesn't matter much. What we can do with it, does. :)</comment></comment>


Asian iPad Knockoff Runs Full Windows 7 - <AUTHOR> http://www.tomsguide.com/us/iPad-Clone-Tablet-Asian-Windows,news-6046.html

<comment><USER2> How is it an iPad knockoff?

Also, can you call something a knockoff if it comes out before whatever-its- supposedly copying is released?</comment>


Modern Perl: The Book: The Draft - <AUTHOR> http://www.modernperlbooks.com/mt/2010/06/modern-perl-the-book-the-draft.html

<comment><USER2> Modern Perl: The Book: The Draft: The Comment

<comment><USER3> I did that on purpose. I'm easy to amuse.

<comment><USER2> I like it :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Which Perl is this about: 5 or 6? They are practically not the same languages, so it's confusing.

Maybe you just expect that 5 can't be modern in any sense?

<comment><USER5> Here is the initial announcement of the idea for doing this perl5 book: <http://use.perl.org/~chromatic/journal/38303>

<comment><USER6> And here's my belated response, "Yes, I'll buy a copy". (Thanks for writing it.)</comment></comment></comment>


101 Ways to Save Apple (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/5.06/apple_pr.html

<comment><USER2> 102\. Launch a polished (and more finger-friendly) version of existing touchscreen phones, get the marketing right, and claim you just invented the smartphone.</comment>


Canada Immigration Law Changed, Skilled Worker List Reduces to 29 - <AUTHOR> http://mojanemojan.com/2010/07/09/canada-immigration-law-changed-skilled-worker-list-reduces-to-29/

<comment><USER2> If the list at [http://canadaimmigrationblog.com/skilled-worker- occupational...](http://canadaimmigrationblog.com/skilled-worker-occupational- list-38-occupations/) is correct:

New:

      0811 Primary Production Managers (Except Agriculture)
      1122 Professional Occupations in Business Services to Management
      1233 Insurance Adjusters and Claims Examiners
      2121 Biologists and Related Scientists
      2151 Architects
      3113 Dentists
      3131 Pharmacists
      3222 Dental Hygienists & Dental Therapists
      4151 Psychologists
      4152 Social Workers
      7216 Contractors and Supervisors, Mechanic Trades
      7241 Electricians (Except Industrial & Power System)
      7265 Welders & Related Machine Operators
      7372 Drillers & Blasters – Surface Mining, Quarrying & Construction
      8222 Supervisors, Oil and Gas Drilling and Service

Old:

      0111 Financial Managers
      0213 Computer and Information Systems Managers
      0311 Managers in Health Care
      0632 Accommodation Service Managers
      0711 Construction Managers
      1111 Financial Auditors and Accountants
      2113 Geologists, Geochemists and Geophysicists
      2143 Mining Engineers
      2144 Geological Engineers
      2145 Petroleum Engineers
      3141 Audiologists and Speech Language Pathologists
      3143 Occupational Therapists
      3151 Head Nurses and Supervisors
      4121 University Professors
      4131 College and Other Vocational Instructors
      7213 Contractors and Supervisors, Pipefitting Trades
      7217 Contractors and Supervisors, Heavy Construction Equipment Crews
      7241 Electricians (Except Industrial and Power System)
      7252 Steamfitters, Pipe fitters and Sprinkler System Installers
      7265 Welders and Related Machine Operators
      7372 Drillers and Blasters – Surface Mining, Quarrying and Construction
      8221 Supervisors, Mining and Quarrying
      8222 Supervisors, Oil and Gas Drilling and Service
      9212 Supervisors, Petroleum, Gas and Chemical Processing and Utilities

Unchanged:

      0631 Restaurant and Food Service Managers
      3111 Specialist Physicians
      3112 General Practitioners and Family Physicians
      3142 Physiotherapists
      3152 Registered Nurses
      3215 Medical Radiation Technologists
      3233 Licensed Practical Nurses
      6241 Chefs
      6242 Cooks
      7215 Contractors and Supervisors, Carpentry Trades
      7242 Industrial Electricians
      7251 Plumbers
      7312 Heavy-Duty Equipment Mechanics
      7371 Crane Operators

Note that this is the list of people who can apply for a work permit without a job lined up. Does anyone know if there are any restrictions for people with job offers? (Proof that no eligible Canadian can be found, etc.)

(EDIT: because I didn't read the formatting guidlines)

</comment><comment><USER3> The problem is that a lot of skilled people who come to Canada end up having a difficult time finding a job and not all skilled workers are the same. One example I read in the paper was someone from Africa who was an architect. They qualified as a skilled worker but two years later and he was doing menial jobs.

There is a shortage of skilled laborers and targeting that demographic over the next few years would be a good idea.

</comment><comment><USER4> The analysis on HN is way off. The Skilled Worker program brings in skilled people without jobs lined up in the expectation they will find a job once they get here.

Computer related industries must not be hiring, or at least not hiring immigrants. Because having thousands of unemployed skilled workers in Canada is not the goal of the program, they delisted it as a category.

By the way, it's possible this happened because people don't want to hire immigrants despite competent developers being in high demand in Toronto. Here's a blog post I wrote about that a long time ago:

[http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2007/07/23/immigrant- quebecoi...](http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2007/07/23/immigrant-quebecois- newfoundlanders-not-wanted/)

<comment><USER5> I am thinking in going to Toronto to work in web development(C#, javascript with 2 years of experience). One of the reasons was because I see Toronto as a sophisticated city.

I'm portuguese, would I have a problem with my nationality/origin/accent?

I was not worried at all with this until I read your blog post.

<comment><USER6> Lots of portuguese as well as many many other nationalities here. We even have a little portugal. You'd be fine here.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for your replies!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That site looks a bit dodgy to me, but the same list can indeed be found on the official Citizenship and Immigration Canada website:

[http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/apply-who- ins...](http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/apply-who- instructions.asp#list)

</comment><comment><USER8> Looks like IT professionals were taken off the list.

<comment><USER9> There are no engineers on that list, either--not even petroleum engineers.

<comment><USER10> Electrical and Industrial seem to still be on the list.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't know what the government is thinking but getting more skilled workers is the point not getting less of them. Were loosing a huge amount of them to the US and all they can think of is to reduce the amount coming in?

</comment><comment><USER12> That site's "Share the Wealth" widget is quite something.

<comment><USER13> I thought so too. I bet having so many options makes people share less, not more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Let's not forget the IT-specific "pilot project":

<http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/work/special-tech.asp>

</comment><comment><USER15> xenophobia is an easy path to votes.

<comment><USER16> Not in Canada though, or at least not in the big cities. If it weren't for immigration our population would be in decline (especially once the baby boomers start dying off).

<comment><USER17> It really depends on the area of Canada you're in. My folks live in Southern Alberta and there's still a bit of xenophobic climate there. That being said, I didn't notice it when I went to school out east, or now that I live on the west coast.

Edit: Actually, I should mention that since I went to school in Quebec, there was usually some sort of xenophobic/racial issue in the news. I went to an english school though, so most of the kids were from Ontario or Montreal where it's way less of an issue.

<comment><USER18> I've lived in Northern Ontario (St. Josephs Island), and owned a gas station. We employed the one black person in the region in a gas station we'd invested in and saw a noticeable drop in sales.

Xenophobia is doing fine in rural Ontario. Needless to say we stood by our employee.

<comment><USER19> Xenophobia is endemic to rural areas in general. But I agree with your implied point (unless you weren't implying it, in which case I'll take it) that Canadians have a blind spot about praising ourselves for how tolerant and inviting we are. Like everything else about Canada (I mean English Canada), it needs to be understood in terms of an implied contrast with the US.

Hmm, that's a lot of implying. And this is kind of inflammatory material. I think I'll stop here.

<comment><USER18> > Canadians have a blind spot about praising ourselves for how tolerant and > inviting we are.

That's true. For big cities the situation is better but not nearly as good as it could be. Technically Canada is 'colour blind', but in reality it definitely isn't, which is a pity.

I'm not even sure if it is better than all of the US, both countries have enough variation that some areas are ahead of others in both countries.

As for it being inflammatory, I think it's perfectly ok to outline the shortcomings of a country as long as its done in a realistic way without an agenda.

My own (current) country, the Netherlands has gone from being fairly tolerant to being outright hostile to foreigners, especially those of Maroccan, Turkish, Romanian and Polish descent (for a variety of reasons). In the last elections the ultra-right scored the biggest gain of all parties, a full 15% of the electorate now backs them. A very scary development.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How often is list revised?

</comment><comment><USER20> programming is not a skilled profession? wtf?

i guess i'm just bashing these keys with my elbows randomly out of some primordial animal instinct, hoping the Python interpreter will consider it valid code.

<comment><USER21> It's not a list of skilled professions. It's a list of skilled professions that are in demand in Canada. Restaurants have to be managed in person. Programming is not on the list most likely because Canadian firms have been outsourcing it to India.</comment></comment>


Are there industries where mobile apps are a must have? - <AUTHOR> Well, there are apps in basically every industry. But are there industries where mobile apps are a must have? <comment><USER2> Depends on how mobile app is defined. Are we only counting native apps or are web apps ok as well?</comment>


Decision of Marc Andreessen as Interim CEO of HP - <AUTHOR> http://blog.scottolsen.net/?p=448

<comment><USER2> I suspect Andreessen is rather busy, as parter at his VC vehicle ...</comment>


How to pitch your idea in 3 minutes - why your elevator pitch matters - <AUTHOR> http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2011/02/launch-and-demo-your-idea-in-3-minutes-why-your-elevator-pitch-matters.html

<comment><AUTHOR> YC companies are the best in the world at elevator pitches. This post explains why you need 3 pitches; 1 minute elevator pitch for random encounters, 6 minute pitch for events, and 30 minute pitch for VCs and investors.

Also why your elevator pitch is important to recruiting new hires, getting new customers, and making deals with partners. The pitch is not a marketing task, it is vital to growing your business.</comment>


Numbers Aplenty - <AUTHOR> http://www.numbersaplenty.com/ <comment><USER2> See: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interesting_number_paradox](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interesting_number_paradox)

'The paradox states that all natural numbers are interesting. The "proof" is by contradiction: if there exists a non-empty set of uninteresting numbers, there would be a smallest uninteresting number – but the smallest uninteresting number is itself interesting because it is the smallest uninteresting number.'

<comment><USER3> But -- it's interesting in a rather different way.

BTW, I once decided that the smallest uninteresting number is 34.

Alas, I don't recall my exact reasoning.

<comment><USER2> > I once decided that the smallest uninteresting number is 34.

Doesn't that make 34 interesting? :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love it, already learned some new stuff!

One comment though: the background almost made my eyeballs explode...

</comment><comment><USER5> In reply to a dead comment: The most common definition of natural numbers is "positive integers." I do agree that 0 is important enough that it would have merited a mention at least.

<comment><USER6> It is somewhat controversial: according to Wikipedia

        There is no universal agreement about whether to include zero
        in the set of natural numbers. Today some textbooks,
        especially college textbooks, define the natural numbers to
        be the positive integers {1, 2, 3, ...}, while others,
        especially primary and secondary textbooks, define the term
        as the non-negative integers {0, 1, 2, 3, ...}.

Among mathematicians, the most common (by far) definition is the one given by Peano axioms, which include 0. Including 0 is very convenient for a number (pun intended) of reasons, for example it makes the naturals a monoid, and it is easier to define the integers.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure if it is more common to say that 0 is a natural number. There's a math.stackexchange thread about this which seems to have equally many people saying that each is the more common one.

[http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/283/is-0-a-natural-n...](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/283/is-0-a-natural- number)

(I count 4 people saying {1,2,3,...} is more common vs 3 saying {0,1,2,...} is more common. I also notice that N_0 is used by both sides to refer "unambiguously" to the convention of the other side.)

In my experience {1,2,3,...} is used more in number theory, and {0,1,2,...} is used more in logic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Absolutely love it - real great way to explore how all numbers are uniquely interesting.

</comment><comment><USER9> This can be helpful in Project Euler challenges.

<comment><USER10> Another useful site for that purpose is the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences ([https://oeis.org/](https://oeis.org/)).

A pretty successful strategy for "cheating" at Project Euler is to implement a brute force solution to get the first few numbers out of a sequence and look it up in OEIS. If you're lucky, they've already listed a closed form expression for calculating the sequence at an arbitrary index. Drop the expression into your code, and you end up with something that tends to be orders of magnitude more efficient.

Obviously it depends on the structure of the exercise, but it's somewhat surprising how far it can take you.

<comment><USER11> Some of the OEIS sequences originated with Project Euler problems, so this strategy is closer to cheating than you might think.</comment></comment></comment>