Ask HN: What to do for college? - <AUTHOR> First, sorry for the length of this post. Hopefully it and the answers will help others entrepreneurs as they make their own choices.
Last year, I did a semester of basic courses for college, then took a break to do business. I'm now working part time while in college full time, doing the basic pre-requisite courses. I am still a freshman.
While I'm not a hacker and have no technical computer skills, I've been running various businesses since I was fourteen. I fully intend to work for myself for the majority of my life, and only take jobs that teach me something valuable (which my current job is doing in spades)
Which leaves the question: As I go through college, what should I focus on?
My college has an entrepreneurship major, but I think most of it would be too basic for me at this point - simple business basics. Marketing and management courses don't really change the way you think - they're just ideas you can get from books and experience. I also feel it might not expand my mind, as I already read enough about that stuff every day on HN and my google reader, as well as countless business books.
My absolute favorite professor was one most students despised. He taught music and believed a competent person primarily has the ability to take things from one field of knowledge and apply them to others in creative ways. His music class connected all over the place and was brilliant and had brilliant discussions.
My plan right now is this:
Make an ad hoc major. Focus on courses in: - Communication: Verbal and written. This is probably the most important. I posted about learning how to write better before, and I also want to master public speaking. I'm particularly interested in how excellent story tellers such as Roald Dahl work - they're spellbinding. As a bonus, I would like to learn the art of conversation more, and how to mingle with any group and put them at ease.
Quantitative analysis: I always hated math in High School, but in the business world, I love slicing and dicing metrics to get the insights from them. Google analytics is my love. I'm not sure what college level courses really entail, but taking a few would hopefully meld my mindset to be even more effective at seeing through numbers.
History: This has always been fascinating to me, and useful for business, as human nature doesn't really change. I feel a good professor in this field can offer much more than a book, since a lot of history's details don't seem to be widely known. On this liberal arts note, philosophy seems interesting to me (specifically picking apart logic) but I fear it might be too theoretical to apply much to real life issues.
I feel the things above might be the best courses for my goals. What do you guys think?
EDIT: Also, my college is a very cheap city college, so no issues there. <comment><USER2> In my opinion, an "Entrepreneurship" major is a complete waste of time. Entrepreneurship is something that is learned through trial and error.

Right now I am on an Economics/Legal Studies track. Originally I was doing Finance, thinking that I was going to be a Wall Street hot shot some day. Then I interned out in NY... Immediately dropped the Finance major and switched paths.

You can learn a lot at the University level, but you really need to want to. Don't waste your time taking shitty Rocks For Jocks classes.

Enroll in classes that benefit you. I.e. a public speaking course, an accounting course, etc. College is a time to find yourself and who you really are. It is a time to carve out your life's path. A time to learn how to think (logic) and how to work under pressure.

Good luck and most importantly follow your heart's desire.

<comment><USER3> One thing that makes me nervous -- I know you also go to Northwestern and as you know economics is the single most popular major on campus. It may be worth it to focus on a more practical degree in your target field in order to differentiate yourself from the "horde." If the sub-speciality that you want to focus on is economics, go for it, but don't just take economics for economics' sake.

<comment><USER2> Very true. Unlike the 99% of other economics majors on this campus, I thoroughly enjoy the subject.

I know what I want to do after I graduate. I'm moving out to San Francisco. Do you have similar plans? I'll be back on campus next Saturday if you'd like to meet up for lunch.

<comment><USER4> Northwestern doesn't have finance or business undergrad. Or were you referring to the Kellogg certificate programs\a transfer student?

<comment><USER2> I was set to do a financial economics certificate program as part of Kellogg. Like I said, never went through with it. Not sure what business undergrad you're referring to. The closest thing we have is BIP (business institutions program), which I was going to do but settled with legal studies instead. Don't plan on going to law school either. Eventually I would like to pursue an MBA, but first it's in my best interest to garner some work experience. Do you go to NU?

<comment><USER4> > _Immediately dropped the Finance major and switched paths._

Just saying, this makes it seem like you were in a Finance major in a business school and switched to liberal arts to everyone not familiar with NU. Whereas you were always in the liberal arts curriculum.

> _Do you go to NU?_

Transferred to Urbana Champaign for CS.

<comment><USER2> > _Just saying, this makes it seem like you were in a Finance major in a > business school and switched to liberal arts to everyone not familiar with > NU. Whereas you were always in the liberal arts curriculum._

English has never been my strong point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> <http://paulgraham.com/college.html>

The whole article is great.

"If a psychologist met a colleague from 100 years ago, they'd just get into an ideological argument. Yes, of course, you'll learn something by taking a psychology class. The point is, you'll learn more by taking a class in another department."

I think that's a great test, and I agree about the Entrepreneur program. If it wouldn't amaze and impress somebody from 100 years ago, it's probably not very valuable. You can learn enough about it on your own.

<comment><USER6> That essay is good, but the math advice might lead a practical minded person the wrong direction. There's a footnote which suggests you want to learn math- major math, not engineering math. As a math major I can assure you my coursework in the foundations of abstract algebra has been about as useful as my medieval philosophy classes. If you want to make the robot put the bomb in the right place or have the credit derivatives swap into your trading account, you'll still need to know all the tedious engineering math. The math major-y stuff might be a good intellectual workout, but you can probably get the same cognitive effects by learning classical piano. With music, you'll also end up with a skill that is inherently enjoyable qnd impressive to others, instead of being stuck with a skill that makes adults nervous and children upset.

<comment><USER5> I disagree. I'm a CpE major who, on account of being denied a double major, is cherry picking the upper level math classes (Abstract Algebra, Number Theory and Group Theory). Abstract algebra teaches methods of problem solving that you can't really learn somewhere else. Reducing a problem to rings or groups let's you simplify it drastically. While most problems aren't exactly a direct ring or group, similar approaches can be taken. Assumptions can be dropped and more "friendly" operators can be used instead.

At the same time, I do have to agree. If you don't get math, it's not going to do much good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Major in something practical.

Do something that will afford you plenty of lateral freedom (so you can take that calligraphy course a la <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc#t=4m28s>) but that will give you some skill you can make money with on the other side.

If grad school is your goal (you didn't indicate so I'm only guessing) then a purely theoretical degree is fine; you'll satisfy your intellectual curiosity while demonstrating that you have the chops for higher level thinking. Otherwise, please please get a degree in something more specific.

The business of designing your own degree makes me nervous. On the one hand you can use it to show you had the industry to do something off the beaten path. On the other hand it's this thing no one can easily relate to. If I tell you I have a degree in Economics you understand what that means (that I'm no economist is besides the point!). But it comes with certain expectations about the materials I studied and the manner in which I was trained to think/solve problems. That signaling goes a long way with employers and/or clients and you might pay a price if you get _too_ creative.

Also you never, ever know where life circumstances will take you. Best not to get a chip on your shoulder. Not saying that you have, just saying that I've seen it happen; we entrepreneurs get it in our heads that "none of this matters... _I'm_ starting _my own_ company when I graduate." You might be 100% right, but best to find out when you get there.

One final thing: Don't take anything I've said too literally. A year in the Business major doldrums got me _overly_ concerned with doing something more pragmatic (again, I think this is only natural of we entrepreneurs) so I added Economics to my CV and rushed my schooling to finish a year early. Looking back that was so foolish... I should have lightened my course load and finished on time with my buddies. That would have given me plenty of opportunity to explore more interesting classes (like softer stuff in communications and theater) while using the extra time to get my business off the ground. You know what they say about hindsight.

Good luck either way. You sound like you have a good head on your shoulders so I'm confident things will work out for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Some great advice and life lessons in the post, thank you. I must say I'm not interested at all in grad school, so I might have some concern for that.

On the other hand, with the ignorance of youth, I'm not really worried at all. I've never really had any problems getting jobs when I've applied for them. Businesses are usually impressed with my biz experience for a young person. I imagine I would be immediately ruled out of a lot of hiring processes though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would recommend studying philosophy, not so much so for its content but for the opportunity to learn to write well. You may have noticed that many philosophers seem to write poorly. It turns out that writing about philosophy is pretty hard sometimes--getting difficult ideas and complicated reasoning across in a clear manner is fantastically difficult. And while becoming a historically legendary philosopher may require having fantastically innovative philosophical ideas more than it requires being able to communicate them well[1], being a philosophy _major_ generally involves just learning how to write well about existing philosophical ideas and perhaps making various arguments about them.

Also, it turns out English is a waste of a major--while there are English majors who are good writers, you'll run into just as many, if not more good writers in college who are not English majors--and plenty of English majors who are very poor writers indeed. If you want to work on your writing chops, find writing intensive courses in history and philosophy. (Studying literature doesn't teach you a think about how to write literature, it teaches you how to criticize literature.)

On the quantitative side, you want statistics more than you want to worry about other types of math. How much can we infer from how much data? How do you set up an experiment to collect valid data? Is a difference of x really a difference? You're completely at sea unless you can answer those questions. You can easily be a huge success in business and in life without understanding calculus. Being poor with statistics will make things much more difficult.

Finally, business classes vary by quality--classes like accounting which correspond with an actual set of skills are sometimes worthwhile, but some business subjects aren't worth taking classes in (MIS, management) and others (marketing) lie somewhere in between.

[1] It turns out that if you misunderstand Hegel, you still have a potentially interesting set of philosophical ideas to work with, even if they're different from the ideas Hegel was trying to convey. So it's no impact to a philosopher's stature to write unclearly, just an impediment to one's original intent being understood.

</comment><comment><USER9> Here's my impression, as gleaned in part from my friend the Polymer Science major, who once told me that she had to spend a lot of time explaining to prospective employers that, yes, it really is a superset of chemistry, she really had taken all the tough chem coursework and really did understand chem:

Get a real major. One endorsed by a department and whose name everyone understands. Do not invent the name of your major. A major is a brand. (Believe me: It need not have anything to do with your future career, let alone what you actually do in your own time.)

When I say that I have a degree in "Physics" people know for a fact that I have formal training in quantum mechanics and electrodynamics, that I have enough math background to navigate Maxwell's equations, and that I've probably seen an oscilloscope before. If my degree were in "Computational Physical Sciences" they would harbor doubts. They would be justifiably suspicious that I was bullshitting them, that I had dodged around grabbing easy electives and had never done any heavy lifting.

You only have to spend so much of your time taking courses in your major, so get one and finish it. Indulge your whims with electives -- go ahead and spread those around; it is good that you want to do that.

As for _what_ to study, I'll adopt my usual advising tactic and tell you to study something _hard_. Your major is your brand; let your brand be "interesting, hardworking, and smart". Sciences and math are hard. Statistics, mathematics, accounting, economics. Biology, chemistry, physics. Electronics. Mechanical engineering. Linguistics. Dare I say it: Computer science. Philosophy is actually pretty good. Music can be pretty good -- both technical and artistic; takes a lot of hard work and determination; a good way to practice communication and get over your stage fright. Things that make you read and write a lot are very good -- I minored in history, it was great -- but do not _major_ in "communication" (though if there's an elective lab course that lets you run pro-level audio and video equipment, that would be great fun) and do not waste time studying creative writing in college.

(You _really_ can't learn to write like Roald Dahl by taking a course. Very few of the great writers ever formally studied writing, and Dahl appears to be no exception. Great creative writing is mostly about practice -- you must read a lot, and you must write a lot -- and you can get that without paying tuition, though it certainly does take time. Just go read Stephen King's _On Writing_ , and/or the essays and forums on Wordplayer.com:

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

and/or Learn Writing with Uncle Jim:

<http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6710>

and save the tuition money for something else, something you can't get on your own.)

 _Lab_ courses, for god's sake: Take the opportunity to get your hands on every piece of expensive equipment that your school owns, be it a piano, an electronics lab, or a machine shop.

<comment><USER10> This comment is pretty much what I was going to say, but let me drive it home:

For someone like you, you will not learn anything in fluffy courses. Your goal in college should be to become "certified impressive" and the way you do that is by taking on a major well known to be hard. Generally that means hard science, physics is a good choice.

Once you are certified impressive in a difficult subject, you will have maximized the credentialing value of college, while dodging a lot of the fluffy bullshit other, less rigorous departments would put you through.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Sounds like you are an entrepreneur that would look to launch or be part of a start-up so it begs the question: why go to college at all?

If it is just for the contacts and a piece of paper just do a the shortest business or engineering course you can and do it online via something like Open University so that you can focus on building some business ideas or working for a startup. Try get an internship or voluntarily role at Google or Facebook, Twitter etc - what you will learn there and the contacts you will get will be invaluable, even if you work on the business rather than technical side.

3-5 years of college and grad school will be an absolute waste of time for you. You don't actually learn anything in college of use, you hopefully just learn how to learn but you can do this on your own time for cheaper. Also the contacts but there are better ways of getting a good network together. When I hire or interview someone I only look at their experience, especially any side and personal projects they have, I relay don't care what they studied or what college they went to. MBA's are even more of a waste of time and money

Just don't do a finance course and become a banker: [http://rakkhi.blogspot.com/2010/07/turning-bankers-to- engine...](http://rakkhi.blogspot.com/2010/07/turning-bankers-to-engineers- in.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> Major in something you're genuinely interested in that has a lot of elective space (psychology does this in a lot of universities- history may as well). Use the space to double major in something else, or heavily stack up in minors. A math/stats/cs major may be too much for you, but a minor may be perfect. Just do something you feel is both useful and thought provoking- you've apparently seen just enough of the "real world" to know what you need and want. Steve Jobs has said that one of his most influential classes in college was calligraphy, which led to the development of artistic typefaces on the first GUI computers.

<comment><USER8> To be fair, Steve Jobs didn't actually take calligraphy--he ran out of money and dropped out of college by then. He just kind of bummed around Reed College for awhile and dropped in on classes that seemed cool, and calligraphy was one of them. He probably learned enough about calligraphy to impress upon him the idea that attention to detail--even down to how the written word is physically shaped and represented--is important. But he didn't necessarily pick up enough technique to be a great calligrapher.

Lots of classes don't have enough general interest content to be worth spending 3 hours a term on, but are still worth attending a lecture or two. Easier if you're a college town bum than if you're an actual student though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> You might try CLEPing some classes to try to skip stuff you already know and get on with taking stuff of more interest. I agree with your priorities. But you might find that "Toastmasters" (or something similar) will do more for your ability to meet and greet and speak than most college classes. Entrepreneurs tend to relate differently to classes than most degree-seeking students. FWIW: My favorite classes were generally taught by people who still worked full-time in their field and taught part-time.

Good luck with this.

<comment><AUTHOR> After googling CLEP that sounds awesome, I'm surprised I never heard of it. Do you have any experience doing it?

Toastmasters is awesome, I did it a few times last year than started working. Thanks for reminding me to get back to it. I'll also take that advice about professors to heart, it's brilliant. I guess the best way to do it is to google every prof?

<comment><USER13> Yes, I have first hand experience with CLEP tests (and some other similar test by a different name, which I can't recall right now). I took 4 years of college level math from 8th through 11th grades to "prep for college". When I started college, after having not taken math for a year, they gave me a placement test and informed me I could retake advanced algebra or take calculus. Being 18, I was not going to retake advanced algebra. I ended up dropping out of calculus. I was so bitter about the experience I did not take another college math class until my thirties, when I clepped college algebra and got waivered into a statistics class based on my 17 year old SAT scores. I CLEPed some other stuff as well to wrap up an associate's degree and not risk having to start over from scratch if I ever got back to college. It still rubs me the wrong way that a bright student would be told to take yet more advanced math when they already had more math (as I did) than most graduating seniors.

I don't know how you would predetermine which professors are still working professionals. I mostly lucked into that situation, in part by taking classes in GIS, which was apparently still new enough to have lots of working professionals teaching it and not so many full-time professors teaching it.

<comment><USER14> May I ask what was your associate degree? If you have a 1st B.S. already, is it necessary to CLEP subjects again for a 2nd unrelated degree?

<comment><USER13> Sorry for the misunderstanding. I CLEPed several things to wrap up my associate of arts. I don't recall if I CLEPed anything after that, though I did take some additional first year classes....let me see if I can reconstruct the timeline for you:

Took 2 years of college starting at age 18 at the local hometown college. Had no major the first year. Chose a history major the second year so I wouldn't have to change advisors and could largely continue taking whatever interested me. Dropped out because I got married and began following my husband's military career from place to place.

Spent many years checking out every available educational option at every duty station while having babies and doing the military wife thing. Much to my frustration, they never met my needs (will skip the details to try to keep this short).

Showed up in California, where in-state tuition (that I qualified for) at a community college was about $13/credit hour (and later dropped to $11). Talked to a college counselor. Enrolled in two classes and tested out of three others and was given credit for my 2 years of college from when I was a teen to wrap up an Associate of Arts in Humanities in May 1999.

That fall, much to my astonishment, enrolled in a bachelor's degree (I was astonished because I was trying to lock in those old credits for "some day, when I might return to school", which I had not envisioned to mean "like maybe this fall!"). The program: Bachelor of Science in Environmental Resource Management. Environmental studies degrees are typically rooted in geology departments at colleges and tend to be very science-heavy. Since I had a humanities degree, I was missing some of the lower level sciences I needed. I don't recall if I CLEPed any of those. I do know I took at least one such class at a different California community college. This was amidst a huge health crisis, so some of the details of that time in my life are a bit fuzzy.

Later got my Certificate in GIS, the equivalent of master's level work. But I still have not finished my bachelor's, due in part to a divorce and said health issues. I also now have a certificate my employer paid for, which is industry-specific. Employement-wise, no one cares that I have done the equivalent of master's level work. I don't have my bachelor's degree, so it's a big "So what?" My plans: make it on my own, where actual ability to Bring It matters more than a sheepskin.

Hope that makes more sense.

<comment><USER14> Thanks for the clarification Mz, wasn't expecting such a long reply actually. Hope your health is better now =).

I suppose CLEP does help in getting credit but one would still need to check with the respective colleges regarding their policies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As much math and foreign languages as you can manage. Make sure that you achieve real competence in one of the languages.

"He ... believed a competent person primarily has the ability to take things from one field of knowledge and apply them to others in creative ways." Well, he's right. But you have to have the information to work with.

By the way, lot of philosophy majors discover that they don't want to be in academia (or do, but can't get tenure) and that computing not only requires an ability for abstract thinking but rewards it well.

</comment><comment><USER16> For communicative purposes, rhetoric is an amazing field of study. Many of the texts I used in college were crap, but Jay Heinrich's "Thank You For Arguing" is pretty phenomenal as far as being a quick and accessible primer to rhetorically-charged language.

I'd also suggest a good creative writing course (I'd pick prose over poetry, but they're your classes now); the workshopping process did a lot for me as far as developing a critical eye toward language. One could only hope that it would do the same for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Holy crap that looks good - now on my Amazon queue. Thanks!

I'd definitely prefer prose to poetry, I've never seen poetry used in business.

<comment><USER16> Frankly, either will do you some good. The key thing to take away from this is not the course matter itself, but the implicit, generalizable lessons from it.

In both, you learn how to put words in their best order. It is just that each genre has its own conventions (multiple sets of conventions, in fact) regarding what "best order" actually is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Where I attend college, the university has a very good system for allowing students to create their own majors. Your mix of Communcations, Stats/Math, and History sound like an interesting mix that I think would be good for a personalized study program. If you're really interested in the courses you're taking, you'll get much more out of the experience.

Another piece of advice would be to not only choose subjects you're interested in but also the specific classes and professors in those subjects.

</comment><comment><USER18> I studied History. Studying history for history's sake is a waste of time. You're better off studying history from Wikipedia if that's what you want to do. Incorporating history with theory (yes, history has theory) will make you more well rounded. I wrote a history thesis which incorporated ideas from linguistics, psychology/sociology, and economics to understand a historical context. Such methods are interesting because you can understand the present much more deeply.

<comment><AUTHOR> An example of history I loved was in a public policy course. My teacher was great and talked about the founding of America - and how much propaganda and the art of words played into it. He went over specific strategies, and I took from it in a real way the importance of rhetoric. It's something that's stuck with me.There's maybe 3-4 history classes in my school I'm interested in, though.

Also, can I read your paper, and/or have more resources on what you're talking about? It sounds fascinating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> History for history's sake seems like a mistake. Studying the Civil War or the history of China or what have you will likely not teach you information about business you can use. It is likely most relevant history has already been incorporated into classes it is most relevant to.

e.x. in my introductory class to digital logic, we learned about the history of logic on the sidelines.

Now, if they have a History of Business, that is very clearly relevant to your interests- go ahead and take that.

<comment><USER8> History is a very generalizable subject if you want to understand human behavior. It's also a great exercise in coordinating information and in writing. but it's a more promising subject for autodidactism than others but not a bad choice for formal study.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> There was a pertinent post from the other day. Scott Adams' recommendation and the comments at:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1676242>

Are quite helpful as well.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER21> [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2010/09...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2010/09/09/AR2010090903350.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm new here so I don't know how to send a PM, but what do you do for your current job? I'm your age so I'd like to do something that gives me valuable skills.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi retailslave,

I'm on the marketing team for a fashion company, reco jeans. If you're a technical minded person, learning how to market something like fashion will blow your mind. I got hired because the owner was impressed with my past entrepreneurial stuff and they were looking for someone who knew SEO.

If you're looking for an unpaid, just for learning internship, and if you live in NYC, send me an email at kevin at recojeans. We're looking for an unpaid intern right now with some html or other web language skills.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Ok, as someone who majored in something unrelated (International Relations) to what I'm doing now (web development), and having run a business since high school, I think I can give you some insight.

Get a degree with something practical underlying. I wish I had done econ as a second major, or minor. But more for purely intellectual reasons (what financial motivations cause people to do things). Your major is really 60 ( i think, its been a while) of your 120 credits, in some cases its even less.

So use your 20-30 remaining courses wisely. This whole idea of telling people you majored in something imaginary will honestly make you look more like a smug a-hole for years to come than clever, and people won't take you as seriously as you are taking yourself. think about how this sounds "I majored in life studies".

However I highly recommend working on your communication skills, take lots of classes where you have to write analytical papers on a variety of subjects. The greatest businessmen are also great communicators. They know how to convey their pitch and turn it into sales.

take a media studies course or two, take an intro to marketing course, take commercial law (one of my fav courses), take an international business class, and before you realize it you've just knocked out a minor in business/commerce.

Math wise, talk to an advisor in that department, your goal seems to fall under 2 courses: statistics, and financial math. both very useful. Calculus and higher may not really solve your issue.

History wise, you're on track here to understand human nature, and likely sharpen your paper writing skills here.

don't forget to take a science course or two, even if they aren't complicated/hard science classes, you want to avoid a narrow-focus and expose yourself to great minds all over.

you might also think about taking an introductory Computer Science or engineering class. I wish I had taken more of these as well.

One of the key things you're going to need is a good advisor or multiple advisors. Most advisors in college don't care about your track, they are just forced to help you, and have a huge volume of students to deal with. Here is an insider tip (both my parents are college profs): look through the course lists, find ones that interest you, and look up the teacher's email. Shoot them an email, tell them you'd like to pick their brain, and want some advice on their field. See if they are free, and if you can come by their office hours. People LOVE to think others find them interesting. Before you know it you'll have a handful of advisors, many whom could help you in your business pursuits as well.

so in conclusion, get a real major as its going to help you be more marketable to others (think people investing in YOU, long term). Take a bunch of interesting classes, don't be afraid to take a class in another department (just ask, they'll let you in), and if you plan correctly, you can probably knock out a bunch of minors w/overlapping courses.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this excellent response, it's something thats been on my mind. A lot of what I want to do is in communications but it sounds stupid to say I majored in communications. The name is important.

But here's my issue; anything that sounds sexy for business doesn't work for me

Marketing Management - A lot of this looks interesting, but here's my thing: It seems, from my experience, people with marketing degrees are no better at marketing than others.

Management - These classes look useless to me.

Economics - I'm not interested in the macro part of the economy as a career

Finance - I'm not interested in large scale money management and investing.

So my solution is an ad hoc major. I wouldn't have to call it "life studies" or another lame name. I could pretty much call it whatever I want, right?

<comment><USER24> Okay, why are you going to school? To learn some things? To get some paper? Both? To party? Oh, actually, let me break the "learn some things" down... To learn some job-applicable things in classes? To learn some non-directly-job- applicable things in classes? To learn about people who think differently from the people you met in high school?

All of these are good reasons to do post-secondary education. Lots of them are compatible with each other, too. But if you don't care about some of them, don't optimize for those things. With that in mind...

A lot of people are talking about the on-paper value of your degree, and you appear to be interested in that. I'm not sure that's actually right for you; it appears to me that you're on a career path where no one will ever care about your degree. Moreover, even in careers where the presence of a degree matters, the nature of that degree might not; some jobs just say "must have degree" on them, and that's that. Some jobs do care, but those are rare rare rare. So, I doubt that you actually need to focus much on the paper value of your degree.

That said, let's talk about the paper value of your degree. First, school choice. I'm a Canadian, I assume you're American, so this may be wrong, but I think that cheap US schools ("cheap city college"?) have very low brand value. (As I understand it, for a first-world country, the range of brand value in schools in the US is very high... some very very high-brand-value schools, and some very very low ones, and a whole range in between.)

And now, I'll get to the major. Normally you don't get to name your own major. There are exceptions to this, some of which are high-prestige. For example, Will Shortz does love to brag about his degree. But in general, if your major isn't a "real major", it's a joke. Also, many schools have a "not-really-any- major" option, which may be called General Studies, or something like that. Or, my school has an option to get a degree with no major, but two "extended minors". These nothing-major degrees are all very low-prestige.

But remember, maybe you don't care about the paper value of your degree.

<comment><USER23> brand value has a BIG importance in the US. you are basically buying your way into a separate class of opportunities.

Also the opportunity cost of getting a branded/respected degree is MUCH lower now than in say 20 years from now. You are buying a safety net.

also the fact that most "marketing" majors know squat about practical marketing is irrelevant, most students lack the ambition and foresight to break beyond their major of study. you're showing us now through this thread you're thinking ahead.

no one will be more impressed if you have a self-named degree over being a marketing major, but proving yourself an expert in web marketing analytics (which you become on your own, and build up your brand).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> 1\. Do something that you love 2\. Do something you will excel at.

</comment><comment><USER26> Don't major in minor things.

</comment><comment><USER27> so, do you think you can get over the math thing? an observation here is that most high school math professors are, IMO, uninspiring. as a result, many students come out of high school confused and frustrated. if you found you didn't really do well in math in high school, chances are this says very little about how well you can do in it in college.

personally, i maintain that nearly anyone who is sufficiently motivated to learn math can do so. my wife is a perfect example, if you would have asked her last year which subject she hated the most, it would have been math. she was re-taking some lower level algebra course at a community college, which she'd previously gotten a D in, and she was committed to taking the minimum number of math courses required to transfer to a california state school. however, i told her she could get her university of california education paid for, and the particular school she wanted to go to required calculus for her major, so she reluctantly took the plunge.

a year later, math is her favorite subject. she's gotten A's in all of her math coursework for the past year, including her first calculus class over this last summer. she's currently taking calculus II, and doing well in it, now.

i can't tell you how many doors this has opened for her. she was initially a psychology major, but she's considering going to economics (which is very math heavy, requiring the typical 5-semester engineering math track: calc I-III, linear algebra, and differential equations) now instead. who knows where she'll end up, but the process has been extremely rewarding in that a) she was a total math phobic before and her confidence has undergone a complete transformation in the last year, b) math really teaches you to organize your thinking and think "clearly" in the same way you viewed philosophy as doing (math and philosophy are actually quite closely related), and c) as previously mentioned, she can do anything she wants to in school now.

and, actually, having taught math at a community college myself for a couple years i can say that i've seen this story repeated over and over again. nearly all my algebra students went on to calculus afterwards, and i'd see many of the students in my algebra classes do very well in my calculus classes later on. probably the most rewarding thing is when someone would come to me years later and thank me for helping them get good at math because it opened up __________ opportunity for them later. my default response was, "hey, you did all the work...!".

so, why all this talk about math? the reason is that most of the articles i've seen regarding job satisfaction by major have one thing in common: a lot of the "most" rewarding/fulfilling/lucrative/useful jobs are math-related.

is this to say that you'll be miserable if you just get the basic analytical requirements out of the way and never take another math class again past stats? no. but i've personally found that having been a math major (and now back in grad school for computer science) that it's always rewarding when something math-y comes up to be able to confidently tackle and competently solve problems. in other words, kick its butt.

most of the time it turns into a puzzle or a game of sorts, rather than a chore. personally, my flexibility and competency with math has led to many different and extremely interesting options for me. i've done work in anything from biophysics/chem to bioinformatics, to writing economic forecasting/analysis software, to what i'm currently doing, which is solving computer vision problems.

i hated math in high school. i only really got interested in it at a community college as a result of a couple of inspiring professors, and i ended up at one of the top math programs is the country. in high school, i'd never have guessed that would've happened.

bottom line is that i've never regretted learning to excel at math. if you have the time and inclination, it might be something to consider. then, after you get that and your GE's out of the way, you can revisit this question again.

good luck.</comment>


What are the legal implications of PleaseRobMe? - <AUTHOR> http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/03/what-are-the-legal-implications-of-pleaserobme067.html

<comment><USER2> >In coming to its decision, the court noted that Paladin's book was "so comprehensive and detailed that it is as if the [author] were literally present with the would-be murderer" during the crime.

Apparently courts are even stupider than I thought. "Hit Man" was written by a housewife who used the gimmick of writing (actually rewriting) a murder mystery as a handbook.</comment>


Bay Area Counties announcing a "virtual lockdown" - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/16/coronavirus-six-bay-area-counties-to-shelter-in-place/ <comment><USER2> Dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22596539](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22596539)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow. We've gone to full lockdown from no restrictions except on large events 48 hours ago.

<comment><USER4> It's not "full lockdown", there is one step greater, if I understand correctly. "Full lockdown" requires you to have explicit permission to leave your home, right now you can leave your home to meet basic needs, take a walk, get exercise, et cetera

<comment><USER5> The far end of the spectrum is martial law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's pretty important to emphasize that there is no legal or constitutional framework (of which I am aware) for backing this with lawful force. These are suggestions, probably good ones, but not enforceable ones.

<comment><USER7> No, you're wrong. States have power to enforce public health quarantines and courts have backed them up.

<comment><USER6> For individuals, small targeted groups, absolutely. Not for entire metropolitan areas.

I fear this is being used as another step towards an overpowering executive authority.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Everyone should do this. Now.

<comment><USER9> On the basis of what research? Some experts are suggesting against these kinds of measures.

And this is a serious encroachment on fundamental rights, for a virus whose worst-case scenario is a number of deaths similar to the number of people who die from smoking every year.

This policy seems extreme and uninformed to me.

<comment><USER7> Where do you get the idea that the worst case scenario is similar to the number of deaths from smoking? If half the US population gets the virus and 1% die, that' 1.5 million deaths. But if half the population gets the virus all at almost the same time, hospitals run out of ventilators, and maybe it will be 5% deaths. That's 7.5 million deaths.

<comment><USER9> I appreciate that we're all doing our own thinking and napkin math here, but the people who crunch these numbers all the time are talking about worst-case estimations much, much lower than that.

Here are a bunch of solid papers on the topic: [http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/infectious-disease- topics/covid-19...](http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/infectious-disease- topics/covid-19#bibliography&1-4)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is ridiculous and completely overblown. WFH home is plenty along with simply avoiding crowded spaces. They better not do something stupid like close the airports I need to visit family beginning in April.

<comment><USER11> Are you saying this because you have inside knowledge or because this affects you on a personal level? You also sprinkled in "simply avoiding crowded spaces", but you don't suggest a way to encourage/enforce this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Are any well-informed researchers recommending this level of lockdown? At least some experts, including CIDRAP, are opposed to closing schools, let alone locking people down. Is anyone seriously considering and commenting on the damage this policy will do to vulnerable populations?

This seemingly solid paper[0], published in the Journal of Medical Virology, shows Vitamin D to be an important intervention. And obviously fresh air and sun are generally important for health and well-being.

These steps seem authoritarian and wrong-headed.

0: [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jmv.25707](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jmv.25707)

<comment><USER12> There is no limitations on personal exercise like going out for walks except that you should try and remain 6ft+ from others. I don't think suggesting people be isolated from close contact with others during a global pandemic is authoritarian and wrong-headed. It seems to me like the benefits of fresh air might be lesser than the lung damage of covid19 after all.

<comment><USER9> > It seems to me like the benefits of fresh air might be lesser than the lung > damage of covid19 after all.

Sure, sure. But we don't know at the moment what the impact is of keeping people largely indoors except that is is generally less healthy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Has Tesla closed down Fremont yet?

Nope, still pumping out propaganda that they're "ahead of schedule" and want employees to work on their days off to deliver cars:

[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/tesla-model-y-deliveries- beg...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/16/tesla-model-y-deliveries-begin- meeting-expectations-on-the-crossover.html)

They are tweeting about beginning deliveries _today_.</comment>


Why I am Majoring in Computer Science - <AUTHOR> http://jacobj.github.com/blog/2012/05/04/why-i-am-majoring-in-computer-science/

<comment><USER2> It's also a good way to become the CEO of Yahoo!

</comment><comment><USER3> He likes Emacs AND vim? WITCH! WIIIITCHHHH!

</comment><comment><USER4> I feel ashamed again, how few technologies I knew when I started studying Computer Science.</comment>


Getting in touch with users who (anonymously) left poor ratings on Google Play - <AUTHOR> https://blog.onyxbits.de/getting-in-contact-with-users-who-anonymously-left-poor-ratings-on-google-play-709/ <comment><USER2> 2 uninformative paragraphs and a download link.</comment>


Show HN: Jukedeck – create unique, royalty-free music for your videos using A.I. - <AUTHOR> https://www.jukedeck.com/make <comment><USER2> To me the exciting thing about automatic music composition isn't royalty-free prerecorded music, but the potential for real-time composition. Imagine a video game where your actions instantly affect the music, not just by splicing together prerecorded clips but actually by having new music composed and performed in real time. Or, somewhat more fancifully, imagine a set of headphones that play a continuous soundtrack for your life based on what's happening around you.

Is Jukedeck looking into real-time composition?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're not doing it right now, but rest assured that we find that fascinating too.

<comment><USER3> Are you guys planning to opensource the core library used to generate the music?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a business I know well. Jukedeck is an example of how founders and investors do not conduct appropriate market research. There is a limited market demand for low-cost royalty-free music for videos. One could argue there is an oversupply* of royalty-free music relative to buyers. The quality is not good enough to disrupt the billion dollar Production music industry that is top heavy, a relative small amount of creators at the top get the majority of the money, the rest compete for the little that is left. Jukedeck has raised enough money ($3million #) to be around for a few years if they control their burn rate. But Jukedeck in its current form, is just another music startup destined for the Deadpool. ([http://techcrunch.com/tag/deadpool/](http://techcrunch.com/tag/deadpool/))

* [http://lmgtfy.com/?q=royalty+free+music](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=royalty+free+music) # [http://www.businessweekly.co.uk/tech-trail/investment-tree/d...](http://www.businessweekly.co.uk/tech-trail/investment-tree/digital-music-provider-raises-fresh-%C2%A32m)

<comment><USER5> Wow, that was harsh. If startups were assigned to the Deadpool based solely on whether their 1.0 products were ready to immediately disrupt billion dollar industries, there wouldn't be _any_ successful startups out there.

Personally, when I see a team of people who are passionate about what they are doing create something new and interesting, I like to cheer them on.

I think the technology is interesting and cool. Even if it isn't marketable in current form (what 1.0 product is), I wish them the best in iterating on it until it is.

<comment><USER4> What's harsh is burning through 3 million dollars while you're trying to figure out what's wrong. If my statments leads to a major change that saves the company that is a good thing.

<comment><USER6> 3 million dollars is nothing. It took a million dollars to make a single very low-quality video game, circa 2008. Salaries are expensive.

The investment model is set up to let founders "burn through" money while they explore new approaches to old industries. The investors don't really care that the money is lost. To be an investor, you have to assume 9 out of 10 of your investments will be write-offs.

So if you're not defending the investors' money, and if the founders are happy doing this, then why are you intentionally being harsh? Let them do their thing. Yeah they might fail, but so what? It's the only path to success.

It's not really productive to try to save people or companies via internet comments. You're more likely to demoralize them than to change their minds. Unfortunately, demoralization is often someone's hidden motive.

<comment><USER4> I have actually helped a company where our initial interaction was via an internet comment, so don't make assumptions. Stating market reality is not being harsh, there is an abundant supply of royalty free music available at a very low cost or for free. If you're demoralized because someone states the facts of a competitive market than that is very unfortunate and you're not really fit to be an entrepreneur in a highly competitive market. From experience, working on a product that is failing is very demoralizing. I actually will like to see them do something novel and great with their technology.

Moreover there is great ideas* in this thread that can actually help the company.

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10707389](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10707389)

<comment><USER7> _I actually will like to see them do something novel and great with their technology._

As a developer, occasional FPS gamer, and musician, I'd like to see them tackle adaptive generative music that is actually convincing. I want music that takes cues from the gaming environment without obvious loop splicing points and without feeling mechanical.

<comment><USER8> Yes, that was I was expecting.

1\. I upload a video 2\. Jukedeck finds me the perfect audio for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> According to their pricing page ( [https://www.jukedeck.com/pricing](https://www.jukedeck.com/pricing) ), you can use the track free of royalty, but if you want to actually own it, you have to pay $199.

But this falls kind of in a gray area. If the AI created the tracks, why does the company own the copyright (and thus, have the right to sell it)? In December 2014, the United States Copyright Office stated that works created by a non-human are not subject to U.S. copyright (see: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie#Copyright_issues](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_selfie#Copyright_issues) ). So, in theory, AI could also own copyright.

Moreover, do they actually check every newly generated track to make sure its not too similar to previously-sold tracks?

<comment><USER10> > If the AI created the tracks, why does the company own the copyright

Uh, do you think there's a sentient being here? Its just a relatively simple algorithm here (at least compared to sci-fi style AI), the same kind of thing that decides how to autofix colors in photos or do a transform in photoshop.

Dynamic music generation has been a thing since at least the 80s. I think I had an Apple// program that did this.

>works created by a non-human are not subject to U.S. copyright

I'd like to see you prove some silly music generator is on the equal footing of a living and intelligent animal to any court. I can't imagine you not being laughed out of courtroom.

<comment><USER11> The program wouldn't own the copyright, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the company which made the program would own the copyright. It could end up public domain.

E.g. the recently infamous selfie by a monkey was ruled public domain, having been produced by a non-human.

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

<comment><USER12> Software expressly created by a human here.

<comment><USER13> Doesn't hold up. Library of Babel and the Universal Slideshow would be able to claim copyright on all photographs and literature because _all_ photographs and _all_ literature that _ever will be_ or _ever was_ is contained within their corpus/gallery.

Every picture you've ever taken, the Universal Slideshow already contains that picture. The picture of your birth, every memorable moment of your life, and every possible variation of your death.

[0] [http://libraryofbabel.info/](http://libraryofbabel.info/)

[1] [https://babelia.libraryofbabel.info/slideshow.html](https://babelia.libraryofbabel.info/slideshow.html)

<comment><USER14> They probably would only have copyright over what they create, not everything they could create

<comment><USER13> Everything is already created. In regards to the Library of Babel, you can even search the library to verify this. (There is an extended Library that contains entire novels to be searched - the web version is a bit smaller/limited to pages.)

It's _already there_ it just needs to be _found_. That's the entire point!

<comment><USER15> This is a false claim. The Library of Babel is far from complete; the site itself only claims completion up to 3200-character texts. And that's limited only to lower-case alphabetic letters, periods, commas, and spaces. So there is still a vast amount of possible texts that haven't yet been created.

<comment><USER13> The Library of Babel that is _online_ has those limits, yes. Which is why I _explicitly mentioned_ I wasn't referring to the website.

 _> (There is an extended Library that contains entire novels to be searched - the web version is a bit smaller/limited to pages.)_

The creator has variations of the code that _aren 't_ online. For example, lower-case alphabetical letters was a choice to "remain true to the original concept" but a base64 variation that allows for capital letters is possible. Furthermore - searching for _entire books_ rather than _being limited to 3,200 characters_ is also possible. Also other languages would also be possible but require further variations of the code.

It's just having this work _on the web_ to a website that sees 30-40k daily visitors because the algorithm isn't fast enough to meet those demands.

[0] [https://libraryofbabel.info/forum/?bbp_user=1&bbp_reps=1&pag...](https://libraryofbabel.info/forum/?bbp_user=1&bbp_reps=1&paged=22)

E:

Rate limited in posts. My reply to the below is as follows:

Your claims only hold for the _web_ version. I was not speaking of the web version. So you are explicitly _wrong_. There is a version of the library that is not limited to those characters, that is not limited to lowercase Latin alphabet, and is _not_ limited to being searched 3,200 characters at a time. So what are you contending by making such statements?

Yes. The web version is held to those limits. Which is why I explicitly mentioned I was not referring to the web version. Your claims _only hold against the web version_. So I'm not seeing the point you are trying to make here.

E2:

I hate how HN rate limits like this. :)

I'll concede that. Does ASCII art of a Chinese character represent the same information as the Chinese character? That's stretching things so I'm not making that as a counterpoint - but more of a thought experiment.

For example: [https://libraryofbabel.info/bookmark.cgi?ygofnzdyjijlsc299](https://libraryofbabel.info/bookmark.cgi?ygofnzdyjijlsc299)

<comment><USER15> I'm not challenging the claim that it contains a lot of texts; I'm challenging the claim that "everything has already been created and just needs to be found." That claim is explicitly false, regardless of the version of the Library of Babel you are using.

Edit: Reply to your reply: One inherent limitation with the current code is that it has to assume some encoding. Currently, there is no encoding that contains all known glyphs (e.g the Prince symbol, uncommon kanji, etc) so there will be texts that can not currently be generated, regardless of how much you increase the character set.

Edit2: Even if one were to allow ASCII art to represent a character, you then have the problem of how to distinguish between ASCII art substitution and actual ASCII art. Consider "Densha Otoko," which basically consists of message board posts that often contain ASCII art.

[http://portal.nifty.com/2007/04/15/b/img/012.jpg](http://portal.nifty.com/2007/04/15/b/img/012.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It sounds like one of those recursive ANN things. On the scale of seconds, it's quite good. But there's no higher-level structure. For "folk", this is obvious; for ambient, you'd probably never notice.

The goal for this technology is to beat the two guys who write most popular music.[1] Another few years.

[1] [http://nypost.com/2015/10/04/your-favorite-song-on-the- radio...](http://nypost.com/2015/10/04/your-favorite-song-on-the-radio-was- probably-written-by-these-two/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm glad you like it on the scale of seconds! Higher-level structure is definitely a challenge, and is something we're working on.

<comment><USER17> Your electronic offerings are OK. While I'm skeptical about your business model, as it stands, one possible pivot would be to pitch it at musicians as a dynamic arrangement/compositional tool.

I _would_ very much like to try it with MIDI output, as I personally enjoy tweaking synths and effects more than the compositional tasks of harmonizing melodies etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey @anigbrowl - great to hear. We can get you the MIDI - could you email me at hello at [our company name] dot com?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Relevant context: Jukedeck recently won TechCrunch Disrupt London.

[http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/08/jukedeck-wins-disrupt- londo...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/08/jukedeck-wins-disrupt-london-2015/)

</comment><comment><USER19> This is incredibly cool! Really well done. The entire experience with creating and listening to the tracks feels really good. I'm going to be using this for my next product demo video.

It's crazy how good the tracks sound.

One thing that would be nice is the ability (like some others have stated) to tweak the generated sound. For example, there might be a lull at 0:24 but given my video it would be best for the lull to be at 0:52 instead. Would be cool if the layers/pieces were moveable a bit to make it perfectly fit the content it's paired with.

Anyways, congratulations!

<comment><USER20> I agree, I'd love to be able to tweak tracks after they're generated.

Also I noticed in long tracks, like 5min+, that it gets a little repetitive, like the algorithm is trying to pad it out. At least in the few I created, could be a fluke.

<comment><AUTHOR> It does sometimes get a little repetitive - that's something we're working on improving. This is one of the reasons we've limited tracks to 5 minutes long for now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Feature Request: Allow playback of the track that has a row for each of the instruments that you can mute/unmute to isolate. Then allow regeneration of a specific instrument within the track.

<comment><AUTHOR> Another really interesting idea - thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think it would be pretty cool to have this as a streaming service. Let me listen to it as it is generated, and then slice out pieces if I really like them.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a really interesting idea. Generating streams is something we're thinking seriously about, so it's good to hear it might be useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't personally like the music, reminds me of Band in a Box, but the execution is good. Wonder what the stack is - LSTM creates the midi tracks, linux based DAW with pre-set instrument/effect chains bounces that into an mp3?

</comment><comment><USER24> Wow - sounds really good and took about 30s to make:

[https://www.jukedeck.com/share/8e36d5703267cefbe1a924bf800f9...](https://www.jukedeck.com/share/8e36d5703267cefbe1a924bf800f98b914b64408ca6044f7cbe739f992809cf0)

Awesome idea and execution, quite jealous I didn't think of this!

<comment><USER25> Agree. Here's an Ambient Sparse one (generated before I saw this one)

[https://www.jukedeck.com/share/a0126f548a92b5e60df8e78e3a629...](https://www.jukedeck.com/share/a0126f548a92b5e60df8e78e3a62989d58ec8bb7d3c0c6664e8b58178da918a8)

I'm specifically curious how much variation there is between tracks -- perhaps we can get more HNers to post?

<comment><USER26> Aggressive drum 'n bass with a fast tempo. [https://www.jukedeck.com/share/4b576db534b17c0c6b8f708ede487...](https://www.jukedeck.com/share/4b576db534b17c0c6b8f708ede487994f74c0e9a99bb64df78da080e23a44450)

Meditative percussion'd ambient yoga music with a fast tempo. [https://www.jukedeck.com/share/48c5695b3faf1211b216fec2dd591...](https://www.jukedeck.com/share/48c5695b3faf1211b216fec2dd5916ad2a177ea906283427c7340969754c77d8)

<comment><USER27> I feel lucky with the first song I generated: [https://www.jukedeck.com/share/2220b4dea9fde155ffbe9ccc7015b...](https://www.jukedeck.com/share/2220b4dea9fde155ffbe9ccc7015b2146bfbe72425fc94a937c1569cd7646267) It sounds really good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If I take the buy the copy right option, does it mean that the AI won't ever produce the same song again? And how do you handle not occasionally producing duplicate songs when someone else enters similar settings?

<comment><AUTHOR> @flippyhead We're working on how to ensure that duplication is impossible - but at the moment it's incredibly, incredibly unlikely!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Would be awesome to be able to make small edits (lower or replace an instrument), but congrats on the solid execution of a cool idea!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot. That's something we hope to be able to offer soon!

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I was wondering, what would happen if the algorithm create an existing riff and use it in a composition? Gotye use a riff from "Luiz Bonfá - Seville" in "Somebody I Used to Know" and it costs him 1M$

</comment><comment><USER31> Short answer: I'm sorry, I'm against the tech/business approach of this project.

Notes: I'm an ambient electronic music maker (and software maker too). I saw a lot of similar projects since Brian Eno's generative music project. I have been also interested in making algorithmic music (using some AI/artificial neural network schemas), using amazing Supercollider, for a while. I never achieved interesting results, in terms of "deep energy" instead "embedded" when music is made by "special" humans (so called "artists"). Full stop.

Experimenting soundscapes CREATION, in recent years I was back to what I call (along with Steve Roach): "analogic approach": sonic seeds as analogic waves (electro-acoustic) -> (digital) elaborations made by human(s) artist. No MIDI. No "samples" usage as-is. No presets.

I could call the musical secret as a case of human intelligence: "search and discovery" of unknown. Because, this is the point, music is discoveryng of mistery.

BTW, I do not want to enter in the loyality-free / real-time composition topic. So long discussed for so many years among electronic music communities! Good music, is like science inventions: come from "singularities".

That said, an interesting point, for me, is the fact Artificial Intelligence could help musicians to make music. Ok, but this is another story, another vision of what music is, for humans, for machines

respect giorgio

</comment><comment><USER32> When I first read the headline this is what I was hoping for. Auto generated, upbeat, electronic music, that continuously changes, which I can listen to it all day while at work. I need music playing all day, and these days I've been trying to find electronic music that is non-memorable yet upbeat so that it's motivating but not distracting.

Instead I got a 5 minute long song. For my needs, I'll stick with soundcloud "Dj sets" which seem to go on for a few hours each.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a really good idea, and something we'd love to provide. We've only set the 5-minute maximum in v1.0 - there's no reason we couldn't give people access to more extended music. Hopefully when we do you might be able to use it at work!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> For context - I'm building autonomous Escape Rooms that react to the player's actions. We currently have several long tracks that fit various sections of the games, and we switch between them at story junctures, by playing loud sound effects that mask the transitions.

I would pay in the order of thousands of $ (pounds in your case...) for this system running locally in my network, and in what I would call 'continuous mode'. By which I mean, I give it initial conditions and the track just evolves continuously forever[1].

Ideally, I could then send additional configuration messages and have it evolve further. e.g. Start with ambient/sparse. After a few minutes, I send a command to transition to ambient/sci-fi. Then later, to electronic/aggressive, with a seamless transition between. Even better if I can have a command that is essentially "react to this message", and it does something like a cymbal clash or whatever is appropriate for the settings.

I've done improvised theatre shows before with a jazz band that did all this for us, and it was AMAZING! Being able to do it with an automated system would be a game-changer for my business. I've been considering writing it myself, but it would cost at least tens of thousands of dollars worth of my time, and our current solution is sufficiently adequate that I'm not ready to do so yet.

[1] Ironically, given your current business model, I'd actually have almost zero interest in retaining the music after it's been played.)

On a positive note, I really enjoyed all the tracks I did make!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much Schwolop - glad you like the tracks you made! Do you have a site for what you're doing? I'd love to get in touch about a potential collaboration.

<comment><USER33> Since we're B2B and know who our customers are, we have only a very sparse site at www.cubescape.com.au, but you can email tom.allen at that domain to get in touch. Cheers.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot @Schwolop - will do!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is cool, but I can't help but pine for the day in 10 years time when someone can do this for photorealistic images.

</comment><comment><USER35> The output is interesting... decent enough for an ambient background track! An interesting Version 2 would be a way to construct a song for a particular video (perhaps ingesting the Adobe Premiere project file)... Making sure the downbeats are synchronized to visual cuts, being able to switch moods when the video calls for it, and perhaps even tweaking the video timing to match the rhythm (a Premiere plugin could allow the editor to specify an approximate end time for a clip, and Jukedeck could tweak the length to be an exact number of beats).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - really interesting idea. We can already make the exact duration and number of beats work, so it would be a question of lining that up with various points in the video.

<comment><USER35> You could ask for a naming convention in Premiere -- so that various clips or chapters are tagged with #dark or #exciting in their title, and then Jukedeck would play the appropriate type of music at the right time. If you can't get it lined up perfectly, you should transition the music before the video cut, not after.

The start time for a clip is much more important than the end time, so you should adjust the cutoff time for the clip by shrinking it from the end (never expanding it, as clips are often truncated when the footage becomes unusable, i.e. when someone walked in front of the camera, etc.)

I can imagine a Premiere plugin with a stored credit card, and you guys doing a brisk business that way. You could even then become a marketplace for royalty music, have a store where people can upload their music tagged with moods, and video creators could see royalty-free options from Jukedeck or royalty options from third parties.

Places you can add unique IP are: the ability to extract a mood from the video clip itself (most likely through color grading, the speed of pans, the frequency of cuts, and whether it's tripod or handheld), and the ability to automatically extract a mood from 3rd-party music, so I can automatically see the pop songs that are best fits for my video.

Find a way to do this without having to upload the actual video file, because that will kill the experience. Work-in-progress video files are often multi- gigabyte.

<comment><AUTHOR> Really interesting ideas @qq66 - thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Pretty cool app. I can definitely see it being useful.

On a side note, please minify your app.js file. It's 4mb and took forever to load. I almost left the site due to that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion - we'll look into this asap!

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This could replace my spotify subscription at all. It's exciting to hear a song that I and a software have made for the first time and maybe I am the only one who ever listens to it*. Michael from Vsauce talked about 'will we ever run out of new music?' [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAcjV60RnRw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAcjV60RnRw)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a really interesting way of using this - to make music that no one else will hear. We might explore that some more!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Really cool product! Lots of good feedback on the page so I'm sure that's exciting.

A lot of people are mentioning video games, but another interesting use case for real-time streaming would be for running. There's tons of data on my smartphone that can help inform where the music might want to go next. Would definitely be cool to have my own personal band synced with my body's running rhythm.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks @Dwolb - great idea, and this is actually one of the things we're thinking about. We'll be announcing new products as and when they're released on our mailing list!

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is fantastic, could we get longer tracks? I want to use this for generating music in our corporate phone system, right now you get a randomly chosen ambient track, and this could let us provide unique music for anyone who has the [dis?]pleasure of being stuck in our phone system. Maybe even a "press * to listen to a new song" option.

</comment><comment><USER40> post your tracks people, I want to hear more :D

Here are some:

[https://www.jukedeck.com/share/719dc9ccb6488e44bc5a5019ac6e4...](https://www.jukedeck.com/share/719dc9ccb6488e44bc5a5019ac6e4926d70b1a001ff8ccfbcbbaa89264e90b8b) [https://www.jukedeck.com/share/fa3ed812e6710a48f8abcf2392be7...](https://www.jukedeck.com/share/fa3ed812e6710a48f8abcf2392be77c5aba5418900e25e46d116d71772ceb1a1) [https://www.jukedeck.com/share/4f6b44bd50d958a0c00c4044248f5...](https://www.jukedeck.com/share/4f6b44bd50d958a0c00c4044248f5f2d2d7a8f87137c2094e9982356fe4146e3)

<comment><USER41> I really liked this one [https://www.jukedeck.com/share/b1a313acb1f2cdd3c4d24080536c9...](https://www.jukedeck.com/share/b1a313acb1f2cdd3c4d24080536c944b45401a860aa7e06886ce9b36f52ea830)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> It'd be interesting as a musician that often plays just by myself if I could record and upload it somewhere and have something to add accompanying music. So say a guitar track, and have an "AI" that could add drums & bass that fit the timing.

<comment><USER43> I think that's sort of the idea of Microsoft's Songsmith.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Add MIDI export and I'm sold...

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great idea - can I ask what you'd want to use the resulting MIDI for?

<comment><USER45> Not OP but I second this request. For a composer generated music can be a fantastic starting place. I'd love to be contacted if/when such a feature was added.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey @m1sta_ - as I said to @joeyspn, we might be able to get you the MIDI! Could you email me at hello at [our company name] dot com?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> No need to search soundcloud or google for background music for your youtube vlog or intros. It's kind of nice that you can even slice to size right off of the bat. This does seem like a time saver for that market. Either way cool idea!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot @dkroy - glad you like it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> The music it generates in Electronic - Aggressive - Drum and bass - 130-135 bpm could replace my spotify subscription, pretty good stuff and when you get tired of a track, you just generate a new one that you can download Awesome!

<comment><AUTHOR> That's awesome to hear - thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Honestly, I spent a good amount of time on it trying to think how to create a video that matched the music I was 'creating.' I also saw myself creating a long song just to play in the background. Cool stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks @colmvp. If you do make any videos using the music you make, send them our way! And if you're interested in creating long songs, how long would you like them to be?

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Does anyone (perhaps a music theorist) know what rules determine what notes sound well following each other/together?

I find an interesting parallel between 1/2/4/8 repeating beats/parts in songs, and binary...

<comment><AUTHOR> My background is in music theory, and, as others have commented here, this is a question that there's no clear, agreed-upon answer to yet. Music theory can tell us what composers tend to do - which chords they choose should follow each other, which notes to use when - but it's not as good at telling us _why_ those chords / notes sound good together.

In building Jukedeck, we're applying our own theories about what makes good music. And, like any musical composition, it's an experiment!

<comment><USER44> > In building Jukedeck, we're applying our own theories about what makes good > music.

Have you thought about applying also common patterns found in the best selling hits? Hooktheory has a nice DB for this:

[https://www.hooktheory.com/api/trends/docs](https://www.hooktheory.com/api/trends/docs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Nice work, really look forward to listening to some of what this creates!!

</comment><comment><USER51> This is so awesome. Does anyone remember Algomusic? It was a PD program for Amiga from the early 90s that did generative rave tunes. This reminds me a lot of that, in a good way. Great job!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much - really appreciate the support.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> If I were doing this, I'd be interested in finding ways to find out more about what people like and don't like in the generated songs and then use that to improve the algorithm.

</comment><comment><USER53> I would like a medieval genre! (for fantasy RPG's)

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll see what we can do!

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Make a top list with the most shared and liked music!

<comment><AUTHOR> This is actually something we have planned!

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Will look forward to drilling down into your samples, once the site stops getting slammed. In the meantime, you may want to replace the live auto- generation demo with a genuinely random (i.e. non-upvoted, or otherwise curated) pre-generated samples (that is to say: fairly representative of your automatic generative process, even though they happen to be pre-recorded).

Being as every second is precious, to a first-time user of your site. And as we know, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo."

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this - just to check, which demo are you talking about? Do you mean when you create a track straight from the homepage? Because if so, that's not curated!

<comment><USER54> Yeah, the demo on the front page where you get to choose from a couple of parameters. From a UX standpoint, there's no reason those samples need to be _live_ -generated. A random pick from a large number of pre-generated samples (i.e. a large-ish pool of static samples, for each parameterized setting) will have the same effect, and give the user a much quicker response.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah - understood. The generation process is actually exactly the same on the homepage as on the dashboard, so what you're hearing is a genuine, non-curated example of our music!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Brilliant execution! Congratulations!

My Folk song sounded pretty cool, and couldn't help but imagine some video game action that would fit the music.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks so much - really glad you like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Now you just need to add a prose generator and a singing voice synthesizer and you can produce the next hit songs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha - we're a way off that!

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Note: Some of your pages don't have titles, making me wonder if they ever finished loading when I see the tab!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing this out - will get on it asap!

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Your logo/favicon is brilliant, combining the J and D of jukedeck and shaped into a musical note.

<comment><USER45> The visual designer as a whole needs some kudos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> One problem is that you might want to make it so you can hear a sample before it consumes your quota.

<comment><USER59> Isn't the quota only applied to downloads? So you can listen to it before you download it.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right - sorry, we've obviously got to improve our copy! The quota is only applied to downloads - you can create as many tracks as you like and listen to them for free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> It is becoming so easy (freakishly creepy easy) to become a music artist this century.

</comment><comment><USER61> Feature Request: be able to take an existing generated track and change its length.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally agree - this would be awesome. We'll see what we can do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> How does Jukedeck's output differ from Koan > Noatikl ?

<comment><AUTHOR> We want both non-musicians and musicians to be able to use Jukedeck, and this affects the kinds of controls we present to the user, which are quite different from in Noatikl. And we also offer use of the site, and a bunch of music, for free!

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I want the inverse</comment>


Doreen Valiente: The story of the mother of modern witchcraft - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/doreen-valiente-the-mother-of-modern-witchcraft-whose-spells-are-still-used-today-wicca-brighton-a6973196.html <comment><USER2> I'm surprised to see this here on the front page of HN. Seems to me the audience here would generally be hostile to this, and not necessarily in a religious fundamentalist way. In other groups I run with, full of brilliant people who have developed their skills in both rationality and mysticism, this article might be criticized for other reasons -- not whether this is yet another example of superstition, but rather, in it's authenticity and whether it was a fluff piece.

Some comments at the meta level and on a tangent: I still think of that article posted up about René Girard, his influence on Peter Thiel, and the fascinating philosophy of mimetic violence. It's something I want to deep dive into. One of the questions it probes is: why do people create a scapegoat? Why do people want to say things to put down other people?

Fundamentalists scapegoat non-fundamentalists. (Maybe because it is less acceptable now to attack someone for their religious beliefs, so it is easier to attack someone for their lack of religious beliefs). Atheists have responded in kind. I'm not saying this happens here on this specific forum, but I have seen this dynamic happen a lot in other places, both online and offline.

Rational skepticism is one method of inquiry, useful as long as the people involved remain open-minded. Yet, whether we're talking about rational materialists, religious fundamentalists -- or even the drama I got sucked into with that Hong Kong martial arts article -- there is a tendency to rhetorically _attack_ others. It is as if there is a _irrational_ tendency attack ideas (and not in the sense of trying to refine it through oppositional rhetoric, but to dismiss, to destroy, to deny the idea's very existence).

<comment><USER3> Lots of people watching jonathan strange and mr. norrel on netflix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Over the years, the majority of wiccans I have known (barely double digits, to be fair) have been quite up front that it was just a metaphor for organizing their life and worldview, not literally "true" witchcraft. There is a, I don't recall the correct term, belief that you can will positive outcomes into existence by visualizing them. This is not unique to wiccans though.

<comment><USER5> It's less of a fad than it was twenty years ago, which might explain it. The people who stuck with it are probably the ones looking for a framework rather than the attention seekers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow. That's scientology-level bullshit.

<comment><USER7> Scientology is a whole other level of bullshit. Wicca seems a great deal less predatory. And being wished a happy solstice by a dude with leaves in his hair is way less creepy than being offered a "free personality test." I'd rather deal with Wiccans.

<comment><USER6> Are you sure? To me it just looks like your average sect. And having sex with a man wearing a goat mask does not appeal to me as "less creepy" :)

Also, a few wiccans committed a collective suicide in France some time ago.

I guess it's just less mainstream for now. We need to wait a bit for more scandals to emerge.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps so. I'm certainly an outsider to both, and I'm unaware of incidents such as you mention. Scientology's abuses, on the other hand, are well publicized.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> She supplanted mainstream gibberish (monotheistic religions) with fringe gibberish, that's all.

I've never understood the lofty attitudes of people who engage non-traditional supernatural beliefs. You're just a different idiot.

<comment><USER9> Everyone needs to find or invent terminology and tools to help define the elements(including the mystical and undefinable) of their existence. At least she and people like her are/were courageous enough to throw away the old tool set in order to define something for themselves.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Mini_gzip – embeddable, minimal, in-memory Gzip API - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/wkoszek/mini_gzip <comment><USER2> [https://github.com/wkoszek/mini_gzip/blob/master/miniz.c#L24...](https://github.com/wkoszek/mini_gzip/blob/master/miniz.c#L2476)

I'm sure this is _fine_ , but oh man, it looks sketchy.

<comment><USER3> How is this library a "mini" gzip decoder if it comes with functions to do things like _write PNG files_??

It's a nice effort, and sharing is appreciated, but that is most definitely not mini. It only seems that way because all the major libraries don't even pretend to care about code size and are bloated beasts.

This is mini: inflate algorithm in under 8KiB of code, gzip parser built on that in under 2KiB of code. Sans boilerplate, less than 400 LoC. Can also work entirely in-memory. Small enough that you don't even need to compile it into an object file.

[https://gitlab.com/higan/higan/blob/master/nall/decode/infla...](https://gitlab.com/higan/higan/blob/master/nall/decode/inflate.hpp)

[https://gitlab.com/higan/higan/blob/master/nall/decode/gzip....](https://gitlab.com/higan/higan/blob/master/nall/decode/gzip.hpp)

Sadly, writing the minimum code needed to do a task seems to be a dying art :(

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point. The thing is that I've used a ready-to-use GZIP library (miniz) for building my API on top of it. I agree some parts of miniz are not necessary. I will put a note in my repo to point out your links.

<comment><USER3> Sorry if I come off a bit crass. What you have is still a major improvement over people dumping all of projects like zlib and libpng in just to load in files.

It's just that code complexity is probably my biggest pet peeve in programming. People often underestimate what a boon it is to avoid library dependencies. I've had so many code contributions from Windows people because all it takes to build any of my software is: "run the TDM/GCC installer, then run mingw32-make" ... the Linux/BSD mindset of "just apt-get/pkg install the dev library" doesn't work on the platform that most users and developers are on, sadly.

Whereas even I usually give up trying to build OSS that has a Windows port with a dozen dependencies.

So keep up the good work, and don't be afraid to gut some of those excess, unused functions in your own project :D

<comment><AUTHOR> No worries. I like a direct feedback I get from HN readers and don't take it personally.

Honestly I haven't analyzed miniz in detail: I found it was one of the choices, so I looked around and used it.

Keeping stuff simple is very important, and it's unclear to me why they introduced anything with PNGs there. I may indeed decide to clean/replace it with something simpler.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hacking attack on Tor allegedly linked to SAIC and NSA - <AUTHOR> http://darkernet.in/hacking-attack-on-tor-allegedly-linked-to-saic/

<comment><USER2> The credibility of this report is far from established, but I'm not sure this is the kind of thing you'll ever get a full confirmation on when you consider the risks for someone who would go on record.

Edward Snowden:

> Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the > few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so > terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it.</comment>


Brazil considers helping Portugal financially - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/mar/30/brazil-considers-helping-portugal <comment><AUTHOR> One more evidence of the rise of emergent nations: the former colonial powers become in need of help from the colonies.

I wonder when Britain will start needing help from India, or perhaps further down, when France will start needing help from Algeria and Vietnam.</comment>