Starbucks Bans Plastic Straws, Winds Up Using More Plastic - <AUTHOR> https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/12/starbucks-straw-ban-will-see-the-company <comment><USER2> To me it seems like a lot of people are more interested in absolving themselves from guilt than actually coming up with legitimate solutions to plastic waste. Like the article says, straw waste is negligible, it's even fairly obvious that straw waste is negligible, but banning straws will give faux-environmentalists an "easy win" in their minds. There's a dozen better ideas (all listed here on HN recently), ranging from taxing corporate plastic generation, to better recycling filters, to charging extra for plastic products (like some states do with plastic bags). It's unfortunate that this non-solution has gained traction, but "Ban Straws!" acheives a simple-minded satisfaction versus "0.5% tax penalty for large scale corporations exceeding x tonnes of consumption grade plastic!"

<comment><USER3> Well you could change culture. In my country straws aren't used much. You don't need a straw to drink. In fact I only see expats drink coffee with a straw.

<comment><USER4> protecting those pearly whites ;)

it helps, whether good dental care or not, to find ways to prevent staining your teeth as part of regular, daily routine

<comment><USER5> Okay, I'll help you out. Quit caffeine.

No more soda, no more coffee, no more stains, no more jitters. Detox is unpleasant but only takes a couple days. The cravings never go away though.

<comment><USER6> Coffee is protective of the cardiovascular system, and reduces mortality.

[https://www.bbc.com/news/health-42081278](https://www.bbc.com/news/health-42081278)

<comment><USER7> I didn't need a BBC article to tell me that coffee reduces mortality -- the odds of coworkers dying drops significantly after one has their first (or third) cup ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's my understanding that the new 'sippy' lids are recyclable where as the straws are not. In the Lower Mainland (ie the Vancouver BC area including the Fraser Valley), the elimination of straws at most restaurants has been very quick and it's a bit strange to not get one!

I have somewhat sensitive teeth and kind of miss them, but I'll bring my own, probably reusable, if I start to feel strongly about it and right now you can get a straw if you ask for it (though I expect that will go away at some point).

Note also paper straws are a thing.

<comment><USER9> The article addressed it. Even if they get recycled, they mostly end up in the dump.

<comment><USER10> The article "addressed" it with a misleading statement. It said that much of what Californian residents put in the recycle bin isn't recycled. That's because they throw nonrecyclables (like used pizza boxes) into the bin along with their recyclables, and most waste management companies won't separate these items, choosing instead to discard the batch. This is the wrong evidence to give for two reasons:

1\. Commercial waste management is different from residential waste management.

2\. By removing nonrecyclable plastic straws, Starbucks removed a source of contamination for their plastic recyclables. Thus, the percentage of their plastic that is recycled would have gone up even more under the assumption that their commercial waste management company wasn't already filtering out straws.

This is no small error. The author should have known to delve into this more because increasing recyclability was the whole reason Starbucks removed straws with a big hullabaloo.

This is par for the course for the poorly named "Reason," which pushes a wishful thinking philosophy that unregulated markets solve all problems. [https://reason.com/blog/2016/11/18/is-climate-change- already...](https://reason.com/blog/2016/11/18/is-climate-change-already- solved)

<comment><USER11> I can't recycle pizza boxes? Our recycling bins are mixed anyway (glass, paper, plastics, aluminium). Why "discard the batch"? Aren't they already sorting them?

<comment><USER12> In Boulder the recommendation is to add pizza boxes to the city-collected compost. This is even better than recycling since compost is more likely to be handled locally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This article is rather cranky and make two assumptions: 1) that plastic is often trashed, not recycled, and it assumes that we will never fix that. 2) exemptions will not be made for people with disabilities.

Also, would compostable straws be an option? (assuming they do not end up in the landfill, and only distributed on demand to reduce waste).

Fast food better fix itself, or we will end up demonizing the entire industry, for its abundance of litter all over the place and subsidizing the cleanup.

<comment><USER14> > Also, would compostable straws be an option? (assuming they do not end up in > the landfill, and only distributed on demand to reduce waste).

There are no options that are suitable for disabled people.

I'd recommend following Lawrence Carter-Long (he manages the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund) on Facebook; he's made a number of public posts about it lately, and the comments on his posts tend to be very good.

Here's the text of one of his posts:

> FACT: A soggy paper straw increases the risk of choking. Most paper and > silicone alternatives are not flexible, eliminating arguably the most > important feature used by people with mobility disabilities. Metal, glass > and bamboo straws present obvious dangers for people who have difficulty > controlling their bite, as well as those with neurological conditions such > as Parkinson's. Some disabled folks use straws when drinking coffee or > eating soup, yet most of the alternatives--including the leading > biodegradable straw--are not suitable for drinks over 40°C/104°C. > Furthermore, re-useable straws are not always hygienic or easy to clean in > public places.

And here's a comment he made on another of his posts:

> 1\. Glass straws can break. That's dangerous. For everyone.

> 2\. Metal straws don't always adapt to temperature changes well. And can > burn people.

> 3\. At present, paper and biodegradable straws often break down faster than > a lot of disabled folks can use 'em. A straw isn't much use when it is > falling apart.

> 4\. Reuseable straws are useful only if and when you can wash them right > after using and if you have a way to store them. They also have to be easy > for folks to carry with them every time they leave the house. Not possible > for everyone.

> 5\. What if you decide on the spur of the moment to go have a drink with > friends after work but forgot your reusable straw that day? Doesn't leave a > lot of room for spontaneity -- something non-disabled folks get to largely > take for granted.

<comment><USER15> > There are no options that are suitable for disabled people.

Here's an article from a disabled person, who breaks down the (as they say, mostly-online debate) of disabled people and reusable straws. They then test a variety of options:

[https://themighty.com/2018/05/review-reusable-drinking- straw...](https://themighty.com/2018/05/review-reusable-drinking-straws- disability/)

I really am not understanding the problem. If the goal is to reduce single-use plastic and waste, allowing disabled people to use whatever the hell the want/need to do normal everyday tasks isn't incompatible.

Just allow restaurants to have some straws for people who ask for them, and clearly have a right to use them (pass/amend a law if you have to).

Done.

<comment><USER16> In practice, whenever there is a special exemption for disabled people, it imposes costs on them. It's another obstacle to request accomodations, but also it incurs the risk of public shaming if someone decides that you don't deserve them: [https://twitter.com/beth_vrabel/status/993691472766668801?la...](https://twitter.com/beth_vrabel/status/993691472766668801?lang=en).

As with web accessibility, where possible, the best solution is to make the solution that is given to all the rest of us the same solution that disabled people are given. Sometimes we can't do that (e.g. special handicapped spots near the extrance to a building are valuable), but that shouldn't be our standard approach.

<comment><USER15> Then I don't know what you want to do: are we just going to live in a world where plastic straws need to exist?

In the long run, that doesn't work well for ANYONE.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, that sounds fine to me.

This would be a reasonable objection if plastic straws were going to drastically change our impact on the environment. If we were a near zero- emission, zero-waste society, and plastic straws were the last thing holding us back from sustainability on a thousand-millions of years time frame, then maybe we should force the issue.

But until then, making life harder for disabled people in order to make a tiny dent at the edges of the pollution our society creates is not worth it.

<comment><USER15> Then I would have to disagree with your point of view as marginal gains in a lot of different areas in all our lives (tiny dents, as you say) is how we're going to change things, barring a deus ex machina massive breakthrough in technology, which - I'm not going to hold my breath.

One could use the, "I'm not given up x, until y is reached" for almost anything that's a contemporary convenience or luxury. That's stymies most any progress.

If the problem is people's view on disabled people, then we need to change people's view. If right now, we can get rid of plastic, single-use straws, except for disabled people, then to me: that sounds like a very reasonable compromise to marginally remove new plastic from the environment.

<comment><USER16> There's a difference between asking everyone in society to give up something equally small (this was arguably true of the restrictions on incandescent bulbs that went into effect roughly ten years ago), and putting a disproportionate burden on people who are already disadvantaged and actively discriminated against.

My point isn't "never do anything small", it's "find something else to do that doesn't hurt people who really deserve better".

<comment><USER15> You're framing plastic straws as an inalienable right.

I'm saying we can live without them; we did before and for most of recorded human history.

This isn't an impossible problem to solve.

<comment><USER16> For much of human history, we let disabled people die, murdered them as children, or treated them like animals.

Any appeal to what we did for most of human history is worthless. The question is, given modern technology, how can we do best for all of us?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If Starbucks really cared about plastic in the environment, they would offer and encourage patrons to use glass cups when drinking inside the cafe, which can be washed.

Maybe even offer a 10 cent discount for using the glasses.

<comment><USER18> I thought they already do.

Edit: yep.

[https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/global- report/envir...](https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/global- report/environmental-stewardship/reusable-cups)

<comment><USER19> Eh, they kinda do. My local Starbucks only has a handful of "for here" mugs for hot drinks, and nothing for iced drinks. The mugs are mainly for show as you must know to ask for one. Plus you know they don't want to create glasses to clean.

To add: I used to bring my own reusable cup, but more times than not, they'd make my drink in a disposable plastic cup, then pour it into my mug, and immediately toss the disposable cup. Now I mainly make my coffee at home using a moka pot. Saves money and plastic. I still buy Starbucks when I travel, and just feel bad about the wasted plastic.

<comment><USER20> I was a Starbucks Barista for awhile in college. I'd try to use peoples mugs when possible. But so much of the process is designed around that cup. Your name is written on it, the exact ratio of ingredients is measured in it. It fits in the machines well.

Starbucks really needs to reinvent the whole process for people who bring their own mugs. Like having a reusable Maker cup behind the counter or something.

<comment><USER21> Why not just sell a reusable that is the same size and put a sticker on it for writing?

<comment><USER20> You are right! That totally solves the problem, and we do sell them!

[https://www.amazon.com/Starbucks-Reusable-Travel-Coffee- Tumb...](https://www.amazon.com/Starbucks-Reusable-Travel-Coffee- Tumbler/dp/B00BR6QA64/ref=sr_1_6?s=home- garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1531499836&sr=1-6&keywords=starbucks+reusable)

But most people want a coffee mug that looks like an Elephant or has a Batman handle. They don't understand the value in paying $10 for something that looks like a disposable cup.

<comment><USER21> But does sbux give the workers stickers to use so they can write on them? How do you label them in store?

<comment><USER20> ahhh... Good point. We actually don't write on them. So the barista will call out "Green Tea Latte in a Reusable Cup" instead of your name.

And we just tell each other what the drink should be. It works fine when its only a couple drinks like that, but if everyone brought reusable mistakes would happen.

Maybe they have a better sticky note solution now, it's been a while since I worked there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Did they "ban" plastic straws, or did they simply _stop using them_? Maybe my idea of that word is too strict or not with the times.

I know, it doesn't make for an exciting headline. Though I would have liked the sound of "Starbucks doesn't want you to know about this technique for drinking your coffee."

<comment><USER23> You can ban something without being a government. However Starbucks actually said[1] "Starbucks to Eliminate Plastic Straws Globally by 2020". You could argue that Starbucks have banned the sale of plastic straws in their shops, but they are probably not banning the use of them, should a customer bring one in from outside.

[1] [https://news.starbucks.com/press-releases/starbucks-to- elimi...](https://news.starbucks.com/press-releases/starbucks-to-eliminate- plastic-straws-globally-by-2020)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Recycling of some plastics may be more of a 'feel good' activity, at this point, then of real utility. There is no guarantee that these will be recycled, either. Consumers are used to dumping disposable, one-use cups in the trash. Even plastics that are recycled often find their way to the landfill. Plastics that are recycled can usually not be reused for the same purpose, and eventually do end up in the landfill. The new sippy cup lid is made of polypropylene, which is recyclable but expensive to do as it requires separating. Not all cities accept PP plastics for recyling. It typically needs to be combined with mostly virgin plastic to make new products, which are often less recyclable.

Is this better than the straws? Seems like it. But it would be a whole lot better to actually reduce the quantity of plastic.

</comment><comment><USER25> I can't tell if it's mass insanity or a deliberate distraction campaign to focus on plastic drinking straws. If you look at what percentage these make up in single stream recycling or general waste it is really tiny. This is different from plastic carrier bags, which despite their tiny proportion of the mass and volume of waste it is still a bigger proportion than drinking straws, but more importantly it can escape waste management systems and pollute widely due to being so light and the impact is higher because of the effects from the material's large surface area. I think drinking straws is just an easy target for environmental PR signalling.

<comment><USER26> Articles like this - [https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150817-sea- turtl...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/08/150817-sea-turtles- olive-ridley-marine-debris-ocean-animals-science/)

On one hand, yes, it is silly to put so much focus on disposable straws. On the other hand, it's such a low hanging fruit and should be so easy to get rid of. There's just no need for them in 99.9% of cases, and they're simply thrown in a pile to sit for 10000 years after spending 15 minutes in a drink.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> It may have 0 environmental impact, but at least it's a step in the right direction for reversing our 'disposable society'. Really, though, if you're that concerned about the environment and you JUST HAVE TO HAVE STARBUCKS... bring your own re-usable mug. That's a thing, too.

Also, the paper straw claim is pretty dubious. The nearest pizza place to my office has been using paper straws for months. Never had one "collapse" mid drink, even after an hour or more. The author is resorting the the pseudo- journalistic "people are saying" technique to make a BS argument. I'm a person, and I'm saying paper straws are just fine! Why not "quote" me in the article?!?

<comment><USER28> You mind sending over the brand name of these non-collapsing paper straws? I've tried dozens and have yet to find a suitable alternative to plastic. And I love that when you order samples, the box of 12 straws comes in plastic packaging that is also shrink-wrapped.

There are some pretty robust bamboo straws, but they have the same displeasing mouthfeel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The paper straws really are terrible. They've started popping up here in Vancouver even though I'm not sure the ban has fully taken effect yet (I still see plastic straws some of the time). They're bad enough that my response is just to stop ordering drinks that need a straw (anything with a lot of ice in and other cocktail type ingredients like fruit). The idea of reusable straws is so laughably bad I wonder how anyone can seriously propose it as an alternative.

<comment><USER28> I agree with you on paper straws. Reusable stainless steel straws for on- premises consumption is very feasible. Bars have been doing it for many years. The only real problem is that they're very popular and get stolen as a matter of course and they don't wash well when run through ordinary dish. These seem to be reasonably easy problems to solve through incentive and simple equipment.

<comment><USER29> Reusable straws for a bar could work where they provide them and clean them. I was criticizing the idea of "bring your own" reusable straws which people offer up as an alternative. Hygiene is a major concern there, as you say they're hard to clean without special equipment. On premises reusable straws also doesn't solve the Starbucks problem for to-go drinks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This reminds me of the big push for biodegradable plastics made from corn. Should be better for the environment, right?

Well it turned out that the energy requirements were so high to create the plastic that it _actually used more oil than regular plastic_.[1] It's not until we reach a much higher rate of renewable energy does it actually make sense.

[1][https://www.mcdb.ucla.edu/Research/Goldberg/HC70A_W03/pdf/Gr...](https://www.mcdb.ucla.edu/Research/Goldberg/HC70A_W03/pdf/Green_plastics.pdf)

<comment><USER31> It's similar to paper vs plastic bags. Paper bags require more energy and fresh water making them worse for the environment.

<comment><USER32> That claim probably depends on where they're made...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I like the big picture thinking in this article. There is an aspect not covered in it or in the conversations: littered straws. For litter its better to have a larger lid than a smaller one and a straw.

I pick up litter at a nearby creek. Most straws tend to very quickly break down in a brittle way into smaller pieces that become increasingly much more difficult to see and pick up. If I see a glass bottle or a straw, that is an immediate pick up to avoid it getting broken down further.

</comment><comment><USER34> It's not a controversial viewpoint that single-use plastics are killing the planet, both in using up a very limited resource and flooding our oceans and foodchains with plastic debris.

Why are they single use? Because they're commercially cheaper to throw away and replace. So straight away, if we're going to legislate anything, it should not be that you cannot use plastics, or a centrally collected tax... It has to a requirement that you pay for the collection and recycling of any plastic your business uses. Start requiring that and you'll see many of the single-use plastic bullshit packaging vanish overnight.

Starbucks are making these new lids out of polypropylene. Unlike a straw a lid is very easy to wash and PP suits this just fine. A clear PP is also a lot more valuable to recycling as it is purer, and easier to use than a dark green PP (or polystyrene, I'm not sure what Starbucks are currently using).

Should also add that the ~"omg think of the disabled children" comment is ridiculous. People who _need_ straws to drink will a) carry reusable straws with them and b) still be able to get alternative material straws from Starbucks. I've used both wax paper and cellulose straws. They're both fine in cool drinks.

</comment><comment><USER22> I have an idea for an alternative to plastic straws. Maybe someone can create a startup based on it? If you do, don't remember to throw me a bone in terms of money and stock.

There's a plant called "horsetail", which is one of the earliest plants that still happens to exist to this day.

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

Horsetails are very simplistic; basically, they're mostly hollow shoots. Very thin, but rigid and fairly durable. They can vary in size depending on species, but the ones I've seen growing in California happen to be straw- sized.

I imagine they can be easily reamed, dried on rods so that they keep their shape, and then cut and packaged.

Of course this is hypothetical, so I don't know if it would really work, but I also don't know if this has been tried.

<comment><USER35> They already have compostable "plastic" cups, I assume straws aren't that much harder to make.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I have a co-worker who is Chinese. He has his own set of stainless steel chopsticks. Could we not apply a similar logic to straws, i.e. buy and bring your own?

The straws they sell at head shops are a bit too short IMHO.

Designer straws, the official fad of 2019.

</comment><comment><USER37> A few of my local coffee shops are now using compostable cups and lids [1]. The problem is that there is nowhere to dispose of them. Quite a few of the rubbish bins now have general waste and recyclable waste sections, but it would be great if compostable waste bins became more common. Someone like Starbucks getting behind this would help increase the adoption.

[1] [https://www.vegware.com/](https://www.vegware.com/)

</comment><comment><USER38> Seems like it would be better to incentivize people to use their own mugs. At my local coffee shop if you use your own mug when you purchase a drink they give you a little wooden 'nickel'. They have a series of jars on the counter, each representing a local charity. You drop your wooden nickel into the jar of your choice and they donate a nickel to that charity.

</comment><comment><USER39> That has to be the straw on the camel's back.

</comment><comment><USER40> >Cups for cold drinks still entirely made of plastic

>Bans a straw

Bravo, SBUX

<comment><USER41> The cups/lids are recyclable and the straws weren't/aren't.

<comment><USER42> I certainly don't recycle them at home. The recycling bin at any Starbucks gets dumped straight into the trash.

<comment><USER23> Do you have a reference for that claim? Starbucks seem to claim that this is true for some stores[1], however that same document also implies that some stores _do_ recycle.

[1] [https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/environment/recycli...](https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/environment/recycling)

<comment><USER42> A Starbucks employee who takes the trash out, who I was jokingly asking if she was going to dump the recycling in the recycling bin. Since people throw just as much trash in there, obviously not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Obligatory Penn & Teller recycling-is-bullshit episode: [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0771119/](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0771119/)

As long as plastic disposables actually are disposed of we're in no danger of running out of landfill room. Plastic saved from omitting straws in negligible, this is greenwashing at its silliest. The energy and labor spent separating and recycling most plastics has worse environmental impact than the benefit from plastic saved and re-used.

<comment><USER10> Obligatory Penn is a fundamentalist libertarian hack who irrationally doesn't believe in climate science.

[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Penn_%26_Teller:_Bullshit!#Rec...](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Penn_%26_Teller:_Bullshit!#Recycling)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> So if straw bans are not about saving the environment, what are they really about?

Perhaps they reflect the relative power of the class that eats in restaurants that serve drinks in regular glasses vs those that gets their drinks in paper mugs with a straw?

</comment><comment><USER45> They're recyclable, but consumers don't always recycle. The 3 Rs start with Reduce, but we cannot as long as so much junk plastic continues to be manufactured. Plastics make it possible.

<comment><USER46> They are not recyclable in my area (served by Waste Management).

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Why not just switch to compostable plastics - CLA and PLA are virtually indistinguishable to customers and not that much more expensive.

</comment><comment><USER48> Nothing says virtue signaling harder than forgoing plastic straws while selling your drinks in plastic cups with 20x the plastic.

</comment><comment><USER49> So they should make new lids from paper (not plastic), like they did for the straws

</comment><comment><USER50> thin bamboo straws may be the answer (and a nice startup idea)

...oh never mind a google search shows someone else is doing that :(

</comment><comment><USER51> Just FYI, this is a link to a Reason article, which has a very specific partisan leaning.

The mistake in this article is that the tops are recyclable plastic, and straws are not. While straws are 0.2-0.5g lighter, the plastic is worse.

<comment><USER52> Cititation needed for myself, but most of current plastic straws, even if they don't look it, are recyclable.

<comment> ctrl-j They absolutely are not recyclable[0] [1]. Almost all curbside programs and most commercial programs will treat straws as "contaminants".

Plus they have additional problem of causing significant wildlife impact.

[0] - [https://livegreen.recyclebank.com/because-you-asked-what- s-s...](https://livegreen.recyclebank.com/because-you-asked-what-s-so-bad- about-plastic-straws)

[1] - [https://earth911.com/home/food-beverage/recycling-mystery- pl...](https://earth911.com/home/food-beverage/recycling-mystery-plastic- straws/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> [https://news.starbucks.com/news/starbucks-announces- environm...](https://news.starbucks.com/news/starbucks-announces- environmental-milestone)

Perhaps using more or less plastic is not the point. The point is whether the waste would be recyclable or not. The title seems like a click bait.

"By nature, the straw isn't recyclable and the lid is, so we feel this decision is more sustainable and more socially responsible," said Chris Milne, director of packaging sourcing for Starbucks.</comment>


BuyLibre: Cooperative Ownership to Changes in Software - <AUTHOR> https://buylibre.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> Related sentiments in [http://wgross.net/essays/give-away-your-code-but-never- your-...](http://wgross.net/essays/give-away-your-code-but-never-your-time).</comment>


You Cannot Serve Two Masters: The Harms of Dual Affiliation - <AUTHOR> http://www.argmin.net/2018/08/09/co-employment/ <comment><USER2> Just a quick note: 'Dual Affiliation' is being used here differently than in most academic contexts, so the headline's a bit odd.

Normally, it means having a joint appointment in two academic departments (e.g. Linguistics and Cognitive Science at State U, or in the Department of Linguistics at State U, with an appointment at the Head-and-Neck surgery program at the local med school). This is a well-known and common practice, and although it can be tricky (particularly with even splits, where there's not one true home), it's not a 'harmful' thing.

As the author explains in the article per se, he's talking about an industry/academic split. This is _much_ harder, for the reasons he's outlined, and as an academic, I too am skeptical. It could be a nice idea in moderation, and it'd be great to have more bridges between Academia and industry, particularly given the brutality of the Academic Job Market.

But I can easily see that a professional administrator somewhere deciding that it's cheaper to stock departments with 20% appointees than to actually hire career professors and educators. And as any adjunct-heavy institution will tell you, a department full of moonlighters is no place to make a life. Perhaps more damning, 20% of anybody's life isn't enough to support all but the weakest of teaching, even for a single course, so over-reliance on this will just further damage the instructional core of universities.

So, one or two in a department could be nice, but I don't think it's a great model for the future.

<comment><USER3> Dual affiliation meaning industry/academic split is unambiguous here since that's the word Facebook AI Research choose to use [1][2] and the authors are explicitly responding to Facebook's model.

[1]: [https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-yann-lecun-dual- aff...](https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-yann-lecun-dual-affiliation- model-ai-experts-2018-8) [2]: [https://www.facebook.com/schrep/posts/10156638732909443](https://www.facebook.com/schrep/posts/10156638732909443)

<comment><USER4> Facebook's reappropriation of a well-understood term in academia doesn't mean it's not ambiguous... If anything, it's disingenuous.

<comment><USER5> Maybe better to call it misguided.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The bulk of academic work is chasing grants, not "curiosity driven research". If universities want professors not to leave in droves to tech companies that will consistently give them funding and cut away the bullshit that eats up the majority of a professor's time, they should try competing, rather than bemoaning that professors are no longer following the sacred path of academic asceticism.

<comment><USER7> While I would like to stop chasing grants as much as the next tenure track assistant professor, I don't think it's fair to characterize "the bulk" of academic work as chasing grants.

If anything, it's responding to emails ;)

<comment><USER8> Emails and sitting in meetings (e.g. [https://twitter.com/research_tim/status/1017506139137826819](https://twitter.com/research_tim/status/1017506139137826819) ).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow. I don't even know where to start on this one.

My experience with academia is that everyone is scrambling to get grants and get published. Nobody ever asked questions about where the grants came from. A lot (probably even the majority at the time) was from the department of defense, and explicitly targetted to create weapons.

Professors spent a huge amount of their time writing grant proposals. It's like pitching to a bunch of VCs, only you do it every month, and the amounts of money are much smaller.

And this is the reward for a lifetime of achievement. If you're starting at the bottom today, conditions are positively Dickensian. The average (not the maximum, the average!) PhD in CS took 6 years. During that time you'll be paid almost nothing, no matter what the cost of living is around you. And you are essentially an indentured servant of the professor. If he wants you to do a routine task that has nothing to do with your research, you have to do it. Cumulatively these tasks could add up to years of delays. After you graduate, you'll probably have to take multiple postdoc jobs, often at very low salaries, in hopes of getting a faculty position. Sometimes the hopes come true, but very often not.

And from what I understand, CS is actually one of the "good" subjects to go to graduate school for. Things are much, much worse in the humanities.

It's truly incredible that anyone would hold this up as a better system than how industry works. Hmm, let's see... a two week interview process, after which the company will tell the applicant whether they're hired. Or, a two year postdoc after which the university may choose to throw them away like garbage. Spending half your time writing grants, versus spending a few minutes a week writing a status report. Come on.

Also, the section about how "the students will suffer" from industry partnerships reads like a bad joke. Students suffer because the most universities hire faculty purely based on research, and not at all based on teaching. Full stop. The top research schools have contempt for teaching undergrads; that's why they hire adjuncts to do it at minimum wage. (Well, they also dump some of the burden on graduate students, too.)

<comment><USER10> It seems like once a week I see comments like this. This was not my experience at all.

With internships, I made over 60k a year in grad school. I worked on projects of my choice. I did not do a postdoc after graduating. I graduated from a small, unranked department and got a tenure-track position at an R1 university in a top 75 department.

<comment><USER11> What field? Even at top tier institutions I've never seen grad students make more than 40k, but I'm thinking of research heavy PhDs, where you continue your research over the summer.

Edits: ah, just saw in your profile it was software engineering!

<comment><USER12> I had the same experience as the grandparent, and averaged 70K a year. I had a lot of great opportunities during my Ph.D so I was really fortunate, but I felt that many students I met during internships were serial interns and got fellowships too, so it seemed at the time like most strong PhD students in Computer Science averaged about 60K a year and enjoyed it. Also note that you don't pay FICA (Social Security / Medicare) on your PhD stipend so 25K is like 30K.

I graduated in 5 years into my dream tenure-track job, and 7/8 of the students in my cohort got good tenure-track jobs too (the remaining one went back to running a successful business unrelated to her research). The school I'm at pays $40K/year stipends for PhD students, including the summer; so I think many people only count the 9-month stipend for PhD students which is about 27K, and not the summer salary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Article says two masters which implicitly assumes industry would be some new master pulling professors in some new direction. But right now professors have multiple masters. Undergrads, grads, administrations, grants/funding, etc. The idea that the previous master was "curiosity driven research" and now it will be "shareholders" is an exaggeration. I could cynically say the previous master was "least publishable unit."

It seems more likely to me this article assumes zero sum competition where there are actually positive sum gains to be had. It's good Facebook wants to pay for PhDs to do real market driven work instead of these people starving as adjuncts somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER14> When I took computer science in 1999-2003, the best professors had rather significant industry experience. The worst professors were completely clueless because they never worked with a large computer program in their life.

I would have been thrilled if my freshman and sophomore computer science classes were taught by guest "professors" who had legitimate careers, and occasionally took the time to teach a class. I'm sure their feedback to my department would have been extremely valuable, because, at the time, every class was some professor's half-baked experiment on teaching computer science.

Now, almost 20 years later, I'd really enjoy the opportunity to take a school's almost complete syllabus, and teach it to students.

How does this apply to Artificial Intelligence? I'm sure there are lots of unwritten lessons from industry that haven't make their way back into academia.

<comment><USER15> > The worst professors were completely clueless because they never worked with > a large computer program in their life.

Seems like what you needed was a trade school. Maybe having a degree from a more prestigious university helped you get an initial job, but in terms of the things you were actually looking for, that's trade school stuff and barely overlaps with Computer Science.

<comment><USER16> This is a problem on so many levels.

The evolution of, management of and use of large computer programs over a long period is pretty well unstudied. And yet 100's of millions of people have to use these things every day.

The programming methods used by practioners (and now taught in the Ivy league) have been developed by folk science, and are not rigorous in any way I can think of.

The Academy has failed in these two ways, at least. For large systems it's a market failure. The study of systems in the field over decades is not a way to get tenure - so it has largely not happened. The development practices created by and advocated by academia failed in the field; so we got "Agile" and we can't get rid of it with science (or at least, we haven't so far)

We can dismiss this all as artisanal, but in that case we need to separate Computer Science from Software Engineering properly. This means that Comp Sci goes to the Maths faculty and SE goes to Engineering. Crucially the expected level of funding for Comp Sci goes to Maths levels; buy a whiteboard and get on with it. This is no solution to be honest, but better than the current situation where the community owns to be tacking the problems of industry but actually addresses little in the core.

<comment><USER17> I actually agree with your separation of Software Engineering and Computer Science comment, but completely disagree with the funding level statement. The notion that branches of Mathematics don't use computer resources is absolutely laughable. If anything, I don't see why the best practices for managing people who are developing the same CRUD apps over and over again needs any significant investment of any kind besides a few laptops. Computer Science can not and should not give a shit about development practices like Agile or its alternatives. CS people do own a lot of problems facing industry like machine learning and AI, and they address plenty of problems "in the core"...just nothing to do with process.

Also, this split absolutely does happen at some universities, and the funding is decided by agencies based on their priorities. One such university is the University of Waterloo, and the CS department is not wanting for funding...certainly not at the buy a whiteboard and get on with it levels you're suggesting.

<comment><USER18> >The notion that branches of Mathematics don't use computer resources is absolutely laughable.

The best right out of school sysadmins I've seen were failed physicists. Apparently they run some moderately large stuff.

<comment><USER16> I had a really good one work for me - but he went off back to physics so that he could play with a real computer!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm a professor working in AI.

I'd say the raiding of AI faculty is a reality, so Facebook's proposal is better than the raw poaching that is occurring. With salaries more than 3-6x higher in industry than in academia, the cost of being in academia is high for AI researchers compared to other fields where it is close to 1.5x. The program I received my PhD from had many faculty leave entirely to join companies, and this "dual affiliation" seems like a reasonable compromise.

Facebook enables PhD students to be funded, provides access to massive resources for building datasets and for compute power, and removes much of the grant writing burden allowing one to focus more on curiosity-driven research.

Faculty have so many things that pull them away from research, grant writing/fundraising, teaching multiple courses, and university service. Because things are moving so fast in AI, it requires more time to stay current on research activities which is hard to do in academia because so much time is spent doing other things.

</comment><comment><USER20> _You can't do disruptive entrepreneurism if 80% of what you do is owned by a big company._

This should be the headline.

The most critical issue here is Intellectual Property. In academia the IP is owned by the academic institution and has traditionally found its way into published research before being put through a technology transfer office or taken out of the universities by their creator. Don't forget Stanford still gets HUGE annuities from their licensing of the tech to Brin/Page[1].

Alternatively, corporations own the IP from any research from the outset, and history would indicate that trade secrets or patents that can monopolize a technology made from the research, will be pursued before or simultaneous to any publishing in research journals.

You have to pay one of them eventually if you want to make a product with it. So the question is, do we want corporations or academic institutions being the primary driver/owner of new knowledge?

Or is it just totally pragmatic, and we let the one with the most money win?

[1][https://www.redorbit.com/news/education/318480/stanford_earn...](https://www.redorbit.com/news/education/318480/stanford_earns_336_million_off_google_stock/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I think an important factor is the salary disparity. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere, academic salaries cannot provide an upper middle-class lifestyle anymore. Academics are only human and it is natural to want the lifestyle all of their peers from grad school, college (or even their recently graduated student who works for FAANG) seem to enjoy. Unless academic salaries in CS increase significantly (and match say, business school salaries), this trend will continue.

<comment><USER22> I'm guessing salaries may come down somewhat CS industry jobs as supply of people with software development training increases. Salaries are much lower in physical science, engineering and biology even for PhDs compared to software development/CS/"tech". Although in industry salaries are still higher than academic ones, although the difference is not as dramatic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Our government, and moreso, our society through cultural and government apathy has devalued anything academic that does not produce material gains - capital, wealth, patents, etc.

I fear that the total commercialisation of academia means that we are unlikely to see meaningful material gains for society in terms of new cures to disease or technology advances outside of those that can be monetised for recurring revenue in the next decade.

It's really an unfortunate but self inflicted American problem.

<comment><USER18> It's a problem, sure... but the problem is that we're not funding schools. If we spent some tax dollars on our education system, academia would be more independent from business, and could focus more on the sorts of long-term and difficult-to-monitize research that business is not so great at.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Semi orthogonally, in my opinion, Ben Recht is one of the most important voices in ML and AI. I highly recommend people follow him.

<comment><USER25> I agree-he is a very crisp and clear thinker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why does "faculty working elsewhere mean cancelled classes" \- if the faculty is paid for 100% by facebook, but works 20% at the university does this not mean that the students receive a bonus teacher? Is there no scope for enrichment of computer science by industry? And what is "academic computer science"? I mean, look down at your keyboard - nothing in computer science is purely academic; it's the most applied of domains!

The only exceptions I can think of are the fringes of physics attacked by complexity analysis - but these really are fringes!

<comment><USER7> Working 80% for Facebook basically precludes the time commitment for teaching classes.

<comment><USER16> As per many other comments - doing admin and applying for grants takes up ~80% of normal academic time - and yet classes get taught.

<comment><USER16> Ok - let's say that the departmental budget for professors is $1m, and you pay $100k to fund 10 professors, who then teach 50 classes. All is well.

Now, one of these professors announces that Facebook will pay them $500k instead, but they will allow 20% of time at the university, and will pay you $50k

Now you have $150k, and 1 class per year already in the bank. You need to find 4 more classes taught, and by spending $120k you are able to do that, you also have $30k for TAs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> snip snip:

> The proposal harms our students directly. Our faculty at their best secure > everyone's future by teaching talented students how to understand the > challenges facing the broader world. Such mentorship is enriched by the > courage, independence, security, and trained judgement of senior scholars to > guide students' perspectives on what is worth doing, what is likely > irrelevant, and what is wrong. Engaging with a student body requires an all- > in commitment, both in teaching and advising roles. Faculty primarily > working elsewhere means cancelled classes. Faculty wedded to a company means > advice that's colored by the interest of the company.

I'm not sure I agree with the implications of what follows the first sentence in the paragraph above - these are rather broad generalizations.

Academia may certainly help students understand challenges of the larger world but in my experience this is as mixed a bag as other settings: working in the private sector, working in non-profits and volunteering.

Finally, faculty working elsewhere seems like a very common thing. I've hired academics as consultants in the past and worked in companies where this was common and seemed encouraged by their universities. Note that they weren't _primarily_ working for us - so this is a good distinction - but it also begs for a more clear definition of what "All-in commitment" means above.

(edits : grammar etc)

</comment><comment><USER27> Yeah, working 80% of your time in industry would be catastrophically destructive to most academics' intellectual freedom. You know what else would be catastrophic to their intellectual freedom? Working 20% of their time at a university.

<comment><USER28> Where exactly do I sign up to get paid to do research on topics that don't have immediate business application?

Pick your poison here. Either you're a servant to teaching, training grad students, chasing grants, and academic politics, or you only get to work on things that will make Facebook, Google, etc, money.

<comment><USER29> FAIR, DeepMind, Brain, MSR and many others all employ large numbers of people working on pure research with no immediate business application, and with at least as much freedom as their academic counterparts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Last time I checked, adjuncts make shit, get shat on, and have to work multiple jobs anyway.

Without dumping blame on Universities, the point is that the cost of "teaching" gets passed on to students, saddling them with debt. Profit or no, the ratio of most tuitions often boils down to students paying what might be the cost of a 1:1 student:teacher ratio, effectively paying an entire adjunct salary (gross pay), for 4 years straight, single handedly.

Take a look at what that means when the reality is a 30:1 ratio or worse. But, the rationalization being: they get a diversity of expertise, vetted for world class quality (hopefully) even if they don't get the one-on-one personal touch of a direct hands-on apprenticeship, with the personal attention of a mentor.

But hey, yeah the campus grounds cost money, and accredation, and administrative bureaucratic overhead, and so one.

But yeah, adjuncts make shit, work part time, and have more than one source of income anyway. So, suck it, ivory tower!

</comment><comment><USER31> I feel lots of this applies to Open Source too. The notion of wearing the company or community hat is pretty common, and often used to persuade others of your good intentions.

The number of times I've read a sentence that started with something similar to "Wearing my community hat, .." and felt the sentence was anything but community orientated is way higher than I would like. I'm sure a certain percentage of this is actually my own biases, but I'm also pretty sure that percentage isn't 100%.

</comment><comment><USER32> TL;DR some professors are worried that their poorly-paid students doing grunt- level work that professors find beneath themselves to do, will realise quite quickly what the better deal is after working 80% for a company and 20% for a university.

</comment><comment><USER33> > This model assumes people can slice their time and attention like a > computer, but people can't do this.

I disagree. Perhaps the most famous exception is Grace Hopper, a naval reservist who had both a civilian employer and a separated military career. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper)

I too am an officer reservist, though Army not Navy. Two separate careers with often unrelated skills in unrelated industries. Yes, there are challenges to division of effort in this regard. To say humans are incapable of doing this, though, is ignorance from people who have never tried it or magnificently fail at it.

Another example I worked with personally: MG Scottie Carpenter. He is also an Army Reservists with two separated careers. When I worked with him in his first general command he was a senior leader of the North Carolina State Troopers (state police). He is now the deputy commanding general of the Army Reserves. [http://www.usar.army.mil/Leadership/Article- View/Article/126...](http://www.usar.army.mil/Leadership/Article- View/Article/1262474/maj-gen-scottie-d-carpenter/)

Yes, competent and career minded individuals can achieve dual affiliation serving two masters. It is completely possible and some people excel very well at it.

\---

What people don't see about dual affiliation is that there is extra insight gained from these struggles that other people cannot relate to. I have tried to explain this to people many times before and it is often utterly incomprehensible.

My civilian employment is a senior JavaScript developer at a big bank. The military considers itself a profession, and like other professions there is mandated education and certification to do anything. Other civilian careers, nearly everything I can think of, has this but software does not. As a result there are somewhat fewer incompetent people that get promoted to higher responsibility compared to the corporate world. Trying to explain this kind of incompetence to software developers is like shooting yourself in the face.

In the civilian corporate world software development is a big common thing. In the military it is nearly nonexistent. The primary reason for this is workplace culture and the near absence of a professional nature around software in the civilian world that the military can model internally. By professional nature I mean there is no widely accepted definition of skills (even in an ad hoc defacto way), licensing, or code of conduct that defines the profession. Trying to explain how the military is behind the times and could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year by aggressively building an internal professional culture of its own around software development is equally frustrating.

Another example is that people in the civilian world are sometimes easily offended. This is incredibly frustrating when every conversation is a midnight tip toe on egg shells. This accepted degree of sympathy and sensitivity are what, in my opinion, allow the Dunning-Kruger effect to occur (sometimes rampantly). [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)

Conversely, in the military you want to be just kind enough to avoid crushing someone's soul and destroying their self-esteem, unless they have honestly earned a good soul destroying moment. Kindness has a far lower value than honesty, which is a wildly different work culture. Jumping between these work cultures can be disorienting. Brutal honesty is a pretty simple thing to figure out, even if emotionally scaring, compared to guessing at people's self-serving emotional motives. So in the corporate world you really have to slowly test the waters before challenging peoples' opinions even if you have 20 years experience and they have none.

Perhaps the most similar quality between the military and the corporate software world are the various irrational things people do to assert job security. In the military it is hard to fire people, but it is easy to cancel a contract and swiftly eliminate a large swath of civilian contractors. This can result in some software products that are massively complex and hardware bound so that they need continued, exclusive, and highly specialized support from particular vendors. In the corporate world, on the other hand, it is very person for themselves resulting high doses of _invented here_. God forbid software developers ever expose their incompetence by writing original software, so instead write as little software as possible and simply glue third party products together as much as possible. This is why many developers in the web world spend their careers painfully specializing around framework/libary APIs instead of spending a few hours learning the standard APIs that everything compiles to. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invented_here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invented_here)

</comment><comment><USER34> Their response is different from my first thought. Which is that Facebook wants the freedom to embed their employees inside universities where they are in a position to get the best and brightest students into Facebook's hiring pipeline.

</comment><comment><USER35> I find the idea odd. if you want to contribute to academic research create a grant(s) with your budget.

<comment><USER36> That's a big can of worms. This dual employment may have its drawbacks (I think mostly due to the fact that this is a mega-corp; for a small bootstrapped company it's only good, I think), but consider the following two topics:

* People would work in academic institution XOR your company: you cannot give the grant to the best in your field and still have him work for you, so you'd always want to hire the best you can, and give the grants to the rest;

* Grants most often support publications, not working solutions. At least with government-sponsored grants it's best when the academic analysis and publication is sponsored from a grant, whereas industrial involvement guarantees that the work is relevant and the published solution actually works.

<comment><USER7> It's trivial to structure grants (or indeed contracts) such that they have concrete deliverables, even for academic research.

<comment><USER25> I think the moment a 'grant' has concrete deliverables (to a private firm?) it ceases being a grant and starts being some kind of consulting. I think people try to do this around ucla pretty often i.e. (I give a professor money -they do the research- I keep the IP)- it is pretty frowned upon in that context. In ML and CS I think this is probably more kosher-Michael Kearns seems to have a pretty thriving consultancy.

<comment><USER37> DARPA structures a lot of its research funding like this. The 'award' is a contract, typically for data, models, etc. For example, the statement of work for my last project has about a dozen deliverables of the form "tabulated data comparing [outcome] against [experimental variable 1], [exp. variable 2], ...." or "a computational model relating...." As far as I can tell, they are not _actually_ interested in the data itself; this is just a hack to use the procurement process to fund research. They were happy to let the researchers keep and share the data.

In theory, the contract structure seems a lot more limited than an NIH, NSF, etc. grant, where you are minimally constrained by the proposal, but in practice, the program managers seem willing to amend the contract so that no one collects a bunch of obviously useless data.

<comment><USER25> mmmm today i learned something new-thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Companies also have this problem...

</comment><comment><USER35> Seems more like 80% industry 20% spy to me.

<comment><USER36> As a person working like 40% academy, 60% industry, I'd say it is in reverse: you get to 'spy' on industry's knowledge and practice and transplant it into academic setting, where it is very likely publishable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I find this a bit silly.

80/20 is more like "Somewhere between 60/40 and 100/0"

I had a boss ask me not to take a second university class, this was smart for everyone involved.

There are busy times and work and boring times at work, to push that it unrealistic to manage a structured life outside of work is silly.

Ive worked with professors that let me take 2 weeks off for Work Travel.

I've had to cut out of work because I had a class. I came in early the next day and prepared for my meeting, things were fine.

I'm a big fan of moderation, and this article claims an extreme situation that is temporary and often unlikely.</comment>


Ontology-Oriented Design and Programming [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=1B0BB3191D021A46DD03E24407449B53?doi=10.1.1.18.6062&rep=rep1&type=pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, their site went down for maintenance shortly after I submitted...

I found another copy here: [http://www.mindswap.org/~aditkal/research/papers/ontoSW/ont-...](http://www.mindswap.org/~aditkal/research/papers/ontoSW/ont- oriented-design-prog.pdf)</comment>


Ask HN: Who is applying to YC Winter 2010? - <AUTHOR>

Are you applying to YC Winter 2010?  If yes, have you applied yet? If not, why? <comment><USER2> I applied to this past summer, but won't be applying this winter. I (and the people I applied with) graduated, and got jobs. Well, they did. For some reason, my resume must be screaming "don't hire". So no co-founder. Also, I can't seem to be happy with an idea, and "find a problem and ask if it can be fixed" doesn't seem to come up with anything for me. Also also, I've never been happy with my coding abilities, so the lack of confidence is an issue.

Maybe being a wage slave for a year will -- like when I worked full-time before grad school -- drive me insane enough to necessitate doing something else, and I'll decide to go the YC route.

<comment><USER3> Not being content with your coding ability is healthy and natural. There will always be a better way to do something. This is the learning process, and great developers never stop learning.

Being a "wage slave" is not as bad as you might think. It might give you ideas and expose you to problems that need solutions.

<comment><USER2> >Not being content with your coding ability is healthy and natural.

That's true. I wonder if realizing that and still feeling like one's sub-par is also natural.

<comment><USER4> It is natural. This is because you take your skill seriously, so you'll always be trying to improve at it. It's true for other walks of life too (music, athletics, etc.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have ideas/ I hope to be able to hammer then down to something that first I can fully envision not to mention others/ I, like zck, am not sure that my brain can come up with the needed 0/1's to make it work but also i hate the current position I am in and hope to make one of my ideas into something someday- so to wrap it up yes i would like to apply if I can muster the time to scrap blueprints together, and if not submitting this round ill put forth something soon

</comment><comment><USER6> I'll be applying this winter. Have not applied yet, because I'm still racing out the MVP.

</comment><comment><USER7> interested in applying. need to find co-founders. know c, c++, c#. familiar with lisp, scheme, java. currently living in la.</comment>


NSLogger – a flexible logging tool for OS X and iOS - robert-boehnke https://github.com/fpillet/NSLogger

<comment><USER2> You might want to consider renaming this project. The NS prefix is reserved by apple for framework classes. The entire purpose of prefixing classes in Cocoa is to prevent namespace collisions between different organizations, which using NS outside of apple breaks. It doesn't actually look like you are using the NS prefix in any of your code, so you're not technically violating the below rule, but I still think it worth considering. NS kindof means "from apple".

"Objective-C classes must be named uniquely not only within the code that you're writing in a project, but also across any frameworks or bundles you might be including. As an example, you should avoid using generic class names like ViewController or TextParser because it's possible a framework you include in your app may fail to follow conventions and create classes with the same names.

In order to keep class names unique, the convention is to use prefixes on all classes. You'll have noticed that Cocoa and Cocoa Touch class names typically start either with NS or UI. Two-letter prefixes like these are reserved by Apple for use in framework classes...

Your own classes should use three letter prefixes. These might relate to a combination of your company name and your app name, or even a specific component within your app. As an example, if your company were called Whispering Oak, and you were developing a game called Zebra Surprise, you might choose WZS or WOZ as your class prefix."

[http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/cocoa/...](http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#documentation/cocoa/conceptual/ProgrammingWithObjectiveC/Conventions/Conventions.html)

In practice many people use two letter prefixes for their classes, you should use a prefix with your classes!

The project looks great, I've been wishing for a more comprehensive logging system with filtering built in for a while now. Thanks!

<comment><USER3> Side question: Did NS initially stand for NextStep, or am I completely off?

<comment><USER4> That's exactly what it is named.

<comment><USER5> From what I have read, the prefix used to be NX* in the NeXTSTEP days and was changed to NS* around the time OpenStep came on the scene.

<comment><USER6> Actually, I believe the actual prefix of NS originally meant Next/Sun whe Next was working with Sun Microsystems. But, who knows? We need one of the original developers to help clear this up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The log viewer and query tools looks excellent.

Here are some (hopefully) constructive comments:

\- As others have mentioned, change the NS prefix. Only Apple should be using that.

\- The API is not canonical looking Objective-C/Cocoa. It looks like the programmer has a Windows/C++ background

\- I only took a quick look but I didn't see logging macros that conditionally compile out logging for release builds

\- Internally the logger uses pthreads. This is going to make it difficult on a client that uses Grand Central Dispatch to reason about code when they are debugging something. Consider using queues and operations rather than firing up worker threads. Take a look at CocoaLumberjack for their approach

\- Create a Cocoapod to spur adoption

<comment><USER5> Is there a good guide to writing canonical looking Objective-C /Cocoa APIs?

I read the .NET Framework Design Guidelines back when I was doing .NET and it was an excellent how to guide on writing APIs that behaved and felt like they were part of the BCL. Something like that for Objective-C and Cocoa would be a boon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Damn, I have dreamt of something like this for a while, but never sat down to build it. I can't wait to try this out in my next project. A remote client is brilliant, and would have really saved my bacon about a year ago when testing an application in the real world.

I would agree, though, to avoid the "NS*" prefix, but that's been spelled out in a different thread.

</comment><comment><USER9> Honest question: why does everybody seem to want to compile out logging on release builds? Yes, if you're "printf debugging" that probably shouldn't be in a release build. But I've found the ability to look at (optional, user- enabled) logs invaluable in tracking down some obscure bugs in production.

<comment><USER10> Performance concerns - whether warranted or not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Have used this in combination with CocoaLumberjack on a good number of projects and it has come in VERY handy. Highly recommended.

Not too difficult to get it wired up with papertrailapp.com either - <AUTHOR> combo makes it VERY handy

</comment><comment><USER12> From someone who hasn't used either, how does this compare to CocoaLumberjack?

<comment><USER13> I tried using NSLogger a couple months back, but ended up continuing to use CocoaLumberjack, probably because it's just more familiar to me. NSLogger requires one to write the macros that compile out debug logging, where as that's a feature of CocoaLumberjack, but the Desktop viewer I found immensely useful especially for the fact that it archives past logging sessions.

You can actually use CocoaLumberjack with NSLogger's Desktop Viewer though, by adding NSLogger as an adaptor[0], but you're pretty much stuck at the same issue of setting up less-than-trivial conditionals for compiling out the library and adaptor when building release versions. Not a huge issue in itself, but it doesn't lend itself for writing trivial applications.

[0]: [https://github.com/steipete/NSLogger-CocoaLumberjack- connect...](https://github.com/steipete/NSLogger-CocoaLumberjack-connector)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Memorize Terminal Commands - <AUTHOR> https://www.memorize-terminal-commands.com/ <comment><USER2> I watched the GIF animation for a long time until it looped and I realized that it conveyed no information about the project. That was disappointing.

It would be great if watching the main image/animation on your front page showed what it's like to actually play the game!

<comment><AUTHOR> When I started the project, I did not have a better idea than this short video to introduce the game. I agree that this is not the best way and it is misleading. I am going to change it in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3>
        Your answer:
        ls -lha

        Correct answer:
        ls -lah

Oh dear.

<comment><USER4> Question: Write the name of the standard subdirectory of the root directory which contains references and files for the devices.

Your answer: dev

Correct answer: /dev

Edit: Also

Question: Write the command that shows a text 'hello world' in the console without moving to a new line after executing the command

Your answer: printf '%s' 'hello world'

Correct answer: echo -n 'hello world'

<comment><USER5> I also got a similar result with this: Question: Write the command that reads the file that has the name (text.txt) and shows only one page each time you hit space and it allows you to explore the file back and forward.

Your answer: less test.txt

Correct answer: less text.txt

</comment></comment></comment><comment> DC-3 Question: Write the command that reads the file that has the name (text.txt) and shows only one page each time you hit space and it allows you to explore the file back and forward.

Your answer: more text.txt

Correct answer: less text.txt

<comment><USER6> Indeed, traditionally more doesn't go backward. It's the first line of prose in the less(1) manpage: "Less is a program similar to more (1), but which allows backward movement in the file as well as forward movement."

<comment> DC-3 Oh, good point. That is a subtle distinction, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> First question didn't go great, would be nice if there was a way to report missing answers.

Question: Write the command which you use to move inside the directory which has the name 'my dir' (the name contains a space)

Your answer: cd 'my dir'

Correct answer: cd my\ dir

<comment><USER8> And in practice: `cd my<tab>`. I strive to make the first three letters of a filename a unique prefix in each directory; and if I were to use a space like this, I'd be making sure "my" was a unique prefix. This system becomes a sufficiently ingrained habit that I can't cope with Zola having a directory "content" beside a file "config.toml".

<comment><USER9> Tab completion isn't default in every shell

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The responsive design is unusable on an iPhone SE. This would have the most appeal to me as something to use during downtime (e.g. on the train) rather than when I am at my desk so it's too bad.

<comment><USER11> Did you try Firefox?

<comment><USER10> Yep I only use FF. The DOM is the same either way, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a really cool idea! I love that there's an option to train on git commands. Git has always been the kind of thing where I only learn as much as I need in order to do the task immediately in front of me, so this kind of thing might be a useful way to level up my skills in that area.

I also really love that in the "about" section, you include lots of details about the architecture of the project. I was only expecting a summary of how to use the project, but all these additional details were really nice to see.

</comment><comment><USER13> >Assuming that you execute the command man -ls

I assume this is supposed to be `man ls`.

>You move inside the help document of the ls command. Write the keyboard key that you can use to move forward to the next page inside the help document

> Your answer: page down

> Correct answer: f

I mean, both work? Maybe my answer is less likely to work ona remote system with TERM set wrong.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I really thank you for giving it a try and for your comments. I should say that the user's answer could be correct in many cases. I am working on a more advanced answer normalizing feature using some regex expressions which will NOT be a default option. From my point of view, it is better to memorize one pattern of the command that does the work instead of focusing on searching how to use the command.

<comment><USER14> Maybe add a button that says "challenge this ruling I'm pretty sure im right" so at least you'll know which ones people were sure on vs ones they got wrong because they guessed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Another suggestion: Instead of just the verbal description of what to type, how about some sample output to? That wouldn't give away any answers but would help understand what you are looking for. Like when you asked "type text to the terminal" I put 'cat' instead of 'echo'. Sample output would probably have helped me there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for your suggestion. I agree 100% with you. I am thinking to provide hints to the users either by giving a link to the source or showing a picture of the results or both.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Anki is superb for this sort of stuff. It implements a spaced repetition algorithm to keep the added content in your memory while minimizing the number of times that you need to refresh it. While used mostly for studying natural languages, there's nothing wrong with using it for IT stuff (I do).

(Edit: Dropped a bit that was left after some previous culling.)

</comment><comment><USER16> "You can use a fake Email". Curious! Why not just make it an optional field?

</comment><comment><USER17> I got a lot of questions about the names of root level linux directories, which while good knowledge doesn't seem to fit under the title description.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm liking it so far. Doesn't bother me about being marked wrong when right. It's not like it's for anyone else. Getting some good lessons and refreshes, and works great on Firefox on my phone. Thank you very much for making it.

</comment><comment><USER18> Some of these are kinda poorly phrased, and the answer in a few of them could've been "depends" more than once.

Would be slightly better if the questions were more specific, or at least accept multiple answers.

</comment><comment><USER19> I thought it would be a memory game like Simon [1] where the game prints one line and then your repeat it. If you are correct it starts from the first line but adds another line for you to remember.

I could see the fun in that. Also you wouldn't have the issue of people complaining about right and wrong answers because you would have to write just as it was printed.

[1] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_(game)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_\(game\))

</comment><comment><USER20> What is this??? I see a gif with terminals commands and a sign up. You have no call to action. There is nothing on the page that tell me what this is about or how this will benefit me.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Dear all,

I appreciate your effort and your time testing the website. It was a great help to me. Your feedback is the light in the darkness. There are a lot of ideas in the pipeline. Your feedback helps me to prioritize them. Big thanks for everyone who wrote feedback here or sent it to me via email or LinkedIn. Thanks for all 9k+ tester. This is my Sunday project. Each Sunday, I am going to release a new version with a new fix or feature.

Best regards

Maher Deeb

</comment><comment><USER21> The University of Technology Sydney wrote a similar training program inside a VM to use in their systems introduction classes called LinuxGym [0]. Its a surprisingly useful learning tool if a little basic and dated, but covers everything from directories to grep to awk.

[0] - [http://linuxgym.it.uts.edu.au/linuxgym/lgwww/](http://linuxgym.it.uts.edu.au/linuxgym/lgwww/)

</comment><comment><USER22> See also [1][2] (bookmarked them sometime back, don't remember the details)

[1] [https://www.shortcutfoo.com/app/dojos/command- line](https://www.shortcutfoo.com/app/dojos/command-line)

[2] [https://www.memrise.com/course/50252/shell- fu/](https://www.memrise.com/course/50252/shell-fu/)

</comment><comment><USER23> I love the idea, it's like push-ups for programmers. (Though actual push-ups wouldn't be a bad idea either ;) On that note, are there other things that come to mind like that? Maybe anki-decks or [https://typing.io/](https://typing.io/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Correct answer adds the current working directory not all changes in the local repository.

      Write the command that asks git to add all changes that have been made inside the project that git tracks.
      Your answer: git add -A

      Correct answer: git add .

</comment><comment><USER25> Did one session and it kept asking me some commands that I had typed correctly from the first time.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment. I appreciate it a lot. I will try to figure out why this happened and solve the problem.

<comment><USER25> If this helps I trained as a guest.

<comment><AUTHOR> :) I am going to check the logs. I think I should be able to see the problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> UX feedback. Get rid of "Repeat Password" field. It will make the form look more user-friendly, as well as hide the scroll bar (at least on my MacBook Pro), so the entire page fit the screen.

</comment><comment><USER27> Hey guys, i have an app that I have just put away where you can save commands in the command line in the system or upload them to a remote... anyone interested...it is just a npm package

</comment><comment><USER28> Anybody have a good Linux command line reference they might recommend? I've been using Ubuntu on my computer and it would be nice to have a resource for when I get stuck.

<comment><USER22> I have a curated list of resources[1] on topics like learning command line basics, bash scripting, style guide, etc. I have also have my own basics guide[2] and a comprehensive cli text processing repo[3]

[1] [https://github.com/learnbyexample/scripting_course/blob/mast...](https://github.com/learnbyexample/scripting_course/blob/master/Linux_curated_resources.md)

[2] [https://github.com/learnbyexample/Linux_command_line](https://github.com/learnbyexample/Linux_command_line)

[3] [https://github.com/learnbyexample/Command-line-text- processi...](https://github.com/learnbyexample/Command-line-text-processing)

<comment><USER28> Very cool. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment> mtich-snipline This is a really cool idea. I think ideally, it could do with a Duolingo/Flash card style approach where your first taught the commands, and then asked to write them.

</comment><comment><USER29> WRONG Answer: tail test.txt Your answer: tail test.txt

I think it didn't like my answers if I hit the 'enter' button.

<comment><USER30> I thought I got hit by this, and then realized that it's text.txt with an X and not test.txt with an S.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Just a heads up to the author: When I click the "Start memorizing" button, I get a 500 server error.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks a lot for your comment. I got the error from Google App Engine as well. I am going to investigate this and solve the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Question: Write the command that you use to move into the parent directory of the current directory.

Your answer: ..

Correct answer: cd ..

Nope.

<comment><USER33> `..` is not a command, it's just the name of the parent directory (unless you've defined it as an alias for `cd ..`)

<comment><USER32> I use zsh and fish, `..` takes you to the parent directory without typing `cd`

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Can you do something about duplicate questions?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure! After I get all the questions in place, there will be no duplicate questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Very cool, thanks for sharing

</comment><comment><USER36> Thank you for creating this.

</comment><comment><USER37> this is like a parrot learning how to say 100 sentences in french. the parrot has no idea what it is saying, only that the result might generate a cracker or a grape.</comment>


IOS SMS Spoofing - <AUTHOR> http://pod2g-ios.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/never-trust-sms-ios-text-spoofing.html

<comment><USER2> _Never trust any SMS you received on your iPhone at first sight._

Perhaps I don't understand, but why single out the iPhone? Isn't every phone that receives SMS vulnerable? Couldn't you perform this "attack" with any phone or modem capable of sending SMS?

I remember something a while back where you could spoof SMS to send tweets to Twitter as someone else. I assume that's also still possible?

<comment><USER3> "In a good implementation of this feature, the receiver would see the original phone number and the reply-to one. On iPhone, when you see the message, it seems to come from the reply-to number, and you loose track of the origin."

<comment> X-Istence What device currently out there does display the from/reply-to?

Spoofing the reply-to or what number a message came from is easy, and has been used before to fake post messages to peoples twitter account for instance, same could probably be done with Facebook if someone has the SMS feature turned on.

I don't remember any of my phones ever having a feature that allowed me to see the Sender/Reply-to for any text message I've received. One thing I do know is that I trust SMS about as far as I trust my carriers and I don't trust them at all. Even if a "bank" were to text me I wouldn't use the information provided in the text to make my next move.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > On iPhone, when you see the message, it seems to come from the reply-to > number, and you loose track of the origin.

This is a typo right? I could understand the issue if the reply-to is different from the apparent sender (and hidden), but if they are the same what is the issue? As stated by other commenters practically any SMS gateway allows you to set whatever originator (sender) you like.

<comment><USER3> Well, it certainly should say 'lose'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> IOS runs on Cisco routers. You're thinking of iOS.

/pedantry

<comment><USER6> The Hacker News software capitalize the title of the posts, thus transforming the correct "iOS" (as seen in the title of the blog post itself) in "IOS". I believe pg added some exceptions since I've seen "iPhone" and "iPad" properly capitalized in the past, but it seems "iOS" is not in that list yet.

<comment><USER7> The trick is to put a space before the first word of the title.</comment></comment></comment>