Final exams for kindergartners - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/08/22/and-now-final-exams-for-kindergartners-really/ <comment><USER2> In India, we've had testing since forever, for kids of every age, even to get into kindergarten.

My understanding is that this is normal in pretty much every East Asian country: HK, China, Korea, Japan. I don't think the education systems in any of these countries can really be considered any worse than any other system, and arguably has churned out way more talented and driven people to contribute to humanity.

I am personally anti-test myself, but what is a better option? Someone suggested "lottery", but that idea makes me shudder, as possibly the only option worse than testing. In an ideal world, every student can be accommodated in the learning ecosystem, and we don't require a standardized metric to figure out if a student should advance to the next level. We would also pace what they're being taught to their competencies and give each student personalized learning and testing material.

But we are nowhere near being able to do that, from a resource management, personalization design, evaluation or teacher training perspective (anywhere in the world). I have spent much time thinking about this, and I can't come up with a better idea for fairly allocating our education resources for places with ridiculously large number of students, and for evaluating the progress of the partakers of that resource (current students). That is, at least until we invest heavily in researching how to better evaluate students and identify the right metrics to measure and measure them well.

<comment><USER3> >In an ideal world, every student can be accommodated in the learning ecosystem[...]We would also pace what they're being taught to their competencies and give each student personalized learning and testing material[...]But we are nowhere near being able to do that

I only did up to my first year of high school in the US but there is something like this with AP classes. This is especially prevalent in Math, where the year in which people would start Algebra would vary from 6th grade to 9th grade. You could be paced based off of your level.

I remember moving to France after 9th grade and realising that I already knew basically everything that would be taught to me for the rest of high school in Math, because I was able to have such a head-start thanks to my pre-AP Math classes.

I think that shows that the American HS system is in fact well adapted to fast learners, as well as accommodating to slower people (the bar could be set pretty low for the baseline classes because the strongest students were in different classes).

A corollary to this is that the standardised testing was a joke to the set of students who were in the advanced classes. The biggest waste of time ever.

I only experienced Northern Texas' version of this, and from what I heard my understanding is that most school districts in the US could not afford to run programs like this. Thinking back on it, I'm pretty sure Texas has a really good educational system (the results compared to other states are really pretty good considering that Texas is the 4th poorest state in the union).

<comment><USER4> This has been the opposite of my experience. The US school system is extremely inhibitive to fast learners. Everything is on a curriculum, and it's really difficult to get around the bureaucracy to get ahead.

I was homeschooled/self-taught since the 2nd grade until about high school when I started attending community college full-time. At that point I was about "even" with my best friend, who is also considered very intelligent. I was then able to pick which semester-long classes to take. For example, I was taking third year calculus my sophomore year, a full year before he was able to take Calc 1. And this was no discrepancy due to ability. (for those curious I applied to colleges at the 'regular' time and am now attending a 4-year institution without transferring any of my credits).

The fact of the matter is that the American public school system wasn't developed with education in mind, and now functions more as crowd control than as an educational institution.

<comment><USER3> This experience seems to stem from lack of funding, and schools not having access to AP classes.

I know I was extremely lucky to be in a school district with funding, I had access to loads of college credit-level classes thanks to that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We didn't have marks until the third grade( age 9-10 ). Until then you only had written observation from the teacher about your behavior and development.

There were no tests or pressure. We were very carefree.

<comment><USER6> Near the end of the article, according to state Senator David Simmons:

        Simmons said all that the law requires is for a teacher to sit down with a kindergartener and ask about what he or she learned.

        "To assure each one of those children is helped, that we know what the deficits are in each child, so we can address the deficits," said Simmons.

Sounds more like a verbal assessment than a standardized test. But I have to worry when they attach the results to teacher evaluation and pay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Link-bait.

The article only mentions that the state of Florida is developing assessments for kindergarten students for the upcoming school year. It does not say that those assessments will take the form of written exams. For all we know the assessments will take the form of a game.

(Edit: [http://www.instituteofplay.org/2012/01/embedded- assessment-a...](http://www.instituteofplay.org/2012/01/embedded-assessment- at-quest-to-learn/))

</comment><comment><USER8> This seem like another form of Princess and Tiaras. They do this in Hong Kong for years already and I can't say it's turning out too well -- Kindergarten battles: How far would you go to get a place? [http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/asia/hong-kong- kindergar...](http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/30/world/asia/hong-kong-kindergarten- competition/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Because our fellow participant Colin, who kindly submitted this link, enjoys thoughtful discussion of education reform, I have to let Colin know that this source (the blog hosted by the Washington Post newspaper from which this submission comes) is notoriously unreliable,[1] basically a mouthpiece for people who work in the current school system in the United States who do not desire for the system to change in the direction of finding out whether or not learners compelled to attend public schools actually learn anything while attending them. I have recommended to Colin before a much better source for more thoughtful articles on education policy issues, _Education Next_ ,[2] and I will recommend that site again for him and for onlookers here who would like to be part of an effort to improve schools around the world.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3314676#up_3315028](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3314676#up_3315028)

[2] [http://educationnext.org/](http://educationnext.org/)

</comment><comment><USER5> At 6 years old, a human is still developing basic skills, that are expected for everyone. The tests at that age give no useful information.

<comment><USER10> that's just not true. IQ can be measured reliably from the age of 3 and remains stable throughout life

<comment><USER11> That seems to be quite a sweeping statement! Any sources for that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The common excuse here it's that "you can't manage what you can't measure"

My other big beef with this nonsense is that it's very costly as well. I pay something like $5k in school taxes annually. I'll probably be picking up a job to lay for private schooling, because I refuse to send my son through the meat grinder.

<comment><USER13> its also assumed that tests are good way to measure. We send our son to a Montessori charter school. No homework (he's is 1st grade), its self-guided with teacher persuasion to keep learning new things, its fantastic. Montessori is bar far the best way I've found for schools to teach.

<comment><USER14> Tests are a great way to learn, and a terrible way to manage.

Tests are shown to reinforce learning. High stakes tests aren't, though, because they start to cause too many distortions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In India they have competitive admission tests for toddlers into pre- school/kindergarden.

The good news is that it did not seem, in observation, to scar the population for life - except perhaps give them an aversion to learning - but it did give me anxiety about school, even though I joined this particular game when I was a teenager.

I was hoping other countries would not adopt such an inhumane way of admitting/assessing children but I see a wider adoption in the United States and I have heard it has been a system for a while in Japan.

When resources are limited I think you should do a lottery (and explicitly say its a lottery) so that children have no shame when they don't get in or destructive pride when they do.

Anyone have a list of countries where they do this kind of testing for pre- schoolers/kindergardeners?

<comment><USER16> I went to kindergarten in Hong Kong 25 years ago and we had final exams. Don't see what's the big deal about this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> In many if not most cases, you can opt your kid out of much of this standardized testing - especially all the new Common Core stuff. Your kid should probably take the SAT depending on their circumstance, but you don't have to allow your grade school child to suffer through days of absurd testing.

Edit: Autocorrect

Edit 2: California's opt out form, for example: [http://cuacc.org/CommonCoreOptOutFormFrontBack.pdf](http://cuacc.org/CommonCoreOptOutFormFrontBack.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't have any objection to basic assessment tests, such as the Iowa Basic Skills test. It's been used around the USA since the 1930s (my mother grew up in Iowa in the 1940s and took the test every year!). It's useful for gauging general progress, but I would definitely object to using it as a "final exam" used for determining future advancement. I don't think the article even hints at that.

</comment><comment><USER19> In the Netherlands, children are 5 or 6 when they enter class 3 and thus start learning to read and do arithmetic. Is this considered too young by some?

<comment><USER20> They don't really get grades though.

<comment><USER19> If you google 'rapport groep 3' you'll find some grade lists, and there's info on the CITO website about class 3 tests:

[http://wijzeroverdebasisschool.nl/groep-3/cito- groep-3/](http://wijzeroverdebasisschool.nl/groep-3/cito-groep-3/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Simmons said all that the law requires is for a teacher to sit down with a > kindergartener and ask about what he or she learned.

This would have scared the crap out of me as a child. Heck, sitting down in front of an authority figure and trying to convince them I've learned from them still scares me.

</comment><comment><USER22> As much as I want education to be reformed, things like this push me toward considering alternate forms of education (for my future children), at least for the first few years of schooling.

<comment><USER23> I wouldn't let my daughter go to any school that did this, and I seriously think anyone that does needs to reevaluate their priorities.

<comment><USER24> Many people don't have much of a choice where to send their children to school. Public school may be all they can afford.

<comment><USER13> many states don't let you choose your own public school. In Arizona, you can send your kids to schools outside your area or district, only if they "have capacity".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here come all the anti-testing comments, as expected. In the smartist era and in the meritocracy, we need more testing , not less, to help help identify gifted and slow students. Whether it's an IQ test or a proxy such as the SAT, testing is the best way to assess individual general cognitive functioning for large groups of people, as well as identity exceptionally talented individuals.

More testing raises the stakes for everyone, meaning that the overall population becomes better educated and competitive, in order to do well on the tests.

Furthermore, many smart students find coursework boring an get poor grades, but excel at standardized tests, because they already know the material.

There was a fascinating ted talk awhile ago about how standardized tests, contrary to being useless as often ascribed by the left, can predict lifetime outcomes such as wages, being published in a journal, level of academic attainment, and so on.

<comment><USER25> Complete nonsense.

Also,

 _" In Florida, the results of end-of-course exams affect the evaluation and pay of teachers."_

So I bet low-income areas with less-educated parents working 2 jobs and too exhausted to really help their kids at home probably will have the lowest scores. So any quality-teachers in poorer areas will be less paid, so they'll leave, so the scores will go down, thus the pay goes down, so the quality- teachers leave, so the scores will go down, thus the pay goes down, so the quality-teachers leave...

And what's the end result of that? The kids who need help _THE MOST_ are the ones who get _THE LEAST_.

 _> >There was a fascinating ted talk awhile ago about how standardized tests, contrary to being useless as often ascribed by the left, can predict lifetime outcomes such as wages, being published in a journal, level of academic attainment, and so on._

Anyone who is considering tests for predicting people's future potential should watch this movie: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/)

EDIT: I just noticed you said "the left", so you probably just have an axe to grind and I'm wasting my time with this comment.

<comment><USER26> Most education reformers want to evaluate teachers based on the improvement/lack of improvement in their classes. This tends to mitigate the problem of good teachers in weak schools being punished. I think this is in place some places, though I can't whether there are places that do this the absurd way you're afraid of.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Limelight - An open source implementation of Nvidia  GameStream - <AUTHOR> http://limelight-stream.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a demo of it running on an RPi here: [http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/5812](http://www.raspberrypi.org/archives/5812)</comment>


Follow The Herd, End Up As Mincemeat - <AUTHOR> http://47seagulls.com/follow-the-herd-end-up-as-mincemeat/ <comment><USER2> Is this a parody? Of 37signals or Jason Fried or something? It doesn't appear to say anything.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cow-tipping is the real clue here: There is no such thing. No more than there are snipes to be hunted.</comment>


The Weight I Carry: What it's like to be too big in America - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/01/weight-loss-essay-tomlinson/579832/ <comment><USER2> Should we be viewing obesity as 2 distinct things? Obesity as addiction, and obesity as poor diet/lack of exercise.

It seems to me that the 'cure' for one isn't the cure for the other. And it doesn't help either to conflate the 2.</comment>


Canadian Comedian Fined $42,000 for Telling a Joke - <AUTHOR> http://heatst.com/culture-wars/comedian-fined-42000-for-telling-a-joke/ <comment><USER2> This headline is very editorialized.

This comedian Mike Ward has made this kid the centerpiece of his repertoire for years now, and the ruling has to do with harassment more along the lines of the "Star Wars Kid" variety, where the consistent abuse heaped on him was making him hard to live his life.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/montreal/comments/4wod9b/david_mitc...](https://www.reddit.com/r/montreal/comments/4wod9b/david_mitchell_on_the_mike_ward_imbroglio/)

 _\---

> In context of Jeremy signing for the pope and along Celine Dion. Lets just > say it; A kid sang a song, was not much of a performance and was looking > kinda funny at the time no one knew about him. It was something that Ward > refered to in once, twice...Again and again. Mike ward's bashings can be > ruthless and he somehow though that this gag was shocking enough that he > made it it his signature basically.

>> Have any people commenting on this ever listened to the entire bit? The only bit that people talk about and seems to get translated is the first part where he makes fun of his appearance. Nobody seems to talk about the second half of the bit where he launches into "Fuck, he's still not dead! The little fucker just won't die! [...] I defended you, you need to die now! Fucking heartless asshole, die already[...]"

[https://youtu.be/zYrsECWQuM8?t=1m40s](https://youtu.be/zYrsECWQuM8?t=1m40s)

I am in no way for this kind of ruling. Nobody has a right to not be offended. But, is someone repeatedly calling for the death of a child acceptable satire/humour?

\---_

Also worth reading:

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mike-ward-comedian- hu...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mike-ward-comedian-human-rights- tribunal-1.3689465)

It's yet another fairly complex ruling being coopted into the "omg the PC police are after us" boogeyman.

<comment><USER3> No 'star wars' kid had his video stolen.

Then treated like shit over the internet on mass.

Given he didn't ever opt in, pretty awful.

The joke here is in the establishment loving him. Not the kid.

Its hard. No kid can sign off on what happens to them.

But if society is wrong and idolised a kid, can you not fight back, else you hurt the kid?

<comment><USER4> "en masse"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In a way, a society is like a living organism. If it's not confronted with enough real problems and threats, its "immune system" finds something anyway and attacks the normal cells. If some people can't find anything sufficiently outrageous recently, then some idiotic jokes will do.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm a big comedy fan and found this whole case to be pretty disturbing. It validates the idea that a comedian should be punished, legally, for doing their job and telling a joke. It's not a particularly good joke in this case, but a joke nonetheless. It gives fuel to the social media lynch mobs who take every tweet or comment as an excuse to get comedians (and really, anybody) fired from their jobs (which seems to be happening with increasing frequency -- look no further than the Kurt Metzger mess from this week).

<comment><USER7> To make a profit bullying people that aren't public should not be considered a job.

<comment><USER8> The fact that you so casually dismiss the comedian's right to free speech and his way to make a living simultaneously in one sentence is a little frightening.

I'd wager you would have a different perspective if someone came along and prohibited you from making software unless you met someone's asinine set of arbitrary criteria.

<comment><USER7> You can say the same about drug dealers and buglars, but it would make "less" sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

<comment><USER10> Which is an American philosophy. Most countries, including Canada, do not treat free speech quite as highly, but instead find it more important to control hate speech (eg: banning Money for Nothing, by Dire Straits)

<comment><USER9> Voltaire was French. Evelyn Beatrice Hall used the quote to sum up his beliefs in the biography she wrote about him. She was English.

<comment><USER11> Indeed, what I think he means is that the US has a constitutional amendment that explicitly addresses the right to free speech, something that other countries may not explicitly codify.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why is this flagged? HN doesn't like free speech issues? The number of comments tells a different story.

</comment><comment><USER13> [http://www.frankieboyle.com/frankie/free- speech.html](http://www.frankieboyle.com/frankie/free-speech.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> > "If I lose that I'll just move to Syria or Saudi Arabia, or some other > country that respects free speech as much as Canada does," he said.

I would pay to a crow-funding campaign to send him to Syria or Saudi Arabia for a month.

</comment><comment><USER15> Free speech must be protected, and it is certainly legal to tell a joke about non-identified disabled child. But he was targeting one specific kid, so I am not sure if he didn't infringe upon his human rights. Maybe he really did.

<comment><USER16> Which human right would that be? The right not to be made fun of?

<comment><USER17> The right to dignity, presumably?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A "joke" which consisted of insulting their disability, I take it?

It's hard to have sympathy for such "comedy".

<comment><USER18> Hard to have sympathy yes-- but freedom of speech/expression is still freedom of speech. Regardless of how tasteless it is, and should be protected..

<comment><USER17> No country in the world has absolute freedom of speech, and with good reason: speech can be harmful. Indeed it is precisely because speech can be powerful that it is protected in the first place.

Is this where to draw the line? I'm not sure, but it is not the case that absolutely any "joke" is costitutionally protected free speech.

<comment><USER19> The fundamental problem with the government drawing _any_ line is that you can't have free speech under those circumstances. Is advocating for Communism harmful to Capitalism? Is advocating for the rights of women to abort their babies harmful to the fetuses? What about touting the benefits of Schedule I drugs? Surely that can be seen as harmful to the public health.

It doesn't matter what you or I think about the examples I gave above. It only matters what the government thinks. And if they think any or all of those are harmful concepts, then by using your reasoning any speech invoking those concepts would be controlled by the government.

That's simply untenable as far as I'm concerned. The only way to ensure the government doesn't have that kind of power over words, is to allow any and all ideas to be expressed. It's impossible to draw lines on which ideas are allowed to be expressed and those that aren't, without running into this hazard.

<comment><USER17> > The fundamental problem with the government drawing any line is that you > can't have free speech under those circumstances. Is advocating for > Communism harmful to Capitalism? Is advocating for the rights of women to > abort their babies harmful to the fetuses? What about touting the benefits > of Schedule I drugs? Surely that can be seen as harmful to the public > health.

These are complicated questions. But this is what case law exists for. The US, for example, allows one to speak of revolutions "in broad terms".

> That's simply untenable as far as I'm concerned. The only way to ensure the > government doesn't have that kind of power over words, is to allow any and > all ideas to be expressed.

Allowing absolute freedom of speech is self-defeating. Yes, now the _government_ can't hurt you, but your opponents can use their "free speech" to silence you. It's not healthy for a democracy, and this is why no country on earth has absolute freedom of speech.

<comment><USER19> > Yes, now the government can't hurt you, but your opponents can use their > "free speech" to silence you.

I'm interested in some examples of this. At first blush this statement reads to me as a "marketplace of ideas", which is a feature in my opinion. But I could be interpreting your statement wrong.

<comment><USER17> They can publish your location and tell vigilantes to go to your house and beat you up.

That's speech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Urgh. What Hacker News doesn't need is more right-wing misogyny cluttering it up. Has nothing to do with technology whatsoever. Flagged.

If you are curious about this decision, the CBC has an excellent explanation of it. Read this, and then decide if what happened is a travesty or not.

[http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mike-ward-comedian- hu...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/mike-ward-comedian-human-rights- tribunal-1.3689465)

<comment><USER21> Yeah, it's a travesty. I can't make a joke about you "if it offends your dignity"?

That's even more overreaching than when Thailand sends you to prison for "insulting the king". There at least it only prevents you about joking about one person! (OK, and his family...and pets...) [http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2016/08/08/dont-dare- speak...](http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2016/08/08/dont-dare-speak-ill- thailands-king/ideas/nexus/)</comment></comment>


Auto-saving CSS And JavaScript Changes Locally From The Chrome Developer Tools - <AUTHOR> http://addyosmani.com/blog/autosave-changes-chrome-dev-tools/

<comment><USER2> This is really great except for all of us that use CoffeeScript|Less|Sass since what is shown in the dev tools is the compiled version of our source.

<comment><USER3> I believe it's possible to make Less and SASS work. [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firesass- for-...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/firesass-for-firebug/) does work somehow. Can't same the same about CoffeeScript.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm going to give this a try to replace my current text editor.

I suspect this would be more useful if I didn't have 2 monitors. Currently I have my text editor on the left with all my files easily accessible, and the browser open on the right. So the biggest pain is having to hit refresh (not that big a deal).

Looks like it would be great for coding on the go with a single small monitor.

EDIT: Tried it. Chrome sux as a text editor :(

<comment><USER3> Web Inspector editor is not powerful yet, but I'm working in this direction: <https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70182>, <https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=71625>, <https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70181>, <https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69986> ...

What bothers you the most?

> So the biggest pain is having to hit refresh (not that big a deal).

You could try <http://livereload.com/>

<comment><USER4> Is there a way to edit the code as if it were just text? ie. not have to double click the values?

<comment><USER3> Yes. You can edit CSS in Resources panel ([http://youtu.be/N8SS- rUEZPg?hd=1&t=7m18s](http://youtu.be/N8SS-rUEZPg?hd=1&t=7m18s)) and JS in both Resources and Scripts panels. It doesn't have any code completion yet. Also, you have to double click to enter edit mode (I don't know why <https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=71645>).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Aeolus preparing to fly the wind mission - <AUTHOR> https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Operations/Aeolus_preparing_to_fly_the_wind_mission <comment><USER2> Though they don't get the same hype as space missions that face outward, ESAs earth observing satellites are super exciting. The data is open, and people come up with things to do with it the mission designers never imagened. Sentinel-2, for instance, was supposed to track things like icebergs, but people have also used the data to detect buildings with unstable foundations by measuring small changes in the orientation of their roofs. I'm curious to see all the un-thought-of uses Aeolus will be used for!

</comment><comment><USER3> I had never heard of a sun-synchronous orbit before. Intuitively it shouldn't work; if you're orbiting the earth in a plane perpendicular to the sun now, then in three months' time you'd expect to have moved round and the sun to be in that plane.

However, it turns out that the orbital plane can be made to precess by means of interaction with the earth's equatorial bulge: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun- synchronous_orbit#Orbital_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun- synchronous_orbit#Orbital_Precession)

</comment><comment><USER4> Not mentioned in the article. Will be orbiting at 320 km from the surface of the earth, for comparison ISS is between 403 and 406 km.

Edit, Orbital times:

Aeolus 60 minutes

ISS 92.49 minutes

<comment><USER5> … which means its lifetime is rather limited. It can carry only so much propellant for orbital station-keeping.

<comment><USER6> Designed to last 3 years. Previous low orbiting missions like GOCE demonstrated that the drag was less than expected so I would not be surprised if it went beyond 3 years.

<comment><USER7> I'm guessing though that the data will lead to better models and hence better predictive ability even after it's deorbited?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This looks a lot more sophisticated than currently operating satellite wind mapping, which uses radar deflection off water to estimate wind speed and direction. I hope they make data as easily available as noaa:

[https://manati.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/datasets/ASCATData.php](https://manati.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/datasets/ASCATData.php)</comment>


Ask HN: how do you organize your startup research? - <AUTHOR> Interesting people, competitors, OSS projects, commercial libraries, third-party services, design and marketing ideas, notes on investors, potential future use cases -- what do you use to organize it all? <comment><USER2> I write my notes in cursive, so none of you Millenial whippersnappers will be able to read them.

<comment><USER3> this made me lol. thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am not all that diligent, but I just use Instapaper. Save all the relevant links (the link itself will say to me if it is a competitor that I must keep an eye, an interesting prospect, a tip on sales, copywriting advice, a SaaS i will want to use in the future).

At the most I separate into two generic folders: code and business.

</comment><comment><USER5> Paper is my first layer of organization. Just about everything that crosses my mind winds up in Moleskine notebooks (large size, unlined). From there, it may land in the cloud somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER6> I use Evernote and create various 'notes.'

Some notes I have include:

"Websites to absolutely remember" "Competitors" "Potential Advisors/Investors" etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> I use CHM format, sometimes exported to HTML if need be. I use www.helpndoc.com for the purpose.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'll start the conversation. The best tool I've found is an open-source tool called Laverna: [http://laverna.cc](http://laverna.cc)

Self-hosting possible, Dropbox sync, tags+tasks+search, Markdown support, clean UI.

</comment><comment><USER8> Try [http://teamgum.com](http://teamgum.com) it allows your entire team to participate and organize.

</comment><comment><USER9> Give AP4 Project Manager a try: [https://www.ap4projectmanagers.com](https://www.ap4projectmanagers.com)

And then of course there is Basecamp.</comment>


10 steps to hire more women in tech - <AUTHOR> https://devskiller.com/steps-hire-more-women-tech/ <comment><USER2> Most of these are agreeable enough. "Unconscious bias training" seems like a bit of a stretch, but I haven't taken it to know whether it's helpful. 2, 3, 4, 6 are fair, I'd say.

> 5\. Consider salary transparency

This is a double-edged sword. While good for some things, it is not without cost. For instance, seeing a top performer's pay can be motivating for some and demotivating to others. And others' performance isn't always immediately clear so it may be that other workers don't see higher pay as 'just,' which will cause them to devalue their own work because, "what's the point?"

To resolve this, you can flatten pay but then you remove the incentive to perform well. You can separate people at different paygrades into different physical locations, but now you're segregating performance groups while harming overall open communication.

> 8\. Don't force female coders behave like men to be successful

I'd say success is acting like a good coder -- regardless of gender -- just like it says in the conclusion:

> "Overall, to become a female developer, you only have to do what any other > smart dev would do. Spend weekends and late nights in front of your > computer, laying down lines of code, debugging and developing your personal > projects. Follow tutorials, read articles, and learn on the fly. Master the > lingo. And, if you are curious enough to go deep down to the core of what > you are trying to build, you will need to acquire a large and useful > understanding of computer science. In a nutshell, spend time to learn all > you can."

I don't see a lot of places discussing the concept of trial hiring (i.e. giving someone fair pay for actual work to skip the bias inherent in interviewing and judging them based on some preset metrics). I feel like this would get around the problems highlighted in this study: [http://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to- mas...](http://blog.interviewing.io/we-built-voice-modulation-to-mask-gender- in-technical-interviews-heres-what-happened/). At my company, we use trial hires and we have a lot more women involved as a result.

</comment><comment><USER3> > "involving women in the interview process"

THIS ^

Women can pick up the subtle 'creep factor' that some guys tend not to notice both in women and in men. It will also help to see how they interact with the team. 99% of the time it will be fine but it doesn't hurt to have them pop by for five or ten minutes at the beginning! (I've had to work with several people who would never have been hired had a woman been present in the interview!)

</comment><comment><USER4> how about just one step: make 80% of your company's job offers to women. eventually you'll get close to parity.

simple.

<comment><USER5> If only it were that easy....

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15009759](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15009759)

<comment><USER4> i still think it _is_ that easy _if the top priority truly is a workforce that resembles the general population_

if i tell you i have 10 billion dollars and a giant greenhouse and i'm going to fill that greenhouse with orchids that represent the diversity of planet earth's orchid population, and five years later, you look around the greenhouse and notice it's 68 percent Vanilla planifolia, wouldn't it be fair to question my commitment to fairly representing the diversity of the planet's orchid population?

i must have other priorities. how else could i fail so miserably?

<comment><USER5> Is the greenhouse infinite in size? (ie. the economy)

Are flowers grown the primary metric of success? (ie. revenue generated)

Do the non-Vanilla plainfolia seeds on-average prefer different growing conditions than the existing greenhouse conditions? (ie. working with people instead of staring at a debugger for hours on end)

Are the Vanilla plainfolia seeds much easier to find (ie. students graduated from college at an 80%+ clip)

Is the competition for non-Vanilla plainfolia seeds fierce (ie. many companies have diversity programs)

\----

The productive suggestions surrounding diversity interests focus on increasing the pipeline of seed varieties making it to the greenhouse and adjusting the growing conditions as the way forward.

Arbitrarily throwing out as many seeds as you need to reach a 50/50 split today ignores non-negotiable market realities. One of your competitors will use what's leftover to grow more flowers than you with the aim of shutting down your wing of the greenhouse.

Let's focus on discovering where we can find more seeds instead of discarding the ones that we already have.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Another Reason Mondays Are the Worst - <AUTHOR> http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/another-reason-mondays-are-the-worst/ <comment><USER2> I love Mondays! Take it positively.</comment>


Older versions of Hapi.js to be licensed commercially - <AUTHOR> https://hueniverse.com/the-backwards-commercial-license-647290f7e38b <comment><AUTHOR> Interesting move by a person already pushing OS software into new modes of sustainability for quite a while. Must say the terms seem fair and it is kind of crazy that large enterprises pay nothing for such a critical part of their infra.</comment>


November Australian Startup Index Is Out - <AUTHOR> http://www.technation.com.au/2008/11/10/australian-startup-index-nov-08/

<comment><USER2> great work technation! Maybe this index needs it's own site?</comment>


The Money Behind The Climate Denial Movement (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/meet-the-money-behind-the-climate-denial-movement-180948204/ <comment><USER2> The underlying study is misleading, and the article's characterization of the findings is outright deceptive. The article claims that "nearly a billion dollars a year is flowing into the organized climate change counter-movement." That billion dollars is the _total funding_ flowing into a variety of conservative and pro-market organizations, which advocate on a wide variety of issues.

The underlying study and the article also lump all of these organizations into a "climate change denial" movement. That's totally false. The official position of organizations like Heritage Foundation is not to deny that climate change is happening. Their position is, basically, the potential risks of climate change are overstated and extreme solutions are not worth the cost. That is not a climate denialism position, it's a costs-and-benefits analysis. The IPCC's own estimates of the business as usual scenario show modest economic impacts even under a business as usual scenario out to 2100. (Large in absolute terms but relatively small in terms of the total world GDP.)

<comment><USER3> There's the distinct possibility of 8c change by 2100 under business as usual. 8c means palm trees at the arctic and no clouds ever forming. If you think that's a tenable position for life then you're fully on the denier side.

<comment><USER2> That's not a business as usual scenario: [https://www.carbonbrief.org/extreme- co2-levels-could-trigger...](https://www.carbonbrief.org/extreme-co2-levels- could-trigger-clouds-tipping-point-and-8c-of-global-warming)

> The Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5 scenario (RCP8.5), a very high > emissions scenario examined by climate scientists, has the Earth's > atmosphere reaching around 1,100ppm by the year 2100. But this would require > the world to massively expand coal use and eschew any climate mitigation > over the rest of this century.

Also, it's clearly a "tenable position for life" because temperatures were that high as recently as 55 million years ago, and mammals survived: [http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150914-when-global- warming-...](http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150914-when-global-warming-made- our-world-super-hot)

<comment><USER4> "Tenable for life" is not the same as "tenable for human life"

<comment><USER5> Of all life, humans are probably the most adaptable.

<comment><USER6> Why do people keep saying this? We're around only for a couple million years if you count australopithecus. And during that time there were possibly several periods with less than 100k individuals. Going from 7B to 100k would be pretty close to extinction. 0.00143%

The question is can we keep industrial scale food production going? Can we get people enough clean water?

<comment><USER5> People say that because of technology.

Name another species that can create its own energy, create new materials and cure diseases.

<comment><USER7> We create our own energy? How? Ever heard of Thermodynamics?

<comment><USER3> This is where we're feeling the real harm of fossil fuels, I think. We quickly moved from traditional energy levels to astronomically more energy just by burning oil and coal. We can lug around freight with relatively small amounts of fuel. We could do even more astronomical feats with nuclear fission, but introduced the technology to ourselves by blowing up two of our cities. So it's associated with mass death meanwhile the death associated with pollution and fossil fuels are less visible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Outside climatologists, geophysicists, biologists and other people with scientific training, I am not sure most people are really equipped to argue against evidence of human impact on the climate, or that human activity is a non-factor in change. However, I do think that the policies countries and even municipalities institute in response to the evidence are fair game. Wild lands conservation, green belts on cities, reducing suburban blight and car dependency, not importing garbage, and using tariffs to reduce dependency on globalized supply chains are viable policy options, but ones that are unpopular with many of the very people who use climate change as a motte for global equity, justice, and economic central planning.

The people I know who dismiss climate activism and its acknowledgement don't disagree with the science. They resent people who use climate change as a proxy for another agenda that is unrelated and inconsistent with the needs of reducing human impact on the planet (beyond reducing birth rates in wealthy countries). These activists, whose insistence that everything is connected and systemic, are not interested in solving problems, rather they use this conflation of all things to muddy the waters and place themselves at the centre of it, conveniently gate keeping what policy options are acceptable to talk about.

Climate changes, it's a fact, and humans are impacting it, that is not seriously controversial. What is controversial is freighting the solutions with a destructive, class war agenda designed to leverage a crisis, spread poverty, and centralize governance.

<comment><USER9> > They resent people who use climate change as a proxy for another agenda

In my experience, it's more a question that whenever action is proposed, they simply claim as an axiom that it those proposing action _actually_ have another agenda.

"You want to introduce tax on carbon emissions? You clearly want big government to control our lives and destroy American industry".

This kind of paranoid thinking is problematic in introducing effective measures.

<comment><USER8> There is probably more middle ground. Many people read problematic, and just hear counter-revolutionary.

If we agree on reducing carbon emissions, and using policy tools to do it, there are a lot of solutions that don't require trusting that a carbon tax will be used for anything but general revenue.

Without limits on what the money is used for, it's the same as a progressive VAT/consumption tax, which isn't a necessarily terrible idea if it replaced the current VATs, income and other burdens, but when it's just another largess fund for connected believers, it's a nonconstructive shibboleth for an identity politics agenda.

Someone wrote here the other day on Scissor ideas that some differences of opinion can only be reconciled through power, and it's a seductive idea, but we all know what the alternative to discourse looks like, so I think it's more valuable to support ideas that contribute to preserving it as the means for reconciliation.

<comment><USER9> > there are a lot of solutions that don't require trusting that a carbon tax > will be used for anything but general revenue.

There are indeed. Carbon fee and dividend is perhaps the most popular proposal in the world. Under this system the revenue is immediately returned to the general populace, equally on a per-person basis.

Why are you assuming any other kind?

<comment><USER8> We would be getting into the weeds of it, but it's just redistributive, with all the moral hazard associated with that, and without applying it to direct investment in a carbon sink technology that mitigates the problem.

There are values that just don't scale well without trade offs against things like human dignity (loaded, but important), and applying the sentiments behind equity to vastly heterogeneous global interests is one of them.

While I (and my more reactionary and working class friends) understand that carbon taxes presumably compensate The People for the consequences of what was formerly an environmental externality - the use of climate as just a pretext for redistribution signals what gets perceived as an underlying dishonesty and illegitimate elitism that makes it difficult to legitimize the rationale, or outcomes.

For example, basic income funded by indirect taxation is an interesting solution to a specific set of problems around technology and globalization, but it requires a level of trust that has been damaged by freighting climate with these other agendas. Still doable, but to honestly discuss the options requires frank talk about limits and boundaries to its application.

I've got opinions like anyone and I'm not always entirely above point scoring either, so it's going to take real work for people to do it.

Having read things like Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind, and watching Scott Alexander's influence, the question of what the fundamental irreconcilable difference of interest may be is the most pressing question. How do we reconcile interests and coexist with people whose most basic beliefs we experience as alien? Some would just say, "win," even independent of political persuasion, but I'd argue there is immensely valuable work to be done to find ways to do better.

So short version, returning carbon tax money to the general populace means general revenue, for general spending, which is not something conservatives tend to trust.

<comment><USER9> I think this is a very good example of what I was talking about.

Bring up the idea of taxing carbon - making manufacturing actually pay for the disposal cost of the CO2 they generate and suddenly people pop up talking about: "There are values that just don't scale well without trade offs against things like human dignity".

There's talk of "the use of climate as just a pretext for redistribution signals" and away we go.

This stuff has nothing to do with "is it a good idea to apply market pricing when it comes to dumping waste into the atmosphere?

"it requires a level of trust that has been damaged by freighting climate with these other agendas"

You know who has been doing the freighting? The industries who will do absolutely anything to avoid a rational debate about how we apply a cost to their polluting ways.

> How do we reconcile interests and coexist with people whose most basic > beliefs we experience as alien?

Who are these people who basically don't believe the scientific evidence that we are destroying the ecology we rely on?

> which is not something conservatives tend to trust.

Fine - I await with interest conservatives actual proposals for reducing CO2 emissions. But I can't afford to wait too long.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > And yet, for some reason, the idea persists in some peoples' minds that > climate change is up for debate, or that climate change is no big deal.

Hold it right there.

Anthropogenic climate change (not just that the earth is warming, but that we are responsible) is a _scientific hypothesis_. Like all hypotheses, it cannot be proven true, only disproven by contradictory evidence.

Doubt is a critical element in testing any hypothesis. Success by doubters in poking experimental holes in hypotheses is how science moves forward.

When a hole is poked into a widely-held hypotheses, that's the stuff of scientific revolutions. Also, groupthink is a real thing and has exerted a powerful hold over scientists of every generation. For these reasons, widely- held hypotheses should be viewed with some skepticism anyway.

Every scientific hypothesis is "up for debate," and the day that isn't true is the day science dies, replaced by yet another form of tyrannical religion.

It's disturbing to see this kind of talk coming from Smithsonian.

<comment><USER11> > Like all hypotheses, it cannot be proven true, only disproven by > contradictory evidence.

This is true, but not helpful, because it's a framework that treats all probabilities except 0 and 1 as equivalently vague. Anthropogenic climate change > 1℃ is extremely likely, 99%+ probability. It could be wrong, but it's not useful skepticism to just say "it could be wrong" about everything. The IPCC is putting out good probabilistic forecasts. Scientists are doing the work of testing the hypothesis. As new evidence comes out, we should respond to it. In the present, we have to act using the probabilities we have.

<comment><USER12> 99% probability is nothing - that's just 3 sigma. In real sciences you usually don't say something is highly likely until 5 sigma, which is 99.99994%.

<comment><USER11> "99% probability is nothing" is innumeracy. A demand for five sigma before taking action - treating probabilities between 0 and 99.9999% as equivalent - is defensible in a high-energy physics experiment, where adding another sigma just means collecting data for another month. But in most of life, demanding that level of certainty is a guarantee of mistakes: getting the extra certainty takes time, and inaction during that time is itself a decision that can be wrong.

I don't know if you consider chemistry a real science, but my employer makes decisions based on probabilities less certain than 99% every day! We accept that sometimes we will be wrong, and plan so we can tolerate that too. This is how you use science in the real world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've gone from just sort of blankly accepting that, of course, global warming is true + catastrophic, to now wondering if it's over-hyped or uncertain. The kinds of arguments around it make it seem more like a moral or even religious hysteria than a well-supported belief. Science should invite skepticism and questioning, not try to shut it down w/ shouts of someone being a "denier".

A little bit of warming seems certain; the catastrophic scenarios, not so certain.

[https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2017/06/epistemic-caution- and-...](https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2017/06/epistemic-caution-and-climate- change.html)

Reducing fossil fuel use is still the prudent thing to do, of course.

<comment><USER14> You need to distinguish between the scientific base, and activism through a particular political lens. The latter can be hysterical, that doesn't have any relevance to the former.

<comment><USER15> Of course it has relevance to the former. Today's science is highly politicized, and driven by ideology rather than objective observation. What else can be expected in a government-grant-driven system.

<comment><USER16> > Today's science is highly politicized, and driven by ideology rather than > objective observation.

Are you accusing all cliamte scientists of fraud?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> There is a great book: "Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming"

Two things to learn from the book:

1) The are same people and organizations behind many science related denials: DDT, tobacco, SDI defenders, acid rain, ozone hole, and climate change denial are linked to same group of people. They try to "maintain the controversy" and "keep the debate alive".

2) The usual suspects don't do this just for the money. Sure, they take money from business sponsors, but the merchants of doubt themselves are not purely cynical operatives and money grabbers. There is type of Manichaean paranoia and ideology behind it. It's related to cold war mentality and free market fundamentalism.

George C. Marshall Institute (GMI) was one of the centers of this ideology [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_C._Marshall_Institute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_C._Marshall_Institute)

<comment><USER15> While I don't doubt your assertion that a select few are responsible for the bulk of the push-back on such issues, I think it's good to have some resistance. Humans are so prone to wishful thinking and following consensus, it can be healthy to keep the debate alive longer than one might think necessary. It helps one clarify your position to yourself, for one.

<comment><USER18> Some resistance is definitely necessary if you care about whether the claims being made are true, yes. For example, take this article about the oceans supposedly soaking up much more heat than previously thought, which made it to HN a year or so ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18352506](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18352506) The comments are full of people confidently taking it as yet more inevitable evidence that we're even more doomed than previously thought, we need to overthrow the entire system of global industry, etc.

The article was retracted, followed by the underlying study. One of those pesky members of the climate denial movement spotted that they'd messed up their calculations, and the authors basically copped to this. This shouldn't have been necessary. They were using a bizarre, indirect method to try and estimate something we'd already measured directly, and got an answer that contradicted that existing measurement. The first assumption should've been that their method was wrong and it should've taken a hell of a lot of evidence to overcome it, but there's such a strong bias towards claims of climate doom that it got a spot in Nature and uncritical regurgitation in the global press instead. (Part of the problem is that Nature has a general bias towards shocking, novel claims that leads to them publishing dubious work, but it's hard to imagine them being so gung-ho about work leaning in the opposite direction.)

Naturally, most people who read the existing coverage will never see the retractions and will continue to be influenced by the now-retracted claim.

<comment><USER19> The distinction you'll find leads your 2nd paragraph: _the study was retracted_.

The climate denial movement never budges a nanometer on any of its points. The scientific movement admits its mistakes and errors.

And yes, there's dispute in small details of the matter. The grander narrative has been clear since the 19th century. No, not a typo. Not since the 20th, but the 19th.

<comment><USER18> I'm pretty sure they have budged on some of their points, and that folks have taken this as proof they admit they're entirely wrong, but putting that aside for a moment...

Suppose for a moment that the scientists hadn't budged. That they'd listened to all the folks who say that climate change deniers are simply liars who aren't worth listening to and not even bothered to look at their complaints. Who would you believe - the Nature-published scientists or the evil climate denial movement? Because unless you'd be willing to believe the deniers over the mainstream scientific community, it seems like we're in unfalsifiable territory here, where if the mainstream scientists admit they're wrong it proves they're right, and if they don't it also proves they're right.

<comment><USER19> "Let's suppose what didn't happen and assume it did...."

Science, as a process, is a process at arriving at truths. It's fundamentally _dialectic_ , as opposed to _rhetorical_ , the profession practiced by many around the denial movement, several in this thread.

Naomi Oreskes' name has already been mentioned here. In addition to writing on climate (and ozone/CFCs, tobacco, lead, asbestos, etc., etc., etc.) denial, she's written on the history of one of the more amazing feats of collective mind-changing in science: the adoption of the theory of plate tectonics, or continental drift, as it was first called.

When proposed, the theory was ridiculed as completely crackpot. But what happened was that more and more evidence, _and_ mechanisms, turned up. And, yes, over the course of about a half century, many of the original objectors died. But from roughly 1915 to 1965, established views changed from believing that the continents had always occupied their current positions to the understanding that they very much _had not_.

Geography, geology, fossils, radioactive decay (as both heat source and clock), undersea surveys, earthquake faults, seismic analysis. _The preponderance of evidence changed minds._

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/plate-tectonics-an- insiders-h...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/plate-tectonics-an-insiders- history-of-the-modern-theory-of-the-earth/oclc/1114571537)

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/rejection-of-continental- drif...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/rejection-of-continental-drift-theory- and-method-in-american-earth-science/oclc/38989594)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Back in the day (1998), when it was very much not a thing, I remember 4 supposedly different, very professional (for the time) climate denial sites popping up on a search, all of which if you looked at the raw html code, were obviously from the same web page company.

And I was enlightened.

</comment><comment><USER21> Disclaimer. I'm a believer. But at this point isn't there money behind both sides? I can't imagine there wouldn't be.

<comment><USER22> The problem is the GOP is bought by fossil fuel, even though solar and wind and nuclear can lobby, they can not compete with record setting fossil profits in 2019 dollar amounts, thus the GOP will continue to get on their knees before this industry. We need to technologically destroy the profits that drive denialism. We need to make EVs, renewables, nuclear, etc. so much better that fossil can't compete... seems unlikely but tech may be the way.

<comment><USER23> It's funny how perspectives can be so different. I feel like the GOP has been politely waiting for the DNC to come to terms with the fact that nuclear is really the only path forward to provide clean stable grid power.

<comment><USER24> Can you point to any source that indicates that the GOP, broadly, is pro- nuclear and anti-CO2 like your comment suggests? I'm skeptical but genuinely open to the possibility of being corrected.

<comment><USER23> [https://news.gallup.com/poll/248048/years-three-mile- island-...](https://news.gallup.com/poll/248048/years-three-mile-island- americans-split-nuclear-power.aspx)

>Republicans (65%) are more likely than Democrats (42%) to favor the use of nuclear power. Republicans typically have been more supportive of nuclear energy throughout Gallup's trend dating back to 1994.

It's true Republicans aren't as hung up specifically on CO2, but Republicans have been largely in support of nuclear since before you ever heard the phrase "climate change." If we had listened to Republicans back when it was just "clean air" we'd be in a much better position.

<comment><USER25> I don't recall the GOP advocating for nuclear power. They are less opposed to it but I have never heard that they actively pursued it.

<comment><USER26> The GOP is interested in nuclear power because they know that since the 60s the Left has been _against_ nuclear power. They bring it up as a way to gore the Left's ox, not as something they're actively pursuing to fight climate change. The policy they pursue is trolling and antagonizing their domestic enemies. Any effect of this on climate policy is incidental.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm given to understand that climate denialism is more-or-less confined to the USA, can anyone shed some light on that?

<comment><USER28> It's confined to the USA and Australia, where the combination of powerful Murdoch media and rural fossil fuel billionaires reign over the conservative parties. (Canada and UK get some spillover.) See above links to "Dark Money" and "Merchants of Doubt" for US. For Australia:

[https://reneweconomy.com.au/australia-get-stupid-clean- energ...](https://reneweconomy.com.au/australia-get-stupid-clean- energy-99268/)

<comment><USER29> > It's confined to the USA and Australia

No it's not. It's very much a thing in Europe too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> STOP! This is a 2013 paper. It is 2019.

Climate change is supported by evidence and we humans are the cause. The situation is worse than we ever imagined. It is an existential crisis, which must be mitigated. If we don't do something major and do it soon, extinction of much of life on earth will be the result. In fact, we may already be too late to be able to take actions to avert collapse.

Climate deniers are irresponsible, distracting, and amoral. They don't seem to understand how science is done and how scientific knowledge is created. They are well funded, apparently by the same cabal of folks that protected tobacco companies and blessed clean coal.

It is true that Global Climate and its various drivers is not well understood, yet we persist in under-funding research. We have too little data, too few people working on the problem, and no organization with global reach and global authority coordinating things, setting rules, and running things. Decisions about mitigation need to be based on rational analysis and not on political, economic, or social grounds. Some decisions and actions will necessarily be unpopular.

I too like what Eric Weinstein said about climate change:

">The fact that we do not have much historical data and good verifiable models to understand how the planet climate behaves under large changes in parameters (CO2 emission, etc.) makes it even more important and urgent to act. We never know at what moment the system will cross the threshold, and damage becomes irreversible, and planet destruction accelerates."

We are already in regimes which are outside historical experience and data, that is, in uncharted territory.

Personally, I think it may all be over and that everything will collapse sometime between 2030 and 2050 while everyone is sitting around denying that there is any problem.

</comment><comment><USER31> Right now very close to my house there is a gas and oil storage facility and a pipeline connected to it. The city, under pressure from activist groups, has declared a climate emergency. And yet, nobody has connected the dots on the fact that if we get off fossil fuels in a timely manner, that facility is going to _close_. Nobody is planning for it or expecting it. The company is not facing higher insurance rates and investors are not worried. Nobody has requested or made any plans for how the facility could be closed. And I see the same pattern worldwide: nobody is actually making the kinds of plans they would be making if they thought that some of the oil and gas was going to be made unavailable permanently. You would see that signal in the stock price of Exxon Mobil and the price of oil.

This tells me one thing: the current plan is that we are going to extract and burn _every last drop_ of fossil fuels everywhere in the world. That is, whatever anybody says, the current plan.

<comment><USER26> "Plan" suggests people got together and arranged it. It is the generally acknowledged _most likely outcome_ given our demonstrated inability to overcome the people attempting thwart collective action. Maybe this seems like a slim distinction, but I think it's important to say that not everyone recognizing the likelihood of this outcome is actively planning it.

<comment><USER31> Not everyone, just almost everyone with power.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Mods: (2013), please :-)

</comment><comment><USER33> I find Richard Lindzen's work & view very interesting on the subject. He adds more color to this.

"He has published more than 200 scientific papers and books. From 1983[1] until his retirement in 2013, he was Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[2] He was a lead author of Chapter 7, "Physical Climate Processes and Feedbacks," of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Third Assessment Report on climate change. He has criticized the scientific consensus about climate change[3] and what he has called "climate alarmism."[4]"

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

</comment><comment><USER34> > Clarifying the institutional dynamics of the CCCM can aid our understanding > of how anthropogenic climate change has been turned into a controversy > rather than a scientific fact in the U.S.

I know how unpopular this comment will be in some circles, but I feel I have to say it anyway: Anthropogenic climate change is not a "scientific fact". It is a theory, and (to the best of my knowledge) an untestable one at that.

I believe in anthropogenic climate change, but I don't think it's a good idea to abandon the scientific method and intellectual honesty in some desperate attempt to convince others of this. I fear a world without truth and science more than I fear one a few degrees warmer.

<comment><USER32> Sure, just like quantum mechanics and evolution are "just theories". In other words: our current best understanding of the world, provisional (subject to further revision or even deeper, more fundamental understanding), but extremely well established and most definitely the most rational position to hold.

<comment><USER34> Yes. I wouldn't want to call quantum mechanics or evolution more than a theory either. QM has the advantage that it makes a lot of very precise predictions that can be tested. Evolution has the (weaker) advantage that pure chance is not an alternative explanation for the data.

Anthropogenic climate change unfortunately lacks those two advantages.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Why not take a simplified, but beneficial view of climate change which will work well for both conservatives and liberals alike?

"It is likely that we are experiencing some global warming which is likely to get worse in the future, and it is likely to be man-made by emitting some greenhouse gases, mainly CO2 and methane, into the atmosphere, and if so we should curb these emissions to avoid some bad long term consequences, but even if that is a mistake, it is a good idea to scare people with because curbing these emissions also makes life of those damn Commies, that pesky Middle East, and many other s __thole countries that hate us, worse, and limit their resources which they use to harm us, so good idea to do even the theory behind it proves wrong. Those liberals aren 't going to go for that to fight Commies, but they will if you scare them with some made up stuff like dying corals or flooding islands, well enough".

</comment><comment><USER36> Climate change has unfortunately become a banner under which many extremist groups like eco-fascist, socialists, various SWJs and other kind of authoritarians rally. And they changed climate change into climate hysteria to promote their specific ideologies.

</comment><comment><USER37> "Denialism".

That's the end of the conversation then, I guess. To bad.

</comment><comment><USER38> Billionaires fund "Climate Denial"...oh, evil billionaires using their secret dark money trusts.

Billionaires fund Extinction Rebellion...oh, virtuous enlightened billionaires, so smart, so moral.

<comment><USER26> Yes, some billionaires do good things and some do bad things. And some do a mixture of the two. It's hard to wrap your head around, but there it is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Lets talk about the money behind climate change too, I bet theres a lot of "clean" energy patents lying around that with some new regulations and taxes, would worth billons.

</comment><comment><USER40> Not the complete story.

[https://freebeacon.com/issues/climate-change-reporting- websi...](https://freebeacon.com/issues/climate-change-reporting-website- obscures-its-funding-with-dark-money-network/)

</comment><comment><USER41> To me science is never settled, and anyone who claims climate crisis is pretty much definite has an incentive that has other hidden angles than we are led to believe. This is not a denial position, but is largely characterised so. Nothing in science is black-and-white, there are infinite shades of gray in between.

Having said that, Freeman Dyson also seems to share this opinion, and I think it carries some weight: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiKfWdXXfIs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiKfWdXXfIs). Another article also says the same: [https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed- planet/2019/09/a-clim...](https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed- planet/2019/09/a-climate-modeller-spills-the-beans/)

The later link also highlights an important aspect from IPCC's report: "In climate research and modelling, we should recognize that we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore that the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. (Chapter 14, Section 126.96.36.199.)]"

Whatever I know about modeling and Lorenz's theories, I do think long-term climate predication is impossible given our current models. Is that denial? Certainly not, and I am open to change my mind as models become more accurate and more data is avaiable.

Till then I would not want my wallet to be lighter in the name of carbon taxes, please.

<comment> james-mcelwain Unfortunately, making policy isn't a matter of epistemology. If we prevented ourselves from making any kind of decisions due to uncertainty about our empirical claims, we would be stuck in a kind of ethical paralysis that would prevent any kind of coordinated policy.

To argue that inherent complexity means we should remain in a state of inaction is in itself a form of denialism. The fact that it is difficult to make predictions about chaotic systems does not mean that the null hypothesis is automatically true.

<comment><USER41> I don't know any example where a legislation (especially which levied tax) was rolled back because the argument no longer held true. And hence my skepticism of "carbon taxes".

Additionally, I do not see anyone arguing a moderate position on legislation, which logically follows, considering the data may be wrong. Action based on potentially incorrect data is as big a problem as much as the null hypothesis you define. I am hard pressed to see a legislation that talks about reducing materialistic consumption, or living frugal, but we are very interested in increasing taxes. No?</comment></comment></comment>


The number of jobs postings on LinkedIn could be a terrible sign for the economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/linkedin-job-postings-could-be-recession-signal-2016-6 <comment><USER2> Question: Couldn't a lower number of job postings on LinkedIn also be attributed to other sites picking up those postings? Indeed, Glassdoor etc.

<comment><USER3> Linkedin's job postings are of horrible quality, too many from recruiting firms, it has become spammy as Indeed. I found StackOverflow's careers section better signal-to-noise ratio.

<comment><USER2> Exactly my point, so how can LinkedIn's posting numbers be used as a signal that the economy is about to have a fall?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Indeed doesn't seem to agree: [http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends/industry](http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends/industry)

One quarter over quarter it seems more mixed, but then again seasonality: [http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends/industry/quarter](http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends/industry/quarter)

</comment><comment><USER5> The submission is blogspam of the Barron's report, which ironically focuses more on stock prospects: [http://www.barrons.com/articles/linkedins-online- job-posting...](http://www.barrons.com/articles/linkedins-online-job-postings- may-be-worst-since-2009-1465298237)

The submitted headline is mostly correlation (between economic conditions and # postings) implying causation, in the same vein as Google Trends. Hiring is a seasonal process.

</comment><comment><USER6> Peter Schiff has been out there calling each of these economic bubbles every time. Not with date setting of course, but we do know The Fed's policy making creates boom and bust cycles. The 2008 bailout still has to unwind at some point.

Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBJ31G6FdhQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBJ31G6FdhQ)

<comment><USER7> Peter Schiff is not really a very reliable person to cite. Do I think we are in a bubble? I do. But Schiff has been saying we were in a bubble and nearing hyper-inflation for the past 20 years. I would much rather look at what big money people are doing with their money, like Soro, Gross and Icahn. They have turned bearish within the past 6 months, some even doubling down since.

<comment><USER6> Well, I enjoy the doomsday economy predictions. Probably due to holding a negative view of fiat currency. He was one of the few pointing out systemic issues before the 2008 crises and is consistent ideologically and politically. If you don't like the Austrian School or Libertarian thinking you'll probably not like Schiff.

Hyper-inflation is hyperbole warning for ignoring national debt, because it's likely the only end-game. Federal spending has doubled in the last 15 years, and politicians continue to make more promises. It's unpopular to talk about the national debt or federal spending which is exactly why Schiff is great; he consistently highlights gratuitous spending. Predicting specific bubbles is less important than pointing out fundamental issues like devaluing the USD and over spending. His doomsday attitude is a constant reminder there are larger problems than specific markets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What poor timing to announce a research note about slowing prospects for LinkedIn... Hours later stock rallies 47% on a buyout!

</comment><comment><USER9> Or, it could be a terrible sign for LinkedIn...

<comment><USER10> on in this case, microsoft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Quick, everyone post jobs on LinkedIn!</comment>


How making money changed my perspective on startup ideas - <AUTHOR> http://paraschopra.com/blog/personal/how-making-money-changed-my-perspective-on-startup-ideas.htm <comment><USER2> Great post! Few thoughts: I am having a similar experience. My co-founder and I have been working on our "this will change the world" venture for the past few months ... we built CollegeJobConnect, a platform designed to revolutionize the undergraduate recruiting system and enable undergraduates to connect with employers. It's a sexy product with a great story. However, due to the summer time period and the "you need to do something different"-ness of the idea, the revenue has been light thus far.

Along the way we heard a lot of pain points hiring managers and companies were having, so we built Recruitly (<http://recruitly.com>), a plug-n-play career portal and applicant tracking system allowing you to tap the talent that visits your website. This has been a dream to sell and much easier to monetize.

I think it depends what you are out to do: if you are out to make money, you can jump into an existing market and produce a competitive product ("mine is cheaper!", "mine does X better", etc., etc.) and do fine. If you are out to change the world, you have to understand the fight you are in for: you likely will have to change a lot of people's behavior or understanding of how to do something - no easy task. To your point, it pays to do your homework beforehand so you know the extent of the battle that faces you.

</comment><comment><USER3> The lessons learned in this article remind me of the book "Ready, Fire, Aim" by Michael Masterson. It's a great book.

Masterson notes that when you're starting off, you just need to make money ASAP. Worry about being original later when you have a budget. So you need to find a hot area where there is competition (but not _too_ much) and a clear consumer interest and then produce something that's just slightly better than the main competitors. There's a bit more to it than that, but that's the main gist for starting off.

</comment><comment><USER4> _And most importantly: do competitors exist?_

Exactly. I don't want to be the only falafel salesman on the street, I want to be the best one.

<comment><USER5> You don't need to be the best either. You can be a salesman on the adjacent street.

<comment><USER6> And you don't have to be the falafel salesman. You can be the supplier who supplies that salesman, AND all his competitors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> AFAIR economics, starting a company in a market segment with established competitors may reduce risk, but it may reduce profitability by the same degree. E.g. starting selling hot dogs in place where there are 5 other hot dog sellers has high chance for break-even profitability and low chance for exponential business growth. However this may not be true for some rapidly growing markets highly sensitive to innovations.

</comment><comment><USER8> The secret to making money Online --DHH is superb video to listen to which is on this lines

[http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier- hans...](http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hansson-at- startup-school-08)

</comment><comment><USER9> Solid advice. When we started <http://thinkcode.tv> we immediately asked the question, will people be willing to pay for screencasts? The existence of other companies selling screencasts, like PeepCode, PragProg, Lynda, VTC (and many other emerging ones) reassured us, rather than scare us away. I still get the impression that the market is more keen to ebooks than screencasts, but it would have been foolish to start without some form of market research.

</comment><comment><USER10> He was 18 years old and his first idea made no money. Now he is making money and has some insights he wants to share. I don't necessarily place much stock in the conclusions he draws but the story has some value. Details of how and why something failed and what the people learned from it can help others, depending upon what that specific individual is in need of better understanding.

<comment><USER11> The conclusions he draws are very much inline with the basic concepts you learn in marketing 101.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I followed your link to your previous site, Kroomsa, and it proceeded to repeatedly open the site in a new browser window. I was forced to kill Safari, at which point it had 129 windows open. Not cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry, wasn't aware of it. Does it happen on other browsers too? I didn't notice it on Chrome or Firefox.

<comment><USER12> I only seem able to reproduce it on the latest Safari for OS X. Even Safari for Windows doesn't do it. Weird.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Although he learned his lesson and that's the biggest thing to take away from this, his original mentality pretty much sums up why 75% (or whatever number it is nowadays) of startups fail.

The moral of this article is a pretty basic, common-sense parable. Not sure why the author had to fail to learn such rudimentary things as "no market = no business" and "no research = bad" but at least he learned his lesson.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I was earlier motivated by originality of idea and a chance to change the de facto in the world. Like I was, I assume many fresh college peeps are high on "changing the world" through their great ideas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm sorry to say this, but that is a lot of text for basically saying: "no market -> no sales"

<comment><USER15> This could be a new summary format.

In Search of Lost Time: "lost youth -> melancholy adulthood"

Odyssey: "angry gods -> misplaced hero"

The Bible: "believe it -> live forever"

<comment><USER16> I can see an arXiv paper coming:

"An Equational Logic for Automatic Text Summarization via Term-Rewriting: Or Lambda, the Ultimate TL;DR"</comment></comment></comment>