Should I give up? - <AUTHOR>

Hello All,
I would appreciate very frank advice on what I should do with my start up, Anaphoric Systems
(http://www.anaphoric.com).
The whole effort started as a research project several years ago, but when I was informed that I actually owned the system, I entered a business plan competition and then started to execute on the plan.
The problem is that I have been wearing two hats: 'researcher/educator' and 'entrepreneur'. This has led to conflicts of interest as well as diluted effectiveness. So basically I need to decide if I am going to 1.) quit my tenured position, move to a start-up hub, find a partner, get-funding, etc. or 2.) open source the whole project and treat it as a research project. (It's 18k lines of LISP). I suppose in case 2 I could always do something commercial if the system was of high impact.
I am leaning toward option 2, but I thought I should run my plan by the YC community first.
Regards,
Michael Minock (http://www.cs.umu.se/~mjm) <comment><USER2> First, kudos to Umeå university for being forward-thinking enough to (gasp) allow you to own your own work.

To answer your question: If I were in your position, I'd try to work an option 1.5 -- see if you can take an unpaid leave of absence for 4 months and spend that time working on your startup. Most universities are happy to let their faculty do this sort of thing, since they usually come back far more excited about their research than when they left.

Spend those 4 months working on your startup full-time, and plan on deciding at the start of the 4th month whether you're going to take your option 1 or your option 2. I don't think you can really make a rational decision without working on this full-time for at least a few months.

Re your startup: Have you considered putting it together with freebase? I don't know how structured your input databases need to be; but since freebase is basically wikipedia (EDIT: and apparently other data sources now, too) parsed and converted into a database, being able to run natural language queries against it could be very interesting...

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually it's a law in Sweden called the "teacher exception" ('lärarundantagen') and it is not without controversy. But it was the business development folks at Umeå who let me in on the secret and gave me a lot of encouragement.

Yes I am considered taking a leave next Spring. It would be difficult to Swing this Fall. And if I did take a leave, I would definitely move to a start-up hub. I really agree with Paul on the need for that.

As for freebase, yes I had considered that earlier and indeed I should check back. Alas a nice thing about having my system as an open-source system, would be that I could get a masters student to do the integration with freebase as part of a project...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> We (StreamFocus - lisp based) are on our final UI upgrade push before launching open beta in the next few weeks. We are missing search right now, and would be very interested to license your system to work with us. Right now we use traditional Mysql tables as well as a mysql triples table, but most of the real work happens in lisp.

Are you interested?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I am interested.

I like your videos. Very well done. We can discuss via email. firstname.lastname@example.com is probably the best mail to use.

<comment><USER3> Excellent. You will be hearing from me. (We have to redo all the videos because of the major improvements we've made to the system since then, but thanks)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would first create a list of firms that have strategic interests in your product area (DB and BI Vendors, DM service companies, Lisp consulting firms/vendors, etc.) You might find a company that is willing to buy the technology and/or offer another profitable arrangement. A joint venture, perhaps.

Option 2 might be your only real option, but even then I would think you might be able to use your work as a springboard into something more lucrative...?

<comment><AUTHOR> If I do option #2, that is open-source the system under BSD, then I suppose that would give me the option to fork the whole system later under a commercial license if the system started to gain traction. Of course the risk is that others would build up from the earlier version and essentially lock me out. However I would be pleased to have made such an impact...

<comment><USER5> As long as you get copyright assignments from anyone sending you patches, you retain the rights to change the license whenever you want, so even if you use the GPL, you could release new versions under a proprietary license.

That said, if you really just 'give up' any commercial hopes, a BSD style license is friendlier to companies who may want to do something with your code, and, if they're smart, maybe even contribute something back.

<comment><USER6> Open sourcing is a mixed bag. The sad fact is that open sourcing will generally limit the number of companies that will consider buying you by some substantial amount. Could probably get the poster a cushy job at google, though...

<comment><USER5> The idea was some sort of middle road between abandoning any hope of commercial success, and doing it 100% as a classic proprietary software business. I have no idea if it's feasible for his product though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Please don't give up! I just tried your geography demo, and I'm no expert, but I was very impressed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the encouragement... being impressed with the demo is ultimately what matters.

A serious problem I have however is that this geography database isn't so interesting. Who is really going to learn anything from this rather low quality database? What I am looking for is some database that is: 1.) complex enough to preclude standard forms interfaces and 2.) contains information worth asking about. Not an easy task to identify, obtain such data sources.

I was thinking maybe a sports scores database or something...

<comment><USER8> baseball statistics could be good.. there are a lot of baseball stats nerds

who had the most stolen bases from 1935 to 1955? how many people have had back to back 5 hit games?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. These are exactly the kind of questions that the system can support. There is a big baseball database out there that I played around with earlier (<http://baseball1.com/>). It's only for non-commercial activities the last I checked.

<comment><USER8> You should check with a lawyer, but I am pretty sure that mlb statistics are public domain, just copy the database.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Don't do it. If your system is good enough, there will be demand for it, and you'll KNOW when the time is right to quit. Otherwise, you're taking a needless risk - you can have the same benefits without the risk just by making some clever decisions and delegating properly.

<comment><USER10> I'm not saying you're wrong...but there are some things about starting a new company that cannot be delegated. Like the strength of your own focus on one single goal.

It may not be the right time for him to make the leap, but there is always a right time to make the leap (or give up on the business or on entrepreneurship in general). Since he's asked us here, and seems to have put a lot of thought into it, I suspect he is now at that point. Thus it is not a "needless risk". It may be exactly the risk that needs to be taken, and it may be exactly the right time to take it.

Entrepreneurship _does_ involve putting some skin in the game. It's not optional and you generally can't be a regular guy with a regular job, and _also_ a big entrepreneurial success. At some point, you have to decide what you want, and go after it with vengeance.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I am at that point... The problem is that I am now finally getting reasonable academic success. A lot of people want to collaborate on papers, projects, etc. And I must say these are some of the best researchers in the field. The only thing I am certain of is that I will be working on this NLI problems for many years to come. The question is which side of the fence will I land on. I can not keep riding the fence for much longer ... or, who knows, maybe I can ;-)

<comment><USER10> Philip Greenspun might be a good subject of an afternoon of reading for you. He went from academia to startup and back to academia. He's been pretty successful in both fields.

Randy Pausch, of "The Last Lecture" fame, talked about the subject in that lecture. Though he was coming at it from a slightly different perspective: become an Imagineer, which was a lifelong dream, or go back to teaching...he chose teaching. Working for Disney is not quite the same as starting a startup, though I imagine for some folks it would be the same kind of personal satisfaction...that of building something real.

I don't know that they've ever answered specifically why they made the decisions they made, but it couldn't hurt to get a feel for their thoughts.

Two other quick points, before I become a preachy bore:

1\. If you're getting success in academia, you will probably also be able to get success in other fields, if you apply the same passion and excitement. The question shouldn't be "what will make me most successful?", it should be "what will make me most satisfied with my life?" As you get older, you'll recognize this more and more clearly...better to spot the trend early. Success will usually follow.

2\. Academia, at least in technical fields, does not generally frown on success in the "real world". Success in business can be as good for your academic career as the papers you would have written and the research you would have done during that time. Again, follow your satisfaction and your excitement.

3\. (I know I said 2...I discovered this one just now.) You will never be in a better position to take risks than you are now. As you age you collect responsibilities: Family, kids, parents needing care, mortgage payments, etc. These responsibilities are the things you can't risk to pursue your dreams...so, when you're older, you can't put as much in the game. You can still start a startup, or change careers, at any age, and experience certainly has benefits, but when it comes to risk, younger is better. Without family and kids, the risk is practically nil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't know the details of the system you've created, but you could use a 'restrictive' open source license like the GPL, and offer a dual licensing strategy, where people who want to use it in commercial systems pay to get a compatible license. That only works if it's a library though, rather than an independent system.

Another idea might be to find a partner first, and let that person handle most of the business, and just concentrate on the technical aspects of it.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> The system calls several GPL based components (SPASS, aspell, ...) but does not extend any thing under GPL.

I was thinking that if I open-source it I would put it under a very open license (e.g. BSD) and assume/hope that anyone that extended it would make contact with me for help/advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> We can't answer that for you... but we can tell you a bit about our own situation.

Personally, I've been running my own (much simpler) VPS hosting startup (<http://prgmr.com>) for more than two years. I'm on my second Porsche worth of personal money plowed into the thing (ok, second Porsche boxter... I'm probably still on my first, you know, real Porsche.)

I dono. I mean, my company breaks even these days... most of what I've gotten out of it is experience and contacts (and those are worth something... my bill rate as a consultant verges on ridiculous, and I have a book deal. Pretty good for a Midwestern hick with no formal education.) I don't regret doing it, but if I had a chance to do it over I'd focus more on being more public (blogging, documenting, etc...) and less on the actual business.

If I could 'open source' my project, I think that would magnify the benefits (that is, credibility and contacts) But you can't really 'open source' an ISP, which is essentially what I am.

So yeah, personally I'd advise you to go for option #2, unless you can get significant investment from someone else.

But then, you sound like you started from a different position than I did. It's possible that because I had so little when I started the credibility is worth a lot more to me than it is worth to you.

Also, I have my own conflict of interest... your project sounds pretty cool, and I'd like to be able to use that technology for my own projects, or use products built by other people using that technology. Open-sourcing it is likely the best way to get the tech out to the masses.

</comment><comment><USER12> I know this quandary well though I was a post-doc when I took the plunge.

Why does it have to be #1 or the other? Could you see about taking a one-year leave of absence from your tenured position? Seems that if you're successful you'll generate a lot of good publicity for your university. Furthermore, you could try to find a visiting relationship with a university at one of the hubs. For you it would be a good way to meet people and your current university could see you're still serious about the academy even if you only "visit" a minority of your time.

</comment><comment><USER13> How close are you to getting sabbatical? (Does your university even offer it?) Several professors in my department (including my adviser) have used their sabbatical on startups.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately sabbaticals aren't part of the Swedish system... Still I am sure I could swing a non-paid leave starting in January or so. Perhaps even in November. But not in September/October! I am already down for teaching AI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Michael, Neither of the options you have provided would equate to 'giving up'. So I would give a definate NO to giving up.

Treating your project as a research project does not equate to giving up.

I don't know enough about this market/competitors/technology/market size, etc to define what you should do going forward.

The question I think you should be asking is 'is this a viable business'.

I suspect most of the YC community who are telling you to go for it! are potentially speaking from a start-up attitude of 'live the dream' etc. etc. They may be right, but not every business is a good business.

Your technology might be the best out there, I just don't know. Personally, I wasn't blown-away by the demos, but I'm not saying that to be harsh, just that from my perspective, I'm not seeing your competitive advantage. You've put a bunch of work into this, and it may be the best in the market and able to make a significant contribution to the world.

Does your university have a business school, or entrepreneurs club or something? Maybe you could get somebody there to help with defining the market and business planning.

</comment><comment><USER15> Not wanting to be a wet blanket on this party but this system has a looong way to go. Too many of the queries I made either gave me dumb error messages or decided to answer a different question.

Try and search for the shortest river. No dice. Given that it knows about second, third and the like I tried to rephrase this as "last longest river". All I got back was the longest river, it dropped 'last'. It knows average but not mean. It reports 'average length of a river' as 1117.2391304347826087. That's a great deal of precision for something without a unit of measure. What is this in: meters, kilometres, centimetres, feet, inches, miles? Given that the data is from America I would expect this to be in miles but I suspect that it is probably in kilometres.

Has this really taken 18k lines of code?

Stay put and knock this thing into shape on the universities dime then start your own company.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Peter,

> this system has a looong way to go

yes it does... Natural language interfaces are a very hard area. Lots of failed attempts (e.g. MS EnglishQuery). This in fact is what attracted me to the area. If as a researcher I can help make NLIs more robust/usable, then that would be a 'result'.

> Has this really taken 18k lines of code?

Actually that is an approximate figure and includes test routines, comments, etc. Plus what is a line of lisp code? A large amount of code is to support non-linguist authoring of the interface. So in fact I was able to patch the system for "shortest river" and "mean" in a jiffy.

> Stay put and knock this thing into shape

Yes that's what I will probably do. I toned down Anaphoric's web-site and will work with this system from more of a research perspective. I will try my best to avoid open sourcing it, but in the end circumstances may compel that move...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Very nice design. But:

"Server Down on localhost:9009 Please visit again in a couple of hours."

<comment><AUTHOR> OK, yes, someone's query busted the system down. But it's up again now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> How certain are you about your presumed choices?

You ask us to choose either 1 or 2, yet we have no idea what situation and/or persons brought you to this apparent fork in the road. I suspect there may be a 3rd, 4th, &etc paths that prove better. Nor do I see 1 and 2 as mutually exclusive as you state. Many, if not most, researcher/educators are simultaneously entrepreneurs. And giving up tenure may prove costly, especially in the long run.

Perhaps tell us more about the conflicts of interest that have arisen. I sense that they involve other peoples wishes or meddling, which are usually best ignored or stepped on.

</comment><comment><USER18> one todo, I think, clarify your website for the obvious questions, so people don't have to download the demo and watch screencasts to get something out of it:

\- what is the benefit of your algorithm and code over Lucene/SOLR? quantifiable metrics, e.g.precision/recall-wise? What natural languages does it parse/work best in?

\- what kind of analysis, in layman's terms (Layman: somebody who's implmeented Lucene, sphinx, the search engine, not CMU sphinx, MySQL fulltext search, not an NLP researcher) From the company name, i would assume anaphor resolution is included, or something related, named entity resolution.

</comment><comment><USER19> Michael,

My suggestion is that you use your salary to hire someone to work fulltime on the project. You are presumably in a good position to find a smart employee who is interested in your work and will be able to contribute within a short period of time.

If you cannot make headway in the market with two developers/proponents, it seems unlikely you will succeed alone. Not all of the work needs to be technical - there's no reason you can't hire someone and have them handle marketing/sales.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is neat stuff.

Actually we (reviewgist.com) could also do with something like this. Infact, we spent some time working on a similar system for our needs, but anticipating a dis-proportionate consumer response dropped it. But if you go through our site, you would know exactly what I am talking about.

Also to answer your question, imo go with 1.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is very interesting technology something our startup like many others could use it. Server licensing is always tricky. I would say go with number 2 and in the meantime build a commercial product around the technology. Since you understand this technology the best it wouldn't be hard for you to build a shopping engine based on CatchPhrase.

</comment><comment><USER22> I tried a few queries and I was really impressed. Seems to me like some real value for the IP there and wouldn't recommend going opensource unless you already patented it(Europe but I think doesnt have software patents right?)

</comment><comment><USER23> This is really neat. Especially the idea of allowing users to modify the database. How would one add data to the demo to indicate that Cambridge, MA and Silicon Valley are the best places to start a tech startup?

</comment><comment><USER24> IMHO option 1 is the way to go if you don't have a family

<comment><AUTHOR> Well I am divorced and don't have kids, so the world is my oyster ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Step 1: Do #1 as you mention

Step 2: Quit and start your startup

Step 3: If things don't work out, then go to your step #2, and move onto other jobs

</comment><comment><USER26> I'd go for option 1. It seems like a solid system and it does have value. I would love for my city's library system to use it for example.

</comment><comment><USER27> Michael, I suggest this:

1\. Don't spend any huge money on this project until it picks up significantly.

2\. treat this as a hobby, which means don't lose sleep over it.

3\. focus on your work that makes money if money is a factor

4\. take it easy. leave the company as it is.

5\. try to make this not be written in LISP. that is a lot of lines of code. convert it.

6\. Keep everything going the same time. don't quit your job.

<comment><USER26> Wow, this is horrible advice.

1\. You have to take risks sometimes. He's done good work and it's worth putting some cash behind it (if necessary).

2\. It's not a hobby. It's a business or a research project. In either case, it's a serious thing.

3\. This project could be a money-maker in two ways: corporate sponsors for a research project, or corporate clients for a business product.

4\. I agree with the take it easy part, but not the other part.

5\. That's a joke right?

6\. That's also a joke right?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Wrist pain from coding? - <AUTHOR>

I recently started pursuing coding seriously (after a year of an hour or two a week).
And, unfortunately, my right wrist hurts like hell now. It begins twenty minutes or so after I start typing. The pain shoots down from the bottom right of my right (face down palm) to the end of my pinky.
It's getting wicked painful.
Any tips? <comment><USER2> Sounds like "mouse hand" aka RSI / CTS !

Some suggestions:

1\. Learn keyboard short cuts, to reduce dependence on reaching for the mouse.

2\. Try trackball / different size mouse / tablet. I have a novel (i.e. haven't seen it elsewhere solution) I use a Logitech trackball with the right hand and a USB wheel mouse with the LED window tapped up with the left hand. That way, I'm not making fine motor movements with the right hand whilst clicking etc - which I do with the left hand. Found that taping up the window on the bottom avoided getting interfering mouse movements.

3\. Check your posture, table height, screen position. In my experience most chairs are too low, especially if you are 6' or over. Many notebook keyboards are too cramped if you have largish fingers for extended typing. Get a full size high quality keyboard for the bulk work.

4\. Take breaks :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> STOP right now! I can't stress this enough. I had to stay away from computers for 2 years because a a sudden pain that appeared on one night of development and which i tried to ignore.

Read this book: [http://www.amazon.com/Pascarellis-Complete-Repetitive- Strain...](http://www.amazon.com/Pascarellis-Complete-Repetitive-Strain- Injury/dp/0471388432/ref=sr_1_1?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285690220&sr=8-1)

</comment><comment><USER4> I use an anti-RSI application when this happens which auto-reminds me to take breaks and notices when I cheat (monitoring keyboard and mouse activity). I also _always_ use an external keyboard with nice keys and an external mouse for long stretches on my laptop. I switched to mousing with my left hand instead of right.

I learned dvorak, and some people swear by it, but it didn't change much. so, I switched back.

<comment><USER3> In my experience, ergonomically-sound typing technique is somewhat independent of the keyboard layout, specially if you're not a touch-typist.

It all boils down to watching your wrists. Don't rest your fingers on the home row when you're reaching for distant keys. If your kb layout makes you abuse the weaker fingers that may become a problem though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> First identify whether the cause is a wrong posture and whether you have more problems while handling keyboard or the mouse. I used to have problems while using the mouse due to wrong posture.

<comment><USER6> I definitely get pain from the mouse rather than typing.

Professional Quake players have names for the different styles of holding a mouse. I believe mine is called The Claw, where my palm is a few inches above the matt and I guide the mouse using finger tips on each side, like a bear scraping across the desk.

I notice that when I have pain I have lapsed and my palm is flat on the desk causing a v-shape between my hand and forearm and tension on the back of my wrist.

<comment><USER3> Me too. After recovery my symptoms would re-appear whenever i used the mouse for more than a few minutes. I began using a trackball on my left arm. It's closer to the home row and now I have very good left-hand dexterity :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Get a roll of toilet paper and put it under your wrist while you use you mouse. It allows for spring due to the cardboard roll while still supporting you wrist.

<comment><USER3> This may not be a very good idea. By supporting your wrist you will be imobilizing your arm and straining the weaker wrist muscles. Try to avoid the mouse. When you do have to use it, try to maintain your wrist in the neutral position and move your forearm instead, as you'll be using the stronger muscles of your arm and shoulder: [http://content.revolutionhealth.com/contentimages/h9991464_0...](http://content.revolutionhealth.com/contentimages/h9991464_001.jpg)

<comment><USER7> You are not immobilizing the wrist rather you are supporting it so it does not carry the weight of your arm. The roll acts as a spring and roller, therefore gives you full range.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find it helpful to put a pillow under each arm, which will raise your wrists, without the constant effort / remembering to hold your elbows up.

</comment><comment><USER9> google the term ergonomics and computer... you'll find links like this..

<http://ergonomics.about.com/od/office/ss/computer_setup.htm>

</comment><comment><USER10> i use the MS split ergo keyboard and mouse - worked a treat for me. you need to be a touch typist though.</comment>


Ask HN: What can we do to show we don't support the response to Aaron Swartz? - <AUTHOR> It's clear that petitions are useless, but it's even more egregious when they're promoted by the government and left out to dry for 2 years.
We shouldn't accept this from our government.
I don't want us to be a community of sheeple who complain a little bit, but ultimately just shrug our shoulders. We shouldn't have to stand for reckless, almost-criminal, prosecutorial abuse. It's basically the same as a cop beating up somebody to "make an example"
Should we code something? Organize a rally in the major cities? Write code to make it easy to start rallies? What're some good ideas to show our discontent? <comment><USER2> Two things.

Firstly, please spell his name correctly. It's Aaron Swartz. That respects him and makes sure that your audience isn't distracted by that tiny detail and can focus on your message.

Secondly, the petition was too narrow and targeted the individual prosecutor for that case. Even if she was removed, it wouldn't prevent the same sort of thing happening again.

The larger issue (and one closer to the point) is that the law is broken.

\- There are overlapping laws such that Swartz was charged with several distinct offences for what was fundamentally a single (though repeated) action.

\- Maximum sentences for such offences (crimes against property, in particular those that use technology, even crimes that are on the face of it relatively victimless) are grossly overstated when compared to violent crimes.

\- Prosecutors are permitted to present the charges in a way that maximizes the sentencing, by adding them consecutively.

\- All of the above points join together to maximize the number of cases where the defendant pleads guilty to avoid a court case, so there is a ridiculously small number of such cases that go to trial (and a correspondingly vast majority of cases of which the defendant is, as a result, convicted), even where the defendant is actually innocent of some or all charges, or when it is likely that a trial could result in a not guilty verdict.

No reasonable person could say Swartz deserved 35 years in prison for what he is alleged to have done. The legal system that enabled Ortiz to present the charges as she did is much bigger than any prosecutorial overreach she is accused of in that petition. Let's not make it about one prosecutor. Let's make it about all of them.

<comment><USER3> I agree strongly with the first half of your comment, but the second half, from consecutive sentencing on, is simply incorrect. Swartz faced nothing resembling 35 years, because federal sentencing does not work by simply adding the counts up for every charged offense. Like charges "group", and the convicted are sentenced according to the most severe of those charges.

The prosecutors threatened Swartz not with 35 years, but with ~7. 7 years is also a ludicrous sentence. But it was also an unrealistic sentence: under the sentencing guidelines, Swartz was likely to face (if convicted) a sentence denominated in months not years, and --- according to his own lawyer, and observable from the actual sentencing guidelines --- one that probably could have made the probation cutoff to avoid any custodial time.

So, your third bulleted suggestion isn't valid: CFAA crimes are already not sentenced "consecutively".

What seems clear now is that the prosecutors were determined to have Swartz sentenced for some amount of prison time (they offered a plea deal with a very short sentence, and rejected any deals that failed to put Swartz in prison at all). _That_ is a problem. The first half of your comment captures it. Sentencing rules for _individual_ CFAA charges scale up so rapidly, and people are so rarely charged under them, that CFAA cases are high-status vanity projects for the US Attorney's office.

Obligatory:

[https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi- sentenc...](https://www.popehat.com/2013/02/05/crime-whale-sushi-sentence- eleventy-million-years/)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the popehat link. Very enlightening.

From it:

> When the government quotes the maximum sentence, they are trying to scare > you.

> When the press quotes it, they are uninformed or lazy.

The first is what I intended to imply: Prosecutors are permitted to scare the bejaysus out of defendants by quoting statutory maxima (not, as could be inferred, that they can present that _to the judge_.)

The second is what I was guilty of ;)

<comment><USER3> OK, but Swartz wasn't scared by the 35 year number, for two reasons: first, despite what the press release said, they were overt with Swartz about what their worst-case sentence actually was (the 7 year figure was their threat about what would happen if the case went to trial and he lost), and second because Swartz had very good legal representation.

A 1-2 year worst case sentence follows pretty straightforwardly from the actual sentencing guidelines if you look at them. However, there are mitigating factors in the Swartz case: first-time offender, non-remunerative offense, unenthusiastic victims. Probation was a real possibility. 7 years was not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is the exact problem you want to solve?

What are some of the causes of the problem?

What are some of the effects of the problem?

If the problem disappeared today, what side-effects would it have on the rest of the world?

What, given all of the answers to these questions, would be a solution that solves the commonly agreed upon problem (usually by solving the causes for said problem rather than the problem itself) with minimal negative side- effects?

"Should we code something? Organize a rally in the major cities? Write code to make it easy to start rallies? What're some good ideas to show our discontent?"

No, those are actions. What good is an action without a solution in mind? Plan then act. Don't act without a plan.

<comment><USER5> The root cause of this is the influence of money on our politicians.

Symptoms include laws written for the rich and the corporations rather than for the people, causing the continued growth of inequality and a drag on the economy.

Support Lawrence Lessig in his efforts to solve this root problem!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mw2z9lV3W1g)

He departs on the second of his New Hampshire Rebellion walks on Sunday.

<comment><USER4> This is an excellent response. I agree with his message; his might not be the most _important_ cause to address, but it must be the first one, because without it no meaningful changes can follow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I mean, the answer is probably to vote, and to convince others to vote. Start locally, and work your way up the chain. Talk to your friends, get them to vote accordingly. Go to your local government meetings, raise your issues. Volunteer for campaigns for your representatives, whether local representatives or Congress people.

If there aren't any representatives that you support, run for office. Dedicate your life to making these changes. Convince others that these are important issues, convince them to donate to your campaign and to vote for you.

The problem is, this is a hard road to take. And, truth be told, people don't really care enough to do the actual, hard work. They'd prefer to retweet some quote, maybe change their facebook profile picture for a week, if they're _really_ serious about something. But ultimately, that doesn't get people elected, it doesn't put someone in office working to make the change. Best- case scenario, it gets some lip service from a 4-term representative. How much do you care? Do you care enough to actually get out there and actually push for change? Or do you just want to sit on the Internet and complain, and do a little comfortable work that ultimately sits in a GitHub account and rots?

There isn't an easy solution. It's going to take a lot of work to convince people to collectively vote for change in this area. This is why the government is set up the way it is. Every 6 years, it's possible to replace essentially 2/3's of the government (Executive & Representative).

Unfortunately, I imagine that most people truly _don 't_ care about this "prosecutorial abuse". He knowingly broke rules & laws, and the government went after him. He had an opportunity to take a plea deal and chose to kill himself instead. Sad? Absolutely. But you'll have a hard time getting enough people motivated enough to vote accordingly. There are other issues that people care more passionately about: budgets, social issues, foreign policy, economic issues, etc. That's why I said at the beginning to start locally, because that's probably your best bet on this particular issue.

<comment><USER7> Voting is important, but it's the minimum first step toward changing the law. It's sort of like buying a computer--you'll have an easier time programming if you get a good computer, but buying the computer doesn't make the programming happen.

In the government, activism is the programming. The most effective way to get involved is to find a nonprofit or similar org that addresses your issue, and help grow their influence (donate, volunteer, etc). The EFF and CDT (Center for Democracy in Technology) are two groups that are working to adjust/clarify/fix the CFAA and how cybercrime is prosecuted.

Voting helps because activism is always easier if elected officials already agree with you. The threat of voting can also help get officials off the fence if they believe that they'll lose their office if they oppose your issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Consistent with the terms we laid out when we began We the People, we will > not address agency personnel matters in a petition response, because we do > not believe this is the appropriate forum in which to do so.

If that's the case, why not launch a petition to, e.g. require an investigation when somebody under investigation commits suicide? (not an idea I've thought through, btw, but my point is there's ways to address this within the terms)

</comment><comment><USER9> What's happening with Aaron's Law? Wikipedia says Oracle has interfered with the process, but there hasn't been any updates since May 2014? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#A...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#Aaron_Swartz)

</comment><comment><USER10> Take out a full page ad in the New York Times about the issues he stood for.

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/439578912/nyt-ad- challe...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/439578912/nyt-ad-challenging- john-roberts-to-file-in-his-own)

</comment><comment><USER11> Propose a ballot measure in your state.

<comment><USER12> A ballot measure...to do what, precisely?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What was their decision?

<comment><USER14> It's on the front page too, but here's the link:

[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united- stat...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states- district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm buying more bitcoin

</comment><comment><USER16> Swartz was a member of a group that was intentionally pirating and distributing large amounts of copyrighted material to which he did not have permission to do so.

He is also an idiot for killing himself. If he believed what he was doing was right he should have been willing to face the consequences. To me, killing himself is an admission that what he did was wrong and stupid.

Should he have been thrown in jail for 7 years? Well; he would have had more years alive after he got out then he does now.

Edit: Fuck Swartz. More clear?

<comment><USER4> > intentionally pirating and distributing large amounts of copyrighted > material to which he did not have permission to do so

Pirating is bad because it supposedly takes money out of the content producers' pockets (let's ignore the studies that suggest the contrary).

The people who produced the content for the journals he "intentionally [pirated]" were not paid for the content they created. They, the content creators, are not hurt by someone pirating their research (most of which was funded by taxpayers).

Additionally, society is benefited by more people being exposed to the knowledge of publicly funded scientific research.

Legally, you are correct, but outside that microcosm, conflating what Aaron did with piracy misses the point.

> He is also an idiot for killing himself

Oh just fuck off.

<comment><USER17> He wasn't pirating directly from the journals, though. He was pirating from JSTOR. JSTOR spends a lot of money to legally take journals that are not available online and make them available. They pay for the rights to do this, and then they pay for the costs of digitizing the material.

JSTOR are good guys, with the same mission Swartz claimed to have--they were making journals more available and at less cost than they would have been without JSTOR.

<comment><USER4> > JSTOR are good guys, with the same mission Swartz claimed to have--they were > making journals more available and at less cost than they would have been > without JSTOR.

Most scientific research done in the United States is publicly funded and therefore should be publicly available at no cost to the public. Less cost might sound like a good idea on paper, but no cost is fair.

[https://twitter.com/search?q=%23canhazpdf&src=typd](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23canhazpdf&src=typd)

I support what Aaron wanted to do, and hope to dissuade as many people as I can from publishing their research in closed-access journals.

<comment><USER17> > Most scientific research done in the United States is publicly funded and > therefore should be publicly available at no cost to the public. Less cost > might sound like a good idea on paper, but no cost is fair

It costs JSTOR money to get permission to use the material from the publishers. It costs JSTOR money to digitize print journals. How would you suggest that JSTOR get the money for that?

Because of JSTOR, public libraries, community colleges, non-profit research institutions, and many universities outside of the top tier research universities can get organization wide access to large collections of journals for orders of magnitude less than it would cost them without JSTOR, and they can let the general public use their access for free.

Individuals can buy JSTOR subscriptions covering thousands of journals for less than it would cost to subscribe to one individual journal directly.

Yes, that's not as good as no cost, but it is a tremendous improvement over what the world would be like without JSTOR, and that's a good thing.

<comment><USER4> > Yes, that's not as good as no cost, but it is a tremendous improvement over > what the world would be like without JSTOR, and that's a good thing.

I agree, but that's not really my concern.

> How would you suggest that JSTOR get the money for that?

I don't suggest they get the money for that. I'm more of a "let's topple the giants" sort of guy.

JSTOR's survival/profitability is not my concern. The free diffusion of publicly funded research is. And, frankly, I don't care if that makes me a bad person.

I feel the same way about the for-profit closed-door academic research publishing model as I do about the fossil fuel industry. :)

> It costs JSTOR money to get permission to use the material from the > publishers. It costs JSTOR money to digitize print journals.

JSTOR can keep doing what they're doing. I have no problem with their existence. I just want to stop people from publishing exclusively in journals that can only be made available to the public for a cost.

Then eventually we won't need JSTOR anymore.

> Because of JSTOR, public libraries, community colleges, non-profit research > institutions, and many universities outside of the top tier research > universities can get organization wide access to large collections of > journals for orders of magnitude less than it would cost them without JSTOR, > and they can let the general public use their access for free.

But it's still a cost that can be avoided by scientists boycotting the publications that JSTOR has to spend money to obtain permission from and digitize.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Stop paying taxes, stop voting. Stop enabling the government altogether. If they refuse to accept that the people own the government, and not the other way around, then there is no reason to recognize its supposed authority. Live a moral and ethical life, but live as though the government does not exist. It will never willingly relinquish its power. You cannot change the system from the inside out. Every politician is a liar. All of this needs to be acknowledged. Rallies and demonstrations and petitions are entirely useless and wasted efforts.

<comment><USER19> >Stop voting.

Being "apolitical" actually turns out to be a pretty naïve stance on politics. There's a great David Foster Wallace quote about "protest by non- participation" like this:

"If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote."

DFW wrote that 15 years ago at this point. Non-voting isn't some radical new way of showing your disapproval in politics. The fact that you're not voting means they don't have to give a shit about what you think.

<comment><USER20> If you attend a protest you probably have 100x as much impact on the political system as somebody who votes.

If you strike you probably have 200x as much impact on the political system as somebody who votes.

If you are ready and willing be tear gassed, arrested or beaten up for your beliefs you can help shape politics in a way no voter ever has or will.

Non voting isn't some radical new way of showing your disapproval in politics. It doesn't show that they don't have to give a shit about what you think. It's just tacit recognition of the truth. Individual votes are close to insignificant. Real politics happens elsewhere.

<comment><USER19> I agree but the idea of "voting" here can be extrapolated into striking, attending protests, etc. as it's really a stand-in for the idea of "making your voice heard", as opposed to "completely opting out of the political process and telling yourself that doing so is making your voice heard".

<comment><USER20> >the idea of "voting" here can be extrapolated into striking

I don't think that's true in the slightest.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Critical Thinking: Why Is It So Hard to Teach? [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/summer2007/Crit_Thinking.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comments posted so far. I was reminded to post this in-depth article today after seeing a comment by btilly about how difficult it is to develop critical thinking skills without specific domain knowledge. That is, in fact, just about impossible. People who have strong analytical ability in one domain often totally muff up in thinking about domains with which they are less familiar. (This is why I dare not give advice about the details of programming here on Hacker News, whatever I think about my ability to analyze other kinds of problems.) I think this is important for all of us to keep in mind as we discuss big, important issues here on Hacker News--sometimes the programmers and entrepreneurs who appear to make up the majority of participants here may have wicked good critical thinking about the problems in their domains, but still have more to learn about law, linguistics, medicine, etc. to correctly analyze problems in those other disciplines. One of the strengths of the submitted article is that it reminds readers who read it from beginning to end to engage in critical thinking about how often they actually think critically.

<comment><USER2> Just last week I caught a hint of this cross-domain problem at a Healthcare 2.0 meetup:

<http://www.meetup.com/Health20Houston/events/102124262/>

On the panel was Dr. Kim Dunn, and this was the first time I'd heard her speak. Dr. Dunn is apparently a central node in the Texas Medical Center, as most of the other panel members had either studied under her or collaborated with her. She had a number of quotable quotes that I scribbled down, but the relevant one here is when she was a frustrated medical student complaining to her adviser that there was no system to all that she was learning. His reply: "You think there is no healthcare system? Just you go try to change it!" The technology of healthcare is one thing; understanding the politics and power structure is quite another.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Critical thinking is easily taught, but people who aren't thinking critically can not teach it.

"Critical Thinking" is infectious. It shows through in jokes that you can't help but emulate, in pranks that exploit foolish assumptions. Critical thinking is inherently one of the most _interesting_ things you can do, and there is nothing your brain would like to do more.

So why don't people think critically? Because, like Lesterbuck mentions, they're bribed not to. It requires giving up things that keep you comfortable. It requires disrupting cultural or group assumption, an inherently alienating behavior. You can probably train yourself to notice when people are thinking critically because it offends you for a reason you can't quite name.

<comment><USER4> You imply that something inherent or "natural" about the human brain gives it an affinity for critical thinking. Is there evidence to back that up? It certainly does not seem to be the "natural" state of human thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Upton Sinclair's classic quote gets to the source of resistance to critical thinking:

I used to say to our audiences: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

And often the costs are far beyond financial, including ostracism, shunning and shaming. Critical thinking, as a mass movement, is about the most dangerous idea there is to any existing power structure.

<comment><USER5> I've heard Hilde Domin say something similar in an interview I listened to yesterday, paraphrased: "When you're young, you can still act on your insights [in this case, leaving Germany because of the rise of Hitler], but older people have more relations/commitments; and in fact many people don't even _want_ insights, that's sadly true."

It came to mind because people can be very defensive and petty even when no salary and no danger is involved... just because we believed X for Y number of years and somehow identified with it. So in that sense critical thought is like democracy, we mostly pay lip service to it, while trying our best to restrict it where it is inconvenient for us personally (or our masters, depending on how much we internalized that).

<comment><USER6> That reminds me of an interview with John Cleese where he said something along the lines of "I don't laugh as much as I used to. As I get older, I find that I'm coming across fewer and fewer novel jokes, novelty (to the listener) being a critical part of making things funny."

Getting old means you've seen lots of things. If all those things have created a consistent mental model, it's much easier to ignore the one, new outlier that contradicts the rest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Virtually everyone would agree that a primary, yet insufficiently met, goal of schooling is to enable students to think critically."

Well that is a questionable presupposition.

Government schooling is about teaching group think. It is about creating citizens that don't question what they're taught. Government school is about teaching kids to think emotionally.

Teaching students to think critically might be what schools did 100 years ago. But government schools stopped that a long time ago.

<comment><USER8> "Government school" is a wonderful example of how snappy terminology short circuits critical thinking. It may be rewarding on some level to assume that every school operated by the government is part of a monolithic agenda to turn the nation's youth into unquestioning robots to staff our various production lines. That is simply not true.

<comment><USER9> _That is simply not true._

Please elaborate.

<comment><USER8> I suppose the most compelling reason to disbelieve the sheeple agenda theory is Occam's Razor. Do not attribute malice where incompetence is an adequate explanation. If our high schoolers are generally lacking in critical thinking skills, is it necessarily because millions of bureaucrats occupying several layers of hierarchy are all in lockstep in actively, intentionally making it so? Or is it possible--and more likely--that critical thinking is difficult to do in the first place, and even harder to teach, and anyone who is any good at it in the first place is far more likely to be employable in a setting that is favorable to that of the public schools?

I'm not slagging on public schools and teachers! Well, OK, yeah, I suppose I am, at least a little. I know a fair number of teachers. Some of them really like working with kids at that developmental stage, and some of them are really good at motivating their students to achieve. Others don't like the kids, and have become very good at identifying the minimum amount of effort they need to put forth to stay employed. Kind of like almost any other random cluster of professionals.

<comment><USER9> Who are these teachers training their students for? I prefer looking at numbers, and the numbers don't look too fair for employees:

<http://occupygeorge.com/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> T-A Because the darn students keep questioning everything you say? :P

(Oh come on, you know _somebody_ had to say it.)

<comment><USER5> You have a point.. unlimited critical thought very quickly leads to fenced off areas; yet limited critical thought cannot really prosper, and it's really hard to do something within a bigger framework of achieving the opposite; so before wondering about teaching critical thought, maybe look at all the factors arrayed at destroying it, not few of them found in schools.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting. So the idea is that critical thinking boils down to a combination of domain knowledge and specific metacognitive strategies, and so critical thinking isn't actually a skill.

I sense that "critical thinking" has become somewhat of a blanket term. When business leaders and others call for better teaching of "critical thinking", what exactly do they mean? What exactly are they looking for?

One answer could be that they expect the person to have knowledge/skill in the specific area a person is hired in. Although this would be great, I somewhat doubt this is it. Often it is expected that new graduates don't know much about the area they have been studying (from a professional sense).

It could be thought that they're asking the impossible -- domain knowledge is necessary for critical thinking, but they don't care about the domain knowledge as much as the critical thinking. Since they can't be separated, the problem is rather that students just need to be taught more domain knowledge, or leaders need to change their expectations.

Or, the education system has a poor understanding of the difference between critical thinking, domain knowledge, and metacognitive strategies. For one, personally I've never seen focus placed on metacognitive strategies, and not even a list of strategies that apply to any given discipline.

I would think that one component of the expectation from business leaders is the ability to learn and adapt. The issue here is: That it's OK that the person doesn't have domain knowledge, but rather the issue is that they struggle to learn what they need, and lack the self-awareness and understanding to best know what to focus on going forward and how. In school we are always given the information we need to learn, and in my experience, rarely are we given a blank slate and asked to learn everything we need, in any domain/discipline necessary, to accomplish the job.

Tokenadult -- have you read Willingham's book on this topic (When Can You Trust the Experts?) and would recommend it? I read his previous book (Why Don't Students Like School?) and found it fairly interesting, though there are elements I find misleading.

<comment><AUTHOR> To answer your question, I have not yet read any of Willingham's books cover to cover, but as I read more of Willingham's articles, I increasingly think I should read everything that he writes. And then I should look up many of the references he cites. Right now, Daniel Willingham is doing an excellent job of filtering the research on human learning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A course in programming would be a great way to teach critical thinking, especially if you spend several weeks specifically working on debugging skills.

<comment><USER12> Critical thinking is not necessarily analytical thinking.

One can be deeply analytical and yet not really critical. For example, some people that know all details of a religious text and can argue its points very well, while not paying attention to its limitations/inconsistencies or influences.

Not trying to bash religious people, just giving a common example.

<comment><USER13> Debugging _requires_ critical thinking, as does programming in general; it's not just analytical. A course in programming would do everyone's mind some good just as reading does; it changes how you think.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Discussion of a meta-analysis of studies about teaching critical thinking: [http://lesswrong.com/lw/dhe/to_learn_critical_thinking_study...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/dhe/to_learn_critical_thinking_study_critical_thinking/) (argument mapping wins).

</comment><comment><USER11> The high school band problem experiment is an instance of Chinese Remainder Theorem [1].

I didn't actually read the cited study, but from the summary given in this article, I thought that experiment was poorly conducted.

The subjects weren't encouraged to engage with the material on all levels. The instructions might lead many subjects to focus on grammar and style rather than mathematical content. I would have told the subjects that one of the four example problems has a numerical error and they have a half hour or so to find it and write a paragraph explaining the issue, when in reality none of the example problems had an error.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_remainder_theorem>

</comment><comment><USER15> Teaching critical thinking is not as difficult as recognizing it. Epistemological lock, as is prevalent in today's climate, makes it all too easy to dismiss divergent opinions, particularly popular ones, as not arising from critical thought. Even more insidious, however, is how easy it becomes to preemptively accept desirable or convergent opinions as clearly critically reasoned even when they are not.

</comment><comment><USER9> The title of this post may be part of the problem.

<http://youtu.be/DsKl-ZZtEvM>

</comment><comment><USER16> Critical thinking is hard to teach, because people have it beaten out of them. Where I came from, raised in a church during the formative years of my mind, I was trained that Critical thinking, Scepticism, using logic and thinking very deep into things were considered sin and to be reprimanded.

So the question becomes, why is it so hard to undo the damage that Religious powers in this country have worked hard to achieve: transmogifying segments of the populations into rule-obeying sheep that follow commands from others, without considering that the right/wrongness of an action is based on what God says, rather than an analysis of the thing itself.</comment>


Ask HN: What is Not a startup? - <AUTHOR>

Is a game development shop a startup? Is a pillow store a startup? are web development firms startups too? It seems everyone is labeling themselves as one. What types of companies should or shouldn't be called a startup? <comment><USER2> A startup is a business designed to scale dramatically. That excludes most individual retail stores and service businesses.

</comment><comment><USER3> At startup has these characteristics (only):

1\. Is a business that makes money. 2\. See point 1. above

Everything else is considered either art (as in artist) or hobby.

Examples of non-startups:

1\. A iPhone developer with 1 app, no revenue 2\. A web development shop with no customers - or no significant growth potential (that's a hobby). Especially if you work for someone else. 3\. You make no money - this is a "non-profit organization" or "charity" - or a "research institute". You often have to do other jobs on the side to eat, live.

Example of a startup:

37 signals build software for internal purposes (eg: Basecamp). This would initially lead you to believe this is a not a startup, but then the started charging for it on a mass level, providing good for other people, etc. This is a startup. Once you mature the revenue, you are no longer a startup.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean by a "business that makes money"? A lot of startups operate at a loss for their first year or two. I think more often than not, instead of a _young_ startup having positive net income, they either have (a) some kind of funding, seed, angel, or VC, or (b) they have some great revenue generation opportunities they can take advantage of (which would also up their valuation).

<comment><USER3> Correct - losses during the startup period are good so as long as the revenue potential down the line is there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think a "startup" is an _innovative_ company that has existed for a short period of time. If it's software, it's probably still in beta. A startup is probably in early research and development stages. A startup is probably looking for some outside funding and the founders have some exit strategy in mind (Acquisition or IPO).

A pillow store is none of the above things so it's most probably not considered a startup. A game development shop can be a startup if it meets some or all of these things. Web development firms can be startups when they make web applications for the public or businesses to use (like 37signals).

Just my 2 cents.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My definition of a startup is a company that exist in a new and fairly volatile vertical. Startups are primarily defined by an innovative product, service or business model with an emphasis on scalability.

</comment><comment><USER5> A start-up is any business that some douche-bag VC doesn't call a "lifestyle business".</comment>


The IT Workout (comedy) - <AUTHOR>

I'm Harry and I've been in IT for over 30 years! This video is hilarious.<p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ry6W9ZfN444 <comment><USER2> I've got a Commodore SX64 I lift a few times now and again for exercise.</comment>


TreeRover: Tree-planting robot project - <AUTHOR> http://iotaenterprises.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Typical replanting sites are very rough indeed! This initial prototype will require a well groomed site. The goal of this first stage of development is to demonstrate the concept of a tree planting robot. A successful crowd-funded tree planting campaign, in which backers can have a tree planted for them and later receive a video clip of their seedling being planted, will allow for the development of a much more capable TreeRover! Thank you all for your interest and support!

</comment><comment><USER2> Typical tree planting terrain is one of the least robotics-friendly environments imaginable. Logs, brush, loose sticks and rocks, swamp, sand, hills, you name it.

Here's a photo of a planting site I took during one of my planting contracts a few years back: [http://i.imgur.com/tITCW03.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/tITCW03.jpg)

It is often possible for logging companies to prepare the land better (clearing out slash, sometimes scarifying the land), but the expense here is really substantial. Currently the most effective technological tree planting solution is aerial seeding.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well I'm definitely interested in this thing. The website should probably have more information about the robot though, and the problem it's intended to solve. Like, is this robot intended to replace humans planting trees? Is the intention to make it autonomous? If not, is there an efficiency increase as opposed to using a human?

<comment><USER4> Google "tree planting campaigns".

Also, [http://iotaenterprises.com/the-vision/](http://iotaenterprises.com/the- vision/)

> Like, is this robot intended to replace humans planting trees?

If it can do the job as well as a human? Probably. It doesn't need to be as fast.

> Is the intention to make it autonomous?

I would assume so based on it being robotic.

> If not, is there an efficiency increase as opposed to using a human?

Humans are expensive, even if you're not paying them (food, sleep, etc). Robotics aren't over the long term once you've amortized their construction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5>
      This project immediately reminded me of the 1972 movie "Silent Running," which featured a couple of robots that tended plants on a greenhouse in space.
      Kind of a sad movie, now that I think of it.  Hopefully this project achieves a happier ending...  ;-)</comment>


Ask HN: What do you think about internet.org – free basic internet by Facebook? - <AUTHOR> Is it really internet or intranet?
If Mark really wants to connect world via free internet why he cant give restriction free internet with limit of some Mbs instead of such walled garden?
Collaboration with internet.org today seems free, can they charge website owners once they gain monopoly? <comment><USER2> This sums it up pretty well: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_in_sheep%27s_clothing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_in_sheep%27s_clothing)

</comment><comment><USER3> "If Mark really wants to connect world via free internet why he cant give restriction free internet with limit of some Mbs instead of such walled garden?"

"Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong." \- Ayn Rand

</comment><comment><USER4> The fundamental question is this: "Is some internet better than no internet in places where internet is very very hard to get for a lot of people? (Whether due to poverty or lack of infrastructure)"

There are arguments to be made for both sides, but if you're looking at the immediate term, then I'm of the opinion that some internet access is indeed better than no internet access at all.

<comment><USER5> I think the point is also, some internet could be consider enough and then they'll never get real internet ever.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Facebook thinks Digital India Campaign means Internet.org - [https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/3mo5m5/internetorgpr...](https://www.reddit.com/r/india/comments/3mo5m5/internetorgprofilepicture_this_is_what_shows_up/)

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been getting so sick of the facade that Zuck has.</comment>


How I Got The Attention of One of the Top SEO Bloggers With Diet Coke - <AUTHOR> http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-i-got-the-attention-of-one-of-the-top-seo-bloggers-with-diet-coke

<comment><USER2> Interesting take Andrew. It's true there's a lot of clever ways that SEO's promote themselves. If you're looking for a comprehensive SEO training class in the San Francisco Bay Area, check out <http://www.clickminded.com> for less "fakeness is how you win at the internets" tactics like the one you described here :)

</comment><comment><USER3> or "how i tried to look like a nice person to promote myself, and now i am going to tell you about how i promoted myself to promote myself".

because faking it, explaining what a fake you are, boosting other fakers, and explaining and encouraging more fakeness is how you win at the internets. it's awesome.</comment>


A new form of ticketing? - <AUTHOR> I've developed a new form of online ticketing. A ticket which can't be copied, transferred or replicated without the approval of the organizer himself. I've built the product, how do I push it into the market now?<p>Most small events, don't care whether their tickets are replicated or not. Big bands and huge events have that problem. How do I get to those big players? By approaching them directly or by starting from below? I'm just a one-man team at the moment. <comment><USER2> Arjun shoot me an email, it's in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Done!</comment></comment>


Altman's rude awakening on clinical trials sparks an effort to make them faster - <AUTHOR> https://www.statnews.com/2020/06/16/tech-investor-covid-trials/ <comment><USER2> TL;DR another tech person discovers just how inefficient clinical trials are, uses tech to try to improve patient recruitment for clinical trials (often, trials can't recruit enough patients to have statistical power).</comment>