The Uncharity of College: The Big Business Nobody Understands - <AUTHOR> https://www.conradbastable.com/essays/the-uncharity-of-college-the-big-business-nobody-understands <comment><USER2> This article is interesting, but it makes the fundamental error of assuming that the primary product of an R1 research university is education for undergraduates, which it is not. The primary product of an R1 research university is research, largely performed by Graduate Students, Postdoctoral Researchers and Professional Researchers. All of these are paid a salary of some form, some market-rate, others less-so. That's where the cost is, along with actual costs of instruments, libraries, consumables and buildings necessary for cutting edge research. Most of the funding for that comes from research grants and you can see how it represents a huge fraction of the budget in his charts. Unfortunately, all of the expenditure data that the Education department puts out combines both R1 and non-R1 institutions, so it's hard to see just how different the top 120 schools are from most of the rest. If you have expenditure data segmented by research intensity, I would love to see it.

The undergraduate education is part of the university, but not the primary part. (At UChicago, grad students still outnumber undergrads!) If you want to see what the finances of an institution that primarily educates undergraduates looks like, go to one of the Liberal Arts colleges, or non R-1 state schools, like any of the Cal States in California, or non-flagship schools in other states.

<comment><USER3> _> go to one of the Liberal Arts colleges, or non R-1 state schools, like any of the Cal States in California, or non-flagship schools in other states._

...and look at the instructor's salaries. PhD's from top universities who could easily make 300k+ in the private sector but instead take positions that pay 60k-70k. Even with tenure, that's a labor of love.

Blaming highly paid admins would be great, except that university presidents at teaching colleges are the highest paid (reminder: branch campuses and liberal arts colleges never have Div 1 sports programs) and _still_ make $50k-100K less than a green phd out of a top 10 CS program (200k is good money for a president of a branch campus or liberal arts college -- and remember, that's typically a person with 30+ years experience and a uniquely positive track record).

I worry about what will happen to the American teaching college (public or private) over the next 50 years if the current war on college -- which this article typifies -- wins out in the public mind.

If you doubt a single word of this feel free to reply to this comment. I'm extremely familiar with both markets. When I say that (even tenure-track) CS teaching requires a 200k paycut, I really do know what I'm taking about.

<comment><USER4> > _Blaming highly paid admins would be great, except that university > presidents..._

When people talk about the cost of university administration, they're not always talking about the cost of the most highly-paid, but rather the aggregate cost:

"Since 1980, the number of administrators per student at colleges has about doubled; on most campuses their numbers now match the number of faculty," the study reads. "Here are some of their titles: senior specialist of assessment; director for learning communities; assistant dean of students for substance education; director of knowledge access services."

from [http://mediahub.unc.edu/administrator-salaries-drive-cost- pu...](http://mediahub.unc.edu/administrator-salaries-drive-cost-public- university-tuition/)

<comment><USER5> > Since 1980, the number of administrators per student at colleges has about > doubled

I don't doubt that's true; I see it at my college. But I also see at my college that the percentage of students who need extensive administrative attention has shot up in the past ten years. (I teach at a SLAC, so if I have a concern about a student then I call an appropriate administrator and they genuinely try to see if the student is OK. For instance, not too long ago I called about a student and it turned out to be a suicide risk and my call and others prompted an intervention, and the student is OK. I don't know how many hours of administrator attention was clocked on this one person but I expect it was a lot.)

<comment><USER6> It's good that the student got help, but these students are adults, aren't they? Why can't they use the same resources as everyone else?

<comment> 52-6F-62 I probably come from a very certain camp on these kinds of issues, but...

Most students are hardly adults. They look it, but they are not necessarily yet fully equipped to manage themselves.

And what if the people the same age who didn't attend college— well, I would push for more and improved social programs to help them. Of course then you could reduce the staff at the colleges.

I'm all for being proactive about rising needs like social and mental health issues, but I also think a reactive response needs to take place in the interim.

The approach of "here's a helpline phone number, now deal with it" hasn't proven effective so far so why lean into it?

<comment><USER7> Because raising the cost of uni for everyone including poor folks to provide a bundled service they don't need is not fair to them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow this essay is fantastic. The idea that the amount of people who "need" financial aid has stayed constant while tuition prices have increased 170% (way outpacing wage growth) is unreal.

Conrad if you wrote a book about this I would buy it. Super fascinating stuff. Colleges are clearly massive financial instruments that need to be analyzed further.

<comment><USER9> I doubt analyzing university would do much since its already a common knowledge at this point still nothing is happening. Government and legal institutions are ineffective in solving problem where solution results in loss in profit.

Building alternatives to universities that are driven by grass-roots movements are the perfect way forward here. Home schooling, MOOCs and startup businesses are some of the developments that have started diminishing the need of expensive degrees.

<comment><USER10> What I think will be interesting in the next few decades is if universities will maintain their monopoly on accreditation or if they will lose that like they did on their monopoly of education.

As long as there's a need for degrees as a signal for baseline competence/barrier to entry, it seems those needing it will be at the mercy of the systems that provide it.

<comment><USER11> > a need for degrees as a signal for baseline competence/barrier to entry

The signal is valuable. The unnatural barrier to entry is, at best, unethical.

Ideally, the barrier to the opportunity to earn the credential would not exist. It should be available to everyone worldwide.

Individual research positions should be applied for. Certain practical skills must be taught in labs, etc. But the vast majority of intellectual effort in a Harvard degree should already have all its coursework and testing available to everyone, and at reasonable cost. Otherwise it is not an open competition, it is an institution promoting socioeconomi status.

<comment><USER10> I think that's part of the issue as it relates to the article. If that accreditation becomes available to anyone, it loses its elitism and erodes some of the value signal.

That may or may not be why some of the elite schools open up their courses but not their accreditation online. It may not be in the institutions best interest to be as open as the ideal you describe.

<comment><USER11> Yes, and especially as charities that are effectively subsidized by Joe Everyperson taxpayer, they should not be left off the hook.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The underlying assertion is that universities must provide financial assistance to the majority of their students to be considered tax exempt. No citation is provided.

26 USC 501(c)(3) explicitly lists an organization operated exclusively for educational purposes as being tax exempt. Charitable organization is listed as a separate type.

Also worth considering is the example of Cooper Union: It charged no tuition and therefore offered no financial aid for most of its history. While one could argue that that is a form of aid so too would any other tuition reduction enabled by an endowment. This further suggests that universities do not set tuition in order to maintain tax exempt status.

<comment><USER13> They author has commented below, which I needed to read a few times to understand his justification.

He's not really saying that there is some "50%" magic number in tax law. What he is saying is that, imagine a situation where the price of admission was much more reasonable (i.e. hadn't gone up 300+% in the last generation) so that only, say, 10% of students needed aid. This means 90% of students would be paying full price. Well, if 90% are paying full price, he imagines the political pressure would come to say "Why the fuck are these absolutely gigantic, small country-sized endowments able to earn all this profit, and compound it, _tax-free_ , and still 90% of students are paying full price!"

Thus, he argues that the large universities play this fuzzy-math shell game to consistently jack up the price of tuition so that the majority of students require aid. That way they can argue their endowment profits should remain tax-free because they are going to subsidize the students' education.

That's just my summary, but all-in-all I think the whole essay is powerfully argued. In my mind (and I say this as an Ivy league grad) I agree that getting an Ivy league degree 25 years ago is basically like buying real estate in SF 25 years ago. The overall supply has remained artificially constrained which has made prices go through the roof, with the social signalling and economic benefits accruing to those who graduated when admission rates were higher and tuition was lower.

<comment><USER12> I agree wholeheartedly with the larger point that we have a higher education bubble.

I'm skeptical both that: Lower tuition would make taxing endowments more likely and that universities believe that that's the case.

In a world with lower tuition, endowments grow somewhat more slowly and are easier to justify because they are the thing that enables low tuition.

For a more direct set of examples of how much inertia we have, consider the way wealthy individuals use foundations to avoid taxes. I haven't heard people crying out to tax the Gates Foundation despite its endowment growing over time because it can't keep up with its contributions. Nor is there a massive uproar about donor advised funds which (particularly in CA) can be 80%+ taxpayer funded while effectively lacking minimum disbursement requirements as part of a larger organization.

<comment><USER14> > I'm skeptical both that: Lower tuition would make taxing endowments more > likely

Yes, if the tuition were reduced by increased endowment subsidy, the political cover for the endowment would not be much affected.

But that strategy would limit the value of that cover (for the university staff) by 1) ultimately limiting the size of the "politically justified" endowment and 2) limiting the overall resources they control.

Re: 1), if the university contains cost inflation below endowment retained returns, the endowment eventually grows to fund 100% of tuition. At that point, the question "why do they need more?" becomes obvious and unanswerable.

Re: 2), note that the article implies an "agency" effect with university personnel, in that they benefit by their control of the institution's resources. In companies, such effects are seen in executives taking higher than market salaries and excess perks. All that diverts income from equity owners to managers. In a university these might be above-market salaries, research budgets, job security, prestige, trips, subsidized housing, etc etc etc -- diversions of endowment returns from "teaching" to the staff.

The agency model argues that university staff benefit from _growing_ costs, which give them more resources to control. The story that education costs rise faster than inflation and middle class incomes removes the limit on the size of the cost base / resources controlled. It also "politically justifies" an ever-growing endowment.

Thus lowering tuition simply by paying ever increasing portions of tuition does not serve the university staff. The point of the article, I believe, is that those staff have an ongoing interest in _increasing_ the costs to be subsidized by the tax-free growth of their endowments.

(It is also worth noting that such arguments justify more than protection of endowment returns: state funding for public schools, federal "overhead" payments for research grants, etc. We might even wonder if the endowed universities play a "cost-setting" role for higher education generally. They operate at ever-higher cost, sustained internally by the endowment returns; those costs then help justify the budgets of unendowed schools. "Hey, if you want the kids of Michigan to have a first-rate education, this is what it costs, just look at Harvard." If so, and MIT, Harvard et al began controlling costs, those controls would then ripple over time throughout the whole system through those benchmarking effects. Thus even unendowed schools would have long-term political interest in protecting those endowment returns.)

Note that we don't have to fully believe the whole story to learn from it. The "market" for higher education market is clearly pretty weird, and explaining that will require so pretty involved stories.

<comment><AUTHOR> "...the endowment eventually grows to fund 100% of tuition. At that point, the question "why do they need more?" becomes obvious and unanswerable."

This is a very good articulation of my points, thanks for laying it out so crisply. Worth noting that this is already a reality at a select few places. While there is continual agitating in America for our Gov. to provide free college, it turns out that some elite private institutions are already in a position to do so, or will be in the next decade. Food for thought, including the follow-on social implications of the headline: "Tuition Now Free At Harvard! Still $50,000/year At Your Local State University Though"

Regarding agency effects / moral hazard:

Someone asked me on another forum what predictions, if any, I would be willing to make in defense of this article.

I tried to rattle off a few off the top of my head with low conviction. One that I comes back to me still is:

"Professor Salaries will have an increasing Gini coefficient vs. today (i.e. profs at Harvard make a higher multiple of Profs at State Colleges 25 years from now)"

Given that the Top institutions will be competing for talent with Compound Returns while everyone else must compete with Tuition increases, I think this would be interesting to study & observe. I have zero data on this unfortunately, so it's just an unsupported hypothesis for now...

<comment><USER14> Thank you for an interesting article.

> Professor Salaries will have an increasing Gini coefficient

I think your own model says this is too noticeable. Better strategy would be harder-to-notice changes, like smaller teaching loads, more sabbaticals, earlier retirement, travel abroad to conferences, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Does the fact that universities own insane amount of land and have all sorts of diversified investments to be funded have any bearing on this discussion?

I think right after the Catholic Church, universities and colleges collectively hold the massively large tracts of land as investments/REITs and as physical asset.

Some of them..like the 2 year community college in my town in Bay Area, CA...are selling it to real estate developers. Federal and bond money ...public money meant for education is going to a speculative activity like real estate

I'd wager that most of American education is funded by speculation. Ivy leagues have land in South America and invests outside the country. Even public schools are funded by property taxes(at least in California..)...which to me is a speculation. Considering the insane house prices in California, our burgeoning population and prop 13. Throw in unionized teaching staff, it's no wonder that most of the best and brightest minds come from outside the country. We attract immigrants because they really can fill a gaping vacuum in the labour and skills market. And they can work for less aka demand less because they don't have the burden of student loans.

I am not sure if any of the above is relevant but those were my first thoughts after reading the article.

<comment><USER16> >And they can work for less aka demand less because they don't have the burden of student loans.

Depending on their country of origin, they also are comfortable with lower standards of living. Which puts negative pressure on wages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does anybody know what are the major running costs involved in a university? What I found disturbing in the (public midwestern) university where I studied are the luxurious sports complexes that kept popping up, whereas many classrooms were poorly heated and ventilated. As far as the staff is concerned, I hear that teaching and tenured positions are being reduced in favour of increasing administrative staff and corporate-style bosses. The peripheral processes seem to be eating up the core, much like one of those parasites which thrive as outer shells long after their host trees are gone.

<comment><USER18> the ratio is shifting dramatically toward admin side

<comment><USER2> Do you have a citation for this? The data I have shows that on a real basis, expenditures at state schools for administrative services are largely flat: [https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_334.10.a...](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_334.10.asp)

<comment><USER18> [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/21/univer...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/21/universities- broke-cut-pointless-admin-teaching)

I think looking at top level figures could be problematic because we don't really know how classification was done.

<comment><USER2> Intetresting. That's UK, which is a totally different system, but still neat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Fascinating article. A question I ponder is: given that, as I believe is true, the student loan bubble is going to burst in a messy way sometime in the next few years, what happens to the college industry at that point? The last time it happened they made it illegal to discharge student loan debt in bankruptcy, but the rates of people unable to make payments is going up again, and at some point it will cause a financial problem, I would think. Does any of this calculus change if the student loan industry goes bust?

<comment><USER20> What makes you think it's a bubble? Just because something is unpleasant, or even outright evil doesn't make it a bubble.

Perhaps at some point an equilibrium is reached where these institutions extract exactly as much as the degree is worth, minus the little bit left that will incentivize people to take the deal. After all, the 'value' of these degrees has only gone up. Overproduced malthusian elitehood[0] has to be better than starving with the unnecessariat[1], maybe[2].

We are after all already at the near-apocalyptic scenario. Economically disenfranchised liberal arts graduates are roaming the earth and using the only skills they have to extract resources from the environment. In practice this amounts to a sort of _Trust Me I 'm Lying_ dystopia of manufacturing outrage with one hand and selling solutions on the other.

For calibration, many students in the UK have turned to literal prostitution[3].

[0]: [https://nationalpost.com/news/world/jonathan-kay-on-the- tyra...](https://nationalpost.com/news/world/jonathan-kay-on-the-tyranny-of- twitter-how-mob-censure-is-changing-the-intellectual-landscape)

[1]: [https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/](https://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/)

[2]: [https://berthamasonsattic.wordpress.com/2018/10/12/i-applied...](https://berthamasonsattic.wordpress.com/2018/10/12/i-applied- to-200-jobs-and-all-i-got-was-this-moderate-severe-depression/?src=longreads)

[3]: [https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education- news/...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education- news/students-sex-work-prostitution-webcam-university-tuition-fees- education-a8614186.html)

<comment><USER21> Anything that grows exponentially is a bubble.

The only question is when it stops growing because it has run out of space.

A simple example is that if Caesar had invested one gram of gold after the conquest of Gaul at 3% compound interest today it would be worth 2.64e24 dollars. Or a trillion times larger than the world economy today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> So if I'm a Georgia resident (which I am). Why would I pay the exorbitant tuition of MIT when I could pay 1/5 as much to go to the Georgia Tech and have basically the same average outcome?

In fact, I could pay even less and do the 2+3 program and go to an even cheaper school for the first two years and stay at home?

[https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/student- loans/highest-...](https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/student- loans/highest-salaries-engineering-computer-science/)

On the other hand, I graduated from a no name state school in the mid 90s and within three years I was sitting by people who went to "prestigious" schools making just as much as they were making with no student loan debt. My entire four year tuition was less than they spent in one year.

<comment><USER23> Your example is a one-person example. MIT grads on average earn $223k 10 years after graduation (1) while Georgia Tech grads earn $115k (2).

(1) - [https://www.paysa.com/blog/harvard-vs-mit-which-tech- grads-m...](https://www.paysa.com/blog/harvard-vs-mit-which-tech-grads-make- the-most/) (2) - [https://www.ajc.com/news/education/this-how-much-alumni- geor...](https://www.ajc.com/news/education/this-how-much-alumni-georgia- colleges-make-average/J3PyBV2E2S0i4I6vm9ouXP/)

<comment><USER22> My example included a citation for graduating seniors starting salaries.

[https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/student- loans/highest-...](https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/loans/student- loans/highest-salaries-engineering-computer-science/)

Not that I'm disputing the 10 year salaries.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Another long read -- apologies!

The TL;DR of this essay might perhaps be:

\- College degrees are more valuable than ever in post-industrial economies, so applicants to top-tier schools are up 240% over the last 25 years

\- Meanwhile, available spots at top-tier colleges in America have increased just 2% over the last 25 years (Thanks to Tyler Cowen & others for complaining about this publicly)

\- Microeconomics 101: Fixed Supply + Increased Demand = Increased Price

\- That's the obvious part

\- The non-obvious part is that this is intentional...

\- ...because the Charity-status ( 501(c)(3) ) of Colleges in America depends on more-than-half of their students being unable to afford the education (read: "receiving financial aid")

\- That Charity-status protects the Investment Returns of College Endowments from Uncle Sam & the IRS

\- Investment Returns Compound over time, and there is no more powerful force on Earth — anyone not playing the game to maximize Compound-returns will lose to everyone who is

\- Thus: if Colleges want to keep their Investment Returns tax-free, Tuition MUST remain unaffordable for at least 50% of undergrads

<comment><USER24> A minor quibble: The ratio of admissions to applicants is kind of a funny number. Applications could be driven by an external factor such as online application systems and word processing making it easier to apply.

<comment><USER17> Foreigner here ... can confirm this. The application process to US universities has gotten much better compared to 20 years ago. Back in the day, we needed to pay application fees+international postage. Now, the second part has gone away. The first part, surprisingly, has not gone up by much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have not yet read through all of this 2013 IRS Official "College and Universities Compliance Project - Final Report". However, nothing so far talks about tuition and 50% attending receiving financial aid. The 50% rule may be based more on 501c(3) spending at least 50% of their income on "their mission".

This seems to be the latest legal reference with regard to colleges and universities retaining 501c(3) status.

> Of total endowment distribution, 56 percent were made for scholarships, > awards, grants and/or loans in the amount of $3 million. 29 percent of total > endowment distributions were made for general university operations in the > amount of $3 million.

Off-topic:

> Half of the systems reported that at least one of its five most highly paid > employees received NCAA income.

[https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs- tege/CUCP_FinalRpt_042513.pdf](https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs- tege/CUCP_FinalRpt_042513.pdf)

<comment><USER3> A crucial distinction: _Of total endowment distribution_ is VERY different from _of total spending_.

Tuition-dependent colleges and universities tend to look very different from their large endowment counterparts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Both MIT and the author are missing the point on tuition — disengenuously in MIT's case. I get the same budge numbers the author does (thanks, development office!), and while tuition is 10% of revenues (down from 14% a couple of decades ago) spending on education is about 12-15%. So your education isn't 50% subsidized.

The best way to think of MIT is not as a school but as a research lab with a small school attached.

</comment><comment><USER27> Why hasn't someone done this yet?

\- You make an organization that just examines people in various subjects.

\- You hire a bunch of professors in each field.

\- You make sure everyone thinks the exam is hard.

\- You make sure the exams are fair. Rent exam halls, get invigilators to pace up and down. Biometric scans. Passports. Etc.

\- You make the syllabus and practice exams freely available.

\- You make a secure website to show everyone who passed.

There must be something similar, somewhere. Perhaps the Chinese civil service exams. Or the CFA exams.

<comment><USER28> 1\. Suppose you're an employer. You see a candidate who did some radical education program you haven't heard of and know nothing about the details of, instead of going to university. Your natural assumption (because it's correct in 95% of similar cases) is that this is someone who wasn't good enough for university.

It's the same for a professor who got involved - everyone else in the field would assume they couldn't get a university position, or really needed the money. For the people who could give credibility to such a venture, there's only downside.

2\. When the exam is cheap and the only source of credit, fraud is a much bigger risk than for normal university exams. Apart from anything else, outright bribery is now a risk at every level in the process, because a good exam result is worth far more in lifetime earnings than you can afford to pay anyone involved.

<comment><USER27> > 1\. Suppose you're an employer. You see a candidate who did some radical > education program you haven't heard of and know nothing about the details > of, instead of going to university. Your natural assumption (because it's > correct in 95% of similar cases) is that this is someone who wasn't good > enough for university.

But you can see the questions yourself. If you did a degree you'd know if it was the sort of level that you'd expect from a university student. If someone can answer university level questions, why do they need to go to university?

As for the profs, you can hire them from the same universities. They're allowed to work on the side.

> 2\. When the exam is cheap and the only source of credit, fraud is a much > bigger risk than for normal university exams. Apart from anything else, > outright bribery is now a risk at every level in the process, because a good > exam result is worth far more in lifetime earnings than you can afford to > pay anyone involved.

Sure, so rent a hall, make people walk through a metal detector, etc. Make sure the papers are seen by several randomized people.

It's a trust building exercise, that's true. But plenty of businesses depend on trust, and it's not like nobody has managed to build trust before.

<comment><USER28> > But you can see the questions yourself.

Sure, but how long are you going to spend reading the syllabus/example questions for some qualification you've never heard of, versus just assuming it's junk like most of the other random qualifications you haven't heard of that people list?

> As for the profs, you can hire them from the same universities. They're > allowed to work on the side.

They can, but people will talk. At professor level the people in the same field know each other and reputation is important, especially for the very top level.

> plenty of businesses depend on trust, and it's not like nobody has managed > to build trust before.

Bootstrapping an alternative trust basis in an area where one already exists is inherently much harder, because everyone assumes (not unreasonably) that you're probably doing it because the existing system doesn't trust you, probably for good reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I worked in the industry selling and designing software for Financial Aid offices. You are simply a SSN to them which equals $##,000 in potential revenue

</comment><comment><USER30> This suggests that the "wealth gap" (Endowment gap) of colleges in the US is increasing, probably at an accelerating rate. This is _probably_ not a good thing.

I wonder how much of a difference the tax-exempt status is a factor in the growth of e.g. MIT's endowment.

Was this tax-exempt status ever in jeopardy? It's unclear from the article whether this status was part of the failed anti-trust suit, but the article does seem to suggest this is the underlying problem.

</comment><comment><USER31> University as a business is not the ideal model for education. It should be publicly owned and funded and all free, like it is in Germany.

<comment><USER32> This is an interesting assertion, because there is certainly pro's and con's.

I am working in Germany now (in a "good" university) and I often visit top tier US universities.

Due having money, US universities at a similar relative rank have vastly bigger faculties, vastly better supply of researchers and usually better admin. And it is not even close. Network effects among researchers are much, much stronger.

Combine this with the fact that the German system has unecessary deficiencies. The appointment system is f'ed beyond repair and it is virtually impossible to offer positions to good prospective researchers. The "Mittlebau" lacks any and all good career track and is made up of disillusioned and hopeless people on 2-year successive contracts (and nowadays, it is missing entirely). And of course, there is no real tenure track, which means a lot of Profs are really bad and would have never gotten tenure in a meriocratic process.

Since we have a couple of privately funded places that do the US system here in Germany, we can see that it just simply works much better.

On the other hand, in terms of long term stability and the average quality of education, I agree that the US system has issues. Relying on inflated undergrad fees, especially from international student, seems dangerous in the long term.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Sounds like an example for [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand)

</comment><comment><USER34> This is a nice essay. I learned some things I didn't know before.

There's a pattern here in public policy-making that needs further attention. We have slogans and phrases that become untouchable. "Clean water" is one. Who isn't for clean water? I've never met anybody who wanted water to be dirty or poisonous. In the states we've had a very powerful movement called "Mothers Against Drunk Driving". Once again, who the hell would be in favor of allowing drunks to drive? These titles are self-evidently good things.

It goes on and on. I'm a fan of learning more about Universal Basic Income. We solve poverty by, well, giving people money. We do it anyway through social programs. Why not give it directly? (I don't know. Let's see what happens in various experiments)

"College" is yet another one of these magic phrases. Who isn't for college? Higher education? I just read another commenter on here that said we should stop this "war on colleges"

That's why I'm commenting.

The pattern is this: there's a phrase or slogan that nobody in their right mind would oppose. Lots of people and emotional energy is put into making sure we have this goodness for everybody. People who provide any sort of feedback at all aside from unanimous support are shunned. And they should be! After all, they're against $GOODNESS_X

Then we start spending money and making public policy around the phrase -- and the results can be quite mixed. Since the phrases themselves mean little, it's all about the tiny details, the implementation. Some groups do this thing very well. Some suck at it. Over time, however, in every one of these situations, architectural cruft accumulates and people figure out how to game the system to make it do things nobody ever intended.

Well then we're kind of stuck, aren't we? You can't provide any feedback aside from full support, otherwise we'll shun you. We established that when we started this movement. Colleges not working at the things the common person thinks they're supposed to be working at? Prices way up, graduates sometimes deep in debt with useless skills, use of the collegiate corporate structure as a proxy for a modern country club? You point that out and you're one of those anti-intellectuals fomenting a war on colleges.

 _The public discussions around dozens of policy initiatives suck_. And they suck because the concepts have been so bowdlerized that we're all forced into false dichotomies. And technology, by continuing to promote the concepts that these huge, intricate, and detailed policy issues can be discussed at in terms of 140-character tweets or something similar? We've got a huge hand in making things as sucky as they have become. We're making a buck off of making people stupider than they would normally be and having them fighting over things they would normally mostly agree about. In my mind this is a terrible thing that my community is mostly responsible for.</comment>


AWS ECR Repositories Have Gone Missing from Web Console - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/devstack/status/742133483229708288 <comment><AUTHOR> ...and now they are back, after I created a new repo and pushed an image to it.

Go figure.</comment>


C++ is not a legacy language anymore - <AUTHOR> http://www.codergears.com/Blog/?p=1594

<comment><USER2> I doubt this will be a surprise to anyone but the latest book by Scott Meyers is truly a pleasure to read and allows you get up to speed with c++11 and c++14. [http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920033707.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920033707.do)</comment>


A Soft Murmur – Ambient sounds to wash away distraction - <AUTHOR> http://asoftmurmur.com <comment><USER2> Best ambient sound site I've encountered so far. I love the DIY mixing approach. :)

Gabriel - please add wind. It goes well with the rain/thunder thing. The rain sound track - it sounds realistic, but I think for this specific purpose a bit less emphasis on high frequencies might make it blend into the background better. It sounds a little too hissy. Might just be my sound setup though. I'd also suggest adding a "true" white noise track - I'm guessing much of the tech crowd would love to use that as a baseline and then add specific noises on top.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

Wind would be a great addition I agree. I've had a hard time finding good audio that has the right feel, but it'll be added at some point.

White noise is on the todo list. What I really need to do is make the audio loading more modular. At the moment it's very naive and everything buffers at once. I want to create a system where there's a core set of sounds that load by default, and then a menu of sounds that expand and load when selected. This would mean I could support a lot more sounds. At present, to add another sample I'd have to remove something already there, because performance is a little flaky even with just the six current samples.

<comment><USER2> >then a menu of sounds

I really wouldn't change the layout to anything menu like. Its got the clean & simple thing going for it. Maybe rather add a button that opens "advanced" options i.e. more sliders coming into view - white noise etc. Seems a bit artificial but it gives you a way to split off less popular and weird stuff like artificial white noise. Plus delayed loading of those sounds. Adding a drop down or similar would kill the clean layout in my view.

Since you reacted positively to the initial feedback:

\- The share mix button at the top looks wildly out of place. Its outside of the main rectangle and looks weird as a result.

-I'm allergic to the word "share" tbh...consider replacing it with "publish"/"broadcast" or similar. Sounds a bit presumptuous...but "share" has become a seriously craptastic word online - even erotic sites have a "share on facebook" button. If you must have it rather move it as far down as possible - so that users can first toy with the sliders a bit & get a feel for things before being asked to vouch for it to friends.

\- The colour scheme (stark black white) is not conducive to the tranquil vibe you're trying to convey. Best bet is adding some colour hint to it I think. Keep the basic idea, but add some faint highlight colour(s). Think earthy warm colours.

\- The humans track is way too loud. If you set all the sliders to mid then all you hear is humans. Either lower it as a whole or dampen the 600hz-700hz frequency range gently (assuming my ears aren't failing me on that freq guestimate).

>I've had a hard time finding good audio that has the right feel

Yeah. Wind is a bit of a biatch in this regard since most microphones are engineered to specifically block wind noises. And those that aren't distort wind sounds like mad. Maybe something like this (bit short):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__O0RRiWcpk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__O0RRiWcpk)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing (broadcasting?) your thoughts!

I struggled a bit with the positioning of the share button - I'll think about it some more. I hadn't considered that it's the first thing a new visitor sees, and I agree that's undesirable.

I used the wrong word when I said "menu". I actually had "palette of sounds" down before changing it because it sounded too pretentious. I was thinking of menu in the restaurant sense rather than the UI sense. I agree I don't want to overload the interface with more options.

I'm not 100% happy with the visuals or the audio samples either, particularly humans and rain as has been pointed out, so I'm going to look at cleaning them up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Another amazing noise generator was featured here a few weeks ago and I've been using it ever since

[http://mynoise.net/](http://mynoise.net/)

sadly, does not work on mobile either (somewhat on firefox for android which is too slow on my underpowered phone)

<comment><USER4> I love this site, especially how it goes into some depth explaining the different sounds. I had no trouble with it on my S3 in Chrome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Nice. I love the minimal approach. Another site like yours is [http://www.NatureSoundsFor.Me](http://www.NatureSoundsFor.Me) which has a whole bunch of other sounds like bees, cicadas, sheep, whales, and more. I like your UI better though, it's super simple and feels like an app. I made one too a while back [http://TimeforZen.com](http://TimeforZen.com) but it's in bad need of a redesign.

I LOVE your "Fade to Slient in ___ minutes" feature. Perfect for inducing sleep.

<comment><AUTHOR> > I LOVE your "Fade to Silent in ___ minutes" feature. Perfect for inducing > sleep.

Thanks! It's my favorite feature too. I probably need to tweak the UI a bit to made it to make it more prominent though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd appreciate if the sounds mixture could slowly but constantly change, going from the "it's going to rain soon" mix to the "it's pouring rain" mix to the "sunny with hints of birds" mix.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a really neat idea and should be easy enough to add. Check back in a few days!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's a little hard to setup, but the python powered neverending soundscapes you can get at [http://boodler.org/packages/](http://boodler.org/packages/) are pretty awesome...

Boodler FTW!

</comment><comment><USER8> Fabulous! Best of breed for creating ambiance that I've heard and the suggestions here are bound to improve it.

It works from Firefox browser on a phone (sliders don't function with Chrome and it fades out immediately on Dolphin and Android browsers.) An equalizer (even Baxendahl 2 knob tone control) would be cool but would probably be a drag on the server.

FWIW regarding sleeping to ambient sound, I have an extensive collection of 'phones and 'buds of all types for R&D purposes and the hands down winner for 'buds to sleep with is the Sennheiser CX200.

(Irrelevant aside: For $19 at Amazon they are also by far the best bargain I've encountered for pristine sound.)

</comment><comment><USER9> Very nicely done. Bookmarked!

I'm sure it would be a major effort, but it'd be nice to have the tracks crossfade into one another; right now, when a given track ends, there's a short and variable, but noticeable, interval between ending and restarting, whose presence is not a major issue but still less preferable than its absence.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's actually a feature built in to mimic cross-fading; it must have not worked for you, and that worries me a little. What browser and OS are you using please?

It's not possible to do true seamless looping with HTML5 audio, but the site tries to achieve it by crossfading, as you say, using two tracks for each sample. On my setup the transition is imperceptible. I'd like to work out why it didn't work for you.

<comment><USER9> Test results:

Safari 6.1, Mac OS X - Listened to "Thunder" track for 10 minutes; no noticeable break.

Firefox 24.0, Mac OS X - Did likewise; result likewise.

I'll have to try it again from home tonight and see whether it behaves better in the absence of the latency problem. Sorry for being so vague; I tend to try to characterize bug reports better than I have this one, but I was in the middle of too many things when I wrote my original comment and didn't take the time I should've.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for following up. The system is quite sensitive to connection issues as the cross-fading only lasts 5 seconds or so. Glad it seems to be working now.

<comment><USER9> Thanks to last night's unpredictable behavior on the part of my ISP (thanks, Comcast!), I can confirm that the gaps I was hearing are latency-bound. Thanks again for a nifty service!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love this.

I would be great if you could a) download your mix as an MP3 and/or b) open your mix in a popup window.

Love the sound of rain and thunder. Makes me want to stay indoors and do stuff. I understand that this is at the moment not a problem for North Americans and Europeans but in Australia it's getting pretty hot/sticky at the moment..

<comment><AUTHOR> Downloading as an mp3 is an interesting idea. It would be a good excuse for me to learn some backend stuff. This is the first thing I've ever written but I enjoyed the process a lot.

The popup window idea is also good and should be much easier to implement. I'll look into it. Thanks!

<comment><USER9> > This is the first thing I've ever written

Talk about hitting a home run on your first at-bat. Well done!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I think it's really testament to how far web technologies have come.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Two comments:

\- maybe you could add some trees or forest option - coupled with birds it makes a good spring/summer ambient

\- when decreasing the human option, instead of just decreasing the loudness, it should decrease the number of people speaking ; so many people in the background, even if they seem far, doesn't make this too cozy

</comment><comment><USER12> Personally I have [http://RainyMood.com](http://RainyMood.com) and [http://SimplyNoise.com](http://SimplyNoise.com) (on brown noise, medium oscillation) running 24/7; it helps me concentrate as well as sleep.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is great, and I'll use this while working. I love certain sounds, but not every types of noise, so it's great to be able to choose the combination.

There's a lot of ASMR youtube videos, which I find very relaxing and helps to get in the zone. However, sometimes it also helps me to fall asleep, which is bad when I want to work. Anyway, ASMR puts me in a state that is highly focused and relaxed at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER14> Thank you, I love this. I've been using rain sounds from Youtube on my tablet at night to help me sleep. This seem better and more configurable.

</comment><comment><USER15> is there a pandora/spotify/rdio station anyone recommends for this?

any studies on what types of noise actually induce deeper sleep?

</comment><comment><USER16> I've used this one before [http://coffitivity.com](http://coffitivity.com)

<comment><USER17> I use it too, and sometimes [http://raining.fm](http://raining.fm) as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Got a nice little spot on my bookmark bar...heh. Thanks. It's nice. Love the sliders/customizability.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm addicted to [http://www.noisli.com/](http://www.noisli.com/)

</comment><comment><USER20> The most soothing, easy-to-sleep-to sound for me is the sound of the forced- hot-air furnace in the house I grew up in. Other furnaces in other houses are OK, but _nothing_ tops the original.

I assume this is something deep in my psyche, implanted when I was very young.

<comment><USER21> I relax the best when there are other people at my house, doing their own thing. I remember from being 5 or so when my parents would have company over and it was a very reassuring feeling of hearing other people carrying on. Unfortunately, as an "adult", it doesn't seem to be very socially acceptable to throw parties then stay upstairs and hope your guests enjoy things by themselves.

This motivation is very deep inside me: I went as far as giving out two free rooms to benefit from the comings-and-goings of two more people. And for a while I shared a house with my in-laws (8 people total) and found it quite enjoyable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Best ambience-sound site I've come across which for once really works.

The sound of fire and humans is something new I've seen (or heard) in such a site.

What about cricket chirps, and to be a little bold, traffic ? Traffic in the distance ?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I haven't found a way to make it work on iOS devices, unfortunately. There are many restrictions on what javascript is allowed to do, and I don't own an iOS device for testing ways around this.

<comment><USER23> Unfortunately limitations on mobile audio will make this next to impossible to work on mobile for the time being. I wrote howler.js ([http://howlerjs.com](http://howlerjs.com)) to solve this issue, but I'm guessing your source audio files are too large to use Web Audio reliably on mobile (this would be the only way to play multiple sounds at the same time).

<comment><USER24> There is another way actually, use an HTML5 Audio tag and Base64 encode the audio files, then load that data via JavaScript into the Audio tag.

I really should probably write this up on my blog... I will - and post it on HN but here's a quick overview. I'm doing this for a JavaScript library I'm working on for form-validation for the visually-impaired (coming soon!)

I dynamically create a pool of audio tags via

var audioTag = document.createElement("audio")

then

audioTag.setAttribute("autoplay","autoplay");

then

audioTag.src = strSound;

You don't even have to attach them to the DOM either from my experience so far (cross-browser!), just maintain the reference in memory.

Then I do some eventing magic for forms and validation stuff, loading the audio from strings of Base64 encoded mp3s or wavs. This way I can package the audio I use inside the JavaScript that hooks up all the form events. And make it easy for others to override my audio samples with their own just by over- writing the strings in memory via their own .js file include.

<comment><USER23> Interesting, I do a lot of audio work in the browser and somehow I've never come across this trick. Does it work on iOS?

<comment><USER24> I'm pretty sure it does as I vaguely remember testing my proof-of-concept via the iPhone Simulator in xCode, though I haven't touched it in a bit with the holidays.

 __I 'm working up a simplified example to post right now. My library has a lot of extraneous stuff related to cross-browser eventing and integrates with browser extensions, so I think it would be needlessly confusing to illustrate what we're discussing

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> cupcake-unicorn [http://mynoise.net](http://mynoise.net) , which I also found on here originally, is still my favorite. Although I guess you can't mix sounds across soundscapes.

<comment><USER25> You can… by opening different soundsources in different tabs ;-) Very powerful in combination with the "Animate!" function.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Aaaaah, the fire has some irregular loud crackling sounds that are fairly distracting! This imaginary beach campfire party of mine isn't an ideal working environment!

</comment><comment><USER27> This is awesome.

Please add white, brown and pink noise (Like [http://simplynoise.com/](http://simplynoise.com/) has).

If you do that, I will be 100% sold!!!!

</comment><comment><USER28> Thanks. I find some ambient sounds (especially birds & waves) help me focus on work. (Instead of rain I use pink noise from another site)

</comment><comment><USER29> This is real.

It is why airplanes are such great places to concentrate and work.

Also lower light and fewer people "induce the zone" better too.

<comment><USER2> >It is why airplanes are such great places to concentrate and work.

I think the fact that you really really can't get up and go do something else also helps. ;)

<comment><USER30> Also the "occasional terrifying jolt" keeps the mind focused.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> i actually work best in coffee shops.

1\. silence or some monolog/dialog on tv = BAD

2\. lots of people talking & background noise = GOOD

brain is weird.

<comment><USER2> I get the feeling this varies greatly from person to person. e.g. If I'm in a coffee shop I pick up fragments of conversation and can't help but try & isolate specific voices. I've tried - I can't block it out. Fragments of conversation to me aren't noise...they're fragmented info requiring more brain power to decipher.

This might just be me though - I think in German, read in English and hear Afrikaans in coffee shops. So I'm all kinds of messed up anyway when it comes to spoken language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> [http://rainycafe.com](http://rainycafe.com) Just for the record.

</comment><comment><USER33> I like the sound of computer fans.. the ones I have are a soft hum, which I find rather pleasant.

</comment><comment><USER34> See also [http://www.noisli.com](http://www.noisli.com)

</comment><comment><USER35> I forgot how relaxing the sound of a roaring fire can be.

Great stuff.

</comment><comment><USER36> Bookmarked! Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER37> Please, make an app for that.

</comment><comment><USER38> SONOS please :-)

</comment><comment><USER39> why is it that we sleep better with the sounds of a rainstorm going on?

Because we evolved as animals being preyed upon by large predators, big cats, packs of dogs etc.

When our preyed-upon ancestors heard the sounds of a rainstorm they knew that they could sleep because the predators don't usually hunt during a rainstorm, and that the predators could not smell them during a rainstorm.

Evolutionarily, selection wise speaking, those who slept during a rainstorm got rested and were better rested afterward, and so were more likely to pass on their genes.

The rainstorm is the friend of the prey animal.

<comment><USER40> Sounds vaguely plausible, but do you have any evidence that substantiates this? In particular, "taking shelter in a rainstorm" seems like a pretty far- fetched survival trait.

<comment><USER39> understand this--the fingerprint of every major environmental factor can be found in our physiology. Rainstorms are a major environmental factor, and they have been such forever, going back many tens of millions of years. What happens in a rainstorm? Animals hunker down. Why? It is safe to do so for prey animals, and it would be unproductive to do otherwise for predators.

That history is written in our physiology, just as every major environmental factor is written in our physiology.

When I pick up a bug or a leaf or a dog or...any organism, I can see traces of that natural history written onto shape and curve of that organism's body. The dog has sharp teeth, the better to bite its prey, my dear. The leaf has a green skin, the better to turn sunlight into energy, my dear.

Of course the rainstorm has left its mark on your physiology. How could it be otherwise.

And here is the real mindblower--homo sapiens and american society and all parts of it are also part of the natural world. Political talking points and memes are quasi-organic, and their shapes tell you things about their natural history, too. Mind blown?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Theres also this one [http://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/rainNoiseGenerator.php](http://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/rainNoiseGenerator.php)</comment>


History made in India: Govt agrees to anti-corruption bill - <AUTHOR> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Lok-Sabha-passes-Lokpal-resolution/articleshow/9759752.cms <comment><USER4> (note: I don't mean to be rude, but this comment has barely been up for 1 minute and I'm already being down-voted. Surely no one can read something this long this fast and down-vote even faster. I've tried to write a reasoned critique of the phenomena before me. It's not a political comment, but a logical one.)

Any constitution is a fine balance of power, a body like this which concentrates power outside of the constitution without carefully thought out checks and balances can be used to deliver the coup de grace to democracy. After all who guards the guards?

This will be extremely unpopular over here, but the citizens of any nation are responsible for corruption. Their leaders aren't alien beings who have descended from planet Z to rule upon their country. They were and are chosen from amongst them, and in a representative democracy it is they who choose them. You might argue that the vote itself is an ineffective tool, and you will be right, but it does offer us the opportunity to ruthlessly edit people from power. At the end it is the culture of a country that shapes a leader to a great deal. They are simply mirrors of society, but we seem to run away from that fact.

The same goes for bureaucrats and any other malaise that plagues society. They are from amongst us, and although the blame may be greater on some shoulders, it is borne by all of us.

The inherent assumption is that the people in this organization will be somehow pure, sans biases, and without malice. It makes me doubt this because human nature being human nature, sooner or later someone creative is going to come along and will convince people to side with him/her and play this unbalanced system to achieve control. It's not a matter of if, but when.

Of course, I might be wrong and this bill might be a carefully calculated with the calculus of power to be perfectly neutral, but I somehow doubt that given the sheer PR and the herd mentality that seems to surround this. For example the man portrayed as a Gandhian whipped drunks in his home town in the name of "social progress", how is that behavior Gandhian? (I'm not questioning if the behavior is right or wrong, I'm simply asking how can someone who whips people be called the modern Gandhi?)

I think that something rather interesting is going on over here, and that the true nature of this bill and the organization it will create will be apparent as time passes on.

I honestly hope that it's genuine, and it won't lead to a calculated attempt to gain power, but I wouldn't bet on it.

<comment><USER5> The Indian leader Mayawati has already demanded that there should be reservation for SC/ST/OBC in Lokpal members.

[http://www.hindustantimes.com/Maya-seeks-reservation-for- SC-...](http://www.hindustantimes.com/Maya-seeks-reservation-for-SC-ST-in- Lokpal-body/Article1-738292.aspx)

If this continues, I dont see JLB being any effective in rooting out corruption. It will end up being just another layer of bureocracy.

Edit:added link

<comment><USER6> These kind of shits happens in politics in every country with some twist.

I had discussion with one of my friend in UK and stated his statement - "UK has faced riots for 15 days and India has peaceful movement for 15 days" earlier these statement used to be reverse.

Change always take time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think this forum perhaps would understand best what is the real cause of corruption in India. In a place like Singapore an entrepreneur need to take around 7 permission to start construction, in India you need to take 30+. Is the way to reduce corruption is to bring a new inspector who will looks after all those 30+ permission processes or to reduce these permission to 5 ?

Indian government employes 3 million employees out of which 1.4 million are employed purely by railways. Does it make sense for the Ombudman to appoint 7000 inspectors to look after Indian Railways corruption or Should the railways try to thin its staff by outsourcing most of it's processes?

Does it make sense to waster tax-payer's money on an ombudsman inspector to look after corruption in a loss making government factory that manufactures soap ? (Yes, in India government runs soap companies). Or should it get rid of that factory itself ?

If you want to start a hotel you need to take around 300 permissions our of which most needs to be renewed yearly. One permission for example is from the 'weights and measurements' department which certifies that all the weighing scales in your hotel are up-to the standards. No one bothers to get their scales checked they just send a packet of money to 'weights and measures' department and get permissions.

The root cause of corruption in India is not in lack of some laws but the policies which government has put in deliberately to ensure that politicians are in position to control every aspect of it's people's life.

In software terms I would say Indian government is a case of bad architectural layout. You have a zillion components tightly coupled with another zillion components which are affecting performance of the system. If someone wants to be efficient he has to hack the system. Adding another layer over this bad architecture does not solve any porblem, you need to fix the basic architecture first. Then talk about ombudsman.

<comment><USER8> Have you seen this or not ? <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CHcKlIsvAQ>

It is not adding another layer, it is refactoring the system based on good evidence that this has worked before.

People talking about real cause and root cause are welcome to start a movement to solve that. When you are able to convince a few friends and gather a few followers, please let us know.

<comment><USER7> What is there in those videos besides some Anna-glorification ? And to talk about supporters, yes, there are a large number of people that think like me, it is just that they are not firing from shoulders of an good intentioned old man.

You can see the Facebook group: <https://www.facebook.com/Indians4Republic>

Or Pragati: <http://pragati.nationalinterest.in/>

<comment><USER8> What he is actually saying is that people are supporting Anna without necessarily understanding the reasons why - then he proceeds to lay down the reasons how we got to this situation after 43 years of the bill and the recent increase in public pilfering.

Also given is the example of the cleanup of Hong Kong corruption using an independant body with powers.

Interesting links. But the constitution does not say government should be small. And flip side of great business freedom is potential for greater exploitation. So you'd likely face headwinds as strong as Anna is facing if you were in his position.

<comment><USER7> Constitution does not say government should be small but common sense does. Also, wasting taxpayer's money over soap factories and airlines (not even 5% of India's population uses them) is also exploitation which has lead to abject poverty. A million children in India die every year just because of lack of food.

An open economy is certainly not free from faults but it at least helps us get rid of some basic problems. The new problems that arise that need to be addressed then. Our primary objective must to end that acute poverty which then leads to people selling their votes for a bag of rice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As rightly pointed out by Mr. Hazare this is only half the battle won.

Part of the second battle should be simplifying the bureaucracy - paperwork, transparency, easily interpretable procedures that are available for general public and infrastructure to monitor the efficiency of the bureaucracy - <USER2> many cases people brought, what was the resolution time, why was it not resolved etc.

Because the above are the main reasons general public becomes willing to be participate in corruption - the arcane, unclear, irrelevant processes that lead to confusion which the bureaucracy uses for their benefit. If they attack that issue and make the bureaucracy responsible and accountable that will go long way in reducing corruption and making the general public happier.

That's the harder part though. Without it people will continue to suffer.

<comment><USER10> There will be corruption as long as there are people who want to make a quick buck without working hard. We can only try to reduce and discourage it.

The problem in India is lack of development and education and poverty. As long as these issues are not addressed we will never touch the root of the problem, and will be just trying to treat the symptoms.

<comment><USER9> It's a complicated problem - you're right in pointing out that part of it is education and poverty / lack of opportunities for every class of people. But again the bureaucracy is part of the problem - Government's schemes, aid doesn't reach the poor etc.

In that sense making the bureaucracy accountable, transparent is the first right step to resolve the other problems.

<comment><USER10> Yes, that is right, we have to make things more transparent. The RTI was one act towards that goal. Though, this particular act in the current form is not the right path in my opinion. People elected into the Jan Lokpal will be no different from people elected into parliament. There is no foolproof way to prevent them from corrupted themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This topic is going to be a fairly polarizing.

NYT perspective - [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/world/asia/28india.html?_r...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/world/asia/28india.html?_r=fb)

The fantastic part was the peaceful way in which the campaign ran. No violence, rioting, etc took place. Peaceful protests.

</comment><comment><USER10> IF the act is going to be the same/similar to what is mentioned here - [http://www.annahazare.org/pdf/Jan%20lokpal%20bill%20by%20Exp...](http://www.annahazare.org/pdf/Jan%20lokpal%20bill%20by%20Expert%20\(Eng\).pdf) then I will be very disappointed.

Creating an extra-body which itself can act as the police and be outside of the parliament and be a concentration of power not elected by the democratic process would be the wrong way to go I feel.

I feel the people have good intention behind coming up with this act, but that alone doesn't mean that this law is the right thing to do. We are trying to solve the symptom and not the disease. Corruption is just the symptom created by the way our society and culture functions, we will have to fix the root cause to fix corruption. I don't think increasing punitive measures is going to curb corruption in the big scale. Corruption as a whole is weaved into our social fabric. We would need a lot more than just a law to remove it.

</comment><comment><USER12> For those of us who are not aware of lokpal or what the bill contains to reduce corruption in India, can someone provide a brief summary?

<comment><USER7> Here is a critic of Lokpal Bill as proposed by Anna Hazare [http://pragati.nationalinterest.in/2011/08/jan-lok-pal-is- bo...](http://pragati.nationalinterest.in/2011/08/jan-lok-pal-is-both- unconstitutional-and-unnecessary/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> How is this HN-worthy?

As an Indian, I'm deeply interested in what's happening here right now, but I fail to see how this is useful in this forum.

</comment><comment><USER14> For a country full of software engineers and business process engineers, India's pathetic bureaucracy has not been in any mood to modernize. Most modernization efforts have been to buy a couple of PCs load up Windows and wait for magic to somehow happen. It has not.

Open accounting, transparent gvernance etc were supposed to have happened by now, they haven't. The bureaucracy is also extremely dismissive of anything industry suggests as a better way of doing things. Anything that devolves their ability to sit on approvals or wield power is shot down immediately. The existing bureaucracy is a waste of tax payer money and an example of redundant waste.

Even Slovenia now has bench-marked, transparent and open accounting systems.

</comment><comment><USER15> For those who wanna know "Who is anna hazare?" <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Anna_Hazare>

<comment><USER16> Also [http://www.punemirror.in/article/2/2010101220101012233239336...](http://www.punemirror.in/article/2/2010101220101012233239336854a4d16/Here- is-why-RTI-activist-could-not-fast-in-Anna-Hazare%92s-village.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm going to admit my ignorance here...I understood very little of what this article said and what it's relevance is. I don't follow Indian politics, so I do not know very much about how the government works, what the Lokpal bill is, or what it's meant to do. Or who "Anna" is.

Maybe somebody would be kind enough to post a tl;dr? I understand that there are problems with corruption in India but don't know any of the background details.

</comment><comment><USER18> Surely it's going to be part of history. Besides there are being RTI and other laws, it was much needed. This bill will be independent and answerable to people not government. Hope it helps for good.

<comment><USER19> Actually they are not answerable to anyone.

<comment><USER20> Not true. They are answerable to the cabinet secretary and the election commission.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I don't get how this is OK on HN but the articles on the "right to video police" are not. Isn't this article also politics?

</comment><comment><USER22> Please note that, the bill is not passed yet. It will go to committee and will be discussed in the parliament again.

<comment><USER23> Since Standing Committee is not autonomous and since there's a strong political opportunism in giving support to this ombudsman bill, it'll most likely be passed without much difficulty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> We can at best _hope_ that it is going to turn out well, in the end.

Anna Hazare is being hastily compared to Gandhi. Before this he had good credentials, i.e. was fairly well known in India, but he was just one-among- many-equals (not even first among equals) of social activists.

The positive though is that, the three most important people around him, also have got good credentials. Okay two at least (Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal). About the third - Mr. Bhushan - not much was known earlier.

Arvind Kejriwal in particular had worked very hard in the activism space, being one of the key guys behind acts such as RTI. (It may interest the HN community more, that he happens to be a product of IIT in India - the most reputable tech institution over here. )

But this sudden burst of 'I-want-results-now' sort of hyper activism. Has left an admirer like me _confused_ at best. Confused, as to whether the good guys indeed are still on the right track. Or have broken down.

Broken down, akin to a website owner, who after years of toiling to build traffic the clean and hard way, have suddenly resorted to black hat SEO. (If the analogy is not obvious, I mean, just like dirty and unethical SEO, may be easy to build traffic. Similarly _fast to death_ is an easy way to build frenzy. Not easy always, but easy once in a while, and this technique was being applied the first time in front of new TV media).

And just being good people and having good intentions is not enough. You have to be a lot careful with these things. As they say 'With power comes more .....'.

Want to recount an anecdote to make a point: Recently I had a reason to visit a village in northern India. I won't polish my words here - The experience was ugly. The village was very dirty. The people ultra lazy. Open drains all over the place smelling bad. People just sitting idle. Houses in the state of decay, but no body is working to rebuild them. Electricity comes only in the night, that of course is not their problem.

My family and me had planned to stay for 2 days there. But had to rush back the same day, as I could not simply just get myself to use the dirty toilet there. (Call me whatever - snobbish, unfeeling, uncaring, etc. but I am being brutally honest here)

So a thought occurred to me. That its not _corruption-freedom_ they need now urgently. Its basic education (for their kids) and perhaps some inspiration (and some training also won't hurt) in life to get up from their haunches and start doing some _work_.

I may sound like a right wing capitalist here. But that's just a label, and my anon status gives me the liberty to write freely. And BTW, in general I am left leaning for various things - have followed Paul Krugman's writings for past few years. And also, I am a big fan of the Mahatma Gandhi. (I needed to say this, to give my fellow Indians, a background of where I am coming from. So before even you start getting to abusing me, please at-least bother to understand me)

On the matter of abuse, I feel sorry for Manmohan Singh our PM. People just don't have any broader perspective. And can just so easily be swayed from one side to another. Not long back - i.e. until about two years back - he was being hailed as a great person, who ushered India into liberalization of the 90s. Which allowed the GDP to become 8% from and liberated it from the Hindu growth rate of 3-4%. And allowed a great Indian middle class to emerge, etc. etc.

But now, the very same people, are just after his blood all the time. I was almost fearing that the poor guy does not get a heart attack, from so much pressure, while every body else is worried about Anna's health (no disrespect to him either).

Now on corruption: People don't even see the irony of what they are saying and supporting. In the past two years lots of scams have been uncovered - CWG & 2G-spectrum-allocation the most prominent of them.

IMO two things that were most instrumental for the uncovering were: 1) The RTI (right to information) law passed only few years back and 2) the CAG reports. Powerful personalities went to jail (still are in jail) and many others still live in fear.

So is that a good thing or a bad thing? Meaning, will people would have been better off if these were not uncovered or are people better off now that they are in fact uncovered.

The least the uncovering of these scams tells, is that the system is working. So one would expect that people will work towards empowering the current set of things (laws/institutions) which have proven that they are very effective. And not indulge in hyper-activism, the outcome of which is at best unpredictable. Even enact more laws, who is stopping.

But no sir. We want some more blood. And we want it now. So what, if the movement or agitation, call it whatever you like, shames India into looking like a Arab country. (Some lunatic journo, surely compared this with an 'Arab Spring' ... I almost heard him. )

Silent evolutionary things, are much more powerful, than a revolutionary change. The latter also can be helpful. But people leading them have to be sure. Really really sure. I honestly am still confused, at best. I still don't doubt the intentions of Kejriwal and Ms. Bedi. I hope they are guided well by their inner beings...

And did I miss an Obama like orator, to articulate the government's perspective on things.

EDIT: No disrespect to Arab countries either. My remark is only intended for the rulers (kings) of those countries, which have obviously been abusing the populace, who have now very bravely gathered the will to fight them.

<comment><USER8> I'm sorry but you sound very presumptuous - you could'nt bring yourself to stay a single day in situations where people have stayed their lifetime - <USER3> clean the toilet yourself - and you presume to dictate what is best for them ?

About the shift in perceptions about Manmohan Singh: a person who is an A player in one position may well be a C player in a different position. It is a fact that despite RTI which only affected the lower levels of the govt, the corruption on the higher levels has only increased in the last few years. The oratory you miss also affects the effectiveness of the government itself.

I think if you are interested in the subject it behoves you find out more about the what and why before sounding off confusedly on the topic. More like Kejriwal and less like Manmohan.

<comment><USER24> I agree with you on your second point. A person good for situation A may not be good for the position B. But that doesn't give a license to rubbish all of the person's achievements. As people at large seem to be doing the past few days.

You caught me in one of my several weaknesses (your first point). But you must at-least acknowledge that I said it myself.

Don't agree with your last para. Now you are presuming, I have not made an effort. I did not read the bill. But I made efforts - right from looking up wikipedia a few months back on 'Ombudsman' and many other things (articles/views etc.) ...

And second point in your last para: Please distinguish between ambivalence or (admission of _confusion_ ) regarding somebody else's action and accusing me of being confused. I spent 45 minutes, trying to articulate my views (it did tax my articulation capabilities) and re-read it before posting. I am not confused at all about what I am saying. I am only not sure, if what's happening is making sense in the right way. My hunch is that it does not.

EDIT: Corrected a few typos

<comment><USER8> Well props to you for truthfulness. I don't think anyone is rubbishing the PM personally.

I was reading the Progress Principle today. It makes the point that setbacks have an outsized influence on one's mental makeup - much more than progress does. Check it out.

What corruption leads to is a set of daily setbacks to individuals. On the one hand the govt says this problem is impossible to solve. On the other the protestors say they have researched the issue and here is a way to solve it.

Which one do you pick and support ? It's a no contest to me.

I may have been ambivalent in April. But now in Aug, seeing that the govt has watered down their version of the bill so much that their lokpal won't even accept allegations of corruption from the general public ... it is clear they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. That made me more interested in the topic and I read the bill and both sides of the argument. My conclusion is that this is the chance to grab. Even if it reduces corruption by a few percentage points it will be a victory, and will release energy for the tasks that you mention so urgently need to get done.

<comment><USER24> I am impressed that you read the bill, and then decided to support it.

I did not like the _process_ of getting it done, for one thing. We are having this discussion in a much more civil way. But please look across the Internet (just a twitter search on 'Anna' will give you all colors of tweets). Particularly, in the earlier part of the fast. People are ready to bulldoze/dominate/abuse others...

The 'I am Anna', 'You are Anna' irritates me. No body can have such a steep rise in stock, in just four months ...

Wearing a black hat for a moment. The big suspicion I have is: 1) Anna was used as a _tool_ by Mr. Kejriwal and Ms. Bedi. This is very different than what Gandhiji would have allowed to be done of himself. 2) Anna also did it primarily for _fame_ a retired activist, getting his time in the sun at last ...

Now again wearing my grey hat: I do believe that Arvind Kejrival and Kiran Bedi are good people, basically. But good people also can be misled (they have to be more careful.)

I think, my note above is written in a sober tone. I have just hinted (or even stopped before that) some of my fears/concerns without going into some specific dark doubts that I have illustrated in this comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> People wake up..!! There are two kinds of bribing/corruption. In most countries you will see officers take bribe for not doing something that comes in their authority or that is out of their authority. But only in Great India we can see that officers take bribe just for doing their job which they get paid for. Jan Lok Pal bill is the leash that the people of Great India have got to keep all the officers tied.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hardly any history. Matter of time this becomes another useless institution.

<comment><USER23> Well it's not a constitutional body. So as long as it remains independent (most likely) it'll be lethal against corruption.

<comment><USER26> _So as long as it remains totally independent (most likely) it'll be lethal against corruption._

But what if someone tries to corrupt them? What makes them immune from corruption?

<comment><USER27> They can be corrupt, but then according to the proposed law every citizen will have a right to go to Supreme Court against the LokPal. This will surely be a deterrent.

<comment><USER10> I don't think such deterrents are going to influence corruption.

Does one decide not to harm someone, just because we have laws against it ?

By the way, don't we already have laws against corruption, why hasn't this stopped anyone yet ? Are more laws going to stop it ?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A short tale of a read overflow - <AUTHOR> http://antirez.com/news/117 <comment><USER2> > You can never detect a read overflow otherwise: it will just access data > outside your structure, but inside mapped memory, so the bug would be > totally harmless and silent, with the exception of doing the same operations > at the end of the mapped region.

Unless you use one of the sanitizers while fuzzing, right? If not ASan then I would wager MSan could detect this.

<comment><USER3> Was going to say the same thing. ASAN would have probably flagged this, I've seen this exact thing with a read overflow. In the wild it only crashed if you were very very unlucky. The code would do something like copy 2x as many bytes:

      xyz\0XXXX

instead of

      xyz\0

Since the \0 was still there, it would work fine as long as it wasn't at the end of the heap.

As it turned out, the test suite itself would abort if ran with ASAN enabled.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: As an engineer, do you find literature benefit you? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> You're asking about Literature, e.g., books that are considered canonical? Like Tolstoy, Eliot, Twain, Nobokov, ...?

Of course. No different than the study and appreciation of music, art, physical fitness, mental fitness, etc. _I_ find benefit in being well-rounded. It brings insight and creativity from outside my primary realm of expertise.

Anything that broadens ones horizons is a net gain.</comment>