Why entrepreneurs are leaving the Bay Area for their next startup - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/entrepreneurs-leaving-bay-area-for-next-startup-9206b98e-a583-4fff-ad03-101dba301e09.html <comment><USER3> This is the key part of this article (emphasis mine):

> This kind of story is often framed as a tug of war between Silicon Valley > and the rest of the country. But Silicon Valley isn't going any where, and > for every startup or founder who leaves the Bay Area, someone else graduates > from Stanford or wants to move here. _This is about tech becoming a bigger > part of the overall economy._

<comment><USER4> That does seem to be the crux of the article, but I find it very unsatisfying without data. It's extremely improbable that it is _exactly_ 1 person leaving to 1 person graduating from Stanford or wanting to come. So what is the actual trend? This article doesn't know.

<comment><USER5> In the absence of housing construction & vacancies, it's probably pretty close to 1 person leaving to 1 person arriving. The limiting factor in the Bay Area is usually housing; if there were really a net outmigration, you'd see vacancies and a drop in rents. If there were a large net inmigration, you'd see new construction (which you do to some extent, but not a lot).

There's probably a mild net inflow that's accounted for by new construction, people doubling up in houses that used to be single-family, and homelessness. The continued rise in housing _prices_ seems to indicate a large latent demand, i.e. many more people _want to come_ or _want to stay_ but are discouraged because they can't get housing at reasonable prices.

<comment><USER6> I think the housing market indicates a net inflow of engineer types:

(1) There are actually still some low income people living in the Bay Area. For example even in Mt View (home of Google), there are some low income areas. Other cities have them too. The low income people are continuously being displaced by higher earning engineer types. This is reflected in rising rents.

(2) It varies by city, but there is _some_ new construction. Last year, SF issued 6 building permits per 1000 residents, while San Jose issued a little under 3 [1]. Some other cities in the area, like Mt View, Sunnyvale, Fremont, are fairly pro-deveopment.

[1] [https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-q6CqiDf9FL8/XINJI7vxJ0I/A...](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-q6CqiDf9FL8/XINJI7vxJ0I/AAAAAAAADCQ/vb_w_Da1CXgZHu3NJZ3RWHLI5-OJ_MzbgCK8BGAs/s512/2019-03-08.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ah, If I had a dollar for every time a post like this shows up on HN, I'd be a millionaire. It's either this, or some personal anecdote of how some founder took his startup to Austin, Detroit, Nashville, Seattle .. < insert gentrifying city here > and they are kicking butt.

Last I checked, San Francisco alone accounted for 25% of the V.C Money and San Francisco + Silicon Valley accounts for over 45% of V.C. Money.

Source: [https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/03/the-extreme- geographic-...](https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/03/the-extreme-geographic- inequality-of-high-tech-venture-capital/552026/)

> The Bay Area—that is, San Francisco and Silicon Valley—currently accounts > for nearly 45 percent of total venture capital investment in the entire > United States

and there is no tug of war.

>This kind of story is often framed as a tug of war between Silicon Valley and the rest of the country

Write all you want, but if you are looking for funding (which most entrepreneurs are), then San Francisco and Silicon Valley is still the place to be at.

<comment><USER8> There was an article voted up in HN on how we are in Peak California and Bay Area. And someone pointed out that this narrative has been going on for decades.

<comment><USER9> Meme: beleaguered Apple / SV

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> SV isn't the best fit for a lot of startups. It really shouldn't be the default location for all startups especially since there are different options that offer different things (NYC, Denver/Boulder, Austin etc).

The Bay Area has 3 things that set it apart from anywhere else and startups that really need this have no other real choice:

Investors who are willing to invest super early

Lots of top tier engineers

An extremely optimistic culture

Investors- Our startup did fundraising on both east/west coast. Valuations, investor quality and potential help was relatively the same, but those in the the Bay Area were completely fine in investing in a pre-rev idea. That was, and still is inconceivable outside. A NYC fund flatly told us they will do no investments until we reach 50k MRR. That wasn't a requirement at SV and we got the initial seed funding as a result.

We do something very tech heavy and quite at the forefront in our field. We need really good engineers and most these types of specialists currently are employed at a Google or Facebook etc. In theory they should be super expensive and impossible to dislodge from these tech giants but what I find is that these super smart people get bored after a few years. They know their worth and that there will always be high paying jobs for them, but they can be persuaded to join a startup on a lot lower salary because they get a lot of freedom and ability to make a difference. A lot of the people that complain about expensive demanding engineers in SV are basically a bunch of PMs or salespeople who want a CTO to build a front end app. If you actually have interesting tech, finding engineers at a discount is quite feasible.

The last thing is about culture. It's like the YC interview day. We spent the entire day before and after the interview (and snuck in again the next) because the other teams you meet- the optimism and energy is infectious. It's the same feeling the morning of a marathon where you're worried it's too cold and wet, but the instant you see the crowd, everything feels right.

If you're doing something that counter-intuitive, and changes existing thinking, then culture is essential. Most startups, even in the accelerators, are ops businesses. They utilize tech, but business not tech is their key driver. There's nothing wrong with being that kind of startup, but if that is the case, then the Bay Area isn't a good a fit which is what this article says. Your customers aren't there, it's expensive, and there are other options. But if you do have a early crazy idea that is based around a key piece of tech, the Bay Area is still the best choice by far.

<comment><USER11> V An extremely optimistic culture Except on HN where people tend to skew quite negative. Lol

<comment><USER12> I assume a lot of us negative types are not Bay Area (or even CA) based.

<comment><USER13> Yep.

An optimist: I could make a start-up and become a billionaire, or at least get $million/year at a FAANG.

A pessimist: I'd probably be sharing a studio apartment and eating dry dog food, or maybe even homeless like so many of the people there.

You see it outside of tech too, for example in acting. The optimist sees movie stars getting over $100,000,000 per movie, so they throw all their belongings in a duffel bag and take the next greyhound to Hollywood. The pessimist knows that most actors fail, with many working minimum wage or risking their health to make NSFW movies. Another place is sports, with the optimist focused on top players and the pessimist well-aware that most are lucky to end up as gym teachers.

So the optimist goes to the Bay Area, gambling his life, and the pessimist chooses a more reliable path in life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> On a related topic, I'm wondering what careers are like for CS researchers in industry outside of Silicon Valley but still in the United States. My specialties are in systems software research (e.g., operating systems, distributed systems), machine learning, and databases. Most of the companies that I'm familiar with that do research in these areas are Silicon Valley- based, although there are some obvious options in Seattle (Amazon and Microsoft are headquartered there, and Facebook and Google have offices there). My ideal situation would be a culturally diverse area with a low-to- moderate cost of living. I like Silicon Valley due to its amenities and opportunities, but I could see myself starting a family within the next 3-5 years and I don't think I'd be able to afford it in Silicon Valley unless I give up research, hit Leetcode really hard, and apply for a FAANG software engineering position.

<comment><USER15> The compiler folks at Microsoft are first rate and just good people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm heavily considering Tallinn for a tech startup -

It's easy to get residence status (IIRC basically requires a ~$60k investment in a business you are starting) and extremely easy to start a business. You get access to the EU labor/trade markets in a low COL city which already has a decent sized tech and entrepreneurship presence. The government is actively courting you and in general seems very easy to interact with and move forward with - reducing the PM/lawyer overhead of operating a medium sized business in other countries. And if you stay there long enough it's not overly complicated to get EU permanent resident status.

Overall, Tallinn beats SV in almost every way except for two - <USER2> talent/concentration (though it's still pretty good) and local capital.

<comment><USER17> I'd worry about talent pool being too small (Estonia has a population of only over a million people). It might not be easy to get people from outside to relocate there, as no one else in EU (expect apparently some Finnish people) speaks Estonian, the weather is grim and wages aren't that enticing. That's probably why the government is trying very hard to attract foreign startup investors, as otherwise Tallin is at a disadvantage vs say Warsaw.

<comment><USER16> Yes but Estonia has [https://ccdcoe.org/](https://ccdcoe.org/) as well as numerous IT companies and startups already (most famously, Skype, now a Microsoft office). Plus I don't think you would have any issues having an English-speaking software development office.

Honestly Poland's far-right is a big turn off for me and if I were an ethnically Indian/Pakistani/Turkish software engineer I wouldn't want to live there. It also just doesn't seem like as nice of a place to live. Admittedly, I haven't done much research in terms of what I would need to do as a non-EU resident to get temporary residence there though. I would love for my notions to be proven wrong.

<comment><USER17> I've worked with a number of Indian and Arab people in Poland. I've never heard them complain, and some have settled here for good. I am sure there is some level of latent racism here, but that's true of any society.

Regarding tech companies, Poland has Google, Amazon and some pretty good game studios (CDPRed). It is not an innovation hub by any means though and most people just do regular corporate programming (frontend, backend) or maybe some not terribly innovative startups. If you want to create something based on existing tech, Poland will be fine, but if you want to develop new one, you might have trouble finding the people for it (that's true for 99.9% places in the world though, Tallin included most likely).

As for Poland being a nice place to live - just come to Wroclaw or Krakow for a weekend when you have a chance and see for yourself. IMO there's very little difference in living in Warsaw vs say London or New York. The air quality is a worse in the winter - on the other hand, there are no drugs/drug dealers on the streets, no homeless people (or very few), no guns/murders and no terrorism.

Regarding the temp visa, sadly I don't know anything about it.

<comment><USER16> Hmm, ok, maybe I'll spend a couple days in Warsaw during my trip to Tallinn and Riga. Thanks!

<comment><USER18> Warsaw isn't especially pleasant as Polish cities go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The solution to this is remote work. The main benefits of being in the valley are access to investors/capital. This advantage mostly only applies to executives. So have your executives in SV and have everyone else be wherever they want to be that is cheaper and nicer for them.

<comment><USER20> Depending on the amount of communication needed for being efficient. I work 10+ years in a Rendite First organisation and there are regular times where I think "damn, discussing this over the water cooler, while running into each other, would be more efficient" than a chat exchange or setting up a video/phone conf. Of course on the plus side I have the uninterrupted working hours, where nobody walks in to me and flexible hours to arrange my life and the tendency to not fully separate private and work which easily leads to free overtime ;)

<comment><USER19> I actually saw an interesting solution to this. I don't remember what company it was, but they had a designated "water cooler time" where they had a video chat up every day that anyone could pop into and talk about whatever they want, business or not. It gave people a chance to have those serendipitous conversations and built team morale.

<comment><USER21> I'll second this. Turning the camera on 15min in the morning to chat about anything: pressing issues, vacation or home life makes for good digital water cooler time.

<comment><USER20> "morning" is a relative term, when distributed over continents :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What a terrible, clickbait headline.

In short (first sentence), tech start-ups are setting up shop in non-SV locations where they can find cheaper rent and more affordable talent. This is a good thing because it means a) physical proximity to funding sources is less important, b) more funding sources are available, c) good talent is everywhere, and d) the trend of tech becoming part of the general economy (dare I say democratized?) continues.

</comment><comment><USER23> As someone in the hemp business, I have a relatively unique reason. There's no hemp (CBD, non-psychoactive) program in Oregon. You can do cannabis in California but not CBD. I moved everything to Oregon.

It's funny that the cannabis industry in California is actually trying to slow down any regulation allowing THC-free, hemp derived products.

<comment><USER24> Did the "recent" changes to the farm bill affect this in either the short or long term? Just curious.

<comment><USER23> Absolutely. Long term I think it's going to open up in many states.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> California better stop punishing entrepreneurs with it's heavy tax stick before experiencing disaster in it's tax revenues.

Exodus seems to be accelerating.

<comment><USER26> This viewpoint doesn't appear to jive with the one being portrayed currently[1], that the exodus is only among the poor/middle-class and that the immigration of the rich and high-earners is actually accelerating.

1: [https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton- income-t...](https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton-income-tax- california-wealthy-20190311-story.html)

<comment><USER27> _the exodus is only among the poor /middle-class and that the immigration of the rich and high-earners is actually accelerating._

Is that supposed to make the groupthink better or worse? I suspect worse, as it's reducing the viewpoint diversity, as viewpoint is affected by socioeconomic status and livelihood.

<comment><USER28> I think the point is that tax isn't driving an exodus of businesses/entrepreneurs as OP suggested. The opposite is true and it's driving out lower income people. Oakland, for example, is growing like SF with 10+ tall buildings going up this year downtown to accommodate tech companies and their employees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> As an engineer in the Bay Area I would recommend most startups to locate themselves outside the bay. Especially if they operate a low margins business. Rent is expensive and so are the employee salaries over here. I have many Bay Area startup recruiters reach out to me with rather interesting projects. However, a quick look at Glassdoor reveals that the liquid portion of the salaries they offer is so low that I would need to live in a trailer to work there.

<comment><USER30> If only there were trailer parks or other cheaper housing options around here. Fuck NIMBY's.

<comment><USER27> _If only there were trailer parks or other cheaper housing options around here._

There's one in Milpitas.

<comment><USER31> There are several large ones in Sunnyvale and San Jose, too. But even mobile homes are expensive in Silicon Valley by the standards of most other places; at this point, $150K would be a steal, and prices approaching $300K aren't uncommon -- and monthly land rental fees in the park can easily be more than the mortgage. (For instance, a listing I just pulled up on Zillow is a reasonable-ish $155K for a 3br/2ba manufactured home in Sunnyvale, for an estimated mortgage of just over $600 a month...and a rental fee of another $1600 a month.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I wonder why entrepreneurs don't come to Poland to build their product.

Warsaw or Wroclaw in particular are vibrant, tech-oriented cities where life is about 1/4 of SF.

If I had to bet my future on being able to building something with 1M, I would want to get 4 months instead of 1 for the money.

Of course, SF might have better investing ecosystem, but once you got the money development should be done in a more appropriate place to buy yourself more time.

<comment><USER33> What are the long term prospects for freedom of expression there? [1]

As a first generation immigrant I just don't think the opportunities for socio-economic mobility would be present for my (future) kids anywhere but in a liberal democracy.

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/poland-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/10/poland- polarization/568324/)

<comment><USER17> Most statements in this piece are highly debatable or blown out of proportions. Poland gets a lot of bad press under the new government (which sucks IMO, but on the grounds of their mundane incompetence and stupidity - high even for modern democracies - and not because they're some evil authoritarians) in part because Polish media is mostly controlled by anti- government journalists, who put very heavy spin on reality. And these are the people who the foreign journalists (Spiegel, NYT, Guardian etc) talk to about situation in Poland. IMO, we're ruled by cynical simpletons, but probably no greater than Trump, Berlusconi, Cameron etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The notion that the Bay Area contains all the wisdom about high-growth, VC- backed success, if true, seems to me like a great opportunity for those who have been successful at it in the Bay Area to consult for those who want to replicate it for the rest of the country.

It may well be more lucrative for those people to stay put and startup again, but there's certainly a tier of people who are craving adventure and would much more enjoy sharing their blueprint for success with Austin, Boulder, Atlanta, SLC, Portland, on and on.

If I were a big VC firm (and sure, this might be a good reason why I'm not), I'd be forward-deploying my analysts and recruiting a class of EIRs from the flyover states. It's a new flavor of alpha for VC: sourcing dealflow from the entire US.

</comment><comment><USER35> For 'big bet' things it might make a lot of sense. I can see why Uber, AirBnB, and especially OpenAI are going to be there.

But for other, slightly niche businesses, wherein you're competing in a vertical/horizontal that may not be specifically tech, it might make sense to be elsewhere.

Fashion heavy, Mining & Materials, Manufacturing, Fintech, Agriculture etc. I suggest it might be ok to be somewhere else.

As a very crude rule of thumb, if you need 'good engineers' but not 'world class engineers' i.e. the problem space is more or less 'domain' and not 'tech' ... well you can get good engineers in a lot of places, and domain knowledge is not inherently in the Valley.

</comment><comment><USER36> FB group for anyone else considering leaving: [https://www.facebook.com/groups/373683909882919/](https://www.facebook.com/groups/373683909882919/)

I can tell you that Miami would definitely like you here, even our Mayor cosigns: [https://twitter.com/FrancisSuarez/status/1100425644968738822](https://twitter.com/FrancisSuarez/status/1100425644968738822)

<comment><USER16> I would love to start a business in Miami but the COL seems pretty high. I feel like it's probably the best place in the world to start a latin america- focused tech company (social networking, streaming, fintech, etc.) and it seems like a great place to live. Does anybody happen to know what kind of companies the VC's there are focused on - could see pure tech plays being outside of their core competencies and thus unlikely to get funded.

<comment><USER37> I grew up there, I'm a Peruvian immigrant and just don't understand why people think Miami is good for tech. Solid engineers just move to the Bay Area; who wants to keep living in Miami which has such a cultural aversion to education, a major machismo problem, and frequent flooding.

If you want to work with LATAM, hire Latinx engineers in the Bay (there are lots of us) and hire tech people in Argentina, Mexico, Chile, and Brazil. Lots of talented folks in all those places.

<comment><USER16> I guess the idea would be to recruit people to move to Miami since there isn't a big tech scene there already (I think there is an Oracle office and maybe Univision has an office?). I've only vacationed there but would gladly take my current pay and live there over west coast. The education/machismo problems at least shouldn't affect a business much since you are probably unlikely to run into those hiring tech people, that's more of an out-of-work thing. One of my best friends is from Miami and the main gripe he has is more the conspicuous consumption (often funded by lots of debt) - again, shouldn't be much of a problem.

But, the grass is always greener I suppose. When I've visited I stayed in nicer places (Brickell, Miami Beach) than I could likely afford year round + just generally engaging in more fun activities than working. I do think lots of people like me would be more than willing to take a West-coast level salary to live in Miami instead though, at least for a few years.

<comment><USER38> IBM also has presence in Miami and a few other places in Florida

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> For anyone else looking to move away from the Bay Area, I'm hiring in Jakarta, Indonesia :)

Email me at firstname.lastname@example.com

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aWeK0dReWeufZUN11f2QMoEP...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aWeK0dReWeufZUN11f2QMoEP3Of5aok7295msDJGxOs/edit)

</comment><comment><USER40> You should be close to your customers. My cofounders and I coded most of the MVP in the bay because we all happened to be living there, but then we started going to tradeshows and saw that most of our customers were in NYC so we moved east.

If you are doing a startup where you are a B2B tech company that sells to other tech companies, the bay area is great.

</comment><comment><USER41> > _...one thing there is a lack of outside the Bay Area are the people who > really know how to scale a fast-growing tech company_

This reinforces the notion that new tech startups don't really need to save money. They need to dominate their niche. They need to scale up fast and become the biggest player first.

<comment><USER42> there are lots of ways to start a successful business that don't involve millions of dollars of seed money. you don't have to grow into a multinational conglomerate to be a sustainable enterprise, you know. if you _have to huge_ for your business to make sense at all, maybe you just have a stupid idea. statistically, it is more likely that you are wrong than that you are a zuck- level-genius.

<comment><USER41> > there are lots of ways to start a successful business that don't involve > millions of dollars of seed money.

not disagreeing with you, but this article seems to be about the ones that _do_ involve millions of dollars of seed money

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Narrative: Startups are moving out of Bay Area Reality: 2018 VC funding: Bay Area = $45bn, Austin = $1.5bn

</comment><comment><USER28> Seems reasonable but not really a lot of data points in this article to show a real trend. It's just an option piece. Could just as easily point at a lot of startups staying and growing in the Bay Area and write an article saying why Bay Area is still the place to be.

</comment><comment><USER43> TLDR: cost of living

But leaving for another west coast city is not going to improve things much, housing and cost of living in Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, etc are also very high when compared to costs elsewhere in the USA.

The midwest and south should be aggressively courting entrepreneurs based on cost of living alone.

<comment><USER44> We are, but nobody has discovered the silver bullet, if there even is one. Every medium sized city dreams of being the Something Valley.

<comment><USER13> Eh, go for it?

My place began with a few people out of the local university and an angel investor. There was organic growth and an actual profit. The exit was a company of about 40 people being sold ($36.4 million in 2019 dollars) to a large defense contractor. That's in Melbourne, Florida.

There are several start-ups in the area created by former employees, generally beginning on personal funds.

This also works in Longmont, Colorado. I have a relative who did a couple businesses starting from personal funds. One sold for millions of dollars, and the other is ongoing with decent success.

<comment><USER44> Indeed, there are scattered start-ups everywhere. The university in my town is a major center for biology research, and has resulted in formation of a number of businesses, some of which have grown to respectable size. We have Epic. I have my own side-business, but not even scalable to a level of interest for a VC.

But still nothing at a level to suggest the tide turning away from the big coastal cities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I highly recommend that anybody who loves SF and startup culture stay in the Bay Area. It's best for everybody.

</comment><comment><USER46> The only reason I am still in SV is because I am stuck on H1B. I think having a better immigration system is a Red president's best bet to finally spite the largest Blue state. You need to bring in talented engineers from world over and let them flood boise, Reno, Austin, Sarasota and Denver. See the Silicon Valley crumble.

<comment><USER8> H1B is not location specific. You are free to work from anywhere in the US you find employment

<comment><USER46> It is job specific which means I can not go to Texas and take up ranching or just freelance from Reno.</comment></comment></comment>


ICANN had no idea IANA rejection was coming - <AUTHOR> http://news.dot-nxt.com/2012/03/10/icann-no-idea-icann-rejection

<comment><USER2> Of course ICANN had no idea--that's how government procurement works. Under its own rules the U.S. government had to tell the public first and then the proposing companies.. which is rather backwards, but that's the way it goes in government.

</comment><comment><USER3> So ... does this mean other outside companies can bid on this new process and maybe we will see IANA managed by someone completely separate from ICANN?

<comment><USER2> Yes, but that was already the case. IANA management was up for rebid. This article is about the fact that ALL proposals (including ICANN's) were disqualified for one reason or another, so the process will have to start over.</comment></comment>


DeepMind readies first commercial product - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/0e099914-514a-11e9-9c76-bf4a0ce37d49 <comment><USER2> [https://outline.com/EpGqWm](https://outline.com/EpGqWm)

<comment><USER3> [https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls- chrome](https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome)

No need to rely on third party service.

<comment><USER4> [https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls- firefox](https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-firefox)

No need to rely on Chrome.

<comment><USER5> Do you know why it's not added to the official directory of Firefox Add-ons?

<comment><USER6> Dude, don't leave everyone hanging, spill the beans!

<comment><USER5> Me? It wasn't rhetorical, I really don't know. But I installed it from GitHub. When I first tried that on my phone, I mistook the popup in question for my device saying it wouldn't do it for security reasons, which made me think I should get it from the Add-Ons directory instead (but couldn't find).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The cost blowout in healthcare isn't due to diagnosis or care but administrative costs. All these diagnostic AIs won't significantly reduce the cost of healthcare nor improve quality. What we really need is automated administration and billings to really move the needle and that's more human bottlenecked than technology.

<comment><USER8> Another high cost of healthcare source is the lack of competition on price. You have zero idea how much each procedure costs. Imagine going to a supermarket where there are no price tags, and you must buy the items once you pick them off the shelf. It's madness.

<comment><USER9> It's worse.

If you have insurance, the price tag will be X, and they will pay for some part (most?) of it.

If you don't have insurance, the price tag can easily be 100X and it's your responsibility.

If you have insurance, but you happened to pick up that can of pepsi from the left aisle (out of network) instead of the right aisle (in network), they won't cover it, and you're stuck with the 100X price. You won't know that before you buy the can of pepsi, of course.

If you try to ask your insurance if they cover the specific can of pepsi from the left aisle, they may or may not tell you. They may or may not give you the right answer, and if they tell you it's covered but then refuse to cover it, it's your problem (and again, the price will be 100X).

<comment><USER10> It should be illegal to charge two different people two different prices for the same procedure at the same facility.

The whole model of negotiated rates, rebates, etc. needs to go.

I also think the concept of networks is bizarre on the face of it. A certified medical provider should be covered to perform procedures in their area of expertise. Period.

Personally I like the idea of anyone who wants to be able to buy into Medicare A & B. And if you don't have Medicare then you can always pay the Medicare rate of the procedure at 100% (versus having Medicare where your copay is 20%).

If insurance companies can't compete with that then great.

<comment><USER11> So the solution is more layers of administration over the prices of the pseudo marketplace?

<comment><USER10> How is that a fair representation of what I proposed?

I think part of the problem is absolutely opaque, discriminatory, and _predatory_ pricing.

I went to get a basic blood count last month. I gave the lab my insurance card, but they must have copied a number wrong, because when I got the bill they had me down as self insured, and had a bill which said;

      Lab Services     :  $1,541.00
      Patient Adjust   : -$  385.25
      Total Due        :  $1,155.75

I called back and gave them my insurance card and they said ignore the bill a new one will come in the mail.

Last week I got the new bill:

      Lab Services     :  $   17.12
      Insurance Pay    :  $   12.12
      Total Due        :  $    5.00

Yes, I absolutely think it should be illegal to try to bilk a cash carrying customer over $1,000 for a $17 blood count test.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> AI is being developed to make MRI scans 10x faster.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/samshead/2018/08/20/facebook- ai...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/samshead/2018/08/20/facebook-aims-to-make- mri-scans-10x-faster-with-nyu/#5a5f7fd87a04)

If DeepMind is trained on millions of MRI's, we might have better preventative medicine.

<comment><USER13> I have talked at length with several people in the FastMRI project and in my opinion it is actually very dangerous. There is no feasible way to validate that such a model will not hallucinate normal tissue in the presence of a rare abnormality. The argument often used is that advanced reconstruction techniques such as compressed sensing have not required validating against very rare abnormalities, however when deep neural networks get involved you have a nearly universal function approximator whose behavior is nowhere near as bounded.

The FDA will probably set the low bar of validating that the reconstruction algorithm fares well in the face of a few abnormalities and call it a day, instead of the proper (admittedly infeasible) validation of testing against all abnormalities that the reconstruction algorithm will encounter. Facebook will probably happily jump over this low bar, and patients will get hurt.

<comment><USER14> I never understood these arguments. Isn't it like claiming self-driving cars via neural networks would never be possible because you can't test that the neural network would take the correct decision in every situation?

I view the whole issue stochastically, with the immediate aim being to make (significantly) fewer errors than the current approach, which is having a human decide. I don't claim that I can design an experiment which could selve as an indication whether we are improving upon human judgments, but I think this should be the goal.

Reflecting upon my view, i think it comes from the experience of training ml- algorithms. You are always minimizing errors, but you goal is almost never to make 0 errors, because often your data is noisy and you are probably overfitting. I know the medical enviroments are more sensitive, but I can't really wrap my head around how we could design a learning algorithms that does not make any error and works on all abnormalies. I think it will always missclassify.

Rephrasing my argument: I think the approval should be given if an significant expected improvement over the distribution of real-life abnormalies can be detected and not over the uniform-dsitribution over all abnormalies.

EDIT: detecting out-of-distribution samples is hard and I don't think this is a solution and leads to a false sense of security.

<comment><USER15> It isn't. It obviously is possible to drive a car. The problem here is you're trying to reconstruct image from less data than what is fundamentally possible. Compressed sensing is already as low as you can get, unless you prove it is possible to reconstruct the image accurately from even less data, then it's probably pointless to try use neural networks to decode it, and it's actually a bad idea anyway.

The problem with neural networks is that they can reconstruct something that looks "normal", not necessarily something that is accurate. The more abnormal the scan, the more likely it will get reconstructed as something that looks perfectly fine even when it's not.

<comment><USER14> I really don't know anything about MRI and their usage, i was mainly criticising that his arguments sounded like a lot of the arguments I've heard against other usages of ML-Algorithms.

What I meant: There's probably a medical reason why you want such a product and if a more readily available MRI saves (really significantly) more lives than the chance that it might miss some abnormalies which could lead to death, then I think we should allow it. That's what I meant with a stochastic view. If we, for example, only have a few scans per hospital available because the chance might exist that we missclassify something and lots of people get worse or delayed treatment because they are not high enough on the priority list to get access to a super-resulution MRI with a fidelity they don't really need (again, i don't know anything, just to illustrate my point), then I think something is wrong.

His argument just sounded dismissive without giving a, to my uninformed point of view, valid reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Presumably there will have to be a proper medical trial with a declared up front hypothesis and double blind testing?

</comment><comment><USER17> I couldn't read the article, but I wonder if the NHS will get this for free, since we "gave" them all our data in order to train the model.

<comment><USER18> > A DeepMind spokesperson said that if the research results in a product that > passes clinical trials and regulatory approvals, doctors at Moorfields will > be able to use the product for free for an initial period of five years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I thought DeepMind's actual first commercial product is Google Cloud Services premium voice generation service (made from WaveNet)

<comment><USER20> Maybe it's semantics?

Google cloud services voice generation uses models/algorithms developed by DeepMind, it's not directly a DeepMind product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What's next, an AI to make a judicial verdict? Seriously though, this is very exciting. I can imagine a future in which medical diagnosis is damn near 100% accurate - all you need to do is lay down and get scanned and smelled by an all in one machine and your diagnosis is displayed with recommended treatment. If treatable with drugs or molecular repair, done on the spot.

<comment><USER22> > an AI to make a judicial verdict?

There is some discussion towards this direction: [https://www.wired.com/story/can-ai-be-fair-judge-court- eston...](https://www.wired.com/story/can-ai-be-fair-judge-court-estonia- thinks-so/)

<comment><USER23> I hope AI can assist in the knowledge gathering phases, and for civil cases I think it can be a huge value add.

For criminal cases though: the current judicial system is wayy too punitive. And an AI that would apply the letter of the law would likely criminalize society even more than what has already happened so far.

One happy scenario would be if the laws were more responsive and were changed to not be so punitive since the AI would have a high rate of conviction.

But then, you might have other failure scenarios. Rich people buying AI programmers and hackers to mess with the system.

Its a constant game of outsmarting the latest tech.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> didn't deep-mind folks tried controlling one of the data-centers which ended up reducing the overall power requirements a while back ? i was hoping that they would go that route...

</comment><comment><USER25> Unrelated but anyone knows why the URL is not "SEO friendly"? I'm guessing they don't bother because the content is behind a paywall anyways?

</comment><comment><USER26> How does one invest in deepmind ?

<comment><USER27> Buy shares in GOOGL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> For those not being able to read the article, you can use this "no paywall" bookmark:

        javascript:window.location.href='https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(window.location.href);

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm offering name suggestions:

DeepEye AEye

</comment><comment><USER30> April Fools!</comment>


Android Botnet Sends Spam SMS To Infect Users - <AUTHOR> http://tnw.to/d0TL8

<comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4938319>

Please don't use URL shorteners, please submit the full link.</comment>


Starting today "civilians" can be angel investors – should they? - <AUTHOR> http://calacanis.com/2016/05/16/starting-today-civilians-can-be-angel-investors-should-they/ <comment><USER2> It would be much better for civilians to be able to invest in ETFs that invest in VC firms. That way they're investing in baskets of startups picked by (hopefully) professionals. The odds of a single startup succeeding big are small, especially if it's picked by people who don't have a lot of domain expertise.

I sort of fear this will turn AngelList and similar into scam hellholes since the average person will be snowed more by flash than by substance. Why spend time building a product when you can spend your time building videos of a rendering of a product...</comment>


3D visualization tool – IMPOSSIBLE - <AUTHOR> Hey guys, I recently have been asked if I could build a visualization tool in a website, where you can drag and drop, chairs, tables, tvs, and all the shit you have in a livingroom, in order to design your own. Ive been trying to even think a way of doing that, but no clue at all, I hate to say no to a client, but this time I think ill have to pass. any idea? or library you might now could help me?<p>thanks in advance! :) <comment><USER2> [https://threejs.org](https://threejs.org)</comment>


Are you willing to hedge cloud futures for your startup? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.sun.com/simons/entry/the_future_of_cloud_computing

<comment><USER2> If there is a scarcity -- someone will start cloud@home and pay people a few cents for their computer hours. Supply should be quite elastic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Compute time on random home PCs is essentially worthless, or at least worth less than the overhead cost of managing it. And for many users the cloud is about storage and bandwidth as much as about compute.

<comment><USER3> Really? What about the WoW patch downloader, which saves Blizzard a fortune and requires essentially no incremental management effort? (A modified version of BitTorrent.)

Latency is high, and individual input is low, but for simple applications that may be all you actually need.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are specific cases where P2P works. I view clouds as generic infrastructure which is much more difficult to replace with P2P.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Giant rats, tiny parrots found in 'lost world' - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/09/08/biology-papua-new-guinea-species.html

<comment><USER2> I'm not sure this belongs here, but I found a better link with a slide show while looking for the fanged frog. The YouTube blurb has a little info on it too.

[http://www.backpacker.com/researchers_new_species_papua_new_...](http://www.backpacker.com/researchers_new_species_papua_new_guinea/blogs/daily_dirt/1283)

</comment><comment><USER3> It is sad to think of all this diverse wildlife threatened by human logging. These animals that have never seen humans before don't stand a chance.

<comment><USER4> As amazing as the find is, I can't help but feel anxious that in many ways it would be better if this was never reported ... I hope thet are left alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Google maps terrain [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Mt+Bosavi,+Papua+New+Guinea...](http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Mt+Bosavi,+Papua+New+Guinea&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hl=en&cd=1&geocode=FduLm_8dtXaDCA&split=0&ll=-6.599301,142.841148&spn=0.095323,0.142994&t=p&z=13&iwloc=A) (unfortunately, the satellite image is obscured by cloud)

</comment><comment><USER6> I keep waiting to see the picture of the fanged frog.

Fanged frog FTW...?

<comment><USER7> Seconding the request for pictures of fanged frog.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For those in the UK:

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00m82h7>

First episode of the 3 part series already broadcast and now available to view online.

</comment><comment><USER9> At some point, someone will import those giant rats into the _civilised world_. That'll be fun..

<comment><USER10> Na, they aren't evolved to survive. Humans would off those things with prejudice if they started invading our living areas.</comment></comment>


Did you know about Google's high-tech image sprite? - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/images/nav_logo4.png

<comment><USER2> If you find this technique interesting, check out GWT's excellent support for automatically generating these at compile-time: just subclass ImageBundle (a simple tag interface) and use annotations to reference the PNGs you need, and the compiler will bundle them into one image like this. At runtime, when you create an Image (from an AbstractImagePrototype that the ImageBundle's methods will give you) all of the work of slicing the specific section is done for you automatically.

And the cherry on top: you can use PNG transparency and the framework will automatically insert the appropriate hack for IE6 in the version of the javascript that those users will get.

It's extremely slick.

</comment><comment><USER3> Bonus points to anyone who can figure out what the "x" to the right of the "+-" is for.</comment>


Thin Servers with Smart Pipes: Designing SoC Accelerators for Memcached (2013) - <AUTHOR> https://research.facebook.com/publications/506574832765691/thin-servers-with-smart-pipes-designing-soc-accelerators-for-memcached/ <comment><USER2> This sort of cloud scale thinking about power usage/performance is how we'll clean up the environmental record of the data center industry.

Think about how this sort of thing when applied to AWS ElastiCache would reduce the coal fueled electricity footprint of the thousands of startups that use that service.

<comment><USER3> It reduces energy usage, but also the useful lifespan of servers. Commodity servers can be pushed into different (lesser) roles when they get older, but specialty kit cannot. More specialty kit means more e-waste, and more e-waste means more toxic metals in the soil.

<comment><USER4> FPGAs in a networked kit like this could still be repurposed in some way, yeah? Perhaps not as broadly as the typical server.

<comment><USER3> I'd be astonished if they use FPGAs in production kit. Once they get the circuit design right, even a modest quantity of (static) ASICs would be cheaper than FPGAs, and probably faster.

That said, if this really takes off, I'm sure some enterprising spirit will write some software to re-purpose these things as-is (I'm thinking something like a VMWare driver to turn them into NVRAM-SANs for disposable "worker" VMs)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


U.S. NIC on four megatrends changing the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-10/u-s-intelligence-agencies-see-a-different-world-in-2030.html

<comment><AUTHOR> "New technologies, dwindling resources and explosive population growth in the next 18 years will alter the global balance of power and trigger radical economic and political changes at a speed unprecedented in modern history, says a new report by the U.S. intelligence community.

The 140-page report released today by the National Intelligence Council lays out dangers and opportunities for nations, economies, investors, political systems and leaders due to four "megatrends" that government intelligence analysts say are transforming the world. Those major trends are the end of U.S. global dominance, the rising power of individuals against states, a rising middle class whose demands challenge governments, and a Gordian knot of water, food and energy shortages, according to the analysts.

While technological advances, migrations, wars and other factors drove change in earlier periods, what sets the next quarter century apart is the way seven "tectonic shifts" are combining to drive change at an accelerating rate, said NIC Counselor Mathew Burrows, the report's principle author. Those factors are: the growth of the middle class, wider access to new technologies, shifting economic power, aging populations, urbanization, growing demand for food and water, and U.S. energy independence.

The report reflects the consensus judgments of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, who consulted or contracted with academics, research institutes, political leaders and corporations in 14 countries and the European Union."</comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with diverging founder roles? - <AUTHOR> I'm almost 2 years into a bootstrapped startup with close friends. After all the ups and downs, we're modestly profitable and growing.
But as the stakes have gotten higher, there's also been a widening rift between the product-side and the sales-side of the company. Decisions around:

  - What projects to prioritize?
  - When to pay off technical debt?
  - What kind of office culture to promote?
 Are being pulled in two directions. One towards "faster, damn the torpedos." One towards "focus, less is more." While we all have a lot of mutual respect and shared vision, the ongoing debates are starting to be a real drag.
I suspect this kind of tension is common enough, maybe even unavoidable. My question is, how do other companies deal with it? <comment><USER2> This - a bit like discussing before vs after you're married whether you both want kids - is the sort of thing it's best to ensure you're aligned on before throwing your lot in with a co-founder.

Given that it's a little late for that, your options are basically for someone to compromise or to split up the team.</comment>


FCC designates Huawei, ZTE as risks to national security - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/30/21308477/fcc-huawei-zte-ban-universal-service-fund-national-security-threat-risk <comment><USER2> > "...both companies are broadly subject to Chinese law obligating them to > cooperate with the country's intelligence services."

Oh the irony.

I wouldn't purchase from these companies right now anyways, due to Hong Kong, but living in the US I would be less concerned about the CCP snooping my data then the US gov.

At least the CCP can't do anything to me here.

</comment><comment><USER3> Canada _should_ follow suit, though the CRTC is not like the independent justice system - they will defer to the Trudeau government's wishes and will likely delay until Meng is dealt with.</comment>


Ask HN: What platform would you use if you launched a physical and online shop? - <AUTHOR> Looking at opening a small niche store for some products. I'd imagine most of the customers would come into the store and pay for the product(s) and I can likely guess they would also use cash/check/credit. Would be quite detrimental if I only took credit cards. Many people in this industry pay with checks and cash.
I do want them to be able to purchase through the a website as well and get things shipped if they couldn't make it in.
Managing inventory between online/offline sales seems pretty important and I'd like them to nicely talk to each other.
Looked at Stripe, Shopify, Square? And some seem to offer POS that speaks talks to their platform which seems ideal. I might have one or two employees working at the store (it's small) so keeping costs super low and being able to use a tiny stand to swipe cards seems nice. Minimal training.
Basically a low cost operation, but I'd need to fire up a site and wouldn't want to spend a ton of money or time here getting operational. Website is somewhat secondary, but I want it available. This is my job but want to keep this simple as I'd like focus on the core aspects of the business. I've implemented simple things like using the Stripe API before which was awesome, but feel like that's not the ideal situation here. I've only worked with 100% online stores and doing a brick and mortar although small adds complexity.
What's the go-to "bootstrap" method for this? <comment><USER2> don't take checks. not worth the hassle.</comment>


Meet Wheretoget, a community of dedicated fashion enthusiasts - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/14/wheretoget-raises-2-million-for-its-powerful-shazam-for-fashion/

<comment><USER2> We are going to shake up the fashion industry thanks to our awesome team :)</comment>


Why I read Hacker News even though I understand very little of it - <AUTHOR> http://alexrosen.com/blog/2011/05/sponge-learning/

<comment><USER4> Sponge learning is awesome, but you must always remember to act upon it. Knowing that CoffeeScript is hot in the web dev scene is great, but in the end it amounts to little more than industry gossip.

True understanding comes from actually trying to do it yourself, technologies stop being buzzwords and they become tools.

That said, kudos to the OP for trying to Learn Python the Hard Way!

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally. Figuring out what to spend time on is definitely one of the hardest parts since there's so much out there. But reading and hacking on 4 chapters of the django book in a day taught me more than reading for a year.

<comment><USER5> Looking into diving into Django as well -- what Django book are you referring to, if I may ask?

<comment><AUTHOR> reading this one and I think it's super clear: <http://www.djangobook.com/en/2.0/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Two years ago, when I started reading HN, I was a php programmer who didn't even know what functional programming was.

Now most of my personal projects are written in my new favorite language, Erlang. Sponge learning _is_ awesome, specially when you supplement it with lots of hard work. Thanks HN.

</comment><comment><USER7> I have been the victim of sponge learning for many years now, HN being part of it for about a year. I can talk about a wide range of techy subjects but I've never really made or done anything to show for it. I learn bits from here and there without never going very deep. I've read through (and done most of the exercises from) K&R and Dive Into Python to name a couple, yet I haven't written a project over 500 LOC.

I've loved technology as long as I can remember, but when it comes to my local circles I've always been alone with it. Sponge learning is great and (as the writer mentioned) it deduces the amount of unknown unknowns, but without peer encouragement or -at least- approval it's very difficult to actually do something with it.

My sincere respect for everyone who has done something with their passions (that includes you alexmr!)

<comment><USER8> I just had to register to comment on this one.

Wow, that struck a chord. Pretty much every sentence rings true, especially the peer encouragement one. For me it's the availability of easier entertainment - why write that python bookmark creation date histogram plotter, when I'm tired and can just waste the evening reading Reddit? Oh, and there's the procrastination habit I've been nursing for over a decade.

On the other hand, having someone as a sounding board to bounce ideas off, and additionally to guard me from going off tangents and getting distracted - <USER2> helps make some progress.

Have you scouted around for a local hackerspace (<http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces>)? I did, but I'm using the language barrier (expat) and some leftover social anxiety as excuses to not pursue that road.

All else aside, would you be interested in starting a sort of a study group - just a place one can post their ideas and have others provide brainstorming, feedback and motivation?

I think that may work - I remember my most productive streaks were when a friend had an issue to solve and I would swoop in on the opportunity to help. When faced with a similar issue of my own, I would endlessly procrastinate and often fail. If others have also experienced similar situations, creating such a space to facilitate pair programming could increase everyone's productivity.

<comment><USER9> There's also hack nights in meetup.com and other sites where you basically announce your project/problem/ or just a snippet you need to write and find a pair.

Check out resources like scala-user, which is designated newbie-friendly, railsbridge.org and codereview.stackexchange.com.

<http://www.scala-lang.org/node/199>

Also relevant: remote pairing tools

<http://blog.tridgell.net/?p=111>

[http://blog.coryfoy.com/2010/08/technically-distributed- tool...](http://blog.coryfoy.com/2010/08/technically-distributed-tools-and- techniques-for-distributed-teams/)

[http://www.smashingapps.com/2011/01/10/7-coolest-real- time-c...](http://www.smashingapps.com/2011/01/10/7-coolest-real-time- collaboration-web-apps-you-might-not-know-about-but-should.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like Alex's concept of "sponge learning" and reducing "unknown unknowns". I've actually been doing this unconsciously for quite a while.

Let's say there is a debate about the best VPS provider on the HN front page. I have no need for a VPS _right now_ , and I sadly don't have the time to read the whole debate. Instead, I skim the discussion, bookmark it (on pinboard) with appropriate tags, and know it will be there when I do need to choose a web host.

This also applies to "unknown unknowns": a month ago, I saw the discussion on CloudFare ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2631019> ). I made a mental note that some services might actually help mitigate DDOS attacks, and made a bookmark for later use.

I could make an analogy with a database: I don't have enough time / memory to learn and remember everything I read on HN. Instead, I use my brain like an "index", the database being my Pinboard bookmarks. I think it's time to expand to other databases, too: I should try out EverNote or Workflowy to store free- form thoughts and other "non-bookmarkable" stuff.

<comment><USER9> This was a good thread about building "notes compressions": cheat sheets, outlines, other mnemonics on paper

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2658818>

Yesterday, there was this woman in a coffee shop (probably a PhD student) who had the smallest densest handwriting i've ever seen, doing this for a Physical Chemistry text. There must have been 3,000 words on each 8x11 page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What I noticed in these 847 days I've been here is that HN's comments spoiled me. I now seek the same level of discussion on other sites and most of the time find myself disappointed.

<comment><USER12> I have abandoned other sites entirely. I even get impatient at my family/friend's postings on Facebook - too much 'me too' and 'cool!' noise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I did the exact thing with Slashdot, when I first got on the Internet in '98. And I'd read Linux Journal although much of that was over my head as well.

But slowly you learn, and get to know the stuff, and then it gets boring and so you check out something else you know little about. That's what happens to me.

I think you're on to a good strategy alex.

<comment><USER14> Yeah Slashdot started it for me too (well IRC, but website-wise the first was Slashdot). I'm a high school drop-out (now 31) who somehow managed to make a comfortable career off web development and IT project management thanks almost entirely to "sponge learning" off IRC, Slashdot, HN (more recently) and the Internet in general.

I've never done any formal training, I just wholeheartedly believe in immersing yourself in what you want to learn, and specifically immerse yourself at a deeper level than you're comfortable with to force yourself to work harder.

I can quite literally say my entire adult education from Year 10 onwards came from the Internet, and I owe my career, house, vehicles, all of it to sites like HN :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hey, this is good. And it inspired the guy to go deeper into some of the subjects!

Sometimes, a problem is that people only go to sponge learning...and then stop. As a professor of my friend's said...people are getting better and better at being able to talk about something for five minutes...then that's it. Thanks to wikipedia, lots of people can seem smart, but not actually understand something in depth.

I find XKCD also to blame for part of this. If I had a dollar for every time someone made a joke about the Axiom of Choice...

<comment><USER16> I feel like this is a problem too. You actually got me thinking about this, and since I don't think I do this, how I avoid it.

I don't think I do anymore. I mean, I do less than other people, but I don't go deeper like I used to.

I think the solution, is books. I'm normally a little disdainful of those who have bookcases of technical (read: computer/programming) books, I can get the same or better info on the Internet (certain books excluded, but these books don't take entire bookcases).

But this is because I've progressed far enough in my understanding of this field that I wouldn't benefit particularly much from these books. Which, I think is why my learning in other areas has slowed, I no longer go to the bookstore. That means I don't by chance pick up a book on extra-dimensional physics. Because I don't need a book to help me pick up CodeIgniter or Python. This, of course, implies a tendency I have, to not go shopping, I only go into a store if I know what I'm going to buy.

I think that it is hugely beneficial to just walk through a bookstore, and just pick up a book on a subject that is interesting to you, that you _don't_ know a lot about.

<comment><USER15> Usually books are interesting and useful. CS seems to be a different thing, as most things are available online for free, and there is a large community. Bookstores are still fun to go to (although I feel like they may be a dying breed).

It always helps to work on exercises (for stuff like math), but for CS, to pick something interesting you want to do in a language(s), but is small - <USER3> that can be a hard part. It's getting harder for me to figure out what to use a language for - picking up a language's syntax and nuances is relatively easy (okay, excluding Haskell), but it's worthless unless you have something you want to work on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Great post.

I have often thought about the way I learn, and it's very much 'sponge learning' (nice term BTW).

I am on a journey to learn Clojure, and improve my JavaScript skills. Much like the author, I read blog-posts, books, the Google groups as well as take any code samples found there and play with them in the REPL. A lot of the posts (especially some on the Google Groups) don't always make sense to me - but I hope that I will have filed it away somewhere. Maybe someday it will all come together :)

Again, nice post.

<comment><USER18> Any sponge friendly links on clojure will be most porously appreciated

<comment><USER17> One of my favorite resources is the #clojure tag on Twitter. I use Tweetie and have bookmarked a search on that.

Here are a few sites from my GReader

<http://www.bestinclass.dk/blog.html>

<http://nakkaya.com/>

<http://freegeek.in/blog/>

<https://groups.google.com/group/clojure>

And here are a few tabs that I currently have open (Maybe this weekend I will get to them :D)

<https://github.com/dbushenko/ClojureBlog>

[http://skillsmatter.com/podcast/scala/talk-by-patrick- fredri...](http://skillsmatter.com/podcast/scala/talk-by-patrick-fredriksson)

<http://brehaut.net/blog/2011/ring_introduction>

<http://www.codequarterly.com/2011/rich-hickey/> (Interview with Rich)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2682191>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2709319>

Hope these help :)

<comment><USER18> Grand! Thanks muchly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The most upvoted comment on the post (Martin Doms):

Everyone on hacker news is motivated by money. It gets old. There's a huge vibe of "I don't care about this technical mumbo jumbo any more than I have to to make a quick buck". It's VERY trendy/hipster culture there. They jump on all of the silly buzzword bandwagons and distrust tried and true technologies.

I'm not saying I don't read the site - some of the articles are very good. But I don't like to be around people primarily motivated by money. Those kinds of people make me very uncomfortable.

<comment><USER20> I saw that and disagree with him. A lot of people involved in [tech] startups are interested in money. However most, including myself, simply have a passion for building or contributing to something new. It's about learning, exploring and discovering. It is apparent that this guy needed to spend a little more time browsing HN before making this comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Best thing about HN that it filters out crap and produces quality stuff. Just because of HN I came across two entrepreneurs who are more than helpful to guide me offline whenever I need.

Thanks PG and Team to give such a quality site. Now I don't visit TechCrunch etc to find out Information. HN does it for me and saves my time

P.S: I am already a techie but a Biz noob and HN is helping me to become an entrepreneur.

<comment><USER22> That's a very subjective view. A year ago, Hacker News really was _HACKER_ News. Today it's not. It's Startup News, and Popular Blogstar Gives His Lofty Opinion On Something News. I'm glad that it benefits and entertains someone, but I'm also a bit sad that it stopped doing the same for me and everyone else who used to visit this site for _HACKER_ News.

<comment><USER23> It actually started out as Startup News.

<http://ycombinator.com/announcingnews.html>

<http://ycombinator.com/hackernews.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm right there with you. I have been an avid reader of HN for going on 2 years now. While I can't sit down and develop killer software from scratch, I am slowly learning more and more about technology and programming, and a lot of it is thanks to the great HN community.

I just started ready the updated edition of Learn Python The Hard way, and really enjoy it. It's the first book on programming that I have read that throws you right into the thick of things, get's you started writing code from the outset. Feel free to send me a message or email me if you want to bounce and ideas off of each other with Python or anything else, I get the impression we are both starting off on the same page. Should be a fun adventure!

<comment><USER25> "Feel free to send me a message or email me if you want to bounce and ideas off of each other with Python or anything else, I get the impression we are both starting off on the same page"

Is that open to all?

<comment><USER26> I just started LPTHW as well and would like to get in on the discussion too

<comment><USER8> Would you guys be interested in setting up a "study group", sort of a Procrastinators Anonymous for wanna-be developers?

I can't begin to count the books I've skimmed over and not completed a single exercise. LPTHW was really nice in the way it gave you nothing else to do but exercises. Perhaps something as simple as a small, tight-knit forum (plenty of free forum providers) & IRC channel (something like freenode #python-studygrp) can be useful to bust the barrier of "I'll just start on that exercise/project/book when I'm a bit less tired." Somebody shoots an idea of something they've been meaning to do and others can jump in with brainstorming, ideas, pair programming and general "let's just do it" attitude.

Hell, I know I've been meaning to write a python script to draw a daily histogram of the creation times of Opera bookmarks, but I never got around to it. If I had a twin, I'd prod myself to hunker down and just write those <1KLoC.

So if anyone's interested in the group thing, just drop me a line so I can set it up tonight (CEST timezone here).

<comment><USER25> Sent you an e-mail.

<comment><USER24> If you guys figure something out for a study group or IRC chat, email me! I would love to have some people going through LPTHW with me to keep each other at it. Like a lot of people, I always find myself starting the learning process with enthusiasm, but then dropping the hat when other projects come up. Really need the support to help make programming a priority.

<comment><USER26> Same here - support and group understanding are critical for taking things to the next level. Send me an email if anything takes form.

<comment><USER25> E-mailed all of you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is exactly the kind of mentality that one should develop on HN (or if they want to get anywhere in the industry). It reminds me of a recent post I read that people aren't intrinsically separated into "technical" and "non- technical" people. If you have the patience and the will, you can become competent at either. :) Read/learn on!

</comment><comment><USER28> I did this with Reddit years ago when much of the front page was programming/computer-related. I realized it was an awesome subject, spent a lot of time trying to figure out what they were talking about, and eventually changed my major to software engineering.

<comment><USER29> I hope this site wont become reddit ;-) The issue is that the communities are open and when it reaches a critical point, it all becomes like reddit/slashdot/whatnot as it will follow the majority of people's interest.

So let's hope, this site doesn't grow too much ;-)

<comment><USER30> The same thing happened with Digg, it used to be tech based. Then it got popular, then they screwed it up, and now no one uses it. I think hacker news can avoid this by keeping their minimal UI and not adding shiny bits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I was referred to HN by a former colleague only 4 months ago. I'm the farthest from being a programmer of any sort, but I work in and around technology and he knew I was somewhat of a 'knowledge whore' aka philosopher. I like being in the know. "Sponge learning" is a great practice. I walk away from the monitor each day knowing what I don't know.

Thanks HN

</comment><comment><USER32> Alex, thanks for the post. This is definitely how I read HN and the links to the learning resources has helped accelerate learning new material.

</comment><comment><USER33> Awesome post. I am in the exact same boat as you. I read this stuff every day as inspiration and to learn more about the world of programming and computers. I am also working through python to learn my first language (chose python because of xkcd). Feel free to email me if you want to discuss difficulties or challenges with programming in python or in general.

</comment><comment><USER34> You can certainly get part of the big picture from reading Hacker News, but if you're going to learn anything in depth, I seriously suggest taking a class. That way someone else has already done all the hard work in collecting all the material in easily digestable chunks and even gives his or her valuable time in trying to make you understand it all.

</comment><comment><USER35> And even when you understand a lot about these technologies -- it can be a great reminder of things to dabble in and see if they fit your model of how you work. This week I jumped into using Less (a CSS tech like Sass) after noticing a post on it.

How happy I am -- Less (or a similar tech) is now going to be a permanent fixture in my webdev world!

</comment><comment><USER36> Judging from the fact that he helped make twordsie, I wouldn't say he's exactly at level zero. Rather misleading.

</comment><comment><USER37> Totally agree - I'm a complete newbie when it comes to tech but I am learning at a fast clip because of HN :)

</comment><comment><USER38> Besides the technical stuff, the links and discussions here on HN have helped me with entrepreneurial concepts the most. It helps when really established and well known people, and people who have plentiful experience in starting, running, and marketing a business are discussing things.

</comment><comment><USER39> this is almost exatcly how I learn. It is certainly the reason why I read hn, and associate with people who are generally much more experienced than I am (they're great friends of primarily).

I am still very much learning about programming in general, but the beat advice I ever got was this: just write programs any way you can, and learn what you did 'wrong'. there are always different ways to solve problems but the best way to get better is through practice.

its cool to see someone else (and by the comments, many others) doing the same thing I do.

</comment><comment><USER40> I think this is why I love listening to Build and Analyze by Marco - <http://5by5.tv/buildanalyze>

<comment> Anti-Ratfish The other 5by5 shows often have stuff to offer too. Although I'm sure you know this...

<comment><USER40> I'm subscribed to 8 of them :)

B&A is relevant because I'm not a iOS developer (though I do like coffee).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Eternal September.

<comment><USER42> Are you really going to criticize someone for acknowledging that they're new and have stuff to learn?

<comment><USER41> I think it's great. I wish more people were as eager to learn new things as the OP.

I do think it comes at a cost to the rest of the community, though, when so many people participating in a technical community don't really understand much of the discussion.

<comment><USER43> Because they're ... reading it?

<comment><USER44> No, he's got a point. New members tend to just be going through stuff that older members figured out long ago. This causes reposts or beginner material to be posted and talked about more often, leaving the more experienced members unsatisfied. Eventually, the experienced members leave for greener pastures and bring a lot of knowledge with them. Worse, this accelerates the spiral and degrades the quality of the site further.

Hacker News helps mitigate this through the continual involvement of PG and YC. Because there are a group of experienced technical people who are grounded to the site, it helps keep quality up. While I have noticed a slight decline in the site, it's far less than I noticed with Digg, Slashdot, or Reddit.

<comment><USER45> So people who want to learn from HN should not?

From what you two are saying a person like myself, who is just starting out and therefore not writing much in the way of code or blogposts, should not be reading HN because I can't join the discussion with anything but questions?

What about likeminded people discussing a topic that interests them? Is there no room for that?

<comment><USER46> I think the idea they're trying to convey can be summarized thusly:

lurk moar.

<comment><USER47> Of course, some elite will outgrow any community save for the few right, private channels in IRC (as with reading the newspaper, anyone will frown at the oft-jornalistic reporting of whatever they know too well). Conversely, some newcomers should really be lurking more, or at least asking around at StackExchange before asserting anything here.

But since the point of HN seems to be "sponge learning" at large (of course, different levels of sponge learning), I don't see any sane way of moderating what _should_ be worthy of HN from what _should_ be asked or posted elsewhere, so long as it has the feel and common interests of the community, and "gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> It's nice to know there are more of us spongers out there, some of us don't have a blog though _suspicious look_

</comment><comment><USER49> I think you might be happy to hear this, I'm a noob as you are and TIL that I'm "sponge learning" aswell! Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER50> Sponge learning is very good, especially when one wants to learn new vocabulary and tech jargon.

</comment><comment><USER51> I would class myself as an advanced user, not a developer but someone with interest and enthusiasm for technology. The main reason that I visit HN is that for me, the level of debate is higher. Far less fanboyism and trolling than most tech sites and IMHO - up there with slashdot. That's high praise for me \\. is my favourite site

</comment><comment><USER52> _it, definitely reduces my unknown unknowns_

</comment><comment><USER53> whew, i thought it was just me

</comment><comment><USER54> I've been reading HN for over a year even though I'm not the best developer. It simply teaches useful info about how to get things done that I would not get otherwise.

For instance, the case studies on starting a T-shirt company Snowpocalypse 2011 - bam! Knowledge of how to do that. Or the posts on business models in the music industry, links to Mixergy, et cetra, et cetra.

HN basically is extremely entertaining - and the most valuable business site I read.

</comment><comment><USER55> It is interesting how synonymous "hacking" and "programming" has become with "web programming" all of a sudden over the last few years...

<comment><USER56> It wouldn't be unreasonable to say that programming IS taking a trend towards mostly web development. Of course there will always be non-webdev programming, but it certainly is becoming more ubiquitous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Alternative title: Why I read Startup/Popular Blogstar news even though I care for very little of it.

Anyone else who has noticed how radically the news content on HN has changed since just last year? HN is dead, long live the new HN.

<comment><USER57> Not really, but I do remember people making this complaint in 2008, 2009, and 2010. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Nailed it.</comment>


Ask HN: What would a commercial drone network look like? - <AUTHOR> What kinds of rules would be required to have a commercial drone network for delivering packages and other small physical objects locally? <comment><AUTHOR> Here's something I was thinking of:

1\. insurance

2\. detect objects and avoid them.

3\. standard flying height

4\. register unmanned flight path

5\. communicate with other drones near by

6\. small fee to manage flight path registration

7\. if engine goes out some way to recover and land safely

8\. way to manage privacy for sensors.

9\. real time reporting of location height etc.</comment>


What causes those scrambled sentences in the Windows 10 error screens? - <AUTHOR> https://i.redd.it/0chocy2vefnz.jpg <comment><USER2> Where is the origin of this image? Is there more information available? The image alone is not very interesting, but if it has some back history ...

<comment><AUTHOR> It's an image from Reddit. Actually pictures like this one come up regularly on the net with surprised comments. The thing is, the text is way too 'good' to be the result of some overflow. Might it be the result of a race condition with pointers to strings?

<comment><USER2> I tried googling the reddit post but I has not lucky. Sometimes the original post has some context that makes easier to debug the problem, or sometimes it has an interesting comment with a good guess about the cause.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh sorry, I should've linked it: [https://www.reddit.com/r/softwaregore/comments/71ql59/are_yo...](https://www.reddit.com/r/softwaregore/comments/71ql59/are_you_ok_windows/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Twitch Plays Lego (live from 31C3) - <AUTHOR> http://www.twitch.tv/twitchplayslego

<comment><AUTHOR> Round 3: [http://www.twitch.tv/twitchplayslego](http://www.twitch.tv/twitchplayslego)

Enter adjacent coordinates, then watch blocks being built (with some delay).</comment>


Apple's Tablet Competitors Will Never Catch Up - <AUTHOR> http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apples_tablet_competitors_will_never_catch_up/ <comment><USER2> We heard the exact same arguments in 2008 when Android released. Have people really forgotten how events unfolded just 2-3 years ago?

For reference, this is what shipment numbers look like only a few months after Android tablets started hitting store shelves:

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20082707-64/did-the- ipad-r...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20082707-64/did-the-ipad-really- lose-a-big-chunk-of-share-to-android/)

This shouldn't surprise anyone that doesn't have thick Apple blinders on their head. Manufacturers are starting to release better hardware, on cheaper devices, and in faster timelines than the iPad. The only thing holding it back is that developers have only had a few months to start writing apps tailored for tablets running Android. And in that vain, just like the smartphone market, it's literally just a matter of time before history repeats itself.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is exactly what people were saying before (and even immediately after) the first Android devices arrived on the market.

</comment><comment><USER4> As always, John has awesome insight into how Apple competes.</comment>


Stop writing code. Start drawing it. - <AUTHOR> http://macaw.co/

<comment><USER2> Looks great, but I found no way to try or sign up for it. The only thing that resembles a sign up is one that asks me if I want to know when the tool is released for the AppStore. What am I missing?</comment>


Was the Google Nexus One a flop? Not even close. - <AUTHOR> http://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2010/0517/Was-the-Google-Nexus-One-a-flop-Not-even-close.

<comment><USER2> I found the web site ordering hugely convenient for three reasons:

1) I cannot stand going to Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and other brick and mortar stores with their cloying and generally clueless sales personnel. 2) I am an American living outside the US, so it made sense to order it online and pick it up when I came to visit my relatives in the States. 3) Because I travel a lot and change providers often, I like to own my phone. I do not want to have the provider put all their crap software and branding in the handset for me to remove later. Having the phone unlocked and unencumbered with 3rd party software was a blessing.

I realize I am in the minority. Just my 2c.</comment>


"What's the Most Intellectual Joke You Know?" - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/06/28/the_most_intellectual_joke_you_know_an_idiot_s_guide_to_the_reddit_thread.html

<comment><USER2> Some programmers prefer to not commingle functional code with procedural code; they believe in the separation of Church and state.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Original reddit here: [http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1h1cyg/whats_the_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1h1cyg/whats_the_most_intellectual_joke_you_know/)</comment>