Show HN: Dodeka Music – piano keyboard and easy-to-read sheet music in one app - <AUTHOR> http://www.dodeka.info/Products/dodeka-app/ <comment><USER2> Congrats on your launch.

I love innovation and experimentation in this space.

I am confused about why you feel it is easier to read the "sheet music" in your app than traditional notation. I feel the tight spacing of the note indicators does overtly show rhythmic values, but at the expense of easy readability.

They are also misleading unless they show how varied an actual note duration can be. Do you show staccato notes as short? How short? These are determinations left to the player.

The lack of stems makes the use of the term "sheet music" rather misleading/confusing, in my opinion.

Having a chromatic keyboard that gives equal space to all twelve tones is a cool idea, but as someone who plays such keyboards primarily, as well as "normal" piano, I can assure you it is not necessarily easier to learn or to play traditional music, including modern pop music, on such a keyboard.

I am genuinely curious whether you have tested any of the assumptions behind your reworking of these conventions, many of which probably exist for reasons that go beyond just inertia.

I feel like I keep seeing products that try to do away with what's "hard" about reading sheet music, but that is solving one of the smallest hurdles confronting people trying to learn music. Sure, it looks like hieroglyphs to the uninitiated, but once you learn the basics it's actually pretty easy to work with. Do you have a plan in place for gradually introducing the learner to stems and rests and other sheet music notation, or ... how does the learner move on from this?

Regardless, would love to hear about how things go and how people respond to your ideas.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi whiddershins, Thanks for your comment,

To answer your questions about additional notation marks, please feel free to check our documentation here [http://www.dodeka.info/Learn/Presentation/](http://www.dodeka.info/Learn/Presentation/) and [http://www.dodeka.info/Learn/Resources/](http://www.dodeka.info/Learn/Resources/). These will show you how we notate rests, staccato, and other notational marks.

As for the advantage dodeka brings, it's really about the synergy there is between the keyboard and the sheets. There's only one way to write one piece, which means that players can easily learn how to play a song in every tone. Our tests showed that people usually take between 1 to 3 minutes to read and play an easy piece in all different tones. This is fast right? :)

For rhythms - we believe it's easier for one's mind to see the value rather that to compute it.

Also, we are not targeting musicians, but rather beginners and people who'd like to learn/play music in an easy way.

Finally, I'm not sure that I understood what you meant with the stems and sheet music.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Suggestion: I don't know if it's just Safari on the Mac or not but I didn't get any sound from the three videos on the page. It was strange for a music app to not have sound in the videos. Maybe a technical glitch on my machine?

<comment><USER4> Same here on FF & Ubuntu, pretty sure the videos are silent (even though they contain an audio track).

<comment><AUTHOR> it's a bug - will change that asap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> These guitar hero style alternative notations are a major problem IMO. It's extra problematic to advertise it as "learn music" when really it's giving you a crutch to avoid learning music.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, sorry, I took one look at this keyboard layout and thought to myself "ok this is a toy"

I'd love to see an application that could capture audio from an instrument and act as a real-time theory aid/teacher. For example:

      * the note you are playing is this
      * the notes you've just played in sequence belong to these scales. here are possibilities for next notes
      * try these chords
      * the chord you've just played is comprised of these notes
      * the next chord in the scale could be this
      * popular songs with these chords or in this scale are

<comment><USER7> You need context for that. Clearly something like this isn't for getting your head around avantgarde music.

I say the more tools the better. People will outgrow their instrument fairly quickly if it's too limiting and then just move on to something new.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Whilst I'm all for innovation, the "Dodeka Keyboard" is not going to help you learn piano. It's going to help you to learn to play a Dodeka Keyboard.

<comment><USER7> Is that their claim though? Isn't the claim you will learn to play music and isn't that the most important regardless of which instrument you learn?

<comment><USER8> I was going off the phrase, "Always wanted to play piano? Now is your time." from [0].

[0] [http://www.dodeka.info/Play/](http://www.dodeka.info/Play/)

<comment><USER7> Play piano, not learn to play piano. Semantics but I think it's important the title of the Show HN taken into consideration.

<comment><USER8> I think it's more important to take the content of the linked website into consideration.

<comment><USER7> Yes and even I am I still don't see anywhere it claims you learn to play piano.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hi j_rcht congrats on the launch.

As a long time musician myself I am always intersted in learning about new instruments. The video you post in the bottom is it purely to increase the span of how many octaves you fingers can span or what's the purpose?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi ThomPete - thanks! The videos at the bottom only present the app functionalities - nothing more really. But about the span, we use the same dimensions as conventional piano, meaning that octaves size aren't wider.

<comment><USER7> I'm confused now :) The video that shows the real life piano where all the keys are the same size?

<comment><AUTHOR> Are talking about the video on the home page?

<comment><USER7> Yes the link you have all they way in the bottom. A real piano with black keys

[http://www.dodeka.info/Products/](http://www.dodeka.info/Products/)

<comment><AUTHOR> oh - this video is to show how our "real" keyboard works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice idea! Could be a great intro for new learners or even those who just want to get at making sound with a lower bar to entry- which is fantastic. I'd love to try it with a student. Have you?

</comment><comment><USER10> Looks really great. Keep up the good work. I'm looking forward to all the new musical instruments that can come out thanks to the iOS audio engine :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks sova for the kind words! Much appreciated!:)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Which audio framework did you choose for this?

<comment><AUTHOR> AV foundation

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ipad only. I do happen to have one but...</comment>


15 startups that want your lunch - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2007/biz2/0708/gallery.next_disruptors.biz2/ <comment><USER2> [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2007/09/01/100169862/index.htm)

Here's the list.

The only two I found really interesting was zink and desktop factory. I've had my eye on desktop factory for a while now, and there is a lot of possibility there with 3D printing. However, I think machines are still on the pricey side. It'll still be another two to three years before they have a high enough adoption rate to do something interesting on top of it.

Zink is interesting. Hadn't ever thought about no paper ink. The price of paper will go up, but the number of parts in a machine will go down.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ack, another slideshow. Can't they just list them on a single page?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am not so technical, but I think ajax could help here. i hate it when the page reloads 25 times just to see them all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Those Expensr guys seem to have done a nice job of implementing one of the ideas I had been mulling around.

www.expensr.com for those who didn't read the article.</comment>


16 Of Science's Best Infographics, From Ancient Greece To Today  - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcodesign.com/3026917/16-of-sciences-best-infographics-from-ancient-greece-to-today <comment><USER2> I wonder how they got such an "accurate" map of the world in 1685, many people would fare worse than that if they had to draw it from memory.</comment>


Will Developers Ante Up for a Gambling API? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.programmableweb.com/2012/07/09/will-developers-ante-up-for-a-gambling-api/

<comment><USER2> > According to Betable's Griffin, social games average $1 of monthly revenue > per user. Existing gambling games, which Griffin says are mostly boring, > average $300 of monthly revenue per user.

That seems way, way off. $300 average would require either all of your players are hardcore and put in a lot of money, or you have a decent number of players at the high end skewing it. Assuming they're getting something out of it (at least some of the time), this number seems to be quite... deceptive. I'd love to see the data behind it.

<comment><USER3> It's the latter. A small number of big spenders ("whales" in the industry lingo) can easily skew average number. Median is a better metric than average here.

<comment><USER4> >Median is a better metric than average here.

Not in this case! Remember that the goal here is to maximize revenue (see footnote) so it is a bad move to _ignore_ the existence of the whales -- because whales represent a big fraction of our potential revenue.

Footnote: since most of the costs for this kind of business are "fixed" costs, e.g., the cost of paying the developers to built the site, the way to maximize profit is to maximize revenue.

<comment><USER3> I was replying Daeken's comment on why $300 seems to be a high number. This number is not representative of average spent by a majority of users but that's what most people assume when they hear "average $300 of monthly revenue per user".

For you to maximize your revenues, by all means go after the whales as that's where the money is. I worked in online gambling industry for a number of years and have seen this happen quite a few times. I.e. an online casino with about 12000 of active users had 85% of its revenues generated by a dozen (as in less than 12) high-rollers.

<comment><USER4> OK. Looks like you no longer hold that "median is a better metric than average here," which is what I was taking exception to.

>I worked in online gambling industry for a number of years . . . an online casino with about 12000 of active users had 85% of its revenues generated by a dozen (as in less than 12) high-rollers.

Thanks for the interesting info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is very interesting for use with a mock gambling game - one where users cannot cash out. Users can buy in-app chips to keep playing. Is this the entire purpose of it? I'd think actual gambling online, even with no house edge, has proven to be a "den of thieves" (Full Tilt, Ultimate Bet) how would this actually solve the problem of trust?

<comment><USER6> One of our primary goals as a company is to be entirely white hat and trustworthy. Our investors, partners and the lawmaking body that granted us our gambling licenses all fully support our product and the service it provides. We worked hard to earn the trust of these institutions, and we will work hard to earn consumers' trust as well :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm curious as to how this model will work if users can't easily deposit money online. I can only imagine they will inevitably face the same problems as online poker where credit card companies and banks will block any transaction related to gambling sites or 3rd party eWallet proxies.

In the early online poker years, you could easily deposit directly from your bank or credit card. Then banks started blocking these transactions. The online casinos came up with the eWallet proxies such as Neteller that served as an intermediary between the banks and the poker sites. Those too were blocked. Then gift cards became the main funding source, and eventually those were blocked. Eventually the process ended up with direct wire transfers or payment-by-phone. As each deposit method was blocked, it became harder for the casual players to get money online and they stopped playing.

<comment><USER6> You are correct, credit card companies in the US will block transactions to gambling sites. However, I must make it clear that Betable does NOT facilitate illegal online gambling. We only let players from legal gambling jurisdictions play games for real money. All other players can still play, but for virtual currency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> For a couple of years I've been cooking a gambling API and while there is a huuuge market for that, execution is what separates wheat from chaff. Here are two key things I believe will make it a winner:

1\. Make it easy for developers to integrate in their apps.

2\. Make it easy for users to deposit/withdraw/bet money.

So, if I am playing online poker on my iPad, I may call, raise or go all-in on very single hand. Can your API do that? What means all-in in that case? All I have in the bank?

Allow me to move $100 from my account to any game I feel in the mood to play. Let me deplete that bag and go for more or just quit in the middle and get the rest back. Can your API do that?

Btw, call it iChips and put it on the app store (there is already one app with that name, but fight for the name) and use colorful casino chips everywhere.

Again, execution is king...

<comment><USER9> These are solved problems both in meatspace and online gambling. Your buy-in is separate from your wallet:

> _I may call, raise or go all-in on very single hand. Can your API do that? > What means all-in in that case? All I have in the bank?_

When you "sit down" at the table, you specify how much you're buying in with, between $TABLE_MIN and the lesser of ($TABLE_MAX || $YOUR_WALLET). Your all-in bet is a bet of whatever you've got at the table (not in your wallet). That's a fundamental rule of poker games.

> _Allow me to move $100 from my account to any game I feel in the mood to > play. Let me deplete that bag and go for more or just quit in the middle and > get the rest back. Can your API do that?_

Again, that's a fundamental gaming paradigm that online gaming clients have done well forever.

Making a gambling API is IMO a developer's dream because all the rules are very clearly delineated already, and have been mostly agreed upon by decades of IRL usage and regulation. In other words, the spec's been written, tried, iterated on, and verified. As far as specs go, gaming rules are a thing of beauty.

These are the two things that will make a winning API:

1) Trust and integrity (including auditing).

2) Easy transactions.

The big blocker here is _client integrity._ What if I wrote a slot machine program that took 1% of winning rolls and displayed a loser to the player and took the winnings for myself?

<comment><USER6> Hey Domenic_S

So you know, that example of poor client integrity is something that we 100% prohibit. We audit every game before it goes live for real money on our platform, and since we control the gambling transactions, we make sure players get correctly paid out.

Also, we are audited by the UK Gambling Commission annually, so our gambling licenses are testament to our own integrity as a service (the UKGC does not take the license-holder commitment lightly!).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Interesting stuff and the ARPU generated from gambling revs will ofcourse be a massive draw to devs looking to use the Betable API. We're working on a social sports prediction game with a football(soccer) focus at launch but have consciously avoided building in gambling mechanics. We will run with an affiliate model where we can achieve around 15-30% of a users lifetime value from the provider.

Our aim is to focus on the gameplay and have the cash betting as an extra. With such tricky global regulations this frees us up to pick and choose partners that meet local laws and expand into regulated markets with new models.Of course Betable would prove a great expansion of our product in future.

Interested to hear HN's thoughts (affiliate vs betable) and would love you all to play and inform our beta later in the year: www.betstars.co.uk

</comment><comment><USER11> Interesting solution to the regulation "problem"

I think the big question here is not whether developers ante up for a gambling API. Certainly some will, given the prospect of making more money. The real question to me is whether it becomes 'required' in the sense that in order to compete, they need to use it (or a competitor's equivalent). The social game industry seems to be all about fast-following on features, especially monetization

</comment><comment><USER12> The main problem (as I see it) is you're limited by the types of games offered by the API. It would be cool if you could provide your own logic for a game, but of course that's a difficult problem for Betable to solve since they need to know that the house has an edge.

Multiplayer games would also be fun but then you have to guard against collusion and other exploits.

<comment><USER13> Casinos regularly dedicate 80% or more of their floor space to slot machines because those games are the most lucrative and easiest for people to play. The Betable API probably offers a "good enough" solution for building these simple games that make up the majority of what casual gamers will want to play.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> That's a good question, but I don't think it's the right question.

It all depends on how secure it is. You can have a very unsecure API that no one will touch or an incredibly secure API that no one will use because it's too difficult.

Creating an API is not the problem. Finding the right balance of security and convenience is the problem.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm curious how this would work. If I were to use this API to create, let's say, Bingo for money. How would I use the API without going to jail for running a gambling operation? I mean, I'm in the US so I guess I could always find an indian casino to back but that isn't likely without them taking a huge cut.

<comment><USER6> AsylumWarden, with us you don't need a gambling license and you run no risk of "going to jail" in the US. Betable handles and hosts all of the gambling transactions, so you don't touch any gambling. Therefore, you don't need a license and can be anywhere in the world.

<comment><USER16> That's not true in the U.S. If he uses your site's gambling API, he is engaged in the business of gambling and must have a license. Since the U.S. generally does not allow online gambling, it is effectively illegal _regardless_ of where the servers are physically stored.

FultTiltPoker and Bodog were both hosted from offshore (and generally run from offshore), but that did not help their U.S. owners in the slightest when the FBI came knocking.

Moreover, by using a gambling API on your own site, you place all of your bank accounts at risk of being frozen by your financial institution (if they are U.S. based) as U.S. financial institutions are not permitted to transfer funds to gambling sites. You could use an offshore bank, but this would increase compliance costs and guarantee an annual audit by the IRS.

EDIT: This assumes games are played for cash. Games played for virtual currency are not considered gambling unless they are easily convertible back into cash.

<comment><USER6> > That's not true in the U.S. If he uses your site's gambling API, he is > engaged in the business of gambling and must have a license. Since the U.S. > generally does not allow online gambling, it is effectively illegal > regardless of where the servers are physically stored.

It's perfectly legal for an individual or company in the U.S. to develop and operate gambling software. What's not legal is offering services to players in the United States or elsewhere where gambling is illegal[1]. Betable offers the gambling services to players, not the developer partnering with Betable.

Furthermore, Betable does not allow real money play by players in jurisdictions where gambling is illegal. Game developers in the United States (or anywhere else) do not need to be licensed since the regulated bits of the infrastructure are all developed and operated by Betable. We strive to meet and exceed the regulatory standards that we're subject to and provide a legitimate and trustworthy ecosystem for players.

> FultTiltPoker and Bodog were both hosted from offshore (and generally run > from offshore), but that did not help their U.S. owners in the slightest > when the FBI came knocking.

Full Tilt Poker and Bodog are both examples of online gambling operations that flagrantly and publicly disregarded regulatory requirements and/or the law, offering their services illegally in the United States or, in the case of Full Tilt, (allegedly?) defrauding customers. Unsurprisingly, the FBI took offense to these violations. However, there's really no comparison between those operations and Betable. As I said before, Betable does not offer online gambling to players in the US, which is the main issue the FBI took offense to.

> Moreover, by using a gambling API on your own site, you place all of your > bank accounts at risk of being frozen by your financial institution...

Betable manages all of the banking and accounting systems associated with gambling using its own accounts. Developer accounts are not used for gambling. Betable acts as the arbitrator of all gambling transactions.

1\. In fact, with the recent re-interpretation of the Wire Act even that statement is now inaccurate at a Federal level, but that's another post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Gambling winners are most likely money laundering* recipients. In the overwhelming majority of cases, gamblers lose.

* <http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/97/03/Chapt11.html>

<comment><USER6> This is sensationalist, but I'll give you a little more background on what we do (even though many of these practices are not nearly as prominent as the article says they were in the 1960s - 1990s). In order to operate as a legal gambling entity, we have to build and maintain a host of elaborate security, anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist protocols (one of the things that comes with the territory in the gambling space). We work with top partners in the industry, who have decades of experience dealing with these problems. While security and anti-fraud measures have improved significantly, this is a very high priority for us internally that we've put considerable time into.

<comment><USER17> Sensationalist?

It is a link to the California State Library.

<comment><USER6> Right, I understand that. I felt that it was sensationalist in the sense that it's unlikely to happen, but very "sensational" if it does. I should have focused on my response to the points in the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Do they want me to pay for a random number generator? I don't understand it?

<comment><USER19> The way I understand it, they handle money and regulations, i.e. collecting money from the player, giving the player actual money back when the player wins, in a way that is 100% legal considering gambling laws in all countries involved in each transaction. That's a lot of stuff for a regular developer to take care of.

The part where they also run the gambling logic & randomness is probably necessary because regulations on gambling often require certain guarantees and auditability that, again, a regular developer may not (want to) be aware of. It's much simpler to be compliant if the dev only has to establish f.ex. win rates for different actions, and the gambling provider runs the actual processes with methods and random generators that comply with applicable laws.

<comment><USER6> Jare, you nailed it. My only clarification on your second paragraph is that the RNG needs to be audited and certified in ordered to get your license granted/renewed. The idea here is that it prevents shady gambling companies from defrauding players.</comment></comment></comment>


Cloudsweeper - <AUTHOR> https://cloudsweeper.cs.uic.edu/ <comment><USER2> Interesting results. I decided to trust a random post with all of my emails on my main email account. Turns out I could get hurt pretty bad if someone got access to my account. It was like $29.00 or something. Kind of neat I guess.

Found 400+ plain text passwords but I noticed a good number of them were from spam emails.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm the faculty member on this research project. I'd be happy to answer any questions in this thread if people have them.</comment>


Evolutionary algorithm outperforms deep-learning machines at video games - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611568/evolutionary-algorithm-outperforms-deep-learning-machines-at-video-games/ <comment><USER2> Lol of course just because its something "new" and different, evolutionary algos must be "more powerful"

<comment><USER3> Who calls evolutionary algorithms new? This title could have been written in 1994 if they had just used the term ANN instead of deep-learning.

People were writing books about this way back then.</comment></comment>


"Pay For Performance" Doesn't Work For Generation Y - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1783489/pay-for-performance-generation-y-pay-compensation-asking-for-a-raise

<comment><USER2> The problem is not 'pay for performance'. In fact, that's not what they're doing!

The problem is that no matter how good you are, the most you can get is 6% more than what you're currently making. Some people improve far more than that in a year, and provide far more value to the company than that.

In my dad's time, he quit jobs that refused to pay him what he was worth. If that meant a 10% raise, when the cutoff was 5%, he quit. He didn't argue with them. He just told them how it was and that he would leave unless they paid him what he was worth.

Guess what I did this year? Yup, same thing. When I started with the company, they were really, really good about paying me what I was worth. But after a few years, management changed a lot and they started the 'it's a recession and we're capping raises at 5%' stuff. I knew I was worth a lot more, and complained. They refused to do anything, and gave a vague promise about looking at the situation in a year. I quit and went elsewhere to get what I'm worth. Instant 40% raise.

I started there as a junior dev, and actually suffered with that situation for 2 years before I demanded compensation, and that's how I got 40% out of whack.

So no, it's not about 1% being beer-money each week. It's about getting paid what you're worth.

Oh, and btw, that's not $6.40 per week for a year. That's $6.40 per week for the rest of your life. Future jobs will be based on your current pay, and if you let them take it from you now, someone will be taking it from you later, too. Unless you demand it.

<comment><USER3> Your future is based on your status (pay being a part of that, but not all). Not only do you get behind, pay-wise, you can also end up being pigeon-holed as a... "grunt", for lack of a better word.

Users/abusers prey on the weak, and once you demonstrate willingness to take such behavior, they'll keep returning for more.

Look at it in the context of what is, these days, seen as a corporation's main mission: To maximize returns for owners. And in today's management environment, returns are measured across a quite short timespan (that often does not accomodate the timeframe required to foster employee growth and development).

If they demonstrate the ability to get your services for less, they will continue to try to do so.

I've had exactly one boss who was different. He brought me in, internally, from an underpaid, overburdend position (with a classic and widely acknowledged "user/abuser"), and he pushed for and gained 10% plus increases -- multiple, within a year -- for me in spite of a rather draconian pay freeze. He did this according to the original schedule he promised, and even surprised me with some additional increases I had not expected at those specific times.

Concurrently, my "status" in the company went from... "line worker" to multi- divisional talent, directly consulting (outside of my original, direct responsibilities) with the senior management of two divisions responsible for about $1 billion in aggregate revenue.

I worked my ass off in that position. And, senior management hijinks and HR BS aside, I enjoyed it. Working with this manager was a pleasure, because he would really challenge what you were doing, but once you demonstrated that it was correct, he'd simply trust you and let you get on with it -- also, despite being a manager, pitching in directly to confirm and cross-check results, supportively rather than suspiciously.

My point is that, in the end -- and the sooner the better -- you can basically ignore everything that management is _saying_ and simply look at their _actions_. If they treat you poorly, expect more of the same. It's up to _you_ to treat _yourself_ better, because they sure aren't going to do it.

Secondly, good management _does_ exist. Keep looking, or, as they say, "become the change you seek" (start your own business).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _If you are making what the average worker makes ($47,569.60 per year, a 1 percent difference in your pay is... about $12.81 net per pay period.... That's about $6.40 per week. And according to our research, that's what you'd pay for a six-pack of beer... You can't really believe that this nominal differentiation in pay is motivational and drives performance results. It doesn't._

So, "Gen-Y" doesn't realize that $500/year is worth something, or that _not_ buying a 6-pack of beer every week is worth $500/year. In other words, they don't have a good appreciation for how much money is worth.

<comment><USER5> Pay for performance only works if the marginal value of pay is greater than the marginal cost of performance. A performance bonus of $6.40 per week is less than a third of that pay at 40 hours, so why would someone work more than an additional 20-40 minutes (depending on time usually spent at work) to obtain it? Evidence is that the value of their time is around $20 an hour, after all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It does. You just have to start your own company to prove (and get) what you are really worth.</comment>


Death of the Party - <AUTHOR> http://nytimes.com/2015/09/17/fashion/death-of-the-party.html <comment><USER2> >"You're always told things used to be more fun," Mr. Bollen said. "When I was young, there was that obnoxious person in the corner who wouldn't shut up about the early '80s."

It is not implausible that things have gotten progressively "less fun" than the early 80's. I mean, just think about the drugs alone. Lower drinking age, crackdown on pills and cocaine hadn't happened yet. Police militarization and infantilization of young adults hadn't happened yet. The economy was good. Lower and middle class jobs hadn't fled the country yet. "safe sex" movement/AIDS crisis, etc not yet there. Parents/spouses couln't keep tabs on you 24/7 via cellphone.

</comment><comment><USER3> The NYT is mostly out of touch, as usual. A boomer rag-publication of the highest order, the article shows a complete misunderstanding of why house parties aren't a thing anymore by confusing some recent fads with socioeconomic problems. House parties aren't in decline because people want fancy liquor or fancy food items that hosts don't think they're competent to cook. The ability to send a text message to cancel an appointment does not cause people to not attend house parties. In small part, being able to stay home with Netflix makes it easier to tolerate being alone, but hardly overrules the desire for social interaction.

The real reasons, some of which the NYT glazed over vapidly:

1\. Money. Specifically, not enough money as a result of bad economic conditions dominating the lifestyle of Millenials, the most likely partyhosters and partygoers. It's expensive to buy booze and chips/food for more than a couple people, and a dictum to BYOB guarantees a lot of leeches and a shortage. It's pretty passe to charge for entry to your house party as soon as you're out of college, so that's out. Millenials don't have enough cash to be hosting these parties all the time, but probably have enough money to attend them frequently, if it weren't for a lack of hosts. The article calls this casual poverty "downsizing", which offends me riotously-- millenials aren't choosing to downsize, they're being downsized by extreme income inequality and debt slavery typical in late capitalism.

2\. Space. Millenials live in apartments, in part because they are in desirable areas, but also in part because they can't afford to buy homes. Apartments are too small to have good house parties in, so, as the article describes, it's "having a few people over" (max 6) at once. I don't know anyone with a house or a large apartment here in Boston. Rents are high, and rising. The housing market is still off-limits, so people must rent. The lack of good private space is partially a symptom of a shit economy.

3\. The cops. Remember in high school when 5-6 of your friends were over quietly watching a movie and the police knocked on the door, incorrectly thinking that there was underaged drinking going on? This happened in my high school suburban community when things were quiet. The fact is, a good party can get loud, and the cops will be prowling around looking to charge someone. A party isn't much fun if you are forced to be more inhibited than usual the entire time, anyway. The neighbors being pissed off will probably be the impetus for the cops to show up, but let's face it, the mere possibility is going to keep party populations lower.

4\. Living at home with your parents. This is really just another subset of the money problems with suffocate millenials. You can't host a house party in your parents' house once you've graduated from college. It might also be tougher to attend a party if your parents live far away and the only viable transportation is car. This malaise of living at home is prevalent at about 10% of millenials.

<comment><USER4> Sometimes the NYT boggles my mind with its utter misuderstanding. But maybe it's on purpose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the point about food and dietary restrictions is spot on. You can't just make cheeseburgers anymore. You now have to make something for the vegetarian, for the vegan, for the caveman.

The effort required for per person customization turns the fun of throwing a party into the stress of running a restaurant.</comment>


The Problem With Windows 8 - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2012/12/26/windows-8-problem/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=feedburner&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mashable%2Ftech+%28Mashable+%C2%BB+Tech%29 <comment><USER2> I talked to some IT directors here in the UK. They are of the opinion that a well speced Windows 8 device that combines the utility of a Tablet and a notebook PC will be of great interest to them for all staff who work away from their desks.

So they will buy such devices for the sales people - in substantial numbers because they will be able to meet the demands for tablets while also delivering the pre-existing corporate apps.

I also noted during a visit to a local electronics outlet that all of the PCs (all formats) being sold are running Windows 8. The OS may be a bit of a mess but it looks great in the demo (especially on a touch screen) and people will buy it. In the store, Windows 8 looks better than the Apple offering - and the price is a lot less.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I installed Windows 8 on my notebook. It works great, looks great, have many useful applications, though not too many, but there will be more as time passes. I can use the traditional desktop with one click and never thought anything complicated with the new tile interface. Don't know why the tech bloggers find it more complicated the the general peoples? Tech bloggers are creating more confusion than the OS itself.</comment>


Profitable hobbies - you probably have too many of them - <AUTHOR> http://blog.profitawareness.com/2011/11/profitable-hobbies/

<comment><USER2> This post strikes me as advocating for doing business for the sake of getting money - not actually changing something for the better in this world - or at least solving a problem for some people. Instead, it's talking about how you should be making money, etc. - not doing what you love. Even reveling in how someone was able to tune out their love of what they did for the sake of "building a nest egg".

No one can argue that business is often the appropriate vehicle to bring an idea to the masses, but this emphasis on money seems to be what's currently driving startups to the lower common denominator. It's those who want more than money that truly affect progress for the better.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're just doing it for the money, stop reading HN and go into finance. If you're quantitatively inclined, hedge funds, if not then i-banking and PE.

Seriously, if all you care about is money, go where the money is. It's certainly not in writing blogs and posting on HN.

My bet is people here do what they do for reasons other than money. It just so happens that HN-type talent is in high demand so one can usually earn some good money.

<comment><USER4> > if all you care about is money, go where the money is. ... go into finance

I've not seen clear evidence that "finance" is an especially reliable way for a reasonably smart person to make a lot of money. Mostly what I see is anecdote, which I consider worthless because NYC people and especially NYC finance people are full of shit about how much they make. It's the culture. Furthermore, to the extent that finance is well compensated it's hazard pay. Lots of burnout and layoffs. Also, unreasonable hours.

I personally know an engineer in suburban philadelphia who works for a firm that does elevator retrofit consulting for older buildings. He's worth tens of millions. I have met a very rich guy who built up two plants that produce pasta. I indirectly know a very wealthy guy who flies around the world consulting on expanding sewage treatment plant capacity. I also had a wealthy old guy neighbor who just ran four car washes very well for many years.

I have yet to personally meet a very wealthy person who made the money in "finance". I also don't live in NYC, so take my estimations with a grain of salt.

The evidence that I can personally trust indicates to me the low risk, high probability way to get a lot of money is with niche industry expertise and risked capital. I also think there's a "where there's muck there's brass" thing going on where real physical businesses like climbing in elevator shafts, sewage plant pools, and grain towers are under-competed. Everyone wants a finance desk job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Most entrepreneurs I deal with sincerely enjoy what they do, and probably do far too much personally than they should, because they like doing it. Far too many of them treat their companies like profitable hobbies. Granted, that is part of the fun, and a huge part of why people start their own businesses – but everyone should be able to see the cost of what their pleasure._

I'm not really sure what this means, surely if they are enjoying doing something that is making your business better then that is a good thing right?

How can you be doing too much , and what is the cost of pleasure if you are enjoying it?

It's probably difficult for a reluctant software to compete with people who live and breath the stuff.

Pherhaps it's more to the point that if you treat your work too much like a hobby you will spend too much time focusing on the stuff that you enjoy (redeveloping your whole system is haskell for example) and not enough time focusing on the boring/unpleasent stuff that needs to be done (managing your budget and organising your sales team).

</comment><comment><USER6> If you don't love what you do, there are these things called jobs that basically just pay you to put in a days work and then go home. Starting a business is way too much trouble if you're just trying to get paid.

<comment><USER7> > Starting a business is way too much trouble if you're just trying to get > paid.

Does that still hold true if you could pull in $5,000/25,000/50,000 per month from running a business you don't _love_? I'd _love_ to run a business I'm not particularly passionate about if it made me an extra $5,000/month.

HN's obsession/groupthink about "profit is pointless/evil unless you're changing the world and love your job" is scary.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> After reading these comments I think I might have understated my original point - to wit, it's easy to overdo the fun parts, and you need to measure what you are spending on the fun parts, because the true cost might be that of future fun parts down the road (more time to work on cool new technology a year from now) or a lot of money.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you're just doing it for the money then you're probably wasting your life. To exist is good, but most people want to do more than that. IMHO the most mediocre software engineers who are most likely to produce undocumented spaghetti code are the ones who are just doing it for the money.

</comment><comment><USER9> Site seems to be down. Can someone paste content if they have it?

<comment><USER10> It's cached here:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:y7SdL11...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:y7SdL11bIwgJ:blog.profitawareness.com/2011/11/profitable- hobbies/&hl=en&strip=1)</comment></comment>


Queue everything and delight everyone - <AUTHOR> http://decafbad.com/blog/2008/07/04/queue-everything-and-delight-everyone

<comment><USER2> I do it with Inotify

[http://maht0x0r.blogspot.com/2009/06/serialising-multiple- wr...](http://maht0x0r.blogspot.com/2009/06/serialising-multiple-writers-in- shell_20.html)</comment>


The fastest way to search the Internet -- no mouse -- SearchMash.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.searchmash.com <comment><AUTHOR> Just type 'into' the web site. It will read your keypresses and fill the query box for you. It's run by Google.</comment>


'We're Almost Extinct': China's Investigative Journalists Are Silenced Under Xi - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/world/asia/china-journalists-crackdown.html <comment><USER2> caijing and ft are the top resources for china insight. aljazeera was until their main jounalist was driven out. cnn might not output much but have had the same guy in beijing for 30+ years. dare i say it, reddit's chinacirclejerk also.

</comment><comment><USER3> I watched a video with Saul Levmore where he said that China was a bit of a mystery to economists, they have economic growth even though the market is far from as free as in the West. His guess was that since China is so big and local politicians want to advance you get a competition among all the cities and provinces where the local politicians try to show off their fancy hospitals, bridges, factories and such while trying to avoid something embarassing like an outbreak of disease or a huge unemployment rate.

If investigative journalists go however this competition to improve people's lives would be less important and I think the competition over the favor of president Xi would become the route of choice to advance. That should hurt China's economic prospects in the long run.

<comment><USER4> > Saul Levmore where he said that China was a bit of a mystery to economists, > they have economic growth even though the market is far from as free as in > the West

Is it [0]? That Levmore guy (a professor of Law) seems to abuse his authoritative name to state hypotheses as facts (without references). Maybe whoever made the video from his speech is to blame. Nasty stuff either way.

And the "have economic growth even though the market is far from as free as in the West" does not seem to feature in the video, presumably it is just a product of your misconcecptions, kind of like thinking that beautiful people are smart or well-intentioned.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLPgosR9YhI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLPgosR9YhI)</comment></comment>


UK Politician starts "Gamers' Voice" in response to Daily Mail article - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=189974734041

<comment><AUTHOR> Politician: <http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/>

Daily Mail Article: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1225926/New-game- let...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1225926/New-game-lets-players- kill-civilians-terror-attacks.html)

Latest Tweet: <http://twitter.com/tom_watson/status/5584987511></comment>


Location diary app Rove now lets you share your trips - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/09/10/stylish-location-diary-app-rove-now-lets-you-share-your-trips-and-track-yourself-when-offline/

<comment><USER2> "Although it's unlisted in the release notes, the developers tell us that it will now keep tracking your without a data connection – perfect for when you're roaming (and roving) abroad."

Neat! Been waiting for it to do this.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some common mistakes made when making one's first SaaS product? - <AUTHOR>

They can be technical or general business mistakes. <comment><USER2> Lot of good stuff here: [http://www.quora.com/Startup-Founders-and- Entrepreneurs/What...](http://www.quora.com/Startup-Founders-and- Entrepreneurs/What-are-avoidable-mistakes-that-first-time-entrepreneurs-make- repeatedly)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's quite the list, though it's not exclusive to SaaS businesses which is what I was hoping for. Here's a link for people to read all the answers without having to sign in (append ?share=1 to the url).

[http://www.quora.com/Startup-Founders-and- Entrepreneurs/What...](http://www.quora.com/Startup-Founders-and- Entrepreneurs/What-are-avoidable-mistakes-that-first-time-entrepreneurs-make- repeatedly?share=1)

<comment><USER2> Ah sorry about that - forgot that I'd signed in prior to sharing. Thanks for taking care of it. Cheers!</comment></comment></comment>


The Birth of a Visualization Framework Suite from Uber - <AUTHOR> http://uber.github.io/deck.gl/blog/2017/visualization-framework-suite <comment><AUTHOR> The visualization frameworks that are part of this initial suite are:

\- deck.gl - High performance WebGL powered layers for geospatial and infovis use cases.

\- react-map-gl - React components for Mapbox GL (integrates seamlessly with deck.gl)

\- react-vis - An extensive set of React charting components.

\- luma.gl - WebGL2 components powering deck.gl</comment>


Is Apple Losing Quality? - <AUTHOR> http://www.libertypages.com/clarktech/?p=3400

<comment><USER2> Apple will do alright for the next few years, thanks to inertia. But the question is, will they be able to make the next iPhone (or iPad for that matter), and not one that was already thought out 80% by Steve Jobs before he passed away?

<comment><USER3> One of the more interesting things to come to light in the Steve Jobs biography is the frequency with which he was opposed to some of Apple's greatest moves. Including some where if he had gotten his way Apple quite simply could not have become what it is today, such as making a PC-compatible version of the iPod or allowing 3rd-party apps on the iPhone.

That leaves me suspecting that, purely in terms of product design, Apple could still make the next iPhone. The engine behind the creation of such products has apparently not been diminished as much as one might expect. What I'm less sure about is whether we will line up to buy it the same way now that we don't have our turtlenecked Ron Popiel to tell us how much we want one.</comment></comment>


Very cool uses of HTML5 Canvas. Love Torus "Cylindrical Tetris" - <AUTHOR> http://www.benjoffe.com/code/ <comment><USER2> Not only is it impressive technically, but the circular Tetris game is extremely fun and well executed!

</comment><comment><USER3> Thats one of the more innovative Tetris oriented games I've seen in a few years. I was surprised how smooth it works in the browser, even though I've seen a few of the other cool things folks are doing with HTML5 these days. Good stuff.

</comment><comment><USER4> Very cool. Was just playing this and my wife walked in and said "Cool, I want to play that!".

>>>As an aside, I love that this isn't flash, but it makes my CPU & fans go just as nuts as if it was.

<comment><USER5> Hmm, just curious, was this in OSX?

<comment><USER4> But of course!

<comment><USER5> haha, thought so. I love using my MacBook to watch flash videos on wintery nights when I am too lazy to search for a blanket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To all those job hunting... instead of a resume, write something like this.

</comment><comment><USER7> I knew I had seen this on HN before:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=514838>

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops. 400 days ago I was in a hole studying for my qualifying exams. :) I had blocked out HN in my hosts file.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wow. There have been a lot of cool canvas demos to date, and these are certainly on that list. I am stoked for the future of the internet, guys. _Stoked as the dickens._

</comment><comment><USER9> Other than the few non-standard pieces (At one point, I had a C shaped block, and another an L made of 3 pieces), love it. Nicely done.

<comment><USER10> True; if pieces consist of 3-5 blocks, then it's not Tetris. It's Tri/Tetra/Penta-is.

<comment><USER11> I never put that together until just now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Not to be a buzz kill or anything or take away from the technical neatness of it but... this has been around on Opera as a widget for a long time.

2006 was when he got the first comment on the widget. <http://widgets.opera.com/widget/4196/1.2/6/#comments-begin>

<comment><USER8> Yeah, but...who uses Opera?

...I kid, I kid!

In all seriousness, though, a widget on a browser with a chronic ~2% usage share is one thing. The exact same thing available on any standards-compliant browser is quite another, wouldn't you say?

<comment><USER12> I completely agree, just stating some facts about it. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I tried Tetris ... 11k points later I realised that 25 minutes had gone by. Addictive, and very well done from both technical and gameplay perspective!

</comment><comment><USER14> All of these feel a lot more native than Flash ever has.

</comment><comment><USER15> 1871 points. I'm not dead yet (and I got bored after a while, just managed to go back to the ground floor). Last time I was good at tetris was on the Game boy, which is ... old.</comment>


Show HN: Tolks – A new way to put stories on the Internet - <AUTHOR> https://tolks.io <comment><USER2> I like your design a lot, and that font is a great choice in terms of creating a certain feel for the site, but it's not a very readable font. It was hard for me to skim the page and see what content you have, and it made me feel like leaving the site immediately.

I think the issue is that the characters are fairly thin and tall, and some of the text has a low contrast (black on purple).

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the feedback. I'll certainly look into it. I should do some more user testing.</comment></comment>


PHP 5.4.11 and PHP 5.3.21 released, PHP 5.3 reaches end-of-life in March - <AUTHOR> http://php.net/archive/2013.php#id2013-01-17-1

<comment><AUTHOR> Changelog: <http://php.net/ChangeLog-5.php>

5.3 end-of-life notice: <http://php.net/releases/5_3_20.php>

</comment><comment><USER2> How many ppl still using PHP 5.3.6?

<comment><USER3> I use 5.3.10 because I am on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS in production, and 5.4 is not backward compatible with 12.04 (issue with Suhosin).</comment></comment>


Tell HN: The AT&T commercial I didn't make it in - <AUTHOR>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEInSyTHcpc&feature=player_embedded
Few weeks ago I was chilling outside the undergraduate library at my uni about to have my lunch. There was an AT&T commercial being shot. So I thought I'd watch. Before I had a chance to grab a seat, some guy walks up and is like "Ever heard oppurtunity knocks?". I'm like "umm how much do I get paid?" He's like come walk with me. The guy was the assistance director.
So I got paid 125 bucks for sitting under a tree and pretending to be texting for 10mins.
The commercial just came out. I don't see me. I'm guessing I got lost in the editing;)
But those 125 bucks are going a looong way--they went into printing 60,000 fliers for my new startup. <comment><USER2> UNC represent. BS CompSci 2006 here.

I find it humorous they they found one of the more awkward basketball players in the nation to be in a cute and cuddly telephone commercial.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awkward he is. But also smarter than he looks--which is true for most of these guys probably because of the growing up they have to do in dealing with the stardom.

I had Tyler(and bunch of other bball players) in my Debate class last semester. (Our first debate was East Coast vs. West Cost. My team was to defend east coast. We beat Tyler/Bobby:)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> zaidf, AT&T is your angel investor, w00t!</comment>


Awesome Earth - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/philsturgeon/awesome-earth <comment><AUTHOR> > A collection of resources, services, products, and ideas that you can use to > improve your impact on the environment.</comment>


Thousands face Internet loss as FBI shuts off servers - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18735228

<comment><USER2> The comments @ [http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/what- the-i...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/what-the-internet- doomsday-virus-is-and-how-to-fix- it/2012/07/05/gJQA67vhPW_story.html?tid=pm_pop) are hilarious, in a depressing way. Here's my favorite: "Personally, I like the idea of firing my internet service provider for not protecting me from such viruses and other malarkey. They are the ones transferring the viruses. They should be sued. And, after doing that it would be good exercise and fun to take a sledge hammer to all of my computer parts."

Who doesn't want their ISP filtering everything they browse?

<comment><USER3> The comments on these kind of articles, on sites like the BBC's, are always a hilarious mix of misinformation, outrage and usually blame shifting away from personal responsibility. Well, it's hilarious until you come to the realisation that these may be the so called "regular" people and this may actually be how the majority thinks (not a whole lot, it turns out).

<comment><USER4> As opposed to comments on US news websites, which usually alternate liberal conspiracy theorizing with conservative conspiracy theorizing, the actual article only having the slightest relevance to the keyword-triggered axe- grinding that immediately commences.

<comment><USER5> It makes me wonder why news sites even allow comments. Remember the pre-social web? It worked just fine.

I'm sure it comes down to page views, like everything else on the web.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I still don't understand why this is such a big deal. So 300k users drop off the net until they fix their DNS settings, either by manually editing, or calling their support provider to complain, or taking their computer in for service, or buying a new computer (which is a fairly common way to fix serious computer problems).

It should be immediately apparent to the users that something is wrong, even if they have no idea how to fix it. It's a really easy fix as soon as the first competent person looks at it. I'm going to save my concern for attacks on infrastructure, or attacks which covertly compromise systems in ways which aren't readily apparent to the users.

<comment><USER7> ISPs aren't known for stellar customer service. It could lead to a very long wait without internet access for some people, even if each call only takes 10-20 minutes.

> It's a really easy fix as soon as the first competent person looks at it.

Most users just aren't technically competent in this sense.

<comment><USER8> So this is a profitable event for geek squad. Malware costs consumers billions of dollars a year. This is nothing more than a line entry in that list. There's no good reason for it to get this much media coverage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I agree with removing infected machines from the normal Internet, but I'd put them on a separate network where they can only see instructions on how to fix their problem.

<comment><USER10> Exactly. Route all DNS queries to your page saying "You've been infected by malware, which we fixed, but now you have to change your DNS pointers or have somebody else fix them".

If I can think of that in two seconds, why can't the FBI?

<comment><USER2> This was brought up a while ago, and the reason it was shot down was that no one wants to condition users into taking advice from random web pages. Think of all the 'you've been infected! download anti-virus 2012 pro!' pop-ups that infest the net.

<comment><USER9> My proposal:

1\. Use SSL ("check for the padlock")

2\. Use a well-known URL (www.fbi.gov)

3\. Don't provide any downloads, or anything to click, just ask the user to contact their ISP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a much better explanation of what happened and why the federal government (FBI + courts) decided to take these actions. [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/11/how-the-most- mass...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/11/how-the-most-massive- botnet-scam-ever-made-millions-for-estonian-hackers/)

</comment><comment><USER12> This might be the only way to reach all of the infected. Up till now they were passive, now they are forced to take action - even if it's just complaining to their ISP. I don't want to know, what other kind of malware is working on those 300 000 systems.</comment>


What If (Almost) Every Gene Affects (Almost) Everything? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/its-like-all-connected-man/530532/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> A joke.

How many geneticist does it take to change a lightbulb?

We've found 12,000 switches hidden around the house. Some of them turn this lightbulb on, some of them don't; some of them only work sometimes; and some of them work sometimes, but twenty years after you flick them. Some of the switches only work, sometimes, twenty years later, if one of the other switches is flicked too (and at the right time). In any case the wiring's rusty, everything's completely different in the house next door, and by the way there are lots of people selling spare bulbs who tell lies about houses, switches, and fingers.

We can change the lightbulb, but I'm not sure that'll stop you dying from cancer in this metaphor.</comment>


Google, can you please change your scrollers? - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/HKcDkRI.png

<comment><USER2> Those scroll bars work the same as is standard on OS X, iOS, and Android.

Windows is the odd one out and it's outnumbered by all the devices that run aforementioned OSes.

[http://designyoutrust.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/10/small_t...](http://designyoutrust.com/wp- content/uploads/2012/10/small_the-evolution-of-the-scroll-bar.jpg)</comment>


Is it normal to work in a culture of conflict? - <AUTHOR>

I've worked for the same company for 4 years (online media - UK), started as a junior developer & now lead a development team of 4. When I started I love the job, we where doing things "right", focused on engineering & building stuff our users really appreciated.
However over the last two years, most of the staff have left, been let go or been replaced, the company has been  sold 3 times. The people working there now come from backgrounds completely unrelated to what they do & don't really understand our products or users - the result of this is that our competitors have not all overtaken us, the company is in bad shape financially & everyone is panicking, literally any idea that someone suggests - no matter how ill thought out & negatively it impacts our users workflow within our products, I'm told it needs to be made live yesterday.
The IT people are hopeless, they are not qualified for their jobs - cannot setup backups, cron jobs or install updates / patches to our servers, yet have egos the size of the arctic circle - even the most simple request is met with cynicism & emails to the boss detailing why we don't need it done, they only keep their jobs by being master actors - always appearing super busy.
The business people who "run" the software team have no technical background or understanding of what it takes to build software, worse they regularly admit they don't want to know either. As a result they create ideas & project plans in closed rooms and then tell us that we have to implement their crazy ideas within even crazier timeframes e.g. build an entire image hosting website with payments & social media integration in 4 days with just 2 developers and if their are major bugs upon go live - someone will be fired.
I've been repeatedly told to work weekends & longer hours, even though I'm already working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. If I need any tools to do my job I've been told I have to buy them on my own dime.
We are forced to do major feature changes just hours before major releases & when stuff inevitably goes wrong - its always my fault. Using any sort of automated testing, version control or taking time to think about how best to implement something is seen as time wasted, that could be used to build the lastest crazy idea from marketing.
Any attempt to put "structure" or a controlled process in place by the dev team immediately results in more cynicism & questions why we are not doing "real work", told we are risking our jobs.
Because I've been here so long I'm wondering if I'm just whining or this is normal? <comment><USER2> It sounds a bit on the extreme side of normal, but not to unusual for a non- tech company trying to do development(Heck the Apple guys around here talk about their 12+ work days). My first job out of college it wasn't unusual to work 12hr days 7 days a week for a couple of months at a time running up to major deadlines. On the other hand it isn't that hard to find non crap companies that don't do that to people. So I would say not uncommon but not normal.</comment>


Scientists battle massive coffee rust outbreak in Central America - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/coffee-rust-regains-foothold-1.12320

<comment><USER2> > _the Institute of Coffee of Costa Rica estimates that the latest outbreak > may halve the 2013–14 harvest in the worst affected areas of the nation. > This outbreak is "the worst we've seen in Central America and Mexico since > the rust arrived" in the region more than 40 years ago, says John > Vandermeer, an ecologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, who has > received "reports of devastation in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Mexico"._

Reduced supply should be great for the growers, right? They're going to get paid handsomely for this much smaller crop, because people really want coffee and there's plenty of margin near the consumer end to get squeezed to give the growers more money for this now-rarer item.

Economists - where am I going wrong?

<comment><USER3> _Economists - where am I going wrong?_

I'm not an economist by occupation, but this looks like bad news for the growers in that region, because they have less to sell, but the price of coffee is influenced mostly by worldwide supply, which will not soon be influenced just by that regional fall in production. This is the same issue that my uncles who are farmers face. It would seem "logical" that if their production falls because of bad weather, they would make that up in higher price per bushel of grain, but the market price of their grain is very little influenced by the average yields per acre in their regions of the United States.

From the article: "Colombia could be the closest to a solution. Marco Aurelio Cristancho, a researcher at Cenicafé, the National Centre for the Investigation of Coffee in Chinchiná, says that the government has supported research into developing resistant strains of coffee through crossbreeding. The introduction of resistant strains, together with improved weather monitoring to help predict rust outbreaks, has meant that fewer than 10% of plants now need to be treated with fungicide, down from 60% four years ago, Cristancho says. The government has also supported work on the genetics of both the fungus and the plant." So it is precisely that regional difference in severity of the worldwide problem of coffee rust that allows some producing regions with normal yields to keep the global price of coffee roughly steady even while other producing regions face severe reductions in yield.

<comment><USER4> Also don't buy organic coffee..</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A human emotions generator - <AUTHOR> http://emotypes.com/?dude <comment><AUTHOR> Build for fun, hope you smile a bit.</comment>


Why Women Should Flirt at Work - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1705873/why-women-should-flirt <comment><USER2> I'm not too impressed with this article. If we replaced women in this article with any other underrepresented group in the software business and asked that group to conform to a stereotype to get ahead, it would be considered offensive and rightly so.

Dave Thomas's keynote from Rubyconf comes to mind. <http://confreaks.net/videos/368-rubyconf2010-keynote>

<comment><USER3> Did you not like the post or the research in the article it's linking? The article is a link-bait with a title that tries to grab attention. This is typical, even _The Economist_ does it.

However, I find the basic idea that "women may be perceived as competent but unlikable or as likable but incompetent" in the workplace to be completely true. This idea does not carry over to other underrepresented groups, I think. For example, would you say there is a similar double whammy for black people?

<comment><USER2> I'm objecting to the article rather than the research, and I agree that the 'double-bind' described does ring true. What I'm objecting to is the conclusion that women should conform to a stereotype in order to be accepted in the workplace.

I'm not saying that the situation is the same for every underrepresented group; I'm saying that if the article were to advise any other underrepresented group in a similar way it would be denounced as discriminatory.

EDIT: I have no idea why parent is being downvoted. He/she raises valid questions.

<comment><USER3> I'm OK with comment up/downvoting to reflect agreement. What I find immature is to downvote without raising a counterpoint. Look at the first comment for this post, it just labels the post as "shitty" without telling why. Same hasty approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think that this should be about women flirting or not. It's more about women not behaving like feminine behavior is something to frown upon and the fact that men are generally cautious around 'prudish' women because they tend to attract harassment lawsuits like bees to pollen.

Let's be real, men will always congregate around the water cooler to talk about life, work, vices, and women. The woman that can integrate into the "workplace community" is generally of the more liberal type and come's of as friendly toward the male population. What the feminist girl-power types don't get is that a smile, a high five, and jokes of the 'horse walks into a jewish bar' kind get you a lot farther down the road of being likable by your male peers. This also has the effect of toning down our male tendency of vile language when referring to women, which is off course a plus.

</comment><comment><USER5> This article drives me up a wall.

"The choices then are these--work within the stereotypes or be careful in situations to not activate gender stereotypes."

Really? Those are the only choices? Wow. Forget about changing attitudes or anything like that, I guess. It's like the Y-chromosome-exclusive version of "publish or perish."

And notice how it's incumbent on women to figure out what to do. Men shouldn't worry their pretty little heads about it. It's just too much to ask for men to maybe examine their biases, conscious or unconscious.

</comment><comment><USER6> How about people make an effort not to judge other people according to stereotypes?

<comment><USER7> That would assume people are aware of their predispositions on a general basis.

Some of those are simple, "stop being X to Y people because you think they are Z" is much easier to notice a pattern of than the sub-conscious effects of "for some reason I don't like people who act in these ways."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article contains little information. Five minutes I will never get back.

</comment><comment><USER9> Articles like this make me so glad to be in the software business...

Replace <anyBullshit> with "Does she ship?"

<comment><USER10> You're assuming that the software business is immune to this kind of thing. It really isn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If anybody's interested, a paywall-free link to the paper is at <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1397699>.

And FWIW, I'm not exactly a fan of the article's conclusion ("work within stereotypes") that I should be flirting at work. In a work environment where you're one of two single women in a mostly married male environment, it's just not good form.

</comment><comment><USER12> Anybody who isn't making meaningful contributions in favor of being self- serving is an asshole, regardless of gender. I expect collaboration from the people I work with, something that this article would consider "feminine." Fuck that.

And the most competent person I work with is a chick, but she's a freak of nature for her talent level.

<comment><USER13> Freak of nature in absolute terms, or for being a talented chick?

From the article: "... evaluators tend to make negative judgments about women who behave in masculine ways to fulfill the needs of their jobs."

(Oh, instant downmod for asking a question related to gender issues. Silly me, forgot what site I was on.)

<comment><USER12> She's an order of magnitude faster in developing HTML+CSS than anyone else I've met, and I've worked with some extremely talented people.

It's not a gender issue, just happens that a lot of talented developers I've met have been women.

<comment><USER14> Does she have a tech blog or portfolio site?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This reminds me of the Star Trek TNG episode where the first officer goes in a 'personnel exchange' to a Klingon ship and the female Klingons try to flirt with him.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRrNVimz-F4>

skip the first 3 minutes. bring your cringe goggles

</comment><comment><USER15> Let's upgrade this concept: women should have sex at work. Sounds ridiculous/offensive/immoral etc.?

If the above doesn't sound good than women should just be competitive. It's equal opportunity. These articles take problems out of context.

</comment><comment><USER16> Given how short and pointless this article is, all it can do is make FastCompany look like a bunch of chauvinists.

</comment><comment><USER17> It's a secret story! Not about showing leg at the office! I get it!</comment>


IBM: Broken Promises and Patent Enforcement - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/04/ibm-breaks-oss-patent-promise-targets-mainframe-emulator.ars

<comment><USER2> This isn't exactly new behavior for IBM. It's more like tradition there. IBM has an astonishing patent portfolio, routinely topping the list of annual patent counts, and yet does next to nothing with the vast majority of them... until someone else makes money with something that IBM has a patent on. And then the blue-suited lawyers arrive and shake the infringer down for money. Even Sun's been on the receiving end of that.

Anyone familiar with IBM's history would, I think, not be at all surprised by this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whatever you think of IBM's ends, the use of these means:

" _Mueller points out that two of the patents that IBM listed in its [threatening] letter to Hercules are included in the list of 500 patents that IBM promised to not assert against open source software in 2005."_

Can't be seen as good.

<comment><USER4> That was my initial understanding too, but I am not sure if TurboHercules, the for-profit company, is shielded as is openHercules, the open-source project. This loophole may allow them to sue and keep their promise at the same time. Again, I am not quite clear if this is the case.

<comment><USER3> Interesting ... but how could IBM's promise mean anything if TurboHercules, which is an open-source company, isn't protected against assertion of all 500 of those patents.

The loophole is a contractual issue between IBM, its customers, and perhaps TurboHercules (in that the latter is encouraging the customers to violate the contract).

I don't see it having anything to do with open-source patent assertions and again I can't see how IBM's promise would be worth anything if the latter had its own loophole of a "If we sue you for other reason the 500 patents become fair game."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would it be possible to make a license - "PGPL" - that included something to the effect of "If you assert any patent against any PGPL-licensed project, you lose all rights to all PGPL-licensed projects forever"?

</comment><comment><USER5> See also these Fake Steve pieces:

[http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/10/why-ibm-is-in-trouble- with-...](http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/10/why-ibm-is-in-trouble-with- antitrust.html)

[http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/10/case-against-ibm- continued....](http://www.fakesteve.net/2009/10/case-against-ibm- continued.html)

<comment><USER3> I haven't watched IBM since the '80s, but their MO as described in the first article was essentially that back then.

As for the second one, it gives me greater hope that ITA Software will survive Air Canada's suspension of ITA's new product/project/service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The letter lists 106 patents + 67 applied that Hercules is accused of using, but only two of those were listed in the "we won't sue you for this" category? I am inclined to give IBM some benefit of the doubt here.</comment>


Disney dumps youTube star for anti-semitic content - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-14/disney-cuts-ties-with-youtube-star-after-anti-semitic-content <comment><USER2> This is off-topic flamebait, which predictably resulted in a flamewar.

Please don't post such things to HN and please don't post flamewar comments on HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm really surprised you consider this to be flamebait.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Apparently, he used the freelancing site Fiverr to hire people from India. He asked these people to make a sign with "Death to all Jews" written on it and to say "Hitler did nothing wrong." [1]

[1] [http://kotaku.com/disney-drops-pewdiepie-over-anti- semitic-j...](http://kotaku.com/disney-drops-pewdiepie-over-anti-semitic- jokes-1792324412)

<comment><USER4> It is very unclear how the anti-semitic message was delivered.

There is a lot of ways to deliver anti-semitic content without being anti- semitic. For example, you can show a clip of one of Hitlers speeches and you have anti-semitic content.

Judging from your link, it seems more like he is ridiculing poor indians, by making them jump around for pennies for his amusement, than insulting jews.

<comment><USER5> So, the main joke is him having enough money to get poor people to execute on his silly whims and then laughing at them.

If we pretend that this is perfectly decent behaviour, how does throwing an anti-Semitic message into it add to the joke? For a lot of people, including myself, the answer to that question is "it doesn't".

As for the comment that you can include hateful comment without yourself expressing those opinions: this was no archive footage of Hitler delivering a speech. This was people holding up a sign with an anti-Semitic message because PewdiePie explicitly asked them to create a sign with an anti-Semitic message and record themselves holding it up.

<comment><USER6> The main joke, as explained by PewDiePie, was to "prove that the modern world is crazy and will do anything for 5 dollars". I don't think the point of it was to flaunt his riches on poor Indians, and as such I don't find it nearly as offensive as you do.

I agree the execution is a bit tasteless though. He could have done away with the nazi stuff without changing the premise.

<comment><USER7> "I agree the execution is a bit tasteless though. He could have done away with the nazi stuff without changing the premise."

See, that's the entire thing. He could have chosen a slew of other ways to do this. He didn't. _He chose this._ It might be hate with a handy excuse or it might be stupidity that is masking itself as hate. It doesn't matter to me.

Disney not standing for it is hardly surprising. I used to hear rumors of moral codes for storyboard artists and the parks have a pretty strict dress codes. They are obviously concerned about their outer image, and I don't see how one could miss that while working for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Using a couple of impoverished Indians, who barely understanding English, as the basis of a joke? Totally fine.

Having them repeat a four year old anti-Semitic Internet meme? Aw, hell naw.

<comment><AUTHOR> Who said it was totally fine to use impoverished indians as props in a comedic routine?

<comment><USER8> Who said it wasn't?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I read the title and instantly thought "Please be PewDiePie. Please be PewDiePie."

</comment><comment><USER10> 'To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.'

<comment><AUTHOR> Do tell us who you think is being criticized here. I eagerly await your articulation of this alleged critique.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Having viewed a few of PewDiePie's early YouTube videos, this doesn't surprise me. The content had some over-the-top misogynistic sentiments (even to my rather forgiving eyes). I guess someone can only mask their nature for so long.

</comment><comment><USER12> Walt Disney turns in his grave. I'm glad though :)

</comment><comment><USER13> I feel bad for the 8-15 year old viewing audience the most. Not surprised this kid is a shitbag though.

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting example of the "person blocks part of background writing" style.

Here's another: [http://imgur.com/a/gDy8v](http://imgur.com/a/gDy8v)</comment>


Getting Hired As an Entry-Level Programmer? - <AUTHOR> http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/14/0052221

<comment><USER2> If you're looking to learn in the start-up trenches. We're looking for a LAMP programmer to to work with our existing code. We need help to integrate media- handling code from Symfony based project into a second PHP codebase. Must be willing to risk time on a consistent basis for a stake in project's revenues.

Here's what we're developing: We are a community site to prescreen and prepare businesses for Venture Capital. We improve the pitch and probability of funding for startups while saving VC's time and money sitting through unprepared pitches.

I'll provide the details if your interested. Ping me donna (at) genuus (dot) com

</comment><comment><USER3> All QA types worth their salt these days are writing at least _some_ code for automated QA, and from there, if you're good, it's just a sideways move within your present organization. It'll help if you're writing bug reports that developers like.</comment>


Database Migrations with Nodejs - <AUTHOR> https://kostasbariotis.com/data-migration-with-nodejs/ <comment><USER2> If anyone here is using TypeScript, a couple of months ago I wrote type definitions for umzug [1].

Also if you use sequelize as ORM they go hand in hand.

1 : [https://github.com/DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped/blob/mast...](https://github.com/DefinitelyTyped/DefinitelyTyped/blob/master/umzug/umzug.d.ts)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. It has been stated in the article. :)</comment></comment>


Frayed Prospects, Despite a Degree - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/business/recent-graduates-lose-out-to-those-with-even-fresher-degrees.html?hp

<comment><USER4> I think the key here is "without taking advantage of other opportunities". If you're unemployed for a couple years and you don't _do_ anything, then you're signaling something very important to an employer: passivity. A fresh grad with no experience has no experience, but there's also no information to indicate that they _won 't_ be a good employee. A two-year unemployed worker has no experience _and_ has two years worth of unsuccessful choices. Which would you hire?

The way to beat that cycle is to do something - other than looking for jobs - with that time. I've got gaps of 4 months and 6 months on my resume (actually more like a year and a half if you count a "startup" as unemployment, but I don't), and it's never been a problem - because I was finishing up the rewrite of a 100,000 user website with the first gap, and open-sourcing the remnants of my startup with the second. I've got friends with 2-3 years of funemployment on their resumes, but they did things like starting a non-profit in Vietnam or Peace Corps work in Peru, and ended up at the very tops of their fields. Unemployment by itself doesn't result in poor career prospects, but not going after what you want and seizing the opportunities that are available to you does.

<comment><USER5> If you run a 100,000 user website, why acquire a degree in the first place?

<comment><USER6> Don't you know that on Hacker News the answer to every social problem is either make everyone code up a massively-successful website or become an engineer in the bay area?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of the things people don't like to talk about is how the economy handles the oversupply of college graduates: use bright line rules to get people out of the job market. Two candidates, a C/O 2012 and a C/O 2013 graduate should be fungible from the perspective of a recruiter, but they're not. The former has a scarlet letter on his resume, and people with lesser credentials from the next class will be hired over him.

The practical effect of this is to normalize the hiring pipeline quickly after a recession. But it has the effect of just cutting huge numbers of people, who happened to be unlucky to graduate in a down year, out of the market entirely. If you don't get a job a year or so after graduation in your major field, you probably never will.

<comment><USER8> >If you don't get a job a year or so after graduation in your major field, you probably never will.

This is not my perception at all.

I got my job without a degree by being willing to work for pay I was qualified for while doing a job that I wasn't qualified for, but that I was able to 'figure out' well enough.

If you are willing to work for retail wages, the standards go way down, and there are more employers than you think who want to hire programmers for little more than retail wages.

The deal is that you work for shit wages for a while; if you are good, you can then take that experience (remember, your title was 'programmer' or something) and use it to get a real job, as now you have X years experience working as a programmer, even if you got paid absolute shit during that time.

<comment><USER9> > I got my job without a degree by being willing to work for pay I was > qualified for while doing a job that I wasn't qualified for, but that I was > able to 'figure out' well enough.

This is precisely what I'm hoping to do now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >But the end result was disheartening: Mr. Wells was told, he said, that company policy required him to have at least two years of experience in the field before he could be hired.

The interesting bit here is that it's a transparent, obvious lie. If it were the truth, he wouldn't have gotten the interview in the first place.

I mean, his lack of experience undoubtedly hurt him, but if you get the interview, (and if a 'high level recruiter' meets you in person, it's an interview.) nothing that is on your resume disqualifies you.

<comment><USER10> Sounds like it might be a sit-down-for-coffee styled chat, as opposed to anything formal.

<comment><USER11> Right, but the point stands - if someone is with hiring authority at a company responds to your job search, you have not yet been disqualified.

So if it was clear on his resume/communication that he had less than 2 years experience, the "we require 2 years" is an excuse, not the real reason.

If the recruiter knew he lacked the experience, and if the experience was a hard, unyielding barrier, then the recruiter would not even bother.

<comment><USER12> True, as someone who's done a bit of hiring, if you're meeting someone, you're still considering them as possible - you don't waste your time many times before getting pickier. Two years isn't a hard and fast rule - it never will be - you meet a brilliant candidate with 23 months and you won't hire them? Of course not. It's just a proxy. We want someone with about the skills that you should have acquired in two years.

We've all met people who have those skills with much less experience - <USER2> we'd hire them. Yes it's an excuse in a way to say then that this is why you weren't hired. Not a lie as such though - just the "reason".

<comment><USER11> I agree - but that's part of the problem with this article, as well as similar articles like it. The people they interview seem to genuinely believe that they were rejected because they didn't have a literal 24-months of experience, rather than simply lacking the skills (of which experience-time is just a proxy).

If we started communicating to people that _they 're not good enough_ for the job, maybe we would have fewer people running around complaining about how unfair everything is.

<comment><USER8> The other thing, here? Just like there is no incentive for a company to ever give a negative reference, there is no incentive for a company to ever tell you why you were rejected.

That's the thing, If I don't hire you, well, I can tell you the real reason, sure, and _I_ feel a lot better because I'm being honest and transparent. Real reasons, for me, include the following

1\. I planned poorly or business conditions changed, and it turns out there isn't _actually_ enough money to hire someone.

2\. I don't believe you are smart enough/ capable of learning what I will have to teach you to do the job.

3\. I don't believe you are trustworthy enough. Most of the jobs I have, well, involve the ability to destroy me completely. (which is a problem, yes... but it's not an uncommon problem, for sysadmin jobs.)

Upon hearing either of those reasons, it's perfectly natural for the applicant to be angry and/or defensive. 1. is quite clearly my own fault; I'm wasting the applicants time through my incompetence, so obviously, that's going to be irritating. 2. is where my feedback could actually help the applicant, maybe? but even there, it's hard. It's hard to be told you aren't good enough, and many people react badly on that level... and sometimes their defensiveness is justified; evaluating people is _hard_ and even really good hiring managers are quite often wrong. Hell, different hiring managers look for different things; One guy says to act more confident and take control of the situation; the other says the opposite. These decisions are often made on 'gut' (which is another issue... but it is what it is) and sometimes, well, the hiring manager does not understand him/herself what is going on.

This is before any of the legal bullshit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> newsflash : University is not job training (except for professional programs like engineering, physical therapy, etc) ... University is _education_

I think what we are (re)discovering is that _education_ is a luxury, for the wealthy class. What the bottom 90% of the country needs is job training, not education. Or at least job training _first_ ... and education as a hobby.

Germany is getting it right: [http://goo.gl/aRhvk](http://goo.gl/aRhvk) (recent article from The Economist). They have a society where what we refer to pejoratively as "vocational training" is a valued segment of society, and many kids coming out of school gladly and enthusiastically choose that path instead of the academic track.

Somehow in north america we have adopted a culture where going and getting an honours degree in English Lit from Yale at $240,000 USD (4 x $60,000/yr) is valued more than going to college and becoming a licensed electrician or plumber, for example.

Like I said... education is for the (already) wealthy, privileged class. It's time that the middle class stop pretending otherwise. All we are doing is getting ourselves into debt. Instead we should train for jobs. Get educated in your spare time. University is not job training.

<comment><USER14> I think you're broadly right but your specific example is a bit off. An unexceptional English lit major at Yale will walk into any number of prestigious and potentially lucrative jobs in publishing, finance, consulting, nonprofit work, politics, etc, whereas an unexceptional English lit major - <USER3> even a business major - from Expensive Second-Tier Private U will have all those doors slammed in her face. It's the latter group whose expectations need adjusting.

<comment><USER13> Yeah my example is off because anyone who goes to Yale is already wealthy in the first place.

On a related rant ... obviously there is no real difference between a Yale education and a state school education ... academically speaking. What you get at Yale is the social network and the "badge" ... so (as you say) you can walk into any job on Wall St., Publishing, Consulting, etc, and have an immediate "in"... just because of the badge and the social connections.

The idea that there us upward mobility in today's society is a farce.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Article took way too long to get to the crux of the problem:

1\. Choose your majors carefully and plan your career early - A degree in communications doesn't really make you employable. . 2. These people aren't willing to relocate to a less than desirable area to get that first opportunity

<comment><USER16> So, let's say that you're getting poor grades in pre-med. You're already 30,000 in debt. Is it better to continue in a degree where you have no chance of further advancement (no medical school will take you), drop out and have absolutely no career leads and a pile of debt, or get a second rate degree?

This is the problem -- we've raised the bar for failure so high because of the cost of going to college. We've made it so that college degrees of any kind are a requirement to advance into white collar work. What's the solution when someone can't hack it in STEM?

<comment><USER15> Sunk costs are sunk costs. You quit and move on to something that doesn't incur more debt. One option is joining the military where you can get real- world experience and they'll pay a significant portion of future education. Another is taking base courses at a significantly cheaper community college until you understand what you want to do and whether you have the natural ability for it.

The core problem is taking on 30k of debt without the commitment and/or natural ability necessary to complete the degree.

<comment><USER5> The core problem is exploiting inelastic demand in charging 30k for something that could be provided at 2k.

<comment><USER17> You are not paying for the education, you are paying for the signalling. And the signalling is basically auction.

<comment><USER5> I 100% agree you're paying for the signalling. But it's not an auction. Unless by auction you mean "the seller gets the government to pay upfront any price the seller chooses, and the government and buyer (student) get to work it out later as they see fit".

<comment><USER17> Oh, it's an auction in the sense that the students bid for education- signalling. With their money and their (prep-) time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Am I the only one who thinks that we reached a point of nearly maximum efficiency? Think about it, that would explain everything.

The article clearly states that employers aren't interested in college graduates that finished two years ago if they didn't gather experience in the meantime. They'll happily hire the new kids straight out of college. If they can afford to pass over to thousands of graduates then it means they're just not needed. Even the latest crop of graduates is having a hard time finding a job. As I see it, there's no shortage of graduates (STEM of otherwise), conversely, there's an oversupply of graduates. A while ago I read an article that claimed that lost jobs aren't coming back and this only means, again, that many jobs and (thus workers) are not needed anymore. We can do more (or the same) with less. College graduates are taking jobs once reserved to high school graduates and dropouts, thus pushing these last groups into the ranks of unemployment. What if the global economic recession was just what was needed to cut useless jobs and turn companies into nimble and extremely efficient machines?

<comment><USER7> It's not really efficiency, it's a lack of growth. Efficiency (producing more with each worker) doesn't itself reduce the demand for workers, because the economy usually just produces more in the aggregate to compensate. What's reducing the demand for workers is that it's just not attractive to expand within the U.S. If you've got some capital, you're going to get a much bigger return on that money in a less developed place like China or Brazil than you will here. There is just less competition and consumer expectations are lower.

<comment><USER19> How much more do you want to produce?

<comment><USER17> Most people don't have everything they want, yet. So the answer is: more.

<comment><USER20> People have an infinite capacity for wanting, so towards infinite growth we go, I guess? Seems sustainable.

<comment><USER17> Not all wants are wants of material goods.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I understand this situation all too well. I quit my software development job in 2011 to finish my computer science degree. After a few months of enjoying my time off, a former boss of mine recruits me to do part-time development work for him. My current position pays extremely well, but it is unfulfilling maintenance work. So, while I'm grateful to have it, with graduation approaching I've started seriously looking for jobs.

So far, it has been very difficult to even get call backs from recruiters. My suspicion is that it looks bad to potential employers when somebody goes back to school in their late 20s (or later).

<comment> UK-AL Its common to back to school in your late 20s for business school.

<comment><USER22> But he's not going back to school for an MBA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Makes me feel bad, my SO has a communications degree, although jobs would be easy to acquire in Singapore, but we're planning to move live together in Europe..

<comment><USER17> Singapore has recently made work visas much harder to acquire. But I agree, it still is a decent place to live, and the economy is doing better than Europe. (I moved here from Britain last year.)

<comment><USER23> My SO is from Singapore, and they tend to give jobs to degree holders without any hitch (pay grade is a different question).

<comment><USER17> See [http://www.mom.gov.sg/foreign-manpower/passes- visas/employme...](http://www.mom.gov.sg/foreign-manpower/passes- visas/employment-pass/before-you-apply/Pages/default.aspx)

<comment><USER23> OH, I did work there, I've left :) My point was missed I suspect. I said it's easy for Crap-degree holders to get job in Singapore, vs the rest of the world.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Books on Dewey B. Larson's Reciprocal System Physics - <AUTHOR> https://reciprocalsystem.org/books <comment><AUTHOR> Disclaimer: I'm not saying Dewey B. Larson's Reciprocal System Physics is right or wrong, it's submitted because there may be an interest in reading this material (I love reading theoretical physics articles, even if they may be wrong; to me it's all about the ideas behind the writing, the modes of thinking applied, and the possibilities...)</comment>


Show HN: scrollReveal.js — Declarative On-scroll Reveal Animations - <AUTHOR> http://julianlloyd.me/scrollreveal

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN,

I've been working on a couple things lately, and I wanted to share my first open source project! I posted this to Designer News, and my friend suggested I share it with the HN community too!

It's a simple JavaScript plug-in, where the basic idea is to simplify the creation and management of "reveal animations" by using something like:

\---

<div data-scrollreveal="wait 0.3s then enter top, and move 55px over 1.6s"> Foobar! </div>

\---

My clients kept asking for this feature, and I found using classes a little cumbersome—especially when I wanted to modify (and slightly differentiate) timing of multiple elements.

I was a little hesitant to use "styling" in HTML, but after how much I was enjoying AngularJS' declarative nature, I just went and did it.

Any thoughts, feedback or criticism is warmly welcome!</comment>