Microsoft Reports Record Revenue of $24.52 Billion in Second Quarter - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY14/Q2/default.aspx <comment><USER2> Like many on HN, I'm not a fanatic MS guy (despite having a deep C# background) but I'm happy to see them do well this past quarter. They've only had a series of bad PR recently, epitomized by the CEO stepping down being the highlight story of the year.

But this doesn't talk about specifics. Consumer devices? I don't really understand which product is doing so well for them? I know it's anecdotal but I still have yet to hear someone recommend a microsoft product in the last 6-12 months. The only people that bought their phone were people that bought because of price point.

Can someone shed some light on what microsoft has been selling that everyone wants? I'm really curious now.

<comment><USER3> > what microsoft has been selling that everyone wants?

Continuity.

If you have a full Windows shop, with hundreds or thousands of users on Active Directory, with e-mail and calendars on Exchange, all their important documents made in Office and stored on SharePoint, all their internal apps in VB/C# storing their data on SQL Server (or Oracle running on Windows Server) you'll have a hard time selling anything much different. It's always easier to upgrade to a newer release of Windows than to Linux or OSX.

Microsoft has perfected the art of vendor lock-in. I believe only IBM's zOS customers "enjoy" a similar situation.

<comment><USER4> Or perhaps it's because they have solutions, features, industry leading backwards-compatibility, competent support channels, _and a slew of other things_ \- that their nearest competitor does not have.

<comment><USER5> I assume you mean their nearest competitor for consumer and small to medium business desktop operating systems? Because that statement isn't true for say, mobile phones, video game systems, cloud services, or database, enterprise, and web server software.

<comment><USER6> Right, now that Postgres 9.3 just added materialized views, perhaps they'll have a super-easy system for replication, DR, and HA.

<comment><USER5> Microsoft offers product to compete at many different levels of the market. Postgres is their competition for some needs, but I would think that if you need more advanced features like you mention it would be more of a comparison to Oracle and db2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you look at the segments report[1] you'll find that the real drivers of the increase was Devices and Consumer Hardware, which was mostly driven by the Xbox launch, and Commercial Licensing.

But the Gross Margin tells a different story. When you subtract the cost of making the Xbox consoles the D&C Hardware segment actually decreased from last year. The only real increase is Commercial Licensing, which is mainly Office and servers.

[1] [http://www.microsoft.com/Investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Fina...](http://www.microsoft.com/Investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Financials/fy14/q2/SegmentRevenues.aspx)

<comment><USER8> Does the licensing include the "Android Tax" ?

<comment><USER7> I think so. Here's their description of the segments, [http://www.microsoft.com/investor/CompanyInfo/SegmentInfo/Ov...](http://www.microsoft.com/investor/CompanyInfo/SegmentInfo/Overview.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice. I wish they would break this out a bit more:

       > Bing search share grew to 18.2% and search
       > advertising revenue grew 34%.

It echos what we're seeing in terms of more people using alternative search channels (which, on a per page view basis, increases revenue in those channels). But for me the interesting bit is that their revenue grew twice as fast as their market share. That could be because they have moved to a point where incremental share is entirely accretive to their revenue, or it can mean that they are getting more for their ads. That would help understand whether or not Google's CPC is going to go down a little or more than a little :-).

<comment><USER10> That sentence doesn't read like that to me. Their search market share is 18.2% and is not a growth number. Advertising grew 34% from some unspecified base.

<comment><USER9> Fair enough, the previous quarter they just said this : "Search advertising revenue grew 47% driven by an increase in revenue per search and volume."

Google's CPC in their third quarter 2013 was down 4%. If the ratio holds then a 34% increase in revenue would translate into a 2.9% decrease in CPC. Of course that assumes they are trading traffic 1:1. Hence my curiosity. Google will announce in a couple of weeks and we'll get to see.

<comment><USER9> And from Google _" CPC ... decreased approximately 2% over the third quarter of 2013."_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It seems Microsoft ([http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=MSFT+Key+Statistics](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=MSFT+Key+Statistics)) is doing financially better than Google ([http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=GOOG+Key+Statistics](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=GOOG+Key+Statistics)) in every aspect. Microsoft also has a more diversified business so I wonder why Google still has a larger market cap.

<comment><USER12> MSFT has been flat for so long that no one wants to buy it.

<comment><USER13> >MSFT has been flat for so long that no one wants to buy it.

What? You call this flat? [1] The dividend payout has gone up, the price has been rising. If you call that a flat and that there is no interest in it, then I am sorry for the following remark: You have no idea about stocks and stock markets!

[1][http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&c...](http://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1390515621962&chddm=49657&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NASDAQ:MSFT&ntsp=0&ei=epXhUujpCcf4sQfKIA)

<comment><USER12> Let me rephrase. They aren't a growth stock anymore, so no one who wants growth stocks wants to buy it. Very recently, they have made some gains, but a lot of people remember the previous 10 years.

<comment><USER14> Microsoft has been doing fantastic over the past 5 years, especially when you take into account dividends. Just cause they were massively overvalued during the dot com bubble does not mean it has been a flat stock.

I really don't understand how you can dismiss market data that's right in front of you, it's bordering on denial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Up 14% from $21.5B from a year earlier, which was also a record:

[http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earn...](http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY14/Q2/default.aspx)

Key difference probably being Xbox launch.

<comment><USER16> So what's it? Xbox division is a loss leader and should be dumped or a revenue source? HN can't make its mind :)

<comment><USER17> Loss leaders are sources of revenue, but not sources of profit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Holiday season, Xbox One launch - it's much easier to make "revenue" off $500 hardware, than from $5 a month Office services. 4 million Xbox Ones is already an extra $2 billion in revenue, regardless of what the profit is.

I expect their revenue to continue to increase a little bit in the next quarters (YoY), as they keep focusing on selling hardware. I don't think their profits will improve too much, and might even see a decline within a few quarters, as it gets harder and harder to sell Windows 8 licenses, since most people don't like it too much, enterprise customers don't like it, and they've just announced a year and a half before release that Windows 9 is coming next year, which is pretty crazy on their part. Android and iOS will also keep affecting the sales of PCs, and therefore the sales of Windows licenses, too.

<comment><USER19> They didn't announce Windows 9. Those were tech sites just reporting on rumours. And considering that the last couple OSes have been released on 3 year cycles, mid-2015 is exactly when you would expect Windows 9 to come out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > 3.9 million Xbox One consoles and 3.5 million Xbox 360 consoles.

Is anyone else surprised by the sales numbers for the Xbox 360?

<comment><USER21> I think the 360 is going to be like the ps2 was last generation. An obsolete console with a surprising number of sales.

<comment><USER22> To echo this point, there are many people who take the PS2 approach of buying a console at the end of its lifecycle to take advantage of buying all used games or old games and rock bottom prices.

<comment><USER23> This is what I'm doing with the PS3. Looking to buy one right now so I can finally play (and own) all the PS3 exclusives that will only be available on PS4 via their subscription streaming service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Like it or not, their services are pervasive in the enterprise. Office 365 is the future for so many Fortune 500 companies and Sharepoint 2013 is a huge push too.

As much as I wish there was more Unix/Linux at my company, all eggs are in the MS basket for sure.

<comment><USER25> That pervasiveness seems like a double-edged sword. First, what if Microsoft really does lose it in a big way (rather than just remaining stuff, boring and unimaginative)? Enterprises will really be on the hook to find replacements, and to create portable versions of all that documentation that's in .doc and .docx format. Second, does "the enterprise" and "the rest of the world" divergence have any consequences? The Sharepoint thing is a good example. Everybody else uses Apache, nginx or something, but corporations use Sharepoint because it lets them keep a thumb on their employees. Won't any innovation made by The Rest of the World just pass them by? Will Sharepoint admins end up making the big bucks because there's no easy to find, off-the- street source of those folks?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Nice EPS @ $0.78 as well.

<comment><USER20> Yup the street had them at $0.67 [http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/msft/earnings- forecast](http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/msft/earnings-forecast)

Why did they release this after hours?

<comment><USER27> > Why did they release this after hours? All earnings/major news releases are > pre/after hours in order to reduce volatility on the news. Look at pre/after > hours spikes of anyone (including MSFT) releasing earnings to see the effect > earnings have on stock. Netflix yesterday was also a good example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Am I being overly cynical in 1) they bought nokia, 2) revenue != profit, 3) nokia sells a lot of cheap phones.

<comment><USER29> Yes, because the purchase hasn't closed yet, so those revenues aren't included. Also, there was near-record profit to go along with the revenue, so margins aren't down too badly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> What is Windows OEM Pro revenue?

<comment><USER20> OEM is their one time install version of windows (with switches). This is the license usually carried by most hardware retailers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm a new investor who's learning about technology stocks. Will someone with a better understanding of the market explain what this news means to prospective investors?

<comment><USER23> That's not really HN's forte. You may have better luck over at the Motley Fool ([http://www.fool.com/](http://www.fool.com/))

<comment><USER30> Thanks for the resource!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Microsoft is still milking slow to change enterprises. That is the main story here.

</comment><comment><USER32> Now they can afford to buy some new tech. Cheaper than innovating weak product.

<comment><USER33> I wish they'd buy:

* Xamarin and polish the debugging, VS integration and Mono in general (maybe replace a lot of it with MS' .NET implementation? I can dream)

* MvvmCross and polish it and put it into the .NET BCL

* JetBrains (or just ReSharper) and give it a once over (performance- and code analysis-wise) and ship it with VS.

* Maybe Digia for Qt to replace MFC (this one's kind of selfish since Qt is used in places Microsoft probably doesn't care for - maybe they could sponsor the Windows side).

> Cheaper than innovating weak product.

Aside from MFC I think Microsoft has fairly solid solutions to a lot of problems (Azure, Active Directory, Exchange Server, Visual Studio, Office, .NET).

<comment><USER34> Agreed. I wish they would would buy Xamarin and make it easy to build C# MVC applications and deploy on Linux/BSD. Give me that with entity framework to MySQL/Postgresql and I am sold. Will convert over to using it for everything. Add in ReSharper and it has the potential to be the most productive environment on any platform.

<comment><USER35> Can't sell windows server licenses if you let people run on Linux.

Xamarins price is way too high and I bet apple would block the apps built with it if msft bought them (and they'd likely sue for reverse engineering).

<comment><USER33> > apple would block the apps built with it

Apple went there [1] and failed [2].

[1] [http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/iphone_agreement_bans_flas...](http://daringfireball.net/2010/04/iphone_agreement_bans_flash_compiler)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_and_Adobe_Flash_controver...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_and_Adobe_Flash_controversy#History)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A surprisingly deep AI/sci-fi/surveillance flick from the early 70s - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDrRrZSEqxI

<comment><USER2> I own all three books in that series. One was out of print and I paid a lot for it. Excellent reads!</comment>


2017 State of Rust Survey - <AUTHOR> https://blog.rust-lang.org/2017/05/03/survey.html <comment><AUTHOR> Hello everyone! Rust Community team member here. We would greatly appreciate a moment of your time to help us understand how we did over the past year, and how we can improve over the next year. We'd love any input from people both already inside our community, or people that are not using the language.

Thanks so much! The community team will be hanging out here to help answer any questions you might have.</comment>


Show HN: Ad Blocker by Search Encrypt - <AUTHOR> https://blog.searchencrypt.com/search-encrypt/introducing-ad-blocker-by-search-encrypt/ <comment><USER2> Competition is always good. Does your blocker offer any interesting features over eg. uBlock Origin?

Also, the popup makes me want to close the tab and never come back: [https://vgy.me/Bu1s7w.png](https://vgy.me/Bu1s7w.png)</comment>


Show HN: Kog, a simple kotlin server inspired by clojure's ring (just for fun) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/danneu/kog/ <comment><AUTHOR>
        val handler = Router {
            get("/", fun(): Handler = {
                Response().text("Hello, world")
            })
            get("/<a>/<b>/<c>", fun(a: Int, b: Int, c: Int): Handler = {
                Response().json(J.obj("sum" to J.num(a + b + c)))
            })
        }.handler()

        Server(handler).listen(3000)

It has a lot of features half-stubbed out to a hobbyware level from a type- safe router to content negotiation to JSON decoder combinators.

I was in the market for a statically-typed language to use on the server and gave Kotlin a shot.

After rewriting an old, large log-parsing program, I was impressed with Kotlin's mix of simplicity and expressiveness. The designers definitely spent some quality hammock time.

I wrapped Jetty's `(Request, Response) -> Unit` signature in a `(Request) -> Response` signature which I always liked because it's easier to test and it means middleware becomes a higher-order function `((Req) -> Res) -> ((Req) -> Res)`.

It has some goofy abstractions, too, and plenty of `// TODO:`'s in the code. I couldn't even figure out how to get it working with jRebel much less roll my own hot reload.

But I think I got it to a point where it might be interesting to other weekend-ware warriors.</comment>


Show HN: Mr.Node – A JavaScript Library for Node.js Functions - <AUTHOR> https://mrnode.tk <comment><USER2> Why should I use this over just creating a new file?

Why use this over a build system to build my files automatically?

<comment><AUTHOR> simply because it is a shortcut. This gives you a way that you don't have to write a lot of code.

<comment><USER2> I can do it by literally typing in the terminal: "touch file.min.js", or fill it with content: "cat somefile.js | uglify > file.js"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Now I understand :)) you're a 12 year old, and what you do is awesome so keep up the good work, just don't expect wide adoption of your libraries yet :) So keep on hacking on! I guess you'll have a future in web development.

I wish there'd been all the technology and fast internet connections we have today when I was 12 years old, instead I was trying to learn Basic on an old C64 in isolation, cause none of my friends were interested in computers at all. Nowadays it's so much easier to get started coding and get connected with other people.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks man I really appreciate it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thanks for the open source work. Keep on hacking Talon.[1]

[1] [http://talonbragg.com/](http://talonbragg.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Man!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What is the use case for this? When would I need to programmatically create a blank html file?

</comment><comment><USER6> props to you for creating this library. 12 is really young -- especially young to have such a valiant focus like developer tooling.

remember though- writing good developer tools is something that requires _a lot_ of experience and expertise. learning to program by writing developer tools is kind of like learning to build a house by making a hammer.

the best advice i have would be to remember that _you don 't know what you don't know_. when you're creating a new tool- make sure to ask yourself some questions- does this tool exist already? if not, why not? what differentiates mine?

keep it up! you will only get better with time!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you !

<comment><USER6> something to consider:

why have methods like createjs(), createcss(), createhtml(), etc. as opposed to a single function which accepts the type as an argument? for instance, create('js') create('css') create('html')?

in terms of APIs- the latter is going to be more flexible and lead to more expressive options.

edit: also, i think i've found one or two bugs in your documentation and code. your documentation explains function "delete" but it seems the actual function name is "delt". your delete function also includes a second parameter, "destination". this is just down right confusing- why would a deleted file need a destination?!

also, if we look at the source of your delete method, consider the bare minimum. do we really need to invoke gulp to delete files? do we even really need this `del` library to delete files? never do more than you need. as a matter of fact, if all you're trying to do is delete a file, you should look into fs.unlink [0] :)!

maybe it would be a fun exercise to try remaking some of these file system functions (delete, rename) without using gulp at all. :)

cheers again and happy coding!!

[0] [https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fs_fs_unlink_path_callback](https://nodejs.org/api/fs.html#fs_fs_unlink_path_callback)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok I think I will take that into consideration, I was thinking about doing it in the first place already.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> So for this, some people just want other ways to do things. So I created them. This isn't full fledged yet. It is still in development and many more updates are to come.

<comment><USER2> What are some planned updates then? I still don't see a good use case...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice work on the project as well as it's website! Very impressive!</comment>


80 terabytes of archived web crawl data available for research - <AUTHOR> http://blog.archive.org/2012/10/26/80-terabytes-of-archived-web-crawl-data-available-for-research/

<comment><USER2> Napkin math says it would cost ~$5000 to put the data online and ~$138/month to power it:

Here's the "Everything will always work" math:

~ 27 3TB SATA drives @ $129.95 [0]

~ 7 machines @ $60.17 [1] [2]

~ 8-port switch @ $11.99 [3]

~ 100ft cat5 cable @ $15.95 [4]

~ 14 cat5 connectors @ ~$5 total.

~ 2 6-prong power strips @ $5 [5].

Total: 27 * $129.95 + 7 * $60.17 + $11.99 + $15.95 + $5 + 2 * $5 = $3972.78.

With decent redundancy: ~$5000 [6].

Monthly power bill: ~$138 [7].

Labor: $0 [8].

You can store basically a copy of "The entire internet" for 1/4th the cost of a new sedan [9] and power it at 1/5th the cost of using that sedan [10].

I officially christen this the future.

\-----

References:

[0] [http://www.goharddrive.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=G0...](http://www.goharddrive.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=G01-0530&Click=46406)

[1] The cheapest all-in-one with SATA I found was the $49 cubieboard ([http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/09/11/cubieboard-raspberry- pi...](http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/09/11/cubieboard-raspberry-pi- competitor-with-sata-port/)). 4 of them would run you $200 ... putting it at higher expense.

[2] Breakdown:

$24.99 Motherboard: [http://www.ascendtech.us/asus-p5rc-le-lga775-ddr- motherboard...](http://www.ascendtech.us/asus-p5rc-le-lga775-ddr- motherboard_i_mbasus51885472h.aspx)

$3.50 256MB RAM: [http://txmicro.com/256MB-DDR-RAM-PC3200-184-Pin-DIMM-Name- Br...](http://txmicro.com/256MB-DDR-RAM-PC3200-184-Pin-DIMM-Name- Brand-p-1035.html)

$4.00 celeron: [http://starmicroinc.net/intel- celeron-325j-253ghz-256k-533mh...](http://starmicroinc.net/intel- celeron-325j-253ghz-256k-533mhz-sl7tls-p-927.html)

$8.95 CPU fan: <http://3btech.net/inorlga775co.html>

$21.99 550 W PSU: <http://3btech.net/24pinch550wa.html>

$0.74 Molex -> SATA: [http://www.amazon.com/Syba-SY-CAB40007-Molex-Power- Inches/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Syba-SY-CAB40007-Molex-Power- Inches/dp/B0027AGK3M)

\-----

$60.17

[3] <http://3btech.net/giee24ramo10.html>

[4] <http://www.acnt.com/product.asp?pf_id=NHG08>

[5] <http://www.google.com/shopping/product/18338766357132175733>

[6] Using base price * 1.25.

[7] <http://www.bls.gov/ro9/cpilosa_energy.htm> Assuming $0.15 KW/hr + 180 W/hr per machine avg usage we have: 7 * 0.180 KW/hr * $0.15 KW/hr* 24 hr * 365.25 d / 12 m = $138.07/month.

[8] I mean equity, _cough cough_.

[9] Based on KBB value for a baseline 2013 Nissan Altima ([http://www.kbb.com/nissan/altima/2013-nissan- altima/25/?vehi...](http://www.kbb.com/nissan/altima/2013-nissan- altima/25/?vehicleid=374605&intent=buy-new&category=sedan&options=))

[10] Based on 15,291 miles per year average (<http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm>) * IRS mileage rate of $0.55 ([http://www.irs.gov/uac/IRS-Announces-2012-Standard- Mileage-R...](http://www.irs.gov/uac/IRS-Announces-2012-Standard-Mileage- Rates,-Most-Rates-Are-the-Same-as-in-July)) = $700.

<comment><USER3> Let me assure you, storage has gotten cheap but not _that_ cheap. ;)

You've omitted the labor cost to assemble, debug and maintain your McGyver- Device. That's easily another $2500/mo (amortized).

Secondly you don't _really_ want to store 80T on the cheapest components you can possibly get without _a lot_ of testing and planning. This $22 PSU, trust me, it will come back to haunt you.

Thirdly, "decent redundancy" starts at factor 2.5, not 1.25.

And finally: If you want to put this stuff online and have people actually download it then you'll soon notice that redundancy is not only needed for availability but also for performance.

A reasonable ballpark figure for low-end networked storage nowadays is $0.05/GB per month (it gets much cheaper above 500T). Thus hosting those 80T should cost roughly $4000/mo, give or take a few.

<comment><USER2> > That's easily another $2500/mo (amortized).

I'd be doing this myself, so I'll charge myself $0.

> Secondly you don't really want to store 80T on the cheapest components you > can possibly get without a lot of testing and planning. This $22 PSU, trust > me, it will come back to haunt you.

Sure. Of course. Bump that to $45. Ok, another $200. Not huge.

> Thirdly, "decent redundancy" starts at factor 2.5, not 1.25.

If you are serving it to the internet at large. But for personal use, 1.25 is fine unless you are saying the proper RAID setup is Number of disks * 2.5; which would be something new to me, for sure.

> And finally: If you want to put this stuff online and have people actually > download it then you'll soon notice that redundancy is not only needed for > availability but also for performance.

I don't. The presumption is that it's a copy (my copy, actually), not the original.

> A reasonable ballpark figure for low-end networked storage nowadays is > $0.05/GB per month (it gets much cheaper above 500T). Thus hosting those 80T > should cost roughly $4000/mo, give or take a few.

You might be getting ripped off :-(.

I can get a half-rack (that's 22U) for $900/month. Even at 2.5 redundancy and if I had to pay for the patch and the switch, it's still way under $4000/month.

Besides, the _thought experiment_ was to run it from somewhere like my entry- way, near my coat-hanger: "What's this? Oh, it's just the internet; the Whole Internet. No no, just a copy."

<comment><USER3> Ah, I missed the personal use bit.

Yes, of course you can cobble something together when availability does not matter at all (it might blow the fuse in your apt, though;)).

I was just saying that in an application with most basic availability- requirements you're not getting the cost down like that.

I.e. even though you _could_ fit that into one rack, nobody actually would (redundancy is measured in powers of >=2). And even though you _might_ find an ISP who won't bitch about you drawing >10 Amps in "half a rack" (cough), you should still be a little concerned about other tenants screwing around in the same rack as your only copy of 80T of data that you care about... ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> One of the major reasons to make something like this available is not research but to get the eggs in more than one basket. If archive.org ever went offline permanently that would be a pretty big disaster.

A backup copy of the library of Alexandria would have been a nice to have before it burned down but would have been priceless afterwards.

So please, make all of the archive available in some form. It will be an insane amount of data but at least there will be some institutions that will be able to insure this precious resource against various disasters.

<comment><USER5> Would somebody really care for the library of Alexandria these days? Im not through reading the internet yet.

<comment><USER6> I have no words.

The internet is flooded with pop culture bullshit. The Library contained precious works from some of the greatest geniuses in history--works that we know exist but were forever lost.

<comment><USER7> There's still people that care relatively little for the study of the past. The internet is also filled with lots of things that aren't "pop culture bullshit"

<comment><USER8> After I look at what careful study of great geniuses of the past and high culture did for us in the 1940s and ever since, forgetting the bulk of it (less technical stuff) is probably best. Most of the (intellectual) past is an albatross.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> CommonCrawl also has a fairly large ("The crawl currently covers 5 billion pages") dataset of this sort, which unlike the one from archive.org is already available to everyone on S3 under the requester-pays model.

<http://commoncrawl.org/data/accessing-the-data/>

</comment><comment><USER10> Cool! @matpalm, please run your English extractor scripts on it! ([http://matpalm.com/blog/2011/12/10/common_crawl_visible_text...](http://matpalm.com/blog/2011/12/10/common_crawl_visible_text/))

'If you would like access to this set of crawl data, please contact us at info at archive dot org and let us know who you are and what you're hoping to do with it. We may not be able to say "yes" to all requests, since we're just figuring out whether this is a good idea, but everyone will be considered.'

This is annoying, that they're using the enterprise sales model for distribution. Just put it on S3.

<comment><USER11> "Just?" That's $9000/month for standard storage on S3 - $7000 for reduced redundancy. Each download would cost them about $4000 in bandwidth fees.

They already know how to store massive amounts of data, and how to send it over the network. Assuming $100/TB for their own media means it would only cost them about $4000 to store it themselves.

Assuming you have 1Gb/s connection rate, that would take you over 7 days to download. It's probably both cheaper and faster to write the data to disk and ship the disk then to an S3 download.

It reads more like they don't know if or how people want to use this. (The "are interested in exploring how others might be able to interact with or learn from this content if we make it available in bulk.") Simply making the data available doesn't give them feedback.

For example, is it sufficiently worthwhile for them to go through the effort of providing the data on S3, given the costs?

<comment><USER12> Amazon hosts some large data sets for public usage, I suspect a deal could be arranged here. The cost of access is then on the user.

<http://aws.amazon.com/publicdatasets/>

<comment><USER11> Talking with Amazon to make a special deal for hosting that data would not be a "just." The major point remains - archive.org knows how to host and provide large files, so the issue must be some other factor. I think they want to know if it's worthwhile to do so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> maybe amazon would be generous enough to host this freely, as they did with common-crawl?

</comment><comment><USER14> Chain with Lempel-Ziv-Marcov and squeeze on a couple of 5TB hard drives :)</comment>


The All-Black Utopian Ghost City That Lost Its Soul - <AUTHOR> http://www.messynessychic.com/2016/04/19/the-all-black-utopian-ghost-city-that-lost-its-soul/ <comment><USER2> I grew up in the county west of Soul City. It didn't go bankrupt all on it's own. The adjacent townships and cities are pits of disrepair and hardship (Warrenton and Henderson). The only industrial type (large scale employment business centers) are two or three counties away from Soul City. So moving away from there starts to become a lucrative prospect the longer you stay.</comment>


The Cultural Purge Will Not Be Televised - <AUTHOR> https://www.easydns.com/blog/2017/02/24/the-cultural-purge-will-not-be-televised/ <comment><USER3> This sort of thing seems better on a personal blog than that of a company. As opposed to sounding like an enlightened defense of freedom of speech - there's plenty of capacity for doing that in professional writing[1] - it reads like that of someone with an axe to grind, who feels like their favored brand of politics is being tarnished unfairly and claiming victimhood.

Engaging in such victimhood using the platform of your company's blog doesn't sit well with me. As the negative consequences of him writing this will almost certainly be negligible in relative terms for the company, it undermines his argument. If there's a real "cultural purge", we should expect EasyDNS to go bankrupt for defending groups alleged to be "white supremacist", "racist", and "Nazi".

But I gather they won't be. I didn't hear of "#deleteshopify" until I read this post, and I expect I won't hear about it again.

If you're reading this, future people, do me a favor and reply to this thread when #boycotteasydns has caused the company to fold. We can talk about "cultural purges" then.

[1] - [http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/01/26/chancellor-statement- on-...](http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/01/26/chancellor-statement-on- yiannopoulos/)

<comment><USER4> >If there's a real "cultural purge", we should expect EasyDNS to go bankrupt for defending groups alleged to be "white supremacist", "racist", and "Nazi".

So, for his claim that there are often unpleasant consequences for being vocally on one side of the cultural divide to be true, they have to specifically happen to him? This is a ridiculous assertion, whether he is correct has absolutely nothing to do with whether he himself faces those consequences.

<comment><USER3> Fair point, I should weaken my claim. How do we define a "cultural purge"? I would suggest that for any definition we could agree on, we would agree that the purge the author supposes is not occurring.

There are instances of boycotts succeeding - but those aren't "cultural purges", those are isolated incidents and by corollary to what you wrote, we should discount individual instances. It's the aggregate that matters, and the traffic to alt-right blogs and websites only seem to be growing. The "victimhood" of Breitbart (and other alt-right blogs) seems entirely manufactured.

Ironically I think here the author again defeats his own claims. I'm not aware of peer-reviewed studies, but I gather from the disparate press reports and some nonprofit publications that anti-Semitic, racist, and white supremacist sites are on the rise. The author even points to the need to disallow such a site on their platform. Ample existence of the examples of such sites only lend credence to the belief that there is not a cultural purge going on!

What a strange definition for the term "cultural purge" we would have if we could assert that it's occurring despite a surge in outspoken sentiment that is being "purged".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting. What I've been seeing from my fellow liberals lately is freedom of everything except difference in opinion. I think Milo, for example, is a gigantic troll and probably a bad person... but he has a right to speak freely, just like Westboro Baptist Church does.

<comment><USER6> What Milo does is one thing. What the "church" does is another.

The "church" has a business model of provoking people into confronting them physically so they can sue them. Basically they really run to daddy when they get slapped for poking someone in the eye.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think munnin_ has it right. We once killed a sizeable deal here (at easyDNS) because it included providing DNS for the Westboro church domains. We just didn't want any part of it.

Again - our decision, no coercion.

Westboro has a right to speak (although not to disrupt the activities of others). But nobody has to agree to give them a platform.

The big distinction is: are you acting under your own volition or under coercion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I agree with this article mostly, but I do take strong issue with contrasting "boycott" with "free speech". Boycotting _is_ an expression of free speech and freedom of association. It's unlawful for the (US) government to punish you for your speech, but private citizens can shop elsewhere, or ostracize you, or invite you to tea - and encourage others to do so - at will.

That said, I share the OPs dismay at the wholesale unthinking tribalism in US politics today. It's hard to overstate the intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy on display.

</comment><comment><USER8> TL;BS. Shopify makes it possible for Breitbart to make money selling merchandise. They claim they have nothing to do with it otherwise and do not support their views, people on internet are mad anyways because of course they make money from having Breitbart as a client. Author claims Shopify is being unfairly targeted and the left is continuing its "cultural purge" on free- association and free-speech. Both of which are interesting? claims since boycotts have long been apart of American history "see Tea Party & Montgomery Bus Boycott" and doesn't even mention all of the boycotts of the right against Target (bathrooms & toys), Starbucks(cups says Happy Holidays, & hiring Refugees), and whatever other campaign is on One Million Moms ([https://onemillionmoms.com/current- campaigns](https://onemillionmoms.com/current-campaigns)) and other groups.

My point is that if you choose to do business with a group that may be targeted by social groups on any side because of their political or social positions you run the risk of being associated with that group and might suffer the same consequences.

<comment><USER4> The issue here is that Shopify are being judged not for their actual stances, but for who they do business with. This is different from boycotting something because of their actual positions. What if no one would rent a building to Breitbart, or provide their offices and employees with internet access, or sell vehicles to their employees, or provide web hosting for them, because of the threat of boycotts against them for doing business with Breitbart? The practice of boycotting people for association rather than actual opinions is seriously bad news if you actually care about free speech, because it means that any group with enough buying power to affect the bottom line of anyone you do business with now is in control of whether or not you're allowed to exist.

<comment><USER3> If we ever get to a point in society where huge swaths of the population are unwilling to associate with Breitbart in any way, and legislators begin adding laws to the books about segregating businesses into categories of "have dealt with Breitbart" and "have not" and try to (unconstitutionally) apply different rules to each, then perhaps the courts and the public should take your claims seriously.

But until then, you are describing a slippery slope that doesn't make me feel bad one whit.

And to provide an example of this:

"What if no one would rent a building to the American Nazi Party, or provide their offices and employees with internet access, or sell vehicles to their employees, or provide web hosting for them, because of the threat of boycotts against them for doing business with the American Nazi Party?"

Or let's take it back 50 years:

"What if no one would rent a building to the American Communist Party, or provide their offices and employees with internet access, or sell vehicles to their employees, or provide web hosting for them, because of the threat of boycotts against them for doing business with the American Communist Party?"

Or substitute any extreme you like. The KKK, for example.

What you're misunderstanding about free association is that every person - <USER2> every business - has the right to choose _not_ to associate as well. Association is not compulsory, and neither is listening to speech. Bad actors like "actual Nazis" (I am not claiming Breitbart is such) do not have a constitutional right to do business with anyone they like. Free association doesn't mean the market must be blind to the participants involved.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This post has been repeatedly [flagged] ... which is exactly what the ENTIRE ARTICLE IS ABOUT.

<comment><USER9> True, but it's also standard for HN users to flag rhetorical advocacy pieces, especially ones with sensational titles.

My gut feeling is that more users are flagging this one because they think it's off-topic for HN than because they disagree with it, but that's just a guess.

<comment><AUTHOR> That would actually make me feel better if you're right.

That said in my mind it's on-topic for HN since YC themselves have been on the receiving end of what the article talks about (it does mention the outcry to remove Thiel from the FB board, but not that YC also faced pressure to cut ties to Thiel)

The point is: Thiel is completely within his rights to endorse Trump. It's not like he forfeited his humanity by doing so.

<comment><USER8> Nobody is accusing him of being unlawful or outside his rights to endorse him. Nor, as far as I'm aware, has he been deprived on any right by that association.

It seems you have an issue with people speaking out against him. He chose to publicly support Trump, he could've voted and contributed behind closed doors like most other wealthy people. He chose to make his opinion public because he understands that he is influential and he hoped to exert that influence, but you can't have it both ways.

<comment><AUTHOR> There was a public outcry to have him ejected from the FB Board because of his political beliefs. That is no different than wanting to get somebody fired from their job for theirs. The attempt failed, "the Zuch" was criticized for defending Thiel's right to having his own opinion.

<comment><USER8> So everything is working exactly as it's supposed to... People voice their opinion to those in power, those in power make a decisions and make their stance known. Are you saying you don't want these people to receive public criticism? Otherwise I'm not sure what there is left. Nothing actually happened, just people exchanging words on either side.

<comment><USER10> It's not clear to me what you're pushing back against. 'StuntPope expressed that they thinks this submission is relevant to HN and has been repeatedly flagged, and understood and expressed acceptance (with some additional, civilly expressed comments) for the explanation 'dang provided.

You seem to be reading a lot more into their comments than is needed. I read nothing in their comments other than clarification based on what's in your replies. They've just expressed a desire to discuss the submission, which seems to actually support the idea of criticism.

<comment><USER8> He said:"The point is: Thiel is completely within his rights to endorse Trump. It's not like he forfeited his humanity by doing so."

Which implies that someone was arguing the contrary.

<comment><USER10> Which, as they clarified, there has been. I've witnessed as much on HN.

They explicitly did _not_ imply that something was unlawful, which is how you phrased your reply:

 _Nobody is accusing him of being unlawful or outside his rights to endorse him. Nor, as far as I 'm aware, has he been deprived on any right by that association._

<comment><USER8> There have been people attempting to take his rights away or claim it was unlawful? Lol.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "Your only recourse is whether to associate or disassociate with somebody."

Might I suggest disassociating yourself from the federal government by learning the difference between state citizenship and federal citizenship and take appropriate action.

More info here:

[http://famguardian.org/Subjects/Taxes/taxes.htm#CITIZENSHIP](http://famguardian.org/Subjects/Taxes/taxes.htm#CITIZENSHIP)

</comment><comment><USER12> Anyone else catch the Obama quote?

>There has to be, I think, some sort of way in which we can sort through information that passes some basic truthiness tests and those that we have to discard

> truthiness refers to the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes > or believes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> flagged again</comment>


What Happened to the Book Herman Melville Wrote After 'Moby-Dick'? - <AUTHOR> https://www.thedailybeast.com/whatever-happened-to-the-book-herman-melville-wrote-after-moby-dick <comment><USER2> If you're looking to read Melville without tackling the lengthy Moby-Dick, I highly recommend the short story Benito Cereno:

[http://www.esp.org/books/melville/piazza/contents/cereno.htm...](http://www.esp.org/books/melville/piazza/contents/cereno.html)

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

<comment><USER3> And there's always the great short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener", perhaps the first commentary on the meaninglessness of office life.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartleby,_the_Scrivener](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartleby,_the_Scrivener)

<comment><USER4> I would prefer not to.

<comment><USER5> ok

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Moby Dick is considered the great American novel. As someone who is not well read on American culture, could anyone help me with the surrounding context -- what made it the great American novel. I know I am asking for a lot here.

Thanks folks all those who responded. Now I am better armed. I did have a go at it about an year back. Read around 4~5 chapters and then realized I need more context to fully appreciate what makes it special. I sensed there's a lot of symbolism being used, but couldn't quite put a finger to what exactly. Was quite surprised by the homo-eroticism in some of the chapters, did not expect that. I assumed literature from such times would reflect more 'victorian' values. I presume that might have created a stir then, or may be not, I am not that well versed in American culture, especially from that era.

<comment><USER7> The U.S. was the dominant whaling country at the time of Moby Dick, but there is little in the book that assumes a knowledge of American history, culture, or literature. It's a candidate for "the great American novel" only because it was written by an American. I've read it more than once, and it strikes me as something completely original, not tied to the conventions or themes of literature of its time or country of origin. You may or may not like it, but "Americanness" won't be the reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another amusing example of mundane publishers interested in great profits, but disinterested in (or unable to discern) great literature. That Melville was well-received in Britain is interesting. Serialization soon after became the route to success for many author's novels (those of H.G. Wells, Dickens, Doyle, and Verne among them).

</comment><comment><USER9> I never knew Moby-Dick was spelled with a hyphen. Fascinating.

<comment><USER10> This is a little out of left field, but my favorite unexpected literary hyphen is in the title of "Lassie Come-Home" [0]. In the original book, the title was not imploring a missing dog to return. It referred to the untrue accusation that Lassie was a "come-home" dog, trained by scam artists to escape from an unsuspecting buyer and return to be sold to the next sucker over and over again.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lassie_Come- Home](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lassie_Come-Home)</comment></comment>


When Children Attack... - g-garron http://linuxlock.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-children-attack.html

<comment><AUTHOR> This guy is a real hero. The work of going into such neighborhoods and providing services is a highly commendable one. Even if these kids are probably going to destroy this computer, there might be that one kid in some home like this who actually starts using computers the way they must be. Reaching out to such people is the best thing that can happen to them in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER2> Charity begins at home. The best gift any parent can give a child is a sense of responsibility for appropriate behavior, especially around visitors to the home. (Yes, I am a parent. I have four children. We don't have any pellet guns in the house.)

<comment><USER3> The pellet gun is not the problem. The child is the problem. Take the pellet gun away and he'll stab his victims with scissors. Take the scissors away and he'll beat his victims with a ball bat.

The tool (pellet gun) is not the problem. Stop blaming the tool. Blame the attacker. The kid will probably grow up and sling sulfuric acid on his girl friends face. When he does that, will that be the acid's fault, or the shopkeeper who sold the acid, or the company that manufactured the acid... no it'll be the _attacker's_ fault.

I have a pellet gun and kids. They all use it responsibly and enjoy doing so. They would never shoot someone with it or threaten anyone... they know better.

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't even argue that the kid is the problem, but rather that the kid's behavior is symptomatic of a completely dysfunctional family.

At a certain age, responsibility starts shifting to the individual, but a 6 year old can hardly be considered the heart of the problem here. How to fix the deeper problem (having a mother that doesn't/is unable to care for her children) will always be an unsolved problem, but the best solutions I have seen so far involve beefing up our public school system so that the kids have a place that they can be given individualized attention.

<comment><USER5> You cannot possibly beef up the public school system to the point that it replaces parental attention to children.

<comment><USER6> Illiterate idiots can't raise responsible, intelligent children. Giving them free computers isn't the answer. What they need is to feel a constant sense of extreme shame for letting themselves and their situation degenerate to that degree. As it is, instead of shaming slothful, lazy, degenerate idiots, society shames itself into allowing them a free pass on the grounds that all else being equal, some people must be too stupid to figure anything out for themselves. Which turns out to be false when it comes to gaming the welfare system, cooking crystal meth or jacking peoples' shoes... but those kinds of smarts are what you get when you start coddling and nannying to the point where individuality and ambition are wiped out and the neediest and laziest survive. I hope none of my tax dollars went toward buying them a computer. In fact, I hope they eat each other. Great post, though.

<comment><USER7> _What they need is to feel a constant sense of extreme shame for letting themselves and their situation degenerate to that degree._

Have you perhaps by chance considered that a sense of extreme shame is exactly what prevents them from changing their situations?

It's quite obvious that you haven't been exposed to anything beyond the silver spoon you were born with in your lifetime. If you had some life experience you'd understand how silly your comment is, given that these are issues are much more complex than people being "illiterate idiots".

<comment><USER8> I didn't grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth, and I think noduerme's comments were spot on. In fact, I wish I could give his comment ten more points, and downvote your arrogant screed by the same amount.

It really _isn't_ that much more complex than people being "illiterate idiots". Believe me, I've seen it with my own eyes.

<comment><USER9> And the problem with you guys isn't much more complex than being "arrogant idiots".

<comment><USER6> Ostracizing people socially -- rather than using bureaucracy as a method of enforcing ever more bloated statutes -- is a tried and true human tradition. It happens all the time online. Note the emergence of up-ranking news sites, for instance. Downranking is a powerful form of social censorship that helps civilize the worse traits in human nature. To rely solely on law or on bureaucracy to keep people acting in a civilized fashion is to discard thousands of years of social/moral wisdom. The argument usually begins with moral relativism -- e.g. you don't know what it's like to be XYZ, you were born ABC, and how dare you judge anybody -- and ends with the credo that all is permissible. The problem with everything being permissible is that, contrarily, in a situation where there is a refusal on the part of individuals to judge each other, no individual has any rights. Their rights are either abrogated by the police and the faceless majority, or everyone's rights directly infringe on each other's, in an anarchic context that only begs for further control. Therefore, face-to-face settlement of conflict and the boundaries between individuals is preferable to settlement by the state, and also preferable to a complete lack of settlement. And THEREFORE, we must use the best tools in the arsenal to settle such conflicts on a local basis, which most definitely include humiliating and ostracizing and, yes, JUDGING people based on how they behave.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _I pointed my finger at him and told him firmly. "If you get up from that couch, I'm going to take the computer away."_

Really? I would have just slapped the kid ;-) It's quite effective.</comment>


Concerning behavior from team leader, how would you proceed? - coffee-is-good During a remote standup my team leader:
1. made fun of an ethnic group and how they talk.
2. spoke for one of the newest engineers on the team (who was present), because they already knew what they are doing. 3. dismissed helping when asked for help from another engineer.
Unfortunately, this is not surprising behavior from this team leader. In my opinion, that behavior is not acceptable, healthy, or productive.
It really bothers me and I'm concerned for my my team's well-being.
My question for the HN community, how would you proceed? <comment><AUTHOR> You work for an organization that has put this person in charge. That's what you are dealing with. A stack of managers and VP's above you that signed off an the person's selection and who would have to admit being wrong to change things. If your team lead's manager admits it was an error in judgement, then your team lead's manager's manager has to admit that they selected a manager who made an error. And so on, all the way up.

Good luck

</comment><comment><USER2> Write him an E-Mail describing your concerns. The internet cannot judge people it doesn't know from statements made by someone involved, no offense.

Don't share that mail in public if you want an honest answer.

<comment> coffee-is-good Thanks. That is a good suggestion. It's not my intent to have the Internet judge this person. I'm hoping to receive advice, suggestions, and ideas of how to proceed. Hopefully, one or more people here have experienced something similar and can share their thoughts.</comment></comment>


Artificial selection in the lab - <AUTHOR> http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/artificial_01

<comment><USER2> I would call that natural selection. The actual selection is not done by humans (hence not artificial), they only set up the environment.

Well, you might say it's a bit of both. Or you might completely do away with the concept of artificial selection. Humans are part of nature just as much as gazelles. The first select tastier cows, the second faster gepards. Artificial selection is, seen from that angle, not much more than a special case of natural selection.

<comment><USER3> I'd label it natural selection in an artificial situation.

Artificial selection would be, as you said, explicitly done by humans (ie, selectively killing / breeding to get the desired traits).

How else to put it... humans _often_ choose by traits, regardless of their efficiency. Nature chooses by individuals / efficiency, _often_ regardless of a specific trait.

<comment><USER4> >> I'd label it natural selection in an artificial situation.

I think that's a good way of phrasing it.

>> Artificial selection would be, as you said, explicitly done by humans (ie, selectively killing / breeding to get the desired traits).

Like that Russian fox domestication experiment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Business Opportunity. Selecting for guppies with specific people's names in their spots.

<comment><USER3> how about something simpler: guppies with A/B/C/1/2/3 on them, to help in those important decision-making processes. Just chuck in a predator, and choose the last one, because it's _clearly_ the best! You can even tell your shareholders that your decisions are made not only with nature in mind, but _by nature itself!_

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This experiment was exposed on Richard Dawkins' "The Greatest Show on Earth", highly recommended read for those interested in learning more on evolution.

</comment><comment><USER7> Really cool! Also... reference:

<http://www.jstor.org/stable/2408316></comment>


The bachelor's to Ph.D. STEM pipeline no longer leaks more women than men - <AUTHOR> http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00037/full <comment><USER2> I've discussed this in the past, but the basic reasoning here is that more and more people ("men" are singled out for this article but it's irrelevant) are leaving academia and not looking back, along with rising populations of people opting to not enter academia in the first place.

Science offers a shitty value proposition: spend your youth in the laboratory for poverty-wages, then your late youth doing the same for poor wages, then your middle age doing the same for poor wages, then maybe you become a professor and make average to decent wages. Sure, science is interesting, and for a certain kind of personality (mine, for instance) the bullshit can be tolerated, for a time. Some people can tolerate it forever because tolerating bullshit means they get to research something that is intensely interesting to them.

But everyone sees the writing on the wall-- science is not a path to a healthy middle class lifestyle for the current generation, and wasn't for the previous generation of scientists either. In fact, I reckon you'd have to go back to the boomers if you want to see people who really had a good thing going in the scientific establishment. There is no opportunity to "hit it out of the park" and somehow come back with a windfall.

<comment><USER3> No, you don't understand.

Science is its own reward. You're pushing forward the frontier of human knowledge! You should share everything you learn for free with the world, and just be happy that you left the world a better place than you found it.

Money is such a lesser reward anyway compared to the adulation scientists get. After all, history will remember the guy who discovered the capacitive touchscreen, not the one that made billions putting it into a phone.

<comment><USER4> The world would be a better place if we all had this thought process, but I could never have this perspective. Even when I first read your comment, my gut reaction was disgust. It took me a moment to reflect and even then I know I couldn't condition myself to think like this. I crave external approval and as much as scientists might think of themselves, the world at large see's you as a tool used by politicians and entrepreneurs.

Thanks for being able to have a healthy perspective and I hope you can convince more people to do the same.

<comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure his post was dripping with sarcasm.

<comment><USER6> I'd agree - I'd bet more people know the name Steve Jobs than Bill Buxton.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The reason is more men are leaking. Unless you think this a good thing then this is not progress. We would not think we are making progress in equalising gender differences in life expectancy by bumping off little old ladies.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why would "more PhDs" equate with "more progress"? Maybe the people purposefully avoid PhDs, because they don't consider them valuable enough?

<comment><USER8> Yes, exactly: Maybe men irrationally pursued more PhDs than made sense, while women made more logical decisions all along, and men's lower rates reflect them improving their life choices.

<comment><USER9> Maybe both men and women irrationally pursued more PhDs than made sense, but the men were historically more likely granted the opportunity to find out for themselves why it was a bad idea ;-)

(I get your point though. "Just sayin'", as the phrase goes)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I had a long discussion with my old supervisor last week about the merit of a PhD (in Biology, Physiology, Pharmaceutics and that genre of field) and she mentioned to me that she doesn't recommend students pursue them anymore.

It was a sad conversation but not surprising. So many students, myself included, invest such significant portions of their lives pursuing a level of education that statistically won't be useful for them or society.

There are no jobs available, funding is drying up and specifically theres an over supply of PhD qualified researchers out there. Thats not to say doing a PhD isn't a bad idea, but from an academic persective there are better alternatives. Especially in the biology field.

After the 7-10 years it takes to pursue a PhD one could become a clinical specialist, employed with arguably better working conditions and research prospects.

<comment><USER11> In most of european countries only fools will expect to do a PHD and get money out of it. it is common knowledge that you will gt a PHD, some prestige around it, some students will go private with luck if they work on some employable field such as a PHD thesis on machine learning for instance but most of the other PHDs will end up teachers which isnt the best pay ever in europe. and this is true for the real scientific PHDs. I am not talking about "PHDs" on gender studies, sociology or psychology which is a synonym for "please do not employ me my degree is useless". at the end it is really the subject of your PHD that will decide how much you will make. Even more than the outcome of your thesis...

<comment><USER10> The suggestion that a psychology, sociology or even gender studies PhD is useless reeks of ignorance. A serious body of academic work, no matter what It's field, is important for the advancement of our society, no matter how gradual.

The maxim that no one goes into a PhD to get rich is true, but at the same time, no one goes into a PhD to be unemployed or to become a teacher. Theres no reason to invest a decade doing primary research when an undergraduate with a masters in teaching will suffice.

<comment><USER11> I meant "employability" of the PHD is useless. and I do not agree with any body of academic work being 'important for the advancement of our society'. looking decades back and now i can guarantee you that a lot of bodies of academic work contributed to make our society regress rather than advance. Computer science is even one example of this, where litterally some guys spend two years of PHD to look where to put a "next button" on a UI.

I know many people that did a PHD on the sole basis to become a teacher as this was the best they could aim for in terms of pay/benefits.

<comment><USER12> I'd be interested in seeing a citation for that "next button" work, too. In general HCI is a serious (and useful) field.

And while I agree that there's high variability in quality of work, both between and within disciplines, I would argue that there have been mountains of _really fundamentally useful_ things that have come out of CS academia (and EE / computer engineering academia to support it), both historically and recently. Everything from programming language theory and optimizing compilers, to modern computer architecture, to all of the fundamental algorithms and data structures, to the basis for modern machine learning and distributed systems and ... I could go on. Industry applies and polishes it, but (in my experience at least) there's simply no way that most of industry would tolerate the multi-year risky projects that lead to useful breakthroughs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Proud STEM PhD drop out from MIT reporting in. Aside from a few who went into consulting or banking, I make way more as a code monkey than those who stayed to finish.

<comment><USER14> And if that's how you are measuring "success", then you obviously made the right choice for you.

Don't get me wrong, I left academia (albeit further on) and think there are lots of sensible reasons to leave.

However if the relatively low pay is either a) a surprise to you or b) a known problem for you when entering a PhD program - then you just didn't do your homework and probably shouldn't have entered the program. Of course sometimes it takes a while to work this out for yourself.

With a few very specific exceptions, entering a PhD program for the money is inept.

<comment><USER13> It's one thing to do your homework and another to be eat ramen when you are 25 years old.

<comment><USER15> not really -- ska point was that graduate school in STEM is transparently not about maximizing your salary potential. He is completely correct.

I went to a USNEWS top-25 undergraduate program, and had offers at consulting firms, ibanks and science phd programs. My top-10 USNEWS phd program was quite open about a 22k-30k salary for the duration of your phd. The substitution effect had I chosen another route (back of the envelope) was a few 100k in lost earnings.

No one does science (in particular, a phd) for the money, because these are smart, academically accomplished individuals who could find more profitable work elsewhere.

<comment><USER9> I mostly agree, but I interpret kelukelugames's comment as saying that it's one thing to do your homework and be _aware_ of what you're getting yourself into, but it's quite another thing to _actually_ be living on ramen in your mid- to late-twenties. That is to say, people--especially your typical 22 y.o. undergrad--probably often overestimate their willingness to fully _live_ the life of a PhD/postdoc, regardless of how much they "aren't in it for the money".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Hmm. Some interesting data, but it doesn't really cover anything like the full "pipeline", which goes past the PhD to postdocs and then to faculty positions. And of course, that's only covering academic exits, while going into industry is another avenue, and there has been no analysis of whether the pipeline from bachelors to industry has been leaky in STEM fields.

Now, hitting a cap on the percentage of people entering the "pipeline" does mean that there's only so much effect that the "leaky pipeline" could have. The self-selection that happens even upon entering a bachelor's program is a pretty large factor, which needs to be studied; is it due to differences at the high school level? Difference in perceived job prospects, perhaps due to problems further down the pipeline like postdoc and tenure positions? Even if the pipeline is only getting a small percentage of women up front, it's possible that feedback from further down the line is what is causing that disparity.

Anyhow, it is good to have some concrete numbers on at least this portion of the pipeline, to inform where efforts should be spent. It sounds like the bachelors to PhD portion was fairly leaky in the past, so efforts to improve that have helped, but now effort would be better spent on looking at other aspects of the system.

</comment><comment><USER17> Isn't it obvious that this is just supply and demand at work? There are now too many people chasing a career in academia, which is driving the price down.

<comment><USER18> Maybe in part, but that ignores the fact demand for academia has gone down what with all the cuts to science and education.

As a society, we value research and knowledge less and less.

<comment> T-A [http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/Agencies_4.jpg](http://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/Agencies_4.jpg)

<comment><USER19> Right, now measure on a per-capita basis or on the basis of percentage of GDP. At least it's adjusted for bloody inflation.

<comment> T-A So more dollars are cuts if population or GDP grows faster?

Does the same principle apply to other quantities too? Let's try a fun one: atmospheric CO2 concentration. From 1980 to 2012, it grew roughly 17% [1]. During the same period, world population grew 57% [2], and gross world product grew 144% [3]. So atmospheric CO2 has been drastically cut? :P

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_at...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide_in_Earth%27s_atmosphere#/media/File:AIRS_Carbon_Dioxide_Vertical.png)

[2] [http://www.geohive.com/earth/his_history3.aspx](http://www.geohive.com/earth/his_history3.aspx)

[3] [http://kushnirs.org/macroeconomics/gdp/gdp_world.html](http://kushnirs.org/macroeconomics/gdp/gdp_world.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


In 2007, 51% of college students graduated with a job. In 2009, it's 19.7%. - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=7636561

<comment><USER2> Why is this surprising? Why should college degree imply ability to find a job? Alot of my classmates appear to do little more than drink + party. I know for a fact that I would not hire them. Why would others?

If anything this seems to show that the general market has finally started realizing how worthless a college degree is.

<comment><USER3> Umm, not sure about that ... I'm not saying college kids don't party too much or that degrees aren't worthless to some degree.

But I think it's clear that this statistic shows that there's more competition for fewer jobs.

At the very least, a college degree isn't worthless _if it's required_ to enter the field you wish to work in. Browse Monster.com and see how many finance and/or engineering jobs don't require a college degree.

From your tone, I'm gathering you have problems with people who equate a college degree with skills/ability ... you're more than welcome to feel that way, but I don't think you're proving such a consensus has caused the drop in graduates w/ jobs.

signed,

A college dropout

<comment><USER4> A lot of advertisements claim to require a college degree even if the company is perfectly willing to hire qualified applicants without one. They do this to cut down the number of applications they have to wade through. The type of dropout that they're actually willing to hire will probably apply anyway, regardless of what the ad says, and it weeds out a lot of chaff that isn't qualified and is just looking for a job, any job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Part of the problem is that too many people are going to college. (Why does a bank teller need a college degree?) And then when they have a degree they expect a job that pays very well and offers full benefits. There are jobs for college graduates, but they may not be "dream jobs."

<comment><USER6> Not exactly a great time to be a blue collar worker either.

<comment><USER5> Certainly true. Capitalism has yet to find an efficient way to reallocate human capital despite its obvious success at allocating other resources. It's (relatively) easy to make a rational decision to quit investing in oil in favor of biotech if you think that industry will perform better. But it's hard to say to workers who've spent their entire lives developing skills particular to an industry that they should just go and find a job in an industry that needs more workers. Retraining is hard. Relocating is hard. People are a lot less mobile than capital. Tearing down restrictions on immigration is one way to make people more mobile thereby allowing for more efficient allocation of human resources.

<comment><USER7> _Capitalism has yet to find an efficient way to reallocate human capital_

Has something else found that efficient way?

<comment><USER5> No, and I didn't mean to suggest that something else had.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hmm, I'm not sure I believe that. At least, the statistic is designed to be alarming. The unemployment rate for those with a bachelors degree hovers between 2 and 4% - over decades.

<http://verifiable.com/charts/1359>

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the useful perspective provided by that chart.

To set the scene for the original story: It's from abcnews (i.e., =/= in depth analysis); it cites a few _examples_ ; rather than documenting any _extended period without a job_ it discusses graduates who did not have jobs _already secured upon graduation_ ; it quotes complaints that people were not able to get jobs of their first choice; it is from abcnews' _business_ section: and so may be seeking to discuss the increasing difficulties of people with traditional business degrees looking for traditional business/money-management jobs at a time when banks are being shuttered.

Conclusion: headline and story are link-bait journalism (one "field" that may still have openings ;).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, if the guy in the article is looking at funds and banking no wonder he doesn't have a job! One has to look where the jobs are, not where they aren't.

<comment><USER11> Where are the jobs for college grads who are not CS majors?

<comment><USER12> Pharmaceuticals if you did chemistry. And I'm sure EE people don't have a hard time finding work.

Or do you mean people who major in things like classics and French? I guess they can be...teachers. Of people who study classics and French and will be able to go on and become...teachers.

I think it's important for techies to get a little exposure to humanities during their undergrad degrees, but I don't really see the point of spending four years studying only humanities.

<comment><USER13> Or they could be translators. They could teach their native language to people whose native language is the one they've learned. They could end up as authors or writing the marketing copy to sell your software in France or on any number of non-self-referential career paths. There are useful places in this world for people who didn't major in applied sciences, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd like to see this same statistic by college tier. Or at least ensure its from a static set of colleges in both data points.

</comment><comment><USER15> What about computer science specifically ? In Belgium, we're at 100% of cs students getting a job, most often even before they graduated (they get employed before-hand).

</comment><comment><USER16> I hear the Marines are looking for a few good men.

<comment><USER17> You male chauvinist pig!! Uncle Sam's Misguided Children also recruits women, ya know? ;-)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Your results with the freelancer/seeking freelancer thread? - <AUTHOR>

The "Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer?" usually gets less traction than the jobs thread. I have tried it a couple of times. I don't have a decent/killer portfolio, but the few that contacted me where interested in charging $10-$15/hour and sound like they have been trying everybody out there.<p>So how did that thread work for you? (if it ever did) It's worth mentioning that it gets much much less offers than the job thread. <comment><USER2> I have had success in the thread, I think I have picked up 2 gigs from it, both where at my rate of $100hr. I have extensive JavaScript and IOS development skills though so I am in a hot market right now. I don't know your skill set, but it may be that you compete in a market that has more saturation. Still $10-$15 seems low for a development skill set of any sort. Most highly skilled Indian freelancers command more than that rate.

<comment><AUTHOR> You seem to have luck. For example, I never got a female Skype request.

<comment><USER2> Really, man I get them all the time. I assume that they where some dude in Russia trying to get me to send him some money. My brother who is a little slow (due to an accident) got taken for a bit of money by his Skype "girlfriend" who was stranded in Europe. Needless to say, once he stopped supporting her, she disappeared. I assumed that it was widespread on Skype due to his experience and the fact that I get 2 a week, from girls far to beautiful to be wanting to talk to a bald guy with a picture of his wife and kids in his profile pic.

Also while I do believe in luck and I do believe that I am a lucky person (im an optimist). I am a very confident person, I think this has a lot to do with my success. That being said it could be a chicken and the egg. I am confident because stuff does seem to work out for me, which the confidence opens doors, that help things work out. I have had my fair share of bad luck but I tend to ignore those events. There is a lot to the old saying that perception is reality.</comment></comment></comment>


SE job descriptions: A guide for HR professionals and new developers - <AUTHOR> https://www.brainstobytes.com/se-job-descriptions-a-guide-for-hr-and-new-developers/ <comment><AUTHOR> Not long ago I saw an image listing all the ... well ... BS-alarm-triggering phrases you often see in descriptions for software development jobs. That made me reflect on how often these things happen, soI wanted to write an article about it. It might be a warning for new developers, or a call to HR professionals to improve their job descriptions.</comment>


My Mistakes - <AUTHOR> http://www.gwern.net/Mistakes

<comment><USER2> Fascinating all the way through. If you get put off by the author's talk on religion, please consider just skipping that section and continuing the rest of the article - there's plenty of food for thought that doesn't concern the bible at the next section header.

<comment><USER3> It's kind of sad, I think, that what you said needs to be said... that knee- jerk reactions to strong opinions on religion can (in some people's minds) invalidate everything else a person might want to say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems interesting, but I stopped reading after a few paragraphs because of the black/blue/purple text. At first I thought the author put an insane amount of hyperlinks in the text, but then I discovered that they aren't clickable, and the text colors are just mere gimmicky decoration?

<comment><USER5> The website is using something called BeeLine Reader that's supposed to help people keep their place while reading or read faster. Personally, I find it makes text more difficult to read, but some people like it.

[http://www.beelinereader.com/](http://www.beelinereader.com/)

<comment><USER4> I see, I suspected something like this. Maybe it would work better if it weren't using the traditional HTML link colors for (un)followed hyperlinks. The "Gray" color scheme seems a lot subtler.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: I ported danmaz74 "HN: Mark All Read" to Firefox - <AUTHOR> https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hacker-news-mark-all-read/

<comment><AUTHOR> Any feedback appreciated, particularly if you would like additional functionality.

Code is on GitHub : <https://github.com/GMouron/HNMarkAllRead>

Original code by Daniele is here : <https://github.com/danmaz74/HNMarkAllRead></comment>


Airborne Wireless Network - <AUTHOR> http://www.airbornewirelessnetwork.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I saw a commercial for this on Bloomberg TV today. It's the first time I've heard of it and though the idea is interesting, the website and descriptions it provides makes me wonder if it is a viable company.

The proposition they make in the commercial is that there is no need to launch satellites when every airplane can carry a wireless node.</comment>


Panel Wants Deep Space, Not Landings as U.S. Goal  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/science/space/31nasa.html?_r=1&hpw

<comment><USER2> _But it would also eliminate the possibility of astronauts leaving new iconic footprints on the Moon or Mars for a couple of decades._

Translated: manned extraterrestrial landings probably aren't happening in your lifetime (unless private industry gets in and reduces LEO cost by a thousand- fold somehow)

I've given up on NASA. I love those guys, really I do. But you can't keep changing missions every time a president takes office, you can't spread the pork out to every state you'd like to, and you can't run a serious manned spaceflight program on a shoestring budget. They're totally dependent on public opinion and don't have a clue in the world as to how to capitalize on it.

In short, NASA is a political animal masquerading as a science agency. As such, it's not much use for controlling/promoting spaceflight. If JFK were alive today he'd be dismayed.

Remember his words? We choose to do these things not because they are easy but because they are difficult. Big missions, big drama, big heroes, big goals for the nation. Now the article talks about sending astronauts to Langrange points! That's going to be as exciting as watching cars rust.

NASA needs to get out of spaceflight implementation altogether and become a spaceflight promoter.Write the checks (which it seems to be very good at) and let somebody else worry about breakthrough propulsion techniques. Farm out funding of the International Space Station to the State Department.

Time to hang it up guys. You were great back in the day, but back in the day you had a clear, steady,long-term mission. Those days are not going to return.

<comment><USER3> Your comment only seems to apply to the manned space program, which is a very small piece of what NASA does.

<comment><USER2> NASA today is involved in all kinds of things. Dozens, if not hundreds of projects and programs.

As opposed to NASA in its heyday, which had only a few major items in it's queue.

Which validates my point: mission creep is what is killing NASA.

<comment><USER4> I think NASA is no longer in the business of rocketing people around the solar system. It now actively does and funds science projects to better understand our universe. Almost every project revolves around sending a probe into orbit or deep space with some sort of new sensor to detect some sort of particle or whatever. Should NASA create heroes or science? (or both..)

<comment><USER2> The problem is that we can't ask questions that begin with "Should NASA", even though we keep pretending that we can.

NASA is political, and is deeply entangled with dozens of key politicians. There is no _one_ mission, and there won't be one any time soon.

NASA's only problem now should be reducing cost-to-orbit through the use of progressive prizes that keep increasing in value each year until a solution is found. This would be a much better use of taxpayer dollars because as cost to LEO is decreased, everything else gets easier too. Trying to push science first is getting the cart in front of the horse.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Four commercial publishers file complaint about the Internet Archive's lending - <AUTHOR> https://blog.archive.org/2020/06/01/four-commercial-publishers-filed-a-complaint-about-the-internet-archives-lending-of-digitized-books/ <comment><AUTHOR> Related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23379775](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23379775)</comment>


Ask HN: What's in your front-end kit? - <AUTHOR>

I'm a front-end developer and I've noticed that the number of tools I use day-to-day has been expanding quite a bit (especially with responsive design becoming more popular). Out of curiosity, what's in your kit? What I'm most curious about:
CSS Frameworks - Do you use any? If so, what size of project dictates its usage? Do you prefer using a framework or rolling your own code?
Javascript/jQuery - What polyfills, plugins, or other javascript do you use to run the front-end (e.g. Scott Jehl's respond.js, HTML5 shiv, etc.)? For web apps: how often do you use things like Backbone or Ember?
Organization - How do you structure your code/files? I've had to really rethink how I organize my files when working on bigger sites. Any tips?
Anything else - This is a gross generalization on the topic, but really I'm looking for anything that might improve the quality of my work/help simplify my workflow. <comment><USER2> I suspect I'm in the minority, but I try to use very few frameworks and work my way up as needed.

I've been using Sublime Text 2, and generally developing in Rails + postgresql.

I prefer against CSS frameworks. It's pretty easy to build your own grid system. The exception is that I've been using Bootstrap pretty heavily for new ideas and prototypes, but have also found myself removing it in the long run.

I use jQuery. It works nicely with the idea of using very few frameworks. It's great for DOM, Ajax and events, but doesn't assume too much more. Sometimes I'll use a polyfill shiv of some kind, but usually only when I run into trouble. I don't like heavier frameworks like Ember or even Backbone. Ultimately, I feel like I'm building an Ember app, not a web app, and I think that gets in the way of making good decisions otherwise. Backbone is obviously lighter weight, but I developed a system (patterns) a while back that works really well for me, and haven't found Backbone to be an improvement.

File organization is a really interest topic, and not talked about enough. It's a big one, though, and I think more than I can fit here. Roughly, I have a few "core/setup" files that are included on every page, then the rest of the code broken up into "components" - generally page-specific, and "widgets" things that are likely small in scope, totally independent, and alway capable of having multiple instances. All communication between components, widgets, or any other code is done with custom events.

</comment><comment><USER3> HTML5

CSS3/LESS

Twitter Bootstrap/Bootswatch SwatchMaker (I prefer using this instead of rolling my own)

Javascript, jQuery, bootstrap js plugins and angular.js(for web apps needing heavy javascript work)

Here is my typical workflow :

1\. UX Design : sketches using paper/pencil

2\. Think/Decide about color scheme and UI design. Get a basic image of what I want in my mind and note down colors. I use services like Adobe Kuler/ 0to255.com for color selection.

3\. Make a fresh copy a project template folder + git-fy it. It is basically a collection of usually needed libraries like jQuery/BootStrap and blank starter files.

4\. Quickly convert sketches to html using default bootstrap theme, jquery, jquery plugins, angular.js etc. In this stage focus is on implementing UX and not on how site looks. I don't touch photoshop/illustrator unless I feel the need to design custom logo/icons/backgrounds

5\. Create custom css3/less code that override bootstrap css for custom look & feel. If heavy modification is needed I use bootswatch swatchmaker to create custom bootstrap skins.

6\. Test UI in various combinations of browsers/devices/os/resolution and test how it looks with JS disabled.

7\. Rinse and Repeat as needed.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sublime Text 2, Less, Twitter Bootstrap, Font Awesome and jQuery.

The backend framework typically dictates how files are organized. Usually ends up with css/ and js/ folders, and I put the LESS source files for the stylesheets in css/less/.

</comment><comment><USER5> Apps: Sublime Text 2, Codekit Frameworks: Sass & Haml

:)</comment>