Mars One Project: "Humans Will Live On Mars In 2023″ - <AUTHOR> http://techli.com/2012/07/mars-one-project/ <comment><USER2> _Living there [Mars] is comparable to getting by on Antarctica, and provides similar challenges._

That right there is complete, unadulterated bullshit. The cost of getting a pound of supplies to Antarctica is several orders of magnitude cheaper than getting a pound of supplies even as far as orbit, let alone Mars. And Antarctica is a much less hostile environment (breathable atmosphere, for one).

That line alone tells me this isn't remotely a well-thought-out, plausible venture.

<comment><USER3> The logistics of supplies and rescue are a lot easier, sure, but the two environments have more in common with each other than the rest of the surface of this planet. You already need to live in artificial structures that can take a pounding, grow your own food with little from the environment but sunlight and some raw materials, and you can't survive outside for very long without ample protection. I mean, for a training environment, where else would you go?

Also, if you look at the context of the quote, you can see that they're making an analogy:

      Living there [Mars] is comparable to getting by on Antarctica, and provides
      similar challenges. However, the South Pole now has a number of very advanced,
      large research stations that boast a great deal of modern facilities that provide
      a good quality of life. These looked very different 50 years ago. The Mars
      settlement will develop in the same way.

<comment><USER4> I see a lot of differences:

* Internal combustion engines work in Antarctica.

* The atmosphere is breathable.

* The atmosphere is livable if heated first.

* The gravity is the same as Earth.

* (I'm guessing) more sunlight falls on a given area of Antarctica per year than Mars.

* There's no communication delay with Earth.

* Earth-orbit communications satellites are reachable from Antarctica.

* The ground is covered in water, if you heat it first (I don't know how useful this is, but it's probably more useful than Mars soil)

and finally:

You can come home from Antarctica.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The crew is actually going to stay and live on Mars, with the intention to > remain there, for the rest of their lives.

Wait what? Isn't that a really important part of the problem that shouldn't be just skimmed through as a mere detail on the video? Aren't the ethical issues that would arise from this, by itself, be enough to make everything else unviable. Humans live for a long time. What if after 10 years living there, the show just didn't raise enough money. "Hey crew, you'll just have to suicide, we won't send anymore food". Just so many huge issues come to mind. With not many obvious solutions. I would be interested to hear to which solutions they have, if any.

edit: their incredibly short FAQ answer about ethics doesn't make me anymore hopeful. They don't touch on any of the obvious hard problems and even dare to make an absurd analogy with immigrants from Europe to the Americas:

[http://mars-one.com/en/faq-en/19-faq-health/231-is-this-ethi...](http://mars- one.com/en/faq-en/19-faq-health/231-is-this-ethical)

<comment><USER6> Oh please, those clowns aren't actually going to fly anyone to Mars. They aren't even remotely close to solving the genuinely _hard_ engineering problems involved. So worrying about ethics is rather premature.

If someone announces his intention to build a time machine I wouldn't get too worked about the ethical concerns of changing history.

<comment><USER7> You say that with such certainty. I may be thick, but I haven't seen enough to be convinced whether or not they know what they are doing and what problems are solved or unsolved.

How do you know?

<comment><USER8> I think it's a shame you were downvoted, because you seem to be asking an honest question: is this possible, or not? I've ranted a bit about why this isn't possible here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4210984>

But, if you want to know exactly why going to Mars is so difficult, and why so many projects have failed, start here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars#Probing_dif...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_of_Mars#Probing_difficulties)

Or simply do a quick search on the internet for 'Mars difficulties' or 'Mars curse'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Everyone is impressed at how real they're keeping it?

With the risks involved, and the $6 billion price tag (that will surely bloat out), there would need to be at least $50-60 billion in profit potential for rational investment.

Seinfeld is the top grossing show in history, at $2.7 billion.

Maybe they're hoping that billionaires with nothing else to spend the money on will cough up hundreds of millions to sponsor the project, just to get their name on it.

Either that, or they're not revealing the whole plan.

<comment><USER10> I think it may be the other way around... this _is_ the whole plan. Mission accomplished, they're in the news.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have a hard time seeing any benefit to colonizing Mars without coupling it with a large-scale attempt at terraforming. If we're going to just put a domed colony somewhere, the moon makes far more sense.

I'm much more optimistic about putting more robots in space, such as Planetary Resources is working towards. As it becomes easier and cheaper to extend our virtual fingers outside our gravity well, we can eventually create places that are truly habitable for humans, and which sustainably scale.

<comment><USER12> Without magnetic shielding I'm not sure how far large scale terraforming is going to get us. Any atmosphere we try to build up will just blow off into space. But I agree, put the dome on the moon.

<comment><USER13> As a life-long of reader "hard" sci-fi, making me a renown expert, IMHO:

How will humans survive the radiation?

How will humans remain mentally healthy?

I don't think we can feasibly become space faring until those challenges, and probably some others, are addressed.

Edit: Oh, I just had an idea. How do people with Asperger's deal with isolation, boredom, continuous contact with a handful of other people? Maybe there's a subgroup of people who are mentally perfectly adapted for space travel.

<comment><USER14> You read hard sci fi and you don't have answers to these questions?

Q: How will humanity survive the radiation?

A: Build igloos or inhabit caves or just plain dig into the ground. Problem solved.

Q: How will humans remain mentally healthy?

A: The Internet and social interaction with other colonists. Also, there is a lot of work to be done growing plants, managing systems, exploring robots, documenting and cataloging all that we find.

People, today, already live in extreme isolation for extended periods of time _by choice_.

Those aren't even the hard problems to solve.

<comment><USER13> I'm projecting. As an extrovert, I'd go nuts. So clearly I'm not making the trip.

I'm more worried about the time in transit.

For sanity, my assumption is that humans will need the ability to easily increase / decrease metabolism. So that 6 month, year, century trip would seem like a few days.

For radiation, I think space faring humans will need to be radiation hardened somehow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I would be just as impressed with a project that aimed to establish a similar colony on the moon, and far less skeptical.

<comment><USER16> Mars can be mined for resources, the moon can't - or at least shouldn't be.

<comment><USER17> Why shouldn't the moon be mined for resources?

<comment><USER18> This reminds me of an interview I heard on the radio 6 or 7 years ago with someone involved in a project to design & build a small set of robots that can self-replicate using the materials they get from breaking down moon rocks. The plan was to leave them on the moon for a decade, and bring them all back to serve as agricultural helpers on Earth. A caller into the station complained that it would eat up the moon, to which the scientist speaking chuckled and said it would only take a hair off the surface of the moon given how massive it is.

I realize this is barely related, just an interesting memory :) I can't remember who or what company that was, but I'm pretty sure it was a private one. Does anyone recognize this? I don't think it ever saw any sort of fruition.

<comment><USER19> > A caller into the station complained that it would eat up the moon, to which > the scientist speaking chuckled and said it would only take a hair off the > surface of the moon given how massive it is.

Well, if each of them would replicate on average into two or more new robots, then yes, they probably could eat Moon very quickly. Exponential growth is a pain :).

<comment><USER20> Nine women can't make a baby in one month. The robots would still be limited by the surface area of the moon.

Also, the moon would not disappear. In the end, there would be an entire moon, made out of robots.

<comment><USER18> Great thought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> At first I thought "wow cool, a reality show on mars sounds like an awesome idea". Then I thought about it further and wondered "What would they actually do on mars that would make people want to watch?"

Diary Day 662: "Today we explored another crater, the dirt was quite similar to the last 83 days. John is still with Dianne and I haven't had sex in nearly 2 years. I've read the Harry Potter series 97 times now, maybe I'll make it to 100 by the end of the year."

I can imagine it lasting a few months or maybe even a year, but what happens after then when viewers stop tuning in?

I guess by then they're hoping they'll have set up a mining expedition or maybe other tourist flights and can raise money that way.

</comment><comment><USER8> This project is completely ridiculous. Those people completely underestimate how _extremely_ difficult it is to even _land_ on Mars. Nearly two-thirds of all Mars missions have failed in some way, and yet these people are convinced they can simply put humans on Mars? Right.

You don't have to take my word for it, though. Take a look at what they say at their own site, and see if it actually makes sense. A few examples:

"In addition to this, the elements needed for a viable living system are already present on Mars, so we can keep the number of launches down. For example, the location Mars One has chosen contains water ice in the ground which can be extracted through heat and used to drink, bathe with, or used to feed crops, but can also be manipulated to create oxygen. Mars even has natural sources of nitrogen, another element of the air we breathe."

And we will extract these resources how? We theoretically know how to build such systems, but that's not the same as actually being able to build them on Mars. Are they just going to experiment during the project, and if it doesn't work then "oops, well, I guess you're all going to die"?

But, most ridiculously: "Of course most of the elements we need are not yet exactly in the form we would like, but crucially: no brand new inventions have to be conceived, designed, tested and built for the mission to become reality."

That's like saying we can also build a colony on Venus right now. Or Mercurius. Or Jupiter. Because we have a theoretical understanding of how to launch rockets there and how to build space colonies, and of course the technology to do both these things already exist. What these people fail to see is not that we don't have a theoretical understanding of how we _might_ do all this, but that without any practical experiments in several areas AND many failed tests the chances of this project going perfectly as planned (which almost never happens to begin with) are VERY slim.

</rant>

<comment><USER22> > This project is completely ridiculous. Those people completely underestimate > how extremely difficult it is to even land on Mars. Nearly two-thirds of all > Mars missions have failed in some way, and yet these people are convinced > they can simply put humans on Mars? Right.

Yes I don't think they have a real understanding. The founder of Mars One did two AMAs (ask me anything) on Reddit a while back [1] where he said "We are not scientists, we are entrepreneurs" [2]. A choice quote from a user:

> You have no one (I repeat NO ONE) on your team who is experienced or > competent in anything related to space travel. The one guy on your team who > you're showcasing has experience in land based telescopes and a small role > in an experiment that was taken up by NASA... Which is pitiful compared to > the amount of expertise needed in a lead on a project this ambitious.

If you check out the AMAs you'll see the above comment in action via the founder's answers to questions. Most of his answers are vague or difficult questions are just completely ignored.

[1] [http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ufb42/ama_i_am_fo...](http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ufb42/ama_i_am_founder_of_mars_one_sending_four_people/), [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of_mars_one_settling_humans_on_mars/)

[2] [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/_/c4yd59u?contex...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/_/c4yd59u?context=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> There was an IAMA on reddit by these guys a while back: [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of_mars_one_settling_humans_on_mars/) It certainly didn't help much in getting my hopes high.

<comment><USER21> Yep, this comment puts it best: ([http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of_mars_one_settling_humans_on_mars/c4ydb78))

 _You're advertising that you want to send humans to Mars by 2023 and you have NO idea how to do that. Your entire company is based on "wouldn't it be cool to go to Mars?" As a real entrepreneur building real things, this is like the new influx of business and marketting students (no offense to those that are in these fields) running around blabbering about these great ideas they have and all they need is an engineer to make it for them._

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't believe it. Getting to Mars with people is going to be _much_ harder challenge than the moon was. This[1] was a great episode of Nova (with Neil Degrasse Tyson) exploring the research NASA has been doing to prepare for a trip to Mars.

1\. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/space-food.html>

</comment><comment><USER25> A much smarter plan would be to build a settlement on the Moon, build factories which build habitats, tools and mining equipment (to extract water, air, maybe food and fuel from either the Moon or Mars) and send a couple of those to Mars from the Moon, using a electromagnetic launch system before sending any humans. One could even remotely control the lunar equipment from Earth before risking astronauts there.

The idea of a one-way mission is terrible.

</comment><comment><USER26> To what degree have they secured even the initial $6 billion?

<comment><USER27> As a startup founder I often ask myself the very same question: yea, to what degree have I secured _even_ the initial $6 _billion_. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I can't stop thinking why? Why do we want to go and live in Mars? Developing the capabilities to go there is one thing. But living there?

I mean we could use it as a prison. Ship prisoners off to space ;)

</comment><comment><USER29> Ah, good reminder to reread Philip K. Dick's, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_Time-Slip>.

</comment><comment><USER30> They plan to launch food supplies to Mars in 2016, 7 years before sending the astronauts and 2 years before they've even scouted out where to establish a settlement.

I don't understand why they would send the supplies there so early. Can anyone explain this timeline to me?

<comment><USER25> It's smart to launch supplies in low-energy orbits so as to increase the mass you can get to Mars for the same fuel budget. Humans have to transit quickly between the planets, but supplies can handle a much longer trip on a much less comfortable spacecraft and, to be there for the humans, they'll have to launch much earlier.

And yes, no sane human being would consider launching to Mars before a return vehicle is already settled at the destination and ready to take off. The return vehicle and its backup. And the habitats, supplies and everything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The way I see it, there's three outcomes to a goal like this:

1\. Humans never go to Mars

2\. Humans eventually decide it's interesting enough to go to Mars out of curiosity and find a way to get there

3\. Earth looks doomed, but there's a slim shot at saving humanity by sending some people to Mars

I'm kind of disappointed there isn't more interest in something like this. Let me ask you all something. If someone in 1960 told someone else "I bet we'll have a man on the moon before the decade is over", what do you think the reaction would be?

It's not a lack of capability that's keeping us from getting to Mars; it's that people just don't care enough.

</comment><comment><USER32> Are there any experts who can comment (without bias) about the validity of these claims? It's quite hard to tell just from this whether or not this is a joke, or whether it's an exciting, plausible initiative.

<comment><USER33> <http://mars-one.com/en/about-mars-one/team>

That's all you need to know about the feasibility of these claims.

<comment><USER34> Wow. A mediocre physicist, some pointless graphics designer, a marketer and an "entrepreneur." This is never happening

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> $6B is going to be hard to recoup; American Idol only took 8 seasons to reach that mark, and that's probably the most successful reality show so far.

</comment><comment><USER36> Well.. there was a show about a reality tv show with people aboard a spaceship set to be the first to venture outside of our star system.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuality_%28TV_series%29>

Too bad only the pilot was ever aired (to my knowledge).

</comment><comment><USER37> Here's a good idea, why not "go through" with the project, then fake the entire media spectacle.

You could build up the exact same media hype and have less costs! Good thing they have a team member who has "...worked for over 20 years in the graphics industry".

</comment><comment><USER38> I doubt it. But I think it would be possible to be living on the moon in that time frame. Plus, we could be shuttling all of our garbage into space and mining the moon. Space 2029 Redo.

</comment><comment><USER39> i don't get it why they try to make this look like something that can be done as they say.

it's a joke. we don't know what are the effects of spending one day on mars let alone be there for the rest of the astronauts life. and we'll just make it a $6 billion dollar reality show out of it... oh and the astronauts, will learn how to work on mars. they better do because with 6 billions budget to get there and provide them with life support for the rest of their lives is not gonna be easy.

</comment><comment><USER40> People tend to over-estimate change in the short term and under-estimate it in the long term.

They're going to miss by 20 to 30 years, at least.</comment>


Why U.S. News' college rankings hurt students - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57602138/why-u.s-news-college-rankings-hurt-students/ <comment><USER3> Wow, those metrics are dismal. Here in Canada we have a similar report that Maclean's does, but it's focused on things like first-year class sizes, student satisfaction surveys, and other, more academically-focused metrics. Of course, the winning schools are usually tiny - 2013 looks to be Mt. Allison, where my brother is studying right now. He's had some pretty dismal experiences with the faculty there, but they do well because they have so few students, and the cost of living in a small town on the east coast is tiny. It's tough to say that any university ranking will be good, because there's a lot of complexity, but I think Maclean's is at least not completely toxic.

</comment><comment><USER4> "On the other hand, U.S. News put more weight on ACT and SAT scores, which are correlated by family income."

Nit pick - but I didn't like this line because of how irrelevant it was. They shouldn't throw around words like 'correlates' if they don't understand them. Knowledge also correlates with income - whoopdydoo.

</comment><comment><USER5> There are a variety of college ranking schemes. I documented some of the other sources of rankings and recommendations of colleges in a thread on College Confidential,

[http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search- selection...](http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search- selection/437362-looking-good-college.html)

a place where I've used this screen name I use here for a long time. But even better than my online list (which is alphabetical, removing the implication of a strict rank order of colleges) is the free website by Education Trust called College Results

[http://collegeresults.org/](http://collegeresults.org/)

which lets applicants or their parents dig into lots of data-based comparisons among colleges.

[http://collegeresults.org/search1b.aspx?institutionid=166027](http://collegeresults.org/search1b.aspx?institutionid=166027)

You can decide what outcome measure is important to you, and use that criterion to compare the colleges you are most interested in. People who are smart about shopping for colleges don't limit themselves to the U.S. News rankings, and you don't have to either.

AFTER EDIT: Another source of information for informed shoppers is the website of a consulting firm that advises colleges,

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

telling colleges how to improve their financials and their rankings with tricks like raising list price and then offering phony "merit scholarships" that just bring out-of-pocket cost down to somewhat above the actual spending by the college on student instruction.

</comment><comment><USER6> > At private schools, the percentage of students receiving need-based aid has > actually declined!

..from 43% to 42%. This is not a significant amount. If the trend holds, we have something to worry about.

<comment><USER7> Considering most private schools are going to be significantly smaller than state schools, that 1% difference is quite likely a few dozen people tops.

1% at my private undergrad would be 18-20 people now.

<comment><USER8> The number of students attending private and public universities are actually pretty close ( _for 4-year schools_ ): _" Nearly 7.5 million students will attend public 2-year institutions (source), and 0.5 million will attend private 2-year colleges (source). Some 8.2 million students are expected to attend public 4-year institutions (source), and about 5.6 million will attend private 4-year institutions (source)."_

[http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372](http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Rankings systems are a necessary evil. If the US News didn't create them, someone else would. And they have flaws, as do all single measurements. (Stock price, imperfect. Page clicks, imperfect. IQ, imperfect.)

That said, the article can be misleading. They claim that merit scholarships are crowding out need due to the rankings. According to their charts, public school aid is increasing very much and private school aid is flat as a % of students. What isn't included is the quantity of aid. Most top ranked schools (call it top 15?) have increased the amount of aid for people falling below a certain threshold such that they can graduate near debt free. This helps at Cornell and Chicago more than George Washington, but it's the winners who are leading on need based aid.

The comments on reputation are a little strange too. They claim "High reputation schools do well because they are high reputation." This misses the virtuous circle of "Good reputation improves rankings" -> "High Rankings draw better students" -> "Better students get better jobs and donate more money" -> "More money enables investments in improving reputation"

Despite all of this, the rankings only go so far. That's why it's good to have a lot of them, and other data points for choosing a school.

<comment><USER10> Can you elaborate on the "vulirtuous circle"?

The good students will go somewhere. Why is it good that they go to the same school as other good students? Is that good for the good students, or good for everyone?

<comment><USER9> Good for the schools that rank high and students that go there. It's a reinforcing cycle. (As opposed to being static, "You're ranked high based on an old reputation)

Certainly one can take a step back and say that employers should look for the most talented people, not the highest ranked school, but that's another story.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My personal (though admittedly not dire) experience with college rankings hurting students was with artificially constricted class sizes that were strictly enforced in order to impress the rankings by having classes numbering fewer than 19 students.

It seems that this is yet another consequence of the bizarre split responsibilities universities hold—balancing the long-term goals of a large institution with the needs of its students, for whom the experience is much more ephemeral.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think that the general US News College Rankings are useless. The rankings more specific to the major are more useful.

College is what you make of it. Learning should not stop after college - <USER2> should be an ongoing quest.

</comment><comment><USER13> Normal FUD.

> 2\. The rankings ignore job prospects.

I think says it all. I certainly didn't go to university for job prospects, McDonalds would have taken me I'm sure.

I did it to learn but also so I'd get a job that I enjoy and was a valuable member of the community in.

This particular ranking list might suck compared to others, but this article certainly didn't show it.

</comment><comment><USER14> There are maybe 20 million students in the US and the top 10 schools in the rankings have maybe 50000 or 60000 students. That's less than 0.3%, just sayin'.

</comment><comment><USER15> I agree with the general proposition that the rankings hurt college students, particularly because schools raise tuition in order to be able to afford more merit aid, but I find some of the comments to be tropes:

"1\. College rankings hurt low and middle-income students. "

It's hard to argue why offering aid on the basis of merit as opposed to need is a bad thing.

"2\. The rankings ignore job prospects."

True, but mostly irrelevant. The rankings are broadly correlated with job prospects.

"3\. The rankings don't care about learning outcomes."

College isn't about learning, and it's not clear there is much difference between colleges in this regard anyway. You don't go to Harvard because you think it'll teach you better than Penn State. You do it to associate with the other people who got into Harvard.

"4\. U.S. News runs a beauty pageant."

The side-effect of the beauty pageant is that it tends to echo preconceived notions hiring managers already have. Arguably it does a huge disservice to say drive students away from Yale on the basis of a bunch of things like "learning outcomes" that nobody else cares about.

"5\. College rankings fuel ever greater college costs.'

This is the real takeaway point. Overhead per student is a major component of the rankings, and it helps fuel the ridiculous construction craze that's happening with universities right now.

</comment><comment><USER16> Although I agree with the initial premise that college rankings are flawed, I still believe they serve a purpose: to inform students and parents of the schools that are the most popular. Brand recognition plays a paramount role in getting hired at certain companies, and the HR/hiring departments definitely keep an eye out for lists like this. It would be in someone's best interets to find the school that is most compatible with their future goals, but also keep in mind that going to a "top 20" school can impact their future signficantly.

</comment><comment><USER17> I agree with everything in the article, U.S. News' rankings are terrible and have hugely bad effects. There are better lists. For example, Affordable Colleges Online has a list of the best return-on-investment CS degrees [1]. It has it's own questionable methodological choices but it's a much better start for anyone thinking about getting a degree.

[1]: [http://www.affordablecollegesonline.org/college-rankings- onl...](http://www.affordablecollegesonline.org/college-rankings- online/computer-colleges-roi/)

</comment><comment><USER18> "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law)

</comment><comment><USER19> I agree, and I started a website to address this: [http://www.collegeanswerz.com/](http://www.collegeanswerz.com/).

<comment><USER20> [http://www.collegeanswerz.com/colleges](http://www.collegeanswerz.com/colleges) is returning the Heroku error page.

<comment><USER19> Yea, I'm working on something ([http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18681232/trouble-with- fix...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18681232/trouble-with- fixedheader)). It should be better in a day or two. If you want to see colleges, just use the search bar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My college president, Bill Destler of Rochester Institute of Technology, has decried these rankings too. But he knows it's going to be promoted heavily by all the colleges that are not in the top 50 or so.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-destler/the-ultimate- absu...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-destler/the-ultimate-absurdity- of_b_3247841.html)

</comment><comment><USER22> The author doesn't think that reputation is just an academic number with no significance? Regardless of any metrics used by ranking agencies, if you go to a school that people hold in high regard, that's going to open doors for you.

</comment><comment><USER23> The first point makes no sense... Universities should be motivated to recruit students with better test scores. Rewarding students based on merit seems like the logical approach. Not to mention, the difference in the two is a couple percent?

</comment><comment><USER24> College rankings are bullshit, and anyone who doesn't realize that the difference between the #1 and #10 schools is negligible is an idiot.

<comment><USER25> The problem is that it seems to matter in terms job prospects. I'm a biomedical engineering undergrad, so I thought I made the right decision turning down Harvard to come to Hopkins.

However, our recruitment is abysmal compared to Harvard even for biotech and I'm seeing peers who went to a much less rigorous undergraduate engineering program that also has grade inflation getting the jobs I want simply because those companies are not hiring from Hopkins.

<comment><USER26> There are lots of kids at harvard saying the same thing. They think (understandably) just graduating from harvard should get them some decent job in their field of choice somehow. I don't think it's completely a matter of hopkins vs harvard.</comment></comment></comment>


Science of Business: serial entrepreneurs share qualities with street kids? - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1884704.htm <comment><AUTHOR> _'... Entrepreneurs are misfits, they are miscreants they are creative deviant ... these innovators often live life on the edge ...'_ [0]

 _'... results showed that the kids at risk and the entrepreneurs were similar on a number of dimensions... pathological anarchist ... Anarchy is about lack of control, lack of boundaries.. create something from those random concepts ...'_ [1]

Transcript of a weekly science show shows the building blocks for entrepreneurs & how they are used by entrepreneurs. Illustrates how using them you can improve entrepreneurial behaviour. The descriptive bit on the title, _'serial entrepreneurs share qualities with street kids'_ I grabbed from psychologist, Louise Earnshaw [2], who in the course of her studies identified risk taking as a common trait among self-made businessmen [3] .

The thing I got out of watching (reading as well) was the key characteristics & traits common to entrepreneurs and the science behind it.

Reference

[0] ABC TV, Catalyst, 'The Science of Business 'How to make it Big'', 29 March, 2007. Reported by Dr Paul Willis"

<http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1884704.htm>

[2] ABC TV, Catalyst, 'The Science of Business 'How to make it Big'', Ibid.

[2] Louise Earnshaw, psychologist, "University of Queensland, School of Psychology, PhD Candidate: Entrepreneurial Psychology" <http://www.psy.uq.edu.au/people/personal.html?id=244>

[3] In Australia the word _entrepreneur_ has a close association with huckster, grifters & con men and is not used as widely as in the United States.</comment>


The Other People in Springfield - <AUTHOR> https://longreads.com/2017/12/29/the-other-people-in-springfield/ <comment><USER2> Wow...

made me choke and tear up</comment>


Show HN: A blog running on a terminal emulator - <AUTHOR> https://blog.jajoosam.repl.run <comment><USER2> Doesn't load...

Also, preferably I'd just be able to curl the articles ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> It should load in about 30 seconds...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Source code: [https://blog.jajoosam.repl.run/__repl](https://blog.jajoosam.repl.run/__repl) \- 50 lines of node.js :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm on mobile and could not get past the first screen.

<comment><USER4> I'm on a terminal emulator and couldn't get past the first screen either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How do you navigate to the blog content to follow links?

<comment><AUTHOR> There's currently no hyperlinking support in Xterm.js which this uses :/</comment></comment>


What's the story behind the names of CloudFlare's name servers? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cloudflare.com/whats-the-story-behind-the-names-of-cloudflares-name-servers

<comment><USER2> > One side note on this point: we once had someone write in to support > criticizing us based on the fact that our name server convention is hetro- > normative.

Aww, c'mon.</comment>


My Most Embarrassing Mistakes as a Programmer (So Far) - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.blog/2019/10/29/my-most-embarrassing-mistakes-as-a-programmer-so-far/ <comment><USER2> I once made a bad design decision that led through a chain of errors to ~ £120K in contract penalties (That was the profit on that contract for the first quarter wiped out, allegedly)

From them on I always asked at interviews how would such a issue be dealt with.

Most interviewers would go on about how it's never only the fault of the developer, etc .. but one basically said: Well, we might need to reevaluate your position at the company.

Turns out that the guy was a totally incompetent manager who was sacked so I dodged a bullet there (Evaluation of his skills by three different people, not me obviously)

<comment><USER3> We were once testing a new concurrent SMS sending service that we ran performance tests against our mock infrastructure and we accidentally deployed it to production without the throttling enabled.

A large telco had an SMS blackout for about an hour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Best quote ever: "I heard years later that the person who inherited my code hated me."

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a reason for the old Kathy Sierra's quote: "Code as if the next guy to maintain your code is a homicidal maniac who knows where you live."</comment></comment>


The Diary of Murasaki Shikibu (1007-1010) - <AUTHOR> http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/omori/court/murasaki.html <comment><USER2> Love to see classic Japanese literature on here ;)

Can also recommend Sei Shonagon's _Pillow Book_ , oshida Kenko's _Essays in Idleness_ , and the Uji collection of medieval tales.

This constitutes my life hack for decompression. Around 10-11 pm. Turn off everything. And focus your undivided attention on literature that has withstood the test of time. You will feel that anachronistic connection with others who have endured life's trials in a foregone age.

<comment><USER3> > This constitutes my life hack for decompression. Around 10-11 pm. Turn off > everything. And focus your undivided attention on literature that has > withstood the test of time. You will feel that anachronistic connection with > others who have endured life's trials in a foregone age.

Artfully illustrated. That is also more or less mine as well. Sometimes there's nothing better than an evening with good lit; aided by a pen in hand, you can be ready to make note of someone else's insight to further your own. :)

Who says a picture need be worth a thousand words? I can think of many writers, event recent ones, whose work opens up a world that pictures cannot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting context to note: Lady Murasaki is the author of the Tale of Genji, which is widely regarded as the first novel ever written and one of the oldest extant pieces of Japanese cultural artifact to be considered a masterpiece.

<comment><USER5> Keene has a good entry on Murasaki's diary in his book about Japanese diaries (which I recommend to anyone with more than a passing interest in Japanese literature), _Travelers of a Hundred Ages_.

One of the observations that stayed with me is he notes (as one can verify C-fing OP), is that her diary is more than a little infuriating because she almost never talks about _The Tale of Genji_! Just a few passing references.

Considering how much has been lost over time, it is a remarkable gift for any _Genji_ fan or scholar, or even just fan of Japanese literature in general, that her personal diary of all diaries would survive the ages in a fairly extensive form, and then... _she doesn 't talk about Genji_. How did she get the idea? What was her purpose? What was the thematic relationship of Kaoru to Genji? How are we supposed to regard Genji ultimately? Was the original ending really lost? Countless questions, many no one has realized to ask, could have been answered with a few quick sentences discussing _Genji_ or herself, and - nada.</comment></comment>


Elon Musk calls diver who helped rescue Thai schoolboys 'pedo guy' on Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/thai-cave-rescue-elon-musk-british-diver-vern-unsworth-twitter-pedo-a8448366.html <comment><AUTHOR> Resubmitting because last thread got mass flagged immediately

<comment><USER2> The primary discussion for this is at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17537018](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17537018)</comment></comment>


Ask YC: What web hosting service do you use? - <AUTHOR>

I am wondering what web hosting service you all use. <comment><USER2> I have a dedicated server from Liquid Web. I can't say enough good things about them. The service is really top notch.

a) Communication: they actually speak English, you aren't forwarded to some call center in India

b) Response: If you call someone, will pick up within 3 rings. If you email you'll get the first response after 5 minutes. They really are around 24/7. I once needed something done at 3:30 am, I got a reply to my email in less than 10 minutes.

c) Its all managed, you really don't need to know anything about servers. Need a library installed? Just drop them a line, Can't figure out how to setup your server? Drop them a line. And there are no support ticket fees or any other crap like that, that other managed hosts charge.

I mean honestly, if Rackspace is any better, there better be some sex involved while I wait for them to fix the server. And with the higher prices Rackspace has, that better be the case.

Note: You should really only be using them with dedicated servers, their shared/virtual is a little bit pricey

And to those that complain about prices, think to yourself, would you rather get a problem resolved in 20 minutes, or 20 hours.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a VPS from WiredTree (wiredtree.com) and I can't recommend them highly enough. Good guys, great support. The only negative is that the intro VPS (with only 256MB of RAM) is a little weak, and can choke on cPanel. If you're looking for a fully-managed VPS, go with WiredTree.

For smaller-scale sites, Media Layer (medialayer.com) gets nothing but rave reviews on the webostingtalk.com forums, though I don't have any first-hand experience with them. I've used EngineHosting (enginehosting.com) for a couple ExpressionEngine based sites for clients, and they're great, too.

</comment><comment><USER4> Slicehost. Love them.

<comment><USER5> Same, but I wish they had a 'green' option. I'd gladly pay a bit more if I could get renewable power powering my site.

<comment><USER6> In all seriousness, that's retarded.

If you honestly want to be "green" you can make changes to your personal behaviour (such as using CFLs, recycled packaging etc.) and not rely on some company to hold your hand and make you feel like you're making a difference for a little extra cash.

I personally tend to lose respect for companies that try to upsell their "green" options, much in the same way I am dubious of extended warranties.

I also hope you realise that even if they were to offer a "green" option it probably wouldn't mean they're going to stick a windmill on top of their colo, they'd just use your extra cash to offset the environmental cost of the electricity you used, much in the same way you can.

Don't get me wrong, I a happy Slichost customer and have made efforts to recycle and use public transport for the environment's sake since I was a child, but this recent rash of "green" buzzwording really ires me as it seems to be used in a most insincere and vapid manner, instead of people actually taking a rational, pragmatic approach to environmental efficiency.

<comment><USER7> _If you honestly want to be "green" you can make changes to your personal behaviour (such as using CFLs, recycled packaging etc.) and not rely on some company to hold your hand_

But surely hosting is by definition an area where you need a company to do it for you? Things like what you eat, how you travel, etc, you can control yourself, but the whole point of shared hosting is that you don't own or even see the server.

<comment><USER6> The other point I made was that even if they were offering "green" VPSs it doesn't mean they're going to have a "green" and "non-green" power cables running in to the building and they put your VPS in the rack hooked up to the "green" one. They`d probably just do exactly what you can do yourself, pay someone to offset the environmental cost.

One of the main things about purposefully choosing "green" companies, often at increased cost, is that you are influencing the market based on your preference. Choosing environmentally friendly products encourages companies to offer them (I also appreciate that this is why many abuse the term).

Furthermore, if you wish to brand your site or company as "green" you should probably do a little more than choose a "green" VPS provider lest you further obviate the term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For Rails/Merb projects that can afford it, I love Engine Yard. They're way more expensive than VPS hosts, but you get a support team who specialize in Rails/Merb deployment. It's like outsourcing your sysadmin team, too.

For lower budget, I love Slicehost.

I either want full control, or someone I trust in control.

<comment><USER9> Same here, we use Engine Yard and have gone through several slashdot/digg/TC posts with no problem. Never have a headache with them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Rackspace - bar none - for anything mission critical in a dedicated setup. I've used Softlayer, HostMySite, and LiquidWeb before in an attempt to save a few bucks a month, but regretted it almost immediately.

In multiple cases of downtime, the only response from Softlayer was "not really sure what happened." With Rackspace, I can sleep at night - and the extra $150 a month per server is well worth it to us. Peace of mind is invaluable, and expertise is irreplaceable.

I also recommend Slicehost highly.

</comment><comment><USER11> Been using JaguarPC (jaguarpc.com) shared hosting account since the past 5 months. The support is good. And they have these tech support guys who could actually can understand my noob language(and showed me around the settings) when i tried to play around with my account.

One of my friends from US told me that slicehost is good and i see a lot of fan comments above.

I have also been using Google AppEngine since a week. Its blazing fast. But they currently have only free accounts and have mentioned on their blog that they will start a paid cloud hosting service soon for those who reach their free hosting limits. Yahoo! too have announced that they will soon offer cloud hosting. So if u you wait for a couple months you might get to choose between EC2 and Google and Yahoo and slicehost and others. Because if you are using php, i have a wild guess that Yahoo's hosting will be php inclined(most of their services are php-inclined). If u are comfortable with python, go for Google AppEngine.

Also a word of CAUTION: if you are going to choose shared hosting packages, then always read terms of service agreement and whatever agreements they have. I once used a one month trial coupon with Hostgator and stumbled upon their T.O.S. It was clearly mentioned that they allow only '50000 inodes' on shared hosting accounts, which in simpler words translates that you can have a max of 50000 files. So if you are going to host something like a social networking site, beware! Your users might get to the max files limit if u are going to have a feature like photo uploading.

</comment><comment><USER12> Hurricane Electric shared hosting.

Pros: super low latency connections, ssh access, decent setup, no frills, $10/month.

Cons: they don't keep their installations in the bleeding edge version-wise. I use Perl a lot. They are at 5.8.0, which is not bad, but not the very latest. Of course you can install your own anything (perl, python, ruby, etc.) in user space, which makes library management more simple too.

Unknowns: I've never had it tested under a serious load. Just playing around.

I WISH there was a host that gave me the speed, simplicity and low price of HE but also supported more than one domain name on the same account (for the same price). There are sites that do that, but typically they have something else wrong with them, such as having the "feature" of being control-panel based.

</comment><comment><USER13> We use The Planet (<http://www.theplanet.com>) along with EC2 from AWS. I've used The Planet for about 7 years now, for both business and personal use. Good prices, decent support and a top notch network.

<comment><USER14> Did the explosion change your opinion of theplanet?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> linode.com, slicehost.com, servintvps.com

I recommend all 3, just depends on what you need.

<comment><USER16> _just depends on what you need_

For example...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you're looking for cheap dedicated hosting, I liked leaseweb, ovh and vectoral, and if a .us based host is okay, layeredtech and softlayer are excellent. Support ranges from amazing to nonexistant, but they're all _really_ cheap (except for softlayer, but you get what you pay for..) for lots and lots of transfer - I blow through a few terabytes a month on three servers, think $100/month for 3TB transfer, 250gb hdd, 1.5gb ram which slicehost can't compare to price-wise.

Otherwise for me it's a tie between slicehost, dreamhost (because i had a free promo code..) and asmallorange (i have a lifetime account). All of them meet different needs of mine, sooo.

<comment><USER18> How did you get a lifetime account?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I used interland.com (bought out a while ago) and serverpronto.com, but now I use business grade Verizon FIOS in my basement with a Mac Mini on a 2 hour UPS. Uptime has been 100% over the last year (except for the reboots I did for software updates).

I used to run a lot of mailman lists and have discovered the hardest thing to do is to get a set of "clean" IP addresses. Serverpronto was tough, they were blocked a lot. Interland was ok. My Verizon address block (I get 5 static IPs) is not on any RBLs but they sit in the middle of what are generally dynamic IPs so some big sites (esa.int, notably) reject email from my system.

</comment><comment><USER20> Me :)

1U Dedicated server (BYOS) for $50/mo.

<comment><USER20> I'm curious why so many people have down-voted my comment above, as it's factual. I host stuff in my own datacenter, I don't overly promote it here, although I had considered a YC special rate. Or is it that I shouldn't promote my startup because it's not free? Several people here post links to or comments about their startup businesses without getting down-voted.

<comment><USER9> I don't think people realized that you were a professional host but that you were telling the guy to do it himself. What is your site?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Media Temple. They are great for the price.

<comment><USER22> We use MT's Dedicated Virtual offering - it's "in the cloud", but it gives us full on root access. If you go that way, however, get a box without Plesk pre- installed. Ugh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've used VPSLink on and off depending on my needs since they started, incredibly cheap service and I've yet to have any major problems. Minor issues were resolved very quickly, great support.

<comment><USER24> I agree, VPSLink is great. Never had any problems and if you can get a coupon (they offer them fairly often) you can really get a great deal. (I got mine locked in at a lower price with the coupon I used, and I believe they've offered more since).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> For personal stuff I use Tektonic who are pretty good. The price is very competative, tech support exists, and they accomodate special requests with no particular hassle (e.g. please make sure my two VPSs are in different data centers).

Last time they had a problem was a few years ago (server hardware failure) and they bothered to give updates frequently and rapidly opened up new temporary hosts for customers who had backups to restore from. Pretty good service for a 'no support' plan.

</comment><comment><USER26> I use vpslink. I paid for two years in advance, and got a vps with 256MB of Ram for ~$10/month (about half the cost of slicehost).

Had no problems with them so far.

</comment><comment><USER27> I use <http://mosso.com> which is an experimental cloud hosting provider backed by <http://rackspace.com>

I always get complimented on how fast my site loads and performs on it and have never had any problems that haven't been taken care of rather quickly.

</comment><comment><USER28> I've been using vpslink.com for a few months for a few servers. One of my virtual servers has been rebooted without warning (which they say up front can happen, it's true) three or four times in the last two months. If I had anything important on that machine, I'd be somewhat unhappy, but it's hard to complain at their prices.

</comment><comment><USER29> Lunarpages. Excellent customer service and the latest tech on all their managed servers (even the shared ones).

</comment><comment><USER30> We've been with Rails Machine for over a year and loving it. If you need some extra support and sysadmin knowledge (aka more hands-on then Slicehost) Rails Machine is absolutely the best we could wish for.

And of course additionally we also use EC2 and other AWS services.

</comment><comment><USER31> <http://www.aiso.net/>

They are carbon free and have provided great service since 2000. They use 100% solar power and have bio-diesel backup generators. Have used them for 4 months and have had a great experience.

</comment><comment><USER32> I support my buddy's business by using one of his dedicated servers: <http://wdservers.com>

He runs his own sites and needs a lot of server power, but also leases out to his contacts (me) and the people they refer.

</comment><comment><USER33> I use Slicehost for my applications and Bingodisk for big files and general static content. I also use the private part of Bingodisk for backups (via duplicity) from my laptop and application server. It's nice.

</comment><comment><USER34> RapidVPS? I use them to host a few small sites on the cheap (starting at like $9 a month I believe). It probably wouldn't scale, but it's irreplacable for development.

</comment><comment><USER35> Primarily SoftLayer. Best dedicated provider I've ever used. Used to use EV1Servers / The Planet before but SoftLayer offer so much more.

</comment><comment><USER36> ASmallOrange - Absolutely excellenct customer support with great prices. Go shared, then jump up to VPS/dedicated if you need to scale.

</comment><comment><USER37> Shared hosting? Depends heavily on what technologies you want to use.

VPS? Slicehost

Dedicated server(s)? Softlayer

</comment><comment><USER38> EC2

</comment><comment><USER39> <http://www.m5hosting.com/>

</comment><comment><USER40> Webfaction. Simple, cheap, and good support.

</comment><comment><USER41> our startup uses JEE technology so our choices were limited, but we are currently deploying on Amazon's EC2.

</comment><comment><USER42> xlhost, some of the lowest prices on dedicated servers, no contracts, setup fees, etc.

</comment><comment><USER43> hostmysite.com

never had a problem.

</comment><comment><USER44> My own.

</comment><comment><USER45> tektonic.net

</comment><comment><USER46> Well, as of right now I am using siteground shared hosting, and have found it to be excellent for the money. Their tech support is fast and knowledgeable,and respectful (I don't expect people to KMA, however, the Godaddy people for example have proven themselves to be incompetent AND disrespectful) their interface is clear and usable, and everything has worked great so far, I feel that they provide a lot of value for the money. I am surprised to not see them mentioned here, they HAVE won a couple of awards, and are the best I have seen since 2003. Disclaimer: I mostly used Godaddy before them (yuck!) yet I have had to use a couple of others for clients, and they were all - invariably - not that great at ALL. Now, if anyone has had a bad experience with them, I would certainly like to know, as I am considering reselling for them as part of a "includes great hosting" feature in a comprehensive service package for future clients of mine.

</comment><comment><USER47> <a href="<http://www.liquidweb.com/?RID=mikestefff>">Liquidweb

Yes it's an affiliate link but they are truly amazing. Prices are great and come with full support and management. Highly recommended. Have never had an easier experience.

<comment><USER47> I guess html isn't allowed...</comment></comment>


NaCL: Slides on DJB, Lange, Schwabe's High-Level Crypto Library - <AUTHOR> http://cr.yp.to/talks/2011.09.28/slides.pdf

<comment><AUTHOR> Quick translation:

Daniel Bernstein (DJB) is a renowned systems programmer and a serious academic cryptographer. Many of the SHA-3 candidates are partly derived from his work, and he designed one of the eSTREAM finalist stream ciphers.

Bernstein, Lange, and Schwabe designed NaCl. NaCl is a high-speed crypto library designed to correct all the things that go wrong with "low level" crypto libraries like OpenSSL. This is a big deal, because OpenSSL is the current "lowest common denominator" crypto implementation and thus forms the basis for most crypto facilities in high-level languages like Python and Ruby. OpenSSL is extraordinarily error prone and itself has a spotty track record.

NaCl provides an ultra-simple interface (crypto_box_+) that handles the details of message signing, encryption primitives public key, formatting, &c.

It's been used by a bunch of projects already (also note that DJB software is somewhat inherently credible; he wrote qmail and djbdns, which have the two best security track records in all of serverside software). A bunch of very smart people have contributed to it.

NaCl addresses a bunch of serious systemic security pitfalls:

* It's hardened, fundamentally, against the "side channel" effects we know about today that allow attackers to measure crypto operations to extract keys. For instance: "NaCl systematically avoids _all_ branch conditions".

* It authenticates messages, in constant time, before attempting to decrypt, which prevents attackers from exploring how the target is handling ciphertext (for instance, this prevents padding oracles in asymmetric and block ciphers).

* It handles the details of getting crypto-secure random numbers in a sane way, and also minimizes places in the design that require random numbers (for instance, DSA requires a random nonce in addition to a strong random key; that's something many people have screwed up).

* It makes extremely well-informed choices about ciphers and algorithms (it's designed by active contributors to the literature).

* It's crazy fast (crazy fast is basically Bernstein's current academic focus).

This thing is simple, it's fast, and it's designed to be safe by people who know what that means.

Start building language bindings for this thing!

<comment><USER2> Too bad it's already off the front page...

 _Some_ degree of caution is probably warranted. djb is awesome, but most of the algorithms in NaCL are his own, rather new, ideas. You trade in fixes for known problems in AES/RSA (implementations) for possible unknown errors. (That said, djb _is_ pretty good.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Worth noting that NaCl is a couple years old now.

You are far safer using NaCl than trying to cobble together anything using OpenSSL AES or RSA.

If you're debating between NaCl and Keyczar or cryptlib or PGP, sure, think carefully. But if it's NaCl or homebrew: no contest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've watched his 27c3 talk a bunch of times over the past few months, and have convinced myself about 80% of the way to start messing around with CurveCP.</comment>


Question for Sam Altman: Which College should I go to? - <AUTHOR>

I had a question about college. I was accepted to both Columbia Engineering and Rice-Baylor's BSMD program. My main interest is in understanding new ideas in biotechnology and healthcare. My worry about RB is that, located in Houston, I am more isolated from the SV and Boston ecosystems, which will make it difficult to work with startups and larger companies to learn about the space, as well as its comparatively less known Computer Science department. Any thoughts? <comment><USER2> If medical school is something you're interested in (I think this is a safe assumption), I would choose Rice-Baylor's BSMD program.

The reason is that many pre-med students (whether they will admit it or not) took a watered-down course load and chose easy majors so that they could maintain a high GPA, study for the MCAT, and do a bunch of bullshit to impress medical schools. In a lot of ways, that ruined their college experience. Always wondering how things you do will affect med school admissions is a terrible way to go through college. It narrows your options and is the opposite of freedom.

Now let's say that you choose Rice-Baylor instead. You don't have to optimize for med school admissions because you're already in. Now you can take hard classes and do any major without fear of having a competitive GPA for med school. You can do internships that have nothing to do with medicine. Basically, you can do all the things a pre-med student (or you at Columbia) would not do.

This is the freedom option. It's the option I would choose if I were in your position. Also Rice and Baylor are great schools. You can't lose here.

With your freedom, spend your summers in Silicon Valley. If you got into BSMD I assume you're pretty smart. It will not be hard to convince people to hire you.

I know this is a big decision, if you want to chat more, email me at gordonmzhu[at]gmail[dot]com.

<comment><AUTHOR> This was an amazing response! Thanks! My interest in healthcare is clear to me. I've read more books than any normal teenager probably should about healthcare industrial organization, policy, and new companies in biotechnology. But I'm unsure whether the way to best engage with healthcare and biotech is through being a physician. My interest is more in industry, being on the forefront of synthetic biology and digital health, as opposed to clinically practicing. I want to spend my time in the valley when possible, I just don't know whether I will be able to get positions at growing companies from Rice (Is it well-known/respected in the valley?). Related, computer science is something I've become very interested in, in the context of how software is aiding both biotechnology and healthcare organization (digital health, telemedecine, surgical robotics, etc.). Rice's CS is nowhere near as respected as Columbia's--does that matter through the lens of industry internships/work experience?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Read these:

[http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html)

[http://www.paulgraham.com/mit.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/mit.html)

[http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html)

For the lazy:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii1jcLg- eIQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii1jcLg-eIQ)

</comment><comment><USER4> [I am not Sam Altman]

Living in Manhattan is likely to be a distinctly different experience from living anywhere else. The Rice Baylor BSMD program offers a unique experience of a different sort due to the program's extreme selectivity.

Neither is as tightly integrated with Silicon Valley or Boston startup culture as California Schools.

In the end, nobody is going to have a better insight about your best option than you...and if you find yourself at one or the other and realize it's not for you, then go someplace else. It's ok to make a mistake. It's even better if you own it. The best thing is if you learn from it.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, yeah, idk, I saw someone post a question with "To Sam Altman" and he responded, so I thought I'd try it.

I am very conflicted about the decision, I've oscillated too many times.

Honestly I am very interested in startups in biotechnology--but if I can do that from RBMS, then I don't think there is much contest between the two. I just don't know whether internships and startup jobs at interesting, breakout companies are available from Rice. I talked to previous individuals in the program who told me it was difficult. That is what makes me hesitant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why did you post a question posed to a specific person on a public forum?

</comment><comment><USER6> Aren't you already past the deadlines to make your enrollment deposits?</comment>


FireQuery - Firebug enhancements for jQuery - <AUTHOR> http://firequery.binaryage.com/

<comment><USER2> Really cool stuff, but I think it should be really called "jQuery-related enhancements for Firebug" as opposed to "Firebug enhancement for jQuery".

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This guy also wrote FireRainbow, a JavaScript syntax highlighter for Firebug:

<http://firerainbow.binaryage.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Be careful with this. After using this plugin for most of the day, I found it broke Firebug's mouse selection tool. Disabling the plugin fixed it.

Cool idea.. but Firebug's code is not stable to begin with and adding hacks like this will only increase the frustration.

</comment><comment><USER4> especially like the ability to inject jquery for quick debugging and playing around

<comment><USER5> There's a bookmarklet for that (jQuerify) which I use all the time: [http://www.learningjquery.com/2009/04/better-stronger- safer-...](http://www.learningjquery.com/2009/04/better-stronger-safer- jquerify-bookmarklet)</comment></comment>


+1000 unique visitors a day and I didn't know - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiehackers.com/@mollerhoj/dogme-95-project-2-1000-unique-visitors-a-day-and-i-didnt-know-2900e215d5 <comment><USER2> Ha! I used to play that game with one of my previous colleges. It's a good lunch break kind of thing.</comment>


Because of the storm we're pushing the YC application deadline back to Friday - <AUTHOR> The deadline is now November 2 at 8 Pacific time. Please bear with me while I change the date everywhere. <comment><USER2> Interestingly, my application is mostly going to be based on the storm itself, so this is excellent. Thanks :)

We've collected more than 100,000 atmospheric pressure readings of Sandy so far and they're still coming in through pressureNET, our open source Android app.

<comment><USER3> Hey, I am one of those who have installed PressureNET. Where can I see analysis of data that you guys collect?

<comment><USER2> Thanks for running pressureNET! Whenever we show some data analysis, you can bet it will be on our blog at <http://cumulonimbus.ca>. However, you'll note that there's not much there so far. For the majority of the life of the project, we haven't had enough data to do anything interesting with it. Now, however, especially with Sandy (we gained 1,400 users yesterday alone), our data will be of immense value. We're working with a couple of researchers at universities (U Washington, and McGill) to best use and analyze the data. The answer to your question, though, is:

You can see our data by purchasing our weather prediction app that we'll build at YC this Winter. ;)

[Side note: we also plan on building a web version with a nice HTTPS API so that you can access the backend yourself. However, there are severe privacy issues to solve first and we're still working on that. Sorry about the delay, but until we find funding, pressureNET is a free-time-only project that moves a bit slowly]

[Edit: For pressureNET contributors like yourself, by the way, I plan on giving the predictions away for free. Anyone who does not/cannot contribute would have to buy the app. Or something like that]

<comment><USER3> Thanks! Good to know, and best of luck Jacob. I am not really a programmer, but I hope this leads to more accurate weather prediction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I posted this as a separate submission, but it didn't seem to catch on. Since this is the only hurricane-related post on the front page, I'm going to add it here: startups, apply to YC and keep your change until you're making money. Those of you who have some money to spare, however, please consider donating to the Red Cross. Here is a link to the disaster relief donation page:

[https://www.redcross.org/donate/index.jsp?donateStep=2&i...](https://www.redcross.org/donate/index.jsp?donateStep=2&itemId=prod10002)

</comment><comment><USER5> Excellent. Perhaps you meant our storm? This one? [http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/tc- bin/tc_home2.cgi?YEAR=2012&...](http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/tc- bin/tc_home2.cgi?YEAR=2012&MO=10&BASIN=IO&STORM_NAME=02B.NILAM&PROD=track_vis&PHOT=yes&ARCHIVE=active&NAV=tc&AGE=Latest&SIZE=Thumb&STYLE=tables&AID_DIR=/SATPRODUCTS/kauai_data/www/ATL/tropics/track_vis/dmsp&TYPE=ssmi)

</comment><comment><USER6> IMPORTANT: Hi everyone, I'm a french guy who applied to YC because I want to move to the Bay area to launch my start up. Feeling concerned about what just happened in the east coast with Sandy, I would like to go to NY and help out, maybe with friends too. I contacted the american consulate in my city who might help. This message is to ask you all for some financial support. I need to raise money to get there and help as much as possible. Depending on the amount raised, I'll either bring people along or go by myself. I have lived there in the past so I should have friends able to provide accomodation. Any help will be appreciated, as well as any amount. Maybe YC could handle the money management so you guys know where the money is going, or I can give my Paypal account. If not enough money is raised, than it'll be given to local organisation (reimboursing would be a bit complicated). Come on guys and let's start the YC SANDY PROJECT! Thank you all for support

<comment><USER7> Why New York and not somewhere like Haiti that _really_ needs your help?

<comment><USER6> I thought about it, even New Jersey, but it is much easier and less expensive for someone like me from abroad to go to NY, where I have friends who can supply with accomodation. Also I have lived there so I know the city which makes it much easier too. Depending on what happen, I'll definitely make sure the other areas get a part of what we raise. Thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Are the results also pushed then? Thanks

<comment><AUTHOR> We're not currently planning to change that, no.

<comment><USER6> Ok thanks that's good to know. I take the opportunity to say how sorry I am for those who might be suffering from Sandy. I wish I was there to be helping. God bless

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Thanks pg!

I expect another strong YC class this session. We've submitted our app already, but I am happy those on the east coast aren't denied by something out of their control.

</comment><comment><USER9> Will there be any collateral impacts for those of us who submitted before the deadline? In terms of time spent reviewing applications, etc.

</comment><comment><USER10> Incredibly generous of you. My friends on the east coast who have intermittent power will be stoked to hear of this news.

</comment><comment><USER11> Speaking as someone who isn't part of this run, and therefore is sort-of- impartial, I think you're doing the right thing, and I'm really glad you're giving these people some breathing room during difficult times.

If nothing else, you'll get a crop of /really/ disaster-aware backends.

</comment><comment><USER12> Most popular answer this year for 'Name something you hacked'

\- 'Submitted my YC application despite the storm' :)

<comment><USER13> "Hummed my application to YC through a harmonica, Trimline phone, and an AOL Dialup account - during a hurricane!" ;)

Though in all seriousness, I think this is a nice touch PG. In the poll thread people seemed to have jumped into the shark take a little too quickly. Compassion is an important virtue and its nice to let people deal with their current crisis without worrying about getting their application in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This seems like a positive move considering people in parts of the East Coast don't have an internet connection right now.

Will the reviews process will be pushed back too? Good luck to everyone applying.

</comment><comment><USER15> Application for what?

<comment><USER16> The Erlang versus Haskell UAV dogfighting tournament.

<comment><USER17> Please make this happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Hope everyone in NY / east coast is safe. About the application, submitted it in first week itself. Could not afford to keep it up for the last day.

</comment><comment><USER19> We managed to submit by tethering through my cellphone right before the date change. Good thing to have a working backup option.

</comment><comment><USER20> Well done YC for putting people before business.

</comment><comment><USER21> Very considerate of YC to do that.

</comment><comment><USER22> Thank you pg !

</comment><comment><USER23> AM or PM?

<comment><USER24> 8pm PT: <http://ycombinator.com/apply.html>

<comment><USER23> But that still says Oct 30th, so it hasn't been updated

<comment><USER25> it's updated now

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Awesome! Our team already applied but NYC is shut down for at least 2 days. Would have been hard to film a video if the subway is shut down and we couldn't meet up.

<comment><USER27> I don't know how many of you have internet, but you could use Google Hangouts to record a video. My new Co-Founder happens to live in Chicago (I'm in San Diego) and that's how we got it done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Don't know why but this popped into my head.

Arnold mindfucks Lou Ferrigno right before they hit the stage for the Mr. Olympia: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwtL2KPPc1k>

"They should have it in a month for him. But then I have another month too."

<comment><USER29> Getting into YC isn't really a competition, at least according to what pg has said publicly many times. They'd be happy to take as many qualified companies as they can, and the real problem is that sometimes qualified companies are masked by incompetence at presenting themselves in the written app and the interview. Which is why it's so awesome that Gleb and others have put together guides to the process.

<comment><USER30> This is very much consistent with YC's cardinal principle not to fund bad startup, and not to miss good ones.

At the core, many folks forget that it is their own startup and foundation upon which they should focus, not whether the competition is strong.

<comment><USER28> Believe it or not (I'm mostly trolling with the video) I agree 100% and touched on this in the competitor/fear section of my application the other day.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Does Africa Need More Cheap Smartphones? - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/africanroundup/status/635708160360079360 <comment><USER2> How else are they going to track everyone?</comment>


How to tell when your boss is lying - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/16847818?story_id=16847818

<comment><USER4> I've been in such situation. I totally agree with the "as you know..." type. What they were trying consistently on us was to tell us we're not getting a raise because "as we know" the business hasn't been doing so well, we're expensive etc.

By giving you 5 arguments to which you nod positively, they then enforce their point as to why (bs reasons) there is no money for you.

It takes a few years to read between the lines, hence why so many of those crooks bosses like to hire you straight out of uni.

<comment><USER5> This is not really new knowledge. Somewhere around 15 years ago I bought an audio-cassette tape course on negotiating, and some of the clues to know when the other party was lying were prefix phrases like "Frankly...."; "To tell the truth....."; "Honestly....."; "As you know...." etc. along with excessive hyperbole in general.

<comment><USER4> Well, I wish I had that tape 10 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A different article on the paper from a week ago, which links to the paper: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1599914>

edit: might as well link it directly -> [https://gsbapps.stanford.edu/researchpapers/library/RP2060%2...](https://gsbapps.stanford.edu/researchpapers/library/RP2060%20&%2083.pdf)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The article ends on a bit of a depressing note:

 _The real winners will be public-relations firms, which now know to coach the boss to hesitate more, swear less and avoid excessive expressions of positive emotion._

<comment><USER7> This is the problem with detecting lying based on verbal cues: they're really easy to fabricate. The most reliable way to detect lying is by picking up on a person's involuntary nonverbal cues. If you are good enough at picking up on them, you can easily tell when someone is lying.

<comment><USER8> Assuming they haven't had practice at suppressing nonverbal cues, anyway.

<comment><USER7> These cues _can_ be suppressed, and most people do so naturally without any practice. The thing is that these cues happen unconsciously. They usually show up before the conscious intellect can suppress them.

Let me give you an example. Oliver North was summoned to Congress to testify about the whole Iran Contra affair. I forget what the question was, but the important part was North's response. If you watch closely, you can see his lower lip extend below his upper lip for a split second: he pouted. He was upset by the question somehow, but didn't want to show it, so he quickly suppressed it.

Apart from psychopaths, there are very few people (less than 1%) who can totally suppress these types of cues.

<comment><USER8> Maybe if you're taping someone you might be able to catch something, but it's very difficult in my experience to catch a tell from a practiced liar live - <USER2> part of one of my hobbies involves catching people lying, so I've had a little experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fascinating article.

But how can a company possibly stay alive for very long if, rather than confining itself to lying to its rivals to keep ahead in the competitive marketplace, it starts lying to itself and its own?

If your company's internal culture develops the practice of deceit - <USER3> between superiors and subordinates, deceit between superiors, deceit between subordinates and ultimately deceit towards customers - how can you expect the firm to remain fit for purpose for very long?

Who would want to live in a Stirnerite environment where everybody routinely bones up on Machiavelli and Nineteen Eighty Four and keeps the knives sharpened while watching for others attampting to stab you in the back all the time?

<comment><USER10> Its a valid question. The answer is that it depends on the industry. Sure, if you're a small or mid-sized technology start-up, infighting and backbiting will bring down the firm in months. But if you're in a monopoly position (e.g. Microsoft), or in a non-competitive market (e.g. banks), your company makes money by default. As such, there is a much larger threshold before the drag caused by politics becomes significant enough to affect the performance of the firm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Given this, it would be interesting to have a program that would predictively tell you if a CFO or CEO was lying. Then you could short companies based on that info.

<comment><USER12> <http://www.biadvisors.com> sells this behavioral analysis of investor calls as a service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think I'm more likely to use these "tells" to know if someone I'm investing in is lying.

Though to be fair I work in a small company where I know my boss very well so the point probably don't apply.

</comment><comment><USER14> Tip: his lips are moving.

<comment><USER15> Ok, lets turn this from a simple joke to a question... say one asks just how much one feels it applies to their boss, and one's evaluation of it is somewhere between "rather true" and "very true". What does that entail, if anything? Jump ship immediately, or at the next good prospect? Or what?

<comment><USER16> I guess the answer would depend on how important your boss is to your job. If you can't trust your boss but he's just some line manager in a ten-deep chain who doesn't really affect what you do on a day-to-day basis, maybe it doesn't impact you. On the other hand, maybe it's a sign of a toxic corporate culture, centered more around backstabbing and individual achievement than a whole- company team-based approach, and if you left tomorrow it wouldn't be soon enough. Like most metrics, the perceived truthfulness of one's boss really discards too much context to be useful, absent other data, for evaluating something like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "It's not just that his lips are moving"

You mean he lies even more often?</comment>


How to build your idea into a side hustle - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/how-i-took-stickler-ci-from-an-idea-into-a-side-hustle-3a7287d953a5 <comment><USER2> Solid</comment>


Dark Patterns - <AUTHOR> https://darkpatterns.org/ <comment><USER2> Reddit mobile site version has one of the more egregious design patterns concerning how they try to get you to install their app.

If you're not logged in and open up reddit.com on mobile, the first thing you will notice is a footer asking for you to open in their app, and your choices are "No", or a prominent "Continue" [1].

So if you click no, you're still not done, not even halfway on their dark pattern for getting you to install their app. When you now try to open a post it will stop the page, darken it and ask you to again open it in the app [2]. Now "Continue" means continuing to seeing the post so you click that.

Okay after twice as many clicks as necessary and 2 prompts you're finally looking at a Reddit post, but you're still not done! When you load in the post you will see a huge bottom footer _again_ asking you to open it up in the app [3]. And now you have the two choices and the worst dark pattern of all. You see a huge "Continue" button, which now means continue to open it in the app, or a really small link that says "or go to the mobile site". The thing is, is that you are already on the mobile site, and clicking that link just removes the footer, you won't actually "go" anywhere... So here they are tricking people to thinking that clicking continue will let you keep looking at the post as normal (as they taught you on the previous prompt), and by clicking the the small tiny link that is easy to miss, you will be brought to somewhere else. But the case is actually the opposite.

Reddits mobile page is just the worst collection of dark patterns I know of, in line with the fake download buttons littering shady sites. It's almost unusable now, and I'm sure that is their intention. Make the mobile website experience so horrible that you are forced to download their app so you don't have to spend half your time clicking away prompts.

1: [https://i.imgur.com/fYqabnx.png](https://i.imgur.com/fYqabnx.png)

2: [https://i.imgur.com/DuuzSvD.png](https://i.imgur.com/DuuzSvD.png)

3: [https://i.imgur.com/qQ4lAIM.png](https://i.imgur.com/qQ4lAIM.png)

<comment><USER3> Yeah. Reddit's mobile experience is a frequent topic on /r/assholedesign (recent example with video: [https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/9oy75c/reddi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/9oy75c/reddits_mobile_website_design_somehow_got_even/)).

Their efforts this year to make the desktop site look and work more like 9gag unless you plug "old.reddit.com" into the url bar was pretty fun too.

It's been for the best though. It's helped me cut my time on that site down to almost nothing, which has improved my overall mood quite a bit.

<comment><USER4> If you are logged in, you can set in your preference to always use the old design. As of lately though, "always" means "usually", as sometimes it will lose track of it and redirect you to the new design until you "opt-out" again.

<comment><USER5> Even then its a patchwork. Like some of the mod tools are new design only and then any tabs opened from there are new design.

Annoying AF & pretty sure it's not accidental

<comment><USER6> Sounds like bad code to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Some sites shoot themselves in the foot with dark patterns. J.C. Whitney, the auto parts company, does this. If you go to their site, you probably want to buy an auto part. They have a reasonable system where you select make and model of vehicle. But then they start throwing full screen ads at you on mobile which get in the way of buying auto parts. It's really hard to get past those ads.

I tried twice to buy a part from them, then gave up and went to a competitor. On the compeitor's site, I was done in five minutes, and the part arrived today.

Fandango, the movie ticketing service, has a similar problem. If you go there, you either want to buy a ticket or find out what's playing. They keep shoving trailers and popups in your face as you try to get to the desired movie and the ticket ordering page. And they keep trying to get you to install their "app". I've stopped buying tickets on line from them; I just go to the theater and pay cash. It's faster.

<comment><USER8> > Some sites shoot themselves in the foot with dark patterns.

I was thinking this when trying to navigate altium.com.

Hint: we have a license for their software which we spend about $5-10 grand a year on and it's behaving like an ad sponsored clickbait site, throwing one pop up after another. Click on video, pop up shows up with a tiny ill placed dismiss button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The one where you can't click 'not now' for OSX Mojave is just painful. Clicking on the side doesn't work, neither does hovering. You _have to_ open the Apple Store every single time, just to remove the notification.

Elsewhere, I seem to have taken note that there's been a significant decrease in modal usage across the web. Seeing a lot less popups and other crappy widgets.

Nothing more juicy than a brigade of 3-5 popups moments after loading a page. /s

<comment><USER10> The update notification on macos can be removed by drag and dropping it out of the screen. But it will show up again (after 24h IIRC) if you don't change your auto update settings.

<comment><USER9> It does not work like this for Mojave notification. The only way to remove is to click and open App store.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The most relevant looking link on the front page is

[https://darkpatterns.org/hall-of-shame](https://darkpatterns.org/hall-of- shame)

which is just a link to Twitter

[https://twitter.com/darkpatterns](https://twitter.com/darkpatterns)

.

Isn't this a dark pattern itself? :)

<comment><USER12> It's not a link to Twitter (as in a redirect).

It's just repurposing Twitter as a CMS for their Hall of Shame. I don't see what would be the dark pattern here?

<comment><USER13> Maybe it's "using Twitter as a CMS"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Linkedin was particularly annoying with the "you are missing out a lot ... a lot has happened since ..." type of emails. It would also give me couple of non-existent new notifications ... abusing the red indicator badges

<comment><USER15> > non-existent new notifications ... abusing the red indicator badges

I think the most egregious instance of this I have seen is the allegation that Facebook displayed fake notification badges during the GDPR flow, which pressures users into quickly accepting the terms so that they can see the notifications: [https://www.dailydot.com/debug/facebook-gdpr-notification- la...](https://www.dailydot.com/debug/facebook-gdpr-notification-lawsuit/)

<comment><USER16> > Facebook, for its part, told the Daily Dot that the red notification icons > are generic visuals meant to reassure users that the terms they're agreeing > to do, in fact, come from the social platform. The icons were supposedly > added so people wouldn't suspect they were agreeing to a phishing > notification.

Yikes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Google has also become quite disgraceful for this - they've added prompts to their mobile apps to get you to install their other mobile apps. For example, when you click a link in their Gmail iOS app: "Do you want to open this link in Chrome [Install] or Safari [Continue]?"

I hope whichever product manager and UX designer contributed this are cursed to a life of either scalding or freezing showers caused by incomprehensible taps in every hotel they visit.

</comment><comment><USER18> That's an interesting and well-curated list!

I do wonder though to what extent these patterns are being introduced on purpose (or even A/B-tested for maximum 'efficiency') or just a result of 'form over function' or, in some cases, just an indicator of missing technical prowess (scaling the buttons with the font size, for example).

<comment><USER19> It's hard to say - "never ascribe to malice what can be sufficiently explained by stupidity" is all very well, but on the other hand, sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from stupidity...

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wait. When I click the Hall of Shame all I see is a single link to a Twitter feed (probably my adblock is working). What kind of pattern is that? ;)

<comment><USER21> You do not see the twitter iframe?

<comment><USER7> I don't. Blocked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This should include business processes in addition to UI tricks. For example, you can easily subscribe to NYT online but to unsubscribe you have to talk to a salesperson. FU NYT.

<comment><USER23> This is somewhat covered by [https://darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark- pattern/roach-motel](https://darkpatterns.org/types-of-dark-pattern/roach- motel)

Gyms are notorious for this. Almost any staff member can sign someone up, but if you want to cancel theres only one guy in the entire gym authorized to do that, and they are frequently "out to lunch".

Either that or you have to print a cancellation form and send it by snail mail with 30 days notice. And if you dont send by certified mail they will claim they never received it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Medium's got a few dark patterns too. Most notably, how hard they try to trick people into viewing paid articles and losing their three or so free articles supply.

Seriously. Every single article on the front page is usually a paid article. Every single article in the email digest is usually a paid article. And in all cases, actually figuring this out is pretty hard, since you have to know the tiny star icon stands for 'paid' rather than any of the four million other meanings it may have.

Let's not forget how hard they push you to register either. Those giant modals and bars can be utterly obnoxious.

Other examples I've seen recently are:

Twitter and its absolute obsession with getting you to view tweets in 'non linear' order. Every time you set it to 'chronological order' or what not, it seems to revert back to their algorithm the next time you load the site or app. No, I don't want this. Why is the idea of a simple timeline so scary for social media sites now?

As well as YouTube and its attempts to smuggle content you don't want into your notifications list. Again, if users click subscribe, they want to do just that, not get spammed with promoted content so you can make a quick buck.

It's annoying how bad most large sites nowadays seem to be about stuff like this.

<comment><USER25> > Twitter and its absolute obsession

Oh yes, Twitter, that very Twitter that shows me full-screen modals [0] after [0] every [0] other [0] scroll [0] on [0] its [0] mobile [0] website [0].

[0] [https://i.imgur.com/q19sqZw.png](https://i.imgur.com/q19sqZw.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Had something like that happent o me when I tried to terminate my Audible abo. Apparently, the website was broken, the button to click simply didn't do anything. Last resort was to call support via phone. This taught me a lesson, and was bad for the whole online bussiness. Since that, I think trice before I go into a monthly-payment thing, because, after all, who knows how hard it will be to get out of it again?

</comment><comment><USER27> Marriage is always easier than divorce. In those terms its a dark pattern too.

<comment><USER28> Separation is easier than marriage though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I love to right click, "block element" with ublock origin.

I wonder if websites are legally required to prove user clicked on "I agree".

<comment><AUTHOR> If it has anything to do with personal data, under GDPR they must gather consent so yes, they must prove users gave them consent.

Hiding elements with ublock is my favorite anticlutter activity on my phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Coincidentally, we just covered this on our podcast today:

[https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/episode-175/](https://completedeveloperpodcast.com/episode-175/)

We didn't get into all of them, but covered a lot of them.

</comment><comment><USER31> s/dark pattern/shit design

<comment><USER18> To some extent, yes. But the term _pattern_ is more apt because it also teaches users to expect a certain behaviour from a website. For example: the GDPR laws result in a lot of these 'We use cookies for FOO' popups; and users are now 'trained' or even 'conditioned' to just click on them as fast as possible to get to the article.

This is problematic from a UX point of view because whenever you _do_ show relevant information, it might get lost in the noise.</comment></comment>


IPhones Help Airlines Get a Little Greener - <AUTHOR> http://www.eventective.com/blog/news/2008/10/23/iphones-help-airlines-get-a-little-greener/

<comment><USER2> Algorithm to decide if you should recycle X:

        1) Is there a market for X?
        2) Do people steal X?
        3) Do people run successful businesses recycling X?
        4) Do street people root through garbage cans to collect and resell X?

If you can answer yes to 3 of the above, then you should recycle X.

</comment><comment><USER3> I might have to fly out of LGA instead of JFK soon to try this out sometime.

Though, most phones have some sort of bluetooth capabilities nowadays. How bad of an idea would it be to transmit the boarding pass from the phone to the receiver that way instead of having to rely on the scanner?

</comment><comment><USER4> Great, now you can fumble around with your phone trying to get them to scan it, then find somewhere to cram it so you can go through the metal detector.

</comment><comment><USER5> but the black parts of a phone screen reflect as much light as the bright parts, so I don't see how this makes sense, unless we transition to optical bar code readers, which are much less reliable

<comment><USER6> I never thought reading barcodes from an LCD display would work, but some people are claiming success. I tried once at the airport with my iPhone but I had no luck in getting that thing to recognize the barcode. I'm guessing something like the Kindle should work pretty well though.</comment></comment>


Dropbox bug restored files that were deleted years ago - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Missing-files-and-folders/deleted-folder-re-appeared-after-a-couple-of-years/td-p/202656 <comment><USER2> >I installed dropbox earlier tonight and I allowed it to do a full sync with my local folder. When I checked it out as it was close to finishing I found 2 extra folders in there.

>They are so old I initially didn't even recognize them. Took me a couple of minutes to realize they're a couple of folders with project files from about 6-7 years ago, so extremely old.

Whoops?

<comment><USER3> What are you trying to say?

<comment><USER2> That Dropbox retains data far longer than what can be considered reasonable. It's in the headline, of course, but I think that quote highlights the severity of it quite well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Stated in the thread several times but I had files from 8 years ago appear. All of my devices had been replaced in that time so only Dropbox could have a copy. Definitely concerning that they keep files forever like this, I wonder if it would be caught if this bug didnt happen.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which company rejected you and why? - <AUTHOR> I just got rejected from Stripe and they got me no feedback with the rejection. Is this common?
I've asked for further feedback but got no response. What about making a list of company with bad behaviour during the interview process? <comment><USER2> Got rejected from Nubank last week for data infrastructure engineer role. Feedback after the technical interview was "Your profile suits DevOps role and not _dev support_ role." Not sure what that even means. I wonder if i cannot write clean code, how i cleared the take home assignment with positive feedback.

</comment><comment><USER3> Rejection with no feedback is the most common response I've had. In a lot of cases, I've asked for feedback and been told "for (legal reasons, operational reasons) we don't give feedback".

It's shitty, but them's the breaks.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know if in Europe this can be enforced because of GDPR, so you can ask for all data related to you.

<comment><USER3> I think that'd be a pretty good way to burn bridges, to be fair. A GDPR subject access request would be a lot of paperwork...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Got rejected by a large company a couple years ago and they declined to give me a reason. Six months ago I started a contract with them and got the salaried, full-time position last month >:)

</comment><comment><USER5> For Stripe, no, this is not common. You should receive feedback, and I'm very sorry for the lack of response. Could you email me at firstname.lastname@example.com?

<comment><AUTHOR> I received this when asked for feedback:

"Unfortunately, it is not Stripes' policy to provide detailed feedback for interviews."

That's totally ok, I just think that a good company should give honest feedback to people to understand where to improve or if the decision to not go forward was based on other criteria.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You can use glassdoor for this purpose</comment>


How A Web Design Goes Straight To Hell - <AUTHOR> http://smashinghub.com/how-a-web-design-goes-straight-to-hell.htm

<comment><USER2> This seems like it's just ripping off content from theoatmeal?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. They took an oatmeal comic and put it in a shitty wrapper.

Oh, wait: "inspiration credit goes to theoatmeal for making it."

Inspiration credit... to the people who thought of it, designed it, made it and published it.</comment></comment>


Where Will Your API Stand In The Oracle v Google API Copyright Debate? - <AUTHOR> http://apievangelist.com/2014/05/10/where-will-your-api-stand-in-the-oracle-v-google-api-copyright-debate/ <comment><USER2> Watch Microsoft pull something amazing on the mobile front that isn't Java, just watch!

I'm not really trying to be snarky, but the gridlock could mean the death of Android. Instead of trying to actually resolve that difference as Android continues to evolve and mature in its own direction, I feel there truly is yet another option that should make our choices now irrelevant.

edit: I'm taking a mobile POV on this.</comment>