Ask HN: My first attempt at passive income. Where do I take it now? - <AUTHOR>

I've just published a book (called PHP Beyond the Web) at
http://www.leanpub.com/php
I work (flexible) full-time at a Uni, which allows me to spend decent time with my three young children and act more as a primary carer than a part-time dad. I don't want to give this up, but extra money is always useful. I'm currently trying to generate some extra income in a (fairly) passive way, at least without giving time commitments to people. I've written this book as a first step, as it was something I could do in my own time and on my own schedule, and I'm now wondering where to take it next. I've considered consulting (which I've done in the past) linked to the book but that doesn't fit my aim of "in my own time and on my own schedule". Does HN have any ideas of where I can go from here? <comment><USER2> Start your own blog or offer to guest post on someone else's blog. Publish single chapters/excerpts from your book as posts, with a note that promotes your book.

I've seen this marketing tactic used quite often, and it has certainly sparked my interest more than once. Here's an example I ran into yesterday: [http://alistapart.com/article/why-sass](http://alistapart.com/article/why- sass)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, that's not a bad idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Promote the hell out of it on Twitter, Reddit, Hacker News (done). Apply to speak at conferences and go speak about it. There are plenty of PHP conferences to choose from. Get your employer to pay for the trips.

Other ideas for passive income:

[http://needwant.com/p/buying-apartment-airbnb/](http://needwant.com/p/buying- apartment-airbnb/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tips, the conferences idea sounds interesting (though my employer has no budget to fund conferences related to my work let alone anything else, so I'd have to cover the costs myself).

Not sure about the real-estate idea, I guaranteed my wife that any money- making schemes would be strictly low-risk!

<comment><USER4> Not only is buying an apartment to rent out short term on a full time basis high risk, its probably illegal. This specific post was on HN and we found he was violating his homeowners agreement as well.

It's also a bad idea insurance wise, what if something happens (fire, flood, robbery) and your homeowner's insurance says "we are covering a home, not a friggin unregulated hotel"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Congratulations on your book! I have an idea of how long it takes to push something of this size out, so you must be happy to be finally done with. Though, to be honest, this is only the beginning. For books, marketing is >50% of the work. Below are some pointers/advice.

1/ Do you have a webpage for your book? I think that can make a big difference in the conversation with your potential readers. Here is a sampling of some "book pages" out there: [http://nathanbarry.com/webapps/](http://nathanbarry.com/webapps/) (Nathan's) [https://django.2scoops.org/](https://django.2scoops.org/) (Danny's) [http://minireference.com/launch40](http://minireference.com/launch40) (mine)

2/ As aparadja said, a blog will also help people find you. Getting traffic via AdWords is expensive, whereas organic search is free. You can release parts of the book, or even better develop new content --- I'm sure there are some things which you didn't get to. Now's the time ;) The big picture is this: you have a unique expertise and experience using PHP on the server-side so many people will be interested to hear about your experience and your opinions about what is happening in that domain.

3/ Did you get a professional copy-editor to go through the text? I recommend you use the first $1k of profits and hire someone to proofread the book for you. It cannot be a friend, friends will only encourage you and say "great job," but a professional editor will be able to give you critical feedback about which sections need more explanations or rewording. Typos are also a nightmare (both English and code-wise). If a reader sees a typo on every page or two, he/she will quickly lose trust in you, and you don't want that.

4/ You should also consider offering your book in print (through lulu.com for example, or lightning source). Self-published print sales can be very interesting, I know eBooks and iPads are the craze, but #PrintNotDead [https://twitter.com/minireference/statuses/40222755949812940...](https://twitter.com/minireference/statuses/402227559498129408)

Good luck, and feel free to get in touch with me if you would like to discuss further.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Ivan,

Thanks for the tips.

1) I've got a page up at [http://www.phpbeyondtheweb.com](http://www.phpbeyondtheweb.com), as well as the publisher page at [http://www.leanpub.com/php](http://www.leanpub.com/php). I hope to add to and improve both as I go along.

2) I'm definitely looking at the blogging suggestions

3) No, just my wife (although she was definitely critical!). It's definitely a route I want to go, when the book can pay for it.

4) I'm planning on doing that, when the content has settled some more after I get feedback from readers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have no experience with authoring books, but please do a follow up in a few months to let us go how it went.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> I certainly will do, if I'm not too busy cruising around the world on my new yatch bought with the profits from the book...;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How are the sales of the book going? Do you have a "name" out there? I mean, have you built an audience that you know will give you sales?

If someone trusts you to consult them I am pretty sure they will adapt to your own schedule and not the other way round.

I have no such experience as I am still trying to make a standard good regular income but Nathan Barry ([http://nathanbarry.com/](http://nathanbarry.com/)) is a very inspiring example to look at, I think.

<comment><AUTHOR> It only went live last night, so far "dribble" rather than "flood" would be a good way to describe it, although that is (perhaps better) than I expected anyway. I wanted to complete it before I started promoting it, so there would be no pressure to get it finished by a particular deadline (I know this works for some, but as I mentioned in my intro this book has to fit in around my "real" life).

I've been watching Nathan's posts on here, they are very interesting. I have no "name" out there, so not all of what he's acheived is applicable to my situation right now (perhaps my second book maybe!). It's something I probably need to work on, blogging may be the way forward on that front.

Your comments on consulting are interesting, working up that trust without being a "known quantity" I suspect maybe hard though.

<comment><USER8> You might consider buying and reading Nathan's book, Authority:

[http://nathanbarry.com/authority/](http://nathanbarry.com/authority/)

Here's my review of it:

[http://blog.liberwriter.com/2013/11/21/nathan-barrys- authori...](http://blog.liberwriter.com/2013/11/21/nathan-barrys-authority/)

It's aimed pretty squarely at someone like yourself and has a lot of good advice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Link: [https://leanpub.com/php](https://leanpub.com/php)

</comment><comment><USER10> Buy a $100 adwords coupon (if you don't have an account) on ebay and start advertising this. you'll fail at first but your keyword mix should be such that you can make this profitable. start with small goals like 1 or 2 conversions a day. It's not unreasonable to say that you can have this making $2000 within 3 months.

</comment><comment><USER11> Rob, I think your idea (your book) is really innovative. Many people don't realize what they can do with what is available to them. It is a long time I am using PHP for text processing, e.g reverse engineering on embedded systems, impact analysis on requirements, collecting information from web, etc. I have rebuilt the architecture of many legacy systems for refactoring

I believe, given your situation (being a dad), you should continue to introduce innovative applications of available technologies in the form of books, and perhaps video tutorials. Though, this may end up to consulting.

And, don't forget, things don't work in passive mode. You always need to do some light marketing. Even, it you want just to publish blogs. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER12> Another option is to put it up for sale for the Kindle (kdp.amazon.com) and at B&N as ebooks. At one point I had 5-6 books on kdp and even made over 4 figures one time. I haven't promoted them at all for a good 5-6 months and still make a couple hundred each month. Non-fiction tends to do well; there are many guides out there on how to rank better for your book (use certain keywords and categories etc) so that could be a good avenue for you. One drawback is that it takes 3 months to start receiving your payments.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll look into that, thanks. It obviously has a much wider reader base than Leanpub where I'm currently publishing, although it has lower margins and more "competition". Of course there's nothing stopping me using both if that looks promising. Is there any specific guide for ranking better on kdp that you would recommend? I've just found a couple via Google and they seem to have conflicting (and slightly inconclusive) advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Wow, congratulations to writing such an awesome book! Just bought it now, and from a first glance it looks really thorough.

I've got a German blog dedicated to php on which I've just mentioned your book. Maybe it helps a bit in promoting your book. Best of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for buying it! If you have any more thoughts or any feedback once you've had a chance to read some, please do let me know (firstname.lastname@example.com). And thanks for mentioning it on your blog. What's the URL (if you don't mind sharing)?

<comment><USER13> Sure, the post is at [http://perfektes-php.de/php-beyond-the- web/](http://perfektes-php.de/php-beyond-the-web/) Will surely mail you once I've got some productive feedback!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you have to take it anywhere, it isn't passive.

<comment><USER15> That's not true.

Passive income doesn't just happen. What the author is asking is simple: I've written a thing that could bring me passive income. Now, how do I finish the investment so that it gains the momentum it needs to roll on its own?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Talking about consulting. Ever thought about stuff like liveninja.com?

<comment><USER17> I wonder if there is room for a site called LiveInNinja.com, which matches 'engineer cofounders' with people who have ideas, and can put someone up for free while they create them...

<comment><USER16> As a matter of fact, there is one (sort of...)

[http://founderdating.com/](http://founderdating.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Levarage -> Leverage

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I spell-checked the body of the page but forgot the intro! Updated now.</comment></comment>


Amazon is killing malls: Teen traffic down 30% in a decade - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2014/04/american-teens-dont-hang-out-malls-anymore/8857/

<comment><USER2> Didn't they even put high-pitched sound emitters to keep away youngsters?

Seems to me it's working as intended, even without blaming Amazon.</comment>


Ask HN: Can an YouTube uploader possibly remove dislikes? - <AUTHOR> Have this curious when reading this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/9tyvww/diablo_immortal_cinematic_trailer_just_had_over/ <comment><USER2> They can take down the video and reupload it resetting the views, likes etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> But seems the "upload time" didn't change.

<comment><USER2> Then the dislikes were probably registered as bots by YouTube and removed for being fake even if they were actually legitimate. Botting dislikes on your competitors game announcements is probably common as a way to increase your own sales.

There's also the possibility Blizzard paid off YouTube.</comment></comment></comment>


People on treadmill desks perform tasks nearly as well as those sitting - <AUTHOR> http://news.byu.edu/archive15-apr-treadmilldesks.aspx

<comment><USER2> "While they found the walkers showed slight decreases in processing speed, attention and typing words per minute—tasks that require fine-motor skills or heavy concentration—the overall drop was not enough to warrant major concern."

"perform tasks"

I guess those tasks would mainly be browsing the interweb</comment>


Startup School 2007 - Audio Recordings - <AUTHOR> http://www.robert.shedd.us/content/2007/03/26/startup-school-2007-2/ <comment><USER2> are these available to download as mp3s?

<comment><USER3> from view src on that page:

<http://www.robert.shedd.us/ssplaylist.xml></comment></comment>


X11 and the disturbing trend of Apple removing functionality from OS X - <AUTHOR> http://www.imore.com/x11-and-disturbing-trend-apple-removing-functionality-os-x <comment><USER2> What I find disturbing here is the expectation that they would include it.

I was speaking to a Microsoft evangelist two years ago and asked him why it took them so long to release a new version of Windows. He essentially told me that Microsoft does the best legacy support in the world and wanted to ensure that every single piece of important software could still be installed and work with the new version. He also explained to me that Microsoft was not in the business of pushing new technology but that they were in the business of bringing it to the masses. It was his excuse for why IE was so much worse than Firefox or Chrome.

X11 missing from my computer was a simple google search away from a fix. It's not essential for 99.9% of Mac users and only developers and system admins would want it installed. They know how to use google.

To a company like Apple pushing technology is more important and supporting a fraction of users with something they can get on their own is spending time in the wrong place.

<comment><USER3> That certainly does not justify the installer removing X11 from a perfectly working Mac.

<comment><USER4> My understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is that an 'upgrade' is really a fresh installation, with your user data migrated across afterwards. In that context it's not really a 'removal' as such -- and it's hard to see how else they'd do it.

I'm actually glad they made this change. In the past, XQuartz was sometimes ahead of the officially distributed version, which could be messy. Now they're the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The X11 that Apple provided with OS X was nothing but a snapshot of whatever XQuartz version was current when that version of OS X went GM. In other words, we are now getting the exact same product, but with more timely updates. It takes a special brand of cluelessness to see that as a bad thing.

<comment><USER6> It's a good thing. X11 has joined Flash and Java in the ranks of "stuff third parties maintain".

RSS removal is a different animal. Statistically speaking, no one used it (except you and me of course) but 10 minutes of app shopping and I've got a better solution running. Much better.

<comment><USER7> You are wrong. Apple maintains java and didn't uninstall it when I upgraded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have a X11.app in /Applications/Utilities. When launched, it shows a dialog:

      An application has requested access to X11.
      Would you like to install X11 now?

      X11 is no longer included with OS X. Apple continues to support
      the development of X11 on OS X with the open source community.
      Clicking "Continue" will take you to an Apple Knowledge Base Article
      which provides information about installing X11.

                                                     [ Cancel ]  [ Continue ]

So, I think that "and giving me this when I search their knowledge base for answers" is a bit dishonest. At least on my system, searching wasn't necessary. Apple pointed me there.

</comment><comment><USER9> Imagine if Apple removes [the floppy drive] itself in the next version of [the Mac], or decides [wi-fi] is the future and gets rid of [the Ethernet port]?

<comment><USER10> Removing the floppy drive and ethernet ports have clear and straightforward benefits, though. Removing software, less so.

<comment><USER11> > Removing the floppy drive and ethernet ports have clear and straightforward > benefits, though.

What were those clear and straightforward benefits?

To the consumer, I mean; not to Apple.

<comment><USER10> To an extreme example, the Macbook Air.

More generally, saving space, allowing you to add different things inside a laptop. I realise you could argue the same for hard disk space, but it's not anywhere near as limited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The trend only appears disturbing if you few it from a very, very high level.

Apple didn't do the best job of keeping up with some OSS components included in OS X. X11 is a great example of such a component. Outside of OS X, lots of changes were occurring with X windows servers. By including X11 (or even providing their own package), Apple was actually in the way. XQuartz dates back to 2007.

There were five releases in 2010 and 2011. By stepping out of the way, OS X users will have a more up to date version of X11 on their machines. That is a good thing™.

<comment><USER13> That's a good argument for Apple not including their own version of x11. But the author was most anguished that they _removed_ an installation of x11 that he was depending on.

<comment><USER14> Did all the config go as well? The dotfiles? Did the author try installing the recommended X11 over the top to see if the old configs were picked up?

<comment><USER12> My experience: My current OS install dates back to Leopard, which was installed on my MacBook Pro back when I purchased it in 2009. I've upgraded to each subsequent OS X release since then, and maintained a development environment utilizing X11 (for gnuplot) the entire time.

It is my understanding that the X11 included with OS X was actually a snapshot of XQuartz at the time of OS release, so the config data is in line with what XQuartz expects. In the Unixy bits, OS X upgrades are a lot like other Unix- like operating systems in that package operations remove the application, but not the configuration.

After installing XQuartz, gnuplot continues to run just like it did under previous versions of OS X. I simply ran the XQuartz installer and got back to work.

<comment><USER14> Yup, just like Ubuntu. Gnuplot does not depend heavily on whatever window manager you are using's config anyway, it just needs the X server (similar to R stats)

Good luck

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Imagine if Apple removes Terminal itself in the next version of OS X, or decides iMessage is the future and gets rid of Mail.app?"

I kind of lost respect for the article at this point, Mail.app, really?

I see them removing built in support for X11 the same as them not bundling java. There probably isn't the corporate will to keep up to date on these packages and it is better to have groups that will keep them update maintaining them.

<comment><USER16> While that seems unlikely , there is definitely a strong constituent of people who would applaud it as a "bold and forward thinking move", "lol, who uses email anymore?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > The Terminal was always limited, copy and pasting text in it was non > standard, there was no default repository for ports or applications. And no > matter how many cores or how much RAM I threw at it, it would beachball when > copying and pasting from one terminal to another using the default app on > Mac OS X.

I stopped taking the author seriously around this point: the lack of package management outside of the App Store is a serious problem but the other two distractions are signs that he's either misconfigured his system or is doing something crazy like pasting data files rather than using pbcopy / pbpaste.

For long-time users, this is a minor change and actually a good move: there were only a couple of releases where we didn't have to install XQuartz anyway to get performance or features which weren't available in the shipped version. Since this affected only a very, very small number of generally more technical Mac users I'm not surprised that Apple is moving it back outside of the default release cycle.

</comment><comment><USER18> This seems rather knee-jerk.

XQuartz _is_ X11.app. Percentage-wise, not many users needed X11 and the ones who do should be smart enough to follow the instructions they give to get XQuartz.

Apple effectively removed engineering redundancy. It allows for a more aggressive release cycle. Apple engineers still oversee XQuartz. Many of the main committers are Apple employees working on Apple's time, for example, Jeremy Huddleston.

I liken it more to the Java distribution transition as opposed to something like Messages.app obsoleting Mail.app.

<comment><USER19> I think you mean 'Messages.app obsoleting iChat.app.'

<comment><USER18> I did not mean that. I was referring to the following from the article:

 _"Imagine if Apple removes Terminal itself in the next version of OS X, or decides iMessage is the future and gets rid of Mail.app?"_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Whilst Apple removing an application without informing the user is bad, them not shipping things that are less used is a good thing. RSS I'm sure had at least 10 users, but it was an unneeded overhead in two applications.

X11 on OS X has always been, well, not that great and I use it fairly regularly for remote session testing and a few other bits and bobs. Apple wants someone else to keep it up to date for the people who need it to download it? Fine. Lets go down that route.

Apple is as committed to the terminal as they've ever been, which is to say it'll be there as long as there's developers and 'power users' on the system. If they do decide no longer to ship a terminal? There'll be other packages to do it. They can't rip the UNIX underpinnings out overnight.

<comment><USER21> > RSS I'm sure had at least 10 users, but it was an unneeded overhead in two > applications.

Exactly this is my issue (not the rest of your comment, but this sentiment which I see everywhere since a couple years or so). Every time Apple drops support for anything, people talk about cleaning up, or the inevitable march of progress, or about how Microsoft is doomed because you can still install their OS on unworthy 32-bit boxen.

RSS support in mail hardly imposed any overhead on users. Why do we care about what Apple's _programmers_ think or feel? These folks are paid to keep their apps running. Maintaining Cocoa apps is something that Apple can easily hire more people for (unlike hacking on the kernel, or on system frameworks).

<comment><USER20> It probably doesn't impose any overhead specifically on users, but it's additional codebase that needs to be maintained and whilst that's a 'well that sucks for the devs' issue it becomes a user issue as they're not focusing on their core competencies, which in this case is making the email client as good as possible. I'll take a better email app over additional, underused features.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> In the time it took to write this you could have just installed the damn thing

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm not sure what the problem is here, especially given this is a consumer OS targeted at the masses but still its underpinnings means it can scale out to the niche when required.

And this is exactly the case with X11, it doesn't exist on OS X 10.8 by default but luckily the OS tells me Apple have an open source version ready for me to download when I need it.

This seems like the best of both worlds, an average computer user isn't bogged down by niche software shipped with their computer and the developer can easily hop onto MacForge and extend the functionality of their computer. Heck you can even compile things since it's just BSD/Mach underneath.

</comment><comment><USER24> It's worth noting that OSX _does_ provide VNC support, transparently, as "Screen Sharing". AIUI this should be compatible with other desktop machines that run a VNC server and Bonjour.

While I wouldn't want to defend Apple's decision to drop X11 support, I should note that X11 is a minority pursuit on that platform, the Apple X11 server never worked brilliantly (Apple's use of the Alt/Meta key mapping for accented characters made for a messy collision with X11 world), and if there's a more seamless screen sharing system built into the OS, why not go with the path of least resistance?

<comment><USER25> X11 has little to with screen sharing. They always describe it as the networked window server, but in reality on OSX, it is the software that allows Inkscape and similar programs to run on your own machine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> For me, OS X has increasingly become too difficult for use in development. For a while there, it was the best, especially with tools like homebrew. But, it's just become too much of a headache. Too often, I find myself wasting hours trying to get over small OSS compatibility hurdles.

More and more, I've been finding myself picking up my 'other' laptop, firing up VirtualBox, and running Linux straight. I do miss the build quality of my MBP, though.

<comment><USER17> I'm curious, what do you have problems with? For me it's been smooth sailing since around 10.5 or so - and the only OSS problems were with projects which assumed everyone would use Linux with a certain version of GCC & autotools.

<comment><USER27> Their reorganization of XCode into an app bundle was really, really annoying and, frankly, makes zero sense; making the command line tools an extra download makes me suspicious that the developers they care about are Mac/iOS developers (as opposed to general purpose ones).

<comment><USER28> "makes me suspicious that the developers they care about are Mac/iOS developers"

No surprise here. It is very clear that the Mac is becoming two things:

1\. Just a bigger iPad that isn't too awkward to use where your average consumer can actually create stuff (videos, photos, etc.); 2\. A development machine to create iOS apps.

Everything else is an afterthought.

<comment><USER27> Sigh; I might have to switch back to FreeBSD for development. The only things tying my into my mac right now are tax software and word processing. Word processing I can just convert to TeX, but the tax software is an annoyance.

So, UNIX development is still there, but I'm worried that in the future I'll need to pay a developer license to run unsigned code (or something equally ludicrous). The interfaces are going down the tube - look at Notes, or iCal. If iOS keeps influencing OSX, we'll see tape reels and bookshelves in XCode.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but Windows 8's Metro actually looks better designed than modern Apple software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> TL;DR Linkbait/Apple is evil because they removed old software.

The article and some of his comments show a very narrow mindset. Thinking on how evil is every corporation, just for being a corporation.

Apple didn't include X11 in order to not tie the releases to certification and QA. In the other hand, many engineers on apple still work on XQuartz. Releasing more fast via the XQuartz

Everyone that really depended on it, has known for the last couple of years. And even beforehand talked about on the last rc's for Mountain Lion was a topic very active discussed with documentation readily available on Apple support site (<http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5293>).

And the same narrow-minded people replying with comments "my TASCAM (any hardware really) doesn't work on ML", blame the hardware vendors, they did have many months to do testing and porting of software to the latest release or at least inform your customers. It wasnt like ML was a surprise release and the same will happen with Windows 8.

Years of blaming that could be solved by RTFM.

<comment><USER30> > TL;DR Linkbait/Apple is evil because they removed old software. The article > and some of his comments show a very narrow mindset. Thinking on how evil is > every corporation, just for being a corporation.

What is the value in giving a synopsis like this which is completely wrong? The author discusses his feelings a couple of times in the article, impugns Apple's motives not once, doesn't discuss corporatism, and uses the word "bad" precisely once to describe his experience here. He's not hyperbolic enough to use the word "evil," that was you.

Users who depend on both X11 and Apple's RSS support (all ten of them) are going to find this upgrade a bit of a pain. That's not reflective of a narrow mindset, it's reflective of an unusual use case.

<comment><USER29> The thing is, nobody is forcing them to upgrade. Except for the RSS thing that was a dubious way to handle it (maybe being more clear on ways to get out a OPML file).

Apple did inform, maybe in a way too opaque. But they did inform it.

On the topic of corporations. I may not interpret it as americans have the "corporations" rhetoric. But the feeling I have as a whole, from the author (Anthony and comments) was very paranoid.

Even calling the backend of OSX has "The Terminal" was very narrow on his scope to explain the problem of this trend and what we loose.

From where I see it, let XQuartz (partially supported/founded by Apple), Google (as seen on iOS6 Youtube.app removal), do it outside the OSX/iOS release schedule, even Apple did it for the iBooks apps and Podcast app.

Having old software stalling progress is just bad for all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> X11 never really fit in anyway. It was nearly always a special extra package to add in, and frequently lagged behind the open source effort they sponsored.

The upside of this, much like with Java and other similar unbundlings, is that updates to the software are no longer in lockstep with OS releases.

In the end, we get a lower likelihood of it being installed, but a higher likelihood that it's up to date.

</comment><comment><USER32> That is a lot of excitement for something that was available at <http://xquartz.macosforge.org/> on release day. I didn't even notice or care until I realized that libpng's headers were considered part of X11.

When Apple introduced X11.app, I regarded it a tactic to get UNIX developers onto the platform. At the time, MacOS developers were sticking to Carbon like glue, and I think that by improving the POSIX compatibility and adding X11, Apple was trying to get other communities excited about OSX.

X11.app did not integrate well with OSX, let alone Apple's shrinkwrap vision of the Desktop. I'm not surprised to see they treat it like an optional add on package, and I am somewhat relieved to see it continue as an open source project with support and recognition by Apple. It's the right way to handle a legacy framework in my opinion.

As for the loss of RSS from Mail.app and Safari.app. Srsly? People use that who don't have a six paragraph definition for "semantic web"?

</comment><comment><USER3> I guess there's nobody left at Apple who believed in the spirit of this advertisement:

<http://www4.macnn.com/macnn/articles/unixad.jpg>

Now that the Apple no longer needs to be saved by dorks, the dorks are being thrown overboard.

<comment><USER33> That ad is from 2002. X11 didn't ship with Mac OS X until 2003. Either they never believed in the spirit of that advertisement and the whole thing was a sham, or built-in X11 support isn't actually necessary for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I had a simmilar experience with Ubuntu a few week ago, when I updated from 10.04 to 12.10. I was already using Awesome as my window manager so I wasn't exposed to most of there UI overhaul, but somewhere during the update they removed the battery indicator applet.

<comment><USER14> Suggestion, try the XFCE battery indicator: might bring a panel with it, I don't use Awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is a very rational decision for Apple to make. 99% of their customers don't even know what X11 is, yet most of them will be downloading Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store. Not bundling X11 saves most users 70MB of unnecessary download.

<comment><USER3> It's been some time since Apple shipped the X11 package by default. You've had to download it yourself. They're not saving anything by removing it from people's computers

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I was just developing with headless gem [0] in a new open data project [1] (shameless plug) and I found this "issue".

For the record, I come from a hardcore Linux background (no Windows in my home ;)

Nicely handled by Apple, instead of permanently remove it and leave no trace, they shipped a "xstub" binary, symlinked all the binaries in /usr/X11/bin to it and make it show a clear way to install XQuartz.

IMHO, it is not a big deal, as some already pointed.

[0] <https://github.com/leonid-shevtsov/headless>

[1] <https://github.com/qomun/pipar>

</comment><comment><USER37> A general desktop computer shouldn't be an iPad. I think that's the central issue here.

Some people just want an iOS experience - some people want to use the full depth and power of a general purpose computer.

</comment><comment><USER38> interestingly, X11 is part of the "open sourced" part ( almost all of the UNIX underpinnings ) of OS X. Can you change what goes into the distribution CD provided by ubuntu ?

<comment><USER14> <https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCDCustomization>

Sort of. I've never done this myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Well, it's a click away - just like java. Not much worse than having to install it from one of the non-install DVDs that came with the OS.

</comment><comment><USER39> <http://xquartz.macosforge.org/landing/>

</comment><comment><USER40> Apple should remove Terminal.app and replace it with a stub that prompts you to install iTerm2.

<comment><USER11> Apple may well decide that the Macintosh should go back to being a Macintosh and remove Terminal.app _period_.

It's undeniably what Jobs would do.

<comment><USER41> Jobs was in charge of Apple as they shipped numerous versions of Terminal.app for a period of over 10 years. If he was going to remove it, he would have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I wonder if Apple risks losing its technical (i.e. programmer) users. If OS X stops feeling like a UNIX-like OS to technical users, and they move away, OS X may receive less attention from developers. And that won't be good for the platform.

<comment><USER43> Apple went to great lengths to get OS X validated as a full-on UNIX. To what degree do developers in general confuse UNIX itself with good-riddance mis- associations therewith which cause unnecessary friction against modern development? (Can we drop vi already? fine paradigm unto itself, but counter to any other 21st-century UI...)

<comment><USER44> Except vi is part of POSIX specification and hence you can not be certified UNIX without it.

<http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007904975/toc.htm>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> One can only hope the developers inside Apple still enjoy using the terminal and "unix subsystem" in their work, enough to keep these things going into the future. I mean, xcode still needs to shell out to run gcc/llvm/clang, right?

<comment><USER46> I'm not sure that it does. In fact the Mountain Lion upgrade deleted the command line toolchain from my machine. I had to go into Xcode and manually tell it to re-download the "Command Line Tools" optional extension.

<comment><USER45> That's just the stuff that goes in /usr/bin, right? Aren't the files always present in /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Toolchains/XcodeDefault.xctoolchain/usr/bin etc.?

<comment><USER47> Correct. And you can always run it using xcrun (e.g. xcrun clang).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> X11? Do I need that for my Mac to get on Facebook?

</comment><comment><USER49> Hacker News?

</comment><comment><USER50> Stupid article. Don't read.

<comment><USER51> Stupid comment. Don't read.

<comment><USER52> _sigh_ more and more like Reddit everyday.

<comment><USER53> Stupid Reddit. Don't read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> My question is this.. why the fuck does Apple ship Photobooth, Mail, Safari, Garageband, iMovie and iDVD with my OS and make it super bloated, when I have no bloody use for those?

Why can't we just go to Apple's website and install it if we want to?

</comment><comment><USER55> How was that quote again?

"Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away"

<comment><USER56> <Godwin's Law>

First they came for the communists...

</Godwin's Law>

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> This is just stupid. Who copies text from one terminal to another. You are missing the entire point of the command-line and piping. This is clearly a novice who just wants easy access to X11 because he does not know how to use the command-line tools properly.

I manage remote FreeBSD servers with just Terminal. It is perfectly fine. And I never copy and paste text in terminal windows.

<comment><USER33> People with different workflows are stupid!</comment></comment>


Alan Turing to be the face of new £50 note - <AUTHOR> https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/2019/july/50-pound-banknote-character-announcement <comment><USER2> This is almost two months old and was posted at the time.

<comment><USER3> Yes, but this is the first time it makes the front page. Better late than never.

<comment><USER4> It was definitely on the front page last time (664 points, 298 comments): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20439425](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20439425)

<comment><USER5> Thank you.

The top comment elegantly makes the point that:

 _It would have been better for Turing if the government left him alone instead of chemically castrating him and driving him to suicide, then venerating him._

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20441603](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20441603)

The fight for LGBTQ rights is far from over. As a reminder, LGBTQ individuals are at greater-than-average risk of homelessness.

[https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/06/lgbtq- indiv...](https://streetlifesolutions.blogspot.com/2019/06/lgbtq-individuals- are-at-increased-risk.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> These announcements always make me ponder about the people we'll put on bank notes or erect statues in honour of in 50 years and are alive and persecuted today but not recognized by society.

<comment><USER7> Aubrey de Grey. The future will look back at today like we were savages for not innovating faster to cure aging.

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

<comment><USER8> Beware people telling you things you want to hear.

Aubrey de Grey is most likely going to be remembered like the guy saying machine vision is a weekend project before any serious research took place.

<comment><USER7> 66 years from Kitty Hawk to landing on the Moon. Progress must start somewhere, and encouraging is more helpful than pessimism.

Even if I don't live forever, maybe my kids will. That will meet my success criteria.

<comment><USER9> Would you want that for them? The idea of immortal humans is extremely unappealing to me.

<comment><USER7> May they live as long as they wish a happy and healthy life, and may they die when they are ready and have made the choice themselves.

<comment><USER3> What will happen is that you will have a bunch of very rich centenarians who will own just about everything simply for having a couple of decades head start on the newcomers. The same thing is already happening today. Unless you want to cap wealth and property this is not going to end well.

It's already at the point today where real estate and other relatively scarce resources are much more available to and owned by the wealthy who then use this to extract rent from the younger generations. Give those people another 80 years or so to do play the game and we will _all_ end up in hock to them. You'll be born in debt to someone who was born a century or more before you.

<comment><USER10> If we're imagining a world with immortality why not imagine one with space colonies, or some other form of growth? The new people could get the new stuff, same as it's been since the end of feudalism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's good that Turing gets put on a banknote - and about time.

However, the concept art in that article is really ugly. I'm not that familiar with British banknotes - are they usually that messy looking? Every piece of text is in a different font, and it seems pretty vulgar to have a quote on the note at all. There's even drop shadows! It honestly looks like something I'd put together in Corel Draw in the mid-2000s.

<comment><USER12> I just got back from a trip to the States and I have to say that US money is very boring by comparison to UK money. How on earth do blind/old people deal with the fact that all denominations are practically the same size, design, colour etc?

<comment><USER13> I recently moved to the US and I hate its coins. To the point that I consider all of them unusable. When I get home, I leave all the coins that I received as change on a plate by the door, hoping someday I will bring all of them at once somewhere to change for bills (I believe there are machines that do this).

My complaints:

i) They do not have _numbers_ on them!! You have to _read words_ to know the value

ii) To make point i) worse, they have _nicknames_ printed on some of the coins!! They do not write _" ten cents"_, it is _" one dime"_. They do not write _" twenty-five cents"_, they write _" quarter dollar"_ (even the unit here changes)

iii) To make points i) and ii) worse, there is no default place where the value is written. $0.01 is a horizontal banner. $0.10 and $0.25 are round- based by the edge of the coin. $0.05 is round-based, but not by the edge of the coin, just slightly above another text that is by the edge.

iv) The coins do not obey a coherent progression of value and size. From smallest to largest the coins are: $0.10 < $0.01 < $0.05 < $0.25

v) The colors are all the same, except for the $0.01 coin.

So when you have a bunch of coins, you have to properly spread them in your hand to be able to compare their sizes (which is hard when the items are circles), account that there is no size-value correlation, and if you do not remember by size; you have to _read_ a tiny sentence, lost in the middle of several other sentences, with no typographic differentiation of where they are.

<comment><USER14> > ii) To make point i) worse, they have nicknames printed on some of the > coins!! They do not write "ten cents", it is "one dime". They do not write > "twenty-five cents", they write "quarter dollar" (even the unit here > changes)

Those aren't nicknames. They are the official names of the coins as laid down in the Coinage Act of 1792 (though "dime" was originally spelled "disme") and its successors.

[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Statutes_at_Lar...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Statutes_at_Large/Volume_1/2nd_Congress/1st_Session/Chapter_16)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Perhaps the continuing decline in the currency's value will give us an opportunity to see £50 notes more frequently. I don't think I've seen one more than twice in the past 12 years, and I get cash out less and less frequently.

<comment><USER16> You might be living in a bubble, fifty quid is much less than $100 and I see those notes all the time.

Getting currency exchanged before a trip? They give huge bills.

Buying a used phone or furniture from Craigslist? Are you going to pay with 100 twenties?

New ATMs even ask you the breakdown of bill sizes you are want.

<comment><USER17> > You might be living in a bubble, fifty quid is much less than $100 and I see > those notes all the time.

In nearly 40 years I can't think I've ever seen a £50 note, let alone spent one. €50 notes, sure, but Europe is backwards - I saw a €200 note once when buying a ferry ticket

> Getting currency exchanged before a trip? They give huge bills.

1990 called and wants its features back. I haven't been to an airport yet that didn't have an ATM. With the exception of the U.S. I rarely spend cash when I travel anyway.

> Buying a used phone or furniture from Craigslist? Are you going to pay with > 100 twenties?

I can't imagine ever wanting to spend $2000 in cash. I had a builder do some work and it was about £800, a simple bank transfer and job done.

> New ATMs even ask you the breakdown of bill sizes you are want.

Do they? I haven't used an ATM since May (and that was in Hong Kong). Now that is unusual - most people do use cash, but then most people are more likely to want £5 notes from an ATM than £50.

Now the UK isn't as cashless as say China, but Cash is certainly not the norm - especially for anyone under the age of 60

<comment><USER18> > I haven't been to an airport yet that didn't have an ATM.

Those have _terrible_ exchange rates. I've used an airport ATM once, and even then that was only because I realised too late that Switzerland wasn't in the Eurozone.

<comment><USER17> An ATM gives the exchange rate my bank gives, which is better than pretty much any bureau d' change.

<comment><USER18> The ones in British airports give terrible rates for Swiss Francs. My bank also had a terrible rate at the time. I got a better bank-like-entity since then.

<comment><USER17> I'm sure they do, why would I use an ATM in the UK to get Swiss Francs? You get Swiss Francs in Switzerland, so use one at arrivals in Zurich!

<comment><USER18> On that occasion, I didn't want to risk my (Halifax bank) card not working when I arrived — that particular card has been somewhat unreliable in the USA, and I still don't know why, so I cannot be sure it won't be denied elsewhere.

I have since gotten some better cards for international travels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Would be a good idea on many levels to follow suit and have Turing on an € bank note. His impact is universal.

<comment><USER20> The € bank notes do not have historical figures on them. Only the coins have historical or royal figures on them depending on the country that minted them.

If the UK had the euro they could put his face on their coins, but well... that's never going to happen anymore.

<comment><USER21> > that's never going to happen anymore

Give it 15 years...

<comment><USER22> Breenter?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wish it were also Rejewski et al. on the bill, the Polish mathematicians who originally cracked the Enigma about 8 years before they handed their work over to Turing.

</comment><comment><USER24> Alan Turing deserves it, but do _they_ deserve _him_? Few people have done so much for their country and afterwards been so thoroughly betrayed by it.

</comment><comment><USER25> He should be on the pound coin!

</comment><comment><USER26> Love this, but damn they should get whoever is designing the Canadian bills to fix this one up.

</comment><comment><USER27> Don't forget the mother of computer science.

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

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Alan Turing's achievements

* Designed the programming of world's first commercial computer (Ferranti Mark 1)

* Devised Turing Test, to test whether computer is capable of thinking like a huamn

* Got an OBE for his wartime services

* Inventor of Turing Machine. To this day, all stored-programme digital computers are modelled on this invention

* Built the machine that helped in the breaking of the Enigma code used by the German forces. This was used to decode 2 messages per minutes

* His work shortened the WW2 by atleast 2 years.

* Alan was a member of the team which decoded the 'Fish' cipher, which was used towards the end of the war by the German High Command to transmit messages between Hitler and senior officers in the field.

<comment><USER28> > His work shortened the WW2 by atleast 2 years.

And was then pushed to suicide by the intelligence agencies of the country he saved hundreds of thousands of lives for.

<comment><USER29> No, it was just ordinary police and a court conviction that did that. The intelligence agencies likely knew about his orientation long before and did nothing about it - if anything, it was something that could be used to control him.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The US needs some updating as well - see the kerfuffle about trying to get Harriet Tubman on the $20, which Trump nixed, because racism. He wanted to put her on a reissued $2 bill, but I'm not sure there's an appetite for that. Symbolism matters in this case, and Trump is clueless.

I still like this concept from a while back:

[https://kottke.org/10/08/us-dollar-redesign](https://kottke.org/10/08/us- dollar-redesign)

Replacing GW with Obama might be a bit contentious, but the rest of it seems solid.

<comment><USER31> > [https://kottke.org/10/08/us-dollar-redesign](https://kottke.org/10/08/us- > dollar-redesign)

Wow, that redesign is really impressive! I hope something like it gets adopted eventually.

<comment><USER32> That's incredibly bold and ambitious. I kind of love it. It breaks a universal tradition that I didn't consider before.

<comment><USER31> Here's a link with pictures of all the redesigned notes: [https://www.designboom.com/design/dowling-duncan-us-bank- not...](https://www.designboom.com/design/dowling-duncan-us-bank-note- designs/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This man broke the enigma code, which helped win the war against the evil Nazis. He built early prototypes of the modern computer.

Your computer might not be as powerful today, or even exist without his inventions. Funny how alt right/nazi idiots are using later versions of his technology to type out comments that seem to imply he's on the note simply because he was persecuted.

But it's easy to see why Nazis hate him. He's not only gay, but he broke their "unbreakable" code. Maybe they'd have gone further in their war if it weren't for him?</comment>


The Supersizing of American Colleges - <AUTHOR> http://priceonomics.com/the-supersizing-of-american-colleges/#truth

<comment><USER2> Taibbi had a good article on this last month: [http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ripping-off- young-...](http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/ripping-off-young- america-the-college-loan-scandal-20130815)

"Carey talks about how colleges spend a lot of energy on what he calls "gilding" – pouring money into superficial symbols of prestige, everything from new buildings to celebrity professors, as part of a "never-ending race for positional status." "What you see is that spending on education hasn't really gone up all that much," he says. "It's spending on things like buildings and administration. ."

One reason they do the gilding is to increase their ranking - which itself has problems. Rankings are primarily based on selectivity and prestige, which is sort of like judging that a hospital is better because of how healthy the patients are when they get there, not how much healthier they got while they were there: [http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_gladwell)

</comment><comment><USER3> To add to this article, I've written a lot on this topic and its relation to startups:

* Types of Graduate Degree Programs, [http://notonlyluck.com/2013/06/23/types-of-degree-programs/](http://notonlyluck.com/2013/06/23/types-of-degree-programs/)

* When to Drop Out of School?, [http://notonlyluck.com/2013/01/31/when-to-drop-out-of-school...](http://notonlyluck.com/2013/01/31/when-to-drop-out-of-school/)

* Lifelong Learning as a Substitute for School, [http://notonlyluck.com/2013/02/01/lifelong-learning-as-a-sub...](http://notonlyluck.com/2013/02/01/lifelong-learning-as-a-substitute-for-school/)

</comment><comment><USER4> The glaring issue can be summed up in one statement. College roi is detached from student roi in the near and mid term.

If these were strongly linked by design, the magnitude of the problem would be substantially diminished.

</comment><comment><USER5> > _even humanities faculty would go elsewhere if not compensated at the > growing rate of their education bracket_

But where would they go? Journalism??

<comment><USER6> I don't think most humanities faculty are paid well. Perhaps the top few at the top schools, but the dropoff is enormous.

A better question may be is it worth it for the government to subsidize research for humanities professors? Or should humanities teachers have regular 9 to 5 teacher jobs?

<comment><USER7> _A better question may be is it worth it for the government to subsidize research for humanities professors?_

Where is all of this filthy lucre that the government is throwing at humanities professors? I would like to get some. The only federal body that funds pure humanities research is the National Endowment for the Humanities, which has a grand total of $150 million by way of annual budget. I.e. essentially zero.

 _Or should humanities teachers have regular 9 to 5 teacher jobs?_

Perhaps HN commenters should have regular 9 to 5 jobs.

<comment><USER8> That comment is very misleading. The subsidy being talked about is not research subsidies, which pay lab costs and grad student stipends, not professors. Instead it's about tuition assistance in the form of student loans and grants. That's the subsidy that actually pays humanities profs.

<comment><USER7> _That comment is very misleading._

No it's not. I was responding directly to this:

 _A better question may be is it worth it for the government to subsidize research for humanities professors?_

The article itself didn't have anything directly to say about the humanities as a field of study.

<comment><USER9> The govt loans are subsidizing them via tuition.

If loans were given out on a ability to repay standard, instead of govt guaranteed, humanities would get fewer loans, therefore, govt loans are subsidizing humanities faculty

<comment><USER7> There was a contention that the government subsidizes humanities _research_. I demonstrated that, barring the rounding error that is the NEH, it does not. You reply that yes in fact the government does subsidize humanities _teaching_. I don't even know what to do with that.

Anyway, if loans were given out on an ability to repay standard then the biggest losses would be to health professions, criminal justice, early childhood education and other non-prestige career degrees toward which low income students tend to gravitate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >College is without a doubt a worthwhile investment that pays off over time in increased earnings and a better quality of life. If anything, a college degree may be getting even more valuable.

"Without a doubt", eh? I have doubts. Are we that sure the causality arrow goes that direction? If I had to bet money I'd say it goes the other way - college is more likely to attract people who will have higher earnings and a better quality of life.

</comment><comment><USER11> > College is without a doubt a worthwhile investment that pays off over time > in increased earnings and a better quality of life. If anything, a college > degree may be getting even more valuable.

Should it surprise anyone that it is expensive to buy an investment product whose returns get better and better-known?

<comment><USER12> But it is surprising -- or, at least, interesting -- that the product doesn't benefit from economies of scale.

<comment><USER13> In some cases it does. The University of California system has managed to scale up reasonably efficiently, with expenses growing more slowly than enrollment, thereby reducing the per-student cost of education. The result is that there's been an overall cost decrease of around 25% (in real terms) over the past ~40 years, if you take the total UC budget and divide by total enrollment.

The reason tuition (i.e. price charged to students) has gone up, even though the cost of providing the service has gone down, is that state funding has fallen even further than costs, more like 60% [1], so a larger portion of the cost is now charged to the student. For public institutions, at least, it's important to distinguish between the total cost of providing education vs. the amount charged to students, which are numbers that don't always move in the same direction.

[1] [http://www.kmjn.org/misc/uc_funding.txt](http://www.kmjn.org/misc/uc_funding.txt)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Previously submitted, but died: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6372933](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6372933)

<comment><USER15> Normally resubmitting would have just upped the vote count but the submitter tacked something on the the URL and it wasn't recognized as a previous submission.

<comment><USER16> The trouble is that there is no point sending upvotes to anything more than a couple of hours old since it'll never make the front-page and be read.

At least the original submitter gets a vote for the resubmitter the first time the submit (before they change the URL).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> what happened in 1981, when the price of college became unhinged from the CPI?

<comment><USER18> One hypothesis: the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 [1], which allowed federal grantees to own the intellectual property developed with federal funds. Prior to this Act, all IP made with federal funds belonged to the government.

As R&D is extremely expensive, one theory is that colleges raised their tuition to help cover the venture capital requirements of research.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayh%E2%80%93Dole_Act)

<comment><USER17> I'm not certain this makes sense. Why would they need to raise tuition if the venture capital requirements were covered by the feds anyway? Moreover, typically gov't granted departments are helping pay for other departments through overhead, not the other way around.

<comment><USER18> I don't think federal grants cover the research costs completely. For example, if my professor wins one grant, part of the money will be put aside for to cover 10% of his salary. He certainly doesn't have 10 big grants in play at any given time, so the remainder has to be offset by the University.

Add to that, you need a lot of overhead like administrative assistants, grant managers, technology transfer officers.

<comment><USER19> I would be surprised if your professor's research tab is partly covered by the university unless they are using startup funds as a new faculty hire. The universities I've been at all (Caltech, MIT) have a significant "overhead" charge against all incoming grants to cover the cost of university infrastructure, keeping the lights on, etc. So it is research that is subsidizing the university, not the other way around.

<comment><USER13> The last sentence is somewhat questionable, except at the top universities. Only at the most grant-successful universities does the overhead actually break even in recouping the extra outlays universities put into research. Examples: construction of research-specific laboratory facilities, co- financing of expenditures they wouldn't have otherwise undertaken (many grants require co-funding), increased salaries and hiring packages caused by bidding wars for faculty who have successful grant-getting records, department backstopping of PhD stipends when a large group has a dry year grant-wise, salaries for grant-writing assistance and research-support staff, etc., etc.

The former Dean of Georgia Tech's College of Computing reached a similar conclusion: [http://innovate-edu.com/2011/05/18/if-you-have-to-ask-ten- su...](http://innovate-edu.com/2011/05/18/if-you-have-to-ask-ten-sure-fire- ways-to-lose-money-on-research/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Can we agree there is a distinct and dramatic difference between public and private colleges? Should we even be talking about them in the same context? This seems to be much more of a private college bubble.

<comment><USER7> This part was really interesting too:

 _Public and private research universities had increased revenue from services like hospitals as well as from the Federal government, yet raised tuition to further increase costs. Other private institutions (such as liberal arts schools) have less revenue from their endowments and alumni gifts. They are charging higher tuition to both make up for that revenue and fund additional spending. To make up for less state funding, however, non-research public institutions are both raising tuition and spending less._

In other words, everyone is getting tuition increases, but only community colleges and lower-level state colleges are actually seeing a cutback in programs. That actually makes me kind of physically sick.

<comment><USER21> Although that's the effect that is immediately obvious to the end-customer, the student, in actuality "raising tuition and spending less" creates something more sustainable. They will actually be less dependent over time compared to other institutions. This is an example of institutions downsizing with short-term consequences rather than continuously expanding with longer term consequences.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Dear Priceonomics:

Please use a responsive design for your blog. I rarely get to read them because they are difficult to read on the phone, but they are fantastic and would be great to read on the go.

<comment><USER23> It's coming up on our roadmap. Email me if you'd like to test out our new responsive design - firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER22> Thanks Omar :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think we shall see a break between the desire for universal education, the public good of strong research and the pandering to powerful middle class votes.

100 years ago universal education ended between 12 and 14 years old and only the rich or the brilliant went on to further education. Now we are heading to a situation where further education is seen as the minimum universal education. (Something like 50 % of students are expected to attend college)

this effectively reduces most colleges and courses to an extended High School, with the expected ROI of the same.

whereas as a society we want to have only the most brilliant and motivated working on pushing out boundaries of knowledge - basically please invent the future for us.

and this will lead to two tier colleges - one that act as schools and one that act as universities.

we cannot allow the universities to be contaminated by rich idiots, or pushing research out with floods of high schoolers

so ... we should look to soviet Russia - who simply took the best minds and put them in college. publically funded, strict entrance criteria.

everyone else - publically funded colleges that manage to push the ROI down to zero.

<comment><USER25> _this will lead to two tier colleges - one that act as schools and one that act as universities_

That already pretty much exists. Strictly speaking I think the dividing line is whether or not you can get a PhD at the school in question; in casual speech, "university" vs. "college" sometimes approximates the distinction.

<comment><USER26> Note that some "colleges" can provide an arguably superior education than some lower-end public universities because professors are chosen and paid for their teaching ability rather than their research.

<comment><USER7> You don't even need to hedge that much.

Quite a few non-PhD granting colleges offer superior education (not even arguably superior, just superior) than all but the highest tier research universities, public or private.

I won't pick too many examples lest this gets bogged down haggling over details, but basically, Swarthmore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> For what it's worth, most of the data in these charts is false and/or misleading. If you read the actual primary sources that this post purports to use, you'll see the situation isn't actually nearly as bad as presented. It is somewhat more difficult to pay for college than it was in, say, 1970, but the 'statistics' here are wildly exaggerated.

The weak job market is a much bigger issue than the increased cost of college.

<comment><USER28> This post would be more interesting if you had some analysis. Its odd that you did so much legwork, without a single example of 'statistics'. Got something? Post up a counter-example. Or even just a regular example !

<comment><USER27> I only have Internet from my phone right now, which is why. It's the same basic idea as my comments on this article though:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5728788](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5728788)

But again their primary sources are fine, they're just not being honest about what they say. You'd be best off just reading the data from the NCES, College Board, etc.

As a rule of thumb, conservative ideology is mostly based on theories that have no basis in reality, whereas liberal ideology is mostly based on facts that have no basis in reality. This is a good example of the latter.

<comment><USER28> _But again their primary sources are fine, they 're just not being honest about what they say_

I only skimmed the article, but it seems like you are saying the data in the charts is OK but you don't like the text (?) If that's the case, why not make a more specific critique?

At its root, the thesis of the article seems to be there is a data-driven correlation with debt availability and COGS at universities. Notwithstanding the obvious similar correlation with Revenue.

I could check a regression, but the eyeball test looks pretty good. Personally, I thiked the author missed the mark. He should have run a correlation of student debt to university endowments.

That (time series) would be an even more interesting eye-opener.

<comment><USER27> "He should have run a correlation of student debt to university endowments."

Given that the median endowment is $0, I'm not sure that would be useful.

<comment><USER28> Need I mention "stratify the data"? If your technically unclear, I can be more specific. For example, student debt issuances (flows), not retained balances. edit: just for fun

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

2011 Endowment vs 1994 corrected for inflation. These are dollar variances. 100-->156 with inflation. If a school goes from 100 to 200, this would measure 46. Below data is the EXCESS in BILLIONs vs 1994. This is incremenatl wealth accumulation, the gross changes (typically 5x) are the second figure. Endowments are approximately at 3x wealthier following this massive inflow of cash, corrected for inflation.

1) Harvard University (MA) $22.6 up 516% raw

2) Yale University (CT) $13.9 up 548% raw

3) Princeton University (NJ) $12 up 505% raw

4) Stanford University (CA) $12.4 up 611% raw

5) Massachusetts Institute of Technology $7.1 up 571% raw

6) Columbia University (NY) $4.9 up 410% raw

[http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short- list...](http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list- college/articles/2012/11/27/10-colleges-with-largest-financial-endowments)

[http://data.bls.gov/cgi- bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=100&year1=1994&...](http://data.bls.gov/cgi- bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=100&year1=1994&year2=2011)

<comment><USER28> ^ Its worth pointing out that these "Non-profits" show financial returns on capital far in excess of "profitable" companies. corrected for inflation, school's capital is out-performing GDP growth by ~600 basis points, over a sustained period (multi-cyclic, etc).

<comment><USER27> Endowments don't generally come from tuition, and are only partly spent on scholarships/resources for undergraduates, so I don't see what this would show us. Especially since only a tiny percentage of colleges have significant endowments.

<comment><USER28> _I don 't see what this would show us_

You have an interesting lack of intellectual curiousity. Last time I checked, 37 college presidents were being paid over $1MM/year in salary. Where is that money coming from? Not the endowments? Your right. Its coming from students, who are basically laundering the government loans, into tuition to support operating costs of the colleges. Money is fungible, in that regards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It's ironic (or maybe it's just me) that the previous post before this on the HN front page is a rant against "disruption" ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6386989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6386989))

Ironic because typically there would be many opinions about how MOOCs would "disrupt" traditional college education.

</comment><comment><USER30> It seems as though the problem is more acute in private colleges. Public colleges just don't seem to be growing in price as much as private colleges. It seems like one solution to the issue of rising college costs is for us as a society to place less emphasis on pricey private colleges.

</comment><comment><USER31> Here is some stats perspective on the size of student loans:

[http://statspotting.com/outstanding-student-loans-in-the- us-...](http://statspotting.com/outstanding-student-loans-in-the-us-is-more- than-chinas-total-external-debt/)

</comment><comment><USER32> No discussion of interest rates?

Its all in the supply and demand.

Bubba can afford a $700/mo loan payment. In 1980 at 20% interest that means he's going to pay the university $30K. There's no way they're charging a penny less than he's capable of paying. Now run the numbers in 2010 at 3% and at $700/mo there's no way the university is going to charge a penny less than $150K. Either way its the same monthly payment, so what does Bubba care?

Works pretty much as interest rates steadily smoothly collapse to a multi- generational low. Not so much fun for the big players as interest rates revert to historical norms (or spike up to just as high of an unusual outlier)

A long term loan is a long term loan. Doesn't matter if we're talking about school or house.</comment>


How to save money AFTER reserving your hotel - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.ie/business/world/booked-your-hotel-room-and-then-see-it-cheaper-elsewhere-pruvo-can-help-you-with-that-36416693.html <comment><USER2> article says email@example.com, but it is pruvo.net</comment>


6 Ways to Get to a Million Users - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@zouhairb/6-ways-to-get-to-a-million-users-by-spending-0-in-marketing-eaab9bb3a54

<comment><USER2> Sensible and actionable advice that many techies overlook in the desire for virality. Building long-term, personalizable relationships with customers to help them get their important jobs done -- it's a scalable and sustainable solution.

</comment><comment><USER3> Amazing, practical advice. Segmenting users into happy and unhappy and then using that to ask for reviews is a really smart idea..

<comment><AUTHOR> but making unhappy users happy is just as important. That second part is the creating the sustainable retention.</comment></comment>


UserVoice turns 4: 182 people/sec see a Feedback widget + Helpdesk becomes free - <AUTHOR> http://www.uservoice.com/blog/entries/uservoice-fourth-birthday-basic-plan-free/

<comment><USER2> The problem with uservoice/getsatisfaction etc. is businesses approach them as a replacement for _normal_ support systems and then don't provide user support through them and rarely (if ever) bother with the ideas/suggestions users have, they think they're an easy get out clause for providing support (which is costly) and it ends up sucking.

When done right the systems rock, the way that Mint.com uses getsatisfaction is wonderful but the way most companies use uservoice/getsatisfaction isn't.

Perfect example of this model of support/feedback being done so wrong: Seesmic (<http://feedback.seesmic.com/>) just spend 5 minutes looking around, they have thousands of votes on thousands of suggestions and they've accepted only a few (back when the system is new) and now it goes completely ignored...

<comment><USER3> You should spend a second on <http://www.uservoice.com/helpdesk>. We've never said that UserVoice was a replacement for a support system, and we've actually very clearly stated that we think customer-powered support doesn't work as a standalone solution for 99% of companies (blog.uservoice.com/entries/customer- powered-support-doesnt-work).

UserVoice Feedback is a tool for getting prioritized feedback from your customers, not providing customer support. And how actively you respond to feedback is not something controlled by the tool, it's controlled by the company. We encourage our customers to actively respond to feedback, but we can't force them.

<comment><USER2> oh no, your product is wonderful and the problem is most definitely not with your company, it's with the way people approach it. The way that Mint.com use it (they use getsatisfaction, but it's the same model so we can treat them as the same) is the perfect example of the model working so very well, it's not a complaint / criticism of you, it's a criticism of companies that think they can just half-ass some modernisation of customer support. Just like companies that think making a facebook page and then leaving it is "social media".

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the clarification. We totally agree that any tool can be used incorrectly, which is why we're always working to educate our customers (and businesses in general) about best practices for customer service and customer feedback. One blog post at a time, we'll get people there. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Only problem I've had with UserVoice is that it turns into something like that stereotypical open source project bug reporter that no one monitors. You find a suggestion with 100 votes and either there's no response or something from the company that says "thanks, we'll take that under advisement" and it's not very satisfactory or anything.

<comment><USER3> That's definitely a concern here at UserVoice. We're firm believers in saying "no" (and explaining why) rather than letting ideas sit open or in "under review" or "planned" piles. We do and will continue to preach that to our customers, and we're looking at ways to actually encourage them to respond via the UX.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good deal. I'm guessing it is in response to zendesk's change to $20/yr donated to charity deal that they started a couple weeks back. Too bad I just paid for a year of that otherwise I'd give this a run.

<comment><AUTHOR> We actually starting A/B testing going to free back in January before their announcement.

PS If you change your mind we can easily import all of your Zendesk content into UserVoice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> We really like Helpdesk at ClassDojo, it's simple and doesn't get in your way.

They've had 1mm tickets total so far, so we've answered around 0.5% of all UserVoice tickets.

</comment><comment><USER7> When are you going to add the option to vote from the widget? ;D

Congrats, guys.

<comment><AUTHOR> 11 months ago :)

<http://www.uservoice.com/widget/></comment></comment>


The Chinese fascination with numbers - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190210-why-china-is-obsessed-with-numbers <comment><USER2> Isn't remembering your QQ number similar to remembering your phone number? I think the author is being overly dramatic as to how hard it is to remember it.

<comment><USER3> The whole article is over dramatic. It takes until half way through to get to the answer: numbers sound like words or the url is from their phone number.

But that would be a really short article, I guess...

<comment><USER4> My initial reaction as well: "What a way to draw out something simple across page of prose."

(1) Numbers in Chinese match well with the tonality of the language making it easier to remember (compare: "singing" numbers in any language works better to remember them).

(2) Chinese students are trained from a young age to memorize.

That's it basically. No "obsession". No hidden stuff. I also find articles like this pretty degrading.

That doesn't mean I'm not jealous of my Chinese half of the family to be able to remember numbers so easily whereas I can barely remember my PIN code :).

<comment><USER5> That reminds me every time when I have to tell some customer service on the phone my email address, which needs to provide every character an vocabulary to avoid typo, meanwhile, in China, I just need to provide QQ email with plain numbers, and barely made any mistake.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's hinted at in the article, but it's worth noting that Mandarin Chinese numbers are much simpler than their counterparts in most other languages. 1-10 are all monosyllabic and the system thereafter is pretty regular. Numbers are not as much of a mouthful as they are in English and probably easier to commit to memory.

<comment><USER7> There is one polysyllabic number from 1-10 in English (7). There are 2 3-syllable numbers from 11-20 (11, 17). After that everything is 2 or 3 syllables (X7s excluded) until 100. IDK man, doesn't seem like that much of a mouthful.

<comment><USER8> By monosyllabic he meant one short syllable only, or "mora":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mora_(linguistics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mora_\(linguistics\))

Eight, for example is one syllable with two moras, the "eigh" sound and the "t" sound at the end.

Same for Zero, which as "Ze" and "Ro" separated into two moras.

Nine, Five, Four, Three, Two, One, for example are one mora words.

Six actually has 3 mora, with "Si" at the beginning and the X at the end having two mora "k" and "s" sound.

In comparison all Chinese characters have one mora only, thus it's much faster and easier to use in numbers.

<comment><USER7> A valid point, but that's not what he literally said. We're all being pedantic here (nothing wrong with that, we're discussing linguistics after all).

I was just pointing out that he's literally wrong, and if that's what he meant he should be more clear in his phrasing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > the word 'four' in Mandarin sounds similar to the word for 'death'

The hotel attached to the Shanghai airport doesn't have a 4th floor... or more accurately it's labelled as the 5th floor.

The superstition is real, and more potent than western numerological superstitions such as 13 - the fact that number sounds resemble other meanings in Chinese seems like a valid explanation.

<comment><USER10> Many new condo buildings in Toronto are built this way as well. My building doesn't have a 4th, 13th, 14th, 24th, 34th or 44th floor.

Part of me wonders if it's also in part so they can sell the 39th floor as the "45th" floor.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The article is bellyaching about not being able to memorize 10 digit numbers, and that apparently westerners are afflicted with this curse.

I think that's just laziness. If you need to memorize a number it just takes a few minutes of work, and then some reinforcement later.

<comment><USER12> >I think that's just laziness. If you need to memorize a number it just takes a few minutes of work, and then some reinforcement later.

Actually it's been well documented that human capacity in working memory is 7±2[1]. This is why phone numbers were initially 7 digits.

It certainly is possible to memorize long strings with sustained repitition, but this is usually meaured in weeks or months even if practiced every day.

It's not "lazy" to be unable to perform at the far right of the bell curve in terms of recall.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magical_Number_Seven,_Plus_or_Minus_Two)

<comment><USER13> You're confusing working memory with memorization capacity in general. Memorizing a ten digit number is not significantly challenging and certainly doesn't take "weeks or months even if practiced every day".

<comment><USER12> >You're confusing working memory with memorization capacity in general. Memorizing a ten digit number is not significantly challenging and certainly doesn't take "weeks or months even if practiced every day".

It's certainly to memorize something short term (eg repeat your QQ number over and over for a period of time) but there needs to be spaced repetition over longer periods to make that memorization permanent.

Feel free to provide specific citations, as I did in my parent comment, if you would like to disagree further.

<comment><USER13> >Feel free to provide specific citations, as I did in my parent comment, if you would like to disagree further.

I'd encourage you to actually read the study you're attempting to "cite" by linking to a poorly written Wikipedia summary. Here's the actual link: [http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Miller/](http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Miller/)

If you read it, you'll find that it makes absolutely no claim about the long- term memorization of numbers outside of the range "7 plus or minus 2" \-- instead, it's discussing what it terms "immediate memory", your ability to perform tasks such as mapping specific tones to numbers on the fly, or repeat a series of number you've just been told for the first time, and how your conscious working "scratchpad memory" quickly becomes overwhelmed.

Indeed, the very paper you're "citing" disagrees with you entirely. He notes that subjects can _very quickly_ memorize much larger numbers, but that _this does not invalidate his claim re: working memory_ because this is simply accomplished by chunking the number to be memorized into segments compatible with the conscious mind's small working set.

Again: you have completely misunderstood the paper in question, and are incorrectly conflating "working memory" and "memorization capacity", which are very very different things.

<comment><USER14> While you more than enough defend working memory and memorization capacity, I figured I'd chime in with additional supporting documentation. Cognitive load theory models short time memory as scarce and finite in nature. With each "number", you have less freely available working memory to use AND maintaining those values places their own stress.

Current theories about long term memory (or "memorization capacity") consider it infinite in capacity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > to never flush toilet paper

Interesting note.

[https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-not-flush-down-toilet- pa...](https://www.quora.com/Why-do-people-not-flush-down-toilet-paper-in- China)

<comment><USER16> I was always wondering when I see a sign saying to not flush toilet papers. Do you need to throw it in the trash can after wiping your butt? Because I always flush it, don't want to make the toilet room smell bad or give a hard time to the cleaning lady/boy!

<comment><USER17> > Do you need to throw it in the trash can after wiping your butt?

Yes, and in my experience they're usually the kind with a lid.

It look me a long time to learn that you weren't supposed to flush TP in China, since people don't put signs about it in their homes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Because their writing system is a huge hassle, numbers look good.</comment>


Ask HN: Are there any JavaScript vector routing engines? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious, I'm looking in to building an offline mapping app (cycling route planning) I'd love to build it as a html5 app that can be both online and offline, so I'd like to find out if there are any implementations of vector routing using JS instead of server based web services? I already vector sets of the map data needed. <comment><USER2> Are you asking for something like [http://raphaeljs.com/](http://raphaeljs.com/)</comment>


Ask HN: College or Technological Educational Institute - <AUTHOR>

I just finished a P-TECH High School. Now I have to options: 1. Enroll in College and work part-time (20 hours) 2. Work full-time (40 hours) and enroll in an Technological Educational Institute, which is more like an evening school.<p>What would you do? <comment><USER2> First just so you know you have more than these options. If you're committed though to getting a degree though option 1 is your absolute best bet.

Both options are exhausting. I've done both at times but you are way more likely to persist and actually finish doing option 1. A lot of people are able to take classes at night and actually get something out of it but it is a lot harder because by the time you get there you are already tired from having worked all day. That's not even taking into account school work outside of class.

You will make more money working 40 hrs a week but that also means you will get tempted to say screw school, especially if you start make a decent wage. And while it is completely possible to live a great life without a degree you will definitely be limiting some of your options.

Lastly going to school full time as a student is a much richer experience. It's a lot easier to meet people and feel apart of the campus. This is by no means a prerequisite but it is an underrated part of the college experience. And even if you're not in it for the social aspects financially it can also be rewarding. Those random clubs all have scholarships they give out, as do a lot of the greek and student government orgs.

Look for scholarships. Carefully consider loans. But either way you go good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


SF built one new home for every 10.4 new jobs last year - <AUTHOR> https://sf.curbed.com/2017/12/15/16782272/san-francisco-planning-commission-commerce-industry-inventory <comment><USER2> What they also need to present is how much lag they have towards demand and supply of housing and how city is improving or not improving that balance.</comment>


Capital One statement on data breach - <AUTHOR> https://www.capitalone.com/facts2019/ <comment><USER2> Current thread on this story: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20560342](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20560342)

</comment><comment><USER3> >Importantly, no credit card account numbers or log-in credentials were compromised and over 99 percent of Social Security numbers were not compromised.

Cool, just other stuff, such as name, address, income, credit score, transaction history, payment history, ya know, nothing too important or personal..

Arguably the least important data element is the account number...

<comment><USER4> Moreover, less than 0.0000000000000001 of the statically-likely-to-exist life forms in the known galaxies were affected by this incident. Nothing to see here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I always love seeing the strange little PR downplay methods that companies decide to use. This one's got the appropriately bland and information-less choice of url/title with "Facts 2019" as well as:

(large bold text) No bank account numbers or Social Security numbers were compromised, other than:

(small text) Well, other than the 140,000 and 80,000 that were compromised. Oh and also the 1 million Canadian ones.

<comment><USER6> Did huckabee sanders draft this? It's also the bottom of the page... of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> From the criminal complaint:

>A firewall misconfiguration permitted commands to reach and be executed

Obviously this person committed a criminal act, however, Capital One should also shoulder responsibility for not securing customer data. I have a feeling we'd be waiting a long time for accountability on C1's part.

</comment><comment><USER8> What's in your wallet? :P

<comment><USER9> More like... What's in their wallet.

<comment><USER10> More like... who's in your wallet?

<comment><USER11> Skillful [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Détournement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Détournement)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


IoT starter kit unveiled by ARM and IBM - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31584546 <comment><USER2> > One example the firms gave for how this might be used in

> real-life involved using the kit to send information about

> local conditions to a remote data centre, which in turn

> would send back commands to a smart lighting system made up

> of internet-connected bulbs.

Honestly, why would any sane person want to do this?

By doing this you would give up your privacy and also your independence.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of existing microcontroller-based single- board computers with daughterboard expansion sockets. Many of them already use Cortex-M3 or Cortex-M4 processors. It would have been nice if the article provided even a hint at what this new offering is intended to provide that we can't already find.</comment>


Twitter to cap password length at 128 - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/wongmjane/status/1265657421596291072 <comment><USER2> Does Twitter have too big of an S3 bill? Are people using the passwords for unintended purposes?</comment>