Show HN: Weekend Project - SlideWriter for iPad - <AUTHOR> http://mtholking.tumblr.com/post/22539065261/slidewriter-ipad-demo

<comment><USER2> Looks really good! I think it would be useful if a two finger slide moved the cursor by word boundaries as opposed to speeding up the cursor. For example, in your video around the 1:00 mark, you two-finger swipe to get to the end of the line, but fall short by a couple of characters. If you moved by word boundary, then mistakes like this would be much less common. (I would suggest that when two finger swiping backwards, you move the cursor to the beginning of the previous word, and when swiping forwards you move the cursor to the end of the next word, much like how option left/right work in any Mac text area field).

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like quite a few developers are starting to adopt this idea, which I think is great! There's already a jailbreak version that was done a few days ago (<http://www.idownloadblog.com/2012/05/04/swipeselection/>)

I've been in contact with Daniel Hooper, who originally came up with the idea and made the video posted other day, and he says he's happy to see people adopt it in their apps. I think Daniel deserves a great deal of credit for putting this idea out there in the open instead of patenting it like some large companies might be tempted to do.

I've been implementing this functionality in my own word processor, UX Write, and will have it included in the first version when its released in the next few weeks. I've posted some details on my own implementation at [http://www.uxproductivity.com/blog/2012/05/05/text- selection...](http://www.uxproductivity.com/blog/2012/05/05/text-selection-on- the-ipad/)

I noticed that in this video they have a separate button above the keyboard for triggering selection, instead of using the shift key like in Daniel's demo. I ran into some conflicts with the shift key between my own gesture recognition and the built-in keyboard logic, as I suspect the developer of SlideWriter did too. The separate button looks like a good solution.

<comment><USER4> "I think Daniel deserves a great deal of credit for putting this idea out there in the open instead of patenting it like some large companies might be tempted to do."

Agreed. I'm somewhat annoyed that TNW's writeup doesn't even mention Daniel Hooper's video, which sparked all this sudden interest in iOS text editing a few days ago:

[http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/05/07/slidewriter-might- be-t...](http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/05/07/slidewriter-might-be-the-app- that-makes-text-editing-easy-on-the-ipad/)

<comment><USER3> In fact, given that this technique doesn't have a name yet, I propose that it henceforth be known as "Hooper Selection"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great stuff!

How difficult would it be to have the sliding gestures on the keyboard itself? Keeping my fingers at the same place would make things even faster...

Also, have you tried experimenting with acceleration curves for moving the cursor - i.e. moving the finger slow would yield a 1:1 cursor movement, while moving the finger faster would move the cursor something more like 8 times faster than the finger. With the right acceleration curve, the two-finger gesture could be dropped, and you could be even faster.

I'd love to use this in the editor of my choice. Could you make this open source?

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! I tried implementing an area to slide over the keyboard, but the touch events of the keys were always getting priority. I'll try out some different methods and see if I can get it to work in a way that will get approved by Apple.

I like the idea of the acceleration controlling cursor speed, I'll try it out and see how it feels.

After I get it to a place that feels good, I'll either release it as a component that can be dropped in, or open source it.

<comment><USER6> It takes a few tricks, but it is possible to attach a gesture recognizer to the keyboard window in an App Store-compatible fashion: <https://github.com/rpetrich/SelectWithSwipes>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In addition to submitting it to the App Store as a standalone app, I'd highly recommend componentizing your work and selling the source or a library through Cocoa Controls or BinPress.

<comment><USER8> +1 because I want access to the library, because I want every app out there to buy it from you and use it, and because I think the real goal of a project like this (just like the design prototype which inspired it) is to get Apple to recognize that this is how all text should work iOS-wide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Awesome solution for something I never thought would be possible without a jailbreak!

However the icon for the slide button could be better and simpler to understand. Maybe by showing a standard slider.

<comment><USER10> You do know that these features will only work within his app, not across all iOS apps right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> looks nice. was it somewhat-inspired by the video going around that demonstrates faster cursor movements by sliding fingers over the keyboard?

after a selection is made, it might be nice to pop-up cut/copy/paste options automatically (unless it does that and i missed it).

when will it be available to the general public?

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks. I was working on a similar app - but yes, it was influenced by that concept video.

good suggestion for the pop-up after a selection, I will add that in.

going to submit it to the App Store this week, I will follow up when it is available

<comment><USER12> IMHO you should credit the author of that video. While your work is amazing and you should be praised for your achievement, you should also make it clear about your inspiration.

Awesome job, I'll install it as soon as it hits the App Store

<comment><USER8> very much agree. apart from anything else, the inspiration is so obvious that if you don't credit you're basically just asking for a fight. and if you get it in the app store he might even be in a position to hit you with a DMCA takedown. my guess is it wouldn't happen, but why take the chance when all you have to do is give credit where credit's due? it's the right thing to do anyway.

<comment><USER3> I emailed Daniel Hooper (the originator of the idea) about this when I did my own version and here's what he said:

"I'm glad to see others like yourself implement my idea, and it would be great if you could give me credit when you release your app."

I think giving him credit is the right thing to do. It costs nothing and is more than a fair deal given how brilliant a concept it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Simultaneously developed as a Cydia plugin called SwipeSelection: [http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/06/editing-text-on-your- ipad-s...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/06/editing-text-on-your-ipad-speed- up-the-process-with-swipeselection/)

Works on iPhone as well, and is available now.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think i was sold with the nujabes background.

Great work by the way!

</comment><comment><USER15> Awesome! Sent you guys a tweet, would love this on my iPad

Sent from my iPad

</comment><comment><USER16> Are you going to put this on github ?

<comment><USER17> I made an similar implementation of this here: <https://github.com/cncool/SlideSelection>

It uses two fingers to select text because I couldn't figure out how to detect when the shift key was pressed.</comment></comment>


US colleges struggling with low enrollment are closing at increasing rate (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://america.cgtn.com/2019/08/02/us-colleges-struggling-with-low-enrollment-are-closing-at-increasing-rate <comment><USER2> As much as I'd love to pursue higher education and to get a degree, I simply can't afford thousands of dollars every semester. I'm not 17 anymore so it's harder to convince me to get into that much debt. If I ended up owing 150k and could afford to pay back 1k a month, It would take me 12.5 years. I'm sorry but it's just not worth it. I can't think of many sober people that would disagree. If an organization like Khan Academy wanted to charge ~$1200 a year for a 4-year program that I could receive an accredited degree from, I'd sign up immediately.

<comment><USER3> Just FYI state schools have generally have good resident tuition rates. You can get a 4 year EE or CS degree for less than $40k (cost of a nice car these days). Those degrees count just as much and they might fill in some gaps you don't know you have.

<comment><USER2> That's a lot better than some tuition-totals I've seen but at the end of the day, my biggest problem with this system is that it's not accessible to the poor/working-class without loans. I attended a state school for around a month or two. I don't think I knew one person that wasn't paying for it with a loan. I think lower cost is a step in the right direction but I also think there's plenty more to do.

<comment><USER4> My local community college is HCC which costs $3,500 a year, and U of H the local university costs $9,500 a year. So $27,000 to get a degree, which is not a lot of money compared to 4 years of time and effort. Assuming you're waiting tables that would be $120,000 in lost wages.

<comment><USER5> Outside of the potential social or philosophical benefits to going to college, a degree can be looked at like an investment. In the case of Houston, UH has good programs hooked into the petrochemical and banking sector in the city. The Bauer College of Business is well regarded and commodities traders start off at around $100k/year in salary and go _far_ higher:

[https://work.chron.com/commodity-trader-base- salary-28291.ht...](https://work.chron.com/commodity-trader-base- salary-28291.html)

The internship program at the university help facilitate a pathway into these kinds of jobs:

[https://careercenter.bauer.uh.edu/internships/](https://careercenter.bauer.uh.edu/internships/)

Alternatively, the chemical and petrochemical engineering departments are also well regarded. The local paper is only listing the average staring salary salary nationwide, but I recall new local engineering hires making somewhere between $75-$100k:

[https://work.chron.com/average-chemical-engineering- starting...](https://work.chron.com/average-chemical-engineering-starting- salary-19178.html)

Most seasoned engineers that I know of in the field make in excess of $200k/year and they retire as low millionaires.

The point is that $120k in lost wages pales in comparison to the financial security a degree can provide assuming that one has the appetite and ability for that kind of work. UH and HCC get a lot of grief, but it's a reasonable school that produces good people.

<comment><USER6> I think in software we have been spoiled. For the most part, degrees are really optional. This is mostly luck as it's possible to do software dev at home (try doing petroleum engineering at home).

Most professions require a degree either by legal mandate, or by essence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> gjsman-1000 Personally, besides a lot of this being self-inflicted, can we just mention how predatory colleges are?

You're a young 17 year old. You can sign on to owe up to over a hundred thousand dollars, if you choose to go to a private college, even though you can't smoke or drink until you're 21 (and, if you live in Mississippi, you aren't legally at the age of majority until you are 21!). Not only that, but it's a really hard debt to get out of and they will strongly pressure your family to cosign, which (should you fail) is a great way to wreck a relationship.

In fact, the 21 thing is pretty dumb anyway. You can get married, enter a lottery, take out over $100K in debt, or join the army and get killed, or gamble away your life savings, or buy gun ammunition, or sue people or get sued, but heaven forbid you buy a beer.

Next, schoolbooks. Ludicrously overpriced, to try to convince you to "sell back" your books at the end of the semester for a pittance. Colleges claim to love diversity - if so, you might consider not price gouging books to oblivion and making it harder for lower classes to afford college, perhaps?

<comment><USER7> Diversity is mostly a corporate "ideology"

<comment><USER8> No, corporate adopted it because it's profitable right now.

<comment><USER9> Just curious about this: What makes diversity profitable?

<comment><USER10> Because the lens of American society has moved beyond the acceptance of overt discriminatory practices in many areas, and business moves with societal expectations to capture money.

Now, go tell a realtor you want a house in a low crime, quiet neighborhood with highly rated schools and they'll know exactly what you are looking for. Or tell the hiring manager that the candidate you interviewed may not "fit well with the team" and that they should keep looking - they'll get it too.

<comment><USER9> You seem to point to hidden racism, but that doesn't answer the question. I see no discussion of profitability in your examples.

<comment><USER10> Take the contraposition: being overtly racist or segregationist is not profitable.

How many whites only lunch counters exist today?

<comment><USER9> I get your point, but I feel that's a bit off topic. You can definitely lose money by being overtly discriminatory, that doesn't imply that diversity is a lucrative thing. Not being discriminatory doesn't imply that you're promoting/focusing on diversity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a little sad but probably inevitable. I went to one of these rural small liberal arts school decades ago (good faculty but no national reputation). Even then it felt anachronistic with a bunch of privileged young people studying like English and philosophy and history but in a giant beautiful isolated summer camp. There was no real connection to industry or jobs (or the outside world) and not much STEM so if you didn't have connections you kinda got screwed. Makes me want to reread The Secret History though, it perfectly captured the weird cozy but suffocating vibe of being trapped in an isolated bubble with the same people for years on end.

<comment><USER12> Yet that environment is probably much closer to the original purpose of a university than most others. Philosophy students at a small liberal arts school are much closer in spirit to Renaissance-era Oxford, Sorbonne, or Bologna. At least compared to STEM majors at an urban campus in a work-study program.

The point of a university pretty much is to hole yourself away from the broader world and engross yourself in the life of the mind squirrels away from practical concerns about the real world. It's kind of weird that we shoehorned this whole idea of career preparation for mass populations into an institution that's uniquely unsuited for that specific purpose.

Then we get pissed off because when those same universities don't do a good job preparing students for the job market. But that's like complaining that a winter coat is uncomfortable to wear to the beach.

<comment><USER13> ...and also closer to the "original" fact that only the very few children of the privileged class could afford to attend and study nothing but Philosophy.

How many philosophers do we need?

<comment><USER14> Fucking _all of them!_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Well, well, well... if it isn't the consequences of your own actions.

1.) Colleges jack up their tuition to the point of being un-affordable (multiple years of salary), forcing students to take on massive amounts of debt at the start of their careers

2.) Prospective students are unwilling to become servitude to student loan debt at no-name small colleges and realize that college is hardly the only means for employment

3.) Small colleges close due to low enrollment

<comment> gjsman-1000 4.) Regardless of how you feel about it, college faculty and courses generally urged students to postpone marriage and childbearing, ironically resulting in less children to grow up and take college in the next generation.

<comment><USER16> 5) Those students, now parents, not only have fewer children, but having seen their older friends delay retirement to fund their kids education, and are now discouraging their own children from overspending on private schools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> the photo and the first frame of the youtube video are from columbia (in ny). kind of ironic since elite schools probably aren't facing these issues.

>According to Moody's, in the next few years the closure rate for non-profit, U.S. private colleges will climb to around 15 a year—triple what it was in 2014.

you know what kind of editorializing of titles i'd like? one that puts the lede front and center. there are 1687[1] private nonprofit unis in the US. so this is a rate of less than 1% a year. is that really alarming?

[1] [https://www.usnews.com/education/best- colleges/articles/2019...](https://www.usnews.com/education/best- colleges/articles/2019-02-15/how-many-universities-are-in-the-us-and-why-that- number-is-changing)

<comment><USER18> Elite research universities are definitely seeing constraints. Or, alternately speaking, theoretical physical and life sciences experiments are getting extremely expensive ;)

I think the college of the future looks a lot like USC Film School. It's virtually identical to a production quality film or television studio. But tuition, room and board plus stipend will all be provided in part via corporate sponsorship or government funding. Product development exists symbiotically with research as "pure" funding is priced out, even by the wealthiest of donors

Dominate the Fight: The Army's Synthetic Training Environment (USC-ICT)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWrquTLhMDU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWrquTLhMDU)

<comment><USER16> Ah, I've been wondering where all these slow training videos with atrocious, uncanny-valley NPCs in uniform come from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For those who aren't aware: CGTN is the Chinese version of Russia Today.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/business/cctv-china- usa-p...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/business/cctv-china-usa- propaganda.html)

<comment><USER20> Here's an article on Green Mountain from Inside Higher Ed. It contains a little more detail.

[https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/01/24/green- mountai...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/01/24/green-mountain- latest-small-college-close)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> The comments here are divorced from reality and the article.

The average student loan debt for students who took out a loan is around $30,000. Some have more, as averages work, but most have less. How? About 30% of students graduate with no debt.

Furthermore, the number of schools closing is absolutely trivial and if you read the article you would see that the real issue seems to be plummeting birth rates in the northeast US. The school in the article was charging $12,000 per year in tuition on average. A far cry from what the comments here would have you believe. "$150k in debt."

<comment> blaser-waffle Someone on HN reading the article? HAH

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > _While annual tuition was around $36,000, no one paid that. "We were > actually discounting that about 67%. So the average student was really only > paying about $12,000 for tuition," said Allen._

The opaque cost of college is one of the problems. If it cost $12k to go there they should advertise a $12k tuition and maybe wouldn't be closing.

<comment><USER23> Meanwhile college is 500€ a year in France...

<comment><USER24> Meanwhile the tax wedge in France is 50%, versus 30% in the United States: [https://images.app.goo.gl/w7bDooKFRoRewLYn8](https://images.app.goo.gl/w7bDooKFRoRewLYn8). On a $50,000 income, it'll take only 4 years for the tax savings to offset the benefit of "free college" (assuming average public school tuition). If you include the average cost of employer-provided health insurance in the tax wedge, you come out ahead in the US in 7 years (assuming 5% rate of return).

Of course, then there is the fact that Americans earn more. To use teachers as an example of a college required job: [https://www.oecd- ilibrary.org/docserver/gov_glance-2017-35-e...](https://www.oecd- ilibrary.org/docserver/gov_glance-2017-35-en.pdf?expires=1578976467&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=10D51B9B7B45160447639128805435E2). Average salary of $27,000 (adjusted for purchasing power) in France versus $40,000 in the US. Before employer taxes is about $36,000 in France. Before employer taxes and health insurance it's about $49,000 in the US. Applying the tax wedge again, the US teacher is making more than $10,000 per year more to start, and will offset the difference in free college in a bit over 4 years. After 15 years experience, the US teacher will be earning $75,000 before employer side taxes and health insurance, while the French teacher will be at $51,000.

<comment><USER25> Meanwhile you know little about tax system in Europe and you just blindly apply a ratio to an average taken from a picture. In France, raising a family or marry someone who earns less than you will reduce your income tax, unlike Germany for example.

About teacher's pay, if you look into the details, you will find that the french state motto is "Do as I say, not as I do". All the annoying employment law do not apply when the french state is the employer. As such, the brutto/netto salary ratio for teachers is bigger than other employee. But the main perk is not salary, it is the 2 month summer holidays and job for life, and of course free healthcare and pension plan.

<comment><USER24> Teacher pensions in France don't seem particularly generous: [https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/12/10/last-straw- tea...](https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/12/10/last-straw-teachers- france-join-nationwide-strike).

> One teacher's union put it this way. A retiree with a 40 year career in > teaching might have finally attained a salary of 3,200 euros a month. Right > now, they would retire with 2,281 euros a month, but after the reforms, that > would decrease to 1,803 euros.

Here in Anne Arundel county Maryland (which is kind of a middling state in terms of tax and public employee benefits), teachers with a bachelors degree earn $45,000 to start going up to $65,000. Pension benefits from the Maryland state employee retirement system after a 40-year career (to match the calculation above), would be $32,000. But Maryland teachers are also eligible for Social Security. At that salary range, that's be an additional $25,000 per year.

People have this idea that lower salaries in Europe are made up by the better benefits. That might be true for low income earners, but it's mathematically impossible for that to be true for above-median earners. Europe has more benefits and a flatter income distribution, but one of the costs of that is significantly less economic production.

Even factoring out corporate profits and the income of the top 1%, the U.S. economy amounts to about $47,400 per person. For France, its about $33,600.[1] Given that French taxes rest mainly on the bottom 99%, and provide a more generous safety net for the poor, it's literally impossible for an above- median person like a teacher to be anywhere near as well off, even accounting for benefits, in France as compared to the US.[2]

[1] This is based on looking at the current accounts for the various countries. I estimate $2 trillion in top 1% income and $1.9 trillion in corporate profits for the U.S., and $188 billion in corporate profits and $139 billion in top 1% income in France. The latter calculation relies on the reported figure that the top 1% earns 10% of all income in France and 20% in the U.S., but assumes that personal income as a share of GDP is similar in the two countries.

[2] Note that the $5,000 extra that Americans pay for healthcare compared to the French will reduce that gap somewhat for the average worker. But since we excluded corporate profits and top 1% incomes from the calculation, most of that extra money is going to be redistributed to incomes of bottom-99% healthcare workers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> What happens to the campus when a liberal arts college shuts down? In Green Mountain College's case it seems like they're looking for a buyer to the tune of $20 million or so. [0] I think it'd be pretty rad if old college campuses turned into hubs for remote workers; who's working on that?

[0] [https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/as-green-mountain- colleg...](https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/as-green-mountain-college- sells-off-its-assets-poultney-ponders-its-future/Content?oid=28561240)

<comment><USER27> Once there is a place I'm supposed to go to work remotely, am I still working remotely?

Complete Side note- I think there must be a market selling RVs to remote workers that work well as home offices. I converted a shed to a home office, but I spent almost as much as a similarly sized RV even after doing a lot of the work myself. The RV has the advantage of being easy to deliver, avoids building code restrictions, can come well wired for power and internet, and you get to have an RV.

<comment><USER28> When they're self-driving, at least on highways, I'm never going to work from anything else ever again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Did US Colleges struggling with low enrollment not close before? What kind of chicanery was going on to keep them open? Is the increasing rate a coincidence? The converse of this statement sounds borderline hilarious: US Colleges Not Struggling with Low Enrollment are Not closing at an increasing rate. Intuition tells me the larger colleges, especially those with sports pedigree are growing substantially, as consumers are now increasingly more aware of costs associated with degrees, and are opting in for more affordable options. The NCES projects an increase of 2% overall increase in enrollment in 4 year programs and a 3% increase in 3 year programs over the next 10 years, so these kids are going somewhere.

<comment><USER16> > Did US Colleges struggling with low enrollment not close before? What kind > of chicanery was going on to keep them open?

The rising tide of population growth lifted all boats. High school graduations peaked in 2013. That's total, not rate. Presumably the rate peaked even sooner. There's no more American-born students to victimize. And with the current administration's immigration policies, the US higher education market has had an "opportunity to explore a limited growth marketplace".

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> > Part of the problem is demographics.

> The number of high school seniors is dropping – dramatically in some parts > of the country

Are we headed for inverted pyramid like Japan?

<comment><USER31> The other problem is ballooning administration and the associated costs. The administration can run it into the ground and be unwilling to trim their unnecessary colleagues/selves, preferring to no longer exist or allow their hired professors to provide a valuable service

<comment><USER32> This isn't true.

The main driver of the growth of public education costs is legislative funding cuts. As government has stopped paying for higher education, this cost has been shifted to families, making what once was affordable, increasingly unaffordable. This crisis is is the result of choices we've made.

[https://www.savingforcollege.com/article/how-do-state- fundin...](https://www.savingforcollege.com/article/how-do-state-funding-cuts- affect-tuition-inflation)

[https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/02/25/government- colle...](https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/02/25/government-college- funding-cuts)

[https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and- tax/funding-d...](https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/funding- down-tuition-up)

<comment><USER33> Gov does not pay for private colleges.

<comment> L-four Hahahaha good one.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, take a look at University Affiliated Research Centers if you think Stanford and MIT do not receive federal dollars. They compete with McKinsey for highest hourly rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> >Allen is spending his remaining days wrapping things up. The coffee machines are going away and he's now giving tours of the campus to prospective buyers, including Chinese buyers.

This reminds me talks of China buying up land and properties in US. I wonder why they are doing this.

<comment><USER35> Occam's razor / base rates.

China is like 20% of the world's entire population. It's close to as much of the global economy as the US, or the EU. It's way bigger than Japan.

There's a ton of wealth there, and a ton of rich businesses and people.

As things stand right now, China should account for about 15% of all asset purchases globally. It's not surprising if a lot of land and schools and houses and business in the US are being bought by China. There's similar amounts being bought by the EU and Japan.

A conspiracy theorist would tell you it's because a lot of people inside and outside of China think the RMB is over valued (by as much as 50%). There's probably truth to this, but compared to the above mentioned base rates -- the affects are likely negligible.

<comment><USER36> I would expect rates of land purchases in a country to be heavily biased towards its citizens, not be near their share of global GDP...

<comment><USER37> The USA is an open market compared to other locales. It's why the Japanese bought up a lot of real estate during the 80s, and why the Chinese are doing it now.

<comment><USER36> I know, I just mean that people are generally going to spend much more of their wealth on local land than abroad, so there's no way the land purchase breakdown is going to be anything like the global GDP breakdown.

<comment><USER37> True, but they already do. China is basically just exporting some of the property bubble they already have back home (just like the Japanese did in the 80s).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> As others here have pointed out, if you have absolute top scores, and GPA, and have done awesome projects, then you can get a full ride somewhere. Just got to find that ride.

If not, then wait until over 25 so that your parent's income isn't considered, assuming they make say more than $50k or so combined family income. (Ie more than the federal poverty line.)

Top standardized test scores are necessary for financial aid and admittance to a top program. Plus a high GPA. The GPA requirement sucks since it's completely arbitrary. Maybe your GPA is low because you are super high IQ and teachers hated your guts. That happens often.

</comment><comment><USER39> Here's a recent article from NPR discussing the problems smaller colleges face when enrollment decreases [1].

Many of the issues (faculty cuts, etc.) have been discussed here, but something I find interesting is that, in order to stay afloat, they're changing the demographics they target. Namely, first-gen students (this has been an existing target for sometime) and returning adults:

" The challenge is that returning adult students are a lot harder to recruit. For high school students, Orians says, "we know where those people are. High schoolers are a captive audience." But when it comes to adults, she says, "they are everywhere. They are working. They are parents. They are engaged with their community." "

That said, they recognize recruitment isn't always enough. They also plan to explore industry partnerships, further teacher training, and, most importantly, student retention:

" Last week, new numbers on graduation rates revealed that 60% of students who start college get their degree in six years. That's the highest its been in nearly a decade. "

1\. [https://www.npr.org/2019/12/16/787909495/fewer-students- are-...](https://www.npr.org/2019/12/16/787909495/fewer-students-are-going-to- college-heres-why-that-matters)

</comment><comment><USER40> My 15-year-old will be dealing with the college rat race pretty soon. Some of her friends have been taking community college or online college courses in their later high school years. Some have graduated high school and are working, taking some remote courses at night, methodically working toward career goals while not going into debt.

The old monolithic approach to college, really an extension of the K-12 system, seems increasingly impractical and irrelevant for today's needs. I agree with others here who argue for taking courses on an ad hoc basis, focusing more on growing a career starting from age 18, rather than immersing oneself in higher ed for four years, hoping and assuming there's a nice job waiting at the other end.

Look, if you have $200K or $300K lying around, great, go to a nice liberal arts school and enjoy yourself for a few years. There are few things in life more fun than being a college student, stuffing your mind with knowledge during the day and getting soused at night.

But in the real world... these little liberal arts schools are a luxury our society no longer can afford, nor do they really serve much of a purpose anymore. The only shame is that we potentially will lose some writers, poets, and artists.

<comment><USER41> Paying tuition to the tune of $200k-300k is not a prerequisite to becoming a writer, poet, nor artist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Good riddance. Colleges want the benefits of the free market when it comes to nearly unlimited demand for higher education, but act like victims when students finally decide to be price sensitive.

The vast majority of people go to college so they can get a job with that degree. When schools are charging obscene tuitions while simultaneously doing a terrible job at landing those students good jobs, I have 0 sympathy for them. Good riddance to these deadweights.

</comment><comment><USER43> Let's be honest. US colleges did this thing where when they grew they also just grew costs without growing delivery. The problem with costs is they're sticky downward.

This, of course, is a good thing that these colleges are closing. Can you imagine a place teaching economics when it cannot apply it to itself?

<comment><USER44> Fueled by cheap, even free, money. Defense, housing, education, healthcare. The market does work.

<comment><USER45> A captured loan monopoly that puts kids in a non bankruptcy position since 2005. In 15 years, close to 2 trillion in debt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> You think it's bad now? Wait until you see what happens in 2026.

As many of you remember, the bottom dropped out of the US economy in 2008. As a result, many people delayed having children for a few years (or just decided not to). That means that the freshman class of 2026 is going to be significantly smaller than that of 2025, and that's going to shut down a large number of small and financially strapped colleges.

It's difficult to imagine exactly what's going to happen afterwards, but we can be confident that things will be different.

<comment><USER6> Hmm, that's an interesting perspective I never considered. I wonder if it gets easier to get admitted to (med/law/top undergrad) schools if there is a population drop.

<comment><USER46> Probably in 2030 we're going to see a similar but smaller hit to those sorts of schools. What effect that has is anyone's guess right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> The job market is still looking for a way to separate ideal candidates from the general population.

The economy spends a lot of time dealing with unvetted untalented people that "need a chance" to perform as much as someone that is unvetted but talented.

It doesn't have to be college, but there isnt another system so robust and bussing as many people throught it. Sure corporations can try apprenticeship programs but that will take a decade for it to be broad enough.

</comment><comment><USER48> I never understood why it is a desireable thing to put the young into unimaginablly high debt just to get educated. This, the death penalty and no public healthcare are the reasons why I dont really consider the USA as the role model for modern society they'd like to be.

</comment><comment><USER49> Most of these colleges that are closing or merging are small private liberal arts schools, many have a religious affiliation. The main problem is not cost per say (as the article points out some of these schools are only $12,000/year), it's that many of these schools have not updated their curricula for decades. The degrees from these institutions offers little in the way of preparation for a 21st century career that could justify even their modest cost. There are plenty of small schools in the Northeast that are thriving, schools that have changed with the times that offer competitive programs in technology, science, medicine, business, politics, law etc.

</comment><comment><USER50> Why didn't they just ADVERTISE the tuition as $12,000 (or maybe $15,000) rather than $36,000 if they were discounting the tuition for 67% of the students anyway. A lot of people probably didn't even bother to apply because of sticker shock.

</comment><comment><USER51> >In Vermont, three colleges have ceased operations this year, losing roughly 1,000 students.

So 333 students per college or an average freshman class of about 100 per college?

<comment><USER49> Vermont has an uphill battle. The overall state population is declining, in particular younger adults are leaving in droves to move to bigger cities. There just isn't much in-state demand for high ed in Vermont and few out of state students looking to move there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Why does colleges have to be that expensive? I'd love to study, but simply can't afford it. Other countries can do it for less, why can't we?

<comment><USER53> Waste on ever growing administration overhead and top tier administration salary combined with prestige construction unrelated to academic or research success.

Fueled by cheap loans difficult to discharge in bankruptcy, a cultural idea that everybody needs a degree to be a worthwhile person, and a glut of degree- bearing people competing for lower and lower tier jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Can self-organised education communities be a thing?

A big chunk of university education is collaborative anyway (cringy "now turn to your peer and discuss", partnered lab work, group assessments) and it would help improve higher variety of skills.

Maybe this way we can learn with an aim of learning, as opposite to optimising the grade.

</comment><comment><USER55> It's no wonder. Collegs/Univeristies are insanely expensive, even if you count the residential programs put into place.

I can get my masters degree with 7k out of pocket in another country. As a US citizen. I haven't found a similar program in the States that is that cheap.

</comment><comment><USER56> College was obviously a bubble 10 years ago. Couldn't happen to a more deserving group of people. Better still: make all colleges responsible for student debt.

</comment><comment><USER57> Good.

</comment><comment><USER58> Good. Make a product the market will buy at a price the market supports or go out of business. The American public has been sold a bill of goods when it comes to the necessity of student loan debt and degrees of questionable value.

This isn't a slight on higher education as a concept, but a condemnation of higher education as an industry. Higher education inflation exceeds that of even health care.

</comment><comment><USER59> > shrinking number of high-school seniors in the U.S.

What would be the reason behind this?

<comment><USER49> There are simply fewer kids, people have been having less children, getting married later or not at all etc:

[https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/12/06/high- school-g...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/12/06/high-school- graduates-drop-number-and-be-increasingly-diverse)

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Population decline from not having kids.

</comment><comment><USER61> I feel like traditional universities is a dying breed. Of course some big and famous ones like MIT will stay, but in general it is not worth it. If you want to get a degree, instead of $36k a year, you can enroll into online university like UoPeople where the entire 4 year Bachelor Degree will cost you $4k.

Disclosure: I'm not affiliated with UoPeople, but I did graduate from there.

<comment><USER62> It's a nationally accredited university, not regionally, so you are out of luck getting into any regular university afterwards as all of them require regional accreditation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_accreditation...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_accreditation_in_the_United_States#Regional_accreditation_compared_to_national_accreditation)</comment></comment>


In some Bay Area counties, college grads have higher unemployment - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/12/26/silicon-valleys-worker-shortage-creates-an-upside-down-labor-market/ <comment><USER2> Terrible headline but useful article. The real answer is about housing cost and bad zoning policy:

 _"We're seeing out-migration of many people from Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, presumably because of the high housing costs," Benner said. "That out-migration is disproportionately from lower income residents."

He added that housing costs driving out lower-wage workers "would have become much more pronounced in the last year or two." Lemus, who said he makes a little more than $30 an hour now, is saving to buy a home — in Arizona, where the cost of living is far lower._

[https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf- housing/](https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/) and [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/californi...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/california- affordable-housing-is-no-mystery-just-build-more) are relevant and will remain evergreen until we see state-level policy change.

<comment><USER3> Ok, we've changed the article title to the HTML doc title, which is more factual. As is often the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A better title would be "college grads with useless majors like sociology can't get jobs, but feel manual labor is beneath them".

<comment><USER5> Wild how after years of scandal involving tech companies not thinking through the impact of their products on society, people are still saying sociology is a useless major.

<comment><USER6> In your opinion what could be contributed by a sociology major to realistically avoid any of those scandals?

<comment><USER5> By working with a product team to develop worst-case scenarios for non- technical abuse of a tool, like trolling, harassment, manipulation via misinformation, blackmail, and so on. Especially as it concerns a tool developed by people mostly embedded in one culture and releasing it to an audience embedded in another. Soliciting feedback from people who study society and social problems, to understand how a tool might be used by people who are not like the people who are building it, might have helped to avoid a lot of problems.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. I know sociology was meant to be a placeholder for any one of seemingly worthless degrees, but the commenter has made a convincing case for how sociological analysis could have helped silicon valley social media firms (at the very least) recognize the kind of impact they have on society and be more responsive those impacts.

<comment><USER8> In my experience, Sociology majors are no less prone to "trolling, harassment, manipulation via misinformation, blackmail, and so on" than the general population. More so, in fact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Apparently journalists still don't understand the meaning of the word "shortage". There is no shortage. The supply and demand curves still meet. The government hasn't imposed any wage controls or banned raises. If employers want more workers then they can just pay more, or offer better working conditions.

If raising wages means that some businesses will lose money then that's a different problem. But it's not a _shortage_.

<comment><USER10> More precisely, and the article alludes to this, there is a shortage of workers willing to work for entry level wages.

<comment><USER11> I wouldn't be surprised if the big tech companies started bussing in some of their contract labor outside of the bay. The commutes (>1hr each way) are really terrible and there's no way to really live on less than $20/hr full time as a single person... much less care for children. Plenty of those people have an associates/bachelors degree, but without local family support they can't survive.

<comment><USER12> I believe if they were to provide bus commute as a benefit to contractors, the state would force-convert those contractors into employees.

<comment><USER13> I had a friend who worked at Google as a contractor and took the shuttle in to work. I think there was some detail about having to badge in so her rides could be reported and deducted from her pay[1]? The details are fuzzy, but as I recall she just ignored the rule and nobody seemed to care much. The upshot was that she used the cafe and ride services much the same as I (an FTE) did. The existence of those hoops to jump through makes me think that you're probably right that an official service for contractors would probably violate their contractor status, legally speaking.

[1] I'm pretty sure I'm remembering part of this incorrectly, because us FTEs were supposed to badge in too to avoid non-Googlers from riding.

<comment><USER12> You're right about having it deducted from pay, by one other human report to NYT anyways:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/technology/10google.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/technology/10google.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Freedom of Press Foundation's fundraiser for encryption tools for journalists - <AUTHOR> https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/?123

<comment><USER2> yes!</comment>


Apple and Google Covid-19 Contact Tracing - <AUTHOR> https://paulbrittain.net/covid19-contact-tracing/ <comment><USER2> First issue is "Private until you test positive" is incorrect.

The broadcast identifiers roll with the BT MAC addresses, assuming your device is sane enough to do that rolling, so you can't go from a diagnosis key to a specific device. The diagnosis keys also don't provide a mechanism that allows you to determine the device - going forward or back from the published ones. The protocol does not include any identifying information - the _only_ thing that can associated day keys with a specific device is the diagnosis key server, and that doesn't have access to actual contact info, so can't build up anything from that.

Secondly there's the permanent tracking infrastructure: this API and the associated crypto by design do not include sufficient info for tracking.

I think the problem here is that people keep reading the Google simplification (that imo is slightly misleading), instead of the actual protocol and cryptographic specifications provided by Apple. The latter of which explicitly spells out the privacy compromises from a person who publishes their diagnosis keys.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a blessing and a curse.

It will create a president and soften public opinion on tracking people.

BUT the current positives are immense. If implemented well the most of the economy could be up and running again while keeping corona under controle like South Korea.

So overall I think it's a positive.

<comment><USER4> would it still be a positive if the president-cum-dictator used this tool or some descendant of it to track & trace political opponents across the country before jailing/murdering them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's over already</comment>


1.6ghz Intel-powered Android phone with 400mhz gfx launches in India - <AUTHOR> http://xolo.in/

<comment><USER2> Android 2.3</comment>


Internet Explorer Platform Suggestion Box - <AUTHOR> http://uservoice.modern.ie/

<comment><AUTHOR> Vote for features to be included in future versions of Internet Explorer! (Taken from: [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/10/01/internet- explo...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2014/10/01/internet-explorer-and- the-windows-10-technical-preview.aspx))

<comment><AUTHOR> If you're unsure what to vote for, how about the revolutionary Web Components specs (Custom Elements, Templates, Shadow DOM and Imports)? See [http://css- tricks.com/modular-future-web-components/](http://css-tricks.com/modular- future-web-components/) for more info.</comment></comment>


Adobe warns users not to upgrade to macOS Catalina - <AUTHOR> https://www.creativebloq.com/news/adobe-catalina-issues <comment><USER2> > Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Classic CC ... aren't quite ready for the > upgrade to macOS Catalina

Perhaps Catalina is not quite ready to be an operating system.</comment>


Lawyer sues Apple, claims FaceTime bug "allowed" recording of deposition - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/01/lawyer-sues-apple-claims-facetime-bug-allowed-recording-of-deposition/ <comment><USER2> I don't think this should go very far. If the building the lawyer has made doesn't have sufficient security, it could "allow" recording of a deposition too. The door manufacturer is liable for not making a good enough door?

<comment> crooked-v The analogy here, though, would be more like if the door manufacturer accidentally installed a cat flap overnight in every customer's door, including the doors into courtrooms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> He must show that he was harmed to have standing in court</comment>


Ask HN: Which recurring tasks have you automated? - <AUTHOR>

From time to time, we might do some tasks that could easily be automated.
Knowing programmers, they could spend a lot of time automating boring repitive tasks.
So i'm wondering, what tasks have you automated and how much time does it save you? <comment><USER3> I have done a lot of scripts/tools to mostly automate or simplify it for non- techs to take over, but probably the one that I am most proud of was a 'mailbox reaper' task that was fully automated by crawling the filesystem in a Netapp storage engine (NAS).

A prior version was a simple python script that ran as a cronjob but it needed lot of hand-holding as it would run at times when the filer was too heavy, and it was annoying to babysit it all the time esp. at odd hours.

The new version used snmp data from the filer to 'gauge' how idle or busy it was (as a feedback loop), and it would self-throttle or 'accelerate' itself in various stages as necessary. Saved the company a lot of grief in storage costs, and it ran like a charm with with hardly human intervention. It kept various stats and logs which could be queried as needed. Also saved a lot of time for other engineers/ops on-call team to focus on other areas.

Looking back at it, it used some crude mathematical models to gauge the busyness of the filer, but this portion was designed to be plugable and independent of how the filesystem was being crawled.

This simple program (set up as a forever loop daemon) got me thinking on autonomous agents and 'self-healing' software in general but never had time to pursue it in a more academic setting.

</comment><comment><USER4> In my first "real" job, I worked at a publisher manually entering orders from paper and email into their production system. Multiple orders for multiple products required A LOT of repetitive typing: menu button pressing, addresses, costs, products.

I installed AutoHotKey (take that corporate security!) and over a few weeks wrote up a script that would let you supply an excel file with summarised stats about the orders you had that day. It would then physically automate the rest of the process using mouse/keyboard macros, like the office equivalent of a player piano.

It even had a little finite-state machine that knew where it was in the production system. For each order it knew where it had to be, and thus it could get from/to every other area of the production system by sending simulated keyboard/mouse-clicks.

I don't care what anyone says, sure an actual program would have been faster, but that wasn't an option.

In full flight it was awesome to behold. Like all the promises of labour saving technology made manifest! Of course, I soon learnt that labour saving was not the point of a corporation, but for the next few months until I quit, it was pretty cool...

<comment><AUTHOR> AutoHotKey and AutoIt are the most used programs for "novice" developers i suppose.

For AutoIT you actually have a forum with a lot of scripts available: [http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/forum/9-example- scripts/](http://www.autoitscript.com/forum/forum/9-example-scripts/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have a few sites that are on production, staging, and local servers. Each site is powered by its own SQL Server database.

There have been times when I have been working on a feature, and have noticed that the CMS content on local/staging is out of date with what is on live.

To fix this, I created a Powershell script to create a backup of the live db, copy it over to the staging server, backup the old db and restore the live db on staging, and to do the same on the local database. It's a bit awkward, but I wanted a one-click method that would sync all three databases, while ensuring that it would fail gracefully and would create backups in case something went wrong.

This works well for my personal projects, but I am looking to rewrite it for work at some point. I work at an agency, so a tool that can sync our db servers would be fantastic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Looks a lot like my PowerShell script integrated with my Visual Studio IDE.

I have an XML which contains the different servers (testing, dev and production).

I'd just type UpdateDatabases -T in package manager console :)=> so testing servers are updated with the latest migration

<comment><USER5> Sounds fantastic! Ever considered putting the source up? I've considered pushing mine up on GitHub, but yours sounds better, and would work really well in an agency setting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Starting a new project from a boilerplate and renaming/replacing/cleaning up the things.

It's a CLI Python script that copies templates to your desired location and asks you for replacement values. It works with regular expressions as well as strings and executes commands after cloning (e.g. initiate a git repo). It works of course for any language and any framework.

I started open-sourcing it and adding some things that will be useful for more people (e.g. files/folders to exclude, i18n, developer output, multiple template paths, install/setup script, etc.).

<comment><AUTHOR> Mmmm.. Probably could do this as well.

Is it template specific (eg. Bootstrap?)

<comment><USER6> Nope. You create your own templates, which can literally be anything - <USER2> language, any framework, any library.

I'm planning to make it a "Show HN" post once it's more or less tested and ready for others to check out.

<comment><AUTHOR> you should definatly do that. Hope you get some responses ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I needed a way of backing up mysql without writing a script to lock down the front-end (fancy isdown page), stop the webapp (just a php script that pulls data out of various APIs), stop mysql, perform the backup, then start everything back up.

So I run two instances of mysql, one is PROD and the other is read only replication. I can backup the read only replicated mysql instance without having to stop anything in production.

I am looking into the same for my nosql db's right now.

Regards,

</comment><comment><USER8> 3D file format conversion. It never works perfectly first time.

Currently, I have a Python script for format-converting and reapplying textures after an export from 3DS Max to an abandonware project called Mach Studio Pro, and I'm working on something similar to sort out opacity problems between Daz3D and Octane Render.

I've also made heavy use of a 3rd party script to mash converted World of Warcraft levels into a usable format for Max.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just an example, from time to time we check all our clients pagerank.

I have a script that extracts our database of clients and checks their pagerank through their mail (of any contact) or the "website" field.

The pagerank gets saved in the clients "internal note" field

<comment><USER9> Is there an API you're using, or is this scraped from somewhere?

<comment><AUTHOR> The code isn't much, i added something to github which was like v1 (now it's more integrated and more extensive) and should make it clear to you.

[https://github.com/NicoJuicy/GetPageRankWinForms/blob/master...](https://github.com/NicoJuicy/GetPageRankWinForms/blob/master/GetThePageRank.DLL/GooglePr.cs)

You get the PageRank by this:

        int Result = GetThePageRank.DLL.GooglePR.MyPageRank(URL);

PS. First github published project :-)

<comment><USER9> No way - thanks! It's even in my language of choice!

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, that's truelly awesome. Most people here don't use C# ;-)

It ain't that clean though, it was never supposed to be on Github.

Perhaps i'll clean up some code later. It was just fast development ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can't think of any physical tasks that I've automated, but I try to use calendar reminders to save me mental space. For instance, I've got scheduled reminders to change my bedclothes, take the rubbish out the night before bin day, replace parts on my bike annually, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> I should integrate this to though ;-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I renew my library books from a script in ruby. I haven't had a fine in over a year now.

</comment><comment><USER12> ooh plenty

resizing images i'd receive from clients for their websites to a standard size. it just runs through the folder and resizes.

image manipulation to add borders

automating a continuous integration environment, built a website where developers could enter ticket details and a front end component they require delivered to the lab, which then kicks off the build, makes the components and uploads to the client's server and sends mail

db2 package creation by looking up files on a unix filesystem and providing them to the dba's packaging tool

and everything i install i typically have a bash script for.

</comment><comment><USER13> I am a photographer, and was migrating from Aperture to Lightroom. I wrote a node script to recursively rename files and folders exporting from Aperture sorting by date, which would otherwise take days as I transferred about 10000 photos

</comment><comment><USER14> I created an API directory as a side project a few months ago. I manually posted new APIs submitted to the site on the Twitter account at first. It was kind of tedious, so I wrote a script to auto-post new APIs to Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER15> Pulling down all my employee hours from Harvest (I run a consultancy), updating a MySql database, running a bunch of burn-down / project reports monthly and emailing our customers.

</comment><comment><USER16> I built a script that downloads the new phone invoice from my provider's website every month and puts them in my Dropbox's expenses folder.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good one. Should do this also...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Over the past month and a half, I've built a glorified to-do list that keeps me on track. It automatically updates today's tasks, etc.

</comment><comment><USER18> I automated Windows and SQL Server installations / configurations using Powershell. I initially started with Ruby but eventually switched over to Powershell due to all of the things like being able to use .NET objects from within Powershell, etc.

If you work with Windows, this is a really awesome tool.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, Powershell is indeed extremely powerfull. Do you use it for something else also?

I use powershell to automaticly update multiple databases to the latest migration (but that's mostly because i'm using Entity Framework with .Net projects).

<comment><USER18> I'm still learning of all of the cool things that can be done with Powershell. So far, it's just been for server builds and configurations.

It would be great if, in the future, Powershell could be used for web automation. They already have WatiN, but you need to use C# to use it. While that is no problem, it would be great to be able to use Powershell for that as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Didn't know of WatIn, thanks!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


DNA Computer Shows Programmable Chemical Machines Are Possible - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/hardware/dna-computer-shows-programmable-chemical-machines-are-possible <comment><USER2> I'm on board with this, just so long as end users get proper training before giving them the keys to an API into their own bodies. I expect lots of StackExchange questions along the lines of, "I sent a POST request to my cerebellum and now I can't walk."

<comment><USER3> The real challenge there would be interfacing - some jackass didn't include any neural documentation. Although it would set off a whole wave of griping among older generations about how back in the day they didn't have wetware digital memory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Side note - Erik Winfree is the son of Art Winfree, a super fascinating character whose work is detailed beautifully in the book Sync by Steven Strogatz. Highly recommend for anyone interested in how spontaneous order emerges from chaos. Looks like the son is kicking ass too.

<comment><USER5> Thanks a lot

</comment></comment><comment> maze-le What is the difference between "DNA-Programmable Chemical Machines" and Proteins? Aren't basically all Proteins DNA-Programmable Machines? I don't think you can encode non-organic or organic chemistry without long-chained amino-acids, so why bother to use new nomenclature...?

<comment><USER3> Intention mostly - machines imply design. Putting aside the philosophical questions if designed proteins unlike known ones still count as proteins doing data processing instead of structural and signaling (antigens) might count as something different from what has been found in nature. Not to mention proteins can be synthesized from ammino acids without DNA or RNA.

One thing is certain all DNA programmable machines may count as proteins but not all proteins count as DNA programmable machines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The distinction seems subtle [https://youtu.be/gaFKqOBTj9w](https://youtu.be/gaFKqOBTj9w)

</comment><comment><USER5> echoes of last week [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19446234](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19446234)</comment>


Trianglify - <AUTHOR> http://qrohlf.com/trianglify/ <comment><USER2> Quite neat, but the design/effect is kind of outdated... already posted a few years ago. So let's ask ourselves, what's the new?</comment>


Upgrading a 50TB PostgreSQL database (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/adyen/updating-a-50-terabyte-postgresql-database-f64384b799e7 <comment><AUTHOR> Can anyone share their experiences with highly dense PostgreSQL deployments, lets say nodes managing 10TB+ of data in billions of rows? Anyone know if there are practical upper bounds, such as a point when the database will no longer startup?</comment>


YoFile - Have your friends create your social network profiles - <AUTHOR> http://www1.yofile.me/users/welcome?

<comment><USER2> This is a very compelling idea. It makes me glad I am not on FB, but it is interesting.

You might have some angry folk asking for content to be removed, however.

BTW, not sure you can trademark trollface :)

<comment><USER3> We're thinking that the Trusted Friends will be enough to removed really terrible content. A person simply has to ask one of those friends to modify/remove something! (I'm one of the devs)

<comment><USER4> That isn't enough for me. I wouldn't have a profile unless I had the ability to remove things.

<comment><USER3> Thats kinda the rub; you don't get to choose whether you have a yofile, any friend can create and edit one for you.

The fun part (at least for us when playing with it) is joking around on your friends' yofiles. Because it is anonymous we're always curious who edited what, and you can be a lot more open/honest.

<comment><USER2> It might help to alter your wording to deal with this reaction. This is just off of the top of my head, but maybe calling it a profile isn't the best choice. -People seem to feel like they should own a 'profile' of them.

Maybe you could call it an 'assessment', 'evaluation', 'appraisal' or something along those lines, -something that infers that the ownership is not in the subject's hands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it would work out pretty well. Sure you might get some content you don't like, but this idea doesn't seem to be based on what you like about you, it's what your friends like, or dislike, about you.

I foresee lots of nicknames from childhood, whether good or bad, being embraced. In fact I made a profile and my friend already gave me the nickname that kids used to tease me with when I was like, 7. In my opinion, it gives a great opportunity to reminisce. If you don't like it, don't read it.

</comment><comment><USER6> Pretty nice idea, but what the hell is "yofile" supposed to allude to?

<comment><USER3> Rhymes with "profile" and is a mashup of "Your file" and "Profile"

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "So you have a lot of facebook friends... but are they all really your friends? "

I wonder who want to know the answer.

<comment><USER8> Its a car accident situation, you don't really want to look but you look anyway...</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there any other web-business as easy as online dating and blogging? - <AUTHOR>

I was studying about the online businesses that has lowest amount of hassles; one that doesn't require anything other than building a web-app and your business is on with money coming in ... no purchase of any goods, no inventory, no shipping, lowest customer service headache, no returns, no coordination for selling 3rd party stuffs etc.<p>Do you know any business that is as easy as online dating and blogging business? <comment><USER2> To make a successful web startup you have to deal with problems much harder than pedestrian ones like inventory and shipping.

Creating a successful dating site "doesn't require anything other than building a web-app" in roughly the same way that being a successful novelist doesn't require anything other than writing a novel.

<comment><USER3> But good people can have insight into these problems. Most people probably don't have any intuition for how to partner with a manufacturing firm in China.

I agree that product design is non-trivial regardless of context - but some problems are a superset of the problems faced by web companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why would you deliberately look for low barriers to entry? If it's so easy that people will do it for free, you may have some trouble making a profit -- especially if your motivation is to do a minimal amount of work.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you want no hassle, affiliate sites are the way to go as you only generate the sales lead and they do all the rest. Once you find something that works, you just replicate. CJ.com is a good place to start.

I'm not sure what you mean by "blogging business" though, you mind elaborating?

Social sites where the users generate all the content are good as well, look into scripts like Pligg which are easy to install and customize to suite your niche.

<comment><USER6> blogging with ads related to the article that makes you money ... write an article on shoes & perfumes, get some ads displayed (thru google and yahoo network) and females will go crazy by clicking you money-in :-) --- though you require good advertising to get high traffic for your blog... but not impossible.

regarding affiliate sites; you need to have a good content on your webpages, because google (search and ad program) discourages sites that only displays ads to make money.

<comment><USER5> No money really in blogging, unless you own a network or are a complete blogging whore/pro like John Chow. AdSense pays shit and if you run any other ad network the Goog will whack your PR and drop you from search results.

You're right on about affiliates, I'd combine your idea with my suggestion, start a blog and instead of running AdSense use affiliate links. Remember the more focused your niche is the better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> But the people making money in ANY business are the ones who _aren't_ looking for something easy. As PG says, they're the ones looking for an opportunity to get rewarded for working harder than their competition. This is truer than ever on the web. Sure match.com or whoever may have cheesy ads but in the boiler room there will be talented geeks working their asses off.

</comment><comment><USER8> Gimmicks work well - <http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/>

<comment><USER9> As with most one hit wonders, it is hard to predict them or know why they work when they do (hindsight is great).

If you go for one, make sure you think big!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> drop shipping on ebay, i would argue, is easier if you have a good product to drop ship.

blogging requires effort to write content. online dating software requires effort to build the community and improve the site to a level that makes people actually want to use them. both require active work on the website that doesn't necessarily pay off, at least initially.

with drop shipping, you find your source and post it on ebay. the item sells, order an item and send it to them.

</comment><comment><USER11> User-submitted news sites that allow people to vote articles up and down. ;-)

<comment><USER6> you mean something like HN?? and how do you make money (from Ads may be??)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Most service based business like this have been done e.g. fininding jobs, houses, love.

If you want to go that route, just do what many others are doing - use web 2.0/3.0 tools to do them better and play the niches.</comment>


Show HN: Leads – Get the customer list of any tech company (Intercom,Stripe etc) - <AUTHOR> https://leads.whatruns.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Use Leads to gain customer insights of thousands of technologies. Identify prospective leads using signals like spending power, traffic rank, and geography. Sort, filter and refine the lead list before you export your lead list.

There's a 7 day free-trial to try it for free!</comment>


BlackBerry Launch Three Smartphones with Windows OS 7 - <AUTHOR> http://premiumbazaar.com/blackberry-launch-three-smartphones-with-windows-os- Research In Motion (RIM), continues to remain on a roll as it introduced three new business smartphones based on the new BlackBerry 7 OS in India. While the BlackBerry Bold 9790 combines the QWERTY keyboard with a high-res touch display, the Curve 9350 is its first CDMA device, and the Curve 9380 is the company's first ever Curve phone with an all-touch display. RIM continues with its strategy of making stylish and slim phones, while maintaining the business features, in a move to attract a wider customer base. <comment><USER2> Article's title says Windows OS, but article text says BlackBerry OS.</comment>


Icarus Verilog Simulator - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/steveicarus/iverilog <comment><USER2> Throwback and maybe not so useful anecdote.. the first startup I worked at created an analog/mixed signal circuit design suite that seemed fairly innovative. I am not a EE, so I really don't know how much of that was the founder's kool aid, but the space did seem very under-served.. think mainstream analog/mixed chip layout tools as everyone writing technical documentation in MS Word and there being an opening for something like FrameMaker.

Analog placement and routing is a lot harder than digital, and key to a lot of this was simulation of many permutations. We found Gnucap and iverilog to be capable tools versus the commercial simulators that cost six figures.

Chip design tools are an interesting space for sure, but I'm glad to be out of it due to the slow pace of change by both tools vendors and design houses. The startup has also never sold any software due to the quirkiness of the founder, and the end of the experience cooled my desire to work in startup space because so much is outside of your control even when you're in control if that makes any sense.

<comment><USER3> Most chip design tool startups are designed to be bought by a big player. The big guys (cadence, mentor graphics) don't really do much feature development. They just buy startups that innovate around one feature. In many cases, these startups make a plugin for one of the major tools. The plugins are able to integrate pretty well because the founders of these startups are often former employees of the big guys. Revolving door...

Your company might have had trouble brcause it is hard to convince engineers to risk a million dollar tapeout on untested tools.

<comment><USER4> Funny bit is that they'll know buy pretty much any crap. I've worked lately with a NAND controller IP that ticks /every single box/, has every single feature and absolutely all the acronyms you can think of, and is the most useless piece of cr _p_ ever* to use. It's so bad that I wish there was a 'passthru' mode so let me talk to the NAND flash on GPIOs, because it's likely I'd have better performance anyway.

But, that's a brand new IP bought by cadence to add to their list, and therefore it was also sub-licenced by some hardware designer somewhere (who has no idea what 'software' is) from the feature sheet alone. Then it lands on the poor unsuspecting person who needs to write the driver (me).

So yes, that startup/feature/IP cycle is a very weird economy indeed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I used Icarus for my undergrad verilog courses. We had to design a pipelined MIPS processor. The way they taught the course was using Xilinx ISE on windows. I didn't want to have to change my entire workflow and get a windows computer just to use ISE. I even tried their linux build of ISE but it was super buggy. Using Icarus on my MAC made my life much better and let me finish my compe w/o using windows at all.

Check out the processor build all using the Icarus toolchain:

[https://github.com/eggie5/SDSU- COMPE475-SPRING13/tree/master...](https://github.com/eggie5/SDSU- COMPE475-SPRING13/tree/master/pipelined)

</comment><comment><USER6> Verilator, which is also open source, is a much higher performance simulator, as it compiles Verilog to C++ first, rather than traditional simulation like Icarus.

[http://www.veripool.org/wiki/verilator](http://www.veripool.org/wiki/verilator)

<comment><USER3> But Icarus is also a synthesizer. Does verilator do synthesis?

<comment><USER7> No it doesn't. It translates the verilog source into C which it compiles to a native executable for simulation.

<comment><USER4> On a related note, ghdl [0] is a similar project but for VHDL. I spent a lot of time using it before I switched to verilog, it's a pretty nice tool on the other side of the fence.

[0]: [http://home.gna.org/ghdl/](http://home.gna.org/ghdl/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Globalized capitalism explained through bananas [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WBlqDeHiXI <comment><USER2> That was a very promising documentary. I did watch ~10 minutes of it yesterday. Now it seems it's not available anymore, not on youtube nor on dw. Do you happen to have found another source for it?

Edit: found it: [https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6mgu8q](https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6mgu8q)</comment>