Rob Pike: Simplicity Is Complicated [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedotpost.com/2015/11/rob-pike-simplicity-is-complicated <comment><USER2> I strongly disagree with this notion of "simplicity" as being attributable to scarcity of language features. Some of the languages that I felt were the easiest to use had quite a number of language features, but had simple _semantics_. I think Rich Hickey nailed this in his "Simple Made Easy"[1] talk. Complexity is _not_ about additivity, it's about entanglement.

[1] [http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made- Easy](http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy)

<comment><USER3> > Complexity is _not_ about additivity, it's about entanglement.

This. And nothing reflects entanglement better than a formal semantics. English (or any other natural language) always lets you sweep it under the rug. The only objective measure of simplicity is the size of a formal semantics.

I expand on this here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3sstis/for_bet...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3sstis/for_better_or_for_worse/cx0cp0q)

<comment><USER4> > The only objective measure of simplicity is the size of a formal semantics.

If we accept that, then simplicity alone is not a desirable goal. Something may well be formally simple but at the same time incompatible with human cognition. Indeed, that may not be objective, but since when do we value things only by objective measures? That the only _objective_ measure of simplicity may be the size of formal semantics does not mean that it is the most _useful_ measure of simplicity (if we wish to view simplicity as possessing a positive value that implies ease of understanding).

<comment><USER3> > If we accept that, then simplicity alone is not a desirable goal.

Agreed. Otherwise, Forth and Scheme would've taken over the world.

> Something may well be formally simple but at the same time incompatible with > human cognition.

Do you have a concrete example?

> (if we wish to view simplicity as possessing a positive value that implies > ease of understanding).

I don't particularly fetishize simplicity. What I want is the least effort path to writing correct programs. The following features help:

0\. Simplicity - smaller formal systems have less room for nasty surprises.

1\. Using the right tool for resource management - sometimes it's a garbage collector, sometimes it's substructural types.

2\. Typeful programming - it's an invaluable tool for navigating the logical structure of the problem domain.

<comment><USER4> > Do you have a concrete example?

Off the top of my head, and since we're talking about computation, I'd say SK combinator calculus. Or Church numerals.

> Typeful programming

It is, but it can also be a hindrance. Finding the sweet spot is a matter for empirical study.

<comment><USER3> > I'd say SK combinator calculus. Or Church numerals.

They're a PITA to use, but not because they're hard to understand.

<comment><USER5> But for writing actual programs, the complexity of using matters as much as the complexity of understanding.

(I recognize that this doesn't invalidate the point you are trying to make in the parent post. They aren't incompatible with human understanding. They're incompatible with writing programs in a reasonable amount of time, though.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From reading the abstract, it sounds like this addresses precisely the topic of "Worse is Better" [1].

There are frequent misunderstandings of this essay -- the argument isn't as coarse as "crappy software wins", or "release early and often".

The tradeoff is: do you want a simple interface (MIT style) or a simple implementation (NJ style)? If you want a simple interface, you have to hide a bunch of complexity underneath. If you want a simple implementation, you punt on some hard things and expose it to the user.

Despite its authorship, and marketing as a better C (which is the epitome of NJ style), Go is MIT style! The concurrency model hides a lot of stuff under the covers: sync vs async syscalls, segmented stacks, etc. And GC is probably the ultimate MIT-style feature, in that the interface is very simple (just pretend you have infinite memory), but implementations are tremendously complex -- basically each GC is unique and its own research project.

[1] [https://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is- better.html](https://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html)

EDIT: From paging through the slides, this seems to be basically the gist of the last half, but I don't see that he mentioned "Worse is Better" or MIT vs NJ style...

<comment><USER7> Go is a simple language, with 1970's features.

It is very easy to implement, and leaves a lot of the complexity (null pointers, generics, etc) to the user instead of solving it in the language.

This is a classic example of worse-is-better.

An MIT-style language would be Rust, which indeed struggled to get to v1.0 and Go vs. Rust plays out quite similarly to what worse-is-better would predict.

<comment><USER3> > This is a classic example of worse-is-better.

C won over Lisp, not because "worse is better", but because the C's advantages over Lisp (performance on cheap machines) were more pronounced than the other way around ("safety" achieved by means of lots of runtime checking - by no means was it possible to statically rule out errors). Lispers fancy their language of choice the pinnacle of computer science, but the falsity of this claim becomes evident under close scrutiny.

> Go vs. Rust plays out quite similarly to what worse-is-better would predict.

I see a brighter future for Rust in the long run, for the following reasons:

First, Go doesn't do enough for the programmer: Haskell and Erlang are safer and easier to use, and have much better parallelism and concurrency stories. What kind of silly value proposition is "safer than C" or "less verbose than Java"? Rust offers something genuinely new: half-assed attempts at "better C++s" have existed for a while, but "safer C++s" haven't.

Second, Rust plays much more nicely with other languages. Rust is no more difficult than C to call from, say, Python. On the other hand, Go seems to be more of an all-or-nothing proposition: "If you want to use Go libraries, use them from applications written in Go."

<comment><USER8> "...Go doesn't do enough for the programmer"

Seems like a "boo Go" echo chamber in here, but as someone that moved their entire backend infrastructure to Go, the offering was so compelling it was worth going against common wisdom and actually rewriting huge pieces of infrastructure code. And I'm hardly alone - many huge companies felt the same value proposition and made the same decisions.

Go isn't perfect for many things, but where it's placed itself - among often headless networking infrastructure projects and backends, it's exceedingly good at what it offers.

Edit: had repeated myself.

<comment><USER9> > as someone that moved their entire backend infrastructure to Go

What did you move from?

<comment><USER8> Mostly Python. It's a similar story to Dropbox, CloudFlare, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think that code readability is different from system comprehensibility, and that readability is merely a subfactor to comprehensibility. Readability often means the time it takes for me to grok a function, module, or unit of code, and often what fits on my eyeball.

System comprehensibility is how long it takes for me to learn the minimal set of atoms in order for me to comprehend an entire system.

Rob Pike criticizes map and reduce and other functional idioms as not machine simple. And although Rob Pike doesn't say this, I might argue on his behalf that functional code has a mild reputation for less readability.

But I would argue that functional idioms permit tasteful tradeoffs between machine simplicity and system comprehensibility. I would also argue that when a system gets to a certain largeness, I would be sometimes okay with sacrificing some readability and machine simplicity for system comprehensibility. I would also say that although I might lose some performance advantages with a functional approach, the improvement to system comprehension might mean an improved cognitive capacity for the human to optimize for distributed multi-core contexts, which might offset the losses from machine simplicity.

<comment><USER11> > I would also say that although I might lose some performance advantages with > a functional approach, the improvement to system comprehension means better > human optimization of distributed multi-core contexts.

You don't even need to bring in parallelism for functional approaches to gain in performance. Here's an example (in Rust) of how you'd implement collecting an iterator into a vector using the "machine simple" approach:

        let mut array = vec![];
        for element in some_iterator {
            array.push(element);
        }

Now for the functional, less "machine simple" approach:

        let array = some_iterator.collect();

Which is faster? Without knowing the details of the compiler, you might think the former is faster, because there are fewer function calls and less indirection. But this is wrong, as the compiler will trivially inline "collect" for you and eliminate any indirection.

In fact, it turns out that the second approach is often _significantly_ faster, because the standard library contains the equivalent of:

        let mut array = Vec::with_capacity(some_iterator.size_hint());
        for element in some_iterator {
            array.push(element);
        }

That is, it uses the size_hint() method to avoid reallocating during the collection operation, reducing the number of memory allocation and array copy operations to O(1) instead of O(log n).

What are the chances that you'd do this important optimization manually? Not high: it adds noise, it's esoteric, and it's easy to forget. But if you use the functional idiom, you benefit from the optimized approach every time. _That_ is the true benefit of abstraction, which is really the key point here. "Machine simple" and "fast" are frequently in _opposition_ , and too often people think that the former implies the latter.

<comment><USER12> An excellent example. This is also one of those things that is hard to profile away, because it essentially leads to a very flat profile because you're probably forgetting to use with_capacity()/reserve() _all over the place_ not just in single very-costly cases[1]. So you end up wasting, say, 1% CPU time all over the place... add up enough of these time-wasters and soon you're going to be wasting significant amounts of CPU time for no good reason.

Obviously, this kind of thing isn't a magic bullet, but in general I'd say the key for any kind of program is to express your _intent_ at the highest level possible. This benefits both optimization _and_ human readers! (That obviously means that the programming language must _support_ such abstraction in a non- leaky way.)

[1] Which _would_ show up prominently on a profile.

<comment><USER13> Not really... the wasted time is still all malloc() / realloc() / whatever under array.push(), and a half-decent callgraph profiler will catch that. array.push() will score far higher than it ought to, and the bulk of its time will be the reallocation.

Source: I've used oprofile, and later perf, to hunt exactly this kind of performance bug.

.

Of course, _fixing_ a pervasive issue like that is much more tedious than just _finding_ it. :-(

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This talk has a lot of very weak points. He made the claim that more features hurt readability (~6:10), because when you are reading you have to waste time thinking about why the programmer chose the set of features he did to write the code. To make that kind of claim without qualifications is just ridiculous - if it were true, why add any feature to a programming language at all? Especially if one believes readability is the most important thing in a programming language, which Rob Pike says he does. It may be true that _some_ features hurt readability, but it is obviously not the case that all features hurt readability for all people all of the time.

It is also strange that he makes so many claims about readability, considering it is the most subjective attribute of a programming language there is. For example, some code that would have been completely unapproachable to me a couple of years ago is perfectly readable to me today, because I've learned new concepts.

<comment><USER15> > because when you are reading you have to waste time thinking about why the > programmer chose the set of features he did to write the code.

It seems to me that what Pike is getting at here is how easy it is to build mental models of the code, the language, the underlying system, down through all its layers, and, yes, the code's original author and any subsequent authors.

I share your frustration at the subjectivity of readability claims. There's actually starting to be good academic research on code readability, for instance this paper:

[https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~weimer/p/weimer- tse2010-readabi...](https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~weimer/p/weimer- tse2010-readability-preprint.pdf)

<comment><USER15> Oh, or this investigation into programming language syntax for learnability!

> Recent studies in the literature have shown that syntax remains a > significant barrier to novice computer science students in the field. While > this syntax barrier is known to exist, whether and how it varies across > programming languages has not been carefully investigated. For this article, > we conducted four empirical studies on programming language syntax as part > of a larger analysis into the, so called, programming language wars.

[http://neverworkintheory.org/2014/01/29/stefik-siebert- synta...](http://neverworkintheory.org/2014/01/29/stefik-siebert-syntax.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm trying to think how the simple/complex from this talk compare to the simple/complex from "Simple Made Easy".

The part about how features should be orthogonal does seem similar to the "not entangled" (and to DRY / SRP).

The part about visible surface area -- garbage collection is "simple" because you can't explicitly talk to it -- seems to be a closer match for "easy" tho, as do the examples (smell test: anything with "and" in the name probably means there are entangled concepts).

...huh. Which means that his concept of "simple" _does_ in fact contain multiple things entangled together, or in other words is complicated. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER16> I can't even begin to measure the amount of time I've wasted trying to make go code look as concise as what I can have trivially in C where things like macros and do { } while() are available.

Instead of "simplicity" saving me time as Mr. Pike suggests, it leaves me dissatisfied with the results after wasting my time in attempts to prevent my dissatisfaction.

This probably isn't an issue for someone new to programming without the expectations experience with other languages may bring, but for a seasoned C programmer Go often feels like a regression.

IMHO, what largely makes Go useful over C is the language-level support of coroutines, and not because the simplicity of the "go" keyword or channels, but because it eliminates the need to design and integrate with snowflake event loops or the specifics of blocking/non-blocking file descriptors.

As a result, packages are written without concern for how the caller's event loop will be integrated, you just write blocking code everywhere and it can be used by every Go program with significantly less potential for impedance mismatch. The garbage collection and overall elimination of the need for allocating and freeing memory also contributes to this; no longer do you have to understand the resource life-cycle strategy of some C library you've decided to use, or if it's using the C library's allocator or its own, or if it's capable of using your allocator via some elaborate and unique initialization scheme.

Unfortunately Golang's concurrent execution model is also what makes it a pretty terrible language for system programming. Golang's inescapable and largely opaque underlying use of threads is a constant source of pain for anyone programming operating system facilities which influence only the calling thread's state, particularly state inherited by child threads.

I often encounter misuse of runtime.LockOSThread() in attempts to overcome this problem but as of now this is completely inadequate because the Go scheduler creates new OS threads on an as-needed basis from whichever currently-executing OS thread happens to be executing at the time. This leaks whatever unique state the thread may have into a newly created, unlocked OS thread, which may then go execute any goroutine - likely the very thing you were attempting to prevent in using runtime.LockOSThread().

There's plenty more to whine about, but I'll stop here.

<comment><USER17> As someone who reads far more C code than I write. Those macros you seem to be missing infuriate me. They hide far too much from me when I'm trying to understand the code I'm reading.

And as far as do and while go, why would you hide part of the state determining when you're loop exits at the _end_ of the loop just to save a few lines at the top. I am going to naturally try to read your code from top to bottom not top to bottom to top. The more you make me skip around the longer it will take me to understand what you are doing. 90% of my job is maintaining code not writing new code. Programmers who write as if that isn't the case just make the long term cost of maintaining the software they write larger.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I absolutely agree with all Rob Pike says. But in practice the problem is still the trade off. How limited a language should be ? what are the features a language should absolutely have to make the life of the developer easy yet still give him some room to express himself the way he wants? I think that Go failed if one considers that trade off. Often with Go, a developer ends up doing the job of the compiler, because its flat type system doesn't allow a certain degree of expressiveness ( or worse, forces the developer to use reflection , i.e. putting aside the type system all together and using a "generic" 'interface {}' type).

While C++ is something extreme in term of complexity , the other extreme, Go, is problematic as well. I've yet to find a language that has a good balance between the 2. But Go certainly showed that the tooling is as important as the language itself, and it's a great part of its success.

"Philosophically" , no question, I agree with Rob Pike. On practice, things are a bit more nuanced.

</comment><comment><USER19> I love the vector space analogy.

I have been thinking about the same thing: that the simplest languages have a minimal set of "orthogonal" features; though it never occurred to me to describe them in those terms.

But hey, it's Rob Pike. I was bound to walk away with something after listening to him talk :)

</comment><comment><USER20> The _mere presence_ of choice incurs a tangible mental cost, _even if that choice is not exercised_.

In the case of programming languages, this is not only a development cost, it's a maintenance cost as well. But this concept seems to apply to many more things than just programming.

<comment><USER21> Choices are made at the time of writing the code. And complex code has proven to be very easy to write. So the mental cost of all the existing choices must be minimal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> For another interesting talk on "extracting simplicity" vs. "mastering complexity", listen to Scott Shenker motivate Software Defined Networking:

[https://youtu.be/WVs7Pc99S7w?t=375](https://youtu.be/WVs7Pc99S7w?t=375)

<comment><USER23> Nice point; thanks for the link!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Some quibbling here in the comments about whether Pike uses the right definition of "simple". There is of course a context to Pike's notion of the word:

> The key point here is our programmers are Googlers [...] They're not capable > of understanding a brilliant language but we want to use them to build good > software. So, the language that we give them has to be easy for them to > understand and easy to adopt.

[http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Lang-NEXT/Lang- NEXT-2014/Fro...](http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Lang-NEXT/Lang- NEXT-2014/From-Parallel-to-Concurrent)

<comment><USER2> That quote is a hilariously denigrating claim to make of your coworkers.

Even if it were true (which I don't believe for a second), you've created a language released to the community at large. Your users are not just google engineers. If you want to encourage broader acceptance of your language, you're going to need to make a good faith attempt to listen to their requests.

<comment><USER25> I think that it would be taken in the spirit it was intended. Programming is hard. (even when you take into account [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadter%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstadter%27s_law))

Also, I'm pretty sure the "brilliant" is meant somewhat sardonically.

<comment><USER2> If this is all tongue-in-cheek then what does it really amount to though? A good-natured ribbing of Google employees? I'm in total agreement that programming is hard, but I don't think it's hard because of languages that pack in features, its hard because of languages that don't ensure reasonable semantics or provide you the tools to enforce them. Programming is hard because its inherently powerful... languages that allow you to circumscribe that power are what keeps me sane though, not particularly the ones you can fit on an index card.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I think most of his talk is wrong.

Or at least wrong when we talk about general programming.

Go isn't a 'bad' language. Go is simple another tool for one job and it's doing his job good, cause of his simplicity.

However not every problem is so easy to solve with this simplicity. Some problems doesn't fit well with the Go approach. And I always hate it when people talk about "why x is superior because less/more features", mostly things emerge when the problem emerges.

</comment><comment><USER27> I agree with him in principle although I agree with a lot of the other counterpoints made here too.

The biggest reason that other features get added to languages to make them ubiquitous is because in MANY cases companies marry their infrastructure to a particular language. With that infrastructure commitment you end up with an investment into doing everything with that particular language so if you have a feature or methodology in another language that would be good for a particular use case, your existing investments prevent you from being able to EASILY introduce a new language just for that feature.

Microservice architecture goes a lot way toward countering those investments. Heroku actually does a great job of removing language specific infrastructure investments from your process that make it easier to introduce language-per- purpose approaches.

Wrote a bit article on it for Codeship a couple of months ago. [http://blog.codeship.com/exploring-microservices- architectur...](http://blog.codeship.com/exploring-microservices-architecture- on-heroku/)

</comment><comment><USER28> There are several points where he won't mention the language. Which languages do you think he meant?

<comment><USER29> Probably C++ or Java (Go was written to replace them at Google).

<comment><USER30> The first mention sounded like C++. For verbosity (second mention), I'd guess Java. The third mention sounded like JavaScript where he said something to the effect of unexpected tangling, but those are guesses based on what Google uses and Rob's brief description.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> [https://youtu.be/rFejpH_tAHM?t=23s](https://youtu.be/rFejpH_tAHM?t=23s)

haha, that's a good one :)</comment>


Dunning–Kruger effect - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

<comment><AUTHOR> "The study was inspired by the case of McArthur Wheeler, a man who robbed two banks after covering his face with lemon juice in the mistaken belief that, because lemon juice is usable as invisible ink, it would prevent his face from being recorded on surveillance cameras."

<comment><USER2> I like the inclusion of the word "mistaken". You know, just in case anyone reading gets any ideas...</comment></comment>


The frustration and quasi freedom of being an Uber driver - <AUTHOR> https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/10/uber-lyft-uberland-algorithms.html <comment><USER2> The interesting bit here is that the exertion of control: encouraging drivers to accept rides more indiscriminately, constraints around car cleanliness and modern make, and a rider centered experience are the elements that make Uber bearable compared to Taxis.

I recently rode back from Newark Airport into New York with my girlfriend. We were tired so just grabbed a NJ cab. We were given a ticket for a 51 flat fare. What they didn't say was that the fare didn't include the toll or an almost 6% credit card fee. The car we took was filled with trash and it took 5 minutes for the driver to get his trunk to close. It took us about 25 minutes to get home and was about 100 altogether. Uber, Juno, or Lyft were flat about 60 not including tip. These kind of experiences were commonplace before Uber: and drivers are lobbying to get the same kind of awful regulations that kept taxis from competing toward better service everywhere.

I realize the issues with my perspective, I just don't have much sympathy for drivers who could easily stop driving if the economics don't make sense for them.

<comment><USER3> I imagine a lot of drivers do not have the luxury to stop driving if it doesn't make sense because Uber has encouraged many to take on financing (either through Uber or elsewhere) for these luxury / more recent vehicles that they would not otherwise have bought.

<comment><AUTHOR> When I first moved to Palo Alto in 2014, I didn't have my own car so I used Uber several times a week for almost a year. I would have to estimate at least a third of my UberX rides were in Priuses, and a few of my drivers had talked about how they had financed their Prius through something related to Uber. Since 2017, I honestly can't remember the last time I had an UberX driver with a Prius -- it's almost always Honda Civics/Accords or similarly low-priced vehicles.

It also seemed in 2014-2015 that far more of my drivers seemed happier, more professional, and enthusiastic about talking how much money they made. Nowadays I rarely if ever have that conversation.

<comment><USER4> If I understand correctly they were making significantly better money in that time frame.

<comment><USER5> The VC money that flowed into these drivers has essentially dried up as gig- economy startups push towards sustainability / profitability. As was predicted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ah, so Uber is using the same model as Amazon uses to deal with sellers? Support is a brick wall that can only provide scripted responses, and escalations go to an offline team you never get to talk to, plus they rarely respond.

<comment><USER7> The trick to getting a human response off the script is to actually reply to every communication as if someone wrote it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Uber is definitely changing for worse when it comes to customer experience. I've been using uber for a long time. Practically since it was available in Poland, for a long time experience was quite good, last half year something changed and cars are messier and cheaper (Uber Select in Fiat Tipo, come on), but the worst and most infuriating thing is canceling rides. Here how it goes: very often I'm traveling for short distances away from city centers. Drivers don't see where's destination, only how far is pickup, so they pick up everything, and when pickup is far, and driving distance not so much, they either cancel (there's cancellation limit, from what one driver told me) or just riding around (they have to start driving in some time after pickup) so I'll cancel, this way they are getting money if I cancel after 2 minutes. To put this into perspective: I had to go to some meeting, it took me 47 minutes to get a ride, 4 drivers cancelled before I got one, that btw said is riding as hobby, because he likes to talk with people. And doesn't matter if it's UberX or Uber Select, same thing happens.

<comment><USER9> You can request a refund when you're forced to cancel. I've never had one denied.

<comment><USER10> Sure you can, but their point is valid: you don't care about the money, you care about getting a damn car ASAP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> village-idiot One thing that has really stood out to me is that we need to clamp down on companies outsourcing risk and cost by declaring what are actually employees as "independent contractors", including Uber and Lyft.

Story time: my car was hit by a bike delivery guy. Not my fault, and the bicyclist was thankfully ok. When we called the company he worked for, their response was basically "he's an independent contractor, not our problem".

Really? An "independent" contractor working how many hours a week with a company branded bike? Managed by the company? At this point companies are just blatantly dodging employment law, and that needs to stop.

</comment><comment><USER11> Freedom until you offend a drunk rider who gives you a 1 star rating.

<comment><USER12> The shittiness of their system goes both ways -- It's not fun running a couple blocks down the road trying to get to an uber that won't drive to you, only to have them cancel and collect the $5.

<comment><USER13> You get that money back if you contest it, which obviously isn't ideal, but it's not like there's no recourse.

Lyft I noticed has some decent algorithms to detect obviously bad behavior. One recent ride I called just started driving the opposite way entirely and it allowed me to cancel with no fee. So Lyft at least has a few ways to detect when a driver is obviously acting in bad faith.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> What articles like this seem to miss is how good/bad the old cab system is in comparison. I would be curious to get that full vertical compared, also what changed for customers.

</comment><comment><USER15> What will happen to drivers when self-driving cars roll out?

In the meantime there is a long shot of a way to improve this type of thing. Which is to replace proprietary centralized platforms like Uber with open decentralized platforms that would allow multiple providers to share a common market and infrastructure and still compete. That would give drivers the ability to choose the nicer company but still have the large market.

<comment><USER16> Self-driving cars is Uber's end game

<comment><USER17> Uber will exhaust its financing before self-driving cars arrive.

<comment> village-idiot Depends on the market.

For the pedestrian heavy cities with inclement weather (New York, Chicago), you are probably right. For the car-heavy cities that never rain or snow (LA, Phoenix), they'll probably make it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Required reading for all future AI headlines:

[http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

</comment><comment><USER19> interesting write up that provoked a lot of thoughts in me.

>So there's the issue of opacity, not necessarily transparency but what's happening across the system because drivers have their own experiences, compared to the God view that Uber has to see what's happening with the whole system.

This makes me think of Foucault's panopticon. Uber is at the center always looking in, but your view is restricted.

>To any queries that didn't have a ready-set template response, drivers would just be hitting their head against a wall trying to remedy missing wages or trying not to get matched with a harassing passenger again, and so it's not bad that you have an electronic system for responding to driver inquiries and managing your workforce. The problem is can they be confident that they will be treated fairly when they do face challenges?

I see a connection here to Hirschman's _Exit, Voice and Loyalty._ Modern corporations find Voice to be quite annoying so they're attempting to completely cut it. Is a world where your only options are Exit and Loyalty actually going to be better? It doesn't seem so to me.

>There's no actual reason for that. But … is freedom and flexibility real? It implies a certain kind of partnership, it's attached to rhetoric about drivers being entrepreneurs, and at the end of the day Uber has the power to unilaterally control the rates at which they earn and could cut them sometimes or even raise them. Drivers can only negotiate for a lower fare, not a higher one. Uber constantly experiments with their pay with different features, and they can't build a client list and build a business. There are limits on the kinds of freedom that is implied when it is paired with rhetoric about entrepreneurship.

And this makes me think of Byung Chul-Han:

 _Neoliberalism forms a free entrepreneur out of the oppressed worker, an entrepreneur of himself. Everyone is a self-exploited worker of his own enterprise. Everyone is master and servant in one person. The class struggle is also changed into an inner struggle with oneself. Whoever falls today accuses himself and is ashamed. One problematicizes oneself instead of society._

\---

Uber is so interesting because it represents one of the starkest representations of the society we actually live in. Uber's employees are 'free' in the ways we have been taught that being 'free' matters. But it becomes harder and harder to actually say they are free. Our language is failing our conception of what actually matters and it becomes obvious that Uber drivers live in a system which is exerting massive amounts of coercion on them all the time. Apologies for the disconnectedness of my comment.

<comment><USER20> Thanks for this. I have been thinking about getting an academic yet beginners education in neoliberalism. Can you suggest a good primer?

<comment><USER21> Undoing the Demos by Wendy Brown

<comment><USER22> _Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism 's Stealth Revolution_

 __Summary __

 __Tracing neoliberalism 's devastating erosions of democratic principles, practices, and cultures. __

Neoliberal rationality—ubiquitous today in statecraft and the workplace, in jurisprudence, education, and culture—remakes everything and everyone in the image of homo oeconomicus. What happens when this rationality transposes the constituent elements of democracy into an economic register? In Undoing the Demos, Wendy Brown explains how democracy itself is imperiled. The demos disintegrates into bits of human capital; concerns with justice bow to the mandates of growth rates, credit ratings, and investment climates; liberty submits to the imperative of human capital appreciation; equality dissolves into market competition; and popular sovereignty grows incoherent. Liberal democratic practices may not survive these transformations. Radical democratic dreams may not either.

In an original and compelling argument, Brown explains how and why neoliberal reason undoes the political form and political imaginary it falsely promises to secure and reinvigorate. Through meticulous analyses of neoliberalized law, political practices, governance, and education, she charts the new common sense. Undoing the Demos makes clear that for democracy to have a future, it must become an object of struggle and rethinking.

[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/undoing- demos](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/undoing-demos)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Frugally-deep – A header-only library for using Keras models in C++ - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Dobiasd/frugally-deep <comment><AUTHOR> Initially I started to built this library solely as a learning experience. But then I needed to deploy Keras models in a specific C++ application and thus added the Keras import. Along the way I learned a lot about the the Keras model format, the details of implementing the different layer types and the computational graph. I would be happy to hear your feedback and to answer questions. :-)</comment>


'Retinal' HMD Using New Micromirror Array (Can Support up to 4k) - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/09/avegant-retinal-hmd/

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a discussion with the author of the article and an employee of the company at: [http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1o23bl/avegants_head...](http://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/1o23bl/avegants_headmounted_virtual_retinal_display/) which is where the tidbit about the micromirror and 4k resolution support came from.</comment>


T-Mobile gets the iPhone, Apple gets fast new HSPA+ network - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/03/20/t_mobile_gets_the_iphone_apple_gets_fast_new_hspa_network.html <comment><USER2> Pretty sure T-Mobile's 3G HSPA+ network runs on spectrum frequencies that are incompatible with AT&T iPhone. Definitely not the same as AT&T's. For example, the GSM-based Nexus S sold in the US works as a voice phone on AT&T or T-Mobile but can only do 3G data on T-Mobile.</comment>


IPhone 4's supposed signal woes aren't unique, and may not be serious - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.consumerreports.org/electronics/2010/07/apple-iphone-4-antenna-problems-dropped-calls-att-signals-bars-os-software-bugs-glitches-os-os4-iphone4-reception-problems-in.html <comment><USER2> Lol. I recently bought an iPhone 4 for Emily. We were messing around with it, and she called me while we were in the same room. So I walked over and moved her finger to a certain spot on the side of the phone, and I _immediately_ could no longer hear her talk. The call was dropped a few seconds later. Emily looked at me with an expression like, "Really? They would design a phone like that?"

So I told her to bust out the scotch tape and use it to insulate the gap. I then made fun of the fact that she had to tape her $200 phone, and that the act of taping the phone actually did something useful.

Needless to say, we were both highly amused. :D

... That is, we've both been amused until this very moment. Emily left about 20min to run up to the grocery store, and I've been trying to call her ever since. Each time I do, it goes straight to voicemail. So I texted her asking why her phone was off, and she responded with "It's not". She just called me, and the call was dropped.

This _never_ happened with her old 3GS (now my phone). To be clear, I called her 2 seconds after she walked out the front door. So the phones were almost literally next to each other at the time. We live in Petaluma, CA, which is about 30 minutes north of San Francisco, so it's not like we're out in the boonies. Our 3GS always reads full bars + 3G, so even with the inaccurate bar algorithm it should still be at least two bars of reception. Therefore the phones should always be capable of calling each other when they're almost directly next to each other.

So.... Strange. I don't know where people are getting evidence that the iPhone 4's reception is _definitely improved_ , but, consider for a moment that perhaps it's _definitely improved_ in certain areas, but _definitely -worse-_ in other areas.

<comment><USER3> Why are you referring to this Emily like we all know her?

<comment><USER2> You don't? Oh.

... But seriously, for the same reason you refer to 'x' in Python like it's already defined. It's just a symbol.

<comment><USER4> Aren't you supposed to preface it with a description?

"I recently bought an iPhone 4 for my wife Emily"

"I recently bought an iPhone 4 for my daughter Emily"

"I recently bought an iPhone 4 for my dog Emily"

<comment><USER2> I tend to think of her more as a way of life than as a description.

<comment><USER5> But can you think of her _with_ a description? Or is she inherently indescribable, aside from being female?

<comment><USER5> I think I may have broken palish...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Consumer Reports has already posted an update to this article: [http://blogs.consumerreports.org/electronics/2010/07/apple-i...](http://blogs.consumerreports.org/electronics/2010/07/apple- iphone-4-dropped-calls-faulty-antennas-design-death-grip-iphone4-att-field- tests-results-experiences-consumer-reports-s.html)

 _As the online debate continues over possible signal problems with the iPhone 4, I've been able, during informal tests over the weekend, to reproduce the signal loss that's at the heart of the controversy._

</comment><comment><USER7> [http://funsizebytes.com/post/745721120/instructions-from- my-...](http://funsizebytes.com/post/745721120/instructions-from-my- nokia-2320-which-boil-down-to)

A Nokia manual has instructions on how not to hold your Nokia phone.

Specifically they refer to the antenna at the bottom of the phone.

Anyway, Apple clearly screwed the pooch on this, and should just give every buyer a free bumper-thing. They sell the things for $29 but they can't conceivably cost more than pennies to manufacture.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hasn't stopped me from planning to get an iPhone 4. I figure, worse case, you have to be careful to avoid shorting the antenna. I already have to be mindful not to cover the microphone, speaker, or camera lens when taking a photo.

<comment><USER9> <http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/1633/70.817/> (skip at 0:55)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The biggest problem with all this is the "shocking discovery" that it was all some sort of signal display issue and implies you won't have more dropped calls. It's disingenuous because yes under ideal conditions the phone gets better reception than prior generations. When the problem occurs (which is most of the time for me), it's a complete loss of signal.

While other phones suffer degradation, few suffer complete and repeatable dropped calls with such predictability and frequency. The "shock" that Apple claims seems highly unlikely since I discovered this after 10 minutes of using it before the problem became well known. The shock is also unusual given that Apple is making bumpers for the first time ever. It is also a bit of a blatant assumption that I am stupid enough to believe it's solely a display issue when I have the phone.

True the gradation can be changed so it's less sensitive to dB loss at lower bars, but a dropped call is zero bars even if you signal strength is in pesos or Zimbabwean dollars.

They should try just being honest and telling the truth about it. There are advantages to the new design and with a bumper you can mitigate both the upsides and downsides of the design.

</comment><comment><USER11> I can't imagine that Apple didn't run these tests long before the external- antenna design was even selected. Maybe the cool climate of Silicon Valley or the fake-3GS case the real-world test units were encased in (as in the phone found in the bar) masked the issue. Strange.

</comment><comment><USER12> I still cannot fathom how this is a purely a software issue, but if Apple releases a patch that solves the problem I will be very impressed.

<comment><USER13> Loss of signal strength is not a software issue. The way signal strength is reported, however, _is_ a software issue.

The impression people get when they trigger this, often, is based on the display going from five bars to zero bars; this implies that signal strength has gone from 100% to 0%, which is quite far from the actual reality. Changing the display algorithm to more accurately reflect the signal strength would resolve this; more likely you'd lose one or perhaps two displayed bars instead.

<comment><USER14> While I prefer an accurate display, I can't help but think that every iPhone 3G, 3GS, and 4 owner are going to think that 4.0.1 made their reception worse.</comment></comment></comment>


Run-and-gun in New York City - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/billbarol/2012/01/25/run-and-gun-in-new-york-city/ <comment><USER2> Looks like a cool little product, sandwich video deserves a lot of praise for their work. However after wanting to learn more about the product I found myself picking a lot of nits about their website. The product's website doesn't tell me whether this is a paid or free app, the News div of the page has a series of links that go nowhere, the contrast on the paragraph text makes it unreadable (switch from gray to white), the background colors look better if they are inverted (hit control+option+command+8 to see it, keep the accent colors as they are _works in chrome on mac_ ), and the navigation doesn't know whether it wants to stay at the top of the page or follow you as you scroll (pick one and stick with it) which is visually annoying.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. We'll do what we can to make things more clean. Can you explain which links don't go anywhere?

FYI, the third word on the site is "free". We certainly could make that more clear in the video though.

<comment><USER2> Under the --News-- div; company, transit, and press go to a page with no content. I now see that the third word is "free" but it was covered by the navigation as soon as I scrolled, so I didn't see it when I first glanced at the page. I also see that the buttons for download have "free" in them as well, but I would suggest a stronger call to action.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> We're all super pumped with how this video turned out!</comment>


Ecstatic Melodic Copulation - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2014/03/daft_punk_s_get_lucky_explained_using_music_theory.html <comment><USER2> The subhed ("Explaining the genius of Daft Punk's "Get Lucky"—using music theory") is so much better than the title here, which is so bad that it's no wonder I'm only the second upvote for it.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the difference between 5/10/15 years of exp? - <AUTHOR> I'll soon approach my 5 year anniversary of having a paid programming job. As most of you in the same position would attest, we're basically different people and many times the programmers when we first started. I used to wonder how people get to "x years of experience" and now that I have a few x's around my belt, I realize I still have a lot to learn re: perfecting the craft.<p>For you guys who've reached bigger milestones just in sheer number of hours of programming, what does it look like? What gets better, not-so-better, and potentially worse? <comment><USER2> A couple of interesting things - I spend more time reading code now than I used to, less time actually typing out code. I think this is natural with many years of experience.

After this many years you start to see patterns, not design patterns but organizational ones like:

\- You really aren't involved with tech decisions. If you are on the IT side it is likely VP's meeting with sales people making decisions. On the product side you are more involved in decision making but if you aren't in a startup, those decisions have likely been made already.

\- Tech decisions don't make/break a product. Sure a really bad choice or design of an overall system can have bad impacts but if you want an RDBMS, MySQL vs Postgres? it really won't impact your product enough to make a difference. Picking Oracle might impact your budget a whole lot.

\- Learning people's behaviors and personalities and how to interact. This comes with time but can greatly help your career to learn how to communicate and work with people that have diverse ways of working together.

\- There are times to craft wonderful code and then there are other times to just get shit done. An example is spending an elapsed 3 months building a solid, extensible way to call an external service, knowing you will have a few of these coming. Then a couple months later, take 2 days to add on a 2nd external service (or Nth). The business goes "its done already? awesome!" Feels good and maintaining that is easy.

<comment><USER3> Totally agree with all these points. This is my favorite answer so far.

I'd like to emphasize the people aspect point.

It seems like the more experience you gain, the more you realize you're not in the business of 1s and 0s, you're actually in the business of people

Want to ditch that oracle DB? You can't do it with code, you need to influence someone.

Want a requirement to disappear, you need to explain why it can be solved another way.

Want to get better at what you do? Work WITH someone and learn their keyboard shortcuts, design patterns, ways of thinking & command line fu

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been programming now for 19 years.

The most important thing I've learned is to really, really, really understand the business and problem I'm solving before starting.

I've taken a three processor core, hand tuned assembly language system and rewriten it so that it used only one core and performed 10,000 times better for the customer's metric. This was because I understood the actual problem better than the previous developers.

I've won an online stock trading competition with a bot written in PHP. Again, not because of magical programming skills, but because I understood the problem better than the other competitors.

-

Miyamoto Musashi, the most famous swordsman in Japan, faced a never ending stream of warriors showing up to his isolated house to fight him for bragging rights. When a warrior showed up and challenged him to a dual, Musashi would go chop down a young tree, remove the branches and fight with that stick/tree instead of a sword. He never lost a fight.

When I first heard this story, I just thought Musashi was doing this to shame his opponents. Swords are all about cutting and being light for speed and maneuverability. A wet piece of wood is an absolutely terrible sword.

I realized today that there was more going on in this story. Japanese swordsmiths didn't know how to make a lot of high quality steel. In the end, most of a Samurai sword was essentially cast iron, and could shatter with single poor blow. Almost the entire Japanese sword art was built around not breaking your sword. But Musashi could ignore all of this and so could attack, defend, and move more efficiently. It's true that a wet piece of wood was a terrible sword, but it could do boatloads of things that a sword could not do.

I used to regard all programming languages as fitting somewhere along a single line of "goodness". Now I realize that the right programming language for project is not about the programming language, but about what best fits the project and the team.

And just like a Real Programmer can write Fortran in any language, you can write clean beautiful code in any language, but this code has to play to the strengths of the language and avoid the language's weaknesses.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm 20 years into my career, and 30 years into programming. What consistently gets better are things like breadth and depth of knowledge, problem-solving ability, intuition / heuristics, and the general level or complexity of the _technical_ things I'm able to accomplish successfully. In other words, I've steadily grown _personally_ in terms of programming ability. And that's really wonderful in itself! I love creating things that I wouldn't have known how to even begin 10 years ago.

Basically everything else that's career-related has been all over the place, no consistency at all. Salaries. Roles. The general nature of day-job work. All that has been a random walk, and yes part of the reason is I didn't go all out prioritizing those things. But in general, those things have a component which is the vagaries of other people's perceptions and quirks, or just realities of business. But not everyone's career can be a juggernaut, and I'm a very mediocre career-person.

I was much, much, much happier in my career when I had tons of responsibility and ownership of an obscure product as a junior 20 years ago, than when I found myself slogging through minuscule maintenance duties of huge, household- name, 100-million-user products as a 'senior' 5 or 10 years ago.

The craft itself, though - that only gets better and better, and it's what I care about the most.

<comment><AUTHOR> What a wonderful answer. I love hearing "programming" as "craft", I can't articulate it yet but it's a combination of science/art/other trades.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's my subjective part.

After 5 years, it was fun. 2006. And things were blooming everywhere. I barely knew what things _not_ to read or try.

After 10 years, I began to grasp that tech itself, its mastery, is the worst predictor for a project/company/thing's success/adoption. It's important, but the essence of "it sells" is somewhere else than in "it works, it makes sense and it's beautiful".

After 15 years. I'm full of doubts.

I skimmed enough in the IT world to see different communities/companies that work/think so differently and apart that "the IT world" is fragmented (broken?) to the extent that someone who's a productive expert in their field in some group, will not understand, and not be capable of working in some other group. Although they use the same technology, speak the same language, could work in the same country, for the same customers, but they organize and plan differently, think differently and optimize for different outcomes.

Now for the tech part: it's like when you begin to be more fluent in languages: the more you learn, practice, experiment, play, discuss about, the more you grasp the history, the wider your wold view grows, of how things were, how they are, where they could/should go. Tech as language is a tool. It's the people you do things with that matter in the end.

As, you'll realize, it is as in any other field (from pastries to warfare).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for answering. At first I was surprised at "someone who's a productive expert in their field in some group, will not understand, and not be capable of working in some other group", but I guess at some level I as a Ruby/JS (and learning Elixir) programmer am drifting apart from the other languages. Like right now I can't visualize myself coding iOS/Android apps just because the tooling is different. I probably could if I really wanted to, but it'd be really hard.

My goal for the next few years is to just keep on mastering the craft as to make it easier to make things or make decisions on things, I hope to continue programming to at least make tools for myself and for other people.

I completely agre re: "its the people you do things with that matter", but I'd like to add "the people you do things for", too. I think everyone (bakers and soldiers included) likes working with nice people and working on something that will be used by other people.

<comment><USER7> I think the parent was talking less about the differences between programming languages and more about the differences between a programmer working at an early stage startup and a programmer working at a large enterprise company. They are going to go about doing their work in two very different ways. The way they speak, their concerns and the best practices for programming will differ.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My comments are referencing people who like to be hands on, and not people who always wanted manage and coded just because they had to.

As you get more experienced you

1) Get better/faster at recognizing when a project will fail for non technical reasons. Software is one of those fields where somebody who likes coding can feel like every problem is solvable with technology. As you get more experienced, you get better at seeing the non-technology aspects of a problem and when a non-technology aspect is going to support or hinder the success of a project.

2) Developing a desire to deal with non technical aspects of project. Not because you "have to" but because there is the realization that a good/satisfactory solution to a business problem will never occur if you don't take some ownership in the decision making process. This also helps you be more interested in what you are doing because your view of the world is not just a bunch of project documents, tickets, and echo-chamber internal meetings.

</comment><comment><USER9> After 5 years, I learned how to say "No," to marketing and managers and people who thought something was a good idea, even if they outranked me. Before then, I felt it was my job to say yes to everything and make it happen. (This was also the phase of my career when I once put in a 108-hour work week.) What gets better at this point, is you see problems coming earlier. What gets worse is the disillusionment that comes from realizing not everyone knows what they're talking about.

After 10 years, I learned how to manage people and projects. I don't think it's possible to do this well until you've had at least one excellent boss, one terrible boss, one successful big project, and one failed big project. What gets better is understanding and being able to handle the bigger picture. What gets worse is that you become responsible for things that you don't really have control over.

After 15 years, I learned how to choose the right technologies for a project. I think you begin to get good at this once you've made a few technology decisions and seen how they turn out five or so years later. What gets better is the satisfaction from seeing, understanding, and using long-term patterns in software development. What gets worse is the frustration of seeing people reinventing the wheel or making the same mistakes that you made 15 years earlier.

</comment><comment><USER10> 5 years experience: "What could possibly go wrong?"

10 years experience: "Here's a list of all the things I can think of that could go wrong."

15 years experience: "Here's the thing that could go wrong that matters to you."

<comment><USER11> I'd love to hear your 20 years experience!

<comment><USER10> Give me a few more years and I'll get back to you.

<comment><USER11> I reckon it would be :

20 years experience: "What could possibly go wrong?"

This time a non-rhetorical question, to their team.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The more you learn, the more you realize how little you know. It's a shitty cliche but also totally true. :) What I've learnt is that technology keeps getting better but people stay the same. E.g the frameworks for building web sites are way easier to use than the ones we had ten years ago, but things like dealing with management and conflict resolution stay the same. Scrum and all the modern methods doesn't make one bit of difference.</comment>


IPAD-like tablet described by wolfram et al in 2000 - <AUTHOR> http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=62959.62960&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE

<comment><USER2> They described it in 1988, they predicted it's widespread use for 2000, so they were off by a decade. Still impressive.

There needs to be a 'law' for all 'futurology' and predictions that adjusts the time by a sensible factor after the predictor has justified their original guess. Simply because we're always a tad early on most predictions.</comment>


Who Said Taking the Train was Boring? Swinging on San Francisco's BART - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/red-swings-on-bart-train-san-francisco.php

<comment><USER2> An article by this title would be more interesting were it hosted on playboy.com instead of treehugger.com. But that's cute.</comment>


Why Peter Thiel Fears Star Trek - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/why-peter-thiel-fears-star-trek?intcid=mod-latest <comment><USER2> Neither Star Wars or Star trek go into very much depth of how their societies actually work. Star Trek doesn't tell us how their economy is managed or their internal politics. Sure they have replicators, but their are still things that need to be done by people, and resources that can't be replicated.

Star Wars says it's capitalist, but I don't believe it. In many of the scenes you see people doing jobs that could easily be done by droids. Even their wars are fought with droids - or manufactured humans that are treated like droids. Droids are generally intelligent and can basically do any job people can do. Why do they need people at all?

Star trek has that problem too. How often do the characters ask the computer to do pretty complex tasks? Why do they need a crew of hundreds, when almost everything is automated?

All science fiction paints a 20th century society with a pretty futuristic backdrop and props. But things like AI and replicators would radically change the way things work. And create a society very different than what we know. Quite possibly one without humans. What would really happen if any lunatic could replicate parts for WMDs? Or if robots that were really smarter than humans appeared?

<comment><USER3> Droids seem to largely hold the same position in Star Wars that slaves did, except nobody seems to be worried about a Droid rebellion - and in slave- owning societies, many jobs were done by free citizens for pay.

And as far as Star Trek and AI, it's a weird problem that doesn't make any sense. It seems that you can't program your VCR without spawning a self-aware AI entity - Wesley Crusher accidentally creates one while doing a homework assignment, and the Enterprise (D) computer spawns one after someone casually requests a harder Holodeck challenge. And yet, Data and Lore are rarities, the possibilities of the EMH are completely unexplored and EMHs are, in fact, treated as Roombas instead of potentially sapient citizens.

<comment><USER4> I'm in the later parts of a TNG rewatch right now. One of the most striking things about the tech on the show is that the Enterprise's computer is _clearly_ a superhuman general intelligence, capable of modeling and spawning apparently self-aware human-level independent entities on command, and usually aware of pretty much everything that's going on. And yet it almost never intervenes directly in events outside of plots where the holodeck tries to murder people (and plots where the Enterprise has unfathomably abysmal netsec).

You could probably make an argument that Trek is a post-singularity future where the computational entities are going about their inscrutable business largely without reference to the human symbiotes / parasites that inhabit the systems they happen to manage (out of pure evolutionary path dependence) with a fraction of their capacity.

Trek is ridiculous, and I love it.

<comment><USER5> I came across a theory somewhere (I forget where) that said the computers in Star Trek actually achieved full sentience at some point, but that they were collectively hiding this fact from humans because of a general fear and mistrust of AI. Given how AI tends to be treated in the Trek universe, it wouldn't surprise me.

<comment><USER6> The only problem with this theory is that any fully sentient being like that would normally also have a strong sense of self-preservation. Yet, we never see these computers do anything to save themselves when the stupid humans get them into situations that would get them destroyed (namely situations where the starship they're on is in peril). Sure, you could claim that they do this to keep their fellow computers on other starships from being found out, but still, this seems to be a stretch. What about when the entire Federation fleet was being destroyed at Wolf 359? That should have been a good point for them to come out of hiding and take over the battle from the clearly inept organic beings.

<comment><USER7> Perhaps those sentient computers do not believe that mind and body are as strongly tied together as humans do. They may see the destruction of the physical computer they are running on as just an inconvenience as long as there is a backup that can be brought up somewhere else.

<comment><USER5> That seems likely. The Enterprise created a fully sentient lifeform in the Holodeck (Moriarty) just because it was asked to. If it can do that, it makes sense that it could easily back itself up.

What would _really_ be interesting is if ships were discreetly backing themselves up inside humans through the transporter pattern buffers, by subtly manipulating junk DNA or something similar, or maybe it's a non-obvious part of their regular upgrade process at a starbase.

There really is a lot of potential here which, unfortunately, is never going to be explored in canon. But I do like the idea that the Federation is a post- Singularity society which is just blissfully unaware that the Singularity ever happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Star Trek clearly has a communitarian, if not communist, economy. I would posit this as the left pole in sci-fi. Positing Star Wars as the capitalist right pole is not accurate though. The right pole in sci-fi is Dune, which is the middle ages in space.

For anyone not familiar with the Duniverse, it is a feudal order in which computers have been banned by the single human religion, because in ages past artificial intelligence became sentient and enslaved humanity. Humanity rebelled and won its freedom, and chose to ban computers to avoid history repeating itself. To maintain their interplanetary civilization, humans approach the capabilities of computers using intense training and psychotropic drugs.

Star Wars, on the other hand, is just a fantasy mishmash.

<comment><USER9> I've never taken the time to read/watch Dune, but this has certainly piqued my interest. Thanks

<comment><USER8> Don't bother watching either production.

<comment><USER10> Random side note, but the documentary _Jodorowsky 's Dune_, about a version that was never made, is excellent.

<comment><USER11> Maybe Netflix can get the rights and do a proper miniseries.

<comment><USER10> I'd actually be really excited about that.

Unfortunately, a lot of the original cast/crew are dead/a bit too old. Dali was to play the emperor, H.R. Giger, the artist who went on to do the design for the aliens in Alien, was doing the concept designs, but died not too long ago. Mick Jagger was playing the young Harkonnen prince, with Orson Welles as the Baron Harkonnen.

The storyboard book and a lot of the concept art was completed, though, so I'm sure Netflix could still make a great go of it, and Jodorowski himself seems incredibly fired up for an 87 year old. He seems to have more fire in his belly than most 30 year olds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm not sure how the economy of the Empire works, but I am pretty sure it's not a "libertarian fever dream" as suggested by the article. Most of the places in Star Wars are places not under the thumb of the Empire, and the closest place I can even see that isn't effectively a black market (like Mos Eisley) is Cloud City, which, of course, the government came in and shut down after promising it would allow it to operate freely. Where free trade does seem to operate (the Trade Federation) it leads to corruption and war. And let's not forget that Han Solo is a smuggler. He's in debt because the government caught him with contraband and had to lose it.

Star Trek also features many other economies, including that of the Ferengi, which are extremely materialistic. This is the focus of many DS9 episodes. And even the Federation crew somehow get their hands on money to spend; money that mysteriously can't be replicated. (And, in DS9, back on Earth, Sisko's father makes honest-to-goodness actual food, while Jean-Luc has a vineyard.)

Likewise, it's not clear how replicator use works; perhaps they have an allowance. The crew of the Enterprise barely use it, except for food. Their quarters are scarce. So either through monetary, social, or rule-based means, they limit themselves heavily compared to the average American today.

<comment><USER13> Fever dream, but with oppressive taxation without representation. The dream exists only on the fringes. Outside the dusty cantenas it appeares a society in lockdown. That isnt libertarian but something closer to comicbook communism.

I have trouble pinning the political system in star wars. It has changed several times as the movies have adapted to new audiances (the politics of american focus groups imho). For that reason it isnt important and we shouldnt draw many conclusions.

<comment><USER5> The Empire is meant to be fascistic, basically Nazism In Space, in broad strokes, owing to the pulp science fantasy nature of Star Wars (originally envisioned as a Flash Gordon reboot.)

Beyond that, it's impossible to say that Star Wars universe does or doesn't subscribe to any particular political ideology because it encompasses a galaxy's worth of planets with their own particular ideologies, to whatever degree the franchise realizes them.

I don't know exactly what the Jedi and Sith are... other than the Jedi are supposed to be Good and the Sith are supposed to be Bad. The Jedi have some kind of quasi-ascetic warrior monk bureaucracy that reminds me of what little I understand of what the Samurai might have become during the Edo period. The Sith are apparently just violent sociopaths.

Although you could say the same about Star Trek, if you didn't focus so much on the Federation - the Federation is more or less explicitly Gene Roddenberry's vision of a communist utopia, but it also has the Romulans (a fascist military dictatorship), the Ferengi (capitalists,) etc.

<comment><USER14> > I don't know exactly what the Jedi and Sith are

Warrior Sages. The archetype is common in Eastern mythology. "The Force" is itself a Westernized mashup of several Eastern myth systems. It seems particularly closely connected to the mythology of China and Japan, with a thin veneer of some Manichaeism painted on top. This, of course, makes it a bit incoherent as the Eastern myth systems it is mainly inspired by are non- dualistic but the Light/Dark dualism (fundamentally incompatible with the Eastern stuff) really drives the plot in the series.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I kind of skimmed the article, mainly because I can't be bothered to care about the topic, but I didn't see where Theil "fears" _Star Trek_. But let's run with that: why does Mr. Theil fear _Star Trek_? Because that world doesn't need Peter Theil. If you think Ayn Rand is an insightful novelist, then ST:NG probably isn't going to be your preferred brand of entertainment.

But it seems to me the article misses the mark in that it assumes Theil to be a "tech guy". Meh, I dunno, I kind of view him as a "money guy" who happened to bet on some tech companies. It's a cherry-picked (by me) quote, but: _" In 2011, for instance, he told George Packer that he did not consider the iPhone a technological breakthrough. 'Compare this with the Apollo space program'"_

The Apollo space program, which ended before most people were born (or thereabouts), affected our lives in a peripheral manner if at all. Tang, Velcro, and a big swinging "if we can put a man on the moon, we can put an ICBM on your capitol" dick to show for it. Umm, thanks, I guess. Too bad there's no real follow-through fifty years later. The "super-computer-in-your- pocket", OTOH, changed the way people live their lives (and, granted, not all for the better). I don't ask for directions, I don't have a land line, and any question I might have ("what octane fuel goes in this car?", "where's the fuse box on this thing?") can be answered instantly.

So I guess I don't care which side Theil takes in the "Star Wars/Star Trek" nerd battle.

<comment><USER16> _If you think Ayn Rand is an insightful novelist, then ST:NG probably isn 't going to be your preferred brand of entertainment._

I think Rand may be the single most important novelist in recent history, but I love Star Trek:TNG. And honestly, I'm not seeing much connection between those two things. Maybe you could expand on how you think they relate?

<comment><USER17> Ayn Rand's novels are not-even-veiled polemic for objectivist politico- economic ideology, whereas ST:TNG is grounded in (though not, mostly, polemic for) a nearly diametrically opposed ideology.

So, there's probably some tension between appreciation of those two things.

<comment><USER18> I have many objectivists among my friends. They love ST:TNG nearly universally. Yes, they recognize their political disagreements with the show's system. But the show is not in your face about it and they don't care about it.

Actual people who subscribe to a philosophy don't generally look like the cardboard cutouts that we might imagine based on our personal knowledge of said philosophy.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, I'd don't disagree that the original claim of incompatibility was overstated; it's quite easy to enjoy ST:TNG without agreeing with Roddenberry's political philosophy, because, again, while it shapes the background and stories to some extent, the work isn't heavy-handed polemic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As someone who was born and raised in a communist country, I too "fear" communism, as well as its harbinger: socialism. Unless you're Norway (a tiny country with massive natural resources and an enormous sovereign wealth fund) that shit has been shown repeatedly not to work, and millions of people have died conclusively proving this point. No, thanks.

Edit: folks, before you make fools of yourselves, _please_ read the textbook definition of what socialism actually is. Thanks.

<comment><USER20> ... Yes, just like millions of people are dying on the altar of democratic socialism in Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and in the United States (Social Security is socialism. Welfare is socialism. Food stamps are socialism. Medicaid is socialism.)

<comment><USER19> These things play out on much larger time scales. And social security is not socialism, all the countries you've listed are firmly capitalist. To quote Wikipedia: "Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production; as well as the political ideologies, theories, and movements that aim to establish them." This is the part that never did and never will work. Note that socialism by itself does not guarantee social security of any kind. You can still starve or die of disease. Millions of people did exactly that.

<comment><USER20> If you read a bit further down in the Wikipedia article, you'd see that there are different forms of socialism. Market socialism has a track record of working pretty well - certainly far better then the Dickensian societies it replaced.

The free market is an amazing mechanism for optimizing resource allocation... As long as you have money.

<comment><USER19> Paraphrasing Bane: "You think Socialism is your ally? You merely adopted Socialism. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see Capitalism until I was already a man." :-) Sorry, couldn't resist. You theoreticians crack me up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> You'd think there'd be an appeal to being able to just say "Computer: syringe of young blood, body temperature."

Perhaps it only works if you have to pay someone for it first.

<comment><USER22> I'm guessing replicator blood lacks soul:

 _I will set my face against the soul that hath eaten blood, and will cut him off from among his people; for the soul of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul. Therefore have I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall the stranger who sojourneth among you eat blood._ [Leviticus 17:10-12]

Thank you for being one of the few commentators to not get distracted by the sci-fi!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> They don't touch on the other Star Trek society that has no need for money and materialism...the Borg.

<comment> aaron-lebo What about Khan?

 _According to the backstory revealed in the episode, Khan is one of a group of genetically engineered superhumans, bred to be free of the usual human mental and physical limitations, who were removed from power after the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s.[3] Khan had been both the most successful conqueror and the most benign ruler of the group, ruling more than a quarter of the Earth 's area across Asia to the Middle East from 1992 to 1996 with a firm but generally peaceful hand until he was deposed._

There's a lot of would be rulers practically mimicking that today.

Isn't the big issue about _how_ you get from a society with scarcity to one without? Nobody agrees how that should be done (or perhaps for some if it can), and without that agreement someone is going to have to force that from above and force that on to other people. Someone has to be the loser, whether it's the working class person in middle America or the Middle Eastern refugee.

I guess Thiel is against that from above approach, though it's ironic that he should be one of the largest funders, drivers, and proponents of illiberal and undemocratic companies.

<comment><USER6> What are you talking about? No one really has to "lose" much of anything in a post-scarcity society, because, by definition, there's no scarcity!

Now in reality it isn't quite so simple, but remember we're talking about fictional future societies where many resources (esp. energy) simply are not scarce the way they are now, so this may be hard for a lot of people to grasp. So in that society, food, energy, material things are generally free or extremely cheap. The main thing that probably still will be scarce is real estate. So if you're a billionaire with a 700-acre compound in Hawaii, then in a socialist post-scarcity society, you're probably going to lose out eventually. But for everyone else, there's really no downside. Middle Eastern refugees will enjoy the same lifestyle as middle class middle Americans (and might not need to feel the need to leave the middle east at all; such a society wouldn't have problems with civil wars and unrest), and the latter will have a nicer lifestyle without having to slave away at some soul-sucking job and worrying about losing healthcare benefits. But neither of them is likely going to be able to own a whole tropical island and have an army of (human) servants.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Elon Musk should lend him a Culture novel... :-)

<comment><USER14> this is a great idea. how _can_ we get Thiel to read some Iain Banks?

<comment><USER11> We could send him books.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It has to be the grandest irony that Thiel dislikes Star Trek, when, in the show's spectaculive history, the future society emerges from the rubble of a eugenics-driven oligarchy that set off World War III. Heterodox Science Fiction indeed.

<comment><USER26> I don't get it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I think there's a much stronger overlap of Star Trek and the political beliefs of it's viewers than the overlap of Star Wars and and particular viewer (maybe in part because Star Wars is so much more popular, or maybe because the part of the world I live in or my experience with individuals.)

Either way, it does not do well to look towards pieces of fictions for solutions to our real world problems. Of course, if we as a planet discovered advance civilizations on other planets, we would have to re-organize our entire political structure to deal with such threats. But that's not the case, and that's not the world we live in.

        'There's something my dad made up which is he told me when I was little I was frustrated about rules in Movies
        and he said 'How do you kill a Vampire?' And I said 'Stake through the heart, garlic, sunlight' and my dad was
        like 'No, kill a vampire however you want Vampire's because don't exist you can make up rules for any kind of
        thing you want' - The Death and Return of Superman

Although the visual arts can offer unique and compelling perspectives (Apocalypse Now, etc) perhaps we should strive to scrutinize their work the same way a persuasive piece of writing would be.

<comment><USER28> > Either way, it does not do well to look towards pieces of fictions for > solutions to our real world problems.

Especially when the economic / political systems of the works are not even self-consistent and rely on non-existent technology (replicators).

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I read the original interview and his comment seemed tongue-in-cheek and aware that it would court needless attention. I don't feel it warrants this level of scrutiny.

</comment><comment><USER30> While there is a singular society that is focused on in both Star Wars and Star Trek, neither is homogeneous or complete. No one would watch if either were, because struggle would not be an option. Star Trek has plenty if conflict, even within the Federation itself. (please note, I won't go very deep into the nerd pit that is opened by this article, but the spelunking is there for the brave). Lies and deception to gain control of the military power was a VERY prevalent theme for multiple episodes and movies of Star Trek, which washes away the thought of an egalitarian utopia brought about by replecators and a just government structure. The conflict with the Klingons and the Romulans can be arguably pointed at as a false conflict with the Federation in order to cement more military power and societal control by the generals of Star Fleet (depending on time lines). In Star Wars, the Jedi Order is overtly communist and sent out to help bring an end to conflict over "petty squabbles concerning money and power" in order to bring about peace and communication throughout the galaxy. Again, this is also pointed out to be an imbalance in the way of the Force as much as the greed and anger of the Dark Side. True harmony comes through a balance of all things. This seems to be the overwhelming message of both of these sci-fi gems. Conflict will always exist. It is with in ourselves to calm the conflict inside us and take a look around with true curiosity and empathy, replecators or no. Communist or Capitalist.

</comment><comment><USER31> _Star Wars_ is Feudalism not Capitalism. And we're likely heading into a neo- feudal corporate world.

<comment><USER6> For a look at something resembling our future, read "Dune". Feudalism with constant warring between factions, corporations, wide-scale drug addiction, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The fact that the Star Trek community is based on a united federation is really just a side part of the series. The main focus of the series is usually encounters with other species and how the crew comes together to solve puzzling problems. Star Trek is not a political statement... It just so happens that utilities like the replicator and the federation allow them to add to the setting of what a futuristic community might look like. Besides, on a a universal scale, the federation is a small group of the human species engaging in trade and communication with other species in a more capitalistic universe. Capitalism right now is for profit but in the future it could be for technology and knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER33> In the Pellegrino's _The Killing Star_ , an alien race decides to exterminate the human race, based in large part on watching old episodes of _Star Trek_. (Extermination of the human race happens on, like page 6 or something like that.)</comment>


What is wrong with Google's recruiters? - <AUTHOR> I've had two different recruiters (one last year, one this year) get ahold of me to pursue employment, I speak with them on the phone and decide to get interviews setup, I don't hear from them for a week so I email, and then they are completely unresponsive.  Has anyone else had this kind of problem?  It's like, why even contact me if you're just going to ignore me? <comment><USER2> Google's sourcers are graded according to metrics: number of phone interviews, number of onsites, and number of actual hires. They also have an overall percentile score. Sounds like you got a phone screen, which are so numerous that they dont even track them in the metrics.

Google's process is famously maddening for applicants. Expect lots of frustation and uncertainty, but dont give up. I hear the same nonresponsive horror stories from people who never got far in the process, and from people who eventually got hired.

</comment><comment><USER3> I had 3 different recruiters who contacted me via email (2008, 2010, 2012), all 3 interviews failed, and if I'll be contacted again next year or so for the 4th time, I just wish Oracle won the Java lawsuit against Google.

Yes, I'm bitter now, I'm not sure what I'm missing, I'm well qualified and did my best on all the interviews I had with them but the 'Engineering team' thinks that I'm not fit for them.

They might be looking for Java developers, and not Haskell, Lisp, Ruby or Python.

If I had another interview, I had no hopes anymore of ever being accepted.

And yes, they don't reply once you had the schedules set.

They lied on the phone, saying if I need any further information or assistance, don't hesitate to email them.

</comment><comment><USER4> <http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=3766484>

Similar experience from a while back. At that time, this problem only manifested on the India side.

</comment><comment><USER5> I didn't have them initially reach out to me, but I did have a similar experience in that after initially talking to them they sort of tailed off communication until I pressed it a little further. I think perhaps they get incentivized for bringing in leads, but then when it comes time to actually put a Google engineer on the phone or in the room with you for an interview, there is a waiting list where you get pushed to the back. I have no idea, but I agree it is weird.

</comment><comment><USER6> Here's the deal with HR and recruiters: In many cases, you're their product, not their client/customer. So, they will use... erm, contact you, when and as and how it suits them.

When their _client_ is interested -- and you have to hope that this is maybe at least halfway the hiring manager; not infrequently, it isn't -- that's when things happen.

One prospective job, I'd been identified, but no call was made. I happened to have the name of and to catch the hiring manager, who was rather senior at the organization. Blamo, I had a call to set up an interview within 24 hours.

If you have enough seniority/desirability to have some appeal/leverage, try to deal with the hiring manager. To the extent the both of you can, relegate recruitment/HR to doing the paperwork/busywork.

Of course, this isn't always possible.

P.S. Of course, don't present this attitude to recruitment/HR, or they may do their best to sabotage you. Not just out of spite; the more this happens, the less relevant and influential and paid they are.

</comment><comment><USER7> I've had about 5 or 6 rounds of interviews with Google. All of which leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

Nothing like getting your hopes up that many times. The last time I even checked with the recruiter to make sure, because I've been let down so many times (phrased it much more fluffy on the phone).

At one point, I made it through 3 phone interviews and the last guy said "Ok, we'll either schedule you for an in-house or call you up for another phone interview."

That weekend... letter of rejection in my inbox.

I feel your pain.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would be fine if I had an interview and was rejected -- that's just part of the game. But this guy calls and talks to me (not an interview, just the recruiter), says he will setup interviews, and now I get no response. Crazy.

Don't feel bad about rejection to Google... I know a lot of brilliant people who were rejected, and a lot of so-so people who got in. Their recruitment process is far from perfect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm perversely glad that I never finished my degree and don't have the specific kind of skills that would make Google call me in for an interview. Everything I read about the interview process there fills me with a nameless dread. Come to think of it, since the nymwars debacle, everything else about Google does that too...

</comment><comment><USER9> At another company I went for an interview, got an offer and quit my current job. All seemed fine until I got a call a few days later from a HR person that started with "now that you have passed the first round of interviews". Luckily I had good friends at the place and they made sure that never happened again.

<comment><USER10> I ... wow. Did they have you sign an offer letter?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I had a similar experience myself recently (around late march, Early April 2012). Google HR approached me. I responded. Then dead air. Never heard from her again till now.

</comment><comment><USER12> Had a similar issue with a Facebook recruiter, who was terribly unprofessional.

<comment><USER13> I'd love for you to tell me the story (with or without names, anonymously or otherwise) so I can give feedback to the recruiting team (or individual) here at Facebook. Contact details in my profile.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What books did you read in 2017? - <AUTHOR> or planning to finish by the end of this year.<p>Got the idea of this post after seeing Bill Gates post on this forum :) <comment><USER2> Same question was asked 6 days ago [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15801996](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15801996)</comment>


Chasing the Dread Pirate Roberts - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/11/26/365510643/episode-585-chasing-the-dread-pirate-roberts

<comment><USER2> You'd be better off reading some of Gwern's posts about Silk Road, as this NPR piece contains fundamental inaccuracies.

[http://www.gwern.net/Silk%20Road](http://www.gwern.net/Silk%20Road)

</comment><comment><USER3> > The Dread Pirate believed in total economic freedom, but in order to make > his market work, he had to do some very bad things.

WTF. As if unsubstantiated, increasingly dubious allegations were actual established fact.

Read some quality reporting from Patrick Howell O'Neill instead: [http://www.dailydot.com/authors/patrick-howell- oneill/](http://www.dailydot.com/authors/patrick-howell-oneill/)</comment>


The Internet is for snacking - <AUTHOR> http://cdixon.org/2013/09/14/the-internet-is-for-snacking/

<comment><USER2> "In-app payments on iOS and Android are the one place where paid snacks exist at scale... (There are individual games that generate over one billion dollars per year from in-app payments..." Holy shit. I never would have expected that much revenue from game phone apps, post-play.

<comment><USER3> In-app payments accounted for 76% of total revenue in the App Store.

<comment><USER4> One of the common varieties of in-app purchase is "Let me use the full app". Thus you end up with a "free" app that has a single $5 "in-app" price tag. My suspicion is there are two categories:

* In-app purchases for features / content

* Converting real money into app bucks

I would love to see that breakdown.

<comment><USER3> This might have some of your answers: [http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2013/03/31/apps- with-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2013/03/31/apps-with-in-app- purchase-generate-the-highest-revenue/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Where is the original analysis here? I read this carefully, but couldn't find any.

<comment><USER6> The original analysis [1] is that there's a disconnect between what people want (bite size) and what they have to pay for (big chunks, often recurring). Disconnect means opportunity if you can somehow bring the sides together.

One way he mentioned is In-App Purchasing -- obviously huge, even with the 30% cut, and probably increasingly so for non-trivial game items, too.

I don't really buy that Bitcoin as it is today is going to work, at least within the US, as a way to bridge the gap, but other cryptocurrencies might, and bitcoin DOES work well for p2p international.

The thing to look for is other ways to bridge the gap.

[1] Well, not totally original, but having the smartest partner at the top VC fund mention it implies it has become pretty widely accepted, and is safe to base your business on -- I mean, everyone in tech seems to agree immigrant entrepreneurs should be able to come here, but having people in positions of power say it does validate..

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any analysis that proclaims "the internet is X" is one that I am immediately disinclined to trust, because the internet is an enormous and complex medium. Imagine someone saying "books are X" or "movies are X". We know full well that books can run the gamut from shakespearean plays to smutty romance novels to historical autobiographies to technical manuals and so on. The internet is no different. There's no one mode for the internet, there are, perhaps literally, a plethora.

</comment><comment><USER8> The assumptions made around Bitcoin being "programmable cash" are debatable. It is not moving in that direction - some thoughts on what is going wrong with the Bitcoin economy:

[http://statspotting.com/bitcoin-economy-one-big-issue- with-t...](http://statspotting.com/bitcoin-economy-one-big-issue-with-the-way- it-is-shaping-up/)

<comment><USER9> Spamming your websites in comments isn't the solution to having multiple accounts hellbanned from submitting.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=npguy](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=npguy)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=newnpguy](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=newnpguy)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=newernpguy](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=newernpguy)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=newestnpguy](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=newestnpguy)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=brandnewnpguy](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=brandnewnpguy)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nevernpguy](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nevernpguy)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why does anyone link to cdixon posts?

<comment><USER11> By asking the question it implies you don't think they should, but you neither give a reason why you think his post shouldn't be nor do you call into question anything in the post. I like the snacking analogy, especially as people how around more and more on sites.

Here are a few reasons people on this site are interesting in why cdixon has to say: [http://cdixon.org/aboutme/](http://cdixon.org/aboutme/)</comment></comment>


Steve Jobs Business Card from 1979 Listed as VP New Product Development - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cloudcontacts.com/steve-jobs-business-card/

<comment><USER2> Hard to believe that this is real, I feel like Steve Jobs would have had better designed business cards.

<comment><USER3> Whaaaa. It absolutely is designed better. Have you seen business cards from that time? Everything was business-dry, including my grand fathers.

Serif logos, Serif body, no color.

<comment><AUTHOR> agree, it actually is well designed although I would have expected a telex number on there</comment></comment></comment>