America's Seed Fund: Up to $1.5M for Zero Equity - <AUTHOR> https://seedfund.nsf.gov/ <comment><USER2> As I see a number of posts negative on the NSF SBIR, so let me speak up in its defense. I'll discuss my experience as well as address some of the criticism I see above. I'll try and answer some follow up questions for people in the replies if I can as well.

My company (zeroK NanoTech) probably wouldn't exist if it where not for this program.

NSF SBIR can aid in the translation of technology that sits in the no-mans land between basic research and commercial technology. In my case the basic potential for our tech had been developed when I was a postdoc, but the federal lab where I worked (NIST) wasn't going to be able to translate it. At the same time, there was not a great chance to obtain venture or similar funding because the market was a bit too small.

Building off the results of our SBIR-funded research we were able to obtain additional investment from a larger company interested in our technology.

The Phase I program is competitive, I recall about 15% of applications are accepted, but the application here isn't _so_ onerous, btu the funding amount isn't very large; this is just for 'proof of concept ' work. The odds of matriculating to Phase II and a much larger pot of money are better, about 40%. There is a decently long gap between your decision to apply and beginning of the project, but I know the NSF is working on this. The NSF is also unique in that you can apply with just about any kind of technology; most other SBIRs are not anything like this.

I've also served on review panels for these grants. While it is the case that some applications come from largish companies who seems to subsist on SBIRs, the NSF makes a big effort to invest in 1st time applicants if they have a solid plan. My 'company' in our first application was just myself and my cofounder and very little other resources and we won our award. Once you are an awardee, I found the program officers to be very helpful.

<comment><USER3> If this program is so good it should probably take equity or be structured as a loan so that society can get more out of it with its funding.

<comment><USER4> You should not be getting downvoted. There is nothing wrong with the government taking equity (or at least dividends) in the companies it invests in _that nobody else wants to_. It's taking a risk. It should get a reward.

<comment><USER5> We shouldn't set profit expectations because of their future consequences on how the program will be judged.

The financial goals of this program shouldn't be profit — or even break even. Any profit expectations will undermine the the way this program is evaluated.

<comment><USER4> Screw the profit, give the money back to US citizens via a general social dividend.

<comment><USER6> We're talking about a tiny investment fund. It would be good if it just managed to break even.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Our startup is currently funded by multiple SBIRs (DOD, not NSF), and I'm amazed at the backlash against the program here.

Sure, if you have easy access to VC, your life would probably be simpler. The process is not easy or quick, and if you think you'll win on your first try, keep dreaming. Each proposal cycle is like the Olympics. And spoiler, even if you win dealing with government compliance is a huge pain, and it could easily take 9-12 months to see the first dollar.

We're not insiders (some but not all topics have a recipient in mind), and beyond the NSF there's heavy bias against young, small startups. But if you're a subject matter expert and can clearly communicate a realizable benefit to the warfighter (again, DOD), it is possible.

Doing hard tech out in the Midwest and having funding (VC is a myth here) is an awesome thing. Without it, I'd long since be back on the job market.

</comment><comment><USER8> Having gone through some of this, the timelines, requirements, selection process, etc. make the SBIR largely non-viable for a serious outsider tech startup effort and without outside primary funding.

It's great, for example, for professors not fully committing to a venture, but wanting to run it on the side over a prolonged time. Likewise, for a contractor shop cranking these out every year, or a stable non-startup wanting to get an R&D engineer covered. If you are indeed coming from inside the system, it can be a great supplement!

But for most startup folks here, your effort would go out of business before the successive funding rounds materialized, and there is too much risk that they don't happen to rely on them. You can read between the lines on the success stories reported even here. Your limited time is better spent on non- SBIR investors & customers.

<comment><USER9> Note that some of this is by design. For example, I'm in this category: 'It's great, for example, for professors not fully committing to a venture, but wanting to run it on the side over a prolonged time.'

Most startup land-friendly funding mechanisms _aren 't_ well suited for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Note: I've applied for SIBR funding in the past. Huge waste of time.

 _" The catch"_ Application process takes several months

Similar to an RFP, by the time a SIBR request is written, the preferred vendor has already been chosen.

Government agency usually gets perpetual use license of your product.

 _Pros_ : Received an actual written response (months later) with detailed rejection reasons. Something a VC would never do.

For DoD projects and vendors with TS clearances, a SIBR contract can be parlayed into 5-10 year deals.

<comment><USER11> I'm a panel reviewer for NSF SBIR and the comment about a "preferred vendor already being chosen" is absolutely not true. In fact, firms that have been funded for years by govt grants are at a disadvantage compared to "true" startups.

<comment><USER10> IIRC to qualify for SIBR a startup must have annual revenue < $10M (?) which excludes larger vendors.

Anyway, a better wording may be _" vendors in specific geographies with specialized skills"_.

The process is not as open as it appears. There is a strong bias for specialization.

<comment><USER12> I've found a couple of SBIR/STTR RFPs while I was responding to another question, and the ones I've found read:

 _Has, including its affiliates, not more than 500 employees and meets the other regulatory requirements found in 13 CFR 121._

That's from a DOE SBIR/STTR Phase I application.

<comment><USER13> hmm only less than 500 employees. Sounds legit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I just applied for this grant from the National Science Foundation and was invited to submit a full proposal. Maybe other founders on HN would find this helpful. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER14> This appears to be SBIR, which has quite a few requirements. However, are definitely worth it if you can apply for the grant.

I know in Champaign, IL (where I live) there are resources to help you submit an SBIR grant. I opted to go down a different path after completing a training regarding how to submit one. However, if I was working on implementing anything bio-tech related, I'd definitely submit an SBIR grant.

</comment><comment><USER15> For what it's worth, I worked on improving this while at 18F.

A big problem with this program was that the funds distributed were disproportionately allocated to coastal cities. As a result, places like silicon valley, north east (Boston) and NY. The goal of the project revision was to help make sure more money was going to less recognized universities and research entities.

This is definitely worth pursuing if there are areas of research that you or your company are exploring that have potential to go to market with a infusion of capital.

The drawbacks, like any type of investment, are mainly the distribution cycles of the funds. Unlike private equity, you may need to wait longer than a quick VC seedfund to get money. If you are already burning capital, then this is likely not the ideal investment for you.

</comment><comment><USER16> This program is great. Massively helpful if you have risky technology. It was our primary funding source for the first few years.

</comment><comment><USER17> Does anyone have experience receiving funding through this sort of thing?

<comment><USER18> It's a bit of a disaster. Government processes aren't rational; they're bureaucratic, with specific (and complex) procedures intended to guarantee fairness. The government receives a set of proposals, and must evaluate them based on objective criteria. Unless you know what those are, you won't be competitive. You basically want to be an expert grant writer; that matters more than anything. Proposals can be rejected without being read if you, for example, format your document incorrectly, or use the wrong way to project expenses -- nits no VC would care about.

The result is that much of the funding goes to SBIR shops -- organizations with no business model aside from operating from government grants. They write proposals, and use those to fund operations. They keep going for many years with products tailored to the SBIR process rather than to real markets.

If you want to play, my advice would be to talk to someone who has done it, and have them review your submission. My other piece of advice is talk to the program officer. Their job is, in part, to help you navigated the sometimes- byzantine process.

All that said, I don't feel bad having my taxes spent there. Despite the mismanagement, it seems to have a positive ROI for the world.

<comment><USER19> I remember looking into and applying for SBIRs many years ago. My comments reflect the programs as last I interacted with them, so they may be dated in understanding.

There are many issues, not the least of which are the very long lead times. From submission to decision/notifications can be 6+ months.

Another issue is the Phase I/II gap. Sure, you can get more money, but there is another (at least) 6 month interval for that. And there is no guarantee that you will get the Phase II. You have to show very specific positive forward motion in Phase I to get Phase II. And Phase III, commercialization, is similar in that you need to show a nascent market.

Back when I was looking into and applying for these, the VCs I spoke with suggested that they were a signal, albeit not a strong signal, that there was "something there". Not enough on its own to pull them off the couch to write a check, but enough to keep them interested if others did.

This said, having participated in my fair share of government sponsored small business innovation programs, and seeing the most politically connected applicants get funded for fairly poor ideas, I'm kind of jaded about these programs. As bad as they are VCs have the right incentive (profit) albeit in the wrong structure IMO, to invest. The government is all about box checking to show their effectiveness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Do we really need this? Is there some lack of private venture capital that this is overcoming? As a taxpayer, I'm not cool with this. I would much rather this money be granted for research that then becomes public domain. Why should our taxes be handed out for risky business endeavors with no direct public benefit, when the private sector already has the means to handle this?

"But the government gives tons of handouts to existing companies" isn't a good answer, either. Two wrongs etc.

<comment><USER21> > Do we really need this? Is there some lack of private venture capital that > this is overcoming?

\- VC funding is a thing only in SV and a few other cities. Most cities do not have a vibrant ecosystem that is accessible to Small Businesses

\- VC's only invest in ideas that have both a high likelihood of success and a large payout. SBIR focuses on ideas that have a high likelihood of success without a large payout a.k.a the vast majority of small businesses in America

> I would much rather this money be granted for research that then becomes > public domain.

Y not both?

> Why should our taxes be handed out for risky business endeavors with no > direct public benefit, when the private sector already has the means to > handle this?

\- its not risky

\- private VC cannot be relied on to fund certain kinds of businesses. American Bank loans are decidedly low-risk too (and can't be swapped for equity)

> "But the government gives tons of handouts to existing companies" isn't a > good answer, either. Two wrongs etc.

That is not the answer. If that was, I agree it wouldn't be a good one.

In general, grants of Capital to small ventures that have good foundations is not a "waste of taxpayer money". The success of those businesses creates jobs, that pay taxes, support the local economy etc. They're a waste only if you think giving grants is literally burning a pile of money, which it is not.

<comment><USER22> "\- its not risky"

It is super risky and we had this discussion before on HN. SBIR grants are often given for "blue sky" projects. You could say that is the definition of "risk".

<comment><USER21> A statement like that, without linking to any of said conversations on SBIR grants, provides very little value to the discussion. If you could link to said threads that would be lovely.

<comment><USER22> My post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17995933](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17995933)

A guy who agreed with me: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17997184](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17997184)

Matthew Weinberg, former Special Advisor to the SBA's Office of Investment and Innovation, disagrees with you. With respect to the SBIR program, he said:

"It's fundamentally astounding that the federal government—not private venture capital firms or banks—is the entity backing these moonshot investments that end up changing the world[1]."

<comment><USER23> That quote comes from this Fundera blog post [1], which speaks _positively_ about the SBIR program:

 _> If your small business focuses on developing scientific or technological breakthroughs, we'll tell you exactly how to get the SBIR funds you need to change the world._

Given that, I would assume Matthew Weinberg _agrees_ with GP, and means "astounding" with a positive connotation.

[1] [https://www.fundera.com/blog/sbir- program/](https://www.fundera.com/blog/sbir-program/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> We are funded by the nsf sbir and I must say if it wasn't for this mechanism our company would not exist. Effectively it funds reach science that can have translational applications. The value of the sbir is to get you to mvp ( phase I) and scale out to prove traction in phase II

Effectively it provides capital when vcs aren't willing to either because you're too early from rev numbers or they just lack the alignment on vision/market or some other reason

</comment><comment><USER25> I believe that ThousandEyes, a very successful Bay Area start up now funded by tier 1 Sandhill Road folks was initially funded with this or something similar.

</comment><comment><USER26> Is there anything like this for non-US residents?

<comment><USER27> Other countries have similar funding available. For instance the Danish Innovation fund: [https://innovationsfonden.dk/en](https://innovationsfonden.dk/en)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The biggest problem with these grants is that GE (and other big companies) have entire divisions dedicated to opening a "startup", writing the application, getting the money, and then folding the company back into the parent.

They are a shotgun while you, at best, are a rifle. Success probabilities are corresponding.

</comment><comment><USER29> I've written and participated in a number of (successful and unsuccessful) Phase I&II SBIR & STTR grants via the NIH; can anyone who has done both NIH and NSF grants speak to any substantive differences between the two agencies?

<comment><USER30> I only have first hand experience with NIH SBIR/STTRs, but I have heard good things from acquaintances with NSF funding. Sounds like NSF has put more resources into startup resources and mentorship, like its i-Corps program. I've also heard that NSF program officers are more open to NSF SBIR PIs pivoting their projects along the way, in order to suss out product-market fit. (Note that my impressions may be some years out of date.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> an effect I've noticed on this forum is that people come out against something just for the sake of making an argument. I've done it. so to get a gauge on a true measure of sentiment you need to correct for that effect. my guess is about 80% of the negative bluster is argument based and not sentiment based. meaning that if you could measure the same people's true feelings on the matter in another context when removed from the motivation to argue I think you'd see at least 80% reduction in negative sentiment on any topic. the medium of this forum is just polarizing but don't be swayed by that. The truth is much closer to the center on many issues I think.

<comment><USER32> For the record I'm neutral on this topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> At least no room for corruption

</comment><comment><USER34> Any US citizen interested in zero equity seed money from the US government should investigate SBIR (of which this is the NSF component), a program overseen by the Small Business Administration, but run through the departments. (You end up paying in other ways — but you should be aware of it as an option.)

Every US government research program must provide 3% of its R&D to small businesses, with the goal of seeding American innovation outside of major conglomerates.

Personally, I view results driven government seed money as a viable answer to many questions the US faces — but it requires we pull together behind a vision of free people engaged in small commerce, something the US left wing seems to vehemently oppose.

I'm a capitalist, though: I believe the best way to cause human flourishing is expansive commerce coupled with individual freedoms, and suggest anyone disputing the social value of that show me a system that's uplifted as many minorities out of poverty as, say, McDonalds franchising.

<comment><USER35> > uplifted as many minorities out of poverty as, say, McDonalds franchising.

I appreciate your overall message, but I believe that one would need to have non-poverty level assets to even be considered to open a McDonald's franchise. Odd example.</comment></comment>


Mozilla's Robert O'Callahan explains why it was important to support Ogg in Firefox - <AUTHOR> http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2008/08/why_ogg_matters.html <comment><USER6> I think it's great that Mozilla is promoting royalty free technologies. RAND licensing is fine if you're a megacorp, but for smaller companies and especially startups it can be a big hurdle. And the 'reasonable' part is often questionable in the technical sense when many patents are pretty trivial or should not have been granted at all.

</comment><comment><USER7> Bloggers really have to learn to edit their posts. Not even as a disagreement with "open for open's sake" but as a matter of writing quality in general. Bloggers just don't write well.

"To reach the rest, we will keep turning people into Firefox users, and pressure Apple, Microsoft and other vendors to support Vorbis and Theora."

That's a complete waste of a sentence. "To get people who don't use our product to use this format, we will make them use our product."

"Isn't Theora inferior to H.264, so no-one will use it? Theora isn't bad on an absolute scale --- look at some demos to see for yourself."

Can't they just say that it's inferior, and say it straight out? Double talk fools nobody. Something like "It's inferior, but not by much - and a growing community online is trying to use entirely open formats. (Try it yourself here.)"

"Even if it's slightly lower quality than H.264 at some bit rates, it's still going to be very useful to people who favour free formats on principle, or who need an open-source solution, or who want a solution that Just Works across platforms without plugins, or who just want a solution without licensing fees --- for example, if you just want a convenient way to use a video clip in a Web app."

First off - DO you have to pay Adobe to use Flash commercially? I was not aware of this.

Second - liking something just because it's free is and always will be stupid. People don't use Firefox because it's free. They use it because they think it's the best browser, and by some arguments it is. Similarly, a post like this would serve better purpose to be open about the practical advantages of Ogg, rather than to try and preach to the masses.

This is something that I've become increasingly annoyed with over the last few months regarding the Firefox team: they've become less like visionaries and more like evangelists. Reading this was like seeing Firefox's download page for 3: the See How We Stack Up comparison with Safari.

Compatible with modern Web pages and technologies - <USER2>

Active security features like anti-phishing and anti-malware - <USER5>

Battle-tested security process and the industry's fastest response times -<USER5>
Thousands of ways to personalize your online experience - <USER5>

100% free and open source software - <USER5>

That is a pure propaganda bit and Mozilla knows it. The important bit is the compatibility, and by Acid3 standards, Firefox is LESS compatible than Safari (and Webkit blows it away, of course). The quick response times is really a tie. "Battle-tested" means nothing. I know people like plug-ins, but "online experience" is another marketing term. It doesn't really matter in terms of competition whether or not something is open source, but Safari IS "100% free." "Active security features" is legitimate, but that's only one point in Firefox's advantage, and - of course - they leave out Safari's advantages as well. While I know this is standard practice for competition, Firefox would win me over much more if they cut the crap and were honest about "Okay, you might like us more IF you do the following things a lot, and you might NOT like us if you do such-and-such."

This point, and my following points about aesthetic of writing, don't seem to bother many other people here. The art of honesty is one that doesn't hold much water online, so it seems. People online are much happier with imprecision and selective dishonesty than they should be, and it's something that worries me about developing culture.

That's my main argument; what follows is merely aesthetic nitpicking rather than nitpicking on content.

"Vendor pressure must come from content providers dedicated to making compelling content available in free formats (coupled with a superior playback experience in Firefox)."

This sentence is just terrible and seems to shift subject and tense as it does. Vendor pressure - the noun here seems like it should be vendor, but it's pressure - must come from content providers - an empty term - dedicated to making compelling content - compelling is compelling regardless of format - available in free formats - but, of course, this is self-obvious (because, the "pressure" is the pressure to use open formats; therefore, any pressure to use open formats must come from open format users) - coupled with a superior playback experience in Firefox - not only is "experience" a terrible word that's overused in this post, but this post should have to do with Ogg Vorbis and not promoting Firefox. That hurts the cause of Ogg, when its promoter is only promoting it to promote itself.

"This is a great example of why Mozilla and Firefox are important. The Web needs a high-market-share browser vendor committed to free software and open standards across the board."

This is not a great example, because open formats are not necessarily important, never have been, and most likely never will be. They've been nice, of course, but they're always an added luxury rather than a main feature. The web does not "need" these things. It might "benefit from" them, but it does not need them. Also, needless to say, there's so much fluff in this sentence. This writer is terrible.

"The answer is simple"

Yes, but it wasn't explained simply.

And it's funny, as an afterthought, because almost every programmer I know is precise with language to a fault. The person writing this is not writing as a programmer. He is not writing from a logical point of view. He is writing as a marketer, which almost guarantees that he knows he's being deceptive with his language.

Here's how he could have written that post and made it shorter but better.

"Matt Asay doesn't understand why shipping Ogg Vorbis and Theora in Firefox is important. The answer is simple. Open video/audio formats are not widely supported as of yet - and we believe that open formats help keep the web free and equal. By giving 100 million users Ogg support, we're making it a format that's less risky for developers, which may pressure other companies into supporting the format as well.

"Is Ogg equal to H.264? Not quite, but it's good - check it out for yourself. And quality is only improving. We would love to offer open codecs for H.264 in the meantime, but until something changes, we can't.

"Wasn't this already available on Firefox? Yes - but as a plugin. We feel that supporting Ogg out-of-the-box meant one less step for the end user - and that means that overall, Ogg is a hundred million steps closer to being an actual alternative format. Making formats difficult to use is bad for everybody, even developers and users that prefer other formats."

Of course, Mozilla wouldn't mention usability nowadays, since usability design isn't nearly as high a priority as it was even with Firefox 2.

<comment><USER8> You blame the post for being wordy and complex and then you post something like this...

<comment><USER7> :-)

Seriously, though... the difference is that mine is straight to the point. There's a time for lengthy posts, and criticizing another post in-depth requires length.

The difference, I'd think, is that my post doesn't mince words, doesn't repeat itself, and tries to make relevant points with a minimum of rambling.</comment></comment></comment>


Japan still has great influence on global financial markets - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/08/02/japan-still-has-great-influence-on-global-financial-markets <comment><USER2> Just this morning Japan overtook China as the number two stock market in the world. Also, with the US interest rate going up and trade wars, money is flowing out of emerging markets back to stable economies. In this case, the Japanese savings that left Japan 25 years ago can start to come back to Japan. That capital inflow might start to help Japan with some inflationary pressure. Especially if Japan's plan to allow 500,000 foreign workers this year. Japan has also been importing foreign workers for years now.

We talk about Japan as if it's dying sometimes, but when you visit Japan, it is amazing how high of quality they all live in. Great food of all cuisine, clean streets, easy transportation, high tech buildings, friendly population, and most recently, cheap food and lodgings.

<comment><USER3> > friendly population

Is that really the case if you're not from Japan? I have read and heard a number of horror stories over the years [1]

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/31/japan- racism-s...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/31/japan-racism- survey-reveals-one-in-three-foreigners-experience-discrimination)

<comment><USER4> Two years ago, I talked to an American who is ethnically Korean and lives in Japan. I asked him if Japanese were still prejudiced against Koreans. He said that he would have said "no" in the past, but now he thinks that they're prejudiced against Korean _culture_ , and he escaped because he was culturally American.

Just one data point...

<comment><USER5> Hm interesting because Korean pop culture is popular among Japanese teens just as it has become popular in the US, but again, another one data point.

<comment><USER6> Black culture is popular in the US, but racism against black people is still systemic and prevalent.

Culture and sociology are often more complex than anecdotes would suggest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Good ol' Mrs Watanabe![1]

[1][https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mrs- watanabe.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mrs-watanabe.asp)

</comment><comment><USER8> Japan has the third largest GDP in the world, and the first two are continent sized superpowers; I'd be surprised if they didn't have global influence.

</comment><comment><USER9> tl;dr Japanese investors have been splurging on overseas assets because returns at home are so poor. This has ballooned their influence on prices globally.</comment>


Why aren't you contributing (To Python)? - <AUTHOR> http://jessenoller.com/2010/04/22/why-arent-you-contributing-to-python/ <comment><USER2> A big reason I don't do much for python core is that I find it good enough for most of my needs. I do like to contribute to ecosystem stuff tho. Here are reasons I've stopped contributing, or never contributed to some projects:

1\. They work good enough for me: a big reason for my contributing is me needing it to work a certain way. I have a tendency to whirlwind into a project, dump lots of source, suggestions and whatnot, then not not come back. There is frequently little incentive for me to continue participation. The ones I stick with have a good little community -- this is important. Even solo authors that respond frequently and quickly are community enough for me.

2\. Non-attribution/recognition -- There are at least 2 projects out there that don't attribute my code, despite it being in the "trunk". Another project that factored my code out, took my name off the contributors list. Another never used my code, but took lots of ideas (with email exchanges explaining my intentions with my code), but never recognized my help. In all of those cases I have moved on. I don't like to complain and won't point fingers here, but it does negatively motivate me. Similarly there are a few projects that I would like to participate in, but am very wary based on individual's connections with the above projects.

3\. Fear of what I call rabbit-hole-itis. Sometimes it is safer for me not to delve into the code well enough to make it better, because I will spend a week on it instead of being "for-real" productive. This is prolly not fixable as it's about me not the community (of course it wouldn't be a problem if y'all stopped with the neat projects).

4\. A lot of times it seems like more hassle than it's worth to try and contribute. I think the article hits those on the head -- mostly the part about "convincing others my patch actually helps". It is frustrating to deal with project core devs that don't want to look at your code because of silly reasons that are not technical -- e.g. "why would you ever need to do that" or "it works 'just fine' already".

HTH

<comment><USER3> Thanks for that. A project I contribute to recently had a discussion and policy change about what the right threshold is for adding someone to the official list of contributors (which also means a mention in the release notes and blog post accompanying a new release).

On advice from a Sage (sagemath.org) developer: _anything_. The core devs gain little by withholding the "contributor" merit badge, and simple recognition is usually the main thing that motivates a newcomer to follow through with a patch and stay with the community. So now, if a new developer helps us with _any_ contribution -- one-line patch, test case, documentation -- we offer to add their name to the contributors list and news file.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think what would certainly help Python community is to have a _prioritized_ list of _specific small tasks_ that could be done to improve Python, grouped by contributor's skill level, e.g. tasks for complete newby, tasks for C hackers, tasks for folks who are good at writing docs etc., along with some information on how to get started. (I'm not sure if you have it already).

That will require some additional effort from Python core developement group - somebody would need to go through the bug tracker, categorize the tasks etc. - but it will probably mitigate some of the issues mentioned by jesse above ("Don't know how", "Don't know where" etc.)

<comment><USER5> We do have an "easy" list in the bugtracker, but it can be annoying to find.

<comment><USER6> Do you have a link to share?

<comment><USER4> [http://bugs.python.org/issue?status=1&@sort=-activity...](http://bugs.python.org/issue?status=1&@sort=-activity&@dispname=Show%20Easy&@startwith=0&@filter=&@group=priority&@columns=id,activity,title,creator,status&keywords=6&@action=search&@pagesize=50)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I use Python on a daily basis, for about three years now. I can't remember ever having a problem or a gripe with the language or the standard library. In all those years it has served me well and it continues to do so - I also have no hurry migrating to Python 3.

I miss nothing in Python, it's all there, source code, excellent documentation and website, very nice and clean language, superb datastructures, a fairly complete stdlib and a fantastic community of people around it.

Is Python complete? It seems that for me it is indeed. Others may still miss things. But I perceive the 'stagnant design' mentioned in another post as an advantage: it provides stability.

</comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for sharing this. I'm definitely interesting in HN feedback as well.

<comment><USER8> Though I'm only a marginal Python hacker and thus consider it unlikely that I could contribute at this point in my development to the code base, I've continued to be interested in things like outreach, particular improving the Python web site.

The current Python website continues to be a terrible first stop for new-to- Python visitors, despite this very issue being discussed at length at recent PyCons. Compared to the excellent Git and Ruby sites, for instance, it's really second rate from a design, navigation and identity perspective.

However I haven't pursued contributing to the site. Here's why:

1\. Contribute to the website options on Python.org seem limited to "bug fixes". The "SiteImprovements" page is a mess. The whole site design and identity is a bug, unfortunately.

2\. The stagnant design (only a marginal improvement over the previous iteration) implies that there is either a serious design-by-committee problem when it comes to the site or a serious lack of good-design-sense from whomever is actually running it.

I'm not trying to be a grouch about this, but the site needs strong direction in terms of visual identity, navigation, presentation, etc., not just incremental fixes.

I'll put my time/money where my mouth is on this. If there really is a chance to radically improve the site and contribute, I'm there. Point me in the right direction. If there is a roadblocker committee issue that needs to be sorted first.

<comment><USER5> I actually completely agree with you, and your final point is what I want to drive towards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In this video, Brett Cannon explains the Python development process.

"How Python is developed"

<http://www.blip.tv/file/1947394/>

"Python, like any other open source project, has its own way of doing things when it comes to development. To an outsider it can seem complicated and difficult to break into. But in fact, Python's development practices are simple as long as you know what the basic workflow is. This talk will go over that workflow, from how a bug ends up getting fixed to how a new language feature get added. In the end people should have an understanding of how Python is developed and how anyone can contribute to the project."

<comment><USER5> Yes, and Brett and I have discussed grossly improving the dev.python.org site. It's on the plan, but somewhat orthogonal to what I'm asking for from the community. Personally, I'm quite aware of how to contribute :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Python has always worked quite well for me. If I've found bugs, they've generally been fixed in the next version. This is in comparison to PHP and its associated libraries, where I feel like I'm constantly patching to keep the house of cards standing.

</comment><comment><USER10> What really turns me off to contributing to Python is waiting a year to even get a reply on a bug report. I'd like to think my reports are decent and usable - hell, some even come with patches - but that's still some pretty terrible triage.

That, and the amount of bike shedding going on the dev mailing lists is ridiculous. At least it seemed that way the last time I kept up with it. So much pointless circular discussion.

<comment><USER11> Bug report triaging is very good now - _most_ reports get responded to within a day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The bugs just aren't visible enough. For example look at MMOs & how they attract new users. Tasks are clear, there's always an easy training level, & difficulty slowly ramps up to keep people engaged & interested. I might suggest something like "bug of the day" with easy/medium/high difficulties.

<comment><USER5> But is it possible that making the bugs we have more apparent would scare people off from using it? "Oh no! A programming language with bugs!"

<comment><USER13> Maybe there could be an 'introduction to submitting patches to Python' tutorial with a VM that includes:

\- A Python implementation with some obvious and easy to find bugs (plus hints).

\- A checklist of the patch notes/emails that would be expected.

\- The e-mail address of someone who will read and respond to the submitted patch and offer feedback. (Should be low traffic, and it'd be worth answering the email to get a new patch submitter.)

<comment><USER12> Might also want to check how topcoder did it. They're not perfect (like WoW) but they've built a huge company on free labor, basically. WoW gets the serfs to pay for it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> [off topic, but related to the broader Python world]

I know some of the Django core developers hang out here. I wish one of them would undertake a similar exercise for Django. I tried to help out Django in some teeny tiny ways but soon gave up due to a mixture of the reasons cited, including silence.

</comment><comment><USER15> Mike Hudson was mean to me back around 1999. I've never stopped using python, but I've always been leery of participating in its development. :-)

</comment><comment><USER16> Opportunity cost. Not a good use of my time. Smarter to use Python as it is to do things that yield greater value for me.</comment>


Ask HN: Switch to SW job from embedded - <AUTHOR> My undergrad background is in CS and I used to be interested in web development (among other things). But I got an embedded job and stayed in it for six years. I am pursuing a Masters in CS now and plan to switch to something more mainstream. At the moment I am having a tough time getting calls from companies for internships (also probably because I started applying late?). Is there anything else I should be doing other than personal projects on github etc? Also, along with my coursework there's only so much extra work I can manage. Any advice? <comment><USER2> To me, the current career phase seems to clearly be academic, i.e. a masters and internships. I'd think that extreme flexibility in regard to the company for an internship would allow more focus on an internship outside of embedded software. My recommendation would be to be entirely upfront with companies about wanting to "broaden" your experience beyond embedded (i.e. in the cover letter).

Anyway, my take is it __might __be worth considering no internship over an embedded systems one if the goal of the masters is to get out of embedded since that would be consistent with the longer term career goal. It might also be worth working toward post degree employment outside of embedded sooner rather than later.

Good luck.</comment>


Science and Non-Fiction Humble Bundle - <AUTHOR> https://www.humblebundle.com/books/brain-wave-books <comment><AUTHOR> $1+

Science and Philosophy - Alfred North Whitehead

The Genome - Sergei Lukyyaneko

Mind: A Unified Theory of Life and Intelligence - Frank T. Vertosick Jr.

On Shaky Ground - John J. Nance

Atomic Accidents - Jim Mahaffey

Martian Summer - Andrew Kessler

The Goldilock's Enigma - Paul Davies

Water: The Fate of our Most Precious Resource - Marq de Villiers

$8+

In the beginning... - Issac Asimov

Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold - Tom Shachtman

How to Cool the Planet - Jeff Goodell

Louis Agassiz: Creator of American Science - Christoph Irmscher

No Turning Back - Richard Ellis

The Edge of Physics - Anil Ananthaswamy

The Boy Who Played with Fusion - Tom Clynes

X-15 Diary - Richard Tregaskis

Essays in Science - Albert Einstein

A Devil's Chaplan - Richard Dawkins

$15+

The Canon - Natalie Angier

Earth: An Alien Enterprise - Timothy Good

The Sphinx at Dawn - Madeleine L'Engle

Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman - James Gleick

Unnatural Selection - Mark Roeder

Chaos: Making a New Science - James Gleick

Dinosaurs Without Bones - Anthony J. Martin

Strange Angel - George Pendle

Farewell to Reality - Jim Baggott

Moon Shot - Jay Barbree, Alan Shepard, Deke Slayton

Seven Elements That Changed the World - John Browne

Time Travel in Einstein's Universe - J. Richard Gott</comment>


GitHub is Down - <AUTHOR> https://status.github.com/

<comment><USER2> and this, kids, is why you check in your dependencies with your project. You can refer to them in your vendor folder for fun, no problem. BUT KEEP A LOCAL COPY IN YOUR REPO

This is for Composer, as wel as for NPM. You now introduced a third-party dependency into your development workflow. What will you do when github goes down for a week?

<comment><USER3> Or... just keep a clone of the upstream repo right next to your project's repo.

I'm all in favor of removing the runtime dependency on GitHub and similar, but that doesn't inherently require keeping deps in the same repo as the project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems to be luck of the draw whether each pageload goes through or not

</comment><comment><USER5> Same here, couldn't update my packages with composer.</comment>


Optimising a Trebuchet [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gn2RGPqe_A <comment><USER2> If you enjoyed this one, the video where he adds the wheels is equally fascinating: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpFTyE- wiNo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpFTyE-wiNo)

<comment><USER3> To me it's way more interesting than TFA, as it's really not obvious why the wheels would work, and the wheels don't work "out of the box" either, you can't just slap wheels on a tuned "static" trebuchet and need to do some re- tuning to get the correct synchronisation between the arm and counterweight.

Really neat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most of the means of optimizing trebuchets make sense after the fact, but would not be intuitive to me at first glance.

For example, making the frame more rigid improved the outcome here, but if you put the whole thing on wheels you would likely still get _more_ increase because the weight could take a more direct path downward as the frame moves.

<comment><USER5> >the weight could take a more direct path downward as the frame moves.

That should change how long it takes the arm to drop, but it shouldn't change the amount of potential energy released (and thus, projectile speed).

<comment><USER4> Projectile velocity is a function of power rather than energy alone because you only have so much time to accelerate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very interesting. Is it possible to make a trebuchet that can throw stuffs beyond escape velocity?

<comment><USER7> Orbital Velocity at grazing altitude is 8 km/s, and escape velocity is sqrt(2) times that, or about 11.3 km/s. Thing is, anything travelling that fast in the atmosphere tries to turn to plasma, so your launch arm would need to be a bit special.

Or at very high altitude.

Or have ablative heat shielding.

But atmospheric drag would probably prevent you from getting anything like those speeds with this kind of mechanism.

<comment><USER8> This happened before: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob#Propulsion_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Plumbbob#Propulsion_of_steel_plate_cap)

<comment><USER9> Wow, so they basically made a cannon powered by 300t nuclear explosion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The superior siege weapon.</comment>


Are you any good? I've been playing chess for Millennia... - <AUTHOR> http://www.marydeathcomics.com/1/post/2013/04/war-games.html

<comment><USER2> Repeating a misspelled word in your title, that is misspelled in the original, doesn't actually improve things.

s/millenia/millennia/

> 1 point by hownottowrite ...

Your handle is somehow apt.

<comment><AUTHOR> I aim to please.

<comment><USER2> BTW it was a nice cartoon.</comment></comment></comment>


DuckTales invented a new animated wonderland—that quickly disappeared - <AUTHOR> http://www.avclub.com/articles/ducktales-invented-new-animated-wonderlandthat-qu,92324/ <comment><USER2> I can't tell whether the 90s were a little renaissance in animation, or whether it's just my imagination.

As gcatalfamo and yareally pointed out, Disney had _Duck Tales_ , _Darkwing Duck_ , _Chip n Dale_ and so on.

Meanwhile at Warner Brothers they had _Tiny Toons_ , _Animaniacs_ and of course the excellent _Batman: The Animated Series_. I rewatched it recently and, unlike a lot of my nostalgic favourites, it has held up beautifully.

MTV backed _Beavis and Butthead_ and _Aeon Flux_. Fox backed _King of the Hill_ and was riding the wave of some of the best of the _Simpsons_.

And let's not forget Klasky Csupo -- most famous for _Rugrats_ and _Aaahh!!! Real Monsters_ , they were also responsible for my favourite "cartoon for grownups", _Duckman_. I love that show -- if it'd been around for the DVD era we'd probably still be watching it.

Edit: and Nickolodeon (forehead smack) with _The Ren & Stimpy Show_ and _Rocko's Modern Life_.

<comment><USER3> There's also Genndy Tartakovsky with Samurai Jack and Dexters Laboratory, although I realize they're in early 2000 - they're both excellent. Sad that his first foray into feature films is Hotel Transylvania.

<comment><USER4> Loved Dexter's Laboratory. I missed most of Samurai Jack, but what I did see was good. Adult Swim is currently showing Sym-Bionic Titan on Saturdays at 2am (so that would technically be Sunday at 2am). It's pretty good too.

<comment><USER5> Did they make more than one season of Sym-Bionic Titan? I thought the art was gorgeous, but it felt like a decent high school drama, an awesome "large mecha fighting monsters" drama, but that the two halves didn't blend well _at all_. The strongest episodes were the ones that were either entirely in the high school, or entirely in the suit.

I also enjoyed the political stuff & (oddly) the robot dating the cheerleader.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Duck Tales is by far the best, most fulfilling cartoon I can remember watching. I don't know how old I was when I saw that episode where they bring bottle caps to Shangri La, but I've never forgotten how inflation works since then :)

<comment><USER7> Hah, I gotta find that episode. I am near a place the Chinese government _renamed_ "Shangri-la" for tourism purposes recently: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhongdian>

<comment><USER8> Zhongdian and ducktales, those are two things I'd never thought would be put together in a hackernews post. Awesome mountains though, we stayed up there for a couple of nights in '06.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _And instead of drawing its inspiration from a toy line or popular movie (like other pioneers in the afternoon animated-syndication market), DuckTales drew its inspiration from a series of comic books that weren't terribly well-known in the United States_.

I think the author suffers a bit from US-centric short-sightedness here. If the goals was world-wide syndication, then the Carl Barks stories were the most logical option, as they have always been Disney's most popular comics internationally speaking.

<comment><USER10> Just to give a counter-example: I am from "international", but until you just mentioned him I never heard of Carl Barks. I do know Donald Duck an Co. though, they were wildly popular among children when I was growing up.

<comment><USER9> Well, do you know who the authors of the Donald Duck comics you read were? Maybe I should have said Donald Duck comics in general, but Carl Barks created the majority of that particular comic universe.

(The funny thing is, I still don't know any authors except Barks and Don Rosa, but I can see if a Donald Duck comic originates from the Netherlands, Italy, Denmark, etc.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I must be an outlier because I can't stand Duck Tales. I grew up reading Uncle Scrooge comics (and even at age 8, I could tell a Carl Barks story just from a glance, even if I didn't know who Carl Barks was at the time) but the first episode of Duck Tales I saw just infuriated me. They _ruined_ Carl's stories.

For instance, the one episode they link to in the article, "Back to the Klondike" is _nothing_ like the comic story. In the comic, Glittering Goldie stole Scrooge's gold nugget by drugging him---he goes back to town, forces Goldie to give him his gold back, plus sign an I.O.U. for the rest, with interest. The story is him going back to collect on the I.O.U. with a now penniless Goldie and him intentionally throwing a contest (via a subplot of him losing his memory) to let Goldie "win".

The show? Too much changed and I couldn't even watch it past the 10 minute mark when they introduced two new characters never in the original story. Goldie was presented as a love interest (there is no love story in the original comic) and the subplot leading to Scrooge throwing the contest was dropped entirely. Given that I stopped watching a very painful episode for me, I don't know what else Disney did to the story, but I just can't stand the show.

Okay, I can somewhat understand Disney's reluctance in using Donald, but really? Launchpad McQuack? And you really needed April's nieces in the stories? Ahhhhh!

I also can appreciate and admire the animation quality for a TV show. But I think I'm just too much a fan of Carl Barks stories to enjoy the TV show.

<comment><USER2> And how did you feel about the _Lord of the Rings_ movies, about 2/3rds of anime or 12% of the BBC's output?

Stories transposed into different media are under no legal or moral obligation to produce 1:1 copies of any previous version.

<comment><USER12> I think if someone wants to use that excuse, they should produce a substantially different adaptation of the source material, like some of the crazier variations of Shakespeare.

LOTR was mostly well done (yes please, cut Tom Bombadil and that whole pointless detour), but they also made changes for no apparent reason.

The Harry Potter movies were perhaps the worst offender, substituting perfectly decent dialogue from the books with cringeworthy kids movie crap. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Oh, my young life. And yes, the 90s were a Golden Age.

My son and I watched DuckTales together for the first time this year. I was pretty disappointed that the discs stopped before the last season, although I did feel the earlier shows were more atmospheric and classic.

I had massive deja vu for every single frame of the GizmoDuck 5-parter. We must have taped it and I must have seen it many many times.

The other thing I really love about this show is that it's so sweet. The characters really mess up and have feelings and make important choices. Scrooge many times walks away from money for family and friends and is better off for it (he gets the money in the end too but that's not the chewy center).

</comment><comment><USER14> Some of the stuff I enjoyed:

* Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs

* BraveStarr

* Defenders of the Earth

* M.A.S.K.

* Thundercats

* Ulysses 31 (80s series but ran in the 90s here)

Fun anecdote:

I watched Ulysses 31 and the day before one of my Latin exams in school they aired the episode where he returns home and proves it's him via the bow.

The great thing was that the exam was an experimental one where instead of the usual translation+grammar we got a pretty long text and had to summarize it and answer questions about it. As soon as I recognized some key words (name of the hero, arcum tendere construct) I basically wrote down the stuff from the episode (-the space theme) and hoped they stayed true to the original story :D

Least painful Latin exam ever.

<comment><USER15> M.A.S.K. was awesome! I have trouble finding people who remember it. They also had the second best toys (after Transformers). I wonder if this stuff is on Netflix...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ducktales inherited much of its sophistication from the comics on which it was based. Carl Barks, creator of Scrooge and most of the rest of the Duckburg universe, was an avid reader of National Geographic and sought to expose his readers to the wonders he found within. I'm incredibly thankful to have been exposed not only to this show but the comics which were also briefly resurgent in the mid-late 1980s (published by a small company out of Arizona called Another Rainbow under the Gladstone mark). The editors recognized the importance of these works not just as simple stories for kids and filled the comics with analysis alongside reproductions of the golden age works. It was around this time that Don Rosa (who was featured on Hacker News last week) emerged as a modern day torch bearer. What a great time to be a kid! It's a shame this stuff has faded from popularity and public consciousness.

</comment><comment><USER4> I was a Duck Tales junkie but my love of good cartoons goes before that. I was raised on Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry, before they were censored and rehashed multiple times. I remember religiously watching Danger Mouse, Bananaman, and Count Duckula on Nickelodeon in its infancy. Most people remember the original Thundercats, but I was more into Silverhawks which was around at the same time as Duck Tales.

I always came home from school to cartoons, whether it was Looney Tunes, something from Hanna-Barbera, Transformers, G.I. Joe, old anime like Speed Racer and Robotech (Macross), TMNT, or the various Disney and Warner Bros.-inspired cartoons mentioned in the article. I still watch cartoons, and always will.

<comment><USER17> "Right DM, but what if somebody's parked there?"

"Penfold, shush."

I miss that show.

<comment><USER18> On Hulu now, if you feel nostalgic.

I still have a VHS of DM episodes that I taped during the 80's , I still dig out the VCR once a year and watch it (with commercials) just to get the nostalgia hit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was a big fan of DuckTales, Thundercats and a lot of the other cartoons of the time. As a military brat what would always amaze me is the different afternoon cartoons that would come on depending on what region of the country you were in. I know it had to do with syndication but whenever I moved or visited somewhere as a kid they would have different afternoon cartoons than I was used to. This was probably noticeable a little more before the DuckTales effect happened as stated in the article.

For example, when I lived down south I would see Tennessee Tuxedo, Sherman and Peabody and several other different cartoons. But when I would visit my grandmother in Delaware I would see cartoons like Chilly Willy, Inspector Gadget and Heathcliff. The only time I would get consistent cartoons was when they came on basic cable stations like TBS. When I moved to Massachusetts they had afternoon cartoons like Dinosaucers and Denver the last dinosaur, two cartoons I had never heard of before moving there.

The big budget cartoons (Transformers, Ducktales) were for the most part a constant no matter where I lived. But the next level cartoons that I described earlier I would only see depending on what part of the country I was in at the time.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm glad they included the hindi version of the title theme! It was a great hit in India too, where they were completely, but artfully, dubbed into Hindi

</comment><comment><USER21> My girlfriend is very into nostalgia and a few months ago put DuckTales on her Netflix queue... At first I laughed at her but quickly realized that the show holds up surprisingly well as an adult - as the article mentioned, the stories are top notch, the animation is of shockingly high quality and its pretty funny to boot. I'm glad I'm not the only person to pick up on how entertaining this show really was.

</comment><comment><USER22> The adventures of Teddy Ruxpin is what I grew with in Bulgaria - it was very popular show (also Pink Panther, Flinstones) - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Teddy_Ruxpin>

we still use some of the abbrevations from the movie (LB) but in Bulgarian when we talk to other people

</comment><comment><USER23> _...but most of Barks' comics about the Disney ducks centered on Donald, a character the DuckTales writers couldn't use for reasons both corporate (Disney didn't want to overexpose such a key character on an afternoon series) and practical._ __

And then Disney went on to expose Goofy in 'Goof Troop'.

Other than _Duck Tales_ , I think what happened to a lot of those shows is their quality slowly went downhill in the race for syndication. A lot of them devolved into slapstick comedy that was 'too easy' for the more maturing audience.

As an example, in the beginning of _TaleSpin_ , Don Carnage is a ruthless air pirate who almost lays waste to Cape Suzette with a lightning gun. By the time you get near the end of the series, he's simply comic relief.

I think the audience also grew up and moved on to the MTV shows ( _Beavis & Butthead_, _Aeon Flux_ ), Fox's _Batman: The Animated Series_ , and _The Simpsons_ put the shows focus on Homer and marginalized Bart, which was genius.

</comment><comment><USER24> Does anyone remember the Pirates of Darkwater?

<comment><USER13> And yes. Watched it with my father.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Another duck-based animated series that passes the nostalgia test for me is Count Duckula. The heated exchange in the Who Might You Be segment reminds me of some HN comment threads I've read:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHnuFmrQtMU&sns=em](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHnuFmrQtMU&sns=em)

</comment><comment><USER26> The last line:

 _it's surprising to look back at it today and realize just how thoroughly it was shaped by the world that required it, a space on the TV schedule that simply doesn't exist anymore._

... makes me wonder. Looking at what channels like HBO, AMC, and Fx have done with adult programming, you'd think there would be a market for a channel that focuses on well-done animated series.

I have three kids 10, 16, and 18. In the late 90's I'd watch cartoons with the older two, and many of the shows weren't half bad (I still wish Samurai Jack had continued). Luckily, though, my youngest prefers watching sports over cartoons because I don't think I could tolerate watching most of the stuff that's on today.

<comment><USER27> Well, there's a lot of good anime. I know it's cliche or whatever, but a lot of it is very entertaining and sometimes mature and thought provoking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Duck Tales is not on Netflix Instant, but Season One is streaming on Amazon Instant, FYI

[http://www.amazon.com/DuckTales-Volume-1-Alan- Young/dp/B000A...](http://www.amazon.com/DuckTales-Volume-1-Alan- Young/dp/B000AXWGRC)

<comment><USER26> Given that it's a Disney property, I'm stunned that they are available on YouTube - [http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ducktales+full+e...](http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ducktales+full+episodes)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> And all the full episodes are on YouTube!!! LINK: [http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKbjh13l4YB9KHRCl5SjMs...](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKbjh13l4YB9KHRCl5SjMsuEBZyjYlGSF)

</comment><comment><USER29> 'The Mysterious Cities of Gold'. What can I say, pure gold and personal favorite of most of me and most friends that watched it.

I remember thinking this show has the best graphics ever! The gold shining in the sun off the flying bird plane when they first discovered it is etched in my memory forever.

<http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mysterious_Cities_of_Gold>

</comment><comment><USER30> Duck Tales was the first American cartoon series shown in post-Soviet Russia and it was incredibly popular over there. Every single kid that had a TV watched it in the early 90's, along with Ghostbusters the animated series, Tailspin, Gummi Bears, and Winnie the Pooh.. but Duck Tales was always the best and most loved.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp3Q1x4gKjw>

</comment><comment><USER31> More! More! I want to see more! DuckTales: 25th Anniversary Retrospective <http://bit.ly/PUUCKE>

</comment><comment><USER32> duck tales and darkwing duck were the absolute best...good times

<comment><USER33> Don't forget Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Gummy Bears and Tailspin.

On the Warner Brother's side, Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Pinky and the Brain are almost as good as the original Looney Tunes (which I also loved as a kid and still do).

I know Looney Tunes was originally geared towards adults (as short films before movies), but grown ups and kids alike love them. I've recently gone back to watch the classic Looney Tunes[1] and was surprised at how much satire was in them related to the 30s, 40s and 50s. It's the kind of stuff you would only really noticed if you studied the history of the era and are somewhat aware of the pop culture then. They were definently not meant for children, but the slapstick comedy and music draw in all audiences. Looney Tunes was my first real introduction to classical music. I would later go on to play Violin (probably somewhat influenced from Looney Tunes) for a number of years in school and still listen to classical music when I program quite often.

I don't know what happened to cartoons, but nothing seems to be interesting that's also geared towards children these days. Most just seem like some half- hearted attempt to educate children while attempting to be entertaining, instead of being entertaining and also subtly educating at the same time.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looney_Tunes_Golden_Collection>

edit: elaboration

<comment><USER34> > I don't know what happened to cartoons, but nothing seems to be interesting > that's also geared towards children these days

I don't disagree entirely, but there are still some gems today that are enjoyable for kids and adults. Speaking of Looney Tunes, the new "The Looney Tunes Show" is pretty great. And there are some things on Cartoon Network that are passable, like Adventure Time and reruns of other niche shows from the past 10 years.

I think the options are fewer, or the ocean of content is vaster, so it seems like there's nothing there when there is.

<comment><USER33> Ah yeah, I've heard of the Looney Tunes show and looked at some clips online. I was kind of turned off when I saw they had Yosemite Sam rapping though[1]. Just seemed like they were trying too hard to be relevant to kids. I know that might be premature judgment, so I'm keeping an open mind and have a question for anyone who has watched it.

How is it outside of that? Is it pretty faithful to the original Looney Tunes? I know my example could be somewhat of a hyperbole, so I would love to get another opinion on it before passing final judgment.

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dP2qEo8j2KM>

<comment><USER34> Yeah, the new "Merrie Melodies" (of which that clip you linked) are the worst part of the show IMO. They only lasted the first season, probably for good reason. A couple were funny/interesting but most were not.

Other than that, it's a show I really look forward to watching. You may be disappointed if you're looking for original Looney Tunes, it's not really like that. The characters are the same, their personalities are more fleshed out and exaggerated, the times are modern and they live "ordinary" lives. Some of the reviews I've seen on Amazon for it accurately labeled it as Looney Tunes meets Seinfeld (they were being pejorative but I find the comparison apt and view it in a positive light).

Try watching an episode from Season 2 (the currently airing season) before writing it off. It will only take ~21 minutes out of your life if it's not your thing.

<comment><USER33> I'll check out Season 2 and see how it is. I don't mind if it's not one-off clips like the original as long as they ditched things like the youtube clip, haha.

Thanks for the reply :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I know this has 91 comments, I know its on the front page, I know that three days ago I got slapped for being on the other side of this issue, but, really... this thread is HN worthy?

<comment><USER36> Yes. It tells an important story about product creation.

DuckTales had to make it over 65 episodes and under budget. It had simple goals and it accomplished them.

Look at Apple at their brightest hours. You can say that the iPhone was Apple throwing down the gauntlet and rejecting the tyranny of buttons and saved us all, but the reality is simple. Touch was expensive and bad for a long time, so Apple waited until touch was cheap and good, then they solved for X. They didn't care if you didn't buy iWorks for your iMac and your iPad, they just wanted to sell hardware.

That is the secret to success for many products and avoiding it is the road to failure for many others: if affordable{solve for x();} else {do something else();}

MS and Disney have shot themselves in the foot numerous times. MS making sure they didn't hurt other product lines created huge waste and left consumers hesitant. Disney obsessed with the Disney Princess and drove away everyone but the pre-teen girl and parents didn't bother taking their kids to see The Princess and the Frog because Dad would lose his mind and empty his walled if he thought he'd have to spend another second in Hanna Montana-ville. Instead of just solving for X, they lost consumers who assumed they'd get screwed down the road somewhere.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How does one find a research avenue? (retry) - <AUTHOR> Hi all. I am trying to collect more responses by reposting this, as HN is a community I'd really appreciate some advice from. Previous posts: [1][2][3].
I am considering getting into research, and I'm trying to figure out how one goes about finding a problem to solve.
Backstory:
I completed my bachelors in '16 with some significant side/hobby projects (kernel/systems) and I'm now working as an engineer at one of the Major Ones :/. Although it pays well for now, I am slowly losing motivation and creativity and it is replacing my 'engineering for the fun of it' mindset with 'do what you're told to'.
I'll need to adapt heavily to be able to thrive in this environment as a generic software engineer. I'm not learning, I'm not specializing, and I start to realize that I want to put in concentrated effort and work towards something for myself. Hence the idea of pursuing research, or working for/on a startup.
My reason for going into academia to pursue a PhD would be, to be able to focus X years of independent research towards an idea I think can turn into a product later. But that depends on the idea/domain, the supervisors I work with and how success is measured (number of publications v/s real-world outcome, which may have a gap). Of course if I can't turn it into a product later, I have specialized and can come back to the industry.
With all of this^, my intent is to be working on something relevant, and for myself.
Please correct me if my perspective is horribly wrong : ).
Thanks.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17024792 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17027601 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17033664 <comment><USER2> _I 've written this comment several times in several forms - it's not exactly what I want to say, nor exactly how I want to say it, but having written it yet again I'll now leave it here, FWIW._

</comment><comment>==

I answered you at length in an earlier comment[0], but you never replied, so I don't know what your reaction is to it. Let me be more blunt.

Getting a PhD requires doing research that will get you a PhD. If your objective is to do research to start a company or business, that is almost certainly different, and almost certainly has little or no overlap.

If your objective is to do research to start a company or business, doing a PhD is almost certainly not the way to go about it.

How would you fund your PhD?

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17027828](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17027828)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi

> I answered you at length in an earlier comment[0], but you never replied, so > I don't know what your reaction is to it. Let me be more blunt.

Not responding to your comment earlier didn't mean I didn't consider your input valid, I appreciate it a lot and needed a bit more time to form thoughts. With the reposts I am simply trying to gather more opinions.

As my post, the objective is to turn the research into a product. I realize that it's very probabilistic to find such a research idea, although there have been companies that started this way out of a thesis. In my limited view, going for a PhD would give the freedom to work on a _valuable_ problem (== current industry relevant engineering issue) (a big probability factor-in here) rather than blurting out startup ideas and seeing what sticks.

And hence my focus was, _how_ to look for a tentative problem, or how to even start thinking in that direction.

I understand that a PhD is not the only way (or maybe not at all?). And research is tough investment. But it seems like one way to create something...</comment></comment>


How to Make Robots Seem Less Creepy - T-A http://online.wsj.com/articles/how-to-make-robots-seem-less-creepy-1401473812

<comment><AUTHOR> IMHO, I don't think putting a 'cute' face to robots make them less creepy. In fact, it's more creepy because the face makes us think of something that looks like a human but doesn't have "life".

Instead, a better robot is one that is clearly a machine. A robot that makes coffee is less scary/creepy if it looks like a coffee machine rather than a humanoid.

Just my 2 cents.</comment>


Time To Face Facts: Broadband Caps Are Really About Protecting Video Revenue - <AUTHOR> http://techdirt.com/articles/20100723/04083610334.shtml <comment><USER2> I've always been confused on this part — do ISPs have a certain bandwidth to start out with, of which they then allocate portions to their customers?

The problem with 'bandwidth-hogs', from that assumption, is that ISPs oversell pieces of their pie based on some equation of how many people use how much.

I've never understood why one can sell "up to 5 Mb/s", and then sanction your customers who used their service to that extent.

It's like dangling a carrot in front of their face and smacking them when they get too close.

<comment><USER3> Bandwidth over the course of seconds and bandwidth over the course of days are not comparable. If you are using the fast bandwidth provided to download a file and have it nearly instantly, that's great. It is wonderful to be able to watch YouTube videos without buffering, to get entire webpages in the blink of an eye, and to install an OS over the network without wishing you had splurged for the Cd's. But as soon as you provide something like that, you get some asshole who thinks that it is then his right to use that speed /constantly/, doing nothing but downloading files day and night. If everyone does this, there is no more bandwidth to go around: the expectation is that users will use "up to 5MB/s" only for a few seconds, not for days at a time. You might even say a fair allotment of the finite bandwidth resource might be "5MB/s, or 100MB/min, or 1GB/hour", despite those numbers not even remotely multiplying out. And this is, in fact, how many ISP's are now trying to solve the problem of people who don't understand the concept of sharing: "burst rates", where as you use bandwidth it slows down over short time spans.</comment></comment>


Geeks, Get Your House In Order - <AUTHOR> http://blog.chirply.com/post/12666794812/geeks-get-your-house-in-order

<comment><USER2> Granted, I live by myself outside the Valley so I might be missing something but how does having a pretty room matter at all to someone working at a startup? I mean, if you're at the office 90 hours a week I'm sure a tastefully hung and well framed work of art will not help you sleep any better nor will it affect your code for better or worse. Perhaps it's just not my style, but I presume people at a startup have better things to thing about than what hooks to use on their wall.</comment>


Font Awesome Black Tie - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/232193852/font-awesome-black-tie <comment><USER2> I love Font Awesome and use it all the time....but this campaign is to help fund development of a "somewhat faster" commercial licensable version of existing icons?

I would be a lot more apt to donate if this was just to help fund Dave to make more icons freely available.

<comment><AUTHOR> Black Tie is a completely new icon set designed from scratch. Different look and feel than the original Font Awesome.

Supporting this will also give me more time to work on the original Font Awesome, too!

<comment><USER3> > _a completely new icon set designed from scratch_

FWIW this was not what I got from a quick glance through the KS page. I left with an impression that you are just adding extra weights to the FA.

Also, making a completely new icon font ... damn, that's going to be a tough thing to market. Every second person on Dribbble considers it their blood debt to release at least one icon font, usually a freebie. There's ton of established icon fonts too, some of which are extremely well marketed and are essentially the go-to standards in the designer (paid) circles. Granted, you've got a great name at your disposal and an attention of a large user base, but given that FA is free, I just can't help but wonder what your conversion rate is going to be like.

[1] [http://hlvticons.ch/](http://hlvticons.ch/)

[2] [http://pictos.cc/font/](http://pictos.cc/font/)

[3] [http://www.entypo.com/](http://www.entypo.com/)

[4] [http://icomoon.io/app/#/select/library](http://icomoon.io/app/#/select/library)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks fantastic, and I love FA so thank you for that.

Probably too late for this feedback, but the pricing differentials between being a backer and just licensing it when it becomes available were too narrow to entice me to back it. I.e. The $30 savings by backing it now instead of (potentially) buying it outright later this year just wasn't enough savings to convince me to back it. You could read this two ways - lower the backer goal amounts, or increase the licensing costs. I think you could safely do the latter :)

</comment><comment><USER5> Don't know how I feel about this to be honest.

On one hand, FontAwesome has been a champion worldwide for free, easily usable fonts, shouldn't the creator get some sort of compensation?

On the other hand, will FontAwesome be put away in the shed? Sort of like the Nginx free/elite-turbo-premium offerings.

<comment><AUTHOR> Font Awesome will see just as much love, if not more than before. The last release, less than a month ago, had 71 new icons. The original Font Awesome isn't going anywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Backed, if for no other reason than to support something I've used on countless projects for years.

It will be interesting to see the new weights/styles, and better scaling of BlackTie.

Good luck Dave!

<comment><USER7> Me too. Even if I never use this font, I've gotten enough benefit from Font Awesome over the past year that I feel like I should support this guy in continuing to do awesome things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like this idea (and backed it!) but I'd have liked if the fact it was going to be a commercial font was more apparent on the KickStarter page, as it feels a bit buried at the moment. I doubt this was deliberate, but I can say personally having the 'Font Awesome' brand being used so prominently made me think it was going to be open source.

<comment><AUTHOR> And thanks for the support. I made it clearer in the tagline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Font Awesome is great, but am wondering if at this point Dave has already given away too much free milk to now try and sell the cow.

<comment><USER10> I think he is just trying to support his family. ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Backed to help support Dave continue his work on Font Awesome since it is the most popular library on BootstrapCDN. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER11> In my opinion the old icons look much better. The examples given of the new icons look unfinished and choppy.

<comment><USER12> The thing is font awesome scaled up well, but not down near as nicely. Black Tie seems to scales down nicely, but looks a bit too minimalist (or maybe just chunky) at larger sizes for my taste.

@fortawesome: Could we get some views that show true to size comparisons of the new font at a few different scales. Some overly large images of 4 of the icons just doesn't cut it near as well as seeing things how we would use them!

@fortawesome: See how you have the super large versions of your font's on the font awesome homepage? Make sure the new icons still look good that big!

<comment><AUTHOR> Kickstarter makes this a bit tough. I'll see what I can do to add some varying sizes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Just supported at $25, a drop in the bucket for the value I've gained from FA.

</comment><comment><USER14> Love love love these backer options:

 _Pledge $299 or more: Choose an icon to be added to Black Tie OR the original Font Awesome - you decide one icon to be added, I do the design.

Pledge $999 or more: Choose 4 icons to be added to Black Tie OR the original Font Awesome - you decide four icons to be added, I do the design.

Pledge $1,999 or more: Your logo in Black Tie & the original Font Awesome. Must be square-ish, single color, & you must have the rights._

The corporate-logo option might be underpriced: 4/10 already sold.

</comment><comment><USER15> If I was starting a new project, I'd use Ionicons instead of Font Awesome.

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

<comment><USER16> Hmm, that font seems to be copying Android and iOS icons nearly 1:1. How does that hold up from a copyright perspective?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Your support will allow hiring another developer to build new features and > give me the time to focus on making every single icon sub-pixel perfect.

How do you make something sub-pixel perfect? Is there some tool you can use or do you need to test on many different monitors/computers?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's about the difference between designing just for 14px as well as a variety of larger sizes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A bit surprised that the backer awards do not include a tie.

</comment><comment><USER19> People pay for fonts? That's crazy talk. Especially if it's a symbol font.

<comment><USER12> Actually yes they do! I have a few symbol fonts in my library that cost way more than he's asking for the 4 weights.

My personal hesitation isn't due to paying for a symbol font...I'm waiting to see a bit more of the font so I can decide if the style is neutral enough that I'll be able to use it in enough places to make the cost worthwhile.

<comment><USER19> Why don't you just google the symbol you are looking for and pilfer something from image search, like a normal person?</comment></comment></comment>


Taleb: Think how instead of hunkering down you can get aggressive. - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1240675204663324674 <comment><USER2> Ah yes, in times of crisis we should all be yanking on our bootstraps and "hustling", trying our best to profit from panic and fear.

<comment><USER3> I mean, helping deliver supplies and getting paid for it is a good thing for everyone.</comment></comment>


Is it hot or not? Ranking of user modded content. - <AUTHOR>

Reddit and News.YC share a feature: hotness. Users mod up and down -- but hotness is more than total points.
How should I do it?
Positive correlation with number of votes. Negative correlation with submit time. Perhaps negative correlation with time since mean or median time of mods. Perhaps adjust for rates -- a surge implies extra hotness.
How do you make the front page efficiently? I hope not to recalculate hotness for each page view -- but a naive approach might think it necessary given the continuous time decay.
A parallel service could periodically troll through the entries from the past N days and calculate their hotness -- which serves the front page. That could be updated and chached in memory inependent of front pageview count. <comment><USER2> The way I do it is points divided by age in hours (plus two) to the 1.25th power. This is probably not optimal, but it's simple.

     (= gravity* 1.25 timebase* 120)

     (def hotness (s (o gravity gravity*))
       (/ (- (realscore s) 1)
          (expt (/ (+ (story-age s) timebase*) 60) gravity)))

I avoid reranking all the stories by keeping them in sorted order, and whenever I generate a frontpage for someone logged in, reinserting one randomly chosen story near the top (where all the change is). I also reinsert any story that gets voted on.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for sharing that Paul. Most people guard that knowledge like it's the lost grail.

Kudo to you for being open about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Speaking of karma, I wrote a little micro-essay about it at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38605> .. I don't know if you'd want to experiment with karma quite like that, but it would be interesting.</comment>


Who Says Innovation Belongs to the Small? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/business/24unboxed.html?hpw

<comment><USER2> This article is full of fallacies. First, it would help if the author had actually read "The Innovators Dilemma" If he had, he would have understood that Christensen never says that innovation is limited to small players, but only that disruptive innovation is best tackled by small players, whereas continuous innovation is a strength of large companies. (Disruptive innovation is characterized by Christensen as an initially small market with a different customer base than is satisfied by the mainstream players.)

All the infrastructure changes mentioned by the author of this article should be categorized as continuous innovation, improvements to existing systems, upgrades that serve the same customer base. (e.g. Improving existing energy and healthcare infrastructure)

Then of course is the ridiculous quote

"To be competitive in Internet search and some other Web services, which cater to hundreds of millions of users worldwide, a company must build data centers of gargantuan size, and only a handful of companies can design and afford them"

However, the winning search company did not start out of Microsoft or any other gargantuan company, it started as a startup then grew into Google.

<comment><USER3> I came here to also disagree with the article. You -just- beat me to it and for similar reasons.

One key mistake the author of this article made is how vast is an economy of potential collaborators versus the limited number of people extant within one company. And being in the same company is no guarantee that you will be motivated or -allowed- to be motivated to work to a shared goal. That last point is particularly addressed in "The Innovator's Dilemma." Large businesses got large by being very good at focusing on an established goal. A new goal is particularly unwelcome.

I wonder what Clayton Christensen would make of Apple (Apple II->Mac, MacOS <6 -> System X OS, iPod [where did that come from to become a huge share of revenues?], iPhone). Steve Jobs seems to have been innovating despite what Clayton writes. I still think Clayton is right but how does Steve Jobs do it over and over?

<comment><USER4> I don't think Christensen claims that big companies _can't_ generate disruptive innovation, only that there are immense organizational forces that gear it toward incremental improvements rather than disruptive improvements.

The exceptions seem to occur with exceptionally headstrong CEOs who can see beyond who the existing customer is, and create products for markets that don't yet exist (or are at least immature). Jobs is an example of that. The problem is that headstrong CEOs with a fantastic ear for future markets are not a systemic business solution, or else there would be many more examples.

And there's a more specific problem here. That Apple currently has a CEO like it does is due to a historical artifact. Had Jobs not been a co-founder of Apple, would he have been brought in as CEO? If not, would Apple's board have brought someone in similar to him? It's unlikely -- usually the top candidate is the "safe" hire who has demonstrated immense leadership in incremental business domination, not the rough radical. Eventually, Jobs will retire or pass away, and that historical artifact will no longer be relevant -- and the immense organizational forces Christensen describes will begin their work on Apple.

<comment><USER5> _I don't think Christensen claims that big companies can't generate disruptive innovation_

In fact, he expresses the hope that his book will make it possible for them to do so. I distinctly remember going "What?!" when I read that. Who, besides a few big companies who would then monopolize the world, would want that? Luckily it's a fantasy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How's this for a one-sentence conflict-of-interest?

 _"These days, more than ever, size matters in the innovation game," said John Kao, a former professor at the Harvard business school and an innovation consultant to governments and corporations._</comment>


Bringing oxygen producing plants into your home - <AUTHOR> http://www.secrets-of-longevity-in-humans.com/oxygen-producing-plants.html <comment><USER2> As much as i do appreciate having green things in my house, this site seems deeply suspicious. "Fractal Biology", indeed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. I actually googled a few other sites with this type info before submitting, and this site had the fewest ads / most straight forward text based info. I'm sure if I spend another ten mins I could find a better site. If anyone else has some links that'd be awesome.

<comment><USER3> Something like this, perhaps [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230460/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3230460/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice ty

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There was a pretty interesting TED talk on this subject that includes how they used indoor plants to help clear up the air at an office building in India.

[https://www.ted.com/talks/kamal_meattle_on_how_to_grow_your_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/kamal_meattle_on_how_to_grow_your_own_fresh_air)

</comment><comment><USER5> This advice is akin to saying you can improve your car's fuel economy by turning off the air conditioning - technically true, but with an effect size so tiny as to make it pointless. On average, a human would need several trees to produce enough oxygen to sustain them indefinitely. That probably works out to hundreds of house plants.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was looking at it more from a point of supplementing the oxygen already in the atmosphere and, importantly, scrubbing my apartment air of some of these other molecules. I don't think that "you'll never have a fully functioning biosphere so this is dumb" is a legit counter argument.

<comment><USER5> My argument wasn't that it's impossible to fully support a human with oxygen from houseplants. The point is that the oxygen output of a single houseplant, or even a dozen of them, is negligible relative to the oxygen consumption of even a single human. That doesn't mean that there aren't good reasons to own a houseplant, it just means that oxygen production isn't one of them.</comment></comment></comment>


AI Can Pass Standardized Tests–But It Would Fail Preschool (2019) - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/ai-can-pass-standardized-testsbut-it-would-fail-preschool/ <comment><AUTHOR> Interesting point from the article is about language models and how they're related to searching documents. She types in a set of sentences into Google and the top ranked documents that Google returns for each sentence align with what the language model predicts. This means that neural networks can be used to rank documents by associating a query with a set of documents and then fine tuning it over time.

Here's the relevant section

> I'll make a competing hypothesis: Given Aristo's language model, no such > knowledge or reasoning is needed to answer this specific question; instead, > the language model will have captured statistical associations between words > that allow it to answer the question without any real understanding > whatsoever. To illustrate, consider the following four sentences.

> 1\. Magnet will best separate a mixture of iron filings and black pepper.

> 2\. Filter paper will best separate a mixture of iron filings and black > pepper.

> 3\. Triple-beam balance will best separate a mixture of iron filings and > black pepper.

> 4\. Voltmeter will best separate a mixture of iron filings and black pepper.

> A language model can input each of these sentences and output the sentence's > "probability"—how well the sentence fits the word associations the model has > learned—and choose the option with the highest probability. As a very rough > simulation, I typed a version of each of these sentences into Google (making > sure it found no exact matches) and looked at how many "hits" each received. > Indeed, the sentence beginning with "magnet" got the most hits. My crude > language model answered the question correctly without any intelligence > other than word associations on the web.

> I tried this same experiment with other randomly chosen questions from the > Regents exam and found that the correct answer received the most hits in six > out of 10 cases. My Googling experiment is just an illustration, not meant > to be scientific, but it does agree pretty well with the score the Aristo > team itself reported for "baseline retrieval methods." It's far less than 90 > percent, but it highlights that there are "giveaways" that can boost a > learning system's performance without requiring any knowledge or reasoning > at all. Moreover, this may be only the tip of the iceberg of the subtle > giveaways that a machine-learning system could use to choose an answer.

Does anyone know of research along these lines? Or if you know of the right keywords to google then that will also be helpful.</comment>


California approves $3.2B for Virgin's $4.8B bullet train to Las Vegas - <AUTHOR> https://www.constructiondive.com/news/california-approves-3b-bond-for-virgins-45b-bullet-train-to-las-vegas/566575/ <comment><USER2> Oh great here we go again. A train starting from a place no one is going to drive to (Victorville) with a completely unrealistic budget that's going to get blown out of the water virtually as soon as construction starts. This is the high-speed rail to SF fiasco all over again with more California tax dollars paying for it.</comment>


You Compiled This, Driver – Trust Me - <AUTHOR> http://www.joshbarczak.com/blog/?p=1028 <comment><USER2> The article is very impressive, and the author is an experienced graphics developer, which makes me wonder why not do these experiments using the free software graphics drivers in Mesa?

We (the team that writes the Intel driver in Mesa) would love to be involved in things like that and would be happy to answer questions where possible -- #intel-gfx on Freenode or email@example.com.

The documentation doesn't contain much if anything in the way of performance data like instruction latency, so we've implemented similar methods to what the author used to measure the number of cycles a piece of code takes (environment variable INTEL_DEBUG=shader_time). We'd likely even learn something about the hardware ourselves by being involved in experiments like these.

</comment><comment><USER3> _If even one game does this, the IHVs and OSVs will freak out, remove pre- compiled binaries from future drivers, and never let us have them again, and you'll be the one responsible for ruining all the fun. You don't think they'll be able to remove it after you ship it? There are ways..._

Future of computing right here.

<comment><USER4> Most importantly, the whole point of having a driver do compilation for you is compatibility. AMD's GCN, for example, currently has three different generations out, and there are small differences in the set of supported instructions _and in the instruction encoding_.

Not having to deal with legacy stuff in instruction decode is one of the big advantages GPUs have over CPUs, and it relies on having the driver do the compilation.

All that said, it's nice that people are having fun with AMD's and Intel's GPU ISA, but honestly, why on Earth do they do it on Windows? There are perfectly fine open source drivers available on Linux that you can easily modify to play around with the ISAs as much as you wish.

<comment><USER5> In my experience, the vast majority of realtime rendering engineers work on Windows (because of the products). The landscape is starting to change, but I'd spitball still 99% Windows ownership. Even for console development, the platform is Windows

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Down [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:R2PmRfU...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:R2PmRfUY2T4J:www.joshbarczak.com/blog/%3Fp%3D1028+)

</comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone know whether this functionality is expected in Vulkan? Will it be covered by uploading SPIR-V binaries instead of native code? My understanding is that the main motivation for glProgramBinary() is to bypass a bunch of higher-level compiler passes, and getting back native code is just a result of vendors doing The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work rather than a deliberate feature. Is that right, or is there more to it that I'm missing?

<comment><USER4> You can get the main motivation for glProgramBinary right from the horse's mouth (i.e. [https://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/ARB/get_program_binary...](https://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/ARB/get_program_binary.txt) ):

 _This is a very useful path for applications that wish to remain portable by shipping pure GLSL source shaders, yet would like to avoid the cost of compiling their shaders at runtime._

<comment><USER8> I see this a lot on NVidia driver on Linux games. Games where slow to load. NVidia's fix -> compiled sharers cache. They are stored in ~/.nv (ftp://download.nvidia.com/XFree86/FreeBSD-x86/295.71/README/openglenvvariables.html)

<comment><USER5> This is relatively old NV functionality. However, there were some complaints about this folder ballooning after installing a couple driver updates, which caused brand new shader blobs to be built. Not a huge issue, but that spurred some of the extension getting traction to allow games to manage the process

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A blog post about shaders without any screenshots of shaders :(

<comment><USER10> It seems less about shaders, and more about the hardware that runs them.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it bad to put homework code on github? - <AUTHOR> I've been getting into the habit of using git to manage my homework. Naturally Id like to put it on github so I can access it when I'm away from my computer. Could my teacher potentially see this as academic misconduct because I'm posting my code? Obviously you won't know for sure but what do you think? <comment><USER2> Well, the best thing to do is the same as always: talk to your teacher about it! Most of them want to help you! Make it clear that you'll take it down if it's a problem, and explain to him or her why you do it. It's the safest route.

If he doesn't like it, consider paying for Github if you can. Then you can have private repositories, and you'll be supporting a great service!

<comment><USER3> There's a free student plan or something for Github that you can have private repositories. Or, bitbucket.

Posting code is varies highly by teaching. I think most of my professors would have considered it outright cheating. Their interpretation of the collaboration policies was that unless it was a group assignment, you could help each other debug but you couldn't outright copy the code. Who knows who really followed that, but so long as it's in the gray area they can report you for academic misconduct. Even if it was fine for the current semester, some professors reuse homework problems. Clear it with them first.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's great, Github really should advertise that educational section more. I've sent in the request for that plan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a CS lecturer. I would tell you to take it down if you asked. If I found out third person, I'd assume it was for sharing with your cheating little friends and would try to destroy you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I had a feeling that would happen. Better to know now than to know later. Bitbucket or private github it is

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm guessing you're using a public (open source) report on Github? Maybe consider posting it on Bitbucket.org in a free, private repo.

</comment><comment><USER6> Or you could settle for Bitbucket? They allow private repos for free. This would work perfectly for such a thing.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I thought about bitbucket, any pros-cons with them?

<comment><USER7> I use bitbucket for my private personal projects (and github for my public projects and for work). It's fine - the interface is very much like github. I mostly just push and pull so it doesn't make a great deal of difference</comment></comment>