Google Gets 75,000 Job Applications in 1 Week, Setting Record - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-02-03/google-gets-75-000-job-applications-in-one-week-setting-record.html

<comment><USER3> In Europe at least, they seem to also actively look for people too. A recruiter contacted me via LinkedIn and suggested I apply. I got rejected after 3 telephone screens, the suggested working somewhere else for a year and to reapply. I can't see any particular reason I would have stood out and they didn't mention one.

</comment><comment><USER4> That's probably in the range of number of resumes that the top job sites get. Maybe they should start doing something with the rejects?

</comment><comment><USER5> I was wondering why they never got back to me! 6,000 new hires this year though? That's downright massive!

I wonder what type of work-load their HR department is under.

</comment><comment><USER6> with those odds, why even bother?

</comment><comment><USER7> great, maybe now I won't get email or InMail from Google recruiters who employ "passive recruiting" techniques anymore...

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm really impressed. This is especially interesting given all the TechCrunch type talk of Google falling being Facebook in terms of talent. I'm sure there are a lot of defections (people do seek pre-IPO options after all) but clearly Google still has a strong pull for talent.

I think this shows they truly are doing things right w.r.t treating employees right and creating a great environment to work.

</comment><comment><USER9> 75,000 mediocre job apps == 1 mark zuckerburg

</comment><comment><USER10> Wow. I wonder if a recommendation from a Googler counts for _even more than it used to_ under these conditions. If any of you Googlers have a sense of this, I'd be curious to hear what you think.

Edit: emphasis

<comment><USER11> It typically does, particularly if they can speak directly to your work. To get an interview it's typically more important that you could be a really good fit for the exact job, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If working for/with Google is the goal, I feel like it would be much more worthwhile and possibly significantly increase the chances of working for/with them to create a startup in an area you know Google is looking. Much easier said than done, but something tells me this approach would be much more likely to get their attention... plus, you'd probably get a hefty chunk of change should you join forces.

<comment><USER13> I always figured this would be the path I'd take - found a successful startup and get bought by Google. Instead, the startup floundered and I got hired by Google anyway.

Regardless of how tough it is to get into Google, founding a successful startup is still tougher. Plus, if you're _only_ looking to get bought by Google, you'll be overlooking many other options, and will decrease your negotiating leverage accordingly. If you want to work at Google, apply to work at Google, and if you want to found a startup, found a startup. But don't confuse your motivations for the two of them, because you'll be doing a disservice both to your startup and to your chances of working at Google.

<comment><USER12> All very true. I actually meant to mention something along those lines but it's been a long day... I should have mentioned that being successful with your own startup is overall more important because you are definitely not guaranteed an exit/acquisition. But keeping exits/acquisitions in mind while creating your infrastructure will greatly increase your ease and your chances of expansion and/or acquisition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wonder if it's related to all the recent news about Google paying millions to keep engineers on staff from defecting to Facebook. I would be tempted to work there if there was a million dollar RSU payout involved.

I also wonder why Google would announce such a thing. My take away from this is that it's pointless to apply, since there are too many applications. Do they want people to stop applying?

<comment><USER15> Those who got those counters were top contributers who had often been neglected by Google's compensational and promotional structure. Most Googlers are not good enough to work for Facebook.

The vast, vast majority of these applicants have no shot of working for Google, much less of being then poached by Facebook.

<comment><USER16> "Most Googlers are not good enough to work for Facebook."

Not enough dedication to prying people's lives open, one privacy setting reset at a time?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's funny. The main reason I'd want to work at Google is to have access to their scale of infrastructure.

OTOH, they'd have to be insane to just give random new hires free access to their infrastructure.

So, if you've got some computing problems that would benefit from scale or data, maybe the best route is to get a proof-of-concept working on EC2, and then try to collaborate with Googlers.

This is distinct from the startup->Gacquisitionoogle route, since I'm more interested in projects than companies (except my on co.)

<comment><USER13> Random new hires have free access to their infrastructure, except for private user data. (For some reason, this always surprises people in interviews - <USER2> know I was surprised when my interviewer said "Oh, it's no big deal if you want to grab 2000 machines or so and run a MapReduce" - but it's not exactly confidential, most interviewers will tell you if you ask, and we basically think nothing of it.)

There are safeguards in place to make sure experimental jobs don't stomp on production critical ones.

<comment><USER17> Interesting, thanks!

What if one wanted to run a compute-heavy job with enough machines to give access to say 10 TB of RAM?

The idea would be to do a few hours of actual computation over a few days of clock time.

I'll have to think about whether I can phrase this as a MapReduce problem. Unfortunately it's a side-project, so I can't spare many cycles for it.

<comment><USER13> I'm doing that right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Someone said to me once that a small number of people want to build a great company. A larger number of people want to work at great companies. I'd wager that (more and more) Google is less attractive to the former and more attractive to the latter.

I don't think that bodes well for them.

<comment><USER19> Why doesn't it bode well for them?

Google is a great company. It's also a big company ($200B market cap, 20,000+ employees). Given their size, it's a tautology that they'll appeal to the larger number of people who want to _work_ at a great company rather than the people who want to _build_ a great company.

<comment><USER20> People who want to work at a great company are (likely) unwilling to make radical changes to improve things. People who want to build a great company would be willing to automate their jobs away, sure that they will find more work to do. The trained employee, that performs a specific task with direct supervision will resist new technology that diminishes their importance.

my brother poster points out it's a false dichotomy, but it's fair to say we all fall in some percentage in one category and the rest in the other. No one would be comfortable showing up to work tomorrow obsolete. No one would be happy never growing in their work.

<comment><USER21> _People who want to work at a great company are (likely) unwilling to make radical changes to improve things._

IBM hired Ted Codd, AT&T Ken Thomson, while Google is currently Rob Pike's employer. Clearly you would not expect all employees to do basic research (not even at the Institute for Advanced Study!), but I think _we ain't seen nothing yet_ in terms of Google's research legacy. (The kind of which you won't find in a start up.)

<comment><USER20> Would Ted Codd tell his boss to cut the database division? It turned out to be a win for IBM, but if the writing was on the wall, would he seriously cut his own division and go work on something else? There are thousands of second best-second brightest that think they're amazing. They might make something cool someday, they might not. Do you expect them to give up their budget in a bad year?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It seems to me that if you're a dev that wants to work at Google, sending them a cover letter and resume is a waste of time. Google can afford to pick almost anybody. You've got to stand out. I'd imagine that it's probably best to become an active contributor to an OSS project that has a lot of impact or create a startup that could potentially target Google's market and hope to be acquired. Obviously the startup route is much riskier, but more rewarding. Regardless, it seems that if you want to work at Google, you've got to make a name for yourself.

<comment><USER23> Get your name on the Chromium AUTHORS file. You'll work with Google employees and make a contribution to open source.

<http://crbug.com/?q=GoodFirstBug>

[https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/contr...](https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/dev/developers/contributing- code)

Shameless self-promotion: If you do this and Google still wont talk to you, RockMelt is hiring - <http://www.rockmelt.com/jobs.html>

<comment><USER24> Google's hiring process is notoriously bureaucratic, and one of the things that they ask you when you make it into compensation committee is "Do you know any Google employees?" It feels great to say "Well, when I worked on chromium, I interacted with [name], [name], and [name]."

You should also know that they're super cool about letting you get into the AUTHORS file, you just have to write good code that they can use, and they'll insist that you add yourself as part of the patch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> At least searching and ranking a mere 75,000 documents to find good employees shouldn't be a problem for them.

<comment><USER26> Though, unless the documents have links to other documents, their main algorithm (PageRank) isn't going to be very effective.

<comment><USER27> I believe PageRank isn't as important as it was 10 years ago. Besides, you don't need explicit links to create links. Off the top of my head, the following could be used to link resumes: keywords, references, educational institutions, co-authors on papers, and former employers. All these can be extracted fairly well from a document as structured as a resume, and then you can go wild with link analysis.

At the very least, it would allow you to filter the chaff, and enough care could be given to a dataset as small as 75,000 documents to take care of preprocessing, some manual curation, etc. and yield some decent results. If you wanted to, you could even compute PageRank scores in R on your laptop for a dataset that small (and that would probably be the only computationally intensive part of it, after POS tagging and ML model fitting).

As a bonus, the effort would go a long way to help your recruiting in the future.

<comment><USER17> It's unlikely to tell you who's a jerk, or who has a cocaine habit.

<comment><USER28> Unless the resume has a .gmail address on it. ;-)

<comment><USER29> Or if the email address in the resume has _conversed_ with .gmail addresses.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing to Fight a War for Their Country - <AUTHOR> http://brilliantmaps.com/europe-fight-war/ <comment><USER2> That's one of the rare moments where I feel that I can relate to my fellow countrymen - I'm German.

Why would you 'fight a war for your country'? Given the way this is phrased that doesn't seem to talk about fighting in defense of one's country (I'd like to see the stats for that as well) unless my English as a foreign language skills fail me?

<comment><USER3> Exactly. Would I be willing to fight a war because a fascist superpower was killing millions of human beings in my country? Probably, yes. Would I risk my life to protect the Conservative Party and banking institutions? Less likely.

<comment><USER4> Would you be willing to be part of a pre-emptive attack against a much more prosperous neighbouring country with empire-building aspirations?

How about a pre-emptive attack against a country where populist polls show overwhelming support for invading your country, even if its current administration is against the idea?

How about joining in to defend one neighbour against another, aggressor neighbour—one which you have no personal hatred of, and share much history with—because of treaty obligations?

Would you be willing to fight to defend your country (and your countrymen) if it was being invaded by a country that the UN said was in the right to attack you, because your nation was considered a dictatorship needing to be put down?

Would you support defending yourself in a _civil_ war, to protect your own countrymen _from_ your own countrymen, on political lines you don't care about?

There are a lot more shades of grey than just "a just war against absolute evil" and "a banal war against meaningless change of leadership." This distinction isn't doing its job until it makes you upset to think about it. :)

<comment><USER5> Asking the first three questions of a German is some serious WW2 history trolling.

You forgot one: would you join in a war to protect people of your ethno- linguistic background who live in a country who are (you are told) under threat as second-class citizens? I believe that was the stated reason for invading Czechslovakia.

<comment><USER6> It's the same reasoning that Russia uses today, this isn't as much of an excuse as a pretty common cause through history.

<comment><USER7> Yes, exactly, and a very good reason to dismiss these as a valid reason for war.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I can't seem to find any more details on the survey other than basic methodology. The thing that I'm curious about is the language used in the survey.

In a sense, you could argue that some of the disparity in results comes from what people would interpret as the meaning of "fight for your country", but I'm curious as to whether the ambiguity of this phrase (fight at the behest of my country, fight to defend my country, fight to defend my country's "honor"?) carries over into foreign translations and whether that affects the way the question is interpreted.

Or it is possible that the underlying question was more specific to avoid these linguistic ambiguities, and we are seeing a "digestion" of the various more specific questions.

If someone can dig up a link to more detailed survey results, I'd be interested in seeing it. All the link in the article leads to is a press release about the results.

<comment><USER9> It would be interesting to focus on only e.g. English-speaking countries, and see how great the variance is within this group.

It's also interesting to see that the countries which are often invaded/occupied by Western nations are much more willing to fight, whereas the occupiers/invading nations seem less willing. Could it be that Westerners answer "no" because their idea of "fighting for your country" is starting a war somewhere else, whereas to the people of Vietnam (89% willingness) the same question conjures up an image of being invaded by a foreign nation, and defending themselves against that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It looks like the closer you are to a thread, the most willing are you to fight.

Being close to Russian is a good indicator on how much you are willing to go to war.

So I agree with other comments, probably people that feels threatened read the question as "I'm willing to protect my country from an outside attacker". While people in "safer" places read it as "I'm willing to go to war with another country for some strategic/economic interest". (Judging by my own ethics, I guess)

<comment><USER11> Germany is closer to Russia than France, and yet less "willing" to go to war.

Japan with 11% is really amazing, and yet it's near real threats with China and North Korea.

It would seem, countries who remember what war is actually like, would rather not fight; that would explain the results of Japan, Germany, France, Spain, the UK. The only exception is Russia, who suffered immensely during WW2 and yet would apparently fight again?

Or does it have something to do with age?

<comment><USER12> Finland participated in the WW2, moreover, also on the side that lost the war.

<comment><USER13> Of course one should remember that Finland lost WW2 "better" than most countries won it. In fact, many Finns will say that it was a victory. While the war was brutal, Finland is one of the few countries where the casualities were mostly limited to the military. There were only ~2000 civilian deaths. Finland was never occupied[1] and there was no large scale bombing of cities. Finland remained an independent democracy, and prospered after the war. The contrast to the rest of Eastern Europe is pretty stark.

[1]: Only one major Finnish city (Viipuri) was occupied by the USSR (after the civilian population of the city was evacuated).

<comment><USER14> >lost WW2 "better" than most countries won it

Finland also lost Karelia and other territories in the Winter war. Nominally a different war, but for finns it's a one long conflict with Stalin's Russia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Belgian here, as a resident of one of the bottom 3 countries I have to say I thought about this question myself a few times in the past. Even though I would never join the army to fight wars, should an occupation come I would do everything in my power to resist and sabotage. So to this question I would have to answer 'no' even though that doesn't mean I'd give up on my country.

<comment><USER16> Belgian too, but would personally never join the army. I would however, find a way to relocate myself + loved ones to a more safer place.

I would totally give up on this country. Home is where you hang your hat, and being with the people you care about (and knowing that they are safe) matters a lot more than some border on a map.

<comment><USER17> I am very glad that your and a lot of other people's ancestors didn't think like that or we would probably all live under a fascist regime.

edit: a word

<comment><USER16> Definitely grateful for the sacrifices that have been made in the past, but I'm looking at things based on how the world is set up today. It has become a much smaller place -- people and capital can move around more easily.

I've personally never had a very strong national identity (others do seem to have that), and I think in part it's because it has become so easy to move around.

And if you travel a bit, you realise people are actually not all that different. A lot of them have similar priorities: build out a good life, raise children, care for their friends and loved ones, have fun, etc.

<comment><USER17> I'm not saying that you are wrong (and I really hope you are right), but the European elites had exactly the same perception before the outbreak of World War I. Google "first globalization".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> In Finland, the army exists for the purpose of defending Finland against attack. Hence the name: Finnish Defence Forces.

Finnish males serve a mandatory 6-12 months in the Finnish Defence Forces. It's a citizen's duty here; some people opt for a civil service duty.

Thus, when asked a question like this, most Finns will automatically assume defending Finland against a military attack.

<comment><USER19> >>Hence the name: Finnish Defence Forces.

"Wehrmacht" means something along the lines of the "defense force" too.

Not saying the rest of your reasoning is wrong, just pointing out that calling your army a "defense force" doesn't necessarily mean that it's used for defense only...

<comment><USER20> Does it? I thought "Wehr" translated to "War". (Disclaimer: I don't actually speak German.)

<comment><USER19> It does. "War" would be "Krieg".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm not surprised that Japan had the lowest world wide with 11%, but it does poke holes in a couple of theories listed in these comments, namely proximity to a threat and cultural homogeneity.

<comment><USER7> It's likely there are several overlapping reasons. Japan is, like Germany, a special case. War evokes national shame, not pride, and pacifism has been deeply embedded in the national consciousness through 70 years of education.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I would expect very different results if the question was "willing to defend your country in war if attacked". For most West Europeans, "fighting a war" brings to mind more going to Iraq or something similar.

<comment><USER23> I don't know how this is possible outside of science fiction but I wonder how popular military service would be on a historical timeline, all else being equal but the variables being we turn on or off a livable basic income and free of cost health care (like medicare) for all. Would people still be eager to join the US military?

<comment><USER24> The military as a refuge for those who would otherwise have a hard time finding work/education/healthcare etc is probably a US phenomenon - and the US military probably would be less attractive if more progressive politics meant better conditions for all.

In countries with pro armies outside the US I believe it's more like any other job such as a policeman. In countries with conscription it's not even a job, it's more like a part of mandatory schooling (I have lived through both kinds - I did it with conscription and now it's a professional career like any other). Trouble with the law, dropping out of school etc here now means you can't become a soldier, just like you can't be a cop.

<comment><USER25> "it's more like any other job such as a policeman"

I don't know what its like now but in the 80s/90s the people I knew who were in the UK forces were either from very posh backgrounds if they were officers (particularly Guards regiments in the army) or from pretty humble backgrounds for other ranks.

<comment><USER24> Yeah I didn't mean in terms of class but in terms of other status (grades, criminal background) we don't have the "it was either jail or the army" type people as you often hear (perhaps more historically and of course from fiction) about the US.

<comment><USER25> I certainly knew a few people from high school who I suspect probably would have ended up in jail had it not been for the Army (NB I did _not_ go to a posh school!).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Only slightly related, but if this topic interests you, you might like a (fictional) series on Netflix called "Occupied". It's about a future where a peaceful Norway tries to deal with a Russian occupation, after Norway's green energy technology poses an economic threat to Russia's international gas pipeline. Part of the dynamic of the show is whether fighting for your country is the right thing.

</comment><comment><USER27> Having spent 9 years in the military, I can say with some confidence that even soldiers are not willing to fight a war. War is evil. No one looks forward to it (except the generals). But when its thrust upon you, you rise up to the occasion and defend your motherland.

<comment><USER28> Some European countries, like Sweden, now have 25% of residents with a motherland which is not the country they live in. Would an Afhan boy living in Sweden fight for Sweden, or would he just take a flight back home to his real motherland? Would an American living in Germany fight for Germany, or take the next flight home? I think we all know the answer, and therefore large parts of the people living on European soil will not fight anymore. They would just leave.

<comment><USER29> Yup, I totally agree. As an immigrant, I sure as hell wouldn't fight for either of the countries I'm a citizen of or any other for that matter. The whole idea of fighting for your country is stupid, idiotic, and frankly insane, especially if there is an alternative. It seems to me even natives, especially in Western Europe, are now realizing this. That's great to see. There truly is nothing more disgusting than war, regardless of the motive (even defense). Nothing can bring people lower than war. Nothing is more insane.

<comment><USER30> > There truly is nothing more disgusting than war

The first counterexample that came to mind: to be exterminated without even putting up a fight.

<comment><USER31> It seems that you are assuming that the attacking country would employ some form of genocide tactic.

<comment> reading-at-work It's a valid example. There are people alive today who remember that exact scenario happening, in Western Europe itself no less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Is the question asked "Fight for your country" as in defend it from foreign invaders, like my country (NL) was during World War 2, or like Ukraine is now by Russia?

Or is this "Fight for your country" as in join team America in invading Afghanistan and Iraq and <Insert next country here>?

Because the first one: probably, yes. The second? No thank you.

<comment><USER33> I'm an American and I used to say that I'm antiwar but what I really meant is that I'm anti-iraq-war, anti-Afghanistan-war, etc.

I do think there are wars we should fight. We just haven't had any of those in my lifetime.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This seems like one of those questions that definitely can't be studied with a survey. The context of 'fighting for your country' differs quite a lot; there's a major difference between fighting a defensive war against a brutal opponent and fighting an irrelevant war on the other side of the world.

Look at the US, and how many soldiers signed up to "fight for their country" in the invasion of Iraq, a country that never threatened the US. Compare that against how many would sign up if the US mainland was actually attacked.

Likewise, if Russia threw caution to the wind and started marching through Europe again, I'd be surprised if only 18% of Germans would fight to defend their country. But if Germany were to invade an Iraq-a-like, I'd be surprised if as many as 18% would.

<comment><USER35> You realize that not only Russia marched through Europe but also UK/USA but unless fighting Hitler was a bad idea I hardly see a problem with this fact, now do you?

<comment><USER34> In what tortured version of modern-day politics can you possibly see the UK or the US invading Germany, even in a pipe dream?

<comment><USER35> Not sure about a pipe dream but there are 30k strong US group in Germany as we speak. Some people might have different views on this fact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Extra discussion: [https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/5q433o/percentage_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/5q433o/percentage_of_europeans_who_are_willing_to_fight)

I am really curious about a more thourough breakdown of these numbers. I doubt immigrants would have the same interest in war as the natives.

<comment><USER37> Counterpoint: during the occupation of France by the Nazis, a disproportionate amount of the French resistance were immigrants[1]. In fact the second (after Jean Moulin) most famous group that was caught was the "Manouchian network", whose members were almost all immigrants.

Likewise the Free French Forces (i.e. French military who refused to surrender in 1940) operating under British command were at least two-third colonials and/or immigrants.

[1] [http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-real-story-of-the-french- re...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/the-real-story-of-the-french-resistance)

<comment><USER38> Controversially and OT but it was in a documentary I saw recently. It's been suggested that the colonial troops were responsible for the the vast majority of the large numbers of rapes of women in the French occupied part of Germany

<comment><USER37> Unless that documentary is backed up with hard data, I would dispute that "vast majority" claim based on the following:

* About two-third of the FFF were West African, so if that was true there would have been at least a very noticeable small 'epidemic' of black babies in West Germany. (EDIT: apparently that ratio fell to 2/5th in mid-1944, after Vichy fell and the 'new' French government was able to draft a lot more people.)

* The FFF were non-segregated, it would seem odd that only 2 out of 3 dudes in any random squad would take part in this, but not the third guy? In any case it would make it much more complicated to keep those events under wrap , which matters because...

* ...More importantly: ALL officers/cadres were white, and I do not think they would have allowed non-whites to have a go at white women, that would have crossed a line. The racial world-view was still very much a thing.

* The FFF were in much lower numbers than the US and Commonwealth armies (after all France had just come out of complete occupation), so I doubt they would have been able to do disproportionate damage on that front.

* Also, the "French occupied part of Germany" did not in fact exist until sometime in 1946, when the US & UK (sort of retroactively) created the "French Zone" to have 3 Western powers in Germany and counter the USSR influence. By that time I believe a large number of colonial troops had been sent back home (where, in fact, many of them took part in local independentist movements to end _their_ occupation -- troubles in the French colonies started brewing as soon as mid-1945).

 _That being said_ , the scale of the rapes committed by the Allies has been a big taboo until a few years ago (except, famously, for the Russian army, since they were very quickly moved into a different category, "not-so-much-Allies- any-more", so it was OK to report that they raped their way to Berlin), and current evidences indicate that the allies also took part in war-rapes, a lot, and not just in Germany. So if the statement was "FFF did commit a large number of rapes", I would say: yes they probably did, _all_ armies did it.

<comment><USER38> I can't contradict you, you clearly are better informed than me. It was in a documentary about the end of the war and its aftermath, in Germany. It did also mention the rapes by Russian soldiers and then it singled out the French areas in the West. I am not sure why it mentioned colonial soldiers in particular but it did. I may have exaggerated when I said 'vast majority', I can't remember the exact words. They interviewed a doctor who carried out abortions and he mentioned that the situation of the girls he came into contact with was very bad. The impression I came away with was that it was the soldiers from the countries that were invaded by Germany that let their soldiers have free rein when it came to rape. In the British area there was a lot of 'liberation' ie looting but no mention of rape. Also one british soldier mentioned that the british administrators were a mixed lot with many having an 'eye for the main chance'. The American sector wasn't mentioned at all except to contrast it with the British one where there was no end of bureaucracy and where there were five times the number of administrators.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The surprising fact here is that this can mostly be explained pretty well as the lessons of WW2 still being vivid in the memory of many countries...except that Russia suffered by far the most of any countries on the Western front, and still a majority there would fight a war for their own country.

The persistent glorification of Russia's role in WW2 (although historically justified) might have something to do with it. The amputation of a quarter of Russia's territory right after the end of the Cold War is also used to great effect by nationalists (just like Germany's territory was reduced, by the same proportion, in 1919 - with the same effects).

<comment><USER40> > The amputation of a quarter of Russia's territory

Soviet Union is (was) not Russia, it was a multinational empire, similar to Roman or Mongol Empries. AFAIK, Russia itself did not loose much (any?) territory after 1989.

<comment><USER41> Unfortunately, many Russians don't seem to feel that way. They are not alone with that however: all former empires occasionally inspire the idea that their demise is an ongoing historical injustice that needs to be rectified. And in the echo chamber of a former-empire nation this train of thought rarely gets questioned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Poor choice of colours in that map…

Red generally == bad, and in this map lower percentage == red, there for a lower percentage willing to fight is bad?

<comment><USER43> I don't know that "fight for your country" is "bad" or "good".

Defending your country against outside aggression seems "good." Fighting in a war of convenience is "bad".

I think an interesting qualifier is if the person answering assumed "fighting for your country" meant defense or offense.

<comment><USER44> True, still the color choice is poor. Strong red color brings to mind, personally, a high value. I thought it would mean 90-100, except it actually meant 0-9.

If red isn't clearly good or bad, then don't use it. Use light to dark shades of the same color or white to color, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> the red and blue colors suggest that less is worse. Why would that be the case? It seems like it should ideally be the opposite, if anything

<comment><USER46> Do you think defending your country from invasion is worse than letting some assholes conquer your home?

<comment><USER25> If the question was "would you fight a war to stop some assholes conquer your home?" then I would answer "yes". However, given that there has to be two side to any conflict somebody presumably has to be the "assholes" and that's not something I'd be too happy doing.

<comment><USER47> The "assholes" may not have come from elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> German here as well. For one I (and probably many others as well) aren't expecting any war on German ground anytime soon (let's hope for the best).

But maybe "fighting a war for your country" implies quite a bit of patriotism. If there's ever been a country where concept of patriotism.. let's say slightly differs from other countries - yes, it's Germany.

Trying to write this as objective as possible: Big (compared other countries at least) parts of the population already wouldn't want to run around with a German flag. Some already see all the flags during football world cup season as "too patriotic".

I'm torn. I think I'd describe myself as very much not a patriot. I like living in Germany, looking at some things I'm even glad. But I don't see anything inherently good in German. I surely wouldn't object to being a "European citizen" with such a passport.

</comment><comment><USER49> I think the question is too generic, and therefore not much conclusion can be derived from it. Is it defending or attacking, on European territory or outside, for your countries gain or Europe's gain, etc.?

It would be interesting to ask: Are you willing to fight a war to defend European countries against an outside threat, such as Russia.

<comment><USER50> indeed a followup question could be: would you fight for the EU?

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I think a strong pattern here is:

the more cultural/social homogeneity the more willingness to fight a war for your country.

See Italy, Spain, Belgium for instance: people from different area of those countries really feel belonging to different cultures. Contrari to the Nordic & Easter European ones. In Germany is more of a historical thing instead.

<comment><USER52> You've touched on one theory of why European governments are seemingly so in favour of mass immigration; a people with no common identity are much less willing to go to war for it.

The theory goes that this is favourable for the wealthy euros in power because it lets them hold on to their wealth.

<comment><USER53> Unfortunately it is never the people who start wars. Politicians do. If you want to decrease the chance of your country going into war it would be an easy fix to introduce laws that mandates pro-war politicians to submit their family members to service to fight at the front in case of a war.

<comment><USER54> SMS Direct Democracy with the right of citizens to secede. And professional military, of course, like in the USA. You make war much rarer thereby.

<comment><USER25> Does having a professional military leads to fewer wars - the UK has had a preference for professional military for centuries and it didn't stop us invading a significant proportion of the world!

<comment><USER54> Professional military (by definition) force politicians to spend money on them.

So, every conflict becomes measurable in terms of money. Thus, citizens become aware of the true cost of it. When you have conscription, you cannot measure how much each of the soldiers loses in terms of money - they don't ask them such a question deliberately.

Also, when all citizens (women and "disabled") are forced to pay for the military equally, they will tend less to be provoked into a war - it may cost too much for them. Get it?

By the way, I would support new British Empire, if its authorities would be decent people (as it usually happened). I'm from Ukraine : )

<comment><USER25> I'm pretty sure the UK defence industry isn't run primarily to equip our armed forces with decent equipment....

[Edit: UK armed forces seemed to have to suffer comparatively poor but very expensive equipment foisted on them for political reasons].

<comment><USER54> Here, [https://www.reddit.com/user/EugeneZavidovsky](https://www.reddit.com/user/EugeneZavidovsky) \- is the discusion about SMS direct democracy on another my reddit account. People are afraid even of public voting : ) Well, it's possible to make it secret with clever enough citizens, but I don't think, it is reasonable...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Understandable. Germany has experienced crushing, humiliating defeat not once, but twice in a hundred years, and the second time it was abundandtly clear that they were on the wrong side of history. No wonder the fightin' spirit hasn't recovered.

That said, when certain substances start hitting the fan, no one will ask you whether you want to fight. Read some WW2 memoirs: the shit was so horrific that even hardened patriots had serious second thoughts from time to time. I mean, imagine living in a trench for five years and watching your buddies die one by one. People get PTSD in as little as 6 months in conditions far less gruesome. Now imagine 10 times as much time in conditions that are easily 10x worse. It sometimes worries me that kids these days know nothing whatsoever about this. Those who don't know history are liable to repeat it.

<comment><USER17> Unfortunately, the first time wasn't as crushing as the second time, at least it wasn't perceived as such.

<comment><USER55> Actually I think the opposite is true. The winning side chose to rub Germany's nose in it the first time around, both economically and politically. The result was the rise of national-socialist party, with "national" bit addressing political humiliation, and "socialist" promising to deal with poverty and economic recovery. Note that this did not happen the second time around, and allies occupied Germany for quite a while and helped it rebuild and become a democracy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Countries like Greece, Finland, Ukraine and Turkey have military conscription.

Additionally there are underlying tensions between a lot of these nations, e.g. Ukraine/Russia, Greece/Turkey etc

I wonder if that skews these figures somewhat

<comment><USER57> > underlying tensions

More like - active war

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Well this survey shouldn't be trusted. Why wasn't Estonia, Lithuania, Slovakia and even Norway included?

</comment><comment><USER59> Or maybe its as simple as conscription, current or recent. Without it defense, or knowledge of what it takes, is essentially outsourced to a small group of people or NATO.

Out of sight, out of mind.

</comment><comment><USER60> I would assume that the question was posed in the subject's native tongue. I would further assume that different languages impose different meanings on the word or phrase used for "your country".

For instance, in US English, there is a clear distinction between "country", "nation", "state", and "government", and those words have slightly different meanings to different people.

Thus, the question--with the same wording--could be interpreted by one as "Would you take up arms to defend the people in your neighborhood from military attack?" and by another as "Would you murder strangers for the benefit of rich oligarchs that never actually put themselves at risk of harm?"

I imagine if you asked those two different questions explicitly to the same person, you would see a large gap in responses.

As such, without more specific information on how the survey was conducted, I'd be cautious about comparing results across language groups and cultures. I imagine the answers are heavily influenced by the sense "Would you re-fight your country's previous wars?"

</comment><comment><USER61> The Finns will save us! Also, can't blame the Germans for being unsure which side to be on in the next great war..

<comment><USER62> > Also, can't blame the Germans for being unsure which side to be on in the > next great war..

Nah that's easy, we just look which side is losing and take that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I think Goering's famous quote just about sums it up:

"..the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

</comment><comment><USER63> Of course the Finns are at the top :)

Interesting to see Turkey included as a European country. Not that it matters any more than semantically, but is it considered European now, by other Europeans? Different from what I was taught in school. Obviously a political issue.

<comment><USER35> I remember an Israeli general when asked about European military might laughed and said the strongest army of Europe resides in.... Israel!

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> This is a dumb info-graphic. It basically all depends on the war in question.

Another round of playing world police? Not my thing.

California seceding from the union? I'll help you pack.

Canada annexing Vermont? Depends on how Vermont feels about it.

Actual foreign invasion? Where's the nearest recruiter.

</comment><comment><USER65> I think it should also be tied to when each country was last in a war and/or involved in a major international conflict.

I see France and Germany being more present in war and conflicts much more so than (for example) Sweden, Finland in the past 100 years.

Interesting in any case! :)

<comment><USER35> Not sure about Sweden but Finland had 4 military conflicts with USSR before end of WW2. They also oficially took part in Nazi operations. So let's be honest about it. And before "100 years ago" they were part of Russian empire. History is never black and white.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> From [http://gallup-international.bg/images/Fight_0515/3.jpg](http://gallup- international.bg/images/Fight_0515/3.jpg) the exact question is "If there were a war which involved [country], would you be willing to fight for your country?" Not really any clearer than the headline makes it out to be.

</comment><comment><USER67> The article doesn't say how this was apportioned between men and women in each country, and if it was the same across the countries. I would imagine you would see higher percentages all round if you asked just men. Men do the actual "fighting" in most every case.

</comment><comment><USER68> I think this question may leave too much too interpretation. I'm Canadian. You probably couldn't see me fighting a war on foreign soil except under extreme circumstances. As for a war inside on our land? Much more likely.

</comment><comment><USER69> Looking at my country I'd say - depending on who's coming you'll get different numbers. Countries with more clearly defined (by history etc) enemy have higher rates. Other factors account as well of course.

</comment><comment><USER70> Good for them.

The reality of modern war is that there isn't a lot of room beyond modern imperial proxy warfare in places like Syria and Afghanistan. WW3 in Europe means that most of Europe will be a smoking hole.

<comment><USER35> Most of the world, I would say.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Diverging colormaps should only be used when some value in between should be highlighted (sea level height, median).

Also, I find 21% surprisingly large for Austria.

</comment><comment><USER72> Some would not fight because they are leftist pacifist.

Some would not fight because they are immigrants.

Some would not fight because their country is full of immigrants.

</comment><comment><USER35> There will never be a total WW2-like conflict so for the majority of people it is just a nice mind exercise.

But how many people are prepared to fight a war against propoganda? To defend freedom of speech? To defend opposite political views and opinions? It is scary but in the 1st and 2nd world you can still lose friends and even your job if you openly express your political views. People are afraid to express their views and it bothers me more than anything else.

<comment><USER17> Before WW1 people also believed that large scale European conflict couldn't happen any more because of the economic entanglement. In hindsight, that notion looks pretty stupid.

<comment><USER5> Currently we believe it's impossible due to nuclear weapons - there wouldn't be anything left to fight over or with.

<comment><USER73> I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. - Albert Einstein

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> Soldiers often are the suckers in wars. But I guess there's a big difference in defending or go invading

</comment><comment><USER75> Is there a map of percentages of people who responded with "what's the pay like"

</comment><comment><USER28> Is the question "Will you fight a war for your Country?" even valid in today's Europe, with open borders and mass immigration of millions of non-citizens. Why would a German fight for the social construct "Germany", when his neighbour was given asylum on grounds of escaping military duty in his homeland?

<comment><USER76> As a German pacifist I feel like Germany is partly responsible for refugees fleeing wars as long as German companies sell weapons and whole plants for weapon fabrication.

<comment><USER77> Seconded by another German (though I've never lived there).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I'd like to see North America, anyone know if this information is available?

<comment><USER78> Linked from the article: [http://gallup- international.bg/en/Publications/2015/220-WIN-...](http://gallup- international.bg/en/Publications/2015/220-WIN-Gallup- International%E2%80%99s-global-survey-shows-three-in-five-willing-to-fight- for-their-country)

<comment><USER68> I'm having trouble accessing that. Press release from 2014 also available here: [http://www.wingia.com/web/files/richeditor/filemanager/EOY_r...](http://www.wingia.com/web/files/richeditor/filemanager/EOY_release_2014_The_Americas_- _FINAL.pdf)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: A good option for managing long term goals online - <AUTHOR>

Hi,
   I have written down the long term goals and corresponding milestones on paper.  I'm looking for a good option where I can manage it online.  It contains the shared goals of me and my hubby.  We use linux.  So what would you recommend as an option to manage them online such that both of us can edit it anytime anywhere?  We would also like it to be editable from android if possible. <comment><USER2> Evernote and Springpad are two options.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you scottilee. I have used evernote and it did not suit my purpose much. Springpad looks cool! Will check it out.</comment></comment>


Pritunl – Enterprise VPN Server - <AUTHOR> http://pritunl.com/

<comment><USER2> Wow is this timely. We've been mucking around with openvpn on our debian server for a few days and was planning to try to get employees windows machines working today. We'll try this instead.</comment>


Micro Python - <AUTHOR> http://micropython.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> Posted with no discussion a few months ago (I guess around the time of a Kickstarter), they announced the project on the Python mailing list today:

[https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python- list/2014-June/6729...](https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python- list/2014-June/672994.html)</comment>


MLDB – Machine Learning Database - <AUTHOR> http://mldb.ai/ <comment><USER2> Not having dug through the code or documentation yet, I'm curious if anyone else knows if this can be used with a minimal memory footprint. The home page touts performance with everything in memory, which is great for blasting through a dataset and then spinning down a $1/hr server. What if I'm willing to accept orders of magnitude slower processing to run this full-time in the background of a low-memory server?

<comment><USER3> (Founder here).

Could you describe your use-case? This is an interesting question and I'd love to hear more about what you are thinking of.

There are two main parts to most machine learning workloads: training and prediction (though in online scenarios they can be mixed). The training is what tends to be memory intensive, as it involves looking at historical data. Prediction, especially in real-time, is typically less memory intensive and more suited to your scenario. It is possible with MLDB to have training and prediction on separate instances to optimize hardware cost.

Our focus to date has been on getting large real-world use cases to fit, for both training and prediction, on a single commodity server with decent amounts of RAM (4GB and up), especially for training. Performance there is good; you can train user scorers or recommenders over hundreds of millions of users with 20 billion historical actions in minutes on a single server. We haven't focused much on the absolute memory footprint and there is some overhead; you will need a server with a good amount of memory, a couple of gigs, to have a pleasant user experience.

(edit): The team tells me it will work decently down to 256MB of RAM or so, for carefully designed automated workloads. For interactive use you will want more RAM.

<comment><USER2> I appreciate the detailed response! My use case is yet another indie web, run- your-own-server kind of thing that processes content my friends post online (from tweets to shared articles) and can predict whether or not it is relevant to me based on extracted topics, source, my context/location, and whatnot. Both the source data and training data comes in at a trickle (though I'm pondering ways to propagate training data throughout friend-of-friend networks) and is processed in the background rather than on-demand, so my performance characteristics are very different than most of the use cases I've seen.

I'm trying to keep the system frugal with memory but liberal with persistent storage, since you can run a commodity instance 24/7 and mount a pretty large volume for fairly cheap. It'll be slow, for sure, if there's only one user for each installation it won't need to worry about handling many queries per second.

<comment><USER3> It seems that MLDB would be a decent fit for this use-case. You would be able to do pre-processing in the background continuously, and predictions could do a significant amount of work on-demand. Depending upon the size of the overall training set, you might need to spin up a larger server for an hour or so to retrain a model... but if you set the system up right, the model would only need to be trained infrequently as most of the work would be done online. The more preprocessing you can do in the background, the richer and smaller the data that would go into the training phase.

MLDB can memory-map some kinds of datasets which would also help with the low memory-to-datasest size ratio.

Please feel free to reach out (jeremy at datacratic) if you'd like to discuss further.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> How does this compare to RecDB, other than being commercial? [http://www- users.cs.umn.edu/~sarwat/RecDB/](http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~sarwat/RecDB/)

<comment><USER5> (MLDB product lead here)

I hadn't seen RecDB, thanks for the link! At a glance, other than the licensing, the main point of comparison is that MLDB is more powerful/general- purpose than RecDB, as it provides primitives for not only for creating recommenders but to do other machine-learning tasks like classification, clustering, dimensionality reduction, visualization etc. MLDB also seems to have a bit more documentation :)

<comment><USER6> I've used madlib[1] before and was quite happy with that. Maybe you can do a feature comparison with similar existing solutions as many people don't have the bandwidth to go through your documentations.

[1] [http://madlib.net/](http://madlib.net/)

<comment><USER5> That's a good idea, thanks! What kinds of problems were you solving with madlib?

<comment><USER6> Classification problems in a medical domain. It literally took me 30 minutes to install madlib and run logistic regression on a table. It then probably took me a few more days to do some analysis, try out various algorithms and productionize the predictor.

<comment><USER7> A feature comparison with other solutions is a great idea. We'll work on that and share here.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


TRIM App For Solid State Drive Macs - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-speed-up-your-macbook-air-2011-3 <comment><USER2> Original article

[http://lifehacker.com/#!5786538/trim-enabler-increases- solid...](http://lifehacker.com/#!5786538/trim-enabler-increases-solid-state- drive-performance-in-os-x)</comment>


Peter Thiel – Why Universities Have Failed - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt7Olnm1oL4 <comment><USER2> This guy writes very well, I have read a few of his books. As an ad-hoc public speaker, not so well. He is intelligent and has good ideas and an understanding of the problem, so he should write it, or at least produce this as a scripted interview on youtube to make a far better case for his POV.

<comment><USER3> In case you're not familiar with this guy, his writing isn't much better. Consider this for example:

In 2016, Thiel apologized for two statements he made in the book: 1) "The purpose of the rape crisis movement seems as much about vilifying men as about raising 'awareness'" and 2) "But since a multicultural rape charge may indicate nothing more than belated regret, a woman might 'realize' that she had been 'raped' the next day or even many days later." He stated: "More than two decades ago, I co-wrote a book with several insensitive, crudely argued statements. As I've said before, I wish I'd never written those things. I'm sorry for it. Rape in all forms is a crime. I regret writing passages that have been taken to suggest otherwise."

<comment><USER2> Ah, The ones I read were about economic models, no social commentary at all.</comment></comment></comment>


The Cobra Programming Language - <AUTHOR> http://cobra-language.com/ Inspired by the discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2144012 <comment><USER2> This all sounds nice and it probebly an improvment over C#, VB and Java but there are lots of langauges that have that.

This language looks nice and all but dosn't offer anything new and i can't see any concurrency primitves or somthing like that and today you should have that.

I'm not bashing the language it look really cool but I just don't think it has a chance of seeing wide adoption. You need some big selling point today.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks pretty interesting. Are there any other, more popular languages with such explicit support for tests and contracts?

<comment><USER2> Clojure has support. Another place where the metadata (<http://clojure.org/metadata>) comes in handy.

And since Clojure is a lisp you get an nice DSL to work with it: <https://github.com/fogus/trammel>

Don't put stuff in your language make your language easy to expand it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good features, OK design, but probably won't gain traction due to reliance on .NET.

edit: out of genuine curiousity, why the downvote?

<comment><USER5> Following up on my reply, this post by the author of the language (on an unrelated forum) might illuminate the issue you were concerned with:

"Hi, I'm the author of the Cobra programming language. I didn't write the statement about it being intrinsically bound up in the .NET framework. In fact, I'm the guy who started two additional back-ends for JVM and Objective-C, as well as the refactoring necessary to support this. These are not complete, and I would love any and all help with these efforts. If you're interested, let me know. (Cobra is open source under the liberal MIT license.) In the mean time, Cobra runs on Novell Mono (which I use on Mac and Linux) and Microsoft .NET. You can learn more about Cobra at <http://cobra-language.com/> -Chuck "

[http://groups.google.com/group/golang- nuts/browse_thread/thr...](http://groups.google.com/group/golang- nuts/browse_thread/thread/d80c961744f63892?fwc=1)

<comment><USER4> I didn't say it was intrinsically bound to .NET -- but it relies on it, right now. See: <http://cobra-language.com/docs/why/>

Hosting on .NET has given the author access to some very useful facilities. A VM that understands generics, with two major independent implementations, and a large ecosystem of code and tools.

But for many open source programmers, anything to do with Microsoft, even at arm's length, is seen as suspect. This is a cultural memory that can't easily be erased.

Hence my original remark: good language, but it will struggle to gain traction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No repl is a bummer.

<comment><USER7> REPLs benefit from brief syntax; the Ada/C++ class of Algols don't benefit that much from it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Scala closed the door on new programming languages.

<comment><USER8> Care to explain that further?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Simple, Balanced State Management for ReactJS with ES6 Proxies (GitHub) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/solkimicreb/react-easy-state <comment><AUTHOR> React Easy State is a simple library, which provides balance between local component state and global stores. It uses a modern version of transparent reactivity (similarly to MobX) with ES6 Proxies under the hood. Please check it out and give some feedback if you have can (:</comment>


Best way to fight climate change? Plant a trillion trees - <AUTHOR> https://www.apnews.com/8ac33686b64a4fbc991997a72683b1c5 <comment><AUTHOR> So about 14 trees per person. There's about 3 trillion trees currently, so 33% more.

And this assumes we've cut back on emissions.</comment>


Peter Thiel will speak at GOP convention - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/7/14/12187326/peter-thiel-gop-convention-speaking <comment><USER2> If this existence is all some sort of a really complex TV Show for computer AI, I would find it very funny if there was a scene where Trump and Clinton secretly plan about how to get a Democrat in the white house, meanwhile Thiel and Gary Johnson hatch a plan (after Trump's early success at torpedoing the GOP nomination process) to back Trump so that the disaffected GOP members go Libertarian and break the two party race that has been dominating American politics; but Gary is so anti-war and pro-pot that he pulls enough younger democrats off Hilary in just the wrong states to where Trump actually wins the electoral college votes even though by the popular vote Clinton still wins.

<comment><USER3> I've been hoping this sort of thing happens for about a decade now. The split between the parties is indeed not natural, and the general values of "liberalism" are pretty much absent from both parties, but more and more younger votes care more about liberalism than about labor, defense, and protectionism (the causes that the major parties squabble over the details of).

<comment><USER4> The split between the parties is a result of stored _societal_ dissonance which was previously not a "natural" arising event before the arrival of the Internet. Search and watch "this video will make you angry" for more context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder what his comments will be on the fact that "gay conversion therapy" is slated to be an official part of the GOP platform adopted at the same convention.

I also wonder why there are still people who want to argue that there was literally no genuine news value in a media outlet outing a powerful billionaire who would personally and financially support a party that would put this on their platform, but I guess that's another story.

<comment><USER6> social issues are a nice little diversion from what government is really all about: taking your money, borrowing against it, and spending it.

<comment><USER7> > social issues are a nice little diversion from what government is really all > about: taking your money, borrowing against it, and spending it.

The Republicans seem to waste a great deal of effort trying to fit the government into people's bedrooms, family life, and women's doctors offices for it to just be "a nice little diversion."

<comment><USER8> Planned Parenthood is not a woman's doctor office.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm watching a Thiel speech right now on YouTube [0]. To be honest, the only perception I have of Thiel as a public speaker is that "Silicon Valley's" (on HBO) Peter Gregory was partly based on him. He's a better speaker than his HBO caricature, but he doesn't seem like someone who has been groomed to be a public speaker. I'm impressed that he's chosen to put himself in the spotlight here. Even if he just recites the Emancipation Proclamation word-for-word, he is going to be relentlessly grilled by the political punditry. He already was, for being a Silicon Valley-based Trump delegate, and then of course for the Gawker lawsuit. I don't agree with all of his politics but at least he's throwing himself into the public fray even though there's virtually nothing for him to gain personally (unless he's prepping for a run for governor or U.S. Senator).

[0] His commencement speech at Hamilton College [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id4ywg5oemc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id4ywg5oemc)

</comment><comment><USER10> Peter Thiel is the 21st century Koch in every single way. And I feel sad about that. You'd think when Kochs pass, the old era will be good riddance over. But maybe not...

<comment><USER11> I suspect we will always see billionaires trying to buy political direction (see Sheldon Adelson for example).

<comment><USER12> Or perhaps it is a means to give back to society ? Bill Gates often mentions than the affect of the BMG Foundation is dwarfed by the resources of a government.

Given BG's comment, wouldn't it make sense to use political influence as a leveraged means to improve society ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Obviously the Peter Principle [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle) applies to VCs as well

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm a little surprised at all the negativity. Everybody complains that the two parties are the same, but as soon as the prospect of a Trump/Thiel ticket comes up (which would, at the very least, shake things up), people freak out.

I'm about as far from a libertarian as you can get, but I find this interesting! The combination of Trump's willingness to attack everything, and Thiel's ideas on disruption could put a lot of sacred cows up for debate. Regardless of what side you're on, that's not a bad thing. It forces the other side to articulate defenses of the status quo, instead of leaning on inertia.

<comment><USER15> Thiel is supporting Trump, but I don't think anyone is suggesting he would be vice president.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is Peter Thiel still involved with ycombinator?

<comment><USER17> I'm actually curious about this too. Anyone care to comment?

<comment><USER18> I came here to ask this too.

Thiel says weird things like "Tell me something that's true that no one agrees with you on"

Which happens to fit the mold of a good startup.

It's also what crazy people think their bad ideas fit into.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Maybe he just actually supports Trump, or disfavors Hillary even more. Have you all considered that? He is close friends with Ann Coulter and his views on the direction of the country are quite well known. It would be totally in line with his thinking to back Trump.

The cognitive dissonance in the comments here, the desperate attempts to come up with conspiratorial rationalizations, is kind of ridiculous.

The man deserves to be taken at his word.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is actually a good thing. If he can get that audience to lusten to his ideas, maybe the two sides of America will get closer to finding common ground. It's better than someone who will go there to pander and incite the mob.

From what I've seen of Thiel, it's worth it to hear him out. He has a lot of good ideas. Some sound a bit out there perhaps, but he doesn't seem malicious or destructively polarizing.

</comment><comment><USER21> [http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter- thiel/education...](http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter- thiel/education-libertarian)

</comment><comment><USER22> That is probably the only talk at the convention that I would be interest to hear.

</comment><comment><USER23> Seems odd to me that he is backing Trump while being a Libertarian, but I guess he probably doesn't feel Gary Johnson has a legitimate shot.

</comment><comment><USER24> I would think this would be impossible under other, gay-unfriendly candidates.

</comment><comment><USER25> Is it weird that there's no Sarah Palin speech scheduled?

<comment><USER26> They'll be playing a Markov chain of her greatest hits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Peter Thiel is a weird guy. For many years he said there is going to be a major economic crisis.

\- He wrote a paper on the fall of the Roman Empire [1] and thinks something similar could happen to the US.

\- His fund 'Clarium Capital' bet on the fall of US dollar and lost a lot of money [2]

\- He also stated that Hillary Clinton is going to win and be a one-term president, probably because the economic collapse is going to happen in few years [3]. He said "You kinda don't want to win 2016".

What do you think is behind his support for Trump? Does he want the economic armageddon to happen or not? Does he think that collapse is going to happen and that Trump is better at dealing with consequences than Hillary?

      [1] http://bit.ly/2acARwG
      [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarium_Capital#Recent_performance_2008-2010
      [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxtXMlPSQAY

<comment><USER28> Ever been to Detroit? In some ways, in some places, the collapse is already well-underway. Ruins all around.

<comment><USER29> Except there's very little data supporting that claim. Quite the opposite in fact.

\- The middle class has continued to get richer for about 40 years, moving up rather than down. That move up has caused the middle class to contract.

\- US household assets are up by $27 trillion since the peak in 2006/2007\. For comparison sake, that gain alone is equivalent to 2/3 of all the wealth in the EU.

\- US household balance sheets have improved dramatically in the last six years. The household debt to income ratio has declined by a lot, home equity has continued to climb. This contrasts with most of the rest of the developed world, in which households have been rapidly accumulating vast amounts of debt (mostly on mortgage debt accumulation).

\- Full-time job openings are near record highs.

\- Full-time job employment is at a record high.

\- Unemployment has plunged dramatically since the peak of the great recession, including on the U6. The U6 is back to a normal level for the last 30 years, and is back to where it was before the great recession.

\- The labor force participation rate is finally climbing again. The majority of the losses suffered there were from retirement anyway.

\- Wages have been growing modestly well for the last two years, after enough slack was removed from the labor pool.

\- Manufacturing is near an all-time record high on output.

\- US median net wealth is higher than Germany or Sweden.

\- US median disposable incomes are the highest in the world outside of Switzerland.

\- US GDP per capita is back to being #5 in the world (soon to be twice that of Japan by comparison, and ~40% higher than Germany), which is rather extraordinary given the issues the nation just went through.

Where's the evidence to support this inbound great collapse? The sole issue that stands out meaningfully is the national debt. That's only going to get easier to manage as rates on debt fall over the next several years. The US has vast spare taxing capacity that very few developed nations have, the US middle and upper-middle class is among the lowest taxed out of that group; the US rich could easily be taxed several points higher without it significantly impacting the economy.

<comment><USER30> I pay nearly 48% tax to state federal and city, and it does significant damage for my ability to grow in the Bay Area. There is no room to be taxed more, in fact the tax rate here hinders the middle and upper middle class from saving effectively for a down payment, doing actual damage to the region.

<comment><USER31> It is expensive to be unmarried, well earning and human in the US (I think that tax rate is almost impossible to achieve for a family). I recommend you to become a corporation ...

<comment><USER14> > It is expensive to be unmarried . . . I think that tax rate is almost > impossible to achieve for a family

When household income is above $150k, married couples with roughly equal incomes to each other will pay _more_ in taxes than if they were single. That is because the tax brackets for married couples are wider than for singles, but not twice as wide.

<comment><USER32> Here is an interesting paper on Taxation and marriage: "Taxation and Marriage: A Reappraisal"

> Marriage taxation presents a "trilemma": An income

> tax cannot simultaneously maintain progressive

> marginal tax rates, an equal tax burden for all married

> couples with identical incomes ("couples equity"),

> and neutrality with respect to the tax burden of

> married versus unmarried couples ("marriage

> neutrality").

Much more interesting discussion: [http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...](http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5924&context=fss_papers)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hackers Have Stolen $1.1B in Crypto This Year - <AUTHOR> https://www.investopedia.com/news/hackers-have-stolen-11b-crypto-year/ <comment><USER2> In many cases, criminals hack the internal system of these companies and demand cryptocurrency as a ransom. It could not provide company names because some of the incidents were not public. In the U.S. companies don't have to report a ransomware incident because it does not involve a loss of personal data. View more details on [https://cryptonewstrends.com/](https://cryptonewstrends.com/) Hackers often demand payment in cryptocurrency yet bitcoin does not seem to be the top choice. It accounted for only about 10 percent of the targeted cryptocurrencies, while ethereum made up 11 percent. Criminals appear to prefer monero. The lesser-known cryptocurrency was used in 44 percent of all attacks because of its privacy and its difficulty to trace compared with bitcoin, Carbon Black said. It also has relatively low transaction fees.</comment>


Ask HN: New Monitor: Ultrawide or 4K? - <AUTHOR> Monitors that are both cost a lot, so which would you prioritise? <comment><USER2> • 1440p (typical for ultrawide) for is a sweet spot for gaming. It's the highest resolution that works well with current generation of GPUs. In 4K gaming is hard, because most 4K monitors don't support high or variable refresh rates, so if the GPU isn't strong enough to consistently hit 60fps at 4K, it'll have to drop all the way to choppy 30hz.

• 4K for text. It really makes a huge difference. If you work with code, and don't care about color reproduction and black levels, then there are very cheap 4K monitors.

<comment><USER3> I wasn't able to find the specs, but do you know if the MacBook Pro is a 4K monitor? Reason I ask is, I notice how amazing the text is on this laptop.

<comment><USER4> You can find the resolution online. It depends on whether it's a 13" or 15" model. It is less than 4k, but has a higher DPI then 4k desktop screens. The only thing which gets as sharp are the 5k 27" screens - that's likely why Apple decided to make them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've had a 34" curved ultrawide (3440x1440) for about a month now, and I love it. For gaming, it's great because my GTX 1080 has no issues with it with the games I play. For design work, having all that extra horizontal real estate is great to tuck away palettes and other extras. And for coding I can have an IDE in 2/3s of the screen and a browser for stupid CSS questions in the other 1/3, and still have that browser at a width that doesn't trigger mobile media queries.

<comment><USER6> Yes! I've got the Dell Ultrasharp 38 on my desk and it's been wonderful. It runs at 3840 x 1600 and gives me lots of room for text editor, terminals, and web browser, filling my line of sight while I'm working.

<comment><USER7> this monitor with double pixel density (7680x3200) would be my dream monitor

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find my 32" 4K scales poorly in macOS, basically I can have everything tiny or everything massive and the scaling options make no sense there's only 720p, 1080p, 1600x900 or 4K.... there is no option between 1920x1080 and 3840x2160.

In Ubuntu it is more flexible but I think the sweet spot is going to be a 6K for scaling the UI at 3K but those might be a year or two away from existing and affordable. At below 30" 5K would be fine, I have a 25" 2.5K monitor that is very comfortable to use.

<comment><USER9> If you're not using a discrete GPU, that addition very possible will open up some more HiDPI resolutions for you. With a modest RX-460 (recognized in 10.13+) I get a variety of formats starting from a 2560x1440 layout over 3840x2160 pixels, and incrementally more spacious, all still over 3840x2160 on the wire, all with excellent HiDPI rendering. My intel graphics iGPU delivers just the limitations you described.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I thought about monitors quite a bit over the years:

1\. Don't be cheap. You look at the damn thing 1/3 of your waking time. Monitor is like a mattress - buy the best for what you want to do on it (be it text, or gaming, or colors, etc). No compromises.

2\. Refresh rate is just as important as resolution. I can feel my eyes physically hurting as I'm looking at text while I'm scrolling it up or down on a 60Hz monitor.

3\. Go with dual monitors instead of a single ultrawide. For me it's just easier to organize files on two smaller screens than on one large one. And I can have steeper "curvature".

4\. 27" is the ideal size for me. Tried 32" it was too large vertically to look up and down. Tried 25" it's a bit too small to fit multiple windows.

5\. The ideal setup would be two 27" 5k @ 120Hz, unfortunately they don't exists yet.

<comment><USER11> > 2\. Refresh rate is just as important as resolution. I can feel my eyes > physically hurting as I'm looking at text while I'm scrolling it up or down > on a 60Hz monitor.

LCDs don't actually "refresh" at 60Hz like CRTs do. (The screen is not "flickering" in a LCD.) Not sure what you are actually reacting to. A faster refresh rate with a panel type that has lower persistence make look smoother when scrolling perhaps.

<comment><USER12> > make look smoother when scrolling

All motion/rendering looks smoother. When I used a 240Hz monitor for the first time, I literally dragged windows back and forth for a while because the motion looked so good. Going back to 60Hz now is like nails on chalkboard, particularly for gaming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> High DPI. It makes text so more easy to read. For me personally I also wouldn't have too much use for ultrawide, since I run most apps in fullscreen mode and don't like turning my head while working.

High quality 4k/27" are most likely the sweet spot right now and works good with 175-200% scaling (on MacOS I use 200% and decrease font sizes in some apps - on Windows 175% works ok). 5k/27" would be the ideal thing, but there are barely models available, and the requirements for Thunderbolt 3 makes them less interoperable. I'm waiting for higher resolution screens to show up with new Displayport and HDMI revisions and would upgrade then.

</comment><comment><USER13> I picked 34" Ultrawide. It works just fine for everything. Easy to read, almost two "regular" monitors worth of screen space. Gaming on 3440x1440 is hard to max out (but easier than 4k), but you barely notice the difference between 3440x1440 and 2560x1080 in most games.

I actually quite like the aspect ratio - it means I can have 2 windows in normal proportions (IDE for example) and another one on the side (terminal for example)

1 thing to note; I thought 34" Ultrawide will be bigger screen than it turned out to be.

<comment><USER14> Me too. I use a windows manager and generally work with 3 windows across. Middle window is 50%, each side is 25%. This gives me a "full size" main window (like browser, 2 column ide, etc). One side is "monitoring" for things like cmd, git bash, slack, etc. other side is "reference" For things like PDFs, spec sheets, etc. this works great for me. One full size window gives me 4 large ide columns. I also often use 25%/75% for "monitoring"/"ide". Occasionally I use 50%/50% for comparisons.

I like it a lot. Sometimes I wish it was 200px taller but not often.

Some of my colleagues have 42" 4ks. They are also great but I find my head needs to move up and down. With my 34" ultra wide, only my eyes move up ab down.

I think 1 large monitor is way better than 2 monitors nearly all the time. True for either 4K or Ultra wise.

Also get one that is curved.

<comment><USER15> Do you have any thoughts on a 32" 4k? I am struggling to decide if I should go with an ultrawide or just a standard 32"

<comment><USER14> I've only used 42 4K. And 34 ultra wide. But I feel like 32 4K would be too small

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm on a 40" 4k, have been for a couple of years. It's generally fantastic and a huge leap up from either a 32" 4k panel Or two 27" 1440p panels. No comparison. However, I do often find myself thinking that I would give up some of the vertical real estate for extra space on either side; you can run a three (even) column setup but it feels just that little bit too tight. If you've an IDE up covering 2/3 of the horizontal space and 1/3 of the screen as a browser or terminal, there's no room for anything else. My next monitor will be ultrawide.

</comment><comment><USER17> I use a 27" 4k at work and a 38" ultrawide (3840x1600) at home. The 38" is too big frankly; maybe some of the mentioned 34" are better. I do like having Rider and Unity open in full size windows with room for terminal windows and other stuff on the ultrawide but for longer use I prefer the higher DPI of the 4k.

</comment><comment><USER18> My pet peeve with ultrawide is the wobbling. I suggest one that has two legs (are there any?)

<comment><USER14> Invest in a good vesa mount

<comment><USER18> i just place some toy to support the ends. I wish manufacturers cared for wobbling more. Those tiny vibrations under heavy eye fixation for hours a day are tiring.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I picked a 4K. It works just fine for everything. Easy to read, more than two "regular" monitors worth of screen space.

The only downside was that games couldn't max out on it, even with good specs and Gsync. That might be where ultrawide does better.

</comment><comment><USER20> I had a Dell 4K USB-C 32" 2019 model and then got an Alienware Ultrawide 34" 2018 (1440p) when a friend was moving and didn't have space for it.

Unless you need the smaller resolution for gaming performance, I'd go 4K everytime. You probably won't get anything above 60Hz refresh rate for a reasonable price. But, if all you are doing is programming, consuming content, and browsing the internet, it is more than sufficient.

If you do any color specific work, you can get some pretty good panels in the 4K display range.

</comment><comment><USER21> If you spend a lot of time reading and writing, a 4K monitor with a diagonal ≤ 28" is a good pick. The switch from ~ 100 ppi to ~ 160 ppi feels like a vision correction akin to new glasses or contacts.

With the aim of filling both central and peripheral vision with screen space, I use 3 × 28" 4K monitors on a triple VESA mount (EasyMountLCD EZM 002-0020). Having sufficient screen space for /everything/ related to my current task feels like it reduces pressure on my short-term memory.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think it's very personal. I prefer ultrawide because my eyes are a little older at this point and 34 inches has the best compromise for me. 42 inches would have me moving my head around too much. (that said, I have a smaller 15 inch laptop monitor on the side that I use for status windows, and that does have me swivel my head.)

For younger people, I might suggest the 4k. However, I'd go into a best buy and spend some time looking at them and imagining your daily activities.

<comment><USER4> Get the 4k, set scaling to 200%, and be amazed on how much easier things are to read on it. That will come with a loss in screen estate, but I rarely need it. For applications where you want more text you can still decrease the font size and have far more readable text than on a screen with lower resolution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Depends on your use case and operating systems. Are either/both of the monitors high DPI? Do you want thinks to look 'sharper' or do you want more screen real estate.

It also depends on which operating system you are using. Scaling on Linux is pretty terrible so I wanted a monitor that had ~100dpi so that no special scaling would be required. I also wanted the screen real estate of 4 ~22" monitors, so a 43" 4k monitor was perfect for my use case.

</comment><comment><USER24> Ultrawide experience has been great, I use it at my home office and 2 screens at the company office and the ultrawide offers much more readability and productivity.

</comment><comment><USER25> I have made long research and comparison about this. My budget was $1200 usd. My need basically browsing, sending email, write docs and coding. Nothing fancy and i have small working room.

Finally, i bought 38inch curve ultrawide (was huge 25% discount). I found it amazing and been using it for 1 year now. I have 34inch flat screen at office, but i prefer 38inch.

I tried more than 40 inch screen at office but i got neck problem for that.

</comment><comment><USER26> I went for a 4k 28" monitor because it has the same DPI as my 1080p 14" laptop screen, which is convenient when using them together.

</comment><comment><USER27> I really like the new super ultrawides (32:9 instead of 21:9). I picked up one of these earlier this year and have not been disappointed: [https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-49WL95C-W-ultrawide- monito...](https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-49WL95C-W-ultrawide-monitor)

</comment><comment><USER28> The priority depends on your usage of vertical space vs horizontal space. Ultrawide is great for spreadsheets, music/video/timeline editing, etc. For coding, ultrawide is nice for splitting your IDE into 3-4 sections, however there is more vertical scrolling vs 4K.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm on a 42" 4K at work (software developement).

In my experience 42" is too big to be ergonomic. Width is not the issue but height is: it takes too much strain on your eyes to look up to the top of the screen.

If I were to buy a new work monitor I would probably go for ultiwide.

</comment><comment><USER30> For a long time I was using a 27" 4k screen. I recently upgraded to a 32" 4k screen and tried ultra wides before buying. For me, nothing beats a single 32" 4k screen. Sadly there are no 32" 5k screens, otherwise I would have bought one.

</comment><comment><USER31> I have a 4k monitor and a 2k monitor. If I could go back and do it over, I'd just get a 2k ultra-wide. The 4k monitor has caused me a lot of headaches trying to get hardware / software to support it with dual displays.

</comment><comment><USER32> I made the mistake of getting an ultrawide that is not curved. Been getting some neck and trap issues from it. Doesn't matter which one, but just make sure it's curved if you get an ultrawide.

</comment><comment><USER33> Depends on your eyes. Mine(I wear glasses) prefer 4k for text/code. Will try 4k curved at some point to avoid unnecessary neck movements

</comment><comment><USER34> I love my new 34 inch 1440p ultrawide. I used to have two monitors. The ultrawide experience is just so good.

</comment><comment><USER35> I am still at 24" 1080p and i like it the most for gaming and working. Overall works best for me.

</comment><comment><USER36> Had both. Now have a 32in 4k. Go with the 4k but 32in. 28 is too small and over 32 is too bog

</comment><comment><USER37> Whatever route you go, make sure the monitor you get is a curved one.

</comment><comment><USER38> How is 4k on Ubuntu these days?

</comment><comment><USER39> Wide and tall, 43" 4k

</comment><comment><USER40> Go wide or go home

</comment><comment><USER41> I just picked up the lg 5k2k 34 inch ultra wide. I'm very happy with it. Before this, I ran two 3440x1440 displays but got tired of how pixelated everything looked.

If you're ok windows or Linux, dell makes an 8k 32" display that you might enjoy. It's fallen to just a couple thousand dollars now on amazon. Sadly incompatible with the Mac.

</comment><comment><USER42> I don't see why you wouldn't just get a 1080p monitor</comment>


Ask HN: Why there is no good Graph Visualization Library in Javascript? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> What kind of graphs do you mean? If you're talking about charts, not graphs with nodes and edges, then there are a few:

<http://highcharts.com>

<http://g.raphaeljs.com/>

<http://www.jqplot.com/>

<http://vis.stanford.edu/protovis/>

<http://code.google.com/p/flot/>

<http://dygraphs.com/>

<http://thejit.org/>

<http://www.jstat.org/>

<http://processingjs.org/>

<http://mbostock.github.com/d3/>

<comment><USER3> Thumbs up for highcharts. Easy to use and really flexible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Which libraries did you check, that did not fulfill your requirements, and why?

I've used both gRaphael (<http://g.raphaeljs.com/>) and jqPlot (<http://www.jqplot.com/>) before, and found both to be at least decent (though, I had a few issues with jqPlot, but switching to gRaphael solved those).

<comment><USER5> There's also Protovis (<http://vis.stanford.edu/protovis/>) which has been used for graph visualization.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> <http://code.google.com/p/flot/>

<http://smoothiecharts.org/></comment>


Programmers at Work: Bill Gates - <AUTHOR> https://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/bill-gates-1986/ <comment><USER2> > I'd have to say BASIC for the 8080, because of the effect it's had, and > because of how appropriate it was at the time, and because we managed to get > it so small.

My first thought was "ah, it's nice that he places such an emphasis on simplicity and elegance", and then I realized that he literally means _small_ , as in, _takes up fewer bytes_. It's so strange to think about optimizing memory footprint on the level of characters of code.</comment>