New Yorkers Can Now Get Unlimited UberPool in Manhattan for $200 - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2016/09/27/unlimited-uber-rides-new-york-100-dollars-subscription-october/#4be2af4b570a <comment><USER2> Before you get all excited about this, it's ONLY UberPOOL and your destination must start and end in Manhattan. So if you use this to commute for two weeks you're paying 10 (edit: obviously 100/20 = 5, it's early. leave me alone) dollars flat for a cab ride that you share and will take longer than normal because of the overhead of splitting the ride.

There are certainly some people for whom this will be cost effective, especially if they spend most of their day traveling to places they can be 5-10 minutes +/\- their target arrival. However for people like me who live on the east side of Manhattan and commute to FiDi it doesn't actually save a worthwhile amount of money.

Also forbes is incredibly spammy so here's the link directly to the promo: [https://www.uber.com/info/plus/newyork/](https://www.uber.com/info/plus/newyork/)

<comment><USER3> Also, uberpool is terrible. Can easily make a 20 minute ride 60 minutes depending on how many other fares they pick up/drop off on the way.

I took one into the city once to try it out. Normally a 20 minute drive, we stopped and picked up 2 other fares. They both got dropped off before me (which is insane), and it ended up taking over an hour.

The worst part? The drive told me that if we dropped off one and another came up, he'd have to pick that up too before dropping me off.

<comment><USER4> Been very good in my experience for going from San Francisco -> East Bay.

<comment><USER2> I have used uber and lyft in many cities and been satisfied. Never once in NYC. I probably just have bad luck, but honestly in manhattan it's the same price to get a cab even at 3am and doesn't require an app or surge pricing. I've heard the same anecdotes from friends. The notable exception is going to or from other burrows. It's often cheaper to get a car from a service if there's no surge, though the green cabs are starting to compete when traveling from somewhere outside manhattan.

In general transit problems (and thus solutions) don't translate from other cities to New York or vice versa.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I live in Manhattan. This is a rip off. The Uber Pool rides can take up to an hour sometimes, they drop off and pick up up to five people on your way. Uber if you are reading this, everyone in NYC realizes what a waste of time Uber Pool is.

<comment><USER6> How does Uber Pool even work during rush hour? Do you spend all day trapped in Times Square waiting to pick up the second person? Or does Uber try and route around gridlock? Does it just skip the other person if the car gets stuck?

Or maybe I'm paranoid because of a bad experience trying to get to a job interview via cab my first time in NYC.

<comment><USER7> Uber's wayfinding logic in Manhattan is actively dumb. With billions of dollars they could just hire a thousand locals to sit in a passenger seat to give navigation instructions.

If a car is ahead of me on an avenue, even by half a street, it will send them _around the block_ instead of suggesting I walk forward a bit.

Or, instead of asking me to cross an avenue, it will send the driver down a different avenue for multiple streets to loop back to my position.

It is _obsessed_ with getting on to the expressways. It will happily crawl past relatively free-flowing avenues to squeeze into an expressway full of cars heading to Westchester.

Its estimates of ETA seem to assume that there is no traffic. They are hilariously bad.

Drivers, who have been burnt by customers getting mad at them for not going to an exact location or for "ripping them off", follow the map religiously. No matter what I text or call. They follow an app which was presumably written by people who've never set foot in this city.

<comment><USER8> I thought they used google. Anyway, NYers are notorious for having strong opinions about the 'right way' to navigate any given route. Grain of salt.

<comment><USER7> Last time I complained about this, someone blamed it on Apple Maps.

Some drivers have both, mostly so they can see the traffic data from Google Maps. I like those drivers.

Edit: I'd actually be surprised if it was Google Maps at fault, given that their Maps team has a large contingent in the NYC office.

<comment><USER9> Things dramatically improved recently when they added a link to Waze in the Uber app.

And by improved I mean the drivers went from genuinely lost, misdirected, and clueless to merely confused and unaware of their surroundings but traveling vaguely in the right direction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Note that this is uber pool and is limited to a section of Manhattan (below 125th street). It's $100 for two weeks or $200 for a month.

Business idea! Sign up for unlimited uber rides and resell them for cash. Just stand on a corner where people are waiting for cabs, charge them $5 in cash to go where they want, and then call an uber pool for them.

<comment><USER11> Below 125th street is something like 80% of Manhattan's area and probably 90% of the population (including half of Harlem), so it's really not particularly limited. They just are cutting off the outskirts since there likely isn't a high enough density of UberPool users up there for it to make sense.

<comment><USER12> 90% of Manhattan? Maybe. 90% of NYC? Definitely not.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not only is Forbes a publication which forces people to disable ad blockers and then serves them malware-laden ads, but they have also written a headline here which is misleading through omission of crucial details.

At least I assume the headline on HN represents the Forbes headline accurately, but I don't know, because they won't let me read their content.

I think that Forbes should be blacklisted on HN.

</comment><comment><USER14> Only in Manhattan, and the $100 is only TWO weeks. A full month is $200.

As one of the 80% of New Yorkers who live in the other 4 boroughs, this is useless to me.

<comment><USER15> Not to mention that the part of town this is limited to is extremely well covered by almost every train, which will virtually always be faster (and cheaper) than getting into an Uber Pool that's going to hop around and pick people up.

<comment><USER16> This is especially true for people like me (starting in November) who take the metro trains into Grand Central or Penn. The transfer to the subway from those is almost frictionless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> They rolled a version of this out in DC months ago with a marketing campaign cleverly tied to major track work on the Metro.

[http://dcinno.streetwise.co/2016/07/29/uber-dc-monthly- pass-...](http://dcinno.streetwise.co/2016/07/29/uber-dc-monthly-pass-during- metro-safetrack/)

Very reasonable price (I suspect, in fact, they lose money on it). Service is OK. I prefer to take a bus but not everyone has a convenient bus line.

<comment><USER18> They're pretty up front about losing money on it. "Uber had promised to invest $10 million in D.C. during the SafeTrack program in a mix of ways. That includes offering financial incentives for drivers while still discounting UberPool this summer in D.C. Some of the money applies to incentives for the Pool Pass as well, since otherwise drivers would not likely feel very motivated to take a $1 fare."

It will be interesting to see how Uber shakes out in the long term. They can't keep this up forever.

<comment><USER17> I have certainly seen it cause many more people to give Pool a try. They are (were?) doing a flat-rate $3 price with no commitment for Pool rides that start and end within a zone downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. Great deal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There is an irony in that the people that could easily afford to do this won't want to because they'll have to share the car...

</comment><comment><USER20> This is actually a worse deal compared to the existing Uber Pool Pass for people commuting to a 9-5 20/40 times a week — using that service put you at ~$4/ride.

Interesting to see Uber attempting to compete at a slightly-more than public transit price, but it still seems unsustainable when it comes to paying drivers a fair wage.

</comment><comment><USER21> There's probably something to be said here about Uber limiting this to Manhattan - by far and away the most subway-covered area of the city - and not somewhere like East New York that's crying out for transit.

Of course, they do so to make money, and I don't begrudge them that. But it goes some way to highlight the fact that Uber is mostly certainly not a tide that raises all ships.

(as an entirely different aside, the roads in Manhattan are already terrible, and the subway is already quicker for a lot of journeys. Once you add in the fact that the Pool takes you far out of your way... eh.)

</comment><comment><USER22> $100 for a weird two-week initial period. Reads like:

[http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

</comment><comment><USER23> I called an UberPool in Manhattan at around 3:00 on a weekday. It was a 10 minute wait and when it did arrive the car already had four other passengers in the car. In many cases it's much faster and cheaper to take the train/cab.

</comment><comment><USER24> It is $200 this month. Chances are they will increase the price or put a cap the following month as they did in SF. The SF subscription isn't all that attractive anymore.

</comment><comment><USER25> My median San Francisco uberpool fare was (rounded) $3. Assuming similar per- mile rates it doesn't take long to break even.

</comment><comment><USER26> Uber's privatization of public transits [1] at big cities now begins.

[1]: [http://www.inc.com/damon-brown/in-the-ultimate-coup-uber- tak...](http://www.inc.com/damon-brown/in-the-ultimate-coup-uber-takes-over- citys-mass-transit.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> Ban fortune.com

</comment><comment><USER28> i could see this really catching on IF employers paid for it as a benefit.

</comment><comment><USER29> laff, forbes won't let me use their site with an ad blocker.

<comment><USER30> You're lucky. You also get to avoid the autoplaying video with audio. I'd recommend the mods switch to the timeout link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Useful seeing as they dont know how to drive trains over there

</comment><comment><USER32> Inaccurate clickbait title. How about "New Yorkers can now get unlimited UberPool inside Manhattan for $50/week"

</comment><comment><USER33> The page comes up blank for me, likely due to my content blockers. Alternate link: [https://www.timeout.com/newyork/blog/you-can-buy- unlimited-u...](https://www.timeout.com/newyork/blog/you-can-buy-unlimited- uberpool-passes-for-october-092616)

<comment><USER25> We need a site ban for forbes.com due to their actively filtering people with ad blocking and history of serving up malware-laden ads. Thank you for the alternate link.

<comment><USER34> Yes, I have a mental filter to just not click any links to forbes.com. If there were more people who feel the same way, may be we can avoid posting them to HN on account of convenience. (I have nothing against forbes. If they choose to not cater to people with ad blockers, it is their choice. But, I think it's HN community's choice to avoid them.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The title is correct now ($200 instead of $100), from Uber's website[1]:

        Unlimited uberPOOL in Manhattan/2 weeks ($100 fee)
        Unlimited uberPOOL in Manhattan/4 weeks ($200 fee)

[1]: [https://www.uber.com/info/plus/newyork/](https://www.uber.com/info/plus/newyork/)</comment>


Chinese Scientist Accused of Smuggling Samples, Amid Crackdown on Research Theft - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/us/chinese-scientist-cancer-research-investigation.html <comment><USER2> [https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/12/30/peoples-republic- of-...](https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/12/30/peoples-republic-of-china-may- be-behind-theft-of-bio-samples-by-harvard-sponsored-chinese-student-feds-say/)

> The feds say they believe the Chinese government may be behind the theft of > biological research specimens from a Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center > lab involving a Harvard University-sponsored Chinese student.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can someone with proper background explain what's important about these cancer cells? How difficult would it be to replicate them?

<comment><USER4> How this usually works is that samples are relevant to specific experiments. For example, maybe you're testing how some particular genetic modification affects how cancer cells behave in response to some drug, or whatever. These vials of cells would be what you get halfway through such an experiment, after you've treated the cells but before you've had a chance to analyze them. Postdocs and studentships often end midway through projects like this. The raw value of the materials is low, and it might take a postdoc days to weeks to reproduce them, depending on complexity. There is also an extremely high chance that the cells are completely worthless, i.e. that the treatment was botched or inconclusive. If the student hadn't taken the vials, the project might well have been abandoned, due to lack of manpower.

With that background, the morality of "smuggling" these cells is a bit of a gray area. On one hand, they're just incomplete work that the student wants to finish elsewhere. Keeping them is just like me keeping my notebooks when I move, even if I haven't finished solving the equations therein. On the other hand, if the project is finished elsewhere, credit won't properly flow to the affiliation where the work was started. In theoretical physics, we really don't care about this (I just finished a project where 2 members changed affiliation midway through), but in biology there's the cost of facilities, and the local expertise that gets you the raw materials.

So there is an issue here, but I certainly don't think it's worth the hysteria that will unfold in this comments section. I think the real issue is that a lot of people on this site are disgusted at the idea of Chinese people learning science. But to us scientists, the spread of knowledge is a virtue. After all, the end goal of this student would have been to publish in a journal -- which people from any country can access.

<comment><USER5> I can surmise your post in 2 points:

1\. The stolen material by these Chinese scientists were worthless and akin to a student taking home a notebook after a lecture. 2\. The real issue is here is not of the rampant theft of intellectual property by rogue Chinese scientists, but that Westerners are disgusted by the mere thought of Chinese people learning science.

I didn't need to learn your name ('Zhou') to see that you are another CCP loyalist. And honestly I am quite concerned that a visiting Chinese scientist like yourself holds sympathetic views of these intellectual theft crimes by your countrymen.....

<comment><USER6> Slurs like this aren't allowed here.

We've banned this account for that, as well as for doing nationalistic flamewar and ignoring our request to stop.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'd be interested for someone to start or point out a list of IP thefts in some timeline table in Wikipedia much like the list of soviet defectors [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Soviet_and_Eastern_Blo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Soviet_and_Eastern_Bloc_defectors)

<comment><USER4> The line between IP theft and literally just learning things gets very blurred in the sciences. Under some people's vague standards, I commit IP theft every time I take notes in a lecture, or apply knowledge I've learned elsewhere. Am I not supposed to use calculus outside of the United States if I learned it while living here?

<comment><USER8> >> Am I not supposed to use calculus outside of the United States if I learned it while living here?

Exactly. Math has in the past been classified as an export-controlled 'munition'. No matter where you learned it, a US citizen could be arrested for talking about it outside of the US. People were printing it on t-shirts and in books as a form of free speech protest.

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

"the encryption technology (techniques as well as equipment and, after computers became important, crypto software) was included as a Category XIII item into the United States Munitions List."

And see the Free Speech Flag: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Flag](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Speech_Flag)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The risks of working with Chinese state-owned enterprises are well known. The risks of working with private companies (large and small) in China are are also great with CCP "party cells" officially embedded into at least half of private companies. Less discussed is the China's highly-successful "patriotic education" campaign implemented in response to the 1989 pro-democracy protests (the Tiananmen Square massacre). All school children since the mid-1990s have been indoctrinated from birth with a Chinese Communist Party's highly- exaggerated historical narrative called the "century of humiliation". This world view says the US and the European colonial powers held China down between 1839 to 1949, and that only the CCP's leadership China will regain its rightful place as global leader. Its false and highly-exaggerated for a number of reasons (China at its historical peak was never more than a regional power, never a global leader, and the CCP has done more to hold China's development back than western colonialism and the war with Imperial Japan).

Since the patriotic education system came into force in the 1990s, generations of schoolchildren indoctrinated. These students, now adults, have entered the workforce with the ideology continuing to be reinforced by state-propaganda and censorship.

This "century of humiliation" mindset is part of what helps justify the China's strategy of large scale technology theft (theft is a core component of the Made In China 2025 industrial strategy).

Interestingly enough, the CCP promotes its ethno-nationalist ideology far beyond its borders via the United Front Work Department to try and influence everyone, but especially overseas Chinese diaspora communities. It doesn't matter whether someone was born in China, or live as part of an overseas diaspora community, or have Chinese ancestral heritage but have lived for generations in another country, the Chinese Communist Party sees every single ethnically Chinese people in the world as owing allegiance to it, and wants to leverage these people to achieve its goals.

Defeating the CCP's ethno-nationalist agenda and highly-exaggerated historical narratives will be difficult, but understanding it is the key to fighting back against the widespread theft of advanced technology from developed countries to China.

EDIT: Why the downvotes? The "patriotic education" campaign, "century of humiliation" narrative, United Front Work Department and state-led technological theft are all core methods in the CCP's strategy (leading situations like the one in the featured article). If you think this comment is reasonable and meets the guidelines, please view it via the permalink and then 'vouch' it.

<comment><USER10> > All school children since the mid-1990s have been indoctrinated from birth > with a Chinese Communist Party's highly-exaggerated historical narrative > called the "century of humiliation"

I suggest reading about the chinese history under european/american colonialism. To call it "Highly-exaggerated" is like saying the holocaust was highly exaggerated. It's absurd and makes it hard to take your comment seriously.

> and the CCP has done more to hold China's development back than western > colonialism and the war with Imperial Japan).

That's simply an absurd statement. China, like india, under western colonialism went from being the largest economy in the world to an insignificant one. Now, china is the 2nd largest economy (nominal) and largest economy (PPP).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(nominal\))

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\))

> This "century of humiliation" mindset is part of what helps justify the > China's strategy of large scale technology theft (theft is a core component > of the Made In China 2025 industrial strategy).

No. IP theft is justified because that's the history of business. US did it in the 1800s. Japan did it. South Korea did. Israel did it. Everyone does it until they themselves produce IP worth protecting. It's just the natural cycle of development. Go read about the history of trying to steal silk, porcelain, fireworks, etc tech from china. It's simply a natural development.

> Interestingly enough, the CCP promotes its ethno-nationalist ideology far > beyond its borders via the United Front Work Department to try and influence > everyone, but especially overseas Chinese diaspora communities.

So does israel, germany, japan, korea, turkey, russia, etc. Not only that we have ethno-centric alliances ( Five Eyes ).

> Defeating the CCP's ethno-nationalist agenda and highly-exaggerated > historical narratives will be difficult

It will be difficult because their historical narratives are true.

If you want to see what colonialism did to china, india, etc...

[http://visualeconsite.s3.amazonaws.com/wp- content/uploads/20...](http://visualeconsite.s3.amazonaws.com/wp- content/uploads/2008/01/percent-world-gdp-15001.jpg)

[http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2008/01/20/share- of...](http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2008/01/20/share-of-world-gdp)

Before colonialism, china and india accounted for more than 50% of the world's GDP for millenia. After colonialism, china and india accounted for 5% of the world GDP.

There certainly are things to worry about when it comes to china, but outlandish lies aren't going to help anyone.

<comment><USER11> > China, like india, under western colonialism went from being the largest > economy in the world to an insignificant one.

That's getting the causality backwards. Western colonialism didn't reduce China and India to insignificant economies; their insignificance is what enabled Western powers to colonize them so easily. The reduction to insignificance already happened earlier, when the West began to industrialize.

Of course the Qing emperors realized that they wouldn't be able to resist Western armies without owning similar weaponry. Their biggest mistake was simply buying them. In comparison, Japan suffered similar humiliation, complete with Western battleships forcibly opening ports for trade. The deciding difference was that they decided to not only import Western weapons, but to learn how to make them themselves, industrializing quickly. That was so successful that halfway through China's "century of humiliation", Japan became one of the humiliators.

> IP theft is justified because that's the history of business.

Agreed, and the humiliation would have lasted a lot shorter than a century if the Qing had realized this. Ironically, if they had done so, foreign Manchu would likely still hold an outsized influence in Chinese politics today.

> their historical narratives are true.

The facts of the narrative can be true while the evaluation and implied causal relationships can be misleading. For example, the establishment of free-trade zones for foreign merchants is judged to be humiliating because it was the consequence of military defeat. But when the CCP later established special economic zones to boost international trade, that was seen as very much a good thing.

<comment><USER10> > That's getting the causality backwards. Western colonialism didn't reduce > China and India to insignificant economies; their insignificance is what > enabled Western powers to colonize them so easily.

This is one of the most outlandishly false things I've read. China and india's economic significance is the reason why western powers wanted to colonize china and india in the first place. Their economic importance is why europe first sought out india and china. It's why columbus "sailed the ocean blue".

> The reduction to insignificance already happened earlier, when the West > began to industrialize.

The colonization of india and china started before western industrialization. And it was colonizers who prevented india and china from industrializing like Japan. Funny how colonization ended and china ( and india though more slowly ) started industrializing huh?

> For example, the establishment of free-trade zones for foreign merchants is > judged to be humiliating because it was the consequence of military defeat. > But when the CCP later established special economic zones to boost > international trade, that was seen as very much a good thing.

Because the former was for the benefit of foreign merchants to loot a nation and the latter was for the benefit of china. Surely, even you can see the difference of a territory conquered by a foreign power to loot a nation vs a territory a nation sets up itself for trade?

<comment><USER12> No it didn't. The first opium wars, at the start of the century of humiliation, began in 1839. Industrialization began in the 1780s. It was literally heavily armed, iron armored steamships versus middle-ages style sailboats. The Chinese were completely fucked at every single level economically compared to Great Britain, and that's why they lost. They literally didn't stand a chance due to their poor technological level, and that was pretty much their fault.

Using GDP to measure economical supremacy when the two economies are as wildly incomparable as industrialized Great Britain and the agrarian Qing Dynasty is misleading at every single level. Yeah, China could grow hundreds of times more rice than Great Britain ever could. But Qing China wasn't able to make machine guns, it wasn't able to make steamships, it wasn't able to make any industrial equipment. And that's how Great Britain with 50 million people militarily crushed Qing China. It's because China failed to keep up with technology and lost it's massive lead during the renaissance. That meant that it got lost in the dust in the industrial wars of the time. It's really, honestly, a massive mistake that the Qing Dynasty made by not following western developments and not trying to industrialize despite its massive resources. It's economy was just a lot worse. Like, GDP per capita per year around 300$ (2019 dollars) bad. And _that 's_ what led to the century of humiliation, that plus their failure to adapt and industrialize when they had the chance, believing that they could buy the capabilities to face off with a modern army.

<comment><USER10> > The first opium wars, at the start of the century of humiliation, began in > 1839. Industrialization began in the 1780s.

We can argue about when industrialization began til the cows come home, but the benefits of industrialization weren't materialized until the latter half of the 1800s - after the opium wars when britain used stolen chinese capital and stolen indian resources.

Everything you've written are nonsense repeated over and over again. It does get exhausting correcting them, but I'll give it another shot.

> It was literally heavily armed, iron armored steamships versus middle-ages > style sailboats.

That was the case everywhere. Steamships didn't become truly relevant until the latter half of the 1800s because of how much coal was needed for these ships. Think about it. When the british were trying to blockade the US, it wasn't with steamships. It was with sail ships. Hell most of the naval ships decades after the opium war were still powered by sail.

"sail was still the only solution for virtually all trade between China and Western Europe or East Coast America. "

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

> The Chinese were completely fucked at every single level economically > compared to Great Britain, and that's why they lost.

Is that why the US beat britain in the american revolution? Because our economy was so much superior to Great Britain? Is that why the mongols were able to conquer china, russia, middle east? Because their economy was so much larger? Is that why the barbarians were able to overrun the roman empire? Because their economy was so much larger? Britain economy had nothing to do with opium wars. Do you know why? Because britain started the opium wars because china produced so much goods britain wanted while britain produced very little that china wanted. So the trade deficit was so skewed in favor of china that capital flowed exclusively from britain to china. The opium wars was britain's attempt to remedy it. Since britain's "amazing economy" produced nothing of value to china, they wanted to peddle drugs to china.

I won't bother with the rest. Figure it out yourself. If britain's economy was so great ( as you implied ) there wouldn't have been any opium wars because britain could cost-effectively produce stuff for china. They couldn't. Hence why they needed to peddle drugs. Why do you think the corner drug dealers are dealing drugs? Because they can't produce or do anything else of value. That was britain.

<comment><USER12> I never said that Britain was justified in any way in the Opium Wars, far from it. But that's irrelevant to my point anyways.

Britain had ulterior problems than the trade imbalance with China. Throwing out 2.6 million pounds of opium (weight) and refusing to talk about it as you denied an embassy, because you saw yourself as a higher form of civilization than those pesky barbarians in the east of the world did absolutely nothing to help, which is why incidentally Russia France and the US were supportive despite not having the same problem as Britain. Refusing to consider a peace treaty, torturing POWs, killing messengers and so on is also a good part of why the opium wars actually went through, there were quite a few times parliament almost shut it down, and I'm pretty sure were it not for the insult that Qing China kept imposing due to their frankly stupid feudal bureacracy and It is true that opium had a large part in it and the British did like the tax revenue it gave. But, as it happens, the fact that China wasn't particularly interested in British manufactured goods isn't relevant to that question, because the fact that China wasn't interested in industrializing its vast worker base has nothing to do with the benefits of industrialization.

Your analysis of steamships is incorrect, by the way. 6 British steamships sunk hundreds of Chinese ships, and were able to manoeuvre in ways that Chinese didn't know were possible at all. They also single handedly destroyed hundreds of artillery pieces and by virtue of being able to access shallower waters and going against wind and current so easily they were able to attack Naval fortifications from a side they weren't designed to protect from, destroying them, and were able to carry firepower comparable to entire Chinese fleets. Read about the individual Naval battles in the first Opium war, it's actually incredible just how efficient steamships were since the very beginning of the Opium Wars. They were literally a hard counter to the entire Chinese arsenal, except for land-based artillery of course.

My claim of GDP being a good proxy for military capability was prefaced by specifying it applied to industrialized warfare only. And it works pretty damn well, actually, if you take into account morale and readiness. Not realizing it at the time is a mistake that Hitler made invading the USSR, costing him his life, and a mistake Hirohito made despite the warnings of Yamamoto, which lead to Japan losing WW2. Its pretty damn accurate assuming two stable nation states and factoring in the monetary equivalent of throwing bodies at the enemy.

Yes, the Naval blockade of the US couldn't use steamships because they didn't have enough of them to block the entire shoreline of the US while keeping them supplied. The geography of the Chinese blockades were incredibly different. Chinese logistics were centered around the main rivers, since, you know, no real infrastructure. The British only had to blockade rivers in order to cripple the Chinese economy.

China being a huge exporter of low-value added goods and materials, it was simply impossible for Britain to balance the trade equation. The fact that that simple proposition had to lead to a war is a good insight on why we got rid of the gold standard.

Also, even before the industrial revolution, I can think of about 10 counter examples to production capability being the main driving force behind military victory, actually. Logistics and keeping your armies fed was possibly the biggest factor behind pre-industrial empires.

Saying that the industrial revolution brought no benefit to warfare until the later half of the 18th century is positively ridiculous. Using industrial weaponry European powers were able to impose disgusting imperialist régimes in a flash, because it was a huge advantage. To most of their enemies, it simply was economically and technologically (two sides of the same coin) impossible to fight back. But you can figure this one out yourself :)

<comment><USER10> > I never said that Britain was justified in any way in the Opium Wars, far > from it.

I never said you did. My comment specifically debunked your assertions about "britain's superior economy", etc.

> But that's irrelevant to my point anyways.

Agreed.

> Throwing out 2.6 million pounds of opium (weight) and refusing to talk about > it as you denied an embassy ...

Oh I see, now you are going to justify britain's behavior. Typical.

> 6 British steamships sunk hundreds of Chinese ships

Simply not true. There is a reason why almost all of britain's navy were powered by sail even decades after the opium war. It was britain sail powered ships that destroyed chinese ships.

> My claim of GDP being a good proxy for military capability was prefaced by > specifying it applied to industrialized warfare only.

Industrialized warfare didn't really start until ww1, nearly 100 years after the first opium war.

> China being a huge exporter of low-value added goods and materials, it was > simply impossible for Britain to balance the trade equation.

You are mistaking today's china with china from 200 years ago. There is a reason why "fine china" is called "fine china". Chinese goods ( tea, silk, porcelain, etc ) were considered luxury items.

> Using industrial weaponry European powers

Oh god. The muskets the british and the europeans were using were inferior to the bow and arrow. "European" weaponry didn't really separate itself from the rest until the American civil war when we started using gatling guns, ironclad ships, etc and then down the line oil for trucks, ships, etc.

Anyways, this is getting boring as I know you'll continue with your lies about the most basic of history. My goal isn't to convince you, it's to make sure people who read your lies are aware of it.

Saying that industrialization is why britain won the opium wars is like saying nuclear weapons is why the US beat britain. Strange how the amazing "industrialized" british couldn't beat the US in the american revolution nor the war of 1812.

Here's a hint. British/American industrialization took off AFTER the opium wars because the opium wars provided the capital necessary for british and american industrialization.

And if you really want to know how the british "won" the opium wars, it's simply a weak "foreign" central government and perfidious mandarins in southern china. Similar to how france took over vietnam. And how britain took over india. But you won't read about that in the history books. You have to look "behind" the history books. Hope you enjoyed the lesson.

<comment><USER11> > It was britain sail powered ships that destroyed chinese ships.

They were sail-powered steamboats. It's true that travelling all the way from Britain to China using only steam power was impossible at the time. But the very first British steamboat [1] also had sails. That way, they only had to feed the steam engines when a maneuver required it, e.g. going against the wind. That was evidently enough to win battles.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(1839)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_\(1839\))</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why does Singapore top so many tables? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24428567

<comment><USER2> Nice how the negative aspects are nicely pushed into a small box at the right side, and a single a few lines at the end, as if they matter less.</comment>


Ask HN: Is a completed course on codeacademy enough to get  a programming job? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I am currently doing the Javascript course on codeacademy. I am about 40% of the way through the course and I am moving fast. I really enjoy the challenges and feel I am learning a lot. I have also signed up to the codeschool objective C course.<p>However, I was wondering if having completed the Javascript course really means anything to a potential employer? Would a potential employer hire me on the back of completing a codeacademy course? Of course it would help with other tech jobs and with my own projects, but would it get me a job as a programmer?Any feedback you could give me on this would be greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> I've been helping someone recently who says he's completed the Python course on codecademy. I have no reason to doubt him, but he is confused on important issues, and cannot write code.

The evidence I have is meagre, but suggests that a codecademy course is not necessarily worth anything.

Of course, it may be that you have aptitude, and the Codecademy course is exactly what you needed to get you started, and that you can (or soon will be able to) program, but I wouldn't hire you based on completing a Codecademy course. I probably wouldn't even telephone interview you on that basis.

I'd want to see something you've written, then I'd want to write something with you. Then I'd want to see you think about an appropriate problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Colin, appreciate the advice!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> An American friend of mine living in the Philippines with nothing much to do landed a gig for $100 to build a landing page using a WYSIWYG HTML editor. He had only ever built a few sites using this editor and knew next to nothing otherwise. I think he was even able to complete it within a few hours. So, yes, as long as you are willing to spend time to do something for somebody else who doesn't have that time, then you can get paid.

If you are looking for an actual full time job, then this is highly unlikely.

Web development shops don't do training. They are looking for people who can hit the ground running with little or no help. Making a web development shop work is difficult, and someone with little experience will only cost the shop money, which creates a burden for the business. They also need people who are well rounded, so that one person can do most of what they require, what's left over can be outsourced.

Startups are much the same as web development shops. They don't have the resources to train people and they need for their developers to be well rounded.

As a JS developer you would be a specialist, and specialists can really only get freelance work from development teams who don't have enough free resources in that area to finish that part of a project but don't have enough work in that area to justify hiring someone full time.

Large established businesses which have a lot of resources (or startups which are very well funded) are in a better position to train people. They may also be more open to doing so if they have to quickly ramp up their development staff. But you probably won't get into a Facebook or a Google without excellent credentials (graduating from a big name school if you don't already have experience) and getting through a daunting interview process.

There are exceptions out there. See hungryacademy.com (for LivingSocial) as an example, but this is not the norm.

The easiest way to land work right away is to go the freelance route. Unfortunately, this can also be the most difficult route to make a living as you would be running a business and managing cashflow as opposed to receiving a regular paycheck. With an employer, you can get paid through your learning curve, but with freelancing your learning curve may result in being late on rent (and figuring out how to make freelancing really work can take years for some people.) This is also a bit of a backwards route because ideally you would first become an expert by learning from a successful web development shop before striking out on your own.

However, at the end of the day, we are all hustling. We need to somehow get from point A to point B and by sheer willpower we will figure it out (or get replaced by someone who will.) You need to also be hustling and eventually you also will find a way.

My suggestion.

The next logical step from JS is to make sure that you are functional in HTML/CSS, as that gives you a solid foundation for front-end web development work. At this point, you would still be a specialist, so you would need to go further. The HTML/CSS is often done by designers or can easily be outsourced because there are a lot of solid people in this area. So this alone won't land you a job unless you are a solid designer. Again, the details vary depending on the employer.

Because you have mentioned objective-c, I'm assuming that you are not a designer and would need to go the coder route. So, you will need to augment your front-end skills with some back-end skills. As a coder, you don't need to be a wizard with HTML/CSS because of the already mentioned reasons. Just be good enough that you can put together those elements if you need to. You now need to select a general direction for the back-end. PHP, Ruby or Python are the most likely choices here.

You need to consider potential markets before making a decision on your first back-end platform. The market for PHP developers is huge, but there is also a ton of competion. The market for Clojure developers is relatively small, but you also have less competition. Additionally, you could further drill down into specializing on specific content management systems, such as Wordpress, or frameworks, such as Rails. Take a look through available jobs (as well as the budgets and the competition for these jobs) at Elance and Odesk to get a feel for this.

Once you have started to learn your chosen platform, you need practice every day until you find that you are able to take care of the basics without having to look through documentation at every step of the way. At this point you are functional and you need to start publishing some code to Github as potential clients or employers will ask to see samples of what you have done.

Your next task is to come up with a project where you take care of everything from A to Z. If you have followed the above advice, then this is probably a web application. Make sure that you finish the application and get it shipped. Do some light promotion to get a little traffic. This will give you an idea of what the entire process of creating a web application requires and will help fill in some of the gaps that the above advice didn't cover.

Congrats, you are now functional enough that you can start considering your options for building an income. You now need to start networking (actually, start this process as early as you can.) Find the communities for your chosen platforms / markets and start participating. In particular, look for places where paying clients are part of the community.

Notice that I haven't touched on Objective-C. You could probably take the same route with Objective-C but I don't have the same experience to make suggestions in that area. Javascript is a scripting language for web applications, so I would suggest that since you put in that time that you continue following the web side of development. Go through my suggestions and then make the decision of continuing with web development or making the move to native mobile apps. Personally, I wouldn't want to get started with mobile apps without having web development experience under my belt.

<comment><USER4> Excellent and informative response.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> You can compare finishing the course on codeacademy with finishing any school or course; the one hiring you will ask two questions: 1) What is the quality of this course? 2) How can I judge the applicant's performance against the quality of the course?

For 1) you have an issue: Codeacademy is so new, that the quality of the course cannot be determined by the quality of previous "alumni". The one hiring you has to make an educated guess. He can look at the courses and estimate the quality himself.

This makes 2) hard too, since he will not know if finishing this course in say, two weeks, is excellent or subpar.

It will probably convince the one hiring you that you have a basic command of javascript, but you really need to develop something that shows how this command is rated outside the course.

      - Submit patches to open source js projects and get them accepted
      - Answer questions on http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/javascript
      - Build a js library

This will help validate your codeacedemy skills.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks bulltale, very good advice there. Appreciate the help!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a manager who hires developers I'd say no. Mainly because any single thing isn't going to be enough to get you a job, or possibly even an interview.

My suggestions:

1\. Put up as much of your course work as possible on GitHub. This gives an employer the chance to look at your code, and shows you can use Git.

2\. Take on a project to build something. Possibly your course work covers this, I don't know. I'd suggest some simple app/website/gizmo which actually does something. It doesn't have to be unique but should show you can build a larger project without creating a confusing mess.

3\. Rinse and repeat. The above would be enough to land you a junior developer job assuming you're actually good enough at the coding. You can always learn more and more, ie security, scalability, design etc. I'd look into any of those if they interest you. Otherwise wait until you need them.

I run a developer jobsite btw, the link is in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Robin, I will check out your job board and I am going to start posting to GitHub.

<comment><USER7> I concur with Robin. Best bet is a working website with publicly viewable code. You could show others online the code first, to get ideas on how to improve it. Every good developer continuously learns, to improve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is from a small 18 man shop... Generally we hire based on potential as judged by our lead developers. Most of our best talent has been nurtured right in house. We find that this is generally less expensive and it fosters much better loyalty. We have developers going on 7+ years with us. Some of our worst experiences have come from hiring seasoned rock stars that feel entirely too entitled. This isn't to say there aren't many seasoned pros that are still humble enough to work with, we just havent had a ton of luck with them.

That said, it would depend on our current work load and how much promise we saw in you based on what you've done so far. your pay would most definitely start low (probably around $16.00/hr) but based on progress we'd advance you pretty quickly.

To answer the question... I doubt I would hire you solely based on your codecademy course work. I'd be looking for a website that you've applied your learnings to.

</comment><comment><USER9> I wouldn't hire someone that complete a course on codeacademy, and doesn't have anything to show me, if he has open source projects and i like what i see, i would hire him.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, so you think adding code to github or building a websites is essential?

<comment><USER10> Evidence that you can actually do the work is what is essential, those are only examples. Generally, the broader and more interesting the work at the job you're applying for, the broader the examples of your work, and other evidence, like working an example problem(s) in the interview, will be required.

The important thing for the company is that you provide more value than you cost, so they try to weed out people that either can't do enough work quickly enough or will require too much hand-holding to be practical in their work environment.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are your top YouTube channels? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Chris & Jack - Comedy sketches [https://youtu.be/_Ug6gAO8n0s](https://youtu.be/_Ug6gAO8n0s)

Dust - SF short films [https://www.youtube.com/c/watchdust](https://www.youtube.com/c/watchdust)

AirBlastr - Cinematic FPV [https://www.youtube.com/c/blastrchannel/videos](https://www.youtube.com/c/blastrchannel/videos)

Daniel Peixe - VR painting [https://www.youtube.com/user/danielpeixe/](https://www.youtube.com/user/danielpeixe/)

Henry Segerman - Math sculptures [https://www.youtube.com/c/HenrySegerman](https://www.youtube.com/c/HenrySegerman)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Can't stop at 5!!

\- Andreas Spiess (maker electronics/computing) [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu7_D0o48KbfhpEohoP7YSQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu7_D0o48KbfhpEohoP7YSQ)

\- bitluni's Lab (maker electronics/computing) [https://www.youtube.com/user/bitlunislab](https://www.youtube.com/user/bitlunislab)

\- The 8 bit guy (retro computing) [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8uT9cgJorJPWu7ITLGo9Ww](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8uT9cgJorJPWu7ITLGo9Ww)

-microwavemont (computer/electronics) [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLE2SRkdTBHHXjxj7Rm6j8g](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLE2SRkdTBHHXjxj7Rm6j8g)

-Engineer Man (programming) [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrUL8K81R4VBzm-KOYwrcxQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrUL8K81R4VBzm-KOYwrcxQ)

\- ChibiAkumas (8 bit assembly language) [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8t99gp5IN- FTf5rGVaRevw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8t99gp5IN-FTf5rGVaRevw)

\- PBS SpaceTime (physics) [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7g](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_gcs09iThXybpVgjHZ_7g)

\- Retro Recipes (retro computing) [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6gARF3ICgaLfs3o2znuqXA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6gARF3ICgaLfs3o2znuqXA)

\- Explaining Computers (various computing topics, tends towards single board computers) [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbiGcwDWZjz05njNPrJU7jA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbiGcwDWZjz05njNPrJU7jA)

\- Linus Tech Tips (PC hardware) [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXuqSBlHAE6Xw- yeJA0Tunw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXuqSBlHAE6Xw-yeJA0Tunw)

\- Simon's Cat (cartoon fun) [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH6vXjt- BA7QHl0KnfL-7RQ](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCH6vXjt-BA7QHl0KnfL-7RQ)

<comment><USER3> Great list, thanks for sharing.

Adding a few more along the same themes -- electronics, hw hackers, retro gaming:

\- GreatScott [https://www.youtube.com/user/greatscottlab](https://www.youtube.com/user/greatscottlab)

\- Electronoobs [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiVhIvGmRZixSzupD0sS9Q](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjiVhIvGmRZixSzupD0sS9Q)

\- EEVblog [https://www.youtube.com/user/EEVblog](https://www.youtube.com/user/EEVblog)

\- DroneBot Workshop [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzml9bXoEM0itbcE96CB03w](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzml9bXoEM0itbcE96CB03w)

\- element14 presents [https://www.youtube.com/user/thebenheckshow](https://www.youtube.com/user/thebenheckshow)

\- DisneyResearchHub [https://www.youtube.com/user/DisneyResearchHub](https://www.youtube.com/user/DisneyResearchHub)

\- Enthought (SciPy conferences) [https://www.youtube.com/user/EnthoughtMedia](https://www.youtube.com/user/EnthoughtMedia)

\- Code Bullet [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0e3QhIYukixgh5VVpKHH9Q](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0e3QhIYukixgh5VVpKHH9Q)

\- RetroArch [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_yi-5YZEf8LnapjkP3HL8A](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_yi-5YZEf8LnapjkP3HL8A)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Refika's Kitchen

[EN] [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCONn3cHs5mqgCMqf_a4fcSg](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCONn3cHs5mqgCMqf_a4fcSg) [TR] [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO3MaQR- Vh6cgBZRlD44jWg](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO3MaQR-Vh6cgBZRlD44jWg)

</comment><comment><USER5> Applied Science

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCivA7_KLKWo43tFcCkFvydw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCivA7_KLKWo43tFcCkFvydw)

Ben Eater

[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS0N5baNlQWJCUrhCEo8WlA](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCS0N5baNlQWJCUrhCEo8WlA)

<comment><USER6> Ben Eater is amazing... Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Only including ones I think HN audience might find interesting:

\- VSauce (Physics/Science)

\- 3Blue1Brown (Maths)

\- FermiLab (Physics)

\- PBS Spacetime (Physics)

\- Scooby1961 (Fitness)

\- AthleanX (Fitness)

\- Mentour Pilot (Airplanes/Flying)

\- TOOL (Music :))

<comment><USER8> If you like Mentour Pilot I highly suggest you check out 74Gear as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> My favorite youtube video of all time:

"Nietzsche In Twelve Minutes"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4baePsCT_E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4baePsCT_E)

</comment><comment><USER10> MobileTechReview for honest reviews about smartphones and laptops.

</comment><comment><USER11> [https://www.youtube.com/user/SMOKERSOFCIGARSPIPES](https://www.youtube.com/user/SMOKERSOFCIGARSPIPES)</comment>


Hobby Lobby reopened stores in states with coronavirus lockdowns - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/hobby-lobby-reopened-stores-in-states-with-coronavirus-lockdowns-2020-3 <comment><USER2> They should be able to be open. Sewing and other craft supplies are important to efforts such as making masks, etc.

Many hospitals and other facilities are taking donations of handcrafted PPE.</comment>


TaaS: Tea as a Service - We've launched a monthly tea subscription service - <AUTHOR>

My friend and I are launching teapeat.com. Please let me know what you think.
We've used Stripe for the recurring payments and it's made things a lot easier than past attempts with other gateway APIs.
We'll be A/B testing different copy, images, and buttons, so expect a blog post soon with those results. <comment><USER2> Clickable: <http://teapeat.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Check out graze.com, very similar service in the UK (though with healthy snacks instead of tea). They deliver weekly and manage to get cheaper postage by declaring themselves as a 'magazine'. For graze, you say which snacks (tea types/sources in your case) you like and which you don't like. Then they deliver a new one on your 'like' list every week. Every week it's 4 different snacks that are mailed to you.

</comment><comment><USER4> Peets has a similar service for tea. How do you expect to distinguish yourself?

</comment><comment><USER5> I think it's a really good idea that craft coffee lets you order a tasting box.

Maybe that would be something that would give you a higher margin and show users the quality of your service?

Also I think if you subscribe to teapeat it would be great to get access to some associated content.

Either a little video, podcast showing how to brew it, details about it. That would build a great community that keeps coming back to the site which would result in better upselling opportunities.

Currently you get people to sign up and the only time they might come back is to cancel!

Build a community of tea lovers & hold onto them!

</comment><comment><USER6> Suggestion:

1-

The site doesn't seem to mention anything, but you should consider posting brewing instructions on the website for each tea you send out as well as in the package. Different teas are supposed to be brewed differently. Some long, some short, some in hot water, some in warm water. So with each package you could include the tea name (I assume you do already), with a link, teapeat.com/instructions/<teaname>.

2-

I'd put more focus on the "enough to brew a cup every day for the entire month". I think that makes the service, but it was buried. I'd stick it on the homepage, on the main image.

</comment><comment><USER7> Who will create Coffee as a Service? :)

<comment><USER8> <http://craftcoffee.com/>

:)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is pretty awesome. I really like the site as well; the layout and information is all pretty clear. I really like that the subscription form tells you in clear terms when you will be charged and when your tea will ship.

I think my wife and I are going to try it out. What is the coupon thing about?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. We tried really hard to make sure that the site was clear and that any questions were answered before subscribing.

I included the coupon field because it's an option within Stripe. I just wanted to be thorough from the gate. I may issue coupon codes in the future for various events.

If I do, you'd be able to use one and it'll adjust your subscription price moving forward (there's a field in the billing section of the user dashboard that would allow you enter it in).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is there a way to get more than 1 type of tea in 1 month? Say a sampler of 3-6 types of teas?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm thinking of giving the option of a monthly sampler of 4 teas (1 per week). I'd have to charge a little more for that because of the extra packaging and other associated costs. It is on my list, however.

I also want to create a "gift" option to make it easy for users to give yearly subscriptions as gifts.

Any other ideas?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love tea, but I'm in the UK. Stripe is a cool service, bro.

Hope the A/B testing goes well and everything.

:)

</comment><comment><USER12> Unless you plan on solely targeting entry level tea drinkers, you really need to provide more information about your tea. Give a preview of what you plan to ship for the next few months, the tea, the region it's from, when it was picked, etc. For all I know you're going to send me a box of Tazo loose leaf every month.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I think you're right. I'll add a page listing the types of tea likely to be sent (with a description of each, as you've suggested).

<comment><USER12> Sounds good. Sorry if that came off as harsh, I meant to expand on the 'you really need to' because there are similar services being offered by established tea retailers that do include all of that information, and such information is important to most tea-junkies. Even though I think it's clear that your service is aiming for a more frugal, less picky market than most of those, it's definitely better not to alienate them.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wouldn't say that I am targeting a frugal, less picky market. I think those buyers just get a box of tea from their grocery store every week.

I plan on sending teas like the organic Long Jing Dragonwell tea. Depending on the number of subscribers that month, I'll likely take a loss on many of those teas since the tea and associated shipping costs may exceed the $24 monthly price.

I have to reach a certain threshold of monthly subscribers (with a fixed churn) to reach profitability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a pretty neat idea. I am not sure if something similar exists (the model is becoming popular, but with tea I do not know).

From a technical standpoint I do not have a whole lot to say. The site is straight-forward easy to share via social media and is pleasant.

In terms of the business model, I worry about a few things. Targeting tea drinkers is fine and even going so far as to targeting organic lovers is good/profitable too. You limit yourself (in my opinion) with the amount of tea. Not everyone who likes tea will like it every single day. Typically this would be fine, but the amount is reflected in the price which is, in my opinion, kind of high. Determine if your margins are too high here because the cost might put some people off. Just my two cents...good luck with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Margins vary from tea to tea and are generally slim. There are some teas that I expect to lose money on and others that have slim margins. I'm assuming that marketing the service as less than a dollar a day will go a long way in giving the "affordable" signal.

Since all tea is shipped on the same day and bought in bulk, I'll have to rely on volume to make it a profitable business.

With respect to the amount of tea, I, as a tea drinker, drink multiple cups of tea per day. I figured one cup per day for subscribers would be the ideal way to go.

<comment><USER13> Okay, well in that case let us both hope there are more people like you than me! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope so too.

I know there are passionate people for all types of products. I think it was bemmu (an HNer) who started Candy Japan, a subscription service for Japanese candy, of all things. I'd think tea would have a larger market :)

Thanks for your well-wishes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Sun for Tech Jobs Rises in the East - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.eweek.com/careers/content001/compensation/post.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Not very consoling for an unemployed NY programmer. But I'll take any good news I can find.

"Demand in New York is off 44 percent versus March last year. The decline is not surprising given the number of financial services firms in the N.Y. area. However, there are still more than 5,000 open positions in New York on any given day, making it one of our larger markets."

When Dice talks about 5000 open positions I wonder what percentage are duplications from multiple recruiters and agencies posting the same position.</comment>


Falsehoods programmers believe about time and time zones - <AUTHOR> http://www.creativedeletion.com/2015/01/28/falsehoods-programmers-date-time-zones.html <comment><AUTHOR> I'm certain this has been published before on here and that most people are aware of this page. But with the recent news about the EU timezone change it might be relevant.</comment>


The trouble with drinking, the trouble with me - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulcarr.com/drink/

<comment><USER2> This reminds me of a (probably apocryphal) story I once heard about Charles De Gaulle. Supposedly, once he made up his mind to quit smoking, he rounded up all of his staff for a meeting.

He then pronounced, "From this moment onwards, none of you will ever see me smoke a single cigarette." True to his word, he quit entirely and permanently. He was incredibly proud, and the fear of being caught was a massive and effective deterrent to cheating.

It seems like Mr. Carr is trying to take the same tack. I wish him the best of luck with it, alcoholism can be quite pernicious and difficult to kick.

</comment><comment><USER3> Probably the most important thing about quitting alcohol, or at least cutting back, is to determine which members of your social group are intentionally or unintentionally fueling the addiction. I've noticed a disturbing trend with alcoholics where they seem to adopt more serious alcoholics into their social group as a tool to justify their own comparatively tame alcoholism. _I like to have a few drinks but man, Johnny... that guy is a REAL alcoholic. Let's buy him some drinks and watch him fall down!_ Anyone who gets uncomfortable or defensive over another person quitting any addiction is a dangerous influence. If they can't accept you as a non-drinker then you need to be willing to cut them loose.

</comment><comment><USER4> _And what sells the most books and makes people read blog posts – losing loves, getting arrested, being fired, inching towards cirrhosis of the liver – is not actually that much fun when it's you doing it._

Yep. Drama follows people like us everywhere. Takes guts to put it out there, being sober today (I am, too). Congrats. A lot of writers tend to burn hard and crash, and I don't want to end up there, either.

To quote a friend of mine: "It's kind of a bumpy, unrewarding ride anyway. I don't recommend. One star on Yelp for health benefits."

<comment><USER5> Just wait until sobriety pays Yelp to move a positive review to the top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think he's right about announcing his decision being a good tool to help him quit. Of course, if he fails, it will backfire. Also, I don't want to raise awareness and encourage people to try using that tool, except to those who can directly benefit from it. If publicly announcing your decision to quit was widely viewed as an acceptable course of action, failing to follow through would be viewed as an acceptable course of action as well.

</comment><comment><USER7> "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

Hunter S. Thompson

<comment><USER8> They didn't work so well for him when he put that final gun in his mouth.

Look, I'm a big HST fan, and the drugs, alcohol, violence and insanity sure led to some great times for his readers. For his family, and in the end for himself--not so much.

<comment><USER9> Thompson didn't commit suicide in some Kurt Cobain "woe is me" manner. He shot himself at age 67 after battling painful and chronic medical conditions, when he decided he had lived a full life and wanted to go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why is this on HN?

<comment><USER11> _"... Why is this on HN? ..."_

Good question.

Think of it as a kind of message from the future from the non-nerds ~ <http://paulgraham.com/nerds.html> A message from all the cool kids at school who smoked, drank and who now hit a certain age realise it wasn't such a smart idea after all, but didn't want to stand out amongst their peers. The kids that are dead or in wheel chairs probably already know this.

That's the message smokers and drinkers of my youth seem to tell me.

<comment><USER12> Bummer ... I'm a nerd that smokes ... guess I'll die soon without being cool.

<comment><USER11> _"... I'm a nerd that smokes ... guess I'll die soon without being cool. ..."_

The good thing, the faster you give up, the more chance you have to recover.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Intel Displays 10nm Wafer, Commits to 10nm 'Falcon Mesa' FPGAs - <AUTHOR> https://www.anandtech.com/show/11850/intel-displays-10nm-wafer-commits-to-10nm-falcon-mesa-fpgas <comment><USER2> Direct link to falcon mesa fact sheet: [https://newsroom.intel.com/newsroom/wp- content/uploads/sites...](https://newsroom.intel.com/newsroom/wp- content/uploads/sites/11/2017/09/falcon-mesa-intel-tmg-china-event-fact- sheet.pdf)

(as posted at reddit by ProgrammableGatorade)</comment>


OS X Yosemite public beta starts tomorrow - <AUTHOR> http://www.macworld.com/article/2456968/apple-os-x-yosemite-public-beta-arrives-thursday.html

<comment><USER2> If anyone is interested in tracking adoption tomorrow, my employer released a real-time counter showing adoption by % of web traffic (obviously a sample): gosquared.com/yosemite.

<comment><USER3> It's interesting that ~15% of OS X users are on Snow Leopard (I have an old iMac that doesn't support Mavericks running 10.6, but I mostly use it as a local server)

How many of those users are still using Safari 5.1 (as opposed to FF/Chrome/Opera)?

PS: It's even weirder that people are still using Lion when apparently any Mac that runs Lion can run Mavericks (and 10.9 in my experience is much more stable than 10.7).

<comment><USER4> I'm one of those 15%. I have a first gen Intel MacMini that I bought in 2006. I've since put in a 64-bit Core 2 Duo CPU, SSD and 4GB of RAM. It runs everything perfectly, but 10.6.8 is the newest OS I can use. I'm pretty sure it's not getting security updates so I'm considering replacing it only because of that.

I think it can run 10.7 unofficially, but it requires a little bit of hacking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is great news and a good direction for Apple to be taking. I've been using Yosemite since day one and apart from a few bugs, the majority of features are working nicely.

I'll probably install the public beta version on my work environment, in case there are any differences between the developer preview.

</comment><comment><USER6> [https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/mac/releaseno...](https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/mac/releasenotes/General/rn- osx-10.10/index.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014447-CH1-SW5)

Read this before you consider upgrading!

<comment><USER7> You may want to wait for the release notes from the public beta before condemning them to not fixing anything in DP4. Odds are some if not many of these things will be addressed before they let the public use them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Anyone here using the developer beta? Is it stable enough to use day to day?

<comment><USER9> GCC is essentially broken, rendering compilation of standard packages impossible.

[https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=61407](https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=61407)

Our team was on Yosemite but we all had to move back to Mavericks to actually do work.

<comment><USER10> brew (which I'd consider on OS X to be `standard packages`) generally uses LLVM rather than GCC, and has been fine throughout 10.10

<comment><USER9> Correct... but many ruby gems and node.js modules compile using gcc. (v8 being the most annoying one for us)

<comment><USER11> are you sure it's actually gcc and not clang, because "gcc" on OS X is clang

<comment><USER9> It's doing gcc 4.2, and when you try to install / compile a higher version it fails. Pretty sure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Do they require signed kexts now? How does virtualbox, vmware, osxfuse work?

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure if there's been any changes regarding signing, but I can confirm that VirtualBox has been working fine through Vagrant for me.

<comment><USER14> VMWare has an early access Fusion update that works, you can download it from their support site. Works okay for me so far.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As a ruby dev, I haven't noticed any unsurmountable issues (with the exception of mongodb, but I only use that when I'm using node). I documented all of the snags I hit, in case anyone is interested, however by now it's all well documented online.

[https://gist.github.com/bendyorke/fd5203aae3b833d4fa2e](https://gist.github.com/bendyorke/fd5203aae3b833d4fa2e)

</comment><comment><USER16> I've been putting off testing the dev beta. Does anyone do Python development on their Mac? Did you have any issues with Python or PIP?

<comment><USER17> About half of our team is on Yosemite with no issues so far with Python or various Python packages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is the iOS8 to OS X phone call handoff working yet? I tried an earlier beta and it wasn't ready.

<comment><USER19> iMessages still don't alway sync correctly for me. How are they going to manage phone calls?

<comment><USER7> By treating them as they are - completely different things. The phone call stuff just makes the Mac a Bluetooth headset and routes the audio accordingly. After whatever wizardry they use to connect the phone to the computer is done, it should be easy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have been using the developer beta since it was released. I like it. It seems like my laptop battery lasts longer now so power management probably was improved.

The best feature in my opinion is the spotlight improvements.

<comment> o0-0o I am very interested in the spotlight improvements. As of now, 10.9.x, my external HDDs are not indexed and unsearchable. :(

<comment><USER21> Just go in the from the command line and delete the spotlight (V100 etc) files in their root.

Or add them in the "privacy" section of Spotlight preferences, and then remove them, to have the index rebuilt.

<comment><USER21> Downvotes for an issue-fix suggestion? Really?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone knows the source from this? I read the MacWorld text and could not find it. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER23> To those using it: How are apps running under XQuartz, especially w/ multi- monitor?

</comment><comment><USER24> Are there any improvements in flash performance for the retinaMBP?</comment>


At the Modules of Madness - <AUTHOR> http://thedoomthatcametopuppet.tumblr.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Posts generated by a Markov chain trained on the Puppet documentation and the assorted works of H. P. Lovecraft. Created by @branan using barrucadu/markov. Inspired by King James Programming[1]. Or check it out on Twitter[2]

[1][http://kingjamesprogramming.tumblr.com/](http://kingjamesprogramming.tumblr.com/) [2][http://twitter.com/cthulops](http://twitter.com/cthulops)

Example:

" __Bonus work: __Make Puppet manage the DocumentRoot folder, and put a hand to my forehead amidst the engulfing blackness."</comment>


Zynga Valuation Rises to Over $7 Billion - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703515504576142693408473796-lMyQjAxMTAxMDEwMzExNDMyWj.html <comment><USER2> What is the fair valuation of a company which produces smokeless cigarettes which don't cause cancer, are virtually immune to regulation, and don't even require tobacco farms? Pretty high. Distasteful, but high.

<comment><USER3> Why are you so angry at them?

If the cigarettes don't cause cancer and aren't dangerous, what reason is there to ban them?

<comment><USER2> I think you're reading something I didn't say -- I'm not sure I'm even on board with banning the actual deathsticks (I could probably persuaded to go either way).

I find Zynga distasteful -- and I say this as someone who has paid them money because they push my buttons very successfully -- for social justice reasons. Basically, I think their entire business model is targeting weak people and extracting large amounts of money out of them in return for very little value. It is no skin off my nose that I spent $150 -- I knew what I was doing and I can make that much in my sleep -- but it distresses me to think about who is actually paying $600 million a year. I rather suspect that comfortably well off software entrepreneurs make up no significant percentage, and that more vulnerable members of society are getting taken to the virtual cleaners.

There are quite a few businesses with similar models. I find them pretty much universally distasteful. That doesn't mean I'd necessarily illegalize them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The question is, how does Zynga compare to Facebook? If they have huge growth and half as many users and revenue, why aren't they valued at $25B?

It seems that, even for bubble Web 2.0 startups, Facebook is overvalued.

<comment><USER5> The quasi-fraudulent nature of their business may be depressing their valuation somewhat.

<comment><USER6> I think this is a biased reaction because of HN's nature.

While most visitors to HN aren't fans of Zynga's products, there are millions of people for whom FarmVille et al. are large and truly enjoyable parts of their lives.

<comment><USER7> Those people who like Zynga aren't the same people who are to invest in it.

Personally I would pass on Zynga because I know they're in a precarious position. They're purposely addictive, which means legislation against it is always a potential. They're hugely dependent on Facebook to supply its users and Facebook will want more of that cash flowing right past them to someone else, meaning FB could cut them off anywhere or at least take a chunk out of their profits by forcing them to accept giving out a cut - which again if it ever happened would set a dangerous precedent across the board for Zynga.

Then, I just flat-out dislike Zynga. They're a parasite, they steal other peoples ideas and simply dump more cash into a game than the original creator can and market massively within their own games to out compete the people they're ripping off. They're like the mother of all leeches, they only win because they can suck the cash out of everyone faster than anyone else and that lets them grow and suck even more cash out of the next target they get.

<comment><USER4> If there's a case study for how execution trumps ideas, it's Zynga.

"They only win because they can execute better than their competitors" is kind of a silly statement to make.

<comment><USER7> If you word it like that, yes it sounds silly. If you word it like the truth that a $7 billion company can execute an idea better than the $0 dollar startup in a teenagers bedroom they just ripped off, then Zynga looks like what it really is: an uncreative bootleg factory.

The funny thing is, Zynga can't execute better. Their knock off games usually have inferior graphics and worse gameplay mechanisms, but they can exclusively advertise to everyone on Farmville and make the original developers look like the knock off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My gut feeling -- without delving into the numbers -- is that this is a sensible valuation based on future earnings. Zygna are in a similar financial position to a casino. They make money based on addiction and those sorts of money flows are relatively predictable into the future.

Their major problem is that Facebook is an uneasy partner. Zygna make far more per-user than Facebook do and if they could, FB would almost certainly cut them out tomorrow.

<comment><USER9> The numbers: WSJ reports $400 million in profits on $850 million in revenue. $7 billion puts them at a 17.5 p/e ratio, or about in line with 3M, Pepsi and McDonalds. Netflix and Amazon, by comparison, are trading at a p/e of over 70. Facebook is around 50. Activision Blizzard - 34. Electronic Arts has about $3.6 billion in revenue, is losing money, and is valued at about $6 billion.

I'd say it's fair compared to the rest of the market.

<comment><USER8> P/E is a good start and theirs looks good next to the others you listed. But I'd be more interested in profit-per-user and profit-per-employee.

I think they had 200 million unique players, that puts profit-per-player at around $2/year. With 1500 employees it's ~$266,000 profit per employee per year. Very respectable, given that Google gets around $120,000/emp/year.

<comment><USER9> I agree and I'm not entirely sure that the company can sustain the same level of profitability, given the fickleness of gamers.

My big worry is that their profit margins return to industry average levels. There's plenty of reason to believe that they would earn closer to 5 or 10 percent vs. the ~%45 they currently get as time goes on. In that case, the company needs to grow to several billion dollars in revenue and become one of the largest game publishing companies in the world to support this valuation. I'm not entirely sure I see that happening for Zynga.

<comment><USER8> I'm not so sure. Zygna's model is less like conventional computer games (once- off payment or lately recurring payment) and much more like slots machine gambling. People get a little rush from their pointless achievements _and are prepared to pay for it_. Given that the product has almost zero distribution costs, I expect profits to remain high.

Even competition is going to struggle to bring down those profits, because of the same network effects Facebook now enjoys over competitors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fully agree with this valuation. They are similar to Groupon in that they actually have REVENUE! When you talk about the "bubble" it is really referring to the astronomical valuations of companies that have no current revenue and no long term model of making money other than "advertising."

<comment><USER11> Uh, Zynga has been mostly advertising for a long time. I don't know the ratio now but I would not be surprised if it's still the majority of their revenue. Advertising is also money you know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This makes no sense @ all.

The entire virtual currency market worldwide is 5B.

So Zynga is valued at 1.4 times the global annual sale for virtual currency. One company! That's insane, and makes me question who's still pumping up Zynga on second market.

<comment><USER7> From what I've seen in company valuations is that they (very) generally hit 10x revenue, at least for well established companies.

Last I saw Zynga was posting $600 million revenue, which lands Zynga at around $6 billion from the last figures I saw.</comment></comment>


Unraveling the Secret Origins of an AmazonBasics Battery - <AUTHOR> https://onezero.medium.com/unraveling-the-secret-supply-chain-behind-an-amazonbasics-battery-e7b9ead4d72e <comment><USER2> Yeesh. This is written as if someone is just discovering rudimentary details of technology, manufacturing, and logistics. But instead of learning, they're repeating benign information in the most paranoid-judgmental way possible. " _Amazon ... would not explain why tracking is assigned only after a product has left a fulfillment center_ ". heh.

These batteries are made by Fujitsu? That seems quite upstanding compared to what I would guess. It sounds like there is/was a quality problem, but no actual details to put it in context. I don't know Fujitsu's precise reputation here, but it's possible Amazon could have switched to them _due to_ quality issues somewhere else.

Shedding some light on supply chains is certainly a worthy goal, but this does not help.

</comment><comment><USER3> While mildly interesting - take any mundane product - a can of beans on the shelf at the grocery store - white label manufactured in a plant in the Midwest, ingredients from around the world, a can made in Mexico with metals mined in China, with a label printed in Florida from paper paper mill in Georgia from trees in South Carolina

</comment><comment><USER4> I actually have a little more trust in AmazonBasics batteries than others.

I once bought a AmazonBasics power bank which got recalled quite some time later due to a possible fire hazard. They refunded me the money and told me to dispose of the unit. Although the fire hazard part did not help my trust in the brand at first I later wondered how other manufacturers would have handled this. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't have heard anything from most of them.

(Lightly related, just this week I noticed the battery of my Dell laptop had swollen so far that it bulged the casing. Batteries are scary...)</comment>


Beyond the 10,000 Hour Rule: Richard Hamming and the Messy Art of Becoming Great - <AUTHOR> http://calnewport.com/blog/2010/08/09/beyond-the-10000-hour-rule-richard-hamming-and-the-messy-art-of-becoming-great

<comment><USER2> It's curious to see someone who describes himself as "over a decade into my training as a professional scientist" commit the most basic of logical fallacies:

 _Gladwell: When we look at any kind of cognitively complex field ... you are unlikely to master it unless you have practiced for 10,000 hours._

 _Author: This rule reduces achievement to quantity: the secret to becoming great is to do a great amount of work_

Err no. Gladwell says that to be great (A), you must have done 10,000 hours (B), i.e. A implies B.

The author then restates this as _if you've done a great amount of work, you'll become great_ , i.e. B implies A. This is not a valid deduction!

<comment><USER3> Perhaps Gladwell never said 10,000 hours = mastery but plenty of other people have made that leap of logic so I think we can forgive the OP his mistake.

Logical mistake or not, it shouldn't detract from what IMO is a great article with important, little discussed, insights.

<comment><USER4> Gladwell says that people _who have mastery_ all put in at least 10,000 hours to get there, not that everyone who spends 10,000 will be a master.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This supports my thesis that all human population has the potential to be as smart as any phd graduate. All you need is to put the work required to get there. i.e. put thousands of hours into it and you will become a master of your field. For whatever reason a lot of people have been down voting me for saying this. They believe that not everybody can obtain a phd. That only some people are capable of becoming educated to the level of a phd. I wonder if it is because hacker news is filled with elitists. Am I offending egos by saying that a person in a hot dog stand has the same potential to get a phd as a person that currently has a phd? Is it that educated people like to believe that they somehow are special and separate from people that did not go to college? Granted that if you went to college you will be more educated than a person that did not. But that uneducated person can reach the same level of intellect as you if he wants to, as long as he/she decides to invest the amount of work required. We are all stupid monkeys. Pretty much all of us have the same potential to learn.

Frankly it completely stomps me that people would think otherwise. I took it as universal knowledge that all humans have almost the same potential to learn. Yes there will be variations but all in all they will be statistically insignificant. Apparently I was wrong in my belief and some people think that only a chosen few can become as highly educated as a phd.

<comment><USER5> This my response to all the people that have disagreed with me and have asked me for proof. There have been studies like "The Bell Curve" book were they attempt to demonstrate how intelligence varies among people. You can read more about the book here:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve>

Basically it supports the view of many people here that there are great variations of intelligence among people. An article that counteracts this type of belief to some degree is this one:

[http://minority- health.pitt.edu/archive/00000515/01/Intellig...](http://minority- health.pitt.edu/archive/00000515/01/Intelligence,_Race,_and_Genetics.pdf)

I'm not trying to make this a talk about race but unfortunately these are the closest things I could find that talk about human intelligence overall.

As a young person I used to believe that some students in my class were really indeed smarter than most of us. They always seemed to get good grades. I used to think that you were either smart or not and that there was nothing you could do about it. As a young mind thinking like this was very destructive. Who knows how I got out of it but I finally discovered in high school that just by studying regularly I could achieve good grades even if I were not smart. That I could get as good grades as the smartest kids in class and that sometimes I was "the smart kid". Though I knew that it was only because of the hard work I put in. I've seen a lot of friends doing really bad at school and that once they started putting some real work their grades started to improve. The only time that I've seen work made no difference was with kids that had mental disabilities.

Eventually by reading the biographies of several successful people like Buffet, Edison, Einstein, Newton, Trump, Galileo and books like "All The Money In The World" by Peter W. Bernstein And Annalyn Swan I came to the conclusion that what really makes the difference is hard work. All of the successful people that I read about had one thing in common, they worked really hard to become successful.

I have to admit that I'm still highly surprised that people would disagree with me on this one. I'm still in shock. I know I'm going to get down voted for this but I'm highly suspicious that a lot of people like to believe that some people are smarter than others to make themselves feel special. Honestly I think is complete B.S. and I'm calling you guys out on this one. You guys are all full of B.S. Most human beings posses the same level of intelligence.

Thinking that only some people are smart enough to do certain things is like poison. I certainly do not want to be around people that think like that since if you do they will poison you too. And yes, I won't let let door hit me on the way out.

<comment><USER6> You did not read all the books not written about millions of people who did hard work and were not successful anyway. You are also mixing different things there — success ant intelligence. Do you feel you are smarter than us saying we are full of BS? Is that the best argument to support your point of view you can get?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Becoming great is a process. It's different for everyone who's interested in being great. I think that's the driving point behind the article. There is no formula or magic number. You just have to work at it.

I keep notebooks for every subject I study. I have a shelf that is practically falling over with notebooks, looseleaf, and sticky notes. My wife hates it. I also keep journals of my overall progress where I can examine my thoughts and feelings on my process and successes.

10 000 hours? I don't know. Minor footnote in the article I think. Maybe certain skills requiring strong dexterity will require this magic number of hours of practice. But then again there's probably some Johnny out there who can do it naturally and with little effort.

Personally I don't think greatness can ever be achieved, only struggled for and sought after.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sigh. People keep missing he most important aspects of the so-called 10,000 hour rule.

It's not 10,000 hours of practice. It's 10,000 hours of a certain type of practice. The practice must be directed, with feedback from coaches. The original paper this came from also mentioned that the experts practiced differently: They often spend a lot of time doing drills and focusing on individual skills. It's a very focused, methodological approach.

<comment><USER9> "deliberate practice" K Anders Ericsson [http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti...](http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "there is a pretty good correlation between those who work with the doors open and those who ultimately do important things, although people who work with doors closed often work harder."

This rings absolutely true for me - my best work comes when after I've spent a moderate amount of time discussing and sharing the idea(s) with other people, and it's usually far better than things I cook up and develop in total isolation.

<comment><USER11> The author of _Flow_ found that successful people tend to alternate between periods in 'open' and 'closed' mode.

<comment><USER3> Absolutely. I find it really helpful as a technical founder to alternate between product mode and customer developer mode.

Tearing myself from the one context to the other is hard at times but generates a lot of insights.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What open source projects are you working on? - <AUTHOR> What open source projects are you working on?<p>This is my experiment to find new and interesting projects that I could donate some web dev time to in order to help grow my network and to stay learning. <comment><USER2> Hi I like OpenWRT. [https://openwrt.org/](https://openwrt.org/) I help out testing any changes in the webinterface called LUCI to make shure that it works with screen readers. I am blind and use a screen reader on my computer all the time. Most router softwair is not usable for a screen reader user. I am not a coder but just hang around and chat to the devs and test out any changes that I can. It's a good way for me to mess around with new tech as routers are mutch cheaper than Computers. All so running linux on a computer is no good for me as the screen readers that come with Linux desktops are crap.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if they'd be up for a redesign on the site. That could be something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Not mine, but I just forked and am starting to play with Anarki[0].

[0][https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki](https://github.com/arclanguage/anarki)

<comment><AUTHOR> Pretty cool. Think they'd be open to contribution to their site?

<comment><USER3> They say they're 'extremely permissive' in accepting patches, so it can't hurt to try.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> btw my screen reader is all so open source called NVDA. [https://www.nvaccess.org/](https://www.nvaccess.org/)</comment>


Google closing AdSense accounts, refusing to pay out? - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss/browse_thread/thread/9f8fea67eab535c7/df44a3d3f59b0d01

<comment><USER2> There's not enough information to explore potential causality here. All we have is the word of an aggrieved site owner who swears up and down that he was engaged in perfectly unimpeachable conduct. There's no evidence, just whining.

<comment><USER3> Of course there's more to the story, but I don't think that's the issue here. Google still doesn't have a way to dispute these kinds of things in a timely manner, and that scares people who rely on them for their business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Summary: Google AdSense closed one account that earned roughly $100 over ~3 months. The account owner finds it suspicious that they canceled his account just before payment.

I cannot comment as to why this occurred, but the headline seems to blow this out of proportion.

Update: They got paid for 2 of the 3 months ( [http://groups.google.com/group/android- discuss/browse_thread...](http://groups.google.com/group/android- discuss/browse_thread/thread/9f8fea67eab535c7/7424cf2f813d5e24) )

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't want to be picky, but:

1\. It seems to be a single adSense account. Not "AdSense accountS".

2\. "yesterday AndAppStore received a payment for the first two months of the nearly three months that had not bee paid." (From the thread)

I agree though, Google really needs to buy a company that knows about customer service.

FWIW, Here's my method:

1\. Get an AdWords account. Spend money. 2\. If you ever have any issues with Google, you now have a phone number with a real google employee at the end, and you're paying them money which makes them more interested.

<comment><AUTHOR> Bah, I completely didn't see (2) first time around. Google groups really needs a better interface. Even doing "Newer" didn't reveal that post until I searched for it manually.

Has that tactic of getting an AdWords account worked for you? With which product?

I'm evaluating Google Checkout for a project of mine and between this and the Paypal thread, i'm starting to consider alternatives.

<comment><USER5> I had my complete Google account shutdown last year think it was (Someone tried to login as me a few times unsuccessfully).

The only way I could get it reinstated was because I had a phone number for Adwords, and could call them and say "err, you shut down my account, so I can't give you that money I was giving you".

Perhaps other divisions have good phone numbers and people willing to help, but Adwords seems like the best to me - the ones taking your money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Asa-Nisse This happens all the time. Google reviews the sites before the payout and looks for suspicious links, overly exposing ads from many vendors etc etc etc.

They're quite picky really. They're also very picky about pages you dont have controll over yourself (such as user-edited pages..). You can get banned for a comment a user wrote if you're not careful.

</comment><comment><USER6> As for the timing, it always happens before payout for one clear reason: since so many accounts never earn enough to get paid out it makes no sense to do significant auditing until there's an actual disbursement of cash. Thus the catch that many fraudulent (or suspected fraudulent) accounts don't get flagged until they actually trigger a payment.

</comment><comment><USER7> Well, you shouldn't rely on google for your own site. Now you've learned a valuable lesson.</comment>


Dasher Teams Up With Venmo to Bring Peer-To-Peer Payments to Its Messaging App - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/04/dasher-teams-up-with-venmo-to-bring-peer-to-peer-payments-to-its-messaging-app/

<comment><USER2> Looks pretty darn cool.

Seems like Facebook can own the peer-to-peer payments. Integration with retailers would be even better. Retailers certainly would LOVE to allow me to pay & share my experience via Facebook...</comment>


GraphiQL Explorer 2.0: A power-user release - <AUTHOR> https://www.onegraph.com/blog/2019/05/30/GraphiQL_Explorer_2_0_A_Power_User_Release.html <comment><AUTHOR> The GraphiQL explorer is completely open source, and anyone can use it in their own GraphiQL instance, so you can get this visual exploration and quick query building for your own GraphQL API.

The kind of tooling we can build on all different levels for GraphQL is really surprising. Every time I ship a feature set like this, I suddenly realize that it's opened up (or composes with) another set of possibilities that I haven't see elsewhere.

You can see an example of how to use it with your own GraphQL server here [https://github.com/OneGraph/graphiql-explorer- example](https://github.com/OneGraph/graphiql-explorer-example) (just change this one line! [https://github.com/OneGraph/graphiql-explorer- example/blob/m...](https://github.com/OneGraph/graphiql-explorer- example/blob/master/src/App.js#L17) ) or try it out to see what it's like to explorer massive graphs of APIs here [https://serve.onegraph.com/short/2H987X](https://serve.onegraph.com/short/2H987X)</comment>