Stop telling women they just need to know how to code - <AUTHOR> http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2014/01/03/stop-telling-women-code/ <comment><USER3> The collectivist/individualist conflict in this article is odd. On the one hand, she seems to be opposed to collective responsibility:

 _Men supporting the notion that their female significant other can contribute as an equal partner financially or be the bread-winner of the household....leaving the choice of taking care of elderly parents up to women._

Ok, sounds good. No one owes anyone anything, you can do as you like with your life. No social obligations.

 _Having supportive social and economic practices for those who do chose to have children and take care of aging family members, which will need to be reinforced by some body such as companies or governments._

Wait what? So non-mothers owe mothers "support", socially and economically?

I'd love to know the philosophical underpinnings of this odd combination of individualism and collectivism. I do hope it's something more interesting than simply "the universe should make my chosen lifestyle easier!"

(Incidentally, it's incoherent articles like this one which have convinced me that more people should learn philosophy. I describe it as incoherent simply because it has a gaping philosophical hole, and no attempt whatsoever is made to explain it.)

<comment><USER4> As we are usually all children, workers, and aging family members at some point, but the responsibility of childbirth, child-rearing, and elder care are, due to biology and historical discrimination, largely and/or completely borne by a subset of half of the population, the justification seems pretty obvious on its face.

Just because it includes collective reasoning and is not libertarian doesn't make it self-contradicting.

<comment><USER5> Subsidies to mothers are _already_ massive.

For example: Free k-12 school. That's a $3-10k/year subsidy right there (taxpayers spend $11,073 on this $3k-$10k subsidy - what a deal!).

Another example: Many states require paid maternity leave (is this Federal now?). That's a pretty massive subsidy!

Another example: We do have super high rates of child support in the Anglosphere, you know. Look to France & others for more sane approaches to this subject and more sane rates. (France & sane? I'm serious!).

Where does this all end? What level of subsidization is sufficient?

I bet someone even responds to me with a 'for the children' comment. You watch.

<comment><USER6> This is one of the most absurd comments I've ever read.

How is free K-12 a subsidy to _mothers_? If anything, public education is a huge subsidy to _employers_.

Also, child support mandates in the U.S. are not high and in many cases don't come close to covering half the costs of child rearing.

Say the father makes $45,000/year (far above the national median individual income). His net income is Illinois is around $2,700 per month. His child support obligation is $540/month. That's $6,500 per year, or about half the annual average cost of raising a child in the urban midwest according to this calculator: [http://money.cnn.com/interactive/pf/cost-of- children/?iid=EL](http://money.cnn.com/interactive/pf/cost-of- children/?iid=EL).

That level is already a huge subsidy from the mother to the father. The mother and father pay half the expenses of raising the child, but on top of that the mother takes on all of the domestic work necessary to raise the kid, and also shoulders the full career hit that comes from having childcare responsibilities. As someone who has tried to outsource a lot of domestic childcare duties, let me say that the market value of the domestic labor provided solely by the mother in this example far outweighs the _total income_ of the median male.

<comment><USER5> Reality check: Outside of the Anglosphere, child support often tops out around a few hundred dollars/month. The _average_ support level in France is ~$160/mo.

How do those poor French mothers survive?

>If anything, public education is a huge subsidy to employers.

If left to their own devices, I doubt employers would choose to spend $11k/yr/pupil on fingerpainting and remedial math.

<comment><USER6> Nobody has ever given a shit about what the French think. A child is the product of a father and a mother. When parents don't stay together, the only logical way to divide the burden of raising a child is to allocate 50% of the monetary expenses and 50% of the labor to each parent. Anything that allocates less than this to fathers is a huge subsidy from women to men.

As for employers, finger-painting is pre-K, which isn't universally free in the states. Starting in Kindergarten, education starts with basic literacy. The production of a literate and numerate workforce is a huge subsidy to employers. The crack about remedial math actually undermines your position: its remedial math that creates the huge population of people who have enough basic numeracy to operate a cash register, thus driving the cost of cashiers down to almost nothing. Also, the high supply of literate and numerate labor drives down the wages of each marginal employee, allowing employers to capture a higher percentage of the value generated by the employee. If an employer makes $25 per hour off of someone he pays $10, and public education makes that person employable, then right there the employer benefits mord from education than the employee. Finally, remember that in the states education is funded by property taxes, which are largely paid for by families and not businesses. So families pay most of that $11k per year, not businesses.

And leaving aside the benefit to employers, why do you call K12 a subsidy to mothers, rather than both fathers and mothers equally?

<comment><USER5> The crack was about it costing $11k/yr, not that remedial math is bad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My mom became a doctor in the late 60s, when there was still a good deal of real sexism towards women (she was the only woman doctor at the college) - <USER2> had her lab work sabotaged among other things. (Before becoming a doctor, she started majoring in computer science, of all things.)

So why did women start becoming doctors? Is it because we went out of our way to create special programs, incentives, interest, and reverse discrimination for them?

No.

Women became doctors because they wanted to, and now sexism is at a point where it is kind of pathetic to not become a doctor because you are afraid of any sexist reactions you might encounter. I'd say the same applies for computer science. Women will come into the discipline over time (especially since now there are more software engineers than there are farmers in the US), no need artificially manipulate the evolution of the job market.

<comment><USER6> That's actually not true. The medical profession went to great lengths to create special programs for women. Medical schools went to great lengths to equalize the number of men and women in their incoming classes. Medical schools were in fact some of the pioneers in affirmative action (the seminal Supreme Court Decision Regents of University of California v. Bakke involved a medical school).

<comment><USER7> True, but you'd have to personally interview each women to determine their motivations for entering medicine (causation can be attributed to many things, including the general decline of sexism). Personally, my mom, even though she had a somewhat tough time, is very anti-reverse discrimination (which probably rubbed off on me). She views reverse discrimination as treating women like they are too weak to succeed on their own. Equality is treating people as equals.

<comment><USER8> So basically rayiner pointed out that you had a fairly huge factual misunderstanding of the world. You're going to acknowledge that mistake but continue to cling to your viewpoint about the value of affirmative action anyways based solely on the feelings of your mother?

That's interesting.

<comment><USER7> To clarify, I am saying "true" to the fact that colleges have plenty of reverse discrimination programs. I stand by my statement that these programs were not necessarily responsible for getting women into medicine. In fact, I'm pretty sure you can go ask any women why she got into medicine, and her response probably won't be "well, the colleges were giving awesome scholarships to women at the time." It will more likely be "I wanted to get into a field where I could help people" or some such thing. In fact, you will rarely find people who chose their profession based on how much sexism was present. Rather (odd as it is!) people tend to choose the profession they are interested in pursuing, or one that has a good salary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Reaching out and providing scholarships and generally giving a leg up is not how this gap will be closed.

It has never been about teaching women to code, except at the bare minimum "I can get a job at a giant company where I'll write 2000 lines of code in a year."

It's about right clicking with your mouse to see if there are any other options available. Googling for your answer before you ask someone else. Asking questions on stackoverflow. Hacking and reading at night to figure out something that may or may not be for work. Recompiling the source code to make it bend to your will.

There is a price to be paid, and it doesn't have to do with money. As was said thousands of years ago, "There is no royal road to Geometry." It is the same today. All these solutions that don't involve paying that price are destined to fail. College age is too late. Middle school may be the last opportunity for any real percentage of women to be affected. It's not about completing classes.

<comment><USER10> _I can get a job at a giant company where I 'll write 2000 lines of code in a year._

Wait, what? 2000 lines of code _per year_? Having never worked in a "giant" company, is that typical? I do that in about 10 days at a normal pace, and can do it in five if I'm really pushing it to meet a deadline or whatever.

Anyway, I thought 4K LOC/month was pretty standard for programmers of all stripes, or ~50K LOC/year. Is it really just 2K?

/shocked

<comment><USER11> Some of the best coders I've seen probably have negative LOC/month counts.

<comment><USER12> I am a huge fan of deleting code. And I've landed commits that killed thousands of lines in one go, so I'm pretty sure I'm in the negative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There are a lot of other things too. We live in what I call the "economic order of fake-gender-neutrality" where women get ahead by foregoing having families. This means that a certain kind of woman is going to be interested in taking high-risk long-hours work like being a tech founder. Not someone like my grandmother who was a tenured astrophysicist while raising four children.

I know this is probably not going to go over well on HN given the connections to VC's but a major part of the problem is that "tech founders" means businesses caught in the VC exit strategy. But I think a lot of the really disruptive businesses of tomorrow are going to be lifestyle businesses, and if you want to attract women to coding, I think that lifestyle businesses are a better deal for most people. The potential payoffs are lower, it is true, but the freedom is higher, and the security is better in many cases. And with a lifestyle business, the freedom to have a family, and to integrate family and work time, makes the challenges that face child-rearing men and women (but they affect women at a younger age) easier to handle.

I think that as one starts to show that these lifestyle businesses are really viable in technology, that we will see women come (and truth be told, probably become the majority of coders in open source software).

<comment> vezzy-fnord _We live in what I call the "economic order of fake-gender-neutrality" where women get ahead by foregoing having families._

I wouldn't really call this a women's issue, so much as a universal issue for people of all backgrounds.

Having a family simply requires a drastic lifestyle shift no matter what (well, if you intend on being a decent spouse and/or parent, at least), as well as certain sacrifices to one's career.

I like the proposal of lifestyle technology businesses, though I'm not entirely sure how they would work. Unless you're self-sufficient, in which case it's never been a problem.

<comment> bjelkeman-again We run something which could be considered a lifestyle tech business. Several of our staff, including women, have had kids and come back to work with us. One of our developers is in fact coming back from 6 months paternity leave this month.

<comment><USER13> BTW, I am referring to lifestyle business specifically as one _not_ tied to the VC exit strategy. I.e. a business is a lifestyle business as long as you are neither trying to be an acquisition target nor trying to build up to go public.

The point is that you don't have the same kinds of relentless pressure in that environment that you do in a vc-backed start-up. Those are different environments. If you are running one, great. I wish you the best of luck.

<comment> bjelkeman-again Thanks and yes. We have no exit strategy nor would we be able to go public, as we are non-profit foundation. Fast growing and doing good in the world is a good place to be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Pando just published an article on a super-model who also writes and releases her own iPhone apps, codes also in python. I guess you could also say she is a software engineer who dabbles in modeling.

[http://pando.com/2014/01/02/from-coding-to-the-catwalk- this-...](http://pando.com/2014/01/02/from-coding-to-the-catwalk-this-high- fashion-model-has-a-secret-double-life/)

</comment><comment><USER15> I just want to point out that this story has been shot down off the front page, and 2nd page, in less than 20 minutes. HN really can't handle having the spotlight revealing its thoughts on gender & race. My browser history was the only reason I could even find this link again.

You know what someone should make in 2014? A website scrapes/mirrors HN, but only the topics about gender and race that get "disappeared"(made undiscoverable) from HN in under 20mins.

<comment><USER16> I'm glad I'm not the only one that notices -- this is the second time I've seen this happen, on a gender/race thread. The previous one was related to blackgirlscode.com.

I don't know if there's a certain group of people flagging these types of articles for whatever reason, or if pg/admins actively want to avoid this kind of social discussion (maybe it's too 'controversial' or tends to degenerate too easily?) or something else.

But you're exactly right -- a gender/race article suddenly jumps from the #10 spot, to third-page, effectively completely killing discussion. It does feel an awful lot like censorship, and it seems unfortunate.

And because of it, pretty much nobody except you will probably ever see this comment. Oh well.

<comment><USER15> I already collect links on race, I might start collecting the gender-related stories as well.

      1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6885123 - Homeless coder starts app
      2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6365495 - Africans genetically more corrupt?
      3. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6448409 - Rick Ross's history
      4. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6857739 - Nelson Mandela dies
      5. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6035263 - (Most obvious)Resume with black vs white name
      6. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6902563 - racist+sexist mindset in Harvard
      7. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6907915 - Homeless coder finishes app
      8. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6975732 - BlackGirlsCode event

Maybe I'll be the one to start a site that publishes these links and caches the comments(because I suspect HN will start making the links 404).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The author mentions child care, shared responsibility, financial support, parents etc. But all these things matter after it might already be too late to get into coding. The fundamental issue that needs to be addressed is the one PG made last week: "God knows what you would do to get 13 year old girls interested in computers."*

Instead of having a discussion on what is probably the single most important factor affecting gender inequality in tech, PG was forced to defend. For these reasons, gender discussions have become somewhat pointless. There is no place for candidness. Everyone is trying to be politically correct and to say things that people want to hear.

*Most of the arguments against this seemed to rely on exceptions, random examples and personal experience, and not on stats.

</comment><comment><USER18> > will produce a Mark Zuckerberg, who will go on to build a billion-dollar > company in roughly seven years

The entire premise to this article is based on a misled expectation. The expectation is that there _should_ be a billion dollar startup founded by a woman. Who set that expectation and why is it reasonable?

I'm a man, and I don't aspire to build a billion dollar company. I aspire to be insanely happy, and love what I do for a living. And travel a bit. Given we're entering a new age of humanity, shouldn't we be spending clock cycles on figuring out how to be happier, instead of just wanting more stuff?

BTW, 'more stuff' is not inclusive of 'fair and equal treatment'. We all deserve to be treated equally.

</comment><comment><USER19> > Meanwhile, it is still socially acceptable for men to focus wholeheartedly > on their career.

Right, but so maybe the goal _shouldn 't_ be that women should be able to do the same... what if it could instead _stop_ being socially acceptable for men to focus wholeheartedly on their career?

Think of all the men who wish they'd spent more time with their kinds, instead of at the office. More time with their wives. Think of all the divorces caused by the long hours and stress of management and C-suite jobs. Even if men _want_ to spend more time with their families, it's often just not socially acceptable, within the culture of their company/industry. Men who take full advantage of "maternity" leave aren't exactly looked at as promotion material, all too often. And think of how much of life they miss out on.

We hold up Steve Jobs as a model of shining corporate success. But it's become public knowledge that he wasn't exactly so shining when it came to being a good dad.

Maybe it's not just necessarily the mindset around women that needs to change -- maybe it's the mindset around men.

</comment><comment><USER20> I was waiting to find an article clearly speaking about this; which I think is the elephant in the room when it comes to female tech founders. The issue, as it points out, is not being able to hack; or being able to learn, etc. Society has been proven over and over that females can do just as good as males. The issue, I think, is purely social. Most people still see women with through a veil of prejudices, and this will only change with time as more women venture into that part of the industry.

Founding is barely about learning how to code. It's more about human relationships and networking. And as long as the image of a female entrepreneur keeps been looked down at, this problem will keep rising. May be it's not as easy to see in USA but I've seen it clearly in my country (Mexico) in small-medium businesses conventions and with clients.

</comment><comment><USER21> _We can encourage women to participate and welcome them with open arms, but that won 't undo the thousands of years of ongoing cross-cultural practices that reinforce a woman's primary role as a nurturer (and I am not just talking about nurturing children)._

The bit in brackets is referring to compiler bootstrapping.

</comment><comment><USER22> > you cannot just cram more transistors onto a chip in order to double it is > speed

</comment><comment><USER23> > Please bear with me as I draw an analogy using history. In 1865 the U.S. > government abolished slavery. [...], and it wasn't until 2008 that we > elected our first African American president. Doing the math it took 143 > years before African American were supposedly on equal political footing!

By this logic, I guess white women are (politically) disadvantaged compared to black (men) today?

<comment><USER24> Would you challenge that? I'm a bit out of my league here, but it seems like there are proportionally more black men in politics than white women. ("Disadvantaged" is a poor word for these stats; however, because it implies that white women are interested in being in politics, but these stats don't confirm/deny that.)

<comment><USER23> > Would you challenge that?

It was a question.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Taskmod – To-Do List Management Tool For Windows - <AUTHOR> http://www.taskmod.com

<comment><USER2> That's a hefty price tag for such a simple application</comment>


"Affluenza Teen" Ethan Couch Released from Jail After 2 Years - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/US/affluenza-teen-ethan-couch-expected-released-jail/story?id=54130494 <comment><AUTHOR> Original discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6892730](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6892730)

</comment><comment><USER2> Just as enraging now as it was then.</comment>


Ask HN: Any good recommendation for learning about cryptocurrency/Bitcoin - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Start with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypherpunk)

If you aren't aware of their philosophy, the technologies won't really make that much sense to you because it is not strictly something technical. At its core it's a political movement.

</comment><comment><USER3> BTC-Tech: Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies from Princeton University - [https://piazza.com/princeton/spring2015/btctech/home](https://piazza.com/princeton/spring2015/btctech/home)

</comment><comment><USER4> The ethereum white paper starts with an excellent explanation of Bitcoin. [https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White- Paper](https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/White-Paper)</comment>


Disney Vows Action as Snow White Appears at Wanda Park - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-30/disney-vows-to-defend-rights-as-snow-white-appears-at-wanda-park <comment><USER2> This is the same company that pushed wild lemmings over a cliff just so they could make a movie based in the arctic more dramatic. If their entire business model was plagiarized, they would deserve it. Personally I hope china spits in their face. No offense to any fans.</comment>


More women in technology jobs? If only it were true - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/101217146 <comment><USER2> _That doesn 't mean the women hired by these companies were "in tech" by any means. They could have been in sales, in public relations, in customer service. They probably were._

The only reason to assume this is if you've already decided that women are less likely to be in tech jobs than men. You're using that assumption to prove your conclusion which is... that women are less likely to be in tech jobs than men. Completely circular, and depressing since it's caused by and perpetuates the stereotype!</comment>


Show HN: A simple static jinja2 site generator - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Ceasar/staticjinja

<comment><USER2> ...hopefully this will save me from the semi/badly-documented Hyde and all its features that I don't use and dependencies that annoy me (hope I'll have the time to properly check it out and figure if it really can be more "Zen-sh" than Hyde...)

</comment><comment><USER3> feature requests:

\- haml (<https://github.com/Pitmairen/hamlish-jinja>)

\- autodiscover for additional pages

<comment><USER3> features implemented, I've sent u a pull request

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am somewhat obligated to point out wok ( <https://github.com/mythmon/wok> ), written by a former co-worker of mine. I use it for my website, and it's pretty great for doing Jekyll/Hyde-ish sites without actually having to use either of them.

<comment><USER3> "Funnily, the mythical website that inspired wok still hasn't been written." ha ha, classic. like my django-tmdb abandonware.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: eye care.. how long do you wear your contacts, etc - <AUTHOR>

Hey HN, just got back from the eye doctor. I've got perfect peripheral vision and pressure, but the doctor is taking extra precautions to make sure the slightly enlarged nerves in my eyes are not a precursor to glaucoma. He compared pics of my eyes from two years ago and it has grown a tad bit. I told him I'm usually on the computer and wear my contacts up to 18 hours per day.
I'm too young for glaucoma (22), but there are always exceptions. So the point of this post is to see how you guys deal with being on the computer 24/7.
How do long do you keep your contacts/glasses on, how do you deal with eye stress et cetera. My vision isn't terribly bad, -1.5, but I should probably take better care/precautions considering my career revolves around working on computers. <comment><USER2> Paul - I have terrible vision, but I found that switching contact types has definitely reduced irritation. What brand are you using? I switched from standard Acuvue 2 to Acuvue Oasys. I keep my contacts in about as long as you (18 hrs) and I'm in front of a computer for most of that time during the week. Prior to the switch I wasn't able to keep my contacts in even 9 hours without irritation (while in front of a computer).</comment>


Heroku Reveals Cross-Region Followers for Disaster Mitigation - <AUTHOR> https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/disaster-mitigation#crossregion-followers

<comment><USER2> We haven't announced cross-region followers. When we announce it, there will be an announcement.

This is an internal feature we've been using for a while that we thought our customers might appreciate access to under the circumstances.

</comment><comment><USER3> Given that there is a significant chance that AWS east will go down today, this _seems_ like a useful feature. However since the platform is still only in that data center, I'm not sure how this will help.

How are people on Heroku preparing for the hurricane?

<comment><USER4> <https://status.heroku.com/incidents/460></comment></comment>


How to Do 90% of What Plugins Do (With Just Vim) - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA2WjJbmmoM&app=desktop <comment> e-sushi Same link as [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12645282](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12645282) makes me wonder if this youtube vid is being spammed by socket puppets. Sure feels like it when I look at the nicks…

<comment><USER2> Why is that? Is it that surprising that two different people (just two!) stumbled upon the same video, possibly from the same source? And neither of the submitters seems like a sock puppet account, both having hundreds of karma points.</comment></comment>


Post status update via iPhone [Entertainment] - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/connect/prompt_feed.php?api_key=235060566515187

<comment><AUTHOR> For iPad: [http://www.facebook.com/connect/prompt_feed.php?api_key=2218...](http://www.facebook.com/connect/prompt_feed.php?api_key=221800257856282)

<comment><USER2> I wonder, is this a sign of things to come? Or was this always there? Hmmm...</comment></comment>


Fuck the Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1717

<comment><USER2> Jason Scott, article author here.

I must say, I'm impressed; the comments on here don't really descend into the ad hominem, design crazy, check-out-how-hardcore-geek-I-am mess it did over at reddit.

By link bait, I assume you mean for attention instead of money, since I don't do adwords/banners or stuff like that. In that definition, guilty as charged. A lot of it is to just knock people out of the safety zone of thinking of services they don't pay for and just "use", as being their big ol' buddy. And to not fall for "cloud computing" things like software rental, all-actions-on- web and so on.

As for length, well, some people will always want what a weblog posting to say to be three lines, but they're people who don't read weblogs all that much either.

<comment><USER3> It's not "too long" so much as it is "too long for the value or fun in reading it."

When I got to the paragraph that starts with _"There was a time when we gave the Cloud (before it was a Cloud) a big pass"_ I thought it might start to get interesting. Instead I found this convoluted moon-laser analogy. That's when I finally realized the article was going nowhere and considered the whole thing a waste of time.

I'm not sure who your intended audience is but it clearly is not me.

<comment><USER2> It happens. Other articles might entertain/satisfy you more, but I'm well aware of the internet's One Strike You're Out rule.

<comment><USER3> I was commenting on the article, not your blog as a whole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Stupid title, good (old) point.

I think solving this issue could/should/will be done by whatever ends up really nailing item 18 of Paul Graham's "Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund" (<http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>):

"18. The WebOS. It probably won't be a literal translation of a client OS shifted to servers. But as applications migrate to servers, it seems possible there will be something that plays a central role like an OS does. We've already funded several startups that could be candidates. But this is a big prize, and there will probably be multiple winners."

I'm imagining something (begin hand-waving) like a VM image hosting service that lets you take your VM from hosting site to hosting site; which knows about your friends' VM images; and which is to VM images as ZumoDrive is to FUSE fileystems.

<comment><USER5> Yup - very old - so it doesn't really do much more than rant.

This article also completely glosses over the fact that most people don't keep their data backed up, or in a secure place (even people that know better).

It doesn't even consider that fact that... if you could accept that not all people offering cloud services are incompetent/misguided/evil... Cloud services have the potential to help people (!).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> impressive how quickly the article goes from "fuck the cloud" to "its ok to use the cloud but don't forget to have local backups"

<comment><USER7> linkbait article titles ftw

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ah.

I read halfway before I understood what he meant by "cloud." It's now officially an overloaded term, in danger of becoming meaningless like "web 2.0."

By cloud, he means all those services where you put your personal data, thoughts, and ideas -- potential black holes in the sky from which your lifework may never return. Flickr, LiveJournal, Twitter, Delicious, etc. fit in this bucket, and I couldn't agree more with his assessment that blindly using these services is stoopid.

Lately, on the other hand, I've been using the term "cloud" to refer to services that allow developers to dynamically allocate computing resources. I suppose this is better referred to as "utility computing" -- y'know, the stuff that Amazon (AWS), Google (AppEngine), Microsoft (Azure), and Rackspace (Mosso) are big into these days. That kind of cloud? Awesome.

</comment><comment><USER9> "Don't blow anything into the Cloud that you don't have a personal copy of." I think most of the article could have been compressed into this.

It opens up a useful business model for companies to get into a person's "cloud" and back things up for them, either into another cloud or into some hard model (DVD).

But then again, nobody thinks about backups until they really need one.

<comment><USER10> But but but.... DAMNIT, my backups are ON THE CLOUD!!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> In summary: don't use stuff you don't trust (in this case the cloud) and don't trust stuff you do trust so much you don't have a plan B (e.g. backup your data yourself).

</comment><comment><USER12> That was painfully long to read and the title was ultimately unrelated to the text. This could have been written in 3 paragraphs: 1 - explain the cloud, 2 - beware, 3 - how to keep yourself safe.

I also think using the 'cloud' can actually make our data much safer. I mean my home PC is much more vulnerable than a monster data mainframe in googles basement. As long as your password is sufficiently complex, google Docs is more secure for a 'secret' document than my home PC is.

<comment><USER13> 1\. "...data mainframe..." what's that?

2\. Wasn't Google running on commodity (x86 comp.) GNU/Linux clustered machines?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Business idea: backup all RSS feeds on the web. When services go offline, offer to sell people back their own content for $$$.

Guess it would be too expensive atm ;-)

<comment><USER15> think that would fall under a couple names; Evil, Extortion. I believe sites exist that mirror big sites that may go down - also google cache is a decent repository for things.

*I know it was a joke etc, just making some point(s)

<comment><USER14> It was a joke, although there was another HN posting recently about a big "personal homepage" site going down without warning or backups. Apparently a lot of people really lost their content for good, and for some reason Google cache and internet archive couldn't help.

Also, hard drive recovery services already exist and cost serious money. I don't think it would necessarily be evil to charge quite a bit for backing up internet content. After all, the costs for doing the backing up are probably significant.

<comment><USER10> Just speculating, but the "some reason" you speak of may have been for private or friends-only articles. Unless everything you published was visible to the googlebots, you were pretty much screwed when JournalSpace went away. :'(

Looks like somebody's bought it now though, and hopefully have designs on getting it going again. I meant to follow the auction more closely, but does anybody know what it actually sold for?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think the cloud is a great opportunity for startup with great storage needs; it makes the whole startup creation cheaper.

On the other hand I will not dump a hard fetch technology on a big company cloud or an important piece of my application on some cloud no matter how soft. Given that there's no real proprietary/ restitution agreement between you and cloud owners it doesn't seem Wright. The last point I want to make is the Mainframe to PC comparison which appear to be shifting the other way around; It was proven unfit for evolution and probably will be again.

One advice to startup, store only space hungry data on the cloud (huge non tech files, images, music etc ..) we'll see what the future brings next.

</comment><comment><USER17> Although I agree that you should backup the things you care about (mental note: add "download all my stuff in a zip file" feature to poetry web app tonight), I do often wonder whether my backup strategy, personal machine chance of survival, ability to not lose CDs, etc. provides more security for my stuff than... say... BigTable.

It's better to have them in both places than in just either, privacy concerns aside. But if I were my mom, I'd be way better off having them in at least some pieces of the cloud (the ones likely to survive, and to give you your stuff if they are about to not survive?) than on my machine.

</comment><comment><USER18> I think he's missing the point. "The Cloud" is not some magical faraway land where we ship our data for safekeeping. The value in the cloud is convenience, the ability to have one calendar, one music library, one book of contacts that is available ubiquitously on any device, anywhere in the world.

There's no real reason to use the cloud for data backup anyway, since uploading large files over DSL is a pain, and hard drives are holding steady (not!) at $100/TB.

</comment><comment><USER19> Sounds like an Aristophanes play.</comment>


Statistics With Julia: The Basics - <AUTHOR> http://www.statalgo.com/2012/04/04/statistics-with-julia-the-basics/

<comment><USER2> I am tempted to flag this post simply because the css/javascript+mathjax interaction is so awful on that page.

Not to mention a "proud ubuntu user" who sets the default font to a Microsoft cleartype font.

<comment><USER3> not to mention that it doesn't talk ONE BIT about statistics..

<comment><USER4> Or programming.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the feedback. This is part of a series of posts. The next post will review some basic linear algebra, and then I'll start showing some statistical analysis with Julia.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dear Software Vendors: Your network licensing causes me pain. - <AUTHOR> http://www.walkingrandomly.com/?p=5072

<comment><USER2> The linked article is the best argument in favor of open-source, open-access software I've read in weeks. All the flaming hoops the network administrator has to jump through, in order to install overpriced, underpowered software on an overpriced, underpowered operating system.

And it's a university environment. Just a suggestion -- during their formative years, maybe the students should experience something other than Windows?</comment>


Ask HN: Paper on the Theory of a Codebase - <AUTHOR> A few months ago, I came across a post here where in the comments, a CS paper was referenced (I believe written by Norvig) roughly about how subsequent programmers in a project will never attain the level of intution about the codebase that the original developers because they hold the "theory of the codebase" in their head.<p>Does anyone know which post this was or have a link to the paper?  I haven't been able to find it. <comment><USER2> I think the paper was Programming as Theory Building by Naur. The search fails me so here is at least its appearance here in 2016: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10833278](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10833278)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is it. HN (and specifically you) come through. I love this place. Thank you!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review my site: Pikk.com - <AUTHOR>

Pikk ( http://www.pikk.com ) is Digg meets PollDaddy.  Users submit stories with simple two-choice voting (thrive or fail, for example).  Stories with the most votes make the front page (and decay over time, so there's always fresh content).
Bloggers can also use Pikk by embedding a voting widget so their readers can vote without ever leaving the story they're reading.  They get linked back from Pikk, so there's two-way traffic.
That's Pikk in a nutshell, please check it out and tell me what you think.  I'll be officially launching in the next week or so.
Thanks a lot, Kevin (kapauldo) <comment><USER2> Too much non-story "stuff" - at full screen height I get 4 stories on the front page. HN gives me 26. Clearly you can't go as minimalist as HN, but I really think you want to do better than 4.

Also, do you want to ask people to vote before they have even read the story?

Cute how the karma up/down text changes with the situation though... is that done automatically or by human?

<comment><AUTHOR> hmmmm - good point, i hadn't thought of that, so you're saying the first impression should be more dense with stories.

users can either "thin slice" and vote with their gut, or they can click the link and read the story, then vote (most links are pops).

not sure what you mean about karma up/down text, can you clarify?

<comment><USER2> I mean that if the story is about a person it says hero/jerk...</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where are all the iPad apps? - <AUTHOR>

I'm glad Twitter finally released, but where's Facebook? Where's Skype? I expected more really amazing music and dj apps by now. I figured we'd see more innovative examples of new gesture-based interaction design.<p>Are iPad apps much more expensive to build than iPhone ones? Is there much less impetus to build an app for a platform that already provides a good browsing experience? <comment><USER2> I do mobile development, mostly iPad/iPhone development full time for a product development company (see profile if you want to email for a quote).

Facebook for iPhone was originally written by a non-facebook employee from what I understand who's now left the iOS development environment over philosophical differences with the app approval process. While facebook publishes their own app now, again, they weren't exactly the first to hit the platform in the first place.

What exactly are you expecting skype to do differently on the iPad than the iPhone? What are you expecting the non-iPhone shaped UI to give you that the iPhone shaped UI doesn't? The iPad isn't exactly a perfect platform for videoconferencing (no camera), and the phone version works fine.

All that said, lets talk about technical/policy/business issues which cause people to not specialize on the iPad.

First off: Business reasons.

Business wise, the iPad has _very few users_ compared to the iPhone/iPod Touch formfactor. So when you write to that audience, you're paying for a generally more expensive app, to reach fewer people. Is this a bad thing? For companies that could grow too fast, it might be a positive thing, but on the whole a smaller audience is bad. On the plus side however, those who own iPads tend to be more affluent and are willing to buy more expensive applications, so you can get higher unit prices to somewhat compensate for that, if your concept is appealing to people.

Next up: Policy Issues

Apple is not the easiest of companies to "write software for". And while you're not writing it "for" them per se, you have to jump through a series of hoops they tell you to. And with the iPad, you have a list of guidelines to follow which are quite a bit different than with the iPhone/iPodTouch sized apps. Your apps need to handle all orientations for the most part, your apps need to observe the more complex menu-ing paradigms, your apps need to usually have more sophisticated art assets, and you also have a higher expectation of not looking "cruddy" for lack of a better word.

While the enforcement of these "guidelines" are all over the map, people routinely DO get rejected for violating some or all of them. This means the cost of iPad development goes up.

Technical considerations:

Hybrid apps, those which work both on the phone and pad in the "native" resolution of the platforms require you to either A> violate the assumptions of one or both platforms or B> create completely different screen layouts for each "mode" of the application. Those "modes" would be iPhone, iPad landscape, iPad Portrait. Menuing is different in the two orientations on the iPad, and expectations of pretty animations are much higher in general.

Until November or so, you'll see that additionally that iPad is on 3.2.1 of iOS and iPhones are on 4.0.1. This means the iPad is missing many of the cutting edge features that 4.x has. So if you're writing a hybrid app, you have to work around sometimes having certain features, and sometimes not, and additionally you have all the issue with different aspect ratios, etc.

Hopefully I've explained some of the issues. I've tried to be brief, this is a complicated subject, but basically, this is it, and it's _also_ a huge barrier to entry, which means many good business opportunities still exist on the iPad.

<comment><USER3> why is this upvoted so much? your points are all off base, and frankly sound like they're coming from someone who doesn't care to do iPad development.

The real factor here is the iPad has only been on the market for 5 months. We've had the iPhone SDK for over 2 years now. We just need more time to figure things out.

to your point: what do we expect skype to do differently on iPad vs iPhone? how about something creative?

it's embarrassing that Facebook doesn't have an iPad app by now. Kudos to Twitter for trying (and shipping) something new and exciting.

<comment><USER4> When "new and exciting" is all you got, what's the ROI ?

<comment><USER3> the ROI is people spending more time on Twitter. have you used the app?

it's set up for much more noodling/discovery of tweets and people, rather than just looking over a timeline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are two large categories of apps that don't have the same degree of raison d'etre on the iPad. You've hit on one, which is that having a larger browser and a faster processor makes having a "native interface for a web app"-type app less important. There is no Facebook desktop app to the best of my knowledge (one made by Facebook, anyway).

The other category of apps that don't make sense on the iPad are the "small utility that you always want to have in your pocket" apps. The iPad isn't small, and you don't carry it everywhere the way that you do an iPhone or iPod Touch. Two examples that look a little ridiculous when scaled up to iPad size are a compass and a calculator.

The situation isn't likely to get much better until a big chunk of laptop users start adopting iPads as their primary portables. At that point I could see a lot of web apps start to make native-code interfaces.

In fact it might get worse once iPhone-4-optimized apps can be run full screen on the iPad complete with non-pixellated graphics and text.

So that leaves productivity apps, games, and a few miscellaneous categories.

</comment><comment><USER6> Everyone ignored the "don't hard-code sizes" thing. Why not, when the only devices that exist were 480x320.

I'm about to start porting my iPhone "Brainstormer" app to the iPad (along with an overhaul of the editing UI). It doesn't seem like it's going to be that much work but we'll see.</comment>


How to Fix College Admissions - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-fix-college-admissions-11575042980?mod=rsswn <comment><USER2> "7\. Get rid of the SAT and ACT. [...] Standardized-test performance is no better a predictor of college success than high school GPA, say some admissions officers."

According to this false logic, we should use only one predictor in a model, because the other predictors will be less correlated to the target. As the College Board has demonstrated in studies, grades _and_ test scores predict college GPA better than grades or test scores alone. The College Board has also shown that the SAT does not underpredict the GPAs of racial minorities. In fact it slightly overpredicts them, as discussed in "The Underperformance Problem" problem by Nieli: [https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2010/09/02/the_underperform...](https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2010/09/02/the_underperformance_problem/) .

A better WSJ article than this one was "The Truth About the SAT and ACT Myths abound about standardized tests, but the research is clear: They provide an invaluable measure of how students are likely to perform in college and beyond", By Nathan Kuncel and Paul Sackett, March 8, 2018 10:11 am ET [https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-truth-about-the-sat-and- act...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-truth-about-the-sat-and- act-1520521861)</comment>


Ask HN: What burning problem are you trying to solve right now? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> How to find a good tax planning software. The predominant one on the market has a terrible UX.

<comment><USER3> I keep thinking there might be a market for an open-source tax prep site that's as easy to edit as Wikipedia.

But then I remember Wikipedia is overrun with anon-IP never-do-wells :D</comment></comment>


Are McMansions Making Everyone Unhappy? - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/06/are-mcmansions-making-everyone-unhappy/591463/ <comment><USER2> It's odd to see home size getting larger even as family size gets smaller. In my naive view, I'd expect the two to track each other.</comment>


Half of Western European men descended from one Bronze Age 'king' - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/04/25/half-of-british-men-descended-from-one-bronze-age-king <comment><USER2> It's good to be the king.</comment>


Obama Announces Plans to "Unleash" 500 MHz of New Wireless Spectrum - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/obama_announces_plans_to_unleash_500_mhz_of_new_wi.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+readwriteweb+%28ReadWriteWeb%29 <comment><USER2> Most of the prime spectrum <3GHz won't be able to be reallocated, unless they're going to be willing to spend tons of cash and/or upset lots of people. If they won't, it'll most likely only be valuable for non-portable or semi- mobile devices. WISPs, in-vehicle broadband, anything that can have relatively large antennas at the consumer side. Currently, handset-type devices have more spectrum than can be practically used within the next few years.</comment>


Draco Bush Plane Crashes - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfctWAoDXvs <comment><USER2> Luckily no injuries</comment>


Anyone go last night to Web Innovators Group in Boston? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> This is who was there and demo'd. <http://webinnovatorsgroup.com/wiki/webinno11>

I found a few little blogs about it. I'm wondering if anyone had some feedback on the demos presented.

<http://cardvio.blogspot.com/2007/03/web-innovators-demo.html>

<comment><USER2> <http://mypunchbowl.wordpress.com/2007/03/29/web-innovators-group-11-last- night/>

note: not my blog</comment></comment>


Measuring the Impact of the .NET Garbage Collector - <AUTHOR> http://mattwarren.org/2014/06/18/measuring-the-impact-of-the-net-garbage-collector/ <comment><USER2> FYI, as soon as you start getting serious about profiling, you should use PerfView[0]. It's what we use in Roslyn for almost all investigations.

[0] [http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/download/details.aspx?id=2856...](http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/download/details.aspx?id=28567)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I keep meaning to dig into PerfView a bit more, I've only scratched the surface of it.

BTW I really like the Perf stuff in Roslyn, I wrote 2 posts about it, in case your interested? Although as you worked on it, it won't be anything you don't already know ;-)

[http://mattwarren.org/2014/06/05/roslyn-code-base- performanc...](http://mattwarren.org/2014/06/05/roslyn-code-base-performance- lessons-part-1/) [http://mattwarren.org/2014/06/10/roslyn-code-base- performanc...](http://mattwarren.org/2014/06/10/roslyn-code-base-performance- lessons-part-2/)

<comment><USER2> Seems pretty accurate to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for taking the time to read it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've worked on a product that used the classic tricks (large byte[] arrays, access through sun.misc.Unsafe, indexing instead of references, etc) and while it was quite fast, it was written by someone who worked at Azul and deeply understood the jvm and gc. Personally, it makes me think D is the right solution: gc for 99.99% of your objects, but for the performance critical bits or where you're fighting the gc, opt out of gc and manage memory by hand.

Also, theUnsafe makes me snicker

        .Unsafe.class.getDeclaredField("theUnsafe");

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah there definitely comes a point with .NET/Java where, to get very high performance, you are fighting the language/runtime.

The general argument is that you are still more productive by writing 90% or 95% of you app in a managed language, in the idiomatic way. Then you use crazy tricks to tune the last 10/5%. Rather than doing the whole thing in C/C++, which will give better performance, but may not be quicker (more productive) to write.

I don't know much about D, it's interesting to find that you can opt out of GC like that.

<comment><USER3> I haven't done it, but according to a tutorial [1] you can directly access malloc / free and bypass the gc

[1] [http://qznc.github.io/d-tut/memory.html](http://qznc.github.io/d-tut/memory.html)

<comment><USER4> You can directly access malloc and free in .NET as well, it's just more inconvenient.

<comment><USER2> It's also usually a bad idea. Memory allocated via PInvoke or similar APIs is basically opaque to the garbage collector. This can produce undesirable behavior, from polluting your code to interfering with GC due to memory fragmentation. Marshalling also isn't free.

Basically, if you're at the point where the GC is impacting you but if you haven't tried Roslyn-level optimizations -- do that first.

<comment><USER4> Fragmentation is unlikely - they'll be completely different heaps, and on 64-bit probably far apart. Marshalling costs only in so far as you work with safe code. C++/CLI is working at a slightly different level.

But I agree that working with the grain of the GC is usually more productive.

<comment><USER2> That seems like a lot of assumptions. I don't think I'd be OK with generally advocating based on all those assumptions. For example, you never touched on what would happen if you allocated enough in native and managed that you start to get significant memory pressure -- collecting with paging is almost impossible, so the CLR goes into panic mode in an attempt to prevent paging and a large portion of the heap would be untouchable/immovable.

<comment><USER4> Are you confusing physical memory with address space?

There's no good reason for the managed heap to be anywhere near any of the native heaps in address space, on 64-bit platforms.

And the CLR's GC should actively allocate slabs well away from any native heap (trivial to do - reserve (not commit, reserve) a big contiguous chunk of address space), simply because it relies on third party code which will itself be allocating native memory; everything from GUI code to native DB drivers and their caches, quite independent of unsafe code doing manual allocation.

In the absence of a GC-aware virtual memory manager, GC-immovable memory has little relevance to paging.

(Of course, GC.Add/RemoveMemoryPressure should be called if you're doing native allocation from .net.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What many people seem to miss in these sorts of discussions is that "pauseless" usually also means less throughput. I guess it's not different from real-time systems being slower in practice than non-deterministic ones.

If what Azul has worked on conventional Client/Server-JVMs, Sun/Oracle/IBM would've adopted it long ago.

The sad reality is that spending 99% of your time in GC, but never in a pause longer than "x units of time" qualifies as "pauseless" and if you want more throughput, you have to scale up the system so that the remaining 1% of througput is sufficiently large for your workload.

I guess this works in the markets where Azul is active (things like finance) but is useless in more conventional use cases.

<comment><USER6> Azul's garbage collector is patented and until recently required specialized hardware: [http://www.azulsystems.com/products/vega/processor](http://www.azulsystems.com/products/vega/processor)

Recent advances in Intel CPUs have allowed them to run on commodity hardware, but last I looked, it still required a custom kernel module.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> great</comment>


Write Code That Writes Code - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/mak12776/write-codes-that-writes-codes-568 <comment><USER2> The author describes DSLs and the concept of a compiler. Some people might think of AI and LISP-like "programs that write even more intelligent programs", but that's not what compilers do. They only translate.

Having said that,

> Never write programs with your fingers, always write programs that make > codes

Obviously nobody writes a compiler for a mini problem which can solved with some scripting language instead. That's a waste of time.

I wasted my time so many times when I wanted to invent a fancy new language. It can be na exercise but frequently doesn't get someone closer to getting the actual work done.</comment>


San Francisco: Office space data says tech bubble is not popping - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2016/10/30/dear-san-francisco-office-space-data-says-your-tech-bubble-is-not-popping-and-probably-never-will/ <comment><USER2> Honest question here: Do people have the right to live wherever they want?

I hear a lot about SF prices, and housing, and employment/pay, and it all really seems to come down to this one fundamental question.

A lot of people want to live in SF, which is a very small geographic area. The simple law of supply and demand shows that prices will be high, and people that can pay those prices will stay, and people that aren't willing or can't will leave. This seems to be what is happening right now, economics in action.

In the end, there's likely a few possible outcomes: 1) We need people to do the "low jobs" that wouldn't pay enough to live in SF. Jobs like cleaning, food service, etc. All of these things still need to happen. So these people either need to get paid enough to live there, or there needs to be some kind of amazing commuting going on. This would continue the price rises.

2) People that can afford SF realize it's so expensive that it's not worth it. This helps deflate the prices, and increase economies elsewhere.

It honestly feels like we've got a bit of both going on. Many companies are getting out of SF because of the costs and moving elsewhere. But there's still too many people (and a lot of young people) trying to get in. We haven't hit equilibrium yet, so prices rise.

But the real question is, for people that can't afford to live in SF, and are constantly protesting that fact - do you have the right to live there, or should you just move somewhere else?

There are plenty of jobs in the US, and while there may be some real reasons that you NEED to live in SF (taking care of family is one that comes to top of mind), I can't honestly see any requirement to living there.

This is one of the reasons why I moved out of California entirely, after living in SF and LA, and moved to Nevada. But I'm not one of these people protesting that they can't afford to live where they choose, and thinking that's a right.

As far as I can tell, it's not a right. If you can't afford it, you can't have it. Not everyone can live in mid-town Manhattan or SF. Everyone does, so the people that make it are the people that can pay.

Things and times change. If you don't change with them, then you're the one standing in the road waiting to get run over.

<comment><USER3> The socially accepted answer is "no". I don't just mean in the regional sense (san francisco), but the literal sense (your neighbor's yard). Property can be owned, ownership can be transferred/negotiated, and rights tied somehow to that ownership are necessary for occupation.

But you're asking the wrong question, IMO. The right question is "do we have a moral obligation to make housing as accessible as it could be for the largest number of people?"

I think we do, at least to a point. Some places take it farther than others, but the general consensus is that SF's prices are a result of malleable policies and past decisions, not just hard facts of life (though the "water on 3 sides" thing is a hard fact for sure).

People aren't complaining that they're magically entitled to live wherever they happen to be standing. They're complaining that a system capable of helping more people live better is performing pretty poorly.

I think that's great that there's uproar. Personally I fear the day we _stop_ demanding that the world around us get better.

<comment><USER2> I agree with your question: "do we have a moral obligation to make housing as accessible as it could be for the largest number of people?"

I say the answer to that is yes. But if you make the question specific to a particular area, my answer would be no. Just about anywhere in the US is cheaper to house people than SF (other than NYC). It'd also probably be better for the economy to develop other urban and even suburban areas, because there would be more jobs related to people living in those areas (think cashiers, gas stations, places to eat, etc.)

While some places are hard to live, because there's no water, no medical services, etc, there's a lot of places to go live.

The big question now is about jobs. There's a lot of jobs in SF, and not a lot of jobs in small affordable towns, and people need jobs. But I think that's a self fulfilling cycle, in that tech jobs can really happen anywhere. You don't need a railroad, or factory, or have a port.

Overall I feel like people in SF are complaining that they can't afford to live in SF. Not where they are standing, or in a great neighborhood, but they want to live in SF. And most of them are blaming the tech companies completely.

I'm also not sure what system is helping or hurting people here. It seems to be simple economics. And while I'm all about helping people, knowing some of the ways people get around rent control in both SF and NYC, you're really fighting the clock to get things back to a normal equilibrium.

I'm all about people demanding things get better, but it just seems like people are angry that things suck, and while there are things that we can do (both people and government), nobody is budging.

<comment><USER4> _" The big question now is about jobs. There's a lot of jobs in SF, and not a lot of jobs in small affordable towns, and people need jobs."_

This is ameliorated to some extent by the increased feasibility of telecommuting. If you can telecommute, then you can work from almost anywhere.

Unfortunately, there are still prices to pay for telecommuting, even if your workplace allows it. It's not for everyone. I have a friend who did it for a long time, and they got regularly passed over for promotions vs people who worked in the home office, but they got to live in a much more beautiful and much cheaper place than SF. Some people can't concentrate when they work from home. Some miss having coworkers they can socialize with in-person, and so on. But if you can swing working remotely, and don't mind the downsides, then it can be a much saner and more affordable way to go.

<comment><USER2> I completely agree with you on this one. Telecommuting can change everything, because suddenly a town with no outside basis of jobs could support a community and have a tax base.

(Also, some people work better remotely, away from politics and open office nonsense)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> San Francisco is just kind of stupid at this point. I have lived in the Bay Area since 1989 and I am leaving on Tuesday. Whatever benefits there are to being here do not outweigh the huge monetary cost and substantial degradation of quality of life.

(And before you can thinking about paying rents or whatever, if you are in the top tax bracket, enjoy paying 13.3% state income tax, which, after Federal tax, is a staggering 22% of your income.)

<comment><USER6> 22% of your income ONLY. OMG.

Paying around 50% here (plus another many percent paid directly by the employer).

Note that I'm in Europe.

<comment><USER7> OP's numbers are off. If you make $1,000,000 a year in SF, you pay 45% of your income as income tax. If you make $10,000,000, it's just over 50%.

I used this calculator: [https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax- calculator#ysfEQ...](https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax- calculator#ysfEQYrShp)

<comment><USER8> OP's 22% was of the amount remaining after federal taxes. After federal taxes, you would have about 65% of your income left, the state would take about 13.5%/65% = 21% of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've lived here for over 30 years.

The city is getting silly. I remember when 280 would never get traffic, now it's clogged up more often than not. And 85, don't even mention it.

I don't see what San Francisco's appeal is, except for the food. In almost every other respect, it's worse than any other major city in the United States, all things considered.

<comment><USER10> As someone who has lived in the southern U.S. all of my life (except three years in Paris when I was younger), San Francisco has a lot going for it that makes it well worth the price:

\- Like-minded people. Living in a region where people are genuinely interested in and passionate about the same things that you are is invaluable. There are a few people who live near me that are just as interested in science and technology as I am, but they are vastly outweighed by the people who _aren 't_ interested in it. Some of my friends in tech say they eventually get tired of hearing about tech all the time in SF, but as a twenty-something who just finished grad school, it will be a very long time before I get "sick of tech". Plus all of the VCs are in San Francisco, and failure (at starting your own company) doesn't have the same stigma there that it does in the rest of the world. SF always seems to be on the cutting edge.

\- Beautiful environment. This is subjective, but I love the rolling hills, the bay, and the weather. I love how there are bike lanes all over the place, and how nature is just a couple hours drive away.

\- The food. No city in the South can compete with the diversity of food in SF other than a few rare restaurants. (One could argue that I should just learn to cook better... which is a valid point.)

\- The diversity. I like the mix of cultures and the exposure to things that are _new_. I'm one of those people who constantly craves novelty, and there's not many cities that can provide that.

<comment><USER11> > No city in the South can compete with the diversity of food in SF other than > a few rare restaurants

New Orleans has an amazing food culture! You can walk into dive bars and have some amazing meals in that town, for like 5 bucks...

<comment><USER10> That's true... I forgot about New Orleans. There are also some other southern cities known for food (Asheville), but they're so small, so once you've hit all the major restaurants, there's nothing else out there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> All of these issues are great for Seattle. The influx of talent and wealth has been transformative for the city (but not always in a good way). People fleeing high prices of California in general have found things to be much better here in every regard. Perhaps not the weather.

The real issue is whether we will repeat the same mistakes of SF?

</comment><comment><USER13> Doesn't office space lag a slowdown considerably? I mean, from the first rent default to the suite being on the market takes a while.

<comment><USER14> I think it is coincident or lagging.

Also let's not forget venture beat is basing it's reporting on the seller side i.e. a real estate firm which has incentives to talk the market up.</comment></comment>


Am I suffering from Imposter syndrome? Is it real? - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/xqvVcbw9

<comment><USER2> Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Everybody is an imposter on some level. Everybody is making it up as they go along. Once you figure that out, a lot of things start making sense. The solution to feeling like an imposter is courage and persistence. The cliche is true, if you think you can or think you can't, you're right. It sounds like you're already going down the path of least resistance, out of fear. You should probably stop doing that if you want to better your position in life.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the novel.</comment>


Why is iTunes not open-source? - <AUTHOR>

I would really, really like to see Linux run iTunes, not because it is an incredible music player (frankly, I find my MPM / ncmcpp stack better) but because it is how an iPod is best managed.
I fail to understand why iTunes not yet open-source. I mean, it is understandable for software like Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop - the company is charging so much per copy and will not be able to continue to do so once the source is publicly available, but how does it make sense for software like iTunes? Unless I'm mistaken, open-sourcing software should benefit users (by improving the software quality), hackers (duh!) and the company (a community). Is there something fundamental I'm missing?
This is not just limited to big companies. Floola is another (incidentally) iPod management software which is freeware but not open-source. <comment><USER2> _Is there something fundamental I'm missing?_

Sure looks like it to me.

Steve Jobs is well-known for being fanatical about his desire to carefully control the Apple user experience.

What would possible lead him to hand over control over one of his flagships? What advantage would he (or his shareholders) get from it?

If he wants to improve the software quality of iTunes, he certainly has the resources to do that, without relying on volunteers.

I don't think he's particularly interested in helping you to manage your iPod via Linux. In fact, all things considered, he'd prefer it if the desire to manage your iPod effectively led you to purchase a Mac.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think he simply doesn't see any real benefits (for Apple) in open sourcing it. Surely the occasional geek will benefit, but there simply isn't that much market pressure for Apple to feel the need, neither other benefits, like it gets with the open source darwin.

The fundamental thing I think you're missing is that the assertion that open source benefits users, hacker and the company is not undisputed. Apple's stance on the matter, for example, are almost the opposite; for Apple it may benefit hackers, but it's bad for users (who may suffer unneeded complexity and confusion) and it's bad for Apple; at the least, it's a distraction and waste of resources to release an open-source version with the polish it ought to take, at the worst it may enable things Apple wouldn't want, like facilitating competitor's devices ability to fake as an iPod.

Not that I think Jobs is actively thinking about it, I'm pretty sure something like this doesn't crosses his mind. If asked maybe he would say 'go get another mp3 player then, or use Windows/Mac OS X'.

By the way I'm not saying I think Apple is right or wrong, just saying what I think are it's motives.

</comment><comment><USER4> Apple wants to control everything that you install, read, or listen on your devices. Open up the source will only let people find a way to bypass their restriction rules. It's all about monopolizing the market.

</comment><comment><USER5> If it were open source, Apple would lose control. As it stands, you can only transfer songs to Apple products (iPod, iPhone), and you can only access the iTunes music store. So Apple would probably lose money by open sourcing iTunes. Perhaps, anyway - it's a possible explanation.

</comment><comment><USER6> iTunes contains code that must be kept secret, i.e. encryption of audio streams to Airport Express, embedding user-info in mp4 files bought from the iTunes Store, communication and authentication of connected iPods/iPhones.

So a fully open source iTunes for Linux would only be half-working: no updates of iPods, no buying from iTunes Store, etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> OSX is a compeditor to Linux. Why would Apple help a compeditor like that?

<comment><USER8> They do for windows. They haven't forced people to have a Mac to work with an iPod since the second generation iPod that used USB instead of firewire only.

They would suppose Linux if :

A. they could sell songs to you B. it would make you buy and iPod

They aren't telling everyone who wants an iPhone that they better go get a Mac Mini if they want to sync it.

Linux is a marginal OS and unfortunately gets little attention in general (aka from almost everyone). So I suppose the DIY ethic of linux programming will hopefully come up with a functional DIY solution to this problem.</comment></comment>


The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (Competitive Videogaming Documentary) - <AUTHOR> http://docsilove.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-king-of-kong-fistful-of-quarters.html

<comment><USER2> I love this movie!</comment>


Is anyone working on social radio app idea yet? - <AUTHOR> Social Radio Channel: "A radio channel in which instead of users can only listen whatever is playing, listeners can add his own audio content in the channel which can be a song or voice recording of any joke, poem or speech." <comment><USER2> Make it mofo :D</comment>


The phone with a projector - <AUTHOR> http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/galaxybeam/feature.html <comment><USER2> This is actually really neat. Another step along the 'phone is the _only_ device you need' road.

It would be great for quickly sharing stuff like a youtube video. Kids could use it to watch a movie in their room, or at a friend's, or grandma's. Similarly, it could be great for the travelling. I can see some really great augmented reality uses for this, provided there is enough developer interest.

Don't scoff at it because it doesn't match up to your 'real' projector-- it has some cool uses. The specs may not be so great yet (640x360 resolution, 15 Lumens), but it's very impressive that they got this into just 12.5mm thick phone, and specs (particularly resolution) will improve in future products.

<comment><USER3> This does carry the hallmarks of disruption (in the true Christensen sense of the word).

If I were a projector company, I'd invest heavily in designing low power projection chips to sell to handset makers / make phone-sized projects to integrate with handsets. Maybe that already exists (beyond this phone)? I have to say I'm not well read on the state of the art here.

<comment><USER4> As a budding robot maker, I'd much rather they build a focus-less laser projector that's higher power and daylight visible. I don't give a rat's arse about handheld projection, but projectors on mobile robots are the future, and changing the focus of a regular beam projector on the fly by measuring the distance to the wall and then adjusting feels like a dodgy hack when I know there are laser devices in the market that just don't need to do this at all.

<comment><USER3> Sounds cool. Are you working on anything in particular where you use a mobile projector today?

<comment><USER4> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3800926>

I'm doing customer discovery/development at the moment before going too far into the actual prototyping. My current business model has changed a bit so the first product might end up being aimed at enterprises - essentially taking the top half of the robot platform described in that link and putting it in the middle of a conference table. The aim being to bring virtual conferencing, remote desktop assistance, and tele-presentations to the same level of efficacy as being there in person.

So the product lets you do things like background subtraction behind the presenter, then stitching their image into the actual presentation or screen. Simultaneously the presenter gets to see the augmented image on a nearby wall by way of the projector part (like a portable green-screen). If both sides of the communication have the device then you can do cool stuff like rotating the projector to simulate having one party actually _in_ the room with the other party. Add to that gestural and voice-controlled interfaces and I think its a step change improvement from existing systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This sounds great at first but I'm unclear about how usable it would actually be. Any pressure on the device would cause the screen to jump about.

I could see it being ok in start-then-put-down mode for Movies and Slideshows. But how often do we use phones like that? I look at photos in tiny batches normally with one other person, usually in a crowded place: pub, restaurant, car. I rarely watch movies on my iPhone but when I do it is usually on a train or in a car.

The need for a static white wall and a conveniently tall table in an uncrowded space makes me question the utility of this at all.

<comment><USER6> You could probably use it in more impromptu ways - e.g. by holding it above a sheet of A4 paper in a suitably dark pub, to allow an entire table to view a photo or video rather than having to pass a phone around. It wouldn't be stable at all, but being able to just beam a photo onto a random surface is pretty cool (although: cool enough to buy a phone solely for that feature? I'm not sure.)

<comment><USER7> I think you could patch up a stabilisation algorithm pretty quickly for this purpose...

<comment><USER4> Not without a pan/tilt mirror or reducing the available resolution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a real attempt to go after a market that has been trying to exist for a while.

Back in the late 90's i laughed at Salesforce pitch people coming in dragging two carry-ons on wheels - one for the laptop one for the projector.

Now they can slip them into pockets.

Its a real market, and the next step is I put down my phone as a projector, you control the projector from your phone.

<comment><USER9> It is also useful for casual meetings.

As a side thought, while convergence is great - we no longer carry a separate music player, video player, phone and now mobile projectors, I've increasingly run into more people carrying spare batteries around.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great point about battery. This one ships with 2000mAh. Which is enough for 3 hours of playtime. I wonder how useful such low battery life would be considering that you will rarely have 100% battery on your phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Here's a hands-on from The Verge - [http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/26/2825474/samsung-galaxy- bea...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/2/26/2825474/samsung-galaxy-beam-hands- on) . Contrast is pretty bad in an indoor-lit environment.

I also can't tell if it's autofocusing or a laser projector. I can't imagine having an autofocus lens on a package this small but then again the contrast is worse than what I'd expect from laser projection.

<comment><USER11> I imagine the contrast issue is one of raw power. stuff too large a set of laser diodes in there and you end up with it stealing all of the battery life easily.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A local cellphone company called Micromax has been offering a projector phone in India since last year, and its been doing rather well. Anecdotally, people [in Mumbai] seem to be using it as a TV replacement, both due to the lower cost and higher portability (important because of the impermanence of the chawls and slums that house just under half of the city's population).

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a new version of the Samsung i8520 [1], announced/released in 2009/10, but with a lower resolution camera and projector (although that says little about quality).

[1]: <http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i8520_beam-3150.php>

</comment><comment><USER14> There are a few other micro projectors on the market:

<http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/03/sanwa-iphone4-projector/>

<http://www.microvision.com/showwxplus/>

</comment><comment> Tim-Boss As someone who has forgone any TV's in place of a pretty heavy duty projector in my living room, I can say with some certainty that 15 lumens will barely be visible even in a pitch black room! My full-size/spec projector puts out about 2500 lumens and is still hard to see with the curtains open in the day time!

I view this in the same way I view "fun-size" candy bars...an interesting novelty for kids, completely impractical for most everyone else!

<comment><USER15> My 25 lumen 800x600 res pico projector does just fine when I close my shades.

Of course you can't expect that 2500 lumens much against the power of the sun..

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It sorta looks like Samsung is turning into the next Nokia. Putting out a lot of devices with gimmick features. I guess there must be a market for it.

<comment><USER17> There will be a huge market for this, especially among the younger generations and when combined with access to video services like YouTube. Projectors in phones will become a standard feature just like cameras imo. They just need to make the pico projector unit smaller.

<comment><USER18> I'm not convinced. When I think about kids or my childhood, it tends not to involve hanging out in places with a decent surface to project on and semi darkness to get a good image (or if they are in a place like that they've got access to a TV).

Perhaps when the tech has improved (both sound and vision) this becomes the replacement for the TV in the kids room - just plug it into a charger and project it onto the wall streaming over the net - but it doesn't feel like a mobile thing for them.

Remember, while this tech improves so do other displays. The expected standard will go up and the price of competing products will go down.

When you can have a large screen, hi-def TV in every room that you can wirelessly and effortlessly connect a mobile device to, which comes without the issues associated with projection (shadows, light and so on), why would you want a projector?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Here's what all the naysayers sound like to me:

"A phone with a camera? That's just a useless gimmick, it will never take off. The resolution is horrible, there's no flash, no zoom and the picture quality is bad besides."

Those who want "just a phone" may have a valid argument (side note - look into the Jitterbug, it might be just what they want), but the rest sound like the arguments of backwards-thinking people with no vision.

<comment><USER20> I think maybe it's a difference between "this is a cool product" and "this is a cool tech demo." As a tech demo, it's a neat idea that's been tried before. It becomes news when someone manages to put together a shipping product that actually lets you do new and useful things with your phone.

So is this that product? Well I can't help noticing that every single image on the Samsung site is a (bad) Photoshop. And looking at their ad video, I'm pretty sure that's special effects too -- compare it to the Verge video at about 00:25, and they look nothing alike. So if the manufacturer is showing solely fictional renderings of how they wish their product worked ... it's possible that a little naysaying is still in order.

(That said, I totally agree that it's a great vision -- I'm just not sure Samsung has, you know, brought this particular vision into the light of day yet.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Back when Nokia was cool (maybe 2005) I saw them demo a phone that could project not just a display, but a working full size keyboard on a table.

</comment><comment><USER22> Projectors might be a bit gimmicky, but bundling certain functions into a phone's design can have drastic effects on a market. For instance, the most successful mobile phones in central Africa are those that have a torch and/or a radio, because that is what people in that area need. How many people will want a projector in a phone that will use it for serious business?

</comment><comment><USER23> I like the idea but.. 3 hour battery? _OUCH!_

<comment><USER24> I'm assuming that's only while actively projecting...

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> It seems like Samsung are throwing phones out to see what sticks. While I think projectors could be useful, I'd be concerned about battery life and heat, not to mention what was cut out to fit this in. Hopefully they'll come to realise that the experience of using the phone is what wins, not how many widgets you can stick on one.

<comment><USER26> So the one in your pocket is just a phone to make calls and nothing else? No GPS? No sensors or something? Gyro? If so, I don't think it's a winner.

<comment><USER27> Yes. That's exactly what I want: a phone to make calls and nothing else. There is, in fact, such a market - and I'm surprised almost nobody has taken it seriously.

I carry an iPad darn near everywhere I go. I _don't want_ another device which demands yet another data plan. I don't need GPS, camera, projector, gyros, etc. in it. I want a phone which _makes calls really well_ ... and I haven't found it. The phone I use now is a years-old POS candybar thing that the Verizon dealer found in a back room after I spent half an hour ranting about how I want "just a phone" that's thin and simple, one that's not an inch thick in my pocket and/or loaded down with lots of other "features" which just add weight, volume, and cost (methinks he was delighted to finally sell the thing to someone for $1).

"Winner" doesn't have to mean "huge hit" or "includes kitchen sink". "Winner" can be something that a reliable niche is willing to pay a premium and serious markup for. I want a phone that takes great pains to make every nuance of the call perfect & pleasant. We're so used to what's wrong with making calls that we don't realize it's wrong. Make a phone that's small, thin, ergonomic, great sound, great voice control, great battery life, auto-syncs contacts, clean robust Bluetooth earpiece support (if not built into the earpiece entirely) etc. - done right, that will be a winner for a non-trivial market. Someone _did_ make a laudable effort at it ("John's Phone"), but failed by putting space for storing a paper-and-pencil contact list, and by focusing on form over function. Someone, please, take the simple act of making a call _seriously_ without any cameras & GPS & sensors & gyros etc.

Yes, I want a phone in my pocket which is just a phone to make calls and nothing else. I've already got a tablet which does everything else.

<comment><USER4> I'd agree with this if it wasn't for wanting my contacts synchronised. That's enough of a reason to have a data plan on the phone for me.

(I guess if someone did bite off this market, they could find a way around that.)

<comment><USER28> You mean like a USB charger that syncs with your PC.

<comment><USER4> Yes, but I think you'll agree that getting them over the air is _better_. However, this would be adequate, just not _as_ good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Am I the only one that thinks their use case of leaving the phone in your child's room projecting a unicorn on the ceiling to help them sleep is just pure nonsense?

[http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/galaxybeam/use_occas...](http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/galaxybeam/use_occasions07.html)

<comment><USER30> It's great until you get a text message...!

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Another way for teenagers to annoy the hell out of me on busses...

(after the invention of the mobile phone speaker)

</comment><comment><USER32> Reminds me of Sixth Sense [1] as demoed on TED, but the projector is placed in a bad location for this kind of application.

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

</comment><comment><USER33> Well, it certainly looks sleeker than LG's attempt at this [1].

[1] [http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/lg-expo-projector- hands-o...](http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/lg-expo-projector-hands-on/)

</comment><comment><USER34> Nice idea but heat and battery life will be an issue.

There is a market for this but most will just hook up to their monitor or iPad. People serious about projection will must likely have a real one.

<comment><USER35> Exactly - what are the odds the battery doesn't actually last 3 hours? And how functional is it to project a movie on your phone, but then have a dead phone that you can't use the rest of the day.

<comment><USER34> This technology feels ahead of its time. If battery life wasn't an issue on mobile devices this would be a massive product. Unfortunately battery life still sux.

We would all love a projector on our phones, but we need battery power.

Ever run a flash light app on your phone? Imagine watching an hour of video on a projector...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Neat idea, but the resolution is awful. What can you do with 640x360? This would be great if it could do 1080p or even 720p. Not 360p.

<comment><USER37> _What can you do with 640x360?_ — better than VHS quality. Sure I'd prefer HD, but that resolution was good enough to enjoy films in my childhood, so seems a feasible _start_ for this technology now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Does anyone know which projector technology they are using in this?

Edit: Should have googled first, its a TI DLP nHD projector apparently.

<comment><USER39> Googled? What about reading the linked-to page? It's right there, after all. Even "above the fold", for some value of current screen resolution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Another great addition to the android family. Samsung is a forward thinking company unlike the other guys. Sure many of us may not use it. But it's a TOOL and many of us will use it!

My Android device has HDMI out, reads SD card and even picks up FM radio for Emergencies . Apple's iPhone is a deathtrap without the internet.

</comment><comment><USER41> I was great this is awesome then I watched their promo video and have to say I feel I just ate way too much cake. I feel ill now. Wow this is bad. I am just not used to this kind of shit anymore after years of watching everything commercial-free on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER42> Is there a chance a future iPhone would ever include this?

</comment><comment><USER43> Those Samsung web people have some serious Photoshop skills! For a second there I thought that was a real photograph of a hockey puck flying out of a phone screen.

</comment><comment><USER44> What is with the 6 gb ram and 8 gb rom?

</comment><comment><USER45> This could be the device for coding on the go.

</comment><comment><USER46> The gimmick-ness of this is just astounding.</comment>


Radicle, a peer-to-peer stack for project collaboration - <AUTHOR> http://radicle.xyz/ <comment><AUTHOR> Lisp dialect, currently CLI only, run on IPFS. That's the first release from the oscoin team[0] as far as I know.

Still very early, it will be interested to see how that evolves.

[0] [http://oscoin.io/](http://oscoin.io/)</comment>


Ask HN: Where are the cheapest places to live in the Bay Area without a car? - <AUTHOR>

I'll be headed out west to go to school for the Fall 2012 semester and I really want to be in the Bay Area, but it's an expensive place.<p>Where are the cheapest places to live in the Bay Area? I won't have a car (I might invest in a road bike), so San Francisco is appealing to me, but it's one of the most expensive cities in the country, I hear. <comment><USER2> San Jose downtown has decent light-rail and bus connections to most places. But, public transportation is PAINFULLY slow (e.g.,: it will take you at least 1-1.5 hrs to get to Mountain View from San Jose if you take light rail / bus, and upto 1.5 hours to get to SF via Caltrain). Otherwise, it's quite good. Milpitas, CA is also an OK place --- cheaper than most of the Peninsula and SF --- with good connections to most parts of the bay (east, peninsula, south).

<comment><AUTHOR> One of my biggest reasons for moving to the valley is so I can throw myself into the software and startup scenes. Is San Jose a good place to do this or would I be better off some place else? All I've heard is that there are a ridiculous amount of software companies in the Bay Area, but that comprises a lot of land area.

<comment><USER2> No, not if you want to bump into hackers or throw yourself into the startup scene. To do that, you should choose Palo Alto / Mountain View. If you have cash to spare, work at Hacker Dojo, but live in an inexpensive area (see above). You can commute using light rail to Mountain View downtown, and take a short walk to Hacker Dojo from there. Castro St. (downtown Mountain View) has great food options.

Palo Alto is more expensive --- forget about living there! Also, fewer spots where you can camp out. There is a Starbucks and a great cafe called Coupa Cafe, but both places are now too noisy and not ideal to get any work done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately I doubt I'll have that much money to spare on a monthly basis. Unless I can come up with a solid job, I don't think I'd be able to do it.

Mountain View sounds like a decent place and there was a post on the front page last night that said it's one of the cheaper places to live and a car isn't necessary, so that's good. Also, there's Foothill college that's a half hour bike ride away from the center of Mountain View.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google salary negotiation – How to negotiate a Google job offer - <AUTHOR> https://fearlesssalarynegotiation.com/google-salary-negotiation/ <comment><USER2> I've never seen this insight before (actual examples of what a Google job offer looks like). Thanks for writing this up!</comment>


Economic Articles - <AUTHOR> Economic articles that were so good that you saved them because you learned new things? Can you share them? <comment><USER2> Basically anything Lyn writes about.

An example:

[https://www.lynalden.com/quantitative-easing-mmt- inflation/](https://www.lynalden.com/quantitative-easing-mmt-inflation/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice - thanks for the input</comment></comment>


Liberal Arts Colleges, in Fight for Survival, Focus on Job Skills - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/liberal-arts-colleges-in-fight-for-survival-focus-on-job-skills-1493051024 <comment><USER2> It's a great, lifelong disservice to these students to focus on jobs and especially initial job skills. Life is so much more than your career, and your initial job is usually the most meaningless of your career. They should spend 4 years preparing for their initial job? Why even go to college - 4 years of work would better prepare them. When I'm hiring, I hardly care what people study in college and in fact people showing more intellectual curiosity impress me more than those whose imagination starts and stops at numbers with dollar signs.

Also, looking at what is going on around the Western world, we are lacking not for job skills and but for critical thinking and the understanding of history, politics, science, the nature of knowledge and reason (including being able to discriminate between fact and falsehood), of other cultures, and most importantly, of each other.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you lack job skills before you go to college and yes I do mean 17-19 year olds, then you may never have adequate skills for any profession. If you think just attending a school gives you the upperhand on the job market, grow up. I really feel sorry for the ignorance of those holding tightly to this self infatuation of ego.</comment>


The teenager who saved a man with an SS tattoo - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24653643 <comment><USER2> That's a beautiful story. There's something really powerful about standing up for people who you'd be totally justified to let rot. I think we'd be in a much better place as a species if this kind of reaction was more commonplace, especially in this time of hyper-overreaction. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

</comment><comment><USER3> That woman is a redditor and actually chimed in on the reddit thread in the TIL community earlier today: [https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2al3cv/til_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2al3cv/til_that_at_a_1996_kkk_rally_in_ann_arbor/cixg55k)

</comment><comment><USER4> Commendable even without the neo-nazi angle. Jumping into an angry mob to save the victim of their aggression is incredibly dangerous. You risk the mob turning on you as well.

I don't know if I'd have the guts to do it.

<comment><USER5> I'm not trying to diminish the greatness of her gesture, but she really was shielded from the "You risk the mob turning on you as well" part by two very simple facts: her skin color and being a young woman... kind of hard to imagine a young afro-american woman as being pro-KKK and to mob linch her too :)

<comment><AUTHOR> That may or may not be the case (I'm not sure mob mentality makes those distinctions), I can't imagine anyone making those judgements in the heat of the moment.

It's a truly commendable act.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have noticed that Reddit's TIL subreddit (reddit.com/r/todayilearned) is becoming a source of lot of non tech articles on Hacker News including this one.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm actually an ex-pat so the BBC is part of my routine, I've now bookmarked TIL though :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Living in Ann Arbor, it is rather odd to hear about a protest getting violent in an otherwise open minded community that is as liberal and far left as San Francisco. Mob mentality.

Not the same context as the article, but as an example the protests can get rather fervent and loud: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3orPtIGyUw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3orPtIGyUw)

<comment><USER8> Also in Ann Arbor, can confirm that this is definitely very odd. The blanket hate on GMOs stemming from Monsanto is disappointing, though, given their importance in reducing famine in many areas (among other uses). This does explain the "Stop Monsanto" scribbled on a stop sign near where I live, though.

<comment><USER9> I grew up in Ann Arbor and remember when this rally happened. I wasn't at the event but I remember a lot of people being really angry that the Klan was speaking. I also remember there was a group of people that took non-violence training and attended the rally with the intention of preventing violence. If I'm remembering right my parents took my and my brothers to a counter-protest about a mile from the main protest downtown.

At the time the Klan was mostly a historical organization that you learned about along with the civil rights era in school -- they weren't an especially powerful organization in 1996. But that was 19 years ago, and so the history was 19 years more recent than it is today. And there were rumors of KKK activity happening in nearby Howell, so the protest wasn't purely symbolic -- it felt closer to home than that.

Ann Arbor has a habit of taking to the streets. When we went to war with Iraq in 2003 almost my entire high school skipped class to protest downtown. When I visited over Thanksgiving I caught this one going down the street: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2MN6G0m8is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2MN6G0m8is)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It may not be well known outside the state but the small town of Howell which is less than thirty miles from Ann Arbor was a Northern center for Klan activity. Robert E. Miles was a grand dragon in the Klan and I remember he regularly held events at a farm along with ritualistically burning crosses which frequently made the news.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Miles](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Miles)

Most of the original followers of Miles have passed away but Howell still is unable to shake its Klan past.

[http://www.mlive.com/news/ann- arbor/index.ssf/2014/03/a_tale...](http://www.mlive.com/news/ann- arbor/index.ssf/2014/03/a_tale_of_two_towns_newest_rac.html)</comment>