Wiring and Cabling: How to Lace Cable Harnesses (1962) - <AUTHOR> http://www.dairiki.org/hammond/cable-lacing-howto/ <comment><USER3> This is the Navy manual. The stitch described here would be called a "running stitch" by a telephone installer, and is just one of several stitches in our repertoire.

This PDF describes several more, including the starter, Kansas City, and Chicago: www.dslreports.com/r0/download/1377481~846610918062e1c57e36f03a5c37b426/lacing.pdf

It does not include the "power stitch" or "H stitch", though this and the others are all over YouTube if you're curious.

<comment><USER4> Besides the technique, it's also important to use the right kind of lacing cord. A current standard in telecommunications is nine-ply waxed polyester twine, traditionally in white or natural color.

In aerospace, flat-braided lacing tape is sometimes used, in aramid (Nomex), glass fiber, or other materials suitable for more demanding conditions.

<comment><USER5> 30 years later and my index fingers are still spontaneously repulsed by "NSN 4020-01-208-7645: TAPE, LACING AND TYING". Tough stuff, much tougher than the skin of a person's knuckle joints. Military aircraft are mostly made out of wire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem with these laced harnesses is the same as with zip-tied ones - <USER2> can't add or remove anything (without destroying it or making a mess of it, unless you re-tie/lace everything), and that it's difficult to use the simplest and fastest method of wire tracing, which is tugging on it and seeing where it goes.

Therefore the currently best method is IMHO a slotted wire duct. Put the cover on and it's neat and tidy, but easy to pull the cover off, add or remove wires and trace where they go.

That's probably why that method is now industry standard.

Example here, with cover on in the middle and covers removed top and bottom: [https://blog.hellermanntyton.de/wp- content/uploads/2017/01/P...](https://blog.hellermanntyton.de/wp- content/uploads/2017/01/Panel_Builder_Overview_DE_01850px.jpg)

<comment><USER7> Another downside to it is EMI. tying all the wires tight together increases the odds of any EMI problems vs letting them be loose in the wire duct.

In a previous CNC machine, I zip tied everything together very carefully, but was getting phantom steps in one of my steppers (even with shielded wires). Unclipping the zip ties caused the problem to go away. (after that, I added plenty of ferrites, too, as a measure of safety, but clipping the zip ties killed the only real symptom)

<comment><USER8> One other way to solve this is to:

\- use EMI sheilded conductors (at greater expense), or

\- use twisted pairs where applicable.

I believe the CAN standard is based on twisted pairs, and they work very well for other ground/signal based configurations.

<comment><USER7> I had actually used EMI shielded wires - but, I think I must have had a faulty connection from shield to ground. Practically speaking, EMI shielding is hard to get right if you're not a pro. I only recently got an Oscilloscope and was able to measure what the EMI noise actually looks like on a wire. That helped a lot in getting rid of it, too. VFDs are pretty awful - the one in my machine nominally outputs 8amp,220v, 500hz power, containing that is a matter of extreme care. My previous CNC (now sold) really just didn't make any attempt and just counted on physical separation of wires and software filtering of signals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I recently started using this technique. I love it.

It's not too hard to learn how to do it in a functional sense. I don't need to do it well, just tie up some cables.

Whether it's useful depends on how often you are adding or removing cables. It's not a fast technique. I use it for my PC monitors + keyboard + mouse + audio, and it's been much less of a hassle because the wires don't get tangled any more. The real boon is in my audio equipment. For example, I have a (musical) keyboard, and that needs 10' 2x audio + 2x MIDI. Having those cables tied together has made a huge difference, preventing them from getting tangled with other cables, and making it easier to keep them out of the way. I also have a 19" rack of audio equipment, and I use this technique in the back of the rack. Barring equipment failures, I don't expect to change anything in the rack for the next few years.

It's functionally equivalent to using _lots_ of zip ties or velcro ties, and most useful if you have e.g. multiple cables that that traverse the same 10' distance.

<comment><USER3> For that use, I would get some Techflex F6 split sleeving, or some of the velcro-closure stuff. Not only does it hold them together, it also provides quite a bit of protection from abrasion if you drag the resulting "snake" around the floor or whatever.

The problem with lacing an assembly that might flex, is that the cord keeps the cables from sliding against each other, and makes the assembly very stiff. So any flexing force is concentrated at points where it can overcome that stiffness, and this is bad for the cables long-term.

Inside equipment, lacing is used to keep wires from abrading against each other. In an office, it's used to secure them to frames for density, organization, and seismic reasons. In all cases, every piece of connected equipment is rigidly mounted, and no part of the laced form ever has to move relative to any other part.

<comment><USER9> That's what I would get if I were "in industry" and had a lot of cables to deal with. I just have my personal equipment, and one spool of string is very convenient to buy and shove in the closet when I don't need it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One example where cables are laced down is Curiosity rover, as noted in this forum thread: [https://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4028](https://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=4028)

</comment><comment><USER11> Some days ago I was looking to make a lat pulldown DIY setup for home use, I had hard time finding suitable pulley for the purpose. Most cables and pulley I found got abraded fast.

<comment><USER8> I'm interested. How does this relate?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks like what I learned in scouts, vis. lashing a rope end.</comment>


Securing the .edu top-level domain with DNSSEC - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2009/09/securing-the-edu-top-level-domain-with-dnssec.ars <comment><USER2> Sounds great and the sooner the better.

Are there any downsides to this?

<comment><USER3> Yes. DNSSEC is a debacle.</comment></comment>


Tesla Doesn't Burn Fuel, It Burns Cash - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-burns-cash? <comment><USER2> For all the discussions and/or criticisms about Tesla, I don't think there are any other better quotes than this:

 _Tesla's current price is arguably fair if most cars are powered by electricity in 10 years, if most of these cars are made by Tesla, if Tesla can make those cars with sufficient margin and quality control and can service the cars properly, and if Tesla can raise additional capital sufficient to cover a $3 billion annual cash drain and another billion to service its debt._

Source:

[https://www.researchaffiliates.com/en_us/publications/articl...](https://www.researchaffiliates.com/en_us/publications/articles/668-yes- its-a-bubble-so-what.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> WTF.

Criticism regarding Teslas prospects, cash flow and viability as a company may all be valid.

But the ridiculous animation and the live cash counter immediately take all credibility away for me. What credible news source would present a financial news article in this way?

<comment><USER4> I agree that the counter makes no sense. There's just no way to put it into any perspective other than "that's a lot of money for me as a person". The graphics I thought was witty though. Lets face it, Musk does a lot of publicity stunts like selling 20 000 flamethrowers, and using them in the graphics I thought was rather witty. That said, I just don't know what to make of Tesla. The deposits schemes, financials etc, I just can't make my mind up if it is doing good or bad. On the other hand, a cult of personality that worships a guy building rockets, electric vehicles and so on seems preferable to many of the other celebrity cults around today. Lets hope a lot of people don't lose a bunch of money on it, I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _" "Elon Musk is an engineer, and so he treats raising capital as one element that he needs to solve," said Andrea James, a former analyst"_

How is Musk an engineer? Musk has a degree in physics and economics according to Wikipedia. At least where I'm from, you don't call yourself or someone else an engineer if you didn't go to engineering school.

<comment><USER6> _At least where I 'm from, you don't call yourself or someone else an engineer if you didn't go to engineering school._

What Musk was doing 25 years ago when he was at university isn't important any more. Are we supposed to just ignore the 25 years of experience he's gained since?

It's very simple: if he does engineering then he is an engineer, regardless of what degree he holds.

<comment><USER7> > if he does engineering

Does he, though? He's CEO if 4 companies IIRC. I would be very surprised if that leaves you any time at all to do stuff that qualifies as engineering (in the traditional sense; not in the bullshit uptitling sense; "software engineer" is only one step from "ninja rockstar").

<comment><USER8> [https://www.inc.com/ayse-birsel/why-elon-musk- spends-80-perc...](https://www.inc.com/ayse-birsel/why-elon-musk- spends-80-percent-of-his-time-on-thi.html)

Ouch!!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good analysis of this very unusual company. Musk is doing great stuff but investors should be cautious since there is big downside as well.

</comment><comment><USER10> Methinks Uber should be a close runner up?

<comment><USER11> Except Uber burns cash and fuel. Lulz.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Oh no! Someone died in a car! How could it be??!!</comment>


Kotlin – programming language targeting the JVM and JavaScript – M10 is out - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jetbrains.com/kotlin/2014/12/m10-is-out/

<comment><USER2> For anyone who used: how/where it is better/worse comparing to other "new" JVM languages (Scala, Clojure, Groovy)?

<comment><USER3> Kotlin doc has short feature comparison with scala: [http://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/comparison-to- scala.htm...](http://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/comparison-to-scala.html)

In general, "If you are happy with Scala, you probably don't need Kotlin."

<comment><USER4> Which is kind of funny, because they are still playing catch-up with Scala.

(That's perfectly fine on its own, but doing the usual Scala-bashing at the same time as copying most of the language varbatim doesn't make the Kotlin team look any better.)

<comment><USER5> They've stated their decision _not_ to copy certain features such as rampant operator overloading. Is this what you mean by "Scala-bashing"?

<comment><USER4> No. Scala has neither operator overloading nor any kind of rampant form of it.

<comment><USER5> In Scala you can define stuff like <*/+-> to mean anything you want. Are you perhaps arguing over my choice of words to describe this phenomena?

<comment><USER4> Yes. It's neither an operator nor are you overloading anything.

The whole point is that everything is just a bog-standard method and infix notation is a orthogonal notion, separate from a method's name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Really interesting language!</comment>


Worried that learning about AI can be too difficult? I'll help you get started - <AUTHOR> http://www.alexanderuseche.com/introduction-to-artificial-intelligence-concepts

<comment><USER2> I'm not quite sure a wall of text and big ideas such as understanding intelligence is the best way to ease someone into AI.</comment>


With Virtual Machines, Getting Hacked Doesn't Have to Be That Bad - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2015/09/16/getting-hacked-doesnt-bad/ <comment><USER2> As the article points out this is easy to do. I've had a virtual machine image for browsing for a while. Copy the image over the virtual disk, start it up, browse around, then exit. Next day do the same thing. Each time you copy the image is resets everything in the virtual machine and on a flash drive its pretty quick (actual disk image data is about 8GB).

</comment><comment><USER3> I have been using QubesOS for a while now, I am happy to see it got a mention. Before using qubesOS, I had a vmware VM with a browser. I believe using Qubes is a bit more secure than an OS with a hypervisor running another OS with a browser though. See: [http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-is- qubes-...](http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-is-qubes-os- different-from.html) Or: [http://invisiblethingslab.com/resources/2014/Software_compar...](http://invisiblethingslab.com/resources/2014/Software_compartmentalization_vs_physical_separation.pdf)</comment>


"It'll never work": a collection of failed predictions - <AUTHOR> http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/neverwrk.htm <comment><USER2> _Space travel is utter bilge. \- Dr. Richard van der Reit Wooley, Astronomer Royal, space advisor to the British government, 1956. (Sputnik orbited the earth the following year.)_

IIRC, this is a misquote. The original was something like "All this talk of space travel is utter bilge. It would cost as much as a major war to put a man on the Moon." Which was more or less correct.

<comment><USER3> Reminds me of the Bill Gates 640kb quote. Gates has denied saying it, but even if he had, it would have been an accurate statement at the time it was supposedly made.

<comment><USER4> The 640 KB quote wasn't _about_ the time is was supposedly made. That's why it's so laughable. It was "Nobody will _ever_ need more than 640 KB."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Clarke's first law:

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; when he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong.

<comment><USER6> What about: It's impossible to go faster than the speed of light?

<comment><USER7> You have to be careful in how you define speed before answering this question: do you mean group velocity or phase velocity? And faster than the local velocity of light or the value in vacuo?

It is indeed possible for a particle to travel at a speed greater than the local phase velocity of light through a medium. This is what brings about Čerenkov radiation, which is that eerie blue glow associated with the core of nuclear reactors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One "rock to look under" is the misapplication of scientific theory or a common misunderstanding of basic principles.

(See: <http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html>)

One famous example is Professor Joseph Le Conte's mistaken engineering analysis demonstrating the impossibility of flight. (See below.)

Another common example is the use of the Halting Problem to rule out the entire notion of tools for detecting bugs in software. (Yes, I've had professors tell me this flat-out.) The Halting Problem doesn't rule out such programs, it only demonstrates that they can't be perfect. To date, there are lots of tools that do an imperfect but still valuable job, to the point where people can even charge for them.

<http://www.microquill.com/heapagent/ha_comp.htm>

A major area where basic principles are misunderstood is in security. It's a truism that no security is perfect. However, it doesn't follow that no one is able to do online banking without instantly being hacked and robbed. Yet many who find the previous idea ridiculous also think that all "DRM doesn't work." That's simply not true. While it's true that all DRM can eventually be broken, it's not true that all of it instantly evaporates on contact with the internet. Breaking DRM involves a certain cost. If enough people are "willing to pay" the cost, then it will be broken. This is almost always true for big- budget hollywood movies. It's certainly not true for all digital content.

\---- Professor Joseph Le Conte's mistaken engineering analysis

 _Put these three indisputable facts together:

One: There is a low limit of weight, certainly not much beyond 50 pounds, beyond which it is impossible for an animal to fly. Nature has reached this limit, and with her utmost effort has failed to pass it.

Two: The animal machine is far more effective than any we can hope to make.; therefore the limit of the weight of a successful flying machine can not be more than fifty pounds.

Three: The weight of any machine constructed for flying, including fuel and engineer, cannot be less than three or four hundred pounds. Is it not demonstrated that a true flying machine, self-raising, self-sustaining, self- propelling, is physically impossible?

— Joseph Le Conte, Professor of Natural History at the University of California, Popular Science Monthly, November 1888_

<comment><USER9> I find Le Conte's reasoning interesting. It's almost seductive even now. He's absolutely right that we don't have systems which approach the efficiency of the "animal machine".

But that efficiency is due to our remarkable performances on nothing but a few grams of low-grade fuel. It doesn't say anything about what would happen if you had some really high-grade fuel.

Sugar has about 18.8 joules per gram. Kerosene, which was pretty well known in 1888, has almost 46 000 joules per gram.

Perhaps we can extract some general principles about prediction from that, like: _given a complex enough system, if one factor changes by two or more orders of magnitude, previously observed behavior is useless as a guide to the future._ I'm fudging on 'complex enough', though. Trigonometry works just fine with triangles the size of pencils or skyscrapers, but predicting the scope of inventions doesn't seem to work well when one factor changes radically.

<comment><USER10> The 18.8 number is kilojoules / gram (food energy).

The real limit is our ability to burn huge amounts of it. Even a small plane burns over 1 lb / minute, which would be a shocking metabolism for an animal.

<comment><USER9> Damn, sorry about that, and thanks for the correction. So the real difference between petroleum derivatives and sugars isn't the energy content so much as the power you can generate? In layman's terms, the kablooie factor?

That puts Le Conte's error in even more perspective. Imagine if you said to him in 1888 "...but what if you had access to vast, cheap supplies of high- grade fuel which you burned off at a rate of 1 lb per minute?" He'd look at you like you were an idiot. Now your heavier-than-air craft is carrying several hundred pounds of fuel too, just to stay aloft for a few hours? And what do you do when you get where you are going?

Does this mean Le Conte's real failure isn't energy calculations, but predicting the availability of such fuel? In other words, it's all economics?

I had another comment about "toys" versus "tools for real work" in this thread. Maybe that's another defining element of "toys", the difficulty of maintenance and the lack of ubiquitous infrastructure. Only rich or eccentric people are going to take the trouble to provide infrastructure for their own machines, so it becomes by definition a "toy". Like planes or cars in the early 20th century.

Okay, is this a new heuristic? We look for devices which are fun or useful but impractical because right now, enthusiasts have to provide their own infrastructure at great cost?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My favorite quote like this is from Ed Colligan, who was at the time the CEO of Palm. When asked in late 2006 about the prospect of Apple entering the mobile phone market: "We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in."

<comment><USER12> To be fair (and tease a bit), one can argue that Apple didn't make a decent /phone/ until this verizon deal :-P

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> "In my own time there have been inventions of this sort, transparent windows, tubes for diffusing warmth equally through all parts of a building, short-hand which has been carried to such a pitch of perfection that a writer can keep pace with the most rapid speaker. But the inventing of such things is drudgery for the lowest slaves; philosophy lies deeper... \- Roman poet Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.E.-65 C.E.)"

This quote is in a way a direct refutation of the work done by many here in programming, and this perspective has its merits and flaws. But I don't see exactly how its a prediction of anything.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, that seems to just be a subjective judgment, based on information that he did in fact have. I suspect many people here think Roman-era technology (transparent windows, tubes for diffusing warmth, aqueducts, etc.) is at least as interesting as Rome's contribution to philosophy and literature. Seneca disagreed. But neither view has a lot to do with predictions. It's not as if he was arguing that technological inventions could never have a big impact, and then history proved him wrong. He saw many inventions in his own day that _did_ have a big impact; he was just arguing that philosophy is nonetheless a higher calling. If that's wrong, it's for reasons other than being a misprediction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This just shows how difficult prediction is. For every one of these, there is an equally wrong wildly positive prediction.

A few of those are included, like von Neumann's "nuclear power will make energy free!" prediction.

The future will surprise. It will surprise us by what is possible, and by what isn't.

<comment><USER8> We entrepreneurs can actually analyze his mistake and profit from it!

In this case, it was just mental laziness. Yes, even John von Neumann can be guilty of this. E=mc^2 implies a freaking huge ratio in your favor. That makes nuclear energy seem of "virtually limitless" abundance for the same reason that nuclear bombs seem like "virtually unstoppable" weapons. Yet, simple ball bearings or a complex mechanism like an Orion rocket pusher plate can survive close proximity to a nuclear explosion with some judicious engineering. If John von Neumann started looking closely at nuclear energy in the broader context of our industrial and political infrastructure, he might have come to a different conclusion.

My conclusion is this: One of the best places for opportunities to hide is in the mistaken popular applications of basic principles and physical laws. This isn't to say that those principles and laws are incorrect, just that the way most people apply them either doesn't go far enough, or fails to also include an economic analysis.

This tells us how to look for opportunities hiding behind other common misapplications of principles. (Not necessarily ones involved in nuclear energy.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> These three arguments against the use of gas street lights in 1878 demonstrate why change is so difficult, even today:

1) Theological: It is an intervention in God's order, which makes nights dark...

2) Medical: It will be easier for people to be in the streets at night, afflicting them with colds...

3) Philosophical-moral: Morality deteriorates through street lighting. Artificial lighting drives out fear of the dark, which keeps the weak from sinning...

<comment><USER17> I actually came to discuss the _relative_ merits of this perspective.

Raise your hand if you have a sleep disorder...

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Mathematics is inadequate to describe the universe"

The jury is still out on that one.

<comment><USER19> And that is just the first half of the quote. It goes on:

 _Also, mathematics may predict things which don't exist, or are impossible in nature._

As a former _experimental_ physicist I can't help but notice how true this is. ;)

<comment><USER20> Physicists deal with impossible things every day - light is a particle And a wave, far-away objects can be receeding faster than the speed of light.

<comment><USER21> How are they impossible if they are happening?

<comment><USER20> In the macroscopic world, they make no sense.

Somebody said "the Universe isn't just stranger than you imagine; its stranger than you Can imagine"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> _Computers in the future may...perhaps only weigh 1.5 tons._

That's hardly a howler is it?! I see nothing suggesting that 1.5 tons is the endpoint or that we'll be using heavy computers in The Year 2000.

Will those people suggesting we'd one day have a supercomputer in our pockets be laughed at when we have microscopic omniputers floating around our then- useless brains?

<comment><USER23> Professor Frink's (from The Simpsons) prediction on where computers would be in one hundred years:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE7mi-gdIYw>

<comment><USER24> One comment (on youtube) says this is from a radio show during the 40's; is "The Simpsons" that old?

<comment><USER25> No. That was from one of the episodes (recent, a few years ago) but I can't remember which episode.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Many of these are not even predictions, and most are badly sourced and out of context. E.g. the guy who foresaw no further progress for engines of war in 84 CE was definitely right for the next few hundred years.

But one quotation that I'm really taking issue with is the one about Sir Walter Scott dismissing public gas lighting. Far from that, Scott was actually a dedicated promoter of gas lighting in its early years, as evidenced by his tenure as the First Chairman of the Edinburgh Gas Street Lighting Company:

<http://www.scotlandmag.com/magazine/issue30/12007614.html>

But when was a little bit of historical research an obstacle in the way of feeling good at the expense of people who lived hundreds of years ago?

</comment><comment><USER27> _This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but the sacred scripture tells us [Joshua 10:13] that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, not the earth._

Whenever I see that quote I picture Martin Luther as the "Get A BRAIN! MORANS" guy.

</comment><comment><USER28> I've lurked Hacker News for a long time, but never posted or commented until now. This is one of the most inspirational things I've ever read. Thank you for posting.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> _Animals, which move, have limbs and muscles. The earth does not have limbs and muscles; therefore it does not move._

I wonder if this sounded as dumb back then as it does now? What about things that do not move under their own power, yet move nonetheless, such as waves and wind? What about flowers that close every night and open in every morning? What about the fact that they knew almost nothing about the earth deeper than the tiniest scratch on its surface -- perhaps there _are_ muscles of a sort under there?

What about the "fact," as they would have seen it, that God can make anything move however he wants, and that he might have a special mechanism that makes planets and stars move but does not apply the same way to things on Earth? And did he really believe that the moon and stars have limbs and muscles?

I think this illustrates how people can get away with any possible idiocy as long as they are on the right side of an issue. This is why scientists care about the timing of publication: they look a lot more competent if they publish their results at a time when everyone will tend to believe they are correct, instead of at a time when everyone will pick their paper apart looking for flaws (or simply assume the flaws are there.)

<comment><USER30> This statement is a clear and obvious logical fallacy, and should have appeared as such to contemporary audiences. He is saying that Animals have (limbs => they move) => (the Earth does not have limbs => it does not move). But the latter is the inverse of the former, which must be proven separately and which is not implied by the conditional.

<comment><USER31> As I commented below, I expect the translation "move" makes it sound worse than it did in the original. If he means "are self-propelled" or "are mobile", it's slight less wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The most interesting predictions at least got right what would be the hard parts of the problem. Simon Newcombe's full article points to landing as the most difficult part of flying, which turned out to be the case. Landing technique depends on ground effect and stall, which wasn't well understood.

I'm still amazed that people spend so much time staring at plywood boxes.

</comment><comment><USER9> A common theme of failed predictions is the "X are interesting toys, but not suitable for Y" statement. Let's unpack that statement.

A toy is something which fascinates the mind in some way. An "interesting toy" suggests something that has a scope of operation within some small realm. I'll posit that Legos are an "interesting toy" whereas a toy car is "just a toy".

Substituted, this is now "X are things which have great possibilities within a smaller realm of operation, but are not suitable for Y".

The problem should now be obvious. The next question is to ask what it would take to scale the X's realm up. If it's economically feasible, it _will_ happen.

The use of "toy" is the rhetorical trick here, because it implies the thing in question has permanently limited scope, and it might not be. (There's also the implied put-down, that those who find them worthwhile are childish.)

So what things today are "interesting toys" but not suitable for "real work"? Mobile devices? Social networks?

<comment><USER32> The underlying fallacy is in imagining that there is some strict segregation between "toys" and tools. When a tool is too expensive and only moderately practical it is deemed a toy. But toys of such sort can become cheaper and evolve in function and scale, becoming imminently practical in the process. Many of the most practical tools began as toys of such sort: the steam engine, the automobile, the airplane, the laser, the rocket, personal computer, etc.

Today the premier example would be mobile devices and mobile OS tablets. They have enormous potential, even the potential to replace traditional PCs, but today they are often regarded as toys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> _Two years later we ourselves made flights. This demonstration of my impotence as a prophet gave me such a shock that ever since I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions._ Wilbur Wright

Isn't the below an over-optimistic failed prediction?

 _a few decades hence, energy may be free—just like the unmetered air...._ John von Neumann

</comment><comment><USER34> The first quotation, from Lucius Annaeus Seneca, contains no prediction.

</comment><comment><USER35> Sometimes you are glad that they were wrong and sometimes you are sad that they were not right.

 _Automobiles will start to decline almost as soon as the last shot is fired in World War II. The name of Igor Sikorsky will be as well known as Henry Ford's, for his helicopter will all but replace the horseless carriage as the new means of popular transportation. Instead of a car in every garage, there will be a helicopter.... These 'copters' will be so safe and will cost so little to produce that small models will be made for teenage youngsters. These tiny 'copters, when school lets out, will fill the sky as the bicycles of our youth filled the prewar roads._

<comment><USER15> You really want your typical driver flying around in a helicopter?

I think this is the reason we don't have flying cars. We could build them. We could do a lot of things. But nobody _really_ wants them, given the danger they would pose. (Energy constraints are probably another reason, but secondary. There are flying car prototypes that get MPG numbers comparable to SUVs.)

<comment><USER36> Any flying car system I can conceive of would be vastly safer than the bloodbath caused by non-flying cars.

And yes, we want them. Many times faster than ground transport, safely usable by any person young or old, no congestion, frees up the ground for other uses. Feasibiliy aside, it would be undeniably utopian.

<comment><USER37> I'm assuming your hypothetical flying cars transporting people around cities are dramatically safer than today's general aviation (light aircraft piloted largely by well-trained enthusiasts and professionals in controlled environments).

If I had to bet it would be on the "driverless" car.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> If I threw together a quick Android/iPhone app that allowed for user contributed geek/hacker/internets quotes that we could all contribute to, would anyone care? There are a couple out there but I'd prefer one community based which had entires that didn't suck. Free of course.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why limit to Adroid/iPhone? Maybe a website (which can be accessed from the mobile) is a better idea.

On a second thought, isn't bash.org exactly that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> _(self-promotion)_ I wrote a somewhat related post a few days ago (Twitter predictions in the early days): <http://syskall.com/twttr-and-the-benefit-of- hindsight>

</comment><comment><USER40> "When an experienced scientist says something is impossible, they are almost always wrong. When an experienced scientist says something is possible, they are almost always right" - my memory, but almost certainly somebody else first

</comment><comment><USER41> a friend who is MD/owner of a cloud storage service for corporate told me that his career teacher at school told him not to do computers as a subject as they would never take over.. this was in the early 90s

</comment><comment><USER42> My problem isn't in people wanting things that are impossible (at first glance), the problem is they want them done in so short an amount of time that they are impossible.

</comment><comment><USER43> One of the automobile quotes is false[1]

[1] <http://www.snopes.com/history/document/horseless.asp>

</comment><comment><USER44> Prediction is hard. Even more so if it is about the future.

</comment><comment><USER45> Great collection! And the Lock Haven url made me smile.

</comment><comment><USER3> My favorite has always been the one by Wilbur Wright:

"I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years. Two years later we ourselves made flights. This demonstration of my impotence as a prophet gave me such a shock that ever since I have distrusted myself and avoided all predictions."

</comment><comment><USER46> Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. \- Lord Kelvin

I wonder how he explained birds?</comment>


Why I no longer contribute to StackOverflow - <AUTHOR> http://michael.richter.name/blogs/why-i-no-longer-contribute-to-stackoverflow?

<comment><USER2> Old. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6990570](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6990570) has all the original discussions.

The post is ~10 months old now, but still reads as if written in October of 2014.

To further solidify his points on the gamification of Stack Exchange, the author's reputation's grown another 5,000 points since his blog post, though his sole new contribution to the site is the addition of one small question with 3 upvotes.

<comment><USER3> Not meaning to sound snarky but it isn't this growth pattern reminiscent of a pyramid scheme ?

Obviously I'm not suggesting SO is a pyramid scheme, but if that's how the reputation system works surely it's an indication that it's broken fundamentally.

<comment><USER4> A lot of time when you need to check out some detail about the syntax or standard functions of some popular programming language, you won't start going through the TOC of the manual, you just google it. And usually the first hit is a SO answer. And quite often the answer is good. So why not click an upvote, even if the answer already had some hundreds of upvotes.

So the answers that keep turning up as first hits in google searches, keep gathering upvotes.

<comment><USER5> Surely the simple solution there is to disable voting on answers once they reach a certain age?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Funds Back Proposal to Remove Zuckerberg as Facebook Chairman - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/funds-back-proposal-to-remove-zuckerberg-as-facebook-chairman-1539789440 <comment><USER2> I always thought it was weird that it was possible for someone to be both an executive at a company and have a seat on the board. I know this is a common thing in the tech industry, it just seems weird to me. In theory the board exists to provide oversight of the executives on behalf of the shareholders, so having the CEO on the board is a natural conflict of interest.

<comment><USER3> If you think that's weird ... I've done some reading of the Facebook public legal documents.

Facebook control passes to his heir from what I read ... like a feudal monarchy. Let the games begin!

<comment><USER4> Well yes, because he owns more than 50% of the voting stock. That's how ownership works. This isn't "Facebook has a rule that says the ceo is replaced by his child", it's a matter of "Facebook ceo owns more than 50% of voting stock, and is leaving it to his family". Feudal is: irrespective of ownership, control is hereditary. (Monarchies generally don't own more than 50% of the assets in a country)

The alternative would be to prohibit leaving assets to your family in your will.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> And so it begins. The Facebook backlash finally reaches the shareholders. Grab some popcorn, the next few quarters are going to be decidedly interesting for anyone long on FB.

</comment><comment><USER6> [http://archive.is/MYLmJ](http://archive.is/MYLmJ)

</comment><comment><USER7> curious to see if this moves the stock

</comment><comment><USER8> Clickbait title. From the WSJ article covering the same story:

 _The announcement has no practical effect on Mr. Zuckerberg and his position as both CEO and chairman because he has a lock on the bulk of Facebook's supervoting shares, each of which gives him 10 times the votes of average shareholders. According to Facebook's latest proxy, his share of the voting power among Facebook investors was 59.9%._

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/funds-back-proposal-to- remove-z...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/funds-back-proposal-to-remove- zuckerberg-as-facebook-chairman-1539789440)

<comment><USER9> Until the SEC strips his supervoting rights as part of the settlement for some scandal.

<comment><USER10> There is an extra step: When the SEC sues him, ..

and trades in the dirt they have on him for his supervoting rights in a settlement, then ...</comment></comment></comment>


Why you should Never work for a startup - <AUTHOR> http://blog.quoteroller.com/2013/11/26/never-work-startup/

<comment><USER2> Continuing the myth that startups should be dynamic, energetic places where everyone happily works 12 hours a day using unproven, bleeding edge technology to build exciting solutions to do _important things_.

Nonsense. Some startups are like that, sure, but they don't have to be. You can be successful working 8 hours a day, 3 days a week, using boring old technology to do wholly unimportant things if you've identified a real problem and built a real solution to it. That's what makes a successful business - making something people will pay for. The only thing you _need_ to be in a startup is the willingness to take a risk working in a company that's more likely to fail than one that's already gone through the pain of finding customers and revenue. Every company was a startup once.

Being in a startup isn't about your life, your energy, your focus, where your capital comes from, or your choice of tools - startups are about starting a business to sell something to people. End of story. That's it. The entire 'lifestyle' side of things is a choice. Some people choose to work long hours using unproven tech. Some people don't. Neither option is right for all.

Furthermore, I'm beginning to doubt the idea that longer hours equate to better chances of success. On paper it makes sense - you can do more if you're working for longer - but the reality is that your productivity falls away after a certain amount of time, to the point where it's actually negatively impacts what you're doing (especially in coding). Having people who can go home at the end of a normal day, switch off, and come in again the following day to carry on ticking things off the to-do list _day after day after day getting things done_ is what gets products out the door. Not long hours or being anti-luddite.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Why these posts should Never appear on HN"

</comment><comment><USER4> Isn't the correct title:

>You should never work for a startup, if...

?</comment>


Ask HN: Why can't you vote using an app or website in 2018? - <AUTHOR> I understand it takes a minute to vote, however, in the digital age why are we not voting via a digital medium?<p>Is it politics, regulations, lack of technology in this space? What would it take to move to using a digital mechanism to vote? <comment><USER2> There's no proposal for a digital system that's as reliable, secure and transparent as traditional paper-based voting.

See also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18399145](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18399145) from today and many other HN discussions around elections.

</comment><comment> java-man Or, a better question: how may different ways one can subvert the vote done via app or a web site?

A good engineer spends most of his/her time thinking not about happy paths but how the thing might fail (and the ways to guard against the failure).</comment>


Y Combinator, Silicon Valley's Start-Up Machine - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/magazine/y-combinator-silicon-valleys-start-up-machine.html?pagewanted=all <comment><USER3> "In the weeks and months following Demo Day, those few who fail to attract enough interest must decide whether to begin a new company, find employment at Google or Facebook or persist and grow "organically" — an unsightly word in the valley of silicon."

Really? That's it? Get funding or go home?

Man. Those crazy entrepreneurs who persist and grow "organically." So unsightly.

</comment><comment><USER4> Good article. As a yc alum who's idea(s) didn't succeed (yet), it's pretty much on point on a lot of things.

There is one thing factually wrong, or at least incomplete .. you don't get $100k (formerly $170k) for 7%. You get $11-20k for 2-10% plus $80k (formerly $150k) at an uncapped valuation. Usually that % will be low.

The fundamental epiphany of YC/pg is that that we are no where _near_ the limit on the # of startups .. and that encouraging hackers to become entrepreneurs is a win-win for hackers, investors, users and the world in general. YC will (continue to) be incredibly successful as long as it remains faithful to this.

Also, never knew about pg's fear of flying .. very cool and inspiring thing to learn.

</comment><comment><USER5> The tone and diction of the article really struck me as odd and unusual.

1\. The heavy-handed metaphorical comparison of YC to a summer camp: "During that time, campers, or founders, have regular meetings with each of Y.C.'s counselors, or partners," "The director of this camp," " basketball-court-size dining hall,"

2\. "The Y.C. term culminates with Demo Day, or D Day." N̶o̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶c̶a̶l̶l̶s̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶D̶ ̶D̶a̶y̶.̶

3\. "or persist and grow 'organically' — an unsightly word in the valley of silicon." - The correct word would be "bootstrap." - and it's a totally acceptable word in the tech circles I've been in.

EDIT: Ah, I stand corrected. I worked at a YC company in the past and I had never heard anyone (the YC founders I met) call Demo Day as D-Day. The snark is really uncalled for.

<comment><USER6> You mean nobody calls it dday besides Paul Graham, _all the time_.

There's a convenient little box you can ask for confirmation of that right at the bottom of this very page.

<comment><USER7> I've never heard pg actually call it "dday"; I didn't even realize he'd used it in writing on demo day a lot. I honestly would have assumed a reference to WW2 or some kind of military attack if someone said "are you ready for D-Day?" even in a startup context, or _maybe_ a reference to a specific company's launch day, not demo day (by which time most companies have launched)

<comment><USER6> All I'm saying is, you see the New York Times call YC Demo Day "D. Day" and then someone says they got it wrong because "nobody" calls it "D. Day" and your first response might be to go check that fact out, since that would be an extraordinarily weird mistake for them to make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This article kind of reminds me of the stories bands and actors used to tell about hollywood. Moving somewhere, living cheap then hitting it big - <USER2> on a shorter timeframe.

"How can a company that earns no money be worth a billion dollars?" - Hotmail. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it :)

<comment><USER9> You mean HoTMaiL?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> _It's because of this power law: If a company has a 1 percent chance of being a hundred-billion-dollar company, then it's worth about a billion dollars_

Really, is this a power law? Looks to me like a simplistic application of expected value.

<comment><USER11> Also nobody really has even a 1% chance at becoming a 100B company. There have been very few of those in human history, the odds are << 1% even for a top YC company.

<comment><USER12> You're forgetting that they are talking about the companies getting $1B valuations, not all startups. If you line up 100 companies that are Instagrams, Pinterests, Facebooks (when it was valued at $1B), etc, one of them getting to $100B can absolutely be a 1% chance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Having made several angel investments, I can tell you my eyes kind of roll when I hear the billion dollar valuation. It's very apparent when a startup has taken the number 1 billion and then just divided it by the potential number of users for its particular product and then by 12 months to come up with the monthly cost of the service. The last investment we made presented numbers that were far more modest, but we knew the team seemed highly capable and respected their honest assessment, so we went with it.

<comment><USER14> Do you mean TAM instead of valuation? That's a very strange way (if that's the only way) of defining a startup's valuation. Also, surely you wouldn't be angel investing in anything with a valuation anywhere near $1B, you'd never make any money.

<comment><USER13> Correct, i meant tam, not valuation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Previous submission with some comments:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5643426>

</comment><comment><USER16> Why did Teespring take $1.3M in funding if they were on pace to make $1M the following month? Why dilute your pool when your figure was just a month away (plus whatever else was saved)

anyone have any insight?

<comment><USER17> Hi there - Walker from Teespring here. Both rdl and earbitscom are right. We took money to give ourselves the cushion we need to scale and aim big, and we raised it from people we believe can make a difference to our business.

I'm writing a follow up to my first blog post (wiwillia.com) where I'll get a little more into the details of why we chose to raise.

<comment><USER16> cool. I liked part I. Looking forward to the follow up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Why are some investors losing interest in YC companies? It's not only noted in this article, but was also a topic of discussion after this past demo day. Is it because YC seems to be investing in less startups 'trying to hit the home run' like Airbnb, Dropbox, arguably Stripe now? To me, it's somewhat confusing because the companies are still solving pretty darn realistic problems and are doing so uniquely.

[edit] this comment was posted (somewhat so) in the hopes that one of the partners will respond with their thoughts and if they plan to address this and if so, how so?

<comment><USER19> Because whenever a reporter asks investors at Demo Day for a comment, and they ask themselves "what could I say that would be in my interest to have reprinted?" the obvious choice is "prices are coming down."

And it's not true, incidentally. We don't have all the data yet but it's clear valuations remained high last batch.

<comment><USER20> If they make it a meme, eventually valuations will go down, as VCs will be influenced by the general "mood"(at least a portion of them will).

<comment><USER21> Hey, did you hear the suit is back?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is really great. I worked along side these guys (strikingly) in the same cafe in SF, hacking away for a while before they got into YC. These guys are humble and really doing it right.

They took what others just see as a clone of weebly and have added enough USP to prove that it's all execution. They had customers even while sitting in the little Cafe in SF and have growing fast through sheer force of will ! Biggest thing, humble, not afraid to ask for help and thick as thieves.

These guys are what every entrepreneur should be trying to attain in a team !

<comment><USER23> Do you know when Strikingly launched?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Spot on account of what pre demo day is like. Its been well over a year since demo day (W12), but reading that account was like reliving it all over as if it happened yesterday.

</comment><comment><USER25> Amazing article! What I find particularly interesting in this is not that it highlights how awesome YC is and all that talk (I'm not saying that YC isn't awesome, I'm much inclined to believe that it is) but how startups offer a way for individuals to work with that they like more and how more and more people are embracing entrepreneurship and how technology plays such an important field in this.

</comment><comment><USER26> ...and now I have to sign up for hang gliding lessons. I also developed a fear of flying suddenly (after having flown something like 250k miles).

</comment><comment><USER27> Now that's one inspiring story. $1600 a month in the Bay Area for 3 people? Holy shit. You gotta wonder how these guys did it...

<comment><USER28> It's doable but, as you would expect, it requires an extremely spartan lifestyle. I'm running about $500/month in SF and am no stranger couch surfing, lots of roommates, sleeping in my car, and (intelligently) fasting, etc. I could theoretically go even lower by purchasing lower quality food but I'm not willing to compromise my health.

Once you've seen the worst-scenario first-hand you realize it's not _that_ bad, and you can shoot for the moon without any fear.

<comment><USER29> > and (intelligently) fasting,

Go to the hinterland once a month for cheap gorging on good food; fast the rest of the month in SF?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Probably the best article about YC I have read.

Not sure if that's saying much given how many I read, but perhaps it is :)

<comment><USER31> I agree, it was beautifully written. I'll be looking for Mr. Rich's novel on the strength of it.

<comment><USER32> He's actually Frank Rich's son, so if you like his father, you'll probably take a liking to Nate's prose, too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> [http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1dl6uz/coinlab_sues...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1dl6uz/coinlab_sues_mtgox/)

</comment><comment><USER34> On firefox aurora it runs between 40 and 60 fps (intel hd 2000 ). The dedicated memory (65 mb) of that card is all the time the limit.

</comment><comment><USER35> When they keep referring to $100,000 investments for 7%, this is a typo right? (YC usually does ~$10k)

<comment><USER7> They mean $80k for YC VC ($20k each from Yuri Milner, Andreessen Horowitz, General Catalyst, and Maverick Capital) plus the $14-20k from YC itself.

The ~$20k is for 7% (of common stock); the $80k is under START Note terms, essentially convertible debt which inherits the cap/discount of the next note you do. It's conceivable that just means an uncapped note, so adds onto your Series A.

<comment><USER36> Do all the startups get the ~$80k VC money? And is that at the beginning of the batch or at the end?

(This part isn't mentioned like the $14-20k funding is <http://ycombinator.com/apply.html>)

<comment><USER7> Everyone is offered it; as far as I know everyone has always taken it. I got mine around early July of the summer batch; I assume it's roughly the same still. If you really needed it early I'm sure you could arrange that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Imagine if we could crowd fund this event!.. sigh.

<comment><USER38> Do you mean there's a need for <https://wefunder.com/> ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> pg, did this article accurately portray the YC process?

</comment><comment><USER40> q: I wonder why Nikes are shunned in favor of Asics?

</comment><comment><USER41> french, unemployed guy here.

I envy you guys

</comment><comment><USER42> Guess this one looks like a post enthusiasm state but here is what I think is going on lately (Disclaimer: I am an entrepreneur, I feel this, so please take it all with a pinch of salt):

It seems that the race to get into a coveted program like YC has become crowded. Almost every other startup that I met during last one year (50 odd in two cycles) had applied to the YC program [premise-A], some gotten the interview [premise-B] and some gotten into the program [premise-C].

 _Role of premise - A_ : Crowded race makes way for best YC 'applications', and I have seen PG/YC liking the way the quality of applications have gone up. Sure. However, the quality of application does not necessarily reflect the quality of technology startup.

There are several areas where these two indices are not aligned perfectly:

For example, there are people who can write and tell really high quality stories, given the amount of time at hand, but they're the ones who should probably be doing literature and not technology startup (rant?). Then there are other have-nots: The statistical bias of past YC batches seem to be away from the relatively older entrepreneurs or heterogeneous teams. This leaves out a bunch of gems.

Long story short: A crowded race forces not-so-great start-ups to focus on getting into the program successfully and the great-ones to keep out/avoid/shy away and focus on building their business instead. And sometimes lose on what could have otherwise been a great partnership.

Then the process is in two batches. Great companies were not built in batches so there seems to be a process conflict. Someone who is feeling great about their startup in June-July would be depressed by December when winter applications reopen. Perhaps a rolling-in applications model [1]?

 _Role of premise - B_ : I know a couple of really awesome guys who went for their interviews and came back with a no. While there would have been genuine reasons, or simply bad luck, for these people getting rejected but I saw at least a few of them outgrowing their 'pariah' status and deciding to go for it and build it all by themselves. Cockroaches?

How should I put this? This situation is like a river flowing across the plains. The river-bed gives shape and path to the flowing water, but flowing water too, in the long run, gives shape to the river bed and alters its course.

 _Role of premise - C_ : There is role of who gets in, how many get in and how they do it. Given that the size of batches have gone up, I do believe that number of sentences exchanged with PG/partners per startup must have gone down. Or it is skewed between the white and black swans. And that could be a huge set-back for some. Make-or-break fluctuations are so tiny and yet so important. Even though this is a scalability challenge for an accelerator program like YC, but I guess there has to be a hard limit on how many are taken in. Which is bad because there is no limit on the number of applications though.

I guess writing more on this will take a lot of time. These are some of the thoughts which I am sure are well understood at the combinator. It's just an outside-in view from where I am coming from.

[1] <http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/18/how-instacart-hacked-yc/> [writing in progress]

<comment><USER19> "Given that the size of batches have gone up, I do believe that number of sentences exchanged with PG/partners per startup must have gone down."

I didn't read this whole comment, but that part at least is false, because we've hired new partners at a higher rate than batches have grown. We now have 5 people doing for 50-startup batches what I used to do alone for 20-startup batches.

<comment><USER43> A reasonable heuristic. In which case, what was the ratio of sentences read to ignored in this particular instance?

<comment><USER44> Looks like hn_id of monsterix has been banned. Didn't expect this from site admins because what he said above was within quality of discussions normally seen here, and his questions are genuine.

It's kind of sad that admins are unable to take criticism or face real questions and are overreacting to it.

<comment><USER15> There was a log-in code change on HN today that made a lot of people think they were site-banned,

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5650171>

but in fact they were not. The comments of the user you mention do not appear dead to me (I have showdead turned on).

<comment><USER42> I am pretty much back in. Yes, there was some problem last night and some of the lines I edited/wrote got lost when I hit submit. Couldn't login for a long time thereafter, and unfortunately misunderstood the situation.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Something like Khan Academy but full curriculum for grade schoolers? - <AUTHOR> Khan Academy continually gets held up as a great resource for online courses across the age spectrum for math related subjects.  With the continuing pandemic continuing to grow in the US and schools not really sure how to handle things, the GF and I are looking into other options.<p>Is there a recommended resource that gives unbiased (as possible) reviews for middle school (7-8th grade) curriculum?  Searching these days really doesn't bring up quality, just options one has to comb through. <comment><USER2> I'm a teacher with 15 years of experience and an edtech entrepreneur. I've reviewed thousands of secular homeschool programs for accuracy and quality. We're working on developing unbiased reviews of all of our favorites, but here are a few great all-in-one programs to get you started. All mastery-based, all secular and aligned with state standards. In general, these also combine hands-on projects with online learning, involve little to no prep time and minimal parent involvement in learning, with some element of personalization.

Critical Thinking Co [https://www.modulo.app/all- resources/criticalthinkingco](https://www.modulo.app/all- resources/criticalthinkingco)

Oak Meadow [https://www.modulo.app/all- resources/oakmeadow](https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/oakmeadow)

Time4Learning [https://www.modulo.app/all- resources/time4learning](https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/time4learning)

Moving Beyond the Page [https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/moving-beyond- the-page](https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/moving-beyond-the-page)

It's usually good to supplement with a math program, if your child is gifted or has special needs. Here is a review I wrote on what I consider to be the best math programs out there for parents doing learning from home. [https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/the-best-math- programs-...](https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/the-best-math-programs-for- home-educators)

And here are my 50 favorites:) [https://www.modulo.app/all- resources/50favorites](https://www.modulo.app/all-resources/50favorites)

I would also be happy to give free advice to you (or any family reading this) for your particular situation. Feel free to reach out to me via my website if you'd like more personalized recommendations and we can find a time to chat:) [https://www.modulo.app/](https://www.modulo.app/)

<comment><USER3> Do you have resources for religious curriculum as opposed to secular? We are Hindu but I have had good luck relating with Christian resources

<comment><USER4> I am curious; what exactly do you mean by "religious curriculum" ? As a Hindu myself, i know of only the traditional "Gurukuls/Patashalas".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've done a lot of research on this topic, the short answer to your question is [https://artofproblemsolving.com/](https://artofproblemsolving.com/)

But during my research I came across the idea of "Computational Math/Thinking" which throws away the entire concept of learning Math/Science in the normal order

Pre Algebra > Algebra I > Geometry > Algebra II > Trig > etc

It takes more of a real life problem solving approach, which I understand isn't exactly innovative in and of itself but prioritizes using the computer for the calculation part of math.

Of course the process of using a pencil and paper to calculate an equation in probably 90% of the work in traditional curriculum. When you outsource this tedious part to software (like you would in real life) that leaves room for setting up bigger problems that literally cannot be calculated by hand.

[https://www.computerbasedmath.org/](https://www.computerbasedmath.org/) is a great resource for more info on this "computational" education

<comment><USER6> Also along these lines is the Bootstrap curriculum: [https://www.bootstrapworld.org/](https://www.bootstrapworld.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Prenda (YC S19) has a full curriculum with support and tools for the parents, k-8. More info here: [https://prendaschool.com/prenda- family](https://prendaschool.com/prenda-family)

<comment><USER8> > While we believe in the power of microchools

I'm forgiving of typos and such things, but as you are marketing a school, you might want to check your spelling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ed Hirsh Jr has these guides What Your ___ grader needs to know. I know I have seen it up to 6th grade, but I am not sure if there is a version for 7th and 8th.

My daughter uses ixl.com at school and it covers all the way up to 12th grade. Its is essentially adaptive learning. So this is good for doing practice problems. All the topics listed there are ones kids are expected to know for the respective grade level. So you could use this as a map.

I have also been supplementing her education with workbooks. I have a few other ideas to make some practical learning lessons with electronics and chemistry. We already do Scratch programming.

<comment><USER10> I have a love-hate relationship with the Hirsch books:

1\. Much (all?) of the content covers topics that are useful to know, imho.

2\. The whole idea of just spamming content is an incredibly reductionist approach to education. There is much more to learn out there.

3\. Hirsch's approaches to cultural literacy are tough for some folks to follow. On the surface, it sounds very oppressive. A slightly deeper look would say that it is a realist approach. A deep academic look would say that it misses a lot of what is probably possible in education and is focused on looking back rather than looking forward.

I do recommend folks check out his books and see if it floats your boat, but I also recommend that they don't assume that they are complete as is in terms of what kids actually need to learn and know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would check in with a local homeschooling Facebook group for 1-on-1 support. We've been homeschooling our kids. The 7 and 9 year old use Kahn Academy for math, which works really well. They also have grammar options they have started.

My opinion is that a "complete" education through 8th grade is a nebulous goal. Reading, writing, math, history, art, life experiences, etc. are important.

<comment><USER12> Also homeschooling, also not trying to compete with academics for "complete" education.

I try to make sure all aspects of the person are engaged:

\- Creativity

\- Intelligence

\- Athleticism

\- Philosophizing

\- Failing well (edit: aka encouraging ambitious goals)

\- Exposure to novel things

Kids direct themselves, I help them find resources and help them stay on track.

For example, to think (philosophize) well, you need history. But not just the history from the perspective of the victors. Not just what is "accepted" truth.

We read history books that are not really covered in curriculum (Mongols, Islam, China, India). We cover religions. We watch Ancient Aliens and talk about what obvious explanations they are missing.

But I would have never gone down this path for them had I not stopped going to high school myself, because it was a fucking nightmare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Students (pre-junior / senior year of high school for simplicity) need active role models in school and at home for appropriate overall development. The role models are typically teachers in school and parents at home.

That students are struggling to engage with digital content during home quarantine is expected. The good news is that students will adapt to digital content with time (within twelve months as a simple estimate), as unlike adults, they are more likely to normalize their behavior towards this environment and make it the routine for their education. The bad news is that no digital curriculum alone can replicate the classroom learning environment (even with its obvious systematic flaws) because mastery of learning content is a function of the learning environment as much as individual student motivation (until these students become independent learners). So parents homeschooling their children need to become more active role models for their children. The positive of this situation is that educated and empathetic parents can do a much better job of developing a secure environment for children than a classroom with thirty students and a cacophony of technology. The long-term mission for homeschooling parents is to develop "self-directed learners", and the first step is understanding, practicing, and celebrating "metacognition".

I will share this link, for core science experiential learning lessons, primarily for middle school students, which may complement textbook content, associated with the concepts: [https://science60.com/homeschooling](https://science60.com/homeschooling)

Good teachers and motivated parents can make any learning content work, from traditional textbooks to Khan Academy lessons.

</comment><comment><USER14> We homeschool our children and we also help run a homeschool academy. A lot of the kids love Outschool.

<comment><USER15> My wife is thinking about teaching on Outschool. What has been your experience with Outschool teachers, and what were the criteria for choosing a teacher?

<comment><USER14> All of the kids in our Academy have reported nothing but positive experiences with Outschool and really enjoy the courses. It's the first place we all look when augmenting their schooling outside of our Academy. If any of the various teachers had been bad, we would have heard about it. I can't speak to the selection criteria, only the perspective of students.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Look at EngageNY curriculum (which is really EL Education, Public Consulting Group, Eureka Math, Illustrative Math and a couple of other providers put together). It is pretty excellent, and free! You can also find curriculum from these individual providers separately.

Then, visit OpenUpResources. Same theme.

EdReports.org has curriculum reviewed to align with Common Core.

The above are mostly limited to ELA and Math, for Science, there is OpenSciEd, SCALE/SFUSD Middle School Curriculum, and Mystery Science, for Civics there is Annenberg Classroom, and rest of the social studies, I know some effort is going on, but can't quite remember where the curriculum might be.

The reason I know these is because I run opencurriculum.org (YC W14), and we are trying to bring this information under one roof.

<comment><USER17> I'm an engineer at Illustrative Mathematics. Here's what I know: Eureka Math is derived from EngageNY. Illustrative Mathematics is an openly licensed, freely available curriculum which was developed independently from EngageNY. You can learn more about it at [http://curriculum.illustrativemathematics.org](http://curriculum.illustrativemathematics.org).

<comment><USER16> Thank you for the wonderful work you do, cynicalloner!

<comment><USER17> Thanks! Cynical I may be but I do love our mission at IM.

And I'll just leave this here because at work we were all laughing our heads off about it. We joked about hiring the author to write practice problems for us. ;-)

[https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-broken-lives- behind-...](https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-broken-lives-behind-the- illustrative-math-word-problems).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My kids are younger than yours, so I can't say too much about curriculum for grades 7/8\. But having spent quite a bit of time in homeschooling groups during the lockdown (we are not homeschooling but had to supplement), I've noticed these curriculums get discussed a lot.

For language arts: Michael Clay Thompson (we are using this), Brave Writer, IEW. For maths, Beast Academy or Art of Problem Solving for your kids (we are also using this, huge fan, great for full-time homeschooling or after school supplements in my opinion), Saxon Maths (mixed reviews). Science takes more sifting since quite a few are religious.

I noted all the programs I came across (mostly through mentions in homeschooling groups) in a list in case it's interesting to anyone ([https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/132lzqsfGzUvo7iPGrvBN...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/132lzqsfGzUvo7iPGrvBNiTh3fR9riULQ8K_gMJK7p8k/edit?usp=sharing)), do filter for subject and age to get the relevant entries. It's work in progress so excuse the mess.

</comment><comment><USER19> K12 CS Framework (ACM, Code.org, [...]) [https://k12cs.org/](https://k12cs.org/)

Computing Curricula 2020 (ACM, IEEE,) [http://www.cc2020.net/](http://www.cc2020.net/)

Official SAT Practice (College Board, Khan Academy) [https://www.khanacademy.org/sat](https://www.khanacademy.org/sat)

[http://wrdrd.github.io/docs/consulting/software- development#...](http://wrdrd.github.io/docs/consulting/software- development#computer-science-curricula) (TODO: add link to cc2020 draft)

Programmer Competency Matrix: [http://sijinjoseph.com/programmer-competency- matrix/](http://sijinjoseph.com/programmer-competency-matrix/) , [https://competency-checklist.appspot.com/](https://competency- checklist.appspot.com/) , [https://github.com/hltbra/programmer-competency- checklist](https://github.com/hltbra/programmer-competency-checklist)

Re: Computational thinking [https://westurner.github.io/hnlog/#comment-15454421](https://westurner.github.io/hnlog/#comment-15454421)

Coding Interview University: [https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview- university](https://github.com/jwasham/coding-interview-university)

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm not sure about a full course. But I have a younger sibling going into 8th grade. He's been doing learning on IXL to supplement his education this summer. It offers different subjects like math, language/literature, science etc. He'll do that for 2-3 hours on weekdays.

<comment><USER21> As far as I can tell, the Math IXL system was designed to make people hate math.

Open-answer questions rarely specify the answer format, and will thus accept only one of 0.5, 0.50, .5, 1/2, 4/8 ... etc while rejecting all the rest. Then the next question will not keep the same format.

Points for correct answers add to your score, but not linearly; points for incorrect answers subtract from your score, but not linearly.

Endlessly frustrating.

<comment><USER22> I..am..so..with..you.

IXL is absolute garbage, as should be expected from any Pearson product. And the morons at Seattle Public Schools are dumping money into that dumpster fire like it's going out of style.

<comment><USER23> IXL engineer here. We're not a Pearson product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> [https://www.k12.com/](https://www.k12.com/)

<comment><USER25> We tried this and had to drop it after ~4 months because it was painful to run it as a parent and boring AF for our son.

It's designed to keep kids _and_ parents busy for ~8 hours a day, because their customers are online charter schools, _not_ homeschooling parents.

These online charters get paid based on attendance, so it's in their interest to have kids occupied all day every day.

Please, do not ever use K12. It's terrible.

<comment><USER8> We've tried a bit of homeschooling over the years, and there is an important difference between what looks good to parents and covers the required standards, etc.... vs. what actually engages our children and makes them satisfied with their educational experience.

We never tried K12, but I recommend that the kids be involved in selecting what tools to use, as they are the ones who have to use it every day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I agree that Khan Academy is great for math. For a full middle school (and high school) accredited curriculum, you might check out Apex Learning Virtual School [https://www.apexlearningvs.com](https://www.apexlearningvs.com). They offer live teaching and tutoring support, self-paced learning and a flexible schedule.

</comment><comment><USER27> I realise that your child isn't there yet, but once they reach high school, I'd recommend that you introduce them to edX, where there are tons of courses on practically everything, taught by college professors. It can help them expand their knowledge in areas they're interested in that aren't in the standard school curricula. It's pretty awesome (high school student here).

[https://www.edx.org](https://www.edx.org)

</comment><comment><USER28> My kids go to a microschool in Washington DC. They are developing a full curriculum with the idea that you learn from the resources around you (specific to your town city). They have developed an APP with weekly menus for the kids. During COVID thay crushed it, kids 4 ids learned more in three months than they have in a year. great for travel too www.mysaschool.org

</comment><comment><USER29> Perhaps aimed at a lower age group, but I think [https://www.e-learningforkids.org/](https://www.e-learningforkids.org/) should also be mentioned. They provide free primary school education for all kids. Currently mostly focused on math though.

<comment><USER30> Great resource. Glad to have stumbled upon it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Not for grade schoolers, but I just started this program ([https://busytoddler.com/](https://busytoddler.com/)) for my 3-year-old. Gives you a lot of ideas and a specific schedule to follow which helps a lot!

</comment><comment><USER32> I have been looking for this as well. So far Khan Academy has been brilliant in remote math curriculum, in fact my children are learning math faster in Khan Academy than with IRL instruction. If there was something equivalent for writing I'd be over the moon happy.

<comment><USER2> For composition, try [https://bravewriter.com/](https://bravewriter.com/) For handwriting, try [https://www.lwtears.com/](https://www.lwtears.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Not quite what you are asking for, but there is a great tool called Kickstand (www.kickstandsystems.com)that is in use in a number of districts that allows curriculum to be aligned with standards and organized in a defined scope and sequence. At the core of the systems is a big standards aligned curriculum library. The system will deliver content to a student and then assess them on that content. Based on the result of the assessment the system can deliver new resources for remediation or allow the student to move ahead at their own pace. Content is managed by the district and allows content ratings by students and instructors. This is really where learning technology needs to go to enable individualized instruction in online settings at scale. Full disclosure: I wrote the first version of the Kickstand product about 5-6 yrs ago

</comment><comment><USER34> You might find [https://JoinPrisma.com](https://JoinPrisma.com) to be an interesting option if you're looking for both curriculum and the support of a qualified teacher.

</comment><comment><USER35> This would be an excellent open source project for those outside the software space.

<comment><USER36> This is one of the things I'm trying to solve for at [https://learnawesome.org](https://learnawesome.org) . And yes, it is open- source. Need more users to start contributing though.

<comment><USER37> If it's open source, then why do you have to login to see a sylabus?

<comment><USER36> I wanted to encourage people to join and start contributing to the repository. Started a discussion on this question here: [https://github.com/learn- awesome/learn/issues/79#issuecommen...](https://github.com/learn- awesome/learn/issues/79#issuecomment-656849674)

Feel free to suggest more ideas to make it a vibrant learning community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Crash course: [https://youtube.com/user/crashcourse/playlists](https://youtube.com/user/crashcourse/playlists)

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm actively building a solution for programming related content, with the goal being that courses feel like games:

[https://qvault.io](https://qvault.io)

</comment><comment><USER40> [https://cathyduffyreviews.com/](https://cathyduffyreviews.com/) is a resource that my wife likes for curriculum reviews.

</comment><comment><USER41> IXL Learning [https://www.ixl.com/](https://www.ixl.com/)

</comment><comment><USER42> Yes, there is a lot like this out there.

The question I would have for you is what state are you looking for? Thanks.

</comment><comment> edu-marian What's your opinion on educational games?

</comment><comment><USER43> Maybe junilearning.com?

</comment><comment><USER44> ck12.com has a full range of textbooks available at no cost

</comment><comment><USER3> Girlfriend and you have children together? You should get married :)

<comment><USER45> I couldn't imagine a less off-topic and unwelcome comment if I tried.

<comment><USER46> How about this one. I think you meant to say "I couldn't imagine a _more_ off- topic and unwelcome [...]"</comment></comment></comment>


Leafie – Real-time platform for open tutoring - <AUTHOR> http://www.leafie.io <comment><USER2>
        If your work isn't ready for people to try out yet, please
        don't do a Show HN. Once it's ready, come back and do it then.
        Blog posts, sign-up pages, and fundraisers can't be tried out,
        so they can't be Show HNs.

> From > [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> The app is fully functional.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Leafie is a real-time platform for open tutoring. Traditionally, students, professionals, and autodidacts have turned to online forums with their questions. Forums are great for crafting and archiving documentation, but they fail to provide conversation. Conversation means following up on those secondary questions that are born from answering a primary question. Conversation is informal - you might get your hands dirty.

On Leafie, user questions are posted to the question board and the creator is immediately taken to that post's associated collaborative room. Other users can join them there. If the room empties, the post is deleted, so every post on Leafie is always active.

The room includes three spaces: a syntax-highlighting text-editor, a bare- bones text editor, and a drawing canvas.

The question board affords us the opportunity to open up our questions to the world. The collaborative room allows us to really get into the details of the problem.

We hope that you find the answers you are looking for on Leafie.

<comment><USER3> why not add a short version of this text to the website?

<comment><AUTHOR> I had assumed that anyone landing there would have just read some post describing it. This is a good idea though. I will add something like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's the point in submitting to HN when there is no desc on the website. Should we all signup?

<comment><AUTHOR> I see that this is a common concern. I will fix this.</comment></comment>