TV's Dwindling Middle Class - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/magazine/tvs-dwindling-middle-class.html <comment><USER2> _"Cheers," which ran for 11 seasons on NBC, starting in 1982, was the first great hangout show: neutralizing the depiction of class and removing the pressures of work. Life is hard enough, "Cheers" said; let's just make TV. Ever since, television started taking it easier on us. Bill Clinton was in the White House, and the economy had improved. On "Seinfeld," "Living Single," "Friends," "Ellen," "It's Like, You Know," "Sex and the City," "Girlfriends" and, much later, "Happy Endings" and "New Girl," the commingling, childless men and women might have had jobs, but almost none had consequential careers. How many jobs did Elaine and George have on "Seinfeld"? And in how many fields? And Kramer — how was he paying to live across the hall from Jerry? Hangout shows placed friendship above family, obviating the typical economic ecosystem. Belonging to a family of friends probably means you only have to support yourself.

TV became — and still is — a medium struggling to understand "average," "ordinary," "normal."_

Why would you go into any of these shows expecting anything resembling reality. They are all clearly entertainment in the form of light drama and inconsequential, whitewashed sexual tension. To expect anything else is to set yourself up for failure.

Deeper shows exist - The Wire, Breaking Bad, House of Cards - but headlining TV shows are not created to address issues anymore. The shows reflect the main demographics of TV watchers, because that's what keeps them watching, and that's what generates ad revenue. So I'm not too concerned with the state of TV - it's an echo chamber for older, more conservative folk.

<comment><USER3> The claim of the article is that we never see regular people with ordinary jobs except for "police precincts, crime-and-forensics teams and legal- medical-Beltway dramas".

The counterexamples you came up with are shows where the characters are police, politicians and drug dealers, and you had to reach back to a show that has been off the air for 8 years to even find those. Doesn't that kind of demonstrate the article's point?

<comment><USER4> An obvious counterexample is the sitcom "How I Met Your Mother", which featured an environmental lawyer, an architect (turned college professor in later seasons), a teacher, and a news reporter.

<comment><USER5> I don't think a show featuring a lawyer, college professor, media personality and whatever the heck it is Barney does is a counterpoint at all. All those jobs are upper class, college degree requiring positions.

Other than a few episodes where Marshal (the lawyer) contemplates a job he doesn't love to pay off the massive consumer debt accrued by his wife (the teacher), the money problems and job tradeoffs on the show are very much in the classless hanging out genre the article describes.

Even the consumer debt is from spending on luxury goods, which is surprising for a teacher supporting a law school student in New York, ostensibly the arrangement in the first few seasons.

<comment><USER6> > All those jobs are upper class, college degree requiring positions.

No, they are middle class roles (either independent business owners dependent on their own labor rather than primarily renting other's labor to apply to their capital -- the classic petit bourgeoisie -- or elite educated workers with likely some personal capital but still dependent on wage labor for support, but not as immediately at risk as the working class without reserves are.)

The upper class in a capitalist society are the owners of capital who primarily rent labor to apply to that capital, they are occasionally major characters on TV shows, but I can't think of many shows with more than one as a significant protagonist. Generally, most of the protagonists are middle class, or notionally working class but somehow living a middle class lifestyle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I remember growing up as a lower-middle class midwestern kid, Roseanne was a show I loved, because I identified with it so much. Dan and Roseanne were my parents, and my friends were just like Darlene and Becky.

Another similar show from that era is "Grace Under Fire".

As a 35-yo upper-middle class guy still in the midwest, I look at what's on TV (both broadcast and Netflix/Amazon/etc.) and see none of that representation of middle class America. Besides "The Middle", which I still identify with, there are no successful middle-class sitcoms on TV.

<comment><USER8> Huh? There wasn't anything remotely middle class about Dan and Roseanne in my memory. They were proudly working class.

To me middle class means university educated, professional, two foreign holidays a year.

<comment><USER9> This is a difference between British and American English. In the UK, "middle class" basically means rich. In the US, it means that maybe you own a house.

<comment> nommm-nommm In the US middle class has always meant middle - not at top in income/wealth (mostly income) but not at the bottom.

How they obtain the money (education, job) or how they spend it (house, holiday) is not important by definition - however there is some social expectations of the American middle class.

Many Americans don't have the time off work for two holidays a year, even if they have plenty of money, which is another difference, which changes the American social expectations of the US "middle class."

A family with nurse and a teacher for example (two professionals) would bring in somewhere around $100,000/yr and be upper class.

There's a lot of variations by geography (cost of living) and stuff too, but I simplified it.

In reality the amount of financial security a family has is often a function of how well they manage it (as long as you are making above a certain amount where it becomes possible for financial security). If the above mentioned family over spent on a big house, two cars, a motorcycle, and other luxuries they consider normal, or even needed, then they can surely feel like they are living without much financial security, which doesn't "feel" upper class.

Unfortunately, middle class is a totally useless term because almost everyone describes themselves as middle class, I guess because they are somewhat out of touch with their spending and don't feel rich (previously mentioned family) or they are towards the bottom they don't want to feel poor. People who have a household income of $200,000 describe themselves as middle class. One of my coworkers, with a straight face, described me as middle class. I couldn't believe it - with a household income more than 3x the median household income in the US I can't with a straight face say I am middle class.

That's why politicians pander to "the middle class," because the majority of Americans identify with the middle class - even poor ones who don't consider themselves middle class but feel they will be there soon.

On the other side of the coin I have a friend who makes a middle class income, spends lavishly on consumer goods, and is always complaining about how poor she is.

Like I said, totally useless term.

<comment><USER8> You'd describe a nurse, a teacher, and yourself as upper class? You'd put them in the same social strata as the Queen of the UK or the Prince of Monaco? That's absolutely crazy.

To me upper class means the literally Queen, or at least something like her cousin's son's uncle or something like that.

If you don't own a country estate or have any staff then you aren't upper class.

<comment><USER10> I think you are using the traditional UK definition of "upper class" while _nommm-nommm_ is using the US definition - they are completely different things.

<comment> nommm-nommm Correct. I started with "in the US" and was replying to ". In the US, it means that maybe you own a house."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think television just reflects the career-obsessed nature with society today. Characters are not just competent employees, they tend to be excellent at their jobs (top of their field, seemingly) while spending very little time doing their job.

I don't know if blue-collaredness is looked down upon, but it feels like writers go out of their way to let it be known that the characters we are supposed to like, are extraordinary.

<comment><USER12> Not trying to be too snarky here, but blue-collaredness and excelling at one's job are quite orthogonal in my head.

<comment><USER13> That is true - blue collar is a type of job, while excellence is a measure of job performance. Perhaps parent just meant to say that the characters mostly work white collar jobs, and accidentally conflated the two.

An interesting counter-example would be Friends, where one of the characters worked a blue-collar job, and none were explicitly "excellent".

<comment><USER14> I don't see that implication in OP's post..?

<comment><USER13> You are right, the implication is actually that "blue-collardness" cannot be extraordinary, but that flies in the face of common sense, considering all the stories about courageous and heroic policemen, firefighters, and so on.

<comment><USER15> Certainly true. However, note that the blue collar jobs you mention are "career" blue collar jobs. They occupy a different place in society than "just a job" blue collar roles. You don't often hear stories about heroic stock boys or shoe salesmen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There are lots of prominent counterexamples. The Office was a pretty direct attempt at making a modern middle class show. Breaking Bad at least _started_ with one man's middle class problems.

I think the main artistic factor here is that the sitcom, an awfully convenient medium for telling middle class stories, is dead. A 30 minute comedy where every episode was basically an island could be an oddly touching medium to talk about a teacher dying or a dad losing his job. But these tiny canvases were mostly the result of the constraints of 20th century TV.

Without those constraints, consumers don't have that much interest in slices of everyday life, just as most consumers don't read Raymond Carver stories. Our imaginations go to the rich, powerful and supernatural. I'd argue that other mediums - podcasts, reality TV, social media - fulfill the basic human need behind the sitcom: to simply bask in the company of agreeable/relatable sounding human voices.

<comment><USER17> >consumers don't have that much interest in slices of everyday life

Last weekend I watched amazon original 'catastrophe' and 'lilyhammer' a netflix original. Both of these revolved around ordinary people doing everyday stuff.

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure if I would classify the protagonist of Lillyhammer an "ordinary person" doing "everyday stuff".

(I do, however, very highly recommend the series. I've only seen Season 1, but it was fantastic, and the character's slow immersion into the local language and culture was very well done.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Unfortunately, no mention of "Malcolm in the Middle" or "The Simpsons" (which admittedly I havent watched in about 10 years). Both of which continued the class contrasts of yesteryears' sitcoms.

Overall though, I do agree with the article. It does seem like everyone has it really easy on American TV.

<comment><USER20> Perhaps a mention of _Malcolm in the Middle_ would be part of a more complete history. But the author uses 2007 as the tipping-point between "yesteryear" and the modern sitcom; a show like _Malcolm,_ which ended in 2006, would fall in place quite nicely in the author's argument and not prove an exception to the rule.

I haven't seen _The Simpsons_ in about 15 years, so I won't comment on _it_ —except to note that it debuted only a year after _Roseanne,_ and the two overlapped for about eight years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I grew up upper-lower-middle class in a dying manufacturing town near Chicago so the The Simpsons, Married with Children, Roseanne always felt like home.

I can't agree with the article tho. I still see that same grasping in current shows like Better Call Saul, Shameless (which, aside from Season 2, is fantastic), and, in a different way, The Big Bang Theory and Silicon Valley.

Most comedies are just joke delivery mediums with paper thin walls. But nothing has changed, shows have always been a reflection of their creators/runners and the networks fund people who've had hits.. Family Guy was a hit on DVD/[adult swim]? Ok! Order two more joke delivery vehicles from Seth MacFarlane!

James L. Brooks had a string of hits with a strong emotional core. So after he helped get The Simpsons on the air it made sense that he essentially forced the 20-something writers to build the show around an emotional/sentimental core instead of letting it to devolve into a gag factory out of the gate.

<comment><USER22> Better Call Saul is about a family of lawyers, the Big Bang Theory is about academics, and Silicon Valley is about tech millionaires. I'm not sure what you're seeing there.

<comment><USER23> I've only watched the first ep of Silicon Valley and a few eps of Big Bang Theory, but...

Better Call Saul is about a poor lawyer who works out of the back of a nail salon. Not exactly rich. Yes, his brother is, but the show is about Saul.

Big Bang Theory is about guys that live in apartments, and they don't seem very rich to me. Maybe they're headed there, but they aren't there yet. I'll admit they don't lack for tech/nerd toys, though.

Silicon Valley starts with a guy in an "incubator" who is clearly struggling, and then hits it big. It at least _starts_ about a guy without money.

<comment><USER24> Not only that, but one of the main characters in BBT, the token non-nerd, works as a waitress and her lack of funds are a continuing plot-point of the show.

<comment> nommm-nommm The problem is her lack of funds seems really fake though. She doesn't really seem to go through the type of real financial hardship I can identify with, it just seems haphazardly thrown in once in a while for laughs.

<comment><USER24> > it just seems haphazardly thrown in once in a while for laughs.

This also applies to the science and the social issues in BBT. It's not exactly a very heavy show.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The article basically ignored reality television for some reason. Many, many shows include real-life middle-class people: Survivor, Naked and Afraid, Chopped, Ice Road Truckers, American Idol, Extreme Home Makeover, Amazing Race, Jersey Shore, Alaska: The Last Frontier, etc.

The article mentions Dirty Jobs and Undercover Boss, but it's not clear to me the bountiful reality shows don't undermine the entire thesis of the article.

</comment><comment><USER26> Shameless (US version on showtime) is the best depiction of working-poor contrasted with middle class on TV today.

<comment><USER27> I'll have to agree with you there. Both versions of the show are really great and seem like people I know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> If you create a show with the set design of Roseanne or even the Cosby Show in 2016, you're missing out on opportunities for product placement:

[http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2012/04/brett- ratner-...](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2012/04/brett-ratner- comments-ads-marketing-x-men.html)

The logic is, "Well, I need to have a car in this movie anyway. Why not get a free car instead of paying for one, and in fact, the manufacturer will pay me to place their brand new car?"

The good news is more art is created at a lower cost. Great.

But the bad news is you perpetuate the idea that everyone has a new car (or new kitchen or new 3000 square foot house or whatever) all the time, no matter what their financial situation would be like in reality. This is especially insidious when there is easy consumer credit.

Here's a scene of a doctor buying a car from 1987:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKMlx5p6n8k#t=1m58s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKMlx5p6n8k#t=1m58s)

The premise, if you don't bother to watch, is he doesn't want the car salesman to know his job, because then he won't get a good deal.

The quaint part is that 30 years ago, a doctor and lawyer raising a family in New York City were considered almost unimaginably rich by TV standards. Now they would be "middle class."

The sad part is it would be hard to justify a scene like this on a modern prime time TV show. "So, we're going to have a car in this scene? Great! I'll call up Ford. Wait, but what do you mean the car salesman would overprice the car? Don't you know they're running 0% APR or $2000 cash back for President's Day?"

Sure, there are shows that try hard to be more authentic. But for every Breaking Bad, there are 10 spinoffs of lawyer / doctor / detective shows where the characters live in a bubble of perpetual newness the article describes.

And even Breaking Bad did its share of product placements: [http://www.bustle.com/articles/5963-how-breaking-bad- product...](http://www.bustle.com/articles/5963-how-breaking-bad-product- placement-helps-or-hurts-products-like-stevia)

</comment><comment><USER29> The article rather misses the opportunity to tie things together by pointing out that Laurie Metcalf was _in_ Roseanne.

</comment><comment><USER30> Isn't this really a result of TV showing us "what we wish we were" vs "what we are"? I swear part of why they pick to have these well off characters is to give you a sense of "this is what I want for myself."

</comment><comment><USER31> Not disagreeing but Parks and Rec seems like a great counterexample.

</comment><comment><USER32> It's not dwindling, it just moved to cartoon format.

</comment><comment><USER20> The author blames the modern sitcom's remoteness from working and lower-middle class concerns with their creators' immunity from the recent recession. In place of everyday situations, we have shows set in "soundstages and writers' rooms," the haunts of the out-of-touch in New York and LA. So you wind up with a show with this sort of genesis:

Our creator was once a prominent writer and performer on a comedy sketch show, which aired live every Saturday night from an NBC studio in New York. It ran for 90 minutes. After their time on the show came to an end, our creator decided to pitch a sitcom based on their experiences there. The lead character is the head writer on a comedy show, similarly produced in New York. They must balance their work in the writers' room and their personal life, though this turns out to be difficult. A pilot is made, and our creator plays the lead.

Modern viewers may recognize this as _30 Rock,_ but it is in fact _The Dick Van Dyke Show._ It is based not on _SNL_ but on a direct ancestor, _Your Show of Shows._ Carl Reiner's performance in the pilot may have dissuaded executives from casting him in the commissioned series (hence Dick Van Dyke), while Tina Fey remained the lead in her own version. But otherwise the parallel rings a sight near perfect.

The author stumbles over himself insisting, however, that while _The Dick Van Dyke Show_ did not give vent to working and lower-middle class concerns, it did at least feature characters who "had careers" and were definitely of a class. As if the same were not true of shows like _30 Rock_ (which is at times obsessed with class difference), or of _Parks and Recreation_ and _The Office._ These do not depict realistic workspaces, but why place that demand on a sitcom? And why not place the same demand on, yes, _The Honeymooners,_ _Taxi,_ _The Mary Tyler Moore Show,_ _I Love Lucy,_ _The Beverly Hillbillies,_ _Green Acres,_ _The Andy Griffith Show,_ and on and on. In all cases the demands of the form—and in almost all cases the demands of overly long tenures—stretched the premises and the rare attempts at realism very thin.

I think you can make an argument that the most popular comedies available right now—whether on TV or at the movie theaters—are unflinchingly escapist. (Though, as the article notes in its discussion of an episode each of _Horace and Pete_ and _Girls,_ this has not gone unnoticed or unremarked by all of the shows' writers. Still, these two are not the _most_ popular things around by any stretch.) Similarly, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were seen to traipse across exclusive resorts, high-class stages, ballroom floors, and Venice, in elaborate dresses and a "top hat, white tie, and tails"—all during the Great Depression. Sometimes hard circumstances produce a public clamoring for comment; sometimes the public just wants a reprieve.

</comment><comment><USER33> Let's assume that sitcoms aren't a complete travesty of expressive form to begin with. Just for the sake of argument, just for a minute.

You know, there is the option to just stop watching TV. If, after skipping all the series that you don't find relevant to your life, you find there is nothing left to watch, then just turn it off. Nothing compels you to watch TV.

You want to talk about class struggles, how about the modern depiction of feudal systems as fundamentally good, if not for a few "bad apples"? Disney/Pixar movies are particularly bad for this. I like to think the White Walkers in Game of Thrones are an allegory for democracy and capitalism, that as the aristocracy send more commoners to clash against the inevitable, unstoppable wave, it just creates more corpses and more converts.

There is so much freely available content out there to spend your time on that you don't have to be beholden to the major production firms. Stop watching network television. They have perversely skewed incentives. It's like people who pass a local restaurant they've never heard of to go to McDonald's. Why not take a chance on a burger that will _probably_ be better, rather than go eat a the burger you know, that you _know_ will be shitty?</comment>


Slabot: A Slack-Bot API Using AI Concepts of Sensors and Actions - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ryukinix/slabot <comment><AUTHOR> I just wondering if someone can help me to extended the project...</comment>


Gedanken: A Simple Typeless Language (1970) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://pdf.yt/d/jHuhj9FsOC-o9Uap

<comment><USER2> [http://www.erights.org/history/morris73.pdf](http://www.erights.org/history/morris73.pdf) is a great follow-up with more code in GEDANKEN. [https://www.hackerschool.com/blog/46-paper-of-the-week-on- un...](https://www.hackerschool.com/blog/46-paper-of-the-week-on- understanding-data-abstraction-revisited) introduces a much more recent essay exploring these ideas about procedural data structures.

</comment><comment><USER3> This archive of GEDANKEN history includes a scan of the listing of Reynolds' LISP implementation of GEDANKEN, and also his 1969 technical report with a formal definition of GEDANKEN:

[http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/lang/GEDANKEN/](http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/lang/GEDANKEN/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Here is a non pdfy link: ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/usr/jcr/gedanken.pdf

</comment><comment><USER5> The predecessor of C was typeless as well.

<comment><USER6> as is C

<comment><USER7> Almost

<comment><USER6> it's sort of like trying to argue that "Whose Line" is not a game without points. There are types there, but they don't matter at all. You can cast anything to anything and it will never fail.

<comment><USER8> Not sure where I was reading this the other day, but types have two advantages: abstraction and checking.

You can add a third one to that list: safety.

C has types in the sense that it allows you to do abstraction, and type checking, but it doesn't enforce safety.

2/3 doesn't seem bad to me, especially for a systems language.

I'd say that Typescript is in a similar position, you can cast anything to any type you want and there is no runtime check to stop you, but it helps you add structure to your code.

Types do very much matter in these languages in practice, since you want to very much want to avoid writing a giant mess.

<comment><USER9> Of course C has safety features for the type system, warnings for problematic casts, and structs that can't be cast unless specifically unionized and explicitly ordered to.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Netspeak Search for Words - <AUTHOR> http://www.netspeak.org/

<comment><AUTHOR> Ever searched for the right words in your paper. Netspeak will improve grammar, spelling, word order and suggests missing words.</comment>


Ask HN: Who are the best liked CS essayists, followed by the HN community? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Not being sure about the rest of HN, I definitely recommend reading what FreeBSD contributor Poul-Henning Kamp has to say regarding another great project of his, Varnish:

<https://www.varnish-cache.org/docs/trunk/phk/index.html></comment>


A Galaxy-Scale Addressing Scheme for Compute Availability - <AUTHOR> https://vadosware.io/post/a-galaxy-scale-addressing-scheme-for-compute-availability <comment><USER2> And get this: There is no universal agreement on what countries there are. There are always a few that some nations acknowledge and some don't.

You could just copy whatever is done for TLD but I get the impression it does not unambiguously covers every point on earth in advance.

<comment><USER3> North Korea is not recognized as a state by a few countries, but if I told you that there was a server there in Pyongyang, I doubt the location would be ambiguous. The point of this system is to provide a rough location, not an exact one. If you cared about an exact location, you'd just include latitude and longitude. But that's not useful for compute availability purposes, since you likely care far more about the laws of the state that it's housed in and the connections it has to nearby metropolitan areas. A pile of numbers does nothing to help you remember where your VM is.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Providers need a method to query the data center a particular storage URI is at so you can fire up compute within that data center to crunch it. Lat/long is nice too so you can at least move the data to a nearby data center for compute, or if you need to do cross data center message passing.

</comment><comment><USER5> Bell core I'm sure wrote such a scheme in the 60's...</comment>


Show HN: Prime-orders – Copy your past Prime Now order to your Cart (CLI) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sijanmilan/prime-orders <comment><USER2> > Feel free to do whatever you like with this.

That conflicts with your MIT license file.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand I can remove that. Do you think that MIT license makes sense for this (type of) project?</comment></comment>


Trying out Keybase - <AUTHOR> https://anarc.at/blog/2016-03-10-keybase/ <comment><USER2> My understanding is that the passphrase is the key to your private key, as well as the api login for keybase.io, and that it's never sent to the server.

Now, one may question the encryption method(s) on the API and the private key stored encrypted on keybase, I also believe you don't _have_ to upload your private key. That said, part of the advantage of keybase is the ability to access it from "anywhere". In this case ease of use is more paramount. Also, being able to regularly validate an email address would be nice as well, I think there's been progress on this. Also, that one should be able to easily integrate with email applications for more transparent key lookups for encryption... now, there may be issues of mitm at one's email service (if web integration), but getting people to use encrypted messaging has always been the harder part of adoption, which keybase is a part of.</comment>


A homeless man who turned his life around by offering book reviews - <AUTHOR> http://www.one.org/international/blog/the-homeless-man-who-turned-his-life-arround-by-offering-book-reviews-instead-of-begging <comment><USER2> This is a great story. But...someone who has the intelligence and work ethic to do this probably wasn't going to be homeless for long.

Honestly, there are probably millions of people who pull themselves together like this - it's just they end up working regular jobs like maintenance work or burger flipping that aren't as inspirational.

The problem with stories like this is they conflate two problems: (1) being down on your luck (but hard-working and reasonably intelligent) (2) being stuck in a poverty loop due to mental illness, criminal record, or countless other complex factors.

Problem (1) is something a lot of HN readers can relate to, especially in their early twenties. Hence, the popularity of this article.

Problem (2) however is the much bigger problem. Unfortunately, what this guy did is only marginally useful in coming up with solutions to that problem.

All that said, I'm sure he's a pretty cool guy.

<comment><USER3> _someone who has the intelligence and work ethic to do this probably wasn 't going to be homeless for long._

And capacity. Many people on the street have serious health problems or other obstacles to productivity. I lack neither intelligence nor a work ethic, but I do have health problems. I have been homeless 5.5 years, though I blog, do freelance work, etc.

Edit: You also need opportunity. Being homeless can be a huge barrier to opportunity, both in practical terms and due to stigma. People don't want to hire homeless people.

<comment><USER4> >I have been homeless 5.5 years

This is a huge personal revelation. I have happened to be in touch with the parent poster via HN and they are simply an intelligent, thoughtful, person with important and good opinions on whatever topics they write about.

I hope you resolve your issues with housing soon. As you write, you have a lot of capacity for high-level work.

<comment><USER5> FYI, Mz has been here sharing her perspective on homelessness for several years:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+mz+ho...](https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aycombinator.com+mz+homeless)

<comment><USER4> Thanks, though that doesn't change my impression of mz from our interaction, which I listed.

Since we're on HN: I don't see how it's fundamentally different from people who fail for years to raise money, until they finally do. My interaction with GP is from not that long ago. They're a smart, clear writer and I hope they resolve their housing situation soon. Then, if they ever want to do a startup they'll be better at it than most people, based on my interaction. They've also studied GIS, though I'm not sure if they want to work with it or in a different field. I am confident they can resolve their housing issue and I believe in them. By the way Elon Musk lived in an office and took showers at a YMCA.[1] That meets the definition of homeless.

If you want a chance to back the next elon musk, invest in whatever mz does whenever they're ready to take money (though I'm not sure if they have any such intentions - but surely there's a reason they're on this site).

mz, I hope this reply is not out of place and again, I hope you resolve your housing issue soon. I am basing my opinion of you based on an interaction with you and based your writing, which is all anyone gets if someone sends a pitch deck, emails, or business plan. you might have huge difficulty and perhaps its stretched for years but I believe you will go through it based on your talent and abilities. you can do it. go.

[1] [https://www.google.com/search?q=elon+musk+showers+ymca](https://www.google.com/search?q=elon+musk+showers+ymca)

<comment><USER3> Yes, I do have a Certificate in GIS. In theory, I hope to develop this site into a more serious income stream than I have so far managed to create:

[http://personalizedrelocationresearch.blogspot.com/](http://personalizedrelocationresearch.blogspot.com/)

It was at least conceived of as a business idea. Most of my other sites were conceived of as "well, people clearly need this information, so I will give it to them...and, oh, I guess I should have ads or something because it would be reasonable to expect to be compensated for my time and effort."

Because of my compromised immune system, I basically need to figure out some means to make money online. There are plenty of people here who have managed that. But I have trouble accessing their expertise or getting taken seriously, much to my personal frustration.

<comment><USER4> Note: please take the rest of this comment as one input, you'll have to combine it with everything else you know and your interests. it's just my suggestion.

Do you already code? it may help your goals if you learn to code. It might allow you to make some sort of more featureful web app than just blog posts. Then, your talent for clear writing and communication would combine with the functionality of whatever you wanted to code. I'm sure you've felt the frustration of only having whatever options your blogging platform gave you. with code, it does whatever you want.

plus you might get some freelance coding work which should pay well. but above all your clear communication with the ability to make features you want would be pretty killer, I think. don't feel boxed into the idea that you have to only just write and English should be your main or only output. you can output code. you can create features that do something. (from a standing start, from 0.) it doesn't matter how bad it is because if it brings some money then later you can hire coders to redo it. (people call this 'technical debt' but it's a stupid term. it's just a free option to pay only if you find something that makes money, where you can throw it away if it doesn't. if you code 99 different things that nobody uses and the 100th is what takes off, you can just pay someone to rewrite the 100th. you can ignore the first 99th projects. which proves that it isn't technical debt because you can't just ignore debt whenever you don't care anymore. you can ignore technical debt, indefinitely, because it's just a free option to try something.)

So try some small web app. AWS has a free tier. Ignore everyone who gives you a lot of bullshit. in the article I linked from elon musk talking about when he was (my term) homeless, he was coding all day. so you could try it and see if you can find something.

this is just based on my impression of your style of communication, thinking, logic, and also you have shown an ability to collect a pretty large audience. maybe the tiniest amount of code would be all it takes. you say you'd like to work all online so this would fit that criterion. it sounds like you might already have some exposure to the google ads network which is a killer way to bootstrap promoting anything: the first time your users spend $90 on your web app, you can try spending $85 of it on an advertisement (don't know about adwords actual minimums this is an illustrative example) and if it brings in just $89 in revenue for every $85 you spend, in theory you can keep turning that process around until you are at $500, $1000, etc. Facebook ads can likewise be bootstrapped like this.

all this depends on making something that has some kind of functionality you can promote, describe, and code. try setting an AWS free tier and go from there. you write that you're not taken seriously but just ignore it - do it underground. nobody took elon musk seriously when he was taking showers at the Y, and nobody took him seriously when he produced a written paper proposing hyperloop.

ignore all that noise. just do something. You will have to adapt all this to your goals, interests, conditions, I don't know the details. you also have to be very careful because (in my opinion) programmers love to waste each other's time, so stick with popular tools where you can just google what you're trying to do and someone has posted the solution. programmers hate that you don't have to waste weeks to years of your life reading manuals, and getting rid of manuals or making things work is simply not a design constraint for them. I'll give you an example:

This is how long it _should_ take from deciding to make a Rails app (a popular web app framework) on a new AWS instance, to having one up: 47 seconds. I should click "I want a new instance with some super-common stack" and then I should click "Rails 5 with" (whatever is most common.) And I should have it.

Here's how long it _actually_ takes: [https://hackernoon.com/how-to-setup-and- deploy-a-rails-5-app...](https://hackernoon.com/how-to-setup-and-deploy-a- rails-5-app-on-aws-beanstalk-with-postgresql-redis-and- more-88a38355f1ea?gi=7e2447c3e3f)

In 47 seconds you can barely read through the introduction (which starts with "Deploying a Rails app can be a somewhat daunting task to get set up right on new applications, even for seasoned Rails developers.")

Remember that (in my opinion) everything you read about programming is meant to waste horrendous amounts of your time and be a huge sink. These people cannot communicate. Which is why you will have such a huge advantage over them if you deploy any app to do anything, because your version can be clear and precise and your experience with audiences would help you promote it. just ignore the noise. Be super careful of your time and only pick _the_ most common tools and languages.

Note: I didn't adapt this advice to the specifics of your situation, or your interests, so really you're the only one who knows how to use it, if at all. As I said at the top of the comment, just think of it like a point of input.

<comment><USER3> I do actually want to learn to code. This is my very first post on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=713015](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=713015)

So far, I have not learned to program, though I do know a little HTML and CSS from running my blogs, basically. This failure to learn to code is due to a combination of having been very ill, which makes it hard to learn anything new, and much of my time being taken up with struggling to survive and solving my health problems that are not supposed to be solvable. (And probably other factors.)

The other thing is I am good at solving things, but I am not good at figuring out "business ideas." I know how to get well when that is not supposed to be possible. But I don't know how one turns that into money.

I don't think this is just me being neurotic. I think there are some inherent problems in monetizing such a product. I feel strongly that the way modern medicine is monetized is part of the reason people are failing to get well. Modern medicine makes money for treating you, not for getting you well. Ongoing need for treatment is a means to keep making money and I think that is an inherent conflict of interest. I haven't yet figured out how you set your sights on actually getting people well and somehow get money out of that. Because that is not the financial model for modern medicine.

I would like to create simulations for smaller health problems and eventually create a simulation to teach other people with CF how to do what I do. Blogging is wholly insufficient to convey the density of info required. My thought was that I would start with a small simulation for how you cure sunburn rapidly by eating the right things and then build on that for larger, more complicated problems.

But I used to get really ugly pushback for talking about getting myself well. This was far beyond not getting taken seriously. It was incredibly threatening and worrisome, so I have also spent some years working on figuring out how to approach the problem space without inspiring lynch mobs, basically.

I do have a private blog with some of my ideas written out intended as a design doc. But it hasn't gotten a lot of development. I have been mostly overwhelmed by events.

Thank you for your long comment.

<comment><USER6> I don't know how much time you have to spare for learning to code, but even if it's just 10 minutes each day, that time stacks up. Even if it takes you a week to get to "hello, world!", there are 52 weeks in a year.

The most important thing is to build a habit and stick to it. If you reserve some specific 10 minutes of the day for learning to code, like just before going to sleep, it will soon become so ingrained that you wouldn't even think of stopping.

It may seem like a daunting task before you start, so much to learn, but if you take it step by little step, 10 minutes at a time, you can do it.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. That's a good thought and I might be in a position to start setting aside time for that every morning at this point, or very soon. But I still feel like I need a thread to pull to start unraveling all of this. I haven't yet found a good place to start, basically. Ideally, I would like a thing to mod and ...I guess I need to work on finding a thing to mod. It's something to work on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sometimes it seems to me that histories like this put the weight of leaving poverty in the individuals himselves rather than the government social services, enforcing the myth that poor people is people that chooses to.

<comment><USER8> You don't think personal change represents any elevation from poverty? I think we certainly agree it can play a major role into poverty descent.

<comment><USER9> Not really, no. In the US, it's mostly about your family, although there are exceptions of course:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio- economic_mobility_in_the...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio- economic_mobility_in_the_United_States)

> The correlation between parents' income and their children's income in the > United States is estimated between .4 and .6.

> If a parent's income had no effect on a child's opportunity for future > upward mobility, approximately 20% of poor children who started in the > bottom quintile (in the bottom 20% of the US range of incomes) would remain > there as poor adults. At the other end of income spectrum, if children were > born into wealthy families in the top 20%, only 20% would stay in that top > income category if their mobility opportunities were equal to every other > child's in the country.

> But long-term income statistics show this isn't happening. Mobility > opportunities are different for poor and wealthy children in the US. > Parental incomes and parental choices of home locations while raising > children appear to be major factors in that difference. According to a 2012 > Pew Economic Mobility Project study 43% of children born into the bottom > quintile (bottom 20%) remain in that bottom quintile as adults. Similarly, > 40% of children raised in the top quintile (top 20%) will remain there as > adults. Looking at larger moves, only 4% of those raised in the bottom > quintile moved up to the top quintile as adults. Around twice as many (8%) > of children born into the top quintile fell to the bottom. 37% of children > born into the top quintile will fall below the middle. These findings have > led researchers to conclude that "opportunity structures create and > determine future generations' chances for success. Hence, our lot in life is > at least partially determined by where we grow up, and this is partially > determined by where our parents grew up, and so on."

<comment><USER10> That is a correlation, not causal. Maybe (just throwing something out there) poor parent's children continue to be poor because the poor parents can't teach their children the appropriate life skills to save and earn enough money?

<comment><USER11> But that would be a causal influence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> A long time ago I lived in baltimore, and there was a man who was "homeless" (he lived in the church he sat behind so he had a bed) who did just this.

You would give him a book of yours and he would give one back that he though you would enjoy... It was like having a one on one book club, with the greatest recommendations ever.

When I moved from baltimore I gave him the dozen or so books I had to add to his collection, and I always wonder what ever happened to him. I miss having a commute (walk actually) that included the strange bright spot of his presence.

</comment><comment><USER13> Quick fact check: 20-25% of homeless people in the United States suffer from "a severe mental illness." ([https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/27/mental...](https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/27/mental- health-homeless-series/14255283/))

Props to this guy for turning his life around despite a lack of support from the society he lives in, but there are hundreds of thousands of people here in the United States alone who will never have a similar opportunity.

<comment><USER14> On a similar note, it's always nice to see the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" stories involving homeless people, but we (meaning the U.S) need to place higher value on assisting those who can't assist themselves.

Mental illness is the root of the problem. From homelessness to suicide rates to general well being, we need a better mental health care system in place.

I've been reading "Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging" by Sebastian Junger and it draws a pretty clear connection between what we consider a "successful person" and unhappiness. In essence, people were happier when they lived simpler lives in tribes, and as society grew to place value on financial/personal independence and move away from the tribe system of survival - people became more unhappy and mental illness/suicide rates rose.

The more we segregated people by wealth/social status, the more isolated people feel and mental illness rates creep higher and higher.

This article just reinforces the idea that only lazy/dumb people are homeless, and only those who "put in the work" deserve recognition.

<comment><USER15> I wonder how the people who are currently homeless would have ended up, if they were born in tribal times?

<comment><USER14> It's hard to say - I'd like to imagine the addiction and mental illness would be much less prevalent.

Also the book I mentioned talks about personal value and self worth in a Tribe setting - sharing and providing for others, keeping the tribe healthy as a whole, was the main driving factor versus personal wealth and possessions. The biggest Tribal infractions were failing to fight for the tribe (cowardice, not protecting the tribe), unwillingness to share food/resources, and killing another Tribe member.

I'm sure there would be Tribe members who were less effective/productive, but for the most part it seems like the slack would be picked up by the other tribe members.

<comment><USER16> That sounds like romanticism/nostalgia, and probably ignores a lot of bad stuff that happened.

If you want another take on more primitive cultures, read "The Better Angels of our Nature" by Steven Pinker. You probably won't want to return to that kind of lawlessness.

That being said, I think we probably have a lot to learn and may have made some wrong turns. For instance, people are probably happier having more close relationships with other people, but separate houses where we don't know our neighbors doesn't allow that.

<comment><USER14> "Tribes" doesn't gloss over the brutality that existed in tribal groups, but it does remind the reader that the same brutality and savageness exists in "civilized" societies (the Spanish Inquisition being one example).

Your house example is spot on. As society - specifically Western European and American - put an emphasis on private suburban living and personal wealth, people started feeling more disconnected and happiness levels dropped.

Of course tribal life was not perfect, or the world wouldn't have evolved past it for the most part. Violence towards other tribes and groups was profound and extreme, but this may have actually contributed to overall happiness levels instead of detracting. One last "Tribes" point - people who are living through a common goal in extreme circumstances (war, natural disaster, disease, etc) are better towards each other and experience lower suicide rates than in times of peace.

Thanks for the rec - will add to reading list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The article never explicitly mentioned him finding a new place to live. I found this reference in a people.com article:

 _Eventually, Dladla was able to pay rent again and even earned extra income that he used to start a book club for kids in a local park_

[http://people.com/books/homeless-man-who-sold-book- reviews-t...](http://people.com/books/homeless-man-who-sold-book-reviews-to- get-off-the-street-becomes-author/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Flash poll; how many of you have been homeless? How many for an extended period (more than 6mo)?

<comment><USER18> I was homeless twice in my life, both times for more than 6mo. The entire time I was a "knowledge worker" employed in hardware and software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I see he has a potential to be a net celebrity by doing a live streaming show focusing on book reviews with a $100 smart phone.

</comment><comment><USER20> Jack Charles (Australian aboriginal actor) recently discussed his life. He is an avid reader, an actor, a drug addict, he slept in toilets at night, shared any money he earned or stole, was imprisoned 22 times, has been finally housed late in life. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Charles_(actor)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Charles_\(actor\)) Don't know if you can view his story if you are not in Australia: [http://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/anhs-brush-with- fame/](http://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/anhs-brush-with-fame/) (Series 2, Episode 9)

</comment><comment><USER21> This is what I have been thinking lately. Homeless rarely add value.

I know that is some gimmicky terms ... but it feels true.</comment>


Antique Stradivarius violin 'replicated' by radiologist - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15926864

<comment><USER3> But, how does it sound? The difference between a _good_ violin and an _excellent_ violin is in the details. From the article:

      But the very last stretch - the very last 2% - <USER2>
      involves exact judgements about relative thicknesses
      of the wood, the exact strength of the bracing, the
      exact varnishes and wood preparations and general
      optimising of the whole form.</comment>


Auth0 Hackathon - <AUTHOR> https://auth0.com/blog/auth0-hackathon/ <comment><AUTHOR> We are very excited to announce our first ever hackathon! We've got 6 superb partners, $10,000 worth of prizes, and the best developers in the world (you) hacking with us to solve some very real issues.</comment>


Uncleftish Beholding – A Text Written in "Anglish" - <AUTHOR> https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/complexity/people/students/dtc/students2011/maitland/fun/ <comment><AUTHOR> _Uncleftish Beholding (1989) is a short text written by Poul Anderson. It is written using a form of 'Anglish' or pure English, using almost exclusively words of Germanic origin. Where most of the Germanic languages retain their own words for scientific concepts, English has adopted a huge number of words from other languages. This essay was intended to illustrate what the English language might look like if it had not received its considerable number of loanwords from other languages, particularly Latin, Greek and French._</comment>


Ask HN: Alternatives to Y Combinator? - <AUTHOR>

I have an idea for a startup, and would love to submit it to the YC program. However, I also have a wife and an infant daughter and the move to either Cambridge or Mountain View would just be too much of a burden.<p>So, is there a similar program but without the move? Or perhaps a little closer to home (Phoenix, AZ)? Or should I pursue a more traditional seed/angel funding route? The biggest attraction of YC to me is the cumulative experience and knowledge of the founders, and I worry that I wouldn't get that with a standard VC path. <comment><USER2> _So, is there a similar program but without the move? [...] The biggest attraction of YC to me is the cumulative experience and knowledge of the founders, and I worry that I wouldn't get that with a standard VC path._

How do you expect to get a "similar program" without moving? The cumulative experience and knowledge of YCers isn't something which can be conveyed remotely.

My google-fu is failing at the moment, but I remember seeing a comment from pg here a while ago to the extent that YC once tried funding a team remotely, but it didn't work due to the lack of frequent contact. Don't look at YC's move- across-the-country requirement as a roadblock they're putting up -- look at it as them trying to maximize the chance that the companies they fund will succeed.

(That said, I submitted a YC application in spite of not being able to move -- but I wasn't really expecting to be accepted, and if I had been accepted, it would have taken sitting down and trying to figure out exactly how YC could help a non-local startup before I would have accepted.)

<comment><USER3> I think this is the conversational fragment you're referring to:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=257260>

<comment><USER2> Right conversation, wrong fragment. Here's the comment I was remembering: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=257203>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My first piece of advice would be this: don't bank on YC funding. Sure, it would be great if you got accepted, but that shouldn't stop you from pursuing your idea. Especially if it is still just an idea - work on it at home, in your spare time, and then evaluate your options once you have done everything you possibly can do on your own.

If you decide that you need outside funding, and even Mountain View is too far, then your options for YC (or a similar program) become more limited. The next YC round will be in Cambridge, but there is TechStars in Boulder, Colorado which is obviously much closer, but may still be too far. The only other programs I have heard of are in the Philly / DC areas.

Like you said though, there are more traditional routes. A Google search for 'arizona angel network' brings up over 2m hits. My point is that, I'm sure there are options, you just need to look for them, and then evaluate.

First things first, though: start hacking!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. That's pretty much what we've concluded: continue at my current job and hack at it on nights and weekends until a prototype is ready.

I hadn't heard of TechStars, and will check them out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why do you need seed/angel funding. Why don't you bootstrap it? Work on it in your spare time? And don't give me excuses about a young daughter. I did it with a young son while working full time. It's about desire, not location. Don't buy into the hype.

I'm not convinced YC is a good thing. What about the group think problem? Hey everybody let's build sites then [..magic..] profit!

If it's a good idea slow and steady will do just fine.

</comment><comment><USER6> You probably have a day job, right? Put aside a certain amount everymonth and hire people on elance to create your product for you. In a few months it will be done and you can test it on the market. It's risk free, and it's the sensible solution for someone with a wife and children.

</comment><comment><USER3> Consider the fbFund.

I'm happy to chat about it. I've written a little about it too: <http://blog.luckycal.com/?p=11>

<comment><AUTHOR> Is fbFund only for Facebook apps? That doesn't really fit what I'm thinking of.

<comment><USER3> Yes, it is.

Can you make it fit?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You could do cambridge / mountain view for the three months that you're required to be there, then leave - I don't think there's anything in the rules against that.

<comment><AUTHOR> We talked about that, and it would mean bad things all around for my family. Background: She's a PhD student and will graduate in May or August.

Option 1) She continues what she's doing right now, research and lab work, and occasionally pick up a shift at a "real" job. However, we wouldn't have health insurance, and that is crucial (pre-existing conditions and baby).

Option 2) She gets a full time job, with benefits. The downside is that we would then need full time daycare for the baby, which is something I am against. Yes, it would only be for a few months, but I think it would be too much for her, since she would essentially be a single mom.

Crazy Option 3) We pick up and move to Cambridge/Mountain View. This would keep the family together, but the logistics of figuring that out while starting a company make my head hurt just thinking about it.

Ultimately, a 3 month separation would be an incredible stressor on our marriage, and that is something I'm not willing to sacrifice.

<comment><USER7> All sounds rather familiar...

"research and lab work" - are you another tech guy with a biotech/chem girl? You have no information in your profile, BTW.

<comment><AUTHOR> Close :). Her field is Audiology. (And I'm filling out my profile now, thanks for the heads up).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is a new Y-Combinator style accelerator forming in Arizona called Tekcelerate (www.tekcelerate.com).

</comment><comment><USER9> Anyone mentioned Vencorps.com? If no one has I'd check it out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you provide some more info about them? I looked at the site, but there isn't a lot there beyond the signup-for-beta form.

It looks kind of like a social-media based VC thing, is that correct? Interesting idea, but how feasible is that model?</comment></comment>


Samsung And Others Have A New Alternative To Android - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/tizen-operating-system-on-phones-this-year-2013-2

<comment><USER2> Only Jolla Sailfish and Microsoft Windows 8 have a coherent platform strategy that does not rely on the wishful thinking that HTML5 will become so popular that it will be a powerful locomotive pulling Linux+browser Web operating systems into the market.

Based on seeing carriers being willing to ship some of these unlikely OSs, there is a market opening. Is anyone ready to take advantage of it?</comment>


Crytek sues Star Citizen developer, alleging copyright infringement - <AUTHOR> http://massivelyop.com/2017/12/13/crytek-sues-star-citizen-developer-cloud-imperium-alleging-copyright-infringement/ <comment><USER2> I wonder if this will have a substantial impact on Star Citizen's release or not. For a non-product, it generates an enormous amount of profit.</comment>


Will I be down-voted for giving a W3Schools link? - <AUTHOR> http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/120025/will-i-be-downvoted-for-giving-a-w3schools-link

<comment><USER2> The main problems with any QA (or discussion board) site is that many newbies just ask instead of searching for the answer a bit. If you ask me every developer-relevant QA site should have a big bold red statement at the top saying "Have you tried google?".

I visit SO a lot, but haven't posted a single question. pretty much everything I need to know has already been answered.</comment>


Why I Quit Tech and Became a Therapist - <AUTHOR> http://glench.com/WhyIQuitTechAndBecameATherapist/ <comment><USER2> Sure sounds like switching line of work was the right thing for you. Good for you!

I have thought about doing something like that. But then I realise that I am not an engineer in order to affect people or make the world a better place. I am simply an engineer because I love the hum of a well oiled machine (metaphorically). I love the tinkering, the troubleshooting and the craftsmanship. I enjoy the process more than I enjoy the end result.

By the way, these traits are also something I value in others when hiring.</comment>


Learn TLA+ (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://learntla.com/ <comment><USER2> GodDAMN am I behind on updating this

There's at least a couple more major improvements I want to make. One is fixing all of the small errors, and one is adding c-syntax. They've been stalled out due to Reasons (tm), but I'm hoping on diving back in soon.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is C syntax? Neat. Is it used in your book?

<comment><USER3> Practical TLA+ uses the Pascal-style syntax for PlusCal - the only guide to the C syntax that comes to mind ATM is Lamport's own:

[https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/c-manual.pdf](https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/c-manual.pdf)

<comment><USER2> I really strongly prefer the p-style syntax because it doesn't overload the meaning of `{}`, but a lot of other people in the community use c-style.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Leslie Lamport has provided his own +1 to this book, as well as a thorough review here [https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/practical- tla.html](https://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/practical-tla.html)

<comment><USER5> oh wow that was really awesome for him to do that! really appreciate you posting this link

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Lamport also made a free video series for learning TLA+

[http://lamport.azurewebsites.net/video/videos.html](http://lamport.azurewebsites.net/video/videos.html)

<comment><USER7> These videos are great!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Every time I see some TLA+ related article, I read it and then spend an hour convincing myself that I don't have time to learn it right now, even though I really want to. That convincing usually comes in the form of showing that the gains are not worth the effort for the software field that I am in. Can someone change my mind on this?

<comment><USER9> I love the concept of formal verification, but translating my algorithms into yet another DSL and hoping I get that right seems like a waste of time. I'd rather simulate the algorithm with my brain.

<comment><USER10> Good luck with this. I heard about practical TLA usage. There was hang up in python asyncio library related to concurrency and it required 24 steps to reproduce. It was found and fixed with TLA help.

<comment><USER11> Do you have a source for that? I tried a few google searches and came up empty

<comment><USER10> It was part of the talk in PyCon Ukraine 2018, which I took part. [https://pyvideo.org/pycon-ukraine-2018/verification-of- concu...](https://pyvideo.org/pycon-ukraine-2018/verification-of-concurrent- and-distributed-systems.html) That's the video

Sorry it's on Russian and amount of steps was 33. Check 28:30

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In the landing page example:

> But if we run the model checker, we find that's not true: Alice could trade > an item to herself and, before that process finishes running, resolve a > parallel trade giving that same item to Bob. Then the first trade resolves > and Alice gets the item back.

How does the model checker know that "parallel threads" are even a possibility here? It seems like it's checking what amounts to a leaky abstraction from the actual implementation of this algorithm.

In my mind a strictly logical validator would look at the proposed algorithm and say it checks out (since in math-land transactions are atomic). Is this just a feature of the model checker? Can it be turned off/tuned to the expected real-world implementations of the algorithm?

<comment> loup-vaillant TLA+ is originally mainly meant to check for concurrency bugs, so the possibility of parallel threads is kind of in its core DNA. The name "process" might also give a hint that parallel threads are indeed possible.

I don't know how, but I expect you can indeed model actual transactions.

<comment><USER2> Depends on what you mean by "actual transaction". Every TLA+ behavior is describable as a series of "next-states", where _usually_ (not always, but _usually_) one action is true. In which case you'd model the transaction by determining the changes that the overall transaction makes and then declaring them all as part of a single action.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We used this resource to put together a model for our distributed sessions management algorithm, heres a GitHub with Go implementation and PlusCal / TLA+ model [1]. We also wrote a more in depth article about it here [2] (with an interactive version in JS). It took a few attempts but eventually it clicked!

[1] [https://github.com/endiangroup/compandauth](https://github.com/endiangroup/compandauth) [2] [https://endian.io/articles/compandauth/](https://endian.io/articles/compandauth/)

</comment><comment><USER14> What is the difference between formal methods as implemented by TLA+, proof assistants like Coq, and theorem proving languages like Agda (Idris?)?

<comment><USER15> coq allows you to extract a real program, whereas TLA+ just checks a spec for correctness (and you may have bugs implementing it)

<comment><USER16> See my other comment on the matter, but this presents a choice where there is none. No tool that extracts or verifies actual code (and people have actually done both with TLA+) can operate on programs larger than a few thousand lines. So it's not a choice between fully verifying a 200KLOC program or just its 2000-line high-level spec. It's between verifying/extracting a 2000 line program or a 2000 line spec that abstracts a 200KLOC program. In other words, for programs of a certain size, verifying a high-level spec is the only real option for "deep" verification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The syntax in that first example is off putting.

<comment><USER17> Yes, you can definitely tell the inventor of TLA was also the first developer of LaTeX. As such, it is a language best read after typesetting.

For a good example, see Appendix B in Diego Ongaro's dissertation [1], the formal Raft specification. After a little of the Learn TLA+ book, I was able to muddle through the spec enough to implement it.

1: [https://ramcloud.stanford.edu/~ongaro/thesis.pdf](https://ramcloud.stanford.edu/~ongaro/thesis.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I guess this is a meta question: do typical US undergraduate university Computer Science curricula not have Formal Methods as a class?

I'm just wondering because of the number of fairly basic questions here. I went to a middling midwestern state school 20ish years ago and that was part of the curriculum. Perhaps we have lots of non-CS-graduates here?

This is not to denigrate the discussion. I'm just surprised that this is news.

<comment><USER18> While it seems anecdotally true that the mathematical foundations of computer science are being downplayed in universities in favour of giving students a more practical education in software engineering, which is an entire contentious discussion in and of itself. I think that a big factor in influencing your observation could be that CS is no longer the main entry point into a career in software development. In the organisation I work in, many of the younger hires do not come from CS backgrounds, and even many of the older hires come from other scientific disciplines.

<comment><USER19> if you want to get into software development, just go to any so called "boot- camp" class for few couple months.

Then you know how to write some webpages with new shiny JS framework, congrats you are a "qualified" software guy. Now go to write those sh*ty code ............

Math? what math? CS background? algorithm? if you are not going to challenge FAAG why bothered?

if you just want to code few pages, writing some sql query, there is no need for that. and for 80% of enterprises, they need only CHEAP engineers.

sorry for the rant, just another morning with lots of idiots bothered me.

<comment><USER18> I agree with you. Unfortunately there's numerous perverse incentives within the business sector that are promoting this. I'm glad I won't be alive in 2070 to fly intercontinental in an aeroplane with avionics written in Node.js...

<comment><USER19> I don't think NodeJS is an issue, the problem always lies in PEOPLE who wrote code.

If you want me to said what's the terrible thing? the code that very FEW people actually use, no one EVER VERIFIED it.

Do you dare to install these piece of crap to the plane you sit on?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can someone who has learned TLA+ comment on how useful it is has been for you?

<comment><USER20> Someone from AWS posted this few days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19634915](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19634915)

<comment><USER21> Is this somehow integrated with Java or does it work with a programming language of my choice?

<comment><USER3> Specifications aren't tied to any specific programming language - you're outlining how the algorithm should work, not the implementation.

(You _can_ write Java code and invoke it during model-checking if you _really_ need to, but I haven't come across any situation where it's actually necessary.)

<comment><USER21> Ah, okay.

I had the impression it was about somehow writing a program in a more strict language and then exporting it to Java.

I don't do much algorithmic design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Since the author hangs out here on HN, I'd like to ask: how long does it take to develop a working proficiency to model standard distributed systems (ex: a souped up key/value store)? It seems like he's written 2 books:

      Learn TLA+

      Practical TLA+

Would there be any other resources that you'd recommend to supplement after those 2 books?

<comment><USER16> Not the author, but it would take 2-3 weeks if you learn by yourself (to get real stuff done, not to be an expert), or 3 full days of hands-on training.

I would recommend Lamport's video course[1] and TLA+ hyperbook[2] (Lamport says he's stopped working on it, but it's fairly complete). Note that both Learn TLA+ and Practical TLA+ don't teach much of TLA+, but rather a language called PlusCal that compiles to TLA+. Some programmers may find it easier to start with because, unlike TLA+, PlusCal resembles a programming language (and like all programming languages, it is much more complex than TLA+, but more familiar). Hillel's book also contains some good real-life examples.

You can also find examples and various other links posted on the TLA+ subreddit[3].

[1]: [http://lamport.azurewebsites.net/video/videos.html](http://lamport.azurewebsites.net/video/videos.html)

[2]: [http://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/hyperbook.html](http://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/hyperbook.html)

[3]: [https://www.reddit.com/r/tlaplus/](https://www.reddit.com/r/tlaplus/)

<comment><USER23> "Note that both Learn TLA+ and Practical TLA+ don't teach much of TLA+, but rather a language called PlusCal that compiles to TLA+. Some programmers may find it easier to start with because, unlike TLA+, PlusCal resembles a programming language"

Most evidence indicates using familiar concepts aids learning. That makes me hypothesize the best recommendation is the more mathematical ones for folks strong in math and the programmer-centric ones for those strong in that. That also implies that, for each of these formal topics, we need one version for each audience to draw more people in.

<comment><USER22> Seem's like hillel's material is more approachable for people with a programming background, and pron's recommended material better for people who are more math-y. I'm likely going to start with Hillel's books to develop a working understanding and then move onto Lamport's stuff once i'm ready for a rigorous deep dive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> When I did spend a little amount of time trying to learn TLA+, the biggest annoyance is the two different syntax/form in which TLA+ can be written, a mathematical symbolic form, and a text form like a program.

Now, this topic is a rather abstract and difficult to comprehend one, and having two equivalent ways of doing it, introduced right from the beginning, I thought was too much of a cognitive load, considering the difficulty of the subject.

I hope this material from the article is simpler for learners.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hillel Wayne was recently on the Future of Coding podcast and they go deep into formal methods - [https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/038](https://futureofcoding.org/episodes/038)

</comment><comment><USER26> Is there a validator to verify if an implementation of an algorithm respects the TLA+ specification? Can somebody please tell me (some of) the main differences between TLA+ and JML?

<comment><USER27> > Is there a validator to verify if an implementation of an algorithm respects > the TLA+ specification?

TLA+ has some tools to do this, _if_ you write your implementation in some TLA+-specific language like PlusCal. But this would be the sort of "end-to- end" verification that TLA+ proponents would regard as only being feasible for relatively simple software.

Relatedly, JML basically adds support for "design by contract" specifications to the Java programming language - expressing preconditions, postconditions and invariants. These can be quite useful, but the focus with TLA+ - in this thread and elsewhere - seems to be rather on "deeper" properties that encompass entire systems in a more global and cross-cutting way, and are thus inherently harder to manage with simpler tools.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Is this like formal verification/formal methods then?

<comment><USER29> It is a formal method.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is Formal Specification used by proving language like Coq and Idris?

Are they a different way of doing the same thing?

Or two completely different thing?

<comment><USER16> They share many philosophical similarities, but their design and goals are very different. Coq and Idris are mostly used for research. TLA+ is designed for heavy-duty, everyday use in industry by software and hardware developers working on large, complex real-world systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> How does this compare with other formal methods like Z? Has anyone here used them successfully in the field?

</comment><comment><USER32> Disappointed. Was expecting to learn more about Three Letter Acronyms. :)

</comment><comment><USER33> What's the advantage of this versus normal unit testing?

<comment><USER3> They're complementary, IMO: unit tests show that your implementation works as expected, while a formal specification allows you to check that your approach is right to begin with.

That being said, TLA+ specifications have uncovered really hairy concurrency bugs which would be a nightmare to unit test - for instance, Amazon found bugs in DynamoDB which required 35 steps to reproduce [1].

[1] [http://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/formal-methods- amazon.p...](http://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/formal-methods-amazon.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> So, like writing code and then writing tests for it?

<comment><USER29> Not really. Formal verification methods are mathematically rigorous. They can mathematically prove or disprove correctness of programs and catch bugs that would be extremely difficult for a human to find [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_verification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_verification)

<comment><USER34> "Formal verification of software programs involves proving that a program satisfies a formal specification of its behavior."

It sounds a lot like writing your specs as tests that are then satisfied by the implementation code.

<comment><USER29> TLA+ is for building and verifying a formal model of the program (a blueprint), not for verifying the implementation.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Please review our Startup BusFeed - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN,
We founded Busfeed.com as a web application for sales professionals.
BusFeed  is   a Sales 2.0 application, We harvest Business and Social network intelligence to help sales people get closer to their prospect and help close deals faster.
To get a Free 30 days subscription, Please use Promo code:  BF_30DAYS_YC
Web site is www.busfeed.com
We appreciate your feedback. <comment><USER2> Read This:

<http://www.jacquesmattheij.com/The+Unofficial+HN+FAQ>

And resubmit latter with your site as the URL when all the superbowl (US) nonsense has blown over.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice, will do.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://busfeed.com>

</comment><comment><USER3> Needs screenshots or video demo on the homepage. Takes a bit while to figure out what it is (I don't want to schedule a demo yet, I just want to see what it is!).

</comment><comment><USER2> okeumeni,

If I were to change your copy, I'd stick with just "Sales Innovation" rather than "Sales 2.0 Innovation."

Though I'm sure opinions will vary, I personally feel the "Something 2.0" nomenclature is trite. I tend to be unfriendly towards buzzwords. On the other hand, I'm most likely not your target market, so it may be good marketing and I just don't get it.</comment>


Looked at 1154 climate science results and found no evidence of publication bias - <AUTHOR> https://theconversation.com/we-looked-at-1-154-climate-science-results-and-found-no-evidence-of-publication-bias-84500 <comment><USER2> To look at 1154 sets of result and find no bias is bullshit.

Given such a large number how could that be even close to possible?

Their title, which is a news stories abstract is also clickbait. Which I find ironic given the article.</comment>


Designing and Printing Hello Web App's PDF and Paperback Editions - <AUTHOR> https://hellowebapp.com/news/all-about-hello-web-apps-paperback-book-fulfillment

<comment><AUTHOR> Happy to answer any questions anyone has about editorial design or self- publishing! I posted my pre-order/launch revenue numbers earlier here, some great discussions and questions: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9847965](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9847965)</comment>


Nvidia Ampere GA100 GPU Powered Tesla A100: 1 PetaOps Compute and 96 GB HBM2 Mem - <AUTHOR> https://wccftech.com/nvidia-ampere-ga100-gpu-powered-tesla-a100-worlds-largest-7nm-gpu/ <comment><USER2> Would not want to be Graphcore right now.

</comment><comment><USER3> Relevant discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23178950](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23178950)

</comment><comment><USER4> This is partially speculation, the currently shipping version has 40GB of HBM2 @ 1.6TB/s. Hypothetically future versions could have 96GB at a faster speed.

</comment><comment><USER5> Time of GPU ownership of independent Deep Learning researchers is over. It didn't even last a decade!</comment>


Roadblocks for Remote Work - <AUTHOR> http://teleport.org/2015/09/overcoming-remote-work-roadblocks/ <comment><USER2> 3) Communication gets a lot more complicated

The hardest point!

Not because we don't communicate enough. The amount we did changed sometimes we had daily standups with skype, sometimes we did only chat a few minutes a day via slack.

The problem is not how or how much you communicate.

But the clarification of what is communicated.

If I get told, "we need a feature that..." They can tell me this 10 times a day. Via skype, via slack, I even could be in the office right before them and they tell me about it and it still can be wrong.

I mean, people understand that what I implemented IS what they said, but sometimes not what they meant.</comment>


Dashdash.com launches spreadsheet with native data, APIs, automation - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/dashdash/the-5-superpowers-of-spreadsheet-cells-2b44b1455647 <comment><USER2> can I integrate with a generic API?

<comment><AUTHOR> sure.

you can use =GET(url, JSON_headers) for that. More [https://forum.dashdash.com/t/get-post-interact-with-apis- of-...](https://forum.dashdash.com/t/get-post-interact-with-apis-of-other- online-services/20/3)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Filtering product images by color - <AUTHOR> http://beta.vollow.me

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here - I wanted to learn react and had this colour filter idea kicking around from about a year ago.

I really wanted to be able to filter by the full range of colours. Initially I looked at making a histogram of the HSV values - but obviously that's a lot of data.

So in the end I just took a histogram of the hue, sat and value and then in the query multiply them together - this seems to give a pretty effective result.

I've been doing a lot of angular recently, so it was good to have a go at react and try out the flux architecture.

Happy to answer any questions on what I've made (assuming it stays up!)

</comment><comment><USER2> It's very nice. I can definitely see it applied to some e-commerce someday.

</comment><comment><USER3> plug for a friend's similar whimsical project: [http://www.dayhue.com/](http://www.dayhue.com/)</comment>


Russia launches test of anti-satellite weapon - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/russia-anti-satellite-missile-launch-ca9c3f20-f2af-4c11-b814-b2755a40df71.html <comment><USER2>
      "This test is further proof of Russia's hypocritical advocacy of outer space arms control proposals designed to restrict the capabilities of the United States while clearly having no intention of halting their counterspace weapons programs," Gen. John Raymond, commander of U.S. Space Command, said in the statement.

One could argue they are trying to police space by forbidding arms</comment>