Mass produced Gasoline from Algae is a reality next year in 2012 - <AUTHOR> http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/onair/transcripts/algae_alternative_energy_source_110426/

<comment><USER2> My girlfriend is a Ph.D. candidate doing work related to algae biofuels. Her experience indicates that at present biofuel production is still too inefficient (the algae aren't easily persuaded to produce massive stores of triglycerides) and extraction is costly (the present methods for extracting the triglycerides don't scale well at all), and that isn't changing fast enough to make algae viable in anything like the next year.

Moreover, she claims that a lot of research groups are actually too optimistic in the numbers they report because their analysis methods are questionable. This claim is related to the fact that she's working on a new analysis method that gives far better resolution of triglycerides versus contaminants (chlorophyll, phospholipids, et cetera) and as a result she's come across a lot of problem cases that the present method can't discern.

In short, she's familiar with the state of the art and she's pessimistic that it will ever go anywhere, let alone within the next year.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wouldn't any corporation with a breakthrough in production keep it under wraps until they had momentum?

This business is doing it 20 acres at a time in perfect conditions, I've never read of such a massive undertaking before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Full disclosure, I bought and ran a Golf TDI on biodiesel for quite a few years.

On algae sourced biodiesel: let's talk when it is actually in production.

They have been talking about algae sourced biodiesel for more than a decade. There was work done by the DOE way back when showing it /should/ be possible at scale.

But nobody seems to be able to make the final leap, and that's the rub. So this is nothing new.. people have been making expensive algae fuel for years, and everybody says that the prices will come down with 'just a bit more research'. But no dice yet.

Once they really do reach the $80/barrel level then we'll have a revolution at hand, and I'll be first in line to buy another diesel.

<comment><USER4> I've been reading these headlines longer than I've been reading HN. After many disappointments I'm very disillusioned about algae produced fuel. When there's a story about it pumping out of bowsers then I'll get excited. Until then, it's all vaporware as far as I am concerned,

<comment><USER5> For science fiction geeks, remember that research into algae-produced fuels was the setting for Hal Clement's 1950s novel _Needle_. The _idea_ has been around a long time. Admittedly, the actual research has been pretty sporadic, but there has actually been surprisingly little progress made.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is essentially taking energy from the sun by: \- growing a plant in a pool of water \- harvesting the plant, treating it with solvents, then extracting the fuel in a crude format \- refining the oil

Although solar technologies are still inefficient, it seems like a much more direct path from solar -> electricity -> electric car.

<comment><USER7> More direct perhaps, but not more efficient. So far nature has far outstripped us in the ability to collect energy from photons.

Using the sun to grow plants and then harvesting those plants for their chemicals is still more efficient than most photo-voltaic cells.

<comment><USER8> Source of efficiency?

This chart makes me think you're making things up: [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:PVeff%28...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/File:PVeff%28rev100921%29.jpg)

<comment><USER9> To back that chart up, photosynthesis generally works at around 5% efficiency.

<comment><USER10> Which agricultural plant gets 5% efficient photosynthesis ? That's huge. 2% is quite a lot.

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

<comment><USER9> sugarcane?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > there's talk about $5-a-gallon

To put this into perspective, prices are nearly _twice_ that here in Sweden: <http://www.bensinpriser.nu/> and Germany: <http://gasoline- germany.com/statistik.phtml>

At 14.30 SEK/l, that is 8.80 USD/gallon.

<comment><USER12> To put this into perspective, the reason your gas costs so much is that Sweden/Germany/other European countries have incredibly high gas taxes.

The supply of oil and gas is pretty smooth - Nearly every country pays the same price (with some obvious exceptions - islands, etc.) The reason prices vary so much across US States and Euro countries are taxes placed on the government. If the production costs are really $5 a gallon, the expect to pay $12-$13 at the pump, if Sweden decides to level the same amount of gas taxes.

<comment><USER13> And the reason for high taxes is said to be to compensate for the commercial disbalance. So high taxes wouldn't be needed if gas could be produced locally.

<comment><USER14> _And the reason for high taxes is said to be to compensate for the commercial disbalance._

A counterexample to that is Norway, which has abundant domestic supplies of petroleum but still taxes gasoline heavily.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax#Norway>

<comment><USER15> Actually I think that's just the other side of the coin. While most of Europe has recognized that the public is better off levying heavy taxes to discourage expensive imports, Norway levies heavy taxes to allow for greater quantity of expensive exports. The net effect on society in both cases is positive.

<comment><USER16> I don't get it. Why couldn't Norway export oil expensively, and yet make gas cheap domestically?

Isn't that what many states in the Persian Gulf do?

<comment><USER15> Why is cheap gas a good thing? Cars are far less safe than the alternatives, and also generally speaking result in less exercise. So on two different fronts, you have overall more death and injury resulting to society from cheap gas, while more expensive gas pushes people on to safer transit like trains, and encourages people to walk improving overall health. Minimizing time people spend driving in cars is a good thing.

<comment><USER16> I never meant to imply that cheap gas must be a good thing.

I just didn't see the supposedly necessary connection between expensive oil exports and expensive domestic gas prices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Video should be up here later:

[http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/features/special/environment_pla...](http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/features/special/environment_planet_forward/)

</comment><comment><USER8> Is it more efficient than deriving ethanol from corn over the same land size?

<comment><USER17> Yes. algae can be harvested multiple times daily, corn is seasonal.

Also, algae has a much larger percentage of oil to its mass. I've read some types can be close to 40% oil.

<comment><USER18> And when you convert algae to fuel you're not taking food off the table, as you are with corn. The impact ethanol has on driving up food prices is the almost exclusive reason why I avoid using it.

<comment><USER19> Folks are going to flood fields with salt water to wildcat algae for fuel plants. I know I would if I lived near an algae plant and had the land.

The article claims there is no erosion issue - so its better on the environment. I disagree - its entirely possible to grow algae and damage the environment at the same time.

<comment><USER20> This isn't mentioned anywhere /near/ often enough- no one is going to be repurposing wetlands for this.

<comment><USER21> I thought I read once scheme was to run a water pipe into the desert and build your algae ponds their? No farmland, lots of sun. Not sure about it though.

<comment><USER22> Lots of hot desert, salt water and pipeline/shipping infrastructure in the Gulf states. So, once again, the Saudis win? :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Perspective: they talk about a "75% chance" of reaching production of 5,000 barrels/day in five years time. That's 0.02% of our daily oil usage (18.7 million bbl/day in 2009 according to Wolfram Alpha). A literal drop in the bucket.

</comment><comment><USER24> "next year in 2012" equals year 2013, right? ;)</comment>


Desktop Catapults & Ballistas for Engineers & Designers to Converse in Office - <AUTHOR> http://solidsmack.com/design/desktop-catapults-and-ballistas-provide-new-way-for-engineers-and-designers-to-converse-in-office/ <comment><USER3> Nice! We (Yearbook Machine) tried 3CH helicopters for this - <USER2> attempting to streamline the sweet delivery process. Ultimately the endeavour was a failure because the helicopters didn't have quite enough lift, and the heavy sweets caused quite an imbalance.

Now a Ballista on the other hand…</comment>


Massive Twitter Cross-Site Scripting Vulnerability - <AUTHOR> http://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/massive-twitter-cross-site-scripting-vulnerability.html <comment><USER2> Just a public service announcement-- for those of you looking to validate your own site for XSS exploits, you'll find that this list is particularly good at giving you "problem" strings to test against:

<http://ha.ckers.org/xss.html>

We honestly thought we secured XSS with common libraries on every field for one of our sites, but we paid a contractor to go through and use those strings in various unexpected places and they found a few special and unobvious spots that fell between the cracks.

Don't think you're immune just because you use all the right frameworks and input sanitation tricks. Even the best web developers are going to mishandle things from time to time.

If you think it's irresponsible for Twitter to miss some XSS vulnerabilities, you better be doing this testing on your sites, too, before someone else does and calls you out on it. If you're not testing at least the easy user input exploits, you don't really know how protected you are.

<comment><USER3> This is good advice, but OTOH, I do think it's going about things the wrong way to a certain extent.

Testing your site with certain strings isn't a complete way to determine if it's safe or not. You should "prove" to yourself it's safe against _all_ attacks. Not just the ones you know about.

Definitely worth trying the "problem" strings as a simple sanity check though.

For example js code:

a). myNode.innerHTML = someUserInput;

b). myNode.appendChild(document.createTextNode(someUserInput));

It's clear from the source that a) is vulnerable, whilst b) is not. I think programmers just need to be trained to have massive alarm bells go off in their head when they see some external string used in the output/markup in an unsafe way.

<comment><USER2> My point is exactly yours, but with added testing:

      * Do the Right Engineering(TM) to guarantee no XSS
      * Followed by having someone else confirm your certainty.

If you only do the first step, I'm nearly certain your site will eventually be vulnerable simply because we're all human and it's so easy to make mistakes in user input handling.

Otherwise you can wait until someone else proves that you missed something (using similar easy tests). Maybe they'll be nice people who will tell you about it. Maybe they'll be mean and will make you look like a fool publicly. Or maybe they'll be evil and exploit your users without you ever finding out.

Trust, but Verify.

<comment><USER3> Sure, point taken. I just wanted to emphasize the first ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would assume Twitter is using conventional ERB templates since their front end is written using Rails.

The ERB templates used by rails don't escape HTML by default--you have to write <%= h user_provided_value %> instead of <%= user_provided_value %> to mitigate cross-site scripting attacks such as this. It's pretty easy to miss, even if you know you should always escape user-provided data.

Django's template engine, for instance, automatically escapes strings (though I think this can be disabled). To not escape HTML, you must either specify it or a method producing said string can mark it as "safe".

Though ERB is great in that it's incredibly versatile--we use it to generate several types of configuration files--I would very much prefer for it to escape HTML by default when asked to render a string in the context of an HTML page generated by a Rails app. Form helpers and methods such as "render" could be modified to mark Strings that contain HTML you wouldn't want escaped as "unescapable", much like Django does.

The way it works now invites problems like this, even from competent programmers.

<comment><USER5> I think Rails 3 does escaping by default, no?

<comment><USER6> They're working on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Such blatant incompetence astounds me. They can't even validate a field when they know the exact format of the content it should contain?

<comment><USER6> See my other comment. The engineer who wrote this code did take the time to validate, but his validation was incorrect.

Call it "blatant incompetence" if you like, but I'm guessing you've written a buggy validation or regex once or twice in your life.

<comment><USER8> Except that using validation at all in this case is a mistake, especially writing it yourself for a narrow case, much less using regexes to do it.

Escaping, damnit.

<comment><USER6> Yes, I agree. That's why we've tried to assist Rails Core in reviewing a more comprehensive string tainting model. I've said for some time now that security needs to be institutionalized in frameworks in order for developers to be unable to make stupid mistakes like this one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A fix for this is being deployed as I type.

For those interested in the details: the vulnerability was caused by inadequate invalidation of URLs submitted by users when registering OAuth applications. There was a validation routine on those fields, but the very end of the regex used in that validation allowed any number of arbitrary characters. The test coverage included a variety of invalid URLs, but none that simply put a space after the URL and started a <script> tag.

Just goes to show that you can validate, test, and still not be safe. It took another set of eyes to catch this one.

Unfortunately, the publisher of this blog post did not responsibly disclose the vulnerability to us in advance. We found out about it through other channels.

We would have had the fix live earlier, but as several people noticed in the comments, we had a brief outage.

<comment><USER9> It's odd that you count completely on validation to catch problems like this, rather than escaping the output as well. Writing regex validations to prevent malicious input seems like a seriously error prone thing to be doing.

<comment><USER10> Agree. Not trying to give you guys a hard time, but Twitter has had several vulnerabilities caused by unescaped user supplied data being output without sanitization.

Obviously I'm on the outside looking in, but IIRC rendering user pages is not particularly taxing on Twitter, to the point that they aren't cached. Would adding a simple sanitization routine have significant impact?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Twitter seems to be down now (1:45 PM Pacific)

<comment><USER12> Yep, it's 503'd for me at the moment. Just thinking of all those poor people who now have news and no place to post it.

 _Edit_ Looks to be back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> if this is true, i hope they fixed it by now.

</comment><comment><USER14> Good thing this did not end up in the wrong hands or we might have ended up with a giant Twitter Worm :)

<comment><USER3> How do you know we haven't had one already? :/

</comment></comment><comment> onreact-com It still works: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=786924></comment>


Google reportedly bought Mastercard data to link ads with offline purchases - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/30/17801880/google-mastercard-data-online-ads-offline-purchase-history-privacy <comment><USER2> Is this surprising? MC and Visa collect and sell user data. They track everything you spend money on, and use that to get you to spend more money. Collaborate with Google to make that happen? Of course they would.</comment>


The U.S. Tried to Build a New Fleet of Ventilators. The Mission Failed - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/29/business/coronavirus-us-ventilator-shortage.html <comment><USER2> There is nothing unrealistic about economies of scale. I bet the phones we have in our pockets are 10x as complicated to make as a ventilator. Yet they are a quarter of the price.

For something like this to work the government needs to have long term contracts in place and the demand has to be there.

</comment><comment><USER3> tldr: Feds awarded a contract at an unrealistic price point for most companies, but a small company thought they could get it done. Small company was bought and the project was no longer realistic and no vents were produced.

I see the Feds do this all the time. They are penny wise and pound foolish. Instead of increasing risk by going for lowest (or unrealistic) cost, its better to reduce risk and actually get something. Better yet, they could have just bought the vents on the market for little or no risk.

<comment><USER4> Before the company was bought:

> _Every three months, officials with the biomedical research agency would > visit Newport's headquarters. [...] The federal officials "would check > everything [...] If we said we were buying equipment, they would want to > know what it was used for. There were scheduled visits, scheduled > requirements and deliverables each month."_

> _In 2011, Newport shipped three working prototypes from the company's > California plant to Washington for federal officials to review._

So up until the sale, the government was actively supervising the project, and working prototypes had been made. It doesn't sound like some unrealistic, pie- in-the-sky bet.

But the kicker for me was:

> _Government officials and executives at rival ventilator companies said they > suspected that Covidien had acquired Newport to prevent it from building a > cheaper product that would undermine Covidien's profits from its existing > ventilator business._

Who knows for sure if that's true, but it seems extremely plausible.

<comment><USER5> Why the company-buyer isn't held to the liabilities of the sold company? Whoever's bought the smaller company better be good on that company promises. Or else.</comment></comment></comment>


How Elon Musk Is Like a 19th Century Robber Baron - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-elon-musk-is-like-a-19th-century-robber-baron

<comment><USER2> > We've been down this road before. "First movers," as SpaceX is, have what's > known as a "lock in" advantage. We see it with all of Google's services and > we see it in social networking with Facebook.

Was Facebook a "first mover"? In what way?</comment>


Why Did it Have to be ... Guns? - b-man http://www.lneilsmith.org/whyguns.html

<comment><AUTHOR> While I am pro 2nd Amendment I don't believe that a politicians stance on that issue alone is enough to get a full picture of their worth as a candidate.

I personally am more interested in their position on the 1st Amendment and how they stand up for our civil liberties.

<comment><USER2> _full picture of their worth as a candidate_

\-- argument about character, not policy

but yes, your are generally right: better to be one part of a composite judgment that a simple pass/fail test.</comment></comment>


FBI admits to using Carrier IQ data - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/fbi-inadvertently-admits-to-using-carrier-iq-data-20111213/

<comment><USER2> This is being wildly overinterpreted. It could just as well mean that the FBI is investigating CarrierIQ for misconduct. You can't FOIA this stuff during an active investigation for obvious reasons. I'm not saying this is necessarrily what's going on, but we shouldn't be jumping to the worst conclusions either.

<comment><USER3> It could, but that seems awfully naive. Is there any precedent for the justice department pursuing a civil privacy case via secret (!) FBI investigation? As opposed to, you know, just filing a suit and getting the relevant documents during discovery?

<comment><USER4> What makes you think this is a civil privacy case? It is quite possible carrier iq was violating federal wiretapping statutes, which will put people into prison for years if convicted. In a criminal investigation you need to, you know, gather sufficient evidence and justification to get a search warrant so that you can dig into bits that are not out in public; a manual describing what the software actually does is one piece of data that would help in this case.

<comment><USER3> I don't buy it. I'm not aware of any similar investigation of a corporate entity like that, are you? What would be the point when you could just subpoena the relavant documents? Why must they have secrecy? I'm no law enforcement expert, but the kind of scenario you posit just doesn't seem to happen in the real world.

On the other hand, the FBI has been repeatedly caught with its hand in the surveilance cookie jar.

Seriously, given the available evidence you can't honestly say you find it more likely that the FBI is secretly investigating an existing company than that it's using that company's data for law enforcement surveilance. Can you?

<comment><USER4> Let's posit three possible situations:

* FBI Digital Forensics Agent: "Hey, did you guys see all of this data CarrierIQ is dumping to the phone unencrypted? Gold mine! Where is that manual?"

* FBI Wiretap Expert: "So these idiots are doing our work for us and sending it to people we already have a open subpeona with for cases X and Y. I wonder what else they are sending that the AD wants in those cases? Where is that manual?"

* FBI Field Agent: "The director just sent me this memo that Senator Franken included two queries about these CarrierIQ clowns in the last packet from the committee. Time to prioritize the investigation! We do have the manual and copies of that web site in our subpeona request file, right?"

All three are possible. All three could be happening concurrently. None of them are illegal and only one is ethically questionable. You have no idea what kind of scenarios happen in the real world, but in your world it seems that questionable surveillance is the only possible justification. I have provided alternatives and if I had to give an honest guess I would probably say that right now all three are ongoing, forensics probably noticed it first and told the wiretap guys while at this time the political/legal case probably has more agents working on it than the other two.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As much as it gins up page views, denial of access isn't proof of existence (you know once you are citing X-Files as your proof, you've gone off the deep end). I can easily see denying a FOI request on the grounds of "could reasonably be expected to interfere with law enforcement proceedings" as a simple rubber stamp way of avoiding to have go through the process of looking for the information that may not even exist. Not that it is less alarming, but I hate hazy conjecture boldly presented as fact.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been in touch with CIQ and have written about both sides of the story.

CIQ told me that if the FBI got CIQ's data, they got it from carriers, not from CIQ. It kinda makes sense, since law enforcement work with carriers _all the freakin time_ anyhow.

Full statement is here: <http://venturebeat.com/2011/12/13/carrier-iq-fbi- rebuttal/>

<comment><USER7> While this might shift the blame, it does not in the least change the outrageousness of the facts.

<comment><USER6> That the FBI gets data about supposed criminals from mobile carriers? That they usually have something like a warrant or probable cause to do so?

I'm all about carrying a torch & pitchfork when it's necessary, but I find other government-sponsored BS (SOPA, for example) a bit more compelling & troublesome at the moment. From everything I've seen in corporate spy guides, it seems unlikely that the government is watching your every move if you're _not_ doing something wrong or at least suspicious. It's not a perfect system, but it's not something to put Carrier IQ out of business for, either.

<comment><USER8> _"From everything I've seen in corporate spy guides, it seems unlikely that the government is watching your every move if you're not doing something wrong or at least suspicious."_

Ah, the old "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" argument...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm with frankc (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3347998>); much as I suspect that nefarious goings-on are, well, going on, this seems more like evidence of over-reaching reflexive secret-keeping than of the FBI using CIQ data. (That's not to say that I don't believe it's happening, just that I don't believe that the FBI was 'tricked' into revealing anything here that it didn't want to reveal.)

Is there anyone out there with more experience of FOIA requests who can indicate whether this response (which the article itself calls a 'canned denial') actually indicates anything substantive, or is just boilerplate?

</comment><comment><USER7> And just like that, NFC was killed before it ever even had a chance to mature.

Also -- and it pains me to say this, because until now I have considered him to be a nutcase -- but RMS was right.[1]

[1] [http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/031411-richard- stallma...](http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/031411-richard- stallman.html)

<comment><USER10> If you considered him a nutcase, you might want to reassess the methods which you use to determine if someone is a nutcase.

I'm not really surprised by this. The FBI is a horrible organization, just like most wings of the US government.

<comment><USER11> Complete abstention from modern methods of communications because "zOMG GOVERNMENT" puts one squarely into nutcase territory.

And I'm not even going to get into his behavior and demands at talks. RMS is a well-intentioned nutcase, but a nutcase nonetheless.

<comment><USER7> That's my point, though. He is not a nutcase, and his warnings were spot on. Since 9/11 this nation has descended into an oligarchical police state, wherein all federal policies serve either national security, which more often than not means "protect the wealthy from the middle- or lower classes."

This is not crazy talk. It might have been 30 years ago, but it is no longer. RMS is NOT a nutcase. He's spot-on.

<comment><USER12> It can be both.

Only a very few people are willing to adhere as tightly to a set of ideals as RMS, despite the severe personal hassle and time/energy expenditure. Perhaps 'nutcase' is unnecessarily pejorative but his behavior places him well outside the bell curve under which the vast bulk of humanity falls. Regardless of whether those ideals are correct/justifiable/etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> No, the FBI did NOT admit to using Carrier IQ data.

[http://www.securityweek.com/fbi-carrier-iq-foia-denial- not-p...](http://www.securityweek.com/fbi-carrier-iq-foia-denial-not-proof- software-being-used)</comment>


How to encode two integers into a single integer - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/mike_alche/status/1276632676259246085 <comment><USER2> Alternate the digits, or the bits, of the two numbers and prepend 0's onto the shorter number if needed. Accomplishes this in 2n digits or bits instead of 2^n.</comment>


Ask HN: real life examples of working smart not hard - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for real life examples of people who are the living embodiment of working smart and not hard, people who have done something that didn't take great intelligence or a 80 hour work week to achieve but ended up succeeding at their chosen endeavour.<p>The only one that springs to mind at the moment is the story of Money Ball (although the statistics that involved does take great deal of intelligence so maybe that isn't the best example, hopefully a bad example is better than none at all) <comment><USER2> I'm not at all clear on what you're looking for. You want examples of people who are successful by "working smart and not hard" (what does that mean?) and then as an example, you suggest a statistician but qualify that by saying "This is a bad example because it requires being really smart".

Aren't the people who work smart going to be smart, almost by definition? If you rule out smart people, then it seems like you've eliminated your possible pool of subjects.</comment>


Textbooks must die - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/06/textbook-rant.html

<comment><USER4> Here in eastern Europe, university is somewhat different then in the anglo- saxon world. We don't have homework problems (homeworks are never part of the final grade), and exams at the end of the semester are usually oral where the student has to prove theorems/algorithms or in general present some kind of theoretical framework. There is usually a problem-solving exam mid-year, but it only makes up 0-25% of the grade. It's usually managable to pass the problem-solving exam, the real _Suck_ is the oral examination at the end when you're face-to-face with the professor.

As a result of this skew toward the theoretical side, our textbooks are light on problems and practicalities and full of theories, proofs, derivations, etc. (Even a Calculus 101 textbook.) They look more like upper-level textbooks in the anglo-saxon world. As a result, these "textbooks" are usually kept around for later reference.

This is currently changing with the introduction of the so-called 'Bologna process', which basically transforms our systems to more closely match the anglo-saxon world for compatibility reasons. Eg. before we only had 5 year MSc degrees, now we introduced the 3+2 Bsc/Msc system, which is a Good Thing.

Just because a (text)book is kept around for later reference doesn't mean it should be printed, as an electronic version is actually more searchable. The main obstacle is the 'reading off an LCD screen sucks sitting at the desk' issue, which once solved with a good DRM-free paper-like device will do to the Book Industry what MP3 has done to the Music Industry.

Already you can torrent almost any book, even ones that only interest a handful of people in the world, such as research-level physics books (example from my field: search for 'darksiderg cosmology'). The fact that these highly specialized books are torrented a few months after their publication date is pretty puzzling to me =) But I don't complain, as I can preview before I buy (we don't have bookstores selling english-language books, so checking them out at the bookstore is not an option). But once people can copy these to a book- like device, publishers will have to look for another revenue stream. Fortunately, with research-level books, the answer in theory at least is pretty simple: just cut out the publisher, researchers already generate print- ready Latex files anyways. In reality it will be a long struggle; a good use- case is research journals where the publisher is completely unnecessary but is still holding on, researchers are still signing over publication rights of their papers to companies like Springer.

</comment><comment><USER5> I had a similar conversation with the Dean of my business school the past semester, basically telling him that physical textbooks lagged the available technology. He didn't want to hear it because "the number one seller of textbooks on campus WAS the university."

<comment><USER6> "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

It seems your Dean would've been good friends with Upton Sinclair.

Although, it does raise what I think is an interesting question. It has been said on here a lot that markets tend to see monopolies as market damage, and route around them; this isn't quite that severe, but seems to be a vertical monopoly to a certain degree. How would one route around this? The obvious option would be "go to school somewhere else," but this seems endemic in academia as a whole.

<comment><USER7> _this seems endemic in academia as a whole_

Yes, because this is not even close to a free market. See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=658165>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seth is right on. Textbooks should be gone within ten years, especially the college introductory and public school pablum. I expect there will be some resistance. Textbooks probably count for a lot in the publish or perish race and they bring a nice side income. But decades ago other professors were putting together xeroxed collections of articles. Students are demanding some relief. I cant see anything but the trend snowballing.

I cant help but wonder if the demise of textbooks will lead to other significant revolutions. I remember sweating through problem after problem in calculus so I could do problem after problem on the tests. Wouldnt it be better to give the students Mathematica or similar software? It could do the work, while giving them a tool to get a deeper understanding of the underlying problem.

<comment><USER9> _Wouldn't it be better to give the students Mathematica or similar software? It could do the work [...]_

This is really a tough one. My opinion is no - the sweat _is_ the learning. Skipping the problems would just lead to knowing a lot _about_ math, without actually knowing any math.

On the other hand, it's tempting - and in the Real World (tm), people do just plug their giant, buck-nasty equations into Mathematica and avoid doing all the book-keeping.

I guess the question is: should pilots all just train on auto-pilot, while having only a conceptual understanding of what piloting is about? Or should they learn to pilot manually first, and then use the auto-pilot judiciously? There are legitimate points going both ways - but I vote for the 2nd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> >>"A textbook author in Toronto made enough money from his calculus textbook to afford a $20 million house."

Let us see, many movie stars, many wall street bankers, many atheletes, many businessmen etc. make far bigger amounts of money.

...and Seth Godin has a problem with the author of one testbook making money

<comment><USER11> Except that it is difficult to take a class without buying the textbook, and they are expensive. When was the the last time your professor mandated that you see a certain sports team play, but base tickets cost $100?

<comment><USER12> It's difficult to take a programming class without owning a computer and they are expensive too.

High fixed costs relating to an academic activity do not provide indicators to the ethics of the people who produce the required items.

<comment><USER13> Yes but the professor is not the only provider of the required computer.

<comment><USER12> Serious question: Is it common for professors to require the purchase of their own titles for a class?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> >> "Professors should be spending their time devising pages or chapterettes or even entire chapters on topics that matter to them, then publishing them for free online."

Some of the worst classes I had as an undergrad were the ones taught with a professor's class notes instead of a proper text. It's true that texts are overly expensive, but the amount of work that goes into a good text isn't trivial.

I'd recommend to anyone that if they don't like the text their class is using, find another one and just photocopy the problem sets from the library's copy if you need them. There's an excellent text available for almost every subject, if you look for it.

<comment><USER15> >> "Some of the worst classes I had as an undergrad were the ones taught with a professor's class notes instead of a proper text. It's true that texts are overly expensive, but the amount of work that goes into a good text isn't trivial."

For two reasons at least. One: the amount of effort that goes into a good text and Two it means that every one taking the class from a different teacher is either getting taught something different or being taught from some one else's notes. Same with anytime a new teacher takes over the subject.

A couple years of this and suddlenly people are being taught with error ridden cryptic notes from a teacher who retired years ago but the course material is now so different than the text book that upper level classes relying on what you learned from the teachers notes would need to be restructured so you can change the low level course.

which is exactly what happened at my school, NMT, with the sophomore level physics courses and it's been a 4 year head ache so far.

All of which to say is that the text book industry sucks, not necessarily the text books themselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This post just seems tacky, complaining that because marketing textbooks don't mention his own concept of "permission marketing" that they're out of date.

Also complaining that Stewart making 20 million for text book is unreasonable, when he himself has made a substantial amount of money from writing educational books. Not to mention the 30 million he got for his games site Yoyodyne. Obviously that was completely reasonable.

<comment><USER17> True, but not referencing Google? I think a marketing 101 text probably needs to say something about the importance of having your website be discoverable in an internet search, or at the very least review how the commoditization of online advertising has led to a shift in the landscape.

<comment><USER18> Or maybe the textbook could focus on the important theory that needs to be covered, and leave keeping up to date with the newest fads up to the students and the professor teaching the course?

The theory is what gives the textbooks value. It's the timeless and constantly useful material that makes a textbook worth referring to decades later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "A textbook author in Toronto made enough money from his calculus textbook to afford a $20 million house."

I know that calculus textbook.

[http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Early-Transcendentals- James-S...](http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Early-Transcendentals-James- Stewart/dp/0495554650/)

It's workmanlike, but certainly not inspiring like Spivak's textbook.

<http://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Michael-Spivak/dp/0914098918/>

</comment><comment><USER7> The real problem here is that the textbook industry is being propped up by the government, and I'm not just talking about copyright laws.

People are placed at a serious disadvantage if they don't go to a government- approved university and get a degree. To do this, they have to take certain classes. To take those classes, they have to buy certain textbooks.

If people could learn however they wanted without being at a legal disadvantage, even if that just means attending a truly private university, the textbook extortion scheme would be competed away. Why would you tolerate $200 textbooks if you didn't have to get your hands on that legal credential, which can only be offered by certain institutions?

</comment><comment><USER20> I love my textbooks, it will be sad to see them go if they do. I've always preferred paper to pdf.

<comment><USER21> The reason you prefer paper over PDF is because PDF merely imitates paper.

<comment><USER22> I prefer hypertext over both of them, especially now that we all have tabbed browsers. There's a reason why people will voluntarily spend hours learning things from Wikipedia.

<http://xkcd.com/214/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've come across a handful of textbooks good enough to keep. It's rare, though. First year university, made the mistake of buying all my texts- first years, don't do this! Now, I ask around one year up, see if the books are worth anything at all. If they are it's easy enough to borrow one from someone else how bought it. At the end of the year, if it was actually exceptional, I'll return the borrowed and buy my own copy.

</comment><comment><USER24> combine these points with public high school budget cuts and it just gets worse. i still remember how demotivating it was being handed a heavy chemistry textbook from three decades ago on the first day of my junior year. the first 5 minutes alone flipping through those pages was probably what killed all interest in science for 19/20 in that class...i mean the authors were out of touch with teenagers even back in the 70s. so my biggest problem with textbooks has been their age: that has been the most significant in making a subject seem static and dead.

i've had CS and foreign language profs who used their own course notes updated yearly, and i ended up relying on these more than any prescribed textbook. the freshness made a big difference. the profs were also more invested in the material because they either wrote it themselves, or at least took the time to assemble. as such they were clued in to the contents and focused on them in lecture. a batch of notes also has less perceived authority than a textbook, which i think is a good thing, as it encourages questions and challenges.

<comment><USER25> It always is nice when a professor takes the time to put together a course packet, but sometimes it can be frustrating when you don't understand something in class, and go to the course packet to find it explained the same way.

<comment><USER22> Internet to the rescue! Steal somebody else's course packet and direct your students to it. Maybe have a couple of course packets. Variety helps, and students these days are (or should be) good at ignoring vast amounts of irrelevant material.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> According to the notes from a hearing held in February 2008, the average cost for textbooks in the State University of New York system (SUNY) is $900 per year. If we are conservative and say that $300 of those $900 dollars are for things that cannot be easily replaced (lab books, workbooks, CDs, unique books, etc.) that still amounts to $2400 over the course of four years that could be saved if the text books were made Open Source. For that price the student could buy a laptop capable of everything they'd need over four years at school (a Macbook with bumped up memory and Apple Care protection plan is around $1200 after the student discount, Dell would likely be less for a comparable configuration) and a Kindle and still have money left over for beer. Link to SUNY Investigation: [http://www.suny.edu/files/sunynewsfiles/txt/TextbooksTestimo...](http://www.suny.edu/files/sunynewsfiles/txt/TextbooksTestimony.txt)

</comment><comment><USER27> Seth is usually a bit hit and miss, some things he says are interesting, other's are just not.

This post is the latter - yes it's a rant, but it's completely way off base. If he doesn't like the current textbooks, like any good entrepreneur, he should write his own.

This particular line I found hypocritical.

 _Professors should be spending their time devising pages or chapterettes or even entire chapters on topics that matter to them, then publishing them for free online._

In my window, that particular line is being rendered just above where the adverts for his books are on the left.

Yes, people should give away their work for free... I mean, you're doing it, aren't you Seth?

Hypocrite.

<comment><USER28> How much did you pay to read the blog post?

<comment><USER27> _How much did you pay to read the blog post?_

Ok, well seeing as you're trying to be a smartass, let me answer you.

Using rough calculations... I use my internet for about 6 hours a day x 30 days a month so I get approximately 180 hours of internet usage a month or 10800 minutes.

Since that blog post took me about 2 minutes to read and I pay $170 a month for my internet access (which includes telephone line rental), then I guess it cost me about 2 cents to read that blog post.

So his 2 cents, cost me 2 cents.

Now we've gotten semantics out of the way, let me answer you properly.

Seth uses his blog as a marketing tool to both sell his books and to promote his "Seth Godin" brand which helps him get his consulting and workshop gigs too.

So yes, he might give away snippets of information on his blog, but make no mistake, he doesn't do it free - he has other outcomes in mind.

<comment><USER29> _he doesn't do it free - he has other outcomes in mind_

How is this hypocritical, though? _Anybody_ publishing anything for free has access to these benefits.

<comment><USER27> _How is this hypocritical, though?_

It is hypocritical because on one hand, he's saying that those professors should create content of the same scope that you would find in a text book and put it online for free - meanwhile he's got adverts for his books just to the left of that exact same statement.

Don't write text books, give away all your knowledge, but it doesn't apply to his books?

If he gave his books away as ebooks and just worked on the assumption that his income is coming from consulting/speaking then I wouldn't have a problem, since he's not, he's a hypocrite.

<comment><USER29> _but it doesn't apply to his books?_

You just read that post on his blog, where he gives away his knowledge for free every day. That he also sells books is irrelevant, because there is nothing stopping professors from selling books too. You seem to have the idea that the ideas of giving away and selling knowledge are mutually exclusive, even when the thing you're complaining about is evidience that they are not.

<comment><USER27> Did you even read the same post that I did?

He's complaining about text books...

He complains about the price and then later advocates that professors should give away their content online for free instead of in textbooks. Yet he does exactly the same thing, has content in his books that he charges for.

I'm not suggesting that the price for textbooks isn't outrageous, While doing my double degree I felt like I was getting ripped off left and right, but the fact is - saying "give away your content instead of writing a book" and not doing it yourself makes you a hypocrite.

Sure, Seth blogs about his ideas, but generally they are collection of random thoughts, not complete contextual subjects laid out in concise logical order with examples... like a textbook.

I'll also note that his blog posts often allude to ideas that he covers in his actual books (eg, the Guy #3 post talks about Tribes and guess what one of the title of his books is called?). So my assertion that his blog is a marketing channel for his paid-for content is correct.

<comment><USER29> _"give away your content instead of writing a book"_

You've used quotation marks, but what you've but between them is not a quote. As I said before, giving away knowledge and selling knowledge are not mutually exclusive. Unless you believe that textbooks are the only possible way to sell knowledge, there is no way to read the post as suggesting that selling knowledge instead of giving it away is verboten.

 _generally they are collection of random thoughts, not complete contextual subjects laid out in concise logical order with examples... like a textbook._

First of all, they are not "random", they are the same thing he suggests professors spend their time on and publish for free: "pages or chapterettes or even entire chapters on topics that matter to them".

Secondly, nowhere doe he suggest giving away textbooks for free. You're grossly distorting the text by implying that. That he describes _assigning_ a textbook as "academic malpractice" strongly indicates that his position is _not_ that textbooks should be freely available.

 _So my assertion that his blog is a marketing channel for his paid-for content is correct._

How is that relevant? I never disagreed with that assertion. Nor would I, because it is transparently obvious. Are you saying that selling books is inherently hypocritical?

<comment><USER27> _First of all, they are not "random", they are the same thing he suggests professors spend their time on and publish for free: "pages or chapterettes or even entire chapters on topics that matter to them"._

Umm, he writes

 _"They are incredibly impractical. Not just in terms of the lessons taught, but in terms of being a reference book for years down the road....The solution seems simple to me. Professors should be spending their time devising pages or chapterettes or even entire chapters on topics that matter to them, then publishing them for free online. (it's part of their job, remember?) When you have a class to teach, assemble 100 of the best pieces, put them in a pdf or on a kindle or a website (or even in a looseleaf notebook) and there, you're done."_

That explicitly states, instead of writing a text book - professors should publish their content for free, online.

 _Are you saying that selling books is inherently hypocritical?_

You've missed my argument...

I'm saying that arguing that he doesn't practise what he's preaching, which makes him a hypocrite.

He plainly states (which I have quoted for you, verbatim since you can't seem to see it) that text books are impractical and that instead of writing a text book, those professors should put their content online for free.

You mentioned that there is nothing stopping professors publishing books, which I agree - there is not, yet Seth is saying that they shouldn't publish, instead give away their content online, for free as it's part of their job.

Yet, despite that, Seth is doing the complete opposite of what he's saying. The vast majority of his content isn't free - it's in a book that you buy, seminars that you attend or you can purchase his time in the form of consulting.

The fact that he occasionally blogs snippets of information is irrelevant, since you also agree that he uses the blog only as a marketing channel.

 _Are you saying that selling books is inherently hypocritical?_

No, I think you perhaps don't quite understand the meaning of the word hypocrite. I'll paste a definition in for you.

 _Hypocrite - a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, esp. a person whose actions belie stated beliefs._

There, by definition, a person who's actions belie states beliefs.

Seth believes that professors (who's job it is to impart knowledge) should give their content away online for free instead of writing a book is a hypocritical statement given part of his job is the imparting of knowledge. He does not give away all of his content online, for free, instead, it can be purchased in one of the many books he has for sale.

The fact that he's made this assertion that that content should be available online for free, instead of being purchased in a book is especially humorous when you see the adverts for his book just to the left of that exact same statement.

<comment><USER27> @yungchin - but teaching IS part of Seth's job, he gets paid to speak and to do consulting, just because the job title is different, doesn't necessarily mean aspects of the jobs are any different.

As for some textbooks being out of date, that is really a matter of context. For example, textbooks on marketing or other such fields that move fast there are definite advantages to having material that is up to date.

However, let's look at the flipside, textbooks on renaissance period art. There really isn't much that hasn't already been written on the subject, so there really is little point in having "up to date" materials when there are probably many definitive works on the subject.

I agree that there's little point in paying inordinate amounts for out of date text books that are assigned to you - but that being said, suggesting that those same people who write these books should distribute the same materials for free is also preposterous, given Seth himself doesn't do it.

If Seth gave away his books and focussed on making money from his speaking/workshop/consulting gigs, sure - I wouldn't have batted an eyelid, but the fact is he doesn't, so that part of his argument reeks of hypocrisy.

<comment><USER29> _just because the job title is different, doesn't necessarily mean aspects of the jobs are any different._

Actually, I think you missed an essential point. In academia, publishing is usually a job requirement and key part of career advancement. This is what Seth means when he says it's part of their jobs. He is not saying it's part of their job just because they teach, there are plenty of people who teach things but are not required to publish.

 _distribute the same materials for free_

Seth is not saying this. He is emphatically not suggesting that texbooks should be distributed for free. There is no "same materials" stated or implied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I just wanted to say that this price-gouging is most egregious in the legal world, where the textbooks are full of case-law that is legally required to be freely available. The prof's add their notes at the end of each case and then sell the book for $200. They could simply give you a link to cases & a little pamphlet with their notes.

What bothers me most about this whole setup is it makes a legal education even more expensive than it already is for lower to mid-income students.

</comment><comment><USER31> Why don't more young professors release free textbooks online as a way of raising their profile in the field? Seems to me that should be a great way to advance on the tenure track, but is it actually? Certainly it's not the same as publishing original research, but it ought to at least help out in showing an interest in pedagogy.

<comment><USER32> Publishing a full textbook would probably take too much time away from focusing on research, which is the real currency you need to make your tenure case on. Online publication of a cleaned-up course notes and the like would probably make sense, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Eliminate copyright laws and books should soon become available at about cost.

<comment><USER33> Is this inaccurate?

<comment><USER30> Why would this be inaccurate? If there were no copyright laws, anyone could print a popular textbook and hence the market would drive the price down to just above the cost of printing it. What's unlikely is that we'll eliminate copyright laws.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The problem is the lack of an open market. Amazon has provided more transparancy through reviews, but there still is no freedom of choice for the consumers when a textbook is _assigned_. There is virtually no competition on price possible.

Moreover, you can't just choose another textbook, as the topics that are covered may differ slightly. Even in math, when you use another Calculus book, there is a reasonable chance you miss out on some stuff, that just happens to be on the exam.

I'm not sure Seth's solution will work and I would rather propose that teachers should be clearer on what kind of problems the student should be able to answer/solve, while keeping in mind that the student should be able to use any in a range of at least six books to study the material.

<comment><USER35> The presence of "freedom of choice" for the consumer depends on how you look at the industry. From a student's perspective, there is no real choice - <USER2> use the textbook you're assigned. Some professors will offer a few alternatives, but unless they're very diligent about always giving references to each book (and I had a few professors who did this well), the students who use the number-one book - the one the professor uses when he's lecturing and doing examples - will generally have a better idea of the material and the standard they'll be evaluated on.

From the professor's point of view (considering them as the consumer), however, there's quite a free market. They can get free evaluation copies of any textbook they want, and most schools give individual professors the choice of what book they use for a given class. So the problem then becomes getting professors to switch textbooks, which is tough. Most professors - <USER3> in things like science - will teach the same courses year-on, and will become very comfortable with the material in a given book. They'll know what to skip, what to supplement, and what to offer additional comments on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> my junior+senior high school lent me old books so students didn't have to buy new inferior books

we had to summarize the books because at the end of the year, they are returned. the next year, we continued with our notes and loaned old books for the level

and no, it's not a poverty-stricken school. in fact it's the best in the nation (out of tens of thousands), producing dozens of ministers, governor, entrepreneurs, artists, etc

bad textbooks must die, good classics must live

</comment><comment><USER37> There is a textbook maffia that will put some resistance. Specially those who make a fortune every year with the same scam of changing a word or two in a book and selling it (forcing it on students) as a new updated edition.

Resistance is futile.

</comment><comment><USER38> Seth Godin is a 2nd class thinker. His shallowness and vagueness impress only the gullible. When will people stop listening to him as if he were a god??

<comment><USER17> I'm not a fan of Seth Godin either, and my first instinct was to comment that 'Godin linkbait must die'. But I do agree with his points, although as usual the analysis is shallow.

Something that deserves more attention is the fact that the textbook industry in the US runs like a cartel (as alluded to above, with professors _requiring_ a particular book for which they get free copies, and the proceeds from which help to pay their salaries).

In Europe I preferred buying college textbooks to learn programming, because they were cheaper and better value than the commercial offerings, without the fancy graphic design covers and marketing outreach.

<comment><USER38> I am a grad student. I hate the textbook cartel as much as any other grad student who needs to spend 5%-10% of his salary in expensive textbooks. However, this whole "textbooks must die" is _linkbaitish_ and stupid. They don't have to die. Don't shoot at the books, shoot at the cartels. In any case, I read this post and learned zero. Godin is preaching to whom exactly?

Saying that textbooks must die reminds me of the Nazis burning the books they considered _un-German_. Textbooks can be wonderful when they're really good, and no Kindle or anything will kill the joy of reading a book in paper. Of course, if one looks at marketing books, it's clear they're mostly junk and I would not mind if they were replaced by e-books at all. However, the same does not apply to math / physics books, which tend to require a lot of effort and time to be written, plus the illustrations, etc. This hard work needs to be paid for, and I am willing to pay for it just as long as it's more like $30 rather than the obscene $150.</comment></comment></comment>


Trade wars: The chicken fight  - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/business/global/16chickens.html?hp

<comment><AUTHOR> Ever wondered how chicken farmers in Missouri affect are affected by un- intended consiquences ?</comment>


Google Glass-wearing woman posts video of alleged S.F. bar attack - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-google-glass-attack-video-posted-20140226,0,3398634.story

<comment><USER2> How weird and inconvenient that she doesn't have video of her friend punching someone to start the fight.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am looking forward to a wider release of google glass for reasons like this. I can't easily jump into my pocket and pull out my phone to film a cop without, probably, getting shot but to be able to have it ready to go with some sort of motion/voice activation... will be so great.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand where you are coming from but if I was at a bar and someone was wearing a Google glass I'd be pissed too. There are just some activities you would like to enjoy without feeling like there are eyes on you (yes there are security cameras in the bars). Hopefully the real dive bars won't see a glass patron for another year or so.</comment></comment>


Three and a Tree: A book about educational marketing cliches - <AUTHOR> http://threeandatree.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Thought this was a really interesting book about marketing cliches that become tropes in certain industries or markets. While targeted at higher education, I tend to think awareness and discussion would be applicable more broadly ('we are the uber/slack for X')

The title is in reference to "Three and a tree" pictures which show three students (often visibly diverse) interacting with a tree in the background.</comment>


Search Internet History - <AUTHOR> http://searchinternethistory.com/ <comment><USER3> Can the title be changed to something like > SearchInternetHistory fundraising to buy, show politicians' Internet usage

Right now it's a pretty generic title.

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried to edit it to something like that, but the form didn't work. And now I don't even see an edit button.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> On Tuesday, Congress sent proposed legislation to President Trump that wipes away landmark online privacy protections. In a party-line vote, House Republicans freed Internet service providers such as AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast of protections approved just last year that had sought to limit what companies could do with information such as customer browsing habits, app usage history, location data and Social Security numbers. Now call it a poetic justice, less than a day later, online privacy activist Adam McElhaney has launched an initiative called Search Internet History, with an objective of raising funds to buy browsing history of each politician and official who voted in favor of S.J.Res 34. On the site, he has also put up a poll asking people whose internet history they would like to see first. - <USER2>

<comment><USER5> > protections approved just last year

Protections that had been recently removed (FTC regulation), and were originally instated in 1934 (Communications act). I think this is an important detail too easily glossed-over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there a mirror? I checked Archive.is and it's not archived there. Looks to be super popular. I just get 500 errors.

</comment><comment><USER7> Brilliant.</comment>


Why Silicon Valley faces fresh threats - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/11/BUMD1BV6A1.DTL&tsp=1

<comment><USER2> The article makes some interesting points but I think it fails to take into account the plummeting cost of starting and running a startup.

Because it's so cheap to start/run a company, and only getting cheaper, there's much less need for gov't/VC/university money.

<comment><USER3> But I think the point is that relative to other locations, it is still much more costly.

Here's one example: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1118125></comment></comment>


PHỞ: Automated workflow for front-end - <AUTHOR> http://pho.madebysource.com <comment><USER2> I realized I was old when I tried to clean my screen, then realized "PHO" had accented characters ... I complain about the uppercase-only EBCDIC main-frame output at work, but I'm still not used to seeing non-ASCII characters on the web.

My elderly status was confirmed when the Getting Started guide included:

        2. Generate initial project structure

        yo pho

<comment><USER3> wanna be the asshole nerd that ruins every conversation?

constantly remind people that it's pronounced "fuh", like the German "fa" as in "fahren".

met a lady like that last year, has been stuck in mind since then. grrrr.

<comment><USER4> Pronouncing it correctly makes restaurant names like "Pho King" even funner. :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a little confused as to what this is exactly.

<comment><USER6> (Phở author here)

As a front-end developer you have to do lots of things that can be automated (minifying JS, compiling LESS, optimizing images, making sprites).

Gulp is great for this, but it still has a steep learning curve. Some basic setup is easy, but it took us quite a long time until it was reusable and solved all common tasks.

<comment><USER7> So pho is a gulp replacement?

<comment><USER6> Not at all, it's a set of configurable Gulp tasks and a Yeoman generator.

<comment><USER7> Oh I see, you bootstrapped some common basic tasks and rolled them all up into one. That's pretty useful. Thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great! Another un-google-able and practically un-type-able piece of technology.

<comment><USER4> > practically un-type-able

Says you. Maybe if you lived elsewhere, you might have a different point of view (SE Asia, perhaps...). ;)

<comment><USER8> Fair enough, but I know how to type most of the common diacritics on my Mac keyboard, which is probably more than most people could say. I'm not sure how it's even possible to type the "o" in that word without an alternate keyboard layout, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm very surprise that it's a Vietnamese name but the github source belongs Czech guy.

<comment><USER6> I like vietnamese cuisine :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice work releasing your FE environment setup; couple of questions: "The most used preprocessor with a kick-ass mixin library" Is this true? I haven't looked for actual numbers, but most FE devs I talk to use sass. We use node- sass + autoprefixer and it compiles orders of magnitude faster than compass+sass and means you don't have a dependency on ruby (or php like Less). Also, gulp is much faster than grunt which is especially noticeable on large projects.

<comment><USER6> > "The most used preprocessor with a kick-ass mixin library" Is this true?

Well, if I look at GitHub stars (not the best metric, but still), then less.js has about 3x more stars than sass.

> I haven't looked for actual numbers, but most FE devs I talk to use sass. We > use node-sass + autoprefixer and it compiles orders of magnitude faster than > compass+sass and means you don't have a dependency on ruby (or php like > Less).

I like node-sass as well. It would be great to have something similar and popular enough for LESS. Official Javascript-based compiler isn't sometimes fast enough.

> Also, gulp is much faster than grunt which is especially noticeable on large > projects.

Yes, Gulp is great in many ways and Phở uses it as a task runner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how many potential user are lost due to ungoogleability. :O)

<comment><USER12> None, it appears O and ở are interchangeable to Google.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure if interchangeable is the right word. 'phởne' and 'phone' yield different result lists.

At least Google seems to have a way to detect visually similar letters.

<comment><USER4> Unicode tools (at least should) have ways to determine visually similar letters. Maybe someone more knowledgeable about Unicode than me can pull out the term for it (maybe "homograph"?). For example: 'ö' and 'o' should 'match' using this method. It also allows you to do things like make sure that μ (mu) and µ (micro sign) match.

So in response to:

> I'm not sure if interchangeable is the right word. 'phởne' and 'phone' yield > different result lists.

The results are different because it's matching somethings that are an exact character match, and others that are just visually similar (homographs?).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How is this different from Lineman.js?</comment>


Chatbot lets you print lawsuit forms for suing Equifax for up to $25k - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/11/16290730/equifax-chatbots-ai-joshua-browder-security-breach <comment><USER2> Incredible title. Story:

"state your name and address and it generates eight pages of lawsuit documentation in PDF form for you to print and file"

"Filing and winning a small claims case takes more than just filling in a form."

It's a story about a form.

<comment><USER3> $25K is not a small claim in any of the states, is it?

<comment><USER4> IANAL, do not take as legal advice.

When I looked into small claims court, in California. It was any claim <= 10k. You also needed to legally serve the defended with a non involved party.

That means for equifax, not being a california party, you gotta pay someone to send docs to their legal representation.

<comment><USER5> IANAL too (so this is not legal advice), but I don't think that's hard. California maintains an online list of "foreign" (out-of-state) corporations registered to do business in California. [1]

It appears to me that Equifax can be sued in California by serving their local representatives in Sacramento.

CORPORATION SERVICE COMPANY WHICH WILL DO BUSINESS IN CALIFORNIA AS CSC - LAWYERS INCORPORATING SERVICE 2710 GATEWAY OAKS DR STE 150N SACRAMENTO CA 95833

[1] [https://businesssearch.sos.ca.gov/](https://businesssearch.sos.ca.gov/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can someone with a legal background explain if this is even worth trying without clear damages? I'm not interested in wasting breath to annoy Equifax.

<comment><USER7> Because lawsuits aren't about proving you are right, it's more about having enough to get the other guy to settle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Attorney Scott Nelson, from the advocacy organization Public Citizen, says he isn't convinced a chatbot can successfully win a lawsuit."

Gee, I bet there isn't a conflict of interest in that statement.

<comment><USER9> They advocate for consumers, not lawyers, and they're a non-profit. Not sure what the conflict of interest there is.

<comment><USER8> Like that other person said, I was just pointing out a potential conflict in that statement.

The last thing anybody wants is for their profession to be automated away, so the conflict of interest is justified, but worth noting.

Also worth noting that you can still get paid if you work for a nonprofit.

Regardless, I think we could use a bit more automation in the legal field given how disproportionately distributed representation seems to be from my perspective as a relatively poor person.

<comment><USER9> "Regardless, I think we could use a bit more automation in the legal field given how disproportionately distributed representation seems to be from my perspective as a relatively poor person."

On that, we're agreed. I was raised with no conception that there were legal options; attorneys were just too far outside the realm of affordability to be a thing my parents would have considered under any but the direst circumstances. I have the same mindset, even when it's been detrimental to my own economic situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Unless you can show $25,000 in damages, your lawsuit will go nowhere.

<comment><USER11> US Judges are pretty ruthless too, esp. in their own courtroom -- if they see this is just a spam law suite / mocking the courtroom I wouldn't be surprised to see people getting tossed into contempt. If they feel like the courts' time is being _wasted_ they get _really_ pissed. Don't mess with judges. [i][ii]

[i] [http://www.gainesville.com/news/20170227/gainesville-man- get...](http://www.gainesville.com/news/20170227/gainesville-man- gets-6-months-for-using-facebook-live-in-court)

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

<comment><USER12> I mean, it sounds like he was trying help intimidate already fidgety witnesses. That's not just wasting the court's time.

<comment><USER13> What? I don't have context for what else has occurred, but it sounds like the lawyer in this case was objecting to the bond that the judge put on his client?

<comment><USER12> Person A was on trial for (attempted?) murder. Person B posts to InstaFaceGram that Person A will be free soon. Person B then shows up to court and starts live-streaming the court proceedings, included of witnesses, to a sketch- sounding Facebook group.

Person B then lies to judge about what he was doing and so the judge throws him in jail for 6 months for contempt.

The probable witness tampering probably had something to do with the harsh contempt punishment.

<comment><USER13> Ohhhhh. I see where I was wrong. I had only watched the second reference in op's post. Thank you for explaining.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Lawsuit DDOS?

<comment><USER15> A la church of scientology

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What damages can one claim if one's ID was stolen in the Equifax breach, but havent yet been the subject of fraud?

<comment><USER17> I imagine anxiety and paranoia such as going through statements to ensure no unauthorized purchases, but that's only for credit card. Identity stolen is far more scary and will never be resolved in life time. Your social security number can be changed, but that doesn't guarantee free from all identity frauds.

I'd like lawyers to have inputs on this.

<comment><USER18> The tests for emotional distress are very stringint in every state. Have you seen a psychologist about your anxiety related to Equifax?

<comment><USER17> Oh no, I am just asking from a general legality PoV. There must have been a precedent on anxiety due to identity fraud. I just want to see if a lawyer can give two cents on this matter.

I do want to be part of the class action suit, even if it is only $15 (FB's settlement was $15 for all). The company must paid for its negligence, and I am happy to take $15 from them.

<comment><USER18> No I'm saying if you (the hypothetical you) haven't seen a psychologist you're going to have a difficult time proving that you have anxiety due to Equifax to the court.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I live in LA. How can I go to a court in Sacramento?

<comment><USER20> Drive, fly, walk, bike, etc. Them's the breaks, the superior court is in Sacramento. Same, I'm in OC.

<comment><USER21> No, there are actually five superior court locations in Orange County (Westminster, Brea, Costa Mesa, Santa Ana, and Orange -- but Orange is Family and Juvenile so it's really four if you want small claims). No need to go to Sacramento.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Australian here, looking forward to my $25,000.

/s

<comment><USER21> Talk to your member of parliament and get a more consumer-friendly set of laws.</comment></comment>


Generator of random 3D abstract forms - <AUTHOR> http://lab.aerotwist.com/webgl/strange-attractor/ <comment><USER2> Pretty neat visualization of the Lorenz attractor [1].

Also worth looking into are strange attractors [2], which are closely related to fractals.

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

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

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me Doc Bailey's spore algorithms:

[http://www.imagesavant.com/](http://www.imagesavant.com/)

[http://www.imagesavant.com/genetic1.html](http://www.imagesavant.com/genetic1.html)

[http://www.imagesavant.com/index7.html](http://www.imagesavant.com/index7.html)

<comment><USER4> Do you know these images were generated ?

<comment><USER5> Looks a lot like [https://www.electricsheep.org/](https://www.electricsheep.org/)

<comment><USER6> Perhaps [https://www.chaoticafractals.com/](https://www.chaoticafractals.com/) ?

<comment><USER6> Or perhaps we could refer to his info page [http://www.imagesavant.com/info.html](http://www.imagesavant.com/info.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> *deterministic

<comment><USER3> heh. But if he added a randomize button he would be accurate. :)</comment></comment>


Idea to paying customers in 7 weeks: how we did it - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bufferapp.com/idea-to-paying-customers-in-7-weeks-how-we-did-it <comment><USER2> He refers to "November Startup Sprint" here on HN. I would love to see regular posts like that for launch & feedback.

The current convention seems to be _"Show HN: my app"_ posts, but I'm worried about missing interesting posts and/or repetitive posts when an app is updated.

How about a monthly/weekly post for apps - similar to _"Who's hiring..."_ \- to show off apps/updates & get feedback?

(Also, the november discussions have a <http://startupmonth.org/> site which seems to be down. Was there not enough traffic?)

<comment><USER3> We built <http://21times.org> to help the November Startup Sprint folks with info and tracking progress, and had about 1500 people signup. (This was an early proof of concept for our startup <http://DailyPath.com>)

<comment><USER2> This is great for motivation during a heads-down sprint.

What I'm looking for is slightly different: a place to show off when done and get/give feedback.

<comment><USER3> That's coming as part of DailyPath.

<comment><USER2> Registered! Not sure if it's what I was looking for, but it looks interesting for many things!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Back when you did the initial validation with the first two MVP's, did you measure clickthrough rate? If so, how did it compare with the 4% conversion in the real product? (we're looking at ways to design MVP's to predict actual market performance.)

</comment><comment><USER5> Appreciate you sharing your missteps and successes. It's also awesome to see the lean startup process in action rather than just hear people talk about it. Congrats!

</comment><comment><USER6> 500 customers and a 4% conversion rate - so does that mean 20 paying customers total?

<comment><USER7> Hi, yep, at that time, when we had 500 users, that meant 20 paying customers. :)

Right now, we stand at over 25,000 and a similar conversion :)</comment></comment>


Trying to set Linux up is making me feel like a noob - daniel-cussen

This sucks.  I've been trying to get the linux os set up for two whole days, and I've consulted about 60 websites on how to do it.  I might add that while I suck at using computers, most everyone else sucks more.  As far as I'm concerned, linux is completely inaccessible for most everybody because the frictional cost of changing from windows to linux is enormous.<p>I'm still trying to install it.  Wish me luck; it might take a few more days. <comment><AUTHOR> The learning curve on Linux if you're coming from a complete Windows background is really steep. Also, each distribution has it's own pain points, and advantages. Some ditro's I'd stay clear of until you're on your way to being something of a Linux.

But, that's kind of the point of learning Linux. Feel like a noob because you are a noob. But, after setting the system up, you will have learned tons about how your computer works. Keep at it. You'll get it.

<comment><USER2> It's not simply a matter of learning curves. I would say vi has a pretty steep learning curve, but you get something out of it if you do learn it. Same for using a Unix shell effectively. On the other hand, knowing about Linux driver issues has no value in itself for any regular user.

Setting up Linux on a laptop is always a gamble. Sometimes it works flawlessly and at other times it's a nightmare. I recently tried to make Ubuntu work on one particular laptop. Installing it was no problem whatsoever, but the CPU just wouldn't enter C3 power state, which meant that it ran extremely hot.

I tried to deactivate every single driver to find out which one kept the CPU busy. I had to resolve all the driver interdependencies, recompile the kernel, etc. But even on a completely stripped down OS the CPU just wouldn't enter C3. None of the many tips and tricks on various Linux on laptops sites would work.

Could I have pursued this further? Sure, and at some point I would have found a solution, but it wasn't worth my time frankly.

I think Linux on laptop/desktop can work if hardware vendors get behind it and sort out all the driver issues. Everything else can be resolved by the Linux community but drivers are unsuitable for the open source model as long as some hardware vendors keep their specs secret.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Heh, I feel that pain. I tried to install Vista about a week ago after not having run windows since 2001. I never did get it all working right, plus thanks to (I think) not having some drivers right, my 2Ghz dual core with 3 gig ram was so slow it was unusable. I'm out of time for now but I'll try agian later in a few weeks after I buy some "vista ready" gear.

</comment><comment><USER4> Considering that the original post has almost nothing to do with Linux, the helpfulness and positive attitudes in this thread amaze me.

I've been spending too much time at Slashdot.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just install Ubuntu. Couldn't be easier.

<comment><USER6> I agree. I don't know what distro you are using, but you shouldn't have problems installing Ubuntu.

<comment> daniel-cussen I'm trying ubuntu. I checked the hash on the ISO I made on the disk, and it's right, but I'm not sure what problem I'm having. First, I'm not sure I burned the CD as an image. Second, I've been unable to partition my hard drive because windows is in Spanish. Whenever I try to boot the computer after telling the BIOS to prioritize the CD-ROM, it just opens Windows as if there was nothing in there. When I give priority to the CD and nothing else, it says there's a disk error and that I need to put the system disk in.

What's most likely the problem?

<comment><USER7> If you can boot from other bootable CDs (for example a windows install CD) then it looks like you haven't burnt the disc correctly. If you can't boot from any bootable CDs then there is something wrong with your setup (on the hardware/bios side)

<comment><USER6> Yes, it seems like your cd has some errors (maybe it wasn't burnt ok, maybe the downloaded file is bad and you have to download it again). If you can't start the cd, make another bootable cd or download the image again. (Remember you have to create the image with the iso, not just create a cd with an iso file inside of it.)

If you do that ok, you'll be able to boot from the cd. Once you get to boot it, choose the option that lets you do a check on the entire cd, so you are sure there aren't errors on it (so there are no broken packages, and that kind of thing). Only after that, start the live cd, and then install from there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another option, which is more noob-friendly is: <http://wubi-installer.org/>

It let's you install Linux from within Windows, as if you were just installing another Windows program. The main downside to this is that your disk IO will suffer since it installs Ubuntu inside of a Windows file (as a virtual disk).

Also, installing an OS is not for everyone. You can simply purchase a Dell, HP or Lenovo with Linux pre-installed, and that gets rid of the "frictional cost" of switching.

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen I feel like every person who writes a guide to installing ubuntu glosses over at least a few critical details. I'm rather sick of this shit.

(I'm also trying to install rails on my mac. It's also ridiculous. You download 2 gigs of stuff, follow every instruction to the letter, and then your computer says

daniel-cussens-computer:~/src danielcussen$ mate .~/.bash_login -bash: mate: command not found

and

Error 2740. An unknown token can't go after this identifier.

which basically translates to: Error: PWNAGE! L2P, noob.)

To some up, at least in my experience, the amount of BS a user has to go through to get linux is rather enormous. I hope it's just the messed-up, non- generic user settings on my computers, but the amount of crap I've had to do makes Linux a complete impossibility for anyone who doesn't know what hexadecimal code is. But I accept the bullshit, because I know it's a right of passage, and it's worthwhile to know what a disk image, a disk ISO 9660 format (or is it file system?), a BIOS, booting priority, repartitioning, defragmenting, checking md5 hashes, and a virtual machine is. I'm going to make it happen if it takes me all week. But from a user-friendliness point of view, this is hell. I shouldn't have to know any of those things. I hope my situation is rare, because if it's not, the linux community has some serious problems.

<comment><USER9> _I feel like every person who writes a guide to installing ubuntu glosses over at least a few critical details. I'm rather sick of this shit._

I feel like people who write those tutorials assume a basic computer literacy from their readers. I am not assaulting you, I am replying to an assault: you have no idea how to burn a bootable CD. Period. You're not even ready to install an OS, any kid of OS. So go get yourself a basic "Build your own PC" kind of book, read it, and then try more advanced tasks such as installing operating systems.

<comment> daniel-cussen It's true. I'm not computer literate. I thought I was, but that is because I underestimated what computer literacy meant. I thought that if I knew how to change the BIOS, knew how to burn a disc, and could unzip files, I could install Linux.

Another problem is that my situation is probably an outlier. My computer is in Spanish, which makes it a lot harder to mess with. Plus, it runs on Windows XP from 2002. On top of that, my disk drives are slightly messed up. They burn correctly according to the MD5 hashes, but one of them might not read well. Finally, none of the two computer-literate people I know are around, and "build your own PC" books are hard to find, universally in Spanish, and expensive (here in Santiago).

I'll keep trying until I find the stupid mistake I've been making all along.

And you're right. I'm being hostile; I've spent too much time over the computer over the last few days, and I'm going a little crazy. But, much like being drunk, driving oneself crazy does not excuse what you do/say when you're kind of crazy. I apologize.

Edit: both CD drives work properly.

Edit: I followed the tutorial, and burned the CD. I'm going to reboot now (both fingers crossed).

<comment> daniel-cussen Edit: I did it! w00t! Turns out I had to choose i386 from the options at Debian. Also, when the Debian booted, error EIP 00000060 c0100231 00000230 appeared. I looked this up, and I had to type LINUX ACPI=OFF during booting. This didn't work either; I found out I had to change the onboard virtual memory from 8mb to 1mb. It's not the linux people at all. The problem was that the default onboard virtual memory of hp pavilions is too high. It took me three days to find that out.

"The computer is personal again."

<comment><USER9> Congrats!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, if it's your first time installing it, you _are_ a newbie.

</comment><comment><USER11> Would probably be easier to help if we knew what distro you're trying to install...

</comment><comment><USER12> "linux is completely inaccessible for most everybody because the frictional cost of changing from windows to linux is enormous."

Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot the Linux community can do about that. The only reason Windows is so accessible to so many people is that it comes on their computer. I doubt if most Windows users would be able to install the OS from scratch.

I have to agree with you on some level though; Ubuntu is great and it has been my primary OS for several years now, but I can't say I would recommend for a non-geek to use it instead of Windows. It excites me, though, that with every release I get closer and closer to being able to do that.

</comment><comment><USER13> I find it easier to install Linux than Windows, but that's probably because I'm more familiar with Linux. Anyway, unless you're using a geek linux distro, you really shouldn't be having such a hard time. Ubuntu, Kubuntu, or (my favorite) Fedora 8 should all be really easy to install.

Also, what exactly is the problem you're having? You'll get more help if you have more specific problems.

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen Update (3 hours after posting): I'm trying again, this time with a new CD. Thanks for the advice; I hope it works.

<comment> daniel-cussen Now I'm getting a message that says

1\. HD System Type-(00) Missing operating system

Crap.

<comment><USER6> Daniel, your problem is the way you are burning the iso. You are burning it as a file, while you have to burn it as a image file. Read this: <http://www.petri.co.il/how_to_write_iso_files_to_cd.htm>

I think this'll put an end to your problems.

<comment><USER6> (I know you've been told this before, but that's why you get that message. Your computer can't boot from the cd unless you burn it properly, and burning the iso as a file won't work even if it seems reasonable.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> While we're on the topic of installing Ubuntu which is agreed to be the easiest, may I recommend Ubuntu Ultimate

<http://ultimateedition.info/Ubuntu_Ultimate_1.6/>

Its just normal ubuntu but with different default packages installed, which are actually really useful (go to the site and read about it), and all repositories enabled.

Some people really don't like this because they say its annoying but most people really end up downloading all these packages anyway...might as well save the hassle. Not to mention it comes with an interesting default theme.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've been using linux off and on since 1995-1996 (gosh, has it been that long?).

It's only been in the last couple years that I feel confortable enough to use it day to day as a primary OS (actually put it on my wife's laptop and she's fine with it surprisingly enough).

So all the seat time you've got with Windows? You don't have that with Linux and you're going to have problems.

Anyone that says the switch is painless blah blah is high on the rock.

Y creo que hay algo que no esta configurado correctamente en su BIOS (para boot desde el DVD). Tambien es posible que el disco no fue quemado (burned) correctamente....

</comment><comment><USER16> The true learning experience comes from learning how to install linux even it means initially struggling but eventually figuring it out.

</comment><comment><USER17> Download the Alternate CD of Ubuntu and use that, it should work in your case..

<comment><USER18> Plus, the alternate CD allows you to enable on-the-fly disk encryption, which IMHO is a must-have on a laptop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> there is nothing wrong in being a noob. But hey you are learning the right way;)

</comment><comment><USER20> So, you are trying to do Linux on the desktop? Why?

Linux for your server, Mac or Windows on your desktop.

<comment><USER6> Why? Plenty of people uses Linux on the desktop, I myself have been running it on the desktop for some years now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> try virtualization something like vmplayer should do it.</comment>


Senior Developers Are Getting Rejected for Jobs - <AUTHOR> https://glenmccallum.com/2019/05/14/senior-developers-rejected-jobs/ <comment><USER2> So now the ageism bar gets down a little bit lower, a few people that shouldn't, start having problems.

But this has been going on for a long time in this industry, in particular, and not much was done and only a little said.

"First they came.....Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't quite understand how this relates to ageism. I simply view it as a skill that can be developed by anyone with practice.

<comment><USER2> The way I read it, the skill test is based on youthful agility, but no aspect of architecture/experience taken account of.

Now, you could argue that employers just need a certain skillset at this point of the market cycle, but the article implies a theme is emerging.

Anyhoo, I am not in SV, or USA, but I am in my second demi-century and spec and write specialist safety software and systems to international performance based standards, eg burner controls right now.

I have worked on contract all my working life, and I often wonder when my time will come.

But my fortunate reality is that the skill set needed is so broad and certification requires maybe a decade minimum of supervised work component, probably engineers in this game don't really hit their straps before 40, minimum.

But you never know when the rules change...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I know a few good senior devs that are stuck between jobs due to problems with programming challenges in the hiring process. With market demand you'd think senior devs would get snapped up quickly but not so. Is this happening on a widespread basis?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, it's everywhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This reminds me of the "old geeks" thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12506232](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12506232)

Sadly I think oldgeekjobs.com shut down.</comment>