Thanks Louis C.K, now here's my Dad - <AUTHOR> http://www.workingsoftware.com.au/page/Thanks_Louis_now_here_is_my_dad <comment><USER2> Gosh, a lot of harshness here for such a simple and nice thing that this guy did.

A kid loves his dad, his dad makes some good songs, so he decided to show him that you could sell them online without a lot of complications.

He referenced Louis CK, which I think is appropriate. Different scale, but in the spirit.

I'd like to see more authors, artists, and musicians do this. It would be quite a poke in the eye to the DRM-loving companies that are pushing SOPA right now if they saw that indie artists can thrive without them.

<comment><USER3> I agree that it's a very nice thing he did. But the ability to build & maintain a fanbase is key here. I wish him the best of luck with that.

Right now, though, I fear they're missing an opportunity. They should least figure out how to get people to sign up for a mailing list, or give them a Facebook page to like, or make it easy to share the page via social media... anything, really, to keep a connection to the audience you have right now and using that to get a bigger one. They appear to be doing nothing of the sort yet, which may lead to an initial boom followed by nothing, just as if the intersection they were playing at had gone from a busy one to an empty one.

With RL busking you can always find a crowd, but online it's not always that easy to get or retain attention. I mean, there's a reason why business people like to see graphs of user numbers that are increasing steadily.

I say this because I want to see him succeed. I believe that this model can work here, but only if he can build and retain the fanbase to support it. It's no different than trying to make sure that you always have a crowd to play for. Busking on an empty street won't get you anywhere, after all.

I wish him all the best.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Natsu, there's a form to enter your email address to find out about future releases on the page. We've had a few people put their addresses in :)

It's below the PayPal button - perhaps you missed it? Makes me think the positioning isn't all that great.

<comment><USER3> Yep, totally missed it somehow. My bad on that.

EDIT: It took me a while to figure out why I missed it. I went there and found nothing at all but an email address. I looked through everything and found that PayPal is serving a 1x1 tracking pixel via https. Odd.

<https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_AU/i/scr/pixel.gif>

Ghostery didn't see that, either, and many things have default exceptions for https. Strange. Finally noticed that the Wufoo thing was getting eaten by NoScript. You can't even tell that something is missing, you have to whitelist them to get it to show up. So, this probably only affects some of the HN folks, it wouldn't affect a more general audience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm sorry, not to be a cynic, but there is almost no similarity between this and what Louis C.K. did.

One was a massively successful, near household name who has his own cable television show releasing what he normally releases, but doing it without a formal distributor.

This is an unknown street musician that I doubt anybody has ever heard of. Musicians like this have been giving their music away for free on the Internet as long as I've been here.

For him, there isn't a real risk. At best he gains popularity, at worst his situation doesn't change.

I hope he gains that popularity, but there is nothing new here, and this certainly doesn't have anything to do with Louis.

<comment><USER5> To add to this, note that while Louis C.K. experimented with distribution, he experimented very little with marketing. He hit the same late night television shows he would regardless, and the word of mouth of his existing fan base propelled it even further.

This, on the other hand, is an experiment in both marketing and distribution, and barring any significant innovation in the former, it will probably fail.

<comment><USER6> I think you mean promotion, not marketing. I'd say he experimented heavily with his marketing. I'd even say he experimented with his promotion by doing things like answering questions on Reddit. Even the novelty of the experiment is part of the promotion; he knew that the novelty would likely garner attention that he would not otherwise receive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do you have the original tracks from the recording? The mix could use some help – the EQing of the vocals pulls the low mids out and makes them sound hollow and the reverb is overbearing (and low quality). This may seem like minutia, but the quality of your father's voice is such that a rawer, more organic sound would, I believe, make it genuinely come across as more authentic. (This is in contrast to his guitar playing which is fairly precise – it actually might work better if it was a little sloppier.)

Just for reference, I think a mix like these might get closer to bringing out the subtleties:

<http://grooveshark.com/s/Company/2h3knu?src=5>

<http://grooveshark.com/s/Old+Man/1MhNJ8?src=5>

Those are both really dry, imprecise recordings, but that's appropriate for the material.

I agree with the others that the fundamental character of this experiment is pretty different from what Louis C.K. did. But your father is a good songwriter, and I think you might get more milage out of releasing the source recordings with Creative Commons licensing and encouraging people to mess with them and report back. It'd at least have the potential for more of a feedback loop than you'd get just posting them as-is.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey wheels, I don't have access to any different material right now but this is awesome advice, thanks. I particularly like the idea of encouraging people to mess with them.

<comment><USER8> The French band Phoenix did something like that. They had on their site where you could download the tracks for each song. I think it averaged ~100MB/song because you had an MP3 file for each guitar/keyboard/vocal track. I didn't have a lot of experience with multitrack mixing at that point, but I was engrossed for hours in Garageband mixing things up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This kind of thing has been done for decades but not over the web. Really, do people not know this or are you all too young?

Consider Ani Difranco and go read the article about her from The Economist from 1998 : <http://www.economist.com/node/174267>

Small 'indie' labels did something similar starting in the 1970s at least and probably earlier.

Louis CK doing it is interesting, but people have been able to build up their own distribution before the net existed. It's easier now but piracy is also much easier too.

Loads of people do it on the net now, one of my current fave bands Amiina which is the string section from Sigur Ros, has their music available for a few bucks out there direct too sans DRM.

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks really good that Amiina is using: <http://www.topspinmedia.com/> still it seems more complex to me than the "couple of bucks" and very simply downloadable tracks - I really wanted this to be as close to busking as possible but on the web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't think it worked for Louis CK simply because he's popular. It worked because he's a great performer. And I hope this doesn't come across as too harsh, but the out-of-tune moments, like "find" at about :47 into "When I Find Claire" are why it's tough for other people to do the same.

Louis CK put out a $200k production at $5 / pop, not including editing time (since he edited it himself). This is not the musical equivalent of a $200k production.

I hope your dad makes a few bucks because it's important to support local artists, but this isn't particularly well produced, so comparing this with Louis CK's production isn't going to safely lead to general conclusions about the approach to sales.

<comment><AUTHOR> There are two issues at play here: one is actual recording production (which in the case of Nick's songs is reasonable albeit homespun) and actual content.

Out of tune moments - they happen to really amazing musicians (especially when performing live) and a lot of what you're calling "production" these days is just auto-tune.

That being said, he's not, never has been, nor will ever be a "diva". The style of music doesn't necessarily call for it, although that's not to say that he hasn't worked on improving his voice over the years - mainly with a focus on unamplified street performing more than intonation and accuracy.

Really, though, the goal here is to allow a musician to connect with _anyone_ who enjoys their music - not to make anyone like it or convince them that it's great.

Because those people are not going to be common (let's face it - we're never going to see Spunky Junk Tambourine performed at the MTV VMAs), what I'm interested in finding out is whether or not simply taking the same approach as busking but broadcasting it to a much wider audience will allow Nick to make a living from his originals in the same way as he can make a living singing Khe San at 2am on a Sunday morning (and having people steal his tambourines :)

<comment><USER10> I understand what you're saying. I hope you understand my point isn't, "This needs to be more like pop music." It's rather the simple point that this is perfectly fine amateur music, but not much more than that. Drawing any broader conclusions about the viability of direct-to-consumer sales of media content is inappropriate with this experiment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I threw a couple bucks in his virtual guitar case.

Four tracks for two bucks, that's more than fair. We all spend that on an iPhone app easily, I'm happy to pay for these songs.

Nick Dooley's songs are really beautiful. I'm going to enjoy having these.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll pass this onto my Dad, he'll love it, thank you very much :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This kind of thing would be a great use for <http://gumroad.com>

</comment><comment><USER12> I love what Louis C.K. has done, but if you read his description of the process you'll note he says he spend about 35k on the platform he used to sell his video.

I'd love to see an open source version of this, so that other people can do the same without having the 35k up front to pay a web developer.

<comment><USER13> I got the impression that some portion of that $35k was on hosting, and would be considerably cheaper for a smaller player? If you were smallfry wanting to sell a digital asset, you could do it for a lot, lot less than $35k obviously.

<comment><USER14> Also, he had not only to pay for the massive amounts of traffic, but also ensure the website could handle it without bogging down. That's not really a concern, here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Any chance to give the tracks a specific license, eg a Creative Commons one?

Random 5 minute website critic:

Website is very wide. Stretches to full width even on wiiiiide screens ruining readability.

Signature is cut off on 1050px desktop height for me. The text itself seems to be many fancy words with no content. I had to force myself to read it. There were not instant eye catchers or a visible structure.

The photo looks kinda sad and negative.

"Hi I'm" should be "Hi, I'm" I think?

No idea what "busking" is.

"please feel free to get in touch" -> "please feel welcome to get in touch".

Buy button is greyed out and "invisible", the paypal image next to it is much more visible.

Remove that "Artist Statement" headline, it's clutter.

Definitely add a Facebook page.

You definitely want to add in-browser streaming for those demo tracks.

<comment><USER16> Just commenting to second the comments about the donate button being invisible. I tried clicking the paypal logo, and nothing happened, and at my brower's width, it overlaps the button. Luckily, I found it, but I almost just closed the window in frustration.

Another note, let people put in any amount on paypal. I would have donate more, but paypal wouldn't let me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If we were to create a society which simply circumvents the broken copyright industry in a way where artists and audience act on a basis of mutual trust and respect, we need more artists releasing their work like this and we need an audience that ist showing their appreciation by paying the artist.

So yes, IMHO this is absolutely the way to.

Thank you Nick Dooley, for doing this. And thanks to everybody who is chipping in some money. You are building blocks of a society I would like to live in.

</comment><comment><USER18> Interesting to see if it worked for Louis C.K. because of his notoriety and popularity or if the model can actually work for everyone.

<comment><USER19> The critical factor is always publicity, rather than distribution models.

Louis didn't get publicity because he put stuff on the internet, but rather because he had built a following with his previous work, and used that to publicize this effort. He could have spent three months in a glass box suspended on the Hudson river and sold the tape at some random street market, and he would have probably received the same amount of money and attention.

The OP knows this very well, and is actually just trying to get publicity by arbitrarily linking his dad's stuff with Louis' name. To be honest, it's quite disgraceful.

<comment><USER20> Louis CK's experiment was hailed by many people as a proof that independent artists can produce themselves and distribute their stuff successfully using the net. What is disgraceful about making an experiment to see if it would work for a non-celebrity?

<comment><USER21> I agree that this isn't disgraceful at all, but for me the more interesting test will actually be whether or not Louis CK's model will work for other famous live performers.

Did it work because the model is inherently sound or because it was so novel?

I don't think we can say one way or the other yet.

If I had to guess, I'd say that I think that his model will work for others but probably not as well, once (if?) it becomes commonplace I suspect you'll get a higher ratio of downloaders who don't pay to those that do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think this would have been a closer analogue to Louis C.K.'s experiment if the songs had not been available for download without payment. This is just busking -- playing the music whether or not people pay, but hoping they do.

Obviously, Louis C.K. could require payment first because people had some expectation of the quality of his content already, and that won't work for an unknown musician.

That doesn't mean this is a bad idea, but it's not really the same idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is absolutely like busking! It was the similarity between what Louis was doing and what buskers do that really reminded me of this idea - and it's one that's not even very new.

It was written by Robert Woodhead on selfpromotion.com as "Virtual Tipping"[1] in 2000. That's where I first read about it - and I'd talked to my Dad about it before but never knew how to tackle the whole distribution thing. Seeing Louis do this so simply just made me think "fuck it, let's go".

[1]<http://tipping.selfpromotion.com/></comment></comment>


Endow the News - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/opinion/28swensen.html

<comment><USER2> The meat:

 _As newspapers go digital, their business model erodes. A 2008 research report from Sanford C. Bernstein & Company explained, "The notion that the enormous cost of real news-gathering might be supported by the ad load of display advertising down the side of the page, or by the revenue share from having a Google search box in the corner of the page, or even by a 15-second teaser from Geico prior to a news clip, is idiotic on its face." [...]

Aside from providing stability, an endowment would promote journalistic independence. The best-run news organizations insulate reporters from pressures to produce profits or to placate advertisers. But endowed news organizations would be in an ideal situation — with no pressure from stockholders or advertisers at all.

How large an endowment would a newspaper need? The news-gathering operations at The New York Times cost a little more than $200 million a year. Assuming some additional outlay for overhead, it would require an endowment of approximately $5 billion (assuming a 5 percent annual payout rate). Newspapers with smaller newsrooms would require smaller endowments._

<comment><USER3> > But endowed news organizations would be in an ideal situation with no > pressure from stockholders or advertisers at all.

Endowed organizations face pressures too. Maybe they're better pressures, but an account that fails to acknowledge that they exist doesn't strike me as one that is particularly trustworthy.

As to the "enormous cost of newsgathering", didn't a past thread have staffing numbers for the NYT? IIRC, out of some 10k employees, 350 were reporters. At $300k/person, we're talking $100M. Since that 350 includes sports, society, and other fluff.... (Of course, sports pays its way.)

<comment><USER2> _Endowed organizations face pressures too._

Yes. This (from Page 2 of the NYT article) is one of the many paragraphs I left out of my excerpt: [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/opinion/28swensen.html?pag...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/opinion/28swensen.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1)

 _One constraint on an endowed institution is the prohibition in the same law against trying to "influence legislation" or "participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates." While endowed newspapers would need to refrain from endorsing candidates for public office, they would still be free to participate forcefully in the debate over issues of public importance. The loss of endorsements seems minor in the context of the opinion-heavy Web._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> We are not "dangerously close to having a government without newspapers". There are still hundreds of newspapers left. Heck, there isn't even a major US city without its own newspaper headquartered there! What other major business can you say that about?

When there are less American newspapers than American car companies, I will be concerned.

<comment><USER2> _We are not "dangerously close to having a government without newspapers". There are still hundreds of newspapers left._

Every print newspaper in the world is going out of business. <http://news.google.com/news?q=newspapers+declining> Their owners - like the owners of homes lately discovered to have been built over toxic waste dumps - are stuck with something they cannot sell.

Yes, they still exist. Soon they will not.</comment></comment>


New Nerve Drugs May Finally Prevent Migraine Headaches - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-nerve-drugs-may-finally-prevent-migraine-headaches/ <comment><USER2> Just curious do we know the company behind this drug? I just did a quick skim of the article.</comment>


Google Confirms Susan Wojcicki Is New YouTube Head - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2014/02/05/google-confirms-susan-wojcicki-is-new-youtube-head/ <comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure you all have this back-asswards. Susan's garage is where google was headquartered in the early days (1998). She didn't get the job because she is Sergey's wife's sister. Sergey met his wife through one of his first employees.

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

<comment><USER3> Susan introduced Anne to Sergey.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if she had to create a Google+ account in order to hold the position.

<comment><USER5> Why are HN comments becoming so much more like comments on crappy tech blogs and reddit?

<comment><USER6> because that's exactly where people like me came from. Not sure what to do differently here. Maybe it's a matter of poor opinion mixed with horrible sense of humor.

<comment><USER7> The only place HN really accepts attempts at humor (or unfounded speculation, for that matter) are as tossed-off epilogues to more substantive and serious commentary. Picture an HN comment as an (extremely short) journal article: you have to summarize your data and experimental method first--and then, optionally, can state some conclusions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Susan's quite sharp. She ran the product team for ads (AdWords and AdSense) in the early days and made some pretty big moves, including pre-buying premium ad content on NYTimes and other sites to make the content network attractive to advertisers when it was initially seen as lower-quality goods. She's very quantitative.

<comment><USER8> Hooray, once again it's the generic boilerplate executive or product manager who gets the big bucks, while the PROGRAMMERS are stuck toiling away.

Thank god for people like John Carmack and Linus Torvalds, great programmers who are recognised as leaders and given the respect that this profession so badly needs.

<comment><USER9> That Susan is quite smart in no way takes away from the programmers who are _also_ quite smart. Search leadership is engineers all the way down, from Larry (invented PageRank) to Alan (started as a hardware engineer at Compaq) to Amit (one of the leading academic figures in information retrieval before he invented Google's ranking algorithm) to Ben (authored much of the early utility code for Google).

But hey, if you'd like to give props to the programmers toiling away on Google, I'll be happy to take 'em. ;-)

<comment><USER10> I thought Google's ranking algorithm was PageRank.

<comment><USER9> Not at all. PageRank is a way of assessing relevant importance of _pages_ ; the only input is link structure. If that was the sole ranking algorithm, every query would give the same results.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe she'll start fixing all the horrible ui garbage that's either accumulated or been left unattended. Youtube is _barely_ usable, I only use it due to its ubiquity.

</comment><comment><USER12> If anyone else thought that last name looked really familiar it's Sergey Brin's sister-in-law.

<comment><USER13> I think you mean Sergey Brin's ex-wife's* sister.

* Technically separated, not yet divorced

<comment><USER12> Technically they're just living apart - not even legally separated [1].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Wojcicki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Wojcicki)

<comment><USER14> Well Brin has certainly moved on: [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2408421/Amanda- Rosen...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2408421/Amanda-Rosenberg- accused-sleeping-way-Sergey-Brin-affair.html)

<comment><USER15> Open marriages are a thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is she the only female executive left at Google?

<comment><USER17> Who cares?

<comment><USER16> People who are interested in gender relations in business?

It was pretty unusual for a company to have had so many female executives and even more unusual to have them all pushed out after Page became CEO.

(Thanks for the senseless down-vote.)

<comment><USER18> Out of curiosity, how many were there before?

<comment><USER16> I don't know exactly. Off the top of my head

Shona Brown

Marissa Mayer

Sheryl Sandberg

<comment><USER19> "pushed out" is hardly fair in relation to Marissa Mayer; she left to become the CEO of a huge tech company, which was a pretty significant promotion.

<comment><USER20> She was actually demoted within Google before she left (not that I'm trying to support OPs claim).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> more ads on youtube?

</comment><comment><USER22> Eventually, everything stays on family

<comment><USER23> Meritocracy™!

<comment><USER24> I hear ya... but there is also something to be said about those who seek power within an organization, Signal to Noise ratio has got to be difficult.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> so who's going to run ads now? Neal Mohan most likely

<comment><USER26> "Meanwhile, back at the ads and commerce division that Wojcicki is leaving behind, her co-leader Sridhar Ramaswamy will now be in charge of the whole unit."</comment></comment>


The Nokia Torture - <AUTHOR> http://www.mondaynote.com/2012/06/18/the-nokia-torture/

<comment><USER2> I don't doubt that this outcome was in the list of possible outcomes Microsoft has considered. Nokia tanks, their CEO gives early notice to Microsoft, which buys the 'good bits' and lets the rest of the body sink into the ocean carrying unfavorable pension plans and other obligations with it. Turning Microsoft into the third vertically integrated smartphone company after Apple and Google. They might even get to keep the brand name.

<comment><USER3> Indeed. And there's no tax advantage to keeping the new company in Finland, so they probably won't.

And I'd give dollars to donuts* that Microsoft gets the trademarks. HTC or Samsung might want them, but Microsoft will get first right of refusal, and they won't let them get away.

*Dollars to donuts isn't that compelling in this day and age. Canadian dollars, perhaps.

<comment><USER2> Have you tried VooDoo Donuts? Those are some serious donuts and well worth a dollar :-)

<comment><USER4> Portland is leaking everywhere these days...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So how does mondaynote's view reconcile with, say, Nokia's role in IDC's predictions?

[http://windowsphonegeek.com/news/IDC-Latest-Report- Windows-P...](http://windowsphonegeek.com/news/IDC-Latest-Report-Windows- Phone-number-two-mobile-OS-by-2016)

Everyone's an expert.

<comment><USER6> If I'm not mistaken, Microsoft is a big customer of IDC. While IDC isn't strictly pay-to-play, many of these "independent" analysts essentially make money recommending products produced by their customers. I'd consider it likely that Microsoft's cash is a factor in IDC's coverage.

Also worth noting is that IDC's track record here is pretty bad. From the article you linked:

"IDC predicted that Windows Phone would become the number two smartphone OS in terms of shipments back in March 2011"

Oops.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This seems to ignore everyone's struggle to compete with Apple and Samsung at the high-end and the bloodbath at the zero margin low end. HTC seems in a best case scenario position compared to Nokia - they have well respected hardware, a good name, and are established/experienced partners with the dominant mobile platform - yet they're losing money. RIM are probably more analogous to Nokia when Elop took over - a reputation for great hardware but maintaining a dying/technologically stagnant platform with too hazy promises of something better tomorrow - and their experience, even with a steadier strategy, says that Nokia might not have had any win-win options.

</comment><comment><USER8> And this will likely be RIM in 12 months, but without a benefactor (for at least the smartphone business) in the wings.

I still think that going Windows Phone was Nokia's best option -- even though it was a risk. The problem is just that the ship turned too late. It hit the berg anyway.

<comment><USER9> When RMS Titanic turned, too late to avoid the iceberg, the glancing collision breached 5 of 16 watertight compartments, and she could only survive at most 4 flooded compartments. Some speculate if she had reversed her engines and only struck the iceberg head-on, she would have remained afloat, though crippled.

I don't know that Nokia could have executed such a "head-on" for their crises, though the "burning platform" memo is regarded as a mistake by many. Would you take your analogy that far - Nokia could have faced the problem head-on?

<comment><USER10> Nokia did have a head-on crash strategy in following up Symbian^3 with MeeGo. I wasn't involved in that space, but it looked potentially survivable to me, especially as a means to steal away developers from Android.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe it's just me - but isn't firing so many people in such a short time period a clear sign of extremely bad management?

Whether or not it's the "fault" of the current or previous management, I don't know, but it nevertheless looks like extremely poor planning.

 _If you hired so many people, and then fired them all again so quickly - doesn't that show a lack of foresight?_

I always feel sorry for the employees in situations like this, and I wonder how is it that such poor managers (as is shown by falling profits/market share/firing everyone) end up running the place.

Then I remember that the world is extremely random and move on my merry way.

<comment><USER12> I remember seeing job postings by Nokia for Linux developers, a few weeks after the "burning platform" speech, and thinking "this stuff must have been approved more than a month ago, and you'll be fired as soon as you get hired -- IF they'll hire anyone at all".

Nokia is a case study in bad corporate management practices.</comment></comment>


What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart? - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120425355065601997-7Bp8YFw7Yy1n9bdKtVyP7KBAcJA_20080330.html

<comment><USER2> I am a Finn and I agree on introversion. In our culture hard working in solitude is respected and showing your feelings is suppressed; both good for classroom study. In sports this culture shows too: we do generally very bad in team sports.

The whole society is based on leveling differences. The week ones drop out and the good ones are held back but on the average everything looks good. It is also very rare to be self-employed. If you want to accomplish something out of ordinary you have to leave the country; think of Linus Torvalds for example.

About history: Finland has been part of Sweden and Russian and we are still been constantly reminded about it. For example, our current president Tarja Halonen refuses answer questions about democracy in Russia. I think the whole country needs a psychotherapy about the Russia issue.

You should think a Finn as passive-aggressive, risk-avoiding, self-loathing, highly educated native with inferiority complex. Those qualities with the lack of courage to speak up makes us the ultimate slave race.

<comment><USER3> You remind me of a joke I heard, and I'm curious to know if it's a common one. It goes something like this: _A Finnish farmer answers a loud knock at his door to find a detachment of Russian soldiers. The officer informs him that Russia is taking over this land and demands on penalty of death to know which side the farmer chooses to belong to, Finland or Russia. The farmer replies, "It has always been my heartfelt wish to once again be part of mother Russia. But at my age, I couldn't take another Russian winter."_

I wonder if you would detect the "passive-aggressive" temperament you mention in this joke? It could be described that way, though it strikes me more as a kind of shrewdness, based in long experience of managing much more powerful neighbors. (I didn't know that Finland had gotten it from both sides.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The real answer is: introversion. I have a few Finnish friends, and not only are they all introverts, but all their Finnish acquaintances seem to be, too. Finnish social customs reflect this. It would be interesting to figure out why. Finland does have a somewhat strange history.

This article strikes me as politically correct cargo-cultism. The features of Finnish schools that it talks about wouldn't work in just any society.

<comment><USER5> Hi.

I'm a Finn and I don't think introversion has much to do with why our educational system works as well as it does.

Us being introvert doesn't translate to all children sitting quietly in classrooms, absorbing information. There are .. problematic kids too.

I'd say it's more about the good foundation, as the article seems to imply. The curriculum is pretty solid too.

Finnish social customs are certainly way too uptight though.

<comment><USER6> Do you think Finnish social customs are the explanation of this phenomenon? I.e. that it's not cool to be stupid the way it is in large swaths of the US?

<comment><USER5> Finland seems to have just as many loud stupid people as I'd imagine can be found in America. In schools, it's the same sort of thing - nerds vs jocks, etc.

Being stupid is certainly not cool, but not exactly frowned upon in the retard-circles either :p

Our social customs are a problem because somehow the whole nation feels like it's not "normal" to strike up a casual conversation with someone you don't already know.

I think that's part of why we seem so introvert. When we get to know others, we can then behave like normal people :)

It's just that getting there is needlessly difficult.

<comment><USER7> As you seem to have studied Japanese, how does this compare to Japanese culture? I see many East Asian cultural elements among several points in this thread. Also, how unique is this to Finland? I've heard the Swiss also share this "introvert" quality. And the Germans?

<comment><USER5> Have you studied Japanese?

As far as I know, Finnish and Japanese people and societies share quite a few traits.

Some degree of introversion seems to be common to both, but based on two trips to Tokyo, I'd say that the Japanese are still considerably more relaxed than Finns are.

I can't comment on Switzerland or Germany, and I don't know much about the Japanese educational system, other than that they don't seem to be teaching English too well :p

I'm afraid that I'd need a more specific question to be able to offer some insight.

<comment><USER7> I ask because I have no first hand knowledge about Europe. I was told that among the Europeans, the Germans are most similar to Japanese. I can't think of an English equivalent now, but both people are said to "follow the book strictly."

There are many things to ask; I just wondered if you had a general impression about the comparison. You said they share quite a few traits -- for example?

<comment><USER5> There are some similarities between Finland and Japan that I've noticed or heard of.

Both countries have a relatively high suicide-rate.

Both societies frown upon someone who changes jobs frequently, and being unemployed is considered shameful and terrible in general.

The way we travel in public transports seems to be the same too. Everyone just sits there in silence :)

On a happier note, our languages often sound surprisingly similar.

\- For example there are words in the Finnish language that happen to sound like words in the Japanese language.

The meanings are different of course, but at least to me, saying the word "sato" sounds exactly the same in both languages. In Finnish it means "crop" (as in what you reap), and in Japanese it means "village".

There are probably quite a few others like that.

I've been told that Finns most resemble the people in Hokkaido, the northmost area in Japan where the climate is supposedly like (southern?) Finland.

Germany? Maybe they're as methodological in Japan?

I studied German for about 5 years at school (voluntarily even), but nowadays I can probably make it through more sentences in Japanese without breaking any.

As far as I remember, we didn't hear much about their culture..

They had a fun way of wishing good luck though: "Hals- und Beinbruch!", which means something like "Neck- and leg-fractures!", as in "Break a leg!" :)

Well, you guys do belong in the same family of languages after all..

In Finland we just settle for saying "Onnea!" as in "Luck!".

<comment><USER7> Thanks.

The high suicide rate is an interesting fact. Checking on [http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicider...](http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en/) Finland and Japan are indeed right next to each other. But on [http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime- murde...](http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per- capita) Finland's murder rate is closer to USA (#30 vs #24) than Japan's #60.

The parallels between Germans and Japanese were indeed about being methodological. I am unsure how this idea really holds though, as the education systems are, AFAIK, very different. There's still much to find out...

<comment><USER5> Even though the murder rate may seem high, often those are cases where some guy decides to kill his family, and then himself.

This kind of thing happens almost exclusively in the Finnish countryside.

It's strange, but it's better than lunatics killing random people on the streets.

I'd say that random killings are extremely rare, maybe unlike America, and that this is still a relatively safe place.

But lately we've had our share of totally incomprehensible violence too..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> "Movies and TV shows have Finnish subtitles instead of dubbing. One college student says she became a fast reader as a child because she was hooked on the 1990s show 'Beverly Hills, 90210.'"

Interesting. I remember when I began using IRC at the age of 10. The rate that I read at increased considerably within several months. It's unfortunate that many kids today watch TV without subtitles and SMS each other unintelligibly. If they're on the internet, they're probably looking at pictures of cats on Digg.

How the hell are kids supposed to learn how to read these days?

<comment> tac-tics The answer is simple:

<http://www.roflcat.com/images/cats/270915355_c8b9ae48e6.jpg>

Edumacation

Learn me a book

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think the comments so far in this discussion are misguided in attributing the good school performance of Finnish pupils to some character trait of Finns. That's like saying blacks in America do worse in school because of black culture.

Finland has a great educational system. It's that simple. And that hard too. It takes decades to create a good educational system, and you can't do it with handing out more money or new laws.

<comment><USER5> I agree.

Anyway, our educational system is pretty much uniformly great all the way to the end of upper-secondary school.

After that though, there are only a handful of good universities to attend.

It seems that among colleges etc, there are lots of really good choices in America.

For example I went to a polytechnic, "majored" in IT, and learned next to nothing about programming there.

Now I'm relatively far from being a Real Programmer (tm), but trying to slowly make my way towards being one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Finnish school system sounds very much like the ideal learning environment that Alfie Kohn describes in Punished by Rewards.

<comment><USER10> There are severe limitations on how far Alfie Kohn and his following will follow the implications of his ideas. They have gone so far as to ban discussion of certain ideas, basically because parents were too uncomfortable about being asked to do that much better.

<comment><USER9> I'm really interested in this. Do you have any links, or else could you post/email_me a synopsis of what's going on.

<comment><USER10> There are ideas called "Taking Children Seriously" (TCS) and the UP (Unconditional Parenting is a book by Alfie Kohn) forum was closed down to avoid those ideas and the yahoogroup explicitly bans any discussion of TCS -- even when a newbie shows up and asks what TCS is and how it differs from UP, they won't get an answer. The only reason the TCS label is relevant is because that's the way in which they explicitly target which ideas are banned. If I post anonymously and without mentioning the TCS label I would still be unwelcome if I posted exploring certain lines of thought, which are what's actually unwanted.

They want a "supportive atmosphere" which means little criticism (of ideas). This is not unusual. Pretty much no one is philosophically serious about parenting or education, today.

Feel free to email me at firstname.lastname@example.com for more details or reply here.

Edit: sigh, Alfie had the major relevant thread on his forum deleted from archive.org, all I seem to have are some partial quotes in AIM logs.

<comment><USER10> Heh I tricked archive.org and got the first page of the thread i wanted and found:

"Part of the problem here, some argue, is a lack of clarity or transparency in those posts, such that people whose views closely correspond to TCS generally don't identify themselves as such." -- Alfie Kohn

He wanted TCS people to wear identifying stars, if you know what I mean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not discounting the Finnish school system or anything but I would take any results based on standardized tests with a grain of salt. Many tests of this nature have been shown to be biased or skewed to the benefit or detriment of certain people. The IQ test is a prime example...

<comment><USER12> I just had a look through some of the questions of the test and it seems very fair to me. Simple scientific sorts of questions that have good clear questions with answers that can be very definitely said.

I would chock it up to finland being a more homogenous society. Many of those small european countries have top notch education systems, but they are small and everybody is well off. I personally think that the US needs to find its best way to educate, not somebody else's.

They also have free college. I'm jealous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The Finnish scores are not very high when compared to, eg, Minnesota.</comment>


Letterbomb: Wii 4.3 Homebrew Installer Without Need For Special Game Disc - <AUTHOR> http://hackmii.com/2011/08/letterbomb/

<comment><USER2> Is there really that much actual homebrew going on with the Wii?

Since the Wiimotes use bluetooth(and there isn't any other interesting hardware in the system), I was under the impression that most of the homebrew community was just syncing them to PC's rather than really trying to hack the Wii.

<comment><USER3> Emulators are mostly what you'd use it for, but there are a few other good ones, including an awesome port of Syobon Action.

<comment><USER4> No, that's now what these exploits are used for.

I've used these exploits, along with an external drive formatted to wbfs and used as a "backup drive". (Read as piracy storage)

Ive played the emulators on Wii, as well as video players. They stink because of excessive lag, even mplayer. If there were cool things one could do with a Wii, Id like to see them. Aside from Wiimote Blackboard and other controller apps, its a rather unimpressive boring system.

So its back to piracy.. and cheating.

<comment><USER3> I distinctly remember the various WBFS loaders as being rather crap- installing the various bits to get them to even work was a pain in the ass and poorly documented, and even then the loaders seemed to like not working.

The emus always worked well for me, though.

<comment><USER5> They're a huge pain in the ass to get working on 4.3 firmware too.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Will your application scale? - <AUTHOR> http://hacksushi.com/2009/04/05/will-your-application-scale/

<comment><USER2> He is partly right, but if you think about what you are doing it shouldn't be such a big issue to scale reasonably well later on. Rails is properly more difficult to get to scale since that was never a concern of DDH when he made it, something like Erlang scales because it was made to do that.

<comment><USER3> I'm sorry, but this is complete nonsense. Rails is a framework for building web applications. Erlang is a programming language optimized for distributed computing.

Rails doesn't have any inherent scalability problems. It uses a share-nothing architecture which will scale just fine. It's true that Ruby (the _language_ that Rails is written in) is slow and presents some additional challenges to scaling (green threads, memory leakiness), but ultimately the burden of scaling rests on the architecture. If Ruby were 100 times faster it would be a very fast language indeed, but that still wouldn't make scaling easy. 100x is nothing when you're trying to go from 10 req/s to 1,000,000 req/s.

As to your second part about scaling not being a big issue if you think about it up front, that is also a load of crap. Yes, don't do stupid things, but once all the obvious optimizations are gone you will usually be surprised by where the bottlenecks are. Most applications won't ever get to that size that scalability becomes seriously difficult, but then they certainly won't have a problem with Rails either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also consider that if you write your app with a little bit of "code responsabiliy", usually when you need to scale, you have so many users that you can afford to rewrite your code thinking about scaling.

<comment> ryan-allen Only if you have a business model and you're making money... or VC funding.

I think the more important thing is to hire developers who have 'been there, done that' so they already know how to write code that is balanced.

<comment><USER4> I wrote my little web app without caring about scaling. Now it has about 20000 visitors a day and an average of 8 request per second. The uptime command says: load average: 0.16, 0.19, 0.15 (on a dual core machine.) Should I have any problem with the load, I think it would be feasible to find someone funding me. I understand it depends of the type of the service, but I also think that most of them could afford to think about scalability when they actually need it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why every boggling blog writer nowadays says "application" while meaning "web site" ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Because a facebook app and an iphone app aren't websites, yet they still have many of the same issues. Websites are becoming more and more like desktop applications and pigeonholing something as a "website" doesn't make sense, unless you are only talking about websites and it does not apply to any other web connected application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I guess we'll find out once I get customers!</comment>


IBM's Acquisition of Red Hat Closes - <AUTHOR> https://newsroom.ibm.com/2019-07-09-IBM-Closes-Landmark-Acquisition-of-Red-Hat-for-34-Billion-Defines-Open-Hybrid-Cloud-Future <comment><USER2> [dupe] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20391180](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20391180)

</comment><comment><USER3> "- IBM preserves Red Hat's independence and neutrality; Red Hat will strengthen its existing partnerships to give customers freedom, choice and flexibility"

Already now I can mention one bank where I work where RH and IBM account teams are fighting tooth and nail over revenue. It won't end well.

<comment><USER4> What do you mean by "it won't end well"? Seems like it's going to end up pretty well for your bank, given that the two teams are fighting for your business. Let the best team win?

<comment><USER5> It may work out for the bank in the short term. But saying Redhat is a separate entity within IBM won't last long if they're driving down their own revenue by fighting each other. IBM leadership holds _all_ the cards now and all the Redhat execs are in a glass house facade. What IBM wants is revenue from the acquisition, not confusion and price wars. There is no best team, there is only one team now. And that team has one goal above all else: show how this acquisition was brilliant and the wall street numbers to prove it.

Remember that what IBM paid for Redhat, based on the fact they had to finance a big chunk of that liquid cost, has interest tied to it. That interest cancels out the revenue Redhat will bring to the plate. So... I'll say it now for those who don't want to do the math: your Redhat licensing is going up soon. Better have locked in those 3 year deals prior to today.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In my dreams Red Hat's culture overtakes IBM's and this becomes a successful reverse takeover, but this is only a dream.

<comment><USER7> There was an old joke: "What do you get if IBM merges with Apple?" Answer: "IBM".

(Though these days, Apple could buy IBM..)

<comment><USER8> They could buy IBM almost 2x over with their _cash on hand_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really hope IBM can keep their fingers out of Red Hat, if not it does not matter how many promises they make, they will run it into the ground. If they actually manage to do so, and let their cloud business grow without old school IBM values etc; they actually have a chance to grab a big piece of the cloud business.

<comment><USER10>
        > old school IBM values

I think I prefer "old school IBM values" to whatever they've morphed into in the last ~20 years. They got a bunch of bad press lately for mass terminating, in an obviously shameless manner, "older" employees.

<comment><USER11> "Old school IBM values" presumably refers to their time in 1960s-1980s when they were real innovators and inventors. Now they're just a consultancy shop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Understandable, as IBM has always targeted the enterprise solutions market. Having control over (I think still?) the most popular enterprise linux installation is a nice add to their business.

It opens greater flexibility for their servers, as they have 'ownership' of the distro now. Possible bid for a speed benchmark as a selling point? Some of the giants out there are going to be hard to beat for that though...

I don't know that they are doing this specifically for the cloud market.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hopefully this helps demonstrate to VCs the strong viability of red hat's model, which triggers more investment and creation of competitors and companies to fill the void after red hat is bled dry and destroyed by IBM.

</comment><comment><USER14> How realistic is the fear that Big Blue is going to screw up Red Hat?

<comment><USER15> Old Joke: What do you get when you cross IBM with [Insert company/product here]?

Answer: IBM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> R.I.P. Red Hat</comment>


MIT faculty reports on Fukushima [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://mitnse.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/fukushima-lessons-learned-mit-nsp-025.pdf

<comment><USER2> The actual title is much more interesting: "Technical Lessons Learned from the Fukushima-Daichii Accident and Possible Corrective Actions for the Nuclear Industry: An Initial Evaluation"

"Reports" doesn't really do it justice.</comment>


Amazon May Have a Counterfeit Problem - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/amazon-may-have-a-counterfeit-problem/558482/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> One major facet of this issue The Atlantic missed in this article is that of commingling. The article repeatedly talks about Amazon's claims to take counterfeiting seriously, and how they're often just a platform for other sellers, but a critical part of maintaining that normally is that a brand has a 1:1 relationship between what it sells and what a buyer gets. But for the free default Amazon commingles FBA (and apparently their own stock too now) based purely on claimed SKU. That means someone can sell their own legitimate product that they put into Amazon's system themselves, through their own store brand or "Sold by Amazon", and then Amazon will go ahead and ship a counterfeit someone else put into the system. I believe it's possible for sellers to avoid that if they perform additional labeling and pay Amazon a fee per unit, but naturally the vast majority go with the default (and Amazon doesn't seem to give buyers any clear labeling/search options to prefer non- commingled sellers either, it couldn't just be B2B to be a significant aid to the reputation problem).

This to me is one of the clearest, black & white indications that no Amazon is not taking this seriously enough. Commingling is purely on them, they do it to ease their own logistics and in turn improve their own profits. They shouldn't be able to claim to be merely at direct linking platform but then act as an aggregator. Merchants shouldn't need to go to any extra work or need to pay extra money for this either (though I recognize Amazon might have to raise FBA pricing if they can't stealth optimize it or pay extra for verification or some such), they should be able to send items into Amazon's system properly packaged and have Amazon automatically take care of ensuring if a customer buys from them they get one of their specific packages only.

<comment><USER3> My mom's business sells a lot on Amazon. Her stuff is in the brand registry. She does not sell at wholesale, yet has competitors that sell products with her branding and labeling for less than she sells it. Amazon rarely cooperates with her reports of counterfeiting, saying dumbass stuff like "prove it". This, coming from Amazon's legal team, who seems to fail at understanding the fundamental economic rule of "buy low, sell high".

<comment><USER4> Have you ordered the counterfeit products, inspected them, and reported them as counterfeit? There are many ways to tackle this problem and there are many people who abuse it on many sides.

Amazon has messed up the operations for a lot of companies so usually the burden is on you to fix whatever the problem is. For example, I currently have a problem where Amazon has virtually given me $10,000+ of product that I never sent in and even after months of contact, trying to get them to acknowledge their error and take back the inventory is like pulling teeth... That's my problem, the bigger nightmare is for companies that now need to document and tighten down on their entire supply chain for unauthorized vendors... .

I haven't had to deal with any counterfeiters yet but look up Cynthia Stine's Egrowth Partners or Ed Rosenberg. They deal with this type of stuff everyday. There's probably free advice floating around too. Best place to ask in my opinion are the Amazon seller Facebook groups. Seller Tradecraft and FBA private label high rollers might be a good resource.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the tips, I'll pass them along.

She has gone through purchasing the counterfeits with varying levels of success. One time, she got one of the cockroaches kicked off her ASIN then the next day a brand new company appears on the same item. Other times she got them to stop.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "May" have a problem, they _do_ have a counterfeit problem.

Maybe I buy a disproportionate amount of electronic components from Amazon (or used to), but I'd spend way more time trying to figure out if a particular product was counterfeit or not. I also spent a lot of time returning crap that was (it's super frustrating to receive a part for a project only to discover it's a completely not functional replica). I canceled my Amazon Prime membership a few weeks ago, and plan to rely on Digikey + local electronics stores from now on.

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm really tired of tech giants claiming they're just platforms when it's convenientm for them. Twitter, Google, and Facebook claim they're not publishers, just platforms. Meanwhile they're acting like both. Amazon isn't engaged in commerce, it's just a platform, but again is very much both. It seems that some regulations on this kind of "platform" is inevitable, and probably overdue.

The degree to which companies on the internet thrive through aggressive doublespeak is frustrating beyond belief.

<comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure that Google, Facebook, Twitter et al., stick to acting as platforms because they are relying on years of legal precedents which protects them from liability of any abuse carried out by users.

If however they start curating content or being especially controlling then they risk being classed as a normal publisher, and as such liable to additional regulations or damages based on actions of their users and/partners.

This is why Facebook is in a bind about "fake news" being shared on their network. If they remove it then they will be accused of not being an impartial platform. So instead, at best, they have to algorithmically cross reference posts with other reliable content sources to "flag" to the user that the shared article "may" be inaccurate. Unless that post contains a bit of naked flesh, it ain't being taken down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> They seem to manage keeping counterfeit chromecasts off their site just fine.

Aside: what about their kindle/fire lines? Are there counterfeits of their own items?

</comment><comment><USER8> It would be _VERY_ easy for Amazon to put per/seller labels on all (or at least most) packages, so that they could filter out specific sellers, even with the mingled stock.</comment>


Ask HN: Efficacy of homemade masks in reducing transmission? - <AUTHOR> What is the current best research we have on the efficacy of homemade cloth masks against reducing the community transmission of COVID-19? <comment><USER2> There is little evidence to support their use. The WHO's April announcement stated

 _At the present time, the widespread use of masks by healthy people in the community setting is not yet supported by high quality or direct scientific evidence._

But the growing movement towards mandatory usage continues regardless of the absence of evidence. This morning, the Head of the Royal Society was interviewed on Radio 4 (the BBC's news channel). In response to a question on the absence of scientific trials on efficacy, he responded that requests for such were _methodological fetishism_ , a term I had only previously encountered in the works of Deluze.

</comment><comment> open-source-ux This research is from 2013:

 _Testing the Efficacy of Homemade Masks: Would They Protect in an Influenza Pandemic?_

Link to PDF: [https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Katy- Anne_Thompson2/pub...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Katy- Anne_Thompson2/publication/258525804_Testing_the_Efficacy_of_Homemade_Masks_Would_They_Protect_in_an_Influenza_Pandemic/links/53fefd8f0cf21edafd154e85/Testing- the-Efficacy-of-Homemade-Masks-Would-They-Protect-in-an-Influenza- Pandemic.pdf)

Summary:

> Several household materials were evaluated for the capacity to block > bacterial and viral aerosols. Twenty-one healthy volunteers made their own > face masks from cotton t-shirts; the masks were then tested for fit. The > number of microorganisms isolated from coughs of healthy volunteers wearing > their homemade mask, a surgical mask, or no mask was compared using several > air-sampling techniques.

> Our findings suggest that a homemade mask should only be considered as a > last resort to prevent droplet transmission from infected individuals, but > it would be better than no protection.

Interestingly, tea towels (dish cloths) showed a higher level of filteration than t-shirts in this study.

Edit: here is a more recent review of the scientifc literature on cloth masks from the Royal Society in the UK. This is a pre-print - link is to PDF:

 _Face masks and coverings for the general public: Behavioural knowledge, effectiveness of cloth coverings and public messaging_

[https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/set-c/set-c...](https://royalsociety.org/-/media/policy/projects/set-c/set- c-facemasks.pdf?la=en-GB&hash=A22A87CB28F7D6AD9BD93BBCBFC2BB24)

</comment><comment><USER3> The efficacy of non-homemade masks is not as well demonstrated as one might hope. It takes years to plan, execute, analyze, review, and publish a good experiment, and there wasn't nearly as much interest in this question until a few months ago.

</comment><comment><USER4> From what I have seen, the cloth masks' effectiveness is pretty much nil except for following situations:

\- If you cough, it might stop large portion of droplets from propagating and it will reduce the distance at which it initially travels.

\- As a constant reminder, it functions to prevent you from touching your face, keep you more aware of what you are touching/doing and to pressure a little bit other people to do the same.

This is my current understanding.

The real masks are actually pretty complicated things. For example, a lot of effort is on ensuring the air does not travel AROUND the mask, greatly diminishing its filtering ability.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think one benefit of homemade mask usage is simply that it helps to normalize masks in general. Seeing others wear masks in various contexts can help reduce the stigma of embarrassment that one might feel, or serve as a helpful reminder to wear one.

<comment><USER6> I don't think I understand your point. Are you saying that having more people wear homemade masks provides "cover" for people who wear more effective medical-grade masks? Or for people who want-to/need-to wear masks for non- medical reasons? Which is to say, unless we accept in advance that masks are effective at preventing the spread of disease, is there a reason that we would want to "normalize masks in general"?

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I should've made it more clear - if they aren't "effective" then it would be pointless to normalize them. Based on stuff like this[1] I happen to think that they are, although exactly _how_ effective seems highly dependent on a number of things.

[1]: [https://www.livescience.com/are-face-masks-effective- reducin...](https://www.livescience.com/are-face-masks-effective-reducing- coronavirus-spread.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> [Edit: if readers have relevant papers to share, I'd be very grateful.]

<comment><USER6> Here's a New Zealand Health literature survey with lots of relevant links:

 _This paper summarises some of the evidence and policies around the use of non-surgical non-N95 masks by the public and in clinical settings for the purposes of reducing transmission of SARS-Cov- 2 /COVID-19._

[https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/revi...](https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/review_of_science_and_policy_around_face_masks_and_covid-19-15may2020.pdf)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Uncanny Valley – Interactive WebGL and WebAudio Demo - <AUTHOR> http://fractalfantasy.net/#/4/uncanny_valley <comment><AUTHOR> Lights move according to music. For the first song strobing can be too much, sorry for that, musicians liked it like that ;).

If this is uncomfortable, you can press F key to freeze lights changes (I implemented this feature exactly for that).

Second and third songs are much gentler, so you may try checking those out (keys 1,2,3 change the song, keys 4,5,6 change the head for the current song).

</comment><comment><USER2> Why does the lighting source keep frantically changing on the faces? That is very annoying. Maybe it's only a problem on my hardware.

<comment><USER3> I think it keeps your mind from locking in on fake aspects of the faces, to make it look more real.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Tested in Firefox (41), and Firefox Nightly (44.0a1) under up-to-date Linux with Skia.

This breaks for me when the viewport is higher than its width, which is how I normally have it. It breaks by not drawing the head and only drawing the bits that overlay the eyes.

Also getting some warnings in the console, unsure if it's due to the site or the browsers implementaion:

PROGRAM_INFO_LOG: warning: sampler arrays indexed with non-constant expressions is forbidden in GLSL 110 warning: Variable sampler array index unsupported. This feature of the language was removed in GLSL 1.20 and is unlikely to be supported for 1.10 in Mesa. warning: Variable sampler array index unsupported. This feature of the language was removed in GLSL 1.20 and is unlikely to be supported for 1.10 in Mesa. [···] repeats

<comment><AUTHOR> Viewport aspect ratio is likely unrelated.

Those warnings mean your GPU driver doesn't support a feature that's critical for shaders used there. Sorry for that :(

Which GPU do you have?

The last time I encountered a similar issue was on my old Thinkpad with ancient ATI 3650 Mobility Radeon GPU (on Windows but only when running OpenGL rendering backend, DirectX ANGLE backend was ok, so it wasn't really hardware issue, just drivers).

\-----

BTW to see how it looks when it works properly, here are video captures:

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwLlCBbP0Cc57IQLBH_8j...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwLlCBbP0Cc57IQLBH_8jnuMZlFh0OI0S)

<comment><USER4> I currently have a single die CPU+GPU, the AMD A10-7850K, as I'm having some issues with the PCI-E ports that I have yet had time to troubleshoot. Good to know where the issues lie at least, thanks for the explanations!

In regards to working properly: It does work as in the videos as long as the aspect ratio is "correct".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm curious: why does it feel like they're looking _at_ me when I see them frontally, but like they're looking _past_ me in other angles? Is it only me?

Very noticeable with the farthest camera. It's less pronounced with the old guy, but the black one is really jarring for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> We are very sensitive to event the smallest details about human eyes. There are some aspects that are not modeled in this demo.

Probably the most important is that head models are completely static: they were "frozen in time" from the time of 3D scan, in exactly one position, one facial expression, one eyes focus.

Each of the models were captured with slightly different eyes orientation / position / focus. Black one especially doesn't look "at you", he looked "past you" when the capture was made.

Demo only changes eyeballs orientations but the rest of the head stays always the same, mesh is static. In the real world when eyes move, also eyelids and skin around moves. We use these details as additional source of information when guessing where the person is looking at.

Another aspect that's missing is a proper physiologically-correct cross- eyedness due to focus distance. When you look at the same point but at different distances, eyes will move closer/further apart, but not in a simple geometric way, there are physiological constrains.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> That really is uncanny. I had this feeling like there was actually a living person there in my computer.

<comment><AUTHOR> For the best "uncanny valley" effect, try fullscreen mode (press G) and then try different zoom levels (press Z) to find the one that look closest to the real human head size on your monitor.

If your GPU is fast, you can also try ultra mode (should be autodetected, but you can force it by presssing U even if detection fails).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm seeing the same rapidly alternating light source on Windows 8.1 / Geforce 980, both in Chrome 45.0.2454.101 m and Firefox 41.0.1

It's disorienting, seriously adding to the uncanny factor.

Otherwise, the shaders look magnificent. Keeping this to spook the kids on Halloween.

<comment> tech-no-logical you can freeze the lighting with 'F'. press 'H' for more options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Totally crashed my ubuntu 14.04 opening it in FF.</comment>


Most Doctors Ignore One of the Most Potent Ways to Improve Health - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/8712.html <comment><USER2> True, It helps when the family members and friends are cheerful.</comment>


How to Tweet via the International Space Station - <AUTHOR> http://verily.posterous.com/how-to-tweet-via-the-international-space-stat

<comment><USER2> When did bits become bytes?

<comment><AUTHOR> actually that is to say _i_ know the difference, but i didn't have the time really to get exactly the right the details of 1200 baud vs. bits per second vs. bytes per second vs. 7-bit vs. 8-bit and which component does which, if there's error correction, if it is based in 1000 or by 1024, etc, etc</comment></comment>


Xcode 8.3 produces binaries 3x larger than Xcode 8.2.1 - <AUTHOR> http://www.openradar.me/31302382 <comment><USER2> This appears to be bitcode. It probably means they just starting making use of more metadata or something that is now included in the bitcode.

Bitcode also now deliberately trades off size vs speed and includes indexes used for LTO, etc. They could be including those.

You should almost always expect bitcode to get beat by "llvm-dis|xz", because the goal of bitcode is not to be the most compact possible format, but instead, a compact format the compiler can use effectively :)

Now, if actual on-device binary sizes increased, my guesses would be:

1\. it now includes bitcode, or another architecture, in the binary (which would be interesting)

2\. Something has gone horribly horribly wrong :P Really, speaking as a guy whose org maintains the toolchains for platforms like this, there's a 0% chance we wouldn't notice a 2x-3x size increase.

<comment><USER3> The iOS Gmail app has increased in size to 140MB at the last update. I'm on a 16GB iPhone and I've noticed app sizes slowly increasing over the last two and a half years that I've had my phone. I have to keep an eye on app size to make sure I don't run out of space on my phone. I've already boycotted the Facebook app, but apps like Gmail are too important to uninstall. If it comes to it I'll be getting rid of a lot of other apps before Gmail (e.g. the Google app) when I need to reclaim space. I don't understand how app sizes keep creeping up; it's moronic. By contrast, the Reddit app is a slim 13MB and I'd say it does a lot more than the Gmail app.

<comment><USER4> Features mostly. I mean, you seem to absolutely need the Gmail app. While I, too, have a Gmail account, I like the simplicity of the native mail app in iOS. I don't need any additional features. I get mail, I read mail, I can write mail.

<comment><USER5> you can't fill 140MB with "features mostly".

it's gotta be something like mostly media (uncompressed bitmaps), metadata, (debug symbols maybe?), libraries / platform / compatibility layers (95% of which is never used for any particular install).

I have seen what it looks like when you _actually_ try to cram "features mostly" into a few tens of megabytes and the GMail app is not that.

source: the demoscene

<comment><USER6> I just downloaded the IPA. It literally looks like it has a 134 MB blob of code (out of a 215 MB universal .app).

Google must have some _insane_ cross-platform code library or something in there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Note that the size increase is in the _bitcode_ portion of the binary. This slice is stripped from the binary before it makes it to the user's device. This means the size increase is merely an inconvenience during the development process, and has no impact on the size of apps as users see them.

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately this doesn't seem to be the case.

Binary sizes in iTunes connect (from our Xcode 8.3 build) all were 2x-3x larger depending on device.

<comment><USER7> I think the size iTune Connect reports includes bitcode, and isn't representative of the size of the app once it makes it to a user's device. The information in the original bug report you linked to clearly shows the size increase is limited to the bitcode portion of the binary.

<comment><USER9> Why would they do that, visually in the store?

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure what you're asking here. Why would who do what?

<comment><USER9> Why would they show the full size including bitcode when you go to download it, when it doesn't get sent to the device anyway.

<comment><USER7> The size I'm referring to is shown in iTunes Connect, which is the administrative side of the App Store that the developer uses to manage their app releases. As far as I'm aware the size shown in the App Store's user- facing UI does reflect the size that will be downloaded by the device. I think it's possible to see this size in iTunes Connect, but since I don't myself have any apps in the App Store I can't easily verify this.

<comment><USER10> You can see the per-device estimated App Store file sizes in iTunes Connect:

(navigate to your app) > Activity > All Builds > (select the version) > (select the build) > App Store File Sizes

<comment><USER11> ty

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Really need to change the title to reflect that the increase in size is not present in App Store binary.

Side note: filing a Radar is the new top of the customer acquisition funnel. Go Realm! :)

</comment><comment><USER13> So, the app explodes in size, and since almost no app provides a "clear cache/temp" feature, apps grow til you are crashing routinely. While iOS may clear some space when it feels like it, I have a monthly routine of deleting and reinstalling a slew of apps which take up gigs of space on the device after usage, even though they are just showing data stored on a server. I know, I shouldn't have to worry about this, that iOS will eventually clean it up... but when apps are crashing b/c they can't get space, I wind up having to manually step in.

So, a) for devs, if you think your app caches, provide a way to clear it (look at Opera's Coast browser, who puts it in the Settings app), and b) for users, if you think you are out of space, look at apps and compare app size to total space, and you'll find some hogs.

<comment><USER14> iOS cleans up Caches/tmp directory, it it needs space.

[https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/Fi...](https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/FileSystemProgrammingGuide/FileSystemOverview/FileSystemOverview.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40010672-CH2-SW1)

> "Note that the system may delete the Caches/ directory to free up disk > space, so your app must be able to re-create or download these files as > needed."

> tmp: "however, the system may purge this directory when your app is not > running."

<comment><USER15> Despite this claim. It doesn't feel like it happens. Maybe, apps aren't writing the Cache files to the right place and that's why they aren't being cleaned up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> apple-fan-941 This is due to bitcode, which won't actually affect the binary size seen by end users (i.e. app download size): [https://twitter.com/jckarter/status/846796503775567872](https://twitter.com/jckarter/status/846796503775567872) "That at least shouldn't affect your users' download size, then."

<comment><USER16> Is this only true for store downloads? Because the majority of our apps is delivered simply by a website download through the device via Enterprise certificates.

<comment><USER7> If you're doing direct downloads then there's no reason to be building with bitcode enabled, and so the size increase should not affect you at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Isn't 10.3 the first version that is introducing the new APFS file system? If so, couldn't that have something to do with it? Does each app need to compile for both supported file systems now? I am not a LLVM expert but someone with more expertise on this subject might be able to say. I just found it odd that no one else here had mentioned it. It is the big update for 10.3

<comment><USER18> Apps aren't compiled for a specific file system, so no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> This has been fixed with Xcode 8.3.1.

</comment><comment><USER20> Did anyone actually look at the content which is responsible for the increase in size? I hope it does not include the source itself, comments, and who knows what.

</comment><comment><USER21> It also seems to take 3x longer while the previous version was no speed demon either. Guess why I have so much time to post here?

</comment><comment><USER22> wonder what would [https://github.com/google/bloaty](https://github.com/google/bloaty) say about those binaries...

</comment><comment><USER23> Remind me of Visual Studio

</comment><comment><USER24> Apple charges $1200 to upgrade the latest touch bar rMBP from 512GB to 2TB of flash.

Let's not forget that they are a hardware vendor.

I don't think it's some grand conspiracy theory, but the interests of the vendor and of the user are not precisely aligned when it comes to efficient usage of storage. (The lack of stripping applications of their alternate language content on install/download also comes to mind.)

<comment><USER25> This theory is pretty easily debunked when you consider the primary goal of bitcode is to strip assets from apps that aren't relevant to a user's device, hence taking up less space.

(For example, removing @2x images for a plus device that uses @3x images, or vice-versa).

<comment><USER24> I said explicitly in my comment that I don't think this is some grand conspiracy. I don't think Xcode makes big files to use up disk space. I think Apple just has little incentive across the entire ecosystem to use less storage or use storage more efficiently.

Afaik bitcode is so that Apple can rebuild binaries for different target architectures (e.g. new models of phone, watch, et c) without source developer interaction. It should come in major handy in the OSX app store when ARM64 Macbooks ship in a year or two. A full app store of working apps on hardware launch day will make the bitcode requirement worth it when it's the smoothest architecture transition they've ever done (out of 680x0->ppc and ppc->x86).

<comment><USER19> Bitcode does not allow cross-architectural builds. This is a common misconception. IR (& bitcode) includes architecture and platform-specific ABI. What it does allow is for better optimizations as the LLVM backend optimizer improves.

<comment><USER26> I would imagine that with enough engineering effort, a cross-architecture "porting" of IR would be feasible. I doubt Apple will bother to do that when they can just force developers to rebuild and republish lest they get left out of the App Store.

<comment><USER19> Outside of a Java-style high-level VM, cross-platform cross-architecture in the C world requires compilation. You cannot use what is not there. When compiling a C language, macros are used to determine architecture and platform, and extra code is simply not compiled. The most simplest of examples is endianness handling, which would be totally broken if Intel-compiled code is automagically made to run on arm.

<comment><USER27> iOS and macOS are both little-endian, but there are many other differences between platforms (like pointer alignment, SIMD size, ObjC ABI) and bitcode makes no effort at all to accommodate them.

Bitcode can used to recompile for minor ARM updates, compiler bugs, new optimizations etc without having to get developers to submit new binaries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The same codebase compiled with Xcode 8.3 produces a binary about three times larger at 158MB, including 70MB for bitcode alone.

Apple limit 100 mb per download.. So this big issue for all developer.We need apple to remove the limitation over 100 mb or atleast 1GB.

<comment><USER29> Bitcode size =/= binary size. Your binary sizes will remain similar.

<comment><USER28> if so okay, but still i do confuse with the limitation of 100mb.Sometimes facebook apps can update more then 100 mb and some apps cannot update over 100 mb.

<comment><USER30> That's probably because the app store may offer a delta update patch instead of a full download.

<comment><USER28> i prefer to knew more about it.. but seem here down vote making me sad those coward downvoter.. maybe i will close this account..

<comment><USER31> I didn't downvote you, but I can help you understand why you were downvoted.

On HN, you'll usually get an answer if you ask a question.

"Is x going to be a problem for y?"

Making an incorrect statement however will get you downvoted.

"x will be a problem for y."

The other issue is your writing quality. You will get better results if you put more effort into your writing.

You don't have to have perfect English. Many people on HN have English as a second language.

Things like a capital letters at the start of a sentence, and using single full stops (periods) at the end of sentences, show effort. You will find people will be more tolerant of grammar issues if you at least put effort into the basics.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why you should let your employees fail - <AUTHOR> http://www.s-fbi.com/2015/08/18/why-you-should-let-your-employees-fail/ <comment><USER2> I guess if you have a big enough runway, this could work out. For most startups, letting your employees fail means letting your company fail when you run out of money. Nobody is going to give you more money when the stuff your employees were working on failed. Especially when they're trusting your resume to get the job done and you should have known better.

<comment><USER3> If those are your options, you shouldn't have employees, you should outsource the work.

And I'm not one usually in favor of outsourcing, but having employees is a whole different ballgame. If you can't let them fail, you're not building a team that will add value over outsourcing, so you're better off not taking on all of the complications that come with having employees.

<comment><USER4> I've spent most of my career as a full time employee, and recently I've become a 'consultant', which is a fancy term for contractor who works for a middle man. I've really become interested lately in the strategies behind using full time employees, when to outsource, why companies use contractors/consultants, etc.

Are there any good books/blogs on the subject matter that anyone knows about?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One time, as a first-time techlead/manager struggling to get my team to deliver, I tried to let them play with the problem for a bit then give a few nudges in the right direction / the direction I wanted them to go. With some team members it was extremely effective. Others got tunnel vision on the wrong path and I was unable to reach a consensus with them on what a good solution looked like, which snowballed into an inconsistent codebase, and a divided team with morale problems. I probably wasn't the right person to manage this team, or maybe I don't have the same innate manager talents that this author has.

Not saying that my solution is always right, but i definitely think my inability to sell a cohesive technical direction to the entire team hurt the schedule/quality. I think hand-picking people whose opinions align with mine would have really helped the outcome, whether or not my solution was best. Perhaps detaching my ego from the outcome would have helped too. I wouldn't take another high pressure delivery responsibility role without hire/fire power.

<comment><USER6> IMO this approach is definitely not one-size-fits-all. It's usually best to provide strong leadership up front in the form of clear expectations, but let people experiment in areas outside their comfort zone. This could mean putting some of the more junior team members underneath a senior developer -- the senior developer gets to experiment with management, and the junior developers benefit from some guidance.

Overall, you have to use techniques like this in the context of a situational leadership framework. There's a ton of reading material on situational leadership, but basically it comes down to recognizing the areas where people are knowledgeable and/or confident and providing the right kind of support. The "let 'em fail" tactic is great for people who are confident but not knowledgeable -- they learn something about the topic, and they learn about their own (lack of) understanding of said topic. There are many situations (when people are neither knowledgeable nor confident) that require you to do more hands-on management of your team -- and that's ok, since your goal is to help them move up the knowledge/confidence curve.

Very rarely do managers in our time have hire/fire power; in my experience it's very difficult to fire anyone for performance-related issues. Usually the best you can do is offer to swap your "problem children" with another manager and hope they do better in a new environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Aah, the old "nudge them in a direction so when they figure it out they think it was their idea" trick. Very effective; but it takes a degree of trust in your subordinates (namely that they're smart enough to figure it out given enough time).

Anyway, if you take your primary job as a manager to be building your team's skills, it's absolutely the right way to go. People tend to remember lessons they learned the hard way, so I like to let my people fail in small ways because it's instructive.

</comment><comment><USER7> Mirror: [https://archive.is/gWlZS](https://archive.is/gWlZS)

<comment><USER8> <marquee>Unavailable in your country</marquee>

Such class

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Nage" is technique, and the person who applies a technique against an attacker is "tori". If the author can't get this right, I would suspect their understanding of the martial art is somewhat shallow.

<comment><USER10> Wait, you shouldn't tell him this, he should have learned that all by himself!

I don't agree with the author's view at all. If anything, it angers me when I trust a mentor to guide me and he lets me waste a week before I figure out by myself that the path was wrong from the start. Why do I need him then?

There are many ways one can learn. One is by trying, one is by listening to others. The latter is usually much cheaper in terms of time and resources. The major problem is that we sometimes can't find a suitable person to give us advice in a form we can hear. And now there is someone who preaches that one shouldn't help even when he knows how? Great. </rant>

<comment><USER11> I think the key word you use here is "guide" \- I completely agree that a mentor shouldn't _guide_ you down the wrong path.

...but maybe the mentor wasn't _guiding_ you, but enabling you (by answering your questions) to follow a path _you_chose_ and that turned out to be wrong.

This is important because if you always see yourself as following the mentor's path, you'll never take ownership and become a leader yourself.

As an experienced developer and personnel manager, I find it particularly frustrating when someone comes to me and says "you told me to do it this way, and now it doesn't work - fix it" because it shows that they're not taking any ownership.

Instead, I try to ask questions and make observations about their proposed approach to guide them to what I think is the best solution but, ultimately, they may choose an alternative route... and this might fail. At that point, they normally come back with "I've hit this problem, and it's mine to overcome, but can you help?"

...and I do, gladly. ;)

<comment><USER12> I agree with you.

One of my largest pet peeves is when a new technical person comes and asks me how to do something without even googling it first. I don't mind guiding, I don't even mind giving hints and verbal cues to get you to the starting blocks. But if you're asking me to tell you how to do something without even developing questions to ask me, I'm annoyed.

I don't want to sound like a grumpy old man, but _some of_ the new generation of thinkers seem to lack some intellectual curiosity that those of us without the internet had to endure in our early career stages.

Next, I'd like to introduce you to the 20 year old ruby developer who will set me straight in the follow up reply to my comment:

<comment><USER13> In the same vein, I get annoyed when older engineers expect me to ask how to implement something. You don't learn anything if you don't spend some time groping blindly in the dark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _Error establishing a database connection_

Did some admin employee fail? We can't tell whether they were being let fail or failed all on their own, but I'd rate the failure as successful.

<comment><USER15> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.s-fbi.com/2015/08/18/why- you-should-let-your-employees-fail/&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Error establishing a database connection"

Maybe you should rethink that rule when it comes to your sysadmins and database admins.

<comment><USER17> It's also important to let your admins fail, and let the people and systems improve based on what you learn from the failure.

Being completely risk averse creates an environment where it's very difficult to improve, for fear that your good change will happen to cause a problem and you'll get blamed for it.

<comment><USER16> That's not what the article is about - the article explicitly talks about when you know the employee's approach won't work and you'll have to do their work over, let them fail anyway without telling them in advance.

That's not being risk averse. That's bad management. A manager's role is also that of a mentor, helping your employees leapfrog over obstacles you've encountered in the past. (Don't get me wrong, there's a wrong way to do it - micromanagement.)

<comment><USER18> Part of mentoring is letting the mentored fail and working through the after- action and identifying the learning opportunities.

Controlling for how big or how expensive that failure is are both necessary components of the task; don't let them fail in a way that's going to torpedo the company.

But only being told _how_ to do something makes a person a good follower and does nothing for their innovative or problem-solving skills. That's also bad management.

A successful professional needs a back catalog of failures and misses to understand _why_ to do something.

<comment><USER19> Yes, exactly. Mentorship is about _guidance_ , not hand-holding. It is about asking questions the inexperienced employee may not have thought of on their own, but also letting them find the optimal solution on their own.

For example, if they are designing a backup solution for the first time, asking them "what will the system do if the backup media is full?" is good. Telling them what it _should_ do when full is bad. By asking the question, you're basically teaching them that there should be a contingency in case of failure. From there, a discussion on possible solutions can take place, where the mentor once again guides the employee to figure out the pros and cons of each approach.

That said, I'd never knowingly let people fail. Even without that, any good professional will have plenty of failures anyway. If they don't, they are playing it too safe and aren't learning some important lessons, and it might be time to assign them more challenging projects.

<comment><USER20> > Even without that, any good professional will have plenty of failures > anyway.

That's the main thing to me. Why waste people's time on known dead ends when you can fail on things that matter, together?

It seems self-centered to think that the best way to learn is to make the same mistakes that you did yourself. It also assumes you can predict every problem they'll encounter well enough to precisely ration out additional obstacles.

<comment><USER19> >>That's the main thing to me. Why waste people's time on known dead ends when you can fail on things that matter, together?

People learn differently from experience than they do from being told something.

>>It seems self-centered to think that the best way to learn is to make the same mistakes that you did yourself.

That's the thing though: people rarely make the same mistakes as you did. They tend to make different mistakes, and fail differently, with different results and consequences. By serving the solution to them on a silver platter, you're robbing them of very valuable learning opportunities.

A mentor's job is to use their experience to guide the employee and help them figure out how to avoid mistakes. And if they do make a mistake, then the mentor is there to help them recover. The recovery is followed by by what I call "lesson time", which is a judgment-free session where we discuss why the incident or failure happened and come up with actionable steps to prevent it from happening again.

If you find yourself in situations where you absolutely have to tell someone how to do something because failure would be fatal, at that point you should do that thing yourself, and have the employee watch you do it and take notes. That's another type of mentorship that a lot of people are not comfortable with, but it can be extremely valuable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> developers at s-fbi.com have failed at making this article live :P

</comment><comment><USER22> like your server?

</comment><comment><USER23> You let whoever was in charge of your page's scrolling fail a bit too much.

<comment><USER24> lol</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is this black bar? - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/gallery/ZphvVST , what is this black bar on the top?I use Gabrielle Cirulli's HN plugin and this totally throws it off . <comment><USER2> The black bar appears in honor / remembrance / expression of sorrow / etc. of someone who has recently passed away. In this case, I presume: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10557793](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10557793)</comment>


Ask HN: Do you think you are smarter than average person? - <AUTHOR> Alternate questions: - Do you think you are smarter than average citizien of your country? - Do you think you are smarter than average HNer?<p>This type of question has been intriguing me for some time, as I feel almost everybody deep down thinks he is not a genius, but he still knows better than average Joe. I would be really curious if there were surveys with this question and how would different countries compare in results. <comment><USER2> I've tested out with an IQ beyond 200, not exactly sure what, but I lack street-smarts. I can negotiate, but I can't "politic". I can code, but I can't design, I can plan, but I can't execute.

Does this make me "smart"?

I don't know what "smart" is, and I'd bet everyone has a different definition. It's like being a "good driver" ... What exactly does that mean? Safe? Perfect Control? Excellent Anticipation? Fast? What makes a "good driver"?

No, I'm not smarter than average, I just have different skills, and the skills I have let me do well on IQ tests. That doesn't make me "smart".

</comment><comment><USER3> One of my favorite HN reads, [https://sivers.org/below- average](https://sivers.org/below-average)

</comment><comment><USER4> No, but I study and learn more</comment>


SEC May Take Enforcement Action Against Investors Who Promoted Unregulated ICOs - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@getongab/the-sec-may-take-enforcement-action-against-investors-who-promoted-unregulated-icos-78a695ae338c <comment><USER2> I mean, it's the same thing they'd do against people who promoted unregulated securities. Other than "cryptocurrency", there doesn't appear to be anything new here.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is purely speculation by the authors, who are promoting their own regulation-compliant securities-token offering.</comment>


I admire Amazon. I just don't shop there anymore. - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/12/28/i-admire-amazon-i-just-dont-shop-there-anymore/

<comment><USER2> This is such an amazing coincidence. I stopped reading Pando articles. It wasn't a conscious boycott. It just happened after reading a few articles and seeing little to no value in exchange for the time reading each one.

<comment><USER3> Ok I chuckled on this one.

I wonder how much money this sort of non-article article brings in, and I wonder at how soon before we're using bayesian techniques to generate these sorts of stories from non-actual-authors. Automaton authors serving page views to automaton viewers clicking on ads they will never read.

The advertisers know they are getting fleeced, see the story about the Facebook hordes. I wonder when that particularly sorry pigeon will come to roost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The word Amazon appears in this article 34 times. The actual article is the same "zen fluff" of "I need less consumer goods" and "I was suddenly realizing I was buying useless crap".

</comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if the author did any research or reflection into the supply chain of the local shops he so self-ingratiatingly now espouses. Does he know for sure that the books he special orders from inside of a building other than his home don't just, you know, come from Amazon?

<comment><USER6> Actually, that would make a lot of sense. If a bookstore ordered its special- order books from Amazon, it could get them shipped for free in two days (with Prime) and re-sell the book for list price, making a decent profit. Probably a lot faster than ordering the book from the publisher.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Articles like this are more appropriate for the writer's personal diary. I don't see how his spending habits have anything to do with Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't buy from amazon, because they don't have any cash, prepaid card options in my country (not until I last checked it)

</comment><comment><USER9> Fine, then don't.

(These words were just about as enlightening as the article.)</comment>


Porn, knives and drugs websites accessible on most public Wi-Fi - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/25/porn-knives-and-drugs-websites-accessible-on-most-public-wi-fi

<comment><USER2> _More than half of cafes and restaurants in the UK do not filter access to online stores selling things like knives and swords_

As an American, I find this concern absolutely bizarre. Do the authors also censure sites selling baseball bats[1] as well?

[1] - [https://www.google.com/search?q=london+riots+2011+baseball+b...](https://www.google.com/search?q=london+riots+2011+baseball+bats)

</comment><comment><USER3> Uh, what? "Oh no, you can access the internet!"

I guess I'm glad we don't live in (quite) that much of a nanny state, but sheesh.

</comment><comment><USER4> And almost 100% of public libraries offer recipes for bombs, nukes and murder to terrorists and teenagers.

The horror</comment>