We develop a novel approach to measuring long-run economic growth by exploiting systematic variation in the use of color in European paintings. Drawing inspiration from the literature on nighttime lights as a proxy for income, we extract hue, saturation, and brightness from millions of pixels to construct annual indices for Great Britain, Holland, France, Italy, and Germany between 1600 and 1820. These indices track broad trends in existing GDP reconstructions while revealing higherfrequency fluctuations-such as those associated with wars, political instability, and climatic shocks-that traditional series smooth over. Our findings demonstrate that light, decomposed into color and brightness components, provides a credible and independent source of information on early modern economic activity.
"Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion dollar question: How is it that Israel -- a country of 7.1 million, only 60 years old, surrounded by enemies, in a constant state of war since its founding, with no natural resources-- produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada and the UK?"
That sounds like a great read. And it seems that a lot of world leadsrs have taken an interest in the book. Yet still no other country except maybe China has aggressively pursued the same kind of environment.
That's a much bigger meta question, like what's even the point of putting timing constraints on any test?
Logistically, my kid has to go a testing center at the school during his free period and/or lunch periods for his extra time. I can imagine that if everyone got extra time, it would be a logistical nightmare.
But I think the reality is that our educational system had just decided that faster is better and that speed is a legitimate way to grade and rank students. Which is stupid.
> But I think the reality is that our educational system had just decided that faster is better and that speed is a legitimate way to grade and rank students. Which is stupid.
That's not stupid. Speed does in fact matter in the real world. To illustrate the point, let's consider an extreme example: what if it took me an entire year to do something that someone else could do in an hour? My results would be so slow that nobody would tolerate me as an employee or partner. On the other extreme, if someone takes 1h1s instead of 1h it's not really a big deal.
I don't think it's unreasonable to draw a line somewhere and say "if you can't do it this fast, you haven't learned the material adequately". The tricky thing is where to draw that line, not whether such a line is ok at all.
Ok, in the extreme case, that's a fair point. Tests can't be unlimited in length. But I don't think it's actually that tricky to draw the line. If a typical school test is 1 hour during class, just give students the option to come in at lunch or a free period for an extra period for extra time if needed. That seems easy and reasonable enough to me.
Yes. It depends on whether the time pressure is an integral part of the test. If it isn't then people should get as much time as they need. If it is, it's not clear why people should get different amounts of time.
Doesn't satisfy the ADA. Department of Education would sue such a college for failing to accommodate disabled students. An accomodation that is available to everyone isn't an accomodation.
Congressional lawmakers 47% pts better at picking stocks
When I looked at the thread, the top comment was this [1]:
Incorrect title, the finding is "lawmakers who later ascend to leadership positions perform similarly to matched peers beforehand but outperform them by 47 percentage points annually after ascension" This is saying that people in congressional leadership positions do 47% better than other members of Congress.
That top comment then spawned a subthread containing (so far) 212 replies, debating the accuracy of the title and the actual findings of the report.
This is a prime example of why we ask users not to editorialize titles. When people take it upon themselves to write a more “descriptive” title, they often get it wrong, commonly by focusing on a statistic or detail that feels important to them but is not truly reflective of the full contents of the article or findings of the study. But that then becomes the starting point for the discussion, and then much of the discussion thread is responding to the incorrect detail in the title, or is discussing the accuracy of the title, just as has happened here.
If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
For the record, I tried to find a way to word the title in a “descriptive” way, as you had sought to do, but from reading the article and discussion thread I determined that the findings of the study were too detailed and nuanced to be able to summarize in 80 characters, and so the only option was to preserve the paper's original title.
Still, the submission has received 825 upvotes and 550 comments so far, so it's not as if it's been light-on for exposure.
Thanks for explaining your reasoning. I think you have come to the wrong conclusion for these reasons:
1. Even though a comment about the title may have instigated that 212 reply discussion, the meta discussion about the title was not the focus of those replies.
2. I would suggest that the vast majority of the audience who appreciated the more informative (though not perfect) title couldn't be bothered to participate in a meta discussion about the title.
3. I doubt whether the 800+ people who appreciated the post would have even clicked on it with the completely uninformative original one to which it was reverted. Consequently reverting it does a disservice to the community.
4. An imperfectly descriptive, though neutral, title is clearly better for the community than the opaque original one to which you have reverted it.
5. I did not editorialize the title. I did my best, as you apparently did, within the space constraints to make it more useful to the community.
6. The title which I gave it was a weaker version of the conclusion of the paper, so the opposite of clickbait.
7. Your assertion about the popularity of the submission begs the question of whether it would have been as popular with the reverted title.
I have already experienced the thrill of the 800 upvotes which I propose as evidence that my questioning of the title reversion is meant as a guide for the future rather than an act of karma self-aggrandizement.
There is plenty of grey area and room for flexibility in the way we apply the guidelines, and we take many factors into account, including all the considerations you've raised. But ultimately we have to be accountable for the decisions that are made, and our approach has to be stable and defensible over the long term.
To (some of) your points:
> 1. Even though a comment about the title may have instigated that 212 reply discussion, the meta discussion about the title was not the focus of those replies.
Of course. A >200-comment subthread always goes off in all kinds of different directions. But that subthread accounted for 40% of all comments in the thread, so, it's clear that that comment about the title set the tone for the whole thread and heavily influenced how it played out. That top comment pointing out the inaccuracy of the title was one of the very first comments submitted, and received over 300 upvotes, so many people agreed that the title was inaccurate. We can't ignore that signal.
> 4. An imperfectly descriptive, though neutral, title is clearly better for the community than the opaque original one to which you have reverted it.
A title that gives people an incorrect understanding of the finding of the study is not "neutral". And if the authors/publishers of the paper felt that their title was adequately representative of their own work – given they are the most motivated to maximise its exposure – it's not for us to decide their own title was too "opaque".
> 6. The title which I gave it was a weaker version of the conclusion of the paper, so the opposite of clickbait.
We always find that numbers make titles more attention-grabbing. That doesn't mean they should never be used, but they should be used with great caution.
> 7. Your assertion about the popularity of the submission begs the question of whether it would have been as popular with the reverted title.
We're sympathetic with this perspective, and we do see some merit in allowing a more descriptive/catchy title to remain in place for a period of time, while the submission is still fighting for upvotes and the discussion is building momentum.
But every HN thread lives on for posterity, and after it's had enough time to get noticed and establish itself on the front page, it's proper for us to revert the title to the one that the publishers chose, so it ends up being consistent with the original work in perpetuity. This is the respectful thing to do, both for the publishers and for the community. By that time, the fact that it has hundreds of upvotes and comments should be enough to signal to HN visitors that it's worth a look.
And this brings us to the main issue here. I can see the merit in what you tried to do, and I don't altogether disagree with what you did or the reasoning for it, and we didn't initiate any criticism against you for doing it. We just quietly changed the title to the original one when we saw it, which is bog standard HN moderation. It's only become an issue because of the snarky, accusatory way you complained about what we did, and this is becoming a pattern in the way you engage with us. Our moderation policies and practices have to be stable and defensible over time and you need to take that into account when finding fault in what we do.
The right thing to do in future cases like this would be to email us when you submit the post and share your thoughts about the title. We can then manage it in a way that takes into account all the relevant considerations and consequences.
Claiming $200/month for a phone makes one wonder which numbers are valid. I'm not saying everyone needs to make a $100 phone last 5 years and use a $15/month plan, but I'm not even sure how I would get to $200/month in phone bill, even including financing an iPhone 17 Pro Max.
$200 seems valid - it comes from the linked article [0] and it includes home internet (I pay $110 / month Comcast just for home internet in Bellevue. In Seattle I paid $130 / month). Maybe Aaron could have phrased it better. (I also recommend to read the linked article as it is a phenomenally well done financial analysis.)
With $85/month service (AT&T unlimited premium with only a single line) and financing a $2,000 phone (The smaller storage version of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 at MSRP) over 18 months, you’d hit almost exactly that; you could so the same with a cheaper service and/or phone with some add-ons (e.g., while Apple Care is billed directly by Apple and so wouldn't be on a phone bill, insurance for non-Apple phones is often billed by carriers on phone bills.)
$200 doesn't seem that crazy if they are buying several phone lines. I assume he pays at the least his wife as well, so that's two. If they have home internet bundled in as well, that would easily explain that figure. All to say, AT&T. He may also have a home phone line for a fax machine. It is perhaps a bit disingenuous to bundle it all together, but it also isn't the main point of the article.
> Having a $200/mo smartphone is now a participation cost for many things such as getting access to your banking information remotely, medical records, and work / school.
That makes it sound like this is the minimum that you have to pay to get a smartphone and service to get by in modern life.
$200/mo is definitely high for that. An iPhone 17 Pro Max with maxed out storage (2 TB) is under $85/mo for 24 months.
A Visible+ Pro prepaid plan is $45/mo ($37.5/mo if you pay for 12 months at once) if you don't use one of their frequent promo codes to get a discount.
That includes unlimited premium data on Verizon's 5 G UWB, 5 G, and 4 G LTE networks, support for a cellular smartwatch, 4K UHD video, and unlimited mobile hotspot. By "premium" data they mean no deprioritization. Visible users get the same priority as user's of Verizon's own postpaid plans.
The hotspot is only 15 Mbps, so you probably wouldn't want to rely on it if you have frequent or long internet outages, but I've found for the occasional short outage it was fine for email, HN/Reddit/etc, and YouTube videos.
This will be massively more than enough to cover the smartphone hardware and service needs for everything probably 99% of the US population needs to get by, at $130/mo.
Note that includes getting a new top of the line iPhone every 2 years. With a more modest phone and keeping it for 5 years we are looking at more like $60/mo.
> I pay that at least much for my family, hence why I used it
and your article says
> Having a $200/mo smartphone is now a participation cost for many things such as getting access to your banking information remotely, medical records, and work / school.
It sounds like you're trying to communicate that you pay at least $200/month per smartphone for your family? Or you don't value precision in communication.
I know you've got a lot going on with a small business, and a new kid... but if money is important to you, maybe spend the time to switch to prepaid phone plans. There's lots of options [1], whatever network you need, you can do direct operator plans, MVNO owned by the operator, or like actual MVNO. If you're short on time and T-Mobile's network works for you, MintMobile has a promo going right now where $180 pays for 12 months of "unlimited" which is $15/month if you divide it out.
> I also pay $1250 per month to TriNet for the privilege of being able to buy their health insurance in the first place - sure, I get some other benefits too, but I’m the only US-based employee currently so this overhead is really 100% me.
Do you live in a state with a reasonable healthcare exchange? You might want to shop and see if an off the shelf plan from the exchange is better than paying TriNet to get access to their insurance; it may well be, but you should check. If you only have one US employee, and it's you, there's a lot of expense for not a lot of value IMHO. It's not really Apples to Apples though --- I think a lot of the TriNet plans have out of state coverage where a lot of exchange plans don't.
> It sounds like you're trying to communicate that you pay at least $200/month per smartphone for your family? Or you don't value precision in communication.
You're moving the goal posts here. You have to have service, realistically, in order to use it like a real person.
I'm trying to figure out what you're getting for $200/month.
Is it for "a smartphone" with service, and presumably financing the phone as well? Or is it the total for all of your family's smartphones, which is how many phones/lines?
Do they come with free mid-tier phones? What if you need 4-5 lines? What if, as a CEO, he needs a better plan than "basic prepaid, lowest-priority-subject-to-throttling"?
And what if the CEO needs international numbers across all continents?
What if the CEO needs to supply an entire 1,332 person company with business phones?
What about an assistant to answer them! What if we're sleeping!
Oh god!
But just to put my comment in context, here is what he said:
> Having a $200/mo smartphone is now a participation cost for many things such as getting access to your banking information remotely, medical records, and work / school.
Okay, so on the non-budget side, I pay ~$64/mo for T-mobile's "unlimited[1]" plan and a Google Pixel phone. ($57/mo for the service, and I've amortized the phone price to ~$7/mo based on my lifetime average phone lifetime. Even if you amortize the phone over only its ridiculously short warranted lifetime, that's $42/mo for the phone, or $99/mo, but that implies purchasing a new phone yearly, which most people do not do (the average phone lifespan is just under 3y).)
In over a decade, the only time I hit that cap was because I let my kid watch too many videos on it.
5 GB is pretty reasonable for the bulk of the country. The only common things that can make it go over are games and streaming - both of which really are luxuries if you simply can't wait till you have Wifi access. So yeah - of course you should pay a lot more if you insist on doing those things.
This is akin to him saying that average American needs X money for the car to participate in society, and you suggest that his numbers don't math because one could:
1. Walk around everywhere (Idaho, Iowa)
2. move to New York (with ok public transportation)
Mobile phone and unlimited high-speed internet are requirements for participation in society.
Worrying about what the wifi password is for this place is such an old-school thing in America. Europeans and Asians find it baffling.
If you have internet access on your phone while you're actively moving, it should work all the time, without any traffic limits or the need to keep asking for shitty cafe wifi (because your mobile internet is even worse).
It really reminds me of the Healthcare System conversations, when Americans are justifying why their way of doing things is logical and correct, while the rest of the world shakes their heads.
> unlimited high-speed internet are requirements for participation in society
I pay $7/mo (not a typo) for 1GB mobile data via US Mobile, and I have never hit that cap in many years. I just don't stream video or audio unless on WiFi, which is not a hardship. Respectfully, what on earth are you talking about?
My monthly mobile internet usage is 5-25GB. And this is me working from home using wifi, having cheap internet (slow, but unlimited) and barely being outside. Phone wifi usage is 150-250GB/month.
Well, I have to wonder what you are doing on your phone. I don't restrict my usage at all outside of video and audio streaming, so I'm befuddled as to how you use 10-50 times more data than I do.
Last month, 429MB used:
107 YouTube music
91 Google maps
70 Firefox
22 Amazon
Miscellaneous other small amounts
WiFi usage 26GB
I don't doubt that you use a lot of internet, but that amount is far away from a "requirement to participate in society" .
I watch a lot of videos (with increased speed). Also Telegram is a big consumer of bandwidth.
Also, since I live in Europe, I don't use car (otherwise would obviously not able to watch videos during travel), but public transportation. And using mobile internet is normal, nobody cares to ask for cafe wifi or to even type it in despite being visible on the wall. This is very freeing. Perhaps more than Americans can imagine, since the limits are internalized. Analogy would be the freedom Americans feel, after they move to Europe and realize that they don't have to worry about becoming broke due to sudden health problems. This is a constant worry that Americans have, but the extend of which is fully understood only after the shackles have been dropped.
Like, a lot of people here don't even have a separate internet connection at home, but are simply using their phone's shared internet with their laptops. That's how normal it is. And these "no limits" contracts are what allows the change in behavior to FULLY utilize the technology, without the need to limit oneself.
A lot depends on how one understands the word "participate". I mean, is eating the diet of only oats, eggs and protein powder enough to "have eating needs met" or is the requirement limit at "balanced food diet, with cost not influencing decisions"?
In my opinion requirement can be rephrased into "can fulfill all the phone/internet needs, without limits, without restricting oneself". So in this sense your internet requirement is 26.5GB and we have to look at the price of the phone connect that would provide at least this much at full speed.
It’s also what critical thinkers do when evaluating “what percentage full of shit do I think this author is?”
If a glaring innumeracy or terrible estimate is in the article, why did the author include that? What was their angle? Does that make me trust the rest of the article more or less?
Because it indicates dishonesty and/or innumeracy which calls the accuracy of the rest of the piece into question. "Checking if the author can actually count" is basic media literary stuff, not some sinister agenda.
I think he's quoting that from the other article, not necessarily computing it himself. I think that article was about the cost of broadband + smartphones.
We pay ~$100/month for 1G broadband (I realize this could be lowered somewhat), and ~$100-120 for 5 phone lines for the family (AT&T prepaid). I'd like to see you make a household with multiple lines + broadband work for less than $100-125.
And that's not even that hard - I know some people spend $300+ JUST on their phone plans, in addition to broadband. And then if you factor in amortized cost of phone replacement? It's closer to $200 than to $50 for example, IMHO.
$200 seems to include home internet (which I think everyone needs these days to function). The $200 quote comes from the linked article [0] (speaking as a former financial analyst, this is an amazingly well done financial analysis). Maybe Aaron could have phrased this better.
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