The Death Of RIM - <AUTHOR> http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2010/11/27/the-death-of-rim/

<comment><USER2> Rim is doomed because they've fogotten who their core customers were: businesspeople.

Compare what I think is the greatest phone every made: [http://r.phonedog.com/shared/images/items/1464-main- medium-b...](http://r.phonedog.com/shared/images/items/1464-main-medium- blackberry-7520.jpg)

To what it was replaced by: [http://www.dplwholesale.com/buy2buygg/2010101415181049514.jp...](http://www.dplwholesale.com/buy2buygg/2010101415181049514.jpg)

The old one was tough as freaking _nails_. It didn't do much, but it did those things really, _really_ well. It had a scroll wheel on the side, and you clicked and right clicked on things just by either pressing with the tip or the knuckle of your thumb.

It never, ever broke. I still have my original 7520 sittin gin a drawer in my house (unused because I don't have a nextel account anymore). The thing had fallen out of my jeep while it was moving, had been left sitting in a puddle for an hour and it just never, ever stopped ticking. (For reference, here is what happened to my iphone when it fell off the top of my dresser and landed on my wood floor: [http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak- snc4/hs980.snc4/75359...](http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak- snc4/hs980.snc4/75359_10100155746988681_10044806_56544454_5672155_n.jpg))

People were absolutely _addicted_ to their blackberries. The interface was flawless, it synced your mail every 30 seconds, never complained, the battery never died. It was exactly the type of thing that every person working on every product being worked on should _strive_ to replicate. It was a business staple.

 _Was_ a business staple. Somewhere along the line, RIM decided to turn their back on the people who had given them so much success and, instead, try to duplicate the success of the razr (remember when that was the _hottest_ phone around?). They ditched the bulletproof plastic cases and battery doors that never came off for shiny, cheap plastic because it was prettier. They ditched the functional, I would say _perfect_ interface of the scroll wheel and thumb- knuckle button for some horrible, horrible trackball that has to be replaced every few months when it either gets too smooth to work, or gets some get stuck inside of it because it was _cool_.

They made the phone smaller, and lighter. It didn't go in a dorky hip-clip anymore, it went in a pocket or a purse.

RIM, at least in my opinion, stopped making hammers and started making accessories. Unfortunately for them, their accessories aren't even in the same _realm_ as apple's. As much as I don't really like the iphone, I like it a _lot_ better than any or RIM's current offerings.

<comment><USER3> I agree that they've tried too hard, for my taste anyway, to attract non- business customers. However, from RIM's point of view, I'm not convinced they made a bad decision. I now have friends who don't need a phone for business reasons, yet they chose Blackberries. In addition, you see people like Justin Bieber using blackberries - while I haven't seen anything on this subject, I'm confident that there are thousands of teenagers out there who'd happilly chose a phone based on what he uses.

As to it no longer being a business staple, I disagree. Personally I think the Bold was their best phone ever, and the Bold 2 repeated that feat. It could and should be better, and there are many improvements I would make, but mostly in areas that the older models (such as the 7520) hadn't even imagined offering.

<comment><USER2> In my opinion, though, the market of people who would buy a phone just based on what Justin Bieber has are _extremely_ volatile. Unlike businesspeople, they'll switch to whatever the newest, hippest thing to come out is.

Honestly, look at a blackberry bold (which is a $500 phone, wtf?) then look at an HTC evo (the same price). You would have to be absolutely out of your mind to get a blackberry unless you were using BES. I doubt that the justin bieber crowd is using BES.

<comment><USER4> Sure, it's volatile. But do you think Justin Bieber chose BlackBerry because he wants one, or because he got a huge paycheck to use it? Product placement does not end at television and movies.

<comment><USER5> You might be right about the product placement, but a BlackBerry is still a sensible choice for Mr. Bieber's line of work: touring the world, constantly meeting with people, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Badly written article making a single point that has been debated to death many times.

As far as I'm concerned, I won't be leaving RIM for as long as they keep making phones like the Bold 9700, and I know many colleagues and friends who feel the same. I also know a handful who moved from Blackberry to iPhone and regret it, they are all either planning to move back, or they already have. (Don't think I know a single person who moved away from Blackberry and doesn't regret it.)

I love what Google are doing with Android and I love Apple products (I currently own two generations of iPod Touch and two generators if iPod Nano - side note, the newest Nano is perfection.) But RIM's products aren't an older version of what Apple and other companies are creating, it's just a different product, and for people like me, it's still the best product.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. Terriible article.

What sums it up for me is RIM email and keyboard owns. iPhone browsing owns. Wish I could have both. I personally could care less about the apps although I'm sure many do.

Writing this on my iPhone was painful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why does the author think that RIM can't innovate like other companies have?

In the past ten years, people have said that Apple was over, Nintendo had lost their market to Sony and Microsoft, GM and Ford were finished.

All because these companies didn't innovate to maintain market share.

Now if RIM was just kicking back with blinders on like the auto industry did, maybe I would agree.

But RIM, understanding that it doesn't have much of the capabilities it needs to compete in today market, has been making acquisitions to beef up the areas they are weak.

Let's not forget that the reason BlackBerry was able to get such huge market traction was because they were so innovative early on with their messaging systems.

I wouldn't be so sure that RIM is a one trick pony.

<comment><USER8> _Why does the author think that RIM can't innovate like other companies have?_

Indeed. This industry is overrun by people making bold predictions of what has already happened.

Despite being Canadian, I've never owned a Blackberry. I have moved more than one organizations _away_ from Blackberry, because their existing model was archaic.

I applied to the company once many years back _and they never even called_ (clearly the root of their problems today).

Yet of course they can (and are) change. The PlayBook looks like a very interesting product, and QNX is bloody _beautiful_. I keep my mind open to the prospect that RIM is going to come out with a superstar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A tiresome, poorly written thrashed to death blog post. iPhone's haven't displayed iPods and Blackberry may have introduced some new models that appeal to a different user than the businessperson, but the Bold is as solid, reliable and indestructible as any previous model. I've owned many blackberries over the years and am more than happy with it. My friends are pretty evenly divided between blackberry and iPhone. Those I know that tried Android sold them and went with the iPhone.

I'm not parting with mine anytime soon. I don't need any of the apps. That said, I have an iPad, so maybe I get my app fix with that.

</comment><comment><USER10> I just wonder why his blog would change my mouse cursor

<comment><USER11> He lost all credibility with me at the exact moment I noticed my pointer change.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know why he does that. I've pointed to other posts of his in the past and this is a complaint that others here have lodged too. Maybe someone should drop him an email about that. Maybe if enough did, he'd have that changed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've been immensely disappointed with RIM lately. I don't really get app envy since I have both an iPod Touch (with Facetime!) and a Blackberry 9700. It's not my first Blackberry and hopefully not my last.

The reason why I love BB so much is because of BBM (instant contact with anyone, cross-carrier), the tactile feedback of the keyboard, and email processing. These features can EASILY be copied by a Droid or Windows Phone (doubt Apple will release a keyboard phone).

Where RIM failed is by being clueless. They charged $200 per 10 apps and forbid prices less than $2.99 that weren't free. I mean, what kind of business decision is that? What kind of company disallows $0.99 apps on claims that they don't want trivial apps? Who would pay $200 without the guarantee of a return? Sure, now they support new prices but only after a year of realizing it wasn't working.

Next, WHY would the CEO even think that the Torch could achieve iPhone-like sales opening weekend when it has to compete with the iPhone 4 and Android phones on a single carrier, AT&T?

I feel like the company is just naive now. OS6 has been great. But, the bugs that it has are just embarrassing. Memory leaks, battery jumps from 40% to 5%, browser crashes, 3rd party app crashes, etc. So disappointing.

<comment><USER13> Some things are improving: They've waived all app store distribution fees (see [http://us.blackberry.com/developers/appworld/distribution.js...](http://us.blackberry.com/developers/appworld/distribution.jsp)). It is a "limited time offer" but RIM is dead if they ever reinstate those insane fees (those 10 apps included updates!). I'm cautiously optimistic about a QNX-based OS too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Being a bunch of PC users for the existence of our company, it was somewhat uplifting to finally get a few Macs and experience what everyone is so joyous about. On the sidelines is seems foolish. But once immersed in the Mac world, it seems foolhardy to "deal with" Windows or Ubuntu (although I definitely appreciate what Canonical is doing).

The same is to be said for RIM. They definitely broke the ice for smartphones, but failed to lead the pact. As a Canadian, I do wish different results. But as a logistical, Apple picked up the reigns and jockeyed to the finish line.

Android, Windows Phone and RIM won't turn heads or wallets by saying, "me too". They have to define an experience, not copy it somewhat.

<comment><USER15> You make these assumptions with that one mode is _definitely_ superior to the other. I know several teenagers who have willingly traded iPhones for Blackberries because they didn't like the platform. I tried the Mac experience, but ended up needing to install Linux on my Mac Mini (after failing with KDE) because I couldn't stand the interface, package management, and so on. I used an iPod Touch for over a year and found it _far_ less productive than Palm OS and Maemo devices I'd used for its purpose before.

<comment><USER14> Apple took what they learned from iPod, created a business logic tied to their counter-culture. Generated and harvested it into loyalty.

RIM all but abandoned their core audience (business folk) to find the mass market and got lost in the middle doing poorly for both.

When RIM releases a new feature (app store, touch screen, etc) it is to mirror what is already being provided. "Me too!" isn't an encouraging sign for a market investment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > RIM is a one hit wonder. That is now chasing trends, poorly.

That's about it. The problem is, RIM's lost track of what they're doing.

If trying to beat the best, you have to play catch up to keep yourselves at a particular threshold of relevance. Unfortunately RIM's doing that poorly with some poor strategies (how many devices do they have right now?) At the same time, it looks like they're losing site of their core market, big business.

Big efforts from RIM have suffered from RIM rushing products out the door. Look at the Storm, arguably OS6 and the PlayBook. RIM's running themselves thin. If they can learn from this rough patch, I think they can make a case to lead again. But that's a big IF

</comment><comment><USER17> My primary phone is a Torch 9800. I wanted an e-mail processing device with a real keyboard and decent browser. This is my third blackberry and I wonder why I persist with the bugs.

In Canada the phone cost about the same as an iPhone. The build quality is dreadful.. silver plastic bezel is peeling. The software is buggy and glitchy (I get a dialog with a java.lang.NullPointerException sometimes when I receive an SMS.. wtf!?).

My last blackberry also had a ton of bugs and glitchy UI behaviour.

I think the problem with RIM is when it comes to software implementation, they just aren't as good as their competitors.

</comment><comment><USER18> Things I like about my Blackberry:

\- I haven't had to reboot it since I bought it months ago. I have yet to experience an application, let alone OS, crash.

\- There wasn't _one_ instance where any of the applications were sluggish, even a little bit.

\- It's actually a phone, and a good one at that.

\- The battery lasts for a week, easily.

I don't use email on the BB, and I agree that the browser could be better, but I think RIM-doomsayers should use a BB for a week.

It would then be obvious to them that a company producing such a top-notch product won't be going out business in a long time.

<comment><USER19> Which blackberry do you have?

<comment><USER18> 8500 series

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The assumption here is that _everyone_ wants a SmartPhone. I don't think that's true. A telephone that also does e-mail (and IM, BBM) while offering great battery life is a totally different class of device.

<comment><USER21> Sure, but if you're a personal user using BIS the email experience on the BB is pretty poor compared to the other phones out there today. With BIS connecting to IMAP it doesn't actually do a two-way sync so if I read and delete an email on my BB it isn't reflected when I get home and check my mail on my laptop. Total fail. All because they're trying to push BES server licenses onto people. I think it's actually this pig-headedness that will kill them in the end. In fact, they're too focused on extracting BES money out of businesses to properly address personal IMAP/POP mail properly.

<comment><USER22> Wrong, I can read and delete emails on my Blackberry and it gets read and deleted on both a Googleapps account and a regular Imap account. I use BIS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Things can change pretty quickly in the tech industry. Sometimes for the worse, but other times for the better.

If RIM is struggling, I wouldn't count them out. I wouldn't count anyone out.

</comment><comment><USER24> As I reviewed the Blackberry Torch one thing was obvious: RIM wants an iPhone like device for the average customer, but still holds the e-mail/business market and doesn't want to lose it.

I wonder what would happen if RIM bought Palm back in the day and had two series of devices, one for business with QWERTY keyboards and great e-mail, and another one to compete with Apple.

</comment><comment><USER25> All it takes is a new OS by RIM. I am so tired of mac addicts trying to convince themselves in public that their phones are the best in the world. If you want to spend more on your phone, fine. If you want a touch screen, fine. That technology has been around since Ms Pac Man, so stop acting like its cutting edge... You, as a iPhone user owe a lot to RIM because your phone would not be as secure, as talented, and as inexpensive as it is now if it wasn't for Blackberries. Stop being a tech elitist and allow technology to coexist, and to share space so that ALL phones get better. RIM is far from dying, your proclamation is sensationalist, and your writing is misguided and marred in a biased mentality that one too many apple product users commonly hold.

</comment><comment><USER26> RIM and blackberry are totally dominating in many countries, for example Thailand. It's not dead.

<comment><USER27> Indeed. In Bangkok, every other person on the street is using a Blackberry. The OP is just linkbait with zero research.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I think everyone is missing the one main reason blackberrys wont be replaced. The blackberry enterprise server that allows buisness's to control everything. I may be wrong in assuming the iphone/android dont have the same, but as far as I know they don't.

Having that control is very important to most companys.

Just my two cents.

<comment><USER29> my ancient iPhone hooks happily into our much more ancient Exchange Server, if that's what you mean

<comment><USER28> No, the software does far more then that. <http://us.blackberry.com/apps- software/server/5/>

And a better flash demo - [http://www.blackberry.com/select/server/autodemo/1551_RIM_BE...](http://www.blackberry.com/select/server/autodemo/1551_RIM_BES_5.html)

<comment><USER29> I had no idea...

That was really interesting, thanks. And yes, as far as I know Apple offer nothing like this

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is it fair to say that RIM is dead in the same sense that Paul claimed that Microsoft was dead, namely that nobody fears RIM and that their influence over the tech landscape is minimal?

<comment><USER3> People who define "dead" in that way need to buy themselves a new dictionary.

Regardless, Kinect is a recent example that Microsoft aren't even dead using that definition, and I don't think RIM are, either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> RIM has been increasing its market share, just because RIM isn't the only smart mobile on the market, doesn't mean it's going to turn into the next palm. RIM has been doing a good job differentiating itself as a business solution. I don't they are going to die anytime soon, but they're slow pace of innovation, software updates are hurting their consumer market....but then again apple can come out with a phone with a broken antenna and expect to sell millions, RIM has a far more corporate audience, so they need to be careful how they expand. All in all, it may seem like rim is dying for a consumer perspective, but I think they may still have a chance, although with a smaller market share.

<comment><USER32> RIM has not been increasing market share very recently, they have been passed by Apple and Android - see slide 8 here - [http://www.scribd.com/doc/42793400/Internet-Trends- Presentat...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/42793400/Internet-Trends-Presentation)

Blackberries do email very well, they are very bandwidth efficient (but the compression may be why the browsing experience is so slow), their BBM avoids insane SMS charges, they have slick hardware like Bold and Flip, they are designed from the ground up for enterprise security and manageability.

But the world is going to touch and mobile Web/apps, and RIM is keyboard centric and hard to develop for, with multiple form factors, OS versions and even the pitiful touch Storm.

Businesses are starting to adopt iPhones and iPads - RIM is going to have to reinvent themselves fast or face irrelevance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I think everyone is wrong. RIM is losing for quite a simple reason. The reason is so hard to see when you are in their "winning streak" but the reason is simple...

They did not give their customers what the customers wanted.

Basically at first rim was the only game in town. Its BB or Palm. BB did it better, cooler, CHEAPER (ish). It was perfect. Everyone who was anyone had a BB.

Now a smart company would continue the trend: Keep innovating. Look at YOUR CUSTOMERS. Where do they suffer? How to make everything better? 83XX series is a perfect example. They made a major upgrade to their os and put it on the shittiest hardware (see the $99 android tablet, thats basically the 83xx, ok the 83xx was usable). That phone was shit at best.

As a company realizing that they WILL be dethroned unless they innovate, they would have put better hardware, worked more on their platform, attracted developers, etc. App store shmapp store they coulda done SOMETHING. The blackberry world store came out AFTER the apple app store and it was a lot worse, and didn't even come pre-installed. Basically version 1 did not asynchronously fetch images, making browsing anything other than top 10 list impossible. Not to mention that what was on top 10 2 yrs ago is still there, nothing comes out for BB.

RIM is a nothing company who had a good idea. They are losing steam. They have no good hardware. They have no good software. In fact name me 1 application for the BB that is in any way exclusive to BB and is useful.

Long story short. RIM stagnated and by the time they opened their eyes, it was too late.</comment>


Apple Takes on Droid X With Latest Smartphone Antenna Video - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2010/07/23/apple-takes-on-droid-x-with-latest-smartphone-video/

<comment><USER2> Apple is selling iPhone 4s faster than they can make them. I hardly think that qualifies as desperate.

Droid X specifically markets their phone in ads as superior to iPhone 4:

[http://phandroid.com/2010/06/30/droid-x-ad-tears-into- iphone...](http://phandroid.com/2010/06/30/droid-x-ad-tears-into- iphone-4s-grip-of-death-signal-issues/)

"And most importantly, it comes with a double antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like and use it just about anywhere to make crystal clear calls."

I think they opened themselves up to fair game by advertising their antenna design in this way.

<comment><USER2> Relevant and informative comment instantly downvoted by Droid fans. Nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure how I feel about this video campaign, but I am confused why geek.com lists Apple as "desperate".

They're selling a lot of phones. No one is returning phones. The bad PR about the death grip is mostly settled (I don't hear it in the news anymore). Hell, Scott Adams wrote a very popular and widely circulated article about how good Apple's press conference strategy was. They're just going to continue to release these to make Consumer Reports look increasingly ridiculous in the eyes of the public.

Where is the desperation in all this?

P.S. Especially given that recent data suggests 77% intent-to-reup-handset among iPhone customers and only 20% intent-to-reup-handset among Android customers. (buried here: [http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/23/technology/iphone_4_att/inde...](http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/23/technology/iphone_4_att/index.htm?section=money_latest) )

<comment><USER4> I'm no advertising expert, but I can't think of too many situations where you advertise your competitors products even in a negative light without saying something very positive about your product.

Scott Adams article was also a bit of a Rorschach test, whether you think Steve Jobs succeeded with his 'High Ground Maneuver' depends very much on your own point of view.

<comment><USER3> "I'm no advertising expert, but I can't think of too many situations where you advertise your competitors products even in a negative light without saying something very positive about your product."

It makes Consumer Report's not-recommended status look increasingly irrational. If they give a recommend on the Droid X with such an obvious deathgrip problem (I actually hold my phone that way, using my thumb to interact with a pinching motion), then they're going to get called out on it hard.

"Scott Adams article was also a bit of a Rorschach test, whether you think Steve Jobs succeeded with his 'High Ground Maneuver' depends very much on your own point of view."

This is the human condition. I see a pair of rainbows, someone else sees the hand of God.

<comment><USER4> "It makes Consumer Report's not-recommended status look increasingly irrational..."

If this is the root of Apple's concern then they can work with Consumer Report to establish whether their appraisal was unjustified against other devices. They don't have to take this approach.

<comment><USER3> You're certain of this? I can't imagine Consumer Reports is amenable to negotiation on their product reviews. If they are, then that's a scandal in and of itself.

<comment><USER5> Consumer Reports originally recommended the iPhone4. They retracted the recommendation when they heard about the death grip. They confirmed the problem on the iPhone4, but apparently they didn't check other phones the same way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Apple's behavior reminds me of someone who's voted down on a site like HN on Reddit and then pulls out links to people who said similar things but were voted up. We get it logically, but for some reason we interpret it as childish and petty.

It's notable that they didn't go to these lengths with the G4 Cube overheating debacle. Apple's gone from selling almost entirely to a devout fanbase to a general appliance company and I think the change in PR strategy may be giving them a shock.

</comment><comment><USER7> Someone please explain to me how this campaign is going to lead to Apple being portrayed as anything other than a bunch of poor sports.

<comment><USER8> Most folks wandering around the planet have no clue about RF and near-field effects, but then most folks wandering around haven't had much experience with carrying around RF devices or with gear operating at picowatt sensitivities.

But that gear is now increasingly commonplace.

Please explain to me why you believe that knowledge - regardless of its source - is bad.

Please also explain why that knowledge - again, regardless of its source - makes you a "poor sport".

RF is not magical.

OK, yes, there are some days when RF and antenna design and EMI does seem is magical, but that's not the same sort of magic. And you can learn why your receiver was getting bagged by that metal sign that was wired onto the chain- link fence actually is re-radiating spurious signal. Once you find the EMI.

Or once you realize that grabbing onto the antenna or getting into specific spots of the near-field might not be a good idea.

Again. Data. Goodness. Even the biggest idiots on the planet (and Apple is not among those folks) can get stuff right once in a while.

So. Why is data a "poor sport"?

<comment><USER9> There's no "data" provided here. There is no context, explanation, or insight into what is going, or why. If accompanying the video there was audio or discussion explaining how the person's grip of a phone impacts RF signal, then it would be less open to (mis)interpretation.

Data would be excellent. This video provides none.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Apple taking the position that theyre only as good as everyone else?

<comment><USER5> Apple's position is that they're educating people about RF & cell phones. You can't fix physics with a software update.

<comment><USER11> From where I'm sitting, it seems like several large swathes of the American public do not understand what scientific laws are about. Many people seem to operate on the notion that if you feel strongly enough and shout enough, you can make whatever you want to be true, so long as enough others back you up.

<comment><USER12> Many people are rightfully pissed at BP for cutting corners and creating a huge clusterfuck in the Gulf.

Many of these same people are totally off base being pissed at BP for not fixing the broken well faster. But, hey, the screaming makes them feel better. Also, smug and superior.

<comment><USER11> I do think some of the preparation BP did after the disaster should be prepared ahead of time to be standing by for a future disaster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like how they had the dialpad open to make the phone look more complex and less attractive. Nice touch.

<comment><USER14> I like how you implied malicious intent over a totally pedestrian point to support your obvious biases (as if somebody using the dial pad could be interested in signal strength!) Nice try.

<comment><USER15> It's marketing designed to make the Droid X look bad. It's by definition malicious.

<comment><USER16> Honest question: is that not the app used to make calls on the Droid X? If it looks overcomplicated, how is that anyone's fault but Motorola/Google?

Apple certainly didn't design the interface for placing calls on a competitor's device.

<comment><USER15> All one would ordinarily do to check call strength is look at the home screen. For me the dialpad is a very infrequently used app, and I rarely use it to make calls.

In any case, why are you so hostile to the idea that Apple was being intentionally malicious? If I were trying to discredit a competitor's product, I too would choose the most unattractive space I could to highlight it. Given that the signal strength is shown in most apps, you certainly have a wide choice.

<comment><USER16> That is the app where (for most people) signal strength matters most. To me, it seems contextually relevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think it's informative to know that all phones lose signal when held certain ways but their method just seems childish.

I'd rather see them report bandwidth loss when held or a video showing that some phones can't make calls when held due to dropping below a threshold (iPhone).

<comment><USER3> I would too.

But I don't think most people would take to that. For the _vast_ majority of iPhone 4 users, the death grip problem is not as significant as those "touch with one finger to kill" videos (which, I confess I am still having a hard time believing).

The complaint itself is essentially childish: "Apple does almost the same thing everyone else does! They're lame! #lolrecall!" I'm not sure a mature counter-strategy would actually be effective in the face of that. Especially given how incredibly invested into phones people seem to be getting these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> i've noticed that on verizon, bars don't matter. as long as you get a signal, the sound quality is perfect.</comment>


Most lives are lived by default - <AUTHOR> http://www.raptitude.com/2012/07/most-lives-are-lived-by-default/ <comment><USER2> I don't like these kinds of posts, because they suggest that happiness is something just within our grasp, if only we did the exact right thing to grasp it. In this case, it's suggesting happiness comes in part from questing to find major change X in your life that will change everything.

But I think that's actually the _cause_ of a lot of unhappiness. It's a perpetual "grass is always greener" situation. Say you go on this quest to find the best city to live in. You find a good one, and you're not unhappy. But you'll always have that doubt: "What if I had quested just _a little more_? Would I have found an _even better_ city?" And that'll bum you out. It becomes the anxiety of "what if".

Happiness is being content with the moment you're in. Having good health, a not-empty stomach, and a roof over your head is already a big step above a significant portion of the world's population. Now this doesn't mean you have to become a mindless lump, barely moving from the couch and uninterested in even the slightest change; but it's a suggestion that perhaps learning to be happy with what you have, where you are, and with what interests you, is, in the long run, _precisely what will make you happy_.

<comment><USER3> I agree completely that happiness comes from within.

And yet there is a duality that has always struck me as important, though hard to explain: it's easiest to be happy when you're striving toward a goal you believe in. But you need to keep your sense of self, your ego, non-attached to the outcome of the striving.

That is, you need to invest yourself 100% into doing things that are important to you, but remain detached from whether you ultimately achieve what you wanted to achieve.

I think Buddhists call this "skillful attachment".

<comment><USER4> Agreed. The idea is to _act as if_ the outcome of what you were working on was the most important thing in the world to you, but to place no value on the actual outcome itself.

<comment><USER5> So, I should work to be a great spouse (say), but not care whether I actually achieve that outcome?

Why not work to achieve things of value precisely because they are of value to you?

<comment><USER4> Well, it's a paradox.

If you are fixated on the goal, rather than being present performing the actions that will get you to the goal, you are actually less likely to reach the goal successfully. Thinking about the goal obsessively is counterproductive.

Maybe "detach from the outcome" is a better word. Anchor your happiness and well-being on performing the actions within your control that you believe will take you to that outcome, and do not make that happiness and well-being conditional on reaching that outcome.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> At age 27 after working as a Software Engineer since graduating, I could see the writing on the wall. I was "Jamie" as described in this article.

I made a conscious decision right then to turn off the "Life autopilot switch" as I call it.

I quit my good job, sold all my stuff, and spent 2 years driving 65,000km from Alaska to Argentina in my little 2 door Jeep. It was a life changing experience, and I was shocked when I visited my old workplace afterwards to see the same people, doing the same things, with the same blank expressions on their faces.

<http://theroadchoseme.com> is my blog of the entire journey.

I'm so passionate about helping and encouraging others to do something similar, I created <http://wikioverland.org> as a resource for people wanting to travel in this way. I also give presentations and talks about what I've done, and will be doing more of it shortly.

I am currently aware of 5 couples driving the Pan-American highway who directly say I gave them the courage to do it. I have never had a better feeling in my entire life.

<comment><USER7> I'm about your age and I did the same thing in my early 20's.

I chose the Marine Corps instead of college as my way out. After, I still didn't have enough so I chose adventures, sold everything, kept nothing to continually indulge in my wanderlust instead of sitting in a cube.

But...

And I say this with as much love as I can muster to a stranger that I see as a kindred spirit.

But...

What did you find at the end? Was it nothing? Because that's what I found. I'm just a tourist.

There's nothing. And one day you might realize all that running, all that effort exerted, it got you no where.

You might also arrive at the final destination realizing that your existence and your way to exist is but merely at the mercy of the system.

Your friends that kept doing the same things? With the same blank expressions?

You're not better than them. I thought I was, but the final destination is to realize you're not.

You exist because they exist. If everyone was going out to do and chase whatever it is they want there will be no room for you. Ordered society will succumb to chaos and nothing will be done. There will be no roads for you to travel, no places for you to tour, no joy for you to find.

In all, there's no blackness for your star to shine.

You have to accept that. And in doing so you might find that the steady ones, the one that did everything they were told, might end up being the ones that have the most. Compared to you, the one that gave up to always pursuing something else.

Because that's actually the immature way of handling life. And that's the continually reaction I keep getting from people that's done the same thing. Thinking that the replacement of running for life is somehow worth something to keep telling others.

That if you're given the lucky opportunity to be born into an environment providing for a good life in the good part of the world, you should take that and make good on it.

Because others? In worse places, having to do worse things to survive. They would do every single possible thing short of dying to be in your position. Yet you chose to be a tourist. Building nothing, doing nothing, creating nothing, but indulging in everything.

Do good, be good. Age and experience grants you wisdom that running doesn't get you any closer to those two things.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the great insight. I agree on the whole with what you are saying, though I'm wondering why you choose to describe what I'm doing with my life as "running"? I'm not running at all, I'm just looking around for the purpose of learning and adventure. I have nothing to run from.

> What did you find at the end? Was it nothing? Because that's what I found.

I wasn't "looking" for anything, other than to enjoy my life. I enjoyed those 2 years immensely, and without a doubt in my mind, more than I would have if I stayed at work "on autopilot". That's why I did it - because I wanted to. It's the same reason you (or anyone) has ever done anything in their life above bare survival. Because you want to.

>You're not better than them

I've never once thought that for even a second. Actually, I learned on the drive to look at life (mine and others) from a whole bunch of different perspectives. Never do I think in terms of "better or worse", always "different". Just because people are doing something I don't want to, that doesn't make my way "better", not by a long shot. It just means my choices are different than theirs.

> If everyone was going out to do and chase whatever it is they want there > will be no room for you. Ordered society will succumb to chaos and nothing > will be done

Interesting you should say that. This was one of the greatest lessons I learned on the whole drive: At the start of Latin America (Mexico) I wondered why people were so "lazy" and relaxed all day with friends and family while the roof on their house leaked. I continually thought of ways to try and make stuff better (in the western sense of the development, etc.) After 18 months, and many hours pondering and discussing, my Spanish was finally good enough to have a great conversation about it. A guy in Argentina described it to me brilliantly. The difference is credit. In the first world, when we want for example and iPhone, we go and put it on our credit card (or monthly payments) then work for the next couple of years to pay it back. The connection between how much you have to work for the iPhone and the joy of owning the iPhone is very fuzzy. Our society doesn't want us to make that connection, because it needs us to keep buying stuff, and keep going to work. In the second and third world, nobody can get credit, so if you want an iPhone, you have to go to work for a year, save like mad, then buy it outright. Let's be honest, after a week of full time work any sane person is going to seriously question if they want a stupid iPhone, realize it's not worth it, so they'll go back to working the bare minimum and relaxing with friends and family. The end result is that people in second and third world countries have way less stuff, but have way more time with friends and family. Also it's worth noting that society doesn't "collapse". People still have a roof, food, clothes and happiness. I think about this every day.

> you might find that the steady ones, the one that did everything they were > told, might end up being the ones that have the most.

The most _what_?

As an aside, do you live in Alaska as your username suggests? I live in Whitehorse, Yukon these days.

<comment><USER8> I don't think the Puritan work ethic came out of debt; it came from the sanctification of work.

<comment><USER6> Could be. I have no idea where it came from or why.

I'm very interested in what it means today, and how I choose to incorporate it into my life. That's why I really enjoy learning from people that follow it to a large extent, and those that don't.

<comment><USER9> >I have no idea where it came from or why.

It was very likely a product of the Reformation, and almost certainly had nothing to do with debt. Specifically, the ethic arose from the philosophies of Luther and Calvin in the 16th century. Prior to L&C, the dominant Catholic line held that hard work was a means to achieve salvation. Work was punishment. If you weren't performing good works you would go to hell. Working hard to serve your god? Good: perhaps you will be saved. But don't work too hard, because hoarding wealth is a sin. Pay your excess forward to the Church and it will help your cause in the end.

Luther didn't exactly turn this conception on its head but altered it, which opened the doors for later change. He believed that work was good because it served not only the individual but also the social whole. The main expression of this was a dissolution of occupation-based social hierarchies. For example Luther rejected that something like agricultural work was inherently less valuable than a monastic calling. All work had value, and all work had equal value in the eyes of God. The main thing is that each person was called to work by God, and to work was to exercise your _noble calling_. This is basically an inversion of the concept of work as punishment.

Calvin both carried Luther further and branched out. His was probably the first interpretation of Christianity to state that maximizing profit from one's work was not only good but also required. This wasn't a call to maximize profit in pursuit of an easy life, since even rich folk had a duty to perform hard work. Rather the duty was to improve the Kingdom of God (and one's society) through investment. This _doesn't_ mean philanthropy or giving to the poor, rather something like modern capitalism where an individual's investment (sometimes, often) produces positive effects for those around him. Devoted, hard workers help to maintain a cohesive social whole, which in turn mitigates the chaos and disorder that might stem from idleness.

Underlying Luther's and to a greater extent Calvin's philosophies is the notion of predestination. Dominant Catholic thought posited that people were born sinners but could earn salvation over a lifetime. Predestination rejected this, stating instead that God chooses the saved at birth. That is, you're either saved or you're not out of the womb, and there's nothing you can do about it. During your life, you can't know whether or not you are one of the elect. However you sure as heck want to be, so you do your best to live in the way you think the elect would live. If you succeeded, this could be perceived as evidence of your having been chosen to be saved. Hence the social drive to work extremely hard and produce as much as possible.

The above is probably a bit rambling and somewhat of a bastardization, but it's generally correct. Given that, I'm not surprised that in a historically Catholic region you came across a very Catholic take on work, which is at odds with the conception of work you're used to in historically Protestant America.

<comment><USER8> This is a fairly correct summation of the theology & attitudes of the Puritan ethic. Far better than I could have written.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A friend once told me, "You should try going with the flow once in a while." She was absolutely right.

Yes, many people could improve their situation by not sleepwalking through life. But similarly, we (people on HN and other ambitious folks) can learn to be more content with what life has given us. To reconcile ourselves with randomness. To take some time away from competition and drive and optimization.

Perhaps I'm being unfair to the author, but if you follow this article's advice to the extreme, you'll likely end up extremely unhappy. "Is this spouse really the best I can do? Should I really be living in this city? Would I be happier with different friends?"

<comment><USER11> Extremes at either end are bad. Somehow the majority of HN hasn't figured this out.

<comment><USER12> That doesn't seem correct either. Extremes at either end are where entrepreneurs tend to live. Most people have to be willing to be poor, lose everything, and fail miserably in order to have a chance to be rich and live the life they want.

This life obviously doesn't appeal to everyone, and many entrepreneurs manage to keep a balanced life. But at some point they'll get outmaneuvered by the ones who move faster and just want it more (and are willing to take the chance of flaming out in a big way).

<comment><USER13> >> Extremes at either end are bad.

> That doesn't seem correct either.

A rule that's always appealed to me is "Everything in moderation, including this rule."

<comment><USER14> Ha, I had phrased it "everything in moderation, including moderation"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A friend of mine with a dark and cynical wit, with whom I was enjoying a good dinner at a large and crowded restaurant, looked around him and declared: "So this is what people do? They just exist."

That is the end of the conversation on happiness and most people for me. Despite being brilliant and greatly successful in their chosen fields, not a person I was friends with in school is now in a job that they take joy in. None of my old coworkers who talked on and on about how they hated their jobs have moved on to better things. The most contented people I know do not do very much with their lives. These are not the 'successful' people, nor are they people with whom I would want to spend an enormous amount of time, as they do not have much of interest to say.

It has been suggested that melancholia and depression are deeply related to intelligence and creativity. Good; bring it on. I would much rather have moments of doubt and darkness and get to enjoy all the fruits of the intellectual and creative life than the banal calmness of normal existence.

<comment><USER16> I think you're right, to a point. I do know creative intellectuals who have found a simple life that pleases them, but as an outsider it always seems to come at the cost of avoiding certain questions and abandoning certain goals. I don't judge them for it; in fact I envy them on occasion, but it's not for me. Nevertheless, it occurs to me that a truly intelligent person who is honestly optimising for "contentedness" (purposely choosing to avoid the more connotative "happiness" here) should learn to satisfy themselves with simple pleasures. People who don't do that are either not truly intelligent, not truly honest, or don't truly seek to live a contented life (and I'm one of them).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm in San Francisco now, running a startup, precisely because I cast off my old life. It could have gone horribly wrong (and indeed it has on many occasions), but I couldn't imagine going back to my old job writing Java code for a bank.

Every now and again I think back to that. At this exact moment, I could be sitting in my old cubicle, watching that same stretch of bridge under the gray skies outside my window, thinking of the things that could have been if only...

The one most important lesson I've learned in casting off from the moorings of a safe life is that no matter what crazy shit happens, I always find a way to come out on top in the end, even if there are a few months or even years of bad times in between. One thing's for sure: I never get bored.

A life of interesting times is not for everyone. You need to have a fairly high tolerance to uncertainty. You need to be able to improvise, because things will rarely go according to plan. You need the strength of will to stand back up even when it hurts. But even with this said, you'd be VERY surprised at how strong you can be when the need arises.

Not everyone is alike. Not everyone would appreciate this kind of life. But if you're sitting there in your comfortable life, wondering what it could be like, stop wondering and just GO!

</comment><comment><USER18> Page isn't loading for me right now. Here's a cache in case anyone else is having the same issue:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TT52BMn...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TT52BMnE4p4J:www.raptitude.com/2012/07/most- lives-are-lived-by-default/&hl=en&tbo=d&gl=ca&strip=1)

<comment><USER19> Thanks for the link Ryan.

I resonate with the post a lot. Recently moved to the bay area, after spending undergraduate years in chicago, working in nyc, hong kong, beijing, I feel that where we live determines a lot of how we live our lives, and people we associate with.

I disagree with the comments here that the author is suggesting that happiness is a goal. He's merely, in my view, presenting the fact that we should strive to make difficult decisions on our lives before it's too late. Choosing where we live is one of the most difficult things to change, however, all changes can start small.

Two years ago I took a sabbatical from my finance job, and never went back. It was a zig zag path to where I am now, but I would say the inconvenience and uncomfortable situations are worth it. So many people tell themselves, I'll stay in this job / city / relationship for one more year, till I get more experience / savings etc. Making difficult decisions (instead of putting them off) forces us to clarify our values. We might decide in the end to never leave the city, or the job, but we are happier because we _decide_ consciously to, not because we dont' have a choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The scariest thing in being happy is how much of our everyday lives turn into meaningless pile of deprecated trade-offs.

Things that you thought meant something for you actually don't. Things that you thought you'd keep for life actually turn out to be nonimportant. People you considered close were just vehicles for you: you gave them that love you didn't know how to give to yourself. And finally, things that you so cunningly shielded from your gaze for years begin to pop up and become unavoidable challenges.

That is because you can only be happy when you do things for the right reasons. Otherwise you just think you're happy and yet you spend your time trying to fill in gaps in yourself and your life, gaps that you don't know how to love. In other words, you're sitting on the passenger's seat yourself and letting what you think other people will think of you drive your life.

Go stand in front of a mirror and ask yourself if you're happy. Are you so happy that you wouldn't want to change anything in your life? Are you so happy that while you might certainly _want_ to change some things you would still be perfectly content should those things actually never change? Ask yourself if there's some part of yourself that you don't love one hundred percent? Not 99, but 100? Ask yourself if you see too much fat, a body too skinny, or a person too unpopular and rejected, or someone who can't steer away from too many bad habits? Or do you see a person with weaknesses yet _completely accept_ him/her just the way s/he is?

I'm not entirely happy myself but there have been, and there are, occasional moments when I am 100% happy.

It's those moments when I wouldn't replace a single _bit_ of myself, whether it's hemorrhoids, feelings of guilt, or the history of how I've lived.

<comment><USER15> I am not trying to troll you; I mean this question honestly: Why do you care so much about being happy? I know that is the default goal of most people, but it seems rather like chasing gold at the end of the rainbow when you have no reason to think that the gold exists. Do you know of anyone anywhere ever who has spent the majority of their time 100% or even 80% happy? Was this person a holder of a medical marijuana card?

I think we would look down on someone who spent their life stoned. I do not see why this method of achieving the "happy" feeling as any less admirable than any other method. In the end, you are just striving to be chemically stoned, though one method uses outside chemicals to achieve this feeling and the other uses activities and experiences of a non-chemical nature. In the end you are just striving to put and to keep your brain in some chemical state. Does not seem like much to me.

Christopher Hitchens -- who has been on my mind much as the first anniversary of his death is in nine days -- once said that if offered a stress-free and blissful life, he would not want it, that he likes the feeling of burning the candle at both ends and the stress of things. Do not make the mistake of saying that he has redefined happiness for himself to mean the state of stress, because that is not what we are talking about when people talk about wanting to "be happy". They mean they want to feel good and joyous. Hitchens did not say that being stressed and attenuated through effort gave him joy, he only said that he preferred this state to anything else. I sympathize with him on this point and take it from me, this is not the same as the "happiness" that most people are talking about. It is more like a state of satisfaction with occasional blimps of good humor mixed in with a great deal of unpleasant emotions. But, stiff upper lip and all that.

I think anyone who imagines that if they start a startup and strike it rich that, like a Sim, all their need meters will max out at green and they will feel permanently joyous is completely kidding themselves. This just is not how life goes. Life does not plateau at joy. It is a constant moving wave.

<comment><USER20> Thanks for your point.

I do admit that happiness is an ambiguous word: for some people it's about merely feeling good and for some people happiness is just a side-effect from the realization that what you have now is all you can actually claim to have—the past and the future don't count. The conversation started from happiness so I sort of bridged over with that word.

I care about living my own life, not somebody else's, and making choices in life for reasons I'm aware of instead of for reasons I don't. At least for me, happiness comes mostly about facing the facts of your life and accepting them.

Being stoned isn't happiness, it's disconnectedness. Living a happy life isn't about that it always _feels good_ but about that it _does good_. But in the long term that, too, actually gives a good feeling as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> i've said this before (sorry), but cockburn, in cooperative game, describes shu ha ri - <http://alistair.cockburn.us/Shu+Ha+Ri> \- as three stages of mastering something: following, detaching and fluent.

anyway, this post is so second stage it makes me wince.

<comment><USER22> Maybe, however I read the original article to mean that the process some people use to make life decisions is the "following" stage in the context of shu ha ri.

From what I can understand: It isn't possible to reach the second stage without first exploring the first as you need to know the baseline to understand the differences between options. Also it isn't possible to reach the third stage without the second because you don't have a full intuitive understanding of what effect each variable has.

Based off this I don't see the post being second stage as a necessary negative, the aim of the article is to nudge people from the following stage into the detaching stage.

I imagine when reading the original article people in the following stage have most potential benefit, people in the detaching stage will agree with the article and won't learn much (but maybe it will affirm their beliefs a bit) and people in the fluent stage have surpassed the advice in the article and will regard it as backwards.

<comment><USER21> i don't really disagree with you (and i felt unfair even when posting).

in my defense, all i can say is that what rubs me the wrong way is not the process, or the fact that someone is learning, but the _tone_. yes, we're all on these different stages at different times. but once you acknowledge that, shouting about any particular one as "the" solution seems a bit strong. especially when you know that you're going to look back on this particular point as just one more - perhaps confused - step.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Having moved 17 times, (3 times since age 30, and another coming in a few weeks), there is tremendous opportunity cost to moving. On the plus side, I am confident that I want to live in coastal California. I am confident I can make friends wherever I am and I enjoy a large network of friends. But I am tired of discovering the best pizza, best grocers, best place to get gas, best routes and detours to work. I am tired of my kids being stressed out in a new school, my wife looking for an optimal work-life balance. I wish I could raise my kids within 1000 miles of any family. I am glad for having lived a varied life so far, but in some ways I am amazed how unvaried varied can be, and the opportunity cost of that variety.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think the post, generally, is accurate, but the author is giving a little too much slack to those who, according to him/her, don't live by default. For example, you could argue that Picasso "lived by default"; his father was a painter, and he painted from very early in his life. So even though he never made a concieted effort to escape the normal path of his life, he was still succesfu l by practically any measure.

</comment><comment><USER25> In my opinion unrealized happiness is not equal to grief.

Grief is a negative factor that directly impacts your life, like your car breaking down, or dreading going home to your spouse.

Grief can be the lack of free time or the abundance of it.

Grief is not I could be x units of happiness happier if I moved to California, therefore I am x units of happy less than I could potentially be.

I think most people know when something is missing in their life. They know if they HATE going to their job. They know if they HATE their neighborhood. In those cases, by all means seeks something better.

Basically this is the same argument has the "I want the best of everything" articles and the 50 dollar utensils. Many people pointed out you don't need the best or the worst you need good enough. What good enough is, is going to change from person to person. However I think we all have a pretty good idea about what good enough (both materialistically, and philosophically).

Aristotle was right, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER26> Lucky for me a life created by happenstance has, so far, turned out to be rather great. I know I've gotten lucky and am grateful for it most every day.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've always been unhappiest when I sit down and try to decide if I am happy. I find I am happiest when I am thinking about my situation or life in general the least.

When reading the post about the example giving of the guy who seems happy I thought to myself, "this guy sounds a lot like me, why wouldn't he be happy?" I was disappointed to discover that the only reason he wasn't happy was because he is basically choosing to be unhappy in what seems like a good situation.

</comment><comment><USER28> It's amazing how defensive some of these posts are because the poster has chosen to live a life by default.

I once thought I wanted to climb the corporate ladder, to buy stuff, toys. More, more, more...

I made my way into software management back in 2008. I was absolutely miserable. The routine, wake up to an alarm, get ready, run to work, work on someone else's ideas, have to listen to someone tell me what to do. When I got home, I had no energy to work on my own stuff. Work, had stolen all my will power and mental energy. I consoled myself, by losing myself in movies and games, drinking.

Then in 2009, I was so miserable I deliberately worked to get terminated with severance. I was successful. The evening I was fired I was so happy. I was set for 1 year. I moved from L.A. to San Francisco.

Got an apartment, and started learning all of adobe's tools (my friend got me a free copy of their top suite, he worked there). I experimented with many different compression algorithm techniques, I worked on neural networks. Then after 9 months, and the money running out I took a trip to Budapest Hungary for 1 month to learn how to make bespoke shoes. I had never in my life been so happy. I discovered that I hate working for other people, hate it, absolutely hate it, I'd rather live on the street.

I got back and found a startup where I could make great money, knowing I would quit at the end of one year. And like clockwork, after the initial enjoyment of doing something new, getting to write firmware which was something new, it was time to get out. This time, knowing I was quitting made all the difference, I didn't get burned out. I wasn't angry. A couple months later an opportunity arose to do some consulting, 2 months in and I was set. I doubled my income and got to walk away. 6 months later and the original manager quit, they needed someone to come in and rescue them, I showed up. Charged twice what I've ever made. The money was awesome, I paid off a second mortgage ($60k). I saved $100k after tax. After 8 months, couldn't take it anymore.

But this time I had a plan, it was time to start my own company, where I am the boss, where I can eventually get to the point where I hire other people to do all the work and I draw income from a business that doesn't consume my life.

I'm 2 months in on my first company product, it's hard work, but it doesn't feel like work. I am my own boss, I decide what is important, I don't interrupt myself with stupid inefficient task switching, there are no office politics, I don't have to listen to the 'normies' and their pathetic existence as they skate through life anesthetized.

I love the uncertainty, I thrive on it. To have a predictable mundane life is walking death. To actually have complete control over my own success and failure is invigorating. I have 22 months left of runway, and if it fails? So what, I can always pick up a temporary consulting gig. The experience I am learning now is making me far more valuable than being an employee ever will.

Some key things I learned, which made this possible:

1) eliminate anyone and everyone negative in my life: friends, family... anyone.

2) stop hanging around people who espouse and vigorously defend the "normal" lifestyle

3) surround myself with positive and also like minded individuals

4) take pleasure in simple things, cooking a good meal, reading an interesting book, going for a bike ride, accomplishing a small milestone.

5) Eliminate debt, do I really need that fancy car? (unless I can pay cash)

6) I got rid of my tv, don't miss it for a second, it just wastes my time

7) Got my living expenses down really low, yet I'm living the richest life I've ever had.

8) Free time to cook, allowed me to discover that I have a severe gluten intolerance. Doctor's never figured it out, just told me I was "depressed", that I needed to eat more fiber (which is gluten). Since I had eaten gluten almost every single meal my entire life there was no gap to discover how much better I felt. This would never, ever have happened if I had kept a regular M-F job. I never had time to cook semolina pizza dough, muffins, cakes and eat so much that the 1-1 correlation between what I was eating and how I felt clicked.

9) Don't fear change, embrace it

10) It's easy to make new friends

11) I'm actually an extrovert, it's the people I was surrounded with my whole life that made me seem like an introvert, I just didn't want to interact with them.

12) Stop caring what other people think, what makes them happy might make me miserable (one man's heaven is another man's hell)

13) Be happy so many people choose to take the easy way out, on cruise control. It makes it so much easier to be successful myself with so little competition.

14) Be a source for anyone who is also trying to figure out who they are and what they really want to do.

15) Stop trying to give people advice when it is unwanted.

16) Life is about the journey, not the destination. SOMEDAY STARTS NOW!

* anyone offended please feel free to skip my message, it's not for everyone. My way is not for everyone, it is not a 'universal right way'. But it is most definitely the right way for me, and for any lost souls out there (which I once was). I hope that this post may make them think, think about how to change their life for the better too.

<comment><USER29> To your list of key things, I'd add what you described in the first half of your comment: find where you want to be in your professional life. Not where you work or anything alike, but which role (in the chain of command) you want to fulfil.

I know for myself that filling the boss role wouldn't suit me, yet I cannot let things get decided without being involved. The role I'd like to fulfil is not the boss but more like the second in command: still a good impact without as much stress (theoretically). I believe it also depends on the size of things. I wouldn't mind being my own boss, but not being someone else boss. That's a reason why I wouldn't dare to start up something from myself.

Also, I found the same thing about myself concerning the fact that after doing the same thing for several weeks, changes are needed. The time span before needing change and the size of the change required differs, but I believe every one feels this need at some point. Personally, just staying curious and learning news things all the time helps me with that. It's enough to keep me going on the same job for almost two years.

Concerning the key things, most of them could be generalized and should be followed by most people. As for the 16th rule, if it was about destination, we would all be using shortcuts and be there in five minutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I notice the strong demand on HN for empowerment literature. Personal productivity, existential self-determination, etc.

People write with a sense of being illuminated, of knowing something that others don't. A thinking person should not trust such things. All the same, it can be hard not to check it out--give it some eyeball-time.

I won't lie: I read this crap all the time when it comes up on HN. (One might speculate as to why.)

Anyway, I notice the patterns these things follow.

\- Laying claim to an illuminated or gnostic truth. Someone who "gets" it, while others don't.

\- Hinting that you will benefit if you accept the claim as true.

\- Lastly (optional), appealing to the ego, to the desire to feel superior.

This article was not so bad, in comparison. It stuck to its thesis without playing too much dirty pool. Its thesis was simplistic (essentially, "take risks"), which did not interest me that much.

I honestly think people should look more carefully at the rhetoric they feed on.

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't like the premise that happiness is based on what you have, and what you do with your time. It always seems to be the underlying assumption, and it drives people to be unhappy to always be striving for better conditions for themselves.

What gave me happiness is the idea in Buddhism fostering compassion for all people, including yourself, but not only yourself. It's the one aspect of Buddhism that most people ignore. Instead they concentrate on inner peace by quieting their mind or stopping their thoughts, which again is striving for a change in what they have, (ie. they would gain the ability to quiet their mind)

I don't mean to be heavy handed, and I'm not trying to force my ideas on others. I just haven't seen this idea of compassion for people brought up very often.

<comment><USER32> What if you have a lot of energy yet live in the country without much going on?

Would you be able using Buddhism to transform yourself to enjoy the surrounding or you better of moving to a big city with more happening around you?

I found that by living in different places you discover who you are. Then you can use the Buddhist approach to cope better with the downsides of living in the current area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I find myself strongly disagreeing with the "world view" behind this post - though the common sensical statement "don't go with defaults all the time" is great, the post exudes an ego-centrical way of viewing life - make choices based on what you think will make YOU happy.

The "killer quote" that pushed me over the edge to post this was: "It could be a major change, like getting rid of your spouse" .... seriously? "Til death do us part...or I feel like you're not making me happy"?

I do not believe true joy is found in selectively surrounding myself with people that make _me_ happy and "eliminating" all others. In fact, to act as if true joy is "just around the corner" if we would simply make the right changes like learning how to surf is a dangerous illusion to give.

</comment><comment><USER34> This article was surprisingly well written. I think the point that most resonated with me was the framing of the search for better (happier) conditions in each of the "major areas" as an optimization problem.

The probability that one's current conditions are anywhere near optimal is low. Likewise, the probability that you can improve your overall conditions by making a change in one of the areas is high, since it's not a completely random change but one that you control.

A sort of real life analog of gradient descent (ascent) or hill climbing, if you will.

</comment><comment><USER35> The question I don't know how to answer:

Am I happy because I enjoy my current my current life, or am I convincing myself that I am happy because I don't want to take chances?

</comment><comment><USER36> I actually agree with the author to a very large extent, based on this, I'm going to try to move to a new city starting next year ..

<comment><USER37> you have less than one month..

<comment><USER38> No. The grandparent post just stated an almost 1 to almost 13 month window.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think the truth is no one is truly "happy". Its just a word that expresses an ideal emotion that can be felt for periods of time. "Being happy" is also a industry in itself, think about it.

</comment><comment><USER40> Be aware that very things are forever, and life doesn't have to happen to you. Steer it. I like this article if only because it makes you self aware.

</comment><comment><USER41> Happiness comes from making sincere efforts in challenging endeavors that at least some other people think are worthwhile.

</comment><comment><USER29> I believe that the way we perceive our lives depend on our conception of death. I've always believed that once we die, it's over and we are as unconscious as we were before our birth. Unfortunately, this belief made me see everything pointless to some extent. Regardless of how successful I am, in the end, there's nothing left. Regardless of the sacrifices I do, in the end, there's nothing left. I know that my life might change other people's life, but if in the end, if it doesn't matter for me, it doesn't matter for others either; a sum of 0s returns 0.

Since it is not a feeling I enjoy, I ended up living on a daily basis; Have I enjoyed my day, Did I really wanted to do that, What should I do to enjoy my time? I lived mostly in the present for several years, doing a job I enjoyed at the time, and enjoying my time outside as well. Anything that I didn't want to do right away wasn't worth doing. It got to the point where I was pushing away feelings just because I didn't like them, such as regrets or stress from late tasks.

It didn't pay that well. After a while, I had a lot of late bills (not that I couldn't pay, I just didn't want to do it right now), I wasn't looking forward to know what to do with my future, etc. The good thing I learned from that is looking forward for good feelings and investing myself in what I enjoy.-Turns out I had a promotion at my job, and I liked my new tasks, and since then, I've been studying at night to build a career from it.-I also learned to fix things up in time because when every thing works out well, when you have nothing due to anyone, you feel better, you feel freed from those responsabilities for the time being.

I also believe in balance, in the meaning that if you only have good things happening to you, they aren't actual good things, they are normal neutral things. You need sadness, bad things, to enjoy even more the good things happening. Just like peace doesn't mean anything to someone that doesn't know its counterpart.

Put this altogether, you end up with a range from the worst feeling you can have, to a middle, to the greatest feeling you can have. I chose to be near the middle. I don't enjoy having bad feelings, and I prefer to have a neutral life, with good enough feelings. I doesn't mean that I don't want to suffer, to go through rough times, it only means I know to which extent I can go on this range, at which point it's not worth it.

Ultimately, living by default or not is, in my vision and understanding, at which point you are ready to sacrifice things to maybe get better things on the other side. Am I ready to sacrifice my marriage to maybe find a better women? Am I ready to dump friendship to maybe get better? I like the place where I live enough, it could be better but do I really want to go through all this work to maybe find something better? I really don't mind living by default, as long as I don't suffer from it, and I currently don't. Maybe I'll have regrets later on, but regrets are not worth having, so I'll chase them away as good as I can.

</comment><comment><USER42> love this article. I agree with most of the points he made, particularly the line - "Most of us live seventy or eight years defending what we've been given, because we think it's who we are."

</comment><comment><USER43> Dwell on this for a second, if you will.

These days in western societies, quite a few people hold this notion that can be best summed up as, "Happiness, to a large degree, comes from within"

Or as a corollary, one can use whats been offered by neumann_alfred below:

      If something in the exterior world makes you discontent,
      then it is not that object which troubles you, but rather
      your judgement of it; yet to blot out this judgement
      instantly is within your power. And if your
      dissatisfaction is based on the condition of your soul,
      who can prohibit you from correcting your views?

However I feel that people resign to this world view essentially due to powerlessness or the perception of one's powerlessness.

The external world and the facets one finds disagreeable or troubling in it, just seem too Olympian a task to impact, much less expunge.

This paves the way for one to easily resolve to the aforementioned world view where one just finds easier to remedy his or her "judgment" of that disagreeable or "troubling" aspect, rather than engage it.

There must be a label for this phenomenon in the study of strategic decision making (Game theory).

Please do enlighten, if you're familiar with it.

</comment><comment><USER44> Top stories on HN kill servers. <http://www.raptitude.com/> is inaccessible. I think its HN's moral duty to implement some-kind of caching mechanism for top rated stories.

</comment><comment><USER45> Couldn't this very easily be summed up in a quote like

" _life is what happens to you while waiting for your dreams_ " or

" _Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans_ "

</comment><comment><USER46> 503 unavailable. I don't know, but I'll bet $10 that this is another Wordpress blog that made it to the HN homepage. Somehow it are almost always Wordpress blogs that go down.

If I really did bet for $10 that it's wordpress every time a site goes down on the HN homepage, I could simply quit my job. Perhaps I should ask $10 to optimize Wordpress websites (aka install a caching plugin and done), hmm...

</comment><comment><USER47> I found Rejection Therapy to be an excellent way to recalibrate the way I think and get out of my comfortable stupor: <http://rejectiontherapy.com>

The new year is coming up. Might be time for the Rejection Therapy 30 Day Challenge again.</comment>


Cloud Native Buildpacks – Cloud Foundry's next-gen build interface hits beta - <AUTHOR> https://content.pivotal.io/blog/cloud-native-buildpacks-for-kubernetes-and-beyond <comment><USER2> The beta release looks great, I'm excited to try it out!</comment>


Tell HN: script to hide Apple-related news - <AUTHOR>

Some people were complaining about the amount of Apple-related posts today, so I whipped up a quick script to hide them.
GreaseMonkey http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/73977
Bookmarklet

  javascript:(function() {var as=document.getElementsByTagName("a");for(var i=0;i<as.length;i++)if(as[i].innerHTML.match(/Apple|Steve Jobs|iPhone|iPad|Gmail|Google/gim)){var tr=as[i].parentNode.parentNode;tr.style.display="none";tr.nextSibling.style.display="none";tr.nextSibling.nextSibling.style.display="none"}})()
 <comment><USER2> Thanks but, ¿why it also hides Google and Gmail related news?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's just me scratching my own itch. I find that "my-opinion-about-whatever- Google-happens-to-be-doing-at-the-time" type of news tend to flood the front page every once in a while. Perhaps Google|Schmidt would be a better filter? You're free to edit the regexp to suit your tastes, if you want different keywords to be filtered.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> update: I changed the Apple script to handle Apple exclusively and added a few more similar greasemonkey scripts here:

<http://userscripts.org/users/148096/scripts>

(it seems we can't pass arbitrary params to greasemonkey, boo)

</comment><comment><USER3> Hmm, I wish HN had a switch that would allow you to hide things you don't wish to see.</comment>


A robotic sewing machine could unemploy garment workers in low-cost countries - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/technology-quarterly/21651925-robotic-sewing-machine-could-throw-garment-workers-low-cost-countries-out

<comment><AUTHOR> Had to tweak the title to get it under 80 characters.</comment>


Arbitrary code execution through unsanitized browser UI - <AUTHOR> https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2018-05/ <comment><USER2> Well, here is the patch with a relevant test: [https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/215474/diff/3#index_header](https://reviewboard.mozilla.org/r/215474/diff/3#index_header)

Seems to create an iFrame, sets the source to "chrome://global/content/win.xul", then creates a div (with a NS) inside it and sets the content to:


Gigashift - File Sharing With a Business Model - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/gigashift-file-sharing-service

<comment><USER2> $4 for 3 gig</comment>


TIL not all domains are equal - <AUTHOR> http://imchun.com/p/unequal-domains/

<comment><USER2> Original top-level domains and many Country-specific TLD's are generally recognized. Generally because the regex is specific and hardcoded rather than being broad and general-scoped.

ICANN generic TLD's (aka: mostly exploitation of companies) are generally not recognized unless the software uses a proper regex (eg: "if it starts with [http://](http://) and ends with ._____)

"domain.space" might not be a domain. Did the user forget a space and meant to type "domain. Space"?

Is get.coffee a domain or an accidental period instead of a space?

Report the problem to whatsApp and they might switch from hardcoded domain spotting to a more general regex. Or they might add more of the ICANN TLD's.</comment>


Show HN: An Interactive Genetic Algorithm Dashboard - <AUTHOR> https://genetic-algorithm.pyviz.demo.anaconda.com/GA <comment><AUTHOR> I made this using Holoviews, Panel and Bokeh in Python. It was mainly an excuse to write a blog post and learn those tools but I ended up enjoying refreshing my understanding of Genetic Algorithm.

Playing around with the dashboard is also pretty fun, I found myself setting targets for a new population and trying to guess how big to set the mutation scale / time evolving to get the population to drift towards the target.

<comment><USER2> This is very cool!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! If you're interested, you can read how it works here: [https://www.scottcondron.com/jupyter/optimisation/visualisat...](https://www.scottcondron.com/jupyter/optimisation/visualisation/2020/07/20/interactive- genetic-algorithm-dashboard-from-scratch-in-python.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Find out which pull requests contain changes related to a file - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dzhavat/potential-changes-for-github <comment><USER2> Sorry, if it's a stupid question.

Is that what git blame does

<comment><USER3> git blame shows the last person who modified a line, and this information is retrieved from the commit history.

This extension how ever shows you which pending pull requests are changing a given file.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. GitHub is quite good at showing the history and current state of a file. This extension aims to also provide a way to see how a file might change in the future.</comment></comment></comment>


The next gold rush: solar power - <AUTHOR> http://www.embedded.com/underthehood/206902864?printable=true

<comment><USER2> CIGS and III-V aren't very practical because the global indium supply is only enough to create about 4 gigawatts worth of electricity from these technologies. Whereas in 2007, ALL photovoltaic solar combined produced 6.6 gigawatts of electricity, which accounted for less than .05% of electricity generated.

source: Earth:The Sequel, p. 16&30</comment>


Covid-19, Civil Unrest Could Trigger Mass Migration in Post-Pandemic World - <AUTHOR> https://www.studyfinds.org/covid-19-civil-unrest-could-trigger-mass-migration-in-post-pandemic-world/ <comment><USER2> I lived in NYC for 10+ years and I'm so glad I left. You're trapped. No personal space. If the city closes bridges and tunnels you have no ability to egress unless you want to break the law or rent a helicopter.

Now that I live in a rural area I can be self sufficient for a few weeks, I'm armed, and my local neighborhood watches out for each other.

I feel completely safe where I'm at and I couldn't imagine going back to dense/city life.

<comment><USER3> You clearly don't feel completely safe because you are armed and need a neighborhood watch.

<comment><USER4> I interpret it as being armed and the neighborhood watch are reasons for GPs feeling of safety.

<comment><USER5> In the E.U. in any developed country if you are not in a bad neighbourhood, the chances of dying in homicide is so low, that people are considered crazy if they have a gun for ,,protecting themselves''.

I just went through a cancer blood test panel, which somewhat decreases my chances of dying, but I never thought of buying a gun.

<comment><USER6> The US isn't the EU. In rural US, police response times can be very long. Where I grew up, it would take police 30 minutes to respond to an emergency call. More rural areas can take longer. This combined with our distrust in federal government and individualistic society means many of us are willing and prepared to defend ourselves.

<comment><USER7> The US seems to fare better. In rural EU there is simply no police to answer an emergency outside office hours. Your call is routed to a station distant of over a hundred kilometers, if they sent you their response team not only would it arrive too late but then they'd have no one to send to local emergencies. You're told to take pictures and to report to the closest station during opening hours the next day.

Heck we even had art stealers removing a several tons statue that was literally in front of that police station in the middle of the night, this town bank ATMs where blasted so many times that the banks just stopped replacing them.

It's been decades that everyone has stopped thinking that the governement cares or would send help if anything happened.

But despite the local context being worse than in the US for much longer, still there is no neighbourhood watch and the only people who have guns are hunters and the idea of needing guns to defend ourselves is quite uncommon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's a plausible idea. I already life in a relatively "safe" place, and yet I find myself considering moving to an even "safer" shack in the remote woods somewhere. Feels like a storm is coming...

<comment><USER9> Given the medical nature of the storm, I'd really stay within a reasonable drive of a proper hospital. A lot can happen on the helicopter ride to civilization, and that's assuming the system is healthy enough to offer you one.

If things get really bad, humanitarian aid may or may not come for the cities, but it's _definitely_ not coming for a cabin in the woods. Are you prepared to live off the land?

<comment><USER10> Good point about hospitals, and aid in general.

In a disaster affecting a large area (including adversely impacting aid from outside one's area), rural people will have to be more self-sufficient than city people, but they're also in a better position to be.

Rural strategic advantages I imagine include: lower cost of living, ability to own rather than rent (lower risk of homelessness?), land to grow food and have animals, space to store and build necessities, space for disease distancing, trade with nearby farmers when city supply chains disrupted, more likely culture of neighbors knowing each other and looking out for each other.

Some of my "college town" city-slicker disaster strategy (focused on economic, natural disasters like hurricanes, industrial accidents, and bad actors) didn't quite play out with Covid-19:

* Despite our money, we couldn't insulate sufficiently from catastrophically bad action by national leadership.

* One of our own big-money biotechs who should've known better actually created the initial superspreader event in Boston.

* The wildcard fact that we're nationally strategic (economic, prestige, and military tech) and also have students of much of the world's most wealthy and powerful here, didn't matter for external aid in this scenario. (Our governor even had to engage in cloak&dagger, to keep medical worker PPE we'd bought from being seized by national.) (And, though having the children of the wealthy&powerful here might be an asset for getting aid in local/regional disasters -- acknowledging the other side of how awful some disaster-hit _poor_ areas of the US have been treated in pre-Covid recent memory -- that mattered less when "outside" was also struggling and had no aid to give, and maybe wouldn't have mattered as much anyway, after the universities sent students home.)

And problems that were predictable, if one had been thinking of pandemic as a likely near-term scenario:

* We're densely-packed, mostly in old apartments with quirks and problems, often with roommates, and relatively little open space.

* The substantial number of self-absorbed people accustomed to getting what they want doesn't help. For example, the several joggers who huffed&puffed past me on my own street's narrow sidewalk in the space of 10 minutes last week, only one even bothered to pull up a cloth mask as they passed. And generally only ~50% mask use rate among non-joggers on that same street last week, on a straight shot line between Harvard and MIT.

What so far _has_ played out here better than it might've, I suspect is due to Cambridge and the Boston area having a lot of smart officials who care about doing their jobs well, a wealth of medical personnel and resources, a relatively progressive culture by US standards that resulted in a lot of attention being focused on helping the less fortunate here, the fact that the universities and colleges eventually told the students not to come back after spring break debauchery-acclerated pandemic spreading, overall passable public effort at distancing&masks, and a good amount of money to make that all easier.

(That's not to say that there aren't already countless family tragedies locally due to Covid, nor that unfathomable human misery around the world hasn't been caused -- only that the local situation could've been even worse already, if we didn't have some things in our favor.)

<comment><USER11> For COVID19, MA has done terribly at 7576 deaths for a population of ~6.7M [0]. At 1090 deaths per million, that's worse than the UK (620 deaths/millon) and Belgium (843 deaths/million) [1]. MA is only eclipsed by NY (1570/1M), NJ (1400/1M) and CT (1160/1M) [2].

It's not the joggers we need to worry about, it's the elderly/infirm (average age of the dead is 81) and long term care home inhabitants (63% of deaths) [0].

[0] [https://www.mass.gov/doc/covid-19-dashboard- june-13-2020/dow...](https://www.mass.gov/doc/covid-19-dashboard- june-13-2020/download) [1] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus- deat...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deaths- worldwide-per-million-inhabitants/) [2] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus- covi...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus- covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't think it's going to be huge, but in France most people indeed fled Paris. Perhaps this event has convinced many people that telecommuting actually works, and we'll see a durable increase in people working from home, and avoiding public transportation.

<comment><USER13> > most people indeed fled Paris

That seems ... implausible? Some people left yes, but not most surely...

<comment><USER3> More than a million people according to phone data:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus-...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/coronavirus- paris-france-lockdown-one-million-orange-phone-data-a9429896.html)

Out of a population of 10 million so "most" is incorrect however it is a surprisingly large number.

<comment><USER7> You misinterpreted something here.

The phone data is partial data as it is from a single mobile phone networks out of the four. It has been since updated to 2 out of the 4 (the other two supposedly respect their customer privacy). These number are not about Paris, which has a population of around 2 millions people, but for the whole metropolitan area.

For the actual city of Paris 600 000 people left the city in a matter of days in relation to the lockdown announcement, or about 27% of population. [https://www.insee.fr/fr/information/4477356](https://www.insee.fr/fr/information/4477356)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


AI Ethics and the Value of Human Life - <AUTHOR> https://mindmatters.ai/2019/02/ai-ethics-and-the-value-of-human-life/ <comment><AUTHOR> I found it interesting that self-driving made the "backup" driver sufficiently inattentive that it rendered their help ineffective. Reminds me a little of the book "The Efficiency Paradox".</comment>


Ekstrand: Plumbing explicit synchronization through the Linux ecosystem - <AUTHOR> https://lwn.net/Articles/814587/ <comment><USER2> Really interesting to see that Wayland has taken so long to gain a foothold (it's been 12 years since the initial release) that other designs have leapfrogged it already. (Posting from my Wayland desktop.)

SurfaceFlinger is the other major compositor, does it use implicit or explicit synchronization? Can you run SurfaceFlinger on desktop?

EDIT: Some further reading [https://www.collabora.com/news-and- blog/blog/2017/01/26/main...](https://www.collabora.com/news-and- blog/blog/2017/01/26/mainline-explicit-fencing-part-3/) and previous parts, seems like they drove a lot of this work.

<comment><USER3> An important update here that you miss when only reading this introductory mail on LWN:

[https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri- devel/2020-March/...](https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/dri- devel/2020-March/258939.html)

That said, having Wayland do atomic KMS with sync_files is just one tiny part, and this really needs to be plumbed all the way down to the application level.

SurfaceFlinger is Android only and has been explicit sync from the beginning.</comment></comment>


Huge improvements to Flickr's search and automatic uploads - <AUTHOR> http://blog.flickr.net/en/2015/05/07/flickr-camera-roll/

<comment><USER2> Does anyone know if the bulk download feature applies only to photos in the camera roll, or can one bulk download one's photostream, galleries and albums too? Even in the camera roll page, I have yet to find any button or link to bulk download whether photos are selected or not. Anyone have any luck?</comment>


Good guys finish... - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/01/good-guys-finis.html

<comment><USER2> The question raised in the article is based on a flawed assumption: that success is measured in material wealth.

The successful person is the one who does the most good, irrespective of his bank balance. Therefore the businessman who behaves ethically is _by definition_ more successful than the one who is prepared to behave unethically.

<comment><USER3> __by definition__

The definition of success has nothing to do with morals. I'm certain there are a lot of unethical people making money who consider themselves huge successes. Similarly, there are a lot of people with no money at all who think the same about themselves.

The _question_ has to do with material wealth. Any answer that deal in anything _but_ material wealth would be sidestepping the question. Godin doesn't deal with ethic, he deals with profit and results. It's why he's as famous as he is. You might disagree with that method, but that's how he works and it's what's made him a success.

<comment><USER2> 'Success' of course needs to be defined in a context and yes, in general he is talking about financial success, but the specific issue in his post is so- called 'spiritual business'. He talks about 'increasing light'.

My point is that for a 'spiritual person', true success is aimed for in the long-term measure - the one by which we are ultimately judged - whether deemed to be judged by ourselves or a third party. So to ask, in the context of 'spiritual business' about success, meaning financial success, is something of a contradiction in terms.

<comment><USER3> I never trust the word "spiritual", especially when it's wrapped in quotes.

I'm an atheist. I don't believe in an afterlife. What happens in this life is all we get. To me, any effort spent hoping for anything else is folly.

I look at "success" from a neutral lens. There isn't just one form of success. In my mind, success-through-great-product is a desirable success. So is success-through-never-needing-money. Both of these can be achieved through ethical failure. You can make lots of money through breaking laws. You can break rules to more easily design your product. The question asked was: can people succeed at _all_ by being clean? And Seth's answer was yes, because the Net exposes more to people and it stops people from being as easily dirty. That's a good thing! Absolutely!

Just don't take that answer and turn it into a matter of morals being all that matter, because they don't. Amoral people are still succeeding in the world, and I doubt they'll be punished for the crimes they've committed. Some might. Certainly not all. His point was that you didn't _have_ to be dirty, and that's a positive enough answer without moral certainty becoming involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> 'When past investors blog about how successful and ethical you were, it's a lot easier to attract new investors.'

Relying on the slim hope that a new investor is reading a past investor's blog just sounds goofy to me. Not to mention that I don't think I've ever read a post from an investor like that.

</comment><comment><USER5> First. Always and forever. It just might not seem that way in the short term.

<comment><USER3> _Always and forever._

I don't think so. I think there are a lot of nice guys who've been bumped down, kept out of the mainstream, even nice guys who've died before their time. There's no law of the world saying nice guys get ahead, even if there's none saying the opposite.

I think nice guys and not-nice guys will always be neck-and-neck, and in the end it will be impossible to differentiate between the two, so it's not worth worrying about anything other than whether you yourself will be able to make it.

<comment><USER5> ah yes, they may have not finished first in the 'money' or 'career' race, but they could sleep better at night.

<comment><USER3> I admire that sentiment - but I don't believe it. What about the man who lives an honest life, but because he never bends rules he finds himself stuck in a dull, endless job, who stays up at night and despairs of ever doing something meaningful? On the other side - what about the person who does things that are morally shady for the sake of creating something that's truly great? I doubt he'd even feel guilty.

My point is, it's not black-and-white. And while it's nice to imagine what it would be like if it was, you can't treat this as something with only one right answer. Every one has its downsides. That's what Godin is writing about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The problem with ethics, is that noone really cares about them. The consumer really doesn't do the research, so even the slimiest businesses continue to operate.

There needs to be more consequences for being unethical...then maybe people would think about cheating and lying to millions

<comment><USER3> What sorts of consequences would you introduce? It's tough to figure out a deal that doesn't hurt anybody innocent in the process.</comment></comment>


SSH tunnel without password - <AUTHOR> http://alexander.holbreich.org/2010/02/ssh-tunnel-without-password/ <comment><USER2> While this makes it easier to use- you should always use a keypair to login via SSH anyway. However you should also always use a password along with it. The password might not need to be as complex imho as without the key pair, but it is still important. Otherwise anyone with access to your box has instant access to your server as well.

<comment><USER3> Yes. The author of the article does not appear to be aware you can add your keys to ssh-agent (with ssh-add) and that way just type your password once.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for a hint to the author.</comment></comment></comment>