Advice for Ambitious Teenagers - <AUTHOR> https://ldeming.posthaven.com/advice-for-ambitious-teenagers <comment><USER2> All sounds like great advice to me; but my teen years are mostly comfortably lost in a haze of time, alcohol, and lingering concerns about alligators.

I would add: Don't be afraid to change subjects, delve deep into what appears to be a diversion from a main interest when it catches your attention, and don't be afraid to find yourself satisfied with a subject and look for another.

Passion is great. There's this expectation that it become a dead seagull tied around your neck as you slog for a goal you no longer want and forgot how to question.

</comment><comment><USER3> Similar : [http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html)</comment>


How tough is your project? 5 leads. - <AUTHOR> http://www.inter-sections.net/2008/02/11/how-tough-is-your-project/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is one of the first questions to ask.

I feel like this article gives a good method to find out.

</comment><comment><USER2> I would add 'Internal politics' - how many stakeholders</comment>


Microsoft: Windows Phones Do Not Store Location History  - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2384239,00.asp Could privacy be a killer app? <comment><USER2> and that is just the tip of the iceberg on things it doesn't do. bam!

</comment><comment><USER3> Cute, but true.

I doubt that they're going to tout Windows Phone as the phone to go with for privacy and security, though. That would indubitably bite them in the ass.

</comment><comment><USER4> No wonder the location lookups are so slow.

</comment><comment><USER5> Windows Phone does not store location. The virus found in the do that for them :D

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Is privacy the killer app?!?

</comment><comment><USER6> "Do Not" do a million other things.

</comment><comment><USER7> However, they also probably have scores of undocumented security holes yet to be discovered. Choose your poison.

</comment><comment><USER8> Of course it doesn't save it locally, it gets immediately streamed to Microsoft!</comment>


A Large-Scale Study of Programming Languages and Code Quality in GitHub (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2017/10/221326-a-large-scale-study-of-programming-languages-and-code-quality-in-github/fulltext <comment><USER2> Although this is interesting, we should perhaps not hold a high degree of confidence in the results, because the methodology relies on the content of commit messages and the number of commits (if I read this correctly).

\- The content of commit messages varies widely in expressiveness and meaningfulness, from 'Fix bug' to a detailed explanation. This confounds the classification of a commit.

\- The number of commits can be very misleading depending on the committer's workflow. Some committers merge topic branches to include all their intermediate work in progress commits, which could overrepresent commits flagged as errors. Other committers rebase their topic branches into fewer, or even single, commits before merging. Or, some commits may fix multiple defects.

This kind of analysis is conceptually a worthy endeavor; it would be more meaningful if the metrics it employed were more strongly correlated with the attributes it was trying to analyze.

<comment><USER3> Also the way one works in the various languages is different. Some people are more likely to push barely working code to github because of the language's culture.

Perhaps timing should be considered as well - how long it takes to implement a feature including fixing its associated bugs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Figure 2 suggests another possible bias favoring functional, managed languages: a lot of errors for C/C++ are related to concurrency and performance. But those are mostly non-bugs for other languages, since when concurrency or performance are a requirement then most of those studied languages would not be considered anyway.

It seems similar to the paradox that makes the best medicine appear to have a lower survival rate just because it's given to most serious patients.

<comment><USER5> Where do you see this in the paper? They say concurrency errors are mostly the usual things like deadlocks and race conditions, but those absolutely do exist in every language.

Also, what do you mean most of these languages wouldn't be considered when concurrency is required? Concurrency is bog standard everywhere.

It seems like the way the define a bug, a performance bug would be a bug relative to expectations, per project, so you can definitely have a performance bug in Go or Haskell, for example, if something works slower than developers think it should (as opposed to being slower than some external reference code or something). So maybe it's closer to something like "developer control over unexpected underperformance"?

<comment><USER6> Not even every language in that study supports concurrency, as the study itself points out. I hear a lot of praise for Go because of how much people like doing concurrency with it. The fact that they observed a higher rate of concurrency bugs in Go could just as easily support the interpretation that Go is good for concurrency as it does the interpretation is bad for concurrency.

<comment><USER7> Since Go makes concurrency easier and encourages its use, there's going to be a lot more concurrency bugs. By contrast languages like Python don't even have proper parallel threads, so fewer people will write concurrent python programs and fewer bugs will arise. This is a confounding factor found in one sort or another throughout the survey.

It's good that they did this research but unfortunately they couldn't account for everything.

<comment><USER8> They talk about this, and did do some sort of things to account for it a little. That's why the conclude that more so then overall defect, languages are more correlated to categories of defects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Uh, where is it shown how "software quality" or "code quality" is measured or determined? Can anyone provide a succinct definition of _quality_ which the paper uses?

As best I can tell, they use commit messages to identify bugfixes, and later they jump to "defective commits". Presumably the bugfix commit is not the defective commit. There is no explanation I can find that shows how they arrive at a defective commit from a bugfix commit.

This specific methodology seems rife with weakness, all of which should be explained clearly and admitted up front.

<comment><USER10> They still have some useful data that you can interpret yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Don't be fooled by the October 2017 date of this article. There should be a 2014 in the title, since this appears to be a re-print of a prior study:

[http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~filkov/papers/lang_github.pdf](http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~filkov/papers/lang_github.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER12> curl is an extremely successful tool/library, I would consider it high quality without knowing the ratio of Normal patches to bug fixes. Skyrim is well known to crash and corrupt save games but regarded as one of the greatest RPGs ever made. the game programmers obviously did a lot of things right to produce such a hit. I'm not saying you need to be a worldwide success to write quality code, just that low bug count doesn't always mean high quality and the other way around. quality is measured by user experience

<comment><USER13> In this case, it's not really how useful/appealling the software is, but if there's some kind of correlation between languages and defects. So if skyrim was rewritten is haskell, then perhaps they'd have less defects.

But looking at the data and their analysis, while there's some interesting stats saying typed and functional languages have a correlation with less defects, there's just too many variables at play.

<comment><USER14> Skyrim actually runs in a VM. So it's already futuristic. And still crashes like a piece of crap written.

I think the 2nd or 3rd STALKER (or all) run in VM as well and... crash and corrupt saves like crazy.

And for those who don't get how it's related. A VM is "supposed" to be pretty damn crash-proof and "safer" much like functional languages. But that doesn't stop deadlines and bad coding practices from creating broken products.

<comment><USER15> Every Java program runs on a VM. It does not magically prevent sloppy Java code from crashing. It does prevent a lot of memory errors typical for sloppy C code, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm mildly surprised by how well Clojure performs here. It isn't statically typed yet fares much better than Haskell/Scala! From my experience Clojure is also a joy to write, sometimes even more than Haskell.

<comment><USER11> I have read elsewhere (in many places, in fact, such as the interesting read "Out of the Tar Pit") that the frequency of bugs in a project scales proportionally to the code size. And that this has a greater influence on bugs than features of any particular language.

Clojure is an incredibly succinct language. It uses about half as many lines as Elm, 5% as many lines as C++. I love other languages, but nothing rivals Clojure in elegance. I believe this is the key reason why Clojure projects are so low on bugs -- they are much simpler to maintain, refactor, or rewrite entirely than in most other languages, so fixing problems is not the chore it can be elsewhere.

<comment><USER17> > 5% as many lines as C++

Dude, you need a reality check.

<comment><USER18> One only needs to look at RosettaCode for numerous examples

[http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Horner%27s_rule_for_polynomial_e...](http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Horner%27s_rule_for_polynomial_evaluation#C.2B.2B)

<comment><USER17> Oh come on. First, 20 vs 4 lines, which is 20%. Second, not exactly the most compact C++ version. You can easily make one in 10 lines even in a clean C style. Third, these code-golf comparisons are beyond silly.

<comment><USER18> 20% is still impressive and not atypical in my experience from coding in mutable/OO vs. functional languages

I wonder what Rust would look like here

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think it's a good starting point to look at a large number of open source projects in the wild. The individual differences in skill, size, etc. average out between them. It's important to establish whether any statistically significant trends exist before anything further can be discussed meaningfully.

If we see empirical evidence that projects written in certain types of languages consistently perform better in a particular area, such as reduction in defects, we can then make a hypothesis as to why that is.

For example, if there was statistical evidence to indicate that using Haskell reduces defects, a hypothesis could be made that the the Haskell type system plays a role here. That hypothesis could then be further tested, and that would tell us whether it's correct or not.

However, this is pretty much the opposite of what happens in discussions about features such as static typing. People state that static typing has benefits and then try to fit the evidence to fit that claim. Even the authors of this study fall into this trap. They read into the preconceived notions that are not supported by the data in their results. The differences they found are so small that it's reasonable to say that the impact of the language is negligible.

<comment><USER20> Yes, surely it's a coincidence that two of the most powerful statically typed languages have the least defects.

<comment><USER19> Perhaps you should actually read the conclusion before getting too excited:

>One should take care not to overestimate the impact of language on defects. While the observed relationships are statistically significant, the effects are quite small. Analysis of deviance reveals that language accounts for less than 1% of the total explained deviance.

Nor do these most powerful statically typed languages appear to perform any better than dynamically typed Clojure and Erlang.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think the meta-conclusion that we're getting is that "this kind of study is extremely haarrrd!"

</comment><comment><USER22> > For example, in languages like Perl, JavaScript, and CoffeeScript adding a > string to a number is permissible (e.g., "5" \+ 2 yields "52"). The same > operation yields 7 in Php. Such an operation is not permitted in languages > such as Java and Python as they do not allow implicit conversion.

Regarding Perl, the quoted statement is wrong:

        $ perl -E 'say "5" + 2'
        7

Furthermore, this is not an implicit conversion. The + operator is an _explicit_ numeric conversion. Here's a more detailed description:

[https://codespeaks.blogspot.ca/2007/09/ruby-and-python- overl...](https://codespeaks.blogspot.ca/2007/09/ruby-and-python-overload- operator-for.html)

<comment><USER23> Your link seems to argue that the simple fact that it's common convention makes it explicit, which doesn't really seem to hold water.

<comment><USER22> Consider this javascript function:

        function add(a,b) { return a + b; }

Although no conversion is requested explicitly in the function definition, a conversion may take place depending on the types of the arguments passed in:

        > add(1,2)
        3
        >add("1",2)
        "12"

The article in question defines implicit conversion in this way, and in my experience it's a fairly common term.

I was pointing out that per this definition, the article is wrong in saying that perl's + operator may perform an implicit conversion. In perl the + operator always performs a numeric conversion of both its operands, regardless of types. By writing + you are explicitly requesting numeric conversion of both arguments.

In general perl doesn't perform implicit conversion (of course there are some exceptions -- it is perl after all). It does this by not overloading operators like + for different operations such as addition and concatenation.

This also has the nice property that you can count on a+b == b+a, unlike python for instance. (However, in python PEP-465, non-commutativity was a stated advantage of adopting @ for matrix multiplication instead of overloading *, go figure).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> They use... varying p-values? Can you do that? It almost looks like they're choosing p after the analysis is done...

<comment><USER25> That is called p-hacking I guess?

<comment><USER26> No, not necessarily. It's standard practice to pick a p-value significance cut-off (0.05), but report the smallest such standard cut-off that any particular value meets. So "p < 0.001" is reported for values that meet that threshold. Anything over the cut-off is just not reported as significant.

<comment><USER24> That seems dishonest to me. They're saying that some results are more significant after the fact. Is there any mathematical justification for why this is OK?

<comment><USER27> As far as I know there is not. There is no such thing as "more significant", results either are significant or they're not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Fascinating study, but I think a lot of the conclusions in this study are self-evident. For example:

"However when compared to the average, as a group, languages that do not allow implicit type conversion are less error-prone while those that do are more error-prone."

A lot of the conclusions are along these lines: languages with explicit type conversion have less [type conversion] errors. Well, of course...

Still worth a read though, and makes a strong case for functional, statically- typed languages.

<comment><USER29> > Still worth a read though, and makes a strong case for functional, > statically-typed languages.

The thing is, it really doesn't. There are too many inexplicable results. Typescript does significantly worse than Javascript, for example. There's also no real good explanation why the results for Ruby and Python are diametrically opposite, basically (the languages are more alike than different). And Clojure has the best result of them all.

I suspect that there are simply too many confounding variables that are not accounted for (such as the typical application domains for those languages, average programmer skill, or complexity of the problems being targeted by these projects).

<comment><USER28> Yes, I think after reading to the end I agree with your summary.

I still think there is value in using languages that eliminate entire classes of bugs though, for example using a language that has automatic memory management is a no-brainer except for certain specific domains where you _need_ to do memory management yourself. Likewise with static typing: it eliminates type bugs. There have definitely been times for me recently when working with a dynamic language like JavaScript and there's been a bug in our code base that would not have happened had we been using TypeScript. Some of these bugs also had significant business impacts.

There is of course a trade off, typed languages can be more challenging to develop with: I've had a number of fights with the Scala compiler. Typically it's libraries rather than the base language, but it still costs time I wouldn't have spent if using a dynamic language. Also, the Scala compiler itself is very slow, to the point where the XKCD comic about "code's compiling" has been true. On modern Macbook Pros, this shouldn't be a thing anymore, but it still is :)

<comment><USER29> > I still think there is value in using languages that eliminate entire > classes of bugs though, for example using a language that has automatic > memory management is a no-brainer except for certain specific domains where > you need to do memory management yourself. Likewise with static typing: it > eliminates type bugs.

In practice, it's not so simple. It probably holds for garbage collection (assuming GC is suitable for your application domain), but static type systems come with costs. There's plenty of evidence (via studies) that type annotations are really valuable as documentation, but the argument for bug prevention is less clear. Most bugs that are caught by static type systems are also generally prevented by other approaches (because they're basically clerical errors that you hit fast even during basic testing). Conversely, there are plenty of real bugs that aren't caught by type systems (or only by type systems that are essentially full-fledged specification languages, or by putting lots of work into types).

While there's a huge difference between having a validation strategy for your code and not having a validation strategy at all (or winging it), it's much more difficult to assess the relative value of different validation strategies, especially once you take costs into account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Summary :

> The data indicates that functional languages are better than procedural > languages; it suggests that disallowing implicit type conversion is better > than allowing it; that static typing is better than dynamic; and that > managed memory usage is better than unmanaged. Further, that the defect > proneness of languages in general is not associated with software domains. > Additionally, languages are more related to individual bug categories than > bugs overall.

<comment><USER31> But also:

> It is worth noting that these modest effects arising from language design > are overwhelmingly dominated by the process factors such as project size, > team size, and commit size.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article is dated October 2017 and claims to be the first large-scale evidentiary study. But I have definitely seen either this exact study or another one nearly identical, also using GitHub and also having similar results for the languages, and that was at least 1 year ago. So perhaps this article is a re-print of a prior study?

<comment><USER32> Here you go: [http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~filkov/papers/lang_github.pdf](http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~filkov/papers/lang_github.pdf)

Seems to be from 2014 and has the exact same list of authors, I think. (Hosted in ~filkov which I'm _assuming_ is the www_public of Vladimir Filkov.)

No idea what changed since then.

<comment><USER11> Not just the same list of authors; the article and this PDF have nearly the same verbatim wording.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Interesting that the social element isn't mentioned.

Smarter programmers are likely to be able to get their head around the strict requirements of functional languages and they are the ones using the languages at the moment.

Java, on the other hand, is pretty much the COBOL of this generation.

<comment><USER34> Maybe I am missing something thing key. But that sounds like an assumption? Is there any evidence/details you can point me to?

<comment><USER35> There's evidence but not the type you're looking for. The op has provided evidence that the op uses functional languages and not Java.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There are several points made about typing in another related post here yesterday:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15378800](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15378800)

</comment><comment><USER36> Basically, they didn't figure out shit. What a waste of a read.</comment>


Ask HN: Addicted to HN - <AUTHOR>

These days I see myself spending a lot of time on HN.
It's good spend an hour or so to learn something new and interesting but I sometimes spend too much time on it and then I don't have time left to work on my projects.
Has any of you faced this problem? How did you overcome it? <comment><USER4> I used to worry that I spend too much time here, then the pay-offs started coming in and now I don't worry about it any more.

I have found:

      - people to work with

      - concrete knowledge that I didn't even know I was missing

      - instant help

      - <USER2>

      - <USER3>

Through HN, which is more than I can say for any other online community that I've ever been a part of.

And all that for 'free', if you don't count the time spent on it. If you would count the time then the 'investment' side of it (I estimated that at roughly 4 months full time) at a 'regular' salary (say 100K per year) would equate to about $30K, I would say I'm more than break-even already in a direct monetary sense but that's not where the real value is, the real value is in the increase of your potential by being able to tap in to this resource.

Time spent on HN to me is now a form of investment with a completely unknown return, both in kind and magnitude and I don't mind spending time to give others back the same that I have received.

HN is a pay-it-forward scheme if you 'use' it properly.

</comment><comment><USER5> Visit HN less by using utilities like <http://hckrnews.com/> so you don't miss the stories you learn the most from.

<comment><USER6> Also <http://hnrecap.com> \- you can get the day/week/months top stories in one visit.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is awesome. I like the integration with Instapaper. Lately I have been using Instrapaper alot.

Thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's the no procrast settings, or alternatively there is your hosts file (C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts on windows). I added the following line to mine:

127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com

That means that if I open a browser and try to come here I get nothing. If I really want to visit here I need to open up the hosts file and comment out that line, which is slightly painful because you have to get administrator privileges to edit it. I find that the extra effort involved is enough to stop the mindless "I'm bored, I know, I'll check HN" kind of time wasting and make me realise I should be doing something productive.

</comment><comment><USER7> Turn on no procrast in your account settings.

<comment><USER8> noprocast only stops you from posting. You can still waste hours reading. In fact, you can also post even with noprocast on (figuring out how is left as an exercise to the reader. you have 30 secs).

The only solution I find that really works is to get more involved and make it a point to post good comments. If I feel bad about not participating in HN well, either it makes me write good comments and have new insights or get back to work. I've also started taking notes on my blog from articles and discussions I find interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Keep your eye onthe prize! Corny, I know, but maybe just remind yourself every once in a while whats important. When you let your body and mind fall naturally to what it's attracted to, you can end up on a site like this or reddit or the like for a long time, but if you pause for a second and think about what you could be doing instead, you might pass on spending time here and doing some work.

</comment><comment><USER10> iptables -A OUTPUT -p tcp -d news.ycombinator.com -j DROP</comment>


The Society of the Spectacle - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle <comment><USER2> So, I got into hot debate about this book. I read it, or attempted to do so in French, my native language. Thing is, while I do have some philosophical culture, I do not have a degree in philosophy, and people told me that my opinion is therefore irrelevant.

Debord in this book insists on being obtuse and obfuscates relatively simple ideas. Worse, he would masquerade opinions as reasoning and loves using vague words without defining them, jumping from one possible meaning to the other the next sentence.

The thing is unreadable and the ideas it contains (I read some explanations of the books by other "lesser" philosophers) pretty basic.

Better read Manufacturing Content by Chomsky. I don't know why Americans are so enamored with French philosophers while they have decent ones at home. I am a bit ashamed that the aura our culture has is used to promote such hacks as the situationists.

<comment><USER3> Because state sanctioned sources with an incentive for American discord have used it to subvert the educational system. If you don't believe me, take a look at what a competitive high school or college policy debate looks like today. It's literally 4 kids speed reading (as fast as they can!!! Seriously auctioneers would be proud!) Obscure French post-modernist philosophy. They avoid any discussion that might be about a policy implementation of the topic being debated (it's not strategic to use regular language or arguments anymore due to the judges) As a result, I routinely speak with wealthy 15 year olds who insist on calling themselves "maoists".

Don't believe me? Look up "TOC semi final policy round" or "Harvard vs Berkely finals policy debate" on YouTube. anything even kind of like that. There's no way that this happened without the intervention of either spooks or worse, foreign spooks

Books like this, or the works of other terrible French scholars, are the bread and butter of this fashionable nonsense

<comment> 52-6F-62 I did look this up. How this can be construed as a coherent argument in a timed debate is... it's nearly unbelievable to me.

Yes, they fit in far more information and logical constructs than I could in that kind of time but it throws all oratory practice out the window. It's not just incoherent, indistinguishable babbling, it's also terrible to listen to with those deep, throaty breaths he has to take in order to accomplish his speed read...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZeDq90Ar4k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZeDq90Ar4k)

I had no idea these courses were carried out this way.

<comment><USER3> It's not courses. It's tournaments. And the people who speak fastest and read the most obscure arguments are the ones who win the most.

<comment> 52-6F-62 What good are the arguments if they can't be understood. And I don't mean for their philosophical obscurity, but practically. Even slowing down that audio doesn't render discernible words.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Someone recently linked me to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation) which seems very closely related to this.

<comment><USER5> I recommend Simulacra and Simulation by Baudrillard over The Society of the Spectacle. Less obscure. Better Style. Also check out America by the same author:

> I went in search of astral America, not social and cultural America, but the > America of the empty, absolute freedom of the freeways, not the deep America > of mores and mentalities, but the America of desert speed, of motels and > mineral surfaces. I looked for it in the speed of the screenplay, in the > indifferent reflex of television, in the film of days and nights projected > across an empty space, in the marvellously affectless succession of signs, > images, faces, and ritual acts on the road; looked for what was nearest to > the nuclear and enucleated universe, a universe which is virtually our own, > right down to its European cottages. I sought the finished form of the > future catastrophe of the social in geology, in that upturning of depth that > can be seen in the striated spaces, the reliefs of salt and stone, the > canyons where the fossil river flows down, the immemorial abyss of slowness > that shows itself in erosion and geology. I even looked for it in the > verticality of the great cities. I knew all about this nuclear form, this > future catastrophe when I was still in Paris, of course. But to understand > it, you have to take to the road, to that travelling which achieves what > Virilio calls the aesthetics of disappearance.

Here: [https://monoskop.org/images/a/ac/Baudrillard_Jean_America_19...](https://monoskop.org/images/a/ac/Baudrillard_Jean_America_1989.pdf)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the link. I didn't really "get" the first part, as I don't really have a close relationship with the American West, but once it hit New York, I was impressed with how succinctly he summarized my impressions of the American East.

[edit] After familiarizing myself with the author's style on the topic of New York, it was well worth rereading the rest of the book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Shameless plug: If you are interested in reading and discussing some of the books mentioned in this thread, we're looking for additional members: [https://strangers-club.com](https://strangers-club.com)

Our reading list: [https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/8ogy66cGzqVxape4Th648eLV](https://public.3.basecamp.com/p/8ogy66cGzqVxape4Th648eLV)

</comment><comment><USER7> Guy Debord goes over my head but I think it's fun that he made a board game:

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

<comment><USER8> I'm slightly disappointed the board game is not called "Jeu Debord".

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cliffs Notes for this >> [https://hyperallergic.com/313435/an-illustrated- guide-to-guy...](https://hyperallergic.com/313435/an-illustrated-guide-to-guy- debords-the-society-of-the-spectacle/)

</comment><comment><USER10> "it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images".

This was about television and other mass media? It seems to apply better to Snapchat.

<comment><USER11> I don't think it was literal images/pictures, but the philosophical idea that an _image_ represents (but is itself not) another [authentic] _thing_.

Edit: An example: You make a post on Facebook simply about your $HOBBY. I hit the "Like" button. Do I actually, authentically like that Hobby, or you talking about it, or both? Am I just pressing it out of a social obligation? I instead could have reached out and called or texted and had a conversation about your $HOBBY. And you could have then judged to what degree my interest and "liking" of your $HOBBY was authentic, and how that reflects my interests, or how I am trying to branch out and am taking a genuine interest in you-the- person. But in lieu of a real conversation, I hit a "Like" button and let the _image_ of an authentic feeling of "liked-ness" travel to you, instead of taking the effort of conveying the _actual_ feeling of "I like you" to you.

This is the core problem with social media.

<comment><USER12> I think "authenticity" with regards to the society of the spectacle is also a kind of image, but I know what you mean.

I have in mind the modern trendy value on authentic things. For example bespoke craft foods. The striving for authenticity in these things are itself a type of spectacle.

Generally I struggle with Debord but with the Society of the Spectacle I think I've got it down to something like:

1) Where once Bob could be cool in himself and people wanted to be like Bob. Being.

2) Then people saw the cool clothes that Bob wore and got them. Having.

3) Now people just get the things that look like the clothes that the people who look like Bob have. Image.

For "authentic" foods, same thing. People made good quality foods. Then people got the same thing that these people had or bought their products. Then people bought things that looked like it was the same thing. Or people valued the look of having these things. Image.

I think it's basically consumerism. But I suspect it's something deeper and applies to non products also. For example the image of being a good person, or a useful employee.

With regards to social media, clicking "Like" could be an authentic emotional response to an image. "I want to be like this"?

<comment><USER13> I think that people are fundamentally trying to find ways to love and approve themselves. They think that's found in Being. (It's not - Bob may not have it, either, but people think he does.) But they don't have that, so they try to buy it with Having or fake it with Image. And it works, a little bit... but not really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think the main problem is that communication technology makes it easier for people to fall into sins, and harder to stay away from sins. If you internalize the idea that envy, rage and sloth are bad for you and should be kept out of your head, then Facebook and Twitter shouldn't pose much trouble.

<comment><USER15> Good point, but beyond internalizing those ideas, you also really have to be on guard these - the technologies in question are ubiquitous. They are almost inescapable and are designed to get you hooked. It's easy to say look something up on reddit and then dive into tangentially related material which ends up turning into procrastination.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Original book in french

[http://classiques.uqac.ca/contemporains/debord_guy/societe_d...](http://classiques.uqac.ca/contemporains/debord_guy/societe_du_spectacle/spectacle.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> This thesis seems uncannily similar to the central theme in Huxley's _Brave New World_ , translated into Marxist academic language. Nevertheless, these ideas are highly relevant in our social media and mass media dominated world.

At this point, they may now have become so obvious that they're cliché.

<comment><USER18> Things becoming cliché is how you know that beingness has supplanted havingness, with doingness long gone out the window.

A society which puts more attention on the results of an activity rather than the factuality of the actions is long on its way out. Witness for example, modern America's relationship with its illegal wars: nobody wants to know what America is _really_ doing, as long as the result is attained...

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> He made a movie of this text, which is available online, it's low resolution and some of the subtitles are hard to read. There's an updated version that's more legible but which stays true to the original in all the important ways: [https://youtu.be/irdHSmRrdh0](https://youtu.be/irdHSmRrdh0)

<comment><USER19> I would also add that 'The Dialectic of Enlightenment', is perhaps a more thorough precedent to 'The Society of the Spectacle'... if you're at all interested ... the chapter 'The Culture Industry' is good. [https://thecharnelhouse.org/wp- content/uploads/2018/03/Max-H...](https://thecharnelhouse.org/wp- content/uploads/2018/03/Max-Horkheimer-and-Theodor-Adorno-Dialectic-of- Enlightenment-Philosophical-Fragments-1944-1947.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> You can read and download the book here for free: [https://antiworld.se/project/references/texts/The_Society%20...](https://antiworld.se/project/references/texts/The_Society%20_Of%20_The%20_Spectacle.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER21> I heard many times people mentioning this book but I also heard it is not very readable. Could somebody explain for people without a degree in philosophy like me what are the main ideas that are exposed in this book?

</comment><comment><USER22> I see around me and this Society of Spectacle is all around us. Specially in social media;

</comment><comment><USER23> I like French intellectualism of this period, but why this, why now?

</comment><comment><USER24> That's the thing about Marxist critique, they don't really have any solutions than pointing out what sucks.

<comment><USER25> Its criticism, not solutionism.</comment></comment>


Take a paycut to work at a startup - <AUTHOR> http://swombat.com/2010/12/23/take-a-pay-cut-to-work-at-a-startup

<comment><USER2> The question I'd really like answered: Let's say there are 1000 startups - there must be at least 5000 people who work at those startups. Of those 5000, how many of them actually reaped the benefits of working at the startup? How many made some large amount or went on to build their own startups?

In other words, these are the theoretical advantages of working at a startup - but does this reflect the real situation on ground?

<comment><USER3> Not that privileged rich people invariably make good decisions, but one would hope they generally have connections and decent advice. Do they tell their kids "Screw investment banking, law, and medicine. That's for the middle class. The smart money is in web 2.0!"?

<comment><USER4> The parents push their kids to do that kind of stuff because it will make them wealthy and they will have prestigious titles. That doesn't mean it is the path to happiness. I think it is working out like shit for all the kids who listened to their parents advice.

Background: I lived in NYC and am friends with far too many lawyers and wall street bankers with no idea why they are a banker or a lawyer.

Almost without fail, I was happier than every single one of them, even though they made twice or more of my salary every year.

They work more hours than us in the startup world. We boast about that phase of living at the office and falling asleep at our desk, but at least that war story is half made up and is supposed to end. _That's what they do forever_.

I have a friend. He is 32, a laywer at a corporate law firm. He is not a partner at the firm. He works rediculous hours, often up till 2am on weekends. He works those hours becuase if he doesn't, he will be fired. He doesn't like his job, his boss, his company, or even being a lawyer. But he is working 60+ hours a week because without it he'll lose his $200k a year job. And most of that money goes to paying for his great penthouse apartment. When I graduated college he gave me the advice "whatever you do, save as much money as you can so you can go and do whatever you want if you find out you don't like your career" with the seriousness and tone of a kidnapping victim.

A lot of weekends, I come into the office and work. But I roll in at 1 and leave at 8pm, after I had the morning off. My banker friends have conference calls with their boss at 8am on a Sunday the night after we went out. It sucks!

All of those guys (and girls) make double what I do. But at the end of the day I'm not sure they put more money in the bank. Their echo chamber values things that ours simply doesn't. We love people making it to be ramen profitable. They think you are a loser if you don't have a BMW, a real rolex, go to bottle clubs on the weekends to drop $300 at a bar, and have a $3000 a month apartment somewhere in the city. I spent half of that, and do basically the exact same things except with a Subaru, a regular bar, and a $1400 a month apartment.

At least the doctors have rewarding work most of the time.

But I would tell my kids to be an engineer, or a freaking high school teacher, or a circus juggler, long before I told them to try and work on wall street or be a lawyer.

You can buy a lot of material goods with their inflated salaries, but I have yet to find one that was actually happy with their job or their life. So they strive to become partner at the firm or a big enough bonus that they could leave and do something less stressful. But when they finally get there, then they raise the bar yet again and sucked back in for a few more years. It looks unbearable.

If I could tell my kids to do anything, it would to do what you are doing. Own a business that you can run from anywhere and be your own boss. You probably won't make as much money as working for Goldman, but if you want to surf you can setup shop next to the beach in hawaii and start the day with 2 hours on the beach and work the rest. If you like skiing, move to the mountains and do the same. If you want to travel, pack your laptop and spend half of each day working and half exploring. I imagine you are infinitely happier than people making 5x as much doing the grind in those fields.

[Edited the horribly rambling mess into a rambling mess]

<comment><USER2> You could also see it this way: imagine a guy who climbs mountains. Now compare him to a guy who does not climb mountains. The guy who climbs is wet, he's hungry, he's cold, and he's tired climbing that mountain. The guy not climbing the mountain is warm and comfortable beside his fireplace reading a book. Why is that one guy putting himself through miserable torture and climbing a mountain? Even if he gets to the top, he's still going to have to come down again? Is life not a whole lot more comfortable just sitting down beside a fireplace and reading a book?

<comment><USER4> I'm not exactly sure if you are saying the guys working as lawyers and bankers are the mountain climbers or the ones sitting by the fireplace. I really don't think they're either.

I climb mountains, and the going up part sucks. I do it for backcountry skiing so it is always cold, usually windy, and very wet. But getting to the top feels amazing, and going down on skis is even better.

The startup is like the mountain climb, there is a top (hypothetically).

For bankers and lawyers, there is no top. There is never a point when you say "that is enough". It is a treadmill, not a mountain climb. You just stay on it slogging for more cash and more cash. First you have an apartment, then you want to have kids so you need to move out to Westchester and buy a 2 million dollar house, then you need nice cars to drive to the train station (which soon will have to be replaced when the lease runs out), and boats, and then a porsche, and then private school for your kids, and then a vacation house in the mountains, and then private college for your kids, then money for retirement, and if you have a lot of money you give your kid the seed money for his hedge fund. It never stops.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Protip: Not all startups are created equal.

Bonus tip: You're probably not as good at evaluating the difference between startups as you think you are.

Look really, really hard at the size of the market you're entering, and the track record of the founders.

For employees, a company that's going to peak at a few million dollars in sales probably won't make you much money based on your equity. Working for people with no track record of success lessens your odds.

You're going to learn a lot, no matter what, but it might not be the lessons you're looking for.

<comment><USER6> _You're probably not as good at evaluating the difference between startups as you think you are._

I've never worked at a startup, so I'm speaking from ignorance. That said, what always struck me as a problem with the work for equity is just that. Investors are professionals (or competent amateurs) at evaluating startups and understanding the deal. They have access to more information and have more leverage in demanding it.

They also do a lot more choosing too. I think this is the one that get lost in an analysis like this. Most startup investors invest in a small portion of the deals that are a signature away and evaluate many more. Employees are much more limited.

Sweat is a lot less liquid than money. The problem of receiving risky stock in exchange for labour is like the problem of trying to trade without money in general. A graphic designer is limited to accountants that need designing and want you. An employee is limited to investing in companies that want to hire them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Considering that this is a startup community, it's really surprising to see the amount of negativity in the comments here and on other "work for a startup" posts.

Is it just that a lot of people here have been burned by enough startups that they're cynical?

<comment><USER8> I think it's a reaction to the over-the-top rhetoric that gets tossed around on HN, especially the _"startups are a great learning experience!"_ sentiment that seems to prevail. That kind of thinking is a recipe for exploitation, especially of less business-savvy people.

I like startups, but you definitely have to go in with your eyes open, and most new grads don't know anything about business or negotiation. There are a ton of douchebags in this world who are only too happy to exploit cheap labor to line their own pockets. If you've got the means, starting a company is nearly always a better risk/reward trade-off than _working for someone_ who is starting a company.

<comment><USER9> > I like startups, but you definitely have to go in with your eyes open, and > most new grads don't know anything about business or negotiation. There are > a ton of douchebags in this world who are only too happy to exploit cheap > labor to line their own pockets. If you've got the means, starting a company > is nearly always a better risk/reward trade-off than working for someone who > is starting a company.

Well yes, of course. But there is a sweet spot for this for people that want to learn a lot, and do not have the means or motivation for running their own business. So many great technical people are of this persuasion at some point in their lives.

Working at a startup that you care about is a great way to fill in the gaps: figuring out what you do not know yet but would like to understand.

Working at a large company has its advantages too. You learn how those orgs work, and how to navigate different situations than what you see at startups.

Other folks on HN have said it before and better than I, but ultimately if you want to go into business for yourself, until you understand both, you may not understand the full potential of your business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Two of these factors have been particularly relevant to my situation: lifestyle, and passion. I'm still young enough (28 in London, no major life commitments) to take risks where the pay-offs include loving my job, loving going to work everyday, and finding further personal career development possible and exciting.

If this is the worst case scenario and the company fails, I'll have zero regrets.

<comment><USER11> Do you work at a startup?

<comment><USER12> Looks like he does: <http://www.gigjunkie.net/>

<comment><USER10> that's the one :) we were finalists in TechCrunch's Europas this year, currently all going to plan...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As far I understands and I was told by some successful entrepreneurs that startups must not assume that it can build a great team by paying them less.

Actually, when growing the team, startups must assume that they will pay more than competitors.

Paycut is ok if it is augmented with generous equity (really generous): which basically means first couple of employees. And startups should treat these early employees (which took paycut) as important investors and co-founders.

</comment><comment><USER14> Who cares if it's a startup or not? I'll take a paycut to work on something challenging and fun.

</comment><comment><USER15> OK, maybe I will. I want to work somewhere where there is a comfy couch and coffee, the languages in use are among Perl, Haskell, and C, and I can open- source everything except the actual product. Where should I work?

<comment><AUTHOR> Considering your good reputation in this community, I'm sure if you contacted a few prominent people they would be aware of opportunities which might suit you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sure... but only if the driving factor for you is the experience you'll get out of it.

Taking a pay cut on the idea that a high valuation of your stock options will make up for it is both naive and silly.

</comment><comment><USER17> As a soon to be grad, I'd love to work for a startup when I get out of school. However, I would need enough money to live, and to make payments on my student loans. Can these be reconciled? Will I need to find a startup that already has some VC?

<comment><USER18> Recent grad who worked for a startup (the past 6 months) here.

You have to be extremely lucky to find a startup that:

1) actually has the funding they say they currently/will have

2) actually will pay you what they told you they would pay you

Your best bet as a new grad is finding some impressive startup people who have great track records. Do some cool stuff for them, and tutor/wait tables for real cash on the side.

Part-time jobs will reduce your risk of running out of money. Working for the right startup founders will improve the chances that your startup succeeds. I can't find the source on this, but people who have previously failed to start companies are much more likely than not to fail again; people who have been successful in the past are more likely to succeed in the future at starting a company.

It's way easier said than done to find the right people. The amount of deception out there for new grads is sickening. People know that new grads don't know jack. You're up against a lot, even if you are smart and you regularly browse HN. Be careful out there.

I wish you the best of luck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I had a stint at a startup. It never got more than a bit of "angel" funding. Pay was at market rate-- perhaps a bit less. But so what?

As everyone knows, most startups eventually "fail". They use up their "runway", and everyone scatters to do other stuff. There's nothing wrong with this. That's just the way it is. What you come away with is a bunch of connections, the opportunity to do cutting edge work with minimal red-tape, and a chance to work with really driven people who are following their dreams.

If you're working at a start-up strictly for the promise of riches, you'll be disappointed. There are many good reasons to work at a start-up, but pay IS NOT one of them.

</comment><comment><USER20> Any business will have its share of disappointments, and some industries are notorious for the projects that get canceled. The gaming industry is a lot like that too. I know of someone (a very good programmer) who spent 9 years working for major gaming companies, and every single one of the games that he worked on was canceled before launch. He was very well paid, but he eventually became burned out and disillusioned, simply because he was never part of a successful product. Mind you, he did not face long hours or poor pay, he simply faced 9 years of working on products that never saw the light of day. And that depressed him.

</comment><comment><USER21> People who join startups hoping to make a pile of money with their shares are fooling themselves. For every Google or Facebook, there are ten thousand startups nobody remembers.

I'm always direct with my startup hires:

"You are unlikely to get rich with these shares. You are unlikely to even make up the difference between what you would earn working at a large company.

If you want to be able to make a difference and learn a lot, have a lot of responsibility early on an potentially learn how to run your own startup, then this job (and corresponding lower salary) will be worth it."

<comment><USER22> _You are unlikely to even make up the difference between what you would earn working at a large company_

Do you find that this filters out a certain kind of candidate, perhaps the more generally experienced, or even, specifically, experienced with startups?

How is that working out for you? (Only a hint of snarkiness intended. I'm actually curious what the results of the filter have been)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I would say the only startup worth working on is your own.

Working at someone else's startup is a recipe for getting exploited - overworked and underpaid. And the worst thing about it is that it's all couched in an atmosphere of guilt trips and taking-it-for-the-team.

Perhaps there are exceptions. I just haven't seen any.

I'd rather work for The Man in my day job in a cold corporate environment where everything is explicit from the get-go, get well paid for it and crank out code for my own startup in my free time.

<comment><USER24> If your startup does eventually take off, you will have to hire people. But I'm afraid that no one (no one of significant worth anyway) will want to work for you if your attitude is that "working at someone else's startup is a recipe for getting exploited". How will you, as a founder, do things differently?

<comment><USER25> "How will you, as a founder, do things differently?"

Pay developers what they are worth. If you can't afford it, then you are doing something wrong.

<comment><USER22> Exactly. TFA's theme is having employees invest cash by taking below market salaries.

Smart, experienced[1], disciplined employees will expect this to be a choice. Some may take the equity. Others will insist on the cash.

I agree that if one can't afford the latter, one is doing something wrong.

[1] In the ways of startups and the tech industry in general

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am actually working for free now. Not even a contract signed.

And to answer, of course, especially if you're young and inexperienced, who knows maybe it'll work out, and if not, it's another app in your resumé.

<comment><USER27> To be honest, that sounds like an accident waiting to happen, for both parties. Who owns the work you produce? Verbal agreements on this are great until push comes to shove. If the company exits, you'll almost certainly get nothing, regardless of what the founders have verbally promised. (not that the company should pass due diligence if the copyright status of their code is murky, but who knows)</comment></comment>