I'm a very slow thinker (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://sivers.org/slow <comment><USER2> We slow thinkers are among good company, including Charles Darwin:

"I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is so remarkable in some clever men, for instance, Huxley. I am therefore a poor critic: a paper or book, when first read, generally excites my admiration, and it is only after considerable reflection that I perceive the weak points. My power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought is very limited; and therefore I could never have succeeded with metaphysics or mathematics. My memory is extensive, yet hazy: it suffices to make me cautious by vaguely telling me that I have observed or read something opposed to the conclusion which I am drawing, or on the other hand in favour of it; and after a time I can generally recollect where to search for my authority. So poor in one sense is my memory, that I have never been able to remember for more than a few days a single date or a line of poetry."

[https://fs.blog/2016/10/charles-darwins-reflections- mind/](https://fs.blog/2016/10/charles-darwins-reflections-mind/)

<comment><USER3> I've wondered recently if speed and intelligence have anything to do with each other at all. It does in IQ tests but Darwin by his account would have been average at best.

Further, the argument goes that there exists a g factor, and performance in a test that is sufficiently complex will be predictive of performance at anything else sufficiently complex ... Yet if we allow time to vary this seems to be so obviously false...

<comment><USER4> I've often thought about this - I suffered at school because the subject matter quickly seemed to arrive at one or more foundational concepts to not be explored further, whereas my brain would constantly ask, 'but why?'. The relentless pace didn't suit me at all. Nevertheless I learnt to override this in time and now have a BSc and MSc.

<comment><USER5> Did you begin a parallel learning project for actually understanding the material?

<comment><USER4> When I was at school you mean?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's why I don't like meetings where you're supposed to come up with a solution on the spot and then break it down into tasks immediately.

That only works if you have lots of closely related experience so that the solution is trivial to you anyway, or if you're a genius. Most of the time you end up with shitty "knee-jerk" software that focuses on technical details way too much instead of solving the problem.

I'll think about it, maybe do some experiments / proof-of-concept, then we can talk about it again, then I'll think about your input, and then we can discuss the tasks and sub-tasks once things are starting to make sense.

<comment><USER7> "Creativity is not a team sport", an observation from Prof Vincent Walsh on neuroscience of creativity:

 _[There 's] a very long and well-established literature in psychology that getting groups of people together is no way to come up with ideas. Creativity is not a team sport. What you're looking for is somebody's individual, intellectual trunk to make new connections and come up with something new._

 _Let 's imagine billions of neurons in my head communicating with stuff they've been talking about all their lives together: there's a high probability that occasionally they'll come up with something new. Let's now think of the line of communication that you and I have got between each other, which is impoverished, because we have to try and translate complex ideas into language, and how many times do you find you've got a good idea, it's almost in symbolic thought inside your head, and you really can't articulate it to someone. And when you do, they get the wrong idea, because really, language can't encapsulate it until it's fully formed. There's no good evidence that I know of that these brainstorming sessions will come up with a solution or a new idea._

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

<comment><USER8> Creativity is absolutely a team sport. It's just not a _timed_ sport.

<comment><USER7> I get where you're coming from. Yes, sharing and mixing of ideas between people is important. But so is solitary, quiet, away, alone time.

The difference in rates and understanding of our internal and external informational exchanges is particularly crucial, as noted in the passage quoted above. It's far too easy for bad or extraneous inputs to derail the creative process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Alexander Grothendieck, one of the most influential mathematicians of the 20th century, on cognitive "facility" and giftedness:

       Since then I've had the chance in the world of mathematics that bid me welcome,
       to meet quite a number of people, both among my "elders" and among young people
       in my general age group who were more brilliant, much more 'gifted' than I was.
       I admired the facility with which they picked up, as if at play, new ideas,
       juggling them as if familiar with them from the cradle–while for myself I felt
       clumsy, even oafish, wandering painfully up an arduous track, like a dumb ox
       faced with an amorphous mountain of things I had to learn (so I was assured)
       things I felt incapable of understanding the essentials or following through to
       the end. Indeed, there was little about me that identified the kind of bright
       student who wins at prestigious competitions or assimilates almost by sleight
       of hand, the most forbidding subjects.

       In fact, most of these comrades who I gauged to be more brilliant than I have
       gone on to become distinguished mathematicians. Still from the perspective or
       thirty or thirty five years, I can state that their imprint upon the
       mathematics of our time has not been very profound. They've done all things,
       often beautiful things in a context that was already set out before them, which
       they had no inclination to disturb. Without being aware of it, they've remained
       prisoners of those invisible and despotic circles which delimit the universe of
       a certain milieu in a given era. To have broken these bounds they would have to
       rediscover in themselves that capability which was their birthright, as it was
       mine: The capacity to be alone.

(from _Récoltes et Semailles_ )

<comment><USER10> I always wonder when I hear this sort of thing if the person saying it is just super hard on themselves

<comment><USER11> They are. Or at least, this guy is. Quote from Dieudonne, his doctoral advisor, describing how Grothendieck got his PhD:

>A general theory of duality for locally convex spaces had to be worked out: Schwartz and I had started its study for Fréchet spaces and their direct limits, but we had met a series of problems we could not solve. We therefore proposed them to Grothendieck, and the result turned out to exceed our most sanguine expectations. In less than a year, he had solved all our problems by very ingenious new constructions; then, with the techniques he had developed, he started to work on many other questions in functional analysis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's interesting to compare this to the idea of the brain having two systems of cognition: a "System 1" process that is automatic and quick to respond, relying on memorized behaviors; and a "System 2" process that is more methodical, logical, and deliberate, but far slower to react.

The author's point being that we should try harder to use our System 2 thought process at the expense of quick turnaround from the System 1 process. I think this is probably a good idea but it can be difficult in practice since it takes more effort to intentionally engage system 2.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory#Systems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_process_theory#Systems)

[https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YshRbqZHYFoEMqFAu/why- truth-...](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YshRbqZHYFoEMqFAu/why-truth-and)

<comment><USER13> I relate to the author of the original article in that I'm a slow thinker. I really envy people who can vocalize intelligent, confident decisions or opinions on the spot. I don't like feeling stupid because I can't articulate moderately complex thoughts on the spot. It feels like I don't think in words anymore, but rather in something like abstract math (not like a savant, mind you), and translating back to words accurately is laborious and time consuming. I like the pace of commenting on an Internet forum like this one, where I can be thoughtful and take my time and rewrite a bit before sharing.

<comment><USER14> > I relate to the author of the original article in that I'm a slow thinker.

I was going to say something like this until I saw everyone else saying the same thing. This leads to my theory, and some facts.

The geek population has a high percentage of mild autistics. I firmly believe my lack of social skills, and slow thinking, is related to a mild amount of autism. I can't play any games involving fast thinking but I have reason to believe I'm a genius (just saying).

I heard an interview on NPR with Temple Grandin, an autistic author (I highly suggest reading her stuff). One thing she said was that a high percentage of functional autistics were programmers (I know this doesn't mean the converse is true).

She gave a quick single-question test for people to roughly judge autism. I answered on the autistic side. I was at a company lunch with about 5 programmers and 5 marketing people. I asked everyone the question and all the programmers gave the autistic answer and all the marketing people gave the opposite (I know it was probably a bit of coincidence and only one data point).

The test is "Think of a church steeple". I will give the meaning of the answer in a day or so. You need to think without knowing what any answer means.

EDIT: I figured out a way to give the answer without prejudicing your thinking. Don't read the answer below until you have thought of a steeple. The answer is written in reverse.

.citsitua ton ylbaborp era uoy snaem ti elpeets gnitsixe lautca na fo thguoht uoy fi

<comment><USER15> I cheated and looked up some of the facets of that question. As someone that has aphantasia, I'm curious where you are taking that question.

I confess my original answer was to remember that old kids song where you make a steeple with your hands and then flip them to see the people. I then thought that I don't actually know what distinguishes a steeple from a plain roof.

<comment><USER16> oh hey you suffer from the whole aphantasia thing too? i think that really made the process of answering what a church steeple is a bit more difficult; i was unable to actually construct the perception of a church from the past, though that isn't just due to the aphantasia but also the rarity with which I even am around a church. but that being said when thinking about the church steeple, my mind more represented it as an attribute of the architecture of the church, one that contextually refers to the ceiling as it were. and then after comprehending that my mind constructed the experience of processing some abstract church holistically and relating the steeple as a pattern of data within the data set of the church as a whole

<comment><USER15> I hesitate to say suffer. Pretty sure I have it, though. Similarly, I have alopecia. Hasn't progressed to universalist, but I do have spots all over my body. Still wouldn't call it suffering. Oddly, the aphantasia probably helps. I don't have a personal image.

Still, that is straying. I'm curious what the original aim was.

<comment><USER16> perhaps suffer wasn't the right term in terms of subjective expression becsuse i wouldn't say I distinctly suffer per se, i was just more using the term "suffer" in the sense of "suffering a condition" implying having to live through it, or rather being subjected to it. as far as actual negative side effects and the sensation of suffering in the context of struggling though, I wouldn't say that applies so much except when it comes to visual art. I've never been a very visual person thanks to the aphantasia thing and I've always kind of wanted to be because I practice several other forms of art and creative expression, but it's like, with the analogy of a sculptor, I don't see the sculpture inside the block of marble; i don't manifest these complex visual and spatial ideas about a thing before I try to go into creating it, I more just rely on first principles and the synthesis thereof, but that being said there is a distinctly abstract quality to my visual art that isn't exactly intentional; my grasp of perspective is kinda bad as well. I'm sure I could overcome these limitations if i put my mind to it but I just haven't figured it out quite yet. im thinking i need to approach things more mathematically though

as far as what the aim was , I'm not sure exactly. just nice to know people who experience the same thing as me and then musing on it and rambling like i always do

<comment><USER15> Ah, I should have made clear the admonishment about straying was intended to be self directed. Fun side topic, but I didn't want to miss on the original question. I see the OP updated with their answer backwards. Not sure what the answer says for the way we interpreted it. As you, I am just not around that many churches. So, I expect that has some influence on the answer.

Per the word choice in suffering, I know it is the common word to use for things like this. I'm sure I use it some myself, I just try and avoid it when I can. I have no doubt this affects my methods of thinking. But, having never known the other ones, really, I can't say much else about it.

It is funny how I always thought of myself as just not visual. Never really considered it was because I don't see as much with my eyes closed, per se.

The really mind blowing experience for me, is how I can find things I did in the past and have almost zero memory of the visual aspect of it. I knew I spent time on something, but I don't remember how it looked as a finished thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm the same way! I have to train myself not to think when people give a casual "hey, how are you?".

The book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts" has an interesting message about how introverts struggle to fit into an image of society where one must be a quick- witted extrovert in order to be successful and powerful. I think it's the same for fast vs slow thinkers. It's important to know your a slow thinker, and accept it as a strength.

<comment><USER18> You would be surprised how often people don't even notice if you respond to "hey, how are you", with "hi".

But, really, the script you're meant to follow goes like this:

        Hey how are you?
        Hey, good, how about you?
        Pretty good

Then, if the conversation is meant to continue, which it most often is not, one of you says "So ... what's up in your life?" or "So ... how's that thing you're working on going?" or some other more specific question.

Edit: let's also not forget that "howdy" is a shortened version of "how do you do"

<comment><USER19> It's just a standard greeting. Personally, I find it weird if people actually tell me how they're going when I ask them.

It's even more peculiar/banal in French, where the conversation goes:

        Salut, ça va?
        Ça va, et toi?
        Ça va.

"Ça va" translates to "it is". So in essence, it's a completely meaningless exchange.

<comment><USER20> "Ça va." translates "It's going well", not "it is". Similarly, "Ça va?" translates to "Is it going well?".

It's as meaningless an exchange as most greetings (the only meaning being to actually acknowledge and greet the person), but it does mean something literally, and the exchange is technically more complete than when answering "How are you?" with "Hi".

That being said, you'll see someone answering "Salut, ça va?" with "Salut!" quite frequently as well. I would perhaps consider it slightly more of a misstep than in English, but only marginally so.

<comment><USER21> The literal translation of "Ça va" is neither "it is" nor "it goes well", right? The literal translation is "it goes". "It goes well" would be "ça va bien", which is also used for both question and answer parts of a slightly longer standard greeting.

This isn't a big distinction because I agree with both of you about the relative meaninglessness of the content of such a greeting in either language.

<comment><USER22> As a question it does literally translate to "How's it going?" and then as a response it's like "It's going", but translating common idioms like this completely literally word-by-word doesn't really make sense. It's sort of interesting to think about for the same reason that all idioms are interesting, but it's not very helpful when it comes to translation.

<comment><USER15> Am I the only one that answers, "how's it going?" With "it goes."?

Because I definitely do that. I'd expect that to be a common idiom in any language. Somewhat surprised to read this exchange seeming to suggest otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I feel similarly. I often find that I run into people who are eager to have a face-to-face debate about something, and who come up with opinions and rationalizations that sometimes end up being dubious. But I feel a strong desire to hear them out and I generally have a hard time piecing together what makes an argument fallacious until I have time to analyze it more deeply, so I generally just take whatever they've said and chew on it a while.

I feel like this helps me come to better conclusions in the long term. Sometimes, I come to agree with what they've said. Sometimes, I find their conclusions flawed. In some cases, I can tell that it's made people who present arguments that ultimately turn out to be fallacious feel justified in those arguments. The fact that I end our conversation by thanking them for giving me something to think about sometimes feels like I'm endorsing their opinion with my inability to come up with an equally quick retort.

I've never really found a solution to this. At various times in my life, I have tried to hone my ability to make equally quick retorts: but I found that I didn't like who I was as a person when I tried to discuss in that way. My conversations with people became needlessly rhetorical and combative, and that I was often failing to hear what they had to say except in the context of how I could weaken it. On top of that, I became an angrier person in general. All of that felt shitty, and like the opposite of truth-seeking.

For me, it's an unsolved problem. I'm mostly at peace with the fact that I need extra time to chew on opinions presented to me in the heat of the moment, but occasionally I feel deep regret for not having said something on the spot.

Nonverbal conversations tend to help me with this personally - even the few moments you get to better put together how you're feeling/what you're thinking, or the ability to re-read what someone has posted, helps significantly. When it's written/typed conversation, you also don't have to deal with the sometimes disarming nature of people's reactions/facial expressions/distractions of the environment around you. I'm often most impressed with people who can do this sort of quick filtering and refinement of what they intend to say with verbal conversation: it's so alien to what I experience when talking with people face-to-face.

<comment><USER24> I can relate. I used to be mostly a listener, formulating thoughts slowly and independently of my situation.

Like you, I also tried to be a quick thinker/talker in situations and disliked who I was becoming. But nowadays I've learned to be ok with it... because I found value in trying to be charismatic so I can rally people around my cause.

Put me in a completely new situation and I'll revert back to listening and thinking slowly. But talk to me about something I'm really passionate about, and I'll be a quick talker. It feels like a flow state.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Yes. This is me too. And I've seldom been bothered about it. I have many times been called slow, but never stupid, and that's fine with me.

I consider myself quite articulate, but I'm much more comfortable expressing myself in written than in spoken form, mainly because I need and I cherish the extra time that the former medium gives me, to more eloquently structure and refine what's being communicated.

Just because the accelerator pedal is there, doesn't mean you have to floor it all the time.

<comment><USER26> _to more eloquently structure and refine what 's being communicated_

To that end, you should avoid run-on sentences. Cramming all your thoughts together into one sentence (as you did in your second paragraph) really harms intelligibility.

Also the comma in your last sentence, between "there" and "doesn't", is incredibly awkward and does not belong.

<comment><USER27> > To that end, you should avoid run-on sentences

There are no run on sentences in the post you responded to with this. Particularly, the long sentence you call out is not a run-on, just a long sentence with complex structure; it has an unnecessary comma—the last one—but that is different than being a run-on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I feel this way too. Someone once told me about their Google interview and mentioned one of the problems. I spent a fruitless 20 mins flailing around trying for a good solution, then stopped thinking about it. 5 hours later on public transit the entire (and, as it happens, perfect) solution popped, unbidden, into my head.

I always thought that would have been particularly galling if it had been _my_ interview...

<comment><USER28> Also relevant: the French have a great phrase for this - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27esprit_de_l%27escalier)

<comment><USER29> Ha. Remembering that one. Is there something about the French language that lends itself more easily to great wit and very usable idioms?

<comment><USER30> There's nothing language-specific about that idiom. In English, it's staircase wit. It should work in most languages as long as you have the story to go with it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm wondering if what Sivers feels about himself is true for everyone. Maybe those sharp people who give an insightful reply right off the bat would give an _even better_ reply if they had more time.

This is why I prefer email over instant messaging, phone calls, or collaborative online chat when asking questions (except trivial questions). I want a _considered_ reply, not something off the cuff.

<comment><USER32> I'm one of those "sharp" people and I often feel like I'm keeping up and thinking quickly enough but constantly stumble over my words. It's difficult for me to take what's in my head and turn it into an immediate verbal response sometimes, which leaves me feeling incredibly stupid or like I'm not making sense. I very often find that if I sit down and write something out I can communicate it much more clearly, with the added benefit that I can also take a bit more time to recheck my work before giving a response.

<comment><USER33> I'd even go so far as to suggest that a person's personality dictates what they think of themselves as on the "fast" or "slow" spectrum, based on the memories they choose to focus on.

I (probably wildly) speculate that the people who think they're "fast" remember times when they were fast thinkers, and the people who think they're "slow" remember times when they were slow, even though all of us have experiences with both situations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've noticed that my responses are much quicker when I'm in "empathic mode" as opposed to "analytical mode". It may take me up to an hour to switch from analytical mode to empathic mode. The other direction is much faster.

Also, and this is difficult to explain, I've noticed that trying to feel euphoric helps with being faster with responses, and being wittier.

I wonder if anyone can confirm that meditation can help in becoming a faster thinker/responder.

<comment><USER35> I think this may have something to do with stress levels and with emotions in general. I like to start meeting as observer without much emotions and prejudice. Then that gives me some space and time for thinking and formulating position on the discussion. But in case I am center of attention in a busy discussion then somehow a paralysis of thoughts flow affects my expression accuracy.

I think meditation in general may help to cope with emotions, thus make mind sharper under pressure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This post made my Monday better. I can relate to it so much and feel happy that there are more people out there and someone spoke about this, even wrote books! The slow thinking has been a cause of interiority complex since my childhood. I feel uncomfortable and weird when people compliment me for saying or doing something clever. I'm not used to it and this surprises me knowing that I have a potential of doing something smart and creative. But this post encouraged me to speak out all this like nothing else did. I think I'm not dumb anymore, haha! I hope I overcome this and make it my strength someday. Amen

</comment><comment><USER37> This used to frustrate me too, but gradually my position on the matter has shifted. There's a difference between _really_ trying to solve some problem versus engaging in conversation with someone. I understand the temptation to insist on answering the question for real—which can almost certainly not be done in the moment—but generally, when you get into this situation of being asked a deep question in conversation, your interlocutor is not expecting you to actually solve the problem at hand; (best case scenario) they may just want to try working with you on it, or see how you would approach it, or (probably most common scenario) they just want to be recognized for having suggested the problem—or any number of other motivations. Point is, the motivation of actually seeking an answer is fairly uncommon. Honestly though, my tendency is still to try and answer it for real, but I at least think about this greater context for the question now (and at least sometimes treat the situation differently as a consequence).

<comment><USER38> > they just want to be recognized for having suggested the problem

In a business setting, I find that this case is often more of the variety of "they are suggesting the problem, and are implying/expecting someone else to solve it" (where someone _may_ be you)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I love reading pieces that put words to something I've felt, but never expressed before. This is definitely one of those pieces.

Everyone is different, and I am sure people will agree or disagree with the point the author makes to varying degrees depending on their own lived experiences and abilities, but after reading this I think it'd be difficult for anyone to not admit that there is most certainly value in taking an asynchronous approach to conversations and discussions.

And man, does this quote provides some hearty food for thought or what: "Your first reaction is usually outdated."

</comment><comment><USER40> I can relate to this. I'm always always envious of people that come up with quick and funny answers. It's a relief to know I'm not the only one.

</comment><comment><USER41> Does this have any thing to do with me being extremely awful/slow at competitive programming? I tried a few online sites like codeforces, hackerrank, codechef and after a few easy problems, I ended up getting stuck for forever. I had to often look for the solution which was more than often a trick that I hadn't come across and my existing knowledge base failed to take me there.

Is there any way to improve this? To be honest, I am asking this because I am failing every single interview screening which generally involves trick questions. I would love to know the relation between the two.

<comment><USER42> I am a slow thinker, but had been moderately successful in competitive programming during high school days.

The trick is to code a lot outside of the competitions and know all these tricks, as well as to have common snippets of code in your fingertips.

I still find that experience quite useful in my day-to-day programming.

<comment><USER41> I would like to know more about this. Is there a proper book(s)/source(s) that I should follow? I never came across segment trees in my Data Structures class and I have rarely found the need to code one up in my job yet the screening process involved coding a question using segment trees. How do people get to know about these?

<comment><USER43> >Is there a proper book(s)/source(s) that I should follow?

You may find these book useful:

Competitive Programming 3 by Felix Halim and Steven Halim.

Competitive Programmer's Handbook ([https://cses.fi/book/index.html](https://cses.fi/book/index.html))

>I have rarely found the need to code one up in my job

Depending on your job profile, these data structures may not be used at all. But programming puzzles have become the norm for interviews in the industry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> that's why I hate dealing anything via phone.

When someone calls me (it's a recruiter, or other) I've almost always put him/her down with the line: 'Please send me a text message, e.g. an e-mail and call me back tomorrow' or something - I prefer read information first, think over it, and then do the answer.

But I think that's the main objective of phone scammers to fool you around and put the quick (bad) answer on you.

<comment><USER45> One thing I started to notice when I was young that older, wiser, more experienced people were very good at "buying time" in situations like this by asking somebody to repeat and clarify what it was they were asking for. Rather than provide a solution, they would go through a precise definition of exactly what was being asked - and a lot of the time, while defining the problem, the asker would end up providing a solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> My acceptance of my own slow thinking has terrified me no end my whole career: terrified of interviews, on the spot tests and of selling (especially when dismissals are based on incorrect or flawed understanding). I always go home to brutalise myself with "Ah, I should have said this in response". Too late!

I've always attributed my slowness to my breathing - or more precisely, my incorrect method of breathing. I mostly breathe from the chest instead of, as recommended, from below the rib cage, and more from the belly.

</comment><comment><USER47> like to put it out to you to not think of 'fast thinkers' as people who can think on the spot, but actually people who have spent a lot of time and effort thinking ahead of time, so that when a question or situation arises, the remaining effort is simply pattern-matching and recall. the even better ones prepare a logical narrative for the purpose of knowledge diffusion and education even if the opportunity to use these are even harder to come by.

because there are situations that require time-critical decision making and analysis - i speak from a conveniently relevant environment which is the financial markets - and the best of the business here are those who have prepared plan A's to plan Z's well ahead of time.

<comment><USER33> Chess is a good example of this. Seeing a chess master play appears like incredible analysis and advanced thinking (and it certainly is in some cases), but a lot of the time it's pattern recognition and recall ability. In other words, as you say, they've literally been thinking about the scenario they're in now before, and already have an answer prepared.

<comment><USER48> This may explain why skills in chess don't translate beyond the chess. A good chess player has simply no patterns to recall in situations outside the chess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Count me among the slow thinkers.

So, how well do you slow thinkers do on interviews. How do you prepare? I'm currently prepping for an interview with one of the larger, popular internet companies. The prepping is going well as far as remembering some of the CS[0] stuff I don't directly use day to day, but I worry that I won't get the solutions fast enough in an interview session.

I'm a respected developer where I work. My coleagues enjoy working with me and like the solutions I come up with. QA rarely has to send bugs back to me[1]. My technical boss, who I think is brilliant, respsects my solutions and generally never needs to change anything. When I am stuck, it's easy for me to ask for help. I say all this because I'm just not sure if it will come across during the interview process because I tend to mull things over a while.

[0] My degree is Computer Engineering so I didn't have as much exposure to CS material to begin with that, well, CS grads would have.

[1] I work with a really cool QA guy. I tell him I like to make him work for those bugs. We get along great and I actually engage with him frequently when I'm building my unit tests.

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm also a "slow thinker" in this regard. It's not in my view anything other than your thoughtfulness being influenced by your personality. Folks like us are attempting to be thoughtful but without trying, and we have the capacity to hold back our impulses from the cerebral cortex. People who are "quick tongued", are not always coming up with the right answer, their personality is simply more dominant.

What's always struck me as odd, is that I'm vastly superior in creativity versus almost everyone I work with or meet. For me, it seems that no one has truly new ideas while they do come to mind for me, out of nowhere. I also get the sense when I'm out driving or walking around that I'm more "aware" of what's around me than others.

That's discounting that seeing people be dumb enough to walk and drive with their face in their phone though, guarantees if you're not one of them, that you have at least a 50 point IQ advantage. :) I can't even really explain the feeling of awareness, but I notice a lot more, a lot faster than most people that I know.

</comment><comment><USER29> >Your first reaction is usually outdated.

Interesting way to think about it. Exposure to new information elicits a response that's based on past data and experience, leading to hesitation in reacting quickly.

</comment><comment><USER51> A medical doctor friend of mine pointed out that thinking slow was fine, except in an emergency or indeed any time--limited situation where the rate of response needs to be above some threshold. Think: baraster responding to opponent, a and e doctor, board-room negotiation etc.

<comment><USER52> Or when fixing a large production issue at 4:30 AM when you're the only one awake.

<comment><USER53> My advice (can't remember where this is stolen from) when you need to fix a production issue in a short amount of time:

Don't just do something; sit there!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I'm the same. I often feel like my brain is a Pentium ii (256Mhz) processor and my peers have a modern 2.8Ghz processor. They seem to grasp things so much quicker. I can't but I do have the confidence that given enough time I'll figure it out.

</comment><comment><USER55> Sometimes it is not the substance of the reply that matters but the way in which you respond. It's called performativity. Women are more sensitive to this, and introspective guys typically fail at it.

</comment><comment><USER56> I really struggled on college engineering exams and in general got lower scores than classmates that I had to tutor. Part of this was due to drastically over thinking and over-analyzing test questions. Some are extremely straightforward, but others can be interpreted several ways, although the normal person always chooses one method and it is obvious to them.

I can make quick decisions on the fly in a leadership role that I would say are very good, but technical matters (Ex: Solving an engineering textbook problem) can take awhile as I explore how things work.

<comment><USER37> I've been thinking a bit about this phenomenon recently. It seemed like a vague sort of problem I was having in various contexts (first time I noticed it was working on math problems), but there wasn't a good way of stating it without it sounding like unadulterated arrogance (I'm limited because I think of SO MANY POSSIBILITIES! :P)—but I think it's real. I was reading a review for the book "Proofs and Refutations" the other day, which included this bit:

> If you are someone who has trouble reading or writing proofs because you > keep thinking of weird edge cases and have to verify that the proof handles > all of them, ...

(this is a work on the philosophy of proving things in mathematics, btw, and they go on to recommend it to those with the above affliction.)

I could recognize the pattern being discussed there as exactly the thing I'd perceived myself running into. Interesting to see it repeated again in your comment :)

<comment><USER56> Good to know I'm not the only one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I can relate, people have always told me that I seem to think too much before answering a question. Some say I'm a slow thinker, others that I'm smart for measuring my words carefully.

</comment><comment> eigen-vector I like the cached thoughts[0] theory better. It is a more eloquent explanation/argument of a similar concept.

[0] [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2MD3NMLBPCqPfnfre/cached- tho...](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/2MD3NMLBPCqPfnfre/cached-thoughts)

</comment><comment><USER58> I'm not convinced that slow thinking is related to the ability to respond quickly in a conversation, or that people that come up with seemingly deep thoughts in a discussion are fast thinkers.

At the beginning of my career, I have often admired how some of my (freelance consulting) colleagues handle discussions with clients, how they seem to have profound answers to any doubt or question. Over the years I came to realise that most of the questions that come up in such situations are similar and repeating. The difference between those colleagues and me is experience and that they have been in similar situations many more times before.

Sure, some have more talent and social abilities, but I believe it all comes down to practice and has much less to do with pure "thinking strengths or quickness".

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow, this is me, thank god I'm not alone! People often dismiss me as thick or scatter brained, when its just that I think at my own pace. The nice thing is that over time I do get results at work and in my personal life, and so negative perceptions are challenged.

</comment><comment><USER59> Same here. It's frustrating being this way because you basically lose in most decision making forums by saying "I need to think about it". People who respond fast sound smart and knowledgeable. People who respond slowly don't necessarily sound stupid (I've found it's amazing how often saying nothing makes people think you are smart), but their input still gets overlooked because you end up in the position where if you can't present an argument against a decision being made a certain way on the spot then people don't see why it should wait.

</comment><comment><USER60> This reminds me of Watt's zen-based observation that we make all decisions by gut feeling, noting that it's _us_ who grant authority to outside sources, and that any time spent making a decision is usually dithering. Regarding the article, leaning on a previously concluded opinion, or saying "I don't know", are both forms of unthinking, and not being open in the moment (dithering). "I've seen Shunryū Suzuki take 5 minutes before replying with an answer. But he never hesitates." (There's a difference, see?)

<comment><USER61> Maybe that's just me but I am having serious trouble understanding what you're saying.

"I don't know" is unthinking? What does unthinking mean? Or dithering, for that matter?

Why is hesitation relevant here? Why is it bad?

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I often feel the same way, although I've learnt to react quickly with an answer slightly better than 'I don't know'. Answering with related principles that you believe in and commenting on what you can, followed by 'I need to think about this some more' comes across better than 'I don't know'.

I wonder if this could be related somehow to the Dunning-Kruger effect? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effec...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect)

</comment><comment><USER63> Yes. Debates are a mechanism by which _existing_ knowledge is diffused around society and culture. But creating something new and interesting is a slow, messy and iterative process.

<comment><USER7> Rhetoric vs. dialectic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> As everyone here, I too consider myself as a slow thinker. Some of the reasons for the same, I believe, are (i) Always trying to get the bigger/entire picture of the problem (ii) Trying to increase the precision of the answer for the problem under question (iii) awareness that there will always be unknown unknowns (iv) trying to cater to exact needs of others (iv) Not giving importance to memory (v) a wandering mind, which wants to catch hold of too many things at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER65> I'll have a comment tomorrow

<comment><USER46> Not in an interview, you can't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I think fast when it comes to language and logic but my mathematical thinking is very slow.

In math exams at university, I usually only managed to get about half way through most exam papers. Amazingly, I still managed to pass most math courses. I knew most of the answers but it took me so long to solve them that I could never finish the whole paper.

I had to really know the stuff just to get an average grade.

<comment><USER36> During my engineering, among the eight semesters, I've been able to answer only 3 papers till the last question. And yet I passed in all of them. It was sort of frustrating, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> I wish this worked for me in interviews. Saying "I don't know" is often an instant rejection in many interviews.

</comment><comment><USER68> I'm the opposite. I'm a fast thinker, with a bad memory, just like a computer with a strong CPU and limited RAM. I usually respond quickly and sometimes make mistakes due to lack of information and time to analyze. But it's doesn't matter much, because, in the end, we should always check our answer again, and again....

</comment><comment><USER69> I have this "problem" also. Makes tech interviews fun. :D

Shame, because once I understand a complex system (even though it took months to get there) it is usually on a deeper level than most folks. Which leads to those "aha" moments which can and does improve productivity significantly.

</comment><comment><USER70> "Can you imagine how the world would work if this was the norm?"

It think this is normal through electronic communication. It can be used in rapid form, but it's natural for there to be a long delay too. I prefer email and text for anything remotely important.

</comment><comment><USER71> i felt that with age it took me more and more time to feel that i understood something. At first i thought it was age, but whenever i compare with younger colleagues, i realize it's often that i have higher standards for what "understanding" means. Whenever you've had the experience of realizing how much more complex something that looked simple was, you start to look at every problem with much more care.

That may makes me look like a a "slow" person or someone a bit thick, but then i often come up with interesting questions that makes everyone realize they didn't understand the problem as well as they thought.

</comment><comment><USER72> Can't wait for his book ("Hell Yeah or No") to be released

</comment><comment><USER73> I commented over there, so I won't repeat myself, but I can relate to this.

</comment><comment><USER74> Felt good to read this. Are there any jobs out there for people like us?

</comment><comment><USER75> Sounds like Daniel Kahneman system 1 and 2 in short. :)</comment>


Netflix wins a longbet from 8 years ago. - <AUTHOR> http://www.longbets.org/3 <comment><USER2> Esther Dyson's bet "By 2012, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times will have referred to Russia as "the world leader in software development" or words to that effect."

<http://www.longbets.org/5>

The Computer History Museum gets $10,000 if she loses, I guess they should start planning an exhibit on old Russian computer technology.

But to be less smug for a moment why anyone would think this is beyond me. While the Russians did achieve significant technological advances in the 20th century, and implemented an impressive education system with regard to mathematics and computer science there are so many other factors which play into this. Namely Russia obtaining a score of 2.7/10 for corruption in 2002 from the Corruption Perceptions Index and sliding down to 2.1/10 in the most recent ranking putting them in 158th place. Further they are ranked 143rd on the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom. India with 87th on corruption and 124th on economic freedom, not great, has plenty of English speakers and a more impressive computer science educational infrastructure, as well as being cheaper. The stories of people dying in Russian prisons after resisting corrupt government shakedowns are just horrific and I am not aware of any Indian equivalent. But I suppose if you invest there as she does, you need to talk it up.

<comment><USER3> It's a stronger bet than it first sounds, although probably not in the way the author intended. Russia doesn't actually have to be the world leader in software development, they just have to be referred to as such by a news organization. Considering the linkbait trends in modern journalism, the following headline wouldn't surprise me, regardless of what the ground truth is: "Russia: The World's New Leader in Software Development?"

<comment><USER4> These bets are adjudicated by humans, not computers doing a string matching algorithm. If that article's headline was just a lead up to an answer of "No, not even close" or was even a reference to the bet itself followed by "no, not even close", I don't think anyone is going to argue that as a win. It has to be serious, and barring catastrophe at this point, that's not going to happen. "World leaders in botnet development" won't cut it, either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maciej Ceglowski had a similar, if less grandiose, site called Wrong Tomorrow, but it looks like it's down:

<http://wrongtomorrow.com/>

I don't know if the site is only temporarily down, or if it's been abandoned, but it's a shame if the latter. The idea behind Wrong Tomorrow was chiefly to hold pundits accountable for their frequently bad predictions. You can read his site announcement, where he explicitly mentions sites like Long Bets and how Wrong Tomorrow differs from them:

<http://idlewords.com/2009/04/wrong_tomorrow.htm>

<comment><USER6> I believe the right URL had a prefixed www. (During some downtime, but not this one apparently, <http://wrongtomorrow.com> didn't work but <http://www.wrongtomorrow.com> did.)

Back in July, Maciej told me

> It's not abandoned, but I had to take it down since a sister site on that > server was getting high traffic, and needed the resources.

I began copying over predictions from Wrong Tomorrow and Long Bets to <http://predictionbook.com/> and I found that a bunch of Wrong Tomorrow predictions were corrupted/unavailable, and told Maciej about them; no reply. So I think it's safe to say that Wrong Tomorrow has been pretty much abandoned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> David Peterson nailed it in the comments in 2003:

      NetFlix claims to have more than 13,500 titles and more
      than one million members. You order the movie on the
      Internet, you just can't watch it until all of the bits
      of the movie arrive. They just happen to be delivered
      to your mailbox and you have to put the bits into your
      computer or dvd player.

      -- Posted by David B. Peterson on May 16, 02003 at 12:32AM PDT

</comment><comment><USER8> "By 2010, more than 50 percent of books sold worldwide will be printed on demand at the point of sale in the form of library-quality paperbacks."

Vint Cerf challenges with, "At some point, laptop or smaller devices with high quality displays and suitable access controls for intellectual property will make the sale and consumption of books, sound and movies through these devices practical." He goes on to cite the "iPOD" as an example.

<http://www.longbets.org/6>

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow good find. I especially like this bet, Warren Buffett v. Protege Partners, LLC.

      "Over a ten-year period commencing on January 1, 2008, and ending on
      December 31, 2017, the S & P 500 will outperform a portfolio of funds
      of hedge funds, when performance is measured on a basis net of fees,
      costs and expenses."

<http://www.longbets.org/362>

</comment><comment><USER10> Reading the comments (I love that the years are written as 02002) this one particularly strikes me..

"...The net works differently than that... and Content owners have missed (and will continue to miss) it for 3 reasons: 1) Technophobia coupled with crippling ego (too cool to look dumb they fear the pipe) 2) Misguided content protectionism (go back and watch 'The Power of Myth'... again! It's the 'story' damnit!) ..."

This is 8 years old (and proven somewhat wrong), and we're still saying it, in some form today.

<comment><USER11> Check out the comments on bet 2:

        Will Google be around?
        POSTED BY [redacted] ON AUG 28, 02002 AT 07:03PM PDT
        I think it will be more interesting to see if Google
        will be around in five years? Or better yet will we
        still be searching for information using search engines
        and keywords?

Very interesting.

<comment><USER12> Well, they are still here and thriving, and we still search for information, Mainly on search engines (Wikipedia is one, right?) and keywords.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Service Temporarily Unavailable_

Cached version: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cyGf1Tn...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:cyGf1TnWdtEJ:www.longbets.org/3+http://www.longbets.org/3&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

</comment><comment><USER14> I would love to see (or not see) how the predictor wins this bet,long bet making a decision and awards the stake.

"Large Hadron Collider will destroy Earth."

<http://www.longbets.org/382>

<comment><USER15> I guess it's just an interesting way to give to "Save the Children".

<comment><USER15> And a way to say "I'll give to the NRA only after the world's destroyed."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like the RESTful urls, check out bet #1: <http://www.longbets.org/1>

We've got a while, but it feels like an appropriate bet.

<comment><USER16> Those urls have nothing whatsoever to do with REST.

<comment><USER11> Yes, I'm aware, but the feature is often called "RESTful" urls in frameworks. I actually thought the url was '/bets/1' until I went back and re-read it... my brain inserted it in there, since it's so common.

Like 'HTML5' or 'hacker,' 'REST' is a totally destroyed, meaningless term. I'm attempting to be pragmatic about it. Better to effectively communicate than hold onto intellectual purity.

<comment><USER17> If the term is totally destroyed and meaningless, with different people having different ideas, you'd be better off avoiding it altogether. Don't beat a dead buzzword!

<comment><USER11> In the general case, I agree with you. However, everyone knows what 'RESTful urls' and 'RESTful apis' mean, it's just that it's not the original recipe REST. For better or worse, the definition has changed.

It's still effective communication, because you know I'm contrasting '/bets/1' with 'index.aspx?action=displayBet&bet_id=1&' (which still could be quite RESTful, actually...), and a form that POSTs to '/bets' vs. a form with method=GET request to 'index.aspx?action=addAnotherBet&=SomeValue=1&something_else=2'. And yes, there's more to it than that, but you get the idea.

Just because it makes puritains die inside doesn't make it wrong.

<comment><USER18> In this case I'd opt for "clean" as a better word for what you're trying to describe.

I'd have thought everyone understands what a clean URL is without bringing across all the extra baggage/meaning of calling it RESTful.

<comment><USER11> In this case, you're probably right.

I'm usually discussing this more fully, as in "RESTful API vs. SOAP" or the actual nitty-gritty of POST vs PUT requests and such. "clean" works much better in this context, though, thanks. I'll file that one away...

I'm one of those puritans who cries a bit inside myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is it just me or did this seem completely inevitable and kind of on the cusp by 2002? We were building fileserver-based VOD services just to save our Internet connection from the torrenting masses in shared housing situations around this time.

This seems like a risky one to bet against, at least from a technical perspective.

I suppose it is true that it was still a pretty open question whether anyone would manage to negotiate licenses with the media producers to do VOD, but Bell doesn't even touch on that issue.

<comment><USER20> Technically do-able, but:

It could have easily been derailed the studios wanting to try and run the business themselves, ISPs who are also cable companies throttling it, national broadcasters lobbying to block it legally.

It also said profitable - I thought even Amazon wasn't profitable yet?

<comment><USER21> Amazon has been profitable since 2001.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's amusing that Eric Schmidt is the challenger on <http://www.longbets.org/4> in light of Google's autonomous cars.

<comment><USER23> Amusing - but a car with 2 passengers going at a conservative 30MPH is very different to a plane flying 9KM over the ground at 567MPH.

I'm just hoping that in 80 years I won't be alive to see my comment becoming horribly wrong, with people laughing at it while a processor flies them across the world.

<comment><USER24> _Amusing - but a car with 2 passengers going at a conservative 30MPH is very different to a plane flying 9KM over the ground at 567MPH._

You're right: building an automatic car is much harder. It's counterintuitive, but speed or altitude are irrelevant if the problem space is sufficiently simple. Additionally, risk doesn't scale linearly. If a plane crashes at 800km/h, all people on board will die; if a car crashes at 130km/h, you'll see a very similar result.

<comment><USER23> That's true for the occupants of the vehicle but the dangers of those outside are greatly different. I'm not saying that planes will never be flown autonomously however there are a lot of hurdles including convincing the public.

If a car when parking is out by 1% it's maybe sticking out of the space and causes other people to have to park badly too, if a plane rounds incorrectly or a sensor plays up and is 1degree out (so even less than 1%) it lands onto of a terminal filled with tourists.

Even as a professional programmer I tend to trust unknown programmers less and less, bugs get uncovered too late, shortcuts taken... online e-commerce fine, cars and busses - maybe but scaling up the trust and risk involved is difficult.

<comment><USER25> Planes were capable of being flown autonomously in the 1980s. In particular, the Soviet's space shuttle, Buran, performed unmanned orbital maneuvers and landing during its 1988 test flight.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_%28spacecraft%29>

So, the technology to do these kinds of things has already been done before (though unfortunately neglected!). I think the main challenge is just convincing people that it's safe enough that they will be willing to buy tickets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> For a foundation thinking ultra longterm, they have a flaky server.

"Service Temporarily Unavailable

The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later. Apache/2.2.11 (Ubuntu) Server at www.longbets.org Port 80"

<comment><USER27> Thinking long term isn't the same as scaling a site up for occasional increased traffic. The vast majority of the time, the traffic is extremely light on this site and the server (and its network) is more than adequate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Another proof that you may look like a fool when trying to predict the future (Bell's argument).

Also interesting in this context: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1887215>

</comment><comment><USER29> Cool site. My prediction is that by 2025 electric vehicle sales will overtake ICE vehicle sales. I don't want to spend 50 bucks to put it up there though!

</comment><comment><USER30> now _this_ is an interesting site!

</comment><comment><USER31> I wonder what the contribution to the bet has been from Xbox.

Connecting the Internet to the television is one of its great accomplishments.</comment>


Screen sharing comes to Slack video calls - <AUTHOR> https://slackhq.com/screen-sharing-comes-to-slack-video-calls-cd9afe732014 <comment><USER2> As someone else mentioned, they are finally doing some more with their purchase of Screen Hero most likely.

However, one major feature that Screen Hero had that I don't _THINK_ this new screen sharing built in Slack has, is the ability for the other person to control the mouse/keyboard on your screen. I could be wrong, but if that is the case it's a huge feature missing. That was one of my favorite things that Screen Hero had, being able to click for the other person or type while they were screen sharing to help them out on a task, if needed. If it's not in there for this release, I hope it gets added soon.

<comment><USER3> If anyone from screenhero is reading:

I love screenhero and use it all the time but the one feature I need the team to add is the ability to disable another people's control of my screen. I think this feature is useful, but sometimes I'm giving a demo and just dont need it (or want it). I have fucked up multiple demos because someone accidentally clicked off my browser tab while I was controlling the screen.

<comment><USER4> They aren't working on Screenhero anymore.

<comment><USER5> That is really sad. I like SH waaaaaay more than I like slack (which to me is a passable but not great chat app.. it eats my RAM and CPU and sometimes the css formatting breaks....) and use it all the time for remote pair programming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Still no linux support for video and now no linux support for screen sharing. Here's to hoping Google ramps up whatever Slack competitor they're trying to roll hangouts into.

<comment><USER7> Lack of Linux support is the only thing preventing our organization from ditching hangouts.

<comment><USER8> What's wrong with Google Hangouts? (I don't have any perspective, just asking)

<comment><USER9> Hangout's encoding also it's a real performance hog because most devices don't support H.264 in hardware. Every time I'm in a hangout the fans come on and the battery rapidly drops towards zero.

<comment><USER10> Most devices DO support H.264 encoding. Hangouts however uses VP9 in Chrome and that's not HW accelerated. If you use Safari on Mac it'll switch to H264 and that will stress CPU less.

<comment><USER11> I'd love to see someone do the math how much CO2 is Google unnecessarily produce by enforcing VP9 because they are fussy about licensing fees.

I've tried to run 4K60 VP9 (and h.265 for that matter) video from youtube on the latest top spec MacBook Pro and it's completely impossible to watch. Transcoded to h.264 and computer barely gets warm.

<comment><USER12> Maybe you could rephrase that. How many years of human progress and CO2 emissions have been caused by the uncooperative licensing situation caused by these software patent owners?

<comment><USER11> Well by that logic we can ask anyone for free stuff and point at CO2. Google is not giving away their data for free, the lend it to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I see mentions of Screen Hero in a way that makes it sound like it's dead, but my team still uses SH daily (via Slack's `/hero` command). It's easily the best _remote pairing_ tool that I've found.

This new Slack feature seems like something different, for presenting content to everyone on a call, not for collaborating on code.

<comment><USER2> You are correct that Screen Hero still works and all, but it is technically "dead." No one new can sign up for the service. You can only use it if you already had it setup. I would personally consider that "dead" if it's now closed off for anyone to signup with. It's not like you can recommend this as alternative to what Slack is doing with their screen sharing.

On [https://screenhero.com/login](https://screenhero.com/login) they even say "New signups are closed while we integrate with Slack." \- I consider that "dead."

<comment><USER14> I typed /hero in slack It gave a link to "add the Screenhero Integration" I clicked that link and it took me to a Slack prompted me to create a "free account", which it did using my Slack information. Then I was able to download screenhero.

So, anyone new can sign up for the service via Slack.

<comment><USER15> No, when I try I get

You do not have a Screenhero account for your Slack email <redacted>

<comment><USER16> Do you have a paid slack account? If so, the add app screen will include a link to setup and link the screenhero account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I worry that this could cause Slack to use a lot of memory.

<comment><USER18> LOL. I'm guessing you're sarcastically jabbing at Slack for the known issue that their desktop app uses a lot of memory.

<comment><USER11> I don't get why people use Slack app.

The whole Slack deal is to get away from desktop apps and run on the browser.

This opens up freedom to start Slacks where corp is blocking app installs (but not zealous enough to be blocking/MITM'ing network yet).

<comment><USER19> Multiple tabs in a web browser flat out sucks for multi-tasking. macOS, Windows and many flavors of window managers for Linux provide many ways for switching between windows, seeing what's open, hiding things, etc. In a browser they're just straight tabs.

Have you ever need to switch between multiple tabs semi regularly while keeping other tabs open? Have you ever wanted two tabs to be side-by-side? It's a usability horror show.

Wrapping Slack in its own app let's me use the windowing manager my operating system came with.

<comment><USER20> I wouldn't call tabs a usability horror show with the reason you stated. Surely you can just drag a tab off the tab line and then you have it in its own window. Ready for you position however you want, in the full control of the window manager.

It's so easy to separate tabs into their own window and utilise the window managers control.

<comment><USER21> Unless you explicitly enable separate tasbar buttons in Windows you still have all of your browser windows accessible only through a single 32px-wide button on your screen. And the default thumbnail preview delay is also equally frustrating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can't believe it took them 2.5 years integrate ScreenHero.

<comment><USER23> a mean and lean team of hacker news readers could probably knock out the integration in a weekend or two.

<comment><USER24> Just because something could be built it doesn't mean it should be. I, for one, applaud the fact that they rolled it out when they were good and ready. Shows a steady hand at the steering wheel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It says you can only share your entire screen. That's fine from a laptop, but if you have a 4k/5k display sharing to people with laptops, wouldn't the text be unreadable? Sharing just a single window is the standard solution here.

</comment><comment><USER26> I always wonder if people would be interested in a small SAAS providing a terminal demonstration and sharing service with web and terminal client. Users could on one hand share step-by-step demos for common tasks on the terminal (say "Let's build $foobar on Ubuntu 16.04 optimized for the following infrastructure") similar to asciinema.org and on the other hand share there terminal _read-only_ to demonstrate live-debugging or development operations.

Obviously this is already possible using a setup involving tmux and ssh (or pixel-screen sharing via Slack), but maybe a streamlined service that has both a powerful terminal and web-client would be an interesting addition to some documentation-heavy workflows or remote debugging sessions. There is also shellshare.net, which is also a nice little project.

<comment><USER27> So, you want tmate[0] with a web interface?

[0] [https://tmate.io/](https://tmate.io/)

<comment><USER26> In essence, yes. Furthermore I guess that it could be a feature to _not_ have the ability to _write_ to the terminal and/or accompany recorded sessions with additional documentation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Can someone explain why slack web app always turns my MacBook video indicator light on when I'm on a call even when I'm not sharing video? I don't like them accessing the camera unless I actual want to share video.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm curious. I've used Screen Hero, Webex, Google Hangouts, and GotoMeeting extensively.

People evoke a lot of love for Screen Hero and I can never figure out why. Video quality is pretty awful and pixellated.

I don't see a single feature in Screen Hero that isn't in the other ones and the other ones have many more features that I use.

<comment><USER30> i wonder why people down voted you. you're asking valid questions... I'm starting to see a recurring pattern on HN. If you say something that somehow goes against "HN ideology", you get downvoted. Anyone else see this too?

oh wait... watch me get downvoted too...

<comment><USER31> It's because "I don't see a single feature in Screenhero that others don't have."

Which is just incorrect. Screenhero has interactive screen sharing while the others don't. Or course he qualified it with "I don't see.." however, that tells me that he never used Screenhero and thus really doesn't have much credibility when critiquing it.

Express all the opinions you want, but they ought to be based on facts.

<comment><USER32> What do you mean by "interactive screen sharing"? AFAIK both WebEx and GotoMeeting allow for remote control of a PC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> We're a Microsoft shop so we use Skype for Business, which seems to work well for talk/IM/screen sharing. Now we're getting "Teams" to be slacker.

I'd be curious to hear how the Slack video/screen sharing compares to Skype Business, after a rocky start it's working pretty smoothly for us now.

<comment><USER34> We tried Teams and returned to Slack.

Broken notifications and horrible SharePoint magic behind the scenes. The way Teams is organized confused some of my team. Interestingly, we also had a lot of problems with Skype for Business.

The dark theme and the way Teams formats while you type was great, though!

<comment><USER35> We're trying it out now (since it's included with o365) and I find it mostly usable. It has most of the things I need (group (video) calls, screen share, search, files tab etc). My biggest complaint has been the random glitches you run into every now then (repeatedly being logged out for no reason comes to mind). That and the slowness (i'll often see a lag between when I've hit return and when my message shows up in the conversation). Hope someone from Teams is reading this :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm really surprised this took so long. Hipchat has had this available for a couple of years now.

If they aren't adding the pairing features that made Screenhero so good (dual mouse pointers, dual control, resolution adjustment and scrollaround windowing) then what's the value add?

<comment><USER37> I'm more surprised about the fact that the masses didn't switch to a more capable chat service in the meantime.

<comment><USER38> To what service? I don't know of any others that allow the multiple cursors when screen sharing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Our team is equally parts remote and in-office and we've had so many issues with hangouts for our daily stand-ups. Not picking up audio, screen just stops sharing, links outright breaking for unknown reasons. We're a slack house already and will be very likely switching to this after some internal testing to see how we like it.

</comment><comment><USER40> So I'm glad they're doing something with the purchase. I LOVE screenhero. But right now...holy crap this is bad. Really crude benchmarks but I'm seeing an ADDITIONAL ~3.5gb of ram usage when screensarhing via slack. Checkout screenshots here. [https://twitter.com/harisamin/status/864908004176658433](https://twitter.com/harisamin/status/864908004176658433) I know its beta, plz help improve this. I love both products

</comment><comment><USER41> Curious if anyone has an idea how the multi-mouse system worked. My guess is that on the screen being shared, a transparent full-screen window is overlaid that just draws in the second mouse and that when this proxy mouse is clicked the event gets simulated on the sharer's side.

This effect was so cool and would love to see an open-source library that shows the effect over WebRTC. Curious if it's anything more complicated than that and why it's never been replicated by other packages.

</comment><comment><USER42> I keep finding myself wanting to use slack more and more for customer calls. Generally the audio quality has been pretty great compared to Google Hangouts / Uberconference / Gotomeeting. Screensharing makes me want to use it more.

The only issue is that you can't just invite any random person to a call, they already have to be within your slack organization. I wonder if they'll end up pulling this out as a separate product.

<comment><USER43> I rather like appear.in

Just give someone a url and you can start chatting with them. No plugins, no logins, all WebRTC. It seems to try to load some flash, but it looks optional.

<comment><USER44> Like the idea of appear.in but it really pegs CPU

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Strikes me as a poor future when we use proprietary protocols on other peoples' servers to facilitate all of our communications.

<comment><USER46> That's been the present for the majority of most people's lives. Even with email there wasn't much, if any, time where the majority of people ran their own servers.

<comment><USER47> Email wasn't a proprietary protocol though. Xmpp wasn't a proprietary either and that 'present' wasn't that long ago.

<comment><USER46> That's why I mentioned running your own server.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> On Windows 10 whenever I click the "Start a call" button it causes the entire slack app to become extremely blurry. Other apps do this too sometimes. It has something to do with how they are being rendered, maybe related to high-dpi support or something. I've tried disabling the high-dpi support and enabling compatibility mode but it doesn't have any effect.

Even after I close the "start a call" dialog the blurriness persists. It doesn't go back to normal until I restart Slack.

Any ideas what is going on? I can't find any working fixes for this in Slack or any other apps where this also happens.

An interesting thing I noticed was that in Unity (game dev IDE) when I set the render method to anything but DX9 it causes this same blurriness. Only DX9 makes it render sharp. DX10, DX11, etc all cause the blurriness.

I just have a normal Windows 10 desktop, latest drivers & updates, GTX 1080 GPU.

</comment><comment><USER49> Do they use WebRTC and do they work in Firefox on Linux?

<comment><USER50> According to the article, it's only available for the Mac and Windows desktop apps.

<comment><USER51> It's perplexing that it's not built using cross-platform web technology. If you're not going to leverage that, why saddle users with the signicant resource and latency impact of an Electron app?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> At the risk of being confrontational, is usable VoIP going to come at some point?

Not only do I systematically get dropped calls, but also enraging UI bugs, e.g.: interrupting calls from other apps (whatsapp, phone, google hangouts, etc.) fails to put the slack call on hold and renders the "hang up" button ineffective.

</comment><comment><USER53> Slack finally integrates Screen Hero

FTFY

<comment><USER36> Hope so. Screen Hero was really well done.

<comment><USER54> Yeah, the dual mouse cursors was a 10x improvement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Isn't slack videocalling in beta and still macOS only? I wish they'd finish implementing a feature [on all platforms] before moving onto other features.

As a team, we can't really use videocalling until _the entire team_ can use it. It's really all-or-nothing.

</comment><comment><USER56> No one else has mentioned zoom.us here. For my money, it's easily the best of its kind for multi-person video chat. The UI could be made a bit easier to navigate, but beyond that, it's a fantastically well-built piece of software.

<comment><USER57> The zoom mobile app is truly a disaster

<comment><USER58> their UI in general is a nightmare. Ugh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> This is great. I hope they're able to stay on top of other things like cpu usage and general bug fixes while they add these new features. On OSX it hovers around 20% cpu while idle.

<comment><USER60> Make sure it is actually idle, the gif reactions under messages use up a lot of CPU. I often switch to the slackbot channel when not using it to save CPU/

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Have never been able to get Slack calls working behind our corporate proxy, gave up after many attempts, changing network settings, "noproxy" settings etc.

</comment><comment><USER62> I try to use Slack voice as much as possible with my team but I find it quite unstable in terms of call quality with lots of dropped calls. Is this the case for others?

<comment><USER63> I can confirm some bad connection and sometimes unstable, but at the moment is much more stable than it was a couple months ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> There goes Lync and Skype Pro down the drain...

<comment><USER65> I work for a 75-staff company on a pretty tight budget, and we have office 365. For us to use slack with SSO and have more than 10k messages, we'd have to pay about $11k/yr. Teams, we're already paying for with o365 (and even if we weren't on o365 yet, E1 plan is approx $7k/yr and includes teams, exchange... sharepoint (not that I'd use that)). That's what's going to prevent Lync/s4b from going down the drain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> OT: Do the video calls work on mobile?

</comment><comment><USER67> we loved Screenhero too, but now switched to aws chime and find it even better (except for funky UI) because you can have multiple video calls and control presenters screen.

<comment><USER68> Be sure to give them feedback on the UI. I recently gave em feedback and they're fairly receptive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> A shame this had priority over firefox support over a year.

</comment><comment><USER70> Did this work also with the App?</comment>


AT&T is reportedly mulling a possible sale of DirecTV - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/att-mulling-possible-sale-of-directv-deal-report-2020-8 <comment><USER2> Lol. Profit of cable seems to be less relevant to a company like AT&T. Especially with most enjoyable content is already available on OTT services like YouTube, Netflix, and Instagram.

<comment><USER2> [https://web.archive.org/web/20200829101916/https://www.youtu...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200829101916/https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIc1-wxSJgpNqpxNxSjs7dYXTVMOn9quR&disable_polymer=true) [https://web.archive.org/web/20200829102432/https://www.youtu...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200829102432/https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIc1-wxSJgpNoJkkukIFnR2w7DeBktDTI&disable_polymer=true)</comment></comment>


Free Tutorials to Learn Python: PDFs, eBooks, Online - <AUTHOR> http://noeticforce.com/best-free-tutorials-to-learn-python-pdfs-ebooks-online-interactive

<comment><USER2> I will never understand this obsession with unofficial documentation when the official documentation provides a perfectly adequate tutorial: [https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/](https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/)

If the official tutorial or manual is lacking, the normal procedure should be to improve it, not to write your own entire document.

Or, in today's parlance: Submit a pull request _before_ you fork the project or write a complete replacement for it.

<comment><USER3> I think the issue that many beginners have with official documentation is somewhere along of the line of - 'okay, this is great but what can I actually do with this?', which is outside the scope of official documentation.

These courses/books provide examples that may benefit people who are looking to get into Python/programming to solve a specific problem or to build something they've envisioned.

<comment><USER2> In theory, what you say could be true. In practice, however, this is _not_ what I find when I happen to read these tutorials/beginner's guides.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great resources. Another one worth adding might be the recently published [https://github.com/yasoob/intermediatePython](https://github.com/yasoob/intermediatePython) which got quite a bit of positive feedback, both, here and on the python subreddit.

</comment><comment><USER5> I see lots of intro-to-Python tutorials. Is there a recommended "best practices" guide - e.g. virtualenvs, project organization and directory structures, advanced debugging, packaging and deployment?

<comment><USER5> [http://docs.python-guide.org/en/latest/](http://docs.python- guide.org/en/latest/) apparently covers all of the above.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thank you for sharing. This is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER7> Nice list! Thanks for compiling!</comment>


Show HN: QuestionClub.co, an experiment in collaborative blogging - <AUTHOR> http://questionclub.co/

<comment><USER2> Great idea. Felt a lot of serendipity reading the question and posts. I wrote about roughly the same topic 3 weeks ago.

[http://danieljeff.tumblr.com/post/47021993203/5-ways-i- stay-...](http://danieljeff.tumblr.com/post/47021993203/5-ways-i-stay- inspired)

Feels great to see similarities and have your inspiration hacks validated by other smart folks. Thanks guys.</comment>