Creativity requires isolation - <AUTHOR> http://blog.oxplot.com/2011/11/creativity-requires-isolation.html

<comment><USER4> I think it requires both isolation and time with colleagues/audience, but with fairly high walls between them. I.e. you need to be able to go off and work on something by yourself, and then when you're finished, show it to other people.

(This is one reason YC asks founders to move to the Bay Area, but not to work in our space. We want founders to be able to talk to other founders, but not all the time.)

</comment><comment><USER5> I find, personally, creativity requires 3 modes, and maintaining a balance between and within each mode: Input, Output, Sleep.

 _Input_ :

-Objective research: (left-brained) Keep your idea of the problem and the reality of the problem in sync, or else any solution you come up with is useless, no matter how creative.

-Creative inspiration: (right-brained) Reductionism is a great tool, except when it runs amok. If you could truly understand everything, you could never be surprised by anything. "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science."

 _Output_ :

-Left-brained: This is what the author of this article seems to refer to. Spending time proceeding step by rational step through a large problem. This process requires high focus, so isolation often helps.

-Right-brained: aka "stop thinking about it and just do it [by feel]." Our left-brains revolt at the idea of doing something without having thought through every possible decision and outcome in terms of every scientific field and level of abstraction. But at some point we form habits, and, for the sake of time, we should be incredibly grateful for this. If you form good habits you can trust, your efficiency can skyrocket.

 _Sleep_ :

-Running other threads while you're awake: The classic example of this is "Eureka!" Some of us seem to do our best thinking while showering, driving, exercising, cleaning, or studying another science. Refine your meta-heuristics by working in a very different problem domain.

-In a bed: dreams: a _very_ different problem domain. Go through a few thousand of them.

Lastly, it's important to consider the contiguous time I spend in each of these modes 3 modes. If I spend a week in relatively isolated, left-brained output, it's quite likely I'll feel creatively sapped by the end, and will need to spend the following week almost solely in input. By the end of that week, my brain will be so overflowing with ideas that I can't even listen to music without wanted to silence the input so I can get back to output. Oscillating at extremes is extreme. Whereas, while socializing an idea I effectively go from input to output (mostly right-brained, off the cuff) every few seconds. Both feedback loop lengths - and everything in between - <USER2> their advantages and disadvantages.

Ultimately, it's about finding a balance both between and within each mode. All things in moderation, including, of course, moderation.

</comment><comment><USER6> What works for one may not work for others. There have been just as many (if not more) 'ah-ha' moments while interacting with others as in isolation. I've also noticed that creativity can create it's own isolation. World tends to go away while on a real creativity bender. Again different strokes etc.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, at first I agreed with the article, but then I realized I've had many creative moments while interacting with peers. Maybe when I reach a "writer's block" like coding moment, I then feed of the interaction with others. But only if "others" are firm friendly and encouraging. If I'm working with someone who takes a perverse joy in shooting everyone's ideas down, then all my creativity grinds to a halt until I get away from that person.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Creativity, in most experts' views, is generally the marriage of novelty and usefulness. In order to accomplish something creative, one must go through a process of divergent thinking, to create many varied options, then convergent thinking, to narrow down the options that make the most sense, or fit the challenge (even if the challenge is only how to create something that is new and useful). Both in divergence and convergence, incubation is a very useful tool, but it is hardly essential in every creative process. So, no, creativity does not require isolation. However, it is my contention that imagination (divergent ability) may flourish when one is disconnected from the "outside world" for some time. edit: grammar

</comment><comment><USER9> I feel like to be creative you just need to enjoy what you're doing.

It's like the idea of a to-do list: it's a list of things you don't really want to do, because the things you want to do are done already.

If you're doing something you love, you'll be too busy doing it and being creative that you won't have time to go, "am I being creative?"

Creativity doesn't require isolation. It requires happiness and motivation.

<comment><USER10> > I feel like to be creative you just need to enjoy what you're doing.

Enjoyment is not sufficient. Someone may enjoy playing video games, but it's hardly creative unless the game is designed in a specific way.

Enjoyment is not necessary either, at least in the beginning. There are many things at which I was (at least somewhat) creative which I didn't enjoy doing when I first started. My enjoyment of those things actually followed my realization that I could be creative doing them. (If you want to know specifically what it was: it was marketing. I had a horrible aversion to it at first, until I realized that it is in fact a form of creativity).

<comment><USER11> Can't playing video games be creative? I haven't played very many, but it always seemed to me that videogames were designed as highly engaging technical challenges, and you could certainly employ some degree of creativity in solving (winning) them. It's arguably not the most productive use of creative juice...

<comment><USER10> I wasn't saying that playing video games does not engage the creative part of one's brain whatever it is. I was simply saying that at the core of creativity is _producing something that you can show to others_ , and that the biggest pleasure you derive should be not so much from being engaged into the process of creating (many great artists in fact literally _suffered_ expelling inner demons/whatever when they made art), but from being proud that you have something to show. Otherwise you won't be pulled in one direction (to show something great to others) but in many at once (by whatever tickles your fancy during the creative process), which means you won't be as productive, which means you won't be as creative as you could be, which means that you will eventually stop valuing creativity because people in general are biased to value only those things they are good at.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have always seen creative as coming from two different sources, what I call "local creativity" and "way out left field" creativity.

To thoroughly explore a potential area of opportunity requires local creativity and this is best done with intense focus and concentration.

There are times though when you get stuck, you achieve a kind of local optima but the solution still doesn't feel right. This is where the second type of creativity fits in, and it is specialized for taking a much broader perspective than the conscious mind can handle.

This of course requires a completely different approach, as focus and concentration is definitely not welcome here. To get with this you need to disengage your conscious brain and let the subconscious take a crack at it. I find this is best done by using physical/mental distraction such as going for a walk, running, taking a shower or interacting with others.

A good nap does wonders too.

</comment><comment><USER13> Reminds me of William Deresiewicz's speech at West Point on leadership requiring solitude. For anyone who hasn't seen it:

<http://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/>

</comment><comment><USER8> As to his second paragraph on "preconditions to be creative": Again, no. Amabile (1983) in "The social psychology of creativity" postulated three components of creative performance: (a) domain-relevant skills, (b) creativity-relevant skills, and (c) task motivation. Yes, you may need sufficient knowledge in a specific domain to increase your chance of acheiving creative "eminence" within it, but it does not preclude you from doing so if you are not an expert. One must understand the science of creativity before they can say they have creativity-relevant skills, which this author unfortunately does not seem to have.

<comment><USER14> Are you baiting? _One must understand the science of creativity before they can say they have creativity-relevant skills_ wow fella. Did Picaso (sp?) or Bob Marley have those 'well maybe they did', they were just doing what they do - bet they studied their domain - bet they did not study the science of creativity (whatever that is - is it a science?), they just were creative people - ya either got it or ya ain't - needing to understand the science of creativity means one ain't. Oh sorry I see what u did - I don't think Amabile said you had to understand it - I think she means you have to have it - <USER3> creativity and understanding it are (I imagine) quite different. But they are just words eh? The creative among us don't care - they just do. Refactor edit.

<comment><USER14> Can't help it - Kids (little grownups) can be very creative - what do they care of the science or even the process - they make it up as they go along. I think that maybe that's how some of the creative people in our times are creative. In their 'own little world' is a term often used.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Pretty interesting. The times when I've been most "business-ly creative" have come when I've moved from huge dense cities with lots of people to show my work to (NYC, SF) to relative "middle of nowhere" places (Fayetteville, North Carolina and Ogden, Utah).

I totally identify with this, and think it's actually true.

</comment><comment><USER16> For me creativity requires stimulation. Music is especially good.

Of course maybe I should try a few hours of silence sometimes.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for everyone's feedback, some good points and pointers. I've linked to this page from my post.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've somehow created my best piano song when drunk; so I guess alcohol might also help creativity.

</comment><comment><USER18> What a narrowly defined definition of creativity. :(

<comment><USER19> Seems like all I ever read in blogs is an author adducing results from their own experience to everybody on the planet, with a prescription to go with it. If I were a psycho-scientist, I would call it "one pill to swallow them all syndrome".</comment></comment>


The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment - <AUTHOR> http://contentconsumer.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/is-ubuntu-useable-enough-for-my-girlfriend/ <comment><USER2> I liked this article - I was expecting a "yay, see how usable Ubuntu is" fanboy-style writeup. Instead it found some very honest issues with its usability. I wonder if Canonical ever does any of the one-way-mirror style UI tests that (presumably) Microsoft uses? It seems like it would uncover some of these gotchas.

</comment><comment><USER3> We installed Ubuntu on all the machines in the computer lab. Apart from the students who already used Linux, who just argued over which distribution, the CS students who'd only been exposed to Windows unanimously expressed they hated Linux. I asked them why, what was wrong, and it always came back to the fact that it was unfamiliar. I'm not sure how you fix that, because in effect their gripe was that it was not "exactly like Windows". It's yet another bad effect of the Microsoft monopoly - people believe that Computer == Windows, because they don't get exposed to anything else.

<comment><USER4> Frankly, when people move from Macs to Linux, or Mac to PC, or Linux to PC, they generally dislike it at first. All the shortcuts and techniques you've internalized are thrown out the window, so it feels awkward and slow. I read about this effect at one point, but I don't remember where...

<comment><USER5> From personal experience I had no problem learning Mac-OS, which I stumbled around in at first but didn't experience any major problems until much further down the road (when I was capable of dealing with them).

On the other hand I downloaded Ubuntu last month, and after taking several hours just to get onboard wifi working (xps m1330), I lost all desire to use it further.

For me, gradual hurdles vs. massive roadblock after roadblock is the difference between enjoying the learning process instead of dreading it.

<comment><USER6> >> after taking several hours just to get onboard wifi working (xps m1330)

I've got an xps m1330 and it's run Gutsy and now Hardy without any issues with the Wifi.

I've got the Intel 3945ABG card in there.

I had the N card in for a while and couldn't ever get it to work well with Gutsy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I hope this comment doesn't sound trollish -- but it's a question that has been buggin' me.

So where are the geeks who are excited enough to update a piece of open-source software to help newbies out? I mean, if I were contributing to the greater good and all, seems like it would be with something that I personally had a need to do. While I'm sure that most contributors think of the noobs, where is the cohesive push for simplification of user experience?

It's always seemed like to me that FOSS was great for geeks who wanted to keep adding cool stuff and sharing it, but the motivator is -- excitement. It's still an economy going on, it's just about emotion. I just don't understand how people get excited about stuff that seems archaic or strange to them.

<comment><USER8> Mint is an attempt to improve Ubuntu with a somewhat-friendlier UI and software that people actually use, i.e. mplayer. I think Ubuntu's problem isn't geekiness so much as ideology (and maybe there are legal issues with including things like codecs that i'm not aware of). Anyway computer-literacy isn't exactly on the downswing, so the trend is in FOSS's favor.

<comment><USER9> Yes, I've heard good things about Mint. The only reason I've never used it is that there is no 64-bit version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Last week my brother in law's laptop refused to boot windows.

He brought it over on Saturday and I booted off the HH live cd and copied all his stuff onto my NAS.

There was a LOT of crap on his laptop (spyware and viruses it looked like).

I then installed HH, opera and the flashplayer on his laptop and said "here you go, your password is xxx". I showed him synaptic and made sure that hibernation and the wifi card worked and sent him home.

So far, I've not heard any complaints yet :)

</comment><comment><USER10> Sorry, open-sourcers, but I have to second the emotion on GIMP vs. Photoshop. To say that GIMP's usability isn't in the same ballpark as Photoshop's is putting it mildly...

<comment><USER11> Is it that Gimp is so much worse, or is it simply that they're different?

I used Corel Photo-Paint for years and years, and when I tried Photoshop after that, it seemed like it was designed by space aliens. I don't mean to say that Photo-Paint is easier to use -- I doubt it is. But when you get used to a particular interface for something like photo editing, maybe any given interface is ok, but switching interfaces is hard?

<comment><USER10> Good question; I'm not sure. What I can be sure of is this story:

A couple months ago, I had to create some annotated screen shots to be used as cheat sheets by a number of people I'm working with. I knew that I could do something like this in Photoshop, having used Photoshop a bit 10 years ago.

I first tried GIMP, because it was free and available. After trying for a while to figure out how to get layers happening, I finally gave up and downloaded a copy of Photoshop. Everything was immediately intuitive. Even though the Photoshop UI had changed (a lot) from when I had used it a decade ago, I was able to very quickly create my annotated screen shots.

Now, you could say that I didn't bother to read any of the GIMP documentation, and you'd be right. But with Photoshop I didn't have to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I hope the Ubuntu team sees this and learns from it. They've built a great system that I love using, and I'd really love to see it guide new users well enough that my wife would be happy to permanently switch.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think the problem is not so much that Linux is designed by geeks ignorant to the plight of the common person, but just that software is hard to create and maintain, especially software as big and complex as an operating system.

The biggest system I've ever worked with was a game I worked on with a friend for a year. By the end of the year the codebase was so massive and tangled that the thought of adding a new feature or even modifying a current one made me want to curl up in the corner and mumble incoherently.

I think the big problem to solve right now is simply making software development easier.

</comment><comment><USER13> That experiment is a little biased. It wasn't an example of a person who doesn't know how to use computers trying out ubuntu. It was an example of a person who's very confortable with Windows trying to use a different Operating System.

The test about using youtube is particularly bad. It's good that Ubuntu doesn't come with flash, it would be even better if it didn't even tell you about it. Maybe in the future it might come with gnash already installed (you may want to install it, I'm sure it's on the repositories, even my debian etch has it). For youtube specifically, as I understand the latest totem comes with a plugin that allows you to watch youtube videos directly from totem, another alternative for using youtube without flash.

And yes, I'm a free software extremist, who simply doesn't get it, who will forever be wrong. And I'm too radical, things can't be taken so seriously, I'll never find a girlfriend. I know all that. Still, the purpose of Ubuntu is to spread the use of free software, not to be another system offering propertary software. If the free software already available is not enough for some people, I guess we'll just have to wait (not change our systems so it includes propertary stuff).

<comment><USER14> Maybe I'm missing something, but I've never viewed computer usage as a militant adherence to a single software pricing model. I view it as using the best combination of OS and apps that suit my needs, in combination with offering the best cost to usability ratio.

Who cares if the software is free or paid? OSS or proprietary? Find what works best for YOU, and go with it. Note that the best answer is likely to be very different person to person.

Fanboys of any denomination are all equally annoying and blind.

<comment><USER13> Your view is different then mine. You see, I take care about the consequences of my actions. Sure, it's much more convinient to use adobe acroread, using MS Office is probably a lot easier than OpenOffice. But by using such software I'm contributing with ideas that are not so good for society.

This essay explains a lot of my point of view towards software: <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html>

I think finding what work best for me is just too selfish, I rather find what I think is best for everyone. Also, I realise that, althought proprietary software may be the best thing for me in the short-term, in the long run, free software will be much better for me. It will give me more freedom.

Now, I was hoping to have a serious discussion, but you call me a fanboy (althought for some reason people are downmodding me like crazy). Are you want to troll me?

<comment><USER14> I was not meaning to call you a fanboy directly, although I guess by your own admission you do fit the description.

I care about the consequences of my actions as well (or at least some actions, I am not to be held responsible when beer is involved), but free software != the absolute answer for everything. Do you not believe that everyone deserves to be paid for their work? Paying for software creates a cash flow for the company, which can be used to fund development, maintenance and enhancements. Some companies use that cash flow (IMO) in better ways than others, and that factors in to how I make my choices.

<comment><USER13> Of course free software is not the answer for everything. It's just a good effort towards freedom when it comes to software development and use. I appreciate that freedom very much, that's why I like free software.

Free software doesn't mean you can't charge for them, it only means that the user of the software trully owns it, as opposed to simple having the right to use it.

Where I live it's very common to see companies that will write management software for other companies and sell it to them. I don't see any reason why they couldn't be selling free software, it would be very benefitial for the client because he would be able to even maintain the software if they want to. Or they can even contract a different company for maintaining the software. You give your client a lot of freedom this way.

<comment><USER11> In the enterprise software business (and typically, the desktop software business as well), the most straightforward business model is to offer a product and charge people for it. That way, you get paid whenever people use your software (excepting for piracy).

If you release your software under a free software license, users are not only free to look at the source and modify it, they are free to redistribute it to others who have not paid for it.

If you can find a way to make free software work for you in a way that still allows you to earn a good living developing your software (such as by providing services), then more power to you. But for-profit software companies are not producing non-free software simply through myopia and ignorance.

<comment><USER13> I haven't really taken the time to analyse that. Most of my work is academic and I fear I may not have enough economics background. I do have an early idea that it sounds more like a myth than a fact.

Let's say a company wants to outsource the development of some software they need. They go ahead and contract your company. You develop it and sell it to them for a certain price. Even if the license is free it's not very likely that they will redistribute it for other companies, and even if they do, it probably won't fit their needs just right. OTOH, they will be able to call other companies (other than yours) to maintain your software. So they have that extra freedom. And it doesn't really hurt business because, if you do a better job maintaining your software than other people, chances are your client won't switch.

There's also the case of the end desktop user. That's probably harder territory for earning money with free software. But I've never seen some company selling their software but giving the user a package with the GPL- licensed code. Sure, after a while there would be lots of other non-official sites to download the program from, but doesn't that already happen with all the proprietary softwares nowadays? And it's not like anti-piracy laws are doing any good against it. This way people may do their own derivative work, for which they might even charge just like you. Now you'll have competition, so things get more interesting and you have to make better stuff. Why can't that work?

You can still charge for constant patches you deliver (though they are all GPL'd). If it's an online game, you might charge for your server, and so on. A big part of software nowadays seem to be services, anyway.

Say google opens the source for their search engine. Why would you turn to a different site other than google.com? It would make great research environment, nonetheless. Even google could gain from it.

So, what I'm saying is that I don't see a reason why people can't earn money while keeping their software free. Even though things might get a little different from what they are today. That's good, though, because today is far from perfect. And I think free software is a move in the right direction.

<comment><USER11> Red Hat charges for their Enterprise Linux, but releases it as open source. I forget the names, but there are now 3rd-party Linux distros that basically just redistribute RHEL freely to whoever wants them.

If someone openly pirates your proprietary software, you have legal recourse. If someone openly redistributes your open source software, they are acting within their rights to do so.

In fact, a third party repackager of RHEL even has the option of charging to provide service, at a discount from Red Hat's price, and they can do this perfectly legally.

Short version of the economics: if you can charge for services, you can make money on open source, but only client by client -- you don't become more efficient the more services you sell, unlike with products (especially low- marginal-cost products like software). You have to add employees for each new hour of services you provide. So if you have a potentially popular product, all other things being equal, you have a higher potential for growth if you sell the product rather than the service.

Of course, all other things aren't equal, which is why the desktop software market has been in decline since its heyday in the 90s. Because the marginal cost of each unit you ship is so low, when there's plenty of competition, you tend to see a race to the bottom on price (unless you can convince people to buy your product because it is the standard, as Microsoft has done).

Many enterprise markets are small enough niches that (1) there are a limited number of competitors, and (2) if you give away your product, you may not easily be able to make up the revenue in any other way. On the other hand, if you have technically savvy clients, you may find it worth your while to offer them your source under a non-redistributable license. They still have to buy your product from you, but they can debug against the source, integration test, etc. This isn't free software (obviously), but it may be a happy medium for both you and your clients.

And yes, when the option of selling (or monetizing in some other way) access to your server presents itself, that can be far more profitable than selling a client-side product. That's why World of Warcraft is ridiculously profitable, and it's why Google makes so much money. But it seems clear that this works better for some markets than others.

I say all of this as someone who believes in free software wherever it is practical, but also as someone who makes a living writing software and wants to continue to do so.

And, as Eric Raymond argued over a decade ago, for something like an operating system that is used by large numbers of people, there will be no shortage of free labor to produce an open source product. But people will probably only work on software for managing a multinational mineral extraction business if you pay them. So open source is a great idea for many, many things, but probably not for everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm surprised a usability test is such big news. It's almost as though no one ever thought to do one for Linux before.

</comment><comment><USER16> I still can not figure out how to get my nvidia drivers working in ubuntu, after upgrading from 7.10-8.04 LTS. Windows is still more productive for me, I do want to be fully on ubuntu by the end of june though. So I have a few more months.

Right now my plan is to format my ubuntu partitions and to start over with 8.04.

<comment><USER11> Upgrading to Hardy borked my nvidia, as well. I ended up replacing /etc/X11/xorg.conf with xorg.conf.1, which used the generic vesa driver instead of the nvidia driver. (If you don't know command line, this is 'sudo /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.new-backup' followed by 'sudo /etc/X11/xorg.conf.1 /etc/X11/xorg.conf'.)

After I rebooted under the vesa driver, I was able to use the Hardware Drivers tool under System/Administration to turn on the normal Hardy nvidia driver.

I also recommend grabbing nvidia-settings from the repository to tweak things like multiple monitors more easily. (Once it's there, you just call 'sudo nvidia-settings'.)

<comment><USER16> i have a display driver loaded, but its just slow.

so, can i skip right to 'sudo nvidia-settings' ? or do i need to do one of the above steps?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> User testing is one area where free software has a fundamental disadvantage vs. paid-for programs. Programmers can turn their time into code with no need of money. Unfortunately, proper user testing costs real money. Paid-for programs have revenue with which they can pay for user testing but only the largest FOSS projects have that kind of cash. In my opinion, this is one important reason why open source programs have a bad reputation for usability.

</comment><comment><USER18> "make the experience a lot more friendly for non-computer-literate people"

should be

"make the experience a lot more friendly for people who use Microsoft Windows extensively"

<comment><USER19> Well, learning is too hard for most people, so apparently Linux should be exactly the same as Windows.

If you want to avoid the $300 Vista upgrade, along with the DRM and general suckage of Windows, you might have to _learn_ to use the Free alternative. Why is that such a terrible thing?

<comment><USER11> Firefox started its ascension by systematically eliminating any reasons users had for using IE, until it was similar to IE, but with more power, less suckage, and a better interface.

It certainly doesn't mean Linux should jettison things that rock, like throwing out package management in favor of Windows-style installer chaos. But at the very least, we should expect to help users coming from different paradigms understand what package management means and how it's different. Any novices who are remotely sane will _love_ the little Add/Remove Programs widget in Ubuntu.

<comment><USER20> Exactly, his complaints are mostly "Why didn't they make this little thing slightly clearer for the uninitiated" i.e. call it Brasero CD/DVD burner instead of just Brasero. That is hardly throwing out the baby with the bathwater and copying Windows.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Stock Market vs. the Labor Market - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/04/the-economic-story-of-the-year-the-stock-market-vs-the-labor-market/274698/ <comment><USER2> Couple things here.

First, corporate profits are aberrantly high for a number of reasons, none of which are likely to be permanent. John Hussman, an analyst whom I respect deeply, has a good discussion of this from the perspective of stock valuations, but the basic point is relevant here. [<http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc130408.htm>]

Second, while I agree that this is "the story" in a purely journalistic sense, it's important not to get too carried in discussions about relative income distributions and miss the forest for the trees, as it were.

Income inequality is not an informationally useful statistic on its own. Income inequality can be thought of as a measure of the _strength of incentives_ in a system. Those incentives can be good or bad on their own. In 3rd world nations, income inequality is a reflection of the strong incentive to be corrupt and steal. In the closed system of Goldman Sachs, income inequality (among employees) is a measure of the incentive to achieve annual performance targets. In the context of the public education system, it is a measure of the incentive to achieve seniority and bureaucratic promotions. In startups it reflects the incentive to get acquired or IPO. Et cetera.

In the United States, when people say that income inequality is too high, what they're usually thinking is that the wrong things are being incentivized and rewarded. That's a fine discussion to have, and I would agree that certain industries [health care jumps immediately to mind] suffer from deep and severe incentive problems that are reflected when you look at income distributions within those sectors.

But the problem is not the income distribution; it's the fact that income is being distributed unequally _for the wrong reasons_. That is the conversion people should be having.

<comment><USER3> I think the biggest problem of incentives can be summed up as:

It's much more profitable to do a mediocre job in banking than to do a world- changing job of actually building things. Proximity to money is worth more than actual ingenuity.

<comment><USER4> "Proximity to money" Imagine a city on the confluence of two rivers, with a series of locks making it a major trade center. The leaders of the lock operators union come to the city fathers requesting they be paid a percentage of the trade passing through the locks rather than a regular wage.

The city leaders ask why, since they didn't build the locks or create any of the system that makes it all happen, they should share in the wealth above others, and above the work they do.

The Union leaders reply that the small percentage they're asking for will pay total about the same as they're getting now, and it better aligns the interests of both sides. Of course the city leaders eventually agree. And of course, the "modest percentage" steadily grows over time, with a multitude of clever, more complex shipping arrangements.

That's the financial system we have. They didn't build it; their brain power goes to make it more opaque, and siphon more to them. And with regulatory capture, the federal gov't abets it all.

<comment><USER5> You also described the situation in Sudan/South Sudan. But without the genocide.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I watched a very good series recently called "The Ascent of Money", offers many good insights into these matters. It's available in full on youtube for those interested.

Ultimately though, all talk of policy is a fools errand and utterly useless unless the overarching corruption in our political system is addressed. The free market dictates that companies can be expected to maximize their profits by whatever means necessary, and it's up to government to make sure "whatever means necessary" stays within an acceptable domain that protects key public interests. The primary requisite for the advancement of any civilization is it's resistance to corruption, and nothing short of a total overhaul will even put a dent on the decline we're experiencing. Until the era of pay-for-play and superPACS is brought to an end, legislation will always mold itself to induce the greatest profits for big corporations at the expense of every other interest.

EDIT: I should add as well though that the other side of this coin is that we as consumers CAN have a great influence outside of politics by voting with our dollars. If everyone refused to buy cheap Chinese goods and boycott Wal-Mart, enacting protectionist policies to protect American manufacturing wouldn't even be necessary. If we refused to put our money in banks involved in scandals or do business with their partners they'd soon be out of business. Alas, there in lies the other doom of the free market; as consumers we can be expected to act exactly in our own interests, which dictates buying the cheapest goods and most attractive deals regardless of the greater effects. There has to be a mass change in psychology, a great awakening. Hmm, good start up idea???!!

</comment><comment><USER7> Yup. Using humans to get stuff done isn't our only option anymore, so a difference between the stock market and labor market isn't surprising.

I live in a liberal area and I'm facebook friends with a lot of Burners (people who have gone to burning man). I see a ton of image macros and posts where people are implying that it's a moral wrong that businesses are doing well while we have high unemployment. :-/ For me, once I understood the (technological, economic) reasons for the difference it became less of a moral issue and more of a practical issue. (i.e.--- had to throw out my semi-useless degree and learn a valuable skill. My valuable skill is copy-pasting coffeescript!)

<comment><USER8> What is morally wrong is the idea that everyone should have a job in a society where it's so obviously unnecessary for everyone to work, and where the level of productivity is in fact detrimental to the people and their environment in the long term.

What I'm saying is that we should get rid of the idea of not having a wage job at all as inherently less respectable than working with anything and introduce a guaranteed minimum income.

<comment><USER9> This, exactly. On hn we can have these discussions (and see a lot of people hold these welfare=lazy straw man views) because most of us have jobs that haven't been automated away... _yet_. But that day is coming. Probably a lot sooner than most of us realize.

I can't help but agree that a policy of full employment or guaranteed minimum income is going to be necessary in the not-too-distant future, unless we're comfortable living in a society where most people are destitute because they weren't born to already-rich parents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Don't look at inequality from a justice perspective. Justice is a moral definition, and highly volatile, so the discussion would be endless. Look at it from a society efficiency point of view.

From an efficiency point of view, some inequality is interesting. You need to aggregate some capital for investments to occur, you need rich people for high risk investments to be possible. However, as in most systems, there is an optimum point. Beyond a certain level of inequality, the system becomes less efficient.

Herein lies the problem with the job creators argument. It is not fundamentally wrong, but it is wrong for the current level of inequality. We are past the optimum and, for society and the economy to gain efficiency, inequality _must_ be reduced.

<comment><USER11> > Herein lies the problem with the job creators argument. It is not > fundamentally wrong, but it is wrong for the current level of inequality. We > are past the optimum and, for society and the economy to gain efficiency, > inequality must be reduced.

Are you suggesting we get rid of the unemployed? That would certainly increase "society efficiency", I think (not sure how we measure that again). But if we want to reduce society to numbers, its easier to get larger swings in variables if we have smaller population sets to work with. We don't have to get rid of everybody to meet optimal efficiency numbers, because the process of getting rid of people will definitely provide job opportunities for others.

<comment><USER7> Yeahhh, I don't think that's what he was suggesting. You were proving Godwin's Law, right?

<comment><USER11> No. Since he's advocating chucking morality out the window, I can only assume he had something special and immoral planned (which largely went unexplicitly stated). The most efficient isn't to spread a limited wealth over a large number of people, but to reduce the number of people with little wealth. After all, since we've thrown out the concept of society as a means to protect principles of justice for individuals, we can surely afford to sacrifice some individuals for those lucky enough to be left in the selected set.

But you're right, he was probably only suggesting theft.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This story has nothing whatsoever to do with Hacker News. It's a recapitulation of basic economics trend stories that serves no purpose here other than to start Reddit-style flame wars about politics. Not every good blog post is a good Hacker News submission. I flagged it, and you should too.

</comment><comment><USER13> Supply and demand.

More people are increasingly willing to give more money to fewer people. The key is WILLING. People CHOOSE to hand over their money. For all the complaints/accusations about unfair business practices etc., fact is people wouldn't be handing all that money to "them" if not for receiving something of equal/greater value in return.

<comment><USER8> Would you argue that the fact that people who CHOOSE to hand over their money live in a society in which they are taught to do so by more and more intrusive means, and of which the entire value system is constantly being manipulated by means only available to the "handee" doesn't factor in at all?

<comment><USER13> Of course I'd argue the "fact". It isn't one.

Are there centralized influences, operating toward their own interests? Of course. Always have been. Those pursuing an effective strategy of sales & social normalization of X do so because it pays off. In a world of increasingly homogeneous media domination, putting up significant sums to buy influence pays off - hence the increasing concentration of wealth, supplying what can be marketed to increase demand.

This influence is not, however, infinite/total in scope. Options exist. You don't have to buy into anything "they" manipulate you to. It's still a choice. You can say "no" and buy elsewhere or do it yourself. Corporations are not gods; they are not omniscient/omnipotent/omnipresent, and do not strike you down with brimstone if you fail to buy their goods/services. You can turn off the TV, choose your own teachers & influences, and spend your money with whomever will trade as you see fair.

That much of society submits to such influences, well, that's their _choice_. I've chosen not to abide by those choices in large part, and know that where I do it's MY choice, and that I have options thereto.

Selfish influence arguments aside, there's also the matter of just doing a good job supplying what people need. People need Y, company Z does a remarkably good job of supplying it, people pay what it's worth to them (or less, what a great value!), and Z pockets the net profits. So? What's wrong with reaping rewards for a job well done?

BTW: This is Hacker News, on Y-Combinator, devoted to the notion that anyone can concoct something techy and - with a goal of profit - persuade others to buy it.

<comment><USER8> You disagree with my supposed fact and then go on to support it in the following paragraph. I never said anything about it being infinite or total in scope.

As for the ultimate power of an individual to choose freely, I totally agree, but I won't pretend for a second that society doesn't always influence my choices in one way or another. That would be arrogant and short-sighted, especially since, no, most people don't get to choose their teachers and influences until they're 18.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The crash that comes next will make Lehman Brothers look like a Sunday afternoon picnic.

<comment><USER15> I dont think there will be a big crash , just a very slow death , like for any Empire that ever existed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wealth is good, even for a very few, for the many will benefit from it in the long run.

Wealth acquired from evil means, like corruption, theft, coercion and taxation, is evil no matter your moral stance, and that's the only wealth that should be fought against and given back to its original owners.

Whatever the means and however the distribution methods.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think the only way this system can start to equalize itself is if people start to learn how to live off the land again. Once we have self-sustaining (properly nourished, educated, etc) commmunities who can live without currency (animal kingdom has done it since it existed) the system will finally be able to balance itself.

Once people realize currency is a man-made thing, and is not necessary to live fruitful, productive, enriched lives (the one real hurdle left is energy self- sufficiency), the system will finally be able to balance itself.

The fact that more and more startups are learning to self-govern is more reason to be optimistic that the social constructs that rule our worlds today are going to be a thing of the past. Hopefully sooner than later.

<comment><USER18> Living off the land in a small unit is an incredibly inefficient way to produce value.

<comment><USER17> I wouldn't advocate the use of antiquated technologies to accomplish this. The idea here is currency-free communities who live just as efficiently as currency-rich communities. But you have to start somewhere. What are the tools you need to build in order to build the tools to build the tools that build the tools, etc. that you need in order to live as efficiently as we do today.

Sure it wouldn't be as easy for many, but imagine a line below which folks who live in a currency-dependent economy would actually be better off to leave it. As more and more people fall below that line, the alternative way of life becomes more viable to sustain itself.

The thing that the wealthiest folks don't seem to realize is it's in their best interest to ensure the little guy has money. When a significant percentage of the population loses incentive to accumulate wealth you lose value on a global scale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Resource allocation bug detected. Reboot capitalism? Y/N

</comment><comment><USER20> From the comments:

"The focus and concern shouldn't be how much the top 1% are making, it should be how much the 99% are making, especially the bottom 50%. I dont really care how much money Bill Gates and Donald Trump are making. Their income has absolutely no effect at all on my income, what I'm most concerned about is how much money I'm making.

The economy is not a zero sum game, where if the rich make a trillion more it comes out of the pockets of the workers. This notion is childish and wrong. Trade only happens if its mutually beneficial for BOTH parties, this applies to workers trading their time for money. The chart above shows corporate profits going through the roof but at the same time labour income is INCREASING.

The first chart shows labour income increasing over 1000% in forty years. It's not noted if these are nominal gains or inflation adjusted gains. Given the dip in 2009, I think these are real gains and represent real growing prospertity for workers. Maybe a 1000% increase isnt enough but the chart clearly shows workers income is rising.

There are not alot of TVs, computers and cell phones being assembled in the US but this is a good thing. Cheap foreign labour for all Amercians to have these goods. If flat screen TVs were assembled by UAW workers in the US TVs would cost $2000 and far fewer people would have them.

Having a million in cash on desert island is useless. You'd rather have a clean drinking water rather than small pieces of green paper - it doesnt even burn very well. Money isnt valuable in its self, money is valued for the stuff it can buy. Prosperity isnt just how much money you make, it's how much stuff you can purchase. $10/hr in the US is a struggle, $10/hr in India is quite comfortable.

Maybe 1000% increase in labour income isnt enough but cheap foreign labour and global trade have amplified that increase. Advances in technology and product quality have benefited the middle class more than the rich. The rich could always afford quality and latest gizmos. Now nearly every one can afford them."

<comment><USER21> The economy is also not a theoretical abstraction. Wealth disparity has rippling effects throughout society. If it's Pareto efficient that the super rich make 10x more and ordinary people make 1% more, it can still be sociologically undesirable.

What you see is an economy replete with goods and services, but by and large one in which the people getting rich neither make, consume, nor develop the technology to make those goods. It takes a special sort to see all the gains in wealth go to the investor and manager class and argue that this is the proper order of things.

<comment><USER22> "It takes a special sort to see all the gains in wealth go to the investor and manager class and argue that this is the proper order of things."

I don't think anyone sees it as the proper order of things. For one thing, only central planners even think in those terms. For another, there is no obvious policy that will have a better overall result in a large country like the US -- remember, every policy has unintended consequences and doesn't always turn out like you plan.

<comment><USER21> I think when you ask everyone to get together to institute a society to create an environment in which business can exist, then reject the idea that it matters how the production of that society is distributed, that's a special sort of person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Karl Marx said the process of value creation is thus: a carpenter goes into a woodshop and bangs on wood for eight hours a day. The raw materials (wood, nails) plus partially used and worn down materials (saw blade etc.) are transformed into tables, which are worth more than the materials used. $2000 worth of material becomes worth $2160 in eight hours. In eight hours $160 of value is created.

The carpenter keeps all the wealth he creates for the first six hours of work - all $160 worth. The last two hours he keeps none of the wealth he creates - it goes to the woodshop owner who rents the woodshop, owns the mechanical saws etc.

This is how business works. It is obvious. Of course there are caveats, which Marx spends thousands of pages covering - only a fool would reply to this saying my summation of thousands of pages in a short HN comment missed one of those caveats.

It is also obvious how in a system like this, the owners are making money while the workers are stagnant or doing worse. And the method owners have of doing this is obvious - either have the worker work more hours for free per day, or try to somehow increase the amount of wealth that is created every hour. Obviously both methods are used.

</comment><comment><USER24> Printing money is more profitable than honest work for a living.</comment>


This is how you leave a company - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/9cfe62fe0ba1348aa670

<comment><USER2> Did he receive his PTO? Inquiring minds want to know.</comment>


Your Very First Microprocessor - <AUTHOR> http://gibiansky.com/2012/12/your-very-first-microprocessor.html

<comment><USER2> Didn't expect to see Verilog on the front page of HN.

1 nit pick, I think wherever you use a wire assignment you need the assign keyword. e.g

      wire [1:0] command = mem_out[7:6];
      wire [2:0] destination_addr = mem_out[6:3];
      wire [2:0] source_addr = mem_out[2:0];

should be

      assign wire [1:0] command = mem_out[7:6];
      assign wire [2:0] destination_addr = mem_out[6:3];
      assign wire [2:0] source_addr = mem_out[2:0];

Or maybe it's wire assign. I usually first declare the wire in a single statement then use assign on a new line.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could this be dependent on the Verilog version? At the very least, the wire assignments without the 'assign' keyword seem to work in the iverilog simulator as well as Altera's Quartus suite synthesis tools. I have seen both conventions (wire declaration and assignment separately or together), but I believe the assign keyword is only required for the former.

<comment><AUTHOR> For future reference (since I can't edit): I spent a while researching and couldn't find any definitive answer, but found some places which supported the implicit assignment ([0], [1]). However, these aren't anything official, so I think ultimately it just depends on what your particular implementation supports...

[0] <http://www.verilogtutorial.info/chapter_2.htm> [1] [http://www.doulos.com/knowhow/verilog_designers_guide/wire_a...](http://www.doulos.com/knowhow/verilog_designers_guide/wire_assignments/)

<comment><USER2> You're right. I just tested it in Xilinx ISE 13.4 and it seemed to work without using any assign as both a single wire and a bus. I just recall seeing an error message at some point in the past which was about something similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hi Andrew, great overview looking at the foundations of programmable logic. I recognize the look of the schematics from CircuitLab! Noticed that you went out of your way to take screenshots -- is there something we can do to make it easier to use our image export, or alternatively some sort of embeddable widget like you use for the Verilog gists?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Mike! Cool to see circuitlab developer(s?) on HN! It's an awesome tool.

When writing these blog posts, I usually create a single circuit with a bunch of disparate parts - I don't need the circuit to be functional for any simulation purposes, I just need the diagrams and rendering. Part of the reason that I only use a single circuit is that I need to copy and paste different parts, and I'm not sure if copying/pasting between different circuits is possible. Also, copy/paste rather often dies on me, especially when selecting multiple components, which makes workflow a bit more complicated. (This happens to me rather often and is really annoying, because the only way to fix it is to close the tab and restart. Symptoms after breakage include inability to copy/paste or move any circuit elements around. If there's any way to submit debug logs for when this happens, feel free to let me know and I'll be sure to try next time it happens. You have my email.)

Exporting via the export tool produces a single PNG file for the entire circuit, where I often need just a bit of the entire diagram. Screenshots let me select a small portion of the circuit.

I'm not entirely sure how this could be fixed. If there were gist-like embeddable widgets, I think the convenience of those would outweigh the disadvantages of a slightly different workflow. Circuit "gists" would be awesome. Another thing that would be great is if I could select a bunch of elements on a circuit, click on some button, and have a new circuit created with only those elements in it. (Note that I'm just brainstorming what would help _me_ specifically, so I don't know how all this might fit into your product.)

Anyway, CircuitLab is awesome! Thanks for making it.

<comment><USER3> Excellent -- we've been thinking about this a lot on our end, and we'll be in touch via e-mail. Copy/paste between browser tabs/windows does work (uses HTML5 localStorage), but it sounds like you might be having a different issue and we'll follow up. Thanks!

<comment><USER4> Hey, another user here that would love to be able to just export parts of the circuit. I usually just use circuitlab for the rendering because SPICE is ugly and bloated and when in need of good looking schematics for reports circuitlab is great.

Maybe have a tool that allows you to select just a part of the schematic like some print screen tools have when you just want to save a part of the screen, and export just that. I never experienced the crashes that the other poster talks about though.

Thanks for a great product by the way!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A good resource on this same subject is the book 'Code' by Charles Petzold. It is also a bottom up approach to understanding computers.

</comment><comment><USER6> A very good introduction to how a computer works from the inside, but you need to know the syntax of Verilog to really understand the code you wrote, any way it gives a general feel to people outside the VHDL domain, like me who is a systems integrator and designer I work at a 30,000 feet view on assembly upto C, C++, PHP and DotNet.

</comment><comment><USER7> My first processor was a Z80! :)

<comment><USER8> I did z80 on TRS-80 Model 1's and 6809 on the TRS-80 Color Computer.

They were not very complicated machines and thus made it easier to create assembly language programs that actually did stuff you could observe quickly. I think the fast feedback loop between coding in assembly and having observable results (i.e. graphics etc.) made for a nice learning platform.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Color_Computer> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80#The_Model_I>

I think today's processors are very cool but trying to teach someone assembly on a monster like the modern processors and having to do all sorts of things to try and flip a single bit on the screen via GPU's etc. makes for a rough learning experience. I notice very few college programs are doing low level courses and I think it impacts the students in very subtle but real ways that creep into code because of their lack of the low-level details of how computers work.</comment></comment>