Ask HN: Coming out of a long bout of depression, need some life advice.  - <AUTHOR>

I've always had an interest in computers, but studied Sociology in university. I finished my degree during the summer of 08--right before the recession hit my area very hard. Then I took up a lot of random writing and entry level programming freelance gigs to make the rent (kind of a digital blue-collar worker).
Since then, I've been going through a very long period of anxiety and depression (long family history), sometimes very severe. After a lot of counseling, some medication, and getting my shit together (exercise, diet, etc), I feel like I've finally gotten better.
I feel like I'm transitioning into a new period of life. Work feels so much easier to do. But, I can't help but feel guilty. A lot of years feel like they've been wasted and some pretty bad mistakes were made when I first started freelancing.
Needless to say, I'm going to continue to pursue programming and eventually entrepreneurship.
Any words of advice would be greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> I recommend meditation. You can either find a group in your area (which is also great for making friends) or read books by Pema Chodron or others.

Meditation is, in my experience, a great way to deal with guilt. (And I say this having dealt with guilt a lot.) You don't try to fight the guilt, or deny anything. You just experience it briefly if it comes, and then return your focus to your breathing.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm in the early stages of starting mindfulness meditation. Would you recommend one form of meditation over another for dealing with guilt?

<comment><USER3> You may want to choose according to the groups in your area. For example, here in the bay area I'm familiar with San Francisco Zen Center, and Spirit Rock which is up in Marin county but has teachers all over the bay area.

It helped me a lot to have a group to sit with weekly. How you feel about the group is a pretty good way to choose.

The individual schools are really pretty similar. Tricycle is a magazine that publishes articles from teachers from the three major schools of Buddhism. When you read it you realize the fundamentals are very much the same in each school.

Once you have studied for a while you will view guilt very differently. Through equanimity you can learn to see things as they really are without judging them. It's hard to explain through this iPhone keyboard, but I can assure you that it's about the best thing you can do to shift your perspective to become more compassionate towards yourself and others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It gets better. I know that may sound trite, but having been there and done that my life is much, much better than it was. In fact, I love my life.

Some things to know:

First, it's not your fault. Learn from the past and move on.

Know a good psychiatrist, someone who listens to you and can help you find the right drugs. There's no magic bullet and and you may have to try a few things to find what works best for you. I made a point of researching depression and brain chemistry, at least enough to get a sense of what was working for me and (possibly) why, and was able to bring suggestions for newer drugs for treatment to my doctor.

If you're on meds, the drugs that work may not always work, so be mindful that you may need to switch meds.

You may not have to take meds forever. But even if you do it's no worse than a diabetic needing insulin shots.

Some people like to stigmatize the mentally ill. They can go fuck themselves.

I pissed away a lot of time (long story) and would love to get it back, but that's not going to happen, so the next best thing is to make the most of what time is left.

While it sucks to have depression, we're the lucky ones; not everyone makes it. Be grateful, and make the most of what you have.

If you, or any other HN'er, wants to contact me about depression, my info is in my profile. It can help to talk to people, but it's hard for people to understand if they've not been through it themselves.

<comment><AUTHOR> > If you're on meds, the drugs that work may not always work, so be mindful > that you may need to switch meds.

Much like you did, I researched the hell out of this. And after a lot of reading I determined it would be best to take meds in combination with talk therapy (CBT in my case). Happily, this worked, and I'm no longer on anything other than the occasional Xanax.

> so the next best thing is to make the most of what time is left.

That is very true, and I forget about this fact when thinking about all that time that's been, as you say, pissed away.

Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have suffered from bipolar disorder for more than 10 years. I have been hospitalized once for 2 weeks. I felt like a complete failure. But as time went on things got better. Here is some advice. Don't make any big decisions while you are are feeling like shit. Be patient, it will get better. As time goes on the guilt will disappear. Last but certainly not least, never ever go off your medication no matter how good you feel. Hang in there, you will be fine. :-)

<comment><USER6> Along the lines of 'never ever go off your medication'...pay attention to what you eat and how it affects you. It took me a long time to connect that some foods (like sugar) can trigger depressive states and even longer to undo the habits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't dwell on what you might have done differently in the past. It's done; there's no changing it. In economic terms, it's a sunk cost[1].

What you can control is what you do today and in the future. That's where you should focus your energies.

[1] <http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/sunk-cost.html>

</comment><comment><USER8> It's great to hear that you've gotten better and want to pursue programming. A vital piece of advice I'd like to share is to Live Curious. Never stop learning. Keep trying new things. Connect with as many people as you can. Learn to cook. Get a bike. Visit random places. But most importantly, don't forget to have fun and make friends.

> _I've been going through a very long period of anxiety and depression... I > can't help but feel guilty._

Life is arduous. It can really get lonesome pretty quickly. But take my word for it, you have no reason to feel guilty. The time you think was "wasted" was actually spent morphing you into a better human being. Be proud of the fact that you were able to get over your depression. We are all here for you.

On a different note, I'd love to help you learn programming. Shoot me an email if you feel inclined to.

firstname.lastname@example.com

You could also look around for people looking for freelancers here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3783658>

<comment><USER9> Everything you say is good, including the last line about freelancers. But I wonder if the alternative of a steady job might also be worth considering, just to remove the stress of finding the next gig for a couple of years.

<comment><USER8> A steady job is a very good idea (depending on who you ask). I just didn't want to make the assumption that he has a large enough skill set for a regular programming job.

<comment><USER9> The cool thing is, he could back into a programming job. Intern, QA, semi- technical gopher, job got through a friend, whatever. He seems to have _some_ chops. If he's there for M months, and moves himself into a programming job for N months, he gets to say on his resume:

        JobCo
        M to N
        Role: Programmer, etc, etc

It's an option among options.

<comment><USER8> Indeed. That'd be incredible if he can manage that. Plus, he'll gain a lot experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hello,

The UK Office for National Statistics (a respected, trustworthy organisation) say that 1 in 4 people will suffer a mental health problem at some point during their lifetime. (This includes many very mild forms of illness.) They also say that 1 in 6 people will suffer a MH problem severe enough to need treatment.

Imagine for a moment that you had broken a limb. You'd wear a cast for a while. Maybe you'd need to use a crutch or a sling. And when the cast was removed you'd gently exercise to build up strength.

Would you feel guilty about that? Why?

You say that you feel like so many years have been wasted. Those years have not been wasted. You have learnt valuable things. You have learnt techniques to recognise and deal with stress. You have learnt the importance of good eating and sleeping. You are working. You now have a set of skills that other people don't have.

You say that you wasted some years. Well, so what? The only thing that affects is savings plans - compound interest is handy. But that's easy to fix. You just live frugally and pay more in now. Everything else is fine. People change their lives and do different things all the time.

Did you learn any Cognitive Behaviour Therapy techniques? Perhaps you could apply those to your feelings of guilt / anxiety?

But, importantly, congratulations on taking back control of your life. I very much hope that your recovery journey continues. Good Luck!!

</comment><comment><USER11> Read and understand about "Cognitive Distortions" - the methods we use to lie to ourselves. It has helped me significantly. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion>

I also suggest you enroll in an MBA program, even one class at a time, if necessary. Optimism is alive and in abundance in MBA programs, and it will infect you in a positive way. Plus, the skills gained will support practically everything you want to do for the rest of your life.

If an MBA program sounds suspicious to you, pick any issue of Harvard Business Review and read it cover to cover. The articles are "how to" for business situations, but in reality are describing how to accomplish goals at the edges of one's capabilities. That's infectious too.

And, of course, exercise 3-6 times a week, eat all your meals, eat healthy meals, get good sleep, and completely ignore recreational drugs, including alcohol. There's always time for that crap after you have some professional and financial security beneath you.

A book I really got inspired by: "How to be a Billionaire". [http://www.amazon.com/How-Billionaire-Proven-Strategies- Tita...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Billionaire-Proven-Strategies- Titans/dp/0471416177)

</comment><comment><USER12> hey thanks for posting this, I'm about to start wellbutrin this month myself</comment>


Finding Earth-like:the tale of how Kepler-452b was discovered-ROOM:SpaceJournal - <AUTHOR> http://room.eu.com/article/Finding_Earth_like_worlds_the_tale_of_how_Kepler_452b_was_discovered <comment><AUTHOR> You all heard about "Earth 2.0." Now read an exclusive behind-the-scenes feature on the most Earth-like exoplanet found so far - and what it means for future discoveries.

</comment><comment><USER2> This is so amazing! As I believe there is no doubt about life in a multitude of places in the Universe. I only hope I would live long enough to see any life form at all.

<comment><USER3> Are you sure you want to live so long? :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Right to say that "The Kepler mission has been a labour of love, and a fight against the odds, for more than 20 years."

</comment><comment><USER3> The quest to discover Earth's bigger, older cousin was a fight against the odds for the Kepler mission.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Earth 2.0." Perhaps this is our future ...

</comment><comment><USER6> By Kepler's own Jon Jenkins!

</comment><comment><USER7> Draw conclusions. Go further...</comment>


Inspiring Women Interview: Corrinne Yu (Lead Halo engine programmer) - <AUTHOR> http://www.kombo.com/article.php?artid=12174

<comment><USER2> _Diversity as a first class citizen is not merely about race or gender or creed. It is diversity of creativity and intellect and technological innovation. If we use only the same people and the same kind of people to create games , our technology and our games will stagnate._

I really like this message. I wish people would stop saying 'we need more women in blah,' then instead say something like this. We really don't need more of anyone just to make the demographics look nice. Lack of a group in a field is a problem because we might be missing out on more like her, and I hate to think that.

<comment><USER3> Somehow the process that is selecting computer programmers out of the general population disproportionately selects men. Unless you believe that the dearth of women in the field is driven by biology (and there the evidence is against you), it's pretty clear that women are being deterred from hacking by social factors. Saying "we need more women in CS" is equivalent to saying, let's stop driving half the talent out of our field.

<comment><USER4> You should add some evidence to your comments... I've seen no evidence women are driven away en masse from programming by anything other than their own wants and desires.

I hang out on IRC quite a lot, and if someone brings up the fact that they're a woman, most people are just 'meh'... it's irrelevant to how they're treated and the value they add to discussion etc. That's one of the great things about this industry - it really does not matter.

Girls and boys are very very different biologically, with extremely different strengths and weaknesses. Extremely different brains. Lets stop pretending they're the same.

<comment><USER3> The evidence, as I said, is actually against you. [http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Gender-Difference-in- Lear...](http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Gender-Difference-in-Learning- Math-113149.shtml)

<comment><USER5> What the paper you linked to actually proves:

 _girls' math scores are just as variable as boys' in some countries and some ethnic groups in the United States such as Asian Americans_

I could even grant you that this result transfers to all ethnicities, but still legitimately ask: so what? If yesterday's evidence of differing math scores didn't imply differing ability to you, then equal math scores today shouldn't imply equal ability either. Make up your mind, will ya. Till then I'll consider you to be cherrypicking evidence to support a feel-good conclusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Another inspiring woman programmer is Niniane formerly from Google and Microsoft.

<http://niniane.org/>

<http://www.ofb.net/~niniane/resume.html>

Brief snippets from her resume:

      Google:

       * Founder, Lively by Google

        o Created vision, got project chartered.

        o Built and led a team through technical design and implementation.

        o Co-inventor on 5 pending patents.

       * Tech lead, Gmail Ads

      Microsoft:

       * Software Design Engineer Lead, Microsoft Flight Simulator

Also featured in Google's recruiting campaign:

[http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/05/brilliant- niniane-w...](http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2006/05/brilliant-niniane- wang.html)

However, she left Google recently after 5 years:

<http://niniane.blogspot.com/2009/02/life-updates.html>

<comment><USER7> I appreciate the intention and downmodded you anyway. "Wow, I've heard of a woman programmer, too!" is stigmatizing, although I'm sure that wasn't intended.

I work in Japan, and am one of probably three white guys in my industry in the greater Nagoya area. (That is an exaggeration, but not much of one.) When I get introduced to someone in a professional context, almost without fail, I hear something to the effect of "Wow, you're American? I met an American once." _God_ does that get old.

Yes, I'm an American, but I'm not here in the wow-an-American context, I am here in the valued-professional-employed-by-the-firm-you-are-in-business-with context. I suppose the appropriate remark would be "Oh, a Big Freaking Enterprise Web Apps Java programmer -- I've met one of you before!". (Now, of course, nobody will say that because it is stupid and insipid... but the original was, too, with an extra soupcon of unintentionally insulting added to the mix.)

<comment><USER8> How is Japan to live in, btw? I have been told they are very closed to foreigners. Can you make friends despite your ethnicity?

<comment><USER7> 10 second version: _Some_ Japanese people dislike foreigners. (Please see my comments above about people being Ruby objects, because that is relevant here, too.) I have good friends, a nice church, and a decent job at a company which is happy to overwork me insanely no matter my skin color.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It should be pointed out that this is "Microsoft's Halo Team" which is not Bungie. Bungie is no longer a part of the company, but Microsoft still owns the IP rights to Halo.

Bungie is developing "Halo: ODST", to be released this year, as well "Halo: REACH" which is only at the teaser phase. Microsoft is developing their own game engine for their own Halo games.

</comment><comment><USER10> Here's her Moby Games page: [http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,68...](http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,68790/)

It seems like she's recently transferred from Gearbox to Microsoft, since she references both Borderlands and Aliens: Colonial Marines.

I guess she's working on Halo: Reach

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd hit it!</comment>


Discover Hot Topics To Write About - <AUTHOR> http://www.doitwithwordpress.com/discover-hot-topics-to-write-about/

<comment><USER2> How about rather than writing about hot topics, make something a hot topic by writing about it?

</comment><comment><USER3> How about actually _doing stuff_ \- you know, building things? hacking?</comment>


Reform Government Surveillance - <AUTHOR> http://reformgovernmentsurveillance.com/ <comment><USER2> Among other things, this is the tipping point for how Snowden will be viewed.

If all these powerful companies agree, in an unprecedented show of unanimity, that this is an important problem, then Snowden is ipso facto a hero for bringing it to our attention.

The curious thing is, I feel the linkage works in the other direction too. If Snowden had been caught and was now having his brains scrambled by solitary confinement in some secret prison, these companies would have been at least slightly more reluctant to issue such a statement, because it would have seemed to be espousing the cause of someone people were hearing described on the news as a criminal.

Snowden made his disclosures much more effective by escaping.

<comment><USER3> There is nothing more reviled by people who were born during the cold war than a criminal who defects first to china and then to russia. No amount of tech industry pr can facilitate a comeback from that. Almost half of the people in this country will always see Snowden as a traitor.

Government surveillance has become a political wedge issue, similar to abortion. No one likes it or encourages it but people have strong emotions on both sides. Snowden is deserving of credit, he may have helped to spark another enduring and polarizing american social debate. It's unfortunate that he won't be around for the resulting legal process.

It's worth noting that the modern surveillance state didn't begin when Edward Snowden stepped in front of a camera for the first time. Where were these responsible tech giants five or ten years ago? When everyone in the country was flipping the heck out over 9/11, some of these companies went along with the crowd and gave the government access to everything. Their points are very valid, more government transparency and accountability is always good. But courage is about doing the thing when it's hard, not when it's easy. It's good to see movement in the right direction but it would have been nice if things had gotten to this point sooner. Then maybe Snowden would still be sleeping in his own bed.

<comment><USER4> > _There is nothing more reviled by people who were born during the cold war > than a criminal who defects first to china and then to russia._

I was born during the Cold War and I don't see it that way. In fact, I think you have it precisely backwards.

I remember being alive when the USSR and East Germany were going concerns, and those countries seemed so horrible -- the USA really was on what any sane person (by my definition) would describe as the _right_ side of that struggle.

Living under constant surveillance, scared to speak out even in private, corruption and bad pretense in place of the rule of law? Those things were horrible, and living under such a regime sounded unimaginably awful.

Fast forward some decades and here comes Snowden. That shit really _resonated_ with me and virtually all friends of my age (39).

America is _becoming_ that kind of place. Most of us had a creepy feeling that was happening after the G. W. Bush debacle, but Snowden _proved_ it.

It's the _same fucking fight_ , man: the fight for _freedom_. The fight for _human rights_ and a _non-dystopian future for our children_.

The Cold War resonates, but in exactly the opposite of what you describe. We've got all that shit now: hyper-surveillance, secret and therefore meaningless 'laws', kidnapping, torture, America has fucking _gulags_ now. The difference between us and East Germany is now mainly a matter of scale. But as Snowden showed, we were scaling up pretty fucking fast.

Snowden blew the lid off of it, he exposed the massive scale of it, and then he was literally _running for his fucking life_ like some kind of Jason Bourne figure. He had a massive, ruthless security apparatus chasing him, willing do who knows what, and if they caught him it meant he was going to be _tortured in solitary confinement for the rest of his life_ like Bradley Manning.

Nobody in their right mind would begrudge him from going any fucking place he had to in order to escape that.

And to my Cold War-shaped mind, it is impossible to think of him as anything other than a whistleblower that this country badly, badly needed.

<comment><USER5> I am 39 also, and I have also been following "Conspiracy Theory" topics since the late 80s. I have been aware of, and decrying, this sort of thing for two solid decades now.

The GP's question is predicated on the assumption that people have not been paying attention to the creep toward tyranny that these programs have brought for years... but the fact is that not only have people been paying attention; there has been a decades long effort to shield mainstream awareness of this. Media has been more than just complicit in MISO (PSyOP) activities to marginalize anyone who has been discussing these topics.

Christ, Hollywood has been out-right guilty of running PR for the MIC bastards for 30 years now.

There is a very clear crew responsible for this as well.

The CIA built by GHW Bush and his cabal of war/drug profiteers.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDFHd5eEzw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDFHd5eEzw)

You owe it to yourself to watch that 39 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is getting ridiculous. The ad empires built on stalking every single breath of every single human want to take governments to task on the topic of stalking. What about cleaning up your own house first?

1\. Limiting Corporations' Authority to Collect Users' Information

Corporations should codify sensible limitations on their ability to collect and disclose user data that balance their need for the data in limited circumstances, users' reasonable privacy interests, and the impact on trust in the Internet. In addition, corporations should limit surveillance to specific, known users for lawful purposes, and should not undertake bulk data collection of Internet communications.

2 Oversight and Accountability

Corporations seeking to collect or compel the production of information should do so under a clear legal framework in which corporations are subject to strong checks and balances. Reviewing courts should be independent and include an adversarial process, and corporations should allow important rulings of law to be made public in a timely manner so that the courts are accountable to an informed citizenry.

3 Transparency About Corporations collecting practices

Transparency is essential to a debate over corporations' surveillance powers and the scope of programs that are administered under those powers. Corporations should publish the number and nature of collected user information.

4 Respecting the Free Flow of Information

The ability of data to flow or be accessed across borders is essential to a robust 21st century global economy. Corporations should not collect user information in other countries with the intent of circumventing the local laws that limit user data collection.

<comment><USER7> On Internet you have the choice of which service to use, that's the key difference. You don't want Google ? Use DuckDuckGo. You don't want Microsoft ? Use Linux systems. And so on.

The issue with the government is that you are tracked by default, on your mobile phone and on your online activity. You cannot _opt out_.

<comment><USER8> You have very little choice to avoid Google Analytics (or one of a handful of other major analytics companies). Almost every site on the internet uses it. None of them reveal in an obvious way if they do, or give you any choice (or they just pop up a generic "we use cookies, if you continue using this site you agree").

Or beyond that, there's all the sharing buttons, Google Web Fonts, hosted JavaScript libraries, and the like. If I wanted to prevent Google from being able to track me at all, I would have to avoid the vast majority of the web.

You can apply more and more extensions and filter rules to block this sort of thing. I have a variety enabled; they make it a quite a pain to surf the web, as they wind up breaking a variety of sites by blocking a little too much, and I have to sit there and selectively disable them until I find what allows the site to work.

So, effectively, you cannot opt out of corporate tracking either. If you want to, just like avoiding government surveillance, your best bet is to just disconnect from the net entirely.

<comment><USER9> >You have very little choice to avoid Google Analytics.

[https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout](https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout) Its been around for a looooong time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Regardless of your opinion on the leaks, this marks something really interesting in the course of history.

Communications is one of the few services that governments co-opt indirectly. Lockheed Martin knows it's building war jets. But here, the signatories didn't set out to build government surveillance engines, it was required of them after it became clear how useful they could be. Their response could set the tone for future actions in years to come.

It's interesting that other communications groups (e.g. cellphone co's) have not reacted in the same way, Qwest aside. You don't have to believe that each CEO is doing this on principle if you're cynically inclined, but it seems clear at least that many of their employees are in favor of it. I'm curious if it's a internet/tech/silicon valley thing, or something else.

<comment><USER11> It's pretty clear why companies like Verizon and AT&T will never stand up and put their names on a list like this.

Verizon and AT&T are a government regulated duopoly, and they love the protection racket that keeps competition out. They're one step away from being state enterprises.

Those closest to being utilities are the last entities that will want to push back against the government (eg Level3). They're the most dependent on government mood swings. These types of companies often require government permission for every action they take in terms of expanding their business.

<comment><USER12> > Verizon and AT&T are a government regulated duopoly, and they love the > protection racket that keeps competition out.

Verizon and AT&T are government regulated, and they are a duopoly, but its not regulation that keeps competition out. The natural state of communications networks are to converge on a state of monopoly. There is infinite economics of scale in telecom, and a "winner takes all" return on capital investment. Government regulation is the only thing keeping the industry from consolidating to one carrier even faster than it's already doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It seems peculiar that Apple is a signatory:

> Sincerely,

> AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo

and their logo appears in the listing @ the end of the page, but their logo isn't in the beginning of the page, and they don't provide a quote from their CEO nor legal counsel, per the other signing companies.

Last-minute change of heart, lukewarm support...?

<comment><USER11> I was hoping to see Amazon.com signed on to this as well, given their substantial position in cloud computing, and their likely future influence being even greater.

<comment><USER14> The fact that the CIA is one of their largest AWS customer might be playing a role. [http://www.forbes.com/sites/benkepes/2013/10/29/ibm- capitula...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/benkepes/2013/10/29/ibm-capitulates- amazon-gains-cia-contract/)

<comment><USER11> Yeah that's a suspicion on my part as well. Same reason we'll never see Oracle on a list like this. In the recent interview with Charlie Rose, Ellison wouldn't even remotely come close to challenging what the NSA was doing (he also pulled a cheap dodge by saying the great thing about living in a democracy is the people can do something about it if they want to).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Honestly this makes me a little upset. While I am happy that these corporations are taking a stand against surveillance, I am not convinced of their intentions:

* This summer's hailstorm was about NSA but also about _them_. This site obviously ignores this and shows these corps as innocent victims, which they are not.

* It's clearly too little! "Governments should reform themselves". How should they do that? There are absolutely _no proposals on how to fix this_ on this site.

* It's clearly too late. This should have happened _before_ Snoweden, not six months after.

This is just "let's go back to normal" propaganda, "damage control" PR. Nothing will change because of this.

<comment><USER16> They quote Zuckerberg on that site: "Reports about government surveillance have shown there is a real need for greater disclosure and new limits on how governments collect information."

So what about limits on how businesses collect information?

<comment><USER17> There is a huge difference between companies collecting data on their customers and a govt collecting on their entire population...

<comment><USER18> There is a smaller difference when it's a business collecting data on the entire population.

<comment><USER19> Businesses cannot lock people in prison or send teams of soldiers in to arrest people. Businesses cannot (legally) send people or robots to assassinate others. I think there is a very big difference between businesses collecting information and governments collecting information -- because governments can do substantially more damage.

(Full disclosure: I currently work for one of the companies on the list.)

<comment><USER20> The counter argument is (1) private companies can provide this information to whomevere they choose...including the government or a subset therof; and (2) once it is amassed, the government can compel access via the courts quite easliy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I find it interesting how the concept of countries and nationalities seems to becoming less important. Now (as opposed to a hundred years ago) we communicate with people in foreign countries on a daily basis - even countries whose governments have hostile relationships with.

This is definitely a CYA (cover your ass) maneuver designed to mitigate the political hit these companies are taking. At the same time, these companies are acting like countries. They've formed an alliance and they're attempting to make a treaty with the governments that they happen to fall into. It will be interesting to watch the societal change as the importance of countries and nationalities decreases over the next hundred years.

<comment><USER22> I agree, virtual worlds, offshore workers, telepresence and many other new technologies are creating a new global culture that is already beginning to clash with the concepts of countries and governments.

Perhaps a starting point may be the rise of global political parties that can work together across multiple countries?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> _Reform_ government surveillance, huh? So we just need _better_ government surveillance then? With _checks and balances_ and all, but how well have those worked in the past?

Did Bradley Manning get his "due process"? No? _" -But.. but.. checks.. and balances!"_.. Who checks the checkers and balances the balancers?

If you put Stalin in power and tell him to make sure he _himself_ behaves well, what can you expect to happen? What about politicians in a democracy? Will/can they watch their peers, or is it more likely they'll just collude in corruption?

<comment><USER24> > Who checks the checkers and balances the balancers?

The Appeals Courts, the Supreme Court, the executive (can pardon), and the people's ability to riot in the streets until we get our way. We certainly aren't hopeless, we just have to try a little harder.

<comment><USER23> >> The Appeals Courts, the Supreme Court, the executive (can pardon)

So basically you're saying the watchers watch themselves? But this is exactly the problem I was pointing out. It's just not going to work, ever, and the US is excellent proof of that. Started with a minimal government and a strong constitution, but then.. an Empire happened.

>> We certainly aren't hopeless, we just have to try a little harder.

Not through political means though. Writing to your representatives doesn't work all that well either. Neither does voting.

<comment><USER24> > So basically you're saying the watchers watch themselves?

No, because judges don't hear appeals to their decisions. Of course if you think the entire system is broken, then there's not much I can do to convince you.

<comment><USER23> The system is working fine, it's just not to _our_ benefit.

<comment><USER24> But it _does_ work to our benefit. Sure, innocent people are mistakenly jailed (and even executed), which is a travesty beyond words. But overall the system works, and throwing your hands up in defeat instead of trying to influence the system is certainly unhelpful. You won't start a revolution by kvetching in online comments, maybe you should try writing some letters sometime. They really do read them, and respond to them.

<comment><USER23> >> But it _does_ work to our benefit.

No it doesn't. It works to the benefit of the ruling class, which, coincidentally, is the group of people who set the system up in the first place, and still control it today. Sure, its members come and go, but the power structure stays in place.

>> Sure, innocent people are mistakenly jailed

Mistakenly? -Rarely, if ever. Most of the time they know exactly what they're doing.

>> But overall the system works, and throwing your hands up in _defeat_

What defeat? I thought you just said the system "works"? -Where's the defeat if it's working properly and thus, everything is fine?

>> instead of trying to influence the system is certainly unhelpful. You won't start a revolution by kvetching in online comments, maybe you should try writing some letters sometime. They really do read them, and respond to them

Wow, you're so naive. Check out the other reply to my comment above, where someone said he's figured that it doesn't work. When Obama or whoever gets elected through receiving and using millions/billions of dollars of campaign contributions (ie. "bribes"), who exactly do you think he _represents_?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is a good start. Hopefully some telecom and ISP companies sign-up. They've been exceptionally quiet regarding recent leaks despite being a greater threat to privacy than most of these consumer web services.

</comment><comment><USER26> > we are focused on keeping user's data secure

ARGH! Close to a trillion dollars of net corporate value, and they can't afford a decent grammarian when they write an open letter to the President?!

(Hint: It should be "users'".)

<comment><AUTHOR> Good catch! I passed your comment on to Google's liaison to R.G.S., and she's working to get it fixed.

Let's see how long it takes from here. :)

<comment><USER26> Great!

While we're at it, though:

\- The clause "deploying the latest encryption technology" should actually be prefaced by "by", to balance the "by pushing back..."

\- "We urge the US" could be made stronger by actually spelling out the full name: "We urge the United States..."

Nice site, otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is an extremely talented commercial suggestion: On one side, as a European, I would NOT support it; and on the other, it looks like a very, very legitimate bill ("why would anyone oppose!?"). Good job for the PR people behind that move! Here's why:

* It says "Governments" (plural). That means because US security agencies have thoroughly breached the borders of acceptable privacy, now all governments should diminish their control. I'm aware Eu agencies do the same, but they don't build as big datacenters as the NSA does. By not having the same budgets, Eu agencies don't overreach as much as the NSA does.

* As a European, the best protection I see against all-spying programs is to have competitive European web services. For example I would support a Eu decision to require a European email address for communication with governments, or similar rules designed to make sure Europeans communicate through safe channels with their governments. It is also EU's role to make sure we have enough competitors so that citizens can use local providers (competitors to Fb, etc) to store their data in Europe, if those consumers trust European spying agencies. As a desired side effect, it is a way to grow our economy.

The Reform Government Surveillance would prevent us from passing reforms to locate European citizen data in Europe. Therefore, it's a very talented move from those 7 companies, and comes right at the right time.

</comment><comment><USER28> How about instead of asking the government to make this problem go away, as if it could, you offer products that thwart surveillance?

I'll write you a check to cover the value of those "One weird trick to lose belly fat" ads.

<comment> grey-area What makes you think government couldn't make this problem go away?

<comment><USER28> Several reasons: Although the US government sets the pace, it isn't the only government that is snooping. Secondly, many governments will always consider some level of spying legitimate.

Therefore it is up to technology and service providers to secure their customers against any and all snooping.

The idea that surveillance can be "reformed" is unworkable, unrealistic.

<comment> grey-area _The idea that surveillance can be "reformed" is unworkable, unrealistic._

I disagree and feel this is a dangerous abdication of responsibility. I wouldn't believe politicians' reassurances about any reform, but clearly budgets could be cut, and strict safeguards put in place. We should expect nothing less from our governments, while working to protect ourselves as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> A bit surprised by some of the errors on the site.

\- Tweet button doesn't have a link

\- G+ share button isn't working

\- Opengraph tags point to a missing image-url, so Facebook shares don't have an image associated.

I think maybe this hit HN before they were quite ready for launch - I'm guessing these'll be fixed pretty quickly.

Excellent move by the companies involved though. A lot of advocacy organizations have been pushing these companies to come out publicly meaningful surveillance law reform, and this is a great start.

<comment><USER30> The og: tags point to a misspelled hostname (reformgovernmentsurv _ie_ llance.com) -- but it now seems to redirect to the correct one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> So, the US' biggest data collectors are coming together to fight _government_ surveillance?

I'm not the only one thinking this is a tad hypocritical, am I? It just makes me think that somewhere, some powerful dude went "They are trying to cut in on _our_ action?!?" and decided not to accept projected financial losses by something as petty as a government.

But obviously, this might be the first voice governments actually listen to. Not because what they propose is the right thing to do, but because money.

Apparently _this_ is the best the system currently allows. Capitalism depresses me.

</comment><comment><USER32> A website is a good start, but a live press conference attended by all the CEOs and members of mainstream media would be far, far better.

For most people, if it doesn't happen on TV, it doesn't happen at all.

</comment><comment><USER33> I feel a bit uneasy that the undersigned are all PRISM companies. All 8 of them. They seem to stick together and not mix with outsiders.

Note that there's already a similar initiative launched by Mozilla called _Stop Watching Us_ [1]. None of the PRISM companies signed it.

Instead, they filed a petition (of little value, but with a big pomp) to allow for full FISA order statistics be published. Which was denied, incidentally.

[1] [https://stopwatching.us/](https://stopwatching.us/)

<comment><USER34> Not Twitter. Unless you have a source?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Is this officially supported by the companies listed on the page? I dont see references to/from the page to the official blogs/announcement.

<comment><USER36> Yes. The press release is here: [http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tech- company-coaliti...](http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tech-company- coalition-supports-global-surveillance-principles-calls-on-us-to-lead-reform- efforts-234997071.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Good god, they can't even get their open graph tags right. Tried to share this on facebook: [http://i.imgur.com/HDtqrcS.png](http://i.imgur.com/HDtqrcS.png)

<comment><USER38> The site just went live at 9:00 PM PST, so that's what FB had cached from the placeholder site beforehand. G+ had the same problem. Mostly this demonstrates a need to be able force a recrawl when generating the thumbnail.

<comment><USER37> They should have passed the url through Facebook's Open Graph Object Debugger to invalidate the cache before launching the site. FB 101...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This has to be the first article I've seen where they actually excluded Apple from the title

edit: Not sure why Apple is included at the bottom but seems to be the only company there that isn't listed in the top set of logos. Not sure if that has any significance or is an oversight or..

</comment><comment><USER40> "Reports about government surveillance have shown there is a real need for greater disclosure and new limits on how governments collect information. The US government should take this opportunity to lead this reform effort and make things right." —Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook

</comment><comment><USER41> Eventually the penny drops. If there's no trust in the internet, then these companies business model will be affected. Over time I can see this lobbying working to an extent in the US.

What I can't see happening is the other Five Eyes partners or their governments changing. The UK political classes in the main appear bullishly, unrepentant, aggressive towards descent and hawkishly pursuing dissidents including newspaper editors.

</comment><comment><USER42> Hmm, only seeing a "default parallels" page: [http://i.imgur.com/bUzBKn0.png](http://i.imgur.com/bUzBKn0.png)

(midnight PST)

<comment><USER43> Indeed. The website previously contained this:

:Reform Government Surveillance

:Global Government Surveillance Reform

The undersigned companies believe that it is time for the world's governments to address the practices and laws regulating government surveillance of individuals and access to their information.

While the undersigned companies understand that governments need to take action to protect their citizens' safety and security, we strongly believe that current laws and practices need to be reformed.

Consistent with established global norms of free expression and privacy and with the goals of ensuring that government law enforcement and intelligence efforts are rule-bound, narrowly tailored, transparent, and subject to oversight, we hereby call on governments to endorse the following principles and enact reforms that would put these principles into action.

:The Principles

:1 Limiting Governments' Authority to Collect Users' Information

Governments should codify sensible limitations on their ability to compel service providers to disclose user data that balance their need for the data in limited circumstances, users' reasonable privacy interests, and the impact on trust in the Internet. In addition, governments should limit surveillance to specific, known users for lawful purposes, and should not undertake bulk data collection of Internet communications.

:2 Oversight and Accountability

Intelligence agencies seeking to collect or compel the production of information should do so under a clear legal framework in which executive powers are subject to strong checks and balances. Reviewing courts should be independent and include an adversarial process, and governments should allow important rulings of law to be made public in a timely manner so that the courts are accountable to an informed citizenry.

:3 Transparency About Government Demands

Transparency is essential to a debate over governments' surveillance powers and the scope of programs that are administered under those powers. Governments should allow companies to publish the number and nature of government demands for user information. In addition, governments should also promptly disclose this data publicly.

:4 Respecting the Free Flow of Information

The ability of data to flow or be accessed across borders is essential to a robust 21st century global economy. Governments should permit the transfer of data and should not inhibit access by companies or individuals to lawfully available information that is stored outside of the country. Governments should not require service providers to locate infrastructure within a country's borders or operate locally.

:5 Avoiding Conflicts Among Governments

In order to avoid conflicting laws, there should be a robust, principled, and transparent framework to govern lawful requests for data across jurisdictions, such as improved mutual legal assistance treaty — or "MLAT" — processes. Where the laws of one jurisdiction conflict with the laws of another, it is incumbent upon governments to work together to resolve the conflict.

:Voices For Reform

"AOL is committed to preserving the privacy of our customers' information, while respecting the right of governments to request information on specific users for lawful purposes. AOL is proud to unite with other leading Internet companies to advocate on behalf of our consumers." —Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO, AOL

"Reports about government surveillance have shown there is a real need for greater disclosure and new limits on how governments collect information. The US government should take this opportunity to lead this reform effort and make things right." —Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Facebook

"The security of users' data is critical, which is why we've invested so much in encryption and fight for transparency around government requests for information. This is undermined by the apparent wholesale collection of data, in secret and without independent oversight, by many governments around the world. It's time for reform and we urge the US government to lead the way." —Larry Page, CEO, Google

"These principles embody LinkedIn's fundamental commitment to transparency and ensuring appropriate government practices that are respectful of our members' expectations." —Erika Rottenberg, General Counsel, LinkedIn [when LinkedIn criticizes your privacy policy you know something's wrong]

"People won't use technology they don't trust. Governments have put this trust at risk, and governments need to help restore it." —Brad Smith, General Counsel and Executive Vice President, Legal and Corporate Affairs, Microsoft

"Twitter is committed to defending and protecting the voice of our users. Unchecked, undisclosed government surveillance inhibits the free flow of information and restricts their voice. The principles we advance today would reform the current system to appropriately balance the needs of security and privacy while safeguarding the essential human right of free expression." —Dick Costolo, CEO, Twitter

"Protecting the privacy of our users is incredibly important to Yahoo. Recent revelations about government surveillance activities have shaken the trust of our users, and it is time for the United States government to act to restore the confidence of citizens around the world. Today we join our colleagues in the tech industry calling on the United States Congress to change surveillance laws in order to ensure transparency and accountability for government actions." —Marissa Mayer, CEO, Yahoo

:An open letter to Washington

Dear Mr. President and Members of Congress,

We understand that governments have a duty to protect their citizens. But this summer's revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide. The balance in many countries has tipped too far in favor of the state and away from the rights of the individual — rights that are enshrined in our Constitution. This undermines the freedoms we all cherish. It's time for a change.

For our part, we are focused on keeping user's data secure — deploying the latest encryption technology to prevent unauthorized surveillance on our networks and by pushing back on government requests to ensure that they are legal and reasonable in scope.

We urge the US to take the lead and make reforms that ensure that government surveillance efforts are clearly restricted by law, proportionate to the risks, transparent and subject to independent oversight. To see the full set of principles we support, visit ReformGovernmentSurveillance.com

Sincerely,

AOL, Apple, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, Yahoo

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Any idea why Mozilla is not in that list ? Is it because it's all from for- profit organizations this time ?

<comment><USER44> My personal guess is that this is an initiative from companies that have provided significant streams of information to the NSA.

It's my understanding that Mozilla doesn't have significant "skin in the game" compared to the services these companies are providing.

Again my opinion, not speaking for Mozilla officially.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> These companies want to limit the amount of data the government can collect on me. That's wonderful. While we're at it, can the government limit the amount of data these companies can collect on me?

</comment><comment><USER46> Statement from Microsoft: [http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2...](http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2013/12/08/reforming- government-surveillance.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER47> In order to reform government surveillance, we also need to reform commercial surveillance.

</comment><comment><USER48> I knew making corporations _hurt_ over their cooperation with NSA willingly or unwillingly (by not having proper security) is going to play a major part in turning this around, although it's still early days, so I'm cautiously optimistic right now, but also very skeptical at the same time, because I'm not going to believe the first time the government says "That's it everyone - we reformed the NSA. You can all relax now". It's going to take serious reforms and transparency to make me believe it's truly "over".

</comment><comment> yc-kjh Laws don't need to be reformed. The Constitution needs to be enforced.

</comment><comment><USER49> As the repercussions of what Snowden helped uncover become more public I hope people gain a better understanding of the man himself and his motivations. Try as I might, I can't find any word other than "hero" to describe him.

I imagine him at work and subject to a constant stream of information showing what our own government is doing to us. I imagine him repeatedly thinking this is wrong. And I imagine him looking deep inside his sole to decide whether his convictions and belief system required him to act or not. Of course, that decision had to come with the full understanding that he would be at the receiving end of the full wrath of the US intelligence, law enforcement and military machinery. At best he'd have to live on the run his entire life. At worst he'd end-up dead or in a dark cell, completely disconnected from humanity.

With that reality in front of him this man decided he needed to stand up for those of us who could not. He decided to, effectively, sacrifice his life in order to attempt to right a massive wrong being perpetrated on the people of the US and the world. That's right up there with a fireman running into a burning building or a soldier taking a bullet to protect your way of life.

This man is a hero. I hope this administration or the next comes to realize how much of a patriot a man has to be in order to risk it all to protect others. With that realization the only thing that remains is to bring the man home with open arms and have him be a big part of making things right for all of us.

That's what needs to happen next.

</comment><comment><USER50> Let's cut to the chase: surveillance is a symptom of a larger root issue. These major companies aren't attacking the government surveillance problem out of concern of their users, my guess is that they are getting ready to make a data power-play against the government.

So essentially, the privacy concerns of people are being used as a ball between players, but the people are still going to get kicked around.

Until we address the almost complete corruption of the institutional structures that we consider to be foundational of this country... well, I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm pretty sure it won't be pretty for the serfs ahem I mean citizens.

The checks and balances system is almost non-existent. The executive has power over the other two branches, and the supra-national corporations have power over all three. The justice system is a farce, the SCOTUS are likely compromised, and oversight of intelligence agencies is almost non-existent. Resource wars loom on the horizon, what I call the shadow players like Zbigniew Brzezinski are encouraging a return to the tripolar world, and all this as wealth disparity increases amazingly fast.

Surveillance is not about security, it's about control. The question no one is asking is, "Why?".

</comment><comment><USER51> And what would the net effect of these reforms be for individual users, even if governments actually kept their word? A five year reprieve until emailing the wrong person causes your mandatory insurance premiums to double? Centralized data silos are the root cause of broken privacy, and the goal of this lobbying is to make you ignore this glaring truth and perpetuate the extremely profitable mining-your-data industry.

</comment><comment><USER52> They need to NRA that thing up!

Get people to sign up and pledge their support, organize local chapters, organize, organize, organize.

Am I the only one missing here the call to action?

</comment><comment><USER53> > whois reformgovernmentsurveillance.com

Really, they bought the domain 5 days ago from GoDaddy?!

<comment><USER53> Whatever, I'm just glad they're doing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Point 4 (in particular, the part about allowing data transfer overseas) could be construed to mean letting big companies work around the privacy laws of one country by copying private data to another country with weaker privacy laws.

I think that sneaking points like this in weakens the effect of the whole thing.

</comment><comment><USER55> Why doesn't this web page mention Snowden at all? For example, the fact that he was right, and is a hero, and deserves to have all charges dropped?

Weren't all these people collaborating with authorities at the expense of our liberties -- and aren't they still?

</comment><comment><USER56> Anyone with definite proof it's real?

<comment><USER36> [http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/press/2013/dec13/12-08co...](http://www.microsoft.com/en- us/news/press/2013/dec13/12-08companycoalitionpr.aspx)

<comment><USER56> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Hm, I wonder why I see no Cisco and Amazon on logos, there. After all the money Cisco is loosing are they still reluctant to go against the USA gov, who knows what kind of contracts were made...

</comment><comment><USER58> You'd think Google, or any of the companies, would host such a thing themselves, rather than sub it out to Godaddy, using a PTR of the domain name relevant to the site -- and, especially in the spirit of things, a properly- configured SSL certificate that doesn't set off warnings, pointing where it ought to (like the IP's PTR), with HSTS and PFS in place and so forth.

What indication is there that this is not a hoax?

</comment><comment><USER59> This seems a bit toothless to me. I can't help but feel this is more about PR. There aren't any calls to action! Just a page of opinions.

</comment><comment><USER48> I don't know if these things make a difference or not, but there are 1/3 votes needed for ECPA reform, with 3 days to go:

[https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reform-ecpa- tell-g...](https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/reform-ecpa-tell- government-get-warrant/nq258dxk)

</comment><comment><USER60> I guess it's nice when companies are politically active on behalf of things that serve both my interests and theirs. But I wish the U.S. government was responsive to the demands of its actual citizens and not these private entities, whose views regarding _privacy law_ are so often antagonistic to my own.

</comment><comment><USER61> Anyone else seeing the "Default Parallels Plesk Panel Page" instead of the content? Google cache still works: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Arefor...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Areformgovernmentsurveillance.com)

</comment><comment><USER62> What a feeble attempt at reform.

In particular, the sentence copied below makes it sound like just another summer new story that will soon fade into insignificance:

"But this summer's revelations highlighted the urgent need to reform government surveillance practices worldwide"

</comment><comment><USER4> Mildly interesting (from a branding/style perspective) how Apple, and only Apple, chose not to feature their logo at the top, but to add it to the bottom where only people who read (or at least scrolled) the whole thing could see it.

</comment><comment><USER63> The website was taken down!!??

</comment><comment><USER64> It's a trap! WhoIS shows a private domain registration through GoDaddy, and the site now shows a Plesk default page. This was probably not the site for an official Silicon Valley Alliance.

<comment><USER65> The DNS has been changed to point to another server on the same network. The original is still running at [http://18.104.22.168/](http://184.108.40.206/) but the domain now points to [http://22.214.171.124/](http://184.108.40.206/) Strange [https://www.whatsmydns.net/#A/reformgovernmentsurveillance.c...](https://www.whatsmydns.net/#A/reformgovernmentsurveillance.com)

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I like the idea, but these were the principles they were supposed to be following in the first place but weren't. What makes anyone think that any amount of laws passed will be respected?

</comment><comment><USER67> Damage control

</comment><comment><USER68> Site is down.

</comment><comment><USER69> This is all well and good, but it only really matters if they start lobbying heavily for this change. Words are cheap, it is actions that matter.

</comment><comment><USER70> I do wish they had sorted SSL properly for this. Its a bit bad when talking about security and surveillance they miss the fundamentals.

</comment><comment><USER71> "Dear Government. You've pissed off $1.4 trillion of the market. You might want to review your recent behavior."

</comment><comment><USER72> I like how they put AOL first on the list. Like, if there's flak coming, they'll take it first or something.

</comment><comment><USER73> They really need to look again at how they implemented sharing to Twitter, G+ or LinkedIn; it's a mess.

</comment><comment><USER74> I thought Facebook had CIA backing?

</comment><comment><USER75> Why is Apple at the bottom but not at the top?

</comment><comment><USER76> power corrupts people and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

powerful people should volunteer themselves to 24x7 surveillance.

</comment><comment><USER77> Its a good thing they define "government surveillence" because corporate surveillence is what they do best.

</comment><comment><USER78> Which company doesn't belong?

<comment><USER79> I don't know. What's your point?</comment></comment>


Escheatment: States scoop up investment accounts as unclaimed property - <AUTHOR> http://www.investmentnews.com/article/20170512/FREE/170519958/states-scoop-up-investment-accounts-as-unclaimed-property <comment><AUTHOR> > _States are reducing the number of years for which an account has to be > dormant, from seven to three, and are changing the trigger from returned > mail to the investor 's failure to reach out affirmatively to restake their > claim on the accounts..._

I've run into the escheatment issue on accounts with two different institutions in the last month, and it made me wonder if something has changed.</comment>


Keep Up: The first book written by an AI - <AUTHOR> https://thefirstaibook.com/living-a-meaningful-life/ <comment><USER2> One might say that the seminal work was:

[https://www.amazon.ca/Policemans-Beard-Half- Constructed/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.ca/Policemans-Beard-Half- Constructed/dp/0446380512)

Generated by Ractor a not very sophisticated "chatterbot" in 1984.

Interesting to see the progress in less than 40 years.

<comment><AUTHOR> Incredible! I had no clue this existed. Thank you for pushing me down a rabbit hole for the last 45 minutes :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm more interested in the claim that this is the first book by an AI. To my knowledge, plenty of machine learning models have been used to produce all sorts of texts. Is this really the first time a length of a book has been produced?

Or is it a claim that this time it is an actual AI?

</comment><comment><USER4> I simply don't believe that this is fundamentally the work of an ai. Its in a different league to anything else I've read. It's structured, coherant and on topic constantly. It would be really interesting to see the original text before human editing.

<comment> T-A The process is explained in the prologue (which I think would be a better link):

[https://thefirstaibook.com/](https://thefirstaibook.com/)

 _I simply provided a few-sentence prompt on each of these subjects, had GPT-3 generate approximately 2,000 words of text each, and later (in most cases) removed the supplied prompt to keep the result as human-free as possible.

It should be noted that, at times, I had to include 'pivot' phrases (e.g 'therefore', 'in summary', 'perhaps', and so on) before a new paragraph. Current networks appear to get off-track after ~1000 words, so this is necessary to improve consistency in predicting longer sequences of text. The final result was also copy-edited for spelling mistakes and punctuation (yes, AI makes mistakes!)

Everything else that you will read – the logic, the reasoning, and the conclusions – was generated entirely by GPT-3._

<comment><USER5> > Everything else that you will read – the logic, the reasoning, and the > conclusions – was generated entirely by GPT-3.

The open question is how much did the human tweak the prompts in response to the generated text. Unless this was a moderately blind process, there's a good chance that they kept rolling the dice until something they liked came out, which re-inserts a significant human element. I suspect that the human's contributions likely rise to the level of co-author, or at least a very opinionated editor.</comment></comment></comment>


Pioneering scientists turn fresh air into petrol - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exclusive-pioneering-scientists-turn-fresh-air-into-petrol-in-massive-boost-in-fight-against-energy-crisis-8217382.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder if this technology is more efficient than generating hydrogen through electrolysis.</comment>


Show HN: Effective java – A tool to explore your Java code written in Clojure - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ftomassetti/effectivejava

<comment><USER2> I like the aesthetic of using Clojure to fix Java.

<comment><USER3> Small standalone command-line tools are a good place for a language like that, although it's a shame Clojure takes so long to start.

<comment><USER4> The nice thing about Clojure development is that you really only need to start the JVM once, after that, you can eval anything you need instantly. And really, startup times aren't that bad. Here's Travis CI for a small project I made. Time to start the JVM and run tests? 2.76 seconds. The entire build completes in ~12 seconds.

[https://travis-ci.org/film42/rinok#L99](https://travis- ci.org/film42/rinok#L99)

<comment><USER5> How is three seconds to run tests on a "small project" "not that bad"?

<comment><AUTHOR> well, it is not that bad because as part of the tests it also parse all the code of Javaparser and spring-jdbc (by no means small projects). Parsing it is an expensive operation also because the Java grammar is quite ambiguous

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just tried running it and got this, I'm guessing I'm doing something wrong...?

[me@localhost myapp]$ java -jar effectivejava-0.1.2-SNAPSHOT-standalone.jar -l -d "/home/me/myapp"

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)

...

at app.core.<clinit>(Unknown Source)

Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException

...

Could not find the main class: app.core. Program will exit.

<comment><AUTHOR> never saw this error but current version is 0.1.3-SNAPSHOT.

The instructions are probably confusing, I will fix them. You can run: lein jar java -jar target/effectivejava-0.1.3-SNAPSHOT.jar and then the options.

Thank you for reporting this!

<comment><USER6> quick google shows someone else had the same error:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Clojure/comments/31uqab/writing_a_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Clojure/comments/31uqab/writing_a_tool_to_measure_explore_and_analyze/)

Thank you for this though, hopefully I'll get it working...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks like a nice side project. But the first question that popped into my mind was, doesn't SonarQube already covers these rules?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes and no. If you consider this as a linter there are many others out there. Most of them in my opinion generate too much noise. I think that effectivejava is useful to explore your codebase, run a few queries and find out some facts about your code: how many utils classes do you have? How many methods are taking more than 5 parameters? You can run easily the queries on the whole project or just some packages and correct your aim as you find facts (for example, you may start asking how many methods take more than 5 parameters and realize they are 1000, then you want probably to start focusing on the methods taking more than 10 parameters. Or you can find that some classes with this problem are generated code and you do not want to consider them).

About the usage as a linter it tries to keep rules to a minimum of sensible rules, the ones explained in Effective Java. We chose them because they are rules well understood and accepted by the vast majority of developers so we hope to reduce the number of questionable findings returned to the user.

<comment><USER8> This is pretty cool. Are you planning on extending the querying ability at all? I would love to be able to use this like Hoogle, point it at my scala code and query for all methods that take a list and return an int, for example.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, I am very interested in parsing and static analysis and if you idea and suggestions feel free to open as many tickets as you want on the project.

Yes, Hoogle is super cool, it would be definitely useful to have something like that.

I wrote in the past tools to manipulate ASTs of several languages but I have never looked in a Scala parser. Can you suggest one?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Science of Scientific Writing - <AUTHOR> http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.877,y.0,no.,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx <comment><USER2> Scanning through the first section, they've got the right idea, but the wrong rationale. The reason why the table is easier to read than the sentence is the spatial semantic grouping of variables. You scan the first column, see the monotonically increasing time, then can directly interpret the numbers in the second column. In the sentence, you have to filter out a lot of chaff before you can understand (or confirm) the basic pattern in the independent variable. They also mixed up the order of the items in the sentence, making for more 'chaff' obscuring analysis It's not about 'familiarity', but the ease of pulling related information - if the sentence was ordered but the table unordered, then depending on the data, the sentence could be easier to interpret, for example.

The second table is unconventional - it is ordered by the independent variable, but it leads with the dependent variable. If we had the convention of putting the independent variable on the right, this table would be perfectly familiar and readable. The rationale isn't "the important information is the temperature", as the article says, but that the table is ordered by the independent variable - we need to know what it is and how it behaves, then we can more easily the relation of the independent variable against it.

<comment><USER2> Too late to edit: last mention of 'independent variable' should be 'dependent'.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have a client with a website that targets scientists. She insists scientists prefer her complex navigational "whatever you call her crazy thing" to a standard, clean, and simple navigation. I keep coming back with "but scientists are people" and it falls on deaf ears. It's so frustrating...</comment>


Money Buys Unhappiness - <AUTHOR> http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=money-buys-unhappiness

<comment><USER2> _Studies have shown that a person's ability to savor experiences predicts their degree of happiness. Savoring is defined as the emotions of joy, awe, excitement and gratitude derived during an experience._ *

So the visual reminder of money in the experimental group prompted the participants to "savor" the chocolate for less time: 32 seconds vs 45 for the control group.

Doesn't imply "unhappiness" though, just happiness experienced for less time.

Belgians and their bizarre studies. . .</comment>


Top 10 bad excuses for staying in a bad job - <AUTHOR> http://positivesharing.com/2008/04/top-10-bad-excuses-for-staying-in-a-bad-job/ <comment><USER2> This is so true. Although, for the readers here probably no news. :)

I left DilbertStyleMegaCo. 1,5 year ago, took one year off to study at home, and now am a very happy employe #4. (or zerobased: #3 :)

The atmosphere here helped me to make the move. Thanks.</comment>


Ask HN: The best way store thousands of Images on a server - <AUTHOR>

Hello. I've got a server of my own handling the multimedia files for a website. It has around 200Gb of images (all JPG's) stored in nested folders.
I have Apache 2 on Linux and nothing else. I don't know if it is the best solution, but I think is not.
What system (http server, cache, or anything) would you recommend me? <comment><USER2> I recommend gatling: <http://www.fefe.de/gatling/> It's the fastest httpd I know of.

You might also want to try thttpd: <http://www.acme.com/software/thttpd/> I heard all the porn sites use it to host their images.

With only the http server for the images running it should work quite well to rely on the filesystem cache.

</comment><comment><USER3> MogileFS might be what you're looking for:

<http://www.danga.com/mogilefs/>

with an nginx or lighttpd frontend.

The documentation is a little sparse though the mailing list and irc are useful for help.

Also it would somewhat depend on your traffic profile. If you've got thousands of random reads (e.g. thumbnails with dozens per page, ssds might be better; specifically the Intel X-25).

Otherwise MogileFS with an array of fast drives would probably do the job. Mogile can also do load balancing based on drive I/O because each image is replicated across different files/machines.

EDIT: Make sure you've got browser caching set up correctly (though admittedly that's a tiny bit harder with Mogile)

If you can use a expiry time that's far in the future. Also don't send a Last- Modified nor an ETag Header. Only send Expires.

</comment><comment><USER4> Check out this Stanford presentation

 _Facebook - Needle in a Haystack: Efficient Storage of Billions of Photos_

<http://www.flowgram.com/p/2qi3k8eicrfgkv/>

</comment><comment><USER5> How about Publicfile? - <http://cr.yp.to/publicfile.html>

Super duper secure and very, very quick, especially for smaller files.

I'd try and run some tests against it, thttpd and your existing apache setup.

</comment><comment><USER6> A smaller web server like lighttpd or cherokee may be a better choice if all you are serving is images.

</comment><comment><USER7> <http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/>

<comment><AUTHOR> 30 days a month * 1024 Gb of transfer a day * 0,17$/Gb = more than 5,000$ a month. Am I right?

My own 200mbps connection costs me the equivalent of 300$ a month.

<comment><USER8> A /terabyte/ of transfer a day?!?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. It has a lot of traffic. Btw, it's not porn! :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> dont forget nginx

</comment><comment><USER10> Amazon S3

<comment><AUTHOR> I have my own server to do that. With 1TB of transfer a day, I cannot afford Amazon S3 (I have my own 200mbps low latency connection)

Thanks, but I was looking for technology to install on my own server. Not moving to Amazon S3</comment></comment>


What's in the Apple A4 - <AUTHOR> http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2010/1/27/apple-a4-soc-unveiled---its-an-arm-cpu-and-the-gpu!.aspx

<comment><AUTHOR> Both first A9 and first Mali GPU I've seen in the wild.</comment>


Twenty hurt at LG event as promotional stunt goes wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23681200

<comment><USER2> After reading that article, I'm just left with more questions. How were these people hurt? I don't see a BB Gun accident sending 7 people to the hospital.

<comment><USER3> "Customers ... surged forward when they were released."

See also: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Parade_disaster](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Parade_disaster)</comment></comment>


Toxic metals found in e-cigarette liquids - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/10188.html <comment><USER2> First generation e-cigs... Wow, how long were they holding on to those old things? That's a bit like saying that someone discovered a new potential security hole in the first gen iPhones.

Conversely, yes regulators should ban toxic metals from the heater coil, and any other part of a device that puts a foreign substance into a human body. After all, there is no more lead in drinking glasses.

</comment><comment><USER3> Misleading headline; the article states that this is from the coils, not the fluids.</comment>


How will the current market crisis affect Startups? - <AUTHOR>

I was just wondering what startup investors out there think about if/how the current market crisis will affect new startups' funding. I think this is especially relevant now, considering that YCombinator submissions will deadline in a week. Anyone? <comment><USER2> It should focus minds on business models, that's for sure. There's nothing wrong with bootstrapping or having a point to doing what you're doing (ie, making profits). Do you REALLY need the funding?

I think the smaller investors will want to be sure about the team running these startups. And disruptive tech, however cool, isn't going to cut it. Jam today will beat ham tomorrow.

VCs invest in 10 companies and expect 8 or 9 failures, and 1 big winner. In that sense nothing will change.

Also, a recession is a sure-fire opportunity to launch a company, no doubt about it. Better deals and other companies cut the chaff. If you can help another firm improve efficiency, or optimise what they're doing, then you will be well placed.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great point, regarding improvements on already existing services/companies; they will welcome any ways to decrease their costs or increase their revenues. But do you think that a recession is also good for starting a company with a brand new product/service?

<comment><USER2> It depends on the market you're aiming at. Some market sectors are recession- proof, others less so. Holidays in Hawaii / Bali might be downgraded, but people will still want to go on holiday.

Also, it is competitive out there, but if you are in a niche then go for it. If you have a lot of competition then do it better.

I personally believe that the companies of the future that will do best will listen and learn from their customers. They'll engage with customers. They will let their customers tell them what they want.

We already know what works on the internet in terms of usability / user experience / product page design / checkout process, etc, so don't go reinventing the wheel. Many large companies still suck at this stuff (just look at the Gap.com website if you don't believe me).

Be the best. Understand the mindset of your customers. Make sense of your data. Iterate as often as is practical. And market the shit out of your product (don't forget to sell it to Google via a blog...).

What area are you boxing in?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the insight, I appreciate it. I'm currently aiming at some rarely explored user base in the social networking area. Can't disclose details, but it entails the sharing of life events.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The recession will have a cleansing effect on the startup landscape. All the "me too" companies that got funded by dumb money chasing the next Facebook will fail. Startups that don't provide value and generate revenue will fail. It will be much harder to get funding, but its the perfect time to bootstrap a company that can help businesses cut costs or consumers save money.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just an update, on an interesting article that talks exactly about how "savings" applications are the most successful in times of recession: [http://embought.com/blog/show/17?t=Apps-to-Build-in-a-Bad- Ec...](http://embought.com/blog/show/17?t=Apps-to-Build-in-a-Bad-Economy)

</comment><comment><USER4> Capital scarcity gives a huge advantage to those with the means to fund their own venture. You'll be able to start a business without being attacked by 20 funded "me too" outfits. The flip side is that if you don't have a war chest of savings or funding now, you're the loser.</comment>


Google Engineer on Australia's slow growing Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://google-au.blogspot.com.au/2012/06/australia-from-consumers-to-creators-of.html

<comment><USER2> If you happen to be an Aussie who's stumbled upon this and you know a teacher or two, link them to this:

<http://iterate.inspire.edu.au/>

And if you know any high school students link them to:

<http://challenge.ncss.edu.au/>

There's some fantastic CS teaching programs going on in Australia and we should give them as much support as we can :)

<comment><USER3> I did the NCSS challenge back in 2010 and I'm so glad I did. It got me in to programming and now I am doing a Bachelor of IT because of it

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This piece sums up one of the problems perfectly - the teachers simply can't keep up with the technology involved. As far as I can tell, our high-school CS curriculum in Queensland hasn't changed much since the early 90s. It consists of:

\- One and a half semesters of "conceptual schema design procedure", backed up by a mundane textbook written in 1989 by a "big wheel" type from a local university. What makes this particularly strange is the amount of conceptual work you do on relational database schema design without _actually using_ a relational database.

\- Two and a half semesters of Visual Basic 6. I asked my teacher why he was still teaching it and his response was more-or-less "...because it's the only language I know". CS4HS could be a real help here.

\- A smattering of lessons on "social and ethical issues in IT", which are about as insightful as they sound.

Of course, the HS curriculum is just one of the issues. The mining boom has meant that newly minted EEs can get up to $120k straight out of university by joining the fly in/fly out workforce in central QLD and WA, so the mathematically inclined students tend to choose civil, electrical, mechanical or chemical engineering courses. Australia has a long way to go if it wants to become the world's "Silicon Beach".

</comment><comment><USER5> Australia will not have a Silicon Valley until the banks let Australian startups charge their customers in USD.

<comment><USER6> Australian company here charging customers in USD for nearly 10 years now via PayPal.

"Having a Silicon Valley" is totally unrelated I think.

<comment><USER7> IIRC, you can't do this for subscription based services - PayPal won't let non-US account holders store CCVs.

Are you doing recurring billing with PayPal? If so, I'd love to know how!

<comment><USER5> We do recurring billing with them, you just have to use their interface - [https://www.paypal.com/cgi- bin/webscr?cmd=_pdn_subscr_techvi...](https://www.paypal.com/cgi- bin/webscr?cmd=_pdn_subscr_techview_outside)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Many Australian universities have a 'Bachelor of Information Technology' instead of of a 'Bachelor of Computer Science'. The one I did was a 3 year degree, it still did most of the CS subjects that I've seen elsewhere, though it didn't have any compulsory Maths (I think an extra semester of Maths should be added).

I did the degree part time whilst working full time and once I was done I started the interview process for a position at Google. I was told that they don't usually hire anyone unless they have a bachelor of computer science, but that they'd make an exception seeing as I've been working (effectively had 4 years experience at that time). I ended up getting a non-grad job elsewhere even before my second phone interview, but it seems to me that if they only hire BSc students, the university system is not setup to suit them.

I've never met anyone from Queensland (my home state) that has done a BSc, its either called Bachelor of IT or Software Engineering. That doesn't mean they aren't capable of being great employees for Google.

<comment><USER9> I'm in the same situation at the moment, having just begun a Bachelor of Information Technology through RMIT and Open Universities Australia, which for international readers, is a distance education organization involving several large Australian universities. I am also working full time, although not in IT, unfortunately.

I'm not in a financial position to fund my studies myself, so I'm making use of the federal government 'FEE-HELP' system, which basically means I don't begin repaying my loan(s) until I reach a certain income threshold. I also live in a 'regional' area on the NSW Mid North Coast, and despite living within an hour of a local university, the courses and degrees I've enrolled in aren't offered in this area.

I can understand that there are most likely different factors that determine whether or not a particular degree is covered by FEE-HELP, but it's a shame that it seems like a proper CS degree is still only viable for somebody living in a large capital city, with the finances available to self-fund their studies.

As you've mentioned, a Bachelor of IT does offer certain fundamental units that you'd encounter in a CS degree, but none of the advanced maths units seem to be offered.

If the National Broadband Network actually gets finished one day, hopefully more long distance education providers might be able to offer degrees such as CS, with the aid of fast, reliable internet connectivity to help solve the locale problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I suspect a large part of the problem is Australia's very conservative investment culture. This is a country where Fortescue Metals Group was a risky investment because they were building a mine, some rail road, and a port for one big iron ore project. So imagine how popular investment in developing technology is over there when it is both: 1\. little understood by the investors, and 2\. perceived as highly risky. So with little technology investment, there are few options for graduates, aside from work in places where technology/IT is a cost centre, not a profit centre, which depresses the salaries and increases the appeal of moving to some place where their skills are in demand and highly valued.

<comment><USER10> And, I should add, without compelling local role models or opportunities, many students looking at selecting a major are going to go elsewhere.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How healthy is the startup scene down under?

<comment><USER12> IMO Great. Here are some reasons why:

1) It is remarkably easy to start a business in Australia. Three steps, IIRC, and can be done in a day.

2) There are significant tax breaks for people selling a company they started

3) The language is English, which is a big advantage for sales and marketing reasons, and many others

4) Australian-based businesses don't need to charge sales tat/VAT/GST to anyone except Australian customers. (In comparison, I'm currently based in Spain, so I have to charge various rates of VAT/sales tax to all European Union customers)

5) Relatively low bureaucratic hurdle (compared to UK, Germany, Spain, and Lebanon - the other countries where I've worked)

6) The infrastructure is excellent. (Internet infrastructure could be better though - it is not on par with western europe.)

<comment><USER13> I agree with all the points you've made but not with your conclusion. Australia is shocking for startups, at least in Brisbane. I definitely do not recommend. Sydney/Melbourne might be a different story.

The sad thing is we have huge technical talent that is being wasted. 50% of my colleagues who are any good have left Brisbane to go to Silicon Valley or New York.

We have these negative points about Brisbane:

\- Huge tall poppy syndrome. We tear each other down. Then when someone leaves and makes it big in the US we try to reclaim them.

\- The people who get funded are the "ideas" people. Not those with the talent to make it happen. If you have the technical talent then forget about raising funds. You're just a code monkey. This is really bad for the startup community as a whole as we have a continual spiral of crap products coming from funded companies.

\- The startup industry is filled with vultures. We have more incubators and companies helping people raise funds than actual startups.

Anyway enough of my rant. I should just be done with it and move to the US, or at least Sydney/Melbourne.

<comment><USER14> Brisbane/Queensland has suddenly seen a large increase in the local startup community. Groups like Silicon Beach and The Lean Startup have been a big part of it, especially with getting the word out on Microsoft's offering via its newly opened Innovation Centre initiative.

Steve Baxter (Founder of PIPE networks) has also come forward as a big player, opening up River City Labs, a co-working space for startups passing their application criteria. He has committed a large sum of money to all this and there is even talk of a Y-Combinator style seed investment strategy coming out of it all.

It is still early days but there has been A LOT of movement in this space locally and I personally am excited about what is ahead.

<comment><USER15> There's been the same sort of growth in seed incubators in Melbourne as well. The problem is that they are all following the same playbook:

Get an Idea (Startup Weekend) -> Build Prototype (Seed) -> Head Over To Silicon Valley -> Sell/Fail.

I fail to see how that is in any way good for anybody other than the investors.

<comment><USER16> Do you have any more information on Melbourne incubators?

I know of AngelCube, is there a 'best' startup community?

I'm still yet to even find a good online forum for startups (nothing like news.ycombinator even)

How do they sell/fail? You mean, no one wants to buy Australian startups because they're usually just not very good?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As an Australian CS graduate, the best offer I got from an Australian company was less than half the worst BigCo offer in the states. Google might hem and haw about "Australia's future prosperity", but their motives should be clear. More graduates does not a Silicon Valley make.

<comment><USER2> Not sure where you've been looking, I've heard of decent offers in Australia. If you've been applying for corporate IT jobs then no surprise, but you _can_ do well over here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Any thoughts on whether this is:

* a long term program to mint more developers (and drive down salaries) * to mint more developers to create more websites to display advertising on faster * ??? or

* a genuine good will program * ???

?

</comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone know of anything interesting happening in New Zealand re startups?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I heard there were some restrictive regulations on selling retail items online in Australia? It effectively takes away any benefits of trading purely online. How successful is online retailing?

<comment><USER15> I've never heard of any regulations. There are plenty of successful online- only retailers across a range of industries. AFAIK you just setup a website, register for GST and off you go.

The only issue I've heard is that some brick/mortar shops have been putting pressure on suppliers not to deal with online companies. But our beloved ACCC (pro-consumer agency) is investigating as we speak and I doubt that will last very long.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Web dev's – how often do you run your code? - <AUTHOR>

For web developers: How often do you run your code? Due to the nature of hot code reload/interpreted languages like PHP, how often do you find yourself flicking back to the browser to check on things?
Just curious. Despite knowing that 99% of the code I write will work as intended, I can't help but play with whatever functionality I'm developing every few lines to make sure things are coming together correctly. Is this normal? Or do people knock out a load of code and run it all at the end?
I suppose test-driven development somewhat combats the need to check on things for reassurance and this doesn't apply as much to front-end devs, since that's a large part of the job. <comment><USER2> I do the same. I don't trust myself to not make a typo or a mistake. Even with CSS, I will rarely write more than a class without checking the result. Because debugging is hard.

</comment><comment><USER3> It depends on what I'm doing.

Most of the time I can afford to simply refresh and see the results. This applies to both my backend and frontend work some 99.99% of the time.

Occasionally, however, I find myself writing something slow, like a snippet that accesses the database and "mangles" some data. In these instances I try and write a bit more code before checking my progress, so as not to waste too much time watching reruns.

</comment><comment><USER4> Often enough that I use the livereload feature in grunt-contrib-watch[1] so whatever I'm working on is reloaded in my browser without me needing to refresh it. I've found that automating things like that has made me check things are working a lot less often.

[1] [https://github.com/gruntjs/grunt-contrib- watch](https://github.com/gruntjs/grunt-contrib-watch)

<comment><USER5> I do the same thing with Gulp's version of LiveReload. Love it, huge time- saver. [https://www.npmjs.com/package/gulp- livereload](https://www.npmjs.com/package/gulp-livereload)

I'm also a big fan of BrowserSync. Can be used for a similar use-case, and lets you (for example) see the site updated on your phone, tablet and laptop whenever you make any change. [http://www.browsersync.io/](http://www.browsersync.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd definitely echo @nkantar's comment, I generally refresh every 2-10 lines, depending on what it is I'm writing. I'll very often just dump out raw results from whatever database querying and data mangling I'm doing until it looks right, then start tidying up the output.

A while ago though, I was working on a C# .NET MVC application, debugging in Visual Studio, and the round-trip time for making a change in code, reloading the development server (hot-code reloading was not working, spent ~3 months trying to fix it but never did) and then refreshing the page, ended up being around 1 minute rather than the < 3 seconds I was used to. It was amazing how much this affected my productivity, it was a severe hit.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't manually reload, and haven't for years. Like others, we use browser- sync for reloading of front-end assets. Each save either reloads the browser or applies the changes live, if you don't care to see what the output is yet, don't look at the browser.

Paired with jasmine / karma / a guard runner to run any specs as files are changed there's not much need for the refresh button in development.

</comment><comment><USER8> I write js, but I often won't run code for a long time. I put together a project, using the code almost just as notation for ideas, and then go through testing everything to bring it to completion. I suspect that frequent running of code and heavy use of the debugger leads to, or at least makes it easy to write spaghetti.

</comment><comment><USER9> Almost all the time, for nearly every if condition or new function. When I've got the basics right I contiune with error handling etc and tests that also</comment>


How to Write Well - <AUTHOR> https://www.julian.com/guide/write/intro <comment><USER3> Related: I've found advice on this video to be very useful in terms of some actionable feedback that can be incorporated in your writing: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtIzMaLkCaM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtIzMaLkCaM)

<comment><USER3> To add to that, the one of the biggest takeaways from the video, and what is also mentioned in this post, is to 'open people's eyes by proving the status quo wrong'.

People only read things if _they_ find value in what you have written - <USER2> are less likely to pay attention if the article is written in a way that best demonstrates how much _you_ (the writer) know about something. And, showing readers that their understanding might have some gaps is a good way to sustain their interest.</comment></comment>