Reasons not to become famous - <AUTHOR> https://tim.blog/2020/02/02/reasons-to-not-become-famous/ <comment><USER3> So I only see three reasons to be famous:

1\. The attention and adulation is your drug. I think there's no shortage of people who fall into this category.

2\. To convert that fame into opportunities you wouldn't otherwise have; and

3\. To convert that fame into money.

Obviously if you're just plain rich then (3) is moot. If you fall into (1) then money can buy you fame to a degree.

So that leaves (2). Wealth will give you many opportunities fame will but certainly not all. Or at least the costs to replicate that are truly ludicrous, like being a star in a Marvel movie, spending a year on the ISS, going to the Moon, that sort of thing.

The way I see it the downsides of fame are significant. I've heard tales from people who worked in media years ago that the very stars who now want the media to leave them alone and to respect their privacy would beg them for stories and coverage just a few years earlier.

I don't think I'd want to be ultra-wealthy (as in a billionaire+). At that point you're almost removed from society. I imagine you end up moving in circles with other ultra-wealthy people that are actually quite small. You risk being a target of the desperate, the criminally minded (fraud, kidnapping, blackmail, that sort of thing) and the mentally unstable.

And really what is the practical difference between having $20m and $2b? Sure you'll have nicer houses and more of them. You may well have a super-yacht at that point. But who cares? I know I don't.

You could say "you would if you had $2b" and maybe that's true. I'm sure I'd buy a nicer place but I think I'd still want to keep a relatively low profile.

<comment><USER4> Isn't it possible to become a billionaire without anyone knowing?

What if you just get there quietly through private investment?

Not a billion, but I've built up a decent chunk myself and nobody seems to know or even suspect that about me. Nobody begs me for anything more than spare change, no sycophants, nobody trying to impress me. Marketing for luxury goods doesn't even reach me.

I could easily see myself reaching a billion in a few decades just through private investment, and there must be thousands of people doing the same. I imagine there are many more who have earned millions publicly, then sold their stake and went to a billion privately.

So how does everyone find out about them?

<comment><USER5> The Bloomberg billionaires index does exactly this... Out private billionaires.

First off it's hard being a billionaire and people not knowing. You're going to make a splash somehow. But there's still plenty of billionaires, especially in emerging market countries, that have still to be uncovered.

<comment><USER6> I find it pretty funny that Bloomberg himself is hidden on that list.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am publicly in close proximity to someone famous for my job and with a modest (~15k) Instagram following because of that, I've experienced most of this behavior to one degree or another. I was completely unprepared for it and it really freaked me out.

I love the Bill Murray quote, and I've been living by this, also from the article: "You want everyone to know your name and no one to know your face." It really seems to affect people that I don't post selfies and pics of myself anywhere....second to requests to be put in contact with the famous person to whom I'm obviously connected, people really want to know what I look like. As someone who is fairly private as well as nothing special in the looks dept, I'm in no rush. I'm googleable because of the absurd name under which I started, but most people can't or won't put in the effort.

I've definitely concluded that in my particular case, some respectable form of following on IG is necessary (I'm a photographer) and I certainly won't get rich, but damn I was utterly not ready for nor was I expecting 5-screen-long tales of woe and death and disease and pleas for help and mercy along with the same kind of "I know what you did and I'll expose you" shit several times a week.

<comment><USER8> I'm surprised a photographer would be such a target, even if they identify themselves with a well-known (and somewhat controversial, I suppose) figure. TIL!

Reading stories like this just makes me that more determined to never be well- known. Not that I'm in any particular danger of that, mind you, but still...

<comment><USER7> I was surprised too. It's a variety of "I need X to speak at my charity event," "hey can you give X my contact info," "here's my nude selfie and my number, please tell X," to "X is impersonating himself on social media and swindled me out of thousands of dollars, I'm going to report you and everyone else."

Ironically, being relatively faceless has burned me as well. I have a fairly common name, so when someone else with the same name made a shitty comment on some board on Facebook, I had days of being attacked, getting DMd to kill myself, brutal comments on all my posts...it was hours and days of cleanup and banning people.

<comment><USER9> The worst is probably having a _somewhat_ unusual name that overlaps with a notorious person who could at least plausibly (especially to somewhat off- kilter randos) possibly be you.

I went to school with someone who shared a name with an individual who is in a high-profile public legal spat in NY involving another high-profile NY personality. (Not going to say who or you can figure out the name with modest Google-fu.) My classmate got various death threats etc.

<comment><USER10> Ever seen The Big Lebowski?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A common assumption is rich<=>famous. Obviously, famous doesn't imply rich because someone could be, say, a notorious criminal and be poor. But it's quite amazing the degree to which you can be rich, _super rich_ , but still be anonymous. Even in today's world.

I remember reading one of Forbes' annual listings of the world's billionaires in which they tried to include a photo of everyone in the top couple hundred. Astonishingly a few had no photos -- Forbes said that they _couldn 't find a photo_. According to Wikipedia, "Forbes employs a team of more than 50 reporters from a variety of countries to track the activity of the world's wealthiest individuals." So you can absolutely be among the richest people on Earth and not have a publicly available photo.

On the current Forbes list the following have _no photos_ : #23, #36, #61, #122, #153, #167, #191, #198, #215, #233, #244, #272 (two people at this rank), #290 (also two), #343, #355, #365, #379 (two again), #394, #413, #452 (two again), #504 (four people), etc.

That means that 5% of the richest people in the world (24 of the richest 500) are so anonymous that there isn't a photo that even a dedicated team of reporters can find.

Current list: [https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/](https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/)

<comment><USER12> That is very interesting.

> That means that 5% of the richest people in the world (24 of the richest > 500) are so anonymous that there isn't a photo that even a dedicated team of > reporters can find.

Either they can't find it or they were asked not to put it up? They have lawyers after all and might prefer to be anonymous.

<comment><USER13> Nitpick: They're not anonymous since they're identified by name :)

<comment><USER12> Good point. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The stalker thing is real - and I didn't realize how real until a buddy who's a moderately-successful YouTuber (750k subs) got his very own.

Thankfully it's a relatively benign case, but man, it's real. There's a kid who, for the past ~10 years, calls him Every. Single. Day. Without fail. For 10 years (that's 3600+ phone calls). He leaves a voicemail and just talks about his day - what video games he's playing, etc. I think his mom once called and apologized (although she doesn't seem to try and stop the behavior, which is also odd, but who knows).

Now imagine the same kind of obsessive behavior, but...less benign. Scary.

<comment><USER15> Could he change his number?

<comment><USER16> That can trigger the stalker to escalate.

<comment><USER17> It could also result in the stalker never calling again. I guess it's important to understand the probability of outcomes before just listing negatives.

<comment><USER18> Personally if it's something potentially harmful, I'd rather have it where I can see it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've always thought being famous with a pseudonymous name but an anonymous appearance and legal name is the best of both scenarios.

Someone like Bansky or Daft Punk, for example. Everyone knows your artist name and your work, but virtually no one recognizes you on the street and you can check into hotels or use your real name without most people noticing.

<comment><USER20> Is the point that you get your work recognized, instead of your "self"?

<comment><USER19> Depends on where you draw the line between work and self, I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What can you achieve with fame that you cannot achieve with money alone? What is this need for wanting others to know that you exist at all?

Jobs that demand "fame" of some sorts will always take an emotional toll on personalities that are never comfortable with fame, limelight and podiums.

I have been an introvert my whole life but only recently realised this about myself at the tender age of 40! It was a cold slap for me to accept it. I have always imagined myself gregarious and outgoing and friendly - wanting to speak to strangers, breaking silence in a lift - but these have never really sat comfortably with me afterwards. I'll be chewing and ruminating about the imagined mistimed comments or miscued lines for ages. I have bruised myself emotionally believing that I needed to be an extrovert to be successful when in fact I was only demanding too much of myself. Fame, and outrageous fame will likely kill me too.

<comment><USER22> I made lots of money but always felt rejected/ignored by society. So I ended up lonely.

I was sold a dream that become financially well off and affluent and women will flock to you - it never happened!

I stayed a non smoker, non drinker because I consider these uncessary risks. I don't see any upside Aced the classes, did good in sports but still become Mr. Noone.

But lately, I got into body building and started using steroids (I know they are harmful) but I've decided that with all the money - I don't wanna live a long life, just wanna be famous and be desired by opposite sex and if it comes at a price of dying after few years - it meets my risk profile.

So, yes validation, being desired and getting sexual opportunities and so people feel intimidated in my presence is all I want.

Money helps you buy expert supervision, time and quality drugs and outfits and also being able to afford a nice car all helps. But money can't directly help you buy the attraction.

I've been getting lots of attention lately from opposite sex since I've got Greek physique dialed in, so anyone who thinks it doesn't matter and all you need is money - I am just a millionaire, there are many like me. I don't want to become a huge man, I just do minimum required to build a physique that opposite sex finds attractive.

<comment><USER19> The majority of the most "desirable" men in the world have lean, muscular physiques, not bodybuilder physiques. Think Brad Pitt in _Fight Club._

So, if your main reason for using steroids is to attract women - <USER2> reconsider, as your premises are wrong.

<comment><USER22> I never said I am after bodybuilder physique, I mentioned I am after "fight club" look only but little more defined I'd say. (think Henry Cavil in superman)

I've done enough research to know women find huge body a turn off.

I trained 6 years in a local gym without ever achieving that fight club look and within 3 months after steroid use, I reached there and surpassed my expectations.

When I started - I had patchy beard and face with no well defined jaw. After steroid use - I've now full beard and square jaw (I chew chewing in gym which I copied from Arnold) but not sure if chewing made my jaw bigger or steroid.

Achieving low body fat without losing your muscle on calorie restricted diet is hard as you end up losing some muscles and some fat - steroid makes it easier to put on muscles and get low body fat.

Ofc, there are side effects but imho they are worth it for me.

My HDL levels went down and LDL went up and arterial plaque might build up and I might die from stroke. My heart might become large and weak. But there is also a chance that I might not have any problem at all - here I am gambling with my life. Skin have got thinner but no difference in hair, not gone bald so far others might not be this lucky but who knows.

Also, there are things I am curious about, if you guys know please answer:

If steroid mimicks testosterone. How is using steroid different than a man having naturally high testosterone level which produces androgenic and anabolic effects?

<comment><USER23> So I started doing Karate since 5 years ago. Before that I was not chubby but not fit either. I have cheek fat and my arms, chest and belly have some fat as well.

I started doing Karate and my weight went down quick and I notice my face gets leaner and now I have a defined jaw line. I'm not sure maybe just my genetics but maybe you got your jawline from losing weight.

3 years ago met a girl online, dated her and she is my wife now. When saw my previous photos she was quite shocked at the difference.

Fast forward now, I don't have a body builder physique or male mode physique but I do have physique that most contact martial artist have, still have some belly fat but my chest, arm, thigh and belly muscles are thicker without using steroids.

I'm 33 now so I already past my growth rate as a man even 5 years ago, but still managed to change drastically.

<comment><USER22> >I started doing Karate and my weight went down quick and I notice my face gets leaner and now I have a defined jaw line. I'm not sure maybe just my genetics but maybe you got your jawline from losing weight.

I was skinny and atheletic type with super low body fat then I didn't have visible square jaw.

After that I started eating lot more and training hard, so I did gain some muscle (early newbie gains) but gained fat also. So now my muscles while I could feel them, got burried under layer of fat.

People in my tribe don't have strong jaw. It's hard to find them even in the village I hail from, you can find strong built bulky men and women but no strong jaws.

<comment><USER23> I see. So do you think steroids contribute to it? It is amazing how hormones can actually change your physical appearance drastically even after someone is past beyond their growth phase.

You mentioned chewing gum. I saw these videos about mewing but don't actually believe that would work.

<comment><USER24> Look at Barry Bonds before and after- definite jaw/skull effects from the steroids and HGH.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Regarding the stalking ...

Reminds me of a recent "Hidden Brain" episode - about "Secret Friends" \- people of whom others believe to be friends but aren't. The show implied it's fairly easy for the Human Brain to develop a belief those whom are seen or heard often are friends, even if not known personally.

Tim mentions feeling that he is a tribal leader of millions of people. And, he definitely has the attention of those people. People who trust him. And, from an anthropological (and perhaps biological) perspective, I wonder if people stalk him because they really believe him to be their tribal leader Maybe those people really do look at him like he's a friend.

I know our Westernized cultures cherish individuality and independence, but I also wonder if people who decide to enter (and stay within) the limelight have a Human responsibility to be a leader and friend. I know, that's a crazy thought.

<comment><USER26> I've heard of podcasts being described as "friend simulators" because of this phenomenon

<comment><USER12> That is very interesting. I follow a number of "Just Talking" podcasts and I have come to consider the members as my friends. Some of them really are, but others are just purely because I listen to their podcast.

Feels weird to realize this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If the problem is so widespread I imagine that all the really rich and famous have A few people on staff to filter incoming correspondence, triage and follow up on credible threats, check with police as needed etc.

What of the modestly famous and not that rich? There ought to be an agency where one could outsource this sort of work for a fraction of the in-house cost. The agency would accumulate experience and might even keep the database of known crazies which gives it economy of scale.

<comment><USER28> Well, that's definitely where I'd want to work if I was a crazy. Imagine the access! Thousands of wealthy and famous clients contact information and in some cases direct access to their correspondences for filtering purposes... The potential for extortion, bribery and worse would be unprecedented.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sure there's a screening process that could be employed. After all talent agencies, movie studios, and other fame adjacent companies must do something to prevent stalkers from getting jobs there. I also suspect that stalkers don't usually have the qualifications and experience that make them attractive candidates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I opened this on a computer without an adblocker installed (yeah, my mistake), and a minute or so into reading the article it suddenly pops up a full-screen ad to buy this guy's book. That's on the same level of annoying as autoplaying videos imo.

<comment><USER30> Yes. Sometimes I like what Tim writes, but his marketing tactics on the website and elsewhere are really bad and annoying.

Tim, if you're reading this: please consider a different approach. You're rich and famous, you don't need the extra $$ of a slightly better conversion rate.

<comment><USER31> What if it's the team working on this that's looking for a better conversion rate ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The post has a good quote from Bill Murray:

> I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: 'try being > rich first.' See if that doesn't cover most of it. There's not much downside > to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for > money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job. . . . The > only good thing about fame is that I've gotten out of a couple of speeding > tickets. I've gotten into a restaurant when I didn't have a suit and tie on. > That's really about it.

<comment><USER33> Why trying to become rich? Once you have enough money to have a great quality of life without stress, having more money isn't improving much your happiness. Sometimes it makes it worse. However trying to become rich can be very difficult, tiresome, and disappointing.

<comment><USER34> "have enough money to have a great quality of life without stress" is how many people define "rich".

<comment><USER35> >> _" have enough money to have a great quality of life without stress" is how many people define "rich". _

sure, but "great" is not easily defined. A new car or a jet? A $500K home or a $15M one to host parties with rich and famous. But people usually like to show off, one way or another.

If you hit it big with a company, and have, say, $10 Million you can live extremely stress free everywhere in the world. And very few would know, at least no one in your town or extended family. But quite a few hint at their wealth, political donations, charity (announce it publicly) etc etc. It's tempting, but once you hit the news is over.

In USA people might sue you for one thing or another, but in banana republic countries you can "taxed" by criminals: Give us $1 Million or your child is...

<comment><USER36> It's very hard to find a life partner who is willing to live merely comfortably knowing they can draw more blood from you, and had to resign your children to mere comfort, knowing they'll have to compete for ever scarcer living-wage-paying jobs.

<comment><USER37> Merly comfortably? At 10 million dollars, you can live off of 4% of that for the rest of your life. After 15% cap gains, that gives you $340,000 to spend a year. Outside of the bay area, you can easily afford a 5000 square foot house in a top school district, own multiple cars, take lavish vacations, own a second vacation home, pay for your kids college education and more.

What additional benefits are you imagining in which having more money would not "resign your children to mere comfort"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I think I do not want fame, but it's obviously easier to navigate some circles if your name is known: you don't have to introduce yourself, nor prove other people what you are worth.

This works on many scales: from a small team at work, where it's much easier to co-ordinate if everyone knows each other's strong points. It's also great for arguments: if you know that a person is very knowledgeable on a topic, you won't ask them to substantiate their claims, which speeds up the process.

I've been toying with the idea of creating multiple identities for multiple areas I'm engaging in: use my real name for socializing in real life with close acquaintances as well as paperwork, but maybe use a pseudonym for publishing papers, another for engaging in open-source communities, and online in general. I'm happy to say it's quite hard to find pictures of myself online, but it would be even better if they didn't come attached to a meaningful name.

I'm about to submit a paper with my real name this evening, and I am a bit unsure about this. Any experience on using pen names in that domain specifically?

The issue I have is that the longer you wait, the harder it is to change (which can also be a good thing: to change names is to get a fresh start).

It all boils down to reputation and identity somehow, two hot (and hard) topics in (distributed) social networks.

<comment><USER39> There's a big difference between being known in your field and being generally famous as Tim Ferriss is talking about.

I am well known in my field and it has all the benefits you speak of. But it's not a large field. So I have none of the negatives that the article speaks of.

<comment><USER12> > There's a big difference between being known in your field and being > generally famous as Tim Ferriss is talking about.

Thanks for actually making me realize this distinction.

Kinda like being known for something instead of being famous for something. Does that make sense?

<comment><USER39> Possibly. Do you mean that in the sense on the article where a producer said it's best if: "people know your face but not your name"?

That's definitely a distinction.

But I actually meant it in the sense that most fields and sub fields are so small that you can be legit famous within them but have no problems of fame because the number of people involved is tiny.

But if the field grew 100-1000x, you would then have problems of fame with the sheer numbers.

Think of whatever speciality you're in, then consider you probably know what 1-5 notable people in the field look or sound like, without knowing them personally. That's essentially what fame is: the effects only get odd when the field is so generally that much larger numbers will recognize that same person. Some portion of any sufficiently large group will be over enthusiastic or malevolent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One person who has talked about another benefit is Dan Harmon:

(apologies as I don't remember where or the exact quote)

In an interview he mentioned that his [particular] fame meant that he no longer had to go through the superficial conversations when meeting someone new, that everyone knew enough of his authentic self that they could just jump straight in to meaningful conversation.

I remember this because, for me, that would be the only compelling reason to become famous.

<comment><USER40> That's only assuming that, that particular celebrity is known to pour their thoughts out to the world. That same thing couldn't happen to Leonardo do caprio for instance

<comment><USER18> Yes exactly. That's what I meant to say with the word "particular" there. Thank you for making that clear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Tim's post reminds me of a video the 8-Bit Guy did a while back about how many people contact him, both to try to strike up a conversation and to offer him their old 8-bit treasures. He sounded rather annoyed by the whole thing but he is a big star in the 8-bit pond so it comes with the territory. For his area of coverage, there is lots of childhood nostalgia involved so this might make his viewer connected with the channel (and him) to a greater extent than you'd otherwise think. Likewise in Tim's area of personal development, he makes an emotional impact on a large crowd. Strength of emotional connection times crowd size is going to be the big factors here.

<comment><USER42> The 8-Bit Guy is fascinating persona, because he manages to maintain two segregated public personalities, both with heavy YouTube presence.

(The other one is a 2A NRA gun touter, the kind who takes their rifle to a restaurant and films it)

<comment><USER41> Wow, didn't know about his other persona. I knew he has a channel named 8bit Keys but since I'm not musically inclined, haven't watched it much. Maybe his gun channel helps keep the types of fans Tim complains about away.

<comment><USER42> Wonder how effective is that though! I've been watching his 8-bit side for years. Had no idea until I started with competition shooting and YT recommendation engine decided it's my cup of tea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The last time I wrote a mild critique about Tim Ferriss online, someone scoured the internet to reverse engineer _my_ personal identity and sent an e-mail to my personal e-mail account to debate with me. (I have since switched to anonymous handles). I can only imagine what it's like for Tim Ferriss himself.

If you're not familiar with Tim Ferriss, there are several reasons why he's more attractive to dangerous followers than the average influencer:

\- He was among the first to crack the "influencer" code, gaining fame and popularity through book publishing and early social media websites (pre- Instagram). Back then, there weren't nearly as many influencers to know about, let alone follow.

\- He rose to fame via punchy self-help books like "The Four Hour Workweek" and "The Four Hour Body". He talks about having chosen those topics to give solutions to the average problems faced by modern people. He makes calculated moves to target the widest range of people who are looking for answers to life's basic challenges.

\- He has moved toward more respectable topics over time, but his early work tended toward fantastical claims and unrealistic promises. It was more fantasy than practical, but always grounded in an inspiring shroud of "What if he's right?" This leaves the hopeful readers hooked while filtering out the rational skeptics. I joke that he applied the Nigerian prince scam filtering mechanism to self-help books.

\- In the past, he dabbled in pure clickbait that wasn't grounded in reality. For example, consider his famous blog post about gaining 34 lbs of muscle in 28 days with only 4 hours of total gym time using secret techniques of the "little-known Colorado Experiment": [https://tim.blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-to- freak-how-i-gained-...](https://tim.blog/2007/04/29/from-geek-to-freak-how-i- gained-34-lbs-of-muscle-in-4-weeks/) If you're at all familiar with weightlifting or exercise science you'll understand how impossible this is, yet it circulated for years on message boards from beginners who were convinced that Tim Ferriss was a guru who could help them achieve the impossible.

\- One of Tim's books has a section about contacting famous people who you wouldn't normally expect to respond to you. He encourages readers to contact famous people as an example of achieving what you previously thought was impossible. This is intertwined with his stories about life hacking or using clever tricks to achieve impossible goals. It's not surprising that his fans have chosen to apply those techniques to Tim Ferriss himself, by following his social media and calling around at hotels to find him. He all but encouraged this behavior in his first book.

\- Recently, Tim has been pushing Psychedelic medicine as a miracle cure for depression, anxiety, and PTSD. He has made some very respectable and noble efforts to raise money for proper scientific research. He also gives pseudo- warnings on his podcasts to not attempt DIY psychedelic treatment for psychiatric issues, but his disclaimers have a very "wink, wink" after we've received fantastical advice about getting rich, traveling the world, getting fit, and so on from Tim over the years. I have no doubt that many of his fans have begun experimenting with psychedelics to treat their severe depression and anxiety without the help of psychiatrists, which is not a recipe for healthy outcomes.

In other words, Tim Ferriss almost defines the modern "Guru" archetype. Fame and publicity always come with a risk of stalkers and negative attention, but I believe Tim's position as a self-help guru and psychedelic medicine pusher has amplified uniquely amplified his reach among the most vulnerable individuals. I feel truly sorry for him, of course, but it's helpful to understand the larger context of how he arrived in this position if you're wondering how this could apply to other internet-famous people.

<comment><USER44> Ferriss also frequently gives instructions on how to send cold emails or make cold calls to influential people for personal advantage. He's strongly selecting for and maybe even actively creating the kind of person who will be predisposed to harass him.

<comment><USER45> I remember that chapter of Four Hour Work Week. I just found it again:

 _" Find Yoda: Call at least one potential superstar mentor per day for three days. E-mail only after attempting a phone call. I recommend calling before 8:30am or after 6pm to reduce run-ins with secretaries and other gatekeepers. Shoot for A players - CEOs, ultrasuccessful entrepreneurs, famous authors etc. Don't aim low to make it less frightening. Use [specific website for finding contact details of celebrities omitted here] if need be. Base your script on the following..."_

The thing is, as annoying as that sounds, that chapter was actually really useful to me as an extremely shy guy who was too intimidated to even contact the 'CEO' of a shareware company. I never phoned & only emailed once, but having a template script for how to succinctly ask a question of a busy person I felt intimidated by was very helpful to me then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The irony of this blog entry is that Tim Ferris is a relentless self-promoter who continues that practice for the entire first half of this essay before finally getting to the drawbacks of being a successful self-promoter. I appreciate the thought, but I question the motives of the author.

<comment><USER12> Whatever the motive I'm glad that he still eventually got to the point. I don't think you can fault him for that, that's what he's good at, I guess.

<comment><USER46> He is really good at it and does good with it, so I don't fault him. Not my cup of tea though. I tried to listen to his podcast, but for the first 8 minutes he talked about himself and his accomplishments. That's a bit much self-regard for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> maze-le Wow that was... unexpectedly intense. Like a microcosm of everything that is wrong with cults of personality.

<comment><USER47> I thought the same thing. That escalated really quickly, and it's certainly given me pause about having any online presence (despite not being at all famous). Bookmarked to reread later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Counterpoint: You want to help people, educate people, lift people up — and your only talent best suited for this is your writing skills, your speaking skills, your musical abilities or your acting skills.

Fame is how you reach a larger audience.

My high school teacher may have inspired a number of his students to love and pursue astronomy, but Carl Sagan inspired orders of magnitudes more.

<comment><USER49> Counter-counterpoint: If you are not too picky about the type of good you want to do, money can buy you an astonishing amount of it. See the effective altruism movement, e.g. [https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/impact- calculator/](https://www.thelifeyoucansave.org/impact-calculator/) . For a thousand dollars you can provide 781 person-years of save drinking water or purchase 500 bednets to protect against malaria.

Unless you are over-proportionally suited or talented at being famous, you can basically always do more good by earning and donating as much money as you can.

(Note, though, that it requires more reflection and conceptualization to _feel as good_ by giving remotely than by giving to people locally or in your community.)

<comment><USER50> I think an argument can be made that, if an artist doesn't create their art because they figure they can earn more money as an investment banker and donate money to causes they care about instead, the world is actually worse off as a result.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I never wanted to be famous. Now I feel confirmed. Jesus. There's liberty in being a nobody.

> _Suffice to say, I didn't realize that this type of thing was part of the > Faustian fame-seeking bargain._

Again, reading classics holds more weight than 90% of current self help and motivational books. Goethe was on point.

After having mastered all the sciences and still unfulfilled, Faust seeks Mephisto to know "was die Welt in ihrem Innersten zusammen hält" (What binds the essence of the world). And enters a pact with the Devil. Of course it all goes to shit.

<comment><USER52> It's fun to summarize Faust II for those who haven't read it. Faust I is so commonly read in school here, and so earnest and serious that the time- traveling madness of the second part comes at a surprise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> An unfortunate consequence of fame is that celebrities are sometimes forced to take counter surveillance matters into their own hands.

As it's difficult for a celebrity to accept new people into their inner circle without knowing their motives, pre-emptive measures can be used to vet outsiders. The unfortunate consequence of this is the application of questionable methods by shady security forces. Celebrities don't have their own Secret Service detail so they end up relying upon their peers to perform investigations of outsiders entering their fold. This can be disastrous all around, particularly when there exists political and cultural disparities amongst involved parties. Speaking from experience.

<comment><USER54> This reminds me of Ana Delvey, the fake NYC socialite scammer of a few years ago. I originally thought it was funny that she had ripped all these ultra- wealthy people off, but the sad fact was that she scammed a lot of people who were wealthy enough to have a high limit on their credit cards (~50k), but not wealthy enough to have this kind of social sophisticated social infrastructure in place. She got by into the circles my making various friends that all suggested influence separately (investment banker, editor at Vogue, etc), and together gave her the appearance of legitimacy to all the other friends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> This was a pretty heavy piece. Further reinforces Naval's quote about being rich and anonymous is far better than being poor and famous.

<comment><USER56> Yep, I thought so. It very much reinforces the gut feeling I've always had - to avoid fame (not that I am in any danger of being famous myself :) ).

On that note, that is what has always bugged me about the traitor guy in The Matrix movie, when he negotiated with the agents, and wanted to be reinserted into matrix as someone famous. But I guess wanting to be famous said something about his character. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Law suits. The big one missing is law suits. That's a higher level of fame than this blogger has hit. That includes:

1) Nuts and idiots. For example, people who genuinely believe what you're doing is out to get them.

2) Jackals and vultures. People want what you've built, and see the legal system as a good way of extorting you to get it.

I hit this level of fame, and quickly backed down from anything which might give me more visibility.

I also stopped believing random accusations of famous people until there's proof or unless the accusers are really close. If someone is CEO of a 20,000 person company, and their closest associates accuse them of sexual harassment, exploitation, fraud, or otherwise? That's a plausible accusation. If someone runs a 20,000 person company, and 20 seemingly random people do? Well, that's almost guaranteed by statistics.

<comment><USER58> One of the mitigating strategies here is to have a liability waiver that people sign to enter your office or home. Mine also has an NDA with a nondisparagement provision.

It has been useful for dating, too.

<comment><USER59> Personally, the only time i've had to sign a waiver is right before i've been doing something dangerous or life threatening. If a date made me sign a waiver before entering their home I'd be wondering what kind of fucked up things they've got planned and probably turn around and leave right there.

<comment><USER58> I have yet to encounter anyone who had any issue with it. Personally, I work at home and wouldn't want anyone in the building who potentially had access to my office (it's locked, but still) to not be under NDA at the very least. Opportunistic lawsuits make the liability waiver part important.

Hurt feelings when dating necessitates the non-disparagement clause. Several times I've had people I've politely rejected say all manner of false things about me, sometimes years after the fact.

I make it clear to anyone who participates in my life in any meaningful social capacity that they do so only on the condition of privacy and discretion. Those are the terms made plain up front. No one is required to participate.

Really though it comes down to physical safety. If someone doxes me, I incur approximately $40k in instantaneous expenses because I suddenly have to move, injunctions on posting or no, thanks to the internet. Having a document in place to be able to (somewhat) protect against or recover from that is a little bit of peace of mind.

<comment><USER60> Creepy AF

<comment><USER58> Why do you feel that way?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is tangential to the article, but James being "a frequent commenter on his blog and a huge help to other readers" was my first sign that he was not mentally well. Immediately knew things would not go well for him in this story.

People often say this as a joke, but I think it's 100% accurate: Internet comment sections have a strong self-selection bias for the mentally unwell.

I'll include Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, HN to some extent, etc.

Not exact numbers, but the math goes something like 100% of comments are written by 10% of readers. Of those that do bother to comment, the less utilized and less psychology stable and healthy they are, the greater their commenting volume is.

Healthy happy people simply do not spend much of their time that way.

(I'm including myself in that btw.)

The world treats these comment sections as if they represent a perfect cross- section of the general population, and the result is all the insane cultural rambling and nonsense you hear and read about in media and blogs, all the way up to Fox News and NYT. They think these insane ramblings are what represent the people and what the people want.

Then the population adjusts to some extent to match those insane ramblings, because they think that's how other people must feel.

It's a global feedback loop of political and cultural madness and hysteria.

<comment><USER61> > Healthy happy people simply do not spend much of their time that way.

But what if making comments makes you happy?

While I don't disagree with the premises of what you are saying I think you are not considering that for some people saying something makes them feel good and they are perfectly mentally sane.

I could also say that 'healthy happy people do not spend their time socializing with others at parties' but we know people do that because 'it makes them happy'.

<comment><USER62> For what it's worth "mentally sane" and "healthy happy people" can be a little boring in real life, that's why lots of people like myself have decided to spend time arguing with people from the other side of the world on websites like this one or on reddit just because the subjects being argued about are interesting and there's no way you could find a person in your real life that could be interested in said subjects.

<comment><USER61> Very true. Also words vs. conversation tends to be very efficient although often lacking cues that come with voice or visually. No wasted time and much less boredom from feeling trapped.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Hypothesis: On twitter, when your follower count exceeds the number you're following, you become a little nutty.

I've noticed this odd trend where if people gain a lot of twitter followers, then often their views become reinforced to the point that outsiders look at their tweets and wonder what happened to make them express such ideas.

But there's bias here: for tweets like these to be noticed, they need to be seen. Only those with followers are in that position. It makes sense that wacky tweets we notice tend to come from people with lots of followers. So I'm not sure if it's true, or if there are just a lot of odd people on twitter.

My own experiences indicate that the sweet spot is around 1k followers. More than that, you attract a lot of noise. Less than that, and it's hard to get noticed. But perhaps this is just personal taste.

The reason I mentioned this is that I'm in the fortunate position of having attracted a lot of followers recently (for whatever reason), but I'm concerned that things will turn sour. I _like_ twitter right now. There are cool people on there, and I've met friends through the platform. But will it still feel like that at 5k followers? 10k? 50k? I feel like I should stop whatever is accelerating the follower count before it reaches an inflection point. So the article resonated with me.

If you're ever jealous of people with lots of followers (or fame in general, for that matter), just tune in to [https://twitter.com/paulg](https://twitter.com/paulg) and see the way people respond to pretty much anything he says. What's the point of being famous if you can't express an idea without being beset by thoughtless people?

<comment><USER64> Alternately, everyone has dumb thoughts from time to time, and the bigger and more tempting your megaphone, the more you risk shouting it out before having the chance to wake up 3 days later thinking "wow, that's completely insane."

This is also one of the reasons I abhor twitter. Everything is RIGHT NOW. Really, nobody should send a message to 1000+ people without sleeping on it or getting a second opinion.

<comment><USER65> Most people are also easily flattered and everybody is naturally opinionated. It's hard to keep your ego in check.

For example, you see respectable scientists and artists write a popular book, then the next one (because their publisher nags them), then a third one that is borderline unprofessional (no time, publisher send ghostwriter), and so on. Maybe some of them realize that a best seller can yield a lot of money and in no time time they appear in talk shows talking about topics they couldn't possibly know anything about (alien invasions, politics, the future of mankind). Finally, they appear to be nuts and everybody is angry about how "fake" they are and speculates about their mental problems.

If I would get book proposals and interview requests every day, I'd probably end up the same way.

<comment><USER66> Tucker Carlson once said it was hard to see his flaws after success because "everything about the experience reinforces what you're doing."[1]

Fame can be a funny teacher in that respect. The feedback you'd normally get after making a mistake can be smothered by all the praise and money that still pours in, irrespective of the decisions you make (at least in the short-term).

After a while, you can end up being this cartoonish version of yourself, trained by the preferences of other people and what they like and don't like about you.

I think it's how celebrities end up in situations where they're blindly unaware of things that seem obvious to most people or act out in strange ways (like Bill Cosby making a distasteful Fat Albert joke before he goes to court, Kevin Spacey making videos in the persona of Francis Underwood, Britney Spears shaving off her hair, Dave Chapelle's self-induced "exile", OJ Simpson posting Twitter videos, and of course Kanye West's song "I Love Kanye" where he sardonically talks about all the different things people want from him).

[1] [https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/12/tucker-...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/12/tucker- carlson-fox-news/603595/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Does anyone else feel like he really misinterpreted the parable of the blind men and the elephant?

Jim Carrey's quote also seems out of context, given that Carrey is talking about the philosophical nature of fame as a goal. How striving for it could become a part of your identity and then actually achieving it and finding your problems still exist would lead to a loss of identity, disillusionment and other existential stuff. Ferriss is dealing more with the practical realities of being famous on a day to day basis.

</comment><comment><USER68> My advice (not famous person):

If you want to "try before you buy" the famous lifestyle perhaps try to get comfortable at night clubs and festivals. Once you kind of learn how that dynamic works and you can get the most attractive people there to pay attention/dance/party with you, you will see a lot of the positives and negatives that come with the territory.

Beautiful, heartless women. Jealousy. Needless power positioning. Regretful spending. But also fun and memorable experiences. YMMV

<comment><USER69> This seems mostly unrelated to the meat of the article. I'm not sure that your suggestion results in a productive sample of anything other than spending time in nightclubs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> I think it highly depends on the kind of fame. If you connect emotionally with your audience, then sure. But if, say, you are a famous researcher then I suspect you are facing far less of these problems.

<comment><USER71> I think his tribe-village-city analogy plays a big part in that, though.

A famous researcher probably wouldn't have as large an audience, and that audience would most likely consist of other researchers in similar or adjacent fields of research

<comment><USER72> I'm pretty sure someone like Katie Bouman has a lot of horror stories to tell about the downside of fame.

Reading this article makes me very happy about being more or less completely unknown and unremarkable enough to not become an overnight sensation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> I'd rather not be rich or famous. If I happened to become either I'd try and leverage them in some way to help or form organisations that can navigate the hot mess of our societies next few decades.

</comment><comment><USER74> Becoming famous requires a lot of good luck and not just hard work. You have to be the right person at the right time kind of thing. I feel extreme good luck invites bad luck because of the negative energy surrounding the famous person. This has very interesting side affects on how famous people look at risk and make their decisions. But thinking of famous personalities like Gandhi, MLK, Kobe, MJ, Bruce Lee, I wonder what would have happened if they were not famous. Would their destinies be any different?

<comment><USER75> You wouldn't know if their destinies were any different, because if they were not famous, you'd never have heard of them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> This was a surprisingly good article and I had not even really (odd actually) heard of Tim until literally the other day. Maybe I came across his name somewhere in the past but thought "he's a self help type author no interest". That said the thing that surprised me is the fact that he is doing the least likely things to make himself less of a target. You go to the blog there's a big picture of him on display and not exactly understated. So sure he could write his books and provide information and make it less likely that people would get mental over what he has and his success (because they would be less likely to focus on him and be jealous). After all something sparks the person who stalks him and I don't think a large part of that is words. Yes writers and others (w/o pictures) get stalked but for whatever reason my guess is it's much less.

Let's look at it this way. Not saying it would be possible to be famous w/o displaying yourself personally in a prominent way but what if he provided his helpful info and never had a picture of himself and/or used a pseudonym for his name?

</comment><comment><USER39> Can anyone comment on his statement that having mail delivered to your house puts you on searchable commercial lists?

I'm wondering if it's actually physical mail that's at issue, or rather having your home address as say a billing address on a site you buy something from.

This one seemed fairly tough to avoid 100%, so I want to know more about the plausibility.

<comment><USER17> I worked for a company that bought mailing lists and linked them to public records. We didn't sell to marketers but it did open my eyes that anyone who isn't prohibited will sell info.

Some industries (utilities, banking) are prohibited from selling customer info. But most aren't. If you ever subscribe to a magazine, donate to a charity, enter a sweepstakes, etc your info goes into commercial lists.

<comment><USER39> Gotcha. So not just physical mail: _anything_ with your physical address on it that isn't prohibited from selling it may do so.

<comment><USER17> Cynically, that's how I operate. A friend donated to Southern Poverty Law Center and never ordered anything. They entered their address on the credit card form and now gets mail from dozens of orgs including about a piece per week from SPLC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Anecdotal, but have known someone who because famous. They like getting their emails responded to; but they'd rather not get the publicity.

This was cemented when I was walking with them had to take a detour to avoid a news crew that was looking for them.

</comment><comment><USER77> Lathe Biosas. [1]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus#Politics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus#Politics)

</comment><comment><USER78> Classic Tim Ferriss BS where you can't back out of the site without seeing an ad for his stuff. This guy is a con artist

</comment><comment><USER79> I think the only way to be rich and anonymous is wealth building through stocks, real estate, etc. No one outside of your broker, yourself, and the government knows about that in the case of stocks, and you can buy real estate through an LLC if you want to be extra anonymous.

</comment><comment><USER80> This question must be for stage II; so far I can't think of a reason I'd like to become famous in the first place...

</comment><comment><USER81> I think life has more reasons than be: I can survive in luxury.

I think once you have enough, your purpose is to help others. Choose something

</comment><comment><USER82> By definition, most people don't need to worry about becoming famous and its consequences.

</comment><comment><USER83> Just assume that whatever you say to anyone will end up in the news next morning.

<comment><USER84> But this is a terrible way to live. You'll never be vulnerable with anybody, and vulnerability is a big component of close relationships.

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Never liked Tim. He always seemed to outsource his brain.

</comment><comment><USER86> Helps a lot of you want to have one night stands.

</comment><comment><USER87> The brighter the light, the darker the shadow.

</comment><comment><USER88> Perhaps I'm missing something, but what's good about being famous? I.e. what are the reasons _to become_ famous?

<comment><USER89> The article covers that, near the start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> Funny I'm just a sometime blogger and I used to get weirdos finding my house and sending me handwritten letters. At one point I was tied up with one of Steven Spielberg's schizophrenic stalkers because of some dipshit I argued with on Usenet to pass time in grad school. Now I got my face on a fairly well known startup, which means various 3rd world places I enjoy are non-starters without having actual security precautions in place (which defeats the purpose of going to such places in the first place: freedom).

Being even slightly famous is shit. I quite enjoy writing and would take it to the next level, but I'd rather not be any more famous. The culture of narcissism which encourages people to seek fame is ridiculous: it's all the downsides of being surveilled except its eyes the size of your audience instead of a couple of creepy (but probably mostly law abiding) policeman at a terminal.

<comment><USER28> I've always been curious about traveling while famous. You generally have to show a passport at airports, hotels, etc.. So I always wondered how famous people moved around with any kind of annonimity.

Surely a fake passport is far too risky for legal reasons? Yet it would solve a lot of their problems when combined with sunglasses and a cap...

I guess what I'm asking is, what would be the "riskiest" country that you would actually entertain the possibility of visiting without serious precautions?

<comment><USER90> Fancy hotels have decent security and will meet you at the airport (I mean some of the people we're talking about have private jets and own hotels -though they have security teams to take care of matters). They're probably also used to "Harrison Ford" tier famous people showing up. California allows for pseudonyms on government documents and credit cards, basically because of Hollywood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER91> Good thing I chose not to be famous.

</comment><comment><USER92> I honestly thought this is bad writing. It jumps from one idea to the next without bringing any of them to the conclusion. One quote too many, maybe? And too many paragraphs that are meant to catch and arounse the reader's interest?

I guess this is the style of writing needed to catch the attention of millions of followers. Am I mistaken?

I've stopped reading this after 5 minutes. I've reallly tried, though.

Edit: Downvotes expected for an honest opinion. That's fine :)

<comment><USER93> You're probably getting voted down because you're not really adding anything valuable to the discussion.

If you think the submitted article is bad just vote it down and move on.

<comment><USER94> Huh? Are you able to downvote articles at your current level of karma? I cannot and I have than you (ie immediate parent to this comment).

<comment><USER92> Nope, I cannot.

<comment><USER75> Neither can I, at my level. I don't think anyone can. (Of course, there are those with a lot more than me. Maybe they can... but I doubt it. So far as I know, the only real level in karma is at 500, when you can downvote comments.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you control distractions or addictions? - <AUTHOR> Distractions may include News, Games, Phone etc. that may consume productive time from your schedule and return no profit. <comment><USER2> What are you _not_ doing when you do these things.

Disclaimer: the "I" will be present a lot in this post because I prefer to write about what works for me, and let the reader figure out if it works for them or not, instead of telling them what to do. The below shield me against a lot of distractions/addictions, and give me time to pursue other distractions and addictions : )

I don't have social applications installed on my phone: no Facebook/Instagram/Twitter, etc. I don't have notifications except for things I use for work.

I need something to call, be called, read a book, take a picture of a whiteboard, check a link.

I have a long, long, password in my phone and I need a _very_ good reason to unlock it. I don't unlock with fingerprint/face id/pattern. I don't want unlocking to be convenient.

Media: I don't really consume the news unless I want to be informed on a specific issue. There are many people following the news, and the most important events find their way.

I can count the number of shows I've watched. I only watch shows if screen- writer/director/actor/director of photography/music was done by X, Y, or Z, and I maintain a mental graph for "recommendation" to allow discovery "I like X's work. They worked with W. I'll check that out". It's incredibly effective as it turns out people tend to work with a relatively small number of people and it buffers me against low quality stuff, especially the trending one. It makes for funny experiences: I was watching a recent movie with a friend and said "This sounds and feels and looks like a Woody Allen movie" and it turns out it was directed and written by Woody Allen.

Content: I avoid technical content that says "Don't do this" or "Do this". Examples: "Use microservices" or "Go serverless for maximum scalability" without the presence of mind to mention the context: size of the company, codebase maturity, skillset of the team, specialized roles, etc. I also avoid content written by people who've done too much "architecting", or who are so high in the abstraction layer that the next step is "Think it and it will code itself" pattern to emerge, or otherwise people with a pedantic voice. It has done wonders shielding me/us from hype.

</comment><comment><USER3> Context shifting has high overhead, so use it to your advantage. Try only checking distractions on your phone but never on your computer. When you need to focus, simply put the phone in another room. Now you have to actively stand up, walk into the other room, and pick up the phone to interact with the distractions. This moves it from an automatic process to a conscious decision that you have to make.

If you can't resist the urge to check distractions on your computer, use any number of website blocking applications to force it.

Make time for procrastination, but schedule it. If you allow yourself to read Twitter for 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes after lunch, and 15 minutes at night then you're still spending 45 minutes on Twitter, but you're doing it in a controlled manner that isn't distracting from your work. This will relieve some of the pressure to check distractions during the day because you know you'll scratch that itch soon enough.

Finally, address the issues that are pushing you away from work in the first place. Learn to enjoy your daily work and appreciate periods of focus. Learn to put aside self-defeating thoughts and behaviors that might discourage you from getting started on things. Learn to identify your own feelings and behaviors and address them head-on rather than escaping into pleasant distractions.

</comment><comment><USER4> Like another poster said, put your distraction in a physically-distant location. The farther it is, the more energy it's going to take to fall into your bad habits.

Nip the thought of your habit the soonest you possibly can. You are thinking about playing a game? STOP! Thinking about wasting time? STOP! This not only helps you avoid the activity but strengthens your resolve while the need to distract yourself dissipates.

Get involved with others. We fall into addictions/habits because we can tend to be lonely [or otherwise avoid our feelings]. Reach out to friends, plan an online game night, call a friend. The more you involve others, the more help you will see it has on you.

Ultimately what helped fixed myself was a combination of:

\- therapy

\- praying [to God] (ultimately I needed this to finally rid myself of my distractions, everything else included)

\- community

\- persistence

There will be many many times where you fail too, and you shouldn't beat yourself up about it, but instead accept it and try again.

</comment><comment><USER5> I sometimes have to pit one drive against another; putting the distractions first, but not eating that day until I'm completely done with that distraction, such as gaming 'n surfing. I would guess that this is unlikely to work for drugs that are serotonin mimics or alcohol, however; since the latter dis-inhibits, and also affects judgement and memory.

</comment><comment><USER6> Since this is hacker news, here is a cool Paul Graham essay on the subject [http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/addiction.html)

<comment><USER7> Paul Graham is a goat</comment></comment>


An extremely simple spaced repetition algorithm - <AUTHOR> http://memodrops.com/algorithm.html

<comment><USER2> While this algorithm is very simple it doesn't seem to take into account critical periods in memory formation.

Just choosing which card to show next is only half the battle. If you're learning X cards you need to review all X within the first hour, then the next period of 24-48 hours, etc. The forgetting curve which underlies spaced repetition has some biological tipping points (did you sleep between your last session and this one) which are not easily approximated.

I strongly support software like this, but would prefer a complex accurate system, to a simple elegant one.

</comment><comment><USER3> If anyone is interested in this sort of thing, another application which uses a slightly more complicated (but open) algorithm is "mnemosyne" (mnemosyne- proj.org). Its algorithm is based on an older algorithm from SuperMemo.

Another one is Anki (ichi2.net/anki/).

</comment><comment><USER4> While I agree with iandanforth that you're missing an important aspect of this, I'd like to commend you on what you have. My first attempt at writing a spaced-repetition algorithm turned out with the same results as yours, however your algorithm is a much neater way of looking at things. If you take iandanforth's comment to heart try to incorporate it into what you already have, instead of rewriting.</comment>


Ask HN: What spending habits are you proud of? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I tip well. It makes me feel good, and I hope makes them feel good, too.

</comment><comment><USER3> I always buy my dog expensive stuff.

<comment><USER4> y'all... i spend SO much on my pup. shes one spoiled lady lol :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> buying good and well raised meat.</comment>


Climate risk and response: Physical hazards and socioeconomic impacts - <AUTHOR> https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/climate-risk-and-response-physical-hazards-and-socioeconomic-impacts <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the full report: [https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Business%20Functio...](https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Business%20Functions/Sustainability/Our%20Insights/Climate%20risk%20and%20response%20Physical%20hazards%20and%20socioeconomic%20impacts/MGI- Climate-risk-and-response-vF.ashx)

And the executive summary: [https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Business%20Functio...](https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Business%20Functions/Sustainability/Our%20Insights/Climate%20risk%20and%20response%20Physical%20hazards%20and%20socioeconomic%20impacts/MGI- Climate-risk-and-response-Exec-summary-vF.ashx)</comment>


Why I Hate 3-D (And You Should Too) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/2010/04/30/why-i-hate-3-d-and-you-should-too.html

<comment><USER2> Gimmicky as 3D may be right now, this is just typical "get off my lawn" trolling. His arguments boil down to:

1) We got along fine without it before, so adding it would be somewhere between worthless and a net loss artistically.

2) The early implementations available now are still awkward.

3) People make money from it.

His same arguments can be applied pretty much point-for-point against introducing sound or color, or creating TV at all. Or print. If the Epic of Gilgamesh was only told in person and passed down through oral history, well by golly, that should be good enough for us. Anything more is just cheapening the art!

<comment><USER3> 4) The experience sucks. After my second 3d movie, I've vowed never to pay for a 3D ticket again. The experience is actually _worse_ than 2D, it makes it harder to focus on certain parts of the screen etc. Even in Avatar the 3D wasn't very good. And his point about 48fps rings true, although I've never seen it.

<comment><USER4> Give it time. The tech is still pretty new.

I've only seen one move in 3d: avatar. I thought it was pretty amazing to look at.

With any new technology, there are trade offs. This goes for movie from b+w to color, color to digital, etc. For the move to 3d, some parts of the screen are not in focus. Don't try and look at them directly. Let your eyes be drawn to the parts in focus and you won't have a problem. That's how the director wanted it any way (this goes for 2d movies too, it's just used less frequently).

<comment><USER5> > Give it time. The tech is still pretty new.

Yeah, it's only about 100 years old (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-D_film#History>).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think it's a fair critique despite the inflammatory title. He's not really opposed to 3-D, as long as it doesn't come at the expense of good filmmaking.

There's a goldrush going on right now in Hollywood to cash in on the premium for 3-D ticket sales before the novelty wears off, which means we'll have a lot of fake or lower quality 3-D films. The 3-D craze really only kicked into high gear last year when Avatar was released. I imagine that a lot of the titles currently being released were intended to be 2D.

I'm looking forward to what the future will bring. I'm sure the technology will continue to improve and the filmmakers will continue to become more effective at using the third D.

</comment><comment><USER7> The real problem with 3D is that all (real, not CG) cameras have a depth of field - a certain range over which the image is in focus. This is great in a 2D film to focus the audience's attention on something, but the 3D setup just begs the user to focus on what they think is important, so you end up focusing on some fuzzy object instead of the subject. In other words, depth of field replicates the fuzziness of your peripheral vision, but 3D asks you to look into and around the scene. It's a view mechanics uncanny valley - and I don't think they can fix this as long as there are flat screens.

</comment><comment><USER8> I saw Avatar. Criticisms of the plot aside, I loved the 3D. I wanted to see it with my partner. But when I talked to her about it, she said that 3D films make her nauseous.

So now, it seems like every movie coming out that is possibly even worth seeing is in 3D. I can adjust to the experience, but my partner can't, and this is a problem because going to the movies is one of the few options we have for a quick date away from the house and baby.

Like Ebert, I'm fine with 3D as an option. But I hope it doesn't become the dominant form for decent movies. I'm hoping that the studios continue offering the alternate non-3D option for each movie they release.

</comment><comment><USER9> My experience: the glasses make the movie darker, feel bad in front of my glasses and I try to focus on 3D objects desperately. I end up enjoying the film less.

<comment><USER3> Exactly the same here. It's evil marketing ploy at its worst, a lot worse than, say, the camera's industry focus on selling megapixels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think a major problem with 3D right now is that you don't really know what you're paying for. Are you getting a movie where some real effort was put into the 3D, or are you getting a half-assed version? The (increased) price is the same.

</comment><comment><USER11> what about a spherical globe made of touch screen glass video monitors displaying inside out video streams, and it has just the double size of one's height, as to make a displayed horizon within the sphere where someone is inside, without glasses. it can react to steps and jumps, or even "create gravity illusions" with some hydraulic pistons, creating the ultimate immersive experience ever. Then would be relevant to have minority report's UI inside a sphere like this one i just proposed. :)</comment>


Impact of Interest Rate Changes on the Automobile Market - <AUTHOR> http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2015/11/end-of-the-road-impact-of-interest-rate-changes-on-the-automobile-market.html#.VlMwU66rQ6g <comment><USER2> 100 basis point is 1% (why they don't just call it 1% I don't know, that'd be more readable for 9900 BP of readers...)

Now, 100 BP is what, 10x larger than the long-awaited "first rate hike in a decade"? Why do they even discuss such a "drastic" rate change? It'd take years for the interest rate to climb that much at the speed they say they intend to raise it and then it would no longer be a "shock increase" of the sort they discuss.

<comment><USER3> Why is the rate change important? For two main reasons: 1) it signals the intention of the FED to actively use its tools to manage the growth of the economy as opposed to uncritically encouraging it; 2) even a token charge decreases the demand for what was once free and breaks a crucial psychological barrier for further increases in the future (see point 1; also, the freemium model in apps for an analogy).

So any change upwards really matter after nearly a decade of decreases and the zero-bound rates.

Basis points communicate the absolute change rather than the relative change to remove ambiguity. For example, consider a 1% interest rate: if it goes up by 100 BPS, the new rate is 2%; if by 1%, the new rate is 1.01%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> the graphs in this are shockingly laughable and belie the complete insanity of macroeconomic dogma. To compare, I once simulated electron transfers between iron-sulfur clusters in an enzyme and, not knowing the exact kinetic parameters, used a monte carlo method to estimate variational effects. ([https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yeiOE1Gy0YoPXlLdMo9y8XSS...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yeiOE1Gy0YoPXlLdMo9y8XSSABvps-2I7f0Lqhz26x4/edit?usp=sharing&authkey=CITmk9gH))

The graphs, accordingly, show confidence intervals and are most certainly not smooth or simple.</comment>


Dwarf planet discovery hints at hidden world orbiting solar system - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/03/140326-dwarf-planet-2012-vp113-astronomy/

<comment><USER2> Even Nat'l Geo in on the hype? The original article in Nature didn't mention anything about another planet.

[http://www.nature.com/news/dwarf-planet-stretches-solar- syst...](http://www.nature.com/news/dwarf-planet-stretches-solar-system-s- edge-1.14921)

"It goes to show that there's something we don't know about our Solar System, and it's something important," says co-discoverer Chad Trujillo, an astronomer at Gemini Observatory in Hilo, Hawaii. "We're starting to get a taste of what's out beyond what we consider the edge."

<comment><AUTHOR> _" A rogue planet could have been ejected from our solar system and perturbed their orbits," says astronomer Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., who coauthored the discovery report in the journal Nature. "Definitely, it could still be out there."_

The journal article reports on what they know for a fact. Another planet on an unusual orbit is speculation for now, so I'm not surprised they didn't mention it - although I hope that as they gather more data they'll be able to infer its location and see it block stars or somesuch, if it exists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> More details:

[http://home.dtm.ciw.edu/users/sheppard/inner_oort_cloud/](http://home.dtm.ciw.edu/users/sheppard/inner_oort_cloud/)

[http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/display.cfm?News_ID=46852](http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/display.cfm?News_ID=46852)

</comment><comment><USER4> An inner Oort Cloud object? Interesting. And apparently Sedna is also an Oort Cloud object? I did not know that. I thought it was a Kuiper Belt object.

</comment><comment><USER5> NIBURU!

<comment><AUTHOR> I've always dismissed that as pseudoscientific nonsense, but it would be amusing if fringe astronomers like Zechariah Sitchin turned out to be even partially correct.

<comment><USER6> I don't think it is too far off. Recently an exoplanet with a long elliptical orbit was discovered:

[http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16501-elliptical- orbit...](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16501-elliptical-orbit-gives- exoplanet-a-regular-roasting.html#.UzO4vRZVjPM)

Also it could be a brown dwarf which are hard to detect but will be inline with typical binary star systems observed elsewhere. It is hardly unlikely that our own sun is an exception to the rule.

Not to mention, the 'nemesis' theory is speculated by some main-stream astronomers.</comment></comment></comment>


Market research survey tools - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> Long time reader, first time poster..

Does anybody know any good (free) online market research tools? A site that allows you to create a market survey with a dozen or so questions, and then send it out to your friends/colleagues/long lost acquaintances?

n

<comment><USER2> What is the difference between what you are saying and a simple web form that emails you the answers, or even simpler, just putting the questions in an email?</comment></comment>


Po Bronson: Are Kids Copying Their Parents When They Lie? - <AUTHOR> http://nymag.com/news/features/43893/ <comment><USER2> Po Bronson btw wrote a classic called "The First 20 Million Is Always The Hardest." Great quick read.</comment>


Scientists Fear Visa Trouble Will Drive Foreign Students Away - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/science/03visa.html <comment><USER2> Why there are students who are sad or angry just because their visas were "delayed"?

I am Stanford summer student for 2008, and I was not even granted the visa! I lost hundreds of dollars, faced insults at the embassy, did not even get the visa, and that's it.

I would be crazy if I even think of applying for a U.S. visa again! It's a dignity matter.

It's America's rights to protect it's land, but it's not America's right to be paranoid about Islam forever.

If America wants to continue to be the leader in this world, then America has to keep it's doors open... there is no choice!

It's really so weird for me that America is acting like that, while we are in the globalization time... I can order books from Amazon, sell my old items on ebay, look at any street in America using Google maps, make a new friendships with guys at Stanford, and read nytimes at a time while I am in Cairo, Egypt!

It's very weird because America focuses much more on the physical security, while leaving the online security, which looks much dangerous for me!

<comment><USER3> _It's America's rights to protect it's land, but it's not America's right to be paranoid about Islam forever._

I regret that I have but 8 karma points to give.

Islam, like all religious faiths, is predicated on the notion that rational thought is to be subjugated to some holy book or higher power. As such, Islam, and all other faiths (including even every moderate branch of mainstream religions in the U.S.) are susceptible to radicalization and militarization. While abortion clinic bombers are currently a much smaller problem than Muslim suicide bombers on a pure numbers basis, the potential is still there.

That said, Islam has proven itself to be exceedingly prone to militarization. The subordination of the intellect is an _explicit_ tenet of even the name of the religion. The intellects of Muslims are, by definition, enslaved to the Koran and, by common practice throughout the world, enslaved to two-bit Mullahs and the insipid fatwas they issue. Western secular civilization, by definition, has not only the right but the obligation to be paranoid about Islam for as long as it take Islam to prove itself benign.

The only reason the western secular civilization need not immediately take remedial action against other, more moderate, strains of religious belief is that, currently, their capacity for sheer mindless barbaric murderousness has been rendered latent by the secularizing force of modern technology and society. Specifically, for example, there is no danger that printing an image of the Christian god will result in mobs of anti-intellectual zealots rioting in the streets, overturning and burning vehicles while chanting, "Death to America!" There is that danger with Islam.

It is only radical and misguided political correctness to say that Islam is not the enemy of the west, when Islam itself is explicitly opposed to such shining examples of western rationality and moral values as: 1) The seeking of equality of opportunity for women, 2) The seeking of knowledge via the scientific method, even if (and especially if) it leads to the overthrow of current understanding or doctrine, 3) Due process and commensurate punishment for individuals accused and found guilty, respectively, of crimes, 4) The separation of religious entities from the government, and so on.

Any sect that explicitly and in its founding texts is opposed to virtues such as the ones listed above is not only an enemy of the West, but an enemy of the scientific method that has brought so much benefit to mankind and even an enemy of every great thinker since the Enlightenment. I am not ashamed of my hatred for Islam, nor of my dislike for other organized religions. We can thank Islam for shepherding rationalism through the Christian Dark Ages but, currently, its only other gift to mankind is showing us explicitly how severe the latent danger of the religious mind really is.

<comment><USER2> hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Although you admitted that you are an Islam hater, I really find it useless to make a debate with you. Do you know why? Because most of the information you listed above is wrong!

You have made the same mistake that many others do everyday... You judge on Islam just because of less than 0.000000001% of Muslims have declared the war against America.

Do you think that Islam agrees on bombs? If there is a religion that asks you to kill others, then it's not worth believing in it!

I am sure that when you will have the correct information about Islam, and about Muslims too, your point of view will be totally changed!

How many bombers are out there? Million bombers? Although million bombers is not realistic number, but even if it's truth, then there are more than 1.5 Billions muslims in the world!

Devide 1 million/1.5 billion and then * 100 , and look at the percentage!

<comment><USER4> His misconception is not believing that most Muslims are violent, but that most Muslims take their religion as seriously as the intellectual framework commands. Islam may have not had a reformation into conservative and non- conservative sects, but the great majority of Muslims do not feel an image of Muhammad is worth a riot.

Having said that, the proportion of orthodox, Koranic literalists to more liberal Muslims does seem to be significantly higher than the proportion of Christian biblical literalists to more liberal Christians I think this is the point mkn was trying to make, even if using that to justify hatred makes him look kind of dumb.

<comment><USER2> _but the great majority of Muslims do not feel an image of Muhammad is worth a riot._ In fact the great majority of Muslims _feel_ an image of Muhammed is worth a riot, and even a war! Because Muhammed is not a normal person... he is a prophet.

And yeah... most Muslims don't really take their religion as seriously the intellectual framework commands... although we suppose to take Islam as a framework for our lives!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Shiny Reddit - <AUTHOR> http://www.shinyreddit.com/

<comment><USER2> Better name: Tiled Reddit.

Wasn't clear exactly what this did till I looked at the gallery page. Not even on home page did they bother to say this bit of important info.

That said, looks great.</comment>


Ubuntu 17.10: Finally, an exciting Ubuntu release – TechRepublic - <AUTHOR> http://www.techrepublic.com/article/ubuntu-17-10-finally-an-exciting-ubuntu-release/?ftag=COS-05-10aaa0g&utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5942733f04d3013156dba59c&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=twitter <comment><USER2> I'm so happy to see where desktop linux is at this point. Ubuntu never has failed on me for the last 5 years. Tools like LibreOffice are good enough and they're bad _only because_ WYSIWYG document editing itself is bad. At office where we use Windows, half the people are not even given MS Office suites because LO does just fine.

Recently I evaluated Lightroom, an industry standard for photo post processing for a damn good reason, against Darktable and found preferring Darktable's take on picture manipulation. And I was ready to throw $1000 for a Windows PC just to be able to run lightroom if it proved to be so much better.</comment>


Blazor Now in Official Preview - <AUTHOR> https://devblogs.microsoft.com/aspnet/blazor-now-in-official-preview/ <comment><USER2> Very strange. I thought the world was being eaten by Javascript, and now this?

</comment><comment><USER3> Very exciting!</comment>


Show HN: What the Hack - <AUTHOR> http://whatthehack.io

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Everyone,

We have made a site and we call it "What The Hack". It's intended to be a hackathon entertainment portal, wherein you can find details about hackathons and anything related to hackathons. I love hackathons and we want to inspire a lot of people to joins hackathons, that is why we did this.

Currently right now: We have listed all the hackathons we can find all over the world for the month of May. We have categorized it based on the continents except Antartica since we can't find a single hackathon that has happened in Antartica yet... Lol. But we did add remote hackathons as a category. If we missed out anything, please tell me and i'll put it in.

We have made two videos already, but we need suggestion from you guys about what videos about hackathons we should make.... there is a poll on on this link where you can vote for the future episodes... [http://whatthehack.io/whatthehack- channel/](http://whatthehack.io/whatthehack-channel/)

If you can give us feedbacks, suggestions, or just a smile... that would be awesome! Thanks! :)

This weekend (May 8 -10, 2015): SF - "Stupid Shit No One Needs and Terrible Ideas Hackathon", Toronto - "WearHacks Toronto", Austin,TX - "Angelhack Austin", Berlin - "ecomhack 2015", Singapore - "Angelhack Singapore", India - "Save the Hacker"</comment>


Three Minutes with Steve Wozniak - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,134826/article.html

<comment><USER2> > but we never will see a robot that makes a cup of coffee, never. I don't > believe we will ever see it.

<http://www.mrcoffee.com/productmodels.aspx?categoryid=1>

> We will never ever have artificial intelligence.

I'll take that bet. Not much of a visionary, is he?

After the Apple II and its disk drive, he basically just... stopped. From the best... to a non-factor. I wonder if the plane accident affected him so he either lost the inclination or the concentration needed to be an engineer.</comment>


Swindled by Nigerian? Apply for compensation now (meta-scam) - <AUTHOR> http://www.colorfulwolf.com/blog/2011/07/31/swindled-by-nigerian-apply-for-compensation-now/

<comment><USER2> This has the makings of a very hilarious scam. Fill out your form, and pay £10.99 to have your case considered.</comment>


Power in Numbers - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/science/broad-institute-director-finds-power-in-numbers.html?_r=1&hp

<comment><USER2> Best quote in the article:

"You live your life prospectively and tell your story retrospectively, so it looks like everything is converging."

Sometimes it is easy to get discouraged when you look at the success of others, especially when what they have done looks like (and often is presented as) a carefully executed plan. More often than not, it was a "bumbling along" that only looks coherent in hindsight. It's amazing how many discoveries were surprising side effects uncovered during the pursuit of something entirely different.

So, don't worry if you feel like you don't have a perfect execution plan for your vision. Just keep moving forward, and one day you will be able to explain to your biographer how, against a tide of conventional wisdom, you knew exactly what you were doing all along. ;-)</comment>


Pólya conjecture - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%B3lya_conjecture

<comment><USER2> While on topic of Polya, his book 'How to solve it' is considered a classic on the topic of problem solving <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Solve_It>

</comment><comment><USER3> _"How I need a drink, alcoholic of course, after the heavy chapters involving quantum mechanics."_

I've never heard this before, but I'll never forget it now. There are some more great Pólya quotes on his Wikipedia page: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Pólya>

<comment><USER4> "Mathematics is the cheapest science. Unlike physics or chemistry, it does not require any expensive equipment."

Its probably the most expensive intellectual endeavor known to man (assuming you place a premium value on your time and life.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A mere 906150257? I'm disappointed. Therefore:

Praptak's conjecture: every honest, non-tricky conjecture about natural numbers (that is false) has a counterexample not greater than 10^9.

<comment><AUTHOR> So I guess Riemann's hypothesis must be true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reminds me of this problem:

Given a set of consecutive natural numbers, must one be coprime to all the others?

<comment><USER7> Did you mean s/must/can/ ? No?

<comment><USER8> Are you saying that the answer to the question is "No."? How is that true?

Consider the set: {3, 4, 5}. 3 is coprime to both 4 and 5. Am I misunderstanding the question?

<comment><AUTHOR> But is that always be the case for all sequences?</comment></comment></comment></comment>