21 Things That Became Obsolete This Decade - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/21-things-that-became-obsolete-this-decade-2009-12#pdas-1 <comment><USER2> #6 Maps

Sorry, no. There may be alternatives to maps now, but maps will still be around for quite some time. There isn't cell service everywhere, and a GPS is not the end-all-be-all of navigation. I can take a map and a compass out into the boondocks through rivers and rain and ice and mud and brush and still find my way (which in some circumstances can be a life or death thing). Electronics are a good complement to maps, but they are not a 100% replacement yet.

Also, I'm surprised they missed CRTs. That's a pretty big change that's affected huge numbers of people.

<comment><USER3> "Also, I'm surprised they missed CRTs. That's a pretty big change that's affected huge numbers of people."

Amen. It always amazed me how many people ran their CRT at 60 Hz. Even today's cheapest LCD is an ergonomic achievement compared to what most people used ten years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> #21 on the list: Paper.

"Probably the biggest casualty of the decade. With most communication now conducted online, magazines and newspapers crumbling, and e-readers increasing in popularity, paper is now on serious life support.

It's likely we'll look back and say that, after a 2,000 year reign, paper was killed by the noughties."

I absolutely disagree.

The way we use paper is shifting, yes: Paper's domain over long-term data storage is, obviously, shaken and falling, and that's a good thing — it's bulky, wasteful, and slow to search. So, too, are the news and the paper further in sunder, as scaled communication moves further into the digital domain.

But as a means and medium for thinking and creation, pen and paper are still orders of magnitude more effective than computerized tools except in very specific instances.

It's possible that I'm being a luddite here, and that the generation being born now will find using a computer for the initial stages in the creative process to be more natural than pen and paper. My suspicion, though, is that this simple medium persists because we've had a lot more time to refine it — far longer than the modern computer has existed.

\--

As an aside, does anyone have a better term for this decade than "noughties?" I've heard it a few times and can't shake the feeling that it's awful.

<comment><USER5> Have you ever used a Cintiq?

<comment><USER6> Build auch a device in A3 format powered by solar energy and come back again when you're done.

<comment><USER5> I prefer the larger format, in paper and with interactive media. As for solar energy, power constraints simply aren't an issue for me. I don't want to work when I am in places without readily available power (i like to keep work, work.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Email accounts you have to pay for? I don't remember ever paying for an email account, per se. They show a picture of an American Online graphic; I never used American Online, but weren't you paying for the whole service, not just email? I've had multiple email accounts that were tied to ISPs, but felt I was more paying for the overall internet service.

CDs? Maybe to a large degree, but one high-end jazz group I know of just released a new album strictly on CD, because they don't feel that digital distribution options offer enough sound quality.

Getting film developed? Definitely fading, but as I look at photographs that I've taken over the past few years, I like the overall appearance of the photos taken on Fuji NPH-400 film over those taken with a $3000 digital SLR camera.

<comment><USER8> > CDs? Maybe to a large degree, but one high-end jazz group I know of just > released a new album strictly on CD, because they don't feel that digital > distribution options offer enough sound quality.

CD _is_ digital distribution. I grab the CD, copy the bits onto my computer, and place my drink on it and listen to the music.

(idea stolen entirely from the NOFX Coaster album (Music included!): <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhOY7z2FY3U> )

        Coasters and Frisbees
        Fish lures for deep seas
        Mobiles for infants
        They make great Christmas tree ornaments

        Bring the whole family,
        parking is free
        You're going to love
        our selection
        of 8-track tapes,
        Blank floppy discs,
        mobile car phones,
        Atari 2600 consoles

        Guard rail reflectors
        Hold 'em hand protectors
        Halloween handouts
        We got a ten-thousand foot warehouse
        Full of cassette tapes,
        Persimmon woods,
        Ink jet printers,
        telephone booths,
        Sony Walkman's,
        Kodak 110's,
        Analog TV's,
        Betamax's

And 10 million CD's

<comment><USER9> I still buy CDs, even though I rip them immediately. Why?

1) I like getting booklets with lyrics 2) I can re-rip anytime with higher quality or a different format 3) The CD gets stored safely as a backup

If all digital music were sold in a lossless, DRM-free format, and included excellent digital booklets, and I had an easy and good backup strategy, I guess I'd stop buying CDs. But that day hasn't quite arrived for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think they should also credit RedBox for the decrease in rental stores. There are a lot of people out there who use it, either because they aren't internet-savvy or for other reasons.

As for faxing, I sadly encounter way too many occasions where it is still used.

Here's hoping that in the next decade, we'll see a drastic improvement of local governments posting things online. I just received a letter stating that unspecified changes were being made to a the zoning codes of a district only referred to as a number, specifically in regards to areas zoned as one of two different two-letter abbreviations. For full text, I have to go to city hall. They might as well have printed it on Vogon letterhead</comment>


Four Years of Success and Failure on the App Store - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@clarky07/4-years-of-success-and-failure-on-the-app-store-195dd35bd6a3

<comment><USER2> There is alot of similarity between this story, making iOS apps and making AdSense websites 7-8 years ago. One could slap a website together in a week, and one would see the revenue slowly but surely coming in and going up. The strategy of "making a website every week", and the total will make up for it worked too, for a while. Nowadays, every niche is crowded, and often more professionalised with several persons working on it, Google taking drastic measures to penalise spam-techniques... and the 1-week effort websites (even if you have good, quality content -- but it's just little) will get you nowhere anymore. It is almost, exactly the same story.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, it's definitely similar. Now, I would like to think I didn't cross into the spam realm, but it's a very similar concept, and it's the same problem. Without upkeep and continuous improvement the sites didn't last, and there is a tipping point where you simply can't keep up with so many projects.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, I didn't mean you were in the real of spam, neither was I. But you were addressing "Chomp" update, hurting your sales, no idea what "Chomp" was but with simple websites it happened the same, Google "improved" their search, but while also hurting bonafide smaller websites, just seeing them as collateral damage along the way to keep the real nasty stuff out.

Besides that, these days one needs to setup social media presence, monitor that, be active there as well. And the whole thing of coding, design, marketing... Is these days alot to handle as a one-man-band, doing this on several projects. So yeah, focus, and go for 1-2 projects and develop those really well, and hope for the best. But, I totally understand where you're coming from.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah so Chomp was a small startup working on app store search that Apple bought. End of June 2012 they did a huge update to the search algorithm, that effected a lot of apps.

One of the biggest changes being that free app downloads were weighted much higher. Until that point, I had only paid apps, and things were going pretty well. Overnight, sales got hit really hard. One thing that I didn't really include in the article, but I'm pretty happy with my ability to deal with those changes as well as I was able to. I started adding free apps, and came back pretty well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm wondering why you've chosen such a competitive category. You're in the same league as Runkeeper, Nike, Fitbit, and all the other fitness trackers and they make their income through the sale of devices so they can afford to put their app up for free.

How about picking a niche that doesn't have their need satisfied yet and charging money directly for that? Maybe designing a grader for teachers, or a tool for gov workers to submit reports, or a business expense tracker. There are lots of categories looking for a design overhaul and with just a little bit of research and effort you can make your app stand out from the pack of existing shitty solutions.

<comment><USER4> On the flip side its competitive because there's a large market. It also means people will be searching out such apps.

The problem with a niche, especially on the app store, is that if you can't get people searching your app out then it's hard to break through.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OP here, feel free to ask any questions you might have.

<comment><USER5> Very interesting, and a bit similar to my entrepreneurial journey with websites. Making a single very successful website is quite a challenge, as I found out. What will be your main strategies making your apps successful? Pure product focus? PR? Other forms of marketing?

<comment><AUTHOR> It'll definitely be a combination of product and pr. I've done lots of things over the years with varying levels of success, but so far my success has been mostly through product and App Store Optimization.

The new App Store Analytics Apple just released will be a big help though. I have a lot of new ideas that I'll write about once I've given them a try.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I built 6 apps for another ecosystem (Shopify [https://apps.shopify.com/partners/socialproof- it](https://apps.shopify.com/partners/socialproof-it)) and had very much the same experience as you. We did the low fidelity approach like you and also found that has diminishing returns as the app market matures. Once we started focusing on one app for Shopify [https://apps.shopify.com/shopify-recurring- payments](https://apps.shopify.com/shopify-recurring-payments) we found the returns quickly dwarfed what we made before. For it allowed us to be the best for thats all we did. I would recommend not focusing on two apps but just doing one really well. Doing multiple apps means your mediocre in different things takes all your energy to be the best. PS: Love the idea your going to focus on Apple Watch no one is the market leader/expert so great place to be.

</comment><comment><USER7> "The decline soon after? That's the Chomp search update followed by iOS 6 and the card app store layout. So sad."

Man, I do find that quite sad... the app store still has some major issues with regards to discoverability. It's funny because you'd think as the app store became more and more saturated, that they'd create more ways to deal with that, but many of the changes have actually made it worse lol :/

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a lot of hate for the app store by developers, and i've dished out some of it, but frankly with over a million apps it's not an easy problem to solve.

I actually think the store is in a pretty decent state right now overall. You can't possibly make everything very visible. It's a pretty good deal to be on the shelves, now you just have to work harder on your own promotion.

<comment><USER8> > ...but frankly with over a million apps it's not an easy problem to solve.

Maybe a perfect solution isn't easier, but it should be very easy to improve the mess that is the app store. Let's start with a very simple suggestion:

Searching for an app by name should return that app.

Yeah. It's much better than it used to be (today when I search for Tweetbot it pull up Tweetbot) but that hasn't always been the case. You still have the issue that they clearly have a CDN with a slow refresh so that when an app is first released you can find it via links online or features on the front of the app store but not by searching the name.

<comment><USER9> This was very disheartening to me when I was in the app store. Without a direct App Store link it was difficult to get someone to download. You had to swipe a random number of cards, sometimes quite a lot, to find the apps after entering the exact name. The results were usually quite relevant - in that they were competitors with similar but more popular apps.

It seems like an unjust reward for already successful apps - they're given the right to steal search results for a competitor's app name.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a balancing act. If you want to be found by searches for your title, you have to have a branded title (that if needed you could trademark). If you want to just use your top keyword as your name, it's going to be much harder to rank for it. I think the best path is to use a small subtitle - "Branded Name - Keyword Phrase"

That's a good way to be sure you can be found. If you type "Vima"[1] in the app store, I guarantee you find my apps :-)

[1] Vima is greek for "pace", which is how we came up with it. Full title is "Vima - GPS Run Tracker"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You seem to have a fairly predictable sales cycle happening there.

Hope your next app is a "Winter App". Then you'll be able to sleep easy all year long :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha, yeah I've been working to fill in that gap. I did add a skiing/snowboarding tracking app, but it doesn't have quite the same sales as the others, and the skiing season doesn't really start until late december/january. It is part of the reason january-march isn't as bad as oct- dec.

Ideally, the next project will sell well year round :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> * do you work alone? * what metrics did you look at earlier and will look at going forward to justify starting to build a new app?

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a partner that does my graphic design, part time. I'm the only person working full time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Did your apps have viral, organic growth or was it mostly from your own marketing efforts?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd say organic mostly. I read stories of people making the most money they ever made on launch day, and almost none after, but I've only had that experience once, with Debt Snowball. And it still has made more over time than it did at the launch.

<comment><USER12> Interesting. How soon could you tell an app was going to take off and have a lot of organic growth? Would you give up on an app if it didn't have enough growth soon enough? Also how much was based on having the right search keywords? Sorry if this is too many questions :).

<comment><AUTHOR> Usually pretty soon, but it definitely varied over time per app. I never gave up too quickly, probably not quickly enough in some cases (I did an Apple watch update last month for an app that hasn't made more than $10 a month in the last 2 years.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The tiny holdout building in the middle of Macy's - <AUTHOR> https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com/2011/03/03/the-tiny-holdout-building-in-the-middle-of-macys/ <comment><USER2> Heh, never noticed it.</comment>


Google's Secret China Project "Effectively Ended" After Internal Confrontation - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2018/12/17/google-china-censored-search-engine-2/ <comment><USER4> True story...

I run a web crawling company named Datastreamer where we license data to social media monitoring firms.

We're very white hat... Don't even like to mess around with grey hat areas as we don't want something like the Cambridge Analytica situation coming back to bite us in the ass.

About 1.5 years ago we were contacted by a 3rd party firm which we eventually found out was a cut out for Saudi Arabia.

The deal was at least $350k per year but we never got down to final negotiation. They wanted a LOT of data and also custom support and engineering. It could have easily hit $1M which is a lot of money and would have been a significant percentage of our revenue.

About a month into conversations the questions became a bit disturbing. It was clear to me that they were interested in tracking ethic minorities and trying to track down their physical location.

... you can read between the lines in the RFP.

After finding out what happened to Khashoggi I'm VERY happy about my decision.

They were using this technology to harass him on social media and I'm sure are and were tracking other people.

<comment><USER5> Too bad there are so many people like Manafort who are happy to take on that job for a quick buck. Sure people are being hunted down but check out the ostrich jacket!

<comment><USER6> for every company that refuses, there'll be one that will take it on for the right price...

<comment><USER7> This is both true and a shitty excuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> AFAICT the way Dragonfly utilizing search log to probe Great Fire Wall blacklist and skip them in results was the same way how google.cn (localized Google search in china) worked.

That was a smart but arguable approach, Google was heavily criticized to present those "passively censored" results. However, no one from Google at that time did a #walkout or resign for that. Also notably Google did not quit China for the criticism it received, but for a later government sponsored hack targeting its code and service known as Operation Aurora.

So to compare 8~10 years ago and now, it seems GOOG leadership hasn't change much on what they think they can do (aka "moral compass"); Google employee did become more active on these issues which I think is progressive.

<comment><USER9> At least according to Sergey at the time, the key issue was "opposing censorship and speaking out for the freedom of political dissent".

> Brin: I don't think it's a question of taking on China. In fact, I am a > great admirer of both China and the Chinese government for the progress they > have made. It is really opposing censorship and speaking out for the freedom > of political dissent, and that's the key issue from our side.

>SPIEGEL: Four years ago, you allowed your service to be censored. Why have you changed your mind now?

>Brin: The hacking attacks were the straw that broke the camel's back. There were several aspects there: the attack directly on Google, which we believe was an attempt to gain access to Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. But there is also a broader pattern we then discovered of simply the surveillance of human rights activists.

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/google-co- found...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/google-co-founder-on- pulling-out-of-china-it-was-a-real-step-backward-a-686269.html)

<comment><USER10> I always thought there were two ways to interpret that, and I was never sure which one was correct.

One is that the hack made Google realize it was not a good, stable place to do business, and the other reasons were just a good PR side effect. The other is that the hack gave Google occasion to reevaluate, and they realized being involved in that kind of censorship didn't sit right with them.

I suppose it could also be some of both.

<comment><USER11> There were other, bigger, non-public reasons.

<comment><USER12> Care to elaborate?

<comment><USER11> You'll probably have to wait for Larry or Sergey to write their memoirs...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Great reporting by Gallagher. He should win a Pulitzer for his reporting on Dragonfly.

The fact that Pichai refused to say they wouldn't re-enter China shows this is probably just a pause until things die down.

<comment><USER14> Indeed, every part of this story really happened because of Ryan's coverage. His reveal is what brought it to the attention of other Google employees, members of Congress, and human rights groups. And eventually, it appears key information he released is what also led to it's effective closure.

It's a true testament to the power of quality investigative journalism.

<comment><USER15>
      > His reveal is what brought it to
      > the attention of other Google
      > employees

Sad truth. And yet, <<we're a "very open" company that "encourages internal debate">>

<comment><USER16> Don't consume the corporate cool-aid. Google, and for that matter any other company, is not its employees, it is its stockholders.

<comment><USER17> I would agree with you in general but this is probably not the best example of it. Sergey Brin and Larry Page own a majority of the voting shares at Google. So even though it's technically a public company, it's still for all intents and purposes their company. It's the same story with Zuckerberg and Facebook which is why things like 'shareholders calling for Zuckerberg to be replaced' don't really mean anything _directly_. If every single shareholder except Zuckerberg voted to replace him, he stays. Consequently the actions and behaviors of these companies strongly reflect the views and desires of these individuals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > Scott Beaumont, Google's leader in China and a key architect of the > Dragonfly project, "did not feel that the security, privacy, and legal teams > should be able to question his product decisions,"

If I was more eloquent I'd draw some analogy between Scott Beaumont's behavior and China...

<comment><USER19> Well it is clearly an authoritarian personality - don't question his decisions and just obey. Sucks to work under but isn't usually quite as bad as an authoritarian government _. And really that sort of thing should be a reason to be fired instantly from a tech company - not because of employee morale, expecting people you pay to think not to think being bad management, ethics, or anything like that but just because that it is a massive security liability. If your boss really is the sort to demand to send over all employee records over email or else you are fired that makes everyone far more phishing vulnerable.

_ Of course if it is 'disregard safety procedures both can kill you just the same'.

<comment><USER20> Idk probably knew they weren't breaking any laws and also wanted to hit an aggressive deadline.

That is if any of his engineers had qualms about what they were doing they'd be checked at the door because again it's all legal according to the law and they had to hit a deadline.

Especially because there's nothing here that's technically exceptional other than it runs counter to what we Americans considered ethical.

Glad the PR fallout tipped whatever cost-benefit analysis they did by severely damaging the Google brand. Crazy they didn't consider it up front.

The fallout feels similar to them the release of the Boston Dynamics video. They don't want to be associated with "job automating" robots.

<comment><USER19> I think the issue is less PR but more labor dispute essentially - the high end having greviances is rarer but it does happen. They can weather being just another evil corporation reputationally - they can't weather mass defections of expensive talent that may decide to go to competitors or go Traitorous Eight on them.

They have a pattern there of being forced to bend since at least the "memo- gate" and although they don't like it the math is clear enough to them. If employees are making money net it is rational to replace them if the alternative could make more money. Willful employees are an annoyance with a relative liability to corporate but their productivity gives them cold rational sway that says "just add it to the employee expenses section if you know what is good for you".

It isn't ideal for everyone - indeed it works because they are outliers. If everyone can do flawless brain surgery it no longer demands a premium no matter how difficult it is. It is in some ways more powerful than traditional labor - they organize because they need the company. Companies can decide to leave and out source to cheaper locales in response. Powerful labor has few equivalent alternatives. I say powerful and not scarce because mere obscurity can be subsituited for - powerful less so. If they could have already they would have. The companies need the high end and they know it. Just look at Hollywood movie budgets to the stars - they can ask for such outrageous sums because the alternative is worse in the current climate.

Of course there is a caveat - if they ever become obsolete they will be dropped quickly due to their leveraging. Things can be very fickle especially with advances that can metaphorically turn weaving from an apprentice- journeyman-master trade to a factory job worked by illiterate women and children.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Traditional" companies like Amazon, Apple and Oracle heavily punish employees for banding together, freely communicating and protesting like this, so they would never have the opportunity to protest controversial projects like this. I fear the main lesson corporate leaders will take from this is to lockdown on employee freedom.

<comment><USER22> I think the main lesson from Google was make sure the mainstream media agrees with your point prior to protesting it. If the media does not agree, they will ask for your head(s) and threaten to boycott your employer until it is delivered on a silver platter.

The number of people protesting is inconsequential as platters can be built to accommodate a near infinite number of heads.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's interesting, because if The Intercept is to be believed, Beaumont has basically gone rogue, carving out his own little empire, aggressively preventing other internal teams from figuring out what he's doing, and engaging in behaviour that violates internal Google rules and policies, as well as which opening Google to significant reputational risk.

I mean, I'll be the first to admit I have made mistakes in my career, but I can't recall ever making a mistake that got my boss called in to testify before Congress, or that got my company prptested by Amnesty International, or that got hundreds of my colleagues to sign a letter of protest! Managing to do all of those at once is...well, honestly it's sort of impressive, but is raises questions.

If The Intercept is just completely wrong, I'd expect to see a categorical denial; after all it would make Google look a lot better if they can convincingly demonstrate that all of this didn't actually happen. If The Intercept is _right_ , I'd expect to see Beaumont fired; that's what happens when people violate internal rules and cause significant damage to their employer as a result.

Since we've seen neither...I guess the logical assumption is that The Intercept was right about what Beaumont was doing, but he...wasn't rogue? That official Google policy was to subvert official Google policy, and hide things from the internal teams charged with stopping that exact thing? Like...is the CEO _really_ having meetings with the privacy team and telling them to be extra vigilant not to let product teams misuse personal data, and then later that afternoon meeting with Beaumont and telling him to be extra careful not to let the privacy team find out that he's misusing personal data to develop a product?

What a bizarre situation.

<comment><USER24> Working off the main campus, on a very sensitive project that the CEO himself likely shielded from other internal parties ... is not that bizarre really. I don't see how he's 'gone rogue' either, rather, this is more like a c-level sanctioned kind of skunkworks.

<comment><USER25> In a world where the share holder care that should trigger an investigation. I don't want to own shares in a company where management randomly does shitty things completely against the guidelines they've codified.

But, we live in a world where I guess the share holders nod their heads at inappropriate times when growth is on the line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Never really understood why Google running a search engine in China is controversial, it wouldn't be the first US company doing business there, nor the first to censor due to local laws (Apple censors their app store etc) and it's not like tiananmen square queries will be the bulk of their traffic.

<comment><USER27> According to the rumors, Dragonfly goes far beyond censorship, in that it has provisions to identify specific people from search queries. So it's not just that searching for "Tiananmen Square" wouldn't give any useful results, but it'd also let the Big Brother know who was inappropriately curious.

Combine this with their upcoming social credit system, and you can easily see how this is proactively helping build an authoritarian panopticon dystopia.

<comment><USER26> It's what all companies there are required to do and the Chinese people accept it, and a lot of them welcome the social credit system (according to reporting on the program) it's arrogant to to presume we know what's best for them.

<comment><USER28> " it's arrogant to to presume we know what's best for them."

Would you say the same for the victims of the khemr rouge, millions killed by Stalin?

Maybe the yellow stars helped the Jewish people gather for the Sabbath? /S

Basic human rights are not relative.

<comment><USER28> Downvotes!!!! China-apologist brigade in full effect.

Why not tell me how you disagree?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> It seems Google has now strayed far from the "don't be evil" path. First came the illegal agreement not to hire from other tech companies, then the "say nothing to no one" employment agreement all employees have to sign and now this product the help Mr. Xi put the jack boot to every neck in China. I've probably missed a few, please fill in the blanks if you can.

To a large extent Google's business, like Enron's before it, depends largely on the trust of its users. Once it begins to wobble, head for the hills.

<comment><USER30> Less colored than your take, but; Each time they cancel a beta, a vast amount of engineering work gets laid to waste. These engineers could be making the world a better place in other industries.

<comment><USER31> Other industries cancel products too. Something like 80% of all drugs that start being test never make it to market, for example. Other industries will have multiple draft proposals being drawn up, often at great cost, only to dismiss all except one.

<comment><USER30> I know, I just don't think it being common makes it right.

There are also untold numbers of fascinating patents which never see commercial success, duplication of effort, and arguing about who gets the biggest slice of a cake that doesn't exist yet.

It's ineffective, and therefore I don't like it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I started working on fuzzy matching searchable encryption for this very reason; you can send an encrypted search term and match using jaccard similarity to an encrypted index of similar documents without information leakage of the search query or the encrypted document.

This is the state of the art at the moment and would be useful for such things as: 1)Private search over encrypted documents 2)getting your FICO score like equifax without leaking any information 3)finding genetic treatments for conditions you are predisposed to without revealing your private genetic makeup or a pharmaceutical companies patented gene therapy sequence

Typically retrieval of the document would require a TOR like network.

Ill post a link to my work in the near future. Msg me if you're interested.

<comment><USER33> is it related to homomorphic encryption?

<comment><USER32> I imagine a decentralized search service for a particular set of search queries that users want privacy against.

it leverages Additive and Multiplicative Homomorphic Encryption with Elliptic Curves. I wanted a fuzzy searching algorithm so went with a minhash implementation on document bigram vectors which were then converted to a locality sensitive hash.

Unfortunately, it is an interactive protocol unlike something like zksnark/starks :(

I have written it in Javascript and plan to deploy it as a plugin in Brave Browser. Sundar really disappointed me recently with his rhetoric; he claims googles pursuit for information accessibility but also want to censor and allow authoritarian governments to profile users.

This would also allow location services without revealing your location

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is a great loss to Chinese people who have to use worse products such as Baidu and so.com. I was hoping Google's re-entering could result in a better Internet (or Intranet) ecosystem in China but alas...

<comment><USER35> Since you are one of the few people who support a re-entry of Google into China, can I ask a question? There is no doubt that a cultural gap exists between Chinese and Americans, and their perceptions of the current Chinese government. Should a foreign company like Google adopt the culture of the country they're entering, or maintain the culture of where they're headquartered?

From what I've read, the main opposition is only coming from Americans... oddly enough.

<comment><USER24> This is an unfair argument because it's not a matter of 'culture' it's a broader set of ethical issues at stake.

The Chinese are putting people into concentration camps on the basis of their ethnicity or religion, many are dying and their organs are being harvested.

If the Western press weren't so hypocritically afraid of speaking out - <USER2> would be a huge global story, it's a really big deal. This is getting into holocaust territory in 2018 for gosh sakes.

And it's definitely more than Americans speaking out.

<comment><USER36> I think pointing to different culture and history is a valid point of discussion. The point of view of a lot of the mainland Chinese people I've spoken to is that the post-Mao CCP has done a lot of bad, but also an immense amount of good for China as a whole. Compare the modern CCP with all of China's past governments of the last two centuries, and it's unambiguously better than Mao, the warlords, or the late Quing dynasty. Sure, maybe China would have been better off if the KMT won the civil war, but we can't change history.

The history of what did happen is that after Mao the country went from struggling to feed most of it's people to what is likely the 2nd most powerful country on Earth. It went from GDP per capitalism of $1,000 in 1970 to $8,000 in 2010. China singlehandedly halved global poverty in doing so. While some of it's actions are appalling to foreigners, they are tolerated for historical reasons. E.g. distrust of organized religion stems from repeated religious rebellions that killed tens of millions of people, so many Chinese see the suppression of religion as a necessary measure to ensure social order. In that sense many Chinese have the same underlying ethical framework (don't needlessly cause harm, try to better the lives of everyday people, etc.), but the lessons history taught the country means that they pursue these ideals in a different way, and opt to make different tradeoffs when balancing different needs. While I am indeed apalled by some of the CCP's actions, I can empathize to a degree as to why Chinese people would still have a positive view of it overall.

Of course, this is coming from a Westerner summarizing my interactions so it obviously risks putting words in other people's mouths.

<comment><USER24> I don't doubt that there are cultural differences, and that 'good has been done' in the past, surely there is a cultural context.

And FYI - any otherwise civilized place that was held back by totalitarian communists, or ruined by war was able to 'bounce back'.

All of Europe was in ruin in 1945 - they also grew by 'leaps and bounds' after that time. China just had to wait for Mao to die.

More poignantly - none of this can dismiss much of the abuse - it cannot be written of as 'cultural difference'.

<comment><USER36> I think you're missing the point. Ask the question "What is the most effective way of curbing sectarian violence?". Both Chinese and Westerners agree that sectarian violence is bad - that's the same underlying ethical value. But the answer to that question will probably differ. At least in the US we try to curb sectarian violence by promoting tolerance and integration. Historically that had worked pretty well for us, we haven't seen much sectarian violence outside of small scale acts of terror and regional conflict (e.g. fights with early Mormon settlers). China, on the other hand, has lost 30 million people due to a religious rebellion in the 19th century. A staggering figure, exceeding even China's WWII casualties. Furthermore, the Holocaust did not occur in Asia (at least the overwhelming majority of it occurred in Europe) so concentration and surveillance of religious minorities does not strike the same nerve.

With that history, I think a person can genuinely, earnestly believe that the CCP's policy towards Uhigyrs or Falun Gong is limiting human suffering in the grand scheme of things. This is what I mean when I say that it's possible to have the same underlying values, but people from different societies can come up with drastically different or even conflicting implementations.

This is moral relativism to a degree. But empathy is an exercise in relativism. I don't like what China is doing to it's religious minorities, and I don't want this post to come off as trying to justify it. But if we do want to convince the country to change it's ways I think it's important to see why the country is doing what it is, and not pick an easy conclusion like saying China or the CCP is immoral.

<comment><USER24> No, I'm definitely not missing your point, I'm disagreeing, fyi and your comment is shocking and repulsive.

You are justifying, on cultural grounds, the mass incarceration of a minority because 'they could pose a potential social problem, even though they are not presently' which is abhorrent.

Yes a 'cultural context' of Han ethnocentric racism and open bigotry, perhaps, but of course this isn't really justifying anything.

There is no rationalization for arbitrarily incarcerating massive parts of the population, it basically doesn't make any sense at all.

Especially considering the none of the Falun Gong, Tibetans, Uighurs represent any threat to China's peace in the first place.

Every place on Earth has had some degree of calamity or violence in the past, and China has definitely had it's share of mass murder (giving and receiving), there's no shortage of this in their own history books, if anything they should be even more enlightened about it all.

There are no cultural arguments that can be made here, the situation, particularly because of the deaths and subsequent organ harvesting, is approaching 'holocaust' terms.

<comment><USER36> The point is, it's not because

> they could pose a potential social problem, even though they are not > presently

It's because

> This region is exhibiting separatism over religious lines, and our country > has an established pattern of religous separatist movements turning into > catastrophic wars that claim tens of millions of lives.

In short, while Westerners might see mass incarceration of religous minorities and think, "holy cow, if we don't do something this will be another Holocaust" Chinese might look at Uhigyr separatism and think, "holy cow, if we don't do something this will be another Taiping rebellion". The former occurred more recently, but the latter was several times larger in magnitude. I'm not Chinese myself so I can't speak to the magnitude of the Taiping rebellion in their social memory. But the point is I can at least _empathize_ with their point of view even if I find it's results abhorrent.

And as I have stated repeatedly, do not mistake justifications of Chinese opinions as justifying the actions themselves, and I have repeatedly stated that Chinese treatment of Uhigyrs appalls me. The fact that you accuse me of justifying their actions in spite of explicitly stating otherwise is indicating that you aren't reading my comments with the degree of attention that is necessary to have a productive conversation on a controversial topic like this.

<comment><USER37> Your understanding of this issue is much better than many HNers on the reason why the "concentration camp" exist. Most HNers get all information from West Media with many convincing "evidence" with map and photo analysis. That's why you "appall".

However, there are other sources of information selectively filtered by media. For example,here's a story of a famous Uhigyr celebrity went back to her alma mater (in Chinese):

[https://www.backchina.com/news/2018/11/20/594759.html](https://www.backchina.com/news/2018/11/20/594759.html)

The Uhigyr celebirties are disproportional more than Han based on their poplulation. But they seems to work/live like nothing happen although the whole world are angry. There are 2 possible reason:s

1\. They(all of them) don't care about their compatriot

2\. They know the "camps" but they also know the real nature of the "camps".

Most Chinese know these celebrities very well through entertainment news. One even show up on TV almost everyday. If you were a Chinese , which reason would you bet?

<comment><USER36> You're omitting the most plausible explanation:

3\. They are disgusted by the camps, but they know if they speak out they'll end up inside one.

China keeps a tight leash on its celebrities. The government is willing to make even internationally famous ones like Fan Bing Bing disappear for months without explanation. It probably wouldn't take much to make one of the Uhigyr celebrities you mention disappear permanently.

What I said to the other commenter also applies here: don't confuse my empathy with why these camps exist with approval.

<comment><USER38> Empathy is unnecessary in this case. I would frame it as entertaining a thought without accepting it, as in Aristotle's educated mind.

Moralizing is an easy to way to stop thinking and settle in a comfortable narrative, a cop-out so one can avoid questioning their own ideological identities. The thirst for a comfortable narrative is so strong today few can resist it, which almost looks like we live in an era when we can no longer afford entertaining different thoughts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> These ethical dilemmas are really confusing for me.

One one had I don't want to be part of this type of behavior but it's just going to give China the opportunity to fund a Google competitor to do it for them...

I think it's lose/lose for Google.

<comment> abc-xyz It really shouldn't be a dilemma unless you're morally bankrupt. Would you sell a gun to a Neo-Nazi that you knew intended to use it to murder innocent people? After all if you refused (and continued to do nothing to stop him) then he would just buy from your competitor.

<comment><USER39> The fact that you compare China with fascism is it's own can of worms, but even your comparison with selling armaments falls short. China already has search engines, Google wants to sell them a better one. Sure, it'll be censored but there's nothing to indicate Google China would be any more or less censored than Baidu. How does a China with Google become any more dangerous than a China without Google? I suppose better search engines make the country's labor force slightly more productive, which in turn means more tax revenue, some of which may be spent on the military. But if you really subscribe to such a belief, you should boycott all Chinese goods - and I'm going to go out on a limb and doubt you're going to do that.

<comment> abc-xyz Fine, the Neo-Nazi already has a pistol but you want to sell him an AK-47. Sure, it'll be used to murder innocent people, but there's nothing to indicate he would have kill more with your gun than the gun he already has.

Google is technologically superior to Baidu, and well, basically every company in the world. Less people using VPN = more people exposed. Superior tech = can imprison/murder more innocent people. More companies and governments supporting China with tech + billions = they'll become evermore powerful and continue to do great evil. Google becoming financially dependent on China will give their government more leverage to force Google to share data and add backdoors to their other applications, and they'd be more likely to help build other tools that will help their government build a dystopian surveillance state.

Do I boycutt all Chinese goods? No, but I do avoid everything "Made in China" whenever it's possible (e.g. clothing, DSLR camera, etc.), and I try to discourage other people and companies from doing business with China, as well as protect their online privacy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Blocked in China:

       - Google search
       - Facebook
       - YouTube
       - Wikipedia (Chinese)
       - Twitter
       - Netflix
       - Instagram
       - Tumblr
       - WhatsApp
       - BBC
       - New York Times
       - Bloomberg
       - Reuters
       - WSJ
       - TIME
       - The Economist

Not blocked:

       - Amazon
       - Ebay
       - Yahoo
       - LinkedIn
       - Bing
       - Apple
       - <USER3>

[https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/102051772640034406...](https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1020517726400344064)

</comment><comment><USER41> Do we really want a proliferation of next-gen monitoring and surveillance software? Isn't this what we were warned about?

<comment><USER42> this ship passed about 30 years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Weird. I've been primarily using Internet in China, and I have never heard of 265.com before. I believe that's also the case for most Chinese Internet users. I doubt how valuable the data collected from that site would be.

</comment><comment><USER44> I don't understand. I used Microsft's Bing when I was living in China. It was very obviously censored. Just type in a "rude" word and you get a message that the search results were blocked. Part of the fun was seeing what risque slang wasn't recognised and, therefore, blocked.

So what compromises are Microsoft prepared to make, but Google isn't?

</comment><comment><USER45> This was so dumb, such bad optics for Google, who up until this came out I was mostly ambivalent about.

Might have even considered working for them.

</comment><comment><USER46> Title seems wrong, it sounds like Dragonfly is still undergoing active development, just with reduced data access (no more access to 265.com search data) but the article references ongoing development, even though some developers were removed. That doesn't sound like it's actually ended. And the title's quote of "Effectively Ended" seems only to be quoting itself, there's no one in the article the said those words.

Pichai's words to congress could easily be read to mean "we don't have a release date at this time" not that it wasn't still an active project.

<comment><USER47> The political battle against Pichai made a success. So now the public support can be tuned down and Google can move on to do the only thing they could do in their current situation: building tools for the chinese gov to enter the market. They'll probably do the same thing behind closed doors and without the public Google label on the final result. Maybe baidu will suddenly provide better search results or something.

That's how this world works, and it's not like they really have a choice in that matter.

<comment><USER46> I think Google does have choice, they could forego revenue when it's knowingly generated by efforts to censor and oppress people. "how this world works" absolutely includes people & companies that betray their ideals for money, but there are those that stick to their principals too [0],[1]

[0] [https://moxie.org/blog/saudi-surveillance/](https://moxie.org/blog/saudi- surveillance/)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18292327](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18292327)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> On another note, 265.com, a Google subsidiary in China, has no SSL certificate set for the domain, making the site access effectively http only.

</comment><comment><USER49> My guess is they will just switch to doing a pilot project in another country, just as repressive, but somewhere where the abuse of power is relatively speaking more under the radar for most people than China. Myanmar, for example, or Vietnam. This way they can achieve the research goals of learning how to operate in such an environment, while pretending to have stopped.

<comment><USER50> Or the US?

<comment><USER49> Sadly yes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Dragonfly is the only project that carries empirical study of exactly which keyword triggers the GFW, at a large scale.

This could be useful in business like suggest what kind of Ad content are "safe" for the Chinese market, automatically.

Also one can harvest blocklist, there can be some very interesting new discoveries, useful intels can be made into updates and alerts.

Google can not disclosure this strategy publicly because the Chinese might masquerade the firewall's behavior accordingly.

Traveling into darkness can be used to fight against darkness. I feel sorry for the engineers.

</comment><comment><USER52> this isn't over, not by a long shot.

if this company is still being pulled along (i hesitate to say _led_ ) by the CFO, and i believe it is, then this will have lasting repercussions.

the spark of revolution has been quelled and the peasants have been appeased. but their hand has been shown and they have but one card to play. ok sorry for the poor job at evocative rhetoric.

basically, from this point and for the next 5 years the culture will be changed by subtle, barely perceptible nudges. at the end, the engineers will be left without any real voice and any uprising will by met with backlash from their peers, not their betters.

then, google will be able to explore china and similar markets.

or perhaps, much like many tech companies license their IP from an IE subsidiary, the core tech will be licensed to a subsidiary that isn't constrained by western morals.

</comment><comment> shaki-dora Now where are the people claiming nothing but quitting, and not even that, would ever change a company's decision? Or how not investing in China will get Google managers thrown into a dark Delaware jail for wasting an opportunity to maximise shareholder value?

<comment><USER53> Flame wars are no place for straw men.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> (internal) firewall duh [http://www.thegoldwater.com/news/43624-Fire-Rages-at- Google-...](http://www.thegoldwater.com/news/43624-Fire-Rages-at-Google- Offices-in-Beijing)

</comment><comment><USER55> So many people here only look at the business cost of what Google wanted to do and don't care about the human cost.

It's great that you were born in a western country with a good understanding of freedom and your rights. The majority of the world don't have these conditions. Your "business" decision effects billions of people in the world.

I was born and mostly raised in Iran. "Business" decisions from companies that sold the government DPI equipment made sense for them, their shareholders, and their investors. But at what cost? Iran is a very young country in terms of population age. Many Iranians simply didn't have the opportunity to grow simply because a few companies wanted more $$$ in their pockets.

If you in any way support these decisions while having complete freedom not to, then you're complicit. You're part of the reason so many countries have a lost/dark generation. You're part of the cause of so much suffering in the world.

Good on you Google Engineers who stood against making a few $ of profit to stop the suffering of many, many people.

<comment><USER56> I get what you're saying but a country is sovreign from othets and corporations don't get to decide what's acceptable in a country.

It comes down to this imo: will the product be used in ways that are morally wrong? Or will it be used in ways which are legally wrong or socially unacceptable?

I agree with you that a company should not sell their products to enable a moral wrong in any country.

However, free speech and oppression of democracy is not a moral wrong. "Free speech" in the west means the Government shouldn't censor speech,this is a relativly new concept almost unheard of in history. It certainly isn't a human right. If a legitimate government of a country censors speech they're merely excercising their authority unless their laws restrict them from doing so as in the west. Whatever your view may be, a corporation does not get to decide social norms and what should be legal in any country.

<comment><USER57> > It certainly isn't a human right.

Freedom of expression is in Article 19 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. [http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human- rights/](http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/)

<comment><USER58> Not debating whether or not it is a right but the UN isn't the world's moral authority.

I view them as an un-elected advisory group.

<comment><USER25> No, but China does recognize it as a human right since it has ratified the declaration and they enjoy permanent membership on the Security Council (after having gotten that position from Taiwan, and they did it under the condition that they would uphold their decisions).

I posit that breaking the very morals you believe in yourself, and lying about it, is immoral.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Read "Google's Secret Santa Project".

</comment><comment><USER60> Google: selectively good for goodness sake.

</comment><comment><USER61> Great! So will Apple employees walk out next in protest of Apple assisting Chinese government by giving them iMessage and iCloud data?

Source: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-icloud- insigh...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-icloud- insight/apple-moves-to-store-icloud-keys-in-china-raising-human-rights-fears- idUSKCN1G8060)

<comment><USER62> Apple has a very significant manufactoring presence in China, so unfortunately they can't cleanly separate from China like Google can without risking retaliation

<comment><USER63> _Apple has a very significant manufactoring presence in China, so unfortunately they can 't cleanly separate from China like Google can without risking retaliation_

Apple can walk away from China whenever it wants to. Apple is the one company in the entire world best equipped with the cash to make this kind of public stand. But it doesn't want to because doing so will cost a lot of that money.

The only thing stopping Apple from closing its Chinese stores, and moving manufacturing to another country is fear of the faceless shareholder bots that have no AI for morality, and will punish Apple for doing the right thing.

Every time I see Tim Cook on stage patting himself on the back for making some minor environmental improvement because it's the right thing to do, I can't help but think it's all a farce because incremental environmental improvements aren't even low-hanging fruit. They're the fruit that has already fallen from the tree and rolled through his front door into his kitchen.

If Mr. Cook and the rest of his company want to impress, then do something hard.

Disclosure: Apple shareholder, with morality, but not enough shares for Apple to care.

<comment><USER64> > _Apple can walk away from China whenever it wants to._

Not unless they've spent the last decade building a secret duplicate supply chain ecosystem.

<comment> munk-a It would take money and time but it's something they're very able to do. And, yes, they couldn't make this decision and instantly pivot, there are real physical things that would need to be built before they could.

<comment><USER65> If they can already spend all this effort into making alternate chipsets...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Too bad for me. I want use Google search in China,even it is not prefect.

</comment><comment><USER67> This is sucks, well, I hope they can start it again in the future.

</comment><comment><USER68> > Google has used 265.com as a honeypot for market research, storing > information about Chinese users' searches before sending them along to > Baidu.

I can't resist to post a meme here

[https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/censorship/chinas-...](https://www.news.com.au/technology/online/censorship/chinas- war-on-words-anything-be-it-a-phrase-or-picture-that-can-be-used-to-insult-xi- has-been-banned/news-story/a8e5a9d558b3ed0465e1fc020e2d6c2c)

</comment><comment><USER69> China is a world on its own. Google sees the writing on the wall, enter China or become FB (talk about a has-been.) Google, FB etc need 20% quarter to quarter growth and Google has pretty much saturated the western world. So it is China...kiss the ring and all. Google is not going to lose market cap because of so called values. They're so 2005

<comment><USER70> Who _needs_ 20% YoY growth? Plenty of big companies get big enough and don't keel over, and Google is already very profitable.

<comment><USER69> _Who needs 20% YoY growth?_

Google does. If not 20%, around that number....

Trailing P/E 38.67

Forward P/E 1 21.87

[https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GOOGL/key- statistics?p=GOOGL](https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GOOGL/key- statistics?p=GOOGL)

<comment><USER71> how do you turn a P/E of 21 into needing somewhere between 20% annual growth (your current claim?) and 200% annual growth (your original claim? 20% quarter over quarter.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dolphin Progress Report: April 2015 - <AUTHOR> https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2015/05/01/dolphin-progress-report-april-2015

<comment><USER2> :/

I thought this was interesting/funny:

"4.0-6039 - Add Wiimote Battery Controls by RachelBryk

Is it believable that two years ago, someone actually requested a feature for low battery on emulated Wiimotes? Is it even less believable that someone implemented it, and then someone else actually merged it? Crazy!

Yes, now those of you using emulated Wiimotes can live out your dream of setting the battery to any value that the Wiimote can send to the console. From full (255) to empty (0) and the game will react accordingly. Like those low battery warnings popping up on save screens? Or how about fullscreen messages telling you your Wiimote batteries are low? Now you can have them whenever you want!"

So I looked up the developer: [http://nintendoenthusiast.com/news/developer- rachel-bryk-dea...](http://nintendoenthusiast.com/news/developer-rachel-bryk- dead-after-jumping-from-bridge/)

This is probably old news to the people who care about this emulator, but it's a very sad feeling of loss that I have: Thinking about how something like the above was implemented as what was probably a kind of an inside joke, and knowing that their community lost that contributor forever.

<comment><USER3> For those that didn't read the article she suffered from fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis.

I don't condone her suicide but I can understand it.

<comment><USER4> from piptastic's link "Rachel was denied Social Security benefits last year"

This bull happens a lot to the people who really need the help while not actually investigating the fraud in the system. I have an uncle that was denied benefits multiple times (broken back) until he almost died in a hospital. It seems very common to deny the first time and then spend too much time in appeal. If people have friends or relatives that know about this crap, they still have hope. Those that don't, well, you get despair and worse. We handle fraud in the laziest way the system can.

This type of stuff is why I pay for a long-term disability policy with specific terms that if I'm not able to function in my profession, I get the money. Many employer provided policies simply require you to switch professions.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: does Khan Academy's informal style help or hurt students? - <AUTHOR>

Do you think that the simple, text-on-blackboard style of Khan's lectures helps or hurts students?<p>Would he be better off with typing out text, or adding images instead of drawing them? Or do you think the handwritten text makes the videos seem more personal? <comment><USER2> A style that differs from the style a student already gets in school generally helps learners in supplementary programs like Khan Academy.

A really great example of a superb mathematics textbook by a top mathematician, all with hand-drawn diagrams, is Geometry: Euclid and Beyond by Robin Hartshorne.

[http://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Euclid-Beyond-Robin- Hartshorn...](http://www.amazon.com/Geometry-Euclid-Beyond-Robin- Hartshorne/dp/0387986502/)

The author explains his rationale for having hand-drawn rather than computer- generated geometry diagrams, discusses why he wrote the book as he did. I love this book as a remarkably accessible book on some very deep mathematics, with wonderfully challenging problems. I think Khan Academy video lectures work for some of the same reasons that Hartshorne's approach in Euclid: Geometry and Beyond works, and I hope that Salman Khan and his collaborators eventually get to advanced geometry like that in Hartshorne's book in the Khan Academy course list.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the book suggestion. Do you think that the hand-drawn approach is more effective because it's hand-drawn, or because most textbooks are not hand-drawn? I.E., is a casual style better because it _is_ intrinsically better, or because it's merely different?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Definitely think it helps. The individual, personal interaction portrayed in the videos is more engaging than flashing images and text in front of students. His diagrams are clear enough, so little would be gained by using prefab charts or pictures. Besides, his text-on-blackboard style tends to be tightly integrated with the narrative - so each concept is being reinforced by two senses rather than one.

</comment><comment><USER4> I relearned a lot of forgotten math using Khan Academy last summer when I was preparing to go back to school. I think Salman Khan's style is significantly better than many of the other videos on the internet.

Showing concepts in animations while explaining them can be helpful, but ultimately the students are learning how to solve problems. Watching the strokes of his pen gives you a fantastic view of how the problems are actually solved on pen and paper.

</comment><comment><USER5> He cuts through the bs so to speak. When you want to learn, drawing in the sand with a stick can be all that is needed.</comment>


How to get things done - <AUTHOR> http://www.hackvan.com/pub/stig/etext/how-to-get-things-done-despite-procrastination.txt

<comment><USER2> I involuntary used that technique to stop playing WOW. Some time ago I decide to better organize my gaming schedule so I thought that first thing in the morning should be 2h of gaming. After two weeks I started procrastinating on my gaming duties until I was completely disgusted by and abandoned the game :)

Interesting how when something becomes to much of an obligation it lose it's recreational value.

</comment><comment><USER3> I had a similar epiphany back in my youth, when I was working at a cafeteria. A co-worker and I had to sweep and mop the floor each day, so we decided we'd alternate which of us swept, and which mopped-- only we completely arbitrarily decided that the one mopping was lucky, and it was awful to be stuck with the sweeping. It didn't take too many days of pretending before it actually seemed to be the case....

</comment><comment><USER4> In other words: <http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> In fact, I found this link by hearing Marc Andreessen at startup school, looking at his blog, reading the 'The Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivity', looking at the section on structured procrastination, and discovering this article as the first known instance of an article focusing on the effect in print.

<comment><USER5> wow, i wonder what work you were supposed to be doing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I pretty much use the same method. Today though its very important that you rid yourself from all the entertainment that's so easily available, (ie. TV, web distractions)

He's doing his real work in those "breaks" you take while he's doing the most major task. Its important not to just check facebook :).

</comment><comment><USER7> I like to think of my Grandfather's advice: "The universe rewards action". So true! With so many blogs and so forth discussing GTD it's refreshing to read a great perspective written in a different era and in a different style.

</comment><comment><USER8> > _...including one of a Viper Fish which I wish you could see. You would die > laughing..._

Upon reading this I immediately searched on Google Images for "Viper Fish". The power of the interwebs is overwhelming.

</comment><comment><USER9> Funny. This is how I start a lot of my apps.

Example: I've just been tasked to manage a project at work. While thinking it through, I realize our intranet project tracking software (not MS project) sucks big time. So now I'm working on the new app :)

</comment><comment><USER10> Very good article. I think everyone with a motivation problem should read this!

</comment><comment><USER11> by not doing other things</comment>