Expected lifetime wages of college majors - <AUTHOR> http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-05-23-College-majors-engineering-higher-education_n.htm

<comment><USER2> I think this relates to the whole problem of student loan repayment. It would seem that if you get an engineering degree from an in-state public school, you should have no trouble getting a job and making the payments. However for those who got a humanities degree from an expensive private school, I imagine it's much more difficult.

I think our educators and parents need to start emphasizing picking STEM majors over humanities, because STEM majors will be able to repay the loans easier. Or, if you really want a liberal arts degree, just double major that with an engineering / CS degree.</comment>


Computer Code an Increasingly Precious E.V. Commodity - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/automobiles/23SPIES.html

<comment><AUTHOR> "While the French carmaker, which has a partnership with Nissan, maker of the Leaf, has said no crucial technology leaked, the stakes in automotive intellectual property are high, experts say. And the valuables are not blueprints or styling sketches, but the huge volume of computer instructions required by these cars: the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid uses about 10 million lines of computer code to shunt power seamlessly among the car's battery pack, power inverter, drive motor, gas engine, generator and other subsystems.

By comparison, Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner relies on a mere eight million lines of code."

Linux is ~4 million lines of code[1].

I have trouble even conceptualizing how that much code can ever be usefully conceived or maintained. Obviously, it's possible. I just don't get it on a practical level. Can anyone explain?

On a different vane, given the apparent impracticality of keeping code secret, and the enormous undertaking that is required to develop this kind of software, wouldn't it be better (lower cost & better quality & short lead time) just to open source it, and have a platform that can be used by different auto manufacturers? Can't we all just get along?

[1] [http://msquaredtechnologies.com/m2rsm/rsm_software_project_m...](http://msquaredtechnologies.com/m2rsm/rsm_software_project_metrics.htm)

<comment><USER2> It can't possibly be true that the software of the Volt is 10 million lines.

First, it's not a reasonable amount of code for the task at hand. 10 million lines to monitor various sensors, and to control various systems? Really?

Second, it's not reasonable that any team could have produced that much code in this time. How long has the Volt been under production? A few years? You'd need a huge team to just crank out that amount of code in that time, and it would be of atrocious quality.

It's gotta be a journalistic exaggeration of some kind.

<comment><USER3> (Lines of code / car) * number of cars = total lines of code

Right? Right?</comment></comment></comment>


Newbie: Set-up RoR dev environment on Mac os x Mavericks is painful - <AUTHOR>

So far I have been relying on Codeschool's in browser interface to learn rails..now time has come that I work on a personal project on my mac. Pls suggest some resources for setting up Ruby on Rails dev environment on Mac os x Mavericks without much hassle.. <comment><USER2> One good ruby shop (Thoughtbot) has published several articles on this topic. And they released their script to handle this : [https://github.com/thoughtbot/laptop](https://github.com/thoughtbot/laptop).

Boxen is another way to prepare and setup your machines for work. There are other alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER3> Use something like RVM [1] to get the base Ruby system in place, then install the Rails gem and you're good to go. If you'd rather do it all in one, RVM will install Rails for you during setup if you include the '\--rails' flag.

[1] [https://rvm.io/](https://rvm.io/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I like this setup guide for a rails dev environment: [https://github.com/red- green-refactor/osx-fresh-install](https://github.com/red-green-refactor/osx- fresh-install)

</comment><comment><USER5> This will guide you through the process: [http://installrails.com/](http://installrails.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Without much hassle ... (welcome to development :)</comment>


Ask HN: I have to decide between Facebook and Google internship. Please help. - <AUTHOR>

I'm an international student with one summer left before graduation. I cannot work at both places because I can only work summers.
Some potential criteria:
I really don't care about pay. They are also very similar pay wise.
1. Where can I learn more?
2. Where can I have more impact?
3. Where can I grow more as an engineer?
4. Where can I get better at product etc, if I want to have my own venture or join a venture later on in my career?
5. What other factors do you think I should consider?
I know these questions are hard and dependent on what team I am on etc, but what factors do you think I should consider? <comment><USER2> Tracy Chou wrote a wonderful response to this on Quora that should address most of the questions you had - [http://www.quora.com/Which-internship-is- better-for-a-CS-maj...](http://www.quora.com/Which-internship-is-better-for-a- CS-major-Facebook-or-Google)</comment>


MDN's new design is in Beta - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/mdns-new-design-beta/ <comment><USER2> It may be new but it is not a well-thought design.

110+ characters per line is hard to read and ugly [1].

Pure black on white has been discussed many times. While it satisfies min contrast requirements, it feels unnatural, and again, hard to read, causing eye strain [2][3]. Although this is not an issue on screens with automatic brightness adjustment, they are sadly not everywhere and it is wiser to target an average screen considering Mozilla auditory.

[1] [http://practicaltypography.com/line- length.html](http://practicaltypography.com/line-length.html) [2] [http://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use- black/](http://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/) [3] [https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/23965/is-there-a- prob...](https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/23965/is-there-a-problem-with- using-black-text-on-white-backgrounds)

<comment><USER3> Is putting adds in hacker news comments allowed? That practicaltypography link leads to [http://practicaltypography.com/graylist.html](http://practicaltypography.com/graylist.html), has no content and asks to pay for something.

<comment><USER4> You got me curious enough to check it out. Ad or not, that is one of most incredible sites I've seen with deep resources that are very valuable. I learned a lot in the 20 minutes there. The 'interstitial' is just that -- a plea for donations to support the writer and hosting for an ad-free (it's ad- free for everyone, not just donors), high-quality resource. I had to read the page 3 times before I picked up on the instruction to input the root URL into the address bar, instead of being linked there. Haven't looked at the code, but is he just looking at referrers and dynamically routing based on being on his "graylist"?

If I find myself there more, I'd be inclined to send him something.

As to its effects, I think he'd prefer to drive off any and every reader who is offended by the ask. They are just costing him bandwidth with zero chance of any return. Maybe they share it with someone who ends up donating, but people who actually donate are much more inclined to be good sources of referrals to _other people who may donate_.

As to whether it equates to posting a link to an ad or promotion, I really don't think it crosses the line. This isn't one of those informercial sites that lead you on for an eternity without ever providing anything of substance. Instead this is just an interstitial on steroids meant to drive off undesirable traffic. It's 1000 times better than annoying ads and/or anti- blocking measures, imo.

<comment><USER3> There could be valuable content there, but I will newer know that because I followed a link in comment, but all I got is an ad asking me to pay for something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Happy to see the new design looks similar to the old design, not an experimental new UI that removes half the information or puts everything behind things you need to expand or similar!

I always favor MDN over w3schools results when searching for a javascript, HTML, DOM or CSS property :)

<comment><USER6> I love mdn. The old design was great and the new looks even better. There is no documentation I've ever seen that's better it clearer.

<comment><USER7> > There is no documentation I've ever seen that's better it clearer.

You should check out Django's documentation: [https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/)

In my opinion, it is the gold standard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like how they're using the logo font for the headlines. As someone who already knows the new logo, this helps me connect MDN to the Mozilla brand more intuitively.

However, I'm just as concerned about the huge font sizes and high font weight as the majority here. It really distracts from the actual content.

<comment><USER9> The font is Zilla Slab: [https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Zilla+Slab](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Zilla+Slab)

In the "highlight bold" variant, if you type out "mozilla" it becomes the new wordmark: [https://ffp4g1ylyit3jdyti1hqcvtb-wpengine.netdna- ssl.com/ope...](https://ffp4g1ylyit3jdyti1hqcvtb-wpengine.netdna- ssl.com/opendesign/files/2017/07/Logo_Animation.gif)

<comment><USER10> You know I saw that font last night near the top of google fonts and didn't realize it was short for Mozilla. I generally prefer sans-serif fonts, but I really like the Regular variant!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's an official thread for feedback over on the Mozilla Discourse: [https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/beta-redesign- feed...](https://discourse.mozilla-community.org/t/beta-redesign- feedback/16544/21)

I've posted the link to this thread over there along with a couple main points from the comments here so far, but if you really want to make sure your input is heard, you might want to hop on over there to give it. You can log in with a GitHub or Google account if you don't feel like signing up with your email.

</comment><comment><USER11> That giant font works for Array.prototype.slice but what about CanvasRenderingContext2D.prototype.createRadialGradient or WebGL2RenderingContext.prototype.getActiveUniformBlockParameter?

<comment><USER3> The WebGL2RenderingContext.getActiveUniformBlockParameter() fits [https://pageshot.net/1pwSmFUZ4hnNcHlJ/developer.mozilla.org](https://pageshot.net/1pwSmFUZ4hnNcHlJ/developer.mozilla.org)

<comment><USER11> that's inconsistent with the other Array docs. The correct function is WebGL2RenderingContext.prototype.getActiveUniformBlockParameter() if you're trying to be consistent

<comment><USER12> Array.prototype.slice is specced out by the JS standard. getActiveUniformBlockParameter is part of the DOM. The DOM is specced in terms of interfaces—the only thing that the DOM guarantees is that when you're interacting with an object that satisfies the interface, it will have a getActiveUniformBlockParameter method. WebGL2RenderingContext.prototype.getActiveUniformBlockParameter is a JS-ism and isn't essential to the implementation of the spec.

<comment><USER11> what? it's required that setting WebGL2RenderingContext.prototype.getActiveUniformBlockParameter to some other function work. You set it before object creation. Objects created indirectly get the new functionality through their prototype. This is true for all DOM objects. maybe I don't understand your distinction

<comment><USER12> > Objects created indirectly get the new functionality through their prototype

Except most parts of the DOM in most engines is implemented in C++, not JS.

<whatever>.prototype is a JS-ism. But the DOM is not defined in terms of JS. It's defined in terms of a language-agnostic set of interfaces. So when poking around and seeing things like NodeIterator.prototype within JS, you're seeing them because the browser is presenting it to you in a way that kind of resembles the way things work for that runtime. <whatever>.prototype (when <whatever> is some DOM interface) is a byproduct of that behavior. But that those interfaces get implemented is the only essential characteristic of the DOM, and the docs should reflect those interfaces, not the weird and tangential byproducts of how the DOM gets projected into a JS runtime.

<comment><USER11> I'm not understanding the distinction from a JS programmer's perspective.

If I have

        a = {}
        a.foo = () => ();

foo is a member of a.

Where as if I have

        class A {
          foo() {}
        }
        a = new A();

foo is a member of the prototype for class A. This is important because I need to know if replacing A.prototype.foo will effect all new As or none. Documenting the function is defined on the prototype tells me this. So, I need both Array.prototype.slice and WebGL2RenderingContext.prototype. getActiveUniformBlockParameter documented the same.

If WebGL2RenderingContext.prototype.getActiveUniformBlockParameter is only documented as WebGL2RenderingContext.getActiveUniformBlockParameter that suggests to me that I can't do this

        WebGL2RenderingContext.prototype.
        getActiveUniformBlockParameter = someNewFunc
        gl = someCanvas.getContext("webgl2")

Instead I must do this

        gl = someCanvas.getContext("webgl2")
        gl.getActiveUniformBlockParameter = someNewFunc

The first is far more useful because I can effect it indirectly. The second requires me to modified code at creation, code that might be in a 3rd party library.

So, if .prototype. is left out of the docs for WebGL2RenderingContext.prototype.getActiveUniformBlockParameter that suggests to me I can't do the first. Seems like those 2 things Array.prototype.slice and WebGL2RenderingContext.prototype.getActiveUniformBlockParameter should be documented consistently. In other words, a JS programmer does not care about implementation details. They don't care one object is a DOM element vs a JS Object (at least not in this case). They care how they can use it in a program. To do that they need to know is the function on the prototype or on the object itself and documenting as Class.prototype.func tells them that.

<comment><USER12> > foo is a member of a [...] foo is a member of the prototype for class A > [...] they need to know is the function on the prototype or on the object > itself and documenting as Class.prototype.func tells them that

I know how prototypes work, and I know why the `Array.prototype.slice` are documented that way, because I wrote those docs—and caught a bunch of flak along the way when making the move away from referring those and other methods in the form `Array.slice`—in 2007.

It's hard to address the issue using your specific example, because it's so contrived. (Who is replacing native implementations [don't], and why? [Once again: don't.]) Here's the _actual_ motivating factor for why you see stuff like `Array.prototype.slice` documented that way:

There are methods `fromCharCode` and `charCodeAt`. However, you call the former as `String.fromCharCode` and the latter as `x.charCodeAt`, where `x` is some string instance. That's an important distinction, which means it's important that we not refer to them as `String.fromCharCode` and `String.charCodeAt`. The former is a real method that actually existed, and the latter is something that doesn't exist Which means if we tell readers "Use `String.charCodeAt`", then what we're doing is giving readers bad, confusing, and possibly frustrating information—not what you want when your goal is to be explaining things to an already unsure or simply ignorant audience. This distinction only became more important with ES5, since it started adding things like `Object.keys` and `Object.defineOwnProperty`, rather than making those methods available to all instances by adding them to the prototype.

But this is all besides the point, because we're talking about the DOM here.

> I'm not understanding the distinction from a JS programmer's perspective

That's the problem. Because what we're discussing is a reference for people using the DOM, and once again your changes would force a bunch of JS-isms into the scope of the documentation, and not only that, but a bunch of shaky, not- at-all-well-understood-or-agreed-upon, cobweb-covered parts of how the underlying objects get projected into JS.

> In other words, a JS programmer does not care about implementation details.

You understand that the thing you're asking for are that implementation details surface through the docs, right? And that they should be a prominent feature? That's what you're asking for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >> For MDN that means bold typography that highlights the structure of the page, more contrast, and a reduction to the essentials.

And less actual content, forcing you to scroll or zoom out.

<comment><USER14> The layout in the screenshot looks pretty similar to what's already there... just the header branding and a few fonts are different.

Comparison: [http://imgur.com/a/81cYg](http://imgur.com/a/81cYg)

<comment><USER15> your image shows that almost half of the page content is under the fold.

<comment><USER16> So what? Is scrolling really that big of a deal?

The increased font size and more pronounced page hierarchy make it easier for me to grok the page structure at a glance and navigate to the section I need (since I'm probably not reading the entire page front to bottom if I'm at an MDN link).

Why does all information need to be above the fold? It's not like I can interpret everything on the page in the 1000ms necessary it would take me to scroll.

<comment><USER17> > _So what? Is scrolling really that big of a deal?_

Yes.

<comment><USER16> How?

<comment><USER17> Cognitive load of paging.

This is not a new and unexplored concept.

<comment><USER16> I call B.S. --

Below the fold arguments only make sense when you can't grasp the purpose of the page without scrolling.

You're not supposed to cram every piece of information you can above the fold. The information that is getting cut off in this case is hardly pertinent to the understanding or navigation of the site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The bold headline steals attention away from the copy; it makes it much harder to focus on the actual content.

IMO they could try making the bold header a lighter shade to stop stealing focus. I much prefer the older one for readability.

</comment><comment><USER19> Unrelated to the design, it irks me to no end that MDN's top search result for 'Array' is [https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Glossary/array](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Glossary/array) when the second result is so much better.

At least the ES6 Map has finally usurped the antiquated <map> as the top 'Map' result :)

</comment><comment><USER20> I like the " reduction to the essentials". Not sure about the "high contrast".

</comment><comment><USER21> That's not the problem with MDN. MDN's big problem has been a confusion of out-of-date versions of documentation. It doesn't help that they've tried hard to get developers to use Mozilla technologies, from Jetpack to Firefox OS, which were then abandoned.

Firefox's drop to 15% market share has a big effect on developers. I've watched my add-on usage drop in lockstep with Firefox's market decline.

<comment><USER9> This is addressed in the previous post in the series [0], linked at the top of this one. MDN is refocusing on exclusively providing solid, up-to-date web documentation, and all the old, obsolete, and Mozilla-internal stuff will be trimmed away or moved elsewhere.

[0] [https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/future-mdn-focus-web- doc...](https://blog.mozilla.org/opendesign/future-mdn-focus-web-docs/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Those bold fonts and titles with black background are not working for me :\ Hopefully i'll get used to them.

<comment><USER22> I don't mind the fonts nearly as much as the size seems about 150% of the size it should be for the title and about 130% on the syntax... should reduce them down a little.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wish they would stop and reverse Mozilla Open Design. In my opinion it has made all of their design worse and uglier and probably cost them money.

MDN looked and felt great to browse before, now the headline is absurdly misproportioned and in the wrong place (not in the text column).

</comment><comment><USER24> A bad update, actually decreases value because of having to scroll about constantly.

</comment><comment><USER25> That logo in the upper left needs some padding love. It looks like someone just found out about CSS background-color. A few pixels of padding would go a long way.

</comment><comment><USER26> There is such a thing as a too big font. I think it happens when you feel like you physically have to move back from the screen to comfortably read the text.

</comment><comment><USER3> While this new design looks good for documentation, it's also used on Firefox homepage where it makes it look like one of those domain squatter sites.

</comment><comment><USER27> Thank you Mozilla!

</comment><comment><USER28> > \- Too much contrast? Reduce screen brightness. (This has the beneficial > side effect of increasing battery life on mobile devices.)

So, I have to make the rest of my UI unreadable, just because you prefer to use a cheap chinese 20$ screen which can't even handle sRGB?

<comment><USER29> What a genius idea, design only for people with expensive screens, make software only people with a dual Xeon and a GTX1080 can run, and be sure to make the minimum resolution 2560*1900. You're sure to make friends.

Welcome to reality, most people use cheap $20 chinese screens.

<comment><USER28> And so the solution is to create content for people on 320x480 pixel screens with no contrast? No.

We should try and create the content in the best possible formats, with the highest available standards, and then the user agent, acting on behalf of the user, should scale that to the user's current system, increasing or decreasing the contrast.</comment></comment></comment>


Moto X Style and Moto X Play: Full specs and pricing information - <AUTHOR> http://bgr.com/2015/07/28/moto-x-style-moto-x-play-specs-pricing/

<comment><AUTHOR> "When it comes to pricing information, Motorola says the Moto X Style will cost $399 off contract, while the Moto X Play will cost $299 off contract."</comment>


Why Memphis Has Two Marches for Science - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2017/04/memphis-two-marches-science/ <comment><USER2> It's a double-blind experiment - one march is real, the other placebo. But neither march knows which is which.</comment>


MIT creates picture-driven programming for the masses  - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/012110-sikuli-scripting-language.html?hpg1=bn

<comment><USER2> There's more to this project than is hinted at by the "picture-driven programming" label. This scripting system is driven not just by pictures, but by screenshot snippets of the GUI elements that you want to click on / control. The language uses computer vision techniques to match things on the screen (and I'm guessing to prevent programs from becoming overly brittle if minor visual changes happen to the screen). Check out the video on the project's actual page, it's actually kind of interesting:

<http://sikuli.csail.mit.edu/>

<comment><USER3> I read the paper and frankly speaking, I am very skeptical that this is an application for the _masses_.

I found this piece interesting:

>The Sikuli Search prototype has a database of 102 popular computer books covering various operating systems (e.g., Windows XP, MacOS) and applications (e.g., Photoshop, Office), all represented in PDF4. This database contains more than 50k screenshots. The three-feature indexing scheme is written in C++ to index these screenshots, using SIFT [11] to extract visual features, Tesseract5 for OCR, and Ferret6 for indexing the text surrounding the screenshots. All other server-side functionality, such as accepting queries and formatting search results, is implemented in Ruby on Rails7 with a SQL database. On the client side, the interfaces for searching and annotating screenshots are implemented in Java.

... and the scripting engine is in Python.

Sometimes I wonder if Computer Science wouldn't have been better off with a constantly evolving _C_ rather than all this mess. Every time I build a web application I feel as if I am building Frankenstein's body with different animal parts.

There were two major attempts to bring computers to the _masses_ COBOL and SQL and they both managed to produce the opposite result rather than the masses using them a demand was created for very highly paid Programmer jobs! Electronic Engineers never attempted to teach the _masses_ how to build TV's. In the late 80's I was teaching laymen things like 'How to Use MSDOS' and 'Introduction to Wordperfect' which paid for the rent but overall was a depressing experience. I also taught at the same time 'Pascal' and 'C' to Mechanical Engineers, my conclusion was that some people take to programming - like some people take to maths, they enjoy it and after an initial push they will teach themselves the rest and the rest will never touch programming even if their life depended on it.

In my mind the only successful 'programming for the masses' products are Excel and partly HTML.

<comment><USER4> I don't believe that COBOL was designed for the masses - after all, this was 1959, when there were so few computers and it was believed by some that ultimately we would only need one! Also, SQL came out of academia and I don't believe that was for the masses either. I would say however that BASIC was intended for the masses, and as such it was successful. A generation in the UK learnt BASIC on the ZX80, ZX81, Spectrum, BBC Micro etc.

<comment><USER3> Sadly, when CODASYL committee was formed to develop a programming language ideally suited for business data processing needs they were looking at a language that 'normal operators' could learn and that it would be similar to a human language that is why you get Cobol syntax like:

         ADD YEARS TO AGE

A similar motivation was for SQL. We will give you a database and a query language that anyone can use:

        SELECT title FROM Book .....

During the early days of computing the thought prevailed - pretty much like now - that it was a matter of 10 years before computers would be able to talk in natural languages and AI was around the corner.

But, you are right about BASIC that was my first language as well, quickly dropped for Turbo Pascal which was the sort of the in-thing for a while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow. This might be perfect for advanced screen scraping.

"GUI Testing Using Computer Vision"

[http://groups.csail.mit.edu/uid/projects/sikuli/sikuli- chi20...](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/uid/projects/sikuli/sikuli-chi2010.pdf)

EDIT: It appears it cannot grab the actual text using the Native APIs so you would have to include a pipeline to OCR black-on-white text

</comment><comment><USER6> There already is a visual scripting environment--its called LabView and its terrible. LabView is used mostly by scientists who want to control their experiments but don't want to learn how to program. It's very effective when dealing with hardware and you just want to get it working. But if it doesn't work, you're screwed because its very difficult to debug.

That's actually the problem I forsee with the visual scripting environment. There is no better single point of instruction than a compiler error or syntax error highlighting. If you try to circumvent that process to make it more "accessible" to the public, you're going to keep your visual programmers in the dark as to what is actually occurring.

<comment><USER7> Did you even read the article? This isn't a visual scripting environment, it's an intuitive way to use Python to do image processing.

Edit: here's a paper with examples. [http://groups.csail.mit.edu/uid/projects/sikuli/sikuli- uist2...](http://groups.csail.mit.edu/uid/projects/sikuli/sikuli-uist2009.pdf)

<comment><USER6> Ah. You're right. I misread it. However, I stand by my points on visual scripting in general. Even if there is a way to automate certain tasks via GUI elements, you are placing a great deal of trust on the system to operate as expected.

I do quite a bit of research in machine learning, and I can say that these systems are _never_ perfect. Building an abstraction on top of an image processing technique is interesting, but I really wonder how a system like that can be debugged if something goes wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I thought this might be similar to the incredible Baltie programming language: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Baltik3-screenshot1.PNG>

(it isn't)</comment>


Ask HN: Dealing with a coding brick wall. Go deep? Learn something new? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking to hear from more experienced developers who have overcome being stuck in their programming career. How did you do it?<p>Is it better to go deeper into a language (in my case PHP) or learn something new (I'm thinking Swift or Java maybe even Go). On one hand learning a new language makes sense, but on the other hand, I'd like obtain deeper knowledge of PHP. My goal is to be a better developer, so both are probably best to do, but I am wondering about specific things to do to become unstuck... <comment><USER2> To become a better developer, learn functional programming. I would strongly suggest Elm, which has practical uses and has strong growth among its user base.

If you want to work at a big enterprise, learn C# or Java. If you want to work at a smaller or newer company, learn Python.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can you elaborate on what you mean, and what your situation is? Is your problem career progression; that you're not being challenged by your work?

<comment><AUTHOR> Over the last five years I have taught myself to code: mainly PHP and JS. I built various web apps, one that got traction and now pays me a monthly income (enough to pay rent). Building it threw many challenges at me from sys admin to the delights of JS... but it's now not something I'm going to spend a lot of time on (for business reasons). So I am at a natural point of looking to the next five years and what to spend my time learning (and building). I'd like to get to know more developers too. So it's not so much a problem I have, it's more about understanding how other developers went from low/mid competency to a higher level of competency.</comment></comment>


You're Not Going to Change Your Mind (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/27/opinion/sunday/youre-not-going-to-change-your-mind.html <comment><USER2> One of their examples of "factual" questions is:

Is immigration harmful to the economy?

"harmful to the economy" is a rather subjective term, because different people care more about different parts of the "economy".

Does "harmful to the economy" mean share prices go down, or does it mean people lose their jobs, or does it mean there are more poor people, or does it mean you have less choice when you go shopping, or does it mean average wealth per person goes down, and does average wealth include public goods like the environment? And so on ...

</comment><comment><USER3> But of course you ARE going to change your mind. People do often, and throughout their lifetimes. Believing that minds don't change is like believing that advertising doesn't work. But as an advertising exec (whose name I don't recall) memorably said: "We find that advertising is like grass growing; you don't see it growing but you still have to mow the lawn every week."

As a cultural conservative I have discovered that many people I _thought_ held certain values didn't really -- they were just taking the path of least resistance. And indeed, taking the path of least resistance is the constant for them.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's not even 'desires', it's identity when we have people declare "I'm a democrat" or "I'm a republican", one should vote for the candidate with the best policy however you want to define that.

</comment><comment><USER5> (2017)</comment>


Erlang: It's About Reliability - <AUTHOR> http://steve.vinoski.net/blog/2008/05/01/erlang-its-about-reliability/ <comment><USER2> "They come for the concurrency but they stay for the reliability."

Perfect.</comment>


A JavaScript IDE for the iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://webdesktoplife.com/post/1358032790/a-javascript-ide-for-the-iphone <comment><USER2> This is something I've wanted to do, so let me share the random ideas I had:

\- Horizontal space is at a premium, so don't show line numbers. When scrolling, show the line numbers hovering over the lines (so I can find my spot in a long file if I need to), but I don't need to see them while actually editing a line.

\- The big win on the iPhone is not so much writing as reading. Make it easy to download a GitHub repo of source I might want to read on my commute. And make it easy for a project to link to that. Then I can get familiar with the coding style and abilities of, say, backbone.js or some other new javascript thing, while standing on the Metro.

<comment><USER3> Does the iPhone provide a way to download files like that? I'm running an older model (3G) so maybe that limitation is gone, but it's something that I find very lacking. Wow, though, being able to comfortably read js libraries - and write small tests, even - on a phone would be fantastic.

<comment><USER4> iPhone Safari supports local storage and local SQLite databases. You could force some sort of offline access into it.

There's no access to the filesystem in iOS Safari, no uploading or downloading files.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wrote a similar one for CoffeeScript: <http://www.mrspeaker.net/2010/04/29/instant-coffeescript/> but it uses the HTML5 cache manifest stuff to let it work offline (kind of) like a native app. I wrote to the creator of the JS IDE saying "please do the same!" but actually, I really want it so I'm also doing it myself (and will post him the changes when I'm done).

<comment><AUTHOR> I am definitely going to do that, plus I will add a way to save scripts to the local SQLite DB.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been using (and loving) JsAnywhere [1] (iTunes link[2])

\-----

[1]: <http://jsany.org/>

[2]: [http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/javascript- anywhere/id3634522...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/javascript- anywhere/id363452277?mt=8)

<comment><USER7> I use and love jsanywhere but it is desperately in need of key shortcuts! switching key layouts every time I need ;(){}[]+-= is a killer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another alternative worth checking out is JSConsole:

Browser: <http://jsconsole.com/> iOS: <http://jsconsole.com/app/> Source Code: <http://github.com/remy/jsconsole>

</comment><comment><USER9> It's sad that this app doesn't work with a normal desktop browser - IMHO one shouldn't rely completely on touch events.

It almost works with Android, except for the special-characters-menu, the tooltip of which gets hidden under textarea.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'd like to use this as an opportunity to implore someone to write a JS/CSS/HTML editor for iPad, with option to sftp it remotely and simple syncing... a scaled down version of TextMate with simpler features.

I would happily pay for this app.

<comment><USER11> I have a great idea for how to do one, but not nearly enough time to make it happen. :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great little tool, but of your list of possible features to add, I think syntax highlighting should move to the top. It improves readability and thus usability greatly.

</comment><comment><USER13> Now we can all code epic viruses on our phones just like in the pilot of the latest Doctor Who series.

</comment><comment><USER14> I tried it on my iPod Touch, OS version 3.1.2 and could not get the keyboard to come up or see any code from the samples appear in the textarea. Seems pretty cool in the iPhone Simulator though.

</comment><comment><USER15> We did it as native app, for now Android.. iPhone to come. We have some cool features. Javascript will be supported in next official release, but for hacker news a preview version with JS - [http://www.touchqode.com/downloads/experimental/MobileCodeEd...](http://www.touchqode.com/downloads/experimental/MobileCodeEditor.apk)

\---- [<http://www.touchqode.com/>]

</comment><comment><USER16> That's awesome - best part about it being a webapp is that it works beautifully on my Android phone too :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The first update with some of the most requested features is here. Have fun!

[http://webdesktoplife.com/post/1360939954/first-update- for-j...](http://webdesktoplife.com/post/1360939954/first-update-for-jscoder)

</comment><comment><USER17> Looks nice, but way to small on the iPad. I would guess with a few small CSS changes (relative instead of absolute positions) it would work well on both devices.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's a little bit amazing having a touchscreen keyboard, in that if it's missing a certain key, you can just add it.

</comment><comment><USER19> Awesome, but what's with the domain name? Might want to pick something easier to remember / type.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is almost as cool as the dreams I keep having of a Vim port for the iPad.

</comment><comment><USER21> OK, hard mode: use standards so that it works on more than one platform.

</comment><comment><USER22> Can we make saving easier? Maybe Share/Email This?

<comment><AUTHOR> The new version has email sharing. Thank you!</comment></comment>


Three lessons I learnt from porting Diablo - <AUTHOR> http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2009/12/three-lessons-i-learnt-from-porting-diablo.html

<comment><USER2> Has anyone ever seen this before?

"There were hundreds of pieces of x86 assembler scattered throughout the code base, which was a problem since we were porting to the Playstation's MIPS processor. Usually just a couple of instructions long, and in the middle of functions, these snippets were pretty puzzling. Finally one of the team figured it out; somebody had struggled with C's signed/unsigned casting rules, and so they'd fallen back on the assembler instructions they understood! The whole team had a good laugh at that"

<comment><USER2> I'm sorry - I should have been more clear - I _get_ that you inline assembly when you need to do something your Compiler won't let you do (or makes difficult), and that clearly people sometimes will tweak some inline assembly to get a bit more performance - But has anyone ever seen a developer "Struggle with C's casting rules" - and switch to Assembler to over come that challenge? That just seems like an unexpected approach to that problem of understanding a kind of fundamental C concept...

<comment><USER3> No, I've never seen someone drop to assy due to something as simple as not understanding typecasting. Historically it has been for speed (used to be common, a lot less common now) or to do something the compiler/language doesn't support. The anecdote falls into the latter class, but only because the original code author didn't understand C well enough.

When I started programming, the running joke was "you can write FORTRAN in any language, some are just more difficult."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unfortunately this is a very common introduction to the Video games industry. At least in the UK.

The industry trades on how 'cool' it is to work on games knowing that there are hundreds of talented kids who will do anything to get in to it. They often end up doing poorly paid difficult work under tight deadlines with bosses that make The Office seems like heaven.

Unfortunately people like Liddon are few and far between within the industry.

</comment><comment><USER5> My lessons from his writeup seem to be completely different:

1) Get a paycheck I can live on.

2) Get a mentor.

3) You don't have to finish a job before moving on if things aren't working out.

(not that I'd agree with #3, that just seems to be my takeaway from the story).

<comment><USER6> My takeaway was this:

"The third lesson I learnt was that you don't need great code to make a great product."

I really believe this to be true. Coders are far too analytical for their own good. If a product works great, then the poor code can be fixed later.

<comment><USER5> You know, this is really true. My company has recently been making the slow switch from "over-designed and implemented, resulting in a very slow release cycle" to "minimally designed, quickly (but smartly) implemented, fast release cycles".

This comes from two lessons to us:

1) No matter how long you spend designing a feature, it'll probably not be 100% of what the user wants. Do a quicker "draft" of the feature, solicit feedback, and release fast to fulfill customer needs.

2) No matter how long you spend trying to write elegant code, the software will have bugs, and other kinds of problems. Do it quick, observe it in the field, take notes and do bug patches.

Getting the team on-board for these was hard due to the resistance of this being the perceived Microsoft way of doing things, but it has resulted in much higher customer satisfaction because they see continuous progress and feel like their feedback is turning into product (they feel part of the process) rather than tens of months of no progress followed by something they probably didn't want to begin with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "sometimes the worst projects are the best teachers."

That's so true. At least for me.

<comment><USER8> I agree, but you definitely wouldn't want to keep jumping from bad project to bad project. The end goal should be to take that very useful experience and turn it into a very successful project.</comment></comment>


Startups Seek Tech Solution to Net Neutrality Repeal - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/startups-seek-tech-solution-to-net-neutrality-repeal-1514383200 <comment><USER2> Why are startups afraid? Shouldn't the biggest internet/cloud companies be worried first? They are going to be taxed most (esp. Netflix). Or maybe I'm missing something in the big picture?

<comment><USER3> Netflix potentially has something to gain, because they'll likely strike a deal with the ISPs to put content physically/technically closer to consumers (which means better quality at quicker rates).

<comment><USER4> Netflix does this already, both via direct dedicated lines from their CDN to ISPs and content boxes in ISPs' own data centers. I don't think it can be considered a net neutrality violation since the concept of "neutrality" is still a consumer facing one and doesn't really apply for the massive internet infrastructure between ISPs and large company data centers, CDNs etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So looks like they were right when they said it would encourage innovation. Go figure.

<comment><USER6> Some "innovation" is a waste of resources. Specifically, the innovation required to work around broken policy.

<comment><USER7> Or fixing an already solved problem. Using a VPN addresses basically everything they are trying to fix.

<comment><USER8> ISPs can trivially prioritize content from preferred providers while throttling all other traffic, including VPN traffic.

VPNs do not solve this problem.

<comment><USER7> yeah but all your internet traffic would then be throttled. Not just certain services. Using a VPN essentially takes away everything from them and reduces their only tool to a hammer and forcing everything to look like a nail. There is no granularity. All your traffic goes to one location. They can't see what it is or what the final endpoint is because of encryption. So they can't use it to build a profile/data on you to sell. They can't inject ads into HTML or block services that compete with their own, or even grant privileged speeds to approved or preferred services. They basically are forced into a Shakespearean "to throttle or not to throttle" binary choice.

<comment><USER8> That's true, but in practice most consumers wouldn't notice. That's because the whitelisted services would most likely include those data-hungry services used most frequently by consumers: Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, Facebook, etc. which are operated by big providers. This was how Comcast operated in ca. 2013.

The bet is ISPs would be very comfortable throttling traffic, as long as whitelisted services were not affected. (They see this as a revenue generator, because they can sell fast-lane access to companies who don't want their customers' bandwidth throttled.) ISPs that go this route will likely offer a (consumer-paid) option to allow VPN traffic to use the fast lane.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The ISPs will offer full NN access for $100 a month extra. If some startup comes along with similar service, the ISPs will cut the NN price to $50 per month extra until the startup is gone. That is the whole point of repealing NN: ISPs want to be able to offer premium services at premium prices.

</comment><comment><USER10> How did Netflix survive pre 2015? What about Spotify?

<comment><USER11> They survived because the ISPs faced strong regulatory backlash if they made too many anti competitive moves.

Trump and Pat have removed those threats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> VPNs for everyone?

<comment><USER7> Yep. Beat me to making the comment. This is already a solved problem.

A VPN solves this problem quite well. Only exception I see is overall bandwidth usage. They'll obviously still see the total amount of traffic going across their lines and may throttle that, but that would apply to everyone equally, which I don't have an issue with. Since they won't be able to see the traffic due to encryption, they can't inhibit/block certain sites or services. Nor can they inject ads or anything else into the HTML responses. They would also be essentially blind and unable to build a profile about you to sell.

<comment><USER13> Can't they (the ISPs) just block or charge extra for VPN traffic? I've read that China detects and blocks VPN traffic.

<comment><USER7> they can see encrypted traffic and that it is being sent to an IP associated with VPN services without too much difficulty, but they won't have granular control/access over your data/bandwidth. Meaning they won't be able to prioritize some of the sites/services you access over others because of the encryption. they need to throttle everything or nothing. And they won't be able to see any of your traffic or the sites you visit whatsoever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anyone know how to read the article behind the paywall?

<comment><USER15> click "web" under the title here on HN

that will take you to a google search

click trough there and you wont be "paywalled"

<comment><USER13> Doesn't work for me :-/ it's still paywalled although I access it via the 'web' link and search results page. I tested disabling Javascript too, didn't help.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Isn't the solution just more ISP competition?

<comment><USER6> That's easy to say, but there's the well-known last mine problem. How many separate companies will be willing to run cabling to your home just to compete bitterly with an incumbent? And even if that may happen in your neighborhood, will it happen nationwide? What about rural areas where you're lucky to have _one_ fast ISP?

<comment><USER17> In other countries there are laws which force the cable owner to rent the last mile to any ISP.

<comment><USER6> I'd guess countries with that kind of sensible regulation also can manage net neutrality regulations...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Startups existed just fine before 2015 (when the repealed regulation was passed.) So why this now?

I loathe Comcast & AT&T as much as any other person, but it seems like this issue has been sensationalized/editorialized so that any sensible commentary is drowned out.

Edit: Well, this is an unpopular opinion (-2 points currently).

<comment><USER19> Stop spreading disinformation, the regulations from 2015 and reclassification is just legislative juggling. Net neutrality was an issue from way before that (1). See numerous violations (2) and try to assert what changes does a startup have if they are in direct competition with a service which the ISP offers along with internet.

(1) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality_in_the_United_States)

(2) [https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality- vio...](https://www.freepress.net/blog/2017/04/25/net-neutrality-violations- brief-history)

People don't downvote you because they don't agree with your 'opinion', it's just that you're wrong. What you wrote is not an opinion, it's just disinformation.

<comment><USER18> That source (Free Press) is an advocacy organization, so it by definition presents one side of a story. The pros without the cons, or something.

I'm in the boat where I trust companies more than I trust the government, and believe that the original NN regulation was a path for the government to start actively censoring the internet, China-style.

Want to see more debate (even if devil's advocate) along these lines instead of "they are killing startups" and "they are taking away our free YouTube."

<comment><USER19> > That source (Free Press) is an advocacy organization, so it by definition > presents one side of a story. The pros without the cons, or something.

That doesn't make it wrong. You can research each instance and find it documented in other sources too.

> I'm in the boat where I trust companies more than I trust the government, > and believe that the original NN regulation was a path for the government to > start actively censoring the internet, China-style.

This belief is flawed or misdirected for the following reasons:

1\. Revolving door policy, lobbying and elimination of PAC contribution limits for corporations has unified the two and for all intents and purposes there is absolutely no difference between government and companies when it comes to who should be trusted.

2\. the government doesn't need to censor the internet anymore. For years, deliberate propaganda using sockpuppets has been proven way more effective in influencing public opinion than straight-up censorship, especially in western societies. Also, if you're looking at censorship, look no further than companies with no backbone but with a lot of greed, not the government (1) (2) (3).

3\. Censorship is a different matter. I hate it when people bring it up to oppose NN as it diverts the conversation. NN is about regulating a public utility and limiting monolopies, not necessarily free speech or free internet (whatever the hell that means as I don't know anymore after the republicans use it to define exactly the opposite of what the common understanding would be). Regardless of regulation, referring to censorship, look at Comcast passing the buck (4): "We do not and will not block, throttle, or discriminate against lawful content. " Who decides what's lawful or not? If the Government deems far-left/right or any other website opposing something which the government/military-industrial complex deems as unlawful, how does that work with\without net neutrality rules? Just look at what happened to Wikileaks. Overnight, censorship and corporate economic boycott was in full effect, regardless of laws or regulations.

(1) [http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/24/technology/business/cloudfla...](http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/24/technology/business/cloudflare- ceo-interview-daily-stormer/index.html)

(2) [http://blog.dilbert.com/2016/10/03/the-week-i-became-a- targe...](http://blog.dilbert.com/2016/10/03/the-week-i-became-a-target/)

(3) [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/opinion/sunday/the- blog-t...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/30/opinion/sunday/the-blog-that- disappeared.html)

(4) [https://twitter.com/comcast/status/933394263689351175?lang=e...](https://twitter.com/comcast/status/933394263689351175?lang=en)

<comment><USER19> I forgot one thing. I would definitely be in favor of no regulation what-so- ever on the internet, but only in the context of a healthy ISP ecosystem. I get where you're coming from with your opinion, I really do.

What I'm not in favor is giving an existing oligopoly (which came to power mainly due to point 1. in my previous post) an unbalanced ratio of power over its relationship with the consumer (I include here end-users such as us and small/large companies which leverage internet access to sell their services) on the premise of the 'free market' and the promise that corporations won't do any harm. I don't trust that at all.

Historically, Verizon and AT&T haven't lived up even to their commitments which were made when corporate mergers were approved. Why should I trust that they will not do unethical market practices with the nuclear bomb that the republicans put in their hands? Why won't the legislature eliminate FBAR reporting for individuals making less than $1M/yr on the promise that I won't move all my money out of the country to avoid taxes? I promise I won't do it but if you catch me, there will be no legal repercussions, right? I would call this the 'Financial freedom bill, reverting the draconian fiscal regulations for the common man'

Me, particularly, I was stuck with Comcast as my only option for about 5 years (couple years ago, now I have 2 ISP to choose from). They jacked up my prices for no reason and there was nothing I could do. Absolutely nothing. Why should I trust them now to NOT throttle my content or make me pay extra now that they legally can do whatever they want? Doing so will be cataloged as a 'free market' practice now and if I don't agree, I should change carriers, right? Change it to the other member of the same lobbying group which made this deregulation possible which will in turn throttle content.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ultimate home office setup thoughts? - <AUTHOR> I was thinking of a standup desk and this 4k 43" monitor.  Thoughts?  Show & tell your ENV please.
Currently: retina mbp, dual 24" on ergotron arms, wireless keyboard & mouse, Zik headphones
http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-43-ultra-hd-4k-multi-client-monitor-p4317q/apd/210-ahsq/monitors-monitor-accessories <comment><AUTHOR> Some desks:

[https://www.standdesk.co/?ref=producthunt](https://www.standdesk.co/?ref=producthunt) [http://www.varidesk.com/home](http://www.varidesk.com/home) [http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S19022530/?ref=pr...](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S19022530/?ref=producthunt) [https://www.autonomous.ai/smartdesk-sit-to-stand-height- adju...](https://www.autonomous.ai/smartdesk-sit-to-stand-height-adjustable- standing-desk)</comment>


Groupon Math: Data scraping to estimate revenue - <AUTHOR> http://paulbutler.org/archives/groupon-math-data-scraping-to-estimate-revenue/

<comment><USER2> Way to at least attempt to seek the actual data instead of an "educated guessing" that is used all to often in revenue projections.

I think the 35% is a fair estimate, but believe it could actually be higher.

</comment><comment><USER3> 35% cut for Groupon seems high. I would imagine their margin a lot lower than this.</comment>


Are we getting smarter? (Transcript of Interview with James Flynn) - <AUTHOR> http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/allinthemind/are-we-getting-smarter/4109676#transcript

<comment><USER2> This is cool! It reminds me of the TED talk 'Will our kids be a different species?'. We are totes getting smarter - kids have a grasp of concepts such as metacognitive thinking at a much younger age, and their frame of reference is so much broader. I've written a rant about the future of education based on this new paradigm on my personal blog if you're keen (thecreativefiles.com)

<comment><USER3> I enjoyed the post about the future of education. Similar thoughts have crossed my mind (to the point where I have a small side-project going on).

<comment><USER2> Thanks man! Keep us posted on the side-project, awesome space to be in. If you're on Twitter, I'm @alidrennan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think that we have more and more access to information and this makes our brains work better, helps connect more dots and make better decisions.</comment>


Where do you sell your textbooks? - <AUTHOR>

I am wondering where do you buy/sell your textbooks online? <comment><USER2> I usually buy off of amazon. Since most of my classes are technical in nature now, I usually end up keeping them for future reference.

<comment><AUTHOR> but where do you end up selling ur used books? I have a few used textbooks that i don't need and the university bookstore is giving me nothing for them.. :( and selling it privately means i need to put up posters all across campus..

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I highly suggest <http://half.com>

I've sold many books using it. I usually don't buy textbooks unless I have to. My university library provides course reserved textbook rentals for free so anytime I need a book I just go to the library and study.

</comment><comment><USER4> Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://isbn.nu></comment>


AI generation of fake celeb images - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/tkarras/progressive_growing_of_gans <comment><USER2> Amazing. And now one only needs a random article generator, which describes marriages, breakups, mishaps, accidents, and plain random appearances of these celebrities. Tada, random fake celebrity news, which is probably even better at wasting people's time than the real thing. This is going to happen really soon, because text generation is much easier than what the Nvidia guys did.

<comment><USER3> Just came here to say that it's time to start a gossip magazine about completely imaginary people. You beat me to it.

However I disagree about text generation, which seems to me to require a perfect equivalent of human intelligence to be at least acceptable. (I'd call it AGI-complete, or maybe HI-complete).

<comment><USER4> Gossip about people you've never heard of or seen completely defeats the allure of gossip doesn't it?

<comment><USER5> I think these people being "real" is a secondary concern. Most readers of gossip magazines only see the characters from them only in the same magazines, or TV. Soap opears about completely imaginary characters faced a lot of success. I don't see why algorithmically generated soap operas won't have a chance, especially when adorned with "photos".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The thumbstamp version of creating fake celeb faces was one of the projects for the Deep Learning Udacity nanodegree. (These get changed over time, so it may be different now.)

The dataset of 200,000 celeb photos with the face nicely centered at a known location is a nontrivial part of making the exercise feasible.

I trained on windows with a 6Gb 1060, and went off script from the DCGAN paper, by using upscaling rather than transpose convolutions. Once all the fiddling details are set correctly, the results are quite amazing. It didn't even require a complete single pass over that dataset.

</comment><comment><USER7> Really interesting article seeing how I'm finishing up my own DCGAN project!

Generative models like GANs are fascinating, but very temperamental to train. Some of the findings in this paper mirror my own observations - increasing the complexity of the GAN adds a lot of instability. My solution was to keep things as simple as possible. I spent a lot of effort trying to increase the size of the network to get better results, but in the end my smallest implementation worked the best.

This bit is interesting: "Without progressive growing, all layers of the generator and discriminator are tasked with simultaneously finding succinct intermediate representations for both the large-scale variation and the small- scale detail. With progressive growing, however, the existing low-resolution layers are likely to have already converged early on, so the networks are only tasked with refining the representations by increasingly smaller-scale effects as new layers are introduce"

</comment><comment><USER8> I think this would be fun to generate character portraits for role-playing games.

</comment><comment><USER9> Coming soon as the next CEO and CTO of your favorite amazing ICO.

<comment><USER10>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I read the paper, but I did not understand a thing. What is the path to follow (for example, books or papers to read) in order to at least understand what the paper is talking about? My background is in computer science.

<comment><USER12> At what point did it go from understandable to not for you? Do you understand GAN architectures? Basic ideas of the DCGAN paper?

<comment><USER13> I did the Udacity nanodegree last year and the only part I never understood was the call to the "de-convolution" operator in tensorflow. It seems that every description keeps painting the same picture of how the two networks are in competition to reach "nash equilibrium". I think they really skimp over what a "de-convolution" actually is.

<comment><USER12> Did you do the DLND? If so, they may have updated the videos, as the current explanation of conv2d_transpose seemed fairly clear to me. Or maybe it was some of the extra materials they provided that helped. I think I found a good video on YT also.

<comment><USER13> yea I did that program. I'll check it out again at some point and see if they added more description on that part of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> From the demonstration video [0] in the link, very interesting, but also very noticeable where the GAN attempts glasses or other "items" (see around 0:58 and 2:35, respectively). Has any research been done into GANs which aim for realistic artificial objects, instead of faces?

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G06dEcZ- QTg&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G06dEcZ- QTg&feature=youtu.be)

<comment><USER6> Later in the video it shows training against the LSUN dataset.

[https://github.com/fyu/lsun](https://github.com/fyu/lsun)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> "We recommend NVIDIA DGX-1 with 8 Tesla V100 GPUs."

[https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/dgx-1/#order-now- dg...](https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/dgx-1/#order-now-dgx-1)

The NVIDIA DGX is available for purchase in select countries and is priced at:

        DGX with P100 at $129,000*
        DGX with V100 at $149,000*
        DGX support plan is required and must be purchased separately.

<comment><USER16> For most of us, it's cheaper to rent, for example, an AWS p3.2xlarge @ $3.06/hr on-demand or $2/hr 1-year reserved.

<comment><USER17> > an AWS p3.2xlarge @ $3.06/hr on-demand or $2/hr 1-year reserved.

Equivalent to DGX is p3.16xlarge - $16/hr 1-year reserved = 280k/yr for renting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It is interesting really studying the two images on the github page. My first thought was - wow, amazing! But having looked at them for a bit longer they've fallen straight into the uncanny valley for me.

The female's left and right eyes are different shapes, as are her eyebrows. And the male's ears appear to be in different places on the left and right side of his head. His eyes are creepily different too.

<comment><USER19> Well, my ears are on different places, too, which is why glasses were always a bad fit before I got PRK. I'd say that the shape of the woman's hair feels weird, but I'm not really offput by the image of the man.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The accompanying video reminds me of the Godley and Creme video 'Cry' from 1985.

Nvidia article: [https://youtu.be/G06dEcZ-QTg](https://youtu.be/G06dEcZ-QTg)

Cry: [https://youtu.be/KxtPRF6NG7I](https://youtu.be/KxtPRF6NG7I)

<comment><USER21> They've got a longer video at: [https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gAb3oqpaQFHZTwPUXHPI...](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gAb3oqpaQFHZTwPUXHPIfBIP8eIeWNrI) IMHO this looks a lot more like merging between different celebrities

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The fakes look really sweaty/shiny. Like they're fan photos posted to wikipedia.

</comment><comment><USER23> Random? The girl looks exactly like Holly Valance.

<comment><USER24> I think the only celebrity it looks like is Tiffani Thiessen, from Saved By The Bell and Beverly Hills, 90210.

[http://ilarge.lisimg.com/image/425028/1118full-tiffani- thies...](http://ilarge.lisimg.com/image/425028/1118full-tiffani-thiessen.jpg)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Combine this with deep fakes and you've got a very dangerous pairing of new technologies</comment>


5 Reasons Why Google Hired a Person Like Me - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-reasons-why-google-hired-person-like-me-anthony-mays

<comment><USER2> Any way people without linkedin account can view the article?</comment>


Tell HN: Read Maxim and other trashy "guy" rags. - <AUTHOR>

I went out to get a haircut today and had a chance to scan through crap magazines before my appointment.
Extremely worthwhile.
Anybody who is out of business ideas, specially "social apps" will do well consuming that garbage from time to time. It's simply full of insight into the mindset of a sizable segment of society. The ads within the pages are full of hints on what works.
I had a short stint as a reseller for luxury motorcycles, and I am 100% certain that my business would have benefited from an earlier exposure to these publications. <comment><USER2> I strongly recommend that you folks read Chuck Klosterman's "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto" if you haven't already:

[http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Drugs-Cocoa-Puffs- Manifesto/dp/074...](http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Drugs-Cocoa-Puffs- Manifesto/dp/0743236017)

Some will adore his writing style, others will hate it. As an essayist, his prose is about as far from PG's style as possible... which is exactly why I'm suggesting it.

Off the top of my head, he goes into extensive, gratuitous quasi-intellectual breakdowns of everything from MTV's The Real World to G'n'R cover bands.

In the chapter on sugary breakfast cereals, Chuck notes that "an inordinate number of cereal commercials are based on the premise that a given cereal is so delicious that a fictional creature would want to steal it." Have truer words ever been written? He continues:

"Being cool is mostly ridiculous, and so is sugared cereal. That's why we like it."

"I eat sugared cereal almost exclusively. This is because I'm the opposite of a 'no-nonsense' guy. I'm an 'all-nonsense' guy. When a button falls off my shirt, I immediately throw it away and buy a new one. I can't swim; to me, twelve feet of water is no different than twelve feet of hydrochloric acid. However, I _can_ stay awake for 72 straight hours. When flipping channels during commercial breaks, I _can_ innately sense the perfect moment to return to watch I was watching. So the rub is that I have all these semicritical flaws and I have these weirdly specific gifts, and it seems like most Americans are similarly polarized by what the can (and cannot) do. There are no-nonsense people, and there are nonsense people. And it's my experience that nonsense people tend to consume Cocoa Krispies and Lucky Charms and Cap'n Crunch (nonsense food, if you will). Consequently, we nonsense types spend hours and hours staring at cardboard creatures like the Trix Rabbit and absorbing his ethos, slowly ingesting the principles of exclusionary coolness while rapidly ingesting sugar-saturated spoonfuls of Vitamin B-12."

If you're still reading... kudos! My point is transcribing this is simply that we geeks tend to see the world in a more or less specific way unless we consciously eat some Trix once in a while.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, I've noticed exactly this. I've been raised to think my sober, analytic take on life is the "mature" point of view and the one that produces value in the world. All the "nonsense" people are the value consumers.

However, when I get off my high horse I realize we've all got our idiosyncracies and the real value detractors are those who can't see their own nonsense for what it is. In a sense, the "nonsense" people have the most sensible view of life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Mahmud, _please_ do an autobiography! Cigarette black marketeer, lisper, salesman of luxury motor cycles, business advisor and to top it off, a window cleaner.

No doubt many other things beside, if you can spare the time, do it, I'll pre- order at any fair price.

There has to be a very interesting story at the root of all that. Alternatively, if you bring the stories I'll supply the campfire.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ouch, I feel sorry for the bunch of people who just followed me on twitter, thinking I am Mr Fun Stories. Hint: I only tweet to bitch about compilers or APIs. Like everything in #lisp, it's smug despair and violent indifference.

<comment><USER5> I've been following you for a while on Twitter, and I think it's a shame that you don't tweet/blog about your thoughts more often. I think there's a group of very intelligent, experienced hackers on HN who should share their thoughts/ideas more often as it would benefit the whole community. I would much prefer to read something by them than some the submissions that make it to the front page which is obviously link-bait with meaningless content.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the broader point is that entrepreneurs should expose themselves to as many domains outside their comfort zones as possible. As hackers/entrepreneurs we're generally pretty good at seeing a solution to a problem. The issue is, that we don't see enough problems, because many of us are confined to a relatively narrow experiences many of which are echo chambers for what we're already interested in/agree with.

Why do you think there are SO MANY productivity apps? Because it's something programmers often need to work with to get shit done. Same for coding tools, etc etc...

Another example: just yesterday someone posted the report recommending an income tax receipt. Within 24 hours, there was a pretty neat app out for that. The issue wasn't that someone couldn't do it -- but that the 'need' wasn't previously well defined to people capable of solving that problem.

So get your ass out there. Find out problems and interests people unlike you have. Maybe you'll stumble upon your next big thing.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. If you think of your life as a problem space, adopting a new hobby or interest is a way of expanding that problem space.

Right now, maybe you're reasonably content with things in your life. You've explored your problem space and solved anything causing stupid problems. Add a hobby, and you increase your problem space, and you may find new itches, that you didn't have before, that need scratching (to mix metaphors).

<comment><USER8> Recently I've set out on a quest to actively find new ideas; going as far as making it a goal to find one new idea a day (no matter how crazy, for the sake of flexing my brain and getting it better at stumbling on opportunities). This is as opposed to my previous method of passively reading about things and hoping that as things accumulate in my head, I will subconsciously one day while taking a shower have a eureka moment and think of an awesome idea (which does happen, just not as frequent as I would like).

I've found that by just sitting down and clearing my head and forcing myself to _think_ really hard, trying to connect the dots half-baked ideas and just mixing it up with random thoughts, I've gotten a whole lot better at thinking up of ideas. Patrick (patio11)'s article about his not understanding why people complain they can't find ideas really gave me a good kick in the side and motivated me to do this: [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/03/20/running-a- software-busin...](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/03/20/running-a-software- business-on-5-hours-a-week/) and I do find his comment about "walking in a store to find what people buy" a great starting point! I also have this book which I recommend 'A Whack on the Side of the Head' <http://amzn.to/bm6vW4> which certainly did literally help me look at ideas in a different light and generate new ideas.

As a part of my effort to just find new opportunities, I've been documenting meta-algorithms to find algorithms (if a business idea/model is an algorithm). An entry I just added is:

* Learn a new concept, algorithm, (e.g. 'Programming Collective Intelligence' <http://amzn.to/cMLnKj>), and apply it to some problem in a different field (e.g. non-technical things in real life, or things I use such as Facebook, Twitter, etc). <\-- An example of this: I read up on Shazam's clever algorithm and tried to use that method to solve something else.

Does anyone else collect such meta algorithms?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Although it has to be said, sometimes Hacker News does not seem to be _that_ different from Men's Health and the likes. Here it is "How to get rich in four hours", in Men's Health it is "How to get great abs in 4 hours". And with Tim Ferris' next book, the two worlds will move even closer to each other.

Edit: this reminds, WHY is there no "Hacker News" for women's stuff? Where things like "the sensational new makeup" or whatever can be upvoted and so on? (No offense to women, I am talking about women's magazine readers). In theory women like to talk more than men, yet I am not aware of such a site.

<comment><USER10> at least two social bookmarking sites targeted to women have been attempted and failed

sk*rt: <http://mashable.com/2007/08/08/skirt/> SugarLoving: [http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/sugarloving-com-digg- nev...](http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/sugarloving-com-digg-never-tasted- so-sweet)

<comment><USER11> IIRC Reddit's "in" with Conde Nast (who eventually purchased them) was a social networking site targeted at women, owned and branded by CN, with Reddit's tech.

<comment><USER12> Yeah I believe that was lipstick.com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> You can also get a lot from Cosmo. (Insert "10 Surprising Reasons I'm Not Joking" here.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Notice how the Top-10 format itself, a classic cover item, has only recently been admitted into the link-bait hall of fame.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hmm.. I've looked at these mags from time to time, but I still don't understand what you're pointing to. Most of the advertising in these mags would fool you into thinking that the average reader of this magazine is a 20 year old with a million dollar paycheck only interested in pleasing his woman.

I'm not sure most readers of these mags can even relate to the luxury goods advertised. Anyways, how does that help my startup? From what I've read, most of the articles in the mags are highly stylized/fictionalized, I wouldn't trust them to validate a demand, I would much rather sit down 1 on 1 with a small number of people, rather than base that decision on these mags. (Maybe I still don't know if this is what you mean?)

<comment><USER14> I think he is talking about the psychology of the magazines from a marketing standpoint. There is a lot of sociology literature about the idiotic ideals they portray. You could check out that instead to get a grasp on the mindset of the reader or at the very least what the reader will be receptive to.

Do these magazines attempt to create a market or do they validate a demand? That would be my question.

<comment><AUTHOR> You understood me well.

 _Do these magazines attempt to create a market or do they validate a demand?_

This is the first question that came to my mind, and the answer came to me immediately by looking left and right. It was Saturday afternoon, and while I was there to remove a nasty afro-mohawk that I grew out of boredom, the gentlemen crowding the shop where almost lifted out of the pages, and seem to be following fashions proscribed therein. They're not millionaires, they were your average Joes, but I could flip through pages and find everyone's fashion and accessories; from phones, to shoes, choice of clothes. There was even a guy who had his eye-brows done before he went on to sit underneath one of those "insert head, wait for an hour" bowls that look like a giant reading lamp, or a space helmet (my girl gets those and I never imagined apparently straight men would be into that. Does it blow air or does it vacuum?)

Maybe it takes an outsider to see a world differently, but to me it was a wake up call to keep an eye on that part of society.

<comment><USER5> If I'm understanding correctly, it's what every surviving media outlet does - validate a demand. People magazine gives middle aged women something to dream about, Maxim does the same thing for guys, reading signal vs. noise does the same for aspiring founders. Because the audience is actively seeking something, there's a good chance they will follow whatever they're being fed by the media outlet. Some of these audiences are less receptive than others, but I understand how it's helpful to understand that market.

Also, I think it blows air but not sure. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A lot of times I get ideas from considering these types of experiences with how people operate. If it's a magazine, a social situation or a TV commercial, they might collide with the abstract thoughts floating around in your head at just the right angle, producing a great idea.

People talk a lot about swimming around in your thoughts to conceive ideas. This is something that I definitely support; people spend way too little time letting their mind wander, and so they end up only being able to think in the shower or in line at Starbucks. Setting aside more time to do this, along with refusing to whip out the smartphone to read HN or check in with foursquare every time something isn't immediately demanding your attention, will give your mind a better chance to conceive new ideas and consider old ones.

That said, often it takes a little fuel to jump start your thought process. Something specific to consider, to trigger memories and begin a train of thought. As people in the startup industry tend to be more technically inclined and thus, occasionally lose sight of their market's intellectual abilities and social tendencies, it can be refreshing to embed yourself in the types of things people do that you expect to use your product.

<comment><USER3> One way I've come up with some of my best ideas is at school working on a boring, hard project with a major deadline looming. Those tend to be the best times to start day dreaming and procrastinating.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would suggest getting a new, non-computer hobby and getting tuned in with the magazines (if any) and blogs that cover the topic.

That'd at least be more focused. Mens mags might be a bit diffuse. And it's possible that, by the time something shows up in Maxim, it's already kinda old hat.

Finally, if something shows up in Maxim, it might be because of a well-funded PR campaign, not because of genuine grassroots interest.

</comment><comment><USER16> Whatever you do, don't take sex advice from them.

A female friend of mine was hanging out with a bunch of guys who had a lot of Maxims in their bathroom. She wound up reading an article along the lines of "Seven Ways to Drive Her Wild in Bed."

That night she hooked up with one of the guys. To her amazement, she realized midway through that he was trying _every one_ of the techniques in the article.

<comment><USER17> "Whatever you do, don't take sex advice from them."

Well, at least one of them apparently knows how to get laid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Could you expand on what you saw, generally what your thought process was, and how you feel it could apply to business ideas and social apps in general?

I understand that it may be obvious and I'm sure I'd have plenty of ideas myself, I'm just curious of the mindset and psyche behind your (as another person) thinking.

<comment><AUTHOR> The revelation that ordinary people, the type you run into everyday, might be aspiring to live the lives shown in popular rags and television. It's completely accepted that what's shown on pages is something to be desired, and if one can't obtain them, then a lesser quality item of similar fashion is to be accepted as substitute.

In concrete terms: people don't open Maxim and laugh. They open it and get inspired. They know the girl on the cover by name, they know the brand of futuristic car she's posing against, and one of them commented he "just bought" a clone advertised in there.

<comment><USER19> _They open it and get inspired. They know...he "just bought" a clone advertised in there._

I'm inspired to buy a clone; sign me up! :)

More seriously, I understand that we are among people here for whom it is fashionable to reject popular culture. Or, if not strictly being fashionable, are certainly not overly concerned with some of the more commercial aspects of culture.

It's just a bunch of ads with enough wrapped around for it to be read by its target demographic. It's easy to read more into this than it really merits. Yes, so-called "ordinary people" read such magazines and see the ads, and perhaps want the stuff. That's what it's _designed_ to do.

There is a _lot_ of money thrown into trying to get people to buy stuff. This is not news. Nor is it news that most of us are trying to improve our financial position, whether as means or end.

I don't I'm quite expressing well what I'm trying to say here. It's not that I don't understand what you mean when you seem a bit bewildered at some of the advertisements (that incidentally probably weren't targeted for you). But it doesn't seem like it would be a huge surprise to realize that advertising really works pretty well, generally speaking.

It's unfortunately one reason I fear for the U.S. political future; it seems distressingly easy to change people's minds simply by throwing enough money at the problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Maxim is 95% advertising, either direct or indirect; most of the articles/columns/etc are about things you should buy. Throw in a few pictures of a scantily clad woman, and a badly written sex advice column, and that's all it is.

As another poster said, it's mostly about advertising and I suppose if that is what you want to learn about, go ahead.

I have to disagree with the OP. It is not a window into the world in which "normal guys" live in by any sense. Perhaps, the world "normal guys" wished they lived in - with expensive gadgets and super models. (What is a "normal guy" anyway? Do most male hackers not like gadgets and attractive women?)

If you see an article comparing beers to pick the season/year's best, you might think it is appealing to the beer-swilling masses, but really it is there to sell beer.

I was very surprised to find Playboy a far better read, but it is. Yes, it has nudity, but it has articles I find good reads too.

Anyway if you want an insight into an untapped segment, watch daytime television. What kind of person watches daytime television? People do, and they have a lot of free time they could be spending on your site. What are they like? I don't know. But that's more insightful than something that throws advertising at basic male instincts.

</comment><comment><USER21> I usually find good stuff on HN but sometimes it feels too US-centric, and here, even worse, it seems highly HN-centric.

Poster mahmud probably deserve a lot of respect but without context his post and the comments are useless for me, and I guess it should be the same for other occasional lurkers that happen to not know what Maxim is, nor live in the US.

Please don't misinterpret, I don't feel I have any position to say what HN should or shouldn't be, and I know that these meta-level comments are not welcome, because they do not add anything useful to the discussion. It's only that, from time to time, I have felt myself "excluded" from the HN community, because I'm not living the same life, reading the same newspaper (I read none), etc.

On the other hand, when I re-read Paul Graham's essays, they are really the kind of food for the mind that any open minded guy, reading enough English, would enjoy. It is a kind of "Humanisme" a la Diderot, that is worthwhile, that I like to find on HN -- End of the "I feel lonely" complain.

<comment><USER22> Not sure where you are from but it should be easy to replace Maxim with low brow mens entertainment publication. It has a large number of pictures of girls in bathing suits, beer etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I absolutely agree. Most people are not interested in developer tools or productivity tools, they just want TV quality stuff. Unfortunately, there is little software supplying this to them.

</comment><comment><USER24> My local ruby user group invites people from various practices to discuss their frameworks and give us business advice.

So many people really do live in a ghetto.

</comment><comment><USER25> It sometimes seem as though these magazines are outrageous and worthless. All the content is typically big ticket spending and dating supermodels. But, they sell and do very well. It says a great deal about the male psychology and how to position a product. Obviously these magazines are doing something correctly, otherwise they wouldn't exist in their volume.

</comment><comment><USER26> Mahmud, It has happened to quite a few times because I never take appointments at such places.

I am not a coder but I think there is a big opportunity for making applications/services for people who want to consume trash. There is huge chunk of society who needs it and it is not-so surprising seeing how much money luxury brands make.

</comment><comment><USER27> Yep, I agree, there are so many opportunities floating all around us. Its always a matter of us discovering them and then most importantly executing them, in a way that translates those opportunities into monetizable services.

</comment><comment><USER28> I agree. Too many people seems to forget that most of the population aren't geek, they don't live online and they don't think like the average HN user. Guess what, may seems stupid, but stupid can makes millions...

</comment><comment><USER29> Some magazines are mostly marketing and advertising. Read them if you want to learn about marketing and advertising</comment>


A sortable table for comparing NYC Neighborhoods using API Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.movingtonewyorkguide.com/NabeGrid/

<comment><AUTHOR> In order to make it easier for NYC renters to find suitable neighborhoods. I combined data from these APIs: Google Distance Matrix, the Census API, the Streeteasy API, NYC Open Data, and the Youtube API.

How can this be improved? What do you think? Is the information/layout useful?</comment>


3D display for visual, tactical, audio presentation using acoustic trapping - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1739-5.epdf <comment><USER2> Killer app for AR.</comment>


Why We Procrastinate – We think of our future selves as strangers - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/16/nothingness/why-we-procrastinate

<comment><USER2> Earlier discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8176654](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8176654)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'll read this later.

<comment><USER4> yeah, me too. My future self 2 days ahead can deal with this. My current self wants to browse reddit

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > We humans, Parfit argued, are not a consistent identity moving through time, > but a chain of successive selves, each tangentially linked to, and yet > distinct from, the previous and subsequent ones.

This describes my feelings lately.

<comment><USER6> So there are two options. Either your future self is a stranger from your present self, OR, your future self "is equal" to your present self.

However, there's an equivalence principle lurking here. Because if you choose the second option, then someone else could be equal to your present self. And transitively, somebody else from the past could be equal to your present self. In fact, all living creatures from the past and the future would be equal to your present self.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Once you've got a task to do, it's better to do it than live with the fear of it."

\-- Ninefingers, "The Blade Itself", Joe Ambercrombie</comment>


In California, license plates might go electronic - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_15338527?nclick_check=1 <comment><USER2> How much do you want to bet someone will try to slip in a 2-way feature into these, e.g. a RFID like sort of thing that allows tracking. Probably as soon as someone says "congestion taxes!"....</comment>


Consider Not Setting Goals in 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2012/12/consider-not-setting-goals-in.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29 <comment><USER2> The point bears repeating: when you set an incentive tied to a measurable target, you will get behavior that focuses on that target, even if everything else has to suffer.

Give your CEO a bonus based on revenue, and profit will suffer. Base it on profit, and quality will suffer. If you tell your customer service people to bring down the average length of calls, they will do so by hanging up on people. Tell them they have a bonus based on post-call satisfaction surveys, and on-hold times will go up.

Those are all well-intentioned goals. If you set a really bizarre goal, things can go really wrong. And if you don't set goals at all, nobody knows what you think needs improvement.

Management is hard.

<comment><USER3> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect>

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The really fun thing about this is that folks have realized this and, instead of focusing on intrinsic motivation, have just added more metrics to try and balance things out. Enter the "balanced scorecard" with 30 different metrics that the manager or employees have little/no direct control over.

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263237399...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263237399000341)

Yes, the Balanced Scorecard has some use but I think it's still missing the point.

<comment><USER5> So how do you create/increase intrinsic motivation? Giving them more freedom + choosing their own goals (or at least let them think the goals are theirs)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I like the author's suggestion of setting a focus rather than a specific goal. For example, weekly revenue growth rate (from pg's growth essay).

A company wide focus on growth rate can crystallize alignment on the most important dimension. But setting a specific pass/fail goal ("growth will be 5% a week") could reduce intrinsic motivation, cause weird short term behaviors, and even cap the upside.

Benchmarks are very useful (5-7% is great, 1% means you're still lost, 10% is a blockbuster), but there's no need to set a specific number. Just get everyone rowing in the same direction.

</comment><comment><USER7> Personally, where I have control, I treat goals as objectives or things to strive for vs. tasks or some sort of SLA.

Why? If you make goals checkboxes, you end up doing whatever is necessary to meet the minimum criteria for "done". The article used a football quarterback being given a financially backed goal of "Don't throw interceptions; if you do, you will be penalized $X".

The lesson to be learned there isn't "Goals are bad". The lesson is "Don't establish dumb goals".

I worked in a sales organization when I was in college that determined that selling a specific high margin add-on product was critical to the organizations success. They gave sales management the ability to cut margin on the base product to increase sales of the add-on product. My incentive was based on selling the add-on, and my boss's bonus was tied to the ratio of base-product/high-margin product. His boss was paid based on ranking of total _add-on_ product sales vs. his peers. Guess what happened? We sold the base product at a loss, hit our KPIs, and made a bunch of money. The company did not.

<comment><USER8> _The lesson is "Don't establish dumb goals"._

I thought the point was that you can't anticipate the side effects setting a goal will have. People are likely more creative in reaching it in ways you didn't imagine.

<comment><USER9> What I gathered from the article is that conceptual goals are less prone to deviation from your intentions than quantifiable ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Some of these examples have less to do with the fact that a goal was set, and more to do with the fact that there was a financial incentive tied to it.

Financial incentives can have the side effect of reducing intrinsic motivation (see Daniel Pink's book "Drive" for research and examples).

</comment><comment><USER11> Set goals! Set goals! For the love of god, set goals! You'll make my startup fail: <http://chizzl.com/>

<comment><USER12> Quickly! Pivot into setting focuses! You still have a window!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like to keep a light journal of tasks I accomplish every day. I think of this as goals in reverse. It gives me a sense of accomplishment, similar to achieving a goal, but at the same time allows me to focus on the present, as the author suggests. Looking back on the journal also allows me to put the present and the future in a well-defined perspective, which helps me give the time estimates that business types inevitably require.

</comment><comment><USER12> tl;dr: Focus on journeys, not destinations.

</comment><comment><USER14> Or perhaps, draw the right conclusion from the data: setting bad goals is really bad. Don't set bad goals.

</comment><comment><USER15> This reminds me of a Stephen Fry interview commenting on the same point.

<http://youtu.be/4byn2CIwec0>

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm not. I'm setting and doing goals all year long, this year won't be any different.</comment>


Luxafor – the LED Status Light to keep your annoying co-workers away - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1736148115/luxafor-the-led-status-light-and-productivity-tool <comment><USER2> Or you get a chance for everyone in your office... even those who barely interrupted you before... stop by and ask you "hey, your wi-fi isn't working, because it's red now", or something like that.

Then, after sometime, everybody stops worrying if you ask to be interrupted or not, simple because they interrupt you because they need/want to, and for every person, the selfish needs are much more important then the signals you (or your led) emits.</comment>