How to Test Drive Your Business Idea Before Quitting Your Job - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ladder.io/business-idea/ <comment><USER2> I gave a talk at Dropbox called "How to start a business without quitting your day job" that I think delivers a lot of the punch on this page without the weird culty vibe. Give it a watch (for free, obviously) if you like: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8UwcyYT3z0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8UwcyYT3z0)

<comment><USER3> Thank you for sharing. For quite awhile now I've had in the back of my mind that I want to develop some kind of side business. I'm perfectly happy at my full time job, and incredibly busy ... but I've always been the kind of person to spend my free time tinkering with hobby projects. It would be nice to pour that time into something that generates a little extra cash and has the potential to blossom into a small business.

Trouble is ... my ideas suck. Either I have a really good idea that requires inventing new technology, or I have a niche idea that I can't fathom how to monetize or market. I'll take your points about being boring to heart and hope something finally springs to mind under those constraints. But as of a month or two ago I already realized that I needed to tone my ideas down, and after all that time with it in the back of my mind ... I still have nothing. Frustrating.

<comment><USER4> What are some examples of the ideas that need a new technology, if you don't mind sharing? I'm interested to hear whether the ideas are really pie-in-the- sky, or they're just a bit too tricky for practical implementation in the present day.

<comment><USER3> Latest idea I already posted about a few days ago: a keycard based doorlock with actual security (ed25519 based authentication, instead of the standard crackable 48-bit DES). Nobody really cares about that level of security.

A phone app that makes scanning documents stupid easy by using machine learning to identify when a document is on screen and automatically take a picture, and then use more machine learning to convert the picture into a cleaned up image. The concept to train the machine models is pretty easy; just print out a known document, take a bunch of pictures, and train the model to convert from the pictures to the original document. But it would likely require massive kernels to get enough context to do the necessary 3D transformations. Could probably reduce the strain on the algorithm by using traditional picture->document algorithms and then use the model to clean it up further. Either way, it's new tech that would require a lot of work.

Vocal isolator for extracting vocals from music, using a machine learning model. These tools kind of already exist, but they don't use machine learning, usually require user interaction to tweak knobs, and don't work particularly well. My bet is that a 1D conv network can do great, and generating examples for training is super easy. But, again, new tech, and as easy as machine learning sounds it usually devolves into long nights of debugging, tweaking, and banging your head trying to figure out why changing one hyper-parameter ever so slightly completely changes your results.

A hardware password manager. Like KeePass/LastPass/etc but as an actual hardware device, possibly a wearable/watch. The idea is that a hardware password manager provides more security than a software password manager, by virtue of not being susceptible to malware (though yes passwords can still be stolen 1 by 1 if used on an infected machine), and most importantly works with phones/tablets over bluetooth. Requires developing hardware, productization, etc. Not a big market; nobody cares about security.

I have a quiz website that I built for my wife, who's a teacher. It allows here to give online fill-in-the-blank type quizzes to her classes, with a set amount of time to take the quiz, and a set amount of time that the quiz is available. She's happy with it; I made it because she had something similar with Edmodo but the school dropped Edmodo. I can't imagine such a simple website is worth much though, and it's currently only designed for her and a bit rough around the edges. It'd take quite a lot of UI updates and a bit of backend tweaking to make it usable by the general public.

A couple game ideas, mostly geared towards programmers. Pretty niche, and games take immense effort versus profit.

A service to provide email to Bitcoin addresses. You authenticate yourself using your Bitcoin wallet's signature mechanism, and then can receive email like at e.g. firstname.lastname@example.com. I got this mostly working, but rendering emails is super hard, who wants to use yet another mail client, how do I monetize, how do I fight spam, etc, etc. Lots of security and anonymity angles to this, but security is hard, so again lots of work.

NSFW: Machine learning based porn assistant. You thumb up/down images, it learns what you like, and finds more of it. Keeps learning as you thumb up/down its results. Classic machine learning model. Requires new tech, and it probably requires training a model per user (super expensive), or some kind of transfer learning.

Lots more beyond that, all very pie-in-the-sky, new tech related, or super niche.

<comment><USER5> A lot of your ideas involve machine learning. What's the hardest problem you've actually run to ground with machine learning?

The point being: most practical machine learning I've seen has involved a lot of effort chasing 75-90% precision, which means that a lot of commonly considered problems can only be aided by machine learning for human-assisted or human-curated tasks, or cases where precision can be sacrificed and benefit still derived.

If you haven't picked one idea and run it all the way through to a working solution, you have the choice of actually picking one and doing it, or not attributing more value to machine learning than it actually deserves.

It seems to me that innovative uses of machine learning are more around finding a user interface or user experience that compensates for inaccuracy than it is the sophistication of the algorithm itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I highly recommend considering consulting/freelancing when looking at starting a company. Hourly rates generally price in an expectation of not having work full-time, so you work less than 40 hours/week to begin with. Drop an hour or two of commute every day on top of that and it's a big win in terms of time that can be spent on a startup or side-project.

Of course consulting requires more in terms of people skills - you're basically "interviewing" every time you find a new client. But I think in some sense that's a hump to get over either way - there aren't many startups that don't benefit from founders having soft skills.

Sort of an orthogonal point to the article, of course.

<comment><USER7> I've done freelancing for last 5 years. Don't under estimate time it take to run your freelancing business. e.g finding clients.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nothing really new here that isn't covered in Lean Startup materials.

>We've spent millions of dollars ... so you don't have to.

This two person company that's had, from what I can tell, a hand full of clients, has spent millions of dollars testing their marketing? I find that a little hard to believe.

That said, their Playbook page is pretty cool and informative, even if seemingly most of it is behind a paywall. It'd be nice to have more information about how these ROIs were calculated. If it's a sample size of three it doesn't mean much. Or whether it was done in combination with other things, and how long those results were measured for also matters a lot. As it stands right now it just sort of comes across as marketing bullshit because it's impossible to tell how meaningful the ROIs are.

The case studies are also pretty weak. Your solution is two sentences? Really?

<comment><USER9> Hey, author and one of the co-founders here, michael taylor. Thanks for checking us out and taking the time to comment! We definitely are standing on shoulders of giants here; I sleep with Lean Startup under my pillow. We just saw this blowing up on HN and I'm personally pretty excited because it's the first time I've had anything on here. Didn't even expect it as a marketer, so that's awesome.

We've actually just hired our 15th person and for the past 2 years we've worked with 70+ startups and spent around $2m. That's not counting one client who spends about $40k a day on FB ads. Before that I worked at Efficient Frontier (now part of Adobe), Travelzoo and ShopStyle. In each place I managed or optimized multi-million dollar budgets; the learnings from which I applied whilst building our playbook, and I apply every time I write a post.

ROI for our playbook is calculated based on the average of the experiments we've run. Looking at the numbers we've averaged about 2 concluded tests per tactic, but those numbers are highly skewed; there are some that have run 10+ times, others that have never 'run' (just things I've tried before but don't have conclusive data to hand, or things I've read about in blog posts). Either way, this data should be taken with a pinch of salt and used directionally; while eventually we dream of being able to build a recommendation engine that auto-prioritizes these tactics, the reality is that we'll need a lot more people using the system (hence the incessant blogging). :-)

Hope that helps explain where we're coming from?

<comment><USER10> Off topic, but can you fix that bug that makes your site create a popup when a user highlights text. I have trouble tracking text and use the highlight to read faster. Your site is completely unreadable to me.

<comment><USER9> Just removed this. It wasn't getting many shares anyway. Sorry for the inconvenience!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The biggest issue for me is to identify meaningful problems in the first place.

I mean, when I work for other companies I can crack down on problems they identified and have customers for and often I have good solutions for them. But finding these problems is hard.

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally get that. You've already got a great way to identify the meaningful problems - it doesn't come out of thin air, but out of your experience working with people, clients, etc...

That's the point of Step 1: Wanna know what problems a client is facing? Ask. If you don't ask, you'll never know what solution to build.

The quitting of the job can come later :)

<comment><USER11> I'm already a freelancer, so I don't need to quit much, haha.

Point is, the people I work for see me as a tool. They pay me money for my time to solve the problems they identified themselves.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah - well you're directly tapped into the problems they all have, even if they see you as just a tool. You're working with so many different businesses that you have a bigger sample size. What's a recurring problem? How can you solve it at scale? Not saying it's easy at all, but you probably have an advantage over someone who just works for a single company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Great writeup. Very informative, speaking as someone new to the realm.

It seems it's only applicable to business models that rely on getting revenue directly from customers (i.e. buying subscriptions or widgets). Do you have any thoughts about how you might test an idea where your service is free, but you get revenue through advertising to your users? It would still be very valuable to get some sense of how useful users would find your site, how often they'd visit, etc..., but you don't really have a strong test (i.e. will they pay?)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well I can give an example from an old startup I worked on in the past. We wanted to see if a CRM for job seekers would be useful. But we didn't build it so they could come. We repurposed Trello as a CRM, got a group of job seekers on board from Reddit, and proved there was value in the idea. Then we built it.

The proving of willingness to pay came from surveys of those and subsequent users that said "yes, i would pay X per month for this"

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd love to know where to find these people to interview. Where do I go, the supermarket, the park?

Also I don't think my network is big enough to hit up a significant number for a new software idea aimed at a specific niche (ex used cars sales).

Those are the pieces I've never been able to put together in all my time with the Lean Startup methodology.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you don't have the network, you have to build it. There's no real way around that. If you want to start a business and need to stress test your idea like this, you'll need to do outreach. Whether that's cold outreach or attending events or joining the right groups and communities, it's all about the legwork.

But the point is you can still do that on your own time without making huge sacrifices. Taking the concept of "go out and talk to people" too literally just serves to prevent you from actually finding and reaching your ideal audience.

Need to know where to start? Angel List, LinkedIn, Meetup, and the like. Write some cold emails. You can always build a network, and you should if you want to start a business.

<comment> le-mark So I have this problem, I built an mvp and signup page, attracted a lot of page views, got quite a few signups for the free tier (50 for example) and they were all of the type: sign up, login, look around, never came back. So using these 50 signups/emails as my network, I've done two things; emailed a survey link, and emailed just asking for feedback. And nothing, not one single response to either the survey, or the email. Of the 50 only one unsubscribed.

What am I to make of this? Is the fact I got 50 signups a signal the product has value and I should continue, or does the fact users don't return a signal the product is crap I should scrap it? I'm really at a loss here.

<comment><USER14> Aside from trying harder to reach those people, you possibly don't have a large enough sample. It is also possible you attracted the wrong people. For example, I'm in a space where there are lots of competing free products and we are a paid one. Just as one example, I had to put "free" as a broad negative keyword in AdWords to try to filter them out. Turns out there are entire classes of keywords that tends to resonate more with people looking for a free solution vs paid that I had to uncover and filter for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great post Michael. Despite what people say about vanity metrics, I think proving people want what you're going to build before you build it is incredibly important.

I heard Flexport did this by getting 300 companies to sign up before Ryan (the founder) wrote any code.

Eliminating risk isn't entirely possible. You could create a website for DoorDash/Ladder or Flexport, get traction, build Version 1 and then get told NO but I bet statistically you're more likely to have success with this method than building V1 first.

As an example, Optimizely got something like a $2-$4k commitment to pay without writing any code.

Again not everything works out this way. Snapchat, for example, would be a terrible example for this methodology but it works for some ideas.

<comment><USER9> Thanks! Yeah I agree; I'd still be happy if I never made the next Snapchat. I'd rather make little fun businesses that make money and can grow without too much insanity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Two quick points:

1\. I like the blog post. It may sound similar to the methodology in Lean startup, Y Combinator, and a bunch of other stuff but so what. It is clearly written and specific.

2\. I have no idea what ladder.io does! I looked at the web page, and it is very slick, but I still can't figure out what you do.

Quite a difference.

You have a "real time tactic database". Is that the same as a listicle on the top 5 areas to spend marketing $?

You offer continuous testing. Is that Google Analytics?

<comment><USER9> Good question! Lots of people don't know what we do from our site, but it's actually working pretty well at the minute; our conversion rate is 19% for that page! We've been trying to improve the copy but we haven't been able to beat it yet.

Basically; we started as a growth hacking agency and then built our own platform for keeping track of what we tested (and what worked). If you want a free trial + demo, just sign up on the site and we'll walk you through it.

Thanks for the interest!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> What this article suggests is just one way of starting a startup. It won't work for everyone because for some of us, other's people's problems are only worth solving if the problem also troubles me or the solution somehow deeply interests me.

After all, for some the point of starting a startup is not only about business and money, as a software developer I want to build an application I love, and see it appreciated by others by making it a product and profitable business.

If you have read Paul Graham's essay, you'd know there's another way, the so called "organic ideas", i.e., to build a product that you love and useful to yourself, then sell it to others who have similar needs. To me this is a better way (albeit riskier), in the end of the day if I fail, I still would have a lot of fun and learnt useful skills, rather than just failed to fill a market gap.

</comment><comment><USER18> _> Yelp for people?_

What a truly heinous product. I've known a number of people who have been stalked, I can't begin to imagine the harm a stalker could cause with this kind of app.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is quitting your job for your own startup idea, when working in tech, really that big of a deal? Especially if you are a software engineer? You'll probably end up doing the same thing as on a corporate job but for yourself while learning a lot of new things about building software (marketing, sales, design, etc.) and about yourself (grit, character, etc.). You are still gaining experience. If shit hits the fan, with all digitalization going on everywhere, finding a new job won't really be that big of an issue.

<comment><USER20> > You'll probably end up doing the same thing as on a corporate job

Except the part where you get a paycheck.

The opportunity cost of quitting your job is thousands of dollars a week. That's a big decision to make.

<comment><USER21> A week? Maybe a month :-)

<comment><USER20> Software engineers make thousands of dollars per week. Even on the lower end, $120,000/52=$2.3k/w.

<comment><USER21> If US$ then that is top top end (Architect, Manager level or CTO) in Sydney.

<comment><USER22> And in most places in the world, that is basically unobtainable. A rather serious case of SV-myopia here I suspect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Good write up! Learnt some new points.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Not really sure if I want to give this one away as I want to use it more myself but [https://nugget.one/](https://nugget.one/) seems to be applicable here. They claim to do most of the filtering for ideas for you showing market size, how to reach them etc...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the resource! Though I would argue it's still not quite comparable to actually talking to and getting feedback from your target customer base. That's where you hear about the real pain points firsthand, and that is invaluable for validating your business idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> well, I wish I had read this article before quitting. Now my freelancing is experiencing delayed payment/possible default and had little progress on my idea. Would love to hear some advice

</comment><comment><USER26> you could re-title "How to make sure you talk yourself out of taking a risk and keeping your job" isn't the limitus test from zuckerberg you should have this burning desire to change the world in this particular way, and the burn should be so intense that you wouldn't even consider for 1 second keeping your job.

<comment><AUTHOR> Zuckerberg ran his test drive in college. He reached his audience, sold them on Facebook, it worked, so he quit and did it full time. His burning passion was already validated when he took his huge risk. What we argue is you don't have to have a platform built out to get the same validation.

<comment><USER26> yes but had Zuckerberg had his idea for facebook when he was older and already working, would he have quit and started working on it? I think his argument is facebook was so important to him, regardless if it was a viable business, there is no question to pursue it.

<comment><USER27> Dude. Facebook was hot or not written in a shitty PHP app in a college dorm. There's no way he thought it was going to change the world back then and nor would you have. The validation is probably what allowed him to keep going and developing his vision.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I hear this is what the creators of Pokemon Go used before they launched their product.

<comment><AUTHOR> Niantic was an internal startup at Google before spinning out into an independent company in 2015. By that point they already proved out their business idea with a cult hit game called Ingress, off which Pokemon Go is based. So technically yes, you're right :)</comment></comment>


What is it like to have never felt an emotion? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150818-what-is-it-like-to-have-never-felt-an-emotion <comment><USER2> I would almost classify myself this way, because in my teenage years I developed a coping mechanism for childhood trauma that entailed detaching myself from my emotional state and becoming an observer of myself. I think it's otherwise known as building walls to protect yourself. It took me many years to realize what i had done, and try to get back in touch with my feelings.

So far as lacking emotional response to major life events; there is so much going on during a wedding, and giving birth to babies, I don't imagine it's uncommon to not really feel joy in those moments; you're just to busy. Watching babies grow and transform into toddlers and big kids in front of your eyes, now that is joy of a lifetime, imo.

</comment><comment><USER3>
      For instance, one day at school he was working with the student theatre.
      All week he had been struggling to produce the right sound effects,
      but it just wasn't coming together. Eventually, his boss lost his cool
      and started ripping into him. "My response was that something weird was
      happening with my body," he says. "I could feel a tension, like my heart
      was racing, but my mind was distracted…

Isn't this an extreme case of repressing emotions, in the most classic sense? The disconnect between bodily reaction and lack of mindfullness seems to indicate it.

<comment><USER4> Maybe it was a bad example for the author to use because it sounds like whats been described to me as symptoms of a panic attack. Or it might be that pathological panic attacks are an example of the emotional problem in the story.

From talking to people who've had medical panic attack problems, it seems common for them to confuse how to name the bodily symptoms, so they show up in the ER confused why they're sweating bullets and feeling very confused and heart rate of 150 thinking they're having a heart attack or stroke instead of "just" an out of control emotional response.

Or it could be that their treatment plan for repressed emotions leading to panic attacks is a lifetime dose of a pill. Maybe that is the best treatment plan for them; none of my business, I guess, other than that specific example might have been a bad choice for the article because of confusing factors.

<comment><USER5> From what i understand panic attacks are easily treated exactly because, as you say, the primary problem is that the person having the attack erroneously confuses the physical symptoms with something more serious. Through cognitive behavioral therapy they can learn to fix this, and as a result the panic attacks disappear (or at least the initial panic doesn't spiral into a full- blown attack). Similar approaches have also been successful in treating phobias and other issues.

For anyone interested in the topic (and CBT in general) I can highly recomment [What You Can Change and What You Can't - The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement]([http://www.amazon.com/What-You-Change-Cant-Self- Improvement/...](http://www.amazon.com/What-You-Change-Cant-Self- Improvement/dp/1400078407)) by Martin Seligman.

As someone who has recently developed a bit of an obsession with mindfulness/zen/meditation, this book is a good example of the parallels between that and the field of psychology.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't get it. Is the article exaggerating things? How can you function without feeling emotions? What is your motivation for getting married? Getting a job? Playing a game or watching a movie? Succeeding at any task? What is your reward mechanism?

For example "All week he had been struggling to produce the right sound effects,"

How would you even know you hit the right sound effect? What is your judgement for good or bad on something that is subjective?

<comment><USER7> It is really weird to be honest, I wouldn't say the other replies on this comment at the moment cover it so thought I would try and add something.

On one had you're right those are genuine issues, there's little motivation to do anything really. I guess it is a spectrum but I still feel that if someone asks me to do something that I'm being a nice person if I do it, I guess others might be devoid of that. So if invited to do something I normally go, but I only originate plans if I feel I'm doing it for others e.g. if someone is visiting I'll setup a dinner for us all. At the end of a week when I've been busy I cab be annoyed at how much of my life is spent doing things for others, but I do know that's because I don't do anything at all for myself.

I'm married and I wouldn't say I am because it's something expected of me. I think I want to be healthy mentally later in life and I know I can put the work in to give my wife a happy life, also that I didn't hide the way I am from her. If I didn't do these things it would be equivalent to just kind of giving up and I guess I haven't done that so I do these kind of things for future me who I want to be in a good place. I do love, I don't think it's quite the feeling love is to others but love/loss are recognisable.

I work to succeed and for financial security basically, I can't fathom a job I "enjoy" but in my mind besides paying bills it's like a game and I win if I'm successful. A good way to think about it is when a big project finishes it's a bit weird for me because I don't really get happiness or pleasure or a sense of achievement from it, it's kind of like a vaccum. The day a system goes live is no different from day 1 on the project. Within the vaccum I just get hyper- critical of my performance I think my brain is thinking it's important to improve for next time and just immediately focusses on what it needs to do to make that happen.

I do watch films/games, although not that much, but I like being distracted and having something to do. I watch twitch and sport where I do find it easy to support teams. I would never be upset after a result in sport or anything, I don't get nervous before or excited after a win but I like the pattern, which players are good/bad, analysing tactics, following the story etc.

Reward mechanism - I don't think there's anything in my life like that I could google it but not sure what it means. I don't do anything to reward myself at all.

<comment><USER8> Are there decisions you have trouble making?

<comment><USER7> Yeah, making decisions is like a big pros and cons list. If there's no real way to split the two it's hard if it's something I care on some level about.

So for example picking a colour for a carpet or pick a new pair of shoes is a nightmare and I put that kind of thing off because ultimately I have no way in my brain to pick beyond that I want something plain so it's quite uncomfortable.

Or picking a holiday destination is awkward, I live in Europe but I don't care whether I next go to Berlin, Paris or Rome. Even if I've been there before versus not I just don't care at all beyond if I consider it stressful being out of comfort zone or something in which case some places can be ruled out.

I suppose that's the trivial things, the bigger life decisions where I can't make a decision I guess ultimately my wife makes for us.

I don't think that's specific to this condition, I've read elsewhere that lots of people have a similar scientific approach to decision making.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _What is it like to have never felt an emotion?_

Since for it to be something you'd have to feel an emotion regarding your condition, it's nothing (neutral).

</comment><comment><USER10> I wonder how people with alexithymia respond to MDMA (ecstasy)? I've heard people say that the first time they really experienced emotions was on MDMA.

<comment><USER11> The hypothesis makes perfect sense and is very intriguing, however it doesn't seem to pan out.

There are narcissists and sociopaths who have tried it as a therapy. Unfortunately the only result seems to be increased love for themselves, or feelings of God like superiority over others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> How should you know? Actually an interesting problem:

A1. You say you don't experience emotions.

A2. What you call emotions is what you see others do when they say they are acting emotionally. You don't think you are this way.

A3. Your doctor says you're right.

Or:

B1. You say you experience emotions.

B2. Others say you are wrong.

<comment><USER7> You're completely right at it's heart is an innate doubt over whether this is actually a problem or just a manifestation of some weird thought process.

The only way to really get outside this kind of introverted bubble is to ask people or confide in them. This leads to conversations like whether an emotion like happiness is an actual thing or not that they can identify and actually feel. In the sense that they are actually sitting there and willing to state "I feel happy", it's different from yesterday. Most people are hence why I diagnose myself in line with this article.

Or, another way is people generally have an answer to the "Tell me about a time you were very happy"... a lot of people can reel something off really easily here. Sometimes it's like a wedding and you think "you could be saying that because it's accepted as a good answer" but other people say a certain day at the beach where something really specific happens and that lends credence to the idea they feel this emotion and I don't.

<comment><USER13> I personally believe it is a problem, having (mostly) been in that state and (sometimes) out of it, it is indeed quite a difference. When it happened for the first time (at age 33), it was like "oh my, so _this_ is what all those people were talking about all along, isn't that something".

I do wish I could change states at will, but historically it has always been a result of some sort of external influence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Surely it's "repressed emotions" in some cases, but not always. There's strong evidence to support this assertion.

One of the "this would be funny if it weren't so morbid" truths about psychology is that much of our understanding of the brain springs from cases in which normally-functioning people have parts of their brains physically destroyed in accidents.

The most famous example is Phineas Gage, who experienced some specific personality changes (go figure, right?) after a railroad spike pierced his head but left him otherwise unharmed. His mishap provided visceral proof that the brain wasn't just an undifferentiated lump; it showed us that specific areas of the brain perform specific tasks including emotional and behavioral issues.

Alexithymia can sometimes be the result of a brain injury. A person with "normal" emotional responses can, after a brain injury, find themselves with alexithymia.

I'm not sure of a definitive source to link to; apologies for the Google search results link: [https://www.google.com/search?q=traumatic+brain+injury+and+a...](https://www.google.com/search?q=traumatic+brain+injury+and+alexithymia&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)

</comment><comment><USER15> There are many questions I would like to see asked of Caleb, the subject of much of the article.

For starters, I would like to know about his sense of humor, and about his taste in music and art, and how he would describe his preferences.

<comment><USER7> I'm not Caleb but I self diagnose myself as having the same condition so I can at least speak for myself.

I don't think my sense of humour is much different from anyone else's, I laugh at something I think is funny. My general mood is very flat a lot of the time but other than that I think funny is just funny. I wouldn't necessarily bother going to see a comedian I knew I would laugh at though, if that makes sense. i.e. I don't seek out situations I think will make me laugh and I wouldn't say I enjoyed a night I laughed for 2 hours more than one I watched a documentary or something. I do think I laugh at comedians a lot less than when I was younger, which is one way I think I'm becoming less rather than more emotional if that makes sense.

Music/Art again I don't think are really affected. I listen to some music and subscribe to spotify but I don't use it a huge amount. Clearly I couldn't tell you a song I found uplifting, that's two concepts that I just don't see as related. When people say that my gut reaction is that they're just saying it because they like how it makes them look, I'm not sure if I believe it's an actual feeling as such. I'm not into art but I like things that are nice to look at. I have no appreciation of abstract art at all but I don't think that's uncommon

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd imagine that never having felt an emotion is probably akin to being blind. A blind friend of mine once described it to me: "I don't 'see' blackness, like you might think. Describe to me what it's like to see something out of your elbow, it's exactly like that."

</comment><comment><USER17> This is all self-reported, and people who don't have emotions don't reach out to support groups or express their feelings about not having feelings on message boards.

Also, there has never been a thing called an emotion detected in or on the body of a human. I think the leading theory is that 'emotion' is a rationalization of the current state of one's sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. It's a self-application of theory theory.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory- theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory-theory)

<comment> norea-armozel And yet there's physical evidence from MRIs of people that report an absence or deadening of emotion. How do you account for the physical evidence?

<comment><USER17> There is evidence from fMRI for every single thing that a researcher wanted to see.

[https://blogs.plos.org/neuro/2015/01/28/fmri-under-the- micro...](https://blogs.plos.org/neuro/2015/01/28/fmri-under-the-microscope- an-interview-with-mri-physicist-practical-fmri/)

[http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2008/06/27/must-read- pa...](http://scienceblogs.com/purepedantry/2008/06/27/must-read-paper-on- fmri-and-th/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Funny. I mentally translated the headline to "What _does it feel like_ to have never felt an emotion?" I think this means that I have no clue what it's like...

</comment><comment><USER19> Along the same lines are those who have low affect or have emotions, but they are very weak. I would classify myself in that category, so I can perhaps understand a bit of what alexithymia would be like. For example, I took a roller coster once, and it was interesting by emotionally void.

So imagine the "feeling" of just sitting in a chair in an empty room. Now imagine "feeling" that way all through a roller coaster. No excitement, fear, enjoyment, etc...

</comment><comment><USER20> I really wish I could meet these people or someone who claims to be like this, none of it is easy to describe, but I think it'd be interesting to experience.

</comment><comment><USER21> Reading the title to this HN post made me laugh out loud. I guess I can't say I'm without emotions.

:-)

</comment><comment><USER22> > The condition is found in around 50% of people with autism

Oh please, journalism .

Wordless about emotions? Maybe. Not knowing the words for emotions? Maybe. Emotionless? Ha. Spend time with any group of people with autistic spectrum disorders & tell me 50% are emotionless. Confusing words with the phenomena & further contributing to the barriers they have to express their inner life, not on.

To say it matter of factly like this in science journalism with no sense of the controversy to popular perception or those who have relationships with neurodiverse people, or motivating <with references> the point of view behind a scientist, but instead, reporting as fact. This view is surely contravertial in the scientific community, let alone with the public in contact with autistic people - and the worse thing is, if you tell an autistic person, they could believe it.

The only basis I have for saying "this is surely controversial in the scientific community" is 1. my faith in that community 2. my experience of the emotional lives of people on the autistic spectrum. 1 says they'd find out about 2 because it's a real thing.

They have empathy & emotions - like colonization - the one's trying to 'help' can sometimes be the cause of the most harm.

<comment><USER23> The article doesn't characterize the disorder as being without emotions. It quotes researchers as saying that while sufferers display the physical signs of emotions, there is some sort of breakdown either in the expression (as you mentioned) or self-awareness of emotions.

<comment><USER24> The title refers to the inability of feeling emotions - which is the same as "being without emotions".

<comment><USER25> Alexithymia literally means "no words for emotions", and the article makes it clear that people with the condition do feel emotions, they just lack conscious awareness and the ability to verbalize their emotions. The title refers to the experience _from the point of view of the subject_ \- being outside of their conscious awareness, it is as if emotions do not exist for them, even though they still trigger the appropriate physical responses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> tl;dr you know you're eating 100 different flavors of ice cream but they still all taste like vanilla

</comment><comment><USER27> You mean... what does it feel like?

Nothing.

</comment><comment><USER28> OMG, that must be pure bliss. Where can I apply?

</comment><comment><USER29> Sad? Oh wait...

</comment><comment><USER30> Spock ?

<comment><USER31> Apparently, the analogy is not inaccurate:

"It may be hard to believe, but it is possible for someone to be cut off completely from the emotions and imagination that are such a big part of what makes us humans," he says. "And that a person can be cut off from emotions without being heartless, or a psychopath."

<comment><USER32> Well, it is illogical to be a psychopath, after all...

<comment><USER9> What's illogical about it? In fact being a psychopath is the most logical thing (promoting your interests with cold logic with care or mercy for others).

All other behaviors need either a faith in some God or man-given morality, ethics, or emotions like love, mercy etc (which, as emotions, are not logical).

Of course one can logically come to the conclusion that behaving moraly instead of like a psychopath is better for humanity. But even in that case, giving a damn for what's better for humanity (instead of what maximizes your benefits in your lifespan) is illogical.

<comment><USER33> Not really, Nash equilibria aren't necessarily the best outcome for any individual (cf the prisoner's dilemma). Cooperation is usually better than every-man-for-himself for everyone involved, hence why social animals evolve altruistic traits. Of course, selfishness works at the expense of an altruistic majority, but that's why people don't like to associate with psychopaths

<comment><USER9> That's in game theory. Not many people are ever offered a bona fide "prisoner's dilemma".

In most actual real life situations you can get far ahead by behaving as a sociopath.

> _Of course, selfishness works at the expense of an altruistic majority, but > that 's why people don't like to associate with psychopaths_

The thing is that as a sociopath you don't even have to show that you are that to people. You can still pretend to be altruistic (to your advantage) and still push your personal agenda whenever possible covertly.

<comment><USER34> >The thing is that as a sociopath you don't even have to show that you are that to people. You can still pretend to be altruistic (to your advantage) and still push your personal agenda whenever possible covertly.

People aren't stupid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Isn't this textbook sociopathy?

<comment><USER36> No.

> sociopath: a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is > antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or > social conscience.

Nothing in not feeling emotions means that one would lack a moral responsibility or social conscience, or is antisocial and often criminal.

<comment><USER35> Here's a functioning sociopath with a conscience but it's not feeling based. It seems very similar:

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201305/confessions-...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201305/confessions- sociopath)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> "There is one, slim advantage: he finds it easier to cope with medical procedures, since he doesn't attach the fear, sadness or anxiety to it. "I can put up with an awful lot of pain or unpleasant experiences because I know very shortly I won't have an emotional memory associated with it," he says. "But it means that positive memories get washed away too.""</comment>


New Ultra-Fast Charging Tech Could Lead to a New Age in Energy - <AUTHOR> https://futurism.com/new-ultra-fast-charging-tech-could-lead-to-a-new-age-in-energy/ <comment><AUTHOR> Article is reprinted from this U-T publication from February 2017:

[https://news.utexas.edu/2017/02/28/goodenough-introduces- new...](https://news.utexas.edu/2017/02/28/goodenough-introduces-new-battery- technology)</comment>


Fabulous Fabbers - <AUTHOR> http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/fabulous-fabbers.html

<comment><USER2> Cory Doctorow's book Makers is all about this very subject. It is available free online.

<http://craphound.com/makers/Cory_Doctorow_-_Makers.html>

Also, does anyone have any recommendations for other explorations of this theme? Assuming that these things become viable and widespread, it really would change a lot, and I'd be fascinated to see some predictions of what would happen.

<comment><USER3> Bruce Sterling has a short story which also explores the effects cheap fabrication could have - The Kiosk. It's narrated by the StarShipSofa folks here:

[http://www.starshipsofa.com/20100113/aural-delights- no-116-b...](http://www.starshipsofa.com/20100113/aural-delights-no-116-bruce- sterling/)</comment></comment>


The PC is dead. Long live the cloud PC - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-pc-is-dead-long-live-the-cloud-pc/ <comment><USER2> The PC will probably never die. Become a niche product someday? Perhaps.

I would never use use cloud-based "PCs" for my personal stuff under any circumstances that I can think of. The overall security implications of it are beyond my ability to tolerate. If the day actually comes that I can't buy PCs anymore, I'll have to start building them myself.

<comment><AUTHOR> It may come to that. It's already half-way there for gaming PCs, which have become a niche on to themselves.

<comment><USER2> Yes. I bought a very nice gaming rig for my daughter a few months ago. It's a great custom-built machine, but expensive (by today's standards -- it's still cheaper, adjusted for inflation, than average PCs in the '90s). Clearly, these are niche products.

But I'm shopping for a general purpose tower to replace the laptop that is currently my primary machine. For half the price of that gaming rig, I can get a machine that is even gruntier (but lacks the things gamers want, such as a high-end video card).</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How easy/hard is it to offer HTTPS to your users? - <AUTHOR>

I am running a bunch of projects on a bunch of servers. How easy or hard is it to offer HTTPS to my users? Do I have to pay for a certificate for each domain? I don't own anything with most of my domains, so I would not like to pay much.
And some domains, I just use for myself. The only reason I want to enable HTTPS on them is that I want to securely acess them while workinng from Cafes and Coworking spaces.
I use Apache on all my servers. I probably have set up the most minimal config possible, so the servers only reply on HTTP. What do I have to do to make them reply on HTTPS? <comment><USER2> Use StartSSL[1], or self-signed certificates if you just use HTTPS for admin access to some of your sites. You can easily find many online tutorials on how to setup TLS/SSL on your web server after a bit of googling, such as this one[2] on the DigitalOcean community site.

P.S. Judging from your username, it seems like you have played agar.io too much. :)

[1] [http://www.startssl.com](http://www.startssl.com)

[2] [https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to- set-...](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-set-up- apache-with-a-free-signed-ssl-certificate-on-a-vps)

Edit: If you can wait until November this year, use Let's Encrypt[3] when it is generally available to the public. At this moment you can also use CloudFlare, which provides free SSL branded as "Universal SSL" if you use their CDN.

[3] [https://letsencrypt.org/2015/08/07/updated-lets-encrypt- laun...](https://letsencrypt.org/2015/08/07/updated-lets-encrypt-launch- schedule.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, StartSSL will give me a free certificate that browsers accept without bugging the user? Are there any downsides to this?

Is that possible for the whole domain, so that when I get a cert for mydomain.com it also works for development.mydomain.com etc? Even when development.mydomain.com has a different IP then mydomain.com?

<comment><USER2> The major downside I know is that in case your private key is compromised and you want to revoke the certificate, you have to pay $24.90.

> Even though StartSSL™ provides certificates generally free of charge, > revocations thereof may carry a handling fee. Take great care of your > private keys, save and backup all files all the time!

See more on [https://www.startssl.com/?app=37](https://www.startssl.com/?app=37)

<comment><USER3> WoSign[0] do free revok and will give you up to 100 altnames. Failing that I'd rather pay $10 for a cert from somewhere else, or pay a premium for my domain at Gandi and get a cert thrown in.

[0] [https://buy.wosign.com/free/](https://buy.wosign.com/free/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Cloudflare gives HTTPS for free. All you need to do is change your NS servers and flip a few buttons.

Traffic is encrypted between browser and Cloudflare but not between Cloudflare and your server.

</comment><comment><USER5> Let's Encrypt will offer DV certs for free. Right now, they are aiming for November.

[https://letsencrypt.org/](https://letsencrypt.org/)

</comment><comment><USER6> After you acquire a certificate, it's pretty tricky getting the configuration correct. I don't know about Apache, but in Nginx there are a lot of settings to set so that you deliver that fastest https experience. There's a video about it here [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHxD-G0YjiU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHxD-G0YjiU). I'm dealing with this issue right now, where I have https setup, but it isn't running optimally.</comment>


Grindr won't share users' HIV status with app contractors after outcry - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/04/grindr-stops-sharing-users-hiv-status-with-third-parties/ <comment><USER2> You'd think someone would have realized this is a bad idea _before_ a public outcry</comment>


Turning a critical eye on Yelp - <AUTHOR> http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-banks-yelp-20130420,0,7824145,full.column

<comment><USER2> '"Yelp spokeswoman Kristen Whisenand denied that the reviews depend on whether businesses buy ads. "I don't know the exact script people use when they sell advertising," she said. "But there's no amount of money anyone can pay Yelp to manipulate reviews."'

They're not answering the concern. Manipulating a review isn't what they're being accused of - they're being accused of manipulating which reviews are shown / used for calculating an overall rating - as far as I can tell.</comment>


How AngelList works - <AUTHOR> https://factordaily.com/outliers-60-how-angellist-works/ <comment><AUTHOR> AngelList is a startup too; a lot to learn from what AngelList does right,and wrong. Five podcasts weaved into one story. Conversations with Naval Ravikant and others</comment>


Zeroing in on unbreakable computer security - <AUTHOR> http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/07/29/from-russia-unbreakable-computer-code/

<comment><USER2> A few years ago researchers found a way to eavesdrop on a commercial theoretically-secure quantum key distribution system. The trick was to replace the polarized light pulses with bright pulses that overwhelmed the sensors, sidestepping the whole quantum business. The point is that even if a system is theoretically unbreakable, it's only as secure as the implementation, which may have nonobvious flaws.

References, which explain this much better than I did: [http://www.vad1.com/lab/full- eavesdropping-2011/](http://www.vad1.com/lab/full-eavesdropping-2011/) [http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v2/n6/full/ncomms1348.h...](http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v2/n6/full/ncomms1348.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> It starts off saying that it is unbreakable i.e the title, then a little way through goes onto say that its virtually impossible then towards the end it mentions that the Americans 'probably' wont be able to break it. It sounds like its just a exaggerated title to get people to click :/ but the theory behind quantum encryption is amazing.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you believe any code is "unbreakable", I've got an "unsinkable" ship to sell you (may show signs of iceberg damage)

<comment><USER5> Are you familiar with the one time pad (OTP)?

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-time_pad](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One- time_pad)

As long as the key is securely shared between the two parties, this scheme provides perfect secrecy, and the proof of this is trivial (check the link).

The main issue (and the reason OTP is very rarely used) is the key distribution. Quantum communication can solve this however by providing a channel which can be proven (to an arbitrarily high probability) to have not been eavesdropped or intercepted. Sadly, this doesn't scale at all, but it does give us a perfectly secure scheme to build up from.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_key_distribution](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_key_distribution)

<comment><USER4> "perfect" is a dangerous word. Whether it's someone saying a "perfect" product or "perfect" society or "perfect" anything, I tend to run in the opposite direction. What can I say, I'm a digital Burkean..

<comment><USER5> Philosophically I may agree, but in this case "perfect secrecy" is a mathematically defined term with a specific definition.

Basically, it is mathematically impossible for any encryption scheme to ever provide better data secrecy than the OTP, so I think calling it "perfectly secret" is perfectly alright :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just an obligatory reminder that as cool as quantum cryptography is, it's very unlikely that anyone (including NSA) can break today's run-of-the-mill classical encryption, and an XOR cipher plus a hardware RNG (such as, unless you're somewhat paranoid, the ones built into modern Intel processors) is essentially completely unbreakable.

<comment><USER7> true, unbreakable now, but probably breakable in a few years.... You store whatever SIGINT you pick up now, and understand it in a few years. A lot of it will still be valuable in 5,10, 15 years

<comment><USER6> True. But

(a) These quantum links are physical cables that have to be laid between sites. If you lay your own normal cable rather than using the Internet, you probably won't be intercepted either. Or...

(b) While shuttling around massive XOR pads on hard drives is probably too annoying for most individuals, it's quite feasible for the kinds of organizations that could buy this stuff and a whole lot cheaper, unless they have enormous quantities of data to transfer; though the scheme can then be broken by passively copying the pad rather than continuously actively subverting the quantum link, I'm not sure this makes much difference in practice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A bit off topic, but I noticed that the title that was originally submitted for this story is the HTML title of the linked article. It was then changed to the article's <h1> title. When submitting articles to HN, which title is actually the preferred one to submit?

<comment><USER9> It doesn't matter, the editors will change it to the one they like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think I've write fun things in this life (in the sense of code to do stuff). But I can't imagine how the "job" of persons behind all this stuff could be... mmm...

</comment><comment><USER11> The CNN Headline is sort of misleading... The International Conference on Quantum Technologies was held in Moscow, but the company profiled (ID Quantique) is based in Geneva.

[http://www.idquantique.com/contact- us.html](http://www.idquantique.com/contact-us.html)</comment>


Ask HN: When was the last time the news was directly useful to you? - <AUTHOR> Examples that might qualify: A writeup of your company. Learning about a tool or service that came in handy. Feeling well-informed during a lunch conversation. [insert whatever else might occur to you]<p>I'm asking because I'm a tech reporter and I'm curious which parts of our work actually serve members of the industry. <comment><USER2> Being well informed about the world, as a citizen of the world, isn't enough?

<comment><AUTHOR> I dispute that reading the news accomplishes that.

<comment><USER2> Depends on what news you read, doesn't it?</comment></comment></comment>


Moral Responsibilities - <AUTHOR> http://devscape.blogspot.com/2010/01/moral-responsibilities.html <comment><USER2> A good rant about a very real problem, e.g. the reason I switched to Brother and have switched my parents to them as well, but it should be noted that HP stopped being a "moral" company a long time ago. They've been selling computers and printers with insane bloatware drivers for many years now (at least back to 2004).

One might also note a business model where ink cost $8,000/gallon or as some headline noted, more than human blood. (OK, that's perhaps an acceptable trade off, but it burns first time buyers nonetheless. About the only good thing here is that HP has the ink jets integrated into their cartridges, so refills are not terribly dangerous.)

And then we could get into the post H&P period where the company's treatment of their employees has been quite nasty. Or the general decline of the quality we used to get from the HP name (I'm still using my HP 28S calculator from the late '80s). Etc. etc. etc. etc.</comment>


Eric Schmidt describes Google+ as an "identity service" - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/117378076401635777570/posts/2y7vqXBtLny <comment><USER2> Losing hope in G+ very fast.

They're going to make the same mistakes that are killing Facebook. I'm also concerned about them selling data from G+, since Schmidt describes it as an identity service. It's a very evil concept.

<comment><USER3> It's also quite duplicitous. It was represented as a social networking service, not as an identity service. Moreover people assumed (yeah, I know) that since privacy control was Facebook's Achilles' heel, that Google would do better than that, and they seemed to be going one step forward with the Circles thing. Ever since then, it has been two steps back.

It's easy to say "Hey, if you want to be pseudonymous go elsewhere". I have no desire to be pseudonymous, but I certainly want to socialise with people who are. I can't be the only one.

HN good news: the field is still wide open for someone who wants to do it right.

<comment><USER4> Fundamentally, Facebook is an identity directory. The ability to easily transfer real world identities and relationships into the digital world is the big problem Facebook solves. It's one of those fundamental problems left unresolved by Internet protocols, similar to Google being able to solve search because the web has no implementation built in by design.

Facebook's communication features, the 'social networking', in itself isn't anything special.

From that perspective, Google+ becomes much clearer. Google are attempting to use Facebook's poor social networking features to elbow in on their identity directory.

<comment><USER5> > Fundamentally, Facebook is an identity directory. ...

> Facebook's communication features, the 'social networking', in itself isn't > anything special.

Throw away your cynical world view for a second and just go to your Facebook feed and see how people are interacting there, having fun, supporting each other, spreading a little bit of love in form of "likes" (even if it's a bit silly) and come back and say it ain't anything special and it's just a solution to an identity directory problem. It's much more.

Facebook is the closest thing to a chat at a bar with your friends that internet has to offer. Certainly, there are better bars already out there, but FB is a bar that your friends are willing to come to. It's still early days of internet and our virtual existence, so FB ain't that colourful and deep as an evening at a local pub can be, but painting it just as a identity directory is a fundamental misunderstanding of social internet.

<comment><USER6> IRC feels much closer to a bar, if you want to use this metaphor. A bar does not record people's discussion and keep it forever for all to see..

<comment><USER5> Maybe, but most of my physical-life friends friends won't come to IRC. As I said, there might be better bars, but FB is a good enough to socialize with people you want to see. And IRC can be downright nasty for uninitiated, it's like this awesome watering hole on outskirts of the town that reveals it's beauty only after repeated use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm kind of disappointed in their handling of it. I personally would like Google+ to succeed and at first glance it seems the real-name policy is not good for publicity, and subsequently not good for Google+'s growth.

The majority of people will use their real names anyway so I can't imagine why forcing it on everyone would help much of anything.

Can someone help me understand their rationale?

<comment><USER8> "Can someone help me understand their rationale?"

Google is ultimately trying to turn the web into their own app store so that anyone who wants to create, view, monetize, or share content has to do it using their proprietary services.

<comment><USER9> Do you honestly believe that?

<comment><USER8> Yes of course. Google sees themselves as being in the utility business, like the digital equivalent of an electric or water company. The whole company is basically a series of strategically placed loosely connected platforms that work in the background like infrastructure. Right now the Internet is still very young so they are essentially just building their moyo[1], expect the pieces to become more closely interconnected over the next ten years.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moyo_(Go)#Moyo+.28.E6.A8.A1.E6....](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moyo_\(Go\)#Moyo+.28.E6.A8.A1.E6.A7.98.3F.29)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This doesn't wash. Google Profiles seemed to me to be an "identity service". This seems more likely an identity characteristics service for data mining info about people.

<comment><USER11> Google Profiles _is_ the "identity service" that has tendrils into more than just G+ (and the banstick was swinging long before G+ hit the public). Schmidt just didn't generalize his comments enough to point out that subtle but critical difference.

But I did: [https://plus.google.com/103653740605668919281/posts/iHugVQvM...](https://plus.google.com/103653740605668919281/posts/iHugVQvMGig)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If so, it is an identity service run by an advertising company.

</comment><comment><USER13> Eric Schmidt says weird things (see <http://dthin.gs/niXnvA>). Here's what stood out to me in this talk (paraphrasing): "People don't have to use it if they don't want to."

You know you have a suspect product when that's the best defense you have for it. He wants people to use G+ yet he says that they don't have to. Saying stuff like that doesn't make current users comfortable or new users giddy to try it out.

<comment><USER14> This resonated with me too. "No one is forcing you to use it," - precisely, and therefore no one does! Just because there are a ton of nerds using the service right now, doesn't mean it's useful. My mom, who took a few years to get comfortable with email, she sure is not using it, but guess what, she's got Facebook! Google is disappointing :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Bullshit. It's an ad-targeting service.

</comment><comment><USER16> As far as I can see Google hasn't gone out of it's way to make + a compelling end-all identity integration platform that combines all of my other Google services, (I'm looking at you Reader. Where's my "share with circle" button, hmm?) so I'm not sure where they get this idea that it's going to be one for the web at large is coming from.

I think the phrase "they're going to build future products that leverage that information" gives away exactly who these future products are going to be designed and built for. They very carefully did not say "that are going to allow you to leverage this information."

</comment><comment><USER17> Out of curiosity, how did the duplicate URL detector not catch that this was submitted four hours earlier?

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2931770>

<comment><USER18> The two URLs were not identical, as the earlier submitted had additional characters at the end (which appear to be a no-op in this case).

<comment><USER17> Yeah, I saw that, but thought that fragment IDs were ignore.

Oh well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "He replied by saying that G+ was build primarily as an identity service"

Which is becoming more and more obvious.

However, it was _sold to its users_ as a social networking service.

<comment><USER20> If you read the announcement identity is very important in every aspect that was announced: [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google- pr...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-google-project-real- life.html)

<comment><USER19> OK, but most people are never going to see that. I didn't.

Most people are going to wonder what google plus is, and end up here, where Google is actively telling potential users a particular story:

[https://plus.google.com/up/start/?continue=https://plus.goog...](https://plus.google.com/up/start/?continue=https://plus.google.com/&type=st&gpcaz=4807fced)

Nowhere in there does it say it's an identity service. The closest it comes is to talk about putting different people in different circles.

Nowhere does it say that services that worked perfectly well for you are at risk if you run afoul of the name issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Context, please. I know it was an Q&A, hence there may not be a relation between what he said before and after answering this question. However the internet is very quick at taking one statement and turning it into something else.

</comment><comment><USER22> Our right to anonymity trumps google's (or atone else's) right to "down vote" the "evil".

What's described is the archetype slippery slope. What's evil shifts and grows ever larger.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's a fair point, nobody has to use it, that's true. But what I don't like is that there are exceptions like for "Madonna" and maybe others as well.

</comment><comment><USER24> In other words, it's about making money by selling your data profile, and if you're not willing to help Google make money, they don't want you using their service. Pretty much the same outlook as Facebook, with minor variations in rhetoric.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'll handle my own identity, thanks.

</comment><comment><USER26> Once again I repeat: Google+ is _dead_.

It's over.

<comment><USER27> I wish I could agree with you but for so many people this isn't an issue. It will probably do fine regardless of how us geeks feel about it.

<comment><USER28> Are non-geeks on G+ now?

<comment><USER29> College students signed up, found nothing of interest and didn't bother to visit again. I'm fairly certain that G+ has failed, but I can't say I didn't expect it: Circles, its main selling point, is a gimmick that no normal user would bother to use after day 1, the UI is rather unexciting, etc. As far as I'm concerned, there's really no incentive to switch from Facebook for most people.

<comment><USER30>
      College students signed up, found nothing of interest and didn't bother to visit again.

Citation needed.

<comment><USER31> [https://plus.google.com/115360979797396777969/posts/EZ3XZR73...](https://plus.google.com/115360979797396777969/posts/EZ3XZR73J4K)

Not directly a citation, it is very hard to dig for a "bounce" rate or usage statistics of Google with the deluge of the real-name debate in content searching.

Well, found a bit more: [http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2098915/Google- Usage-Tr...](http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2098915/Google-Usage- Traffic-Slows-as-Buzz-Dies-Down)

Conflicting reports: [http://gigaom.com/2011/08/19/inactive-accounts-google- plus-i...](http://gigaom.com/2011/08/19/inactive-accounts-google-plus- infographic/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> i use my real name a lot of places on the internet, and i would prefer to "sign in with G+" rather than use facebook (where I use my real name, like most of you..)

</comment><comment><USER33> I prefer anonymity. Google knows too much about me already, I'd prefer they stop trying to make every fact about me known by the servers that serve me pages. I don't want every link on the internet an opportunity for the authorities to stop that click event.

<comment><USER34> I don't understand how anonymity would work with a social network.

<comment><USER19> I have a lot of people in my G+ circles. I've never met 99% of them before G+. As far as I'm concerned John Smith is as anonymous to me as Sp00n B4nder, neither one has any context for me except what I read from them.

And yet, I interact "socially" with them just fine, and I think of them as John Smith and Sp00n B4nder. It causes me zero problems.

Names in this context are just labels, and I don't care what the labels say, I just care what they point to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I thought Google+ was more like twitter. It seems Google+ envies facebook's "intimate friend groups" that cause people to upload personal photos and events. Alas they don't realize that people are under "social fatigue" right now after five years of frenzy. They are copying something that is already going out of fashion. Anyway it's crazy. I only registered to Google+ with my real name because i want to develop apps. Google+ is not my identity.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm not sure how much of that is improvisation on Eric's part or how much of his original meaning was preserved in the paraphrase, either way I doubt he is involved with the development of G+.

Not that there was much wrong with what was said, but if you're after some real insight here is a recent interview with Bradley Horowitz were he touches on psuedonyms, and basically says that the service will be more inclusive as it matures: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5sRC67s9fg#t=26m25s></comment>


Getting Started with the PLONK stack - <AUTHOR> https://blog.alexellis.io/getting-started-with-the-plonk-stack-and-serverless/ <comment><USER2> I really like the acronyml ( Plonk = Prometheus + Linux/Linkerd + OpenFaas + Nats + Kubenetes )

I miss some long-running ETL/dataflow pipeline-like service like Apache Beam or something similar.

The reason is I don't like to chain more than 3 cloud functions together because operations tend to be complex after that.

Instead I like to use something like Beam where I can _drain_ the data pipeline before stopping it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you.

What do you use for your microservices at work right now? PLONK is positioned as an answer for that as well as for functions when required.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this article shows how the two can co-exist as polymorphic deployments:

[https://www.openfaas.com/blog/asp-net- core/](https://www.openfaas.com/blog/asp-net-core/)

<comment><USER2> Of course they can co-exist :-) !

I guess I should write am essay about _when_ one is better than the other... just to see FaaS catch up in short, short, time :-D</comment></comment></comment></comment>


New Global Search Engine - <AUTHOR> http://www.stumpedia.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Stumpedia.com is truly a community built and driven social search engine that relies on human participation to index, organize, and review the world wide web. It does not depend on bots, algorithms, or company insiders to make decisions on the relevance and ranking of search results. Users are encouraged to create custom content pages for any possible search term in the world and links that will help people find relevant results and answers to their search requests.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Free keyword submissions</comment>


Using Unix as an IDE (2012) - <AUTHOR> https://sanctum.geek.nz/arabesque/series/unix-as-ide/? <comment><USER2> It's not for everyone, but the Unix/BSD/Linux shell is still my favorite command invocation environment. Despite their simplicity, pipelines are a really handy way to pass data between programs when solving certain kinds problems. It also provides a cheap way of providing some parallel processing.

<comment><USER3> The other thing I absolutely love about pipes is the ease of writing custom utilities. I'd refactored a filetype for use with a game last week, and needed to insert several lines into ~1.5k ASCII files. 1/2 hour to make a hacked c++ program to make the changes, and pass the outputs of grep to that.

Although I'm unfamiliar with using pipes to provide parallel processing, could you elaborate? If you can pass to another thread I will be kicking myself for missing that.

<comment><USER4> > Although I'm unfamiliar with using pipes to provide parallel processing, > could you elaborate? If you can pass to another thread I will be kicking > myself for missing that.

You didn't miss it, each stage in the pipeline runs in it's own process so you're already using it. With say "grep -r foo ./ | do-something | do- omething-else" the second and third stages will be operating on the data from grep while grep is still running.

In addition to that you can get more parallelism pretty simply with xargs ([http://offbytwo.com/2011/06/26/things-you-didnt-know- about-x...](http://offbytwo.com/2011/06/26/things-you-didnt-know-about- xargs.html)). If that's not enough then check out gnu parallel ([https://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/](https://www.gnu.org/software/parallel/)).

While we're talking about unix as an IDE I want to put in a plug for inotifywait ([https://linux.die.net/man/1/inotifywait](https://linux.die.net/man/1/inotifywait)). Combining this with a makefile you can get some very fast builds with near instant feedback everytime you save a file. I have one that executes units tests and valgrind every time for instant memory leak detection. Another great use case is getting WYSIWYG like features with latex files.

<comment><USER5> using make -j $num is another way to go to get parallelism that is sometimes convenient.

<comment><USER4> Just make sure $num is set, otherwise it tries to do everything it can at once. I found out the hard way compiling gcc last week, system was unresponsive so I reset, but I'm curious if it would have worked eventually.

<comment><USER6> This is a pet peeve I have had for a while now. I still have a definition for MAKEFLAGS (with -j [# of cpus-1]) in my profile and rc files and had to learn that if you allow make to start too many things at once, the _whole_ machine would hang. Even switching to a different TTY took ages.

To me, it sounds like a tremendous scheduling issue if a build job can drown a whole system like that. Shouldn't there be some emphasis on non-waiting threads/processes that haven't done much over those who have hogged the CPU in the past without me having to manually adjust the niceness of every build task?

<comment><USER7> I can't offer specifics, but it's probably at the point that you'd compile a different scheduler?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe this is implicitly assumed, but a terminal multiplexer such as tmux is also a useful utility for using unix as an IDE. For example, you can have a pane for your code in an editor like vim, and a pane for running your tests next to it, and maybe another pane for an interactive shell of your language. Lacking a consistent local development environment, tmux is indispensable when I ssh into into my remote development environment.

<comment><USER9> These days, you can also run terminals as panels in vim, so vim is sort of its own terminal multiplexer now.

      :help terminal.txt

<comment><USER10> I tend to just write a command in a vim buffer (with all that nice Vim magic), select it and run it with :@"

e.g. I write and yank: r!fancy command arg1 arg2 ..

Then go to the next line and do :@" This will run the command (well execute the colon mode command) and read back the results.

edit: The nice thing about this is that I can do this as a progressing document (command, output, command, output) and scroll back to see what I have done and what the result was.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If using LLVM, you may want to debug with lldb instead. Also with gdb you can use the tui mode.

To read the environment variables used by a program you can use

        cat /proc/{pid}/environ

update: Some of this overlaps with reverse engineering. I posted this comment yesterday about useful reverse engineering resources on Linux [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17342197](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17342197)

<comment><USER12> Note that `/proc/$pid/environ` has null bytes between the entries, so it's not very readable if you just `cat` it. So you want to filter its content, e.g.:

        tr "\0" "\n" < /proc/$pid/environ

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like Acme because it is built to facilitate using shell commands from within the editor. You can write scripts in any language you like and run them, which in some ways makes it the ultimate scriptable editor.

However, an IDE like IntelliJ brings so much to the table that it's hard to imagine working without it. I know I'm much more productive using it than Emacs or Acme or Vi or any other editor that integrates well with Unix.

<comment><USER14> One thing that annoyed me the last time I tried it (webstorm variation if I'm not mistaken) is that you can't use it as an editor only.

You have to create a project. For everything.

And of course, multi-second launch time is unacceptable for an editor in my book. It's just too frustrating.

But yeah, autocompletion is amazing. It even understands image dimensions.

And it understands PHP, JavaScript, HTML and CSS, all mixed toguether in the same file, respecting indentation and syntax highlighting like nothing I've ever seen.

<comment><USER15> I can't find the source, but I remember hearing a quote similar to, "What separates a text editor from an IDE is that you have create a project to save a file."

I feel the same way as you. I spent a good amount of time with PyCharm, WebStorm, and RubyMine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Highly recommend the inotify tools. It makes things like auto reloading very easy to setup.

<comment><USER17> Though it looks like unmaintained, I use watchdog[1] for automatically running build and test commands on file change.

[1] [https://github.com/gorakhargosh/watchdog](https://github.com/gorakhargosh/watchdog)

<comment><USER18> Maybe look into the very unix-y fswatch, which is cross platform too.

[https://github.com/emcrisostomo/fswatch](https://github.com/emcrisostomo/fswatch)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Midnight Commander (mc) is also a great file management tool.

<comment><USER20> ranger (or rangerfm) is also quite nice.

It provide a 3 columns view with either:

* parent directory | current directory | child directory

* parent directory | current file | preview of the file (if possible in text)

I found it quite nice to use because it gives you a good picture of where you are and what are your neighboring files, which can be helpful when navigating inside a code base.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Previouslies: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=unix%20as%20ide&sort=byPopular...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=unix%20as%20ide&sort=byPopularity&prefix=false&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

</comment><comment><USER22> But the idea of an OS in and of itself is the ultimate IDE, is it not? I can't say I like the idea of writing software without any system calls at my disposal.

<comment><USER23> That is the case of C, because UNIX is the runtime, hence what was left out of ISO ended up on POSIX.

Any programming language with a richer runtime can be OS agnostic to a certain point. The runtime is the OS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> tmux + cscope + a $CSCOPE_EDITOR script that starts $EDITOR in a new tmux window == awesome.

EDIT: Also, add nested tmux sessions to make it awesome++.

</comment><comment><USER25> is it possible to write man pages for tasks rather than commands.

so you could have: man search, man restart, man compile. etc.

<comment><USER9> Manpage names are not tied to command names at all. Sure, sections 1 and 8 are conventionally sorted by command name, but the other sections have different purposes. Sections 2 and 3 document system calls and library calls, one function at a time:

      man 2 fork
      man 3 fread

Section 5 documents file formats and conventions:

      man 5 passwd
      man 5 rsyncd.conf

And section 7 is described by `man man` as "miscellaneous". There is some nice high-level overview documentation hidden in there, e.g.:

      man 7 signal
      man 7 socket

My all-time favorite is from section 7 is `man ascii`. Very handy when you're ever pushing bits.

NOTE: If these commands fail for you, check if you have the "man-pages" package installed (may be called different in your distro).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> ls -ltrapR</comment>