OS X 10.10 Yosemite: The Ars Technica Review - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/10/os-x-10-10/ <comment><USER2> None of these reiews answer the one question I always want answered; will this cause my MBP to crash more often than 10.8.5? I have all the features I need, I want fewer GPU panics.

I know these reviewers cannot answer this question, I just want to point out that it's the only relevant question for me. Given Apple's track record, this release will most likely cause my MBP to crash more often, but I want data on that. I want a review to actually explore this angle as opposed to simply talking about features that honestly mean nothing to me.

<comment><USER3> Doubt you're going to see much about crashing since I presume that most MBP owners, like myself, never experience crashes.

<comment><USER4> Mine crashes a lot. Usually after I send it to sleep when I go home. Next time when I wake it up, it starts up from crashed state. It might have something to do with some app I installed but I didn't spend time to figure that out yet.

<comment><USER5> VMWare 6 seems to be the cause of some of mine. I resolved it by making sure it's suspended prior to system sleep.

I wonder if the most recent VMWare version would help.

<comment><USER6> It helped a little but still crashes for me. I have the same issues with VMWare latest version.

<comment><USER5> Does suspending the VM help you?

<comment><USER5> Sorry to reply to my own message, but I just found this [1] where the recommendation is:

"I managed to fix this by going to the Virtual Machine Settings, clicking Advanced, and then checking the "Pass power status to VM" checkbox."

Haven't tested extensively, but I haven't had a crash in the past day.

[1] [https://communities.vmware.com/thread/467919](https://communities.vmware.com/thread/467919)

<comment><USER6> Thanks! I will try this and let you know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What's missing here for me is some kind of performance evaluation. If I upgrade my 2011 MBA from Mavericks to Yosemite, should I expect any change in performance, for better or worse? Did the power management change in any significant way?

Apple's mobile OSs have a way of obsoleting older hardware. I'm curious to know if their desktop OSs are trending that way as well, or if they're making performance gains instead.

<comment><USER8> I've had serious performance issues with Yosemite. For one, dragging around windows became extremely janky; this appears to be caused by the transparency (and the limitations of my first-generation Retina MBP), as the option to disable it fixes the jank. For another, opening a new tab in Safari started lagging about a full second before I could start typing in the address bar, which is a ridiculous amount of time compared to the previous version or competition. I was able to fix this by disabling Top Sites, but while I don't actually use Top Sites much, I never had to disable it before, and most users won't know to do that, making it a serious regression. (Chrome actually takes quite a while to load its equivalent - I don't know whether it's for the same reason or not - but it does it asynchronously, so I can start typing in the address bar almost immediately.)

On top of that, there are serious performance issues with the built-in Japanese IME, although I'm not completely sure how much of this is new, and I experienced a bug where WindowServer would randomly start hogging CPU, which may or may not be related to said IME.

Given all these problems, I'm surprised that the general consensus seems to be that the performance is good. But maybe I'm somehow a special case. (The Safari issue is the most egregious - is it that many OS X users don't use Safari in the first place?)

<comment><USER9> I'd love to try and get to the bottom of the Safari performance issues you're seeing. My email address is in my profile, please drop me a line if you wouldn't mind.

<comment><USER8> Okay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Somebody asked in another thread about Yosemite's new Hypervisor:

"Hypervisor (Hypervisor.framework). The Hypervisor framework allows virtualization vendors to build virtualization solutions on top of OS X without needing to deploy third-party kernel extensions (KEXTs). Included is a lightweight hypervisor that enables virtualization of the host CPUs."

Any news on if anyone is actually using this yet? Stability matters a lot more to me than raw performance in VMs, so I'd be very keen to know if Parallels/Fusion/VirtualBox have adopted this--assuming that it would actually improve stability or, if not, what the pros/cons are for using Apple's own Hypervisor over a third party's.

[https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/mac/releaseno...](https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/mac/releasenotes/MacOSX/WhatsNewInOSX/Articles/MacOSX10_10.html)

<comment><USER11> Not many details on this yet but there shouldn't be any major drawbacks since third party kexts can still be used to support legacy / multi-platform VMs or supplement Hypervisor.kext in other ways. I doubt Apple would have bothered doing this unless they had a mountain of OSX crash logs / power consumption data that suggested they could do better. It's clearly in their best interest to sell stable computers that get great battery life so I expect they will do a good job here. Users don't switch between VM platforms often enough to know which one offers the best stability / power efficiency so there's less of an incentive for companies like VMWare or Parallels to make them a top priority.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Off topic from the review but handy since people were talking about crashing:

Learned a cool trick tonight: Yosemite was taking a while to install, so I did some googling and learned you can see the installer's log by typing CMD-L during the install process.

<comment><USER13> I ran across the cmd-l tip earlier this afternoon in this article: "Faster Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite Upgrades for Developers" ([https://jimlindley.com/blog/yosemite-upgrade-homebrew- tips/](https://jimlindley.com/blog/yosemite-upgrade-homebrew-tips/)).

If any of you are thinking of upgrading and use Homebrew, it sounds like it would be in your best interest to have a look. I'm holding off on upgrading until I see some early-adopter reports, but I'll certainly be following these steps when I'm ready to take the plunge.

<comment><USER14> So I guess this is a coincidental validation of MacPorts' decision to install under /opt and leave /usr/local for manually-compiled stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I really don't like the new design. The dock bar looks weird to name one thing, also the new buttons, bars and the window design is just ugly and plain (it feels like a Linux flavour trying to look like OS X designed by someone's neighbour's kid) - don't let me even mention the folder icons. Photoshop stalled once but that's the only quirck I've had in the past 2 weeks of using the beta so that's not too bad. Design wise however, I don't feel like this is a good replacement. Have to admit that iOS 7 did grow on me and I felt the same about that back then but I don't think the same will happen in this case.

<comment><USER16> I feel the exact same way about iOS 7 growing on me but Yosemite not. This is the first Apple upgrade for a while that I'm going to hold off on...

<comment><USER17> I recently found this: # snow leopard theme for 10.9 Mavericks [http://rhubarb-leaf.deviantart.com/art/SnowLeopard- theme-v2-...](http://rhubarb-leaf.deviantart.com/art/SnowLeopard- theme-v2-462739866)

I hope something like this is possible on Yosemite at some point in the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you want to do a fresh install, you can create a USB install drive: [http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/10/how-to-make-your-own- bo...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/10/how-to-make-your-own-bootable- os-x-10-10-yosemite-usb-install-drive/)

</comment><comment><USER19> "...If Retina desktop Macs still haven't been announced by the time you read this, Apple had better hurry up."

Near the bottom of page 3, just thought it was funny considering today's 5K iMac announcement.

</comment><comment><USER20> Anyone know how to turn off the Macbook pro screen with the lid open while using external monitors? On Mavericks this worked just fine:

[http://gizmodo.com/5938452/a-trick-to-make-using-an- external...](http://gizmodo.com/5938452/a-trick-to-make-using-an-external- monitor-with-your-macbook-way-better)

Now no dice... anyone know a way to keep the screen off with the lid open?

To execute in Terminal:

sudo nvram boot-args="iog=0x0"

To undo in Terminal:

sudo nvram -d boot-args

Once you type it into terminal I believe you need to enter your password. I then restart my machine. Now the TRICK is to either restart your machine with the lid already closed (hit restart then slam the lid!) OR turn the machine on for the first time (then quickly slam the lid!) once you are past the login screen you can open the lid.

<comment><USER21> Can't you just turn the brightness down to zero?

<comment><USER20> Yes, but it's not the same as turning the display off. The GPU is still outputting signal to the Macbook Pro screen.

<comment><USER22> Wow, I hadn't considered that. It might explain why I get terrible battery life when playing movies on a TV over HDMI with the screen "turned off" by dimming it down to zero. Thanks for the hint.

<comment><USER20> Along with the battery suck, it also generates more heat as the GPU has to output 2 signals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The upgrade to Mavericks totally borked my Displaylink adapter that I use to plug an extra monitor in. After some updates its finally stable but still not great. I'm afraid to upgrade again because who knows what will happen.

<comment><USER24> Was it the Displaylink<->Dual-DVI adapter? Ugh, that was broken for quite a few versions for 2011ish-era devices as soon as Mavericks came out. It took them a few versions to actually fix that up, almost as if they hadn't noticed it was broken.

I'm tempted to try a test install separate from my regular install after getting burned on that last time.

<comment><USER23> I recently bought a DVI to USB adapter so that I could plug a second monitor into my 2012 MBA. It wasnt until I actually set it up that I learned of all the trouble. I wouldnt say the set up I have now is perfect but it is workable.

I'd hate to upgrade to Yosemite and have everything go to hell though. Is it possible to downgrade if I have problems?

<comment><USER25> If your on Maverics you should be Ok not upgrading for a while. I used one of those adapter with snow leopard on a mac book up to this spring (upgrading compatability being questionable). It finally became clear that enough software needed a new OS that I got a newer machine.

Mavericks beachballs on a way faster machine more often than it ever did on snow leopard. I miss that os.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I actually read this all the way through... Quality writing.

<comment><USER27> I'll check it out, but in his past reviews, I've had the impression that the author really likes showing off his background knowledge of all things Apple. A lot of the text is irrelevant to the review, and therefore shouldn't be there. Also, the endless, endless links. He really needs to learn when something should be linked and when it shouldn't -- it really affects the reading experience on the web. You're constantly alternating between black and orange text, and being tempted to hover over them to see "what does this one go to?"

His attention to detail is great, though, no doubt about that.

<comment><USER28> You comment made me laugh and 'ahhhhh!' at the same time. It now makes sense. He's totally into Apple and hasn't been elsewhere.

A few of the things he talks about regarding the UI changes are already on Windows, but he talks as if they're a new invention. While he might be talking to a 100% Apple audience, I think it makes him look silly that he doesn't mention they're not Apple-original features.

Eg. windows that are semi translucent with the background blurred came with either Vista or 7. That annoying animated focus circle is in Office 2013.

<comment><USER29> John Siracusa is certainly aware of Windows, at least visually. The only reason for you to suggest pointing out any little thing that's not "Apple- original" is out of some sort of pointless OS defensiveness. Aero Glass was a simple blurred translucency, while the translucency in Yosemite is a more complex filter and has two content modes, behind-window and within-window. But I don't see what comparing the two accomplishes, honestly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I tried it yesterday and for the first time I downgraded my Mac back to the previous version. I think Yosemite wasn't made for my 2009 MacBook Pro. It works w/o a problem but the font is really hard to read, in the sense it is an exhausting experience.

What is funny about Yosemite, many dialog boxes remind me of KDE.

</comment><comment><USER31> Very informative review, particularly the part regarding Swift towards the end, although I did feel like he was going over the changes in a perfunctory manner as opposed to the Mavericks review.

Anyway, it did help me know what to expect in Yosemite so thanks John.

I also discovered the "purple" full screen button from yesteryear - I much prefer that to the fullscreen arrows in Mavericks, and dislike the new default "FULLSCREEN" behaviour of the zoom button. Fullscreen makes the menubar and all that sits in it (MenuMeters, clock etc) useless. On a laptop, the indicator about the battery is kind of important to me, and I don't find the clock distracting or require it to be removed in order to help me read text on other parts of the screen. I think it is a foolish move.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm on a 2013 MBP and I upgraded to Yosemite yesterday. It was a textbook upgrade for me - zero hassle and everything works just as it should (so far anyway). A couple of quirks I've noticed vs. Mavericks is that a) the animations seem to stutter sometimes - I almost never had that with Mavericks. Perhaps since this is 10.10.0 that's to be expected but hope they fix that to buttery smooth in the performance update down the road. The other thing is RAM usage seems to have gone up significantly. I used to average around 2-3 GB used out of 8GB and now I find 5GB used - I haven't installed any additional software or tweaked any configuration settings - this is purely a Mavericks --> Yosemite in-place upgrade. Its still early hours so I've yet to explore the system fully, but apart from these 2 things it seems fairly solid so far. Contrary to the other comments, I don't quite seem to mind the full screen mechanics, although I would not have minded a '+' button and more discernible buttons in general.

<comment><USER33> I find that Spotlight tends to do a complete reindex after an OS update, so that may be the cause of your increased resource usage.

<comment><USER34> I saw a lot of glitches immediately after updating, but am getting buttery smooth performance now, so this is worth keeping in mind.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I hope developers make good use of the changes to the title bar. It completely breaks the flow of the design of a lot of apps, and kills precious vertical space on my 13-inch MBP. A keyboard shortcut to toggle the menu bar would've been nice too. Neither of those would be big issues if it weren't for the slow, eye-melting, completely superfluous fullscreen animations though.

</comment><comment><USER36> I can accept almost all of the UI changes but these horrible blue folders.

<comment><USER37> As someone else suggested, they seriously look like something out of an old version of KDE.

<comment><USER38> Ouch, that's an insult. That blue is vile. But ooh, straighter lines and softer shadows - very noticable (!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> matt-attack I find the new Spotlight to be quite painful. Apple again, makes design choices not based on improving the quality but just because they feel they need to keep changing things.

They've done two things wrong with Spotlight. By moving it down from the top of the screen, that immediately reduces the number of results that can be seen. Then if that wasn't enough they further limit the quantity of visible results by not allowing results to flow to the bottom of the screen. A double whammy if you will.

I can live with a slightly slower experience (yes, my indexing is done) but reducing the result count for absolutely no good reason is unacceptable.

And yes, I know I can scroll down.

Edit: Oh and while I'm complaining, please tell me which one is selected: [http://i.imgur.com/Szj3Yag.png](http://i.imgur.com/Szj3Yag.png)

</comment><comment><USER39> I can't wait for the 'flat' fad to be over.

<comment><USER40> Even though it feels very fad-ish because it's been used as a buzzword/bandwagon, I don't feel like it's actually a fad.

My view is that that digital design has matured to the point where designers no longer feel they have to wow users with lots of effects and visual flourishes, allowing for a more purpose driven design. My hope/opinion is that is here to stay.

<comment><USER39> As ericd says, a lot of those little flourishes actually aid human perception and cognition. Yes, we don't need giant flashy effects or lots of animation, but that doesn't mean that the most functional design is the most minimal.

Also, it's kind've ironic that you can now have a 5k display to show off your flat, monochrome circles...

<comment><USER41> This. Shadows (fake 3D), textures, colors, and other elements may seem like a gimmick, but they are fundamentally crucial in visual cognition of the UI. What's sad is that so much UI design is driven by meaningless trends instead of more precise research data on how well UI elements work.

<comment><USER42> Are they actually crucial, though? There was a _ton_ of gnashing of teeth about iOS 7 (and other "flat" designs) but one rarely hears those anymore… and it's not at all clear to me that less-savvy users are having more trouble operating their devices than they did a couple of years ago. In fact, it seems just the opposite, that these devices have steadily continued to integrate themselves into people's lives more than ever before. Come to think of it, it seems that the gnashing of teeth has shifted to that (these screens that we spend our lives staring at!) over the last year or two.

I'm sure there have been at least some regressions in some aspects of some user performance measurements, but it seems really clear at this point that it hasn't been a catastrophe… or even a significant problem.

<comment><USER43> It takes me significantly longer to identify control elements under the new design bible, especially the un-bordered text "buttons". Smart phones are taking off _despite_ this, not because of it - it's because of the massive new capabilities they afford people.

<comment><USER44> >It takes me significantly longer to identify control elements under the new design bible.< xCode buttons are a problem for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Upgrading now: 5.16 gigs. Hah! This is going to take all night. Looks like everyone's downloading it at the same time.

I was quite impressed by 10.10 from the Keynote a few weeks ago, and I'm looking forward to experiencing some of that. No iPhone so can't enjoy that level of integration, but perhaps my iPad will be happier.

Meanwhile I have a Nexus 5 on order, and I'm debugging problems with my Linux PC's new motherboard. Certainly Linux on a roll-your-own hardware platform is a different world from the slick, smooth Apple experience. I like both for what they can do but the Apple is becoming my go-to front end while the Linux machine is becoming more of a server and back-end tool.

<comment><USER46> Took around half an hour to download for me a couple of hours ago. (I'm in Australia, and one of the few blessed with a 'decent' internet connection)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Just a personal note.

I really don't need the grays/white/blacks of past operating systems. The initial setting for my quick bar just looks horrid, little icons on a dark gray background.

Everything looks so 16bit. I understand it bleeds through the background color, I would just prefer to have no background on the dock and have the icons float

</comment><comment><USER48> Does anyone know if Mail app now supports "cloud" search for Gmail? i.e. you don't need to download ALL your Gmail to local machine to be able to search. My SSD is quickly getting filled up and this is becoming one huge pain point.

</comment><comment><USER49> Have they improved the Mac App Store updates yet? It shocks the mind to think that forcing users to re-download entire apps rather than just the stuff that's changed is apparently a hard problem to solve for Apple.

</comment><comment><USER50> On my 2013 Macbook pro the wifi seems to be exceptionally slow after upgrading to Yosemite. Seeing speeds < 600K after the upgrade. Usually see ~6 MBps.

</comment><comment><USER51> I really hope it has dark theme as I imagined it to be, since current light- grey really distracts me when programming in dark theme editor/terminal.

</comment><comment><USER52> Mavericks is not an obscure surfing destination.

<comment><USER53> Anyone who isn't a surfer and lives outside of CA likely hasn't heard of it. It's obscure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Absolutely ugly and tasteless design. Default theme is hideous black bold font on white background, large swaths of white everywhere. Dark theme is just inconsistent. Window titlebars are pale whitish, with black menu bar with white font on it.

Dock, is 2d until you roll over it, then icons pop out of it and it looks like it is 3d.

This is it, Apple is the new Microsoft. Frankly, and I can't believe I would ever be saying something like this but Windows 7 now looks better and more consistent.

</comment><comment><USER55> My camera on my 2013 Retina Macbook Pro doesn't work post-upgrade, FYI.

</comment><comment><USER56> Just installed it. It freed 7GB on my Macbook Air's flash drive. Nice!</comment>


Show HN: Sity – share what you've done with your team and give feedback - <AUTHOR> http://sity.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hi Everyone we recently launched our app Sity. Sity is an app for teams that allows people to share what they've done, give feedback, and track skill growth. More and more companies today such as Accenture, GE, Adobe, and GAP are ditching the traditional performance management process. Instead of waiting a year to give feedback and track employee growth you can see what your employees/teammates are up to on a daily basis without disrupting with your workflow. Giving and receiving in the moment feedback has never been more seamless and action specific. You can also view individual profiles to see what people have done over time, and tag skills in your own posts/updates that can be tracked for professional growth and development.

If you would like to try it out or give feedback please feel free to sign up via this link for HN readers: [http://team.sity.io/?action=signup&ref=hn](http://team.sity.io/?action=signup&ref=hn)

By using this link you will get a 31 day free trial vs our normal 14 day free trial.

Thanks for checking it out!

</comment><comment><USER2> I've always liked the idea of [https://home.idonethis.com/](https://home.idonethis.com/). It's good to know there's an alternative, not to say that it is the same thing, but has something of that, right?

Much better to say what you did than to just hear what you must do.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup iDoneThis definitely crossed my mind. I used to be a customer of them at my last startup.

We do offer public and private feedback on a specific update as well as skills tags to refer back to complete work by skill.

We wanted to add some additional features but we did not want to overdo it at launch. We have more plans in the future but we would like some small teams to try it out and see what they like and dislike. Give it a try and let me know what you think. email@example.com

<comment><USER2> Thank you. I don't a have a team that is able to use this, but I will sure recommend you whenever I find an opportunity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Could you post a video of how it works?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure thing!

Video 1: Sity Intro Promo Video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVQW- HVymtg&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVQW- HVymtg&feature=youtu.be)

Video 2: Sity App Demo [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3zNsAg0ctI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3zNsAg0ctI)

Sorry if the video production value is not that high. We are currently focused on the launch and getting paying customers. Once we are a bit more established we will have some better videos for you.

If you have any questions or would like to try it out feel free to sign up and reach out firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER3> Thank you. I wish you the best of luck with the project.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Customers and Revenue - <AUTHOR>

You read all of the time that 20% of your customers contribute 80% of your revenue (and the obvious corollary.)
Many distributions of revenue across your customer base can lead to this result.
My question is can anything be told about your growth based on a more specific look at this distribution?
For instance, you might be worried if you had one customer bringing in 75% of that revenue or if there was a "cliff" anywhere in that distribution (or if 20% brought in 20%.)  Similarly if 20% of your customers bring in 40% of your revenue what is that indicative of?
Thanks for the thoughts... <comment><USER2> If you get in the position where one customer dominates your revenue, it can dictate your development plans and may lead you down a path that you dont want to go. If 20% of your customers bring in 40% of your revenue, I would call that balance. If 40% of your customers bring in 10% of your revenue, you may want to get rid of them, especially the high maintenance ones.</comment>


Four years ago the NY Times said "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" - <AUTHOR>

Four years ago the NY Times said "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=369932
Well, it would appear that Detroit has indeed filed for bankruptcy:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066361 Detroit emergency manager files bankruptcy (sfgate.com)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066354
Detroit Files for Chapter 9 Bankruptcy (online.wsj.com)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066318
Detroit Bankruptcy Petition (scribd.com)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066297
Detroit files for bankruptcy (nytimes.com)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066282
Detroit emergency manager files largest municipal bankruptcy in US history (washingtonpost.com)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066245
Detroit files for Chapter 9 bankruptcy amid staggering debts (freep.com) <comment><AUTHOR> Clickables:

Initial call:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=369932](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=369932) (nytimes.com)

This has the discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066245](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066245) (freep.com)

Other submissions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066361](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066361) (sfgate.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066354](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066354) (online.wsj.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066318](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066318) (scribd.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066297](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066297) (nytimes.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066282](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6066282) (washingtonpost.com)</comment>


Technical Hiring and Cultural Fit - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fogcreek.com/technical-hiring-and-cultural-fit-interview-with-johanna-rothman/ <comment><USER2> How do you know that the culture you're hiring for is all that great for getting results?

Is this culture the one you're going to need in the future?

What if you have a need, and there's nobody that fits your culture? If you're understaffed, is it really better to keep asking your staff to work extra while you satisfy the culture requirement, even if it's just while someone ramps up?

Lastly, "culture" seems to be another way of saying "we don't really know what works, so we just look for people we personally like".

I've worked with many people I didn't like, or even got along with (I'm sure others could say the same of me). Focusing on tasks and goals, communicating regularly, and having decent work habits went very far.

</comment><comment><USER3> We've done away with "Cultural fit" interviews at our company as we found they didn't actually do anything for us, maybe we just did them wrong?

Has anyone actually found a use for cultural fit? I mean its not like they help weed out jerks. If someone is a jerk they'll either be a jerk in all interviews or be on their best behavior until they're hired.

What should we be looking for in a cultural fit interview that isn't just "looks like us, works like us plays like us"?

<comment><USER4> I use culture fit as a reverse filter. We show the candidate a pretty open view of what working for us is like and let them decide if they're excited or turned off.

<comment><USER5> I think this is by far the best approach. If I were treated this way during an interview process, I would have a great deal more respect for the organization and manager.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > When I wanted to hire women, I looked for women. I have been very successful > in hiring a diverse team.

This never sits right with me. Diversity for the sake of diversity.

> Once you've learned one or two computer languages, you can learn any > computer language.

It helps but going from one disparate stack to another can be troublesome for many I've worked with. Almost a complete non-starter, ie going from .NET + sql server to python + django + web services or from Java + hibernate to nodejs + angularjs.

<comment><USER7> _Almost_ everything boils down to time.

What I've found difficult to work with is people that think that anything they do has "magical" properties. I.E., they don't actually understand at least one abstraction level. That also boils down to time(and willingness, and a proper mentor). But it is a different order of magnitude, depending on what is missing.

Learning new programming languages is easy (except Haskell, attempt no landing there) and is also a matter of time. Learning the ecosystem that goes with it takes longer (again, time). Learning how to code idiomatically requires experience (time once more, but only if actively programming).

<comment><USER8> Yes, it's like the Niels Bohr quote, "An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field." You have to determine if you need someone who is an expert now, or can become an expert. If you have a bunch of experts already, you can relax the requirement for new people because of knowledge transfer. (Assuming you're good about that.)

But we must acknowledge the amount of time that people spend in jobs now. If it takes a year to gain mastery and people leave after 2, like you said, there's just not enough time for people to learn from scratch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We need to work together to make culture-fit a bad word. "Culture fit" means discrimination along dimensions that shall not be named, for were they to be named they would be illegal.

<comment><USER10> What are your thoughts on hiring someone you want to work with vs hiring someone you don't want to work with?

<comment><USER11> What happens when you want to work with is indirectly based on a protected class (for example, it isn't that you want to work with a man, but you want to work with someone who fits a list of qualifications that excludes most women but very few men)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wonder how many glitches we see today are because everyone gets along and doesn't know how to fix the issues. Sometimes disagreeable people are like that because we are tired of the stupid. ( hypothetically of course )

<comment><USER13> What? What does getting along with your coworkers have to do with fixing anything? Are disagreeable people better at fixing glitches?

<comment><USER9> He's talking about groupthink.

<comment><USER12> Which is what happens when you get a common culture and hire only those who fit in it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When we say we want diversity, I think we tend to mean we want diversity of perspective and experience and way of thinking. But when we try to implement diversity, we tend to do it by body shapes and colors and genders.

> I think the biggest thing is to acknowledge that we are all human and we > like people ...

This sentence was off to such a good start!

</comment><comment><USER15> Jerks and culture misfits need jobs too. If you deny them, one day we might all end up working for them. Misfits and jerks found the industry. Myers Briggs personality test, which was a standard practice once is now irrelevant in the tech industry and its a good thing. Those personality tests would disqualify many good tech professions.

It has been hard for me to have any strong opinions about hiring. Many people disproved all previous assumptions. Skills do matter, some people are much better than others. Some people are good to talk to and are comforting to be around but they don't get the job done. They can use their soft skills to convince you why something was impossible to do.

Problem solving skills, learning skills, risk taking behavior, passion for something, tenacity, optimism etc are also very important in judging a candidate for a technical role.

<comment><USER16> > _Jerks and culture misfits need jobs too._

Why can't the jerks learn to get along with people? Why must we, collectively, bend over backwards to put up with their bullshit?

Culture misfits, sure - some people just aren't super personable, but are still good at their job. But being a jerk is a choice, and one that not many people are willing to put up with.

<comment><USER17> >Why can't the jerks learn to get along with people?

In some cases, wouldn't the answer be mental health issues (eg. autism)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm not from US, but I wonder, in the context of the current cultural shift and war on gay marriage, how are software companies looking at personal opinions on cultural matters like this one? Will that guy in the corner, who politely holds his views on a sensitive matter like gay marriage, make everyone else uncomfortable and, eventually, he'll have to leave?

<comment><USER19> This happened at Mozilla.

<comment><USER5> That was the CEO though. Leaders will always (and should always) be treated differently than employees when it comes to personal views. Leaders often become de facto company spokespersons, and being outspoken against a lifestyle that your subordinates may engage in can have a lot of negative impacts at work, if your opinion is not clearly the majority opinion. This is especially true of the CEO—the 'face' of the company and main decision-maker.

So, I don't think what happened at Mozilla is a good example of the whole "guy in the corner" thing.

<comment><USER19> I've never been to Mozilla, so I have no idea what actually goes on in there.

<comment><USER5> We're referring to this: [http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/03/us- mozilla-ceo-res...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/04/03/us-mozilla-ceo- resignation-idUSBREA321Y320140403)

<comment><USER19> I know, but I'm not sure CEO is a standard unit. Was/is Brenden Eich a "guy in the corner"? I have no idea because I've never worked with him.

Does the CEO of Mozilla perform any type of leadership role? I also don't know, as I've never worked there or been there while others were working.

<comment><USER5> I know right, I mean what is a "programmer," really? What is a job? What is life? ...Is this the Matrix??

<comment><USER19> All, excellent questions.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


US weekly jobless claims jump by 6.6M - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/09/weekly-jobless-claims-report.html <comment><USER2> The Fed conveniently released an announcement about a new $2.3t free money program at the same time. The Fed's actions only serve to confirm what I think a lot of people already know: things are going to get really bad.

It's a bit strange watching the stock market continue to pump knowing many of these companies have had their revenues drop by as much as 100%.

<comment><USER3> On the other hand, hasn't a lot of cash outflow been reduced right now too?

I feel like we're putting the economy on pause. If we can survive in this state for another 3 or so months, there's a good chance things will quickly return to normal - or at least most companies will survive and start rehiring under a new normal.

<comment><USER4> "there's a good chance things will quickly return to normal - or at least most companies will survive and start rehiring under a new normal." Other than optimism and hope, what is your basis here?

<comment><USER5> what's happening is the result of a medical emergency and not the economy. There's no financial reason or economic reason the job losses are so high. It's still there, the demand is still there, we artificially halted the economy and that generated the job loss. It's certainly not an on/off situation but the job demand is still there and we can get back to work.

<comment><USER6> This concept of an economy as some sort of Platonic ideal, disconnected from the processes of the polity in which it exists, is very odd to me.

It seems like having your heart stop and saying it isn't a "real" emergency, because the organs are all still there and ready to get back to work as soon as oxygenated blood starts arriving again. Sure, that's true for a minute or so, maybe two if you're young and healthy. After that...

<comment><USER5> well take the analogy further, in this case to save the patient's life you have to stop the heart from beating for a time but that doesn't imply the patient has suffered a heart attack.

<comment><USER6> In that case, the analogy is to open-heart surgery, which typically results in significantly reduced capacity for a long time at best, and often permanently. It's certainly not something you bounce back from quickly or easily, and even if you're young and in perfect physical health, you have to be pretty lucky to come back all the way.

Staying within the increasingly strained analogy, I don't think it is reasonable to describe the US economy as "young" or "in perfect physical health", or indeed even as anywhere close to either of those. This is more like doing an emergency sextuple bypass on an obese 70-year-old with a lifelong pack-a-day habit - even if the patient comes off the table alive, it's going to take a long and careful period of physical therapy and recovery to keep him that way, and he's almost certainly never going to recover all of even the limited capacity he had before the crisis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is the stock market connected to reality anymore? 16 million Americans lost their jobs in three weeks and in that time there's been a substantial rally.

This can't just be short covering. What gives?

<comment><USER8> I think we've known for a while that the stock market is not the economy. My two cents:

1) Uncertainty is anathema to markets. At the beginning of the crisis, there was a ton of uncertainty about how the disease would progress, what it's impact on supply chains would be globally, and how governments would respond. In the last few weeks, the US has gotten a lot more information on how things progress, "flatten the curve strategies" are appearing to work (which reduces uncertainty), supply chains are still very strong and, for staple goods/services, only minority affected, and the central banks of the world are issuing a MASSIVE amount of short term liquidity to prevent credit crunches.

2) (this is a bit more cynical). I suspect the productivity of a huge number of Americans, particularly in service roles, has disproportionately less impact on the economic productivity of publicly traded companies. In other words, many jobs are disposable without impacting the financial health of companies in the stock market. Small businesses are being gutted, and so is a lot of big retail, but it's been too short of a time for those effects to make a dent in how many of the publicly traded businesses are operating.

<comment><USER9> I agree with your comment, but I'll add that pessimistically, I feel that for reality these 'service roles' might end up having a much larger impact that we expect, and the discrepancy will have untold, unexpected consequences. A crisis like this one might make us realize what truly matters. It also might not, which at this point I'm half-expecting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> _we've now lost 10% of workforce in three weeks_

I'm a little surprised it's not higher.

I assumed with bars, gyms, retail, house cleaners (and not to mention wait staff at restaurants) all out of a job indefinitely that those folks made up >10% of the workforce.

<comment><USER7> It is definitely much higher. Many states' unemployment systems are woefully inadequate.

Florida (but probably other states too) intentionally made the unemployment claims system painful/impossible to navigate:

> _"It wasn't about saving money. It was about making it harder for people to > get benefits or keep benefits so that the unemployment numbers were low to > give the governor something to brag about."_

[https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/04/03/its...](https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2020/04/03/its- a-sh-sandwich-republicans-rage-as-florida-becomes-a-nightmare-for- trump-1271172)

<comment><USER11> Maybe Floridians should vote in their best interest then..

<comment><USER12> Floridians are trying.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Florida_Amendment_4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Florida_Amendment_4)

The legislature and Governor took a look at the 65% vote and went "nah", though, and put a bunch of _new_ obstacles in place to override the voters.

<comment><USER13> Not like Florida Republicans are the only offenders there. 59% voted in favor of California's "let's check if people are illegal immigrants" amendment back in 1994 [0], but then the incoming Democratic governor refused to defend it in court. (Sure, it may have actually been unconstitutional, but considering it's basically the opposite of 'sanctuary cities'...)

Denying the public the benefit of politically inconvenient propositions is a long tradition in the US.

0: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_California_Proposition_18...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_California_Proposition_187)

<comment><USER12> > California's "let's check if people are illegal immigrants" amendment

That's a really disingenuous description of an amendment intended to "prohibit undocumented immigrants from using non-emergency health care, public education, and other services".

> Sure, it may have actually been unconstitutional...

It's funny that this is waved away as a minor issue, as if it weren't a _giant difference_ between the two situations you're trying to draw a comparison between.

<comment><USER13> I mean, that's a better description than calling it "Save Our State"... but yes, the goal of the amendment was to reduce the services provided to illegal immigrants. Perhaps I should have said "let's check if people are illegal immigrants before providing non-emergency services", but too late to edit now. Whether this is a good idea is very much in question, but that's also the case for letting felons vote.

The "might have been unconstitutional" was a "no, this genuinely might have passed muster in the courts if it was actually defended". What actually happened was that an injunction was placed against implementation of the proposition, and the state never appealed. Probably worth noting that the logic used in the injunction - that it was unconstitutional on the basis that it infringed on the federal government's exclusive jurisdiction over matters relating to immigration - would also (IMO) prevent sanctuary cities from existing, except that inaction is generally (and correctly) privileged above action.

<comment><USER11> You should look at how these clinics are funded.

<comment><USER13> Clinics?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is the number expected to be this high? I thought one of the core ideas of the stimulus was to prevent firing by giving small businesses a "free" loan if they retained their employees?

I've been trying to find a good authority on the economics of this stimulus but it seems I am always stuck finding the same "rehashed" news articles.

<comment><USER15> The core ideas were reported upon, the real purpose is to bail out the banks (once again) and the fortune 500 companies. Very little is going to the people hardest hit.

<comment><USER16> This is false, the plan specifically targeted small businesses: [https://www.sba.gov/page/coronavirus-covid-19-small- business...](https://www.sba.gov/page/coronavirus-covid-19-small-business- guidance-loan-resources)

<comment><USER17> You mean the money being managed by the person Trump just fired?

<comment><USER17> Here, would you like proof?

[https://www.latimes.com/world- nation/story/2020-04-07/trump-...](https://www.latimes.com/world- nation/story/2020-04-07/trump-upends-virus-oversight-removing-key-official)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> And yet, stocks continue their quick rebound.

<comment><USER19> The virus will peak soon, quarantine will start easing, and the economy will start to resume.

<comment><USER20> Why / how will the virus peak soon?

Global population is ~7.8 billion and yet presumably only 10-100s of millions have caught it so far.

<comment><USER12> At the rough 33% increase rate the virus is showing, 10 million is 20 in three days. 40 in 6. 80 in 9. 160 in 12.

Social distancing is slowing that down a bit, but I suspect in the coming week or two we'll learn it's been spreading like wildfire in places like Florida and Alabama where they've been slow to clamp down on social activity.

Exponential growth can be hard to wrap heads around. That said, I think "peak" is a misnomer. We'll have a bunch of peaks.

<comment><USER4> Definitely cyclical...and so will the economy which will make any economic recovery more drawn out and difficult as we experience more ups and downs in day to day life.

Plus now we'll have a bunch of companies on the dole who otherwise wouldn't be in business/re-open and it will become even more surreal when the market can't sort out which companies are existing naturally and which ones are fully propped up (esp. if there is no oversight = impossible to track).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is this much job loss happening elsewhere, like Europe?

<comment><USER22> Yes. Spain lost about 10% of its workforce in March. Italy is expected to go from projected 0.5% GDP growth to -3% (or even up to -10% by some projections). I saw one estimate that 60% of Italy's manufacturing plant was shut down by COVID.

<comment><USER4> So how can reality be determined when employment has become such a facade?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> According to my calculation, minimum wage employees can now get twice in unemployment benefits (for at least 4 months) than his/her original wage.

So based on that, even if the economy is open, I failed to see what would incentivize people to return to work.

<comment><USER6> Unemployment insurance payout per month is usually capped based on what you made at the job you had before you went on it. One assumes that will again be the case once the current crisis is considered to have ended.

Unemployment insurance payouts are also time-bound. You don't go on unemployment and stay on it indefinitely; after a few months, barring a rare and hard-to-obtain extension, the benefit ends.

<comment><USER23> Agree. So I assume that most of the unemployment is in the travel/hospitality/restaurants/retail (etc).

Hence, even after the economy is open, it would be hard to get those people back to work until the "enhanced" benefits run out.

I.e. I expect to see a lot of restaurants/hotels open but with no employees. Or, they will be employees, but their wages will have to be increased by 50%, which would cause runaway inflation.

If this happens, this might lead to spike in automation (AI).

<comment><USER24> The industries you mention are unlikely to be amendable to increased automation. That's why service jobs have grown over the last decade or so, compared with manufacturing.

And paying supermarket cashiers decent wages isn't going to create inflation because it doesn't change the total amount of money in circulation. Productivity will just be redirected from building super yachts to poorer children's school supplies (cliches for added clarity).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> And yet the stock market goes higher...

</comment><comment><USER26> This is terrifying

</comment><comment><USER27> Doesn't matter since Jerome Powell nationalized the stock market and is just printing money to inflate it. It's all priced in.</comment>


For those too young to remember, this is what a recession looks like  - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2245165,00.html <comment><USER2> I remember my Dad telling me about my grandfather in the depression. He was born about the turn of the century and ran an EE shop, wiring up businesses in the busy manufacturing centre of Aus, Melbourne. He was in his 20/30's when the depression hit. Out on the streets one day, a man happened to come up to him and ask if he could have the _"core"_ of the apple he was eating.

His reply? _"No. I'm going to eat it all. There will be no core"_.

 _"... I really don't see the point of that article. ..."_

When I read this comment, it tells me the reader hasn't registered that the rules have just changed. Drastically. [0] Just like depression story above where something seemingly as worthless as an apple core could be someone else's only opportunity.

The era of cheap finance is over. [1] Businesses are now in survival mode. So trying to convince them to part with money has now become a whole lot harder. If you have a job, you can loose it, through no fault of your own. If you don't have a job, getting one that you like might become very difficult indeed. Especially if the industry you are working in is hit financially hard. Innovative thinking is out. Rationalisation is in.

The suits are going to hit back at the _"smart-arse"_ 20yo's who are well paid, wear shorts & t-shirts to work, read their favourite web2.0 websites and get in late... regardless if they do the job well. Because they can! [2]

For business, a new mindset is now required to operate. Spruiking to everyone you have lots of users instead of paying customers tells everyone you are most likely bleeding cash and therefore avoid your business. Cash is king. Debt is now un-sexy. [3] The price of doing business should get cheaper.

Good news for startups. The point of the article is simple. Remind those who have forgotten and those who have yet to experience a recession, the rules have all changed.

Adapt your thinking accordingly.

[0] You could argue the basics of business don't really change and any fool can make money in a boom.

[1] For the time being. Recessions don't last for ever.

[2] Read here for details ~ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=88525>

[3] If it ever was outside the geared world of finance.

</comment><comment><USER3> For those in their twenties, you remember the last recession just fine. It was in the early naughts. <http://www.bea.gov/briefrm/gdp.htm>

You might recall that it was short and not that big of a deal.

Some people have been eagerly waiting for this recession for half a decade, so the excitability is understandable.

<comment><USER4> I landed in the bay area in 2002, and it wasn't _that_ big a deal, but it was rough trying to find jobs, because the market was so flooded with people. In the cases where I got in for an interview and could show people what was what, I usually got the gig (I was doing contracting), but it was harder to get those interviews.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That's just snark. What a recession really looks like is a father sitting uncomfortably at a dinner table eating food he didn't buy himself.

</comment><comment><USER6> "Pop-ups won't pop-up so often" - love the style of that article (really). I think it is meant as a parody anyway.

</comment><comment><USER7> Actually, one key factor about recessions that the article doesn't mention is the "binaryness" of it all.

If you're working full time, you probably won't notice a whole lot of change.

But if you're out of work, scrambling for low wage part time work, or running a business with a noticeable drop in revenue, life will starting sucking a whole lot, right away, and in ways that the OP didn't even come close to describing.

<comment><USER8> I don't think a recession would impact me negatively whatsoever. Perhaps I might further reduce costs slightly. I do know many people that would get hit hard right now if things went south.

However, if we hit a full out depression I could potentially be impacted, however there would be plenty of opportunity in such an environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I really don't see the point of that article. It doesn't even try to hide its patronising tone. Sounds to me like yet another tirade about how our generation leads such a sheltered life, etc. etc.

Yawn.

<comment><USER7> Yes, the article was patronising. A tirade? Not sure about that.

I don't know what generation you're in, but I do know that the past 10 years or so have been a breeze compared to what was before. So, if you don't remember the early 90's, or especially the 70's (they really sucked!), be prepared for a change.

I sure hope you have full time work (or a nice business) and come through this OK. Only then may your yawn may be justified.

<comment><USER10> "Patronizing" is an understatement. What a tool this writer is.

Recessions can suck, but -- as another replier said -- it's not an opportunity for "what's the matter with kids these days" jealousy. I started my career in 1989 and it took me over a year to land a job. In 1991 I had to quit because of a family emergency, and didn't work again until 1993. The recession played a large part in that. But I don't begrudge those who _haven't_ had harder times for a second. Envious? Sure. But good for them. Seriously.

Oh, besides: we're not in a recession yet, and 60% of the reason we'll end up in one is because the entire world is now repeating "we're in a recession" as if it's some kind of robotic mantra. If you believe it, you will make it come.

I often think that recessions are more the result of Catholic guilt (Protestant guilt? Jewish guilt?) than real economics. Read articles in the WSJ and the writers will actually say things like "oh, it's about time, we really deserve this, things have been to good for too long" as if God Himself is going to render judgement. We've stayed up too late, and now Daddy is going to punish us. I beg these people: go to therapy (while you can still afford it) and leave your childhood problems out of this.

</rant> <blush>

<comment><USER7> Funny, when I first read it, I thought the whole thing was tongue in cheek satire. Now, I'm not so sure. Maybe the lesson is that, unless you're onion, save the satire for when you're in person so you can make sure the recipient knows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Well, maybe it's time to balance the economy.

<comment><USER10> If you mean "stop using the government to hand large bundles of tax dollars to the ultra-rich" then one can't help but agree with you.

If you mean "things have been too good for too long and now we have to pay for it because we deserve it" then: the economy isn't your Daddy. It's just a market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> maybe you have to be living in the uk to get the humour?</comment>


Evidence mounts that water exists in two liquid forms - <AUTHOR> https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/evidence-mounts-that-water-has-two-liquid-forms/3008766.article <comment><AUTHOR> Even something like water is so complicated</comment>


A "gold standard" study finds deleting Facebook is great for your mental health - <AUTHOR> https://www.salon.com/2019/01/30/a-gold-standard-study-finds-deleting-facebook-is-great-for-your-mental-health/ <comment><USER2> This is the second article discussing the same study. Previous thread was based on the NYT article [1] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19041021](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19041021)

Very interesting to see the difference in tone in the headline alone between NYT and Salon.

* NYT - This Is Your Brain Off Facebook. Planning on quitting the social platform? A major new study offers a glimpse of what unplugging might do for your life. (Spoiler: It's not so bad.)

* Salon - A "gold standard" study finds deleting Facebook is great for your mental health. A unique study praised for its rigor finds numerous upsides to deactivating your Facebook account.

[1] - [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/30/health/facebook- psycholog...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/30/health/facebook-psychology- health.html)

<comment><USER3> Having read the Times article, which I found very informative and balanced, this highly editorialized headline makes me uneasy, especially because this one already has twice as many upvotes. I feel like we're living in a bizzaro- world where objectivity doesn't matter and all of reality is becoming a sleazy used car lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I despise facebook, but salon's article is ... clickbait. The results of the study are generally positive, but fairly small, and I wouldn't describe their stats as any kind of "gold standard." I don't think the study should be praised for its rigor either. It's extremely mooshy, and I'm certain someone FB friendly could do the same study and easily get a different result. Look at the plots of the data in the appendices; they're silly:

[http://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf](http://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/facebook.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER5> I quite liked facebook. I don't have the urge to constantly check it, nor post much on it, but it was useful for events, casually keeping up with life events of acquaintances, and keeping a rolodex of semi-friends (e.g. people I met on holiday and would like to run into again).

I deleted it because the company seems thoroughly evil and doesn't respect my privacy. But if anyone comes up with a privacy-respecting alternative I'd be more than happy to become on of their first adopters.

<comment><USER6> The problem with the alternatives is they don't have the budget and installed user base Facebook has. Sure, you'll get techie people to jump on board at first (remember Google+?), but all the family members who don't know a Twitter from an Amazon will stick with Facebook because the constant negative Facebook press isn't enough to get them to leave and no longer see pictures of their baby grandson. I'm not sure what the solution to this is.

<comment><USER7> I think the solution is for a photo sharing site to win over the tech crowd with well-thought-out, fine-grained privacy controls and a sustainable business model and then to make it dead easy for non-tech people to share their photos with other non-tech people.

ie. I create a single account and my friends each create a single account and I create groups out of those friends, and then I share my photos with a group, and my friends can see and perhaps comment on the photos that have been shared with them.

How much would it cost per user per month to make this sustainably ad-free?

<comment><USER8> Just my 2 cents - but I would be ok with light, non-invasive advertising, like that by which DuckDuckGo operates:

[https://fourweekmba.com/duckduckgo-business- model/](https://fourweekmba.com/duckduckgo-business-model/)

<comment><USER9> This. I'd rather like the advertising model turned inside out - like the old days if you will. Instead of targeting me, target the content. If I'm looking at an article about sleep show me a few limited mattress ads. It doesn't have to track me after/before. Nothing goes into my account that says I have a sleep disorder.

I hate ads in general and so provide me an option to pay for and remove it as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You don't have to quit Facebook to get the mental health benefits.

All you have to do is unfollow everyone! Literally everyone. Your feed will be blank and peaceful, but you will still be able to maintain a presence on messenger and maintain your profile for people to reach you. You can also still interact with private Facebook groups and things, if you want.

This is what I did, and it curbed my addiction to checking facebook.

After a while, I slowly started following specific people again (mainly just the people I interact with on a daily basis, and the few family members that I can actually stand).

The moment someone starts stressing me out by posting nonsense or clutter, they get unfollowed.

It's very zen, and my mental health has drastically improved from it.

P.S. If you Google "Facebook Unfollow All", there are multiple tools and things like browser extensions which make this as simple as one button press to accomplish. It can be pretty tedious to do manually by hand if you have a lot of friends.

<comment><USER11> This was my approach as well, and I can highly vouch for it. I found myself checking facebook at a party, or with friends. And caught myself doing it and felt really, really stupid because of it. But I have a lot of friends that schedule events purely on facebook or only contact me on messenger. So I unfollowed everyone

I sometimes check specific pages of my friends, but I am more prone to just contacting them and asking them how they are doing specifically. As a result, some people have been pushed away, others have been pulled closer, and I've found who I genuinely wanted to hear from and communicate with.

Though this plus restricting who can see my profile in the first place does sometimes make it a bit difficult for people who I've casually met to reconnect with me. Maybe I'll loosen that up a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Anecdotally I use Facebook to coordinate social events with friends and find that it's been a helpful tool to easily keep in touch with friends. I've reconnected with friends through it too. I try and avoid political things and post a lot of cat pictures from a local cat shelter that I volunteer at, which people seem to enjoy. I dunno, I just try and keep my feed filled with mostly positive/upbeat things so maybe that helps?

<comment><USER13> > I just try and keep my feed filled with mostly positive/upbeat things

You know Zuck has experimented with making people's feeds negative to see the impact on their usage?

I get Facebook works for you, but consider the company is run by a truly evil and insidious man. As an organizer consider helping people leave.

<comment><USER14> One of my social groups made our own personal space for organising events and after 6 months we went back to Facebook because every other social group didn't leave.

So you get a new platform, but if you only do one event every few months then there is no really no reason to check it, and then suddenly no one is doing events.

Like it or not, Facebook is the modern yellowpages and you need something everyone is on to replace it. I think that's going to happen sooner or later.

It's anecdotal of course, but very few people in my social circle use Facebook for anything but organising events, and you don't need their app, messenger or even to log on more than once in a while to do that. If you couple that with the fact that everyone is tired of their bullshit, I think they seem ripe for disruption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I suggest people actually look at the plots in the paper. As an example, on P55, they show the effects on subjective well being for many metrics (life satisfaction, loneliness, etc). Note that a number of these metrics have a large enough standard deviation that it spans both the positive and negative range.

Most news outlets focus only on the mean (most of which are positive). But when your standard deviation is large enough to change the sign, don't put much stock in the outcome. If there's one thing that was hammered into my head when I took statistics, it's that a confidence interval of (-1, 5) does _not_ mean the true value is more likely close to 2 (or positive, or whatever). There's no valid reason to focus on the positive values more, when your confidence interval crosses the zero point.

</comment><comment><USER16> Can confirm. I tried deactivating and then cutting down but that just never works. Deleting is the way to go.

Old friends you want to connect with? There's always email and a phone number. People actually reach out to me outside of that awful service to say "Hey Foo is in town" or "We're having a reunion for Bar".

Just delete it, notify people first, save the images you want, and torch it. Everything incremental just allows you joining it again later which Facebook is more than happy to facilitate.

<comment><USER17> It's a lot more difficult to do, but a deep cull of your friend list might replicate a lot of the value. Those acquaintances you met ten years ago and haven't spoken to since? Unfriend or at least unfollow. Get it down to the people you actually talk to & care about.

<comment><USER16> People reconnected with such acquaintances a couple decades ago without Facebook.

I find not having FB way better for those relationships anyways, instead of creepily knowing their life story since I stopped seeing them )because of FB) we have something to reconnect and talk about if I do run into them.

And I did manage my FB friends well, I deleted it when I realized FB facilitated those conversations in ways I hated and most of my feeds was ads anyways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I can confirm. I deleted the FB app, and deactivated my account for months and it was pretty fantastic.

The problem for me now is that I'm a Clemson alum and Clemson is doing awesome right now...so I reactivated my Facebook just to celebrate everything with all my friends from college.

I ended up finding a fairly happy medium of unfollowing every person who posts anything even remotely political (even if I agree with it) and now my feed is essentially football trash talking + friends celebrating life events.

<comment><USER19> So it was fantastic, right up until the point that it wasn't? That's the whole point. Most people feel a _need_ for Facebook for some reason or other.

<comment><USER20> > So it was fantastic, right up until the point that it wasn't?

They seem to have found a happy medium with Facebook, which seems to be the key with social media - stay in contact, but don't let it rule your life. That, as well as pretty much everything else requires finding a balance. Things that fit that "great until it's not" description:

\- Eating Chocolate Cake \- Sex \- Programming \- Driving \- Fasting \- Being Awake \- Sleeping \- Not Working

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I unplugged from Facebook a few months ago. I haven't deleted my account because I have some contacts that I have no other way of getting in touch with, but I probably login to see if any important messages have been sent every 3 weeks and sometimes longer.

Nothing of any value was lost. When I login and see all the garbage spammed at me I ask myself "Why should I care about any of this?"

</comment><comment><USER22> Here's my FB setup that has in fact been good for my MH:

My feed contains:

\- Strongly moderated meme pages based on screenshots from a TV show. No political posts allowed. Everyone's here to partake in the shared enjoyment of a show.

\- Nothing from friends; 1-on-1 is better, and most status updates are networking-style humblebrags anyway.

\- Nothing from news sites; this should be obvious to anyone who's seen how the algorithm operates.

\- Nothing from Events: my event invites (posted on FB) arrive via email notification.

Result? I almost never check my FB except when I actively think about wasting time with some dumb memes.

A big part of why it's hard to leave FB is because it's become a part of people's everyday ritual. I recommend starting to unfollow some pages and people, and see how that impacts your FB use. Slowly, you can taper it off more and more.

<comment><USER23> Would this setup be easier to achieve with Reddit? This is pretty much what I use Reddit for (and then WhatsApp for 1-1, BBC for news, and my calendar for events).

<comment><USER22> This is essentially a Reddit-like setup. I do use FB Messenger to talk to friends but aside from that, FB for me is basically Reddit with real names. I don't really make use of the "social" aspect, as I've had the account since 2005 or so and posting on people's walls became passe around 2010 or so.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Can confirm. Deleted FB half a year ago. Nothing really happened. I still feel in the loop with all my friends and even remember their birthdays. Checking FB was just a noise that kept me distracted during the day.

</comment><comment><USER25> I read things like this and wonder how is my Facebook feed so different. For the most part I just see my friends and family posting about their day and photos of the kids.

</comment><comment><USER26> Anyone think the same holds true for HN? :)

<comment><USER27> In general, many people waste time on internet. The internet and all of its available information is hard to resist (at-least in my case).

I've come up with a fix though! I simply have an addon in firefox that refreshes the web-page in 20 seconds! It is just enough annoyance to give up (especially after I am over halfway though an article..)

<comment><USER5> I use a pomodoro-method timer addon that blocks a certain list of websites when it's ticking.

<comment><USER28> I recommend the procrastination setting. I have it set for 10 minutes -- I just need enough of a kick in the seat to stop wasting my time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I am prepared for this to be a minority opinion, but I liked FB when I joined and I _still_ really like it. There may be many alternatives, but as someone who grew up with an acoustic coupler modem and an Apple //+, I do not take for granted the fact that I can video chat with friends around the world for free with Messenger. In a time of political and social conflict I am soothed by daily stories of the mundane: a kid doing better than expected on a spelling test, or scoring a goal in soccer; an unexpected meetup with an old classmate; or a selfie of someone going on a hike. I get great recipes on FB.

Many friends have quit FB and reported that they feel better, and almost everyone on this thread is reporting the same thing, so there must be something to it. Honestly though, I have a hard time understanding why looking at a FB feed would bother someone. If it is anxiety over privacy, then absolutely, leaving FB absolutely makes sense. I get the feeling that it agitates people for other reasons though, but I am not sure what those are.

<comment><USER30> > In a time of political and social conflict I am soothed by daily stories of > the mundane

I think this is one of the reasons; instead of accepting hardships exist and dealing with them, some people use social media as a filter for life. As such, since they avoid hardships, they never trained on dealing with hardships. I've spoken about it in my comment history, but I think some people lack perseverance/grit in this regard. A gas station cashier may be less motivated to get out of their job for a better career because they are busy getting entertained on their phone rather while than being bored during dead times.

I still have Facebook mostly for planning things with groups, but have all notifications disabled. Now, I only check it once a week to see plans change or if I was tagged in a picture. I just don't care about the rest.

<comment><USER29> It seems like the sign on that equation is wrong though, no? If social media was really a means of avoiding hardships then wouldn't leavers report great angst from withdrawal? Instead they report being happier.

I keep seeing the word _humblebrag_ come up in discussions on FB and I have to wonder if the real reason is that some people see social media as a form of competition. We now see both the good fortunes and misfortunes of people in a much wider global circle, which can provoke either jealousy or anxiety.

> I just don't care about the rest.

Everyone is different I guess. I could never say that I do not care about the welfare of friends and family.

<comment><USER30> > I could never say that I do not care about the welfare of friends and > family.

I never stated that. I don't care about using Facebook to actively follow online personas of my friends. I see them multiple times a week, so I can find out their welfare then. For random people I'm friends with? Eh, less interested in the Tasty video they shared.

> wouldn't leavers report great angst from withdrawal

That's my point - that by not viewing life through a tailored filter, you have to deal with the less pleasant parts. As these are minor hardships and not major tragedies, happiness is coming partially from a sense of being able to "handle" things.

I am not saying this is explicitly where the happiness comes from, but if people quitting social media are reporting higher scores of happiness then either the metrics are wrong or the next question is "why". At which point, what are the factors that cause happiness, and how are those factors formed outside social media?

<comment><USER29> Unrelated, I read some of your posts about your PhD research. Sounds fascinating! Best of luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It would be interesting to see a study on general social media beyond facebook, such as reddit, instagram, hacker news, etc. I can waste hours on non-facebook social media. It's nice for those times I'm tired and just want to kick back and not think too hard. I'm fairly certain it lowers my attention span but I wonder if there are other negative effects.

<comment><USER32> Reddit is basically Twitter with a thin veneer of politeness. My guess would be that it's not good for mental health unless you go fishing for validation by towing the party line in every sub you visit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Obviously one eccentric's anecdote doesn't mean anything for something in-any- way scientific, but I deleted my FB about four years ago after I realized that my primary usage of the platform was arguing with people. I spent hours at a time constructing (what I thought were) brilliant arguments for my obviously super-important viewpoints. Eventually it got bad enough to where I actually lost friends IRL because of it, and I figured it wasn't healthy to dedicate so much time to arguing, and I deleted my account.

I feel like a lot of my time suddenly became free, and I get am overall less stressed out. It could just be a placebo effect, but there's about a zero- percent likelihood that I'll reopen my account any time soon.

</comment><comment><USER34> It's funny that a study is now required to show this. I remember before Facebook was even a thing. Back then, it was just common knowledge that an obsession with one's social life would lead to shallowness and a sense that one's life lacked meaning as well as all sorts of other problems. It took me a while to even get a Facebook account because of this. I think before Facebook people used to have stronger intuitions about the negative sides of popularity contests, the dynamics of group think, and the pressures of conformity.

</comment><comment><USER35> I deleted my fb account 4 years ago. My only regret? Not doing it sooner.

</comment><comment><USER36> Can confirm this is true. When other people deleted their Facebook accounts my mental health improved from no longer seeing their negativity in my feed.

</comment><comment><USER37> _"Those who deactivated also observed a decrease in political polarization and news knowledge, and an increase in subjective well-being."_

Surely not reading Salon and its ilk would also result in this. Half of the toxic political posts on FB originate on sites like Salon, HuffPo... I think they're more at fault for the political polarization of our society than FB which is mainly just a conduit.

<comment><USER38> FB also magnifies the worst posting from these outlets. You get the ultra incendiary stuff shared by everybody, while the more chill stuff doesn't get as much engagement and is ignored. I've been shown "Look at this awful thing!" stories more than once.

<comment><USER39> The ultra incendiary stuff is really just playing to the human propensity to want a witch hunt. Mob rule. Squash what we don't understand and thus fear because our lizard brains are becoming more conditioned to govern our thought processes instead of our adult brain that can reason and think critically. Playing to our emotional brain just feeds this constant cycle of emotion.

Eventually we'll all wake up from our slumber and realize how we've been manipulated for so long, but until then it's just going to be witch hunt after witch hunt.

There's only so long we can succumb to this before we all begin to wonder what the fuck we're doing allowing the media to continually manipulate our own sense of well-being in order to keep the sentiment in favour of their stakeholders.

It's pretty sick, honestly, but eventually we will all wise up to it - it's inevitable. Let's just hope it's before we destroy our humanity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's not accurate to call a study gold standard it fits randomized but the patients can see which arm of the study they ended up in

</comment><comment><USER41> The morally right thing do, if you did not already, is to delete Facebook.

I pity you if fb is running your life.

Heck why do I have a smartphone?

:;)/-&@&)($&!

</comment><comment><USER42> For those not ready to completely delete their facebook account yet, I recommend:

1\. deleting the app

2\. Using a custom facebook style (like this one [1]) which deactivates the news feed. That way you can still use it to check your messages occasionally and have to _actively_ make the decision to scroll through the news feed by deactivating the extension.

3\. Deleting messenger once you have told all relevant people that you will be less reachable through facebook, more through email / signal whatever alternative you use.

I have been using facebook less and less that way and realized how often I was mindlessly scrolling through the feed.

[1] [https://userstyles.org/styles/128616/quiet-facebook- official](https://userstyles.org/styles/128616/quiet-facebook-official)

<comment><USER43> Same. I've been using "News Feed Eradicator for Facebook": [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed- eradicat...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicator- for/fjcldmjmjhkklehbacihaiopjklihlgg?hl=en)

I still keep my FB account for messages and events, since my friends and family won't all delete Facebook en masse, but this has removed a whole bunch of wasted time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> At what cost to your social life and relationships?

<comment><USER21> To be fair most relationships that put an important emphasis on Facebook to be maintained are probably not very important.

<comment><USER44> Personally, Facebook has allowed me to rekindle / develop several relationships.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> On the web app once a week to keep in touch with older relatives. Nothing installed on mobile, no whatsapp/instagram. Loving it.

</comment><comment><USER46> Why isn't this common knowledge? People have been off facebook for a long time. Are people that shallow? That stupid?

</comment><comment><USER47> Never used it. Thought it was complete vanity and laziness as is much of social media.

</comment><comment><USER48> I'm sticking with MySpace

</comment><comment><USER49> Got off fb 5 years ago. Now on instagram is my problem.

</comment><comment><USER50> What is a "gold standard" study?

</comment><comment><USER51> Even better for your mental health is stop reading news.

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad- ro...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/apr/12/news-is-bad-rolf-dobelli)

The truly toxic part of facebook and much of social media today is the amount of news and politics that have been allowed on it.

<comment><USER52> I agree, I actively tried to go on a news diet last year, it was _really_ hard. Especially in the current climate (in the UK and US at least), avoiding news chatter is nearly impossible, and trying to cull your curiosity to read up on such stuff takes serious willpower, even if you cut out the places that inject it into your thoughts (e.g. literally any feed). I find myself compulsively checking news sites at least a few times a day. Obviously (as a Brit), there's nothing but depressing news to be read...

<comment><USER53> The best thing for me was when I went to India for a week. Because the time zones are almost flipped, I slept while all my news sources were active and vice-versa. I basically just checked my news feed once in the morning and once in the evening and life felt much smoother, even though I was doing a lot of fairly stressful work at the time.

It's basically just a morning and evening edition paper.

<comment><USER52> I lived in India for a year and I remember this experience very well! Essentially nothing would change during the day on British/American news sites, and I had no interest in domestic news.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> If Facebook is detrimental to your mental health you're probably a snowflake and should delete facebook.

<comment><USER55> Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? We ban accounts that do that, and you've already done it more than once.

In addition to [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), you might find these links helpful for getting an idea of the spirit of this site:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html)

[http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/hackernews.html)

[http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/trolls.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> It must be depressing working for Facebook knowing you make a negative impact in peoples lives. If their engineers had higher morals they would find a better place to work at

</comment><comment><USER57> If you want to use Facebook for the groups or business purposes, you can disable the news feed. I use the Firefox add-on 'Disable Facebook News Feed' or 'Kill News Feed' on Chrome. If you want to reduce their tracking on Firefox use the tab containers.</comment>


Elon Musk and the Value of Localism-What We Should Do Instead of Going to Mars - <AUTHOR> https://wearenotsaved.com/2020/06/24/elon-musk-and-the-value-of-localism-or-what-we-should-do-instead-of-going-to-mars/ <comment><USER2> I'll have to give it a closer read later, but after skimming through, two things are on my mind:

1\. This doesn't have to be and shouldn't be an either/or sort of thing. There should be lots of people trying lots of different things, _mars colonies included_. Derailing people from what drives them is at best fruitless and at worst destructive.

2\. The writer is too caught up on Mars specifically. The point is to kickstart spacefaring so we do it often enough to elevate our mastery to the same level we've achieved with so many other things. Mars is just the most reasonable vehicle for that.

The mastery mentioned in #2 will eventually bring settlements and industry to dot the entire solar system, which reduces risk of extinction in the near- medium term to near zero and does a lot to prepare humanity for even further disasterproofing (e.g. construction of colossal generation ships and the like becomes feasible).

</comment><comment><USER3> If the only reason for going to Mars was to reduce risk of our species being wiped out, this might make sense. But there are a lot more reasons such as scientific research, tourism, living space, stepping stone to other planets and he stars, that are all just as compelling, and none of which can be done deep underground in a NORAD shelter.

</comment><comment><USER4> The whole Mars thing is just the high tech version of being a prepper, and it's pretty emblematic of the doomsday-ism that's prevalent among American tech billionaires who have somehow disconnected from humanity. Just like they're building themselves bunkers or buying cottages in New Zealand this is I guess just the next logical step.

It's pretty present in all of Musks products. He was once asked why instead of digging expensive tunnels for cars one should not simply invest in public transit, and his response was[1]:

 _" And there's like a bunch of random strangers, one of who might be a serial killer"_

AI is gonna kill us all, instead of fixing our planet we just ought to run to the next one (how we're escaping whatever made us screw up the first one I don't understand yet), and the trains are full of murderers. Whoever supports this and doesn't happen to be among the super-rich, just remember, you're not going to be on the rocket to Mars, and the climate refugees from the third world aren't going to be there either.

[1][https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-awkward-dislike- mass-t...](https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-awkward-dislike-mass- transit/)

</comment><comment><USER5> IMO Mars settlement is an aspirational "badge" of space economic development.

The real value of interplanetary manned transport is asteroid mining. That should payoff the whole enterprise in the short run, and hopefully enable banks orbital habitats and pulse nuclear planetary and interstellar ships (you can't launch them in gravity wells or magnetic shells of earth or the fallout gets guided back to the surface).

The AI grey goo threat is a little weird as a massive danger. Really all the mitigations are bunkers. But a near independent space economy would be a fantastic backup. It's easy to drop people back to Earth for repopulation, and drop in asteroid mined resources as needed.

So the issue is that all the prepper stuff the guy advocates is basically "bunkers", but it's just a sunk insurance cost.

SpaceX/space development gets you so many more bonuses and upside.

</comment><comment><USER6> I feel we should probably build massive rotating space stations first, instead of going to Mars.

At least with rotating space stations, we can generate 1 g of gravity, to simulate the Earth's gravity.

And you're still close to home, for when you get space sick.

I think if the Mars trip ends in the premature deaths of its inhabitants, because of reduced gravity, then this alone will cause the economic failure of the program.

But, alternatively, maybe the solution is to build a centrifuge on Mars, that will spin you around at 1 Earth Gravity. And maybe you need to sit inside this device for 1 hour a day, in order to get your Earth gravity needs.

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting take, but Rockets to Mars are Sexier :-)

</comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone know why the probability of climate change is only ~1 in 1000? As far as I know, there is a consensus of very real threat is already happening and at a high pace.

<comment><USER8> Looking at the previous post:

"Climate Change- I don't deny the reality of climate change, but I have a hard time picturing how it wipes out every last human. Most people when pressed on this issue say that the disruption it causes leads to Nuclear War, which just takes us back to the last item. "

It's a very anthropocentric way of looking at this, but I understand the reasoning

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The one I'm kind of worried about that isn't quite extinction but, some kind of mass genocide where the wealthiest hoard resources to the point most of humanity dies from a lack of resources. It gets much worse than it is today if you factor in some kind of technology that replaces large swaths of the work force. And they create a military machine largely with out humans.</comment>


Unsupervised Learning with Even Less Supervision Using Bayesian Optimization - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sigopt.com/post/140871698423/sigopt-for-ml-unsupervised-learning-with-even <comment><AUTHOR> One of the co-founders of SigOpt (YC W15) here. I'm happy to answer and questions about this post or the methods used. More info on the Bayesian methods behind this can be found at sigopt.com/research as well!

<comment><USER3> Well - just my two cents. The title feels inaccurate. You all are tuning hyper parameters with respect to the performance of the classification task. The bayesian optimization is really to optimize the unsupervised -> supervised pipeline. I was expecting some bayesian optimization of strictly unsupervised representation learning (ex. we have an autoencoder and use some bayesian optimization to tune hyper parameters in order to minimize a reconstruction error). This is really just supervised learning with even less supervision (which is quite typical).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the note!

We're using Bayesian optimization to tune both the hyperparameters of the unsupervised model and the supervised model, but you are correct that they are being done in unison with the overall accuracy being the target. The lift you get from adding the unsupervised step (and tuning it) is quite substantial (and statistically significant).

The idea of tuning just the unsupervised part (or doing it independently) is great though. All the code for the post is available at [https://github.com/sigopt/sigopt- examples/tree/master/unsupe...](https://github.com/sigopt/sigopt- examples/tree/master/unsupervised-model). It would be interesting to see if doing that would make for a better overall accuracy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this the first OHAAS (Optimize Hyperparameters As A Service)?

<comment><USER5> There is/was whetlab which got bought out by Twitter if I remember rightly. It's a shame as I was using them and wanted to do it more.

<comment><USER3> [https://github.com/JasperSnoek/spearmint](https://github.com/JasperSnoek/spearmint)

<comment><AUTHOR> We've found that SigOpt compares very well to spearmint, as well as MOE [1], which I wrote and open sourced around the same time spearmint was open sourced. We have a paper coming out soon comparing SigOpt rigorously to standard methods like random and grid search as well as other open source Bayesian methods like MOE [1], spearmint, HyperOpt [2], and SMAC [3] with good results.

[1]: [https://github.com/Yelp/MOE](https://github.com/Yelp/MOE)

[2]: [https://github.com/hyperopt/hyperopt](https://github.com/hyperopt/hyperopt)

[3]: [http://www.cs.ubc.ca/labs/beta/Projects/SMAC/](http://www.cs.ubc.ca/labs/beta/Projects/SMAC/)

<comment><USER3> With spearmint I had the ability to modify the parameters of the mcmc sampling (e.g. burn in iterations). Will sigopt expose parameters for those of us who want to manipulate them? Will there be options to use different types of function estimators to estimate the mapping between hyper params and performance (i.e. what if I would like to use a neural network or a decision tree instead of gaussian processes)?

I say these things because as someone who is active in machine learning - <USER2> often want to optimize hyper parameters. The type of people that are serious about optimizing hyper parameters (i.e. people who may not like to use grid or random searches) for a model are usually some what technical. Your product seems to be catered to those who may not be too technical (very simple interface, etc). How will you balance what you expose in the future without giving away too much of your underlying algorithms?

<comment><AUTHOR> As you pointed out, it is all about a balance, and every feature has different tradeoffs.

SigOpt was designed to unlock the power of Bayesian optimization for anyone doing machine learning. We believe that you shouldn't need to be an expert and spend countless hours of administration to achieve great results for every model. We're wrapping an ensemble of the best Bayesian methods behind a simple interface [0] and constantly making improvements so that people can focus on designing features and their individual domain expertise, instead of needing to build and maintain their own hyperparameter optimization tools to see the benefit.

For experts who want to spend a lot of time and effort customizing, administering, updating, and maintaining a hyperparameter tuning solution I would recommend forking one of the open source packages out there like spearmint [1] or MOE [2] (disclaimer, I wrote MOE while working at Yelp).

[0]: [https://sigopt.com/docs](https://sigopt.com/docs)

[1]: [https://github.com/JasperSnoek/spearmint](https://github.com/JasperSnoek/spearmint)

[2]: [https://github.com/Yelp/MOE](https://github.com/Yelp/MOE)

<comment><USER3> thanks for all the great responses!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now just throw some compressive sensing at the problem ;)</comment>


Holy Terror: The Rise of the Order of Assassins - <AUTHOR> http://www.historynet.com/holy-terror-the-rise-of-the-order-of-assassins.htm/1 <comment><USER2> _First, Hasan fostered an atmosphere of intense ideological commitment that produced a constant supply of volunteers willing to carry out his deadly missions_

Seems like this was the first of suicidal terrorist groups.

 _They never engaged in the wholesale slaughter of civilians. Many of the Sunni notables who fell to the daggers of the fida'is had encouraged pogroms against Ismailis or ordered military expeditions against their enclaves_

But things seems to have changed. Now most who are killed by modern terrorist groups are civilians.

Another interesting article: <http://www.weirdload.com/wl-assassins.html>

P.S: I bet the one who submitted this started reading such articles after playing Assassins Creed :) I did the same after I played the game :)

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

</comment><comment><USER4> For good information about the Assassins (and the Nizari Muslims in general) I recommend the books from Farhad Daftary specially "The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Isma'ilis".</comment>