List of companies using Nix - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/NixOS/comments/5dz8fp/list_of_companies_using_nixos/ <comment><USER2> For anyone else trying to download the NixOS ISO from the website, they don't offer torrent downloads and the connection keeps dropping (for me, at least), I eventually got an intact copy.

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:071B7CBA20B94E5FDC4DAD397DE98D3A05276536

SHA-256 can be verified from [https://nixos.org/nixos/download.html](https://nixos.org/nixos/download.html)

<comment><USER3> Seems it is on Linux Tracker as well [http://linuxtracker.org/index.php?page=torrent- details&id=aa...](http://linuxtracker.org/index.php?page=torrent- details&id=aa493da36b620be20c57140c0fb6496824aa63a0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apparently there is company switching from using Gentoo to NixOS. Gentoo seems a bit of a weird fit for production, unless you can compile packages on another server and deploy them (last time I used it was 10 years ago so I don't know if that's a thing).

<comment><USER5> Gentoo's not such a weird choice if you want to have a lot of control. CoreOS is getting pretty popular these days, and that's gentoo based.

<comment><USER6> CoreOS isn't what I would call a general purpose server OS though, it has to do one thing and do it well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If someone wants to try NixOS on their VPS there is nixos in place [0], which basically "converts" a Linux to NixOS.

"nixos-in-place is known to work on Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, Fedora, Arch, and Slackware, including x86 and x86_64 variants, with and without LVM, including systems on Digital Ocean droplets"

[0] [https://github.com/jeaye/nixos-in-place](https://github.com/jeaye/nixos- in-place)

</comment><comment><USER8> I've keep meaning to try out nixos for a long time, does anyone know of any ~$5 VPS's that have it as a default option?

<comment><USER9> I'm also interested on this topic. On their wiki page[0] there is a list from some hosting companies offering guides for setting this, but didn't saw anyone offering it out-of-the-box.

[0] - [https://nixos.org/wiki/Hosting_providers_%26_NixOS](https://nixos.org/wiki/Hosting_providers_%26_NixOS)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of our senior engineers spoke at Nix OS Conf 2015, which we also sponsored. He touches on what we do, and a few things he's doing with it, then gives a tech talk.

[https://youtu.be/7QGYOq8U9E0](https://youtu.be/7QGYOq8U9E0)

Nic can be very helpful at lots of things. If you're interested in Nix or us, email me (in profile).

</comment><comment><USER11> So, what's the best way to learn the Nix language? Are there any tutorials that stand out, or is the official manual the way to go?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://medium.com/@MrJamesFisher/nix-by- example-a0063a1a4c5...](https://medium.com/@MrJamesFisher/nix-by- example-a0063a1a4c55)</comment></comment>


Show HN: Sort Spotify playlists by various features e.g., release date, tempo - <AUTHOR> https://sortify-app.now.sh/ <comment><AUTHOR> GitHub repo: [https://github.com/christianmemije/sortify](https://github.com/christianmemije/sortify)</comment>


Unikraft: Extreme Specialization for Security and Performance - <AUTHOR> http://unikraft.org/ <comment><USER2> So secure, they dont support https. :(</comment>


YC startups seeking designers for Feb 2011 designer directory - <AUTHOR> https://ycdesign.wufoo.com/forms/y-combinator-designer-directory/

<comment><USER2> If there's one thing that YC companies are always looking for, it's a designer.

If you're a designer, this is a pretty sweet opportunity to work with, or even join, a YC co.

<comment><USER3> In my experience you can get paid more (cash & equity) as a mediocre ruby programmer vs. a great designer.

Do designers get compensated better now that they are so important and scarce?

<comment><USER4> DISCLAIMER: I'm a both UI Designer and rubyist

I remember when I would ask for $50/hour for design work, people would without hesitation go for it, some startups even asked why I charge so low....eh, I didn't know better. While I don't have much experience with rails consulting, from what I've heard, people who can do both rails and ui design can EASILY go for $100/hour. Then again, I have a friend who just landed an ~$80/hour work doing some simple joomla/php work. To be honest, it sorta made more sense to me(even though I'm both a designer and rubyist) that designers made more. My belief is that it's more common for designers to be much more unique than a rubyist.

What do I mean? My theory is that it's easier to become another kick-ass designer who has a lot of people digging his work than it is to become a "popular" rubyist(I'd consider the guy who created will_paginate to be popular in the ruby world).

Am I the only one thinking in this way? ... it might sound a little ridiculous to some people. :)

<comment><USER5> If you're skilled at solving a customers problem, $100/hr is far underselling yourself. For a skilled (very rare) designer who can solve a customers problem $300-500/hr is perfectly acceptable.

Mind you the vast majority of "designers" out there are artistés designing whatever trendy bubblegum is fashionable this minute rather than solve a customers real problems.

<comment><USER6> Im sorry...but I, being a designer who has done both consulting and full-time work and 'likes to think' he tries to solve the customer's problem first and foremost, find this rate of $300-500/hr extremely high. Has anyone else heard of numbers like this being made, be that full-time or consulting?

<comment><USER5> move upmarket. A small dotcom may now be able to pay $300/hr but when you're setting up an independently regulated financial utopia (See the independent finance centre of the americas) a few shekels for design is nothing.

I have no doubt sites like national geographics website cost over a million. Just like a good iphone app costs $200K+ good design costs, and is exceedingly rare.

example: winkreative

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Will the results/directory be made generally available?

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm a iOS developer with a UX fetish. I'm not directly interested in regular contracting work, however I'm thinking of attending Google I/O and WWDC this year (may-june) and would love to experience a YC startup from the inside. My startup history consists of creating a sms compression app for "dumbphone" devices back in j2me times (german news:<http://goo.gl/fEkdr>, <http://goo.gl/PmgIc>) and a lingerie business in Malaysia (<http://d.pr/nF3a>). In both, I did all the graphics & UI work. You can find my portfolio at <http://mocava.de>

If anyone would be interested in sponsoring my trip, I'd be happy to work for free for my time of stay.

</comment><comment><USER9> Ah I was hoping it was a new startup doing some sort of designer browser. I could use something that made it easy to browse portfolios using design style as a filter (and some sort of "more like this")

<comment><USER10> I think Dribbble and Forrst have become defacto versions of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> A designer directory, is that not a little old hat for a progressive company like YC?

I thought with the demise of dmoz et al, directories were proven to be an promblematic way to find and sort things.

I'm not saying dribbble.com is the answer to your issue but considering thousands of designers already use it, you can see their work, and there is some elements of social proof (likes, views and comments) it should be a better way to find designers rather than starting from scratch with a new directory.

</comment><comment><USER12> Nice! Is there a form for developers to apply?

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm confused about the HTML, CSS, JavaScript part. Are those supposed to be complementary skills to a designer (in this form)? What about someone who's a bit better at those skills rather than the actual design?

</comment><comment><USER14> I wonder why this doesn't ask for your HN account name. Nevertheless, filled this in. I'm available as ID/front-end dev on contract basis :)

</comment><comment><USER15> As a not-designer, what tools are you using to do iOS/Android APP UI design?

Forgive my ignorance - but is it photoshop skinning?

</comment><comment><USER16> Let's face it, designers are helpers. That's why YC wants to provide them to the startup they believe in. Sometimes there are diamonds hidden behind poor graphic designs. They know that.

The bad news is that it is not exactly "cheap".

Question: is there such a thing as a "no distraction design", ie a graphic design that exposes the true value of the technology, ie a design that is the contrary of a great makeup on an ugly face?

Such a thing would help figure out what deserves attention, from a technological point of view.

Another benefit, given that developers are sometimes poor at graphic design, it would also "remove" some ugly makeup from nice looking face...

"Here is my secret. It is very simple: one sees well only with the heart. The essential is invisible to the eyes." -- Antoine de Saint Exupéry

<comment><USER13> "The essential is invisible to the eyes."

This applies for design as well. I think you should read a little more about what design is before you go around saying a designer is a pair of hands who knows photoshop.</comment></comment>


Build Apps for Free with Azure Cosmos DB Free Tier - <AUTHOR> https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cosmosdb/build-apps-for-free-with-azure-cosmos-db-free-tier/ <comment><USER2> So I was on this Azure workshop today at Microsoft and everyone started complaining about Cosmos being expensive, and I mentioned that I usually call CosmosDB CostMost DB and they all had a good chuckle.

BTW, they mentioned in the workshop ad that a developer seniority level of 200 was required to attend, dunno what level Im on ...</comment>


MongoDB and Python - <AUTHOR> https://www.thetaranights.com/mongodb-and-python/ <comment><USER2> I'm interested to see this on the front page given the number of people trashing Mongo lately.

Currently when deciding on a backing store for my python based applications I usually jump straight to PostgreSQL what are the things that Mongo excels at these days that are missing from pg?

<comment><USER3> It's less a matter of scale to me and more a matter of facilities. Given the ability to scale PostgreSQL in places like Amazon RDS into utterly enormous system proportions, way less about performance to me. Is your data heterogeneous at a record-level? Do you store hierarchical data more than relational? Mongo might be a better choice with a schema-tracking system on top of it.

Saying that Mongo is the choice just for scaling is silly.

That said, Postgres is my go-to database as well, almost always, and I've never much needed anything different. Yet. Waiting to find something that it doesn't fit.

<comment><USER2> > Is your data heterogeneous at a record-level?

I usually just use JSONB columns for this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Blogspam.

<comment><USER5> Why on Earth are people downvoting you? This article is absolutely blogspam. It's a paraphrasing of the PyMongo documentation with absolutely nothing else added, not even any editorializing.</comment></comment>


The perils of bashing an OS you've never used - <AUTHOR> http://www.tuaw.com/2011/07/21/the-perils-of-bashing-an-os-youve-never-used/ <comment><USER2> This is not HN material.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can I insult it based on my inability to afford it rather than my experience using it?</comment>


Steve Bannon arrested and charged with fraud - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/steve-bannon-charged-fraud-199c43c1-2e75-4535-8eb0-d96558c9f777.html <comment><USER2> Wow, Bannon always seemed like such a decent, upstanding guy.</comment>


Visualizing dynamic programming - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ezyang.com/2010/11/dp-zoo-tour/ <comment><USER2> For the people who've always wondered why it was called "dynamic programming", there's a funny story there. I'll quote Richard Bellman, who coined the term:

"I spent the Fall quarter (of 1950) at RAND. My first task was to find a name for multistage decision processes. An interesting question is, 'Where did the name, dynamic programming, come from?' The 1950s were not good years for mathematical research. We had a very interesting gentleman in Washington named Wilson. He was Secretary of Defense, and he actually had a pathological fear and hatred of the word, research. I'm not using the term lightly; I'm using it precisely. His face would suffuse, he would turn red, and he would get violent if people used the term, research, in his presence. You can imagine how he felt, then, about the term, mathematical. The RAND Corporation was employed by the Air Force, and the Air Force had Wilson as its boss, essentially. Hence, I felt I had to do something to shield Wilson and the Air Force from the fact that I was really doing mathematics inside the RAND Corporation. What title, what name, could I choose? In the first place I was interested in planning, in decision making, in thinking. But planning, is not a good word for various rea- sons. I decided therefore to use the word, 'programming.' I wanted to get across the idea that this was dynamic, this was multistage, this was time- varying—I thought, let's kill two birds with one stone. Let's take a word that has an absolutely precise meaning, namely dynamic, in the classical physical sense. It also has a very interesting property as an adjective, and that is it's impossible to use the word, dynamic, in a pejorative sense. Try thinking of some combination that will possibly give it a pejorative meaning. It's impossible. Thus, I thought dynamic programming was a good name. It was something not even a Congressman could object to. So I used it as an umbrella for my activities."

So there you go: it was supposed to sound cool, and dynamic, and like something that any self-respecting congressman would want to fund. I'd always vaguely suspected.

</comment><comment><USER3> Other popular examples he could consider adding:

Image seam carving. Remember when this was all the rage a while ago? The 2D offset pattern is "up-left, up, up-right" for the vanilla version of the algorithm. If you want to support seams with a sharper slope, the offset pattern will be correspondingly wider.

Optimal game playing. Whenever the space of states is much smaller than the space of move sequences, you probably want dynamic programming. Example: The game state consists of a string of tokens, each with a point value. Players take turns removing a token from the string's left or right edge, adding its value to their running score. Here the move space grows exponentially but the state space only grows quadratically.

Pseudo-polynomial algorithms for NP-complete problems. You can think of these as one-player games analogous to the above two-player games where as before the state space has small size compared to the move space. A classic example is the knapsack problem with integer weights and a small knapsack; here the table offsets would be the different weights.

I've long loved this quote from Steve Skiena:

"Once you understand it, dynamic programming is probably the easiest algorithm design technique to apply in practice. In fact, I find that dynamic programming algorithms are often easier to reinvent than to try to look up in a book. That said, until you understand dynamic programming, it seems like magic."

When I first read this as a kid having a hard time grokking dynamic programming, I thought it was bluster. Now I know it's the absolute truth. You could even argue that dynamic programming should be considered a single algorithm rather than an algorithm design technique, but that might be going too far.

<comment><USER4> > "Once you understand it, dynamic programming is probably the easiest > algorithm design technique to apply in practice. In fact, I find that > dynamic programming algorithms are often easier to reinvent than to try to > look up in a book. That said, until you understand dynamic programming, it > seems like magic.

This is especially true if you apply memoization to the naive recursive formulation to obtain an efficient algorithm.

[http://clojure.github.com/clojure/clojure.core- api.html#cloj...](http://clojure.github.com/clojure/clojure.core- api.html#clojure.core/memoize)

<comment><USER2> When I first read about dynamic programming, I was already familiar with the idea of memoizing a naive recursive program to make it efficient. After that, hearing all this talk about oddly-shaped tables was actually kind of irritating. "Why are they going to all this trouble to talk about specific ways of memoizing recursive functions?" I asked myself, rhetorically. "Using a hash table has the same amortized asymptotic complexity, and this _shouldn't_ be hard."

It just seemed like way too much artificial complexity for what was, at heart, a remarkably simple and easy technique. This still bothers me. Perhaps it's a historical relic from the ancient times when dynamic programming was done by hand, and those oddly-shaped tables were needed to make it easier for the people working as computers.

<comment><USER3> Memoization and dynamic programming are not exactly the same.

Memoization wins when the filled-in part of the table is expected to be sparse. Because dynamic programming works bottom up, it always fills in the entire table.

Memoization's downside is that it uses a lot of memory. For the simple variant of the edit-distance problem it uses O(n^2) memory as opposed to O(n) memory with dynamic programming. In relation to this, the cache behavior and other constant factor overhead is usually much worse with memoization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very nice article. But who else thinks the arrows should be drawn the other way?

In his diagrams, they indicate _depends on_. I think it would be more natural to draw them in the direction of the data flows - which cell each cell _supports_. That way the computation is visualized running in the direction of the arrows, rather than the reverse direction.

</comment><comment><USER6> I love his diagrams! Friendly and accessible.

Found a post on how he makes them: [http://blog.ezyang.com/2010/04/diagramming-in-xournal-and- gi...](http://blog.ezyang.com/2010/04/diagramming-in-xournal-and-gimp/) though if you have a tablet and a good sense of design the software is probably not that important.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is pretty cool. I wish my algorithms professor had explained dynamic programming this way.

<comment><USER8> Thats just what I was going to say.

My algorithms professor claimed not to have "programmed" anything (she apparently didn't consider MATLAB programming) since completing her undergraduate degree. I've always thought that fact probably helped account for her odd explanation of "dynamic programming" which didn't include a single mention of the fact that it wasn't a programming technique at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> BTW, tree decomposition is a generalization of dynamic programming. In a general structured problem you may not have a nice table recursion like in edit-distance example, and tree decomposition is what you get when you abstract away from tables. When problem structure comes from the real world, like with probabilistic networks, computers are much better at finding a good recursion than humans. Here are some pictures to illustrate tree decomposition [http://yaroslavvb.blogspot.com/2011/02/generalized- distribut...](http://yaroslavvb.blogspot.com/2011/02/generalized-distributive- law.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> Isn't this the standard way to explain and visualize dynamic programming?</comment>


The Mega Constellations Are Already Here. The Time for Polite Concern Is Over - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanocallaghan/2020/08/28/the-mega-constellations-are-already-here-the-time-for-polite-concern-is-over/#5ae6bd0d3b87 <comment><USER2> Why is the public discussion on maintaining the status quo, rather than on pushing the boundaries of astronomy. For example, NASA has proposed to build the Lunar Crater Radio Telescope (LCRT) on the moon. [0] [1]

Does someone have a financial, political, or military interest in preventing satellite constellations?

[0] [https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2020_Phase_...](https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2020_Phase_I_Phase_II/lunar_crater_radio_telescope/)

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

</comment><comment><USER3> Pretty much just a rehash of the various other articles on this topic, several of which have already been discussed here. See this from a few days ago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24291443](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24291443)

</comment><comment><USER4> This will be fascinating as every country tries to have their own system. If humans were rational creatures, we would build and maintain one system to stop reinventing the wheel and preventing kessler syndrome.

<comment><USER5> We are rational creatures but we have imperfect knowledge. It's in our nature to advance through search and competition rather than attempt to preplan everything.

<comment><USER4> But we do occasionally stop competing when we know it harms our own chance of survival, e.g. nuclear testing.

I wonder if filling the skies with over 1-10 million satellites will pose similar types of self-reflection, or if the risk is too low for anyone to care that much.

<comment><USER5> The problem with a reactionary halt in some area due to a perceived sense of danger is that we often go too far. The campaign against nuclear arms also leaked out into a campaign against all things nuclear. We're only now starting to restore some sanity to the discussion and begin tentative funding of promising technologies in that industry. If you look at the broad history of nuclear power you'll realize that we are far behind where we should be. Power plant design hasn't changed in decades and nuclear power generation is nowhere near as widespread as it should be. Given that the largest contributors to CO2 emissions are electrical power generation and industry you could even make a case that the anti-nuclear movement of the 1960s, which resulted in the drying up of funding and academic interest in nuclear science as well as rampant NIMBYism and political opposition to nuclear reactors, is the reason we are now suffering from the effects of excessive CO2 in the atmosphere. Ironic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's finee, compared to the multitude of other problems facing humanity this one is so so small and solvable, it feels like an HoA complaint. It's like demanding that your housemate who likes to talk on the phone at night keep your schedule rather than putting in some earplugs. People love to get mad.

</comment><comment><USER7> Are these new constellations at low enough altitude to re-enter within a few years, or what?

<comment><USER8> Yes, Starlink is at altitudes that deorbit naturally in roughly 5 years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I see a bright future for satellite de-commissioning craft - I assume by staying in a parking orbit and then zipping around as needed and nudging them out of orbit at just the right time to avoid other satellites and ensure a innocuous (presumably oceanic) landing site for any remaining wreckage.

<comment><USER10> All Starlink satellites contain ion thrusters to maintain their orbit. At end of life, those thrusters are used to deorbit them. These satellites are in such a low orbit that these thrusters are required to maintain orbit -- if the thrusters fail the satellites naturally deorbit within a couple of years.

Any ion thruster powered satellite de-commisioning craft would take months to reach a failed satellite, so it wouldn't make a huge difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the night sky would be _more_ interesting with visible satellites zipping around.

And I'm curious who gave a perpetual use agreement of the night sky to astronomers, such that they think their complaints should be considered.

<comment><USER12> Astronomers don't speak for themselves. Most of them are paid via government funding, and their job is specifically to do things that advance society in ways that the free market would not.

When they speak, they speak for the people, they speak for their students, they speak for the industries that are positively impacted by their research. If you impede astronomers from doing their job, we are all worse off because of it. The astronomers themselves are not impacted that much because they are still getting paid.

<comment><USER11> Are they speaking for the hundreds of millions of people who may get internet access for the first time though satellite based internet?

<comment><USER13> I write this with the upmost hope in the future success of private space sector, and with a desire to live to see Mercury turned into a Dyson swarm and to be part of the initial colonisation of Mars or Luna:

There are other ways to get cheap internet, and these satellites serve low- population rural areas much better than they serve cities where most people live.

(Also: Musk does seem to care about the effect on astronomy, presumably because his drive is "prevent human extinction" and astronomy can help with that).

<comment><USER11> There are other ways to get cheap internet...but Musk et al are actually doing this. No one else is working on some earth-based plan for getting the last few billion people on the internet AFAICT. Google and facebook did some things with balloons and aircraft but that was more of a tech demo than an actual attempt to provide internet service.

<comment><USER14> The fact that your disinterest for rural infrastructure projects in Ghana mean _you_ don't know about them doesn't mean they don't exist. It just tells the reader you haven't bothered to search for something like "Uganda rural internet project"; unsurprisingly for large infrastructure projects in a poor country, it's being done bit by bit and so there are in fact dozens of projects.

<comment><USER11> The ad hominem is unnecessary and misplaced. I was talking about one large project to give the final billions access, not piecemeal projects helping out a few million people here and there (and disregarding another few million people here and there).

I understand that rural infrastructure projects occur. So what's the realistic timeline for, say, 99% coverage? My question is: How long should rural people have to wait, and how much should they pay for internet access, so that astronomers can have 5% of their observations unaffected by satellites?

<comment><USER12> There are other good reasons for doing piecemeal projects. Paying SpaceX for internet, transfers money out of already economically backwards areas to a far away private company in another country. Some people will argue that these are neocolonist attempts by West into East.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Lazily load dumb ads in responsive layouts – lazy-ads - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/madgex/lazy-ads I'm dealing with over 30 ad providers & barely any support responsive layouts so I end up with ads loading but not visible on small screens. A performance overhead I do't want, this is an attempt to patch this problem - would love to hear your feedback! <comment><AUTHOR> I'm dealing with over 30 ad providers & barely any support responsive layouts so I end up with ads loading but not visible on small screens. A performance overhead I don't want, this is an attempt to patch this problem - would love to hear your feedback!</comment>


The Last Days of the Polymath - <AUTHOR> http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/print/2078 <comment><USER2> I think the term "hacker" is synonymous with polymath in many significant ways. I personally find myself inexplicably divided between many fields, all of which I am passionate about. My hacker philosophy has lead me to be well- read in political science, literature, philosophy, and of course computing and maths!

As hackers we are driven by our insatiable curiosity. For me at least this curiosity is not often applied in the same direction.

<comment><USER3> I think you underestimate the significance of the term _polymath_. Polymaths don't just read about a lot of topics, they _produce_ in a lot of topics. Brilliant minds like Da Vinci who painted, sculpted, wrote, experimented, philosophized.

Being a polymath doesn't mean you find lots of topics interesting, it means you significantly influence multiple very broad and diverse fields of knowledge. You write papers on nanotechnology, cured cancer, wrote, starred in and directed a blockbuster movie.

You also overvalue the term hacker. I can't tell you how many people I meet who think they are a hacker because they can get a Drupal site up and running or write a blog. I had a boss one time who was so happy that he had finally gotten back into coding. I said, "What'd you do?" He said, "I changed the HTML on the login form!" Ugh.

So, "hacker" is _not_ synonymous with polymath. Hacking is just _one_ small field of knowledge that may be a part of a polymath's repertoire.

<comment><USER4> My dictionary says

polymath: a person of wide-ranging knowledge or learning.

Wikipedia says

In less formal terms, a polymath (or polymathic person) may simply refer to someone who is very knowledgeable.

<comment><USER5> This is true; one of the points the article was making is that the current definition of polymath is much weaker than the one we had even a hundred years ago. The GP is probably referring to that one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is a word for people who like knowledge: philomath. I'd say I'm one of those who's trying to become a polymath. Yes, I must agree that a strict polymath has made contributions to multiple fields, but that's very subjective. I'm not sure what the significance cut-off is contributions. If I have a widely read blog, a startup, and I've developed my own technology, am I a polymath?

<comment><USER7> >If I have a widely read blog, a startup, and I've developed my own technology, am I a polymath?

No.

<comment><USER8> And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem with the term "polymath" -- too many people seem far too keen to apply it to themselves.

I think the best strategy at this stage in history is the "know everything about something and something about everything" strategy. Aside from making life more interesting, the more you know about fields outside your own specialty the more likely you are to have great ideas in your own field, since most "new ideas" in a field are really just of the form "hey, why don't we try this approach which they use in another field on this field?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Duplicate:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=844229></comment>


The next version of HTTP won't be using TCP - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/11/the-next-version-of-http-wont-be-using-tcp/?href= <comment><USER2> How will this work for, say, file transfers? I doubt people want to repeatedly download and look at checksums just ot make sure they didn't miss a packet.</comment>


Startup Killer: the Cost of Customer Acquisition - <AUTHOR> http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/startup-killer/ <comment><USER2> Not to be pedantic, but his "well balanced business model" is exactly as out of balance as the "out of balance business model", but the ratio is much more favorable for the entrepreneur...

</comment><comment><USER3> Quite right. It's those simple calculations need to be made.

Jeez, I spent $250 on Adwords before without a single software sale. The site has a low sale conversion rate (0.3%) but through organic search traffic it makes me some money.</comment>


Rule of Consulting: You can't stop people from sticking beans up their nose - <AUTHOR> http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2011/07/08/beans-and-noses/ <comment><USER2> Gerald Weinberg's _Secrets of Consulting_ is a masterful (yet whimsical) meditation on this subject. It's one of the few business books everybody should read, except it isn't really a business book, it's a people book. Much of the material is counterintuitive. It's kind of like Dale Carnegie for human irrationality.

The book begins with the premise that just because someone is paying you for advice doesn't mean they actually want your advice. It goes on to argue that successful consulting is not about fixing problems so much as navigating contradictions.

The other profession that deals intimately with contradictions between what people say, feel, and do is psychotherapy. I've often thought that consulting is therapy for businesses - a curious kind of therapy that by consensus is never explicitly discussed. Weinberg learned a lot from his excursions in the psychotherapy world, and this book is his best distillation of it.

<comment><USER3> I really like the link you've made between consulting and psychotherapy. You've touched on something that fascinates me, and that is the how an individual acts differently at home and at work.

An example is the difference between how different types of salesmen operate. Those that sell to individuals (or families) must navigate through a very personal and emotional process, whereas salesmen that sell to corporations (aka: "sales professionals") must balance corporate bureaucracy and personal one-on-one relationships.

In all the cases, it is a fascinating dynamic to observe and learn from.

<comment><USER4> Seemed interesting so I started reading a bit of it to check whether it was worth committing real time to read the whole book :-)

Not sure yet, but you can check it for yourself. The beginning is available online on [http://www.smashwords.com/extreader/read/31631/9/the- secrets...](http://www.smashwords.com/extreader/read/31631/9/the-secrets-of- consulting)

<comment><USER2> Good find. I reread what's available there and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's been years since I read the book, and I've lost (probably lent) both copies I owned. The thing that struck me just now is how shrewd it is. The silly anecdotes and folsky banter are all there for carefully constructed reasons. I remember thinking before that he jumped around a lot and the logic of the text seemed arbitrary. It's anything but.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Of course, if they answer they enjoyed it and it was wonderful, then they are not someone I can relate to or help in any way._

Or, of course, you might be about to learn something, since sticking beans up your nose is a metaphor _you_ chose for something _you_ think is so stupid you would never actually try it.

<comment><USER6> Congratulations, you've just displayed a level of perception which is almost completely absent from I.T.: that there are often reasons other than the purely technical ones involved in decision-making.

There are a couple of traps in consulting. One is the trap where the consultant believes that they have a bird's-eye view of the problem to be solved, when they're actually looking through a keyhole. (Security-related consulting falls into this trap often.) The other trap is where the consultant's own experience leads them to conclude that their approach is the only right way to do a particular thing. Infrastructure-related consulting has fallen so far into that particular trap that I question whether it'll ever make it back out again. For example: Windows servers! Linux servers! Windows servers! Linux servers! or, smart switches! Dumb switches! etc.

<comment><USER7> As I read this article, it's mostly non-technical reasons that come to mind as reasons to discourage someone from sticking a bean up their nose. Technically, it's an interesting challenge to get that bean up there, but it just doesn't add any business value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> You know, this is really important to learn. If someone wants to put a bean up their nose, you tell them that you don't think it's a good idea and explain why, but step out of their way. When they realize that their plan was an objectively bad idea, they're more willing to listen to you the next time around.

Sometimes people just don't appreciate that you're trying to help them, and need to learn from experience (myself included).

<comment><USER9> I remember reading a J.K. Rowling quote from one of the Potter books that goes something like "...people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right." I've learned that "they" probably won't come to you the "next time around".

I've also learned to appreciate some further advice I received and desperately needed to hear: convincing someone of something takes a lot more than emphatically stating a logical argument.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> sometimes big companies hire me to tell them what to do with their beans, then they are disappointed that i did not tell them to stick them up their noses.

in the next step they claim i missunderstood the question, the question was not really about "what to do with the beans", it was more about "how should we stick them up our noses in the best way"

<comment><USER11> There's a reason that Open Source communities often react to strange questions with "can you explain what you want to do?" or a similar request for the bigger picture. Too many people start down a chain of reasoning based on how they want to solve a problem, get to step 7 of 10 of a bad plan, and ask for help proceeding to step 8. Explaining how to get to step 8 solves the problem they think they have, but asking for the big picture can lead to a much better solution to the problem they actually care about.

<comment><USER12> The problem with this sort of response is that, somewhere down the road, someone else using that open-source project will be working on an entirely different problem and actually have a legitimate need to make that same jump from _point a_ to _point b_.

Naturally they'll hit up the googles and get excited when they see that someone else had that exact problem before. But then, instead of a solution, they are presented with 15 answers that all say "you're doing it wrong".

This is why my favorite answers are those that say something along the lines of, "technically, the answer to your question is... but the fact that you're having this problem may be an indicator that there's a better way."

<comment><USER11> On the other hand, I love when I search for the answer to some specific question I think I have, and find an answer that points to the thing I ought to use instead. People often follow the same wrong paths to a solution.

<comment><USER12> Which is why my favorite answer includes both (e.g. "if you really want to do it this way, it's like this... but you should consider this way..."), rather than simply assuming that I don't know what I'm doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This really is excellent advice. I've never quite phrased it this way, but the mental image is very funny and smart. I wonder what the approach would be to using this analogy with an actual client, manager, or team.

</comment><comment><USER14> If somebody puts that on a t shirt ill buy it. Bonus points for a funny cartoon.

<comment><USER15> I can see a whole line of bean and nose t-shirts:

"It's simply a beans-and-noses situation" "Are you enjoying your nasal-based legume implantation experience?" "And so the bean starts its wayward journey"

PS.

Brilliant article - what a great way of putting things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Dear Author:

Have you considered writing a humor column? I am sure it would be well received. That was a truly funny article.

</comment><comment><USER17> This person is assuming that people want his advice, or to tell them why they're wrong.

Very often people are intent on doing something that seems stupid to you, but smart to them. In that situation they really don't want to be told that they are wrong and the best thing you can do is stand nearby, ready to dial 911.

Sometimes the only "right" response is "I would not have thought of doing it that way. What can I do to help you make it go well?"

<comment><USER18> He's talking about consulting. I would sure hope the person paying him for advice wants his advice. And the idea here is that it's preferable to get a job with someone who will listen to that advice they paid for to reach a reasonable conclusion, which seems like a perfectly good plan to me.

<comment><USER17> Often consulting clients only want the consultant to validate what they've already decided to do. Sure, it's best if they listen to you; you are the "expert" after all. But sometimes the best you can do is sit back and do damage control after the fact.

<comment><USER18> Oh yes, some will want a certain type of advice but they still want the consultant to tell them that. But it seems to me that the idea here is that if the best you can do _is_ wait for a chance to do damage control then you should try somewhere else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A buddy of mine refers to this phenomena as "fish pizza". "You want fish on your pizza? Alright... here you go."

<comment><USER20> Yumm... Anchovy pizza.

I recommend a veggie special + anchovies. If you don't want all the veggies anchovy and black olives works too. Don't combine anchovy with pepperoni or sausage as its salt overload.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Good memories of my buddy David, who, at some young age, inserted a dry pinto bean into one of his nostrils and left it dangling there. All of us began to laugh, of course, along with David. But after all good, long, strong laughs, you have to refill the lungs at some point. "Ha-ha-ha! _sniff_ "

</comment><comment><USER22> Very funny, but he also brings up a great way to approach alternative bean placement by focusing on results and defining success.

All too often, the client's motivation is FUD, and to continue the analogy, they spend all their money on what they hope are magic beans. When no beanstalks grow from their nostrils, they discover too late that they've no money left for bean removal surgery - or anything else. So moving on, for the consultant, is not so much a choice as a necessity.

</comment><comment><USER23> This appears to be the case with the current Congress. Canada, Singapore, Costa Rica and Switzerland are looking better and better.

</comment><comment><USER24> The read is indeed true but hasn't it taken the nose and beans analogy a little too far, beyond reader's interest? It could have been a better read if there was a little diversion from nose and beans to some actual scenarios.

</comment><comment><USER25> First commenter under that article gave a link to <http://www.kingdom.com> as an example.

I wonder what they did -- that web site is not responsive at the moment.

<comment><USER26> Looks like it's an ecommerce site specializing in church-related technologies.

<comment><USER25> So what did go wrong?

Just web site uptime or something else?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> It's easy if you are consulting, just step aside. What if it's your boss who want to stick beans up his nose (constantly)?

<comment><USER28> You're making the assumption that a consultant can step aside with only a minor financial hiccup.

Unfortunately, the 80/20 rule applies to consulting too, so you often find yourself in the situation where 80% of your revenue comes from the guy with the beans.</comment></comment>


You have to use the new license - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/moggers87/salmon/issues/8 <comment><AUTHOR> Interesting fl/oss dispute from a while back.

</comment><comment><USER2> I like Zed more than a lot of people do, but I can't see how he could have possibly been in the right here. He's basically arguing for a new license to apply retroactively to old code released under a different license, which doesn't sound anything like how I understand licenses to work. But then again I'm not one of those law-talkin' guys, so what do I know.</comment>


Native American tribe holding patents sues Amazon and Microsoft - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1CN2G1 <comment><USER2> not sure I would take on some of the largest legal/political muscle in the country to try a shame legal tactic.</comment>


The physics of mosh pits - <AUTHOR> http://kottke.org/14/11/the-physics-of-mosh-pits

<comment><USER2> Those black dots, which are trying desperately to get OUT of the mosh pit so that they can watch the damn concert but keep being shoved back in? That's me. At every.single.show.

<comment><USER3> I've seen this many a time. The trick is to come to a stop at the edge, and then walk out. If you are moving any kind of speed, folks on the edge will just assume you are disoriented and give you that "helpful" shove back into the mix.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What's interesting is when there are a lower number of people, say 100. With so much space, the "moshers" tend to just go in one direction until they bump into another person, but this isn't really accurate. There needs to be some level of randomness in their movement, so that when there are large spaces they are not just coasting, but still bouncing around.

That being said, this is pretty fun, and the dynamics for crowded areas looks appropriate.

<comment><USER5> You can get something like what you want by changing the noise strength.

<comment><USER4> Yea, that's definitely an improvement. I would prefer if there was some sort of "cohesion" measure among the moshing particles. Groups, no matter how small, tend to stick together.

<comment><USER5> That's the flock strength slider. If you turn it down to zero, you get no flocking, and red particles will only interact via direct physical contact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Be sure to klick through to the full simulator [0]. Here you can adjust values, steer the crowd (using a,w,s,d) and see the results at the same time.

[0] [http://mattbierbaum.github.io/moshpits.js/](http://mattbierbaum.github.io/moshpits.js/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting but disturbing article on crowd quakes -

[http://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.5856v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1206.5856v1.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER8> Once at a Grunttruck concert, for a brief time I was the only one in a small gap of the mosh pit, just in time to receive the full brunt of a stage dive. I was out for 10 minutes.

Mosh pits are perfectly safe without stage diving.

<comment><USER9> Hah, reminds an epic stage dive fail of an acquaintance of mine - [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4hB562aEDk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4hB562aEDk) (skip to 0:45). He broke his arm then.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The simulation seems broken when you increase the box size... If the band is good, most people (black and red alike) will push towards the band.

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks pretty convincing as a model. Just needs some random blank spot every now and then where they're avoiding the puke on the floor.</comment>


In Italy, A Vending Machine Makes the Pizza - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/business/worldbusiness/14vend.html

<comment><USER2> Although it's somewhat less complex, similar vending machines that make poutine (a French-Canadian dish that's basically fries with gravy and cheese curds) have been around for a while in Montreal.

In thee machines, it starts with pre-cut fries. You see them dumped into some oil, fried for a bit, then dumped into the container. Cheese curds are then dropped on the pile, and it's finally shot with a bunch of gravy. All-in, it takes about four minutes, and it's pretty good poutine (if you like that stuff).

<comment><USER3> Who doesn't like poutine??

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there a picture of the pizza? I'm curious to actually see it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wait a second.

You're in _Italy_ and you're going to a _vending machine_ for pizza?!

</comment><comment><USER6> That would work well in Japan... There's already the restaurants/fast food where you choose the food on a vending machine get a ticket and give it to the kitchen staff... That would be a natural evolution of that...

</comment><comment><USER7> Next thing you know, they'll be able to miniaturize and "cheaperize" still further and anyone will be able to buy one for home use. And they'll sell bags of all the ingredients you need.

<comment><USER8> Er... they've already done this, it's called microwavable pizza. You take the bag of ingredients (AKA frozen pizza) and insert said ingredients into the miniaturized oven and cook for 3-5 minutes.

<comment><USER7> I know this, but I'm thinking the freshly baked pizza with fresh ingredients must taste fresher than a microwaveable frozen pizza...

edit: Now that I think about it, they even have rising-crust frozen pizza. And we even eat some sometimes. I don't know what I was _thinking_!

<comment><USER8> Yeah, never try cooking a rising-crust frozen pizza in a microwave... really doesn't work. However, I bet these machines would reap a fortune in college dorms as an alternative to frozen crap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wouldn't this sell way better on a college campus? Put it near the computer lab.

</comment><comment><USER10> I love it! It's a great idea, and a scalable business.</comment>


Shelter-in-Place Compliance Remains Low, UMD Research Finds - <AUTHOR> https://eng.umd.edu/news/story/shelterinplace-compliance-remains-low-umd-research-finds <comment><USER2> Interesting website but terrible analysis. Nowhere do they define what high compliance means.

Wyoming has the worst results in their social distancing despite the lowest population density in the US. (6/square mile) [https://data.covid.umd.edu/findings/index.html](https://data.covid.umd.edu/findings/index.html)

<comment><USER3> Not to mention, one of the lowest rates of COVID-19 deaths per capita in the US. We literally can count on our fingers the number of COVID-19 casualties in the state. We've been really lucky in that, but it also shows that these shelter-in-place metrics here have almost not correlation (here) to effectiveness of preventing corona virus spread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, 100% compliance is low. We already knew people weren't going to be 100% compliant.

I would say it's close to 80% for most people right now, which is pretty darn good considering what's being asked of us.

Thankfully our outcome is still significantly better than what the models predicted, and that's a reason to celebrate.

</comment><comment><USER5> I haven't fully explored their portal. However I find it really hard to square with other data, such as a 90% reduction in NYC subway data.

[https://iquantny.tumblr.com/post/616488508041936896/nyc- subw...](https://iquantny.tumblr.com/post/616488508041936896/nyc-subway- ridership-starts-to-climb-as-cuomo)

</comment><comment><USER6> Of course, people wake up to the reality of it. Everybody dies, life is short.

</comment><comment><USER7> So of the people with smartphones, who also carry them with them everywhere, and allow location services, and somehow were added to the dataset of anonymized user location data, presumably by using crappy "free" services, compliance is low.

Well golly gee. People that don't care seem to not care. Meanwhile I haven't seen my friends and family in two months and have a locked down mobile device that doesn't even have the google play store on it, for privacy.

<comment><USER8> I mean you are the exception here. I see teenagers hanging out and tons of people in parks and stores. Most are mask less. Now is the time to double down on social distancing.</comment></comment>


AWS CloudWatch logs for humans - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jorgebastida/awslogs

<comment><USER2> that's pretty awesome. I am still surprised how much the experience of using cloudwatch logs sucks. On so many levels: from installing the cloudwatch log agent on a box, limits on pushing logs, forcing you to pass in the sequenceToken for every call, don't even get me started on the aws console "experience". the only real advantage is the price point, but I guess that's because of the features (or the lack) they have.

It's nice to see creative workarounds like this.

<comment><USER3> Well, that's what DevOps do, right? it's not about all teh bullshit you read on the Internet, it's about making AWSome tools like this one.

I would not describe it as a "creative workaround"...

<comment><USER2> btw, I don't buy into the "Devops" hype.

Devops, like Agile should die. When you're building something if operations is something you push to later stages and you bring in a "devops" person you've already lost (and in the process crippled whatever you were hoping to build there)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you do to boost your creativity and/or productivity? - <AUTHOR> Hi all, Recently I find that whenever I sit down to work, the ideas don't flow as freely as they used to. Whereas once I would be able to think of 3-4 solutions within a short span of time, now I can barely come up with one.
Also, by habit, it takes me a certain amount of time to get into my 'zone' before starting work. However, recently I have been taking more and more time to settle into this 'zone'.
So I would like to know what specific hacks you guys use to keep the creative juices flowing, and also how you manage to get more productive.
Regards,<AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> 1\. Silence. I'm not smart enough to get anything done with a lot of noise or music going on.

2\. Distracting my mind. I read long, complex fiction novels for 30-60 minutes at night before bed. This is the most valuable part of my day because it acts like a shutdown script for my mind. Afterwards I feel completely disconnected from what I'm working on, worrying about, or struggling with. Some novels that I've used in the past: War & Peace, Ulysses, As I Lay Dying, Moby Dick.

3\. Frequent breaks. While working I make sure to pause regularly and often stop altogether, walk-around, etc. This helps and hurts because it can interrupt flow, but the big benefit is that I find myself less tired at the end of the day when I stick to this.

4\. Pen & paper. I buy spiral-bound notebooks at Walgreens for $0.35 and fill one every 3-6 months or so. I use pen and paper to plan programming projects, do class designs, brainstorm ideas, draw diagrams, almost everything.

5\. Org-mode. I also use org-mode to more formally track things. I consider my notebook an "informal" workspace, while my org-mode files are more "formal". I utilize the agenda feature to produce to-do lists and calendar.

6\. Diversity of projects. I try to always have some toy or pet project to play with when I find myself lacking motivation or hitting dead-ends on my primary work.

7\. Try to keep it to 8 hours per day. This often seems (or "is" depending on your management) impossible, but it really does make an enormous difference in your ability to stay consistently productive and creative.

<comment><USER3> >a lot of noise or music going on.

Yay, someone else who gets destroyed by music. I thought I was the only one. I was told by a boss once upon a time to "put on earphones", but he didn't like the protective earwear I brought in (they were from home depot for using loud machines) and was unsympathetic to the fact music really makes me not do well at coding.

>This is the most valuable part of my day because it acts like a shutdown script for my mind.

You know what, I did not realize how the reading could actually be helping there. I like long series of works that are interconnected because they're typically much longer than even classics. The 1632 series is excellent and long, for that reason.

>Try to keep it to 8 hours per day.

Do you mean at least 8? At most 8? Exactly 8?

<comment><USER2> I would say at most 8. I don't necessarily believe in working less than 8 hours per day has a particular benefit, but I don't really have evidence, even anecdotally, for that belief. 10 or 12 hour days are OK as one-offs, once-in- a-blue-moon (I mean that literally). But doing that for many days in a row has major negative impacts on my productivity and my general mood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The single most important thing I do to "boost creativity and/or productivity" is to work in such a way that I don't need to "boost creativity and/or productivity" to get my work done. This has to be done the night before.

I always quit all online work at least 2 hours before bedtime and print whatever I'm working on.

Then I go into any other room with program listings, blank paper, and pens (especially red!) and plan out all of tomorrow's work.

All analysis, design, and refactoring must be done at this time. I do not allow myself to sleep until the next day's work is laid out. I also do not allow myself to get back onto the computer. The idea is to have a clear "vision" of what I am going to accomplish the next day. The clearer the better.

This does 2 things. First, I think about it all night (maybe even dream about it). Second, I can't wait to get started the next day.

I always wake up and start programming immediately. Once I get going, it's easy to keep going. Any difficulties are probably because I didn't plan well enough the night before.

With proper planning, "getting into the zone" becomes a much smaller problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Okay, I'll start planning my work ahead. I've never planned my programming ahead of time, and in fact I have never planned anything other than travel ahead of time, so maybe this is something I should make a habit. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This will sound weird, but I harness hatred.

Find a person or organization that you absolutely despise. Preferably a person that you know personally--someone who makes your blood boil just from thinking about them.

Then, do the following:

1) Every night, put together a task list for the next day and do whatever preparation you can. I have a template of standard tasks, the last two of which are always "finish tomorrow's list" and "prep for tomorrow". Preparation means locating resources, laying out clothes if you will be travelling, etc.

2) Every day, work through your task list. As you finish each task, mark it off.

3) At the end of each day, for every task that you did NOT complete, put $1 in a jar. At the end of the month, take all of that money, put it in an envelope, and mail it to the person you hate. (I generally send it anonymously.)

It's amazing how powerful this technique is. It also helps a great deal at teaching you to estimate how long a given task will take, and teaches you to break large tasks into small ones.

<comment><USER6> What if you don't hate anyone?

Edit: Oh wait, I hate the Fox News staff, I forgot. Never mind..

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Whenever I start forking around too much, spending too much time reading HN and the like, I go and read job ads. Once I've read a few of those, and remember what it's like to work in a corporate environment, I'm sufficiently motivated to get back to work on my own stuff.

No joke!

<comment><USER8> That is an awesome idea. I'm going to start doing that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I clean.

First, I clean my room, so my atmosphere feels less cluttered and my mind is less likely to wander of to thinking "I should get around to this."

Then, I'll clean my desk, which usually means throwing everything away that is not 100% absolutely necessary (old notes, ideas, drawings, cups, etc.) These all make you feel crowded mentally and literally. A clean desk lets you focus on the screen without any distractions.

Finally, the desktop. I make a point to zero out my icons when I do this, only leaving My Computer and the Recycle Bin on the desktop, with a wallpaper that reminds me of what my current goal is.

This usually has me inspired to take advantage of the completely fresh atmosphere I've created and tends to be when I create my simplest and most effective work. It also works wonders for coming up with ideas, both creatively and on the business end. Basically, cleanliness helps me solve problems more easily.

<comment><USER10>
      Even if it keeps you up all night,
      wash down the walls and scrub the floor
      of your study before composing a syllable.
      Clean the place as if the Pope were on his way.
      Spotlessness is the niece of inspiration.
      The more you clean, the more brilliant
      your writing will be, so do not hesitate to take
      to the open fields to scour the undersides
      of rocks or swab in the dark forest
      upper branches, nests full of eggs.
      When you find your way back home
      and stow the sponges and brushes under the sink,
      you will behold in the light of dawn
      the immaculate altar of your desk,
      a clean surface in the middle of a clean world.
      From a small vase, sparkling blue, lift
      a yellow pencil, the sharpest of the bouquet,
      and cover pages with tiny sentences
      like long rows of devoted ants
      that followed you in from the woods

      Billy Collins, Advice to Writers

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I agree with the comment about going for a long run. I always seem to be in a better state of mind after a few miles. If I'm still having issues maintaining focus, then I try to make a list of everything I'd like to accomplish today. By setting smaller goals I get a deeper sense of satisfaction with my work. On a historical note, this is the same notion that is applied in war. Instead of setting your object as "winning a war", the object becomes "take the next hill" or "win the next street".

</comment><comment><USER12> What motives me is what Dan Pink calls "purpose" or wanting to make a difference in the world.

I spent 9 years building software to make the lives of telephone support workers better (by helping them create and re-use solutions to common problems).

I've spent the last 8 years building software to make the lives of network engineers better (by helping them automate repetitive tasks on thousands of network devices).

Thinking about making a difference for the user of the software I'm writing keeps me going.

</comment><comment><USER3> Whenever I have issues getting something done next, I say: "What activity, if I do it right now, will bring me closest to the next payment" I then do that.

(Disclaimer: If you do not run a custom prodcut development company, this question may involve some heavy reworking to get you something useful).

If I'm having issues generating different ways of doing something, I've done Mind Maps sometimes, cleaning things (I don't know why this stimulates my creative mind, perhaps because I hate cleaning things), buy and read/skim books on the topic..

As far as zone goes, I suggest a ritual if you're having problems getting the "cares of the world" out of your mind.

Drink here, notepad here, and emptied, listen to a short song, then go. Or do three jumping jacks, shut your eyes, breath deeply, sit down and fullscreen your ide, etc. Just something to start off coding in a way to signal to yourself "I will be doing this now".

Or a couple day retreat to solve what problems that are plaguing your life and constantly harrying you if you're actually thinking about your problems instead of zoning. While you may disagree, you brain likely things certain things very important and will bug you to holy hell if you don't deal with them _completely_.

<comment><USER3> Oh, I also call customers when I am needing more inspiration and ask them more questions about their product. Works as a double whammy, I get more in depth knowledge of their field, and they get what is basically a more in depth status message.

(I generally do not work with customers who cannot take hearing real status updates, ones who need lies and smoke I elect not to work with whenever possible, so I'm not sure this applies to everyone).

When working on things not for a customer, I talk to people who would be its perspective user base. For instance, board game selection app, talk to boardgamegeek.com users. Configuration file generator module for iphone apps, I talk to people in the local iPhone developer's meetup, etc.

Do not underrated human contact.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> The two things that make the most difference to me are haivng a "Personal Productivity Scaffold" and excercise. (See ([http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/07/how-to-create-a- per...](http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/07/how-to-create-a-personal- productivity-scaffold/)). The scaffold is nothing overly complicated, it is essentially a standard way of planning my day and starting work in the mornings and after lunch.Working out is something I hated to do for a long time until I started lifting weights, now I find that an exhausting workout 3-4 times a work really helps the quality of my sleep, which really helps my mental altertness the following day. The almost meditative "Zen" time while working out has become a key problem solving and decision making time for me. And the fact that it reduces stress and improves stamina over time is a great bonus. On rare occasions now when feeling trapped by inertia or indecsion I will leave during the middle of the day, and work out. I almost always have a clear picture of the path to resolution or the creative solution by the time I am done.

</comment><comment><USER14> I have talked with a neurologist's office at length about brainwaves and the behavior associated with them. We all exhibit these wavelengths, but in different ratios depending on individual makeup/what we are doing.

Typically Alpha wave activity (8-12 mhz) is associated with creativity and calm alertness. According to the neurologist, certain relaxing activities can boost Alpha waves such as taking a walk or taking a hot shower.

The next bracket up is beta waves. the higher range of Beta is the stressful "fight or flight mode". If you are on your third cup of coffee and frantically trying to get something finished before an impending deadline, odds are that if somebody did a EEG on your brain you would see high levels of beta activity. Trouble is, this is where a lot of people live these days and we function in this mode as the norm, which becomes counter productive to creative thought.

My advice is to make sure you give yourself time to downshift into the calmer, more creative state as much as possible. Take a walk, take a shower. Practice slower, deeper breathing.

</comment><comment><USER15> For me, Following things work..

1\. Keep a notepad and a pen handy. Whatever occurs to me, I write it down. And then I type it out on a personal wiki. Right now the wiki is organized by days. Eventually it would be organized by topics.

2\. Use tools like bookmarking etc to be able to retrieve things fast.

3\. Action things NOW. I dont keep them pending. Even if they are tough ones, I do them.

And apart from these productivity things, for creativity, I do following ...

1\. Multidisciplinay approach tot things. Have one major hobby apart from work. Keep changing it every few days. Like now a days am playing poker. Before this I learnt juggling. Before that was Rubik's cube. I dont know when I have to move on but I do keep on changing these challenges.

2\. At max have 4 tabs on your browser at any given time. Helps you focus ;P

3\. Jason Bourse says, sleep is a weapon. I agree. Use it. Make sure you get enough sleep. I sleep about 7 hours a day.

4\. Meet people. Travel. Attend things that are completely different from your domain. I for example goto theatre, college campuses, long car rides etc.

These are more but guess these depend from person to person. Hope the ones I put in help.

Thanks, SG

</comment><comment><USER16> For years i've been reading up on improving productivity but nothing worked untill i started on the Pomodoro Technique, with a s/w timer. I don't follow it religiously but enough to get work done.

Some Tips: Once that clock is set honor it for that 25 minutes. Try to start the timer as many times you can in a day. If you feel the need for longer breaks between than is recommended, take them or set a timer for your breaks as well.

The good thing about is the technique is that it understands that there are always interruptions and tells you a way to mentally make a note and move on.

For a timer you can use tomato timer(or a physical one if possible) and a piece of paper. Note down your tasks for a day/session on a piece of paper and treat it like your 'bible'!. Close all your fancy GTD apps for that period, you can use them during the breaks.

The timer gives you a sense of urgency and a fake deadline. I've noticed that sometimes i feel the need to work, but don't start the timer. Don't do that. Alyways work with a timer, make it a habit.

<comment><USER17> I too have found the Pomodoro Technique fantastic, especially when combined with a GTD-like list of tasks for the day, broken down as atomically as they can be.

It's really helped me get through some of the most mundane work I've had to do on almost no real deadline (which is completely toxic to productivity), where I was the least inspired to work.

As a bonus, it helps make the workday pass very quickly, as you tend to focus on the current Pomodoro, instead of think about all the hours ahead of you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> If I get into that sort of zero-to-negative flow state, I travel, go to a conference, do _something_ to actually transplant myself away and rekindle ideas. On a more local level you can just change scenery. Go to starbucks. Whatever.

I know what you mean about the 'zone' issue. I found that happening when I worked from home a lot. I still do find it happening if I stay at home. It depends a lot on what you define as work, and what you're doing to fill the time before you settle in. Things like the pomodoro technique or other "look, I'll just do it for 5 minutes, then I can get back to reading HN" carrot/stick approaches to oneself can help -- if, like me, once you actually start doing something, you're fine.

Changing your diet and exercise routines to revitalise your energy levels can also help. I started running a few weeks ago and it's really helping me find time where I don't _do_ anything but run. Turn my brain off, almost. When I'm done, ideas come flooding in.

</comment><comment><USER19> Do more than one thing (not at the same time) in a day. preferably tasks that are quite a bit different from each other.

For instance, I work from home on my computer. This makes me sit in front of the computer for a long period of time even when I am not working (for non work related computer time). So I try to put tasks in my todo list (the night before) that requires me to get out of my comfort zone. Which included exercise, preferably eat at least one meal a day outside (most of the time), compulsory book reading (I read at least one book a week), cook when I am not eating out and frequent breaks from my work.

For me, frequent breaks are the single biggest boost of fresh ideas. I always get my best ideas on my breaks.

</comment><comment><USER20> My never-fail recourse: sitting down in an uncomfortable chair for a few hours at a local smoothie shop with lousy background music and telling my self I can't leave until something good comes out of me.

</comment><comment><USER21> Music for me. If i'm feeling distracted or can't quite get my thoughts clear, I blast hardcore punk or drum & bass and once my blood gets pumping the productivity begins. Sometimes it doesn't work so well and i'll try something on the opposite spectrum - bob dylan's first album, slow classical piano/strings, etc.

Also, and this may sound weird: a trip to the restroom. Sitting on the can for 5 or 10 minutes helps me think about the one problem without distraction. Usually I can formulate an outline there and come back and start typing.

</comment><comment><USER22> Try spending the first half of your work day in a different place thinking while keeping web surfing to a minimum and doing no programming at all.

</comment><comment><USER23> Keep a notebook with out at all times to jot down those random, incomplete ideas you have over the course of a day. Then when you sit down to work you can just go through your list and throw away the mostly bad ones, but hopefully you'll have a good one in there worth expanding on. Either way at least it gives you a starting point to actually start working.

</comment><comment><USER24> The best hack I know for this, is solitude. The more time you spend alone the more the unconscious wants to express itself (you can find many creative ideas this way).

Solitude also gives you no option but to do the thing you are secluding yourself to do. Block distracting websites if your task is computer based.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hmm, maybe I am approaching this incorrectly, but I'll go out, drink it up with friends, and not think about work, or my side project. I'll come back to it a day or 2 later, after not looking my problem for a bit. Sometimes that break lets me see things another way, albeit a little hungover ;).

</comment><comment><USER26> Create crap. Write drivel, draw shitty pictures, code a half-assed one-off script.

Biggest obstacle I often have is getting started, that whole "fear of the blank page" thing. But once I get into something I find I can keep rolling, and editing and revising starts to bring out the better stuff.

</comment><comment><USER27> Go for a long morning run (creativity) and then take half a modafinil (productivity).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I have taken to a long run at about 4 in the morning for the past couple of days, and it does seem to help. I'll stick to this till it becomes a habit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I make sure I get enough sleep often enough. Also, I lift weights and go off of caffeine (for some reason, when I get back in the caffeine addiction, I have far less energy during the day and just get cranky and unproductive).

</comment><comment><USER29> Long walks (to gather my thoughts), greenery (creativity) and tea (productivity).

<comment><USER30> That is a marvelously concise yet descriptive sentence.

I would add some socialization, to get me out of my own head and affirm my membership in the human race. Perspective, I guess I would call that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I make sure my work motivates me without any extra effort.

</comment><comment><USER32> I play music everyday. For me, it's acoustic guitar.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess that would be writing some prose for me. It's been a really long time since I actually wrote anything worthwhile, but the problem with this is writing requires some amount of creativity and I seem to be stuck, so whatever I write doesn't really feel right, when I read it later. Regardless I think I'll try setting aside some time especially for this. Thanks.

<comment><USER33> The best writing advice I've ever heard can be summed up more or less by the following:

Just do it. Don't worry about creating that perfect sentence or finding that word that perfectly expresses what you're feeling or setting up the perfect introduction. Just start putting the words to paper, even if it's complete gibberish. Don't labor under enormous expectations, don't worry about the end result, don't think about whether it sucks or not, just keep letting one word flow after the other. You can go back and correct the hell out of it later, purge everything except that one perfect paragraph, but before you get there you need to write and write and write. Preferably every day. They say every writer has 1 million bad words in them, and you have to get them all out before you can write anything worthwhile. So just write write write, and worry about the other stuff later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I go outside</comment>


Nokia to unveil its Android phone. - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/10/5398322/nokia-x-normandy-android-phone-wsj-rumor <comment><USER2> That is great, i really like how solid Lumia looks and feels, if new phone would have the same build quality and ability to root it, then I'll be glad to switch from my HTC device.</comment>


An OPML like exportable format for Todo Lists? - <AUTHOR> http://www.arpitonline.com/blog/2010/11/07/an-opml-like-exportable-format-for-todo-lists/

<comment><USER3> Ugh, why can't this person have a simple comment form? Even enabling all the scripts on the page, I can't seem to post a comment on the blog. So here's the one I wrote...

 _Have you tried Org Mode? (<http://orgmode.org>)

I find it totally indispensable for keeping track of all of my Todo items -- and a lot more besides. It has exporters for various formats, including HTML, PDF/LaTeX, and plain text. Rather than storing your data in the inaccessible cloud, it encourages you to store your Todo files locally, but makes it easy to sync them (e.g., with a service like Dropbox). External projects like MobileOrg for iPhone (<http://mobileorg.ncogni.to/>) and Android (<http://matburt.net/?p=94>) provide a way to read Org files on your mobile device.

I realize that sounds like a bit of a commercial, but the point as it relates to your post is this: the Org format, which is a plain text format, is already a rich representation for task management. It is used by several different apps, and already has exporters for other formats. You could always extend Org to export to OPML like you have envisioned, too, without too much work. There is a lot of work being done on exporters these days, and I think you would find good support in the community if this was a project you wanted to work on._

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point, I haven't used emacs in 8 years, but I know a couple of developers who use it with a lot of passion, even though I imagine its hard for non developers to use it. But using the formal exported by that may not be a bad idea.

I would love to flesh out the core elements (the model in the MVC sense) required that defines a task and its context. The format itself could be exportable as XML, JSON or Org-Mode consumable files.

PS: Sorry about your issue with Disqus, I actually recently installed it because it allowed me to connect with the commentors even more since they signed in with Twitter etc. I should probably look into some graceful degradation back to core wordpress comments when needed.

<comment><USER3> _Good point, I haven't used emacs in 8 years, but I know a couple of developers who use it with a lot of passion, even though I imagine its hard for non developers to use it._

Well, don't be afraid! I'm not a "developer," and I do 99% of my work in Emacs. (I am a philosophy student, though I do write programs from time to time.) It takes time to learn, but so do all worthwhile things.

 _I would love to flesh out the core elements (the model in the MVC sense) required that defines a task and its context. The format itself could be exportable as XML, JSON or Org-Mode consumable files._

Well, as far as Org is concerned, the core elements that define a task are:

1) Title

2) Todo state (user configurable: mine goes TODO -> INPROGRESS -> [possibly] WAITING -> DONE)

With the following optionally present (I'm sure I'm missing some; this is off the top of my head):

\- Priority (also user configurable)

\- Description/free-form notes

\- Deadline timestamp (may be recurring)

\- Timestamp indicating when task is scheduled

\- Timestamp indicating when task was finished

\- running tally of time spent so far

\- a list of arbitrary tags

\- a list of arbitrary properties (key/value pairs)

\- a parent task

\- a list of sub-tasks

\- a property indicating whether sub-tasks must be completed in order

This is all I need in a task model, and then some. You would probably also need a model to represent more global context (like the todo state-flow graph).

Of course, Org also comes with a rich set of tools at the "view" layer, too, which I recommend looking into.

 _Sorry about your issue with Disqus, I actually recently installed it because it allowed me to connect with the commentors even more since they signed in with Twitter etc._

No worries; it comes with the territory when you're a paranoid NoScript user. (That said, I wasn't even able to post the comment after allowing all scripts on the page, so a fallback is probably in order.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I would first read Tim Bray's "Don't Invent XML Languages" [http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2006/01/08/No-New- XML...](http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2006/01/08/No-New-XML- Languages)

Then use html's list structures, possibly with a microformat. Or maybe atom.

<comment><USER5> While I really dig Tim Bray's work, I tend to think it's very easy to get the wrong impression from his statements in that post.

The point he's making is that, in most cases, you should use an existing XML schema instead of reinventing the wheel - it's bad to have a NIH attitude. For the post that started this discussion, an extension or modification on the iCalendar todo specification would make the most sense.

The problem comes when you're trying to describe something totally new, or in a use case that deviates greatly from things that have come before - <USER2> example, I'm working on a network description schema for a project, and I haven't found anything similar, although it is informed by other schemas, from a variety of places (nmap's, and a few others mainly). Had there been prior work that matched what I was trying to do, I'd use it, but as there isn't, it's totally justified to create a new schema in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Exportable/importable ToDos would be good. But online ToDo lists with APIs are the future. Like Toodledo: <http://api.toodledo.com/2/index.php>

Are there others with APIs?

</comment><comment><USER7> Atom + a custom XML namespace should be uncontroversial.

<comment><USER8> Please, no. Keep Atom for feeds please. I really don't like people shoving everything into Atom feeds. For a todo list, damn, either plain text (OrgMode or something similar) or HTML.</comment></comment>