Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/01/everything-about-learning/ <comment><USER2> This is a terrible title to an ok article. Basically it is about spaced repetition and the contextual interference effect.

The argument for the latter being if you focus on one thing your brain will rely more on short term memory in working things out. If you vary randomly _within_ the domain, constant switching of context forces more reliance on long term memory structures. So you learn slower per session but show better generalization and retention of material in the long term. Its good if you are just learning but not useful if you are trying to figure something out.

The mechanisms are little understood but what's really cool is that a similar effect is seen in machine learning. [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.117...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.117.5547&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varied_practice>

<http://jn.physiology.org/content/106/5/2632>

<http://www.cogsci.northwestern.edu/cogsci2004/ma/ma239.pdf>

<comment><USER3> I have to agree with you, I generally find those link-bite "everything you blabla is wrong" titles rather offensive. It a) does not say anything about the content of the article, b) actually insults the reader in a blatant way and c) is a very cheap, offensive and apparently "hip" way of ruthlessly longing for click-throughs. I do not understand how titles like those keep getting up-votes and I feel quite sorry for authors writing good/ok articles and their bosses choosing horrible headings. I am sorry for the "off-topic" rant but it reached a tipping point for me.

<comment><USER4> Well, clearly titles like this one sell a lot more..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems to be about memorization as opposed to understanding (or skills).

I've always seen myself as having a poor memory, but found that if I focused on understanding, I could remember easily. I thought this was because understanding itself is simpler (so there's less to remember), and one can reconstruct the facts from this understanding (also, verify them).

This is treating understanding as a theory, in terms of which the facts can be stated more briefly than without. An abstraction, if you like, that factors out commonalities/redundancies. If A always implies B, then you can just need to rememeber "A".

But later, I've realized that in fact, I do remember a great deal of detail that isn't derived from understanding. Perhaps understanding actually requires a lot of domain knowledge - facts - that the understanding is about. You can't "understand" in a vacuum. So, now I think that's it's just that somehow, causal connections and explanatory relationships stick in my memory more easily - they are certainly more _interesting_ to me (because meaningful), so that helps with concentration and therefore memory.

I actually once tested my opinion that I couldn't memorize, for a university exam, and found - to my amazement - that I could. It really was surprising. But I didn't score nearly as well as I usually did, since I wasn't focused on understanding - which is what it is all about, IMHO.

<comment><USER6> Memorization gives you the building blocks of skills.

It has a really bad name amongst certain education commentators. It's certainly true that you shouldn't try to memorize in a vacuum, or that you shouldn't test "higher order" skills (like complex questions, which require a real understanding of the basic blocks), but memorization of connected facts or processess is essential.

<comment><USER7> The point is, for many of us, the best way to "memorize" things is to explicitly avoid trying to memorize them, and focus instead on understanding context and connections between things – after you've had to call up the same idea 5 or 10 times because it was related to something else you were learning about, recall just comes along.

Examples I've often seen used by proponents of rote learning include multiplication tables and spelling lists. I'm better at mental arithmetic than almost everyone I know, and I almost never misspell words, not because I spent any effort memorizing lists of them (indeed, I completely refused to do this as a 9-year-old, because it bored the crap out of me), but because I've spent more time in exploratory play with the relationships between numbers than they have, and have spent lots of time reading, doing close textual analyses for my own edification, trying to write tight fluid prose, and playing with various kinds of poetry, etc.

I'm convinced that rote memorization is promoted as a pedagogical tool because it is cheap and easy and requires little effort from teachers and schools, more than because it's particularly effective. Then again, everyone learns differently, and I know some people who are incredible at chewing through lists of facts once quickly and dredging them back up effortlessly months later. YMMV.

<comment><USER8> This sort of thing seems to me to be just you stumbling on the spaced repetition effect by accident: you look up the same thing several times, at varying intervals as you learn it more.

I personally think multiplication is actually a great thing for spaced repetition if you can get the software to pick random numbers each time. I also find that things that I don't review regularly just fall out of my head, spaced repetition software is good for just stopping that relatively easily.

<comment><USER7> Speaking only for myself, learning things rote, via software-driven spaced repetition or otherwise, is deadly dull. On the other hand, finding new patterns, reading relevant books and deconstructing their arguments, holding discussions with other people passionate about a subject, trying to construct new ideas and relate them to past knowledge, etc. is exciting and invigorating. Living life as a human rather than a robot may be less than perfectly efficient relative to some platonic ideal, but really, so what? Similarly, I'd much rather go on a hike than run on a treadmill, I'd much rather cook and eat a delicious meal than compute the perfect mixture of nutrients and blend them into a shake–slurry, and I'd rather make one deep friend than fill a rolodex with business cards. My personal impression from having dabbled with spaced repetition software after a friend bugged me about it for months was that I personally learn better when learning things doesn't feel like a visit to the dentist. Call it a character flaw. Again, YMMV.

My point about the multiplication tables and spelling lists though was that explicitly learning e.g. multiplication tables is pretty much unnecessary, because multiplying small numbers comes up again and again in doing more exciting and challenging problems, and by the 20th time you've had to multiply 6*8 through some explicit manual method, you'll just start to remember that oh yeah, that's 48 again.

<comment> one-shot While I agree that rote learning is very dull, it can be fundamental in situations where you know next to nothing of the subject at hand.

Consider for example two native English speakers, one learning German and the other learning Chinese. German grammar is way more complex than Chinese's, but because of the etymological closeness between German and English, the German student will quickly get to the point where they can easily pick up new words from the context (obviating the need for vocabulary lists), while the Chinese student will pretty much never reach that. In this type of situation an SRS is invaluable.

Regarding multiplication tables, you shouldn't forget that knowing them by heart is sometimes necessary for understanding the exciting problems. This comes up all the time in mathematics: to understand the important problems in a field, you sometimes have to get to know well a lot of seemingly boring concepts.

<comment><USER9> Knowing multiplication tables by heart is never necessary for understanding exciting problems; the exciting problems are not dependent on your arbitrary culturally-contingent choice of numeric base! I had discovered the commutative and associative properties of multiplication long before memorizing multiplication tables in fourth grade, and historically speaking, they were known long before the adoption of place-value numerical systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why has no one mentioned SuperMemo? The software has been around since the 80's. I use it every single day (because you have to) for about 30 minutes to remember Latin vocabularly. It's based on spaced-repetition. If you feel a particular piece of knowledge is worth remembering permanently, I would recommend using it. <http://www.supermemo.com/>

There's actually a Wired article about the author of the software [http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_woznia...](http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_wozniak?currentPage=all) Completely eccentric and totally devoted to using the thing. I mean he doesn't even decide when he responds to his own mail, Supermemo will "schedule" it for him. I believe the latest version supports something called "incremental reading" which Wozniak claims is better than the usual order we read things. You read till you get bored/tired and them move on and it'll keep track of where you were, etc.

<comment><USER11> There's actually an open source app which functions similarly to super-memo, but uses an older spaced repetition algorithm and doesn't quite have the same feature set. Its called Anki (<http://www.ankisrs.net>), and its been a godsend for both myself and many friends who learn Japanese.

The thing I found interesting in this article is that switching contexts actually increases the amount you can learn. From what I understand, this would mean studying grammar, character reading/production and vocabulary at the same time would be beneficial. I never quite understood why this was the case before, even though people have told me it is so.

<comment><USER3> I also heavily use Anki for learning (Japanese). Although you can learn all sorts of things very efficiently with it once you get into the habit of using it. The program is great, it comes with >free< syncing/online backup, provides an iOS/Mac/Linux/Win/Android/Maemo client and a slick browser interface.

<comment><USER10> I really like that there are so many clients. Would really like some kind of cloud-sync + mobile client for SuperMemo. It also only works in Windows which means I have to run it under VirtualBox.

My only concern with Anki is whether it still uses some variant of the SM-2 algorithm and whether or not the people implementing the software are doing more than just polishing interfaces, etc. and actively work on improving the learning algorithm. Looking at the history, SuperMemo on SM-11 <http://www.supermemo.com/english/algsm11.htm> and Wozniak claims that there is a substantial evidence that this algorithm increases the speed of your learning.

<comment><USER3> Yes, Anki used to use a slightly modified version of SM-5 but the Lead- developer decided to revert down to a modified and improved version of SM-2. Basically he reasons (you can find his explanation on the Anki FAQ) that while versions newer than SM-2 are supposed to (slightly) increase efficiency, it only happens if you study every day and at roughly the same time of day. The reason is, that starting with SM-3 a failure on a certain card changes the difficulty of (determined by the algo) similar cards. A further explanation by the lead developer can be found here: [http://markmail.org/message/u2zfnrg7x53bzp24#query:+page:1+m...](http://markmail.org/message/u2zfnrg7x53bzp24#query:+page:1+mid:gjwn32ntqdfsnors+state:results and) I am convinced that it (at least for me) offers much better studying conditions. (Actually, the mere fact that I can revise on a crowded 30min commute on my ipod would make up for any efficiency increase).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's really a shame that almost none of what we know about optimal techniques for learning is being applied in real educational institutions.

<comment><USER13> This isn't even approximately true. Almost everything we know about optimal techniques for learning is being applied in real educational institutions. But, not every teacher is as effective at applying them, and furthermore, it takes time to do a full overhaul of all parts of everything.

A more effective lament would be, it's too bad these techniques don't yet have universal application. But the above comment is just sniping; it's a claim that educators aren't even trying. Which, aside from being false, is acutely unhelpful.

<comment><USER12> I think what's truly unhelpful if people claiming that everything is fine, while the education system completely fails to meet even the most basic standards of efficacy (while costing a cool trillion dollars a year to run.)

At the most basic level Americans have shockingly low levels of scientific, mathematical, literary, or financial literacy. About half don't believe in evolution, about a quarter think the moon landing was a hoax, over two thirds don't know enough math to pass an 8th grade math test.

At the college level, students retain about 10% of what they hear in lectures. Forget nearly everything within months of graduation, and generally fail to improve on basic logic and reading comprehension skills compared to when they first entered university. Then after graduation the average college grad reads less than 1 book per year.

If you ask a _typical_ college student (and remember I said typical, not those who can afford to pay 50k per year to attend an elite liberal arts college) what their university experience has been like they will tell you that in a solid three quarters of their classes they had a disinterested prof who showed up for 50 minutes to read them the textbook and then asked them to mindlessly regurgitate the content on the exam.

So I'll repeat that I think what's truly unhelpful is guys like you claiming that everything is hunky dory.

<comment><USER13> > _So I'll repeat that I think what's truly unhelpful is guys like you > claiming that everything is hunky dory._

"Hunky dory"? Not to overly pick on your own logic and reading comprehension skills, but I made no such claim. We have a lot to do, and there's a lot that is known that doesn't have universal application, and some things aren't even widely implemented yet. I was, however, disputing the claim that " _almost none_ " of it is implemented.

<comment><USER12> Did you even read your own comment?

"Almost everything we know about optimal techniques for learning is being applied in real educational institutions. But, not every teacher is as effective at applying them..."

I guess my reading comprehension must be totally shot, because I interpret that as meaning that almost everything we know about techniques for learning is being applied, but the problem is just that some teachers aren't applying these techniques correctly. You know, instead of about 80% of teaching not giving a shit and there being no consequence to that for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I find that the learning in different places thing is really key. In school I find that for exams where I've been forced (by schedule) to study everywhere (my apartment, friends, classroom, different libraries, coffee shops), I find it easier to recall methods and approaches. For straight up 'facts', I don't really find a difference, but when tackling various problem solving exercises, it really has a difference.

I also find that studying while listening to music is always risky, since you may find yourself craving music during the exam.

Honestly, I've read many books on learning and brain plasticity, and they all give somewhat contradictory results. Perhaps because cited studies rarely use the same approaches to learning/testing.

For example, in this article, we are told that 'topic-focused' studying is not the way to do it. But what they've really established is that in things which have multiple facets to work away at, an interleaving approach can produce better results. But what about learning in things in which there is a strong linear progression, or at least a strong 'prerequisite' relationship. In many technical courses, courses are often structured in this way, so that each 'topic' builds heavily on the last.

Honestly, the only consistent thread that I can really take out of all of this is that learning anything takes consistent, long term, DIRECTED work. It is possible to drop something your memory, and keep it at an 'adequate' level for a long time through somewhat consistent, more 'relaxed' work, but this 'knowledge' will leave you quickly as soon as you stop. Where as if you have long term directed work, it will end up embedding into your memory. After you stop, you may not be able to immediately recall these things, but after a quick refresher, you'll retain very very large amounts of information.

</comment><comment><USER15> Another article on the same subject: [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/opinion/sunday/quality- hom...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/opinion/sunday/quality-homework-a- smart-idea.html?pagewanted=all)

According to the article, there are three main ways to efficient learning:

1\. Spaced Repetition - where the information is repeated, but with longer and longer intervals between each repeat.

2\. Retrieval Practice - where you have to actively recall the answer or technique rather than being told or shown it.

3\. Cognitive Disfluency - the harder you have to work to read or understand the material the more you will remember it. (I'm not sure how useful this point is. The New York Times article refers to research where the text was blurry, but from this it concludes that interleaving different topics would give a good results...I'm not convinced that would give the same result).

</comment><comment><USER16> _Everything You Thought Would Be Referenced Isn't_

Lovely premise, but how am I expected to take this seriously without sources and references?

<comment><USER17> > Really, I recently had the good fortune to interview Robert Bjork, director > of the UCLA Learning and Forgetting Lab...

That's the source. This isn't a research paper - it doesn't need cited references to be submitted to the journal of Wired.

<comment><USER16> It doesn't _need_ to be, but it certainly helps expand the conversation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Learning hack I've found very effective (not that it is very original, but I was surprised how effective this is) - study with others, each of you should try to explain what you read to the others, and argue about what it means, why others got it wrong, etc.

For me it's best motivation to try hard to understand something, when I can show off shortly after :) And it gives immediate feedback - if you can't explain something, you don't really understand it. And when a few people are learning together, they find most of the patterns quickly, and it makes learing the rest easier.

</comment><comment><USER19> Does anyone else get tired of Wired's sensational headlines, that come off as spammy? The logic in their headlines is often faulty. Which thus keeps me from reading their content, or taking them seriously.

</comment><comment><USER20> Plenty of publications by Robert Bjork here: <http://bjorklab.psych.ucla.edu/RABjorkPublications.php>

</comment><comment><USER21> I've tried SRS's and don't like them. They're only good for memorization, and if you're memorizing something that you need to use, using it is a -lot- better than using an SRS.

Plus, memorizing complex things with via SRS isn't easy. Figuring out how to break down the cards into small enough pieces is really hard for any non- trivial information.

For instance, I tried to use it to study for the PHP Cert from Zend. I passed the test, but only because I spent so much time researching to make the cards. The actual studying of the cards was pretty much useless after having done the real work of making the cards.

I tried to use it for studying languages, but I've found that the time making the cards is pretty much wasted (it's copy and paste, no thought involved) and studying them beyond the first few reps is pointless, too. If I can get through a few reps, and I'm actively using the language, there's no need to continue doing reps beyond that. I'm better off letting someone else make the list, study them like normal flashcards a few times, and then throw them away. (Better yet is something like iKnow that has the word, translation, picture and sentence.)

In the end, I've never actually found a use case for an SRS system that wasn't trumped by something else either because of easiness or just being better.

</comment><comment><USER22> _Everything You Thought You Knew About Learning Is Wrong_

 _And it turns out that everything I thought I knew about learning is wrong._

These titles kill me. It's like the author has found out the ultimate gold mine. It's actually my strategy for learning for years. When approaching a particular topic/field, I start by reading related things to gain domain knowledge. This helps a bit later and accelerates my learning.

</comment><comment><USER23> Yet another reason to write real code that does real things when you want to learn a new technique.

</comment><comment><USER24> this is quite contradictory to the way I've been learning (especially in classes where a lot of memorization was required, eg. law or business administration). I'll definitely give this a shot the next time I'm cramming for an exam.</comment>


Offer: I will screen your resume for free as a Googler would - <AUTHOR>

I get a bunch of questions about Google on Quora. A lot of these questions are from prospects who are trying to learn more about the tech giant and are considering applying there. My career has benefited from a lot of generous help from others so since I have a bit of free time, I wanted to give back a little.
So I'm promising to screen non-technical resumes to the first 15 people who send me their resumes exactly as I would if I was at Google (or any similar big tech company). Please e-mail at email@example.com
More details on rules and my credentials are at my blog here: http://saikatbhadra.tumblr.com/post/60381093547/offer-i-will-screen-your-resume-for-free-as-a-googler <comment> one-two great idea, do you know anyone who would be willing to do it for a technical resume?

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately not - maybe ask the HN community?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it possible to build a company where everyone is a software engineer? - <AUTHOR> Everyone is software engineer, some of which happens to do HR, marketing, sales, recruiting ...
Small team. Move fast. Automate as many things as possible (software is eating the world ...)
I know, this is kind of idealism. But, seriously, any success example? <comment><USER3> Let me answer with some examples from other popular niche forums:

"Ask accountingnews: Is it possible to build an accounting firm where everyone is an accountant?"

"Ask shockedhackers: Is it possible to build an electrical business where everyone is an electrician?"

"Ask housebuilders: Is it possible to build a home construction business where everyone is a carpenter?"

etc.

At some very very small scale, sure, but usually it's because of necessity, not because it's a good way to do things. Specialization is awesome! Having people in your company that are very very good at particular aspects of your business is a huge advantage over all the poor saps that are trying to wing it with a bunch of folks that don't really know what they're doing when it comes to marketing, sales, design, copywriting, accounting, law...

</comment><comment><USER4> I know of a few teams on the order of 3~5 people where that's true, but am skeptical it would make sense as something other than a very expensive statement of purpose after you get into the tens of employees.

As an intermediate step, I'd like to see more companies actually put 1+ dedicated engineers on permanent assignment in marketing, sales (preferably not solely as sales engineers), and recruiting. Most SaaS companies that I've worked with which have, say, 20+ engineers have _not a single one_ assigned permanently to those three jobs. Great news for me back when I was consulting, not so great news for their long-term results.

<comment><USER5> At a startup I worked for several months as a university intern, I ended up (because of my location) working out of the office with the inside sales team instead of engineering. At first it felt like I was in the wrong place, but as I got into the swing of things and really figured out how sales reps were spending their time, I realized that there was a ton of manual labor just related to bookkeeping and tracking leads that was repeated for everyone they contacted.

I asked my direct boss's permission to be officially moved to the sales team, and spent most of that summer developing a custom CRM that facilitated the flow the sales staff used. When it was finished, the average number of leads contacted per associate increased 40% basically overnight, dramatically affecting the growth rate of the company (and the sales staff absolutely loved me).

Any software developer could have built what I did, and had the company realized what they were missing I'm sure they would have got one of their "real" developers to spend a couple of weeks and probably put something together better than what my intern-self was capable of. The value I added in that situation wasn't my engineering prowess, but rather my ability to see exactly what was needed and build the right tool for the job.

<comment><USER4> _Any software developer could have built what I did, and had the company realized what they were missing I 'm sure they would have got one of their "real" developers to spend a couple of weeks and probably put something together better than what my intern-self was capable of_

Unless you have personal knowledge that that actually happened, I will bet you dinner that it did not. Yes, it is absolutely the case that it would have been in their best interest to do it. No, software companies cannot routinely self- motivate to actually do this.

Great news for anybody here, though: if you can unbork sales/marketing/etc for a software company that ability is _quite lucrative indeed_ as a consultant.

<comment><USER6> This makes a great deal of sense. How would an average dev, with experience of fixing sales/marketing/etc, go about becoming this kind of consultantant?

<comment><USER7> Look through patio11's comment history and his essays on his website. He answers that and links to other answers extensively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The challenge there is that tasks like marketing and sales take an immense amount of talent and experience to do well - and they gain very little from software engineering knowledge. Sure, there might be sales tools to help track progress, or marketing may be able to implement the A/B testing themselves, but realistically the real value they bring is outside the scope of engineering software.

The time it cost them to be software engineers is time they wouldn't have spent becoming better at sales/marketing, so your company would be in a disadvantage in the market. Even genius engineers can't overcome bad sales or marketing.

</comment><comment><USER9> At my company, we_almost_ fit that bill. We're not small, but we're not a large team either. The company was started as a PHP development shop 15 years ago but has switched tech and brand and name and grown so much in just 10 months. We have an HR lady who is teaching herself to code, a social networking boff who started several of his own websites and owns a custom PC build shop, our marketing lady writes a lot of technical journals, the CEO/founder, co-founder, creative director and technical director all code (and have very intense backgrounds I might add), and some of our dev team are independent contractors, one of which owns a music production company on the side and is in 2 locally famous bands! :D

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Let me be honest

The non-sw knowledge of your average Sw.Eng. is _abysmal_ , even though on HN there are _exceptions_ (sometimes, surprisingly)

At the same time, the "I think I can do it!" spirit is high on Sw.Engs.

So you'll have a lot of people thinking they can do "HR, marketing, sales, recruiting" while fumbling at it.

Here's the simple fact (and even then): beyond a small scale it's _easier and cheaper_ to have somebody else doing it.

Especially for things like accounting, legal, HR (Payroll/recruiting) etc.

Possible profit of your time per hour doing your specialty: $lots

Possible profit of your time per hour doing something foreign to you: $0 to negative

<comment><USER11> _" Possible profit of your time per hour doing something foreign to you: $0 to negative"_

And the negative can be a _very_ large negative, resulting in civil or criminal liabilities:

\- If you screw up a sensitive HR situation (e.g., ignoring a sexual harassment complaint), an employee might sue your company for millions of dollars.

\- If you screw up your accounting you might get a letter from the IRS saying you owe them thousands in back taxes and penalties. If you fail to send the IRS the withholding tax you deducted from your employees' paychecks, you could face criminal charges.

\- If you screw up your accounting and don't have enough cash left at the end of the month to pay your payroll, rent, utilities, etc., you could go bankrupt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is it possible to build a company where everybody can sing? Write in cursive? Play the ukulele?

Sure thing. The question is: why?

Frankly I think such a company makes a lot of sense. It's easier to teach a software engineer management than it is a manger engineering. That's because software engineers are paid to learn all sorts of other domains as part of their work, whereas other folks get into a certain domain and stay there.

One of the key reasons such a company makes a lot of sense is that whatever you do, you should be looking to automate it. Part of building a company is this tension between forming a business model and codifying a business engine. Folks should be good at both parts of that.

The problem is, the education system wants to stick people in little buckets. Modern education is full of people who are a mile deep, but only an inch wide. So the trick is finding people with broad life experiences and multiple active interests that span much more than just software engineering. Also folks with a lot of different worldviews and personality types, if you want you team to sizzle. Putting all of that criteria together in one place by design can be very tough, if not impossible. (But it happens a lot by accident)

</comment><comment><USER13> This works in the early stages of startups.

When it starts to fall apart is when you scale - you need to switch from generalist to specialist roles very quickly. The person managing your sales now is likely not going to have the experience to build out a dedicated sales force (when you reach this point). It's the same for marketing, HR, design etc.

These 'titles' will require full-time dedication one day, which would require your current team to give up their engineering tasks. I'm not sure they'd be prepared to do that.

</comment><comment><USER14> Be wary of monoculture. I know we would not be where we are now if we didn't have people with real sales experience.

Scientific background is however great whatever the position.

</comment><comment><USER15> Sales, marketing and HR can all be done by engineers, and sometimes is (our company for example).

But you'll run into a roadblock with finance. Not many engineers knows in the inn's and out's of tax law, GAAP or financial instruments available to a company.

But would you really want all your people to be engineers, awfully expensive and wasteful to engineering experience for tasks not at all related to engineering.

<comment><USER16> I want to see the conjoint experiments your sofware engineer folks in marketing are doing. Would be magnificent, I'm sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> If you're lucky enough to scale it, look to the Marine Corps. "Every Marine a Rifleman" is a close analog for a very large organization. Of course many Marines do other things, but they are all expected to be proficient riflemen.

A nice thing about studying the military is that most training material is public domain, and the pedagogy is exceptionally well worked out.

</comment><comment><USER18> You wouldn't want your software team doing HR, recruiting, sales, etc.

The mental dislocation that comes from switching roles, having to maintain the tree of work in your brain for each, and being able to switch on and off at any given moment (sales won't wait, you have to take/make that call) - <USER2> severely reduce the productivity of a software engineer.

If you really have to stretch, outsource some tasks. If you can't afford to, then that's a different issue.

If you absolutely had to do it in-house, then make it _everyone sells_ until you can hire a dedicated sales person. This aligns everyone in the sell or die box together, shares the responsibility, and forces everyone to really understand the product they're making from all angles.

</comment><comment><USER19> Many small companies are just that, a handful of developers doing all these roles. You probably also get better outcomes in a technology/software company where people are or were former engineers/programmers. There is also manager, business, advertising, design sides that would be needed within those developers.

Part of the reason small companies do better is they are usually people that have worked in those fields deeply.

This also works with other specialties. For instance I bet Neill Blomkamp runs the 3d animation/art side of his movies really well because he was one for so long. There might not be a better 3d art/direction currently in film because he has such experience there.

</comment><comment><USER20> It could definitely be possible with some kind of _niche_ technology consulting company.

I'm limiting it to _niche_ technologies because, like others have mentioned, operating at any significant scale will eventually necessitate specialization, even for a consulting company (marketing to acquire customers, designers to build good looking software, managers to shield developers from abrasive clients, etc).

</comment><comment><USER21> I think it could work definitely.

I know a small team for mobile game development which has around 10 people, 7 developers and 3 designers.

This small team run pretty well at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER22> Surely possible, and proven to work at a small scale (less than 50ppl I would say). If you have people who are not afraid of leaving their comfort zone, who like to push forward, learn new things, inspire one another and are communicative, then it turns out that you can do a lot, including marketing, sales & HR even without specialists (one thing I find crucial is outsourcing the accounting, especially if you live in a beaurocratic country).

At rspective ([http://www.rspective.com/#team](http://www.rspective.com/#team)) we are 11 people, _everybody_ is a software dev with strong technical background. E.g. we get lots of sale opportunities despite the fact that no-one in the team has any real experience with sales. We hire people by ourselves. We run marketing actions/campaigns. We are pragmatic, we figure out how to do things on our own. 2 years on the market and it works out perfectly for us so far.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm not sure about non-Engineering roles, but this somewhat reminds me of my experience interviewing with Facebook for a Network Engineer position. Traditionally, Network Engineers are experienced with Vendor provided solutions (Juniper, Cisco, etc) and most interviews would cover experience implementing/supporting different types of architecture using these Vendor provided solutions. Facebook Engineering exemplified a refreshing new approach where Network Engineers are also Software Developers, and the focus/goal is to proactively correct and automate Network Engineer tasks. This means there is less time fighting fires, and more time building solutions. I found this to be an interesting new approach (for me anyway). So conceptually, I could see this working; an HR person that can write the company HR tools, marketing and sales people that write their own tools, etc.

</comment><comment><USER24> I own a company where everyone is a software engineer. I'm currently the only employee, and I don't imagine I could scale to much more than one or two other people before I had to hire non-software engineers.

I also think that a marketing department full of software engineers would be a bit of disaster.

</comment><comment><USER25> Related with this: I found out last week that a javascript developer ([http://julian.com](http://julian.com) | @shapiro) is vp of marketing in webflow and I had a similar reaction, 'wait a js dev in a marketing position?!'.

Amazeballs!

</comment><comment><USER26> Is outsourcing allowed? Lots of SaaS options for HR (benefits management), payroll, lead generation, etc. Plus contractors/freelance service providers. Enough so that a CEO could handle that for a small team and not take much of his/her time.

</comment><comment><USER27> Yes, but at least some people will have to juggle hats a lot. And at a certain scale they'll probably spend more time not being a software engineer than being one, up to the point where it doesn't really make sense to call them software engineers at all.

The reason most companies have dedicated employees is that it's very hard to be a generalist and stay on top of everything you do. It's more efficient to specialise and become much better at a handful of things instead of being barely competent at everything.

</comment><comment><USER28> No. At a certain point it won't make sense for a software engineer to code and also to manage the books, recruit, do sales, or manage a marketing budget.

You'll find that as you grow it's best to maximize the time people can spend on what they are best at. Maybe the leadership could all have engineering backgrounds, but it'd be dumb to make them both engineers and in charge of some non-engineering thing at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER29> It's not unheard of for a single person to be responsible for a product/company. Sublime text, IDA Pro, Pinboard.in and there are quite a few more examples that's handled by a single person. As Internet and its effect grows, it's more likely to see these type of products where an individual or a group of few wear many hats.

</comment><comment><USER30> Speaking from personal experience, I'd second what people are saying about doing this on a very small scale. However, there are soft skills engineers really don't have, nor want. Running a business "where everyone is a software engineer" is about so much more than the type of employee you hire.

</comment><comment><USER31> I think Engineers could do HR, marketing, sales etc. having said that how many such engineers would you be able to find? There are two things here: 1\. How would you scale based on the question above? 2\. How would you pay them? (For eg. an Engineer doing HR would be paid like an Engineer or like an HR?)

<comment><USER32> neither scenario for 2 makes sense though. why would you pay an engineering salary for HR work? and, why would an engineer want to work for an HR salary? and if you're hiring an engineer and paying them like an engineer, would they really want to be doing HR work?

although now that i think of it... if you pay me my salary i'd might be happy to switch to HR...

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is more a question of supply and demand. If you consider your problem to be the following:

You need the following amount of work done per week: Accounting: 40 hrs HR: 40 hrs Marketing: 80 hrs Sales: 160 hours Software Development: 160 hours

Your job is to now cover these hours in the most efficient way possible.

</comment><comment><USER34> Sounds like a dream. In all companies I've worked at everyone outside engineering has been useless.

</comment><comment><USER35> It doesn't seem like an obvious route to success.

It feels like you wouldn't be getting as much efficiency out of a company where many people were learning on the job, or executing processes that were very dissimilar to the sort of work they typically enjoyed.

</comment><comment><USER36> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_Autonomous_Organi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_Autonomous_Organization)

</comment><comment><USER37> Are you talking about software engineers who stop doing software engineering to start doing the other things, or about people who are doing both software engineering and the other things?

</comment><comment><USER38> [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS_Institute](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAS_Institute)

</comment><comment><USER39> AIUI Facebook made a point of hiring only programmers in their early stages, even for roles that weren't primarily programming.

</comment><comment><USER40> As far as I know, whatsapp had very few employees (about 50). I wonder how many of them were non-technical

</comment><comment><USER41> Why would you want to? Makes no sense.

<comment><USER42> The only reason I can think of is OP wants to avoid the inevitable drop in prestige and decision-making power once the suits roll in and regard every engineer in the firm as an interchangeable cog in the machine. A better question is "is it possible to build a company with engineers in executive positions?" and the answer is "yes, but it might not be enough, cf Google."

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Seems like it would be expensive, and hard to maintain beyond a very small number of employees.

</comment><comment><USER44> Sure, but it seems terribly near-sighted to me. Why would you want to?

</comment><comment><USER45> Small multidisciplinary teams FTW.

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm an example in the sense that I run a company all by myself, where my service is custom software development, but I also do all my own sales, web design and so on.

It would not be hard for someone like myself to team up with several colleagues.

Even if someone devotes their day to sales, if they are selling software it is helpful for them to have some experience as coders.

"Small team. Move fast." An Apple Developer Evangelist visited Working Software one day at the time we had about ten employees. She was overcome with jealousy at our ability to quickly respond to changing market conditions. (At Apple, every new product, and many new releases of existing product require sign-off on an 'Engineering Requirements Specification' or 'ERS'. While the ERS is generally a good idea, at Working Software I could just say 'Hey Dave I have this idea for a new product - OK if I write it?')

Where you find more-specialized staff is commonly with larger companies. A very serious problem I see is that marketing people don't have the first clue about web design.</comment>


Avout: Distributed State in Clojure - <AUTHOR> http://clojure.com/blog/2011/11/29/avout.html <comment><USER3> I am reminded of an oldie but a goodie: <http://bc.tech.coop/blog/081201.html>

Rich Hickey's quote I found interesting from the above article:

"There are other ways to model identity and state, one of the more popular of which is the message-passing actor model, best exemplified by the quite impressive Erlang. In an actor model, state is encapsulated in an actor (identity) and can only be affected/seen via the passing of messages (values). In an asynchronous system like Erlang's, reading some aspect of an actor's state requires sending a request message, waiting for a response, and the actor sending a response. It is important to understand that the actor model was designed to address the problems of distributed programs. And the problems of distributed programs are much harder - there are multiple worlds (address spaces), direct observation is not possible, interaction occurs over possibly unreliable channels, etc. The actor model supports transparent distribution. If you write all of your code this way, you are not bound to the actual location of the other actors, allowing a system to be spread over multiple processes/machines without changing the code.

I chose not to use the Erlang-style actor model for same-process state management in Clojure for several reasons:

* It is a much more complex programming model, requiring 2-message conversations for the simplest data reads, and forcing the use of blocking message receives, which introduce the potential for deadlock. Programming for the failure modes of distribution means utilizing timeouts etc. It causes a bifurcation of the program protocols, some of which are represented by functions and others by the values of messages.

* It doesn't let you fully leverage the efficiencies of being in the same process. It is quite possible to efficiently directly share a large immutable data structure between threads, but the actor model forces intervening conversations and, potentially, copying. Reads and writes get serialized and block each other, etc.

* It reduces your flexibility in modeling - this is a world in which everyone sits in a windowless room and communicates only by mail. Programs are decomposed as piles of blocking switch statements. You can only handle messages you anticipated receiving. Coordinating activities involving multiple actors is very difficult. You can't observe anything without its cooperation/coordination - making ad-hoc reporting or analysis impossible, instead forcing every actor to participate in each protocol.

* It is often the case that taking something that works well locally and transparently distributing it doesn't work out - the conversation granularity is too chatty or the message payloads are too large or the failure modes change the optimal work partitioning, i.e. transparent distribution isn't transparent and the code has to change anyway.

Clojure may eventually support the actor model for distributed programming, paying the price only when distribution is required, but I think it is quite cumbersome for same-process programming. YMMV of course."

</comment><comment><USER4> I used to program in Common Lisp. While it was great, I always had the feeling of being "somewhere else". All the cool things were happening elsewhere. I had to implement many things on my own instead of using other people's solutions, because they were solving their problems elsewhere.

I get the opposite feeling with Clojure. We used it to write a scalable distributed system. A number of ideas emerged. And then I see those ideas properly designed and implemented in systems like Storm, and now — Avout. It's a wonderful feeling when things just happen in front of you and you get great code that you can use, in your favorite language.

Best of all, there is real innovation. People don't just clone Ruby on Rails, many new designs are a large step _up_.

</comment><comment><USER5> To quote Dr. Peter Venkman, "I love this plan! I'm excited to be a part of it! LET'S DO IT!"

</comment><comment><USER6> how does this compare with the stuff Terracotta is doing ?

Is this essentially Terracotta for clojure ?

<comment><USER5> [Context: I used to work at Terracotta. I currently do Clojure. I haven't had much time yet to look at Avout other than reading the same web pages you have.]

Terracotta has several kinds of distributed computing infrastructure - <USER2> infrastructure, distributed lock management, and shared memory (this is not all, but covers most of the distributed aspects). Maybe also important are data structures that are tuned to leverage this infrastructure (Ehcache is the most used one but also other java.util.concurrent classes). Terracotta is primarily focused on Java which is inherently based around mutable state and locks to protect it. Terracotta makes that state shared across the cluster and the locks protecting it distributed. Distributed locks in Java code are either done by leveraging the transaction semantics implied by synchronized keyword or Reentrant[ReadWrite]Locks - that is, it starts from standard Java memory model semantics and extends things from there. Most of the extensions are about weakening the model in ways that support common code patterns while allowing for greater distributed concurrency. The Ehcache distributed product hides some of the common complexities with mutable Java objects by focusing on Serializable keys/values (which users don't expect to retain object identity).

Avout is leveraging Zookeeper to provide the infrastructure, then layering the distributed locks and other Clojure state/identity mechanisms over the top. Avout can take advantage of two key aspects: 1) immutable data (which simplifies many hard problems in dealing with shared data and 2) focusing on Clojure change mechanisms which do not (externally) rely on locks, giving a lot more freedom in implementation. The latter defines transactional boundaries in much the same way that Java synchronization is leveraged by Terracotta to define transactional boundaries.

So I think saying that this is "Terracotta for Clojure" is a little true in that there is a bunch of overlap in the kinds of problems they're solving, but also much different in approach. For example, Clojure uses an MVCC + retry model of state change which Terracotta does not. I'm not trying to say either is better or worse - they are just different. Terracotta is also an inherently client/server model with a server cluster either collaboratively (via multiple actives) or redundantly (via hot backups) managing the shared state and a client cluster implementing the application. Avout seems to be more of a peered solution where some of the peers can write to stores (like Mongo).

Interestingly, it is fairly trivial to write a distributed lock manager over Terracotta - they have built demos like that ([http://dsoguy.blogspot.com/2010/05/couple-minutes-with- terra...](http://dsoguy.blogspot.com/2010/05/couple-minutes-with-terracotta- toolkit.html)) but never released such a thing afaik. That implies to me that you could swap the Zookeeper+locks infrastructure with Terracotta without too much trouble. Given the many man-years of effort that have gone into optimizing the Terracotta distributed lock manager, that may be a big win for some use cases.</comment></comment>


Python Exercises for Kids - <AUTHOR> http://blog.regehr.org/archives/1300 <comment><USER2> Started programming when I was 8 using basic. Things have changed a lot since then, but one thing probably hasn't: The best incentive I got to continue learning how to program was my ability to impress others.

I would develop screen savers (Lines floating on the screen, lines being drawn randomly on screen, ball bouncing off the edges of the screen, flying into a star-field as the stars move away from the center of the screen), and show them off to my friends and family. I would develop a small game (spaceship moves up and down to avoid hitting incoming asteroids) - I'd show it to my friends. Let my brothers play the game.

These were the type of rewarding tasks that led me to keep on learning and experimenting.

If you're doing Python - I strongly recommend "Inventing computer games with python" [https://inventwithpython.com/](https://inventwithpython.com/) Using pygame, you can get really quick graphical results, and start showing off some awesome things. I even built a Tetris game based on pygame a while back when I was learning python myself.

Also - if you're doing turtle programming, check out [http://pythonturtle.org/](http://pythonturtle.org/) \- an awesome implementation of turtle graphics for python.

<comment><USER3> Found out recently pygame works with python 3 now, so that's one hurdle overcome. msi for 3.4 at [https://bitbucket.org/pygame/pygame/downloads](https://bitbucket.org/pygame/pygame/downloads)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Most "Teach Kids Programming" are build on the idea that programming means sitting still in front of a keyboard typing stuff. Most kids under 10 can manage at most about 15 minutes of that before getting bored and either wanting to get up and jump around or watch YouTube / play games.

Scratch ([https://scratch.mit.edu/](https://scratch.mit.edu/)) helps a bit but it's still "stuck in front of a screen" and reaching a "reward", in terms of a meaningful result takes longer than the average childs attention span.

Best starting point I've ever seen is this "How to Train your Robot" real world game - [https://drtechniko.com/2014/07/09/teaching-the-how-to- train-...](https://drtechniko.com/2014/07/09/teaching-the-how-to-train-your- robot-to-jump-game/) \- which is based on the idea that adults play the robots and kids get to tell them what to do. That's immediately a fascinating starting point for kids to hold their interest while they pick up some basic ideas of logic and creating instruction sets for a 3rd party to execute.

<comment><USER5> Attention span varies considerably from one child to another.

The 'How to Train your Robot' game appears to be aimed at a 2.5 year old and as the mother of a 2.5 year old myself, it seems ludicrous to try to get a child that age into programming.

On the other hand, my 5 year old needs something more than directing robots around - Robot Turtles is too easy now for example, but he does enjoy playing with ScratchJr on the iPad, sometimes for quite long periods of time. It also of course has the big advantage at this age of not requiring literacy.

<comment><USER4> > The 'How to Train your Robot' game appears to be aimed at a 2.5 year old and > as the mother of a 2.5 year old myself, it seems ludicrous to try to get a > child that age into programming.

I've found it works best as a party game with a group of kids where it can have a competitive dimension - whoever can "write a program" to get the "robot" to achieve some goal fist e.g. navigate an obstacle course and pick up an object. Even better when kids are in pairs; one pair might focus on winning, another pair might get absorbed on getting the adult to do stupid things which is hilarious etc.

And from what I've seen it can be fun for kids up to 10 at least, if you add some additional dimensions e.g. "robots" that can "fight" by throwing rolled up paper balls at other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm sorry but I don't see how these are for kids. "Monte Carlo Pi Estimator" ??

Some stuff kids would enjoy more: [https://inventwithpython.com/](https://inventwithpython.com/) [http://www.amazon.com/Python-Kids-Playful-Introduction- Progr...](http://www.amazon.com/Python-Kids-Playful-Introduction- Programming/dp/1593274076)

<comment><USER7> It's just a fancy way of saying what it really is (estimating pi with increasing accuracy using geometry). I remember doing the pencil circle drop calculation for pi in middle school which is a similar concept just physical instead of on a computer.

The problem I've found with pygame is that the time from starting to producing a playable game is too long, the kids get frustrated and lose interest when you need to type 20-40 lines of boiler plate to just get an image and a moving character on the screen before anything even happens. I've had much greater success with "boring" projects that produce the final result in 10-20 lines.

They already have games that we'll never be able to come close to in terms of quality. There's nothing that I can make in even 20 hours that is even close to as interesting as Minecraft or a high budget xbox game - there is effectively a very small difference to them between building a game with "boring" dynamics and solving math problems.

This mostly only applies to first projects, once you complete a few projects and have separated out the children who actually enjoy programming - that's when you can start doing multi-week epics. But you need to build confidence and give them some easy "wins" before you are going to be able to do that in my experience.

<comment><USER6> I agree, it's hard to actually engage kids with boring games, and anything that involves boiler plate.

The boiler plate should just be hidden away if possible.

I think a small coding exercise that kids would like is something that automatically solves their simple algebra homework. Although, do 12 year olds just go on wolframalpha now?

<comment><USER8> > I think a small coding exercise that kids would like is something that > automatically solves their simple algebra homework.

I don't think recursive tree algorithms and reverse Polish notation, the bedrock of computer algebra systems, would be so much fun to kids. Could you elaborate on what you had in mind?

<comment><USER9> By far the most useful program I wrote as a kid was one that factored polynomials. It ran on the calculator I was allowed on tests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't see this working well with kids. I'm a course assistant for an introductory Python course at a {top 5} CS school. It's shocking to see the sheer lack of intuition and inability to think about loops some beginners have.

Although now that I think about it, I think I'd trust a 13-year-old with a fresh mind more than most of the college students I work with.

<comment><USER2> I sometimes think the best way for people to learn about loops is not to tell them they exist at first. Give them lots of repetitive assignments, (print the numbers 1 through 50, or all the powers of 2 until 65536) until they're so frustrated they start demanding a solution.

<comment><USER11> That's just mean, no need to got that high up, and you also risk the students getting bored and giving up. I'd go to fewer amounts (5 to 10) and then explain the loop. If they then complain it's complicated you tell them "imagine you had to copy this thing million times!".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> There are much better resources for kids to learn Python. I recommend Chris Roffey's excellent series of Coding Club books. They are engaging, well- written and have more meaningful exercises.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is great, thank you! I teach a weekly Python class to kids and have been slowly refining my curriculum (Shameless plug, the Sphinx docs are up online here for anyone to critique! [http://justbartek.ca/python- curriculum/](http://justbartek.ca/python-curriculum/))

One of the more popular exercises thus far for us has been the "Bagels" program. I can't even remember where I found the game, but they find it a lot of fun as it mixes a bunch of mental challenges into one program.

[http://justbartek.ca/python- curriculum/exercises/bagels.html](http://justbartek.ca/python- curriculum/exercises/bagels.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> Back when I was kid, I chose Flash programming over C++. It was just more fun, with results that you could show off to your friends. I didn't care how things work, I just wanted to build stuff. Once I started building tiny little games, I automatically started to learn how things work and developed interest in the science behind it, be it maths, physics or computer science itself. Today, I would suggest Racket's big-bang.

[1] [http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/HtDP2e/part_one.html#%2...](http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/HtDP2e/part_one.html#%28part._.Interactive_.Programs%29)

</comment><comment><USER15> Would be an awkward title if you weren't familiar with software development.

</comment><comment><USER16> I always thought fractals and similar were great introductory programs for children.

The fractals need only a few lines of code, with a bit of extra boiler plate. Tweaking the formula can give dramatically different results. You get to use a variety of programming concepts in a short program.

Relevant books are

 _Dynamical Systems and Fractals_ (Karl-Heinz Becker, Michael Dörfler) (This book has extensive Pascal code) [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dynamical-Systems- Fractals-Computer-...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dynamical-Systems-Fractals- Computer-Experiments/dp/052136910X)

[http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9780511663031](http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9780511663031)

 _Fractals - Images of Chaos_ (Hans Lauwerier) (This book has an appendix of BASIC code) [http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fractals-Images-Chaos-Penguin- Scienc...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fractals-Images-Chaos-Penguin- Science/dp/0140144110)

Sadly neither book is suitable for general 11 year olds, but a modern version certainly could be.

And A.K. Dewdney obviously has a bunch of books which could be used to inspire young programmers. _The Armchair Universe_ , or _The Magic Machine_ and similar launched many programmers, with "Core War", "Wator", "Bugs", etc

</comment><comment><USER17> These are all way too hard for an average 11 year old...

<comment><USER18> I doubt it very much. Children have an amazing capacity to learn and are usually constrained by adults thinking that kids can't cope with more than simple challenges.

<comment><USER19> Some of those are even to hard for some adults I teach to. One of the most important thing in pedagogy is to never mix several notions in the same theme. E.G: making exercices involving maths.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Slush Smackdown is also a fun way for children (not maybe for the youngest children) to learn to code. It is not in Python though. Basically you code your wrestling moves in Javascript and begin fighting against other people's code [http://slushsmackdown.com/](http://slushsmackdown.com/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I remember growing up wanting to build AOL chatroom bots, nothing like Eliza, but trivia or combat bots - maybe around the age of 11-12. Though a bit dated, an IRC trivia bot might be a fun exercise for them.

Or a text-based adventure to teach arrays. They build the map, then move through it in the same manner.

</comment><comment><USER22> The title kind of assumes all kids are amateurs. I feel age has nothing to do with programming prowess. I may sound like I'm nitpicking but it should be "Python Exercises for Beginners".

These exercises can be too tough for a 50 year old beginner, and a 15 year old can breeze through them.

</comment><comment><USER23> congratulations on having a very smart kid.

</comment><comment><USER24> it's my opinion that the future of programming education will be compulsory and simply folded into mathematics education

python exercises for kids? their math homework

</comment><comment><USER25> "You're gonna go far, kid"</comment>


Blog: roll my own or just use Wordpress? - <AUTHOR>

I'm not a serious blogger but like to create posts about once a month.  I hate vanilla wordpress, but its feature set and ui is much better than anything I could write on my own.  I wrote a basic blog app using django, but I hate having to support it.  Have others struggled with this choice, what did you decide? <comment><USER2> To me it is more about what do you want to do more, create and support your own blog software just so you can post once or twice a month or just use something that works so you can write. From my own experience if I have to create/support the code, I stop writing consistently and fail to post.

Wordpress is a bit of a beast, but it just works. The security concerns while not improper, are just not that worrisome for a basic blog. Wordpress can be plenty secure if you keep plugins to a minimum and follow best practices.

Ghost is a great option, and way more back to basics blogging to me. e.g. it gets rid of all the noise of trying to be everything to everyone which minimizes the security risks etc. This would be the direction I would recommend personally.

</comment><comment><USER3> Avoid the headache of upgrading software when you really want to focus on writing. There are more blogging platforms besides wordpress. [https://ghost.org/](https://ghost.org/) or [http://squarespace.com/home/overview/](http://squarespace.com/home/overview/) come to mind.

<comment><USER4> Thumbs up for Ghost. Switched to Ghost a few months ago and absolutely love it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wordpress has way to many security problems, especially if you use plugins, as that I would want to administer it myself. Especially since wordpress is so popular and you can assume that vulnerabilities are actively exploited very quickly.

A static site generator, something hosted or even a more modern, less popular platform takes away a lot of that pressure.

<comment><USER6> This isn't really true.

Automattic, the company behind WordPress, has a good security team and an active bug bounty program. They respond to reported vulnerabilities, especially serious ones, extremely swiftly. Furthermore, a good hosting service will eliminate almost all the security issues Automattic doesn't catch.

If you get a good host (e.g. WPEngine) you can automate backups and security updates, and the host will constantly monitor your account for suspicious activity and known-vulnerable plugins. It will even notify you if you install an unsafe plugin and automatically uninstall it.

I run my own information security blog on WordPress. I have comments disabled, I'm careful about what plugins I install (because let's be honest, there aren't many you really need) and WPEngine constantly scans my entire installation for suspicious activity or evidence of an intrusion. Aside from a 0day, there isn't much an attacker can do to compromise me.

Looking past alleged security issues, WordPress is a very established, robust and mature CMS for people who want stability and customization for their blog platform. I highly recommend it.

<comment><USER5> So you don'd administer it yourself, but use a managed service. Which is exactly what I suggested as an alternative, because it means that you have someone monitoring it and taking care of it and don't have to take care of quickly installing updates and stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Having done both, repeatedly: use Wordpress or another blogging platform (I hear good things about Jekyll but haven't used it).

The feature set issue looks small, but becomes bigger the more time you spend on the single piece of blogging software. And the bigger and more sprawling your homebrew system becomes, the slower it is to add additional features, and the more likely you are to introduce bugs or security issues...

On that subject, security's another major problem. SEO comment spammers are persistent, and if they discover a way that your blogging code isn't secure, they'll hammer you. WP, provided you keep it up to date, has a lot more eyes making sure it's secure than you do.

(Counter-argument: if you're not going to keep the install up to date, don't go WP. You WILL get hacked.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I tried jekyll and it is an excellent compromise, providing all the goodness of a flexible templating and layout system with the ease and server-lessness of static pages. Combined with s3-website, it took me about 3 hours to rebuild my blog (mostly time spent editing old posts into markdown).

Thanks for all these recommendations!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Wordpress.

It is extremely customisable. There are tens of thousands of themes and many themes can be heavily customised within their own right.

Even assuming you wrote your own blogging platform you still have to write a lot of the useful Wordpress addons like WP Super Cache, Google XML Sitemaps, and so on.

I'd honest think it would be a better use of your time to write your own Wordpress theme end to end, than to write your own blogging platform, at least the theme you could likely sell (as opposed to your own, unsupported, blogging solution).

I'm no Wordpress fan boy, but it "just works" out of the box, and the only real downside I can name is I wish it didn't have so many security issues (and "apply this now!" critical patches).

</comment><comment><USER9> For something that gets updated once a month, I'd go with a static site generator. I like [https://middlemanapp.com/](https://middlemanapp.com/). If that seems like too much work, you should just write on Medium.

Having used WordPress heavily in the past, I wouldn't go near it for my own site. It's a great option if you need a CMS for non-technical contributors, but I find I can get things done much faster writing in my editor of choice. As others have mentioned, security is something you need to stay on top of...

</comment><comment><USER10> [http://jekyllrb.com](http://jekyllrb.com) is a great static site generator for blogging, and can be paired with GitHub Pages for free hosting.

</comment><comment><USER11> I avoid WordPress self-installs due to its poor track record on security, so I'm currently using [http://jekyllrb.com](http://jekyllrb.com).

However, there's something to be said for just being able to open up a page on WordPress and start typing away.

The (albeit small) speed bump to getting a new post going in Jekyll has kept me from posting/writing many times. It's slightly cumbersome. I may switch to WordPress.com or something, soon.

</comment><comment><USER12> I used Wordpress for six months before I have decided to move to Jekyll, and it _is_ amazing!

Jekyll sits somewhere between Wordpress and manually coding your own website.

I have listed all of my reasons here, so you might want to take a look at it: [http://r3bl.github.io/en/why-switching-to-github-and- jekyll/](http://r3bl.github.io/en/why-switching-to-github-and-jekyll/)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'd stick with Wordpress. Find a template you like, it'll be worth the $40-60 to not have to constantly support a custom app for something like blogging.

</comment><comment><USER14> If you enjoy coding and are willing to spend hours at a time upgrading and maintaining your own blogging platform go for it. If you want to just post content then go with a blogging platform, but before you settle on one try a few of them out!

</comment><comment><USER15> "...is much better than anything I could write on my own"

Seems like that's your answer.

</comment><comment><USER16> I am less technically proficient than a lot of people here. I know a little HTML and CSS and I used to hand-code my own sites. I moved them to Word Press to try to stop spending all my time on coding and, instead, focus more on content creation and general development. I was very frustrated with Word Press because of the amount of time I spent a) updating the backend and b) looking for a better template that I liked more than whatever I had settled for initially.

I ultimately moved everything to BlogSpot. I am much happier and I spend much more time on actual development of content and layout and so on.

/Unpopular Google loyalist pov</comment>


The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 to YesOn19 - <AUTHOR> http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/10/quest-for-freedom-and-safety-why-i.html <comment><USER2> Stemming the flow of money to brutal drug lords is reason #1 to rethink the current drug policies. Glad to see that point spelled out so clearly. What's going on in Mexico is truly heartbreaking.

Marijuana is clearly a big piece of the puzzle, but what about legalizing harder drugs like cocaine?

EDIT: Removed the question because I saw another HN'er posted it. Then added it back when Paul responded so it'd make sense in context.

<comment><USER3> In 2001, Portugal decriminalized drugs. Data since then seems to indicate that the policy was successful.

 _rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well._

[http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.ht...](http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html)

[http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/03/14...](http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/03/14/portugal/index.html)

<comment><USER4> Anybody comment on what the situation is in Amsterdam, where pot is legal, at least, in small quantities?

<comment><USER5> _… as I understand it there are two main problems with the status quo. One is that under the old tolerance regime there's still no way for a coffee shop to legally obtain the supply of marijuana you need to operate on the scale of a business. Consequently, de facto legalization hasn't actually eliminated the black market and associated criminality. Secondarily, the main market for the coffee shops turns out to be drug tourists from abroad. That reduces the Dutch political constituency for keeping them open. And the two factors interact together to create a situation where there's a strong case to be made that legal coffee shops (by bringing drug tourists from the UK and the US into shops that need to tap an illegal wholesale market to gain their supplies) increase the scale of organized crime in the Netherlands._

– [http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/10/coffee-shop- crackd...](http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/10/coffee-shop-crackdown/)

<comment><USER6> So really, legalisation would work a lot better if all countries did it (eliminating drug tourism).

<comment><USER7> No, you just need to avoid doing it in a half-hearted manner. In the case of Holland, why shouldn't there be drug tourism? Why is it any worse than, say, coffee tourism? or wine and food tourism?

<comment><USER8> Because the people drawn to drug tourism are more irresponsible, shallow, and opportunistic than your average tourist. Not always, sometimes not outrageously so, but in general. If you've been to Amsterdam, you might have noticed this, as I did.

<comment><USER9> I was surprised Amsterdam seemed to maintain a clean, moderate, respectable attitude during daylight hours. I noticed the city is an insanely wealthy and beautiful place. I would guess they are making a ton of money off tourists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why are all these donations happening so late? It's four days until the election. Half the electorate has already voted, and the rest are tuning everything out by now. Prop 19 is failing and it's too late for advertising to make a difference. Where were all these deep pockets a month ago?

<comment><AUTHOR> Better late than never :)

Apparently a very large fraction of voters actually make their decision _while in the voting booth_!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm sorry, but this thread is _really_ just politics. I know Paul Buchheit's own submission of Paul Buchheit's article about why Paul Buchheit donated some money to a political cause has Buckley's chance of being deleted, but, y'know, it really is just political advocacy on a subject unrelated to anything other than politics. I hate to be a dick here, Paul, but, y'know.

<comment><AUTHOR> For me, it's all connected. The SF area is one of the most innovative places in the world because in it's also one of the most free places in the world.

<comment><USER12> Speaking of freedom, are people are allowed to drink beer on the beach? Are teenagers allowed to drink _small_ quantities of alcohol?

Without these I don't think that you can consider SF one of the most free places in the world.

<comment><USER8> That's a weird definition of freedom.

<comment><USER13> It's a part of it though. Why can someone who is 20 in the US get married, have children, join the military, and vote, but not drink a beer?

I agree with hugh3 in any case. This is an article about politics, and no matter how much we may want to cheer paul on, I am not really sure it's germane, and that it might encourage others to submit things they feel 'rah rah!' about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Damn, I really hope Prop 19 passes. I'm not even American, but a passage would mark the start of the end of the dreadful war on marijuana around the world. Other states would follow, then Latin America (the former Mexican President said "May God let it pass" about Prop 19), countries in Europe (Netherlands, Spain, Denmark) and slowly it would be legalized around the world. Defeat would be a major setback.

I urge all Californians who're reading this to do their absolute best to make it pass in these last vital days. Join the phone banks, make sure all your friends are voting, campaign at universities. It could make a large difference, larger than you probably think.

<comment><USER15> _Other states would follow, then... countries in Europe (Netherlands, Spain, Denmark)_

It already is legalized in Netherlands and decriminalized _(I believe)_ in Spain and Denmark, as well as UK (although that's about to change back I hear).

<comment><USER14> It's just decriminalized in the Netherlands actually, the coffeshops are tolerated, but not legal. Producing marijuana is not legal at all.

<comment><USER16> It's also completely decriminalized in Portugal, it worked well. California jails so many people on pot charges.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Prop 19 is limited to marijuana, but almost everything in your post is applicable to other drugs (cocaine etc.)

Would you vote yes on a future proposition that legalizes all drugs ?

<comment><USER18> That question doesn't have to be decided now. We can look at the effects of Prop 19, and see what the results suggest about legalizing cocaine, heroin, or even pseudoephedrine.

<comment><USER19> Exactly. Even if you are a complete anti prohibition believer, you will probably take route. In other words, even if you decided to legalise everything, a good strategy would be to start with marijuana, see the effects, add some more drugs to the list, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I am a firm supporter of Prop 19, but I have one major concern: that as cannabis laws are eased in the US, gangs and criminals that used to make their living from pushing cannibis will start pushing harder drugs (like cocaine), causing an increase in violence (as more people fight for a smaller market) and heavier drugs getting pushed on school children.

I suspect (though I haven't researched further) that the recent crime uptick in northern Mexico is due to the easing of cannabis laws across America over the past few years, and that it'll just get worse after Prop 19 is passed.

Personally, I think the solution is to legalize all drugs, and to put the money that we're spending on the war on drugs into medical treatment and education. It's obviously a difficult situation, but I'm glad to see that we're making progress.

<comment><USER21> "Personally, I think the solution is to legalize all drugs, and to put the money that we're spending on the war on drugs into medical treatment and education. It's obviously a difficult situation, but I'm glad to see that we're making progress."

So we make it easier for someone to become an addict and then pay millions to treat them? I also fail to see how education is going to work. The education people need is to tell them to stay away from drugs in the first place.

<comment><USER22> Simply telling kids to stay away from drugs is a paternalistic approach that doesn't work, particularly when you consider that teenagers tend 'rebel' against advice from authority. Genuine education would inform without bias, and allow people to make informed, safe choices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > If we are always held back by our own fears and self-limiting beliefs, then > we aren't really free.

Similarly, if we are controlled by our desires, we're not really free. An addict is not really free because he can't control himself.

> Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary > safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Drugs are definitely not essential.

> prohibition also provides a multi-billion dollar subsidy to violent criminal > organizations that threaten our physical safety and security

Crime networks exist not because of strong government or strict laws; they exist because of moral corruption in the society. A strong government, strongly connected coherent society with powerful social moral values actually reduce the size and power of crime networks.

</comment><comment><USER24> I find conversations about the black market in general to be an interesting topic on the desires of society versus the realities of society and how we attempt to reign in human behavior.

My personal stance is that governments need to admit that the black market is a fundamental condition of humanity, and trying to stamp it out is impossible. However it is the governments responsibility to monitor the black market and prevent it from becoming too large, and the only way of doing that is to legalize the most popular activities found within the black market.

If America legalized prostitution, marijuana and cocaine today, i would guess that the black market would be put on life support here in the states.

</comment><comment><USER25> What I've always found odd about pot smokers:

They will generally have a diatribe about "evil corporations are poisoning us with HFCS/Vaccines/GM food/etc..." Meanwhile they are saying that the federal government _shouldn't_ regulate what someone puts in their body.

Personally I'd like to err on the side of freedom, but all the same there are real risks out there. We can't expect society/government to take care of all dangers, then turn around and say "I should be able to take whatever I want!"

Or to put it more bluntly imagine medicare costs if we legalize all drugs. Imagine the emergency rooms?

<comment><USER26> I think that people who think this way tend to smoke pot, not the other way around. There are plenty of fully functional pot smokers without conspiracy theories.

This is like sitting in a bar listening to the same sob stories repeated week after week at a local dive bar and saying all drinkers are defeatist losers.

<comment><USER21> "I think that people who think this way tend to smoke pot, not the other way around. There are plenty of fully functional pot smokers without conspiracy theories."

Smoking pot makes many people paranoid. This is fact. It's not that far of a stretch to imagine that these people are conspiracy theorists.

"This is like sitting in a bar listening to the same sob stories repeated week after week at a local dive bar and saying all drinkers are defeatist losers."

When you hear the above from many different groups of people in different parts of the US/world that smoke pot, it really makes you wonder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Right on. The drug war is a huge waste of money and lives and foreign policy capital. It needs to end.

I really feel drug rules (not laws) need to be set at the neighborhood level by simple majority vote.

That way you can live where the limits suit you and you don't need to try to control what the whole country does.

Freedom is not just about allowing everyone to do anything. Its also about people being able to make the living arrangements that suit them without having to impose their choices upon others.

Its too much work anyway, always fighting these battles. Lets call a truce and go our separate ways together.

</comment><comment><USER28> I really wish I lived in CA so I could vote for this. We had a similar initiative here in WA, but they didn't get enough signatures to put it on the ballot.

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't know what the answer is. But whenever a topic like this comes up, I can't help but think about Prohibition and how it failed to stop people from drinking alcohol and, instead, just created powerful crime lords. Ultimately, it was repealed (but only _after_ Capone and the whole legendary Chicago gangland era).

</comment><comment><USER30> Sorry for my ignorance, since I'm living in Asia, and I have never deal with drugs, so my knowledge are basically from news.

How is this Prop19 will 'surely' change everything? Especially related to drug cartel.

<comment><USER31> If people are allowed to buy, sell, and even grow their own drugs legally they will no longer have to participate in a black market that often benefits Mexican drug cartels.

<comment><USER30> Well I'm not sure if they can grow it. But, isn't that mean you're going to provide a legal way for the cartel to make money? Now they can sell in legal market, and sure more people will be able to consume it since it's legal now, and the cartel will make 'more' money?

My previous question is actually to find out what kind of measurement, precaution or whatever it is, to make sure that Prop19 will cripple drug cartels, without creating another problem.

<comment><USER31> Yes, Prop 19 will let you grow a small amount of marijuana for personal use. But it will certainly never be legal to _smuggle_ drugs across the border.

Moreover the profit margins go way down because you are no longer covering the risk of arrest to those growing and supplying the drug.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> The most powerful CA union - prison guards union. More convicts - more power to the union. Most of the convicts are war on drugs victims, with majority - marijuana related.

<comment><USER33> What is your point? AFAIK the prison guards union is not against prop 19, they said they are neutral.

<comment><USER32> They aren't that direct. Look at least an inch deep beyond the surface, What they do, whom they support. For example, in the Oakland mayor race among the 2 front runners, one favors more police cuts vs. cuts in public programs (like after school, etc...) while the other would cut 180 degrees differently. Question: whom the union supports? Hint: whose policies would allow for higher yield and harvesting of more inmates? Bonus question: why would the union support anybody in the Oakland mayoral race?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Hats off to this fellow for promoting freedom and liberty. I am glad that people are slowly starting to realize we don't have a right to tell others what they can do with their bodies. If 19 passes it will be one tiny prick in the side of the petty tyrants who believe they have a right to force others to follow their views.

</comment><comment> 0-4 What about the freedom and safety of being able to breathe clean drug free air?

edit: yay hackernews! Just downmod me because your liberal hippy viewpoints disagree. The chances of prop19 passing are 0.

<comment><USER35> I'm pretty sure this won't allow you to walk around town smokin' blunts.

<comment><USER36> I think that's exactly what it will let you do, that's the whole point.

<comment><USER35>
      Except as permitted under Proposition 215 and SB 420 laws, persons age 21 and older may:

      use marijuana in:
        a non-public place such as a residence or
        a public establishment licensed for on site marijuana consumption.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_19_(2010...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_19_\(2010\)#Effects_of_the_bill)

<comment><USER23> Sooner or later it will be legal everywhere, just wait and see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I haven't studied Prop 19 at all, but my guess is that its primary purpose is to get democrats to the polls. It's just like all the 'defense of marriage' propositions that were on the ballot when Bush was trying to get reelected to get republicans to the polls.

If so, that's quite a way for a libertarian to waste $100k.

edit: I love the open debate. Yeah, legalizing pot is definitely the most pressing problem facing our nation, so let's downvote anybody who says differently. HN is turning into Reddit.

<comment><USER38> Consider how many people are stuck in cages for no good reason over this. If some organization other than the government were kidnapping that many people, solving that problem would be a high priority.

Besides, the opportunity cost is zero to not lock these people up. It's not as if some other problem is going unsolved in favor of taking this law off the books.

<comment><USER21> "Consider how many people are stuck in cages for no good reason over this. If some organization other than the government were kidnapping that many people, solving that problem would be a high priority."

Consider how much money the government is stealing from its citizens for no good reason. If some organization other than the government were doing this, solving the problem would be high priority..

The reason it's not high priority is because those people knowingly used an illegal substance and got caught. I also think you are over-estimating the amount of causal drug users in prison.

<comment><USER38> > knowingly used an illegal substance and got caught

That can be a reason to believe they should remain imprisoned, but not a reason to believe they should be released but it's not a priority to do that anytime soon.

> over-estimating the amount of causal drug users in prison

It's possible. The drug war has vastly increased prison populations, but it's hard to come by unbiased statistics about how many of those people committed any non-victimless crimes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


All papers published by Microsoft Research - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/c/1043

<comment><USER2> Microsoft Research is one of the few real, non-university research institutions in the United States. No matter what you think of Microsoft products, the research they do is first class. In the olden times, a few decades ago, there were many industrial research labs that did science for the sake of science and not as an adjunct to product development. Sadly, those days are mostly gone. No more Bell Labs, no more DEC SRC, and so forth. Microsoft Research is one of the exceptions.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's good to see that a large research institution like Microsoft Research realizes that having your papers freely available on the web is a good way to give it some visibility.

<comment><USER4> No, it's just a list. Look at [http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=1521...](http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=152187) for example, no full-text download. It's sad, because most publishers allow authors to post a self-generated version of the text (i.e., the Latex output you generate yourself, vs. the official typeset journal print).

<comment><USER5> Others do have the PDF. Seems to just vary. Most of the ones I clicked did have full papers attached.

<comment><USER6> Depends on the publication date. A paper due to be published in December 2011 is not yet downloadable for obvious reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are some great research papers in here, many of which have been turned into MS products. AJAX Scope in particular is a really cool idea, though it isn't clear to me if anyone is actually using the Visual Studio plugin they built after writing that paper.

</comment><comment><USER8> [cross-posting from the Googlers publication thread ...]

I also noticed that someone recently posted a list of publications by Microsoft Research (MSR), presumably to contrast with Google's publication list. MSR does some amazing academic research, but it's not a fair apples-to- apples comparison to compare their publications with Google's, since the primary output of MSR is academic research papers (that's why the lab was founded!), while the primary output of Google is free web-based consumer products :)

<comment><USER9> > the Googlers publication thread

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3013314>

> not a fair apples-to-apples comparison

Speaking of apples, will the next up be "Apple papers", linking to <http://daringfireball.net/> ?

<comment><USER10> Well, would this do? <http://graphics.pixar.com/library/>

Pixar are _very, very_ good at what they do :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hint: press 'Reverse order' in bottom right corner and you'll see some interesting ones.</comment>


Show HN: Lemonade Stand - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sundgftOWGc

<comment><USER2> I'm the Android developer on the team. It's been a wild ride so far.

We had an insane stop in Baton Rouge. Police escort into town, drinks at a rooftop bar overlooking the river, and hotel & dinner paid for by the Chamber of Commerce. Southern hospitality is indeed a wonderful thing.

In any case, we launched our 0.9 yesterday. It's very rough, but the full featureset should be arriving today/tomorrow.

Wish us luck as we polish the app up for the semifinal & final rounds!

</comment><comment><USER3> For those interested in the history of Lemonade Stand, I interviewed one of the founders before he announced what it was (it was previously announced as "Startup X"): [http://suratl.tumblr.com/post/3701358675/startup-x- startupbu...](http://suratl.tumblr.com/post/3701358675/startup-x-startupbus- jonathan-gottfried)

</comment><comment><USER4> What do people think of the concept? Our main site is at <http://lmnd.st/>

Also, I'm sure some of you are at SXSW - I'd love to meet up and chat. We're having a Lemonade Stand in about 45 minutes by Trinity St and 4th on the lawn, stop by!

<comment><USER5> oh. I wanted to do something with this concept, see here: <http://www.alittlecity.com/yc/lemonaidstand.jpg>

awesome execution, I really like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is absolutely one of the most innovative ideas I have come across in a long time. Elegant, simple, and solves a major problem. Everything a successful startup should be. I'm impressed Nd can't wait to start using it on my iPhone.

</comment><comment><USER7> So... it's craigslist, but it tells everyone my location by default?

<comment><USER2> Something like that.

The idea is to make things low-friction, mobile-centric, zero login.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The video and the website don't show how buyers find the items for sale, and how the meetup is arranged. Perhaps you could add a "how it works" section to the website.

<comment><USER2> Excellent point! We're planning on launching that feature today, and so the materials should be up shortly afterwards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> the API is really good :-) got a windows phone 7 client up and running in just a few hours on friday. Can't wait to see what comes of the service! <http://codecube.net/2011/03/lmnd-st-for-wp7/>

</comment><comment><USER10> I definitely love the concept and ease of use. Quick and to the point!

</comment><comment><USER11> It's such a pain in the ass to sell stuff on Craigslist. Even in NYC.

</comment><comment><USER12> Love the concept and that you already have an API. Plug me in please!

</comment><comment><USER13> I love it.</comment>