My Standing Desk Experiment - <AUTHOR> http://zenhabits.net/stand/

<comment><USER3> I've been using a standing desk for almost a year now. I'm a software engineer. It's great; I will recommend it to anyone.

It takes a while to build up the stamina to stand. When you first switch you need frequent breaks during the day. Having a high chair is crucial during this time. As your stamina improves, you begin to be able to handle standing an entire day, but you're still sore after a few days or a week. You're a bit more tired on the weekend. After a few months, you can stand all day long for days on end with no fatigue. That's the point where you get the benefit.

After switching to a standing desk months ago, I found that I had vastly more energy during my vacation to Europe. I would walk and explore a city and be active all day long with virtually no fatigue at all. My stamina beat out my companions' significantly, even people who are otherwise much more active than I am. Standing for 8 - 10 hours per day provides a huge stamina boost when you adjust to it.

It's important to ergonomically adjust your desk so that it's in the correct position, of course. Stand normally with your arms limp at your sides. Now, without moving your elbows, bring your hands up such that your forearms are horizontal, hands straight in front of you. Your hands now indicate where your keyboard should be -- roughly an inch or two below your elbow height. Your mouse should also be reachable from that position without moving your elbow.

Standing burns twice as many calories as sitting, and is overall much healthier as a daily habit. There was a study I circulated around my work (I'll see if I can find a link; it may be the same one as at author included) which compared two groups of people who were active, healthy, and fit, and did the same sort of work. One group of people sat at their job, and the other group of people stood. The study showed that people who stood had a lower incidence of heart disease, diabetes, and other ailments. Conclusion: standing is healthier, and regular exercise outside work doesn't make up for it.

Lastly, I've found standing more ergonomic. With a chair, you're likely to find yourself slumping somehow, on the armrest, or on the desk. With a standing desk, it's easy to follow correct posture. With a Kinesis keyboard and 3M Ergonomic Mouse (the one which looks like a joystick) I haven't experienced any ergonomics issues in a long time.

Regarding the article:

> There's no question, standing takes more energy and tends to make you sore > compared to sitting.

No, it does not. That's just the author building up sufficient stamina to stand. You will build the stamina, and will not be sore whatsoever, even after a week of standing all day long.

> For the past three weeks I've been standing while I work, instead of my > usual sitting.

Not nearly long enough to adjust! I'd say it took me 3 months to become completely comfortable.

<comment><USER4> It took about two weeks for my lower back to adjust to standing all day. I too have been standing for about a year. One of the best decisions I ever made.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I "made" a very crude treadmill desk a few months ago and I love it. I can comfortably go 2.0-2.5mph while programming and I try to use it for 2-3 hours on most days. Here's a photo:

<http://leopolovets.com/img/treadmill_desk.jpg>

Basically it's four five-dollar plastic bins on each side of a treadmill, and then a ~2'x4' plank on top. It looks awful but works very well.

<comment><USER6> Thank you. That photo made my night. So _that's_ what all these bins of clothes are for!

What brand treadmill is that? Is any particular brand best for a treadmill desk?

<comment><USER5> It's a cheapie treadmill that seems to have been discontinued. The model is Proform Crosswalk 400E.

Based on my experience, I'm guessing any kind of treadmill would work as long as it has a regular sized belt. You want to have enough space behind the "desk", otherwise your feel will be falling off the back of the treadmill when you walk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I, too, was concerned that going from an all-sitting to all-standing arrangement was simply trading one set of bad effects for another, so I split my desk into two heights and put a monitor on each (mirrored). With a wireless keyboard and mouse I can move between sitting and standing whenever I feel the need. Interestingly, I find myself wanting to stand when I'm writing new code from scratch, whereas to debug or merge I want to sit. I don't track my weight so I can't speak quantitatively about that aspect of it, but overall it feels much better. When I'm stuck working at an office away from home I actually miss it.

<comment><USER7> Are motorized height-adjustable desks really so hard to come by in the states? I ask because they are the norm here in Denmark and most office workers use them to stand up for part of their workday.

I'm always surprised to see guys set up improvised standing desks on filing cabinets and stuff like that. From several years of experience: You need to be able to sit OR stand at your desk. In a very short time, you will automatically alternate between these positions whenever you feel tired in the back (from sitting) or feet (from standing).

I would never work somewhere that didn't provide a motorized desk. I have gotten so used to it that I even have one in my home office (<http://imgur.com/A1eS2>), set me back about a thousand bucks, an amount most of us would spend on gadgets without blinking.

<comment><USER8> My company (in the US) has just started upgrading to adjustable height desks in the past year or two; they're not motorized, but have a mechanical system that allows you to adjust it easily despite the weight of the desk and monitors. I tried alternating between sitting and standing, but I've fallen back into the habit of sitting again. Perhaps I should give standing another try.

<comment><USER9> Could you post a link to a product page for these desks, please?

<comment><USER10> I am very interested in this info as well. Between work, contract gigs, and my own projects I spend too much time sitting.

I had a habit of going for a mid-day mile or two walk to help balance things out, but the weather has been so toasty lately that I just can not bring myself to do that anymore.

I am definitely feeling the effects of the sedentary lifestyle.

<comment><USER11> Steelcase makes motorized desks. Joel Spolsky uses them at Fog Creek. His article on them is here (with links to steelcase)

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/06/06.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Six months into it and I can't go back. Seriously, I can't.

After a few months I tried sitting again a couple of times but that was totally destructive for my neck and shoulders now that they've actually relaxed while I've been using the standing desk. Few hours later I had to revert back to standing which exhibits virtually no pain points. The only painful thing were my feet in the beginning but now I simply stand on a carpet, and further I've also folded the carpet these days. That helps me vary the position of my feet: I can use the folded carpet to tilt my feet forward, backward, or level and the same for both feet. I unconsciously keep changing my posture a few times a minute so I won't stick into bad positions.

Built the desk from an ordinary kitchen table by replacing the legs with longer ones, costing roughly 30€ or so at the hardware store. Here's a picture: <http://yason.kapsi.fi/tmp/codingdesk.jpg>

<comment><USER13> Shouldn't you try a screen that is leveled with your head? Must be straining on the neck to look down all day.

<comment><USER14> Actually you're supposed to look slightly down as far as I can tell. The hard rule seems to be 'just avoid looking up'.

<comment><USER15> Yes, it's been shown that looking "up" causes increased eye fatigue, since the tear ducts have to work harder. 0-20 degrees below horizontal is optimal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> A good dose of common sense regarding standing desks is in order. Basically you're trading one set of hazards for another.

"Individuals spending most of the day on their feet every working day are at greater risk of health problems including varicose veins, poor circulation and swelling in the feet and legs, foot problems, joint damage, heart and circulatory problems and pregnancy difficulties."

"Chronic heart and circulatory disorders are linked to prolonged standing at work. Prolonged time in an upright posture at work may cause hypertension comparable to 20 years of aging."

<http://www.hazards.org/standing/index.htm>

<comment><USER17> Link to studies confirming these risks?

<comment><USER18> How did you miss the huge list of references at the bottom of the article?

<comment><USER17> Most of those aren't actual studies.

Some of them aren't even links.

Others are broken links. (#17)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Second month of my standing experiment and I love it. Right now it's a temporary setup so I have my keyboard and mouse on a desk pad on top of a plastic file drawer for height. A gel standing mat for comfort. But when I get the chance I'll upgrade to a more permanent solution.

Here's my dream setup:

[] [http://store.steelcase.com/products/airtouch-height- adjustab...](http://store.steelcase.com/products/airtouch-height-adjustable- desk/)

[] [http://www.amazon.com/Embody-Chair-Herman-Miller- Adjustable/...](http://www.amazon.com/Embody-Chair-Herman-Miller- Adjustable/dp/B002OG8TBU)

[x] [http://www.amazon.com/Sublime-Imprint-Anti-Fatigue- Cobblesto...](http://www.amazon.com/Sublime-Imprint-Anti-Fatigue-Cobblestone- Espresso/dp/B003BYRDO8)

<comment><USER20> How many hours do you typically spend standing per day?

<comment><USER19> Typically about 60-70% of the time standing. I try to stretch every hour or so. I also shift my standing position quite a bit, from a wide stance to a normal stance. When I'm thinking or watching a video, I march in place. Whether standing or sitting, I try to not be any one position for more than an hour at a time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I started the standing desk around 3 months ago and noticed an almost immediate improvement in my posture and back discomfort. I tried to be realistic and try 1 hour, then 2, then 3. I then moved to getting a treadmill desk at the office: <http://bit.ly/nHuCRr> now that's baller. You can easily code walking at 1mph, just enough to keep your legs moving. I try to get 1-3 hours a day on the treadmill desk these days.

here are some other desk setups I've been working with <http://bit.ly/noPYyY> \- original makeshift desk at work <http://bit.ly/o6vDEi> \- current home office setup

Some keys to success, make sure your monitor is eye level and you're typing at a 90 degree angle, and get a gel pad to stand on, makes a huge difference.

<comment><USER21> Argh thanks, updated links treadmill desk: <http://imageshack.us/photo/my- images/17/treadmilldesk.jpg/>

homedesk setup: <http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/838/standingdesk1.jpg/>

makeshift desk: <http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/94/standingdesk2.jpg/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> A couple of other observations from a year of standing:

1) no butt pimples

2) ghetto foot and back relief: a brick. A trick learned from a friend who is a brick sculptor, who learned it from a guy at a brickyard, after complaining about standing at the brick easel all day. Just put a brick under one foot. Alternate as needed.

</comment><comment><USER23> I switched to a standing desk after developing a bulging disc in my lower back (crappy!)

It's great until about hour five or so, at which point my legs and knees start crying uncle. I've found that I can last longer if I sprinkle in some sitting throughout the day, during lunches or meetings, and I can go even further if I stand on a foam activity mat.

I think that taking frequent breaks to walk is the best way to get a little relief for the legs and back, and some exercise, at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER24> Can anyone recommend a standing mat? I've just switched to a standing desk myself and am looking to help reduce the fatigue.

<comment><USER6> I'm using a chef's gel floor mat bought at Lowes or Home Depot (not sure of the store or brand, my wife got it for me). The standing desk experiment almost ended on day three with seriously aching arches, but the gel mat solved that problem entirely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I also moved to a standing desk about two months ago. I already had a rather narrow shelf cabinet whose top was used for the printer. I moved the printer down to the regular desk and the monitor up there.

I started this set up as an experiment to see if standing will work for me. And thus far I love it very much. If I were to write an article myself, it would be quite similar to Leo's. I don't track my weight as I'm not overweight but I agree about the focus effect and the general "more energy to work" benefit. Standing has eliminated the post-lunch heaviness that I used to experience, especially when I was working in a corporate environment, before going indie, working at home.

So far I had no negative impacts, except temporal lower back pain while I adjusted in the first couple of weeks and occasional sore feet. On the other hand, I believe I had several benefits, related to the occasional back and neck pain which is often the result of sitting. Plus the increased energy, like I wrote previously.

My verdict, I recommend everyone at least to try it as an experiment for a month or so and see if it works for you.

</comment><comment><USER26> I have been using a standing desk for almost a year now. I would recommend the Utby from Ikea for a more economical and permanent solution. My current Utby setup: <http://post.ly/2hqhN>

<comment><USER27> This looks great, apart from the fact that the height appears to be only 105 cm. Can you confirm?

<comment><USER26> Yea it is only 105 cm... However, you can place a couple books under your monitor and you should be good to go! Keyboard height is fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm interested by standing, but what I really want is to be able to code while I wander around the house. Does anyone make a Macbook harness yet?

<comment><USER29> Those have been around for years. Check Amazon.

<comment><USER28> Indeed they have! My facetious searches for "macbook harness" missed the obvious.

Come to think of it, I'm sure I've seen these before. Ex. [http://www.amazon.com/Connect-A-Desk-Mobile-Laptop- Harness-D...](http://www.amazon.com/Connect-A-Desk-Mobile-Laptop-Harness- Desk/dp/B001G713NO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312139324&sr=8-1)

Doesn't seem like quite what I'm looking for, though. I built a quick mockup using cardboard and string, and although obviously the pro version has much more comfortable straps, I feel like it still places the laptop too low, while the strap around your shoulders encourages you to look down. Not good for posture— and moving the laptop up makes it uncomfortably close to the face.

What I really want is a harness that suspends the laptop at about the place I hold it up to use it, which is significantly higher and further from me than my waist— and ideally it should be supported from my waist rather than my shoulders.

I think this is actually a feasible thing to make— I'm going to play around with cardboard some more.

Edit: Okay, my second prototype consists of a board, about 8"x12", which sticks up from my waist the long way at about a 30˚ angle. A strap connects the far end of the board around my lower back, which holds the board up; the laptop sits away from me on the board, with the front end resting on the straps.

Pic for reference: <http://imgur.com/OOf42>

I'm typing this using it right now. The laptop ergonomics themselves are pretty nice, exactly the holding-the-laptop-but-type-with-both-hands feeling I was going for. The prototype apparatus is obviously way uncomfortable, though. A padded waist piece and strap would probably make it perfect, but I would still want to investigate the effect of the shear forces on my spine before using this full-time. (Proposal: Trade in the strap for a rigid structure, counterweight the back. Better proposal: Counterweight the back with extra battery for the laptop.)

Honestly, aside from more comfortable and adjustable pieces, this is pretty much what I want. So, uh... does anyone make something like that? :) (Another crucial feature would be a non-load-bearing safety strap that does go around my neck— I tested the harness pretty carefully before trusting the laptop to it, and it was sturdy as a rock, but it still _feels_ flimsy.)

<comment><USER29> You could probably hack together what you're thinking of out of a mountaineering fanny pack, or one of those harness systems for pro photographers.

<comment><USER28> I was thinking along similar lines— hiking gear for comfort, photo gear for adjustability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> At my six-month point I have benefits and drawbacks from the experience.

On the good side, my back and legs feel much better than when I sat all day. I have lost some weight, though not enough to use that as a reason for standing. I am more likely to use my whiteboard for jotting down and sketching ideas. I find that I can think about plans and ideas more easily.

On the bad side, my feet hurt. Not when I'm standing, but when I wake up or get up from resting. This pain started about 3 - 4 months into the experiment. I wear thin-soled shoes which probably exacerbates the problem. Reading is more difficult, unless I have hardcopy.

Surprisingly, it didn't seem to affect my coding, neither positively nor negatively. I thought it would help by increasing focus. It also seems to make visitors a bit uncomfortable, unless I sit down to talk to them.

Going forward, I will try losing a bit more weight and using an anti-fatigue mat to stand on. Also, I will switch more often between standing and sitting, depending on the task at hand.

</comment><comment><USER31> FWIW: Had no discomfort when I started standing up. I think my Vibram Five Fingers are to thank for that; About a month after I started using them, I noticed that knee aches that have been there for years have virtually disappeared, that my calf muscles are much stronger, and that the weight distribution on my feet is much different (balls instead of heel).

</comment><comment><USER32> _"Even if you exercise, the longer you sit the greater the chances you will die."_

...what?

<comment><USER33> I thought the chances were 100% for all of us.

<comment><USER34> Eventually maybe. But I haven't died, yet, and I know plenty of people who haven't either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I've been experimenting with lots of different things. By far the most useful thing I've found is to take a running break for three to ten miles in the middle of the workday to break it in half. I have a standing desk and a sitting desk, and I've made a habit of standing or walking around when I have something to spend a long time reading. I tried sitting on an exercise ball at my desk and found it too distracting, but I found having a small exercise ball under the desk to kick around while working still lets me focus. And I've paid more attention to when I start losing focus while sitting and then to hop up and spend at least a few minutes walking around.

</comment><comment><USER36> Has anyone successfully done this in an office environment? I love my standing desk (actually just a bookshelf) at home, but have a hard time picturing how it would work with surrounding coworkers sitting down.

<comment><USER21> I've gone to the treadmill desk <http://bit.ly/nHuCRr> at the office and it's been working out great, no complaints so far :)

<comment><USER14> Still the broken link (you fixed it in another thread) here.

I wonder how loud that treadmill is though? I see no problems with people standing instead of sitting (might something you need to get accustomed to if it's rare/if you're the first, but it shouldn't be disturbing), but I'm not sure if I'd be happy with a constant 'whirr' coming from beneath a coworker's table..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I was meeting some guy who have worked in ergonomics. His claim was the following.

If you sit down most of your life you likely will end up with back problems around 40.

Just standing up 50% of the time would hugely benefit and as he said standing up all the time would be the best.

I am contemplating whether to do the standing up all the time. So far I am doing 50/50.

Was thinking for those who like to switch 50/50 or some variation of that,whether it would make sense to create a little reminder app.

Would people be interested in that?

<comment><USER19> I use the Time Out app to remind me to take breaks every X minutes.

<http://www.dejal.com/timeout/> (osx)

<http://www.workrave.org/> (win, linux)

<comment><USER38> Timout is amazing. Dramatically improved my daytime energy levels and in the evening I feel much more clear and awake so I have much more productive time overall. Donate!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> My transition from sitting to standing took a little less than a month to get used to. I would recommend placing your desk next to a wall so you have something to lean on. It is a great way to prolong your standing time when starting the transition.

As for initial discomfort it was fairly minimal. In fact I soon began to appreciate the soreness as it allowed me to fall asleep faster as well as improving the quality of my sleep.

</comment><comment><USER39> Although it only works for a single person (or a very compromising SO), my solution for the space limited apartment was to buy a bar height Ikea dining table for 4 people for my 'dining space'. With some 10 foot power and monitor cables, and wireless keyboard/mouse I can use this desk for standing or sitting. When friends come over I shuffle the keyboard and monitors off the desk and it's ready for entertaining.

</comment><comment><USER40> Another point to be noted. Wearing any sort of shoes with heels will increase the pain in the legs. So it's better to wear flat soled shoes. Am talking from my personal experience. I took to the extreme end of standing all day but I couldn't sustain with that regimen for more than a week. Perhaps standing for 4-5 hours works in the long run.

</comment><comment><USER41> I tried this on a whim a few months back by sticking a few empty water bottle cases under my table. I never want to go back...for precisely the same reasons as described in this article, the main one being that my afternoon "energy crash" at 3 pm simply stopped entirely if I was standing. That alone is worth the switch.

</comment><comment><USER42> I've also been standing at my desk for the last 3 weeks. I put my screen on a speaker, and my keyboard and mouse on some stacks of books.

For the first few days, my lower back hurt like hell, but the pain went away after a week or so. When I used to sit at my desk all day, I wouldn't eat very much. But since I started this, my appetite has doubled and I feel a lot healthier.

I'm only 22, but I'm a bit overweight (NZ overweight, not US overweight), and I think that small changes like this can really affect your health in the future. I feel like I'm tackling back problems before they have a chance to start. So if you're thinking about it, I'd recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER43> I converted my home office to a standing desk about a year ago and now I won't turn back. @ work, I still have a sit down desk at my office, but I'm in and out of meetings more of late, so I'm not fixed to by desk for more than a couple of hours at a time. it ends giving me a good 60 / 40 (sit / stand) solution

The Desk I'm using is a slightly older Ikea office desk that allows me to set it to any particular height. Sadly, it looks like they don't carry it anymore and the closest option that I see currently is the Frederick. <http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60111123>

<comment><USER44> Do you stand in your meetings, or...?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I've been standing for about 5 months now [1]. Assuming the research continues to stay the same (that sitting all the time, in spite of getting regular exercise, increases all-cause mortality), I will never go back.

[1] not continuously, lol

</comment><comment><USER46> I wanted to try a standing desk on the cheap. I checked out all the suggestions I could find, including various Ikea desks and custom builds from Ikea parts. I ended up using a $10.97 plastic 4-tier shelving unit from Wal- Mart.

It was just the right height, snapped together in 2 minutes, and the top shelf is just wide enough for my laptop and a glass of water. It stands right next to my normal desk so I can choose which I want to use.

<comment><USER21> I think I spent about $10 at home depot for this setup <http://bit.ly/o6vDEi>

<comment><USER46> That link expired long before I read your comment. Expiring links and URL shorteners are kind of a no-no here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Sitting all day always lead to me feeling pretty "blah" by the end of the day. I put an end table on top of my desk. My external monitor keyboard and mouse site on top of the end table, and my laptop sits below the end table on my desk. I alternate between sitting and standing throughout the day. I feel much better at the end of the day, now.

</comment><comment><USER48> I have had a standup work station for over 6 years now, I used to also have an architect chair so I could sit for short periods during the day.

Over a year ago I finally got an adjustable desk - <USER2> <http://www.geekdesk.com/> \- recommend it!

</comment><comment><USER49> I have been using a stand-up desk for about 6 years now. One advantage that is not always mentioned, is that when tackling a tough problem, it actually encourages you to pace around the room a bit. In my experience, the increased blood flow from doing this has helped with focus and concentration.

</comment><comment><USER50> A while back I converted my big IKEA desk into a standing desk by extending the legs all the way and putting books under it. It worked out amazingly well and I got a ton of stuff done, but you definitely need a tall stool of some kind so you can sit on occasion or it's easy to get burned out.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'd like to convert to a standing desk, but the prices are ridiculous. I don't need a motor and am not paying $795-1500 for a plank of wood and four metal legs. I'll build the thing myself before I go that route.

<comment><USER51> Thanks guys. I'm willing to spend a few bucks for something that looks nice, just dont want to get swindled. Gonna try a foldable drafting desk I think. Will blog the results.

<comment><USER29> I use a tall Fermob bistro table with a laptop.

It's $315 and is much classier than the cheap drafting desks. I also use it outside on the deck in the summer.

[http://www.frenchbistrofurniture.com/product/F-0250/Fermob-F...](http://www.frenchbistrofurniture.com/product/F-0250/Fermob- French-Bistro-Folding-High-Table.html)

Also, a four-drawer dresser is about the same height as the table above. They are very easy to find at flea markets or estate sales for next to nothing, and are perfect for standing with a laptop.

<comment><USER51> I like the color, but it doesn't look very sturdy. Maybe the photo doesn't do it justice though. I was thinking of this one, what do you think?

[http://www.amazon.com/Alvin-Folding-Drafting-Woodgrain- Round...](http://www.amazon.com/Alvin-Folding-Drafting-Woodgrain- Rounded/dp/B001E1RFJS/)

<comment><USER29> I know those drafting tables well, as I once was a wannabe illustrator. They are ok, but you are paying a premium for the ability to adjust it into a non- flat drawing surface. There's also a lot of extra space that you don't need if you're just using it as a laptop. Honestly, if it didn't have the adjustable top, it should cost about $30 at IKEA. They are easy to find on craigslist in big cities, though.

Regarding the bistro table, I would say it's about 20% more stable than you would expect. Pretty good for a laptop. I wouldn't put a 27" iMac on it, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> More evidence of the benefits of getting up:

<http://www.bmj.com/content/343/bmj.d3865>

</comment><comment><USER53> ok, you convinced me to try. Here is my coffee table + desk hack (pic) [https://plus.google.com/109940267018696224506/posts/B144cQj7...](https://plus.google.com/109940267018696224506/posts/B144cQj7cBn)

hope I don't find myself buying a new mac due to the whole thing collapsing! Still, at least I'll have my health :)

</comment><comment><USER54> I've been doing the standing desk thing for about six months now. Most of my leg and foot discomfort has gone now.

My leg strength stays much higher than it used to, as you might imagine. One bike ride per week sustains the muscle that used to require three rides, if you see what I mean.

I'm generally more alert while standing up. When I sit, I have to tap a foot or something, otherwise I'll start getting sleepy. This has always been the case, it's just a bit more noticeable when I spend more of the day standing.

The standing desk has helped tremendously with my posture, but has, to some degree, exacerbated my shoulder/neck issues. Specifically, holding good posture in a standing position lends itself to a knot in a trapezius muscle, which causes pain and nerve irritation.

I'm currently thinking that switching between standing and sitting will yield the best results. To that end, I'm considering building a sliding desk platform out of 8020 parts (<http://www.8020.net/>).

</comment><comment><USER55> What about the lying position? I have a couch next to me and i tend to relax with my ipad when reading stuff. Lying down feels more natural than the sitting position, so how about adding that one to the mix?

<comment><USER56> From my experience it seems that too much lying is also bad, the key is to change your position often enough so that parts of your body on which you sit/lie don't become stale.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> TEST

<comment><USER58> fail

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I don't think that standing is better or healthier than sitting while working. As a matter of fact I think it's even worse - you get to stand in one place 8 hours five times a week, how can that do any good? It's totally unnatural.

<comment><USER60> Are you speaking from a position of expertise/research in the area or just making a personal guess?

<comment><USER59> I am expressing my opinion. In the last few years I noticed this "fashion" spread through blogosphere. Does it exist a single long period during human evolution when people stand in place for 40 hours a week? As far as I know most of the time people spent lying, then sitting/squatting, walking and running. You really get to stand in one place when there is no other option available. But to each his own I guess.

<comment><USER14> I think the difference here is that you imagine people standing still for 8 hours straight. Obviously that would be a bad idea. No one seems to promote that.

One part of the 'more healthy' claim I've read about is that you're bound to move a lot more if you're standing. You'll shift weight more. You might wander off for a second, thinking. It comes more natural instead of lifting your rear out of a comfy chair.

<comment><USER61> "I think the difference here is that you imagine people standing still for 8 hours straight. Obviously that would be a bad idea. No one seems to promote that."

Why is that obviously bad? I stand for 9-10 hours straight. It took probably two weeks to get up to that point, but I rarely even sit down when taking a lunch break. I don't use a gel pad and I stand barefoot at home, or in some form of barefoot (vivo's to look nice) when I worked in a office. I almost constantly shift my weight. And every 10-20 minutes I do calf raises, stand on one foot, do free squats, something to move some blood. I'm still standing in all of those exercises though and most are just second nature. I stand still while typing, but move quite a bit when I'm reading.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Add falling snowflakes without slowing down page? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking to add a falling snow effect to a few of my sites for a week or two this December. (probably with "Let it Snow!" button to start the effect).
Most of the examples and tutorials I can find are pretty dated, very sluggish, and can lock up the page/browser, especially with a lot of tabs open.
What's the best performing way to add simple snow falling animations without significantly affecting page performance? (CSS3 Animations maybe?)
Also, is there a way to do it that is accessible, ie, doesn't trigger seizures as indicated in this article I came across?
http://wptavern.com/warning-wordpress-coms-falling-snow-feature-can-make-your-site-inaccessible
I feel like leaving making it opt-in (by providing a button) would take take care of the issue. There's something nice about being pleasantly surprised by the snow effect when browsing that's appealing, but not if it's going to trigger seizures >_<
I also realize that not everyone would welcome falling snow, so perhaps opt-in really is the only way to go.
Thanks HN! <comment><AUTHOR> The one I've found that I like the most so far is: [http://designshack.net/articles/css/make-it-snow-on-your- web...](http://designshack.net/articles/css/make-it-snow-on-your-website-with- css-keyframe-animations/)

But I'll have to add start and stop buttons with javascript to toggle the classes on and off.</comment>


Tweetie Developer Loren Brichter blogs on its acquisition by Twitter  - <AUTHOR> http://news.atebits.com/post/509476371/an-amazing-ride

<comment><USER2> I wonder what the author thinks of the new developer restrictions? You sign a contract to do something with a company a suddenly you aren't allowed to do it. How much of what Twitter bought was a development _process_? A set of tools that help build the apps? Tools which may now be banned?

</comment><comment><USER3> Hm, does this mark the end of free competition between twitter clients?</comment>


Bruce Willis may sue Apple for the owners' rights of iTunes collection - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcgerms.com/bruce-willis-may-sue-apple-for-the-owners-rights-of-itunes-collection/

<comment><USER2> This is blog spam for a register article which is sourced from the Sun.

<comment><USER3> Original link:

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/03/bruce_willis_in_itun...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/03/bruce_willis_in_itunes_will_spat/)</comment></comment>


Withings Acquired by Nokia - <AUTHOR> https://www.withings.com/jp/en/withings-nokia <comment><USER2> Preceding announcement of intent: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11571969](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11571969)</comment>


Ask HN: What's relevant to Google Search ranking anymore? - <AUTHOR> As a small-time blogger, I've faced several big blows by google and their search algorithm updates.
It seems like Google may be trying to cut down on big site's black-hat (or grey-hat) SEO but it feels to me like there is nothing left to do for any small bloggers in order to get ranked and be relevant.
High quality content doesn't mean much (hell, low quality content from already highly ranked sites gets the first picks) <comment><USER2> Quit obsessing over Google rankings and worry more about getting traffic and eyeballs to your site. If you get the traffic and real visitors, then rankings will naturally follow.

Stop thinking of yourself as a "small-time blogger" and think of yourself as a journalist, a reporter, someone who has a story to tell. Write content that people want to read. Uncover something that people care about. Write something controversial. Use 'social' to get people to see what you write.

I've been in your shoes: I was a 'small-time blogger' and just kept uncovering stuff that people care about, articles that people want read, and after hundreds of posts I finally started getting traffic regularly. Then I uncovered something that lots of people cared about and that post of mine hit the home page of HN and Reddit all at the same time. I didn't think my server could keep up with all the traffic.

Sure, make sure your site is "optimized" based on SEO best practices. But don't obsess over rankings.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right. So I understand that an organic-only strategy will yield little to no results especially nowadays; however, it is still a major way people access content. That's what I was wondering about.

Otherwise, I get a nice amount of traffic from various sources (people that linked to my site, social media, HN, and Reddit) but those sources aren't "long-term" like organic traffic is. (you hit top once and then you're gone the next day so to speak).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> At the same time that Google is cracking down on a lot of old black hat methods (which is good, because it was unpleasant when they worked), other content discovery methods besides search are popping up.

There are now many services that exist just to advertise content: Taboola, Outbrain, Stumbleupon's ad product, CoPromote, and more. You can build a following over Wordpress or Tumblr. The rates are lower than conventional PPC and display because the ad networks who offer it regulate what can be promoted.

Other opportunities include syndicating your content on popular sites, which, if you follow Google's guidelines, can be great for improving search ranking.

It has always costed something to rank. Ranking on Google for a valuable term is now more expensive than ever. If your budget doesn't allow you to rank for your target terms, there are lower cost options to build qualified traffic. You can use those lower cost options to build up your site quality and authority to the point to which you can compete.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting but that seems to rely on advertising as a means of distributing content.

And what do you mean "syndicating your content"? I've actually not heard of doing this.

<comment><USER3> Syndication is an old term that just means running the same article in multiple outlets. For example, George Will's column is syndicated across a ton of different newspapers. The National Board of Realtors syndicates content through hundreds of local publications by providing articles for free.

For SEO purposes it's a little different and not always easy to manage. This is a good article that I've found that talks about some of the practical issues that can pop up: [http://smepals.com/small-business-seo/how-content- syndicatio...](http://smepals.com/small-business-seo/how-content-syndication- can-be-devastating-small-business-seo-and-website-traffic)?

Yeah, title is a little negative, but it's still got some useful details on how to manage it intelligently.

Not everyone who will syndicate or scrape your stuff will be willing to follow the rules. A lot of people will not even understand what you're asking them to do, so you'll have to spell it out for them as didactically as possible.

If you can get them to follow the rules, it can be an effective way to 'borrow' the traffic and link equity for a certain page or post.

More on rel=canonical from Google: [http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2013/04/5-common-...](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2013/04/5-common- mistakes-with-relcanonical.html)

And a Moz discussion: [http://moz.com/community/q/syndication-link-back-vs- rel-cano...](http://moz.com/community/q/syndication-link-back-vs-rel- canonical)

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, I had a negative connection with that term since, basically, Google sees original content or nothing.

Thanks for the tip!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You still need links to rank, just like the old days. However, unlike the old days, you need links from (very) high quality, high relevance sites.

Commenting won't cut it, blogrolls won't cut it, site-wide footer links (e.g. "Wordpress Theme by MyBlog.com") won't cut it. You need someone that writes regularly for a premier or second tier site to create an editorial link to your post with relevant anchor text.

It's hard to get those authors to notice you - really hard - but it does happen. Keep writing good quality content and engage the right people often. Do something nice for them, offer a free tool that's perfect for their niche or help them out with technical stuff. Be a good guy - good guys get good links, given enough time.

When you have a few high authority links into your pages, you can link to yourself and distribute that page rank around your site. And when your site moves up the rankings, don't forget to link out to the other struggling good guys out there.

</comment><comment><USER5> The other main trouble is that if one of these large sites scrapes your OWN unique content (lets say a blog post) and has it on their site Google will treat the larger site as the OWNER of that content due to it's higher rank / reputation leaving your OWN site getting penalised (or at least not ranked) for DUPE content - this is something that needs fixing

<comment><USER6> It's easily fixBle - add rel="canonical" to the page and ensure you are linked to google plus as the sites author (google authorship) it's not too hard but essentially google wants to verify your g+ account against your site - then if your text appears on your site it's your original work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Getting mentions (especially popular ones or those from popular users) on Twitter appears to be having quite an impact nowadays. Ditto for Google+. It makes sense though since legit people only share legitimately good/interesting stuff on these networks, so make stuff that's worth sharing and get it out there.

<comment><AUTHOR> So getting social media followers?

<comment><USER8> or just links to the site</comment></comment></comment>


Monitor easily your network connections using Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/aouinizied/nfstream <comment><USER2> Any plan for supporting Python2.7?

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks.</comment>


Google Spam Heresy: The AdSense Paradox - <AUTHOR> http://blog.directededge.com/2011/01/06/google-spam-heresy-the-adsense-paradox/ <comment><USER2> From Larry and Sergey's original Google paper (<http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html>):

 _Currently, the predominant business model for commercial search engines is advertising. The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users. For example, in our prototype search engine one of the top results for cellular phone is "The Effect of Cellular Phone Use Upon Driver Attention", a study which explains in great detail the distractions and risk associated with conversing on a cell phone while driving. This search result came up first because of its high importance as judged by the PageRank algorithm, an approximation of citation importance on the web [Page, 98]. It is clear that a search engine which was taking money for showing cellular phone ads would have difficulty justifying the page that our system returned to its paying advertisers. For this type of reason and historical experience with other media [Bagdikian 83], we expect that advertising funded search engines will be inherently biased towards the advertisers and away from the needs of the consumers._

Google solved the problem by turning it on its head, but now it looks like the spammers have indirectly implemented what Google avoided.

</comment><comment><USER3> The spamminess of a site is not proportional to it's ad click through rates. Strong web communities have the best click through rates (though they don't usually generate the most ad revenue). Yahoo Mail has incredible click through rates right now, and most people wouldn't classify it as being spammy.

The real question that google needs to answer is "Does this site exist to serve ads, or do the ads exist to support the site?". This seems like a great computer science problem to me, but I'm not sure if statistics will be the end all solution. I think Google will need another quasi-social hack, ala PageRank, to really solve it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure -- I guess in general it wouldn't be click through rates, but click through rates on pages arrived at via search traffic. Obviously a community where members of a niche frequented a given site and clicked on related links would be different. And you're also right that using the word _proportional_ was sloppy -- what was meant was correlated in assumedly meaningly ways.

Really this was the front end of the question of, "Could some application of (negative) weighting based on the combination of search + adsense clicks help to remove some of the spaminess that is currently being lamented on the interwebs?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Google showing adverts on google.com/search is one thing, but I think the real metric to look at is usage of the Google advert network on the sites themselves. The more googlesyndication.com or doubleclick.net on a site, the spammier it is.

The problem is that Google can't penalize a site for using these technologies. And not because Google makes money from sites using these adverts, which they do, but because it'd be an arms race. The guys taking advantage of SEO would catch on and change advertisers. Google could penalize other advert networks too (Bing say), but then they'd be open to accusations of anti-competitive behavior.

<comment><USER5> It would be interesting to know the proportion of Google ad revenue between displaying ads on its own properties (search, but also Gmail, etc.) and networks of ads on external content.

The reason why spam exists is because people make money from it. If AdSense is the problem, how much would it hurt to just drop it?

Certainly another system would appear, but then Google could discriminate against any website with ads on it without being accused of being unfair to competitors.

<comment><USER6> 69% and 31%. It's in their SEC filings.

If Google discriminated against websites with ads on it, their SERP quality would drop.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the info.

But how would SERP quality drop if pages without ads received a boost?

Many high quality sites have ads, but not all. Yet all spam sites have ads (or else what's the point of spamming).

So by discriminating against pages with ads, you eliminate spam at the (possible) cost of hurting a little legitimate sites with ads.

This should be testable.

<comment><USER7> ExpertsExchange (sells subscriptions) or StackOverflow (funded by ads) ?

<comment><USER5> Good point, but ExpertsExchange has ads too. It also behaves in a spammy way, burying the answers at the very end of the page. That should be detectable behavior.

<comment><USER8> I bet there's a lot of things that spam pages have in common with regards to things like page placement.

So, if Google gets better at quantifying "spammy-ness" there will be an initial drop in spam effectiveness, but then spammers would catch on and emulate the behavior of good pages.

Eventually, the spammers' behavior would be indistinguishable from genuine posters.

<http://xkcd.com/810/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Don't really think that makes sense. Ad placement, site design, ad relevancy etc... all dominate the reasons of why people click ads. I don't think you're going to get much information about content relevancy out of the CTR as you can't hold those other features constant.

If Google is looking for how useful a page is, they're better off just looking at whether people go back to their search results and click on another site after a short delay.

<comment><USER10> I think it makes sense in extreme cases. For a 'real' page (e.g. with useful content and ads that are secondary to the main content) CTRs are unlikely to be that high. From experience I would say its hard to get > 10% CTR in such a site.

However, for 'spam pages' (e.g. those that have little information and ad links in primary positions) its common to have much higher CTRs. The prime examples are those sites that present AdSense links in with navigational links so its not clear you are clicking on an ad. CTRs of >50% are not uncommon.

<comment><USER11> This is correct. If you don't present the exact information someone is looking for but provide links that look like they will, they will click those links.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Any search engine that capitalizes on a new and so far unused element of the content that it indexes (in the case of google the links) and that becomes successful because of this will cause the destruction the very thing that it it capitalizes on.

So, for altavista, that was meta keywords and on page text, for google it is the link structure of the web.

</comment><comment><USER13> I find the assumption that being on the correct site precludes me from clicking through to ads or vice versa faulty.

</comment><comment><USER14> I've been amused by that for a while - in effect, Google is trying to destroy it's own business model. With perfect searches, there would be no need for ads.

<comment><USER15> Just kill Adsense, and the problem would quickly be solved.

<comment><USER14> How would they make money?

<comment><USER15> Adwords

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This would be a temporary fix. Spammy sites would move to a non-AdSense platform, and in Google eyes would appear to be totally ad-free.

</comment><comment><USER17> I wonder if there would be a way to split Google up into multiple companies to deal with the (multiple) conflicts of interest it has viz-a-viz providing both search and buying/selling advertising. I doubt it would be good for Google stock holders, but good for the market in general.

<comment><USER18> If you did that, how would the search company make money, if it's not involved with advertising?

<comment><USER17> I imagine they'd still make their revenue from advertising - they'd have an adsense bar. This would put the search part of the business on the same footing as other sites selling advertising space.

I'm imagining a world where there are multiple adsenses (ad brokers) competing effectively with each other for space, driving out supernormal profit for brokers, and returning the bulk of the advertising revenues to the publishers rather than to the middleman (currently Google). With more revenue for the publishers, more publishers come online and drive out supernormal profits for publisher too. That would be a more efficient market.

<comment><USER15> Sound like CPM...or tv advertising.

 _With more revenue for the publishers, more publishers come online and drive out supernormal profits for publisher too._

We've been seeing that for a long time...In the mid 90s porn affiliate stuff would pay tens of dollars per click, from banners!

*By "publishers", you mean people that make websites with content that have ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Couple points to add to the discussion.

You really don't want folks clicking your ads because they can't find what they want, you want them clicking your ads because they found what they want, and now they are on to a new search. A good way to check for this is to use a Google search box on your page. If folks are going back to Google for another search, they probably didn't get what they want the first time. You can also provide trackable links. So if on my <http://facebook-login-help.com> page you really wanted facebook login, I provide a link. Then I can track folks that are in the wrong place (But I haven't hooked up the links yet because the traffic was so low). It's in the publisher's best interest to provide lots of targeted information and be clear and honest about what they are doing. Another good metric is looking at time on site. If the people are only there for 5 seconds, you got a bad visit. If they are there 2 minutes, you must be doing something right.

An ideal page is where somebody is looking for X, finds it, then realize that they need to purchase Y in order to do X. You've provided them necessary information, the advertiser and ad network is providing them the next piece of information on their journey.

If you ask me, the sad fact of the matter is that most folks have no idea what they are searching for. Let me give you an example. I created a site that is related to financial matters. People search for this stuff and come by to visit. I try to provide them useful information.

Now I know from looking at my logs that the most people that click through the ads are going on to Quickbooks, which is tangentially related to the search term but not really. It's as if people were searching for "muffler installation tips" and then went on to click on an ad for car insurance. It's kinda-sorta related. I guess? But at least I can measure it. But I'm really confounded as to the relationship that's happening between the site and the ad. But at least it's something.

Metrics are very important. Without an ad click or some other event, I'm left to assume that you have changed your mind or just didn't know what the heck you were doing and were just thrashing around.

Contrast this targeted approach to my blog, which is just a bunch of stuff thrown together. I get folks all the time coming in on random searches -- bikinis, monkeys, ocelots -- things I've mentioned in a blog entry about something else. But they visit, stay a short time, then leave. If you ask me, these are the people who are truly not getting anything useful at all. At least with the targeted content the publisher (presumably) is trying to help the searcher. These are just random combinations of search terms and content.

Couple other things: first, Google limits the numbers of ads you can put on the page to 3. I personally think 3 is pushing it -- my first sites only had one ad per page. Google was kind enough to email me and tell me that I could put up to three. So lately I've went ahead and put three basically because I'm lazy: I don't want to have to go back and update the site later. Plus it's easier to design for three right off the bat than try to put them in later.

But 1 ad per page and 3 ads per page has a completely different CTR, even though it's the same user, same search, and same types of ads. So unless the publisher is breaking the 3-limit, I think there's a lot of room for mis- diagnosis here.

Second, the content provider has no control over ad availability or scheduling from the ad network. So if you write a wonderful series of articles on polar bears, and there are no polar bear advertisers, you're going to get a bunch of ads that are Public Service Announcements, or are for polar bear ice cream bars, or something else that's a poor fit -- which also decreases your CTR.

I'm not sure any of that helps, but at least it's a bit more information. I know the intent was to look at this from the searcher's perspective, but I think the only way to work towards a solution is to look at problems from multiple angles, and content providers (at least good ones) should have the same goals as searchers.

<comment><USER15> Why can't you target your content to specific affiliate marketing promotions?

I've found the adsense ads on my sites are not contextual, but based on the search history of the user (according to Google).

Quick question: You track how many people actually want the facebook login page, but what do you do with that info? Specifically, how to you use that knowlesge to improve the user's search experience and expectation?

<comment><USER19> Interesting. Depends on search history? That might explain why it's so hard to fathom from this end.

As far as the login, I'm in a bit of a quandary. For the mis-typings, at some point on the page I tell them they have mistyped their search, the correct way to type it, and provide a link to where they really wanted to go. I feel like this is how I would want to be treated if I made the same mistake.

As I see those links being clicked, the idea is to move them higher or lower on the page depending on their use. This should get the user to where they want to go faster. But -- I also think it's important to correct the user's spelling. I don't want them coming back because they keep making simple mistakes. And I'm not happy with a page beginning with "Hey bub! You can't spell!" so there's probably an upper limit to how high I would put the "I really wanted Facebook you moron!" links. Maybe about halfway from the top?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What percentage of AdWords revenue is AdSense responsible for?</comment>


How to build a bigger brain - <AUTHOR> http://esciencenews.com/articles/2009/05/12/how.build.a.bigger.brain <comment><USER2> Anyone know of a no-nonsense, minimal mumbo-jumbo way of starting?

<comment><USER3> <http://mail.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/mfneng/mind0.htm>, from this discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=587032>. It's Buddhist meditation but has decidedly less mumbo-jumbo than anything else I've ever seen. You need to get a proper pillow. <http://www.matsmatsmats.com/yoga/yoga-meditation.html> is the cheapest zafu/zabuton set I was able to find. Buckwheat filling is probably better in a durability sense than kapok filling, but it makes a noise when you shuffle whereas kapok is silent. Coupon here: <http://www.retailmenot.com/view/matsmatsmats.com></comment></comment>


Palm's Colligan Said to Reject Jobs's Offer to Stop Recruiting - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ahgf6sIeFZ4c <comment><USER2> Supposedly a similar agreement between Apple and Google is a factor in an antitrust investigation.

[http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/07/source-apple-and- google...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/07/source-apple-and-google- agreed-not-to-poach-workers/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Yet another example of Jobs being a control freak.

<comment><USER4> I know a few presidents of companies that routinely get on the phone with a competitor and try to chew them out over an issue such as poaching their employees. It's business trash talk. Every entrepreneur should have an open communication channel with their competitors. How are you supposed to beat them if you don't know them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good to know at least some of the big dogs don't treat people like serfs.

</comment><comment><USER6> A Silicon Valley Cartel?</comment>


50th Anniversary of Dr.Who Google doodle - Launches at 9am in your local TZ - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com

<comment><USER2> Procrastination mode on...</comment>


I Forgot My Phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OINa46HeWg8

<comment><USER2> I tend to point fingers at people like that and laugh so they can hear it hoping they'll pick it up and understand it's bad for them. Group of friends in pub, couples at restaurants.. everyone with their noses in the screen or taking photos of every stupid little moment (Look FB, I'm having this cake now, like me). It.is.mental...

<comment><USER3> I started ignoring the people after there complete focus went to the phone. And they learn quick. Suddenly they realize they are behaving very anti social.</comment></comment>


Algorithms Are Great and All, but They Can Also Ruin Lives - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/11/algorithms-great-can-also-ruin-lives/ <comment><USER2> It has always been possible to get stuck in bureaucratic hell by some mistake at some level, and often difficult to extricate oneself.

Before, each of those cases probably needed a human directly involved. Humans make mistakes, but they tend to make them one at a time, and we have a cultural understanding that humans can make mistakes, and systems to recover from them. Now that we have algorithms involved, we can screw people over wholesale, and we haven't yet developed the cultural knowledge that algorithms can make mistakes as well (astonishing, considering how often computers do not do what we expect them to do).

<comment><USER3> "and we haven't yet developed the cultural knowledge that algorithms can make mistakes as well (astonishing, considering how often computers do not do what we expect them to do)."

I feel like we've made some progress in the past ~20 years I've been able to witness that effect. Once upon a time, the output of a computer might as well have been divine writ. Nowadays, the person on the street is a bit more realistic. I think the problem with a bureaucracy now isn't that they consider the computer holy writ, it's that they hear "the computer is wrong!" more often than it actually is, so they grow their own rather cynical reaction to that claim... and, alas, that's a rational response, too. Especially bad when their system is telling them that you're a bad person in one way or another... _of course_ you're not really six months behind in payment, you deadbeat, I _totally believe_ the computer screwed up. The check's in the mail, too, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is simply bad data governance. Algorithms should not be able to make destructive decisions like dropping people from insurance or canceling a driver's license on their own. A better system would use the algorithm to identify _potential_ cases, then having a human perform a more stringent verification once you've narrowed down the set to a manageable number.

Yes, this is slightly more expensive than using an algorithm alone. But it could actually end up being cheaper in the long run if law suits are involved. Sloppy data governance causes all kinds of problems that are hard to quantify numerically, and that's the root cause here - not bad algorithms. At the end of the day, every algorithm is going to produce imperfect data: they're based on simplified logical models of real world systems. Recognizing that algorithms are imperfect is a key part of knowing when and how to use them.

<comment><USER5> Well said. Errors will happen. How they're monitored/dealt with is not an algorithm problem, and it's importance can't be underestimated.

In this case "the algorithm" is the fly in the printer from the '85 movie "Brazil". Except these are real stories, it's absurd.

<comment><USER6> > How they're monitored/dealt with is not an algorithm problem

Sure it is; what inputs go into producing the ultimate decision and how those inputs are processed is an algorithm problem. Particularly, whether and when output is sent to one or more humans requesting input, and how input from those human(s) is factored into the ultimate decision is an algorithm problem.

The fact that the decision algorithms at issue often do not involve human assessment as part of the input set when they should is a defect in the algorithms' fitness for their intended purposes.

<comment><USER4> I think you're combining "algorithm" and "process" which is something programmers often do (because for a programmer, they are the same thing). Businesses tend to think of "algorithms" as black boxes where you feed a data set in one side and get a modified data set out the other. That data is then incorporated as part of a business process.

If you're designing a process where you take the output of a program and delete all records flagged by the program, you can add a human validation step in pretty easily. Companies often have process engineers whose job it is to do exactly this: and when you're talking about data management, process and governance are very important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Other examples: If you ever take a landlord to court or make an insurance claim, you'll be marked as a bad risk -- even if your grievances were 100% legit.

<comment><USER8> The unfortunate thing about these examples is that I don't think that they illustrate malfunctioning algorithms. As far as creditors or insurers are concerned, your bringing a claim against a landlord or insurer _does_ indicate that, from the perspective of their bottom lines, you are a higher risk individual. I.e., they would prefer to lend to/rent to/insure a person who is unlikely to bring claims against them, even when she has a right to. That's one of the things that, from a cultural/social/moral perspective, is wrong with this system of risk assessment: it penalizes people for doing things that are entirely within their rights by decoupling risk from fault.

I'm not sure that there is a solution to this other than regulation, though.

<comment><USER9> If you are a company that is rarely at fault, then it would be great to be able to separate risk from fault and take the customers that your competition is overcharging.

<comment><USER8> Great point! One problem, though, is that it takes money to keep your own level of fault low, to accurately measure your track record, and to discriminate between fault and no-fault risk. All this cost may undermine your ability to sell a cheaper product to low-fault individuals. Another complication is that sometimes neither you nor your customer will be at fault (either because nobody is at fault at all, or because a third party is at fault).

Finally, in the credit arena, risk information is pooled between creditors, some of whom may be more likely than others to have been at fault in a given dispute. You'd have to figure out how to refine a customer's risk profile based on the data from a credit reporting agency, or source all the data you needed yourself.

If you could overcome these challenges, though, (and maybe you could) I think you'd have a great business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Seems more like 'bureaucracies can ruin lives'. These stories could have just as easily come from the 1800s.

<comment><USER11> No, not really. It reminds me of a shirt I saw once:

"Caffeine: do stupid things faster and with more energy!"

Likewise, these new tools enable us to make entire new categories of mistakes based on false correlations etc., and to make them more often. Before, it would have taken a lot of work to cancel thousands of people's health insurance. Just the sheer amount of time and number of eyeballs involved would have increased the chance that someone might have noticed a problem. Now it's just >click< and there's no chance for introspection before the results of bad data or bad analysis are made manifest in the real world. Some gears are _meant_ to grind slowly.

<comment><USER3> As I like to say, "To err is human. To screw up a million times per second you need a computer."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The headline is a little misleading; what I mostly got is that letting decisions like this be handled by automated systems creates more problems than it solves because those automations create too many biased false positives.

But the problem there isn't necessarily that there are biases encoded in the algorithms, but more likely that there are biases in the training data that the algorithms are working with.

<comment><USER13> Why is it more likely that the data is biased than the algorithm? And isn't picking biased data just as big a problem as having biased algorithms?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The canonical sci-fi short story about this is the darkly humorous "Computers Don't Argue", written by Gordon Dickson all the way back in 1965.

Link: [http://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/showpage.php?page=133](http://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/showpage.php?page=133)

<comment><USER15> Thanks for linking that, it was a great and quick read. That's very dark but shockingly relevant to this topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Two comments so far saying how it's not the fault of the algorithms.

Huh.

Expert systems are given the role of, well, experts: Their authority is not to be countered by the folks "just doing their jobs". Blaming the "bureaucracy" is wrong-headed, quixotic, and idiotic.

The blame lies with the senior policy makers and politicians who wash their hands of due process and avenues of appeal, based on their choice of "expert systems" that cannot be possibly be confounded.

The person who told the driver it was their responsibility to clear their own name could be fired for saying otherwise. Nameless bureaucracy isn't to blame, executives and politicians with real names are.

Let's direct the discussion where it needs to go, shall we?

<comment><USER11> You're absolutely right. I just _knew_ some people would respond by saying we shouldn't blame the tools, and in a narrow sense they're right. However, that doesn't detract from the point that some of these shiny new toys are pretty darn dangerous. We have a responsibility to understand and mitigate those dangers, not merely deploy tools that we barely understand with consequences we understand even less. Training, safeguards, and oversight are necessary. Failing to check the results from the latest bit of Hadoopery is the data equivalent of leaving sharp power tools on a children's playground. "It's not the tools' fault" is incomplete and misleading.

<comment><USER17> > I just knew some people would respond by saying we shouldn't blame the tools

Usually, I'm saying the same thing when it comes to misapplications of science or technology. However, when the "tools" are making our decisions for us, I think we can safely blame the tools themselves. At least in the sense that the tools might need to be re-engineered.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think part of the problem is that we've gotten stingy with forgiveness and second chances. Consequently lots of people who might otherwise have good intentions have, rationally, designed systems to avoid making anyone responsible for any decision, because even a _good_ choice (given the information at hand) that happens to turn out poorly can end careers, see people demonized in the media, generate lawsuits, and ruin lives.

That's why people were reluctant to try to fix the problems the rules (algorithms, in this case) caused, I think.

Sure, it could just be that a banal everyday sort of cowardice is on a multi- decade upswing, but I suspect instead that mistakes hit people harder and stay with them longer than they used to.

Or, maybe harsh punishment isn't more common but it's more visible and it's perceived as more common. The result is the same, though the solution—whatever that might be—could be different in that case.

More intense career specialization probably doesn't help. Can't cut it in (your educational focus here)? Have fun spending another half a decade in school and going $XX,000 into debt again, _and_ going back to the bottom of the pay scale, or else delivering pizza for the rest of your working life. Either way, hope you didn't expect to retire, ever, or pay for your kids' college, or....

An article that I see as closely related to this, regarding changes in US military leadership between WWII and the present:

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/general-...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/11/general- failure/309148/)

TL;DR (of the relevant points): Removing an US military officer from a post is now rare and typically career-ending, while before it was common and often simply resulted in doing a different (not necessarily lesser) job somewhere else. Perhaps as a consequence, no-one wants to fire an officer from a job they're not very good at since doing so punishes them more severely than may be warranted. Officers don't want to take appropriate risks because they fear being fired more than they should have to and acting timid is (these days) far less risky than making a bold call that goes poorly.

Certain classes of people seem immune to being punished for _any_ mistakes, however egregious, of course, but for a huge percentage of the workforce and the bulk of the political class I think this holds.

I'd guess our poor social safety net in the US serves to aggravate the problem. Losing a job here can be a hell of a lot worse than losing a job in most other states with advanced economies.

I don't think that CYA is a new thing, of course, but I do think that in the recent past this _degree_ of ass-covering wasn't rule #1 of public life for so many people. It's become a part of the background—a law of nature. I see it as a major, if not the dominant, factor enabling or encouraging bad police behavior, bad domestic and foreign policy, bad school administration, bad customer service, and bad employer-employee relationships.

Apologies for any disorder in this post, it's not something I've written about before.

[edit] grammar

</comment><comment><USER19> In all of the examples the algorithms were not the issue, it was how they were implemented. Completely misleading headline.

<comment><USER8> Well sure. If the algorithms were all implemented perfectly, and performed as we would want relative to every possible evaluative criterion, then nobody would have a reason to object to the use of algorithms. I don't suggest holding your breath until this becomes the case, though. One of the interesting things highlighted by the article is the sheer diversity of evaluative criteria. A thoroughly inculturated human can usually navigate these complex systems of values in a way that remains extremely difficult to implement algorithmically.

In the meantime, when the algorithms we have fail to perform as we'd like, the damage they cause is multiplied by the very efficiency gain that makes them appealing. That's the macro-scale problem. And on an individual basis, the affected person has a difficult time reversing the damage to himself, because the human bureaucracy will tend to defer to the algorithm.

Given that it is the mere fact that an algorithm is used, combined by the effective impossibility of perfect algorithms in the context of complex social functions (and humans' tendency to defer to their results, even when incorrect), that causes the harm, I don't see what's wrong with saying that algorithms can ruin lives.

If not this, then what, to your mind, would it take to make good on that headline?</comment></comment>