Why is the US still using imperal units? - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17350-nasa-criticised-for-sticking-to-imperial-units.html <comment><USER2> The metric system is simpler and better than the imperial system in every way but one. And that one is that there are more 12s or multiples of 12 in the imperial system, and so it is easier to split imperial measurements of every day measurements into thirds and quarters. And that is frequently very convenient. (The champion of divisibility is the acre, which is 2 _2_ 2 _3_ 3 _5_ 11*11 square feet.)

<comment><USER3> When you have a numbering system based on 12, you have a few more factors to treat in a special way. Why stop there? We can go to a numbering system based on 60 or 72 or ...

Believe me, this is the wrong way. We should strive to avoid special cases, and not create new ones. Thus - for the sake of consistency - we should build our number system (and measurement units) on base 11. This way all (non- trivial) factors will be treated the same way.

Since you have to deal with repeating fractions anyway, you might as well make it the only case.

I rest my case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This annoys the hell out of me.

Metric is worse in almost every way for day to day tasks. Not everyone is a scientist doing complex calculations. For science, maths, engineering, sure use metric.

Imperial measurements are based on convenience. Why do we buy a dozen rolls from the baker and not 10? So we can divide them between 2,3,4,6 people.

Weights are similarly based on what is useful. Look at a recipe for cakes and you might see 1Lb of this, 1/2Lb of this. The metric equivalent? 100g of this, 200g of that. How is that more useful to me?

You can easily divide imperial weights by 2,4,8,16 to make smaller batches. Doing the same with metric is a pain.

Why do we ask for some 2 by 4 timber? Because it's easier than asking for some 48mm by 96mm timber.

If you're doing finer work, measuring things in divisions of an inch makes perfect sense. 16ths of an inch means you can subdivide with ease. Try dividing a cm into 8 equal parts sometime and tell me how you get on.

Why do we use shoe size numbers rather than specify the length of our feet in mm? Because shoe sizes are about the right precision.

In the UK, we also use stone to measure our weight. I'm 9 stone and a bit. Why is it more useful to be able to say I'm, 60kg. That's more precision than I want to tell someone my weight.

I know this is an unpopular view with geeks, but if someone could please explain what problem metric solves, I'm all ears (And please don't trot out the space shuttle imperial vs metric mix up FUD).

<comment><USER3> > Why do we ask for some 2 by 4 timber? Because it's easier than asking for > some 48mm by 96mm timber.

Only, you wouldn't. For the same reason you do not buy 2.11337642 pints [0] of milk. The metric system is convenient enough to work in daily life. (But the historical baggage it contains annoys me. For example the we should get rid of the Kelvin and use a unit of temperature that makes the Boltzmann constant have a numerical value of 1. Also the Mol should make way for a sensible unit of number of atoms, like 1. Oh, and the speed of light should be made some simple number, too.)

I guess with the advent of computers the difficulties of calculation with imperial units should not matter any longer. So imperial units are just not inconvenient enough to warrant a change. Like SI units are not inconvenient enough to warrant a change to something even simpler.

On the subject of choosing dimensions <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preferred_number> has some interesting things to say.

[0] 1 Liter = 2.11337642 Pints

<comment><USER4> You missed my point though... People use 2x4 timber because it's a useful size of timber to use. And they use inches because they're useful in describing that. mm/cm/m are less useful for that use case.

<comment><USER5> 100mm * 50mm is what I buy. Or 10cm * 5cm. It's not that complicated.

<comment><USER4> I didn't say it was complicated anywhere. I said it was less useful and unnecessary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "If the question begins, 'Why don't they…?' the answer is money."

\-- Robert Heinlein

<comment><USER7> Pity!

From the Mendehall Order of April 5, 1893

... such action will also have the great advantage of putting us in direct relation for our weights and measures with all civilized nations, most of which have adopted the metric system for exclusive use.

<http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP447/app3.pdf>

I am actually convinced that if all costs are properly factored in, it will be more than beneficial in the long term. It is not that bad, I lived through a transition and it was almost uneventful!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> About 15 years ago now, I remember watching a PBS news show where this question came up. One of the guests said that we would never leave the Imperial system because all the land in the US was surveyed and alotted in Imperial. The switching costs away from that were deemed too high.

<comment><AUTHOR> Funny you mention that - it's actually how I got on this tangent. according to wikipedia:

"Twenty-four states have legislated that surveying measures should be based on the U.S. survey foot, eight have legislated that they be made on the basis of the international foot, and eighteen have not specified the conversion factor from metric units"

Yea. Survey foot. That's not even the current international standard for the length of a foot. Ridiculous. Glad I'm not an interstate contractor that has to deal with this mess.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I know this is an old-ish article, but this is a topic that severely annoys me. I was taught both systems of measurement, beginning in grade school. But I still have to calculate feet and inches. I have to buy twice as many tools for my garage, because that bolt could be 3/4" or 17mm. NASA can't even manage to build the space shuttle replacement using the metric standard? wtf?

<comment><USER9> I find it hard to believe that it would cost $350 million to convert the drawings and diagrams to metric. I would do it for half that price!

<comment><AUTHOR> Even if it did cost that much, did they learn nothing from the mars orbiter disaster? Pick a standard unit and stick to it. And make damn sure all your contractors use the same unit. Seems like the unit that every single country in the world is on would be a good one to choose.

<comment><USER7> If my memory is correct something very similar happened also during the testing of the first 'Star Wars' missiles. The given cost is pure bull. Autocad has a facility where one can convert from metric to imperial dimensions. It would not cost that much to re-design the software to carry out the conversions automatically, including re-selection of standard components. (Except if NASA is still using rotring pens and tracing paper).

One issue that would crop up though is some very odd looking sizes. Assume a rod of 1". This will translate to 25.4 mm, no sane Engineer in the rest of the world would specify a size like this, but would go for 25.0 mm.

Having studied both systems I can assure you that the Imperial System adds easily 6 months to an Engineer's training.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why do we "still" use binary / hex for computers?

The answer is that a decimal system of notation isn't a pure win in every endeavor.

As a woodworker, there's a lot that I like about Imperial (I like doing metalworking in metric, though, and I have one metalworking lathe calibrated in each system).

In woodworking, an inch is about the width of my thumb pressed flat. I can quickly measure things that way. The foot is a convenient size for the work that I do. Meters are a bit too big. Centimeters are too small. Imperial drill bits are available in sizes related by n/2. I can go from a 1" bit to a 1/2" to 1/4" to 1/8", etc. Or, I can add 50%, going from 1/8" to 3/16".

See also ISO preferred numbers (ISO 3:1973)

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

<http://www.sizes.com/numbers/preferred_numbers.htm>

</comment><comment><USER10> Sheer bloodyminded cultural momentum has a lot to answer for.

Thankfully, excepting the occasional conversion flub from NASA and structural engineers, Americans that need to use the metric system usually know how to use the metric system. So don't dismiss quite all of us as backwards wankers quite yet...

</comment><comment><USER11> Here's the thing that I find tragically hilarious about this conversation: you can't get people this riled up about their local school superintendent embezzling money.

</comment><comment><USER11> The question is, what is the benefit of switching? "It's easier." Yes, technically metric is easier than imperial... _but imperial isn't that hard_.

</comment><comment><USER12> "The metric system is the tool of the devil! My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and thats the way I likes it!" -- Abraham Simpson

</comment><comment><USER13> the cost of converting outweighs the benefits according to some people.

<comment><USER14> That's until you lose another space probe or two.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Lawyers.

edit: hey downmodders, seriously, the answer _is_ lawyers.

The legal mess that would ensue from having to switch the land measurements to metric is one of the biggest stumbling blocks, the lawyers would have endless causes to bicker over the exact location of property boundaries.

Never mind that the inch is defined as 0.0254 meters.

<comment><USER16> _the answer is lawyers._

Not really.

My uncle was a farmer, which in these days involves mostly machinery, which all have bolts. Back then, there was talk of converting to the metric system, and he said that he hoped that he would be able to retire before that came into being. But then he bought a New Holland combine, which was all metric.

At that time, I think there was a proposal to allow mechanics to get a tax deduction for replacing all there tools with metric tools, but this was denied.

Similarly the cost of conversion is huge for NASA and many other industries.

Property boundaries are, except for Texas, I hear, are all based off of reference points that are precisely described.

So I don't think the answer is lawyers.</comment></comment>


Cappuccino 0.7 Released - <AUTHOR> http://cappuccino.org/discuss/2009/05/20/cappuccino-07-now-available/

<comment> old-gregg 280North looks awesome: hacking on some cool stuff, enjoying life. If you don't mind me asking, how do you survive?

Most YC startups are desperately pimping their little web sites on every techcrunch they can find, consuming every open sourced library there is, without contributing much back, while you're sailing along like open source gods, immortal, living off the sunlight.

I know about 280Slides, but it seems you're mostly about Atlas and Cappuccino, so which one is your monetizable product? Or did I nail it with immortality? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> We're not immortal, but I'm glad you think so. We strongly believe in open source software, and we want to be a part of it. Cappuccino is our way of doing that. Plus, with something this cool, we just couldn't keep it to ourselves :)

But, for the record, Atlas will be a commercial product. We are not yet ready to release details though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> As a longtime Cocoa developer, I'm thrilled to be able to use Cappuccino. The .7 release is a great leap forward, particularly the new theming capability. I've literally dreamed of the day that I could deliver a true desktop quality experience in a web app: Cappuccino will let me get there.

</comment><comment><USER3> We'll be putting up some tutorials on how to use nib2cib and all the new technologies in the coming weeks

</comment><comment><USER4> The Aristo PSDs should be a treat for folks like me with no real Photoshop training but with the ambition to make things that don't look ugly.

</comment><comment><USER5> does anyone have experience with something like this (or SproutCore, GWT) versus a heavier javascript solutions that uses the backend purely to get data? i'm thinking extjs on the frontend with an api on the backend (probably django for the admin). any feedback? ps: i expect to write js most of the time as opposed to (in this case) python. extjs is rich enough that i don't have to muck with html/css either and i can throw google gears for good measure.

sorry, too long.

appreciate any comments.

<comment><USER6> I was under the impression that this was more like ExtJS (i.e. the heavier end of the scale) rather than something like jQuery that pretty much just works on top of standard HTML markup.

I spent several months attempting to hack our applications to work within the ExtJS way, but found it pretty hostile to working with a traditional web application (e.g. POST/GET rather than AJAX everything). This bad experience led me to dismiss Cappuccino as being inappropriate for our needs, though it might be useful for writing apps from scratch. jQuery has proven far more amenable to a baby-steps conversion from a traditional CGI app to an AJAX application. There's also the accessibility and downgrade path question with all-JavaScript generated pages (like ExtJS, and, I thought, Cappuccino).

But perhaps I'm mistaken about Cappuccino.

<comment><USER5> very informative. thanks.

i think in cappuccino you do everything in the "backend". there's no need to write javascript/html/css ... which is good in a lot of ways (you can output source for different devices, and i'm even guessing you could generate different backends - php, .NET) - but i'm more interested in the js/AJAX everything model, lighter on the backend.

i've never worked in objectiveC/J but js seems nicer at first glance. but i may just be saying that so that i don't feel like i would miss something should we choose etxjs.

more feedback would be appreciated guys.

<comment><USER7> Actually it's the opposite, Cappuccino applications are mostly client-side, running on JavaScript. Objective-J is an extension to JavaScript, which gets compiled to JavaScript (either at runtime or ahead of time).

<comment><USER5> yes. but how is that generated js being served?

<comment><USER7> Any HTTP server. The runtime compilation takes place in the browser (the compiler is written in JavaScript). The pre-compilation uses a command line version of the compiler running in Rhino)

<comment><USER5> thanks. i think i'm sticking to js then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is this [really] the solution for building cross-compliant applications for web-browsers?

       When you program in Cappuccino, you don't need to concern yourself
       with the complexities of traditional web technologies like HTML, CSS, or even
       the DOM. The unpleasantries of building complex cross browser applications are
       abstracted away for you.

[<http://cappuccino.org/learn/documentation/>]

<comment><USER5> what do you think about something like extjs?

<comment><USER9> extjs is a library and Objective-J is a new language. It is different in many respects. extjs might be good library to have with existing frameworks but if you are building something really complex UI on the web you are better off with Cappuccino.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yeaaaah! Cappuccino Rocks Da House!!! :-)

<comment><USER11> It's weird how a harmless and well-meaning response gets so many downvotes for not being all serious and business-like.

<comment><USER12> It doesn't need to be serious and business-like, but it does need to contribute to the discussion. The likes of leet speak, fanboi terms, and first post claims do none of that, and in fact are harmful (no matter how well- meaning) because they contribute to the noise rather than the signal.

<comment><USER13> There are plenty of posts on HN that directly "contribute to the discussion," but still get voted down. I think it's more accurate to say a post is down or upvoted on the basis of whether or not the post contributes to the discussion the voters want to read.

<comment><USER12> Yes, at a minimum it needs to contribute to the discussion. If it doesn't do that, it should get voted down. There are other factors at play that will make people vote something down also; there was a topic/entry here with some interesting suggestions about multi-dimensional ratings (that I can't seem to find the page for it now).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apache Hadoop 2.0 (Alpha) Released - <AUTHOR> http://hortonworks.com/blog/apache-hadoop-2-0-alpha-released/

<comment><USER2> Does anyone know if this improves error reporting at all? That one major pain I've had dealing with Hadoop: something goes wrong, you get some super obscure error message and consequently you'll end up doing a major binary search to find out what caused it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Disappointed to see no progress being made toward including iterative map reduce. Longer term I think we'll need to look to Mesos/Spark for real innovation.

<comment><USER4> Frankly I think Hadoop suffers from too much flexibility. Notice just how many projects are built on top of Hadoop, but more importantly what they do. I'm not going to say that projects like Hive or Pig should be integrated, because these things are too far from the core philosophy of Hadoop. Iterative map- reduce is a featureset one would _expect_ from a map-reduce library. Twister has iterative map-reduce for years.

If Spark gets _anywhere_ near 30x the performance of Hadoop when it comes to iteartive map-reduce, that should raise serious questions: questions like, "What makes Spark so successful?" and, "Can we integrate Spark into the core library?" There is a need for iterative Hadoop that Spark addresses, and I would also consider it to be major enough to deserve inclusion in the core library. I realize that it is a Scala library, so this could take a lot of time. Even so, I would _really_ want to catch up with that 30x speedup. That is too big to ignore.

What's interesting is that the new Hadoop engine YARN and Mesos have similar goals (source: [http://www.quora.com/How-does-NextGen-MapReduce-compare- to-M...](http://www.quora.com/How-does-NextGen-MapReduce-compare-to-Mesos)). Maybe this will make built-in iterative map-reduce a possibility in the future?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Official release notes page from Apache: <http://hadoop.apache.org/common/docs/r2.0.0-alpha/></comment>


Covid-19 Trends - <AUTHOR> https://meetglimpse.com/covid19 <comment><AUTHOR> Hey! Noah here from Glimpse (author). Built this to shed light on products and services with a ton of demand and not enough supply - hoping that businesses can more easily focus on the things that matter most and be better stewards to the world in this time of crisis!

</comment><comment><USER2> What Covid-19-related trend surprised you the most as you prepared this data presentation?</comment>


Should software engineers be involved in product decisions? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/Should-software-engineers-be-involved-in-product-decisions?share=1 <comment><USER2> It's the wrong question.

The question that should be discussed is why non-engineers feel qualified to dictate product decisions.

Source: I am a software engineer who has often had to fix dumb ideas from people who have no idea how software works.</comment>


Startup Meetups - <AUTHOR>

Are there any startup events in the Charlotte NC area? <comment><USER2> Is there a site to coordinate some HN meetups? I'd really like to get one going in the San Diego area.</comment>


Show HN: Auto Swatch - New-car research that doesn't suck - <AUTHOR> http://autoswatch.com/ <comment><USER2> The site is pretty, but I would hardly call seeing what different cars look like in different colors research. I guess if that's what's guiding your purchase, it makes sense, but for me, appearance is nowhere near the top of the list.

<comment><AUTHOR> When my wife and I were car shopping, I noticed an emotional pattern. She cared about color, style, etc. My target audience is women 25-40.

<comment><USER2> If the goal is to shop by color/style, I would filter out the cars that aren't available in the selected color. Showing the little gray boxes provides no benefit at all. I would also eliminate the pagination on the listings. Pagination almost always detracts from the usability of a site. In your case, it makes it much harder to compare vehicles within the search results. And, when you remove the pointless grayed-out boxes, the page will never be that long.

<comment><AUTHOR> I originally filtered out the vehicles not available in the color, but it was confusing when vehicles popped in and out depending on color. If my vehicle isn't available in red, I want to know that.

As far as pagination goes, I'm with you. I'm still on the fence about whether or not to ditch it.

<comment><USER2> Perhaps group results by availability then?

Like:

       Available vehicles A-Z
      </comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>
      Unavailable vehicles A-Z

Why _not_ ditch pagination? What is it adding to the site?

<comment><AUTHOR> More confusing UI, IMO.

I'll probably kill pagination, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> UPDATED: Expanded on the categorization aspect.

Your design is absolutely gorgeous, and that's worth visiting the site for alone.

The categorization is a little wonky, and while it may technically be true (if it is), I think it's going to confuse other people than me; Sedan, Hatchback and Crossover seem _and_ look to similar judging by their icon. Maybe they should be merged, or the main categories should be based on something else. To someone who knows jack about cars, they all look like station cars to me. Heck, upon closer inspection, some of the Hatchbacks and Crossovers look like SUVs or Minivans.

Some people will probably be interested in several similar categories. I'd try enlisting the feedback of your users to understand how they categorize cars and apply at least some of that methodology.

Think about how people buy cars; if you need a big car to transport heavy loads or compensate for something, you have an SUV.

If you're a mother of three, you'd want a "Family Car" (although that's a tough sell to the husband).

Some people, myself and probably some women in their 20s, like "Small Cars", like Mini Coopers, Fiat Grande Punto and their ilk. The Punto is a great city car that's cheap on petrol, easy to navigate, and even easier to park. These cars are like the purple Dell laptops to some women.

Then there's the Sportscar (or Mid-Life-Crisis Car, but let's just call it a Sportscar). No need to delineate convertibles nor two-seaters and so forth.

I'm sure there's a general consumer pattern - a car buyer archetype - that you can use to your advantage. Quora has so many quirky people that there might be someone with that knowledge. This is probably a vital thing to figure out, and basing it on buyer trends might be a good idea - as long as you don't create category frameworks that overlap in domains.

As for relevant metrics, I would suggest MPG (bio/electric/hydrogen vs. diesel vs. unleaded) and the Euro NCAP[1] score. The latter probably requires API access, but nevertheless.

EDIT: What are those coloured boxes supposed to signify? Granted, I'm an idiot, but I thought they were filter links for age groups at first.

[1]: <http://www.euroncap.com>.

<comment><USER3> Another thought I just had: approach your design like you were an online car salesmen - not the Simplified Wikipedia of cars - or that you earned an affiliate commission on every car "sold" through your site.

That way, you would be more focused on better conversion rather than exhaustive classification, and have a completely different incentive. This would affect the categorization and user experience significantly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. I think this will become more apparent once the functionality of the site is fleshed-out. The goal is to get people's asses in (the right) cars, not just tool around with the site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I run a startup providing inventory services to automotive dealerships and make use of the eVox product. Great images.

That being said I would be very careful how your licensing contract is worded with them. You don't want to get burned and most everything in our space is charged on a dealership by dealership basis.

The idea itself is interesting and I like anything that disrupts our industry. Keep working on it and feel free to reach out if you'd like.

<comment><AUTHOR> We were in talks with Evox for a long time, our contract very specifically allows advertising-backed public display of the photos. They've seen the site and love it. FWIW, the folks at Evox were awesome to deal with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a really great start and I have been thinking a lot about this problem as every year during ski season I pine for an AWD vehicle of some kind and start bouncing between car manufacturers sites. I search both visually but I also like to hit google for a specific feature like AWD or TDI etc and use that as a starting point. If you sprinkle in a few feature details - even if it's meta only for the search box - then I think it will become even more awesome. (And probably my starting point for all my car research)

Finally, I realize this is probably a first version but once I find a car I like you should make an effort to send me to the the manufacturer site or even a simple google qry that will find what I'm looking for.

I think your site is about 100 times more sticky than carwoo since right away I am looking for cars - if later I want dealers to compete for me that's great. I would seriously consider that you borrow their business model or that they borrow your interface idea.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have a few comments:

\- nice design

\- why use categories? I tried to find my car in two categories and couldn't find it. I finally gave up and searched, and still didn't find it (no fuzzy matches).

\- Why not use a flip approach to flip through the car detail pages and star ones that you want to do further research on? Starred items could then be viewable as a features/price matrix.

\- What is the problem that the site is solving for people? In my opinion it's "What cars are out there, what do they look like, and how do they compare?".

\- I think that info about cars that are currently available with big incentives or other discounts would be useful. Two seemingly smilar vehicles could have a very different monthly payment b/c of incentives and as a consumer I want to know.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's very interesting. It's a work in progress, but the canvas looks good. One of the huge problems with buying a new car is the sheer amount of "comparison data" available. It's near impossilbe for someone to make a good decision (good according to "How we Decide" & "Happiness Hypothesis") with more than 5-6 variables. I like the fact that it only presents one very simple dimension of choice so far. Now, if you can figure out a way to not overwhelm a buyer, and keep the choices low, by eliminating vehicles of the wrong color etc from a search, it really would be new-car research that doesn't suck :)

</comment><comment><USER8> I wouldn't use this honestly. I don't get anything from it that I can't from manufacturers' sites. Every manufacturer has a "build your own car" link that has colors you can choose. Theirs often even let you choose interior colors too.

Manufacturers' sites suck, but this doesn't give me the info I need to skip them, so I'd now have to use two sites instead of one. This site is just a subset of the manufacturer site I'm already stuck using, and to be honest their color pickers work better.

</comment><comment><USER9> Having worked one of the top auto manufacturer websites from top to bottom, MPG and Seating are the next two things you need to add. Particularly right now, MPG is top of mind as gas prices are skyrocketing. And seating is always important. It helps to know whether you'll be able to fit your entire family.

Next comes trunk space and safety ratings. Can I fit what I need to given my particular lifestyle? Will I have a better chance of survival in a crash?

Awards help as well, such as Motor Trend or J.D. Powers. Those factor well into the decision-making.

Funny enough, random things like number of cup holders is a deciding factor some people. Will there be enough cup holders for everyone's drinks?

Regarding the interface, I think it would be particularly awesome if filtering and display updates worked using this jQuery isotope plugin: <http://isotope.metafizzy.co/demos/filtering.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Good tips! There is a huge opportunity in this industry on the web. Current car research sites have no human touch - things like cup holders and basic safety ratings. The isotope plugin is pretty neat, but I'm not sure if it's worth spending time on at this stage. It'd be a neat easter egg to introduce sometime, though ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> nice visually, but kinda crappy functionally.

that said I did find the ability to switch between models useful, since it lets you see just what gets changed visually between the C63 AMG and the regular C-Class, the M3 and 3-series, Base corvette and the Z06 etc.

That said for some reason you haven't applied this to Audi(i.e. A4/S4)

</comment><comment><USER11> Those photos are gorgeous. I made <http://autoridge.com> and I had a lot of trouble finding good vehicle photos. I ended up using the Flickr API to pull in photos for both the website and the mobile app. Most of the resulting pictures are good, some are seemingly random or mis-labeled, but none of them are anywhere near the quality of what you have there.

<comment><AUTHOR> My original plan was to scrape photos off Flickr / MFR websites, but I quickly realized that's not even close to legal :). Evox does a great job.

<comment><USER11> Scraping photos is a lot different than scraping data, I fully agree.

But for the pictures, I am using Flickr's API, and it's not illegal. I have read the terms carefully, and since the site it not a commercial one, I am well within the public API terms. I also link to and credit the source on every photo, as I know each individual has the rights to their own photos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Categorization of cars is messed up. There's a BMW 5 series in the hatchback section. And a VW Beatle in the sports section ... and countless other examples.

Is "seeing cars in different colours" the only feature you are offering? If you are planning on adding more comparison features then I'd wait with "launching" as this is mostly useless and user's wont remember you. Pretty site tho :)

<comment><AUTHOR> We'll have all data on each vehicles soon. Something similar to this: <http://twitpic.com/4mm384>

The categorization is messed up, yes, I'm working on a flabby set of data for that. That'll be fixed soon, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Take out the Google ads. If your goal is to make money then there are ways to do that, but don't throw up ads until you're out of ideas.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'll admit I'm in the category of color-first car shoppers. Well-done and quite beautiful. Outside of color and type I might add in price next and mpg. Then hand the search off to another engine to let folks fine-tune criteria. Don't get too bogged down in needing all the data.

<comment><AUTHOR> My plans exactly. Stay tuned!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I just clicked your "Subscribe", and it turned out to be a link to a newsletter subscription. Nowadays, I equate subscriptions to RSS, so I would rename it "Newsletter" instead, if you want to keep it down to one word.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is neat, but I think it would be much more useful if you could set a ceiling on price before displaying results, or have the ability to sort by MSRP in individual categories.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's coming. Gotta get the data first.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just an update - added MPG, MSRP and MFR site data on Auto Swatch: <http://autoswatch.com/sedan-coupe/>

</comment><comment><USER16> Your search doesn't appear to handle some characters: <http://autoswatch.com/search/?q=F-150>

<comment><USER17> The search couldn't find the truck as 'f150' either. I have an automotive site (retail ecommerce) and it is amazing the variations on truck names that people enter to find what they want. You could probably get some good search terms to alias if you did some research with the Google Adwords keyword tool. You could make F-150=F150=F series=etc...

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, right now there's some issues with the dataset I've got. Dashes not being dashes, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> US-only data at the moment. Internationalisation plans?

<comment><AUTHOR> Plans, yes. We've got <http://autoswatch.co.uk> and would love to hop into that market. We've got our hands full with US at the moment, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Still actually kind of sucks. There's not enough filters.

Also they seem to have conflated "Sportscar" with "Convertible" moving all high performance hardtops under "Sedan/Coupe". This provides the odd situation where an Anston Martin V8 Vantage shows up in the same results as a SMART car.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, there are some category mis-matches. It's a work in progress.</comment></comment>


Let's ride this bull - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3160-lets-ride-this-bull

<comment><USER2> The quote:

Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stones reports:

Ostensibly, the law makes it easier for startup companies (particularly tech companies, whose lobbyists were a driving force behind passage of this law) attract capital by, among other things, exempting them from independent accounting requirements for up to five years after they first begin selling shares in the stock market.

Is just wrong. You still need audited financials to be a public company (current, plus 2 years prior to IPO instead of 3). I believe what changed is some of the Sarbox rules related to rotating auditors, etc. See <http://www.orrick.com/fileupload/4624.htm> for one leading law firm's analysis of the JOBS act.

(I am not affiliated with the firm)

There is certainly room to relax some of the regulations put on small public co's by Sarbox. That's part of the reason companies are listing on foreign exchanges, and let's be honest, you dont' see "fraud running amuck" on the London Stock Exchange do you?

I like 37 Signals approach to building products and many of their business philosophies but they seem to have a need to relentlessly attack any other way of creating a company or doing business. Not quite sure why.

<comment><USER3> Do you have anything other than "I believe what changed" - a memory you are uncertain of - to dispute the article? The doc you link does not mention auditors at all.

And for what it's worth, this NY Times article would seem to support the original Rolling Stone assertion:

"Under the JOBS bill, companies with up to $1 billion in annual revenue would be free to ignore — for their first five years as a public company — regulations that were put into place after the end of the dot-com bubble and the collapse of Enron. Among them are requirements to hire an independent outside auditor to attest to a company's internal financial controls..." [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/business/senate-passes- sta...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/business/senate-passes-start-ups- bill-with-amendments.html)

<comment><USER2> The link does in fact mention auditing but you have to go to the "Jobs Act Alert" linked on that page. I wanted to cite to the "Jobs Act Alert" link, but it's a PDF, so I thought it was easier to cite to html page containing the link.

Your citation to the NY Times only governs "a company's internal financial controls" - not it's financials or independent accounting requirements (which is essentially audited financials).

My original criticism of the Rolling Stone assertion as reproduced by quote in the 37Signals blog post was and is that companies are exempt from independent accounting requirements. That's supported in the information I cited.

<comment><USER3> What Rolling Stone wrote is that the JOBS act would "exempt them from independent accounting requirements for up to five years."

What the magazine was referring to is that auditors would no longer have to attest to a company's financial controls for financial reporting (mentioned in the Orrick PDF you intended to link <http://www.orrick.com/fileupload/4619.pdf>).

This means, for example, they would not bother to make sure revenue is being booked correctly, as explained here [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230407200457732...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304072004577325883892874036.html)

When Groupon recently had to restate (and slash) previously-reported revenue, this was due to weak internal controls, the same sorts of controls the JOBS act would exempt from being audited. [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230402350457731...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304023504577317932455874856.html)

So you really need an independent audit not just of the numbers but of the controls behind the numbers if your goal is to make sure investors get accurate financial information about a company.

Thus audits of financial controls are a key part of independent accounting.

The only change I'd make to Rolling Stone's original piece would be to revise to "exempt them from CERTAIN KEY independent accounting requirements for up to five years." But that's for clarity, not technical accuracy.

Taibbi is communicating an accurate idea - the JOBS act seriously weakens independent oversight of accounting for affected companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am a founder of a bootstrapped company, that has been profitable for a couple of years. The profits have been reinvested, and the company is growing. We never planned to take money. So far, we mainly see the negative sides of this bubble: it's harder to hire quality people, services (lawyers, bandwidth, etc) are becoming expensive or harder to get. How can we take advantage of this boom? How long will it last, or at least, what will be the mechanism for its deflation, because it's only limited to tech sector so far, unlike '99.

<comment><USER5> why do you want to take advantage of this bubble? why do you want to take advantage of anything other than your own abilities?

<comment><USER6> Because he is an opportunist and likes money? I take advantage of everything I legally and ethically can. I expect everyone else to do the same when it comes to business.

<comment><USER5> and why would anyone want to do business with you knowing your goal is to take advantage of anything you can for your own end? . . . why wouldn't your business partners always be watching their backs. not an efficient way to interact with people, and an impossible way to create. creative endevours require trust, trust isn't compatible with opportunism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't think we're in a bubble. How can the author compare the IPO of Facebook, a company with a billion users and billion dollar in revenue, to those IPOs of the late 90s of companies with no revenue and no viable plan to have any in the foreseeable future? In fact most IPOs since LinkedIn started the trend are of mature companies. That's not what happened in the bubble days.

It's true that more companies are being created and seed valuations are going up. But the selection process still occurs at the series A stage and crappy companies usually still can't pass that hurdle.

As for the JOBS act: if I'm not mistaken investment is capped at (the lowest of) $10K or 10% of the annual salary. I believe you even have to go through a course before you can invest though the JOBS act. Conversely, in the stock market you can invest as much as you want, without any training, and lose everything overnight.

The fact is that economy fluctuates. Whenever there's an upswing people scream bubble. It's a result of the traumatic effect of previous bubbles. But the irony is that real bubbles sneak on you. Hardly anyone sees them coming. So keep screaming bubble, it makes me feel safe.

<comment><USER8> "But the irony is that real bubbles sneak on you. Hardly anyone sees them coming. So keep screaming bubble, it makes me feel safe."

I think there is a bubble and I can accept the rest of your viewpoint, but this part is not true. Most people who have a well developed understanding of an industry and basic financial sense easily recognize bubbles and have always done so in the past. The people who it sneaks up on are those who listen to the media and listen to their friends who listen to the media. Bubbles typically start out of real economic growth. The problem is that they outgrow market indicators when you get too many lemmings playing the telephone game and ignoring fundamentals. From what I see around the bay area there seem to be a lot of indicators of this social dynamic playing out. There is lots of money chasing other money to nowhere but Ill agree its not as bad as it was in 2000.

<comment><USER7> _"Most people who have a well developed understanding of an industry and basic financial sense easily recognize bubbles and have always done so in the past."_

I try to listen to what people I trust from the industry say about the existence of a bubble. Pretty much all of them say that there is none. For example Ben Horowitz (of Andreesen Horowitz) consistently argues that there is absolutely no bubble (and he was around for the real bubble occurred). See 5:10 - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xzcJnqcTP4>

I think that often when markets become hot, people automatically think of a bubble, but that's not necessarily true. The internet has grown from 50 million users to over 2 billion and smartphones were non-existent in the 90s. So perhaps higher valuations for tech companies are justified due to higher potential.

But you could be right, only time will tell.

<comment><USER9> Ben Horowitz is an investor. You wouldn't think he has a vested interest in this, would you?

<comment><USER7> The overheated market causes high valuation, which some argue, hurts investors. By saying bubble and discouraging unsophisticated investors from bidding, he probably stands to gain, not lose.

Everyone has a vested interest in what they deal with (or they're amateurs, hence I don't need their opinion). That doesn't mean they never say the truth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well I agree that there are many signals pointing towards a bubble (as david points out in his post). I don't think it will be as bad as the late 90s. Memories of the last tech bubble and the recent recession will hopefully dampen the rise and the subsequent fall this time.

<comment><USER11> I don't know about that. Individual actors may have long memories, but financial markets as a whole often have the collective memory of a goldfish. During the height of the bubble, there are always people who are proclaiming, "No, this time its different," and "We learned our lesson from last time." And they're right! The actors in the market did learn their lesson from last time. It's just that they make entirely new mistakes that lead to the same end result.

<comment><USER2> I agree there will always be bubbles - it's human nature in the form of greed. The height and crash are determined by how much liquidity and credit are available. So for that reason this time around there may be less heights and therefore less "crash" because there are a lot less people that can borrow on their home equity line or margin account to speculate on IPO's, etc.

<comment><USER10> I agree with both of you that there will always be bubbles but recently bubbles have moved from one industry to another. e.g., savings and loans -> tech -> housing etc. I am just arguing that maybe the tech bubble on 2010s wont be as bad as the 1990s given the memory about recent history of this sector and the big bubble of 2010s may come from a different sector.

I have to agree it seems that many signals are pointing towards a big tech bubble, though personally I will wait to see the tech IPOs following the hype of Facebook IPO to call a definite big bubble.

<comment><USER12> What I find interesting is that people started talking about the agriculture boom around the same time they started talking about the tech boom. Do we have any precedence for multi-industry concurrent booms and busts?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Enter our trusted troubadour of bullshit, TechCrunch:_

Hands down the funniest thing I've read in a while.

</comment><comment><USER14> _Now isn't that swell. Enable people with an extreme financial incentive to spin the truth, or outright lie about the numbers, a 5-year get-out-of-jail cover_

Removing independent accounting requirements isn't the same thing as making fraud legal.

</comment><comment><USER15> I will see you there.

</comment><comment><USER16> For the comedy impaired, riding the 'bull' in this case is a double entendre.</comment>


Calculus for the Curious - <AUTHOR> https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2019/10/16/calculus-for-the-curious/ <comment><USER5> I just stumbled upon Infinite Powers in B&N, and after reading a bit, decided to buy it. Loving it so far. I've been curious about calculus for a long time now, since I've never taken a formal class on it and am now in a graduate CS program, I feel like I'm missing the deeper understanding of many of the formulas that are presented.

My plan is to get through it to get some background on the main ideas of calculus, then work through khan academy and/or read through Aleksandrov's Mathematics Contents/Meaning.

If anyone knows of active forums/q&a/online practice for self-learning calculus, it'd be a huge help if you could share.

<comment><USER6> Oh, hey. Are you me? I am wrapping my time in CS grad program, and I also, never took calculus as a formal class.

Now, I will say, save machine learning/AI, calculus isn't really necessary; the world is completely discrete.

That being said, that doesn't mean that knowing calculus wouldn't _enhance_ your ability to understand and digest some of the more difficult reductions and proofs in, say, a theory of computation course.

I relied on "The Calculus Tutoring Handbook"[0]. I wanted a book that had answers to _all_ the exercises for confidence building purposes. The book goes slow and provides a great amount of detail -- the authors are pretty good at not hand-waving.

I also found \r\learnmath useful as a "I have a problem and can't ask anyone" site. They are really friendly.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Tutoring-Book-Carol- Ash/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.com/Calculus-Tutoring-Book-Carol- Ash/dp/0780310446)

<comment><USER7> Am I wrong to say that even if the universe of your concern is discrete, calculus can at least describe the behavior of recursive discrete processes, among other things?

<comment><USER8> Depends on the process and the exact form of the discreteness.

Discreteness introduces discontinuities and errors, and it's usually possible to describe the errors analytically. But there are situations where discrete systems become numerically unstable and blow up while the smooth analytic equivalent has no problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I used to always associate 'math smarts' with 'code smarts'. Spent most of my life telling myself that since I was bad at math I had no hope learning how to code. Now I'm 2 weeks into a coding bootcamp after losing my job and am realizing they are complete different parts of the brain.

I believe in myself more with every push to heroku. maybe I will do a Calculus class next and prove to myself I can learn anything. Anyone have recommendation on an online calc course for the math-insecure?

<comment><USER10> What did you do before if you don't mind me asking ? Would you have done an investment banking bootcamp if it guaranteed higher pay ?

<comment><USER9> Apple Retail. Didn't qualify for Genius position after trying very hard and never felt like I fit in. it inspired me to play with swift playgrounds, which led me to the bootcamp program which I am LOVING

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just finished reading this, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It provides a clear description of the fundamental intuition at the heart of calculus (chop stuff up infinitely, then put it back together again), and a mix of the historical background of its development and its ancient and modern applications.

All books of this nature are somewhat idiosyncratic – it's not a history, not a textbook, nor an applied maths book; it's a packet of passion sent by someone who's clearly excited and enthralled with his topic: "Here's a story about something really cool! Maybe you'll think it's cool too!"

I've been investigating recent books with different approaches to calculus (trying to build a free online course that empowers people in maths). Here are some other books I can recommend/mention:

[0] "Burn Math Class: And Reinvent Mathematics for Yourself" Goes from 1+1 all the way to derivatives and integrals. My favorite work of math demystification and pedagogy.

[1] "Calculus Reordered: A History of the Big Ideas" Released this year, exactly as the title says. An accessible history, explaining each idea as it enters the world stage. I've only just started this, but it's a definitely more historically thorough, albeit less engaging, book than Infinite Powers. (Since historical accuracy seems to be TFA's main focus, I wonder what they would think of this book.)

[2] "Change Is the Only Constant: The Wisdom of Calculus in a Madcap World" Another just-published book – this is the year for Calculus! Amazon has lost/delayed my preordered copy, but from the author's other work I expect this to be a LOT of fun.

[3] "Magnificent Principia: Exploring Isaac Newton's Masterpiece" Sort of "the annotated Newton". Outlines Sir Isaac's history, social environment, and development of the Principia Mathematica. The bulk of this book is going through each section of the Principia, translating the language into modern speech/formulations (where needed), and explaining what Newton was getting at. Also not as gripping as Infinite Powers, but a great way of reading and understanding one of the most foundational scientific/mathematical texts of all time.

[4] "Introductory Calculus For Infants" I'm about to have my first child, so am naturally collecting suitable reading material for the budding babe (suggestions welcome!).

[0] [https://amzn.to/2pVXJwj](https://amzn.to/2pVXJwj) [1] [https://amzn.to/2pMCZr5](https://amzn.to/2pMCZr5) [2] [https://amzn.to/31Ny32e](https://amzn.to/31Ny32e) [3] [https://amzn.to/2BIimyM](https://amzn.to/2BIimyM) [4] [https://amzn.to/33ZxbJj](https://amzn.to/33ZxbJj)

</comment><comment><USER12> Thony's math and astronomy posts are great. _Very_ careful with the details (a real scholar) yet readable as Asimov. Quite brave of Strogatz!

(Notice the tag cloud on that page? ... he's been at it for a while!)

</comment><comment><USER13> "See for example Euler, who made great strides in the development of calculus without any really defined concepts of convergence, divergence or limits, but who doesn't appear here at all."

Can anyone say more about this? I always suspected this was so, because the end of high school / start of uni is roughly that sort of time period, and I always thought there was something about convergence/limits that was missing, it seemed very ad hoc.

<comment><USER14> Euler lived in the 1700s. Not sure how that would have affected your training unless you're much older than average.

Cauchy and Taylor both formalized many concepts, again in the 18th and 19th century.

What are you thinking is ad box?

<comment><USER15> In high school mathematics, you're not really given the definition of a limit. Consider the definition of the derivative

limit as h -> 0 of (f(x+h) - f(x)) / h.

That's well-defined on (0, inf) but not on [0, inf). So you can't just evaluate at h=0 and be done with it.

The intuition is 'as h gets smaller and smaller, the ratio gets closer and closer to a new function of x'. But many high-school students aren't given a clear definition of what it means for one function to be 'close' to another, or what it means for x to 'get smaller and smaller'.

To see the confusion more clearly, try having the debate about whether 0.999... = 1 with someone who doesn't understand what a limit is.

<comment><USER16> Let n = 0.999... Then multiply both sides of the equality by 10 so that we have 10n = 9.999...Then subtract n from both sides of the resulting equality to get 9n = 9.000...Finally, divide both sides by 9 and voila we have n = 1 which is what we wanted to show.

<comment><USER15> My gut feeling is that that proof isn't quite correct, since you haven't used the notion of a limit anywhere. There's a fundamental fact about convergence of geometric series that you need to use.

I think your proof goes wrong since you haven't justified how arithemtic operations work with infinite decimals. AFAIK the only way to add non- terminating decimals is to convert them to fractions (or sequences of fractions as with pi, e, etc), add the fractions, and convert them back. So if you convert 0.999... and 9.999... to fractions, you've assumed the conclusion.

To play devil's advocate, I can try to rephrase your proof without infinite decimal arithmetic as follows.

Assume

n = 0.999... = 1 - epsilon, where epsilon is 'infinitesimal' (an ill-defined version of not-quite-zero). We'd like to show that epsilon is zero.

10n = 9.999 = 10 - <USER2>

9n = 9.999 - (1 - epsilon) = 9 - <USER4>

9n = 8.999 + epsilon = 9 - <USER4>

The only way to get the epsilons to cancel is to assume epsilon = 0, which is to assume the conclusion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It is an odd review mixing negative comment and positive appreciation. The last bit did me as I am not historian but what to know the latest development of the field. And the Zeno etc kind of philosophical discussion lately.

</comment><comment><USER18> Holy, commas, Batman</comment>


JSON-API, a specification for API behavior, goes 1.0 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/json-api/json-api/pull/727

<comment><USER2>
        For example, a GET request to a URL from a to-one relationship link could return: [...]
        If the above relationship is empty, then a GET request to the same URL would return: [...]
        A GET request to a URL from a to-many relationship link could return: [...]

In each of these cases, the "data" attribute can hold three different data types. An array, null, or a single object.

But then, _data_ doesn't even have to be present (and indeed, MUST NOT be) if errors is present. So now we have four different data types. [], null, {}, or undefined.

If this is supposed to be a _standard_ , why not standardize your data property? An array works as a data type for each of these (normal, empty, only one item) and you can then _always_ require a data field in the response instead of "only data or errors may be returned"? The most important part of building an API standard isn't the standard itself, it's anticipating the _tooling_ you use to parse it.

By having only _errors_ or _data_ present on a response you immediately create two possible ways developers can create an interface for an API using this standard:

        if (response.errors) { /* there was an error */ }

OR

        if (response.data) { /* there were no errors */ }

But what if data is null?

        if (response.hasOwnProperty(data)) { /* there were no errors */ }

The first method is _clearly_ preferred, so why do we care what _data_ looks like, anyway? Why not make it always an array? Things like this:

        if (!response.data.length) { /* do a thing */ }

Would be unambiguous because response.data always exists as an array that will have a length of 0 or more.

 __tl;dr: I don 't like some part of this standard. [http://xkcd.com/927/](http://xkcd.com/927/)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you decide what to learn next? - <AUTHOR> Let's say you have very limited time to learn and that you are not doing much learning in your day job. How do you decide what to learn? What is your process for picking up topics to learn (other than "this is interesting")? <comment><USER3> Something I've always wanted is "a Netflix queue for tech I want to learn"

Ideal features would include:

\- a regular review of the things you've listed to see if they're still relevant and to help you prioritize

\- a way to see what's trending amongst everything you've listed (ex. I have three front end web frameworks on my list but React is collectively popular, so perhaps I should start there)

\- it could notify you if a new (good) book / blog post is published on a topic you're interested in

\- you could compare with your friends to see if someone you know has learned it recently or to sit down and hack together

\- it could share a common list of subtasks across users -- for example, starting with Django Rest Framework might consist of: (1) doing the python tutorial + (2) doing the Django tutorial + (3) doing the DRF tutorial

<comment><USER4> I want this for everything. Music to listen to, books to read, guitar skills to learn next, etc

<comment><USER5> Why wouldn't multiple TODO lists work for you? Just a UI/UX issue or is there any reason?

<comment><USER4> I do currently have multiple todo lists, but the experience of going through all of them can be kinda tedious. I'd be curious to try something more intuitive, if it existed.

<comment><USER6> Orgmode for Emacs?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am doing a series called 52-technologies-in-2016 [https://github.com/shekhargulati/52-technologies- in-2016](https://github.com/shekhargulati/52-technologies-in-2016) where in I learn a new technology, build a small app, and blog about it every week. I maintain an Evernote where I write down all the interesting topics or projects I find. I go through the list and randomly pick any topic that excites me that day and then work over the weekend to publish something. This helps me keep in continuous learning loop.

<comment><USER8> Sounds cool, how much time do you spend every week?

<comment><USER7> It depends from 5 hours to 15 hours depending on the topic. On Saturday I learn a topic by reading documentation or watching videos tutorials by their creators(if I can find) or if I have a book then I read first few chapters. Sunday, I start with building something and then documenting the process in the blog by end of Sunday.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Don't underestimate "this is interesting". Couple it with a goal (like building a personal site, doing some home automation, building a NAS) and make sure you take notes (if not a blog). You'll learn heaps in no time.

<comment><USER10> > Don't underestimate "this is interesting".

That's pretty much me. Someone will say something, or I will see something somewhere and a little bit of looking it up to find out what was being talked about might pique some interest and off we go.

<comment><AUTHOR> This doesn't work at all for me. Something seems interesting to me (and my problem is, _a lot of things_ interest me) and I start reading up on it, somewhere along the way there is something else that is referenced, which also seems interesting, so I read up on that...and so on. Pretty soon I've deviated far from where I started.

Interestingly, this doesn't happen in my day job :(

<comment><USER11> Also known as the "cool-new-framework rabbit hole" or also the more common "Wikipedia rabbit hole".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I pick a project I want to complete or a cause I want to contribute to. Then I look at the smallest step I can take to work toward that (learn the basis of a new language, protocol). Then I iterate (learn a framework, tool). Then I try to close a bug or release the project to the wild. This usually leads to comments on a PR or someone opening bugs with the project, and then I have to learn something new to fix it.

I think it's much easier to learn things when you have a goal because you have to learn tiny nuggets of knowledge that are useful. I find learning something without the context of how to apply it to the real world is very difficult, so I generally don't just go out and learn things (tech-wise) without a legitimate usage in mind.

</comment><comment><USER13> I am surprised that no one has mentioned consultation with a MENTOR.

Really, if you "don't know what you don't know", you need some type of trusted guide who understands your aptitudes and motivations and can recommend a path of study or provide some clarity of thought.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with fumbling around in the dark and discovering stuff on your own, but if you're asking this question, it means you're resource-constrained and need some clear goals to work towards. This is where a mentor or at least a colleague can help out a lot. In addition to providing guidance, a mentor can critique and analyze the direction you're taking.

"Todo" lists are perfectly fine tools for mastering some narrow focused topic or for achieving completion of a small project, but they're not a strategic tool. Deciding what to learn next is very much a STRATEGIC question, and those kinds of decisions benefit greatly from dialog with an expert who cares about your success.

<comment><USER14> It's fairly difficult to find someone who cares enough to mentor you. They can't buy stock in your person, they are busy with things in their life, they don't have much power over you so they can't quite be sure to get even a short-term payoff.

It might work if the pupil is willing to just do the bidding of the master to relief him from his chores, so that the master has incentive to spend effort on pupil's education. I surmise so few students want to play this role that there is no cultural norm to draw from, the concept is too alien.

It's a pity, too. There ought to be a way to transfer knowledge and skill from one generation to another.

<comment><USER13> It is difficult and most people will have only one or two mentors in their life IF they're lucky.

But I think you'll find that those who mentor others don't see their efforts as directly "transactional". They mentor others because they're expressly passing on the knowledge they've gained to the next generation. It is an altruistic act.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've recently started this method:

\- create a list of all the tools/products/whatever you use at work

\- rate them from 1 to 5 (5 you are an expert on this topic)

\- then pick the most important one for your job and try to increase your grade

The grade is totally subjective, but still it helps.

For the "next big thing" I take a look regularly to the thoughtworks radar [1]. That's a nice overview.

[1] [https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar](https://www.thoughtworks.com/radar)

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm someone who has decided not to learn new language or framework that comes my way.

If there is something that can speed up my workflow, I learn it. If it improves my applications speed without much time to implement / learn then I work on that.

For new shiny Javascript libraries I really have held back to see what the winner will be; backbone used to be the go-to lib, ember (tried to learn but it changed a lot in the early days), angular (decided not to invest any time into it).

There are 24 hours in a day, don't try and learn everything, just try and be productive with the tools you have and the ones that will get the job done for you.

My time these days are spent learning Nepalese, React and trying to build a business in Nepal....keeps me busy.

<comment><USER16> What made you decide to learn React and not any other framework you mentioned?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Usually if something is interesting it's because you're thinking about it in the context of a problem that you need to solve. Basically, it's interesting because you see the potential value.

That generally is what drives what I learn. I'm about to start getting deep into BPM2 and Activiti because it looks like it will solve an organizational problem that I'm currently observing, just as an example. Otherwise it's not really connected to anything I would be doing otherwise (although there are a few potential use cases if I understand the system the way I think I do).

</comment><comment><USER18> Generally I look at the stuff I do day to day and then honestly critique myself for where I'm weakest and then learn from that.

Since I'm the only dev and I have to do back end and front end I realised that I was weakest on the front end (particularly JavaScript) so I made a concerted effort to learn JavaScript properly since apart from picking it up organically for years I'd never really _studied_ it.

The funny part (to me at least) is that while I'm never going to like JavaScript I dislike it a lot less than I used to once I understood the underlying structure better.

<comment><USER19> What resources are you using to learn JavaScript? Any advice for people just starting on this path?

<comment><USER18> [https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS](https://github.com/getify/You- Dont-Know-JS) and the associated videos where excellent.

Javascript: The Good Parts (though this is a bit full on if you are really just getting started).

Reading the source of popular libraries as well in a good IDE so you can jump around and get to where stuff is defined/created.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Read. And I don't just mean books (although they are a great place to start). Read technical blogs, read documentation, read other people's code. Seek out challenging reads that seem overly ambitious and use them to find out what your unknown-unknowns are, then use that knowledge to steer your learning.

<comment><USER3> ^ This year I bought the subscription to Safari Books Online ([https://www.safaribooksonline.com](https://www.safaribooksonline.com)), which offers unlimited access to many books (every O'Reilly book) and some video courses.

Though it's not cheap, I think it's the best investment I've made in my own professional development.

<comment><USER20> Just to add to this, pick up an Amazon Kindle. There's almost no-where you can't read when your entire library fits in a pocket or a rucksack. I've been travelling for most of this year and my kindle comes second to only my laptop on the list of essentials.

<comment><USER3> I actually haven't bought one yet because I was under the impression code rendering was still less than ideal (e.g., lines wrapping to fit the Kindle screen where they shouldn't in code). Is that still an issue?

<comment><USER21> Yes, this is an issue on the Kindle device, but reading textbooks in the Kindle app on the iPad is gamechanging. The speed with which you make highlights, leave notes, and bookmark is great for learning. I can then access the book from my computer for quick reference and/or convert my booknotes to Anki flashcards.

This being said, I also own a Kindle Paperwhite and use it at least an hour a day for reading non-technical books. I can't recommend that device enough.

<comment><USER22> Would you recommend people who already own a tablet (iPad, Galaxy, Fire, etc) to get a dedicated device to reading?

<comment><USER23> I have both a tablet and a kindle paperwhite. I like using the tablet for technical references which are commonly in PDF format. For everything else I use the Paperwhite. The backlight is much easier on the eyes, especially when reading in bed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I learn things by setting a purpose. Eg: For a web project, I need to learn new programming technologies.

I have a very sensitive mind. I can't concentrate on multiple projects at the same time. For example: If I'm working in a day job, I can't work on a side project efficiently, I can't concentrate on both my office work and side projects. If I do, My employer could easily figure that I'm churning out.

So, If I want to work on a project.. I'll make sufficient money then I quit my job and spend next coming months fully-fledged on my project.

</comment><comment><USER25> I keep a list of things that interest me with sublists about interesting observations I make about each item on the list (I use workflowy for this task - no affiliation). The observations can be anything from ideas, to blog posts, books, online courses or articles about the subject.

When I want to learn something new I pick an item from the list and work on it (usually some idea I came up with). My preliminary research efforts often help me realise an idea or it gives me a chance to compare two different learning sources. I also try to create something using what I learned. Through craft I feel like I draw more from the learning experience. The outcome can also be that I need to find better references or that I simply want to learn something else.

The most difficult thing is getting started. I find it useful to be systematic about it by explicitly devoting time to it. Once you have a system in place you like it eventually becomes a habit. Also note that it is helpful to break tasks into small subtasks. Having a feeling of accomplishment leads to a more positive experience of the learning process which further leads to increased learning drive.

Note that my process is not much more sophisticated than "this is interesting". However, instead of acting on some hunch in the moment I act on observations which I gather over time.

</comment><comment><USER26> Fascinating question. Every year I develop a learning plan covering major themes (some of these have been going on for more than a decade), specifics inside the theme, how I think I will learn, whose help I will need (person or community), how I will pay back this help or pay it forward, what evidence I will have of the learning ... I also try to make sure that there are at least a few things each year that cross two or three themes. I have a long-term theme on pricing and this year I am spending a lot of time studying platform business models, so I have a set of specific actions that combine the two: organize a one-day event on platform business models, lead the pricing session at this event; advise at least one client on a platform pricing model (I still do some consulting as it help me to learn and share what I am learning); write some blog posts on pricing in platform business models; stretch goal - <USER2> some tools to help design platform pricing models and share them.

</comment><comment><USER27> I've got a TODO list of things I want to learn that's populated enough to keep me busy for years to come. I just wish I had more time to act on it.

The items on my list are half concrete tasks and half topics to learn. The subjects are very diverse, I have a broad range of interests.

Here's a few from the top:

        1. Learn enough classical mechanics to do a stable n body simulation
        2. Build a piece of furniture with mortise and tenon joinery
        3. Implement a prototype compiler for that GPGPU/shader programming language I've been dreaming about for years
        4. Get an Indian fighter kite and learn to fly it
        5. Implement a multiple revolution Lambert problem solver to plan the badassest Kerbal Space Program mission ever
        6. Write a simulator for gyroscopic motion and compare the results with my toy gyroscopes.

That's enough to occupy my Saturdays for the next five years. Both, the sunny and the rainy ones.

<comment><USER21> This is basically what I do. Whenever a cool idea comes into my head, I put it into my list app. I have a list for projects (e.g., build a piece of furniture), skills (e.g., woodworking), topics, and business ideas.

I then review these lists periodically and when the time is right, they naturally move into my "Active" list in one form or another.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I pick some technology that has the following characteristics:

\- A complete paradigm shift. I want something that will force me to rethink how I approach problems. I want to force my brain to develop new pathways, so to speak.

\- Something will at least a minimum of documentation and community online. I've had to abandon dreams of learning some really awesome language before (ATS) because there was simply no resources and that would make my progress too slow.

\- Something that could be fun to use in a side project. I need to be able to find occasions to use it. I learn best by _doing_ rather than by only reading. If I can't think of an application, then I won't be able to become proficient, so I'd rather learn something else.

\- And finally, it has to be something fun that feels like falling in love with programming all over again.

EDIT: I usually don't pick more than 1 technology to REALLY LEARN per year, so I don't make these decisions lightly.

</comment><comment><USER29> Mostly what I anticipate I will need for the job. For my own pleasure I choose tools whose proponents talk with a reasonable voice. I dismiss any technonology when I see people that:

* Says that the rest of the world is doing it wrong and they will fix the situation with this "change of paradigm".

* Presents their products as a "social movement" that's "challenging the industry as we know it".

* Promises 10x productivity.

* In general, bases their success on attacking others. Specially if they say things like "everybody knows exceptions are like cancer".

* Uses grandilocuent names to call a two thousand lines library.

* The resulting code looks like gibberish. The most likely a child can understand it, the better. It it's directed at the elite programmers, bad.

* Doesn't put enough care on tooling.

Edit: OK, it's a very negative answer, but it's effective. It quickly discards 99% of shiny new things.

<comment><USER14> Is Haskell bad on your book?

<comment><USER29> "My book" doesn't tell what's bad, but things like how the community surrounding a tool is. You can't expect a problem will be solved if it's not even acknoledged.

Also let me insist that these are heuristics I apply to what I use for my own consumption, usually to create private tools that will make my life easier, or just to learn something satisfying.

That said, I bet you know Haskell better than me. The fact you singled it out asking about it makes me suspicious it shows at least one of the red flags :-)

If that's right, I don't care how _good_ it is.

<comment><USER14> Actually I don't know Haskell beyond the most basic examples. I singled it out because it was one of the cases where "Promises 10x productivity" may be, well, the least outlandish. But it does come at the cost of "change of paradigm".

For me C# is at least twice as productive as Objective-C, so I suspect there more where that came from. I'm on the lookout for another 2x boost. But the farther down that road you go, the more isolated you become. It's a bit of a balancing act between individual productivity and being able to hire and work in groups, or to find help. Perhaps

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> By whoever's giving away the latest free t-shirt

[https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa- sk...](https://developer.amazon.com/public/solutions/alexa/alexa-skills- kit/content/alexa-developer-skill-promotion)

</comment><comment><USER30> In addition to what others have written, I give an increased priority to things that will help me learn other things in the future.

If I have two topics on the top of my list, and I expect one of these to provide new mental tools, or meta insights about learning or cognition, I'll pick that one.

I also give a higher priority in general to techs that will cascade into improving my speed on future projects in the most generic way. For example I consider that learning how to automate something is never a lost cause, even if I can do it manually at the same speed, because it increases my knowledge about automation, which will be useful down the line.

</comment><comment><USER31> I keep my notebooks. I scribble notes in them all the time, and then when I have downtime I look back through them. It's great for recapturing ideas, but it's also great for avoiding retrodding the same paths again. I am prone to forgetting I've done certain small things before and then I lose time on re- implementing the early parts of it. For example, I've rebooted this one project 4 times without even realizing it: a solar-system wide cross between Moon Lander and Asteroids with a simple, multiplayer mining economy.

</comment><comment><USER32> Most of things I want to learn revolve around the things I work on the job. If you are trying to solve a particular problem, I try to find all the possible better solutions I could use to solve that problem and learn each of those things along the way. For ex: If I am working on react and we are using Flux as the state management library, I try to explore other better alternative such as Redux, Mobx etc.

I also keep track of various things which come up when learning something and in-turn learn those topics.

</comment><comment><USER33> I pick a part of a computer I don't know it works and try doing it myself.

Everything from making a cpu from 74 series logic to writing a toy compiler. If you don't have much free time, just researching how to implement various parts of a computer works is good as actual implementation takes a large amount of time (eg: the cpu required learning basic electronic skills). Now that I've gone through a basic computer stack, I'm doing that bits that interest me in more detail.

</comment><comment><USER34> I created a Trello board with a backlog of things that might interest me, then pick things out of it as time allows, opportunities present themselves, etc. I described the process at [http://aaronsumner.com/posts/2015/12/personal- research-board...](http://aaronsumner.com/posts/2015/12/personal-research- board.html)

</comment><comment><USER35> Back up and ask why you should want to learn. People sometimes assume we should all be learning everything but the reality is we can't and we won't. So we need to focus.

I've seen a lot of people that flit around and start this and that or take an online class but then never build anything with the technology. After a year or two they are pretty much no better off for the effort than if they had used the time to drink beer at the beach.

So my philosophy is now to spend a small amount of time investigating. How useful is this to myself or an employer? How interesting it? How much time and effort is going to be required to learn this well enough to work it? If it's more than I'm willing to put out or the thing has limited use or interest then I don't even bother. I know it's there if I want to come back later. But if I'm not going to learn it to the point it becomes a useful tool I generally don't bother starting.

I have found that half efforts are about half the effort of a full effort but they don't produce half the results. So they are by in large a waste of time and energy.

</comment><comment><USER36> Usually I'm pursuing something. Along the way as I gain experience and encounter difficulties I put my head up and look for solutions. I don't always find what I'm looking for but it gives me hunches. When those hunches collide I get ideas and from there it becomes pretty clear what I know and what I need to learn in order to progress.

I'm presently learning predicate calculus and formal specifications of software systems. I came to it by hunches: software engineering should be more like engineering because companies like Yahoo! Japan are building earthquake notification systems on OSS infrastructure and the keynotes at Blackhat suggested it was a requisite for this industry to move forward. It turns out the math is beautiful and it helps me design better software and I'm only just getting started.

It has also added new things to my list of things to learn such as the refinement calculus as well as alternative modelling systems like Event-B.

<comment><USER37> Have you list of good resources for these math topics?

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I use "This is interesting" to give it about three or four days. After the "this is interesting" stage, things that fall into the "this might be useful" bucket get a couple of weeks. Then it is either getting used, or it is getting put on the back burner indefinitely.

</comment><comment><USER39> I love the answers here. My system is pretty simple. I keep a list on Evernote every time I find a new resource to learn from. I only consider the resource (usually an online course/book) is going to help me be better at my job or help with a current hobby project. Then when I am bored at home later looking for something to do, I can refer back to this list and pick up from there. Usually, I find these resources when I am looking through Stackoverflow for answers. If I find I don't understand something or judge a Stackoverflow answer, I would find a Lynda.com course or something similar to add to the list.

</comment><comment> chris-aeviator I'm using the Getting Things Done methodology for exactly this. You'll be entering it as any other goal you want to achive, split it down in smaller tasks and (most important) regulary review your list and decide what to do next ( to postpoem it, start with the first task, break it down to smaller tasks, …). In the end it will be your belly deciding (it will takeover no matter what system you'll be using) and you have a nice overview of what to do for your new technology goal.

</comment><comment><USER40> I started reading Passionate Programmer yesterday, and it talks about this. The idea is to either pick a relatively new technology that you can bet your career at and to pick a dying tech that might survive for a while (like COBOL). Picking the first gives you immediate coolness points, but learning the latter guarantees you won't accidentally become obsolete.

Another categorisation (especially for languages) is to pick a paradigm that is different from your day job. Picking a functional language is the most common example.

</comment><comment><USER41> I pick a larger long term project, then I start working on it in pieces learning each aspect I need to complete the larger project.

I do not always know what each piece is going to be, but I find taking this approach to be worth while.

When I an commuting, I sometimes listen to podcasts from experts in the subject area I am trying to learn.

At my day job, I have little time to learn, so I have to make a concerted effort to always be learning outside of work.

</comment><comment><USER42> I think the key here is to have long-term goals. I am trying to at least roughly understand where I wanna be in future (1, 5, 10 years) in terms of my skillset, abilities and knowledge. Then topics I learn should be aligned with those goals. There are definitely too much interesting things, but before I jump into something new I ask if it really helps me to get where I want to be in the future.

There are sometimes exceptions to this, when I just want to learn something for fun, do it as a recreational activity.

</comment><comment><USER43> I try and learn things bottom-up. I don't know if that's a good way or not, but that's how I've always done it. It has seemed pretty natural to me to sort of explode things into pieces and pick it up small bits at a time, gradually composing all of the knowledge that I need to be able to complete the thing I'm working on/learning about.

Is there a better way?

</comment><comment><USER44> You need to pick something you can sink your teeth into but unfortunately that doesn't satisfy your first requirement (limited amounts of time). Learning things of value normally takes time and lots of dedication.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sometimes I just browse StackShare for what's trending or if there's a more highly rated competing tool for something I use regularly.

[http://stackshare.io](http://stackshare.io)

</comment><comment><USER45> I should do better, because I've been random in deciding what to learn But some combination of: found good teaching materials, people I'm in contact with are learning it, and this could pay off big.

</comment><comment><USER46> there is no one particular path way or a one size fits all solution, it depends on your choice and your requirements, instead of asking what to learn next, you should ask yourself should you really learn a particular thing today, or is this a scene from a different chapter of the book and should be done later.

i just have one simple saying about the subject selection which i wish to learn "when you have removed a subject which is not a immediate requirement , what ever remain not matter how difficult it is, must be learned".

</comment><comment><USER47> I look forward in time and try to imagine myself knowing/doing something new. Whatever pops in my head us what I go for. Always live in the future and build towards it.

</comment><comment><USER48> I decide based on what i need to build next, and that came from what i want to build, at some point in the past.

Also i have "This is interesting" moments, from time to time.

</comment><comment><USER49> > How do you decide what to learn?

Work on my own idea.

Another option; work on freelance projects. Earning _could_ be a good motivation to learn new stuff. At least it is for me.

</comment><comment><USER50> Metacademy has been made just for something like this.

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

</comment><comment><USER51> Other than that: 'This is useful' ;)

I believe something can be useful when I need to know it or when it is a good basis for other more applied topics.

</comment><comment><USER52> I usually learn what I need for my job.

</comment><comment><USER53> Intersection of what looks like fun, that I can be good at, and good career or money-wise.

</comment><comment><USER54> When in doubt, learn more math.

<comment><USER55> I read 2 college textbooks on linear algebra, abstract algebra last year and managed to finish most of the exercise questions.

It was never useful to me and I remember zero content from either of those now.

<comment><USER44> Take that knowledge in linear algebra and put it to use by learning how machine learning algorithms work.

<comment><USER55> Not really interested in machine learning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Thanks for asking, I have been struggling with the same problem for some time ow.

</comment><comment><USER57> I'm not really convinced if its even _possible_ for me to learn something that I'm not interested in.

[edit] By learn, I don't mean simple regurgitation of the facts or some superficial thing, I'm talking about extended study and efforts.

</comment><comment><USER58> ThoughtWorks tech radar

</comment><comment><USER59> I just feel it.

</comment><comment><USER60> I'll bite:

 _Let 's say you have very limited time to learn ..._

I think that is probably the case for all of us. Personally, I recommend you apply some time to "optimizing learning". I have been improving my ability as a speed reader for 18 years (not the "read every word faster with eye exercises/gimmicks but strategic skimming/scanning)[1]. My strategy allows me to eliminate books that would result in wasted time in a couple of hours and rip through large volumes (with a very specific method of note-taking) in anywhere from a weekend to a few weeks (depending on depth of topic/my current ancillary knowledge level more so than the length of the work). That may not be the best approach for you, but the nice thing about focusing on optimizing your learning is that it allows you to focus on a topic _in addition to_ getting better at learning in general.

 _... not doing much learning in your day job._

This is one of those areas worth optimizing as well. If your job is dead-end, single-focus, and "not brain work", you should start looking elsewhere as soon as you can. In programming, there's often opportunities to study the corners around the area you're specializing in. If it's possible with your current workload, try to increase this as much as possible.

 _What is your proces for picking topics to learn (other than "this is interesting")?_

You hit the main one, but the list is as follows in priority (which falls well below the first "this is interesting"):

\- Is it something I can use _right now_ on a problem I want to fix for myself.

\- Will it give me a greater understanding of the craft that I have chosen as "my life mission" or "my career".

\- Is it something that is narrowly related to my career, but far enough away from it that I'm unlikely to encounter it in my day-to-day job.

\- Could learning this reward me financially by using it to create a sale-able product based on the knowledge I've gained? I put this at the bottom because I make a good enough living currently and I enjoy my job enough that if I were to have a side-income that replaced what I currently make, I'd still not want to leave my current job so the choice would likely be to sell the side- business, support it in my spare time (a non-starter) or do the side-project full-time.

The result of the above bullet points led me to get into embedded/IoT-related devices. There are too many things I'm interested in solving to even list that relate to the embedded space. It involved researching and learning C++ (again), which I had a long-expired background in, and also served to give me experience in a language I have occasion to use in my day-job. It's unlikely (but plausible) that I'd be developing something in the embedded space in my day-job, but if an opportunity presented itself, I'd be prepared. The solutions I'm working on could certainly result in a product I could sell. It hits all points.

[1] "Speed reading" has a bad reputation as of late, though a few articles have pointed out the idea of skim/scanning as it relates to speed reading. It's a very useful way of increasing the speed at which one can learn from a book, allowing multiple "reads" of a text at varying speeds/intensities. It is, however, something that took me 10 years to get good at and I think that's one of the reason the gimmicks are getting such a bad reputation. They promise an unrealistic increase in reading speed using an unrealistic set of techniques in an unrealistic time frame. Reading is a complicated mental operation and requires focused practice to increase both speed and retention/learning and in my case involves a strategy coupled with multiple reads of a text with a lot of note-taking. It is mentally exhausting for me when I execute and it was a very long process to get to the speed/retention I have today, but it works wonderfully.

</comment><comment><USER58> ThoughtWorks tech radar</comment>