A growing number of young Americans are leaving desk jobs to farm - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/a-growing-number-of-young-americans-are-leaving-desk-jobs-to-farm/2017/11/23/e3c018ae-c64e-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html <comment><USER2> We did this. My wife has a masters in microbio, and I worked at IBM on their C++ and for Fortran compilers for about 8 years (yay std::atomics). I still do remote contract work to help pay for upgrades to the farm. Would be nice to get one of my side-projects finished and start pumping out some income streams, but it's not a big rush anymore. I have a point of sale system built with React and Haskell that integrates with big payment processors, etc. that I sell to local businesses. Maybe one day i'll productize it and sell it as a package, but honestly my bills are paid and I don't feel the need to make more money than I do right now. Why take on the stress?

Why'd I switch to rural life? Quality of life. When we had kids and got a glimpse of what life would be like with daycare, two people commuting, etc, we got scared and made a plan. It's been 5 or 6 years and still enjoying selling expensive pasture fed eggs etc. I like working from home and having no childcare expenses. Everyone is happy and healthy and we have time to raise our kids.

I remember the limp office parties when we reached GA on some new release, and we'd eat cheap cake. Then I think of how we practically dance and shout at the sky in joy when we all finish digging up all the potatoes. The comparison is stark. Modern life is a dystopic hellscape from this perspective.

<comment><USER3> I grew up in a rural community where farming was basically the only industry. It's easy to talk about how awesome it is when you basically are selling insanely overpriced boutique goods (organic, free-range, etc) to yuppies who are willing to pay triple for their calories. Once enough people do this, the prices fall and you're just another farmer, scraping by.

I grew up working on farms. It's not romantic to me in any way. Being outside is nice, but there's a reason the kids doing this grew up in suburbs and cities: they have no idea what agriculture really involves when you have to achieve economies of scale to make it remotely profitable.

<comment><USER4> I also grew up on a farm... in Maine. It did instill a work ethic that I find it difficult to teach to my own children. But I always joke with people and say it is a great place to visit and a great place to be from. Not so much a great place to actually be.

<comment><USER5> > It is a great place to visit and a great place to be from. Not so much a > great place to actually be.

I'll definitely echo this. I grew up on a farm / nature refuge in Australia. It's beautiful to go back to, but I could not live there again. My family hovers around the poverty line, work long, hard hours, and are completely at the mercy of the climate and other difficult to control external factors for their lively hood.

Combine this with the isolation, poor (or non-existent) community and education resources, complete void of cultural events and niche activities that require higher population densities. It's nowhere near as idyllic as most people make out.

I now live inner city. When it's nice weather I can drive an hour, go hiking, rock climbing or exploring. During day-to-day life I have everything I need within walking distance. I can live spontaneously. Myself and my partner are talking about children and I'm looking forward to raising them in a city where they can access whatever interests they like.

Once thing I will agree on though is: modern _suburban_ life is a dystopic hellscape. It literally combines the worst of both lifestyles.

<comment><USER6> Good points, but I totally disagree about the suburbs. We live on a quiet cul de sac in a very suburban neighborhood. We're 20 minutes from mountains, trails, beach, schools, stores, and work. It's safe and friendly and our kids play with other kids in the street every day. Seems like a pretty sweet compromise to me, but YMMV.

<comment><USER7> To each his own. To me, the utter dependence on automobiles, the blatantly wasteful lifestyle and the oppression of HOAs feels claustrophobic, dissonant and excessive. I feel depressed when I have to battle traffic to get access to nature.

<comment><USER8> What is HOA?

<comment><USER9> I believe in this context it means Home Owners Association[1].

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am doing pretty much the same. I am currently an engineering student, working part-time as a programmer. Although the job market for programmers is excellent in Europe, I bought an apple orchard (via loan) pretty close to the capital of the country where I live. Due to the proximity of the capital city, I can sell my product at a decent price and earn more than an average senior dev here. I also enjoy being outside and collaborate IT with agriculture. I am planning on purchasing drones to calculate NDVI and other useful stuff. People working 160 hours a month at a desk requires nature, peace. They love my U-pick programme as the venue is beautiful and close to the capital (less than 15km).

<comment><USER11> 160 hours a month?

I remember having a part time job.

All kidding aside, I can tell you aren't American based on that statement alone.

<comment><USER12> How strong is the overworking culture in America? It's pretty strong here, but not too bad.

<comment><USER13> They once let me go home to sleep, but then I got called back for a hot fix.

<comment><USER14> We aimed to have two deploy brackets, Monday morning and Wednesday morning. If it is broken we roll back, fix it properly, redeploy at midday. If it can't be fixed in a day then it's properly broken and probably shouldn't have made it to release.

I worked at that agency for four years and did perhaps two weekends of overtime. Bliss. It can be done, and in an agency environment with client expectations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Farming is no way to make a living. I'm glad that these people are finding success, but I come from a farming community and family and for decades farming has only been affordable if you also had another full-time job. Although microfarms for trendy produce might not be so bad.

<comment><USER16> As someone with first hand experience or exposure, what do you think are main reasons?

I'm still amazed at how cheap food is in the U.S. (though quality just isn't there for the most part).

<comment><USER17> What do you mean by quality? Fruits and vegetables in the US tend to have much higher visual quality than elsewhere.

<comment><USER18> You are absolutely right, but that visual quality comes at a huge cost in other areas. For example, I find tomatoes in the US disgusting (and don't tell me "oh, you need to try fresh/cherry/whatever tomatoes", I have). They look good but taste horrible. They've been bred for looks and weight, not flavor.

In many places outside the US, the tomato breeds there are bred for flavor, not looks. They're uglier, but they have a vastly higher sugar/fat/whatever content and taste much better.

[https://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10972140/fruits-vegetables- tas...](https://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10972140/fruits-vegetables-taste-better- europe)

<comment><USER19> It's well known that tomatoes you buy in the store in the US are pure garbage, even among Americans.

I live in the Northeast. Around here practically every single person plants tomatoes if they have a backyard, even if they never plant any other vegetables ever. Chatting about how your tomatoes are doing and what type of tomatoes you are growing is a classic pasttime around these parts.

Of course the reason is there's nothing you can buy in the store that tastes like what you plant in your yard. I know quite a few people who don't like store tomatoes but like home-grown tomatoes.

<comment><USER16> I'm in Northeast too I'm going to miss my backyard cherry tomato until next year.

It's quite fun being able to control acidity, sweetness, texture depending on when you pick them off vine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Some commentators here have difficulty of understanding how small farming can be profitable. It's relatively easy to explain.

They are not selling just the product. Just like microbreweries, small farms sell for people who want more than just a beer or lettuce. They want to distinguish themselves and buy the feeling of authentic life and values. Consumer pays more for "small farm" even if the product is not any different from neighboring farm product that is not marketing itself as "small farm".

Modern consumer marketing sells identity, lifestyle, and values. There is no reason why small farm products can't create value from association and self–identification just like Pepsi is not selling sugar water or Nike is not selling sneakers. Everything that is sold using words classic, authentic, natural, original can be more expensive for segment who wants those tings.

Traditional farmers who produce standard grain or milk in bulk quantities are selling for different market segment.

<comment><USER21> I pay ten dollars a gallon for fresh non pasteurized milk from a local family that has seven cows. I don't buy a lifestyle from them, I buy fucking good milk from animals that are loved like family, and I'm proud to be helping them make a living doing something that is good for everyone(including the cows). It's not a lifestyle, it's just supporting people who aren't shitting on everyone's future.

<comment><USER22> >I don't buy a lifestyle from them, I buy fucking good milk from animals that are loved like family, and I'm proud to be helping them make a living doing something that is good for everyone(including the cows). It's not a lifestyle, it's just supporting people who aren't shitting on everyone's future.

The things you say here seem like you are ABSOLUTELY buying a lifestyle here. ie. values for how animals should be treated, values for supporting families and values for "not shitting on everyones future" are very much lifestyle choices imo.

<comment><USER23> I think he means that he is buying "the cow's lifestyle", instead of his.

I applaud the sentiment, but do small farm cows, loved like they are part of the family actually do less damage to the environment? Is factory farming doing something that makes factory cows produce more methane?

I also disagree he is not buying a lifestyle for himself. Non pasteurized milk is ABSOLUTELY better tasting. So he is purchasing a luxury item, which is the definition of lifestyle buying. It may be ethical, and but its still tasty.

<comment><USER22> 'I applaud the sentiment, but do small farm cows, loved like they are part of the family actually do less damage to the environment? Is factory farming doing something that makes factory cows produce more methane?'

Why does it matter? If both methods do equal damage to the environment and one doesnt torture animals, I still see the one that doesnt torture animals as superior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I did bought few small vineyard plots 5 years ago. It is good lifestyle, especially as I live in the city and commute to countryside few days a week.

It is hard to make living this way, you have to spend astronomical amount of money just to buy basic infrastructure and land required to even start. Then you are very dependent on weather and without good planning you might end up broke very easily.

In my case I basically bought into (less then) minimum wage job, that require huge ongoing investments and sustained work all year around. I like this lifestyle and I am not fool, so I still keep working as a developer (during off season as well as part time work) and have diverse streams of income that can sustain my family.

What I can see on forums and discussions around the internet is romantic view of this lifestyle with bankruptcy down the road. Trust me, this lifestyle is not easy and you should spent more time with Excel then you are comfortable with.

</comment><comment><USER25> The TLDR; is that roughly 2,000 more people in the 25-34 age group started farming, which is a roughly 2% increase. Doesn't really sound like news to me, not yet at least. I'd like to interpret it as the younger generation getting back to their roots and more connected with real stuff (where food actually comes from, getting hands dirty, that sort of thing), but 2,000 people doesn't make a wave. I hope this number continues to rise and that as a society we become more _real_ in coming years rather than less. I.e., I think our society has lost something important the further we've gotten from our roots.

<comment><USER26> 2% doesn't sound remarkable until you look at how agricultural jobs has dropped since 1800.

[http://protecttheharvest.com/2016/01/28/why-people-fear- agri...](http://protecttheharvest.com/2016/01/28/why-people-fear-agriculture- the-cycle-of-misinformation/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Their are no "three-acre farms," at best it's a garden. My old boss operated a 80 acre micro farm while holding down a full time job. It was a hobby that at best broke even, but he had fun.

PS: They might say be operating a stall at a locally grown market, but it's the stall not the farm that's generating income.

<comment><USER28> "PS: They might say be operating a stall at a locally grown market, but it's the stall not the farm that's generating income."

If the stall sells products coming from the farm, the difference is lost on me.

It's like saying "it's the Sales department that generate income, while Engineering is just a cost".

<comment><USER29> Put it this way - if you bought your apples from the grocery store and sold them in your stall, it would probably sell just as well. It's the experience of going to a market and buying from a stall that people like, NOT the produce.

<comment><USER30> If that were true, than how is it even possible for a farmer to get a spot at the stall? Why aren't they crowded out by grocery arbitragers?

<comment><USER31> Because there's certainly skill involved in the successful managing of a stall. It's not that _anyone_ could buy from the grocery store and sell at the stall and make a profit; just the people who successfully make profit on a small farm.

The suggestion is that the customer knowledge/access is what is providing value, not the farming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I spent some time working and living on a farm run by someone under 35.

I'm not sure how much their personality and lack of managerial skills ultimately contributed to their inability to turn a profit, as they certainly had cashflow, but it also occurred to me while I was working there that the kind of farm we had (10 - 20 acre, general organic produce) was a nice thought but without extensive community support (something they never bothered to foster) they aren't likely to survive. It costs a lot to maintain farm equipment and pay salary.

Niche, high-efficiency, high-automation, vertical farms are something worth exploring, and I have read about the success of others doing things this way. It's something I continue to think about.

One way to engender a thriving locally run community of farmers would be to establish autonomous chapters of a larger organization that provides consistent expectations among the communities they operate in.

The farms would offer membership plans, which would be actively solicited and advertised. The membership plan would include discount access up to a certain weight in produce / meat / dairy each month, in exchange for a small fee and a few hours a month of unpaid labor, such as indoor/outdoor farming, planting, solicitation and selling goods at local markets.

Importantly, the organization would be nonprofit and all proceeds would go back into the farms. Market research needs to be done to establish the optimal ratio of acreage to service radius, but I think it is an idea worth exploring.

<comment><USER33> Something similiar already exists if i understood you correctly. Look up 'community supported agriculture' (CSA).

<comment><USER32> But those are mostly localized and unorganized farms, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> "For only the second time in the last century, the number of farmers under 35 years old is increasing..."

Not surprising because this is cyclical- the only difference is that the cycles in the past were shorter because life expectancy was shorter. Farming is a job that requires(1) a huge amount of up-front capital to get started in terms of land and equipment. The recurring cost isn't as high, but you have to stay in the game for as long as you can to pay off the initial investment. So a lot of people got involved in farming 50 years ago as young people, and they are dying off/finally retiring. Some are handing over the reins to their kids, and some are handing over the reins to their grandkids. Some aren't handing anything over, but when they leave there is room in the market for young people to enter. All of this results in generational and bi-generational influxes of farmers.

(1) You don't _have_ to have the capital up front, you can get a loan or you can sharecrop. Getting a loan means your break-even time is longer, and sharecropping basically makes you an employee.

</comment><comment><USER35> I thought this was going to be about MMO currency. Very disappointed.

Really though, I'm not very surprised this is happening. Desk jobs can be pretty soul crushing. Sometimes I wonder how long it would take for me to learn Pennsylvania Dutch and join the Amish.

<comment><USER36> >>learn Pennsylvania Dutch and join the Amish.

I know Amish people and have grown up Mennonite. There is a significant way of thinking that is very hard (though not impossible) to overcome coming in. This is true even if you have a supporting Amish community and find language learning easy.

I am very interested in this process and how it feels to those on the outside coming in. Let me know if you attempt this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Hahaha. Wow, I grew up on a farm and I went to college and got an engineering degree to get away from it! I can't even imagine going the other direction.

I still remember bucking hay, mowing the tansy, running the irrigation truck, taking care of the chickens and dozens of other chores I hated. To me, it was not the least bit fun.

I wonder how many of these people romanticize the life style and after a few years will change their minds. I admit, I am probably jaded, but I think they are crazy :)

<comment><USER38> If you come in with capital assets and marketable tech skills to fall back on, maybe you get to pick and choose which parts of farming you want. I imagine some crops or animals are more enjoyable than others.

<comment><USER37> My older sister took over the family farm, I tried to convince her to go into pot farming (legal in the state) she was not up for it but I think our grandpa would have approved, he was a boot legger back in the depression era to keep the farm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Better to make this a young person move because old people can't do stoop work as long.

Tractors destroy kidneys. White finger disease in any vibration. Farming is not kind to the body.

Satisfying, but not kind. Kids go there. I welcome it. If you're over forty think hard before commitment locks you in.

</comment><comment><USER40> Translation: farm subsidies still over-provisioned by American government.

</comment><comment><USER41> Stardew Valley?

<comment><USER42> Thought the same, and remember this article:

[http://www.pcgamer.com/meet-the-man-who-loved-stardew- valley...](http://www.pcgamer.com/meet-the-man-who-loved-stardew-valley-so- much-he-bought-a-farm/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I've been working on a product to help Farmers and Gardeners so have been talking to many different types of farmers from Container Farms, to Aquaponics, to Indoor Greenhouses. The industry is vast and there's pros and cons for every type of system. There's no silver bullet.

This video is pretty informative for someone interested in this topic on the business side. It's titled "The 5 Elements to make $100k on a Quarter Acre"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvIQgyPkmoY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvIQgyPkmoY)

</comment><comment><USER44> >Why'd I switch to rural life? Quality of life.

It's amazing to me that for all our modern tech and conveniences it's not made us happier in fact the old ways seem much more enjoyable and appealing.

<comment><USER45> I think many things have made us happier, but we have begun to replace the pursuit of products that improve life with the pursuit of products that improve revenue. The automobile, the telephone, the internet, and all of these things have improved life unbelievably. I think the point where happiness and progress begin to diverge is when consumerism enters into the picture -- when people are buying products because of status and marketing, instead of the actual necessity of the product itself. And then that sort of attitude leaks into society itself where virtue signaling starts to become more valued than actual discussion. It's all so very artificial. Perhaps this desire to get 'back to our roots' is some sort of Fruedian escape from the increasing fakeness of society today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> ive considered doing something kind of like this but just grow enough food for myself -- so a garden rather than a farm. the draw for me is reducing my living expenses. modern houses make absolutely no sense because their design carries vestigial baggage from thousands of years ago, from a time when we didnt know about any of the physics or technology that we know about now. it turns out that you can build a passive and maintenance free house for about the same amount of money as a traditional house.

someone else commented about the fact that modern suburban life is a hell- scape. i couldnt agree more. people think you have to do it in order to live. but you dont, just buy land on the outskirts of the city and build a house on it. the city is right there if you want it. i dont want it most of the time, personally. but sometimes i really do.

there are also people in here who say how they know farming, the grew up on a farm and its horrible. i really think that there is a new trend on the horizon of people moving away from the city, but this article misses the whole point. they wont be farming, because farming does suck. theyll just be making their lives more secure and cheaper by owning land and a house instead of renting. this will continue to make more and more sense as solar power and electric cars and self driving cars become more and more reliable and cheap. i really do think we will see more and more people opting for city outskirts.

<comment><USER47> >their design carries vestigial baggage from thousands of years ago, from a time when we didnt know about any of the physics or technology that we know about now. it turns out that you can build a passive and maintenance free house for about the same amount of money as a traditional house.

Can you expand on this? What are the vestiges in a modern house? How does one design a passive and maintenance-free house?

<comment><USER46> sure. houses are made of wood. we recently had some super bad fires here in california and right now people are literally building new wooden homes upon the ashes of their last homes. does that make sense to you? in hurricane areas, people do the same thing in the absence of regulations -- they build out of sticks.

roofs are often tiled with tar or slate or ceramic. why? they break, leak, and need to be replaced frequently except for slate. they get damaged super easily. the most common roofing material by far is asphalt shingles where i live. they get extraordinarily hot when the sun beats down on them, and since they are attached directly to the house they make the house get hot.

there is also energy management. most houses leak air because traditional construction does nothing to ensure the air tightness of a house. back in the old times, it would have been a huge undertaking so nobody bothered with it. most houses only put insulation around the wooden members of the walls, so heat is conducted through the wood, going right around the insulation. concrete foundations werent insulated until recently. the ventilation systems in houses just throw energy out the window, heating or cooling the air in the house and then throwing it out and bringing off-temperature air in and then heating or cooling that and then throwing it out and so on.

there are lots of other things that dont make much sense.

there is a new wave of house building called passive house building. it basically takes into account all of the things i mentioned, fixing them.

my personal plan for a "passive house" is to use icf construction. icf or "insulated concrete forms" is a building technique thats used in florida for homes that need to withstand hurricanes. you can see photos of desolated landscapes post-hurricane where the only standing structure in sight is a single icf home. icf gets its name from the fact that it is pre-insulated. you get a bunch of expanded poly-styrene blocks that click into place to form a single monolithic mold into which concrete is poured. the forms also have integrated clips and hangers for rebar reinforcement. you can also use micro- rebar to make the concrete unbelievably strong -- the military uses micro rebar to make blast-proof structures.

the result of icf construction is a completely monolithic, air tight, high thermal mass, super highly insulated structure that has no significant thermal bridges depending on the implementation. its simple, effective and isnt much more expensive than a traditional system let alone a wooden system that meets the same specifications. icf houses with cementatious stucko wont burn and is considered a non combustable structure by the government.

the air ventilation system, which is essential in an air tight house, will be what is called a heat recovery ventilation system. it uses heat exchangers to transfer the heat or lack of heat in the outgoing air into the income air. it isnt expensive or complicated, its literally a bunch of tubes that touch eachother. that simple arrangement will retain 95% of the energy you expend heating or cooling the house even while the ventilation system is working at full tilt keeping the air inside the home fresh and free of humidity.

the outside of the house can be covered in cementatious stucko as normal, but stucko with integrated pigment so that it doesnt need to be painted, ever. maybe power washed every once in a while.

a thick and highly insulated concrete slab on grade foundation provides lots of thermal mass to store heat energy and also prevents energy leakage.

the roof can be a raised seam metal roof. these roofs last a minimum of 40 years and can take hail and whatever else is thrown at them. you see them (in america) on commercial buildings because every business that runs the numbers comes to the same conclusion: metal roofs are durable and free of nonsense. if you do a metal roof right it can last longer than _you_. they also reflect heat instead of absorb it so they keep things much cooler.

the house will also have triple paned windows with an acceptable R and U value. thats another things houses do wrong.

thats the basic overview but there are lots of other things and lots of other details that have gone into it.

overall the cost is a little higher but not only do you make up for it in the long term, you buy something that is worth way more than all the extra money: piece of mind. living in a house that takes care of you, that doesnt have problems or demand money.

<comment><USER47> That sounds awesome. The only thing I could think of while reading it was how impossible it would be to convince a secondhand buyer of all that though. Resale value not worth the upfront investment. However if I planned to own that house until I died (or longer) might be worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> This is really interesting - and to put my own biased spin on it I think its not only farming.

I left my bigco desk job last summer (left == was booted out with separation package when our org got whacked). I started a small business with a former employee who is now my partner.

Its still a desk-job in a sense - I work at a desk on my computer. But that desk is nothing like a "desk job" at a big co.

In our small business, we're primarily a software company, HOWEVER, our philosophy is "this is our business; we can follow our interests and do whatever we want".

Interestingly, one of the things we're looking at is agriculture - and without putting to fine a point on it, sustainable agriculture is built in to that. So .. we're building some portfolio items that include control systems for plant care etc.

We're totally boot strapped, working off our savings and some IoT and cloud consulting gigs. Our goal, with some careful planning of our time, is to have those gigs pay for our porfolio item development which with some marketing and customer development could lead to better understanding of requirements for product development.

Re this article - I can totally imagine that some of our customers will be these small scale farmers - who need the right mix of tools (and prices) to help them operate. The tools/products for large farms are, IMHO, incompatible with their needs.

Also, for the past several years I've really been interested in small-scale malting for beers and whiskies. ..I need some small number of acres to get started ..our bent for software could be applied to malting. "our company can do whatever it wants" :)

</comment><comment><USER49> Someone who studied CS with me said he'd rather work in conatruction, because he sleeps better after building houses instead of software

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm from Arkansas. While I was growing up my fad was a pilot full time and my mom managed restaurant staff. My dad also got into wildlife management and was able to double his income by organizing a hunting club on some fallow land we had inherited from his grandmother.

About 10 years agoo they got into small-scale organiv ranching as well. There's a steep learning curve, and you have to work every day, but they are enjoying it because a) exercise is good for you and b) they work 3-4 hours per fay c) outside in a beautiful pasture lined by many square miles of swampland and hardwood forest.

I grew up catching frogs, climbing trees, and swimming in mudholes with no adult supervision. Today I have a five year old son and live in a global megacity. It's sooo hellishly restrictive for a child to grow up in an urban environment. He suffers not only emotionally,but developmentally as well. He asks us regularly to move to a place with more nature.

Read Last Child in the Woods. It's a good start for helping re-examine modern lifestyles.

</comment><comment><USER51> I spent two years living on a small permaculture farm. The place took on wwoofers and so I got to meet a ton of young people who wanted to farm. But most couldn't afford their own land, so instead they roamed around and worked nearly for free for wwoof farm owners. It's a cool program, but unfortunate land is out of reach

<comment><USER52> Every successful small farm is built on unpaid labor from what I've seen. Many are making it work and providing some value to these workers, but I shake my head seeing young college graduates working as laborers. All to get experience in a field that has so few good opportunities.

<comment><USER53> I did it and its not so bad. Experience is really valuable and the no-money- involved relationship is just so more meaningful. But a place where you feel as a part of the family. Those are the best

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Lots of exciting things going on in this space. There is also an Open Source Movement that came out of the MiT Media Lab, called OpenAg ([https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture- openag/ove...](https://www.media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture- openag/overview/)) which has created a platform for folks like our company, Open Agriculture Supply ([https://www.openagriculturesupply.com/](https://www.openagriculturesupply.com/)) to create "Food Computers" which are climate controlled boxes that grow food for you indoors.

All open source, all on the same platform.

The future of farming is indoors, distributed, hyper local, and vertical.

Also check out the book that started it all "The Vertical Farm" by Dr. Dickson Despommier,

</comment><comment><USER55> I wonder if they will get undercut by a more scalable approach to high-end food?

[https://www.vox.com/energy-and- environment/2017/11/8/1661171...](https://www.vox.com/energy-and- environment/2017/11/8/16611710/vertical-farms)

</comment><comment><USER56> My dad grew up on a farm and has no idea why someone would willingly do the same.

</comment><comment><USER57> You really have to love living in a rural area to be happy there.

I grew up in a mid-west city and move to LA when I was 14. I lived in Hollywood, West Hills, and Malibu. I decided to leave when I was 29. The people I knew in LA all thought I was crazy when I told them where I was moving.

I researched places to live for a few months before leaving and I've been where I considered the best place to be is since then, for about 25 years now.

I moved to a rural area for the same reason "clord" did, "Quality of life". Where one finds that is up to them but that should really be the focus, not a job title or pay.

</comment><comment><USER58> Money does grow on trees.

The 8 forms of capital: [http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/8-forms-of- capital/](http://www.appleseedpermaculture.com/8-forms-of-capital/)

</comment><comment><USER59> If you look back, many successful SV types become part time or full time farmers, starting with perhaps David Packard. Seems like that connection with the land is ingrained in us somewhere no matter who you are.

<comment><USER60> Or is it the tech? Agriculture tends to run at the forefront technology adoption, so you have a chance to play with tech you are unlikely to find elsewhere. That's what drew me to farming.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> If you're interested in a recipe for running a profitable, small farm I recommend the book The Market Gardener by Jean-Martin Fortier.

There are a lot of other examples around of similar farmers, e.g Curtis Stone, Ridgedale Permaculture ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Knn7ZH4Tiw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Knn7ZH4Tiw))

</comment><comment><USER62> There's nothing new under the sun...

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Acres](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Acres)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Life_(1975_TV_serie...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Life_\(1975_TV_series\))

</comment><comment><USER63> There's a lot of organic farm internships around where they cover your meals and accommodation in exchange for work, some also pay a stipend of $500-900/mnth. Many of my friends do this for 6 months of the year then travel during the off season. It's a good way to learn farming if you want to run your own.

</comment><comment><USER64> No matter how they love to work at small farm, they will be eventually replaced by machines when machine learning farming equipment becomes affordable to small farm owner. Then small farm will be one man farm.

After that, the lifestyle of supporting local farm losses the meaning.

</comment><comment><USER65> "a growing number" here is the key to differentiating bad journalism from the good. I bet this number will grow even more as desk jobs grow more in proportion to farm though this may appear contradictory.

</comment><comment><USER66> That title is puntastic.

</comment><comment><USER67> This seems like a very positive trend for community sustainability and I hope it only gets more popular in the future.

</comment><comment><USER68> a quick brain fart, more and more the tech dream fades away and somehow the good old life seems more fulfilling

</comment><comment><USER69> So Stardew Valley is based on real life?

</comment><comment><USER70> small farmers are the original hackers

</comment><comment><USER71> I blame Stardew Valley.

</comment><comment><USER72> woah good news

</comment><comment><USER72> love that!

</comment><comment><USER73> The fun thing is that it used to be that rural areas has the most Republican votes for example.

</comment><comment><USER74> Lifestyle is quite different from ideals and principles.

</comment><comment><USER75> "A Growing number of young Americans are leaving jobs that produce things of value to create click-bait bullshit journalism about made-up or statistically insignificant trends"</comment>


Phineas Fisher's account of how he took down HackingTeam - <AUTHOR> https://ghostbin.com/paste/6kho7 <comment><USER2> > I want to dedicate this guide to the victims of the assault on the Armando > Diaz school, and to all those whose blood has been spilled at the hands of > Italian fascism.

For those who don't know, they are referring to the 2001 Armando Diaz school attack [1] (warning: graphic), where hundreds of G8 pacific protesters were brutalized and tortured by Italian police. Whilst the police has been found guilty of this, none of the policemen is serving any jail time.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Raid_on_Armando_Diaz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Raid_on_Armando_Diaz)

<comment><USER3> >> "hundreds of G8 pacific protesters were brutalized and tortured by Italian police. Whilst the police has been found guilty of this, none of the policemen is serving any jail time."

If police commit crimes, they must be held accountable.

<comment><USER4> Or America

<comment><USER5> Plenty of police in jail in America. They're just harder to convict. Easier to get them fired. Italy is exponentially worse than America on this issue.

And I say that as an activist against police corruption here who also lives in a murder capital. Police pulling shit that bad here is rare outside the "hoods" where it's thugs and low income people nobody cares about. Still usually just a ticket, thrown on a car, or a brief taser. The worst plant shit on people but they're very rare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For anyone who doesn't follow infosec: This guy is responsible for two of the most impressive hacks recently and still hasn't been doxed or arrested. And so the linked doc is awesome if only for the opsec tips it provides. And it provides much more than that. It really gives you some perspective on how much work an attacker will put into breaking into your network and the kind of structured approach they're taking. Plus it's very hands on and is educational and current whether you're black or white hat. If you read nothing else in infosec this month, read this.

<comment><USER7> He's likely to be identified as he gets more brazen. Even authoring this volume of text is risky, and there are other notes from the same author linked within. Spelling can be used to approximate region and phrases or errors such as "the hard of the business" ("heart of") and "passtime" ("pastime") are even stronger markers. Of course there's no way to tell if these are unintentional or planted errata.

I'm grateful for the information. It's incredibly interesting, but it might come at great expense to the author.

<comment><USER8> This text is a translation. The original is in Spanish. It might have its own mistakes and traces, although I am not knowledgeable to detect country- specific patterns. [http://pastebin.com/raw/GPSHF04A](http://pastebin.com/raw/GPSHF04A)

Presumably, given that they talk about EU culture^W^W^W^W (see comment below) have a [https://securityinabox.org/es/…](https://securityinabox.org/es/…) link, the author is from Spain, which would make it easier to pinpoint an origin, as Spain has a wider spectrum of language differences than in most other Spanish-speaking countries.

Since there is a link to [http://madrid.cnt.es/](http://madrid.cnt.es/), they maybe live in the capital, which weighs 3 million inhabitants.

<comment><USER9> After reading the original doc, by the style used and some slang (although it could be on purpose), I would say the author is from Chile.

I'm glad to find people that still fight the system in this side of the world.

<comment><USER10> I would be willing to bet they are from Italy. I am Italian and they wrote about some stuff that you would know only if you followed Italian news.

They could be dropping some contradictory clues, BTW. I could definitely see that.

<comment><USER11> Did you verify that the stuff you refereed to as only being known if you follows Italian news is not on the net? Don't those Italian news outlets have websites?

This guy seems to be pretty good at googling around for stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, this is great. Feels like reading phrack in the 90s. Anyone know of similar, contemporary resources on hacking?

This stuff is gold:

> NoSQL, or rather NoAuthentication, has been a great gift to the hacker > community [1]. Just when I was worrying that all MySQL's sins of omission > had finally been patched [2][3][4][5], these new databases appear, lacking > authentication by design. Nmap found a few in Hacking Team's internal > network:

Not to mention: > As fun as it was to listen to captures and watch webcam images of Hacking Team developing its malware, it wasn't very useful. Their insecure security backups were the vulnerability that threw the doors open. According to the documentation [1], their iSCSI systems should have been on a separate network, but nmap count a few of them in their 192.168.1.200/24 subnet:

I can just hear some one saying to themselves, four years ago, "This backup stuff should be on a separate subnet, but for now this appears to be working. Make a note-to-self to secure it later." ....

<comment><USER13> There was another one on the finisher attack, also on paste bin that is Worth a read.

<comment><USER14> Namely this one: [http://pastebin.com/raw/cRYvK4jb](http://pastebin.com/raw/cRYvK4jb) (also linked in the OP's link).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The border between what is "right" and what is "wrong" is very thin. What he did is illegal but it was right.

I think people should be grateful to the ones that as he did, fight against what is legal but definitely wrong.

<comment><USER16> Did you get a chance to vote on the law that made what he did illegal?

Better yet, when was the lat time you got to vote on a law that was passed in your country?

<comment><USER15> I can't understand what you really meant with your questions, but no, usually you don't get the chance to vote law. As a citizen (at least an italian one) you are allowed to vote for parties which in the end vote for the laws. So i don't have the right to directly vote for a law. I can only delegate someone to decide laws for me and this is a broken system at least in 2016 when i think we have all the technology to allow individual votes or at least a better delegation mechanism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > As far as I know, there's no free way of making inverse whois queries

Whoisology [1] is good for this, though they've been more aggressively pushing their paid options as of late. Also WhoisMind [2], to some extent.

[1] [https://whoisology.com/](https://whoisology.com/)

[2] [http://www.whoismind.com/](http://www.whoismind.com/)

<comment><USER18> Free alternative for anonymous requests is to hit the google caches, ex.

        site:whois.domaintools.com "Y Combinator"

[https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Awhois.domaintoo...](https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Awhois.domaintools.com+"Y+Combinator")

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Oh wow, he used some tools I wrote (and that someone later updated to work with Vista & above):

[https://github.com/Neohapsis/creddump7](https://github.com/Neohapsis/creddump7)

</comment><comment> enjoy-your-stay Wow, this was a real eye-opener.

>Thanks to the hardworking Russians and their exploit kits... many businesses already have compromised machines in their network. Almost all of the Fortune 500, with their enormous networks, have a few bots on the inside

I could definitely believe that, having worked at a few, they have massive infrastructure and many users that are extremely relaxed about security in general.

What then struck me was the way he casually decided to hack a VPN (!) is it really so straightforward? And the way he seemed confident about testing his exploit on other compromised machines without detection.

I'm always paranoid every time I type 'last' on my Linux box, wondering if the thing is really compromised and totally lying to me - now I'm even more so!

<comment><USER20> > _What then struck me was the way he casually decided to hack a VPN_

He's intentionally vague, but given he mentions two routers and two vpn systems, it's highly probable that he's referring to one of the two routers (which is embedded, and has firmware). Furthermore, he refers to a website[1] which predominately deals with routers.

> _is it really so straightforward?_

Routers, yes[2], VPN daemons, not as much.

[1]: [http://www.devttys0.com/training/](http://www.devttys0.com/training/) \- which can also contain a vpn daemon of course.

[2]: [https://github.com/darkarnium/secpub/tree/master/Multivendor...](https://github.com/darkarnium/secpub/tree/master/Multivendor/ncc2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> He is active on reddit answering questions - [https://www.reddit.com/user/PhineasFisher](https://www.reddit.com/user/PhineasFisher)

</comment><comment><USER22> > Hacking Team was a company that [...]

AFAIK, they are still operating and still doing exactly the same thing.

<comment><USER23> They just lost their export license.

<comment><USER17> More information:

[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hacking-team-has-lost- its-l...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hacking-team-has-lost-its-license- to-export-spyware)

Quote:

"We can sell everywhere in Europe without a license. We can sell everywhere in the world but we have to ask for a license every time we sell."

<comment><USER22> My heart bleeds. The question is, how hard is it for a company like that to get an individual license if they have a cozy relationship with law enforcement, which wouldn't be very surprising in their case?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Original text in spanish: [http://pastebin.com/raw/GPSHF04A](http://pastebin.com/raw/GPSHF04A)

</comment><comment><USER25> i'm really happy to see the translation getting around this far. it's an amazing text, & i'm glad my quick & dirty translation job got it out there mostly intact. i never really gave it a proper proofread, so thanks for catching those mistakes. more importantly, though, Phineas Fisher himself has just released his own translation. and, having just discovered that ghostbins are editable, i added a url to his version at the top of the text. here it is again: [http://pastebin.com/raw/0SNSvyjJ](http://pastebin.com/raw/0SNSvyjJ)

</comment><comment><USER26> I was curious why he was using domain names instead of tor hidden service or other p2p networks. Turns out that using domain names provides a backup communications channel (DNS) that gets through pretty much any firewall.

<comment><USER27> The other thing to remember is that Tor traffic is generally rare and few places have a business case for it so it's more likely to be monitored, just as in the past many places used to watch for IRC connections since it was infinitely more likely to be a botnet control channel than Fred in accounting seeing whether #quickbooks existed.

DNS, HTTPS to some random AWS/Azure/etc. endpoint, etc. are common as dirt and enough harder to monitor that many places either don't try or struggle to do do effectively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> How did he record these step-by-step instructions with such high detail? Is this common practice?

<comment><USER29> This is pretty normal for a paid penetration test - but it's got far more technical detail than you'd normally see. I don't think the person behind this has revealed anything particularly new, they just know their tools _really_ well.

<comment><USER30> Agreed. However, in a formal penetration testing engagement, the tester will usually only record and document their exact steps because they have to provide a detailed report to their client. This hacker didn't have that same obligation. I'm speculating that he is probably a habitual note taker. In this way, if he ever comes across similar challenges when attacking a new target, he has his notes to refer to.

I was curious to read this piece to see how closely the approach, techniques and tools he uses compare to how penetration testers are formally trained in the info sec industry. For what it's worth, the methodology in terms of reconnaissance, privilege escalation and lateral movement within the network are typical. Also, most of the tool set he uses (e.g. mimikatz, responder, meterpreter, powersploit, psexec) are part of any good penetration tester's arsenal.

I'm not trying to down play the achievement though. He is clearly very skilled and knowledgeable. Of particular note, it seems that the initial intrusion was only possible because 'after about two weeks of reverse engineering, I discovered a remote root exploit' in an embedded system. He doesn't provide technical details of the exploit but finding a 0-day in an embedded system is usually far from child's play.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I am non-technical and I love this post for its exhaustive documentation and citations.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is there any reason to believe this doc was (or was not) produced by a state- level actor?

<comment><USER32> That is my thought as well, for a few reasons.

<comment><USER33> Well, the author's day job might be as a "whitehat" for a state sponsored entity -- its even possible/plausible the author could be one of the HackingTeam -- perhaps motivated by company politics to expose them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11509950](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11509950)

</comment><comment><USER35> can anyone suggest good infosec reads or periodicals?

<comment><USER36> [https://archive.org/details/International_Journal_of_PoC_201...](https://archive.org/details/International_Journal_of_PoC_2013_08_05)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The link doesn't work anymore - getting a 404. Are there any other links?

<comment><USER37> Found this - [http://pastebin.com/raw/0SNSvyjJ](http://pastebin.com/raw/0SNSvyjJ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Wow this person is impressive, the details of the attack and the preparation almost make it read like a Hollywood hacker movie script (if they made good movies about hacking that is...).

</comment><comment><USER39> the English article now returns a 404. any alternative places it is still visible at?

<comment><USER40> [http://pastebin.com/raw/0SNSvyjJ](http://pastebin.com/raw/0SNSvyjJ)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> One of the most sophisticated story i have read so far.

</comment><comment><USER42> > with just one hundred hours of work

Yeah, right. Most of the tools and knowledge he used would have taken much longer than that to acquire.

<comment><USER43> I think they're saying that's how much time it took them from the position they started from. Obviously if you have to learn it all and study its going to take an order of magnitude or two longer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> So, who's next? :P

</comment><comment><USER45> got mirror?

</comment><comment><USER46> > Obviously you have pay anonymously, with bitcoin, for exaple (if youuse it > carefully)

Bitcoin is anonymous? Time to go to jail.

<comment><USER47> Could you expand on your comment? My understanding is that if a party can't tie a wallet to an identity then it is anonymous. So if you can acquire bitcoins (eg. mining) and purchase something (eg. VPS) without giving up your identity then you are solid.

<comment><USER48> I've heard conflicting information as far as this goes.

Thinking this through- an adversary who's watching the block chain probably knows some inputs and some outputs. As in, these addresses belong to an exchange, these addresses belong to a hosting company.

Okay, fine. Now remember than any user can literally create wallets out of thin air, and in fact doing so is considered basic security hygiene. Let's say Joe User transfers one coin from one wallet to another wallet under their control. Let's say they do this 20 times, sometimes with the full amount, sometimes less.

How does the adversary attach an identity to those transactions?

<comment><USER49> You have to use your bitcoins someday. Either to buy real currency or real goods. Then you know where the money went TO. Tracing the transactions back (where the money came FROM) is then not a big deal - full history is in the blockchain.

So as long as you don't do a transaction that connects your identity to any bitcoin address, you are fine. but to use bitcoins you are almost always required to do it (its an electronic financial transaction, they are governed by law to have an identity, but of course you can find entities who do not follow these laws).

<comment><USER50> Only as you say if you convert them into a "real" currency. If they only used their Bitcoin to purchase goods (such as VPS) which was not tied to a physical address, then they could still remain anonymous.

As for where the Bitcoins came from, I'm sure the author of this document would have some digital assets they could sell on the darknet to acquire some Bitcoin. Where those Bitcoin originated then would not be their problem.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Super Pixel Quest - <AUTHOR> http://superpixelquest.com/

<comment><USER2> Somehow the pixelart/animation style reminds me very, very much of the old Gobliiins games ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobliiins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gobliiins)) - the artists seem to be different (Emannuele Spinasse and Pierre Gilhodes) but the detail and movements seem to be very close in feeling.

<comment><USER3> YES! First thing I thought of, especially after seeing the wizard dude in panel 12. I am very much reminded of the level in Golbins Quest 3 where Blount is eaten by the wolf and has to put the three lights into the bowl to escape death. That game is an underrated a classic, in my opinion.

I love how this comic conveys the old adventure game feel of discovery and exploration.

<comment><USER4> There's also Woodruff & the Schnibble of Azimuth, which was on CD-rom, in high-res 640 by 480 and fully voice-acted. It also had annoyingly slow loading times, but that didn't stop me from finishing the game.

Here's a longplay of it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCjjCwhn8cs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCjjCwhn8cs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is great! I clicked all the way through to the end.

Instead of 164 separate html pages I would have just 1 and used javascript to step through the panels. Could even lazy load the other images so initial page load is faster. But that's just how I would do, the artist might not be a web developer and the way it's setup works.

<comment><USER6> Works beautifully with NoScript installed, so I'm definitely a fan of individual HTML pages; although, admittedly, the experience would probably be nicer with AJAX.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's in French, but you just have to click the right arrow to make your way through the story.

Very nice work!

<comment><USER8> He could map arrow to keyboard.

Also, spoiler: [http://superpixelquest.com/164.html](http://superpixelquest.com/164.html)

<comment><USER9> If you're using Chrome, you can use my extension to map Ctrl+Right to that button: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/quicken/bcnfaiaknk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/quicken/bcnfaiaknkbbcmpeedkjjjcdmjlgbafo) Just right click on the button and select "Set as quicken next".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This reminisced me of Apple LC times big time. Marcel Proust's Madeleine style. Dithering, games such as Beyond Dark Castle[0], HyperCard games.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISP9su7okHo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISP9su7okHo)

<comment><USER11> You may be excited to learn about Lucas Pope (Papers Please) starting on a new 3D / B&W dithered game here:

[http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.0](http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.0)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> For those who wonders the author. [http://www.emmanuelespinasse.com](http://www.emmanuelespinasse.com)

</comment><comment><USER13> Reminds me of IBM Big Blue Disk Alfredo Series (eg [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5zeEkRCr44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5zeEkRCr44) ) ... which I managed somehow to get working on Hercules Graphics using an EGA emulator I think. Anyone have all the old Big Blue Disks by chance? :D

</comment><comment><USER14> (I know this in one day old already, but...)

In case anyone else is wondering, frames 112 through 115 are exactly the same. Frames 125 and 127 differ only on focus (the invisible #ici element). Frame 129 is the same as 127.

I saved and ran diffs.

</comment><comment><USER15> A similar adventure in scope and implementation: [http://www.deltaattack.com/2011/04/10/mario-pipe- puzzle/](http://www.deltaattack.com/2011/04/10/mario-pipe-puzzle/)

</comment><comment><USER16> This is great. Scott McCloud and others have said that this is what comics would evolve to on the web for a long time. I appreciated the clever use of pacing and space. A great work and I hope it inspires more creators! So cool!

<comment><USER17> Worth pointing out that this type of experiment has been playing out for years already. The most popular type, usually called an "adventure comic," borrows from interactive fiction[1] to present itself as a dialogue between the author and the audience, complete with narration in second person. Among these, the most influential/notorious is Homestuck[2], which goes completely off the rails incorporating animation, music, and different types of gameplay into its narrative. Less ambitious uses of the same format, like Prequel[3], have followed in its wake.

\---

[1]: [http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/FAQ](http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/FAQ)

[2]: [http://www.mspaintadventures.com/](http://www.mspaintadventures.com/) (NB. Homestuck is the _fourth_ adventure comic by this particular author. It's on hiatus while he writes and animates the last few chapters.)

[3]: [http://www.prequeladventure.com/](http://www.prequeladventure.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Naked guy, naked HTML :).

</comment><comment><USER19> Interesting how this inadvertently showcases modern browsers redrawing the page content based on what has actually changed. Even though each "frame" is a new page, you only see a flash where the new image is being shown or replaced.

<comment><USER20> Incorrect. You see a flash because the new image has't been loaded yet, but all the other images have been previously loaded and cached, so your browser can display them almost immediately.

Try going back to page 1 — each page will appear to load instantly if you have all the images cached.

<comment><USER21> With Chrome on OSX I can see what he means - "new" (but already cached) pictures still flicker, the old ones do not. So it can't be caching.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Curious to know how far the average visitor bothered clicking.

<comment><USER23> I gave up after about 15 because the images were loading a little slowly (a few hundred milliseconds is too much) and driving me crazy. It would be nice if it prefetched the next few images.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, load time and having other things to do were issues for me. Clever and a lot of effort by the creator though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> reminds me of when i am king.

[http://www.demian5.com/](http://www.demian5.com/)

</comment><comment><USER25> cost me 165 mouse clicks. worth it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Had to binary search to find 164.

</comment><comment><USER27> worth clicking, nice work.

</comment><comment><USER28> Aren't pixels obsolete? I mean in the sense that you have to use scalable graphics these days.

<comment><USER29> Isn't oil on canvas obsolete?

Pixel art (and pixel-based graphics) may be obsolete in the sense that you no longer need to work within the constraints of large pixels making up an image.

But content creation is still not vector based in many scenarios. And even if vector-based graphics would be the universal standard, pixel art could still be used as an art style or for a retro look or to invoke nostalgia.

<comment><USER30> I agree,

pixels, and their limited colors where the result of limited technology, As technology has advanced past those limits, pixels are now an aesthetic used to create art.

Much the same way plastic and metal models don't make origami obsolete, these things have their place.</comment></comment></comment>


How I Tricked Myself Into Being Awesome - <AUTHOR> http://japhr.blogspot.com/2012/04/366-or-how-i-tricked-myself-into-being.html <comment><USER2> I applaud the author for his tenacity. There is no doubt that kind of discipline produces results, both in terms of work product and personal advancement.

However, I have serious doubts about the merits of writing a book about a subject intricacies and philosophy of which you have not yet had the chance to distill through the lens of experience.

The method may, perhaps, work for simple recipes, how tos and other procedural knowledge. I really don't think it would work for anything in or above the intermediate range of content on any meaningful, commonly deep topic.

Just imagine whether the "Mythical Man Month", "Code Complete" or "Innovator's Dilemma" could have been written with this kind of approach.

I don't know about others but when I read a book, I sometimes realize the presence of an unavoidable slight bias towards believing the author and respecting his conclusions, that is unless I am already deeply knowledgeable about the subject and have my own strong opinions. It better be the case that the author is _in fact_ trustworthy on the subject.

<comment><USER3> Generally I agree, but the topics of his books (SPDY, Dart, and backbone ) are all extremely new technologies. Like they have all been released only in the past year. Very few people have a ton of real world experience with these.

So I think the book reader probably will know that the author doesn't have years of battle tested experience but understand that the book is meant to be a good way for a beginner to get up to speed and get going with the topic.

<comment><USER4> They might be "extremely new technologies", but how do they fit into existing picture?

This is akin to a layman writing a book on International Klein Blue, but having no idea of what other colors are out there. It's a form of a "blind leading the blind" situation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Jerry Seinfeld used this exact technique to become a great comic. As told by software developer Brad Isaac when he asked Jerry for career advice[0]:

 _He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker._

 _He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. "After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain."_

 _"Don't break the chain," he said again for emphasis._

[0] [http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity- se...](http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret)

<comment><USER6> There's only one problem. When you do break the long chain you're out for the count. When was the last time you heard anything from Seinfeld after his long- running eponymous show was cancelled?

How are you supposed to motivate yourself to start a new chain, when it means you'll be working on this shit for the next 3,000 days?

<comment><USER7> It wasn't canceled, he chose to stop the show, and at the time it was the most viewed show [0]. They offered him a lot more money but he decided to leave on a high point [1]. After having one of the most successful shows of all time, he went on to create a successful movie (Bee Movie) [2] and continues to do stand-up.

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinfeld#Ratings>

[1] <http://www.cnn.com/SHOWBIZ/9712/26/seinfeld/>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bee_Movie>

<comment><USER8> > successful movie (Bee Movie)

This is debatable. The way I remember it, it was a clunker.

<comment><USER7> Well, let's look at the numbers. With a budget of $150 million and a global box office release gross of $287 million [0], which doesn't factor in things like DVD sales/rentals and licensing, etc means they made about $137 million more than their budget. That seems like success to me, but maybe it's not that simple in the movie industry with Hollywood accounting [1] and as a lot of it seems to depend on costs after the making and a simple general guide is that the movie needs to make at least twice as much of the budget to be considered profitable [2].

[0] <http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=beemovie.htm>

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting>

[2] [http://io9.com/5747305/how-much-money-does-a-movie-need- to-m...](http://io9.com/5747305/how-much-money-does-a-movie-need-to-make-to- be-profitable)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Though I respect the process and the efforts behind this, _"How to write books with a superficial understanding of what you're talking about"_ would be more appropriate.

<comment><USER10> Ah, but I think that's the point. My understanding of the topics is anything but superficial. If you follow along with my daily posts, I think you can see me work through initial infatuation, recognition of limitations, and finally deeper understanding.

To be sure, I could know more. But I think you're being dismissive by characterizing this as superficial.

<comment><USER11> Is it more than superficial though? Depends on your definition of 'superficial':

If I buy a book on SPDY (or any technology), it is likely because I want to use it in a production/live environment.

I want to buy a book on technology from someone who has run a live system, and got the battle scars one gets from doing so; who has learnt from the experiences, which they can then share.

When it comes to technology, one can research all they like about it, but until you have practical _experience_ in a live environment, I would call it 'superficial'.

(From the blog post it is not clear; if you have run all these technologies live then I agree, your understanding is not superficial)

<comment><USER12> I had the same thought as you about his books, if this is the methodology. But I also find it very inspiring, and am extremely envious. Every time I think, "Maybe I should write a book about this", I immediately project myself onto a prospective consumer of my unwritten book and think, "I wouldn't read a book written by me on this subject, because I am not enough of an expert, so why should I expect anyone else to feel differently?", so I don't write the book. This guy thinks the first thought and just goes for it. The word is overused, but: awesome!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Theres a lot of 'sayers' in the world: armchair quarterbacks, pundits, etc, but not enough 'doers'. There will always be a glut of consumers and a small fraction of producers. Not even our "consumer generated media" age of twitterbooks and instafaces has stopped this. Although it has raised the amount of snark and uneducated criticism.

So if you move your hand to write three sentences about Django, you're already in the 2% (totally made up) of producers on the internet. Hell, if you blog consistently for a month straight you're in the top .5% of bloggers.

The fact is doing something, anything, is worthy of some admiration. People that would try to detract from your work are often the 98% of never-have- beens.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is a great way of working. I just wonder if the books are:

(a) any good?

(b) selling?

There's a huge difference between writing a good book and sticking a couple of notes together. Anyone read the books in question?

EDIT: I didn't see that one of the books was published - search on Amazon gave nothing and all I could find was a buy-my-book landing page. Sorry about that.

<comment><USER15> Did you miss this part: "The Pragmatic Programmers"?

<comment><USER16> Oh wow, I definitely missed that part. For some reason I thought the middle of the post was the end. The bold "How'd I do" made me think that was a closer

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Chris - congrats man. I've been silently stalking your "chain", and also came across your posts frequently when I was writing Planscope and was frantically Googling for Backbone help.

The thing I like best is that you now have a time capsule for your professional life. You can look back and see exactly where you _came from_ and where _you went_ , which is more than most of us can say. I have a hard time remembering what I was doing a month ago!

Keep it up, and I look forward to seeing what technology or library you tackle next!

<comment><USER10> Much thanks. I've definitely appreciated the encouragement along the way. But mostly it's cool to know that my posts have helped. Makes it that much more worthwhile :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I spent many years doing something similar, blogging about what I had just learned (no posing of questions, though). I posted once or twice a day in two blogs and what I learned wasn't so much via the content as it was via the research and curation skills I taught myself. To me, research is all about staying committed to the information I am looking for, yet being flexible in my approach (something I learned growing up with a computer, ie, a problem needs solving so I look at all the ways to solve it).

Still get close to 20K pageviews/month in the main blog even though I barely post anymore, which is cool, and the result is the same as your blogging and books...sharing what you learn with others.

Now I'm taking on a new subject/blog. I will try to use your method. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER19> Congratulations, you are awesome! Not only did you accomplish your goal, but you have tangible evidence of your achievement. Your name is on the cover of three books, and no one can ever take that away. So what now? Does the bar get raised. Are you saying to yourself "Wow, I can't believe I did that, what else can I do?" The difference between success and failure is ambition. You sir have tapped into your inner ambition. Harness it, focus it and you are unstoppable. You've inspired me. Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER20> Someone else with a similar attitude I find inspiring: Les Stroud. He'd go to some random remote wilderness location, take a few video cameras and nothing else, and record himself surviving for a week. Result: _Survivorman_ , a hit TV show going into its fourth season, with at least 3 spinoff shows.

A more mundane example: my brother took a photograph every day for a year. Not a big deal, no particular subjects or goals, but getting that one picture a day was paramount. With some editing & on-demand publishing, result was a very nice coffee-table book of intriguing eclectic photos.

Same idea. Pick a topic, dive in, write/record for an audience, do it with passion and consistency and detail, the result is awesomeness. The more you strive the awesomer you get.

<comment><USER21> There's also this guy, who painted every day for nine years, and went from a completely unskilled beginner to a master artist:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3031684>

<comment><USER20> And the guy who, to test Gladwell's "10,000 hours" theory, has taken up golf and intends to turn pro. He knew nigh unto nothing about the game when he started. (BTW: how's he doing on that? anyone have updates?)

<comment><USER22> <http://thedanplan.com/> where there's a blog, regularly posted videos, etc.

Current status (I just looked): 2 years in, 2700 hours done, and he just shot his first sub-80 round of golf.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Some people didn't get one main aspect of his point which is the 'tricking' part where he publicly committed himself to his daily work output goal.

I guess two problems with that are A) I am unfortunately not that "gullible" as far as believing that there will really be dire consequences if I don't produce a certain amount and B) as far as I know there is no public for me who would care if I suddenly declared that I was going to produce one new feature every day no matter what or whatever. I have no twitter followers and no one ever really read my blogs and generally posts on sites like reddit are autobanned. The closest I could do would be to go on Facebook and almost everyone on there is family. They would probably react the way they usually do to my Facebook posts which is "wow, I forgot that guy was on Facebook? He is so weird" with an addition of "who cares".

Also, its easier to write one article a day than it is to say push a major feature per day. Also it is easier to measure and break off writing goals than software goals.

I don't have a problem doing work every day, but I do feel like some days are vastly more productive than others. Not sure what goal I could have per day other than X amount of hours of actual work.

</comment><comment><USER15> I loved this story! The only parts that need a little work were: 1. His background, because he didn't just go from zero to book writer, 2. How in the heck Nick Gauthier decided to co-write with him on a topic Chris previously knew nothing about, 3. Usually "I'm awesome!" is just asking for a humility check... but I think that the point is that _you_ can be awesome.

<comment><USER10> I've been coding since the mid-nineties and had been content to be good/competent. From there to book writer is, I think, a natural outgrowth of the chain posts.

I know Nick IRL. He had previously toyed with the idea of doing a book. I can't speak for him, but I think he signed up after seeing what I did with The SPDY Book. It worked out well IMO. He took the more in-depth ones, I took the more foundation recipes and then we proof read each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is fantastic. Another method to "tricking yourself into being awesome" (also called _learning_ ) is to jump right in and start working on a project. Like the author, you'll come up with loads of questions that need answering, and if your project is going to be successful, those questions _must_ be answered. Otherwise your project/startup will die.

Personal experience: this is exactly how I learned Ruby on Rails as a non- programmer. I had an idea for a project, so I tried reading books and tutorials for months. Nothing stuck. It just didn't make sense. I couldn't translate the words I was reading into code. So I said "screw it" and started hacking away at my project, with absolutely no idea what I was doing. Progress was slow obstacles were rampant, but it turns out those obstacles are easy to overcome with stack traces and google/stackoverflow!

<comment><USER15> I think the difference is that some of us need a little more structure. By providing a method and a repetitive activity, by the 21st day or so (3 weeks they say), it will become habit. After that point, making a point of solving problems for a particular purpose everyday will be much easier, and you'll be making more progress.

A few stories to illustrate:

1\. I had a few friends that made it a point to learn a new technology every day of the month and blog about it. In the end, the friends had learned quite a bit, and even though they only had cursory knowledge of the subject, the structure allowed them to succeed at their goal to have a more general knowledge in their discipline.

2\. I have another friend that started writing an application with the point for it to be the central product of a great new startup. This friend is not only intelligent, but very capable in the whole stack, self-organized, and I would have expected him to succeed. However, he lost interest in the end before go-live. there were competitors, and I think he lost the vision that he had in the beginning. He could still finish the product, but now he has another job. I credit this to lack of structure, which is not his fault; I've gotten no where near as far as he did on a myriad of ideas for products.

<comment><USER24> > _I think the difference is that some of us need a little more structure. By > providing a method and a repetitive activity, by the 21st day or so (3 weeks > they say), it will become habit. After that point, making a point of solving > problems for a particular purpose everyday will be much easier, and you'll > be making more progress._

Yep, I agree. As long as you are able to find problems to solve. Personally, this doesn't work for me because I am not able to come up with problems unless the present themselves in something I'm working on. I can read 100 books on a subject, but if I can't apply the knowledge or imagine how I can apply it, it doesn't stick. Just different ways of learning, I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'd say this in the original article's comments, but apparently it does not allow anonymous comments:

I found this article to be really inspiring. I guess I can see how some people may think Chris is just stroking his own ego, but I did not read it that way at all. First and foremost, I took from this article that a key to feeling great about yourself and your accomplishments is to actually do stuff, all the time. It's a simple concept that I'm sure we're all aware of, but this article really hit it home for me.

As a direct result of this article, I am inspired to do stuff, even if that stuff is considerably less awesome than what Chris accomplished last year.

I start with a personal response via blog post: [http://epixa.com/2012/04/on- inspiration-chains-and-being-awe...](http://epixa.com/2012/04/on-inspiration- chains-and-being-awesome.html)

</comment><comment><USER26> The idea behind this is roughly the same reason that I had a much harder time creating a habit of running 3 days a week, than I had creating a habit of running 6 days a week. If you start doing something daily, the friction to get started on the task is almost completely gone

</comment><comment><USER27> My takeaway, "Just Write. Go and Create Content. Stay Committed and you will surprise yourself at what you can accomplish."

The only thing I take issue with is the comment that the author has more than quiting smoking to show for it, he has 3 books.

as a former smoker, who hasnt smoked in 20 months, I can assure you that the struggle never ends, whereas once the book is finished, you can move to the next project.

I still rely on my 20 month chain once in a while to remind myself that I can do and continue doing the impossible... but the battle to quit smoking, is a constant one, and pays off for the rest of your life... the battle to write a few books is hardly comparable.

</comment><comment><USER28> _slow clap_

This is pretty awesome. The best way to ensure that you truly understand something, is to attempt teaching it.

This is a technique I am starting to use in my quest to be more awesome too...doubt I will write a book, but you never know.

<comment><USER29> _The best way to ensure that you truly understand something, is to attempt teaching it._

To put the foot on the other shoe, however, the last person I ever want to learn from is someone who is learning for the sake of teaching. Such knowledge is usually the thinnest of veneers.

<comment><USER28> Couldn't disagree more.

He who has just learned something, or is in the process of FULLY learning it....is usually better able to teach it, because they understand the challenges with learning it.

I can't tell you the amount of times I have had PhDs explain concepts to me in the most convulted way - using terms and language that just flies over my head, until I am explained the same concepts by a fellow student or a TA or something in the simplistic of terms.

It's easy, once we 'master' something, to forget how to empathize with those that have not and to get caught up in our own knowledge.

Happens to me all the time, so I am not just pointing fingers at everyone else.

I have found that when I force myself to remember what it feels like to not understand something I am teaching, I tend to be a better teacher because I break it down to the simplest unit. Most experts don't/can't do that.

A simple case in point is, just pick up any of the hundreds of programming books...how horrible are they? Quite horrible...many of them. Some are good - and the ones that are, tend to stand out from the crowd. It's not because they are any less of an expert, it is usually because they can empathize with the reader more.

<comment><USER29> _He who has just learned something, or is in the process of FULLY learning it....is usually better able to teach it, because they understand the challenges with learning it._

Perhaps. Or perhaps they're at the point where they think they get it -- they understand it -- and they start espousing their wisdom to others prematurely? Only they have some fundamentally wrong ideas about the thing they just started to learn. This is the story of almost every developer's apprenticeship since the beginning of time. Heck, it's the story of _the world_ (the whole "I was a better parent before I had children" thing. And of course the most you'll ever know is in the first year of university, before you learn how much you don't know).

 _A simple case in point is, just pick up any of the hundreds of programming books...how horrible are they?_

I'm not sure how that is a case in point given that the overwhelming majority of programming books are written by people trying to gain credibility through authoring as a surrogate for actual code (indeed, isn't this what this submission is about?) -- it is hardly dominated by experts since, what, the 70s?

The software development how-to field -- and this has only been made worse by the whole self-publishing trend -- is dominated by apprentices. It is the guy who has laid his first brick telling the world how to be a mason. No thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Very inspiring stuff. A friend of mine once told himself he'd never be stumped by the same question twice and held himself to it. It's amazing what simple habits can do if you give them time.

</comment><comment><USER31> This is a wonderful story about how impressive your willpower is. Everyone has the desire to be great, and most people can see the rough path they must take. But, the hardest part for everyone is keeping the willpower to continually push themselves to work towards that goal every day.

I am curious as to how you kept yourself motivated over the past 366 days.

</comment><comment><USER32> I wonder what's the point in writing a book about Dart, where the language, environment, toolchain, compiler(s), and community are still very, very unstable.

At best, it could be an intro saying "this is what they're trying to do"; but you can also cover that in a blog post, right?

<comment><USER10> I was really unsure what the result would be -- I definitely shared your concerns when I started.

The core of Dart is surprisingly stable -- the team is doing a really solid job of not yanking the rug out from under developers' feet. Sure, I could have stopped at one blog post, but I ended up with 90 and still feel like I have more in me.

In the end, I was pleased with the result. But I might be biased :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> This doesn't work for me. I've tried several times, but I just can't make it stick.

<comment><USER34> Maybe doing it daily is too often to get started, certainly if you have a lot of other stuff going on in your life too.

I set myself a target of writing one good blog post a week about a year ago, with the target of having 52 posts in a year. Right now, I have about 31 with 1 month to go - I am pretty pleased with that, especially since I have been on at least 4 weeks holidays through the year where I left my laptop firmly at home.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Super story!

This is exactly why we started writing a blog. It has kept is learning and recording new information everyday.

Pretty impressive to see the blog author publishing books on topics he knew nothing about a year ago.

</comment><comment><USER36> Suggested title for all self help submissions to Haxor News: "How I discovered the one and only one secret to being incredibly awesome at everything".

</comment><comment><USER37> Sorry, but an awesome programmer does not only talk about programming, he does it.

</comment><comment><USER38> Someone here submitted site for the same thing. <http://sein-cal.co.cc/>

What I have done is taken a printout of the same and marked on it everyday.

</comment><comment><USER39> Very impressive self-commitment.

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm defiantly going to try this

</comment><comment><USER41> hey man... I'm going to try this out.

</comment><comment><USER42> I think you're patting yourself on the back too much.

I was reading about a woman in Cambodia who escaped from torture and near death with her two children and survived in the jungle for 3 years. They never stayed in the same place two days in a row and ate nothing but roots and bugs.

Despite this mother's best efforts, her youngest child starved to death and died in her arms.

A few years later, she founded a safehouse for depressed women who had been raped and tortured like her.

Now SHE is an awesome person and I respect her a lot more.

<comment><USER43> She does sound like an incredible person, but what are we supposed to do with that information? Does it mean we should not try and do anything, given there is always someone out there who has a 'better' (for very wide definitions of 'better') story? I don't write this to be snarky, and I used to think in a similar way myself, but this is not a good way to see the world.

<comment><USER44> Here's what I took away from the story: there are incredibly humble people who have overcome incredible hardships and went on to help and heal others.

A lot of the "accomplishments" I read on HN like raising VC money or blogging for a year straight is weaksauce in comparison.

<comment><USER45> So? If we never achieve such greatness, does it mean we shouldn't go for the weaksauce?

My answer is no - not every has to be the hero. If one's a decent one, it's great already in itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I'm really surprised nobody said it yet. But indeed, you are awesome.</comment>


Christians turn to artificial intelligence to stop porn use - <AUTHOR> https://www.chicagotribune.com/sns-tns-bc-relig-combating-porn-20191120-story.html <comment><USER2> Does the bible have any rules against porn or watching people "get busy"?

<comment><USER3> Not an explicit rule, but Jesus is alleged to have said some stuff about how you're committing adultery in you're heart if you so much as look at an attractive person and lust after them.

<comment><USER2> So if I am single and the couple are single, then they are the ones breaking the rule for getting busy out of wedlock, but I should be OK just hanging back and watching.

<comment><USER3> I think many Christians would argue otherwise, but I hold them and their beliefs in contempt.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A curated list of profitable online projects - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14sOc324qCOjJHX_uyGwJi--daSme9cMD9Mp3-Oe0tRk/edit#gid=0 <comment> Pete-Codes Nice! Added mine, hope that's ok.

A friend is doing www.fundamaker.com newsletter where he sends out indie projects to support each Friday.

</comment><comment><USER2> Added Simple Analytics [1]

[1] [https://simpleanalytics.com](https://simpleanalytics.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> Added Marketing Examples [1]

[1] [https://marketingexamples.com](https://marketingexamples.com)

</comment><comment><USER4> Great idea. I created a similar list for indie / boostrapped projects. I think I'll share that on here sometime!</comment>


CDC warns coffee workers of hazardous chemicals - <AUTHOR> http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/cdc-warns-coffee-workers-of-hazardous-chemicals-b99588225z1-330424931.html <comment><AUTHOR> "It has also uncovered, through groundbreaking testing, that workers are being exposed to high levels of the chemicals in roasting facilities that don't use added flavors." This article is a follow-up on a series done by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which has gotten the attention of the CDC. [http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/gasping-for- action-32298865...](http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/gasping-for- action-322988651.html)</comment>


Show HN: Hbizzle, HBO GO made easy - <AUTHOR> http://www.hbizzle.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I also did a write up about the project here: [http://tmd.io/journal/2013/12/08/hbizzle/](http://tmd.io/journal/2013/12/08/hbizzle/)

I would love to get your feedback. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER2> I gave HD Nation a tweet about your site and they mentioned it on their podcast this week.

[http://revision3.com/hdnation/chromecast-plex-appletv- update](http://revision3.com/hdnation/chromecast-plex-appletv-update)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is great. Navigating through GO's Flash UI is probably one of the most infuriating tasks I can think of.

</comment><comment><USER4> very useful, I wonder how long it'll take to get shutdown.

<comment><USER5> Or "acquired" by HBO since their interface is so awful.</comment></comment>


BackgroundCheck - <AUTHOR> http://www.kennethcachia.com/background-check/ <comment><USER2> I'll start by saying that I think this is pretty cool and clever, and pretty useful for text. It works great on Safari.

I should however add, that while moving the elements over the picture, I didn't once lose sight of my cursor, as it is black with a white outline, which seems to be a much simpler solution to the problem.

<comment><USER3> Agree 100%, especially when it comes to the text elements.

Even if they expanded the system such that it were capable of automatically creating spans in the text to adjust from white to black depending upon the background color under specific letters, having the text switch from black to white and back again along with the background would look horrible and would be terrible for reading. But using high contrast outlines works fine on just about anything, which is why that is the go-to for all "meme" photos (Impact white with black outline). While I would suggest avoiding Impact unless you are actually trying to make a "meme" association, this sort of high contrast outlined text is still by far the best way to handle text over images that may themselves be high contrast.

Sadly, true text outline support is inexplicably very bad among browsers, at least as of the last time I checked, though in CSS3-capable browsers you can cheese outlines using textshadow.

<comment><USER4> I'd add that though we've adapted to the look of a cursor, the designer in me cringes at the thought of outlined text (though I'm willing to allow that there are probably applications of this that work elegantly; I just can't picture any).

Sometimes the answer might be yet a different color of text (not black or white), although that too has design downfalls.

But all that said, tools to help text and other elements adapt to background images are mighty helpful. I'd definitely consider using this, even as is.

<comment><USER5> > I'd add that though we've adapted to the look of a cursor, the designer in > me cringes at the thought of outlined text (though I'm willing to allow that > there are probably applications of this that work elegantly; I just can't > picture any).

Outlined text is quite common in videos (e.g. for subtitles or credits). The outline doesn't disturb at all if done properly — it doesn't have to be thick, a subtle shadow will usually suffice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a nice step, but not good enough for practical use. Put the text half on the black lamp, half off, and you get 1/2 invisible text. While interesting, it's not reliably accurate enough to use in any sort of automated fashion.

<comment><USER7> If it implemented some requirements of your choosing with perfect accuracy, how would you go about automating any work other than flipping colors to contrast with background?

I'm not in the graphics design business, but I could only imagine applying that tool manually, in an interactive see-if-it's good environment much like the demonstration.

<comment><USER6> It'd useful for overlaying things on maps, or tagged things in photos etc.

For designers it's not very useful of course.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Didn't seem to do anything. I'm on Chrome 29.0.1547.65.

 __Edit __: I tried again, this time releasing the elements. It sounded like it should be live updating as I 'm dragging in the description, but it's only when you DROP the elements, not DRAG the elements.

</comment><comment><USER9> I would do it in RGB space. Run kmeans to get a set of Voronoi cell centroids, 5-6 should be good. Then take the Delaunay triangulation of that and pick a color midpoint between Voronoi neighbors that maximizes the distance sum from all the Voronoi generator points.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Delaunay_Voronoi.svg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Delaunay_Voronoi.svg)

[2] [http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/isu/reu_2001/voronoi_pap...](http://people.sc.fsu.edu/~jburkardt/isu/reu_2001/voronoi_paper/voronoi.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER10> So, I'd propose a modification to handle text:

Color is part of the battle, but the real killer is having things of roughly the same frequency behind the text--that is to say, having fine lines and detail of about the same resolution as the letters of the text. That seems to be what makes it harder to pick out words.

So, if you could maybe do a 2D FFT or DCT on the area the text would take up, and if the frequencies you find are beyond a certain threshold, add a background color for the text, maybe opacity based on how close in frequency or harmonics the image is to the text.

</comment><comment><USER11> This is cool but I think the best general solution is bordered text. You can see some edge cases where this solution fails for half the text, like the edge between dark and light on the tub.

</comment><comment><USER12> It appears this script uses the Canvas element to determine the colour to make the overlaying text or element. It might be worth noting in the README that for images to work being loaded from a CDN like Amazon Cloudfront or Amazon S3 that the header access-control-allow-origin needs to be set to _. So like-so: access-control-allow-origin:_ — otherwise your Canvas is tainted and you can't get the image data out of it due to security restrictions...

</comment><comment><USER13> This is cool, but I found a small defect. If you drag the dot over the images while they are loading, the color change doesn't take place. It might be necessary to call your function after images have been loaded on your demo page.

</comment><comment><USER14> Hehe, nice. I tried to put the small dot on the big one, both had the same dark hue, so I guess it works only on background, not on other placed elements, right?

</comment><comment><USER15> [http://imgur.com/pQjoQ](http://imgur.com/pQjoQ) White text with black outline can be read on any color.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is a pretty cool concept, but it still needs a bit of work. While I agree with black borders around the text, I think it seems to meme-like. Maybe work on getting a shadow around the text when it is over multiple colours (e.g. the third picture near the concentration of lights). Other than that, it's a great concept, and I'd love to use it.

</comment><comment><USER17> Fun idea, but poor execution. Why would you sample an area 4x or more unrelated to the data at hand? You should calculate the tightest bounding-box for your object and then apply the code, or just hit-test the non-transparant part of the current element, because you can still overlay items white on white, as long as the parts around it are dark enough.

</comment><comment><USER18> This reminds me of Kevin Hale's post on Calculating Color Contrast for Legible Text:

[http://www.particletree.com/notebook/calculating-color- contr...](http://www.particletree.com/notebook/calculating-color-contrast-for- legible-text/)

</comment><comment><USER19> Its good. I kept small drop overlapped on big drop on first picture. Finally, I saw on black drop only. Is should show black drop with white drop at center right?

</comment><comment><USER20> Elements won't drag Firefox 23.0.1

<comment><USER21> It worked fine for me with Firefox 23.0.1 on OSX.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Your demo does not work at all on mobile. I suggest you try pep.JS for drag and drop.

</comment><comment><USER23> Elements don't drag from where I click. They seem to snap.</comment>