How to Succeed as an Introvert - <AUTHOR> http://h30565.www3.hp.com/t5/Feature-Articles/How-to-Succeed-as-an-Introvert/ba-p/1522 <comment><USER2> As an introvert repeatedly flummoxed and exhausted by office politics in the earliest stages of my career, I very nearly resigned myself to always being overlooked. I didn't have the emotional energy to be schmoozing, wheeling, and dealing; I'd much rather have invested that same time and energy in learning, growing, and producing great work. Consciously, I realized that I was taking the sucker's bet -- that the schmoozers and bullshitters would always rise to the top, and that I'd be stuck in second gear. And so I came to adopt a mentality of learned helplessness: an overreliance on the hope that, someday, somehow, my ship would come in. I'd be recognized. My great work would produce outsized results, and all of my quiet toiling would be vindicated.

That day never came. What came, instead, was an eye-opening reversal. I had a very candid conversation with my boss about why I wasn't on track for promotion, despite a long string of big wins, and a consistent track record well above the expectations of my pay grade. And he told me that "Nobody outside of our group knows what you're working on." Note that he _didn't_ tell me that I wasn't bullshitting or schmoozing hard enough. Rather, he told me that I was basically invisible to a large portion of the company. Maybe it's just the way I'm wired, but this was a nonobvious and nontrivial revelation to me. I suspect it may be for a lot of introverts.

To overcome this barrier, I adopted the "win a few key allies" strategy, as loosely advocated in the interview. I knew I wasn't going to be a world-class bullshitter. So, rather than try to bullshit clumsily and more frequently, I opted to find people in positions of power who were known to have similarly low tolerances for bullshit. And I volunteered to help these people. I made it my mission to knock it out of the park for them -- and, in so doing, to become known as the "no bullshit" guy who really delivered.

To this day, it's not all blue skies and roses. Even as a known commodity at your firm, you're still going to get lapped by the extroverts. But as an introvert, you really _do_ have to step outside of your comfort zone if you want to advance your career. You don't have to out-BS the BSers, but you have to consciously devote time to getting noticed _and_ staying noticed. Never assume that good work will get noticed on its own. If a tree falls in the woods, and no one's around to hear it, _it doesn't matter_ if it makes a sound.

<comment><USER3> Your boss should be fighting to make you recognized. That's a big part of his job. If he isn't making that effort, and if he isn't helping you find opportunities to be noticed, then you should look for a new boss who will.

If course, if you ARE a manager, then you should bang the drum for your best employees if you want them to be happy and continue to contribute.

<comment><USER4> In a smaller company, couldn't it be against your boss's interest?

<comment><USER5> Could easily be against your boss's best interests, or at least what your boss thinks is their best interests, in a large company, too. That's the hole I'm currently trying to fight out from.

<comment><USER6> I don't see how it's in a manager's interest to not promote good work that their team members are doing. If your manager says to his/her superiors things like, "look at the talent that's thriving under my leadership", that's a good thing for everyone.

<comment><USER7> Examples that come to my mind, would be the risk that the employee gets promoted over the boss, or alternately, that the employee is poached and shifted out of the group by a different group boss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would imagine the readership of HN is over represented by 'successful' 'introverts'.

I am not rich, but I am reasonably happy and by pretty much any reasonable measure have a 'successful' life. At 29 y/o I command an hourly wage that puts me in something like the top .05% of humanity, I have a gf I love, etc.

And, I am an introvert. I am _also_ a tiny bit shy with folks I don't know.

I think my ability to navigate a loud, look-at-me world comes chiefly from self awareness and really just NGAF.

Put in a high-schoolesque way; the key to being a succesful introvert is by coming across as mysterious rather than boring. There can be an inherent urge to justify ones actions when confronted with things like 'why are you so quiet.. or you havent said much over there..'.

The difference between blubbering and trying to defend yourself with excuses and calmly showing your palms, or saying 'im just listening' is the difference between someone who knows who they are and someone who doesn't.

I think really though the title of this submission/article is generally implying something that isn't so true: that it is particularly difficult to succeed as an introvert. The advice for an introvert is really the same as an extrovert: do what you are good at and what you like to do; and don't spend so much time and effort on things you don't like.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't really like the article. It seems to cultivate the mindset that introverts are somehow disabled or lesser than extroverts in social situations, which obviously isn't true: otherwise, how could we have had any introverted presidents? (I'd argue to be the president, you have to have quite a bit of social finesse.) The reality is that introverts are not incapable of dealing with social situations and don't really need advice on how to "tackle" group situations, as one of the questions implies. As an aside, that question is what inspired me to write this response, because I found it very offending that an introvert would need 'tips' on how to tackle a group situation.

For instance, I am extremely introverted. When I am in a group situation (especially in a position of leadership), it's not that I balk at the contact with others or have difficulty interacting socially. Instead, I am very quiet and much less chatty than the rest of the group because I am listening very intently and analyzing what they are saying. The net effect is that when I do actually start to speak up, everyone else listens because they have a pretty good idea that what I'm going to say is going to be relevant and/or interesting, at least hopefully.

What this boils down to is a different style of management. I'm only in college, but my experience so far is that extroverted 'leaders' tend to guide discussion through conversation and heavy interaction. As an introvert, my approach is quite a bit different: I try to let the discussion happen organically and guide it through questioning/assent if it's absolutely necessary. And if I hear an idea I really like but feel like the person explaining it hasn't done it justice, I'll agree with it and try to add some more reasons. In other words, I only intervene when I feel like it's _actually necessary_ , and that means that when I do talk, people tend to listen more, as a general rule.

I don't really know what method is better, and like I said, I'm only in college so I don't claim to be some manager with a few decades of experiences by any means.

Beyond the manager scenario, typical social interactions aren't much different for me. The real difference that I prefer downtime between big social events, whereas it seems to me that extroverts don't like that downtime. But most of that is based on my trying to classify my friends as introverted/extroverted and looking at their behavior; i.e., this reply is mostly anecdotal.

(I'm also not sure introversion/extroversion is so black and white, which most people tend to treat it as.)

<comment><USER10> You're right, there's nothing black and white about this introvert/extrovert business.

At one extreme, there are highly extroverted people who simply can't imagine not interacting with hundreds of people on a regular basis. At the other extreme, there are people who actually suffer a medical condition known as autistic spectrum disorder (which itself contains a large gradient). Everything in between is a gradient. Psychiatrists still have no idea how to distinguish a person with mild Asperger's from a person who is simply introverted.

This, of course, doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with taking a slice of the gradient and analyzing the hell out of it. Writing about a complicated topic always involves a certain amount of simplification and drawing lines where it's actually quite blurry. I've read articles that do this job much better than the link does, but this one isn't the worst, either.

<comment><USER11> "Psychiatrists still have no idea how to distinguish a person with mild Asperger's from a person who is simply introverted."

Classic rule of logical argument: Two things which are equal to one thing are equal to each other.

Or rather: If "Introversion" and High Functioning Autism (HFA) both essentially meet the DSM guidelines for diagnosis, what difference is there besides how pop psychology abuses the concept?

<comment><USER12> I think the way to treat them. There are tons of illnesses or syndromes out there that have similar symptoms. Take stomach pain for example, or flu-like symptoms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I applied for a job that had one of those idiotic 'personality tests'. They could have boiled it down to one question: Introvert or not.

I was told they thought I scored too low to consider. For some reason I had decided to answer honestly instead of the choice they were obviously looking for. One question in particular annoyed me was something along the lines of when not at work do prefer to be in a crowd of people or at home. What does not at work have to do with anything work related?

<comment><USER14> If a company seriously uses such tests to select hires, you're probably better off not working for them. Personality and "cultural fit" are important aspects (for some jobs more than others), but a much better way to assess those is to spend an hour talking to the potential employee; _not_ through some standardized test.

I've also heard that some companies still use graphology in their screening process (though this may be just an urban myth).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Introversion means you charge energy by being alone and enjoying your own company, and you discharge when you spend time with others. Extraversion is the opposite.

Introverts can exhibit extraverted behaviour, just like extraverts can exhibit introverted behaviour. It's just more taxing and the key is to balance between charging vs. discharging so that you won't run out of juice.

</comment><comment><USER16> _Deep-thinking, sensitive and publicity-shy, introverts_.

Sensitive and publicity-shy is NOT introversion! Screw this, I give up. From now on "introvert" means shy and other social problems.

<comment><USER17> So, shyness is a social problem now?

<comment><USER18> Well if you're shy enough it will stymie your social life. Also it has nothing to do with introversion.

But I think the OP's point is that "introvert" now means anyone who could be either, shy, or socially anxious, or any number of other things.

I remember not that long ago the on-line geeky community embraced Asperger syndrome as an excuse for lacking social skills, or being socially anxious, or forever alone, etc. People who clearly did not have it claimed they had a "light" version of it. Other people called them on it, fortunately that meme did not sick.

But the all my social awkwardness is due to me being an introvert (when in fact you could very well be an social super awkward extrovert) meme is sticking.

That's too bad for those who are not socially awkward at all, but are introverts. But oh well. We just need to invent a new term which will not be co-opted by every shy and socially rough extrovert who thinks she's an introvert because he doesn't have enough friends or enough recognition at work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Don't waste time worrying about how to succeed as an introvert. You'll find examples of successful communicators, entrepreneurs, leaders, and CEOs that are all introverts. I would write more about examples and experience, but back to point #1. Don't waste time worrying about how to succeed as an introvert.

</comment><comment><USER12> I am a bit wary of the introvert/extrovert labeling, but have bought the bought and decided to read through it. Playing the game, I'd say I'm an introvert, and to be honest, the cool thing about this is realizing that all I really need is time for myself. It doesn't really matter what happens or what the circumstances are, as long as I have a book or a computer or a pencil I'm pretty much happy in my own little bubble.

Because I used to love sharing what I discovered in that little bubble so much, I went through a phase where I learned public speaking, and also connecting to people. I usually do this one and one, but find it very easy to establish deep connections by actually cutting through the "bullshit". I then started a company, and had to put myself out there quite a bit more. Having had no real experience of social contacts before though (except these connections with I have to admit people pretty much far out there), I went far overboard, which came back to bite me. I think that is the biggest issue with all the "introversion" (not really thinking about reaching out to other people, maybe even not really thinking about myself as a person nor other people at all). I have no real concept of emotions, of how people could react, that people can do things that hurt, that you can do things that hurt other people, etc... I am now 30, I still believe that people are fundamentally good, but I see the shades of gray in their actions. That's stuff that more "extrovert" people probably learn at age 15.

The older I get the more I realize that I actually need social contact, at least a few times a week. And I'm definitely struggling with that very much. After that "getting out there thing", and running into a few quite hurtful things, I completely lashed out to the other side, going back to my hacking and art and what not, but actually actively destroying everything I produce (unless it's for a client) so that other people won't notice, and I don't feel the need to talk about it. It's a hard habit to get out from. And I still don't actually know if it would be better for other people to notice, or if being the submarine in a society where most people you notice are actively craving for recognition. Recognition feels empty, while being happy on your own is much more rewarding.

I hope that this book (it may be nicely written and founded, or just another substanceless self-help book) will instill a small spark of self-confidence by just putting a label on my behaviour. That never hurts.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's fitting that a story that hit the front page on Hacker News about introverts has no comments. </meta>

<comment><USER21> I sense a certain disdain from much of the HN community for introvert/extrovert pop theory. They're all too frequently reduced to meaningless buzzwords.

<comment><USER22> My general rule of thumb is that any thing which talks about a Big Five personality trait (like Extraversion, in this case) but does not cite any studies is not worth reading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If someone is looking for a more detailed set of "labels" then check out Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Take a test here: <http://similarminds.com/personality_tests.html> and searching for your "type", judge for yourself if the advice given could advance you.

As discussed before on HN, the readership here is skewed towards INTP/INTJ compared to a general population (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1675197>).

</comment><comment><USER24> I really dislike that whole idea of an intro/extrovert dualism. I don't consider myself one or the other. Most people who know me would probably describe me as introverted, but I don't have any problem letting myself be heard or taking leadership of a situation if it's needed. So I just plain find that those labels don't fit me very well and I somehow find it implausible that I should be a unique snowflake, a statistical outlier.

</comment><comment><USER25> There are 2 phases in your life, and a third one if you are really lucky. During the first phase you will care what others think of you (and you will be a puppet); most people were born and will die here. Extroverts live there. During the second phase, you will ask yourself "what is the fucking point", then you won't give a fuck what most people think. Some introverts make it there. I'll skip the third phase.

<comment><USER26> Gotta disagree with your statement that extroverts all care about what people think of them. Just because someone is outgoing and energized by interpersonal interactions, it doesn't automatically mean they're a mindless slave to other people's opinions and social conventions. It's just a negative stereotype, and comes across as a bit bitter and "Us vs. Them"

The implied positive stereotype about introverts isn't necessarily true either, that they're all independent thinkers and unshackled from social trivialities.

<comment><USER25> _Some introverts make it there_. Some, not most. As for extroverts, I stand by my statement. They just need others too much in order to keep up. With that kind of mind set, it is hard to get near emotional independence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Author should consider writing "how to get traffic by posting your blog to social news sites" article.

[http://h30565.www3.hp.com/t5/user/v1/viewprofilepage/user- id...](http://h30565.www3.hp.com/t5/user/v1/viewprofilepage/user-id/23)

<comment><USER28> Joshu, I'm not sure what exactly you're complaining about. The person who posted the link is not the same person who wrote it. They just happen to work at the same site with oh 50 or 60 other writers. But even if the author had promoted her own story, so what? I can tell you that as a writer, I promote my own work on social sites because being read is a goal of mine and also because page views make my editors happy and keep me working. I make no apologies for that. It's actually part of what any good writer should be doing. After I publish a post I usually spend a good 20-30 minutes promoting it on social sites--so people know it's there and actually read it.

<comment><USER27> self-promoters have awfully mixed reasons for promoting their own stuff. this leads to problems.

\- they are free-riding, not helping the community. notice that OP doesn't really post things they are not involved with. i notice you do the same.

\- they do not disclose it is self-authored.

\- the behavior is often looked down-upon by communities. i certainly feel bad about doing it.

\- when authors are chasing pageviews and not reputation they are often submitting everything rather than attempting to curate good stuff.

\- there's an incredibly fine line between this and spam.

when someone submits something that they found, they are saying "this is good."

when someome submits something that they wrote, they are saying something subtly different: "please look at this"

it's forgivable when they are part of the community, because at least they know what the community is about. i notice that your first comment on this site is about self-posting.

you are unapologetic about submitting your stuff but the vast majority gets zero upvotes. wrong audience, probably.

<comment><USER28> joshu, The fact is that the writer of this post and the person who posted were two different people, so regardless of what you think of self-promotion, it simply wasn't relevant in this instance.

<comment><USER27> the submitter works for the submitted blog, thus it is not completely irrelevant.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the submitter. I'll write a little of what I know.

joshu, you wrote, "notice that OP doesn't really post things they are not involved with". In this case, I think you intend me when you write, "OP". At this point, <http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=hn12> seems to tally sixteen items I've submitted to HN. The first fifteen were to pieces I'd written: the tiny minority of all I'd written in the past couple of years that I thought would particularly interest HN, but certainly related to me. The sixteenth, and most recent item, was the one which spawned this thread. In my mind, I had nothing to do with the piece on introversion, and know nothing about the author, but it's true that I write sporadically for the same site.

I submit rarely to HN in part because I don't understand it. While I scan it, I don't feel familiar enough with its ethos even to qualify myself as a lurker. I frequently post--mostly pieces I have _not_ written--to Reddit, DZone, Stackoverflow, and so on, because I am far more comfortable with what "works" there.

My main personal conclusion from my submission is that I'm surprised-- astounded, even--and pleased with the quality of the comments that have followed. I've found them more meaningful, in aggregate, than those for any other submission I've read in HN. This encourages me to believe that there must be much more to HN than I've found, and I simply need to approach it some different way.

joshu, in a nearby comment you suggested I "disclose". Please provide detail: how do you recommend I have submitted the article on introversion?

joshu, in a nearby comment you write about "chasing pageviews and not reputation". When I posted the piece on introversion, I was "chasing" neither pageviews NOR reputation; as I've suggested above, I understand the latter only dimly. I thought the article would interest HN readers.

I underline: rsmiller, hn12, and the author of the introversion piece are three different people. I suspect the three of us have never met each other, although of course I'm in no position to be certain of the other two.

I'm unsure what you mean, joshu, by "the submittor works for the submitted blog". I occasionally write for the HPIO site. It's possible I'll never do so again; I certainly am not an employee or otherwise related to HPIO with a duty to submit articles from the site to HN.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Extrovery & Introverts compliment each other extremely well. Imagine if Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak where both introverts.... or if they were both extroverts. That tandem would have never played out as well.

</comment><comment><USER30> The truth....Extroverts are consistently chosen as leaders.

There is no way around it, from the numbers. That doesn't make them better or worse.

We all have our part to play.

<comment><USER31> Dear me, how patronizing.

The reason, by the way, that leadership is often correlated with extroversion is more to do with American ideals of the perfect citizen since about the time of Dale Carnegie than due to any actual results.

In fact many successful CEOs are introverts, because deep critical thinking and mediation tend to be useful qualities, surprisingly enough.

Not in finance though. And the world of finance has had a smooth ride, alright.

<comment><USER30> Actually think it has more to do with the fact that extroverted people are more persuasive and generally voice their opinions more. Some of it is just in the numbers...if you know more people you have a strategic advantage of more opportunities.

Oh yeah....It's not an American concept????

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I don't understand these articles. Introvert does NOT mean that you're incapable of communicating well or being friendly. I pride myself on communication skills, yet I can go weeks at a time without any human interaction and prefer to work in conditions that are mocked by others as a "cave". These things have not prevented me from having good relationships with clients and/or colleagues.

As for jonnathanson's comment, frankly it doesn't sound like an introvert issue, it sounds like a basic communication issue. If no one knows what you're doing and you don't take the time to let others understand your accomplishments (even just an email to the team "Hey, I got X,Y,Z done and a proposal for W", what are they supposed to do exactly?

<comment><USER33> I'm with you on the communication issue. After all, no one is 100% introverted. That term has also become misunderstood and misused.

Additionally, there tend to be other negative qualities associated with introverts. Just as there are negative qualities for extroverts.

One thing I did recently that's helped me deal with being an 'introvert' was to take improv comedy classes. It's helped me significantly to overcome shyness and communicating with people.

Communicating is a like a muscle, you need to step out of your comfort zone and just do it. Staying in the 'cave' too much at a time isn't good. It's sorta like atrophy. Just go out once a week and socialize or go to lunch with a co-worker.

<comment><USER34> "I'm with you on the communication issue. After all, no one is 100% introverted. That term has also become misunderstood and misused."

Yet you still seem to think that introversion and communication skills have something to do with each other ('after all ---'). I don't think this is true. The fundamental difference between introversion and extraversion appears to be how people 'spend' energy and how they 'gain' energy.

For example, I'm probably as introverted as they come. Yet in social situations I seem like an 'extraverted' person, because when I'm with people, I like to talk quite a bit, have some social chatter, all that stuff. But this can tire me. And then there are months when I don't go out and socialize, simply because I'm tired and like to be alone with my thoughts. None of this has much to do with skills of any kind.</comment></comment></comment>


PolicyInPractice is hiring full-stack JavaScript developers in London - <AUTHOR> http://policyinpractice.co.uk/about/jobs/ <comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.weloveangular.com/jobs/senior-javascript-full- st...](https://www.weloveangular.com/jobs/senior-javascript-full-stack- lead-5755553334689792)

Policy in Practice is an award-winning, socially focused start-up company. Our mission is to reduce poverty. We do this by making the welfare system easier to navigate.

We're experiencing rapid ongoing demand for our services and are hiring a Senior JS Full Stack Developer to work alongside our growing team. The role offers the opportunity to have a high degree of influence over our product development and transition to CTO over time for the right candidate, building your own successful team around you.</comment>


Visual Information Theory (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://colah.github.io/posts/2015-09-Visual-Information/ <comment><USER2> Love this article. It makes statistics enjoyable and accessible. Most of Olah's old stuff is also really good, especially the one on manifolds and neural networks [1]

[1] [https://colah.github.io/posts/2014-03-NN-Manifolds- Topology/](https://colah.github.io/posts/2014-03-NN-Manifolds-Topology/)

<comment><USER3> You might like to check distill [1], it's a journal with a limited amount of content for now, but of very high quality, and C. Olah is one of the editor.

[1] [https://distill.pub/](https://distill.pub/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice post: author has good communication / teaching style, and firm grasp of the material. The visuals help make some of the concepts more intuitive. Bookmarked.

<comment><USER5> On an unrelated tangent, the way the page formats when printing is one of the best I've seen. No weird navigation cruft, and it seems there's even a style defined that sets book-style margins, such that the left and right margins alternate in length.

<comment><USER6> Thanks! This particular article went through pretty extensive feedback with colleagues where I'd print the article out, share it, and get hand written feedback. This necessitated investing in print formatting. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Love how the probability distributions are presented. I wish those diagrams were in the material when I was first learning probability. Would have communicated the concepts so much faster and easier.

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice article. For those who are more interested in mosaic plots, statisticians have already done a lot of work on this issue. For R there are many nice solutions, e.g. the strucplot framework which allows to visualize complicated relationships between multiple qualitative variables ([https://www.jstatsoft.org/article/view/v017i03](https://www.jstatsoft.org/article/view/v017i03)).

</comment><comment><USER9> Love this blog post!

One minor nitpick: the event that it rains next week is probably rather correlated with the event that it rains this week (in particular it's correlated with the season), so I don't think this is a great example of independent variables. Maybe you can separate by distance: the event that you wear t-shirt vs the event that it rains in city Y vs the event that it rains in city Z.

</comment><comment><USER10> The referenced 1948 paper was recently cited by Max Hodak at the presentation of Neuralink recently. Pretty amazing piece of work!

<comment><USER11> There's a followup on properties of English which is also good fun: [https://www.princeton.edu/~wbialek/rome/refs/shannon_51.pdf](https://www.princeton.edu/~wbialek/rome/refs/shannon_51.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The visual presentation in this article is very similar with how small children are taught the theorems of multiplication and distributivity and simple series sums like triangle numbers.

</comment><comment><USER13> previous submission

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10388799](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10388799)

</comment><comment><USER14> This visualization is also very useful when trying to understand Bayes' theorem.

</comment><comment><USER15> bookmarked</comment>


Why Are Dead People Liking Stuff On Facebook? - <AUTHOR> http://readwrite.com/2012/12/11/why-are-dead-people-liking-stuff-on-facebook?&_suid=138946827943808378137878607959#awesm=~osFJG6wCqCHhbJ

<comment><AUTHOR> In my opinion this is result of Facebook's focus on gathering information and capitalizing on it, which turned attention away from data quality and product (ads) quality.</comment>


Shebang Quine - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/geon/shebang-abuse/blob/master/quine <comment><USER2> Here's my favorite one ever...

[http://aem1k.com/world/](http://aem1k.com/world/)

<comment><USER3> This one is also amazing.

[https://github.com/mame/quine-relay](https://github.com/mame/quine-relay)

<comment><USER4> I remember when this one was released and we were passing the link around on e-mail threads in the office. It's pretty amazing and insane.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is this technically a quine though?

In any other language, a program that opens and prints file containing its own source code is not considered a quine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hmm, when we speak of quining, we ask "How in X programming language, do we write a program that outputs it's own text".

But in what language is this "program" written?

The best I can guess is that the unix shebang hack/convention is a (very, very minimal) language all of its own.

<comment> maze-le I is not 'exactly' a quine, because the tool 'cat' is a program on its own, and not a shell command. Still, it is an entertaining and unexpected outcome.

<comment><USER6> I'm curious to know where the line of a "program" goes. I imagine a OS without file system, but only with functions (like as if emacs was an OS). Would a function then be called a program?

<comment> maze-le Well, if your EmacsOS allocates exclusive adress-space for the function-call, so that it can be executed in a very own execution context, independent of other function-calls... then you could call it a program.

<comment><USER7> In that definition, it seems like DOS OSes never had programs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If anyone's curious, I wrote a blog post a while ago on how to write programs that obtain their own source code: [http://malisper.me/2016/04/20/writing- self-referential-progr...](http://malisper.me/2016/04/20/writing-self- referential-programs/)

</comment><comment><USER9> A more philosophical shebang that I like is

       #!/bin/rm

</comment><comment><USER10> Very fun.

For those who are puzzled by the term "quine": [http://meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/4877/what-c...](http://meta.codegolf.stackexchange.com/questions/4877/what- counts-as-a-proper-quine)

</comment><comment><USER11> I like the fact that #!/proc/self/exe causes the interpreter to be the calling program (since the interpreter is evaluated in the context of the calling program, from the kernel).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was thinking of unorthodox uses for the shebang, and realized cat gives you a very succinct quine.

Any other funny commands? ls -l is cool too.

<comment><USER12>
      #!/bin/rm
      #!/sbin/md5
      #!/usr/bin/file
      #!/usr/bin/du -h

And yet another quine:

      #!./quine
      cat $0

Edit: I was not sure about #!/sbin/poweroff, and I cannot try now, so removed.

<comment><USER11> I'm fairly sure `#!./quine` will cause an error because there's a limit of 5 recursive checks to find the interpreter of a script (fs/binfmt_script.c).

<comment><USER12> Ran it, works. I'm on freebsd 10.3 BTW.

<comment><USER11> On Linux you get ELOOP. How does that resolution even work on FreeBSD? Why does it resolve to $SHELL (the file resolves to itself).

<comment><USER12> execve(2) on my machine defines ELOOP lie this: _Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname._

Refer to sys/kern/imgact_shell.c and ^do_execve in sys/kern/kern_exec.c, I skimmed but could not find why it ran.

<comment><USER11> Presumably then, whatever shell you're using decides to just execute the code as a subshell rather than use execve(2). Can you dtrace it to figure out whether it actually calls execve(2)?

<comment><USER12> After running dtrace as

      $ sudo dtrace -n 'syscall::execve*:entry { printf("%s %s", execname, copyinstr(arg0)); }'

I had this output

        0  51617                     execve:entry sh ./quine
        1  51617                     execve:entry sh /bin/sh
        1  51617                     execve:entry sh /bin/cat

Altho this is the first time I use dtrace. I can try to run another command you can ask me to.

My login shell is the Bourne shell. However I tried bash, csh and tcsh too, it works, so it's probably the system level code that substitutes /bin/sh (maybe because it's my login shell?) to the interpreter.

<comment><USER11> I think shells are doing that. Otherwise you wouldn't see the execve("/bin/sh") syscall entry (it would get silently translated inside the kernel).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is this technically a quine? It uses its own file as an input. I think that may technically disqualify it from quineness.

</comment><comment><USER14> Here's a quine written as an ld linker script:

        TARGET(binary)
        OUTPUT_FORMAT(elf32-i386)
        ENTRY(_start)
        SECTIONS
        {
            . = 2M;
            .text 2M: {
                _start = .;
                BYTE(0xb8); LONG(4)         /* mov $4, %eax */
                BYTE(0xbb); LONG(1)         /* mov $1, %ebx */
                BYTE(0xb9); LONG(data);     /* mov data, %ecx */
                BYTE(0xba); LONG(data_len); /* mov data_len, %edx */
                BYTE(0xcd); BYTE(0x80);     /* int $0x80 */
                BYTE(0xb8); LONG(1)         /* mov $1, %eax */
                BYTE(0x31); BYTE(0xdb);     /* xor %ebx, %ebx */
                BYTE(0xcd); BYTE(0x80);     /* int $0x80 */
                data = .;
                *(.data);
                data_len = ABSOLUTE(. - data);
            }
        }

Building and running it:

        /tmp$ ld -T quine.ld quine.ld -o quine
        /tmp$ ./quine | diff -s quine.ld -
        Files quine.ld and - are identical

</comment><comment><USER15> So if anyone is interested here are some "Elixir" quine attempts: [http://elixirgolf.com/articles/elixir-quine-self- replicating...](http://elixirgolf.com/articles/elixir-quine-self-replicating- program/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Haha treating _cat_ as an interpreter just sends the script on stdin.

<comment><USER17> Actually, sends the name of the script as an argument to cat, not stdin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> First argument in bash is the name of the file. So, this is a quine, since the output of running it is the contents of the script, which is:

#!/bin/cat

[EDIT] as pointed out, I misspoke, and this is false.

<comment><USER19> I don't think bash is involved here?

<comment><USER20> I don't think so either. It's something in the implementation of `execv` I think.

        #include <unistd.h>

        int main() {
            execl("cat-quine", "cat-quine", NULL);
            return 0;
        }

Is sufficient to have this work.

<comment><USER21> An entire generation of programmer has grown up not knowing that this is implemented in the kernel.

<comment><USER11> I remember being surprised by this and then realising, "wait, of course it's in the kernel -- that's so much nicer from a usability and sanity standpoint".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wild monkeys with killer herpes are breeding like crazy in Florida - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/wild-monkeys-with-killer-herpes-are-breeding-like-crazy-in-florida/ <comment><USER2> Don't take this as me wanting it to happen, but what would it take for the decision to be made to kill these monkeys, and who would make it?

Is there a state or federal agency that's ever determined an animal to be a threat to people in an area to the degree that they then tried to wipe it out? Does it matter that the monkeys got put here because some company thought tourists would like them?

<comment><USER3> IMO this is the most pragmatic solution.

Why keep around an invasive species that carries a deadly virus?

<comment><USER4> Because the solution is typically implemented with a bounty program which is known to result in the intentional release of more of the invasive species to collect more rewards.

<comment><USER5> That scenario might have happened with e.g. "wild" hogs, but where are the fraudsters going to get a bunch of non-native monkeys? They aren't available at the local livestock auction...

<comment><USER6> Same. Capture a few and have them breed and collect the reward for the offsprings.

<comment><USER5> How many Floridians would hear about wild animals with horrible deadly diseases and think "I need to start breeding these in my basement"?

<comment><USER7> Based on my visits to my parents down there, and other visits over the years, my tourist slogan for Florida is "The Land of Bad Ideas". You won't see it at Disney World, but seems to me that FL attracts folks that tend to not think things through to their conclusion.

So to answer your question: more than you might think.

<comment><USER5> _...FL attracts folks that tend to not think things through to their conclusion._

Haha yeah they moved to Florida, didn't they?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm actually from that area and recently been back to take the glass bottom boat tour. The monkey's are pretty illusive and usually stay away from humans and live in the Silver Springs state park, which is next to the Ocala national forest (second largest nationally protected forest in the US). I remember the guide telling us only a few people have died from contact. In those cases were reseacher/scientist that had been studying the monkeys and had been urinated on (in the face in one case). The monkey's do bring tourist dollars to a pretty poor economic area.

<comment><USER9> *second largest national forest in Florida.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I live about a mile away from the area where these monkeys like to hang out and go kayaking in Silver River State Park. I always immediately head the other way if I see them. Everyone who frequents the area is warned to avoid them.

The guy who introduced them to the area put them on an island in the middle of Silver River, and they swam away the first day.

</comment><comment><USER11> Non-blogspam source: [https://www.wftv.com/news/local/wild-monkeys-with- herpes-in-...](https://www.wftv.com/news/local/wild-monkeys-with-herpes-in- central-florida-population-on-the-verge-of-doubling/898061214)

<comment><USER12> Do you work for that station? Your source has two ads and a request to send notifications before the fold.

<comment><USER11> Use uBlock Origin to make your life better and eliminate ads. It's the source cited in Ars' article. They added nothing to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Curious to learn more about this herpes variant?

Check out wiki, which has links to some papers.

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

</comment><comment><USER14> It will be interesting to see how they fare against the pythons[1].

[1] _In a new study, researchers found that the voracious appetite of the Burmese python can outpace even the reproductive speed of the marsh rabbit, a small brown bunny that seems to have disappeared from the Everglades National Park._ \-- [https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn- invasiv...](https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-invasive- pythons-eat-rabbits-florida-everglades-20150317-story.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> I might be excessively critical, but I don't like these two sentences in the article:

\- _"... a type of herpes lethal to humans."_

\- _" But in humans, McHV-1 can cause a flu-like illness that can progress..."_

I'm not clear -- is this always lethal (as I understand the first sentence to be) or is there some survival rate (as I understand the second sentence to be). I haven't yet found any clarification on McHV-1 online yet -- anyone know?

[edit: formatting]

<comment><USER16> 80% mortality rate.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I remember reading "Summer of the Monkeys" in elementary school. I guess I didn't understand the level of foreshadowing in that book.

<comment><USER18> Art imitates life or is it life imitates art.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you want to learn more about viruses and (some) of their roles in evolution of species, I recommend you the book "Virolution". (Thanks to the HN commenter that suggested it in a comment I read months ago). This article is an example of one case that the book mention: two species that have diverged recently can "compete" using viruses.

</comment><comment><USER20> "Wild Monkeys With Killer Herpes" is the name of my next movie. Or band.

</comment><comment><USER21> While completely off topic, for some reason in the back of my mind, I had the thought... "just wait until they can talk and develop tools," weak reference to Planet of The Apes.

</comment><comment><USER22> florida is going to be the death of us all.

</comment><comment><USER23> So the zombie apocalypse could be real?

<comment><USER24> They weren't infected by the rage virus

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> They should quit monkeying around so much. ;)</comment>


The Philosophy of Computer Science - <AUTHOR> https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/computer-science/ <comment><USER2> Props to the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, it's perhaps the best general resource on philosophy on the web

<comment><USER3> It's a great example of what an editorialized online encyclopedia can be. Would love to learn about other such resources for other fields.

<comment><USER2> Me too! If anyone has any fantastic niche web encyclopaedia links, link away!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Honest question: is this useful?

<comment><USER5> Absolutely, because it keeps you from wasting time. Computer programming is applied analytic philosophy and unfortunately very few people realize this. For example, if more people knew about the shortcomings of Platonism, we wouldn't be wasting time on idiotic fads like OO patterns.

<comment><USER6> Can you expand on this? To me, Plato seems like a fairly good fit for the computer world. I also think that, from the perspective of analytic philosophy, OO patterns make some kind of sense - since they allow us to clarify problems as being subsets of more general ones.

<comment><USER5> > Can you expand on this? To me, Plato seems like a fairly good fit for the > computer world.

That is exactly the issue - computing is the closest thing we will ever have to Platonic Idealism. You can create simple, elegant, symmetric worlds. Many people instead assume that whatever poorly designed programming language is around at the moment is the be-all, end-all Platonic world that they must inhabit, and then proceed to come up with all kinds of dumb workarounds because the programming language does not model whatever they are trying to express, all the while patting themselves on the back for being clever and creating "abstractions."

OO patterns do not make any kind of sense. There is no "generality" or "abstraction" about Singletons or Factories. They are made-up nonsense terms for ad-hoc techniques people hacked together to work around the problems they had trying to apply certain classes of OO languages to modeling certain kinds of problems in the real world.

So the contrast should be between different philosophic schools - if patterns (and OO inheritance) is like Platonism, what would materialism be? I think DSLs and DDD is a kind of materialist view on computer programming. And DDD's emphasis on clear and precise naming and concepts is very much what analytic philosophy is also concerned with.

<comment><USER6> >OO patterns do not make any kind of sense.

Isn't this a matter of perspective, though? I've been thinking recently that programming languages are kinda like hexidecimal numbers or logarithms - essentially shorthands that allow us to handle stuff the human brain isn't built for. In this sense, object oriented thinking shouldn't be any worse than any other kind of thinking, provided the practitioner finds it useful for making the problem at hand tractable.

I can see there would be two obvious problems with this kind of relativism - if there were performance implications, or maintenance implications. But I don't see OO stuff causing these in and of itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The really interesting philosophies emerge from the trenches and the battles in the field. For example, the most surprising meta-level insights on randomness come from Nassim Taleb's decade-long experience in trading securities. What he writes, is truly striking. The article in the link, however, make no reference to such real-world starting points. It fails to emerge from the very practical. It does not gradually abstract away details in order to arrive at surprising insights at the meta-level. The verifiable path is simply gone. It is much more an example in the art of mediocre teaching. I personally think that it is a useless read.

<comment><USER3> I am completely unfamiliar with Taleb, this is a genuine question - does he have any work that is accepted as academic philosophy? Just hearing coworkers/friends/etc talk about him, I thought he just wrote books for a general audience.

<comment><USER8> Yes. I mean wikipedia answers it for you: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nassim_Nicholas_Taleb)

<comment><USER3> That article provides little to no insight as to how his work has been incorporated within academic philosophy. It does provide a brief "Selection of papers" section, all of them in finance and statistical mechanics, so my original question remains.

The answer might be "his work hasn't really intersected with academic philosophy", that's fine, I'm just curious to hear about it from people who have done more than read a Wikipedia page about him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Gotta say, I've never ever considered "the Ontology of Programs" or "The Epistemological Status of Computer Science" before. I'm trying to keep an open mind here, but I do wonder if some academics are really stretching to justify the latest grant money.

<comment><USER10> > Ontology of programs

The presuppositions of programs or to program

Example: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/0602053v3.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/math/0602053v3.pdf)

> The epistemological status of computer science

Do Neural Nets learn or memorize? What's the difference and how do we know what Neural Nets do?

Example: [https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.05394.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.05394.pdf)

<comment><USER11> Or one of my personal favorites, the Epistemology of Computer Simulations in Science:

[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simulations- science/#EpiC...](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/simulations- science/#EpiComSim)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Portland State offers PhD in Philosophy of Computer Science [https://www.pdx.edu/computer-science/doctor-of-philosophy- in...](https://www.pdx.edu/computer-science/doctor-of-philosophy-in-computer- science)

<comment><USER13> PhD = Doctor of Philosophy

This is just a normal PhD in Computer Science.</comment></comment>


The disappearing file system and the new UI metaphor - <AUTHOR> http://tomasztunguz.com/2011/09/16/the-disappearing-file-system-the-new-ui-metaphor/ <comment><USER3> I'm guessing the author is young and this is their first time through all of this (like most of the posts on HN)...

As with all things in computing, trends are cyclical. First you have big central systems, then distributed systems, then big central ones again.

Same thing goes for UI metaphors. First of all the filesystem is a required part of any OS, and the OS could not exist without it, so it will never go away. The GUI on top may or may not choose to present it. The Newton, original Palm OS, and now IOS take the route of sandboxing the files and the app into the same place, and the user just sees everything as part of that app. Plenty of other OSes don't do this.

Sandboxing has its obvious set of problems, such as the inability to use different apps to access the same data. There might be APIs that allow for certain types of access, but that just not the same thing as allowing anyone to access any type of file.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. I agree things go in waves. I haven't seen the sandboxing reach mass scale success before though. And I think this time it's different (last words, I know). The metaphor is now so popular, it's hard to change.

I hope intents solve the problem of sandboxing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I love the simplicity of iOS, the second you need to do anything remotely complicated your stuck.

If I want to send said Keynote document, Keynote must know about my email program, conversely if I receive a Keynote file my email program must know about Keynote. I have little faith that my daily file handling can be completely abstracted.

<comment><AUTHOR> Android does a good job of this with intents. Google is also bringing this standard to the browser. It's an elegant way to solve this problem

[http://tomasztunguz.com/2011/08/30/liberating-user-data- with...](http://tomasztunguz.com/2011/08/30/liberating-user-data-with- intents/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What is it 2007? An interesting article would draw the comparison between the three waves of filesystem access (command line, desktop, and no-filesystem filesystem) and search. Then we might get an interesting discussion about how search is really just a CLI where none of the commands are published, so a psuedo-CLI. Want to be the next google? figure out the desktop metaphor for search.

<comment><USER6> Slightly tangential, but this is my favourite Gruber article (from 2004 - <USER2> would say he's been going downhill since then): <http://daringfireball.net/2004/06/location_field> \- "The Location field is the new Command Line". The article itself is mainly about the Win32 API (and Spolsky's excellent "How Microsoft lost the API War") but what you said about pseudo-CLIs made me think of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This was described by Cooper in "about face" a long time before iPhone was out. And I was really pleased to see it in real life, at last.</comment>


Show HN: bcal – Storage & general-purpose CLI calculator for programmers - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jarun/bcal <comment><AUTHOR> `bcal` (Byte CALculator) is a REPL CLI utility for storage expression evaluation, unit conversion and address calculation. If you can't calculate the hex address offset for (512 - 16) MiB, or the value when the 43rd bit of a 64-bit address is set mentally, `bcal` is for you.

It has a `bc` mode for general-purpose numerical calculations. Alternatively, it can also invoke `calc` which works better with expressions involving multiple bases.

The latest version 2.2 is released today.

### Features

      - REPL and single execution modes
      - evaluate arithmetic expressions involving storage units
      - perform general purpose calculations (using bc or calc)
      - works with piped input or file redirections
      - convert to IEC/SI standard data storage units
      - interactive mode with the last valid result stored for reuse
      - show the address in bytes
      - show address as LBA:OFFSET
      - convert CHS to LBA and vice versa
      - base conversion to binary, decimal and hex
      - custom sector size, max heads/cylinder and max sectors/track
      - minimal dependencies</comment>


Amazon launches as Junglee in India - <AUTHOR> http://www.junglee.com/ <comment><USER2> "Customers can discover over 1.2 crore products and 14,000 brands..."

I'm honestly curious: Is it prevalent to use units like _lakh_ and _crore_ [1] on Indian English language websites? I would have guessed that Western units like million or hundred thousand would be more common online.

1\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Asian_numbering_system> comes in handy.

<comment><USER3> "Is it prevalent to use units like lakh and crore[1] on Indian English language websites?"

If you are exclusively targeting an Indian audience, then yes it makes sense. Indians calculate salaries, house prices etc in lakhs and (for rich people!) crores. If you _also_ want non Indians to use the site, then you probably need to use "million", "hundred thousand", etc

<comment><USER4> I assume the local languages use 100,000 as a unit, and it is hard to switch units. Chinese uses 10,000 as a unit, so it also makes translation to English difficult.

There are also weird words that Indians use that are Latin rooted words, but uncommon, like "lacuna". I have never met an American that uses that word, nor an Indian that doesn't know what it means.

<comment><USER5> It's probably no worse than the "quatre-vignt-dix" ... 90 in french, literally (4*20)+10... the conversion for those fluent in the language are automatic.

<comment> cgrand-net Well, while peculiar, "quatre-vingt dix" is not a unit: nobody is going to say "4 quatre-vingt dix" for 360.

<comment><USER6> Yes but the _vingt_ for 20 is used as a unit, like the archaic _score_ as in _4-score and 7 years ago_. Nobody said 4 4-score and 10 for 360 either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting.

1998: Amazon acquires price comparison site junglee.com from Indian cofounders (later of kosmix/walmart labs fame).

2012: Amazon launches price comparison site for India called junglee.com

<comment><USER8> Incidentally Peter Norvig was the chief scientist there.

To connect to another recent HN thread: my negotiation with them broke down after they asked for my current salary and I was naive enough to tell them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is hardly amazon. It's merely a product search engine that takes you directly to the product site and shop there. Yikes.

<comment><USER10> Its an amazon product. See their "hiring" page for more obvious proof: <http://www.junglee.com/f/1000604193/ref=footer_hiring>

<comment><USER9> I know it's powered by "Amazon Inc.", but this is not "Amazon, the seamless online shopping portal, entering India". Get it ?

<comment><USER10> It isn't "powered by" Amazon. It is Amazon's own product. Whether or not it is "Amazon for India" is not the argument at hand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Basic kindle is $113 USD in India and $79 in USA ?

[http://www.junglee.com/Kindle-Wi-Fi-6-Ink- Display/dp/B0051QV...](http://www.junglee.com/Kindle-Wi-Fi-6-Ink- Display/dp/B0051QVF7A)

[http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wi-Fi-Ink-Display- Screensavers/...](http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-Wi-Fi-Ink-Display- Screensavers/dp/B0051QVESA)

<comment><USER12> I don't see any mention on the Junglee page of the "special offers" (aka ads pop up on your Kindle when you're not using it) deal. I'm guessing that the potential advertising revenue in India isn't enough to make a big difference, so they don't have that option. This would mean that the $113 Indian Kindle is equivalent to the $109 US Kindle (no advertising).

<comment><USER13> This is correct. It is the same in Australia

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Co-founder and CEO of flipkart on amazon's junglee.com:

"Finally, Amazon has found use for the $250m domain name that they bought 14 years ago"

<comment><USER15> This will kick Flipkart's overpriced ass

(Algorithms on Flipkart)[<http://www.flipkart.com/books/8120340078>] Rs.333

(Algorithms on Junglee)[[http://www.junglee.com/Introduction-Algorithms- Cormen/dp/812...](http://www.junglee.com/Introduction-Algorithms- Cormen/dp/8120340078)] Rs.255

(Steve Jobs on Flipkart)[<http://www.flipkart.com/books/1408703742>] Rs.559

(Steve Jobs on Junglee)[[http://www.junglee.com/Steve-Jobs-Exclusive- Biography/dp/140...](http://www.junglee.com/Steve-Jobs-Exclusive- Biography/dp/1408703742)] Rs.538 (Steve Jobs on IndiaPlaza, found through Junglee)[[http://www.indiaplaza.com/steve-jobs-walter- isaacson/books/9...](http://www.indiaplaza.com/steve-jobs-walter- isaacson/books/9781408703748.htm)] Rs.479

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I presume this is driven by the runaway growth of Flipkart in India right now. Surely Amazon wants to build a footprint so when they have products stocked locally, then can move to a full Amazon.com model with additional sellers also available.

</comment><comment><USER17> In some North Indian dialects, the word Junglee literally means "Crazy Person". Seriously.

When we went with JadoPado (jadopado.com) (which equates to "fatty"), I thought I was going with something funny, but this is on a whole new level :)

<comment><USER18> Not really. Junglee means crazy, but most of the time, it's in a good, fun way. (At least that's what it has been for me.). And I imagine it also fits with the whole "Amazon" thing going on. (Junglee, derived from Jungle.)

<comment><USER19> The literal meaning of Junglee is "wild", not "crazy".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> In case anyone is windering about the name, junglee means "wild" in Hindi.

</comment><comment><USER21> "Customers can discover over 1.2 crore products and 14,000 brands, and purchase items directly from hundreds of retailers including Homeshop18, UniverCell, Hidesign, Gitanjali, The Bombay Store, Fabindia, Bata India Limited, Dabur Uveda, Microsoft India Store, Reebok, and Amazon.com."

Flipkart is a notable exception. Also a simple Steve Jobs biography search did not list Flipkart as a seller. Great for other companies in the space, at least until amazon.in makes an appearance.

</comment><comment><USER22> Why did they not launch as Amazon ?

<comment><USER23> I'm curious about this too. Does Amazon have a bad reputation there? They also seem to mention themselves as little as possible on the site... the Kindle is "made by Kindle" rather than Amazon, etc.

Yeah they've got prominent links in the footer, but it just feels like they've tried to mention themselves as little as they can as you peruse the site.

<comment><USER24> No. Infact, amazon.com get more traffic from India then any other Indian e-commerce site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Disappointed that they won't be selling things themselves. They are probably waiting for Government of India to approve 100% FDI in multibrand retail.

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm not sure about India but here in Pakistan, the word "Junglee" has quite negative connotation attached with it. Unless used for an animal, "junglee" usually refers to an illiterate person with no manners.

<comment><USER27> "Yahoo" has (had?) a similar connotation in the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Its still in beta. and more like a Product Search Engine as of now.

You can see none of Flipkart.com / Letsbuy.com / Infibeam.com (major e-commerce players in India) products/prices being listed there.

</comment><comment><USER29> Very disappointed that they launched as price comparison website! But probably this is just a beta-test they are doing. I know they are huge practitioners of testing and experiments.

</comment><comment><USER30> Note the use of the word "crore" as in "We help you discover over 1.2 crore products."

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

</comment><comment><USER31> Wow, what a great name.

I am so jealous that I didn't register it.

<comment><USER9> [http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1998/08/03/daily1...](http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/1998/08/03/daily10.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> RIP flipkart

<comment><USER3> "RIP Flipkart"

it isn't that simple. Flipkart is aggressive, funded (150 million $ a few days ago), has superlative customer service and (generally) satisfied customers. Meanwhile the law of the land does not allow 100% Foreign Direct Investment in retail, and while that will inevitably change, it will take some time, thus giving Flipkart more competition free runway.

Junglee.com is just a 'dip toe in water' move, trying various things "for free" in a new market (and hence non use of the Amazon trademark).

"Amazon launches Junglee in India" (the original Junglee.com was a comparison site) is a more accurate title than "Amazon launches _as_ Junglee in India". The site is close to useless for anyone actually trying to shop,but it will enable debugging of parts of the logistics chain Amazon is trying to set up.

The 'real' war begins when Amazon.in launches. Junglee is just a sideshow (and everyone knows it)

Eventually,assuming they don't enter into some kind of partnership, there will be a huge fight between Flipkart and Amazon, but it is going to be long and bloody and last at least a couple of years, and will not be a quick knockout.

Amazon's advantages (when it finally starts full operations) - existing client base (I was told that Indian customers spend more on the Amazon website than Flipkart's turnover), the Kindle devices and ecosystem adapted to the local publishing landscape (this will, imo, be huge), better recommendation systems, better payment systems, efficiencies of scale, (better tie ups with foreign publishers and so) better deals for foreign books and products, way deeper pockets.

Flipkart's advantages - (relatively) nimble, speed of decision making (Amazon will likely replicate its middle management heavy organizational structure, and bureaucracy), a satisfied customer base and good will, and a time advantage in working out the kinks in logistics and delivery.

Most importantly, Flipkart is running for their life, where Amazon is running for an extra spoon of dessert. I wouldn't underestimate this factor.

So if I had to bet, I'd bet on Amazon to "win" in the long run, but I would bet only money I am prepared to lose, and it is a very long way from "RIP Flipkart"

<comment><USER33> "Indian customers spend more on the Amazon website than Flipkart's turnover."

Got anything to support that? My experience suggests otherwise.

<comment><USER3> No source I can point to, just something that a friend who works at Amazon told me when we discussed the coming Flipkart vs Amazon war. I don't think Amazon publishes revenue broken down by country. (and even if they do I am not aware of it - I am a hacker, not an Industry/finance analyst :p).

There are some 'figures' here. [http://www.quora.com/What-is-an-estimate-for- revenues-gross-...](http://www.quora.com/What-is-an-estimate-for-revenues- gross-or-net-and-the-number-of-transactions-per-day-on-popular-e-commerce- sites-in-India-Flipkart-Naaptol-etc) According to Mahesh Murthy Flipkart (or did, at some random point in time) Rs 55,00,000 worth of revenue (not profit) a day . That is about 100,000 US $ worth, which equates to about 36 million US $ a year

Again these are all estimates, by hearsay.I don't think anyone except people working at or investing in the companies have solid information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> i wish the amazon i used had such a clean interface.

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm jealous of their clean interface. Amazon is honestly a bit annoying to use due to the density of stuff that feels jumbled. That and their over use of really-super (sorry typograph enthusiasts, I don't know better) over-hinted font text images.</comment>


The Story of Emily and Control - <AUTHOR> http://squid314.livejournal.com/293753.html <comment><USER2> That was a clever and enjoyable story. Almost to the end, where it hinged on a Ouija board being an effective and reliable communication device with the dead. Then the story and all its cleverness broke down. So close.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, I've been wondering what could be an alternative deus ex machina.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if they considered how to isolate the test variables. They seem to be testing if a Ouija board works, and if life is better than death.

</comment><comment><USER4> Scientific method as religion. Eerie story.</comment>


Ask HN: Laptop Recommendation? - <AUTHOR> Ive been using apples (MBP + MB air) for the past decade and i think now its time to bite the bullet and switch to a pc/linux laptop. Don't fancy trawling through crappy websites trying to get the lowdown on the current crop so thought id ask the community here. Anyone any suggestions?<p>- Used for regular office stuff, "light" programming & games like factorio, freeciv<p>- Im a heavy, heavy user, 15 hrs a day<p>- All my laptops are covered in grime, frequently fall would need to be relatively well built<p>- I don't care about weight but I do like nice looking laptop<p>- Prefer 15'' inch screen but can make do with 13''<p>PS alternatively if anyone knows any decent online sources of info to help compare also much appreciated! <comment><USER2> You could try the ThinkPad X200 series. Those things are tanks and are made for work. They're also made to be tinkered with, so you can most Linux/BSD distributions on it. Finally, should anything happen to your computer -- battery dies, screen cracks, etc. -- you can easily find a replacement part on eBay or elsewhere online.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers - will check them out</comment></comment>


Show HN: CodeStories – Bioinformatics education platform and Python summer class - <AUTHOR> https://mycodestories.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone! I'm excited to introduce CodeStories, an education platform for professionals, as well as our first publicly available course, Intermediate Python for Bioinformatics (InPyBio)!

The purpose of InPyBio is to empower all life scientists to analyze and understand their own data. There's a lot more I wanted to say about both CodeStories and InPyBio, but I couldn't fit it in the character limit. I've written it up here instead: [https://mycodestories.com/about/#our_story](https://mycodestories.com/about/#our_story)

I'm going to be monitoring the thread for the next few hours, so please feel free to leave any comments or questions you have. I'm looking forward to seeing what you all think and potentially meeting some of you soon!</comment>


Show HN: GDPR templates to request/erase personal data - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qx3oi27mgtxkqgd/AAB5Me8UT2XA7GVv3wGjH9CYa?dl=0 <comment><USER2> No one's going to delete data without authentication. You could be anyone sending these.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. You can avoid this by sending this request when you are logged in (by copying the message) or by verifying this via an email sent to/from the registered one

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You can also ask for any data they had collected concerning you. This is cost free under GDPR but only the first time you request it.

No authentication shouldn't be a problem, they'll often just respond asking you for authentication.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I have drafted these today - if you have any comments, please tell me, I am happy to develop this further :)

<comment><USER4> As pbarnes_1 said, I'd recommend adding some form of authentication. Perhaps you can instruct the service to send the requester instructions to provide proof that they are the owner of the account.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is record linkage a solved problem? - <AUTHOR> I work in enterprise and there is an incredible amount of replication and de-normalisation across both old and new applications.<p>Is there a tried and tested method to go about matching the records and fixing the duplication? <comment><USER2> This silly (not silly) question could be one of the more interesting to discuss here. I'm sure lots of people think it's solved it because of their (limited) experience.

<comment><USER3> This may be a silly question, but I can see no evidence that you upvoted the submission. If you think the question is potentially of interest, why did you not do so?</comment></comment>


The Tyranny of the Forced Smile - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/jobs/the-tyranny-of-the-forced-smile.html <comment><USER2> Here in the Czech Republic, there is no forced smile. It is not a part of the culture, people generally don't do it, and people here generally see americans (especially americans) as fake, superficial, and insincere.

I'm a bit on the fence about it. Central Europeans, including Czechs are a rather gloomy bunch :-) especially in the winter. Americans are definitely more cheerful, and it is not fake. Ok, sometimes it is but generally speaking Americans are in fact more cheerful and optimistic. Ok, Czechs have five centuries of being conquered and subjugated of course, so let's not draw too many conclusions.

In terms of smiling strangers, well, I'd like a bit more of it than we have here in the Czech Republic (where there is very little)

<comment><USER3> Ha, five centuries! We Slovenians have had 12. From 828 AD to 1991 AD.

But yes, us Slavs are a gloomy bunch. But only on the outside and only to strangers. Particularly Americans. Whenever I'm in the States I commonly get accused of being emotionless and of having a deadpan face. At the same time, I feel everybody I meet there is a clown and I always make sure to tune down their enthusiasm. If an American says something is super awesome and the best thing ever, it's probably kinda okayish.

Anyway, the interesting thing I've found comparing Slavs to Americans is that while Slavs are weary of strangers, they open up much sooner. You can be friends with Americans for months and years, but if you haven't gone to the same kindergarten together, you will never be a true friend. Whereas with Slavs, you could have met at a bar three hours ago, and already you're confessing your deepest darkest secrets to each other and are practically best friends.

Source: having lived in the States for some time

PS: to be fair, most Europeans I've met both in Europe and in the US share this immediately friends trait. So far none of the Americans I've met have, possibly because of The Big City effect.

<comment><USER4> you're european, so you can make instant-friends with europeans quite easily.

i'm american, and i can make instant friends with americans. i did it throughout my 20s when traveling here in the US and overseas. in fact i've done it all over 4 continents now. this doesn't seem to be a racial or cultural trait. some people are friendly, some aren't.

perhaps the fact that you describe yourself as 'gloomy' is the reason americans do not find it easy to befriend you even after a few drinks.

<comment><USER3> > perhaps the fact that you describe yourself as 'gloomy' is the reason > americans do not find it easy to befriend you even after a few drinks.

Funnily, Europeans have started labeling me as too cheery, smiley, and direct. Too American.

And yes, it could well be the sense of common cultural heritage at play here. But Europeans in general don't have _as_ much of a common heritage as Americans do, and we all grew up on American culture anyway. Particularly for everyone growing up in the 90's when American stuff was extremely popular here as we were trying to be less like The Old System (tm) and embrace The Capitalism (tm).

Although there are a lot of differences in observing a culture and actually living it. I'll grant you that.

At the end of the day, this is anecdata. Your mileage may vary.

<comment><USER5> I'm a gloomy American and it's typical for me to make friends with Slavs, but I'm not really a "fast friends" kind of person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am a consultant. I help teams perform better. So I get to travel to a lot of places, work in a lot of organizations, and "start over" with each new gig.

A few years ago I thought I would try something different. I decided that no matter how I felt each day, I was going to smile and be as friendly as possible to everybody I met. At times, walking through the hallways of the new job, I felt like an idiot. But I didn't care. I just smiled and tried to be friendly.

I know that many times I probably smiled and said hello to the same people twice -- as if I had never seen them that day. I know that at times I must have appeared simple-minded. It was a horrible feeling that first week.

Then something strange happened. People started smiling back. I would be working off to the side of a large room, and folks would come over and say hello. People -- I had no idea what their names were or what their jobs were -- would ask me how I was doing.

So I kept the experiment going. After a month, I had some really bad personal news and I know I came in to work very downtrodden. At this point, all of that "fake happiness" I had put in the bank came back to me. The anonymous people I had smiled at? They now made an effort to cheer me up. No effort was required on my part. If I came in upset, within a couple of hours of having other people smile at me, I felt like smiling back at everybody else.

This went on for a few months. It was one of the most enjoyable jobs I've ever had, and when I left, about a dozen people came over and told me that I had done a great job and they would miss me. (I just did my normal job)

Lesson? Smiles are very, very powerful social tools, even if they are forced. They cheer other people up, they cheer you up, and over time they provide some kind of weird social insurance that you can tap into when you're having a bad day. What blew my mind was that the fake part wasn't even important. Simply by trying you got all of the benefits.

</comment><comment><USER7> This Everything2 writeup explains way better than I can what's wrong with passionately loving your job: [http://everything2.com/title/F%25C3%25BCr+sechs+Groschen%252...](http://everything2.com/title/F%25C3%25BCr+sechs+Groschen%252C+Fritz%252C+ist%2527s+heute+genug)

There are limits to duty, but there are no limits to passion, that's why your employer wants you to be passionate about him. Especially in startuplandia. Hint, grasshopper, he is not passionate about you, he views you as a resource to be strip-mined. The personnel department is appropiately called "Human Resources" these days.

It's just this - why do employees internalize the "passion meme" without any trace of cynicism, and why do customers condone the state of affairs?

<comment><USER8> The restaurant business, particular back-of-house, is particular bad in this respect. Working conditions in most kitchens are horrible - long hours, uncomfortable environments, physical demanding, often dangerous and horribly underpaid with few benefits.

But yet, people do it. They know they are getting screwed over, they know they are often destroying their bodies, but they keep on doing it. Because people who want to cook are truly passionate about it. Cooking for someone is an incredible intimate and loving act; one that no amount of corporatism or job function abstraction can dispel.

It is an act in which the symbolism and the functionalism are inseparable. When you are serving food, you are literally nourishing people. You are literally providing the substance they need to survive. You are literally crafting, with your own hands, the matter that will become a literal part of another human being.

Such a primal act naturally stirs a lot of passion, but likewise, as you say, great opportunities for abuse. Most kitchen employees don't make terribly much more than minimum wage. In expensive cities like San Francisco or New York, it's almost impossible to make a living wage. Even in high-end restaurants.

<comment><USER9> Most of the back-of-house employees in restaurant sector have dependency issues, booze and drugs and management is always aware of it. Go in the back lot where they park and you will special plates on more then one car, in my state the plates are all yellow. If the restaurant industry ever drug tested like the drug store chains do they would easily lose sixty-percent of back of the house staff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This article starts to touch on something profound but then mostly skims over an in-depth discussion with reasoning.

At its core, this is really about human social response and compelled social behavior. The article could be about "bitchy resting face" or tipping, or any other form of compelled social niceity and it could delve into the same topics.

People see certain social cues, and they interpret them based on past experience. People who smile at you, and talk in a certain frequency range, and use certain words, must be nice and want to help you. Anyone who owns a business wants all customers to feel that emotion whenever they associate with your business, and implicit social contracts evolve that basically codify that.

It's like "The Game" in some respects. There are certain social cues / responses that most people have internalized so deeply that they're barely aware they respond to them. Most people interpret offhand compliments from a person with apparent detatched interest as intriguing. They interpret questions about them as interest. Easy smiles as confidence. Ect...

With the aforementioned tipping, it's a similar mechanism that reinforces certain behavior in wait staff. In a sense, it's a way that those with money can compel behavior from those that don't. An aspect of the symbolic power that wealth effectively represents.

Anyhow, lunch arrived, so I'm done, and I'll have to make that very choice in a few moments.

</comment><comment><USER11> In the USA, unemployment was elevated for several years, and is only now coming down to reasonable levels. More so, if you lack a college degree (and 74% of the USA population lacks a college degree) then your chance of getting a good job is non-existent. In Europe, the unemployment rate is still elevated in most of the 27 countries in the EU. So what could possibly justify this sentence:

"Admittedly, the dynamism of Western capitalism depends upon people who work with missionary zeal, who refuse to accept that a job is merely a job."

Is it the "the dynamism of Western capitalism" that causes people to pretend to like their job, or is it the scarcity of good jobs, which forces workers to engage in an exaggerated pantomime of missionary zeal?

<comment><USER12> Thanks for an interesting comment.

I wonder if it's true that the unemployment rate is coming down to reasonable levels. As I understand it, the unemployment rate that is typically reported excludes people that have given up looking for work.

I don't know if this is correct, but let's say that you had an economy where there were no jobs available. Precisely none. Over the long term, the unemployment rate would have to drift down to almost zero, as more and more people realized that there were no jobs available and gave up looking for work.

As regards the sentence you ask about, I think I am one of the people that does not look at his work as merely a job. Perhaps it's because I do try to distinguish between my work, my craft, my trade, from the other aspects of who happens to be paying my invoices.

Thoughts?

<comment><USER13> You're right that the official unemployment rate reported by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (U3) excludes "discouraged workers" who have given up looking for work.

However, the BLS also publishes a rate that includes discouraged workers (U4), as well as a rate that includes "marginally attached workers" who would like to work, but for whatever reason have not looked for work recently (U5). All 3 of these have returned to normal levels [1].

There's also the U6 rate, which includes workers who are part-time, but would like to work full-time. [2]

[1] [http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=10Uy](http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=10Uy)

[2] [http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=10UE](http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=10UE)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I made the mistake of studying for and taking the Canadian Border Services exam, where you have to discriminate between fake and real smiles. I got perfect on that section. But now I can't un-see it. Fake smiles. Fake smiles everywhere.

<comment><USER15> Interesting. Does this effect wear down?

<comment><USER14> No

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I remember this director from a Big Company pitching that I join his team after I decided to maybe change jobs. His enthusiasm was insane and eventually I ended up accepting the offer (which was like 20% better than what I got in my old place) and on my 1st day I learned that the guy not only left but went with a bang, too. Having been raised in the Eastern Block I still can't help but wonder how Americans do it.

<comment><USER17> Hi there, comrade. Perhaps Americans are using the same coping mechanism we were using to deal with the exuberant and completely inane "party line". As outsiders, and engineers on top of it, we just don't pick up the inanity cues that everybody else in the room understands instinctively. Kind of like everyone would sing the International at the beginning of the day, or read an omage to the party once a quarter, but think nothing of it other than being happy to be done with a slightly ridiculous but overall insignificant chore.

<comment><USER16> I was born in 1983 so I never experienced much in terms of ideological indoctrination. Before I went to school (aged 7) the communism was over. Before that I only had friendly Soviet soldiers visiting my creche dressed up as Santa Claus and giving us Christmas presents (the irony of that!) but I would blame that for my current tone deafness when it comes to American excitement ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> David Mitchell's customer service rant on QI is particularly on point here.

[http://youtu.be/_LiDTKEF1ek](http://youtu.be/_LiDTKEF1ek)

</comment><comment> chestnut-tree Slight digression, but speaking of fake smiles...I'm reminded of a quiz on the BBC website called Spot the Fake Smile.

There are 20 short clips of people smiling. Can you spot which ones are fake and which ones are genuine? (The test takes about 10 mins)

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/](http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/)

<comment><USER19> I tried to take the test—but the fifth time I pressed "next" it gave me a 404.

The key to faking a real smile is in wrinkling the eyes.

<comment><USER20> > The key to faking a real smile is in wrinkling the eyes.

The wrinkling is not a very reliable indicator of fake smiles [1]. A real smile does indeed involve muscles around the eyes, but wrinkling could be caused by the cheek muscles pushing upward too.

Some more indicators of a real smile are, IIRC \- curling corners of the mouth \- corners of the eye pushing inward \- short duration \- it starts and ends smoothly \- symmetry

[1] Source: Having recently read "Telling Lies" by Paul Ekman (and that was a HN recommendation too)

<comment><USER19> Thank you! I'll keep an eye out for those.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> When I trained as an actor I learned the curious phenomena :

Happiness leads to smiling and smiling leads to happiness.

<comment><USER22> True! On the other hand, being forced to smile leads to unhappiness

<comment><USER21> Anyone that's worked as a waiter / bar-tender knows there's no-one more hated than our beautiful customers.

I door find "Tell us why you're passionate about Supply Chain Management" a curious question (my profession).

"I'm not, I'm interested in it and good at it" is insufficient. Of course, it is one of those interview situation questions to be ready for. Passion comes in many forms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I live in Brazil, and I was born in a bad location in the country. My young ages have been a real pain and I learned not to smile. I started working as a programmer even before getting into college, because I needed money to actually pay the college, and so I have lived a very black and white life for ever. Today, I see that having a nice and beautiful past and present that makes it easy to smile everyday is a more valuable trait to get a job than actually having technical skills. I don't personally like the way it works but, hey, it's the real world.

<comment> ryan-allen If you keep working hard and are good at your work employers and clients will hopefully see past your demeanour.

Some of the most competent people I know come across as grumpy and aloof. They get respect because they know their stuff and care about their work, and that shines through.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Just 13% of people feel passionate about their job (worldwide). In the US the figure is 30%.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/10/10/unhappy- em...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/10/10/unhappy-employees- outnumber-happy-ones-by-two-to-one-worldwide/)

[http://www.ryot.org/gallup-poll-70-americans-disengaged- jobs...](http://www.ryot.org/gallup-poll-70-americans-disengaged-jobs/376177)

<comment><USER25> The per country break down can be found here: [http://www.gallup.com/poll/165269/worldwide-employees- engage...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/165269/worldwide-employees-engaged- work.aspx)

Notably, Syria is at the bottom of the list with 0% of their worker being "actively engaged" in their jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Seems like HN could do well with an introduction to Arlie Hochschild and "The Managed Heart" [http://www.amazon.com/The-Managed-Heart-Commercialization- Fe...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Managed-Heart-Commercialization- Feeling/dp/0520272943).

Here's a bit of the blurb from Amazon:

"In private life, we try to induce or suppress love, envy, and anger through deep acting or "emotion work," just as we manage our outer expressions of feeling through surface acting. In trying to bridge a gap between what we feel and what we "ought" to feel, we take guidance from "feeling rules" about what is owing to others in a given situation. Based on our private mutual understandings of feeling rules, we make a "gift exchange" of acts of emotion management. We bow to each other not simply from the waist, but from the heart.

But what occurs when emotion work, feeling rules, and the gift of exchange are introduced into the public world of work? In search of the answer, Arlie Russell Hochschild closely examines two groups of public-contact workers: flight attendants and bill collectors. The flight attendant's job is to deliver a service and create further demand for it, to enhance the status of the customer and be "nicer than natural." The bill collector's job is to collect on the service, and if necessary, to deflate the status of the customer by being "nastier than natural." Between these extremes, roughly one- third of American men and one-half of American women hold jobs that call for substantial emotional labor. In many of these jobs, they are trained to accept feeling rules and techniques of emotion management that serve the company's commercial purpose."

</comment><comment><USER27> Perhaps the problem is less that it's asked that people love their jobs but more that the question is asked about jobs that it's difficult to see anyone honestly loving.

Do I love my job? Sure. And I'd love any job analogous with it as well.... But I can't say that I've loved or even vaguely enjoyed all the jobs I've had, to do so would have made me a schmuck.

</comment><comment><USER28> I think Jim Carrey pointed one obvious thing about laughing in his hillarious way. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRyYT62VZdY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRyYT62VZdY)

</comment><comment><USER29> I have conducted a few hundred of interviews for software engineers and DBAs in the last three years. I do want to see the passions of the candidates at the professions. It is a big plus in my eyes.

On the other hand, I am not impressed by "unequivocal statement". For seniors positions, I don't ask questions with a fixed answer. I prefer to listen to the candidates's opinions, to analyze the pros and cons of an approach, etc. I consider it low intelligence by any "unequivocal statement" for these questions.

</comment><comment><USER30> We're living in times of fakeness as our modus operandi - fake boobs, fake smiles, fake love skills (Viagra), fake friendliness, fake human rights, fake Eiffel tower (Vegas), fake everything. It's because people today lack class, are abusive materialists and consumerists, and lack any trace of philosophical thinking. And this will not end well!

</comment><comment><USER31> I think that a smile should never be forced, for two reasons.

1\. I want to find people who are genuinely passionate about what they do.

2\. If people are truly unhappy not being o.k with that, and not faking it may bring attention to a problem they or society faces. This may help highlight, and could lead to solutions. Do not go silent.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think he brings up a few good points, but he muddles through the whole article and peppers it with irrelevant things --which make me wonder about his rigor. I mean, what does his "astrological sign" have to do with anything? It's absolutely silly.

In addition, he comes to this from only an American experience. This is not a symptom you only see in the US. It's saccharine in many places. That said, saccharine or not, it does have a purpose as much as any other line of questioning. In other words, passion, love, whatever, while they may or may not be an indicator of how well someone will execute their job --the main purpose of such questions, in my mind, is to see how well prepared you are for something you can expect.

In other words, it's not that they expect a sincere answer or they are trying to torture you and see how you wiggle yourself out, but it's rather to gauge how adept you are at preparation. You know the questions is coming, yet, did you take the preparation to come up with a sensible answer. That is the function of the question.

On the other hand, if we were to take these questions literally, yes, then they are quite silly expectations. I have had them at just about every professional job and they are absurd. But we know it's all part of meta- communication. Do I wish it were simpler and didn't recourse to this style of communication, yes, but I think I understand its function.

On the other hand, I do enjoy people regarding their job as an act. A role to fulfill. When we understand our jobs to be essentially a role to fulfill, it's liberating in a way. It's no longer you, it's your job personae. Compare service workers in Japan and Europe. Which ones deal with their situation better? I believe the Japanese worker has a better understanding of the situation. They put on their persona and take it from there. To see it any other way is to see an actor performing a dark character and feeling bad for the actor. No, to the actor it makes no difference. It's an act.

That said, I've come across very good service workers in Europe as well. They very well understood their function and were happy to play it out.

<comment><USER33> > I think she brings up a few good points, but she

Although the article might feel like it could have been written by a woman, its author Paul Jaskunas is a man.

<comment><USER34> It's interesting to think why it feels like written by a woman, I had the same assumption the whole time.

Maybe it's as simple as the opening sentence, "I'm a Libra", which has a grammatically feminine noun. I wonder if the feeling depends on the native language of the reader.

<comment><USER32> I'm taking up some Italian, but I don't think it has anything to do with it. He could have said Sagittarius of Sagittariuses. No guy I know makes it a point to announce their "astrological sign" in any kind of conversation. Your experience may be different, but that's mine.

As an aside, I think writers should try to stick to their core competencies. This looks like someone trying to write an article around an observation and came up with nebulous reasoning, hoping it would be a fun read for everyone and that people would chalk it up as a social commentary and move on, use it as conversational fodder. (ie. "I read in the NYTimes such and such, ha ha, don't you think it's funny...)

Unfortunately, lots of these writers lack rigor and seem to go with their gut on things. It's the easy way out. It's surely easier to meet deadlines that way, but the product leaves a bit to be desired.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> In one of my sidelines, I'm a freelance musician. Over the years I've learned how to keep a smile on my face, under pretty much any circumstances. This has proven to be a valuable skill in my day job as well.

The smile is more subtle in the workplace -- just a cheerful disposition -- but it's still there. And it helps that I am in fact a generally cheerful person.

As for knowing how to show an appropriate level of passion, I would expect this of a senior level person as well, because they will be interacting with colleagues, customers, etc.

<comment><USER36> An artist friend of mine was mass-defriended on facebook after a vitrirolic angerpost about religion. Everybody there knew his opinion on religion I know for a fact many agreed with him, but they didn't want anger and unpleasantness thrown in their faces. This has undoubtedly affected his ability to get work in the future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I will never succumb to forced indifference!

<comment> ryan-allen Give it a few years, you wont have to force anything!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> "I am a Libra of Libras" \- I could have stopped reading there. "...the interview was over and I was leaving the room. As I shut the door behind me, the committee erupted into laughter" \- of course they did. He probably had just told them that alignment of planets made him suitable for the job.

Relevant SMBC: [http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3634#comic](http://www.smbc- comics.com/?id=3634#comic)

<comment><USER39> In japan they ask you for your blood group on job applications

<comment><USER38> That's odd. At least, they don't ask about astrological signs. I hope that they don't. "I am a Libra of Libras" sounds like "I'm a crackpot of crackpots" to me.

<comment><USER40> That's odd. Your comments in this thread sound like "I'm not intelligent enough to identify a metaphor" to me. Strange how those things work, isn't it?</comment></comment></comment></comment>