How to teach your girlfriend programming - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jakubarnold.cz/how-to-teach-your-girlfriend-programming <comment><USER2> This is kind of like the ways I have helped my boyfriend learn programming except for how it is hopelessly mired in the idea that programmers are guys who have cutely technologically impaired girlfriends.

<comment><USER3> Where exactly is that idea expressed?

EDIT: Fine, if you read into the preface where he talks about his programmer friends I guess they are all male. That's hardly hopelessly mired, it's more like an unfortunate choice of description. I bet the author would assume women programmers feel the exact same way about their partners as well.

<comment><USER4> It's heavily implied in the language of the article. Chances are you're right, and if we asked the author of the article, he might say that: yeah, it works both ways, and this is just his experience.

The problem is that this is an instructional article, and his language excludes the idea of female programmers completely. It doesn't mean he's a horrible person because of it. It's just that this kind of language is still the norm, and it would be great if we could be recognised as equals, and not for us to be expected to assume it in the face of exclusion.

Language is important, because it affects how we perceive one another. So jacalata's comment serves as a polite critisism. Women are people too, and you all know that, but sometimes some folks need to be reminded to reflect that in their language.

<comment><USER3> Outside of that paragraph there is basically no insinuation that women cannot program. The line about rubber-ducking problems with your partner? Not gender- specific unless you've already decided he's sexist.

It's about a specific woman who happens to be a political science student and _learns quite a bit about programming in six months_. I don't see how that implies women are incapable of it, on the contrary it claims the woman in question was quite capable even though she was not in the field. He explicitly mentions that she's a political science student; that's the only reason he had for thinking she'd be unable to do it.

"Teach your girlfriend to program" is obviously meant to be interpreted as "teach your non-programming partner to program" where he uses himself and his girlfriend as the "everyprogrammer" and every(wo)man. If you are going to decide he is sexist and then interpret his use of himself as the programmer to implicitly or explicitly mean only men know how to program, well, that seems to unfairly make assumptions about the intent of the author.

God forbid we claim a political science student might not be able to learn programming if she happens to be a woman.

<comment><USER4> "Teach your girlfriend to program" is obviously meant to be interpreted as "teach your non-programming partner to program"

^ That is exactly what I'm talking about. It may be obvious to you, but from my perspective it's exclusionary. It says this article is not meant for me. Which would be fine if not for the fact that it could absolutely be meant for me, if not for the fact that I'm a woman. Do you see what I mean? It's so hard to hard to convey this shit...

Okay, imagine there's an article called "How to teach your boyfriend to use proper hygiene". And it's written in the same way as this article, with a girl describing her own experience with her non-hygienic boyfriend, and it's written in the same instructional manner, using language that implies (however indirectly) that boyfriends in general are un-hygienic.

Wouldn't you be at least a little annoyed by the assumption? Now, what if you saw shit like that in the vast majority of content you read, online and out in the world? That's what it's like for us; especially those of us women in typically male-dominated professions. It's harder for men to see, because it doesn't affect men, and it's still very socially normative. And when we point it out, men often see it as an attack on all men. And it's not personal. Most folks have the best intentions. But I feel I need to call this shit out when I see it, because awareness invokes change. I try my best not to offend people, but I'm sick of being excluded because of my gender, when my gender make up half the damn population.

Ugh.

<comment><USER3> Other than a poor choice of title I literally cannot understand what is objectionable. But somehow it is as objectionable as claiming all men have poor hygiene?

I also hate that women are excluded from what they want to do because of sexist bullshit. Please if this is actually sexist, point me to the exact parts or wordings that indirectly imply girlfriends in general are incapable of programming, so that I can never write a similar thing.

<comment><USER4> Okay, sure.

It starts with the title. "How to teach your girlfriend programming" immediately tells women that this article isn't for her; it's for her boyfriend, so _he_ can teach her.

The rest of the article regularly enforces this exclusion. He's talking to men.

Almost every time he refers to his girlfriend, he says "my girl", which, in the context of a professional article, is belittling. He says "my girlfriend" twice. Never does he say "my partner", which would have made the article much more inclusive.

"Every one of them told me they don't want a programmer girl, they said they would go crazy. But I call that bullshit. It was just their fear talking."

There is so much wrong with these sentences. Why say "programmer girl"? They are women who don't want to be programmers. Saying it was their fear talking, and calling it bullshit, invalidates these women's legitimate concern for how the people in their lives will view them if they go into this field. Their fear isn't bullshit, the expectations of our society are bullshit (for the record, a lot of expectations made of men are bullshit too).

"What's really everyone thinking is that it is impossible to find a girl who would be good looking, intelligent, interested in programming, and above all else, interested in you, the socially awkward geek. What are the odds of getting all of that?"

This whole paragraph reinforces the fact that the author is speaking only to men. Which would be fine, if not for the fact that this is totally relevant to women as well, with partners of any sex. It's not difficult to tell your own experience, a perspective of your own gender, and relate it to everyone.

"But let me tell you a secret brother, she doesn't need to know all of this stuff. Everything in life can be learned."

Here again. How can you not see this?

"You can explain pointers, manual memory management, stack & heap allocation, garbage collection and much more in just a couple of hours if you chose the right metaphors."

So women can't understand these concepts without metaphors? Come on, man. And yes, he is talking about women, because it is expressed over and over that this article is for men, and it's about their girlfriends.

"But what if you had knives and wanted to teach your girl how to sort them (obviously by size)? You might have to do it two or three times for her to really believe you that it works, but the algorithm itself is stupidly simple."

What the fuck, dude. Sorting knives? The kitchen is aREALLY bad choice of setting for your first example of what a girl might want to program. Oh and don't forget that it might take two or three times for her to believe that you've done it. Sexist.

"It will be easy for her to understand once you find the right metaphor."

Sexist.

"The biggest obstacle here I would say is breaking the I would never understand that fear."

Invalidating, demeaning.

"to make some animations on her personal website that I made."

There is no reason to tell us that he made the website for her. It's a small thing, but it reinforces everything else. Mentioning it in this article is just unprofessional, and makes his girlfriend seem like a bimbo who couldn't do it herself if she tried.

"Basically I'm able to take what I know, extract the important things, throw away the 99.5% of wasted time on figuring out what is important and just teach her what she needs to know."

Her, she. More reinforcement. At this point in the article the author seems like he's trying to impress, and he's doing it at the expense of his girlfriend. He could easily have changed his language to reflect a more sincere and inclusive article. I will illustrate this by editing that paragraph.

"Basically, you want to convey the important information, and avoid the time that would be wasted for someone figuring this out on their own. Teach only what needs to be learned."

Personally, I disagree with his teaching method, but at least now the language is constructive and inclusive.

Look, I could cover the rest, but I have to go to work, and I'm sure you get the point. Remember too that all of this is caked deep in the historical and current context of the exclusion of women. I'm not saying the author is a terrible person for writing this, I'm just pointing out that his language excludes women and implies their technical inferiority.

And so it's sexist.

<comment><USER3> I see now what you are objecting to. Thank you so much for taking the time to write it all out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reading this I'm reminded of Alisdair Gray's "Poor Things" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Things](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Things)

...wherein the narrator believes he has brought a woman to life, Frankenstein- style, and is teaching her about the world, but at the end it turns out that he was a fantasist and Bella is only odd to him because she is a modern independent woman (a suffragette, etc), and he is mired in the past.

</comment><comment><USER6> If the only thing you can talk about is programming, then it is not the girlfriend who has to learn new things.

<comment><USER7> It's not that all he wants to talk about is programming, but he's passionate about it, and isn't it entirely common for people to want mates who share their passions?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> To those saying this post is partly sexist, I think it says more about the prism through which you choose to view the world than anything about the author. This is just a guy and girl that have found themselves in a relationship where one is interested to learn the skills of the other. He's happy and excited to teach her, which is totally understandable. I see no evidence to suggest he feels like he's paternalistically teaching her about the world, rather he's glad he's found a partner he can share his enthusiasm with.

<comment><USER9> It does say something that he doesn't realize his ideas could also apply to relationships where the tech/non-tech roles are reversed; the possibility just didn't occur to him.

Imagine an article about teaching other people how to, I don't know, paint with watercolors, and the author kept assuming his audience was women, teaching their hopefully attractive, fit boyfriends how to do it, even though it might seem like an impossible task.

<comment><USER7> Hey I am a programmer and dating a med student. And the information flow is usually from her to me. I am intensely inept at Medical Science and so I am always eager to learn from from her. I find it fascinating :) and your case with your bf is pretty cool! (And I am sorry but i AM a programmer with a cute technologically-impaired girlfriend :P cant help it)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reminds me of: [http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-mans-intelligence- prob...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-mans-intelligence-probably- just-too-intimidat,33916/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Don't even try to _teach_ anybody anything unless he/she actually wants you to do that. _Teaching_ is completely different from giving somebody idea what you're doing.

Especially try to be aware how many things you "know" as a "professional" are fully irrelevant details about the technologies or methods that are going to be obsolete in very, very short time. Most of the "knowledge" that make you money today is irrelevant even in just a few years. Or I have a lot of lectures about Clipper 5 and CP/M to teach you.

</comment><comment><USER12> A bit too much of a patronizing tone in this article... it even felt quite sexist at some points.

<comment><USER13> Having read the article, I think it would be good for you to quote something out of it that is blatantly sexist. So that your comment doesn't equal a mixed insult to the writer based on a general feeling you had at times.

<comment><USER14> Why is it "teach your girlfriend"? Why does he presume that his audience has a girlfriend who needs to be taught, rather than a boyfriend? You can't say "well he has a girlfriend so he wrote it like that" because he's not talking about him in the title, he's talking about you - he's presuming you have a girlfriend who needs to be taught, and that's sexist. I don't think it's the crime of the century, but I do think less of the guy.

<comment><USER13> Mostly because some other person who happens to be a man and is in a relation with a person that happens to be a woman may feel like teaching her some basic programming and a title that ports this situation to a possible reader elicits a stronger connection. That and "How a humam should teach another human partner how to program" would be very daft. I don't see anywhere in there, where it is stated that a girlfriend needs to be taught. Would it be ok if it was "teach your boyfriend" ? Where are you going with this ? You think that title is sexist because he says he has a girfriend that he will be teaching ?

<comment><USER14> It wouldn't be sexist if he wrote "how I taught my girlfriend to program".

Imagine if it said "how to teach your black friend to program". Why only black friends? Why only girlfriends?

<comment><USER3> There's a difference between girlfriends and black friends. (Hint: are you having a close, _sexual_ relationship with all your black friends?) Therefore it's appropriate to distinguish between your girlfriend versus regular friends. It is not appropriate to distinguish between black friends and your regular friends. If he had written about teaching your female friends to program I would see that as full-on sexist. As it stands you are seeking to be offended and you found something offensive which is unsurprising.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hahahah! You're one lucky guy! I have always known teaching someone programming is pretty simple (I managed to teach simple C++ to my 9-yr-old sister and also to my 74-yr-old Granny). But it was easier to teach them because my sister was too young to have the "I'll never understand that" barrier and my granny just loved the attention i was giving her so she put all her effort into learning what i was teaching her.

So can I teach it to my girlfriend? Probably not. Partially because she's technologically challenged (she's cute that way) and as a medical student she already has tons on her plate.

But I must say I share your dreams of having a girl with whom I could discuss tech stuff the same way i discuss it with my friends

<comment><USER15> I have taught many "technologically challenged" people how to code. They say cute things like

... okay so how do I "compress" this file

... i used that "tag thingie" but its not working

but they still learn it and are able to build websites sometimes even faster then the "technologically exposed".

In general technologically challenged doesn't mean stupid. Its just a lack of exposure to the technologies and in time they get the hang of it.

<comment><USER7> I apologize if that came of as rude. By no way do i think of her as Dumb. (heck she's becoming a doctor! She studies like 5 times as hard as me!) I just meant she isn't that tech-savy (she's too cute to use the words "tag" and "compress" :P) But that doesn't mean she CAN'T learn. Heck she's a VERY fast learner when she WANTS to learn something. And i was just stating my own case not a general rule :) I have taughts tons of people programming too on an academic basis and they turned out to be great developers later on

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you don't love someone, change them.

Great lesson of love here.</comment>


The 4-Hour Body: (Quickly) Hacking The Human Body - <AUTHOR> http://mixergy.com/timothy-ferriss-four-hour-body-interview/ <comment><USER2> Andrew, I think mixergy is one of the coolest things on the web. You've done great work bringing so much content to inspire us. So I'm surprised and a little disappointed to see you interview the likes of Tim Ferriss.

Don't get me wrong; I understand that you're a journalist and want to keep an open mind. No question about the popularity of this person and his subject.

I just don't think that he or his message are very inspiring. While most of us here work hard building stuff for the benefit of others, this guy just hacks the system for personal benefit. Whether it's gaming the rules to win a martial arts contest, front loading phony book reviews, or making outrageous claims that spawn counterproductive behavior, I really don't want to know about it; I've read enough.

The world already has enough hustlers, charletons, and posers. I'd rather see you spend your time continuing to bring us the real inspiration the has given mixergy such a great track record.

Just my .02.

[EDIT: Just a quick follow-up to those who have disagreed. I don't hate Tim Ferriss. I don't accuse him of lying or deceiving. And I don't question whether or not his methods are effective. (Spam is effective, something else I would never do.)

When I read his last book, I was totally turned off when he claimed winning a martial arts contest by finding a loophole in the rules and shoving his opponent out of bounds. I have never done anything like that and have no intention of learning anything similar.

There's so much inspiring stuff to read here and in books that I see no need to follow up on something I've already ruled out. I was just a little surprised to see Tim Ferriss and mixergy in the same post. That's all.]

<comment><USER3> I appreciate my life choices for _not_ having such a fellow on my radar (spelling is Ferriss - I discover by searching on Amz).

Yet I wonder how I could have become so cynical as to doubt the "socially redeeming value" of an ~author~ who gets a book published by including claims such as:

> YOU WILL LEARN (in less than 30 minutes each):

> How to lose those last 5-10 pounds (or 100+ pounds) with odd combinations of > food and safe chemical cocktails.

> * How to prevent fat gain while bingeing (X-mas, holidays, weekends)

> * How to increase fat-loss 300% with a few bags of ice

> * How Tim gained 34 pounds of muscle in 28 days, without steroids, and in > four hours of total gym time

> * How to sleep 2 hours per day and feel fully rested

> * How to produce 15-minute female orgasms

> * How to triple testosterone and double sperm count

> * How to go from running 5 kilometers to 50 kilometers in 12 weeks

> * How to reverse "permanent" injuries

> * How to add 150+ pounds to your lifts in 6 months

> * How to pay for a beach vacation with one hospital visit

<comment><USER4> I'm apprehensive about Tim Ferriss. I've read 4HWW, and found it to have some good advice, as well a a significant amount of fluff. The announcement of "The 4-Hour Body", with lists like this on the book, have only increased my skepticism and apprehension.

I enjoy fitness. I've worked out four to five days a week for the past seven years, first at a climbing gym, and then with Crossfit. I've competed in fitness competitions. I've know a number of well-respected high-level Crossfitters. I would call myself, at the very least, a fitness enthusiast.

I think some of these claims are at best, laughable, and, at worst, will give false hope to people who might truly be interested in fitness. Fitness is hard work!

> * How Tim gained 34 pounds of muscle in 28 days, without steroids, and in > four hours of total gym time

Muscle memory will allow people to gain significant amounts of muscle in short periods of time, if that muscle has been trained before.

It's why athletes who take rest periods or have injuries are able to come back just as strong in only a few weeks.

It's the source of many of the before/after pictures for "health foods" and supplements.

If you're actually interested in gaining muscle and weight, the easiest way is to eat tons of food and do heavy, compound exercises three to four times a week.

> * How to sleep 2 hours per day and feel fully rested

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

Anecdotally, a friend of mine ended up in the emergency room for severe dehydration after trying the Uberman's Sleep Cycle for three weeks.

> * How to triple testosterone and double sperm count

I imagine he's be talking about various supplements here. Supplement science is sketchy, and should always be taken with a grain of salt.

The best way to take supplements is to not take them, but rather, eat more fruits and vegetables.

> * How to go from running 5 kilometers to 50 kilometers in 12 weeks

Pretty simple, actually. There are progressive running plans in almost any running book.

Also, the difference between five and 50 km, at least to your muscles, is much less than the difference between 400M and 5K. It's just training your aerobic system and converting more of your muscle tissue to slow-twitch muscle fibers.

> * How to reverse "permanent" injuries

Eat right and exercise correctly.

If you read the forums for crossfit, or stronglifts, or a number of other fitness websites, or diet websites, you'll see people who miraculously cure their bad back, bad knees or diabetes, just by eating right and exercising correctly.

> * How to add 150+ pounds to your lifts in 6 months

This is almost guaranteed to happen when someone goes from an untrained state to the beginning of a trained state. It has to do with muscles learning to be used, rather than significant strength gains.

When I started Crossfit three years ago, I could barely deadlift 135#. Three years later, my last 1RM deadlift was 455#. Going from 135# to 300# was _so_ much easier and faster than going from 300# to 455#, because my body had always been able to do it, it just didn't know it.

<comment><USER5> You've clearly never ran 50 km in one go.

You're talking 5 intense months to safely train minimum, for a person who can run 5 km.

Training for a 50 km isn't "just aerobics", it's also about strengthening your bones and ligaments and developing the mental tools you'll need to finish. It's about learning what your body needs to stay hydrated. Learning how to minimize calorie use. Learn how to run through the walls (yes, plural, there's normally two of them on a 50 km run). How to eat on the run without throwing it all up or squirting it out from your shorts. Aerobics is the least of it, IMHO.

12 weeks is a laughable claim.

And yes, I've run 50km (and far beyond) in one go.

<comment><USER6> A marathon is 42K and people run those all the time with minimal training. Puff Daddy only trained for 8 weeks. Every yuppie in NYC has met at least a half dozen out of shape office workers who have a mid life crisis and decide to run a marathon in 12 weeks.

<comment><USER5> 8 weeks according to him. Try it and get back to me.

You aren't going to go from a 5k to a 50k in 12 weeks and remain injury-free, sorry.

<comment><USER7> [http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/sep/15/eddie- izzard-c...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/sep/15/eddie-izzard- charity-run)

5 weeks training, 43 marathons in 50 days.

<comment><USER5> 5:48 marathon was his fastest time, according to that article. That's A LOT of walking. And that was his best time.

This is more akin to hiking a flat version of the Appalachian Trail than running 50 km straight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What I tried to capture in this interview is Tim's belief that you can get 80% results with 5% effort. And that the other 95% effort (or whatever the %) is either the facetime that we feel we must put in to feel we earned our result, or an attempt at perfection.

I'm not sure I agree with him completely, but my goal in the interviews is to learn, not to argue for "my side."

My other goal here was to find out how he identifies that 5% that gets outsized results. The salient part of his answer was that he find people who achieve freakish results, then he mimics their approach.

(If you read those last 2 sentences, you may not have to listen to my hour- long interview, which strengthen's Tim's 80%/5% message.)

<comment><USER9> I found that to be true with school. 5% effort usually gets you a B, while the closer you wanted to get to "perfection" (100%/A+), exponentially more effort is required.

<comment><USER10> And most people would be quite happy with a "B" body. The most important thing for me, as someone that tends to come up with the "perfect plan" before starting, is that doing a little will get you on the path to improving yourself. But then when I do a little, I realize it's often enough to get me where I wanted.

<comment><USER11> With the right diet and just one hour of exercise per week you can get you an A++ body.

Diet: Not too many calories, many vegetables, enough protein. Cook your own meals. Fat is ok, as long as you don't get too many calories.

Exercise: Mostly running, and a little bit of strength training. The key is to do what you do to the max. Run 10 minutes but make sure run as fast as possible. Do this two times a week, this will take 40 minutes a week (20 minutes running, 20 minutes preparing & showering). Do 5 minutes of exercise when you get up/go to sleep 4 times a week.

If we assume 16 hour days then this will take 1/(7*16) = 0.9% of your time. Just to emphasize, that's less than one hundredth of your awake time.

This is what I do and it works very well, it is the best investment of my time I ever make. YMMV

<comment><USER12> Any tips on how to get a better handle on 'many, enough, and too many' relatively easily? I'd like to do something like this, but it's the paradox of choice with me and health: I know next to nothing, so I just feel confused by everything...

<comment><USER11> Listen to your body. When you're full, stop eating. This feeling lags a bit behind what you eat, so don't eat too quickly. Don't eat things like sweets, chocolate and potato chips when you're hungry, when hungry only eat healthy things. Don't drink too much calorie dense drinks like fruit juice. These drinks won't give you a full feeling even though you've consumed a lot of calories, better eat fresh fruit.

When I eat with my friends they sometimes say how come you eat so much but are so lean. They've been drinking fruit juice or soft drinks with the meal whereas I drank water, they're eating less but consuming the same amount of calories. Later the night they'll feel hungry and start eating snacks. For example tonight I ate carrots, pasta with pork and cheese with a sauce based on creme fraiche. This contains a lot of fat but that's not so bad because it also makes you full (I ate it 6 hours ago and have no appetite for e.g. sweets whatsoever).

When you're hungry, bake an egg in butter with cheese and eat it with a slice of bread. This will be about 300 calories but you'll be full. Or you can eat one Mars and you'll be hungry again in half an hour (also 300 calories). Or you can drink 3 glasses of coke and be hungry in half an hour. Or you can eat 8 oranges and you won't be hungry (also 300). Or eat 25 big tomatoes. Or 100 grams of bread and you'll be hungry in two hours.

The following numbers may be handy:

        Fat:           9000 kcal/kg  (this holds for body fat as well as fat in foods)
        Alcohol:       7000 kcal/kg
        Carbohydrates: 4000 kcal/kg
        Protein:       4000 kcal/kg

One thing I've found is that the more you eat the more hungry you get. For example on Christmas you usually eat a lot, yet the next morning I'm always very hungry. Do you have this too? Evolutionarily I think your body thinks "hey we got a lot last night, there is a lot of food available now (perhaps they killed a mammoth?), better stock up". This also works the other way around: if you've been eating too much and then go back to normal you'll be hungry, but that probably goes away in a couple of days (unless you're not eating enough).

I think it is futile to try to lose weight or keep weight low trying to be hungry. Your body is much more powerful than your mind and will override your conscious efforts in no time.

This is what works for me. The caveat is that I've never had or tried to lose weight, but I started to eat this way because I think it's healthier. When I did so after a while I discovered I had lost 4 kg (which is a lot for me), and had to consciously eat more to gain some of it back. On the other hand I went on a very active sports / camping vacation with friends and we had to buy food a few days ahead, so we all ate the same kind of things. This was a mix between their and my diets (e.g. no coke/fruit juices just water from the lake). My weight went up slightly because I eat more but they each lost 1-2 kg in two weeks. So I _think_ it works, but if you notice gaining weight when applying this, stop and look for something else.

<comment><USER12> Awesome, thanks so much for this. I have _really_ bad eating habits, but they've actually gotten better over the last few years. They went from 'abysmal' to 'pretty damn bad,' basically. Three years ago, my girlfriend told me she wasn't really sure how I consumed enough nutrients to live... I was going through roughly two liters of Mountain Dew a day, pizza 5 nights a week... yeah. When you work in a pizza shop...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Every Tim Ferris thread I see on HN, has nigh 10 - 20 posts that all essentially say:

"Tim Ferris is a charlatan. He's relies on spin and marketing to sell his products. His methods encourage people to be lazy and not make a genuine effort to reach their goals. His advice is counterproductive."

But while Tim makes every effort to support his claims using facts, anecdotes and citations these sorts of comments are rarely supported by anything other than the commenter's opinion. I'm not saying people shouldn't post Tim-hating comments, to the contrary I'm asking for Tim-haters to form a strong argument against his ideology by citing studies and literature that clearly contradict what he preaches.

<comment><USER14> Exactly.

And when he's talking about winning the martial arts fights, he goal was to "WIN", not to play the game. And like gursikh says, either put up or shut up. We need concrete examples!

Overall, I think Tim has done a lot for a lot of people with the ideas that he shares in his books.

<comment><USER15> If he doesn't feel that as a wholly empty accomplishment, he must be a sociopath.

He didn't prove his ability to fight was superior. He didn't prove his mastery of martial arts was superior. He proved his ability to push his opponent over the line.

If there were no line, he'd be crushed.

<comment><USER12> Nope, his ability to fight _was_ superior. He used every advantage possible while staying within the rules of the game. That's how competitive games are played.

<comment><USER15> I have a lot more respect for something like Doug Lenat winning a 1981 Traveller (pencil & paper RPG) Trillion Credit Squadron space navy warfare competition by using an AI program to come up with a strategy that followed the rules but was totally unlike what anyone else was doing: building massive numbers of small, cheap, individually weak, disposable/suicidal ships, rather than designing a smaller traditional fleet of big, expensive, powerful capital ships.

<http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=14095>

For one thing, the strategy he came up with is not unlike the use of suicide bombers in real life conflicts. I expect something similar will apply when large numbers of small, cheap autonomous drones start being deployed. It has real-world applicability. It was also effective, I believe, in EVE Online. Plus, it was an interesting application of technology. It wasn't just "shoving".

By comparison, Ferris' shoving tactic is virtually useless outside of the context of a ring-based martial art competition. (Maybe if you got in a fight on the edge of a cliff, or on the roof of a building, or next to a pool of sharks...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The reviews on Amazon look _really_ suspicious.

[http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Body-Uncommon-Incredible- Superh...](http://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Body-Uncommon-Incredible- Superhuman/dp/030746363X/)

In the past few hours since the book was put on sale, there have been 90+ five star reviews.

Either this is one of the best book every published, of the publisher/author has been organizing or paying for reviews.

<comment><USER17> Some publishers/authors really organize reviews by sending preview copies of books to reviewers.

<comment><USER18> I am one of those. I had an advance copy, loved it and posted my review. Feel free to challenge anything in my review: <http://amzn.to/hDRfVB>

<comment><USER19> Since you asked:

1) You didn't disclose that you received the book as a gift from the author/publisher and in advance.

2) That you were (I presume) asked to review the book on Amazon by the author/publisher.

3) That you didn't even read the book (only "several chapters") before giving it a 5 star "review".

4) You used a URL shortener on HN.

5) You used a URL shortener to obscure the Amazon affiliate tag in your link.

<comment><USER18> staunch - valid questions

1) fair point, but devil's advocate says that is to be expected considering I posted it on launch day.

2) yes, I received a friendly reminder email that today was launch day and that tim would appreciate reviews. he did not specify positive in his wording. just that he would like reviews up.

3) The book actually _recommends_ not reading it in its entirety but rather selecting a few relevant sections based on what you want to do. I am not interested in the fat loss sections as I am already at 11.8% body fat, rather I am interested in the muscle building sections. Page 11 talks about 4 different "tracks" you can take with the book: rapid fat-loss, rapid muscle gain, rapid strength gain or rapid sense of total well-being (improving sex, perfecting sleep, etc). I quote from the book:

      Do *not* read this book from start to finish.

4/5) I had already tweeted it earlier so it was easy for me to copy the link. As for affiliate, the HN consensus seems to be that "good faith" links with affiliate codes are okay. a book I would have recommended anyway. If HN really, really hated affiliate links then my Kindle review would not have gotten so many upvotes and 16 people would not have purchased them through me and the disclosed aff link

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> In this article,

[http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_trai...](http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/the_truth_about_bulking)

It claims that your body can only synthesize about 2 pounds of dry muscle mass per month.

34 pounds in 28 days is roughly a _pound of muscle per day_. I've always found myself wanting more evidence to back that up, or even just seeing more examples of people saying they've done that. The closest I've heard to getting that kind of result are people who add drinking a gallon of milk in addition their regular diet, and even then they gain a fair amount of fat in addition to muscle and it's way less than that number.

<comment><USER4> You can synthesize more than 2lbs of muscle per month, if the muscle you're synthesizing has been in a trained state previously.

This is how athletes can return from injury in a few weeks. It's also how most before/after shots for health products and supplements are made.

I've done GOMAD (Gallon of Milk A Day). It's tough to drink that much milk. In the end, I gained ten pounds of muscle over a period of two months.

<comment><USER20> > You can synthesize more than 2lbs of muscle per month, if the muscle you're > synthesizing has been in a trained state previously.

Do you have a link to that by any chance?

It does make sense though. Perhaps that's what happened with him, but without that key bit of info it's fairly misleading.

<comment><USER4> Start with <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Experiment>. Then read <http://blog.legendarylife.com/the-colorado-experiment>.

Anecdotally, here's one guy's attempt at repeating the Colorado experiment. [http://www.placeintheground.com/2008/07/21/testing-out- the-c...](http://www.placeintheground.com/2008/07/21/testing-out-the-colorado- experiment/) [http://www.placeintheground.com/2008/09/25/colorado- experime...](http://www.placeintheground.com/2008/09/25/colorado-experiment- results/)

Re-reading this makes me think that Tim Ferriss is probably advocating the Colorado Experiment's methods in his book. One of the other comments mentioned five-seconds-up, five-seconds-down.

<comment><USER20> I see. The experiment seems ill-conceived in the first place, along with the guy's attempt to repeat it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The muscle building seems similar, though even more extreme than HST training: <http://www.hypertrophy-specific.com/hst_index.html>

I switched to HST after a long time of doing typical weight training routines and now do 1-2 sets per body part each time I'm in the gym. It's not nearly as extreme as what he's describing but I've cut my workouts down to 3 40 minute sessions each week and my gains have increased a LOT. Of course when I tell people that they freak out because there's an irrational belief that you have to put in tons of sets to see benefits.

Interesting stuff.

<comment><USER22> Just wondering... Does anyone actually want to look like that guy on the HST page? I took one look at that and said "this is not the workout routine for me".

<comment><USER21> Yeah, that's not something you just accidentally end up looking like. I'm not into being that big at all but there would be fair warning well before hand ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Someone on IronGarm (don't look it up if you're easily offended) put it best: "Tim isn't very strong and is a Jenga of fairly serious injuries that a smarter trainee would avoid."

"Gaining" (actually regaining) large quantities of muscle in a short period of time is an old Iron Game trick (the "Colorado Experiment" with the Nautilus guy and Casey Jones IIRC). You can't gain nearly as much muscle as someone else can regain.

As for the other strategies to 'gain' this much 'muscle' while 'clean', the high points are (a) dehydration, (b) steroids and/or exogenous testosterone and (c) a modicum of fat gain (which on a normal muscular physique won't be that notable and, most importantly, (d) a willingness to claim that you haven't done a/b/c whether it is true or not.

Tim is a master of 'hacking' these kind of demos but it would be more impressive if he tried doing something more sustained where there isn't a short-cut to success. For example, compete in a sport where there is a lot at stake and a high number of well-prepared competitors. Not, for example, by finding a rules loophole in some obscure Chinese kickboxing event and winning it through a combination of extreme weight cutting and pushing other people over (one of his claims to fame as a martial artist).

</comment><comment><USER24> It should be noted that Ferriss wrote a 2008 article describing how to effectively put on 30 pounds overnight by dehydrating oneself before a weigh- in and then rehydrating before competition begins. [1] The fact that the miracle muscle gains mentioned in Tim's new book are _also_ roughly 30 pounds should not go unmentioned.

[1] fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/01/18/how-to-cut-weight/

<comment><USER25> Tim specifically addresses the 34 lbs of muscle gain in 28 days in the Mixergy interview. It's not the same routine of dehydration/rehydration for competition.

 _I think I see here 34 pounds of muscle in 28 days. How did you do that?

Timothy: So that was just so people know the circumstances. I was supervised by a Ph.D. at San Jose State University, and we used hydrostatic weighing, which is underwater weighing, for body composition. The way I did it was with two 30-minute workouts per week, which means it was literally four hours for the month. So in this case it is the 4-hour body. And there were a number of protocols that I followed.

The first was the exercise protocol, which was and we'll talk about this I'm sure more, following the minimum effective dose. So how many seconds of tension with a specific weight or load do I need to trigger muscular growth in certain body parts? And you can figure this out. So I was using a very slow safe protocol to achieve that eliminating momentum to the extent possible, tracked everything like a scientific experiment.

And then the second protocol was the eating protocol. So you have to eat a lot to gain 34 pounds of muscle. I also lost three pounds of fat and lowered my cholesterol from 222 to 147. And that involved eating, but improving insulin sensitivity so that was preferentially put into muscle tissue as opposed to fat tissue. Then also taking supplementation to improve protein synthesis and things like that.

So at the end of the day it was a combination of very small things used together._

<comment><USER24> I'm sure he has more exhaustive logs that support his claims but the quote above (the same story was in Wired a few weeks back) isn't detailed enough to prove that Tim gained 8.5 pounds of muscle per week.

I was unfamiliar with hydrostatic weighing so I looked it up. Hydrostatic weighing appears to measure water displacement to figure out the body's density and hence fat to muscle composition. The density of muscle is 1.06 g/ml and fat is 0.92 g/ml. [1]

A gain of 30 pounds of water (1.0 g/ml) would show up as roughly equal gains in fat and muscle since water's density is about at the midpoint between fat and muscle. Ferriss's claim is +34 pounds of muscle and -3 pounds of fat.

I'm certain Ferriss gained lots of muscle in his four-week trial. His methodology isn't all that different from Gallon Of Milk A Day (GOMAD) plus the Starting Strength workout plan, both of which I've personally used to some success. That said, the freely available quotes don't give all of the necessary information. If you happen to buy the book, please share with us.

<http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/576481.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> anyone want to give the short-short version of this. The transcript was way too long, and was all over the place, and I didn't have the patience for the video.

<comment><USER27> 1\. Measure what you eat. 2\. Brief, intense, and regular workouts. 3\. Repeat every day.

<comment><USER28> Don't workout every day, only twice a week.

<comment><USER29> 5\. It matters what you eat. 6. Stay dedicated to the routines partly through limiting your choices and partly through creating accountability

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Tim is our generation's chuck norris. I've seen his Tedtalk - it's like he walks on water. He's a genius at self-promotion, but too much cloud in the sky goals and success, and you start to see the fluff.

</comment><comment><USER31> I bought Ferriss' book on a whim at an airport. I have no qualms in saying I think it's perhaps the worst waste of $20 in my life. The guy's a charlatan.

</comment><comment><USER32> Tim Ferriss is correct that it takes 4 hours to get a body like his. However, to be accurate, he should have said 4 hours per DAY.

2 hours weights + 2 hours cardio will get you in shape like him. Not drinking milk and expecting to lose 10 lbs = fail.

the guy is a sales/marketing genius.

<comment><AUTHOR> A great many people (also known as "hard-gainers") will not gain any muscle whatsoever by exercising every day - let alone exercising for 4 hours every day.

If you're a hard-gainer (I am), you will need to:

* Do the right kinds of exercises (squats, deadlifts, bench press, pullups, inverted rows, etc)

* Rest enough in between sessions (2 days between sessions at least)

* Eat enough, including enough protein from a variety of sources

If you do those things, you will put on muscle no matter what your body type. Exercise 4 hours a day, and you will only put on muscle if you have awesome genetics.

<comment><USER32> you dont do the same routine every day; you do a 3-day split. I guarantee you if we did a study of 1,000 americans who did 4 hours per day and rotated their weights and cardio vs. Tim's method; 95% would be in much better shape my way. and the 5% who dont cant put on weight.

" 1 point by swombat 3 minutes ago | link | parent

A great many people (also known as "hard-gainers") will not gain any muscle whatsoever by exercising every day - let alone exercising for 4 hours every day.

If you're a hard-gainer (I am), you will need to:

* Do the right kinds of exercises (squats, deadlifts, bench press, pullups, inverted rows, etc)

* Rest enough in between sessions (2 days between sessions at least)

* Eat enough, including enough protein from a variety of sources

"If you do those things, you will put on muscle no matter what your body type. Exercise 4 hours a day, and you will only put on muscle if you have awesome genetics."

exactly; the same kind of "superhuman" genetics tim ferriss (and me) already have. thing is; if we don't do 4 hr/day, we get fat just like most of America!

<comment><USER33> The point is why bother? You can get exactly the same or better results in terms of fat loss and muscle gain doing 2 or 3 30-40 minute HIT workouts a week. The only way you can do a real 4 hour per day workout is if you're a pro athlete and have the rest of the day off to rest and eat. Cardio and most bodyweight exercises are a waste of time if you're not doing them for sport- specific training but just to shed fat. Take the stairs and cycle or walk to work instead of wasting your time on a treadmill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Andrew, great interview. I was just wondering if there was a reason you don't ask people to repeat themselves when the video cuts off? It seems to take away a little from the video. (I did notice the sly handling regarding the "blue light" cutoff)

</comment><comment><USER35> _Update: Tim says if you buy 3 copies of his book and email him your receipt, he'll send you a chapter that his publisher edited out of the book._

This on top of an incredible claim caused my informational immune system to close the tab. If any reasonable person made such a discovery, they would be concerned about skepticism, about looking like a huckster. And about being wrong! They would look for some way to validate their work and would see if they could convince someone credible in the field before they started pitching it to the general public. This guy is going out of his way to look like a charlatan. Conclusion: he's looking for suckers and is weeding out everyone else right up front.</comment>


ACLU Challenges Laptop Searches and Seizures at the Border - <AUTHOR> http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-technology-and-liberty/aclu-challenges-laptop-searches-and-seizures-border <comment><USER2> Glad they are doing it, but every search without a warrant is a felony. Suspicion isn't enough. The country is in trouble because actual rule of law is beyond hope for even longshot lawsuits like this.</comment>


Genetic Algorithms in CoffeeScript - <AUTHOR> http://janmonschke.com/Genetic-Algorithms/presentation <comment><USER2> Direct link to the code, which is nice and clear to read (Genome / Population):

[https://github.com/janmonschke/Genetic-Algorithms/tree/gh- pa...](https://github.com/janmonschke/Genetic-Algorithms/tree/gh- pages/coffeescripts)

</comment><comment><USER3> Suggestion: TSP is a combinatorial optimization problem and isn't well suited to GAs. You would be much better off using a method meant for combinatorial optimization: notably ant colony optimization.

<comment><USER4> If you don't mind expanding a little, I'd be interested to know why they're not suited to combinatorial optimization, and what they are in fact more suited to?

<comment><USER5> I have searched for a problem that they're more suited to, and I've come to the conclusion that GAs are in fact not known to work on any problem. They do "work" in the sense that sometimes they find an answer, but there are other algorithms that are much simpler and consistently outperform them (notably randomized hill climbing). Here is a paper that despite trying to prove the opposite, clearly shows that GAs are NOT a good way to solve any problem: <http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~mm/nips93.pdf>

<comment><USER6> That's not quite my understanding of the paper's results: "As can be seen, the time to reach level one is comparable for the two algorithms, but the GA is much faster at reaching levels 2 and 3. Further, the GA discovers level 3 approximately twice as often as RMHC [randomized hill climbing]"

I don't dispute that there are generally better optimization algorithms than GAs, but this paper does present an artificial case in a GA outperforms hill climbing.

<comment><USER5> See my reply here for an explanation of how little that conclusion of the paper means: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4561418>

In particular they tuned the GA but not he hill climber, so it's not clear that GAs win even on this artificially designed problem.

<comment><USER7> Wait a minute. First you were citing the paper's conclusion as supporting your position and now you're attacking the paper's conclusion?

<comment><USER5> I never cited the paper's conclusion as my position. What the paper shows is not what the paper concludes. The authors clearly didn't want to show that GAs are inferior, though inadvertently they certainly did. BTW, the authors of the paper conclude that further research is necessary to find cases where GAs outperform hill climbing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> mck- Everyone seems to claim a better way to do it (myself included).

Here's a TSP challenge for you to prove yourselves: <http://www.tsp.gatech.edu/data/usa/index.html>

Deadline is July 4th, 2013 -- Price $500 & Honourable mention for finding the shortest path to the world's largest TSP problem.

<comment><USER7> Anyone who came up with a radically superior solution to that problem could use it to make significantly more than 500 bucks. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can't help this example could have been illustrated much more clearly in something other then CoffeeScript.

<comment><USER9> Out of all the languages to choose from it just _had_ to be coffescript...

<comment><AUTHOR> It's my main language for almost two years now ;)

<comment><USER9> I'm not saying that it being your main language is bad, it's just the syntax is absolutely terrible to read and understand for those of us on C-style languages. If the point was to _teach_ others, the vast majority of your audience is not going to be reading coffeescript and learning much.

<comment><USER10> that's funny because coffeescript is _meant_ to be all about readability in code. I wonder if you really tried to read this or if you just commented based on the title. If you did really read it, I wonder if you found it hard to read _because_ your opinion is tainted by those C style languages? It's not scientific of course but I just got my non coder, non technical girlfriend to read through both the coffeescript and javascript versions of this and I definitely had to explain a lot less to her with the coffeescript version, she says it's easier to read because it's structured more like plain English.

<comment><USER2> Hurrah. That's a big part of the entire premise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> unix-dude Just ran through this quickly, I don't know too much about algorithms, so I can't judge GA's usefulness when compared to other methods, but it certainly seems like a cool/fun thing to implement.

</comment><comment><USER11> This got me thinking- is there a use case for client-side ML?

<comment><USER12> The better question is would you even _want_ to do ML in javascript?

<comment><USER11> for client side ML! hence my question...

<comment><USER12> Well, ML is almost always very CPU and memory intensive, I'm not sure how running any data-heavy algorithms would make sense in a browser.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That's supernice!

You may want to fix the links in the readme though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Claudio, I fixed them!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> What did you/he use to make the presentation?

<comment><AUTHOR> I used reveal.js: <http://lab.hakim.se/reveal-js/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nice talk Jan!</comment>


Be yourself. Abnormal people create abnormal returns. - <AUTHOR> http://42floors.com/blog/posts/be-yourself-abnormal-people-create-abnormal-returns <comment><USER2> The article seems to imply that what you wear is part of your identity (don't wear a suit, be yourself). How about decoupling your clothes from your identity? There is nothing intrinsically wrong with wanting to "dress to impress". People who think that seem to me to want to make a point of how they are _so not into fashion_ \- which ironically is a form of fashion itself (see punkers).

Be yourself. Dress up if you want to and it seems to fit the occasion. Don't feel pressured into wearing something that you don't feel comfortable in. Don't confuse inner qualities with superficial looks - but don't ignore the fact that first impressions matter.

Of course it could be a good anti-signal to show that you don't care about how you present yourself, but that doesn't mean you should go to investors in a bathrobe because someone told you to.

<comment><USER3> _How about decoupling your clothes from your identity?_

Maybe, but you can only take that so far. I think the thing to keep in mind is that clothes are communication, almost as much as what you say. The MBA, the punker, and the hacker all have their messages they send with their clothes. You can't avoid communicating, if for no other reason than that people will draw their own message from what you choose to wear. May as well make it count.

You can decouple what you say from your identity, but that can be fake too, sometimes.

<comment><USER4> My ex-partner was in fashion and the one thing he taught me most of all is that clothes are just that: "communication."

That's also why I don't feel bad wearing a suit for investors, because I consciously choose to communicate that I'm dressing up for my surroundings.

I don't try to walk like I wear a suit everyday and I don't try to walk and talk like a big-shot businessman. I walk like I'm a geek who's wearing a suit to dress up.

There's very little fake about that.

What's fake is people who wear a suit (trying) to trick people into thinking they're established businessmen _and_ people who dress down as 'counter- signalling' to appear to be confident hacker founders.

TL;DR; Fashion is about communication. Communicating a congruent message is 'real'. Trying to 'signal' with your communication is fake.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Every comment in this thread right now is casting doubt on Jason's point that you shouldn't be fake to seem more businesslike for investors. Wow. That's a bad sign.

Jason's talking about good investors and he's right. Take YC - if you're talking to the YCers about your startup it's just absurd to place importance on "businesslike" apparel or indeed anything other than your startup. No doubt there are a few genuine exceptions (Tesla liked to work in formal dress) but for the majority of us that comes as a relief.

I thought what Jason's saying was a truism by now. Valley culture may not have permeated everywhere in tech but it's far more widespread than it used to be - widespread enough that the point about dress is probably a good litmus test in most parts of the US and Canada. And any place it isn't true, that's a problem. The Valley culture of being informal and focusing on the work evolved for good reason.

<comment><USER6> I don't think anyone is saying to be fake, but the same way you wouldn't show up to a wedding in ripped jeans and a t-shirt, you shouldn't show up to an investor pitch in those clothes either. Just cause you're wearing a suit to a wedding doesn't mean you're trying to be fake, it just means you understand the conventions surrounding the event; the conventions surrounding a pitch is similar. I wonder, at the YCom demo day, what do the presenting YCers wear?

<comment><USER7> I agree about the wedding, and disagree about the investor pitch. Underdressing for a wedding might be perceived as an insult. Likewise with an investor meeting, but the risk is much lower since it's not principally a social occasion. Moreover, dressing like a hacker has an upside: they'll know you're a hacker. Finally, underdressing is a status hack known as counter- signaling: if you're confident enough to show up to an investor pitch in jeans and a T shirt, you must be a badass. Jobs wore mock turtlenecks and jeans with holes in them; Zuck wears fleeces and shitty sandals.

<comment><USER8> You both have a point but this counter-signaling thing is a fad. When everyone is doing it the value just plummets. The whole casual dress for pitching thing is so common now that I predict it's not long at all before the guys dressing nicely are taken more seriously again.

Also, what does "dressing like a hacker" mean? Hackers exist outside the valley too and there's no uniform that I was issued. Maybe theyre on back order for the Chicago metro area? But in all seriousness, if you said "he doesn't dress like a doctor" it makes far more sense than "he doesn't dress like a hacker". I'm a hacker but I'm also a business owner. So what attire do I don? Hoodie and flip flops or open sport jacket and collared shirt sans tie? I feel that in this case many aspects of hacker culture are just fads and the old standards (like dressing well for pitches and interviews) will never go out of style.

<comment><USER9> Ah, you're in Chicago.

I think you'd find it's different in Silicon Valley.

Which is not to suggest in the slightest that you'd be out of place in an open sport jacket and collared shirt sans tie. But if you prefer a hoodie and flip- flops, I think you'd find you could indulge that preference more freely here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> April fools! The trick is that people judge you by how you choose to make yourself appear and dressing a certain way doesn't make you any less authentic.

I'll also add that as a member of a certain minority community, I've been criticized by peers for not sporting an "authentic" style, despite the fact that 98% of potential employers would likely send me packing were I to show up to an interview in said style. You don't know how someone will interpret your appearance, so unless you really know your audience, the smart money says "look good for investors" (or employers etc)

<comment><USER11> Appearances do matter a lot which is why I would never dress up for a technical interview.

<comment><USER12> Would I wear a tailored executive suit to a technical interview? No. But if I'm interviewing technical candidates, all else being equal, I'm going to favor the nicely dressed one who has attended to personal hygiene that day, vs. one that I would have trouble distinguishing from a panhandler.

Dressing up to an appropriate level shows you care.

<comment><USER5> And thus you would overlook Woz and demonstrate incompetency. Not that I accept for a second that someone like Woz deserves patronizing language like "attended to personal hygiene that day" or "panhandler" - but people who base their evaluation of technical talent on social conformity certainly do see them that way.

The thing about the good investors the OP is talking about is that, increasingly, they don't do this. There are two reasons why they don't. One (which applies to only some, like YC) is that they are technical people themselves. The other is that the ones who do it lose to the ones who don't.

That is the historical trend and it has little to with fads or fashions. It has to do with economic power shifting towards people who create things.

<comment><USER13> Because Woz would never[1], ever[2], ever[3] dress for the occasion. Ever[4].

1\. [http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2011/04/woz- return...](http://www.blogcdn.com/www.tuaw.com/media/2011/04/woz-return-to- apple.jpg)

2\. <http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lpmlgqzYtY1qafiav.jpg>

3\. <http://www.pcbdesign007.com/articlefiles/77213-max%20woz.jpg>

4\. [http://cdn02.cdnwp.celebuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/legacy- im...](http://cdn02.cdnwp.celebuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/legacy- imgx/3/2/6/1/1/5/1/large-3261151.jpg?v=1237825835)

<comment><USER5> All your evidence is decades too late, but you have a point. Woz would have worn a suit to a job interview or investor meeting. But the 1970s were a long time ago. It's no longer to be taken for granted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You don't get to say you aren't playing the signalling game. This is just interpreted as either a high status move (if you're already high status) or an admission of defeat if you are low status.

Doing nothing is always still a move. <http://lesswrong.com/lw/bam/doing_nothing/>

The general rule of thumb is try to dress 1 step above the average level in whatever setting, but no higher.

<comment><USER5> I can't imagine anything more tedious than to spend my life thinking this way.

<comment><USER15> You can't approach every minute of life thinking about signaling theory, but it often helps understand the root mechanisms when they are otherwise murky.

Much like calculus, really.

<comment><USER5> There's something called "signaling theory" that has uncovered the "root mechanisms" of human relations and is comparable to calculus? That sounds like an absurd fantasy. I'll have to look it up.

<comment><USER16> Think of it as a heuristic tool to analyze and evaluate human behavior when you need it. And if you find it useful, try learning the basics of a few other frameworks and/or theories too: social capital (and social network analysis in general), labeling theory, diffusion of innovation, etc. In particular, technologists (and particularly entrepreneurs) that don't have some sort of exposure to sociotechnical research are missing out on a tremendous resource, imo.

<comment><USER5> Care to recommend one or two of the best sources?

<comment><USER14> "Impro: Improvisation and the theatre"

disregard the seeming lack of relevance.

<comment><USER5> That's quite funny. I love that book! (The first half, at least.) Keith Johnstone lives in my town and I've occasionally crossed paths with him at the local grocery. Anyway, sure, his chapter on status games is brilliant. But not as a guide to living. There are much better guides to living in there than that :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> According to Wikipedia: "The halo effect is a cognitive bias that involves one trait influencing others in one's judgement of another person or object. First noted by Edward Thorndike in the 1920s, the halo effect has since been applied to a variety of other fields".

This is a primary reason why you should really, really care how you look. I am not saying that it involves wearing a suit 24/7, but even if you are a hacker- type, in real life, those things matter.

<comment><USER14> Television has exacerbated this phenomenon. The good looking people do all the interesting things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Walked into a meeting with VCs last week with my standard outfit: very expensive shoes, cheap $40 jeans, crisp but simple Brooks Brothers shirt and a decent (but not outrageous) designer blazer. This is my dressed down... no tie, no suit. I feel comfortable like that.

Not too dressy but not a mess.

One walks in wearing a tshirt, jeans and sneakers. I'm like WTF?!

Second one walks in with the same. Double WTF?!

Five years ago you would NEVER see a Sand Hill Road VC wearing a tshirt and sneakers. Never.

It's the Zuck effect IMO. :-)

<comment><USER19> You can't be a rebel unless you wear the right uniform.

<comment><USER20> Ah, but you see; the "right uniform" changes over time. In an age where everyone tries to be a rebel; wearing a suit becomes rebellion.

A uniform is by definition anti-individuality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I remember that Buckminster Fuller said he started out dressing in a shirt without a tie and nobody took his message urgently. So he started dressing like a banker. That was a long time ago, but perhaps the lesson remains.

</comment><comment><USER18> ... and nothing matters today except a hockey stick curve.

If you showed up in a thong and pink cutoff shirt and barefoot with a pinterest-like curve any VC would run over their grandmother in the parking lot to fund.

VCs only care about one thing: returns.

</comment><comment><USER22> Between recording videos and meeting with a more people than I'm used to, I'm now paying more attention to what I wear. I tend to dress formally when meeting people in a formal setting - I find that it impacts my mindset in a positive way. Interacting with people, tooling, and relaxing in the same clothing is like working in your bedroom; it blurs boundaries between different contexts. By dressing for the occasion, I can delineate my behavior appropriately.

That being said, I wouldn't go to a meeting in something uncomfortable; a suit to talk to investors feels like overkill.

</comment><comment><USER23> "Investors are not looking for someone that looks like them. They may wear suits. That doesn't mean you should. Investors are interested in getting to know the real you. If you're a little strange, that's okay. They like strange. They like people who do things that normal people aren't capable of, and they know that that capability often correlates with eccentric people. The last thing you want to do is wash away your own personality in some doldrums of blue and khaki."

They also just might want someone who's not afraid to step out of their own comfort zone for two hours. Seems to me we're getting to the point (or are past it) where "entrepreneur" just means "guy in tennis shoes working on a web service idea". Certainly seemed to be the vibe from that piece there. People are _comfortable_ with 'pitching' _all the time_ \- 'pitching' their 'new idea' to 'investors', cause when you're casual like that, anyone could be an 'investor' you can 'pitch' to.

Don't get me wrong - there's a lot of hard working people out there working on great ideas (some of them not even involving a web api!). They're going to go through a hell of a lot of tough times, ups and downs, and doing a hell of a lot of stuff they've never done before.

If wearing a suit or tie or keeping your "weirdness" in check for an hour are the things that holds your endeavour back from succeeding, you had bigger problems all along.

</comment><comment><USER6> Excellent points, but it never hurts to clean up a little bit. Remember, people make their first impression of you within the first 30 seconds of meeting you, in the case of a pitch, that first 30 seconds may be before you even say anything (setting up the presentation)... What do they have to go on? Your body language and your appearance... If they write you off as just another hacker that doesn't understand the business aspect of a start-up, you're not doing any favors. Maybe the answer is to have a balance of founders (as I think most people recommend anyways). Have the technical guys clean up a bit but still have their personalities shine, and the non-technical look sharp. That way you can represent a balanced team; the dreamers and the realists together.

<comment><USER5> _If they write you off as just another hacker that doesn't understand the business aspect of a start-up, you're not doing any favors._

Oh yes you are. You just avoided a bad investor.

<comment><USER6> How so? All you've done for yourself is create a hill you have to climb to right from the beginning. Investors, like founders, often have tight schedules and little time to make decisions. They have to make their decisions quickly, because they have 100 other people clambering to meet with them on getting their investments. You can't blame them if they write you off b/c you couldn't take the 1/2 hour before the meeting to freshen up... Plus, in the start-up community it may seem to be more "acceptable" to dress casually for an important investor meeting that could change the trajectory of your company and maybe even destroy it, (sounds ludicrous when I say it that way), but in the public perception that is unacceptable. The goals for many companies is the get mass appeal and adoption, and if you're going to play the part of the founder/ceo/face of the company, you have to represent your company in a professional manner; if you can't do that in such an important investor meeting, what assurance does the vc/investor have that you can do it to the public.

<comment><USER5> Because an investor who thinks things like "just another hacker who doesn't understand the business aspect of a start-up" is likely to interfere with how a hacker-founder wants to run the company later.

In courtship, you should be grateful when the other person says something so egregious you could never stand to be with them. They just spared you a lot of trouble down the road.

Your view would make sense if founders didn't have a choice because all investors thought the same way. That's the world we used to live in, but not anymore.

<comment><USER6> I'm arguing that generally founders don't have a choice; Unless you have an unbelievably good product, and know the right people, the likelihood that you will get your start-up funded is unbelievably small. The start-up community is relatively small, the number of people in that community who are investors is even smaller; the pool of founders is very large. Many, if not most, founders know very little about investors and who they can reach out to. So their perception is that, if you need funding you take what you can get. Especially when you hear NO after NO... Beggars can't be choosers. Is it ideal, of course not, but it is what it is...

<comment><USER5> Well, ok I guess, if that's the world you live in. I observe things changing quite a bit more than that, but admittedly at different rates in different places. You know what, though? I'd rather work on making that unbelievably good product you mention than figure out how to make myself seem something I'm not. Lots of people are succeeding. Not all of them take funding.

Besides, if you make something great that people want, your chance of getting funded is not so small, because you can apply to YC, who are looking for people just like that and have none of the prejudices you describe.

<comment><USER6> Looks like we finally found something we can agree on ;)

Making a great product that people want is the key, it's always been the key and always will be the key.

Don't forget though, YC has gotten alot more press in recent years (e.g. this [http://news.cnet.com/8301-33617_3-57406737-276/y-combinator-...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-33617_3-57406737-276/y-combinator- disneyland-for-investors/)), and one might argue a little more competitive because of it.

That might increase the quality of what's coming out of YC, but it also means, as hard as the may try, they are always going to miss out on some potentially good teams/ideas/products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Jesse Thorn on why how you dress matters:

 _When you dress, you are making a statement; not a fashion statement, but a statement of identity. If you put on a jacket and tie, for example, you are signifying to others that you take the occasion seriously, whatever that occasion may be. If someone looks at you and interprets how you dress, they are not being superficial. They are reading the message that you wrote. [...] Can one earn respect in other ways? Certainly, and one should. But that's no reason to open a conversation with someone by saying, without words, "this is not important to me."_

<http://putthison.com/post/665640307/why-this-matters>

<comment><USER25> Why can't the 'message' be: "I respect your intelligence enough that I won't assume you'll judge me based on what I wear, so I'll just wear what's comfortable for me."

<comment><USER24> I think there's a subtle but important difference between "what you wear sends a message" and "you'll judge me based on what I wear."

You're shifting the agency away from yourself - to make a choice about what message you're going to send (by how you're dressed) - to others, making them out to be shallow for receiving the message you send and processing it accordingly, no?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This may be true in the valley, but in the rest of the world setting the initial impression with how you dress goes a long way.

<comment><USER27> I guess, it's true in a tech world. Well, in fact, I know that in Russian IT- world it's also so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> People pay attention to how you dress because it's the very first communication you make, before you shake hands or say "Hello". And there is no reason to open that conversation with the phrase "this is not important to me".

<comment><USER29> good point, non verbal communication makes a big impact and you don't want to risk anything specially if you're going for a pitch and asking for millions of dollars!

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> The type of person who balks at casual dress is not the type of person who I'd want to work for or with, and vice versa. Problem solves itself.

<comment><USER30> Casual dress shows confidence: "I don't need to bow to social norms, I'm confident I can sell myself and my ideas, even without a suit."

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> this advice works if people aren't broken. unfortunately, people are broken.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think the point Jason, and others in this thread, are making is that great investors understand that how a founder dresses (especially in tech) is a poor indicator for success. Their pitch and, as YCombinator has pointed out, the intelligence and drive are much better predictors of success. This is on top of the fact that investors aren't looking for the status quo, they are looking for visionaries who are going to make next great thing. Dressing nicely because everyone else is, shows that you are buying into the status quo, not changing it.

</comment><comment><USER33> I think his point is dont try too hard to control how people perceive you. (Not whether suits are appropriate attire.)

The rule of thumb is, "other people aren't thinking about you, and if they are, they are wondering what you are thinking about them."

That being said, just like great design influences how people perceive your product, dressing right for the part is equally important.

I read a case study where chiropractors make more money when they wear a lab coat, stethescope, and all their employees wear scrubs.

Your "packaging" has to match your customers expectations

and the story going on in their head

</comment><comment><USER34> To me his friend is simply showing respect. Trying to make a good first impression. That isn't trying to be someone they're not. If he's great the VC's will know five minutes into his pitch.

</comment><comment><USER35> He basically said that if you're a little awkward, you have no business wearing a polo. Even when it's perfectly acceptable to. Even expected.

Are you doing business? Wear at least business-casual! I believe it shows disrespect if you don't. As if this meeting isn't important enough to you to change out of your every day t-shirt.

<comment><USER36> Serious question - how and why do you think it shows disrespect, and for what? The only thing I can think of is tradition.

<comment><USER35> I think it shows disrespect because they will most likely be dressed up and you won't. And I'm talking about the situation when you need something from them, like a job offer or investment. It doesn't take any more effort to throw a polo on as it does a t-shirt, so the fact that you chose the t-shirt, I believe that's disrespect.

Just tradition? Yes. But traditions exist for a reason. Sure some people in Silicon Valley may be cool and just care about your brain, but the rest of the world doesn't work that way. Try going to an interview wearing a Simpsons t-shirt and shorts and just try to get treated the same way as if you were in a suit.

<comment><USER36> With all due respect, I don't think you've offered any kind of explanation here.

Why is it more respectful to be dressed up if they are? You've simply restated that it is without explanation. What makes a polo shirt more respectful than a t-shirt?

You say there are reasons for the tradition, but you don't say what they are. Traditions may have reasons but they aren't automatically good so it would help the debate to actually know what you thought they were. Note that I didn't say anything to minimize the importance of tradition in general.

Nobody is disputing that people _do_ treat each other differently because of how they dress. The question is, what's behind it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Actually, most people aren't that interested in the 'latest in fashion' either. If fashion is what turns you on.. then don't let the computer geeks turn you off ;).. unless they turn you on as well.. in that case how you doin'? _points and winks_

</comment><comment><USER38> A different take on the matter: [http://boldanddetermined.com/2012/03/29/why- you-should-dress...](http://boldanddetermined.com/2012/03/29/why-you-should- dress-like-winner-wolf/)

</comment><comment><USER39> The steve and woz picture reminded me of this scene:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80zFQ57RbdM&t=37m40s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80zFQ57RbdM&t=37m40s)

</comment><comment><USER40> I think it depends upon where you are in the process. If you find yourself in the fortunate (and rare) situation where you have investors competing to hear you, then wear whatever you want. Go in a bathrobe if it makes you happy.

If you are trying to sell something, your job is to make the person you are selling to like you and then forget about you because of what you are showing.

I do think there is a point to be made here, but in a more abstract sense than business presentations. Apple is actually a poor example because in their early days Jobs was often seen making presentations in suits.

</comment><comment><USER27> I think, the best "suit" for the pitch is a t-shirt with your project logo. Well, in fact it's a best everyday clothes too. ;)

</comment><comment><USER41> Hmmh, confusing title and article. Don't you want abnormal returns? Normal is average and average for most people is mediocre.

<comment><USER5> What would lead you to interpret that title as confusing?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> People make themselves unique through their work and vision. Not solely through their external appearance.

</comment><comment><USER29> You always need to dress to impress, sometimes others but yourself first!

</comment><comment><USER43> Some of this is also cultural. Foreign investors might feel they're being slighted if you show up in jeans and a t-shirt while they're wearing suits.

<comment><USER44> Foreign investors who do not first research the region and culture they are investing in deserve to be insulted, they've conclusively demonstrated incompetence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is wrong. Nice sentiment that makes all us awkward people feel better but still wrong and strangely reminds me of America's obsession with self-esteem over real achievement.

I'm a fucking weirdo. I own it. When I'm alone or by people who get me I look and act just how I am and it's perfectly acceptable. But that won't fly with people I need to sell to or make a good impression on.

When I go to meetings or anywhere where I'll be networking or generally need to make a good impression I ditch my usual attire and put on the nice clothes, I don't talk as casually as usual, etc. am I faking it? Absolutely not! I'm sincere and polite. I make my good impression and as any relationship matures with these people I slowly introduce them to my eccentricities. It's a lot like dating. I think it was an episode of Seinfeld (or some sitcom) where one of the characters goes on a date, it goes bad, and the character remarks that you have to let the crazy out little by little, not all at once on the first meeting. It's kind of like that.

As humans we play a variety of different roles in our lives. We're girlfriends, boyfriends, husbands, fathers, students, teachers, grand kids, grandparents, friends, acquaintances, patients, etc. Each role requires us to behave differently. Being able to slip in and out of each role when appropriate is very healthy and far from insincere. You can play a role and still be yourself.

I get the nice sentiment of this article and it seems innocent and nice enough but I think it's just misguided. Being yourself doesn't mean you act the same in all your roles. You can meet with VCs in a nice suit and still be your same friendly, eccentric self. It's not about trying to be so,etching you're not, it's about showing respect for the guys you're meeting, showing that you want to be taken seriously, that you care, and that you take the meeting seriously.

I feel like many times when people advocate for "being yourself" it's not so much about advising someone to be true to themselves but instead another form of this self esteem movement that pretty much feels that you're born great and you don't need to change a thing. Wrong! We all have things we need to work on. It's good to fit in with society. The fact is, there are actually very few people who are true eccentrics like Steve Jobs who meet with important people wearing no shoes and smelling like patchouli. Most people who do that are actually the ones who are faking it the most and _trying_ to be different for the sake of being different.

I'm eccentric but you'd never know it. I fit in when I have to and it serves me well. I'm myself whether I fit in or not. And if there's one thing I've learned in my life as it relates to this, it's that it you're conscious of "being yourself" in any way at all you're probably not being yourself at all.

<comment><USER45> How does dressing up in a suit make you any better of a person?

<comment><USER15> Where did he say it does? As best I can tell, he was arguing that a suit is appropriate in some situations in much the same way showering, deodorant and combing your hair is appropriate in some situations- and detracts from your identity no more than showering et al does, either.

Or are you staunchly against those things, too?

<comment><USER36> Showering and deodorant is a distracting straw man. Nobody is talking about being dirty or smelly.

The interesting question is _why_ is wearing a suit appropriate, other than because it's traditional?

Are those advocating wearing suits really saying anything more than "we prefer to stick with tradition"?

<comment><USER5> _Showering and deodorant is a distracting straw man._

It certainly is, and the fact that people go there shows how empty the argument is.

I'm still surprised at the consensus in this thread. Hopefully it's a random blip and not the white blood cells finally figuring out where we've all been :)

<comment><USER36> I'm not ready to conclude that the argument is empty, but I do think it's interesting that instead of presenting actual arguments, people seem to be getting defensive.

To me that suggests that whatever the real reason is, people aren't comfortable with it. We won't know until someone actually gives a reason though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I find that many people will put more trust in a scruffy programmer over one in a suit, purely because it fits their own mental image of how a hacker should look.

Stereotypes can cut both ways on stuff like this.

</comment><comment><USER47> the reason you can get away with sneakers and jeans is that we are in a bubble. it won't always be that way.

<comment><USER48> The reason you can get away with sneakers and jeans is that how you look doesn't matter, what you have to say and what you do is what matters. Investors aren't giving you money because of your fashion sense, they're giving you money so that they can get money back.

<comment><USER49> You both haven't hit it on the head.

People have to trust what you say and what you do. How you present yourself partly determines how people perceive and trust you.

<comment><USER50> Are people who dress in spiffy clothing more likely to be trustworthy?

<comment><USER51> I know this might sound shallow but the first time I meet someone, I actually judge that person based on the way he or she dresses (if I suspect that he could afford dressing properly). It tells me whether they care about themselves, whether they have a good taste. Ultimately yes, in my experience, there's a correlation between "spiffy clothing" and "trustworthiness".

And I'm convinced that most people do the same, whether they admit it or not.

<comment><USER44> "Properly"... What is "properly"? How was "properly" determined? What qualifies you to judge whether someone is dressed "properly"?

<comment><USER51> Fashion is clearly very subjective but it is also a visual language. If the way you dress within a context is communicating that you don't care about yourself, you aren't dressed properly.

<comment><USER44> I wear what is comfortable precisely because I care about myself. By your logic, dressing in any manner other than shorts and t-shirts would either be communicating that I don't care about myself, or would be a lie.

See how ridiculous this is?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Big Media's Anti-Google Counter-Revolution Will Fail - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/haque/2009/11/why_news_corps_antigoogle_coun.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HarvardBusiness.org%29 <comment><USER2> I don't really understand the argument that Google is profiting off news sites. Google is driving traffic to sites that wouldn't otherwise have it, and as far as I've seen they don't even place ads on Google News. Google should be charging the newspapers for access - not paying them.

It's also a bit rich for newspapers to argue that they're providing much of value, when so many stories are blatant ripoffs from their competitors or lightly rewritten wire articles. Public consumption of the news is shifting to a 'singles' model, like the music industry, but newspapers persist in acting like they're on an 1890s Vaudeville circuit. The industry should shrink to the point that the only survivors are producing original, valuable content.

</comment><comment><USER3> This will not work, but the next stage will be "cooperating" with the DoJ and filing amicus briefs in a trumped-up antitrust case.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the difference between a "product" and a "solution"? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> A solution fixes a business problem and can have both product and service elements.</comment>


What's the best way to get started? - <AUTHOR>

I've never been in a startup before, but I'm interested in starting or joining one. I literally don't know who to talk to. How do you make contacts with other developers, angels, VCs, etc? <comment><USER2> By doing just what you're doing. Ask questions, learn, introduce yourself. Read blogs that talk about the things you're interested in, leave comments, become acquainted with the people in your industry.

That's how I got to where I am now, finding local companies who do marketing and design, leave comments on their blogs and always know how to stay in touch.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tell us a bit more about what you can do - maybe someone here will be interested.

<comment><AUTHOR> I live in Austin, TX. I'm young-ish (26), team lead of 10 engineers on several shipped products. I've written production code: linux kernel C, userspace C, python, ruby, win32 c++, java. I've rewritten the build system of a 500k LoC C project. I've maintained a Linux From Scratch cross compiling distro. I'm in chapter 4 of SICP, so I'm starting to become proficient in Scheme, and I've caught the lisp bug.

I'm currently working in the Storage (SCSI) industry. At a previous job, I wrote shipping code for medical image processing.

<comment><USER4> How's the startup scene in Austin?

<comment><AUTHOR> I wish I knew. :-)

I've heard it's fairly good though. Probably 3rd in the country behind the valley and Boston.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Any idea the direction you want to head? Or what are you into? Want to stay with Image design or storage systems?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't really care that much about which industry I'm in. I just want to make successful, quality products.

I'm kind of interested in fixing the morass that is web-app technologies. The current technology stack of SQL + server side language + html + javascript + CSS sucks. There are impedance mismatches between each of those, and the scalability is not really convenient.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> visit <http://programmermeetdesigner.com/>

this is one of the best resourceful website/community , post your profile there - if you are looking for entrepreneur or other techies then u can visit their profile and postings to comment and contact them.

I have posted my profile there under same user name "ideas101" - contact me there for more ideas and details.

Good Luck.</comment>


12 character passwords found to be far superior to 8 characters - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/innovation/08/20/super.passwords/index.html

<comment><USER2> In other news: A recent study has found that wool parkas found protect one from the cold far better than short sleeve shirts.

</comment><comment><USER3> not sure what are all those dismissive comments are about. the news here is that it become exceptionally EASY to brute-force an 8 character password. 8char passwords did provide the security for a while, but it seems they don't anymore. Equipment built from off the shelf components (and not too many of them) can break such passwords today. I'm sure it will soon be used not just by NSA but by almost anyone, including some 'recovery' businesses.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is idiocy. There is no system in existence that I know of where you will be allowed to sit and try millions of passwords.

About the only place I can think of is encrypted partitions, when you somehow obtained the physical drive. But that usually has other, additional security mechanisms in place.

After failure number 5 most systems just lock the account. All the requirements on password complexity are sheer idiocy.

<comment><USER5> > After failure number 5 most systems just lock the account.

Which gives us a nice method of blocking someone from their account just by intentionally logging in with a wrong password 5 times.

Much better method is to require user to solve CAPTCHA (or, maybe, "hashcash"-type test, to perform some time-consuming computation) after 2nd wrong guess per hour.

> All the requirements on password complexity are sheer idiocy.

Not exactly all. Sane minimal requirements like "you password can't be your name or birth date (or both of them combined)" are perfectly fine. It's very sad how many people use their birth year (yeah, just 4 digits!) as a password. And this is not because they don't care about their accounts (they do), it's just because they just don't get how insecure it is.

Just don't overdo it with real idiocy like "your password must contain at least one digit". Hey, my password generator gave me "CEvbnofFqDKNdRsW", and this IS really secure enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Worst researched article ever.

 _A website called Password Safe will store a list of passwords for you, but Boyd and Davis said it may still be possible for a hacker to obtain that list._

PasswordSafe is a software program (created by Bruce Schneir) that stores your passwords on your own computer. It is not a website for storing passwords.

</comment><comment><USER7> _But when the researchers applied that same processing power to 12-character passwords, they found it would take 17,134 years to make them snap._

I love how they position this as some sort of strenuous discovery and not simple math.

</comment><comment><USER8> Who knew CNN had Captain Obvious working for them?

</comment><comment><USER9> But as always, you can compensate for lack of length BY BEING LOUD (not for the whole time) and/or being exceptionally (00L.

</comment><comment><USER10> Just do what I do: use an 8 character random password... twice.</comment>