Scott Adams: How to Be Successful - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304626104579121813075903866.html#! <comment><USER2> This insight is huge:

      Had I been goal-oriented instead of system-oriented, I imagine I would
      have given up after the first several failures. It would have felt like
      banging my head against a brick wall.

      But being systems-oriented, I felt myself growing more capable every
      day, no matter the fate of the project that I happened to be working on.

<comment><USER3> Truth right here. His systems thinking advice is phenomenal. Love this quote too:

"Throughout my career I've had my antennae up, looking for examples of people who use systems as opposed to goals. In most cases, as far as I can tell, the people who use systems do better. The systems-driven people have found a way to look at the familiar in new and more useful ways."

He's talking about success as simply a single point in the statistical sampling that is your life. This is an extremely correct, scientific, and most importantly helpful way to look at the world and your work.

<comment><USER4> It sounds good, but I'm having trouble figuring out how to apply it. I realize this article couldn't contain everything that will be in his book and so I hope that there is more practical advice regarding systems other than "have a system" in the book.

For example, the guy that was always looking for a new job... isn't that just a repeating goal?

On a personal note, I need to lose weight. I've done it before: I lost 74 lbs, but now several years later I've gained back just over 90 lbs. I reached my goal, and lost all motivation for eating healthy, and steadily gained it all back and more.

I'm trying to structure my life around doing healthier things (better food, more exercise). How can I systemize that? Or have I already? I have "goals" of walking X times per week for Y distance. Is that the wrong approach? Should it be "after having walked, walk again as soon as possible but not sooner than 1 day?"

I guess I could use an example of some systems that were not just repeating goals.

<comment><USER4> I appreciate the advice in the sibling posts.

I will consider these while I try to work out what the difference is between what Scott Adams calls a goal vs a system. I can be very pedantic, and I think that is getting in the way of understanding.

I googled "systems vs goals" and actually found another Scott Adams post on the topic, even about excercise :)

[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/systems/](http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/systems/)

I'm trying to get a more direct handle on the difference so I can better apply it generally.

It seems that when Adams says "goal" he is specifically talking about an endpoint. A destination. And that's a common definition I think.

His use of system seems to still have goals, they are just smaller and easily achieved. They also seem to be more related to triggers or starting points. For example, "go to the gym" not "workout" or "do X reps."

He also provides a relief valve in this case (not _having_ to work out once he gets there if he doesn't feel up to it), so that the pressure of the expected follow through to "going to the gym" is relieved and thus not a deterrent.

So if I were to apply this to walking, it could be something like "put on walking shoes, exercise clothes, and go outside, everyday."

Or for better food: "Go to the store, buy some veggies I like," and maybe add on "go through prep work for cooking them." The relief valve could be that "I don't _have_ to cook and eat this for dinner, but i do have to buy and prep."

<comment><USER5> Right. Actually doing the exercise or actually eating the vegetables is at worse a minor nuisance, that on most days has enough immediate positives that it is self-reinforcing. Once we have the running shoes on, we probably find ourselves happy with the choice 30 minutes later some 99%+ of the time. Ditto the clean vegetables sitting on the counter.

The problem comes at the "meta" level, bargaining with ourselves whether we _feel_ like going to the gym, so we hem and haw over putting the shorts and shoes on. Allowing this self-bargaining process to become involved is adding mostly negative emotional energy in a way that does not pay a useful dividend.

Presumably the relief valve has value in cutting short certain kinds of excuses. "Fine. If I am outside with my shoes and gear on, I do not have to go to the gym. Just getting the shoes on is easy enough, right? Once I am outside, maybe I will want to stroll around the block. But I can decide that once I am outside and ready -- no sense in dawdling now."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is basically an idea that you shouldn't set goals on outcomes but on behaviors. The idea isn't new and is kind of mantra in some fields. One very specific one: professional gambling. This is good example because professionals gamblers have very long and imprecise feedback loop and setting goals on outcomes is recipe for constant frustration and confusion (sometimes you make great decision for 2 weeks and lose and sometimes you make awful decisions for 2 weeks and win big). Also for them it's easy to understand that outcomes are very poor indicator of good behavior. At least in "short term" but in many games the short term is sometimes several months or more. That is way more than our brain comprehends and you really have to fight its tendency to link value of behaviors with instant outcomes they produce (how intuition but also superstition is formed).

People without gambling background often have different view on reality - it's not so easy for them to appreciate luck because they are not trained to recognize it and not trained to deal with it in methodological way. I love the take on those issues by the author. As someone who did professional gambling for many years I see the concepts popular in my field worded in "real life"/business terms. Great !

<comment><USER7> I like this analogy. In a somewhat cheesy way, life is a casino, and the big winners are lucky idiots and pro gamblers. You can't choose to become a lucky idiot, but you can choose to become a pro gambler.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is one of the best article I have read in weeks.

Life is about "karma" and not associating you to the results. Mr. Linus Torvalds never made a "goal" to make linux run in every server on this planet. I don't know what is his real inspiration behind working on Linux, But one thing is clear that he succeeded. Everybody has his own reason to follow his/her path.

Sometimes we don't even have a reason. We just go with the flow and keep learning what life gives us. Just by keeping our direction right in the flow, we will eventually reach our "goal". If we keep looking at the goals, we will never be able to look at our rocky path and eventually fall down. Making goals is wise. But sticking yourself to its result isn't.

Every work we do is our karma. Writing this is also a karma. I'm not talking about HN "karma", but real karma. It is about sharing my views with the community. I learn from the community, so maybe someone will learn from me. This is how community works. Thats my karma.

The word karma gained popularity from this famous verse of Bhagavad Gita :

 _karmany evadhikaras te ma phalesu kadachana ma karma-phala-hetur bhur ma te sango 'stv akarmani_

It means :

 _You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action. Never consider yourself the cause of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty._

I am just gonna conclude this with board that I recently saw in Apple's recent iPhone event.

[http://oi44.tinypic.com/2uqd3es.jpg](http://oi44.tinypic.com/2uqd3es.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER9> The problem with "grinders" and taking the passion out of business is that it implicitly encourages amorality. One of the biggest reasons that Google's "don't be evil" mantra gets so much play is because it is so rare for a modern corporation to even acknowledge the concept of morality, much less explicitly name it as a goal even if the execution is imperfect.

I think moral behavior can only come from passion. If you don't have strong beliefs about the role of your business in society then it is entirely too easy to rationalize socially destructive practices in pursuit of financial success.

I'm not saying passion is a cure-all, there is no such thing as a cure-all and it is clearly possible to be passionate about a socially destructive idea. But from a social perspective, I think we are better off with a lot of passionate failures and a few passionate successes than a lot of purely financial successes.

<comment><USER10> Wait, don't public corporations have an fiduciary duty to their shareholders, debt duty to their bond holders and payroll obligation to their employees.

To be honest, if I was a shareholder of GOOG or more likely the via fund manager of my 401K who is managing a portfolio of thousands of publicly traded companies, I could care hardly less about the company and more about their bottom-line; because the fund manager has a moral responsibility to manage the assets of the little guys /working class/teachers/firefighters - cue the TIAA- CREF feel good commercial.

IMO, this is the true banality of evil that is not talked about. There is no invisible evil man pulling the strings behind the scene, only layers of our self-interest all conveniently shielded by complex layers of capital structures and financial incentives that no one wishes to really confront the conflicts and zero-sum nature involved in it all.

I could hardly care less about corporations trying to be 'not evil' because that's a marketing gimmick. I'd rather have a company tell me how they are screwing honestly their customers, employees and shareholders; there's no shame in that because it's a given and the company would instantly gain respect for their honesty.

<comment><USER9> _Wait, don 't public corporations have an fiduciary duty to their shareholders, debt duty to their bond holders and payroll obligation to their employees._

Sort of. It sounds good on paper - in a perfect world perhaps the invisible hand of the market would make "greed is good" a functional philosophy. But that's not the world we live in - there will always be significant friction, imperfect knowledge, etc in the market such that insisting that one part of the entire system be "pure" in the economic liberal sense is really just denying the obvious in a way that encourages exploiting those imperfections.

FWIW, the concept that corporations have no public duty beyond maximizing profits as a course of business is quite new. Here's some background:

False Profits: Reviving the Corporation's Public Purpose [http://www.uclalawreview.org/?p=1056](http://www.uclalawreview.org/?p=1056)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I can't even read another one of these. I've noticed one thing about these success stories; they always leave out the people, connections, and family money that made them successful. I've met very few Horatio Alger's. Old reference. 99% of the "Successful" kids I went to school with had rich parents. Gavin Newsom comes to mind. He was voted most fashionable at Redwood. He was an idiot. His parents paid for every business until one stuck. I know the current Gold Rush is different, but beware of the rich telling the poor how to succeed. Oh, and the books-- they never end. I guess the truth is hard to stomach for most successful people? I've always questioned what real success is anyways. Does it really matter if you have a billion dollars if you have a tumor in your pancreas? I certain parts of the world I hear integrity, honesty, and true altruism are what people call Successful--not here though. are

<comment><USER12> I'm curious how you think this worked in the specific case here of Scott Adams. His Dilbert has been on a decline for ages, and it still manages to be one of the most consistently funny comic strips out there. In his heyday probably half of the tech guys in the US had one of his comics posted on the wall of their cubical.

How did his (alleged) people, connections, and family money make that happen? Have they been hiring funny people to ghostwrite the strip? Did they make sure funnier writers were blacklisted? Did they somehow send him to a mystical funny school? If people were being paid to hang up his strips on their wall, I never got my check...

<comment><USER13> > How did his (alleged) people, connections, and family money make that > happen?

Did Scott Adams grow up in a slum and receive a US "inner city" education?

Alternatively, did he grow up on a farm with a family that expected him to work to help support it once he could drop-out of school without repercussion?

Are you starting to see where this is going?

<comment><USER14> You seem to be conflating "rich" with "not poor".

<comment><USER13> Who said anything about `rich'? Neither I nor the parent ever used the word.

<comment><USER14> The great grandparent who started off the line of reasoning was pretty explicit about it, saying things like the following:

> 99% of the "Successful" kids I went to school with had rich parents

In either case, you're referring to a poor minority of Americans. I don't think anyone else was arguing that average Americans are overprivileged compared to ... other average Americans.

(If I misinterpreted, please let me know: I've been on a roll today.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> All of these arguments for success implicitly appeal to our fear that we are not going to be able to have a good human experience if we don't have enough power over other people.

You can succeed and you can fail, but you cannot be a success or a failure. The entire problem is identifying too strongly with the outcome of your actions.

Incidentally, if you really commit to this worldview, then traditional motivators like guilt and money stop working. The transition period can be difficult; it's usually the crux of a mid-life crisis.

</comment><comment><USER16> Beware generic advice about achieving success:

[http://mustapha.svbtle.com/tfs](http://mustapha.svbtle.com/tfs)

(This is just off HN frontpage)

<comment><USER17> The article says just that! "Beware of advice about successful people and their methods. For starters, no two situations are alike. Your dreams of creating a dry-cleaning empire won't be helped by knowing that Thomas Edison liked to take naps."

<comment><USER11> It says that to cover the fact he's still giving advise. The rich have been giving out advise to the poor forever. The one little act they alwys leave out is the amount of support they received along the way. It's always conviently left out.

<comment><USER17> He also mentioned what a huge role luck plays. I found the article's honesty refreshing personally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's interesting how different people define success.

It sounds like Mr. Adams defines success by how much money you have.

My definition of success is enough income to allow me to mostly ignore money[1] and instead can spend my days doing things that genuinely interest me, with people I genuinely like.

[1] eg not having to worry about working out which yoghurt is the best value for money at the supermarket, not being afraid to go to the doctors because I can't afford it, having enough saved up that if I want to take a few months off employment to do my own thing I can, stuff like that.

<comment><USER19> [1] Is the same definition as Scott's if you word it that way. That's millions of dollars before you can think that way.

<comment><USER18> I don't have millions or dollars (or even close) and I _do_ think that way. All those examples were actually things I've done in the past.

Are you American? Is the American healthcare system so bad that you feel you need millions of dollars to survive it?

Or is it just that for you to be able to ignore money you need to have so much of it that you can snap purchase ferraris?

FWIW when I say don't think about money I mean for mundane every day things, like going to the supermarket or the doctors, or not being tied down to work a job you hate because you need need need that paycheck that comes every month.

I'm talking about flexibility, not the ability to buy everything you've ever wanted :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This statement really hits a chord with me.

"To put it bluntly, goals are for losers. That's literally true most of the time. For example, if your goal is to lose 10 pounds, you will spend every moment until you reach the goal—if you reach it at all—feeling as if you were short of your goal. In other words, goal-oriented people exist in a state of nearly continuous failure that they hope will be temporary.

If you achieve your goal, you celebrate and feel terrific, but only until you realize that you just lost the thing that gave you purpose and direction. Your options are to feel empty and useless, perhaps enjoying the spoils of your success until they bore you, or to set new goals and re-enter the cycle of permanent presuccess failure."

I've always been taught that there are 3 people in the world:

1) People who live in the past

2) People who have a dream and stop having dreams when they achieve that dream

3) People who have dreams and set new dreams once they achieve their current dream

Opens up the eyes based on another person's perspective. I wonder if that goal oriented purpose of life, getting the bigger house, better car etc. is just part of how society measures success.

</comment><comment><USER21> I remember talking to a car parking attendant, and it turned out he was the owner of the lot. Out of curiosity I asked him how much he made - he turned around and pointed at a few nearby lots which he also owned - and gave me a staggeringly large sum.

The dichotomy Adams presents is interesting, of passion versus making money. It's obvious really, but I never thought about it as explicitly. The battle between these two forces are evident all over the place. Taking gaming for instance. Freemium, addictive, social games versus indie games made with passion. One rakes in millions a day, the other may barely subsist a living. But I'd argue one is far more beneficial to the human experience than the other.

</comment><comment><USER22> Speaking of Scott Adams' business ideas, I've always liked his "Rules for Filtering Out Bad Ideas":

[http://filters.pen.io/](http://filters.pen.io/)

My favorite is #3: _It doesn 't matter how many people dislike an idea. All that matters is how many like it._ So you should ignore the odd person who says, _" Personally, I don't like the idea of an antigravity invention, so you probably ought to spend your time doing something more useful."_

I would have phrased it as: Some good ideas will be viciously hated by a few/some/many, but it's still good if adored by some.

<comment><USER23> Plenty of people like segregation, the death penalty, imprisonment for drug use, _add your own absurdity or dislike here_.

Not trying to Godwin the thread, but really, like/dislikes are a _terrible_ measure of the value of an idea.

<comment><USER22> If we were talking about "idea" in a totally general way, your point is fine. (I'd add astrology to your list.)

But I, and I'm pretty sure that Scott Adams also, were talking about _business_ ideas; i.e., are there any people willing to pay for this product or service, and how badly do they need or desire it.

<comment><USER23> My business idea is to collect your social data and sell it to the highest bidder, in exchange for letting you play some free games.

Some people _love_ that. I personally cannot then conclude that the business plan is 'good' (for what I consider a reasonable value of 'good' \- certainly it will make me buckets of cash).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Success caused passion more than passion caused success.

I found that interesting.

<comment><USER25> It is interesting, but I completely disagree. At least in my own case. I've worked on projects that I've not been passionate about ("This is gonna make me super rich!"), and I always end up throwing in the towel and moving on. Passion is what drives me to keep going when there's simply nothing else.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, the problem is, no matter how good you are at doing something, there is somebody somewhere who is just as good or maybe better at the same thing, and he or she _likes_ it. That person will kick your ass if you follow Scott Adams's advice.

(Advice that he apparently learned from an anonymous lending officer at a bank that isn't around anymore: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocker_National_Bank](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocker_National_Bank))

<comment><USER27> If you want an average successful life, it doesn't take much planning. Just stay out of trouble, go to school, and apply for jobs you might like. But if you want something extraordinary, you have two paths:

1\. Become the best at one specific thing. 2. Become very good (top 25%) at two or more things. -Scott Adams [http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/care...](http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/07/career- advice.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I disagree. I think that you have to take ownership of your own career and advancement. Until you reach a level, where you can really take ownership within a company.

Employers these days will not raise your salary at market rate without you jumping from company to company.

For example, person A stays at one company for 5 years and person B jumps from company to company every 1 to 2 years. At the end of the 5 years, person B will be making a lot more than person A.

<comment><USER29> Depends on the employers. It would be really stupid not to keep the salaries up to date. It's been said over and over again, it's taught in business schools, hell you can even google a lucky "management tutorial" right now and it's written there. Management should know this, this is their job. If the employers are incompetent then, yes you should leave.

<comment><USER30> reminds me of a person I know. She will cross the street and never look. She almost got hit by a car one day. I stop her and tell her she needs to look before crossing. She says "I have the right-of-way, if they hit me it's their fault."

Yeah. I couldn't disagree. But I had to remind her that physics is the real law of the land. Doesn't matter much who is at fault, if you're dead.

Point being, academic theory never matches reality.

<comment><USER29> We don't disagree. My point is there are plenty of employers who will keep your salary up to date. Of course if they fail to do so, you should leave and move on to a higher salary. They are at fault, so they should take the loss and redo their hiring experiments all over again. Simple as that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Previous submission (no comments):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6537381](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6537381)

<comment><USER32> I wish that comments about previous submissions of the same article could be added to the HN commenting guidelines as "noise", and to be avoided, unless they were very far back, and actually contain useful comments.

Telling us it's been submitted previously, and with no comments (!), seems like a particularly useless bit of information. Am I supposed to care? Click over to it? Up vote it? Comment over there? Exactly how did you hope to enrich the comment feed here by posting that?

<comment><USER31> Your question is fair. Here, noting that the article has been submitted before is perhaps an illustration of the role of luck ("survivorship bias") in attaining success. I appreciate such notices (and regularly upvote them, from anybody) because I like a reality check on the feeling "Haven't I seen this article before?"

<comment><USER32> Alright. If people are getting value out of these public notices, keep 'em coming. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> _What I learned from that experience is that there is no such thing as useful information that comes from a company 's management. Now I diversify and let the lying get smoothed out by all the other variables in my investments._

I've found that this can be as true for internal communication as external, at least once it goes beyond the communication of immediate assignments and expectations.

You know those "business unit", "segment", "all hands" and the like "state of the business" meetings? Yeah, those.

Actually, sometimes those are not exactly zero content. The more they try to convince you that something isn't, the more you may be inclined to assume that it actually is.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is great. I just wish he hadn't stopped listing failures.

<comment><USER35> Agreed. This is a teaser for his upcoming book, I'm sure there are more failures listed there. Here's another similarly-themed article[1] he wrote in 2011

[1] [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870410160457624...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704101604576247143383496656.html)

<comment><USER36> Thanks for the share, great read; this alone deserves it's own HN submission.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> _If you drill down on any success story, you always discover that luck was a huge part of it. You can 't control luck, but you can move from a game with bad odds to one with better odds. You can make it easier for luck to find you. The most useful thing you can do is stay in the game. If your current get-rich project fails, take what you learned and try something else. Keep repeating until something lucky happens. The universe has plenty of luck to go around; you just need to keep your hand raised until it's your turn. It helps to see failure as a road and not a wall._

I think that says it all, vis-a-vis the "luck" thing. Well said, Mr. Adams.

</comment><comment><USER38> This is good advice... for _some_ people.For those who might make the mistakes he's alluding to. Other people will have a different character where passion is indeed what makes them make good decisions and succeed.

So, like all advice, this works for some of the people, some of the time. As he said himself in the text: "Beware of advice about successful people and their methods. For starters, no two situations are alike. "

<comment><USER39> I liked the article.

But the irony is that if he had written the exact same thing prior to achieving success with Dilbert it would mean absolutely nothing to the masses and hardly be taken seriously at all. But yet I'm sure he would admit that Dilbert succeeding was total luck after so many "failures".

There are many people who are successful with many good things to say but nobody would ever take anything they say seriously before that lucky event (by that I mean on a wide scale basis I'm not saying that an individual might not listen to another offering some good advice.)

<comment><USER32> I think that's fair, though. There are enough people who are old enough alive at any given time to have seen their system through to success or failure that it makes reasonable sense to prefer their experience over people just starting out.

As a basic filter, you could do worse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Love reading stories about how people failed, it helps to know that everyone has ups and downs. FailCon - a conference just focused on hearing failures stories from successful startup founders is Oct 21st in SF and there are still a few tickets: www.thefailcon.com - me and my co-producer, Cassie, started it because we wanted to make talking about failure less taboo. I think it's working. :)

</comment><comment><USER41> > _Dilbert started out as just one of many get-rich schemes I was willing to > try. When it started to look as if it might be a success, my passion for > cartooning increased because I realized it could be my golden ticket. In > hindsight, it looks as if the projects that I was most passionate about were > also the ones that worked. But objectively, my passion level moved with my > success. Success caused passion more than passion caused success._

I'd argue that Scott Adams' argument about passion isn't telling the whole story. I think Tom Kelley of IDEO said it best - He said to imagine a Venn diagram with three circles (1) What you love, (2) What you're great at, and (3) What makes money. Finding something that satisfies all three is ideal (but probably unattainable for most), while Scott Adams seems to be arguing that having (2) and (3) without (1) is the "best bet". Both are fair points, I think.

</comment><comment><USER42> > _On the other hand, Dilbert started out as just one of many get-rich schemes > I was willing to try. When it started to look as if it might be a success, > my passion for cartooning increased because I realized it could be my golden > ticket. In hindsight, it looks as if the projects that I was most passionate > about were also the ones that worked. But objectively, my passion level > moved with my success. Success caused passion more than passion caused > success._ > > _So forget about passion. And while you 're at it, forget > about goals, too._

This is the generalized version of: "It's not the ideas, it's the execution". And I have to say, I agree. It's not that ideas don't matter...but unless you already have some amazing foundation of wealth or opportunity, you need a good _process_ to get to the point where reaching your idea is feasible.

</comment><comment><USER43> This was a really good read.

I think his "have a system" is really better explained as keeping your goals dynamic, like "make my repeating income grow" or "always look for a better job." . I loved the piece, but was confused by the choice of "have a system" like some other comments have pointed out.

I think this mindset is akin to Taleb's antifragile concept. If your goals are always trying to better yourself in some way or another, than any random events that cause your situation to get worse will increase your motivation to succeed. benefit from randomness, good or bad.

</comment><comment><USER28> What exactly does "system-oriented" mean? The article seems sort of contradictory to me. On one hand he is saying having goals is for losers and you need to be system-oriented instead, but on the other he is saying that his goal was to make it rich and he just tried a bunch of stuff until he reached that goal.

The example of the person constantly looking for a better job is also confusing. Isn't the goal of that person to have a better job and he is just repeating the same goal over and over?

<comment><USER44> I don't see any contradiction.

Goal : Lose 10 pounds. System: Eat healthily and exercise every day, without looking at the scale.

Goal : Find a better job (when you think you need it) System : Be always on the lookout for a better job (even you are content with you current one)

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Get fan of you but still i will walk on my success path. i thing it is not necessary to read article from other to become successful. yes we can take a idea but every man have own dream ,own ideas and own work power. Steve not read others idea,Same Gandhi didn't read other to be successful. They work own their dreams with their idea and knowledge.So i want to sat stick with dreams and take idea from that type articles but not implement all they say.

</comment><comment><USER46> This sounds like great advice, but seems to contradict his (past?) use of, to quote him, "...something called affirmations, where you write your goals daily." (see [http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/dilbert_20/](http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/dilbert_20/))

Obviously his system oriented approach has room for overall goals, but the WSJ article comes across as totally anti-goal.

</comment><comment><USER47> YC, Hacker News, Arc, and PG's essays are all counterexamples to "success causes passion." The passion came first.

<comment><USER48> YC not necessarily, PG pre-selects already highly successful people. They're just not startup millionaires yet.

<comment><USER49> Hghly successful people? Isn't he mostly targeting graduates?

<comment><USER48> Of top tier schools, or who have worked for top tier companies. Remember his goal shifted recently from funding the best ideas to funding the best people and then finding them a good idea.

<comment><USER49> What I meant, I don't consider someone who just graduated from Standford and/or worked for a few years at Google "highly successful". It means they're capable and motivated, and that's probably what PG's selecting for.

<comment><USER48> We're using two different definitions of "highly successful". I'm comparing to the populace at large, where getting into Harvard/Stanford/MIT or worked at Google very much = highly successful.

I think you're probably using the metric, did they found a startup that hit a billion dollar valuation, or something along those lines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> "Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal." \- Earl Nightingale

That's the definition I have adopted. Have a worthy ideal? Yes. Making progress, even through setbacks? Yes. Therefore, I feel successful due to my belief. The feeling of success attracts more of it. Win.

</comment><comment><USER51> Man, I could use some actionable advice about how to improve my lot right now, but I can never seem to find it in such articles!

Scott Adams is also an edge case, in that he is a world class cartoonist. Without that level of talent, I don't think his "systems" would work.

</comment><comment><USER52> "Let me start with some tips on what not to do. Beware of advice about successful people and their methods. For starters, no two situations are alike."

Is there a potential "mise en abyme" here? :-)

great article, best I've read is while though, cheers. F

</comment><comment><USER53> While reading the part where he gets into details about passion, I felt like the author uses "passion" as a substitute for "excitement".

For instance:

 _" I've been involved in several dozen business ventures over the course of my life, and each one made me excited at the start. You might even call it passion.

The ones that didn't work out—and that would be most of them—slowly drained my passion as they failed."_

I believe passion just exists. It cannot be drained. You either have or you don't. Now of course, you can discover it, after all you cannot be passionate about things you haven't experienced, but once discovered I don't believe passion can be lost. Granted though, "passion" and "enthusiasm" are synonyms, so the distinction is slightly tricky.

</comment><comment><USER54> on passion vs grinding: don't you think that this guy is presenting a false dichotomy here? Couldn't I (and I would!) lend to the guy who loves his job... AND is prepared to work hard at it?

</comment><comment><USER55>
        If you're already as successful as you want to be, both personally and professionally, congratulations!

The secret to being that successful is to be happy with whatever you have.

</comment><comment><USER56> You might want to check out this talk by Bret Victor, "Inventing on Principle": [http://vimeo.com/36579366](http://vimeo.com/36579366)

</comment><comment><USER57> Tell me again how this is different than Malcolm Gladwell? Same format, same insight-porn result, yet this guy is heralded by you all and Gladwell is eviscerated. Confusing, really.

</comment><comment><USER58> As we think about success as habits vs. goals, a good app to consider in practice is Lift [1], available for the web and iOS.

1: [http://lift.do](http://lift.do)

</comment><comment><USER59> A hundred years earlier: "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration."

</comment><comment><USER60> I was waiting for this to hit HN, it was basically written for this community.

(It was first published in the friday WSJ)

</comment><comment><USER61> he told me he was the CEO of a company that made screws. He offered me some career advice. He said that every time he got a new job, he immediately started looking for a better one. For him, job seeking was not something one did when necessary. It was a continuing process.

</comment><comment><USER62> I hate to be nitpicky, but the part about always looking for a better job is horrible advice in terms of marketing yourself. It's pretty well-known that bouncing around from job to job turns pretty much every employer off.

But then again, the type of person Adams is describing is more of an entrepreneur type and not the typical desk jockey.

<comment><USER63> I don't understand how people would stay at a low-paying or (what I see as) non-fulfulling job for very long. Don't these people want to grow? Aren't the curious as to what else is out there? Forget the chances for more pay, benefits, etc.

<comment><USER64> > I don't understand how people would stay at a low-paying or (what I see as) > non-fulfulling job for very long. Don't these people want to grow?

A lot of people see work as a necessary evil to support their real life, away from work. They want to grow, too, but perhaps they prefer a mountain hike or going to soccer training with their daughter instead of reading the release notes for the next OS X.

You should try it.

<comment><USER63> I don't know where you're coming from but you're missing the point.

Why stay at SuperBurger forever when MegaBurger opens up or you could even move up to making burgers at the fancy sit-down place down the road? You're not affecting father-daughter time since you're not at home working on burgers with all your free time or going to burger conferences instead of having daddy-daughter time.

<comment><USER65> Point is, the more fulfilling job often requires much longer hours which certainly do cut into parent-child time. Remember, when highly successful people are asked "if you had it to do over, what would you do differently?" one of the most frequent answers is "spend more time with my children."

<comment><USER32> And then there's the reverse: unsuccessful people, who spent mountains of time with their children, friends, and family, say "I wish I'd taken more risks."

Statistically-speaking, that is _by far_ the most common response, because most people are not "highly successful people".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> _Forget passion. Goals are for losers._

Imagine if Steve Jobs followed this path. Imaging if everyone did. Does financial success while doing something arduous for 40 years make for happiness? This seems counter intuitive.

We would have no innovation if there was no passion. We wouldn't even have electricity...</comment>


Handshaking may be a chemical as well as a social greeting - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21645687-handshaking-may-be-chemical-well-social-greeting-smell-glove

<comment><USER2> I think the focus on pheromones may be misleading. People can for example smell a buildup of uric acid which is a sign of disease and poorly functioning kidney's. So clearly people use sent clues even without pheromones.

PS: The perfume industry is $28.95 billion worldwide so the idea that people care about how others smell should be obvious. And not just women as men's deodorant is vary common.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Not all of Dr Sobel's observations make immediate sense. If the purpose of > sniffing is to learn something about the person with whom you have just > shaken hands then it would be expected that the hand sniffed was the one > which did the shaking. That, though, was true only when the shakee was of > the same sex as the shaker. Those who shook hands with someone of the > opposite sex more often smelled the hand that had not done the shaking.

I think I have a hypothesis which fits that observation: when we shake hands with someone of the same sex, we want to evaluate that person, and so sniff his scent; when we shake hands with someone of the opposite sex, we are concerned that we're giving the best impression, and thus sniff her scent. We're subconsciously neurotic.

Alternatively, we're not attuned to the pheromones of a member of the same sex, so have to sniff our shaken hand to detect them; meanwhile, we can easily smell those of a member of the opposite sex in the air, and sniff our own scent in order to compare compatibility.

Other theories?

</comment><comment><USER4> "We are merely exchanging long protein strings. If can think of a simpler way, I'd like to hear it." [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSH88aE_ggQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSH88aE_ggQ)

</comment><comment><USER5> Perhaps Dr Sobel just smells funny...

As far as I'm aware, the handshake started as an impromptu dirk-frisk.

<comment><USER6> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handshake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handshake) agrees with you (it's also what I had learned.)

We know people did it back in the 4th century BCE, so it's not a stretch to think that it might be a lot older than that. Old enough that it's just something we've always done, with no real idea as to why. So we make up reasons, like to show we are not armed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> BTW, we have the love the article's secondary title, clearly a reference to:

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

</comment><comment><USER8> Print link?

<comment><USER9> Perhaps it's some way to avoid a paywall?

<comment><USER10> Use incognito mode.</comment></comment></comment>


How can ad tech stay relevant as people become informed of the business model? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/How-can-companies-like-Facebook-and-Google-stay-relevant-as-more-people-become-better-informed-of-their-business-model?share=1 <comment> wu-ikkyu The conclusion of the answer, written by a former Google employee, is composed of absurd false dichotomies and strawman arguments.

>So what's the alternative? A world where everyone uses Duck Duck Go, all email is deleted from the server once its read (less secure, more prone to data loss, by the way), no one uses their real name on the Internet, all ads are for Budweiser and Huggies, and every important web service uses a subscription model? No thanks. I'll take Facebook and Google any day.</comment>


Learn coding by hot virgin babes #CodeBase - <AUTHOR> http://uncommonfeed.com/2014/04/learn-coding-by-a-hot-virgin-babe/

<comment><USER2> \- What is this site? Where is the original content? Why have you linked to a shitty secondary source?

\- This is misogynistic and stupid, and exactly the kind of thing we need to keep out of tech culture.

edit: I found the actual content: [http://codebabes.com/](http://codebabes.com/), luckily it was pretty hard to find, the first result for "code base code babes" was [http://www.codefirstgirls.org.uk/edinburgh.html](http://www.codefirstgirls.org.uk/edinburgh.html)

edit2: Looks like it has nothing to do with CodeBase.</comment>


Finding Flexibility: Is working from home really possible? - <AUTHOR> http://shannonmichelleritchie.tumblr.com/post/31922447180/finding-flexibility <comment><USER2> It depends on your skills, but it is doable.</comment>


Use Vagrant to launch AWS boxes - <AUTHOR> http://www.hashicorp.com/blog/preview-vagrant-aws.html

<comment><USER2> Very cool. Out of curiosity, are there any plans to make it easy to provision/create AWS boxes securely via chroot via Eric Hammond's approaches at Alestic? Currently it is a very tedious process to make a secure image on Amazon so that no credentials leak into history and whatnot, it is a tedious process. Making this easy would go a long way to making it trivial to use vagrant to safely publish public boxes for EC2.

More details on this problem here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4457336>

Examples of Eric Hammond's process at Alestic: <http://alestic.com/alestic- git/> <https://github.com/alestic/alestic-git>

</comment><comment><USER3> This is going to be very very useful! It's going to make setting up a staging environment much easier, since we are already using vagrant for dev environments.

I wonder if there will be any support for assigning Elastic IPs.

</comment><comment><USER4> This looks awesome! I can hardly wait for Vagrant 1.1 to be released.</comment>


International Day of Women and Girls in Science - <AUTHOR> https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/international-day-of-women-and-girls-in-science <comment><USER2> "Recent studies have found that women in STEM fields publish less, are paid less for their research, and do not progress as far as men in their careers"...I hope this continues to change. Would be curious to hear what others think needs to happen on a practical, day-to-day level in order to bring about this change. Also looking forward to celebrating International Women's Day on March 8th!</comment>


'Papa Help Me' Boy cries out as boat with Rohingya refugees capsizes - <AUTHOR> https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2017/10/27/papa-help-me-boy-cries-out-as-boat-with-rohingya-refugees-fleeing-burma-capsizes.html <comment><USER2> Dear god, this was so sad to read... Buddhist, Muslims, Christians... why are we fighting and hurting each other? At the end of the day, beyond labels, we are simply human beings...</comment>


Don't Look for Talent, Find People Who Do Things - <AUTHOR> http://tuckermax.me/dont-look-for-talent-find-people-who-do-things/ <comment><USER2> I find this particularly tingling because Tucker himself is a perfect example of doing things. He gets a lot of flak from people calling him a poor writer and lambasting him for writing about some of the "finer" topics in life. Yet, he is a New York Times bestselling author, and his detractors are not.

<comment><USER3> He's the worst kind of shitty writer. He's clearly intelligent. His writing is shit because he doesn't care.

Why should I spend time reading him if he doesn't put time into the quality of his writing?

<comment><USER4> Nobody reads Tucker Max hoping to catch a glimpse of literary genius. His stories are pure content, and his audience likes that. Fans want to hear Tucker's stories about sexual exploits and blackout drinking, and don't particularly care whether or not said exploits are described using alliteration.

So you shouldn't spend time reading him, because you aren't his intended audience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The other day I saw a "looking for technical partner" ad in craigslist by someone who listed "I'm creative" as one of the assets they would be bringing to the partnership.

It made me think about the word "creative". I thought to myself, if I was considering teaming up with this person I would asked them:

"What have you created?"

<comment><USER6> Often, people confuse swirling ideas seeking form in their head for creativity.

<comment><USER7> I think the other situation is more common: smart people with swirling unique thoughts keep them hidden because they don't consider themselves creative.

<comment><USER8> I agree completely. When I was in Art school I was working on a project that instead of using charcoal to create the darks on a white sheet of paper, the assignment was to use a white conte crayon to denote the light areas on a black sheet of paper. I had taken my assignment home and was working on it in my living room when a neighbor and friend of mine knocked on my door and he came in and looked at what I was doing. He was a Mech. E student, and a damn smart person. He told me to my face that he could never do what I was doing because he wasn't creative.

"Creative" doesn't just apply to visual arts - it's a thinking style. And every human, ever, is creative - just in different avenues. And those avenues are all obtainable by all people.

<comment><USER9> Today "creative" usually refers to originality, not the act of creation. It's no worse than using "engineer" to mean computer programmer rather than someone who works on something with an engine.

<comment><USER10> Well, if we're getting our etymology on, 'engine' originally referred to any trick, device, or machine. An engineer was someone who created engines. It only took on the association with steam locomotives in the 1800s.

I would also like point out that early computers were also known as analytic engines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how that compares to these results:

[http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/10/selecting- tal...](http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/10/selecting-talent-the- upshot-from-85-years-of-research.html)

My gut reaction is that there is sample restriction going on: that there is a minimum intelligence create a large volume of coherent software. Additionally, there are a number of practices that are illegal in the US (not sure about other countries) like structured interviews, so the list of things that companies can use is somewhat limited.

</comment><comment><USER12> I can't work on projects outside of work because I work ~12 hours a day, 6-7 days a week and there's no way I can free up the long periods of time needed to create something good. I can't talk up my technical accomplishments in an interview because my job isn't particularly technically demanding or interesting, beyond the company name. I think I'm a good interviewer except when it comes to talking about anything I've actually worked on after college (1 year ago). Any tips on how to get past this?

<comment><USER13> Wait, you're working 60+ hours on boring crap that doesn't advance your career?

WHAT THE HELL?!? STOP THAT!!

Take another job. ANY other job. Flip burgers if you must. Get your priorities in order. 60+ hour work weeks on something you don't utterly love leave you no time to have a life, much less build a career.

<comment><USER14> And sometimes you desperately need money.

<comment><USER15> Not often, plenty of people survive with very little, even in developed nations.

<comment><USER14> I owe 5 figures and make 4. Any money I make goes to rent and ramen. I would kill for consistaint work programming, which is the only thing I am really good for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I like to ask people about what they do in their private life. What are their hobbies. Do they have a lot going on? People who keep themselves busy tend to have a strong motor and usually apply that to their work life as well. Similarly, people don't do much of anything outside of work can bring this habit into the workplace.

<comment><USER17> "In my free time I try to keep my house clean enough so that the kids don't manage to vibrationally attune it to the elemental plane of trash."

"Oh, was that not what you wanted me to say?"

<comment><USER18> That isn't the same as "a person who doesn't do much of anything".

I think it's more in the spirit of "what hobbies do you have" / "what kind of activities do you like".

<comment><USER19> Have you tried having small kids _and_ managing to get some free time for hobbies? It's more challenging than it seems, and usually takes 6-7 years to resolve itself.

<comment><USER20> Yes. Both with autism. It is challenging, but not impossible. You have to do more than just a hobby. You have to manage time, energy, and money.

<comment><USER19> Wow. Our younger is only slightly autistic, and the elder has already grown up. Two simultaneously would be challenging indeed!

<comment><USER20> It is. We have to make sure each of us still goes out. Both together when we can arrange a baby sitter after they are put to bed, and alone when we have an event or something we want to go to. It's tiring. They are wonderful children though. Incredibly happy and affectionate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Dogshit developers get paid 50k to start. Good ones are over 100k. You just have to have actual skills."

Because how much someone makes determines if they're dogshit or not.

<comment><USER22> I think you have your cause and effect backwards. Being paid 50k doesn't make you a bad developer. But bad developers tend to get paid less. At least, one would hope...

<comment><USER23> Developer pay seems to be mostly based on "years worked", not on merit.

<comment><USER24> That depends heavily on who the developer in question works for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> [http://thecodist.com/article/interviews_can_be_a_terrible_wa...](http://thecodist.com/article/interviews_can_be_a_terrible_way_to_identify_good_programmers)

</comment><comment><USER26> > Don't look for talent

Isn't talent the ability to do things well? Or maybe I lack a nuanced definition of "talent". Or maybe the headline is trying to be sensational.

<comment><USER27> You can boil the point of the article down to this line:

 _no one is good at identifying talent ahead of time_

It isn't that you don't _want_ talent, or that talent isn't exactly what you want all of your employees to have, but it is difficult to identify. So, the theory in the article seems to go, instead of trying to measure talent, look for other things in your workers- things that have a non-causal relationship to talent.

I swear there is a word for this in statistics- factors which do not have a clear causal relationship, yet still tend to be found together...

<comment> mark-r Maybe there's a causal relationship but it's just not obvious. See for example [http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/08/quantity-always- tru...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2008/08/quantity-always-trumps- quality.html)

<comment><USER27> Sure, but point being instead of trying to measure talent itself, you try to measure indirectly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is the kind of post I wish there was a downvote for on HN.

</comment><comment><USER29> I honestly don't know why this blog post is so highly rated on HN. He is just recapping what other people have been saying in news articles and blog posts.

</comment><comment><USER30> I read this whole post before realizing it was written by that prick, Tucker Max. I wish I could unread it.

<comment><USER4> I don't like X, therefore I won't consider X's arguments.

That strategy seems like a great way to never learn anything except whatever confirms your own biases.

<comment><USER30> I didn't say he wasn't right about this. Just regret that I provided traffic to his site.

<comment><USER31> That still makes no sense.

<comment><USER32> I agree, re. makes no sense; the man wrote a fine article. I have read one of Tucker Max's books and I am not proud to admit it. But this was one heck of a well-written article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> shameless autopromotion, a.k.a. my viewpoint: [http://blog.cyplo.net/2011/07/24/how-to-hire- people/](http://blog.cyplo.net/2011/07/24/how-to-hire-people/)

<comment><USER34> Pro-tip: don't just link your blog post, give us an executive summary. If you won't make the effort to do at least that, I wouldn't expect many to make the effort to click your link.

<comment><USER33> thanks :) to you point: I think the recruitment process should be less automated and more humane. One should just sit and try to work with another person, as they would be their work partner.

<comment><USER34> Agreed, have heard good reports of companies contracting prospectives for a day or more to actually work on something on the company's todo list, and doing it with pair programming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Joel said this well a while back: Smart and gets things done.

</comment><comment><USER36> "Creative". No.

"Creative and willing to invest financially". Yes.</comment>


The Silicon Valley Heavyweights Who Want to Settle the Moon - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-09-05/the-silicon-valley-heavyweights-who-want-to-settle-the-moon <comment><USER2> We're not running out of space, we're running out of space that rich people don't already own and use to exploit labor.</comment>


Faster-than-light Radio Waves could revolutionize computer industries - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/faster-than-light-radio-waves-could-revolutionize-computer-industries-20090630/

<comment><USER2> There were some great comments when this topic hit Slashdot suggesting that it only appears that things are going faster than light, but it is simply the apparent phase shifting appears to propagate faster than light, but it is unclear if this phase shifting can be utilized in any way.</comment>


Microsoft Delivers Another Broken Windows 10 Update - <AUTHOR> https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/81659/microsoft-delivers-yet-another-broken-windows-10-update <comment><USER2> I have updated three computers -- a Lenovo laptop, a surface book, and a custom desktop -- all without any issues.

Its important to remember that everyone with a problem will make sure to say something, but everyone without a problem usually moves on and doesn't talk about it. Its extraordinarily easy to assume that everything is broken just because only people whom it broke for are talking about it.

<comment><USER3> > Its extraordinarily easy to assume that everything is broken

Just like it's easy to assume that everything is fine. Both are fallacies where personal experience is projected on everyone.

This is why it's important to have the _choice_ to use or not use automatic updates. You cannot centrally manage the incredible complexity of all possible PC configurations and use cases; the decision about when to install updates needs to be made locally (which includes the option of deferring that choice to the vendor).

<comment><USER4> Even if you could disable updates how would you know which will cause problems to your particular setup?

<comment><USER5> You act as if people should prioritize downloading security updates over actually being able to reliably use their computer. For many people, they want to use their machine first before worrying about security.

And as another sibling commenter mentioned, what about crunchtimes, are those the best times to figure out what works and doesn't?

<comment><USER6> If ISPs blocked internet access to compromised machines until they were clean, as I think they should, people would care a whole lot more about keeping up to date.

As it stands now, people don't see the problems they are causing (sending spam, participating in botnets, etc), so of course they don't care.

But they should.

<comment><USER7> I work for an ISP. I would love to be able to do this.

All that would happen, though, is that the customers would loudly complain until either a) we turned them back on or b) they switched to another ISP.

We don't even monitor or check for such compromised machines anymore, however (other than my periodic scans for open DNS resolvers, NTP servers, devices with an SNMP community string of "public", and so on).

<comment><USER8> We are almost in a world with 1 Terabit ddos attacks from IoT devices. It scares me but ISP level blocking needs to come yesterday... [http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/09/botnet- of-145k-camer...](http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/09/botnet- of-145k-cameras-reportedly-deliver-internets-biggest-ddos-ever/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In case you wanted to disable automatic updates on Win10 (and for some reason didn't do it yet), set your WiFi connection as metered in advanced options. This prevents from autodownloading/installing/rebooting when you just left to make yourself a coffee.

You get notified when an update is available, so you can wait a few days and see if there's no news on front page of HN about update being hopelessly broken, and then you can proceed with an update. You're welcome.

<comment><USER10> There is another way - disable windows update service. I use this and every month or so I enable it to update.

<comment><USER11> I do this since Windows XP and it always worked. I don't know why so many were writing that updates can't be disabled anymore.

<comment><USER12> The control panel setting was removed. Disabling the service entirely is an advanced and somewhat non-obvious (if you don't know update is a service to begin with) solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> MS has really gone downhill over the past few years with badly designed software and shockingly broken patches. The anniversary update set all the permissions in my registry so it couldn't be written to, and there was no way to fix it.

On another machine, all the network interfaces vanished with no way of restoring them.

These are complete show stoppers on machines I use to make money. I loaded Win8.1 on all machines and will never touch W10.

<comment><USER14> Maybe they think they can get away with because their only competition (MacOS) is heading in the same direction. Both OSs peaked somewhere around 2010. Since then, MS has focussed on using their desktop OS to collect data and Apple has been focussed on using their desktop OS to prop up their mobile OS.

<comment><USER15> Using both reasonably frequently, I really don't see how you think they're moving in the same direction. MacOS still leaves the user in full control if they wish, while Windows forces ridiculous hoops to disable things that should be a stock setting using regedit which most users would and should never touch. Outside of "they both have voice assistants now" I see no similarities. And I'm certain you will _never_ see ads in MacOS as part of the OS "features."

<comment><USER14> I think you misread my post. In both cases, the user experience of the desktop OS has gotten worse because all of the changes the parent company have made to the OS have been to support their larger business objectives at the expensive of this specific product.

In MS's case they've been focussed on data collection. In Apple's case, they've been focused on cross-selling their mobile devices. As someone who doesn't want MS collecting my data and has no intention of ever going back to Apple's mobile devices, I would prefer either product as it existed circa 2010.

I'm not sure how that led you to the conclusion that I think Apple will add ads to their OS, but that definitely isn't what I meant to imply.

<comment><USER16> You are implying that Apple added absolutely nothing to macOS since 2010 that wasn't useful to desktop-/laptop-only users, or that there've been glaring omissions of functionality since 2010 which they haven't addressed or aren't about to address, without giving any examples of either. Heck, they just announced a new and modern filesystem! Coming next year! [1] What about systemwide support for Wide Color? [2]

It's a free OS, it gets major updates every year and minor ones every few months.

Even if the spotlighted features of every release (like Siri this year) aren't exactly appealing to _you_ personally, what most people seem to overlook — odd for a place like Hacker News — is that every release of macOS also includes many new native APIs for developers. Not to mention subtle new accessibility features, which most of us may hopefully never need but it's nice to know they are there for the people who do need them.

[1] [http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/06/a-zfs-developers- analys...](http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/06/a-zfs-developers-analysis-of- the-good-and-bad-in-apples-new-apfs-file-system/)

[2] [https://webkit.org/blog/6682/improving-color-on-the- web/](https://webkit.org/blog/6682/improving-color-on-the-web/)

<comment><USER14> I think your post demonstrates my point. My user experience on the Mac has not been improved by a file system that hasn't been released yet. It hasn't been improved by developer APIs or obscure accessibility features I don't have a use for.

Perhaps I'm in the minority and the vast majority of Mac users are having a better experience today because they use those developer APIs and write CSS that needs obscure colors and use that unreleased file system daily, but I don't think that's the case.

<comment><USER16> The APIs enable developers to make better apps for you and other users; they are obviously not meant to be showcased as an end user feature. However, if you have obscure requirements that aren't being met by the OS or third- parties, you can just make your own apps, for free.

You are being adamantly hyperbolic about stagnation and "mobile-ification" but you still haven't given any example of _how_ the "desktop OS has gotten worse because they've been focused on cross-selling their mobile devices."

Personally I started using Macs in 2011, with Lion, after a lifetime of Windows (and before that, DOS) and every new release since then has only made the Mac experience better for me;

The App Store model is a boon for desktop OSes (although the current implementation definitely needs improvement) and you can still get apps from other sources. Natural Scrolling is amazing, and really does feel natural. I like all alerts being grouped up in one place in the Notification Center. Pressing F4 for the Launchpad is a quick alternative to opening the Applications folder, and usually quicker than Spotlight. I like iMessage and FaceTime and they don't require an iPhone or iPad. Safari always feels snappier than Chrome. 3D/Force-Touch to preview links without opening a new page is very handy, especially on places like Reddit and HN. The OS is still customizable in all the ways I care about, and nicely extended by apps like TinkerTool [1] and Path Finder [2]. ...

I really can't think of any examples where I felt macOS had gotten "worse" than a preceding release because of features borrowed from iOS, or that Apple had betrayed me and made me want to go back to Windows.

[1] [https://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html](https://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html)

[2] [http://www.cocoatech.com/pathfinder/](http://www.cocoatech.com/pathfinder/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The Anniversary Update completely hosed the Windows install on my desktop.

It got stuck at 15% installing with the infamous spinning circle - I let it run 8 hours at 15% just to be sure because there is _zero_ info given to you beyond the spinning circle. Then when I rebooted the machine it got stuck "Restoring previous version of Windows", again I gave it 8 hours. A third reboot and it failed to boot, forcing me to spend a couple hours fiddling with the command line tools in the recovery environment to repair the boot record.

And I still have no idea why it failed, and Google has no answers either beyond vague suggestions like unplugging all USB devices before the install runs.

Not looking forward to losing a day of work to it again, but not like I have a choice.

How does Microsoft screw up Windows that badly? They've had 20 years to figure stuff like this out.

</comment><comment><USER18> Tone note: Serious question, not just kvetching.

Does anyone have a good clue as to why this update is so big and disruptive?

The feature list [1] shows "biometric security for Windows apps and Edge", "Windows Ink" support, vaguely-specified Cortana improvements (I think that translates to "Cortana has plugins now"), and an _Xbox_ improvement.

I'm thinking that's not really what's in there since that just doesn't seem like a 2-3 reboot and massive disruption sort of update.

[1]: [https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/03/30/windo...](https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/03/30/windows-10-anniversary- update-brings-new-experiences-and-developer-opportunity/)

<comment><USER19> Supposedly it should fix the webcam issues of the previous update: [https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsdesktop/en-U...](https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsdesktop/en- US/9d6a8704-764f-46df-a41c-8e9d84f7f0f3/mjpg-encoded-media-type-is-not- available-for-usbuvc-webcameras-after- windows-10-version-1607-os?forum=mediafoundationdevelopment#3547e093-2178-4e04-b652-82336a03aa53)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I really think Microsoft has built themselves a house of cards. It has so many moving parts and is so complex it's very difficult to make changes to this system without edge-case errors. It makes me appreciate the simplicity of design of Linux and macOS.

<comment><USER21> MacOS I'll buy, but a desktop Linux system feels more brittle than any windows install ever did. Maybe that's just my lack of knowledge with the platform outside of servers, but if you stick to the "Main" GUI screens on macOS and Windows you are pretty foot-gun safe. On Linux this is not the case, and to me its always very difficult to tell if a change you are about to make will open a Pandora's box you can't close again.

<comment><USER22> Not sure what makes you say that about Desktop Linux. I moved away from Windows because the Desktop experience was horrible in the first place. Linux desktops are not perfect but you have choice, they usually have implemented ideas earlier and better than Windows and you can bet your system is going to feel more responsive, too.

<comment><USER21> Brittle is really the only way I can describe it. It's the only platform where simply installing something has rendered the system non-booting, there are hundreds or more of config files and often changing one will break another system. And I fully admit this might be self-inflicted, but its been my experience.

It's by no means a bad platform, but its not for me. I want a system where I need to do as little as possible to configure it, an I just want it to work. On my windows and macOS systems, I can completely wipe the machine, and be back up and running in a few hours.

<comment><USER23> This doesn't sound like any linux desktop I've used in the last ten years. Usually I pop a Mint usb in, go through the installer and come back to a system with almost all devices configured. Then it's just a matter of putting back my /home and there we are.

On a non-corporate Windows installation, that would just be the beginning, where I would be hunting for chipset drivers, graphics drivers, HID drivers, network drivers and any other devices I need, each needing separate hands-on installation.

Thank goodness that there's Ninite available now, otherwise all the basic apps that make up a Windows install would then still be another few hours of manual downloading and installation. And then there's restoration of your old Users directory, which is still a fraught process if you don't have a pretty good understanding of windows.

<comment><USER24> > On a non-corporate Windows installation, that would just be the beginning, > where I would be hunting for chipset drivers, graphics drivers, HID drivers, > network drivers and any other devices I need, each needing separate hands-on > installation.

You haven't installed Windows in a decade.

<comment><USER23> Ten days ago, in fact, which is why I feel so strongly about this. If your hardware had drivers included on disk, great! If not, at best you'll get generic drivers that won't give you full hardware support.

Some devices that worked out of the box on Linux but required drivers on windows, just off the top of my head: Bluetooth USB dongle. USB wifi module. Logitech webcam. Focusrite audio interface. HP printer (actually this one required firmware on Linux too, so that's a draw). XBox 360 controller (required a driver on Windows 8.1. Maybe that's changed in the last few months with windows 10).

<comment><USER24> > Bluetooth USB dongle

I admittedly don't use Bluetooth and every time I've tried it's been a horrible experience.

> USB wifi module.

Mine works fine, no driver download.

> Logitech webcam.

Mine works fine, no driver download.

> Focusrite audio interface.

I don't have one.

> HP printer (actually this one required firmware on Linux too, so that's a > draw).

I haven't used a printer in probably 10 years.

> XBox 360 controller (required a driver on Windows 8.1. Maybe that's changed > in the last few months with windows 10).

Nope. Not on 8.1. Not on 10. There may be an optional driver for it (may be-- I've never seen it), but it's certainly not required. This one I can firmly say you're wrong about. (Unless you have like a Chinese knock-off Xbox 360 controller-- the brand-name ones work.)

I had a great experience the other day when I plugged in my ancient CanoScan LiDE 200 scanner I bought back in the Windows 2000 days, and it worked flawlessly in Windows 10, no drivers or software needed.

<comment><USER23> Well, we've established we have differing hardware and differing requirements from our computers.

The wifi modules were a generic device with a Ralink/Mediatek chipset, and another TP-Link branded device. I don't recall the specific webcam verson, it's an older Quick series one that really should have worked.

> I had a great experience the other day when I plugged in my ancient CanoScan > LiDE 200 scanner I bought back in the Windows 2000 days

In general this is a situation where Linux shines, because hardware tends to remain supported much longer as long as there's someone willing to keep the driver compiling. With TWAIN scanners it's a lot easier of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I got done in by the Anniversary Update. It didn't handle certain combinations of SSDs and non-SSDs.

How did not testing the "SSD for OS, mechanical for data" configuration get past QA...

[http://answers.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/forum/windows_10-...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/forum/windows_10-performance/windows-10-may-freeze-after- installing-the/5a60d75d-120a-4502-873c-8bfec65c82d0?auth=1)

<comment><USER26> As far as I know the bug didn't hit most systems with a SSD+HDD setup, just ones where certain default paths were changed to point to the second drive (which is frequently done through unsupported registry hacks).

<comment><USER25> I had Gears of War (from the Windows Store) on my HDD. This should be fully supported since changing the default locations for apps is ... built into Windows.

[http://answers.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/forum/windows_10-...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/forum/windows_10-files/cannot-change-install-location-of-apps-in- windows/fd9efca0-1b34-45de-bed9-e9b42b24aaae)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I updated to Win10 on my little Bay Trail convertible thingy, which I use mainly as a tablet for web surfing. It's been fine, but an annoying feature is that the update apparently loaded Win10 into the recovery partition in addition to installing it as the main OS. So, when I did a "factory restore" after (admittedly) horribly screwing things up myself, it restored to Win10.

Of course I had been very sloppy with not creating a recovery drive, etc., so I'm stuck with Win10, but it's just a thing to be aware of.

That's why Linux is for people like me. I get as many chances as I want to screw things up, and recovery is just a matter of downloading an .iso and trying again.

</comment><comment><USER28> I had the same issue with a previous patch. The forced update resulted in 4-5 restarts, totalling about 30 minutes, to install and then uninstall the update every two days. Needless to say, that this is a bad user experience.

In the end, I had to remove GRUB, fix the MBR with the windows CD, install the update and reinstall GRUB I can dual boot. It sucked. It should not have passed QA.

<comment><USER29> I had this exact same issue for two seperate updates (they didn't like a dual boot - same fix as yours). This is what convinced me to finally uninstall windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Here's a way to schedule Win10 updates on your schedule, not theirs. It uses the convenient and widely known Local Group Policy Editor.

[http://www.windowscentral.com/how-schedule-windows- updates-w...](http://www.windowscentral.com/how-schedule-windows-updates- windows-10)

It's really annoying when the update starts whenever it pleases and bogs the system. Watching a movie or gaming? Enjoy the stutter!

</comment><comment><USER31> OK, so now every time Windows 10 decides it is time to force an update it becomes a kind of Sci-Fi thriller ... you watch it and watch it and hope the hero doesn't die at the end.

I know people that simply disabled the Windows Update service to avoid this hassle, with the risk of ending up with a non secure system in the long run.

<comment><USER32> > it becomes a kind of Sci-Fi thriller

So Windows 10 users can now have entertainment for free. Imagine the possibilities with Windows.

I can only wonder what it would be like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I must be an exception, I use Windows insider builds daily for development on 2 PCs (one desktop and a laptop,a quite old one too) and other than virtualbox breaking with some updates which is easily resolved by updating virtualbox itself I never had any issues.

<comment><USER33> I've never had any issues either. And with over 300 million computers on Windows 10, I'd bet people with issues are the exception, not us. People that have issues are just (rightly) vocal about it.

<comment><USER34> I also never had any issues with Windows until this update.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I've kinda liked Windows 10 but the updates have been introducing small problems for me now.

First, some update introduced a bug for me where file Explorer will sometimes not update the files when changed. For example, if I paste a file in a folder, the folder view will not show the new file until I press F5 to refresh the view. This sometimes causes Explorer yo crash.

Now, after having to download the the Anniversary update three times over my crappy 1mbps connection, it's stuck in an endless reboot loop. Windows tells me to reboot to finish installing I'll reboot, it gets stuck on "Configuring update ", I have to do a hard reset and the loop starts again.

Very frustrating.

<comment><USER36> About the Explorer bug, I've had it for years in Windows 7. It's inconvenient, especially when coding. The (very) short workaround is to rebuild the indexation.

I'm sad to hear it is (seemingly) still present in Windows 10.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> What finally scared me off MS Windows were the forced updates and the blatant spyware.

I still run a MS OS from time to time: Windows 7, for some legacy software, well confined in a virtual box.

Linux is an alternative the days, both for individuals and companies.

</comment><comment><USER38> The first time I installed Windows 10 on my Lenovo laptop I was left with a file manager which gets hopelessly spinning circle stuck every few days, requiring a reboot. About 25% of file copies also hang up for about 2 minutes before completing, in the "Calculating" phase, even if the file in question is just a few bytes.

So I was looking forward to this new update. Perhaps it might fix things. No dice. It crashed during the install process. At this point I consider myself lucky to have been able to roll things back to the old version.

<comment><USER39> and I consider myself lucky I managed to push back any of Microsoft's attempts to upgrade me to Windows 10...

<comment><USER40> And on the other hand Windows 10 has been updating without issue for me on my home machines, I've only caught glimpses of any of them restarting for updates (It schedules them for times when the PC isn't usually in use).

Overall for me the benefits of Windows 10 (Especially better Xbox controller support, which was why I upgraded my first machine to Windows 10) have been nice, and there's been no downside

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I do some HTML-to-PDF conversion with Word every now and then, and all of a sudden, Word now offers two different ways to convert, and I have no idea which conforms to the former feature.

I also had a Jekyll site break, because GitHub Pages updated its github-pages gem remotely.

I totally get the advantage of auto-updates, but it's really hard to rely on any software to work the same way for a few years.

</comment><comment><USER42> Installed in two of my laptops w/o problems two days ago.

<comment><USER31> You are confusing a fresh install, which almost always works, with upgrading a system.

<comment><USER42> The system was upgraded,it was not a fresh install.

<comment><USER31> I guess you are lucky to have a hardware that is well supported by the OS.

<comment><USER42> I suppose, both of my laptops are HP.

<comment><USER43> Oh yeah, HP is totally in Microsoft's circle of friends. When they violated the EULA on Windows, Microsoft was like "oh but that's just a minor thing, we don't mind."

<comment><USER44> > When they violated the EULA on Windows, Microsoft was like "oh but that's > just a minor thing, we don't mind."

When did this happen? What was the violation?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Haven't had a problem with Windows, ever, since installing 8 a few years back on multiple PCs.

<comment><USER34> Neither had I actually... until this update.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> At this point anyone who says that Windows is easier to use than Linux, is a troll!</comment>


How Productivity and Impact Differ Across Computer Science Subareas - <AUTHOR> http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2013/8/166324-how-productivity-and-impact-differ-across-computer-science-subareas/abstract

<comment><USER2> "THE FULL TEXT OF THIS ARTICLE IS PREMIUM CONTENT" :(

</comment><comment><USER3> Requires log in for me.</comment>


RIP, Tim Russert - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2008/06/13/rip-tim-russert/ <comment><USER3> Not Hacker News.

Sorry, but I already found out that Russert was dead from a dozen different news sources.

Also, he was never "fair" to both sides of the aisle. Sometimes he was in attack mode, sometimes he would switch to kid-gloves mode (I remember him giving a particularly easy interview to Mike Huckabee on the eve of the Iowa primary, and that is a man with a LOT of "interesting" issues to talk about). Maybe he was special in the world of journalists because he actually had an attack mode. But let him be praised for what he was, and not an idealized vision of what he never was.

<comment><USER4> I don't have a problem with this one. It's mainstream news, but it's mainstream news that's actually relevant to people, as opposed to, say, celebrity gossip. It has no special relevance to hackers, but it's still just as relevant to us as to anyone else. Stories of this magnitude come up in the media maybe once a month. Having a single post about them show up on news.yc isn't going to drown out the signal.

<comment><USER5> This: "It has no special relevance to hackers" is the key. We have general news sites for general news. I'm sure we all know how to get there. Nobody is going to be informed for the first time that Tim Russert has died by coming here. So now you have to ask yourself, what does it add to the conversation?

This is not a general news aggregator, we have those in spades, and the chances are that we all know where to find them. It's disheartening that this has gotten so many upvotes.

<comment><USER4> news.yc is not just a news aggregator. It's also a community, one which is populated by people whose opinions I value more than those on general news aggregators. I might not be reading about Tim Russert's death for the first time, but I might still read something insightful about it that I wouldn't have seen elsewhere. You could fill the front page with articles about knitting, and if you could still get the same group of people to hang around, it would be still be more interesting than a typical day on Digg.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think Hacker News just jumped the shark.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> He was the best interviewer I have seen. Fair to both sides of the aisle.

Will miss MTP without him.

[http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/06/23/080623ta_talk_remni...](http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/06/23/080623ta_talk_remnick)

<comment><USER7> Good example of a harmless comment that got downmodded hard.

<comment><USER8> I'm not so certain that comment's harmless. I'd honestly say that comment is not too far from comments such as "Me too" and "I agree," a type of comment that contains no substance and spreads the message that it is acceptable to write comments with no substance.

I would really like to see some insights or examples of what makes Tim especially fair or a great interviewer. :)

<comment><USER7> Well, it's just an obit entry. "In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath." - <USER2>

<comment><USER8> Death is the best time to reflect upon life.

As an interesting sidenote, I didn't know who SJ was, so I googled that quote. Your comment here was the first result out of 850

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I know the american tradition is to not speak ill of the dead. But I've never been one for tradition, so...

One less fevered ego tainting our collective unconscious. Good.

Fair to both sides of the aisle?. Which is why Dick Cheney preferred to go on his show because of the message control. And why he allowed people to put things off the record after interviews. Let's not pretend he represented journalism or that the times he did call people on things, it wasn't just picking on sacrificial lambs so he could maintain a thin veneer of responsibility behind which he could hide the powerful people he ultimately protected. He was fair to everyone except the american people. He's dead now. He hurt America. Millions of people die every day. I can't believe there aren't hundreds of thousands of them more worth this outpouring of grief.

My condolences to his family, and to the powerful elites who depended on his show to control the way they distributed propaganda to the masses.

<comment><USER10> You know, I thought about this for a while before down-voting it. I very rarely downvote -- maybe I have downvoted ten times in the last year.

Let's review:

"Not hacker news" <\- great comment

"One less fevered ego tainting our collective unconscious. Good." <\- personal attack on someone you didn't know and who can't defend themselves in this forum.

That kind of brazen disregard for humanity is anathema to any organized conversation, in my opinion. I'd down-vote you again if I could.

As a political junkie, I like watching the Sunday-morning talkers. Yes, Russert was a democrat and had worked on several campaigns before joining NBC, but he was good at what he did and brought a joy to his work that was infectious. I'm sure he did a lot of good and bad things, but most of all he was a human, a human I spent several dozen hours watching over the course of my life. He deserves better than that comment.If it's not for the board, fair enough.

You know, it's quite possible to disagree with people, even hate their behavior, without demonizing the person themselves. "Powerful elites [using] his show to control the way they distributed propaganda"?? I feel like I need a shower after reading it.

This, friends, is why politics shouldn't be on HN. If you feel you need to launch into some tirade about multi-national corporations using mind control to enslave the population, take it somewhere else.

I don't think this story had to be political at all. Famous talking-head dies. What sorts of neat startup attributes did he have?

<comment><USER11> "What sorts of neat startup attributes did he have?"

That, I think, is a great question. To me, Russert exemplified the best of his profession without sacrificing himself or his work. By all accounts, he was a great guy who did a great job (qualifications aside about the state of the American media, esp with regard to politics). If folks say the same of me when I'm gone, it will have been a life well-lived, indeed.

<comment><USER10> I remember in the 2000 election mess, Russet pulls out a whiteboard and on national TV starts sketching out some ideas about how things might play out.

He was so absorbed in his work he was looking at "what's the best tool right now to get from point A to point B" not necessarily what the most or least telegenic thing to do might be.

I believe he's the guy who gave us the entire concept of "red states" and "blue states"

I'm sure he had a lot of faults, but it's obvious he was competing well at a national level, and having a blast doing it.

If I remember, in the last year or two the network bought him some huge freaking interactive map to use on the air. He used it once and then went back to the whiteboard -- the whiteboard was just enough functionality to do what he needed and not any more.

Lots of good startup lessons here -- or at the very least lots of good life lessons.

<comment><USER11> By all accounts, "having a blast doing it" describes him perfectly. And he managed to not make many enemies, if at all. That's a quite a feat.

It was fun first.

EDIT: Funny to me that this comment and its parent just got voted down. That's some spite. See, bemoan the state of the American media all you want. But Russert was one of its shining stars - a force of good where most is trivial. We should all aspire to stand out similarly.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Introduction to Git website - <AUTHOR> http://ak04.github.io/Intro-to-Git/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, My name is Albin Kottaram. I am a 17-year old from India. Check out my website which teaches people how to use git. If you have suggestions on improving the website, please do tell me. This is my first bootstrap project. :D

</comment><comment><USER2> I appreciate the simplicity. The layout is readable. The navigation clear...and offers options: tree on left and |next| and |previous| at the bottom. The site is consistent between layout, UI, and content.

The design is tight and the focus is refreshing. I'm not suggesting not changing anything. Rather if and when you do, look back on this version and keep the design consistent.

Good luck.</comment>


Gates No Longer World's Richest Man - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/2008/03/05/buffett-worlds-richest-cx_mm_0229buffetrichest.html?feed=rss_popstories <comment><USER2> That article is from March. Since then, the stock markets have fallen 30 or 40 percent. I'm not sure how Gates is doing now compared to all the other ultra rich dudes, but there has probably been some churn in the top ten list.</comment>