The Innumeracy of Intellectuals (2008) - <AUTHOR> http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2008/07/26/the-innumeracy-of-intellectual/ <comment><USER2> I don't mind the innumeracy of so many liberal arts intellectuals... as long as they stick to liberal arts. Alas, they do not.

A short time ago, I was involved in debate over instituting a new affirmative action program at my university. "We're failing this group terribly! We must do something about this!" came the rallying cry.

I responded with university admissions statistics, high school graduation statistics, and census statistics, showing that the largest reason behind our apparent lack of members of that group was that we were an urban institution which drew students mostly from the local area, and members of that group lived mostly in rural areas where the population as a whole tended to attend more rural institutions. (Canada has far more of a trend towards attending "nearby" post-secondary institutions than the US does.)

I was accused of trying to confuse the issue "by introducing numbers and percentages", and the admissions policy was adopted.

<comment><USER3> Is there a good reason to think this is not either a curious outlier or strawman? Is that situation alone actually good reason to demand people "stick to the liberal arts"? Or is there something else here among your reasoning?

For the record, I have a degree in CS _and_ Philosophy, so its awfully tough to "stick to the liberal arts".

<comment><USER2> That was the most blatant example, but I see members of the university Senate voting for what they "know" over what they have evidence for on a regular basis.

(And the philosophers aren't the problem... although that might be partly because our philosophy department is quite strong on logic.)

<comment><USER4> I see most people in our democracy voting for what they "know" over what they have evidence for.

<comment><USER2> Of course, but it would be nice to think that university professors are more intelligent than the general population.

<comment><USER5> Better-read with good probability, better-educated with good probability. But no specific reason for them to be more intelligent, because there is no process to make that especially likely.

It is a job one gets by deciding to do it, sticking to it, paying one's dues over a long period, cultivating connections, building a personal brand. Like so many other jobs...

Professors should be respected in direct proportion to their actually demonstrated knowledge, and only in the fields where that knowledge has been demonstrated... other than this we should not respect them more than teachers of high school or elementary school, who usually have greater expertise and dedication in teaching.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a bit of a curious post. I'm not sure the antidote to people being proud of ignorance in science/math (which is a problem) is to be proud of ignorance in the humanities (which is also a problem). I mean, if you'd rather go boozing than read Bertrand Russell, that's a choice you're free to make, but I wouldn't be proud of it. I guess I don't know much about the history of classical music myself, but mostly because one can't study everything, and it isn't currently near the top of my reading list (though the fact that both Douglas Hofstadter and David Cope constantly mention J.S. Bach makes it somewhat relevant to my AI interests).

I also don't generally think as scientists we can afford to be ignorant of the humanities in general, though many people can afford to ignore parts. There is a lot of physics that suffers from "bad metaphysics" precisely because of its practitioners reinventing metaphysics, in the guise of "interpretations" of physics, when they are unaware of obvious problems that arise, which even a small amount of reading would've made them aware of. And there's a lot of work in artificial intelligence that makes more sense with a humanities background.

Oddly this seems to be a recent phenomenon. Early 20th century physicists were _very_ well-read in philosophy, and their interpretations are accordingly sophisticated and rarely run into novice problems. Same with mathematicians; it's hard to even separate whether someone like Frege was a mathematician or philosopher. Some is unavoidable due to increasing specialization, but if anything that would seem to call for more humility, not extra arrogance that we know how to solve the philosophical problems that we don't time to study in as much depth as Einstein/Planck/Bohr/etc. did...

I'd trace some of it (on both sides) to a general academic tendency to want to rationalize why the fields you didn't specialize in and don't know about aren't that important to know about. There's an only half-joke that academics always want to reduce every field to their own: to an economist everything is analyzable with economic tools, to a sociologist everything is culture, to a physicist everything is physics and its minor epiphenomena, to a philosopher everything is philosophy plus implementation details, to a dynamical systems theorist everything is just instantiations of dynamical systems, etc.

<comment><USER7> _Early 20th century physicists were very well-read in philosophy_

Philosophy's usefulness to Science died off in the early 20th century for a reason.

Richard Dawkins and Neil deGrasse Tyson commented upon this very issue in their Poetry of Science talk. Very insightful:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RExQFZzHXQ&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RExQFZzHXQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=3767s)

<comment><USER8> I do not think that's true. Are you familiar with the idea that scientific theories have to be falsifiable? That was formulated by Karl Popper in the mid-20th century.

If anything, the rise of analytic philosophy and the introduction of greater logical rigor to philosophy in the early 20th century made it relevant again after a largely fruitless 19th century. Go ahead and ask a scientist whether Popper or Hegel is more useful.

<comment><USER9> It's not like before Popper scientists didn't know they had to design experiments to test their theories. Popper himself, from what I read of him, considered his work more useful as a way to tell apart real science from fake science (he gives Marxism as an example of the latter), than as anything that could help real scientists do their jobs.

In chapter 7 of "Dreams of a Final Theory", Steven Weinberg argues that philosophy has been mostly useless or even harmful for physicists, and whatever positive effects some philosophical theories might have had, had to do with undoing the harm done by other philosophical theories.

Weinberg is not hostile towards philosophy, he has warm words for it and says he enjoys reading certain philosophers, he just acknowledges that philosophy is not at all helpful in doing science. Exact quote: "I know of _no_ _one_ who has participated actively in the advance of physics in the postwar period whose research has been significantly helped by the work of philosophers." (Weinberg considers this surprising, and contrasts it with mathematics, which is extremely useful even though there is no reason why it should be.)

<comment><USER8> I'll agree that philosophy doesn't really help one _do_ science, but it does justify why it's worthwhile to do science, and real science at that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The problem is that mathematics and the sciences are useful, while the humanities are largely about social signalling. One may be proud to be ignorant of mathematics precisely because it is useful; being ignorant of it indicates you have sufficient wealth in other areas that you don't need to get your hands dirty, as it were. And on the other hand, being ignorant of something like classical music is looked down upon precisely because it marks you out as not a member of the group.

<comment><USER11> Precisely. Maybe the best way to make math "cool" is to reclaim for it that status of "completely useless but fun knowledge" that Hardy was so proud about in his Apology.

<comment><USER12> Math _is_ cool, and at least to me is lots of fun. The problem, at least at my university is that all of the lower division math classes have been commandeered by the engineering programs. I enjoy doing a substantial amount of recreational math in my spare time. Unfortunately, the classwork at the lower-levels (basically the calc sequence) basically involves regurgitating formulae over contrived physical problems. At its best, Math can be an extremely entertaining way to spend an evening, or a rainy day; It's at least as much fun as writing or reading poetry, or reading a good novel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A related anecdote: I saw mathematician Andrew Dilnot [1] at a Mathematica users conference a couple years ago, and he asked the audience how many times the size of the world economy had doubled since 1900, given that it had grown at about 5% per year. The audience guesses were in the 2-4 range, but he pointed out that the rule of 72 gives 110/(72/5) ~= 7.6. "Don't feel bad," he said, "last week I gave this talk to the council of European finance ministers, and they did no better!" (I may not have remembered the numbers exactly, but they were something like that.)

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

<comment><USER14> Your calculation is way off. You forget that the rule of 72 is how long it takes for the money to double. Thus, the final calculation is 2^7.6 which is, as any good computer scientist knows, a little less than 256

<comment><USER15> Huh? At 5% growth per annum, the economy takes 70/5=14 years to double (I prefer the rule of 70). 112 years since 1900, so that's enough time for the economy to double 112/14=8 times.

<comment><USER16> The economy grew by a factor of 1.05^112 = 236. Which is close enough to his number to assume that he missed the "doubling" part of the question. 236 is about 7-8 doublings.

<comment><USER14> Woops, yeah, I thought it asked how many times larger the economy was, not how many times it doubled (which, btw, seems like a weird way to phrase the question to me).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Perhaps the sciences are just harder to pretend to care about. I don't mean that derisively—it's just that the arts are very approachable because you don't need to _understand_ everything in order to _appreciate_ it.

I'm a designer at heart, but my work is firmly in the hard sciences. I'm excited about what I do, and it shows. _That's_ what gets people interested—ferocity, passion.

You have to be able to describe your work in accessible terms, so that other people can appreciate it without having to understand it in depth. Not all people _want_ to understand everything—it's hard work. Work that we hackers can take for granted because, by our nature, we enjoy it.

<comment><USER6> That's probably true for some parts of science, but I think the general public pays at least as much attention to science as to art, when something catches its attention. How many people who don't know the first thing about particle physics were tweeting about the Higgs Boson? Probably more than the number who tweet about Damien Hirst! Astronomers are good at getting public attention and cultivating a sense of "astronomy appreciation" among laypeople as well.

<comment><USER18> I think that's worrying - people don't have the language to begin to understand the Higgs boson.

Not just that they don't know what a boson is, but they don't really know what particles are, or what energy is, or what mass is. And so when you need to explain what the Higgs Boson is you need to give the simple lies we tell people when we explain physics

I live in the UK. BBC Radio 4 has a "flagship" news and current affairs programme called 'Today'.[1] Science is routinely handled as if the audience are idiots, while arts are given free range to be reasonably esoteric.

[1] Today website (<http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/default.stm>)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was lucky enough to spend a fair amount of time in college with a senior citizen who was aiming for a fine arts degree in painting. As in most colleges, this does not require algebra which she thought was a shame as she had been home schooled and had a thorough background in mathematics as was expected of a young lady of her class and social standing. That 'woke' me up to the decline in education standards in the second half of the 20th century. Not only in this country but around the world. If you think I'm wrong, just compare the textbooks available now with what was available in say 1910! Would you even be allowed to use a text book by Hilbert? I doubt it. I will grant you that she was exceptional and typically excelled in any endeavor she chose ---she was I believe the first American woman to be allowed a role on stage at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin as an example. Decline and Fall are us I guess...

<comment><USER20> You're comparing educational standards for the wealthy to educational standards for _everyone_.

<comment><USER21> By 1910 universal compulsory education was already in full swing in many places. Take Massachusetts, for example. If you examine the textbooks being used in Massachusetts at that time you'll see the same phenomenon -- they're much more advanced than modern textbooks. And they were not just for the rich, Massachusetts already had compulsory education.

And by the same argument: where are today's equivalent textbooks for the rich? Our wealth gap is as big as ever, yet I see no books even for the rich that are so advanced.

<comment><USER22> I'd be curious to see an example.

I seem to recall a 19th-C. MIT entrance exam as comparable to or maybe behind what my better high-school classmates learned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> You want to see "The Two Cultures" by C P Snow:

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

<http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=CP+Snow+cultures>

<comment><USER24> Part of the problem is seeing Math/Science and The humanities as opposites or opposed to each other.[0] Human knowledge mostly likes to spit in our face when we attempt to label it.[1]

[0]: [http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/497891/Renaissance...](http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/497891/Renaissance- man)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Being an intellectual ought to be primarily a matter of attitude of respect towards knowledge of all kinds and, above all, a strong curiosity and interest in learning.

Thus what is particularly sad is not the fact that some subject or another is avoided and ignored by (intellectually) lazy people but that such people, proud of their ignorance, nowadays pass for intellectuals.

'My subject is more important than yours, so I am not going to waste time learning from you' is just a post-justification for being a dullard and a bigot.

</comment><comment><USER26> Yeah, the next time you go to your local yoga class and the local bleached bimbo starts babbling on about quantum physics (for some reason, a favourite subject), ask them if they can solve a quadratic equation. Guess what, they can't. But that is not a reason to desist! The quantum physics banter lives on...

So, learn from these smart people. Fake it and bask in it!

</comment><comment><USER27> There's also social signaling occurring when he includes boozing in his list of reasons he has chosen to remain ignorant of arts and music.

</comment><comment><USER28> Case in point:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/sunday/is- algebra-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/sunday/is-algebra- necessary.html?pagewanted=all)

I find it a bit sad how he thinks that people should be taught long division, which is what we have calculators for, but algebra is a step too far. The only reason I think people should be taught arithmetic is so that they understand algebra. After algebra, Calculus I for people who want to actually be knowledgeable about the world around them (No heavy series and no multivariate), and then I don't care what they do, because I trust that they understand how the world works.

Instead, Hacker suggests that we drill those future artists and writers on duplicating the functions of a calculator for 12 years, and then throw them into the voting booth. Bleah.

</comment><comment><USER29> _"our economy is teetering because people can't hack the math needed to understand how big a loan they can afford"_

That is not so much caused by a lack of math as it is a surplus of delusional optimism. No amount of math will ever beat that. Not only is it a bad example, I can't think of any better examples, and apparently neither can the author.

It may be that my utter incompetence in math makes me less than objective, but I fail to see any convincing argument in the entire article.</comment>


Ask HN: Does any one know what the deal is with today's XKCD - <AUTHOR> XKCD Garden: http://xkcd.com/1663<p>Looks like it should be interactive, but I can't get it to do anything, any ideas? <comment><USER2> Is it possible that [http://explainxkcd.com/](http://explainxkcd.com/) being unavailable is down to the number of people confused by this

</comment><comment><USER3> If you navigate to xkcd.com/?debug, you get a debug version that draws some colored lines on the canvas and logs to the console. Mine already started growing some plants (or whatever they are).

</comment><comment><USER4> In Chrome on OSX I can create a couple more lights, move them about, and change their temperature. As it says 'relax' I imagine we're supposed to wait for something to grow.

<comment><USER5> I waited, and seemed to get a bird bath (in silhouette).

<comment><USER5> My child has an instance on another computer, and reports getting a plant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The server's quite slow at the moment. Adding a new light just took it nearly 30 seconds, so I wonder if that's affecting the behaviour of the thing in general?

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes, stuff does grow if you leave it long enough in the light. I have a couple mini cactuses and a grass thing under the yellow light

</comment><comment><USER8> Umm, it's supposed to grow something?? I sat there for over an hour with 16 lamps and nothing happened...

</comment><comment><USER9> And tomorrow XKCD presents how to increase average session duration on your webpage.

</comment><comment><USER10> the title is "garden" and the alt text says "relax"

I have a hunch that if you leave the lights on and leave the page open, things will grow.

trying it now

<comment><USER11> Probably mining Bitcoin, while you wait ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have grown an octopus with a purple light.</comment>


Responsive typography with REMs - <AUTHOR> https://bugsnag.com/blog/responsive-typography-with-rems

<comment><USER2> I find there is often a need for a relative _inverse_ relationship between screen width and the size of an element.

The most obvious of which is buttons. As screen width decreases the probability of the user being on a touch device increases, and you tend to want relatively larger fat-finger-friendly buttons at smaller screen sizes.

I guess calc() with rem sizing could work well here. But calc() always feels like cheating to me.

<comment><USER3> There's no law against big buttons on big screens, you know. Doing things big may go against the grain (the typical desktop convention is to squeeze as much stuff in as possible), but it very frequently ends up with surprisingly pleasant results. Also Fitt's Law comes into play—big button, bigger target to aim for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> All those media queries!

      500px ⇒ 14px
      570px ⇒ 15px
      620px ⇒ 16px
      680px ⇒ 17px
      720px ⇒ 18px
      800px ⇒ 19px
      860px ⇒ 20px
      920px ⇒ 21px
      1000px ⇒ 22px

This can be simplified a lot with the vw unit. 1vw = 1% of viewport width.

The differences between each pixel increase in font size seem rather arbitrary: 70, 50, 60, 60, 80, 60, 60, 80. Let's simplify it, going for 14px below 500px, 22px above 1000px, and linear interpolation between widths 500px and 1000px. That way you can just use calc(). Oh, and I'll use `:root` instead of `html`, for _joie de vivre_.

      :root {
          font-size: calc(6px + 1.6vw);
      }
      @media screen and (max-width: 500px) {
          :root {
              font-size: 14px;
          }
      }
      @media screen and (min-width: 1000px) {
          :root {
              font-size: 22px;
          }
      }

If a browser doesn't support calc() or the vw unit, it will just keep the browser's default of 16px.

<comment><USER4> The idea of using calc and VW units to linearly increase the font size is pretty cool. On real sites, though, it's important to keep control over exactly when the increases in scale are triggered. I'll set up some breakpoints just for the root font-size shifts, and have other breakpoints coordinated with additional layout changes I make within a design. The scaling and breakpoint settings tend to be unique between designs and non-linear.

I'm going to follow up to this post soon with a SASS mixin that gets around the @media query code bloat and lets you coordinate with globally named breakpoints.

<comment><USER3> > On real sites, though, it's important to keep control over exactly when the > increases in scale are triggered.

I flatly disagree with this. It is typical for some significant alterations of layout to take place somewhere in scaling it down, but that is not incompatible with something like this. It is entirely feasible to have most of your responsive design using a technique like this but at a certain point change the layout; also, the font-size need not be a globally continuous function; it's entirely reasonable to have local discontinuities where you adjust the _m_ or _c_ of _font-size_ = _m_ _x_ \+ _c_ for a range of widths.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> html { font-size: 1vw; }

p { width: 70rem; font-size: 1.6rem; }</comment>


David Heinemeier Hansson - Go REST with Rails - Web 2.0 NY Talk - <AUTHOR> http://www.krisjordan.com/2008/09/17/david-heinemeier-hansson-go-rest-with-rails/

<comment><USER2> Kind of off topic, but that's a really scary photo of DHH.</comment>


Clinical Characteristics of Coronavirus Disease 2019 in China - <AUTHOR> https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2002032 <comment><AUTHOR> This is collected clinical data on 1100 patients from various areas in China during the early stage of the outbreak, before the disease was well-understood (so a variety of therapies were attempted) and before the medical facilities at the center of the outbreak were overwhelmed with patients. As such it's useful information for what we could expect to see in the initial stages of outbreaks outside China.

Key takeaways:

0.9% of patients were 14 or younger

5% of patients ended up in intensive care, 1.4% of patients died

the most common symptoms were fever and cough

median incubation period was 4 days (interquartile range was 2-7 days, so the >10 day incubation periods used as basis for quarantine are extreme outliers)

Link to usable PDF: [https://sci- hub.se/https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM...](https://sci- hub.se/https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa2002032?articleTools=true)</comment>


Slack is not for me - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/slack-is-not-for-me-6b21ff5b6234 <comment><USER3> I dunno. I use Slack for a couple of groups as well as my full-time remote work.

I turn off all notifications & just check from time to time. I have a project manager who tends to pester me with DMs a little too much, but if I'm trying to concentrate I just turn it off.

I'm 50 years old & still "pre-internet" in much of my thinking, but I don't have a smartphone, turn off ALL notifications and then turn them on one-by-one on a need only basis, and still can't figure out why people have so much trouble managing their internet lives.

It's not the tool that's causing your problems.

<comment><USER4> I have a policy that if an app sends a single undesired notification, I disable its notifications forever.

That even Google violates its own Android notification guidelines is annoying.

<comment><USER5> Some really good mainstream apps will violate at least once, and then you'll have to ask whether following your rule or breaking it leads to better futures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems to be trendy to blame Slack for all the ills of modern civilization. Is it the somewhat smug tone of all Slack's corporate communication? Maybe. Other than that, it seems to me to be more or less the same general bucket of telegrams, telephone calls, pages, texts, emails, etc. that each preceding generation has blamed on their inability to focus. If you can't resist distractions, whether it's Slack, or watching the ducks in the pond through the window, yes, you should close the blinds. I don't know why this rated a post on Medium...

<comment><USER7> Exactly, well said. As humans we're excellent at blaming pretty much anything else (Slack, email, telephone, telegram, anything really) for what is our own and only our own inability to focus.

<comment><USER8> All of these devices are built specifically to steal your focus with buzzers and flashing lights. If anything it's an arms race.

<comment><USER7> I agree. Still our issue and our issue alone as individuals. Nobody's forcing anybody to use something designed to steal their attention. And if someone is being forced to in a work environment, that sounds to me like a cultural issue, not an issue with the attention stealing tool itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I agree with OP. Slack is like watercooler, on steroids.

I guess having occasional spontaneous watercooler conversations may be good for getting to know your peers better, but in a lot of cases watercooler conversations result in clique behaviors.

Slack takes this to whole new level. People hang around on slack channels posting animated Gifs and chatting all day, on topics that have nothing to do with work.

The problem with this is you have to keep up all day with the chatter or otherwise you get left out as an "outsider" (the clique effect).

Sometimes I would see these people talk behind backs of people who they know are not part of the group. This creates office politics. I know because I saw it first hand.

Lastly, there's nothing worse than penalizing people for working hard and not participating in meaningless gossip and chatter all day.

<comment><USER10> If you want to work with robots then you were probably born a few decades too early. I can't imagine a more depressing life than spending 8+ hours a day with a group of people and being so determined not to make any friends (what you describe as "cliques").

If people are "SLACKing" off so much work doesn't get done then that gets escalated just like any other performance concern. If not, it feels a lot more like sour grapes than anything else.

<comment><USER9> Like I mentioned in another comment below, I am not an anti-social guy. I played the game, and I did just fine. Everybody at work liked me and I had no issues.

But I'm not talking about me. I'm talking about how the system is messed up. I didn't enjoy being unproductive. I didn't enjoy having to keep Slack open all day to make sure I don't miss out on what people are up to. I do believe the company lost a lot of talented developers because of the office politics.

And you know what? Everyone did just fine before they started using Slack. Everybody was friendly to one another, we regularly had globally inclusive face-to-face social gatherings, many of the team members ate lunch together, the team was pretty social.

But with slack, everything became political. It didn't bring people closer together in any way because people were already friendly enough before. What it did do was create more politics and make everyone waste more time than they used to.

Before slack, wasting time was a single player thing, you would maybe slack off for a bit reading hacker news but quickly get back to work, but after Slack, slacking off became a multiplayer thing, and just like any other multiplayer architecture, Metcalfe's law applies here too, which means the amount of wasted time grows exponentially.

<comment><USER11> > I didn't enjoy having to keep Slack open all day to > make sure I don't miss > out on what people are up to.

Why did you feel you had to keep it open all the day?

Just skim the channels for anything interesting and/or relevant and check for new private messages occasionally when you're not in the zone. That could be once a day or few times a day, depending on your rhythm.

For example, I tend to directly continue the work in the morning where I left off the previous day for maximal productivity and it's not until my energy begins to wear out after a few hours when I go check back email, Slack, and other communications. Same for afternoon. I don't let email or instant messages interrupt my flow because the flow is a precious thing that doesn't simply come back when summoned. I always try to give the flow the priority and email/slack/IM are not urgent enough to break that. I can always reply back to messages in detail once the flow breaks down.

<comment><USER9> I have experienced different types of communities using Slack in their own ways, and for some it works, but for a lot it doesn't.

In my experience it works nicely for distributed organizations where people can't physically get together.

My point is Slack does introduce more politics into workplace. This is something you as a single user can't control.

Maybe you're doing fine there because your org doesn't have this problem, good for you. But I've seen this happen with a lot of different teams, in a lot of different ways, and that was what I was pointing out.

If you work at a company where there's office politics, you WILL miss out and lose a lot of opportunities if you don't participate actively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Slack is not hard to ignore. As I've mentioned in previous threads:

* Mute all channels.

* Take long periods of time to respond to people. Trust me, this isn't ever going to lead to any sense of shame.

* Set yourself to away most of the time.

* Disable gifs.

* Set notifications for keywords like "lunch" and "meeting".

* Disable the icon badge. (the red dot if you're using macOS)

Now you can be productive with Slack.

I know all these things are designed to grab our attention but, seriously, have some agency in your life. Deciding to go "offline" is perfectly legitimate, but I do think Slack can be easily used in a way that doesn't waste time.

<comment><USER13> The reasons a lot of people complain about are the same reasons I like slack. First, if i'm intensely busy, I just ignore it. It stays backgrounded, and a little blue or red dot sits there. That's it. When i'm in a general workday, i'll usually try to check red dots, and relegate the others to 'as time allows.' But that's its draw to me. I love seeing the goofy gifs, custom emojis, etc that people come up with. It's a sort of comic relief from the stressful days. In the end, it sounds like a lot of folks just have trouble with self control, so blame a tool. You don't have to click the red/blue dot...just let it be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Do this at your own peril. The most important part of your job as an engineer is politics, not engineering. You might think that blocking out pointless meetings and other useless distractions will help you to focus on actual engineering. What you'll find is that within mere weeks, others are taking credit for your work. Before you know it, you will be sidelined and marginalized, and no meaningful work will be assigned to you. Never turn your back to your coworkers.

<comment><USER15> Where do you work that you have to constantly fight off others from backstabbing you? That sounds like a really, really stressful and unhealthly work environment.

<comment><USER16> Not GP but I've had 5 jobs since coming to SF in 2014; walked off the last 2 within months. I was innocent and naive when I arrived, now I see how my late brother receeded to him bedroom for the final years of his life. People are horrible when they can get away with it. You can bet job quality goes down with each notch. When I was at the top I told him to smile and try harder. Back stabbing is fine, at least you feel that one and it ends. Once you're down the spiral I don't know how to get up, but you're blessed to not understand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't get that, really.

For at least a couple of decades there has generally been some internal instant messaging system at whichever company I've worked for. Nerds used to like plain local IRC server. In some places the expected tool was Windows Messenger despite it sucked bad and kept disconnecting. Slack is just another communication system: if you have problems with Slack you're likely to have problems with any messaging system if you configure them to allow interrupting your work.

The very reason I've personally always preferred online communications for anything non-urgent at work is because nobody gets to interrupt me and I get to check messages when I have an idle moment. The alternative is face-to-face communication which means someone is interrupting you at your desk several times a day which I ten times worse.

I currently use Slack over their irc gateway which works just fine. I have an Slack-connected irc client running in one tmux window and when I have time I can easily see if someone called for me or if the team channel has new activity.

<comment><USER17> I think it's also possible to snooze Slack notifications for a few hours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> While this may be great for him, this is probably counter-productive for the org -- and he's preparing to be left out of a lot of decisions and conversation.

I've been in an org where there were stragglers who didn't want to use Slack for whatever reason -- "I'm too old" for it was one I found particularly retarded.

Communication is key -- get your whole team on one tool - <USER2> notifications if you have to, but you should aim to participate.

<comment><AUTHOR> > ... he's preparing to be left out of a lot of decisions ...

I struggle to see how substantive decisions can be made legitimately through group chat. How do you facilitate decision making such that it allows people to prepare and participate?

<comment><USER18> It depends on the org and I guess how substantive you're referring to, but there are a lot of small decisions that get made this way and those add up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I see lot of IRC channels move to Slack and I don't get it, Kubernetes being one of them. Honestly why? I don't mind Slack for a small team but not for a channel with a few thousand user, it's a mess. Furthermore, maybe it's somehow because of my anti-ad addons but slack is generally slow and laggy for me. Takes quite a while to open the channel, lot of features don't work under Firefox.

<comment><USER8> We've had IRC for so long that it makes me sad it hasn't succeeded more.

<comment><USER20> I used Slack over IRC for a while. Other than group chats and downloads/gifs, it worked pretty well. The private messages thing is solved if you have one machine that stays connected to IRC 100% of the time and you connect to that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The author (OP?) positions the article to blame Slack as the root cause of productivity ills. However, multiple times it's pointed out that Slack in and of itself isn't the problem, but can simply exacerbate other root cause issues if misused.

>> Although Slack is positioned as a productivity tool, it becomes counterproductive when misused.

The conclusion doesn't follow the premise here. The author concludes that the root cause of counterproducitivty is misuse of the tool, not the tool itself. This doesn't do anything to discredit the premise, as it's easy to argue that any tool can be counterproductive/dangerous/etc. when misused.

>> Organizations that find enough value in using Slack should introduce rules of engagement.

So the OP admits organizations can find value in using Slack, but should address the potential for misuse by introducing rules of engagement. Or rather, that rules of engagement should be put in place to prevent other root cause issues from being worsened by misuse of the tool. Again, the author is arguing that Slack isn't the problem here.

The article may strike a chord with those who don't like Slack, but the arguments presented are very sloppy. To me, this reads as a plug for a particular work style the OP finds themselves more productive under. The Slack attack is misplaced. The expectation of constant availability and immediate responses sound like cultural issues, exacerbated by the communication channels that Slack provides.

</comment><comment><USER21> Do people not realize how customizable Slack is? Everything that bugs OP can be turned off, there's do not disturb mode. away mode, you can mute every alert with granularity, etc.

The idea that "I don't use this communication channel that all my coworkers do and everything is fine" seems risky at best.

<comment><USER22> Are you actually saying not using slack is risky? Do people not talk in your universe? Send emails? Text messages?

<comment><USER23> I don't think that's Austen's point, no. It's more that completely disengaging from a primary communication tool within your company is risky. It might work out for you. There's also a big chance you'll be left out of important conversations, decisions, and been seen as not a team player because the rest of the organization now has to adapt around one person's communication preferences.

Communication is tough. There are so many different, competing styles and needs that you'll never build the perfect tool. It's more about building the right habits and processes around your tools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Slack is a great product, but with a wrong communication model. We have for the last three years developed Twist, which focuses on asynchronous communication by default. It includes some of the best features of Slack and email. We currently have about 1000 teams actively using it. Read more of our reasoning here: "Why We're Betting Against Real-Time Team Messaging" [https://blog.doist.com/why-were-betting-against-real-time- te...](https://blog.doist.com/why-were-betting-against-real-time-team- messaging-521804a3da09)

<comment><USER25> Email. You just went back to email.

Like many of the people in the comments of your article, I am struggling to see how this is any different from traditional emails. The only difference is that these conversation threads are public/discoverable, and not only sent to certain people... but most companies already have this (via groups/team mailing lists/confluence/...).

<comment><USER24> We still use email, but not for internal team communication. We have a help article of why Twist is radically different than email [https://twist.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/115003654589-Twi...](https://twist.zendesk.com/hc/en- us/articles/115003654589-Twist-vs-Email-The-More-Organized-Way-to-Work)

<comment><USER25> I would strongly recommend reading this article:

[https://blog.codinghorror.com/discussions-flat-or- threaded/](https://blog.codinghorror.com/discussions-flat-or-threaded/)

Flat discussions make much more sense, especially for emails. Gmail and most email clients are focusing on flat discussion threads, which are much easier to follow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Working with the kind of person that OP seems to be is a pain. Sometimes I need your help, a code review, feedback or advice. Sometimes I even need it ASAP because I am dealing with something time sensitive. I do my best to be respectful of people's tome, but sometimes a distraction to help a colleague is unavoidable.

I'll send an email when appropriate, but in most other cases I'll look for you on Slack. If you're not there then that means I'll just have to walk over to your desk to find you instead.

</comment><comment><USER27> Slack lowers the friction involved in communicating. Depending on the kind of communication that it is, maybe that's bad or good.

In many corporate communications platforms, it is quite effortless to ask an idle question, use an emoticon, paste a giphy image, write a bot to push notifications into your team channel, express a witticism, or vent complaints. It was my experience that Slack made it easier to do all of these things more than any platform I'd previously used. I've been off of it for 3 months and hope I never have to return. The worst problem seemed to be the number of ad- hoc channels I could be automatically invited to, and it was not often clear whether the information exchanged there was something I needed to pay attention to (although in retrospect it is more so).

Different organizations will utilize it differently, and feature-wise Slack seems to have gotten pretty far ahead of the competition. But if there's any truth to the medium being the message, then I think that it can be inferred from much of what transpires on Slack is that as a platform it is a big time sink. There don't seem to be a lot of important degrees of urgency between an email, a phone call, or a drop-by. For me about 90% of the value in corporate messaging is pasting web links to resources, which doesn't require the other bells and whistles.

</comment><comment><USER28> I agree with the author here but not for the reasons he stated. my biggest gripe with Slack is that it results in less and less one-to-one conversation.

We used Slack at my last job but we were encouraged to stop by the person's desk for any matter that requires immediate attention. I sat near our CTO and sometimes I saw many engineers standing around his desk trying to debug a production issue. This resulted in knowing other people's name/face (which I realized after I joined my current company).

At my new company we use Slack for pretty much everything. If there's a production bug you're encouraged to @here on the dedicated channel and someone would take a look at it. There's no one-to-one interaction to debug it. We had our holiday party last month where I introduced myself to some of my coworkers and once we started talking we realized that we have chatted on Slack but never saw each other even though we were all working in the same office. I never associated the engineer's face to the name.

I do think Slack is a powerful tool in modern work environment but people shouldn't be too dependent on it.

<comment><USER17> how do you figure out the solution to the bugs in a reasonable time without having 1:1 sessions? If you just hand over the bug and the other guy has to deal with it alone then that's really inefficient.

That's also why it's hard for me to imagine that it's true what you say. The need for quick results will always create smaller meetings at this or that guy's desk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I don't like any kind of IM/chat apps used like an endless meeting. They're good for tackling one single issue with probably a handful of people at a time. Even with @mentions, hashtags and channels, chat is still a single stream that pretends to have context like email or forum posts do (with subject lines and conversation threads).

As a habit, I don't use any chat group (be it Telegram or any other app or platform) if there are more than five people. The explosion in the number of messages and the frustration in not being able to catch up is too big a cost on one's health and productivity. These tools don't enhance collaboration. On the contrary, they provide a facade of "being busy".

We seem to keep trying to reinvent email and forum discussions (that have more context and confine discussions by topic) again and again, but not achieving better results.

</comment><comment><USER30> To be perfectly honest... It's hard for me to look at quitting Slack as anything but deeply selfish. How much more time is someone now spending writing you an email? Or waiting for you to answer one? How much more time are they spending walking over to your desk? Or wondering if they even should, since you're that one guy who refuses to use Slack?

If you need long periods of quiet time to work, locking yourself in a closet is extremely effective, but that doesn't mean it also positively affects your organization. Slack is an organizational productivity tool. Nearly every post I read about people quitting Slack focuses on how much better _they_ are able to work without it, not how much better their team or organization is without them on Slack...

You're right, Slack isn't for you. It's for your team.

</comment><comment><USER31> Related question for the masses:

I run a fully remote startup. My goal is to make as much communication asynchronous as possible, to facilitate people being in multiple time zones and having different optimal work times and places.

We have slack right now, but for the most part people understand that it's an async tool -- i.e. don't expect an instant response. Usually the only "instant" convo is if we're having a video meeting and need to share links (which of course we try to avoid since video meetings aren't async but are sadly unavoidable).

My question is, as we grow, how to I keep Slack that way, and make sure it doesn't turn into a huge distraction and just a bunch of gifs and watercooler talk, without imposing rules about "the proper use of Slack"?

<comment><USER10> Make a room for "general posting" and collect all the gifs and watercooler talk there. Gives everyone a space where they can go to decompress, doesn't change your normal business use.

Im also of the opinion that having a dedicated space for more "real time" communications can be really helpful as well. Team branded support room, for example. Having a space that everyone at least casually keeps an eye on can really save everyone a lot of time (especially when operating remotely) if a team member comes across an issue.

<comment><USER32> This is great advice; it's how our team functions, being 100% remote, but are leasing space that we come to if a team ever wants to sit together in person. It's available, but managers have made it clear it's by no means compulsory.

So, we have off-topic channels, a channel to plan social events (I Live in Austin Texas and we have more than one musician who will post events, and we've made company outings out of going to see a coworker perform), there's one for movie chats, and even a "LFG" (Looking for games) channel for the folks who like to play and discuss video games.

They're all as active and vibrant as our #devops and #product-discussions channels.

<comment><USER33> If you want to contain the nutters, build a nuthouse. Every message board admin in the world learns you need dumping grounds and pressure relief valves to keep the population in line.

My team has "General" for company wide announcements and "random" for dumping gifs and whatnot.

There's also stuff like #sysadmin if something goes down or you spot a security bulletin and want to make sure the admin team sees it. Keep those rooms going as necessary. Low traffic, but the right people want an unread marker on them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Most offices have bad cultures that don't foster good communication. The odds of people blaming a tool because they don't have good communication is very high.

I think the bit about "my team is starting to notice I'm offline" is very telling. Oh you're so fancy, you special person who doesn't tell your team when you're not available and you aren't checking your messages. You sure showed them. I bet you're just the best facilitator of communication.

Personally, I tell my team how they can and can't expect to contact me when I'm changing methods of communication. Call me crazy.

</comment><comment><USER34> I feel that emails and Outlook style meeting systems should be enough for all day to day activities of a software developer. Rarely, there will be a situation that needs immediate attention. In that case a phone call would be sufficient. There is no need for a chat or instant messaging solution. However I must say that Skype's desktop sharing has come in very useful at times, and I don't know of a way to do that without having a chat client.

<comment><USER35> I find instant communication useful for quick "Am I doing this right?" problems people have. Sending something like "I'm getting ssh connection refused while trying to connect to this host. Can someone else try?". That can quickly be answered by multiple people and people can chime in their quick thoughts for what is likely the problem. Trying to communicate a bunch of people with one line question/answers would be super annoying with the latency that email has.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I've found exactly the opposite. People love to randomly interrupt me by showing up at my desk with questions. I tell them to use Slack instead, as this allows for asynchronous communication that doesn't interrupt my workflow.

I also push people to ask questions in a channel instead of directly to me, as usually someone else will help them before I even see the question.

</comment><comment><USER17> > Instant messaging applications enable communication that is online, > synchronous and on-demand.

No. It's totally wrong. One needs to learn how to configure his chat tool that it doesn't disturb one in productive times, but is easily available when free. It's possible. I do it since ICQ. Unread chat messages will also still be unread if you continue to work 4 hours on your current task.

> Without [instant messaging], days are calm, purpose-driven and productive.

How can days be purpose driven if you don't sync your own work with your colleague's work any more? I'd argue that people who act like that are the least productive because they only work on things that are not valuable for the team at large.

<comment><AUTHOR> > How can days be purpose driven if you don't sync your own work with your > colleague's work any more?

Work does get synced. It gets discussed at our desks, usually in the mornings. If the work presents blockers requiring a lengthy discussion then we hop into a meeting room. I find we get better participation and arrive at a solution with less friction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> We've had this kind of of posts as long as I remember. People blaming tools because they can't figure out the most basic skills of work, communication, planning, division and focusing of attention, etc. It's always a panacea to turn something off completely.

But it's never about the tool. It's just the author learning how to operate themselves. What they did has minimal relevance to others in general, except perhaps for some validating "me too!"-s.

It's much more valuable to step back and think critically about how you approach tasks and decisions, how you feel and what it tells you, and how much you can actually control all of it.

</comment><comment><USER38> Here's a nifty counter of Slack activations per day: [http://focuslist.co/escape2/](http://focuslist.co/escape2/)

Kinda eye opening.

</comment><comment><USER39> I find it useful for asking 'has anyone changed x because I'm seeing this stacktrace when I do abc?'. I don't expect an immediate result but when a devleoper has some downtime then they can check and respond.

It's better than email because they can see the chat from other devs around the issue.

The only thing I'd like to do is be able to stop auto-playing gifs and block @here from certain people who abuse it.

</comment><comment><USER40> I find it very useful for those who are quick to reply on slack, there are some who check slack once a day and those for types it's easier to get up and talk to them or email them. There is the downside which I find more common amongst the younger users straight out of uni just using it as a social chat mechanism

</comment><comment><USER41> We were forced to move to Slack as well. Do not like it. It is more distracting than making us productive.

I enjoyed HipChat [[https://www.atlassian.com/software/hipchat](https://www.atlassian.com/software/hipchat)]

<comment><USER42> Ugh... Hipchat. Relatively straightforward things that they don't seem to be able to address:

You can't chat with more than 1 person without creating a private room. Slack makes this effortless. It's been on Atlassian's radar for almost 1.5 years with no movement: [https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Hipchat-questions/chat- wi...](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Hipchat-questions/chat-with-two-or- more-people-without-to-use-room/qaq-p/125060)

[https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/HCPUB-431](https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/HCPUB-431)

And when you're in a private chat with someone, the jumping text you see when the person you're chatting with is typing. Over 1.5 years and they can't fix that? It's horribly distracting and just kinda sucks.

[https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/HCPUB-950](https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/HCPUB-950)

Anyways, the whole thing feels dead and is very clearly a low priority for Atlassian.

<comment><USER43> Atlassian employee here. We moved much of our development efforts to Stride, our next gen team chat software. Be sure to check it out: [https://www.stride.com](https://www.stride.com)

<comment><USER44> You guys oughta think about pricing. We just moved, a bit reluctantly, to Microsoft Teams (essentially free because existing MS subscription) because even Hipchat was way too expensive.

Does Stride really need to be $36/user/year, and double that if we need SAML?

<comment><USER43> That's half the price of Slack.

<comment><USER44> Slack's pricing is absurd.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> > Without it, days are calm, purpose-driven and productive.

Like you can't distract yourself with 40 other apps if not slack. Slack isn't the problem, they're ALL the problem. Anyway, Slack is mandatory if you're remote.

</comment><comment><USER46> Communication is necessary. Slack is one way of communicating .. by all means get rid of it, but if you do .. make sure the replacement medium serves you better.

I'd rather receive a DM than a phone call in most cases.

</comment><comment><USER47> I find the "All Unread" view works really well to use Slack asynchronously. You can just check it every so often, marking entire channels as read in one click if a skim doesn't interest you.

</comment><comment><USER48> For software developers, the best way to communicate is through the bug database. Developers don't use "slack" at our company.

Of course, it may be different for sales and support people, etc.

<comment><USER17> I also used to think that way. But in my current team we have lots of components that are maintainerless and attentionless since their maintainer left the team for another job. When he hwas still active we all considered this component important because many hours of work where flowing into it. Now it's not maintained, receives nearly zero work, and still the impact to the team and sales is not visible.

One could say finding out which components are critical should be someone elses job, e.g. the manager's. All true, but still I wouldn't want to end up spending the prime time of my day for multiple years on a piece of software that nobody uses and nobody makes money with. So I'd argue that I as a dev cannot interact with just the bug db. I need to see what sales is doing, product management, join meetings, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Author would have a better point if he talked about how the widespread use of memes/animated gifs is what makes such platforms into junk.

</comment><comment><USER50> Pretty sure I had some kind of slack PTSD after my last two dev jobs.</comment>


If I Had a Startup, I'd Send All My PRs on Weekends - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2008/08/25/startup-summer-weekends/

<comment><AUTHOR> Might not always work, but it could be something to think about when you are working on your PR.</comment>


Conrad Wolfram: What is wrong with our math education (and how to fix it) - <AUTHOR> http://www.good.is/post/math-isn-t-just-computation-so-why-is-that-all-we-teach/

<comment><USER2> Just as you don't really understand how a CPU works until you've programmed in assembly, you don't really understand math if you haven't done hand- computation, at least up to a point. If your approach to any math problem is "plug it into Mathmatica" you will never be able to creatively apply basic concepts to more complicated problems and you will never have any sense of whether the answers it provides are "reasonable."

That said, tools like Mathmatica are here to stay, and the argument that we need to spend more time teaching the use of these tools as an aid to exploring and understanding fundamental concepts is probably correct.

<comment><USER3> > Just as you don't really understand how a CPU works until you've programmed > in assembly, you don't really understand math if you haven't done hand- > computation, at least up to a point.

Conrad Wolfram addresses this very point in the video (11:30). He says that the most valid point that hand-calculating helps understanding is that teaching processes themselves helps understanding, but that there's a better way to do that: programming. In other words, programming a math solution is better for teaching math understanding that hand solving it.

In the end, I think the idea he's trying to impart is that the core of math is not calculation at all, it just seems that way because they've been intertwined for so long. But now that we have computers to do the tedious calculations, we can work on defining and exploring what math really is: how different conceptual intuitions are related

<comment><USER4> Agreed, but only up to a point. To program it is fundamental to have a strong intuition as to what should happen, why, and how to get there. Doing that without some amount of manual computation is temerary.

<comment><USER5> Actually, I disagree. Programming is about building and using abstractions. It is not strictly necessary to understand how the abstractions are built.

Case and point, how many web developers do you know who could outline the TCP/IP protocols in great detail?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A good portion of this problem would be solved in the long(er) term if we pursued a 3-track plan. First, cut back on the amount of bureaucracy running the school systems. Whenever state cuts roll around, you never hear about office administrator's getting cut. . .just teachers. Where I live, we have an absurdly high ratio of administrator to teacher ratio and when cuts come around the teachers go first. The more overhead we've got, the less we can spend on teachers to retain the people who actually teach.

Second, give the schools more autonomy to choose curriculum and meet the needs of their students. Instead of standardizing the curriculum across the state and federal level--shoehorning every student, no matter their educational needs into one specific mold--give the schools more latitude to meet their students needs. Give the teachers some room to choose what they teach instead of having them teach straight to the standard of learning tests.

Finally, end teacher tenure and promote/fire based on merit. Good teachers who teach well should get raises and encouraged to stay teaching. Teachers who stink (I know I can think of several off the top of my head my classmates and I universally agreed stunk) should be let go and replaced with new teachers. Overtime, this builds a a stronger cadre of motivated individuals with an incentive to do well teaching instead of having protection from the all powerful teacher's union to

<comment><USER7> >Give the teachers some room to choose what they teach instead of having them teach straight to the standard of learning tests

> end teacher tenure and promote/fire based on merit

These two points may not be compatible. How do you propose promoting based on merit other than the results of the standardized tests?

<comment><USER6> As an engineer, I love statistical data or numbers I can crunch and use to make a supposedly more objective comparison between things. I believe the problem with standardized testing is we are trying to take that idea and then apply it to something inherently non numerical--the acquisition of knowledge. Contrast this with economics and I think there's a startling difference. In Econ, we participate with numbers, something easily quantifiable. In education we participate with our minds and we have no easy, objective, way to quantify this into convenient numbers. For instance, standardized testing is inherently biased against people who don't take tests well meaning the test will not accurately represent their level of knowledge which could then have further repercussions when they apply to college.

The problem is we are looking at this through an engineering lens. When looking for a quality teacher, other factors than results on a silly test should play a role. How do the students respond to the teacher? Is the teacher usually well prepared? Do they have a good reputation with the students for being fair? Are their lectures interesting? At some point, on the local level (individual school), I think parents and the administration have a good idea of who the good teachers are and who are lemons and I don't know if you could quantify this into a statistical system that is "impartial".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I believe that there are currently more significant problems than those mentioned in the (very good) TED talk---how do we stop the continued trend of denigration of teaching and the profession in general? The current populist idea of blame all of the teachers for the nightmare that administration gone insane is, is not going to lead us unto the future. It will lead us back to a time of ignorance and idiocy.

<comment><USER9> Populism favors common people and blaming the elite. The idea you describe ("blame all of the teachers for the nightmare that administration gone insane is") is the opposite of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This has been submitted many times in the past few months, with the same point and counter-points rehashed endlessly. Do a search for Conrad Wolfram to see what I mean.

I'm not going to repeat my arguments. For some people he's right, for others he's very wrong.

</comment><comment><USER11> The real question is how to change the way the teachers teach.

<comment><USER9> The singular way to do it would be to employ math teachers with math/science degrees, not (just) teaching degrees. I had 3 teachers in high school with a math/science PhDs (I went to a magnet school), and their teaching was heads and shoulders above all the other teachers...save one, who I believe had a Master's in physics.

This means I disagree with madmaze. Change the teachers, and the curriculum changes will follow. Change the curriculum with the same teachers, and you get New Math < <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Math> >, which had some good ideas but was doomed.

Problem is, math and science degrees are a lot more expensive to employ.

<comment><USER12> I agree with the need for actual degreed people in Math and Science teaching. If an adult went to a training center and got a person with an education degree and certificate instead of someone who put the years in for a technical degree, you would want your money back.

The bigger problem is that you need to pay Math and Science degreed people more than other teachers because of scarcity and other high paying job opportunities. The current educational machine won't allow that.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Built cloud phone system for remote sales teams - <AUTHOR> Hey, I travel and code for living. Most of my customers are from US, UK and South Africa and I have a remote team of 12 people (handling customer success & sales) across 4 continents. So, I have created an off-the-shelf cloud phone system (called Justcall.io) for startups doing international sales. Basically, you can generate and manage any number of International numbers. You can also create a call center where upto 10 of my team members will get a call simultaneously if someone calls the number on my website. I request you guys to be my first set of awesome users and help me improve this product with your feedback, ideas and suggestions. I will take care of pricing for you guys/gals :)<p>Signup at https://justcall.io [https://justcall.io] <comment><USER2> Veteran of the VoIP world, looks good from the landing page, curious about features, from the text on the page and screenshots, it looks like this is just for call origination and termination?

Do you think you'd support something like ring groups and call flows/phone trees in the future?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Dave,

It already has number of business operation functionalities like: \- Call center functionality or Ring Groups (you can setup who all should get a call when say a sales number is called) \- Availability feature (you can set your office timings & if someone calls you after that, he/she is directed to voicemail option without disturbing you) \- You can sent another preference like - if you are not available to take call, call will get forwarded to other team member, if he/she is not available it will be forwarded to another team member and finally to voicemail \- SMSes option is alway available. For users who have used Stripe's Atlast program and formed a company in US while operating from SE Asia or South America or Europe, they can use Justcall to manage mobile banking (get bank texts or call verification etc - most banks require US number) \- We are building this Phone Tree option where more customization will be given to users \- Also, building IVR system to let users setup IVR layer on incoming calls. Businesses will be able to deliver information to users like Ticket status (say Airline or Movie hall), Account balance (say Uber or Pizza Shop) without having someone to answer such calls for them \- CRM integrations are already in place and we are adding more CRM integrations (one in every 2-3 days)

Plus, we are very customer focused and will be all ears to your feedbacks, ideas and feature suggestions.

<comment><USER2> May I email directly? Would love to pick your brain, not so much as a competitor but as someone who recently sold a VoIP and Telephony consultancy (i.e. I'm getting out of the game to focus on family and follow up on my legal degree, so I'm not here to get insider details or anything like that), I like seeing what the new players in the game are up to and watch the industry mature. I cut my teeth here, learned a lot and have really enjoyed seeing the innovations happen.

Cheers!</comment></comment></comment>


Signing First Makes Ethics Salient & Decreases Dishonest Self-Reports - <AUTHOR> http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6726.html

<comment><AUTHOR> It's all-too-easy to lie on self-reported documents such as tax returns, expense reports, and insurance policy forms. That's why we're generally required to sign a statement declaring that the report is truthful. Usually, the signature line is located at the very end of the form—after it has been filled out already, and consequently, after the potential cheating has occurred. This paper examines whether governments and companies can bolster honesty simply by moving the signature line to the beginning of the form, such that signers are swearing that they will tell the truth rather than that they have told the truth.</comment>


The man who could have been richer than Bill Gates - <AUTHOR> http://www.freeenterpriseland.com/BOOK/KILDALL.html

<comment><USER3> Frustrating that even if you make more than 100 million dollars, you can still be bitter because somebody else made a couple of billion dollars.

I hope I wouldn't be like that. There is the aspect of recognition (who was the first to invent X), but in these modern times it is probably a good idea to realize that the concept of the sole inventor is overrated.

<comment><USER4> Nope ... it´s not about the money, it´s about yourself, the opportunity that you lost. Money, after some stage, is just a reflex of your ability to make more money. The ability of making money was probably the reason that bring him down. After all he is a business man ...

If i was him, i would be bad too, but my life is not based on that, is based on God ... so i could survive. After all, i guess the best lost for him was his wife, what, probably, screwed with him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Title is misleading but story is very interesting.

Gary Kildall sold his company to Novel for $120 million so he did fine financially.

Even if Kildall had made the deal with IBM, it is questionable what would have happened. After all, he eventually did make a deal with IBM and it didn't matter.

The end of the story is a stretch. It is hard for me to believe that all the bad things happened to him because of the IBM deal.

<comment><USER6> Exactly. He had great business at the time, so he had a lot to lose. Gates had nothing, so his bet made a lot more sense. With what they knew, they probably both made the best choice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The moral of the original Kildall Story is that you must always agree to be nice to big important companies like IBM. I love that this isn't true anymore.

<comment><USER8> I wish you luck getting anywhere on the Internet without the help of a major company, Google in particular. It may not be Microsoft or IBM, but there are still clear powers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Maybe Gary Kildall would have had more success if he had a relative on the inside. Any treatment of the IBM/Microsoft deal without any mention of Mary Gates is misleading and incomplete...

<http://www.virtualaltair.com/virtualaltair.com/mits0026.asp>

"Fate smiled on Microsoft twice in these proceedings. First, IBM was somewhat leery of dealing with what they considered a somewhat flakey tiny software company, but it turns out that in addition to Microsoft's proven reputation as a viable language vendor, Mary Gates - Bill's mom - had served on the national board of United Way with one of the involved IBM senior executives - <USER2> the validating social reference that they were working with "Mary's Gates' boy Bill".

[http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/11/obituaries/mary- gates-64-h...](http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/11/obituaries/mary- gates-64-helped-her-son-start- microsoft.html?n=Top%2FNews%2FBusiness%2FCompanies%2FInternational%20Business%20Machines%20\(I.B.M.\))

"Mary Gates, a prominent Seattle businesswoman who helped her son, William H. Gates 3d, get the contract that led to a lucrative relationship with I.B.M. for his fledgling Microsoft Corporation..."

[http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=199...](http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19940610&slug=1914904)

"Mrs. Gates also figured in her son's success. She helped cement Microsoft's early connection with IBM, which led to development of the IBM PC with DOS, an operating system supplied by Microsoft. When someone mentioned Microsoft to IBM President John Opel in 1980, Opel responded, "Oh, that's run by Bill Gates, Mary Gates' son." Opel served with Mrs. Gates on United Way's national board at the time."

<comment><USER10> Contingent on the story at the link being effectively true, it sounds like your first paragraph is just a bad lead in to airing a pet peeve of yours, because the logic does not follow. While that explains why IBM contacted Bill first for no apparent reason, the story says that Bill did the right thing and redirected them to Kildall. Kildall had a fair shot at the deal, but passed it up.

Again, contingent on the story being effectively true, there is no way Kildall was going to get that deal, family relationship on Bill's part or no family relationship. He saw it more as a distraction than an opportunity.

(It's a pity he became bitter because it sounds like he already had "fuck you" money; _I_ certainly don't have a yacht or personal airplane or any of the several other things he had. If you ask me the truly sad part of the tale is that Kildall was owned by his possessions.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I remember the first time I ran DR-DOS. It was so superior to MS-DOS it wasn't funny. It's a shame it didn't have the strategy to kill MS-DOS off.

</comment><comment><USER12> A similar story by Business Week: [http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_43/b3905109_...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_43/b3905109_mz063.htm)

<comment><USER13> The BW story reads like an unsourced reduction of the freeenterpriseland article.

The author of the FEL article sells an ebook made up of similar stories, which you can read a lot of on the site homepage. The ebook costs $5. <http://www.freeenterpriseland.com/MAG.html>

It's an interesting technique for writing and selling an ebook, but with no links to sources it is worse than the linkjack, it is plagiarism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Obviously, he couldn't have been richer than Bill Gates because he isn't. From this story it seems like he had many of the same opportunities as Gates, but didn't know how to leverage them into something more. If he had Gates's intuition and insight into the early software industry he might have made the same moves.

But then again, if he had Micheal Jordan's skill in basketball he could have won more championships than others as well.

</comment><comment><USER15> "could'a should'a would'a"

<comment><USER3> That hardly seems like a fair assessment, given all the work Kildall has done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Now there is some argument bait--who is the better programmer, Bill Gates or Gary Kildall.

<comment><AUTHOR> Gary was probably a better programmer. Bill is undoubtedly better from a business standpoint.

<comment><USER17> Gates is rumored to have scored a perfect 800 on the math portion or his SAT. He was studying Math at Harvard and published a paper in 'Discrete Mathematics' despite having dropped out before finishing undergrad:

[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V00-45JC8FY-54&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=2f3c6366c54665187a1f58bf75396d13) (pay wall, but you can see the abstract)

I think there's reason to believe he could have been an outstanding programmer. Has anybody read the source code for a program verifiably written by Gates? Was Donkey.bas really written by him?

<comment><USER18> I do not know enough about his background to say one way or another whether he was a great programmer, but getting an 800 on the SAT math section isn't exactly a legendary achievement. It is weighted so that the number of people getting an 800 is not insignificant.

<comment><USER19> That was less true when Gates took it than it is now. Now, scores are "recentered", so you can get a couple questions wrong and still get a perfect 800. This wasn't true when Gates took it - perfect meant perfect then.

At my undergrad, something like 1 in 10 incoming freshmen had perfect SAT scores, and I know a couple of folks at Google with perfect scores as well.

<comment><USER20> "That was less true when Gates took it than it is now. Now, scores are "recentered", so you can get a couple questions wrong and still get a perfect 800."

Not true, for the math anyway. You can get a few wrong on the verbal section and still get an 800, and don't ask me how the writing works.

In any case, the effects of the 1994 recentering on higher-end scores (for whatever they're worth) are greatly exaggerated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Bill Gates greatest skill is to give people what they want."

<comment><USER22> Well, actually his greatest skill is to give people something and make them believe it is what they want.

<comment><USER19> Isn't that the same thing? What's the difference between wanting something and _believing_ you want it? Doesn't one imply the other?

(Note: we're talking about wants here, not needs. It's quite possible to believe you need something and be mistaken. But wants are subjective beliefs, so almost by definition, wouldn't believing you want something mean that you do want it?)

<comment><USER23> Snake oil. False advertising. Advertising that stokes and intensifies desires far beyond the point at which they would exist sans advertising. Wanting a marshmallow now vs. two marshmallows later. Pepsi doing better on one-off taste tests, Coke doing better when consuming a 12-pack. Buying into the hype for something and deceiving yourself into believing it delivered. Misinterpretation. Projection. Insufficient information.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


User Onboarding - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@onboarded/user-onboarding-4900db2e794d

<comment><AUTHOR> Author of the article and founder of Onboarded here -

I would love to chat about user onboarding and answer any questions about Onboarded (www.getonboarded.com)

You can email us here: email@example.com

All feedback is welcome and appreciated!

</comment><comment><USER2> This looks really interesting, I'll have to check it out on my next project. Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! Let me know if you have any questions or want help getting started.</comment></comment>


U.S. Path on Legal Marijuana Forces Rethink in Mexico - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-path-on-legal-marijuana-forces-rethink-in-mexico-1482834602#livefyre-comment <comment><USER2> Unemployed farmers and butchers, that's all that remains, if you state- distribute the drugs and fire the thugs.

With the rise of synthetics, and the first maker-chem-bot not far away- i wouldn't wonder if the Narcos would do what all businesses do, if the change is upon them- lobby for protectionism.

Im against drug liberalization, but just to reduce the economic and social Fallout this would be worth it.

<comment><USER3> I am strongly in favor of drug legalization, _because_ I am from Mexico. Drug traffic is ruinous for the Mexican economy, even if you didn't care ethically about the human cost of a >250,000 death toll in the last 10 years (the drug war in Mexico is, depending how you count, the 3rd or 4th deadliest armed conflict in the world today, after Syria, Iraq, and Afganistan[1]).

In purely economic terms, even though some money does flow into the country through the cartels, the lack of basic security caused by a weak state interacting with extraordinarily wealthy criminal organizations makes it very hard for industry to develop: investment doesn't want to come (and if it does, must hedge against extortion in its plans), there is a huge brain-drain of skilled talent, and no local wants to take any risk, specially not a business risk that might put them in the sight of organized crime. Mexico has some high-tech industry, and it has the potential to develop far more, but it is stunted by a climate of lack of human security and personal safety. Not all of it is because of the drug war (Mexico has a level of economic inequality that makes the divide in the US look quaint, and in practical terms is an incredibly young democracy, for example). Legalization in the US would not solve all of Mexico's problems, but it might give it enough breathing room to reverse what currently feels like a slow collapse...

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts) (note that the cumulative official death toll number shown there is extremely under-reported)

<comment><USER4> Crazy question: why doesn't _Mexico_ legalize all drugs and drug trade? The US would have a fit, but is the good will of the US worth the damage the drug war does in Mexico?

<comment><USER5> Mexico's economy is deeply invested in trade with the USA. Simply declaring that the drug gangs will be openly allowed to use Mexican territory to try to deliver drugs to the USA however they want would lead the USA to retaliate. The most likely response is a closed border and an end to trade.

Mexico is a prosperous country now, in spite of gang problems, and that will continue only as long as trade is open.

But small personal use amounts of drugs are already decriminalized in Mexico. I see plenty of people buy, sell, and smoke mariguana in front of cops in broad daylight. To stop the cartels, you need to allow major companies to compete and the USA politicians can't ignore that.

And for all the trouble drug gangs cause in Mexico, they kill fewer people than car crashes. The federal legislature isn't making it the top national priority or overriding all other concerns for that level of violence.

And, to make a final note, the Supreme Court of Justice keeps threatening to make mariguana legal nationally as a matter of human rights. The USA probably wouldn't go as crazy if it happens through a judicial process.

<comment><USER3> > And for all the trouble drug gangs cause in Mexico, they kill fewer people > than car crashes.

Debatable, actually. War on drugs related deaths are >250,000 in 10 years by some counts. Car crash related deaths average 24,000 a year in Mexico. But the thing is that violence related deaths are worse than car accidents in one significant way: they erode people's trust in others and the feeling of safety. They lead to more conservative risk-taking behavior and have far reaching consequences on people's mental state (would you react the same if you hear that a university classmate died in a crash than if you learn he was killed by armed cartel members or the army as collateral damage in a clash?). Also, beyond the deaths: large-scale organized crime exacerbates corruption, imposes costs on businesses (extortion), harms free press, etc, etc. Drug trade in Mexico is definitely a national crisis, in a way I don't think people who don't live there quite understand (no, is not a Mad Max-like hellhole, no, not everything looks like in the movie "El Infierno"[1], but that doesn't mean is just a "localized" crime problem in the sense that gang violence in certain cities of the US is, is an entirely different beast when parts of the country are known to be primarily under organized crime control).

In terms of the original comment, Mexico can't easily go against the US in these matters. But even if it did, the US market would still be both lucrative and illegal, which means the drug cartels would continue operating much as they do now. It would still not be worth it for them to obey Mexican law and it would still be worth it to them to fight for control of drug routes. Legalization in the US would mean competition from Pfizer, GSK and the like, which might actually hurt the cartels. Legalization in Mexico would be pretty much meaningless on its own.

[1] [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1692190/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1692190/)

<comment><USER5> All homicides in Mexico don't add up to 250k per decade. And at most half of the total is drug-related.

And car crash related deaths have even more negative externalities than drug war deaths. They disproportionately kill children and innocent non-criminals. People isolate themselves from dangerous traffic by avoiding walking, avoiding healthy neighborhoods, and by driving more in a vicious spiral. They both have negative social side-effects but car crashes are even worse by most measures.

<comment><USER3> > All homicides in Mexico don't add up to 250k per decade. And at most half of > the total is drug-related.

Homicides were 20,525 in 2015 by official government numbers [1]. Same in 2014 (see same report). Far more than half are crime related, which in Mexico often means it can be connected to drug trade or other activities of the cartels (extortion, people trafficking, etc). This has been a 10 years drug war, and official numbers under-report deaths dramatically, since executions by army and police are rarely counted as homicides and many other killings by drug cartels end up never being investigated and reported as "missing person" cases. This also mostly affects non-criminals, unlike in the US.

Say it is 20,000 a year for 10 years, which seems reasonable based on the figure in the second page of the report. That adds to 200,000 with only the official numbers, only counting homicides classified as such. Add all the missing person numbers (which sure, might partly count displaced migrants, but just as often means dead and thrown in a clandestine burial) and 250k sounds conservative.

I believe the US has a similar mortality rate of car crashes to Mexico, and I can tell you, having lived in both places, that the social side-effects are not even in the same ballpark. This is not a "terror attacks in developed nations kill a few hundred a year, cars kills tens of thousands, we over-react to the first!" kind of argument (which is an argument I agree with), this is a "we have a death toll from the war on drugs that puts us as the 4th bloodiest conflict currently ongoing in the world in absolute numbers[2]".

See also: [http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/6062-mexico- victimiz...](http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/6062-mexico- victimization-survey-highlights-reporting-gap)

From that article: "Based on the survey results, INEGI estimated that in 10.7 million households in Mexico (33.9 percent of the total) at least one member of the household was the victim of crime in 2013, or some 22.5 million people -- a rate of 28,224 victims per 100,000 residents". I don't think you can quite understand what it is like to know that in a given year, almost 1/3rd of the population will have to deal directly with crime happening to them. Even if it is mostly theft or extortion, rather than outright murder.

[1] [http://www.inegi.org.mx/saladeprensa/boletines/2016/especial...](http://www.inegi.org.mx/saladeprensa/boletines/2016/especiales/especiales2016_07_04.pdf)

[2] Granted, is over a bigger country, but I would still not wish it on anyone...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mexican traffickers are expanding their operations to gain a larger share of eastern U.S. heroin markets. > [https://www.dea.gov/divisions/hq/2016/hq062716_attach.pdf](https://www.dea.gov/divisions/hq/2016/hq062716_attach.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> Non-paywall link: [http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/12/27/us-path-on-legal- mar...](http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/12/27/us-path-on-legal-marijuana- forces-rethink-in-mexico.html)

The usual web link didn't work for me this time.

<comment><USER8> That link doesn't go to the full article either. It gives you a link to the paywall of the article though.

<comment><USER9> Archived at [https://archive.fo/DhAB8](https://archive.fo/DhAB8)

Screenshot without comments: [https://i.imgur.com/LbqmLV4.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/LbqmLV4.jpg)

Hope this helps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's too late. The cartels were allowed (even encouraged) to grow to the point where they are no longer controllable by the state. If you legalize the drug trade, they will continue to assert quasi-legal control over it the same way that mafias have historically controlled things like garbage removal, and probably branch out into other activities (as they actually have been doing, eg "taxing" avocado farmers). They have no reason to allow themselves to be "outcompeted" by a bunch of MBAs with excellent expertise in logistics but no guns.

<comment><USER11> And what happens when the big corporations start getting into the business?

What are the drug cartels going to do? Attack some giant montasanto farm in the middle of flyover USA?

...with their guns?

And what happens when montasanto highers a couple off duty police officers to protect their investment?

The cartels have no power in anywhere but the border.

<comment><USER10> The US has far stronger rule of law than Mexico (one of the reasons so many Mexicans desire to come to the US), and I'm primarily talking about the difficulty of uprooting the narcos in Mexico.

That said, yes, I would expect to see a rise in cartel violence in the US at least out into the medium term. "Attack a farm" is a bit cinematic, but "threaten executive's children to extract kickbacks" is quite plausible in certain areas. Their area of influence now tracks traditional drug trafficking routes & illegal immigration routes, which covers a hell of a lot of the US. That doesn't mean they're necessarily dominant over that the same way they are in MX, but is something one should be aware of.

<comment><USER12> Their problem is that they will lose most of their income which will reduce their power. They may try some kidnappings, but then they also have to contend with the U.S. power plus the ability of the other side to buy protection.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Traveling and Conferencing as a Pumping Mom: A Manifesto - <AUTHOR> http://www.kiodev.com/traveling-conferencing-as-a-pumping-mom-a-manifesto/ <comment><USER2> ALWAYS upvote for Pumping Moms, Kudos!</comment>


Unplanned Freefall? Some Survival Tips (2001) - <AUTHOR> http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/carkeet.html <comment><USER3> > You will want a tall tree with an excurrent growth pattern—a single, > undivided trunk with lateral branches, delicate on top and thicker as you > cascade downward.

I had not encountered the word _excurrent_ before. They provide a bit of a definition directly after using it but I was still curious so looked it up. Turns out it is a general botanical term but when used in the context of tree shapes (specifically the crown) it contrasts with _decurrent_. I found this image [1] which illustrates the different shapes of excurrent vs decurrent trees.

[1] [http://countrysidelandscape.net/files/2018/10/Branch- pattern...](http://countrysidelandscape.net/files/2018/10/Branch-patterns.jpg)

<comment><USER4> And to all of you who will soon stumple upon _excurrent_ again, maybe multiple times, even though you have never heard about it until now. This is called _Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon_.

<comment><USER5> To lay down another level of irony, I just learned about Baader-Meinhof phenomenon an hour ago while watching Stranger Things S03E02. I am now prepared to read about this all over the place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think there's (at least) one important factor this leaves out. Drag doesn't care what direction you're moving: it will slow you to about 120 mph regardless of whether you're going straight down or at an angle.

This implies that you want to control your horizontal velocity _not_ just to decide where you land, but also to build up as much horizontal velocity as possible. If you can get yourself going at a moderate angle, you can significantly _decrease_ your vertical velocity, which is by far the most dangerous part of a freefall!

The most important thing about approaching at an angle is not to tumble. This strategy would work best if you could slide down or along a loose surface like snow or small gravel, ideally down a hill. This basic strategy is why high speed skiers (who are moving _at least_ 120 mph) can survive crashes.

<comment><USER7> Hmmm...former skydiver here, not sure your point is accurate. I don't understand why increasing your forward momentum from tracking would decrease your fall rate.

I think your assumption that drag will slow you to 120mph is inaccurate - <USER2> example, if you fall heads-down your terminal velocity is instead up to ~180mph. Similarly, I'd expect that if you track in a direction your velocity could increase above 120mph while not lowering the speed at which you approach the ground.

Apologies - my physics knowledge and terminology is very limited, but do have some practical experience in the area :)

<comment><USER8> The trick is that while you can't actually decrease the total amount of energy in your fall, you can get some of that energy to work in your favour.

Think about when you flare a parachute, shortly before landing. What you're doing is trading forward momentum for vertical lift, softening your landing. The more forward momentum you have prior to a flare, the more lift you can get out of it. This is why you see experienced / foolhardy skydivers doing "hook turns" to maximise their forward velocity immediately before landing.

(Of course if you just stayed in the flare position continously, you'd have no forward momentum to trade, and would therefore lose lift entirely, producing the opposite of the intended effect.)

Anyhow, yeah, I doubt that tracking alone would help with survivability. My hunch is that you'd be trading 10mph of vertical momentum for about 40mph of horizontal momentum. Doesn't sound like a good trade. Although maybe -- just _maybe_ \-- you could execute a "body flare", whereby you kick your legs forward at exactly the right moment, to kill that forward momentum and trade it for lift. That might actually work (a bit)! But it sounds like an extraordinarily difficult manouevre. You'd certainly never get it right on the first try. Which of course is as many tries as you'll ever get.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _"Look around for a proportionate personal vehicle—some large, flat, aerodynamically suitable piece of wreckage."_

Problem: by the time you have dropped from 35,000 to 15,000 feet, such parts will be thousands of feet above you, way out of reach

⇒ if there are such parts, you'll have to find them before you lose consciousness. Alternatively, you'll have to construct them (rapidly so) from parts that drop about as fast as you do (could be as easy as opening a suitcase that's dropping at your speed, if you're very, very lucky)

</comment><comment><USER10> Thread from 2017: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13839177](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13839177)

</comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of that youtube video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy5xLVx2NGY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy5xLVx2NGY)

<comment><USER12> There's another video (The Only Way to Survive a Fall Without a Parachute - Bright Side): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5SGdWWu0sI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5SGdWWu0sI)

Some facts about falling:

\- You don't have oxygen until 6 miles / 10 km left to fall.

\- You have 3 minutes.

\- Some people have survived falling from planes. Most don't. 100% of people who don't fly never encounter this issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What happens if you are over water? Can you get some horizontal speed and try to skip across the water?

<comment><USER14> You hit the water at terminal velocity. Since water is effectively uncompressible, this is much like hitting concrete, I've read. You are either instantly killed or knocked out, in which case you slip underwater and drown.

I suppose hypothetically your best bet over water would be vertical entry, as opposed to the spread-eagle recommended for a land impact, but at the speeds you'll be going I imagine you're pretty much doomed regardless - even if the impact doesn't shatter you, I believe water rushes into your internal organs through your anus and causes massive damage. I've seen that referenced as a risk for bridge jumps and this is, obviously, as bad a water jump as you can make. I also imagine you'd go deep enough that you couldn't possibly float back up to the surface before drowning, and I imagine the impact and pressure of increasing depth would force all the air from your lungs anyway.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert in any relevant field. I may well have some facts wrong. Just speculating based on what little I know.

<comment><USER15> By conservation of momentum you won't go much deeper than diving from tamer heights. Still plenty of other trouble to deal with.

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

<comment><USER14> Ah, makes sense. Thanks for the info!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> So if you immediately went into a face first dive with your mouth wide open, could you catch enough air to stay conscious?

</comment><comment><USER17> Have thought about this too. I guess a lot of people have, considering how many people dream about falling.

</comment><comment><USER18> Any chance you could use the clothes you are (probably) wearing to slow yourself down?

</comment><comment><USER19> It's so bizarre but I actually want to know this.

You know, just in case.

</comment><comment><USER20> PaaS</comment>


Ask HN: How many of you continue reading a blog post after a popup ad? - <AUTHOR>

it has happened to me couple of times today already on sites like http://www.businessinsider.com. I start reading a blog post and suddenly those damn javascript-css-popup ads comes bloging the screen.<p>How many of you continue reading a post after popup ad ? Are you skipping already some blogs because those ads (like I'm trying to)? <comment><USER2> I would say 1/3 times I will just close, instead of clicking through. I would say in video it's different though, I will often sit through many ads, even ones that are clickable (e.g. hulu), because the content is more passive.

</comment><comment><USER3> When I see a pop up on an article, I generally close immediately. It is pretty clear that they are simply trying to monetize my visit, and whatever content is there is just more bait for that. I will put up with banner ads to some extent, but as a general rule if there are more ads than I feel like there need to be, or if the content of the article is broken into different 'parts', I'll just close on general principle.

</comment><comment><USER4> I generally just close an article instantly if it has one of those panels obscuring the text. There's enough other interesting stuff to read on the web that I'm not willing to put up with manipulation like that.

</comment><comment><USER5> Should be poll. Only about 1/100 times will I dismiss a pop-up and keep reading or click-through a "skip this ad" screen.

<comment><AUTHOR> (yeah, would have but "Sorry, you need 20 karma to create a poll.")</comment></comment>