Better technology means higher expectations, which creates more work - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/why-you-never-have-time/603937/ <comment><USER2> This is part of the reason I feel like I am turning into a luddite, as someone who once considered himself a futurist and built most of his life around computers and technology.

You have to work hard to find time to slack off -- everyone and everything around me is always creating more _work_ to do. How does anyone like this? A perfect life to me would be spent goofing off and working on art, but achieving that and maintaining the expected level of success is in itself a lot of work. Press articles always talk about how some new innovation is going to make my life easier, but all I see is how it's going to create more maintenance headaches for me (because I care about how it is going to work -- if you don't care maybe life actually is easier?) and how it is going to create more data for someone else (who isn't me! wtf?!) to monetize. I would happily roll back the last 10-to-20 years of technological innovation if it meant I could make software that didn't shackle me with continuous maintenance again, that I could happily disconnect from society at will again, and that social objectives (like dating, or finding friends) reverted back to a model of local scarcity of options rather than this model of app-driven stacked ranking that enhances the top 10% while leaving everyone else fighting over scraps.

The world would be a better place if so many of these innovators suddenly died of a heart attack or something; because their model of innovation is almost always figuring out how to take money away from incumbents who built a working, _human-scale_ system that allowed for things like slack time and local maximums, as opposed to this brave new world of globalizing everything and forcing everyone into the top 1-10% (and making everyone not in that bracket suffer)

<comment><USER3> I've reached the same conclusion. What we have the past 20 years is _phantom_ technology and _phantom_ wealth. So many tools to distract us and fill our time, but shockingly few tools to liberate us from labor. Only a tiny handful like rooftop solar panels, electric cars and Roombas have decreased our labor measurably.

I'm going through a midlife crisis right now where I'm actively rejecting the decisions I made since 2000. I had a falling out with professional programming last year and am looking into the gig economy. I'm not going to buy new anything if I can possibly avoid it. I'm trying to turn my attention from external expectation to what I felt was my life purpose when I graduated college in 1999.

Which will basically amount to finding a way to earn roughly $1000 per month doing whatever it takes and then using the freed up time to work on inventions. I'm hoping to resurrect my blog and write about progress or my thoughts on tech rather than devolving into my usual diatribes about politics and how the world has generally gone the wrong direction. My acquaintances are concerned about me, and rightfully so, but I just don't care to live someone else's life anymore.

I think you're right though, that when basic needs are met, most people want to work on their calling whether it be art or recreation or simply being human. Which looks a bit like how the aristocracy lived in the Gilded Age over a century ago. There's no reason why we can't have that level of affluence today for every single person by letting machines do the labor, or by taxing profits on that labor and providing cash to all via UBI.

<comment><USER4> I agree with you in a lot of ways, but keep an eye out on what "basic needs" means. Those are poverty-line wages, which don't give you any provision for becoming sick and little chance to save for retirement. Social Security might still exist by the time you retire, but even if it does, it won't even match that $1,000 per month (in whatever inflation-adjusted terms are available).

If you've spent the last two decades socking away some of that sweet, sweet programmer cash, you may well have enough cushion to live the beach- bum/starving-artist life you're talking about. That's great, and go for it. But a lot of people trying to skate by with the minimum will discover that the minimum isn't quite enough, and then they get caught up in a very bad vicious cycle.

UBI is one plan which would alleviate a lot of that, and I'd be all in favor of trying. Technology means there's so much to go around that not everybody needs to spend a third of their waking life to get the basics. But until then, people should be aware that they have needs outside of basic maintenance that must be taken into account.

<comment><USER3> I see what you are saying, although I do want to mention that the $1000 per month isn't permanent. I'm doing it more to point out the absurdity of living in a society where it's easier to earn $100,000 per year than $12,000 per year. That's self-evidently outrageous and IMHO unsustainable.

After doing this for a few months, I've reached the conclusion that the status quo structures America this way so that we're all locked into the workaday world rat race to bolster corporate profits. The penalties for working less than 40 hours per week are so severe that it's effectively a dream now, out of reach for most. The opportunity cost of that for American innovation is incalculable. We might as well measure it in years instead of dollars. I've lost 20, has anyone else succeeded as a sole proprietor or made a living from patents?

I've already begun to notice the biases against the working poor interwoven through our society. Overdraft fees are crippling, and groveling to get them reversed is demoralizing (luckily my credit union is more understanding than banks ever were). I've begun measuring everything in time again. Eating at a restaurant costs 1-2 hours of income, rent costs at least 30 hours, veterinary bills are out of the question, medical care is a fantasy, I'm at the mercy of my vehicle holding up. I hardly thought about those things on salary, and I grew detached from the chronic daily misery 100 million Americans face just to survive.

Anyway, I want to document all of this as a roadmap for other entrepreneurs that I never had. Reaching $2000 per month, with half coming from self- employment, is the next milestone. Success for me will look like making between $30k and $50k working 20 hours per week by a year or two from now. I figure the odds of that are 90% against, but by working the gig economy, I might be able to get that to 50/50.

<comment><USER4> I hear ya. Being poor sucks harder than most HackerNews denizens realize, and I'm frequently aggravated to read "just pull yourself up by your bootstraps" talk from people who don't realize just how much easier life is without a huge number of daily hassles. Being poor is literally very expensive.

Seeing past that realization is incredibly difficult, especially when one isn't motivated to. If you find a way to help make that clearer to people, good on ya.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The best summary of the article was in this passage:

> The history of American housework suggests that both sides have a point. > Americans tend to use new productivity and technology to buy a better life > rather than to enjoy more downtime in inferior conditions.

I think this goes along with an informal idea that downtime is both overrated and possibly undesirable.

Often, the alternative to staying busy is boredom, and the completion of tasks at home is gamified with satisfying results.

<comment><USER6> To rephrase it, we always find ways to keep ourselves busy. Blacksmiths are gone, now we have more lawyers and psychotherapists. A lot of manual work is gone, but now we have a whole communications infrastructure that didn't exist before, to build and mainatain instead. We constantly create new technologies and new societal concepts, then we go on to complicate those things further, and so on. After all, last resort there's always arts and creativity if you have nothing else to do (or maybe if you always had the urge to be creative). Create art and call it an occupation. The amount of music and films alone being created today is unbelievable.

Not necessarily because we avoid boredom, it might as well be some kind of a cultural pressure to _do something_ rather than nothing.

This is why I don't believe in "robots taking away our jobs" and leaving us jobless. I'm not worrying for the humanity in this regard. We are a creative type, we'll always find ways to complicate things and create more work for ourselves :)

<comment><USER7> Robots and A.I. aren't taking all jobs. They're just taking PAID jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Many folks will acknowledge the secular or scientific benefits of e.g. temperance with food or alcohol, or even restraint with sex. One thing I've heard few outside of religious encourage is humility. Some people will just be better than you at different things, have more stuff than you, be more honored, etc. If you can't deal with that situation without becoming emotional and working 100 hours a week, you've got, on some level, a similar problem as the guy who can't see a cake without eating the whole thing, and becomes overweight as a result.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't think this explains the last decade. There is also keeping up with the Joneses, which I think social media has driven people into a rabid spending rage that turns most into debt slaves. Stone kitchen counters and floors, designer Italian faucets, brand name toilets are just the home renos. These are so far beyond a typical home in the 90's, but you wouldn't want that background in your Instagram or Pinterest.

<comment><USER10> > social media has driven people into a rabid spending rage that turns most > into debt slaves.

whatever happened to personal responsibility and accountability?!

<comment><USER11> Moral blame doesn't do you much good when dealing with a population. If most people in a population show poor judgement (let's say they are overweight) your argument for moral blame might still be true, but does nothing to solve the problem. Why does a population of people all make the same error? Well, because people are only ever in partial control of their impulses. Some more than others, but no one has total control.

<comment><USER12> Furthermore if a population shows poor judgement (or exhibits some other negative trait) we should ask ourselves how we got to this point, and how it can be corrected at a systemic level. Public education is a prime example of a systemic solution to several widespread problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > One of the truisms of modern life is that nobody has any time.

I don't agree. We have as much time as we ever did, but modern technology has vastly improved the _value_ of our time.

In particular, we don't get bored as easily as we used to. As a consequence, a lot of non-important tasks that used to offer sort of a refreshing break from monotony look now as a hassle because we have funnier/worthier things to do.

<comment><USER14> > we don't get bored as easily as we used to

You mean we have more distractions. The experience of boredom is subjective. We therefore require more distraction to remain non bored.

> funnier/worthier things to do

No we don't. The "things" have no intrinsic value. Our feelings about them determine their funniness and their worthiness.

People used to listen to 2 hour church sermons and find them massively uplifting, entertaining and emotionally charged.

When I was in college I used to sit chatting with a friend for 8 hours in a cafe and I was never bored. No phones. No books. Not even a newspaper.

Few people could entertain themselves like that any more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Certainly inequality plays a much larger role in all of this than the article acknowledges — particularly if you look at the plots of productivity vs income inequality — eg, the amount of wealth held by the top earners vs everyone else.

Sure, there's a "Protestant Work Ethic" that still underpins a lot of consumer behavior in America, amplified by a marginal theory of economics that says you are what you earn — but most people can't work less, even if they wanted to.

This became especially true after the 2008 financial collapse, wherein people who managed to keep their jobs were expected to take on the responsibilities of the people who were layed-off. And as the economy recovered, top earners took a larger share, and the majority of workers continued to carry a heavier load.

Contrast this with the 1950s where single earners could provide a relatively comfortable middle class lifestyle. (Also, coincidentally, the generation that dreamed-up a lot of the Jetsons-age inventions they imagined would provide a life of leisure by century's end.)

</comment><comment><USER16> Sounds like there is a gap between what people actually want and what they say they want. People claim they want leisure but instead they work themselves into the ground. This is not the fault of technology.

With humans it is better to watch what they do, not what they say.

<comment><USER17> Or, they recognize that if they don't keep up on the treadmill, they will fall further and further behind. If you don't spend enough to go to a good school, then you might be stuck with friends who don't earn much too, and are less valuable in your network. If you don't live in the burgeoning economic regions, then you reduce your chances of advancement in the future, and possibly put yourself at risk of losing income.

If you don't live in the better school districts, then your children will have less chance of success. How much are you willing to stretch yourself to give them as much of a leg up as possible?

This is the reality of a society that's had a widening wealth gap for decades now, and it's becoming more and more visible. And since wealth compounds, it's ever more important to not get left behind.

<comment><USER18> Health insurance too. Most people in the US are a handful of unlucky mutations away from bankruptcy. Money may not buy happiness, but it certainly buys hospital care.

<comment><USER17> Yes, I wouldn't feel economically secure unless I had 2 years worth of family out of pocket maximum saved up (somewhere between $10k and $30k depending how generous one's employer is), on top of other emergency funds. Which, realistically, I know the middle 30% to 70% probably can't afford since they earn too much for government assistance and earn too little to save.

A baby on a gold level insurance plan in a high cost of living area recently cost me $5.5k, but that's only because everything went well and we're lucky to have a family oop max of $5.5k due to generosity of employer. If the oop max was higher, it probably would have cost around $8k or so.

I can luckily comfortably afford it, but I have no idea how others with household income in the $70k to $150k range can afford to budget for it. They must be giving up niceties such as vacation funds or skimping on essential savings, handicapping the growth of their retirement funds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Good lord, not a single mention of fake scarcity????

We don't have time because we are bidding against each other for a small pool of resources with respect to housing (and to a lesser extent, education and healthcare).

The formula is pretty simple:

* Restrict the amount of housing near good jobs (thanks Nimybs!)

* Make large amounts of debt available to purchase said housing

* Watch as everyone soaks up the debt in the pursuit of housing!

If 10 households live in a town with 5 houses, those 5 houses go to the people most willing to work themselves to the bone and take on a huge mortgage. The other 5 are screwed (in reality they just have gigantic commutes, share a home when they'd rather not, etc.)

Thanks to the large debt you took on, losing your income means losing the roof over your (and far worse, your kids') heads. So you check Slack at 11 PM, stay in the office until 8, go on pointless BS work trips that exist to serve the boss' ego and get 16 hour days out of you, and generally structure your entire life around income maximization so you can outbid your peers.

There is no reason you shouldn't be able to get a home for under 100k. Not a fancy one, but a home. If you run out of land, demolish the parking garages and put in more homes. If you run out of homes, demolish the townhouses and put in apartment blocks. If you run out of homes, demolish the 4 story apartments and put in 12 store ones. Also, let new cities grow instead of strangling them with NIMBYs, parking minimums, and zoning restrictions.

The above is how I wound up trying really, really hard (and succeeding) to find a dirt-cheap house I could own in cash - and it was only because no bank would be crazy enough to lend on a thatched cottage (oh, we moved to Europe too which helps with health care). Having no mortgage, and no rent, is AMAZING for your personal agency. Taking 6 months off to write a novel, fart around, whatever no longer is terrifying.

</comment><comment><USER20> If you dig into contentment you find it's about being contented [1] which is...

> feeling or showing satisfaction with one's possessions, status, or situation

How much if this is because so many lack contentment? Even when many people here or who fell this are in the top 10 or 1% of the things compared to all people through history.

How much of this is just a state of mind?

[1] [https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/contented](https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/contented)

</comment><comment><USER21> The same thing happens with better languages, tooling, abstractions, and libraries in software engineering. Programming never gets any easier because the expectations of what we should be able to do (and how quickly) keep rising.

<comment><USER22> IME, the expectations of what a competent programmer should be able to achieve in any given amount of time and effort are not only _not_ growing, they're actually sinking. Today attending a bootcamp is enough to be considered a "programmer" \- the moral equivalent to "knowing HTML" in the 1990s. And the languages, tooling, abstractions and libraries of today are often of far _lower_ quality than even in the recent past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> True.

We need to get our education on par with the technology.

People need to level up faster, there are new jobs that are yet to be discovered. More taxes to be paid so the ones that aren't lucky don't have to live at a bare minimum.

<comment><USER24> Sarcasm never translates well to text.

<comment><USER12> Not sure why you would think that was sarcastic. Calls to improve education and increase taxes are hardly uncommon.

<comment><USER23> Also, I didn't call to increase taxes! I called to educate people better so they get better paying jobs and in turn pay more taxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The fact is, doing good hard work feels good. Some people get addicted to that and carry it too far.

Too much relaxing and doing nothing wears on you too.

The old saying, "too much of a good thing" can apply to both.

</comment><comment><USER26> there are three bold theses in this article,

> Better technology means higher expectations—and higher expectations create > more work.

> A lot of modern overwork is class and status maintenance—for this generation > and the next.

> Technology only frees people from work if the boss—or the government, or the > economic system—allows it.

It seems high expectations and class and status maintenance are just capitalism masquerading as culture. In France, the slogan we hear is "Work more to earn more," to which people reply in complaint, "I'm working more and earning the same!" But why can't we do "work less, earn less and have more time?"

</comment><comment><USER27> This does kind of imply that technology is to blame. I get what his piece is trying to say and it wraps it up quite well by the end, these are social (American) norms that must be fought with. But technology isn't the culprit. It's just also not to be expected to ultimately relieve the number of hours we work.

</comment><comment><USER28> PDF to the original Parkinson's law article in The Economist (1955) [https://www.berglas.org/Articles/parkinsons_law.pdf](https://www.berglas.org/Articles/parkinsons_law.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER29> > the debate over labor and leisure is often fought between the Self-Helpers > and the Socialists

I don't think those parties are they only ones who have something to say about leisure. Some would argue work is virtuous and you don't need less of it.

</comment><comment><USER30> What a stupid article.

> Everybody is busy, burned out, swamped, overwhelmed.

Because money has been depreciating in value by 2-3% every year since the 70s while wages have stayed the same and the value they produce has increased.

This is fairly simple maths, the rich are enslaving the working class with debt through inflation.

Rather than face this cold reality some people would rather blame that new fangled technology, "things where better when there was no technology and I was a naive kid".

It's easy to blame technology as it gives you a simple solution to your problems, get rid of it, but you can never get back your naivety and that truth is much harder to accept.

Some other bad takes

> Better technology means higher expectations

Does it? based on what? I have higher expectations for a coffee made by a hipster barista than a coffee machine.

> A lot of modern overwork is class and status maintenance > structural forces > makes it so hard for Americans to find more time, even in an economy that is > becoming ever more rich

The rich may becoming ever more rich, but the average American in the working class is getting poorer.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/19/income-inequality- continues-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/19/income-inequality-continues-to- grow-in-the-united-states.html)

> Americans tend to use new productivity and technology to buy a better life > rather than to enjoy more downtime in inferior conditions.

This may be true of some tech like phones and tv, tech focused on entertainment, but most technology is focused on freeing up time and reducing effort like lights, washing machines, dish washers, cookers, microwaves, cars, power tools the list goes on you don't need me to list them as most people take them for granted, I think the author is too.

<comment><USER31> Real, inflation-adjusted wages have been growing.

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q)

If you think this federal reserve data is false, tell me more about why and how.

<comment><USER32> You will find plenty of people that do no accept the US inflation numbers, if I understood it correctly, because it excludes mid-class expenses like housing and education.

<comment><USER33> CPI includes both housing and education. If there's any argument to make it is around how they are calculated and the degree to which they are weighted in various inflation calculations.

<comment><USER34> CPI doesn't include food or energy, I believe.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Certified online banking trojan in the wild - <AUTHOR> http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Certified-online-banking-trojan-in-the-wild-1808898.html <comment><USER2> Why in the hell would operating systems keep signers that expired? If there is no longer an organization backing a key, IT SHOULD NOT WORK.

<comment><USER3> "...the certificate in question was issued by the DigiCert Certificate Authority..." which is still a going concern:

<https://www.digicert.com/>

The problem in this case was that the certificate was issued to a company (NS Autos) that was liquidated in 2011. Oops!</comment></comment>


The Art of Management: Business Has Much to Learn from the Arts  - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/18175675

<comment><AUTHOR> About 3 years ago, Business Week published an article about the MFA being the new MBA -- interesting to see the different branches of this theme.

Have you recently encountered managers who seem to be integrating artistic perspective into their managerial style?</comment>


Meet The New Boss, Worse Than The Old Boss? - <AUTHOR> https://thetrichordist.wordpress.com/2012/04/15/meet-the-new-boss-worse-than-the-old-boss-full-post/?

<comment><USER2> Discussion from a submission just about 2 months ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3850935>

tptacek's detailed summary:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3856526></comment>


My (almost) perfect setup to stay focused - <AUTHOR> http://www.lengrand.fr/2012/10/my-almost-perfect-setup-to-stay-focused/

<comment><USER2> I've recently been thinking about the motives for people writing these kinds of articles. A year ago I would have found this a weird question because when the actions of blogging and sharing are so culturally ingrained it's very difficult to step outside and ask "Why?". Now I find it instructive to do so. Sincerely and unrhetorically: "Why did you write this?"

My belief at the moment is that such articles are validation-seeking. The writer draws strength from committing their plans to a socially-viewable document and subjecting it to discussion. Most of the likely responses to posting the piece online (including no responses) can, with a little squinting, be interpreted as positive reinforcement for the individual's system, hence the incentive to share.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is the answer from "the writer" :)

Interesting question I think, seriously. Do I search for validation online? I don't think so, I have enough of it around me, without having to turn to the web :). What about tip (experience, hack, call it the way you want) sharing? I see a lot of great posts written by really cool people around here; maybe is it also a way to try to give something back (or in your words, probably try to fit in the group in search for the reassuring feeling of being part of it ;)). This is (IMHO) the most probable reason.

I use all those tools for a long time, and discuss about it with my friends regularly. I think it is good for yourself to try to be good at what you do. Writing such articles and sharing it in the open is a way to find people having the same interests as me that I would never have found otherwise. Hopefully, the post will lead to interesting interactions (exactly what I am doing right now :). Can I call that peer-validation? Maybe, but not in the exact way in understood it in your comment :).

As a non native English speaker, I might be wrong but I felt like condescension in your comment. But this is probably my french nature speaking :p

<comment><USER2> Thank you, that's a good answer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why would someone do this to themself? I find I enjoy life much more when I take things slowly, but maybe that's just a difference in personality.

<comment><USER4> In my professional life/time (I'm a teacher) I like to make time to think about how to present topics to students, and how to respond to their responses.

To do that, I have to manage the crap (management inspired paperwork that does not actually impact on teaching/learning/reflecting) and routine but very important tasks like marking work. I use a Pomodoro timer (actually a cheap one I got locally) to stay focussed on the mechanical things. I do actually record the number of pomodoros I spend on crap, and I feed that back when things get out of hand.

Students who don't like Maths much also find a kitchen timer helps them to focus, so I break homework up into 'pomodoros' of each topic. Strangely, they find the more pomodoros they do, the easier it all gets.

In non-pomodoro time, I do things like reflect on what kind of activity works, make screencasts, quizzes and games, and make new ways of linking topics (e.g. areas and perimeters of rectangles and simple factors and multiples).

Outside of work I too like taking things slowly! The turn of the year always makes me think about time passing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> When I saw the title I half expected to be something akin to [http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/famous-small-offthegrid- work...](http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/famous-small-offthegrid- worksp-140587)

My comments are entirely related to staying focused when coding. For the days when I am in manager mode things are different, and I am not sure if "focus" is always the right mode there.

I've always found myself preferring long unbroken periods of flow for coding. That for me comes from a quiet space much like the writer's huts described above. That to me has been my perfect setup to stay focused.

Though I have never tried Pomodoro, the idea of something disturbing me every 25 minutes sounds ghastly. When I really need to work I simply close all programs on my computer that are non essential and close all tabs that are non essential. No gmail, no twitter, no facebook. Then I go into a room, sometimes turn off the lights and just code :-)

</comment><comment><USER6> The link to www.getworkdonemusic.com by itself makes this article worth an upvote. Looks like a good resource that I wasn't aware of before.

<comment><USER7> So their song list seems to be at : <http://www.getworkdonemusic.com/fast_tracks.json> . Does anyone know if this list gets auto compiled using some bpm measure or if the person behind the website populates them manually?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I like the idea of avoiding distractions and avoiding the browser. When working on personal projects I tried several times not to turn on the wifi or to work directly in the terminal without running a Desktop application, but at some point I have to use the browser again to look up for some docs or install something.

</comment><comment><USER9> Did you try Tomato.es[1] to track your pomodoros? I'd like to get feedbacks from GTD gurus.

About music I warmly recommend musicForProgramming();[2]

[1] <http://tomato.es>

[2] <http://musicforprogramming.net>

<comment><USER10> I've used Tomato.es for quite some time now (relatively speaking) and have found it 'better' for my flow than pen and paper/mechanical timer (though I have one as well).

<comment><AUTHOR> I started with a mechanical timer also (mainly to get away from any device that could distract me), but stopped because it was noisy. I solved the problem by switching notifications off in my phone during work hours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does the fact that we have to use techniques to make ourselves focus mean that we do not like what we do?

<comment><USER12> No, I think that it's natural to be tempted by immediate gratification (watching stuff on YouTube, checking Twitter, reading xkcd archives) even when you really care about the delayed and more satisfying gratification of progress on a long term project.

When all those distractions are easily accessible from the same place you work (your computer) it seems ok to take measures to offload the task of avoiding them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> 5 hours a day, 5 hours a week. I track my time in a simple spreadsheet labeled 1 to 20 at 15 min intervals.

If you aren't getting enough sleep then you're not scheduling your time. You need to create a schedule and stick to it and don't let others hold your time hostage.

</comment><comment><USER14> On the "not getting enough sleep" problem, why don't you incorporate exercise/sleep/diet into your GTD (or what you're using to measure productivity) ? Then, if you aren't sleeping enough, it will show up in your tools.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm really interested in learning more about how use use FreeMind. I've been using a collection of text documents as "cheatsheets" that I can refer to, but it's less than perfect.

<comment><USER16> FreeMind has been forked into FreePlane, which may be more recently maintained.

<comment><USER17> Fonts are horrendous under linux. Any workaround? Pixelated as hell. And scroll leaves dirty traces (awesomewm may be the culprit)

<comment><USER4> Freemind looking OK on Ubuntu 12.10 with stock Unity desktop. I've just downloaded freeplane 1.2.20 from freeplane.org as the version in Ubuntu repos is 1.1.3. Looks nice with useful additions to the mind map. Seems to run OK with the same java and libraries as were installed for freemind.

Do you have other java based software installed? Does that look ok?

<http://packages.ubuntu.com/quantal/freemind>

Ubuntu repos show freemind depending on openjdk (or Oracle) and that has a font package shown as a dependency.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Check out TaskUp, a cloud task list with notifications, reporting, tags, filters and many more! <https://taskup.com>

</comment><comment><USER19> When you say "70% productivity", how do you measure this? (It sounds like there's a standard for this that I missed.)

<comment><AUTHOR> HAve a look at rescuetime. It automatically calculates a % depending on the time you spend on activities. Don't give too much thoughts about this number, as any statistic, it is just indicative :)

<http://www.rescuetime.com/tour>

<comment><USER19> Ah, thanks. Sadly I don't use Windows or Mac OS either at work or on my personal computer, so I haven't been able to try it out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I like the idea of creating temp branches,,,wehre you can actually see how much your contributed every day!

</comment><comment><USER21> Brown noise!</comment>


Proper Sleeping Posture for 'Brain Drain' - <AUTHOR> https://americanpostureinstitute.com/proper-sleeping-posture-for-brain-drain/ <comment><USER2> RATS. The research they cited was done on the sleeping posture of RATS, a quadrupedal, straight necked organism. I doubt it's very applicable overall to the difference between lateral and supine posture in humans so I wouldn't take this article to heart in order to adopt a sleeping position that's bad on your shoulders and sinus development.

link: [http://www.jneurosci.org/content/35/31/11034.short](http://www.jneurosci.org/content/35/31/11034.short)

</comment><comment><USER3> >>"Sleeping on your side with a small pillow between your legs is considered the ideal sleeping position."

What is the rationale behind the pillow between the legs?

<comment><USER4> Probably to help align the hips and lumbar spine, otherwise the top leg would twist your pelvis and spine with the downward pressure.

<comment><USER5> And it works wonders. Nothing repairs my tired back faster than a few dedicated nights of sleeping like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sleep on the side with a very large pillow (or a human sized stuffed animal!)

It's soft to hug, and it allows to adjust not just the legs as mentionned in the article, but the shoulders as well.

</comment><comment><USER7> Anyone else able to sleep on their left side just fine but not on their right side? I'm in fairly good shape but for some reason sleeping on my right side just gives me a heavy feeling inside my chest that prevents me from falling asleep. I've wondered what the effects of a lifetime of sleeping on one side could be.

<comment><USER8> I attributed side bias to my scoliosis for a long time. But after I switched from a soft bed and traditional fluffy pillow to a more minimal blankets-over- floor with small pillow, this problem went away and I will use either side without difficulty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> For those who don't know what lateral and supine sleeping positions are

[https://imgur.com/gallery/OuG6rBc](https://imgur.com/gallery/OuG6rBc)

</comment><comment><USER10> Shame that people with sleep apnea are advised to sleep on their backs. Though the article does mention that supine is still better than prone.

<comment><USER11> People with sleep apnea are advised to sleep with CPAP machines.

<comment><USER10> Right, but also on their back while wearing their masks.

<comment><USER12> I'd think that sleeping on the side would be better for them.

<comment><USER13> Not sure about most masks, but the one my dad has would be super uncomfortable to lay on his side

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sleeping on my side kills my shoulders.

<comment><USER15> sleeping on your side prefers a softer mattress then if you sleep on your back for this reason.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you come up with a Brand or Project Name? - <AUTHOR> I believe large number of domains are taken, so even if you think of a creative name like 'shgdf.com' I randomly typed it, but even that's unavailable. My point is, in today's time thinking of a brand name, comes along with the task of finding available domain. So, inevitably I end up at instandomainsearch.com playing around with different combinations.
Is there a better place where we can buy domains easily for $200 odd bucks if someone's been holding good brandable domain names. Brandbucket etc. seem too pricy and are good for maybe companies, but let's say for my small project, web game, or a blog, what's the ideal place? Aren't a lot of good use case domains just parked with bullshit ads? Is this even a problem, has anyone else struggled with this ever?
Thank you <comment><USER2> I have the same wish: A service that provides a large list of available, short, human-esque .com domain names. I wouldn't mind paying and spending hours combing over it to find ones I liked. Someone did this a few years ago and I snagged a couple neat ones including a 5 letter .com.

Anyway as for actual advice, I've built more than a handful of projects and startups at this point. The recurring theme in every project was that I'd start with something completely nonsensical to use as the name. If your cofounder likes grilled cheese sandwiches, call your project GCS or grilled cheese or whatever, including your github repo. Getting the domain has never been step 1 in anything I've ever built including my current business.

There's weeks worth of work to do before the .com is needed. In the meantime what I do is keep an Evernote of words and phrases that pertain to the industry or what my service will likely do. While we had several product hypotheses, our business model was 95% likely to end up doing some form of data sifting on behalf of customers. So I would think about words that have to do with searching or finding things and kept a log of them:

\- Hound (as in the dog)

\- Seek/Seeker

\- Scout

\- Scope

\- Vision

Along with general words I liked from a linguistic standpoint: "Labs", "IQ", "Mighty", etc.

When I looked for an available .com, I mixed combinations in my word list: "ScoutIQ", "MightyScope", "HoundLabs", etc. until I found one that I liked _and_ was available: MightyScout - and I reserved it immediately.

But to this day our Slack channel, Github repo, etc. still use the original, nonsense name :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's how I came up with mine. I was building a Varnish-as-a-Service platform then. But I didn't want to use the word Varnish in my fqdn because it's a trademark. But also because the sum of its parts is more than Varnish (you've got scaling, security, etc).

So I focused on the essence of the thing I was building, which is caching. I couldn't find any concise domain with the word "caching" in it. So I played around with syllables and settled on Cachoid.com. I'm happy with the outcome so far [https://www.cachoid.com/](https://www.cachoid.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a great name for the service. That's precisely what I have been thinking, the more I think about it, I feel it can be a community driven solution. Say, in my spare time I challenge myself for a garage sale community and come up with domains which are available, buy and submit one on the platform. People can come vote, comment, and if anyone likes to use it can buy it for a flat fee, say $200. Doesn't hurt anyone, a good creative exercise for neurons to come up with a name, even budding designers can submit their design for a small share of the sale. But, it has to be much more altruistic from community perspective. Not sure, if it would work on scale to be a sustainable solution against the biggies out there ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> FWIW, you can take parties to a sort of court (I use that word lightly) that can assist you in obtaining a domain taken by a squatter.

It's been a few years, but google ICANN and I'm sure you'll find something.

If I remember correctly, you submit a petition suggesting things like.. you either have a trademark or that you're a recognised business and then a committee make a decision based on that.

</comment><comment><USER5> I use acronyms, portmanteaus, and other plays on words to name things. Sometimes backronyms. I can't point to some of my recent ones, as they're still in progress.

While I was at NYMEX I built a system called NEON (Nymex Electronic Order Network). Followup projects followed the noble elements theme, sometimes with a forced backronym.

One project involved multi-lingual communication, so I tooke "chat", which is "cat" in french, then translated that to Japanese (Neko).

Basically just have fun with it, and don't stress.

</comment><comment><USER6> I found a good name for <$200 on Namejet. Also check out Flippa.com for good names from people willing to sell.

A piece of advice that worked for me: don't get stuck on the name. It's hard and it takes time (and sometimes money). Pick any temporary name for $10 and keep building instead. You can always change it later. Many companies and projects have changed their name as they became successful. It feels like it's important in the beginning but it usually isn't.

</comment><comment><USER7> My first stop is almost always the thesaurus, from there I usually move on to combinations of two words or two synonyms of what I'm trying to build. My current project is a scheduled API monitoring tool, and I came up with the word "Schezzle" to represent what it is. A 90s rap influenced spin on the word "schedule." I think the trick is to find something that's easy to say and that can be communicated to other by word-of-mouth without having to spell it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Great names are built not found. Don't worry too much about getting the right name.

Don't be afraid to call your company one thing but have a slightly different URL.

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that domain names needs to be easy to type but the reality is that most of us click on links to get to a company url we don't actually type it in (and even if you do Google is perfectly fine helping you find the right url)

</comment><comment><USER9> Don't sweat it. Domain squatting is a business and a big one. There are plenty of people who are squatting on domains thinking it will make them a millionaire. They won't budge for"cheap" $200.

However, if you find a domain you like, it doesn't hurt to try and ask the owner. But don't hold your breath.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't you think this is massively inefficient. Nobody can buy all the brandable domains, and there would always be more coming up. A $100-200 profit on your $10 domain for someone who will build stuff over it, seems good for the formation of a sustainable community driven solution. Its just stupid to think that your domain will fetch you millions unless its a dictionary word with searches present. Any thoughts?

<comment><USER10> What you think and the reality of it are two different things. Any intelligent person could see that cybersquatting is not a viable business model. These are not intelligent people you are dealing with. These are the people who think they could go back to 1997 and register google.com and hold them hostage years later for millions. Spend some time browsing on Sedo or Flippa and you'll see how stupid these people are.

My suggestion: don't give in to these people. Keep digging for a good name, or look into one of the new generic tlds.

<comment><AUTHOR> That pretty much summarises how I felt about the stupidity of several people. These websites, Sedo/Flippa even they look damn old and confusing. Their UX seems shitty, and the whole offer wait for 7 days auction system is pretty tiresome as well.

Having less available domains for people and local businesses, forces people to use subdomains and social media to express their creativity, which is kind of not ideal. The whole barrier to get online is increased manifold by simply no domain availability. I am really surprised there's nothing easier, cleaner and simply better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If I build hand made products from my garage and sell them online for example:

1- make up a new word based on a word that best describes your business (e.g. Maker = makr)

2- if taken, look for synonyms of that word and repeat step one (e.g. Craftsman = krafsman)

3- if taken, repeat 1 and 2 with a combination of 2 words (e.g. HomeMade = Homade, etc.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I usually do the same as well. It's just that it can take anywhere between 1 hour to a couple of days of fooling around. After a while, its gets all confusing, which one was better, you ask around, but everyone has different views. If you are in a group deciding to come up to the name, it becomes even more tiresome. I was just wondering for an easy to browse service of domain names, submitted by community where one can buy and share goes to the person who submitted and small part to the platform. Not sure, if people would like it though, it really needs a big community to support who believe domains need to be used for making websites and not hoarding for a future sale!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Adding words before/after your ideal domain tends to work: gotinder.com, hioscar.com, invisionapp.com, etc.

For domain name example.com: tryexample.com, getexample.com, goexample.com, hiexample.com, exampleapp.com

</comment><comment><USER13> I name my side projects internally after famous battles the ancient romans were involved in.</comment>


Ask HN: What makes a product manager better than the rest? - <AUTHOR> Recently started a new job handling a larger team with tighter deadlines. What's something a PM did that helped you out tremendously? <comment><USER2> I've consistently found that strategy had far more impact on schedules and success than the frenetic approach I've seen at companies in the past decade. Over and over again, I see companies with poor product or poor marketing or poor sales or poor management that are trying to coax more from their employees - claiming that hard work will solve their problems.

Just as consistently, I've found well managed companies to have more sane hours (with occasional exceptions of course - eg. greedy founders) and that good strategy leads to successful tactics and markets that can fund a more sane work life. I should add that I'm over 50 and spent my entire career in Silicon Valley - lots of startups and a couple of Fortune 50s. I've had the Product Manager title three times. Had my share of both successes and failures.

</comment><comment><USER3> As an engineer I'm most impressed by a PM when their insight/experience/analysis leads to high quality hypothesis that when implemented have high impact on the business. I find myself in anticipation for the features based on someone's expertise with the product and industry. It also adds a lot of purpose to my dev time.

Conversely, a streak of incorrect direction can make the PM lose credibility hard and fast.

</comment><comment><USER4> (Not a dev, but these are things I get positive feedback on from my team.)

Ask a lot of questions. If you don't understand something, don't just pass the buck on to the next person who opens the GitHub / JIRA ticket. Do all you can to make sure it's clear and documented. A general rule, the ticket needs to have enough information for a new hire to grab it and work on it independent of any other information -- you never know when a new person on the team will have to look at the issue. You want to make sure you are very kind to your future self so that 6 months from now when you've long forgotten what the original intent was, you can go back and read things that make sense.

Create clear, consistent requirements. Your template for new features / changes should include things like a user story (with personas the team agrees upon), annotated wireframes and / or visual designs, acceptance criteria, steps to reproduce / test, and any dependencies or special needs that have to be taken into consideration. If it's a bug, make sure you are explicit with what the expected resolution is. "A stitch in time saves nine." The more of this stuff you can think through, the more control you'll have on the finished product, and the smoother your team will be with their estimates. Do your best not to skip over the imperfect path stuff... Always have a list of what a form requires, and what every possible error trigger is, what the error message should be. Make sure you include things like if something has to be tested with a specific change in the database, or after a change has been made to a third-party tool. Do what you can to keep everyone using a shared and agreed upon vocabulary.

Aggressively go after scope creep. If someone wants to change or add something mid-sprint... make sure it's a trade-off so the production team doesn't get stuck carrying more than they signed up for when you asked them to estimate the work. Set deadlines for the people upstream in order to set deadlines for the people downstream... (I realize this bleeds more into project management... but often process does play a significant role in the outcome.)

<comment><USER4> Some tools I really like to help everyone create better bug reports:

* Marker - Visual Feedback & Bug Reporting Tools for Web Professionals || [https://getmarker.io/](https://getmarker.io/) (for GitHub)

* Capture for JIRA | Atlassian || [https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/capture](https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/capture)</comment></comment>


Show HN: 75,000+ US Executives by Job Title - <AUTHOR> http://usa-executives.com <comment><USER2> This is very nice. Are the emails validated or guessed based on company most likely format?</comment>


My Productivity Tech Stack - <AUTHOR> https://kamerontanseli.ghost.io/my-productivity-tech-stack/ <comment><USER2> >Heroku

>Controversial. But I just like an all in one service and I really hate AWS. So theres not much in the way of services that I know are going to be around forever like Heroku is.

Heroku so tied to AWS that in a lot of places I've seen it mentioned as an actual AWS service. It's obviously not, but to suggest it is somehow independent is a bit strange.</comment>


Anonymity vs. Transparency [Infographic] - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/05/19/anonymous-transparent-infographic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29

<comment><USER2> Of course both anonymity and transparency are needed. The need for transparency is obvious in many scenarios. Anonymity is more contentious. Some people would love to avoid it completely. For example, I just came back from Spain and I saw a debate, which was none after all, on TV about the need to identify everybody to prevent slander.

I firmly believe that anonymity is in many cases the only tool to express oneself, like when power asymmetries or divergence from social conventions make such an expression extremely expensive.

Anonymity is fundamental for democracy. If it was not, there would be no secret voting. Other examples in which anonymity is obviously required are when you need an honest opinion which could be affected by power asymmetry (rate your professor, give your employer some feedback, etc); when the subject matter requires privacy (sexual behavior poll); and so on.

Dealing with anonymity in the internet is not easy. The usual problems are slander, low quality content, trolls, spam, etc. [Shameless plug ahead] That is part of our mission at spottiness.com. We allow anonymous users to send messages that remain posted in our web site. We guarantee the quality of the content of the messages, and although there is no way to fend off slander from the beginning, the site offers tools to fight back.

<comment><USER3> I think several of your anti-anonymity examples are flawed. For example, if voting in elections were truly anonymous, anyone could vote many times over. In practice, they know very well who has voted, as they must to make sure the election is properly conducted. What they can't do is associate _how_ someone voted with that person.

(Except that actually they often can, because in many electoral systems the ballot papers are numbered and they can in theory figure out who got which paper. You are protected in this case only by the separation of the electoral register-ballot paper index from the ballot paper-vote cast connection, making it another excellent example of how sharing limited data with independent parties can be fine but combining that data in the hands of a single party can have unintended consequences.)

<comment><USER4> Indelible ink is used worldwide to prevent double voting, while preserving the right to vote and anonymity of voters.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Infographic is pretty but misleading propaganda that promotes its left column. It does indicate "advertisers" win at the bottom, but fails to mention stalkers, totalitarian governments, corporate power in general, and Zuckerberg and his investors in particular benefit from the total internet surveillance tracking which Zuckerberg cynically calls "integrity".

Having a corporation track all your visits, readings and posts on the internet such as Facebook is trying to establish, and to be able to accurately link it to your identity, is about power control and money, and not to your benefit. It is such an unpleasant possibility that expert PR firms plant absurd infographics and stories every day to promote this agenda and pay armies to downvote or otherwise disenfranchise all who question the plan. The propaganda is working as we see here in this discussion all the people now have bought in and are promoting corporate surveillance and control of lives as if it is a good thing in any way whatsoever.

</comment><comment><USER5> Ultimately the question is one of freedom vs enforced rules.

If you have a system of anonymity or pseudonymity, it's always possible to identify yourself by a real identity if you want to. Whether this takes the form of 4chan's "photo with a shoe on your head" or Reddit's "Post about this to your twitter account", reliably associating a pseudonym to a meatspace person is easy. So you can get the advantages of the 'transparent' system in a pseudonymous system _if you want them_ , but you're never forced to.

The only way to properly run a transparent system is to force everyone to identify themselves. Then you can't get any of the benefits of anonymity.

The only people pushing for 'transparent systems' are people who have some material gain from them - advertisers, information miners, law enforcement etc. I think they have enough power as it is.

So I'm in favour of anonymity by default, keeping the choice to be transparent in the hands of the individual.

</comment><comment><USER6> My vote goes for pseudonymity. It has the advantages of transparency (such as reputation) but also the advantages of anonymity (such as to allow expression of less popular opinions without repercussions).

</comment><comment><USER7> I remember hearing a talk by Philip Zimbardo, one of the main figures in the Stanford Prison Experiment.

He concluded that 'evil' behavior is a product of a combination of:

1) Mindlessly taking the first small step (eg Milgrim Experiment - the first 45volts couldn't be felt)

2) Dehumanization of others (giving them numbers in a prison)

3) De-individualisation of self (anonymity)

4) Diffusion of personal responsibility (saying a higher authority takes responsibility)

5) Blind obedience to authority

6) Uncritical conformity to group norms ('Everyone else is doing it')

7) Passive tolerance of Evil through Inactions and/or Indifference

8) New or unfamiliar situations (default actions don't apply so morality can become disengaged)

If you take this in the context of anonymity online, a substantial number of these factors are heavily involved(2,3,4 and potentially 1,7&8).

Anonymity has its advantages, but the encouragement of it diffuses people's responsibility, potentially encourages 'evil' action, and has subsequently risk of escalation...

I think my vote has to be transparency.

TED talk link:

[http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_o...](http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html)

<comment><USER4> False argument. De-individualisation of self is not anonymity. You are misrepresenting Zimbardo. Zimbardo would note that the tracking and surveillance we are talking about is the sort of thing that leads to atrocities.

<comment><USER7> Dehumanisation could be arguably not as applicable as some of the others but it isn't difficult to see parallels between a 'number in a prison' and an avatar; In a forum, the person can address the avatar without thought of the individual (human) behind it.

I don't think my point was anything to do with surveillance. It is an interesting thought that Zimbardo would draw that conclusion though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity"

It's been said before I'm sure but I don't need Zuckerberg lecturing me on integrity.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think this is a false dichotomy. In reality, your life is not either an open book or a closed one, and you can choose how much personal information of what type you share with whom. The problems usually start, IMHO, when others are allowed to make that choice for you.

This can be direct, as with all the modern tracking technologies and personal information that businesses try to collect about you even if they don't really need it, but it can also be more subtle, for example where social networking sites can build up a profile on you based on information implied by your relationships, or where information from sources you might expect to be independent is aggregated and available for data mining by a single entity. It also cuts both ways, if you wanted to share certain things but for some reason were prevented from doing so, leaving others with incomplete or out-of-date information even though you were willing to share that kind of data with them.

I think the more serious problem here is that this is a Pandora's box problem. Once your life is out in the open, there is no way to put it back, but the consequences are not always immediately obvious.

Perhaps as a society we should grow up and learn not to evaluate people based on isolated data or out-of-context incidents that we find out about their past, but as any politician, insurance company or judge can tell you, that's not going to happen any time soon. It's probably a generational shift if it's even possible at all.

In the meantime, an entire generation are growing up sharing their lives on Facebook and Twitter and being physically tracked via their mobile devices and travel smartcards and logging every purchase/refund they ever made with credit/debit/loyalty cards. It's only a matter of time before "bad candidates" don't even get their CVs read because the employer's automated background checks picked up a black flag, "bad customers" (who expect the product/service they paid for and complain if they don't get it) see their consumer rights eroded by the power of the database, "bad clients" can't get useful or even legally required insurance because their profile fits a high risk group, and so on. These trends are already well established, but as Pastor Niemöller explained, first they came for the communists and I was not a communist...

An amusing anecdote to close with: just a few hours ago, I read a comment by someone who works at Facebook, observing that most people there also maintain a separate LinkedIn profile because they want to keep their personal and professional lives separate. Apparently Zuckerberg hires a lot of people who, in his judgement, have a "lack of integrity".

<comment><USER9> "just a few hours ago, I read a comment by someone who works at Facebook, observing that most people there also maintain a separate LinkedIn profile because they want to keep their personal and professional lives separate."

Given how easy is to track down someones' Facebook profile given his LinkedIn profile (and the other way around), I see no sense in this reasoning.

Different "profiles", accounts, blogs, etc. form a kind of graph - they are usually connected one to another (often the connection is by google'ing up something) and it's really hard to keep them disjoint without special effort. It's easy to find someone's Facebook account from LinkedIn name, then google up his blog via e-mail address he shared on Facebook, then google up something else via the nick-name found on that blog, etc. The question always is, if someone cares to do that.

<comment><USER10> There's often value to segregating different content/"lives"/etc. even if you aren't keeping one hidden or secret from the other. A lot of people with whom I have some sort of professional connection aren't necessarily very interested in my hobbies etc. I see it more about making at least a modest effort not to feed every one of my connections, who I know in a wide variety of different contexts, the same information stream.

<comment><USER9> Right, I see how it makes sense in terms of filtering relevant information. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Original source without the blogspam from a new user: [http://namesake.com/blog/2011/05/namesake/are-you-who-you- sa...](http://namesake.com/blog/2011/05/namesake/are-you-who-you-say-you-are/)

</comment><comment><USER12> We could turn this question from the individual as themselves to the individual within an institution: for example an executive at Sony or a government official.

Given the harassment Anonymous has given to Sony execs, its not surprising that there's a certain invisible wall between the rest of the world and those in privileged positions. I guess anonymity of everyday activitists is a one way to redress that.

<comment><USER13> From your first paragraph, I thought you were about to turn this question toward something a bit different about the issue of transparency into institutions. For instance, why, after say a time period t (set by reasoning about the particular context, allowing for the maintenance of competitive advantages, etc.), shouldn't people outside of an institution be able to see internal records of how decisions (and thus perhaps very important mistakes or triumphs) were made? Surely the information has utility to the public, if only for historical reasons.

If an institution is unwilling to allow that, then hypocrisy threatens when they would deny individuals in other institutions (even if it is just a social discussion group) the same right to privacy about how internal affairs are conducted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> A really nice infographic. I like the design, especially the Facebook logo progressbar (near the bottom, "70% of Facebook users...").</comment>


EU regulators fine Google 1.49 bln euros for blocking advertising rivals - <AUTHOR> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/eu-regulators-fine-google-1-110511479.html <comment><USER2> With the UK leaving without a deal, the hole in EU budget is not going to fill itself, is it?</comment>


Norwegian skydiver nearly struck by meteorite - <AUTHOR> http://www.nrk.no/viten/here-a-meteorite-zooms-past-1.11646757 <comment><USER2> I did some quick googling and found this interesting research from Oberlin, with a history of meteorite injuries and deaths:

         1420 BC  Israel - Fatal meteorite impact.
         588 AD China - 10 deaths; siege towers destroyed.
         1321-68 China - People & animals killed; homes ruined.
         1369  Ho-t'ao China - Soldier injured; fire.
         02/03/1490 Shansi, China - 10,000 deaths.
         09/14/1511 Cremona, Italy - Monk, birds, & sheep killed.
         1633-64 Milono, Italy - Monk killed.
         1639 China - Tens of deaths; 10 homes destroyed.
         1647-54 Indian Ocean - 2 sailors killed aboard a ship.
         07/24/1790 France - Farmer killed; home destroyed; cattle killed.
         01/16/1825 Oriang, India - Man killed; woman injured.
         02/27/1827 Mhow, India - Man injured.
         12/11/1836 Macao, Brazil - Oxen killed; homes damaged.
         07/14/1847 Braunau, Bohemia - Home struck by 371 lb meteorite.
         01/23/1870 Nedagolla, India - Man stunned by meteorite.
         06/30/1874 Ming Tung li, China - Cottage crushed, child killed.
         01/14/1879 Newtown, Indiana, USA - Man killed in bed.
         01/31/1879 Dun-Lepoelier, France - Farmer killed by meteorite.
         11/19/1881 Grossliebenthal, Russia - Man injured.
         03/11/1897 West Virginia, USA - Walls pierced, horse killed, man injured.
         09/05/1907 Weng-li, China - Whole family crushed to death.
         06/30/1908 Tunguska, Siberia - Fire, 2 people killed. (referenced throughout paper)
         04/28/1927 Aba, Japan - Girl injured by meteorite.
         12/08/1929 Zvezvan, Yugoslavia - Meteorite hit bridal party, 1 killed.
         05/16/1946 Santa Ana, Mexico - Houses destroyed, 28 injured.
         11/30/1946 Colford, UK - Telephones knocked out, boy injured.
         11/28/1954 Sylacauga, Alabama, USA - 4 kg meteorite struck home, lady injured.
         08/14/1992 Mbole, Uganda - 48 stones fell, roofs damaged, boy injured.

[http://www.oberlin.edu/faculty/bsimonso/group9.htm](http://www.oberlin.edu/faculty/bsimonso/group9.htm)

<comment><USER3> The data are interesting on their own if you start with the idea that meteor strikes are random across centuries, but the information collection and preservation isn't. For instance, with two data points you might claim there were more monks than princes in Renaissance Italy, but they were both surrounded by literate people who kept records compared to the even more numerous peasants. However, I suppose interpreting small datasets so that they fit preconceived notions isn't very productive.

It does seem strange that there are ten 19th century events and eight in the 20th century. Not so much because the numbers are different, but because there was twice the population, and literacy and communication were so vastly improved.

<comment><USER4> More people are working indoors in tall buildings and traveling in cars. So they are more concentrated where they live and travel. And each sighting is counted only once, regardless of how many people saw it.

<comment><USER3> Relative to the entire population, humanity is more urbanized, but that seems irrelevant to me compared to how many single square miles on the earth's surface contain a human who is connected to the global community.

While the decreasing number of people needed to farm a square mile seems like it would matter enough to decrease the newsworthiness of meteor strikes in some agricultural regions, it still seems likely that there has been a net increase in total area that includes the lower bound of population density where a meteor strike would be sufficiently newsworthy to make this list.

Take Las Vegas over the past 50 years as an example. It's a prime example of people being increasingly insulated from the outdoors, yet the footprint and total area of settled land has grown dramatically. It hardly matters whether you're inside or not, if a meteor strikes your block.

Edit: I was curious about the data and found this Google Earth file[1]. It looks like there definitely are many more recorded events, and it's just that the bar for being newsworthy has risen. However, what's strange is the preponderance of events in NW Texas and north of there. If records were population-based, then it should look like population density maps. I can't figure out off hand what causes the density of events, other than flat land and maybe tornado observation equipment, but that would seem to apply to other areas as well.

[1][https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/gec- places/59...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/gec- places/59UqlWKj9Gg\[1-25-false\])

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A related question: what's the probability of an aircraft being struck by a meteor. Seems this question was asked in the wake of the Air France flight 447 disappearance (since resolved as pitot tube freezing combined with pilot error and control feedback failures of the Airbus design).

But still, the odds of a strike on _an_ aircraft over the next 20 years are about 4%:

[http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2009/06/how-much-of-a- th...](http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2009/06/how-much-of-a-threat-are- meteors-to-aviation.html)

 _at any given time, airliners cover 2 billionths of the Earth 's surface. There are 125 meteors an hour, each with probability 2x10-9 of striking some airplane. In 20 years, that's about 22 million independent possible impact events. The chance that every one of those meteors misses every airplane is: ppois(0,2e-9_22e6)*

(Using R).

So the odds of an asteroid flying past a skydiver aren't as infinitesimal as one might otherwise think.

It also makes one wonder at the possibility of space-junk collisions being the cause of past aviation accidents. There's little enough evidence this would leave, particularly for a flight which disappeared entirely without a trace, or whose wreckage was only found much later.

<comment><USER6> That would be under an assumption that the distribution of planes around the globe is even. Given most jetliners are flying in corridors, I would say the actual probability is much much lower. The same can be probably said about meteorites - I guess their geographic distribution is uneven as well.

<comment><USER5> As others have said: the distribution of the planes over the Earth (and their speed -- one Yahoo site I ran across suggested they're harder to hit because they're moving fast -- that's also irrelevant, not to mention that pretty much everything on Earth is moving at about 20km/s relative to an asteroid) doesn't matter.

Because meteorites aren't aimed. Odds are they'll land pretty much anywhere on the planet.

I'm not _entirely_ sure this is the case -- because the Earth orbits the Sun, the eastward-facing side should be sweeping through more debris than the west, which means that if you could concentrate your flights on that side, you'd be at higher risk. As it is, most flights tend to operate during daylight hours, with the before-noon flights being at greater risk. More reasons to catch the afternoon flight if you prefer to play things safe, or the morning flight if you feel like making history (or low-grade mysteries of the unknown TV programmes).

<comment><USER7> >one Yahoo site I ran across suggested they're harder to hit because they're moving fast -- that's also irrelevant,

Indeed, it's not as if they're trying to dodge.

However, doesn't a faster plane actually have a _higher_ probability of intersecting the same space as a falling rock?

Comparable to: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4562132.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4562132.stm) ('...So running fast actually makes us wetter according to this analysis')

<comment><USER8> Running makes you wetter than walking _over an equivalent time period_. The main goal of running in the rain is to get to a shelter -- to minimize that time.

Something your link covers, and points out. [1]

So it would be with a plane: Flying faster means less time in the air, where meteorite strikes are particularly dangerous (as opposed to strikes while taxiing, or sitting idle). So while a faster-flying plane is more likely to encounter a meteorite than a slower-flying plane, if flying faster means less time in the air it's going to be "safer" overall.

[1] "So here we have it - more mathematical advice to avoid getting wet. Because we divide by VP in this equation, maximising our velocity now emerges as a good idea, assuming there is a shelter available."

EDIT: grammar

<comment><USER7> >Flying faster means less time in the air, where meteorite strikes are particularly dangerous (as opposed to strikes while taxiing, or sitting idle).

That's a very good point: for a plane, reaching the ground is the equivalent of a runner reaching shelter from the rain.

But I suppose planes generally spend about the same amount of time in the air, no matter how fast they go. The faster plane just travels further in that time. There's no obvious reason a fast plane would spend more time safely on the ground than a slow plane.

Perhaps flying faster is safer for individual passengers, but more dangerous for the plane?

<comment><USER5> _reaching the ground is the equivalent of a runner reaching shelter from the rain._

A meteorite capable of striking a plane in flight is just as equivalent of striking it on the ground. It's already passed through the ablative portion of its entry, and is falling at terminal velocity. So the probabilities of a strike don't actually change.

The implications for the aircraft, passengers, and crew, are rather different, however, when the plane is at-rest and on the ground.

<comment><USER7> >The implications for the aircraft, passengers, and crew, are rather different, however, when the plane is at-rest and on the ground.

Yes, that's so. A 300km/h 5kg rock striking any part of a plane in flight must have a very high probability of proving fatal for all aboard. On the ground the risk of injury for each passenger must be much lower - the plane might even be empty.

However, while the plane is in the air, _it seems that a faster plane moves through a greater volume of space per unit of time, compared to a slower plane, therefore it is at greater risk of passing through the space occupied by a meteorite in any particular hour_. So, assuming that faster planes spend about the amount of time airborne as slower planes, the risk of an accident is higher for faster aircraft.

The risk for an individual passenger is not increased in the same way (I guess it is not much affected by aircraft speed), because the faster aircraft gets them to their destination in less time, so they spend less time vulnerable to meteorite impacts on the aircraft.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can skip to the photo collage to get a better look at it.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jfE...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=jfEdEIwhj6s#t=153)

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm... skeptical. If you look at the frames of the meteorite falling, it looks like each frame has the fragment at about 3 feet from its last position. If that's a 60fps camera (I think it is?), that's 180 f/s speed or 122mph. That seems really slow for a rock flying into the atmosphere from space, and far slower than a rock would have to be going for it to "cut him in half."

My guess: a rock that fell off the undercarriage panel of an airliner, and was carried by strong winds. Or a particularly slow meteorite.

<comment><USER11> > If that's a 60fps camera (I think it is?) ...

The camera appears to be recording at a rate of about 10 frames per second. This is a way to reduce memory consumption in a portable device in which recording duration has a higher priority than recording frame rate.

AT 10 FPS, the rock's sequential positions seem consistent with a falling rock.

And, lo and behold:

[http://gopro.com/cameras/hd-hero3-silver- edition](http://gopro.com/cameras/hd-hero3-silver-edition)

Quote: "Features video resolutions up to 1080p60, 10MP photos _up to 10 frames per second_ , enhanced low-light performance and built-in Wi-Fi. Waterproof to 131'/40m."

According to the above, ten frames per second is the highest available frame rate.

> Or a particularly slow meteorite.

Not a meteorite until it gets to the ground.

<comment><USER10> So _even slower_. At 20 mph, it could've simply come out of his parachute.

<comment><USER11> > So even slower. At 20 mph, it could've simply come out of his parachute.

It seems you're missing the point that the rock passed him by at a fairly high horizontal speed, while descending past him. That's not consistent with the rock coming out of his canopy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This site has more information. It's in Norwegian, but there are some charts and graphics which give an idea how they've been trying to locate the rock by analyzing the video and checking wind speed records.

[http://norskmeteornettverk.no/wordpress/?p=1329](http://norskmeteornettverk.no/wordpress/?p=1329)

They estimate the speed of the falling rock at 280km/h (vertical) and the speed of the guy in the wingsuit at 148km/h (at 37 degr). It seems like they're still uncertain about the exact speed, though. The wind speed was about 5m/s.

One document in the video suggests the altitude that the rock passed him was 1200m... so the rock would have hit the ground 15 seconds later at 280km/h

The research website mentioned in the article is linked on that page, but it isn't up yet.

</comment><comment><USER12> Shouldn't we be expecting a rock that has just been heated to plasma stage by atmospheric friction only seconds earlier to be glowing, steaming or leaving little molten fragments of itself behind?

Update: maybe not. The last stage of flight is "dark and cold" according to this: [http://www.meteorite- recon.com/en/Meteorite_fusion_crust_1.h...](http://www.meteorite- recon.com/en/Meteorite_fusion_crust_1.htm)

<comment><USER13> As I understand it, the rock doesn't get especially hot. The hot surface ablates, and the rock underneath remains relatively cool (doesn't have time to heat up).

From [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_reentry#Blunt_body_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_reentry#Blunt_body_entry_vehicles) (admittedly about spacecraft rather than meteorites):

"Through making the reentry vehicle blunt, air cannot 'get out of the way' quickly enough, and acts as an air cushion to push the shock wave and heated shock layer forward (away from the vehicle). Since most of the hot gases are no longer in direct contact with the vehicle, the heat energy would stay in the shocked gas and simply move around the vehicle to later dissipate into the atmosphere."

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> They keep talking about how lucky he is it missed him, but I almost think the opposite is true: He'd have to have been staggeringly _un_ lucky to have been hit by it.

<comment><USER7> In fact, he was doubly lucky. Firstly, he was incredibly lucky to have witnessed a meteorite passing a few meters from him. Secondly, he was very lucky not to be killed by the meteorite that was passing a few meters from him.

<comment><USER15> Triple lucky for capturing those events in video!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is it me or does it look like the "meteorite" is moving quite slow. Shouldn't it be moving so fast that you'd need a high speed camera to see it in that detail?

Also...his parachute is always above him, maybe it fell out of that.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, Occam's razor tells me that it's much more likely that a stone got stuck somewhere in their skydiving apparatus than having a meteorite fly right past you while you're skydiving.

Maybe I'm underestimating the quantity of meteorites falling on the earth but since the newspapers aren't exactly filled with news of people getting killed by falling rocks I'm not yet ready to believe that was a meteorite.

<comment><USER18> If you look at how a parachute is packed, and how it unfolds when deployed, what you described is definitely not the simpler explanation preferred by Occam's razor.

<comment><USER17> Well, since it seems I'm in a minority here I'll accept that I might be misjudging the odds on this one, especially since I know nothing about skydiving.

I guess it goes to prove that since nowadays we're almost all carrying video recorders with us at all times the probability of catching the most elusive events on video gets increasingly large. I expect to see a video of someone standing at the foot of a rainbow any day now.

<comment><USER19> It could have fallen from or (if they are being stupid) been thrown by the other guy, who happens to appear in the frame just after the object.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Seems strange that the other diver is following the same path as the meteorite and passes by just a few seconds later. Could he have dropped it and it accelerated to a speed faster than he was travelling?

<comment><USER21> Possibly. A small rock would have a lot less air resistance than a person, and those suits are designed to increase air resistance. So it might end up with a higher terminal velocity and fall slightly faster.

[http://www.wired.com/2013/10/do-heavier-objects-really- fall-...](http://www.wired.com/2013/10/do-heavier-objects-really-fall-faster/) [http://www.physicsclassroom.com/mmedia/newtlaws/efar.cfm](http://www.physicsclassroom.com/mmedia/newtlaws/efar.cfm)

<comment><USER11> > A small rock would have a lot less air resistance than a person, and those > suits are designed to increase air resistance. So it might end up with a > higher terminal velocity and fall slightly faster.

This is a bit more complicated than it appears at first glance. Other things being equal, a 3D object's mass increases as the cube of a single dimension's increase, but its surface area increases only as the square. Therefore a smaller object's atmospheric terminal velocity can be expected to less than that for a large one. This is why many kinds of small animals can fall great distances through the atmosphere and land unharmed.

(Until objects approach terminal velocity, they all fall with the same profile. Only when approaching terminal velocity do their speeds change.)

On the other hand, a typical rock (non-metallic) has 3.5 times the density of a human, so that argues in favor of a greater terminal velocity.

A full analysis would need to take into account the human's flight suit, which turns vertical kinetic energy into horizontal kinetic energy, and the rock's size, shape and composition.

But without any of this and _a priori_ , the idea of a rock flying past a human, as in the video, is perfectly reasonable.

One more thing. The picture of the rock passing by the human is actually most likely a person flying horizontally past a rock that's dropping vertically.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> JFYI To be hit by a meteorite you would either need to be close to the Earth's surface or for somebody strong to throw it. Technically it is not a meteorite until it impacts with the Earth's surface, therefore this object may actually be a meteoroid.

<comment><USER11> > Technically it is not a meteorite until it impacts with the Earth's surface, > therefore this object may actually be a meteoroid.

Not quite. Before entering Earth's atmosphere, it's a meteoroid. While passing through the atmosphere, it's a meteor. After landing, it's a meteorite.

[http://www.livescience.com/27183-asteroid-meteorite- meteor-m...](http://www.livescience.com/27183-asteroid-meteorite-meteor- meteoroid.html)

<comment><USER22> Meteor is a description of the burning in the atmosphere not the object itself, which is still a meteoroid.

<comment><USER11> > Meteor is a description of the burning in the atmosphere not the object > itself ...

Yes, fair enough. Unless the object is consumed in the process of generating the visible presentation (often true), which makes it a meteor -- or perhaps I should say "turns it into a meteor".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't know why everyone is assuming it was so close. It looked further away from the dude to me... i'd guess ~100 feet or more.

In any case, given camera optics, you can only solve for size or distance given the other.

</comment><comment><USER24> I wonder if it's possible to use computer vision techniques on the video footage to calculate the position and altitude of the skydiver at the time, and then also estimate the trajectory of the rock?

<comment><USER25> Some analysis going on here at least (text in norwegian though): [http://norskmeteornettverk.no/wordpress/?p=1329](http://norskmeteornettverk.no/wordpress/?p=1329)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Go to 2:12 if you want to skip the fluff.

<comment><USER27> The fluff is actually worth watching as well. The guy is clearly taken back by this experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's extremely hard to discern but it looks like there was possibly another smaller piece that goes flying by just before the camera stabilizes and the main meteor comes into view.

<comment><USER29> That would make sense; it's clearly a fragment from a larger object that broke up during entry, probably late in the heating phase. (There is a visible dark "outside" and light "inside" on the piece we see.) So there are likely to be other pieces nearby.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> He almost got taken out by 1/100bn odds.

<comment><USER31> We all do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Could it be Blue Ice[0] or a similar leakage from an airplane flying above the skydivers?

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_ice_(precipitation)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_ice_\(precipitation\))

</comment><comment><USER33> Could it have fallen from some other plane, they weren't aware of, that was above their altitude or do the principles of terminal velocity and gravity not support that hypothesis?

<comment><USER34> I accidentally downvoted you, sorry :-(

<comment><USER33> No problem ... it happens.

<comment><USER35> I've neutralized the errant downvote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Isn't it more likely that the rock fell out of their plane?

<comment><USER5> He addresses that in the video: other jumpers and the plane are not above him at this point, so odds are the rock came from elsewhere.

The presumes a reliable narrator, but it seems plausible. This is one guy with an in-flight asteroid sighting. Not as if they're crawling out of the woodwork. And the experts called in seem to find this credible. Though people hamming up an act for cameras is also not unheard of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> April Fool?

<comment><USER37> Presumably the downvote means, "No, but I'm not going to tell you why"?

Any Nordic types following this story?

<comment><USER38> Comments that are (a) really short and (b) not obviously substantive almost always get downvoted. If instead you had written: "Could this be an April Fool?", people would have probably have recognized it as a sincere question.

Please don't add comments about getting downvoted, though. As the guidelines say, it makes for boring reading.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple confirms WWDC 2014 keynote June 2nd new hardware likely - <AUTHOR> http://9to5mac.com/2014/05/21/apple-confirms-wwdc-2014-keynote-to-be-held-monday-june-2nd-at-10-am/ <comment><USER2> Good. I keep wandering past the Apple Store at the mall, lamenting the fact that nothing interesting has been introduced for many months.</comment>