Ask HN: Tips to beat procrastination and lethargy? - <AUTHOR> A few weeks ago, I was getting no sleep. I was putting overtime every week working third shift and it was terrible for my mental health. Now I'm working three different jobs and going to school, all of which are flexible, but I still tend to oversleep during the day. I wake up at a decent time, but feel extremely sluggish and tired and often don't get up till early afternoon. On top of this, I'm a horrible procrastinator. Altogether this has cost me a good bit of money and is looking like it could cost me a job. What can I do to help remedy these issues? <comment><USER3> Sleep is a pretty vital process with a lot of health implications for the brain and for your body. Reading Ariana Huffington's book "The Sleep Revolution" was pretty eye-opening, also see this article: [https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/arianna-h...](https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/07/arianna- huffingtons-tips-for-better-sleep/373884/)

Sleep helps your body regulate stress including mood. The lack of sleep can be attributed to your procrastination, as well as other possible health issues such as a lack of focus and lack of self-discipline. You're not at your optimum best.

In addition, I noticed avoiding caffeine (or going decaf) is pretty helpful. Too much caffeine reduces the quality of sleep. I personally noticed sleeping upwards up to 8 hours and feeling like I only slept 3 hours -- because my body was over-caffeinated. Cutting-down caffeine (or going cold turkey) helps a lot in the quality of sleep.

For focus -- meditation will help greatly. Learning how to meditate and doing it daily even for 10 minutes will train/discipline your mind.

</comment><comment><USER4> You're burned out. You need to sleep 8 hours a night consistently (use melatonin, l-theanine etc. if you need it)

Procrastination is a symptom of your burnout...

See if you can take on less work, but work that has higher pay. Rearrange your life so you don't have to kill yourself just to get by. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER5> For procastination:

This book really helped me into stoping procastination and using my time in the things that I really wanted: "Self discipline in 10 days"

As stated above, the pomodoro technique is very useful. You can find a lot of webapps that you could use for that matter. In the beggining, I recommend you to use less work time if you struggle a lot (25 mins can be too much if you're not used to it)

For sleeping:

You can do a number of things, for example, excercising (also as stated above), it can range from running, swimming, playing a sport, weightlifting, etc, altough with your schedule it can be hard to fit in. Another resource that helped me at some point was drinking valerian extract (herb), some drops in a glass of water are pretty good. Also, you can try what in psychotherapy (more accurate in logotherapy) is called as paradoxical intention. Instead of trying to fall asleep by forcing it, just try to stay awake as long as you can. Eventually you will be so tired that you will fall asleep and have a good night.

Hope this helps.

<comment><USER6> I've read a lot of books on self discipline and IMHO that was the worst. Also pomodoro method is good for simple work, not great for programming as it interrupts flow and doesn't give enough break. I would recommend more like 2 hours work and 15-90 minutes break.

What I found more useful:

1\. Deep Work, by Cal Newport. This is much more applicable for software engineers.

2\. anything by Jocko Wilink. This is sort of the Navy Seal route, build grit and so on. Jocko's stuff is not fun to read, but there's a lot of insights.

3\. Peak performance, basically how to do really intense stuff in the long term. Spoiler: the secret is in working hard and resting hard, and often the rest is more difficult than the work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I use the Pomodoro Technique.

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

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/intrinsic-motivation- an...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/intrinsic-motivation-and-magical- unicorns/201307/manage-procrastination-the-pomodoro-technique)

</comment><comment><USER8> > it was terrible for my mental health.

> I wake up at a decent time, but feel extremely sluggish and tired and often > don't get up till early afternoon.

Sounds like it still is.

Mental health can be a difficult juggling act. If you try and push too far, your physical limitations might not get in the way, but your mind might.

Sometimes you just need to care for yourself, and that can mean going without other things, or the opposite: treating yourself.

I don't know your nation or the situation there, but I'd recommend talking to a psychiatrist.

If it's overwork and no sleep, they can tell you to cut yourself some slack.

But, it could also be something like depression or anxiety, and they can diagnose and put you on the right track.

Don't try and push through on your own. There are experts, and their advice can be worth listening to.

</comment><comment><USER9> 1> Now I'm working three different jobs and going to school

2> I wake up at a decent time, but feel extremely sluggish and tired

3> I'm a horrible procrastinator

I think 2 and 3 are direct results of 1. It looks like you're already squeezing yourself as hard as possible, and I don't think any amount of discipline will force more productivity out of yourself without _extremely bad_ consequences. You may as well ask how to save up for a house when you can only spare pennies every week!

Once you're not so atrociously overcommitted your sleep and execution will get much better. Having to work 3 jobs to keep a roof over your head while going to school is an environmental problem, not a personal one.

</comment><comment><USER10> 3 different jobs and school? You're already super human. Some of us are dying with just school or one job.

</comment><comment><USER11> 1\. Get enough sleep each and every night. Burning the midnight oil isn't good for your body.

2\. How is your diet? Fast food, junk, might contribute to feeling sluggish. Drink enough water each day. Maybe some green tea.

3\. Exercise! Make time for it.

4\. Make a list for the next day of things you NEED to accomplish.

For me, I have found that eating right, exercising and getting enough sleep have done wonders for my energy, mental clarity and goals! I get up every day, drink some tea and then look at my list of tasks I MUST accomplish that day. This helps me hit the ground running.

I used to have an overnight job, 10pm - 8am and it killed my ability to do much of anything else. You are up all night while others are sleeping, then you get home and you need sleep. If you sleep to much then you can't run errands or even get much of anything done before you need to think about going back for the next 10pm - 8am shift. Stopping working this job was huge for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm actually trying to quit the third shift position, but they are begging me to stay with raises and weekend only work. I'm so tempted to because it would provide enough money for luxury or fallback if I can't make rent one month.

<comment><USER11> More money is always tempting.

Are you really working 3 jobs and not able to guarantee making rent? I can't imagine what that must feel like.

<comment><AUTHOR> Really crazy hours. Sometimes, I'll get in a lot of hours and make plenty of money, other weeks I'll get nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When you go to bed, imagine exactly what you're going to do in the morning. Like imagine jumping out of bed invigorated and taking a shower and making breakfast.

When you're procrastinating, do it by switching to a different important task (dishes, laundry, exercise, other work) rather than something like tv or reading the internet. You won't feel as demoralized that you accomplished nothing and it will help your overall well being.

When you're starting a task, break it into manageable chunks. A lot of procrastination for me is being overwhelmed by the scope of the work. Knock out a small chunk of it to feel like you've accomplished something and you'll remember that you actually like the work and overcome the initial dread.

</comment><comment><USER13> Personally I found that the times I am most in a long term lull of procrastination, is when I am not getting enough sleep. It's sort of a self fulfilling cycle. I stay up late working, next day I try again, but I am too tired to focus, so I stay up later but get less done, next day I stay up late with even less productivity, etc. If I just break and get sleep, I am more fresh and ready to be more productive the next day. Also keeping organized, setting small task goals, eating healthy, and staying hydrated are all important for productivity.

</comment><comment><USER14> When I had a similar problem, following good 'sleep hygiene' was what was recommended to me. Well, to be honest I still have the same problem, but when I'm disciplined enough to follow these rules they tend to help.

Basically: Exercise, don't look at screens before you go to bed, go to bed at a regular time, make sure your sleeping place is just a place to sleep and a few other things.

[https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/sleep- hygiene](https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/sleep-hygiene)

</comment><comment><USER6> The plan I prescribe is just taking more mental breaks. Resting is difficult, but you obviously need more of it.

Your mind is just as active when it isn't focusing compared to it being hard at work. When you rest, your mind sorts out the things in your head. This happens most effectively when you sleep, but it also works in smaller amounts any time you zone out, daydream, drift into the subconscious.

When you don't get enough rest, your mind starts to do that processing wherever it can. This is what causes you to lack attention. A big part of it is bad habits too, often things like checking email or notifications every 5 minutes.

1\. Quit social media, games, and forums (including HN). Social media is a tremendous drain on brain power. You can come back later, but I would recommend avoiding it until you have recovered. Basically, social media forces your brain to keep running, giving it new things to process, when what you want is some dead time.

2\. Schedule the time when you have to do stuff. I recommend a block of work, minimum 30 minutes, max 2 hours. Schedule breaks too.

3\. Get more rest. If you're feeling burnt out and not excited, you have too much stress, too little rest. You know that you have too much rest only when you are getting bored.

4\. Resting means doing nothing. No TV, no games, no internet. It's all you and your subconscious. This can be meditation, walks, shower, spa, swim (or float), watching a movie with friends, sitting at a nice cafe or library.

This is very hard and will make you feel anxious, especially if you are used to a hard pace. Anxious is normal.

I split my days into two types: either "lots of pain" or "recovery".

If you find yourself just wondering where the day went, you should either be pushing yourself harder, or taking a break.

For more details, check out the books Peak Performance and Deep Work.

</comment><comment><USER15> It is not a silver bullet, but meditation/mindfulness works and it is not as difficult as you might think.

Just five minutes a day concentrating to your breath helps me to stay alert.

This video might convince you: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAcTIrA2Qhk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAcTIrA2Qhk)

</comment><comment><USER16> Have a listen to some Jordan Peterson and try to figure out why you're bothered doing anything at all.

</comment><comment><USER17> Have you tried going to bed earlier?

I've been a night owl for most of my younger life, and only started going to bed earlier after 30. I've noticed that even if I sleep the same number of hours, I feel more energetic if my sleep hours are just earlier. For example if you're going to sleep 6~7 hours a night (which is minimum I'd say), doing a 10pm - 5pm sleep schedule would make you feel better than if you did say 2am - 9am.

I don't know the science behind why that is, probably something to do with natural human biological clocks.

You mentioned your 3 jobs and school are all flexible, so it shouldn't be too hard to adjust your sleep schedule.

</comment><comment><USER18> You might want to look into the quality of your sleep, such as your mattress (too hard, or too soft), or your room temperature (too hot or too cold), you may even have sleep apnea, which causes people to not have great sleep. You're also kinda pushing the limits of what your mind can handle, at 3 different jobs AND going to school, you're mind is going to want to shut down all the time and not be productive. I'd recommend you focus more on one or two things if possible (fewer classes or fewer jobs) and have enough time to focus and finish what you started. I worked a part time job for all of college (20+ hours a week) and my last semester I quit my job to make sure I graduated school (I took a year longer then most people).

</comment><comment><USER19> I sometimes suffer from procrastination and I've been sleep deprived due to stressful personal circumstance and anxiety.

I find meditating calms the mind and sets it up for the day. Try doing 10 minutes every morning. You can use the free sessions on the Headspace app to learn how to do it.

I find making lists helpful. Whether that would be what I need to do today or long-term goals which I review every week.

Also you might find the following book helpful: The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Programme to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence and Happiness

It really helped me! Amazon link: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chimp-Paradox- Management-Programme-...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chimp-Paradox-Management- Programme-Confidence/dp/009193558X)

</comment><comment><USER20> Do you drink alcohol? If so, it may be impairing the quality of your sleep [1].

Are you staring at a screen just before trying to sleep? Again, this may be impacting the quality of your sleep [2].

1: [https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/alcohol-facts/health-effects- of...](https://www.drinkaware.co.uk/alcohol-facts/health-effects-of- alcohol/effects-on-the-body/alcohol-and-sleep/)

2: [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-sleep- smartphones/s...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-sleep- smartphones/smartphone-screen-time-tied-to-lower-sleep-quality-idUSKBN1343DB)

</comment><comment><USER21> I think this is called a shouldy approach to life[1] and it can cause you to feel frustrated and bored or angry. I can relate from experience when we used to go after made up deadlines. Sometimes the best strategy is to just STOP and let things be. Think of a time when you over exerted yourselves to achieve things you think were really important at that moment but the effect they have on your life now isn't that much.

[1] [http://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/should- statements/](http://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/should-statements/)

</comment><comment><USER22> Exercise. Sleep. Diet. Work only 8 hours.

<comment><USER23> Very much this. We're not called "creatures of habit" for nothing: regular hours of sleep, varying by about 15 minutes at either (or both) ends, regular meal times, differing types of exercise at regular times, all this contributes to motivation and "stickability."

Of course, there's some variation between individuals, but ultimately if you're oversleeping then your life will start to become a mess. Right now, I'm in one of those screwed-up timetables and I'm not getting anything done. I'm meant to be learning C++ and I've done nothing in ... what, three weeks now. I'm going to bed at 1, 2, or even 3am, getting up anywhere from 10am-12pm. By then, I've already lost the most productive part of my day. I really hate that I'm at my best during a morning, and it may be that you aren't. What really matters is the routine.

A few others have made comments about running or working out - it's not necessary to be that intensive. A 30 minute walk will do the same for you - <USER2> you have a dog? Does your neighbor or a friend? Do yourself (and it) a favor and take it for a walk. (I recommend against taking a beagle for a walk, though. As they're scent hounds, it'll lead you for hours when it's tracking something interesting.)

tl;dr on your day off, set your alarm for (say, not knowing your work schedule) 6am, and get up, regardless of how much sleep you've had. Live your life that day, then go to bed at ~10pm. Next day, get up at the sounding of your alarm. Do what you need to do, and sleep at 10pm that night. Keep it up, and try not to let it vary too much.

In fact, I might go and set my alarm right now...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Lack of sleep piles up during the week making you feel sluggish. Get 6 hours of sleep minimum. Always sleep at the same hour. Focus on only one thing a day if you can.

</comment><comment><USER25> Exercising 4 times a week has changed my life. I generally feel better and I have an easier time dealing with less than adequate sleep.

</comment><comment><USER26> If you want screens before bed, try something like Flux.

[https://alternativeto.net/software/f-lux/](https://alternativeto.net/software/f-lux/)

</comment><comment><USER27> If you're experiencing persistent procrastination, you may be suffering from ADD!

<comment><USER28> What is ADD?

<comment><USER29> Attention deficit disorder

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15031688](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15031688)

</comment><comment><USER31> > I'm a horrible procrastinator

Having a terrible sleep schedule will predictably cause this.

> I wake up at a decent time

When do you go to sleep? How much sleep are you actually getting? Some people need 9 hours per night. If you are getting 7 hours per night and telling yourself that you're getting enough sleep, try getting 9 consistently. Then dial it back to 8.5 after a few weeks.

> don't get up til early afternoon

So your sleep schedule fluctuates by multiple hours day-to-day? That makes things a lot worse. Give yourself a consistent bedtime.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>

Things that you can use to improve your sleep:

\- The app Freedom, which you can use to block websites on your phone while you are working. You can also schedule it to auto-block starting at your bedtime.[1]

\- The apps SelfControl and ColdTurkey, to do similar things.[2][3]

\- The habit of running for a kilometer every day on a treadmill or sidewalk/pavement. You won't lose weight, but it will make your sleep and your focus better.

\- The habit of repeating to yourself "this is uncomfortable but it is worth it and I am stronger than I think." When you have to do something you feel proctrastinatey about. For more on this, learn about Stoicism and Rational Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. Consider a therapist.

\- The app Rainymood, which you can use as a cue to your body that it is time to sleep. Will also help you sleep through random noises.[4]

\- Music that is up-tempo and mostly instrumental, such as taiko drumming, Lindsey Stirling, Natalie McMaster, or VNV Nation.[5]

\- Amazon dot, which you can use to set a go-to-sleep alarm that you don't need to get out of bed to turn off for $50. [6]

\- A physical alarm clock separate from your phone so you don't go from waking up to reading HN in bed.

\- A sleeping mask to block the light out from your eyes for $9. [7]

\- A better mattress for $190. [8]

Some of these things cost money. Losing your job costs more.

[1] [https://freedom.to/](https://freedom.to/)

[2] [https://selfcontrolapp.com/](https://selfcontrolapp.com/)

[3] [https://getcoldturkey.com/](https://getcoldturkey.com/)

[4] [http://rainymood.com/](http://rainymood.com/)

[5] [https://music.amazon.com/user- playlists/a3d974e87a5b4c38b304...](https://music.amazon.com/user- playlists/a3d974e87a5b4c38b3041ba6811049desune?ref=dm_sh_dm_wcp_share_up_h)

[6] [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazon-Echo-Dot-Generation- Black/dp...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amazon-Echo-Dot-Generation- Black/dp/B01DFKBL68)

[7] [https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/bucky- reg-40-...](https://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/bucky- reg-40-blinks-ultralight-sleep-mask/1043238446)

[8] [http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/mattresses/mattresses- top...](http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/mattresses/mattresses- toppers/morgedal-memory-foam-mattress-medium-firm-dark-grey-art-90283797/)

<comment><USER32> _> How much sleep are you actually getting? _

Just on this point (and your later point about running), I've found a Pebble Smartwatch to be helpful. It has built-in sleep tracking so you can measure your average sleep baseline, then see day to day if you've reached your baseline or not. I use the alarm features on the Pebble to remind me when I "should" be going to bed, and also to wake me up via vibration rather than audible alarm. I've found the built-in step counter to be extremely helpful too, and I did end up losing weight from it (but rather than 1km a day, I was doing 14km of walking).

Pebble has been discontinued unfortunately (FitBit Ionic is the supposed successor), but that means Pebbles are cheap on Amazon now, about $60.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Wake up and do something that seems difficult absolutely immediately. Make your bed, cold shower. Like taking cold medicine, do it all at once, quickly, get it out of the way and finished.

<comment><USER31> Making your bed 1st thing in the morning is a good way to re-enforce the message "I'm a person who organizes my space to set myself up for success." Taking a cold shower is a good way to re-enforce the message "I'm a person who can bear discomfort."</comment></comment>


FeedHint.com: Make your own personalized Hacker News feed - <AUTHOR> http://feedhint.com

<comment><USER2> Doesn't work for me, but probably because the machine I usually use to access HN is running Firefox 1.5 on SuSE 10.1. One of the things I love about HN is that it runs prefectly on such an old browser/OS combination.

EDIT: Wow, a downvote despite providing concrete feedback to the submitter? Interesting. I might have to re-think my entire position about the HN "community" as expressed here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2660578>

<comment><USER3> Why an old browser for Hacker News, where fully 70% of the submissions are live demos of new technology, which require the latest version of a modern browser to use? It's like entering your Prius in a rally race.

<comment><USER4> 70%? Really? The front page is right now filled with text articles from wsj, forbes, cnbc, stackexchange, ibm, aljezeera, techcrunch, drdobbs, ....

It's like driving your Prius to watch a rally race. Works great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is it possible to _exclude_ specific things? E.g. "50+ -groupon -climate".

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I would like to be able to get everything except for a few keywords.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Can you add the ability to link to the HN comment page instead of directly to the article please? I find they're often more insightful than the article itself.

Would also love the ability to specifically blacklist keywords.

Other than that awesome work, thanks.

<comment><USER8> I'd really like to see both links, as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It works great and looks very useful, but there is one thing that you might want to change. Your example is "Startups, Google, Apple" but when you enter this string it actually adds "Startups,", "Google,", and "Apple". It would be more intuitive if you break the entry up into separate tags removing ", " or "," instead of just " ".

Edit: You might also consider clearing the text box after adding a tag. It felt a bit awkward having to hit ctrl-a before typing each time I wanted to enter something new.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi all, thank you for the reception.

To let you know, I wanted to build the simplest thing that could possibly work at first, but everything is feasible in the future. Blacklists, better browser support (I've tested it only on the newest of the five most used, sorry about that), and to provide more options.

I'll work on all that as soon as my college exams are over.

<comment><USER3> It would be handy if there was a volume limit: three posts per day, or one, or one a week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is it possible to get a link to the comments page as well as to the article in question?

<comment><AUTHOR> It is. In the future, the you'll find a link to the comments on the description of the feed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is great, future enhancements I would love to see:

Subject filter (filter Ask HN)

User criteria - 'always on' or 'always filter' by user (always show from rmontanaro/never show from cyanbane)

show/filter x levels of comments (ie show 'bitcoin' unless there are 4+ levels of comments at some point)

</comment><comment><USER12> First "app" on HN in 2 months that I actually _need_ (as defined by myself). Very useful, thank you.

</comment><comment><USER13> Is there any way to put the topics next to the link? If I type several topics I get a list of links but can't quickly see which topic belongs to which link.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is a cool UI for doing search, really inspiring!

I hope you won't mind me using this concept for my next app creations.

</comment><comment><USER15> The filtering works surprisingly well. Thank you for building this!

</comment><comment><USER16> Very nice UI! Simple and easy to use, well done.

</comment><comment><USER17> very cool. I'd love to see a list of tags that other people use.</comment>


Dimming Betelgeuse is now also bent out of shape, new surface images show - <AUTHOR> https://astronomy.com/news/2020/02/dimming-betelgeuse-is-also-bent-out-of-shape-new-surface-images-show <comment><USER2> It seems like it is dimmed due to another planetary body obscuring it.</comment>


Why Repair Techs Are Hacking Ventilators with DIY Dongles from Poland - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3azv9b/why-repair-techs-are-hacking-ventilators-with-diy-dongles-from-poland <comment><USER2> > The Polish hacker told Motherboard that technicians will take a > manufacturer's repair class in the United States, get the required software, > then share it widely through Europe. "It's officially prohibited to share > the software," they said, speaking of the PB840 software. "But if you know > someone, you can just copy it and they cannot track it."

How is it that the software can't be tracked? Is it because the 20+ year old hardware doesn't connect to the internet and so it can't "phone home"?

<comment><USER3> Yes.

People used to have ethics regarding tracking in software - sometimes this led to devs not knowing the color of their user's underwear.</comment></comment>


16-bit computer processor is being built by hand, transistor by transistor - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/06/23/brit_mega_processor/

<comment><USER2> See yesterday's relevant discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9755742](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9755742)</comment>


TensorFlow Tutorial for Beginners - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/tensorflow-tutorial-for-beginners-69358e73dee7 <comment><USER2> If you're a novice like me, and just experimenting with ML tools, you should take a look at PyTorch as well as TF. They have lots of getting started examples that not only introduced the framework, but helped neural nets click for me at an intuitive level.

</comment><comment><USER3> Original (and complete version), [https://www.datacamp.com/community/tutorials/tensorflow- tuto...](https://www.datacamp.com/community/tutorials/tensorflow-tutorial)</comment>


Peter Thiel and Gawker: A Huge, Huge Deal - <AUTHOR> http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-huge-huge-deal <comment><USER2> It's not a 'huge, huge deal' unless you are trying to get page views by faking drama.

I'm no fan of Peter Thiel, but Gawker needs to be put out of business. What's more Gawker outed him: I can understand why he would have a grudge against them, and hope he gets what he wants from this.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why does it matter that there is someone providing the financial backing for this suit? It seems to me that the only way it can really matter is if in US courts of law it's actually a case that the largest money-pot wins, and legalities or otherwise are largely irrelevant.

Oh, wait ...</comment>


Why is raising money unproductive? - <AUTHOR> http://david.weebly.com/1/post/2007/07/why-is-raising-money-unproductive.html

<comment><USER2> Wow, I've always thought of raising capital as a chore, not as the most exciting part of the business.

The most exciting part being, building & shipping great product that makes customers happy, thereby bringing in revenue.

Is it just me??

-Matt

<comment><USER3> I understood it to be, locally, the most exiciting thing happening at the moment. Shipping a great product (ie creating wealth) might be more exiting overall, but for a given week raising money is a lot more exciting than fixing bugs.

Also I think for some people, the novelty and change of pace is exciting. I've been coding for 20 years and love it, but have never had anyone invest money in a company I own. That unfamiliar situation is far more likely to get my adrenaline pumping, especially if the stakes are high.</comment></comment>


Michael Jordan "Failure" Nike Commercial - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mMioJ5szc&feature=player_embedded#t=30

<comment><USER2> I have a MJ poster with those words. Love it.</comment>


Vega: A Visualization Grammar on top of D3 - <AUTHOR> http://trifacta.github.com/vega/ <comment><USER2> This makes me feel funny. I can't exactly put my finger on why, but here's an attempt.

At first glance the purpose of this project is to make it easier for non- programmers to create visualizations. It's basically d3 without JavaScript, with the added ability to render the visualization using canvas instead of SVG.

When I look at the examples, I get confused. I know d3 and I expected to see less complexity, less manual layout setup, and less explicit data dependencies than I would see in the equivalent d3 code. The only thing that this seems to simplify is the declaration of the range of scales when they depend on the width or height of the canvas.

But maybe I was mistaken on first glance. Maybe the point is not to make it easy for non-programmers to create visualizations, but to make it easier for programs to make visualizations? JSON is easy to generate and to parse. JavaScript is neither.

jheer can you chime in here? Anybody?

<comment><USER3> Yes, I would recommend "The Grammar of Graphics" for serious attempts to express visualizations: <http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0387245448>

<comment><USER4> But that's just it -- the various existing implementations of the Grammar of Graphics have solid, proven implementations, tutorials, documentation, and Q/A collections on Stack Overflow. From my admittedly brief impressions of Vega, the procedural implementations also seem to be more concise. Tack on the benefits of a procedural REPL when you're doing exploratory data analysis or nontrivial manipulations and it becomes very hard to justify the switch.

Like most everyone here I think Vega would be much better suited to the role of an intermediate target format for higher-level tools.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems like a potentially valuable way to shift some of the standard PDF reports I generate in R over to dynamic web pages.

I had heard Hadley Wickham talk about rendering ggplot2 graphics using d3 and am wondering if he'll be using this standard.

<comment><USER6> Here's the beginnings of a Javascript-based ggplot2 implementation on top of d3: <https://github.com/gigamonkey/gg>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm very very excited about this. Mostly because it will make writing a d3 backend to some data vis tools i'm hacking on _much easier_.

</comment><comment><USER8> Some of the best uses of D3 show understanding of every part of the process from getting, understanding, and cleaning the data, to thinking about its structure and designing interactions that let the user really get a feel for what is being presented. I think this project helps a little bit somewhere in the middle of the process, and ignores the rest of it.

</comment><comment><USER9> As we are talking about d3 based libraries, you might want to check dc.js (it's even better: crossfilter is mixed in): <http://nickqizhu.github.com/dc.js/> .

It allows creating plots using one chain of methods. And it's even possible to link several plots together, so interaction with one of them affects other.

</comment><comment><USER10> The grammar of Vega is a description of visualizations, but it isn't a grammar for computation of visualizations. That's where these tools fall short for me, in the sense that they fall short of VTK, VisTrails, and even old OpenDX. I appreciate a regular description, but it seems relatively powerless for data exploration where respect for the model, for uncertainty in data, for symmetries in data, ask for customization of visualizations. Vega is a nice piece of work, and I'd like more, much more.

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice! A ggplot-like grammar-of-graphics-inspired library was definitely missing for the web.

Keep up the good work.

<comment><USER11> Also, if you're interested in adding interactivity, I would love to contribute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Glad to see it's finally released! There was some suspicion it would be shortly after the VIS paper deadline. :-)</comment>


How We'll Invent the Future, by Bill Gates - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/lists/technologies/2019/ <comment><USER2> Quoting from the article "The ultimate goal is to lock greenhouse gases away forever. Some could be nested within products like carbon fiber, polymers, or concrete, but far more will simply need to be buried underground, a costly job that no business model seems likely to support." This is the nub of the CO2 problem. you dont know what to do with it as a business.</comment>


Study Shows Why Sleep is Needed to Form Memories - <AUTHOR> http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/2009/02/sleep-memory-formation.html <comment><USER2> Interesting work. Headline is an overstatement.

From the paper's abstract:

"Consolidation is inhibited by reversible, intracortical antagonism of NMDA receptors (NMDARs) or cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA) during post-MD sleep."[1]

So they found a clue: they banged the system with a well-chosen hammer and saw a perturbation. Many other hammers could perturb the system similarly; how the system _works_ has yet to be determined.

[1] "MD" = monocular deprivation, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocular_dominance_column></comment>


KnightOS – a FOSS operating system for TI calculators written in z80 asm - <AUTHOR> http://www.github.com/knightos <comment><USER2> This is a dupe of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10630779](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10630779). But cool.

</comment><comment><USER3> There are pictures and a demo here [0], although the demo didn't work for me.

[0] [http://www.knightos.org/](http://www.knightos.org/)

<comment><USER4> Does the console report an error? The demo should work fine on any modern browser

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Author of KnightOS here, happy to answer questions.

</comment><comment><USER6> I knew the lead dev once. Pretty cool project, honestly. On an unrelated note, anyone from Cemetech or Omnimaga here?

<comment><USER7> Cemetech user here, although I pretty much stopped going there, as I was more into Casio calculator stuff and nowadays there's not much development activity for these. I must say I envy the large community support for the TI calcs, especially the older z80 ones, which are really really well understood and have been reverse-engineered in every way possible.

I kind of got into reverse-engineering the Casio Prizm, but eventually gave up because the SuperH is a much more complex architecture than the Z80; also, the firmware is so much bigger and not very well understood, it's hard for a beginner to dive in. That more or less explains why there's no such thing as a KnightOS for Casio calculators.

I'm part of that group that learned more about computers and programming with his calculator, than math. Which was actually a very good outcome, since in this undergrad computer engineering course, calculators are mostly forbidden, but the knowledge I got from them is quite useful :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I use this on my TI-83+ SE! The only thing the OS is missing is (ironically) a calculator program...

<comment><USER4> You're welcome to make one :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Man, I wish I had this when I was a kid!</comment>


Uops.info: Characterizing Latency, Throughput, and Port Usage on Intel - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.04610 <comment><USER2> Finally a third independent source for x86 instruction timings, joining Agner [1] and instlatx64 [2].

Is the testing code open source? There is no obvious link from the main page.

[1] [https://www.agner.org/optimize/#manuals](https://www.agner.org/optimize/#manuals)

[2] [http://users.atw.hu/instlatx64/](http://users.atw.hu/instlatx64/)

<comment> andreas-a The testing code is not open source yet, but we plan to make it available in the near future. We are also working on a code analysis tool, similar to Intel's IACA, that uses the instruction data from [http://www.uops.info/](http://www.uops.info/). Finally, we also plan to add data for AMD processors.

<comment><USER2> Cool. Is is the IACA-alike tool:

[https://github.com/RRZE-HPC/OSACA](https://github.com/RRZE-HPC/OSACA)

?

It would be nice to see something with a more open and responsive development process compared to IACA.

<comment> andreas-a No, this is a different IACA-like tool. Our tool is not public yet.

<comment><USER2> Oh cool, seems like we'll jump from zero to two direct competitors to IACA soon. I look forward to your tool (hopefully it can use the same IACA marker bytes so binaries and be compiled once for all these tools).

<comment><USER3> There is also llvm-mca, which is kinda neat since it uses the I formation that LLVM has about the op cost. Contrasting that to IACA or OACA is valuable as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Latency numbers will differ (a lot) because the definitions of latency these sites use differs. Agner uses _the delay that the instruction generates in a dependency chain_. uops.info uses _number of clock cycles that are required for the execution core to complete the execution of all of the μops that form an instruction_. instalatx64 uses _latency means the time that it takes for the next dependent same-type instruction to start_. These are very different definitions.

For example, Agner gives a latency of 2 for pop r while uops.info gives 6.

<comment> andreas-a The "number of clock cycles that are required for the execution core to complete the execution of all of the μops that form an instruction" is the definition that Intel uses in its manuals to define latency.

It is actually _not_ the definition that uops.info uses. Instead, it uses a definition that takes into account that different operands of an instruction might be ready at different times (see section 4.1 of the paper that mentions Intel's definition as a "common definition" and then continues to introduce the new definition). Furthermore, uops.info also considers latency differences that can occur if an instruction uses the same register for multiple operands (the SHLD instruction is an example for this).

<comment><USER2> Is it even possible to measure the latency by Intel's definition? I think "operational" definitions that correspond to something you can actually measure (and by extension apply to measured performance in real code too) are far preferable.

In theory "it is complicated" because an instruction might have N inputs and M outputs and the latency matrix might have different values for every element in that N x M matrix, but in practice instructions have 1 output and the inputs are usually symmetric with regards to latency so one figure is enough for most. It's worth calling out the exceptions though, and uops.info is supposed to do that I think (an example would be great).

<comment> andreas-a Section 7.3 of the paper describes several such examples.

On Sandy Bridge, for example, the result of the "AESDEC XMM1, XMM2" instruction is ready 8 cycles after XMM1 becomes available. If only XMM2 is on the critical path, however, the result is already available after a bit more than one cycle.

On Nehalem, the SHLD R1, R2, imm instruction has, according to Intel's manual, [http://instlatx64.atw.hu/](http://instlatx64.atw.hu/), and IACA, a latency of 4 cycles. Agner Fog reports a latency of 3 cycles. The measurements on uops.info show that the latency from R1 to R1 is 3 cycles, while the latency from R2 to R1 is 4 cycles.

<comment><USER2> Right, I read the paper and saw the examples, but I meant more an example of if/how this information is surfaced in the results as collected at uops.info.

Anyways, it is all there, using your SHLD example:

[http://uops.info/html-instr/SHLD-1633.html](http://uops.info/html- instr/SHLD-1633.html)

You can see the varying latencies on Nehalem for op1->op1 versus op2->op1.

Great work!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> They mention in the "Limitations" section that "Except for the division instructions, we do not consider performance differences that might be due to different values in registers, or different immediate values."

Besides division, are there other instructions that are known/expected/suspected to have different execution times based on the values in the input registers?

<comment><USER2> I have found that load instructions take one less cycle (4 vs 5) if using an index register, where the index register is zero, _and the value was set to zero via zeroing idiom_. More details on RWT [1].

You didn't include immediates in your question, but it was included in the quote you referred to so it's worth mentioning adc with immediate zero, which is "twice as fast" [2] from Sandy Bridge through Haswell.

Of course many FP instruction have value-dependent performance, particularly with denormals (although it is common even if denormals don't occur).

FWIW recent AMD chips seem to have fixed-latency integer dividers.

[1] [https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=179004](https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=179004)

[2] [https://github.com/travisdowns/uarch-bench/wiki/Intel- Perfor...](https://github.com/travisdowns/uarch-bench/wiki/Intel-Performance- Quirks#adc-with-a-zero-immediate-ie-adc-reg-0-is-twice-as-fast-as-with-any- other-immediate-or-register-source-on-haswell-ish-machines)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Every article on the front page is about Steve Jobs. WTF? - <AUTHOR>

I realize that it's huge news that he died, but this is slightly ridiculous. <comment><USER2> Geez man, I've only bought one Apple product in my life but this is a once in a lifetime event. Come back in a few days if you don't want to read about him.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've created a filtered feed that removes "steve" "jobs" and "apple"

<http://feeds.feedburner.com/hacker-news-filtered>

I'll delete it after the weekend to respect PG.

Hope that helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome, thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It just goes to show you how much Steve Jobs moved people regardless if people liked him or not.

<comment><USER3> I've never used any apple products (at least not for more than 5 minutes before they completely turned me off)

but 56 is too young for anyone and my condolences to those who are affected by this.

<comment><USER5> Whether you use/buy/like Apple products or not - it's clear they (largely under Jobs' guidance) have been one of the fundamental forces shaping the computing and consumer electronics landscapes for over 3 decades.

The man was a giant in his industry - up there with Gates and Torvalds. The world will continue on without him, and innovation/invention/market-leadership will rise, fall, and change in spite of him. Getting accolades from the likes of Gates, Brin, Page, Zuckerberg et al shows a lot about Jobs. Getting accolades from Obama shows different things. Im my opinion, filling the first 2 or 3 pages of HackerNews says an awful lot about how people in this community respect the man.

Vale Steve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_19049516>

</comment><comment><USER6> Also every 'new' submission is also Steve related.

He deserves it man.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just vote for other stories then.

People need to "mourn" even if we don't agree with the overboard attention.

<comment><USER7> The interesting counterpoint to that is that all 30 of the stories currently on the "new" page are Steve Jobs related, as well.

I'm just going to come back tomorrow, you guys have fun.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, exactly, I went out to page 4 of the "new" queue and was only able to find a few stories that weren't Steve Jobs related. I guess I'll just come back later.</comment></comment></comment>


Real-Time Expression Transfer for Facial Reenactment [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXVspNUeiWw <comment><USER2> FYI, here the link to its paper,

[http://graphics.stanford.edu/~niessner/papers/2015/10face/th...](http://graphics.stanford.edu/~niessner/papers/2015/10face/thies2015realtime.pdf)</comment>


Yosemite – Thoughts on blurriness and design ecosystems - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.atlassian.com/2014/06/yosemite-thoughts-blurriness-design-ecosystems/ <comment><USER2> Am I the only one who can't stand transparent windows of any sort? It really distracts me from the contents of the window, and the blur makes my eyes try to focus it, and then my brain tries to process the image.

I'm still waiting for my dream UI: no transparency, but everything other than the current window is slightly out of focus (even the dock or windows bar). When you move the mouse to a new window, it comes into focus. You could even do several levels of focus (if not in a full-screen app): less for visible windows more for background such as dock/windows bar and desktop. I haven't tested this in real life (mockup), so maybe it's been tried and rejected already.

<comment><USER3> It's really annoying when you're trying to take screenshots too. That's one of the big reason I like Win8's theme over Aero.

Thankfully OS X's "press space to capture a window" has done a good job at just putting things on a white background. I'm hoping that the translucency in 10.10 works the same way, but if anybody's got the beta I'd love a confirmation!

<comment><AUTHOR> Confirmed. The screenshot renders the blurry panels as solid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> About 10 - 15 years ago I did some tests, animations done in After Effects mostly, showing some UI concepts that used motion blur, depth of field, translucency, parallax, etc. I wanted to play around with non-planer surfaces, but at the time you couldn't do anything like that in After Effects.

I paid absolutely no attention to how "expensive" any of it was in terms of processing. I was interested in exploring possibilities. Some of the effects were pretty amazing, it seemed to me. Depth of field control particularly so.

At the time I couldn't drum up _any_ interest. Even as a purely intellectual curiosity. Several people were actually hostile to the whole concept.

<comment><USER2> What is depth of field in a UI? Is that something like I describe in my other comment ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7881182](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7881182))?

<comment><USER4> Depth of field is the area in front of a camera where objects are in focus. Objects closer or farther are out of focus in some proportional manner.

In some tests I'd define a 3D camera with a specific depth of field that matched the distance to the object I wanted to be in focus. Say I had an array of view ports onto documents, processes, or images, the one selected would come forward to the focal distance and be in sharp focus. I tried using the effect both coupled and decoupled with actual distance. To me, simply blurring the element without having the effect being tied to distance did not seem nearly as effective. I also played around with having selected, but not active objects coming forward of focus.

I also did some tests with "constellations" of documents connected by lines. The lines could indicate a path, a hierarchy, connectiveness, or dependency. The browser would allow you to spin the viewpoint, zoom into and out of groupings. Depth of field here, as well as aerial perspective (greying and blueing far away objects) made for a very nice effect, and seriously improved navigational awareness.

These were all animations, not actual interactive demos. Very exploratory in nature. Never got enough interest to go deeper into it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Honestly, I'm disappointed by Apple! I've been on Yosemite since day one and I'm not happy. Colors are inconsistent, some are too bright (folders, the backward/forward arrows), some of the icons are pretty ugly (Finder). System Preferences is a mix of different style icons as well. I hope all this mess to get fixed with the next update. Just compare to, for example, elementary OS ([http://elementaryos.org/](http://elementaryos.org/)). Windows 8.1 is also way more consistent. I'm really disappointed to see the once leader in UI delivering _this_!

</comment><comment><USER6> A blur filter is not particularly expensive nowadays.

<comment><USER7> Yeah I'm not sure what machines (or VMs) they were running Yosemite on, but I haven't had issues with flickering translucent windows even on the first beta release.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm skilled in the art of breaking shit, I guess ;)

Try going full screen and back again quickly. Try flipping through view modes in finder. Try dragging the sidebar width on the inside edge of finder.

I'm on a Retina MBP. I installed it on a new partition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Are there functional benefits of blurriness other than just being aesthetically pleasing or "cutting edge," as the author claims?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it tends to allow more color to come through in an otherwise sea of gray panels. Visually differentiating panels is not just aesthetics, but usability.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Those don't look like icons of the 1990s but of the 2000s.

</comment><comment><USER10> Do the images fail to load for anyone else?

<comment><USER11> Yep, doesn't load for me either.</comment></comment>


The Simple Truth about Physics - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-simple-truth-about-physics/ <comment><USER2> Of course there is no guarantee truths about the universe are simple. Newtonian mechanics is extremely simple, yet it is only true as a limiting case of relativistic mechanics, which is not as simple. Maybe relativistic mechanics is only true as a limiting case of an even more complex theory, et cetera.

What we should value is not simplicity, but power of explanation.

<comment><USER3> Each additional unchecked assumption that is added to a theory is another opportunity to be wrong. These probabilities of failure, however small, are compounded with multiplication, so the probability of failure rises exponentially with the number of unchecked assumptions. (10 assumptions each with 95% chance of correctness have only a collective 59% chance of being right— .95^10 = .59).

To maximize the chance of choosing a model which corresponds to reality, we must involve as few unchecked assumptions as possible when deciding between theories that agree with the data; and this matters more than any particular assumption having a relatively high chance of being right, because of this exponential sensitivity.

So if we want theories that are correct, yes, we _should_ value simplicity.

<comment><USER4> I don't understand how we can reason with "probabilities of failure" about such fundamental things such as laws of physics.

Under the frequentist interpretation of probability, 95% of having a "correct assumption" means that as you observe iid experiments of this assumption, the long-run average of them will have 95/100 of such experiments exhibit the assumption as true. But "experiment" here isn't a physics experiment, it's a _universe_ in which this assumption could be true. We're in some _fixed_ universe. This assumption holds in ours with probability 0 or 1 (we don't know which).

So, I think the 95% you're referring to here is a Bayesian belief level. This is coherent in that it doesn't require some ambient set of multiple universes to meaningfully describe what is meant by "probability", but the prior required for this interpretation is a bit of weird beast. That is, we have some prior over the space of all possible assumptions for models of physics and update our beliefs based on evidence (we can collect evidence from our single universe multiple times and update our beliefs in a coherent way). In the limit of evidence, this prior matters less, but constants matter here! How much evidence do we need before we can be confident the "belief levels" we're throwing around aren't that subjective anymore? We don't really have a good sense for what the structure over this space of "assumptions of physical models" is, so we can't really answer this question.

Within specific settings for statistical learning theory, we find that simple models generalize well. But that's an implication: _if_ you have a class of simple models and it fits the data well, _then_ you'll generalize well. When it comes to answering the question, "Which theories generalize well?", such analysis is incomplete.

<comment><USER3> > I don't understand how we can reason with "probabilities of failure" about > such fundamental things such as laws of physics.

A sketch: Suppose we have two theories, one ("A") with assumptions (a, b); the other ("B") with assumptions (a, p, q, r, s, t); and our evidence 'e'.

Pr(A) ~= Pr(a|e) * Pr(b|e)

Pr(B) ~= Pr(a|e) * Pr(p|e) * Pr(q|e) * Pr(r|e) * Pr(s|e) * Pr(t|e)

That is, the probability of each theory being right is the probability that each of its assumptions are simultaneously true. It might be difficult to come up with a specific number for each of those component terms, but we'd do well to estimate the total probability of each theory simply by counting the terms, since in the limit that will matter more than the probability of each term (assuming we think none of them are obviously low).

Also note that when counting, we can trivially factor out the common assumptions "a" (a.k.a. the things we don't wish to doubt or vary between theories, e.g. QM in "ordinary" regimes, GR, the Newtonian approximation to GR, etc.)

Yes, there is a "ground truth" theory which is absolutely true or false, but we don't have access to it. And I don't see how it's more problematic to use probability here than on any other classical event on which we have imperfect information, like a specific dice roll, or a baseball game, or the outcome of an election— One specific thing will happen, and no other outcome was possible, but we can still use probability to model our incomplete knowledge. How is physics different?

Example stress tests of this idea:

e = the motion of the planets; A := "G = m1*m2/r^2"; B := [long list of epicycle parameters] --> pick "A".

e = the varied appearance/adaptations of animals/species; A := [reproduction, inheritance, variation, selection]; B := foreach animal x {"God zotted $x into existence like that because just_so_story($x)" \--> pick "A".

e = my empty garage; A := "there's nothing in it"; B := "there's a dragon in it; the dragon is invisible; the dragon dodges your touch; the dragon has no heat signature; the dragon floats and leaves no footprints; ..." \--> pick "A".

e = the behavior of the universe; A := [the standard model]; B := [the standard model; also it's a simulation; there are intelligent beings who set up the simulation; there is an external universe in which the simulation is occurring; the number of simulations happening in this universe is large; ...] --> pick "A".

<comment><USER4> I think that you may have missed my point.

First off, why are assumptions independent? Why are you allowed to factor p(a|e) * p(b|e) = p(a,b|e)? Assumptions aren't just independent binary variables -- it's not necessarily true that you can have some product measure over the set of assumptions (a, b, p, q, r, s, t) simultaneously.

More importantly, you dived write into some notation (Pr) without telling me what it _means_, which is what my OP was about.

> And I don't see how it's more problematic to use probability here than on > any other classical event on which we have imperfect information, like a > specific dice roll, or a baseball game, or the outcome of an election— One > specific thing will happen, and no other outcome was possible, but we can > still use probability to model our incomplete knowledge. How is physics > different?

Here's a crucial difference. We can roll a die 100 times, 1000 times, 10K times, and the frequency of a six landing as we increase the number of trials will tend to 1/6\. That's what we mean (if we're frequentists) when we say the probability of a six landing is 1/6\. We can't "roll" universes with physics models.

<comment><USER3> > First off, why are assumptions independent?

Because I've defined them that way. I mean them to be independent choices you could make when designing your model that could be varied to fit the data. If two aspects of the model are not independent; i.e. they are covariant in some way, then there is some common parameter that explains them both, and _that_ parameter is the one that should be seen as an input to the model.

> We can roll a die 100 times, 1000 times, 10K times [...] That's what we mean > (if we're frequentists)

We're not frequentists.

You can't "re-roll" the 2016 election 10K times, either. There was only one, and there was only one way it could come out; we just didn't know enough to say what it would be before it happened. All the particles in all the voters were obeying the laws of physics at every moment; never was there any freedom for a different outcome. Nonetheless, even though there was/is only one "ground truth" that could ever be, we assigned probabilities to each possible outcome, given our incomplete knowledge.

This is a pretty standard application of probability. State estimators (e.g. the Kalman filter) are doing the same thing— you have some noisy readings of reality, and you use Bayesian logic on some assumed probability distributions to pick the estimate from the space of possible "ground truths" that has the highest probability of being the right one.

Concretely: I'm measuring roll rate, local acceleration, compass heading, barometric pressure, and GPS, all with significant error, and I want to know where my quadcopter is most likely to be at the current moment. There is only _one_ true answer to that question, the quadcopter is in _one_ place, not 10,000 places (or 10,000 flights), there is a _single_ ground truth. But Bayes will give me a probability, given my readings, that any given estimate is the true ground truth (and some math will help me solve for the highest one).

In this case, instead of assigning probabilities to possible election outcomes or system state "ground truths", the "configuration space" is models of reality. But all we've changed is the domain of our probability distribution; the math doesn't care what kind of thing our "ground truth" represents. And it doesn't matter if reality contains only one "ground truth" or many; the fact is that _we_ are choosing between many options (and we are ranking them by likelihood).

<comment><USER4> Re independence: identifying whether or not these physical assumptions covary is not that easy. That's my point: assumptions a, b, c, d could easily have some mutual incompatibility that makes them non-independent. It's an active area of research.

Re probability, I'm glad you committed to the Bayesian interpretation. Bayes gives you a _degree of belief_, based on your priors.

It's quite fortuitous that you mention the 2016 election. As you say, there's only one instance here. Which is why the prior matters a lot. We can incorporate (partial) evidence from past elections, but it's going to be very sensitive to the priors that we place, since the net amount of evidence we're working with is very small.

As we found out in 2016, that means these beliefs aren't worth much in such low data scenarios, since the prior has a large impact! [https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election- forecast/](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/)

This brings me to my original point:

> In the limit of evidence, this prior matters less, but constants matter > here! How much evidence do we need before we can be confident the "belief > levels" we're throwing around aren't that subjective anymore? We don't > really have a good sense for what the structure over this space of > "assumptions of physical models" is, so we can't really answer this > question.

<comment><USER3> > identifying whether or not these physical assumptions covary is not that > easy

But still tractable, I'd say. My core claim is that counting independently- variable assumptions will be a highly performant way to select between theories which agree with the data. Or put another way, it's the best Fermi approximation calculation for measuring "how good is your theory". How you do that for any given theory, while important to do correctly, is an implementation detail which I think is secondary to the discussion of whether doing it at all is a good idea. :) (seems like we might agree that it is?)

> We can incorporate (partial) evidence from past elections, but it's going to > be very sensitive to the priors

To the extent that election forecasts are unreliable, I think that's because they are forced to involve a lot of assumptions (e.g. similarity to past elections) that turn out not to correspond well to reality. Models which make fewer such assumptions will do likely do better! (and IMO fivethirtyeight's forecasts did the best job of this out of any; most of the rest put Hillary at around 97%).

Unfortunately with elections, there is a comparatively high lower bound on the number of assumptions we must make, thanks to the complexity of their dynamics and sparsity of data/knowledge we have about each. I think this is much less the case with physics, where we are varying comparatively small physical assumptions to explain mountains of data. But in either case, I contend that the most performant models will make fewer (unmeasured) independent assumptions.

> How much evidence do we need before we can be confident the "belief levels" > we're throwing around aren't that subjective anymore?

The point I'm trying to make is bigger-picture than the above level of detail: Counting independent assumptions, in the limit, matters more than the specific constants of each assumption (assuming they're not low/zero), precisely _because_ it's so hard to come up with "accurate" numbers for each.

That is to say, the probability is not _sensitive_ to those belief levels: We could choose widely varying distributions for the probabilities of our assumptions, including choosing probabilities very close to 1, and it will hardly ever matter to the total probability as much as the absolute number of independent assumptions we make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Heard an interesting idea about the overlap of information theory and physics in one of Sean Carroll's recent podcast discussions. They blew past it but I think it bears its own subject.

The idea goes like this. If you want to talk about simplicity, beauty, or elegance of a physical law--maybe because you think that's more likely to be correct than a complicated law--then we've already got tools like Kolmogorov complexity to talk about such laws.

<comment><USER6> This seems to be the particular podcast:

[https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2019/12/09/76-n...](https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2019/12/09/76-ned- hall-on-possible-worlds-and-the-laws-of-nature/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This doesn't just apply to physics.

All scientists should strive for parsimony.

In other words Occam's Razor: "It is futile to do with more things that which can be done with fewer", where _things_ in scientific theories can be considered _assumptions_.

Parsimony, along with falsifiability, are the two most important features of any reasonable scientific theory.

We need to teach more philosphy of science at all levels of science education. I was quite surprised to read that a physics post-doc would openly seek to complicate their models just for the sake of appearance.

<comment><USER8> Occam's razor only applies if your model actually solves the problem it claims to solve.

Plenty of beautiful, elegant, parsimonious, wonderful, understated, aesthetically pleasing models in physics turned out to be complete bunk when confronted with real data.

<comment><USER7> Agreed, that's why i mention falsifiability along with parsimony.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Half the article is about the social observation that making your work unnecessarily complicated is, too often, a way to impress people. Especially those, like funding agencies, who try to judge without understanding it. Many will be impressed to see you flexing large calculational muscles, even if they can't quite see why.

The other half appears to be an advert for the author's paper [https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13608](https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13608) which advocates a particular measure they call "explanatory depth". It's not immediately obvious (to me) how this works, or how it relates to other bayesian & information-based measures. But it seems worth a look.

</comment><comment><USER10> The formalism for this is Kolmogorov Complexity and Occam's Razor.

I also believe that we also value Sophistication, which is at least a partial driver of the interest in string theory, with less free parameters.

</comment><comment><USER11> Well we will soon be approaching a CENTURY without any significant advances in physics or our understanding of the universe...no wonder they are desperate.

<comment><USER12> Just off the top of my head, at the very least, electroweak unification (1970s to 80s depending on where exactly you describe it as "understood") was a major advance in our understanding.

Now if you had said "half century" instead of "century", I would be more inclined to agree with you. Neutrino oscillations are a more recent phenomenon, but they fit relatively cleanly into the Standard Model and have little effect on the fundamentals. You say that "dark matter/energy" are problematic, but I would argue that no serious physicist thinks they are anything like "confirmed". (The DAMA/LIBRA collaboration aside, since no one else believes them.) They are just the best available ideas to explain things; the hope for a better explanation or experimental evidence for a particular direction remains strong.

Back when I worked in this area, I was fond of pointing out that there hadn't been much progress in fundamental theory since the '70s or so, then asking when LSD was banned....

<comment><USER11> Well if we ever experience another big bang, electroweak will help us understand why we are being vaporized.

<comment><USER12> Your dismissive attitude implies that you think there are fundamental discoveries waiting to happen that will affect our lives in the same way as the great discoveries of classical and modern physics.

There are not.

At energy scales up through electroweak unification and the Higgs mechanism (~10^2 GeV), the known forces of nature are basically completely understood at the fundamental level. There are many _applications_ yet to be invented -- basically, solving the equations is _really hard_ for anything more complicated than a hydrogen atom -- but the fundamental theory? It's done.

But what about quantum gravity? Dark energy? All those other weird things?

Well, the simple fact that we do not have experimental evidence to guide the development of these theories is prima facie evidence that _they are not important at everyday energy scales_. If we could access the requisite domains, we would have that evidence! Yes, these theories are important cosmologically or for true "fundamental" understanding, but so was electroweak unification. They will never help us build better gadgets, full stop.

<comment><USER11> We can't even explain the double slit experiment. We are Neanderthals.

And you say there is nothing coming that could affect our day to day life...they might have said that in 1901.

Who knows what might unfold...

<comment><USER12> In 1901 there were major "catastrophies" all around, the ultraviolet catastrophe being one of the best examples: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_catastrophe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_catastrophe)

By 2019 we have exquisite verification that we do, in fact, understand things at "everyday" energy scales: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_tests_of_QED](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_tests_of_QED)

I do not claim there is no new physics to be found.(In fact, the process of renormalization used in modern field theories _explicitly parameterizes_ our ignorance of very high energy scales.) I merely claim there is no new physics to be found that can impact anything already constrained by a precision measurement, and that such precision measurements cover the entire spectrum of everyday phenomena.

(And just because you don't like some of the metaphysical interpretations of the double-slit experiment doesn't mean we don't know how to calculate it... very, very accurately. That, to me, suggests some level of understanding surpassing a Neanderthal!)

<comment><USER11> I dare you to calculate the double slit experiment on the assumption light is a particle.

<comment><USER13> But electrons, being particles, exhibit the same behavior.

<comment><USER14> This is looking at the problem in the wrong way.

Quantized fields are the fundamental building blocks of our reality. Everything else builds from that. The entire concept of a particle is a useful but flawed model, similar to newtonian gravity.

<comment><USER13> > _useful_

Indeed - non-relativistic quantum mechanics does explain the double-slit experiment and does not use the notion of a field.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Is Bitcoin too expensive to buy? Mine them instead - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/bitcoins-with-minimal-investments-and-faster-roi-and-what-risks-am-i-taking-2e6cdcce5c06 <comment><USER2> 11 affiliate links in that article. I wonder why this was written.

</comment><comment><USER3> Bitcoin too expensive? This article explains how to spend _just as much_ with no guarantee of ever actually getting any Bitcoin in return.

The only reason I clicked was that this was an epic opportunity, not taken, to have some sarcastic fun.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why would someone provide this service? It's like they say you pay us $1 and then you get $2 in return. It looks too good to be true.

<comment><USER5> It's a long-term short on the value cryptocurrencies hold.

They're betting on their 'service fees' eventually overtaking mining returns, while customers are betting on the opposite.

Customers have to trust that HashFlare is going to keep it's mining systems state-of-the-art. But I don't see how the service has any incentive to do so: that's hard work and cuts into their profits.

A counterargument is that HashFlare might also be taking the lion's share of the cryptocurrencies they mine. Well, if they were that confident in cryptocurrency, why wouldn't they just use their hardware in a normal mining pool?</comment></comment>


The Twelve Networking Truths (1996) - <AUTHOR> https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1925 <comment><USER3> > _No matter how hard you push and no matter what the priority, you can 't > increase the speed of light._

This reminds of one of favorite videos with the famous Grace Hopper: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEpsKnWZrJ8). She visualizes the speed of light to aid family, students and generals.

<comment><USER4> Except by e.g. switching from fiber to microwave -- in certain constrained and financially motivated circumstances, such as regional and local transmission for the purpose of electronic trading.

Or so I've read; not my thing.

But it's a reminder not to take anything for granted -- not even "truths".

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > _Every old idea will be proposed again with a different name and a different > presentation, regardless of whether it works._

Sounds like all modern JS frameworks :)

<comment><USER5> That is nothing to smile about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _(5) It is always possible to aglutenate multiple separate problems into a single complex interdependent solution. In most cases this is a bad idea._

Ignored by every technical RFC on L2/3 networking published after this document

</comment><comment><USER7> Fallacies of Distributed Computing

      1. The network is reliable.
      2. Latency is zero.
      3. Bandwidth is infinite.
      4. The network is secure.
      5. Topology doesn't change.
      6. There is one administrator.
      7. Transport cost is zero.
      8. The network is homogeneous.

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

</comment><comment><USER8> I learned a great word today - <USER2>

<comment> m-p-3 The word is misspelled, it's agglutinate.

<comment><USER9> .. otherwise known as 'glom'.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The twelve truths of systems development it seems. All of this applies to software.</comment>


Show HN: Krucible — Kubernetes clusters for testing and development - <AUTHOR> https://usekrucible.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. At the last two companies I've worked at we really needed—and didn't have—a solution for spinning up throwaway Kubernetes clusters that we could use for testing and development. Krucible is an attempt to solve that problem.

We've just released a really cool feature called Snapshots that allows you to image a running Kubernetes cluster, including the state of all applications, and then create new clusters from that image. It's great for creating consistent development environments or quick starting test environments.

Happy to answer any questions people might have.</comment>


Imaginary meal tricks the body into losing weight - <AUTHOR> http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-01-effective-diet-pill-imaginary-meal.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Trusted reports of "new diet research" because the original results were published in Nature Medicine. If you have access to their paywall then full article is here: [http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nm.3760....](http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nm.3760.html)</comment>


Linux Graphics Drivers book - <AUTHOR> http://people.freedesktop.org/~marcheu/linuxgraphicsdrivers.pdf

<comment><USER2> This is a nice book, barring a few spelling mistakes</comment>


5 Reasons Why Nokia Lost Its Handset Sales Lead and Got Downgraded to 'Junk' - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/04/5-reasons-why-nokia-lost-its-handset-sales-lead-and-got-downgraded-to-junk/ <comment><USER2> This article isn't really about how demand Nokia's hardware has dropped. This article is really about how Samsung broke into the mobile device hardware market by building everyone else's phones (iPhone, Androids, Windows phones, etc) while Nokia was focusing on Symbian and inertia.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a service to be notified about drug trials for specific issues - <AUTHOR> I was wondering if theres an app or service which either notifies you of or allows you to sort of register with companies/hospitals etc for trials of new treatments for specific conditions eg you just sign up with your details and the conditions you have and youre informed of any trials in the area that you are eligible for <comment><USER2> Keep your eye on YC S18 company Curebase:

[https://www.curebase.com](https://www.curebase.com)

I believe they will be pretty well positioned to offer a service like this.

Disclosure: I start working there on Monday!</comment>


JustaPage - An Open Source HTML Template For Creating Single Page Websites - <AUTHOR> http://paulmolluzzo.github.com/JustaPage/demo/

<comment><AUTHOR> Found Via: <http://goo.gl/Wtdfx></comment>


The Truth About the Useless F-35 (2015) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbvggmVnOLo <comment><USER2> I've been hearing a lot about the F-35's inferior kinematics, but its all been hearsay. I think it is reasonable to assume it is inferior to the F-16, but I think the big question is - how do the new information-based tech and the new strategies hold up in the real world? i.e., is the sacrifice in kinematics worth the gain the decreased detection, sensor fusion, etc?

The other question, I think is - how well does the supercruise make up for the F-35's deficiencies?

The rough balance equation in my mind is: F-35 - designed to be able to supercruise to the area where needed quicker than current gen aircraft and deliver payload/weaponry (air to air, air to ground, etc) and get out, while integrated to the DoD's battle network. They have sacrificed/are not designed for a dogfight (F-16's area of expertise) as a trade off to achieve this

</comment><comment><USER3> It's not useless, it's gonna feed a lot of military contractors and their families for the next 20 years.

<comment><USER4> So is paying 5000 people to dig holes in the dessert and another 5000 to later fill in those holes.

I lived through something similar to that in Eastern Europe in the 1990's. Spoiler alert: doesn't end well.

<comment><USER5> ...yet a large number of people here seem to support a UBI.

I'm not saying I agree with wasting money, but I feel like this very same argument usually gets shunned when it comes up in UBI debates. Maybe shunned isn't the right word...perhaps "less well received". I also don't mean to imply that you support a UBI.

<comment><USER6> People receiving UBI still have time to work on useful stuff. That makes it completely different from the keynesianist digging and covering of holes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Could have been a good plane... They should have focused on reuse of developed systems instead of a one-size-fits-none platform.

</comment><comment><USER8> "With the axe about to fall on military spending" oh, those heady days.... :(

</comment><comment><USER9> These claims had been debunked many times back in 2015 and it really isn't relevant at all in 2017. The fact is that the F-35 has seen a lot of improvements in the recent block releases and is shaping up to be the central part of the military strategy going forward.

People keep thinking the F-35 is supposed to be a fighter jet when it isn't. That's what the F-22 is for. F-35 is designed to silently collect information about potential targets and relay it to planes that are flying behind.

<comment><USER10> It is indeed less of a dedicated fighter and more of a jack-of-all trades like the old Phantom II was[0]. And suffers from the same problem of being shoehorned into the F-for-fighter series. EFA-35 or even M-35 for multmission would have been more accurate.

[0] in fact the weight, size, thrust and payload are all on-par with the F-4E version except the back-seater has been replaced by computers.</comment></comment>


Where The Workers Who Made Your iPhone Sleep At Night - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5678732/

<comment><USER2> If people are living in this situation, then either it is better than their alternatives (in which case it's good that they have at least this) or something is preventing them from choosing those alternatives (which is not good).

Do they have any better alternatives? Is there anything preventing them from choosing them?

</comment><comment><USER3> Next time I want to complain about work I'm going to think about this.

I wonder if they're happy to have their jobs? I wonder where they envision themselves five years from now? Is there a "corporate ladder" for factory worker jobs too? Are they working to give their "one child" a better life? How long is China going to continue their "one child" policy? I wonder what it's like to have your life managed like cattle? This is where you work, this is where you eat, this is where you make love, this is how many kids you can have. What does this mean for me? Will China be the next super power? Am I unknowingly funding the next superpower with each new iphone and tv that I buy? I don't know, but either way I am going to buy another iPhone when my 2 year contract is up for renewal. Shiny new toys are so irresistible.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's so sad to see people earning a living and digging themselves out of poverty by building things and selling them to others. It'd be far better if they kept to their more authentic heritage of powerlessness and impoverishment until such time as they are magically transformed by the charity of the west.

Silly folks. If these Chinese laborers continue on in this fashion they could end up like Japan or South Korea or Taiwan or Singapore or Chile. And who wants that?

<comment><USER5> i'm inclined to assume that your comment is in reply to the gizmodo article's comments that are all "oh the humanity" and "boycott now!"

Still, i think the visceral reaction from commenters is due to the disparity between social demographics and engendered best in this quote: " _I joked with the Foxconn executive who was with me that of all the places in the world that could probably manage to get bigger television screens installed, it was probably here at Foxconn, who make televisions for the world's largest brands._ "

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The comments on the bottom of this article are worse than the pictures.

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen This...it really doesn't look that bad.</comment>


Should scientific articles be available free online? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/?id=2111023& <comment><USER2> Yes. A thousand times yes.

As a student I'm really pissed of each time I found an article which looks interesting and Springer tells me "pay me 35€ if you want to read this article that researchers have written and some others reviewed but only us get money because you know, we can."

New journals with open access initiative are really a good thing, but we also need to have access to old articles which are currently locked by multinationals which didn't do the work nor paid for it.

We don't need them anymore. They were useful when they were needed to have access in university and labs library to research from across the world. Now internet does that better than they could ever do it, and for a way less expensive price.

I'm willing to pay something like 30€/year to have unlimited access to all papers in a field. There could even be a limit to the number of authorized downloads (who can seriously read more than 100 papers per year anyway? (that's two per week, almost each week.)). But no DRM. And I say this but I really think that this should be in total open access for everyone, I'm just trying to moderate my words (and give them a less sudden death, I'm so kind!).

SpringerLink and co. need to change the way they distribute content. Or we'll have to kill them.

« Your failed business model is not my problem. »

<comment><USER3> Maybe it's only my field of research, but I'd say that scientific articles ARE essentially free. If I search for an articles on Google Scholar in 95% of the cases there is a link next it that says "download pdf". When that is not the case, I simply log in my university VPN and can download it anyway (at least from my point of view). I've never paid for a scientific article in my life.

<comment><USER4> _I simply log in my university VPN..._

So in your country does everybody get a taxpayer-sponsored university VPN for life? Or are you speaking from the highly privileged position of "current university student in a well-funded school?"

In any case, it shows a tremendous impoverishment of imagination to claim that Google Scholar is equivalent to an actual free market in research. I want the footnotes in publication A to be _directly hyperlinked to the relevant sections_ of their associated references. Otherwise we remain in the position where random TV shows on Wikipedia have better public documentation than our taxpayer-funded research.

I'll put your 95% assertion to the test and report back.

<comment><USER4> Paper #1: field: applied physics

Appl. Phys. Lett. 76, 1095 (2000)

Result: no free link on Scholar. I can buy a copy for $29, or there's a new service called "Deepdyve" that will "rent" me a 24-hour glimpse at the paper for $2, no printing allowed.

Papers 2 to 20ish: works by the late Judah Folkman, field: cancer research

Here we have better luck; maybe 50% of the (very well-known) works on the first two pages of this search have free PDFs:

[http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=J+folkman&...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=J+folkman&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C48&as_ylo=&as_vis=0)

Still not feeling the 95%, though. Of course, I may not have worked in the right fields. This is a big reason why I switched to software, after all.

<comment><USER5> Well, physics is an exception. The preprints at arxiv.org are free and contain essentially everything.

Medicine, though - that's a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a researcher myself, I completely agree that taxpayers should not be subsidizing for-profit publishers. The government is wrong to fund the production of research papers with taxpayer money and allow the owner of some privately owned pay wall to collect a toll for access to them. Great work if you can get it.

It is outrageous. Whenever the public invests in something, the public should get a return if there is one. Suppose I made you the following offer. You can invest in my company by purchasing stock. If my company succeeds, your return on your investment will be the opportunity to purchase whatever I produce as a consumer.

Question: if you took me up on my offer, what would that make you?

Answer: a taxpayer.

That's the position of the public with respect to access to scientific research published with for-profit publishers. The publisher is assigned the copyright, and collects their toll.

There is no earthly reason the taxpayer should be subsidizing for-profit scientific publishers. I routinely refuse to review articles for publication in for-profit journals. A number of my colleagues have been doing this for years, and we're all over the political spectrum.

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes. Absolutely.

Once it was about access. If you had the keys to the Library, then you controlled the information.

Now it's about distribution. If you want to examine your idea in public, you can compare it anywhere, anytime to work that preceded yours.

Appropriate resource allocation can only be improved by increased informational availability and transparency.

All these are part of the most basic tenets of Capitalism. Perfect Choice, and Perfect Information. Improve one or the other will continue to have untold benefits.

So in short. TLDR -- Yes. Absolutely.

<comment><USER8> What an enormous wank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is insane for the people to fund research they can't freely view the results of.

</comment><comment><USER10> I work for PLoS, it's great to see Open Access become such a high profile subject after the aaronsw story

<comment><USER11> Out of curiosity, what do you do for PLoS?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> No question about it.

If taxpayers pay $50k-$100k to scientists to write a paper, the least the government can do is spend another $5-50 to make it available for free perpetually.

<comment><USER13> Both of your estimates actually seem fairly low.

In biology, a single PhD student typically costs on the order of $50k/year in terms of stipend and tuition support, and will typically be an author on fewer papers than the number of years they are in grad school, so I would guess the personnel costs alone are in the $100k range, with materials and reagents potentially being a similar amount.

The publication costs in PLoS journals are 20-50 times higher than your high end[1].

All that aside, I absolutely agree that the costs to society of not doing open access are much greater than the costs of doing it.

[1]<http://www.plos.org/journals/pubfees.php>

<comment><USER14> > The publication costs in PLoS journals are 20-50 times higher than your high > end[1].

I would think that the cost of actually making it available (no vetting, just throwing it online) is probably much lower than the cost of publication[1]. Note that, from your link, the expenses in the price include "peer review, of journal production, and of online hosting and archiving".

[1] If it really does cost them even 50% of the prices they're charging to put a single paper online, then either most of it is being eaten up in bureaucracy or they're investing it and using the interest to pay for the hosting (which would make a lot of sense, actually).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> They should be if they are payed for by public funds the same applies to software. Of course that doesn't apply to defense or otherwise potentially dangerous software but the general rule should be to opensource government contracted development because if they don't have a good reason for not doing so they are probably doing it wrong.

</comment><comment><USER16> So what has become of that effort? We're 7 years in now, did they actually go ahead with their plan?

<comment><USER17> Yes, although the time delay between publication and public availability was increased to 12 month.

<http://publicaccess.nih.gov/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Should the results of taxpayer-funded research be available to those who paid for it, without further payment? Of course they should.

</comment><comment><USER19> Off-topic but boo on slate for detecting that I'm browsing on an iPad, after which they redirect me to an 'iPad-optimized' front page, but not to the article I wanted to read..

<comment><USER20> A lot of the time the full website and the mobile site are not the same backend / system. That said I share your frustration

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Article from 2004.

</comment><comment><USER22> sadly slate.com is not readable on the ipad due to some swipe/touch/die scumware.....

</comment><comment><USER23> It's not mostly about the price (you can always find a paper from friends etc if you're determined). It's about the availability of vast amounts of text to analysis and mining. Who knows how many new insights we have already lost (mainly in the life sciences) from this absurd system that everyone seems to hate yet nobody is willing to change.

btw, frontiers (<http://frontiersin.org/>) is another great open access set of journals</comment>


Miscellaneous unsolicited (and possibly biased) career advice - <AUTHOR> https://erikbern.com/2019/09/12/misc-unsolicited-career-advice.html <comment><AUTHOR> > The key trick is to focus on the lowest cost highest impact ones. For > instance, getting a PhD is an insanely high cost marker, as is going all-in > and getting a perfect GPA. Those aren't bad things in themselves, but the > signal value compared to the investment is much lower than other things. For > some things on the other spectrum, things with high signal value compared to > the investment, I would say having built an open source project (that people > use), or some award, having written things that got published, having > started your own company (even though it failed), or many other things.

This really stood out to me. I definitely will be reminding myself of this nugget the next time I think about 'going back to school to get a leg up in my career'.</comment>


Jake Gold is "staunch". After 4 years, no longer anonymous on Hacker News. - <AUTHOR> http://jakenbake.com/no-longer-anonymous/ <comment><USER2> Im interested to know the story of how you acquired your domain name (and at what price).

<comment><AUTHOR> We spent the first couple months (while we were raising money, getting the company incorporated, working on prototypes, etc) emailing dozens of domain owners.

Fell in love with a bunch of different ones and even met in person with some people to negotiate. They all fell through over price/terms.

We ended up working out a deal with the owner for Get.com. We're not 100% clear on whether it's wise to disclose all the details yet, but we definitely will as some point.

Aaron Patzers idea's behind acquiring Mint.com were a big inspiration for us. I even grabbed him at a conference so I could get his opinion.

We knew we wanted to build a real consumer brand and believe that a great domain makes that a lot more likely.

<comment><USER3> you paid in stock?

<comment><AUTHOR> That is what Patzer did for Mint.com. I think it was around 2% of their series A, which I think was a great deal for everyone.

<comment><USER3> Ye that was why I am asking. I remember Mint was a stock deal. I think it is a great way to get a good domain name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I went to your site and signed in with Twitter. Now it is asking me for my email address and to choose a password. If I wanted that, I would have chosen the "sign up with e-mail" option. Could you fulfill the promise of single sign-on?

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem is Twitter doesn't provide first name, last name, and email like Facebook does. I'm going to try splitting on space for name and people change it if it's wrong. Won't work for many names, but should make it a _little_ better.

<comment><USER5> For what it's worth, I couldn't see anything to click other than "Sign up" or "Sign in", so I closed the tab. I don't sign up to sites before I play with them. So, if I can't tinker with something before giving up anonymity, I can't imagine I'll ever use Get.com.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear you, and I'm soo conflicted about it. On the one hand it's made it so a lot more people try out the site and have a good experience. On the other hand it drives a lot of people away instantly.

We did make it so you can sign up with email (not just Twitter/Facebook) and we made the form as simple as possible.

We're still not sure what's best overall. I'm positive we'll take down the sign up wall at some point though.

<comment><USER6> If it's like a store, you've got to let people browse the merchandise before you can make a sale. My PII has value to me, and also to you - so tempt me a bit first, then ask for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I fundamentally agree with you that that is the right approach. We'll get there. Thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A simple but seductive business model, and one whose utility is seen on here regularly...not to mention an impressive domain acquisition. Lots of luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. We worked so hard to pick a problem interesting enough, and big enough, to keep ourselves interested in the long term. Now we just have to continue to work our asses off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How do you plan to handle the quality of answers over time as products change? For example someone asks for recommendations on the best android phone. Today there may be a couple best answer but in the near future those best answers would likely be different.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're still testing this out with real data, but it looks like it's actually quite useful to have duplicates in the database. The key is how to return results to someone coming along later. We're working on that now.

We committed upfront to not letting the site become overrun with "Yahoo Answers" style duplicated/low quality stuff. We'd much rather delete useless stuff than get an extra page view or two.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> get is a neat product. similar target space that we're working on.

they made a variety of design decisions that are good ones and we are still working through. (categories, leaderboards)

i didn't really love the autotweet when i signed up, though :(

good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Really sorry about the unexpected tweet! It actually shows you that page before it tweets, but I checked logs and you were on an iPhone (which we have barely tested, to our shame), so it might have been easy to miss.

Thanks for checking out the site Josh. Like I said on Twitter, I'm a fan for a long time, so "neat" is high praise!

Good luck on Jig as well.

<comment><USER3> I signed up in a desktop browser. Please uncheck the 'follow' and 'tweet' as default options, I completely missed them as well.

It isn't worth the extra users you get to have users cursing your name out loud

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Who the heck is Jake Gold? (seriously)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's just my real name, I'm not actually anybody you should know :-)

Actually there is a famous "Jake Gold" now though, a Canadian Idol judge apparently. He's my Michael Bolton.

<comment><USER10> Congrats on the launch. I bet the Canadian Jake Gold is a no-talent ass-clown.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. It's true, he's the one that sucks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> congrats! i like three-letter domain names.

<comment><USER11> Isn't it six letters, or do you not have to type .com anymore? (If I type "get" into Chrome, I get the jquery docs. Heh.)

<comment><USER12> Write get than do CTRL + ENTER</comment></comment></comment>


Designing a New Look for Instagram, Inspired by the Community - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ianspalter/designing-a-new-look-for-instagram-inspired-by-the-community-84530eb355e3#.mkvy4x8ch <comment><USER2> Design is getting so pretentious and haughty. The icon design evolution video, the article littered with artistic buzzwords, all this song and dance for a circle in a squircle over a gradient. And the Layout, Hyperloop and Boomerang symbols are arguably even more useless and confusing than before.</comment>