Hack your motivation - <AUTHOR> http://www.bemmu.com/hack-your-motivation <comment><USER2> Lack of sustained motivation has been the bane of my existence. The only true obstacle to everything I've ever wanted in life.

The article is cool, but not enough, when I'm not motivated, I will not do anything in those articles, I will do other things that I shouldn't be doing. Does the hack call for just work for 30 seconds. I won't. I'm unmotivated, that's the problem.

The question that is quite the un-scratchable itch for me has been, how do I sustain motivation for very long periods of time. That even if it falls, it never dies out. I've my up and down moments, but what I've noticed is that my down moments are almost as good at being as dead for a while.

<comment><USER3> I have been really focusing on my motivation and willpower lately. I used to have a very similar scenario to what you describe.

What works for me is this: 1) Recognize that my willpower is limited, like a muscle it can be exhausted and needs rest. 2) Recognize that when I'm listless that it's not a moral failing, it's essentially my willpower being exhausted. 3) Never feel guilty for that feeling of listlessness, instead use it as an opportunity to rest. 4) Pay attention to what types of rest work most effectively. 5) Never try to override this rest unless it's seriously important. (And not everything can be seriously important). 6) Recognize that you don't need to feel driven to get things done. You need to do things to get things done.

When I exhaust my will, I suck at maintaining priorities. I drive on feelings, and unless I can work myself up into a stress-filled frenzy, I'm going to do the things that I'm not supposed to be doing. However, if I do work myself into a stress-frenzy, I'm going to be working erratically and inefficiently and generally be a giant pain to be around. A lot of people live in this state to cope with these problems. Drugs, caffeine, distractions, over-exaggeration all help you maintain it.

When I'm working comfortably with motivation to spare, I can choose a task and do it. I can make a plan and stick to it. I'm very efficient relatively speaking. The most noticeable thing though is I'm a lot less emotional about the things I'm doing. I'm not angry or irritated, but I'm also not really excited either. That's not to say I'm not passionate or really interested, but I'm calm. The sort of emotional outbursts are stressful, and just being under stress drains my will.

The biggest difference I've noticed though is that when I'm able to work myself down into that calm motivated state, I'm less affected by trepidation and apprehension. I don't feel guilty about the things that I have been putting off; part of that is because I've committed to not feel guilty, but a large part is that I've got some control over my feelings. When I'm stressed and my will is exhausted, I hate myself for the things I haven't done. When I'm motivated I will pick something that has been cast aside for 3 weeks and just do what needs to be done, not feeling guilty or shameful, just continuing.

The more I can keep myself in the second state, the easier it is. I don't get as stressed, so I'm less likely to fall back into the first state. So ultimately, the real challenge is how to get back to the calm motivated state when you're in the stress-frenzy state.

The simple thinking is that "I want to get stuff done" so you push yourself to work harder and frustrate yourself that you are failing. But that generates more stress and makes it harder. The less intuitive path is to let yourself rest, and not let yourself get frustrated and stressed about it. Stop procrastinating and start resting. The difference between procrastinating and resting is really just that in the former you're worrying yourself over the things you're not doing.

I've always had up and down moments. In my down moments I can be useless. So instead of trying to never have down moments, I try to make the most of them instead of struggling with them, and never spend my up moments regretting them. Over the long term this has lead to my down moments being not as bad, not as long, and less frequent.

<comment><USER4> Everything in your comment really resonates with me—except I feel mostly powerless on getting to the second state. It either happens or it doesn't.

I can easily recognize the down periods, but like segmondy, I can't (or won't) do anything about them. In a free work environment, it's easy to rationalize not working right now with "I'm listless, it's better in the long run to rest." But too many of those occasions point to larges issues, such as not really caring about the work.

I self-identify with being intrinsically driven, as well as caring about my work. So now there's the meta-guilt of not being interested and motivated enough. Along with the normal guilt of "why won't you just harden the F up and do something."

Anyway, if you have written anything else along these lines, please post a link. I'd be very interested in reading it!

<comment><USER5> Something that has helped me. I do it regardless if I want to work on it or not.

I stopped making a choice if I work on this project. I work on the project for an hour. Not because I want too (I might not) but because that is what I do.

When I hear those voices in my head that want to put it off, or I'm too tired, or let's just skip it today, we can make it up tomorrow. I (struggle sometimes to) ignore them. This isn't a question about wanting to spend that hour on the project. There isn't a question to have. I just do it.

Once you start the voice tends to go away because I'm too busy actually doing it.

I think this is why offices work the way they do. You are not given a choice. You show up to work and you have 8 hours to do it. Someone even does the planning for you! So you have nothing else to do, so it's not a choice. You just do.

As lame as it sounds, the Nike slogan in correct. (If you look you'll see all sorts of famous people with the same motto.) You just do it. Nothing else matters. That's the trick. It's incredibly hard and most people won't. But if you really want too succeed, then you will just do it.

And if not, then maybe you are beating yourself up over something that doesn't really matter to you. It's a valid question. Do you honestly want it? Or maybe something else is pushing you to want it, but you don't really care.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I also like to leave a very small task undone from the previous day to help me get jump-started the next day. So if I'm finishing programming a function and the last line needs to return something, I'll just not write that last line and put a //TODO instead. The next day it helps me get in the groove of writing code after the long break.

<comment><USER7> I've heard this phrased as always stop after some sudden progress that makes you eager to do more - as opposed to stopping when you're stuck and giving up:

if you're stuck, then when you think of the task it will be in your mind as a bete noire, as opposed to stopping where you've just made some progress and are eager to continue - then it will always be in your mind as something great to return to and make more progress.

<comment><USER8> I always feel like I get stuck way more than I make progress. :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> One thing which I can highly recommend to anyone with motivation problems and help beat the procrastination is pomodoro technique [1]. When I'm stuck or can't make the first move to get into the work mood, I just hit the pomodoro timer. Somehow the ticking clock gives me boost and puts me into hours of productive work. Always! It's the only technique which works 100% in my case. Try it out for yourself.

[1] [http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/](http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/)

<comment><USER10> I started using it when I started doing freelance work and it saved my life as working at home is much more distraction prone than working at office.

I also built Tomatoes[1] a tool that I suggest to track working time effectively.

[1] [http://tomato.es](http://tomato.es)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For me the most important thing is to start working on something first thing in the morning before I start poking around on the Internet. If I spend an hour checking up on Twitter, HN, Reddit, or whatever it totally kills my productivity for the day. If I can spend just 20-30 minutes working on work before I catch up on the day's news I have a much better time focusing on my work throughout the rest of the day.

<comment><USER12> This exactly the same for me. Just out of muscle memory, my reptilian brain starts typing Reddit or Hacker News into the URL field in my browser when I'm not paying attention. If I start my day wandering down the hacker news/reddit rabbit hole, I never really get out.

So when I wake up in the morning, literally before I do anything else on my computer, I turn on Self Control ([http://visitsteve.com/made/selfcontrol/](http://visitsteve.com/made/selfcontrol/)), which blocks sites that kill my productivity.

I've recently adopted org-mode for emacs, and it has helped immensely. Task #1 everyday: Turn on Self Control for a few hours. The last task everyday: Close all windows and make sure org-mode is greeting me when I wake up with Task #1 for the day.

<comment><USER11> We really are the same. I keep a journal in org-mode and in my .emacs I have cron-like periodic function that switches to my journal in the middle of the night so that it's the first thing I see when I unlock my computer in the morning. Something like:

      (run-at-time "23:59" 86400 (lambda ()
                                  switch-to-buffer "journal.org")))

<comment><USER12> That's an _awesome_ idea. Anything that pares down the number of decisions I have to make to jumpstart my day...

I only picked up emacs about a month ago, investing heavily in customizing it. It has seriously helped so much with my focus since it takes out all the distractions/opportunities for context switching.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The last point is particularly useful, and quite reminiscent of what 'The Now Habit'[1][2] advocates. Some weeks I get so completely burned out, I have to force myself to do nothing but 'veg out' by watching endless netflix shows through the weekend without thinking about anything else. It's hard to allow it at first because it feels like a ludicrous waste of time, but it becomes surprisingly refreshing by the end of it.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/The-Now-Habit-Overcoming- Procrastinati...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Now-Habit-Overcoming- Procrastination/dp/1585425524/)

[2] Here's a good video series that summarizes it's key points: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63Si3Gb1WSg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63Si3Gb1WSg)

<comment><USER14> Here is some slides about this technique, the approach seems interesting : [http://hashref.com/summaries/TheNowHabit.pdf](http://hashref.com/summaries/TheNowHabit.pdf) I find myself in the psychologies described.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is there any good advice on overcoming procrastination due to social anxiety? Things like phone calls, dealing with unknown people, etc. I have a fear that I am not very knowledgeable about something (like law, or buying some stuff or service) and that others will cheat me, and it causes me problems. Interestingly, if I schedule a meeting, I am willing to handle it, but if I won't, I will try to postpone a lot. And even if I gain more experience in one area, it will then creep again in in another.

<comment><USER16> This may be unrelated, but if your social anxiety is caused by fear that your social skills are inadequate, it could be helpful to recognize that the content of what you say matters much more than your presentation. When I'm nervous about my delivery in an upcoming, important conversation, it helps me to remember that some of the most fascinating and accomplished people do not always speak fluently or present well. These people include Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Paul Graham, and they certainly have not been held back by any supposed weakness in speaking style. See pg's essay, "Writing and Speaking." [http://www.paulgraham.com/speak.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/speak.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been working on a side project which falls into the category of hacking motivation. Streakflow[1] is based on Jerry Seinfeld's "don't break the chain"[1] mentality that I've seen mentioned here before. It really helps when you don't want to do something because the thought of having to start over is worse than just doing it.

[1] [http://www.streakflow.com](http://www.streakflow.com) [2] [http://lifehacker.com/5886128/how-seinfelds-productivity- sec...](http://lifehacker.com/5886128/how-seinfelds-productivity-secret-fixed- my-procrastination-problem)

</comment><comment><USER18> I think the core of the motivation issue is the NOW vs longer term achievements, so my suggestion is to push longer term achievements to the "now court". How?

Well, think in byproducts of your current work: are you working on an algorithm that is complex? write an article explaining it after you understand it. Did you find an unknown development library that was very useful to your work, share it! So I see small branches of your current work that produce many deliveries.

Another way to solve the motivation issue is working with someone. This is the core idea on pair-programming.

If someone is interested I have concrete examples about delivering byproducts.

<comment><USER19> What are some byproduct examples? I'm interested in doing more of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> My latest theory[1] on doing things, when not motivated:

      - do nothing, stay stably where you are.
      - let the 'reluctance' wash off a little.
      - keep doing nothing (don't get drawn away)
      - make the smallest step toward your task
      - do nothing
      - make an additional tiny steps
      - hopefully[1] steps will get easier, and bigger
      - the momentum of overcoming the lack of motivation
        and making progress will bring a little joy

[1] Obviously that's only my personal anecdotal experience, based on difficulty in doing physical exercise or learning music. Many times I didn't feel capable, aching, frustrated... Just putting myself into situation and see how things can go has been leading to regular surprises.

tl; dr : long warm up time.

</comment><comment><USER21> A great hack which I use (still not very good at it though) is the 2 minute technique in the GTD book. Although in the book, the author advocates it in a different manner, I prefer to use it to stop my procrastination.

So I say to myself, let me just work on the code for 2 minutes, not more. And believe me, 2 minutes is a long time! By the time the 2 mins is over I don't even notice and continue coding. This also really helps me in guitar practice. Learning a new song, or a a lick is pleasant. It's the mundane repetitive exercises one needs to do to increase the strength and endurance of your fingers. So again I say to myself, let me just do it for 2 minutes. Believe me, on certain days, that 2 minutes ends up to 4-5 hours of practice.

</comment><comment><USER22> [http://lesswrong.com/lw/9wr/my_algorithm_for_beating_procras...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/9wr/my_algorithm_for_beating_procrastination/) i found this article and discussion useful

<comment><USER23> Thanks for posting that. I had got about 80% of the way towards a similar model myself, but to see one laid out and formalized like that was very helpful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Also check out The Motivation Hacker by Nick Winter. That book is awesome and Nick talks about going from being too nervous to order at Taco Bell to being asked to speak at various tech and hacker conventions.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A really nice read. I'd also suggest treating one's life as a debugging session once in a while… A few choice `printf` insertions and re-running can sometimes make a world of difference. :)

<comment><USER25> Can you give more details and maybe examples of this?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's really nothing sophisticated. It's just stepping back once in a while and looking at what's not working, trying again while changing something small and noting what does work. Surely, you already do this at some level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> My five cents: Watch Iron Man. Always gets my nerd going.

</comment><comment><USER27> I think this is all well and good, there are always things we procrastinate.

However, I think if you need to run your life like this... maybe look at what you're doing, as a whole. I don't think you should have to hack your motivation, or anything else, to get it to work.</comment>


Hundreds of Chinese Fishing Vessels Off Galapagos - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/27/chinese-fishing-vessels-galapagos-islands <comment><USER2> Is this them? [https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-92.4/cent...](https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-92.4/centery:-2.7/zoom:6)</comment>


Why Distributed Teams are Less Effective (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/07/05/the-power-of-in-person-why-distributed-teams-are-less-effective/ <comment><USER3> I disagree, and I've pitched companies to Suster and other VCs who've held this viewpoint. It's unfortunately very widely held by VCs, and in some cases is rather extreme, with certains VCs demanding you not only be non- distributed, but that you be non-distributed in specific places.

I become a believer in distributed teams from my experiences working on open source projects. In those cases, it's not possible to coalesce the team physically except on rare occasions. They seem to work just fine.

Anecdotally, the best teams I've ever worked on were distributed, and I will continue to start companies with distributed teams and work with companies as a distributed team member.

I will say that I think getting everyone together on a regular basis is good and useful. It makes the social dynamics much better if everyone can be reminded that their coworkers are actual people every 6-12 weeks.

Hiring for distributed teams is both easier and harder. On the one hand, you can choose anyone, anywhere, and many people in non-name brand locations are hugely excited by the idea of working on small teams on cool projects. The downside is that it takes more discipline to be effective on a distributed team, and you must have vastly superior communication skills than the norm. Lots of perfectly smart and capable people can't or don't enjoy working that way. You often don't know until a few weeks in.

<comment><USER4> Definitely. We've found that the most important thing bar none is getting the best people, dedicated to a common cause. If you can't get a key person because they want to keep the home they bought on some island, you're far worse off than if you have to Skype them or whatever. Also, a few of the best companies I know are distributed. 37signals, GitHub to name a few prominent ones. If they are not great evidence that it's workable and can be widely, I don't know what is.

<comment><USER5> I'd also add to the lisT: Automattic, Wildbit (half the team is remote), Teamtreehouse.com (studio in Florida, head office in Portland).

Funny how all of the companies we've listed (37signals, GitHub, Automattic, etc...) are products that I love (and pay for!).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have no qualms with what Suster writes here. At the same time, I've encountered a number of very powerful counterexamples that gives me pause.

\- 37signals: Renowned for its strong company culture, 37signals talks often about how having a distributed team is a competitive advantage because it allows them to hire the very best fit (excellence at work and culture fit) without regard to location.

\- Singly: Up-and-coming post-Series A company. I've gotten to know them because they use my product iDoneThis (<http://idonethis.com>) to replace their daily standup. Neither their CTO nor their VP of Engineering works on site in SF and they are an API company! Yet they have an extremely strong engineering culture, and much of it revolves around a no nonsense approach to work and zero tolerance of meetings, and that's facilitated by being distributed.

\- Ravelry: They've not only built a tight-knit team that's distributed, they've built a ravenous community and fan base with their product (2M+ users). They've said that because they're distributed, that makes them work extra hard on communication and making work fun.

</comment><comment><USER7> > _In a world where 90% of communications is non-verbal imagine what is lost > on conference calls._

On the flipside, a significant percentage of people who work in the tech sector seem to be introverted, or sometimes even autistic (although it is hard to draw a clear distinction between the two). Many of them don't really "get" non-verbal communication anyway, even in a face-to-face setting. Even if they do, non-verbal communication tends to be much less efficient for these people. As a result, I doubt that relying exclusively on verbal communication results in such a large loss as the author describes.

> _The culture is forged through office parties, poker, paintball or film > nights. And slowly, over the years, those crazy stories about Danny passed > out in the company bathroom after the Summer party get replaced by weddings, > births and family picnics. We become more than dispassionate colleagues – > we've been in the trenches together and survived._

And this is exactly the kind of office culture that introverted and/or autistic techies tend to hate, or even positively despise. Office parties? Boring. Danny's bathroom episode? Idle chitchat. Paintball? No, I'd rather go home early and play my favorite FPS game. And I thought I'd be able to avoid those stupid corporate events if I worked for a lean startup! No thanks.

In short, I think that the author is approaching the topic of distributed teams from a rather biased point of view, namely, the viewpoint of a corporate executive who is proud of his "social skillz" and expects everyone else to enjoy the pointless parties he throws.

<comment> barry-cotter _On the flipside, a significant percentage of people who work in the tech sector seem to be introverted, or sometimes even autistic (alth:ough it bis hard to draw a clear distinction between the two)._

Introverts are not all autistic and autists are not all introverts. I'm not even aware of any research on the correlation between the two. Plenty of autistic people must be by nature extroverted; extroverts are at the very least 40% of the population.

If I was introverted I would be pissed off by your post; you're comparing a large social disability with a disinclination for small talk and glad handing. As an actual Asperger's person I am pissed off to be lumped in with introverts automatically.

Introversion is not a disorder and neither is it misanthropy. If you don't want to go to the office party, don't. A pattern of similar decisions can damage a career. Deal with it; we're social _animals_.

<comment><USER8> _Deal with it; we're social animals._

This makes a nice punchline for your joke, but the thing is -- we no longer have as much in common with a tiger in the jungle as we once did. While a social animal may want to spend time in-fighting in their pack to increase their status by winning petty fights and publicly rutting with the most eligible female, some small percentage of humanity has gained a touch of wisdom and tries to accomplish goals for other reasons.

Don't lump everyone into your 'social animals' tirade. People like the Dalai Lama have shown that you truly can rise above the petty politics.

<comment><USER9> The _Dalai Lama_!?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is from 2010. Let me offer one counterpoint to this, from my own experience:

Hiring is way easier when you allow your team to be distributed.

I need a developer -- I go on oDesk.com, and together with one of my developers who will be his future partner, we go through profiles and "hunt" for a good fit. Once you remove the geographic restriction, you will find SO much talent. And for the payroll and staffing issues we literally pay 10% to odesk. Compare that with how much staffing agencies would charge on top of the salary (I know, I've been placed many times as a consultant where the agency would take 50-90% on top of the hourly salary I wound up being paid).

Remote workers can work part time. They don't have to commute 2 hours a day. Remote workers are more OK with having odesk take screenshots of their desktop so I know they are working for the time I paid them. Remote workers often have lower cost of living and a startup can't really afford to pay local developers a competitive salary unless they are well funded.

I think Linux and other open source projects show just how effective distributed development can be. Github and other tools are being used by local teams, blurring the line between local and distributed. And also, I've found that the more asynchronous communication we have, the more disciplined we are. For example, if you have an issue, put it in the project tracker instead of talking about it.

Basically, I think that for something as virtual as software development, being distributed can be a real plus, and people can really be more free. This has also become the case with music production and voiceovers, as a friend of mine who owns a major sound studio recently told me.

<comment><USER11> > Remote workers are more OK with having odesk take screenshots of their > desktop so I know they are working for the time I paid them.

Probably not very good remote workers if you have to do that, and if they accept you to do that. (I otherwise agree with most of your points)

<comment><USER12> A classmate I respect and who I think is decently skilled started out on Odesk (not very easy to get out of the low paying jobs here in Uruguay), and he accepted the screenshots as part of doing business.

The people that hired him were happy and eventually dropped Odesk in favor of a more permanent relationship, but I think neither my classmate nor the people doing the work were in the wrong, or "not very good". You have to be willing to jump through more hoops sometimes if you're not from the U.S. or Europe.

<comment><USER11> Yes, I understand. I don't mean that all such remote workers are bad. What I mean is, that kind of thing is a filter that removes good people who wouldn't do that kind of thing. Developers do much better work when there isn't anybody spying on their shoulder. It is the customers who get worse results when they don't understand that (except for programmers who won't work unless somebody is looking at their shoulder... but then you really don't want to hire those).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can think of examples where it works well to be distributed and ones where it doesn't.

PostgreSQL is a very distributed development group. There are small clusters of developers in many places throughout the world, but even then generally don't gather more than once per month. Sure, there are plenty of user groups and conferences, but it's not an every-week kind of thing.

And the postgres project really delivers. A strong release once per year with a variety of features; balanced between new innovations, performance, robustness, manageability, etc. It's hard to beat that.

I think the worst situation to be in is where you have very strong clusters and a few satellite developers or groups of developers. What happens is that the satellite developers are simply out of the loop, and don't even know what decisions are being made.

Either delegate components very clearly between remote groups, or go all distributed, or completely local.

</comment><comment><USER14> It sounds to me like your experience in a remote team was sub-par, but that doesn't make remote teams bad... just that one.

Culture, chatter, gossip, staying up all night to get a release done... all of this can be done with remote teams if you have the right tools and you build it into your culture.

Of course there are pros and cons for remote teams, but my experience is that the pros far outweigh the cons.

I work in a team that has us spread across 4 countries (Australia, Poland, UK and Brazil) and very clashing time zones. It works amazingly well.

We have much more talented people working in our team than we could have gotten if we restricted our search to the local area only. I am positive having better staff far outweighs any cons of being remote.

My recommendation to anyone but my competitors would be to seriously consider a remote team.

</comment><comment><USER15> Just like with anything else, the execution is what it all comes down to. Distributed teams are easy to mess up and hard to get right. If you're betting a sizeable chunk of money on some company and you are incapable of evaluating whether or not they have a distributed team that functions well then you should probably stay clear of it.

I've seen spectacular results and spectacular failures in distributed teams, it all depended on management, selection and processes in place to keep things moving. Mess up any of those and you won't be able to run a distributed team, but then again you probably won't be able to run a local one either.

</comment><comment><USER16> When comparing two otherwise identical teams, the distributed one is probably the less effective. That's not the situation most companies are facing. A company looking to hire me that was competitive on most other fronts and stood out by letting me work remotely from Thailand would instantly jump to the top of my list. Many people for whom your company would not even be on the radar, let alone in the running, are suddenly realistic hires.

<comment><USER17> It depends why you distribute.

He says "key developers might be OK, cheap developers are not." And "at our stage of development we were better off with a smaller, locally-based team."

<comment><USER16> Yes, the reasoning for his situation is totally legit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> That article felt like him saying "I don't like it" 10 times

<comment><USER19> exactly why I stopped reading it about 60% in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've always believed that working remote is the future. The next step in the evolution of how we as humans do work. It's still early and the next decade will bring improved tools.

</comment><comment><USER20> A lot of the foundation of Agile is improving communication. Communication works better face to face. Whether there are mitigating factors such as not being able to get really awesome people to participate is another question, but I've no doubt that my #1 problem with developers is how to facilitate their communication.

You can only get so many people to communicate well on a team anyway. 10 at most and you're into the Mythical Man Month. That being the case, you find the 10 best people who have good chemistry together, that's job #1. Job #2 is to colocate them if you can, but let's say it is a less significant digit than Job #1.

BTW, developers also need to be able to concentrate. That's another thing that fights with the communication imperative. I'm all in favor of at least 2 of the 5 week days being work at home days.

</comment><comment><USER4> A big reason distributed teams fail is because companies don't understand how to properly organize and nurture them.

</comment><comment><USER21> The right group of distributed teammates on the right product and project is fucking amazing. Its all about recruiting and constant communication with video. Seeings someone's face makes all the difference.

</comment><comment><USER22> It's a shame that this article focussed on startups, because the problems outlined are endemic to _any_ endeavour where a large amount of ideas and knowledge have to be exchanged between individuals with as little friction as is humanly possible.

In my own current case, that situation is a project moving from requirements capture to functional specification, where a _huge_ amount of this sort of interchange has to happen, but is being prevented due to geographical separation of client business analysts and the technical design people. The remote collaboration tools have not been written that can even begin to substitute for a quick question over the cube wall, or an insight gained / misunderstanding overturned though a serendipitous ad-hoc conversation.

Sadly there is a pervasive management myth that office space to colocate teams is too expensive, and can be replaced by weekly meetings, email, communicator, exchanged documents and spreadsheets and the like. Wrong.

</comment><comment><USER23> I've been working on distributed teams for over 2 years now. I very much prefer it and I find that personally I am more productive. I've also started a business with a parter who is remote. In 2 years we've only met twice. It helps that we are in the same timezone but any level of stagnation has not been a result of our location. When we eventually hire developers I would like to hire local so I can have in person social meetings with my team, but I would not want to have an office as I feel the trust and flexibility of working from your own environment can have a massive impact on a mature professionals creative output.

</comment><comment><USER24> (lightly edited copy of my usual plea for evidence on this topic ;-)

Pretty much all the evidence (rather than anecdote) I can find shows that co- located teams in a single team room environment are the most productive - <USER2> other things being equal.

(And I'm saying this as somebody who spends a lot of their time working from home, and talking to other folk over Skype, etc. There are reasons for telecommuting - personal preference, getting access to people who cannot co- locate, etc. But for business productivity I'm not seeing much, if any, evidence).

Please not that I am not saying:

* That working alone in an office is bad / will cause projects to fail

* Telecommuting is bad (I do it - I like it)

* Telecommuting projects will fail (D'oh - of course not)

* You shouldn't telecommute (of course you should if you want to - but bear in mind that the business may have good reasons to disagree with that decision)

* That telecommuting makes you individually less productive (I'm personally unsure about this. I feel more productive when working by myself, but I know that personal perceptions of productivity can be false. Measuring personal vs team/company productivity becomes hard in anything less than the short term)

* That co-location is always the best solution (it isn't - other factors like team location and skills come into play)

What I am saying is that there is a lot of research showing that co-located teams in team-room like settings are much more productive. This runs counter to many developers preferences (mine too ;-) so it tends to get ignored.

So much more productive that solutions like 'Let's fly everybody to the same place and pay their room and board for a month' can be cost effective.

Here are some references to the research (If anybody has any research that contradicts this I'd love to hear about it. Especially if it talks about actual measured metrics of productivity - rather that self-reported 'I felt just as productive at home' ones.)

\----

"It doesn't take much distance before a team feels the negative effects of distribution - the effectiveness of collaboration degrades rapidly with physical distance. People located closer in a building are more likely to collaborate (Kraut, Egido & Galegher 1990). Even at short distances, 3 feet vs. 20 feet, there is an effect (Sensenig & Reed 1972). A distance of 100 feet may be no better than several miles (Allen 1977). A field study of radically collocated software development teams,[...], showed significantly higher productivity and satisfaction than industry benchmarks and past projects within the firm (Teasley et al., 2002). Another field study compared interruptions in paired, radically-collocated and traditional, cube-dwelling software development teams, and found that in the former interruptions were greater in number but shorter in duration and more on-task (Chong and Siino 2006). Close proximity improves productivity in all cases." \-- <http://conway.isri.cmu.edu/~jdh/VRC-2008>

"Based on the empirical evidence, we have constructed a model of how remote communication and knowledge management, cultural diversity and time differences negatively impact requirements gathering, negotiations and specifications. Findings reveal that aspects such as a lack of a common understanding of requirements, together with a reduced awareness of a working local context, a trust level and an ability to share work artefacts significantly challenge the effective collaboration of remote stakeholders in negotiating a set of requirements that satisfies geographically distributed customers" \-- <http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00766-003-0173-1>

"Our results show that, compared to same-site work, cross-site work takes much longer and requires more people for work of equal size and complexity. We also report a strong relationship between delay in cross-site work and the degree to which remote colleagues are perceived to help out when workloads are heavy" \-- [http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?reload=true&#...](http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?reload=true&tp=&arnumber=919083&isnumber=19875)

"Our findings reveal that: software developers have different types of coordination needs; coordination across sites is more challenging than within a site; team knowledge helps members coordinate, but more so when they are separated by geographic distance; and the effect of different types of team knowledge on coordination effectiveness differs between co-located and geographically dispersed collaborators." \-- [http://kraut.hciresearch.org/sites/kraut.hciresearch.org/fil...](http://kraut.hciresearch.org/sites/kraut.hciresearch.org/files/articles/Espinosa07-CoordinationInGlobalSWDevelopment.pdf)

"One key finding is that distributed work items appear to take about two and one-half times as long to complete as similar items where all the work is colocated" -- [http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi?doc=doi/10.1109/...](http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi?doc=doi/10.1109/TSE.2003.1205177)

"Our study of six teams that experienced radical collocation showed that in this setting they produced remarkable productivity improvements. Although the teammates were not looking forward to working in close quarters, over time they realized the benefits of having people at hand, both for coordination, problem solving and learning.Teams in these warrooms showed a doubling of productivity" -- <http://possibility.com/Misc/p339-teasley.pdf>

"Despite the positive impact of emerging communication technologies on scientific research, our results provide striking evidence for the role of physical proximity as a predictor of the impact of collaborations." -- [http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0014279)

"Groups with high common ground and loosely coupled work, with readiness both for collaboration and collaboration technology, have a chance at succeeding with remote work. Deviations from each of these create strain on the relationships among teammates and require changes in the work or processes of collaboration to succeed. Often they do not succeed because distance still matters" -- <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1463019>

<comment><USER25> Thanks for curating this list. It is really interesting to see that my intuition about distributed teams has theoretical backing :D.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> One important property of face-to-face meetings compared to Skype chats that looks like nothing has mentioned before is the sense of responsibility.

It's far easier to turn off Skype for a day or two and give some crap excuses for whatever went wrong rather than look into persons eyes and talk about it.

Obviously it's not a perfect scenario and we expect those things not to happen but well, the world is not perfect and they do happen.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've updated the title to indicate that it was written 3 years ago. How have things changed?

<comment><USER27> Transferring the person (incl. moving, flight, cost of living) is still high- cost. Transferring the information about/from the person becomes cheaper-and- cheaper. So I suppose things get (slowly) better for remote teams over time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > magic

Sounds as rational as the ancient aliens guy.</comment>


Angry Birds cross 500 million downloads - <AUTHOR> http://www.arcticstartup.com/2011/11/02/breaking-angry-birds-cross-500-million-downloads

<comment><USER2> I've never understood why or how Angry Birds had become such a phenomenon. It managed to really separate itself from a plethora of mobile games and seems like it's the modern day version of Pac-Man. I've even saw a Today interview where Dick Cheney says that he plays it on the iPad. I would've thought with the plush toys and Chrome OS commercials that they would soon jump the shark.

Congratulations to Rovio for creating a game that's universally loved by people of all ages.

<comment><USER3> > I've never understood why or how Angry Birds had become such a phenomenon

See [http://www.mauronewmedia.com/blog/2011/02/why-angry-birds- is...](http://www.mauronewmedia.com/blog/2011/02/why-angry-birds-is-so- successful-a-cognitive-teardown-of-the-user-experience/) for a detailed analysis from a design perspective. Great read. It doesn't explain all the "why and how"-s, but does provide some interesting clues.

<comment><USER2> Thank you for the link. It was extremely interesting. This explains why my two favorite games on iOS (Canabalt and The Impossible Game) were never quite as popular as Angry Birds.

<comment><USER4> Man, I love The Impossible Game. Have you beat all four levels? I'm stuck on the "let's flip all this shit upside down randomly" level.

<comment><USER2> I haven't got past the first level, but that is the reasoning behind the first link. Short-term memory only lasts for so long and there is only so many things you can keep. Angry Birds is something you can play naturally with only your instincts. For a challenge you have to get three stars.

At its core, both The Impossible Game and Angry Birds are simple, but one is more successful to past to the next level. If you get one star on Angry By Birds, you can pass. On The Impossible game you have to have timing and be aware of what is coming up. I suspect this is the reason why the original Super Mario Bros. became so popular.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not sure how many of those were the 'Lite' (free version). My guess is that once Angry Birds started getting rave reviews, lots of people started downloading the Lite version. Still that is a lot of downloads =)

</comment><comment><USER6> What's the point of these kind of announcement when there is no data to back it up? They could have just as well made this up and there's no third party measurement that can validate their numbers.

Rovio is just milking this cow to the max and until they announced or released another hit game, it's all a show.</comment>


Gradiator - CSS3 Gradients for Linux - <AUTHOR> http://gradient.inatorapp.com/ <comment><USER2> And what does this mean? "Gradiator was made on Windows with proprietary software" ? It looks like it was made with Adobe AIR

<comment><USER3> It almost seems like a troll to me. It was written in Python.

<comment><USER4> Looking at the parent site CaffeinatedCo.de (<http://caffeinatedco.de>), they're a new "web design and development company." Their portfolio is empty at the moment, but Pun-King (<http://pun-king.com>) seems to be their other website. It's basically just a list of puns with a submit feature.

Not much to look at, although Gradiator looks somewhat useful.

Edit: Here are the authors:

George Czabania: <http://stayradiated.com/>

Jono Cooper: <http://jonocooper.com/> and <https://twitter.com/consindo>

<comment><USER5> dude, they're high school students! Don't expect to see 20 sites and 12 apps on the site!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Since our first computers were Dells and not Macs, Gradiator is free software."

Umm what? This whole thing (osx screen shoot, the bit about being developed on windows, ...) smells like a jape to me.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm quite confused. It's a CSS3 gradient generator for linux, yet the screenshot shows an image of an OS X app and the footer mentions it was developed on Windows.

I can only then assume it's an Adobe AIR app, in which case why isn't it just a desktop CSS Gradient generator for all three platforms and why not also make it a standard website if it's just HTML and Javascript?

<comment><USER8> It's written in JavaScript. As far as I'm aware Adobe dropped support for AIR on Linux.

We're almost finished with the Mac version of Gradiator.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> <http://todo.inatorapp.com> \- also work by jonocooper. One chrome app (over 1000 users), one ubuntu app (mac version in dev), three websites (though not all finished), doesn't seem like a bad effort for a high school student.

</comment><comment><USER10> why isn't this a web app?

<comment><USER11> Even the first google hit for "css3 gradient designer" seems to have more features, <http://www.colorzilla.com/gradient-editor/>

Is this a joke?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very nice. All my mac-wielding colleageues at work have had access to nice gradient tools and as the sole ubuntu user I was missing something similar. Great work.

</comment><comment><USER13> What a hero.

</comment><comment><USER5> You're all thinking too much!If you look at their site, they say they're high school students.</comment>


Ask HN: What are good resources on web scraping? - <AUTHOR> I am learning Python for data mining and analysis. Please suggest your favorite books, blogs, guides, or tutorials. <comment><USER2> Mostly this: [https://requests.readthedocs.io/en/master/](https://requests.readthedocs.io/en/master/) [https://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/bs4/doc/](https://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/bs4/doc/)</comment>


Scientists discover one of the most Earth-like planets yet - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/29/5854630/scientists-discover-one-of-the-most-earth-like-planets-yet-gliese-832c

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a very strong feeling that we will definitely find other non-earth life forms within the next couple of decades.</comment>


Best Hiring Practices - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/06/mba-mondays-best-hiring-practices.html <comment><USER2> > A HR professional can identify the candidates who don't come close to > meeting the requirements of the job and filter them out.

In my experience this is mostly not true. Most HR people don't know tech so what the HR screen devolves into is cramming your CV with acronyms so you make it pass the HR grep filter.

> You will want to interview a decent number of folks for every position.

If you're bringing in more than five people for onsite interviews then (IMHO) you're doing it wrong. You're wasting your time and theirs and it's clear to me that you don't know what you're looking for.

At least Fred advocates phone/video screens (of 15 minutes) although he suggests 6-12 onsite candidates.

> Many employees don't know how to interview and you should teach them the > basics ...

This is true but I would go further: most people shouldn't interview. It's arguably a talent not a skill. At Google, it's viewed as every engineer's responsibility to do interviews and I disagree with this. Many of the stories of bad interview experiences can be attributed--at least in part--to people who just don't have the interest or talent in interviewing.

Anecdote: in one quarter I once took 10 people to lunch as part of their interview slate. In those lunches I just talked about the company, answered their questions, etc but didn't get into any technical discussions.

Of those 10 I predicted 8 wouldn't get offers, 1 would and 1 I was borderline. Actual results: 1 offer, 9 no offers putting me at 9-10 out of 10.

> If you connect to the candidate on LinkedIn, you can quickly figure out who > you know that knows them.

What an incestuous world the NY/SF tech scene must be if this is true. Well it might be true if you're a veteran VC. I can't see it being true for anyone else.

Otherwise this is all straightforward good advice although it skips the most important step: how to determine if someone is a good fit and competent but that's a topic we'll probably argue about in perpetuity.

<comment><USER3> 1) I could tolerate HR screening for _completely_ random people, who apply via a web form or cold email. Of course, I don't think I have ever hired or seen someone hired that way.

Anyone who comes in as a referral (from investors, employees, friends, etc.) shouldn't be speaking to anyone in HR until after an offer letter is signed. The only possible exception would be having HR handle travel arrangements for on-site interview, but even that should probably be handled by whoever does travel for the team in general (or the hiring manager if everyone normally does it themselves).

HR involvement will basically add zero value AND screen against your most competent 10% of candidates.

I'd probably walk out if an HR person talked to me, or someone tried to put HR in as a gatekeeper. I have met a couple of minimally competent HR people ever, and many more who were criminally incompetent.

2) 2-3 interviews with multiple people in each can work. It really depends on the role. What I'd probably prefer is 2 real interviews with 1-3 people in each, and then lunch where you get to meet a bunch more people casually (and basically be sold on the company), and then after lunch, an interview with founders (if they weren't in already). You can short circuit and send people home after the morning meetings if they're horrible, and after lunch if they're not-hire-now-but-maybe-in-the-future-or-may-have-competent-friends.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> _The first step in opening up a position for hiring is to define the position you are looking for. Most companies call this a job specification (or spec)._

I'm still shocked at the number of employers who _don't_ create one before they start looking for somebody. Especially those who don't think about how the new hire will fit into the existing organisation.

For example, I've seen this pattern multiple times.

a) Lead Developer (let's call 'em Mary) gets massively overloaded. No time to do the numerous things she's asked to do.

2) "We need another Mary" is as far as the job spec goes.

3) They find "Bob" who is, indeed, mostly another Mary. Bob gets pulled off onto NewFunProject, since Mary is waist deep in keeping CoreCompanyProduct running. Pattern repeats.

4) Mary rapidly gets rather annoyed that Bob gets to play with all the fun new projects, and promptly finds herself a nice new job. Walking away with a head's worth of CoreCompanyProduct that never got to Bob.

5) Bob gets massively overloaded. Goto 2.

Hiring is _not_ what you should do to fix a short term problem.

<comment><USER5> The fundamental problem in your example has nothing to do with hiring. It's that Mary is working on something that she dislikes to the point that having to continue on her project in the medium term will cause her to quit. It's both the company and the employee's joint responsibility to ensure that this isn't the case.

<comment><USER4> I'd argue that it has _everything_ to do with poor hiring practices :-) I should have made it clearer that at (a) you have a happy, but overloaded employee.

By hiring somebody else, and by not thinking it through what that person should do in the context of the current workforce, a happy employee becomes an unhappy one.

Before they hired Bob - before they even start looking for a Bob - they should have had a good idea what "Bob" would be doing, how that's going to fit in with what Mary's doing now, and that everybody is happy with that.

Nobody went in with the idea that "Mary will get the dull stuff and Bob will get the neat stuff" since that's obviously a dumb decision. But because nobody had articulated what _exactly_ Bob should be doing, and how that may or may interact with Mary's role, bad things happened.

If they'd thought about it, written a job spec, and talked to Mary some of these issues would have come up. They would have probably figured out that "We need another Mary" wasn't what they _actually_ needed. When a company is growing "another Mary" is almost always the wrong thing to ask for - since as the company grows roles change.

By looking to define the role they would have found out that Mary does Q, W, X, Y, & Z. She's not very hot at Q since it's not a core skill, but she's really passionate about X, Y and Z, and W needs to get done and she's happy to do it. So maybe what the company needs is for Mary to focus on X, Y & Z, and get somebody else who's good at Q and W... or two different people who are good at Q and W.... or some other option.

Hiring is _exactly_ what makes this happen - and I've seen it more than once.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wilson suggests contacting references not provided by the candidate. That can be a major breach of privacy.

When people are looking for jobs -- particularly while employed elsewhere -- they are entitled to do so discreetly. If employer-directed reference checks are a requirement, candidates should be made completely aware of that and be given an opportunity to opt out. If that halts the hiring process, that's fine. At least the applicant retains control of his or her privacy.

<comment><USER7> > Wilson suggests contacting references not provided by the candidate. That > can be a major breach of privacy.

He mentions it casually, so I don't know what exactly he meant.

I know that I did as he recommended -- but before I contacted a reference not provided by the candidate, I asked them if it was ok to make that contact. In most cases, the answer is "sure, go ahead", or "that's ok, I guess". When the answer is "I rather you wouldn't", the story is often interesting and relevant to your hiring decision.

<comment><USER8> Conversely... I know a guy who worked with a well-known startup founder, but he didn't list that founder as a reference, because he was sure he'd burned his bridges. Just so happened that the hiring manager had the founder on speed-dial. Later that night, the manager calls the founder, who says: "If I were to start a new company right now, that's the guy I'd want with me."

You never know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> _Many employees don't know how to interview and you should teach them the basics as well as educate them on what you are looking to learn from their interview_

If you're in the position of doing interviews for the first time, and don't have anybody around to teach you the basics, I would _thoroughly_ recommend getting a copy of Lou Adler's book "Hire With Your Head". It has some really excellent advice on how to approach interviewing, and the hiring process in general.

There's a brief article on Adler's site that covers accomplishment based interviewing that you can find at [http://www.adlerconcepts.com/resources/column/interviewing/u...](http://www.adlerconcepts.com/resources/column/interviewing/use_the_onequestion_interview.php).

Having a focus on accomplishment based questions - drilling down into a candidates' experiences on real projects - is a hugely useful technique. Talking about the work in detail helps you separate candidates that interview well from those with real skills.

<comment><USER9> that is great advice. thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A lot of this post is eerily similar to one of my old blog posts: [http://voltsteve.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/why-should-i-join- yo...](http://voltsteve.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/why-should-i-join-your-start- up.html)

I'm not claiming the author lifted any of the content but I am curious as to whether or not he/she had read my post in the past?

<comment><USER11> Wait, you don't know who the author is and you call yourself a tech recruiter?

Fred Wilson has invested in what, 100 tech companies? He has been writing MBA Monday's posts for years. This post has multiple hundreds of comments on it. There are probably hundreds of retweets and comments on Twitter about it (you know, another company he invested in).

I'm pretty sure he didn't need your blog post to give advice on hiring.

<comment><USER12> Hey, it could happen. After all, Google stole my idea to make a self-driving car.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> From the submitted article: "The first step in opening up a position for hiring is to define the position you are looking for. Most companies call this a job specification (or spec)."

But then the article, which after all is titled, "Best Hiring Practices," doesn't go into detail about how to use that information to build a good hiring procedure to screen in the best applicants for each job. There are many discussions here on HN about company hiring procedures. From participants in earlier discussions I have learned about many useful references on the subject, which I have gathered here in a FAQ file. The review article by Frank L. Schmidt and John E. Hunter, "The Validity and Utility of Selection Models in Personnel Psychology: Practical and Theoretical Implications of 85 Years of Research Findings," Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 124, No. 2, 262-274

[http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%...](http://mavweb.mnsu.edu/howard/Schmidt%20and%20Hunter%201998%20Validity%20and%20Utility%20Psychological%20Bulletin.pdf)

sums up, current to 1998, a meta-analysis of much of the HUGE peer-reviewed professional literature on the industrial and organizational psychology devoted to business hiring procedures. There are many kinds of hiring criteria, such as in-person interviews, telephone interviews, resume reviews for job experience, checks for academic credentials, and so on. There is much published study research on how job applicants perform after they are hired in a wide variety of occupations.

The overall summary of the industrial psychology research in reliable secondary sources is that two kinds of job screening procedures work reasonably well (but only about at the 0.5 level, standing alone). One is a general mental ability (GMA) test (an IQ-like test, such as the Wonderlic personnel screening test). Another is a work-sample test, where the applicant does an actual task or group of tasks like what the applicant will do on the job if hired. Each of these kinds of tests has about the same validity in screening applicants for jobs, with the general cognitive ability test better predicting success for applicants who will be trained into a new job. Neither is perfect (both miss some good performers on the job, and select some bad performers on the job), but both are better than any other single-factor hiring procedure that has been tested in rigorous research, across a wide variety of occupations. So if you are hiring for your company, it's a good idea to think about how to build a work-sample test into all of your hiring processes.

For legal reasons in the United States (the same legal reason does not apply in other countries), it is difficult to give job applicants general mental ability tests as a straight-up IQ test (as was commonplace in my parents' generation) as a routine part of hiring procedures. The Griggs v. Duke Power, 401 U.S. 424 (1971) case in the United States Supreme Court

[http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8655598674229196...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=8655598674229196978&q=Griggs+Duke+Power&hl=en&as_sdt=2,24)

held that general intelligence tests used in hiring that could have a "disparate impact" on applicants of some protected classes must "bear a demonstrable relationship to successful performance of the jobs for which it was used." In other words, a company that wants to use a test like the Wonderlic, or like the SAT, or like the current WAIS or Stanford-Binet IQ tests, in a hiring procedure had best conduct a specific validation study of the test related to performance on the job in question. Some companies do the validation study, and use IQ-like tests in hiring. Other companies use IQ-like tests in hiring and hope that no one sues (which is not what I would advise any company). Note that a brain-teaser-type test used in a hiring procedure could be challenged as illegal if it can be shown to have disparate impact on some job applicants. A company defending a brain-teaser test for hiring would have to defend it by showing it is supported by a validation study demonstrating that the test is related to successful performance on the job. Such validation studies can be quite expensive. (Companies outside the United States are regulated by different laws. One other big difference between the United States and other countries is the relative ease with which workers may be fired in the United States, allowing companies to correct hiring mistakes by terminating the employment of the workers they hired mistakenly. The more legal protections a worker has from being fired, the more careful companies have to be about hiring in the first place.)

The social background to the legal environment in the United States is explained in many books about hiring procedures

[http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SRv- GZkw6...](http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SRv- GZkw6TEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA271&dq=Validity+and+Utility+of+Selection+Models+in+Personnel+Psychology&ots=iCXkgXrlOV&sig=ctblj9SW2Dth7TceaFSNIdVMoEw#v=onepage&q=Validity%20and%20Utility%20of%20Selection%20Models%20in%20Personnel%20Psychology&f=false)

[http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SRv- GZkw6...](http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SRv- GZkw6TEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA95&dq=Validity+and+Utility+of+Selection+Models+in+Personnel+Psychology&ots=iCXkgXrnMW&sig=LKLi- deKtnP20VYZo9x0jfvqzLI#v=onepage&q=Validity%20and%20Utility%20of%20Selection%20Models%20in%20Personnel%20Psychology&f=false)

[http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=frfUB3GWl...](http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=frfUB3GWlMYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA9&dq=Validity+and+Utility+of+Selection+Models+in+Personnel+Psychology+%22predictive+validity%22+Duke+Power&ots=5O9Hx_E1vY&sig=g-zERWztBWq3h4guEuv9VVkTh8I#v=onepage&q=Validity%20and%20Utility%20of%20Selection%20Models%20in%20Personnel%20Psychology%20%22predictive%20validity%22%20Duke%20Power&f=false)

Previous discussion on HN pointed out that the Schmidt & Hunter (1998) article showed that multi-factor procedures work better than single-factor procedures, a summary of that article we can find in the current professional literature, in "Reasons for being selective when choosing personnel selection procedures" (2010) by Cornelius J. König, Ute-Christine Klehe, Matthias Berchtold, and Martin Kleinmann:

"Choosing personnel selection procedures could be so simple: Grab your copy of Schmidt and Hunter (1998) and read their Table 1 (again). This should remind you to use a general mental ability (GMA) test in combination with an integrity test, a structured interview, a work sample test, and/or a conscientiousness measure."

[http://geb.uni- giessen.de/geb/volltexte/2012/8532/pdf/prepri...](http://geb.uni- giessen.de/geb/volltexte/2012/8532/pdf/preprint_j.1468_2389.2010.00485.x.pdf)

But the 2010 article notes, looking at actual practice of companies around the world, "However, this idea does not seem to capture what is actually happening in organizations, as practitioners worldwide often use procedures with low predictive validity and regularly ignore procedures that are more valid (e.g., Di Milia, 2004; Lievens & De Paepe, 2004; Ryan, McFarland, Baron, & Page, 1999; Scholarios & Lockyer, 1999; Schuler, Hell, Trapmann, Schaar, & Boramir, 2007; Taylor, Keelty, & McDonnell, 2002). For example, the highly valid work sample tests are hardly used in the US, and the potentially rather useless procedure of graphology (Dean, 1992; Neter & Ben-Shakhar, 1989) is applied somewhere between occasionally and often in France (Ryan et al., 1999). In Germany, the use of GMA tests is reported to be low and to be decreasing (i.e., only 30% of the companies surveyed by Schuler et al., 2007, now use them)."

<comment><USER14> tokenadult, this might be your best post ever and shows that you are aware of the literature on IQ, its predictive validity, and the legal difficulties around using it explicitly (though implicitly everyone is looking for smart people). Admit to being puzzled as to how this squares with the general thrust of your comments on other topics, which seem to skew more nurturist than naturist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> How often is this guy going to keep posting his own articles on here? It seems that almost as often as he WRITES articles they are posted here.

Protip: None are really very good.</comment>


Customizing the Cocoa Text System - <AUTHOR> http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/Site/cocoa-text.html <comment><USER2> Another great article about customizing key bindings: [https://macromates.com/blog/2006/multi-stroke-key- bindings/](https://macromates.com/blog/2006/multi-stroke-key-bindings/)

This one talks about using it to insert commonly used special characters.

(My own keybindings, based on this: [https://github.com/szhu/important- things/blob/39f45bb/keybin...](https://github.com/szhu/important- things/blob/39f45bb/keybindings/DefaultKeyBinding.dict))</comment>


Verlinde's new theory of gravity passes first test - <AUTHOR> http://sciencebulletin.org/archives/8258.html <comment><USER2> Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13196488](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13196488)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://motls.blogspot.ru/2011/08/once-more-gravity-is-not- en...](http://motls.blogspot.ru/2011/08/once-more-gravity-is-not-entropic- force.html)

Apparently Verlinde's theory predicts neutron decoherence in the Earth's gravitational field, contradicting well established experimental results.

</comment><comment><USER4> " _Astronomers have measured, however, that at distances up to a hundred times the radius of the galaxy, the force of gravity is much stronger than Einstein's theory of gravity predicts._ "

So, gravity decreases at less than an inverse square of distance?

<comment><USER5> No and yes. In the Dark Matter explanation, there is just more matter there that does not interact with electromagnetism. So, Einstein's' interpretation is right, we're just not seeing all of the matter. In Verlinde's explanation, Einstein is wrong, and gravity does not follow the inverse square law.

I've been following Verlinde. I've being trying to grok his position, so this may or may not be right: I believe his argument is that gravity is an emergent phenomena that comes out entanglement. In "normal" space, entanglement has no restrictions so it behaves as Newton/Einstein expects. Gravity coming out of a black hole behaves differently and the curve of gravity (gravity versus distance) takes on a new shape flatter and more far reaching effect.</comment></comment>


The EARN-IT Act-Prepare for another attack on encryption in the U.S. - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/03/the_earn-it_act.html <comment><USER2> We need a constitutional amendment to protect encryption. Such attacks will continue until enough rights have been eroded away.

Sadly I think such reform won't occur unless an unprecedented event occurs requiring such change, which I don't see happening in the near future. The alternative being to inform the general public why this is important, which I see as even less probable.

<comment><USER3> More fundamentally we need more explicit privacy protections. The "unreasonable" in the 4th amendment clearly isnt sufficient. The right to encrypt would then be a correlary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if anyone is really looking past the coronavirus pandemic at stuff like this. It seems like a great time to sneak unpopular legislation through without much outcry.

I also wonder what continuity of government is like once DC gets locked down. Is the legislature prepared to operate remotely? Is it preparing? In 2020 I see no essential reason why physical presence should be required for lawmaking, but I haven't heard anything anywhere in the news, ever, about the infrastructure that'd be needed to support this kind of "remote work". Have I overlooked something?

<comment><USER5> I'm not aware of any major Western parliament that has any kind of remote/MPs- under-quarantine contingency model other than varying emergency regulations.

With parliaments routinely having hundreds of MPs I'm not even sure how to appropriately hold a debate, given that telco etiquette goes down the drain already with a dozen participants - and that's not to speak on how to do the audio mix, you'd need extremely expensive audio mixers that can keep up with hundreds of inputs simultaneously.

<comment><USER4> The technology for keeping such large debates manageable predates electric lighting. Applying rules of order to a teleconference scenario would no doubt have its wrinkles, but overall I don't see why it couldn't be done.

The "mixing desk" would be virtual.

Probably the major cost would be provisioning backhaul, but who are we kidding, Verizon and Comcast would get the contract. Gouge like hell for it, too, in the best tradition of government contracting. But most of what happens in the process of legislating doesn't happen in the House and Senate chambers, and I do wonder how well that'd play out without anyone in physical proximity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mods: why is this flagged as a dupe? I clicked on "past" and this was the only one that showed up.</comment>


Show HN: audioremarks.com, add text annotations to audio - <AUTHOR> https://audioremarks.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi! This is a little weekend project I made in order to create something that I myself wanted: a way to upload clips to my saxophone teacher and for him to be able to leave comments and feedback. I wanted it to be no-frills, and I wanted to be able to share files at roughly the cost of storage.</comment>


Samsung disabling Windows Update on some of its PCs - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/25/8844819/samsung-disable-windows-update-exe

<comment><USER2> Disabling updates for components that may not benefit or could be disabled by patches seems pretty reasonable to me, seems like the issue is way too blown out.</comment>


The automotive industry accelerates its Linux commitment - <AUTHOR> http://opensource.com/life/12/9/automotive-industry-advances-its-commitment-linux

<comment><USER2> What did you think about the wireless stuff they were talking about? Jason</comment>


Garbage workers are paid well - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2016/02/24/news/economy/trash-workers-high-pay/index.html <comment><USER2> Given the typically early hours, possibly awful conditions, and nature of their jobs, I'd say they're also paid fairly.

Additionally, my assumption is the garbage collection industry is similar to ISPs – meaning options are limited based on location and prices are therefore not as competitive.

Edit: I'd add lack of upward mobility to the first sentence.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a bloody hard job. Bad hours. Dangerous. Low social value.

This article comes across as if they are getting paid too much for being 'lowly' garbage men. So what if they don't have a degree, It's hard work that is vital for a functioning society and they should be compensated accordingly. Good on them for etching out a living without having to get a degree doing so.

<comment><USER4> A turning point in my perception of the culture around software engineers (from mostly positive to negative) occurred during the last garbage strike when I witnessed the majority my overwhelmingly well-paid and relatively (compared to people who sling garbage cans full of rotten food and dog poop into trucks in the hot sun...) not-hard working coworkers rant freely about how overpaid garbage workers were. The sense of entitlement was obnoxious. That strike and the public's reaction to it turned the mayoral election results from left to right, and we had to suffer through Rob Ford for the next four years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I mean...yeah. They do the work no one else wants to do, hence the supply is low and demand is high, so the employers have to pay more. Makes sense.

</comment><comment><USER6> unions?

<comment><USER7> market forces

<comment><USER8> Not that I'm saying unions are the answer, but in a broad definition, unions are part of market forces. As is cooperation between companies. It just happens to be that the US prefers to introduce regulation with the stated intent of moving the economy closer to "perfect competition". Although clearly some regulation moves us toward monopoly, and all regulation has unintended effects, and obviously stated intent is different than actual intent. Phew. So many disclaimers in this comment...</comment></comment></comment>


Is Twitter for Everybody? The answer is no. - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessesgrow.com/2011/03/30/is-twitter-for-everybody/

<comment><USER2> Personally, I prefer not to have my conversations with other people on such platforms persisting beyond the conversation - the reason I hate twitter and Facebook (with some other reasons of course). I prefer IRC or specialized communities like HN or SO and the like, interaction on these doesn't hurt.</comment>


UI Animations: Going from Good to Great - <AUTHOR> https://uxdesign.cc/good-to-great-ui-animation-tips-7850805c12e5 <comment><USER2> Or how to distract users with flashy animations that are fun to make?</comment>


The Apple Watch Will Cost Between $549 and $1099, Depending on Size and Style - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/09/the-apple-watch-will-cost-between-549-and-1099-depending-on-size-and-style/

<comment><USER2> Note that the Apple Watch Sport starts at $349, the naming scheme is slightly confusing.</comment>


Heywhatsupbro? - "Laidback consulting with bros" - <AUTHOR> http://heywhatsupbro.com/ Idea made for fun in under 3 hours. <comment><USER2> It just continuously refreshes for me (running chrome on os X), preventing me from scrolling up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! We've gotten similar reports on iPhone devices viewing the site for the first time. We'll be looking for a permanent fix but for now try going to <http://clarity.fm> first (the site we iframe for calling) and then coming back to <http://heywhatsupbro.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'd like it if the "bro topic tag" specialties randomized themselves on load.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is creative and awesome, I hope that this is a success for you guys :)

</comment><comment><USER5> Love this Kevin .. very creative!

</comment><comment><USER6> sweeet! just got off the phone with a bro haha. works well!

</comment><comment><USER7> there's a 3rd bro on the page now</comment>


How Watson Sees, Hears, and Speaks to Play Jeopardy - <AUTHOR> http://ibmresearchnews.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-watson-sees-hears-and-speaks-to.html

<comment><USER2> I thought they already played jeopardy before and won?</comment>


Bohr's trip about spin - grey-area http://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2013/05/eisenbahnnet-bohrs-trip-about-spin.html

<comment><AUTHOR> A nice recounting of the "discovery" by Goudsmit: [http://www.lorentz.leidenuniv.nl/history/spin/goudsmit.html](http://www.lorentz.leidenuniv.nl/history/spin/goudsmit.html)

(I use the quotes because he discusses the role of luck in scientific discovery, and the question of who should get credit -- the first person to "guess" a truth that is ultimately proven, or the first person to understand it?)

</comment><comment><USER2> So the students who postulated spin were never rewarded. Then there's this:

"Ironically, spin helped clinch confirmation of Pauli's exclusion principle of 1925, for which Pauli won the Nobel Prize in 1945."

<comment><USER3> This is why people don't go into science.</comment></comment>


British ISP Lobbyists Backtrack on Calling Mozilla a Villain for DNS-over-HTTPS - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/10/ispa_clears_mozilla/ <comment><USER2> I love how their actual retraction, ([https://www.ispa.org.uk/ispa-withdraws- mozilla-internet-vill...](https://www.ispa.org.uk/ispa-withdraws-mozilla- internet-villain-nomination-and-category/)) includes a list of what "Any implementation of DoH [...] should be capable of achieving [in terms of] the expected privacy and security benefits" and then basically just lists everything Mozilla already champions.

It just makes the whole thing even more sad.

</comment><comment><USER3> A few online tutorials mention enabling DoH through about:config but my Firefox version doesn't have those settings.

This is what I had to do to enable DoH through Firefox preferences:

\- Click the hamburger icon

\- Go to preferences

\- Scroll down to network settings and click settings

\- Click "Enable DNS over HTTPS"

(By default, this uses Cloudflare as your DNS server, but that can be further configured if you want)

<comment><USER4> Thanks. On my work computer it is under options instead of preferences, but otherwise the same.

<comment><USER5> I bet your work computer runs Windows then :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well I hadn't really thought too much about DoH until now but now I've gone and enabled it on a few machines.

While I don't love all the snark in the article I'm glad this was brought to my attention. Hopefully this raises enough awareness that it has the exact opposite effect of what the ISPA in the UK hoped for.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. If I was them I'd claim that was precisely the objective - any press is good press. Labeling them a villain temporarily did more for Mozilla/DoH than labeling them the ultimate good guy would have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In case anybody is interested, you can visit [https://www.cloudflare.com/ssl/encrypted- sni/](https://www.cloudflare.com/ssl/encrypted-sni/) to see whether you have all features that prevent leaking the domain names that you visit. In Firefox 67 with network.security.esni.enabled set to true, all tests are passed.

</comment><comment><USER9> From ISPA's website, one of the reasons to oppose DoH:

> User choice: An application switching to DoH should ensure that this switch > does not undermine choices that have been previously made by the user. For > example, if parents have decided to filter an internet connection in their > home via network or local level DNS controls, these choices should not > simply be ignored by the application.

If a parent is capable of filtering out internet traffic at DNS level, then they should be capable of doing the same on top of DoH.

Then, after some more vague concerns and handwaving, at the very end we have:

> User and access-network-operator support: If DoH doesn't work or is slow, a > customer's internet access will be affected. The customer will contact their > ISP, not the DoH provider, but the ISP won't be able to fix things for them. > As a minimum, any application switching to DoH should ensure that the > selected resolver should provide a 24/7 user call centre reachable via low- > cost/local rate telephony and an online support capability. Support for > fault-diagnosis and resolution between ISP, resolver and users should also > be provided.

I mean, I get that if a person is unaware of a custom DNS that some application is using they might fault ISPs for network failures due to DNS trouble, but this would happen with any DNS irrespective of DoH.

<comment><USER10> Or, you know, we can all collectively start to move off DNS, the way we did with IPv4

<comment><USER11> What do you suggest we use to replace DNS?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Mozilla's DoH and ESNI are absolute killer features. Now you can visit thepiratebay.org in the UK without any issues.

<comment><USER13> network.security.esni.enabled in about:config

Hadn't realized FF had shipped support for it already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> To be honest, I think that DNS-over-HTTPS is pretty awkward. (I use DNS-over- TLS, by the way).

Also, we still have the problem with the unencrypted SNI after the name is resolved.

<comment><USER15> You can enable ESNI from about:config in Firefox.

<comment><USER14> That's a great news! Thank you.

<comment><USER8> By the way you can check your browser here [https://www.cloudflare.com/ssl/encrypted- sni/](https://www.cloudflare.com/ssl/encrypted-sni/) . My Firefox has all tests passed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > For example, if you configure your system to use Cloudflare's DoH service > and visit a Cloudflare-hosted site over HTTPS, such as El Reg, your ISP will > only see outbound connections to Cloudflare and have no idea what exactly > you're leafing through: in this case, The Reg.

Doesn't the "HOST" field of the HTTPS negotiation give this data away to the ISP anyways?

<comment><USER8> If you use ESNI (that encrypts SNI field in SSL handshake) and the server uses ESNI, and you both use TLS 1.3 (that encrypts server certificate) then it is difficult to determine domain name. Latest Firefox supports both of there features, as well as DoH.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Previous discussion about nomination: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20358300](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20358300)

</comment><comment><USER18> Previous HN on DNS-over-HTTPS in Firefox:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20371741](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20371741)

</comment><comment><USER19> Can I use a PiHole or equivalent after turning on DNS-over-HTTPS?

<comment><USER20> No. What you want to do is enable DoH on the pihole itself.

[https://docs.pi-hole.net/guides/dns-over-https/](https://docs.pi- hole.net/guides/dns-over-https/)

This would essentially enable DoH on all the computers that use the pihole as DNS, assuming you're not worried about people snooping on your own LAN.

<comment><USER19> So when Firefox demands DoH for good and all, it won't work with a PiHole because it will demand to only talk to Cloudflare's DNS and the PiHole won't be able to MITM it?

<comment><USER8> You can change URL for DNS resolver in Firefox using 'network.trr.uri' option or disable it: [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Trusted_Recursive_Resolver](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Trusted_Recursive_Resolver)

<comment><USER19> Which goes away when Mozilla takes that about:config option away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Love the labeling. Were they red-haired too?</comment>