Ruby Unroller - <AUTHOR> http://unroller.rubyforge.org/ <comment><USER2> Seems to be very thought out and the detailed documentation is an added bonus. Looking forward to trying this out as that has always been a pain point in Ruby.

</comment><comment><USER3> This has helped me immensely when trying to track down faulting methods through a chain of third party plugins. Easy to add where necessary too.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is fabulous.

</comment><comment><USER5> This looks very nice -- but I use 1.9 exclusively these days, and it seems this isn't compatible (?).</comment>


The shy connector: How to get strangers to talk to you - <AUTHOR> http://sachachua.com/wp/2009/08/11/the-shy-connector-thinking-out-loud/

<comment><USER2> Good advice. But the author, a self-identified introvert, comes across as someone who's genuinely interested in other people. Some people, introvert or extrovert, are just not that interested in others. This isn't a bad thing - self-focused people accomplish much in the world. I see empathy as orthogonal to extraversion, and it's not something you can fake (unless you're a psychopath!).

<comment><USER3> But people who don't care to talk to other people would not be reading this. This advise is for a select group of people (introverts who want to meet others).

<comment><USER4> Exactly. It is wonderful that a reflected, empathic introvert has finally been able to figure out something like this. I am in the same spot as the author right now, and the thing that really gets to me is that I have to fake being an extrovert in order to connect with other people. It isn't really that hard (it's just acting), but it is really draining when it shouldn't be.

The ideal way to interact would be to be able to be myself while still managing to spark some openness and life in my conversational counterpart. After all, most deep wants are somehow achievable, and there isn't any obvious reason why it should be impossible to connect with other people if you happen to hate smalltalk and often enjoy being alone.

The definition of introvert is _not requiring that much external social stimulation_ , not _hating to interact with other people._

<comment><USER5> _but it is really draining when it shouldn't be._

Nope it is draining for introverts.

Your definition of introvert is a bit off too. Introverts ARE mentally drained by social interaction. I am. And I am invigorated by alone time. I am an introvert, but me and all my introvert friends don't have any trouble talking to people, starting conversations, small talk, parties, even public speaking.

In fact the people I know that do have trouble with those things strike me as shy and socially anxious _extroverts_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> One of my teachers freshman year was talking to the class about his friend, he would often start a conversation with strangers he met at bus stops (as an example) with a question like this: "What kind of music do you think you like?" Now some people turned into interesting conversation, while others, sadly, told him to piss off. But the point is, it's an interesting way of how to get strangers to talk to you =]

<comment><USER7> Is "you think" part of the bait?

<comment><USER8> :)

"Hey geeks! Ya know all that stuff you learned about subtle trolling on the 'Net? IT WORKS IN REAL LIFE!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Most helpful thing I found is to ask ask people about themselves. A corollary is to avoid referring to "I" , "me", and so on. (Not always so easy of you've been spending a lot of time on your own, doing whatever drives you.)

Most folks a) like to talk about themselves (or their interests), and b) are flattered that someone is interested.

<comment><USER9> I second this. People seem to come with a built-in affinity for probing _just how amazing_ they are. Depending on your agenda, all you really have to do is help them explore that space.

<comment><USER8> Sometimes I put myself in the "interviewing for a magazine" mindset to keep me rolling.

I confess that encouraging people to talk about themselves when instead I could be talking about me is a habit I keep working to develop.

Do geeks have a greater tendency to talk about themselves than the general population, or is this pretty much everybody?

I do think that geeks have a warped idea about what normal people will think interesting. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I can just see myself now...

"It's a pretty nice day. Hasn't been too humid lately."

"Yeah. Hey so what are you passionate about?"

<comment><USER11> Check out darkxanthos' crazy social desensitization exercise.. He talked to a stranger every day for 30 days and it became so much more:

"Social Skydiving with a Code Monkey: Day 15 Halfway There"

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=693981>

I know your comment above was sarcastic but..

Think about how you talk with your good friends.

How it just flows. The idea behind leapfrogging small talk is to talk like you're friends already.

It's a bit of a Jedi mind trick but the basic idea is to prime the pump. When you walk up to someone point blank (especially a stranger, especially a pretty girl) - 'What are you up to?' - you're putting all the onus on them to carry the conversation, believe it or not. Because you didn't have the _courage_ to actually start a conversation. They don't know you - so of course they'll say 'nothing' or 'errands. bye!' to politely blow you off. You didn't invest much so they won't invest much back. And the conversation will die.

Commitment is everything! Asking someone a question is not starting a conversation. Tell them something about themselves.

How to start a conversation? Practice. Compliments are great. If you notice something interesting about someone, instead of just keeping it in your head. Just walk over confidently and say it. "I like how you are so engrossed in that book in the midst of the craziness here".

Never state a fact without a feeling. Facts are boring.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I used to be really shy when talking to people.. I'm getting better at it though.

Usually all it takes to get things started is a "G'day, hows it going?"

:-)

</comment><comment><USER12> I should totally get a hat.

<comment><USER13> It is a generally good idea to try to weat something that you consider unusual for you or even unacceptable. It could be bright red or yellow or orange coat, jeans or hat. It is very useful experience - you will notice that people are looking at you - that very important experience (which couldn't be extracted from books or other way) for shy prople on the way of self-development. And you also will notice that the sky still didn't fall on earch because you're wearing this imposible (for you) hat or coat.

<comment><USER14> I sometimes wear a bathrobe. Not one I actually use as a bathrobe... Just instead of a trenchcoat. It's ridiculously comfortable, and gets people to talk to me.

<comment><USER15> Or ask you which institution you busted out of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Finally, some practical advice introvert to introvert.

<comment><USER17> Many people have flexible dispositions, however, and will generally find their social lot improve if they teach themselves to take the initiative in social interactions. I believe there are true unchangeable introverts, but not as many who think that they are.

<comment><USER18> just wondering about the parallels...

there was a time when people thought that left-handed people could be taught to use the "right" hand too...

not saying it can't be done, but... you can probably predict my thoughts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I used to be completely in my own world. I would never talk to people who I didn't know. Then a while back, I decided to change that. I get into conversations all the time with random people I meet on the street.

It's interesting how friendly a lot of people are if you just make an attempt to be nice or polite. You can get, for example, all sorts of interesting information from security guards...</comment>


Net Neutrality Simplified - <AUTHOR>

What Is Net Neutrality?
Currently, as I am writing this, Net Neutrality is the guiding principle which preserves the open and free Internet. With this principle intact, everyone is on the same level playing field. While certain cable and phone companies own the "pipes" that connect users to the Internet, they cannot control usage of these pipes. Everyone has equal access to websites, and similarly, every website has the same freedoms granted to the variety, and the amount, of content that they can post. However, these companies think they should have the right to restrict access to these pipes. They think that they should be able to make users pay more for accessing certain kinds of content, and that websites should pay more to have a certain degree of quality and speed.
Negative Impacts
1.	Price Hikes:
Doing away with Net Neutrality would cause 'double-dipping' to occur; users would first have to pay for access, and then a second time for what they are going to access. On top of that, While ISPs believe they have the authority to charge websites for bandwidth use, in retrospect this will probably just result in more costs being added to the consumers once again. Costs charged to websites can in turn be passed along to users in the form of price hikes or new charges to view specific content.
2.	Discourages Innovation:
Net Neutrality ensures that anyone can start small and dream big when it comes to creating the next new innovative website, without having to face insurmountable hurdles and costly barriers to entry. For once, the Internet is actually a medium through which a competitive model can achieve success and work. Doing away with Net Neutrality would completely destroy this opportunity for a medium to ever effectively and efficiently promote clean competition. The beauty of the Internet is that anyone can find success in it. Anyone can start a website, which in turn anyone can view. <comment><USER2> I like your observation about double-dipping. It's true: If Netflix pays more for bandwidth they will turn around and charge you more. Also, more subtly, if your Internet provider is profiting from a premium content pipeline, they have every incentive to reclassify other content as premium. In other words, today Netflix, tomorrow Flickr, DropBox and Github.

Ironically, ISPs also say Net Neutrality crushes their ability to innovate i.e. maximize their leverage and profits. But, hey, that's our choice as a society: Do we craft regulation that maximizes profits for the pipelines or innovation for content makers?</comment>


Why "ls *.c" is at least dumb, and possibly dangerous - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.shell/msg/5d19dadaf9329f87

<comment><USER2> Wait. What?

1) Is he implying that launching a perl interpreter is somehow a more lightweight operation than launching ls and having it stat() half a dozen files? Having ls check if a file exists 99% of the time won't even touch the disk. If you're working in that directory, those inodes will probably be cached. Running stat() on a cached inode is hardly more expensive than a system call. Read: cheap. Now perl launching will probably load a few libs and check a few files before even getting to his one-liner.

2) Am I the only one, who in my ~10 years of running unix-like operating systems have _never_ created a filename with a newline char in it? Like even when opening obscure filesystems, never.

3) Does he think unlink() skips the check for the file's existence?

4) If he wanted to overcomplicate things and _make sure_ everything's kosher, why not:

      find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -name '*.c' -delete

Whenever I see anything piped to a perl one liner, 4 times out of 5 it's some sort of hack that can be done with standard utils.

It also grinds my gears when people take longer to think of making something more efficient than the amount of CPU time they'll save in their lives of using that 'more efficient' solution. So he spent a minute coming up with this and ten minutes posting about it. Now, will he save roughly 11 minutes of execution time in his life while running this "superior" command (also count that it takes longer to type)? If not, he wasted his time.

From his sig: "Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting". When you have a large-enough hammer....

<comment><USER3> _You_ aren't going to create a file with a newline in the name. The person who wants to totally screw you over is going to create the file with the newline in the name.

<comment><USER2> I realize that. The example he used was a collection of c files, leading me to believe he was showing a personal collection of source as an example, wrongly or rightly. And I realize _you_ aren't going to be creating files with newlines in them (or leading dashes, or many dots, etc), but once you get into a territory of someone being able to do that, and you're not competing in a CTF, I'd say there are larger issues to deal with.

<comment><USER4> I can do no better than quote Randal himself again, from the same thread:

"Well, there was a very embarassing error for Apple a few years ago for the 10.3 to 10.4 upgrade as I recall. Apparently, if you had a space in your home disk name, all sorts of files got deleted.

So, the moral is, no matter how rare you think something is, that's _NO EXCUSE_ for not doing the right thing for _all_ possible characters."

[http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.shell/msg/504a75cc7...](http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.shell/msg/504a75cc7d87e16c) [http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.shell/msg/0385fc2d1...](http://groups.google.com/group/comp.unix.shell/msg/0385fc2d1dbf745d)

<comment><USER5> Spaces in names are not rare - space is part of natural language, a filename or volume name in considered to be a single line label.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "ls *.c" is not dangerous. The pipe is dangerous.

<comment><USER5> The user making files with newlines is dangerous.

<comment><USER7> The user doing something that the system allows him to do is dangerous??

You guys are insane.

<comment><USER5> I completely agree that the system shouldn't allow him to do this either. Both the graphical and command shells for Linux (GNOME and bash respectively) do not allow files to be created with newlines characters as far as I know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Filenames can contain newlines?

You learn something new (and vaguley horrifying) every day.

<comment><USER9> Filenames can contain plenty of happy stuff.

$> touch -- --

$> rm --

usage: rm [-f | -i] [-dPRrvW] file ... unlink file

$> rm -- --

$> touch \

$> touch \\\ \ \ . \\-

favorites of malware authors everywhere.

<comment><USER10> On a sidenote, creating a -i file in important directories can help against accidental "rm -rf"s. The -i will be given to rm as switch and rm will now prompt for each file. Of course backups are better but this might just safe your ass that certain time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This article does point out one thing that I've always found really strange/dumb about Unix. Why does the shell expand the wildcards? That's not how it works in Windows, for example.

I periodically have to cleanup abandoned and overflowing unix mailboxes where every message is it's own file. You'd think a simple "rm *" would work, but it doesn't, because you get an error message saying that there are "too many arguments". From my perspective there's one argument, the asterisk. Very confusing. I end up having to use xargs to get it work. Seems like a poor design.

<comment><USER12> It's so that every script in the world doesn't have to duplicate the logic for how to interpret globs. They inevitably won't end up doing it exactly the same way.

<comment><USER11> Shouldn't that be part of the OS API? Why call me with 1,000 arguments, when I could call an API with the wildcard and get the 1,000 files back? My poor argv can't handle it the other way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> this is one of those things no one cares about until it affects them.

<comment><USER5> > Suppose you have a file with a name of "aaa\nbbb.c". (from the article)

To be honest, I wouldn't care about my shell not handling newlines in files, I'd care about my users creating files with newlines in them. Space is natural language, newline is not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder how many files with a name containing \n are in the wild. And if you encounter such a file, does it really matter if you accidentally delete it?

Waisting brain cycles to save CPU cycles (in the wrong places) is shameful, insulting and boring.

It would be amazing if there weren't tons of other, much more significant, things that deserved attention in the relevant script, system, or the developer's life. (sign)

<comment><USER7> _And if you encounter such a file, does it really matter if you accidentally delete it?_

It matters. Leaving a bug around is disgusting and wasteful especially when you can fix it.

* would be amazing if there weren't tons of other, much more significant, things that deserved attention in the relevant script, system, or the developer's life. (sign)*

Fixing bugs and writing programs that have as few bugs as possible is very important.

<comment><USER14> When you find a bug, by all means, go ahead and fix it. (Well, not always. You need to make sure your fix is not likely to introduce a more severe bug. Not all bugs made equal and some guts-feeling required).

If your goal is to make your system as robust as _engineerically_ possible, you should most likely pay more attention in some directions and less in other. It's not only about quantity - you better have no critical bugs then have only-a-very-few critical ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Am I the only one who thinks that scripting is a "Dirty Job"?

I have not written nor seen any bash script that is neat, clean and fairly clear. It all seems like a very shady hack that someone think is smart.

<comment><USER5> Not sure why you're being downmodded. On the simplest of engineering levels, shells don't adequately separate data from execution. They also lack data structures beyond strings and arrays.

ipython / iruby can and do make much nicer shells out of the box.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Dumb on whose behalf? If you need to know the inner workings of the shell in order to know that is "dumb" then I submit that in and of itself is dumb.

<comment><USER17> Apparently you have not been bitten by a filename expansion bug when shell scripting. This kind of thing is fairly common with bash and some of the other ones when dealing with files that have spaces/newlines/whatever. It boils down to learning and knowing your tools and how to work around their limitations.</comment></comment>


Nathan Barry's Lessons Learned Earning $355,759 through Gumroad - <AUTHOR> http://blog.gumroad.com/post/73421524134/nathan-barrys-lessons-learned-selling-355-759-on

<comment><USER2> 'In his well-crafted pitch to get me to consider using Gumroad he ended with, "and the UX is exponentially better than other marketplaces."'

If someone tells me their thing is 'exponentially' better than something else, I tend to put them in my 'hype merchants who use words without worrying what they mean' box. Whic isn't a good box.

<comment><USER3> Good thing Ryan knew his audience: great UX is something I really care about. So I gave it a try and he wasn't exaggerating. The UX really is that much better than any other platform I had tried.

<comment><USER4> I think dojomouse is referring to the idea of "exponential" being something quantifiably provable and it being used in this instance without anything actually being "exponential".

<comment><USER2> Exactly!

And someone who says "Exponentially better" rather than "much better" is the kind of person who might have a button marked "proactively validate" rather than "confirm".

At the same time, it's hard to get enthusiasm across in emails. I'm no poet. I just get put off when I'm reading a pitch and mentally trip on some out of place phrase.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, I was using the term exponentially to mean "a huge increase" in the same way people tend to abuse the term "literally" when they really mean "figuratively." Our math PhD on our data science team just gave me a thorough scolding. You'd like him. www.gumroad.com/jobs

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is a lot of really great info in this post, well done Gumroad.

My question to Barry would be: Given that multiple packages increased revenue 3x, how much extra work and time did it take to produce the extra materials?

I've never done anything like that, but I'm imagining it being a lot more time, effort, and money to put together useful supplement material and create video tutorials.

<comment><USER3> It's definitely a lot more work, and since I hate tracking time, it's hard to quantify.

The book is the majority of the work. I would guess that adding multiple packages increases the amount of work by 50-75%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Congrats Nathan!

1 big glaring thing I've found with gumroad is that it doesn't integrate directly with email providers. I think you can hack the functionality with zapier or similar services - but I'm really surprised there are no direct integrations.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm just starting on my journey with products and Nathan's produced so much content that I can look to for advice. I couldn't imagine the difficulty without having those available.

Congrats Nathan.

<comment><USER9> Indeed. His newsletter is chockfull of great content.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some skills you have that are worth learning? - <AUTHOR> I sometimes have the feeling, upon learning that someone hasn't yet learned to program or do mathematics, that they're missing out on a whole realm of opportunities.<p>What are other skills like this, that you have, that you expect many participants on Hacker News lack, and that have greatly expanded the possibilities available to you? <comment><USER3> Learn how to take care of yourself first. That includes:

* learning to cook and prepare your own food.

* learn proper sleeping habits and make a routine that feels comfortable.

* learn to exercise - pick an activity and do it consistently with some goals in mind.

* learn to budget money and manage expenses.

* learn to groom yourself and maintain a regular cleanliness routine

* learn to entertain yourself alone - without the internet (ex. reading a book, telling a story, etc)

* learn how devices you own work and how to troubleshoot/repair them (ex. fridge, ac, oven, car)

The general theme I have is that "the things you own, end up owning you", if you are not accountable for them. Start with the things you can't get rid of like your body and then question everything else you introduce into your life to eliminate clutter.

Examples: \- if you don't know how to prepare food your diet depends on what restaurants offer and you have little control over ingredients, portion size, calorie intake...

\- if you pass out in front of the tv and wake up on the couch it is unlikely that you will feel motivated in the morning. Likely you will pick up McDonald's breakfast on the way to work cause you are running late.

\- if you give up on exercising your body you will quickly feel powerless when you have to move something heavy.

<comment><USER4> > learning to cook and prepare your own food.

> learn to budget money and manage expenses.

if you've never done this before, i very, very strongly suggest you look at how much eating out is costing you.

my wife and i are saving literally thousands of dollars a month.

<comment><USER5> How do you managed budget and food?

<comment><USER6> Not who you are replying to but I recently (2.5 months ago) started using YNAB again and have fallen in love with it. The last time I tried it was when it was desktop software but their newer web-based version with transaction import/sync is a game changer for me.

As for food I can't really help there. I ended up writing my own app to manage/track expiration dates for what I have but that's barely the tip of the ice-burg. I hope to integrate with my recipe app (Paprika) to work on meal- planning and picking recipes I like while trying to use up the stuff that will go bad first.

<comment><USER7> Used YNAB a lot to develop discipline, then switched to Lunch Money [0]. It's being worked on by a solopreneur; she's awesome.

The app is, I think, a natural evolution for the YNABer who got the discipline and now doesn't need to track every single dollar all the time.

[0] [https://lunchmoney.app](https://lunchmoney.app)

<comment><USER8> Thank you for the shoutout, and that's wonderful to hear! :D

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm reminded of:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." ~ Robert Anson Heinlein

<comment><USER10> All useful except butchering a hog - a human being does not need to eat hogs to survive and thrive.

<comment><USER11> *In your current environment.

<comment><USER10> In the majority of human evolution (I'm vegan, and doing just fine :))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you're a shy person who would like to do better in social situations - learn to dance.

Becoming a dancer opened up all sorts of doors for me. It made me comfortable in social situations from small-talk in intimate groups to public speaking in front of large ones.

I even ended up married and living in a foreign country. Currently I'm learning the language and making some progress. All of which I can trace fairly directly to learning to dance.

Caveats:

You need to like the music! So pick a form that's compatible with that (if there is one).

Don't go into this looking for a hook-up. Those people are greatly disliked by most of the people in the scene.

Obviously this is open to confident people too, but shy people will likely get more out of it because the structured nature of dance classes compensates for lack of confidence.

(Also, for all the "two left feet" people - if you can clap a rhythm to a song, you can learn to dance just fine)

<comment><USER13> What maybe surprised me most about learning to dance is how much you learn about signaling and how important signaling is to get two individuals work as one. Giving and reading signals was never my strong side, but it have improved a lot after learning to use signals in dance. The way I hold my hand or some light pressure on the back tells the one I'm dancing with what I plan for us to do and it often even works when I do moves the partner have never done before

<comment><USER14> Martial arts and partner dancing are two sides of the same coin: in the former, one maintains distance and predicts movement so one can break synch with an opponent by surprising, taking advantage of and increasing brief errors. In the latter, one maintains distance and predicts movement so one can synch with a partner by signalling, covering up for and decreasing brief errors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> \- Learn to edit well, it's how to write well. Nothing opens doors like clear writing. For sources of quality edited writing, read The Economist, Quanta, and the first novels by authors who wrote 20th century literary fiction. Their later ones had less editing.

\- Negotiation + game theory. Learn the traditional methods, and then forget everything you know about them because the real world has changed and broken the assumptions that went into the formal theories, but you need it as a foundation.

\- Basic vehicle maintenance and repair. Even if it's just buying an ODBII connector for fault reading and being able to trace fuse box connections. Also, learn to drive stick, or be dependent in an emergency on someone who does.

\- Learn confidence and humility by mastering a common physical skill like an instrument, singing, or performing monologues, etc. Not stupid tricks, but something where other people are objectively way better than you are and plan to be embarrassingly bad at it for at least a decade.

<comment><USER16> > \- Learn confidence and humility by mastering a common physical skill like > an instrument, singing, or performing monologues, etc. Not stupid tricks, > but something where other people are objectively way better than you are and > plan to be embarrassingly bad at it for at least a decade.

I would personally recommend martial arts for this. You get a useful skill (eventually), there is no skill ceiling, and there are always people better than you.

<comment><USER17> I mean, whatever floats your boat really, but when exactly are martial arts useful? The average person might use them once in a lifetime. A year's worth of voice lessons and pretty much any non-trained person will love hearing you sing along to any song, and you will make them want to sing. It's a way to relate to people and make friends in nearly any social situation.

Even if you're just more into the kinesthetic work, dance will pay more dividends and be more useful for basically the same reasons. Breaking is especially fundamental and nearly always works.

Again, do whatever works for you. But martial arts are really very rarely a useful thing to have learned. (And to be fair, performing monologues per the OP's suggestion is about as un-useful as martial arts relative to singing and dancing.)

<comment><USER16> > The average person might use them once in a lifetime.

Depends on your perspective. On the one hand, I haven't had to fight anyone, and would like to keep it that way. On the other, I'd like to be able to if necessary.

Martial arts is the only activity other then programming in which I have reached flow state. I suspect dancing/yoga/etc also reach this state, but I don't know because I've never done any of these seriously enough to get to that point.

Aside from these, like borroka said, it has an affect on your demeanour and world view, which is honestly the biggest benefit.

> very rarely a useful thing to have learned.

Also, it makes good resume filler if you're just barely getting your career started. Not quite as good as being an Eagle Scout, but non negligible.

I've just made a lot of personal improvement through martial arts, and figured I'd bring it up in case someone else would enjoy it.

<comment><USER18> Good explanation of the benefits of practicing a martial art. I think any type of activity that involves both coordinated motion and cardio is a good candidate for achieving flow states.

Re: martial arts. What type do you recommend?

<comment><USER16> I've only studied Okinawan Karate at an OSMKKF school, so I can't speak personally to any others.

However, I have friends who have had good experiences with MMA, and Capoeira is on my bucket list to learn.

I honestly don't think the particular style is as important as the fact that you have proper training in that style.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is not a skill but something I do everyday, that I found to be rewarding.

While I'm in bed and before sleeping, I take two minutes to be thankful for the day. I would go from the beginning of the day and be thankful for things I have. In this world where everyone seems to be so focused on achieving new things, creating and being more productive. I believe we all should take some time to be just thankful for what we have.

Have a fridge? be thankful for that. Got you uber to go to places? be thankful. Got money to eat for the day? be thankful. Made a contribution to make life better for other people? be thankful.

Once per day for 2mins, hit the pause button, stop thinking about productivity and being a better version of yourself. Accept who you are and be thankful for it.

The other benefits of this for me personally, is that I train my brain to remember things I did during the day.

<comment><USER20> Gratitude list! I started one a few years ago when life was very very tough and it ended up being one of the things that kept me going.

I also made a timeline of my life with all the major events on it. Puts the whole thing in perspective.

Both good tools, especially in tough times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> \- Take an improv class. It's excellent for building confidence, meeting new people, learning social skills, practicing creativity, being funnier, and generally having a really fun evening once or twice per week.

\- Writing posts or making video tutorials is really great. Can be profitable, lead to professional growth, but also it's a great hobby and a fun way to create some value. Even if you don't become a successful/professional blogger/youtuber, it feels awesome to record a tutorial, see the views go up, and receive comments from people who found your video helpful. Also it develops writing/speaking skills, motivates you to learn the topic in more depth, clarifies your thoughts and understanding, gives you valuable feedback from more experienced people, grows your audience.

\- Gamedev and Computer Graphics are REALLY fun to do. For people here I recommend Godot and Houdini, it's incredibly interesting, entertaining, and satisfying.

Here's a quick tutorial that I've made on procedurally generating a pretty landscape with Houdini:

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=o3mbIRZhv20](https://youtube.com/watch?v=o3mbIRZhv20)

</comment><comment><USER22> Learn a handful of knots. You don't need to know the entire boy scout manual, but solid understanding of 4-5 knots - be it a trucker's hitch (adjustable), improved clinch (fishing/permanent), half hitch, etc - will be the right tool for the moment. When we go camping, we end up bringing a handful of tarps and paracord. Always fun to see the monstrosities people come up with as we try to string up a sun/rain shelter.

<comment><USER23> Learning the bowline, trucker's hitch, and double half-hitches will get you the most value for your time in my opinion. They're all I've ever needed for moving or camping.

<comment><USER24> Figure eight! Learned it recently to tow a canoe. I was always towing them with a two half-hitch and trucker's hitch. I think I like the double figure eighth to attach to the car better than two half hitch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> If I had to pick one, it would be engineering. Learn how to break down a large problem into parts, and then tackle it. But everyone here likely knows that.

So my pick is sales. When I was presenting my thesis to the assessor, he was unimpressed. It was a bachelor's thesis, technically simple, but it attacked the problem from a different angle and had better progress than some PhD students working on the same project. My supervisor congratulated me on the presentation. I told him my assessor wasn't as impressed. He replied, "Maybe you didn't sell it well enough."

Since then, I got a little obsessed in finding out how to sell things better. A lot of people get the wrong impression of sales. They think it's an overdressed guy trying to put their foot in the door and promise anything for a sale.

Sales is simple. You have something that someone wants. Something other people wish they had and probably even spent a lot of money trying to patch themselves. They would happily part with money to get someone else to handle it. The trick with sales is to simply to find those people and explain your product in such a way that they throw money at you. There's no need to be good with words or be charismatic. Just explain the product well and explain why it's worth it.

It applies to many other parts of life too - getting a job, getting a date, hiring, pitching for a startup or scholarship. The first step is understanding what you have and why it's better. The rest is just articulating that well.

<comment><USER26> Learning the art of influence/story telling is a super power. It doesn't even have to be better as it could just be more confidence in that it is good enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Learn to sew. And to repair and maintain your things more generally, but sewing seems much more overlooked than e.g. car maintenance in this thread, even though more people wear clothes than own cars. You can fix minor rips in your clothes quickly before they turn into major issues. You can do basic alterations by hand (e.g. hemming). I like to put loops in my towels so they hang better on hooks and to embroider my initials on cloth items I might lose. Recently, I repaired my roommate's rocking chair — the seat is made of canvas, which had torn along a stress point, so I sewed it back together by hand using a thick piece of replacement canvas to add reinforcement. With a sewing machine, I was also able to make a weighted blanket (much cheaper than it would've been to buy) and a couple of cloth face masks. Learning a bit about garment construction and fabric properties will help you evaluate clothes, so you can tell if something won't last just by looking at it in the store, so you can spend less time buying clothes. You can also learn enough about basic hand sewing to get started attaching fabric to other fabric in like 15 minutes.

Also, get some kind of physical hobby that doesn't involve looking at a computer. It's nice to spend some time on evenings and weekends not staring at a screen, and I find that doing things with my hands is grounding.

</comment><comment><USER28> Being able to read and digest a profit & loss (P&L) statement and a balance sheet. It's not a common skill and yet it's also not particularly difficult; with a small bit of self-training you can do it extremely fast. You'll be able to scan the financials for a public company in a minute or two and get a good overview of its financial condition. It's a critical skill for investing and financial independence over time. Nobody showed me how to do that and I didn't have to read any technical books (I point that out because to some people it can be a very mind-numbing, boring subject), I self-taught out of personal interest in the stock market and business in general when I was young. With a few hours of self-education pretty much anyone can learn how; with some practice over time you'll get better and faster at it and reading financials will become second nature. It's a few hours of effort to learn an important part of a simple language (the language of financial literacy) that the vast majority of humanity can't understand and yet it's one of the most valuable languages in existence: the numbers & documents that make up the world of all commerce.

<comment><USER29> it's something I've been meaning to learn for a while but never quite found out how to go about it. Pointers are welcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> While it's not exactly a viable skill to learn at the moment, I found learning a social partner dance to be eye opening.

(Slight aside: I started with Lindy Hop, which is typically danced to Jazz music. It has its roots in a variety of Black dances and grew out of the Savoy ballroom in Harlem starting in the late 20s. It's certainly not the only dance that teaches these skills, but I think it's a good choice.)

At the core, it's about communication and collaboration; communication and collaboration with the person you're dancing with is the essence of a partner dance. You want to make space in the dance for a balance your ideas and your partner's, and so whether you're leading (initiating movement) or following (responding), you want to share your ideas and listen to your partner's. Non- verbally. In real time. Over a lossy communication channel.

Beyond that, you're communicating and collaborating with other dancers sharing the floor. Unlike some dances, there's no macro-level choreography that keeps dancers from running into each other. You need to pay attention to your surroundings, understand how your movements are going to affect others, and adjust as the situation changes.

During classes or practice sessions, communication and collaboration with peers and instructors is also important. It's silly, but dance classes were the first time I ever _really_ learned how to listen to and give constructive feedback in a kind and effective way.

All of that said: it's a bit like math. You'll start by counting (literally, perhaps), not with an understanding algebra or combinatorics. It won't feel revolutionary at first. You may not have any epiphanies until your instructors take of the "kid gloves" and at least reveal that "improper" fractions are just fractions and that it's a-okay to subtract a larger number from a smaller number. (And just like math, you can go as deep down any rabbit hole as you'd like. One day, after a few years of dancing and hundreds of hours of classes, I spent a full hour-long lesson exploring the complex topic of: walking forwards and backwards.)

</comment><comment><USER31> Surprised no one has mentioned learning a second language yet. I'm currently learning Spanish (one of the easier ones for native English speakers like me to learn, especially being from the American Southwest) and finding myself suddenly understanding conversations between people I walk past at WalMart has been one of the more gratifying experiences I've had.

It's hard to say whether this skill will afford me new opportunities in the future, but it's immensely satisfying and I think it's useful because it has changed the way I think about language in general. It's hard to explain, but when I only knew English, words _were_ the concepts that they symbolized. Of course I knew intellectually that "dog" is just a symbol for the animal, but I couldn't separate them subconsciously, if that makes sense. Now that "perro" is also a symbol for the animal, and it's ingrained in my mind enough that I don't have to translate it to English, it's as if words and things have been "decoupled". Unfortunately I'm finding it hard to articulate why that revelation matters. Basically, learning another language expands your mind in a unique way. It's just something you have to experience.

<comment><USER14> ¿Hola, qué tal?

As to new opportunities, having multiple languages certainly makes it easier to vote with one's feet. (two years to acclimatise as a fresh immigrant may seem like a long time, but that may well be very short compared with the timescale of political change in one's birth country.)

Languages can not only be explored in breadth or in depth, but also open up side quests of culture, music, etc. I would say one of the most significant benefits of attending an international school (presumably the Asker is past this point, however) is learning to habitually rephrase, paraphrase, gesture, etc. in order to accomplish things with people with whom one shares little vocabulary and not necesarily much more culture. Surprisingly, one may find these skills even come in handy when attempting to communicate with people who nominally share one's mother tongue and national culture...

(It's also rewarding because the learning curve is relatively quick. At the beginning, one is only able to understand the sorts of conversations mothers have with very small children at WalMart, but before any of those children reach university age, one has gained the ability to read authors in the original.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Learn to Knit or Crochet. There are a bunch of fun benefits! First, it's not hard. Second, you really can make nice things that last a long time and are useful. I personally have been on a sweater kick. Look or Aran and Gansey sweaters, they are very fun. Third, it gives you something to do other than endlessly scrolling on your phone.

With my hands and wrists (from being at a keyboard for years), I find knitting to be more comfortable. Also, if you do it correctly, the motion is different from typing and therefore actually helps with repetitive strain in the wrists.

</comment><comment><USER33> One simple magic trick, no matter how cheezy, even if it uses a cheap prop from a magic shop. Be able to do it smoothly and convincingly, while saying you are rusty and out of practice.

It's not going to give you a "great expansion of possibilities", more like an "occasional ability to charm your way into an improved situation". Bang for the buck, though, I tellya.

<comment><USER34> Card tricks are good for this one. My great-grandfather had one (that I've now forgotten) that he'd use to entertain all of us as kids.

<comment><USER33> Yep, my one is a card trick. Two cards. I keep them in my wallet.

See also:

How to do 2 simple magic tricks--and why you should learn them - [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/13/smarter-living/how-to- do-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/13/smarter-living/how-to-do-2-simple- magic-tricks-and-why-you-should-learn-them.html)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Magic/comments/6u42om/whats_in_your...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Magic/comments/6u42om/whats_in_your_edc/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Being handy and having the relevant tools turns a lot of multi thousand dollar problems into hundred dollar problems and hundred dollar problems into non- issues. Having fewer smaller problems makes life less stressful.

<comment><USER36> Does it need to be said that everyone should have a basic toolbox / toolset and fasteners around? A set of screwdrivers, spanners, hammer, nails / screws, glue, tape, pliers, etc shouldn't take up more space. A (cheap) multitool or multifunctional pocket knife would already do most of those.

<comment><USER35> I encourage everyone to develop at least a basic familiarity with the skills required to maintain the things that keep our modern lifestyle humming along but I was talking about making it to a substantially greater skill level than that.

You can change a water heater with two shark-bite fittings, an adjustable wrench (and a screwdriver if it's electric instead of gas) and maybe a little help from YouTube and there's a ton of bang for your buck in that. There's very little automotive maintenance you can't do with a basic socket set and some screwdrivers and pliers and there's a ton of bang for your buck in that as well. But those kinds of basic tasks can be gateway drugs into developing more and more skills and as you develop more skills you wind up wanting the tools that make application of those skills more efficient.

Eventually you wind up at a level of available skills and tools where your only sources of expensive problems are people and not things, you are more limited by time than money, you've considered registering an LLC so you don't have to do as much lying when purchasing from companies that usually only sell B2B and you've unsubscribed from the advice subreddits in several fields because you realize that they're just full of idiots who can regurgitate textbook advice but don't have sufficient understanding of the constraints the people asking the questions are likely working under.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Learning to fight: or more precisely learning an alive martial art (one that entails sparring)

Getting tapped out or beaten up over and over develops a kind of calmness and humility that transfers well to other situations in life. After you've fought someone on stage in front of friends and family, it's difficult to find other experiences particularly scary.

It lets you tap into a number of deep and ancient aspects of being human, in a safe and productive way (assuming you are able to find a good, disciplined school, and not one run by people with egos).

</comment><comment><USER38> What I would like is a "LifeSkills LongTerm University". A lot of the things recommended here I have learnt - only to forget again over time. CPR being one such (and each time I learn it the song to play as you pump the heart gets changed)

But the main point is, I could happily subscribe to a Sunday every 6 months, for car maintenance, or for woodcraft fire lighting, or for knots and Maker and ... and ...

I guess this post is the right question, but the next question is _where_ do I learn these things - and a one stop shop would be ideal.

</comment><comment><USER16> Learn outdoor skills.

Go camping, hiking, trekking, canoeing etc. It keeps you in shape, and is great to decompress and enjoy yourself.

<comment><USER39> How do you get started? I never did that as a kid and now that I'm older living in a beautiful place I'd like to try it out, but I have no idea how to get started. I own hiking shoes that I barely ever used and a Swiss Army knife but that's it... no backpack, no tent, nothing. I wouldn't even know where to go or what to do when the night comes. I live in Switzerland.

<comment><USER16> I would say start small. Find a hiking trail - a real hiking trail - <USER2> 10-30 minutes drive, and walk it weekly or so. Once you're comfortable with that trail, broaden your horizons for where you want to hike.

Eventually, you may want to do more/go on a hike further out then is a reasonable drive. At that point, find a campground near where you want to hike. If they offer rentals of some sort, great! If not, you may want to purchase a tent. If you do this, be sure to test it for a night by your house. Nothing quite as miserable as trying to figure out new gear in production (Yeah, the phrasings weird, but I couldn't figure out the right way to say it).

Most of this I kinda rephrased from my time in scouting, so my apologies if I translated it to words badly.

<comment><USER16> Here's a couple links. I glossed over them, and they seem like decent resources.

[https://www.tripsavvy.com/setting-up-a- campsite-498429](https://www.tripsavvy.com/setting-up-a-campsite-498429) \- Setting up camp 101. Doesn't go over how to pitch a tent, but that'll get covered with the tents documentation.

[https://veggievagabonds.com/camping-for- beginners/](https://veggievagabonds.com/camping-for-beginners/) \- Camping 102, bit more in depth.

[https://thebackpackinghiker.com/hiking-and-wild-camping- in-s...](https://thebackpackinghiker.com/hiking-and-wild-camping-in- switzerland/) \- Assumes experience, but covers Switzerland specifically, so you may find it useful.

[https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-us/destinations/swiss- natio...](https://www.myswitzerland.com/en-us/destinations/swiss-national- park/) \- The Swiss National Park appears to have campsites and hiking trails. I've had good experiences with the US National Parks, but haven't been out of the states (yet).

<comment><USER16> The answers from 082349872349872 and BoiledCabbage are better then mine. Go with their suggestions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Salesmanship. You have to sell yourself and your ideas in many life situations anyway. Why not do it with a maximum impact? And it brings in money if you choose a marketing/advertising job path or start your own business.

<comment><USER41> More broadly, you also have to sell yourself at a job interview, and then sell your ideas continuously at work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Behavior and empathy. People often have a reason for doing the things that they do which differs wildly from the reason they state in words.

</comment><comment><USER43> General fitness. I've exercised most of my life, and I am constantly helping people start out. I am not a professional athlete, but I have a vast general knowledge of anatomy, physiology, training plans, etc. It makes learning new things ("I'd like to run a marathon") so much easier, safer and more efficient if you have some foundational knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER44> -> Logical fallacies, being able to name the reasons why an argument has problems is a great skill to have and it's kind of interesting.

-> Linux terminal, amazing how much more fun using a computer is with just the terminal (also a browser to Google the commands)

-> Wood working, it's fun to cut timber and build things, especially if you have an office job like myself.

<comment><USER45> > also a browser to Google the commands

      man man # :-P

<comment><USER46> Also

        $ info info
        $ help help

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> The ability to pause before reacting and realize you have the option of saying nothing. It allows for more self awareness in a conversation. You don't always have to have something to say. A lot of engineers I've worked with fail to grasp this and come across as know-it-alls who over share.

Learn how to write a 650 word summary, pitch, or blog post. Really learn it and focus on concise and engaging writing. My ability to write well at that length has helped me so many times in my life with blog posts, cover letters, documentation entries, marketing, raising money, and web content.

A surprising resource for this was a book called Manly Art: They Can Run-But They Can't Hide by George Kimball. It's a collection of boxing writing. Stories about boxing matches are usually quite short, about 650 words. Conveying the stakes and action of a boxing match in short form is hard to do well. This book demonstrates the balance between brevity and color.

</comment><comment><USER48> Learn to swim well by going beyond just staying afloat.

Understand the physics of moving through the water. Learn to lean on your chest to achieve proper balance in the water. Grasp how to "catch" the water with a high elbow position. Breath properly on both sides. Etc.

It's fun to swim well and it will help you live a healthier life.

<comment><USER34> Take lessons. I was a competent (but not good) swimmer, I even took a swimming course in college (where I became good, but forgot it after years of not swimming). At 30 or so I took a 4 week course with an instructor, and had 1-on-1 training (mostly, she had two true beginners there as well). I swam laps working on specific details while she worked with them, I got dedicated attention just before they arrived and after they left.

There were a lot of things about the mechanics of swimming I "knew", but had not internalized (as evidenced by my form and approach to the water). It was a good experience for me, and I ended up swimming for exercise for about 6 months after (shoulder injury took me out of it and I lost access to that pool).

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Economics.

Many people have no idea what economists actually work on. Economics is not only Macroeconomics. It is a consistent theory of human behaviour. It tries to understand social behaviour and human interactions using a very small number of hypothesis.

It genuinely gives a new light on how you understand social phenomena.

<comment><USER50> Partner that with Statistics. There's little about statistics that's in line with our expectations. From simple things like the Monty Hall problem, to Markov chains or complex sampling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Basic therapeutic massage is a skill that will last a life time. Most people (but not all) can pick this up easily and use it to ease sore shoulders, arms, backs and lower back pain (stay away from the neck). It mostly involves prodding around the muscles to find the tense/tight area that needs some direct pressure applied by the thumb. This causes pain at first but after 10 minutes the muscles relax and the original pain is reduced.

The mildly irritating thing about this skill is that once you learn it you can keep your friends and family up and running but, likely, no one will be able to do the same for you.

</comment><comment><USER52> Become proficient in CBT for yourself, especially the part that deals with cognitive distortions - even if you're not depressed.

I have now internalized things like all of nothing thinking, mental filters, personalization, etc that whenever my mind tries to pull a fast one on me I'm able to quickly rationalize the negative thought by seeing the cognitive distortions in it.

But like everything this requires a lot of practice to do mentally (I nearly did it for 1 year with pen and paper first - actually I made a web app for myself to do it but you have to write it down in the beginning)

</comment><comment><USER53> For backend engineers out there, knowing how to build a simple GUI will help make your tools more accessible to a wider audience. This makes your work more visible, and therefore more valuable to stakeholders.

<comment><USER36> Applied a bit more broadly / generally: Dogfooding. Switch to being the client / consumer of what you're working on. Or just watch other people use your stuff, be they other developers or end-users.

Statistics and bug reports only tell part of the story. I've learned a lot just from watching someone else work with the app I worked on back when with a camera mounted to the phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Learn how to use emacs. Next learn how to use org-mode.

</comment><comment><USER55> Rhetoric.

Communicating effectively with others will open up more opportunities than any other skill. It's also a great way to learn more about others and yourself.

I expect many participants here to be strong in the logical aspects of rhetoric and would suggest focusing on social interaction, understanding the audience, playing with different presentational styles, receiving and giving feedback, and the part I find most difficult, figuring out and acknowledging what you want to achieve in a given interaction.

</comment><comment><USER56> If I'd need to pick only one, I would say: "learn to learn". In the era of internet, where every piece of knowledge is available, I'm so surprised to meet so many people that are unable to learn things by themselves, relying on other non-remote people.

Sometimes you can sound like an asshole when a friend asks you something very specific and you answer: "why don't you Google it?", but IMHO you're doing him a favor.

</comment><comment><USER57> Learn golf. On the surface, it just seems like a game but it has plenty to teach about competing against yourself. Just as in life, the goal is to get a tiny bit better as compared against yourself yesterday. Most of it is a mental game. Patience and frustration will be the first things you will experience, but unlike learning skiing you won't have to worry about hurting yourself. It's an incredibly complex game simply because of the variety of skill involved. Full swing shots, pitching and chipping, sand shots, uneven lies and putting. Course management is also a strategic aspect that requires experience and skill.

Most of the time you will be paired up to form a group of four, so you will probably experience the feeling of being out of place and uncertain of how to act (rules, etiquette). This will help with practicing dealing with uncomfortable situations if you are more introverted. The reason why golf is addicting for many of us is that once you get ok at the game, you start to enjoy the improvement or just the addiction of hitting a great shot where you had planned to hit it. The outdoor aspect is also a big bonus, especially if you start walking 18 holes.

</comment><comment><USER58> Here are some things i'm thinking carefully about at the moment

Combination of: 1) Really thinking about what i value in life (and its monetary cost) 2) Index funds and living cost efficiently (Learning the type of risk here is important - i.e. volatility risk)

This is nothing new to many, but to me it was a revelation. When you start plugging numbers into a calculator as opportunity costs of current purchasing decisions the numbers are incredible. Ben felix - youtube (9/10) Mr money mustache - blog (7/10) - imperfect but useful for putting things in context

The rates are debatable but often 7% yearly is quoted. Example, instead of buying a 40,000 car, put it in stock market for 30 years and get just 6% return you've got 229,000. Thats a large percentage of retirement for simply deciding not to buy a new car

To me this seems like a cheat code for turning the difficulty down on life. We've got enough things to worry about other than personal finance.

I personally feel strongly about this, some might disagree: News. Have a look here: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/529060/uk-newspaper- mark...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/529060/uk-newspaper-market-by- circulation/)

Makes it clear why so much of the most read and quotes articles are of such bad quality. (There are still many good news outlets!, just large swathes of the largest ones are terrible) Something like 70% of the uk new market is owned by 3 papers or something like that.

I'm sure you can quibble with some of the things ive written here but i feel the general direction holds.

<comment><USER49> "The rates are debatable but often 7% yearly is quoted. Example, instead of buying a 40,000 car, put it in stock market for 30 years and get just 6% return you've got 229,000. Thats a large percentage of retirement for simply deciding not to buy a new car"

I completely agree with you. Many people would like to have an extra activity generating passive revenue but not spending and saving is exactly the same thing. It can be hard to be consistently frugal though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> The skill of energy. Energy is the one metric to optimize for by default. Energy to me has been health and excitement. Health is sleep, nutrition, movement, mindset, and relationships. Excitement is doing something that I enjoy, often seemingly providing more energy than it takes.

The skill of recognizing the need for difficult conversations, then having them. A 20 second awkward, difficult conversation saves 20 days or 20 months of unfortunate use of my time. There is a general form of this, that if it's easy to arrive at the answer, but hard to act, that's probably the right direction. Or, the obstacle is the way.

The skill of recognizing that everything makes sense when I know the full story. Especially in relation to other people. When someone else doesn't make sense to me, it's almost always a problem with me, not having the full story. I have not encountered an exception to this yet. This injects empathy and objectivity at a broad level into one's life.

The skill of habits and routines executed on priorities. This is the difference between being busy doing stuff all day and never accomplishing anything, to making consistent progress toward what's important.

<comment><USER36> Re: energy, maybe add mood and a lot of things: Realize they are subtle, that there is often no direct cause or correlation. Some issues are because of experiences throughout the day accumulated, or something from hours ago (e.g. food); others accumulate over months or years, e.g. stress, lack of sleep, a nutritional deficiency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> For me : It has been being mindful around my son. I realised that me being constantly distracted when he was playing was causing me a lot of stress and him to throw a lot of tantrums. Instead, I now consciously bring my attention back to him and I've noticed that I am a lot less stressed and so is he :) . The mind does drift off as it is wont to do but bringing it back is key. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER61> Understanding Logical fallacies. In these days of bad news reporting, it is good to recognize logical fallacies in reports. Instead of getting someone's opinion, it helps to focus on the actual data that is mentioned in the report. If the writer is using logical fallacies, they are trying to manipulate me. If they have clear logic, they are trying to inform me.

Then as second step, you can evaluate the data yourself, or even question it. See where you can find the source, or see other data. This step is more checking if the statistical evaluations are correct, or if there is p-hacking or any other problem. It must also follow basic common science. And if not, this should be explained.

What I usually find (>90% of the articles that I find interesting) is that the reports are conflicting and even the data is conflicting. The evidence/science is often incomplete and filled in with unfounded theories. And knowing this, it reduces the amount of information that is important in the articles.

So technically logical thinking is a way to compress all the data, without loss of information.

</comment><comment><USER62> In American Boy Scouts, Pioneering merit badge. How to tie anything to anything, how to make shelter, how to lever/hoist things.

</comment><comment><USER63> Although I hated Language Arts classes growing up, the skill of writing clearly has been hugely beneficial to me in my career. I was the last to be laid off from a company closing down and received a large retention bonus to stay to the end because of my status reports. Technically, I was somewhat junior on the team.

</comment><comment><USER64> First aid.

Become a volunteer as a first-aid responder. You will learn and practice how to react in a lot of unusual situations (kids choking, burns, wounds, people fainting...), learn more about healthcare-related subjects, and live incredibly unusual experiences. It's a highly rewarding skillset.

</comment><comment><USER65> Learn to play polo, to sail, hunt, fish and play golf. Those people all seem to have plenty of money.

</comment><comment><USER42> * walking the DOM as a data structure, query strings wont get you that

* walking the file system recursively as a data structure

* regular expressions

* so much of any projects documentation can be automated

* once you fully appreciate an understanding of data structures algorithms write themselves

<comment><USER66> Seconding regular expressions. Even for non-developers, they can be hugely useful in word processing and spreadsheets. If you ever need to find or replace text that isn't exact, then you should check it out.

Ever had to do something like look for every timestamp in a document or every word ending in -y or -ies, but it was tedious and time consuming? Regex can turn the solution from minutes of manual checking into seconds.

This is a pretty good introduction: [https://blog.usejournal.com/regular- expressions-a-complete-b...](https://blog.usejournal.com/regular-expressions- a-complete-beginners-tutorial-c7327b9fd8eb)

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> * Cooking gourmet foods; risotto, steak, learning how to make specific dishes: carbonara, spaghetti, chicken cordon blue, bangers and mash etc.... (I like to cook and love to eat)

* Work on your own car; learn basics: changing oil, light bulbs, air filters, adding wiper fluid. Learn more advanced: brake pad and rotor changes, fluid flushes, keep building this skill and you'll have fun getting dirty and saving money

* Learn how to get your partner or preferred partner gender to cum; this could be fun and exciting for both of you

* Learn how you like to cum

* Learn about money, stocks, 401ks and budgeting basics

</comment><comment><USER68> Being strong. It's like a secret super-power (not that I'm STRONG, just better than average) and it strengthens your bones and makes your body more robust in general:

"In robust training for this life, which is itself a continual fight with some form of adversary or other, the aim should be to form that solid and adamantine fiber which will endure long and serious attacks upon it, and come out unharmed from them, rather than the ability to perform sudden and brilliant feats, which often exhaust the powers in show, without doing any substantial good."

\-- Walt Whitman

</comment><comment><USER69> Learn any martial art, to any level of competence, at any time of your life. This will give you 100 times more self esteem and leave you feeling more centred than any self-help book you could ever buy.

</comment><comment><USER50> Not a lot of these suggestions have anything to do with a partner. Mostly solo skills, except maybe dance.

Maybe we could come up with some that would enhance ones time spent with a partner/spouse?

<comment><USER41> Foot massage? :)

<comment><USER50> Music? Conversation? Toastmasters? Heck, wrestling, handball, pool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> \- aligning multi-party interests

\- understand and manage the complexity

\- finding a way to keep moving forward

\- keeping things in balance

\- knowing when to stop arguing

\- accepting better solutions

\- when stand corrected, have the courage to say "you are right, i was mistaken"

</comment><comment><USER71> If you have a friend with mid/big grocery shop, I would highly recommend you to hang there often. If you have free day and can spare it there, Try it. you will learn tons of things from marketing, trading, negotiation, customer service, etc. (by the way my family owns a grocery shop, and I have also spent much of my free teen-age time at my uncle's grocery super-store which is kind of a mini wall-mart with 15000+ skus.)

</comment><comment><USER72> I am a HN lurker. study biology. far from the tech world. but I love following. far from everything on HN I understand in depth. however, I find a community of people interested in the situation of the world, so although my field of study is far from the usual insight perceived in this community, 0s and 1s are not that far from the line of thought in molecular biology with genetic backwards engineering of DNA ┌(・。・)┘

</comment><comment><USER73> Learn how to do things you would normally pay somebody else to do.

For example learn to service your car, repair your home, etc.

Your things may last longer, you can save a bunch of money, your better half will be impressed, you learn how basic stuff in the real world works and you'll get some time off the screen.

<comment><USER74> When I was 16 I worked part time at an auto mechanic's shop just doing odd tasks, like sweeping, moving stuff, doing inspections. I didn't know much about cars. One of the mechanics there was a fairly young guy. You could tell just by looking at him that he was not happy to be there. He would smoke all day in the shop - not very safe, and strictly forbidden. He was studying for the CCNA exam, looking to get out and start a career. When he found out I programmed and used linux, he was really excited. We would talk about networking tech a lot. One time I told him I wanted to learn about cars so I could do all of my own maintanence. He said, "Keep learning computers, so you can make enough money to pay someone else to do it." At the time, that was a disappointing non-answer, but I know now that there was wisdom in it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> A Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) system has been invaluable to me personally and professionally. It takes a decent amount of work, but it doesn't feel like the knowledge I accrue slips through a sieve anymore, maybe 15% versus 50%.

<comment><USER41> Do you use any special software for that?

<comment><USER75> Nothing too specialized.

I use Google Bookmarks to "queue" up readings that I want to review; generally I don't let this exceed ~10 (otherwise I know I'll never get to them). I use Google Keep to jot down raw thoughts/notes (e.g. if I'm learning a new concept or hear something interesting on a podcast) throughout the day. Then, every weekend I review all of these notes (say between 10 and 60) and "structure" them into organized domains (e.g. sociology, biology, finance, psychology, history) and clean them up before putting them into OneNote.

I generally don't check my OneNote so often - except if I know I have notes related to a topic and I'd like to review them (say antifragility or neural annealing) - but the two-step process of writing down the notes, then revisiting/refining them later tends to aid my retention substantially.

I'd say during an average week I spend about 1-2 hours on this process. Sometimes, if I've been inundated with new information, it can be up to 4-6 hours, especially when I have a lot of queued readings to go through. Overall though I've considered it well-worth the investment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Still trying to "master" this skill, but "learning" how to observe, learn, shift through the noise, and apply that knowledge in a reasonable turnaround time.

</comment><comment><USER77> Learn how to touch type. Honestly, it's worth it.

</comment><comment><USER78> Basic first aid (CPR, pressure bandage, etc.) to help yourself and others. And repeat the course every once in a while to refresh the knowledge.

</comment><comment><USER79> Get an MBA. It will open your eyes to business decision making and make you chuckle next time people rant against them.

</comment><comment><USER80> Acting. It's given me so much confidence to tackle any problem. Luckily I have a great Coach.

</comment><comment><USER81> Non-determinism. Hackers are so used to finding a logical, elegant solution that we sometimes forget that social behaviour is not deterministic and that, when judging others, we do neither have perfect knowledge nor we are entitled to fully know and understand the motivations of others.

</comment><comment><USER82> I have no skills

</comment><comment><USER83> negotiating maximum compensation for the difficult and challenging work you do as a computer scientist

<comment><USER84> you mean lego brick worker?

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Learn how to negotiate

<comment><USER83> THIS

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> * Fixing things

* Weightlifting

* Cardiovascular exercise

* Sewing</comment>


Reflecting on the Soul of a New Machine - <AUTHOR> http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2019/02/10/reflecting-on-the-soul-of-a-new-machine/ <comment><USER3> There's a fantastic comment on the article written by Jessamyn West (Tom's daughter):

 _I saw this zipping by on Twitter. Heya I'm Tom West's daughter and I always pop onto threads about SOANM to bang the drum of good work-life balance as well. My dad was an amazing man and we got along well, but he was a pretty distant dad and basically left the raising of my sister and me to my mom who might have wanted to do something professionally as well._

 _The things he did at work, and his and Kidder's ability to talk about them, were quite interesting and have lessons that can be relevant in many different timelines and lifestyles. But you know, I wound up moving to Vermont and helping people use technology to solve problems in their lives. You need all the things–technology, an understanding of people, and a life–and my dad possibly only had two of those at any one time. Thanks for writing this._

<comment><USER4> Wow, I've worked with her professionally, and had no idea she was connected to a book I read and loved when I was young. Always interesting to hear more of the story around a company and a family.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I struggled with this a few times: "When a person signed up to do a job for him, he would in turn trust that person to accomplish it; he wouldn't break it down into little pieces and make the task small, easy and dull."

I'm not particularly talented, far from it actually, but many times I've worked in teams with non-junior people who were tasked to do some portion of a project, and simply delivered garbage: a terribly over engineered solution in a component where over engineering was actually very dangerous (e.g. doing distributed systems using several small bespoke moving parts rather than a single solid leader election mechanism, or even better getting away with something leaderless and more elegantly stateless, to give a recent example).

In those occurrences, I inevitably "broke it down to pieces" by keeping pointing out all the exact scenarios where the code delivered would fail, until the other person really had to finally move to a solution much more similar to the one I had in mind (much much simpler). Sometimes this required an embarrassing feedback loop of 10+ round trips, where every time I'd just look at the newly delivered code say "this doesn't work in a X scenario". And I was not in a better position from a knowledge perspective, we were essentially peers.

I felt like a prick and definitely felt resentment from the other party (especially since code reviews are public), but at the same time, how could I have acted differently? The end result was really orders of magnitude better, more robust and smaller.

<comment><USER6> I wish I knew the answer to this, but I don't. The closest I've come to succeeding at this is to have a reputation as a "breaker". This really started in undergrad algorithms; I wasn't great at finding solutions, but I had a knack for finding edge cases to break solutions others had come up with. Sometimes it just needed a tweak to work, sometimes it was "throw it all away and start over". For the few times I've done regular office-style work over the years, that's come in handy. I feel like a dick a too, but I try to be really gentle and end up with people showing up on their own to "run something by me" before building it out. Saves everyone frustration!

There have been colleagues though who do exactly what you've described. That brutally painful loop of breaking pieces of an overly complicated solution over and over. My unfortunate confession is that I usually end up giving up and let them fail on their own. I'm always willing to help, but if someone doesn't want help, I won't spend much energy forcing it on them.

<comment><USER7> Yes! Finally, a word — "breaker" — for my greatest talent, which I still haven't found a way to monetize in my 70 years and 8 months on the planet. I can unerringly and quickly find the FAIL point in most devices/methods/ideas/setups/systems/websites etc. in a savant-like fashion. Perhaps in the future I'll find someone who will pay me for my quirky skill.

<comment><USER8> Software QA. Not particularly prestigious but the pay is passable, more so if you can code well enough to automate tests or dig into the codebase to isolate the bug.

<comment><USER7> Alas, I cannot code at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I read the book when it came out and I loved it.

A few years later, in 1986 to be specific, I started a job at an OCR company. My cube was directly across from the office of Carl Alsing, the guy who managed "the microkids". I didn't put two and two together at first. Alsing was one of the people who interviewed me for the job, and I got to know him a little bit for a couple months before someone told me about the book connection.

So I went to the library, got the book out, and read it again. When Kidder got to the part where he introduces Alsing, it was amazing. In a paragraph he captured details about Alsing that I hadn't even realized myself (eg, his personality projects the image of a smaller man, though he was actually decently tall).

The other thing he got right was Alsing wasn't much for schedules and tended to work on things that interested him instead.

Anyway, having verified that Kidder had indeed captured a lot of truth about Alsing, it gave me trust that the rest of the book was similarly accurate, and not just sexed up in the process of storytelling.

</comment><comment><USER10> I loved this book as a kid, although once I got into the work force and began to appreciate the value of a work-life balance and the basically unbrigdeable gap in incentives between management and labor, I started to look at the ludicrous demands the company placed on its engineers with a more jaundiced eye.

My perception of the team leader hero, Tom West, was also permanently altered by an essay written by his daughter Jessamyn (a quasi famous technologist in her own right), who described him as basically a depressed alcoholic.

<comment><USER11> I'm having trouble finding the essay - can you give me some pointers?

<comment><USER12> The essay I remember is this one, which isn't nearly so harsh as what the patent comment suggests (but is a lovely read, with good advice): [https://medium.com/message/deathhacks-b767903b7c15](https://medium.com/message/deathhacks-b767903b7c15)

<comment><USER13> That is worth posting separately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've always considered myself lucky that one of first minicomputers I got to know and love was a DG Eclipse. I had the experience of reading the book in college and learning the weird, wonderful, and amazing AOS/VS operating system at the same time.

In the late 1980s I got to learn a ton about an operating system that had threads (tasks), virtual memory, shared memory, rich filesystem ACLs, symbolic links, and a bizarre shell language that forced you to do all your looping via recursion.

I learned how to program in C on that machine, I wrote some of my first assembly on that machine, and I spent hours pouring over thick black three- ring binders filled with manuals on OS usage, system calls, and the hardware architecture.

Friends and I competed to learn arcane details on how the system worked. My main claim to fame was I figured out how to share memory between unrelated processes, and how to use the atomic-test-and-set instruction to safely synchronize access to it.

One time while we were studying the virtual memory system, a friend wrote a program to see what would happen if you allocated the entire 4G address space of virtual memory and then randomly touched different pages of it. Predictably, the storm of page faults ground the machine to a standstill, causing our lazy sysadmin to have to put down his his copy of Datamation and address the gathering throng outside his door.

I have this recurring dream that I'm back at college for some event, and I wander into the Computer Center and look around. In the very back, there is a dusty 'Dasher' D210 terminal next to some stacked up old furniture -- plugged in and emitting a dim green glow. It's hooked up to our MV/10000 Eclipse, which I imagine is still in the basement of the Library Building humming along after all these years. I try to log in, but I can't remember any of my old accounts and passwords.

<comment><USER15> We had a MV/8000 at college, and it was a really nice machine. We had compilers for Pascal, C, COBOL, and oddly enough, Ada. You could cross-link these languages, so you'd have a front end written in COBOL that would make use of a Pascal back end. And the bindings just worked.

You knew when an Ada compilation job had been started because the other terminals would start getting sluggish...

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I took a valuable lesson from the book that has served me well over the years.

At one point the CEO injects a critical piece of wisdom by telling the engineers they are not allowed to use a mode switch to preserve backwards compatibility.

In any system, the presence of mode switches often points to where things will go wrong. If a system has two modes, then inevitably, one of them will be more unloved, untested, under documented and unreliable than the other.

<comment><USER17> OTOH, in the context of a distributed system that has to be upgraded live and the deployment of new code has to be carefully staged across hours or days (e.g. a storage cluster with thousands of machines), such mode switches can be absolutely essential. The process can look something like this.

* Roll out the code with support for a new feature

* Flip the mode switch on a few nodes to _use_ the new feature

* Wait a while, watch for anomalies

* Enable the new feature on more nodes, until it's on all

* Disable support for the old feature (another mode switch)

* Eventually, roll out new code with the old feature entirely removed

It's not quite a whole-system mode switch as in SoaNM, but that's kind of the point. In a distributed system actions do not affect the whole system all at once, so different rules apply.

<comment><USER13> A feature switch is not a mode switch. A feature switch in the 'on' position just gives. A mode switch gives and takes away in the 'on' position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My favorite takeaway from the book was the concept of pinball: if you win, you get to play again.

Also the Mushroom Theory of Management. Easy to encounter that firsthand. "keeping them in the dark, feeding them shit, and watch them grow."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine#Them...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine#Themes)

</comment><comment><USER19> For an interesting glimpse of a different trade, I recommend _House_ , also by Tracy Kidder.

</comment><comment><USER20> I just read the book not too long ago myself. Thoroughly enjoyed it. The book that got me going was Hackers by Steven Levy which I've ready easily 20x. This book is just as good. I also think reading this much later in life gave me a fine appreciation as someone in Management of developers, politics, dealing with teams, trusts, motivations, etc. It's actually stunning how relevant the story still applies even tho it was written before most of us were born.

</comment><comment><USER21> I read bits from the book in The Atlantic (I think) before I ever saw an MV. Some years later, my wife read the book for a class in her MBA program, and I read the whole thing.

A couple of points struck me then that may be of interest to the HN readership.

First, the instruction set originally proposed by the architect was very VAX- like. It would probably have been great for those writing in assembler. But the end was approaching VAX-like instruction sets.

Second, retaining the old Nova/Eclipse instruction set meant that one kept three general-purpose registers (well, sort of general-purpose: by convention, I think the stack pointer was in AC3). One also had no register-relative byte addressing.

I liked the Novas and Eclipses, and learned a lot working on them. But the RISC-based UNIX machines took over from the minicomputers pretty quickly.

[Edit: I don't think I've used an MV since about 1995--take any remarks with a grain of salt.]

</comment><comment><USER22> It was fun reading the book as I was embedded in all the blue, black and red of wire wrapping my own boards for a mini-computer I designed and built for a company back then. There were times when I wondered if I was doing the right thing and to see that others did the same as I made me feel much better.

</comment><comment><USER23> There is an interview with a few of the engineers on ScienceFriday's YouTube channel. Definitely worth checking out if you've read the book recently.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wq3ucqnaSk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wq3ucqnaSk)

</comment><comment><USER24> I read this book when I was in college and it had a profound impact on me - <USER2> was one of the primary motivators for me to get into computer science. Then when I came to the US for grad school in the mid 1980s, I got a programming job on campus in a lab and was shown around the computer room by my supervisor. And there I came face to face with the DG MV8000 and gave me a tremendous thrill. For the next couple of years when I worked on that machine (learning C among other things), I used to imagine the scenes from the book.

</comment><comment><USER25> related: Jessie Frazelle just published this [https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/new-golden-age-of-building- wi...](https://blog.jessfraz.com/post/new-golden-age-of-building-with-soul/)

</comment><comment><USER26> WIRED had a rather nice retrospective on this book in 2000: [https://www.wired.com/2000/12/soul/](https://www.wired.com/2000/12/soul/)

</comment><comment><USER27> Dang, and there was me hoping for a write-up of the Fear Factory album.

</comment><comment><USER28> Not everything worth doing is worth doing well -- Tom West</comment>


Linux Trojan rears its ugly head  - <AUTHOR> http://www.sophos.com/blogs/chetw/g/2010/06/12/linux-malware-rears-ugly-head/

<comment><USER4> The title is inflamatory, sensational, and misleading - albeit effective.

As others have pointed out, this isn't a "linux trojan" as much as it is a "software source code repository hack."

Dropping a trojan into someones unguarded source repository can happen on any system. This isn't anywhere close to a "security breach" for linux because people still had to download and compile source.

This raises an interesting question - do you trust the source you build? But that's a different issue. The closest thing to Linux security issues is the null pointer bug which allows arbitrary execution as root. And that's like one in 25 years as far as I know.

<comment><USER5> "One in 25 years" is far too optimistic (see e.g. <http://secunia.com/advisories/product/2719/?task=advisories> \- the NULL pointer bug was exploitable only from programs already running on the host, so most of these "count" by your criteria), but yes - the article is nonsensical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> <sarcasm>I am so scared by this. You mean, a program I run can do things I don't expect it to do? Oh my... This is _huge_!</sarcasm>

No, really.

As far as we can know, every instance of Oracle RDBMS, PeopleSoft, AutoCAD, PhotoShop, Windows, Exchange, Office and SQL Server may harbor any number of backdoors. We will never know, since, as the article points out, we cannot examine the source code. And Sophos probably won't know either unless the maker is lame enough to include a fingerprintable backdoor.

If you are a package maintainer, you should always get your source off the tagged releases in the version control system. That way you can always test your build off trunk/head/whatever-the-most-current-version-is and ensure that, when the next release becomes adopted, your package will be fine.

If you are a Linux sysadmin and you are not using package management, you are insane. Or you will be, shortly. Even if you have to use the "yesterday" release, you should build your own package.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is a few weeks old right? Where did it go from there? Are we (linux users) all infected with lots of rootkits and file infectors and worms? No.

The interesting question is not "Are linux machines infected with a cloud of malware like Windows machines?" but rather, "What factors contribute to Windows malware that don't exist for Linux?". That is, on a technical level, Linux is just as vulnerable as Windows. Fred Cohen did his initial experiments on a a 4.3BSD machine in the early 80s, so we've know about the vulnerability all along.

Linux just doesn't accumulate the uncountable legions of malware that Windows does. It can't really be "market share", as even at 1% of all users, Linux desktops probably count higher than MS-DOS did in 1988, when the "Brain" virus swept through the population. So, this Sophos-employeed blogger should shy away from his name-calling, and start researching the really interesting "why" to see if it can't be applied back to Windows.

<comment><USER8> One solid technical reason is that most Windows users run as Administrator (root) which eases the spread of malware.

In addition, the lack of uniformity makes it more challenging to write an Unix virus. You'd need to have the worm recompile itself on the target machine, as did the Morris worm in 1988. That greatly increases complexity and cost.

Many Windows worms target a specific client/OS pair. That means the worm will require you to run, say, Outlook Express _and_ Windows XP. That sounds pretty specific, but the potential target size is so huge that the virus author can allow itself to be that restrictive.

Let's imagine a disease that could contaminate only one human being out of a hundred.

How fast do you think the disease would spread compared to one that can infect ninety human beings out of a hundred?

Why bother write a malware that has got - even if it's perfectly written - <USER2> order of magnitude less chances to spread?

<comment><USER9> "Why bother write a malware that has got ... an order of magnitude less chances to spread?"

That's plain wrong. Read Rick Moen takes on the subject here: <http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/index.php?page=virus#virus4>

<comment><USER8> I don't know this Mr. Moen, but the fallacy may not be where he believes it is.

When writing an exploit you need to know the kernel, libc and apache version to make your buffer overflow work, because memory layout is important - <USER3> it's a buffer overflow. There are so many apache builds, that makes things difficult for a worm (but not for a targeted exploit). Not impossible, but more difficult.

On Windows, the build is uniform.

Additionally, servers are less interesting targets since they are more monitored and operated by administrators. If your plan is to have as many zombies as possible, not a good idea.

Last but not least, a lot of virii and trojans use mail and the web as a channel. AFAIK you don't read mails and visit web pages on servers.

If the underlying argument is that there are less virii on Linux because it's more secure than Windows, this is wrong.

It's difficult to "measure" security and I really don't want to have a Linux vs Windows debate, but Windows cannot be considered as an insecure operating system anymore. User's behavior on the other hand, is still problematic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10>
      The authors are now GPG-signing their releases to allow their customers to determine the validity of an archive.

I'm inclined to mistrust an article that calls users of an open-source IRC server "customers".

</comment><comment><USER11> It's an IRC daemon. Weren't half of these trojaned anyway? Most of these may as well have been written by the past equivalent of 4Chan.

</comment><comment><USER12> sophos anti-virus wasn't able to detect compromised binaries or source until nearly 2 years after compromise, just like the rest of us. sounds like software i don't need.

(and that's assuming you get their on-demand scanning working (talpa) which only seems to work with out of date kernels.)</comment>


React Studio 1.2: Version control, Plugin Editor and Store, 3D previews – and free - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/react-studio-1-2-version-control-plugin-editor-store-3d-previews-and-free-30ad75bb3feb <comment><AUTHOR> I built all of the React codegen and component design UI for this product, among other stuff... Happy to answer any questions!

In a nutshell, it's a rapid application development tool for web apps, but you can control and customize the code output to an unseen degree.

You get a complete "create-react-app" project when exporting, and there's automatic Git integration which uses branches to make sure the generated UI code ends up neatly separated from manual code changes. There's also an advanced plugin system (including a built-in plugin editor), so you can easily take React/JS code and wrap it into modules that designers can use.</comment>


Ask HN: What features do you need for an ads website - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
I am planning to develop a free ads website, and I was wondering what features do you need or what features are existing classifieds websites missing?
I know there's a lot of competition on this niche but I am planning to launch few websites in different Europe countries (UK, Spain, Italy, etc).
I have the website format already and I want it to be easy to use and with useful content. Ads will be added with no registration required, and all ads will be manually approved, so no medicine, work at home, crappy ads will be listed.
Thanks. <comment><USER2> Handle responses better. One of CL's weaknesses is how annoying responses get.

I recently posted an ad in NYC and received over 80 replies. But they're all individual emails so there's no easy way to scroll through the replies in a long list like comments and pick out the 3 or 4 quality ones.</comment>


The Figures Behind The Top Web Apps - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_the_figures_behind_top_web_apps.php#more <comment><USER2> If you really look at those numbers, they become really "interesting".

The only application making a profit is drop-send. (Sorry, "top secret" = "not enough" for me) Some of those sites have some outrageous costs indicative of major VC involvement. On the surface, none of them (aside from freshbooks) seem like a very good way to make money either. Granted this is my highly subjective take, but I see it as this:

Drop-Send - Profitable, traded high expectations for more secure results... may have competition problems in the future, which is probably why its for sale. It has a great potential though, and room to move in the cost to profit area to compete.

Freshbooks - Good looking app, should be able to pay for itself... ridiculously high monthly costs are a liability.

Maya's Mom - Great Idea, better have a killer idea to make money off of it though, I don't think ads will cut it.

Mobissimo - Not promising in my mind.. already need to explain in words how they're different from expedia and travelocity. Not a good sign.

Wesabe - Interesting concept, but there's no way in hell I'd give them my account information. That's a big leap of faith for a start-up to ask of their customers.

</comment><comment><USER3> While, in dollars, founder time and equity don't cost anything, in real terms, they do. Unfortunately, even in public companies, there isn't a good way to really account for these numbers... So I believe the bigger numbers (Mobissimo, Wesabe) are more indicative of the "real" costs of starting a business.

For instance, if I were start and self-fund a new business, the development and design costs would be zero, but I'd be paying rent, eating food, paying for gas, etc etc, since I'd be working full time. For a real account of the overall costs, I'd have to take those expenses as "salary" in my overall cost evaluation.

<comment><USER2> Drop-send's cost are quite accurate. He paid for developer and design time on contract.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is precisely the kind of data I always am hoping to hear about but almost never do.

<comment><USER5> It seems the lawyers take away more money than the development process! eek

<comment><USER6> Not with all but yeah they do take away a sizeable chunk of the budget. What I want to know is who funded these businesses...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I meant for the labor components of the "build", not maintenance, costs.</comment>