I hate the news - <AUTHOR> http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews <comment><USER2> I completely disagree with Aaron, but I respect his opinion. Reading the news is incredibly important, and it shapes your understanding of culture and circumstances outside your social bubble, which in turn affects your future social interactions.

<comment><USER3> Does the news actually do that though? Does regularly and generally consuming the news do more than provide new topics for water cooler chat? I can understand the argument for being informed through selective reading/viewing (which the article makes), but not so much for being generally informed.

<comment><USER4> I think it does do more. It ads another degree of accountability to people with power. It might not be much, but it's something. One small anecdote; a development in a local suburb is hitting a brick wall because the media has revealed a relationship between the developer and the council. That development was going up on public land without proper oversight or tender.

Couple of bigger anecdotes;

\- Watergate. A president's criminal behaviour was dug up by a newspaper, forcing him to resign.

\- Vietnam war coverage forced the US to reconsider their attitudes to weapons with high collateral damage, conscription and large scale land wars in general.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Relevant: [http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the- gel...](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/65213-briefly-stated-the-gell-mann- amnesia-effect-is-as-follows-you)

> Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the > newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, > physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist > has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, > the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing > cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's > full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the > multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or > international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow > more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the > page, and forget what you know.

Journalists are people who know little of anything writing about everything.

<comment><USER6> Depends on the journalist and publication. I at least like to think I understood the topics I wrote about when I was writing stories a couple of years ago. But I wrote for a niche publication, not a general news site, so I wasn't required to write about "everything," just the subset I was familiar with.

<comment><USER7> Also The Economist is frequently not totally clueless about computer technology.

<comment><USER8> Completely agree. There are many great journalists out there. How easy it is to cherry pick or dismiss journalism based on examples of how bad it can be.

fwiw, I couldn't agree less with this article. In fact, it scares me that an educated person could think this way.

RS

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thoreau: "We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate. Either is in such a predicament as the man who was earnest to be introduced to a distinguished deaf woman, but when he was presented, and one end of her ear trumpet was put into his hand, had nothing to say. As if the main object were to talk fast and not to talk sensibly. We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough."

<comment><USER10> Another Thoreau quote, also from Walden: "And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter -- we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea."

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "I think following the news is a waste of time."

I'm sure this plaid a role in him being so productive.

But I do think its my obligation to read the news. Even if it makes me less productive. Without the news I would have never learned about Aarons hack and his trial. Of course, just knowing the news is not enough. One has to act. In the case of Aaron, we didn't act.

<comment><USER12> _Without the news I would have never learned about Aarons hack and his trial._

Maybe it depends on how you define "news". Everything I know about Aaron Swartz, I know from following links I encountered here. True, this is a "news" site, but it's _filtered_ news; I think that's an important point. The problem with "mainstream" news media is not just that they're bad at reporting; they're also bad at filtering, because their filter criterion is what will sell papers/get more viewers, rather than what information is genuinely of value to the most readers.

<comment><USER13> I don't read "the news" (meaning mainstream media, if you may) all that often, but when I do - I do like that they're "bad at filtering", or rather, their sheer broadness of topics. It reminds me that there is people with other views of life and that there's more topics out there - than what my more like minded sphere care to interest themselfs with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think it's funny that the article about the news being irrelevant ends with the cliched tagline: "You should follow me on Twitter."

Because _that_ would be relevant.

<comment><USER15> This post is from October 20, 2006

Twitter did not exist then, so I think it is obvious to the people who read this website how a tag like that would be there now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've found myself feeling the same way since 2008 about the news. After 9/11, I was consumed by talk radio, talking heads, blogs of varying opinions, but ultimately found that I wasn't being more useful and informed...I was becoming angry, quick to judge, and worst of all, less intelligent and analytical with my decisions.

Being in the tech field, we're trained daily to evaluate competing, languages, and technologies not only on their own merits, but how closely they relate to our way of thinking. Most importantly, we tend to be _willing_ to accept this change.

Since no longer being immersed in news, I spend time reading thins of value that either make me feel good, or something that I can apply for the betterment of myself or others. When elections come about, I do my research, cast a vote, and perhaps contact the office of the elected when news trickles down to me about a bill I want input on.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've avoided newspapers for a couple of years, for much the same reasons described here. I still read a monthly news magazine, sometimes a weekly one. I find reading an international edition helps a lot (whether of a foreign or domestic news source) - less of the ins and outs of day-to-day politics and crime, which really don't enhance my life.

What's left are two kinds of stories - actual "news", by which I mean events that are more unusual and important; the kind of content that will be history in the future. This... feels like it affects me; I would prefer to read the history books about it, but they're not written yet, and I want to know now while there's still time to do something about it. If I'm going to change the world, even at the very limited level of making a product that makes some people's lives easier, that will probably be made possible because of some new piece of information; waiting until it's accepted wisdom is too late.

The other kind is features that are "still true", that aren't particularly time-sensitive. Things I could just as well read a book about, indeed. But my experience is that short essays are much better than books, to the extent that many of my favourite "books" are nothing more than collections of essays or newspaper columns. Likewise in fiction (and one thing that drives my choice of magazine is that it includes fiction), short stories are often more compelling and impactful than long ones.

</comment><comment><USER18> Similar sentiments from a brother several thousand years ago:

"...I start up out of dreams and am disturbed, trembling at every message, with my own peace of mind depending upon letters not my own. Someone has arrived from Rome. 'If only there is no bad news!' But how can anything bad for _you_ happen in a place, if you are not there? Someone arrives from Greece. 'If only there is no bad news!' In this way for _you_ every place can cause misfortune. Isn't it enough for you to be miserable where you are? Must you needs be miserable even beyond the seas, and by letter?"

<comment><USER19> I like this quote, only slightly newer, by Paul the hermit:

"Tell me, I pray, how fares the human race: if new roofs be risen in the ancient cities, whose empire it is that now holds sway in the world, if any still survive, snared in the error of demons."[1]

It epitomizes the futility of "news:" even if you live in a cave for many years (decades), as long as you know a bit about human nature and history, you know the news--just not the names. Like the OP, I find news pointless and go long periods without it.

[1] <http://www.hermitary.com/articles/paul.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> A large part of my day to day job involves summarizing political careers from thousands of pages of news articles.

As a general rule, I find that for every thousand pages of news copy, one can usually distill about thirty pages of useful facts (the rest being redundant, speculative, filler, or otherwise unimportant).

</comment><comment><USER21> Besides always having something to talk about when meeting with people, reading the news is an exercise in critical thinking and analysis. Distilling a narrative from various sources about remote subjects is a skill that is applicable to yourself. If you can understand the narratives you hear on you may gain the skills to understand your immediate circumstances.

tl;dr Critical thinking is good for you!

<comment><USER22> Reading the news is an exercise in critical thinking, but is it a better one than reading books? If you want to practice distilling a narrative from various sources, why not read several different books about history or science or philosophy instead?

<comment><USER21> This is a hard question and in my initial post I wanted to write a paragraph rant about it.

I think there is a case for the similarity between the slow stream of aleatory snippets that characterize the websites like the New York Times and the way we receive information concerning our everyday lives. The way we get information in our lives is certainly granular, contains much noise, and is primarily observation. Novels are not granular with little noise. Philosophy is explanation and we may miss out on the initial gather steps. Although it would be fun to phrase this a testable hypothesis.

I think its a different kind of critical thinking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> "Not about me." Richly ironic, that.

But he was right. I feel much better about life when I don't read the news - and I'm typically far more productive during those periods when I manage to abstain.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think it's important to look at some events as they unfold, vs. in retrospect, even if only to train yourself.

Pick a historical event (say, the assassination which kicked off WW1). Read news in chronological order, as it came out. See how different things seem at any point in time vs. how they look retrospectively a century later.

</comment><comment><USER25> Wow, great find. Thank you for sharing. This is why I love Hacker News, one of the best things on the front page right now! Something that takes me outside my comfort zone and makes me think. These past two days have been some of Hacker News' best.

<comment><USER26> Are you being satirical?

<comment><USER27> Most likely, and I share the sentiment. I wouldn't mind having, say, the first thread on this story pinned for a week as the top post to let everyone grieve, protest, vent, ramble and whatnot. Filling up the HN front page for two days in a row though is just too much though and may lead to desensitization.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I live in Israel, where if you start your day by reading the news, you will fall into a depression that, if lucky, will last until you fall asleep.

<comment><USER29> I live in the UK and feel the same way, except now I feel a bit guilty about it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I haven't watched television for like 10 years now and I only spend time on news sites. But recently I realised how much time I just waste on the news instead and how little I gain.

I could have learned more about python or read a good book about an important subject. News is like junkfood for the mind. Very short topics that are not relevant to my life.

Sometimes I read articles about rape or other injustice and those topics just infuriate me, but I'm totally powerless. News exhaust me.

It has no value for me whatsoever. I can't recall that I ever made any important decision based on it.

This article is so true. When journalist write about a topic you know a lot about, there are often so many errors, that you wonder how many errors there are in topics you don't know about.

If you read the news as a hobby, sure, be my guest. But that's something else.

</comment><comment><USER31>
        Let us look at the front page of today's New
        York Times....there is a story about
        Republicans feuding among themselves.... a
        photo of soldiers in Iraq. A stock exchange
        chief must return $100M... a concern about
        some doctors over-selling a nerve testing
        system... a threat from China against North
        Korea... a report that violence in Iraq is
        rising. And there is concern about virtual
        science classes replacing real ones.

        None of these stories have relevance to my
        life. Reading them may be enjoyable, but it's
        an enjoyable waste of time. They will have no
        impact on my actions one way or another.

Considering the defining cause of Aaron's life, and apparently the straw that pushed him to end, turned out to be information liberation, including freeing access to legal and science documents, the latter strongly tied to "virtual science classes", I'd say Aaron misjudged the relevance of news to his life.

I absolutely agree that _most_ news is immaterial. That said, having lived over twice Aaron's age when he wrote this essay, what I've found is that sometimes the news _does_ affect me, occasionally directly. Not terribly often, but I've had bosses nominated to government office by presidents, companies I work for turn up in major fraud investigations, former colleagues sentenced to Federal prison, acquaintances convicted of murder. Understanding economic patterns can help guide decisions and actions. Even weather and traffic can be useful at times.

 _This doesn't mean that Fox News blaring in the corner is the best way to assimilate this information._ Even selecting more fair and balanced (to say nothing of appropriate and informative) sources, I find myself switching from voice to music (increasingly classical) simply to avoid driving myself to distraction.

But a brief, well-curated, reliable news source can be both broadening and useful. Key is to let it serve, not drive you. It need not be a daily habit (though it often is).

I've also had numerous inspirations from "softer" programming via NPR and similar outlets -- culture, arts, and science programming can re-frame or contextualize problems I'm working on, and remind me that there are worlds outside my own experience (check your biases, always a first source of errors).

</comment><comment><USER32> related, possibly of interest:

[1] R. Dobelli. Avoid News. Aug 2010. --> [http://dobelli.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/08/Avoid_News_Par...](http://dobelli.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/08/Avoid_News_Part1_TEXT.pdf)

[2] C. A. Johnson. The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption. O'Reilly, 2012.

i myself am conflicted about the news. i agree with most of the negative points both by OP and the above; but i also feel i actually do learn something from the news, esp. as i have a relatively organized note-taking system, file and reference articles above a certain threshold of interest in bibdesk, etc.

i think the reason i learn something is that i take the 5 secs to take a screenshot or copy-paste the relevant snippets of information in my system. over time, you can see interesting patterns. sometimes, i run across a reference to some other, deeper source of information (presumably the background material the high-level news article was based on), and file a to- do to check it out in my task manager. usually i wouldn't have thought of this source or reference if i hadn't seen it cited in the news. last but not least, just scanning the headlines and summaries can give you a sense of what the hivemind of "the market" (or "the public") is preoccupied with at the moment.

so, at least to me, it's not all bad and yet i agree that it often feels like a waste of time and mental energy. i haven't figured out a solution yet but completely quitting the news is not going to cut it for me.

<comment> dorian-graph You're different though to the majority of people. It seems as if Aaron was making a case more so for the bland, mass news spewed out through the TV about wild stories and dirty things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> "There is voting, of course, but to become an informed voter all one needs to do is read a short guide about the candidates and issues before the election."

For one thing this places enormous trust in the guide-writers. For another it enormously oversimplifies the topics on which the guides would touch.

<comment><USER34> And yet what alternative is there? If you follow the news you're placing the same trust in journalists.

To become a _truly_ informed voter, not relying on others' summary explanations, would be more than a full-time career.

<comment><USER35> How about people that are like-minded band together and dedicate one person to research all of the issues and present them, or an issue per person (or something else)?

<comment><USER36> _people that are like-minded band together and dedicate one person to research all of the issues and present them_

That sounds a lot like what FOX News does actually.

<comment><USER35> I'm talking about smaller groups of people that you know you can trust to present the issues with little bias / in a fair way. The scale of FOX News is obviously beyond that. I'm literally talking about groups of maybe 10-20 people. It allows you to all be more informed as a group, while sharing the workload of doing all the information gathering/compilation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I found this paper by Rolf Dobelli to be very insightful. It was a TED talk a long time ago, back when that meant a little more.

[http://dobelli.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/08/Avoid_News_Par...](http://dobelli.com/wp- content/uploads/2010/08/Avoid_News_Part1_TEXT.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER38> "[The news'] obsession with the criminal and the deviant makes us less trusting people. Its obsession with the hurry of the day-to-day makes us less reflective thinkers. Its obsession with surfaces makes us shallow."

</comment><comment> mark-r A little OT, but seeing his posts end with "You should follow me on twitter here" makes me very sad. It's a constant reminder of what we'll miss.

</comment><comment><USER39> I gave up main stream news 4 years ago and I pretty much only read tech news. However, I find that important news still bubble up to me quickly through other channels such as word of mouth and through the tech news feeds. And I find that none of my time is wasted by worthless news, such as partison bickering, the latest traffic accident on I-35 or celebrity gossip. You should try it.

</comment><comment><USER40> Felt the same way this morning when I caught a few minutes of This Week, covering the next "fiscal cliff", the lack of women in Obama's cabinet, and so on. What a waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER41> I don't read news anymore (two years now), only watch tech shows in my "niche".

But some say perception is reality, so maybe it's smart to be in the know from time to time.

</comment><comment><USER42> Years ago I saw Ray Bradbury give a talk at our city library, and he spent some of his time saying the same thing.

</comment><comment><USER43> It is ironic that 'news' of his death has attracted attention to this article.

<comment><USER44> I wonder if Aaron would still agree that, in spending time reading coverage of this, we have not really changed our opinions or learned anything relevant to our lives? He sounds like a pragmatist, and I think he would.

Personally, as devil's advocate, reading the reports of yet another intelligent young person being pressured and victimized by the sickly allied commercial/government capitalist establishment (of _their own country_ ), it redoubles my stance that current era government lacks any honest sense of democracy; we desperately need to claw back the power of nations (and business) against the individual. (Assange is in some senses leading the charge here, and doing a good job!)

My point though is that sometimes news helps contribute to general impressions like this. I think that can be as valuable as the concrete relevant new life- actionable information that Aaron points out correctly is usually missing from news.

In short I agree with Aaron, but there are counter-points. (I haven't watched/read news regularly since pretty much ever... but consider myself reasonably informed on the issues behind the issues, ie. structure of government, general state of society in different parts of the world, methods of oppression. But that knowledge comes from the hacking community and travel (eg. Tunisia during revolution, many years living in China, some time in US&UK, Europe, most of Asia, etc.) not from mainstream news.)

Does anyone here still read news on a daily basis? If so, why?

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> The problem with this theory is that when a person who follows the news hears a few minutes of Rush Limbaugh or reads something from naturalnews.com they realize pretty quickly that it's bullshit.

The people who fall for that stuff always seem to be uninformed about current events or get it only from warped sources. You can extrapolate that to nazis or communism or wherever but the bottom line is an uninformed populace is easy pickings for ambitious bad guys.

<comment><USER46> The problem, though, is that Fox news actually backs up the kind of stuff Limbaugh says. So people can "watch the news" and still see their worldview validated.</comment></comment>


Facebook's Desperate Smoke Screen - <AUTHOR> http://calnewport.com/blog/2018/02/09/facebooks-desperate-smoke-screen/ <comment><USER3> Sorry, I'm simply not convinced that monetizing and marketing people's attention is all that much of a social ill. There is nothing about Facebook that's in any way worse than the old ways companies used to do this.

Does nobody remember the 80s? TV was turning people into fricken' zombies. People would sit on the boob tube for days at a time, stopping only to go to work to mindlessly knock out chores for a shift, then get back to their vapid entertainment.

People would make a game out of who could play the longest in the arcade on one quarter. With $5, a savvy gamer could spend _all day_ staring at lights and hearing beeps.

The world survived, thrived, and devised ever more devious and insidious ways to hook your mind. We weathered Everquest and the MMORPGs. Psychedelic drugs. Outrage didn't stop those from spreading long and wide.

My uncle lost years to Everquest. When he came up for air he found the world just as he left it. Now he manages his gaming habits just like everyone else.

Out of all the pseudo-addictive things people want to complain about, we're picking on Facebook? The thing that actually holds old friendships together and provides endless opportunities to interact _with other people_ that you would have never done otherwise? Or is the argument that every time someone gets the urge to play Scrabble, they need to coordinate a face-to-face game instead of just loading up Words with Friends?

C'mon. I guess bombastic apocalyptic bullshit will never go out of style.

<comment><USER4> >Sorry, I'm simply not convinced that monetizing and marketing people's attention is all that much of a social ill.

What about monetizing and marketing people's affection? The dowry would be the classic example, I'd be curious why you (presumably) are against dowries.

To me it's basically the same, certain things are corrupted by their commodification, affection, attention, others.

Besides when you say:

>The world survived, thrived

You're not exactly speaking to the people hooked on video games or TV or Facebook. Your uncle lost years to a game but because what, he doesn't do it anymore it's magically fine?

Are you also okay with advertising cigarettes to children? Cigarette breaks provide great opportunities for social gathering and let you interact _with other people_ you never would have otherwise. A smoker may lose a lot of time to smoking but when they come up for air the world will be exactly as they left it. They'll manage their enjoyment of tobacco just like everyone else.

Is it disgusting when a casino calls up a gambler who's trying to quit and offers them a credit to come back and play? I happen to believe that's a huge social ill and in many cases basically equivalent to what Facebook is doing, just that it costs time instead of money.

<comment><USER5> This will sound like I'm vehemently defending Facebook, but I found some considerable gaps in your counter argument that I thought I'd make you aware of, for the sake of constructive debate.

> What about monetizing and marketing people's affection? The dowry would be > the classic example, I'd be curious why you (presumably) are against > dowries.

No, the dowry wouldn't be the classic example because that's more akin to prostitution or slave trade than monetizing and marketing affection. This especially considering a lot of marriages were done out of convenience and need rather than out of love.

Better examples: Valentines day, Christmas day, or the mere idea that you have to celebrate someone's birthday. I have seen movies about the tragedy of a kid not getting a christmas present like it's traumatizing. This is marketing. As a result you have hordes of parents playing into an objectively ridiculous legend that has transformed St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, 2nd century into a Coca-cola developed mascot of consumption.

Anyone who's gotten married can see how ridiculous the "love" and "affection" marketing gets. Facebook isn't as much in this business; it actually is on the business of attention, and there's stuff to be said about that.

> Are you also okay with advertising cigarettes to children?

I get that Facebook keeps being compared to cigarette companies under the whole addiction narrative, but lets not forget the big reason cigarettes aren't marketed to children; they kill _a lot_ of people, and perhaps most distressing, they kill people who don't smoke them. They are also physically addictive; this is a big issue.

I think your comparison with gambling was more appropriate, or one to video games / TV like the in the comment you replied to.

<comment><USER4> >No, the dowry wouldn't be the classic example because that's more akin to prostitution or slave trade than monetizing and marketing affection.

Tossing aside slavery, it's akin to prostitution because it's very similar. But prostitution is also a classic example of the commoditization of affection/sex.

>This especially considering a lot of marriages were done out of convenience and need rather than out of love.

Well yes, that's what commoditization does. It turns something into a marketable commodity. That people bargained over dowries/marriage like they do over other goods is exactly the point.

I think what you and many of us feel is that there is some intrinsic quality to our affection that is degraded when it's turned into a commodity and I'm using that to suggest that there is something similarly degrading about turning our attention into a commodity, to be bought and sold and exploited for profit whenever possible.

I do like the example of Christmas, you could draw a parallel between the message of a Charlie Brown Christmas and the message of a Target Christmas commercial that would prove a similar point.

>I think your comparison with gambling was more appropriate, or one to video games / TV like the in the comment you replied to.

You're right, cigarettes are an overblown comparison. I was just hunting for something which is pushed on children, fortunately gambling isn't usually. (maybe csgo lotteries are something are an exception here which would be a good example)

<comment><USER6> > > No, the dowry wouldn't be the classic example because that's more akin to > prostitution or slave trade than monetizing and marketing affection.

> Tossing aside slavery, it's akin to prostitution because it's very similar. > But prostitution is also a classic example of the commoditization of > affection/sex.

Or, you know... porn?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am no great fan of Facebook, but the indignant accusations about them wanting to keep us glued to their screen seem mostly to come from people who were (and are) perfectly fine with television networks that did the same thing for decades. Even today, the typical citizen spends more time watching TV than on social media, I bet. I use Facebook once a week, and TV never, and I find that people are mostly not even willing to consider the idea that TV may be a problem, for their children or themselves, whereas their attitudes towards Facebook, while problematic, seem to be a lot more self-aware.

<comment><USER8> And not to mention Wikipedia, despite it not having any attention engineering, it is to go wandering in it for hours together and yet they don't get any bad press?

<comment><USER9> and the library too for that matter!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The question is actually about the counterfactual impact of Facebook's addiction machine.

In the absence of social media, do people simply replace their wasted time there with leisure like video games, television, texting, and the like? If yes, the net impact of Facebook is small.

Or, have the addictivity wizards actually managed to increase the amount of time spent in leisure, taking away from familial connection and deep friendships?

With Facebook in particular, there's a generated sense of belonging that comes along with the quantified social proof which makes the hits of dopamine much more personal and meaningful. I see this as trading off against getting that sense of connection in reality.

But much of the other 'damage' from Facebook is fungible, and people would turn to other sources of leisure and addiction soon after losing it. Perhaps one day these addictive engines will be powerful enough to make this untrue, but we're not there quite yet.

<comment><USER11> >In the absence of social media, do people simply replace their wasted time there with leisure like video games, television, texting, and the like? If yes, the net impact of Facebook is small.

You're being naive if you think it's about where people spend their time if facebook didn't exist.

<comment><USER12> What else would you compare that time to then?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's odd the post doesn't mention the recent changes to Facebook's algorithm to promote more friends and family content[0]. I don't use facebook so I'm not sure how meaningful the changes are from a UX perspective, but on Bloomberg radio which I listen to it's been a pretty major point. Engagement metrics are _down_ , as expected, but analysts seem to think that's fine. This contradicts the post's point that it "would have a disastrous impact on the quarterly earnings".

[0] [https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/11/16881102/facebook-news- fe...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/11/16881102/facebook-news-feed-changes- meaningful-interactions)

<comment><USER14> Too little too late on the Fam thing. My exit plan was well underway when they announced it. FB stopped being for emo in 2013ish last I cared, yet I'm still going through the emotionally taxing process of extracting my friendships from FB lately. Meanwhile new contacts see no mutual friends since I don't add new ones for the most part, so I am eager to be able to hit logical delete (aka deactivate, no full delete anymore).

<comment><USER15> > aka deactivate, no full delete anymore

IIRC, you can still full-delete, but you have to find a the link through a help page, not your profile.

I'm content to leave my profile up with a big reminder that I'm no longer using Facebook, so I'm never going to use either option. I actually get some satisfaction that my profile is basically an ad _against_ Facebook, which worse for them than if it just vanished.

<comment><USER16> I feel you, but you may be helping Facebook by leaving your profile alive. I'd guess that vertices in their social graph hold value, regardless of the content present. The more vertices, the more ads served, the more revenue Facebook brings in.

<comment><USER15> Perhaps, but IIRC, they're tracking "monthly active users" (which dropped for the first time in North America, recently). So my inactive profile still counts against them in at least some of their metrics.

Despite what they say, I really doubt the ever truly delete the vertices after a profile-deletion, since they create vertices for people who have _never even signed up_ (shadow profiles) from address book info they've slurped up.

Plus, I'm pretty pragmatic about this, and need to balance anti-social-network activist with personal inconvenience. My inactive profile's banners remind people that they need to contact me specially if they want to invite me to something, and the banner also increases the _perception_ that people are leaving Facebook. Ultimately it's that perception that will start a snowball effect that will finally do it in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have always compared Facebook's attention engineering to fast food companies making their food increasingly more addicting. Just as I stopped eating most junk food after college, I similarly came to a point where I would rather consume more quality information for my brain's diet than what Facebook serves up.

</comment><comment><USER18> Interesting article. The whole smoke screen idea is in a way interesting but at the same time; isn't it exactly what is to be expected from commercial providers of social media? I'm not sure if you catch my drift, but since when do we expect for-profit companies to act in societies best interest? To protect your brand does sometimes include admitting wrong doings or sketchy behavior - if we wish to browse through social media without secrets and/or intent to get the user to return as often as possible, shouldn't we accept the state of Facebook and Friends and look in other places?

<comment><USER15> > since when do we expect for-profit companies to act in societies best > interest?

We don't have for-profit companies because of some fundamental ideological commitment to capitalism uber alles. We have them because we judge their operation to be in society's best interest. When a particular one fails to do that, it raises a legitimate question about whether it should be allowed to continue with those actions or even be allowed to exist in its current form.

If a company is not acting on society's best interest, it should be made to or abolished.

<comment><USER19> Companies are just a realization that absent some outside force, multiple people will band together to work and sell the fruits of their labor.

Get rid of all laws and you will see companies naturally form except they would be held together by a myriad of individuals agreements.

Stopping companies or getting rid of them world requires stipping people from making agreements between themselves and be against human nature.

<comment><USER20> The crucial difference between companies, as the term is commonly used, and groups of private individuals, is limited liability. Companies are able to take risks that individuals would not because the individuals that make up the company are not held personally responsible for the potential consequences. Similar to granting people monopolies over culture and ideas with copyright and patents, this is a special privilege we give on the assumption that it will benefit society in the long run. If this assumption turns out to be false then the sensible thing to do is revoke that privilege, or replace it with a better one. Limited liability doesn't happen without state intervention.

<comment><USER19> That's a very good point, but I think in the absence of a legal entity of a corporation or similar, you would see contracts written (with suppliers for example) to limit liability anyways. Contracts between people would become vastly more complex, but still often provide the same benefit.

Because corporations are ultimately people, any restraints on them are essentially restraints on people. There is a very fine and difficult to draw line between a person talking about this awesome idea he has and a CEO talking about this awesome product he has, but the law does try to draw that line and I think is often fairly good at it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> _Outrage-provoking political content might have been good business for Facebook, but in its absence, this company's attention engineers can tap into any number of other distraction wells to keep users compulsively tapping the little blue icon on their phone.

In other words, fixing Facebook's negative impacts on democracy won't necessarily hurt their bottom line, while admitting that their business relies on a foundation of addiction and exploitation definitely would._

Bingo. Unfortunately they can probably keep up the shell game for a long time, until enough people recognize what FB actually "offers" the enduser. While plenty of people here understand the downsides of FB, I don't know that most people do, yet.

A "service" offering dubious rewards for the ability to try and monopolize your time and attention, track you, and actively manipulate you, is simply not fixable.

</comment><comment><USER22> I do agree that social media are harmful due to unrestricted power of censorship and manipulation they can exert over their users.

However, I am not a big fan of Soros, I think he is misguided (to be generous). I don't think he really wants democracy, in the sense of governance by people. And the narrative that social networks are harmful is part of that belief, that "elites" should somehow shape what "common people" think.

And the absurdity of this narrative actually became apparent couple days ago, when Daily Telegraph published an article attacking George Soros, with antisemitic undertones. The reality is, most traditional media are not better.

</comment><comment><USER23> I have read most of Cal's books and they are good. His fight against social media is... I don't know, extreme. The problem to me isn't social media per se. The real problem is self-discipline/control.

Cal crusades against social media, but I don't see him crusade against video games, or watching TV for example. I think a good/better metric is total screen time.

My children are given an allowance in the form of screen time. I kind of do the same for myself and I have decent self-control. That is the key, I think... limits and control by taking responsibility for yourself and those you are charged to raise.

<comment><USER24> I think the difference is it's a little easier to control other forms of "screen time". That other stuff is pure entertainment and they don't have the addictive aspect of a feed.

<comment><USER25> I think maybe it's because you can't win at Facebook. All the other forms of entertainment give you a sense of satisfaction on completion. Facebook is the complete opposite. It doesn't end and you can't really win at it. That's great from a commercial perspective but utterly unfulfilling for the user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is there any evidence that people would be more productive without Facebook? I bet they'd just watch more Netflix.

Edit: Plus, it's really not that hard to not use social media once you finish school if you don't feel it's beneficial.

</comment><comment><USER27> This article is weird, because the "bubble effect" (or as Soros describes it: "an undue ability to influence people's behavior by leveraging their massive data stores to precisely target messages that nudge users in specific directions") is definitely the main issue with Facebook!

Without such power, Trump would not be our president, the alt-right would not capture so many followers, and our democracy would be much much healthier. It would also be easier for people to exercise self control with their time spent on Facebook (because without algorithmic warm-bath-water content, you would be jarred out of your safe zone). And if people were pushed away from Facebook, normal media, including news media, would have an easier time profiting from providing useful journalism and deeper storytelling.

It seems like people (both Cal Newport, and the majority of commenters in this thread) are extremely uncomfortable admitting that Facebook wields this power over many people. It is a bit scary, and it calls into question individual rational self control (which many of you hold dear to your hearts), but there is massive evidence that this power exists, and that it is negatively affecting our society. We need to deal with it.

</comment><comment><USER28> I honestly find myself scratching my head every time George Soros speaks. He almost comes across as someone desperate to be taken seriously, to be viewed as a visionary, a thought leader, a prognosticator.

But what has he down to justify this? Nothing as far as I can tell. He made a bunch of money as a currency speculator, most famously breaking the British pound. Sure. Good for him. But if we're going to talk about adding value to society...

<comment><USER29> I think that he thinks that his philanthropy gives him legitimacy.

<comment><USER30> I don't see how giving away money is related to being "a visionary, a thought leader" etc.

<comment><USER21> Success seems to be the metric by which the credulous judge "visionaries" to begin with. If you're going to buy into the "thought leader" concept, Soros seems to qualify as much as Jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > _Making_ Facebook good for democracy is not entirely altruistic. (emphasis > mine)

This is the crux of the issue: what authority does anyone have to insist that a company should act in a manner consistent with their subjective view of what is 'good for democracy'?

What fair standards could exist that would limit Facebook's appeal without also upending the gambling industry, the entertainment industry, the food industry etc.?

Given that Facebook is not physically harming, stealing from, or unfairly discriminating against it's users, who use the service voluntarily, what infractions are they making that requires government intervention?

Since when is it not the right and responsibility of parents to judge which activities are healthy and productive for their child? Since when does the same right and responsibility for an adult not exclusively apply to themselves, outside of criminal activity?

My solution is the same as Lisa Simpson's in that Treehouse of Horror where giant corporate logos come to life and wreak havoc across Springfield: Just Don't Look!

</comment><comment><USER32> I love the idea of George Soros using the term "excessive profits" [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2773265/Billionaire- who-b...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2773265/Billionaire-who-broke- the-Bank-of-England.html)

<comment><USER33> Yeah, that's when I reached my "oh fuck off" point and stopped reading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm less concerned with Facebook's addictive tendencies and more concerned with the existential threat they and other social media pose to our democratic institutions. Perhaps Facebook feels the same as I do, and they're addressing the more critical issue first?

That said, I've seen little sign that they're taking truly significant steps to protect Americans from insidious foreign propaganda, even now. I still don't think they've even been fully truthful about the extend of what happened in the days leading up to the election. I know for a fact that Twitter is still lying about that time, and I suspect Facebook may be doing so as well, or at the very least failing to disclose all relevant data.

</comment><comment><USER35> Can someone explain why FB can't become a paid service that engineers itself for the good of users?

I don't know anything about corporate financing but naive napkin math says if their 2 billion user base pays $1/month they would be pulling $24 billion a year. Wikipedia says their revenue is $24b/year. Now if they removed their entire advertising aspect (the human labor, infrastructure) their operating costs would go down and that $24b/year would mean more than it does now.

Is that bad math? I would readily pay $1/month to use a service designed for our well being rather than advertisers. I think anyone would. Why isn't this a thing?

<comment><USER33> The gulf between free and $1 is _vast_. Do not underestimate it. I'd be surprised if the could convert 10% of their current user base to paying customers at any price.

<comment><USER36> Also $1 does not hold the same purchasing power everywhere in the world. There are places where it is a considerably larger expense than in the US.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > This is nothing less, Soros claims, than a theft of citizens' autonomy. > "People without the freedom of mind can be easily manipulated."

What autonomy? I'm usually one to shrug off the "no free will" problem and just buy into reality, but the quoted statement brings the problem front-and- center.

We are all being manipulated, all the time, by everything that we interact with. So FB isn't really stealing anything from us. And yes it manipulates the mind, but isn't that just part of the human experience?

<comment><USER38> Pretending this just being part of human experience discounts the fact that this entity is new and has properties much different than anything that has existed in human history.

I think that quote understates it. Even people with freedom of mind can be manipulated. I would love to think I am a free-thinker. But there is no way I could honestly insulate myself from persuasion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is something I have a hard time understanding because I don't get how social media appeals to people to the point that they become addicted to it. I enjoy getting on once, maybe twice, a day to look at a few things. It just doesn't do that much for me, especially in the state it has evolved into. But if something unproductive is really sapping time and attention from masses of people, that seems like a problem.

</comment><comment><USER40> I find it interesting that Facebook still hasn't found a way to deal with what I call "spotlight aversion", the unwillingness to expose ourselves to the public on a regular basis, and yet its entire financial model revolves around it with sponsored content attached to what our friends are doing and likes as an engagement metric.

</comment><comment><USER41> And violent cartoons will make your kids murderers. Yawn.

</comment><comment><USER42> I agree that social media may be doing more harm than good, but vilifying Facebook is not going to help. The greater issue is the nature of addiction and what should be done to deal with this in our society. Is regulation necessary? (I hope not) If so, how far are we going to go in order to address problem with social media and addiction in general? Where do we draw the line between what is considered harmful and what is not? Which is worse - <USER2> or Netflix or CNN or PUBG or HackerNews or internet in general? (I'm HN addict, I think). We need to address these problems...

I've heard some suggested solutions from others, some of which are just impractical or are just crazy:

* Ban sale of all mobile device to anyone under 18 years of age, like we did with cigarettes.

* Illegalize usage of Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, Weebo etc to all minors. Force manufacturer to limit kids to only basic phone calling and text messaging. Children using these apps can be cited for violation by the police, similar to curfew laws for minors in some states/countries.

* Force Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, Youtube, etc to prevent binge watching by allowing maximum of 2 hours of streamed videos per person per day. Limit consumption, similar to New York City's Soda Ban, banning large sugary drinks from stores.

* Force all ISP to disconnect their residential internet access between 10pm -6am.

* Add special tax on addictive products, including phone, video game consoles and game software, and social media apps (in similar manner to tobacco and alcohol)

* Run a government-funded national campaign and create grass-root movements similar to anti-smoking, anti-drinking/driving, and anti-drug campaigns. "Just say no to Snapchat".

* Create a law to force all companies with free products to charge fee to its users. No more free Facebook or League of Legends. Facebook will now cost $5/month, and LOL costs $20/month.

* Limit distribution hardware (iPhone, XBox, PC etc) and software (PUBG, Candy Crush, Facebook apps, etc) through increased special-tax. That $300 XBox one will now cost $900. Pixel XL will cost $1500 and iPhone will cost $2000 after tax.

NOTE: These sound like crazy idea, but laws like these had been implemented in real-life. For example, France is making phones illegal at school for students. Greece banned all video game consoles, citing addiction problems. In Korea, it is illegal to play online games between 12am-6am for anyone under 16.

Also there is this article from 2015 about the addiction and the idea of regulating the internet: [https://aeon.co/essays/if-the-internet-is-addictive- why-don-...](https://aeon.co/essays/if-the-internet-is-addictive-why-don-t-we- regulate-it)

</comment><comment><USER43> I'm rather bothered that I know nothing about Soros except a bunch of vague, negative feelings about him that have pop-culturally osmosed to me through constant usage of his name in 4channish/the_donaldish media. He's some kind of evil mastermind destroying civilisation with his vast wealth.

I know this is almost certainly not true, but I'm so bothered that this is my immediate thought. I feel like the alt-right has succeeded in partially hijacking some of my brain.

Mayb some of you will think I'm some kind of easily-manipulated idiot and that you would never fall prey to similar thought processes. That we're all too smart to really believe Facebook and that "critical thinking" is all we need. That the things Soros is talking about in this article could never happen to us. I in turn think that this kind of intellectual arrogance is a bit dangerous and precisely leads to the kind of manipulation that social media can have on us.

<comment><USER24> It's also been experimentally proven that people have issues discerning fake news online. Our news literacy is falling rapidly.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2016/11/23/503129818...](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo- way/2016/11/23/503129818/study-finds-students-have-dismaying-inability-to- tell-fake-news-from-real)

<comment><USER44> I was under the assumption that our news literacy was never high enough to begin with. So to say "fall rapidly" seems misleading.

<comment><USER45> If anything, the last couple of years have been very enlightening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> You know what was a bigger Facebook engagement factor/time suck than fake political news?

Pieces of flair.

</comment><comment><USER29> > authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe

He somehow never forgets to bring this up.

<comment><USER47> I often have my country of origin in mind as well when I think about politics, is that surprising?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Can we stop calling this addiction? The DSM V doesnt recognize process addictions, with the exception of Gambling Disorder, and many of the symptoms don't apply to social media use. Even Internet addiction wasn't included for lack of proof.

Substance Use Disorder (the new category for chemical addictions) has specifics such as withdrawal and physical dependency that you don't get from turning off your Facebook account.

Facebook is a habit that many people user too much. It isn't like a drug that has drastic and rapid physical changes in your brain. Your brain isn't literally hijacked anymore than TV or anything you like doing hijacks your brain. It reacts fairly normally actually.

Optimizing for somebody to use a site a lot isn't addicting people. The abuse of terminology has gone too far and is really clouding the discussion.

Besides what would it look like to not "optimize for addiction"? Give people news stories they don't want to read? The conversation has just gone off the rails when it starts to be compared to cocaine and heroin.

<comment><USER48> DSM was last updated in 2013. When companies are employing psychologists to analyze user behavior and employ techniques that exploit the same mental vunlerabilities that addictive drugs utilize with the goal of attaining a similar outcome, I think we can call that "optimizing for addiction".

<comment><USER19> These new techs do not "exploit the same mental vunlerabilities that addictive drugs utilize" in any meaningful sense. Everything positive from learning to driving to reading a book has a similar effect and it is going beyond rational discussion to try to argue FB and drugs are the same or even similar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Facebook isn't the problem. Phones are. I don't use Facebook or any social media, yet I'm addicted to hacker news and checking my email.

But even phones are not the problem. People are responsible for their own "addiction." It's like blaming food companies for fat people.

Widespread informed Democracy is not something we've ever had, and likely will never have. Democracy has always been led by the intelligentsia and the rich.</comment>


Project delays: why good software estimates are impossible - <AUTHOR> http://chrismm.com/blog/project-delays-why-software-estimates/ <comment><USER4> If I am running a business that is looking at what projects to fund for the next year, and one of those projects is a software project with an _unknowable_ time to completion vs (for example) opening a new store, with a well known time to complete, why would I _ever_ pick the software project? It has a completely unknown ROI! If you cannot even give me probabilities, the lottery is a more guaranteed investment!

Software estimation is required for real business to ever consider software projects. The key is to embrace uncertainty, and instead of estimating that task X will take exactly Y days, estimate a range of possibilities. I like the three point system, estimating a best case, worst case, and most likely case. It explicitly asks you to think about the long tail for when things go wrong. Then use statistical methods to combine estimates and create estimates for multiple confidence levels.

This is all covered in a great book, "Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art" ([https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B00JDMPOVQ&asin=B00JDM...](https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B00JDMPOVQ&asin=B00JDMPOVQ&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_kE5KxbAPDNJB5)). It's not that long a read, and it goes over the problems covered by this blog post but doesn't throw it's hands up in the air and say estimation is impossible.

<comment><USER5> >> If I am running a business that is looking at what projects to fund for the next year, and one of those projects is a software project with an unknowable time to completion vs (for example) opening a new store, with a well known time to complete, why would I ever pick the software project?

Maybe because you're trying to innovate? Will opening a new store dramatically change your company's market outlook? Will it open up entirely new markets for products you don't yet have? Will it solve new problems for people?

Milton Hershey offered his first chocolate bar in 1900. It took him a further five years to perfect the manufacturing processes that produced the Hershey's Kiss. None of those processes, and none of the machinery to execute them existed when he started. He had to invent them.

Today, 110 or so years later, the company produces around 60 million of them a day which it ships all over the world. Probably he should have just opened another store.

No offense, but people who think the way you do about risk are exactly the reason large companies lose their ability to innovate at all.

<comment><USER4> I'm not really making the argument your reacting to. Software projects _can be estimated_ , so it is possible to understand what their ROI is. I'm saying that, because software _can_ be estimated using rigorous technique instead of hunches, that we can continue to justify developing software.

Even if what you are doing is truly research that is completely open ended, there still have to be controls placed on it. Budget/grants/runway will run out at some point.

<comment><USER6> I'm not a believer in what you're saying, but I dearly want to believe, in no small part because there are significant organizational rewards to be reaped for believing in estimates and acting the part.

What are these rigorous techniques you speak of? I seriously, honestly want to know.

<comment><USER4> The book I linked up above is one of the best I've read on software estimation. It's short, it covers exactly the problems we run into everyday (managers take estimates to mean commitments, optimism on most estimates, constant pressure to reduce estimates because they cannot be defended, etc). And it covers several different estimation methods that you can choose from based on circumstances, the pros and cons of each, etc.

It's "Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art" by Steve McConnell ([https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B00JDMPOVQ&asin=B00JDM...](https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B00JDMPOVQ&asin=B00JDMPOVQ&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_kE5KxbAPDNJB5)). Same author as "Code Complete" and "Rapid Development", which are also great books but much longer and showing their age a little more.

<comment><USER6> Thanks! I'm going to give it a read.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I find naive and pretentious the suggestion that the average programmer's work is in any way akin to Einstein's search for the truth about our universe. My criticism might seem nitpicky until it's time to measure this article's message against the possible reaction of an engineering or business manager. Launching into a systematic dismantling of the pervasive estimates culture is best done with humble, verifiable assertions and helpful suggestions in tow. Attempting to recruit the long-dead Einstein is unhelpful and hand-wavy.

There must be a better way to package the no-estimates message, and it's not this.

<comment><USER7> _I find naive and pretentious the suggestion that the average programmer 's work is in any way akin to Einstein's search for the truth about our universe._

Indeed, most projects are remarkably (and sadly) similar to other projects we've done before.

<comment><USER5> It doesn't much matter how "similar" they are. Unless you can copy and paste the code you're building new stuff and running the risk of encountering all the issues inherent in building new stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Software estimates will be optimistic as long as optimism is rewarded.

<comment><USER9> I would even say: Software estimates will be optimistic as long as wrong estimates aren't punished.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like this Quora answer on the subject: [https://www.quora.com/Why-are- software-development-task-esti...](https://www.quora.com/Why-are-software- development-task-estimations-regularly-off-by-a-factor-of-2-3/answer/Michael- Wolfe)

<comment><USER11> That Quora answer is brilliant! Thank you for linking it here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "What? Two days?", "But our previous developer could do that in a couple of hours! No way it will take you that long."

Answer: Well get the previous developer back to do it then. Otherwise STFU, and let me get started.

<comment><USER13> If I had $1 for every time I saw one teammate get roped into spending a week building some goofy little low value feature because another teammate - <USER2> a guy with any skin in that particular game game - said, "I could have that done in two hours" during a meeting. . .

<comment><USER14> You have bad managers if they let that crap fly. The appropriate response to that kind of thing is "then you should do it, because you clearly have the domain expertise to do the work efficiently".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > The best you can do is estimate based on historical metrics which ... is not > worth very much.

I've had significant success in using historical metrics to accurately estimate software projects.

It takes diligence and professional experience to learn to do this, but it is possible in my experience.

Unfortunately I find this philistine sentiment quite frequently in the software world: "I've had difficulty doing X. I am smart. I am senior. I am a professional. Therefore X must be impossible." Isn't it possible you haven't been stubborn/hard-working enough in your own personal growth?

<comment><USER16> Could you share more details on how you used historic estimates? You basically described me. I've never found historic estimates useful in practice, of course I haven't tried to hard, but over the years can't think even single case I'd find useful to use some old estimate.

<comment><USER17> That's quite simple, really. If you've carefully tracked your past projects, by comparing tasks from the planned project to those you've done of similar complexity you can make more realistic estimations.

It works best on a long-running project. When you plan a new feature, you can gauge really accurately at what speed your current team developed a feature of comparable complexity, so as you go forward you get better and better estimates.

Joel Spolsky explained it there: [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/10/26.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/10/26.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Not impossible, its akin to having a P vs NP problem.

Properly estimating a software project takes just as long as developing the software itself.

When people want estimates they somehow assume they can be given on the spot, or at most with a few hours of work. Nothing further from the truth.

A good software estimate is a project in its own right. It takes time, a deadline and a budget to break apart a software project, design a solution, identify its subtasks, identify its critical path, research alternatives, evaluate frameworks, tentatively assign tasks to teammates, write down an estimation report, discuss it with the customer, etc.

And then you end billing the customer for 120 hours of work to conclude the project can be done in five days, give or take a week.

</comment><comment><USER19> 1\. People need to look into PST from Simon Wardley.

2\. Some of my clients do excellent work with estimations delivering on time and on budget and satisfied customer (In the Wardley Six Sigma zone - <USER3> uncertainty)

3\. Estimation does not work in the Genesis or Product zones (high uncertainty)

We need to grow up beyond the "software estimation not possible".

<comment><USER20> In Wardley's model, almost no software development should take place in the "six sigma" zone. Consider figure 1 here:

[http://blog.gardeviance.org/2015/10/agile-vs-lean-vs-six- sig...](http://blog.gardeviance.org/2015/10/agile-vs-lean-vs-six-sigma.html)

It says "Six Sigma/Outsource" for a reason. The product is "ordered, known, measured, standard, obvious, low margin". If at all possible, this should be an off-the-shelf choice. Previously, that would have meant packaged software; now it mostly means getting something as a library or service.

Six Sigma is fine for manufacturing low-margin items, because you are trying to get high repeatability in the world of atoms. If you have one widget and need to make one million more, you use Six Sigma. But with bits, we already have near-perfect repeatability. If I have one integer and need a million more integers, the computer will do that at a reliability level well beyond six sigmas.

If software is being made in the Six Sigma/Outsource zone, it mostly means that one is reinventing the wheel. Sometimes that's necessary for historical reasons. E.g., if I'm working in a new language but need a library that doesn't exist yet, sometimes I really can just take the old spec and implement it anew. Or if I want developers to use my cloud service, maybe I need to just reimplement chunks of the AWS API, because Amazon won't give me that code.

But the great majority of software development should take place in the higher-novelty zones, where reliable project-scale estimation is somewhere between impossible and nonsensical.

(As an aside, casting people you disagree with as children is insulting.)

<comment><USER19> Yes you're right in principle and I agree.

Though some of my clients create software for others duplicating and modifying existing products with high certainty.

<comment><USER20> If they're duplicating, I agree high certainty can be had.

But once modifications happen, I think you're headed back to the other end of the Wardley spectrum. Do the modifications meet user goals? Do they meet business goals?

In those circumstances, the only way you can return to high certainty is by creating very firm specs and resisting change orders. From the perspective of a contract development shop, I'm sure that's fine. But for the people actually paying for the software, that's a process smell.

The commercial and practical validity of modifications can only be fully evaluated by shipping. But large specs require long release cycles. This creates a long period where learning is deferred. Estimates only become manageable because the project is saving up trouble for later. A period of artificially high predictability will be followed by a period of artificially low predictability.

And even in the pure duplication case, what comes after that? I can't think of many successful pieces of software that stopped at 1.0. Once the duplicate is released, most businesses will need to respond to their customers, doing novel and innovative things specifically for them. So at best, you're back in the fast-cycle end of the spectrum. But at worst, you have executives who are attached to specs and estimates and long timelines, which are the wrong tools for innovation. You have development processes that match. And you probably have a code base that's not set up for flexibility.

Given that, even if I were, say, making that AWS competitor, I'd still use all my tools from the fast-cycle innovation end of the spectrum. Because even a pure duplicate assumes that a) there is nothing left to learn, and that b) the context of sale/use is not changing. Estimation is always a bet that you won't learn anything important between the start and the end. Given how smart my colleagues are, that's a bet I'm rarely willing to make.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This isn't a problem unique to software engineering. All kinds of things in business require estimating the unknowable. Investing in any business enterprise requires forecasting what the return on investment is and how long it'll take before you see those returns. These issues exist whether you're starting a hot dog stand, building an apartment complex, bringing a software product to market, or building an off shore oil rig.

Business people have put a great deal of worthwhile thought into how to manage these risks in ways that make sense for the company. For some fresh, eye opening ideas on how to do project management for software and other businesses, check out the book _The Critical Chain_. The short section at the end on metrics for investment is worth the price of admission alone.

</comment><comment><USER22> The difference between a consultant with lots of real world experience and not.

Yes there is slippage, but you learn to plan for it. In the past week I had an employee have a baby and an employee have a parent pass away and another one have a horrible knee injury and be unable to work for a couple days, meanwhile we lost no time on a project by we are up some of our buffer.

If you don't plan to meet your deadlines even when faced with feature and scope creep ( which managing is another discussion entirely ) or things 100% out of your control there is other people that can and so your not going to be picked for projects that require real time mission critical demands.

And yea, if you figure that out, you get to charge more, and sleep less.

</comment><comment><USER23> Software isn't construction it's design.

If you start treating estimates for software as estimates for design work your life will suck less.

The anxiety and stress around making and meeting software estimates is all rooted in a misperception of what software is.

"Real businesses" budget for design work too, they just have different expectations for it than, say, a new office building.

</comment><comment><USER24> How long would it take to walk from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Even that almost impossible to estimate and not be off be several multiples, if you're lucky!

[http://www.michaelrwolfe.com/2013/10/19/50/](http://www.michaelrwolfe.com/2013/10/19/50/)

<comment><USER7> The guy in your link did lousy routefinding, and estimated that he could walk _40 miles a day._ Anyone with experience backpacking can tell you that's a ridiculous pace (for a group, one mile an hour is a good pace). Plenty of people plan out long hikes with accurate estimations.

<comment><USER24> But remember you're doing something novel so you've never hiked before, and so you can only estimate how much you can do each day. You may have done other travels but never walked that distance. Even if you half the speed you'll still be way off. And this is just 400 miles, what about a walk that across the whole US? Can you predict that Susie on your team will fall ill for a few week. How many meetings will management need? What about feature changes? How much time do do you have to estimate? So you have months to plan out your walk? Most projects need estimates within minutes to hours. And so on...

<comment><USER7> _But remember you 're doing something novel so you've never hiked before_

You're not a novice programmer, you've done it before. And if you are a novice hiker, you shouldn't be doing it alone.

<comment><USER24> You've built a custom system with the exact same business requirements that connect to the exact same different sub systems, api, etc? It may be the same programming language and general framework but that's only a small part of most projects ;)

<comment><USER7> _You 've built a custom system with the exact same business requirements that connect to the exact same different sub systems, api, etc?_

Similar enough that I can make good estimates. You can too, with experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Think of estimation as an outer bound (with a confidence level). You are saying "I am 98% sure the project will be completed by time X." The more unknowns you have, the farther out you should push the deadline.

Give yourself extra time: no one will complain if you finish early.

</comment><comment><USER25> Evolution. 100,000 years ago, there were humans who could accurately estimate the difficulty of, say, catching a deer. And since they knew it was too much trouble, they just stayed home in the cave.

Meanwhile some crazy optimist went out and to catch a deer. It was many times more difficult than expected, but they returned to the cave with the deer and eventually reproduced more successfully than the accurate estimator.

Thus our ancestors were the crazy optimists.

<comment><USER26> Or the estimators only hunted deer when they were well positioned to do so (e.g. few predators of humans and many deer around), and the optimists were eaten by bears.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Meh, i wouldn't say impossible. I worked with amazing people. We were able to hit our goals consistently. Key is to have a great team who knows what they are doing and are honest. Measure by complexity, not time.

Unless you worked on a few products, your going to be bad at estimating larger pieces. A lot of software is very similar.

</comment><comment><USER28> I find this a bit defeatist. Estimating software projects is definitely possible, especially for less novel projects, and high-effort estimates will have higher fidelity than low-effort estimates. Few projects are truly novel.

You can't make business decisions without having _some_ idea of estimates, so I find that arguments like this are used to weasel out of making any sort of commitment. Go ahead, add a big buffer, try to take uncertainty into account, pad, pad, pad - at least after all that we'll have _some_ idea.

On the other hand a very real problem I've often faced is when the target date is an input into the estimation process. I.e. we want to ship by May 2017, go estimate until the estimation fits this target date. Of course, after estimation the target date can be an input into requirements scoping, after which you can re-estimate.

</comment><comment> alex-yo Heh, I recall when a funny manager asked my team about an estimation. We agreed on a year (exactly something like 12-14 months). Then he went to his managers, sold the project with 6 months deadline, and was quite happy.

The outcome was simple: his estimation was good, the team was lazy.

</comment><comment><USER29> Simple equation that is just as good as any:

p : number of people

c : number of changes into specifications (= learning during implementation)

f : number of frameworks, libraries, tools.

x : number of new people, frameworks, libraries, tools

e : initial time estimate in weeks

correct estimate: E = e + e(0.1p + 0.2c + 0.3f + 1.1^x)

<comment><USER30> My equation for the effort until the project is really finished:

E=e*5

Almost always works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The fundamental activity of software development is _learning_.

Although it looks to an outsider like the main thing is typing stuff in (or pasting it in :-), the thing that takes all the time is learning what you should type, or learning why the code you already typed in isn't doing what you expected.

If you've done that exact project before then sure, you can estimate how long it will take to do it again. But that isn't often the case - usually we're trying to do something new, or better, or on a different platform. Always learning.

</comment><comment><USER32> Another thing to note here that I have experienced is when management has an incompetent mentality that, for a given project, that all tasks for this project are created equal. For example, they expect that if task X took 1 hour that surely task Y will also take 1 hour despite the fact that task X and task Y vary greatly in complexity.

<comment><USER33> Explaining the difference in complexity helps, but the problem is that often the programmer doesn't really know in detail besides a feeling that comes mostly from many years of experience. And the best thing is if they then get 'their 10x code slinger' who does it indeed very fast, sends the code back to you and you are stuck with something akin to a broken toilet with diarrhea coming out the sides.

<comment><USER32> True. But it does no good if management is dismissive. But that's another problem outside of the topic of estimating.

> And the best thing is if they then get 'their 10x code slinger' who does it > indeed very fast, sends the code back to you and you are stuck with > something akin to a broken toilet with diarrhea coming out the sides

A grim picture to think about but I find this to be true a lot of the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Even if you get better at estimating tasks, it's extremely hard to account for bugs that aren't discovered until later.

I usually have a pretty accurate estimate for small tasks but never go back and add the time spent on fixing recessions caused by that task. Or the time spent on extra smoke testing due to missing automation.

<comment><USER35> That why you use procedures that find bugs early. This has been solve (in various ways) since the 70s yet people are still writing about how it's "not possible".

<comment><USER34> We do. Unit tests, integration tests, manual smoke tests, code reviews of every commit, design reviews, self hosting...

Sometimes your test matrix is too big. But I agree: sometimes you have to move slower in order to go faster overall and have better estimates. Estimates have to take into account testing and regression testing, which most people don't so it can make you look slow if you start doing that.

<comment><USER7> If you're having trouble, this book can help you: [https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Bugs-Program-Faster- Thompson/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Zero-Bugs-Program-Faster- Thompson/dp/0996193308)

<comment><USER36> You should probably mention that it's your own book you are plugging here.

<comment><USER7> ok, next time I will. Edit window has ended.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> The problems he talks about have noticeable effects on task completion time and estimate error. In my experience, estimation error is not normally distributed. For most tasks, estimation error is small, but perhaps one in ten estimates are off by an order of magnitude.

It's usually a single bug or feature which blows the iteration. Though, by consuming so much time, it may cause other tasks to spill too.

If you aim to estimate most tasks accurately, the overall project will probably be underestimated. Outliers consume a significant portion of the overall project time.

</comment><comment><USER38> I must urge any serious developer who has read that article to immediately forget about it!

Let's begin with the first phrase, "Software estimate". An estimate is an approximation. An approximation is an educated guess. So if someone said to you, "Please make an educated guess on when the software you are working on will be completed" To say it would be impossible would be the most absurd thing!

To make an educated guess, You would have to break down the tasks into manageable chunks that you can clearly reason about. Once you have your chunks of task, you will have knows, unknowns, some with risks or not, some that are complex or easy, etc. The problem with estimates is the unknown. If you are constructing software for an entity, then you must not approach it as an R&D, but rather, as a possible Research THEN Development. All your unknowns should be figured out at the research phase, then you estimate the development, else you should fight to remove those unknown tasks from the project.

Think about it, do you get asked for "Software research estimate" or "Software development estimate"? It's the latter, but most developers make the mistake of offering their estimate across both R&D. The really beneficial thing to developers about estimates if they do take it serious, is that it forces you to stop, think, design, and think again before coding.

The biggest concerns for developers is that estimates TURN into deadlines. This is a legitimate concern, but nevertheless this doesn't invalidate your estimate, which is nothing but an approximation. The other concern is that feature/scope creep into the project really puts a wide gap between the estimate and completion date. This again is true, remember your estimate was for the original requirements. So what are you to do as a developer? You must teach your manager if they don't know or whomever you are working for the difference between estimates and deadlines. You must also learn to keep feature creeps at bay or estimate those new features anytime they are added and adjust your estimate accordingly.

If you are a non manager or business. Please do think about this from their point of view. Projects have costs, which we can quickly approximate via cost of people working on it multiplied by the duration of the project. Part of running a business is managing your cash flow, knowing if you should spend or not. Without having an estimate of a duration of the project. How can businesses make decisions on which projects to fund? If you have a startup and $100,000 in cash. No income yet, 5 programmers that you pay $5,000 a month. Would you let them work on a project with no completion date, 1 yr estimate or 2 months estimate?

</comment><comment><USER39> By definition any perfect knowledge of the future is impossible. Regardless of why.

That's a trite observation. What _matters_ is than an estimate can be made better than not estimating at all.

It's funny how all these problems come up in other disciplines, but they don't throw their hands in the air and quit.

They accept that the Nirvana Fallacy is not an acceptable reason to _not_ estimate and they go ahead and do it anyway.

</comment><comment><USER40> Estimating software schedules is easy. Just gauge a ballpark figure of what it might take if everything went nice and smooth, you had no distractions nor surprises, and then multiply by pi.

<comment><USER41> Estimating is always easy. Estimating something somewhat _accurately_ is difficult. And no, your formula is not a solution either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I've never had a big problem with it. Even with multi month estmates

</comment><comment><USER43> As has long been accepted, can get good estimates of time and cost for software project A if it is quite similar to and done by the same team as successful projects B, C, D, E, F, ....

IMHO, for software project A, break the work down into relatively small pieces and attack those. Make each piece small enough so that if that the work on that piece takes too long or even just fails, then the loss there is not too big.

Some of the most important pieces are about the _experience_ of the team -- have they successfully done just such a thing before?

So, for such _experience_ , start with the _skills_ and, in particular, the documentation. So, start with the skills and experience with the operating system, the text editor, the e-mail program, the file system, the command lines, and the programming languages. Then move on to other related software, e.g., TCP/IP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SQL, AJAX, Web site security, collection classes, APIs, etc. So, for each of these, get the documentation, the _skills_ , the _experience_ , etc. E.g., have people write test programs that illustrate and test the tools, and some of the more important limitations on the tools, being learned.

Then start in, say, outline form, the _waterfall_ development process by coming up with a _requirements document_ , that is, what the heck the software is to do.

On writing this document, e.g., what level of detail to include, get some good consulting help.

Then move on to the _architecture_ document. This document is an example of the standard project approach of _divide and conquer_. So, that division results in _pieces_ , e.g., _components_ of some kind. So, get started on some of the components. And have write some code to test those. Do these pieces one at a time so that a failure is not to expensive.

As long as the project is not struggling at some obstacle, is making good progress, each of the small steps looks okay, then continue on.

Soon begin to get some data on how fast the work is going, at least for each of the stages.

When are well into writing the code for version 1.0, then soon should have some okay estimates of the time to complete version 1.0.

Here see part of the truth: Much of the work is getting relevant _skills_ and _experience_. Next much of the work, especially the risky part, is getting a clean description of what the heck the system is to do. With those parts done well, we should be talking mostly a nice road downhill from there to a good finish line.

Gee, in the middle ages in Rome there was a big project to move a huge stone obelisk some yards to one side. Big obelisk. Big project. Lots of timbers, ropes, horses, workers. It was successful.

Impressive until ask how the heck the obelisk got there in the first place? Sure, ballpark 1000 years before some of Caligula's slaves went to the upper Nile, cut the obelisk from solid stone, floated it down the Nile, across the Mediterranean, and to Rome, and erected it.

So, Caligula's slaves did some _project planning_ , for a project they were likely mostly doing for the first time. And they got it done.

And now we are struggling with some software project for some Web based order entry and inventory system or some such? Ah, come on, guys!

</comment><comment><USER44> When in doubt, add time</comment>


Search User Interfaces (New Book from Berkeley Prof, Free Online) - <AUTHOR> http://searchuserinterfaces.com/

<comment><USER2> From the headline + url, it looks spammy but it's actually not - it's a free online book about designing search engine user interfaces. Quite interesting actually.</comment>