Math For Programmers  - <AUTHOR> http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2006/03/math-for-programmers.html <comment><USER2> I've never found any really good resource to learn Math from.

The problem I get is that whenever I see a big equation I tend to see a few greek symbols that I have never seen before and I have literally no idea whatsoever what they mean.

At least when looking at some unfamiliar code etc I can usually tell from function and variable names approximately what something is supposed to be.

Wikipedia is hopeless for learning because the math articles seem to be more interested in being complete and accurate than being accessible. When I hit a math page on something on wikipedia it tends to link off to a whole bunch of other pages on increasingly abstract parts of Math leaving me more confused than when I started.

I'd never have time to go through all of these topics and learn them properly, if I was going to do that I'd have become a mathematician.

Khan Academy is good, but seems to focus more on the mechanical skill of doing math rather than explaining concepts.

<comment><USER3> Shameless plug, but I try to explain math concepts on my blog. Here's an example for e, which eluded me for a while:

[http://betterexplained.com/articles/an-intuitive-guide-to- ex...](http://betterexplained.com/articles/an-intuitive-guide-to-exponential- functions-e/)

My goal is to explain ideas as I wish they were shared with me: informally, with the primary focus on intuition (there are plenty of places to practice the mechanics). Hopefully it can come in useful for you.

<comment><USER4> I just wanted to say that your explanation for e is excellently done. I found it incredibly helpful - it was exactly the kind of intuitive, step-by-step explanation I was looking for. I hope that you're planning on releasing more content.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, really glad it was helpful. I'm planning on going back and covering all the math I thought I'd learned in school :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think that in this article Steve discounts the effect of actually doing the math for yourself. It's comparatively easy to read about something and think that you've understood it. It's another thing entirely to be able to do that math on paper and get the 'correct' answer without needing help.

<comment><USER6> There's actually a place slightly beyond "able to do it on paper" at which you grok the maths so well that you can apply it in non-obvious situations without any conscious effort. I'm not sure how to get there in general, but I've noticed that I'm more likely to be able to do this for subjects that I learned in proof-heavy classes.

<comment><USER7> I have a Masters in math and the applying things in non-obvious situations is one of the things that I really gained from it. Several times I've been in situations where someone is struggling with a problem, and where I can quickly spot a simple mathematical approach to solve it. Many times the mathematics itself is quite simple advanced high school or early college stuff, stuff the person struggling with problem has also studied.

The difference is that to them linear algebra (for example) is something abstract you use to solve linear algebra problems, while to someone with a more deep and solid understanding of math, linear algebra is a simple and general tool that can be applied in all manners of situations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The last times this post was here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=87393>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16006>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1450483>

<comment><USER9> I actually needed to read this again... and perfect timing, too.

Hmm... a feed sprinkled with systematic reposts of things that you enjoy, that motivate you, or that you don't want to forget. Has anyone tried that?

<comment><USER10> If upvotes were public (or at least available to you when logged in), it could just trawl HN's history at some set interval (one year past?) and feed you anything you upvoted that day.

edit: or rather, a few intervals to allow for reposts even after that year period

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What is kind of weird is seeing Information Theory and Kolmogorov Complexity being described as "kind of new".

I guess in some sense it is, but for myself in 2012 I recall first hearing about the work of both Claude Shannon and Andrey Kolmogorov as a university student in 1982 in a first year maths / CS bridging lecture called computational mathematics or some such.

Pretty much everything to do with signals, compression, error correction, etc. happened post the invention of the telegraph - you had Gray Codes (patented Frank Gray ~ 1945ish) popping up in recreational mathematics in the 1880s and being applied to the telegraph by Émile Baudot, from that time forward we see the unfolding of much of what is CS / computational mathematics today.

I guess everything last century is "kind of new" but it is starting to feel as though it's all been around for a while now.

<comment><USER12> Think of it this way: The mathematical capstone of most undergrad non-math- major courseloads is Calculus II, which focuses on mathematics largely developed by Newton and Leibniz, as modified by Riemann.

That takes you all the way to the mid 19th Century for what little of Riemann's work the course focuses on, with the bulk (Newton's and Leibniz's contributions) coming from almost two centuries earlier.

<comment><USER13> This is a rather simplistic account. Newton and Leibniz neither started nor finished the development of calculus, they just happened to make the connection between differentiation and integration which opened up the way for the spectacular development of the subject in later years and Leibniz invented some of the notation we still use, but there was lots of progress before and lots of progress since then, especially regarding logical foundations of the subject and a big part of it is now incorporated in the undergraduate curriculum. Linear-algebra based multi-variate calculus is pretty common in universities now too and it wasn't well developed before the 20th century.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I learned maths by attending:

<http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/softeng/subjects/SEM.html>

Which is open to anybody willing to pay ~$2k for a week and get their ass to Oxford - you don't need to be enrolled as a student.

If you don't have that kind of money to spend (or can't get to Oxford), the course is essentially the first few chapters of: <http://www.usingz.com/> which is available for free.

<comment><USER15> That looks excellent, but a very narrowly defined course around the concepts used by Z. The CS course I did had 3 years of maths and then I did postgraduate work with Control Engineers and I realised that, compared to them, I hardly knew anything (good fun learning as much as I could though).

However long you spend learning maths, probably more than any other subject, you are only going to end up knowing an awful lot about less and less (the usual curse/joy of academic specialization).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Given the post was 5~6 years back, I would be interested on Steve Yegge's reflection on the post. I would be interested to ask question like 1. How much did he progress mathematically ? 2. How it helped him ?

Would be interesting if Steve Yegge can do an AMA on reddit.

</comment><comment><USER17> I recently decided to start learning maths again. I stopped it after my penultimate year of secondary school because I found it such a joyless subject. I remember friends from the 'advanced maths' class lording it over me saying they were doing 'matrices' (no idea what they were) and ' _second order_ differentiation' (differentiation was hard enough, so that must be way too tough, right?).

I figure i've really only missed out on a couple years of math education compared to the people I know who I consider 'good' at maths. And to my advantage I did do some statistics at university. With all the improved learning materials available to me, plus an alliance with programming, and my improved bullshit-detector for bad teaching and studying practices, it should be a breeze to catch up.

One problem I still have though is that maths just gets so incredibly boring... at least classes do. I used iTunes U and Khan Academy to study calculus and linear algebra. I had to start skipping past some of the really mechanical parts, because as the article said, as a programmer you just think 'put that in a function and never worry about it again.'

Breadth not depth is definitely what I'm after, although I do worry that it's the equivalent of being a musician who knows lots of diverse harmonic theories but still hasn't mastered some scales that would let him/her jam with other musicians.

</comment><comment><USER18> One big pet peeve from math class: circular functions are taught in "Trigonometry" while imaginary numbers and vectors are lumped together with basic "Calculus" meaning Euler's formula seems like terrifying voodoo for _years_ after it is first described!

<comment><USER12> Yes, but if we introduced Euler's work that early trigonometry would be reduced to the study of a single equation!

<comment><USER19> But in fact there's not much more in trigonometry. I always wondered how American schools can spend whole semester on single, simple subject.

<comment><USER20> Yeah trigonometry does become pretty trivial if you're prepared to use complex numbers and some calculus. Here in the UK we were introduced to this approach later on at A-level, but still had to tackle an incredible number of "solve for the missing length/angle/area" triangle problems first.

(One thing the endless triangle problems do provide is practice at converting geometric problems into algebraic ones. But yes, too much of them I'd say.)

I guess teachers consider complex numbers an abstraction too far in order to teach applications to geometric problems. They don't want to field endless 'woah that blows my mind' type questions about i at that stage. The downside then being that you have to memorise (or read off a cheat sheet) a lot more identities in order to manipulate things algebraically. And to convince yourself of the truth of those identities you need to rely on geometric proofs, which come more naturally to some than others. Probably makes the subject more intimidating than it should be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's a bit short sighted to claim that trigonometry and calculus are 'only necessary for scientists'.

For example, if you write code for some user interface, you'll have a very hard time to get smooth animations if you don't understand derivatives.

</comment><comment><USER22> lots of physicists commenting on the article, getting annoyed that the author doesn't dig calculus.

As a physicist (turned programmer turned physicist again) I'd just like to say that I quite like the idea of a liberal arts mathematics course - I would be much better at it if I had an overview of the field, and thus knew where to look for my solutions (like I do when debugging a program under X environment or framework).

</comment><comment><USER23> Yes, yes, yes. Discrete math is useful every single day as a programmer, unless you see absolutely no need to ever think about what's happening under the hood. Sets, combinatorics, matrices, and on and on. Everything I learned in my "discrete computational structures" course is directly applicable in my day-to-day programming life.

<comment><USER24> Could you recommend a book or an online course? Or anything really? As more of a self-taught programmer, I'd love to be more acquainted with the mathematics that go along with computer science, but I'm really not sure where to start. I've been waiting for khan academy's offering on the subject but it's been years and it seems like they'll never get around to it.

<comment><USER25> I think this book is very good. Lots of exercises and very clear. [http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Norman-L- Biggs/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Discrete-Mathematics-Norman-L- Biggs/dp/0198507178)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > For programmers, the most useful branch of discrete math is probability > theory. ... What's probability theory, you ask? Why, it's counting. ...

That paragraph made my left eye twitch a little. Not a big mistake, perhaps, but what he calls probability theory is actually combinatorics. Probability theory is decidedly non-discrete (integration of density functions?) and involves only two integers: 0 and 1. (A joke).

Many people are introduced to combinatorics in the context of probability theory. It (combinatorics) can be used to compute various probabilities, but still. You wouldn't call trigonometry calculus just because a course in calculus might involve the derivative of sine and cosine, so don't confuse probability theory and combinatorics.

<comment><USER13> How is probability theory decidedly non-discrete? As far as I know as long as the number of possible outcomes is discrete (and in CS applications this is the common case) the integration of density functions turns into simple summations and there is a vast body of results and research limited to just this area of probability theory.

<comment><USER27> Combinatorics deals with discrete structures, the kind encountered in programming, while probability concerns itself with determining the likelihood of a given event. The former is clearly more relevant to general programming.

Probability does use some tools from combinatorics and vice versa, but the two subjects have vastly different goals.

<comment><USER13> Yes, I understand combinatorics is different from probability theory and yes, he is somewhat mistaken in not distinguishing combinatorics from probability theory, but on the other hand the article is clearly meant to be informal, it isn't a dissertation on the division of (highly overlapping) sciences. Above all else, I find the statement from the critique above that "probability is decidedly non-discrete" wrong much more clearly then any statements from the original posting.

Similarly I find it highly questionable whether combinatorics is "clearly more relevant to general programming". In fact, what is "general programming"? Probability theory pervades all of Computer Science - from probabilistic algorithms (QuickSort), through cryptography, optimization algorithms (genetic algorithms, simulated annealing), networking (information theory, queuing theory), machine learning, the list goes on and on. For business programming, statistics (based on probablity theory) is crucial. Some of those applications include combinatorics, but I find it harder to find such a long list of applications of combinatorics being used without probability theory - it is a more specialized field.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


U.S. bill to regulate internet ads gains bipartisan support - <AUTHOR> https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-bill-regulate-internet-ads-gains-bipartisan-support-194613378--finance.html <comment><USER2> What could go wrong?

<comment><USER3> From my link below, the regulations would bring internet ads into line with the rules for TV and radio.

[http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/18/facebook-ad- disclos...](http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/18/facebook-ad-disclosure- bill-243914) Title: McCain signs on to Democrats' Facebook ad disclosure bill Techmeme summary: _Ashley Gold / Politico: Senators Warner and Klobuchar to introduce bill, cosponsored by McCain, to increase online political ad transparency, bring rules to parity with TV and radio_

<comment><USER4> Hmm, would that also include the SPAM folder?</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Coal – Containerized shell alias manager - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/pranavmk98/coal <comment><AUTHOR> Working on multiple projects at once with long build commands gets tedious quickly - I built coal to quickly containerize and manage your aliases.

Simple usage example:

$ coal new aws-lambda

$ coal add update "aws lambda update-function-code --function-name func --zip- file fileb:///tmp/main.zip"

$ coal add errors "aws logs filter-log-events --log-group-name /aws/lambda/func --filter-pattern \"ERROR\""

$ update

{ "FunctionName": "func", ... "LastUpdateStatus": "Successful" }

$ errors

{ "events": [ { "logStreamName": "<redacted>", ... "message": "ERROR...", }, ... }

$ coal new git

$ coal add update "git pull"

$ update

Already up to date.

$ coal load aws-lambda

$ update

{ "FunctionName": "func", ... "LastUpdateStatus": "Successful" }

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice, looks like direnv. I'll give it a try</comment>


Never Save Passwords on Chrome or Firefox - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/why-you-should-never-save-passwords-on-chrome-or-firefox-96b770cfd0d0 <comment><USER2> i have to admit, I have tired of this type of amateur hour, alarmist analysis.

> Well, no. If a hacker has managed to get access to your computer, whether it > be through an unprotected port or a botnet-type trojan that you've managed > to get infected with, then the hacker already has your Windows credentials > ...

If the hacker has your Windows credentials and local access, nothing Chrome does matters. It's game over for you. (local 2fa aside, ie touch ID mediated keychain access, that kind of thing.)

Had the author reported it to google before declaring his brilliance over _GOOGLE_ 's obviously deliberate choice here, he might have gotten some valuable insight and not embarrassed himself with this post.

<comment><USER3> I don't agree. Lets say someone steals your computer and is able to log in: if you save all your passwords in Chrome this way, you're done. Every password to every site you've ever logged into will be compromised. You've lost all control over your online identity. However, if you had used a password manager with the passwords encrypted with your master password at rest, it would be fine.

This doesn't just apply to physical thefts: if you get malware on your computer, fetching all your Chrome passwords is trivial. Fetching your password manager passwords is not: it would only be possible to do if you actively used the computer while it was infected (and entered your master password), and even then it's not trivial. You'd have to either keylog every keystroke and figure out which ones are the master password (if a master password was even used, you can log into 1Password with TouchID and Windows Hello) or try and go digging into the memory of the password manager to try and fish out any passwords. Not an easy task, and one that is very difficult to automate.

Compromising a password manager, even when the computer itself is compromised, is difficult. It takes dedication and personal attention from the hacker. Browser passwords, on the other hand, can be trivially harvested the second you compromise a computer. It needs no personal attention, a bot could easily do it on a massive scale.

The advice is correct: don't save your passwords using any system that doesn't properly encrypt them.

EDIT: to be clear, this is not because Google's engineers are stupid. It's because they want the Chrome password management system to be convenient, and they don't want to require a master password. If that's the case, then there's not much you can do to prevent this sort of thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think it's safe to post a slightly blurred image of your usercodes and passwords.

<comment><USER5> Moreover, if you use "Security" and "Cybersecurity" tags. I'm sure, it's possible to find the written ML script for "unblurring".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> So the master password is not used to encrypt the password database? What is it used for then?

<comment><USER7> The headline appears to be misleading.

If you use Firefox, the Master Password for the Software Security Device that must be entered on each restart of Firefox is certainly used to encrypt the passwords.

I believe the steps outlined in the article for Chrome are accurate but the word "Firefox" appears only in the headline.

<comment><USER8> It doesn't seem to be used if you use the firefox sync feature though, from my experiments, at least, I could sync my account and then open the passwords without the master password.

That was about when I stopped using 'save password' and also disabled password syncing.

<comment><USER7> [https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-master- password-s...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/using-master-password- sync)

"When using Sync, your Firefox Accounts login is stored with your saved passwords in the password manager. Your master password must be entered so Sync can access your Firefox Accounts login. Once the master password has been entered, Sync can also access your other saved passwords and sync them between your devices."

It looks like a master password has to be enabled separately, just having Firefox sync won't encrypt passwords on disk from what this is saying.

<comment><USER8> My point is that I found I could enter my firefox sync password and my master- pw-protected passwords were brought down from firefox without any trouble, ergo bypassing my master-pw completely.

My _expected_ behaviour would be that the master-pw would be used to encrypt the passwords, and this encryption would be carried to the sync'ed passwords such that knowing my sync password would be insufficient alone to get my cleartext passwords - which is, afaik, how almost all other (online/syncable) password managers work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This should be reported to the Google Team and perhaps they should award the author some compensation as part of their bug bounty program.

This is alarming.

<comment><USER10> it's pretty old, for instance this is a description of the same issue from 2013:

[https://www.howtogeek.com/70146/how-secure-are-your-saved- ch...](https://www.howtogeek.com/70146/how-secure-are-your-saved-chrome- browser-passwords/)

The link to the "why isn't there a master password?" question is now dead, but from memory of the disucssion at that time, it was basically said that browser passwords are inherently unsecure as they end up in plain text in the password field, and trying to add layers upon layers of encryption was just distracting from that fact. That position explains a lot about how Chrome handles these passwords.

<comment><USER2> there's a difference between reading one password out of a password field being actively used, and your entire archive from cold storage.

that said, as i commented otherwise, the report is still bogus.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: CurlSend.it - Send letters from your app, system or website - <AUTHOR> http://www.curlsend.it

<comment><AUTHOR> We're in here too - listening to feedback.</comment>


Ask HN: Why do all recruiters start their messages with "Hope you are well"? - <AUTHOR> It's not as if there aren't other ways to express a similar sentiment, but I'd say 80% of my recruiter emails on Linked In start with some variation of "Hope you're well" or "Hope all is well".  Is there a massive training program out there for recruiters that tells them to do that or some template in recruiting software that uses that phrase? <comment><USER2> They're alluding to a nonexistent preexisting relationship so they can pretend they didn't illicitly obtain your contact information and retain it indefinitely to spam you.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Hope you are well" is code for "Hey, I need something from you."

It's an expression most people open with when reaching out to someone they haven't talked to in a while.

</comment><comment><USER4> Can't tell if this is a sarcastic question, but I'll bite anyway.

The simple answer is politeness. When you work as a recruiter you're talking to 10s (maybe 100s) of folks a day. Creating a connection and breaking the ice when talking to someone you've never met before is just human nature.

</comment><comment><USER5> I haven't seen that too often, but I do get a lot of slight variations on my "impressive background" compelling them to reach out</comment>


Cagot: a persecuted and despised minority found in the west of France - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cagot <comment><USER2> The key paragraph:

>The Cagots were not an ethnic group, nor a religious group. They spoke the same language as the people in an area and generally kept the same religion as well. Their only distinguishing feature was their descent from families identified as Cagots. Few consistent reasons were given as to why they should be hated; accusations varied from Cagots being cretins, lepers, heretics, cannibals, to simply being intrinsically evil.

My take is that people generally enjoy having "punching bags". Based off this article and other instances of man's inhumanity to man, "punching bags" are people who are:

1) Outlets for existing grievances and resentments, a.k.a. scapegoats.

2) Powerless, weak, and unable to retaliate against abuse, a.k.a. victims.

3) Designed, in the minds of the abusers, for the purpose of being abused, a.k.a. inferior, subhuman etc.

Through this lens, the aforementioned "reasons" are rationalizations, a facade over our collective sadism. Sure, a single tragic event may start the cycles of violence, but the reactor that powers it over generations is our built-in desire to hurt "other" people, to take pleasure in "their" misery, and, most significantly, to pretend that "we" are doing so in the interests of morality, society, etc.

It feels good therefore, it must be good!

Such a twisted sentiment isn't always at the forefront of our minds, but given how often we as a species and as individuals have sought to make "punching bags" out of each other, I would say shared-sadism is more sublimated than staged.

<comment><USER3> "The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats." \- Aldous Huxley

<comment><USER4> The basic premise for most of the marcial arts movies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was interested by this story, so I did some more googling, but as far as I can tell there are only two sources of information about the Cagots on the internet. One is a widely copy-pasted article by the author Tom Knox promoting his book about despised peoples, and the other is the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica ([https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britan...](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Cagots)). Might be worth following up on the books cited in the Britannica article.

<comment><USER6> The French Wikipedia article has much more info than the English one.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the pointer! I should remember to check out the wikipedia in the local language for subjects like this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > _So pestilential was their touch considered that it was a crime for them to > walk the common road barefooted or to drink from the same cup as non-Cagots. > The Cagots were often restricted to the trades of carpenter, butcher, and > rope-maker_

Not that bigotry ever made sense, but "your very touch spoils the road upon which you walk... but by all means, cut up our meat for us" is a particularly weird one.

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting. Unlike the suppression of linguistic minorities (e.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergonha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vergonha)), this is very local and based purely on being a member of the wrong family. It seems that even during the persecution, nobody could figure out what the Cagots were being persecuted for, other than a vague notion that they might be unclean.

</comment><comment><USER8> Huh, TIL (I'm French). My mom and grandma frequently used the word "caqueux" as a pejorative when I was growing up, but I assumed it was derived from "caca" ("poop"). Makes more sense now.

<comment><USER9> what about "caguer" ? it sounds even closer

<comment><USER10> Caguer is from the south-west. It's derived from he latin cacare, to shit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> More info from a journalist with some origin theories:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285450/The- untoucha...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1285450/The-untouchables- FRANCE-How-swarthy-Pyrenean-race-persecuted-centuries-abused-today.html)

<comment><USER12> > Japan still has a class of people called the Burakumin: these untouchables > are condemned to the lowest jobs and the dirtiest slums.

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

<comment><USER13> Not really: they're almost entirely assimilated now thanks to social & geographic mobility. Some prejudice lingers particularly around the Kansai area, but as one example, being of buraku descent didn't stop Hashimoto from being repeatedly elected as governor and mayor of Osaka.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dru_Hashimoto](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dru_Hashimoto)

<comment><USER14> I do not believe this is entirely true. Hashimoto had to change his name to hide his background, for example. Many Japanese are extremely hesitant to speak about this issue at all; it remains a very sensitive topic. There is evidence of recent employment discrimination and marriage discrimination, especially in western Japan. Japanese silence on the issue speaks volumes. [https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2009/01/20/issues/bre...](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2009/01/20/issues/breaking- the-silence-on-burakumin-2/) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin#Social_discriminatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin#Social_discrimination)

<comment><USER13> His mother changed their family name when he was a child. He was "outed" during his first election campaign, but this did him no appreciable harm, and the media made a bigger deal of his father having apparently been a low-level Yakuza gangster.

Also, it's difficult to disentangle "extremely hesitant to speak" and "genuinely unaware/doesn't care": as far as I can tell, for most Japanese, the issue is an irrelevant historical relic. Living in Tokyo for years, the only reference I ever heard or saw a single piece of train station graffiti proclaiming that a certain train station was an _etamura_ (derogatory term for buraku village). As noted, around Osaka it's a bigger thing, but the days of employers or prospective inlaws routinely engaging detective agencies to root out any trace of buraku origin seem to be long past. (Although doubtless you could still do this if you really wanted to.)

Finally, it's indeed a political issue, and often in unsavoury ways: the article you link to goes into some detail about how the Buraku Liberation League, which has... non-mainstream views on how many buraku there are and how badly they're persecuted, has Yakuza ties and earns considerable profits from government assistance projects.

<comment><USER14> As far as I can tell, the fact that it remains a taboo to discuss means that it remains extremely socially salient. Some of that is the fallout of the 1960s-era denunciation campaigns, which were both seemingly effective and very painful in the context of Japanese values. Most Japanese I have talked to about this view the whole topic as extremely shameful. But with something like this, it would be useful to have some kind of positive indication that it is a historical relic, rather than just something declined to discuss anymore. But any effort to gain real demographic information is seen as a threat, because that's how buraku people were systemically blackballed in the past.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One of my all-time favorite characters is Le Cagot from Shibumi by Trevanian.

[https://www.amazon.com/Shibumi-Novel- Trevanian/dp/1400098033](https://www.amazon.com/Shibumi-Novel- Trevanian/dp/1400098033)

Up there with Edna from the Incredibles.

<comment><USER16> Somewhat bizarrely, though, he is Basque and it's suggested he's wildly divergent genetically (though it's not clear if it's really suggesting that, or just Hel using it to rile him up - Hel is enough of a Marty Stu it's reasonable to read some authorial belief into it), neither of which is true of the Cagot.

<comment><USER15> Yeah he's not going for accuracy with the _nom de guerre_. The name is part of his campaign to create a larger-than-life cartoonish character to help the Basque movement. Saying crude things is very much part of it. In that regards the choice of name may not necessarily be progressive and an attempt to identify with the Cagot. (Though I haven't read the book in 20 years.)

 _Edit_ : I just remembered the Author's Note at the front of the book saying something like, "With the exception of <three people including Le Cagot>, none of the characters in this book are real -- though they may not know it." Unfortunately Google Books doesn't show that page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Their only distinguishing feature was their descent from families identified > as Cagots.

<comment><USER17> > Rhyming songs kept the names of Cagot families known.

<comment><USER12> So if you could move and change your name, you would be instantly off the shit list?

<comment><USER7> In the time period we're talking about, what you're saying is not trivial. Hell, it's not even trivial today - look at the stereotypical 'poor white trash' guy. Scrub him up and put him in a suit, and the way he talks and behaves isn't going to make him indistinguishable at an upper-class dinner party. Or a different angle: take a modern-day American and put him in the UK. Without a _lot_ of work, it's clear what his origin is from his speech and his customs, despite the similar cultures.

Now go back 500-1000 years, where people didn't move around much (sometimes enforced by law) and most people only spoke their regional dialect. And if you were able to move town, the work you knew how to do was still the shit work for the lowest class - it's not like you could just pick up silversmithing on a lark, for example.

<comment><USER18>
        > They spoke the same language as the people in an area
        > and generally kept the same religion as well. Their
        > only distinguishing feature was their descent from
        > families identified as Cagots.

<comment><USER19> I think you're underestimating how much linguistic drift and regional dialects and accents there were before widespread literacy and then radio, film and television helped to further standardize things. They spoke the same way as the people in their area -- but that's no guarantee they wouldn't stick out if they moved far enough away that nobody would recognize them.

<comment><USER20> In central Italy (e.g. Tuscany or Umbria), still nowadays, you can experience a clearly recognizable change in accent by just moving to the next village 5-10 km down the road. Until not so long ago, it was normal in many places in Europe to call "foreigner" anyone who was not from the same village (my grandparents, born in the first half of the '900 in a village which is less than 30 km from Rome, called people from Rome "stranieri" which in Italian means "foreigners"). This must sound almost incredible to someone from e.g. North America, but you need to realize the feudal past left major traces in modern European culture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Fascinating, and sad.

</comment><comment><USER22> >The Cagots were not an ethnic group, nor a religious group. They spoke the same language as the people in an area and generally kept the same religion as well. Their only distinguishing feature was their descent from families identified as Cagots.

Yet, now despite a history of abuse and segregation, descendants of the Cagots are now just seen as "privileged whites" who need to apologise for historical slights against ethnic groups their ancestors never met.</comment>


Why Language Classes Don't Work: How to Cut Classes and Double Your Learning Rate - <AUTHOR> http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2008/09/22/why-language-classes-dont-work-how-to-cut-classes-and-double-your-learning-rate-plus-madrid-update/

<comment><USER2> Hrm. Disagree: my Italian courses at the University of Oregon were fundamental to my fluency in the Italian language. Of course, I didn't become fluent without lots of practice, but without the grammar I learned in the courses, the practice wouldn't have been so fruitful. Also, having a good teacher counts for a lot - more than the materials.</comment>


Ancient stone tools show technological enhancements over time - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2013-03-ancient-stone-tools-pace-remarkable.html

<comment><USER2> This is an important point. Technological progress goes very, very far back. It's what people do. In fact that might be a better definition of humans than to call them the political animal.</comment>


The time I was turned away from China - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/26/the-time-i-was-turned-away-from-china/ <comment><USER2> >The reason, as it was explained to me, was that in 2015 I had broken Chinese law when I failed to present myself to authorities in Beijing when I had visited and stayed at an Airbnb residence on two different trips. Unbeknownst to me at the time — and something that was not communicated by Airbnb — foreigners are required to register at a local police station, but in most cases the hotels where they stay handle this.

This rule is clearly explained on the back of the immigration declaration form which every visitor must personally fill out[0]. It is, in fact, item number one.

Yes, China is a totalitarian shithole. But then again some democratic countries like Japan have similar "register at local police station" rules too, so I'm very surprised that someone who spent a decade in Asia would be unaware of it.

[0] [http://sydney.chineseconsulate.org/eng/gdtp/P020071009492059...](http://sydney.chineseconsulate.org/eng/gdtp/P020071009492059383911.jpg)

<comment><USER3> I live in Japan for quite some time (multiple years) and never had to, or heard about, having to "register at local police station".

<comment><USER4> It's not at the police station but you still have to register at the ward office when you're moving to a new city.

Also as a "fun" fact, residence cards features the logo of the ministry of justice. Just like if all foreigners were criminal with such a high probability that this minister handle the matter from the beginning.

<comment><USER3> Sure, also because you're going to pay taxes into that ku (city), and they deal with pension and health insurance, even if you're not a foreigner you're going to have to register.

Your residence card gets updated every time you change your address and you do have to go to the ward office for them to update it, but that's hardly "register at the police station".

Edit:

Most if not all the things we have to do, as foreigners, Japanese also have to do it.

The big difference is we're required to have an updated/valid residence card (ID), while Japanese don't need to carry ID.

I'm from Europe, and in my country everyone has an ID and is "required" to have it so I don't actually see the big deal, maybe I'm just uninformed.

<comment><USER5> "Most if not all the things we have to do, as foreigners, Japanese also have to do it."

Chinese also have to register at the local police station when they move. It's not just for foreigners.

<comment><USER6> in Japan you do not have to register if you are just visiting somewhere

<comment><USER5> Right, but my point wasn't that the requirements are the same. I was pointing out that the parent statement "Most if not all the things we have to do, as foreigners, Japanese also have to do it." applies to China, too.

The 'registration at local police station' was just an example of one such policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nothing to do with increased security for the 19th Congress.

Nothing to do with being a journalist.

Everything to do with not presenting yourself at the Chinese police station.

Source: Lived in China for years, was forced to write an apology to China for not presenting myself after moving to a new city 2 months later (had a work visa); my communist party member landlord smoothed things over with local police. Obviously Jon didn't have enough guanxi.

<comment><USER8> Congratulations, you know "guanxi". Lmao

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Traveler does not follow the rules, abuses a Transit visa to cover non- transity-things, and is surprised when he is punished. He might not have been familiar with the exact rules governing travel, but it is fairly clear from his account that he was _abusing_ the system, and aware of it.

> _I had been waiting in line to take advantage of the city's 144-hour > 'transit' visa which allows travelers with an onward flight to stay in > Shanghai without needing to secure a visa before they travel._

Yes, AirBnB should inform traveler's of local rules, like registering with a police station. But ignorance of the law, combined with repeated abuses shouldn't be overlooked.

> _Since 2015, I have used the transit visa system on six occasions_

Nothing to see here, folks. Follow the rules, don't abuse them.

<comment><USER10> While it's generally not a good idea to try the visa on arrival option when you can't get a normal visa, the transit visa isn't just for transit as such.

"To accelerate the strategy of "Development Driven by Innovation", sanctioned by the State Council, as of January 30, various ports of entry in Shanghai [...] are to implement a 144-hour visa-exemption transit policy [...] First and foremost, the length of time for visa-exemption stay is extended considerably. With the previous 72 hours doubled, foreign passengers would have ample time to conduct short-term activities such as businesses, sightseeing, visits and exhibitions while in Shanghai."

[http://www.sh- immigration.gov.cn/listPageEn.aspx?lx=40&id=44...](http://www.sh- immigration.gov.cn/listPageEn.aspx?lx=40&id=4421)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm not sure on the merit of if this person should or should not be allowed into China but this happens to people everyday at US boarder control (especially from non-European countries) who are not even in media but doctors and lawyers. And America proclaims to be much more open than China so this isn't as strange as it seems.

Something that made me think was how the author waffles between being a "journalist" and being a "blogger". Bloggers do this all the time and it's troubling. In cases where important part of a story they wrote turns out to be wrong, or invades someone privacy, they just shrug their shoulders and say "Well, im a blogger, sorry!". When they are not taken seriously, the same people run to the top of the hill to say "But but but we're doing _serious_ work here!" I won't say what Thiel did was right, i'm justing saying I understand.

</comment><comment><USER12> I understand that the author is British and not American, but I couldn't help avoid a little bit of schadenfreude, sorry.

As a Latino, every time I'd have to go in transit through US I'd face similar treatment by American customs. I hope this has improved but it's been more than 8 years I've been able to avoid any American airport.

So, yep it sucks. But never mind, there are plenty of interesting countries in the world; China and the U.S. are not the only ones.

<comment><USER13> Honestly I'd say the UK border is just as bad if not worse than that of the United States

<comment><USER14> As a US citizen, I flew to the UK to spend about a week with a friend from work while he showed me around central England. I had to show proof of my return flight to the states and my colleagues home address, phone number, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The reporter comes off as a bit paranoid and slightly egotistical. Read up on the rules and follow them closely or risk facing consequences. If you aren't 100% sure, ask.

Personally, I was held overnight in a cell in KIX (Osaka International Airport) because after 6 hours of back and forth interviews, I couldn't provide a convincing enough reason for working for a Japanese company (my own company) without the correct visa. This was entirely due to miscommunication but something that would have been obvious – and easily remedied – had I consulted the right people. Fortunately, I was granted conditional entry the following morning. Though despite the inconvenience, the officers and warden were extremely pleasant and very accommodating.

<comment> abc-xyz That's a terrible point of view. Who is he supposed to ask these questions that would be absolutely ridiculous to ask in any developed country? Heck, I can't think of any country in the world where staying at AirBNB would be an issue, and why shouldn't he be paranoid when they so easily could pull up info about when/where he stayed there.. Does the airport security also have a list of Chinese girls the visiting foreigners have engaged sexual relations with? How long until they start rejecting foreigners when they have slept with >50 Chinese girls?

<comment><USER15> I'm sorry, but I fail to see your point. This does not have anything to do with his sexual relationships so I am unsure of why you are making that analogy. It is _completely usual_ to have to declare your place of residence to an immigration officer upon entry to a foreign country, wherever you are visiting. If you are suspected of wrongdoing, expect calls to be made and questions to be asked.

It is entirely the traveler's responsibility to understand the requirements for stay and local laws of a foreign country. Ignorance can only get you so far.

The immigration officer – who has absolute power over entry – neither asked anything unreasonable of him nor made any false accusations. This is despite the reporter technically having broken the law. He got off lightly, since the fine for not registering within 24 hours after arrival can be up to $300.

<comment><USER10> It's usual to declare where you are staying, it isn't usual to have to register with the local authorities in every place you do. I do accept it, countries have different rules and cultures. Foreigners do end up breaking such local rules when going abroad, including the Chinese. But doing so shouldn't result in being banished from the country. Imagine driving into Austria without a toll sticker and no longer being able to get a Schengen visa. Of course we don't know the full story. Hopefully this is more about the authors situation than something that will become commonplace.

<comment><USER15> It may be annoying or inconvenient, but China is not the only country a requirement to register with the local authorities. The fact that it applies to all types of visas may throw some travelers off. Still, it is their responsibility to make sure (preferably before arrival) that the requirements for entry are met.

When you break the rules (intentionally or not), you're taking a risk. Some people get off unnoticed whereas others learn the hard way. Ask people familiar with the country and its laws before arrival and plan your trip properly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I feel it's kind of shady in the first place to use a transit visa to cover tech events.

Do this in the US, it'll be worst.

<comment><USER17> The US is just weird, only country i know of that doesn't allow transit. Anywhere else you get off your plane, pass thru security and get back on your outgoing flight.

The US seems too cheap to build outgoing immigration booths, and therefore doesn't have real international departure terminals like anywhere else on the planet.

I means you can't transit the US without getting a visa

<comment><USER18> Due to its geography, I can't think of any other country in the world where it would make sense to fly via the US. Mexico and Canada are the only two that would happen, and both have their own large international gateways.

<comment><USER19> The USA is a very common transit country for Europe-South America and Asia- South America. It's not uncommon for travel between Europe and New Zealand or the East coast of Australia either.

<comment><USER17> I travel from NZ, these days I choose to go through HKG (and visit the Shenzhen markets, in China) to Europe.

My normal experience of entering China is always fast and courteous, entering the US is frankly scary every time, lots of questions about what you're going to do - I show the same business APEC card at both borders (unlike China it's not a visa for the US border, the US is not a full member of APEC, but it does get me in the crew line, and identifies me as a frequent business traveller)

<comment><USER19> You're not the only person I've heard say that they avoid the TPAC route because they want to avoid the USA. But I've heard people complain that as much as they'd prefer to avoid the USA the flight schedules are far more convenient.

Have you tried the ANZ AKL-YVR connecting to ACA YVR-Europe flights? Canada is far happier about transiting passengers than the USA is. (And if you've tried it and didn't like it, I'm curious why.)

<comment><USER17> I don't avoid the US if I need to go there, after all I lived there for 20 years, half my adult life, it's home as much as NZ (and I'm currently near the end of a NZ->US->HK->CN->HK->CN->HK->NZ trip) - getting in is the problem, the process is as I said elsewhere a bit scary, once you are there it's generally a nice place to be

I haven't tried Vancouver, maybe next time - I do prefer long flights that are overnight so to Europe that means with a daytime (or two) somewhere in the middle

<comment><USER19> AKL-YVR-LHR is an overnight (13 hours, 8PM-noon, same day) TPAC followed by an overnight (9.5 hours, 6PM-11:30AM, next day) TATL. So it certainly fits your preference for having long overnight flights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I think a majority of the commenters are missing the point of the article. We get it, you're all smart and know the rules, this guy didn't. That's his point. Instead of having the rules explained to him, he was treated horribly and denied any recourse. That's what its like facing a soulless bureaucracy. I've gone through my own share of that and it's really frustrating getting shuttled back and forth with each person passing the buck and no one to really turn to in order to resolve everything. Should he not have been skirting rules? No shit. Should we completely blame him for being ignorant? Maybe the immigration department is also at fault for not handing out handy infographics written in multiple languages to reduce friction and incidents like these. Notice for example that the author actually had tried to apply for a business visa but hit a brick wall. It's certainly not conducive to foreign journalism on Chinese topics like the burgeoning tech industry, that's for sure.

</comment><comment><USER21> I use the Shanghai visa-free transit occasionally and after going through the police station registration once, I decided to stay in hotels on my next trips.

The registration process took a long time:

\- first I had to wait around an hour in a queue, because out of 5 available policemen only one was registering visitors

\- the police officer didn't speak any English, and there were 2 foreigners who didn't speak Chinese in front of me

\- even though I had a native Mandarin speaker with me, it took at least 30 minutes to register

\- the police officer kept asking me for the number of my visa, and didn't understand that I'm on visa-free transit; in the end I provided number of some stamp that I got in my passport while entering the country

In summary, while it was obvious to me that I have to visit a police station unless staying in a hotel, this process is very troublesome. It definitely wasn't designed for Airbnb-era, it is assumed that if you stay at private place, you have host that will help you with the registration process.

<comment> dis-sys to be perfectly clear - airbnb is illegal in China as the pure residential complex/buildings are not allowed to have any commercial activities.

should there be any airbnb in my complex, I could pick up the phone and call police, they are required to be here to handle the case in 15 minutes by law. did it two months ago, they forced the owner to shutdown the business permanently on the spot. ready to do it any time when it happens again in my complex.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Does sound like the border official was being overly cautious about the author's role as a journalist.

That said, having traveled around the world on multiple visas (particularly in the US), I can vouch that traveling on any visa other than tourism is a pain in the ass. I'm always ready to be turned away. I usually have a large institution backing my non-tourism travels (a university or a large corporation) and their advice is consistently: don't argue, just turn back then tell our lawyers and let them deal with it.

</comment><comment><USER23> It is a classic example of "rule by law" which is in full effect in PRC. You're required to register within 24 hours at the "police station", no details of the said station, no opening hours or any further information is given. The process is quite slow, the queues are long, and the officials are visibly irritated every time you come and wake them up from their slumber. Then there are people flying 3-4 times per week to Hong Kong or Seoul on business, technically they are required to register every single time they enter China. Of course, nobody is doing that. So that's a #1 easy to reach tool to exercise any kind of control over foreigners.

<comment><USER24> > no details of the said station, no opening hours or any further information > is given

If you are staying in a hotel, you don't need to go to a police station. Otherwise, the person you are staying with should be able to help you find it.

> The process is quite slow, the queues are long, and the officials are > visibly irritated every time you come and wake them up from their slumber.

Not my experience, but maybe I just got lucky.

> Then there are people flying 3-4 times per week to Hong Kong or Seoul on > business, technically they are required to register every single time they > enter China.

Those people presumably have some kind of permanent residence. It would be news to me if that required re-registration after each re-entry.

<comment><USER23> > Those people presumably have some kind of permanent residence. It would be > news to me if that required re-registration after each re-entry.

M-visa holders, business visa holders are required to register with each entry, which is surprisingly misaligned with the purpose the visa entails (visiting fairs, business meetings etc).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> sorry to sound like a jerk here, while I'm aware things like this happen in China all the time and I am no fan of this type of policies and unclear communications, why does the author call out China in particular when they clearly indicated he has previously broken a Chinese law, now you may not fully agree with the law and there were unfortunate mistakes and lack of communications by his AirBNB hosts, it is still a valid law.

Same thing happens at western countries to Chinese citizens every single day, and yet nobody bats and eye just because Chinese aren't as vocal and expressing their dissatisfaction. Before my family obtained Canadian citizenship (we are originally from China), every time we crossed the US border we'd get questioned like criminals for a good 40 minutes, mind I was a 13 year old child so what crime could I possibly commit while in the US? And it wasn't until recently that I found out my Irish colleagues who do not even hold permanent residency in Canada, their experience going over the US border has been smooth as silk, no question, no fingerprints, no nothing.

I'm sorry I have a hard time emphasizing with the author, and I just don't know what point he's trying to get to here. That China is a shithole that discriminates western journalists? I don't know.

</comment><comment><USER26> He shouldn't have argued. He should have taken the 24 hours transit they first gave him, said thanks and gone on. Arguing means that now he was denied a visa and the immigration officer is more likely going to write copious notes about it leading to him being denied subsequent visas.

If you're ever in a similar situation, never argue. There's no way this will ever solve anything.

In some countries, the only way to maybe solve the situation is a bit of money under the table but that's also quite risky and you need to know the customs and ins and outs of the local law very well (not to mention that your home country might consider this to be illegal). And, it usually doesn't work in major airports since there's more control.

<comment><USER27> On the news: "Techcrunch employees bribe Chinese officials".

That kind of negative PR can destroy companies.

<comment><USER26> Oh should have been clearer, bribing would not be recommended in a major airport and not so much in China (where it's more a question of guanxi)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Getting the APEC card was life changing. If you're an Aussie or New Zealander that visits China or anywhere else regularly in Asia, I'd highly recommend checking your elegibilty.

My arrival in China now goes something like; fill in the arrival form, queue at the special APEC immigration line for around 2 mins, show the card + passport, give a polite xiexie and enter.

[https://www.border.gov.au/Busi/visas-and-migration/travel- fo...](https://www.border.gov.au/Busi/visas-and-migration/travel-for-business- and-events/apec-business-travel-cards)

</comment><comment><USER29> Author says he doesn't touch political topics and then says he's covered censorship. This is the kind of thing which contributes to China being a total PITA with travel and internet

</comment><comment><USER30> With all the comments here about how this is really a silly non-story (a sentiment with which I agree), why and how is it getting upvoted so much such that it makes the front page?

<comment><USER31> Because a lot of people just upvote, and don't read the comments (or sometimes even the article). The title of the article is "interesting enough" to get an upvote.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Preaching to the choir, but the man openly admits violating the law and then complains about not being able to obtain a visa. I've heard countless similar stories for students and professionals trying to enter the United States from very politically friendly countries, with a select few being banned from the country altogether, based on very trivial violations of the law (we're talking job semantics here).

In other words thems the rules. China's no different.

</comment><comment><USER33> Just to be clear, people have similar bizarre experiences with US Immigration too.

</comment><comment><USER34> Lucky for the author though, this is probably the only time he'll have to walk through the China bureaucracy labyrinth. Many of my friends including myself need to deal with it from time to time.

</comment><comment> dis-sys > The reason, as it was explained to me, was that in 2015 I had broken Chinese > law when I failed to present myself to authorities in Beijing when I had > visited and stayed at an Airbnb residence on two different trips. > Unbeknownst to me at the time — and something that was not communicated by > Airbnb

When you travel to a foreign country you choose to visit, you agree to follow the laws of the land. No one has the obligation to re-educate you about the local laws there, it is your responsibility to learn the laws before you go.

Don't like this? Do go then.

</comment><comment><USER35> > "sign a piece of paper that was written in Mandarin"

"Mandarin" is NOT a written language, but rather is a group of spoken dialects in Northern China [1]. The Chinese written language is called "hàn zì" [2].

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

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

<comment><USER24> If you use Hanzi to write down something spoken in Mandarin, I'd call the result "written Mandarin". Of course it might at the same time be valid as Cantonese or any of the other languages and dialects spoken in China.

<comment><USER36> It's not valid written form of other Chinese languages, for the record. People who speak other Chinese languages learn to read and write Mandarin. Cantonese can be written noticeably differently, in terms of character choice and word order. The same can be said of Shanghainese, Taiwanese, and other "dialects" for which there is extant literature, however small. Also, notably, "Classical Chinese" which is totally different from the modern variants listed above. It's he same characters, sure, but combining in very different ways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Off topic: today I learned that Hong Kong Airlines is owned by HNA Group [1], a china company.

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

</comment><comment><USER38> Sounds like he ruined his career covering China. Well deserved. Move on, and start another career covering India or whatever. Maybe China has become important enough that anyone who intends to mess her law within her border would think twice.

</comment><comment><USER39> So how did he get busted?

<comment> abc-xyz Considering it took them so little time to look up this private info, that they in my opinion shouldn't even have access to in the first place, then I think a more interesting question is whether they also have access to your chat history on weixin/qq/momo/etc, and if they can see the names of the girls you checked into a hotel with. They probably also have detailed info about whenever a foreigner visited a red light shop.. how long until that info will be used to deny foreigners entry, or land them in jail.. what a shithole..

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Another typical 'fuck-you' treatment from Chinese authorities.

Why a fuck-you treatment? Fuck you. That's why.

<comment><USER41> How did you get that from officials just enforcing the law on the books?

<comment><USER40> Which law from which book? To quote from TFA

> The immigration officers explained to me that a new law that had come into > effect in recent months meant I was unable to exercise the longer transit > visa. My previous visits were not subject to that, I was told. The officials > denied my request for details about this new law.

Most of the Chinese "law" are not lawfully legislated and are selectively enforced TBH.

Looks like some kind of special 规定 or 通知 targeted directly towards OP's visa.

<comment><USER42> The law, that as the top comment to the article points out, is on the back of the immigration card in English that you fill out when you enter.

<comment> abc-xyz I assume you're referring to this ([http://www.joutrip.com/easyworks/data/gallery/china- departur...](http://www.joutrip.com/easyworks/data/gallery/china-departure- card-back.jpg))? I see no mention of having to inform the police (or whoever you're supposed to inform) if you decide to spend a night at AirBNB..

<comment><USER42> It's #1.

<comment> abc-xyz Huh, I always read it as entry to the country, not entry to the apartment. Especially considering in #2 entry seem to refer to country. And entry is a really strange choice of word to use when referring to checking in to an apartment.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


I find journaling indispensable - <AUTHOR> https://jborichevskiy.com/posts/journaling/ <comment><USER2> I've been journaling for several years and have developed a template I fill out most mornings. After telling some friends about it, I put it in a public format and shared as a Google Doc that anyone can check out. I have a very long Google Doc with a more personal version of this template at the top of it, and I copy and paste it to bump down the prior day's journal and start filling it out.

Posting it here in case it's helpful for anyone who wants some structure around the journaling:

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AW0xjWJKcxiqXkn72nYIe3pH...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AW0xjWJKcxiqXkn72nYIe3pHJzUOPPPRC1HH5kEuAKc/edit?usp=sharing)

<comment><USER3> I also have a template. I use TiddlyWiki as I can then quite easily retrieve the data that I'm storing in HTML. If this habit continues, I'll probably create a home server and make sure I can journal online.

My template is more focused on being a daily questionnaire rather than a journal, but it can do both. I've done 2 analyses so far, one qualitative (about what made me most relaxed) and one quantitative (my energy levels currently correlate for 0.66 with my happiness and my stress doesn't correlate with either of them).

However, now that I've read this blog post, I think that I should create a seperate place somewhere to write journal articles (probably just TiddlyWiki as well).

My template: [https://imgur.com/a/mJ8nkio](https://imgur.com/a/mJ8nkio)

<comment><USER4> That's really cool! How did you create that in TiddlyWiki?

<comment><USER3> Here are some code snippets.

I always tried to use fields, but for some things I used a scratchpad tiddler called StoreDailyQuestionaireData. If I would use the same in those case, then I'd get rendering issues.

      ! My happiness levels are

      <$radio field="q-happiness-levels" value="1"> abysmal low</$radio>
      <$radio field="q-happiness-levels" value="2"> very low</$radio>
      <$radio field="q-happiness-levels" value="3"> low</$radio>
      <$radio field="q-happiness-levels" value="4"> medium</$radio>
      <$radio field="q-happiness-levels" value="5"> high</$radio>
      <$radio field="q-happiness-levels" value="6"> very high</$radio>
      <$radio field="q-happiness-levels" value="7"> extremely high</$radio>

\---

      ! I slept

Time Interval: <$view field=sleep-time-interval_value/> <$edit-text tiddler="StoreDailyQuestionnaireData" field="sleep-time-interval_value"/> <$button><$action-setfield $field=sleep-time-interval_value $value={{StoreDailyQuestionnaireData!!sleep-time-interval_value}} /><$action-setfield $tiddler="StoreDailyQuestionnaireData" $field="sleep-time-interval_value" $value="" /> change sleep-time-interval</$button>      (E.g. format: 23:49 - 03:57, 06:37 - 10:47)

\---

      ! How many cups coffee did you drink?

      <$range field="coffee-amount" min="0" max="10" default="0" increment="1"/> <$transclude field="coffee-amount" />

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've been journaling for about 5 years daily, and actually decided to stop last year. For a long time I felt depressed, and my journal notes reflected that.

Every day I sat to write down another entry, and when looking at a few previous notes (or at "this day 1 year/2 years ago", which is a feature of many journaling apps), the bad days seemed "normal", because, well, there weren't many good days. I believe this somehow helped me stay in a depressed state, helped perpetuate the feeling of normality of something that should be considered abnormal.

I am feeling better nowadays and consider getting back into journaling, but I am wary of this unwanted normalization possibility. It'd be great to have some sort of a basis to compare days to. Or maybe this is a bad idea.

Journaling is supposed to make you more self reflective, to increase meta attention. It definitely does that, but it's harder for some people.

<comment><USER6> I 100% agree. I had kept a journal continuously for about 17 years. My decision to stop was intentional and difficult. I loved my journal deeply, and it's difficult to explain how it became an impediment for me and why I believed it was a crutch. Living with a journal was, for me, similar to watching a concert through the screen of your iPhone. My life is less examined now, but it is better and I feel better.

I destroyed that journal entirely. I can never get it back, and I can not see how I felt 8 years ago on this date, or 16 years ago on new years. It does not matter how I was then. The continuity of it prevented me from feeling I could break with the past.

<comment><USER5> >I had kept a journal continuously for about 17 years. >I destroyed that journal entirely.

Woah! That's one hell of a buddhist exercise. Reminds me of those monks that spend days diligently painting complex pictures with colored sand [1] to later destroy it completely.

I hope your break from the past was successful.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In the early 90s my dad was trying to explain word processing to a young me. We had DOS on a 386 with Microsoft Works. He told me you could keep a journal. I started writing in all caps about my family and pets and school.

I still have the file, and have continued writing in it just once every few months. I love it. It's basically my life story.

Maybe I should write more. Glad to hear from this post that I'm not the only one who likes it.

<comment><USER8> I've been doing the same since I was 12, just one simple .txt file that I've managed to keep alive since then!

I only write in there when I remember, which is usually 1-3 times a year, usually after an important life event - so it's really fun reading back through it...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > A simple thing, on paper. Get a piece of it out and start writing. Or typing > - doesn't really matter.

On the contrary, I feel writing notes on paper with my fountain pen really different from typing on a computer. Only the former give me the feeling of work well done and some relaxed mind.

I find really interesting to see years later that event X and Y happened on the same day while they are disjunct in memory.

<comment><USER10> The problem with pen and paper is that after decades of journalling, you are going to have hundreds of notebooks to deal with. It feels like a burden and the value of the text at that point is pretty low.

<comment><USER11> You're right, but those notebooks don't need backups, they can't corrupt, and they can't be hacked into. They work during power outages, when the internet goes down, etc.

<comment><USER10> A text file on a computer satisfies most of those constraints as well.

<comment><USER12> As far as I can see they meet only one of the described conditions? (E.g. working when disconnected from the internet)

<comment><USER13> As far as I can see, the claims are so nonsensical as to be equally (non)applicable to a notebook or a text file.

\- Neither _needs_ backups. In fact, a text file is much easier to back up if you want to.

\- Neither is particularly likely to be corrupted these days, but a notebook can just as easily grow moldy as a text file can be corrupted by a disk error.

\- A thief can just as well break into your house and steal your notebook as a hacker can break into your computer and steal your text file.

\- A pretty large chunk of computing is done on devices with a battery these days. Depending on the time of day, a notebook may not actually work well at all during a power outage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A few years ago I read an article about scientists planting false memories into a mouse. [0]

This got me thinking that people were next. Then I thought: what if it already had happened? What if I've already been planted false memories?

The only time frame in which I can be sure I am who I am is from the time I regain consciousness (wake up) until I lose consciousness (fall asleep). I liked this concept because it freed me from my past and future selves. I am not them.

So, I created a journaling app that uses versions of you instead of dates. This morning, it greeted me with "Good morning, Alexander №10821". I can browse and see what other versions of Alexander (like №9851) were up to. I also understand that tomorrow it's Alexander №10822 who will wake up and not me, so I got to live this day however I like (though as I like the future Alexanders, I'm gonna also contribute to their well-being).

I will make this app public, so if this type of thinking resonates with you, leave your email in the google form I just created. [1] The app will have end- to-end encryption and cost $3/month.

[0] - [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/meet-two- scientist...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/meet-two-scientists- who-implanted-false-memory-mouse-180953045/)

[1] - [https://forms.gle/PX8Aca6TR6cg5S9WA](https://forms.gle/PX8Aca6TR6cg5S9WA)

<comment><USER15> Reminds me a bit of Diaspora by Greg Egan. I recommend it to you! Post- singularity "people" in the book start to develop interesting ways to distinguish between themselves and past versions. Since they're immortal and infinitely copyable, their sense of self is naturally quite different from our corporeal on one. You might be into it!

<comment><USER16> Egan's best book IMHO. Genuinely mind expanding ideas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have been writing down what I do every day since 2002. So 17 years of daily notes about what I did, how I feel, what I was excited about that day. One cool thing about the journal is that it is electronic. So its searchable which is kind of cool. Its always handy to look up stuff you did in the past and when you did it, who you were with, when you went on that great vacation to the beach etc... I highly recommend keeping a journal, for people who are into it.

<comment><USER18> What tools are you using to manage all the data/indexing it for search/etc? I've gotten into journaling just this year, and have honestly been contemplating building my own proprietary system for managing them because of how crucial I feel it's become to my lifestyle, but I'd obviously love the opportunity to use something that's already useful.

<comment><USER19> I have been using pass[1]. Lots of git hosting providers out there and mobile apps. I just have an alias that runs

      pass edit journal/$(date '+%Y-%m-%d')

And I run the alias when the mood hits me. Then

      pass git push origin

[1] [https://www.passwordstore.org/](https://www.passwordstore.org/)

<comment><USER20> I was just thinking of how best to do journaling in an encrypted way and figured pass might work, but then I realised it probably isn't easy to search across notes. Have you found a way to do that that doesn't involve just dumping everything to intermediate plaintext?

<comment><USER19> It isn't fast but `pass grep SEARCHTERM` works great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I keep a similar thing in Org mode (yes today _I'm_ going to be the one mentioning Org Mode). Every day I create an entry into my DayNotes org file with the date in reverse order e.g. 2019-09-01 and with where I am and the weather etc. I usually have three sections, a catch up of yesterday, what I'm probably going to do today, and my actual day notes. This usually includes my current theme, something Im focusing on for a certain period, this week it is creativity.

I also keep a paper journal, which has longer term themes and thoughts and planning. This usually ends up being a brain dump of all of the crap that goes around and around, just like in the original article. I take things from here and try to expand on them in the day notes. For the paper journal I use a Cross fountain pen, like the one that Obama had, or often cheap Fountain Pentel pens which Ive used for decades now. The fountain pen I fill with archival quality ink, the stuff that registrars use.

<comment><USER22> Thank you for being The One to bring up Org Mode. I've also been returning to Org Mode after a year or so of bullet journaling in a Moleskine (yes, with a fountain pen).

My procedure of late is:

\- keyboard shortcut + a snippet of Emacs Lisp to create today's journal entry (e.g. 2019-09-01.org) in a "journal" subdirectory;

\- YASnippet to fill out a daily journal template with two-column LaTeX export styling the way I want;

\- Write down any dreams I remember in the morning;

\- Write down a simple to-do list in an Org table, moving items up and down; rather than TODO states, I put a space between items already done and those remaining; if I don't get everything done, I can strikethrough the item to indicate that;

\- Find and copy or type in a quote or a poem for the day (usually at the end of the day);

\- Occasionally, paste in a small snippet of code that I wrote or saw that I liked;

\- Any interesting things that happened or felt noteworthy that day.

Finally, and this is perhaps one of the more important steps:

\- export as LaTeX to PDF, then print, three-hole punch, and stick it in a binder on my desk.

The format and what I put in changes daily and it's kind of neat to see that unfold in the printouts. I find that having the printed journal makes the older entries (each a single page so far) a pleasure to look over and gives me a sense of what my time has been like recently. If it was just on the computer I probably wouldn't ever look at it again, and I wanted something that gave me easy access to the feelings of the recent days that otherwise seem to disappear completely.

<comment><USER23> If you ever feel constrained by the tree data structure, you might like Semantic Synchrony, which hosts a graph, editable from Emacs:

[https://github.com/synchrony/smsn](https://github.com/synchrony/smsn)

(I'm a minor author of the project. It's kind of in a state of disrepair; Josh and I are both working on replacements for it. But it works!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Out of curiosity, what encrypted notes app do you use? I'd be interested in a simple notes app with a clean UI, cloud sync, and encryption. I've played with cryptpad [1] a little bit and it's good, but maybe a little too feature-heavy. It's closer to google docs.

[1] [https://cryptpad.fr/](https://cryptpad.fr/)

<comment><USER19> I have been using pass[1]. Lots of git hosting providers out there and mobile apps. I just have an alias that runs

      pass edit journal/$(date '+%Y-%m-%d')

And I run the alias when the mood hits me. Then

      pass git push origin

[1] [https://www.passwordstore.org/](https://www.passwordstore.org/)

<comment><USER25> Also use pass (for passwords). That's a clever hack, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Minimalist Journalling [1] for a more visual journalling experience

[1]: [https://medium.com/better-humans/draft-how-to-hack-your- brai...](https://medium.com/better-humans/draft-how-to-hack-your-brain-to- achieve-consistency-that-lasts-7f5fdc520d28)

<comment><USER27> Thanks for the link. I started using this method in the last few days because of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> A journal is typically structured by date. I often find it more useful to have it by theme / project to see the progress easily and find things. Unfortunately I end up having a date journal because not everything fits in a project and more or less one journal for every project. I want access by date and project at the same time. How do others handle this?

<comment><USER29> If your journal is digital wouldn't this be solved by some sort of tagging system and some helper scripts? Journal primarily by date, but tag entries with a project name, and have a script to filter on tags.

<comment><USER28> Yes I tried this with org-mode, but my tags should be hierarchically nested 3 or 4 levels since some projects are quite large and need structure. This gets unfeasible with tags.

<comment><USER29> todo.txt has `+project` and `@context` fields, you could either follow that format (different leading characters) or use `@main@sub1@sub2` or `@main/sub1/sub2` for hierarchial project tags.

I mean, anything that's well formed and won't clash with typical project names is going to work.

Or rely on the file system. `journal/` as the root non-project folder and then `journal/project/sub1/`.

<comment><USER30> You can put slashes in Org tags. I think OP is looking for tooling that actually understands that they form a hierarchy.

There is something like that in Org though as I just found out.[1]

[1] [https://orgmode.org/manual/Tag- hierarchy.html](https://orgmode.org/manual/Tag-hierarchy.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I used to journal a ton in college, which is going on a decade ago. It helped my mind so much to be able to have my internal dialogues; I was learning and practicing so much, so having a built-in feedback loop made my life so much easier.

For some reason, this all changed when I entered the work world. Perhaps I simply didn't have the time or energy to do it anymore; for some reason, as hectic as college seemed, I sure did have a lot more time and energy than I do now. Some of this must be age, but some of it seems to be me having fallen off the horse and lost the mental muscles. I noticed the same thing in physical form when I fell off the wagon exercise wise a year ago.

Has anyone experienced something similar?

<comment><USER32> I found journaling useful when I was younger, and developing my first pass of thinking loops and algorithms.

As I've gotten older, I have found that I can do the same work faster just in my head. I've spoken with others who feel along similar lines. I don't feel that I've fallen off a horse, or atrophied any mental muscle. I simply think that journaling served its purpose at the appropriate time, and I have since moved on to other techniques.

<comment><USER31> This is a good point. As I've gotten older, it's gotten way easier than it used to be to work with complex constructions in my head without needing to do it in writing -- at least with things that I've practiced quite a bit and have a base level of competence with.

I still find that this is not always true with new things that I learn. In contrast to when I was younger, the learning new things part happens less and less frequently, to my chagrin.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's never about the tool or process. It's always about the questions.

What's the most uncomfortable thing you encountered today?

What's the most uncomfortable truth you said out loud today?

What did you think about most today?

What did you mentally push aside today instead of thinking it through and openly saying your conclusions?

If there isn't a tension, a resistant, a sorrow, you didn't make a break through.

<comment><USER25> > If there isn't a tension, a resistant, a sorrow, you didn't make a break > through.

Sounds masochistic. How can you determine whether this is helping or hurting? If you are regularly searching for things to make you sad and tense, you could be conditioning your mind to seek and find those things.

<comment><USER33> Resistance.

If you're resisting then it's counterproductive. Borderline trauma.

But if you're ready to face it.. that's therapy.

<comment><USER34> Good mental health therapy is emotionally difficult, so you may be onto something. There is even some evidence that shows that self therapy can be effective (e.g., reading Feeling Good).

However, journaling as therapy is not very structured, and there is no compelling reason to continue when the going gets though. I wouldn't recommend it just yet instead of seeing a real, capable therapist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Highly recommend using paper and pen. The act of writing on paper seems to store memories better for me and make me more thoughtful. Plus no digital editing if you find something embarrassing or are in a better mood later.

I use the hobonichi Techo which is a cool Japanese journal: [https://unsharpen.com/paper/hobonichi-techo- cousin/](https://unsharpen.com/paper/hobonichi-techo-cousin/) . The notebook has nice features and some structure to it to keep you interested in the journal. Their 2020 models are dropping soon.

</comment><comment><USER36> It also a very effective technique to reduce anxiety and very useful for people with ADHD. This is one of my 3 goto methods when in distress: write for 30 minutes, go for a run, or meditate.

[https://science.sciencemag.org/content/331/6014/211.full](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/331/6014/211.full) [https://www.additudemag.com/benefits-of-journal-writing- for-...](https://www.additudemag.com/benefits-of-journal-writing-for-adults- with-adhd/)

</comment><comment><USER37> I've been sending myself a letter to future for a few years now via [https://www.futureme.org](https://www.futureme.org)

This has been quite extraordinary, and doesn't take too long. Sadly I'm not motivated enough to write regularly but having at least one day a year when I think about things, is wonderful.

</comment><comment><USER38> For those interested, Morning Pages are pretty great as well (3 pages each morning of quick, freeform writing):

[https://www.chriswinfield.com/morning- pages/](https://www.chriswinfield.com/morning-pages/)

</comment><comment><USER39> If you have any health issues, a journal where you talk about symptoms, diet, etc can be an enormously valuable tool.

<comment><AUTHOR> Curious if any sort of data analysis on such a journal would be of use to a doctor (securing this would be a nightmare, of course). Perhaps combined with the notes a doctor takes to validate/disprove expected behavior or effects from medication or simply provide insights otherwise difficult to glean from a hurried conversation.

<comment><USER39> I have no idea.

Anecdotally:

A mom of someone with cystic fibrosis traced her child's lung bleeds to exposure to chemicals used in a dark room to develop photographs. They were then able to prevent further bleeds, at least from that source. (IIRC, her child was a teen or young adult taking a class or pursuing a hobby.)

A woman who works at the CDC was undergoing cancer treatment. Her husband took photographs regularly of her arms, I think. Photographic evidence convinced them her symptoms were getting clearly worse. They used this to convince her doctor to change her chemo drug sooner rather than later.

<comment><USER40> O good website for things like this is: [https://www.patientslikeme.com/](https://www.patientslikeme.com/)

<comment><USER34> And if you are a cancer patient, [https://www.smartpatients.com](https://www.smartpatients.com) is great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> It's important to me to measure my own intellectual growth. Which opinions have changed? Which opinions have stayed the same?

A simply example: Back in 2008, another era of the Web, I wrote "How Much Do Websites Cost?" For years, this was the most popular thing I had written. It is interesting for me to look back and see which parts of it have gone obsolete. The types of websites being built has changed dramatically, and the focus has shifted to phone apps, but the stuff at the end of the essay, about how to build a startup, and what kind of leadership is needed, remains true.

[http://www.smashcompany.com/business/how-much-do-websites- co...](http://www.smashcompany.com/business/how-much-do-websites-cost)

<comment><USER42> It would be fascinating to see an update to your original article especially on the costs these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Now and then I get the urge to write a log-structured filesystem...but I never got around to it.

</comment><comment><USER44> > Enough of the wishy-washy: time for the practical. I use a simple encrypted > notes application on my laptop, accessible from my phone (super handy when > out and about).

Anyone know what app the author uses, or have any recommendations?

I've been using Joplin a lot lately, but not the encryption feature. I've also been getting back into org-mode and thought about using it for journaling, but I don't think I could access encrypted org notes on my android phone.

<comment><USER45> I recommend checking out Standard Notes!

[https://standardnotes.org/](https://standardnotes.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I liked his post. He discovered something similar to my own discovery that I reflected on below. Although the write does not highlight the journaling technique, it is invaluable to rationalize.

[https://medium.com/hackernoon/the-manager-stew- dd59cd653728](https://medium.com/hackernoon/the-manager-stew-dd59cd653728)

I am still trying to figure out proper structure, right now it's still time based. I have found patterns forming in journaling:

1\. Always write it out. Typing is good, however with writing I remember better and it sticks longer. Having a large stack of pocket moleskins has weight I cannot seem to fully describe.

2\. The more I write, the more I realize that threads/channels of thought are working on different things continuously.

3\. TODO's naturally form. Write them down as they come has serious potential for getting things done. Keep checkmarks and reflect back after some time. Watch for patterns.

4\. Rating myself on how I feel personally and professionally daily has lead to some deep discoveries.

5\. Letting people know exactly how many days you've been at your job (yes, writing down the number of days since starting on each entry) has interesting side effects in conversations.

</comment><comment><USER47> I've been using a self-hosted Wordpress install. It works great. Set it in private mode and you got all you need really

My template is writing what happened during my day, event by event, before I go to sleep. More of a narrative than anything

If I feel esoteric that day I write it backwards, recounting events from end of day to start of day

As for permanence, I figure Wordpress will be there long after me. I'll definitely die before Wordpress does, of that im sure

</comment><comment><USER26> > It's helped me realize just how few of the things I worry about turn into > the worst-case scenarios (so much wasted brainpower) but on the flipside > just how easy it is to forget the essence of the very experiences that make > me, me. Most importantly, it's helped me keep an eye on the important things > in life - my goals, aspirations, and the people I love in my life - and I > hope it helps you too.

This hit it home for me.

</comment><comment><USER48> I noticed that a lot of days/weeks/months started to blur together as I got older (and I'm not that old).

I started keeping a very factual journal each day.

Every hour or so, I write down where I was and what I did—subjective impressions are optional.

It's been really helpful in jogging my memory and seeing where my mind was at a few months prior.

I just do it in a note program on my phone, so I can fill it in while walking, in the bathroom, etc.

<comment><USER49> This is what I do. It's very dry and terse but I find it useful to keep track of time spent and achievements completed. It's very easy to feel as if I've been doing nothing, whereas in reality that's very rarely true.

I tried emotional/confessional journaling for a good few years but I really didn't find it helpful or insightful.

The things that work for me include exploring my surroundings, almost any kind of creative work, napping, and talking to friends/partner.

<comment><USER48> Yup. I find it's awesome to experience the rich emotional things, and then write the boring dry things so that you can recall the former easily.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I've been using [https://jrnl.sh/](https://jrnl.sh/)

Uses a plain text file.

</comment><comment><USER51> I like to think of my journal kinda like a sprint retrospective. What went well? What didn't go well? What could I improve and how?

I also built a journaling system that works via email and sms to lower the barrier to writing [https://somewordsfor.me](https://somewordsfor.me)

</comment><comment><USER52> Vimwiki has a very handy setup for journaling.

<comment> em-bee could you link to it directly please?

<comment> matt-snider Also do a lot of journaling with VimWiki. Works well

[https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki](https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> What I'd like from a journal (which I don't presently keep) is insight into, or to confirm my belief of, which projects/ideas/goals I'm spending most time (distinct days) thinking about.

Any recommendations for a tool that'll let me heavily tag my entries, and then visualise them as #occurrences vs. time?

Second best would be a good search and JSON or whatever output from it, so that I can do the graphing myself.

My only other 'requirement' would be that it's not some proprietary system, seems silly to trust something like this to someone else's format and disk exclusively.

<comment><USER54> Jrnl.sh has a basic but pretty powerful tagging system. Any word that starts with @ is a tag and you can filter tags using and/or. Doesn't really do the visualisation but should be easy to build on top

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I am starting a small journaling web app: www.quidsentio.com focused on mental health

Still a long way to go, so would appreciate feedback on what direction to go

</comment><comment><USER56> I do journal too for my own sanity. It really helps when you're not a person capable of express your emotions openly.

Chatting with my future self, allows me to assume that most of my worries are lame and realize how those are compromising my behavior.

Also, I do now understand that people around me do speak out their own troubles in the conversations that bored me in the past...

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this! I don't mean to make light of people's conversations whatsoever but in my experience sometimes a good conversation is simply a back and forth friendly and unbiased exploration of a worry or struggle, future or past. The ideal outcome is not figuring out the next 5 steps - or even coming away with any sort of conclusion about whether it _should_ be solved. It simply provides space to voice aloud thoughts, theorize, and empathize with the other(s).

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> For me, I can't trust computers for that and I can't physically secure a paper journal well enough to where I can pour my deepest thoughts and intentions on it.

</comment><comment><USER58> Do you all feel like sharing certain journal entries with close friends?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've shared snippets but not entire entries, though I wouldn't be surprised if I do at some point. The desire to share is there at times but I think it'd have to be a particularly interesting/insightful entry- which is usually much better discussed in conversation with close friends anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> Isn't it how blogging started long ago ?

</comment><comment><USER11> hey OP, can you post a link to that hugo blog? Its so sick.

<comment><AUTHOR> Here it is! I can't take the credit at all- that goes to panr.

[https://themes.gohugo.io/hugo-theme-hello- friend/](https://themes.gohugo.io/hugo-theme-hello-friend/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I misread this title as "I find journalists indispensable" and thought "yeah! Too right!"

</comment><comment><USER61> Whenever I hear people talk about picking up journaling I come away a little annoyed.

They publicly describe a habit that they claim is useful. To me that implies that they're suggesting others invest time into the habit.

But I've never been compelled by the arguments. I haven't seen someone try to make (even qualitatively) refutable claims. If you don't make refutable claims, how can I experiment in order to see whether the habit makes sense for me?

<comment><USER62> I don't think you need to be quite so methodical.. Just try it. If you don't like it, adjust a bit or stop. Or don't try it at all. The blog post isn't meant to be insulting or some kind of assault on people who don't journal.

<comment><USER63> What does the ctl stand for in your name?

<comment><USER64> journalctl is an executable from the Linux systemd suite. It is used for accessing logs stored by journald. It stands for control.

<comment><USER62> Indeed! I wanted to comment on a post about journaling so it seemed like a clever username. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple's iPhone 4S Battery Troubles Now Joined By New Problems - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/243656/apples_iphone_4s_battery_troubles_now_joined_by_new_problems.html

<comment><USER2> Updates over wifi rule! I did my first one today! Worked like a charm and it was incredibly fast. Does the update download in the background and notify you only when it's done? Because it seemed like all it did was instantly install the update, there was no waiting like there usually is for a download. I had it done on my first gen iPad and iphone4</comment>


Profiling Python in Production - <AUTHOR> https://www.nylas.com/blog/performance/ <comment><USER2> Nice simple sampling technique.

I'm curious what this did for average request latency, as that's what really matters for the clients.

Since this effectively measures wall-clock time and the process can spend time waiting for replies from external resources (like local storage, memcache, DBs), which don't consume CPU, did you consider identifying and separating blocking calls into their own graphs?

It'd be nice to confirm/challenge the, "conventional wisdom" that app servers spend most of their time waiting for external resources.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hey hey, Christine here from the Nylas crew. Happy to answer any questions anyone has about this!</comment>