What If There Just Aren't Enough Jobs to Go Around? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/07/21/what-if-there-just-arent-enough-jobs-to-go-around/ <comment><USER2> First, there are plenty of jobs, but not enough people that have decided to develop themselves enough to have the skills to do them. For example (a real life one, unfortunately for me): I need a biopsy of a mass near my heart, but the current waiting time for this procedure here in Seattle (at both major hospitals) is two months.

What we do have is plenty of regulations that constrain the supply of physicians, services, medical supplies, insurance, and everything else needed to perform operations. It is one of the most _un_ -free markets in America, with predictably disastrous results. Sure, those laws prevent _a few_ people from being duped by charlatans, but they also prevent _people like me_ \- who are willing to sit on the phone for hours and days, and willing to do research for weeks on end - the possibility of a longer life.

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There are also plenty of regulations that are limiting career mobility, both in medicine and in other fields. An example of this is that anything that makes it hard for employers to fire people also makes it more costly for them to hire different people (because that new person is an unknown, and therefore risky, as the employer has to hold onto them longer, even if they aren't willing/able to produce.)

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EDIT: I'd like to add that the idea that some people are destined to be doctors (and some aren't) is completely wrong. I was a premed in college (molecular biology degree, worked in a research lab on campus full-time for two years after graduating), and I gave up on the MD track after talking to a few younger doctors. They all told me to quit while I could because they were all in 200k+ in debt, and couldn't switch out of their careers because of it, _and_ they were miserable (tons of useless paperwork, not a lot of progress either in research or with patients). So I went into software, where you don't have to convince a committee to give you permission to make a new app.

<comment><USER3> That's like saying there's plenty of room for musicians if you're Mozart.

The amount of investment required to develop yourself for a target field has grown astronomically, but that's been coupled with a push down in wages. I know lawyers who spent a fortune for their degree, passed the Bar, and make barely more than minimum wage.

Regulation isn't causing this; automation is causing this.

<comment><USER2> There is no robot that can knock me out (safely so that I wake up when everything is done), snake a thing down my windpipe, poke through the exact right spot in my bronchial tube and into my mediastinum (a name for the bag that my heart), and retrieve a chunk of whatever surrounds my aorta.

But here I wait, while people capable of doing this (or at least capable of learning how to do it - and that's _a lot_ of people) also wait. That's regulation.

<comment><USER3> My view is that the times when Capitalism has been a long leash it ends up being wildly destructive. I love fire for cooking, forest fires not so much. I certainly don't think that the reason we don't have more jobs in America is that businesses are so hard pressed with labor laws. I just don't see that.

What I have seen, over and over again, are that employers are realizing that they're now in the cat seat and become nothing less than abusive, deeply abusive, to their employees as a result. Once they see how many people apply for new openings and realize how unlikely it is that current employees will quit in this environment, they become mini-dictators. It's an interesting phenomenon.

All that aside, I do wish you good health and hope that you can get the treatment you need soon.

<comment><USER2> _All that aside, I do wish you good health and hope that you can get the treatment you need soon._

Thank you (and I mean that quite sincerely).

Practically speaking, though, _how_ will I get treatment? Intervention from the government is the only reason I'm waiting for care right now. (See my comments in other posts on this thread - I establish this in great detail if you consider my posts together.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is the "infinite work hypothesis" finally ending??

The answer to "what happens to workers being replaced" has always been "they'll find jobs elsewhere, every time you make a job redundant you create other new jobs", what I've seen called the "infinite work hypothesis" where there will always be new work and the problem is agility, job training, not demand.

<comment><USER5> No, the problem is misallocation of labor.

There's a huge to-do list of jobs that need to be done at almost every level, from design and build of significant infrastructure in most countries around the world, to community-level support work.

It would be perfectly possible to retrain the long term unemployed for all but the most difficult design and management elements.

They're not done because the metrics of Wall St deem them "not profitable" \- which means traders can't make quick gains out of them.

Allocating labor on the basis of whether or not traders and stock owners can profit in the short to medium term turns out to be an unintelligent way to strategise an economy.

<comment><USER6> > Allocating labor on the basis of whether or not traders and stock owners can > profit in the short to medium term turns out to be an unintelligent way to > strategise an economy.

And yet, this turns out to be the most succesful strategy civilization has used so far.

<comment><USER7> Well... we don't have a real long track record and past performance isn't indicative of future gains. I agree with you, but we are kind of speeding into the unknown. Which like any adventure is risky.

Hunter gatherers were real stable for a long long time. One person, or even a fairly large group of people couldn't cause much trouble.

We're moving much faster, which again i think is cool, but it's much riskier. An obvious one, there are enough nuclear weapons to wipe out humans in a few hours. I don't think nuclear war is coming any time soon, but we've only been at this 'high tech' stuff (i'm picking agriculture, neolithic revolution) for about 10,000 years. Wealth of nations is around 250 years old - traders are much older of course, but 10k seems like a good upper bound. Can we avoid nuking ourselves for 10k years? I sure hope so.

Anyway, there are existential risks, and other, less dangerous things like world wars that have the potential to be much worse than a guy with a club.

Also, there's not much incentive in the system to not wreck the system. For, example "The big short" is a fun movie. "Too Big To Fail" is a much more in depth look.

I guess, my point is, That strategy is a powerful tool. It's not a pat answer to all the world's woes. It's wise to treat it like any other dangerous piece of equipment. Be aware, be alert. It's ok to take a little more time with power tools to avoid cutting off an arm.

<comment><USER8> > It's ok to take a little more time with power tools to avoid cutting off an > arm.

This is what I find interesting about the Amish. They are not, as I understand things, truly anti-technology, they are anti-adopting every new thing as soon as it's available.

I wonder if they're the ones who are going to have the last laugh if/when this house of cards tumbles (although in all likelihood it'll probably be the Sentinelese).

<comment><USER9> I like to think of them as the trailing edge of the late-adopter curve.

They consider the _social_ and _lifestyle_ impacts of technology. Which can be quite profound.

There are also differences among Amish settlements, with the Swartzentruber Amish, of Michigan, the most conservative: [http://amishamerica.com/who-are- the-swartzentruber-amish/](http://amishamerica.com/who-are-the-swartzentruber- amish/)

(The site generally has a great deal of information on the Amish.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> People forget History.

The two times where labor was more valuable than capital.

1 | After the black death in Europe

2 | After the second world war

Most of history's default was the gilded age, the roman empire survived for 600[1] years with having worse inequality than in the modern times.

Usually the only way to reverse the trend is by a large scale elimination of significant portion of young people.

[1] EDIT : correction

<comment><USER11> Or, we simply wait out the next few centuries. Reproduction rates in many developed countries have dipped below replacement. Maybe the total world population will decrease in our time.

<comment><USER12> Except now people expect retirement and pensions... Not something people back then counted on when populations of people working declined...

<comment><USER13> This is the problem with our current first world financial system, it is predicated on constant growth. Even the slightest hiccup in growth leads to serious consequences for the over leveraged and make no mistake most of our safety nets are over leveraged and dependent upon unrealistic gains when faced with a stagnant to declining population.

The Great Aging is underway, the EU last year had more deaths than births and will for the foreseable future, Japan has been there for a little while and China's working age population is already in decline. Africa, the Middle East/India and parts of South America are the only places experiencing actual population growth, when immigration is not taken into the equation. With Demographics and Automation deflation is the likely outcome. The Central Banks are trying all they can to prevent this from happening in the near term by spending Trillions of dollars to prop up economies and drive interest rates lower to eek out some inflation. They seem not to care whether growth is actual demand growth or simply a mirage in terms of inflation. The central banks are doubling down their efforts and will be even more accomodative in the next few years when the growth they continue to state is right around the corner never materializes.

Unfortunately I do not see a way out of this without the developing nations taking care of themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Honest question: Is it not widely accepted that

1) Eventually, and probably pretty soon (within 100years), that there obviously won't be jobs for everyone. Automation, progress(efficiency gains) and increasing population makes it inevitable.

2) That a general "goal" of society is do away with jobs. In any traditional sense. To me we've been approaching that ever since agriculture provided ability to support specialists (those who don't spend time gathering/producing the food/resources they need). Such as scientists, artists and soldiers. The jobs keep moving "up" the ladder (away from production). Previous low-rung jobs get reduced in number by efficiency or replaced via automation. The end of this trend is that all basic needs are met by 0 to a tiny fraction of a percent of human labor and rest are all free to pursue specialist activities such as science, art, and killing each other.

<comment><USER15> Aren't specialist activities like science, art, and killing each other jobs?

<comment><USER14> Job is kind of a hard definition. Being compensated seems to be the main difference between job and; hobby, charity (working for "free"). Entrepreneurial endeavors lie in a muddy middle ground.

With increasing efficiency and automation "needs" will become increasingly cheap, approahing free. I believe without needing compensation just to survive, many will chose not to have jobs. They may, and probably will, still work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The TL;DR: "A new paper says the problem is not supply. It's that firms just don't have enough demand for labor."

Here is a press release from the folks who authored the study: [http://rooseveltinstitute.org/demand_side_dynamism/](http://rooseveltinstitute.org/demand_side_dynamism/)

And here is the paper (warning: pdf): [http://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/07/Dec...](http://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/07/Declining-Entrepreneurship-Labor-Mobility-and- Business-Dynamism-A-Demand-Side-Approach.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER17> For anyone who has a theory that involves making new jobs and retraining people, consider these cases:

A) 50 something factory worker whos job along with the other 100 folks he works with, have been eliminated by automation or some other sort of efficiency.

B) 30 something software engineer who's field (except for research) has been eliminated by AI.

"A" is something most of us have the luxury of had waving away with "retrain them to be surgeons and leave their homes behind and move to someplace else for work".

"B" hasn't happened (yet) but what would _you_ do if it does? It's not so easy easy to dismiss is it?

Lack of work is a _structural_ problem. The landed gentry of our time don't even need the surfs anymore so it's even worse in some ways.

<comment><USER18> Well if AI can replace software engineers then it can probably obviate many other jobs as well, meaning there would have to be greater societal restructuring than just some out of work engineers finding new careers. If you are 30 and you're worried your job will be automated away before you retire (but before universal income), perhaps you should get a head start by learning new skills that are harder to automate.

I wonder what your alternate theory that fixes the unemployed 50 something factory worker is? Legislation that ensures job security? Pension? Severance?

<comment><USER19> > Pension? Severance?

Yes, funded by a tax on automation revenues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I feel like ancient civilizations a lot of times turned to art once their societies leveled off. Large structures, pots, roads, figures, clothing, etc.. I believe art is unlimited resource and we could have an economy running purely on art. Isn't a large portion of the economy already running off of art? Movies, games, tv, media, events. I actually feel there even a lack of art right now in terms of food, furniture, products in general. I'd pay for objects with more thought put into them, but there isn't enough people today to dedicate their time to art. With all these menial jobs taken up, maybe even more people will turn to custom crafts and trades. Where what I'm paying for is the creativity and uniqueness of the objects I'm buying.

<comment><USER21> I doubt that's sustainable, especially given that you have people like 'starving artists', 'starving writers', and of course game programmers who throw themselves at projects working eighty hours per week.

Anything that people likes to do tended to be oversupplied.

<comment><USER22> At the moment.

In a world with no demand for labor, there is an implication that the cost of goods would be dominated only by supply scarcity. For commodity goods, they would essentially be free.

200 years ago a real shirt would cost you ~$2000 in today's currency (land -> sheep -> farmers -> spinsters -> dyers -> weavers -> tailors). Now a decent shirt costs $40.

Eventually artsists won't starve, even with minimal income. Ideally, hopefully.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Both the article and the paper aren't very good; they're trying to infer too much from macroeconomic data. They implicitly assume that labor is more fungible than it is.

Reality is that we just don't need that many people to make all the stuff. US manufacturing output is at an all-time high (output has recovered completely from the 2008 recession). US manufacturing employment peaked in 1979. Imports are 26% of US consumer good consumption.

What are people doing? Here's US employment by sector.[1] It's worth spending some time with this table. Incidentally, "information services" dropped from 2.2% in 2010 to 1.8% in 2014, and is still dropping. No, going into computing isn't a good move. The only area with big growth is "health and social assistance", which reflects an aging population. (Mining was up from 2010-2014, but that reflects the oil and gas boom. That's already collapsed.)

That's the reality.

[1] [http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm](http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_201.htm)

</comment><comment><USER24> The United States has a very skewed view towards work and individual employee production. At some point in time, cultures must shift to realize that two individuals at 40 hours per week can do the work that one individual at 70 hours per week is performing. The key here is incremental corporate profits must shift from shareholders to employees through aggregate increases in employee costs (2x the employees, half the hours for each). Realistically - this problem is a matter of greed at the business owner level.

</comment><comment><USER25> Are there lots of jobs that produce value above minimum wage? It's a tough question...

There are ways to solve some issues in a low barrier for entry style. Finland has mandatory return payment on all bottles and cans sold. This has resulted in a cottage industry of bottle collectors who target public outdoor events and places where people hang out.

So those people perform a valuable service and nobody needs to really coordinate anything.

But it would be a very bad way to depend on for livelihood. Somehow these worlds need to meet...

</comment><comment><USER26> It seems like there are 2 things that can be done:

1) Make it easier for new firms of all kinds to open and create job. (Less occupational licensing requirements, etc)

2) Reduce the cost/burden of employment. (If someone has the choice to hire an employee in SF and Texas, they'll choose Texas since the laws are more business-friendly)

<comment><USER27> #2 seems more like a way to shift jobs around from one place to another than to create them

<comment><USER28> We did a scenario planning project where you put together human trends and factors to try and predict several versions of the future 10 years from now.

In one of our scenarios was a future where humans bounced from job to job (high turnover, low unemployment) and skills-based education was cheap and easily accessible. Some of the factors leading to this was the "established"-education bubble bursting, increased automation, and less desire for consumers to own assets while still having access to them (variable sharing economy).

A #2 type of future might not be that unrealistic.

<comment><USER27> I'm not sure what you're trying to get at but a race to the bottom among municipalities and states to try and attract businesses is already happening and has been for some time. My point is that this won't actually solve the problem posed so much as redirect it somewhere else.

<comment><USER28> #2 solution isn't about moving existing jobs, it's about lowering the barrier to entry for new jobs, since demand isn't fixed and variability will increase.

You will always have tug-of-wars between municipalities (e.g. Applebee's HQ between Missouri and Kansas) - but businesses in states or munis with a low barrier to entry for new jobs can fulfill and capitalize on variable demand faster.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Not an economist but my thoughts on the topic are that society can make changes to accommodate this. This isn't a catastrophe, we just need to prepare. I think this needs to/will happen:

* labour will change from people having only one main skill to having multiple skills ("jack of all trades, master of none" will become "jack of all trades, master of fewer")

* this will be made possible by the fact that technology makes is easier to (re)educate yourself and also to tailor education exactly for your needs (c.f. university course unbundling, what if you could take different courses at different school based on which fits your needs (kinda like, mooc, yeah, I know mooc aren't the runaway success we'd hope for but give it time))

* we probably will not get rid of the issue that you have to pick a skill(s) when you are fairly young and you don't know if those skill will still be useful when you have to leave the workforce

* basically, people will have to learn a couple of skills pretty well and hope that the future jobs will require a particular combination of your skills (and if you are lacking some skills, you should be able to pick up new skills easily)

* it will become standard for people to keep learning

* i also think that the "default" unemployment rate might rise but unemployment will be more temporary for the single unemployed people

My view as someone who strongly believes in technological progress, I would guess I would summarize my advice as "you have to know how to leverage technology not to be outpaced by technology" but this isn't exactly anything novel.

<comment><USER28> The trend here is that humans will become ubiquitous learning machines, valued for their ability to fulfill variable demand.

Automation works well through economies of scale to fulfill large, steady amounts of demand. A.I. works well when there is a lot of existing data or logged activity to train on. For new, variable, or niche demand markets, Humans will be unique in that they can fill the demand faster than A.I. or robotics.

<comment><USER29> Yeah, and your argument is a lot more concise. Have you read anything on the topic?

<comment><USER28> No. I've worked some people to try and come up with product ideas to fit this type of future, but it's at least 5-10 years off, and dependent on factors like the current title-based education system being replaced by something more skills-based.

<comment><USER29> Who are the people working on this?

<comment><USER28> It was just with some colleagues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Side note: If college education was "free," it might encourage faster re- skilling and more "profitable" to society.

<comment><USER31> The operative word there is "might." Greece has free education. Their educated youth are fleeing as fast as they can. Not very profitable. All that free education also somehow failed to prevent their chronic debt crisis and general decline. It's almost as if economic prosperity is more involved than just distributing free stuff........

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Then the government should either directly employ people or else provide them with an income, or some combination of these.

<comment><USER32> >Then the government should either directly employ people or else provide them with an income, or some combination of these.

It is interesting to see that, in the early 21st century, communism is becoming palatable again.

Could this be due to all of the old communist states either ceasing to exist or (for instance, the case of China) changing into something quite unlike their former sleves? In short, did we forget about those states?

<comment><USER27> Unless the US went communist in the 1930s, government employment, even for the express purpose of creating jobs, wouldn't constitute communism.

Besides that, if there is really not enough demand for workers, and there is never going to be, the alternative would seem to be a permanently unemployed underclass.

<comment><USER33> > Unless the US went communist in the 1930s, government employment, even for > the express purpose of creating jobs, wouldn't constitute communism.

I came across this interview recently:

HG Wells:

> My visit to the United States excited my mind. The old financial world is > collapsing; the economic life of the country is being reorganised on new > lines.

> Lenin said: "We must learn to do business," learn this from the capitalists. > Today the capitalists have to learn from you, to grasp the spirit of > Socialism. It seems to me that what is taking place in the United States is > a profound reorganisation, the creation of planned, that is, Socialist, > economy. You and Roosevelt begin from two different starting points. But is > there not a relation in ideas, a kinship of ideas, between Moscow and > Washington?

> In Washington I was struck by the same thing I see going on here; they are > building offices, they are creating a number of state regulation bodies, > they are organising a long-needed civil service. Their need, like yours, is > directive ability.

Stalin:

> The United States is pursuing a different aim from that which we are > pursuing in the USSR. The aim which the Americans are pursuing arose out of > the economic troubles, out of the economic crisis. The Americans want to rid > themselves of the crisis on the basis of private capitalist activity, > without changing the economic basis. They are trying to reduce to a minimum > the ruin, the losses caused by the existing economic system.

> Here, however, as you know, in place of the old, destroyed economic basis, > an entirely different, a new economic basis has been created. Even if the > Americans you mention partly achieve their aim, ie, reduce these losses to a > minimum, they will not destroy the roots of the anarchy which is inherent in > the existing capitalist system. They are preserving the economic system > which must inevitably lead, and cannot but lead, to anarchy in production. > Thus, at best, it will be a matter, not of the reorganisation of society, > not of abolishing the old social system which gives rise to anarchy and > crises, but of restricting certain of its excesses. Subjectively, perhaps, > these Americans think they are reorganising society; objectively, however, > they are preserving the present basis of society. That is why, objectively, > there will be no reorganisation of society.

> Nor will there be planned economy. What is planned economy? What are some of > its attributes? Planned economy tries to abolish unemployment. Let us > suppose it is possible, while preserving the capitalist system, to reduce > unemployment to a certain minimum. But surely, no capitalist would ever > agree to the complete abolition of unemployment, to the abolition of the > reserve army of unemployed, the purpose of which is to bring pressure on the > labour market, to ensure a supply of cheap labour. You will never compel a > capitalist to incur loss to himself and agree to a lower rate of profit for > the sake of satisfying the needs of the people.

[http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/04/h-g-wells-it- se...](http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/04/h-g-wells-it-seems-me-i- am-more-left-you-mr-stalin)

<comment><USER27> Well, clearly that is not what happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> In the mid-west we have programmers 2 years out of school making $100k in places where the CPI is 90. What if we just have a massive misallocation of resources and people should be learning how to program, nurse, become doctors, plumbers, HVAC, or all the other jobs that pay incredibly well?

<comment><USER35> Training for those jobs takes time and resources. Not everyone who has lost their existing job will be able to invest those things at possibly getting another one.

Also, if you send a bunch of people into those fields, the cost of labor will drop, and they won't pay incredibly well for long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> At Emblem 21, we analyze not just the time, material, and energy costs for economic activity, but also the complexity components as well. Every economic activity consumes and yields complexity. This complexity is difficult to measure given its contextual nature, but it is encoded into the pricing of the transaction itself.

Currently working on very advanced neural networks to detect the edges of this contextual complexity.

Autonomous labor doesn't destroy jobs because the autonomous labor is also a consumer of complexity, energy, and time.

[https://s32.postimg.org/pjzgj39wz/Labor.png](https://s32.postimg.org/pjzgj39wz/Labor.png)

<comment><USER37> Your site is down. I find it a bit worrisome, looking through your repos that many files are blank. I would like to learn more about your company.

<comment><USER36> Greetings. Our corporate structure is undergoing a fundamental transition (from a software contractor to a holding company) and we're still deciding on presentation and community outreach.

...which is to say we have plenty of researchers but no social team. :)

Our primary goal is the formation of autonomous labor by helping put the institutional periphery into place: legal review, trade agreements, economic policy study, political and memetic steering, and financial innovation. Robots just won't automatically take all of the jobs. Humans are very good at cutting their own throats collectively and we very much account for this.

We have three private tech projects at this time that cover the UAV and theoretical mathematics space.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I feel like the "infinite jobs" idea is too foundational to American culture to be completely removed. The very definition of "prosperity" includes having a job. The definition of "success" includes having a job.

<comment><USER39> I've described it before about how deeply American culture has a "work problem" and that it is as much a religion as anything. We don't call it a "Protestant Work Ethic" without reason, and lot of what you hear people say about jobs and work these days wouldn't sound much different from what the Puritans (who get credit as some of the earliest American colonists) preached as core to their way of life.

To some extent as the culture has gotten less dogmatic in some areas, the dogma of work has only entrenched further. (To many people the big corporate passive aggressive notes from belly of HR about the "good of the company" are the closest to people's weekly and/or daily sermons that they'll see.)

There are a lot of people, pundits especially, that see work as a moral obligation and the lack of work as a sin. I think it will take as much as anything else a new wave of religious thinking to move American culture past some hangups into a future with fewer "jobs" available. Or a redefinition of a lot more hobbies and crafts as "jobs" and "work". (I'm not sure which would be easier. There are stigmas in both directions.)

<comment><USER40> > To many people the big corporate passive aggressive notes from belly of HR > about the "good of the company" are the closest to people's weekly and/or > daily sermons that they'll see.

Oh wow. I've not thought about that culture in such a light. Perhaps that's why I have always found those "sermons" a bit creepy? I think you have a great point here.

> Or a redefinition of a lot more hobbies and crafts as "jobs" and "work". > (I'm not sure which would be easier. There are stigmas in both directions.)

100% agreed. I know quite a few artists who are branching off into freelance, using the internet to their disposal (patreon, gofundme, etsy, etc.) who have been chided for not "having a real job" or looked down upon for choosing to have a part time "real job" to make time for their craft / art. Yet, they make respectable income. This phenomenon for artists in general may not be new, of course. I just like to imagine how the internet may help change or eradicate the stigma of it not being "good enough".

When my own brother decided to go down this path, I was a bit concerned, and the truth is most of my positions as a sysadmin until recently were _very_ corporate. I was appalled at myself for even thinking things like, "But this isn't going to build a career for him. Why is he even taking this chance? This seems stupid of him."

I'm now wondering if my exposure to this 'corporate dogma' may be related.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> White collar jobs get a little harder to find and people start freaking out. Meanwhile my clients import skilled workers by the plane load.

We're a long way from autonomous strawberry pickers and housekeepers.

I don't doubt that eventually much of the economy will have no need of human labor but we're quite a ways from that.

I mean I get it. I'm replacing some good white collar jobs with software right now. But "jobs"? Nah. There's lots of those.

</comment><comment><USER42> The rise of automated looms and spinning jennies clearly mean that the farms aren't going to be sufficient to provide employment for people, who are in turn going to turn to vice and sloth. And, as we know, when the old way is exhausted there is no new way forward. I propose that we be suspicious of the looms and especially of the people who make the looms.

<comment><USER43> The Luddites weren't wrong, but they were about 200 years too early. Technological unemployment is a thing now...

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> jobs are the _cost_ of satisfying human economic desires. we want to minimise costs, not increase them.since nobody knows what sort of jobs will exist even 5 years from today, there is no point in speculating and wringing hands. who saw the rise of zumba dance teachers? theres atleast a million of them today and they dont need high education or be employed in silicon valley. did president clinton with all the information available at his disposal have the foresight to plan for an app economy for his citizens or imagine how internet search would be something different than what lycos offered?

<comment><USER45> >jobs are the cost of satisfying human economic desires. we want to minimise costs

That's an excellent perspective. There's a major barrier though.

Even if we produce enough that everyone could satisfy their desires and then some with a cost of only 34 minutes work per week (<2% of a 40 hour work week - parallel to the fact that less than 2% of the population now works in agriculture to produce more than twice enough to feed everyone), we would still demand that everyone must work at least a bare minimum of 40 hours or else they don't deserve to live. That's our culture.

But there would be no demand for that work. So what would the people do? And more importantly, why do we demand that they do it? That becomes a philosophical question, not an economic one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> What if The Future is what we choose to create rather than some inevitable road we cannot get off of because of REASONS?

</comment><comment><USER47> It's impossible that there is simply nothing in the world that needs doing. Exactly how to make sure that things that need doing, are done, is what economics and politics are about, but any "job shortage" is because of inefficiencies along some spectrum, not actually ever a natural state.

<comment><USER48> The word "job" as used here is a technical term. It doesn't mean "anything that needs doing". It doesn't mean "anything I find enjoyable or worthwhile". It actually means "activities that someone will pay me money to do because I can do it better, faster, or cheaper than anyone or anything else, including machines." (For the purpose of this discussion there's also an implied meaning of "someone will pay me _enough_ money for those activities that I can purchase adequate food, shelter, and discretionary items so as to have a reasonably comfortable existence.") That set of activities appears to have peaked in per-capita terms and is probably on a decline which will accelerate rapidly in the future.

So yeah, you're right that this problem is inherently an economic problem, not an "I don't know what to do with all my free time" problem. That doesn't make the problem any less urgent or less difficult to solve. It's actually incredibly difficult to solve because it'll involve rejiggering our social contracts, which will probably take several generations to complete.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I think many of these articles about jobs or lack there of and solving the problem dont take into account human nature. It is much more complex than just "economy".

</comment><comment><USER50> What if? You create them, of course. The f..king main reason that exists something called economy and polítics is to solve people's living problems, not to create stupid zillionaries.

</comment><comment><USER51> Has anyone read Player Piano by Vonnegut recently?</comment>


Useful free tools for the web designer's toolbox - <AUTHOR> http://www.designer-daily.com/useful-free-tools-for-the-web-designers-toolbox-54665

<comment><USER2> I think most people's bias against this article will kick in the moment they see a Wordpress parallax theme as the first thing featured. Or maybe the huge bold font for body text...

<comment><USER3> Because most people wouldn't class a WordPress theme as a tool</comment></comment>


What Is a Cayley Graph? (2008) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://math.osu.edu/sites/math.osu.edu/files/Cayley.pdf <comment><USER2> It's interesting to see Terry Tao grapple with the notion of Cayley Graph

"Cayley Graphs and the Geometry of Groups" [https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/cayley-graphs- and-...](https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/cayley-graphs-and-the- geometry-of-groups/)

The hypercube (or tesseract) is example of Cayley Graph since it can represent the group Z/2Z + Z/2Z + ... + Z/2Z

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

</comment><comment><USER3> I still don't know what a Cayley Graph is.</comment>


Design of CMOS-memristor Circuits for LSTM architecture - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1806.02366 <comment><USER2> This is cool stuff. But you guys, the perception that there are no low-hanging fruits anymore is false, and the reason it is perpetuated is because people oddly obsess over frontier techniques and their combinations, instead of innovating at first principles.

Just trying to be the voice of psychological health in this community.

<comment><USER3> AI is largely a research dominated field, and as such, it emphasizes novelty. Once the average developer starts using it I think things will change towards more practical concerns. We're starting to see this already with existing libraries and porting to non-python environments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm not that familiar with CMOS-memristors. The paper is a bit scarce on background.

Is this just for inference or training time as well?

Is it digital or do the inputs have analog voltage rates and only then trigger like a neuron?

Can the network topology and weights be modified or is this fixed like an ASIC?

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting concept, but note this can't be used for _training_ an LSTM network.

it's the training that involves far more computation and memory, because rather than just storing the latest state of the LSTM cells, one needs to store all past states and activations of the cells.

For forward inference, this logic looks good, although I'm unclear what use cases it would apply to.

<comment><USER5> It makes much more sense to design ASICs for inference than for training. Any useful inference network will be executed many millions of times more than its training and so will require much more computation in aggregate. Inference may also be run in embedded environments, running on battery power with no network connectivity while training can probably run in the cloud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Are there any Master's degrees in AI + chip design?

<comment><USER7> In my university, both machine (and deep) learning and FPGA + chip design are specialties of the electrical engineering department. We just launched earlier this year an industry-oriented AI masters degree. Taking your extra classes in chip design would give you a solid foundation to perform this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would you kindly provide the link to the particular course of your university? Thanks :)

<comment><USER7> The master's program in AI I was referring to is only available in French (Laval University, Québec City).

The chip design expertise is provided by most electrical engineering departments, with courses usually named VLSI design, FPGA/ASIC development or microelectronics.

If you apply for a master's degree (in AI, for example), you can often mix- and-match speciality classes and ask for those chip design courses to be added to your cursus.

If you are a hands-on person curious about the matter, you can buy an FPGA (~50$ for entry-level) and follow a Verilog or VHDL tutorial online. Quickly put, an FPGA is a chip that can be "rewired" at will, very useful to learn or prototype before building a production chip.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the info :)

Hope it will be available in English soon enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Any interesting algorithm eventually finds its way down into silicon.</comment>


VC's Are Not Your Friends - <AUTHOR> http://steveblank.com/2011/02/03/vc%e2%80%99s-are-not-your-friends/ <comment><USER2> duplicate <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2174722></comment>


Can Universal Basic Income Achieve Economic Security? - <AUTHOR> https://daily.jstor.org/can-universal-basic-income-achieve-economic-security/ <comment><USER2> Why don't we just go a step further into fairness and say that everyone gets the same income regardless of their wealth. Have the government take all the income except the equal amount and spread it around to every deserved person.</comment>


Simple coupon codes - can your users do ^c ^v? - <AUTHOR> http://www.alwinhoogerdijk.com/2010/04/03/simple-coupon-codes/ <comment><USER2> Unfortunately I think that most users do not even know about copy/paste (even the menu options), much less know the keyboard shortcuts.

Just recently I witnessed a relative take these steps to open a URL that was received in an email (and this relative claims to be of above average technical savvy):

        1) Opens email in mail.app
        2) Sees a link and wants to open it
        3) Doesn't realize you can click on it
        4) Hits F9 (expose key) to reveal literally 100 open windows
        5) Finds a Safari window
        6) Clicks "File -> New" (doesn't know about tabs)
        7) F9's again to find mail.app
        8) *Memorizes* URL
        9) F9 again to find new Safari window
        10) Types URL into the Google Search bar (not the address bar)
        11) Finally clicks through to website from google results

I remember several years ago teaching my mom about copy/paste and it changed her life. I think people can learn, but they need to be shown/taught to realize it exists.

</comment><comment><USER3> I disagree with his conclusion, because I disagree with the assertion that copy/paste would be easier for his other example codes ( _"GETORGANIZED"_ , _"CLZTWEETZ"_.) To copy/paste from my email client, I have go to for the mouse to double-click or manually select a word, come back to the keyboard (obviously better than working through menus) to copy, and then head back to the mouse to navigate. That's more work right there than it would be for me to type _getorganized_ into the form field later on.

Assuming I can remember the text, the break-even point when I would rather copy/paste is closer to 30 characters than 10.

I suspect that his users just weren't able to remember _ITRYB4IBUY_ , because they saw it as a random collection of letters rather than a phrase. The author notes this explanation but seems needlessly dissatisfied with it.

<comment><USER4> Copy/paste is even slower if you don't know about the keyboard shortcuts. Which a _lot_ of people don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I thought this was going to be about emacs until I realized that C-c C-v didn't do anything (at least on my setup).</comment>


Ask HN: How to address security incident without offending coworker? - <AUTHOR> Recently at work I had a friend use an insecure medium to send me a password to a production account.  This is a big security faux paus, and means we need to rotate that password ASAP and consider the old one compromised.  But this question has nothing to do with the technical side.
The friend that sent me the password was trying to be helpful, and truly I appreciated his help.
If I blow the metaphorical security whistle in his face regarding this security issue, it will probably hurt his feelings and may provide a disincentive to be helpful in the future.  However, I obviously want to prevent disclosures like this in the future.
How would you handle this situation? <comment><USER2> Ask them to lead the clean up it themselves. This let's you acknowledge their good intentions and doesn't feel like you are throwing them under the bus behind their back (bad analogy).

They screwed up, but this lets them look responsible and self accountable. There is no cure for bad management, but with decent management the friend will be more embarrassed than anyone would be judgemental - screwups happen, coverups or ignoring them is the thing that is far worse.

</comment><comment><USER3> If it's really that important to be secure, I'd use an electronic password generator fob that intermixed the password list with a universal cosmic radio background radiation signal.

Perhaps he just gave you a one time use password. Or maybe not. I just know, if you want the password delivered in person, only ask for it, in person.

I'd probably rethink the whole system, and not the user.</comment>


A Network Graph of Corporate America - <AUTHOR> http://anonymousprof.com/a-network-graph-of-corporate-america/ <comment><USER2> A more active discussion of this topic is available by accessing <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=178748></comment>


Bryan O'Sullivan on the Power of Haskell - <AUTHOR> http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2009/01/the-power-of-haskell.html <comment><USER2> Interesting read, but I have my reservations about laziness as default, and the apparent lack of shipped Haskell applications, despite the language's popularity and age, seems to confirm those reservations.

<comment><USER3> GHC works hard to remove the lazyness where it can guarantee that this change won't break your program.</comment></comment>


The tale of an Android phone (and Facebook) in the earthquake in Haiti - <AUTHOR> http://nuvohaiti.blogspot.com/2010/02/tale-of-android-phone-in-earthquake-in.html

<comment><USER2> But how is this a unique function of the Android OS, if I might ask?</comment>


Writing a Big App in Swift - <AUTHOR> http://www.wooji-juice.com/blog/stupid-swift-tricks-4.html <comment><USER2> > Switching to Auto Layout for almost all layout needs, with a single > Storyboard for both iPad and iPhone.

I'm surprised that worked out for him, given what I've heard about Storyboards, which is that they're fine for really trivial UIs but don't scale well at all for any workflow that's even slightly complex. But that was like 2014. Maybe things have changed since then?

<comment><USER3> One thing that changed is storyboards became more modular, and you can load them programmatically just like .xib files. So you can break apart UI into multiple storyboards.

Which is good, because some features only work inside storyboards. For example, the Interface Builder component of Xcode cannot lay out a "static" UITableView (one whose content and subviews are set at design time) _unless_ it's inside a storyboard. No idea why.

I used to avoid storyboards as much as possible, but things like that made me decide it's too much trouble to fight The Man, so now I just usually use them like he wants me to.

I think it's fair to say that storyboards have gotten better, but they still suck.</comment></comment>


A culture of innovation is a culture of play - <AUTHOR> http://arcball.com/2010/05/a-culture-of-innovation-is-a-culture-of-play/

<comment><USER2> " _Adding play to corporate culture is like safe, legal doping!_ "</comment>


PG's original startup being used as a pawn by Marissa Mayer of Yahoo - <AUTHOR> http://recode.net/2015/02/03/yahoo-to-fob-off-yahoo-small-business-to-alibaba-spinco/

<comment><AUTHOR> More info: [http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/02/03/yahoos-small- business...](http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/02/03/yahoos-small-business- unit-draws-short-straw-in-alibaba-deal/)</comment>


Is This Deceptive? - <AUTHOR> https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/science-and-technology/digital-privacy-data-facebook-cambridge-analytica-britain
In the above article (from a reputable, mainstream magazine) about privacy, some links go via eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com, including in the paragraph that starts 'Consumers groups say deceptive behaviour by companies is rife.'. By clicking the link in that paragraph, you're taken via eur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com before being redirected to the actual url.
On the face of it, this looks like a good thing because safe links are good right? But is this an example of deception? Most people will be unaware that ur02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com may be receiving private/navigation information. <comment><USER2> Most redirects on the web are fairly innocuous, but now and then they are used to point to malware or otherwise deceive. Since this is a magazine/news site I wouldn't worry, though there is the chance it's another hacked Wordpress site used to redirect visitors to malware / drive-by downloads.</comment>


Simple JavaScript & CSS Management with Rack - <AUTHOR> http://ontwik.com/javascript/simple-javascript-css-management-with-rack-by-avand-amiri/

<comment><USER2> Sounds like an interesting talk. It would be great if you would put [Video] in the title.</comment>


AppGratis is shutting down - <AUTHOR> http://bye.appgratis.com/ <comment><USER2> Anyone using this service? Any thoughts?</comment>


Ask HN: How many domains do you personally have registered to you? - <AUTHOR>

I lost count at about 65 domains registered to myself, and i am wondering am i "odd" having 65 domains registered to me, and not a company? How many do you have? <comment><USER2> I have 7: The vanity domain I use for all my email, a domain for hosting puzzlehunts, a .name domain I've done nothing with, a domain with a vaguely puzzley name I am saving for some future use that will never happen, and four unused domains corresponding to sites that sounded like they'd be cool to make at one point or another, of various levels of silliness.

</comment><comment><USER3> 15 or so. About half are held in trust for friends and family. The rest are for me, two sole-prop businesses, and redirects to same.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have about 6 but I've cut back to avoid dead weight.

I'm curious, has anyone tried keeping theirs with a list price in a reseller and occasionally selling one and to pay for keeping their development dreams (unused ones) paid for? Does that strategy work? Realistically, will anyone come calling?

</comment><comment><USER5> Six:

* my full name (couldn't get fischer.com as it's a world-famous company :) )

* 3 side project / startup attempts

* 1 nonprofit attempt

* 1 hopeful startup attempt

PD: how do you format lists on HN? (a link to post formatting would be helpful)

</comment><comment><USER6> 38+ Sometimes I do let names go, but I always end up buying more than I let free. All but 4 are .coms. $10 year is cheap for a centralized namespace.

</comment><comment><USER7> 36 and I could probably cut that by a 1/3 and not notice. Well, I'd notice an extra $120.00 bucks in my pocket each year.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've got 3, and am trying to convince myself to not renew one of them. But you know, I just might use it someday, and...

</comment><comment><USER9> Oh Jeez... 42, all unique. Somehow I plan to use them all at some point in time. I used to have around 60 but I got rid of some over time.

It's a bad habit we all have. We get an idea, find a domain name for it, find out it's already taken, we find the person's WHO.IS info, call them up and ask them if we can buy it from them, they say "no I have plans for it", we call em a "domain squatting asshole", then a few weeks later, we get another idea, find available domain names, register them, and sit on them for years and years (preventing others from using them), then when someone calls us asking to buy one of our domains we tell them the same thing that one "domain squatting asshole" told us. "We have plans for it."

I can't tell you how many times I've tried to contact people to buy their un- used domain only to have them tell me that they're "very close to launching". A few years later I check back and guess what, it's the same "coming soon" splash screen from last time.

Every few years I recheck domains that I wanted, just to see if the person gave up on them. Sometimes they do. That's how I grabbed up vgost.com (video game original sound tracks).

I notice more expensive TLDs like .vg .tv and other don't have this problem. So deep down inside I kind of wish the base price for .coms would increase to $50/year. A LOT of good domains would open up then. Guys like us can't afford to keep them all. Naaa, Actually I've been really good about selling my domains. Just sold one a month ago for $500 on the first call.

<comment><USER10> 1st step is admitting you have a problem. congratulations! I have 6. Grabbed 2 over the holidays. $10 is a small price to pay for a quick thrill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> 108 and I've cut down a lot this past year

</comment><comment><USER12> a bit over 100, most are just "collectors items" without any projects etc.

</comment><comment><USER13> Actually, thousands.

For people/companies active in domains there are those with hundreds of thousands registered. Buydomains.com has close to a million domains registered.

For our company name, we have 108 variations (just checked) which includes typos as well as tacking "www" on to the name and "sucks" and "inc" as only a few examples (the majority are typos though)

65 domains is not odd at all.

<comment><AUTHOR> but thats for a company name... i am talking for personal stuff? i have my name as a .com, .net and .ie (being irish). I have projects i started years ago and registered domains for. so, im just wondering about domains registered for personal use?

<comment><USER13> That changes my thoughts.

If you are not buying names to try and resell but only registering because of ideas that you have I would say 65 is a high number. Simply because you couldn't possibly develop that many ideas. (One of the problem with owning many good names by the way is not knowing which one to focus on. If you only own 2 good names you can't stray to far.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Two.

</comment><comment><USER15> Probably about 20 with half on the do not renew list as things didn't work out.</comment>


Possibility of news.yc chatroom or IRC channel? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Personally, I don't have the time for a chat room. From my perspective building a chat room would put me at a disadvantage because I would lose out on discussions taking place in the chat room (discussion which would normally be taking place in thread comments).

I believe that YNews is supposed to be a place to quickly catch up on the latest thoughts in the start-up community. It should serve the interests of the busy start-uper and minimize the amount of time needed to get informed -- a chat room does not do this.

Additionally, chat room discussions are disorganized and difficult to properly archive. They represent a step back from threaded discussions; however, chat rooms offer real-time communication. That's their sole advantage.

I think if that's what we as a community want, we should propose some features to accomplish those goals without losing the advantages of threaded, archived discussion. How about features like thread subscriptions, reply alerts, the ability to reply to a child comment via text message, thread organization tools (some distinction between link threads and discussion threads), etc... There's no need to cannibalize the existing community system when better alternatives exist.

<comment><USER3> "Personally, I don't have the time for a chat room."

I don't really either. But I lurk anyway, because then I'm caught-up on all the discussions and can jump in when I'm taking a break from coding.

Personally, I like chatrooms because they're much better for networking. I'm much more inclined to visit the startup of someone I converse with (as opposed to comment with), I'm more likely to make introductions for them, recommend them for jobs, etc. Basically, I could consider someone that I spend a fair amount of time chatting with a "friend", while someone who I only talk to on message boards is a "professional acquaintance".

This is mostly because of everything you dislike about chatrooms: they're disorganized, they tend to veer off-topic, they devolve into social chitchat, they're spontaneous, and they take up lots of time. You don't really know a person until you see how they behave spontaneously, when they aren't thinking out their response. Hell, I probably seem significantly less intelligent in chats than on here. But it's that vulnerability that makes me trust folks I chat with real-time more than folks I discuss with on a message board.

BTW, I'm also in #news.yc on EFnet, along with Jey. Kinda quiet there at the moment (I think we're both working on startups), but that's just because it hasn't reached critical mass.

<comment><USER2> If social interaction is really your goal then let's organize a meet-up. I'm located in Boston, right across the Charles from all the Y guys, and would love to get to know some of the YNews posters.

It's a frustration of mine when people propose technological solutions to social problems. Facebook, twitter, et al. are absolutely horrible substitutes for real human interaction. Real-life interaction can be intimidating for some but are a very real necessity. We're built to read body language and receive a strong, low-level, satisfaction from doing so.

How does this sound? I'd love to see this forum act as a networking spring- board; maybe YCombinator Cambridge would be so kind as to provide space for a meet-up?

<comment><USER3> That sounds like a good idea. I'd love to see more meetup posts here, but the problem is, they have only local appeal and so usually don't get voted up.

I'm also in Boston, or rather one of the Boston suburbs. I'm pretty sure there are other Boston folks around. So if somebody could propose a time and a space...

<comment><USER2> I emailed Jessica from YC and was told that YC is unwilling to sponsor any event they don't organize. Given that we couldn't really make this a "YC Thing" and wouldn't be able to use their space, does anyone still think this is a good idea?

I'm afraid that without official support any attempt to organize a meet-up would yield similar results compared to past attempts. PG -- chime in!!

<comment><USER4> I don't think it has to be organized by YC at all - this is more about Boston/other city based networking than it is about. Jessica/Paul/YCombinator are busy enough as it is - but that's no reason why there shouldn't be a Boston meetup.

I currently live in Boston close to the Mass Ave bridge, but spend a decent amount of time roaming coffeeshops in both Boston and Cambridge.

I'd propose a meetup this Thursday (the 3rd) evening or Sunday (the 6th) evening either at Diesal Cafe in Sommerville (my favorite coffeeshop to hack in <http://www.diesel-cafe.com/> accessible via the T), or the Espresso Royale on comm ave.

I'll bring my cofounder, and maybe 1 or 2 friends if anyone's around and interested.

<comment><USER2> I think this sounds great. I'll start a new thread and propose the location. I think it'd be a good idea to tentatively set the date for Sunday the 6th to give people a little more time to plan.

<comment><USER2> Here we go!

<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=17969>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm now in #news.yc on EFnet.

<http://www.efnet.org/?module=servers>

<comment><USER6> Anyone up for a freenode one? Reason: that's where the other channels I visit are.

<comment><USER7> I just joined #news.yc on freenode

<comment><USER5> There's already 10-15 people who have been visiting the EFnet channel. There's currently 10 people there, and it's been fairly active over the last couple days.

<comment><USER6> Cool. I'll go for less active so that I don't get distracted;-) (And because I' lazy).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Seeing as there are many people who come and visit news.yc who have great insight and beliefs, I think it'd be great for users to have a venue where they can chat in real time and share said opinions. If people are new, have questions, or just want to help out others trying to make it, having a news.yc chat room could be a fantastic resource. Upvote, and be heard!!!

</comment><comment><USER8> I like the idea of IRC. You don't have to continuously chat there, you could just sit IDLE in there and chime in whenever.

I'm a huge Gamer and because of IRC, I got to know a lot of good gamers. So lets do a Y Comb IRC. It's a good way to get to know people, especially if you're not in the Boston Area. You really have nothing to lose as you will always have the Y Comb threads to read. For those who aren't interested, you don't need to join IRC..purely optional.

So lets pick a channel..jey's channel?

</comment><comment><USER9> Great idea! I vote for IRC.</comment>


5 Biggest Technologies Which Are in Trend Universally in 2018 - <AUTHOR> http://hightechbuzz.net/5-popular-technology-trends/http://hightechbuzz.net/5-popular-technology-trends/ <comment><USER2> gives a 404 error... 404 error: Page not found</comment>


Thank you HN – Just glad to be here - <AUTHOR> This is the heart of the future.  We're all lucky to be able to get on HN each day and view the latest in technology from some of the smartest minds!  This community is at the forefront of the human race IMHO.  Hope everyone has a great day. <comment><USER2> <3</comment>


Show HN: Birdly – Use your enterprise software from messaging apps like Slack - <AUTHOR> http://infos.getbirdly.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hey there!

Quang, CEO of Birdly here. We are on a mission to let you use your enterprise softwares (CRM, accounting, Customer support... ) from messaging apps.

Birdly is a bot that lets your team have a 360° view on your customers. Now, your whole team can access customer data right from where they spend most of their time : Slack.

Take a minute to connect your favorite enterprise software and apps (Salesforce, Stripe, Zendesk…) and ask the bot insightful questions about your customers.

We have plenty of plans to improve the product : more integrations, more actions, more messaging platforms (SMS, emails…) and we would be happy to have your feedback !

I'm happy to help out if you have any question,

Cheers!

<comment><USER2> Interesting product!

off-the-cuff unsolicited design advice:

Consider bringing the effortless setup section below the price one. having two three-column-circle-things-with-pictures on top of each other confused me for a moment.

Also, I can't remember which UX article I read this in, but text-based user assistants that refer to themselves like "hold on one second, I'm looking up something" or "I can't find what you're asking for" become quite annoying to read/listen to after a while. Consider phrases that remove "I" or "you".

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> There's room in the open source market for a joint effort of normalization of third-party APIs, such that one library would be able to talk to any of these using generic commands ('list', 'get', 'set' etc.).</comment>


Um – Create your own man pages so you can remember how to do stuff - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/sinclairtarget/um <comment><USER4> um is a brilliant name.

If you don't want to install anything new, you can also write your own man pages with a personal "man section". Just do something like this in your shell:

        export MANPATH="$MANPATH:$HOME/man"
        export MANSECT="1:n:l:8:3:2:3posix:3pm:3perl:5:4:9:6:7:pj"

Here I've added the "pj" section (my initials).

Then I have files like ~/man/manpj/postgres.pj or ~/man/manpj/ssl.pj. I can say `man pj postgres` to see my own notes. My own collection goes back to 2001 or so. I feel lucky that early on I started putting notes into something so portable. It's one of the few things that has always moved with me to new machines. It is here: [https://github.com/pjungwir/manpj/](https://github.com/pjungwir/manpj/)

You don't even need to use proper man formatting if you don't want to. I find that a plain text file comes out pretty well. And when you want to start adding sections/etc, there are only a handful of formatting codes to learn (or copy/paste). I got started from a tiny chapter in O'Reilly's Unix in a Nutshell. You're welcome to steal from my own repo above. (I'm sure the formatting is nowhere close to best practice, but it's good enough for personal use.)

<comment><USER5> In fact, man pages were _made_ to be extensible in this way. It was assumed that every site installation should have their local manual pages, and every individual user too. It pains me to see so many useless projects like "um" created just because people are assuming that the usual tool for something is restricted to exactly what they are using it for.

<comment><USER6> _> just because people are assuming that the usual tool for something is restricted_

To be fair, sometimes it's just because the usual tool is unfriendly. I've just spent 30 mins to extend my manpath as parent suggested (on osx), and it's not working. I have my variables, I have my directories, I have my text files, and still man can't find them. For a tool as old as man, there is precious little debugging information available. It shouldn't be this hard.

<comment><USER4> Ugh, I'm very sorry to have wasted your time! I mostly work on Linux, but I tried it out on OS X and got the same results as you.

It looks to me like OS X will only search for sections named 1-9 (and maybe "n" too). The MANSECT variable doesn't override this behavior. (I guess it just changes the priority then?)

 _But_ you can have a custom suffix after a number. So if you have ~/man/man7/postgres.7pj (note just a 7 for the folder, but 7pj for the file extension), you can open that file by saying `man 7pj postgres`. This is how other programs with a lot of man pages work, e.g. `man 3perl open`. It's not as nice to type a 7 too, but it's the best I can find that works. So I guess on OS X you'd still set MANPATH but can leave MANSECT alone. (You could also probably usurp section 9 or something, and omit your initials entirely.)

Or maybe you could compile a better `man` and put it in ~/bin. :-/

. . . In fact, I find that if I have ~/man/man7/postgres.7pj, I can even type `man xpj postgres` to get my page. Maybe OS X man is just buggy?

<comment><USER6> Thanks, your help led me to a good solution: Apple man will accept section 0, even though OSX doesn't ship it - so I can squat there. By appending :0 to MANSECT I don't even need the section.

This could be the one time I actually find a good way to note down examples for later reuse. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One thing I hate about man pages is that there are not enough examples. Sometimes feature is explained on five pages while simple one line example would explained it instantly. And at the end there should be 2-3 pages of examples at least, maybe even more.

<comment><USER8> Those who can, do

Those who can't, teach

Those who can't teach, write

Those who can't write, write man pages

<comment><USER9> This is a pet peeve of mine. Teachers _are not_ somehow inferior to those who do. It's a completely different skill set that actually helps you "do" better.

<comment><USER10> Exactly. In sport we respect coaches for their particular skills. But somehow teachers get joked about.

<comment><USER11> Sure we respect coaches, but we also still in every sport pay them significantly less than the pros they ostensibly lead. I personally value both coaches and teachers but it's very clear that we as a people have decided that ability to do is more valuable than the ability to teach others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Installing this on Linux is straightforward.

1\. You need Pandoc. On Debian, Ubuntu, etc. this is: `sudo apt-get install pandoc`. I'm sure there's a similar incantation for Arch and so forth, but I can't be arsed. If you don't already have Ruby installed in your system, you'll need that too.

2\. cd into your favorite personal toolbox directory and `git clone [https://github.com/sinclairtarget/um.git`](https://github.com/sinclairtarget/um.git`)

3\. Add a symlink to um in /usr/local/bin: `sudo ln -s /your/path/to/um/bin/um /usr/local/bin/um`. Make sure you're symlinking to the um script, not the um directory.

That's it. Enjoy.

Nice little widget. I like it.

<comment><USER13> Well, better modify $PATH than changing some system directories.

<comment><USER12> /usr/local/bin is a good place for things like that. See also [http://man.openbsd.org/OpenBSD- current/man7/hier.7](http://man.openbsd.org/OpenBSD-current/man7/hier.7) or just `ls` your own system's /usr/local/bin directory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just an aside, the repo complains about the length of curl's manpage, but that's what I love about it. Fond memories of sitting on the train home from uni, and browsing big long manpages looking for interesting new options to try out.

</comment><comment><USER15> > Say you've just reminded yourself how grep works for the third time this > month.

Hahaha, exactly. There are some commands that I just don't use enough for them to properly stick in my mind. Awk is another one. This utility would be helpful for me. Thanks!

<comment><USER16> It would come in handy in this situation: [https://xkcd.com/1168/](https://xkcd.com/1168/)

<comment><USER17> tar actually makes sense with a little mnemonic:

      tar xzf $file
      - <USER2>
      - ze (actually gzip but fake-accent "the" is more memorable)
      - <USER3>

<comment><USER16> The most confusing thing about it for me now (after I eventually decided to learn it and figured out what you mentioned) is the missing dash. Somehow it works both with and without, which makes no sense considering how *nix tools work. Why is it made to be like that?

<comment><USER18> > Why is it made to be like that?

The history of tar is quite long, but the short version is that it was first released as part of 7th edition Unix. It was a successor to tp[1] which was introduced in 4th edition Unix, which was a successor to tap[2] which was released in 1st edition Unix. In 1st edition Unix (as far as I could tell from looking through the man pages), no command had '-abc'-style flag support at all (so tap's semantics made sense). I imagine that quite a few users did something like 'alias tap=tp' and 'alias tp=tar' when upgrading, and so CLI backwards compatibility was required. As a result, everyone learned to use tar that way and it stuck.

[1]: [http://man.cat-v.org/unix-6th/1/tp](http://man.cat-v.org/unix-6th/1/tp) [2]: [http://man.cat-v.org/unix-1st/1/tap](http://man.cat-v.org/unix-1st/1/tap)

<comment><USER19> And the (funny?) thing is that now the whole world has to suffer, probably millions of developers, because at one point tar had an installed user base of about 500 people. Yay for backwards compatibility :)

Make is another famous victim of this:

> Why the tab in column 1? Yacc was new, Lex was brand new. I hadn't tried > either, so I figured this would be a good excuse to learn. After getting > myself snarled up with my first stab at Lex, I just did something simple > with the pattern newline-tab. It worked, it stayed. And then a few weeks > later I had a user population of about a dozen, most of them friends, and I > didn't want to screw up my embedded base. The rest, sadly, is history.

<comment><USER5> > _now the whole world has to suffer_

Bad example, since tar still works with a dash:

      tar -ztvf foo.tar.gz

> _Make is another famous victim of this:_

Now that is a much better example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> While this is interesting, I will probably find this too much of work to type in all the stuff again with examples. Throwing a not-so-random extension idea - may be a tool to go through the weird commands in my bash history and suggest me to explain the commands which I just used?

Right now, I usually grep the man pages to search for things relevant to specific context. Something like,

        man find | grep -i --color=always -C10 "file name"

Worked well in most cases. So, for figuring out how to send a POST request, I would try

        man curl | grep -C10 --color=always POST

If that bombs, I would then immediately try

        curl --help | grep --color=always POST

If I end up using certain set of flags frequently, I will set up a bash command like most others. Or, make a weird joke out of the flags, for example,

        ls -lionshit

<comment><USER21> How could it check that the command from bash history successfully ran? I often iterate about 10 times to get the right command, so that's 9 errors in the history.

<comment><USER20> May be extend a bit further to check if the return value is 0? Can be accessed via `$?` in most non-Windows systems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> For me, it would be better if the tool actually did something like this:

\- open a real manpage `um grep`.

\- add a custom field to it, like "personal notes", at the beginning or at the end, whatever.

\- save the new manpage in my home directory, so each time I do `man grep` that custom manpage is used and I see my own notes.

</comment><comment><USER23> I just use my bash history with a very large HISTSIZE. Not as nice, but doesn't require any effort. Effort I never want to put in at the time I'm using the complicated command, I have other issues at that time :)

<comment><USER24> How do you deal with input from multiple concurrent bash sessions?

Usually I'll have two or three konsole windows open at the same time, and I've noticed that only one of them appears in the bash history...is there an easy way to have it store all the history from all the windows?

<comment><USER25> Use zsh.

[https://askubuntu.com/questions/23630/how-do-you-share- histo...](https://askubuntu.com/questions/23630/how-do-you-share-history- between-terminals-in-zsh)

It is possible to get similar effects by kludging around with bash, but it's a built-in feature in zsh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "Writing man pages using roff today is not very fun or intuitive."

Depends on who you ask: for me the best part of delivering software which I wrote is writing the manual pages in straight nroff in vi, with lots of examples. Seeing the engine typeset my documentation exactly the way I want is always an awesome feeling.

It looks like to me that "um" is a reactionary effort because of the notoriously poor quality of GNU/Linux manual pages which often lack examples; if so, then the solution is to switch to a higher quality operating system like FreeBSD or SmartOS / illumos.

</comment><comment><USER27> If you are actually generating manpages, by using pandoc to generate roff layouts... Why the extra view command? Why not register them with mandb?

<comment><USER28> Is it possible to register alternative manpages in such a way that they serve as bullet-point cheatsheets?

<comment><USER27> Depends what you mean by 'alternative'.

You are always free to install manpages, however only one manpage per name IIRC.

In this case, I'd just namespace it so you avoid any conflicts.

i.e.

        man git

And

        man um.git

So both are preserved.

<comment><USER29> The manpage namespaces are called sections. I think it would make a lot of sense to put these pages in section 1u ('u' for 'um').

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Ha! What a great idea. That might be useful. Ah and it's a command line utility too. Well this shou-oh it's written in Ruby never mind." \- Me.

(Because I can't be bothered installing Ruby or dealing with it at all. I've never had a good experience. Sorry if that upsets you.)

<comment><USER13> If you have Mac or Linux, you probably already have Ruby.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I have used asciinema for this purpose. Do you think it will be useful to link asciinema recordings with this?

<comment><USER32> :D I never thought about it, but now that you say it:

Why are there no scriptreplay/asciinema 'videos' available within normal man pages? I mean yes, just a few more basic examples would certainly help more, but for some more complicated commands a video might help too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> While not exactly same. But I find [https://github.com/chubin/cheat.sh](https://github.com/chubin/cheat.sh) very useful for finding usage.

</comment><comment><USER34> Currently using dnote for this but this looks interesting as well.

I can see myself running `um git` literally before every invocation.

<comment><USER35> > `um git`

This needs integration with voice assistants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Not taking anything away from this effort, but I just keep a "howto" section in an org-mode file, where I keep all kinds of reminders and notes about stuff I do.

</comment><comment><USER37> Pure man(3) solution proposed here is very nice, but I usually just:

      vim ~/doc/nginx-snippets.txt # edit
      vim ~/doc/nginx-snippets.txt # consult

I actually have more files, config samples and source code templates, so it's not just ~/doc/.txt, but having them all in man registry would require yet another better apropos(3) replacement. I also have my own vim colors format that is much better looking to me than md^. I know that my argument may turn similar to 'dropbox is easy via ftp mount', but I can't see any need for a tool even for my relatively big snippet-base. Moreover, with vim I can gf, grep -r, _edit_ :w, etc. And with just files it is subject to svn/sh/make, unleashing the full power of unix. --

^ just two levels of section headers, and :tags, all readable without color. Based on dead-simple regexps, so in theory I could |sed them into terminal escapes in five minutes.

</comment><comment><USER38> Does it show the man page after the user hints? It should show the actual man page too, so I can replace "man" with it.

<comment><USER39> It doesn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> um is a great name for this tool

<comment><USER41> What's the meaning of such name?

<comment><USER42> just a guess, but "unofficial manpage"

<comment><USER43> Since they are "your own manpages", I would've guessed they are "user manpages"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Some similarly helpful projects:

CLI tool to show simple examples instead of a full man page [http://tldr.sh](http://tldr.sh)

View programming language and library documentation offline and in a single place [http://devdocs.io](http://devdocs.io)

Cheat sheets for command line tools, programming languages, and libraries [https://devhints.io](https://devhints.io)

</comment><comment><USER45> For anyone looking to do it «by hand», it's fairly doable: [https://stackoverflow.com/a/50436684/2494754](https://stackoverflow.com/a/50436684/2494754)

<comment><USER26> Bravo! And this should help as well:

[http://heirloom.sourceforge.net/doctools/troff.pdf](http://heirloom.sourceforge.net/doctools/troff.pdf)

[https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/utp/](https://www.oreilly.com/openbook/utp/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Thanks, this tool looks great. I am eagerly awaiting a version for Linux.

<comment><USER47> Does anybody know why this can't run on linux now? I haven't touched Ruby in a very long time and I didn't fully read over all the code but from my brief look it seems like it is only because of the convenience of being able to use Homebrew to ensure that pandoc is already installed when installing Um. Am I missing something?

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Chapter 2 concern system calls. IMHO, this should be maintained by kernel developpers and updated each time I update the kernel so that it is always in sync. I would like to understand what is the contract the developper has implemented. The limitations of a system call are the developpers regrets and their plans for future evolutiond. I do not care if the style is not good. What I care is how it should be used.

</comment><comment><USER49> On Windows i find that using OneNote covers everything i need, mostly due to excellent search via Ctrl+E. Being able to add pictures also helps.

</comment><comment><USER50> As someone who runs terminal obsessed engineering organizations I can see a wider implication for team docs. Would love a distributed version of this. I suppose we could do something with git, etc but the sync cycle would inevitably kill forward momentum of usage. Bonus points for a web server for those who aren't terminal obsessed.

</comment><comment><USER51> I started blogging to keep records on how to do certain things and it eventually turned into teaching others how to do it.

</comment><comment><USER52> My personal solution to this problem: [https://github.com/alanbernstein/quickref](https://github.com/alanbernstein/quickref)

</comment><comment><USER53> Interesting project but I do wonder if you're going to go through this amount of effort if that idea of Literate-Devops with Org.Mode might not be a better path.

</comment><comment><USER54> I'd like this function except it would add a section to the existing man page. That way my knowledge and the canonical information would be in the same place.

</comment><comment><USER55> I use a Gollum wiki to do this exact thing. The nice part is it's backed by git so it's easy to sync and backup to a gitlab private repo.

</comment><comment><USER56> I hate how man pages are typically organized so I feel like if I built this tool I would try to rethink how man pages are used at the same time.

</comment><comment><USER57> Is it possible to host the manpages somewhere, so I can access them on all machines I use?

(Perhaps using a git repository, and GitLab?)

<comment><USER58> You could put your pages on cloud storage?

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> One helpful option to add is an "apropos" as I do grep through my personal stuff occasionally.

</comment><comment><USER60> I print 'cheat sheets' (e.g. regex, emmet & alt codes) and pin them next to my monitor.

</comment><comment><USER61> I wish this was for life with a checklist like functionality. Like um edit morningRoutine

</comment><comment><USER62> I love the idea of this utility (I use TLDR myself) and wonder if there is a way that tldr could be integrated with your tooling [https://github.com/tldr- pages/tldr](https://github.com/tldr-pages/tldr).

I can see that there may be instances where you/your company would like to have internal docs that should not be public and this utility would would work for it

</comment><comment><USER63> I use nvalt for this.

</comment><comment><USER64> Started using it already! I love it :)

</comment><comment><USER65> Let me say thanks for vocalizing the problems you were running into. Googling axios for the third time this week...

</comment><comment> a-b There are couple alternatives like [http://bropages.org/](http://bropages.org/) and [https://tldr.sh/](https://tldr.sh/) How UM is different?

</comment><comment><USER66> I love tldr for similar-ish problem. [https://tldr.sh/](https://tldr.sh/)

</comment><comment><USER67> prettyy sure [https://tldr.sh/](https://tldr.sh/) is enough.

</comment><comment><USER68> Interesting project. I believe these two shell functions in the shell's initialization file (~/.profile, ~/.bashrc, etc.) can serve as a poor man's um:

        umedit() { mkdir -p ~/notes; vim ~/notes/"$1.txt"; }
        um() { less ~/notes/"$1.txt"; }

<comment><USER69> Make pandoc convert the txt/md/whatever to roff and pipe it to man, and you're pretty much there. It would also work on more than OSX, unlike um itself.

<comment><USER70> Something like:

        umedit() { mkdir -p ~/notes; vim ~/notes/"$1.md" }
        um() { pandoc -s -t man ~/notes/"$1.md" | tbl | groff -Wall -mtty-char -man -Tascii -c | less -R }

Not sure if pandoc creates tbl tables ;).

<comment><USER71> I went for:

        function mdless() {
          pandoc -s -f markdown -t man $1 | groff -T utf8 -man | less
        }
        umedit() { mkdir -p ~/.notes; vim ~/.notes/$1; }
        um() { mdless ~/.notes/"$1"; }
        umls() { ls ~/.notes }

This way I can write the notes in markdown and view them as such in `less`.

<comment><USER72> But how to share these man pages and how to search for man pages written by others?

I can share my man pages with git/github, but nobody will notice them, nobody will fix my spelling errors or contribute additional information.

Is there something like wiki, but for man pages?

<comment><USER73> > Is there something like wiki, but for man pages?

yes. it's the source repo for whatever app you want improved man pages on. Everyone can submit changes to it. All the good ones get merged in. It's effectively a wiki curated by the most knowledgeable people on the subject.

um solves a different problem though. It's not trying to make a _common_ man page. It's trying to make a man page that works _for you_. What _you_ need to be highlighted is likely different from what _I_ need to be highlighted.

Personally I don't _want_ a generic wiki man page for stuff. I like the man pages written by the creators of the code (because i know they're correct), combined with my notes highlighting what's important to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> To be quite honest, I resist ever reading man pages simply out of purest spite for that one well-known acronym.

I've never found actual help at the command line, delving any deeper beyond the _\--help_ switch.

<comment><USER39> What acronym?

<comment><USER75> RTFM (probably)</comment></comment></comment>


Bitcasa pulls out of consumer cloud storage - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2016/04/25/bitcasa-pulls-out-of-consumer-cloud-storage/?ncid=rss <comment><USER2> Deleting user data with one month's notice doesn't seem like the right track record for a B2B pitch...I mean, no matter how low the B2B cost of their service, the perceived risk entailed when entrusting data seems high.</comment>


How to Mark a Book - <AUTHOR> http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~pinsky/mark_a_book.htm <comment><USER2> Thank you for sharing this!

It's Yet Another Example of deBord's "Society of the Spectacle", where the knowledge contained within the book devolves into "having" the book, and finally, into the "appearance of having" a library of elegantly bound volumes.</comment>


Dedicated followers of fashion - <AUTHOR> http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/dedicated-followers-of-fashion/ <comment><AUTHOR> By the way, anyone looking for more pictures of Schwarz's _Klaidungsbüchlein_ (Book of Clothes) will find a bunch here: [http://resobscura.blogspot.com/2011/07/renaissance- merchants...](http://resobscura.blogspot.com/2011/07/renaissance-merchants- life-in-clothing.html)</comment>


New tech killing cinema, says Scott - <AUTHOR> http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/new-tech-killing-cinema-says-scott/2007/09/04/1188783201078.html

<comment><AUTHOR> In my opinion, new tech brings me movies i want to view which might never make it to the big screen.

</comment><comment><USER2> the internet is definitely allowing independent studios and artists to release movies that would otherwise not make the cut for cinema due to the audience size or advertising budget. on the other hand most people I know still go out to theaters to watch movies (unless the movie is not that great and people will wait for the DVD release). I never got around to watching movies on a video iPod or other mobile devices. I might occasionally watch a movie on my laptop if traveling but for the most part movies look a lot better on a decent TV with good sound.</comment>


How do you make games/puzzles that don't make most people feel stupid? - <AUTHOR>

If you can somehow build a game/puzzle that doesn't make most people feel stupid, then I suspect it would sell quite a lot more.
Static difficulty levels don't help, since people would feel stupid if they have to resort to the easier levels.
Dynamic difficulty levels that adjust to your play are easy to game by playing poorly intentionally and then improving your play.
Friend high score rankings can help, but even in a small group, a significant fraction may feel stupid.  Also, many people may not have enough friends who want to play the same game/puzzle.
Having no goals (e.g., the Sims) may not make people feel stupid, but you then lose much of the reason people keep playing -- the challenge of achieving goals.
Any ideas? <comment><USER2> The game needs to operate at multiple levels of understanding. Fighting games are pick-up-and-play, but there are combos for advanced players. You also learn how to effectively block and switch up your attacks. So make your basic game with simple goals but allow for extra strategies that take longer to understand.

<comment><USER3> e.g. make it easily possible to solve a puzzle in 50 moves, but more advanced players might find a solution in 5 moves. Give rankings for how few moves are used to solve the puzzle. (see: World of Goo's OCD objectives)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Look at the "mafia" genre of social network games. In order to play them, you basically just select options from a menu. The more you play, the higher you score. The more friends you invite, the higher you score. The game is set up to reward playing the game more often, not playing the game with more skill.

I'm not sure this is the sort of game you _want_ to make. But it definitely gets around the problem of people feeling stupid.

</comment><comment><USER5> One possibility is giving people a way to direct their emotions. For example, particularly hard problems could be delivered by a certain character, thereby redirecting the associations players have with the difficulty of the problem from the game itself to the character. The player would think upon seeing the character "Geez, not this jerk again."

</comment><comment><USER6> This is the best flash game I have ever played. warning: very addictive. The puzzles will make you feel stupid, until of course you figure them out :) <http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/bloxorz>

<comment><AUTHOR> In general, I suspect that most people don't like feeling stupid, even temporarily, especially those that would take a very long time to eventually solve the more difficult puzzles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Many modern games have taken the trend of just dumbing down the gameplay so that what the player actually has is not at all about challenge, but just an experience, with some gameplay mechanics as added-value.

The puzzle-genre version of this might be otherwise known to you as "casual gaming." Bejeweled, Peggle, etc. take almost no conscious effort to play, even though skill elements exist.</comment>


This Is What Happens When a Woman Supports Bernie Sanders Online - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@lleeiii/this-is-what-happens-when-a-woman-supports-bernie-sanders-online-42b642ba673f#.fe53drhky <comment><USER2> Probably a lot of toxicity would be removed if it were harder for people to comment.

You wouldn't have to raise the bar very high, I think, to convince people that it's not worth the trouble to write a few hurtful words.

For example, maybe follow-up comments to material require completion of a tiny survey (like 2 questions) from the submitter, that must be answered 100% correctly to "prove" that a visitor at least read the material and understood it enough to comment.

And for people too lazy for that, have an alternative like "or, to post this comment, 45 cents will be deducted from your account".

</comment><comment><USER3> This might be because she's a model; a job where intellect isn't a huge factor (smart people can be models too, but there's no requirement). People are dicks, but taking advice from a model is probably a bad idea.

Male models tend to get less attention, but I imagine it wouldn't be much different.

<comment><USER4> _This might be because she 's a model;_

No -- there's a huge undercurrent of misogyny (and sexual frustration) running through many of these comments.

Variations on the old "if you don't want to get catcalled, you should be out dressing like that" line, basically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love Berny Sanders no-prisoners approach to politics for the people, and I love Emily display of bare feelings during her speech and in general. Enough said.</comment>


Show HN: Weekend Hack: NextEpiso.de - <AUTHOR> http://nextepiso.de

<comment><USER2> A nice attempt. But I am not satisfied with the UI! Why to drag the picture when you can just click it and get the next release date. Basically, you are taking two steps to do a thing which can be done in one step, may be just to make the UI pretty. Plus some details are incorrect (like no new episode for the Big Bang Theory) but these are your content source issue. Apart from that it is good!

</comment><comment><USER3> Please don't make drag and drop required. This is not a good trend. Oh and you left your S3 bucket and key in the source.

<comment><USER4> I couldn't use it at all on my mobile. Clicking does nothing, so it's not like you needed both, it's just crippled now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A few bugs:

1\. Dexter hasn't aired on the west coast, but the next episode is listed as 7 days from now, when it's really a few hours from now. Same with The Walking Dead.

2\. Doesn't work on my iPhone.

A few comments:

1\. Don't make me click to see the next episode air date. If you want to keep the current interface, do it on mouseover. Better yet, just let users add shows and present a table with a list sorted by date.

2\. It'd be nice to show the next air date of old show re-runs too.

</comment><comment><USER6> Nice idea. However, I tried checking the release date for The big bang theory and it said "No Next Episode :(" which disagrees with Wikipedia that says "November 8".

<comment><USER7> Yeah, the same happens with Suits and others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Drag and drop doesn't work on my iPad or Android phone.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've been using <http://tvcountdown.com> for quite some time now and I haven't been disappointed. It has lots of series, also some British ones. It's really nice that it converts the airtimes to local times, since I live in Europe and always forget how many hours I have to add or substract.

</comment><comment><USER10> I had a little issue. I chose The Walking Dead and new episode airs later today. It told me that the next new episode was in 7 days. So I had to go over to Wikipedia to make sure tonight's episode was a new one. It is.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Source code (sorry - backend only) is available on my github account: <https://github.com/sebcioz/next_episode>

<comment><USER11> An indication that we need to flip the cards over to get the dates would be great; I didn't realise at first, I thought I had to drag to trigger something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Snazzy UI. I made something similar: txt reminders for new episodes of tv shows: <http://remembertowatch.com>

</comment><comment> nezza-_- A friend of mine built something similar: <http://watched.li/>

Also I am not able to find two and a half men :/

<comment><USER13> I think that's a feature :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I really like the idea but the drag 'n' drop user interface is neither convenient nor necessary to fulfill its purpose. But anyway, keep up the good work.

</comment><comment><USER15> If the next release date is today, as in the case of walking dead, it should say! otherwise, nice.

</comment><comment><USER16> The site doesn't work on my iPhone, but that's not why I'm leaving a comment. I wanted to compliment you on the great domain name. It's clever and catchy. Very brandable. Nice work.

P.S. And don't forgot smartphone users.

</comment><comment><USER17> Honestly, it takes way too many clicks to find out when the next episode is. Fist I have to drag, then click. It should really be a 1 step thing.</comment>


Postmortem: Intelligence Engine Design Systems' "City Conquest" - <AUTHOR> http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/186088/postmortem_intelligence_engine_.php

<comment><AUTHOR> "The first [advantage] was our optimization-based approach to the core design. The defensive towers and unit types in City Conquest were not based on arbitrary creative decisions: nearly all of the decisions around their functional aspects were guided by an explicit decision modeling process."

"The second advantage was Evolver, which we discussed in an earlier interview with AIGameDev.com. Evolver was an automated balancing tool based on coevolutionary genetic algorithms. Every night, it would run a huge number of simulated games between red and blue opponents, with each opponent evolving a "population" of scripts (each script being essentially a fixed build order of buildings within the game)."

The good stuff starts on page 2.

<comment><USER2> > The good stuff starts on page 2.

FYI, Gamasutra provides a "printer friendly" version that is not paginated:

[http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/186088/postmortem_intellig...](http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/186088/postmortem_intelligence_engine_.php?print=1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> From the article:

> a market opportunity for games that combined elements of tower defense games > like Kingdom Rush with the depth of real-time strategy games like > Star[c]raft

Ironically, the first tower defense games were custom maps in Starcraft. I probably still have my copy of the Art of Defense on a backup drive...

</comment><comment><USER4> I love Gamasutra's postmortem articles. I wish more software projects would share their lessons learned, helping others avoid the same pitfalls.`

<comment><USER5> They're also often brutally honest. I read many postmortems of games that failed, either commercially and/or in respect to their original vision, and the postmortem explored the how and why of that more than "what we learned from this and how this will make our next product more awesome". A postmortem is best when it's clinical and conducted under an unblinking neon light, and some of the ones on Gamasutra are truly something to aspire to. They're written by and for developers, they're not marketing, I love that.</comment></comment>