How to seem good at everything: Stop doing stupid shit - <AUTHOR> http://jinfiesto.posterous.com/how-to-seem-good-at-everything-stop-doing-stu <comment><USER3> I see a lot of people do stupid shit because they don't seem to think it will make a big difference. One mistake isn't a big deal, is it? The problem is that it becomes habit, and then you're making plenty of these, and you think it's okay, but in reality a lot of these mistakes have become normal.

I think the most profound thing about the post was that it showed a striking difference between determined practice and directed practice. Just being determined and putting in the hours will _not_ be sufficient to pass a plateau of learning. Sometimes you need _directed_ learning to push you past that plateau.

Applying that to code, I think this is the difference between just programming a lot and thinking you'll get better, and actually reading texts, reading code and talking to other programmers to see how other people do things better.

For example, you can start using more anonymous functions in your code because all the cool kids are doing it, but unless you really understand how to deal with high-order functions and what a map and fold are, you are just going to be doing stupid shit that doesn't really help your code at all.

<comment><USER4> _Applying that to code, I think this is the difference between just programming a lot and thinking you'll get better, and actually reading texts, reading code and talking to other programmers to see how other people do things better._

I don't think this follows from the article. "Not doing stupid shit" in the article's term is getting better at the basics. When you're describing is directed study but I can't see how it is directed at "the basics of programming", which would have to be something not off-by-one, not using objects before their initialized or whatever is "really simple".

The problem of overcoming bad habits is a really tough one.

In a performance-based skill like Chess or music, you can drill simple stuff to make them perfect. It's hard to see a simple equivalent in programming.

I'm also not sure if there is an equivalent to perfection in programming. All the things that slow me down do look "stupid" on some level but they're stupidity of different levels, from design to variable name to the creation of functions to understanding and avoiding syntax errors.

If there is an awareness drill to educate oneself against bad programming habits, I'd love to find it.

<comment><USER5> Have a look at the Joel test. It's outdated, and might be a little controversial, but it's it list of ways to fix "stupid shit".

I don't have a copy of "Code Complete", but from what I've heard it's a similar deal. XP _arguably_ eliminates a lot of stupid shit, but _arguably_ introduces a lot of stupid shit at the same time (as do many dogmatic processes).

While "best practice" lists are always going to be controversial (in both programming and music, but not chess), they do have a lot of value if you don't overuse them, and take them with a grain of salt.

<comment><USER4> I think you're also missing idea of "fundamentals" as essential thing that article means by "stupid shit" - fundamentals meaning habits and not just instructions.

Not all "bad stuff" is "stupid shit" in this approach. The "joel test" really doesn't relate.

Just about all Chess players know to avoid hanging pieces - the article described going _from there_ to making that understanding _habitual_. Essentially, the article, if it was consistent, would be looking for some equivalent to musical scales that a software engineer could do practice before actually programming. It is not a matter of _knowing_ best practices but a way of systematically developing the habits to put them into practice.

 _It is the difference someone telling you not to make a mistake and going over and over doing things to actually get in the habit of not making mistakes..._ A person can learn _theoretically_ how to play music in a week and if producing keystrokes at the proper time didn't matter, people wouldn't spend more than a week learning the skill. As it is, a lot more practice is required.

But really, I'm pretty sure there isn't a software equivalent of musical scale because software isn't as specific a skill as reading or performing music. Software involves a large variety of logical skills which most adults already have to some degree. It is so complicated on some levels that mistakes are sort-of inevitable on other levels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Same thing applies in job interviews and dating. The people opposite the table from you want you to succeed because no one likes giving interviews or going on first dates. They just want to fill the vacancy.

All you have to do is not disqualify yourself by being stupid or obnoxious.

<comment><USER7> This is such an important point but people just don't seem to grasp it.

The idea that you have to be the most dazzling job cantidate or the most amazing romantic partner to succeed in these areas probably holds people back a lot. In my experience if you don't do anything overtly stupid, the other party will subconsciously fill in the blanks so that you match "what they were looking for".

<comment><USER8> Wouldn't they have multiple candidates that satisfy the "did nothing stupid" requirement most of the time?

<comment><USER9> Unfortunately, no.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This article echos one of Nassim Taleb's central themes, that what doesn't happen (or that we don't do, or we actively avoid) is often as or more valuable than what happens/what we do/etc. But we tend to discount the value of things that we can't see or that didn't happen, thinking everything of value must be 'actionable', and that's a mistake.

It's a pretty common idea among traders as well. One of the fundamental teaching examples is why it's better to avoid a loss than make a gain:

Say you start with $100 and take a 50% loss down to $50. Now, what percentage gain will it take to get you back to $100? Many people new to the game will unthinkingly answer a symmetrical 50% gain, but of course that's wrong. To get from $50 back to $100, you need a 100% gain.

For every loss, getting back to even requires asymmetrically more % gain. I imagine poker players are very aware of this harsh fact as well.

There's even an old misquoted Japanese/Chinese proverb that hints at it - <USER2> you sit by the river long enough, you'll see the body of your enemy float by._ Implying the power of doing nothing and letting your adversary shoot themselves in the foot. (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1225153>)

<comment><USER11> Another way to think of it: in most situations, there are more vectors pointing away from optimality than towards.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The possibility of making game-ending blunders is one of the main reasons I don't play competitive chess any more.

Of course, it's very frustrating to make a "simple" error in a game of chess that might have already taken up a couple of hours of time and which may lose the match for your team, which represents a large geographic region.

But after a lot of reflection it became apparent to me that this kind of frustration is very much an inherent property of the game of chess.

It turns out (once you play enough games and get pretty damn good at it) that it's actually quite a limited and simple game. Once you're down half a pawn or so there aren't many possibilities to generate a counterattack on another part of the board to make it possible to win without relying on your opponent making a subsequent simple mistake.

I did play quite a bit of Go at university and for a while I was confident that I could get good. If I'd stuck at it I would certainly be a low-ranking amateur dan by now but I decided to spend the majority of my spare time learning more about IT.

One reason for my early enthusiasm in the game of Go was because it's such a complex game it's not really clear when a "simple" strategic error has been made. Perhaps more importantly, because both players experience much more difficulty choosing moves than in chess, there's usually a reason to play on when you've made a mistake even when playing a highly competent player.

This has been a long reply. I'm trying to illustrate that the secret to seeming good at everything is to participate in activities which are intrinsically difficult and where your intelligence will have the chance to shine through rather than to participate in activities where one foolish blunder can allow a person of much lesser ability to beat you.

<comment><USER13> "It turns out (once you play enough games and get pretty damn good at it) that it's actually quite a limited and simple game. Once you're down half a pawn or so there aren't many possibilities to generate a counterattack on another part of the board to make it possible to win without relying on your opponent making a subsequent simple mistake."

I do not find this to be the case. Even with games involving the top few players in the world (rated 2700+ FIDE) you will often find that players come back from a computer evaluation significantly below -0.50.

Also, you can be at a significant disadvantage and still be able to draw the game. It is really rare that one mistake can decide the game. -0.50 is well within the drawing range.

"One reason for my early enthusiasm in the game of Go was because it's such a complex game it's not really clear when a "simple" strategic error has been made. Perhaps more importantly, because both players experience much more difficulty choosing moves than in chess, there's usually a reason to play on when you've made a mistake even when playing a highly competent player."

On the other hand, chess endgames can often stay up in the air for a really long time, with two or even three results possible. Go endgames (almost by definition) consist of both players grubbing out a point or two here and a point or two there, with all group life and death already decided, so it is rare that the game is decided late.

(If it helps ground any of my assertions, my USCF chess rating is 1870 and my AGA Go rating is 4 kyu. I don't know whether I would certainly be a low- ranking amateur dan by now if I had stuck with it.)

By the way, I note that Josh Infiesto does not appear in the USCF rating list, so either he did all his playing before 1991 when they started keeping computerized records, or his games in which he wiped the floor with 1500-level players were informal non-tournament games.

<comment><AUTHOR> dfan, you are correct. I've never played in any formal tournaments. However, I do have lots of friends that do, and many are rated ~ 1500. I know that beating people in informal games isn't really a great measurement of skill, but it's enough to illustrate my point. Additionally, I was born in 1991. I certainly wasn't playing chess before then.

 _edit_ For the record, I haven't engaged in any serious study of chess end games. I'm not really qualified to comment on how end games might evolve.

<comment><USER13> Well, your main point is certainly right that a large part of playing chess well is simply avoiding blunders; it is surprising how many games even at the 2000+ level are determined because one player blundered, rather than because the other player made any spectacular moves. Of course, those "blunders" get a bit more subtle as you improve. But it is true that the fastest way to improve (below 2000 or so) is to learn how to stop making stupid mistakes rather than learn new tricky moves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have used a similar technique for teaching competitive croquet. Instead of this one simple rule, I offered three. The first two rules pertain to strict technique and croquet theory (similar to the specifics about not leaving pieces hanging, and structuring your opening moves). The third rule is always: don't F up your shot.

In the chess example, I reconfigured the 'don't do stupid shit', to something like, a) Open with an intent, b) Don't lose pieces without purpose, and c) Do everything for a purpose. I wanted to add this information to the thread, because I think the 'don't F up your shot' croquet analog includes a more explicit sense of limiting your actions based on your ability. In croquet, all the theory and mental prowess in the world is sacrificed if you can't execute the ideal shot under the circumstances. This is acknowledgement of your current ability is what I think applies to much of programming (and life).

Note that I am NOT suggesting that you avoid moving your abilities forward. However, focus a lot of effort on knowing what you know, and learn how to use it well. The more you use it, the more you learn and expand on that skill set. The more carefully you use what is within the realms of that skill set, the fewer mistakes (and the more successes) you will have.

<comment><USER15> > _"a) Open with an intent, b) Don't lose pieces without purpose, and c) Do > everything for a purpose."_

I use similar rules when investing, playing poker, and in competitive video games. I'd phrase them as:

\- begin with a goal in mind

\- take deliberate actions (that you are capable of) that advance you toward your goal

\- don't give up resources (money, chips, pieces, hitpoints, etc.) unless that advances you toward your goal

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not doing stupid shit is important, but what about not being afraid to make mistakes? Making mistakes is healthy and arguably one of the best ways to learn; if your motto is 'don't do stupid shit', then I fear that you'll miss out on a lot of opportunities.

Also, your definition of 'stupid' is going to change throughout the years. You shouldn't be afraid of trying something new now because you might realize in a couple years that what you were trying to do was stupid; doing it is what helped you become a smarter and more experienced person.

I know this wasn't actually the point of the article, but it seems like the 'don't do stupid shit' motto could easily be taken too literally into this interpretation.

<comment><USER17> A better phrase would be: "Don't do stupid shit _twice_ ".

Still better, in my opinion, is: "work on your weakness".

My hobby is Olympic weightlifting. In Oly lifting brute strength can take you only so far, to succeed and progress you need to constantly work on _technique_.

And the only way to improve technique is to identify something you're doing wrong at the moment and to break that habit. It takes time, effort and buckets of hard, horrible work; but at the end your performance has been consistently improved for good.

If on the other hand you stick only to what you're good at, you will inevitably peak. I am very good at back squats. If I'm not consciously trying to work my weaknesses, I will do buckets of back squats and get strong at them.

But what I _ought_ to do instead is work on getting under the bar faster, or work on my second pull, or work on foot placement during the jerk, and so on. If I put the bulk of my effort into _these_ , I will progress much faster and further overall than any amount of squatting will grant me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm fortunate to have a brilliant Muay Thai teacher and accomplished fighter who preaches this kind of philosophy every class. No matter what you do, you should do it mindfully and in the case of fighting, be aware of trade-offs and price you pay for technical inadequacy. Far too many people have the misconception that fighting or training is about hitting hard, when it's really more about hitting correctly. Parallel to the chess example: if you're getting hit and you don't know why or how, you're not training correctly. You're not studying and identifying your mistakes and then improving on them.

Having an excellent teacher to see and explain those things puts you at such an advantage over someone stuck with a less experienced or educated teacher. I like to think that theses lessons can help carry over into the startup world. That is (in sum), technical execution and winning are the only things that matter.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh absolutely. Having a great teacher really accelerates the process. I've been lucky enough to have studied with many great teachers over the years, and this is a common thread I've noticed. I've also noticed that really high-level skills tend to run in "family lines." For instance, my piano teacher can trace her own lineage through Artur Schnabel (one of the greatest pianists of all time), Theodor Lechitizky, and all the way back to Bach.

It's unfortunate (or perhaps a blessing in disguise) that there's no real "Teacher/Student" analogue for CS. On the other hand, the Programming/CS community is far more open about sharing information than some of the other communities I've been in. The piano community for instance is in general somewhat secretive. Ideas about piano playing seem to be passed down from generation to generation. Near the top, the techniques for obtaining "excellent playing" seem to be well agreed upon. As we get closer to the bottom, lots of misconceptions and disagreements seem to surface.

In the programming community, while there are obvious camps, since information is available so much more freely it's vastly easier to make informed decisions about what's stupid and what's not.

<comment><USER19> There may not be a strict "Teacher/Student" analogue for CS, but it is such a young discipline that I would imagine it would be pretty easy to trace a "lineage" for everyone back to certain branching events or influencers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> What you are really talking is about making a decision to raise your standards. The human mind does not process negatives very well so telling someone to stop doing stupid shit is a hit or miss message. Really the title of this post should have been, "How to be good at everything: Raise your standards." But that isn't as catchy or sticky as "Stop doing stupid shit." Raising your standards means setting a new bar of what you are going to expect from yourself in a given task or skill. It comes with the presupposition that you can meet the standard thus the added confidence. Many people do "stupid shit" but don't know why. And frankly the 'why' doesn't matter. You have to believe that you can improve and setting standards is concrete way of telling your mind you won't accept certain behavior anymore.

Of course this sounds easy but it's not.

Making the decision is the hardest thing anyone can do. It comes with consequences, both good and bad. Consequences in potentially eliminating the fulfillment of needs you may have or possible coping mechanisms you have grown into. When you make a true decision you cut off possibilities.

Raising your standards necessitates making a 'real" decision and cutting off options. Sometimes doing stupid shit is the only way some people know how to wrap their head around the f*cked up things they have come to understand.

</comment><comment><USER21> Scumbag article: Highly provocative title; zero practical information.

I know negative comments are frowned upon but I just wish these knock-off quasi-zen bullshit articles didn't bubble up to the HN twitter bot so often. I'm irritated because I took the time to read this assuming that the author was going to deliver something useful and that wasn't the case, it was just a bunch of hot air. "Succeed by not failing." Very good.

I'd like to give the author full marks for marketing. Provocative title, slick design, little substance... he ought to get a job at Wired!

</comment><comment><USER22> In the foreword to a book called "In search of stupidity", Joel Spolsky makes the case that the success of Microsoft owes much to the fact that each of their competitors did a lot of stupid shit while M$, mostly, didn't.

The article is a bit dated today, but I think he's still got a point:

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/Stupidity.html>

 _For every other software company that once had market leadership and saw it go down the drain, you can point to one or two giant blunders that steered the boat into an iceberg. Micropro fiddled around rewriting the printer architecture instead of upgrading their flagship product, WordStar. Lotus wasted a year and a half shoehorning 123 to run on 640KB machines; by the time they were done Excel was shipping and 640KB machines were a dim memory._

</comment><comment><USER23> I liked this post but am not quite sure where to start in applying this to software development. I created a follow-up "Ask HN: What are the stupid things Rails developers do?" here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2848169>

<comment><USER24> If you want lots of examples of really stupid shit that software developers (and other IT people) do, go read The Daily WTF (<http://thedailywtf.com>).

<comment><USER25> Or get a job at any software shop that does a lot of work with abandoned projects (e.g., "Help, my previous developer left me in a lurch, can you finish up this PHP e-commerce store customer management system database driven enterprise solution?")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Poker players understand this implicitly. They refer to marginal but cumulatively significant errors as "leaks" and good players invest enormous effort in identifying and plugging their leaks. While at the highest level poker requires some very sophisticated skills, the journey from novice to competent professional is mainly one of diligently plugging leaks.

Poker is unusual in being so strongly a game of incomplete information. A top professional may only have a few percent advantage over a complete novice, so skill is rarely evident in the short term. Identifying leaks is painstaking in poker because even in hindsight you are rarely sure of the right way to play a hand. Even over a long session at the tables, a player can do everything right but lose, or play terribly but walk away with bulging pockets.

I think that poker theory has a great deal of relevance to entrepreneurs. The mental fortitude required to invest money in an uncertain outcome based on partial knowledge is an overwhelmingly important skill in both.

<comment><USER4> But isn't this also a statement that the skill of a poker player and the skill of a programmer are utterly different.

Two skill types:

A. Doing something fairly simple _perfectly_ , plugging even the smallest mistakes.

B. Doing something that is _very, very difficult_ as well as you can - ie, doing it at all. Doing your best to simplify situations that have a potential to become even more complex while still managing great complexity and accepting that you will make mistakes (and guarding against and finding those mistakes).

Notice, the difference between a very good programmer and very bad programmer is absolutely not a few percentage points. Poke and music are each more like skill A whereas programming is more like skill B (though these classifications are of course quite rough).

It seems like if we aren't distinguishing the skill type here, we will wind-up just tossing out vague cliches. "Don't mistakes, dude".

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is BS. If you don't allow yourself to do stupid shit you're not being creative or explorative enough in the pursuit. You may be a technical master but you will never be a game-changing luminary.

<comment><AUTHOR> In my opinion, in this context, the appropriate time to "do stupid shit" is after you've become a technical master and have the ability to "do stupid shit" with a high level of artistry.

<comment><USER28> Indeed. I heard it expressed as "Become a craftsman first. It won't stop you being a genius." Only I can't remember who said it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This great post should be really encouraging: you can achieve a terrific competitive advantage right off the bat just by launching a business that manages to avoid doing stupid shit.

</comment><comment><USER11> A music analogy. I know a woman who is a wonderful harpist. She's a freaking musical genius who comes up with awesome and highly imaginative stuff, and has the guts and skill to execute it. However, she often does this thing where she accelerates near the end of the number. I think she's just being sheepishly modest, but it makes the end feel like a cartoony little apology. Really, instead of speeding up, she might just as well segué into "Shave and a Haircut...Two Bits!"

There's an analogy here for both authors and software developers.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think by stop doing 'stupid shit', you mean learn the fundamentals properly.

That's what your piano teacher beat into you (not out of you). That's what those chess drills taught you.

Fundamentals.

Fundamentals are never taught properly for anything.

I say this a programmer, a former music student (university level) and someone who's learned alot of shit.

</comment><comment><USER31> I agree with the overall point here, but isn't this just the same as saying "practice" and/or "keep practicing, especially with those that are better than you"?

<comment><USER32> Mindful practice.

<comment><USER33> This. You want to be consciously practicing things that are hard. Once you find yourself getting comfortable, get uncomfortable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm currently obsessed with golf (and for those who write it off as a ridiculous waste of time, I encourage you to give it a go; I used to be of the same mindset as you and I was pleasantly surprised to be very wrong. It's a great thinking man's/woman's game, gives you lots of time with quality friends, and puts you in some of the most beautiful environments you can find).

The post speaks to me as 9 out of 10 amateurs are out there doing stupid shit almost every swing - trying to hit the crap out of the ball at the expense of basic fundamentals (primarily balance), attempting miraculous shots when in trouble only to put themselves in more trouble etc. I was one of those dudes not too long ago (and still am sometimes), but recently tried to 'stop doing stupid shit'. It is unbelievable how quickly your scores can drop (that's a good thing for those who don't play) by accepting the predicament you have put yourself in and playing the next shot with intent, focus, and generally being smart about it.

I never thought of consciously applying this thinking to startups/programming but it's completely doable and probably effective.

</comment><comment><USER35> I think for many people the hard part is identifying the stupid shit they do in the first place.

<comment><USER36> Playing chess for one ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I heard a tennis coach say something similar:

If you don't try to hit the ball too hard, just get it back in-play -- you'll beat everyone who's worse than you, everyone who's as good as you, and half the guys that are better than you.

</comment><comment><USER38> Alternatively, I'd encourage you do to "stupid shit." Lots of it. Isn't that what learning is all about?

<comment><USER39> There's nothing wrong with doing stupid shit _once_. But it becomes habit quickly without constant vigilance. See Periodic's response in this thread.

<comment><USER25> I think the difference is between trying stupid shit and doing stupid shit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm fortunate to have <http://www.math.uic.edu/~kauffman/> (louis kauffman) as my math professor. Instead of taking regular classes I just kept on taking independent study with him to get rid of all the stupid things I did in mathematics. I asked him for a research paper within my abilities and I am going to write on in the Fall. I am reading up on the research before hand.

<comment><USER41> Could you elaborate on what kind of stupid things can you do when doing math? What to avoid, etc.?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I recently read Ray Dalio's (founder of Bridgewater) principles - [http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/Principles/Bridgew...](http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/Principles/Bridgewater- Associates-Ray-Dalio-Principles.pdf)

It is very interesting in how he is focusing on "reaching goals" instead of "looking good" or "looking stupid" etc...

I think a must read for everyone

</comment><comment><USER43> I wrote the whole book about stopping doing stupid shit. Check it out <http://whyprojectsfailbook.com> It's about project management but the principles could be applied to startups, business, software, etc. Avoiding most common pitfalls and not doing stupid mistakes will get you really far.

</comment><comment><USER44> The point he seems to make is that one failing is worse than many successes, and, sadly, he's probably right. It reminds me of college football. The team that schedules a third of its games against patsies and goes undefeated will go to the championship game. The team that plays 12 equals, but has one loss, will usually not be in the top 5.

</comment><comment><USER45> I wish this were satire.

<comment><AUTHOR> Me too. Sadly, it's not. It's amazing how pervasive incompetence is and how low that sets the bar.

<comment><USER46> Why is this sad. You should be glad because it makes life easy. Once you reach a critical threshold of skill there are diminishing marginal returns for investing time in deliberate practice. If you want to pursue some esoteric arbitrary skill in pursuit of personal excellence because you find it rewarding then good for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This also seems relevant to a general takeaway from the "Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance": 'embrace quality'. Always strive for the best you can do in the situation you are given - whether it is chess, piano, coding, or mowing the lawn.

</comment><comment><USER48> I read this as don't follow the convention if there be a better way to do things, don't follow the party line if the party line is wrong, and always push for the right thing, because it is better to aim high than to concede to a lesser solution.

I think about how much this applies to middle management sometimes. Are you doing to do stupid shit that others ask you to do even when it is wrong, or are you going to demand the right approach and build a reputation for at least trying to always do the right thing.

E.g. saying yes to a ridiculous deadline that you know your development team can't possibly hit is stupid shit. Say no.

</comment><comment><USER49> I think the hard part about not doing stupid shit is knowing what the stupid shit is. This advice is great for people with intermediate-to-advanced knowledge of the field they want to "stop doing stupid shit".

Though it is mentioned in the article, I think it doesn't get as much attention, the most important part to this little piece of advice for someone learning something new: Learn what you should not be doing as well as what you should. (People usually focus on the later and not the former) ... A great tip for educators too.

</comment><comment><USER50> "We tend to seek easy, single-factor explanations of success. For most important things, though, success actually requires avoiding many separate causes of failure." -- Jared Diamond

</comment><comment><USER51> Do you think finding mentor(s) is the quickest way to identify the stupid things? I recently started going to Chicago Python users group meetups, and just listening to people talk around me and noting down stuff to google later, has inspired me more than anything (& also the mailing list)... finding stupid things "alone" is more like doing your own proof-reading ... its pretty difficult to find your own non-obvious bugs.

</comment><comment><USER52> i think really what he wants to say is to drill the fundamentals. getting the basics right is important.

don't do stupid shit means nothing. why would anyone want to do stupid shit? This kind of the same meaningless wording that everyone thinks applies to them in horoscopes how many times have you read "doesn't suffer fools gladly"?

<comment><USER53> Completely agree - when it comes to software you will avoid doing 'stupid stuff' if you actually UNDERSTAND what you are doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> "Stop doing stupid shit." It would have been a lot easier to just stop playing the chess prodigy.

</comment><comment><USER55> Corollary: "Ninety percent of life is just showing up." -- Woody Allen

It's stupid to be absent, either physically or mentally, from your own life. Whether this be not being "awake" or late during a meeting/class/work/date or not preparing places to show up to.

</comment><comment><USER56> "Looking back on some piano competitions, it seems like the vast majority of the time, winners were chosen simply because they didn't do anything that was stupid enough to be easily criticised."

The recent presidential election comes to mind.

</comment><comment><USER57> "If you don't act what makes you fail it doesn't happen." \- Tathagata <http://www.members.tripod.com/tathagata2000/teaching_6.htm>

</comment><comment><USER58> What the author is trying to say is _Dunning-Kruger effect_ : <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect>

</comment><comment><USER59> What would that mean in terms of programming or say investing? I want to learn both...with 0 knowledge of either but I'm not sure how to go about it, if I were to use this method of learning how would I do it?

<comment><USER60> With respect to investing it means "Stop losing money." One big mistake is to risk too much of your capital on any one position. To avoid that, you might check out the Kelley criterion for optimal bet sizing: [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Kelly_criteri...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Kelly_criterion) .

Another mistake is to put on a position and then watch it drop without limit, insisting that you're "right" all along and the market just hasn't seen it yet. Better to have a stop-loss and bug out of the position the minute the market judges you wrong. You can always put on the trade again later.

I really didn't even have to mention that second point, since it's already implied by the Kelley criterion. If you're trading without a stop loss, then quite simply you're risking the entire amount of that position and you can calculate Kelley accordingly.

"Stop losing money" is rule number one. Remember, if you lose 50% of your capital, you have to double your money just to break even again. Better to lose only a percent here and a percent there, and occasionally hit a 10% gain.

You can also consider trailing stop losses, which also fit under the Kelly criterion if you count unrealized gains as part of your overall capital.

<comment><USER59> Hey thank you so much for the detailed post. Losing money is certainly a stupid mistake, I'm thinking of using The Intelligent Investor as a base.

<comment><USER60> Thanks, I should read that classic myself!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Sure, this sounds like good advice. But I'm relatively new at developing software, and I cant really identify "stupid shit" just yet. So what are some dumb things developers constantly do?

<comment><USER62> > So what are some dumb things developers constantly do?

People will give tons of various anecdotes on this, but they apply to _them_ , not _you_. The stories they tell are just the scorched remains of a unique learning experience that can rarely be communicated verbally.

Keep doing things that seem interesting and hard. _Don't be afraid to do stupid things._ Everyone has to do a stupid thing at least once to learn from it. Identifying and eliminating _your own_ stupidity afterwards is what will make you good.

Whether you identify the stupidity yourself, or has it pointed out by some helpful master is up to you. Both work.

TL;DR: <http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/samp-IBM-think-sign.jpg>

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I've often thought the key to winning a (conventional) war is simply to make less strategic blunders than your opponent.

</comment><comment><USER64> the way I like to think of this is stop failing in obvious ways. Failing in novel ways is fine as you learn things, all you learn from failing in an obvious way is something you could have learned by some other poor sap's example.

</comment><comment><USER65> To me this all sounds like rhetoric.

</comment><comment><USER66> How to stop doing stupid shit: minimize your unknown unknowns. How to minimize your unknown unknowns: learn the correct way to do things. Without guidance and mentorship, which is largely non-existent in software, you're stuck flailing around until you attain enlightenment (either by discovery or invention) on each thing you do. When you start the next task, you start the process all over again. Over time, you gain wisdom, at the cost of neurotic self-doubt.

<comment><USER67> Brilliant

There's a reason StackOverflow is so popular - it makes it easier to find the 'well trodden paths' ("correct way") along with someone pointing out caveats.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> By taking the leap forward to being fully transparent with your skill execution, by being courageous and taking the risk to let yourself be vulnerable, you can see massive improvements

I recommend video taping yourself during skill execution and then asking an expert to review it for you. You will be amazed at how many mistakes you are making and also how easy and straightforward they are to correct once you are aware of them.

This is helpful for everything from sports to dating to programming.

And because I'm always scheming, many savvy internet marketers are allowing people to upload videos of themselves practicing niche skill X and then hiring a coach to review them. Some cool HTML5/Flex software on a CRUD database could be a big hit here.</comment>


Beatquest.fm - a node.js music quiz browsergame - <AUTHOR> http://beatquest.fm

<comment><AUTHOR> Background information: I released this about half a year ago as a small experiment, now I'm trying to create a full-featured browser / facebook game out of that.

Techniques used: Node.js, Express.js, Socket.IO, Jade, Redis

</comment><comment><USER2> Very well polished, fast sing up process. Would be really interesting to see more genres (rock especially).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! More genres are coming soon - we decided to start with 3 genres only to avoid that we have empty rooms...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> awesome!!! nice game for music junkies

</comment><comment><USER4> absolutely nice game! nice avatar graphics by the way :P</comment>


Show HN: Minimal Twitter – drastically simplify and declutter the new Twitter UI - <AUTHOR> https://typefully.com/minimal-twitter <comment><USER2> If you're taking suggestions, I think a three-column format would be cool. Basically, the first column is the thin icons you have now. The second column is the tweet column. The third column (equal in size to the second column) would appear when you click on a tweet; instead of loading the responses to that tweet as a modal view as it does now, the responses would appear in the right column.

Basically, this would make Twitter a lot more like several email clients or an RSS reader. Quick and dirty mockup: [https://i.imgur.com/Uh9Rbcz.png](https://i.imgur.com/Uh9Rbcz.png)

Also, would be nice to force Twitter into "latest tweets" mode, and also to provide a userscript for those of us who prefer to avoid untrusted addons.

<comment><USER3> Interesting, sounds challenging! Would you mind adding this to the issues? Maybe someone will be able help me tackle it then [https://github.com/thomaswangio/minimal- twitter/issues](https://github.com/thomaswangio/minimal-twitter/issues)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Neat idea for showing off your design chops. I don't use Twitter so I don't have much feedback, other than your ad blocking code being brittle [1].

[1] [https://github.com/thomaswangio/minimal- twitter/blob/e076507...](https://github.com/thomaswangio/minimal- twitter/blob/e076507e400013e15462acce5b38a224ba3251cd/chrome/removePromoted.js#L34)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for pointing that out, I think I might remove it. Will cause more trouble down the road. Do you have any ideas to make it more safe?

<comment><USER4> Unfortunately, I can't think of any. Twitter could arbitrarily change where those elements are placed in the DOM at any time (and they probably will to prevent other extensions from blocking promoted tweets). I would just consider this out of the scope of your project and not bother handling it.

<comment><USER3> Totally agreed, definitely out of scope. Just removed the script from the manifests. Thanks again!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just installed the Safari extension. It makes the new Twitter bearable. Excellent work!

<comment><USER6> Apple should really rethink their extension strategy. Other platforms require a click of a button. Safari requires either going through the App Store, or doing Dev Mode shenanigans.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, we can all understand legitimate security/quality concerns, but their current policy prevents some great extensions from reaching a wider audience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If I could make a feature request, one more removal: the giant fixed blue button in lower right. Still can't believe twitter designers thought covering content with a control is a good idea on mobile.

Thank you for a wonderful plugin.

<comment><USER3> Ah yes I meant to make that an option in the Chrome extension. It'll be in the next update!

<comment><USER3> Done! [https://github.com/thomaswangio/minimal- twitter/releases/tag...](https://github.com/thomaswangio/minimal- twitter/releases/tag/2.3)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> At the other extreme, I want an interface that graphically depicts full graph tree of tweets (replies and commented RTs). On a tablet, show the entire tree on one screen.

</comment><comment><USER9> Came in expecting Emacs. Noticed a sidebar, icons, bold, separators, user profile photos. Not quite minimalist yet! At the end of the day, Twitter can look like IRC.

<comment><USER10> Bitlbee can do that! [https://wiki.bitlbee.org/HowtoTwitter](https://wiki.bitlbee.org/HowtoTwitter)

<comment><USER11> Does it still work after the recent API changes that killed Tweetbot and other apps? I had this set up a few years ago and miss it but assumed it was done for alongside the others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't have "new Twitter" so I can't test this yet, but Safari users can probably use the (for-sale-on-App-Store) Cascadea extension and plug in the stylesheet from [https://github.com/thomaswangio/minimal- twitter/blob/master/...](https://github.com/thomaswangio/minimal- twitter/blob/master/chrome/minimal-twitter.css)

</comment><comment><USER13> Random tip: If you have the tamper monkey browser extension [1], you can simply add `document.querySelector('[data-testid="sidebarColumn"]').remove()` to remove the second sidebar on page load to make it feel minimal without much effort.

[1] [https://www.tampermonkey.net/](https://www.tampermonkey.net/)

<comment><USER2> Or you can just do this in Stylus:

        div[data-testid="sidebarColumn"] {
            display: none;
        }

Also, since Tampermonkey is closed source, it's probably better to use Greasemonkey or Violentmonkey.

<comment><USER14> Have you been able to get this to work? I can't get Stylus to override any styles on the new Twitter site.

<comment><USER2> Yep, it's working for me now. Latest Firefox on MacOS. Maybe check if the "test" CSS class appears in the source for you. If not there's probably an obfuscated class you can target instead.

<comment><USER14> Interesting - this works just fine in Firefox, but the same styles in the Stylus extension for Chrome aren't working. I can see them in the DOM, they just aren't having any effect on the page. I've tried targeting both the testid and the classes and neither seem to work on Chrome.

<comment><USER2> As I recall Twitter has some fairly strict CSP rules, and extensions have had problems with them in the past. Maybe the Stylus extension can bypass rules in Firefox that it's not able to in Chrome?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The left-nav hover is a good balance UX that's no harm to be official. Thanks for making this. Installed!

</comment><comment><USER16> I honestly like the new Twitter UI. It's more usable for me than the previous design.

</comment><comment><USER17> when will someone release a hack that inverts feed order?

I don't know about the rest of you, but I browse the web in English, which is read left to right and top to bottom.

</comment><comment><USER18> Can this be made available for brave browser too?

<comment><USER19> Brave is Chromium, you should be able to install the Chrome extension.

<comment><USER3> Yes! You can install Chrome extensions on Brave [https://support.brave.com/hc/en- us/articles/360017909112-How...](https://support.brave.com/hc/en- us/articles/360017909112-How-can-I-add-extensions-to-Brave)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Url changed from [https://twang.dev/minimal- twitter/](https://twang.dev/minimal-twitter/).

Edit: and thence to [https://www.wang.sh/minimal- twitter/](https://www.wang.sh/minimal-twitter/) (by author's request)

</comment><comment><USER21> hey good work! just to let you know hidden navigation labels working only in english language.

<comment><USER3> Oh really? Thanks for the catch. Can you throw me an issue on GitHub, I'll see if I can tackle it or someone else can pick it up [https://github.com/thomaswangio/minimal- twitter/issues/new](https://github.com/thomaswangio/minimal- twitter/issues/new)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Where are the trends?

<comment><USER3> They're in twitter.com/explore :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> It looks very similar to Medium.</comment>


Before he was a conservationist, John Muir was an ingenious mechanical inventor - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Was this supposed to have an associated link?</comment>


Francis Spufford's Genre-Bending 'Red Plenty' (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/books/review/francis-spuffords-genre-bending-red-plenty.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> "Seminar" (i.e., lots of quite learned but accessible blog posts by smart people, including replies by Francis Spufford himself) on the book at Crooked Timber (collaborative academic-ish blog): [http://crookedtimber.org/category/red-plenty- seminar/](http://crookedtimber.org/category/red-plenty-seminar/). I particularly liked Cosma Shalizi's post at the start of the second page.

</comment><comment><USER3> Scott Alexander's book review: [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/24/book- review-red-plenty/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/24/book-review-red- plenty/)

Definitely spurred my curiosity.

</comment><comment><USER4> I remember waiting for _two years_ for this book to come to the US in paperback.

Worth every minute of the wait. The road to hell really is paved with good intentions.

</comment><comment><USER5> Weirdly the first image in this piece isn't Russian, it's Czech. It says "long live the world's first female cosmonaut"

</comment><comment><USER6> (Note: 2012)</comment>


Why are Apple's products so confusing? They ignore design principles - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-apples-products-so-confusing-ignore-design-don-norman?redirectFromSplash=true

<comment> norea-armozel I have to agree with the author at least in terms of Android L's material design. Sometimes it's clear what's going on or what you need to do to get a specific action done and sometimes it's damnably confusing in another context. I think minimalism is okay if it's meant to remove redundant UI elements but being minimalist for its own sake isn't a good idea for devices because they're about utility. Aesthetics is okay when you're figuring out how to make the whole thing look good as it feels, but if you make it damn near impossible to make sense of how to use a device then it's just putting lipstick on a pig.</comment>


Ask HN: Tech-related Twitter handles? - <AUTHOR> I've noticed that a lot of tech people on Twitter mainly post about politics/inequity in the tech field and I was wondering if there any tech figures that actually tweet about tech + programming. <comment><USER2> "politics/inequity in the tech field" _are_ about tech.

<comment><AUTHOR> ...sure, but I would rather have a Twitter feed with daily programming tips and anecdotes from industry experts, rather than snarky replies to people with differing political opinions. Thanks for the comment though.</comment></comment>


Ultimate creative business cards collection - <AUTHOR> http://stocklogos.com/topic/ultimate-creative-business-cards-collection

<comment><USER2> There went 20 minutes...</comment>


Ask HN: When was J2ME Apps Golden Rush? Success Stories? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> There wasn't one, certainly nothing like the apple App Store success stories you may read about. J2me was in the era when carriers controlled what was allowed on their phones, with an iron fist. Most apps and games came from telecoms, with some popular games ported between phones.

Add to that, the phone ecosystem was much more diverse, and the j2me APIs on the phones were buggy and incomplete mostly. It was not a good time be building mobile apps.

</comment><comment><USER3> It was more in the field of microprocessing and like TV setbox what J2ME was successful and to some areas still are

</comment><comment><USER4> I had a J2ME (now JavaME) module in school, but I guess it was after the rush, because we only found one single Nokia phone that could run our application.</comment>


A turing machine in 133 bytes of javascript - <AUTHOR> http://swizec.com/blog/a-turing-machine-in-133-bytes-of-javascript/swizec/3069 <comment><USER2> $ uglifyjs function tm(I,t,e,s,i,c,k) {i=0;while(s!=e){c=t[i];k=(c)?I[s][c]:I[s].B;if(!k)return false;t.splice(i,1,k.w);i+=k.m;s=k.n;}return t;} function tm(a,b,c,d,e,f,g){e=0;while(d!=c){f=b[e],g=f?a[d][f]:a[d].B;if(!g)return!1;b.splice(e,1,g.w),e+=g.m,d=g.n}return b}

<comment><AUTHOR> So it's two characters shorter?

I left the two ;} because my syntax highlighter was yelling at me that I'm doing something ugly and I was inside the 140B limit anyway.

<comment><USER3> No, not just two.

It stripped the space before the first { and between the "return" and "false".

False is represented as !1.

"(c)?foo:bar" is replaced by "c?foo:bar". Plus - semicolons are removed as you noticed.

But - really.. It's ugly enough as it is :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the shortest solution somebody has come up with, 79 characters.

function(a,b,c,d,e){for(e=0;d<c;)with(a[d][b[e]||"B"])b[e]=w,e+=m,d=n;return b}

Source: <https://gist.github.com/1400509>

</comment><comment><USER4> Got it down to 118 bytes ;)

        function tm(I,t,e,s,i,c,k){for(i=0;s!=e;i+=k.m,s=k.n){k=I[s][(c=t[i])||"B"];if(!k)return k;t.splice(i,1,k.w)}return t}

You could actually save one more byte by changing the name of the function, but that would be cheating, right ? ;-)

Edit, Refined it to get to 110:

        function tm(I,t,e,s,i,c,k){for(i=0;s!=e;t[i]=k.w,i+=k.m,s=k.n){k=I[s][(c=t[i])||"B"];if(!k)return k;}return t}

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks great! If trimming javascript down to its pants is keeping you up at night, come and join us other golfers at <http://140byt.es>

</comment><comment> bulte-rs The only thing more awesome than this would be a JS environment written for the turing machine which is able to run itself.

</comment><comment><USER6> The last time I was working on one of these, I discovered the phrase <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_tarpit>

Not that these are all a waste of time or anything, you just need to remember not to take them too far.

<comment><AUTHOR> A turing tarpit is a whole different beast. Brainfuck and whitespace are examples of a turing tarpit.

This is just codegolfing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Should have called it l33t machine</comment>


Family Guy: Was killing off Brian Griffin an act of sabotage? - <AUTHOR> http://metro.co.uk/2013/11/25/family-guy-was-killing-off-brian-griffin-an-act-of-sabotage-4200475/

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is the video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n2DdMxf6oA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-n2DdMxf6oA)

:(((</comment>


"Field patterns" as a new mathematical object - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/02/170215084122.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily%2Ftop_news%2Ftop_science+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Top+Science+News%29 <comment><AUTHOR> Neuronal networks come to mind also.</comment>


Reversing the Decline in Big Ideas - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/07/reversing_the_decline_in_big_i.html <comment><USER2> Although the HBR article bemoans the lack of "big ideas" I think it makes the fatal mistake of focusing on Valley-centric ideas. Certainly there are still some big, Google-level ideas out there to be had, but there are other industries out there in which big idea can, should, and must form for us to advance as a civilization.

Map the human genome or build the next Farmville?

Find a way to grow food 300% more efficiently to meet the growing demands of the world population or make an iPhone app?

Why must everything be internet-based and somehow have to best Google?

Additionally, I think the author is having trouble filtering out the so called "noise" from the signal. I, for one, think it's terrific that a whole new class of small or "mom and pop" businesses can now exist on the Internet. Does that give us huge advancements as a species? Usually not, but hopefully it's paying their rent, which is great for them.

Yes, we need big ideas to move forward, but don't begrudge the next generation of Internet-based small businesses. The people starting these business are probably NOT the same people who would come up with the earth-changing idea that the author so desperately wants. And if you are one of those select few, then please, stay hungry and stay foolish.

<comment><USER3> The human genome mapping problem actually has no shortage of companies working on it. It's a big sector which has moved very fast, and its press is probably why it comes to mind.

As for feeding the world, this is something which valley internet-model startups just don't have much power over. It isn't even just a problem of production. You would need all kinds of control of poor post-colonial countries in order to do anything very significant about it. Even if you succeeded wildly, without development there will be a lot more people, they will all need other things like medical care which are now even more scarce, and in the end you will need even more food.

Once upon a time there WERE startups in charge of such things - for example, the Dutch East India Company... the development of civilization was one of the fundamental justifications for colonialism.

If you can make money on some kind of incubator for farmers near places with hunger problems and somehow make sure that the food gets to the poor who have no money to pay for it, then there are many government and NGO aid agencies which would like to talk to you. But it's not exactly a traditional startup thing so it is probably not going to appear on the HN radar.

<comment><USER4> Also, ideas like "feeding the world" don't fire the "make lots of money before the fund term ends" neurons for VCs. =/ Execution is long and painful on a real world problem like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there really a decline in big ideas, or only an increase in small ones? The argument doesn't really seem to be based on any actual data.

To be honest, I really don't get this issue that journalists and other non- business people have with consumer web startups. It's as if they think that the business gods issued us all with a magic 'business voucher', and we chose to redeem it with a consumer web startup as opposed to say, nuclear fission or curing world hunger. The _economy_ gave us this 'business voucher', and consumer web startups are the only thing the voucher is good for.

</comment><comment><USER6> This was hilarious, yet with a grain of truth: "Now, if you throw two engineers and a designer together and tell them to come up with a new startup idea, you've got better than 50% odds they will come up with another mobile local social photo sharing app."

Reminded me of PG's comment about why people overlooked the Stripe opportunity: "For over a decade, every hacker who'd ever had to process payments online knew how painful the experience was. Thousands of people must have known about this problem. And yet when they started startups, they decided to build recipe sites, or aggregators for local events."

<http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html>

</comment><comment><USER7> I've seen, in the past few years, a lot of startups websites that are just basically simple apps that does a simple task. That's fine and all. Even encouraged. Google started out as a "simple" search app.

Like the article said, this is where the focus seems to be; in the tail. What separated Google from a lot of other startups were that it expanded on its idea of what search can be. Google eventually expanded to different markets.They weren't looking to make a big buck. They were looking to change the world.

The big problem is, a lot of people would rather make the big buck and just live life. Its easier that way. You make your tech and then don't have to worry about longevity.

It is interesting, in the article the author mentions that we need to join forces with experts in other industries. That could work, but the expert has to know what he is talking about. The developer also has to know a little about what the expert is talking about. These visions have come together in a way that they can feed off of each other.

Look at Apple. Jobs and Woz both had backgrounds building things. Woz was the expert, while Jobs was the visionary. They created a great company with innovative products, because they fed off of each other(well at least the initial projects). We all know what happened when Jobs was fired from Apple. The CEO was a "guy who sold sugar water". He had no idea, really, what technology was or could do. Instead, the products were lackluster, uninspiring, generic.

As for me, this article seems inspiring to me. I'm not "genius" but I can code very well. I'm also chasing after an industry that I know pretty well and want to disrupt for the better (art and art education). I want to change the world. So, I believe I'm on the right path. If only I can code the damn thing faster. But that's another subject entirely.

<comment><USER8> Exactly, my thoughts. I can show you from my friends list how many young college kids setup an Android app or Wordpress blog with high hopes of becoming TechCrunch or Mashable someday and update their current working positions to 'CEO at <insert blog /app name here>'. CEO because they run a Wordpress blog/ Android app? Wow, that is now ridiculous!

This mentality has to change. Entrepreneurship is surely more than just about creating stuff like this, in my opinion.

<comment><USER3> There are so many people building some little thing. Similarly, for millennia businesspeople have just done something like running an inn. (CEO, Ye Olde Fysh Shoppe.) But somehow now even the little things are culturally also supposed to pretend to be big and to try to get big as possible.

I wish it were more supported and respected for people to build and sustain themselves on such businesses without trying to become world-dominating, VC- backed or publicly-traded, always-growing behemoths.

I guess not that many people can resist a lottery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The comparison of thinking small to mom and pop shops is dead on accurate. And there are probably more small-visioned entrepreneurs relative to big-visioned entrepreneurs than there have been in the past.

However, there are are a lot of people with enormous visions right now that are simply in such early stages that they appear to be small. You have to start somewhere.

There are also two reasons that many big industries are not appearing to be disrupted right now. The first reason is that many of the huge industries are backed by so much money, poltics, and legality and so ingrained into society that they are virtually impossible to disrupt. That said, there is still a slow but steady disruption attempting to take place in education... Open Courseware, Khan Academy, etc.

The second reason is that much of the "low hanging fruit" of the economy has already been picked. This one is controversial. 50 years ago, we were doing really hard things, but things that did not necessarily require as deep of an understanding of an industry or science as we do today.

There are people trying to pick the "higher up" fruit today, but their pickings are not as obvious or exiting as they may have been 50 years ago. We are not seeing startups for flying cars or capital-intensive projects, however, small, simple software startups can sometimes solve incredible inefficiencies in the economy. Example: craigslist has revolutionized the rental market simply by making information easy to transmit and access.

</comment><comment><USER10> Best thing I've ever read on HN. Bravo.

The problem I see with startups is that they have become the "cool kid table" and only hire "their kind". I can't believe that I'm seeing job listings with the phrase "top tier / ivy school only please". If startups keep pulling from the same diluted pool of talent they aren't going to get new ideas or any type of domain expertise.

Ths isn't about rewarding your 5 best friends from MIT anymore. Building a business and changing the world is about hiring the best people with the broadest backgrounds who want to accomplish a common goal. Your education should be a bonus not a prerequisite.

Find people who want to change the world and you just might do it.

<comment><USER11> But they have free candy and the latest video games

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> People tend to think in very small boxes nowadays. Partly because they are more interested in getting rich quick than in changing the world, partly because they have their nose too close to tiny details to see the big pictures.

Want to make a mark?

Focus on energy production and storage!

Want to make a mark?

Think about generation ships!

Want to make a mark?

Design a way to reform government!

Mankind does not need another social Web site.

<comment><USER13> There is a word for people who only focus on big ideas: crackpots.

The truth that every entrepreneur has to face is that it takes big resources to pursue big ideas, and very few people have big resources at their disposal. Even Elon Musk had to blow up PayPal before he could pursue truly big ideas.

The vast majority of giant corporations come from executing well on a series of progressively larger operational goals. The trick is figuring out how much you can actually bite off successfully at each stage, and then doing it several times in a row and scaling accordingly. The big ideas can come when you have the money and the influence to execute on them.

<comment><USER12> Edison, Ford and the Wright brothers were crackpots, I guess.

There is a difference between something that may lead from here to there and something that is definitely never going to lead anywhere.

An example of the former: You write some software that re-orients an array of solar panels to make the most of weather conditions in real time. It's not going to crack the "energy production and storage" enigma, but it's a step in the right direction. Next, you may want to study how panel geometry influences energy collection.

An example of the latter: You set up a Web site that allows teenagers to compare their gadgets.

<comment><USER13> It's a question of resources and expertise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> partial list of actually meaningful opportunities:

\- camera drones to provide a "real-time Google Earth"

\- camera satellites for same purpose (see DARPA SEE-ME challenge)

\- cheap laser scanners for self-driving cars and robots

\- synthetic meat

\- genetically engineered supercrops for the developing world that provide protein, fiber, and every vitamin

\- AR / VR glasses (shameless plug: <http://vergencelabs.com>)

\- subvocalization microphone

\- myostatin inhibitor gene therapy as an OTC cosmetic procedure -- would solve obesity

\- cheaper rockets

\- VR telepresence to eliminate the massive petroleum waste of the workday commute

\- self-driving car (great open hardware + source project)

\- "brain backup" using high-res MRI + in-depth biographical interview + DNA sample

\- seasteading

\- "bio lab on a chip" using microfluidics, flourescence-assisted cell sorting, nanopore sequencing, and phage-assisted directed evolution

If you read this list and say you lack the necessary skills -- bullshit. In the age of Wikipedia and Google Scholar you can learn anything you try to. The only limit is your courage.

<comment><USER14> Downvoter -- I don't normally let stuff like this get to me, but you better explain yourself.

It took me 4 years of manic polymathic learning (at the expense of my actual schoolwork) to come up with this list. I've worked in a genetic engineering lab (Drew Endy), AI, robotics, and now AR, so I speak firsthand that these ideas are all possible now.

Not only possible, but REALLY IMPORTANT.

<comment><USER15> > It took me 4 years of manic polymathic learning (at the expense of my actual > schoolwork) to come up with this list.

I'm impressed that you independently came up with those ideas, but it seems like an average news day on HN. Those problems are regularly being discussed.

I think that highlights that, even in our inter-connected social media world, our biggest problem is still one of communication. You are quite right that anyone can easily gain the skills necessary to work on those projects. Maybe you can even find the capital necessary.

However, you are going to really struggle to catch up with what people already know. If you want to build a driverless car, for example, you are going to spend years reimplementing what Google has already figured out because there is no good way for the average person to build atop their existing technology. By the time you finally get to new problems, someone will have already figured them out too.

The first startup who figures out how to solve that communication gap will provide the most transformative technology to date.

<comment><USER14> Haha "come up with the list" meaning agregating the list; I'm not taking credit for first thinking of them all! The problem domains where I've thought of / sometimes written about original solutions are just these ones:

\- camera drones to provide a "real-time Google Earth"

\- genetically engineered supercrops for the developing world that provide protein, fiber, and every vitamin

\- AR / VR glasses (shameless plug: <http://vergencelabs.com>)

\- myostatin inhibitor gene therapy as an OTC cosmetic procedure -- would solve obesity

\- VR telepresence to eliminate the massive petroleum waste of the workday commute

\- "brain backup" using high-res MRI + in-depth biographical interview + DNA sample

\- "bio lab on a chip" using microfluidics, flourescence-assisted cell sorting, nanopore sequencing, and phage-assisted directed evolution

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> tl;dr -- _We started with the dynamic duo of the businessman and the engineer. Recently we added the designer. Now if want to continue to create products that scale into billion dollar companies, create thousands of jobs and transform society, we need to add domain experts to the founding DNA of Technology Companies._

A bunch of us were talking about this over the table at the Chez JJ Hacker Hostel. Apparently, there are a lot of _horrible_ medical apps. This is because domain experts can't communicate well with doctors. So some doctor with minimal programming experience writes some software. By chance, it takes off and gets huge, growing into spaghetti code in the process, adding to the reasons why the best hackers dont' work on medical software.

You can apply this to any number of disciplines.

 _> These founders don't want to change to world. They just want to make enough money to provide for their family, buy a car, or earn their freedom. These people are the information economy's mom and pop business owners, just more technologically leveraged and profitable than their brick & mortar predecessors._

Does that mean that such people will be as vulnerable to economic and social change as mom & pop businesses of the past?

 _> I believe the decrease in big ideas for software companies is the result of homogeneous founding teams in the Valley._

It does seem to me that people are looking for a few specific scenester types, and rather quickly throw you into the "not applicable here" bin based on rather shallow signaling.

</comment><comment><USER17> Pardon my 6am-still-haven't-slept-rant but this feels like a cycle:

\- Invest in bullshit.

\- Find diamond rings in one or two piles of bullshit after a heavy rain.

\- Expect all bullshit to have diamond rings in it.

\- Get angry when you find out 92% of bullshit has no return.

\- Demand bullshit of a better quality from cattle farms.

I get why internet based businesses are so attractive, they can scale up very well. But easy come, easy go.

Also, the internet's great and all and VCs are what make Silicon Valley happen and thrive, but there's an entire world outside of it. Real needs, real solutions, real products, real customers. As an indie inventor of real products I'm pissed off. Many of these "Lets help American Small Businesses" seed funds, incubators, grants, and tech-hubs ONLY invest in web based startups. I'm disqualified from many of them. No offense, but I want customers, not users.

Look at the diverse companies coming out of St. Louis Arch Grants which has no limit to what kind of startups can apply ([http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/arch-grants- announces-15...](http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/arch-grants- announces-15-recipients-50k-startup-grants)) and the startups coming out of "web based startups only" Capital Innovators (<http://capitalinnovators.com/companies/>). Please look all the way through both lists, I'm not exaggerating. It's sad.

After seeing how Silicon Valley companies are run. I don't want to work my ass off for half a decade using someone else's money, be their bitch, watch my equity get pocketed by someone else, sell out or IPO, lose all my top talent after they bank their shares, and finally quit or burn out. I want to be happy, I want to work at my own pace, I don't want to be someone's financial slave, and I want to actually own my company. I'd rather create a company like Valve, not Facebook.

So I'm left out of the funds and stuck with KickStarter. And Kickstarters mostly like Apple/hipster/artsy projects, not products that could be sold in normal stores.

 _===== What TechCrunch, VC Blogs, Reddit, & HN taught me about Venture Capital =====_

1) A VC's idea of "Big Ideas" like Facebook, Twitter, & Zynga is a normal person's idea of a "Ponzi Scheme". _(really think about this one.)_

2) Ignore real companies that sell real products because they're "boring" and not "hot shit" while investing in companies like Color.

3) Start incubators, tech hubs, and funds that focus on internet related startups and ONLY give funding to internet related startups. Then complain when the only companies that come out are more: mobile ad platforms, social media analytics, team based project managers, reward program sites, online store builders, or subscription services. Especially team based project managers, everyone and their grandmother has one.

Plus, how many internet-related life-changing companies do they want? We can't built one every month just so investors can cash in. The bigger the idea the less likely an entrepreneur is to start it due to it's massive upfront costs in R&D. Investors want us to work our asses off for 2-3 years by ourselves, build something that works, so they can fuel our gravy train with their money, scale like a lunatic for 10 years, and have them get their bonuses and us get our diluted equity.

No thank you. I want to be like Gabe Newell, NOT Mark Zuckerberg.

I have no problem with anyone following the silicon valley startup dream, supporting that ecosystem, or working their ass off on another social media analytics company or reward program. Follow your passion. But that's not my place. And a lot of entrepreneurs are finding out it's not what they want either.

 _(By the way I'm selling off 20 domain names starting tonight:[http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2012/06/domain-clearance- auctio...](http://www.chrisnorstrom.com/2012/06/domain-clearance-auction- on-20-of-my-domains-july-5th-2012/) I need more R&D money for my 6 foot x 5 foot fabric poster product) HN members get first dibs before I throw them up on eBay_

<comment><USER18> Instead of selling RentATrashCan.com you should just let that one expire. I found many of the domains I owned were not even worth the annual registration fee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Seems like a slight false dichotomy. Founders can work on on frivolous businesses initially, but later on, once they've acquired the acumen and resilience to be a proper CEO, they may turn their hands to grander projects. Incubators like YCombinator are training legions of entrepreneurs to be _better_ entrepreneurs (as a side effect of finding successful exits occasionally).

Two other thoughts: shouldn't we be looking at big, wealthy companies to do the major, game-changing R&D anyway?

And secondly, maybe the world has changed in such a way as to allow big breakthroughs to be dominated by mega corporations.

</comment><comment><USER20> _There are so many industries ripe for technology startups to disrupt: Education, Health Care, Business, Art and Government just to name a few. But where are the domain experts ready to be paired with a team of rockstar engineers and superstar designers? Most of them appear to be wandering around attempting to spread their ideas through books, speaking engagements, university lectures and consulting gigs, unaware of the possibility now available to them to integrate their ideas into software applications._

I'm more of a domain expert. Someone should build a startup that makes it easier for us to meet engineers.

<comment><USER3> > a startup that makes it easier for us to meet engineers.

What, like a recruiting firm?

<comment><USER20> No. A place to sit down and discuss what's possible.

<comment><USER3> Like a coffee shop?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Good point about the importance of domain experts who can be complementary to lots of test users for a MVP.

</comment><comment><USER22> The article started with:

"Many venture capitalists are up in the arms because their returns are down, their funds are drying up, and there appear to be a declining number of entrepreneurs pursuing big ideas."

I will try to give explain how to reverse "the decline in big ideas":

First, I should state some context:

(A) The goal of a VC investment is to make money within a few years for the VCs and their limited partners which are usually pension funds, university endowments, and a few others. Here I stay with this goal and set aside other goals such as 'improve society', 'save the planet, environment, rain forest, farmland top soil, coral reefs, whales, genetic diversity of flora and fauna, and poor people'. I am willing to leave these goals to Bill and Melinda Gates.

(B) As VC Mark Suster has reported on his blog, in the past 10 years VC returns have been poor, that is, commonly negative and on average low compared with other 'asset classes' or with history in finance. Maybe as few as 20 VC firms in the US now have a good 10 year track record for their limited partners. Returns have been so bad that

"Many venture capitalists are up in the arms"

is easy to believe.

(C) US venture capital concentrates in just two broad areas (a) 'information technology' and (b) biomedical technology. Here I concentrate on (a), 'information technology'.

With the VCs concentrating on 'information technology', I agree that they should do that. That is, broadly, computer hardware, infrastructure software, the Internet, and, now, mobile devices are enormously powerful and not yet nearly fully exploited, and, net, the big opportunity to make money.

With this context stated, I move on with two points.

First, What the VCs Are Doing

I believe that what VCs are currently doing is close to just silly and fully explains their poor financial performance. So, here is what they are doing:

Yes, a current joke is that VCs (and their entrepreneurs) are concentrating on mobile, local, social, friending, liking, linking, sharing of text, still images, and video clips.

More generally, and not just a joke, it has become clear that VCs expect that there is a 'business idea', to parody, 'Facebook but only for single cat lovers' or a 'matchmaking site for employers and job hunters'. Such a 'business idea' is to be expressed in just a few words, and everything important about the idea is supposed to be just obvious.

It is such ideas that have led to the contemptuous remark "Ideas are easy and plentiful. Execution is everything.". Well, with only such simplistic ideas, of course, execution is all that's left and has to be "everything". Bummer. I will argue that with a 'good idea', at least with good planning before execution, execution should be routine. The need for routine execution and the ability to do it are common on Main Street all across the US.

Then for the 'barrier to entry', in the words of Fred Wilson, that is supposed to be from a "network of engaged users".

All the rest of the work is supposed to be routine user interface design, software, publicity, and, in the case of major success, server farm engineering.

Then VCs evaluate such a project based essentially on just 'traction' that they want to be significant and growing rapidly. I.e., they want another Facebook.

But here what the VCs are doing is just silly: The VCs are asking far too much from the 'business idea' and its short description and from just 'traction' and are ignoring any more solid evidence of a good project and good investment. Moreover, in the sense of the HBS article of this thread, what the VCs are doing gives no real promise of identifying with any significant accuracy the coveted "big ideas."

In blunt terms, the VCs are lacking any more solid means of project evaluation.

Maybe with such processes some entrepreneur can find another Facebook, but I believe that the good opportunities are elsewhere.

Second, Much Better

Here is my suggestion for something much better that I believe is so far neglected by VCs (and their entrepreneurs). I suggest the following broad steps:

(1) Market. Pick something big. Identify a market where can get a lot of money from each of a few customers or a little money from each of hundreds of millions of customers. Something of high interest to, say, 80% of all the Internet users in the world should do nicely!

(2) Problem. In this market, find a problem where a much better, or the first good, solution clearly promises to achieve the goals of money in (1) -- a lot from each of a few or a little from each of a lot. Here "clearly" has to be quite solid and not just some intuitive guess and not just early traction.

So, e.g., what's wrong with another mobile, social, liking, linking, friending, sharing Web site is that it is just not clear that such a site will get tens of millions of users. It just isn't clear. Instead, it's a long shot, a shot in the dark.

Note: If in the market selected in (1) can't find a suitable problem, then return to (1) and pick another market. However, if the market is a significant fraction of all the Internet users in the world, then there MUST be a suitable problem somewhere in there, so keep looking!

(3) Research. Do some research to enable, in the sense of 'secret sauce', the desired solution as in (2).

There are some business advantages here: First, the research can enable a much better solution, that is, one the customers like much more. Second, the research can create a technological barrier to entry.

Note: If can't find suitable 'secret sauce', then return to (2) and pick another problem.

(4) Software. Implement the solution in software on a Web server, and deliver the solution via Web pages over the Internet.

Note: If the solution needs more than just such software and a Web server, then return to (3) and find another solution.

(5) Execution. Go live, get publicity, users, and revenue.

Note: Here the crucial work, and the work to be carefully planned, executed, and evaluated, is supposed to be in steps (1)-(4), and step (5), execution, is supposed to be routine. This situation is in wild contrast with the usual VC view that "Execution is everything".

Well yes: When the start is just a simple 'business idea' with nothing more to recommend it, then, yes, "execution" is all that's left and "everything". But such execution for "big ideas" is just vast goals with half-vast planning, a long walk on a short pier, ready, fire, aim, and sloppy work that explains the poor financial returns.

Where the VCs get off track is failing to take seriously (1)-(4).

Here's where the entrepreneurs get off the track: They don't know how to execute step (3) Research.

What can we say about such research? Well, after the research, the rest is just routine software and routine use of computing, software infrastructure, the Internet, and server farm engineering. So, basically the software just takes in some data, manipulates it, and puts out results, and the research is for the manipulations.

Well, the manipulations are necessarily mathematically something, powerful or not, understood or not. There are various ways to do the research:

(A) We can hope that the data manipulations to be done could in principle be done manually; so, the software is to implement manual operations that are well understood.

(B) We could use intuitive or heuristic methods.

(C) We could use some well known, somewhat general techniques in artificial intelligence, semantic analysis, natural language processing, data mining, machine learning, etc.

(D) Or we could proceed mathematically. Here we start with some assumptions that appear to hold well in the real problem. The assumptions become hypotheses in theorems. The conclusions of the theorems direct the data manipulations. The software performs the manipulations. The 'research' is for these connections and hopefully for some new theorems (that, of course, need solid proofs).

Via (A)-(C), it's tough to know that have powerful manipulations and to know that they are powerful early in the planning.

Where entrepreneurs get off the track is following (A)-(C) and neglecting (D).

Another place the VCs get off track is ignoring (D).

I'll make one more point: Since VCs are lacking good means of evaluating projects, they have been using poor techniques and information instead. Net, the VCs have been in a small 'echo chamber' quite distant from powerful techniques and valuable information.

E.g., apparently the VCs get their understanding of what good projects should look like mostly just from recent successful companies and what they find in their e-mail in-box. So, they are trying to learn how to select "big ideas" heavily from copying old examples and looking at small ideas. By analogy, they are trying to learn how to evaluate new directions in medicine by reading labels on bottles of snake oil. Hopeless.

In strong contrast, major parts of our economy have long been quite good at good plans for being new, better, and/or first and, given good plans, executing with low risk.

My suggestion to reverse "the decline in big ideas": Entrepreneurs, develop solid plans for projects that have much higher potential. VCs, learn how to evaluate such plans accurately.

</comment><comment><USER22> The article started with:

"Many venture capitalists are up in the arms because their returns are down, their funds are drying up, and there appear to be a declining number of entrepreneurs pursuing big ideas."

It's easy to believe all of this except the last part:

"Many venture capitalists are up in the arms because there appear to be a declining number of entrepreneurs pursuing big ideas."

That part I don't believe.

Why don't I believe? My view of venture capitalists (VCs) is that they don't look at ideas, or big ideas, or the anything at all detailed about a proposal from an entrepreneur. So, if VCs don't bother even to look at ideas, then it's tough to believe that they are

"up in the arms"

about what they don't see!

Of course, the author gave no list of his "many" VCs! I, however, have a long list of VCs who, receiving a proposal for a "big idea", e.g., along the lines of a company worth $200 billion, just quit reading and, maybe, start laughing. My list is long enough that the author's "Many" becomes improbable!

Instead, I've long since concluded that VCs look at a few simple criteria and then, for their first serious effort, in one word, look at 'traction'. Given some significant traction, all the rest is nearly irrelevant.

In one step more detail, the VCs have no serious methodology for evaluating anything about a proposal except just traction. I gave a longer explanation in:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4289566>

</comment><comment><USER23> _The founders starting "dipshit companies" are not the same types of founders who would be starting the next billion dollar companies._

Didn't Google try to sell, unsuccessfully, for a few million dollars? I don't think building a multi-billion dollar company was the original plan.

</comment><comment><USER24> HDR - Harvard Drivel Review</comment>


The Many (Geeky) Faces of Bill Gates, a Capsule Biography - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/news/2008/06/gates_bio <comment><USER2> Whether you like Microsoft or not I personally think Bill Gates should remain the ultimate model for all hackers.</comment>


Ask HN: Idea for a mashup - now, to make it happen... - <AUTHOR>

Hi All,
I have an idea for a web app and am asking you, the knowledgeable HN reader, if it is possible to make it with existing tools. If yes, which ones.
Oh, and if you would like to point out this already exists - feel free to flame me and mock my ignorance.
Context: I was working in the garden with my girlfriend and we were discussing (putting it politely) planting a tree without blocking the morning sun. It was evening so we could not verify our claims. This issue remained unsolved until the next morning when we could verify the sun's position. (I won.)
Idea: Create a mashup of google maps and sun/moon position data.
Usage: When a user goes to street view (or similar) at any point (long/lat position) in google maps on earth and gives a date, they would be able to see the arc the sun/moon makes through the sky.
I have some development experience but do not have a broad knowledge of best-of-breed tools out there.
Thanks for any suggestions or refinement on the idea!
PS: Feel free to steal this idea and make it happen - I'd be happy to use your app. <comment><USER2> Unfortunately, you're probably going to need to take elevation and topography into account to get anything useful. As far as I know, none of the web mapping APIs really expose that data right now. (Google Earth may, I don't have much experience with it.)

Here in Wellington (NZ), the local terrain is quite hilly, and as a result the amount of sun a house gets is a big factor in purchasing (or even just renting). Especially in wintertime, when the sun is often so low in the sky that many houses, streets, and even neighbourhoods miss out on the sun entirely! (At my house, in about a month we go through a 2+ month period of no sunshine, which takes some getting used to.)

So of course someone built a website to generate 'sunshine reports' for any given address! I'd recommend checking it out. They use topographic data to (roughly) estimate how much sun you'd get during each month of the year, complete with pretty charts and graphs. Still doesn't take into account trees and other buildings, but (as far as I know) that data simply isn't available at all.

<http://www.keyring.co.nz/intro/index.jsf>

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Drew,

thanks for the response - elevation will indeed play a role. I don't know by how much though.

However, I would say that for a v1 possible obstacles (mountains, other houses, fence, ...) could be ignored and just imagined by the user. If they have a good idea of the arc through the sky then they can make a judgement themselves.

For me, the key to v1 is to not go too accurate in our algorithm by taking into account all variables. Aim would be to make it useful for those who just need an estimate.

Thanks,

Stijn.

PS: I will look at the site more closely tonight to see how they manage it. No time now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wolfram Alpha lets you get the position. eg <http://wolframalpha.com/input/?i=sun+at+9am+in+London></comment>


Trainjs – The web's scaffolding tool - <AUTHOR> http://nodeontrain.xyz/ <comment><USER2> it says: 'AngularJS is what HTML would have been, had it been designed for building web-apps.'

way to crap all over Tim Berners-Lee, man. I mean: I think he could have done better than AngularJS if he was trying to make something for building web- apps.</comment>


The Vintage Beauty of Soviet Control Rooms - <AUTHOR> https://designyoutrust.com/2018/01/vintage-beauty-soviet-control-rooms/ <comment><USER2> Some of those are absolutely fantastic! The 3rd to last ("spiders") and 2nd to last ("neon") could be reworked into some interesting alien ship control room designs. I used to draw control panels onto play-blocks as an adolescent and tried to give them an aesthetic tilt. Reflecting the style of the times, they looked like R2D2 mated with Max Headroom: "B-b-b-beep, Ch-ch-chirp"

</comment><comment><USER3> Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess.

I remember reading somewhere that the control room at the Chernobyl nuclear plant looked like someone had taken a grab bag of knobs and dials and thrown them at the wall. The report concluded that the design of the control room made safe management of the plant more difficult.</comment>


Things you should know about JavaScript events in the browser - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@pierreda/things-you-should-know-about-js-events-4ab474312736#.opcipfwzz <comment><USER2> That's awsome thanks !</comment>