Ask HN: Help me, I fuck around on the Internet too much - <AUTHOR> The internet is my industry and takes care of me well. It is also the biggest hinderance to my productivity. I lose a very large amount of time reading / watching stuff that seems interesting. While I have learnt a lot with my unquenchable thirst for things knowledgy, I am not able to meet my time goals. How do you at HN avoid this trap? <comment><USER2> I know the feeling, you're browsing around aimlessly, checking feeds, checking forums, etc. At some point you start getting that overwhelming feeling where you know you should be doing something productive, but it's just so easy to click one more link.

Here is the sequence I follow when I realize I've been up for 4 hours and still haven't gotten anything done yet:

\- Eat something quick to prepare, if I haven't eaten yet. Watch Mixergy or something while I'm cooking/eating. This is the wind-down from "procrastination mode", and watching Mixergy reminds me that there are people out there busting their asses right now and taking all of my future customers or client dollars.

\- Put on some good coding music. This puts my brain into "serious business" mode. I prefer energetic hip-hop or dubstep, something I can bop my head to and feel like a boss.

\- Go through all my tabs, Pinboard and tag the ones I want to keep for later, and close all of the tabs that don't apply to what I _should_ be working on.

\- Take a post-it note and write down the 3 tasks I am going to accomplish today, come hell or high water.

\- Get a coffee or energy drink, have a smoke (not recommended), and use the bathroom. Get my mental game plan together.

\- Open Terminal and MacVim. This sets the stage.

\- Pick a task that isn't on the post-it note (but needs to be done) that takes 10 minutes or less to bust out. Could be anything from a quick design fix to a wireframe or writing up a quick estimate. This is the warm-up.

\- By this point, my brain is in full-on work mode. Jump in and tackle the work.

\- Feel good. Eat dinner.

\- Play Starcraft.

<comment><USER3> Have any good dubstep recommendations?

<comment><USER2> Hmm, I am not an expert on dubstep, I just have a mix that a friend sent me that is mostly Dieselboy. It might be considered drum n' bass, not dubstep, but that's just what I call it because it's got that wahwahwah sound and I have no idea.

Edit: Oh yeah, I can give a shoutout to Aaron Static though, I met him through EVE Online and he comes out with great new "Power Hour" mixes every month: <http://aaronstatic.com/>

<comment><USER4> >that wahwahwah sound

That's a good way to describe it, I know exactly what you're talking about haha.

<comment><USER5> That's the wobble bass.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My solution has been this: don't take crappy breaks, take real ones. Your brain can only focus for so long, it's normal that it needs a break, so naturally you drift over to the web. However this is not a great break and doesn't really refresh you. When I'm working on a project and find myself browsing HN for to long, I just get up and go outside, go for a walk, take a shower (I work from home), take a quick nap, even read a book or something similar. In all of these cases I a.) actually feel refreshed when I'm done, b.) usually spend over all less time distracted, and most importantly c.) gain insight into the problem I'm trying to solve by ignoring it.

Many offices cultures require that you 'look busy' and web browsing is a crappy form of relaxation that unfortunately fits in with this well. If you give your brain moments to actually relax you'll get more done with in far less time. Web browsing when you really need a break is roughly the same thing is snacking on junk food when you really need a wholesome meal.

edit: One key thing I only implied is: leave the space your in. So for example playing a round of video games on the same machine your working on won't work, but (if you can avoid playing all afternoon) going another room to play xbox for 30mins probably will work.

<comment><USER2> That is a key point: if you work from home, taking a shower and getting dressed is a key part of telling yourself "I'm not in wake-up mode, I'm in getting shit done mode".

<comment><USER7> Those two really do it for me.

<comment><USER8> I also put shoes on when I work at home. I have a pair that's just for indoors.

<comment><USER2> The "Mr. Rogers" approach, I like it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A significant and recurring step for myself has been recognizing that in my scramble to consume everything that seemed interesting I was trying to hoard something that's in rampant abundance.

You will _never_ have enough time to dick around on the Internet, because there will _always_ be new things that seem interesting. The most interesting thing in the world will be the thing you mark "Read Later" in the moments before you die. It never ends. You will.

What you've got to recognize in this is that "Does this seem interesting?" is not a good heuristic for reading / watching / listening / doing. It's the natural and intuitive one we're all equipped with, but it fails in a world of abundance. To get out of the trap you've got to internalize a rule more like "Do I need this for something?" or "Can I safely ignore this?" or "Am I going to act on this?"

Try it with the tabs you've got open right now and see how you feel.

<comment><USER10> Another angle to see that the new "interesting stuff" pile is effectively unlimited is to look at where you go when you have some minutes to spend on interesting stuff. If you are often needing to go back to that "Read Later" pile to find anything interesting enough to read, well, then maybe there isn't much new stuff coming in that you are interested in.

But me, I very rarely have to go back into that "Read Later" pile to use free minutes of brain-time. If none of the aggregators have anything of merit, a couple of searches related to "the topic I'm into at the moment" gets more than I could read in a week. This empirical fact is something I try to use to slow the rate of additions to my "Read Later" queue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Really it's like watching T.V. except it's the internet. Brainless activities which keeps us just enough entertained that we don't go watch T.V. instead. ;)

It's also procrastination from doing the things you really need to be doing. So, check out the tips on dealing with procrastination.

I think what works best for me is to realize that I'm aimlessly wandering and just get up from the computer and do something else. Bonus points for getting out of the house. When I come back, if I fall into the same trap, then rinse and repeat.

Another trick is to simply do something productive on the computer for just 15 minutes. Set a timer and go. Once you get to that first 15 then usually that's all you need to keep going long enough to call it a day so that you can waste your time without feeling guilty that you didn't do anything. ;)

<comment><USER12> > Really it's like watching T.V. except it's the internet.

Except we don't work on our TVs. In fact, in web development, I do 'real work' in the same application I 'waste real time' (the browser).

Seth Godin had an interesting take on that problem...

[http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/03/are-you- maki...](http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/03/are-you-making- something.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's all self-discipline. Like a diet, you _could_ eat cake an ice cream every meal, but you'd become fat. You need the self-discipline to limit yourself on the Internet to remain productive.

Another way to lOok at it, depending on what motivates you ... Think in terms of "is mark zuckerberg wasting hours on these stupid forums every day?"

<comment><USER2> Yeah, the most important thing is not to fall into the trap of saying "Fuck it, today is a wash. I'll do it tomorrow."

No. Today is not a wash. You're going to stay up late and get the work done as punishment, until you learn your lesson.

<comment><USER14> When you're actually wasted and don't get anything done because of it, staying up late and trying to get work done will not fix it.

In those cases, it's pretty much the opposite. Stop procrastinating and get a nap or some real sleep. Of course, most places reward busywork more than napping, but if you can determine it yourself, you should value productivity over looking productive.

One positive effect of the stay-up-late-until-you-get-it-done part is that it will make you not care and implement the simple solution that you thought wouldn't work. (In many cases, it actually does).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just to be a contrarian... don't feel so bad. You're in good company.

"Perhaps fifteen of his [Leonardo da Vinci's] paintings survive, the small number due to his constant, and frequently disastrous, experimentation with new techniques, and his _chronic procrastination_.(" - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_da_Vinci> (emphasis mine)

"One of the problems I've faced throughout life is that I'm kind of lazy, or maybe I lack will power or discipline or something."

\- Paul Bucheit ([http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2011/02/two-paths-to- succes...](http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2011/02/two-paths-to- success.html))

(I've quoted that before, but it seems appropriate again here)

<comment><USER16> What's more, I used to be hard on myself for doing this until I realized my best work came out of something I saw in a 'distraction' session.

e.g. I wouldn't have discovered Isotope if I wasn't surfing HN. Then, something I made with Isotope was far better than something I would have been working on at another time.

Sometimes, delaying work leads to better outcomes. That's why it's so hard to know when to work ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've seen a few folks implement the following system (with varying degrees of success):

\- Start a Virtual Machine

\- Migrate all your IM, Email, Twitter, Facebook, RSS, HN, etc. to the VM

\- When you want to focus/work, shut down the VM

I do something similar with an iPad. I don't check email, Twitter, RSS, or read web pages on my laptop anymore. I've migrated all that to the iPad.

</comment><comment><USER18> Asking this on HN is not unlike asking in a drugs den how to quit crack- cocaine

</comment><comment><USER19> Buy an iPad.

Clear your computer's history/cookies, and never use it for distracting/unproductive sites again. Use the iPad exclusively for your unproductive browsing going forward (preferably in a different physical location).

You will be amazed at how quickly it pays for itself (and the browsing experience is better too).

<comment><USER20> Email is not unproductive. Just need to have a discipli e here. I can't aford shuting down the mail client from my laptop. I often need to respond to clients all day long. As i've been so responsive to clients all those year (i usualy respond quickly to my clients emquiriea) that's mean now if i dont respond to an email for say 4 hours....

<comment><USER19> Email isn't something that has ever been a productivity drain for me, so I haven't considered it much either way (iPad or desktop).

Definitely, I wouldn't recommend ignoring your clients. If most email is a productivity problem for you, but you need to respond to client emails, most email clients will allow you to define special alerts for certain senders as part of email processing rules.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Get back to work!

I don't really consider myself an expert on getting things done, but I will suggest one thing. Take a day off every week. A day off the internet, a day off anything with a screen, and a day off anything which is about paid work. When you sit at your computer and think "maybe just a few more rage comics[1]" you're actually feeling a bit uninspired. sitting and staring at your computer is the worst way to achieve inspiration. instead, do the housework, bake, take up a hardware project, knit, read, do a correspondence course. anything that is unimportant to your day job, and pleasant, and nothing to do with those computerboxes.

When my day off is over I go back to my myriad projects and sit down and actually do them. It's much much much more productive than trying to work all the time. I actually suspect this is one of the major advantages of the sabbath in Abrahamic religions.

Oh, and use bookmarks. The blogosphere is much easier to forget about when you know you can find all the good stuff at a later date.

Like I say I'm no expert, but this helps me. I find that when I try to break the trend and work all week my mind quickly devolves into that of a dullard drone.

Best of luck breaking that habit!

[1] don't judge me :(

</comment><comment><USER22> Tune your internal filter more strictly. Three categories:

1\. Signal.

If you're honest with yourself, no more than 10% of most social news will be signal for you, signal being defined as something that directly helps you improve your work. That 10% is different for different people doing different things, though. Read, bookmark, or pinboard the signal.

2\. Useful to be aware of, not directly applicable.

Industry gossip & news, scan the headline and first paragraph so you're not totally ignorant about it at cocktail parties, then move on, don't dwell on it. This is different for different folks, depending on what you do. What's #2 for some is noise for others, and vice versa.

3\. Noise.

Around half of social media. Infoporn, Entreporn, whatever. Not applicable to you, won't help to know about it at the expense of actually doing or making something yourself. Suppress your Pavlovian instincts and ignore it.

You could even take this a step further and just cut out #2 and #3 altogether. But if you do that you can also cut out #1 (social media entirely) and rely purely on search engines to find you stuff you need when you need it. Extreme, but there you go.

<comment><USER23> The only problem with cutting out #2 and #3 completely is that you don't always know what information will be useful to you.

<comment><USER22> True you'll lose some signal along with #2 and #3, but gain a lot of time. You have to recognize the tradeoffs and then decide which is more valuable to you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> -wake up -wash face and brush teeth. -I set up my dev/work environment (terminal, textmate, browser on localhost, skype, etc) make sure that when I sit on my desk I don't need to do anything but work. I even make sure that I'm on the right git branch and check my status, check my tasks for the day and have the code I'm gonna work on up on the screen. Although I'm still a little sleepy (I need my coffee), I push through to get setup. -Check my emails while in the bathroom -make coffee/breakfast -read HN or other news stuff while I eat. by now, my environment is setup, my emails are checked, my news are in, my bowels are moved, my stomach ain't empty and I'm ready to hack away.

During lunch, I might check news/HN again, facebook for a sec, etc.

</comment><comment><USER25> Why:

0\. Not enough knowledge and/or lying to yourself

1\. Subliminally trying to flee from taks, because you know it's going to take so much time again.

2\. Trying to do something which gives you short term success by posting/chatting/helping etc.

How:

0\. turnoff sound and your monitor!

1\. read a programming book (offline) related to your project! yes do it some hours and have a tea/coffee

2\. create a todo (offline) / (digitalize it much later)

3\. Analyse your project and start coding now.

What:

0\. I waste a very large amount of time for ("fun")

1\. unquenchable thirst for things knowledgy

2\. Not able to meet my time goals

3\. Feeling lazy

Hope it helps

</comment><comment><USER26> <http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/>

I'm not sure where I first heard about this, but it has drastically improved my productivity. It doesn't do much to get me started, but it keeps me from leaving my workflow once I'm already there. The short breaks keep me from getting too drained, but I'm always back on time and working again. I love being a slave to my timer.

I usually use <http://tomatoi.st/> to keep track, but there are a bunch of other apps to help you out.

<comment><USER27> Thanks, this looks like a good tool! I'll be trying this out the coming weeks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> As much as he's reviled on this site, Tim Ferris's suggestion (likely borrowed from someone else) has been a great tip. Each day, lay out 3 concrete items to get done. Then do them without interruption. You'll most likely be done with them by lunch. Then you can do pterosaur things the rest of the day. Surf if you're stuck in an office, go to the park if you work from home. By setting put concrete things and going about getting them done, you do them much faster than if you leave them nebulous with an indefinite time frame.

</comment><comment><USER28> I had similar problem, for quite long time, and probably I still do from time to time.

What really worked for me was to schedule time offs when I simply don't do certain tasks online. It took some time to implement that and my mind was playing tricks with me all the time.

I decided that my mornings, until 9:00 and evenings, after 19:00 are offline times and I would only use internet in the case of emergency or if some project has to be finished on time.

I was trying to quit reading news completely but than I realized that considering that I'm running online business I can't really do that, I have to be on top of the things to make sure that our services are always up to date.

I limited my reading activities only on few sources, Tech Crunch, Hacker News, Twitter (following max 50 people) and Facebook (also max 50 people). I give myself only 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening to go through my sources and to respond in some cases.

This was not easy to achieve, it's one kind of addiction and I even wrote a post about it few days ago, "How to deal with mental obesity" [http://www.oceen.com/2011/04/01/podcast-information- overload...](http://www.oceen.com/2011/04/01/podcast-information-overload-how- to-deal-with-mental-obesity/)

Information overload is serious stuff but majority of people are still not aware of that. It's going to become one of the biggest problems in next decade and only way to fight it is to discipline yourself in same way as you discipline yourself with food.

<comment><AUTHOR> i have tried that, but most days, HN or the very few sources just expand to occupy all my time. I agree with you about it being a very serious problem. In terms of health, two things already very evident are weight gain and eye lubricating drops.

<comment><USER28> I know, it's very tricky thing. As I said, it took me years to put some discipline into it and still I feel I use computer too much. My goal is to build business to that level that I work only 30-60 min on computer every day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> My biggest weakness is too many tabs. I tend to have 200+ tabs open in Chrome stuffed with my primary procrastination implement: must-read technology news. If I start picking through them to close/mark for later reading, I inevitably start reading and simply reboot the procrastination cycle.

My best antidote: have your IDE ready to work and close all your browser tabs at once.

P.S. You know you read too much Hacker News when you wake up from a dream in which PG rejected both your startup ideas for funding.

</comment><comment><USER30> Most of the posts here focus on _not_ doing the stuff you shouldn't be doing, but I've found it's much more effective on _doing_ the things you should. The biggest help I've found was:

Break down your productive tasks into smaller ones that can be accomplished in an hour or two of concentrated work.

The big reason I procrastinate is because my real projects seem unmanageable. They're big, or they're scary, or they'll just take too much time to be worth investing in now. The solution to that is to make them smaller, less scary, and easily completed with the time you have now. That means doing more of them, but at least you'll be able to make forward progress.

I took on a 20% project at work with the express goal of teaching myself how to break down a large, self-motivated project into one that I can actually motivate myself to complete. It's a library that'll probably be 10-15k lines of code when completed, based on similar projects. Most commits are no larger than 200 lines of code. I can bang out 200 lines of code in an afternoon; that makes each individual piece seem quite reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER31> \- Try to only create and care. If I am not creating nor caring then it's probably a waste of time (create = code, draw, make music, solder etc... care = do yoga, train, clean the house, repair stuff around the house, garden, water the plants, cook food etc...)

\- klip.me to read page later on my kindle (any page that has a lot of text I send it to my kindle so I can walk away from my computer once in a while to read about other stuff I want to do)

\- 2 screen computer - one for watching stuff (video,web stuff) one for working, creating,producing

\- Being clear and telling myself : It's been 30minutes that you check facebook photo aimlessly anything else you can do ?

\- Do the dishes, clean the house, have so non computer task that needs to be done when too much procrastination happen

\- Not feeling bad or guilty as it ends up making me wanting to do more aimless browsing

\- Have a precise goal and passion in my life ;) If I am confuse about these I make mind map to see where I am at !

</comment><comment><USER32> Tabbed browsing is both a blessing and a curse. I found that I stopped wasting quite so much time surfing when I derived as much satisfaction from having only a few (mostly necessary) tabs open at any one time as I did from, say, cleaning the apartment or going for a walk. It was mainly a matter of rewiring where I get my sense of reward from, and acknowledging that the vast bulk of the stuff I read on the web just went right in one ear and out the other helped a lot. It's very sobering to tally up the number of hours a week you spend reading stuff you mostly won't remember by the end of said week - try it some time, it helped me a lot.

</comment><comment><USER33> You're struggling with some kind of internal conflict about how to use your time. Sometimes you can power through that sort of thing by just telling yourself you HAVE to get going, or with technical measures like Leechblock. But those approaches are unsustainable, because they don't address the fundamental conflict. How do you feel when you're browsing frivolous material? How do you feel when you consider starting to work? How do you feel just before the urge to take a break arises? Get clear on these questions, and you will be clearer about the way forward.

</comment><comment><USER34> You are not alone. Read this: [http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/conceding- defeat-the-intern...](http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/conceding-defeat-the- internet-is-stronger-than-i-am)

</comment><comment><USER35> Make a contract with yourself. Set the times of the day when you shouldn't be screwing around on the internet. Get a program that takes screenshots of what is on your monitor every ten minutes or so. At the end of the day use those screenshots to estimate how much you spent screwing around on the internet inside "work time". For each hour spent, donate $10 (or more) to a hated poltical candiate's run for president. For example, Sarah Palin for President 2012.

If you are giving Sarah more than $100 each week, I think you should seek advice from a professional.

</comment><comment><USER36> How come no one has mentioned the Pomodoro Technique? I started using it about a month ago, and I can tell you it's been my most productive month ever. I use the Pomodoro for Mac app to keep track of time. They recommend 25 minutes work blocks, with 5 minutes in between and 10 minutes every 4 blocks.

I found out that I prefer 40 minute blocks, with 5 minutes breaks, and then 20 minutes every four blocks to disconnect from everything and relax.

<comment><USER37> I second the pomodoro technique, but advise against lengthening the time block. I find the original 25-minutes block to be non-threatening, which is very useful in fighting procrastination. After all you _can_ dive into a problem for 25 minutes, it will not compromise too much your reassuring flow of junk fun. (then, once you have started working, it's much easier to keep it going).

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This is a classic procrastination story, but also a side effect of the 40-hour work-week. Would you still spend so much time surfing if you could go home when your work was done? Killing time eats into your free time, affects the quality of your work, and makes you feel lazy at the end of the day. The problem is not that you're reading all these articles; it's that you're reading them at the cost of your productivity. You'll enjoy this activity much more if you can do it after you know your day's work is done.

We're building LazyMeter to help with procrastination and overwhelming to-do lists. LazyMeter filters each user's overwhelming to-do list into a today list, so that they have an achievable goal each day, with an end point, and then tracks their progress so you can see how much they've done. Our users know exactly what they need to focus on, and can recognize when they're killing time. As a result, they know what to do, they know when they're done, and they feel better at the end of the day. We're now in beta and would love to get your feedback. <http://www.LazyMeter.com>

<comment><USER39> This sounds like a fantastic idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> My standard reply when questions like this come up: If you can't stay focused, you may have an unrecognized health issue contributing to the problem. I have a really serious health issue and while very ill I fucked around a whole heckuva lot on the internet/computer. The healthier I get, the less I do the aimless futzing around type stuff. But, to this day, I wipe my computer/keyboard down (both at work and at home) before getting on it. I react pretty badly to dust and stuff. An unclean keyboard/work area can put me in a fog and make it impossible to stay focused.

Like others here have said: Eating right, controlling my blood sugar, and so on also contribute to my ability to remain focused. When my mind starts wandering at work, I get up, go to the restroom, and get a new drink and/or snack. Then I am usually good for another hour or two. (If your health issues are less serious than mine, I assume you probably won't need such frequent intervention.)

</comment><comment><USER41> Here's four of my productivity hacks. The rest is actually quite similar to what jarin has said.

\- The Pomodoro technique. I use Vitamin-R (great app for OS X)

\- Immidiately when I see something that looks interesting but I really shouldn't be reading I send it to Instapaper. Each day I get the new stories from Instapaper automatically sent to my Kindle for bedtime reading. If you don't have a Kindle, get one!

\- If it's a video, comments or something that's not really readable on the Kindle, I send it to pinboard.in

\- When you eat breakfast, prepare a thermos of green tea for consumption through the day. It doesn't sound like it would be different from drinking coffee or energy drinks, but drinking green tea actually gives you a different type of energy. Instead of the energy rush energy drinks and coffee gives you, you get a more long lasting and natural feeling type of energy. It tastes good and is really healthy too.

</comment><comment><USER42> Here are some steps I've taken - built <http://rssafter5.appspot.com>, and set up my email to oly download once every 4 hours, <http://kburke.org/kevin/escaping-from-your-email/>

</comment><comment><USER43> \- Unsubscribe from all the feeds except that are very very important for you. So you have at the max 20-25 feeds to read.

\- Follow only those people who's tweets are very important. Don't follow people who have a habit of tweeting very 15 mins.

\- Deactivate your facebook account.

\- Go to any social site only when you are going to bed. Don't spend more than 30 mins there.

I have actually deactivated my facebook account.

There's too much info on the web, there's no point in reading / listening to all that if you can't apply or digest. If something is very important, you will eventually get to know about it from somewhere.

You don't always have to be the first one to know about it.

When tired, don't try to relax by visiting blogs, twitter, facebook, youtube. Instead go out for 10 - 15 mins and get fresh air, make coffee.

It helps me alot. Might work for you. I have been thru the same phase your are going thru :)

</comment><comment><USER44> Well, i didn't realize how much i was wasting on reading online(even though i had an idea) Then came across rescuetime got it installed and looking at the amount of time spent reading forced me to change a lot...now am a lot better. but still get into binges of old habits...

</comment><comment><USER45> I understand the feeling. It can feel like that you'll be ignorant or less informed unless you click that next link. Keeping up with the Internet could be a full-time job.

When I get on my computer to get some work done, I usually jot down some things on a notepad or in vi about what I want to get done. When I do this, I usually get right into it the tasks at hand.

If I find myself wandering and realize it, I usually close my laptop or get up and walk around.

It's funny to see this because I've been reading HN for at least 2 hrs, and I realized a few minutes ago that I should have been doing other things.

If you use GNOME, there is a timer applet that will flash a notification message when the time runs out. I think I'm going to try timing things as I do them so I get flashed when I should be off.

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm worse, I come here dozens of times a day, seeking new stuff done by folks smarter than myself, and later blame myself about the time I spent online, and how much more I would have won if I had instead read a book on programming languages for the last few hours.

</comment><comment><USER47> Find some middling distractions that stop you from worse distractions. I find trance music stops me from looking around, hearing and thinking about odd noises without taking any of my attention, and also lifting my mood (uplifting trance podcasts like Lee Harris).

Control your blood sugar. This mostly means a good snack of at the very least, a piece of wholemeal toast, every 3-4 hours. No sugar, and probably no caffeine.

Find the limit to your want to do something else. I can binge on Wikipedia, but then I get bored and save all the pages I have open for another time. Keep doing this and the binges will get shorter in time, in about six months I got them down from two hours to 20 minutes.

</comment><comment><USER48> I haven't personally done this, but here goes!

\- Make a list of websites you want to explore before doing work and give them a video/article count per website. \- At the end of the list add a video or article to read that pertains to your actual work/task that you wish to accomplish. Hopefully, after you read/watch this, you're more motivated to work or at the very least, you realize that you need to get cracking at it. \- Crawl into your 'Cave'. And I mean bury yourself! Block the outside world, listen to music that has no words (that you can understand), dim the room and have a spotlight upon your desk, get a pitcher of water and a pack of Depends. Whatever it takes!

Hope that helped a bit.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER49> Alt text on <http://xkcd.com/862/> :

"After years of trying various methods, I broke this habit by pitting my impatience against my laziness. I decoupled the action and the neurological reward by setting up a simple 30-second delay I had to wait through, in which I couldn't do anything else, before any new page or chat client would load (and only allowed one to run at once). The urge to check all those sites magically vanished--and my 'productive' computer use was unaffected."

Implemented in node.js: <https://gist.github.com/845591> (by kuroikaze85)

</comment><comment><USER50> Stop visiting HN so much.

I recently started a routine of only visiting HN once per week - and only on the weekend. I use the 100 point threshold version to gather up all of the interesting articles I missed throughout the week.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/over?points=100>

I scan through the listing and throw anything I'm interested in reading into Instapaper. Now I'm stocked on great content to last me through the next week.

I'm finding that I'm a lot more focused now that my mind is not being tossed around constantly by whatever the trending topics-of-the-day might be. I'm now driven more to create than to consume.

</comment><comment><USER51> Every time I need to get shit done, I go out and buy a pack of Redbull and drink it. I always thought it's the Redbull that keeps me awake, turn out it's just to set the mood so that I can get shit done.

Just bought another pack 2 mins ago.

<comment><USER2> I've been drinking Engage energy drink. Aside from caffeine, it's got 5-HTP and a bunch of other mood enhancing stuff. Seems to work pretty nicely.

<comment><USER51> But don't abuse it. Rest when you must.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> If you are not meeting your goals, it could indicate they are unrealistic or not clear. Most of the tasks you do might be mundane, but they are necessary. The satisfaction from completing a list of tasks will drive you.

I have a method, which I find it extremely effective:

\- At end of day, spend 30-45 minutes reviewing it, following up with people, and planning next day (already have a list of tasks saved). If I feel I need to improve in some areas (for example, presenting), I will create tasks from it (research presentation classes, book presentation class etc.)

\- Each morning, spend 30-45 minutes entering tasks into my calendar so I know what I need to achieve for the day. Each task has a time period assigned to it. Make sure tasks don't overlap - pad the time

\- Check emails every 45 minutes or so. Delete, defer, delegate or action (loosely based on David Allen's GTD)

\- For new projects, break down into small parts and turn these into tasks. Some tasks might seem trivial, but that's okay

\- Set-up two monitors. One has a task app open, so if something comes up (let's say by email), I can create a task out of it. Inbox is always visible. On my other monitor I have everything I need for the task at hand. If you don't need your browser open to complete the task, close it

\- Reward myself for completing all tasks for the day

Other tips:

\- Read about how people become great at something - focusing on the task itself is paramount. If you fail, gather feedback, make adjustments and do it again and again and again and again

\- Burnout is very real. A particular industry might have a culture of late nights and 60-hour weeks, but humans are not designed for this. Burnout kills relationships. Stick to a reasonable work day and devote time to other activities, for example playing sport in a social setting, and most importantly spending time with those you care about

\- Create a personal skills document, where you list out what you want to learn about/become skilled at. You can then create tasks and set a clear path for success. That way, you can let the goal drive your search for information instead of aimless browsing driving your goals

</comment><comment><USER23> This might be unconventional, but it's the only thing that worked for me:

Exercise, but not out of duty. Use it to pump up your state and get endorphins flowing. Weight lifting works well, but pushups, squats and other body weight exercises are fine. Air boxing works really well for me. Running is ok but I haven't found it to be as effective.

End your shower each day with 3-5 minutes of cold water. While you're in it, fight to keep control of yourself. Stay resilient.

Basically force yourself to overcome trials everyday, and use that to get yourself into "Beast Mode." Once there, concentrating usually comes naturally.

</comment><comment><USER53> Stop fucking around.

</comment><comment><USER20> I know how it feel. We all at some point loose control while browsing. It often start with a good intention: "let't have a quick look at the HN homepage" and several hours later you're still here reading news, success story. This is even more frustracting at the end of the day as you lookback and notice nothing in your priority have move in the rigth direction. I'm now more productive since i'm applying the GTD method it help me keeps control. I suggest you to read "making it all work".

</comment><comment><USER54> I got a space at a startup lab/incubator. Only been there a week, but I've noticed that I get distracted a lot less when other people are around. Ironically, I am there especially for the social atmosphere because working from home can drive you nuts. But even with the social time, I am more productive because doing all those things like reading non-useful things, videos, games, etc just don't seem appropriate around others. Hoping this works for me, maybe it will help you too.

</comment><comment><USER55> What has helped me is a well filled task list. I use pivotal tracker more or less as a task list and for some scope control, even though I work alone. I guess every form of task list will do the job, however.

The important thing is that there is some sort of backlog. That serves two purposes: I feel more motivated to get started when I see all the work which needs to get done as concrete steps. And I can pick a simple or complex task whichever fits my work mode best at the time.

</comment><comment><USER56> Try the Google Chrome extension StayFocusd. Its essentially a website timer that blocks time-wasting websites after a predetermined amount of time has expired. Good luck..

<comment><USER57> Seconded big time. Really saved me. And it has enough options where I don't have to fight with it a lot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I actually find "aimlessly" browsing the web less of a time sink than going to the few websites that truly suck me in.

Lately, I've been using an egg timer to stop working every twenty minutes and stretch. This has the side effect of forcing me to also consider whether the last twenty minutes were productive. That I'm here shows it's not perfect but I do think it has helped (both keeping my body more active and my computer activities more productive).

<comment><AUTHOR> my first impulse was - let me rush out and buy an eggtimer. i had to tell myself to relax, experiment with this idea. i am now arguing that if i had that much self discipline in the first place, it would not be a problem in the first place! So tell me, how long have you done this? how effective has it been? do you cheat a lot?

<comment><USER58> I cheat a lot but it still helps - when I notice the timer isn't set, I set the time _and_ stretch, this evens-out the times I just unthinkingly reset the timer.

I don't believe there is such a thing as generic willpower. A person has far more ability to do something when are reminded to do it.

And I've experimented with timers in the computer and I've found they don't work as well. The egg-timer gives me a full "UI" without consuming desktop space - I can stretch early and reset the timer easily without, say, returning to the machine itself. There's no conflict with system sounds, etc.. A thing outside the computer is more suited to getting me ... outside the computer.

And egg timers/kitchen timers are pretty cheap - if it doesn't work, you use it to time your eggs...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> Admit to yourself that you have an internet addiction. Come to terms with it.

I had a major issue a few months ago, until I realized I truly was addicted. After that I started cutting things out, and now I spend less than 30 minutes a day online, and I don't miss a thing. Actually, my mind is much clearer.

You won't be able to get depth in your thoughts if you keep feeding yourself bits of useless info.

</comment><comment><USER60> Ok, now I am stopping reading TechCrunch, HN etc. Back to <http://localhost:3000>

</comment><comment><USER61> Lots of good commments here. I find the LeechBlock Firefox extension a helpful tool: very configurable. You can block certain sites at different times, or allow yourself a given amount of time on a site per day.

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock/>

</comment><comment><USER62> 1) Maintain a long list of large issues you need to resolve.

2) Regularly take a few of those items off the list and resolve to do them in a given g session.

3) When not working, take a real break. Do something else.

4) Exercise regularly. This is so massively critical for me that I can't overstate it. Regular exercise aids in focus, sleep and maintaining a positive mental attitude.

</comment><comment><USER39> I got an app for time tracking and I track everything. Eating, watching videos, browsing, sleeping, and the occasional working. It's awesome because when I looked back at the pie chart for the day and see three quarters of it is sleeping and browsing, I felt like a complete doofus.

(I use aTimeLogger, it's free and does everything I need)

</comment><comment><USER63> Nobody mentioned the Leechblock Firefox plugin yet. Of course it only helps you by blocking chosen sites after a predefined spent time (highly configurable), it won't solve your problem for you.

But at least it gives you the "trigger" by bringing your attention to the fact you've already spent your alotted time goofing off.

</comment><comment><USER64> Block the sites that you waste too much time on.

I have a habit of loading news/discussion sites anytime I'm waiting for something to complete. Blocking the sites I use too much such as HN, Reddit, Craigslist etc. breaks my streaks of going to them, disrupting the habit. The 'site not available' message helps me refocus.

</comment><comment><USER65> I use Toggl (<http://www.toggl.com/>) to track where I'm spending my time - when I pull up HN to read it, I swap to timing that. Somehow, having a timer logging how much time I spend on non-productive work helps keep me focused.

</comment><comment><USER66> Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this. Doctor: Then stop doing it!

</comment><comment><USER67> I used Windows Live Family Safety to block all non-work related sites. Someone else controls the filter. It blocked my Internet addiction, but I found other ways to waste time.

</comment><comment><USER68> Productivity on desktop machine, browsing on the tablet/laptop. Pinboard/ReadItLater anything that looks like a timesink and catch up when away from the desk.

</comment><comment><USER69> It's pretty simple how to fix it: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYLMTvxOaeE>

</comment><comment><USER70> Don't forget HN's "noprocrast" setting. I bet it's often overlooked but I found it invaluable in breaking the habit of "cmd-t news.yco..."-ing.

</comment><comment><USER71> I am using Stickies to write down my to-do. I have them on my desktop at all time. This way I know what to do at what time.

</comment><comment><USER72> A must have:

<http://visitsteve.com/made/selfcontrol/>

</comment><comment><USER73> At my age I don't have the agility to fuck around too much anymore. I can spend a full day on HN.

</comment><comment><USER74> <http://www.mindfulbrowsing.com>

</comment><comment><USER75> I start a project with other people so I am accountable to someone other than myself.

</comment><comment><USER76> My router allows me to blacklist sites during working hours.

</comment><comment><USER77> Smoke less weed.

</comment><comment><USER60> Just like reading this article right now...

</comment><comment><USER78> I've started remedying this for myself.

What I did: Told myself not to go to Fark, Reddit, 4chan, or any adult websites. Slashdot, Drudgereport, and Hacker News were allowed for personal reasons (they have interesting content and news while filtering out a lot of low-value stuff. I also spend less time at the latter sites than the former). Results:

-Movies. I watched a few movies and TV shows. Doing this helped my mind relax, because information overload DOES happen.

-Programming: I got back into Scala, and have an idea for a fun project I want to start working on. For me, programming is a mental exercise and is my outlet for creativity.

-People: When I don't have long hours at work (IT, surprise), I hang out with friends more. This can quickly drain funds, though, so watch your spending.

-Sex: Abstaining from adult material on the web for a few days makes you more ready for a mate, if there's one available.

-Less distraction: No matter what I list above, they were all things I devoted all my attention to while I was doing it (especially the last one). Browsing tons of sites on the net for hours on end kills your focus on specific tasks (like having a life, or truly excelling at a task).

Basically, interesting stuff on the Internet is like fats and oils on the old food pyramid: delicious, and necessary in small amounts.

FOR YOU: Don't cut out every gluttonous activity you have. Start with the top two or three time-wasters, and start from there. Don't let yourself go to it at all. Cold turkey. Find other things to do when you get bored looking for articles.

</comment><comment><USER79> 127.0.0.1 Reddit reddit.com

127.0.0.1 techcrunch.com techcrunch

127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com

127.0.0.1 facebook.com

127.0.0.1 fark.com

etc....

<comment><AUTHOR> How did you see this post with those host settings?

<comment><USER80> I've done this temporarily before with a simple hostfile swap script that I run when I've got something serious to do.

<comment><USER81> This is a great idea. Mind sharing your script? I block annoying sites with my hostfile, too, but every once in while I actually need to look at something on Facebook. This would also be useful as it's a big mess with all the changes I have to make for work, too. Storing them separately would be super helpful.

<comment><USER51> Create 2 files hosts.work & hosts.play in /etc

Add these 2 lines into .profile or .bash_profile

alias work='sudo cp -f /etc/hosts.work /etc/hosts'

alias play='sudo cp -f /etc/hosts.play /etc/hosts'

If you don't want to sudo, chmod /etc/hosts.

<comment><USER82> Great idea! Should be mixed with crontab that disable "play mode" every 30 minutes forcing you to manually copy the play host file.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Wesley A. Clark, legendary computer engineer, dies at 88 - <AUTHOR> http://www.techrepublic.com/article/wesley-a-clark-legendary-computer-engineer-dies-at-88/ <comment><USER2> Here's my Wes Clark story...

About 6 years ago I went to his Brooklyn apartment for his birthday. I had never heard of him, but he's distant cousins with my wife's step father and we lived nearby. We get to his apartment and I start looking at the book collection... a lot of interesting math and computer science.

I started talking with him 1 on 1 and at some point he drops that he created the first personal computer. I'm ashamed to admit it, but in the back of my mind I was thinking "oh boy, this guy's not all there." But then he took me to his office and there's a poster of him with the LINC and I'm realizing that I've hit the motherlode of awesome computing history from a primary source.

He then showed me his current project: a working model Broadway stage for his granddaughter. It had to-scale working versions of everything, including the lights and actual mechanisms for drawing the curtains. Then he fired up his Mac with a 30" monitor and showed me that every piece had been laser cut from schematics that he had designed. In raw postscript. The entire thing was programmatically generated from a massive postscript program that was fully parameterized so he could change the dimensions of anything single component and the whole stage would be regenerated.

That programmatic modeling project was a big motivation for the work I've been doing to make parameterized 3d models for ergonomic keyboards ([https://github.com/adereth/dactyl- keyboard](https://github.com/adereth/dactyl-keyboard)).

I definitely experienced some cognitive dissonance watching an 82 year old flying around vim editing postscript. It was a trip and it was really inspiring to see someone his age still hacking.

<comment><USER3> Nice memory ,vivily told, thanks.

 _" I definitely experienced some cognitive dissonance watching an 82 year old flying around vim editing postscript."_

Vi has been around for 30 odd years, and postscript since 1982. Each decade will bring a new crop of octogenarian vimers! At least until we get direct brain implant interfaces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm his grandson, not his colleague, so far be it from me to say he was a great man, but he was a great grandfather and an inspiration. He taught me an enormous amount, from logic to just how hard it can be to get people to adopt new technologies -- he eschewed word processing, writing every document directly in PostScript even up to the present -- but most importantly he showed me how important it is to love what you do, and for that I owe him a ton of my happiness and career.

Fare you the hell well, Gramps.

<comment><USER5> Sorry for your loss. Could you share some stories about him?

<comment><USER4> Everyone has stories, most better than me. I find my most vivid memory of experiencing him as an adult was that every time you spoke with him he'd have had some completely flabbergasting new life experience you'd never imagined. He was a guest on something like the second trip to China after Nixon, took seminars with Oppenheimer at Berkeley (he tended to call him Oppy), and may have been invited to help create an early ATM. The list goes on and on.

One Christmas, we were talking about how difficult it is to assess the accuracy of an algorithm when you only get a few tries because running it is expensive; he promptly told us about his experience with this problem, which he encountered driving plutonium nuggets across Richland, Washington. After the video from the ACM conference on personal workstations got published here, I learned for the first time he'd been fired from MIT three times for insubordination, and I never got a chance to ask him what the story there was...

Oh! And he actually made a physical turing machine good enough to do fairly sophisticated computations on. It ended up in my father's intro CS class at Princeton for many years.

And HN will of course appreciate one of his favorite one-liners:

Did you know that 49 is the lowest number that can be expressed as the square of 7 in only one way?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am so envious of your experience.

My grandfather had his own achievements (including saving about 1,000 people from Hitler's concentration camps by arranging for transport out of Germany). But it sounds like your grandfather was much more fun to talk to.

<comment><USER4> He'd talk about computers for fun, at least. But try to convince him that the internet actually _worked_ and you'd have a whole evening's conversation on your hands...

<comment><USER5> I'm still on the fence, too. The internet is still too young of an experiment. We are now at a stage where machines themselves are going online. I'm sure he would have loved seeing the next 24 Yeats unravel.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To learn more about the LINC (and why, in the grand scheme of things, it was so incredibly important):

\- "The LINC Revolution", in "Biomedical Computing" by Joseph November: [http://www.amazon.com/Biomedical-Computing-Digitizing- Univer...](http://www.amazon.com/Biomedical-Computing-Digitizing-University- Historical/dp/1421404680)

\- "Computing in the Middle Ages" by Severo Ornstein: [http://www.amazon.com/Computing-Middle-Ages- Trenches-1955-19...](http://www.amazon.com/Computing-Middle-Ages- Trenches-1955-1983/dp/1403315175/)

\- "The Dream Machine" by M. Mitchell Waldrop: [http://www.amazon.com/The- Dream-Machine-Licklider-Revolution...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Dream- Machine-Licklider-Revolution/dp/014200135X)

R.I.P.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think one key to understanding his work is to understand how he helped make computers more accessible.

Among many things, he believed that "a computer should be just another piece of lab equipment." That they should be a basic tool.

Clark designed "small" computers, and it is no coincidence that the Linc was later marketed by Digital Equipment, a company all about the minicomputer that greatly increased computing accessibility. This company and the open academic culture that Clark was a huge part of led to greater accessibility software too. Would we have the world of Unix without the PDP series and the culture around it? Probably not!

Clark's role in computers was to be among the leaders of a sort of rebellion against monolithic and expensive computing, and his work led us the world of personal computing and open source software.

<comment><USER4> Indeed -- it's struck me recently how Wes was probably among the first (if not necessarily number one, if only because of ill-definedness) people to make computers smaller. Looking back at the sixty years since he began, it's been quite something.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I had the delightful opportunity to speak with Wes in May-June of 2015 via telephone on a number occasions.

I have been researching an image called the Digital Mona Lisa for many years, and in a round of searching last year, I came upon Wes's name in association with the creator of the Digital Mona Lisa, H. Philip Peterson, as they both worked on the TX-0 and TX-2 early computing projects. Wes was the project director as we all know.

I decided to give Wes a phone, (and keep in mind I didn't know him prior), and see if he could help me learn more about Mr. Peterson. Once we started talking in that first phone conversation it was like I had known him for years. A simply wonderful, engaging person that helped me learn more about Mr. Peterson but importantly I got to know about Wes and his vast interesting career, (being at a conference where Oppenheimer was part of the event, his early days at the Hanford nuclear facility, his contribution to the ARPA project and much more). Fascinating stuff from a fascinating person!!

I also found out that Mr. Peterson's first name was Harold, but Wes said he liked to be called Phil and that Mr. Peterson was born in Utah, among other items.

Wes asked me if my last name was of greek descent, which I am, and he proceeded to speak to me in greek. His wit and humor are two things I'll always remember about him, even from such a brief time we spent getting to know one another.

He certainly was a computing pioneer. I hope that his memory is eternal and that we look to past to learn from the careers of others like Wes that paved the way forward.

</comment><comment><USER9> "Clark next led hardware design for the TX-2 with a focus on graphical interactivity. MIT doctoral student Ivan Sutherland realized that Clark's system enabled human-computer interaction concepts dreamed of 20 years prior by another MIT-trained engineering legend, Vannevar Bush. Sutherland used TX-2's light pen and screen to develop a graphical design application called Sketchpad."

Both the genesis of the GUI and object-oriented programming took place right there.

</comment><comment><USER10> The systems named, TX-0 and TX-2, tweaked my recollection of items I'd seen while cataloging at CHM. There are a number of items related to the TX-0[1] including a picture[2] but also quite a number of its unique circuit modules[3], which were small plastic cylinders with 7-pin bases. Each cylinder held a couple of transistors and other components, approximating one gate per "bottle".

CHM also has a quantity of TX-2 items[4] such as this picture[5] and numerous of its circuit modules[6], which were narrow 2"x6.5" circuit boards.

[1] [http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search/?s=tx-0](http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search/?s=tx-0)

[2] [http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102630740](http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102630740)

[3] [http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102733906](http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102733906)

[4] [http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search/?s=tx-2](http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search/?s=tx-2)

[5] [http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102622491](http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102622491)

[6] [http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102677413](http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102677413)

</comment><comment><USER11> I tend to think that I know the important parts of this field history and yet I knew zero facts about that man which seems to be both technically and humanly inspiring.

</comment><comment><USER12> TX-2 is still underrated for the level of innovation and impact it had.

</comment><comment><USER13> RIP...he died same age as Marvin Minsky who died a month ago.

<comment><USER4> Quite. Minsky was actually advisor to my company, which is based in part on his notion of common sense computing. There is much to mourn recently.</comment></comment>


What Have You Always Wanted To Start? - <AUTHOR> http://founderdating.com/what-have-you-always-wanted-to-start-noregrets2013/ This year, for your new years resolution think about what you really want to do and here's a good way to get started. <comment><USER2> It's true that this is the perfect time to think about new endeavors... Been googling a lot about finding my life's purpose and a lot of what I read just says to start doing and your purpose will find you. I've tried the above and am optimistic it will lead somewhere!</comment>


Will Crypto Versions of Fiat Currencies Change the Way We Live? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/orbs-network/the-two-benefits-of-cryptocurrencies-961df3335118 <comment><USER2> Short answer: Yes!</comment>


Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro reportedly tests positive for coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-president-coronavirus-test-positive-2020-3 <comment><USER2> He met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last weekend. This might escalate very rapidly.

<comment><USER3> Who is the "he" in your comment?

<comment><USER2> Jair Bolsonaro. Edit: sorry, I had mistyped my original comment. Edited.

<comment><USER4> Along with Bolsonaro's press secretary, who also tests positive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> To state what is obvious you have a person who by nature comes in contact with many people in many situations. (Any many of those they come in contact with also do). So you'd expect them to have a higher probability of getting infected.

Not only that but you have a person who specifically might have to avoid not appearing to be 'business as usual' or not wanting offend people by not having a meeting or a visit as planned. That's quite a different standard then most of 'regular' people can in trying to avoid socials situations.

</comment><comment><USER6> Fox News has confirmation from his son, however, they are waiting for the 2nd test results: [https://www.foxnews.com/world/brazil-bolsonaro-tests- positiv...](https://www.foxnews.com/world/brazil-bolsonaro-tests-positive- coronavirus)

> _Bolsonaro's son Eduardo told Fox News that they are doing further testing > to confirm the diagnosis, adding that they expect the second set of testing > results later Friday._

<comment><USER2> Haha, of course Eduardo is in touch with Fox News.

<comment><USER7> This is a snide and irrelevant comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This thread is devolving and should be removed.

<comment><USER9> I agree. It belongs to a conspiracy theories or advocacy sub-reddit, not to HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm sure the narrative will be that he doesn't have Covid-19, he's the victim of an assassination plot by the medical establishment for speaking out against them.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, Bolsonaro has literally never said anything remotely close to that against the medical establishment.

He did underestimate the virus a few days ago, but he's clearly changed his mind as the government is releasing emergency measures. I see no problem with that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It was already reported he tested negative.

</comment><comment><USER13> Everything we know about Donald Trump tells us he is paranoid about contracting illnesses, going as far as to refuse to be in meetings with someone who coughs (per multiple reports). I find it hard to imagine he hasn't been tested given his recent proximity to the Brazilian President and his staff. But he insists he has not been tested. I really don't understand the game Trump is playing here. And where the hell is the declaration of a national emergency? He declares one for his precious wall but not for a global pandemic?

</comment><comment><USER14> Tests for world leaders and basketball players; no tests for common people.

I feel like it's probable Trump and other extremely high-ranking government people have the virus. I also feel like it's not being publicized for political/economic reasons. I admit this is speculation, but even if Trump, Pence, etc. were tested and "reported" to be negative, should we believe that?

<comment><USER15> I mean, there are practical and non-nefarious reasons not to tell people that your Commander in Chief is out of commission.

<comment><USER16> Not in this case. What's there to be gained?

If it goes badly he will be dead. You can't hide that. If it goes well and he recovers in a few weeks he will still need to be quarantined for those few weeks. So you wouldn't really see him or anyone around him so people will automatically assume he has contracted it. Especially since he was known to have been hanging out with several people who have now tested positive.

So lying about the Presidents health may be a good idea in certain situations. It almost certainly isn't in this specific situation.

Edit: Also, if he lies about it, the hundred of people who have been around him might not take the actions they need to and continue making things worse fornthemselves and those around them.

<comment><USER17> There is nothing to be gained from your perspective and prediction of future events.

Trump has taken MANY actions that defy conventional logic about Gain/Loss and Future Predictions.

I think a lot of people view the his primary job to be inspiring confidence in our leadership, and avoiding hysteria and mass panic over the virus. If the person who is supposed to be telling us everything is ok, is actually not ok themselves, the panic could grow very quickly.

I agree with you that it would be stupid to lie. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't be tempted to do it anyway. Especially because we could just have messages about everyone being quarantined for safety and they could get away with hiding the President for awhile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Yet somehow Brazil only has 154 reported cases...</comment>


Google Chromecast Leapfrogs Apple TV - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2014/12/02/apple-tv-chromecast-roku-2014/ <comment><USER2> I think most of us saw this coming from a mile away. The Apple TV has not received a substantial update in a very long time, the interface looks outdated to me and the size of it is also inconvenient. The price is also another factor. The Chromecast is $35 and offers everything Apple TV does for $99 (sans the remote). The Amazon Fire TV Stick is $39 and gives you a remote, yet offers more than Apple's expensive offering which is twice the size.

I think unless Apple brings out a HDMI stick of their own that competes with the price of the Chromecast or Fire TV Stick, Apple TV will continue to decline until people just stop buying it. Honestly, what Apple needs to do is release a device running iOS that will allow you to play games on your TV. This would probably give it the edge it needs to compete again. But apps and games wouldn't be enough to compete, they would need to match the price or offer something Amazon and Google currently do not.</comment>


Prabook.com - <AUTHOR> https://prabook.com/web/home.html <comment><AUTHOR> The largest English-language biographical encyclopedia for "individuals who have made a contribution to their nation, local community or any professional field."</comment>


Data Mining Reveals the Crucial Factors That Determine When People Make Blunders - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601774/data-mining-reveals-the-crucial-factors-that-determine-when-people-make-blunders/ <comment><USER2> TL;DR quote:

> _The bottom line is that the difficulty of the decision is the most > important factor in determining whether a player makes a mistake. In other > words, examining the complexity of the board position is a much better > predictor of whether a player is likely to blunder than his or her skill > level or the amount of time left in the game._

That first sentence almost comically funny, especially in the context of the click-bait headline that does a great job at not revealing any useful information.

All based on playing chess, so go ahead if you like and use one experiment using one game to extrapolate to the entire world...

Link to the study, to skip that article: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1606.04956](http://arxiv.org/abs/1606.04956)

</comment><comment><USER3> As a strong chess player (around 2000 blitz on chess.com) I find it very surprising that time was not the most important factor. I know from experience when you get to under 1 second per move remaining the probability of blundering goes way up.

In regards to the skill-anomalous positions, I'd have to look at the positions to be sure but my guess is that these are end game positions where the most reliable path to victory is not the quickest path to victory. In a winning position an experienced chess player will try to simplify and win reliably over winning quickly. The model might consider this a blunder because it gives up some material advantage, but it doesn't actually change the end result of the game. My guess is that given these positions where a lower skilled player allegedly does better, in reality the better players win a higher percentage of the time.

</comment><comment><USER4> > Economists might well ask what all this means for buying decisions

I would not hold my breath on this one. Most economists and mainstream economic models seem to be still struggling to grasp the concept that people _can_ make mistakes (i.e. not maximize their utility)[1], so an idea that you could analyze why and when people make mistakes must be completely mindboggling to them.

[1] If anyone has pointers, I am interested in even remotely mainstream micro models that do not reduce to utility maximization (with a possible unsystematic error term)

</comment><comment><USER5> The study only looks at positions in which there is a defined set of moves that can be shown to be winning (endgames), and treats all non-winning moves as "blunders".

Then it considers the "difficulty" of the position, as the proportion of moves that are "blunders".

So, assuming you're looking at any other than a perfect player, this seems like it will inherently be true in any game.

<comment><USER6> Additionally, it neglected the fact that grand masters plain old memorise a lot of good positions and transformations. This is why some are more likely to blunder in new ones. Say, a weak move can throw a typical plan off, while there is a great counter, this is not a typically tried path, so the player might pick a vastly suboptimal move - they are reduced from memorisation to actual positional and combinatorial analysis.

This often leads to untried, complex positions. There are a few that look like wtf moves until you go way deeper in analysis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's only a matter of time until wage slave becomes a more literal term..

</comment><comment><USER8> Title is clickbait-y.</comment>


Dropbox Forums: The Official Dropquest Thread - <AUTHOR> http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=30339 <comment><USER2> These guys just hit it out of the park constantly with their product and their promotions.

I'm happy to be giving them $10/month.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have the full 19GB of storage from referrals and .edu doubling. I wonder if I can still get these extras..?

</comment><comment><USER4> As if the double referral incentive (referrer and referred) wasn't viral enough... Go Dropbox!

</comment><comment><USER5> Unfortunately, Facebook's hacker cup also starts back up on Saturday.

</comment><comment><USER6> First prize of 50gb for life is nice. A really great incentive.

<comment><USER7> Even 1 GB just for completing is worth it, if it isn't too difficult.

<comment><USER8> You can get 512MB for free by linking your Facebook/Twitter/etc: <http://dropbox.com/free>

And there's also the referral program:

        Each friend you refer to Dropbox yields 250MB of free space.
        In total, you can get up to 8GB for Dropbox Basic accounts
        (for a total of 10GB), and 16GB for Dropbox Pro accounts (in
        addition to the amount you paid for already). All your friend
        has to do is use the link you send to create a Dropbox account
        through the Dropbox desktop application.

        Even better, if you're a student, we double the amount of
        referral bonuses to 500MB per friend and up to 16GB of extra
        space for Dropbox Basic accounts and 32GB for Dropbox Pro accounts.

<http://dropbox.com/referrals>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So, who wants to form a team to get that 1st place prize?</comment>


The Science of Crawl, Part 1: Deduplication of Web Content - <AUTHOR> http://blog.urx.com/urx-blog/2014/9/4/the-science-of-crawl-part-1-deduplication-of-web-content

<comment><USER2> Great article.

I went through a similar process about a year ago for [https://kouio.com](https://kouio.com) (RSS reader). In its case I needed to coalesce closely matching RSS feeds purely for storage and performance. After trialling edit distance and various simhash implementations in Python, we ended up needing to look no further than the standard library's difflib.SequenceMatcher - I wish I documented my findings at the time, but I recall it was the best in terms of speed and accuracy.

Also you might not want to rely on str.isalnum for stripping punctuation. I made the same mistake here: [https://twitter.com/stephen_mcd/status/506344236531212288](https://twitter.com/stephen_mcd/status/506344236531212288)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reference. It looks like SequenceMatch is "cubic time in the worst case and quadratic time in the expected case". Did you notice any performance issues as kouio scaled?

<comment><USER2> Perhaps it was more a case of accuracy for what we were looking at at the time then :-)

It's something we run out of band on a subset of our data, so it's never been performance critical.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> There's also nilsimsa hashing (there's a Python implementation at [http://code.google.com/p/py-nilsimsa/](http://code.google.com/p/py- nilsimsa/)). Unfortunately, nilsimsa hashes can vary in their most significant bits when used on similar inputs:

        773e2df0a02a319ec34a0b71d54029111da90838cbc20ecd3d2d4e18c25a3025
        47182cf0802a11dec24a3b75d5042d310ca90838c9d20ecc3d610e98560a3645

...so although nilsimsa is somewhat nice for calculating the difference of two documents, it's a pain in the butt for finding similar documents in a database.

The solution described in the writeup is neat, but I really wish there was a LSH that generated hashes with a most-to-least significance in their bits.

Great writeup though!

</comment><comment><USER4> As an aside: util.clean_html() has been dropped from NLTK 3.0 which has substantial API changes[1].

The recommendation is to now use BeautifulSoup or something similar.

[1] [https://github.com/nltk/nltk/wiki/Porting-your-code-to- NLTK-...](https://github.com/nltk/nltk/wiki/Porting-your-code-to-NLTK-3.0)

</comment><comment><USER5> Good article. I had a challenge of deduplicating addresses-I had just used cosine similarity , which just worked well for the purpose.</comment>


Homeless in Seattle: The roots of a crisis - <AUTHOR> http://features.crosscut.com/homeless-in-seattle-the-roots-of-a-crisis?platform=hootsuite <comment><USER2> In a few of the threads, the mention of SROs and need for housing come up. Gentrification, affordable housing, etc.

But, one question I fail to see answered well is, why should a city that isn't affordable be required to find and provide housing for individuals in said city? I can't afford to live in Carmel, Los Altos, etc, but I live where I can afford.

California has places like Modesto, Stockton, etc. that have available housing that is not expensive. I'm sure there are places in rural washington as well. Why not have the city partner with neighboring (affordable) municipalities and establish housing, maybe jobs and recovery programs, etc. at a fraction of the cost of trying to wedge the same into places like Seattle or Washington?

A UC Santa Cruz / Civinomics study for homeless in Santa Cruz found roughly 2/3 of the individuals arrived here either on the edge or already homeless.

At what point do municipalities say "enough" and put their own first? I have friends locally going back generations that can't afford to live here and move, yet I am told that someone living in their RV has every right to camp on the street and demand local services, yet arrived here recently.

<comment><USER3> > I can't afford to live in Carmel, Los Altos, etc, but I live where I can > afford.

Have you ever considered that maybe you should be able to afford to live in those places? That the wealthiest nation in the history of humanity ought to cultivate a society that encourages freedom of movement? That cordoning off sections exclusively for the rich leads to a decrease in empathy for the less fortunate? That safe housing and access to the amenities of a city ought not to be exclusively for those who happened to have the lucky combination of skills and money?

Have you considered that the people you hope to exclude are people no different from you?

<comment><USER2> My inlaws are from a part of Germany where I could buy a 60 square meter apartment for cash without really thinking about it (low 5 figures), my truck cost more. A similar sized apartment in Munich would be probably be at least 20x the cost.

Should I expect the city of Munich to provide such a unit at a similar cost to the country side 3 hours away? No.

No, I do not think every municipality has the requirement to provide affordable housing to everyone that has a desire to be there.

Do I think regions need to do better at providing a balance of housing to accommodate the spectrum of people working jobs in the area? Yes. But should a single municipality be expected to accept everyone wanting to be there at a price that individual can afford? No.

In the case of individuals (there are many in Santa Cruz) that don't want to work, want to live the way they want, and have done nothing for the community, the community has every right to say "no".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is very interesting. I recently moved from San Francisco to Pittsburgh and I've noticed that there aren't as many homeless people in this city (Although to be fair; Coming from San Francisco, I feel you can say that about almost any major city in the US). Two things that do exist in Pittsburgh are a ton abandoned homes as well as a declining city population[1]. If the pattern of what is described in these articles are true, I'm wondering if some of the city residents are taking advantage of old buildings as dwellings?

What also throws another question my curiosity is that the city of Pittsburgh a number of tax abatement programs to spur on growth to rebuild many areas. I'm wondering if these programs will trigger a similar effects as the orders put in place in Seattle?

[1] - [https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_#...](https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=kf7tgg1uo9ude_#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=population&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=place:4261000&ifdim=country&tstart=646977600000&tend=1404360000000&hl=en_US&dl=en_US&ind=false)

<comment><USER5> > Pittsburgh and I've noticed that there aren't as many homeless people in > this city

The sounds callous, but part of it is the climate. Winters in Seattle rarely get below freezing, which means the truly homeless can still survive here even when sleeping outside. Most Midwestern or Atlantic Seaboard cities are just too cold during the winter, so Seattle gets a disproportionate number of homeless.

<comment><USER6> Man those homeless guys in Chicago.... they are tough. Few blankets and sleeping under the overpass. I think the worst few nights they pull most into shelters , but plenty sleep there when it is 20F outside.

That said if I ever want to be homeless its SF or Hawaii.

<comment><USER7> SF weather sucks compared to the south bay, socal, Hawaii, or even central cali. Weather is surprisingly not that important to homeless people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Do we give homeless people money to help them or because we want them to go away?

I feel like society puts up a facade of "social justice" trying to help the homeless with one arm while taking away from them and dehumanizing them with the other. Some examples of taking away from them: health care and criminal laws that indirectly make their lives harder over time, the VA, and societies continued criminalizing views on mental health issues such as substance abuse.

</comment><comment><USER9> Pardon my threadjacking, but I know a lot of people reading this are in the SF Bay Area and would like to do something to help with SF's homelessness problem (which is similar in scale to Seattle's).

Consider a donation to a local organization like Larkin Street Youth Services ([http://larkinstreetyouth.org/](http://larkinstreetyouth.org/)). It's not just a band-aid, these organizations can actually turn life around for a homeless person and help people get off the streets for good. There are ~10,000 homeless people in San Francisco. It's a huge number, but there is more than enough money in this city for private citizens to do something about it. You don't have to wait for politicians to think up a plan.

</comment><comment><USER10> _At last count, there were 4,500 people living on the streets of Seattle and King County. It wasn't always this way_

Couldn't this be said about San Francisco, New York, and every other major city? Homelessness is certainly an issue in Seattle, but I would be more interested to look at it holistically and what as a country and world we can do to help solve this problem.

<comment><USER11> My understanding is that the homelessness crisis facing Seattle is more pronounced and more rapidly worsening than similar issues in other major urban areas. I recently relocated to Seattle from New York and never saw anything like Seattle's tent cities and encampments back in Manhattan.

<comment><USER12> It is rapidly getting worse. It doesn't help that many cities are shipping their homeless people to Seattle. Literally buying them bus tickets.

[http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/portland-begins-sending- home...](http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/portland-begins-sending-homeless- people-to-other-cities-including-seattle/296353382)

<comment><USER13> > Literally buying them bus tickets.

This is one of those stories that I've heard or read everywhere I've lived or been (Austin, Honolulu, Seattle, San Fran) that I just assume it's an urban legend used to obfuscate the real issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I live in Seattle. I also live in one of the "lesser" areas of the city.

One of the things that frustrates me the most about our local homeless crisis --if that's what it is, or maybe it's just become more visible--is how lacking the regional response to it is. Seattle seems to be the only city in the north King County/south Snohomish County area that is actually trying to do anything about homelessness versus shuffling the problem off to another city.

This is frustrating for two reasons: one, it puts all of the burden on the backs of the Seattle taxpayers. All the surrounding 'burbs need to do is come up with enough to pay their police departments to round up the "troublemakers"\--because that's usually how someone sleeping on a bench in Bellevue or Redmond[0] is deemed--and then ship them off to the King County Jail, conveniently located in downtown Seattle. Once the "miscreant" (in quotes because, usually, their only crime is sleeping on a bench or maybe smelling of pot) sleeps it off, that person walks out into the drizzly daylight of now being in Seattle, so he or she heads to Pioneer Square or Ballard or Lake City or Rainier Valley and begins anew.

Two, and this is where I get selfish, as a result of this the suburbs "get to" (more like create a situation) enjoy things like clean parks, outdoor bathroom facilities that aren't overused to the point of despair, streets and other public spaces unencumbered by tents and other makeshift encampments...all the while, their residents cluck their tongues about how dirty and run down and depressing Seattle is and aren't their cities so much nicer for not having all of the street people around? But Seattle, for all of the money we residents pour into housing programs and social services, are the _bad people_ if we try to insist that tents not be located on public property or broken-down RVs move every 72 hours.

To continue my rant, speaking of money we pour into all of these things, now I turn to what I've been told by homeless people and their advocates about our broken shelter system. A big problem is that such services are concentrated into a couple of small areas (Pioneer Square and Ballard) and there's neither the funding nor the will to integrate them into surrounding neighborhoods so any new siting proposal meets significant resistance. On top of that, our shelters are unattractive for a laundry list of reasons (security, insufficient storage for personal goods, deliberately separating couples into same-sex housing, disallowing pets) that, while are good for efficient operation of dormitories, don't account for the humans who are trying to exist --or choosing not to exist--in them.

So yeah, it's frustrating all the way around, for the housed and the unhoused. While I'll still vote yes on the housing levy in August--because what does voting no accomplish? Cuts in public services to those who need it most and no impetus to build better facilities--I wish our response, our _regional_ response would be better.

0 - I pick on Bellevue and Redmond but they're not the only ones, just the most recent target of my ire. Shoreline, Lake Forest Park, Kirkland, Bothell, Kenmore, Woodinville...they're all just as complicit in "oh no, we can't possibly build any more public facilities but if you dare take a nap on the grass in one of our parks off to 5th and James you go."

<comment><USER2> As someone who lives in Santa Cruz, CA and is in Seattle/Kirkland/Redmond with regularity, honestly, being able to go to a park, sit down and not run the risk of someone mentally ill screaming at you, trash and human waste strewn about or needles, really is a treat.

I've seen the camps along the highways when driving from the airport and heading north. It is a problem.

Big cities (especially on the west coast), as mentioned in other threads, have a problem with homelessness. SF has reported numbers around 6600 for a city of 850k, Santa Cruz reported about 3500 for a city of 60k.

The problem here isn't just homelessness, but acceptance of bad behaviors and almost no penalties for crimes committed by those without means -- citations are ignored, many arrests are catch and release.

I don't know what the solution is, but as someone living in a city with severe issues and no will to change it, I enjoy visiting some of those places mentioned on the east side.

<comment><USER15> > The problem here isn't just homelessness, but acceptance of bad behaviors > and almost no penalties for crimes committed by those without means -- > citations are ignored, many arrests are catch and release.

I couldn't agree more. I wish this opinion were more widely held. Yes, we should work to create social programs that help people who have nothing. Yes, these people are hurting enough and it's sad to just pile on the trouble.

But we encourage this behavior every time we allow it to happen with no consequences. There's a guy who's been living in a tent on my block on Folsom longer than I've been living in my apartment. What the fuck? The police don't care when I call, even though there are laws in place about this. I'm a monster if I walk over there and rip it down.

There need to be consequences, but how do you discourage someone who has nothing? They're almost inherently unpunishable.

<comment><USER16> > But we encourage this behavior every time we allow it to happen with no > consequences. There's a guy who's been living in a tent on my block on > Folsom longer than I've been living in my apartment. What the fuck? The > police don't care when I call, even though there are laws in place about > this. I'm a monster if I walk over there and rip it down.

Yes, you are a monster if you rip down their home.

Encourage this behavior? How do we encourage homelessness by locking people up for having nothing? Do you think by putting someone in jail or forcing someone with most likely no income to pay a fine that it will all the sudden hit them that homelessness might not be the best lifestyle?

These people are doing what they must to survive. Do some of them have mental health or substance abuse issues? Probably, but the solution to those problems isn't punitive. The sort of issues require counseling and access to health care and most importantly shelter. Trying to combat homelessness by stepping up police efforts (which brings in host of it's own problems) is short sighted and wreaks of NIMBY-ism.

<comment><USER15> I haven't encouraged locking anybody up, or fining anybody. They don't care. It doesn't work. I know. Please don't put words in my mouth.

"They're just doing what they must to survive" doesn't justify the street behavior of san francisco vagrants any more than it justifies a hungry dog ripping the face off a kid.

Do you live in a neighborhood where you deal with the homeless and mentally ill on a daily basis and at all hours?

Do you step in shit? Are you spit on? Accosted? Have your roommates come home with phlegm and spit in their hair? Have you left your apartment to find a man's face pressed against the window, yelling "You look like you've been waiting to eat my ass your whole life"?

I'd need a yard to put the Y in NIMBY, but all I have is a feces-caked grate that I routinely kick people off of so I can open the door and get into a street that stinks of piss. Sorry if you're bummed that I'm interrupting their pill sales.

Live and let live doesn't cut it here, not for me. The idea that these people should be left alone regardless of the blight and destruction they cause to public spaces is short sighted and wreaks of "I don't actually experience this problem".

The homeless are struggling. They need help. But they're a scourge, too, and I'm sick and tired of people boo-hooing about how they're just trying to survive as the streets in this city rot from their presence, as though their being in pain makes it acceptable that they erode the quality of every public space in the city. It is not acceptable.

The solutions we have for homelessness and its associated ailments are weak, and need to be better. They need to be rooted in generosity and upward mobility. I completely agree. I'm all for huge city spending on building, and on every conceivable social program, especially for mental health.

What I am not for is turning a blind eye to the realities of homelessness' effects on the city in the mean time, and to distance the crimes and destruction from the individuals who commit them.

You do not get a free pass to fuck up the world because your life sucks.

<comment><USER17> > I haven't encouraged locking anybody up, or fining anybody.

Well, you encouraged "consequences," which usually means one of those two things.

> But we encourage this behavior every time we allow it to happen with no > consequences... There need to be consequences, but how do you discourage > someone who has nothing? They're almost inherently unpunishable.

So, there need to be consequences, but you don't agree with locking people up or fining them? What consequences were you referring to then?

<comment><USER15> I have no idea, and that's what makes it difficult. It's the purpose of the sentence you quoted.

Consequences are almost always about losing something, and you have to have something to lose it, so you can't punish those who have nothing.

This creates a bizzaro nightmare scenario where the destitute can commit petty crimes with impunity.

I won't pretend to have a solution to this. So far, I'm not sure anybody does.

But that doesn't mean I can't be mad as hell about it. I'm sick of people saying that how people act in the streets here is somehow short of reprehensible.

<comment><USER18> One potential solution I've been pondering:

Send like 4000 homeless people to a small abandoned town (like old dead mining towns and such), with gear and supplies, such that they can help each other create themselves a society, simultaneously they might revive the abandoned town. If they then choose to leave, they leave. If they choose to stay they stay.

Not everyone needs to be assimilated, and _us_ building services to help _them_ "be successful", is the literal meaning of assimilation. Kinda like a commune or an Amish village, potentially even burning man, allow them to build themselves the society such that they are successfully able to live in.

P.S. I don't have particularly good ideas about how you keep them safe, or even if you should. It should be their society and maybe that means, allow them to make their own laws.

P.P.S. I know I'm crazy.

<comment><USER19> Not impossible, but as a proposed government-sponsored program in this day and age, impossible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Coming soon to a demographic group near you. Homelessness, not just for day laborers and factory employees anymore.

People ask what our plan will be when middle class jobs are eliminated by automation and robots. As if things can't happen without a plan. And a good plan at that. Well, lack of plan never stopped anything in the 70s.

<comment><USER21> Why not retry the work progress administration? Worst case we will end up with a bunch of cabins in national parks and a bunch of people who have learned that they are not total failures but can, in fact, make something both of themselves and their environment.

<comment><USER22> This makes entirely too much sense. Bring back the CCC.

I had one of the better summers of my life doing something similar working for an Appalachian trail club.

<comment><USER23> This solution would immediately be denounced as a forced labor camp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I found this article to be very thin on data to support its thesis that:

a. there is a homeless crisis in Seattle in particular

b. this crisis was caused in part by a systematic erosion of infrastructural support for affordable housing and mental health care.

For some background, there was a spike in the homeless count in the Seattle- Tacoma area over the last three years ([http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle- news/politics/count-of-s...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle- news/politics/count-of-seattle-king-county-homeless-finds-4505-people- sleeping-outside/)), but I don't know how noisy the data gathering technique is (it sounds like it's super noisy), and I gather that the linked article isn't talking about something that happened over the last three years.

I found the reports at [http://www.endhomelessness.org](http://www.endhomelessness.org) (direct link to 2016 report: [http://www.endhomelessness.org/page/-/files/2016%20State%20O...](http://www.endhomelessness.org/page/-/files/2016%20State%20Of%20Homelessness.pdf)) to be very helpful to get a better quantitative view of homelessness. The 2015 report has comparative data by city. Seattle ranked 6th worst in terms of per capita homeless rates, but I haven't found a good Seattle specific breakdown of rates by demographic/cause over time yet.

The overall national (USA) trendline for homelessness is negative from 2007-2016. This is not at all to say that there isn't a problem (there is), but I find the narrative of crisis (which implies something coming to a head, reaching a point of no return, etc.) to be counterproductive. We have systematic structural and infrastructural problems in the USA broadly and Seattle, WA in particular that create unjust and inhumane conditions for a significant percentage of the population. We're slowly getting better, but we don't have very good safeguards against regressing, and we're not getting better as quickly as we'd like. That's what a brief foray into the data says (minus the evaluative bits).

Is there something that has caused a huge spike in homelessness in Seattle in particular? I don't honestly know. Does it have deep roots in the erosion of public support for homelessness? I don't know that either, but my tiny and imperfect window into the data says "probably not."

Also interesting, the Seattle Human Services "Homeless Investment Analysis" from 2015 ([http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/HumanServices/R...](http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/HumanServices/Reports/HomelessInvestmentAnalysis.pdf)). TL;DR "we're ramping up spending on the problem but it could be done better and more efficiently."

<comment><USER25> _I found this article to be very thin on data to support its thesis_

Yeah. I'm a grant writing consultant, and virtually every large municipality has a group of organizations that receive HUD Continuum of Care funding to deal with homelessness. There are problems with this system (see [http://seliger.com/2012/11/11/huds-confusing-continuum-of- ca...](http://seliger.com/2012/11/11/huds-confusing-continuum-of-care-coc- program-explained/)) but it exists and the lack of even mentioning it is a red flag.

I don't know about Seattle's specific situation because we haven't worked for any of Seattle's CoC organizations or its public housing authority, but I do know in general that a lot of funding for homelessness organizations exists. (Seattle also has a powerful NIMBY lobby, which likely exacerbates homelessness and drug treatment issues.)

There is a term, the name of which I forget, that is named for a physicist who used to read the newspaper and who was always annoyed by the science reporting, which got essential facts / ideas wrong. One day he realized that if the newspaper was getting essential facts / ideas wrong about science, the other sections probably weren't much better; he just didn't know enough about the topics to know what was wrong. That's how I feel reading the article.

<comment><USER26> The Murray Gell–Mann Amnesia Effect, which was actually coined by Michael Crichton.</comment></comment></comment>


New music collaboration site - <AUTHOR> https://www.jamly.co <comment><USER2> I have a feeling that this should be a SHOW HN: post

</comment><comment> r-u-serious How does it deal with network latency?</comment>