Review my new site, EndAnts.com, please. It's supposed to make you happier. - <AUTHOR> http://www.endants.com

<comment><USER2> The front page gives me no idea of what I will get by registering, so it's hard to commit to getting an account. (Maybe that would have been remedied by the demo people seem to be mentioning.) It also does nothing to explain what the site does or how it works, other than a vague goal.

<comment><USER3> I agree. I would like to see a couple bullet points or sentences explaining how the site will end "ANTs" for me. I don't want to sit through a demo video.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hear you guys loud and clear. I'm going to work on redesigning the homepage ASAP. Thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Honestly, I read the site, nodded my head, but then realized I couldn't get any info on what your application does. At that point, I left.

You should consider having _some_ kind of description/screenshot on what your specific product does.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea, I will make that clear & add some sort of visual as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I walked it through (without registering) and thought it was interesting, but was surprised to not see any summary of my input at the end, or analysis provided, or anything other than to be dumped back to the start page.

I mean, a certain amount of the point is self-evident by its asking you to re- evaluate your original statements and feelings, but I feel like it's an exercise I would do once, learn or discard, and then never need the website again after that. What further functionality is planned?

<comment><AUTHOR> OK, good feedback. I disabled demo mode. Try going through the process with registering? This way, you can get anonymous feedback from other users on possible thought distortions you neglected in your interpretation of the negative event.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I got to the homepage and didn't really know if it was a game or what the heck it was. I only saw "Register" and "Login" buttons, some links to what seemed to be external sites, so... I left :)

</comment><comment><USER7> I really like this idea. I can even imagine signing up. But before I sign up I need to see clear 3rd party validation from 3 or more reputable sources (e.g. Harvard Psychology Prof) that this approach is effective. In a perfect world this would be specific to your site but I would settle for a strong linkage between the theory your site is built on and the research that backs it.

Why? Because I'm too lazy to do that research myself so I need you to beat me over the head with it. Without that proof I just find myself thinking, "Hmmm good idea. I could use this. But does this work? Why should I trust this site? I could look into it but... too much work". Then I click back button. If you have that info somewhere on the site you need to put it front and center. You have about 10 seconds before I give up and bail.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is excellent. For more reasons than one.

First of all, from an online marketing and technical standpoint, i love how you force me to try the app rather than giving me a chance to deliberate whether i want to try it or not. good play on invoking my curiousity.

Secondly, and more importantly, what you are trying to achive is very noble, and i mean that sincerely, and the way that you are trying to achieve it is rather amazing.

I go through a re-framing process such as this often in my mastermind group meetings, but to be able to automate this in the way that you have done is truly amazing.

I'm already hooked, and i hope your app can keep me there. This could be a life changer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your kind words. I really appreciate it. Is this something you would consider paying for?

<comment><USER8> I would only consider paying for it, if it was to actively interrupt my day, every day to make sure that i dont get into a negative cycle.

And you'd have to organise that in such a way, that it interrupts me enough to help me, but not enough to become a chore or an annoyance.

That'd have to be quite the balance you would have to achieve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like it. Here's some feedback:

The sliders don't render correctly on chrome (they overlap the other elements).

Step 7 didn't work for me. I clicked it and it didn't do anything. I then couldn't figure out how to get 'back' or to restart the process. I then logged out and then logged back in and expected to see where I left off but didn't.

Minor - it'd be nice to be able to log in with either an email address or username. I used a gmail tracking email to "email@example.com" to see if I get spam and don't want to have to enter that every time.

Neat concept! I would have liked to be able to finish it though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

1) Can you please post a screenshot of the sliders on chrome?

2) I fixed the bug with Step 7. I like your suggestion about saving progress... I will try to work that in (added a TODO).

3) You can now log in with your email address -or- username. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great idea, but I think it needs gradual engagement. In other words, no registration initially. People can register after they've tried it out, but obviously it should keep the data collected so far. That solves the problem of having to describe what it actually does, as you can have step 1 right on the front page.

</comment><comment><USER11> You should (I think) adjust the amount of karma received for reviewing negative thoughts downwards. In my experience people are the type of animal that likes to sniff others' poo and will gladly offer opinions on them even with a smaller reward :-(

<comment><USER11> The invite-a-friend form is broken on Firefox 3.6.8. I only get a text field with an URL in it by default (<http://www.endants.com/?r=42>), and no way to submit the form even after I enter an e-mail.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your feedback on both these points is noted. I'll fix both of them. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Hey Zack,

Thanks for putting something like this together. I found it very helpful in dealing with some of my own unpleasant thoughts and incorrect self beliefes.

Here are some corrections that you can make to improve the site.

1\. Style it a little nicer. Just throw on a coat of CSS and you'll be looking good. 2\. give me a way to save out of the steps. 3\. The rankings seem off. it was telling me i'd be ranked 1709 out of 1928 when i completed it but when I finished it I was only ranked 19 out of 19.

</comment><comment><USER13> I was reluctant to sign up because I suspected you would be asking for my credit card details. If it is free to register then you should mention that.

</comment><comment><USER14> Eliminating negative thoughts is unlikely to make you happier. The world is a complicated place. The appropriate response to problems is sober assessment, not positivity.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/10/books/excerpt-bright- sided...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/10/books/excerpt-bright-sided.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sonja Lyubomirsky (among many others) would disagree with you (PhD, Stanford, A.B. Harvard, Summa cum laude). Check out these peer-reviewed papers for some evidence <http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~sonja/papers.html>

What good is living in a pessimistic world? In some cases, like finances and life-threatening situations, erring on the side of pessimism is probably the best approach (though it's definitely debatable; for example, check out the New Yorker article on cancer treatment and hospice care that was posted earlier, and please do note the results in stopping treatment inexplicably extending prognosis in cases of certain carcinomas).

Anyway, the site is not designed to turn you into a cheery moron. It's designed to help you stop thinking false, incorrect, and negative thoughts, by showing you irrational distortions you're automatically invoking (out of habit).

The solution, my friend, is not dogmatism - the solution is not an all-out rejection or embracement of positive psychology. Instead, the solution lies in critical thinking and honest evaluation.

<comment><USER14> Peer review and publication are not what make science what it is. Positive psychology is not science. Insisting on a particular epistemology is not dogmatism.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why is positive psychology not a science? It could easily be considered a subset of ethology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> With such a simple registration form, why not just include it on the page?

Also options for OpenID, Facebook Connect, etc would be great as it would reduce the need for me to worry about one more username and password.

Less Worry only produces Greater Happiness.

</comment><comment><USER16> The negative thoughts I looked at seemed to lend themselves to more than three of the distortions. Could we be allowed to select as few/many as seems appropriate? That would actually be less effort than having to choose the best three of five that seem to fit.

</comment><comment><USER17> Er, bug report: you can login without a username or password. By clicking 'Log In'

<comment><USER10> Yeah, but after reading your bug report it turned out to be a feature for me. Because there's no way I'm registering for an app if I have no idea what it does. Thanks Zack, this is a brilliant idea. Now just listen to the other comments about how your front page should give an idea of the mechanics of your app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I tried the demo but after 2-3 steps it said I was still at step 1 of 7. When I tried to refresh to see if that was accurate I was told I had already checked out the demo and to register.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. The demo mode is a two part process:

A) 1-2-3

and then ...

B) 1-2-3-4-5-6-7

I have temporarily disabled demo mode for now, (to encourage people to simply register accounts to check out the community features), but thank you - I can totally understand why this would be frustrating

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Modal dialog boxes make me sad/depressed/angry.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, feedback noted. In today's instant click -> results environment, a popup that doesn't yield gratifying change would totally cause frustration build up. I'll work on eliminating all of them ... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Argh, just went through the full seven step program and the "I'm done!" button isn't responding!

I'm feeling frustrated ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ahh, found the bug. A bunch of blank space in TextMate caused a foreign character to appear in the source. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> can someone please explain the purpose of this application? the demo isn't working and I don't want to register when I don't know what the website is suppose to do.

Kind of frustrating reading 10 comments and still having no clue what it does.

<comment><AUTHOR> Although it is 100% my responsibility to explain the site to you, it really only takes 20 seconds to fill out the 3-field registration form. (How could I make the brevity of experience more clear?)

Anyway, the idea of the site is that you list a negative experience that you had, and then you list some of your thoughts about it, and then the site helps you find distortions in your thinking in order to shift you to a more balanced and positive feeling in your mind and body

<comment><USER22> It's not just a question of the amount of time it takes to fill out a registration form. It's the added mental overhead of adding yet another website that has my email and/or personal information.

Furthermore, (and I mean this in the nicest possible way) in the context of this website (with no design and no information about what it actually does), you have zero credibility in my book. So I'm sorry, but no. If you cannot take 5-10 minutes to add a paragraph or two to the site about what it actually does, then I cannot take 20 seconds to register for the site in order to try to figure it out myself.

EDIT: I realize you've sort of explained it now in this thread, but the point I'm trying to get across is that this is the thought process your typical visitor is going through.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with you 100%. I'm redesigning the page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I jsut tried to review someone else's thoughts (which were about how the site design didn't display properly in the browser).

Unfortunately it would not let me submit the page. Using Chrome btw.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I fixed the bug - I was failing to json_encode the string.

The user's thoughts were amusing, though I did design for an 800x600 display, which I thought to be pretty standard today.</comment></comment>


Netherlands To Tax Drivers By the Kilometer - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/11/dutch-road-tax/

<comment><USER2> The Dutch government is batting 10 for 10 when it comes to pushing through legislation that mocks the idea of privacy openly. Another stellar idea they had: gather fingerprints for every single person in the country and store them in a central database. I know it sounds like a bad joke, but it's not ([http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2009/09/fingerprints_i...](http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2009/09/fingerprints_included_in_dutch.php)). The law was passed without any problem, and only now privacy groups are fighting back.

It's scary when your government is so obviously looking out for itself, rather than you, and failing to even see the difference. After all, what's good for the government is good for the people, eh?

<comment><USER3> Honest question, can you or someone explain to me why is fingerprinting everyone bad? And if so, how does it weigh against benefits that gives to effectives of police? Where I live we all have unique citizen no.'s and fingerprinting is mandatory when issuing an ID card (also mandatory) for I believe 60 years already, and no problem whatsoever.

<comment><USER4> Where?

<comment><USER3> Croatia, and before that ex Yugoslavia.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Doesn't the gasoline tax we pay in the US accomplish the exact same thing without all the fancy GPS and central data gathering business?

<comment><USER6> No. If reducing emissions is the goal, gas taxes are actually superior because the price is proportional the emissions you make. This tax doesn't provide a disincentive against gas guzzlers, but they already have insanely high gas taxes in Europe. To me, this seems like a supremely over-engineered means of taxation.

<comment><USER7> But if reducing congestion is also a goal, as the second sentence of the article states, a per-kilometer tax is superior. A GPS-based system can also target those who drive at peak hours and on congested roads. Given that the Netherlands is small and population-dense, they might be very interested in reducing congestion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Apart from hating the big brother aspects of this, it won't reduce greenhouse gas as effectively. Fuel taxation would do the same thing and be more efficient at reducing CO2.

The GPS is clever for reducing congestion, but I doubt they're able to evaluate if you're not contributing by, say, taking back roads to work. EZPass or license cams would be better for congestion charges.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's a stupid approach and it will never see the light of day.

NL has a long history of spending lots of money on large infrastructural projects that get abandoned. But I'm sure some big contractors will clean up on it.

Until not that long ago we had a complete lock complex sitting at the head of a non-existent channel...

<comment><USER10> Lets hope so. Now that the government is tracking everyone on public transport with the "OV Chipkaart", and is going to track everyone in cars, there is no easy way for normal citizens to move across the country anonymously. Of course big criminals will have no problem avoiding being tracked.

Phone, internet, passport, transport, health care, cameras everywhere. When do I get a free webcam for my home? Why is the government so afraid of us?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I live in Amsterdam. The public transportation has a similar system: pay for each kilometer you travel. The system is pretty complicated and user unfriendly (I lost twice 4.75€ due to some confusion). I believe they want some fairness, but if you ask me, the old system (pay per travel) was better.

</comment><comment><USER12> "Each vehicle will be equipped with a GPS device that tracks how many kilometres are driven and when and where. This data will be then be sent to a collection agency that will send out the bill"

I'm far more concerned about the implementation than the concept.

</comment><comment><USER13> This does not seem to reward fuel-efficient vehicles that get more mileage per unit of fuel.

</comment><comment><USER14> love the photo of a 'traffic jam' - they should visit Auckland sometime - they'd probably call that a parking lot ;-)</comment>


50% of angels regret investments made this year - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/11/21/half-of-angel-investors-regret-investments-they-made-this-year-survey/

<comment><USER2> This almost makes it seem like angel investing has some risk associated with it.

But seriously, this is about as low content as a post as you could imagine:

\- Angel investors regret bad decisions

\- Angel investors want lower valuations

\- Angel investors want less "hot air" (which is ironic because most media sources highly recommend you "hustle" when raising money)

All of this is obvious. And a company that is replacing the guesswork of valuing early-stage companies with their own arbitrary guesswork doesn't strike me as an upgrade, especially since I'm sure they take a cut somehow.

<comment><USER3> Yes, this is a very silly article.

In fact, since it's saying that "50% of angel investors regret at least one investment this year", that could be taken to mean that the other 50% of angel investors are being _too conservative_ with their investments: [http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/11/loss-ratios-in-early- stage-v...](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/11/loss-ratios-in-early-stage- vc.html)

This assumes that angel investors have the same incentives as institutional VC firms do, which is not always the case, but I'm just highlighting how silly it is to have a headline that "only" 50% of angel investors this year have no regrets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's it huh? I'd assume ~100% would regret some investment they made.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, that was exactly my thought.

50% is not actually that bad - given that its really hard to say which investment will work or not.

Put another way, it means 50% weren't too unhappy with their investments! That's a lot!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If I'm not mistaken angels anticipate that 90% or more of their investments will fail. It's high risk so that's why they command high equity.

"Regret" (ie hindsight) is a useless metric.

But that's the not the point of the article anyway. Hello sales pitch for Worthworm!

</comment><comment><USER7> All things considered I think a 50% regret rate is pretty damn good, considering the majority of those companies will probably not pan out.

<comment><USER8> Especially when it is that 50% regret 1 or more investments.

What percentage of stock market investors make at least one investment per year that goes down?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The last paragraph is self-contradictory. And the entire article, while telling entrepreneurs not to inflate their projections, implies that inflating your projections is exactly how to get funded.

</comment><comment><USER10> As the article mentions, 1/2 of all investments lose money (source: [http://sites.kauffman.org/pdf/angel_groups_111207.pdf](http://sites.kauffman.org/pdf/angel_groups_111207.pdf)). Given that, plus the fact that 6-12 months usually provides a lot of hints about whether an investment will be a good one, these findings don't seem very surprising.

</comment><comment><USER11> Don't most angels regret investments every year? I was under the impression that you invested expecting to lost 90% but get a 10x return on 10% to pay off the fund and then everything else was gravy?

</comment><comment><USER8> The more I think about it the more I think the real headline here is that 50% of angel investors don't regret a single investment they've made in the past year.

</comment><comment><USER12> I bet half of them were below average...

</comment><comment><USER13> It's 46%. And, there's no comparison to other years. Maybe "46% regret" is a record low for the industry.

</comment><comment><USER14> Uhm. 50% actually seems quite conservative. If you have no data, the probability halves with each concurrent requirement. If Angels invested, on average, in two start ups a year, looking at the issue with no data, you'd expect 75% of them to regret at least one of their investments. If they invested in four you'd expect 93.75% of them to regret.

According to Almeida Capital Research, as cited by the DTI, the average number of annual investments by angel-backed funds in the UK is 6.5

[http://www.bis.gov.uk/files/file38273.pdf](http://www.bis.gov.uk/files/file38273.pdf) (see page 47)

Granted the UK is not the US, granted that angel-backed funds isn't necessarily the same as saying that each Angel made 6.5 investments.

Still, if those numbers are even vaguely in the right ballpark, that's a lot of uncertainty being reduced to get down to 50% regret.

And then, is their regret rational, do they only regret things on which they've lost money, and how much? If you make 80% of your income from 20% of your projects (I don't know the actual numbers) and you regret on average > 15.38% of your investments you may well be able to take on a fair bit more risk.

 _> Investors would basically prefer if entrepreneurs didn't blow a lot of hot air. Considering that angel-funded startups are significantly more likely to survive at least four years and raise additional financing, its in entrepreneurs' best interest to be honest and back their claims up with real information._

If they gave an honest valuation maybe they wouldn't get funded at all. The motivation of an entrepreneur is not necessarily to reduce investor regret.</comment>


Microsoft wins multibillion-dollar cloud deal from AT&T - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/16/microsoft-wins-multibillion-dollar-cloud-deal-from-att.html <comment><USER2> Google, with all its brilliant engineering will be left far 3rd in the cloud race. AWS and Azure will eat into its existing clients. And not because they have superior tech, but they know how to work with non technical customers. I personally like Google cloud a lot</comment>


Ask HN: Should I form a new company, or sell a new product under the old? - <AUTHOR>

My company is developing a new product. We are trying to decide if we should sell it under the existing company directly or form a new company to sell it under. The two products are similar, but cater to vastly different markets.<p>What kinds of things do we need to consider to make an informed decision either way? <comment><USER2> This is a minor detail that can easily be addressed after the product has traction.

Brand it on its own with no obvious links to your company. You should have nothing to be concerned about other than maybe the customer sees your company name on their credit card statement.

Later, if you really want to deal with the paperwork hassles of setting up a new company, you can do so and simply sell the 'product assets' to the new entity for $100 (or whatever mundane price you want to set - just for bookkeeping purposes).

<comment><AUTHOR> it actually already has traction, so at what point does it make sense to separate (if ever) ?</comment></comment>


A Parliament of Owls - <AUTHOR> http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/05/25/parliament-of-owls/ <comment><USER2> Is it wrong that I completely stopped reading after the first line:

"Humans have always noticed owls."

And internally I went "Really. 'Always'?!?"</comment>


Your Life Is Tetris. Stop Playing It Like Chess - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/life-learning/your-life-is-tetris-stop-playing-it-like-chess-4baac6b2750d <comment><USER2> was posted 3 weeks ago [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10890548](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10890548)

<comment><USER3> And more comments here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10958399](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10958399)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > 1\. In life, your only opponent is yourself.

Or, you know, people who actually want to kill you. Or a state that wants to disenfranchise you. Or abusive peers and parents. Or...

> In life, things don't get harder — they just get faster.

Until you reach middle age - and your back starts going, your hearing fades, your glasses prescription gets stronger...

> In life, you can't control the board.

Unless you look at likely outcomes for your socio-economic class. Sure, you don't know what's coming next - but you know that a higher degree usually leads to better employment prospect. Saving for a pension now will set you up for retirement.

> In life, no one tells you when you've won.

Really? You don't think society places great emphasis on milestone achievements like marriage, reproduction, employment success, sporting prowess, etc? Only you know what will make you truly happy - but everyone will be _very_ keen to tell you if you're a winner or a loser.

<comment><USER5> >Really? You don't think society places great emphasis on milestone achievements like marriage, reproduction, employment success, sporting prowess, etc? Only you know what will make you truly happy - but everyone will be very keen to tell you if you're a winner or a loser.

IMO it's more like gamification:

Achievement Unlocked: $100K of student loans!

Achievement Unlocked: Wage Slave!

Achievement Unlocked: Something's in the oven!

Achievement Unlocked: Mortgage!

Achievement Unlocked: Couples counseling.

Achievement Unlocked: Substance addiction...

Achievement Unlocked: Divorced...

Achievement Unlocked: Rebound!!!

Achievement Unlocked: Downsized...

Achievement Unlocked: Child support...

Achievement Unlocked: Rehired!!!

Achievement Unlocked: New love!!!

Achievement Unlocked: Foreclosure...

Achievement Unlocked: 40...

Achievement Unlocked: Life-threatening health issue...

Achievement Unlocked: Recovered!!!

Achievement Unlocked: Remarried!!!

Achievement Unlocked: Divorce times 2...

Achievement Unlocked: Technological Unemployment...

Achievement Unlocked: Back to School!!!

Etc...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's neither. Life is like poker, combining skill, random chance, and the need to understand and anticipate the behavior of other human beings while they do the same with you.

Each of the games mentioned has only two of these three elements.

Also in poker people start with different amounts of money and that matters.

<comment><USER7> Yep, but you also need to sit down with a certain amount of money, otherwise you'll be playing a different game and at different stakes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Neither Tetris nor Chess, but Dwarf Fortress.

[http://www.pcgamer.com/into-the-deep-its-time-to-learn- how-t...](http://www.pcgamer.com/into-the-deep-its-time-to-learn-how-to-play- dwarf-fortress/)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance- of...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/the-brilliance-of-dwarf- fortress.html)

<comment><USER9> Losing to a Forgotten Beast made out of vomit and pus doesn't sound quite as fun in real life :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Life is Calvin Ball[1]. Any rules we may identify are subject to abrupt, arbitrary, and often incomprehensible, change. Best to just enjoy the insanity.

1.[http://calvinandhobbes.wikia.com/wiki/Calvinball](http://calvinandhobbes.wikia.com/wiki/Calvinball)

</comment><comment><USER11> Personally I think life is like Backgammon: there are no absolute certainties, just probabilities, and due to this an expectiminimax-like approach with good heuristics is more effective than trying to peer far into the future.

</comment><comment><USER12> This article got the necessary treatment from /r/chess weeks ago:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/418pcl/life_chess_an...](https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/418pcl/life_chess_and_tetris/?submit_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2Flife- learning%2Fyour-life-is-tetris-stop-playing-it-like- chess-4baac6b2750d%23.jjzoqv34n&already_submitted=true&submit_title=Your+Life+Is+Tetris.+Stop+Playing+It+Like+Chess).

I'm leaning towards our lives are more like Chess but more. Of course our biases create the framework of our reality.

</comment><comment><USER13> Yeah, I've already heard something like: "Life is just like Tetris: there's no way to win, you can just stay alive for longer or shorter time"

I enjoyed the read, thank you.

<comment><USER14> Or: your mistakes are always visible and your successes disappear.

<comment><USER15> Oh, I like this one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Comparing `life' to chess or Tetris or anything really just shows how much you haven't lived long enough yet.

</comment><comment><USER17> I liked this but vehemently disagree based on a few of the reasons others have mentioned. I will say my old chess teacher had an excellent quote about life that also applies to Tetris. "There's only ever three moves, a good move, a bad move, and the right move." I still say that to myself all the time when things get hard.

<comment><USER18> That's an interesting quote. I get it, but I was curious if you had an example of how you've utilized the quote in your life?

<comment><USER17> Mostly when I face people that get a rise out of me, whether in a personal or business setting. How best do I react? What's the correct move? Do I respond in kind, with hostility, or is there a better way?

That quote has wandered into my mind in innumerable number of situations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is the second time I am seeing and since the time I saw it first, I have begun thinking that life is an analogy to whatever game you make it, whether that be candy crush, bejeweled, chess, hearts, poker, ... tetris, etc.

My own view on chess and life is that you shouldn't play it by planning 10 steps to hit just one target, but as one of 10 targets. Transform that concept to whatever game you wish.

These statements serve as analogies we use to communicate what life is like or how we understand it. For that reason, I feel the title should have been "How life is a Tetris game and opponentless."

<comment><USER20> > This is the second time I am seeing and since the time I saw it first, I > have begun thinking that life is an analogy to whatever game you make it, > whether that be candy crush, bejeweled, chess, hearts, poker, ... tetris, > etc.

Metaphors are like books, they can be about anything®

<comment><USER21> Even when they are similes :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Fun piece but it lacks any realistic depth.

For example the claim that "your score can increase to infinity, if you just push yourself harder" is a concept that is untrue and obsolete.

[http://www.monbiot.com/2011/11/07/the-self-attribution- falla...](http://www.monbiot.com/2011/11/07/the-self-attribution-fallacy/)

Further, the realities of privilege, oppression and discrimination are completely ignored.

</comment><comment><USER23> I think the series "No Game No Life" covered this best -

"There's no way to know the rules or the goal, yet there are 7 billion people making whatever moves they want. If you lose too much, or win too much, there are penalties. You can't pass your turn, and if you talk too much, you'll be ostracized. There are no parameters and no way to even know the genre. This world is just a crappy game."

\- Perhaps a tad melodramatic, but still...

</comment><comment><USER24> I couldn't find any record of this guy playing chess in either USCF or FIDE.

</comment><comment><USER25> More life advice from a 20 something? Oh Medium.

</comment><comment><USER26> Life is totalistic. It depends only on the total value of you and your neighbors. [1]

[1] [http://mathworld.wolfram.com/TotalisticCellularAutomaton.htm...](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/TotalisticCellularAutomaton.html)

</comment><comment><USER27> Really enjoyed this article (most of it). Especially the part about life not being a zero sum game & a mindset like that being a disadvantage and life being essentially a race against time knowing that "losing" is inevitable.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'd just like to play the old tetris on my new android. The new tetris is a POS.

</comment><comment><USER29> A short, elegant piece of writing with some real insight.

</comment><comment><USER30> The present is like Tetris, the future is like chess.

</comment><comment><USER31> Your life is neither Tetris nor Chess. It's Go.

</comment><comment><USER32> Or maybe life is like chess with timed turns.

</comment><comment><USER33> people get way too hung up on analogies</comment>


Availability of Java SE 8 updates for personal use in question after 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://www.java.com/en/download/release_notice.jsp <comment><USER2> If you are still on the Java boat, it is time to get off.</comment>


I made my software open source - <AUTHOR> http://meteoremails.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Folks! Some time ago, I created a tool for my own use, which sent cold emails to potential customers. It served me basically for everyday work. Sending an email, then - when contact was promising - retrying via LinkedIn and exporting to CRM. I worked on it, hoping that one day it would see a full-paid version and I will start making money on it. Looking closely at the current situation, I thought that such a tool could be perhaps useful to others. It is a pity that it is locked up. That's why I decided to release it as an open-source solution! Simple license, open code, absolutely free. I hope it will be useful to someone! If anyone wants to use, please visit [https://meteoremails.com](https://meteoremails.com). If someone wants to join the development of the application, it is waiting on GitHub - [https://github.com/catin-black/meteor-emails/](https://github.com/catin- black/meteor-emails/) Cheers!</comment>


How we run hackathons - <AUTHOR> https://www.aerofs.com/blog/how-we-run-hackathons/ <comment><USER2> I don't care about trophies, certificate, gift cards, etc. What sounds most positive to me about your internal hack days is your effort to productionize the efforts. That means you actually realize that all those smart, ambitious people you hire might actually have good ideas.

I recently left an NYC ed-tech startup that would have 'hack days', but during the hack days there were games, distractions, and once even a live band. Now I like parties, but it indicated to me that the non-technical CEO was allowing the hack day because Facebook did it, and he viewed it more as a recruiting effort than something he took seriously. I won one of the categories once and received no followup whatsoever, and the impression that I got was that if I wanted to work on it nights and weekends after the fact, then maybe it would be considered. Lots of people did do 'real work' during hack day, and most of the projects were fluff or things that were obviously going to be on the product roadmap anyway. To me, the entire thing was a waste of time, which is unfortunate, because I really wish more companies looked for creativity out of their engineers. Many companies (especially NYC ones) will begrudgingly pay you for your coding skills, but then put you at the whim of a product manager with no experience building anything. I always say that if you think about why designers/coders learned these skillsets, it's often because they are extremely interested in the end-products and that's what motivated them to learn to build products in the first place, and so to totally ignore their input and put them in pure heads-down coding roles is really unfortunate. This blog post indicates to me that you're not that type of company.

As for external hackathons, to me they are a waste of time as a coder because nobody actually checks that your implementation works. And worse, they hire people like journalists to judge (looking at you Angelhack). What that means is that the 'hackathon' really turns into a 'pitchathon', and the winners go to the best designers (which I can at least respect), or slide decks and charismatic pitches (which I don't). Getting the judging right so that time spent actually coding is valued is really difficult, but something more hackathon organizers should consider.

</comment><comment><USER3> How did you manage support during the hackathon?

I liked that you mentioned that everyone had to contribute and no one got a "hall pass" to do real work, but I often need to manage our customer requests and it's difficult to say "I can't help you for 1-3 days because we're focusing on team building".

We do one of these quarterly and I'm trying to think how I can avoid being the worst hackweek teammate ever next time around. Maybe it is saying that we'll have limited availability for 1-3 days to some customers.

<comment><AUTHOR> One benefit of doing a hackathon around the holidays is that support volume is generally way down as well (at least in an enterprise software world). That being said, one of our internal company values is (bear with me for the impending cliche) "customer first", and that's a golden rule for the team, so if something major comes up that would indeed take precedence. For minor things, it's not crazy to adjust the SLA. Some companies adjust support SLAs for all-company meetings, conferences, offsites, and so on.

That, and we may've also just gotten lucky :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm the hackathon guy here at MeetMe, where we are starting to plan our 9th internal hackathon since 2012 that we call HACKD. Most of these thoughts presented here I agree with. A few additional points I'd like to add:

Themes can also back fire. I'd highly suggest going with no themes as well. Heck, even encourage things outside of your day to day job. You might be surprised at what people come up with. Hackathons are about exploration, and while themes can be great to help people come up with ideas, they can also hinder. We've had hackathons with themes and those without, and I can't say that the themes made any noticeable impact on the ideas presented.

Prizes are dangerous. Don't make it tangible, such as money or a thing. We tried many different prizes, and the one that worked the best was a paid team outing. Limo to and from a restaurant of their choice, all paid for, and the net result was a team that had a lot of fun getting out, relaxing, and just getting to know one another better. The specific outing isn't important, but that the activity is done as a team. Indeed, the activity itself was chosen by the team.

Support is also crucial. If the idea is something that can be put into production, it should be. In this case, those teams were given an additional week of time to clean up the product and make it ready to ship. Focal came out of this, and while it's a hobby of ours, it's simple and fun, and still supported (with new changes coming!).

Voting is interesting. I do votes via a Google Form. Generally we have between 15-20 projects per hackathon, and some projects get 1 vote. You don't want to be that guy to get the 1 vote. It's demoralizing. We announce the top 3. You have to account for larger teams. They'll vote for themselves, and that's in some ways fine. After all, if you can convince 3 other people to help you with your idea, that should count for something.

Also, look beyond just programmers. We include QA, design, project managers, and product on our teams. I've had our QA people build websites, and product people programming iOS apps, and even projects managers working to streamline processes that needed improvements. They did spend their time learning this stuff, but that's the whole point of a hackathon. To stretch yourself.

We've had a blast with our hackathons, and I can't wait for HACKD 9.

<comment><USER5> It sounds like we agree on a lot of points.

What you said about the prize element really resonated with me - it's fraught with peril. One thing I noticed is that your suggested prize is 'experiential' rather than tangible. I thought the ability to choose the movie for Movie Night would be more coveted than the certificate...

Your points about voting as the company scales are interesting. It's something we're going to have to watch as we grow. We did use secret ballots (we are a bit obsessed with privacy...) so the whole presentation-to-voting transaction could be done in one setting.

As for applying outside the engineering department - this is one of my priorities going forward.

<comment><USER4> Yep, we do. And while I'm sure it's obvious, I do want to make clear this is what has worked so far with us. We've tried different things, and some have worked better than others. Each group of people will be different and value different things.

The most important thing is obviously that everyone enjoy themselves and have fun.

Oh! And one more thing I forgot:

5 minute presentations, and you can't use presentation software like Keynote.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Really good read, and great tips on how to run an internal hackathon. 100% agree on having a theme open to interpretation, prize categories, and kinds of prizes you are giving. :)

Are you guys running it quarterly already? How much time have you guys waited in between hackathons? Also, you say "every engineer who was present was expected to participate". Were the other departments allowed/expected to participate as well? This is something really positive for improving internal relations.

<comment><AUTHOR> (Responding for Jon because he's in meetings this AM) -- The first two questions are related, and actually somewhat adressed in Jon's "frequency" section. I'm not sure what the "exact" distance between the events should be, but as he mentions in the blog post, _" setting the events far enough apart that each time feels like a special event - a welcome visit from an absent friend."_

This is likely different for different people and companies.

Regarding other departments -- yes! Everyone participated in giving ideas, feedback, etc. In fact, it's actually the sales people who fell in love with the results of the hackathon the most and are now vocally asking for more hackathons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Great way to utilize some low productivity days! If people have something planned for the actual week, maybe you could consider giving them the next 3 days off so they still get a "week" off.

</comment><comment><USER8> I organized and ran Hackendo ([https://hackendo.techendo.com/](https://hackendo.techendo.com/)) in April. Hackathons are super rewarding, but a lot of hard work if you don't have help. My biggest takeaway from throwing a hackathon is: Find reliable people who want to help volunteer to support before/during/after your hackathon.

<comment><AUTHOR> We probably should've been more clear, but this was about how to run an internal company hackathon :)

</comment></comment><comment> cool-RR I'd appreciate a hackathon for making AeroFS sync reliably. I've been using it for years, since when it was invite only, and it often simply refuses to sync. I've spoken with their support a dozen times. They're nice and courteous but the problems don't get solved. I've already given up on AeroFS; it's great for moving files inside a lan quickly but not for much else.</comment>


'Historic' day as first non-latin web addresses go live - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10100108.stm

<comment><USER2> Spare a thought for maintainers of URL parsers and validators today. [a-z0-9-] just isn't going to cut it anymore.

</comment><comment><USER3> While I appreciate change and improvements, I just wonder if this is really a good idea. Websites are language specific but URLs were forced to a limited character set. This was making it at least easy for everybody to type it. No matter if the website is chinese, japanese, arabic, etc. (Sort of least common denominator)

Am I the only one who thinks this?

EDIT: Spelling

<comment><USER4> Well, if the standard url naming was chinese characters (ie: what everybody is typing), do you think it would be easy for you? I think you would like to type/access urls in your own language.

<comment><USER3> Interesting thought. I suppose if computers were originating from China that would probably be the case. I doubt though that if they wanted to sell it to some other countries, the buyers, e.g. US, Europe consumers etc. would accept that increased complexity.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _"All three are Arabic script domains, and will enable domain names written fully right-to-left,"_

The URL itself will still read left-to-right, so this doesn't seem like a big win.

</comment><comment><USER6> And someone's already got <http://www.xn--b1avn2f.com/> \- a.k.a. HSBC.com :/

<comment><USER7> Registered in December last year, it seems.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the related searches are "Virus Software", "Virus", "Virus Trojan", etc. Not sure what "Ford" is doing in that list, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Okay, so where can I buy a bunch of domains?

</comment><comment><USER9> Any Persian examples? I'd like to surprise a friend. Perhaps HNers can post an example for each script or language.

<comment><USER10> The only such Persian URL is the URL ICANN deployed a number of years as part of its testing of IDNs.

<http://مثال.آزمایشی>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> How does one regiter these domain names? Are there any registrar who currently support this?

</comment><comment><USER12> Any live examples yet?

<comment><USER13> <http://وزارة-الأتصالات.مصر>

<comment><USER14> Is it the browser or HN that's turning that URL into <http://xn---- rmckbbajlc6dj7bxne2c.xn--wgbh1c/> ?

<comment><USER15> The xn--… stuff is the real URL as it exists in the DNS.

Conversion to/from the user's script is supposed to be done by the browser.

This has existed for quite a while, the new thing is that previously the TLD (i.e. country code) still had to be the old ASCII ISO code. Now even the TLD can be encoded, so that it will display in the country's native script. So far there are 3 non-ASCII TLDs registered (that is, in the DNS they are still ASCII using puny coding).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puny_code>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "biggest change" to the net "since it was invented 40 years ago"? Methinks not. Although on the more fundamental DNS level I can imagine they have a point.</comment>


Reddzine - A new magazine-style reddit client for iPad - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddzine.com/

<comment><USER2> Any plans for an Android version?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd like to do one at some point, it's mostly HTML5 so shouldn't be a huge task.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good job. I like the UI.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :)</comment></comment>


The day the newspaper died. - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/01/26/090126crat_atlarge_lepore?currentPage=all <comment><USER2> For my money, there's still nothing better than a good newspaper. We get the _Washington Post_ here. On TV, the broadcaster controls the order and scope of reporting (you're fed the news). On the internet, vital information can easily become unreachable due to developer mistakes or usability problems.

With a newspaper, everything is in front of you and is in the same place. It's been in that place for years and will remain there in the near future. If there were an accepted (and acceptable) format for online news, this would be a non-issue, but until then, I'll continue to get my news from the newspaper. It's durable and only requires reading light.

It's also nice to avoid using a screen for everything.

<comment><USER3> _For my money, there's still nothing better than a good newspaper. We get the Washington Post here._

OK. What is the marginal cost of printing and delivering a weekday copy of the Washington Post?

[http://www.mondaynote.com/2008/09/29/the-economics-of- moving...](http://www.mondaynote.com/2008/09/29/the-economics-of-moving-from- print-to-online-lose-one-hundred-get-back-eight)

 _First, the cost structure of a daily. In a typical operation, the biggest costs are industrial ones: around 25%-35% for paper and printing; another 30%-40% for distribution; around 18-25% for editorial; the remaining 10-15% are for administrative and marketing expenditures. It varies from country to country but we can safely assert most of the costs — at least 60% — are industrial in nature. Evidently, that part disappears when going online._

<comment><USER2> Those stats are mixed. Paper, printing, and delivery are requirements exclusive to printed news. However, editorial and marketing are not. In any case, until an online resource can outcompete the printed edition of the _Post_ , I'll continue to pay the $1-200/year to have it delivered to my door.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "In the eighteenth century, the death of a newspaper signalled the death of liberty. What it signals now is harder to know, especially because there's death, and then there's death. If, one day, ink-and-print is dead and gone, newspapers will endure, wraiths of ether."

There is some good historical perspective on the role of newspapers in this article. Like many New Yorker articles, it is a good read.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Early American newspapers tend to look like one long and uninterrupted invective, a ragged fleet of dung barges."

Makes me think of the blogosphere today. I wonder if in 100 years there will still be internet news, but it will have grown boring. Comment sections will be full of somewhat-intelligent-but-mainstream discourse, and antiestablishment types are flocking to the superinternet.

</comment><comment> patrickg-zill "Mediasaurus" article by Michael Crichton. Nuff said.</comment>


Ask HN: Given the Lavabit case should we trust LastPass? - <AUTHOR>

Is LastPass obliged to transplant a hook for master password grabbing whenever NSA makes the request?<p>I find it hard to believe that there has been no such request and something tells me it's easier to install a hook into every LastPass browser plugin downloaded. <comment><USER2> Lavabit had a gag order so we really don't know what we need to know in order to accurately assess the situation. That fact's probably enough to conclude you shouldn't trust a company you believe the NSA or allies' equivalents with anything you'd want to believe is secure though.

</comment><comment><USER3> LastPass has been compromised by hackers before; I think this incident happened last year. Since then, I stopped using LastPass and now I use KeePass, whose database rests on my desktop.

<comment><USER4> Citation needed.

There was a 'network traffic anomaly' a while back - but it wasn't a confirmed compromise.

Not saying it wasn't.. but I think you should provide examples before blindly calling a hack.

<comment><AUTHOR> The cause for the 'network traffic anomaly' was not identified and it was big enough to contain usernames, emails and hashed passwords (no data-blobs) [1]. I find it hard to believe that a programming or devops error could result in this kind of traffic anomaly that remained unidentified (the traffic destination IP was likely something LastPass guys did not expect, not just a lastpass-owned S3 backup bucket).

The good part is that after the incident they also improved the algorithms: PBKDF2 with a user-configurable iteration count [2].

I think LastPass handled the situation perfectly, implemented the changes required. My only remaining concern is the risk of distributing tampered browser plugins in order to provide NSA the passwords whenever they ask for it.

It's not that I'm paranoid of NSA being interested in me. Having tampered plugins opens up the attack vector for all hackers rendering the encryption layer useless.

[1] [http://blog.lastpass.com/2011/05/lastpass-security- notificat...](http://blog.lastpass.com/2011/05/lastpass-security- notification.html)

[2] [https://helpdesk.lastpass.com/security-options/password- iter...](https://helpdesk.lastpass.com/security-options/password-iterations- pbkdf2/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is 1Password also now suspect? I let my keychain be saved over Dropbox. At a guess that is a weak link right?</comment>


Taming Callback Pyramids in AnuglarJS App Using Async/Await - <AUTHOR> https://engineering.wootric.com/taming-callback-pyramids-in-our-angularjs-app-using-async/await <comment><USER2> Are there any performance penalizations because of this? The code for the state machine looks very complex and I'm curious about what's the difference in terms of performance between the pyramid model or the flat model.

<comment><USER3> Author here. Yes, there is a trade-off. The resulting code is much bigger than the original code because of this transformation. But, I think the trade-off is worth it because it makes the code simpler to read, write and maintain. As far as speed, I don't have any benchmarks but I don't think there is speed penalty. It's mainly an issue of code size.</comment></comment>


Meditations on Moloch (Coordination Problems) - <AUTHOR> https://archive.fo/Yiryp <comment><AUTHOR> Using the archive.is link because the current version of the post has some edits from the original.</comment>


Why I started my own clothing line - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/d915a41bef5

<comment><USER2> Good for him. Does T-shirt printing count as a clothing line though?

<comment><USER3> I think so, if you're actually designing the images on them.</comment></comment>


New Canon 5D and 1980s Japanophobia - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2008/12/06/new-canon-5d-and-1980s-japanophobia/ <comment><USER2> There are plenty of American examples like Apple and DeWalt that disprove this premise. Choosing just one product is not a big enough sample space. I'm sure there's plenty of crap made in Japan as well.

This reduces to "people who care about quality can make exceptional products no matter what country they are in."

<comment><USER3> True, and most of these companies mentioned have plants/partners in other countries.

Just like Apple has components and products created in other countries, so Canon also has US-based plants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.red.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm getting a 5DII next month.</comment>


YouTube removes four Alex Jones videos for hate speech, child endangerment - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/?p=1349051 <comment><USER2> Well, it's a start. (And before the speechers get going, these rules have applied to non-famous people forever.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Alex Jones being Bill Hicks is the most interesting conspiracy story concerning him and it is best to view him in that light as a comedy act albeit with more outrageous content, seeking publicity and notoriety.

Allegedly Alex Jones hates that particular conspiracy but he plays up to it to. I say put him in his box by considering him as a comedian.

<comment><USER4> I'm not quite sure what he is, but I don't think he's a comedian. He's either a character developed to market products, a genuine paranoid conspiracy theorist, or both.</comment></comment>


A Docker Fork: Talk of a split is now on the table - <AUTHOR> http://thenewstack.io/docker-fork-talk-split-now-table/?hn=1 <comment><USER2> This is a very serious moment for Docker the technology vs Docker the company. It's important that this discussion is happening, and I don't necessarily think that the only result is a hostile fork--a cooperative fork here is possible. Docker has done a lot and they should continue making great services around the core technology, but that needs to be balanced by the ecosystem it's part of.</comment>


Maybe there is no dark energy after all - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2020-01-evidence-key-assumption-discovery-dark.html <comment><USER2> Sounds like they're making a couple of assumptions themselves. 1) The stars that produce a 1a supernova are the same age as the majority of the other stars in its galaxy. 2) Stars that produce 1a supernova are younger as they get further away.

We can say with a high probability that the _universe_ is younger as we look further away. But stars still have time to go through their normal life cycle.</comment>


Intel CEO sold all the stock he could after Intel learned of security bug - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/intel-ceos-sale-of-stock-just-before-security-bug-reveal-raises-questions/ <comment><USER2> Motley Fool predicted something was up back in 19 December 2017 -> [https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/12/19/intels-ceo-just- so...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/12/19/intels-ceo-just-sold-a-lot- of-stock.aspx)</comment>


About my "Ask YC" posts:  Follow me on twitter (@amichail) for more questions like that. - <AUTHOR>

I'll reduce my "Ask YC" posts here -- at least for a while.  You can follow me on twitter (@amichail) if you want to see more of those sorts of questions.<p>P.S.  I don't have much patience for writing blog posts and I suspect most people don't either. That's why I see quite a lot of potential in twitter's microblogging although its focus on what people are doing now is a bit strange. <comment><USER2> I agree i have yet (I know im the last hold out) to fully comprehend while twitter "is the next google" ... this is a decent use, good luck with your endeavor</comment>


Alarm Clock Myth - How to wake up early - <AUTHOR> http://ashishlive.blogspot.in/2013/02/alarm-clock-myth-how-to-wake-up-early.html

<comment><USER2> Another piece of alleged universal wisdom where one person mistakes their own personal experience in their own personal domain for a universal truth.

Suppose I go to bed at some time before midnight, having set my alarm for a "drop dead" time of 06:30. Suppose now I wake at 05:30. Do I proactively switch off the alarm and rise?

What about if I wake at 05:00? Or 04:30? Or 02:00?

Where is the cut-off? Where is the wisdom that solves all my problems, enabling me not to have to make any decisions?

I'm really tired of people telling me what to do and how to run my life based on their "epiphany" about their pico-universe, ignoring the immense and fantastic diversity of life outside their own experience.

<comment><USER3> > _What about if I wake at 05:00? Or 04:30? Or 02:00?_

Then go back to sleep, dummy. Does he have to spell it out for you?

> _Where is the wisdom that solves all my problems, enabling me not to have to > make any decisions?_

That's called being dead. Until then try to take advice for what it is: a recipe that you can try and adjust to taste.

<comment><USER2> So this post amounts to say:

 _Here's a suggestion: wake up, look at the clock. Now make a decision about whether it's time to get up, then take action based on that._

This is new? This is news? This is helpful? This is of deep interest?

None of the above - it was a waste of time.

But it's not just this one thing. I see so many people intent on sharing their personal revelations that it's now impossible to find genuine insights that are more widely applicable than that one person's experience. This is the age of crowd-sourced "wisdom", where everyone thinks their own discoveries will apply universally. Anecdote over data, experience over research.

However, I am going to learn something from it. There's a lesson that I'm taking away for my own personal growth and edification. I'll share it here with you in case you want to learn from it as well: some stuff on HN (and other sites) is a complete waste of time. Be ruthless about what you read - you only have one life to spend. Time spent cannot be regained.

 _Edited to remove some snark and tidy up._

<comment><USER3> > _So I still have to wake, look at the clock, make a decision about whether > it's time to get up, then take action based on that._

Yes, no magic unicorns and fairies spreading pixie dust to wake you up at just the right moment, I'm afraid.

The indecipherable to you message of the story is: don't go back to sleep if you happen to wake up shortly before the alarm clock. Just wake up.

Now, if you woke yourself up at 3:00, as you ask in your previous comment, that doesn't fall on the "shortly" period before a 6:30 way, so by all means go back to sleep. I mean, Oh, those hard decisions...

> _But it's not just this one thing. I see so many people intent on sharing > their personal revelations that it's now impossible to find genuine insights > that are more widely applicable than that one person's experience. This is > the age of crowd-sourced "wisdom", where everyone thinks their own > discoveries will apply universally. Anecdote over data, experience over > research._

I think that what you write above ONLY APPLIES TO YOU. Perhaps you should do some more research into the matter, instead of shoving your personal anecdotes on to us.

<comment><USER2> _> The indecipherable to you message of the story is: don't go back to sleep if you happen to wake up shortly before the alarm clock. Just wake up._

Yes, I actually got that. Of course, it took reading the whole article to realize that it was telling me that, so I'm left wondering why it was posted to HN.

 _> > But it's not just this one thing. I see so many people intent on sharing their personal revelations that it's now impossible to find genuine insights that are more widely applicable than that one person's experience. This is the age of crowd-sourced "wisdom", where everyone thinks their own discoveries will apply universally. Anecdote over data, experience over research._

 _> I think that what you write above ONLY APPLIES TO YOU. Perhaps you should do some more research into the matter, instead of shoving your personal anecdotes on to us._

OK, so I'll start my research. Has this blog post taught you anything? Was this worth the time you spent reading it? I'll go ask a few more people, and if I get statistically significant results I might post about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If only there was a way to go to bed early instead of reading HN, I might be able to wake up before my alarm.

</comment><comment><USER5> What if I wake up 2 hours before the alarm clock goes off? I can live with 15 or 30 minutes but any more and I most likely will go to sleep again. Where is the cut-off from too-early to perfect morning routine?

<comment><USER6> What would your best-guess be on the answer to this question?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I was in high school I had a digital radio alarm clock. I had my alarm set at 6am. There was a time over the course of a month, where every single day, I would wake up at 5:59, and as my hand was reaching over to disable it, the alarm would go off mid-slap. It was at this point I realized how good our internal clocks are (to the second?), and I haven't used an alarm clock since. The trick is going to bed on time. Also, mental exercise is far more tiring than physical exercise. If you can't sleep you aren't working your brain hard enough.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is spot on. For me the key is in getting up earlier than ever you would need according to daily pressures. Right now I'm getting up around 4am, and since I adapted to it (I take melatonin so that's really easy) I don't need an alarm clock anymore. Sometimes I wake up naturally before that, sometimes later. But it's healthy, my body gets a gentle start, and I'm never late (on days I oversleep so hard that I feel sorry for myself it turns out it's 6:30am or something) if duty calls. And as a programmer I love getting some good work done on side projects before I head off to work my 9-to-5.

Granted I need to hit bed around 8pm at most (since I really like to get up even earlier around 3am), and I'm still trying to puzzle out how that's gonna work with my social life. My day job kinda gets in the way of otherwise being able to do a siesta and then sleep less at night. But for February I took the plunge of sleeping at the same time everyday, and that means a full month without nightlife, to cement a good habit. Carnival season 'round here makes that easier, since there is beer and parades a-plenty as early as morning.

</comment><comment><USER9> What about those alarms that simulate sunrise with a gradual light, and so you wake up slowly, and not in a sudden annoying noise?

<comment><USER10> I started using one of these this year, and it's working well, but not in the way I expected.

I expected that: the light would wake me up, and it would be nicer than an alarm.

In actuality: I wake up often in the early morning anyway, and normally I roll over and go to sleep. If I happen to wake up in the 20 minutes when the light is rising, I don't go back to sleep, I just get up instead.

Result: the light isn't "waking me up", but I awaken "naturally" most days because of the light anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The article makes sense - the only thing I'd add is "go to sleep at a consistent time at night, and you'll wake up at a consistent time in the morning" (also, avoid caffeine, it throws your sleep schedule off like mad)

</comment><comment><USER12> Here is my routine:

I get up every morning between 4:00 to 4:15 while my phone is set to 04:20.

This way, I walk into the office around 05:15 and start my day.

I usually leave between 18:00 to 18:30, get home within 30 minutes.

That leaves about 3+ hours to be with the family, kids + wife, before going to sleep around 22:30.

On crazy times, I wake up even earlier (naturally or setting earlier alarm clock).

I prefer getting up earlier than going to sleep later. That is, my actual deadline is the sleep time, not the wake time.

<comment><USER13> You sir, work too much!

I was once victim of it myself; but rest assured that it _is_ possible to work less than fifteen hours a day. I've currently managed to get it down to about ten hours a day, with the occasional burst up to twelve. On a really bad week, I'll work Sunday as well, but that doesn't usually happen much any more.

You already have step one done: Getting up early. Although I'm afraid you may have overdid it a bit. Step two: living close to work seems like it is in order as well. Children == exercise (usually) and I will assume you have nicely prepared meals at home.

This leads me to believe the problem is the work itself. Do you have enough people that you trust to be competent in your absence? Have you taken time to get them up to the level that when they come to you it is usually to address an unforeseen obstacle? Do they report problems and recommendations in the same breath?

Let me tell you of the glory of getting back to a ten hour work day: Glorious! Magical. Liberating. A most worthy goal.

<comment><USER12> Within the first year(s) of a startup, you end up almost every day, with more open tasks than you have started. That is the way it is right here right now.

So, I cannot just stop thinking about chores/tasks/goals at a certain point of a day. If I will quit early, I will be "bothered" at home or when hanging with friends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This advice falls under the general pattern of addressing a relatable problem and offering a solution that validates the reader's intuition without explaining how to make the behavior habitual. Stating what I want to achieve (waking up before my alarm) doesn't help me achieve it.

The author claims to have 'given a lot of thought' to other products. What products? Is pure reason the right approach for deriving solutions to behavioral problems?

<comment><USER15> "Stating what I want to achieve (waking up before my alarm) doesn't help me achieve it." Actually it may work exactly this way. There are many different psychological techniques that amount to doing just that. One of them is to make your wish the last thought before you go asleep. It doesn't work just the next day but it does work if you apply it repeatedly. Just be careful about what you wish, as it will come true and you have to be prepared.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've been getting up at 4:30 for years. Here's the secret: go to bed earlier. Unless there's a deadline, I'm in bed by 10-10:30.

grounding breaking stuff right?

<comment><USER17> not to be a curmudgeon but doesn't that conflict with your social life? I know I'd have some problems doing that.

Also 6 hours a day doesn't seem very healthy. Would think you would aim more for 7 or 8 hours.

<comment><USER7> Contrarily, doesn't your social life conflict with your sleep schedule? One is going to suffer. It depends on what you value more. I have nearly the exact schedule as rgbrenner. I've learned to make sleep a priority. If I stay out until 1, I'm still going to wake up at 4:30 and be tired that next day. But I don't go out until 1 everyday.

Also, probably most important, is that I'm nearly 40. I'm more focused on projects than people at this point. I wake up early because I have something I want to work on. When I was younger, I was waking up late because I was staying out late chasing girls.

<comment><USER17> Well my sleep schedule doesn't require me to wake up at 4:30, I usually don't need to wake up until 7.

Where I live now, public transportation pretty much shuts down after midnight anyways though, so most times I can get home before 1 AM, which will give me a serviceable amount of sleep, at least until a day off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My mind works well in the morning, so I'm motivated to wake up as early as the local coffee shop opens...so in Asia I wake up around 6AM (since nothing opens until 7) while in the states I can wake up much earlier (~5AM). Having something to look forward to in the morning (coding!) creates a natural alarm.

</comment><comment><USER19> I haven't used an alarm clock in many years. I look at the time before I fall asleep and decide what time I want to wake up, and I do.

It doesn't matter how late I went to bed, nor how early I have to get up. I just have to decide before I fall asleep when I want to wake up.

</comment><comment><USER20> My advice: sleep in a room that faces sunrise and don't use blinds.

I've noticed a world of difference between waking up naturally at 7:00 and waking up via alarm clock at 7:00.]

<comment><USER2> As a data point for you, for some people (such as myself) that would mean in Summer getting up at 04:00, in Winter, 09:00.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> To wake early, go to bed early. Dead simple!

</comment><comment><USER22> >How many times have this happened that you woke up half an hour before you were supposed to [...]

never, lol.

</comment><comment><USER23> In our next issue: The Homelessness Myth - Just get a house!</comment>


The Size and Shape of "Idea Space" (2011) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://scaledinnovation.com/innovation/publications/2011-01-ideaspace.pdf <comment><USER2> Fascinating!

The _methods_ are very interesting -- a threshold (similar to "just noticeable difference" (JND) used in cognitive/perceptual science); an attempt at estimating the size of the space; an attempt using Hausdorff dimension to approximate the number of dimensions (one could consider a multi-dimensional scaling approach to this too).

But the choice of data and features means the _results_ shouldn't be taken too seriously:

> We have implemented such a capability using feature counting, where a > feature can be a word or phrase with statistically significant frequency, or > the author's name, or specific text from popup-menu selections, or if > available, background database demographics about the author (his or her > department, location, title, etc.).

If you use e.g. author's name and demographics as features, then this will contaminate the features that describe the ideas themselves. The rest of the results just aren't worth reading about until that problem is fixed.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if the dimensionality 14 is something intrinsic to idea spaces in general, or if they're actually measuring the dimensionality of the human brain's storage of ideas? Or something about the English language even?

<comment><USER2> For me, any such number is an artefact of the data -- they've included things like the name and demographics of the idea's author, which will be clearly useful in practice for a "Show me more ideas like this" application, but which will only be misleading if trying to study the nature of "idea space".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems like if you stood in the middle of the 14 dimensional space - every idea is 7 dimensions away - our typical mental stack depth. Perhaps if you could go to one more extra step away you could come up with really new ideas that haven't been thought of before.</comment>


Ask HN: Why does my startup's home page suck? - <AUTHOR> http://solowebstartup.com/why-does-my-startups-home-page-suck-be-honest

<comment><USER2> Do you need a desktop-specific site? Well, do your analytics tell you that you have a greater bounce rate from desktop browsers than from mobile browsers?

Grammar mistakes in your copy:

"You're busy at work and trying stay focused" should be "...trying __to __stay...".

"You don't want miss anything interesting stuff while you're away" should be "...want __to __miss anything interesting while..." or "...want __to __miss __any __interesting stuff while...".

Or maybe these are Americanisms I've not previously picked up on. They grate with me, anyway.

It took me a while to work out how to pronounce "Refynr". "Reffy-ner", does that mean anything? Does this matter?

I don't think bullets work with centred text.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I definitely need a desktop site.

Thanks for finding my typos!

Refynr is pronounced like refiner... It refines your Social Network feeds. Does that make sense?

<comment><USER2> Oh, I worked out how it was pronounced eventually, it just took me a minute or two is all. But the name is a clue to what your product does: does it matter that I (and presumably some proportion of your visitors) didn't get it instantly?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You might need some design help. The site isn't clear on what the main core function of the web app is. I would consider putting the two screenshots on the front page of the app.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, obviously I'm a bad designer. I'm surprised that you say it's unclear what the function of the web app is. It's described right at the top. Also, it's funny you say to put the screenshots on the home page. I had it like that for over a month, but everyone said to put them on other pages... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Couple of design tips:

      - No More text-align:center with bullets

      - Stick to the same variation of a colour. You have multiple variations of blue

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks! Not sure what I was thinking... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> * the site looks unloved. Just some bullet points, your logo without a transparent background, etc.

* these screen shots are overloaded, too much text and a lot of arrows

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the feedback. Is it at least clear to you what Refynr does?

<comment><USER5> yes ;)</comment></comment></comment>


Teaching a Semester of D3.js - <AUTHOR> http://blogger.ghostweather.com/2016/01/teaching-semester-of-d3js.html <comment><USER2> I followed the link to some slides created by the Author at: [http://ghostweather.slides.com/lynncherny/deck#/](http://ghostweather.slides.com/lynncherny/deck#/)

This is not a direct criticism of the Author, but what is it with the penchant these days to use absolutely minimalistic, flat interfaces with zero help on how to use the interface?

I blame Google for starting this and all the other sheep who blindly follow them without actually asking what an interface is really meant to do. They have this insane desire to trend towards an interface which ultimately will consist of a slightly beige-grey background with not a single other thing on it. Google et al, seem to be on a never ending quest for an interface that is both so simple, it is practically brain dead and yet requires advanced degrees in "find the hidden button that does something" and "try separate the interface from the data being presented".

Microsoft have picked up the torch and are running with it with unbridled enthusiasm. Their new Office interface is a master class on how to make it as difficult as possible to determine where my data ends and the interface starts. All done in a tasteful shade of death-bed grey.

<comment><USER3> Hilarious, but you are right. And actually, while we're throwing blame around, Apple gets some credit for this problem as well. The "invention" of "flat design" that was whole-hog adopted in iOS 7 has left plenty of room for the problems you describe. It becomes less clear what is visual content to consume, what is a control to interact with, and what is actually both. I think all companies decided a while back that a computer interface can be like a magazine page. Except you don't press buttons on a magazine page, so it's not a good strategy a lot of time (in rare cases you see it handled well).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> i keep wondering - whether the combination of ES6/Typescript + immutable.js + lodash + d3 + asm.js makes for the true next generation of R like analytics tools.

The way that Periscope.io works is probably indicative of the direction of a JS based analytics/prototyping framework.

I suppose the first step needs to be a Jupyter notebook in ES6.

<comment><USER5> As much as I admire D3, it using the DOM as its data model has made it difficult to work with (for me at least). I've actually had a much better experience using SVG and RactiveJS. It's animation/tweening of property changes is very handy for designing visualizations. [http://examples.ractivejs.org](http://examples.ractivejs.org)

<comment><USER6> I was coming in to mention Ractive actually. Designed by the team at the Guardian for easy data vis by non programmers. I've found that teammates who look at it pick it up in about 30 minutes. All your have to do in a course is teach the HTML and CSS and Ractive pretty much makes the interaction easy

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "this course was meant to be on interactive data visualization"

So the best way to do this was to teach journalism students how to program, how to program for the web, how to program with javascript, how to program with third party libraries, and finally how to program with the third-party library d3.js?

I feel like this is just an extension of the thought process "everyone should learn to program because learning to program makes your life better".

I sincerely appreciate the write-up and will definitely be coming back to this blog next week to see the students work.

<comment><USER8> I agree with general sentiment that teaching journalists programming is not a realistic option - not only is it time consuming, but might also simply not workout for people who chose to be journalists. It is a humanitarian area of knowledge, after all, not technical. Of course, some might have affinity with programming, but generally speaking (from my experience at least) young journalists won't appreciate the idea of extra class where they have to learn programming.

However I believe infographics and data visualization specifically are important when trying to convey densely-packed information so it has to be taught journalists in some form. They should know that given some data they can pick certain type of visualization that would work well within the article.

I think some general course on data visualization without jumping into programming would work fine - explain what data visualization is, how it is done, what kinds of data could be used with it, what kinds of representations of data are available and so on. Plus share some resources where people can view various visualization samples.

<comment><USER9> I like it because it gives the journalists a vocabulary and a firm sense of what can be done, even if it ends up being assigned to someone else for implementation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Because the general practice of learning D3 in the wild is to take examples and modify them to fit your own data, I wanted to support that in my class."

I like this one a lot. When I am teaching data science, I often use data which some errors I do know.

I think that we need more of learning on real examples, not polished ones.

</comment><comment><USER11> > For some reason, using a server really stumps new web programmers.

With Beaker you can program your client and server all on one page in one document. It makes working with D3 really easy. Here are some examples:

D3 JS and Python: [https://pub.beakernotebook.com/#/publications/560c9f9b-14e6-...](https://pub.beakernotebook.com/#/publications/560c9f9b-14e6-4d95-8e78-cc0a60bf4e5a?fullscreen=true)

node client and server: [https://pub.beakernotebook.com/#/publications/560b4be1-2d91-...](https://pub.beakernotebook.com/#/publications/560b4be1-2d91-497b-b84b-ec91cc2d5e17?fullscreen=true)

</comment><comment><USER12> I thought it was great that you brought up debugging as a specific pain point, especially in the context of beginning programmers. I teach a semester-long class on programming iOS apps to journalism majors, and debugging is a really complicated topic once you get outside the command line.

I usually take the opportunity to explain what's going on when students think their iOS app has crashed after inadvertently setting a breakpoint (it's very easy in XCode to put one in) to show them that they can now see the state of the running app.

</comment><comment><USER13> That article reminds me of [http://blog.tagesanzeiger.ch/datenblog/;](http://blog.tagesanzeiger.ch/datenblog/;) these Swiss guys are trying to copy the "datablog" [http://www.theguardian.com/data](http://www.theguardian.com/data). I think the tagesanzeiger.ch guys make even better work sometimes and they make heavy use of D3. (btw. if you look for a job in Zurich, I am a tech-recruiter)

</comment><comment><USER14> This is excellent Lynn, I'm already following your repo and I love the order in which you board the topics.</comment>


Four OSes in One - <AUTHOR> http://alwaysinnovating.com/beagleboard/

<comment><USER2> Beagleboard is a great idea and it's nice to see OS support is out there for it. Having Windows 8 available in an ARM flavor is only going to make things better. I can think of 1001... uhh, well, a FEW projects I could make with one of those.</comment>


Show HN: SQL Generator for Segment/RudderStack Event Data - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rudderlabs/query-generator <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN, I'm reposting this as I completely messed up the previous submission with the repo permissions.

As we are working a lot with event data at RudderStack, we realized that exploring and working with them has some special challenges, mainly around understanding their schema.

A lot of the information that you need to know is not usually captured on the database schema. For example, the different values your event attributes or even the event names are important information that you need to understand your data.

For this reason we built a small visual SQL Generator. What it does is quite simple, it allows you to browse your event data and visually define queries based on the event data and attributes that can be aggregated on your database.

At the end, a SQL query will be generated that you can use to interact with the data using any tool you like.

Currently Snowflake is supported but as we use the tool internally the rest of the cloud warehouses will be supported soon.

I hope you find it useful. In any case, constructive criticism is more than welcome.</comment>


Transition guide for users of Classic - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastmail.com/help/guides/classictransition.html <comment><AUTHOR> From the guide:

      (q) How do I permanently delete messages?
      (a) ... Use the % key (normally Shift+5) to delete the selected mail instantly, forever.

My question: How do I use the above "keyboard shortcut" on Firefox for Android to permanently delete (instead of moving messages to trash and then emptying the trash)?

I'll miss classic mode (and I don't care to use the FastMail app on Android when classic mode worked fine).</comment>


How I made 100k freelancing and absolutely loved it - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@RecurVoice/how-i-made-100k-freelancing-and-absolutely-loved-it-ebbf8791707a

<comment><USER2> Freelancing can make you some nice money (I freelanced for 5 years and quit 2 years ago), but it's brutal and tiring work. Most projects never go as expected and you will need to fight with some of your clients to pay you.

You also need to know how to say 'no' or an aggressive client will monopolize all of your time and your hourly rate will plummet.</comment>


Nginx's Igor Sysoev Allegedly Arrested in Russia - <AUTHOR> https://habr.com/en/post/479968/ <comment><USER2> If you do $670,000,000 deal in this country, you have no choice but leaving in advance. That may be hard for foreigners to understand, but the entire case is done to extract as much money as possible out of it. Very naive of the guys, hope they can go through it as easy as it can be.

</comment><comment><USER3> Welcome to Russia! Your free one-way ticket to Gulag is right here :D</comment>


Ask HN: Can any egg-based vaccine factory be converted to fit any vaccine? - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> I.e.: With all of these 100+ vaccine efforts that are going on around the globe - if we find one that works really well, without any severe side effects, can we then use all vaccine factories globally to mass-produce this vaccine?

<comment><USER2> Actually, I hope more than one succeeds. This will make meeting demand easier.

About converting, I'm not sure. Some procedures, like Moderna's or Inovio's, will likely need totally different manufacturing processes. I don't know about Oxford's (which uses an adeno-associated virus).

It looks like a non-trivial effort to do.

Rather than converting, most of the companies involved are ramping up manufacturing at-risk during the trials and some, like Vaccitech / Jenner Institute, are actively seeking partnerships to increase manufacturing capacity already.

<comment><AUTHOR> I got this reply on reddit (on a specific question on scaling up the manufacturing of the Oxford vaccine):

Oxford is making an "adenovirus vector vaccine" Effectively they are using a adenovirus with some DNA inside it that will make the spike protein of the coronavirus which the immune system will then attack. No eggs involved.

The egg-based vaccines we have work by taking a human virus, letting it evolve in chicken embryos until it is more adapted to chickens and poorly adapted to humans, and then using that weakened virus as the starting point to make a vaccine.

Interesting overview of covid-vaccines here

[https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/23/a-...](https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/23/a-close- look-at-the-frontrunning-coronavirus-vaccines-as-of-april-23)

...

But I guess my question remains: Can we scale up the manufacturing, packaging and distribution using existing (private) infra, or do we need do build this stuff from scratch?

<comment><USER2> Totally from scratch probably not, but it will likely require adjustments to the infrastructure (some very significant). That's why all the players are going at-risk and starting this process now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you feel this effort is progressing at a scale where we can have something for 60% of the global population (now 7.8B) within a year? (Edit: Yeah, now that I review this, I realize it's impossible for you to answer. I wish there would be more transparancy in in things like these.)

<comment><USER2> Most of the manufacturers don't disclose their projected capacity, as far as I've looked. We're likely getting tens or at best (truly best estimate) hundreds of millions of doses with full capacity.

That's why I'm hoping for multiple vaccines to succeed. Like that there will be a faster distribution to the population.

Whether we'll get there or not, we'll have to see. The immune system can act worse than the most spoiled of children.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Automated web testing without writing any code - <AUTHOR> https://owwly.com/product/Reflect-205/post/Free-Tier-Live-188 <comment><USER2> Is there a better link for this?

That page tells me nothing</comment>