Troubled Times for Alternatives to Einstein's Theory of Gravity - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/troubled-times-for-alternatives-to-einsteins-theory-of-gravity-20180430/ <comment><USER2> I still think the answer will have to confront the problem of local realism. It was the issue that drove Newton nuts (that gravitation was, in Einstein's language "spooky action at a distance"), and Einstein resolved that through Relativity, which redefined how we think about "distance". Now the lack of local realism in QM is driving Einstein's ghost nuts. I think the resolution of all this will _again_ redefine "distance" to take resolutions involving quantum entanglement into account. Vaguely I picture some quantum relativity theory where from the perspective of an entangled particle it's still d=0 from its entangled partner and _everything else_ is splitting apart. So like relativity, it's all about which perspective you take. Then perhaps with these relative distances, and however the math falls out with some kind of quantum Lorentz transforms _maybe_ we see that in galaxies with lots of entangled particles this can slow down rotation.

That said, dark matter is entirely possible too. There's no particular reason to think that all particles need to have an EM effect as well. In fact it's somewhat crazy to think they _should_. Why _wouldn 't_ there be particles that only show themselves gravitationally? Or through other perhaps insanely strong forces that for whatever evolutionary reason Earth Life is just not evolved to care about or see even indirectly.

 _That_ said, I have no training in physics and this is entirely crackpot concept. (Of [http://www.goodtheorist.science/](http://www.goodtheorist.science/) I've only read ~6.)

<comment><USER3> Your idea reminds me of Wheeler's "single electron universe" [1]. I think you're on to something but I also think the next big step will involve a formal (re)definition of time as well as distance.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One- electron_universe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe)

<comment><USER4> When you think about particles as excitations of a field, the indistinguishable nature of said particles stops being such a puzzle.

<comment><USER2> But the concept of a field itself was troubling to 18-19th century physicists. "So you put this (mass/charge/entanglement/whatever) here and automagically there's this whole force that extends across the universe in zero time? How? Why?"

Philosophically I don't know if this question has ever been answered satisfactorily. But over the last 100 years fields have become so mathematically convenient that they're too hard _not_ to use.

<comment><USER4> Well those 18th-19th century anything didn't have a concept of entanglement or FTL, they were struggling with the notion that light, gravity, and other forces could propagate without a medium. They saw that waves could be transmitted through water, sound through air, and the idea that light or gravity could be transmitted through vacuum was baffling. Their resolution to the issue was to propose the existence of a substance which was invisible, intangible, but which permeated everything: the luminiferous ether. Light, in their understanding, wasn't really moving through a vacuum, but this ever- present "stuff" instead. That started to fall out of favor long after the 18th century, and was finally conclusively shot down by Michelson and Morley with their interferometry.

The problem Einstein and others grappled with was different, and concerned the fact that according to relativity nothing should exceed c. Entangled particles seemed to violate that principle, because the collapse to a given pair of states was instantaneous. The modern resolution to that is more practical than philosophical, and points out that _information_ isn't transmitted faster than light in entangled particles. Information propagates at or below c, even though at some scale entangled particles are statistically correlated. Relativity is only violated, and causality threatened if information is transmitted FTL, but entanglement doesn't allow for that. You need a classical channel make entanglement work for communication, and that classical channel is going to be no faster than light. Without a classical channel, entanglement just gives you random noise.

<comment><USER5> > Relativity is only violated, and causality threatened if information is > transmitted FTL, but entanglement doesn't allow for that. You need a > classical channel make entanglement work for communication, and that > classical channel is going to be no faster than light. Without a classical > channel, entanglement just gives you random noise.

But none of that answers the 18th-19th century Physicists question about how fields extend across the universe, or how light propagates in empty space. What the hell is a field anyway?

Also, it doesn't explain how the expansion of space happens, what made inflation happen, and what dark energy is.

<comment><USER4> A very smart guy named Alfred Korzybski said, "The map is not the territory." It's important to not get too hung up on epistemological implications of our models of reality, because they are just models. On a practical level a field is something which has a value at every point, that value can be a scalar, vector, or tensor depending on the nature of the field. For some good discussion I think this could help: [https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/13157/what- is-a-...](https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/13157/what-is-a-field- really)

 _Now, it is very easy to get hung up on this "Is it real or not" thing, and most people do for at least a while, but please just put it aside. When you peer really hard into the depth of the theory, it turns out that it is hard to say for sure that stuff is "stuff". It is tempting to suggest that having a non-zero value of mass defines "stuffness", but then how do you deal with the photo-electric effect (which makes a pretty good argument that light comes in packets that have enough "stuffness" to bounce electrons around)? All the properties that you associate with stuff are actually explainable in terms of electro-magnetic fields and mass (which in GR is described by a component of a tensor field!). And round and round we go._

Light doesn't propagate in empty space, because space isn't empty, it's permeated with quantum fields in constant flux. What light doesn't require is a medium, and a field is not a medium. The problem here is that these theories are really described in terms of a bunch of math, and when we use words to describe those theories, something is lost in translation. There are no words that fully capture what a field is in QFT, you must use math.

Once you adopt that perspective, inflation would just be the result of another field with particular properties (esp. a given range of potential energy curves). Of course, inflation is an untested theory, and there are competing ones which try to explain the apparent homogeneity and isotropy of the universe. Inflation is probably the most popular, but it doesn't rest on the kind of firm foundation that QED does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My money is still on additions/modifications to relativity in the next 100 years. (Sorry for the sources, just using Google to pull up something.)

\- Hubble's constant has not been calculated, and when it is, there are problems. [https://www.space.com/38496-hunt-for-hubble-constant- standar...](https://www.space.com/38496-hunt-for-hubble-constant-standard- model.html)

\- Like the fallacious search for Vulcan, there are modern problems with the orbits of some of the outer planets. [https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/hypothetical- planet-x/i...](https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/hypothetical-planet-x/in- depth/)

\- A galaxy with 99 percent dark matter and one almost without any. [https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-victory-for-dark-matter- in-...](https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-victory-for-dark-matter-in-a-galaxy- without-any-20180328/) [https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/25/12647540/dragonfly- galaxy...](https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/25/12647540/dragonfly-galaxy- discovered-99-9-percent-dark-matter-stars)

\- The bullet cluster, the speed of rotation in galactic arms, etc.

\- The apparent changing rate of expansion in the universe.

\- We have no idea of the physics behind red shift "caused by the metric expansion of space".

\- We still don't know what gravity actually is.

The 1998 discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe was beautifully simple and clean. It proved a huge swath of experts dead wrong. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Nobel_Prize_in_Physics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Nobel_Prize_in_Physics)

Dark matter/energy could be apart of the mix, but in light of the problems I would not bet it's the end of the story.

<comment><USER7> Your second point - I don't think the potential Planet Nine has anything to do with "problem with the orbits of some of the outer planets". It has been proposed as a solution to the orbits of some distant smaller Kuiper Belt objects. This in return doesn't really have anything to do with relativity, just basic orbital mechanics.

<comment><USER6> I could have sworn there were problems with Pluto's orbit where it was faster/slower than it should have been, but it looks like I'm wrong.

>Specifically, this paper shows that, contrary to recent assertions in the literature, the current ephemeris for Pluto does not preclude the existence of the Pioneer effect. We show that the orbit of Pluto is currently not well enough characterized to make such an assertion.

[https://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.0030.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.0030.pdf)

<comment><USER8> The Pioneer Effect has been explained as "anisotropic radiation pressure caused by the spacecraft's heat loss".

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

<comment><USER9> That's an interesting case because they "solved" the problem by basically increasing the estimated uncertainty. See the dual sets of error bars in Fig 3: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1204.2507](https://arxiv.org/abs/1204.2507)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Theorists have dozens of alternative gravity theories that could potentially > explain dark matter and dark energy, Freire said. Some of these theories > can't make testable predictions, Archibald said, and many "have a parameter, > a 'knob' you can turn to make them pass any test you like," she said. But at > some point, said Nicolas Yunes, a physicist at Montana State University, > "this gets silly and Occam's razor wins."

That's very kind. Some would say that theories that can't make testable predictions, or are highly tunable, just aren't science.

<comment><USER11> Right now that includes Dark Matter...

<comment><USER10> Well, it's always seemed _ad hoc_ to me.

But then, IANAP so hey.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The article shows two demonstrations: 1) a spiral galaxy and 2) a triple system (a neutron star and a white dwarf orbit each other, with another white dwarf orbiting the pair at a distance).

I think the spiral galaxy is showing that the problem is that it still has the arms attached. After this amount of time they should not be there so either the amount of time assumed is wrong or something is modifying the speed (like dark energy, modified Newtonian dynamics, etc).

However, I don't understand what the "fall" in the triple system is about. What are they measuring that agrees with Newtonian Physics?

<comment><USER11> Are we reading the same FA? The one I read was about a neutron star collision/merger, and a triple star system with a pulsar, and also a double- pulsar system. The word 'spiral' does not appear.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> To anyone reading the comments, don't bother.

</comment><comment><USER14> This article discusses LIGO's detection of gravitational waves as a problem for alternate theories of gravity. But the claim of that discovery seems to have been withdrawn by the LIGO team. Here: [https://www.nature.com/news/gravitational-waves-discovery- no...](https://www.nature.com/news/gravitational-waves-discovery-now- officially-dead-1.16830)

I'm an amateur but something feels amiss to me here. Can anyone shed more light on this contradiction?

<comment><USER15> That article is about a redaction from the research team at BICEP2, a telescope in the South Pole. It has nothing to do with the Super LIGO detector, which has detected gravitational waves from black hole collisions several times now.

<comment><USER16> LIGO's comments[1] about the 6 gravitational wave detections they are currently confirming (and related publications):

[1] [https://www.ligo.org/detections.php](https://www.ligo.org/detections.php)

After following the major science experiments over the last ~15 years, I've gotten the impression that the LIGO team is being _very_ careful to not announce anything prematurely.

In an interview[2] with Prof. Rana Adhikari about the first detection, he describes how incredibly lucky it was to detect a very strong wave in the middle of the detector's sensitivity range, only _~30 minutes_ after each site independently enabled data collection. That's the type of situation that raises serious questions about the validity of the data and might even suggest sabotage (someone could be faking data). Fortunately, it sounds like they were careful to investigate the alternative explanations, including searching the labs for anything that looked like a possible sabotage device. It's always good to see scientists paying extra attention to rigor.

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViMnGgn87dg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViMnGgn87dg)

<comment><USER9> Wow, I just read about the latest gravitational wave and I see that _once again_ they detected it by deviating from the procedure used to generate the background model:

>"Although such times are in general not included in searches, it was determined that LHO strain data were una ffected by the procedure at frequencies above 30 Hz, and may thus be used to identify a GW source and measure its properties." [https://www.ligo.org/detections/GW170608/paper/GW170608_subm...](https://www.ligo.org/detections/GW170608/paper/GW170608_submitted.pdf)

I'm not saying they aren't seeing anything, but the false alarm rate calculations are meaningless unless they process the data the exact same way for background. They keep making these special exceptions every time.

EDIT:

Mostly just saving this for myself...

Here it is for the 5th detection:

>"Single-detector gravitational-wave triggers had never been disseminated before in low latency. Given the temporal coincidence with the Fermi-GBM GRB, however, a GCN Circular was issued at 13:21:42 UTC (LIGO Scientific Collaboration & Virgo Collaboration et al. 2017a) reporting that a highly significant candidate event consistent with a BNS coalescence was associated with the time of the GRB."

[http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aa91c9](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/aa91c9)

4th detection:

This one looks clean (but for the 1st detection the questionable info was not included in the main paper).

[https://www.ligo.org/detections/GW170814/paper/GW170814-PRLp...](https://www.ligo.org/detections/GW170814/paper/GW170814-PRLpublished.pdf)

2nd detection:

>"Since GW150914 had already been confirmed as a real gravitational-wave signal [4], it was removed from the data when estimating the noise background."

[http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.241103](http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.241103)

Earlier discussion about 1st and 3rd detections:

Its claimed "significance estimates come solely from the offline analysis", which seemed to satisfy me at the time... [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14462719](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14462719)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been thinking recently that physics should import an idea from software engineering: the test harness. For physics, the test harness would include a large database of X/Y pairs where X represents an experimental configuration and Y represents the outcome.

Theories of physics would be instantiated as software libraries. The most modern physics library would pass the vast majority of the tests, by correctly predicting the outcome Y for every configuration X. But since physics is not yet complete, there would presumably be some tests that the best current theories cannot pass, or can only pass by jumping through some really ugly hoops - such as postulating the existence of dark matter and energy.

To be taken seriously when proposing a new theory, a researcher must submit an update to the current library, and show that the new theory passes all the tests. The research can also identify new X/Y combinations, not covered in the current test suite, where the new theory diverges from the old one. Experimentalists could then decide the question by running the corresponding experiments and adding the results to the main suite.

<comment><USER4> This is already essentially how it works. A new theory has to be complementary to old ones. This is often said in terms of "matching the predictions of..." another theory. There are more standards of course, but that's the baseline. A lot of pet theories people have for things like QM fall apart because they don't match the tested predictions of QM. For example, Special and General Relativity make new and more accurate predictions which complement, but do not contradict Newtonian theory.

An issue with a theory replacing QM for example, other than the high degree of precision needed, is Bell's Theorem, which tends to rule out LHV theories. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem)</comment></comment>


High-entropy randomness generator using calibrated soundcard - <AUTHOR> http://www.av8n.com/turbid/paper/turbid.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe it results in high quality bits but I understand it doesn't get enough attention because it's not sexy like "I'm using the radioactivity" and doesn't appeal to lazy -- the equipment must be calibrated.

Still it's worth reading, at least this part should matter even to people who wouldn't like or know ow to do the calibration:

'"Whitening" Considered Unhelpful'

<comment><USER2> People who require good quality random numbers (like gambling outfits) like off the shelf natural random number generators because

a) you can do due diligence to see if the company meets its claims *

b) you don't have to become and expert in measuring randomness

c) sexiness is good when people will constantly claim your system and RNG are fixed biasing the house * * . Being able to point to a well known and verified company that generates real random numbers helps.

Having said that, having worked for a poker startup I did find it fascinating.

* doesn't mean your RNG is random but it's more likely to be random them a homespun solution, unless you are an RNG expert.

* * of course the RNG isn't fixed biasing the house.... the games themselves are fixed but people fail to see that. In poker the house has no real reason to fix the RNG as they rake money faster than you can print it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is proving to be an interesting read, but I have much different design goals in mind than the author. I'm interested in simulation, and this sort of RNG is useless for that purpose. I would go as far to say this approach is useless for any scientific purpose. With great state comes great reproducibility. (I couldn't resist!)

In the abstract the author suggests that PRNGs rely on "on unprovable assumptions about "one-way functions"" Any PRNG worth using should have solid number theoretic footing. For example, Multiply with Carry generators are based on the decimal sequence produced by dividing integer by a very large prime.

</comment><comment><USER4> Reading this, I'm curious how much could be automated with software. There's quite a lot of 'plug in this, measure that voltage, manually reset this' in the docs.

I compare this to just subscribing to quantum entropy over the internet and conclude you'd need a lot of private random bits before this approach makes sense in terms of time.

I found really fascinating the comments and complaints about dumping bits through SHA-1 (which they do) and then testing randomness of the SHA-1 bitstream. In short, they think it's stupid to test randomness using just heuristics on SHA-1. Presumably because SHA-1 is actually pretty good already, and so it obscures some of the upstream quality.

<comment><AUTHOR> The whole point of determining the lower bound is measuring the sensitivity of the input of the sound card. If you don't know the exact sensitivity of your device you have to measure it. The author evaluates the quality of the different sound cards inputs as a byproduct: note that he for example measures:

"(Creative Labs) Extigy has astonishingly poor input sensitivity. It's about 5 times worse than a typical cheap sound card, and about 100 times worse than a decent 24-bit soundcard, as you can see from table 4."

The sensitivity is the first column of his table, demonstrating some products being unusable for this purpose and obviously unusable for any quality recording too.

It would certainly be good to have the database of the measurements for different products. It's amazing how little we know about the consumer products being sold unless we measure them.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How VC funding works? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN, i am totally clueless about vc money and funding, maybe you can enlighten me.
For example, TC reported that Kicksend  got $1.8m funding. They are a some sort of a file sharing service. Even if they charge 10$/month, they would need 15,000 paying costumers that will subscribe for whole YEAR to just get the money back.
How does it make sense? How much revenue is expected from a company that raises $1M?
I see a lot of companies getting funded, where it would take years to just get their first 1M in revenue.
Thanks. <comment><USER3> If you look at the numbers of a service like Dropbox (which I know is not a direct comparison, but is at least in an approximate neighbourhood), then you can see why an $1.8m investment in this sort of service would make sense - <USER2> can theoretically be useful to tens, if not hundreds, of millions of users.

Yes the odd terrible company gets funded, but if you cannot see where the value in a new service lies then it might be down to a number of other factors:

1\. You are not being shown the complete product (i.e. you are seeing a v1 or even an MVP, but internally the company is demoing a killer app)

2\. You are applying your own tastes/needs when evaluating a service. A famous ad exec once said (roughly): "We are not our target market". Don't assume a new product is being marketed toward you, try to think who it is really for and whether or not they might think differently.

3\. Your ability to forecast user numbers / revenue for a new service might not be as good as you think.

</comment><comment><USER4> Generally speaking, VC's aren't interested in getting their money back with revenues from the company they're funding. They aim for a 'big exit', in the form of an IPO or acquisition by another company.

</comment><comment><USER5> Imagine Kicksend gets to 10,000,000 paying customers in a few years. And you own 20% of that.

That's how VC's think.

</comment><comment><USER6> The best way to understand how VC funding works is try to become one.

</comment><comment><USER7> We are currently in a huge bubble. I wouldn't try to ascribe rational valuations to _anything_ investors do in the middle of a bubble.

When a company like GRPN, who lies about its own revenue in its own S1 filing, loses money on every deal, and whose idea of scaling is "just add more sales people", pops off a wildly successful IPO in the middle of a very volatile public market, that's when you throw your hands in the air and stop trying to see rational behavior where there is none.

If you're old enough, you would remember this story from 1996-2001 repeating itself.

Of course, there's no end to the supply of twenty-something startup hipsters who will breathlessly inform you that this time it's different. Sure it is, kid. Sure it is.

</comment><comment><USER8> At least in the US, nearly all the money invested by VCs is from 'limited partners', and the usual suspects are employee pension funds, university endowments, life insurance companies, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds (think a fund with Mideast state oil money), and wealthy individuals.

The VCs and/or LPs need some 'criteria' on how to invest the money. That is, one venture partner, at least before he has an astoundingly good track record, who has some very different ideas about how to invest money will likely fail to get approval from his other partners or the LPs. So, if you will, there is a 'herd'.

Here are some of the main points about the 'criteria':

(1) The Sexy Sectors.

The two biggest sectors for VC investing are 'information technology' (IT) and biomedical technology. There is also a little for 'clean tech', and then everything else is in the 'single digits' or the roundoff error. In IT, the sector splits into hardware and software. In software, the biggies now are the Web 2.0 and mobile.

(2) The Traction Thing.

It is fair to say that VC is just 'early stage private equity' (PE) investing. Well, in later stage PE, audited financial statements are important. Since in early stage asking for audited finacials is usually asking for nothing significant, the 'herd' likes to see a near substitute and that is the somewhat ill-defined but still quantitative 'traction'.

'Good traction' is, for say a Web 2.0 site, the number of 'unique users' ('uniques') per month significant, say, over 100,000 and growing rapidly. For a mobile app, 'traction' might be number of monthly downloads significant and growing rapidly.

Of course, 'traction' the accountants can count is better, e.g., revenue, and, of course, best of all, earnings.

(3) The Market Thing.

If do some arithmetic on how VC money flows, then can see that VC needs surprisingly big 'exits'. For that a good first guess is that an entrepreneur should be attacking a relatively large 'market'.

Hopefully that market already exists, but, of course, the entrepreneurs may be creating the market they are attacking. Or, e.g., well before the first iPhone, what was the 'market' for such a device? Well, that 'market' is big enough NOW, but Apple, with help from Nokia, RIM, Motorola, etc., created it.

The joke goes: The entrepreneur proposes building a toll bridge across the river. The skeptical investor notes that there is no traffic across the river at the entrepreneur's proposed location and, thus, concludes that there is no 'market'.

There is an old saying: "Selling new technology is hard. Attacking a new market is hard. Selling new technology for a new market is too hard.". This saying is mostly a joke but does describe some common, real concerns.

(4) The Money Thing.

A common assumption in IT VC is that a lot of 'traction' is very significant even if there is so far no revenue. So commonly it is assumed that if can get 100 million people a month to aim their eyeballs, then somehow there will be a way to extract money, that is, to execute 'monetization'.

(5) The UI/UX.

A definition of art is "the communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion". A lot of 'pop culture' art seeks to create an 'engaging user experience'. So, a Web 2.0 project might emphasize a good 'user interface' (UI) and 'user experience' (UX). Some VCs will 'play with' the product and evaluate how well millions of users might like the UI/UX.

(6) A Buffett 'Moat'.

Of course, W. Buffett likes each of his investments to have a 'moat' that keeps out competition like a medieval castle had a moat that kept out the roving barbarians, hungry peasants, greedy neighbors, etc.

Coveted moats used to be (A) crucial, core, technical 'secret sauce' that was powerful, gave especially valuable results, and was difficult to duplicate or equal, (B) patents for crucial, core, technical secret sauce, (C) user 'lock in', e.g., high user 'switching costs', (D) 'network effects', (E) deals for 'distribution channels', etc.

Now more popular is just, from F. Wilson at USV, "large networks of engaged users", and there one approach can be to create a 'fad' among the 'A-list' people!

(7) Some Other Things.

Some VCs believe it can help if (A) there is a good 'team', (B) the team has good 'passion', (C) the team has some people who concentrate on the 'tech' and others who concentrate on the 'market' and/or 'management'. (D) the team is young and understands the 'vibe' of the youth market, and (E) the CEO of the team, to paraphrase a movie, "has always made money for his investors".

New Theme.

There is now a new 'theme' in IT VC which might be called the 'lean startup'. So, over the past few years, there have been some big changes that make startups much cheaper, faster, and easier to do:

(A) Bandwidth.

A T-1 line was 1.5 million bits per second (Mbps) and cost over $1000 a month. Now commonly can get 15 Mbps upload bandwidth for less than $100 a month.

(B) Computing.

For $100 or so each can buy a 4 core processor with a 3.0 GHz clock, a motherboard, 16 GB of main memory, a power supply a case and keyboard, and a 2 TB hard disk drive. Net, if just plug together some parts, $1000 will buy one heck of a computer that not so long ago could cost 1000 times more.

(C) Infrastructure Software.

In either the Linux world or the Microsoft world, there is a LOT of powerful 'infrastructure' software -- operating systems, programming languages, software libraries, data base systems -- available for free.

So, the 'bottom line' for this 'new theme' is: If half fill 15 Mbps 24 x 7 with simple Web pages with simple ads, then have a good shot at making $1 million in pre-tax earnings in one year.

New Approach.

So, a new approach to startup investing is just to back a lot of promising teams with, say, $25,000 to $200,000 each and see what they can build.

So, don't spend a lot of time or effort evaluating a 'business plan' and, instead, just let the team try.

Old Theme.

An old theme in 'innovation' was (A) pick a problem where a much better solution would be valuable (B) do some difficult, advanced (Buffett moat) R&D to find a much better solution, (C) sell the solution.

Here there are two challenges, the entrepreneur doing the R&D and the investor evaluating the R&D.

This old theme is likely still important in biomedical investing but has fallen out of favor in IT investing.

One assumption is that research has nothing to contribute to IT or Web 2.0. While there may be some exceptions to this assumption, for now clearly the exceptions are rare.

The Rarity Problem.

IT VC has a big, huge problem: It needs big exits, essentially 'home runs'. As in some blog posts of VC Mark Suster, for the past 10 years on average VC returns have been poor; often returns have been negative. So, there is a 'return problem', or the needed 'home runs' have been too rare.

If look at a good list of the home runs of the past -- GroupOn, Zynga, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Oracle, HP, Seagate, Cisco, Microsoft, Intel -- then (A) it is difficult to see a single pattern and (B) the world has changed a lot over the decades of these home runs with only a few home runs per decade to use as a 'pattern' for that decade.

So, home runs are 'rare', and finding them in 'early stage' investing is a 'rarity' problem.

As the US DoD has known and exploited well for about 70 years now, with more examples from academic research in applied science and engineering, especially biomedical technology, one approach to this 'rarity' problem is some good R&D. For such work, it is common for, say, DARPA, NSF, or NIH to evaluate proposals just on paper and for the funded proposals to have a nicely high 'batting average'.

It would appear that IT VC could do better by borrowing this solution to the rarity problem. Maybe biomedical VC does, but in IT VC it may be that the entrepreneurs are doing too little 'research' to make this solution effective.

Still, the coveted home runs are so rare that there is still a chance that good R&D, even if also rare, could significantly increase the rate of home runs.

If such R&D is being neglected by the VCs, then the 'flip side' of this problem should be an opportunity for any entrepreneur who can do some such research!</comment>


Clever as a Fox - <AUTHOR> http://www.gmilburn.ca/2009/03/20/clever-as-a-fox/ <comment><USER2> >And the out there thought for the day? We're doing this to ourselves. We don't encourage people to act aggressively all day to everyone they meet. We reward certain behaviours more than other behaviours. My unprovable conjecture? Humanity is selecting itself for certain behaviours, and the traits we think of as fundamentally human (loss of hair, retention of juvenile characteristics relative to primates) are a side effect of this self- selection.

Just because we reward people doesn't mean we are selecting for them. Modern society selects for people who have lots of children. Those people are also more likely to be religious.</comment>


Soon there will be no reason to have a big, boxy computer on your desk. - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2257495/pagenum/all <comment><USER2> In the mean time my first ever desktop still barely works, as does the most recent one (that I gave away).

But of my 4 previous laptops, the Dell is fried, a Macbook Pro got his motherboard replaced recently (under warranty otherwise it would have been too costly - Apple prices), the iBook awaits to be sent to service (again) and a MacBook Pro was sold and subsequently died months later on the next owner.

The lifespan of laptops is severely shorter compared to the lifespan of desktops. No wonder they are selling so well: you have to replace them every few years.

I'm actually thinking on buying again a desktop.

</comment><comment><USER3> I already don't have a boxy computer on my desk. Last time I had a boxy computer, it sat on the floor. The last boxy computer on my desk was, IIRC, an IBM-AT lookalike with a 386 inside it. I then moved the 386 motherboard and disks to a big tower that sat happily under my desk for years, moving from motherboard to motherboard. The last one it had was a dual Pentium 60. Wicked fast for the time. I then had a quick succession of smaller ATX towers, before moving to notebooks. I had been using notebooks since mid-2003 and never looked back.

The only boxy thing on my desk is my IBM monitor that will, eventually, be replaced by a large LCD, but not before its flyback transformer burns out (it's making funny noises for a couple months now). The vintage bondi-blue iMac that doubles as sound system and iPod docking station is on the desk, but it is anything but boxy.

</comment><comment><USER4> The only thing that bothers me about the all notebook route ( and trust me, I'd really like to do this) is that their disk drives are still butt-slow. I do a huge amount of creating and modifying virtual machines for deploy. The copy/clone operation that takes my disk array of cheap desktop sata drives 5 minutes to do takes my macbook pro nearly half an hour. All the cores and ram helps too. Those who work with large video, audio and graphics files probable have similar experiences.

Lets just say that there will be _less_ reasons to have a big, boxy computer on one's desk...

<comment><USER5> Fork out the money for an SSD and you'll never look back.

In a laptop, they beat HDs twice over: they don't need to be slower than desktop models to save power/heat AND they aren't more expensive compared to desktop models due to size. In fact, SSDs are increasingly only available in 2.5" format.

<comment><USER4> Thanks (and to the reply to this as well). I've been a little reluctant to shell out for an SSD not knowing what's hype and what's real. Recommendations from actual people on HN is probably enough to push me over the edge at least for my MBP.

If you were going to buy just one and use it as you primary (only) drive in your most important computer, which brand and model would it be?

<comment><USER5> I recently did build a desktop computer and chose the Intel X25-M (80GB). Intel's SSDs are generally considered to offer very good performance, and that one seens to give the best value for money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the graph it looks like Tablets will be consuming demand for desktop computers. Really? If someone asked me and I hadn't seen any recent data I would have suspected that sales would have been drawn out of notebook and netbook numbers as well.

How many of these sales will be first time buyers? How many of these sales will be cannibalizing other sales?

</comment><comment><USER7> "Soon?" I haven't had a "desktop" box since probably 2003 or so. I switched to the Mac by way of the Titanium PowerBook and within a month or so I found I was using it exclusively. I retired my old, bulky desktop machine and never looked back.

</comment><comment><USER8> People who have several monitors attached to their desktop are not going to switch to a tablet or laptop any time soon.

But it will certainly be a niche product. Any other niches it can fill?</comment>


A proposed standard for source control robots - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hartez/vcs-robots/blob/master/vcs_robots.md

<comment><AUTHOR> During the discussion for <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3464671> someone mentioned the idea for linter bot to clean up errors in github repos. Some bots like this already exist, but they're not always welcomed by everyone. I wondered at the time if there was some sort of equivalent of robots.txt for public source repos; since I haven't been able to find one, I thought I'd throw one together and see if anyone liked the idea.

Assuming that people do care, I'd love to get some discussion (either here or in the issues section of the repo) about ways to improve the proposal.</comment>


The Kochs Are Plotting a Multimillion-Dollar Assault on Electric Vehicles - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/koch-electric-vehicles_us_56c4d63ce4b0b40245c8cbf6 <comment><USER2> I think Elon's twitter sums it up pretty well: [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/700583378328784896](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/700583378328784896)

<comment><USER3> Important background linked in his subsequent tweet: [http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/18/fossil- fu...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/18/fossil-fuel- companies-getting-10m-a-minute-in-subsidies-says-imf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is good news for Steve Guttenberg.</comment>


The Long Road from Capistrano to Kubernetes[pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://phraseapp.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/cap-to-kube.pdf <comment><USER2> Really interesting post. I'm going to look for a video or see if there's even more detail on some of these stages.</comment>


Financial Primer For Self-Funded Startups, Part 1 - <AUTHOR> http://www.prestonlee.com/archives/311

<comment><USER2> I found this an extremely approachable introduction, and I'd like to see further parts in the series -- "accounts payable" and "paying yourself" sound interesting.

How does one typically go about learning this stuff? Do most entrepreneurs just pick it up from various sources over time, or is there a book or academic course that is particularly helpful?

<comment> bjelkeman-again I am sure how people learn this is as varied as their background. I learned by starting a small business and when it got bigger I got mentoring from other entrepreneurs as well as had my accountant teach me. I also bought books on simple accounting, read QuickBooks manuals etc. i.e. wherever I could find the information.

These type of basic tutorials are useful though.</comment></comment>


Lie-Access Neural Turing Machines: Manifolds as Memory Storage - <AUTHOR> http://lstm.seas.harvard.edu/lantm/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm the lead author on this paper. If you have any questions please feel free to ask!</comment>


Chroma – a new way to build cameras - <AUTHOR> https://www.epilog.com/news/introducing-chroma <comment><USER2> CCD/CMOS tiling has existed for ages. I don't understand what's new in this thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> The technique you're referring to is aligning sensors _over each other_ , each collecting a different color so you don't have to use a bayer filter ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three- CCD_camera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-CCD_camera)). Chroma aligns multiple image sensors _next to each other_ , to scale the resolution without increasing chip complexity. For instance, we can merge 4 4K sensors to create an ultra low cost 8K camera.

<comment><USER2> Nope.

I'm talking about having sensors next to each other. Very common in astronomical and medical (x-ray) applications at least.

Aligning multiple sensors next to each other has existed for at least 20 years, probably more.

<comment><USER3>
      astronomical and medical

Sounds expensive! And when you tile sensors that way you still have gaps in between them. [http://www.faculty.virginia.edu/rwoclass/astr1230/im/MegaCam...](http://www.faculty.virginia.edu/rwoclass/astr1230/im/MegaCam- CCDmosaic-CFHT-Scale.jpg)

We put off-the-shelf (cheap) sensors side by side with no gaps. Here's the patent if you'd like to read more: [https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170359512A1/](https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170359512A1/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mutiful Android app: control phone's volume with an SMS - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=space.eya.mutiful Mute your phone or make it play music at full volume with an SMS, even if it was on silent. <comment><USER2> neat idea! now i know how to reach my wife!</comment>


Did Google shut down? - <AUTHOR> http://didgoogleshutdown.com/

<comment><USER2> I think it's confusing that they use "Days are numbered" for both dead and alive projects. If an alive project has its days numbered, does that mean an exact shut down date has been announced? If so, why not post it? If not, how are the days numbered?

</comment><comment><USER3> Notably missing: Inbox

<comment><USER2> Google Scholar as well.</comment></comment>


Stop Using Small Font Sizes - <AUTHOR> https://explodie.org/writings/stop-using-small-font-size.html

<comment><USER2> It is addressed somewhat in the article, but the problem are not small font sizes. The problem are absolute font sizes.

> An even better idea is not to set that at all, as most browsers default to > 16px these days.

And this is the correct way to do it – use relative sizes, use vector graphics and let the browser render it according to how the user wants it to be rendered. Some people like 16px, for me, I find 10px plenty[0] and if I someday get a decent screen, I'd probably like something at the order of 25px. You shouldn't have to change your website for that.

Of course, the author of that article thought that everybody should always be happy with 18px, which is just as bad as 12px or 8px.

[0] 1440x900 on 14" on a laptop, so, yeah :|</comment>


'All-out combat' feared as India, China engage in border standoff - <AUTHOR> https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/05/tense-india-china-standoff-himalayan-border-escalate-200527120501581.html <comment><USER2> The CCP should realise this is not 1962 and they cannot just keep needling India directly or via pakistan for stroking their egos.</comment>


Your Startup Needs Employee Benefits - <AUTHOR> http://bigbangtechnology.com/post/your_startup_needs_employee_benefits

<comment><AUTHOR> Our semi-new employee Liza wrote this post. She came in to help us with admin work since we've grown to six in the past year. She's done so much for our company, she's awesome.

Max from Big Bang</comment>


Mark Zuckerberg: The idea that Facebook influenced the election is 'crazy' - <AUTHOR> http://bgr.com/2016/11/11/mark-zuckerberg-election-fake-stories-crazy/ <comment><USER2> Facebook did influence the election, it's the fallout due to their business model. Their business model is locking people into their own echo chamber, to be able to serve them adverts. Bad for Facebook that somehow Trump got into most people's echo chamber. Welcome to the land of unintended consequenses Mark!!</comment>


People's egos get bigger after meditation and yoga, says a new study - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1307380/yoga-and-meditation-boost-your-ego-say-psychology-researchers/ <comment><USER2> People need to understand that the stuff like meditation that's popular right now and gets taught is just a very small subset of Buddhist practice. Real Buddhist teachings go much further. Same for yoga. Yoga is meant to be a way of life but what most Westerners see is just a form of aerobics with a few spiritual words sprinkled in.

<comment><USER3> Ironically, the biggest evidence of this here might be the idea that the ego should be kept as small as possible. Whether or not it's a real thing, it still needs maintenance (arguably a huge benefit of meditation), and there's probably a healthy size (though I hate this spatial metaphor; people are far more complex than that).

<comment><USER4> The ego is a tool. Ego death is temporary and should not be aimed for 24/7\. In a 3D, physical world, the ego is what you use to differentiate your actions from others, to take responsibility, and to make changes. We can recognize and feel deeply that we are all connected, but an ego-less person in a physical world is like a formless void, and has forgotten it's point in being alive.

<comment><USER5> Yes, it's necessary to live in the world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > When students were evaluated in the hour after their yoga class, they showed > significantly higher self-enhancement, according to all three measures, than > when they hadn't done yoga in the previous 24 hours.

I wonder, is this what ego means in Buddhism? Also, is this what ego historically meant in Buddhism? For a long time, people in Buddhist communities would call you crazy if you meditate. Having followed one theological course on Buddhism at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, I am convinced that whenever you study meditation, you need a theologian specialized in Buddhism next to you in order to see if you're comparing the same constructs.

I also wonder if _only_ meditation is supposed to have an effect on diminishing the ego, according to Buddhism. Buddhism in general is much more than only meditation. It's probably analogous to teaching people to pray and through prayer they'll figure out the 10 commandments. The result is interesting in the sense of how meditation affects someone from a western culture (someone like me). But it is dangerous to imply that this applies to Buddhism. They could've easily circumvented that by putting the scientific terms in the title.

<comment><USER7> Even if yoga or meditation had diminished your ego (whatever you choose it to mean), would that make you less likely to answer affirmatively to a statement like, "Compared to the average, I'm relatively free from bias"? If you really were selfless, wouldn't you always answer "yes"? Or would you answer "no" because "the average" has no meaning once you realize oneness with everything? I'm not convinced it's a useful measure.

There may be other better questions on the inventory, but that's the example given in the article. I also noted that they didn't mention practitioners having scored higher on narcissism, but only on "self-enhancement". (I haven't read the actual study, so this could all just be bad reporting.)

<comment><USER8> Here's the study ...

[https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/420273/](https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/420273/)

Ego is measured by answering questions like ...

> "At the moment, I have high self-esteem" (1 = does not apply at all, 7 = > applies completely).

I'm unconvinced that vague self-reports like this have any useful meaning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Onion nailed the West's current interest in yoga twenty years ago[0], and it's only gotten worse. It's amazing how much money you can make as long as you divorce religion and spirituality from a practice optimized over a thousand years by religious and spiritual experts. Sort of like having an amazing search light but not the slightest idea where to point it or what we are searching for would look like.

[0] [https://www.theonion.com/monk-gloats-over-yoga- championship-...](https://www.theonion.com/monk-gloats-over-yoga- championship-1819563855)

<comment><USER10> I'm not really interested in buddhism, but have practiced meditation. I have to say meditation itself brings a great calmness, especially for my anxiety, and I was quite skeptical when it was recommended.

I think meditation should be examined outside of the scope of eastern mysticism, it need not be associated with it.

<comment><USER11> > I think meditation should be examined outside of the scope of eastern > mysticism, it need not be associated with it.

While there is always an airy of "hoaky mysticism" to most religions, one possible self-consistent explanation is that that this "hoaky mysticism" of eastern religions might in fact be the logical consequence of thousands of hours, days, weeks, months, years, of meditation. Maybe western self improvement is just in fact a precursor to a precursor to the final enlightenment that hey, none of this self-improvement shit matters?

<comment><USER12> >Maybe western self improvement is just in fact a precursor to a precursor to the final enlightenment that hey, none of this self-improvement shit matters?

These are hardly new concepts in the West. It's even in Ecclesiastes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The methodology seems strange. Questionnaires were compared based on whether yoga students had just done yoga, vs not in 24 hours (but presumably do yoga regularly). So essentially, there's a statistically significant correlation with time from last session, but it doesn't say anything about correlation with frequency of sessions.

And as usual, correlation is not causation. Was there a control group with another physical activity? Reading? Solving Sudoku puzzles? One could also postulate a perfectly reasonable-sounding theory that people's egos get bigger with any activity where there's a surge in endorphins, regardless of whether that activity is yoga or not.

<comment><USER14> Very well said.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There is a big difference between ego and narcissism.

Many people have low self-esteem, which means that they are constantly doubting themselves, feeling less worthy than others, feeling destined for failure, feeling too timid to take reasonable risks, etc.

Meditation helps to restore correct ego functioning in humans, creating a balanced perspective where the self can thrive and does not inflict self-harm by allowing impulses of self doubt and fear to hijack a person's productive effort.

The idea that selfless humans are simply humans with very low self esteem is absurd, and this article suggests that the two are equivalent.

Humans who possess the virtuous quality of being good team players and contributors to society are quite likely very good at goal directed behavior and do not wallow in the emotions of self-inferiority and fearfulness that low self-esteem individuals do.

Think about the stereotypical low self esteem douche who goes around insulting others to make himself feel better. That person is not a model of selflessness and virtue. It takes a deep well of inner confidence and belief in the value of one's own worth to be mentally strong and courageous enough to stand up to injustice or ridicule and to make the world a better place.

The issue of self esteem is confounded by millennia of religious dogma that tells people that "selflessness" is virtuous, when in fact quite the opposite is true. Virtue comes from the channeling of one's desire and one's life force toward noble ends, not by suppressing one's confidence and simply letting others (such as religious or political leaders) tell us that we are worthless and that they know what is best for us.

<comment><USER3> Yea, I found this positioning odd too. Many people in my life could use some more, err, self love and maintenance. This is hard to balance right, but that's something meditation would help with massively.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> "To advance this perspective, millions of people around the world practice yoga and meditation."

I don't think this is true though. I don't think most people who aren't Buddhist do Yoga for renouncing the material world, but just for getting in shape and perhaps relaxing. I think the premise here is wrong.

<comment><USER17> Totally agree. I had to stop reading after reading: "These findings suggest that spiritual Buddhist practices like yoga and meditation may not do what proponents typically say they do"

I think comparing yoga/mediation in the context of our current society versus how a Buddhist practices is very apples and oranges.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The conflation of Buddhism and Yoga is orientalism and confuses everything in this article. Funny results though.

<comment><USER19> Buddhism is just a form of Hinduism

<comment><USER20> That's simplifying things too much. You might as well claim that Islam is just a form of Christianity.

<comment><USER14> Indian Hindu here, you are absolutely correct

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The data is fascinating, but the conclusion that this is somehow apposed to Buddhism is just absurd. A healthy sense of self worth does not stand in the way of eliminating the view of a separate, persistent self for the betterment of all beings.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think many here are mistaken that yoga/meditation are of Buddhist origins. They are in fact of Hindu origin.

Yoga mainly focuses on 1. Exercises that stimulate the base of the spine, and 2. Breathing technics. If you imagine the brain as a flower and the spine as a stalk/root; a flower needs stimulation at the root for it to blossom. The focus on breathing is to get more oxygen to the brain. Combinedly these two help improve the potential of your brain.

Yoga does not necessarily make you a good person. It just enhances the knowledge/potential of your brain. You can use that advanced knowledge to become a good person or a bad person.

<comment><USER23> "Yoga does not necessarily make you a good person."

Of course.

"It just enhances the knowledge/potential of your brain."

I'm gonna need a study here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This immediately reminded me of Chögyam Trungpa's book "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism".

Wikipedia: "He uses the term [Spiritual Materialism] to describe mistakes spiritual seekers commit which turn the pursuit of spirituality into an ego building and confusion creating endeavor, based on the idea that ego development is counter to spiritual progress." [1]

Very interesting read, a good friend of mine gave it to me early on in my path on meditation. I think it's really a necessity for anyone seeking deeper meaning beyond using yoga & meditations as an ego pursuit.

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

<comment><USER25> Was going to mention this book as well. This should be hammered on from the beginning of any practice.

While anecdotal, my experience with interacting with most western followers of "eastern" practices is that they just use them to feed their egos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> >> Though yoga and meditation were originally intended as ways to calm the ego, many non-Buddhist practitioners do these activities with an eye to self- improvement or calming personal anxieties.

I have noticed meditation being pitched more and more as a self- help/productivity tool/cure all for a range of issues. Is the main difference between 'traditional' (for lack of a better word) and Western meditation just the motive behind it, or is there something else Westerners are missing?

<comment><USER27> I don't think westerners are missing anything, at least not anything more than people who live in places where Buddhism is typically practiced. I'm western, I live in Thailand, I'm a meditator, and I often feel like some Buddhist scholar compared to Thai people. I think many people feel Buddhism is sort of re-blooming in the west, of course with its own style. There are a bunch of highly respected western monks now, even in the Thai forest tradition.

I think it's just easy to get confused about this stuff. There's the goal, there's how the goal is supposed to be accomplished, there's what you actually do every day, and there are various related practices. It's easy to get confused and think that the things that are happening are the point, like that calming down is the point, or that rapture is the point, or even that bowing to monks a certain way or donating things to the temple is the point.

<comment><USER2> It's pretty normal for people to grow up in Buddhist/Christian/Muslim/Whatever culture not know much about that religion. I grew up in a Christian country as a nominal Christian but I know almost nothing about Christianity other than a few holidays and stories.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if doing any form of work or exercise would increase someone's ego...?

I've been performing an experiment the last two years were I don't really do anything outside of work. I just sit on the couch being a fat piece of shit. No exercise. No Yoga. No mediation. I think it has helped me keep my ego under control, and foster a healthy amount of self hatred.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is actually an interesting subject. There is a Dao "master" who chiefs a temple in California and he wrote his dissertation on how meditation is actually bad for you. I believe he is featured on the "What's this dao all about" podcast but he doesn't go too far into the subject there.

<comment><USER30> Bytematic, I'd be quite interested if you could track down the details on him and his research.

<comment><USER31> I think OP meant `What's this Tao all About?` found here: [http://whatsthistao.com/](http://whatsthistao.com/)

The episode regarding meditation is Episode 4 ([http://whatsthistao.com/2015/09/21/epiosode-4-meditation/](http://whatsthistao.com/2015/09/21/epiosode-4-meditation/)) but I would be weary of the source as Dr. Carl Totton is a "Reiki master" and Chinese spiritual healer.

I personally believe meditation is fantastic in calming the mind and relaxing you.

<comment><USER7> That podcast only has positive things to say about meditation. I found his dissertation mentioned a few places, but couldn't find the actual document...

<comment><USER29> I miswrote my original comment, I didn't mean to suggest anyone thought that meditation was bad. Just that someone who is probably more justified to write on the subject, had once wrote that it was bad and he still talks about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Why is this surprising? Any spiritual practice is a way to better ones "self". My yogi friend put it well: the difference is with yoga and meditation the goal is to get rid of things, while in "the west" we generally associate happiness with having more things.

<comment><USER33> It's surprising because 'selflessness' and thinking highly of oneself are a somewhat inconsistent.

I wish I had the source for this but I read somewhere the first obstacle to the path of enlightenment is the self righteousness of the aspirant ... i.e. as soon as someone starts learning higher truths, their sense of ego expands, which is kind of the opposite of the point.

<comment><USER34> A sort of Dunning–Kruger effect for the soul? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is like saying working out and gyms make the 'ego bigger'. Maybe those who want to 'improve themselves', be fit may already have bigger egos and a self focus to start with. A study on gym goers would produce identical maybe worse results.

Sweeping assumptions on large groups and immeasurable concepts like ego are rarely credible because you will never have the kind of data to justify any blanket claims.

This seems more like a 'fetishisation' of the other based on a lack of understanding, and often there is no desire to understand, just label and dismiss. Why would anyone even do a study like this?

</comment><comment><USER36> Western "Buddhism" is totally messed up, and you can see this from the strange behaviors of its practitioners. The majority of Buddhists in the West aren't a part of a community with a living Buddhist tradition, and they don't read or write in a language that has evolved with the particularities of the Buddhist religions. American Buddhists, in particular, don't have an idea of "initiation," "dharma transmission," and "religious community" which are so important to the Buddhist practitioners in Asia. It makes complete sense that this type of meditation doesn't work well.

I am not familiar with the Pali or Hindi languages, but, for example, in Chinese, there are over 20 words that all mean "karma", and the language has taken on many loanwords and native associations as a result of Buddhist influence. In the West, this type of transformation was brought forward by Christianity, not from Buddhism. When you read a Buddhist sutra translated into English, you get six-syllable Latinate constructions that sound more like a neuroscience paper than a living religion, such as "contingently-originated phenomenon", which is actually just two syllables in Chinese. I am sure that there's even more ingrained Buddhist ideas if you are a native Pali speaker.

<comment><USER37> I've come to believe that community practice of a thing isn't necessarily any better. For example, Buddhism is the dominant tradition in Myanmar. But that didn't stop the burning of hundreds of Rohingya villages.

[https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2017/0928/Is- Rohingya...](https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2017/0928/Is-Rohingya- crisis-changing-West-s-romanticized-view-of-Buddhism)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Hilariously strange article...

It starts with the unbelievably blunt (and imo, true): "the self is an illusion." Then is proceeds to go on about how this illusion can be either magnified or diminished by doing certain things!

What!? How can something that doesn't exist be manipulated?

I know "I'm" being a bit dense on purpose here, but really!

<comment><USER39> The thing may not exist, but the illusion of it does.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I couldn't find any specifics on their control group:

[https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/420273/2/online_supplement.pdf](https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/420273/2/online_supplement.pdf)

Did they practice some other form of physical activity?

</comment><comment><USER41> Orthodox Christianity has a very rich contemplative history. In particular, understanding concepts like the nous do quite a bit to illuminate our more modern idea of ego and the false dialectic of big vs. small / null ego.

<comment><USER42> Any recommended reading? Thanks!

<comment><USER41> There is quite a lot, not what I would consider to be easy reading but thought-provoking nonetheless:

\- Byzantine Theology is a good overview of many of the concepts that differentiate the East from the West ([https://www.amazon.com/Byzantine- Theology-Historical-Trends-...](https://www.amazon.com/Byzantine-Theology- Historical-Trends-Doctrinal/dp/0823209679/))

\- Divine Essence and Divine Energies (a critical distinction that has been lost in the West) ([https://www.amazon.com/Divine-Essence-Energies-Ecumenical- Re...](https://www.amazon.com/Divine-Essence-Energies-Ecumenical- Reflections/dp/0227173864/))

\- Any of the works by St. Maximus the Confessor

Lots more...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> So if meditation and yoga don't help the average person in this way, perhaps we need to change the meaning of MAGA to Make Acid Great Again. LSD induced ego death could be our new national high school graduation ritual.

<comment><USER44> The early pioneers of LSD believed in ego death and yet had huge egos that only got bigger with successive doses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> That's weird, usually people claim the opposite. Perhaps perceiving having less of an ego is actually a symptom of having a huge ego. I wouldn't know; I've barely got an ego at all.

<comment><USER21> I see what you did there.

Meditation has boosted my ego, in some meanings of the word, and given me a sense of self worth. It's also taught me that everyone is interconnected and self is an illusion. Those two things go hands in hand to make me much more generous and giving than I used to be.... Still no saint though.

I think people lack the language or don't realize the two concepts of self- worth and non-self are sperate. The word ego just gets thrown around. "Oh yeah I have a tiny ego but great self esteem." == "I have a strong view of non-self and a huge ego."

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I used to practice yoga and meditation with a goal of transcending my own ego. I largely stopped because it felt like I was forcing it, and I felt that particular kind of self-discipline wasn't the right way for me. This study (if it has any validity) reinforces that thinking from a different angle. Maybe yoga and meditation are just outward signs of the natural enlightenment process, and using them as tools to pursue enlightenment is simply cargo cultism. Or maybe that's just my ego justifying itself...

</comment><comment><USER45> Seems like meditation (maybe yoga as well) gives you access to control the Ego. Westerners just want to dial the knob in the opposite direction.

I honestly am more inclined to think that in the world we live in (and the rules we operate according to), having a way to boost your Ego isn't necessarily bad. There is no way you can achieve anything significant (involving many other people), without at least some use for your Ego. Of course you can "crash the ship" if you don't know when to use it.

</comment><comment><USER46> Don't think of dealing with your ego nor should you worry about being right or wrong when something comes up regarding your ego when meditating. Also, when meditating, you overcome mental/emotional blockages which naturally makes you energetic. Don't get attached to conclusions and stay calm after you experience a mental shift.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm quite sure yoga classes (more so teachers) that focus on Buddhist philosophy are few and far between, in the West. The majority are fitness classes.

It seems like they've deliberately drawn an extremely broad conclusion.

It would be very interesting to run this kind of study focusing / assessment for students of specific teachers, types of yoga or lineages of teaching.

</comment><comment><USER48> Assuming that they just used breathing meditation (the most popular form of meditation), then I wouldn't be surprised. It's just one form of meditation to bring calmness to a busy mind.

Other religions like Buddhism, also have analytical meditation which they use to minimize/eliminate the ego to obtain nirvana/enlightenment.

</comment><comment><USER49> Is it possible that the ego in this article and the ego that the Buddhists are talking about are two different things? This may be a miscommunication, using the same word to point to different ideas. How can we know when the article never clarifies exactly what it means by ego?

</comment><comment><USER50> You can see the egos as big as the sun in certain areas. Go down to Miami Beach and yoga is a competitive sport. It's so fake and so phony and you've got people spending $200/hr for yoga/meditation sessions and it's completely bonkers.

<comment><USER51> What's worse is all the "hipster yoga" classes and movements taking place.

Remember seeing that "Yoga with goats" class? Or "Yoga with kittens" in the studio.

It's a great example of first-world privilege and "living in the bubble" that we do here.

<comment><USER52> I'm not sure what's wrong with this, why does everything have to be completely authentic to the original source?

<comment><USER53> I think the person you were responding to was remarking more on the ridiculousness of it, rather than the inauthenticity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> I wonder, if this is the next 'power pose' BS?

[http://fortune.com/2016/10/02/power-poses-research- false/](http://fortune.com/2016/10/02/power-poses-research-false/)

</comment><comment><USER55> This completely misses the point. Perhaps recruiting people from Facebook is not the best way to find humble people.

A lot of people I know use meditation or even spiritual advancement as a way to treat their inferiority complex.

After they fail to realize success in other areas of life they hang on to their egos and find a false sense of superiority in the fact that they are spiritual ones.

Some of these people are the hardest working Buddhists I know. What they truly lack however is empathy and and the desire to face themselves.

Wanting to love oneself and other living beings is more important than any other aspect of the spiritual path. Without that, every teaching is just a string of empty words.

<comment><USER56> There are some on the spiritual path that seek knowledge and awareness. Pure awareness. They are human yet their karma doesn't involve getting entangled with their fellow men. Hermits. Loving, hating, its all the same to them because their focus is elsewhere. Most would say they are selfish and lack empathy but they are just different kind of seeker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I don't want to be "that guy" but... why is this news? It's fairly self- evident in our culture. Just look at the way the people who practice these are portrayed in media. _(at least when it 's set in the west in modern times)_

The study itself is valuable, I'm not against testing things that are "obvious". Just that when the culturally accepted result is upheld by the study, it's not generally worth reporting on IMO.

<comment><USER6> It is worth reporting in a scientific article though. Null-results, everything should be reported and accessible somewhere. The reproducibility crisis should be stopped, otherwise I can just claim whatever I want and be as wrong as the social scientists who have trouble finding any verifiable fact.

Regarding to what is news worthy and therefore publishable on news: whatever makes money, I wouldn't know what makes money in that regard.

<comment><USER57> > _It is worth reporting in a scientific article though. Null-results, > everything should be reported and accessible somewhere._

Which is exactly what I said in my original post.

> _Regarding to what is news worthy and therefore publishable on news: > whatever makes money_

I'm usually pretty cynical but I do at least wish we could hold news to a higher standard than "Make money".

<comment><USER6> Ah, my apologies, didn't catch that.

Regarding the news: I hope so too. I suppose I betrayed my cynicism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Read the details of the study. They made up the meditation styles to trick participants. Horseshit bias.

</comment><comment><USER27> There are definitely traps along the meditative path, like thinking that rapture is the point, or thinking highly of yourself, e.g., "wow, I'm a better meditator than other people". But it's a bit like worrying about overexercising, not a problem most people are likely to face.

So we have this silly study showing whatever, and then we have 2500 years of brilliant monks like Ajaan Chah, Thich Nhat Hanh, on and on and on, telling us it's exactly like the Buddha said, and that we should meditate and see it for ourselves. I think I'll go with the larger study.

</comment><comment><USER59> There is only one way to study meditation. Do it.

There is no Buddhist Pope that makes proclamations that you just have to accept on faith. There is no Buddhist scientific organization holding press conferences on their latest discoveries. It is all about practice and experience, the rest (and I know there is a lot of it..) is just fluff and colorful decoration.

Ego is Small Mind, noisy mind, chattering monkey mind. When you quiet that through mediation you start to experience Big Mind, the source of intuition and wisdom and a clearer look at reality. But, as the ancient books say, it is nothing special.</comment>


UK government staff caught snooping on citizen data - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/uk-government-staff-caught-snooping-on-citizen-data/4716

<comment><USER2> So we pay them to spy on us. How surprising.

<comment><USER3> Do you think this doesn't happen in private companies I know of a recent case where some one went down for or a major 10+ years stretch for conspiracy at British Telecom - passed address location to a hitman.

Google also has fired several people for this and in the US I bet a few people get fired every year for looking up Obama's tax records etc

<comment><USER2> I never said it doesn't happen in private companies. It's just not extremely pleasant to hear about our government doing it.

Sadly, it has happened before, is happening now and will happen in the future, but this mustn't stop us from fighting them.

<comment><USER3> well actually those people are not paid to spy on us its explicitly gross misconduct in the civil service just as it is in any the company that deals with peoples data.

its Tabloid Hacks and dodgy PI's that are paid to spy on us that are more worrying for civil society</comment></comment></comment></comment>


White House: Snowden's "true motive" is to "injure national security" - <AUTHOR> http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2013/06/24/press-briefing#transcript

<comment><AUTHOR> _MR. CARNEY: Let me say this about that question, which is that Mr. Snowden's claim that he is focused on supporting transparency, freedom of the press, and protection of individual rights and democracy is belied by the protectors he has potentially chosen -- China, Russia, Ecuador, as we've seen.

His failure to criticize these regimes_ suggest that his true motive throughout has been to injure the national security of the United States -- not to advance Internet freedom and free speech.

 _I think that with regards to the first part of your question, I've made the point that the unauthorized disclosure of classified information -- the kind of information that has already been disclosed -- has an enormous negative impact and there are ongoing damage assessments being done. But, certainly, it would be our assumption that any information -- any further classified information that he has that has not yet been divulged publicly would be compromised, or has been compromised._

<comment><USER2> What idiotic logic. Because he is hiding in countries with imperfect track records on the issues he is bringing up about the U.S., and has not openly criticized the regimes of those countries, that somehow, by their logic, renders moot any claims he has about opposing similar things in the U.S.

<comment><USER3> It's not idiotic at all. There are many countries which don't have this sort of issue, eg Iceland (where many were expecting him to go a week ago). Julian Assange seemed quite happy with Sweden until he found himself at odds with the laws on sexual conduct there (and recall that it is to Sweden, rather than the US, that Britain wants to extradite him).

Russia doesn't have an 'imperfect track record' in this area. It has a pretty poor one, and I'm guessing you're not going to see a wave of libertarian idealists heading there any time soon for just this reason. It's not unreasonable to question Snowden's motives based on the company he keeps.

<comment><USER2> It's tremendously idiotic. It makes sense for him to go to countries likely to push back on the U.S. extradition request. He went to Hong Kong for reasons which made sense, then left while they temporarily resisted extraditing. He went to Russia with plans to meet with ambassadors from at least one other country, and that plan was arranged by Wikileaks. Now it's not publicly known where he is, and it may not be in Russia anymore.

I'm not supporting these countries at all as having great governments, but to say that he is a supporter of them because he isn't openly criticizing them while they're helping him is just stupid.

<comment><USER3> You've missed the point that there are other countries likely to push back on the US extradition request that _don 't_ have bad human rights records or an antagonistic stance towards the US. Like Iceland and Sweden, as I explained above.

<comment><USER2> I didn't miss that point, it was just irrelevant to my point, which was that it's absurd to say his point is moot simply because he doesn't criticize the countries he's in as being as bad as he alleges the U.S. is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't have time to watch Oprah, so lets get back on track: are the FISA courts really Article III courts?

</comment><comment><USER5> Q Last thing on this. The administration was obviously embarrassed when you had a 29-year-old person as contractor just leak all these documents in the first place. Is the administration embarrassed now that you can't track him down, that he's -- this cat-and-mouse game that's going on for all the world to see?

...

Q Is the President enraged? You know -- like really angry? -- like throwing around stuff? Like the throwing of that bronze horsie statue -- in the oval office?

<comment><USER4> I don't think they were embarrassed by the fact that he's a 29 year old blah blah, but that the citizens of the US, the government's constituents, found out the government was doing something the citizens weren't comfortable with.</comment></comment>


A customer service conversation gone wrong - <AUTHOR> http://www.brokentone.com/blog/1151/

<comment><USER2> so, you called somebody's baby ugly and you are surprised at the response?</comment>


Show HN: A Twitter bot that tweets posts that make it to the number 1 spot. - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/#!/TopOnHN <comment><AUTHOR> I know there are multiple HN twitter bots around already, but I have yet to find one that does not swarm my twitter inbox. This bot will only tweet links that make it to number 1 (approx 4-5 tweets per day).</comment>


Command Line Tools in Python - <AUTHOR> http://www.scribd.com/vacuum?url=http://code.noahgift.com/pycon2008/pycon2008_cli_noahgift.pdf

<comment><USER2> Oh Scribd, why must you ignore my scroll wheel?

Original PDF:

[http://code.noahgift.com/pycon2008/pycon2008_cli_noahgift.pd...](http://code.noahgift.com/pycon2008/pycon2008_cli_noahgift.pdf)

<comment><USER3> It definitely indicates a design deficiency when one (myself included) prefers PDF over the default service provided via Scribd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting article. I like the optparse example, I've always implemented these (Object oriented wrappers for getopt/Getopt::Opt) by hand in Perl (and re-wrote the code every time I went to a different company).

I find it much easier to use YAML (a superset of JSON) files for configuration, however, with the only draw back being tab sensitivity (which can be made easier to deal with by placing vim/emacs instructions as comments, e.g. "vim: ft=yaml ts=4 sw=4 et") . Additionally, there _must_ be some equivalent of XML::Simple out there for Python.

<comment><USER5> YAML 1.2 (currently only available as a working draft) will be a superset of JSON. The current YAML 1.1 is not because of some issues like encoding, whitespace, escape characters, etc.

Also read the "Relation to JSON" section of the 1.2 draft: <http://yaml.org/spec/1.2/#id2560236>

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Re: ConfigParser, do you guys have any idea where it could be more interesting to use a conf file instead of a regular "settings.py" file, where you could set your parameters?

The only case I can think of is one where your configuration may be used by a non-Python application.

<comment><USER7> The INI format lets you group your options with less syntax, if you need more than just the top level. (It's still much less flexible than YAML, though.) Other than that, yeah, mainly legacy config files and programs that weren't written in Python.</comment></comment>


Can Kids Judge Credibility of Info on the Internet? - <AUTHOR> https://gosocratickids.com/how-well-can-your-child-judge-the-credibility-of-information-on-the-internet/ <comment><AUTHOR> The author makes some excellent points about evaluating information presented to us on the internet. This jumping to conclusions that so many people make when they see a photo, or a video clip (like the Catholic high school student / Native Elder dustup recently) is so toxic to society. We would all do well to not only have this kind of conversation with our kids around the dinner table or on the drive to school, but with our friends and loved ones as well. Great article!</comment>


Ask HN: Game background music - <AUTHOR>

Our first iOS game is almost done except the background music.<p>Can someone please help us by suggesting any website that have some free music to download or any software to compose a simple music? <comment><USER2> [http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1icfjz/an_awesome_b...](http://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1icfjz/an_awesome_bundle_of_free_public_domain/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/](http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/) [http://overtone.github.io/](http://overtone.github.io/)</comment>


Reverse engineering Animal Crossing's developer mode - <AUTHOR> https://jamchamb.github.io/2018/06/09/animal-crossing-developer-mode.html <comment><USER2> I really enjoyed reading this as Animal Crossing had a big impression on me as a child. It was engaging and full of character, but didn't have the same structure as other adventure/platformer games I had owned. It opened my eyes up to how interactive media could feature content that was exploratory, rather than goal-oriented.

A few weeks ago, a coworker said they were surprised about Minecraft's enduring popularity, as its gameplay seemed somewhat "pointless" to them. I think games like Animal Crossing help show that games don't necessarily need to exist as an existential need or pastime, and that their value can come from simply allowing your to express yourself in some space. Or, The Elder Scrolls has had a lot of enduring popularity, and I think a lot of that comes from making a character and casually having fun.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, what an excellent post!

It reminds me of Temporal Flux, an editor for SNES game Chrono Trigger that is so elaborate that entire new games were created with it.

</comment><comment><USER4> The debug code (up down up down left left right right B+A start) looks really similar to the Konami code (up up down down left right left right B A start). It's like the debugging equivalent to "don't forget to drink your ovaltine".

<comment><USER5> I'm assuming they changed it just enough that normal players wouldn't find it by accident.

<comment><USER6> Even Konami varied it some between games.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Find the post interesting.

Wonder anyone know how the environment should be ... 1) Buy IDA which ver? 2) somehow Load the rom from ... how?

<comment><USER8> 1\. Whichever version of IDA supports PowerPC (probably the paid one)

2\. It's not a single file "ROM" in this case - you'd take a disc image you either created yourself or somehow acquired, convert it to ISO, then extract the .dol files for analysis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> TL;DR using a second controller in port two to enter:

(L+R bumper & Z), D-UP, C-DOWN, C-UP, D-DOWN, D-LEFT, C-LEFT, C-RIGHT, D-RIGHT, A+B, START

Unlocks the GameCube animal crossing debug mode without requiring a modded disk/console.

Makes you wonder what other games have hidden key combos yet to be discovered.

<comment> slipstream- Interestingly enough, this is the same key combo used to show information on a crash in several N64 games, including Doubutsu no Mori (the original N64 version of Animal Crossing).

<comment><USER10> It's based on the Konami code [0] a version of which made it into a mouldy peaches song [1]

[0] - [http://contra.wikia.com/wiki/Konami_Code](http://contra.wikia.com/wiki/Konami_Code)

[1] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceV62E-c86g&t=92](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceV62E-c86g&t=92)

<comment> slipstream- I didn't even notice it was a derivation of the Konami code until you mentioned it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is awesome. I love reverse engineering software. There is something so magical about it. I once spent a whole summer reverse engineering crackmes but never moved to actual software hmm.

<comment><USER12> What are crackmes?

<comment><USER13> Small binaries that employ a reduced set of programming/anti- debugging/obfuscation/etc techniques. Sometimes you have an idea what sort of techniques you're up against, sometimes you don't but you have a general idea of difficulty. In all cases the idea is that the possibility domain is bounded and smallish rather than completely unknown.

The idea is you conquer progressively more complicated crackmes and this helps you learn how to tackle random binaries you'll find in the wild.

Generally the step up after crackmes is to find virus payloads/samples and try and unravel those. I understand Stuxnet uses some of the most complex techniques to date: [https://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/secu...](https://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/security_response/whitepapers/w32_stuxnet_dossier.pdf) (ref: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17099969](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17099969), also [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2212922](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2212922))

<comment><USER11> Thanks for sharing! I got lost on my way after crackmes and ended up exploring other topics, but I may have to revisit virus samples :)

<comment><USER13> Assembly language is still on my todo list (slooow starter, heheh).

I have an old DOS game I kind of want to kill the collision in so I can play it with my terrible coordination :P

(This is the game: [https://www.old-games.org/games/willy](https://www.old- games.org/games/willy) \- this particular site all is in Hebrew, but it's the only one with this particular version of the game - take a look at the yellow subtext immediately under the title in the screenshot ;P)

Btw, FWIW: I'm roughly around the Sydney area, if I'm interpreting your name right. If Google isn't utterly off base, maybe you're in Brisbane or NSW...? (Many matches for your name, didn't want to take chances poking all of them)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Amazing post! Makes me want to get into ROM hacking :)

</comment><comment><USER15> amazing work</comment>


IPhone/Andriod/WebOS App or a mobile website? - <AUTHOR>

I'm developing a service that is targeted for mobile devices. I haven't done much mobile dev since J2ME and the Andriod emulator and I haven't done any mobile website development, so I don't know exactly what the pros and cons are.
What are the reasons why I would want platform specific apps over a mobile webapp? What functionality would I want in my webapp that I couldn't get at from a browser?
I like the approach of http://iqmobilesearch.com/ but my project is slightly more complicated. <comment><USER2> I prefer the approach of mobile webapps, I just set my webapp <http://www.gmbhnews.com> , over native apps, I have a broader reach (all smartphones) , and I can still create native apps later, I can also SEO my mobile webapp and have less competition than on Android/Webos/iphone, + developp one time and update one time for all platforms.

<comment><AUTHOR> I really like it. Do you have any resources for learning you mind throwing my way if I decide to go the mobile webapp route?

<comment><USER2> sure: <http://code.google.com/p/iui/>

<http://jqtouch.com/>

for the front end, and any server side language (php/ruby...etc)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The advantage of an iPhone/Android/WebOS app is the marketing that you gain if you're high in the rankings for your category. Also, having your app as a native app on a user's phone give them more felt "ownership" of the app and the content. Generally native apps feel faster because you can speed up loading of pages through native controls and assets.</comment>


Ask HN:  What if I suck at consulting? - <AUTHOR> I'm a undergrad always looking to earn some extra money on the side.  I often come across potential consulting jobs, but they usually are outside the scope of things I've done before.  My question (and fear) is this:
What happens if I deliver a crappy product?
I understand I miss out on future work with said client.  Beyond that, what are the consequences?
There may not be very big consequences.  New clients = new start.  Over time I figure it out.  Yet I still feel like it's a risk to take on a project that I might not be able to handle.  I like to take pride in my work.  What are some experiences you've had with delivering a half-baked product? <comment><USER3> The main consequences are if that most of your new work will probably come from references through past clients, so if you regularly screw up, you probably won't be able to generate as much work.

However, I think you're asking the wrong question. Don't ask "What happens if I deliver a crappy product?"

Instead, ask "How can I make absolutely certain that I will deliver a product that the client is pleased about?"

You won't get it right all the time, especially not at the beginning, but you'll find that in general that's most to do with your ability to manage client expectations than with your coding skills, so don't worry about delivering a crappy product - instead worry about managing client expectations so they're never negatively surprised by what you deliver.

<comment><USER4> > worry about managing client expectations so they're never negatively > surprised by what you deliver.

In short (to be blunt): Don't promise what you can't deliver.

<comment><USER3> Well, it's more subtle than that. Even if you never over-promise, your client could still get the wrong idea. The hard work in consulting often not in actually doing the work, but in finding the leads, turning them into clients, and then managing the process so that the client ends up happy at the end of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You have to find the middle ground between only doing stuff you are absolutely sure you can deliver excellently because you've already done that kind of work before (which for all of us is always going to be small) vs taking stupid wild risks with technologies and areas you are not familiar with.

Also, there will always be risk that you will deliver a crappy product because your client did something that made it that way _(eg "but we MUST have .Net ASP on the front end talking to a PHP back-end and ONLY using flatfiles")_ \- that's a constant regardless of your degree of familiarity with a given technology or problem space (you can mitigate that in other ways but that's beyond scope here I think).

Take stock of what it is that you are comfortable working on:

* Technologies you have clearly demonstrable capabilities

* Problem spaces you have worked in before

* Areas you have researched

Now extrapolate by one degree - eg so if you are familiar working with Hadoop you probably could set up and use Cassandra if you needed to. But to say you have experience setting up a massively scaled and redundant data warehousing operation would be too far.

If you have built mainly consumer focused apps you might feel comfortable trying a social network app, but jumping into financial software might be too far.

etc.

Now with the above market clearly the technologies and spaces you have experience in and don't be afraid to take on jobs that exist in the "1 degree apart" space - but be cautious of anything that falls outside of that.

Sorry if this is a long windy reply - I've spent the last 5 years consulting and the above is my basic methodology for this.

<comment><USER5> I also forgot to mention, another great way to gain confidence in new areas is to experiment and R&D in your own time.

Pick projects that will leave you with a clearly demonstrable experience of a _marketable_ technology (eg Node.JS is cool but difficult to find wide market interest at this time).

But only do this if you have time between gigs - always take a gig over a project because you will always gain some kind of experience from any gig, in addition to getting paid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You could start with some 'safe' low-bar jobs to get a feel for it, like eLance or similar (back in the day I did some eye-opening work for clients through rentacoder and a British freelancing site). The experience may be worth more to you than the abysmal pay.

You could also try structuring your work and charging methods so you have a week or two of lower-paid 'research' at the start of the job to really figure out if you can execute or if it's something you should leave well alone. Once you have a client waiting and are in the swing of things, though, the ability to execute is somehow higher :)

</comment><comment><USER7> Then you will be like 80% of the people delivering products out there, that doesn't make it good or acceptable, but knowing this should help take some of the pressure off of you.

The key with consulting is to always communicate with your client, let them know where you are and how much more work you think you have. Be honest about how you feel about the quality of it as well, a good client with work with you and help you deliver a great product.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you never attempt things outside the scope of things you've done before, you will never do anything - its the definition of a self fulfilling prophecy.

Do research, learn, talk to people who have done it before, manage client expectations. Best of luck -

</comment><comment><USER9> Never ever deliver a crappy product. If you're in the weeds you're going to know it. Raise the issue early and ask for help. If you can't complete the project that sucks for your client, but its recoverable. If you continue to flail for weeks and finally deliver half ass crap without a warning then you have failed miserably.

<comment><AUTHOR> So what's the route to take when I realize i'm in over my head? Apologize, refund the money and move on? Hire someone to help me finish it?

<comment><USER9> So here's the deal - you're not likely getting contracts to do banking systems. I'm guessing things like websites and maybe mobile apps etc.

The thing is if you're a bit smart and know how to code, there's very little you probably _can't_ do. The question is how long will it take you to figure out how to do it. You will much more likely be wondering whether you are doing it right.

So now its a question usually of scheduling. When you start getting in doubt about your ability to deliver on time, thats the time to raise your concerns. Tell them you might need to bring someone else on, maybe you can do this on budget or maybe you might have to eat some hours for free. Again its not perfect but if I hired someone like you and they went that route - I'm pretty okay with that, and I'm going to respect your honesty. Also if you're setting schedule make sure you build some buffer time in, and try to avoid projects with super hard and fast delivery dates.

Some people may flip out, but if you manage to keep them as close to on time and on budget as possible thats okay.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Treat it like dating. (From a guy's POV:) Some girls you know you don't want to deal with, so you don't date them. Some girls are interesting, but you've never dated them before, so if you're feeling risky or ambitious, you try and see what happens. Some you know are your type, so you actively pursue them, but even then, they might not work out until you really get to know them.

Bad Consequences? You can get a reputation of being promiscuous (or worse) if you handle things poorly. People can find out you're not a good kisser, you're not good in bed, you're unreliable, you're cheap, etc. Or they can find out that you're responsible, you try hard, you're willing to give it all you got, you're romantic, etc.

The only risk I see is "is this girl worth my time to pursue?" There are 6 billion people in the world and only one you. Your time is limited, potential clients are not.

</comment><comment><USER11> I recommend shying away from things that are not in your comfort zone - <USER2> somehow progressing you.

For example, I was requested to quote for a project that _had_ to use Joomla for a certain type of website (well, it was Facebook and a document management system). That was enough to ring alarm bells and steer away from it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Pretty much the worst that can happen is you won't get paid, and those clients will tell all their friends not to hire you. Which is.. not that awful.

But if you try at all, you might find that in the real world the bar is actually pretty low. Just being able to deliver anything at all is the first step!

</comment><comment><USER13> Saying "Yes" is easy. Saying "No" is hard.

You won't be able to say "No" until you've said "Yes" and failed.

</comment><comment><USER14> If you are able to complete the project and there are problems with it in the future, you may just be giving yourself future work when the client needs those bugs fixed.

</comment><comment><USER15> "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." -Wayne Gretzky

Just try it, if you suck, move on, or try to improve, but you'll never know otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER16> The word you're looking for is "contracting".

</comment><comment><USER17> I think most consulting openings are _political_ in nature.</comment>


Uber's new cultural norms - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ubers-new-cultural-norms-dara-khosrowshahi <comment><AUTHOR> Techmeme summary: _Dara Khosrowshahi / LinkedIn: Uber CEO announces new "Cultural Norms" for company after employee input: celebrate differences, "do the right thing", "act like owners", "make big bold bets"_</comment>