Everything You Know About Fitness Is a Lie (2010) - <AUTHOR> http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/everything-you-know-about-fitness-is-a-lie-20120504 <comment><USER4> I discovered what this author is saying with this site:

[http://stronglifts.com/](http://stronglifts.com/)

And I've been doing the Reg Park 5x5 routine ever since, and for the first time in my life I love working out. Short, powerful and intense.

As Mehdi would say: Stop wasting your time with all that bullshit! Get strong!

<comment><USER5> I absolutely hated StrongLifts. If you have godlike genes it will work great; unfortunately I ended up having a month-long plateau that made me dread going to the gym (StrongLifts makes you "work until failure" a certain number of times before you take weight off your exercises, which sounds OK until your sets are going 3-1-1-0-0 2-3 times a week for multiple weeks). Psychologically, working to failure makes you feel like absolute shit.

Also, they never mention this anywhere, but _do not start a weight training program if you are overweight!_ It's _very_ difficult to build muscle while eating at a caloric deficit. The absolute best way to get into shape first is to lose weight with a lower calorie diet and cardio. Once you're slim, then you can start bulking if you want more muscle.

You'll hear people say things like "weight training raises your metabolism so you're burning more calories while at rest." This is largely a myth that experimental data has disproven. Men have a difficult time with this because there's a certain machismo factor when it comes to weight lifting, but please resist the urge!

<comment><USER6> "do not start a weight training program if you are overweight"

A better way of saying that might be "do not start a weight training program if you are on a calorie-reduced diet".

Some will argue that you're better off converting fat into muscle via a strength program than losing weight, at least to start. That's an individual choice, though.

<comment><USER7> > Some will argue that you're better off converting fat into muscle via a > strength program than losing weight, at least to start. That's an individual > choice, though.

That's not an individual choice; it's a good indicator that the person you're talking to doesn't know what they're talking about. There is no such thing as "converting" fat into muscle. They're different cell tissues, and if the person dispensing the advice doesn't pay respect to that fact, it's unlikely their advice is worth following.

Think about it from a technology perspective. Having a more subtle understanding of a technology allows you to develop better problem solving strategies. If the depth of one's troubleshooting strategy is limited to "turn it off, then back on again", they might be able to reach a solution most of the time, but they can't help you past the point that their single-vector solution fails.

The same applies to fitness. A better understanding of the human body yields more nuanced advice, and more effective results.

<comment><USER6> That's a common expression used by lots of people who understand that the process is more complicated than that.

Pedants might make good scientists but they're unlikely to be good instructors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> TL;DR squats, dead lifts and bench presses are the fundamental exercises to build strength. But if that's really news to you then I don't know what kind of "gym" you've been going to.

<comment><USER9> Most of the newbs are afraid of these exercises and they are right to do so, because if you don't do it right you can have some premium level traumas. The gym I started in had at least 2 professional trainers at all times circling the floor and correcting, advising everyone. Unfortunately most of the western gyms nowadays don't use this approach and instead offer "everything or nothing" \- either train without supervision whatsoever or pay a fortune for a personal trainer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> And then, somebody came along and made another program out of it called stronglifts: [http://stronglifts.com/](http://stronglifts.com/)

<comment><USER11> I've been doing Stronglifts for about a year and I can say that my own experience backs up the "lift heavy weights and do compound exercises using free weights" that the original article suggests. I'd messed around with routines from Men's Health and other magazines at various times over the years and got nowhere at all. I'm now doing far less exercise than I did with those routines and am seeing real progress.

Stronglifts is a routine for beginners and the 5x5 three times a week soon gets too much as you start squatting heavier amounts - I had to drop to squatting once or twice a weeks once I started squatting about 1x my own body weight (about 250 lb).

Based on personal experience alone I thoroughly recommend Stronglifts and Starting Strength as a good way to obtain good general fitness and to lose weight. Squatting and dead-lifting are whole body exercises that really do work the whole of you - it's surprising how much your abs and glutes hurt after some squats.

A word of warning: you must start with light weights and work on doing each exercise properly - and I mean stupidly light to start with, start with just the bar if you are completely out of shape. If you try and start with impressive-looking heavy weights then you'll be resting up with a bad back before you know it.

<comment><USER12> any advice on how to squat with weak, tender knees that hurt on their own before even starting a program?

<comment><USER13> Take plenty of time to warm up before doing anything with weight, and pay close attention to form. Never let your knees go in front of your toes!

The good news is that all my knee problems basically disappeared once I started doing some strength training. Hopefully it'll work for you too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> after being sedentary for a long time my weight ballooned to 220lbs/100kg I didn't feel strong or actually I was week. So I started working out in a gym, but figured it was costing to much time and I didn't like it. now I do mostly body weight training (You are your own gym) and running an biking for fun. Some times I do a different program like Rush Fit which is very fun to do. in a year time I have lost a lot of weight and gained a lot of mussel and I feel much better. it only takes me 20-45 minutes a day 4-6 days a week.

So yeah the 10 pages are right as far as I'm concerned ;)

<comment><USER15> But 20-45 minutes a day 4-6 days a week is completely unobtainable for most people.

<comment><USER16> I just simply can't believe that. Everybody has an extra 2.5 hours a week, if you don't, then there's some _very_ serious issue with your schedule.

<comment><USER5> Eh, I believe it. 45 minutes a day doesn't count the trip to/from the gym, post-workout shower, changing, etc., and really, the people I know that actually get results from going to the gym end up spending way longer than 45 minutes there. 2-3 hours isn't unheard of. I only really say any of this because I feel like every fitness-related internet post has been along the lines of "no more excuses; if I can do it, then anyone can," which apparently isn't working.

<comment><USER17> My workouts are recently down to 30-40 minutes. Even less on a fasting day :). I have an advantage that the company has a gym, though, so there's no extra trip. My workouts are a combination of weight exercises (big 3: squat, bench press, deadlift + occasional cleans), bodyweight exercises (mostly along the lines of "Convict conditioning" books 1 and 2, and some stretching. Today, for example, in about 40 min I did (plus some stretching)

Barbell Squats 3 sets of 5

Pull-ups 3 sets of 9

Stand-to stand bridge 3 sets of 2

A static exercise on abs - <USER2>

The "secret" is that I move between exercises and sets with very little rest, I.e. do squats, then do pull ups, then back to squats - while the leg muscles get some rest, the back and arms do the work and vice versa. Of course, you need some aerobic fitness for that so you don't run out of breath. I know 2-3 hours are not unheard of, but, unless one plans to compete as a bodybuilder, diminishing returns kick in pretty fast. Even worse, one can overtrain and extra time will be very counterproductive in this case.

Of course, if you are, for example, a competitive powerlifter (I did that for a few years), you should train in a very different way - i.e. only do one exercise at a time, and have longer breaks between set etc., but if your goal is primarily health you may be way more flexible in your approach.

Another example - once a week I run home from work. It's 10 km, so takes about an hour. However, a bus takes at least 40 min, sometimes a bit more. So - <USER3> spend only 20 extra minutes, but I get a full hour of exercise! There are always ways to optimise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> TLDR from someone who spent a sad amount of time assessing the article:

Page 2: For (general)strength, don't sit at isolated-muscle machines. Page 3: Don't stick to low weights and core exercises if you're going to suddenly switch outlook and judge yourself on strength and classic squats etc. Page 4: For strength - low reps Page 5: Again use more muscles

It probably filled ten magazine pages IRL.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm an engineer, so my life is all about logic. Logic suggests that healthy body would make me more productive, so I spend 7 days a week in a gym (1 hour each morning, 4 days of free weights and 3 days of cardio) and I always research and tune my diet. The result is that it does make me considerably more productive, improves energy levels, mood, etc. On top of that I have wider shoulders and visible abs. Bottom line is - you don't have to like working out and dieting, especially if you do it right, but you're gonna love the result.

<comment><USER19> I'd like to believe your anecdote but since I know lots of engineers that appear to be super productive and also very out of shape I'll have to counter your anecdotal evidence with mine :P

Note: I started working out about 7 months ago for my health regardless if it would make me more productive. I haven't noticed an increase in productivity, a better mood, or improved engery levels, but I do have a belief that I'm healthier

<comment><USER9> The end result depends on so much more than just working out. My first coach told me long time ago: the impact to the result is 30% working out and 70% diet. So there are quite a few questions that I'd ask, like: 1\. Is your diet correct? Micro/Marco nutrients? Supplements? 2\. Is your workout routine correct? Weights, cardio? 3\. Did you check your hormone, thyroid, etc levels? Testosterone, HGH, etc?

<comment><USER20> I started working out 2 years ago and it changed my life for the better, but it most definitively didn't improve my productivity at work. Why would it?

<comment><USER21> Because of brain-derived neurotrophic factor. Look for connection between it and exercise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > Down the road, if you're like me, you'll want to train multiple aptitudes at > once: strength, power, and endurance. Things get complicated quickly when > you're self-coaching for multiple aptitudes (...)

And yet, almost no word on that. Anyone has a follow up on how to move on from there? And where does flexibility fit in here? AFAIK, focusing _only_ on strength will make you stiffer, and I'd rather be able to kick at head level than having a larger chest, assuming that's a XOR choice.

<comment><USER9> Think about it logically - lifting is stretching. If you lift correctly (form and full amplitude) and don't shy away from free weights it will increase your flexibility. Some info to back it up: [http://breakingmuscle.com/mobility- recovery/can-lifting-weig...](http://breakingmuscle.com/mobility-recovery/can- lifting-weights-make-you-flexible)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> This has been posted before. I'd post a link to the previous discussion if the HN Search was up.

<comment><USER24> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4971196](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4971196)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Exercise always seemed like a huge time sink to me. I usually do it while watching tv. Doing it before bed also saves a shower.

The TV thing also helps me maintain a schedule - xyz cop show is on? Time to bust out the weights.

<comment><USER21> I have to say, you doing it wrong: [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/fashion/18FITNESS.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/fashion/18FITNESS.html)

I used to do the same thing, now I don't use music or anything else to help me relieve the stress of exercise.

<comment><USER25> That article says that music and tv is beneficial to beginners. I guess I'm doing it right since it works for me, but hey to each his own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Not an exactly match but this article makes me feel pretty good about crossfit, which I've been doing for a couple months now and have been making great gains with.

</comment><comment><USER27> 6 pages. Really. In age of tl;dr it is madness.

<comment><USER28> Nothing of substance can fit in a tweet.

<comment><USER29> What you just wrote is a counterexample.

<comment><USER16> The fact that it's a counterexample actually proves his point. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Link- And the tl;dr version of this is?

</comment><comment><USER12> TL;DR: do you even lift?

</comment><comment><USER30> I used to read a lot of fitness articles without doing much. Since then I changed my attitude — I became a doer.

A fitness trainer once said that you can have access to the best training program in the world but if you don't actually do the exercises you'll get you nowhere. On the other hand, you can be given a crappy program and if you manage to do the exercises regularly, you'll still get results.

Fitness is simple. Sure there are lots of programs out there, but the basics always stay the same. Once you got the basics down it all comes down to doing.

<comment><USER11> +1 for "Fitness is simple" and "it all comes down to doing"

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Sorry, but the article seems to contradict itself quite a lot, and aside from a lot of anecdotes about what worked for the author in particular, I don't see much actual useful information.

<comment><USER12> Do you even lift?</comment></comment>


Redesign http://www.patternwall.net - <AUTHOR>

Patternwall starting with a new delicious look. Webdesigners go and grab the patterns! :) <comment><USER2> Doesn't resize very well.

Oh wow, the actual app itself is pretty neat. The landing page looks pretty bad, I would have instantly closed it if it was posted anywhere but HN. Once I started playing with it, it's pretty nice. I would probably just make that the base page, and advertise your book marklet in a dialog box or something.

The logo looks a little pixelated and reminds me of 90's free clip art pages.</comment>


New take on personal flying - <AUTHOR> https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2018/september/06/new-take-on-personal-flying <comment><USER2> Personal flight for transportation seems to have all of the downsides of personal cars, the decreased energy efficiency of having to keep you airborne, and the additional risk of death when it stops working. Just because it looked cool in The Jetsons doesn't mean it's a future we should be pursuing.

</comment><comment><USER3> What is the intent of these things? A form of transportation? Or for recreation? Noise and wind seems like obvious blockers for these to be used for actual transportation. I'm assuming they'd protect you from the 4 death blades.

<comment><USER4> while that one is a particularly bad implementation of the new generation of the flying machines, the typical arguments you voiced are basically the same as the arguments behind "Locomotive Acts" in Great Britain 150+ years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why is this even being profiled? It's not particularly innovative, it hasn't flown, there's no price, and the tech is untested.

<comment><USER6> Because "Model T on the way to a Ferrari."

Oops... laws of physics and all that.

I'm also not sure why this is a "new take" on something which, for all intents and purposes, has never existed.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I have 3 months severance. Seeking advice preparing for a dev job. Help? - <AUTHOR>

Greetings.
<Background info>
I have never been employed as a software developer. I have spent the last year casting a wide net and learning interesting web technologies. Began with Python at Udacity. Got through a third of SICP, and began to really enjoy Javascript. I've gone on to learn enough HTML and CSS to build small web apps, familiarize myself with EC2 platform... enough to receive genuine interest from web agencies.
So, I have a fair grounding in good practices, logical flow of program parsing, and I can reasonably design an OO/MV* system. I like this stuff a lot.
I've spent all this time dabbling and exploring. Now, with three months of severance (no unemployment insurance, though!), I have the opportunity and the pressure to drill down into a particular area. The goal, of course, getting a good job afterward.
</Background info>
<The crux>
I'm in my 30s. It seems a crucial choice here that could go wrong if I waste time. I am considering nailing down a MEAN-stack project in a month. Then spend the rest of the time learning iOS development.
The idea would be to give myself options. I'm more interested in finding a company whose product I like than I am in working with any particular technology. But, as you can see, I'm not great at picking a course and going with it. Am I crazy to think that I could be employable from the iOS side in two months? Should I play it safe and just drill down into the MEAN stack?
Sorry for the long, selfish post. I realize it's a pretty sweet situation to be in - and I don't want to waste it.
Thanks for any advice or thoughts... regarding whether this sounds doable, or your experience comparing developing for the browser vs. developing for native, or employability, etc. and so on... I really do appreciate any thoughts.
</crux>
PS: I am in the US, but otherwise open to moving, so geography shouldn't be much of an issue. <comment><USER2> What's your previous work history and educational background? That's the first thing that's going to come up with any employer. It could be in your benefit or not depending on what you were doing previously. How you frame it to potential employers will be key in getting callbacks.

Since you don't have a deep dev background I would suggest a portfolio site with links and descriptions of side projects and any other relevant work.

Regarding a resume, if you're going to include all the different technologies you've been looking into you should provide some indication of your level of experience with them, e.g. beginner, advanced, etc. Personally, I get a bit put off if resumes from inexperienced candidates contain a laundry list of technologies without ranking and it just turns out they've only used them in passing.

Generally, you may not want to spread yourself too thin learning so much this early in your career. Getting some deeper experience with a few key technologies could be very desirable to potential employers. It sounds like you've been mostly concentrating on web stacks in which case you may want to focus your job hunt on web developer positions specifically rather than full stack or back end.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks for the response. Years ago I was doing network and Windows system administration for a few years. Went back to school to get a degree in the humanities.

To be clear, I am planning on going the portfolio route. Part of the problem is that I have a few exciting ideas, and one is a full stack project, while two others would work best as iOS apps. Thanks again.

<comment><USER2> That's hugely relevant experience! And if you can bring good communication skills to the table, even better. Half the battle hiring qualified candidates is establishing if they are organized, communicative, and professional. I too have a humanities degree (poli sci) and as I've become more experienced the critical thinking and communication aspects have been extremely helpful. Use that to your advantage.

It sounds like you know how to navigate the technical waters well enough, I would say weigh which technology stack is more appealing to you and dive in. iOS and rich front end are both in fairly high demand, you might want to investigate your local market a bit to factor in whichever seems to have more opportunities if you don't plan on moving any time soon.

Oh, and the other thing, be prepared for in depth technical exercises in interviews. They're no fun, but a lot of places ask academic and somewhat irrelevant algorithm and data structure questions regardless of if your applied skills are great. My wife got me this book, and language not withstanding, it seems to cover the typical types of technical questions interviewers ask: [http://amzn.com/098478280X](http://amzn.com/098478280X)

Best of luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> First step I would checkout what jobs are available in your area or where you would like to relocate. Since you're familiar with web application development I would consider learning Rails (Ruby) or Laravel (PHP) . . . look at the opportunities at weworkremotely.com and larajobs.com to get an idea of the requirements. Maybe touch base with local agencies and see if they are have any openings. The best way to expand your skills it to take on paying projects maybe from family, friends or associates initially and start building your network.

Some other sources of inspiration are StartUpsForTheRestOfUs.com, Patio11, Nathan Barry and Brennan Dunn for opportunities to start your own SaaS/Product business if that's interesting to you.

Enjoy your time off. Good luck with your career change.

</comment><comment> Warewolf-ESB Get involved with an open source project! You can showcase your work and skills on your cv, plus it shows a level of passion. GitHub is a good place to start. Good luck!</comment>


Show HN: a FOSS Contacts Relationship Manager - <AUTHOR> http://mycozycloud.github.io/cozy-contacts/

<comment><USER2> Why is my demo in French?

(Note: That's not a problem, I'm fluent, but it is very, very strange. I started on the home page in English, hit the demo, and all of a sudden, French. Stranger still there is no button or other control to let me choose the language. My keyboard is set to Canadian English and I am not connecting from a predominantly French area. AFAIK, my system settings are all anglo.)

<comment><USER3> Hi Peter,

Thank you for the feedback. You can change the language in the settings page: [https://demo.cozycloud.cc/#account](https://demo.cozycloud.cc/#account)</comment></comment>


OneNote Genesis (2004) - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20170327080319/https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/chris_pratley/2004/01/30/onenote-genesis/ <comment><USER2> I maintain that OneNote is the best application in Microsoft Office (but I won't argue if you vote for Excel).

If it had an open file format that other applications actually supported, it would be perfect.

</comment><comment><USER3> I write journals and notes on OneNote. Microsoft has done a really great job with OneNote, it works great across platforms, I use it on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android.

</comment><comment><USER4> Curious about what people think about outliners vs storing information in a rich text format, any thoughts? I like the structure and constraints an outline promotes and use one huge outline for most ideas and thoughts before they become something "real". How would you consider an outline vs "paper" documents?

</comment><comment><USER5> A fantastic product. A well designed ap from the bottom up and one that, as a student, I find incredibly useful and use constantly. I have made suggestions on future enhancements in the public newsgroups, and shall try and think of me. Just dont forget: naming of sub-pages :-). Many thanks

</comment><comment><USER6> I bought crossover and run Office 2010 on Wine just to be able to use OneNote on Linux. It just matches my way of organising. I've never found any Linux native apps that get close :(

</comment><comment><USER7> I recently started using OneNote as "drawing application" on windows 10 and even bough a $100 wacom tablet for that purpose. It is great !

</comment><comment><USER8> OneNote + Outlook (creating meetings and the corresponding note for everyone to see and edit) is my main productivity combo since it works so well across platforms. I do everything there: meeting minutes, to-do checklists, drafts, and so on.

</comment><comment><USER9> OneNote is the only reason I don't drop MS Office for GDocs. There's nothing else remotely as good as OneNote that I've been able to find. The outlining functions and structure just work the way my brain works.

<comment><USER10> How do you deal with the fact that notebooks are ultimately individual files scattered on the filesystem, and there's no easy way of browsing them unless you open each notebook?

That's a huge problem with OneNote, one that I haven't been able to get past. It produces immense friction.</comment></comment>


New York Will Never Be Silicon Valley. And It's Good with That - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-27/new-york-will-never-be-silicon-valley-and-it-s-good-with-that <comment><USER2> > the presence of other industries like finance, media and advertising

This is a huge part of why I didn't enjoy being in SF (admittedly for a very short few months).

Every party I went to, most conversations I had (or overheard in a coffee shop) were tech-related. It felt impossible to have a conversation about anything else, and all conversations naturally gravitated towards tech like some sort of awful singularity.

It's pretty refreshing regularly talking to people who work in the arts, finance, education, administration, etc. If nothing else, just for novelty's sake - more interesting conversations happen when you can't talk about your work all the time.

<comment><USER3> Having spent the last few months living in the Bay Area after decades on the east coast and Midwest I find the constant banter about technology refreshing.

In other parts of the nation that I've lived there is less mono culture but I often hit a wall chasing my ideas.

In the Bay Area there is limitless possibility not just embraced but quarterbacked by seemingly everyone I meet.

If New York or Chicago had a culture that not only embraced these other wonderful cultural aspects of life but also had this focus of building big ideas so deeply engrained in their way of life then I'd be there and not here.

That said, the rent is too dang high out in the Bay. Time to end NIMBYISM in this state!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > ...much more racial diversity

Right, if you ignore the fact Asians make up a third of SV and hugely contribute to the tech scene, the area is totally lacking diversity.

NYC is so superficially centered on appearances, that I would never want SF to be like it. The type of strange ideas and interesting people I met in SF wouldn't have thrived in NYC. It doesn't surprise me that something like YC bloomed in SV, not in NYC, at least until it became a trendy industry. There's a reason why industries that involve appearances thrive in NYC, such as media, advertising, and fashion.

Don't get me wrong, I love NYC, I lived there for a number of years and missed it when I moved to SF. But I've always disliked the sense of superiority that NYC has over the rest of the country.

From my experience on living in both cities, NYC might be more diverse in industry, but at parties I found people in SF to be far more open to more thought provoking, controversial, and unconventional ideas.

<comment><USER5> The Bay Area is a beautiful melting pot of ethnically Caucasian, Asian, Hispanic, Black, and Indian folks that appears very diverse if you look at physical appearance.

But if you have lived in S.F. and also New York, it's easy to see why someone would claim N.Y. is more diverse. I think it has a lot to do with embracing different ways of living. Its a pretty common joke how much conformity there is in the Bay in a basic workplace enviroment, ie. wear this flannel shirt, have 'x' opinion on social media, have 'x' political view.

New York isn't better or worse, but it feels like there is more variety in your day to day interactions with different types of people.

<comment><USER6> > The Bay Area is a beautiful melting pot of ethnically Caucasian, Asian, > Hispanic, Black, and Indian folks that appears very diverse if you look at > physical appearance.

I noticed this in the Dallas/Ft Worth area too. What I also noticed was how many friends in both NYC and SF were completely oblivious to the fact that cities besides their own can also be rather diverse.

Both SF and NYC are constantly in their own bubbles, and I wish that they'd break out of them more instead of dismissing 98% of the country as "flyover states."

<comment><USER7> I left the Bay Area for the Pacific Northwest (and not Portland or Seattle)...the bubbles do exist...out here I can talk with my neighbor about all kinds of things pertaining to farming, self-sufficiency, home repair, electronics (as most farmers are pretty well versed in basic electronic repair), etc...I now look at SF/LA/NY as being stuck in their own superficial bubbles and I'm glad I left.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For the benefit of those who haven't read the actual article: _" New York will never be Silicon Valley"_ is meant by the author as a compliment, not an insult.

Relevant quotes:

 _Investors, founders and employees point to all the things that make New York one-of-a-kind as the reason tech is growing in America's biggest city: the presence of other industries like finance, media and advertising, much more gender and racial diversity and the metropolis's centuries-old status as a center of global commerce. New York provides a contrast to Silicon Valley, which has been criticized for tunnel vision, being insular, out of touch with the rest of the country and overly homogeneous–both company employees and the people for whom they create products.

Instead of being dragged down or drowned out by New York's well-established mega-businesses, startups are feeding off them, hiring their disaffected employees, building products to make them more efficient and partnering with them in ways that help both sides.

"We wouldn't have been able to start our company with this scale anywhere other than New York,'' says Ryan Williams, the chief executive officer of Cadre, a real estate investment startup backed by Andreessen Horowitz. Being in the center of finance gives the firm access to top Wall Street talent and helped it land $250 million to invest on behalf of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

The proximity to major offices of many of the brands Zola sells through its site was a major benefit to being in the city, she says. Having the headquarters of top media and advertising companies a ten-minute subway ride away went a long way too

"New York is a much better place for fostering women entrepreneurs and women in tech," says Samuels, who worked in the industry on both coasts. Both Ma and Ferreira agree._

</comment><comment><USER9> Good heavens yes old chap we don't want those greasy engineer types getting the sort of bonus that partners at the vampire squid get

</comment><comment><USER10> Thank god. Not to disparage SV, but one thing I love about this city is the diversity of the subcultures here. I'd hate for it to be dominated by any one industry.

<comment> FLUX-YOU New York would want to compete, and it's big enough to do so. And I don't blame them for escaping the "city/state/geographical category is the next Silicon Valley" drivel that's been written previously because otherwise you just end up being eclipsed by Silicon Valley in endless comparisons between them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Oh how sad. How will we New Yorkers live without the lack of public transportation, NIMBYism gone insane, the complete opposition to building more than 1 housing unit on 15,000 square feet of land and no housing options for lower and middle income workers within 2 hours of where they work?

<comment><USER12> Right because MTA isn't an old broken down mess (I read too many articles about this and I don't even live near NYC)

<comment><USER13> That's just because we have high expectations. Having lived in both the Bay Area and NYC, in NYC we generally expect the MTA to work reliably, frequently, and 24/7, because it _usually_ does. In the Bay Area I had no such expectations: I knew there were trips I just couldn't make by transit in a reasonable fashion, and other trips that I couldn't make quickly. So when the transit systems failed to deliver, I wasn't actually disappointed.

For instance, my current commute from voice lessons in the Upper West Side to my apartment in Brooklyn (about 9 miles) is one 30-minute train ride, with a train arriving at least every 5 minutes, plus a 5-minute walk on each side. I'm disappointed when that train doesn't go to Brooklyn on weekends because of construction or something, and I need to make one transfer to another train that also comes within about a minute of me getting to the transfer station.

My voice lessons in SF were in Diamond Heights, under 3 miles from my apartment in the Mission. All the commute options involved a bus that comes every half hour, and getting to that bus involved either a transfer from another bus, or walking 15 minutes to take BART one stop. So I would just take a Lyft or a ZipCar, and if the every-half-hour bus wasn't running that day, I wouldn't even notice because I didn't consider it an option. (Sometimes for the return trip I would walk >20 minutes downhill to Glen Park BART, but it's too steep to be a reasonable commute uphill.)

And then I moved to Oakland and gave up on going to voice lessons entirely.

Both the MTA and the Bay Area transit systems have plenty of room for improvement. The difference is that we think that improvement to the MTA is politically realistic, that covering the city with good, reliable transit is within the realm of possibility because we're so close to being there. That's why we make more noise in NYC. In SF, it didn't feel like there was a point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> in other news; oranges aren't apples. and oranges are good with that.

<comment><USER15> Low hanging fruit, but shouldn't it be the apple being okay with that?

/Recent parent practicing dad humor

<comment><USER16> Congratulations!

<comment><USER15> Much appreciated! I've began training my replacement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just to give a proportional representation - California is 2.5X of New York State's economy (2.5trn vs 1trn) and around 17% of the 2.5trn is from Bay Area. If you include greater NYC region (as opposed to just NYC and not NY State), then the economy of just NYC-related economy 1.3 trillion (2012 number, so may be 1.5trn is a fair number to adjust for baselines), which is 3X of Bay Area economy.

There is a reason why Godzilla stamps Empire State Building out more often than Golden Gate Bridge in the movies :)

</comment><comment><USER18> Maybe, but it is worth pointing out that some VC firms are fighting the good fight to transform New York into a rival of Silicon Valley. I'd especially praise Primary Ventures for their efforts:

"Long Live Silicon Alley: The Inaugural NYC Summit"

[http://www.primary.vc/blog/summit-17](http://www.primary.vc/blog/summit-17)

I was at one of their gatherings not long ago and they pointed out that New York is the world capitol for domain-specific knowledge in at least a dozen industries: publishing, law, medicine, fashion, art, education, finance, and more. There is a potential there for a kind of success that will be different than Silicon Valley's, but not necessarily inferior to Silicon Valley.

</comment><comment><USER19> I have lived both places (SF in the dotcom period) and now live in New York.

I love SV for many things and there are many great people there, but at the end of the day, New York is my city because its more human, honest, candid and less tribal.

</comment><comment><USER20> I grew up right outside of NYC and still live here, probably will never leave. I only have one other friend in tech and I honestly like it that way. I think you get a different perspective on things. I get to learn about a bunch of different industries and see things in a way I probably wouldn't if all my friends were in the same field.

<comment> lloyd-christmas Likewise, I grew up in Scarsdale. Very few of my friends work withinin the same industry. Excluding a few people in finance, I'm working through my group of friends in my head and everyone else works in a different industry: publishing, law, actuarial, fashion, art sales, advertising, education, medicine, and insurance (just off the top of my head). What's really nice about it is that we're all able to learn a bit about each industry. I don't need a mile deep, but it's nice to learn a few feet wide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> clickbait filler "news/journalism" like this just irritate me so much.

Firstly, who said we want to be silicon valley? Secondly, who are these two journalists that gives them the authority to say what ny is good or not good with? What the hell do they know about anything? Thirdly, they comparing a major city to what amounts to a business district. Maybe if they compared district ( garment, finance ) to silicon valley, there might be a point to this article.

It's such a non-story turned into one just because they need to publish rubbish everyday.

</comment><comment><USER22> Is it not amazing that both areas, cannot solve problems such as homelessness and traffic/congestion.

Really makes you think why some people go into these fields.($$$, not all but some)

It is ironic because with all the money they make, they cannot afford to live in the cities that they work.([http://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley- unaffordable-e...](http://www.businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-unaffordable- even-for-engineers-2015-5\)\(https://therealdeal.com/2018/02/25/why- increasing-numbers-of-new-yorkers-are-calling-it-quits-on-city-life/\))

If only the government could match private sector wages. I think a lot of people would be way more interested in the public good then!

</comment><comment><USER23> Because there's available women in NYC.

</comment><comment><USER24> SV is rather provincial, as are Boston, etc, so it's a bit amusing that anyone would presume that NYC, with all its flaws, would suffer from some kind of SV- envy, that it somehow aspires to be one of those boorish enclaves. Certainly, NYC is glad it has a tech sector that is growing, but it a bit difficult to imagine a major city without a tech sector. The occupational diversity alone makes it a microcosm. A tech monoculture inspires images of a 21st century Lehigh Valley.

</comment><comment><USER25> NY and Chicago - you guys get to be our financial centers. You get to play with the money that SV and the SV wannabes make. We already have Seattle, Portland, LA, Vegas, Salt Lake, Phoenix, Austin, Louisville, Madison, Indianapolis, Columbus, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Boston, Raleigh, DC, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Miami, Provo, Baltimore, and Ann Arbor. Stop trying to create another overpriced tech mecca.

<comment><USER26> I don't get who "we" is supposed to be in this statement. Who has Indianapolis and SLC?

<comment><USER27> The USA. He's saying the USA already has enough tech cities.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there such a thing as a part time web designer? - <AUTHOR> I am an engineer at heart, I have always wanted to be better at graphics and design but nothing I create is good enough
The site is http://www.interrupts.io
I am working on a part-time concept, basically meetups but for companies and institutions. I have built the core site and functionality but I am looking for someone to help really make the UI slick and fast
Where is a good place to find help> I have tried dribble but nothing came of it. I am willing to pay $2-3k <comment><USER2> Also, just add a couple pictures of meetups with full color.

Some suggestions:

[http://www.fotosearch.com/CSP452/k47478342/](http://www.fotosearch.com/CSP452/k47478342/)

[http://www.fotosearch.com/CSP351/k17787232/](http://www.fotosearch.com/CSP351/k17787232/)

[http://www.fotosearch.com/CSP142/k1429073/](http://www.fotosearch.com/CSP142/k1429073/)

</comment><comment><USER2> When I initially started various projects I just went to upwork and hired "good enough" designers and copywriters.

Also, I would change your price to "call for enterprise"

My thinking is smaller orgs would just do this on the fly. I could be wrong.

</comment><comment><USER2> This was just posted on HN:

[https://medium.com/refactoring-ui/7-practical-tips-for- cheat...](https://medium.com/refactoring-ui/7-practical-tips-for-cheating-at- design-40c736799886)

</comment><comment><USER2> Have you got it in front of any companies HR departments?

Also, you need to think in terms of the value to the organization ie. the ones paying for it.</comment>


Ask HN: What timesaving Git aliases do you use? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> One that I find myself using probably more than I should is __undo __:

      # undo the last commit
      undo = reset --soft HEAD^
      redo = reset 'HEAD@{1}'

Another is a quick update method for repos that I'm not contributing to, but might be dirty:

      up = !git fetch && git rebase --autostash FETCH_HEAD

And for those times I forget those aliases I don't use as often:

      # list aliases
      la = "!git config -l | grep alias | cut -c 7-"

<comment><USER3> > And for those times I forget those aliases I don't use as often:

`git --list-cmds=alias` is a builtin to do this, although the list-cmds option is listed as potentially likely to change.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4>
        lol = log --decorate --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit
        auto = !git add --all && git commit -m \"AUTOCOMMIT $(date)\"
        todo = grep TODO

<comment><USER5> I think my big win for today is learning that `git grep` is a thing. Thank you for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6>
        pu = !"git fetch origin -v; git fetch upstream -v; git merge upstream/master"</comment>


Can Neural Networks Crack Sudoku? - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Kyubyong/sudoku <comment><USER2> To me, this answers the question "How well can neural networks crack sudoku if we forget all of our domain knowledge, and just try to brute force our way through with insufficient training data and a neural network that's poorly sized?".

I suggest an alternate approach that would use a training set consisting of real-world data of sudoku puzzles that are in the process of being solved: before a box is filled in, and then after it's filled in. This would teach the network to solve the puzzle one step at a time, instead of all at once.

If you insist on only using the as-received puzzle and the solution for training, my intuition is that you'll need more layers than 10 in the NN, and much much more data.

A taxonomy of what complex solving strategies need to be learned already exists: see e.g. [http://www.sudokuwiki.org/y_wing_strategy](http://www.sudokuwiki.org/y_wing_strategy) and the categories "basic", "tough", diabolical", and "extreme". My guess is that the NN (using the original author's strategy, but with more layers and lots more data) will eventually do well on "basic" and "tough", but will start to miss on some of the latter conditions depending on the training set and how the network is set up.

<comment><USER3> To me, it's an interesting question to ask how well NNs can perform without hand-holding, i.e. can they figure out all of the complex strategies that humans have figured out, starting from a blank slate?

C.f. AlphaGo, which invented new strategies that proved interesting to human players.

Of course, if you're training your NN to solve a real-world problem, you wouldn't choose to train it in this way, you would do as you suggested and feed it as much relevant training data as possible, to give it a head-start.

(Your points RE: sizing and quantity of training data sound reasonable and are out of my expertise, so nothings to add there).

<comment><USER4> There is a very simple strategy that solves all Sudoku puzzles.

Pick one open square, try a number that is possible for that, backtrack if you get stuck.

For better results, pick the open square which has the fewest number of possible choices.

Human solvers might try something more efficient, but the above strategy is not at all bad for computer implementation.

It's very much a solved problem with existing technology, see

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

adding a neural net to it doesn't help in any way.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, yeah, sudoku is easy for computers. That's not the point. The point is learning about neural networks. So yeah, "adding a neural net" does help with that.

<comment><USER4> In which case the hard part is finding a suitable problem; you might be better off learning about SMT solvers because you don't have Marc Cuban telling everybody to do it.

<comment><USER5> We don't really know if it's suitable until we try it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So much missing-the-point in this thread. The point isn't "can we solve sudoku with a completely over-wrought solution", it's "can NN be applied to X class of problems with no human-added domain specific knowledge". And that I think is quite cool.

<comment><USER7>
       "can NN be applied to X class of problems with no human-added domain specific knowledge"

Universal approximation theory suggest that for a significant class of problems, the answer to this is "obviously" [1]. The problem that remains is how effective is the learning.

I'm not convinced applying them to areas like this one where the are clearly much better approaches teaches us anything useful for more interesting cases, but maybe it does.

[1] NB it's not immediately clear that OPs problem is in that class.

<comment><USER8> > teaches us anything useful...

Maybe the useful thing here is that Sudoku is a problem space a lot of people understand pretty well even though it's not trivial. That makes a nice domain for thinking about and understanding NN. I guess that people who are familiar with the problem space of solving Sudoku and similar problems but who don't know much about NN will find this pretty interesting but people who already understand NN pretty well (or aren't familiar with solving puzzles like Sudoku) won't.

<comment><USER7> I think your guess is reasonable. It's the reason I wasn't very prescriptive: i.e. NN is not a very sensible approach if the goal is a great Sudoku solver, but the exercise might have other value I just can't immediately see.

<comment><USER9> Implications around strategy learning, reinforcement, and learning logical systems.

<comment><USER7> The point is - would you do better off on these with a more applicable problem domain? Do the things you learn transfer there well?

It's not obvious.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Evidence that DNNs are somewhere between phase 2 and 3 of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle)

<comment><USER11> I'm sometimes cynical about NNs too, but even if I were to take the hype cycle theory at face value, I have to admit it's possible that NNs are reaching maturity ("plateau of productivity") now, given that there were large hype cycles over them in the 1960s and 1980s, and given that they are starting to really work and are being deployed in large scale applications. But, this hype cycle theory isn't scientific, so all supporting evidence is anecdotal and subjective, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Soduku is trivially directly solvable for puzzles that are not in the hard/ultra hard level by propagating constraints.

For cases where that's not possible, iterative approaches can be very effective -- with not particularly optimized python, the worst solution time I ever saw was 1 sec on a 1st gen eeepc netbook. That had about 6 layers of iterative backtracking before it came up with the solution.

<comment><USER13> I wrote a Soduku solver in Python while waiting in the airport on a long layover that solves even the most difficult puzzles in a few seconds on an now old laptop. It requires some backtracking but it's really not that hard.

 _Edit_ : I decided to publish my implementation on GitHub. [https://github.com/jcoffland/fsudoku](https://github.com/jcoffland/fsudoku)

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I was seeing if I could do the complete solution faster than a single solution. But I was at the inlaw's dinner table, not the airport.

This is it, uploaded a few years later in a repo for soduku over sms:

[https://github.com/wiredfool/sms- doku/blob/master/so.py](https://github.com/wiredfool/sms- doku/blob/master/so.py)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You can solve sudoku with a SAT solver. You don't need neural networks, this was an assignment in cs 251 at UIC.

<comment><USER15> There are no easy way to solve SAT as the size of sudoku. Modern day SAT solvers are very large and contains years of experience, containing 10s of heuristics and complex structures. If we can simplify using neural network, I think it's a great step.

<comment><USER16> Well, it is really more of a exact cover problem, which can be solved quite simply and elegantly with Knuth's algorithm X.

A neural network isn't simpler in any sense of the word. You might as well throw a simulated annealer at the problem.

<comment><USER15> I am not saying it is not. My condition is in what if neural network can solve a problem without any domain knowledge. I think it's a huge win even if we don't understand anything about the solution. Be it well solved problems like approximate minimum distance in a graph to practically unsolvable like automatically proving unproved theorems in mathematics.

<comment><USER15> I take it this way. How many problems can you solve using knowing mostly exact cover. Not very many. But, if we can build ML systems that can solve mostly any problem(we can't today) even without giving any insight, I would say it will be one of the things whose impact will surpass anything. Note, I am not getting into AGI, just saying a system that can solve objective problems. And while sudoku is not a very good example, but I think it shows we can do many cool things from neural networks. Neural networks are the most sure bet for such a system.

<comment><USER17> You'd be surprised how far exact cover can get you. The trick isn't in knowing exact cover, per se. But in seeing how to map problems to different problems.

That is, the "exact cover" nature of Sudoku is not immediately obvious to everyone. At least, it wasn't obvious to me. Seeing how quickly you can map it to that and then get a solution was a lot of fun and ridiculously educational.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> the-dude Obligatory reference to the (former?) Prime Minister of Singapore : [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2015/05/prime...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2015/05/prime-minister-of-singapore-shares-his-c-code-for-sudoku- solver/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Every time sudoku comes up on HN I think back to when Ron Jeffries tried to solve it using Test Driven Development ;)

[http://ravimohan.blogspot.se/2007/04/learning-from-sudoku- so...](http://ravimohan.blogspot.se/2007/04/learning-from-sudoku-solvers.html) \- enjoy :D

<comment><USER19> I was going to say those really don't seem comparable, but after reading Jeffries', that really was awful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I find it interesting that when the NN fails to complete the whole puzzle, it seems to fail spectacularly (github.com/Kyubyong/sudoku#results) -- that is, there aren't a lot of good-partial attempts (90% or above). Does anyone know why this might be the case? Does the first wrong placement of a number in a gap essentially ruin the rest of the guesses?

<comment><USER21> My intuition says yes; if a wrong number is placed in a square and then taken as ground truth for solving the rest of the puzzle, it certainly seems like the error would propagate.

As a concrete example, say you misplace a '2' somewhere within a given puzzle. Obviously, this cell is incorrect. But depending on the nature of what the NN has learned, it may believe the row (resp. column, 3x3 box constraint) already has the '2' in it, so tries to fill its correct spot with another number. Which of course then leads to the column and/or 3x3 box of that cell to learn an incorrect value, starting the process over again.

This same phenomenon can be seen in the game Kenken; depending on the strategies you use at any given point in the game, one mistake can propagate outward pretty quickly and spoil large sections of the puzzle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> As a combinatorial optimization problem, integer programming is the best tool for solving Sudoku. Fast, accurate, and guarantees the optimality of the solution. I'm impressed at how well this neural network did anyway though!

</comment><comment><USER23> > 1M games were generated using generate_sudoku.py for training. I've uploaded > them on the Kaggle dataset storage.

No need to do that. It would suffice to just include the random seed in the script so that its results are reproducible.

<comment><USER24> One should do both. Scripts and their dependencies have bugs, potentially leading to another sequence of games. At the very least one should specify a couple of the games, so one can check against them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> That looks interesting. Sudoku is a fairly useful constraint satisfaction problem/testbed to test neural networks architectures on, since the most general version of sudoku is NP-complete.

There was some interesting work a while ago that solved sudoku using spiking neural networks too [1] (Fig. 5) with some nice associated theory.

[1] [http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/jou...](http://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003311)

<comment><USER26> I thought Sudoku can be solved in constant time. It would be a O(9! * 9! ) or something, which is just a O(1), isn't it?

<comment><USER11> A constant time solution in years or eons isn't very helpful. There are around 6.7e21 complete sudoku boards if you want to brute force enumerate them.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_of_Sudoku#Enumer...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_of_Sudoku#Enumerating_all_possible_Sudoku_solutions)

<comment><USER27> > if you want to brute force enumerate them

But you don't. Even what you might call "brute force" Sudoku solvers start from the given hints in the puzzle, which reduce the search space considerably. Given a set of Sudoku hints with a unique solution, you won't need "years or eons" with even a very simple solver.

<comment><USER11> Yes, of course you don't, I think you misunderstood my comment. The comment I replied to was asking about true brute force enumeration of all boards -- not a solver that uses inferences based on the hints -- he guessed that you only need 9! * 9! total attempts which implies enumerating all boards and picking the one that matches the initial hints. This is in fact a constant time solution like he guessed, but it is also intractable.

A normal "very simple" solver of the kind you're talking about will solve the solution very quickly, in seconds or less, and it will also not be a constant time algorithm.

<comment><USER28> 9!*9! is just little over 131 billion dashboards. checking correctnes (no number is repeated in row or column) is as simple as counting a sum in all boxes, rows and columns.

Generation of all possible boards is little more complex but I can hardly see how it could take "eons" \- with proper implementation (Apache Spark :P ) and reasonably powerful hardware (1000 CPU core cluster, ha! ha! ha!) it should run under 1 day and take just little over 13 TB of disk/RAM space :).

<comment><USER11> 9! * 9! is not the number of boards, that is a bad estimate. If you don't account for symmetries, rotations, re-numberings and other things, the number of boards is 6.7e21. Even if you could check a full board in a nanosecond (which you can't) enumerating that number would take more than 200,000 cpu- years.

The paper linked to in the OP's article says: "Due to the sheer number of sudoku solution grids a brute force search would have been infeasible, but we found a better approach to make this project possible. Our software for exhaustively searching through a completed sudoku grid, named checker, was originally released in 2006. However, this first version was rather slow. Indeed, the paper [1] estimates that our original checker of late 2006 would take over 300,000 processor-years in order to search every sudoku grid."

[https://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.0749.pdf](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.0749.pdf)

The estimate in the comment (9!*9!) seems to be implying a simple enumeration, not a complex strategy of symmetry-folding. But even if you do reduce the enumeration, the authors of that paper say their software requires 800 CPU years. I'm not making any claims about whether getting that down to a day might be possible, but I wish you good luck. By all means, show everyone how to do it with a proper implementation and a large cluster! ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Sure, but so can decision trees.

</comment><comment><USER30> It's a fascinating subject. Worth reading this entry for more details:

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

And apparently quantum computers can solve them using sheer brute force alone, but these articles don't go into enough detail (i.e: can they solve the 'evil' puzzles?)

[https://www.engadget.com/2007/02/14/worlds-first- commercial-...](https://www.engadget.com/2007/02/14/worlds-first-commercial- quantum-computer-solves-sudoku/)

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/first- commercial-...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/first-commercial- quantum-computer/)

</comment><comment><USER31> Coming up next: CNNs applied to training CNNs

<comment><USER32> That actually happened a long time ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Peter Norvig cracked Sudoku using a clever algorithm: [http://norvig.com/sudoku.html](http://norvig.com/sudoku.html)

</comment><comment><USER34> Using 10 convolutional layers seems questionable - the precise values and location of each number is essential for getting the right answer, so it seems like the model design is poorly suited to the task. The obvious approach to me would be to train a neural net to be a heuristic to order exploration in a constraint satisfaction solver, mirroring how AlphaGo combines monte carlo search trees with neural nets. Might net a nice speed up.

</comment><comment><USER35> A more interesting problem would be to train an n x n sudoku and test the model on an m x m sudoku where m < n, or even m > n. Does it make sense?

edit: formatting

</comment><comment><USER13> Here is my collection of standard sized Sudoku test puzzles: [https://github.com/jcoffland/fsudoku/tree/master/puzzles](https://github.com/jcoffland/fsudoku/tree/master/puzzles)

Some of these are the hardest possible puzzles, with a solution, for the size.

</comment><comment><USER36> Funny, I taught my AI engine to solve easy, medium, and hard NYT sudoku last week.

It needed only 150 tries to solve the hard puzzle.

</comment><comment><USER37> I would like to know if can be proven that NN for problems involving permutations can be as efficient as a SAT solver, less, or more efficient (e.g. if using the training just as a acceleration avoid learning futile permutations works for saving training time, or if it is not noticeable)

</comment><comment><USER38> This is interesting. My intuition says NNs will be terrible at combinatorial optimization types of problems. Then again Go is a combinatorial type of game and AlphaGo beat everyone.

Maybe an NN for Sudoku should use AlphaGo type of architecture.

</comment><comment><USER39> Indeed. A simple solution is to add a differential optimization layer (see Amos et al): [https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.00443](https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.00443)

</comment><comment><USER40> One underlying question is who pays for diffuse crowdsourcing in 2017? I have indirect notice of at least a dozen small enterprises suspected of raiding githubs daily and refactorizing for commercial purposes.

</comment><comment><USER41> I'd say that using neural networks to solve sudoku-like puzzles is a bad idea -- a SAT solver, constraints program or integer program would be all quicker to run and quicker to implement.

</comment><comment><USER42> I can't help thinking that a gofai approach would be a better way to solve sudoku than an NN.

</comment><comment><USER43> Interesting -- there must be a large literature on neural nets and NP- completeness, no?

</comment><comment><USER44> If the wet ones can, I don't see why the ones of an arbitrary size made out of bits can't. Not a very good argument, but there's this: recurrent neural networks are Turing complete.

<comment><USER45> Humans don't learn how to play Sudoku by staring at a bunch of solved puzzles. We are given the rules up front.

</comment></comment><comment> gm-conspiracy Nail, meet hammer.

<comment><USER13> Or rather, vaguely nail shaped object, meet hammer.

<comment><USER46> When you have a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What advice do you have for a first time blogger? - <AUTHOR>

I'm in college and am just starting my first blog about an unrelated subject. So far my audience is just my local friends and acquaintances, but I want to build a larger community. How do I form lasting relationships with my readers? I really want to build a community, not just an audience, and that requires interactivity.
I saw this item a week or so ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=485592 But it seems as if everyone was off on different tangents rather than discussing how to build a compelling blog.
All advice is very appreciated. Thanks. <comment><USER2> On having an engaging blog:

1\. Be topical. The best blogs in my feed reader stick to broad-ish topics I'm interested in. i.e. Rails, Package Design, App Reviews.

2\. Be consistent (frequency). This is simple to understand, difficult to execute. Find a schedule and stick to it.

3\. Be consistent (structure). Once you've found a blogging style that suits you, stick to 1-2 styles (perhaps a short-form and a long-form). 37signals SvN lost it's spot in my feed reader for mixing snippets, quotes, long insights, and code-heavy posts together.

4\. Quality over quantity. The blogs I respect the most are the ones who have thought out, relevant posts - even if they only come once a month.

On building a community:

\- Look to see what Seth Godin & Tim Ferris have done to engage their blog readers beyond the comments.

\- Remember that blogging is still very much a broadcast medium. Don't expect more than 1% of your readers to engage you on any particular level.

</comment><comment><USER3> Put a picture on every blog post. Then at least it can be visually stimulating. That's my 2 cents.

<comment><USER4> Sam Ruby puts relevant icons in each post on his blog. I find it a nice break from text, and it serves as a convenient summary of the topic of the post.</comment></comment>


10 years of Speed in Chrome - <AUTHOR> https://blog.chromium.org/2018/09/10-years-of-speed-in-chrome_11.html <comment><USER2> 10 years of chugging the RAM to the point of rendering the whole machine unusable? :P

For some time, I've been constantly switching between Firefox and Chromium. I was switching to Chromium because it was more responsive than Firefox on light workloads; however, on heavy ones it was absolutely unusable, so after a while I was switching back to Firefox - forming the browser-switching loop.

Thankfully, Firefox got a lot better in the past few years and it's been a while till my last browser switch :) Chromium might be fast, yes, but only if you either use the browser pretty lightly, or you have tons of free RAM around. I have only 8 GB of soldered in RAM and hundreds of open tabs on average, so Chromium is not for me. 20-30% improvement sounds like a good start, but not really a big enough difference.

</comment><comment><USER3> Add version 69 just wiped it all away. So much more bog down when working with multiple tabs open.

</comment><comment><USER4> Google made Chrome to load pages 10% faster so they could include 20% more ads and 30% more trackers :)

<comment><USER2> I know it's tongue in cheek, but there's something to it. The browsers themselves became fast enough that now the hardware often becomes the bottleneck, making the web browsing an absolutely awful experience on weaker devices, because, indeed, there are 20% more ads and 30% more trackers.

There's no real reason for not being able to comfortably browse the Web on my Nokia N900 with JavaScript enabled, yet it's almost impossible these days.</comment></comment>


CS50 Guest Lecture by Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard University, December 7, 2005 - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFFs9UgOAlE

<comment><USER2> facebook december 2005 (~2 years after launching):

100s of machines

400million pageviews a day

50 employees</comment>


Which Languages Are Bug Prone - <AUTHOR> http://www.i-programmer.info/news/98-languages/11184-which-languages-are-bug-prone.html <comment><USER2> Dan Luu did a review of a lot of the literature at the time, and included a short analysis of this paper.

[https://danluu.com/empirical-pl/#a-large-scale-study-of- prog...](https://danluu.com/empirical-pl/#a-large-scale-study-of-programming- languages-and-code-quality-in-github-ray-b-posnett-d-filkov-v-devanbu-p-http- dl-acm-org-citation-cfm-id-2635922)

This review ends with a harsh but fair assessment.

> The authors of the paper repeatedly run into what Pinker calls the igon > value problem. The authors appear to not understand the subject they're > studying well enough to even say what it is they're studying.

If you're interested in actual research, I personally think this other study seems to be OK.

[http://ttendency.cs.ucl.ac.uk/projects/type_study/documents/...](http://ttendency.cs.ucl.ac.uk/projects/type_study/documents/type_study.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> I have no problem with the methodology and results of this article, but I think conclusion that "functional languages are better than procedural languages; ..." only applies to bugs; in reality the choices of programming languages are determined by many factors, bug-proneness is not even the most important thing to consider.</comment>