The Unkillable Demon King - <AUTHOR> http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/13035450 <comment><USER2> Very interesting article. I must admit, that I never played League of Legends. So could please someone explain, how is it possible to reach top position simply by using this strategy in this game:

      "My strength is in understanding the flow
       of the game, when to fight and when not to
       fight," he explains.
      "Regardless of which champion I play, that
       strength is there."

Either he's very humble or does not tell the whole story.

Additionally, I only get news from League of Legends by stuff posted on reddit. Which happens very often. Obviously there's a large fanbase. But the stuff posted there looks very alien to me. Moreover it often looks more like a spamfest than anything else. I'm used to First-Person-Shooters and there's a clear line from Starter to Pro. But how do you define skill in this game?

Example: [https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/37d6kw/fiz...](https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/37d6kw/fizz_ladies_and_gentlemen/)

For me this looks more like someone running around aimlessly, bashing some spells and getting lucky. Please explain.

<comment><USER3> He's not quite telling the whole story, but in a way that's not that different from what you'd expect. The starting point is that you expect a baseline of performance for any professional player: they know what all the characters do, the layout of the map, etc etc.

From that point, some players are particularly well known for certain skills (much as in any other sport): Some guys are known for being preternaturally good at hitting tricky skills. Others are known for being really good at studying their opponents' style and routines, and capitalising on that knowledge.

When Faker says he's good at reading the flow of the game, he's saying he's good at answering questions like the following:

      - If my opponents are in the fog of war, where are they likely to be?
      - What should I do in response to that?

      - Are my allies in a position to help me if I engage this opponent?
      - Are _his_ allies in a position to help him?

      - If I do engage and kill the opponent, will I have to return to base to heal, or  will I make it relatively unhurt?
     - Are there any important map objectives that I will not be able to help with if I am sent back to lick my wounds?

     - If I split off from the rest of the team to go chase some map objective, what happens?
     - Can I gain that objective uncontested?
     - Will my opponents capitalise on the 4v5 and defeat my allies while I possibly gain the objective?
     - Will some of their guys try to prevent me from gaining that objective?
     - If they do, will I be able to escape?
     - Will my team be able to capitalise on the enemy's attempt to stop me and defeat the remaining opponents?

<comment><USER2> Interesting! What this basically boils down to is 'handling instinctively the right way'. It's hard to grasp for me, because there are so many factors in play and by watching LoL recordings it's sometimes impossible to tell what makes someone gaining an upper hand. Is it communication with the team, doing the right skill at the right moment, being at the right place or just pure luck?

Probably all of this together, which makes this even more intriguing. But I guess this comes natural after playing hundreds of hours?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I play Dota 2 every once in a while. Fun game. I never played League of Legends (LoL), which seems to be more popular, just because I've read that they look very much alike, and I can't really afford, time-wise, to learn another game at all.

Interesting to see if someone plays both and has any comment on how they differ.

<comment><USER5> I played League for a very brief period, before I got my Dota 2 beta invite, so some of these might not be valid any longer. Also note that those are differences in game design, one is not necessarily better than the other:

\- DotA 2 metagame undergoes major changes every patch, whereas League metagame is mostly guided by Riot towards a certain playstyle. E.g. in DotA 2 lane assignments are extremely flexible, under certain conditions you can see any hero in any lane, whereas in League champions are mostly only viable in certain lanes.

\- Mechanics wise, DotA 2 is more punishing. If you die, you are dead for much longer, you lose a significant portion of aquired gold. Laning wise, you can deny your own creeps in order to prevent the enemy from gaining gold and experience, and you can modify where the opposing creep waves meet in lane via pulling from the jungle camps. You cannot do that in League. Teamfights in DotA 2 are usually very fast and deadly, due to the presence of strong disables/burst (which is something League shies away from), strong initiators, and the fact that heroes are very asymmetrically balanced.

\- The map in DotA 2 is bigger which puts a great emphasis on mobility and positioning on the strategic level - The International 3's Grand finals were a great example of that.

\- DotA 2 comes with a lot of complexity. There are a huge amount of synergies, item/spell interactions, and generally mechanical knowledge that a player needs to absorb before they can play semi-efficiently (not that the process is not fun; it just takes a considerable amount of time in comparison).

\- On the technical side, DotA 2 has a better client by an order of magnitude. Also, it has a Linux-native version which runs perfectly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Am I the only one who can not understand the hype about esports? I like playing myself and find watching others boring. It's cool if you like it, but I don't watch soccer either.

<comment><USER7> I just don't get why people who watch normal sports get all up in arms about "nerds playing video games". Why can't we all just like what we like and leave it at that?

As for me I used to be into League of Legends tournaments, but every match I watch just feel the same. For me esport of choice is CS:GO, while the maps are the same the spots differ quite a lot and there is a lot more action since the rounds are so much shorter. I still do play both of the games, but I prefer to watch CS over LoL

<comment><USER8> For me, gaming was about variety. I always hated games like CS, which all my friends played when I was young, because they always played the same maps. Same with StarCraft and later with DOTA or LoL. Which ended up being about skills and not about variety anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's tough to overemphasize just how _good_ Faker is/was. When he first appeared on the scene there had been other players before that had been considered to revolutionize their role. People like Diamondprox (for jungle) and Reapered (for top). But Faker was just something else completely.

</comment><comment><USER10> For anyone interested in seeing Faker's first game, and the series of events that they describe where he kills his lane opponent: [http://www.twitch.tv/ongamenet/b/387298731?t=24m28s](http://www.twitch.tv/ongamenet/b/387298731?t=24m28s)

Was a pretty one-sided game, but it was as much due to SKT as a team as it was to Faker. I'm not sure where they got that MonteCristo quote from, I don't recall him saying it.

</comment><comment><USER11> Worked in game industry for more than 15 years, but never played any multiplayer games (except at work locally), and hot-seat (Heroes of Might and Magic). I always felt strange about such tournaments, but now I'm reading Ender's game and that feeling is even more stranger :)

Oh, I forgot... I've played for 30 minutes minecraft with my son last week first time for me and him on a server. It was fun!

</comment><comment><USER12> Not sure if they provided a link anywhere but anyone who's curious about the game or wants to see him play, this is a recent VOD of him playing casually. (gameplay starts around 14 minutes in).

[http://www.azubu.tv/faker#!/play/35259/skt-faker- june-01st--...](http://www.azubu.tv/faker#!/play/35259/skt-faker-june-01st-- 2015)

</comment><comment><USER13> What does faker play? Jungle, top, etc.? Or was the article saying he plays everything?

I've been out of league for a few years now and never got into e sports besides solomid for context.

<comment><USER10> He plays mid, but he's renowned for having a huge champion pool - I wouldn't be shocked if he could play any role, though he shines when he's roaming to create map pressure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> FAKER</comment>


Is Java a good choice to develop new apps? Or is it a dead-walking language? - Andrew-Dufresne http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/dv9ag/with_javas_increasing_complexity_jcps_slow/

<comment><AUTHOR> The first comment on reddit talks about the fact that it is not a good choice for a desktop app. I agree, if you want a cross platform desktop app, Adobe AIR or one of the other is a far better choice.

If you are doing web that works in conjunction with a larger set of systems, it still has a good deal of advantages . Primo Facto being the availability of off the shelf libraries and integrations with other technologies.

As for JSP, JSF, Struts, tag-libs, tiles, velocity and all of the other Java web technologies, my personal opinion is they are the worst of the worst. I would say working in PHP is preferable to having to work in them and I do not like PHP at all. For me, I stopped using server side languages all together and write my UI with HTML / CSS / JavaScript. This gives me the ability to plug into any back end technology and allows me to keep the UI agnostic of any non-web technology (e.g. JSP, ASP, PHP).

In the way that we build web apps, Java works well, we use JAX-RS to expose REST services. and then use Java to integrate all of the back end pieces together. As a language it does leave a deal to be desired but I don't think that those lackings are a killer for it. I think the Java web stack was a killer and pushed a lot of people to PHP, as it was so intrusive as to be almost abusive to the designer. It favors the developer over the designer and it is evident in it's design.

The old web frameworks chose the designer or the developer this is evident in the various takes on how to do the web on the server. One only needs to look at the contrast between PHP and Java Web to see the evidence. You can see which one each favors pretty quickly.

The thing I like about the way we do things now, is we exploit the advantages of Javascript and it's rapid development capabilities that better suit a UX designer on the front end. As well as exploit the rigor that the back end developer needs with Java and transactions, guaranteed rollback, dead recipient and all of the other standards that guarantee that something does not fall through the crack.

Anyway, I don't see Java as dead I just think it will play a more out of sight role in the future but I think the same can be said for a lot of server side technologies. JavaScript web apps are growing by leaps and bounds, it has its detractors but most that actually try it, see the advantages pretty quickly and convert, it takes far less time to deliver and provides a superior result. It is the way that the industry is heading. I think that is a far more important decision than whether or not you use Java as your back end.</comment>


Microsoft sues Motorola over Android patent infringements - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2010/10/01/microsoft-sues-motorola-over-android-patent-infringements.aspx

<comment><USER2> So much for the _"Microsoft doesn't have a history of patent lawsuit trolling. [...] At the end of the day MS is a developer centric company, they pride themselves on the ability to make things, and patents are an annoying side show to that."_ argument found here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1745932>

<comment><USER3> Patents are a big deal at Microsoft. They are highly encouraged. Employees who succeed in securing a patent receive a plaque that is proudly displayed in their office as well as a nice bonus.

<comment><USER4> It's actually a cube rather than a plaque. Some people have pyramids on their desk built from patent cubes.

<comment><USER5> The cube is for filing a patent. You get the plaque when it is awarded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What I like about these lawsuits is the possibility that the big players will start aggressively campaigning for patent reform. As long as they all entered into cosy cross-licensing deals with each other, they were running an oligopoly that erected a barrier to entry against upstarts.

But now that they're starting to sue each other, the oligopoly's ranks have split and patents are going to bring everything to a stand-still.

<comment><USER7> > What I like about these lawsuits is the possibility that the big players > will start aggressively campaigning for patent reform.

I wouldn't count on it -- if anything, they'll think, "hmm, we could be next, we'd better start getting patents of our own." Then once they have patents, someone in management will ask, "hey, we have these expensive patents, why don't we deploy them against the competition." That's especially true if some exec wants to get credit (and bonuses) for a license royalty stream or a damages award.

<comment><USER8> Damn. You ruined my day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Didn't MS pledge not to use their patents offensively?

EDIT: [http://www.microsoft.com/interop/principles/osspatentpledge....](http://www.microsoft.com/interop/principles/osspatentpledge.mspx)

<comment><USER10> They'll only sue you if you try to make money of it:

"If You engage in the commercial distribution or importation of software derived from an open source project or if You make or use such software outside the scope of creating such software code, You do not benefit from this promise for such distribution or for these other activities...

Software is deemed to be commercially distributed within the meaning of this promise when the distributor derives revenues in connection with the distribution, such as from subscriptions, updates, or user-based connection fees or from services that are contractually required for a customer to obtain the current version and/or updates of the software product in question."

<comment><USER11> Open-source means non-commercial now?

<comment><USER12> The never said that open source means non-commercial. They said that above and beyond being open source this promise only applies to these situations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It is absolutely imperative that we all formulate our opinions in ignorance of the patents themselves. Pay no attention to the following words and numbers.

      Common Name Space for Long and Short File Names: 5,579,517
      Common Name Space for Long and Short File Names: 5,758,352
      Monitoring Entropic Conditions of a Flash Memory Device as an Indicator for Invoking Erasure Operations: 6,621,746
      Radio Interface Layer in a Cell Phone with a Set of APIs Having a
      Hardware-Independent Proxy Layer and a Hardware-Specific Driver Layer: 6,826,762
      Method and System for Managing Changes to a Contact Database: 6,909,910
      Flexible Architecture for Notifying Applications of State Changes: 7,644,376
      Context Sensitive Menu System/Menu Behavior: 5,664,133
      Method and System for Supporting Off-line Mode of Operation and Synchronization Using Resource State Information: 6,578,054
      Generating Meeting Requests and Group Scheduling from a Mobile Device: 6,370,566

<comment><USER14> Maybe this is a dumb question, but why are they targetting motorola? Don't these patents apply to, well, every smartphone in existence? It can't be a matter of stupidity, so I wonder what made them decide to go after Motorola, and not Nokia, Apple, HTC, Palm, and everyone else who makes a phone with a "Contact Database."

<comment><USER12> Well you have to read the actual claims. The title means nothing... like literally nothing. It could be that in their patent they require the contact list to also show a nickname, and only Motorola does that.

Who knows, but you should never speculate based on the patent name.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wasn't it today I read something here on HN about Microsoft and EFF campaigning against software patents?

</comment><comment><USER16> _Our action today merely seeks to ensure respect for our intellectual property rights infringed by Android devices; and judging by the recent actions by Apple and Oracle, we are not alone in this respect._

Well, it does not make it right.

</comment><comment><USER17> What I don't understand is why this is strictly against Motorola. What does the Droid line do that others do not to warrant this?

<comment><USER18> I gather from the other thread that Motorola used to run WinMo. When your customers don't want to buy your shit, sue them so they have to.

<comment><USER15> They want Motorola to build WinMo 7 phones. They sue because, if they didn't, nobody would bother to build them.

It's Extortion 101. You beat up one store-owner of the street so you don't have to beat up all of them. Nobody wants to be the second to be beaten up. You probably can't beat up all of them and that would serve no purpose.

I am surprised phone manufacturers - since they cross-license tech all the time - don't create a common defense fund for taking down there lawsuits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If only they launched a WinMo 7 device...

[http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/article/362876/patent_protec...](http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/article/362876/patent_protection_key_windows_phone_license/)

<comment><USER11> Oh, if only these companies would sue them back. Maybe they'll sue Nokia.

<comment><USER15> That's why they won't dare to sue Google. When they do, it's time to dump all your MSFT stock (if you still hold any) because they have nothing left to lose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Microsoft way of life.

Ballmer said that the same way they "solved" the netbook problem, they will solve the phone problem. In both cases the solution does not involve technical ability to compete.

</comment><comment><USER20> Foot, meet gun.

<comment><USER21> Shameless Microsoft. They don't have the ability to compete in the market. They just want to stop other ones' innovation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> A few years ago people were suing each other after getting patents for stuff that already existed by having "via the internet" tagged on the end.

Now were in the new age, where all those patents that ended "via the internet" now have "on a mobile telephone" instead.

Collecting email on your phone is patented ?

Get Fucked Microsoft, shove it up your arse

<comment><USER23> You might benefit from rereading this article.

[http://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2010/09/how-to-read-a- patent-...](http://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2010/09/how-to-read-a-patent- in-60-second/)

<comment><USER22> my rage is not abated

<comment><USER23> I guess you are a Motorola shareholder or something? If not, is this likely to harm you in any way?

<comment><USER24> _If not, is this likely to harm you in any way?_

If it contributes to Android going away and leaving us to "choose" between Apple and Microsoft controlling our computing experience, then yes.

<comment><USER23> That is extraordinarily unlikely. I can't think of more than one or two big products that have ever been totally shut down as a result of patent infringement. It simply is not done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Isn't there a business niche here, for buying self defense patents?

Slogan: "Send $X and the name of the company -- and we'll return a list of patents (and prices to buy them) which that company violate."

Edit: Grammar fix.

</comment><comment><USER26> Godfather walks into the Grocer's and demands they buy their deli meats from him. Grocer says "No thanks, I'm getting my meat free from those other guys. My customers are happy too."

Godfather says, "Yes, but not buying from me might expose you to harm in the future."

Grocer says, "It's OK, I'm not worried. Besides, who would want to hurt me?"

Godfather comes back the next week and shoots him in the kneecap. "See, I warned you someone might come in and hurt you."

s/Godfather/Microsoft/g

s/Grocer/Motorola/g

s/Deli Meat/Android/g

Wonder how much fight the next, um, Grocery store will put up.</comment>


What gives you anxiety at work? - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone,
I'm a software developer trying to better understand the causes of anxiety in the workplace. It's research for a side project.
I've been talking to different people (engineers and product managers mostly) and it's been fascinating.
So much of the anxiety people experience is hidden or unknown. Just talking about it openly has been helpful. For example, being asked for status updates on dev tasks throughout the day makes me anxious. I didn't realize this was a trigger until I spent time thinking about why these seemingly benign questions bother me so much.
I put together this three question anonymous survey so I can learn from the community. I'd love to hear from you.
https://airtable.com/shrVmaCcoog9Nd4L7
Thank you, Bryan <comment><USER2> Feeling confused about the thing I'm working on, but not taking the time to really understand it because:

1\. I have so many years of people telling me that I'm "overthinking things" or "trying to understand the universe"

2\. I'm behind-schedule on the task, as usual.

3\. I'm worried about getting fired again.

I'll watch talks like [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAQ6t3F_2Ug&t=800s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAQ6t3F_2Ug&t=800s) and think "Yes! I'd like to live in that world. To have a mental model of the world and be writing code to refine that." I just wish that when I was utterly confused, I could put my foot down and say "No. I'm going go draw some diagrams and ask questions and understand what is going on here. My questions are reasonable and relevant." and draw out a flawed-but-coherent mental model.

But that's not realistic -- not until I have a reputation for actually delivering at pace.

Someday I hope to be productive enough that I can have the political capital to buy myself the time understand what I'm working on as I go. But that is probably as unrealistic a pipe dream as becoming a father.

I have promises to keep.

And miles to go before I sleep.

And miles to go before I sleep...

<comment><AUTHOR> This sounds stressful. I'm sorry you are not in an environment where you can take your time and ask these important questions.

Keep going. Your questions are reasonable and relevant. Understanding the "why" of what you are doing is crucial. It may seem like a hopeless effort but it will get easier. The better you understand a problem the better you will be able to solve it. It may be slow in the beginning but your confidence will build over time and people will begin to appreciate your thoughtful questions.

You sound like a curious person. I'm reminded of the most curious person I've read, Richard Feynman. He relentlessly asked questions and sought true understanding at a fundamental level. If you haven't read his book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!", you should. It's wonderfully entertaining and will perhaps encourage you to keep asking your questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I have a lot of anxiety with my current work (startup).

The anxiety mostly revolves around the feeling of not feeling valuable:

\- It kills me whenever I see other people get invited to meetings where I have built a significant portion of the product and I don't.

\- It kills me whenever our team is growing and we start interviewing new candidates, I volunteer to help recruit, but I am never considered.

\- Recently the manager divided the software up into 'areas of ownership' and I got all the legacy tech debt low profile stuff. Even though I've worked on a significant portion of the software. It kills me.

I can't seem to pin point how to grow in my currently work and it is making me quite sad. I initially came in acting all humble and I think that hurt me. I don't think I'm any less skilled than the other software engs but they sure make me feel like that. It seems like every time we hire a some new person from a FAANG company, they instantly get praised where as a non-FAANG person (myself) just gets pushed down. I keep saying that it's me and I need to keep performing the best I can and ignore all this noise, but I can't. I have not quite figured out how to fix this situation I'm in.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can relate to this. I've experienced each of these things and the crushing feeling they bring. I've also been on the other side and experienced the joy of a team that values me.

I've been an engineering manager and have helped people find their way through these situations. If you want someone to talk to I'd be happy to have a phone call. You can message me on LinkedIn.

linkedin.com/in/bryanmillstein

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _being asked for status updates on dev tasks throughout the day makes me > anxious_

Why _does_ this make you so anxious? As a manager, I'd like to know.

In my opinion, if your status update is "I'm behind schedule" then that's something that reflects on me, the manager, for poorly budgeting time.

The problem is that individual workers don't feel that way, and it's hard to make them believe you when you say you feel that way.

<comment><USER5> I think schedules are either Parkinson's Law (work expanding to fill time) or things too tightly scheduled and about to fall apart. The only optimum is getting the schedule accurate, which causes anxiety.

The other problem is that programming is not simply "development", it's research too. Research can be a bottomless hole, and it's also really hard to estimate how much research is needed.

For example, maybe I just want to add an icon to my social media site that says this was fact checked. That doesn't seem too hard, but it also is, and it's complex enough that it's patented by LinkedIn.

<comment><USER6> > The other problem is that programming is not simply "development", it's > research too. Research can be a bottomless hole, and it's also really hard > to estimate how much research is needed.

This. As a programmer, I've never been able to successfully explain to my managers about this. It always ends up being a blame on me instead for "not properly assessing and estimating the effort".

<comment><AUTHOR> This will continue to be a challenge because humans are simply not great at estimating. I have had success by explaining to managers that a big part of my job is to help them manage risk. In order for me to do that properly I typically need more information than is initially present so that I can give a high confidence estimate. I might say something like, "I can give you a low confidence ball park estimate right now but if you give me a few hours to research then I can greatly increase the confidence level."

After all, you know the least about a project at the beginning therefore no one should have a high degree of confidence in estimates given then.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, this was how I was trained to do it. A ballpark estimate on the spot at best is around 30% accuracy. I normally wouldn't give an estimate unless I can break it down the work into less than 4 hour chunks. Proper estimates also contribute to work done as it involves the design, but it's normal to spend a few hours doing estimation.

Trained managers are familiar with the cone of uncertainty, though.

But what I really mean is stuff on the level of powering a toaster with a car battery. It's certainly possible, but nobody has documented on what they did, and there's a very high number of uncertainties as neither were designed to perform this way.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you nailed it by pointing out how overlooked the research part of development is. Technical folks often understand this but it can be a challenging concept for people who have not worked as a developer. They can have a distorted view of the research to coding ratio. I imagine they often believe that writing code takes up 90% of a developer's time when in reality time spent researching and thinking is the dominant activity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Mostly it's because I'm facing a problem I don't know how to solve. And I'm expected to somehow predict when it'll be done.

Another scenario is when I'm asked for updates but in reality the status hasn't changed. And I can't say so because that would imply I've not done anything even though I've been busy searching for a solution.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Mostly it's because I'm facing a problem I don't know how to solve. And I'm > expected to somehow predict when it'll be done.

Does your team allow for knowledge buying tasks? For example, if our team needs to implement a continuous integration solution I might suggest to first create a research task to evaluate the tools available. Once we have that knowledge we can choose the best option for us and create the task to implement it. The way you can sell this is by saying, "I can give you an estimate now but I'll know a lot more after a few hours researching the problem. If you give me that time then I can give you an estimate with a higher level of confidence."

> Another scenario is when I'm asked for updates but in reality the status > hasn't changed

I've struggled with this as well. Especially when the person asking for the update is not technical and therefore has a hard time relating to the complexity of the problem. In this situation your instinct may be to tell the person what you think they want to hear. Something like, "I'm figuring out the solution and should be done soon." I know it's uncomfortable but you are better off being honest about your progress. Tell them that the problem is more complex than you initially thought and you are having to do more research to find the right solution. Don't forget that research is part of the job so looking for solutions is doing work. Don't feel bad about that.

With that being said, there is nothing wrong with asking for help from other developers when you are stuck. Asking for help is a sign of strength. It is good to try solve problems on your own before asking for help but do not drive yourself crazy. I have spent far too long banging my head against the wall looking for solutions. These days I am much more comfortable asking for help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> When everyone understands that agile tasks are estimated but then at the end of the sprint they're treated like a fact to enforce an ostensible due date

<comment><AUTHOR> This is such a common issue. Estimates are not commitments. When in your process does this estimate get created? Is it during a backlog grooming or a sprint planning session or some other time? Also, who is doing the estimating?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What To Do if Your Workplace is Anxiety-Inducing Practice Self-Awareness. Before you can improve your situation, it's important to understand what exactly is creating your anxious feelings or worsening the symptoms of your condition. ... 1\. Share Your Feelings. ... 2.Release Your Thoughts. ... 3.Know When to Ask for Help. ... 4\. Take Time Off. .. 5\. Accept Anxiety.

<comment><AUTHOR> Self awareness is key. I have noticed a substantial improvement in my ability to navigate anxiety since following a regular meditation practice.

Being able to separate my being from my thoughts has been a breakthrough. I cannot stress enough how important it is to shift the thinking from "I am anxious" to "I am currently experiencing anxiety". Anxiety is not your identity, it is a fleeting emotion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wondering if you're better off spending your 8+ hrs elsewhere (whether that's a different team, job, occupation, etc).

</comment><comment><USER11> Having all my work timed by management. And then having that judged with a passing "that shouldn't have taken that long". Which I interpret as "better have arse cover for every minute of time I spend". And "do as little as possible to pass code review" etc. the law about getting what you measure.

</comment><comment><USER12> My bosses hiring interns and asking me to train them without offering additional compensation.

<comment><AUTHOR> The benefit of this is that you can add it to your resume. I've hired many engineers and I always like seeing experience mentoring younger developers. So while it is unfortunate that you are not getting additional compensation, this experience will pay you back in the future.

<comment><USER12> Sure, but in this case, the anxiety is coming from the fact that we are now competing for the same job in this company.

I have no doubt in my mind that when the company decides to go for another cost reduction, I will be the one looking for a new job.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh ok, I understand. That sounds like a toxic environment management has created. This advice may sound tone deaf considering our current economic environment but maybe you should start looking for a new job.

Putting energy into a job search may alleviate some of the anxiety around competing with the interns. At the very least you will have made some progress on building a pipeline of new companies so if you do lose your job you will not be starting from scratch.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the advice, I am already looking for a new job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Core dumps</comment>


Thousands of Uber, Lyft drivers fail new background checks - <AUTHOR> http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2017/04/05/uber-lyft-ride-hailing-drivers-fail-new-background-checks/aX3pQy6Q0pJvbtKZKw9fON/story.html <comment><AUTHOR> "The state said 8,206 drivers out of 70,789 were rejected for infractions ranging from violent crimes and sexual offenses to suspended licenses."</comment>


Magit a Git Porcelain for Emacs - <AUTHOR> http://magit.vc/

<comment><AUTHOR> Obligatory screenshots (from Emacs w/ Solarized theme, running on StumpWM window manager):

[http://postimg.org/image/50d4d1rrv/](http://postimg.org/image/50d4d1rrv/) (log)

[http://postimg.org/image/s3eiagp89/](http://postimg.org/image/s3eiagp89/) (diff)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the first Git tool I've ever used that I prefer to the regular old command line interface.</comment>


Traffic Waves: Sometimes one driver can vastly improve traffic (1998) - <AUTHOR> http://trafficwaves.org/ <comment><USER2> Coming from Europe, I've noticed the jams here (Bay Area) are worse. Mostly, because there are way more cars. But I think it's also because people use less motor brake here (due to almost everyone driving automatic), and tend to stomp on the brakes, almost at the end, instead of slowing down earlier.

</comment><comment><USER3> The annoying thing about this is that this article is quite old now and nothing in it was new when it was first written yet roads are still designed in ways that promote the faulty competitive behaviour.

By the way, I'm not arguing that there is anything wrong with the article, it's good, well written and nicely argued.

<comment><USER4> Sitting on one of these roads, there is sufficient information the vast majority of the time. If you see more than one pair of brake lights ahead, then back off.

People seem to default to trying to minimize instantaneous distance from the destination rather than realizing that this does not sum to an optimum.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is another type of jam which is stop light jams which is caused by people accelerating to slowly and taking up to much space between cars.

The same behavior that reduces stress on the high way can in that case actually increase stress on smaller roads.

<comment><USER4> Some stop lights are really regulators - they reduce flow to another larger artery. For those, no behavior will improve throughput.

People going too slowly is not going to necessarily have a negative impact on throughput. It can - there are sets of roads that just are this way ( what you refer to as smaller roads ).

I see at least three run stoplights a week, so I'm more careful about starting than I used to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It seems to me like the article has it backwards: a single driver can mess up traffic for many people. I see nothing here to support the premise in the title.

<comment><USER7> You have to read the next article (it's the link at the bottom), which then describes in detail how one driver can indeed remove traffic jams. The first article explains how traffic jams form, so you can understand in the second article why a certain behaviour fixes the problem.

<comment> norea-armozel I always assumed it was just best practice to not drive up anyone's rear end due to the issue of stopping distance. I never thought about it as regulating traffic flow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is the bullwhip effect. A common issue in a supply chain. It's a timing and lack of information issue.</comment>


100 Hours of Meditation in 10 Days - <AUTHOR> http://www.highexistence.com/100-hours-meditation-10-days-vipassana/ <comment><USER2> I did a vipassana retreat. It triggered a manic-psychotic (bipolar) experience. More at: [http://livingvipassana.blogspot.com](http://livingvipassana.blogspot.com)

Now, admittedly I had done very little meditation before hand, but _please_ don't just jump into this course like I did. And no, there was no history of manic depressive behaviour in my family so this came as quite the shock.

10 days of total silence (no reading, no writing, no eye contact, no nothing) is a really serious stress on your brain. Do not take it lightly.

<comment><USER3> When I did it, there was a guy in my dorm who left halfway through. I learned later that he had taken the retreat as an opportunity to quit smoking. Terrible, terrible idea.

<comment><USER4> I quit (and moved city) a week before the retreat. That was three years ago.

<comment><USER3> Not saying it can't work out. Some people are tougher than others. But not a great plan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a Buddhist in Singapore (a member of Nanyang Technological University Buddhist Society) and have been explained by monks that the chanting purpose is to remind us about the qualities of the Buddha that is good for practice. Since the chanting should have it's meaning, those who chant should know the meaning. Without knowing the meaning, it will just become a meaningless ritual. Hence, when chanting in my society, usually below the pali text there is English text which help the chanters to understand the chanting.

</comment><comment><USER6> I did three Vipasana retreats back in the 90s in the Shelburne Falls, MA. center.

The OP kind of glosses over what was for me, on my first retreat, the single most enduring issue: physical pain. Yes, all experience is transient, but that drill driving into your knee is constantly impermanent, as in, not much respite (btw, doesn't matter how you sit, cross legged, kneeling, or in a chair, when the body is made still for @14 hours a day, der pain cometh ;-))

Escape in day dreaming, meals, and sleep is par for the course, as is going to your room to meditate (forbidden, a monitor would come and bring you back to the hall), and doing yoga, thai chi or other practice to break the monotony/limber up the sore joints.

Saying that, if you've got time and are of sound mind (have to sign a waiver to that affect), go for it, it's a truly unique experience -- things are not as they seem, the concrete you that you thought you were, doesn't exist, at least not permanently ;-)

<comment><USER7> Part of the point of intensive retreats is to create suffering. In this way you can examine it and potentially be free from it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > I'm shocked to hear how different some peoples' experiences were from mine.

Yep. I've done the Goenka course twice and in talking with fellow students afterwards, the common thread was that it was very hard for almost everyone, but hard in completely different ways. Sometimes you can tell during the course that other students are struggling, but by and large everyone else seems to be doing fine and it's easy to think you're the only one who's barely managing to hang in there.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've never understood why people treat meditation like they're cramming for finals, trying to fit as much as possible into a brief period. That's not going to help them incorporate it into their daily lives - if anything, it trains them to think of meditation as something outside their ordinary experience.

If you're at all interested in all the mental and physical health benefits of mindfulness, you do _not_ have to go to this guy's extremes to get them. Try getting started with a guided meditation like Headspace (www.headspace.com) instead. Ten to twenty minutes a day is all you need, and it's great stuff.

<comment><USER7> Accessing certain states of mind requires _momentum_ above all else. Thus it is very valuable to meditate intensely for sustained periods of time. Otherwise, most people have little chance of breaking through.

<comment><USER10> If all you want is altered states of mind we have drugs for that :)

When asked why Zen Mind Beginner's Mind didn't include much on Satori, Shunryu Suzuki admitted he'd never reached it[0]. He never broke through, he just sat on his cushion every day and when he did he was just sitting on a cushion. No fireworks, nothing special. At the same time he's also one of the most respected and widely read Buddhist teachers the West has even known.

And, sadly this part is noteworthy, he's one of the few teachers in America who never had any major scandals.

[0] - [http://www.cuke.com/bibliography/ZMBM/preface.html](http://www.cuke.com/bibliography/ZMBM/preface.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've done the course a few times now, and I would say the hardest part is integrating meditation into daily life. Goenka recommends meditating twice a day, one hour each sitting. Sometimes this isn't possible, so I just try to meditate however much I can.

I have heard from others that serving a ten day course (as opposed to sitting a course, as the author here did) is more beneficial as you are able to talk with fellow servers, help prepare food, and can even read a newspaper. Although you can't go deeper into your mind, you learn to integrate meditation into daily life better. I have yet to serve a course.

<comment><USER8> I haven't served either, but my impression is that the servers are supposed to limit themselves to functionally necessary talk only. So serving a course will be less isolating, but I don't think you're supposed to discuss meditation, or your feelings, or the weather.

Agreed that meditation in real life is hard to maintain. I find that I quickly lose the ability to do the body-scanning technique effectively, and with that I lose the motivation to put in the 2x 1 hour.

<comment><USER11> Yup, I have trouble doing the body scanning technique also. I recently came across Sam Harris' interview with Joseph Goldstein, who I believe himself began with Vipassana. He has a guided meditation on youtube that I found very helpful, though different from my Vipassana experiences.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Being a practitioner myself I am happy about the hype about Buddhism. Yet, people seem to overlook how manifold Buddhism is. Vipassana 10 day retreats are for folks who can truly "benefit" from strict rules described in the post. In my opinion, not many people do and luckily Vipassana is not the only way to do Buddhist meditation.

In Vajrayana you can look in each others eyes, have sex and eat meat every day. Also, the meditation rules are more up to you. It is for people who can handle everyday distractions and "use them" to deepen experiences gathered in meditation. For instance, if my boss is somehow behaving in an angry way, I try to imagine a golden Buddha over his head which will change my attitude towards him and as a result my outer reaction. This is how I apply that "all beings are Buddhas whether they know it or not" \- an important meditation- object both in Mahayana and Vajrayana. (This is quite strong compared to the meditation object in Vipassana, which is "just" the breath.)

I do not want to say that Vajrayana is better than Vipassana, but that it is better for me and better for a different kind of people.

(btw. meditation cushions should cost about 10$; 80$ is really a lot)

</comment><comment><USER13> I know almost nothing about meditation or Buddhism, but I would think that holding on to ideas and realizations so you can journal them is not just cheating "a little bit." It's contrary to the whole purpose of the exercise.

<comment><USER7> Quite to the contrary. Keeping a meditation journal is an invaluable, underutilized tool that allows students and teachers to see patterns that arise during meditation sessions, diagnose progress, and recommend next steps.

If you want to see some people making some seriously fast progress, check out practice logs on these sites:

[http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/messa...](http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/category/2658626) [http://awakenetwork.org/forum/kfd-archive- wetpaint](http://awakenetwork.org/forum/kfd-archive-wetpaint)

<comment><USER13> His feeling that his thoughts were too precious to let go of might be more important to examine than whatever he wrote down.

<comment><USER10> Or maybe the thing to examine is he didn't trust the leaders of the retreat on a fairly small thing, yet he did trust them to lead him through a very dangerous amount of meditation in 10 days.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Another account of the same kind of retreat, from someone with a less positive experience: [http://adamcadre.ac/calendar/14/14292.html](http://adamcadre.ac/calendar/14/14292.html)

<comment><USER8> My experience, and that of the people I've talked to afterwards, is that the course is profoundly difficult for many people. It amazes me that in the two courses I've completed, only a handful of people (~5-6 out of ~150-160 total) quit early.

<comment><USER15> I've done it 10 times already and I find it easy as long as I am motivated to surrender to the process and trust it. The more opposition I carry in me, the more difficult it is. If this kind of motivation/absorption appears, it is possible to meditate for all these hours without feeling tired or having much pain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is there any selection bias at play for these kinds of retreats? Are there certain kinds of people who are able to set aside 10 days in a row for something like this?

I can't remember the last time I had 10 days I could free up.

<comment><USER7> Probably. Most serious yogis have something they're dealing with that they want to "solve" and that drive to solve the problem is exactly what leads them to success i.e. awakening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I bought "Mindfulness in Plain English" and I've read it a few times. In the couple times I've meditated for at most 20 minutes I got some amazing experiences and insights that, I don't would be an exaggeration to say, changed my life and how I viewed other people, things, and events in my life.

That said, even though I've always wanted to give my self a time and place where I could really "break the barrier" to meditating more often, I'm not so sure I'd do some thing like that after this...

</comment><comment><USER18> If I click anywhere on that page, the article disappears. Is this happening to anyone else?

<comment><USER19> Yes, and very annoying. I'm not even sure why this was added.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm not one to throw around the c-b word, but I really thought this article would be about a prison in a Buddhist country that used meditation as a form of rehabilitation. I was disappointed with the actual article.

<comment><USER10> I was like c-b...c-b....oh, c-b!

Here's a documentary maybe closer to what you were hoping for: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1_DVac9kkI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1_DVac9kkI)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is slightly off topic, but I am really amazed at how many in the HN community have attended these retreats. How did you justify a 10 day split from the world, or rather, how did you actually make it happen? This seems really intense, and must have taken a lot of preparation, you must have been really driven, I'm really interested in hearing more about what drives people to sign up for such an extreme experience.

Also, I see a lot of these ask for donations and have no fixed price, how much did HNers pay or donate for these retreats?

<comment><USER10> > I'm really interested in hearing more about what drives people to sign up > for such an extreme experience.

Since nobody else is biting...people arrive to the Buddhist scene (and in particular retreats and such) for any number of reasons. Most have some type of thorn in their side they're trying to take care of. Some people who attend are people in their twenties who are traveling and trying out new experiences, some have an unexpected amount of free time after losing a job, getting divorced, or just "life happening." Maybe the kids left for college. Maybe they're deep into recovering from addiction and trying to understand themselves and why the addiction happened in the first place. Some people have a daily practice and they use their vacation time to go on retreat and become better people. Some are there as a rite of passage, or for social status back home where "doing a Vipassana" may be a badge of pride. Some people are essentially homeless and move from one Dharma center to the next without any real sense of direction.

At the places where you're allowed to talk to the other people you find it's quite an eclectic mix, everything from overworked executives to homeless musicians.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> A selection of meditation resources for hackers:

OpenEEG ([http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/](http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/))

OpenSensors ([http://sourceforge.net/p/opensensors/home/Home/](http://sourceforge.net/p/opensensors/home/Home/))

Brain Refactoring ([http://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook- Const...](http://www.amazon.com/Code-Complete-Practical-Handbook- Construction/dp/0735619670/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_z))

<comment><USER22> I have a feeling that third link is not supposed to be code complete?

<comment><USER21> No, I selected that title as one of the most common and popular self- improvement resources available for software professionals. The implication is that reading it would do more to improve your thinking than a week-long meditation retreat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I would highly recommend anyone interested in doing a 10-day vipassana retreat, particularly their first, to look into Insight Meditation Society[0] (outside Boston, MA) or Spirit Rock[1] (near Marin, CA). They're not free, but you get access to extraordinary teachers and impeccable guidance.

      [0] http://www.dharma.org/meditation-retreats/retreat-center
      [1] https://www.spiritrock.org/retreats

</comment><comment><USER24> While I haven't done a meditation retreat or anything, I always thought meditation was about mindfulness and essentially the absence of internal thought/chatter. Where you use a chant or a focal point (candle, breath, nostril sensations, sounds) to clear your mind and just "be". This guy's experience sounds quite different to what I would have expected.

<comment><USER25> I think there are infinite ways to "meditate". Even coding "in the zone" could qualify as a form of meditation helping you to reach what they call enlightenment.

Focusing on something (chants, breath, nostrils, etc) seems to be a proven way for them to help you into reaching a meditative state of mind. You can either master these techniques or figure out others that work better for you.

I'm not an expert or anything so I could be totally wrong here. I'm just a dude who took the Silva Method courses about 10 years ago.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I am highly intrigued by the reports of people who try mediation. My question is, how does one give it a try?

Are these Vipassana retreats suitable for someone who has very little knowledge about meditation and zero experience?

Are there other options? I would prefer to be guided by a person than read a book, that option will just slip out of my schedule.

<comment><USER10> > Are these Vipassana retreats suitable for someone who has very little > knowledge about meditation and zero experience?

If you're young, in great health and looking for a huge challenge: maybe. It's a very extreme intro to meditation. Vipassana retreats break people.

> Are there other options? I would prefer to be guided by a person than read a > book, that option will just slip out of my schedule.

Check for groups in your area, meetup.com is a good resource. So is google. Look up the lineage, the teacher, etc. For school X look up "X controversy" and there will almost always be something there, that's OK but there are some weird traditions out there that you'll do well to avoid. Trust your intuition.

A lot of Buddhist meet-up groups will have a little note that says something like "if you're a beginner, second Tuesday of every month is beginner's night so show up a half an hour early and we'll square you away." Some have a "young people's night". There's a lot of luck involved.

A usual evening should be a bit boring and might include one or two 20-minute sitting meditation sessions, maybe some walking meditation, maybe refreshments, some sort of a talk, some social time, and hopefully an opportunity to ask questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> The singing he mentions is strongly reminiscent of Invocations of Gompo, a track from The Pillow Book (a film), which shockingly is trivially found on YouTube at: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg5oHTkH6hw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg5oHTkH6hw)

</comment><comment><USER28> It's very obvious that you needed this in life, and it's also very obvious that you need to do it once more to really understand what the experience is about. You tried to shame these fellows a little too much at your own expense, and remember - it's a retreat, not a prison.

</comment><comment><USER7> The problem with Goenka retreats is that they don't tell you about the Dark Night stages. If you have a map for what you're facing, its much easier. - [http://alohadharma.com/the-map/](http://alohadharma.com/the-map/)

</comment><comment><USER29> The "no eye contact" part seems extremely hard - it's so automatic to look at people's face and eyes (I know this isn't true of all cultures though).

</comment><comment><USER30> As much as I liked reading this account, but still, am I the only one who thinks that he made the visit, wrote this...only to advertise his website?

</comment><comment><USER31> Oh man...this retreat. I tried it, and it was somehow way more traumatizing than it sounds. I prepared for the retreat with a month of hour-a-day practice and felt really prepared. In reality nothing could have prepared me for this claustrophobic silencefest.

Went to the center in rural Illinois around Thanksgiving. The air was cold with a jagged wind. An occasional crow croaked ominously in the damp brown grounds. Surrounded by old decommissioned farm machinery and a jet-black manmade pond, I entered with unexpected foreboding, crossing the opening of a rickety wrought-iron fence.

I signed some forms in what felt the relinquishing of my human rights, and the leaders demanded to take away my car keys and cell phone. It was an odd request since I was earnest about doing a good job at the retreat and going deep into it. I felt immediately like they didn't trust me and wanted to control me. I handed the phone over, and prepared for the gong which marks the boundary into silence.

Silence. Sounds relaxing, doesn't it? Finally at peace accepting our inner thoughts and rhythms. Wrong, this was no natural silence. it was an enforced interpersonal death, with not so much as a meaningful glance allowed between participants. Although we were all merely obeying orders I felt like the lack of eye contact or human sympathy as an omnipresent hostility. I realized that everyone who cared for me was miles away and could not possibly contact me, nor me them. These cult leaders could do anything to us really...

Time to start the first evening meditation. The well-worn paths between meditation hall, dorms, and cafeteria had become bare dirt and were at this point a boggy muddy slough. We wore clogs in between buildings. They gave us beat up metal water bottles. As a last sound of the human voice they softly called us one by one to join the meditation hall.

We found a place on the mats and got quiet. Then the tape-recorded chanting began. In this expectant calm the halting burbling throatwreck of a song was unstoppably funny. I tried with all my might not to laugh. "Ohmmmm... ...Hngghgh!" Far from being a sacred experience it sounded, well, mentally challenged.

Then back through the misty darkness, holding my bobbing flashlight and watching its feeble beam dance over the impenetrable horror of the black pond. I fumble removing the muddy clogs in the dorm entrance then off to my divided cell. My contented roommate falls asleep nearly immediately and rips into my ears with full chested snores. How am I going to sleep? What if this place makes me actually go insane from the weird treatment and sleep deprivation? They will be waking us soon, at 4am. I toss on the narrow cot.

Next day it's back to the main hall. Time is going impossibly slowly, I get out of a two hour session and go back to my dorm. There is no living thing outside. All plants are dead, there is no sound but the unrelenting wind. Once I catch sight of a squirrel far away but it scurries leaving me alone.

In the distance, but entirely surrounding the retreat center, I hear actual gunfire. Am I hallucinating in here? No, it's hunting season. There's no way I can escape. They'll mistake me for a deer and shoot me if I step outside the iron fence. All these paths just loop back, inward inward. At the ends of the paths are signs telling you to turn back. Back to the chanting, back to the hall. No talking, no looking, no feeling. They'll shoot you if you leave, you know.

What am I thinking? These thoughts aren't right, but I feel brave, I have to stand up to this. Who can I talk to? How much time is passing. (Steal a look at the watch I smuggled in.) It's been only three minutes since I entered my dorm? Ten days has become inconceivable, like a dark mountainous wave cresting over my flimsy dinghy. And nobody knows how oppressive it is here. No one will come help me.

I lined up a one-on-one talk with one of the teachers. You can't just go talk to them, you have to write your case on a clipboard and await a Kafka-esque review process which takes roughly one hundred years in dilated retreat time. They accept my plea later that day and I enter the teacher's chamber.

She is literally dressed in a robe and seated on a raised platform. Am I supposed to kneel before it? Is this really happening? I sit down and explain that I'm getting unusually paranoid and that the way their rules are formulated makes me uncomfortable. Is there a room where I can get a night's sleep and can I have my belongings back -- just for peace of mind? She looks at me beatifically and assures me that my mind simply doesn't want to relinquish its sense of self. She explained that my question about getting my stuff back is simply nonsense. (Notice she didn't refuse, she just brought out the mind-games and discounted my feelings.)

I agreed to give the retreat more time. Maybe this panic is normal like the teacher said. They said they would look into finding me another room. Fast forward to that night. The roommate change is a no-go. Fuck it, I'm going to break the rules and just talk to one of the volunteers running the course. I'm not petitioning on that weird form. The volunteer was really evasive.

Darkness was falling. The mud, the pond, my little flashlight. Nobody can look at me. Surrounded by guns. Where did the squirrel go? "No," I resolved, "I have to get out of here, this is not right." I snuck into a staff area to find a phone. Someone saw me and started questioning me. I lied and calmly told them the teacher wanted me to make a call. Then I swiftly took the cordless phone into the bathroom and locked myself in. Overjoyed I listened to the sweet note of a dial tone. It was an audible electric road to freedom. I dialed my family. Nobody answered the phone. Tried all the numbers I could remember. Then it occurred to me that it was Thanksgiving night. They were all away from the phone, living lives out there in "regular time," time that actually passes. I left messages and went sadly back out to the cold dark paths which only fold back onto themselves.

Word must have spread to the higher-ups that a student was cracking because they did come talk to me. I told them I simply had to go. After some deliberation they brought me my keys and went out with me to the parking lot. Then things got really weird.

They pointed to a car that wasn't mine and told me to open it with my key. In some disbelief I explained that my actual car was on the other side of the lot. They insisted I was wrong! It was like a dream where I sought to weigh my words and appease my captors with the subtle nuances of dreamthought.

"OK," I said affably, "I'll give this car a try. But just humor me and let me give that other one across the lot a try too. If it's not my car then the key won't open it, right? So there's really nothing to lose." Inwardly I was contemplating the likelihood of violence and keeping a watch on their movements in the deep gloom. A faraway crooked street lamp they had installed on the property glinted off the windshield.

The impostor car did not open. They started explaining it away, but I was already off to my actual car. Opened it right up, threw my blankets and stuff inside. It was actually my friend's car (we went to the retreat together) so I couldn't just drive away with it. Another camp volunteer joined us and offered to drive me to the city.

On the fairly long drive I had a mixture of emotions. At some level I knew I wasn't right in the head. I was grateful to this lady for rescuing me and embarrassed that I couldn't "handle it" like the other students. But most of all I was grateful to leave and never -- ever -- come back. I can't explain the overwhelming panic of this retreat, but somehow I knew I just wanted to be living a joyful life with human speech and companions and time and freedom.

<comment><USER16> Sorry you had to go through that. I wonder if anyone here can help me understand why the evasion and control is a necessary part of this process for meditation? Why does it have to feel so weird to be effective? Is it even effective? It seems like a cult like setting is a terrible platform through which to bring people calm and peace of mind.

<comment><USER7> A totally normal part of insight meditation is to cycle through states of mind that have _increased_ suffering. They're so common, that experienced meditators can pinpoint when they are entering into "Fear", "Misery", "Disgust", "Dissolution", "Desire for Deliverence", etc.

It is these states of mind, where, if you can hold strong to the meditation instructions and objectify everything in the field of experience, the possibility for liberation from suffering arises. When you realize that these experiences are just experiences arising and vanishing on their own, not things happening to 'I', there is an immediate relief from the suffering of those experiences.

From [http://alohadharma.com/2011/06/12/the-dark- night/](http://alohadharma.com/2011/06/12/the-dark-night/)

"As the meditator moves along the path and has already experienced their attention syncing up with the arising of phenomena, then the peak of phenomena, it then moves to the passing away of phenomena. I call the next section of the path the "Dark Night" and in the commentaries it is also called "the knowledge of suffering."

As you can gather from the name, this is a pretty difficult part of the path. It is so difficult in fact, this is where most meditators get into trouble, and can become stuck. The sheer discomfort and negativity of this part of the path may lead the meditator to conclude that they are no longer "doing it right," and they may decide to just quit meditating. After all, why keep at it when it pretty much hurts to meditate? In the Zen tradition, this part of the path is called the "rolling up of the mat" for just that reason – the meditator just wants to throw in the towel and stop.

This actually makes a lot of sense if you do not know the map. The memory of the rapturous A&P is still fresh in the mind of a meditator who initially steps into the Dark Night. Compared to the joy and wonder that was only just experienced, the Dark Night is a horrible let down. But it is important to know that the difficulty being experienced is a sign of progress – it means that you are doing the meditation correctly."

So, the reason for the aloofness of the staff is partially because these phases are totally expected and normal, and unless you are having a true psychotic episode, the whole point is to push through.

<comment><USER10> Intentionally causing yourself suffering is an inherently violent activity and shouldn't be taken lightly (if it should ever be done at all.) Even without going through a psychotic episode you could still be doing internal damage.

It's like lifting weights, with time you learn the difference between the pain that comes with growth and the pain that comes with injury. If you haven't lifted for long enough to know the difference then you shouldn't be "maxing out" because the risk of injury is so high.

By the same token if you haven't been meditating long enough to know the difference between when you're being a cry-baby and when you really need to go take care of yourself you might not want to go to an extreme meditation retreat.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Uh, what? Why in the heck is this on Hacker News?

Maybe if there was some angle on how this could make you a better developer, but no, I don't see that.

<comment><USER33> [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

> Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than > hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer > might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

There was at least one Googler at my last retreat.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I'm noticing that whenever something similar comes up, it turns out invariably that it revolves around a lionized "founder" figure whose teachings are the one path to follow.

I would also assume (pure speculation here) that this retreat is a for-profit operation.

This is not cynicism on my part, it is the mere observation of a pattern.

<comment><USER35> No. In fact, it's 100% free. They never ask you for a donation. And you're not even allowed to donate unless you stay the full ten days. It's run completely by volunteers and old students, who walk away from their jobs for a week and half in order to cook you free meals.

I'm also weary of personality cults. Goenka did everything (he passed a year ago) to make sure you don't worship him. He claims throughout his lectures that he is not a sage, but instead a mere "householder." He doesn't say he's enlightened. He tells his story of having migraines, learning from another Vipassana leader the technique, and then dedicating his life to teaching others.

tldr; don't knock it till you try it.

But I do agree with the author that there all elements of "faith," whereas he claims you don't need faith. There are concepts in his lectures that imply belief in reincarnation for instance. That being said, 95% of the course is just about developing concentration by focusing on your breathe, and awareness & equanimity by focusing on sensations of the body.

<comment><USER15> > But I do agree with the author that there all elements of "faith," whereas > he claims you don't need faith.

Maybe not as much faith as in resurrection, angels and miracles. Reincarnation is not necessary as a concept to do awareness practice.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Learn to Code with Interactive Challenges - <AUTHOR> https://edabit.com/explore <comment><USER2> I tried to run a challenge but upon trying to run it, I'm greeted by an obnoxious pop-up that asks me to register or log on. Nope, sorry, won't do that. You could have mentioned that _before_ trying out a challenge...

Please don't do that. Aside from being a major buzzkill, it probably kills conversion, which I'm sure you find a buzzkill ;) Maybe you could let people try out some challenges and then after N runs, ask them to sign up?

<comment> Method-X Hey wjvdhoek, I'm the guy working on this project. I agree mandatory registrations are indeed very annoying (and 95% of the time completely unnecessary). My reasoning behind requiring user registration is for security. Since code is being executed on my server, I want to be extra careful.

That being said, you have an idea I never thought of. I could simply let any user make X number of attempts and _then_ prompt for registration. It's not as annoying that way and still secure. And yes, it's definitely hurting conversion BUT I couldn't think of any other way to set things up. If anyone else has suggestions on this, I'm all ears!

<comment><USER3> It is kind of soul crushing to work on a problem only to be denied execution. Thankfully, I ran an easy JS challenge that was a one-liner. Had I done a a harder challenge that took 10 or 20 minutes, I would have been rather upset.

I understand why you put the registration further into the process. People have already invested time, so they might as well register so that the time isn't wasted. This is markedly different from how the rest are. They either put registration up front (HackerRank) or you're required to validate your own code (cryptopals). Aside from intentionally infecting my computer with malware or something, I couldn't think of a more negative user experience from a code challenge site.

These types of sites are far from unique. They are basically a dime a dozen. But now my experience is, "Don't make the same mistake I did. It gives you an input field to submit a challenge, but it will not validate your answer until you register. Either register up front, or don't bother."

Edit: This post was intended to be constructive, but I can see how it can be interpreted otherwise. See here[0] for more info. Apologies!

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14349780](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14349780)

<comment> happy-go-lucky > These types of sites are far from unique. They are basically a dime a dozen.

That's not constructive criticism. You can't always create something that's unique and not a dime a dozen.

<comment><USER3> It's not meant to be flippant, although I see I should have chosen better wording. It's meant to go right into the next point: I spent time solving a challenge, but the site will not let me validate it without creating an account.

Sometimes the challenges take 30 seconds. Other times, you may spend over 30 minutes working on something more challenging. Who wants to spend time working on a challenge only to be told, "Wait a sec. You need to register before I tell you if you were correct." If I am presented with an input field, I would expect that I am allowed to submit that input. And that's where the dime a dozen comment comes from. If I try to accomplish the task your site has given me but there's an unexpected roadblock imposed by the site itself, why would I stay on that site when I can go elsewhere?

If registration is required, it should say so up front. Allow users to browse challenges. Even allow users to view the full challenge text. However, disable the input field if they must register first. It otherwise implies that I can solve the challenge without an account. You don't want to mislead your potential users.

I supposed I should have said something like, "There are many code challenge sites available. It is imperative to give users a positive experience, because users can easily go elsewhere for something similar." I did not mean to be insulting.

<comment> Method-X What about putting a small banner / notice right above the code editor that explains the user must register before executing code? I'm honestly not intentionally trying to create an annoying site, it's just when you have users running code you legitimately have to take some security precautions. I'll put some thought into how I can communicate this to the user... My favorite idea so far is to just let the user execute code X number of times and then prompt for registration.

<comment><USER4> Having an account tied to the execution of the code does nothing to help with security. I can still register with a bogus email account and then run code anonymously. This doesn't inconvenience attackers, only legit users.

<comment> happy-go-lucky > This doesn't inconvenience attackers, only legit users.

You just nailed it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Reading through some of the comments here I feel like you just posted a video series of running over cats in your SUV to Reddit.

Personally, I love it, I think its great, has a slick feel and experience to it. The site wasn't as responsive as you might hope but to be fair you are currently on the front page of HN so I am willing to let that slide.

Looks like a ton of hard work went into this and I think it comes across really well!

<comment> happy-go-lucky > Looks like a ton of hard work went into this and I think it comes across > really well!

I thought the same. Too much for a lone developer!

</comment></comment><comment> happy-go-lucky I just played with some challenges. JavaScript, Python, and Java are there. Users are allowed to create new challenges, translate available challenges from one language to another, and write test cases. This is great. There're instructions for each challenge and resources where one can go to learn programming concepts and come back to code the challenge. Also, there is a discussion area for each challenge. I think this is not for absolute beginners, but those who're familiar with the syntax of a language will find it interesting. Way to go.

</comment><comment><USER6> How is this different from codewars, leetcode, topcoder, etc? Genuine question, not trying to be snarky.

<comment> Method-X Its focus is on teaching and learning, not getting hired at a big company. Hacker Rank / Leet Code / Code Wars are essentially talent scouts. They want to attract programmers who are already really good. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not conducive to learning.

<comment><USER7> FYI Codewars has nothing to do with talent scouts. It's purpose is exactly the same as yours, except that it has content ranging from beginner to advanced. Did you build your own testing system for this? It seems to be very similar to Codewars.</comment></comment></comment>


What is INDECT? - <AUTHOR> http://www.stopp-indect.info/?page_id=2

<comment><USER2> Please note: this is not some kind of high-level EU agenda. It is a project put together by a couple of research groups to grab money from EU research grants. My personal experience with those grants (with several 'partners') is that the results are reviewed by friends&family.

Implement and deploy such a system in time for EURO 2012? Riiight. But I guess it looked good on the grant application.

</comment><comment><USER3> Last time a polish newspaper featured an article about Indect, they wrote that Indect is going to infer your intentions from cameras before they even occur to you, and call the military for intervention (seriously!). There's a bit of minority-report-like fear in the news.

EDIT:

Source: [http://www.polskatimes.pl/fakty/kraj/384367,inteligentny- sys...](http://www.polskatimes.pl/fakty/kraj/384367,inteligentny-system- bedzie-sledzil-przestepcow,id,t.html)

One of the paragraph says about brain-wave reflection registered by computers that will be used to determine criminal intentions. And no, it doesn't seem to be intended to be a joke. God, I hate this kind of journalism.

<comment><USER4> Wonder what's more absurd teleacquisition of EEG signal or ability to actually read any concrete information about thoughts from them.

Nonetheless, it's rather sad, because the issue is rather serious and that's a rather serious newspaper, isn't it?

<comment><USER3> > Nonetheless, it's rather sad, because the issue is rather serious and that's > a rather serious newspaper, isn't it?

It is, or so I believed. I don't read or trust any newspaper anymore; given how usually even most serious news articles get debunked in comments 5 minutes after posting to HN I don't think I'm loosing much...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately I couldn't find a better source in English.

German Newspaper article: [http://www.derwesten.de/politik/polen-plant-die- totale-ueber...](http://www.derwesten.de/politik/polen-plant-die-totale- ueberwachung-der-em-fans-id6130223.html)

Wiki article on the project: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INDECT>

Telegraph article on the project: [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6210255/EU-funding- Or...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/6210255/EU-funding-Orwellian- artificial-intelligence-plan-to-monitor-public-for-abnormal-behaviour.html)

<comment><USER5> Here's a presentation about it from Sylvia Johnigk at 27c3 last year.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jerN8iSXCc>

One of the contractors on the project turns out to be in the audience and there is some heckling. It is interesting.

<comment><USER2> Wow. I really tried to listen to her. Unbearable.

Skip to 37:50. "the project is not planned/scheduled to be a real life product". Really, this is about money for the researchers. Real life projects like this? I guess goverments have been working on those for some time now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not just a test field, some of our best and brightest run the project -- it's coordinated by AGH: <http://www.indect-project.eu/indect-partners>

Neophytes are always the worst.

<comment><USER7> I wouldn't worry about it. Knowing how science funding works in Poland, this grant was appropriated in order to buy some new hardware or renovate an old elevator.

:)

<comment><USER2> Exactly. "We need a new camera-equipped elevator for the project".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ha! I just found out a colleague of mine did his PhD on a part of this and describes it as 'completely harmless'. :>

</comment><comment><USER8> The page links to a Wikipedia entry that contradicts some of its claims.

According to Wikipedia: "As it can be seen in the project's documentation, INDECT does not involve mobile phone tracking or call interception. The rumors about testing INDECT during 2012 UEFA European Football Championship also turned out to be false."

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow. I consider myself to be pretty well-informed both in privacy and general stuff happening in my country, but it's the first time I'm ever hearing about this.

</comment><comment><USER10> The headline is sensational, but this is just Europe spending money on "valuable research".

</comment><comment><USER11> It would be amusing to know a bit about how such a system works and intentionally trigger responses from it. If enough people did that, it would become useless.

<comment><USER12> Never ever forget your luggage again! :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sounds pretty cool to me. In my opinion, this is what good security forces ought to be doing today. Whether or not the government should be doing it in public places is one matter, but if I was the owner of, e.g. a football stadium or large building complex, this is exactly the type of resources I would want my security force to have access to.</comment>


Launching Recon.io (my side project) out of beta - <AUTHOR> http://recon.io/blog/launch

<comment><USER3> Here is my advice, and take this however you please. 4.5 years ago I built a similar service for small businesses/brands to monitor their twitter, blog, etc. mentions and manage the conversation around them and reply to them. It was called StartPR. We thought incorrectly that small businesses and startups would pay for this service. We had maybe 50 people pay us $15/month, no one would pay for the higher plans, because they were buying radian6 or sproutsocial. Small companies don't have the volume of conversation to "see" value in something like this. Larger companies understand the value. But larger companies expect to pay MORE, and get MORE features. Distribution and sales to people in this price range are tough.

Most of the people we interviewed were using some sort of dashboard (netvibes at the time) paired with RSS feeds of the search terms they were using.

<comment><USER4> We had the exact same problem (also around 4 years ago). The large companies which have the volume of tweets to need a service like this don't care too much if there is fancy machine learning behind it, but do care if there's sufficient marketing/brand knowledge to deliver the exact things they want to see in the right format.

The two angles that worked out best were finding larger organisations which wanted to deliver this kind of "cut through the noise" information to consumers (e.g. picking out reviews), and delivering broader "market intelligence" (e.g. showing what's being tweeted about car buying in a certain area for a car dealership, vs. just monitoring that dealership's name/accounts). Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi guys, thanks for the feedback and for sharing your experiences - <USER2> appreciate it. I've got a few plans for how to make Recon more useful for larger brands and it'll be interesting to see what the uptake is like (and the size of brands that start using the app). I like the market intelligence idea, definitely something I'll be thinking about. Thanks again.

<comment><USER3> also look into my buddy's company loudpixel.com

big brands at executive level care about reports more than anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I hate to be that guy, but here's what I think

1) Most individuals here who want to monitor just 1 campaign don't have a strong brand. So there's very little value added with your app. They'll search for their brand on Twitter once a week to see the handful of mentions they get.

2) The BIG brand names already are using a platform like Hootsuite or SproutSocial to take care of everything social-media related. Which allows them to monitor their brand throughout the entire web(not just Twitter). As well as view analytics on their followers. And schedule messages.

IMO, your app is simply automates the process of searching for a brand name on Twitter. The categorization of the mentions into support questions, complaints, etc is not a huge value add, as most users will want to view all of their mentions, and don't care what bucket they fall under.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks for the feedback (and don't worry about being _that_ guy - it's important to have critical feedback too).

I agree that there's a specific size of brand that would find Recon useful - huge brands will have a big social media team working (almost) around the clock, and small companies might not get many mentions, but I do strongly think there's a huge number of companies that fit right in the middle that Recon is perfect for. Have a look at how 37signals have been thinking about this problem, for example: [http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3317-behind-the- scenes-twitte...](http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3317-behind-the-scenes- twitter-part-1)

That 37signals post also highlights a problem with companies of that size that Recon solves - there's so much noise. You could manually search for your brand name throughout the day, or set up an alert that sends you everything that mentions you - but you'd waste so much of your time just sifting through information.

Thanks again for the feedback though - I do appreciate hearing it.

<comment><USER5> Have you asked DHH if they would pay to use your product? People gripe about things all the time but it doesn't mean they'd pay for a solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Woah. This is eerie! I literally just tried to buy recon.io this morning for my sideproject, only to find out it was taken. Now I see it on HN.

Love the design of the landing page and the easy access to the demo. Very cool.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't know if there is any plan to ever launch for Spanish speaking users, but the name sounds similar to a vulgar word in Spain. Not sure if US-Spanish speaking people would recognize it though.

</comment><comment><USER8> Congratulations on the launch Dave! It's clear that you're a follower of patio11 as I can see his influence throughout the site. I'm working on something similar: <http://livelystocks.com> \- I bought it and I'm now redeveloping it to provide realtime stock news.

I would love to see a 'conversion post' on how you did at that price point on the front page. Well done on launching!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Charlie, thanks for the kind words - and funny you should mention patio11, I met him last month - great guy! And yep, learnt a ton from his blog posts, newsletter and podcast - still loads of things I want to add in.

Good luck with LivelyStocks, if you need a beta tester - give me a shout: email@example.com.

<comment><USER8> Thanks Dave - I've just sent you an email.

For those that don't know (unlikely!) patio11, read more on his blog: <http://www.kalzumeus.com/blog/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Mine is congruous with the general sentiment: the base plan is overkill (price-wise, that is) while the top-tier plan is insufficient. Most users that would conceivable want to track a single campaign will be individuals with projects or very small businesses. Neither of these groups would be likely to acquiesce to a ~$250-a-year service. The top tier is probably too feature- sparse and large companies will demand more.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is really cool! I wish I had a reason to use it; my "brands" aren't quite there yet.

As far as the pricing goes, how is a "campaign" counted? Does that correspond 1:1 with Twitter accounts? I bet you could charge way more for established brands, even if they only want to monitor a single account... maybe you could price by number of mentions or something similar?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi - thanks very much! A campaign is one keyword being tracked and analysed (although it also does other things, like check for journalists tweeting about their industry, and not necessarily their main keyword).

Working out how to charge was actually a pretty interesting issue - I did originally think about splitting it down by number of mentions, but I couldn't find an elegant way to do it. The problem is, most people won't know how many times their brand is mentioned in a month, which could make it awkward as a customer. I quite like the simplicity of the campaigns method - it'll be interesting to see what the customer feedback is like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This looks awesome. It's also perfect timing to recommend to some clients that I have.

Is there an 'agency' option available where we can monitor more than 8 campaigns? Or even rebrand/white-label it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks very much - if you shoot me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com, we can have a chat about an agency option.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Little bug: Your signup buttons go to the login page instead of the signup form on this page:

<http://recon.io/pricing>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the headsup - fixed :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good luck with that! Question: How do you go about classifying the sentiment - are you doing anything interesting or?

</comment><comment><USER14> On Android Chrome. Page won't scroll. Two finger scroll sorta works. Is that stock bootstrap?

</comment><comment><USER15> What happens to us existing users now all plans are paid?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Dan, the campaigns will stop running for older campaigns, but if you give me a shout at email@example.com I'll set you up with a free month of Pro.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It looks great Dave. Congratulations.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!</comment></comment>


What Are the Hardest Languages to Learn? - <AUTHOR> https://voxy.com/blog/index.php/wide-infographics/what-are-the-hardest-languages-to-learn-infographic/ <comment><USER2> I guess this is also strongly considering the writting right? Japanese for instance is pretty straight forward and much easier than most of the languages if not</comment>


Ask HN: Is it safe for Corona survivors to meet with other Corona survivors? - sahin-boydas <comment><AUTHOR> I would say at best this is currently unclear, so no it is'nt "99% safe" (depending on your definition of safe) because:

1\. It's possible the strains could mutate so they are different enough for the immune system to not respond (assuming you build immunity).

2\. As far as i know the scientific community has not established exactly what the situation is with immunity. There are reports of reinfection. This could also possibly be due to testing issues.

3\. Right now it's not obvious how long you are contagious for.

</comment><comment><USER2> I wish I could remember the source, but degree of exposure matters. I suppose you could explain this as "flattening the curve" writ small, as the bodies defenses don't have time to build up. This is why healthcare workers can get sicker than ordinary folks, because they are swimming in virus.

</comment><comment> sahin-boydas Let say someone is in 0.2% survival group and has pretty good immune system.

also tried of uncertainty.

curious what happens if that person go to corona virus testing wait line and hug some people :)). Get the virus and hope to develop the immunity.

How logical and scientific is this idea?

<comment><USER3> You mean .2% with medical treatment, 10% without medical treatment. If you do this today you're not going to get symptoms for a week, and wouldn't need hospitalization for another week or two after that. By that point you're at serious risk of dying in a parking lot outside a hospital.

<comment> sahin-boydas Hahah

<comment> sahin-boydas Where is 90% number coming from , can u provide a source? There are hundreds of thousands of people survived.

<comment><USER4> There's a bunch of different studies, mostly focused on the results from China, but there's also a few things trickling out from other seriously affected areas.

Basically 15% of people (of ANY age) who present symptoms get so sick as to require hospitalization. Younger people have strong bodies and with an ICU bed, drugs, and proper medical care they are able to recover over the course of a few weeks. But without that intervention, they have a good chance of dying.

That is what happened in the last days of the Wuhan crisis (peak fatality rate: 5%). It is what is happening now in Italy (fatality rate: 8% and climbing) and Iran. That could be the rest of the EU in a week, and the USA a week after.

When the healthcare system is over capacity, the "needs hospitalization" number _becomes_ the fatality rate.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Python Maze Generator - <AUTHOR> http://www.janthor.com/maze/index.html

<comment><USER2> One of the things that I continue to notice is that in the machine generated mazes there are always lots of dead-end paths off of mainline path. While when a human makes a maze by hand there tends to be fewer quick dead end paths and a branch will usually take you 4+ squares before you realize that it's non- terminal.

I would think that either there is an algorithm or metric that would score mazes to make them more "realistic". Any references?

<comment><USER3> This article has a description and demo of many different maze generation algorithms: [http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/2011/2/7/maze-generation- algorit...](http://weblog.jamisbuck.org/2011/2/7/maze-generation-algorithm- recap)

I like the mazes generated by the Hunt-and-Kill and the recursive backtracker algorithms the most. They both generate mazes with long dead-end paths.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There's probably better ones avaliable now on github, but this one caught my eye.

I was wondering, are there any examples of mazes (real or programs) where the structure, rules or walls change based on a certain algorithmic pattern?

So that you've not only got to find the right way out, but you must crack the code before a way out is even possible.

Kind of like the movie Cube: [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/)

<comment><USER4> There is a (First person, 3D) game, Antichamber, that has some elements of this. The room/corridor around you can change by looking, such as:

Walk up to dead end. Turn around. Corridor is no longer there, a dead end instead. Turn around again. There is now a brand new corridor in fron of you. (These changes never visibly happen, but happen when they are out of view)

Another (more maze like) example can be seen here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4JxhiNz8ec](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4JxhiNz8ec)

(first video I found, there a probably better examples)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This one has a nice 3d effect to my eyes, where the dark blue on the left appears to be farther than the rest of the maze.

Can someone explain?

[http://www.janthor.com/maze/rainbowpath.32.32.1128433606.84....](http://www.janthor.com/maze/rainbowpath.32.32.1128433606.84.png)

Zoom in for a better effect

</comment><comment><USER6> Such maze patters reassemble Lightenberg figures: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichtenberg_figure](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lichtenberg_figure)

They are created by electric discharge going through path of least resistance in insulating materials.

</comment><comment><USER7> I was expecting a simple explanation of some maze generation algorithms, but was very pleasantly surprised with the path-length based visualization stuff. What I mean is that there is more to this page than the title suggests!

</comment><comment><USER8> Well my work has this site blocked and categorized as Adult. Anyone know what may have caused that? This is the first time I've actually ever come across a blocked site at work.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is super cool, and surprising to see since last week I implemented something similar in ClojureScript. Mazes are awesome.

[http://jeffcarp.github.io/maze/](http://jeffcarp.github.io/maze/)

Code: [https://github.com/jeffcarp/maze/blob/gh- pages/maze.cljs](https://github.com/jeffcarp/maze/blob/gh-pages/maze.cljs)

</comment><comment><USER10> This is awesome, thanks for sharing! The rainbow coloring is an interesting technique for visualizing the structure of mazes.

For those interested, I wrote a similar maze generation tool in Python which includes implementations of Kruskal's algorithm, Prim's algorithm, and recursive backtracking, and can output similar images. [https://github.com/jpwright/maze.py](https://github.com/jpwright/maze.py)

</comment><comment><USER11> His site has a whole lot of chastity belt images and drawings- I'd say that's why this site has been marked as adult.

</comment><comment><USER12> FYI Bluecoat Threatpulse has your site listed as "Adult/Mature Content;Entertainment"

<comment><USER13> It's probably the adult and mature content elsewhere on his domain.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, that will do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> sometimes I think there is a very fine line between math visualizations and art.

I keep thinking it would be interesting to take an image (like a face) and let it show through the maze instead of colorizing it.

</comment><comment><USER15> There should be an epilepsy warning! @_@</comment>


Show HN: How to stop iOS9 daily prompts for iOS10 upgrade - <AUTHOR> iOS9 automatically downloads iOS10 and then prompts daily for permission to upgrade.  The dialog only allows deferral of upgrade, no option to decline.  Since it usually takes a few point releases for Apple to stabilize a new major version, you may not want to spend the next few months postponing this dialog box every day.
To stop the iOS10 upgrade prompts:

  Settings
  General
  Storage & iCloud
  Manage Storage, scroll down through the list
  iOS10 Update -> Delete
 Go back to enjoying stable iOS9 workflow and battery life.  Avoid security threats for which fixes were disclosed in iOS10. <comment><USER2> Thank you.</comment>


Ask HN: What's the most secure cross-platform RNG option? - <AUTHOR>

I'm writing a very encryption heavy piece of software, and security is very important. With the big focus on RNG lately, I've really wanted to know what is the most secure. Hardware is ruled out due to possible backdooring. <comment><USER2> Just use /dev/urandom.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just read from `/dev/urandom` (free Unices). It doesn't require any 3rd party libraries, always exists, and has a great track record compared to e.g. OpenSSL.

<editorializing>On Windows (or proprietary Unix), you can't verify the implementation of any option for randomness.</editorializing>

</comment><comment><USER4> You could try this out. [http://www.random.org/clients/http/](http://www.random.org/clients/http/)

Of course, there is a trust issue with this service potentially. However, supposedly, they use a random noise technique that is "true random".

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't expect the user to have an internet connection when needed. And having to send something vital as this over an HTTP is just not an option.

<comment><USER2> If those are the only two reasons you wouldn't get crypto randomness directly from "random.org", you shouldn't be designing cryptosystems to begin with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> you ask for cross-platform and you don't define "most secure". so it seems like the "right" answer is the one that is believed to be secure and is as cross-platform as possible. and i think that would be openssl.

it's famous for causing bugs/weaknesses from being used incorrectly, but afaik it's secure if used correctly. and it compiles on a wide range of hardware.</comment>