Show HN: A better discussion system. For blogs, forums, perhaps sites like HN. - <AUTHOR> http://www.debiki.com/demo/-71cs1-demo-page-1

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi hackers

I'm the link poster. I'm building a better (I hope) discussion system for blogs and forums, and perhaps (in the future) also for sites like Hacker News.

Here is the homepage: www.debiki.com

Here are possible future features: (so you can read about what might be focused on) <http://www.debiki.com/-81101-future-features>

What do you think? For example: Do you think the project makes sense? Or do you have any suggestions?

(It's a bit buggy in IE8; IE7 not supported.)

Kind regards, KajMagnus

(My first HN post :-))

<comment><USER2> Hey Kaj,

Nice work on the interface. It's definitely promising but you'll need a bunch more real life feedback.

You're playing with a lot of variables and I'm pretty sure some of them are interesting improvements, but some of them also don't work well and altogether it's not yet a better solution.

The main practical piece of advice I can give now is that having each new initial comment go horizontally doesn't seem to work well.

The other piece of advice is to keep going. ;) Good UX (which this is all about) is everything these days...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback!

What's the reason that having each new initial comment go horizontally doesn't seem to work well?

If you have time, I'd be interested in knowing what things you think are interesting improvements? And about other things, besides having comments go horizontally, that don't work well?

<comment><USER2> Horizontal comments mean horizontal scrolling and that is generally frowned upon for a number of reasons, such as:

* breaking a lot of existing layouts which assume 100% of the page is 100% of your screen (see your own demo page for example ;)

* users being unaware of it's existence or just not noticing the bar

* lack of hardware support (scroll buttons for most PCs are vertical only)

One quick win I see there is to let a horizontal comment take up very little space if it's completely.

As far as what works well:

* I like the click to improve (although I expect to improve just the area I click on / select)

* I love the click to scroll functionality; never seen that before and yet it feels very natural.

* I like the usage of lines in the comments. It's clear yet simple enough to still be elegant.

* Horizontal scrolling probably works well on _mobile_ as well ;)

Send me an email if you want to stay in touch btw (see my profile) because I'm in a way on a similar path with our startup.

P.S. It might be a bit far out there, but I just ran across the AffectButton from Joost Broekens which might be interesting to use for giving feedback on mobile devices (see the Java applet on <http://www.joostbroekens.com/>)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes horizontal scrolling would break the layout of many blogs and websites — I think this is somewhat niched software.

Making people understand that they can dragscroll rightwards with the mouse is a bit tricky indeed. Right now I'm thinking about a big arrow pointing rightwards, at the right end of the page, that shows a helpful tips on click. — There's actually a popup-dialog-tips already, if you use the horizontal scrollbar, without first having dragscrolled. But people sometimes won't notice that popup-tips-dialog.

Thanks for mentioning what you like, so I can continue improving that. (I also would like to edit only the paragraph I click on.)

I read about the AffectButton, but I haven't yet installed Java plugin (I somewhat fear viruses). Anyway it gave me ideas about using smileys instead of stars, to indicate to what degree a comment is Interesting or Funny, hmm.

(I'll send you an email, tomorrow I suppose, and I've read some about VideoView)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> walnut-tree I really like your discussion system - some great thinking here! The arrows are surprisingly clear in directing you to posts and indicating hierarchy. Also, the comments just feel more visible in this layout; it feels quicker to glance through a discussion.

Is it possible for you to import comments from some popular discussion sites to get a sense of what the layout will look like with different numbers of comments? This might be a good way of "stress testing" the layout to see if, under certain circumstances, the design needs tweaking.

I've always assumed that most users treat page after page of comments a bit like search results: they'll look at page one or page two of the comments and then stop (because there are just too many to wade through). Inevitably some of the interesting comments will get buried or overlooked ("Upvoting" and "editor's pick" are two approaches to remedying this). I like many of your suggestions around trying to make it easier to explore discussions.

Here are some questions that came to mind when I looked at your discussion system (I don't have answers to these questions, they're just food for thought :-)

\- Horizontal scrolling: this might work well on a tablet (swiping horizontally), but will it feel awkward on a desktop if the layout stretches quite long?

\- Will this comment system work equally well with a few comments as well as a few hundred? How long might the horizontal layout become if you have hundreds of comments?

\- What might the layout look like if you have mainly single comments (i.e. no threaded replies)? Will a single horizontal line of comments look awkward? (It may well look fine.)

\- I notice that each column is of uniform width (which makes perfect sense), but what happens when some comments get lots of replies? As you begin to indent each reply, is there a point where the indentation becomes a problem? (To be honest this is true of all threaded comment systems, but you're working with a much narrower width to begin with.)

\- Many blogs sit within a fixed page width rather than stretch to fill the whole browser window. Can this comment system sit well within this type of design? Will it look awkward if it stretches outside the page width? It may be that this design works well for discussion sites and doesn't need to be a one- size-fits-all for every kind of site.

I hope these thoughts don't sound too negative. Commenting feels ripe for more exploration. There is so much commenting on the web, yet not much has changed in the way discussions are displayed. Could interesting visualisations help (or hinder) the way we read discussions? For example, a colour bar or timeline that charts whether comments expressed are negative or positive (would obviously only work for certain types of comment).

I'm impressed by what you've started so far and hope you continue to explore. Good luck :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi walnut-tree, thanks for your feedback!

Here are some thoughts on the things you mentioned:

\- It's currently not possible to import comments. The largest page I've built "manually", is 200 comments; it'd be interesting to import a 3000 comments page from, say, Reddit, and have a look :-)

\- The comparison with search engine results is interesting, I hadn't thought about that.

\- Re wide pages: On a 50 comments wide page, I think scrolling works fine, partly because if you scroll large distances, the scrolling software (Utterscroll) automatically scrolls faster.

\- Re many single comments without replies. — It looks okay visually I think, but it might be easier to "get lost" among all comments (since the page becomes very wide).

\- Re: "when some comments get lots of replies", "does the indentation [become] a problem"? — I think that in such cases, 1) deeply nested comments could be collapsed by default. And 2) popular threads could be made wider.

\- Re: "Many blogs sit within a fixed page width". Yes, this might deter some people from using Debiki (the software). — I'm thinking that this discussion system is intended for people who think that [showing the readers' comments] is much more imporant than the right hand sidebar. — And it's probably (?) well suited for discussion sites / forums.

Thanks for "Good luck" :-)</comment></comment>


Apple stops selling 12-inch MacBook - <AUTHOR> https://9to5mac.com/2019/07/09/apple-stops-selling-macbook-mackbook-air/ <comment><AUTHOR> While Apple's laptop product lineup is way simpler now this is a clear form factor regression. I hope this is just a blip until the/a new 12".

<comment><USER2> Glad I wasn't the only one who loved the convenience of that tiny machine. Guess there weren't enough of us though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, one of the first things he did was slash the product line. There were too many options and choices that didn't really make a significant difference in the overall experience.

Apple is slowly getting back to the point where their product line is being oversaturated with choices again.</comment>


MegaUpload complaint has Dropbox Implications - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/112885659993091300749/posts/UhcajuqEYRr

<comment><USER2> So what's the difference to files hosted in Gmail? Does this mean that Google also needs to delete all mails containing a certain MP3 (for example)?

<comment><USER3> I think that the difference is that the RIAA can't look at your GMail account, so they can't know that you have that MP3. Therefore, they will not file a takedown notice.

BUT... (there's always a but =P ), what happens if you upload a video to YouTube, and you save it also in your gmail.

If someone files a takedown notice on that video, should google also delete from your email ? should they also delete it from every other gmail account that holds a copy of that video? Oh man, this is getting complicated...

<comment><USER4> You have the link in your Gmail, not the original file. The link just wouldn't work. This is comparing apples to oranges.

<comment><USER5> He meant that you've downloaded the video file and attached it to some email in gmail.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. Thanks for making it clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Even if Megaupload took down files based on hash, there are ways for pirates to work around it. The MKV and AVI video container formats, for example, have loads of places where you could stick a nonce so that the _exact_ same video would produce arbitrarily many hash values.

<comment><USER2> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locality-sensitive_hashing>

<comment><USER7> So Locality-sensitive hashing has basically the opposite goal of a cryptographic hash function, where a single bit change in the input should result in a significant change in the output?

What if there's a legitimate, private file uploaded to Megaupload's hypothetical successor, but someone uploads a highly-similar file publicly that gets a takedown notice?

The problem with forcing digital locker sites to remove content by hash rather than by URL is that it's impossible for them to know whether some of the URLs that point to a given hash are legitimate (e.g. a FLAC file being transferred by a musician to their CD pressing company and a select set of friends, but someone leaks the FLAC files and they get re-uploaded and deduped). This problem would be exacerbated by using a fuzzy or locality-sensitive hash rather than a cryptographic hash.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "simply removing a single link to the content while duplicate links were left in place"

I don't know how MegaUpload works. Does that statement mean that a single user uploaded a file and there were multiple links to that file or does it mean that multiple users uploaded bit-for-bit identical files which each had links? The way it's phrased it sounds like the former, in which case it's obviously wrong.

<comment><USER9> The latter but that is what Dropbox does. See claims 21-24 @ <http://www.scribd.com/doc/78786408/Mega-Indictment>

Megaupload took DMCA requests in the form of URLs (21), URLs allow access to a certain MD5 sum indexed file on their CDN (22), they would disable specific URLs to comply with DMCA requests while leaving others active rather than removing the file from their CDN (23) however if the material was child pornography/terrorism they had the ability to actually delete files and all their links (24)

<comment><USER10> The way I view copyright law (IANAL), this is the correct approach. Each upload of an item to Megaupload is an independent assertion by the uploader that they have a license to put the work in question on the site. _Content_ itself is not prima facie infringing; instead, it is the unlicensed _use_ of the content that is infringement. This was essentially Youtube's argument when Viacom uploaded "roughed up" content to their site [1]. In that case, the roughed up copy as originally uploaded would be a licensed copy, but any copies that other users uploaded, even with the same MD5 hash, would be unlicensed.

On the other hand, child pornography can never be "non-infringing." It is always illegal to knowingly store obscene content, regardless of who stores it. Thus, one link to a child-pornographic file is as culpable as the next, justifying mass removal. This is essentially the argument made by Katherine Oyama of Google at one of the SOPA hearings [2].

[1] <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8575666.stm>

[2] [http://danwin.com/2012/01/the-sopa-debate-and-how-its- affect...](http://danwin.com/2012/01/the-sopa-debate-and-how-its-affected-by- congresss-understanding-of-child-porn/) (Ctrl-f "REP. MARINO")

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > The complaint says that when notified under DMCA of an infringing file, > present at a link, say megaupload.com/dark-knight-video-rip.iso that > MegaUpload WOULD in fact remove the link, but that they would NOT remove the > file, or remove links at say, megaupload.com/dk-knight-dvd-rip_O_o.iso, even > if no DMCA takedown notice occurred for that particular link.

it would be great to know if its possible they had an insider. how otherwise would they know that other links linked to the same content were linking to exact the same file that DMCA note was sent to take down. Otherwise it was unfair and thats the purpose why safe harbour exist -- it protects you a small company from millions of users uploading their content and being shorthand or not having boots to check each and single file whether it violates someones copyrights or not.

> Consider this totally legal (for me) scenario: I rip the Dark Knight DVD, > and place it in Dropbox as a legal backup of my content. I share the link > with nobody; it's just mine, all mine.

I am not sure if this is entirely legal.

First you say you didnt make a copy, but "rip". Its called ripping because DVDs content is locked with an encrypted key, so locked DVD with a movie is not just a folder with files you can copy over to your desktop. Years ago there was a movie when they forgot to lock the key and based off of it software developers were able to build a key decryptor for any encrypted DVD. Most DVD ripping software is illegal throughout the world, at least some software vendors got lawsuit over their software functionality.

Further, while I dont have a link handy, but I recall there was a discussion on HN that 9th circuit make it illegal for anyone to stream any copyrighted content, whether to themselves or a group of people. So uploading it into cloud and then getting it back out of it technically is illegal, AFAIK, but that was month ago when I saw this posting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, MGM claimed that ripping a CD was legal to the SCOTUS, and I am certainly allowed to circumvent CSS on DVDs for non-infringing purposes, but I think my argument holds just fine if you substitute an ISO of Snow Leopard, a DVD I finally found in my basement recently.

I find the claim that I can't remotely backup the ISO over the internet surprising -- I have never even heard of such a stance.

<comment><USER12> <http://store.apple.com/Catalog/US/Images/MacOSX.htm>

2\. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions. A. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time. _This License does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one computer at a time,and you may not make the Apple Software available over a network where it could be used by multiple computers at the same time_. You may make one copy of the Apple Software (excluding the Boot ROM code) in machine-readable form for backup purposes only; provided that the backup copy must include all copyright or other proprietary notices contained on the original.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is my point, exactly. A backup to a private DropBox folder of the iso is clearly fine even by Apple's own terms, regardless of what the law says.

However, a backup to a public Dropbox folder with a known, distributed link is.

So far so good. The question is, does DMCA require both to be taken down for a given notice, because they hash to the same file in the Dropbox database?

<comment><USER12> Copy #1: the installed version of the OS (permitted)

Copy #2 (backup): The .iso file in your local dropbox folder (permitted if on the same computer as #1)

Copy #3: The .iso file on dropbox's primary storage array (not permitted - second backup copy)

Copy #4: The .iso file on dropbox's high availability storage array (not permitted - third backup copy)

Copy #5: The .iso file as copied to any other of your subscribed dropbox clients (not permitted - forth backup copy)

Not to mention the fact that copies #3 and #4 seem to obviously qualify as "available over a network where it could be used by multiple computers at the same time"

While I understand that there may be some difference in interpretation about these clauses I think you should reconsider your working definition of the term "clearly".

<comment><USER13> > "available over a network where it could be used by multiple computers at > the same time"

To me, they're clearly describing a network boot setup. i.e. you only have one installed copy of the OS, and you have a bunch of (possibly diskless) client machines boot from that single copy via netboot or similar.

<comment><USER7> _To me, they're clearly describing a network boot setup._

Both "to me" and "clearly" will get you into serious trouble when dealing with legal matters. The likely outcome is that, if Apple decided to file a civil suit, or a prosecutor found grounds for criminal copyright infringement prosecution, the prosecuting attorneys would use whatever interpretation is in their favor.

<comment><USER13> I don't see how "used by multiple computers at the same time" makes any sense in your interpretation but I was trying to be diplomatic.

<comment><USER7> "Used" is a word with a very broad definition. It doesn't just mean "run as primary operating system," it could also mean "capable of reading any of the bits of," or "looked at metadata of." The interpretation of "at the same time" is also rather flexible.

I'm not saying Apple will hunt you down and sue you (to paraphrase Jon Stewart). I'm saying, unless you're a lawyer, _and_ you have another lawyer representing you, it's best for us non-lawyers not to think we understand legalese.

<comment><USER13> I guess what you're saying is that nobody should use MacOS/iOS under any circumstances except after seeking the advice of an attorney.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Don't get too hung up on this.

Technologist love to think through the technical implications of something, and assume these implications will be carried through legally.

The law doesn't work like that. Provided Dropbox adheres to both the letter and the spirit of the DMCA - or works with complainants to develop an arrangement both are hppy with the technical details DO NOT MATTER.

<comment><USER15> If it only was so simple... no matter what, it costs companies such as Dropbox a lot a lot of extra effort to appease all possible companies that can file complaints. That could cause them to go out of business, to have to charge more money, and/or be really restrictive to what files and users they allow.

A net loss for all users of the internet, _especially_ law-abiding ones.

<comment><USER14> Oh yes, I agree with this!

But that's the case no matter what the _technical_ implementation is.

<comment><USER15> It does. The technical implementation can have a lot of effect on the chilling effect of a law.

Let's take the extremes. If the technical implementation is " _we'll send a drone to fire a missile at your building_ ", people will be much more scared to take any risk at all of hosting user-generated content than if the implementation is " _you'll get a warning and a $5 fine_ ".

Everything considered, " _We'll arrest you and everyone that works for your company and nuke your DNS entry_ " is pretty chilling. If they only punished bank misconduct that hard...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't see this happening - each file on Dropbox must have an ACL of sorts, otherwise I could access any private file simply by knowing its URL. A takedown of a public file could therefore only apply to specific users by modifying the ACL.

</comment><comment><USER17> Whats more f'ed up is that it is not even clear if ripping a legally owned CD/DVD is legal.

Eg. [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/12...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/12/28/AR2007122800693.html?hpid=topnews)

<comment><USER11> a similar article made me think if I ever owe any digital audio whether from my own CDs or from internet, I would have stored it on encrypted drive, preferably encrypted with more than one encrypting algorithm, and either download from work/starbucks etc, or at least owe wireless router so if they go after me, I could claim someone was using my wireless router without my knowledge. I could just hope case against me wouldnt be that strong that they would weight between me giving out a key to my hard drive and lets say 15 hard years in jail.

EDIT: and then in court I would say I forgot the password because I havent been using this drive for a while now.

<comment><USER18> I've thought through similar scenarios multiple times, and then when I am about to post any of them online, I realize my post would probably be read by any competent investigator and it would be turned into an additional premeditation-based charge.

It definitely sucks having to consider how my comments will be construed in the future and what rights may be retroactively taken away due to intense lobbying and legislative ignorance.

<comment><USER11> thats why I never downloaded i single music file, never ripped a CD, and wrote this post from my work's network, just in case.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Texas girl electrocuted while using cellphone in bathtub - <AUTHOR> https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/07/11/texas-girl-electrocuted-while-using-cellphone-bathtub/467225001/ <comment><USER2> Very sad, but how can anyone not know to never use plugged in items in the bath-tub in this day and age? I suspect this was a Chinese charger that did not have UL approved isolation in the gound - ??</comment>


Ask HN: As a first-time founder, where should I be spending my time? - <AUTHOR> We've just launched and I find that there's so much to do but I'm almost paralyzed by it all. The obvious answer is to spend your time where you'll get the largest return right? Well, how do you know where this is when you have little data?
To be clear though, it's a marketplace application http://www.venuevortex.com - we've built the product, we've launched it, I've on-boarded 50+ venues (supply side) now I need the demand side (users) in order to create value for the venues so they continue using us/paying.
I've tried Facebook ad's targeted in Ontario as we've launched locally, to certain demographics and folks with a proclivity to book events, and interests in weddings, business etc... With low conversions, and no sticky users.
The goal is to get even just 1 person to send a request to a venue right now. If I can get 1, I can get 1000.
So the question is how do I get that 1 user to send a request? And where do I find them organically? <comment><USER2> First, Congrats on your Launch! I really like the site it's simple, clean and to the point. I also like that you have consistent content on your blog which should be helping you with SEO.

Now for the fun stuff!!!

I have this process I follow called the ABLE process. It stands for Access, Build, Launch and Evaluate.

Assuming before you built and launched your product you accessed your market by doing research and conducted user feedback. If not this is a great place to start. If you want to gain users, you have to know who your users are. In advertisement data is key, You say you used Facebook but what if your users are the people on twitter? You have venues, What is the most popular event/s at these venues? Advertising can get expensive, advertising on the wrong channels can kill your startup.

Once you know who your users are you can use that data to market on platforms they use organically. Some times organic users come from partners or places. When I think Venue, I think weddings just like you tried on Facebook. Have you tried partnering with wedding retail stores, wedding planners, cake decorates etc? These are all people who connect with your potential users that could promote your business. That is of coarse if your users are people getting married. Your venues might book more birthdays than weddings. Thats why the research is important.

Hope this helps!

</comment><comment><USER3> The home page is weird to me (and I have used cvent to find venues in the past): I select a city, and I have no other options. Venue size? Wedding hall or meeting room? No. None of these are options on the first page. Therefore, I don't expect much value from that site.

That being said, I assume you current problem is that no one knows about your site. Can you clarify what the value of your site is? It has to be more than a directory of venues. How does it help me? And who is yout target, businesses, conferences, weddings? Don't say all, unless you intend to serve all of them equally poorly.

Based on the style of the site, it has a modern template, unlike cvent. Maybe you are trying to displace Cvent just like AirBnb displaced vrbo: similar in features, but just so much better looking and "user friendly". If that's the case, it means your target demographics must be younger than the average Internet user. Does that match business admins who look for venues more than people getting married? You need to figure it out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback, a couple points:

Once you select a city you'll get results with venues for that city. On the left hand side you'll notice additional filters such as "Event type, Venue type, Venue Capacity, Price, Amenities". You can play with these filters to further curate the results to your liking.

We're more than a directory, if you actually create an account you'll notice that you can select "Add To My Queue" on several venues and send them all a bulk message at once with your budget, event details etc... This message will be delivered directly to the venue representatives of those venues - you can expect responses shortly thereafter. I've on-boarded 50+ venues so they will be receiving your message directly.

To your last point, yes this is the goal so we're in search of our market segments/users.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe see if you can have a chat to somewhere from here: [http://www.canspep.ca/](http://www.canspep.ca/) since they could be a good group to get regular requests from.

Also maybe look at eventbrite/meetup for events in the future that don't have a venue yet and try to contact them to use your system. Good luck!

<comment><USER5> That's good advice. You have to "get out of the building" as they say, and try to find people with that problem.

You're probably competing with wedding planners (they already have a list of venues!).

Congratulations on your site, it looks clean and professional. I'd add some info (prices are in XX CAD per person, right?). Also to consider, you might want to add a calendar (when you have the availability data), but that can wait - get information on your potential customers first :)

See Steve Blank's advice on Customer Discovery:

[http://steveblank.com/2014/06/28/customer-discovery-the- sear...](http://steveblank.com/2014/06/28/customer-discovery-the-search-for- productmarket-fit-2-minutes-to-see-why/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> IMO, The chance of users discovering your service from a google search is higher than accidentally discovering it in FB. Google ads might convert better.

I know your state of mind. I have been through it. The only thing I could say is to be patient and persistent.

</comment><comment><USER7> This background color and white text does not give the best reading experience. I don't know. Maybe it is just me.

</comment><comment><USER8> I am a second time founder. I would say go acquire them manually. Go ask them in person.

</comment><comment><USER9> Think about this: how should you fake it till you make it?</comment>


Samsung Flexible AMOLED Display at CES 2011 - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJEHp15Hoo0&feature=player_embedded <comment><USER2> when are we going to finally start seeing these in products?</comment>


Why Isn't Agile Working? - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/why-isnt-agile-working-d7127af1c552 <comment><USER2> Couldn't disagree more with this article, is this even written by a programmer? Agile takes into account the very real 'semantic cost' when translating from user requirements to actual code.

Code is so specific and brittle compared to the lovely fuzzy English language that we think and write in, that we can never get the requirements just right. The biggest problem is integration of ideas into an existing system. Yeah ok you want to extend the login screen to support one extra field? That's great but after a couple of days work, it turns out that 2 years ago Joe Bloggs added some complex verification algorithm no one understands to a stored procedure, oh which contains about 30 other input fields, and so is going to take an extra week to untangle. The procedure is also used in 20 other places too and there's no unit tests covering any of the functionality.

Agile gives the programmer a voice in the process, and once they update the tasks and time estimates, the feature's priority can be re-evaluated. Treating development as a one shot process is just doomed to fail and more stressful for everyone involved.

<comment><USER3> > Agile gives the programmer a voice in the process

In theory, perhaps, but there are many places (everywhere I've worked) where the programmer voice is subjugated to project managers, product owners, and pretty much everyone else.

> once they update the tasks and time estimates, the feature's priority can be > re-evaluated

Never worked anywhere that developer task and time estimates were considered as "truth" rather than something for everyone else to override or ignore based on external constraints.

<comment><USER4> _Never worked anywhere that developer task and time estimates were considered as "truth" rather than something for everyone else to override or ignore based on external constraints._

In that case – and I've said this often – the problem is with wider organisational culture and 'agile' or otherwise will not help with that.

I work in an environment where those estimates are just bluntly accepted, because they're the considered opinion of a team of professionals, and they're never overridden. If they are too high to meet some other business or marketing constraint, then we can start looking at ways to reduce the scope, extend the deadline, or incur some temporary technical debt.

I can't imagine having my estimates 'overridden' by anybody else and would not continue to work in an company where my actual, professional opinion about my own work was routinely ignored.

<comment><USER5> Count yourself lucky.

Or, like my wife, you are one of these people that are proud in a kingly yet humble manner -- and never allow anyone to step on them ever since early childhood. They seem to have a presence/aura that strongly discourages all dictators from trying to dominate them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My current job is my first truly agile software development position. I have never spent this much time in worthless meetings ever before. I also never saw a team with a lower "velocity" before.

Estimating story points for tasks when we know there is only one who has the skills to do it, direct conversions between time and story points. Countless hours spent in splitting and combining "stories" to make them agile sized bites. Estimation meetings that take half a day, where for every story only 20% of all the people who sit there can contribute.

I feel like this is all a big fat joke.

<comment><USER4> _My current job is my first truly agile software development position._

That's the problem there – the job you describe is not on a 'truly agile' team. It sounds like almost exactly the opposite – a focus on process, rather than 'whatever works'.

I work on a definitely 'truly agile' team – one estimation and planning meeting per two-week sprint, for a team of three developers, lasting about an hour. And it's great!

<comment><USER7> Your response, as do most such Agile defenses, suffers from the No True Scotsman fallacy.

The problem is that if, when faced with example after example of something labelled 'Agile' not working, one discounts each as not 'truly Agile', then once one subtracts all those examples of Agile not working from the Agile literature there's nothing concrete left to prescribe other than "keep trying stuff until you find something that works for you."

<comment><USER8> That's a misuse of the fallacy.

There are some basic practices that are required for an organization to adhere to an agile process. Transparency, accountability, introspection... it really is basic stuff. And either they're doing them, or they're not.

If they're violating the definition of the process, _they 're not implementing the process_.

If someone got into a car accident and didn't have a license, and I said "Yeah, but they aren't a qualified driver", you wouldn't invoke the No True Scotsman fallacy, would you?

<comment><USER7> > Transparency, accountability

These are concepts, not practices. And 'introspection', while arguably being a practice, is really, really not basic stuff. Introspection with actionable outcome is about as basic a practice as "finding inner peace" is.

> If they're violating the definition of the process, they're not implementing > the process.

As seen even in just the comments on this submission, if someone follows the definition of the process as laid out in the literature, they are dismissed as being too process-focused and not truly Agile. If someone doesn't exactly follow the definition of the process as laid out in the literature, they are dismissed as not following the rules of Agile.

<comment><USER8> _if someone follows the definition of the process as laid out in the literature,_

Agile has no "process as laid out in the literature".

I'm not even sure where this idea comes from.

The Agile manifesto is extremely basic. It contains a few core principles, and everything else is elaboration on them.

This organization is violating even those very basic tenants.

It's possible that, over and above the manifesto they're trying to implement Scrum or Kanban or some other process, and heck, they may be failing to adhere to those processes as well

But if they're not at a bare minimum attempting to live and breathe the values encapsulated in the manifesto, they are _by definition_ not executing an Agile process, since the manifesto _defines_ what "Agile" is.

<comment><USER7> There is plenty of literature. None of it necessarily agrees with the rest, but Agile proponents over the past 15+ years have produced a copious body of literature. If you disown all of that literature, then all you are left with is some pseudo-religious principles, tenets and values, which is not useful for someone trying to improve a development org. It also make evaluation of its effectiveness impossible as there's no agreement on what's being evaluated.

Living and breathing values and principles entails putting something in to practice which means you need to put a stake in the ground as to "how", instead of just repeating platitudes. If you can't find three people who all agree on what "living and breathing the Agile values" means, then you can't practice Agile at team scale.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Agile in almost any form is there because we, as a programmers, allowed HR 'professionals' to imagine what would it be to run our job. They have no idea what our job is but they certainly make sure to be needed even if they are not.

In parallel universe they are on the same space ship with telephone sanitizers, hairdressers, jingle writers and accountants.

And before anybody tells me how rude I am I want to clarify I have been extremely nice and understanding.

Agile is in almost any form just waste of time. Wannabe mangers or HR professionals are parasitic foreign body in almost any IT related profession. But they talk better than we do.

<comment><USER10> Agile can be used in such a way that it gets management off the developers backs and empowers the developers to take their own decisions about how to plan their work and their time and to control how feature requests end up in their personal to do list (i.e. the feature request has to wait until the next sprint).

Things that help are:

1\. Having a project manager with at least several other projects to manage (discourages micromanagement).

2\. The project manager should also be good at defending the dev team from distractions by triaging incoming requests into urgent bug fixes vs. waits until the next sprint planning meeting.

3\. Having a product owner who does not act as a manager but as a consultant on a day-to-day basis (the dev team has to however appreciate that the producer owner is the person they are developing the software for). Ideally the product owner should be available but with some other work to be getting on with.

4\. Having a professional development team that are more focused on delivering a product than building a CV/blog.

<comment><USER11> The worst thing about agile is zero autonomy and zero ability to make decisions and be accountable/responsible for them. You never even get the feeling that you achieved or at least did something. And managers were not the biggest problem. Fellow developers with strong micromanaging tendencies were.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For me, agile is about responding to change quickly: reducing the waste in the development cycle by not building stuff that isn't needed. That's an important step, but it has very little to say about the way in which you build the stuff that is valuable: it doesn't dictate architecture, approach, standards, or any thing else (except that onerous / long-winded processes conflict with the agile approach). Agile is great for developing things where you're not totally sure what the end result is.

Specifically, for me, agile doesn't make the development _process_ faster, it just encourages you to adapt more quickly and may (should) speed up delivery. If you want to make the _process_ faster, you have to look to other solutions (which are pretty orthogonal to agile).

<comment><USER13> It's funny because everyone seems to go with their own ideas on what Agile is. I know companies who do agile and to them it's moving fast, loose requirements, etc. That is what it means to be "agile".

For others, it's that slow grinding process of sprint planning, task estimation, pointless scrums and using estimation as some kind of metric for performance.

Then I took an agile course from the scrum alliance and the instructor only cared about Agile as a way of building "high performance teams". E.g get a group of people together, stay together, let them manage their time and they way they work to get the best usage out of them.

I've done all 3, to me agile fails because nobody really knows what it is other than they are doing "Agile"

<comment><USER3> > nobody really knows what it is other than they are doing "Agile"

And as soon as you say "Agile isn't working", you'll get a flurry of responses saying "You're clearly not doing it RIGHT".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you argue agile isn't working, you must have some hypothesis of both what it is and what it would look like if it worked. I fail to see that in this article.

There is also the other problem with complaining agile dosn't work - it's that there are no clear candidates for what does work.

To me, agile is mostly about measurement. If you have a process that is exactly as slow as what you did before you "went agile" but now you KNOW how slow you are, and you have realistic deadlines, know beforehand when you will miss them and so on - then agile mostly works for you.

<comment><USER15> Plus, the author gives zero sources for the statements and numbers they present. We just kind of have to believe them - or not.

<comment><USER5> This is not a PhD thesis, so your comment is meaningless. It's an opinion / rant. What sources would you accept?

Additionally: don't believe him, what's the problem with that. Just don't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a good article, though the headline seems likely to produce a rash of comments that perhaps agree without reading :)

The point is, agile development isn't magic and doesn't mean that more work will automatically get done. It doesn't work if it's imposed top-down, it doesn't work if the team are fighting it, and it doesn't work for every product.

It's a tool, like any other, that helps the team to respond quickly and incorporate feedback frequently, with the goal of making sure that the products produced are effective and fit-for-purpose. The work still has to be done, and if anything there is _more overhead_. But that can be a valuable tradeoff if it reduces cost elsewhere.

Being on a team that does agile properly is _amazing_ , and it really is a shame that it's become so widely derided as a result of ridiculous consultants and the associated mess.

</comment><comment><USER16> Agile is nothing more than a methodology that can help a dedicated team to have a little more structure and transparency in the development process. Any team can easily do a weekly 30 minutes meeting to update on progress and issues. Also, a product owner can chop up epics into manageable user stories that can be done within 1 or 2 weeks (call that a sprint). IMAO there is not much more to it.

The real problem is that whole subculture of 6 figure Agile managers, Scrum- masters etc.. that preach their little thing as if it were a religion that leads to maximum productivity and dollars. But in the end it is only about their dollars. Most of those people cannot code, cannot design, have no vision, no skills whatsoever to build a product as what the team is actually doing. They sell themselves way more important than they actually are. I don't need a DRY coach or manager who helps me avoiding to repeat certain parts of the code. It's a very simple concept, don't need any coach for that, same counts for Agile.

In the company where I currently work they have now fully adopted Agile. Result? We hired for over a million dollars a year on Agile managers, Scrum masters, coaches etc.. We do meetings all the time, very structured indeed! My productivity as a developer dropped over 50% (and not only mine). But I don't mention it to these awesome Agile managers, as soon as they know I'm not a proponent my days in the company are counted.

<comment><USER5> I sympathize with you. Time for another job, buddy. I am not saying this lightly, I fled three such companies and it hurt every time but always turned out to be the right decision in retrospect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Whenever agile "doesn't work" is because higher ups keep expecting the same (useless) artifacts and ways of working to be present. Including the biggest one of all: a fixed shipping date without compromising on features

It's like filling up a Formula 1 cars with bricks and asking why it doesn't go fast (an hyperbole, but the point stands)

<comment><USER15> That's why I lay on the floor with laughter when I read the "Changing your management culture" point at the end. That particular event is literally the last thing to occur, ever.

<comment><USER5> Agreed. It's more likely that the entire technical staff will be replaced before even one manager changes the way they do things.

Actually, I have been seeing things like that almost happening several times (firing 5 out of 7 programmers in a team, or firing the entire sysadmin/devops staff -- 9 people -- overnight).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Because it was taken over by cargo cults like SCRUM who desperately try to turn it into a "process" forgetting the very first line of the Agile manifesto: "people over process".

Agile is a philosophy not a process. The process will differ company to company, and should derive by working backwards from the goal you want to achieve: "We want to solve the right problems for our customers".

What that ends up looking like, what you ship, what you DON'T ship, and how you do/don't ship it will matter entirely on your customer, your product, your company, and your specific team.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think the software industry is doomed to forever argue about the definition of agile…

From my experience, people's negative experience with agile is usually because Agile is often adopted top-down as _dogma_ with highly paid consultants and strict rules, instead of bottom-up as just another _tool_ to do your job.

</comment><comment><USER20> > Unmanaged Complexity

This comes back to the XP practice[1] of simple design[2] or "code that can change" which Fred George says has 4 properties:

      1. Works
      2. Communicates
      3. No Duplicate Code
      4. Least classes and methods

see GOTO 2015 • The Secret Assumption of Agile • Fred George [3][4]

[1] [https://ronjeffries.com/xprog/what-is-extreme- programming/ci...](https://ronjeffries.com/xprog/what-is-extreme- programming/circles.jpg)

[2] [https://ronjeffries.com/xprog/what-is-extreme- programming/#s...](https://ronjeffries.com/xprog/what-is-extreme- programming/#simple)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1Efy4RB_kw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1Efy4RB_kw)

[4] [https://gotocon.com/dl/goto- amsterdam-2015/slides/FredGeorge...](https://gotocon.com/dl/goto- amsterdam-2015/slides/FredGeorge_TheSecretAssumptionOfAgile.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER21> Reminds me of Winston Churchill's description of democracy being the "worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time" \-- agile is the worst, except for all other methods.

In reality, any system can be bad if you obsess on process over results.

A product manager once told me that I was past the code freeze date of his 6-month (heavyweight/waterfall) release cycle so I'd have to wait 8 months...to get a single file changed. When a VP overruled him and forced the issue this guy called me up to angrily complain how much "extra work" this would be for him and his release process (and I was just passing along the request on behalf of the business). Buddy, if your software release process doesn't allow you to change a single file in < 10 months, you're doing something wrong.

That's not to say Agile is a cure-all. I've worked at co.'s that insist on daily standup meetings so they can say they're "Agile", even if they have no practical value and are a time-suck.

I've seen mid-level executives obsess over the terminology -- t-shirt sizes, stories, kanban, scrum, sprints -- mainly to sound impressive dropping jargon in front of their superiors, even if no actual progress is being made.

Or they say they're "Agile" as an excuse to play "Etch-a-Sketch" with requirements, changing every few months because they're "iterating."

That being said, I'll take Agile over Waterfall any day. There's just too many unknown unknowns in writing a specific type of application for the first time to gameplan everything out in mockups successfully.

I think the bigger problem is mid-level bureaucracy at too many companies, and that would exist with or without Agile, IMHO.

<comment><USER5> Bureaucracy is exactly the problem. Namely those people that are horrified of being fired so they invent a process labyrinth only they can navigate so they can have job security.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Sure it doesn't work anymore, humans have innate ability to corrupt any outstanding ideas and agile is now finished. Post-agile was already formulated like 5 years ago. The only source of progress in humanity/tech is a few folks that work on radically new and effective ideas the "corruptors" can't yet understand, giving them time to do something of importance. Once these "corruptors" catch up, it's over for that given area. Agile is also very flexible, so anyone can put its sticker on a BS du jour and stay safely within bozoland, never achieving anything and preventing others from accomplishing something as well.

<comment><USER5> Most accurate comment in the entire thread. Thank you!

Indeed, agile and its brother XP are pretty awesome concepts and ideas but have been heavily corrupted by well-paid "motivation experts" and "efficiency consultants".

Business loves making money on the back of people who don't understand a new concept well enough. I, like you, am sure that won't ever change.

<comment><USER23> > Most accurate comment in the entire thread. Thank you!

I don't know, there is another comment[1] that might be competing for that title.

Both comments are gold though!

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15413277](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15413277)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Agile is the large cargo culting the small.

Plus it completely ignores the real world. Ie the release date is usually set as early as the rfp response/pre_sales stage and requirements are usually legally signed off.

<comment><USER5> Yep. I find it pretty comical when an externally hired "Scrum expert" is trying to motivate the team and make them work faster (somehow) while he/she full well knows the shipping date of the final product is non-negotiable.

It's a circus and I have no idea why is it played. 90% of all devs I ever worked with see this bullshit a mile away and laugh about it in coffee breaks. In _every single place_ I worked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Agile isn't working, mostly because people focus on the processes. The thing they forget is the tech. If it takes days or weeks to verify that your code works how agile can you be? Or it's impossible to develop anything new because there are so many bugs. Or your tools are worthless and doesn't help you in development.

Also they keep forgetting that if your system is developed with waterfall or no development structure it just won't support an agile way of developing. It's Conway's law...

</comment><comment><USER26> Agile is just a model, it doesn't reflect the real world at all.

It all depends on the people working. If you have bad people that doesn't do shit it doesn't matter what development model you use because the output will be shit nonetheless.

You can have a waterfall based team that produces a lot of good stuff in short amounts of time and you can have an agile team that does the same. The model doesn't really change anything.

<comment><USER27> its not a model, it's a manifesto... and often what get's done as "agile" doesn't conform to the manifesto :)

<comment><USER26> Call it whatever you want, what I wrote is still true :)

<comment><USER27> Sort of, the point of Agile is if it is bad, then you know much sooner than with waterfall.

But if everything is so bad no matter what you do, then it's not really anything to do with how to do software development, it's a whole different problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "There's no accountability. All I get is excuses."

Clearly they didn't change everything. Given that statement, they failed to change the CEO's understanding of his role to becoming a servant leader vs. 'managing' a bunch of peons. If he's still walking around trying to tack accountability on anyone but himself at that point, he's the source of the problem and needs to fire himself.

<comment><USER5> I know right? Funny how managers NEVER ask themselves if they might be the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > Agile is worthless unless it serves as a catalyst for continuous > improvement.

Agile _is_ continuous adaptation of methods to the particular circumstances of the team (both it's tasks, and it's composition in terms of individuals.) That's _all_ Agile is.

The problem is that concrete fixed methodologies that are applied in the same way in widely divergent organizations under the oversight of gun-for-hire "master project managers" and other consultants, _the exact phenomenon Agile emerged as a reaction against_ , are now being sold with "Agile" attached to them as a hollow, meaningless buzzword.

The Agile movement is in part to blame, because while the Manifesto has a great statement of values, there is no concrete operationalization of them embraced by the movement that emphasizes adaptation of process. (Which is one way in which the Lean community is a somewhat better forum for similar values, since it emphasizes more high-level metamethodology around evaluating and adapting methods, making it somewhat more resistant to being converted into a label for fixed process.)

</comment><comment><USER30> > Which brings me to Agile. Agile is worthless unless it serves as a catalyst > for continuous improvement. Scrum and SAFe are worthless unless they serve > as a catalyst for continuous improvement.

Go back and read the Manifesto. Agile is not a process. Scrum is and maybe that's not working, but don't rip on Agile. It's four sentences.

</comment><comment><USER31> We've found that agile is really only part of the puzzle. As your business evolves, development has to evolve too.

If you've ever looked into DevOps, you've no doubt come across this "evolution" type image, with an ape type figure on the left, labelled "Waterfall" and on the right, you've got an android labelled "Continuous Operations". Along this evolutionary journey, you've got agile, lean, continuous integration, continuous delivery and continuous deployment.

Agile is just part of the journey, not the destination.

<comment><USER32> The most successful software I ever worked on was entirely waterfall. You do need extraordinarily competent customers to make it work, though. I see very few customers good enough for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Unplanned Work

I recently found this on how to deal with unplanned time when planning sprints: [https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/sprint-planning- fo...](https://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/sprint-planning-for-agile- teams-that-have-lots-of-interruptions)

It's not something I've seen discussed much elsewhere. Is there any other advice on this out there?

</comment><comment><USER33> It would be great to survey a large selection of software projects and see if Agile has positive or negative impact on the success.

My current view (not backed by any numbers) is that the majority of widely used software started as an spontaneous initiative by a small group of developers or even a single developer that didn't use any formal methodology.

<comment><USER4> Worth noting those that 'Agile' is not a formal methodology and are most likely a set of principles that are already followed by the sort of projects you are thinking of.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> agile is a manifesto, not a process :)

I started with Extreme Programming in 99, and watched the march to Agile tree hugging, hippy, non programming, consulting gold mine weirdness.

I barely know what people mean when they say "agile" now. I think anything that is some variation of scrum planning is considered agile

</comment><comment><USER34> I think the comments so far and their almost complete disparity in opinion from one another, is why agile mostly doesn't deliver its promise.

</comment><comment><USER35> Agile is like democracy and capitalism. They all are really bad, they're just better than the alternatives.

</comment><comment><USER36> Agile wasn't supposed to solve big problems of software development, like how efficiency scales down as you add more developers or why it's hard to predict how long it will take to deliver X.

Agile is about understanding why these difficulties exist in the first place by realizing the human aspects of software development, and provide an alternate model for software delivery that is based on a pragmatic understanding of the complexity of humans and of software.

It's more about realistic expectation calibration and compassionate project management than turning developers into highly predictable and efficient machines, which sounds a lot more like the folly of waterfall development with fixed goalposts set years in advance.

The problem is all the wrong people have jumped on Agile and are trying to use it to "solve" a perceived problem rather than using it to better understand the human condition and taking a more pragmatic and compassionate approach - yes with accepting "we dont know" is a valid answer to a lot of questions.

The core point of Agile has been lost, because the people now riding it to death never understood it in the first place.

<comment><USER37> Agile is the self-fulfilling truism that small, focused teams with a cooperative customer can create good software. If you create software in a contractually or regulatory heavyweight setting and are "doing agile", you're fooling yourself[0].

But people like cargo cults, so we should let them have their fun.

[0] For additional fun, we've had projects with 200 page of nonnegotiable specification that the customer wanted "to be done agile" (but any deviation from specification had contractual penalties attached).

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Related: Agile is Dead (Long Live Agility): [https://pragdave.me/blog/2014/03/04/time-to-kill- agile.html](https://pragdave.me/blog/2014/03/04/time-to-kill-agile.html)

From the blog post:

> And, unfortunately, I think time has proven me right. The word "agile" has > been subverted to the point where it is effectively meaningless, and what > passes for an agile community seems to be largely an arena for consultants > and vendors to hawk services and products.

> So I think it is time to retire the word "Agile."

> I don't think anyone could object to a ban on the word when it is used as a > noun. That's just plain wrong. "Do Agile Right" and "Agile for Dummies" are > just two of the innumerable attacks on the English language featuring the > word. They are meaningless. Agile is not a noun, it's an adjective, and it > must qualify something else. "Do Agile Right" is like saying "Do Orange > Right."

<comment><USER39> I've been cringing at nearly every comment in this thread using the word as a noun.

90% of the capital A processes I've seen are actually the degenerate cases of Scrum where the company has simply encoded crunch-time into a standard practice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Because Agile is a vehicle for selling books, consulting, training and speaking engagements. It was never intended to actually be used for producing real, working software in a commercial setting.

Those who can do, those who can't invent methodologies.

<comment><USER15> > ...those who can't invent methodologies.

Or they follow methodologies invented by others because they can't manage to get their own mess under control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I worked at Oracle for a few years in their database development group (internally known as "RDBMS"). You would be surprised to know that they follow a strictly waterfall process to perform database development. The results are horrible.

Process:

\- Let us say a release is planned for January 2018. Projects are decided around June 2017. By the way, In Oracle RDBMS, a project essentially means anything more than 5 lines of code change.

\- Each developer is assigned a project.

\- The developer is given a deadline to write a design spec by August 2017. Developer spends 3 months in writing a design spec. A lot of bike-shedding occurs for those 3 months on mundane topics like whether a certain timeout should be 0.5 seconds or 1 second.

\- Then the developer is given another deadline, say September 2017, to write a functional spec. More bike-shedding.

\- Then the developer is given yet another deadline, say October 2017, to write a test spec. More bike-shedding.

\- 5 months have passed and not a single line of code has been written. But 3 large documents with about 10000 words in total and another 10000 words of bike-shedding has been written.

\- Finally, the developer is given another deadline, say November 2017, to complete writing the code with tests.

Results:

\- Developer writes 10 lines of code and checks in their code by November 2017. Project completed!

\- Everything looks fine for a few days.

\- About a million or so tests run over the next few weeks. 1000s of tests are found to be broken. So much for 5 months of spec reviews! (Note: This happens for every such project, about 20 or so projects in a year.)

\- The bugs are distributed to various developers. It takes them another 12 months to figure why each test broke, how tightly every layer and corner of the code is coupled with each other, and how they are solving the biggest puzzles of their lives: How to fix one thing without breaking 10 more things?!

\- The original design, functional and test specs go out of the window. This is really bad time. Management is unhappy. Larry is unhappy! We got to fix those tests, no matter what it takes to fix them. Radical decisions are made as developers discover clever tricks to fix one part of the code while somehow finding a way to keep the other part of the code happy.

\- 12 months have passed. It is November 2018 now! (Remember, the project was scheduled to be released 11 months ago!) It looks like everything is fixed. The whole 10 line project is somehow held together by tests. Nothing appears to be broken. But nobody is really sure.

I am glad there are other saner companies where people understand that waterfall model development is flawed and embrace agility. Having done waterfall for a few years, agile development is a breath of fresh air where I can spend more time writing code than writing documents, where I can evolve the code based on actual user feedback rather than feedback from bike-shedding by people who have not contributed a single line of code to the software.</comment>


25+ Useful Infographics for Web Designers - <AUTHOR> http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/06/25-useful-infographics-for-web-designers/

<comment><USER2> "Useful" is questionable; it certainly does not apply to all of them. Having said that, there are some real jaw-droppers in this collection. Well worth a look.</comment>


Ask HN: Which modern-day truths do you think may be refuted in the future? - <AUTHOR> I'm always fasciated by what sort of truths we hold to be true that—we expect or better yet don't expect—to be refuted in the future.
For example, the classical cases in history around classical mechanics, geocentric cosmology, deterministic and predictability relationships, etc. <comment><USER2> Countries. The imaginary borders that separates humans from rest of the world.

History teaches us that any borders can be redrawn or eliminated completely.

I wanted to say "religion" but it is proven to be the sticky one.

<comment><USER3> Culture and community can bring out the best and worst in people. I would argue that it is better than none at all though.

Otherwise we will become one giant blob of humans for multinational corps to market to and control. Generations of culture are replaced by one mono-pop culture. The strings can be easily pulls.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, I think many ideas we hold about education and how that should work are probably going to be refuted in future. The idea that a physical school or college with lecture halls and classrooms is the 'best' way to learn likely isn't going to hold true much longer, nor are we always going to have teachers/professors standing in front of a class reading from a book/paper/whiteboard/PowerPoint presentation.

I think in future, we're going to figure out much better, more scientifically grounded ways of teaching people, and we'll look back at the current methods of teaching in the same way we do old school medicine with leeches, humors and elements.

Not sure which scientific truths/theories we'll see refuted and replaced though.

<comment><USER5> Attachment to a leader and/or parent seems to be a deep part of human personality. Especially in the first decade or two of life. I suppose a teacher-at-the-front could be replaced by a soft robot. But that's not a really large change in the method of education.

I do remember when learning calculus that I didn't really know integration and differentiation until I'd worked through a dozen or two of the homework problems. I could understand in class and nod my head, but would not be able to use that knowledge until I'd ground through enough example problems. That paradigm seems to be true for a lot of technical subjects and must be a result of the nature of human cognition.

And the world is getting even more scientific, more technological and more mathematical.

And those who teach writing emphasize that it is necessary to write a lot. A whole lot.

Recently popular has been the idea that to master any subject whatever requires 10,000 hours of practice. That idea has been attacked and taken down a peg, but not defeated; practice alone is never enough.</comment></comment>


The Typography of 'Stranger Things' - <AUTHOR> https://blog.nelsoncash.com/the-typography-of-stranger-things-e35771f40d31#.37yms804p <comment><USER2> I watched the show entirely on the strength of the title song; Netflix was playing promos for the show in the weeks leading up to its release, and I loved the music so much. It references classic 80s themes like _Terminator_ , as well as horror scores from the era, but is still modern and interesting. It isn't _merely_ nostalgic, just like the intro video sequence isn't merely nostalgic. They use modern techniques to manipulate classic imagery and sounds to come up with a thing that is both nostalgic _and_ novel. It's awesome.

The show isn't bad, either, but the intro really is a perfect thing. It gives me that weird creepy feeling I got from Stephen King movies on VHS when I was a kid. I feel like the composers and the folks behind the intro should be getting higher billing in the credits. It's so integral to the success of the show.

<comment><USER3> Wow I had a bad reaction to the show. I feel like half of it needed to head to the cutting room floor. Episodes are 48 minutes long, but very little interesting happens.

A lot of it is worn out tropes involving child and "teenage" actors that don't make it any more interesting to watch.

The photography is pretty uninspired and makes very little interesting use of composition, color, perspective, DOF. Sure you get a bone once in a while but most of it is pretty boring.

There is a passable few episodes in there somewhere waiting to be ruthlessly edited out. But really instead of subverting expectations in it's storytelling it hews very closely to the expectations that come with the tropes and genre. That puts a hard ceiling on how good it's ever going to be given that I'm not tuning in for the acting, sets, or photography.

<comment><USER2> The show is not as good as the intro. And, the show is, like the intro, an homage to a bunch of 80s stuff. If you didn't grow up loving Stephen King novels and movies, and the like, you may not sync up with the stories they're telling.

They really are retreading a bunch of 80s tropes; I enjoy it, but I recognize that the kids are rehashing a Spielberg-ian kidventure flick along the lines of Goonies or ET, the teenagers are stuck in a horror flick ala Friday the 13th, and the grownups are in a paranoid government conspiracy movie. Any of it would also fit comfortably into an X Files episode. I like all those things; even while I recognize they're pandering to my inner child. Then again, my girlfriend really likes it, too, and she's young enough to have not grown up on any of these things.

So, I don't know. I like it. It's not high art, but it's definitely fun pop culture, for me.

<comment><USER4> There's this interesting thing with the Netflix originals - they feel fantastically formulaic. Or, maybe a better way to put it - I feel like I can see the genes (memes?) in the story, and it comes out the better for it.

In my imagination, it starts with the data scientists identifying a gap or opportunity based on people's viewing habits - House of Cards being the prime example; a show by X staring Y in Z genre.

That provides the baseline; queue the writers raised on TV Tropes. I don't think there's an intact trope in the whole show; anything that is primarily subverted has sub-tropes done straight; anything done straight has sub-tropes subverted.

The Marvel series do this the least; the pure Netflix originals do this the most. I'd say maybe you could call it "high craft"? Like Michelangelo versus Picasso.

<comment><USER2> House of Cards had the British version to build on, so it's not entirely a Netflix taste triangulation.

But, the CEO or somebody from Netflix has actually spelled out in the past that though they're taking risks in making a bunch of their own content, the risk is smaller than it has historically been. They know the taste of their audience (on a nearly individual level) better than any entertainment company in history ever has. And, they extract the value of their viewers directly and without middlemen, unlike almost every other entertainment company in history. So, for them, a successful show is one that brings in X number of new subscribers and keeps them around through multiple seasons...and that X number is smaller than it's ever needed to be.

So, you're right; they _are_ triangulating in on very specific sub-genres and very specific audiences in ways that entertainment companies in the past couldn't afford to do. This is long-tail television production. Stranger Things, while it is a niche market, is actually one of the bigger niche markets they've tapped into, thus far. It's gotten far more buzz than a lot of the other Netflix original programming.

So, they're either getting better at the triangulation (likely) or they got lucky with this particular toss at the dart board of niche programming, or maybe it's a little of both. And, maybe the people making this show happened to be particularly passionate about it, and it shows in the attention to detail; they're having fun with it, and it makes it fun for viewers who like this sort of thing (or, are at least nostalgic about it...I don't read/watch Stephen King novels/movies very frequently as an adult, but loved them as a kid).

I find the quality of the Netflix originals to vary pretty wildly, and I don't get hooked on most of them. But, I enjoyed Stranger Things. It's a fun escapist bit of entertainment. It's no House of Cards, or even Orange is the New Black, in terms of quality, but it delivers very effectively on what it promises.

I wonder how well Stranger Things is doing among viewers who aren't old enough to have grown up surrounded by this stuff? I know many of my friends on facebook are hooked, but mostly the ones really talking about it are around my age. It's an interesting phenomenon, I think; the stuff it is paying homage to and modeled after was mostly targeted at kids and young adults, but the people most excited about it are maybe middle aged. Weird how that happens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I liked how this show was set in the eighties, but wasn't about them. It could almost have been made thirty years ago.

One of my other recent title sequence favourites is 'Halt and Catch Fire'[1], again set in the 80s, in no small part because of the nod towards Apple's advertising fonts[2].

[1][https://vimeo.com/97089384](https://vimeo.com/97089384)

[2][http://i.imgur.com/xuCBYgZ.png](http://i.imgur.com/xuCBYgZ.png)

<comment><USER6> When I started watching it I was expecting some cringe-worthy 80s nostalgia panning, but it was very tasteful. The little universe they set up for themselves is taken very seriously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm glad I'm not the only one who has rewound just to watch the intro again. It's typographic pornography.

Stranger Things is one of the best shows I've seen in a while. That 53 seconds is still the best part every time though.

<comment><USER8> Is coining a new portmanteau in order?

TYPORNOGRAPHY

<comment><USER9> This is a complaint I have in most "___-Porn" instances... Why porn? It feels like the wrong context most of the time.

Porn is graphic, over stimulating and often without class or artistic direction.

Typography is an art. Great typography is subtle, often soothing and harmonious. It's not porn.

I get some earth-porn stuff because we in cities live so removed from nature that it's like BAM, Massive Earth In Your Face.

I don't know, it just feel gross to call good typography porn. Good typography is like an athlete in motion or a perfectly fitted outfit on a beautiful model.

Don't take the complaint personally, I get that it's "a thing".

<comment><USER10> > This is a complaint I have in most "___-Porn" instances... Why porn?

I think the term reflects exuberant hedonism and/or complete lack of inhibition exhibited by, or in appreciating the said ___-porn activity. In my mind, it's similar to saying "unapologetic ____", but in a positive sense of the word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The typography and music composition both communicate volumes for this show. The band (SURVIVE) behind most of the compositions is totally stellar too... [https://survive.bandcamp.com/](https://survive.bandcamp.com/)

</comment><comment><USER12> There was a wonderful post [1] on r/italy (unfortunately in Italian), by a guy that works in cinema that explained all this and more.

He explains not only the motion blur and the film grain, but also things like how color shift when white fades out (it's about different color sensitivity curves in real film).

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/italy/comments/4te9hl/stranger_thin...](https://www.reddit.com/r/italy/comments/4te9hl/stranger_things_una_sequenza_dei_titoli_che/)?

<comment><USER13> > also things like how color shift when white fades out (it's about different > color sensitivity curves in real film)

This is my favorite detail - very subtle and authentic looking. I was hoping someone could explain it, thanks for the pointer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This show was a great watch for me, and I think the typography and music were absolutely _key_ in doing so. The entire feel of the show was a reminder of my youth, and I had a lot of fun with Stranger Things.

<comment><USER15> The music reminds me of John Carpenter e.g. Escape from New York, Halloween etc.

<comment><USER16> It's an entire genre from the early 2000s called "synthwave" (or "retrowave"). The band that did the intro is called S U R V I V E, some other noteworthy bands are GUNSHIP and Kavinsky. They're heavily inspired by 80s movies, particularly John Carpenter's.

<comment><USER17> It sounds like from all the talk I keep hearing about the intro is that people are discovering how much they like retrowave.

There are tons of artists on Spotify/YouTube for this genre to check out too which is a good thing.

<comment><USER15> @pluma @res0nat0r thanks for that, I did not know that there was an entire genre. I'll definitely look into it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Typographically, see also the Lucasfilm logo.

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

I'm not really getting the excitement. I remember this look from the 80s and it's... a look I remember from the 80s.

The music is half Carpenter and half late 1970s Tangerine Dream with more oscillator detuning than usual - e.g. the score TD did for a William Friedkin movie called Sorcerer.

</comment><comment><USER19> Additional reading from the type archivists at Fonts in Use: [http://fontsinuse.com/uses/13992/stranger- things](http://fontsinuse.com/uses/13992/stranger-things)

A few nice quotes about the design direction and a pair of comments at the end with illustrations of the source material with the original cut of Benguait.

</comment><comment><USER6> One other tiny detail I noticed was that the text (and not just the red glowing title) flickered slightly as if you were watching a VHS.

<comment><USER20> It goes deeper. Look at some lights in the main programme: the way they have glowing halos. Especially the red lights in the opening sequence of ep1, or the bike headlights when they are facing the camera. It's probably CGI for cost reasons, but it's been deliberately done "badly" so it looks like traditional effects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you love 80s kinetic typography porn check out this music video Justice put out a few years ago: [https://vimeo.com/30371091](https://vimeo.com/30371091)

<comment><USER22> Wow. Really well done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I watched the entire Stranger Things season all in one sitting. Sadly, the opening title and musical score was the best part of it. I was completely pumped when I heard a show based in 80's nostalgia was coming to Netflix. Unfortunately that was about all it offered. It ticked off every 80's cliche; Stephen King fonts, Spielbergesque characters and settings, tired cop given a second chance to do something meaningful, single mom raising boys away from a deadbeat dad, group of nerdy young kids solving issues on their BMX bikes, alien hiding in a shed (ET), and a secret megacorp coverup. The story was completely uninspiring, that even some exceptional acting couldn't rescue. The actress playing Eleven was fantastic! But Winona Ryder was WAS over dramatic.

</comment><comment><USER24> I _LOVED_ the show, but hated the intro because it broke into the binge watching flow. Eg, because it was not at the beginning and/or just after "previous episode" scenes meant that it didn't get auto-skipped when binge watching. So it interrupted my viewing experience every hour or so.

Yeah, I know, first world problems.

</comment><comment><USER25> Anybody else notice in the first episode that the automatic dishwasher in the diner had red and blue PEX lines?

<comment><USER26> Can you explain this a bit, please? What are PEX lines?

<comment><USER27> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross- linked_polyethylene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-linked_polyethylene)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> ITC Avant Garde has made such a comeback in recent years I almost forget it's a 70s font.

</comment><comment><USER29> The score reminds me of Mass Effect and makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

</comment><comment><USER30> This show was the complete package and one of the most entertaining shows I've watched in some time. It had something for everyone. I can't wait for season 2.

</comment><comment><USER31> Low content comment: I love that someone wrote this, because I was literally wondering if an article with this title would show up on HN.

Really cool typography (also a fantastic show). I know almost nil about the subject, but the title font also reminds me a lot of Friz Quadrata [1], the font famously used by Black Flag, which gives me another kind of 80s nostalgia.

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

<comment><USER32> Friz Quadrata is arguably more famously used as the interface font for World of Warcraft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The lettering of this title is indeed thoroughly thought through. By the way many Chinese movies these day present very nice eye-pleasers from a typographycal perspective. Its a pity the Western eye lacks criteria for admiration of those.</comment>


Who's afraid of sugar? - <AUTHOR> https://theoutline.com/post/2418/who-s-afraid-of-sugar <comment><USER2> All that and no answer to Dr. Robert Lustig, an endocrinologist at UCSF? Not even a mention?

Sorry, but it's hard to take an article seriously that does not even engage in the actual facts or debate.

Here's "Sugar: The Bitter Truth," Lustig's breakthrough talk that changed the world: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

<comment><USER3> Maybe you know why sugar is demonized, but starch gets a pass? Is starch not chains of glucose? Calorie for calorie, is white bread not actually twice as fattening as an caloric equivalent amount of sugar?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's the best place to hire remote freelance developers? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> [https://www.moonlightwork.com/](https://www.moonlightwork.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "What is your favorite place to find work" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15646550](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15646550) from last week has a couple of good leads.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, thanks!</comment></comment>


Android to launch TensorFlow Lite for mobile machine learning - <AUTHOR> https://venturebeat.com/2017/05/17/android-launches-tensorflow-lite-for-mobile-machine-learning/ <comment><USER2> The most important part of the announcement seems to be about hardware acceleration. Maybe it's something like Qualcomm NPE?

[https://developer.qualcomm.com/software/snapdragon-neural- pr...](https://developer.qualcomm.com/software/snapdragon-neural-processing- engine)

<comment><USER3> It'll be cool to see what Qualcomm releases. Until then, there's already some released Tensorflow code that will run on the Hexagon DSP in a Snapdragon 820: [https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/tree/master/tensorf...](https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/tree/master/tensorflow/contrib/hvx)

You can run it on a rooted OnePlus 3t (or a OnePlus 3 if you find one used).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So I assume it will be similar to this ? It almost sounds like they would keep the interface to this but redesign how it uses the specialty chips. [https://www.tensorflow.org/mobile/](https://www.tensorflow.org/mobile/)

<comment><USER5> I'd like to know how it's different from that at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interesting, I'm wondering if it will be more popular to learn ML model on mobile or just to deploy model on mobile and run predictions.

<comment><USER7> It's going to be resource intensive, aren't your users going to hate you for draining their battery?

<comment><USER8> It'd be interesting to compare the power drain of running the model vs transmitting the data to a server, waiting for the response, and then acting on it. Even if it's still worse, it might be worth the responsiveness and reduction of data usage.

<comment><USER9> Not to mention that training can be done somewhat "out of band". So you can have your phone train on data while charging overnight to get better predictions the next day.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Design Better Emails – Free collection of editable popular emails - <AUTHOR> https://www.canvasflip.com/design-better-emails/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hello hackers, do you struggle with designing and coding new marketing emails every time? Here's your all-in-one solution for email inspiration and editing, both. Just pick an email, edit it within browser and copy/paste to your favorite emailing too - Mailchimp, Sendgrid or even Gmail. That's it!! Sounds awesome, isn't it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Design Better Email is in public beta and available only for Hacker News community. We are looking for feedback and if it works, we will bring in more templates - emails and website, both.

With special thanks for awesome folks at ReallyGoodEmail.. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Awesome email template collections. Editing email template by using visual inspector is super cool and fun.</comment>


Congress Introduces Bill to Ban Federal Agencies from Using Facial Recognition - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qj4jkx/congress-introduces-bill-to-ban-federal-agencies-from-using-facial-recognition <comment><USER2> It's not so cut and dried. Some of this tech will benefit society by identifying bad actors and putting them behind bars. In this day and age, you need to upgrade your stack to keep up with the criminals. If privacy and civil liberties are a concern, figure out a legal way to ensure they are not encroached upon. Don't just ban it outright.</comment>


Waymo's self-driving cars are now available on Lyft's app in Phoenix - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/7/18536003/waymo-lyft-self-driving-ride-hail-app-phoenix <comment><USER2> Important to note they will still have a safety driver for now, so we're still a little ways away from true driverless ride sharing. I'm betting sometime next year fully driverless rides will be available on select routes.</comment>


You and Your (Great) Research - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/hamming.html <comment><USER2> This seems to be a follow on to <http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=13177.>

After reading this essay several years ago, I started asking all visiting professors, "What are the important problems in your field?" (I'm a PhD student in Astrophysics.)

I realized something. Contrary to the article, most great scientists don't really care what the answer to that question is. Most great scientists love a topic, and through the greatness of their research, make the topic important.

The universe is wonderful in that way. You can study something as lowly as a comet, and it can help you understand how the universe began. Scientists who can tie these subjects together are great scientists.

To tie this thread into startups. Ideas are a dime a dozen. It's implementation that matters.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The transcript of the talk is not by pg, but _Richard Hamming_. [0], [1] I found this particular talk poking through the links on 'Good & Bad Procrastination'. [2] Does anyone have a definitive list of pg articles on the site? It never ceases to amaze how many I find going through the links.

Reference

[0] Richard Hamming Obit., 'Richard Wesley Hamming, mathematician, pioneer computer scientist, and professor'

<http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/alumni/hamming/index.html>

[1] Wikipedia, Richard Hamming, 'Hamming code, the Hamming window , Hamming numbers, Sphere-packing, Hamming distance'

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

[2] pg, ''Good & Bad Procrastination'

<http://www.paulgraham.com/procrastination.html>

<comment><USER3> There's an index at <http://paulgraham.com/ind.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> doh, thx. In all the time I've been reading this has alluded me. Should have guessed a compressed title ... [some time later] ... double doh! it's in the menu.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was thinking the other day about why it was that so many of the smartest people work only a couple hours a day, which relates to the open door theory proposed in this speech. Joel Spolsky mentioned doing this in the article linked to from here yesterday, and I remember Chris Sacca saying that people really only did an hour or two of quality work every day at Google. My thinking was that the people we typically think of as smart are the people who are innovative and come up with new ideas. And new ideas tend to come from combining two or more fields. Which would give people who are a little bit ADD a huge advantage, though at the same time reducing the amount of actual work they are able to do on a day to day basis.

<comment><USER5> I agree, up to the last part that "at the same time reducing the amount of actual work they are able to do on a day to day basis". It is well known that time is not directly proportional to productivity. It's more like time x skill = productivity. So the most productive people probably work fewer hours, but are more productive than the average person working 8 hours a day. See Mythical Man Month by Brooks and Great Hackers by pg ( <http://paulgraham.com/gh.html> ).</comment></comment>