One Bad "Policy Change" Email Can Kill Company Culture - <AUTHOR> http://moz.com/rand/one-bad-policy-change-email-can-kill-company-culture/ <comment><USER2> I totally agree that how one communicates influences corporate culture, and the second email is a better communication than the first. They both suggest to me, though, a company which reaches for a broad, expensive technological (+) solution to solve a narrow, cheap people problem.

\+ There might not be code involved, but you're imposing a state machine, so it's tech even if it is taught in the business school.

How you communicate policy changes is important, but if your communication includes "How do we massage the fact that we know this is going to inconvenience everyone in our organization regarding one of the core benefits they perceive from working here?", _communication is not the problem_. The only corporate culture problem there is that the hypothetical CEO did not say "As custodian of the corporate culture, I think that working-from-home is too important to us to touch. What other options do we have?"

(One possible solution: If three people with different managers are routinely ducking meetings that have to take place, have three quiet conversations. Another possible solution: if three people with different managers are routinely ducking meetings, have three quiet conversations with their managers about how any person who can be optimized out of a meeting should be because their time is valuable.)

[Edit: It occurs to me that I glossed over the point in the blog post where they actual business rationale is presented: "Company X has been having trouble with abuse of work-from-home privileges. Managers are finding that more and more people are getting less accomplished and a primary suspect is a lack of coming into the office." I had gotten my understanding of the problem, like employees, from the second email. If that is indeed the business rationale, I revise my opinion of the second email: it is terrible _because it is lying to me_ , in a way which makes the policy seem insane. Hilariously, when I read it now I find myself actually _distrusting the hypothetical problem statement_ \-- which is dicta for the purpose of this exercise -- because in light of being lied to I find myself thinking "Management, who we have established are liars, are probably too incompetent to actually measure people's productivity. I wonder what the _real_ reason for this is?"]

<comment><USER3> I completely agree with your edit.

The meta-meta issue here is that the 'policy change' (in the example) is a way for some (maybe all) managers to avoid an actual conversation with folks who work for them about what they are getting done. But that is what managers are supposed to do, have those hard conversations, its part of the reason the job is 'different' then being just a technical leader.

The hypothetical CEO has a real problem, things that need to get done aren't, or they aren't being done in a timely fashion. The managers that work for them (in a small company it might be one layer in a larger company two) need to talk with their teams about what they are doing and how they are doing it. And if someone on the team is spending a lot of time at home, and the manager isn't seeing them getting stuff done, then they need to have a talk _with that person_. Another scenario is that you talk to one of your people and they keep getting road blocked trying to get something done and the person they need to work with isn't in the office. That discussion is also straight forward, you tell the person who works at home that they either have to make it as easy for the people in the office who depend on them to work with them as if they were in the office, or they have to be in the office.

Most employees get that the company is a 'for profit' concern, and if you are straight up with them about these things I find the ones you want to keep respond the way you would hope they do.

<comment><USER4> I totally agree with the "meta-meta issue".

I realize this isn't the point of the original article, but I couldn't get around the fact that either way the theoretical CEO phrased it he was basically saying "Because of a few people abusing a privilege and our management team being too spineless to confront them individually, now everyone at the company has to be penalized. kthx bye."

<comment><USER5> It's also a permanent change in response to temporary problem.

If the email said we have a significant problem with X, we are considering our options, but it a big problem so for the next 3 months we are going to do Y, and while we work out a better long term solution.

And then 3 months from now they say: Core work hours are 11:00am-3:00pm and you are expected to be online and available then even while working from home. Each team is expected to come up with a mandatory 1 or 2 days a week where everyone is expected to be here for core work hours. You no longer need specific permission to WFH on non mandatory days.

Then yes, it's a big change, but it's more likely to seem reasonable AND it seems like people spent a while deciding on a reasonable solution vs. someone randomly sending a quick email.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To: email@example.com

From: email@example.com

Subject: Time & Management Communication

Hi everyone,

Over the last month, our employees have been concerned that our CEO spends about half his time drafting fiats from his office with the assistance of his executive staff.

One challenge has been how to fill these emails with as much management jargon as possible. Words like "collaboration", "visibility", "communication delays" and "productivity" probably aren't enough as when I'm either in the office or at home I find that these specific emails cause me to run out of filler words.

Consequently, we've decided to do something different and get more focus on this problem domain. If you're planning on doing any work, please put it aside for an hour and see if you can find any words we might have missed. As you can see, I've started to do this myself, starting with this email, having already found innovative uses for the words "focus", "problem domain" and "challenge".

Both the management team and I know that you've all been working super hard lately and this might be seen as a pain. I'm sorry for that. But, as we've learned from so many things expanding our business, management's time is valuable and we are just spending too much of it drafting these emails. Your lists of words are invaluable and will ultimately make life easier for everyone.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, even if you feel like we are total boneheads that's ok. After all, that's why we need your skills in expanding our vocabulary - an informed company is a great company!

Thanks gang,

Douglas

<comment><USER7> Absolutely agree. This is how the email should look like:

"Hi Everyone,

Starting next week if you want to work from home you must send an explanatory writeup to your manager who will decide whether to allow it."

On a tangential issue: I hate when people sign their emails (especially internal ones) when there's a perfectly serviceable from field. If you have to then please be thoughtful and use the -- signature convention.

<comment><USER8> I don't like your proposed email, because it proscribes a solution without describing the problem.

<comment><USER9> Neither of the given examples were a search for alternative solutions to the problem. If you're after suggestions, that's cool - but when you're giving orders, call them orders.

<comment><USER10> No, but at least the second one explains the problem — or at least what is perceived as the problem — it's trying to solve.

Which opens up the ability for discussion of alternative solutions, or the criticism of there being a problem at all.

<comment><USER9> Which is a miscommunication, if the CEO is not actually open to such discussion or criticism.

<comment><USER11> The title of the article was "...Kill Company Culture", not "...Demonstrate that the Company is Dead".

If the CEO (or the intervening levels of company) are not open for discussion, the choice of email really doesn't matter. If they _are_ , and the terse, uncommunicative, fiat email is sent out inadvertently, then that email is damaging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Meh. The long version is massively worse. I got to the end of it and was left confused about what, specifically, I could expect. I definitely prefer the initial "bad" version. (Though I would make it shorter.)

If you want to add explanation, make that short and sweet as well.

Here is an example following the lines of the first that is even shorter.

 _To: firstname.lastname@example.com From: firstname.lastname@example.com Subject: New Work-From-Home Policy

Everyone,

Our work from home policy is changing next week. Employees wishing to do so must get an OK in advance from their manager. This is to improve progress on projects that depend on collaboration in house.

Managers, if your employee is not currently working on a project where in house collaboration is critical, please be generous in OKing working from home requests.

As always, please send feedback to firstname.lastname@example.com.

Joe_

That message explains the policy, indicates why, and should leave people with comfort that a favored perk is not simply being eliminated wholesale.

If you want fuller context for my advice, I highly recommend buying [http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will- Listen/dp/038081196...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Talk-Kids-Will- Listen/dp/0380811960) and reading it. (Ignore the bit about that advice being for kids - it works with grownups as well.)

<comment><USER13> This is far better than either of the sample emails in the article, but I would cut out the second stanza - communication to managers about management shouldn't really be global.

<comment><USER12> Why shouldn't communication to managers be global? In this case it is an important part of managing expectations, which is part of culture.

With it in, people have a pretty good sense of whether they are likely to be impacted. With it out, people will assume that they are impacted whether they are or not, and will resent it. Also including it in what everyone got significantly reduces the risk that some low-level manager who never liked the work from home policy will try to eliminate it locally.

Those strike me as pretty good reasons to leave it in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I disagree. I don't see any difference between email 1 and email 2 except for email 2 has a bunch more filler words.

If I was to rewrite this it'd look something like this:

        To: firstname.lastname@example.com
        From: firstname.lastname@example.com
        Subject: New Work-From-Home Policy

        Hi Everyone,

        All of upper management have just put in their notice!
        Bagels in the break room!

        Joe

What I mean to suggest is this type of email should NEVER be sent out in the first place. Blanket "Policy Changes" like this that impact everyone is a complete failure of management. This puts at-risk every employee you have.

Whatever reason for making the policy change (person X is not following the rules) needs to be resolved otherwise discontent and resentment will build (You know why this happened probably because Frank works from home ALL THE TIME).

<comment><USER15> I don't buy that.

Policies aren't intrinsically bad - guidance is fine and great for new starters to help them understand how stuff works.

The implication here is that if someone is out of line then their manager should take that up one on one. That's fine (and right) but the other side of it is how do they know what "in line" is if it's never codified and communicated?

<comment><USER16> No, policies aren't inherently bad, but wide-sweeping policy changes for _perceived_ problems or in response to relatively few bad actors are company killers. You might not see it right away, but your people who have options will leave you eventually.

<comment><USER17> The part that's bad in email 2 is "we've decided". No one likes being a slave to anothers will or reminded of the fact.

If I ever send out a bs policy update without discussing informally with staff or managers beforehand I expect everyone here to walk.

We spend a lot of money hiring talent. They do whatever the fuck they want so long as they get the job done. If they're not getting the job done, then we talk. We don't punish everone for one guys non performance.

Bad policy emails are a sign of weak management.

<comment><USER18> Wait, what are you talking about? WE decided? MY best interests? How do you know what MY best interest is? How can you say what MY best interest is? What are you trying to say?

<comment><USER19> I'M crazy? When I went to YOUR schools, I went to YOUR churches, I went to YOUR institutional learning facilities? So how can you say I'M crazy?

<comment><USER20> All I wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi, and she wouldn't give it to me!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Generally these fail when nobody believes the rationale. So in the 'work from home' example, everyone will believe that management doesn't think people are working hard enough and so they want people at the office where they can watch.

I watched a number of these types of emails get sent out at Google while I was there, changes in 'policy' which were really reducing the kinds of things Google used to do that cost money and they didn't want to spend that money any more. Nearly everyone I queried 'read between the lines' and picked up a 'your screwing us and trying to make it look like your not' message, even if the Eric and the others didn't think that was what they were saying.

Perhaps only way to message this is in the results direction. Something like:

"Hey Team, we need to ship the X project because its vital to the company, That means we're going to meet every day at lunch time (we'll provide lunch) to make sure everyone has what they need and are getting stuff done. See ya there."

Then let people work around the requirement to suit their needs.

<comment><USER21> I agree with being more forthright, but any company that believes the answer to a tight deadline is to have more meetings is doomed doomed doooooomed.

<comment><USER22> Disagree. Depends on the meeting.

If you're on a tight deadline, there are different workgroups involved, a quick meeting can ..

Get all parties talking.

Coordinate resources.

Etc.

Spend 10 minutes doing this, break until the next meeting, or agree to skip it, depending on circumstances.

Now, if you get stuck with a manager who insists on rambling on .. and on .. then yeah: big time waster.

<comment><USER21> I agree with both you and ChuckMcM that occasional meetings, carefully targeted and run, can help. But he was describing having meetings _every day_ , which I think is completely nuts. If you decide to have _one_ meeting to figure out where communication needs to happen, that's fine, but regularly scheduled meetings without even having something specific to meet about are crazy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> So I like what he's trying to say but his "this is how to do it mail" makes a few mistakes:

1) Paragraph two says almost nothing. Overall the mail is too long for what it needs to say. Don't kid yourself that extra bulk makes bad news more attractive it doesn't, it just irritates people that you're wasting their time as well as doing stuff they don't like. If you want a bullshit free mail, always check the length - if it's longer than it has to be there's a good chance that a lot of the excess is bullshit.

2) The second one makes one of the worst mistakes in these situations and goes with the "I'm one of you" approach. In my experience little gets people's backs up more than this. As CEO you're not one of the team when it comes to this stuff. Yes you can make out you're doing it but volunteering information is different to being asked for it - it doesn't have the implied lack of trust. As a general rule don't pretend you're the same unless you're sure you really are in every way, not just superficial ones.

3) Different writing styles and all but I'd never include an exclamation mark in a "bad news" e-mail. Exclamation marks usually say funny / whacky, neither of which are things you want anywhere near bad news.

All that said, paragraphs one, three and four are good, actually very good - explains what's happening and why. If I got those with a straight forward friendly sign-off I'd probably be fine. I may even nick them as an example.

<comment><USER23> I doubt that he went through his whole process for this example email but here are my thoughts (at the risk of over-analysing).

1) Para 1 and 2 provide a reference frame from which to consider the rest of the email. Yes, length can sound bullshitty but used well it can also provide helpful context. In this specific example I do agree that it could be shorter but not necessarily by much. Para 1 by itself doesn't say enough.

2) This is _highly_ dependent on the type of company. I guess for Moz-ers this is usual (same for the sign-off).

3) Normally I'd agree with you but in this example there's only one and it work in the email's favour (for me at least).

<comment><USER15> Point 1 is interesting as some people like more bulk and context, others are just yeah, yeah, yeah, get on with it. Broadly I think the mail is too long and this was the paragraph that stood out, but I accept that different people might see it differently.

Point 2 I still disagree on. I don't think it depends on the company at all - saying you'll put something in your diary isn't the same as being asked to account for your time. One is voluntary, the other isn't. You know the CEO is only doing it to try and put himself in the same position but you also know he's not the one who isn't trusted.

CEOs aren't the same as the rest of us. They're answerable in completely different ways, for different things. Yes they need to limit their "special treatment" but it's a mistake for them to pretend that the same rules apply to them because everyone knows it isn't true (and so long as they're doing their jobs and treating us OK, that's fine).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't like either email.

Assuming we have open communication, I would respond to the CEO's email and propose implementing a different policy - if we are expected to come to the noisy distracting office where it is hard to get work done, managers must send an email asking us, explaining why it is necessary, and it will be up to the engineer's discretion to determine whether or not he wants to lower his productivity by coming in.

<comment><USER8> I would ask for hard numbers, per-employee.

I realize you can't just single out employees in an e-mail; this wouldn't fly:

"Robert, Helen and Ricky are required to get approval from their manager before working from home. John, Ed and Taavi can work remotely at any time."

But at the same time, if I'm provably more productive working from home than I am in the office, requiring me to get approval is counter-productive.

(On the gripping hand, if I am more productive at home, all of my requests ought to get approved, provided that my manager is aware of the facts.)

<comment><USER24> Yes, the problem in the given scenario is that there is a certain number of specific employees who are saying they are working from home but are doing shopping, taking the kids to school and doctor, watching TV, running errands, surfing the net and so forth, never getting around to actually doing any work.

As you point out, the "approval method" is a elaborate attempt to hide the fact that unproductive employees ABC are now not allowed to work from home and productive employees DEF are still allowed to. Rather than communicate this directly to persons ABC, an elaborate system of misleading emails is constructed.

A more effective and less damaging way to handle this is to meet individually with the specific persons who are having problems and explain it has become clear they are not productive when working from home, and so they'll have to work from their office from now on. And if that doesn't work out, then they can be dismissed.

Instead of handling this situation in the obvious manner, which would be effective and would not publicly shame anyone, we have two emails proposed to be sent to the entire company establishing a global policy to deal with a minority of people who are having problems. The wording doesn't matter, the problem is that the email is sent to everyone to deal with a specific problem with specific employees.

This is done this way because management is comprised of ineffective cowards who are terrified of confrontation and communication.

These emails show that the real problem here is highly ineffective management. To improve things management needs to change their ways or get out.

<comment><USER25> > This is done this way because management is comprised of ineffective cowards > who are terrified of confrontation and communication.

This one sentence sums up why managers won't directly confront these problems, but instead apply new policies to the whole group: Employees often lack empathy for their managers, and when given criticism, will take it very personally. (I'm not blaming employees. I think this is human nature.) Managers don't want to risk pissing off an employee who, while good, has one or two things that could be improved. Better to have a slightly less happy but still productive employee.

That's not to say that the policies are often not asinine, but my suspicion is that draconian policies are often the result of management not having enough time to deal with the issue in an intelligent way combined with a small handful of employees who don't make good judgements when left to their own discretion.

<comment><USER8> > Employees often lack empathy for their managers

You're very right. I've only had one boss I disliked/didn't respect, but I've always worked at small companies.

At larger companies, managers are more beholden to _their_ bosses than you. At my current company, my manager knows that I provide value to the company, so if his boss told him to fire me, he'd fight for me. Empathy: granted.

If I were working at say, IBM, seventeen levels down from the CEO, the manager would be more worried about being fired by his boss than he would be about my loss of productivity. So if his boss told him to fire me, I'd be out looking for a new job. Empathy: lost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I agree that email #2 is marginally better than #1, but I'd not be thrilled by either one. Here's why:

1\. I am all about respect, and I tend to take things personally (yeah, it's a character flaw, but whatever). If you send an email that even hints that you don't respect me and my judgment enough to just leave me alone and get my job done, it's going to rub me the wrong way and create an antagonistic feeling. My feeling is going to be "if you don't trust me, why am I working here?"

2\. I wasn't consulted about a change that's going to affect me. Unilateral policy changes that aren't based on input from the people affected by the change are mondo bogus. This is also going to get my goat and annoy me to no end.

All of that said, I agree that people focus on the negative more than the positive, and that one "bad" email can outweigh 10 "good" emails (if there is such a thing).

My theory is that everybody has a mental balance scale tucked away in their heads, labeled "quit my job" with the ends labeled "yes" and "no". At any given time, neither bucket is completely empty, but it's usually fairly evenly balanced. But if enough little things build up and build up and build up on the "yes" side, eventually it tips the scale. Emails of this sort are definite additions to the "yes" side of the "quit my job" scale.

<comment><USER26> Ha, I was just thinking about this in a very similar way the other day.

Employee happiness is basically Good Will > Bullshit. Good Will is things like flexible working hours, office perks, interesting projects. Bullshit is anything that the employee percieves negatively.

Retention builds on this. It's Good Will + Compensation > Bullshit. Compensation here can be salary or benefits. Many employees can be unhappy (Good Will < Bullshit), but not quit because they need the money or whatever. But, at some point, the BS will outweigh even good compensation, and that's when employees quit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Of course the second email sounds better: it's an entirely different message.

Email #1 says: "If you want to work from home, ask for permission with an explanation."

Email #2 says: "If you want to work from home, let us know when."

Email #1 demands that you ask permission. _That's what kills the culture._ Most managers are going to approve 99% of the time anyway, so skip the power trip. The message of email #2 doesn't mean you lose the ability to deny either.

</comment><comment><USER28> He's trying to manage through policies. Not gonna work. If you have 50 people under you, there are 50 different situations to consider.

For example: Joe has been working at home because his wife just had a complicated labor and needs help at home for a while. Better leave that one alone. Frank has been working at home because yeah, he's slacking. You should already have fired him, but you're a coward. Eric has been working at home because he's depressed about his carer arc and hates the office environment, and he's one of your best employees. Go talk to him and fix it before he quits! Lisa hasn't actually been working at home at all. She's on the road this week helping a third party integrate with your system, and you even knew about that but forgot when you saw a bunch of empty desks in the office and snapped.

You can't abstract away the heterogeneous nature of your employees. You have to talk to each one and deal with them individually. Yes, it's hard.

<comment><USER29> Yep. If people aren't meeting expected reasonable results for no good reason, that's the issue in a nutshell, and that's the issue to deal with directly. The issue has nothing to do _per se_ with working from home, so no fix should mention that aspect, especially not to a whole team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> To me, the real difference is knowing _why_. If you don't tell me why, I'm going to assume the worst. And history has shown that at least one of my co- workers will, too, and he or she will go around to everyone else and talk about these fears. Since they can't be countered (co-workers don't have any information about the situation), the fears will fester and rot until someone finally does explain the situation.

In most companies, that explanation _never_ comes. After you've been there a few years, you've got an insane backlog of things you're still worried about. You'll probably have forgotten most of them at any given time, but it just takes a small trigger to bring it back to active memory.

That's the real morale killer.

</comment><comment><USER31> _If you're at a company where these sorts of communications aren't considered strategically, you might try talking to your managers/execs about it. I bet that more than 50% of the time, there's a good reason and good motivation underneath those overly-corporate, soul-destroying emails. Convincing them that being more open about the reasons and more considerate in the presentation will have a positive impact probably won't take much work._

This was a great post and of great value to me as I get started building a company where I want to create a better than status quo culture (the Valve post is also great, so far it's been a good morning).

However, I had to laugh at the comment above a bit. If you are in a company that has this sort of problem, it probably isn't the e-mails that are destroying company culture but the culture that's creating the soul destroying "policy" e-mails and micro-management. Trying to change that culture by gently suggesting ways to "frame things" differently is going to be about as effective trying to dig _up_. But hey, good luck anyways.

</comment><comment><USER32> > _"Office Happiness Update."_

I've had many emails like this. _Dilbert_ , _Office Space_ , _Brazil_ , C Stross, all parody this kind of thing excellently.

His suggestion is much to wordy. Some people will have a bad feeling before they start to read it, and the conversational positive tone doesn't really stop that feeling.

I look forward to the ever-happy always positive dystopian science fiction.

<comment><USER33> While doing some research [1] on the 1990s "fun at work" trend, I ran across this amazing passage in a management book:

> _Now make a log of your workday that records how much time you devote to > playing, having fun, and actually engaging the world around you. Then note > the number of times you and your colleagues laugh. Use this "inventory" as a > baseline for redefining the role of play and fun in your performance._

Good news everyone, we're on track to exceed quarterly laughter targets! What a great place this is to work!

[1] <http://www.kmjn.org/notes/funsultants_and_gamification.html>

<comment><USER34> I was on a Delta flight some years ago and the flight attendant announced "This flight has been designated a surprise and delight flight", which made it clear they'd been ordered to do that. Then they gave out some little trinket they'd presumably been paid to hand out; a web search finds people who were given breath mints by Delta in 2004. Needless to say, I was surprised but not delighted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I love the second email. I have found that short emails, especially from senior people can lead to a lot of "what does he/she actually mean"?

I worked for a company where the CEO loved sending off 1 sentence emails. Short, yes. To the point, yes, but it was incredible the amount of time that was spent trying to interpret the real message behind the message or even if there was one.

Without the nuances of body language, tone, expression, etc of a face to face conversation it is extremely easy to misinterpret an email. In general long emails are annoying but this is, to my mind an extremely important exception. The more detail, background, colour that you have about important emails, the better.

</comment><comment><USER36> I find this balls if you ask me, the first one actually cuts out all the bullshit, the second one doesn't. I find the second email condescending and I would quite easily see through the crap of what they were trying to say.

Personally we have had those emails and after a day of people crying about it people just live with the new policy and get on with it.

I thought the whole point of the email was to cut through the bullshit, the second one had me looking through the dictionary working out what it meant.

</comment><comment><USER37> The second email reads like it was written by a MBA (no disrespect to MBAs intended). There are lot's of fluff words (visibility, collaboration- dependent, solo productivity, etc). Perhaps it sounds softer than the initial email, but it leaves one wondering what the intent is. I'd much rather receive a more direct email that requires less reading and less interpretation.

<comment><USER38> I agree. My first thought after reading was "I bet this guy has an MBA degree."

<comment><USER39> he actually doesn't even have an undergraduate degree - - <http://randfishkin.com/blog/about>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Are folks really so sensitive they can't ignore a bs email from a bean counter?

Yeah I've seen lots of stuff like those emails (both bad). They're telling me (and my manager) how to do our job.

I just ignore them. I ignore warnings about failure to conform to company policy. I ignore the corporate weeds that think talking to me about this stuff is important.

I work at a fairly high level now in my career, so you might say I can get away with this stuff. But as a low-level peon years ago, it was even easier to get away with. As long as my manager and I were on the same page.

The only corporate relationship that matters to you is, your immediate contacts. That's your manager, your team, and anybody you oversee. Get those right, work hard and deliver, and the rest is irrelevant.

<comment><USER41> except when it isn't because the people who determine how you are paid aren't in your immediate contacts.

<comment><USER40> If you don't get paid what you're worth, time to change jobs.

The trap is to run around in their maze, looking for their cheese. You have no real control in that situation, and its time to switch jobs.

Your first job in any situation is to improve your skills, find satisfaction and get real work done. Failing any of those, everybody loses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Or you could simply have the managers confront the offending employees one on one instead of blanketing your whole staff with a policy change...

A company culture where the slack of certain employees gets discussed in a boardroom and the solution is to email everyone a policy change sounds suspiciously like a culture that abdicates the responsibility to lead.

</comment><comment><USER43> Both emails are pretty lousy; the upshot is the same "punish everyone with bureaucracy for the transgressions of a few". The second email allows the sender to assure himself that he isn't sending a memo about the new cover sheets for the TPS reports so if you could just get with the program that'd be greaaaaat--but it's the same order and smart employees will see right through it.

</comment><comment><USER44> I like first email more (the one marked as bad example). It's simple, and to the point. After reading it you know exactly what is changed and why. It's a bit harsh, but we are not kids, we can handle it.

The other mail (the one marked as good example) is apologetic, lengthy, and doesn't get to the point cleanly. It might be good when talking to other managers, investors, customers or suits, but not when talking to your developer employees. If you write specifications like that, the job will never get done.

</comment><comment><USER45> Totaly agree with the article though not sure how it would effect a situation I had once.

WHen I joined a company they said verbaly(my mistake) I'd get a pay review after probation. That did not happen and shortly afterwards my department was closed down and I was in effect promoted to a higher up department (more in keeping with my skillset as well). I then after a month queried this situation and said there would be a meeting. I was the most productive in that department with getting users problems done and in the meeting I was told that as the company anual pay review period was due next month they would accomodate things then.

Two days later a company wide email goes out that the annual pay review period was being pushed back 6 months due to accounting restructuring. Now given that the directors would of fully known about this before hand and in the meeting I had one was a director I can totaly see how a bad email can upset some people on many levels. Now I'm sure the director in question was somewhat unable to tell me in advance but it was hard not to feel shafted as he would of had prior knowledge and neither my direct boss nor the director had the common sence to contact me and say we messed up and talk about the original issue and they both pretended as if nothing happened. I ended up leaving the company on bad terms and that company's share price has been going downhill ever since and they are on the verge of being non existant. Which is somewhat ironic given the company specialises in mobile email services.

</comment><comment><USER46> Now have I have a long email to parse AND a policy change _sigh_.

More seriously, I doesn't seem to me that the author demonstrated how one such policy change can kill "company culture". At best he showed the way he personally likes it done, at worst he's trolling us by presenting a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist and now everyone comments on how they agree/disagree/have a better solution. The fact that a policy change is needed or not isn't even discussed.

</comment><comment><USER47> Ideally, a company should have no policy stating how things get done. A _real_ manager manages. A coward looks to the company to manage his or her people.

</comment><comment><USER48> "Policy Change" emails are terrible ways to address this sort of problem. People hate these sort of policy changes not because of the email, but because of the policy. It is trying to solve a productivity problem by imposing on everyone a new burdensome, non-productive task.

If you think employees are not performing to expectations, their managers should tell them that clearly and honestly in person. If necessary, those particular employees should be limited from working at home, or tasked with additional reporting. That way the "punishment" fits the crime.

As an aside, the second email is long and full of forced friendliness and awful corporate speak. I mean, _every_ paragraph has the work "collaboration" in it, except the last one--which calls the managers knuckleheads. I think emails from the CEO should be short, honest, and clear.

Subject: Falling Productivity

Team, We are seeing falling productivity, and the pattern seems to be related to working from home. It should go without saying that we must maintain high productivity if we want to grow and succeed as a company. We need to get this fixed.

In the next few days your manager will schedule a meeting with you to discuss in detail the problem and how we might solve it.

Thanks, \- CEO Guy

</comment><comment><USER49> "framed properly without the bullshit" -- adding to my list of interesting oxymorons.

<comment><USER50> How is this an oxymoron?

An example:

I live in Springfield -> Framed improperly (which Springfield???), without bullshit I live in Springfield, IL -> Framed properly, without bullshit I live in Springfield, IL, which surely is good -> Framed properly, but with useless (and nonesense, sorry, couldn't think of a better example...) crap

<comment><USER49> E.G. this article. The author takes an authentic issue (managers concerned about work from home abuse) and frames it by adding bunch of distracting BS. I'm not saying framing is bad, but it's inherently manipulative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I agree with the sentiment of email 2, but it's bloated and squishy like a banana slug. Major windbag writing style.

</comment><comment><USER51> Personal experience/anecdote:

"Mind the gap"

This theme used a horrible, mis-applied term and metaphor from a different culture, while asking employees to make up for management's shortcoming not long after going public and buying a bunch of speculative, non-performing crap.

Further, it had the smell of outside management consultants (and "business- speak").

The employee-induced subtext: GTFO, before the doors close.

\--

P.S. I didn't think the second, "improved" example memo in the OP was better than the first. Very wordy, without really laying out the problem It feels as if it is talking all around the issue. When I read something like that, I start looking for the other shoe (that is sure to drop).

</comment><comment><USER52> I think he missed the very point he was trying to make.

</comment><comment><USER53> His second e-mail is unclear and big, it is wasting the time of his employees. By using a text structure you can be more clear. Here is a structure you can use for policy changes.

1\. What is the measure? 2\. What is the goal of the measure? 3\. Why is the measure needed? 4\. How should the measure be implemented? 5\. What are the effects of the measure?

</comment><comment><USER54> I read the two sample emails, and the first seems honest, if a bit short on details. The second seems to be BS trying to put a positive face on "we're limiting work-at-home privileges because too many people are using it as an excuse to goof off." I'd be far more skeptical about the second email than the first.

</comment><comment><USER55> Interesting to read this article. I used to work for a large bank where we were actually forced to work from home 1-2 times a day since they were running out of office desks for us :).

</comment><comment><USER56> You get what you ask for.

Ask for hours and you get hours.

Ask for greatness instead.

</comment><comment><USER57> There is a reasoning behind emails like the first: managerial mystique. Make decisions, don't explain why. If you explain your reasoning, there's room for debate.

You don't want to explicitly say, "Because I say so", because that's drawing attention to the fact that you're being a dick. The stuffy and bureaucratic language is a part of that. It's about seeming official. The "bad" first email is classic 20th-century management done well.

Like this:

TO: All employees [1]

After careful consideration [2], we [3] have decided to review [4] the work- from-home privilege [5] that we offer. While we intend [6] to continue extending this plan [7], we expect that employees will monitor their individual performance [8] while doing so. For that reason, we've attached form TPS-363 [9], which all [10] employees are expected to submit to their managers should they continue to use the work-from-home privilege. [5]

Footnotes:

[1] Aggressive formality. This isn't "Hey Team". It's serious business. Management is alert. The Man is on patrol.

[2] "Careful consideration" means, "We're saying upfront that we don't want to hear any complaints or dissent. We're representing ourselves as having deliberated _already_ in an attempt to shut out any room for debate."

[3] Use "we" to communicate bad news. The "we" is a move to speak for the company so it sounds like you're ruling based on leadership rather than authority. "The company" (not just an anal-retentive manager) needs this.

[4] "Review". This makes it sound like there was a process and (again) a deliberation.

[5] Note the use of the word "privilege", subtly implying, "we can take this away".

[6] "We intend" = "We're being nice by letting WFH continue, but don't make us regret it."

[7] "Plan". Working from home is no longer something the company offers to improve productivity and morale, nor is it a perk. It's a "plan". And plans have rules.

[8] "Individual performance". Scary words that suggest more managerial oversight and possibly "reviews", "performance improvement plans", and terminations. Good employees never, ever have "performance" under discussion. Good employees (and managers who know they have good employees) discuss the _impact_ they've had and would like to have in the future. They discuss goals and lessons and aspirations. When the discussion is of "performance", it's inherently a negative one. The stars don't need performance reviews to know they're doing well. Performance reviews are to scare the people in the middle and to document the reason for firing those at the bottom.

[9] The longer the form, the more there is a message of, "We'd actually rather not that you do this, but if you're willing to feel like you're applying for a hand-out by filling out this form, go ahead."

[10] Note the use of "all". That's most important. It makes the change seem uniform and fair, and applied across the whole company. This allows people to conclude, after a bit of annoying news, "Well, if my boss has to do it, and so does his boss, and so does his boss, it can't be _that_ bad". Of course, the _reality_ is that people in the managerial hierarchy (and grunts with supportive managers) can ignore TPS-363 and no one will bat an eye, but the change _appears_ impersonal.

This is a "bad", morale-damaging email, but it's 20th-century bureaucracy done about as well as it can be. How so? Well, in a mid-20th century context, people are already used to annoying, paternalistic memos from "on high" and have developed an immunity to them. They know that companies gradually get worse, but that the process is generally quite slow. What it actually is is a dog-whistle. The actual targets (WFH employees perceived to be slacking off) of the memo are warned, but the rest of the employees forget it 15 minutes after it was sent. Do people actually quit their jobs after an irritating email? No. People grumble about them and then forget. They get back to work, and people who enjoy the work they're doing are going to annoy irritating upper management unless it directly affects them.

The difference between 20th-century bureaucratic management and 21st-century movement in the post-managerial direction (cf. Valve) is the change in the motivation-payoff curve. If a highly motivated employee is only 25% more effective than a typically motivated (i.e. wanting promotions and not to be fired) employee, then irking a highly motivated one to warn a slacker is worth doing. If that discrepancy is 5x to 10x instead of 1.25x, the calculus is completely different: you're actually better off taking a hands-off approach and letting employees self-organize (and quietly managing slackers out if they fail to find a place after a year). We're coming into a world where a company can _only_ be competitive if its people are highly motivated, and traditional Theory-X bureaucracy just doesn't work.</comment>


PHP is a complete disgrace for serious Web application development. - <AUTHOR> http://pinderkent.blogsavy.com/archives/152 <comment><USER2> PHP makes it possible for people to use it poorly, yes. Blame bad developers, not the language that lets them write bad code.

If I want to write a widget that a majority of designers can easily plug into their own sites, I write it in PHP, because it's portable.

Maybe that makes me an amateur, but sometimes I can't just code in the pretty, pure languages all day.

</comment><comment><USER3> I agree PHP has a lot of ugliness to it, but it's hard to argue with things like the success of Facebook.

If that's not serious webapp development work, I'm not sure what qualifies.</comment>


Beyond the Golden Rule - <AUTHOR> http://www.qrimp.com/blog/blog.Beyond-the-Golden-Rule.html

<comment><USER2> Great find and share pj, thank you. I had a related conversation with a co- worker (retired consultant with great vision). We need to produce as a nation to compete, not just intellectual products but real physical items. Without pushing the simple capability to manufacture, we are forever in debt to nations who choose to.</comment>


AngularJS and Password Managers: Can't we all just get along? - <AUTHOR> http://code.realcrowd.com/angularjs-and-password-managers-cant-we-all-just-get-along/

<comment><USER2> Something similar happens with Backbone.js too. For example, try using LastPass on this Javascript app:

[https://wakati.me](https://wakati.me)

The event handler captures the form submit and then posts using AJAX. Lastpass probably thinks the request was canceled by some Javascript validation because it never asks to remember your password.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm unfamilar with Backbone.js's implementation, but AngularJS checks to see if the current browser supports the new html5 "input" event. If it does, that is the event it listens on. The plugins however don't necessarily fire this event, instead using the older "change" event. It could be similar to that.</comment></comment>


Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything - <AUTHOR> http://www.thegatesnotes.com/Books/Personal/Moonwalking-with-Einstein <comment><USER2> I'd like to know more about remembering things that I don't put forth effort to remember. Does anyone know about this?

For example my mom asked who the angry chef on TV is and somehow I immediately knew "Gordon Ramsay!" even though I don't have cable TV, never purposely worked on remembering his name, and am generally terrible at remembering names. Being able to remember things without trying is what most folks would really want when considering improving their memory.

I have found success with methods that call for imagining a 3d space and placing objects in that space and using it to recall things... However, designing such a space takes time/effort which is difficult when you're trying to learn and comprehend stuff on the fly.

I do wonder if it is a memory issue or a recall issue here...perhaps I actually know the information but can't access it as necessary.

<comment><USER3> This is exactly my question. These techniques seem great for memorising (with effort) certain pieces of structured data that you know you'll need to recall later.

However, what about the things you don't realise you'll need to recall, or for things that you don't actively trying to memorise.

Basically - does it improve your 'base' memory, or are they just tricks you can use in certain cases.

<comment><USER4> Based on my understanding from the book, it's just a tool to memorize certain information. It wouldn't improve your everyday memory by much, if at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The memory grandmaster who trained Foer, Ed Cooke, runs a phenomenal startup that brings described techniques online to help you learn vocabulary: <http://memrise.com>

Highly recommended for anyone looking to expand their vocabulary in a variety of languages, including Mandarin.

</comment><comment><USER6> This is probably the right crowd to ask: all the memory techniques that I have seen seem to be for memorizing sequences. Are there any techniques for remembering factual information more powerful than SRS? Like for the main points of a technical paper or similar?

<comment><USER7> This is in the QA:

Q: How is your memory now?

A: Ironically, not much better than when I started this whole journey. The techniques I learned, and used in the memory contest, are great for remembering structured information like shopping lists or phone numbers, but they don't improve any sort of underlying, generalizable memory ability. Unfortunately, I still misplace my car keys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > When you're reading a book, you don't sit there and say, "Well, what does > that word mean? What does that word mean?" After many sightings of the words > in your vocabulary, your recall is immediate and very, very good.

But there's still 'inner speech', which appears to slow down meaning recall. It seems to be a habit of many people, although I don't have hard data to support this. I've heard that unlearning sub-vocal reading in favor of visual reading helps increase reading speed and remember the information. Haven't had much success with this myself so far, it needs some patience.

(I suppose phonetic writing system also adds to the problem. How cool it would be if you could read the meaning from symbols, instead of doing letter combination matching.)

<comment><USER9> >(I suppose phonetic writing system also adds to the problem. How cool it would be if you could read the meaning from symbols, instead of doing letter combination matching.)

Isn't this what visual readers already do, by recognizing whole words, or even groups of words at the same time? Observing myself reading, it seems like that's what I do.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for correcting, I'm not sure how I arrived at that point—it seems to me I too recognize word at a time. However, I'm not a visual reader as I understand the term: unless I consciously attempt to suppress my inner speech, I silently "pronounce" each word, which slows down the process.

I'm trying to imagine using a writing system in which how a word is written has no connection to its pronunciation, representing only meaning. That would pretty much make inner speech impossible, among other things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Never memorize something that you can look up." [Einstein]

<comment><USER11> I haven't got the book yet but I'm planning to get it soon. As written in Q&A - _The techniques I learned, and used in the memory contest, are great for remembering structured information_ \- this might be great for learning languages. I remember grabbing a lot of new vocabulary by studying by heart lyrics of songs, quotes, jokes or whole sequences of dialogs from movies.

<comment><USER12> Just a head's up, this books reads more like a novel than a How-To. There are other books that are better for actually learning the memory techniques discussed in _Moonwalking_.

I don't mean to imply that _Moonwalking_ isn't worth buying; I think it's a really good book and was a very fun read, but at the same time, it was FAR less instructional than I had expected (though I did learn while reading it).

For a basic primer, I'd recommend this to get started with the memory palace technique: <http://www.wikihow.com/Build-a-Memory-Palace>

And for a much more comprehensive instruction, Higbee's "Your Memory and How to Train It" was the most referred to me: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001Y35JI0/ref=docs-os- doi_...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001Y35JI0/ref=docs-os-doi_0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Most of us will have to practice for months and months and months._

This isn't true. I've used this technique to memorize and recite the alphabet backwards. I also use it to memorize trig identities (I keep them in my silverware drawer, mentally). It's not "easy", but it only took one (entire) night of practice to recite the alphabet backwards. If I can, then almost anyone can.

Imagine the biggest house/apartment you've lived in. The only important criteria is that you've spent enough time there to have a clear, crisp picture of every room without physically being there or looking at photos.

Now look around. Take note of each "container" -- bins, cabinets, drawers, and even furniture like chairs, tables, and couches (because you can set things on them).

Memorize a specific path through your house. It sounds hard when I phrase it like that, but it's not. Just start at your front door and mentally walk through your house, opening cabinets/drawers and visiting rooms in a specific order. The order is all that matters.

As you go along, imagine what it would look like if there were literally an alphabet in your house. Starting from the front door, a big red hairy "A" is blocking your path, so you go around it. Then as you pass your hallway closet, you notice a shiny blue "B" isn't doing a very good job of being inconspicuous. And so on. (It helped me to make them distinctive, so I use a lot of color and tactile imagery like hairy/furry/velvety/shiny. Even smelly. Just use your imagination.)

Remember -- you have to make sure you always are traversing in a specific order. The room with the "A" to the room with the "B" etc.

Since most of us don't have 26 different rooms, you'll have to use your containers too, and also cram a few letters together into one area. (Never more than three in a bin, though, unless you're better at this than I am.) So in your livingroom, maybe S T and U are siting on your couch watching The Office, whereas X Y and Z are getting freaky in your bedroom. (Shocking imagery is easier to remember than the mundane, and you can use this to your advantage.)

So. Got your path memorized? A to B to C etc...? Good. Now it's very easy: walk the path backwards. Z to Y to X...

Speak the letters out loud as you go, and presto, you now possess a new (entirely useless) talent.

It becomes much more useful for pretty much anything that benefits from rote memorization. (Just don't apply it to math very much otherwise you won't have more than a superficial understanding of the underlying concepts and connections.) It's quite handy for presentations.

<comment><USER14> I find that creating a simple song is easier. I sing the alphabet backwards, in the same tune as the original.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I read the book. It's a great read for the story itself (guy learns how to win memory contests) ... but the memory techniques, in my opinion, do not really work for everyday situations. I did learn how to memorize the sequence of a random deck of cards though, which is pretty cool.

<comment><USER4> I enjoyed the book as well. How long did it take you to memorize the deck of cards?

<comment><USER15> Took me a few weeks ... although I carried a deck around with me and pulled it out to practice periodically throughout the day. I found that the key is to not be afraid to be really creative with imaging the visual representations of the cards. The more 'out there', the better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Josh Foer gave a good TED talk about this topic, you can watch it at

[http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_can_do.html)

After seeing this I actually was able to use his technique to help remember all the parts of a long wedding toast I had to deliver. It definitely worked in this situation, though I'm not sure how applicable it would be for cataloguing every day information you may or may not need to recall.

</comment><comment><USER17> If anyone is interested in the historical development of these practices (as Gates mentioned), they are known (in Latin) as ars memoria. They were extremely common in ancient Greece, but (ostensibly) came under attack the the development of writing (Plato complained bitterly about it). They were revivified in the Renaissance, and were connected to a whole host of linguistic studies, including the development of "universal" or "artificial" languages, and, interestingly, cryptography.

</comment><comment><USER18> short summary from the book in order to recall _sequenced_ information:

walk down a path in your mind, that you can recall well from your memory and then place images of the items/words you try to remember along this path.

in general: the more numerous the set of associations you have with a certain word the more likely you are going to remember it. For example, when trying to remember the name Baker of a person, don't think of it as a surname but rather as the profession "baker".

</comment><comment><USER19> I read this book well over a year ago, and I still remember nearly the entire list of items he used as an example in the book. The techniques described really work, though the book is more of a memoir than a guide.

Here's what I remember, for the record: pickled onions, cottage cheese, peat smoked salmon, six bottles of wine, three pairs of socks, hula hoop, scuba diver, dry ice(?), Sofia Lauren.

I know there are a few more, but I think I covered a pretty considerable number of them.

<comment><USER19> Ope. Looks like I was actually off by a fair bit. :P Here's the actual list, from <http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/155631525>:

Pickled garlic. Cottage cheese. Peat-smoked salmon. 6 bottles of white wine. 3 pairs of socks. 3 hula hoops. Snorkel. Dry ice machine. Email Sophia. Skin- toned cat suit. Paul Newman film. Elk sausages. Megaphone and director's chair. Harness and ropes. Barometer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> NPR audio interview with the author and journalist Joshua Foer: [http://www.npr.org/2011/02/23/134003962/Moonwalking-With- Ein...](http://www.npr.org/2011/02/23/134003962/Moonwalking-With-Einstein)

</comment><comment><USER21> I read this yesterday, got inspired, and memorized 50 digits of pi starting at 11 pm. Crazy! It's really not that hard!

</comment><comment><USER22> I went to one of his book talks, and it was really exciting to hear about. I think he mentioned how it was a one-time rise to stardom, and put me onto the glacial blog[1] that is Climb For Memory, by the guy who has won it for the past couple years.

[1] <http://climbformemory.com/blog/> Oh, it's moved, I guess that explains that.

</comment><comment><USER23> Really enjoyed reading this book some months ago. Certainly worth some of your time.

</comment><comment><USER24> The ancient Indians perfected memory retention of large bodies of knowledge (called Vedas dating back more than 4000-6000 years) with the help of very elaborate schemes. The Vedas are composed in a language called Vedic Sanskrit (althought similar to Classical Sanskrit, still distinct). These schemes not only aided in retention, but also preserved the phonetic purity and semantics. The syllables were also intonated. Loosely speaking (the reason why I say that is I still have not found a compact and crystal clear way to convey what Vedic intonations are there for), intonations are also representative of grammatical case/context. So, the syllable intonation also had to be maintained. A brief preview of some commonly employed chanting schemes are given below:

For describing the various schemes let us consider a sentence with five words having indices 1 2 3 4 5.

Let !! - represent a termination sequence. We'll not get into technicalities, but take it as is.

1) Krama Paatha - This is relatively easy and each of the indexed word will be chanted as follows.

1 2

2 3

3 4

4 5

5!!

Notice that a given word is clubbed with the next word. (Forward chaining). There are two words in a sequence

2) Jataa Paatha - This is bit more complicated since it involves backward sequences as well.

1 2 2 1 1 2

2 3 3 2 2 3

3 4 4 3 3 4

4 5 5 4 4 5

5!!

The complexity is due to the fact that the words will have to be chanted in reverse sequence as well. (backward chaining) For e.g. {1, 2} {2, 1} {1, 2}. There are a total of 6 words in each sequence.

3) Ghana Paatha - This is the most complex chanting mode (also called the bell mode of chanting). The chanting sequence is as below.

1 2 2 1 1 2 3 3 2 1 1 2 3

2 3 3 2 2 3 4 4 3 2 2 3 4

3 4 4 3 3 4 5 5 4 3 3 4 5

4 5 5 4 4 5

5!!

Phew!! Each sequence has 13 words made from three words. There are two word forward/backward sequences as well as three word forward/backward sequences. For e.g. {1, 2} {2, 1} for two word sequence. {1, 2, 3} and {3, 2, 1} for three word sequence. The astute reader will observe that the penultimate sequence is the same as Jathaa Paatha (and also the first six words of any sequence constitute the same).

There are several intracacies that are involved. One is compounding of words. Word compounding introduces changes to the pronunciation. Another is the change of phonetic intonation due to the modified sequence of chanting the words in a given scheme. These repetition techniques enabled the scholars to get a "feel" for how words would be intonated and pronounced phonetically in various circumstances.

I had always wondered why such elaborate schemes were devised by the Vedic seers. I have come to realise that the seers knew that when knowledge was transmitted in the oral form, it inevitably introduced corruptions in the words. In Vedic Sanskrit, purity of syllable (both phonetic pronunciation and intonation) is of utmost importance. Even a slight change in a syllable (either phonetic or intonation) would completely change the meaning of the sentence.

These techniques not only aided in error detection in chanting, but also error correction (specifically error correction in syllable intonation). If someone were chanting a sequence of words, one could verify if the words are being intonated correctly (of course it would take an expert to do that). There was a document that I read quite some time back which resorted to some abstract algebra (group theory) based arguments for explaining the error correction mechanism of some of these techniques.

Of course, many of these schemes (and also other linguistic aspects like word compounding) always kept one thing in mind - the ease with which humans are able to cognize and generate the sounds representing given syllables in a sequence of words.

In conclusion, these methods ultimately enabled scholars/priests to be able to: a) remember entire bodies of verses/compositions with relative ease. b) transmit such knowledge to students with zero word corruption (yes, although I am neither a linguistic nor a Vedic expert, I can go out on a limb to make this claim - zero corruption).

Edit :- Minor edits for readability/spelling.</comment>


DHH anti-whiteboard movement - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/i/moments/835942450103451649 <comment> et-al Glad dhh is starting some pushback.

Just as a minor aside, for anyone interviewing out there, don't fret about syntax that much. If you forget, tell your interviewer "i forgot the exact syntax, but let's assume it takes in x,y,z".

The key thing I'm look for is an understanding of what a function does and how you're going leverage that to solve the larger problem at hand. I'd hope other interviewers are the same way.

<comment><USER2> I'm a very old timer...and I think people have forgotten that there was a time here in Silicon Valley when it was enough to be someone with programming experience. The interviews - such as they were - were mostly just to see if you were someone who wasn't a complete jerk. As the supply of programmers has steadily increased, the hoops to jump through have also increased. So now it is acceptable to test people and just generally ask any lame question because "you are the hiring manager". Experience and education should be enough - I'm really not clear about why it isn't. (Not saying that programmers don't have different skills - and different experience. But, for the most part, most programmers can be taught enough to do most things.)

<comment><USER3> > I'm a very old timer...and I think people have forgotten that there was a > time here in Silicon Valley when it was enough to be someone with > programming experience. [snip] Experience and education should be enough - > I'm really not clear about why it isn't.

There are people who managed to get a CS (or similar) degree but can't program or problem solve, but manage to get hired at enough places to appear to have experience, but still can't program or problem solve. That's why I interview with a programming programming problem that I hope is at least a little bit interesting.

<comment><USER4> The real key is problem-solving ability: can a prospective hire get a grip on a real-world problem, and then break things down into solvable components.

Real-world problem solving is often _very_ different than the very clean-cut computer-science exercises that companies tend to throw at candidates, which nominally have a set of solutions, only one of which is "correct" (in terms of computational complexity).

Personally, I'm a big fan of one of two styles of interviewing.

Pair interviews are great, because they are the closest thing to a real-world test-drive that you can get. During a pair interview, you work on real production code, with a member of the team that you will be working with, and at the end, it's pretty easy to tell whether or not the Thunderbirds are "go".

For non-pairing teams, I usually go with a _simple_ (think "fizzbuzz") programming exercise, followed by a combination of collaborative problem- solving sessions with members of the team, exploring the candidate's background (what problems have they solved in the past?), and also a check to make sure that there's a fit in terms of engineering culture (somebody that hates TDD will hate working with me, for instance).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Algo/puzzle/riddle is not the same as whiteboard. I'm all for getting rid of the former, but I have no problem getting up and writing on a whiteboard as long as it's used for its correct purpose, viz. as a tool for talking through a problem together.

I once had an interviewer give me a somewhat interesting puzzle to work through on the whiteboard, but then he got all stammery and flustered when I asked a few simple follow-up questions about it. I think there are people out there who just can't handle humans and have to use the whiteboard as a shield.

<comment><USER4> While problem-solving is fine, I am not a fan of algorithms questions.

Not because algorithms are unimportant, but because being able to code a heapsort from memory is, from a skills perspective, effectively useless.

As the creator of Homebrew put it: "90% of our engineers use the software you wrote, but you can't invert a binary tree on a whiteboard so fuck off."

To me, it is enough to know what algorithms you could bring to bear on a given problem, and have a rough knowledge of their complexity.

The things I care more about are: Can you tackle a messy-real world problem, one that doesn't have a clear solution? Do you collaborate effectively as a member of a team? What about your software engineering skills -- is your code well-tested and readable? That sort of thing.

That latter point is _important_. The best engineer in the world is a business liability if nobody else can maintain their code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's with the artifacty JPG? Is this Twitter's idea of curated content?

</comment><comment><USER7> A good number of these confessions are downright embarrassing.</comment>


The banal brazenness of telescammers - <AUTHOR> http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/05/the-brazen-banality-of-telescammers.html <comment><USER2> From my POV, most businesses run this way.

Monsanto making terminator seeds and then suing people whose fields have had possible accidental cross-pollination? Same thing, larger scale.

I work for an insurance run-off business, and some of the things I've seen -- the scams and lies -- would boggle anyone's mind.</comment>


17M full albums to stream, but downloading songs is wrong - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=full+album

<comment><AUTHOR> ..and from top 10 results YT gave me, only 1 have a click-to-buy monetization; all the others have no ContentId nor anything .. just music with a plain image

How we ended in such state? We have people streaming 24/7

</comment><comment><USER2> You shall not own the files, but only ask for them to a higher entity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, we we don't own legal bought digital content, we only lease the content.

[http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/sep/03/do-you-own- your...](http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/sep/03/do-you-own-your-digital- content)

I can understand that with streaming you dont have a copy of the resource (which prevents you from copy), but even so.. how is that accessing an _easily available_ resource over the net is better than accessing the resource locally?</comment></comment>


Summary of Donella Meadows' "Thinking in Systems" (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://www.consciouscapitalism.typepad.com/conscious-capitalism/2009/10/summary-of-thinking-in-systems-by-donella-meadows.html <comment><USER2> RIP Donella Meadows, a great thinker.

The interested reader may also like this slideshare overview of Thinking in Systems ch. 1-3: [http://www.slideshare.net/sandhyajohnson/thinking-in- systems...](http://www.slideshare.net/sandhyajohnson/thinking-in-systems- donella-meadows-chapters-1-to-3)

Another of her well-known works is Leverage Points, which is also great and goes into more detail on some of that which is summarized in OP's linked article. [http://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places- to...](http://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene- in-a-system/) , [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points)

Having worked in automated systems analysis and optimization across several fields, I think Meadows' thinking is very instructive. Some of her notions which stand out in particular to me:

* The importance of the effect of feedback loops in complex system. When unexpected or counterintuitive behavior occurs, a hidden or misunderstood reinforcement feedback loop is often at root.

* The requirement that systems that seek to automate or optimize complex interactive systems be constantly-adaptive because the system itself will interact with the observation/analysis/optimization acts. This can seem like crazy voodoo at first, but it is undeniable when you start to experience it in action.

* Understanding of cost externalities vs benefit rewards for system actors and how they relate to system sources/sinks (or "stocks and flows"). This drives so much of our economy, as well as the subsystems which feed it and she has some illuminating thoughts and analyses on addressing these issues broadly.

This all of course goes well beyond the more basic material on oversimplification vs complexity in simulation or interventions, limits of rationality in system-actors, nonlinearity vs linear thinking, boundary conditions/non-boundary conditions, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> For those intrigued by Systems Thinking but want to explore it in context of startups (or business in general), consider reading Scaling Lean by Ash Maurya [1]. The whole Customer Factory [2] is based on a causal loop diagram of McClure's Pirate Metrics (AARRR); Ash also incorporates a lot of Theory of Constraints into the book. Highly recommended.

Systems Thinking was also part of Intel's culture under Andrew Grove (at least at the leadership level, from what I can tell). You can see evidence of that in his super-acclaimed book, High Output Management [3], especially the first couple of chapters (though he doesn't refer to it directly). Rich Jolly, another executive @ Intel, actually has a PhD in Systems Science and also wrote a book, Systems Thinking for Business [4], although it's definitely a bit more advanced and more theoretical than the others listed here.

And, I whole-heartedly agree - Meadows' book is simply an AMAZING treatise of Systems Thinking. It's a great place to start regardless of your background (the beauty of ST is that it is applicable to a broad range of fields and disciplines).

As an aside, does anyone know of any good/free/open source tools for drawing causal loop diagrams, or better yet, running simulations?

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Scaling-Lean-Mastering-Metrics- Startu...](https://www.amazon.com/Scaling-Lean-Mastering-Metrics- Startup/dp/1101980524/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1470183661&sr=8-1)

[2] [https://leanstack.com/customer-factory- blueprint/](https://leanstack.com/customer-factory-blueprint/)

[3] [https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew- Grove-e...](https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove- ebook/dp/0394532341/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1470183992&sr=8-4)

[4] [https://www.amazon.com/Systems-Thinking-Business- Capitalize-...](https://www.amazon.com/Systems-Thinking-Business-Capitalize- Structures/dp/0692353348/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1470184395&sr=8-5)

</comment><comment><USER4> System Dynamics remains a woefully underused theoretical system for modeling complex systems and understanding the feedback loops involved and the way the structure of the system influences the outcome. I know of no one that explains it more clearly than Donella Meadows (RIP).

<comment><USER5> I just finished reading her book, and I am trying to dig into this field to learn more about it, as I consider it pretty interesting.

I am still surprised that we don't teach it at school (high school). I want to believe it will happen in the next 20-25 years.

<comment><USER6> Isn't it 50% New Age pseudoscience though? I mean, how would you respond to that criticism? Particularly at the level of detail that might be taught in schools, I wonder about its falsifiability.

I say this as someone who is prepared to consider the idea of systems thinking as a "second tier" cognitive strategy, as advanced by Wilber etc. I can't imagine that idea getting mainstream traction.

<comment><USER5> The world is changing, as it's becoming evident that everything is more and more interconnected, and while studying History can help you figure some of these connections out, I believe that System Thinking gives a better insight about broader domains. After all, it's engineering applied to a broad field - not just maths, computers, and biology, but it's about finding out the connections that make our society/behaviors the way they are.

It's like psychology. Some people nowadays still don't consider it a science, although it applies similar principles to human/animal behavior, but it's a science, isn't it? I believe it's a good way to discover new patterns to build more sustainable societies, as psychology is a good way to improve human life and relations among humans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In case someone is interested, there is a list of related books on HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3277457](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3277457)

</comment><comment><USER7> The Systems Thinker [1] is another great resource.

[1]: [https://thesystemsthinker.com/](https://thesystemsthinker.com/)

</comment><comment><USER8> George Mobus & Michael Kalton's _Principles of Systems Science_ is another resource people might find useful.

[https://www.worldcat.org/title/principles-of-systems- science...](https://www.worldcat.org/title/principles-of-systems- science/oclc/899567001&referer=brief_results)

</comment><comment><USER9> This has really influenced my thinking as a strategist and architect, particularly around when to introduce and remove process in teams. In particular, trying to figure out how to engineer reinforcing loops so that your teams and groups experience virtuous cycles of productivity.

</comment><comment><USER10> there is an old book called "sytematics" by john-gall, which also talks about similar'ish things.

<comment><USER11> Great book but IIRC that should be "Systemantics."

<comment><USER12> Indeed: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemantics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systemantics)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I haven't read "Thinking in Systems," but I'm wondering if it's similar in spirit to Mindstorms, which advocated teaching in terms of thinking in microworlds, or systems.</comment>


Reconsidering my Aversion to IDEs - <AUTHOR> https://spin.atomicobject.com/2016/11/04/reconsidering-my-ide-aversion/#.WByGfzRmVPM.hackernews <comment><USER2> We have this discussion at work at least 3 times a year.

"You should really try PyCharm!" "I really like SublimeText." "Have you guys seen CLion?!" "Vi, all the way!"

I think at the end of the day, it really comes down to personal preference. My preference is somewhere in the middle. Things like vi (without the fancy plugins) are great for one-off edits, but I don't feel fast enough when I'm mucking with lots of files at once. Things like Eclipse are just so heavy, and I can't bring myself to open large IDEs for simple edits. I've grown very fond of SublimeText (and recently Atom) for this reason. It's got enough simplicity that loading it up to make a couple edits is snappy. But it's also got enough plugins to make it as feature rich as I want/need. And, it's nice to look at for hours at a time.

Some of my coworkers swear by vi, and that's fine. Some swear by PyCharm, and that's fine, too. As long as you're productive and happy, who cares.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's no clear distinction between IDEs and editors. Vim and emacs can run type-based autocompletion, live linters, semantic search and build tools, and these tools are popular among users of these editors.

Usually "IDEs" mean Visual Studio-like applications, with mouse-first UI, enterprisey feel and designed for languages with Java-like typing (Java, C#, Typescript, partially C++). Distinction between IDEs and editors are more cultural than technical. For example Visual Studio Code is considered more editor than IDE despite having lots of common features with "full" Visual Studo.</comment>


Show HN: Simple visual JSON editor as an AngularJS directive - <AUTHOR> http://mb21.github.io/JSONedit/

<comment><USER2> Since the author wasn't nice himself to link the Github repository, I will. [https://github.com/mb21/JSONedit/](https://github.com/mb21/JSONedit/)

* You should create a new global variable called "app"[1], that's bad because it will create collisions with other stuff.

* The directives.js contains other directives than just the json thing[2] . Are they meant to be used with the jsonedit or is it something for the demo?

* The directive have a lot of things to do. You can notice that when you have HTML and a mixed stuff in the directive. Try taking all the calculations, parsing and actual functionality that have with the data to do, and move in into a provider. Let the directive only handle how to show and interact with stuff. You should have a read about separation of concerns[4] and single responsibility principle[5].

Other than that, I like the idea and I would use this when debugging stuff in my AngularJS, if it were easier the actually include. It seems to be dependent on Angular UI for some strange reason. Handy that you can edit the data live. Nice work!

[1] [https://github.com/mb21/JSONedit/blob/gh- pages/js/directives...](https://github.com/mb21/JSONedit/blob/gh- pages/js/directives.js#L1)

[2] [https://github.com/mb21/JSONedit/blob/gh- pages/js/directives...](https://github.com/mb21/JSONedit/blob/gh- pages/js/directives.js#L12-L27) and [https://github.com/mb21/JSONedit/blob/gh- pages/js/directives...](https://github.com/mb21/JSONedit/blob/gh- pages/js/directives.js#L31-L38)

[3] [https://github.com/mb21/JSONedit/blob/gh- pages/js/directives...](https://github.com/mb21/JSONedit/blob/gh- pages/js/directives.js#L166-L239)

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

[5] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_responsibility_principl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_responsibility_principle)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

* yes, figured I didn't need "var app" for the demo...

* those are two helper directives needed by the main one

* I'm familiar with [4] and [5], but I don't quite see how they would apply to this situation since all I'm doing is "showing and interacting with stuff", there is no calculation, parsing etc - the data is already JSON. I can see however, that the directive is quite long, which has mostly to do with the fact that it's calling itself recursively and all cases are packed into it.

* I used multiSortable to get the array elements to be drag-and-droppable, that's where the AngularUI dependency is coming from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Is it just me, or do all these visual editors that have been popping up on Hacker News lately seem to be more difficult to read than Vanilla JSON?

One of the main founding concepts being JSON was to make a human-readable data representation. It may just be because I work with it on a daily basis, but I find that it's one of the best data formats for fast and simple readability. I find myself spending more time figuring out what's going on in these visual JSON editors than if I was simply reading the JSON directly.

<comment><AUTHOR> well, the use case I had in mind was more letting end users manipulate some JSON...</comment></comment>


Putins 2013 plea for caution in Syria - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2 <comment><AUTHOR> Knowing now what happened it was quit interesting to see Putins 2013 take on what an intervention in Syria could give rise to.

Apparently the "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" was a force to be reckoned with already then.</comment>


The Saga of Craig Wright, the Latest "Inventor of Bitcoin" - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/bizarre-saga-craig-wright-latest-inventor-bitcoin <comment><USER2> Regardless of whether Craig Wright is Nakamoto, there's an interesting story here, and I'm looking forward to it coming out. Someone has spent a fair amount of time and effort forging documents and setting up an elaborate paper trail to lead some journalists to this conclusion. Why?

It's easy to compare this to the Dorian Nakamoto thing, but this is quite different. Nobody had a vested interest in making Dorian look like Satoshi, it was just sloppy journalism. This is something else (although it might be sloppy journalism too...)

<comment><USER3> My best guess is that the fraud angle is most likely. Especially the 'fortunate' emergence of draft contracts showing that the guy has claim to a huge stash of bitcoins (but conveniently he can't access them until 2020). Perhaps he hoped that by appearing to be 'doxxed' it would lend more credence to his claims that he owned/controlled this wealth.

A fraudster could get a lot of mileage out of a "I will pay you back later, look I've got all this future wealth" claim.

<comment><USER4> > but conveniently he can't access them until 2020

Maybe that's his estimate of when the supercomputer he's built in Iceland will crack Satoshi's private key.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As others have said, I lost a little confidence in Gwern, who was a co-author of the the Wired piece and who I, until now, viewed as more skeptical. Especially given his history at LessWrong.

<comment><USER6> Gwern has a sterling reputation at LessWrong - or do you just mean having an association with LessWrong is bad in itself. One Satoshi candidate, Hal Finney, was a LessWronger, too.

I, too, am surprised he believes this, but I'm not about to write him off. He could still be right and if he's wrong so what.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, that's what I meant. He has a great reputation, so I held him in high regard somewhat until now

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This reddit thread offers some pretty interesting / convincing speculation on Craig Wright's scam - [https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/3web4s/some_more_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/3web4s/some_more_info_on_craig_wright_and_his_scam)

</comment><comment> vezzy-fnord I swear with all the rampant speculation and hunting for Satoshi's identity that have led deep to a multitude of rabbit holes, the only way for the real Satoshi's uncovering _not_ to end up a disappointment, would be if he's also revealed to be simultaneously D.B. Cooper and Jimmy Hoffa (maybe even the Zodiac Killer while we're at it).

<comment><USER8> The reality might be quite everyday like the strange case of David Rodinsky [1]

I'm just wondering why those early-mined bitcoins have not been touched...

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/books/1999/may/22/books.guardianr...](http://www.theguardian.com/books/1999/may/22/books.guardianreview9)

<comment><USER9> Perhaps he just used a throwaway key and Satoshi no longer has access to it.

<comment><USER8> That would chime in with the idea that the reality was much more mundane than what we all imagine. I suppose before bitcoin actually took off, that might be a reasonable thing to do, just check it was all working as intended with early adopters...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is there anywhere I can read a concise summary of the evidence for and against this guy as Satoshi?

Right now the facts seem spread out across popular press articles and random forum threads.

<comment><USER11> If you're technical, this alone should be enough to convince you that none of this has any connection to Satoshi:

\- [http://motherboard.vice.com/read/satoshis-pgp-keys-are- proba...](http://motherboard.vice.com/read/satoshis-pgp-keys-are-probably- backdated-and-point-to-a-hoax)

If not, then this will probably at least convince you of the (lack of) veracity of Craig Wright's many claims:

\- [http://www.zdnet.com/article/sgi-denies-links-with- alleged-b...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/sgi-denies-links-with-alleged- bitcoin-founder-craig-wright/) (Wright claimed to have SGI supercomputer, turns out to not be true)

\- [http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/12/11/bitcoi...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/12/11/bitcoin- creator-satoshi-craig-wright-lies-hoax/) (Wright claimed to have CSU PhD, turns out to be false)

Go and look up the claims this guy has made that turned out false. The guy is clearly a massive fraudster, which was crystal clear to me from the moment I first heard him speak, and who has encouraged this "I'm Satoshi" thing for the last year or so (probably for financial reasons).

I mean, the fact that a lot of people in the "technical community" and "Bitcoin community" fell for this have seriously lowered my esteem of both. Bitcoin in particular seems to have been attracting a certain type of gullible gold-seeker since ~2013. Sadly, the scammers go wherever these folks go, and so Bitcoin has been absolutely besieged by them.

Similarly, the number of "journalists" who wrote off the difference between "firstname.lastname@example.com" and "satoshi@gmx" as it were an unimportant detail is pretty stunning (my opinion of them was already pretty low, so no real hard done).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> That's probably the most "forum" links I've ever seen in a mainstream publication.

</comment><comment><USER13> Why is the police trying to catch Satoshi Nakamoto?

<comment><USER14> The police is going after Craig because he owes millions of dollars in unpaid taxes. It has nothing to do with him claiming to be Satoshi (although his name getting in the news might have prompted them to raid his house before he ran away with the evidence).

<comment><USER13> Thank you for summing that up for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> My summaries (with evidence):

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3weotb/evidence_th...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3weotb/evidence_the_craig_wright_emails_were_genuine/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3wi2qk/twitter_acc...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3wi2qk/twitter_account_of_the_satoshi_doxer_and_more/)

There's a whole other story to people's reactions to this. I'm quite surprised there is an equivalent of lack of belief here; as reddit can be really childish and vile. Meme phrase "Regardless of the outcome.. I believe this is a hoax"

</comment><comment><USER16> Who doesn't love ~~doxxing~~ investigative journalism?

<comment><USER17> Please don't propagate this crap. The stories came out only after the guy publicly paraded himself as Nakamoto.

Quite possibly we would have gotten articles published even if Wright didn't "out" himself, but I highly doubt that gwern would have given his name in that case, and Wright did out himself after all.

<comment><USER18> How did he out himself? He was outed after an "investigation". This is doxxing, not journalism, I will agree with the parent comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Craig Wright is not the inventor of Bitcoin...

First Satoshi Nakamoto is a pseudonym first part implies clear thinking second part implies central in origin..its meaning might be central to the origin of cyber-encryption movement..although that probably is not it..but the made up name does imply that the inventor is central to an encryption movement.

<comment><USER20> I probably need not explain that this is simply tautological.</comment></comment>


The Surprising Usefulness of Sloppy Arithmetic - <AUTHOR> http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/fuzzy-logic-0103.html <comment><USER2> Despite what the article says, if you're using floating point numbers you're _already_ using sloppy arithmetic. That's not just a sarcastic point, it's actually important; given that you're already not being precise it isn't necessarily surprising that you can trade away even more precision for speed, rather than it being some sort of binary yea/nay proposition that cracks numeric algorithms wide open.

"Off by 1% or so" leads me to guess it is implemented by using 8-bit numbers, and not necessarily with any particular sloppiness added by the chips, just the fact that the precision is small. Visual and audio processing could be set up in such a way that you wouldn't overflow those numbers because you know precisely what's coming in. You'd have to be careful about overflow and underflow but, per my first paragraph, you _already_ have to be careful about that. It also makes sense in such apps that silicon would be more profitably used computing more significant bits more often rather than dithering about getting the bits in the 2^-50 absolutely precisely correct, a good insight. I don't know if that's what they're doing because it's hard to reverse engineer back through a science journalist but "8 bit math processors in quantity" -> "science journalist" -> "this article" is at least plausible.

<comment><USER3> Science journalism is so frustrating! Here's the version for smart people:

<http://web.media.mit.edu/~bates/Summary_files/BatesTalk.pdf>

In summary: Low-precision high-dynamic range arithmetic (floating point with small mantissa, ~1% error) uses ~100x less power and die area than IEEE floating point. The errors are acceptable for a huge class of applications (basically anything you'd consider running on a GPU today).

<comment><USER4> I don't quite understand how he gets a 10,000x speedup from a 100x transistor count decrease. Does die area increase with the square of transistor count?

<comment><USER5> What he's doing is representing numbers with their logarithms, with limited precision. A floating-point multiplier/divider, then, turns into a fairly small adder, which is much smaller and faster. Square roots and squaring turn into bit shifting. They have some clever method for doing addition/subtraction efficiently. And since they can fit all this in a small area with short critical paths, they can clock it very, very fast, and include a lot of them on a chip.

<comment><USER3> It would be rather interesting programming a machine where division was faster than addition!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The chip architecture described in the article reminds me of the DEC MasPar system [1] we had at uni back in the mid-90s. 2048 processors (IIRC), where each processor could only communicate directly with it's 8 neighbours. If you wanted to get decent performance out of it, you had to think carefully about you were going to get your data onto each of the processors.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MasPar>

<comment><USER7> Interesting. This reminds me of cellular automata. Are we headed towards some kind of hybrid?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This would be beautiful for protein folding. That particular application is extremely parallel, numerically heavy, and should tolerate the loss of precision very well. It also eats up processing power like a black hole, so a few orders of magnitude speed improvement would definitely be nice.

<comment><USER8> Based on my experience, different stages of folding should require differing precision.

For ClusPro (protein docking, <http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/prot.22835>), we the first stage are rough energy functions for global sampling of the protein surface. For these functions, we use floats because it is a rigid body sampling and is very tolerant to clashes. However, when it comes to the minimization/refinement stage, we have seen weird things happen with floats and instead use doubles.

Similarly, the functions used in early stages of protein folding can probably deal with loss of precision, but the stages for producing high quality structures would not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The idea has been there for a long time: take a look at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithmic_number_system>

</comment><comment><USER10> I just need a sloppy python math library, now.

<comment><USER11> That's easy — just delete `decimal.py` from your standard library.</comment></comment>


It looks like Instagram's algorithm systematically boosts seminude pictures - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-algorithm-promotes-topless-pictures-2020-6 <comment><USER2> From the article -

 _it 's impossible to draw definitive conclusions about what's causing the skew toward topless pictures.

One explanation could be simply that other users are engaging with these pictures more, prompting the algorithm to place them higher in people's feeds. If you and others "like" a photo more, it could appear higher in other people's feeds."_

I honestly can't bring myself to feel even slightly surprised by this - machine learning/algos if successful should amplify user preferences. I have a strong feeling this is fueled by underlying user preferences rather than some ill-intent to push semi-nude pictures.

<comment><USER3> Totally! But whats unnaceptable about this type of algo approach is that it amplifies types of thinking that are easily influenced like a feedback loop. I'd almost rather some sort of deliberate manipulation than a byproduct of unnessary machine learning cruft messing with everyones social conditional.</comment></comment>