The false god of coffee - <AUTHOR> http://www.kk.org/quantifiedself/2009/10/the-false-god-of-coffee.php <comment><USER2> Caffeine is a mixed blessing. It is a stimulant, which helps you wake up. But your body compensates for the expectation of stimulation. Which means that a coffee drinker after coffee is about like a non-coffee drinker without coffee.

<comment><USER3> And this is why I gave up coffee. Nowadays I have absolutely no caffeine tolerance - so I can have a coke when out dancing and it keeps me going. Unlike ye olden days, when it had no effect whatsoever.

<comment><USER4> Try slamming a red bull next time you go dancing. Great legal high ;)

<comment><USER5> man I wish a red bull worked, I can drink 4 and the only thing I feel is my heart hurting (I don't drink Red Bull any more btw, that heart thing freaks me out)

<comment><USER6> Red bull is not the strongest energy drink at all. I need to chug 2 of the normal size cans in succession to feel anything at all. Monster and Rock Star are fantastic if you need to keep up physical work but I worry about their effect on my heart after reading about how bad they can be.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSSYD58461200808...](http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSSYD5846120080815)

<comment><USER7> Here is a sortable table of caffeine amounts in products. The numbers are quite striking.

<http://www.energyfiend.com/the-caffeine-database>

For example (mg caff / oz):

Red Bull = 80 / 8.46

Rockstar = 160 / 16

Coca Cola = 35 / 12

Fixx Energy = 400 / .17

<comment><USER6> I haven't drank Red Bull in a few years so things may have changed.

I checked the amounts of caffeine and other "medicinal" ingredients myself when I was doing physical labour and drank them regularly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The comments on the post are mind-numbing. People need to learn to take things as they are.

<comment><USER9> unreal. You'd think it was comment section on youtube.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love the tracking of productivity idea. It's interesting, I also frequently use coffee to 'concentrate', but a little differently than you. I'll have tea or sometimes coffee in the morning (one cup) and if I'm not sleep deprived, that's it. If I need to work or focus on a task in the afternoon, I'll get a large coffee, clear my area of all distractions, get comfortable and try and crank through for as long as it takes. This is sort of a different way than you use coffee.

For a while I went off coffee completely because it was causing mood swings and serious blood sugar problems. Green tea changed my life, and I frequently felt it was almost all upside as compared to coffee. I wonder why I got off that bandwagon?

<comment><USER11> How did you notice/know you were having serious blood sugar problems?

<comment><USER10> Eating binges and weird physical symptoms made me realize something was likely wrong, that started me into research about hypoglycemia, and tracking symptoms.

My old breakfasts: coffee, sometimes a sweet. Result: by noon, I thought I was starving, but it was really just extremely low blood sugar, sort of like a diabetic would feel after the insulin injection. Moody, Shaky hands, etc. Especially if I had sugar in the coffee or a second one at 10:30.

Result would be sugary lunch to spike bloodsugar back up, and similar problems at dinner.

Solution: More fiber at breakfast, less sweets, decaf coffee or green tea. Interestingly, I can now live through a breakfast like that with significantly better results, partly because I know how to get back on track, and perhaps because my bodies not in such a yo-yo type situation any more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Coffee stimulates brain activity across the board whereas ADD treatments such as Ritalin and Adderall target just the specific parts of the brain used in learning and for concentration.

So does juicing your entire brain increase concentration? My money is on no. It just gives a good energized feeling and the illusion of being more focused.

Drink coffee because you enjoy it not as a productivity hack.

<comment><USER13> "Ritalin and Adderall target just the specific parts of the brain used in learning and for concentration."

Ritalin (methylphenidate) boosts dopamine; Adderall (amphetamine and dextroamphetamin) ups the level of dopamine and norepinephrine. Caffeine effects levels of adenosine and dopamine.

There is nothing targeted about this, nor do the chemicals only work on select parts of the brain. Now, perhaps for certain practical effects, boosts in dopamine and norepinephrine are better than reducing adenosine and boosting adrenaline.

But brain chemistry is complex, and it's simplistic to think of any of these things as specifically targeted to parts of the brain used for specific tasks or behavior.

<comment><USER12> My understanding is that Adderall amplifies brain activity in whatever part of the brain you are using. Coffee just stimulates everything.

Of course that's a major simplification, but this is what I mean by "targetted".

<comment><USER13> At what point are you not using your entire brain?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm considering quitting coffee for another reason; my wife tells me it gives me a wicked case of bad breath.

Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

<comment><USER15> Try mint flavored coffee?

<comment><USER16> Does that exist? Sorry, I can't always tell if things are jokes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I dunno. I drink coffee because it good.

<comment><USER18> Home roast, decent grinder, and a press pot... Doesn't get much better...

While I do drink coffee for the caffeine (and experience withdrawal symptoms without it), a substantial motivation is that I simply enjoy the flavor of a properly made cup of coffee.

<comment><USER19> When I stopped drinking caffeinated coffee, I lost my taste for coffee, but developed a great interest in tea.

<comment><USER20> Caffeine addiction transference?

<comment><USER21> It's like methadone.

I quit coffee every once in a while and it usually takes a couple of days to return to normal functioning. The tea helps.

BTW there are some interesting coffee documentaries shown occasionally on the tube (available on Netflix too).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've always found that tea, not coffee, has enabled me to concentrate more clearly on the task at hand..

<comment><USER23> Data?

<comment><USER24> <http://www.amazing-green-tea.com/theanine-and-caffeine.html>

Many people reach for a cup of coffee when they need to concentrate. People with flagging focus might, however, get more bang for their buck with a cup of tea.

A 2007 study conducted by Doctor Foxe found that theanine and caffeine synergise to boost the activity of brain neurons.

<comment><USER22> Thanks for this. I didn't have any data other than what I experienced.

With coffee I just feel energized but that energy isn't directed. With good tea (the loose leaf kind) I feel both energized and focused. I could never explain it but the article above might be the reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Bit of a waste of time. Caffeine is a stimulant, a real drug just like any other. A drug being legal does not make it less a drug. Caffeine tolerance is real and involves changes to brain chemistry : [http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/113369008/abstrac...](http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/113369008/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0) Coffee delivers high doses of caffeine, which works by stimulating adrenaline <http://health.howstuffworks.com/caffeine-awake.htm> production... so if you stay hooked on a stimulant for a long time, of course it has a negative effect on your performance.

</comment><comment><USER26> I've been experimenting with coffee for a few years now, but I've never tried to quantify my results quite like the author did.

I've been everywhere from 1 cup a day to gross overconsumption. In the end, coffee doesn't seem to significantly impact my concentration. If I get 8 hours of sleep, don't drink any alcohol the day before, and stay hydrated, I can be productive no matter how much coffee I drink. Even more, I found that Morning Coffee makes me dehydrated and irritable, so I usually drink a cup or two after lunch to keep myself going. On occasion I've quit for 2 week intervals just to start from scratch, but quite frankly I'm addicted and never mind starting up again :)

<comment><USER27> The body adjusts to a large degree.. I could drink a coffee and easily fall asleep, when I was drinking 6 cups per day.

<comment><USER28> Quote: <http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm>

As it has a profound effect on the central nervous system by blocking adenosine receptors, caffeine is widely used to tackle drowsiness. However, majority of people little realize that it works well in your struggle with the adenosine-related homeostatic component of sleepiness, while it is quite inefficient in overcoming circadian sleepiness! Moreover, used against the latter, it can actually be quite unhealthy!

If you abuse caffeine or use it at the time when your body clock tells you bedtime, you will only experience the symptoms that gave caffeine all that bad rap. These include: heart arrhythmia, irritability, overwhelming tiredness, depression, and a typical coffee abuser's "sickness in the stomach". No wonder the popular myth says that coffee is bad for health and can contribute to a heart disease. _

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Did that vacuum coffee pot look like some sort of weird drug setup to anyone else? I had never seen something like that.

I don't really drink coffee except maybe 1 cup after dinner once a month or something along those lines but I do drink black tea which probably still does have about as much caffeine as half a cup of normal coffee. However the times that I drink tea probably differ from the times that people drink coffee, rather than drinking it in the morning I usually drink one cup around 5 o-clock.

<comment><USER30> The vacuum pot ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_coffee_maker>) appeals to the geek in us. The brew is supposed to be more "pure".

I think just like with smoking, coffee brewing is a ritual and people enjoy the ritual just as much as they enjoy the taste and the effects of coffee itself.

I like tea. Recently I have gotten to like this strange black tea called pu- erh (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pu-erh_tea>). I you like black tea, give it a try it definetly has a unique flavor. Some people really like it, some really hate it.

<comment><USER29> I have tried that tea but it was way off my usual tastes, thanks though.

It is a very interesting kind of tea though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Twining's loose-leaf Earl Grey (the square yellow can) is the perfect coffee replacement. With honey and milk, it pushes all the right buttons with minimal sugar/caffeine bounce.

<comment><USER29> A very nice earl grey (if you like stronger tasting teas) is earl grey bravo from adagio <http://www.adagio.com/black/earl_grey_bravo.html>

<comment><USER32> Oh my goodness that is so expensive.

<comment><USER33> Seriously? $7 for 4 oz. tea is really not bad. Even rather expensive high end green teas are much cheaper than (say) fine wines.

<comment><USER34> I bet most people don't drink two bottles of fine wine every day ;-)

<comment><USER33> Well, touche, but that much tea could last a while. A couple ounces of tea is like a couple _cases_ (not bottles) of wine, several pounds of coffee beans, etc. I'm not sure exactly how long 4 oz. of tea would last (my wife and I rotate through a couple different teas), but probably several weeks.

Good tea is cheap, you typically just mail-order a good quantity at a time and keep it in an airtight tin. The samplers from Adagio are ~1 oz., and a great way to try out several for a few dollars each.

<comment><USER35> Correct, really good tea _can_ be cheap. I am a fanatical tea drinker -- something like a gallon a day. And I find a 100 gm supply (3.5 oz) to go for about a month. At teaspring.com, that much of a geniunely good Taiwanese oolong (my favorite) costs about $20.

I don't know how much a month's supply of really good coffee costs for the fanatical drinker, but I know my monthly budget sure wouldn't get you far at Starbuck's . . .

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Recently took the plunge and went from 7 cups coffee plus 5 tea per day.. to around 1 coffee and 2 tea per day.

First few days were very surreal.. equivalent to slight hangover. Drinking lots of water seemed to help.

For me it was more some kind of subconscious routine habit that was too addictive, rather than the actual caffeine fix.

I think I enjoy coffee more now I drink less of it. More of a treat, and I make sure its a really good one, plunged or in an Italian pot (not instant).

<comment><USER36> When I was working in an office all day I was so bored out my skull I'd go and make a coffee for something to do that wasn't sitting at my desk. Result was drinking lots of coffee. I switched to drinking hot squash (ie fruit cordial mixed with hot water) and spiced teas without too much problem - few days of headaches.

I'm thinking I need to cut back again but at the moment it's the chocolate I'm craving, probably again for the caffeine but also for the sugar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I thought coffee was an excuse for breaks. I drink when I'm bored or need a short break. I have never ever felt that a coffee can give me a kick not even when I had to drive for 2 days or learn for exams.

On the other hand if I find something really interesting and/or exciting it can keep me awake till morning and I can't wait to get it solved not needing any stimulant food or even going to the bathroom.

<comment><USER38> I know folks who have trouble giving up cigarettes in part because it's what they do on breaks and there is a social element to it. I used to spend time someplace where the entire staff seemed to smoke and smoking was about the only break activity available. If you tried to quit and went out front to chat with someone else on break, you could guarantee they were smoking. That made it hard for anyone to successfully quit.

So I can see that being a factor with coffee in the work place.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Thanks for posting; I've also been withdrawing from coffee, primarily because my tolerance has increased to the point where I no longer feel I'm getting significant beneficial effects from it. This article has me thinking about what the negative effects I may not have noticed are, and if I should extend my "tolerance-reset" period into something more permanent.

<comment><USER38> FWIW: I use caffeine to help cope with allergies and as an albuterol substitute because I am allergic to albuterol. I have noticed that some folks who consume a lot of coffee make remarks that sound a lot like they are self- medicating for some issue without consciously realizing it. This might be why the author of the blog keeps coming up with some excuse to go back on coffee. I find that addressing underlying health issues has cut my consumption of caffeine without me having to do anything to intentionally try to curtail caffeine specifically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm surprised that nobody here has yet mentioned Yerba Matte.

I've never seen any studies or anything, just going on what I felt like my experience was, but it seems like all the benefits of coffee (altertness) with none of the bad side effects (jittery, crashing, etc.)

<comment><USER41> Yerba mate is really good. Unfortunately it's not commonly accessible. I wouldn't be surprised though, considering that Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Chile are the only countries where it's common.

<comment><USER42> Really? I live in Winnipeg, Canada, and it's pretty much everywhere here. There are bags of it in health stores, granolahead-oriented restaurants, and various other surprising places.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I quit caffeine cold-turkey around March, because I was drinking too much (effects of tolerance?) and feeling jittery throughout the day, as well as having trouble sleeping at night. Slight headaches subsided after a couple of days.

Now I don't necessarily feel like I have more energy overall, but it is a lot easier to get out of bed in the morning and I feel like my energy levels are a lot flatter and more balanced throughout the day.

Still love the taste of coffee though - decaf soy latte is part of my normal breakfast routine.

</comment><comment><USER43> Here's what works for me: I used to have a donut/pastry and a 16oz (or larger) coffee in the morning. I'd feel good for an hour or so, but soon would feel jittery and spaced-out. Now, I have an 8-oz cup in the morning with a decent breakfast - but no more throughout the day. I drink my coffee slow, get a little caffeine boost, and feel energized all morning. Moderation.

</comment><comment><USER44> Even if coffee's net effect is zero -- you're as stimulated with it as you are without it -- it can still be positive. Think of it as a way to dial up your adrenaline; instead of being excited at random times, or by external events, you're excited when you need to work, and calm when you want to relax.

</comment><comment><USER45> I've made this same point a couple of times before on here: generally I think Caffeine is just a poor stimulant full stop and there are much more productive and "healthy" ones/methods that leave you feeling a lot better

Good to see some agreement/support on this :D

</comment><comment><USER46> I rely on coffee to keep me awake in early morning class, but during quizzes the jittery feeling does impair my ability to focus. However, it's great when I'm pounding out circuit diagrams and equations for EE!

</comment><comment><USER47> i like the data tracking and chart, but the conclusion is a little weak...maybe he's getting better at concentrating and coffee has nothing to do with it. (or rather, i suspect both are influences)

<comment><USER48> For him at least, the data is proof enough. He thought he might have needed coffee to stay productive, and he found that he didn't.

<comment><USER33> Specifically, it's a good rebuttal to the nagging feeling that maybe giving in and drinking coffee would help him focus. The same approach might help with quitting smoking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> old-gregg He is complaining about mood swings, not coffee. If that's the case, I'd concentrate of stopping having mood swings as opposed to stopping drinking coffee.

It's like avoiding women and sex due to mood swings, elevated heart rate and other "impractical" side effects they may cause.

<comment><USER49> If he liked coffee because of the taste or warmth, that would be useful, I agree. He apparently doesn't care about those, though, from what he says. Since he actually cares mostly about the caffeine, and since high levels of caffeine produce mood swings for him (and me), going off coffee would seem to be the solution he wants.

Personally, I'm willing to put up with the mood swings, since it's not so much really high and really low as really, really high and kinda low. :) But that's just me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> In a time long past, I found that coffee could take the place of a meal.

This probably doesn't _actually_ work. But it still saved me the time of making a meal.

</comment><comment><USER51> Coffee is, on the average, good for the health for most people. (But tea is an ok replacement.)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_and_health#Benefits>

Do make your coffee with paper filters. [Edit: If you don't want to read the reference... paper filters removes some chemicals which are bad for cholesterol levels.]

<comment><USER52> Pointing out the long-term benefits of something without acknowledging either the long-term or short-term(which aren't really short-term if you continue to use it in the long term, but simply take effect sooner) costs doesn't justify any conclusions about whether the benefits typically outweigh the risks.

<comment><USER51> Check the link... the disadvantages come directly after the benefits. My note on paper filters came from that.

Very, very few things in life are without _both_ positive and negative effects.

But coffee is bad mainly for people with certain stomach problems or those who are too sensitive to caffeine -- blood pressure doesn't seem to increase from coffee use, claims later research. (This paragraph added since it seems you are not going to check a link if you life depended upon it! :-) )

Edit: Syntax etc in last paragraph

<comment><USER52> I did check the link, but I thought that you were only referencing the benefits. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding.

<comment><USER51> I would have reacted the same way if someone had claimed health benefits for e.g. Coca Cola. :-)

It just haven't reached the public conscious yet that coffee weirdly seems to be such a good lifestyle choice.

<comment><USER53> Strait coffee might be good for you. Starbucks style 800 calorie drinks use coffee is probably bad for you.

<comment><USER51> "A glass of wine a day is generally healthy. But what if you pour that daily glass into the sauce of a 5000 calorie dinner?!"

Then I realized your point -- in the US, lots of people think of 800 calorie drinks containing coffee as "drinking coffee"?

Well... there are certainly even weirder advertisement effects on my home culture. :-(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> The only time I drank coffee in the last 4 yrs has been after my wife had an apendectamy and I went from work, to hospital, to work no sleep.

Coffee gives me about 15-20 minutes high, then its a crash mid-work so need more coffee. I never concentrate better and if I'm sleepy I remain sleepy but hyper.

I wake up perfectly fine without it. It is the routine that wakes you up not the coffee.

Also it tastes like shit.

</comment><comment><USER55> Coffee isn't a drug or something. I love the taste of it. But I have done my research and know of studies that have shown that coffee has adverse effects on cognitive capabilities. So I drink coffee during meetings in order to stay awake but never when I have something important to do that requires all my concentration.

<comment><USER56> "Coffee isn't a drug _or something_". lol.

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

First picture caption: "Coffee is the most widely used psychotropic beverage in the world. In 1999 the average consumption of coffee was 3.5 cups per day per U.S. citizen."

Caffeine is a CNS stimulant\adenosine receptor antagonist. It increases wakefulness\helps focused thought but impairs memory. It's a stimulant drug, not a very good stimulant drug, but the most commonly used one with a large social presence.

Vastly superior safe legal stimulants imo: Rhodilia Rosea, L-Tyrosine, Cocoa, Galantamine, Spirulina

Others legal ones I know a lot of people swear by: Piracetam. (and relatives such as Oxiracetam, Aniracetam) Becoming decently common among college students.

Adderall is also EVERYWHERE you look in competitive colleges, but long term amphetamine use is a very bad idea in terms of burnout unless you are super human like Paul Erdos, and its a controlled substance.

<comment><USER55> Well, if wikipedia says so, it must be true.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Buckaroo – A decentralized C++ package manager - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/LoopPerfect/buckaroo <comment><USER2> Uncool guys, you have hidden telemetry. I don't see anything in the docs about this.

        https://github.com/LoopPerfect/buckaroo/blob/2714cd4c9e20235c4a090d21d0f60a0a9f17e82f/buckaroo-cli/Program.fs#L9-L13
        https://github.com/LoopPerfect/buckaroo/blob/master/buckaroo/Telemetry.fs

This should be opt-in not opt-out or be clearly mentioned in the docs how to turn it off.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing this out, we mention it now in multiple places:

[https://github.com/LoopPerfect/buckaroo/wiki/Installation#te...](https://github.com/LoopPerfect/buckaroo/wiki/Installation#telemetry)

[https://github.com/LoopPerfect/buckaroo/wiki/Telemetry](https://github.com/LoopPerfect/buckaroo/wiki/Telemetry)

We gather this data so we can improve Buckaroo and it's ecosystem.

<comment><USER2> Nice quick update !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Counteracting some of the comments below:

My experience using buckaroo in a large project over the past year has been extremely positive, and I'd say addresses most of the problems raised here. It's far and away better than anything else I've used.

<comment><USER4> I don't read any content in your comment?

Your experience (using buckaroo ...) adresses most of the problems raised here? You could perhaps share at least how your experience adressess some of these problems raised here: how does your experience address the hidden telemetry for example?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think Nix is the final boss of language-specific package managers and where we'll eventually converge.

<comment><USER6> I've made an account just to upvote this.

I've finished reading manual on Nix and just started with documentation on packaging. I want to have total control on dependencies, together with compiler versions and standard library implementations (effectively cross compiling everything x86_64 -> x86_64). From Buckaroo, Conan and Nix, only Nix gets this right...

<comment><USER7> Buckaroo and Nix serve different needs. You can use Buckaroo in Nix [https://github.com/LoopPerfect/buckaroo/wiki/FAQ#nix](https://github.com/LoopPerfect/buckaroo/wiki/FAQ#nix)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So many people have tried and failed to do this. I'm skeptical that these guys have succeeded.

The main problem seems to be that because there is no standard C++ build system, every library uses a different one. Wrangling all those together without requiring the library authors to do anything is extremely difficult.

Hell many C++ libraries still use autotools or hand-written Makefiles. I don't really see how it is even possible to automatically download and build those projects.

<comment><USER9> It's indeed going to be very, very, hard to retrofit a package manager into C++.

You could structure something around CMake.

One immediate issue is compilation flags and platforms management. You may need to use some custom flags, for example, you need to compile against a specific architecture. You want those flags to be passed to all libraries uniformly.

But the horrible problem is quickly the compatibility matrix.

In other words, if you are making available, let's say you are using alib v1 and blib v2, you need to check the two libraries compile, link, and work together nicely. So when you upgrade one of the libraries, you need to check that compatibility again.

It's an important problem because if you're working on production software, you need to be able to build all versions and maintain them. And maybe you will have to upgrade only one library. You can't always be "current" everywhere.

So very quickly, using a package manager becomes more painful than having the libraries management manually with a couple of custom scripts.

I'll be happily be proven wrong by a package manager (and we tried a lot).

<comment><USER10> I can't say I'd be a fan of a CMake based package manager. While CMake has been a great tool under Linux environments (I've used it for C/C++ builds, and in mixed C & Go build environments), I've also experienced horrors when CMake is used to generate Visual Studio solution and project files.

I mostly work in Windows development. CMake scripts created by a professional build engineer caused a lot of havoc. It injected itself into the project files in such an insidious fashion, that it was nearly impossible to tell if dependencies were correct. It completely broke Intellisense, making code navigation an exercise in frustration.

I was not happy, and wound up ripping out the scripts and creating new solution and project files that actually supported the needs of the developers.

(Edited to remove typos and improve grammar)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Let's see the docs what is needed to use this:

> just one file, download here...

Later on:

> You'll need Buck on your system

Then, on Buck's site:

> Buck requirements: Java 8, Apache Ant, Python 2.7, ...

Well, that does not seems too honest, would be best to warn upfront about all these dependencies.

<comment><USER7> You can install Buck as a single file also.

</comment></comment><comment> c-smile I just want C/C++ to support `include source` statement.

So in order to include some library I'll put

       #include source "libpng/png.c";

in my main.c file. And that png.c may look as:

       #include source "png-a.c"
       #include source "png-b.c"
       #ifdef PNG_FEATURE_C
         #include source "png-b.c"
       #endif
       ...

And that would be it.

C/C++ preprocessor is enough for configuration.

<comment><USER12> Could you verify what you mean by an include source statement? As you describe its usage, it seems identical to the already existing #include statement, which does a text inclusion of another file.

<comment> c-smile #include "path.c"; inserts path.c into _current_ compilation unit.

#include source "path.c"; compiles and includes path.c as a new compilation unit ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Compilation_Unit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Compilation_Unit) ) .

So if a-file.c and b-file.c are both have

        static int foo = 42;

then these two files can be successfully included as

        #include source "a-file.c"
        #include source "b-file.c"

But this:

        #include "a-file.c"
        #include "b-file.c"

will produce the error "foo is already defined"

This small feature will allow 99% of existing libraries to be included this way - without any makefile, GUP, GIP and the rest of the zoo.

Now I can put in Microsoft VC++ this

        #pragma comment(lib, "some.lib")

to include the library into final binary.

#include source is just a generalization of the idea.

<comment><USER13> And if b-file.c says "static int foo = 43;" what is the desired behavior?

<comment><USER14> I'd imagine a compiler error that static values, aka globals, must not differ at compile time. This would likely apply to consts as well.

<comment> c-smile "must not differ at compile time"

not so, static declaration are local for the compilation unit so you may have as many different foo's as files you have in your project.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Another C++ package manager?

</comment><comment><USER4> perhaps we don't as much need a specific package manager implementation as standard(s) for package maintainers so different package manager implementations can ingest the compliant packages?

</comment><comment><USER16> How can I set it up

</comment><comment><USER17> This is awesome!

</comment><comment><USER18>
        The Buckaroo workflow looks like this:

        # Create your project file
        $ buckaroo init

        # Install dependencies
        $ buckaroo add github.com/buckaroo-pm/boost-thread@branch=master

        # Run your code
        $ buck run :my-app

And yet another development tool that wants to hijack my workflow. No thanks

Conan.io already does decentralization right and is well on the way on becoming the defacto standard package manager for C++. And all of that without constraining my workflows

<comment><USER19> Conan requires a server so it is not decentralised (maybe things have changed since I last checked).

<comment><USER18> It does not require a server. It supports arbitrary remotes (like git does) to exchange packages, but it works without one as well (just publishing packages to the local cache)

<comment><AUTHOR> How do I install a package from git directly? - and can that package depend on another package that lives in another git repository?

Afaik this is not supported by conan

<comment><USER18> It is supported. You create the packages using "conan create" from any place with a recipe, which puts the packages into your local conan data directory (called the cache).

Any other recipe can then depend on any package that is already in the cache.

<comment><USER7> Does this not assume the package is already on your system?

<comment><USER18> No, conan create builds a package from a recipe. Provided you cloned sources form a git remote, you can locally build the conan package without conan ever hitting your network.

You can even just export any recipes into your local cache without manually building the package and then let conan do the work when you require the package as a dependency (using --build all)

<comment><USER7> I didn't realize that a recipe was distinct from a package. In most systems there is only one concept: packages.

So to see if I have this right:

With Conan, to use a package from GitHub, I must download the recipe and add it to my local cache ("cache" seems like the wrong term here, maybe "registry" would be better?) and then I can install it?

What about the transitive dependencies? Do I need to repeat the process for each of those?

<comment><USER18> There are no conan packages on Github, usually you can find recipes along (or separate) the sources.

Yeah, the term conan "cache" may be a bit misleading, as it is not only a cache but really your "local remote". As soon as a recipe is in your cache, you can depend on it from your own recipes/conan builds. The actual building of the package may happen during the registration of the recipe or during resolve time when you depend on a certain package configuration. Any transitive dependencies will be resolved and, in case of --build missing, the packages will be built automatically according to the recipe.

So no, you do not need to build any dependency packages (including transitive dependencies)

<comment><AUTHOR> But all those dependency packages will be resolved against a conan server not against the origin eg. github. Furthermore I'd need to put every version of the package into the conan cache.

This is impractical if a complex dependency graph as it would require the user to solve a SAT problem just to determine which packages and versions to put into the conan cache to avoid pulling from the conan server.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


We don't have time for code reviews - <AUTHOR> http://blog.8thcolor.com/2013/10/we-dont-have-time-for-code-reviews/ <comment><USER2> Proper code review provides much more benefit than cost and is indispensible for quality software. Improper code review is a waste of time (or worse).

Proper code review is done:

      - by another programmer
      - by someone with some knowledge of the application
      - by someone with some knowledge of the environment
      - against some code standard
      - against standard requirements (APIs, database, etc.)
      - with a checklist
      - uniformly (no matter who is doing it)
      - until it's right

Improper code review is done:

      - by a non-programmer
      - fully automated
      - as a "rubber stamp" on an approval checklist
      - against the standard du jour
      - according to the whims of the reviewer
      - with a deadline for the next step
      - as a replacement for testing

<comment><USER3> I also include junior developers who don't know much about the application or environment in code reviews. It's a good way for them to learn the code base and see what type of defects the senior developers point out.

<comment><USER4> +1 to that one. Code Review should be Peer Review - it is not about a Senior reviewing a Junior it is about a developer reviewing the work of another one. The junior's questions may actually be as useful as advices (notably by forcing you to explain your choices).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I once pushed un-reviewed code that contained

      alert("Fuck");

It made it to a single user who was testing it for me, on the other side of the planet. He spoke very little English, and for that I am grateful.

That was my last push without review.

<comment><USER6> I think it's hilarious (and typical) that the moral of the story is "I don't push without code reviews" not "I don't use bad words in test code."

<comment><USER7>
       "I don't use bad words in test code."

This is actually _really_ important. We had this happen with a customer whilst UAT testing. The project schedules were under pressure and as a result the customer went nuts (rightly so) and we had to make some concessions to customer as amends.

It isn't just curse / bad words. Equally as bad are comments like:

      "this was the customer's stupid idea not ours"

Also, if you really have to output test stuff in the browser use _console.log( 'message')_ and not _alert( 'message')_.

Then for production you can always do this at the top of your main JavaScript include:

      var console = {};
      console.log = function(){};

<comment><USER8> What about

      window.alert = function(){};

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> When talking about code reviews I am constantly reminded of the following

1\. How hard it is to grok code that I've never seen before

2\. How hard it is to grok my own code from 6 months ago

Sometimes it may take me a day or more to fully get my head around a new piece of code I am working with. I could not give a thorough AND fair review of another person's code without internalizing it to a satisfactory degree.

There is also the issue of software as art vs engineering. Quite often I will take issue with the style or approach of another person's coding simply because I would have done it differently had I done it myself. But that does not mean that their code is wrong.

All things considered, I think code reviews can be helpful in certain situations, but I think there are many pitfalls which must be avoided in order for them to justify the cost.

<comment><USER10>
        > Sometimes it may take me a day or more to fully get
        > my head around a new piece of code I am working with.

Are you trying to perform a design review, or a code review? Code reviews (in my mind, at least) concern themselves with the low-level mechanics of the code ("Handle this exception properly","there's a library method for this logic","follow the team's coding standards", etc.) whereas design reviews deal with the "how is this thing supposed to work?". When reviewing code, I avoid dealing with design issues. If I see design issues, I ask the developer for a design review.

<comment><USER9> My time is more valuable than being a pre-compile/pre-deploy sanity check or human lint.

When I review code I review all of it, not just the easy parts.

If I was going to do a 1/2 ass job of it I wouldn't do it in the first place.

<comment><USER10>
      > When I review code I review all of it...

We haven't mentioned timing, but that's the reason I decouple design and code reviews.

Design reviews can be done fairly early in the process before the code is complete. If design changes are needed, there is still plenty of time for them.

Code reviews can't really be done until most of the code is written, but (as you point out) the kinds of problems they find are much easier to fix, so require less time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Personally I agree with the author that proper [1] code reviews are valuable, however, I think he's skipping over a really critical point:

        > We started doing Unit Testing at some point, and it
        > quickly became "good practice/mandatory" in our team (I
        > think good practices need to be applied by everyone in a
        > team, requiring some kind of "collective enforcement").

I'd love it if the author would elaborate more on how to change team behavior like this, especially when it's a team member (peer) trying to make the change.

I've seen many teams struggle because there isn't a agreement over what practices to follow.

[1] See edw's comment on proper code reivews: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6598804](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6598804)

<comment><USER11> My advice:

1\. As an advocate for a practice, ensure you use that practice in all that you do. Advocate for it in every team meeting. Try to stress _why_ it is important, and how it can directly make things better, instead of just "making our code better." Provide research and numbers from prior projects that show how useful such a practice can be.

2\. Provide good examples and guides to get the practice started. Some avoid a practice because they don't know the best way about executing a practice. If it's unit testing, show how one should go about determining edge cases and describe useful unit testing methodologies (mocks, stubs, etc).

3\. Make it easy as possible. If it's unit testing, integrate a CI server directly to your SCM. If it's code review, adopt a practice that fits inline with your existing workflow and don't make it a ceremony - make it asynchronous.

4\. Understand that it will be gradual, but every effort moving forward should push towards integrating the new practice. You can't suddenly have 100% test coverage after introducing unit testing to an existing project, but all code that gets included can include new tests, and old refactoring can have tests included to slowly build up the test coverage.

<comment><USER12> Why is much more important than what to do. The best benefits of code reviews are: 1\. Developer educate each other about the code base and how to be better developers. This means quick, more stable features which means the company can start making money sooner. 2\. Slows tech debit. Poorly written code stays out of the product. More up time means more overt unity to make money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> My co-workers write awful code, including the "architect". I try to review their code, without having a formal process, because I simply do not trust their abilities. It would not be pretty if we did code reviews.

<comment><USER14> Or it might be better. Once code reviews are happening people tend to start realizing that people are reading their code and it is raised to a higher standard.

There's also the added benefit that reviewing your code can teach them about better programming practices, and also that reviewing their code with them and asking questions about their thought patterns can make them better developers.

It's my opinion that if the code is awful then code reviews become especially helpful and important to bringing everyone up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You think that's bad, I once worked in a startup where the Product Manager told me he didn't have time for tests.

<comment><USER16> You speak as if that's unusual...

If it's not something you can stick on an invoice, it's generally hard to persuade management it's worth doing in my experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I care more about full functional test coverage than code review. The tests must be automated, regression and functional coverage not just unit test. Test results/logs must output in HTML store in DB backend (now) or excel (did that in 1997) for ease of analysis. Test failures are highlight in red, passes are in green.

The developers should write new test code for every new feature and run all the existing test code after/merge before checkin. All the projects I worked on that implement this process are very successful. With this process in place and agree upon, I careless about code review.

With enough "functional" test coverage, it is easy to do massive refactoring of code without worry about any breaking.

Worked on one project that try code review for two weeks - other than a few comments about coding style, not much gain from the time spent.

<comment><USER18> Test coverage is pretty orthogonal to code review. You might wind up with a large amount of fully tested freshly refactored code that does not meet requirements or edge cases the tests missed. I'd recommend at least reviewing the test code in your case.

Besides that, it sounds like a nice codebase to work in. I've had very good test coverage for libraries and backend services with well-defined APIs I've written, but a lot of my career has been spent doing UI work and I've never found an adequate testing tool that can deal with both the complexity and randomness of human interaction and the rate of change of UI presentation.

You can't really regression test UIs, because most UI development intentionally changes the things regression tests look for, so you wind up spending a lot of time updating the regression tests and trying to keep up with UI changes that are being made in a tight code/review/tweak iteration loop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Pull requests are insufficient for code review. You need to run the code. I often find the code I want to review after following a path in a debugger.

<comment><USER20> I think I have to disagree with this one.

A major part of being an effective programmer is the ability to maintain state and call stacks in your head.

Stepping through code is great - as a last resort. But I've found that if I _need_ to run through it with a debugger in order to understand it, it is often overly complex.

As with any generalized rule there are exceptions, but I consider needing to step through code in a debugger to understand its behavior as that exception, not the inverse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Agree with this: pull requests _are_ code reviews. Web UIs with visual diffs make this even more efficient.

<comment><USER22> I don't know, code review without running the code is a very very light variant, too light to call it code review I believe.

<comment><USER23> Code review is about reviewing the code. That's literally what the name says. CI runs the tests, QA test the final behavior, code review checks the code.

<comment><USER24> That's nice in theory, but in practice another dev really should be running the code and doing some manual testing. Having full knowledge of the innards allows a competent dev to foresee potential trouble spots in the architecture and hit some edge cases to make sure they don't break.

CI may run the tests, but that assumes your tests have captured every possible edge case. It may be the intention of tests to be comprehensive and cover everything under the sun, but that is rarely the case in reality.

Ditto QA - they should be able to black-box test the software and all of its possible states, but in reality something is going to pass through the net.

Having a dev run the code themselves and poke around in it is just a plain good idea.

<comment><USER25> > That's nice in theory, but in practice another dev really should be running > the code and doing some manual testing.

Why? If they are reviewing the code _including the unit tests_ , shouldn't they instead be _suggesting any missing unit tests_ , which then become _permanent and reusable_ rather than "doing some manual testing"?

> CI may run the tests, but that assumes your tests have captured every > possible edge case. It may be the intention of tests to be comprehensive and > cover everything under the sun, but that is rarely the case in reality.

Insofar as the other dev doing code review can address this with their own testing, isn't it better for this to be done-once and preserved by adding _automated_ tests rather than done-and-lost by doing manual tests?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> linkbait. Title is no time for code reviews and talks about how they do code reviews.

</comment><comment><USER27> gets worse when you hear "we don't have time for unit tests"</comment>


More lessons learned from building machine learning systems - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/xamat/10-more-lessons-learned-from-building-machine-learning-systems <comment><USER2> Slideshare FAIL on Firefox:

        SecurityError: The operation is insecure. combined_experiments.js:1:0
        SecurityError: The operation is insecure. combined_player_presentation_init.js:1:0
        GET
        https://www.linkedin.com/uas/oauth2/authorization [HTTP/1.1 302 Found 183ms]
        TypeError: this._init is not a function combined_player_presentation_init.js:1:4469
        Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at http://public.slidesharecdn.com/fonts/fontawesome-webfont.woff2?97493d3f11. (Reason: CORS header 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' missing). <unknown>
        downloadable font: download failed (font-family: "FontAwesome" style:normal weight:normal stretch:normal src index:1): bad URI or cross-site access not allowed source: http://public.slidesharecdn.com/fonts/fontawesome-webfont.woff2?97493d3f11 app_critical.css:4:14

Firefox goes into a loop loading the first slide over and over.

</comment><comment><USER3> Video of the talk [https://m.youtube.com/watch?index=8&list=PLrbAIdPI69Pgvh- iqK...](https://m.youtube.com/watch?index=8&list=PLrbAIdPI69Pgvh- iqKt_h0hQVureyddn4&v=7VoiIQzrDs0)

<comment><USER4> Thanks. Did not realize this is from MLConf last week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Two Questions:

1\. What are the tools used on slide 37?

2\. What was the example of "The Master Algorithm" used to explain in slide 22?

</comment><comment><USER5> Show HN: Machine learning to build machine learning.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is there any video of this talk?

</comment><comment><USER7> I appreciated the insight about using implicit feedback vs explicit feedback.</comment>


198 charges against Uber drivers in Toronto - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2015/08/13/198-charges-against-uber-drivers-in-toronto.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

<comment><AUTHOR> The article points out that there is a salient distinction between Uber the company and the drivers with whom it has a relationship.

Uber may be allowed to act as a broker between riders and drivers, but the drivers themselves still have to comply with the city's bylaws until such time as the bylaws are overturned in court or repealed.

(A similar thing happened with a Toronto furrier named Paul Magder. He spent years fighting the unpopular laws restricting Sunday Shopping, and accumulated a huge pile of $10,000 fines. The laws were finally repealed, but he was still required to pay for his violations from when the laws were in place.)</comment>


How Big Data Can Solve America's Gun Problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/12/how-big-data-can-solve-americas-gun-problem/266633/#

<comment><USER2> America doesn't have a gun problem: it has a mental health problem, caused by the anti-psychiatry movement that started in the 1960s. Each of the recent high-profile active shooters could have been stopped were it not for legal strictures that have virtually eliminated involuntary commitment in the United States.

The anti-psychiatry movement has been so pervasive and effective that psychiatrists are effectively banned from speaking about these cases publicly. See this recent editorial by Dr. Paul Steinberg, published two days ago in the New York Times:

"I write this despite the so-called Goldwater Rule, an ethical standard the American Psychiatric Association adopted in the 1970s that directs psychiatrists not to comment on someone's mental state if they have not examined him and gotten permission to discuss his case. It has had a chilling effect. After mass murders, our airwaves are filled with unfounded speculations about video games, our culture of hedonism and our loss of religious faith, while psychiatrists, the ones who know the most about severe mental illness, are largely marginalized."

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/opinion/our-failed- approac...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/opinion/our-failed-approach-to- schizophrenia.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0)

</comment><comment><USER3> They missed the fact that the ATF requires reporting of rapid/multiple gun purchases. Regardless, this is a huge invasion of privacy, akin to reporting of library book checkouts or anything medical related.

Bad idea.</comment>


Should internet firms pay for the data users currently give away? - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21734390-and-new-paper-proposes-should-data-providers-unionise-should-internet <comment><AUTHOR> Paper referenced in the article can be found at [1]

[1] "Should We Treat Data as Labor? Moving Beyond 'Free'" [ [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3093683](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3093683) ]</comment>


I Fooled the World into Thinking I Was a Successful EDM DJ–For an Art Project - <AUTHOR> http://thump.vice.com/en_us/article/i-fooled-the-world-into-thinking-i-was-a-successful-edm-djfor-an-art-project?utm_source=thumpfbus <comment><USER2> I'm reminded of a Key and Peele "How to Rob a Bank" skit:

Now I know this plan is foolproof. Check this out. First of all, you and me start working at the bank. Doesn't matter the position, okay, just so long as we get in there, all right? Then we just go there every day, do the work, gain their trust until we get them in the palm of our hand. All right. So how we get the money? That's the beauty of it, bro. They deposit the money into our bank accounts, week after week, month after month. They're not even gonna know they're being robbed. And then 20 or 30 years later, we walk out the front door like nothing even happened.

</comment><comment><USER3> I read about this woman previously (may have been the same article) but I think this comment on reddit really summed up my feelings on it.

      https://www.reddit.com/r/ActLikeYouBelong/comments/4cb4yw/fooled_the_world_into_thinking_she_was_an_edm/d1h7aml/

_The fools! For they could not begin to grasp the sheer magnitude of my plan! I toiled, sweat soaking my brow and streaming down my back as I mastered their craft. I studied long, perfecting their techniques, learning their tongue, adopting their ways until I could pass among them - pass as one of them! Those cruel hours! Those long, arduous days and weeks! Those agonizing months as I trained, developing my art unto new heights until I was finally prepared to reveal the Machiavellian intrigue behind my scheme!... ...For as I played to the multitudinous crowd, bending them to my every whim with each note, raising them to ecstatic delight with each crescendo - entertaining them! - little did any of them know that while they had been having fun I had been loathing this the entire time!!! Muahahahahaaa!_

<comment><USER4> As someone who DJ'd on a whim for a few years to pay some bills in college, I think that takes away from the thrust of it.

In other fields we expect the luminaries of a craft to have achieved that level with some significant effort/insight/accomplishments, and I don't know about you, but 6 months is NOT enough time to truly master a craft. (I say as someone who has spent multiple decades spent in multiple instruments, physical crafts and otherwise, and still find myself a joke next to real experts, and would not attempt to pass myself off as such)

I would say the "luck factor" plays more a role in djing than it does in many other fields (most performance fields are similar in this way), which would be fine if it were acknowleged, but there does seem to be some deifying of the DJs, and many who I interacted with seemed to, as we put it in tech, drink the koolaid a bit too much. Like the author I got tons of praise for my sets when I would occasionally have thrown together whatever bullshit I had been listening to the day of in an hour before I went onstage, and I felt like a bit of a sham for that; I would certainly not try to pull similar shit in my professional career and I think that's quite telling.

I take the article as a request to "See through the smoke and mirrors" and as a shitty DJ I'd definitely echo that sentiment. There are some amazing producers out there who get little to no credit, because they haven't gotten critical mass necessary to start passing themselves off as DJ-famous despite putting a huge amount of effort into making some damn good music. I'd be the first to nod to a "Well life isn't fair" statement, but thus the article, and my emphasizing that it's for us to see each performer for what it is and not lessen the accomplishments of either group for the other; but to me that requires being able to distinguish what each performer is and is not.

<comment><USER5> I find it really weird that the unique openness, positivity and lack of pretentiousness among EDM fans/dancers is being perceived as something negative. I instead find it hugely refreshing - EDM is all about going with the blissful flow and feeling/sharing in positive emotions with the people around you. As long as the music contributes to a great vibe it's fantastic music as far as I'm concerned, I don't care one bit about if you spent an hour or a year creating the song.

I spend way too much of my regular life being analytical (heh..) and thinking instead of enjoying, and I really don't understand why it's so popular among music fans to always look for the flaws in everything instead of finding the beauty. I understand that as a someone who has seen through the smoke and mirrors it may be tempting to clear the smoke.

But I came because of the smoke machine, and when I look back I'll remember the warm feeling of empathy, fun and joy seemingly flowing through the hazy air - not about how much time or effort the DJ spent on the tunes. That doesn't make me stupid or ignorant, I'd argue it makes me the opposite.

[https://newrepublic.com/article/118854/edm-and-hippies- how-r...](https://newrepublic.com/article/118854/edm-and-hippies-how-ravers- became-new-flower-children)

<comment><USER6> Musicians and more sophisticated listeners see simple music as boring and vapid, not blissful. Liking it doesn't make you stupid, but it may well mean you're ignorant. I would bet the likes of Tiesto will be much less interesting to you in a few years' time.

<comment><USER7> Uhh, it varies, really. There's music that's simple because the musicians don't know how to be make interesting music, and then there's music that's simple because that's the musically correct thing to do and the musicians have the confidence to be like "no, we're not playing all the notes and doing all the things right now".

There's layers of sophistication. Sometimes becoming a better musician means learning to put more into a song, and sometimes it means less.

A good example of this: Ahmad Jamal, Surrey With The Fringe On Top, particularly the section 50 seconds in - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM7PDwzY9LA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM7PDwzY9LA)

More mainstream is the drumming in "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes.

<comment><USER6> That section goes for 10 seconds. I guess if Tiesto only ever played for 10 seconds that would be cool.

<comment><USER6> One other thing: Jahmal is playing against the time signature in that section, which would be anathema to someone who just wants to make sounds to move bodies by.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _" Everything I did was real. I managed every transition without a sync button and I lived each performance. But still I constantly felt I was cheating my audience and the scene by presenting a pure fiction."_

This was the part that struck me; the imposter syndrome, even after achieving commercial success. If you become a sought-after EDM DJ (or software developer) it's not because you were able to fool the world. It's because you've taught yourself how to give your customer what they need. The people consuming what you make already know you're a professional - and you're the last one to realize it.

Congrats to the author and her mentors for figuring out what it takes to build a popular act.

</comment><comment><USER9> This feels a hell of a lot like an updated version of the KLF's "How To Have A Number One The Easy Way", except written by someone who decides to get off the ride before it gets to the end. [http://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the- klf/](http://freshonthenet.co.uk/the-manual-by-the-klf/)

I sure did roll my eyes and make wanking gestures during the opening paragraphs. No, people _aren 't_ at a club to sit back and sip weak tea slowly whilst listening to the intricacies of a beautifully difficult piece of music. They are here to _dance_. And as the DJ, your job is to _give them beats to dance to_ and _keep the party going_. Any number of these people may be listening to and loving that difficult, cerebral music at home, but _you can 't dance to that shit_ and they are in this place to _move their asses_.

<comment><USER10> There is dance music that is original and tasteful you know? The article instead shows quite well how the mainstream edm scene is mindlessly homologous and that for this scene in particular the hype of big dj's is meaningless. In other dance music scenes DJ's are revered for combining their large collections of music, knowledge of track selection, and understanding a crowd to create an individual experience each time. Sure if you have brainwashed yourself to enjoy the tired formulaic mainstream edm drivel you'd love a cliché mainstream edm DJ, however for people who love dance music it can be insufferable.

[edit] spelling

<comment><USER11> Insufferable indeed. Goodness, how will those lovers of dance music survive the onslaught of formulaic EDM drivel one has to wonder.

I was expecting lovers of dance music to... love dance music. Not dictate what's right and what's wrong while passively agressively suggesting that mainstream listeners are ignorant.

I've seen this attitude many times from smaller groups which see themselves above the masses. They need a justification for the fact that their tastes are not popular and that becomes often "the masses are stupid, only we understand the true nature of _whatever_ ".

<comment><USER10> I don't give a fuck about what people listen to, nor do i claim certain music is right or wrong. If you could actually read i was talking about DJing, as a lover of the internet do you love all the Child porn flowing through it? fuck off you cuck

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So... basically become a DJ? This person didn't fool the world, since they were actually doing everything that goes into being a DJ. They just happened to have an insufferable attitude about it behind the scenes.

<comment><USER13> They seem to have an opinion that a DJ shouldn't just be someone who picks a set of popular/danceable songs and puts on a bit of a performance while playing them to a crowd of dancing people. Which... okay, I guess?

They also started with insider connections, which is probably the biggest thing that let them overcome needing "luck" to take off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> An attractive woman, who was familiar with the club scene, after learning the basics of EDM was able to get well paying gigs as a DJ.

The lesson here is that a mildly competent attractive woman can easily get jobs in entertainment/marketing.

</comment><comment><USER15> Welcome to everything marketed for mass appeal, ever. Mainstream audiences don't exhibit refined tastes, and the product is more facade than substance. In music this has been an open secret of for decades.

To me, it sounds like the author just has a chip on their shoulder about EDM in specific. That goes insufficiently unexplored, but the reason is probably best described as "salty."

Yet, the article is dressed it up VICE-magazine's carefully managed branding and is designed to look like an authentic entity exposing something meaningful. All flash, no substance. Irony, thy name is VICE.

</comment><comment><USER16> > Their attitude betrays the avant-garde origins of the music they play.

What does this mean? (Honest question.)

> we were suddenly being booked and questioned our "realness."

well...

> Tobias has used his know-how to make an online platform called ...

Oh I see the article is an ad. Just like her whole career.

You know you live in postmodern times when someone can write an "honest" article about how their career is phony in order to sell a product. Just, wow.

</comment><comment><USER17> She may have seen it as an "OMG art project" but Tobias surly saw it as "How to Make a Popstar 101".

She also happened to ride the wave of "we need more female DJs" (Jan 2014):

[http://thump.vice.com/en_au/article/the-reason-there- arent-m...](http://thump.vice.com/en_au/article/the-reason-there-arent-more- female-djs)

The hook for promoters was that it was a twofer - two female DJs on the flyer for the price of one.

What she doesn't get is that everyone doing EDM thinks it's a joke too. Nobody takes it seriously (except getting best time slots).

I guess what I'm stuck on is, what was the "art" in the project? Being a DJ or fooling everyone? Seems like it could be a case of imposter syndrome, but I'll bet it's simply clickbait.

</comment><comment><USER18> This piece takes itself way too seriously. EDM is supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be done with friends. It's not artesnal "my band has less commercial success than yours" bullshit.

<comment><USER19> _> It's not artesnal "my band has less commercial success than yours" bullshit._

Depends on the subgenre.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I have a question for DJs:

Why do so many DJs play the same songs over and over and over again from night to night?

I've been to so many clubs that very rarely play new music, and very often stick to the same playlist night after night.

It's so incredibly boring to hear the same songs over and over and over again, and saps my will to go out at all, because I know I'm rarely going to hear anything new. There's only so many times I can get up the energy to dance to even a great song that I've heard ten thousand times in the last 20 years.

I know this varies from DJ to DJ and scene to scene, and some do play new music, but I've just seen this happen way too often, and wonder how people can even stomach working as a DJ if they're not interested enough to find and play new music, and restrict themselves to playing the same stuff over and over again.

It really bores the hell out of a lot of club goers too, and I'm convinced its contributed to the death of some scenes.

Also, why do some clubs have the same fucking DJs for literally decades? Why can't they let some fresh blood in?

<comment><USER21> I started an audiovisual services company a few years ago, and so I've worked as a DJ off-and-on for a few years (mostly for fun, as it doesn't pay as well as software). The reality is that DJs play what people want to hear. The average club-goer goes out once or twice a week; while the DJ may be playing the same shit over and over, the people in the club at that moment probably haven't heard that track that week, and if it's a "banger" they probably will be happy to hear it.

Clubs are not venues for new music, on the whole. Taking in truly new music is challenging in a way that most people out to get drunk/high and dance their ass off just don't want.

I have a list of tracks that I _know_ will start a dance floor, every DJ worth anything does. They aren't effective because they're new or innovative, but because they connect with a large percentage of people. The party starters are hits from when the audience was in college or high school; you just have to look at your crowd, and pick the right year, play some songs from their era, and the crowd will be happy.

I think the best DJs will expand the horizons of their crowd a little bit, by playing something interesting and new for the people in the crowd. But, as much as I might like to do a set of all my favorites, I know I can't play Kraftwerk and Dead Prez and The Big Boys in the same set...I can probably get away with _one_ such obscure track (and, I'm often surprised to find somebody in the crowd recognizes it, or asks who it is because they really like it and hadn't heard it before). You've gotta empty the dance floor every now and then to keep the bar ringing, anyway, so you can do it with the weird tracks.

So...if you want to be paid to DJ in almost any environment, you have to play the music the audience wants to hear. Hell, you can effectively be a jukebox playing nothing but requests (which are _always_ hits) and people will be happy; but, if you ignore all requests, the crowd won't be happy (though clubs are less prone to requests than private parties, in my experience). If you achieve a huge level of success, maybe then you can play a majority of your own tracks...but, even the biggest names who are also "producers" are mostly just playing the hits and waving their hands around while visuals and pyrotechnics go off around them.

<comment><USER20> _" I have a list of tracks that I know will start a dance floor, every DJ worth anything does. They aren't effective because they're new or innovative, but because they connect with a large percentage of people."_

The thing is, after a while, you can get a sense of what kinds of music is danceable and catchy, and know that there's a high chance you'll fill the dance floor with it, even (or especially) if it's new.

About popular oldies: each of these was new once, and some DJ had to take a risk to play it for the first time somewhere before it was popular. I'll be showing my age here, but I've seen on multiple occasions cases where a new danceable, catchy song will come out, and would have been perfect for a club, but it doesn't actually get played in clubs for a decade or two. Then I'll finally hear it played in a club, and by then it's already stale, and has lost a lot of the energy and excitement it would have had were it played when it was fresh.

Also, even if a DJ lacked confidence in their own ability to pick danceable new music, and felt that they had to stick to the tried and true oldies: there are so many great oldies out there! Why should they stick to the same exact 10 oldies every night when there are hundreds if not thousands of them to pick from?

Then, in my experience, most DJs don't stick to just the popular club hits. They play obscure music all the time. Even music that is virtualy undanceable, and clears the dance floor as soon as they play it. So they're taking risks, and sometimes even paying for it by the audience clearly not liking what they played. But they play those very same obscure songs night after night. It's obvious that no one's requesting these songs, and the DJs don't give a shit that people don't like them, but they play them anyway. So catering to what the audience likes is not an excuse in that case.. and that happens all the time. All the time.

So my questions are:

1 - If DJs are brave enough to play obscure songs, why do they have to be the same obscure songs all the time?

2 - If they feel the need to play old hits a lot, why play the same old hits over and over again?

<comment><USER21> Both are valid points. And, I make fun of DJs who play the same set over and over, night after night. I don't understand why any DJ would subject themselves to that kind of tedium; but let's be honest: the majority of DJs are not musicians, and their interest in music is not deep or wide. And, being repetitive is not a negative in the mainstream DJ market.

Regardless of my preference for variety, the people hiring DJs generally don't care about that metric. My favorite DJs in the market where I've worked were playing really obscure stuff for their whole set...but weren't making a lot of money doing it. But, it was clear that they _loved_ the genres and artists they were playing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I don't think people realize the parallels between this and startup life.

Lots of people who have succeeded in the startup world attribute it to one thing or another they did but a lot of it is just damn pure luck.

This woman faked her way through... if she had wanted she could have continued down that road and be a bona fide DJ and none would be wiser.

<comment><USER12> > This woman faked her way through...

She didn't, though. The only thing she faked was her attitude about what she was doing.

<comment><USER23> How is that faking? That's just putting up with something to get the result you want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The author appears confused as to what being a DJ actually involves. This confusion is understandable considering she seems to believe that the electronic music scene begins and ends with the Big Room EDM of Netsky/Flume. Whilst this may be the commercial face of EDM, for many fans it is no more representative of the EDM genre than chart Hip-Hop is of the Hip-Hop genre. The very idea that refined DJs would want "the platform occupied by cake- throwing pyrotechnic-firing entertainers" betrays her claim of understanding the scene.

Anyone can play some popular tracks and mix into the EDM scene for a while but that's not going to get you on the Resident Advisor Top 100. Serious DJ's (I'm talking the likes of Ricardo Villalobos or Nicolas Jaar) have a religious like commitment to the art and performing sets is only a fraction of what they do.

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't see this as an "art project" as much as a fun experiment. This just shows that good producers and promoters, and having an "in" can often get you on the same level as legitimately talented musicians.

<comment> happy-go-lucky That's what happens almost everywhere, but the bitter truth is they usually don't last long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Isn't the path to becoming a successful EDM DJ, essentially to fool the world into thinking that you are one?

</comment><comment> J-dawg Interestingly something like this was done 15 years ago for a UK channel 4 documentary.

[https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2001/apr/22/features...](https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2001/apr/22/features.review127)

</comment><comment><USER27> Darn, was hoping it was Paris Hilton.

</comment><comment><USER28> Welcome to music. Tits and ass has _ALWAYS_ trumped talent.

</comment><comment><USER29> Back in the day I used to put on a few events and have a say as to who played what records and when. We did invite DJs that played known crowd pleasers even if I (and my housemate) were snobbish about what they played. There were two reasons for this, we wished for an inclusive crowd and sometimes a few crowd favourites help with getting people on the dancefloor. We also wished to attract the following of the crowd-pleasing DJ. As the night progressed we could steer the mood into the musical journey we wanted with decent slots for the DJs we really did want to hear. There were times when we had to rescue the decks (due to emptying dance floor) but generally we were hands-off and certainly were not going to dent the egos of our DJs, we would be just playing a 'special request for a birthday girl' or something.

My problem with people that played crowd pleasers was that there was an aspect of them being 'poseurs'. Rather than having a confident idea of what a set should be and putting together something amazing for that night and that crowd, it was almost as if the poseur-DJs were second-guessing things and overly concerned with BPM values, all very mechanical, if skilled. They also were not challenging the audience or creating new music for them. Nonetheless at least they tried, at least they were there in front of a crowd for their mistakes to be heard by all, at least they invested in vinyl (as it was then) and they were able to keep our inclusive crowd happy (if not challenged).

Our scene was 50-50 as far as gender but when it came to organisational nounce and DJing it was mostly male. I do not think that we created an impenetrable male-only clique, plenty of ladies around, just not hitting the decks or having money at stake.

The poseurs did earn acceptance over time in some cases, we gave them the space to get some confidence or whatever it was that was lacking and they earned their place on the scene.

How would I have felt if this 'art project' had infiltrated itself into our events? Probably pretty rotten but times really have changed. Back in the day you could not have 30000 tunez on an mp3 player and have the computer mix things for you. You had to take a choice 150 or so 12" records, all of which had to be bought when they came out as limited pressings with white labels and what not. So to have enough in the bag to cover all eventualities during an hour or so of a DJ slot one would have to have £1000 of vinyl with you, fresh vinyl with sensible back catalog. This was a convenient barrier to entry and probably would have been too high a bar for 'art projects' like this.

You can take the piss out of any medium and any art form and call it an 'art project'. You could even go along to a Trump rally and chant the usual chants and call it an 'art project'. You could wear a football shirt and go to football matches for the first time, posing as a fan and calling it an 'art project'. You could fool people int thinking your graffiti was a 'banksy' and call it an 'art project'.

Beyond the blog post, where are the fruits of this 'art project'? What is being truly created? I don't see any creation of note, just cynicism and assumptions, fakery and nothing really proven.

</comment><comment><USER30> This piece could be interchanged with any music genre. Rap / Hip Hop, Rock, Country... it would all read the same. There's plenty of examples across the board.

<comment><USER31> Seems like it's something of a continuum, though.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otM22QcIHYw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otM22QcIHYw) \- a group of untrained people could not put that together and play it live in 6 months. No way, no how.

Maybe with a bit of training and a lot of auto-tune, someone with a decent voice could be a 'pop star', but even that... probably more than 6 months.

There's a ton of music that's got years and years of practice behind it.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Teledraw.com, a web-based drawing game - <AUTHOR>

http://www.teledraw.com/<p>Hey guys, we've been working on Teledraw.com for the past 5 months, and when Doodle.no.de came out, we pushed hard to show you our take on the telephone drawing game as well. Let us know if you have any questions or feedback. <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://www.teledraw.com/>

</comment><comment><USER2> Oh please don't make me sign up. Just let me play?

<comment><USER3> We would really like to have the ability to play without signup, but we need some way to prevent spam. Signup takes seconds, and it's even faster with Facebook connect!

<comment><USER2> Is spam really such a big issue right now for you? You're probably missing out on a lot of users for stopping a couple of spammers, which you can do manually anyway.

<comment><USER3> That's a good point. We're working on allowing users to quickly jump into playing (with a temporary account), by just asking for a username, then allowing them to complete registration later if they choose.

It's not entirely about spam, either... user accounts are closely tied in with the structure of the site, so it's hard to have accounts and anonymous users playing the same game. If you sign up, you'll see that there are a lot more features on the site than just playing! For example, the home page turns into a news feed sort of page, where you can see new activity on threads you've played in. The user profile page (here's mine: <http://www.teledraw.com/user/camupod>), which allows people to check out the turns you've played on previous threads.

Give it a chance, please? :)

<comment><USER2> Alright, I will try it but beware my email rant - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2999209>

<comment><USER3> We don't send any email :)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Key Developer Insights to the State of the Decentralized Web - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/key-developer-insights-to-the-state-of-the-decentralized-web-dweb-mnv3y3s <comment><USER2> They need to interview developers outside if blockchain of they want the real story. Those numbers are biased to the people working in the industry and does not scratch the surface as to why many of us stay far far away...</comment>


Jeff Bezos on Peter Thiel: 'Seek revenge and you should dig two graves' (2016) - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/01/jeff-bezos-on-peter-thiel-seek-revenge-and-you-should-dig-two-graves <comment><USER2> I'm not sure I agree with this. In thiels case they outted him for being gay. Hardly progressive.

Gawker was a bully that made it difficult for others to fight back. From the ordeal or took a lot of work to punish them. I say good on him. (He was fighting a revenge, spy porn tape for hulk and himself)

</comment><comment><USER3> And now Bezos is doing as he preached back then. He is revealing the blackmail instead of going to court over it.

<comment><USER4> Blackmail is a criminal offence. If true, it's not for him to go to court over it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Seems only relevant on the surface. What AMI tried to do to Bezos is far worse, legally at least, than what Gawker did to Thiel.

</comment><comment><USER6> Someone thought they were being really smart digging this up, didn't they?

Why anyone feels the need to cape for AMI is a mystery to me.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "Amazon billionaire says PayPal co-founder should 'grow a thick skin' rather than take reporters to court, and suggests dirtiest industries be banished to space"

</comment><comment><USER7> Is this supposed to be an ironic post? Because it isn't.

</comment><comment><USER8> Can we add 2016 to the title?

</comment><comment><USER9> He means for the one leaking the chats, and his ex-wife.</comment>


Why Twitter's C.E.O. Demoted Himself - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/31/technology/31ev.html?pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> I thought the reason why people left the SXSW interview was because the interviewer was a giant, self-absorbed douche who gave Ev little time to speak and/or didn't do a good job of facilitating.

<comment><USER3> Interviwer: Ev, I've read that Twitter is being used by dissidents abroad to drum up support for their causes and bring them together, giving us yet another example of social media being used for guerilla political purposes. Is this true?

Ev: I think so.

And on and on and on...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This may end up being a wise choice for the company (I think Ev is happier now), but you don't have to be a detail-oriented leader to be a great CEO. You just have to be great at finding people who complement your strengths and weaknesses as a leader.

There is no perfect CEO, so Ev's situation shouldn't apply to everyone. Zuck kept power as CEO and has done an extraordinary job. Larry and Sergey created a triumvirate for the big decisions, and that's worked out quite well as well.

<comment><USER5> So looking at this from a scientific perspective, essentially anybody can be a CEO (memories of that classic Dan Ackroyd/Eddie Murphy movie "Trading Places" comes to mind).

Scientifically any theory about Zuck doing an "extraordinary job" is non- falsifiable.

Why then should we read the innumerable puff pieces about why one person should be CEO and another person COO?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> They hired a great CEO in Dick Costolo, gave him time to prove himself within Twitter as COO, then promoted him to CEO. This _may_ have been thought out for quite a while in advance.

</comment><comment><USER7> "Ev is very difficult to work with because he has a tough time making a final decision on products,"

"This all changed when Dick took over. He's very logical and knows how to make things happen."

"Dick is hard-charging and very focused on urgency and executing now, and I tend to be very contemplative," he says. "My weakness is probably taking too long to make a decision, and his is being too hasty."

</comment><comment><USER8> _Speaking to a group of new hires at an orientation session last spring, Mr. Williams said Twitter had three goals: to change the world, to build a business and to have fun._

I see Union Square in the Crunchbase profile for Twitter (<http://www.crunchbase.com/company/twitter>) but I also see Morgan Stanley and T. Rowe Price. This leads me to ask: How well or how poorly do the goals of VCs and angels align with those of the founders? VCs have a responsibility to deliver a return to their investors -- what implications does that have for operating a company when a founder states that he wants to change the world or build a legitimate business or have fun?

<comment><USER9> I suspect world-changing companies tend to be worth a lot to their VCs, Napster notwithstanding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> argh... I have to register to read article. I'll just open the paper to read the piece.

<comment><USER11> If you do a search for the article (any NYT article) on Google and click through no forced registration is shown.</comment></comment>