You don't understand something until you think it's obvious. - <AUTHOR> http://mebassett.blogspot.com/2011/06/you-dont-understand-something-until-you.html <comment><USER2> And now that it's obvious to you, it's suddenly really hard to explain to someone else.

My friend was TAing a freshman calculus class in college while working on his PhD. He clearly remembers that his (and everyone's) biggest problem with calculus was limits. Hands-down, limits were the most frustrating and un- intuitive part of the class. So he sat down to try to figure out a good, intuitive explanation of limits that would help his students avoid the frustration that he had.

He immediately ran into the problem that they weren't hard to understand. They were clear and intuitive. He could not for the life of him remember why he thought they were difficult when he was first learning them. He asked me for help, and I had the same response. I remember clearly banging my head against them and screaming in rage and frustration at those goddamn limits. But I look at them now, and I can't figure out how I could fail to understand something so obvious.

And thus, the cycle of pain continues, with limits remaining the eternal bane of freshman calculus students.

<comment><USER3> The problem with limits is simple. We force people to learn multiple concepts in a poor order.

1\. We introduce limits. Which are blindingly artificial, and so it is hard for us to form a concept about why people want this.

2\. We introduce the definition of the derivative. Which instantly results in a practical reason for limits. But typically we make the mistake of introducing the derivative _as a function_ , which means considering the limit of a lot of things at a lot of points.

There really needs to be an intermediate step, which is to introduce the definition of the tangent line. And how to calculate it. Then work up how to calculate tangent lines of various combinations of functions at a single point. And after the person is well and truly comfortable with that, then introduce the derivative.

<comment><USER4> _1\. We introduce limits. Which are blindingly artificial, and so it is hard for us to form a concept about why people want this._

I don't see limits as artificial as all. For example, Zeno's Paradox[1] is resolved thanks to the limit of a succession. And the concept of the infinitesimal, which was something I had thought about before I learnt about limits, is another rather intuitive thing that is explained by limits.

Derivatives are only one of the most common uses of limits, they are definetely not the only reason they are useful.

[1][http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes#Achilles_and...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes#Achilles_and_the_tortoise)

<comment><USER5> The limit concept was introduced by Cauchy but lacked a rigorous definition until Weierstrass came along. In the absence of such a definition, Cauchy committed some infamous errors involving nested limits, e.g. he ascribed properties to continuous functions that actually require the stronger assumption of uniform continuity. Take into account that Cauchy's treatment of calculus was by far the most rigorous for its time, so he was hardly careless in these matters. If everything was as straightforward and obvious as you imply, neither Cauchy's nor Weierstrass's work on the foundations of calculus would have served any meaningful purpose.

The more you learn, the more you come to realize that the nature of the real numbers is deeply mysterious and not to be treated lightly. That's not to say you cannot convey many useful intuitions to students without the somewhat abstruse formal machinery.

<comment><USER4> _That's not to say you cannot convey many useful intuitions to students without the somewhat abstruse formal machinery._

That's more or less what I was trying to say. There are some deeply intuitive concepts for which limits are, at the very least, a very good aproximation. It may occur in some cases that the actual case and the intuition that one has about it doesn't match, but that doesn't mean that the model is arbitrary or artificial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> John von Neumann once told a confused young scientist, "Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them."

I don't think that's quite true, but developing familiarity with a difficult concept is tantamount to coming to understand it, in my experience.

For me, the process seems to go like this:

1) assemble the disparate pieces of a concept, and try to wrap my head around the novel ones;

2) work out how Piece A relates to B, and B to C, and ... ;

3) forget what the hell Piece X is;

4) repeat steps 1–4 several times;

5) convince myself that all the pieces work together as they should.

And only later, after I've worked with this collection of pieces several times, do I stop seeing the pieces and start seeing something new, the emergent phenomenon of the new concept. And it's not until I've forgotten the details of how Piece X fits into Piece Y, and maybe why we need Piece Z in the first place, that I feel like I really grok this new concept.

<comment><USER7> I think this way as well. I was told that I am a slow processor of information, by a credible source. Also, that I would have a harder time learning on the fly but would have a deeper understanding due to making more cognitive links to each idea, and this would allow for tackling harder problems and long projects. It has turned out to be spot on, and if I would have to guess, I would say about a quarter of engineers that I know seem to think this way. In the general population it seems much lower.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Brilliant! Here's my similar, now animated take on it:

Obvious to you. Amazing to others.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GCm-u_vlaQ>

<comment><USER9> I don't necessarily disagree, but it's worth pointing out that this might not always be the case:

"Every mathematician worthy of the name has experienced the state of lucid exaltation in which one thought succeeds another as if miraculously. This feeling may last for hours at a time, even for days. Once you have experienced it, you are eager to repeat it but unable to do it at will, unless perhaps by dogged work." -André Weil

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think this has to do with the structure of the brain. When you are learning something new, the brain is creating new routes and making new connections. It can even creates new neurons (something known as neuro-plasticity).

My guess is that when you finally understood the subject, your brain has completed the route for that particular problem. It's now clear how to solve the problem for the brain, since a specific route exists. It's obvious and very easy for the brain to do that with the route shortcut.

For you, the problem becomes obvious and simple. It's no longer complicated and requires less brain-processing-power to solve. You think you were stupid you didn't figure out that from the beginning, but you are not!

</comment><comment><USER11> It would be lovely if this were true, but I think it's actually a fairly poisonous mindset. What the author's post seems actually to be saying, with which I heartily agree, is "obviousness is only in hindsight"; deep things become trivial only because of the time you've put into understanding them.

On the other hand, I think the things that become obvious once you've understood them _tend_ to be (though are not always) the things that have already been fairly well digested by others, and so are presented to you in a smooth, flowing way to which you just have to accustom yourself.

My experience with (mathematical) research is that understanding has a roughly equal possibility of meaning that you find it trivial, or that you finally understand all the (apparently) irreducibly complex difficulties. Indeed, my feeling if anyone tells me that, say, Deligne–Lusztig representations are obvious is that he or she hasn't probably fully understood them (disclaimer: neither have I, not even close, which may mean that I'm just illustrating the author's point).

I don't mean at all by this that you shouldn't go on searching for the 'obvious' simplification—that way lies great insight. (As someone said much more elegantly, if things aren't already obvious in mathematics, we tend to make them obvious by changing the definitions.) What I mean is that you shouldn't drag yourself down by saying "I thought I understood that, but it's hard, not obvious!"

</comment><comment><USER12> Corollary: if you are angry at something, it's because you don't understand it. Nobody gets angry at obvious things such as water being wet.

Another corollary: understanding brings peace.

<comment><USER13> Yes, this is something I try to remind myself whenever I find myself getting angry. I find it helps tremendously; I quickly realize that it's something beyond my control or something that I don't completely understand and I find that calming. I think I've gotten better about just skipping over the part where you worry about things that are outside of your control (not that it doesn't still happen).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is precisely why I get nervous about offering to speak at professional groups / conferences. When I see a CFP or similar, everything cool that I do seems obvious and I don't think it'll be useful.

But then I get into conversations with my peers and realize that some of the stuff I do apparently _isn't_ as obvious to everyone as I'd thought.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think a better measure of understanding is how well you are able to explain it to a layperson. As Einstein once said, "If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself."

As a researcher, who has also TAed classes, it takes a lot of effort not only to teach a particular topic, but also simultaneously present the crux of the idea as well as the right way to think about it and its place in the context of other information. And learning to think about everything with these in mind will make you understand things much much better. In particular, one of the most challenging things is not to explain breakthrough ideas to cutting- edge researchers but rather explaining breakthrough ideas to complete outsiders and laypeople.

<comment><USER16> Einstein may have said that but it's just not true. How do you explain the Higgs boson to a six-year-old? If you succeed, it's because you made an analogy so simple that it has no meaning.

<comment><USER17> Maybe that's because we don't understand it fully?

<comment><USER16> There are plenty of things we understand fully (e.g. translation lookaside buffers) that are impossible to explain to a six-year-old.

<comment><USER18> Off the cuff, I would come up with something involving parking valets and the pegboard for keys. It would illustrate the important bits of the mechanism and its purpose. I don't know if you would dismiss that as meaningless analogy, but explaining TLB (or Traveling Salesman, or functional decomposition, etc) to kids is not impossible.

<comment><USER19> There are things in mathematics that I find difficult to explain even to someone who finished freshman calculus and linear algebra courses. How should one explain singular homology to someone without strong background in topology, algebra and pure math itself? Same thing with theory of sheaves, for instance. These things are not terribly difficult themselves (but they're no easy, I admit), but the amount of time required to explain what they're really about is breathtaking.

<comment><USER18> I don't know anything about those so I can't say. Not everything has a facile real-world analogy, and there may be long chains of dependent concepts to get through first.

Here's the thing, though: if you make an honest effort to explain something like that to a lay audience, you may fail. Or you may not. Or you'll give them a workable, but incomplete and strictly wrong idea. Either way you yourself will end up with a deeper understanding.

A huge part of "real" mathematics is finding isomorphisms. Teaching is more or less finding isomorphisms between new concepts and concepts that the student already has.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is partially why it can be frustrating to work with someone who isn't as good as you are. Things that come easily to you doesn't for others. You sometimes have to remind yourself that things that you consider obvious is only obvious for you.

<comment><USER21> This reminds me of a story from Feynman where he was with a math friend and they were trying to multi-task. Yet, they ended up going about the two things (counting for a minute while reading or speaking) in completely different ways. (Different enough that one could only count and talk while the other could only count and read.)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj4y0EUlU-Y&feature=playe...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj4y0EUlU-Y&feature=player_detailpage#t=140s)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Richard Feynman said you don't really understand something unless you can explain it to freshmen in a single lecture. Same concept, really.

The interesting consideration, to me, is how much we can get done with hardly any understanding at all. That's human nature. We do things, then we wonder how, and then we eventually come to understand what the hell we just did. It seems bass-ackwards, but that's the way it goes most of the time.

</comment><comment><USER23> Thought: my linear algebra teach this past semester told me that some of the greatest mistakes in mathematics came from people assuming something was obvious without a proof. After building a huge intricate structure around the assumption, they would watch everything fall apart as it turned out the obvious fact wasn't true. Now, whenever I hear somebody say "it's obvious" I always get skeptical now.

<comment><USER24> You are just describing what motivated Bertrand Russell to write Principia Mathematica.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> There is a great line from Jonathan Ive in the documentary Objectified where he says: "A lot of what we seem to be doing is getting design out of the way. And I think when forms develop with that sort of reason, and they're not just arbitrary shapes, it feels almost inevitable. It feels almost undesigned. It feels almost like, 'well, of course it's that way. Why would it be any other way?'"

</comment><comment><USER26> As Galileo said, "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." Insights are often so simple, so obviously true once you see them. But we are often blinded by our fixations, our hubris, our limited frames of reference -- our narrow perspectives -- which prevent us from seeing.

</comment><comment><USER27> The intersection of "things I thought were obvious at one point in time" and "things I currently think are wrong" is a rather large set. It's hard for me to claim I "understood" those thing I now think I was wrong about.

<comment><USER28> I was going to point out that, ironically, many people who think something is "just obvious" completely fail to understand it at all.

So yes it cuts both ways.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Not sure about this. I understand the proofs that there is no largest prime number, and that the integers can't be put into a one-to-one correspondence with the reals, but I wouldn't say either is "obvious".

<comment><USER6> Funny you picked those examples, because I recall them both seeming quite obvious to me when I learned them. And I'm no great mathematician.

It's, um, obviously quite hard to explain why you find something obvious, but I think in the first case it's because you can just think about rescaling the number line (using a bigger unit) or shifting the origin, which to me makes it clear that bigness is completely arbitrary and implies that there can't possibly be any biggest number in this sense; in the second case, there clearly is no "next" number in the reals as there is in the naturals, and that insight gets right at the heart of the concept of countability.

<comment><USER19> _in the second case, there clearly is no "next" number in the reals as there is in the naturals, and that insight gets right at the heart of the concept of countability._

I think you missed the point. There is no "next number" concept in the rationals either, and yet they're countable. There _is_ "next number" concept in the first uncountable ordinal, and, as the name suggests, it is uncountable.

<comment><USER6> You're right. The "next number" test (under the natural ordering) makes the concept of _density_ obvious, not countability.

So I think I've given credence to the notion that those who claim to find something obvious might not fully understand it. Or at least not at four in the morning.

(Oh, and a point that Stephen Abbott made in his wonderful intro analysis book now springs to mind: proofs are useful also as a _check on our intuition_.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I guess the point can be summarized like

\- When someone says that something is obvious, we cannot claim that he/she actually understands it well.

\- But, if someone understands something well, it will seem obvious to him/her.

</comment><comment><USER31> Yet, we might not understand the things that seem obvious. Gravity, light etc can be "obvious" to most people, but not really understood.

</comment><comment><USER32> You don't understand something until you can explain it to your grand mother.

<comment><USER33> In that case I don't even understand English... ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is why so many people think patents are unfair - because they are so obvious. :)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you stay healthy? - <AUTHOR>

Since graduating from college last year, I've noticed that I tend not to be as active as I once was, i.e. playing tennis, riding my bike, etc.
I took a step in the right direction this week in joining a gym and beginning a cardio + weight routine.
What do you do, HN, to stay healthy? Diet? Gym? Sports?
I'd be interested to hear what those do who live in a large city like I do (NYC). <comment><USER2> The Grad School Diet!

During the time I spent in grad school, I completely changed my body. Today I weigh about the same amount that I did in high school, I can run for miles, and I have a lot more lean body mass than ever before. But after my undergrad, I was overweight (by about 50 pounds), and something as simple as walking up a long flight of stairs would wind me.

By _far_ the most important thing that I ever did to get in better shape was to change my eating habits. Thanks to grad school poverty, I cut soda out of my diet entirely, stopped eating out frequently, eliminated most booze and learned how to cook. As I became more aware of what I was eating, I found that my caloric intake went down, and the amount of "real" foods that I was eating went up. Nobody seems to believe it, but you can consume calories far more quickly than you can burn them through exercise, so if you can do nothing else, _eat less crap_ , and your body will still thank you.

The second most important thing (again, thanks to grad school poverty), was to begin walking everywhere. I'm no longer in school, but even today I walk to most of the places that I go. Most people don't realize how little they walk/move around on a daily basis -- my first job out of grad school, I was climbing the walls because the daily car commute didn't afford me a great deal of exercise (I had to start running daily to make up for the loss).

Finally, and least importantly, I got in the habit of going to the gym regularly (I do cardio and lift weights). This probably isn't very important in terms of calories burned, but it keeps me sane, and the weight lifting has definitely improved my body over time. I'm in the habit now -- I actually feel "scummy" if I don't work out every day -- but if I had simply jumped into a gym routine with the expectation of becoming "fit", I'm sure I would have failed. The key ingredient was that I started to go to the gym to deal with stress, and it gradually became a healthy habit. The benefits of the habit took years to become apparent, but like I said...now I'm an addict.

So there you have it -- the Grad School Diet. I should write a book...

<comment><USER3> Good answer. I agree, eating is key. Up to about 25, you can probably pretty much eat what you want. After that, you have to start keeping track of what you eat. Being active is the second most important thing; it's not easy at first, but it gets easier if you keep doing it. If you're like me, some kind of positive reinforcement is extremely helpful; I'm using Wii Fit to keep track of my weight and BMI. That way, exercising and being healthy starts to feel like playing a game because you can see your progress, and you can immediately see when you start to slack off.

<comment><USER4> Unless you expect your height to change is there really any point to tracking your BMI in addition to your weight? Wouldn't your % body fat be better?

<comment><USER3> Yes, tracking body fat would definitely be better; alas, there is no simply, videogame-like way to keep track of body fat (that I know of).

<comment><USER5> The US Navy uses the following equation to determine the percentage of body fat:

%Fat=495/(1.0324-.19077(log(abdomen-neck))+.15456(log(height)))-450

Appearently they did a study on how precise it is, "Comparison of Circumference-and Skinfold-Based Body Fat Estimation Equations", where they compared their formula with several other methods for body fat estimation, against a baseline set by hydrostatic weighting. I couldn't find the full text online (at least not for free), but the abstract is here:

[http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPr...](http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA370117)

Quote: "For men, the Navy equation was the best predictor of body fat determined by hydrostatic weighing."

So all you need to track your body fat is a measuring tape plus a pen and a pad. That's too much of an effort for me, though, so I use one of the web- based calculators, e.g.

[http://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/body-fat-percentage- calcu...](http://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/body-fat-percentage- calculator.php)

(you need to allow JS to use it).

<comment><USER3> Interesting, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been pretty seriously interested in natural health for a long time. To condense what I've learned into a few of the most important ideas:

\- Research what a good vitamin is. There's a HUGE spectrum in quality. Expect to pay $1-$2 per day, and take more than one capsule. A good indicator of a high quality vitamin is that it packages b12 as hydrocobalamin, not cyanocobalamin

\- Exercise in the first part of your day. Your metabolism is then boosted all day.

\- Read the label on every food product you buy: the ingredients list is the least dishonest part of the label.

\- Avoid high glycemic sweeteners: sugar and corn syrup. Excellent substitutes are agave nectar and stevia.

\- Diversify your grains: Try quinoa ("keen-wah"), amaranth, buckwheat, spelt

\- Diversify your oils: coconut oil (often a good substitute for butter when baking), avacado oil (can be fried at high heat), flaxseed oil (do not heat!)

\- Reduce/avoid: sodas (the acid causes your body to remove calcium from your bones!), homogenized cows milk, hydrolyzed or hydrogenated oils, monosodium glutumate (or "yeast extract" which always has MSG in it), artificial flavors and colors, and American style cured meats (nitrates.)

\- Increase consumption of fresh fruits, vegetables, raw nuts, berries, etc. The smaller the berry, the better it is for you.

\- Seek moderate exposure to sunlight without sunscreen.

If you stick to the above, you'll have to prepare most of your own food. It's fun, creative, and a socially useful skill. With practice, it's often less time consuming than going out. Essential supplies include a high end blender, good cutlery, and pans without teflon.

Find the health food store in your community. Sometimes you'll pay much more for the food. The bargain is your long term health and quality of life.

</comment><comment><USER7> "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants."

Throw in regular exercise, and that's how you can maintain a good healthy lifestyle. Don't obsess over it; just learn to enjoy the healthy stuff. There's a lot of great, healthy food that tastes good. I'm not an expert on getting away from an unhealthy lifestyle, but once you're to the place you want to be, it's dead simple to maintain.

</comment><comment><USER8> wii! (and by that I mean like wii sports|wii fit|ddr, and for more than like 10-15 minutes a day)

I haven't had mine for long but some friends|family keep telling me that I look better than before. I have an elliptical at home and I try to go to the gym often but I don't have any motivation to bore myself to death that way. Playing wii games like the three I named above helps me because they're entertaining and I'm more likely to go to the gym when I don't have flab bouncing around everywhere.

Diets never work for me, so I don't consider them. The only thing I do if at all is drinking tea in lieu of soda and switching white rice for brown when I can (and since I eat a lot of rice, this is pretty significant, but whole grains in general are awesome). I also eat smaller portions spread throughout the day, and since I love baking and making ice cream, I try to go "healthy" with my favorite but most unhealthiest part of meals (dessert!). I think the way I eat is massively influenced by my diabetic dad (who I have to cook for occasionally), cause he eats like that as well.

Lastly, I live in LA. It's a pretty big city but it's really hard to walk/bike around because I have to travel a lot (think as much as 100 miles/day). I try to walk to the market and take the bus to local (read:convenient) areas, but other than that I can't do much. But I do notice that every time I take a trip to San Francisco I end up walking a ton. Dunno what it's like in NYC but if it's convenient enough, you should try to walk around where you can, it's a really simple change that can have a big impact.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, whole grains are good for 'ya. I usually have brown rice with dinner, but from time to time I am in the mood for this:

[http://store.kashi.com/heritage_pilaf.aspx?SID=1&Categor...](http://store.kashi.com/heritage_pilaf.aspx?SID=1&Category_ID=73&);

It ends up a bit gummier than brown rice, though, probably because I don't have a water line for "7 grain Pilaf" on my rice cooker.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I play soccer a lot(who came up with this stupid name for football anyway) And basketball and sometimes volleyball, when there is nobody to play with i run, jump, climb and stuff. Its called parkour and if you are careful and concentrated it beats gym and its more fun too, and it requires creativity. I eat a lot of unhealthy food, i think that if my body slows down when i get older, i will get really fat, now im just skinny and stringy.

</comment><comment><USER11> Ah... there are tons of things you can do in NYC! Besides the normal gym routines, here are a few things I recommend:

\- There are excellent bike trails all around Manhattan. You can bike along both East River and the Hudson on the west side, there are also excellent bike trails in Central Park

\- You can run along the bike trails, too, of course

\- There are always pick up soccer games in Central Park, especially when the weather is nice -- very common in the summer time

\- Great place to play basketball is Stuyvesant Town (14th and 1st, they have 5 outdoor courts, lots of people playing)

\- ZogSports runs sports leagues all year around, from basketball to dodgeball. It costs money but keeps you committed, they also have happy hour after each match :)

\- Diet is important of course, I would subscribe to Men's Health, one of my favorite magazines. Great exercise routines, and also tell you various ways to eat healthy for cheap.

\- Oh, NYC also has a ton of events throughout the year. Look into the 5 boros bike tour (just passed, but def do it next year), the JPMorgan 5k Corporate Challenge, etc. Look into them!

</comment><comment><USER12> Yoga.

With a good instructor, it can be a surprisingly strong workout, while also helping to preserve sanity during those long weeks.

</comment><comment><USER13> since you're in NYC, i would HIGHLY suggest taking up sport/olympic fencing.

its really quite similar to tennis, except it requires less space. NYC is one of the best locations to do it. its both physically and mentally challenging and is competitive enough to suck you in, if you enjoy competing, so that you'll _want_ to exercise and train to become more fit so that you'll do better.

its how i stay healthy. for reference, i'm an ex personal trainer, ex lifeguard, and ex professional martial artist.

</comment><comment><USER14> I run. I ran 3 miles this morning.

When I'm at my best, I'm eating nearly vegan and I feel great. I also avoid sodas and get lots of sleep.

I'm not at my best right now. :-)

<comment><USER15> I realized about a week ago that I'd been shorting myself on sleep, and drinking too much soda. I've cut way down on the soda and cut back on my late night activities and after just a week I feel much better.

It really does make a difference.

<comment><USER16> I disagree.

I cut back from 4-6 sodas a day to zero for a little caffeine-free experiment I ran on myself. I was drinking no sodas for about 2 weeks.

I felt no different (after I quit having caffeine headaches, that is).

Thus, in my opinion, your difference is (very much nearly) all in the fact that you're now getting enough sleep.

<comment><USER15> I cut back on soda for two reasons - 1) my weight varies pretty linearly with my sugar intake, and I've been getting a bit pudgy of late. And 2) the caffeine prevents me from sleeping well. I can't say for sure if the drop in soda intake is responsible for my feeling of well-being but it certainly is easier on my wallet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I too live in NYC, recently transplanted from Seattle. I coughed up the (not insignificant) cash in order to get a gym and make sure to work out every morning as a start to my day. Do at least 30 minutes of cardio at a good clip (most machines give you numbers, so try to burn 400 calories at least). Lift some weights too, because it increases muscle mass, which will increase your metabolism.

If you're really into something prescriptive, I highly recommend this book: [http://www.amazon.com/Core-Performance-Revolutionary- Workout...](http://www.amazon.com/Core-Performance-Revolutionary-Workout- Transform/dp/157954908X)

I know the cover looks cheesy, but it's actually really well written and very detailed (it tells you on a daily basis what to do). Workouts are an hour long, six days a week, and they incorporate flexibility and injury prevention exercises, which are quite important.

For diet, here in NYC I stop by Whole Foods or something similar right after the gym and make my own salad. Almost always, it's purely vegetarian. Make sure you get a lot of greens in there, and as many other colors of vegetables as you can.

Dinner is a highly social meal, and I end up messing it up often.

I do miss all of Seattle's outdoors though ...

</comment><comment><USER18> Find a gym that is on your route home. The days when you skip your workout, you will walk/drive/ride by and feel extremely lazy for not stepping in.

</comment><comment><USER19> I live in a fairly large city (Seattle), but it's not QUITE like NYC...

I walk a fair amount, mainly to and from the bus, and within downtown Seattle when I go to after-work gatherings and events.

I also spend a lot of time in the dojo, both as a teacher and as a student. I tend to take advantage of being a teacher to raise the level of intensity enough to give myself a workout, but I also carry that intensity to other styles where I'm a student. It makes for better training overall.

I also do a lot of hiking, nearly every weekend, usually in the mountains, and with a 50-pound pack full of, in addition to the usual supplies, my large- format camera kit. The camera gear accounts for around 30 pounds out of the 50.

Other less obvious things I do are eat a healthy breakfast (almost) every morning, do a lot of my own cooking, and drink herbal tea rather than a lot of caffeinated beverages. That is not to say that I avoid caffeine; I do like to have a cup of coffee in the mornings, but I try to avoid caffeine beyond that, mainly to avoid dehydration.

</comment><comment><USER20> I just work out daily. Don't really have time for sports(too big of a time commitment).

As far as diet, I don't really watch what I eat, I have a high metabolism and with working out I burn through the extra calories right away...so I can sustain myself on nothing but junk food w/o gaining weight(I actually lost a few pounds the one week I ate nothing but McDonalds, Wendy's, Taco Bell, KFC).

</comment><comment><USER21> Get a home on the suburbs.

I live in Colorado and we have trails behind us where we have occasional visits from deer. This really give me no excuse to stay away from a jog.

I used to live in the city but driving to a park to go jogging added 30 minutes to my time to workout and so it frequently got postponed.

I also lift weights at the gym.

</comment><comment><USER22> Time is the limiting factor as I am building my application and working full time. Every morning, I run 1 mile and do 25 pushups. Starting next week I'll repeat that in the evening. I make sure to stretch and do some of the katas I can still remember.

I monitor my basic nutrition intake. The only thing that is important to remember is that 3200 calories = 1 pound of fat. Eat 3200 more than you burn, gain a pound. 3200 less? Lose a pound. Muscles are formed by destroyed strands of muscle fiber and letting them be rebuilt (during recovery) with protein. So, I calculate my basic needs (~2800 calories, 60g protein, 15g fiber) and try to stay within that area.

As long as you maintain these parameters, you will stay in good condition. If your life is stable, you can of course do all sorts of other interesting things - but if you are time crunched like me, this is enough.

</comment><comment><USER23> I stopped driving and biked everywhere remotely feasible instead. That took off 20 pounds in three months, though I also ate less food and chose lower glycemic index foods that kept me full longer.

People always talk about how staying healthy requires a lifestyle change, and that's definitely true. I've never been one of those gym or running everyday kind of people, so every time I've lost weight, I always ended up slacking on exercise and gaining it all back. I'm more optimistic about my current strategy. I'll always have to go places, and biking is more enjoyable to me than driving (Except when it's 100 degrees and humid outside. Thanks Austin.), so in theory, it should be easier to keep up.

</comment><comment><USER24> I live in Atlanta and have essentially been sedentary since graduation a few years ago (I average 1 or 2 30 minute workouts a week). This isn't enough to keep the creep off.

I moved right into the middle of the city so that walking opportunities would be more prevalent and that's helped as a lifestyle change.

I had a hard time keeping up with going to the gym on my own and recently joined a sort of group exercise thing. There's a little more accountability with this as people expect me to be there in the morning. So far that's working well, and it has motivated me to start running in the afternoon so I don't suck so much in the class.

</comment><comment><USER25> 1\. Eat right 2\. <http://crossfit.com>

<comment><USER26> I've been CrossFitting for just over a year. My body fat % dropped from 22% to currently 11-12%.

So for me, it's CrossFit + Zone macro-nutrient balance + Paleo.

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you explain this a little more?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Cut back on sweets (limited to one oatmeal cookie per day) and work out 2 hours 6 days a week. Nothing else works.

Good news: I'm stronger than ever - on a moment's notice I can help someone move a piano or push a car down the street; I can work all day and not hurt the next, I don't get hurt, and my old back injuries don't bother me anymore.

Bad news: Less time. So I read while on the treadmill or recumbent bike.

Luckily my wife works out with me.

<comment><USER28> 2 hours a day 6 days a week? You're nuts. I work out twice a week (weights), plus a 40 minute run every week or so, and I'm fit enough! 1m83, 75kg, 17.5% body fat.

How about foregoing that cookie (and all the other junk.. crisps, sodas, burgers, chips, etc) and working out an hour 3 times a week?

<comment><USER29> I think recent research has shown that less frequent but longer workouts are as effective as more frequent shorter workouts. Previously it was believed that more frequent workouts are required to improve fitness.

<comment><USER30> It's actually been proven that shorter, high-intensity, workouts are the most effective.

People who work out longer can actually shrink their hearts a slightly over time, where as high-intensity (i.e.: Sprinting at 90% for 30 seconds, jogging for 30 seconds, for a total of just 8-12 minutes) strengthens your heart.

My advice: Cut out sodas and sweets after 7PM, work out in the morning, Focus on consuming more and more lean meats (chicken breast, tuna, etc.), more whole grains, more organic fruits and veggies, and less milk, but more cheeses and yogurts. Drink a glass of wine with dinner every night.

A good workout is running up bleachers or stairs. it doesn't take but 10min tops, and you'll get your heart racing and getting stronger. The key to being healthy is having a healthy heart.

Do not squander your health. It's all you've got when it all comes down to it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Start going to gym or running or "insert activity here" regularly. One of these things has to be something you like or will like when you get good at it. Personally, I find the gym boring and...vain.

It will suck at first, but eventually you will reach a point where you feel guilty not going to the gym or running or "insert activity here". This has worked well for me in San Diego (running my second half-Ironman in a week).

</comment><comment><USER32> I walk a lot (e.g. if your only excuse for not doing something is that it's far to walk, it's a chance to walk more).

I also pay attention to drinks...for example, if I buy a bottle of Coke, I leave half of it, take it home, put it in the fridge and forget about it. The next day, I'm happy to see it, and it's like a 2nd drink. Only, it's fewer calories.

</comment><comment><USER33> Nightly visit to the gym. At first it was tough to get into a routine, but it got easier when I started bringing my iPod loaded with podcasts. And of course, the podcasts are usually about hacking with Cocoa, Django, or Rails.

Quitting soda helps a lot too.

</comment><comment><USER34> I play soccer. Not only good for health (<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20893097/>), it's also fun. You have a bigger risk of injury, though, than e.g. jogging.

</comment><comment><USER35> I eat food, not much, mostly plants. And for exercise I do offroad cycling.

<comment><USER36> > eat food, not much, mostly plants.

See what you did there :-P Here it is for the others: [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t....](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t.html) Great article, do yourself an article and read it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cycling 30 miles a day, and avoiding processed foods.

</comment><comment><USER37> Unicycling (it's an amazing workout). And lifting.

</comment><comment><USER38> Walk everywhere, excercise, keep track of what you eat, play sports with friends, and pick up a new outdoor activity like rock climbing.

</comment><comment><USER39> skateboarding :)

</comment><comment><USER40> I workout at home, 6 times a week.

</comment><comment><USER41> 1\. Walk. A lot. 2\. Balanced diet.

</comment><comment><USER42> I surf as much as I can.

</comment><comment><USER43> Bloody Caesars.

</comment><comment><USER44> I don't. :) I like to hike and do yoga, but only because it feels nice to do, not because I care about healthy.

I'll live 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 years and die. You'll live 50 or 60 or 70 or 80 and die. Maybe I'll die a little sooner then you. So what? Maybe you'll get hit by a bus and I'll laugh at all your wasted exercises. I'll have more fun.

<comment><USER45> Decline with old age is a curve. Most people I'd imagine would prefer quality of life to remain high, then drop sharply just before death, to decades of low quality of life. That's what fitness gets you, not longevity.

<comment><USER39> Also, living a little longer may give you a chance to enjoy what these guys are working on (a cure for aging):

<http://www.mfoundation.org/>

<comment><USER44> predicating my life on these hucksterish immortality wishes would rob it of all meaning while I'm alive, and then I'd still be dead.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Twitter and users sued over UK injunction breaches - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/20/twitter-sued-by-footballer-over-privacy

<comment><USER2> Could Twitter use the First Amendment?

This has to be very weirdest case. In effect Twitter is been sued by unknown person as their is an injunction in the UK against naming the Footballer.

<comment><USER3> Not in the UK.

<comment><USER2> Yes, but surely the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act applies. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPEECH_Act_of_2010></comment></comment></comment>


Clean tech 'won't solve warming in time' - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51389404 <comment><USER2> At this point we can't realistically "solve" climate change, to do so would require too many sacrifices from too many entrenched interests.

The best we can do mitigate climate change, adapt to it and try to avoid the worst consequences.</comment>


Ethereum: Yet another next big thing - <AUTHOR> https://blog.cyber.fund/ethereum-yet-another-next-big-thing-7168157480bc

<comment> T-A > Decentralized Autonomous Organization is a real threat to any business or > state that exists today.

And how do businesses and states usually react to real threats?

<comment><AUTHOR> This time - join the meal is the only option :-)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> My opinionated view on Ethereum. tldr: Yesterday happens weird stuff.</comment>


Snails use 'two brain cells' to make decisions, Sussex University discovers - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-36443264 <comment><USER2> Another (s)nail in the coffin of the superstition that more powerful computers will somehow magically result in strong AI. Our current AI is nowhere near the level of autonomy of animals like snails. If it was just a matter of more computing power, or more data, we'd have snail-level intelligence down pat by now.

Edit: Er, btw, the bbc article misleadingly talks of "brain" calls. Moluscs don't have brains. The Nature paper (linked from the parent) clarifies that it's about "two neuron types".

<comment><USER3> I agree, but doesn't that then lend support to the idea of a FOOM?

<comment><USER2> Hmm, dunno. It took millions of years for life to make crits with more than two ganglia to rub together. Again, why would it be any different with artificial intelligence?

Like, I don't want to be controversial and all (OK, I do) but it seems to me the folks who claim that strong AI is Just Around the Corner™ and it's just a matter of more data and bigger computers, have too much testosterone sloshing around in their system and just wanna show the world ... something. There's a real fixation with _big_ data, _powerful_ and _fast_ computers and _strong_ AI, stuff like that. The whole FOOM thing is just another one of those things- like somebody didn't hear what Alan Moore had to say about comics and growing up already.

I mean, I went through nerd-puberty myself, so maybe if people kept asking me what the ideal AI would be I'd start saying things like "obviously, it will be _elegant_ and it will make use of _pretty_ data" or something equally stereotypical.

But, it's all just fantasies. If there was going to be some sort of takeoff, why didn't it happen in a few billions of years of life on the earth? If we think we have the resources now for computers to take off (instead of imploding in some sort of paperclipocalypse) there certainly were more than enough resources for a couple of takeoffs of biological entities in the time since the dawn of life. Instead, what we got is one -count them- one species with the intelligence to start a technological civilisation and many, many that are almost there but not quite. All the data we have hints to the fact that singularities are extremely unlikely, and even the one we know occured -ours- took a lot of time to set up properly and had to evolve over millions of years. So it wasn't a singularity at all, more like a slow, steady process that eventually surpassed some sort of limit.

tl;dr FOOM my foot.

<comment><USER3> I'll bite. Biting is a fun animal activity. I think you make reasonable points. FOOMs are sexy, and sexiness is intrinsically suspicious because people want to believe in them. Still we do know of extraordinary change in the past.

My suspicion is that FOOM is both real and not real depending on your scope. Here I am defining a FOOM as a change in the rate of a variable speed.

If I were against FOOM I would point out that, as you say, you have millions of years of statis in the biological record. To quote Wikipedia on one element of this: "once species appear in the fossil record they will become stable, showing little net evolutionary change for most of their geological history." Makes sense. If you have adapted to your niche then you have little to do but occupy it.

If I were for FOOM I would argue that the human brain has not changed that fundamentally in hundreds of thousands of years. Yet the only way to attribute the explosion of complexity of our society in the last several thousand seems to point to changes in our brains. Perhaps change in our brains mostly in relation to artifacts in a feedback loop i.e. the brains move out of their shell casing and into books, cogs & wheels. The change to agriculture is one FOOM. The change to the Industrial Revolution is another FOOM. The invention of electricity, Internet are even more rapid FOOMs than what went before. The tempo is itself interesting.

Against the FOOM I would then say as you have.

> If there was going to be some sort of takeoff, why didn't it happen in a few > billions of years of life on the earth? If we think we have the resources > now for computers to take off (instead of imploding in some sort of > paperclipocalypse) there certainly were more than enough resources for a > couple of takeoffs of biological entities in the time since the dawn of > life.

I have two ideas on this.

The first is that you're right. We are just a splendidly unusual animal with a terrific amount of good luck. We are talking about this and are able to do so because of a kind of anthropic principal.

The second is that you're right, but not for the reason of rarity but something more sinister. There 'were' other FOOMs but we've been deleting them. One FOOM to rule them all. We are extraordinarily good at killing. Getting away from the probable fact we genocided our closest competitors back in the day. Think of civilizations. Any civilization that refused to FOOM (think Chinese) got ultimately accosted by a different civilization that did. Then (usually) we destroyed anybody who couldn't keep up by absorbing their raw materials to build our faster growing civilization.

I find the second hypothesis more interesting but not sure how to weigh evidence for these cases.

The second hypothesis is not directly interesting but one of the interesting consequences of it being true is that collapse, of species and civilizations is very much more likely than we currently anticipate.

My overarching theory now becomes that both ideas are the same idea, just two sides of the same coin. FOOMing and extinction events are very much interrelated. The expansion of humanity (a FOOM) vs the disappearance of most wild animals. It is notable that species reproduce exponentially if they can. Suppose we discover for example a easy way to alter our DNA to make a superior human. Then it is likely the other humans are ultimately destroyed by being outcompeted and using up their available resources.

Basically FOOMs are not rare but they make other FOOMs rare. There is no control. I can't think of a less awkward way of putting this, I hope you understand my point.

Elon Musk thinks if you made the technology egalitarian the problem would be solved. I think this is not so because some of the technology's users are much smarter or are in better initial starting environments and would outcompete the others even if they had the same tools.

This means that only by a FOOM transcending i.e. using resources and concepts that are non-rival-goods, would there not be trouble.

Consider that when we meet a non-contacted tribe in the Amazon, we don't steal their tools and wives and murder the males. Today we don't need/want to. But our ancestors would have done that without a qualm. Even in recent history with the Spanish conquistadors you can see a shadow of how we can gobble things up. To the un-contacted tribes and Cargo Cult Islanders, our Western Civilization is a FOOM. Barely explicable and vast.

tldr; Don't get outcompeted.

<comment><USER2> Oh dear. Should have kept my mouth shut :)

<comment><USER3> I'm afraid it FOOMed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Buxfer + Amazon = Transfer money online (Free till Aug 31)  - <AUTHOR> http://www.buxfer.com/index.php?x=3 With Amazon Payments, you can accrue balances in an online account (similar to your Paypal account balance). Transfers involving Amazon accounts are instantaneously processed as well.
You can read more about it at:
http://www.buxfer.com/blog/2007/08/03/buxfer-amazon-settle-y...
Regardless of what this means for Buxfer, we think it's a good step forward in challenging the Paypal monopoly. <comment> daniel-cussen "Buxfer may terminate your access to the Website or your membership at any time, for any reason, and without warning, which may result in the forfeiture and destruction of all information associated with your membership."

Ouch.

Legalese aside, this new deal with Amazon means you guys are currently a free alternative to Western Union and will soon be a cheaper alternative to the same, right?

<comment><USER2> More like an alternative to neteller/firepay.

<comment><AUTHOR> Daniel: We really need to revisit the legalese, We already got rid of a couple minor clauses in there. But, it's just that lawyers are very conservative naturally, and development effort foreshadowed going over the terms very carefully. We will take care of that by the end of the day.

In terms of alternatives, Amazon is the alternative to Paypal. We hope though that our app will be an important use-case for driving the payments functionality, especially for the younger crowd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Killer addition. A site where you can track expenses is cool, but if you can square them up with actual money, now we're really talking.

This would be very helpful for fantasy sports, where there's a lot of money flying around for site fees and prize pools. Fantasy football season is just around the corner and $100+ entry fees for workplace leagues are not that unusual.

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds like an interesting idea - Whats the user base of Buxfer at the moment ?

</comment><comment><USER5> Amazon FPS + Buxfer = Crazy Delicious ??</comment>


Harvard is a 'hedge fund with a university attached to it' - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/why-harvard-should-be-taxed-2015-9 <comment><USER2> Yeah, and Duke University is a investment firm as well, except that it has a hospital attached to it that happens to have a university attached to IT.

I'm sure pretty much all large, big-name universities are playing with money. US ones at least.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am positive there's some sort of problem with these numbers and a major false comparison going on, but this doesn't seem fair either way.</comment>


Why I just turned down my first investors - <AUTHOR> http://roadtoio.wordpress.com/2012/10/08/why-i-just-turned-down-my-first-investors/

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you think? Should I have accepted the investment offer?</comment>


The Charitable-Giving Divide - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22FOB-wwln-t.html?ref=magazine

<comment><USER2> Please don't alter the original title of an article (in this case "The Charitable-Giving Divide") to reflect your editorial opinion, especially when your new title is not supported by the content of the article. This article does not actually say that tax breaks for the rich don't help the poor, it says that rich people don't give as much to charity as poor people.

Personally I think it's true that giving tax breaks to the rich is not a great way to help the poor (i.e. the trickle down effect) but that's not what this article is talking about.

<comment><USER3> Bilking the rich through higher taxes does not help the poor either.

<comment><USER4> Sure it does.

If X is the cost of running the country, including schooling, roads, public transportation, etc, and the rich pay a higher portion of their income into X, the poor need pay a lower portion of their income into X in order to have the same level of access as if rich and poor paid the same portion of their income.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm fairly young, so I ask this question to the more experienced in life. Isn't this always the case? The rich stay rich by keeping their money and the poor stay poor by never keeping their money. So what is the tone and point of this document exactly, to fix the rich or fix the poor? Or am I overdoing it by looking for a side in this? I'm not trying to be a troll or start a flamewar, but when I read these articles all that I can think of is, "so are we going to redistribute the wealth communism style, or teach people to build their OWN wealth?" Reasons why I can't be a politician or a leader in society, I don't want to be the one that determines whats fair for the people, and define whos the slacker and whos truly in need. Who the hell am I to judge? and who the hell are you to take away my hard earned paper? Thats just what goes through my mind, and I comment here to see if anybody can help me out with my thought process.

<comment><USER6> I wouldn't think too deeply about it, I read it more as an attempt at a wake- up call to all the right-wing supporters who insist that trickle-down economics works (even though it's never, ever worked). "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer" has been the mantra as long as mankind has existed on this planet.

Now I, for the very reasons you gave, will never support or suggest any sort of "wealth redistribution," it flies in the face of capitalism and has been proven to only breed discent and anger. What _should_ happen is that the government stops treating the rich like special citizens. Warren Buffet has said before that he's paying fewer taxes now than he ever has in his life, and it's sick how the richest people in the country get the most help / special attention from the government, help none of them at all need.

The problem is that the GOP have a very long history of getting into power, then passing laws that help line their own pockets and protect their wealth from being "stolen" by the government (aka, themselves, it doesn't makes sense to me either). This view then leaves the other 90% of Americans as "well you should have tried harder, this is what you can do when you're rich!" while at the same time somehow convincing this 90% that the GOP in power is the best thing for them.

That's what I see when I read these kinds of articles.

<comment><USER7> "The problem is that the GOP have a very long history of getting into power, then passing laws that help line their own pockets and protect their wealth from being "stolen" by the government ..."

Clearly we should elect more Democrats! Oh, wait, they have a history of getting into power and then passing laws protecting unions and paying off organizations which help them steal votes.

In so far as trickle-down economics is concerned, it certainly worked better than the command-driven economy the Democrats and current administration are pushing us towards.</comment></comment></comment>


Reid Hoffman's newest investment: GoInstant. A Webex killer? - <AUTHOR> http://www.techvibes.com/blog/stealthy-goinstant-gives-us-a-glimpse-of-what-is-to-come-2011-09-11

<comment><USER2> join.me is the best thing i've found that beats the pants off webex.</comment>


Why not have a service that makes it easier to understand obscure sites in seconds? - <AUTHOR>

Sometimes the creator of a service isn't very good at explaining it in terms that visitors can understand in seconds.
So why not provide a service that can be used as a backup?  A user who doesn't immediately understand a site can enter its url into this service to receive multiple short explanations as to why he/she might want to use this site.
It's essentially crowdsourcing the site intro. <comment><USER2> It may not be exactly what you are after, but check out <http://aboutus.org>

In short, it's a wiki that houses information about domains and what their purposes/uses are.

<comment><USER3> Is this an objective recommendation or do you have some stake in the company?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's an interesting idea. What decides on the best answers to return, community votes? What incentive do people have to submit summaries? Could dmoz.org be leveraged or used instead for the same effect?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I have a way to get people to vote on site intros.

The idea is to split the intro into two parts, say "why" and "how".

The user would be shown only one part. Say the user starts with "why".

At this point the user can indicate that he/she understands why and now wants to see how. This upvotes the intro.

The user could indicate that the why is not clear and he/she wants to see another why. This downvotes the intro.

Once the user sees the how, he/she may indicate that the how is unclear and he/she wants to see another how. This downvotes the intro by 2 (because it was upvoted earlier).</comment></comment>


Easily Migrate Your JVM Code from Maven to Bazel – Exodus - <AUTHOR> https://wix-incubator.github.io/exodus/index.html <comment><USER2> But why would a company with 800 legacy applications and hundreds of developers migrate from Maven to Bazel? Of all the problems we have Maven is _waaaaay_ down the list. Also, should Google be concerned with making themselves an island where their tools and processes are markedly different from everyone else's?</comment>


We failed in our response because of widespread asystemic thinking - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/03/what-really-doomed-americas-coronavirus-response/608596/ <comment><USER2> When all this passes, I wonder what lessons people will take away regarding the other huge complex system elephant-in-the-room: climate change.

With covid, we've seen the climate drama play out in a rapid 3-month microcosm (both what's happening and what the climate doomsday-ists say will happen): denial, dismissal of its severity, ignorance towards the science and experts, incompetent government response until it's too late, widespread disruptions, stock market collapse, the connected officials catching wind of this early and hitting their personal exits, etc. The idealogical debate going on now with covid is what's the acceptable tradeoff between economic/corporate welfare versus literally human lives.

But we've also seen positive trends too: individuals are taking matters into their own hands by 3D printing medical hacks around ventilator shortages, and manufacturers are retooling and mobilizing industrial capabilities towards those same needs.

Covid is the current systemic crisis -- we need all-hands on deck for it. And as we've seen with the shelter-in-place orders, if it's not voluntary it's going to be forced. Question is can we learn from it and be humbled by it enough to seriously tackle the _existential_ systemic crisis on our doorsteps.

<comment><USER3> Climate change will continue to happen locally first.

Meaning you can have a state-wide localized disaster in e.g. Texas or Florida, or France, but it won't be global for quite some time. Weather events also tend to be much more predictable (we know that a Hurricane won't hover over 1 state for 6 weeks, for example)

Don't get me wrong, it _is_ a global phenomenon, but because it's much more gradual than "shut everything down", it doesn't have the same effect on people's behavior.

I'd venture to say local weather crises evoke approximately the same response as Covid-19.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > We faltered because of our failure to consider risk in its full context, > especially when dealing with coupled risk—when multiple things can go wrong > together. We were hampered by our inability to think about second- and > third-order effects and by our susceptibility to scientism—the false comfort > of assuming that numbers and percentages give us a solid empirical basis. We > failed to understand that complex systems defy simplistic reductionism.

This puts words on what's been frustrating me the most when talking about this issue with some of my friends and on online boards.

I haven't considered it before, but when I think about it now I realize that I see a clear distinction among those I have been talking to between those who have done an MSc or higher in an area such as physics, mathematics or computer science.

(I don't mean to imply that those people are in some way more intelligent, but it goes to show how extended practice of systemic thinking and problem solving can prime us to better understand complex issues in general, or at least get a better approximation for our uncertainty and how that relates to risk)

I also think there's the simple fact that the vast majority of even educated people have a hard time understanding simple statistics.

There's been this notion that "Japan has handled the outbreak well" or, among the conspiratoricals, "the government is hiding the real numbers" where my take is that the data is just not there to make any kind of conclusion either way yet.

And this is hardly a US issue - we see the same pattern most everywhere.

<comment><USER5> > This puts words on what's been frustrating me the most when talking about > this issue with some of my friends and on online boards.

You are not the only one who is like that in my circle. What did you do with your knowledge to prepare for this epidemic?

<comment><USER4> Honestly, I was (perhaps part knowingly) uninformed and ignorant until the spread outside of China started making the news, so nothing worth noting until the past 4 weeks or so.

Yourself?

<comment><USER5> That was me too.

I have many people though being hyper-vigilant about the news however they practically did nothing to prepare for it. So why bother?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > We failed to understand that complex systems defy simplistic reductionism.

That reads like anti intellectual mumbo-jumbo to me. What complex system [0] are we talking about? There aren't very many feedback loops in the dynamics of a pathogen invading a totally susceptible population. That's the whole problem. The main one that comes to mind is the lock downs that are being put in place everywhere now - once you already have a big issue.

I fully agree that a lot of people don't understand the severity of a pathogen spreading exponentially as long as the absolute numbers look low. But there are more than enough people who do, who can give solid advice in that kind of situation. These people have been really concerned since late January at the very least.

If they weren't heard, that's the problem.

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system)

<comment><USER7> The entire article is about the various cascading effects, from an overwhelmed healthcare system with reduced capacity to handle normal emergencies and elective procedures (which will have a long term effect on people's health), to manufactures not making certain items because they have to respond quickly to more pressing concerns (and the delayed crisis that may cause in other areas).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a spectacular article, spelling out something that I've been struggling to identify and communicate. Just the combination of asymptomatic transmission, R0 (2 - 2.4 is NOT "low"), and hospitalization rates should have been enough to freak people out more than they were. I particularly appreciate the first half of the argument and the review of how there was a collective inability to grasp implications.

</comment><comment><USER9> Yes, systemic thinking might have helped to a degree. Plus the imagination and pandemic know-how to understand the likely consequences. Like understanding that a virus even more lethal and contagious can spread from one part of the globe to another within a year, again. Or that a nuclear war could be triggered by mistake any time. Or a combined terrorist attack could be launched on all nuclear power plants and other centralized nodes in the highly electrified backbone, after which a collapse of society would be close to instant. Not to mention climate change. Etc.

There are a myriad of disasters that could or will happen, at some point. But the most important reason that we are not prepared is AFAICS because governments and people generally simply hope that such things won't happen, and if they do, not on their watch, due to the path of least resistance.

Understandable, but for one who long has had the ability to envision all sorts of mayhem, I sure wish people would take this opportunity to wake up, not only to virus threats but to all of the gravest risks that confront us, and start chipping away at those that are actually possible to mitigate.

</comment><comment><USER10> The US failed because very few - nearly zero - people in the political leadership of the US are interested in working for the general public, thinking about the interests of the general public, etc. It's a failure of power - the interests of the general public have no _power_ in running the US government.

To put it another way: if you laid out a ten-page paper describing exactly the right course of action (you're omniscient, you know these things) on the desk of every federal leader, it _still_ wouldn't happen. If you did it on the first day of the outbreak, it wouldn't happen. If you did it today, it wouldn't happen.

It's a power failure, not a knowledge failure or a "we think wrong" failure. Nobody is sitting at their desk right now saying "damnit, we tried our hardest and just didn't THINK of the solution! If only we were better thinkers!".

<comment><USER11> I'd say that they are very interested in the very large part of the public who voted for them. Their actions so far have been very popular. And they may continue to be so, all the way through, even if the death toll is in the millions. They have blamed the virus on the Chinese, the closures on overreaction by their opponents, and even the death toll is seen as unfortunate but necessary for the economy.

Perhaps personal acquaintance with victims will change that, but I have suspicion that it won't. Certainly it hasn't so far.

They win elections because they know how to care for enough of the people to win. If it angers you, as it does me, the only way to combat it is to win. No amount of complaining or message sending changes that basic fact.

<comment><USER12> The demographic with the highest percentage of people who voted for Trump is older white men. Older men are also the demographic with the highest risk of death from COVID-19. The worse that the Trump administration does at managing the outbreak, the more of their voters will die before they can vote in November.

Considering Trump's slim vote margin of victory in 2016, this could matter.

Talk of re-opening the economy early instead serves a different constituency: the people who _fund_ much of the recent Republican political program. These are mostly rich individuals who can make idiosyncratic, self-centered decisions. The result is a Republican political machine that pursues the interests of these individuals, even when it means coming into conflict with the interests of their voters.

The reason politicians want to make these funders happy is that, if the politician loses office, these funders are the same people who can set them up with a well-paid gig in the broader political machine. See for example Sarah Palin, who made this work so well that she quit her political job early.

<comment><USER11> They may well support it up to the point that it kills them. I expect it to be popular to tell them there is nothing to worry about and they'll probably be fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> >And if we hope to blunt the impact of others like it, let's not forget, again, that all of our lives are, together, embedded in highly complex systems.

Isn't that the reason for the end of systemic thinking? If it is highly complex, what good is it to focus on managing the system? Why not manage the perception and let evolution run its course?

</comment><comment><USER14> It's interesting to see our desire for blame kick in.

If Earth was hit by an meteor two weeks ago, or if there was a major earthquake in California, I'm sure we'd see similar blame coming from the media.

Someone that has been warning of meteors or earthquakes for two decades would get on TV and talk about how negligent everyone in power is for ignoring their warnings. Agencies would argue that with more funding they could have responded earlier.

Everyone who already hates Xi Jinping or Trump or Johnson or Pelosi will attach new narratives to their favorite villain blaming them for the event and the response.

Maybe sometimes shit just happens, and we should skip the blame game and focus on improving our response.

The best thing about this story was that it's was self-reflective on the media's 180 on this issue. That's something I don't see often in media. Just four weeks ago all the major media outlets were downplaying everything, and now those same outlets are placing blame for not taking things seriously on everyone but themselves.

<comment><USER15> Note that this is an op-ed by a professor at UNC Chapel Hill, not something by a journalist.</comment></comment>


Data Structure Visualizations - <AUTHOR> https://www.cs.usfca.edu/~galles/visualization/Algorithms.html <comment><USER2> This would be nice if it had predefined routines to run through, preferably from a plaintext, line-separated textarea.

For example:

      insert value
      insert value
      insert value
      delete value
      insert value
      insert value
      find   value
      insert value

That way, if someone just wanted to see how the data structure worked, they could step through an existing routine. Others, who may want to validate their own routines match the expected output, can add and edit the routine parameters all at once.

You may want to prefill some fields because it may not be clear to everyone what value is expected in the input box.

Neat project. Thanks for sharing!

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey sorry for the confusion but this isn't my project! I just found it last night while researching b-trees and figured I should share. I now realize that the 'Show HN' prefix means one is showing off their own work. My mistake!

I was excited to come across this work because I was hoping to make something similar to show how a parser builds an abstract syntax tree.

After playing with it for a minute I agree about it needing an auto run feature!</comment></comment>


Hacker news for business - <AUTHOR>

Is there a hacker news, or somethings similar, for business news? <comment><USER2> StackExchange and Reddit have a lot of options for business or finance.

There's also a list of (active) Hacker News clones:

      http://hn4hn4x.herokuapp.com

From which you can find Trejdify, a HN for business:

      http://www.trejdify.com</comment>


The Other Side of the "College Sexual Assault Crisis" - <AUTHOR> http://www.newsweek.com/2015/12/18/other-side-sexual-assault-crisis-403285.html <comment><USER2> Paywall...

<comment><USER3> Click "Web" and go in via the search results</comment></comment>


If the World Was Created by a Programmer - <AUTHOR> https://blog.toggl.com/world-created-programmer/ <comment><USER2> I have no experience mit mongoDB. Can somebody please explain the last joke?

</comment><comment><USER3> The comic strip was created by a programmer via AI. Recursively humorous.

</comment><comment> King-Aaron I actually spat my drink out through my nose while reading this</comment>


European investment platforms - <AUTHOR> Why does it seem that the European fintechs are advanced in every area of personal finance, except for investing? Robinhood etc has existed for years and yet we have nothing across the pond! <comment><USER2> As someone who has lived on both sides of the pond, I know what you mean. They had contactless pay and chips in Europe like a decade before.

I think there are a couple platforms like RH launching. Revolut is doing one, and there is www.ninetynine.com is in the EU.

Have patience!!

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. I'll check them out, although I'm not getting my hopes up.</comment></comment>


Michael Abrash: A First Look at the Larrabee New Instructions (LRBni) - <AUTHOR> http://www.ddj.com/hpc-high-performance-computing/216402188?pgno=1

<comment><USER2> Well worth the time. Larabee is a very interesting architecture.</comment>


Uncovering a network of "adult dating" spam accounts on Twitter - <AUTHOR> https://labsblog.f-secure.com/2018/03/16/marketing-dirty-tinder-on-twitter/ <comment><USER2> It's amazing to me how researchers spend a day or two looking into something and come away with tens of thousands of bots, in this case some that are nearly a decade old. Seems like Twitter can't be looking _that_ hard, though it's far from a simple task and it's probably all they can do to stem the tide of new bots day by day.

<comment><USER3> Even with a 95% accuracy of detection, a good algorithm can point the "is a bot" finger wrongly at many people. If 10,000 bots are detected and banned, it could upset 500 real people. So, Twitter has to ask if its easier to put up with 9,500 not-so-active bots, or to potentially make 500 people very upset.

<comment><USER4> And academic and journalistic investigations into political bots have _often_ subsequently discovered that a non-trivial proportion of apparent bot accounts are actually manned by ordinary people who genuinely feel retweeting certain influencers for hours on end and indiscriminately replying to other political figures with memes and slogans was a good use of their time in election cycles. It's Human Turing Test Failure central.

<comment><USER5> Any source for this? Not disputing it, but would like to see some evidence.

<comment><USER6> Wasn't there a mass bot purge a couple of weeks ago immediately followed by complaints that Twitter was silencing important conservative voices because they're part of the _Deep State_?

<comment><USER7> I believe the complaint was reduced follower counts reduced credibility of some real accounts

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It would be great if Twitter had a way of accepting community contributions to addressing their bot/troll/spam problem.

I see a lot more efforts like this coming from outside of Twitter than inside, and these kinds problems are rampant.

<comment><USER9> I was thinking the same sort of thing. I was also trying to see what sort of limits are on [https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/accounts-and- users/mut...](https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/accounts-and-users/mute- block-report-users/api-reference) in order to automate reporting them. But at what point would they flag that account as a bot and block it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I have a hunch that this is how the Russians are using Twitter and Facebook to mess with the American people

<comment><USER11> Good news! You don't need a hunch, since Twitter directly approached RT (which is effectively a government control media apparatus) and pitched them access and discounts to "US voters" ahead of the 2016 election:

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/twitter-offered- rt-1...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/twitter-offered-rt-15-of-its- total-share-of-us-elections)

Their response after that reveal was "We do not have any comment on our private conversations with any advertiser". Which, mostly confirms it. If it was a made up story, they would have quickly refuted it as such ("RT made this stuff up like they always do etc").

Not only did they not care about American voters, they were an active part in allowing an external entity to manipulate them. But of course we all believe they changed now and their hearts and minds are one with the American voters. Phew, I can finally sleep better at night.

<comment><USER12> Is this really any better than "internal" entities trying to actively brain- wash the electorate right before the elections with personalized propaganda and a fake impression of consensus?

The problem is personalized ads. We need to get rid of them, regardless of who does it.

<comment><USER11> > Is this really any better than "internal" entities trying to actively brain- > wash the electorate right before the elections with personalized propaganda > and a fake impression of consensus?

It's the same thing pretty much. It's not like some Wall Street bank is going to have a lot more care and concern for the American voters than some country out there. The story about Russians is only interesting as it was turned into a rather successful PR campaign and a lot of time was spent writing, talking, investigating, and mud slinging based on it.

> The problem is personalized ads. We need to get rid of them, regardless of > who does it.

It's going to be hard. The company which provides the most refined and exact profiles in the ad space will win. So even if there was some company that decided they are not doing this individual targeting, they would lose out and go out of business while company with the most detailed profiles would win. In a way I think that is why Google is afraid of FB. They realized at some point that FB holds much more nuanced and detailed profiles on people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If anyone is into this kind of analysis and likes jupyter notebooks, we've got a bunch of users having fun with it on Graphistry.com using our GPU viz tech. We support OSINT, so feel free to request an API key!

</comment><comment><USER14> Unfortunately, the title of this post doesn't convey the content very well. I don't really have a better suggestion... Maybe something along the lines of "Finding botnets within twitter", or something.

<comment><USER15> We've taken a crack at it. If someone can suggest a better title—i.e. more accurate and neutral, preferably using representative language from the article—we can change it again.

<comment><USER16> New title seems quite descriptive to me.</comment></comment></comment>


Verizon says to shed 10,400 jobs by mid next year - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-verizon-layoffs/verizon-says-to-shed-10400-jobs-by-mid-next-year-idUSKBN1O91VM <comment><USER2> > The New York-based company has been looking at cutting costs as it ramps up > investment in its next generation 5G network, which is expected to fuel > growth.

"we're about to grow a ton, better cut 10k jobs to maximize those gains."

that just sounds so... weird to me.

<comment><USER3> The company is laying off 10,400 employees. According to the article: _The company said it had 152,300 employees at the end of the third-quarter ending Sept. 30._

That's a significant chunk of their workforce! I suspect Verizon will quietly be hiring thousands of people from places where they can legally pay them less than these 10+ thousand.

<comment><USER4> That's pretty much the modus operandi of every telco around the World.

The working conditions in call-centers or guys doing installation & maintenance tend to be absolutely horrendous across the board.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Judging by the posts on this layoff board, most of the layoffs are older, more expensive folk, so it seems like Verizon is going to bring on younger cheaper labor just ahead of its rollout of 5G...we'll see how that plays out. Also it sounds like 44k people were offered the voluntary severance package and 10k accepted...almost 1/3 of the organization was offered a VSP? Insane:

[https://www.thelayoff.com/t/WynLh8d#replies](https://www.thelayoff.com/t/WynLh8d#replies)

</comment><comment><USER6> I read on the Layoff they had about 11.4k applicants, and 90% of them were accepted. Looks like the first wave is out starting Dec 28th.

With such a large cut it would be weird to be rejected, I would feel an awkward mix of jealousy and loss to go back to work afterwards.

<comment><USER7> Wouldn't it be a compliment of sorts to be determined too valuable to be let go?

<comment><USER8> I've been there, it's not really a good feeling since the remaining pressure can be burdensome depending on how much your company cuts.

"You're too valuable to let go! Best yet is you don't have all those pesky coworkers!"

Whatever leftover slop the company feeds you from the remains of your coworkers won't have that satisfying flavor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The cuts are voluntary, and people are getting 1 years salary out of it. I suggest a lot of people are more than happy to take it in a good job market.

That people are making the choice - and many don't seem to mind doing it, makes this quite a different thing than a regular layoff.

Apparently churn has been high, and people leaving their jobs voluntarily is in some ways a good sign for the economy. They certainly don't do that when times are bad.

</comment><comment><USER10> I guess their fios price increases the past few years isn't going to their workforce. Does this mean they are done increasing the price for a while now?

</comment><comment><USER11> wait a sec...i read it's 44,000 like a few days ago.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/10/05/verizon...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2018/10/05/verizon- lays-off-44000-transfers-2500-more-it-jobs-to-indian-outsourcer- infosys/#31711eba46f5)

</comment><comment><USER12> That is 10,400 out of 152,300 per the article, or just a bit less than 7% of their workforce.

<comment><USER13> I never realized how large they were

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> So.. they finished laying the groundwork for their 5g network, and now they won't need 7% of their workforce until 6g starts to go in 6-10 years?

<comment><USER15> Every ISP in the world is shedding employees. Every generation the network gets more digitized, more virtualised and you simply need less people to maintain and update it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> So they're offsetting the Capex of their 5G rollout by eliminating employees that helped make Verizon 3G and 4G rollouts a success and the company a ton of cash? That seems like a pretty bad precedent if so.

Also why would a brand new network deployment require any less head count? I assume they will just hire new workers when the uptake in 5G begins in earnest?

<comment><USER3> _I assume they will just hire new workers when the uptake in 5G begins in earnest?_

Probably at lower wages to boot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> So are they going all 5G for residential Fios broadband ... offering FIOs nationally over 5G?

For consumers that would be great and I'm sure other carriers would follow. If they do Comcast will suffer and millions of consumers will have a choice of residential broadband vs. only one player.

Thus I wonder if these job cuts are happening mostly in their wireline business that's unionized?

<comment><USER18> I'm not entirely sure... Wireless is shared bandwidth and fairly constrained, even with 5G tech. Interference is another huge issue if they tried. It would be somewhat nice for more rural areas where broadband feels like it's stuck in the late 90's (even in areas not so rural).

It's also worth noting that Verizon is also the most expensive wireless carrier out there by a pretty good margin. I only use them because when I'm on road trips, they're often the only provider I get signal with. If I were just in town, I'd probably switch to a lower cost carrier, and rely on wifi more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm so glad we passed those corporate tax cuts that created all those jobs and helped provide for all those raises everyone got....

<comment><USER20> Full-time employment is up by 2.7 million since the tax cuts went into effect.

Michigan's unemployment is the lowest it's been since records have been kept: [https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/21325](https://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/21325)

<comment><USER21> Correlation does not imply causation. Can you provide evidence tax cuts stoked existing economic momentum? Or is the economy on fire despite these tax cuts?

Stock buybacks [1] done with these tax cuts, enriching shareholders, does little to stoke economic demand or benefit the middle class [2]. More likely, cheap, loose credit is what has allowed the music to carry on.

[1] [https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/10/investing/stock-buybacks- re...](https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/10/investing/stock-buybacks-record-tax- cuts/index.html) (Tax cut triggers $437 billion explosion of stock buybacks)

[2] [https://www.npr.org/2017/12/19/571754894/charts-see-how- much...](https://www.npr.org/2017/12/19/571754894/charts-see-how-much-of-gop- tax-cuts-will-go-to-the-middle-class) (CHARTS: See How Much Of GOP Tax Cuts Will Go To The Middle Class)

<comment><USER20> Why aren't you asking this of all the comments in this parent? People seem to be blaming Verizon cutting 10,000 jobs on the tax cuts. Or claiming that jobs weren't created. Or that somehow the tax cuts were an economic negative. None of those things can be attributed to causation.

<comment><USER19> _People seem to be blaming Verizon cutting 10,000 jobs on the tax cuts_

At no point was that ever insinuated. The simple idea is that the tax cuts were sold as a way to give companies financial resources to boost salaries and hire new people. Well they got their tax cuts, why are they doing the opposite of what the tax cuts were supposed to do?

Maybe it's because the tax cuts were never going to boost salaries and increase hiring. You have to be pretty deluded to come to the conclusion my comment was blaming the layoffs on the tax cuts.

<comment><USER20> > At no point was that ever insinuated.

Then when is the meaning of the parent comment?

> why are they doing the opposite of what the tax cuts were supposed to do?

I'm curious what news you're reading or consuming.

Wages are up 3.1% YoY (biggest increase in 10 years) and unemployment lowest since 1969: [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/31/wages-and-salaries-jump- by-3...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/31/wages-and-salaries-jump- by-3point1percent-highest-level-in-a-decade.html)

2.7 Million more full-time jobs since January 1, when the tax cuts went into effect.

<comment><USER22> >Wages are up 3.1% YoY

>Real average hourly earnings increased 0.7 percent, seasonally adjusted, from October 2017 to October 2018.

Eh... [https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/realer.pdf](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/realer.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Also tumblr?

</comment><comment><USER24> A bit off-topic, but is 5G really the deadly killer that the conspiracy boards are bantering about?

</comment><comment><USER25> At least the described severance benefit might be on the correct order of magnitude to be considered reasonable and not totally and odiously evil,

"As part of the separation program, the employees will get a salary of up to 60 weeks, bonus and benefits, depending on the length of their service, Verizon said."

This is why I always advise people to negotiate significance severance benefits up front, on the order of 6 months for junior employees, a year + bonuses and continued benefits for experienced employees.

Companies absolutely agree to severance amounts like this, even for new grads, and sayingno to a company that won't is just doing yourself a favor.

<comment><USER26> If it's "up to" 60 weeks like they offer "up to X" internet speeds, then they're selling the best case but probably delivering half that.

<comment><USER27> I get you're trying to make a joke, but it's a weird criticism of Verizon specifically. Every FiOS circuit I've had over the last 15 years, except for some growing pains with gigabit, has tested at 10% over its rated speed. Verizon also has particularly generous compensation: [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/business/verizon- workers-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/business/verizon-workers- strike.html) (union members make $130,000 on average in salary and benefits).

<comment><USER28> I just got back from Thanksgiving visiting my folks in rural PA where Verizon DSL is the only so-called high speed option, and it barely worked. I often could not even load the speed test pages. They were getting far less (10-20%?) than advertised. I thought the joke was brilliant and apt.

<comment><USER29> Verizon DSL and Verizon FiOS are entirely different beasts. Your parents are likely right on the edge of DSL availability, where it starts to get really flaky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> They aren't laying off people, it was a voluntary separation:

> Verizon Communications Inc said on Monday that about 10,400 employees will > be leaving the U.S. wireless carrier by mid next year as part of the > company's voluntary separation program.

They offered a package earlier in the year [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/25/verizon-offers-separation- pl...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/25/verizon-offers-separation-plans-to- thousands-of-management-employees.html)

<comment><USER31> _They aren 't laying off people, it was a voluntary separation_

It's just another layer of corporate double-speak.

The same way "fired" became "laid off."

Until the early 90's, "laid off" applied to factory and seasonal workers, who were expected to be recalled when production ramped up again.

<comment><USER32> I don't really think it's doublespeak.

Laid off means an employer doesn't want/need your position anymore.

Fired means an employer doesn't want _you_ anymore.

<comment><USER33> I don't think it's quite so black-and-white. Often there are multiple such positions and they are being reduced. So your position still exists and they don't want _you_ (or rather, they would prefer to have X number of your coworkers rather than you). I don't think it's synonymous with being fired, but you can smell it from there.

<comment><USER34> Every time I'm seen a layoff in tech it is always the lower performing employees first out the door. Round 1 is normally just letting people go who should have been fired years before.

Of course this is often when the good employees start doing interviews as well.

<comment><USER29> The first round of cuts (of deadweight that avoided egregious screwups) work so well that managers get addicted and pretty soon they're cutting the actual workers and they kill the company.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


A 5G coronavirus conspiracy spread across Europe - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/?p=1668904 <comment><USER2> If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. (Bok/Landers/?)</comment>


Working in multiple software companies at the same time - <AUTHOR>

Hi, I am working for a big software company. A few friends & me have a good idea and want to implement this idea while we work for the big software company. The software I are thinking of building is add-on to the big company's software. Is this legal or should I get permission from the big software company?<p>Thanks, Luke <comment><USER2> If it's an add-on to your employers software, yeah. Either you need to let them know up front and get their okay, or keep it secret and release it after you quit that day job (and pretend that it was entirely developed after you left the company, and even then you're not safe if you had access to any relevant trade secrets while you were employed).

Even when your contract lets you own the IP that you create on your own time, there's usually a really broad exception for anything that somehow interacts with or competes with the employer's business.

YMMV, IANAL, this is not legal advice. If you're serious about doing it without your employer's blessing, double-check your employment contract and local law (I don't think the law anywhere in the US would protect you in the stated scenario) and hire an attorney.

<comment><USER2> Some more constructive ideas, assuming you're really attached to your current job:

* Try pitching your idea to your employer as a new product. You can be a mover and a shaker without launching your own company, and it looks great on your performance review.

* Quit the job and launch your company. Once you have a product, try to get your former employer to buy your new company. You get to make your cool project, you get a fat lump of cash, and you (hopefully) get to go back to your old job.</comment></comment>