Ask HN: Do you plan your next day ahead? - <AUTHOR> If so, what tools do you use, apart from to-do lists? <comment><USER2> For the last 3 years I've been trying to find a way to organize my life.

Before that I was in a rebellious phase, I didn't believe in time management and plans. I thought they caused stress and inefficiency. I thought there was enough time for everything.

However, then I crashed and realized that professionalism and proper planning have their place. But I could not and cannot manage to adopt a system.

I tried org-mode, the to-do list on my phone, some calendar apps. I tried the flash card system from Cal Newport's book Focus. I managed to stick to it for a week, and actually got some work done.

Nowadays I don't plan ahead, if something needs my attention and needs to be done I write down a checklist for the task with minimum self-explanatory items on a piece of paper.

Most things that I perceive as tasks are either not important in the end, or they go away. The ones that remain receive my undivided honest attention and in the meantime I procrastinate.

I don't trust myself, so I don't plan ahead. If I plan, I don't think I'll stick to it. If a task has the potential to haunt me, make me anxious and rob me of my sleep, I try to be cautious with it and get it done ASAP. Other than these types of tasks, I don't force myself to do anything and simply pass the time.

I wish I could be an organized person, procrastinate less, tidy up, live healthier etc. But knowing from experience that it's quite unlikely that I'll do all that, I try to focus on the bare essentials and try to feel less guilt.

<comment><USER3> "Most things that I perceive as tasks are either not important in the end, or they go away. The ones that remain receive my undivided honest attention and in the meantime I procrastinate."

Every honest organization system is trying to teach you that very point.

You can amass an infinite tasklist in finite time, but only the important things matter. It's much better to accomplish one important thing in a day than twenty inconsequential jobs.

...the difficulty is in discovering what isn't important.

<comment><USER4> Don't downplay the significance of small jobs though - investing a few hours in housework, server configuration or refactoring can all pay off hugely in my experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use the bullet journal system, which is essentially a way to structuralize a notebook. Instead of removing redundancy, it embraces it.

1\. Make yourself a very brief year plan

2\. Every month refer to year plan and go into detail as needed for that month.

3\. At the beginning of every week, make a plan while referring to the month plan.

4\. In the morning give yourself a daily plan or keep notes to help stay on track.

I really like having to go back and forth between time scales, it helps me keep track of what I'm doing and also answers the question I've also had with previous note taking apps: how does what I'm doing today fit into the rest of my life?

Hint: if you're interested in learning about bullet journaling, stay away from Instagram, pintrist, and tumblr - people have a tendency to turn this amazing productivity tool into an art contest, and it only gives the illusion that the barrier to entry is higher than it really is

<comment><USER6> > if you're interested in learning about bullet journaling, stay away from > Instagram, pintrist, and tumblr - people have a tendency to turn this > amazing productivity tool into an art contest, and it only gives the > illusion that the barrier to entry is higher than it really is

This is exceptionally good advice for any kind of organizational system. It's really easy for me to get down on myself for not creating these robust, beautiful pieces of art that memorialize my experiences and help me work. I used to have a tendency to view organizational systems as much more difficult than they are. Now, I use a very basic task list that's on my computer and phones, that is organized by due dates and projects. I don't let myself get down when I miss a due date, or I forget to document everything for a couple days. I just hop back on and keep working.

<comment><USER7> I use bullet journal, basically, but I just write my points at night for the next day (I find it too hard to get started in the mornings if I have to make a list, by the end of the day I know everything I want to do the next).

It's just a damn mess of scribbles and dots, to be honest. But it works great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's what works best for me:

Write down big life goals for 6 months, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years and 30 years. Every month, re-read/revise your list. This allows your subconscious to calibrate what truly matters to you. When I say every month, it's loose, everytime you feel you can't remember the essence of your life goals, you should read them again and think if they still relate to you.

Every morning, choose to get started on one and only one action that moves you forward to one of your long term life goals. Try to get started on it that day. Always remember patience is key, and focus only on trying to get the smallest amount of progress done that day. If you do more, so be it, as long as it wasn't effortful. If you've done any progress, feel good, and really allow yourself to relax, do whatever lazy or fun things of the moment you feel like doing, and know you're making progress and that things are going to workout for you.

This is based on these assumptions:

1) We always overestimate what can be accomplished in a month, but underestimate what can be accomplished in a year.

2) Productivity is not about getting lots of things done, but getting the most important things done, without wasting time on the things that provide little lasting value.

3) Most things we want to accomplish we do not because we want to, but because we feel we need too. When thats the case, no amount of planning will help, since you're true subconscious lacks the needed motivation. Therefore it is better to focus on accomplishing what you truly want.

4) Most people don't have that many things they truly want to accomplish.

<comment><USER9> What does a 30 year goal look like? "Be successful in life"? "Have great kids"?

Can't help but think that I'll probably be close to dying in 30 years, so I'm not sure what my goal can be, other than "be able not to forget who I am, have some money to live, and not shit my pants"

<comment><USER10> > "be able not to forget who I am, have some money to live, and not shit my > pants"

Seems like those deserve a place in all of the 6 months, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years and 30 years goals. At least one of them is achievable? Right?

<comment><USER11> Lol. I like you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> In a vague sense only, and only if strictly necessary - eg. travel, meetings. I actually strongly seek to avoid any fixed time commitments any day of the week, or indeed to have to be aware of what day of the week or month of the year it is, because it create needless overhead through "unflowable time". The critical cause is service providers unavailable 24x7x365 where my preference is uncommon (eg. after waking up early in the morning, it is frequently impossible to swim or eat although I would like to). I avoid alarms. To do lists are a rarity. I try not to block others and prioritize giving them positively framed critical feedback or research output ASAP over my own work.

</comment><comment><USER13> Pen, paper.

I have a legal pad, one day per sheet, taking notes throughout the day. Anything requiring follow up gets an asterisk.

End of the day, tear off the sheet, write out the asterisked things for the next day.

<comment><USER14> I love the simplicity of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As far as work, I make sure to always finish my day with a thing or two half- started. I find the itch to finish these is far more powerful as a progress driver than a completed checklist that gives me mental permission to relax.

Granted, this is definitely not the ticket to work-life balance if that's what you're looking for.

<comment><USER16> I can't find a source, but I can paraphrase a quote I like: "Never quit for a day when all the tests are passing, always leave yourself something obvious to start with the next day"

<comment><USER17> Yes, I'll sometimes leave a simple failing test so I know exactly what to do next.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've tried many tools and nothing sticks. And if it requires me to type on a phone or turn on my laptop, they are not effective. The stuff to do come to mind at any moment: while washing dishes, while working on other stuff, when I'm out and about.

The only thing that works for me is, when I wake up, brew a cup of coffee and sit with a paper notepad, and write down my tasks. During the day I'll think of something I need to do for tomorrow and I'll write it down.

Better yet, keep your notepad with you, especially when going to bed. At that time, you might have one of those "oh shit!" moments, when you forgot to do something important. Write it down. No need to fiddle about with any app.

Also, pro tip: accept the fact that you'll never finish all the tasks for the day. There'll always be something you forgot/didn't have the energy to do. It's OK.

</comment><comment><USER19> I work as a developer on client projects--my technique currently is to leave myself a small todo list towards the end of work in Simplenote or a github comment. Then I shut the work side of my mind off, enjoy my evening and sleep, wake up, start on TODO list, and if other client needs arise, hop on those and get back to TODO list later. Rinse, repeat.

If applicable, my tip is to allow yourself to enjoy the evening without thinking _too_ much about work, so you feel rested and refreshed to tackle the next day.

</comment><comment><USER20> I have most recently been trying to plan out at least 6 months ahead. How I am approaching this was inspired by some life events and some videos I had seen on Youtube.

I really liked this video by Scott Hanselmann ([https://youtu.be/FS1mnISoG7U?t=8m2s](https://youtu.be/FS1mnISoG7U?t=8m2s)) about scaling yourself and I liked this video that came out recently ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o)) about behaviours that maximize your misery.

What I took from these two videos is that goals are important and in order to reach these goals, you need to find a way to keep yourself accountable without creating goals that are vague or unattainable.

I have just started writing a bunch of to-do lists on Google Keep and then I try to group various tasks and assign 3 per day. The goal is to focus on 3 things per day that build into 3 major areas of focus for the week which fuels 3 goals for the month... and so forth.

With that said, I missed some of the to-do's for a couple of days for this last week, but I prioritized other items that had come up spontaneously and completed the majority of the to-do's. At the very least, when I fail, I can at least look at what I had accomplished and not feel as bad.

Hope this helps.

</comment><comment><USER21> Pile of Index Cards, and a very loose set of goals / tasks.

[https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/u4dgr0tkxk4tk9npuvex5a](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/u4dgr0tkxk4tk9npuvex5a)

I find the physicality of cards is highly useful. I could use a better set of categories for specific activities, but that requires some changes to working space and desk.

I'm coming to rebel against a tremendous amount of electronic and online tools, as well as find the merits of not only pen-and-paper based systems, but of the critical utility of a dedicated office and work space.

Not that I'm fully there yet, but the highly-mobile, transitory, digital, and ephemeral mode (which I've attempted, for several decades) simply isn't suited to in-depth work.

Which becomes patently obvious when reading much of that written by those who espouse that.

</comment><comment><USER22> Before I leave work I set everything up so I can hit the ground running hard the next day. Relevant files and requirements open and pertinent information set to remind as I go through the morning. Before I go to bed I prep my lunch for the next day to cook in the morning, and hang my clothes in the bathroom. I use (according to friends, abuse) Siri with time and location specific reminders for everything else. Also I keep a small sketchbook where I write down more general long term reminders and use it as stress release (can't figure out a problem? Draw my hand, or make a repeating geometric pattern till something useful comes to mind). Also emailing myself frequently. And voice notes. I'm not organized, but I stay organized with that mishmash

</comment><comment><USER23> I tried doing it as a 30 day challenge. Those were by far my most productive days -- probably because taking a couple of minutes to figure out what was the most important to do that day meant I knew what to focus on.

<comment><USER16> Just curious, why didn't you stick with it?

<comment><USER24> Well, you can already deduce one fact regarding your question from OP: a 30-day challenge that brings its user a clear and obvious benefit does not work (at least, we know it does not work 100% of the time) as a way to introduce and stick with a productive and positive habit, even where the burden of that habit is low.

Some other way, different from a "30-day challenge" must be used to introduce the habit, because this method does not work (or at least does not work 100% of the time).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> TL;DR: This is just an add-on to OP's question - how it has worked for me. I've been following this and I'm looking for a better way to track.

I was experimenting with it a couple of days and here's a quick brief.

How: All I used was Apple Notes on my phone to plan out the whole of next day the previous night. I would break the sections into "Morning", "Afternoon", "Evening", "Night" and add multiple checkboxes that act as to-dos for each part of the day.

Did it work?

Yes, and I would really recommend it. It feels great and gives you superpowers since you already know what to do during the day, and that you don't have to randomly find things to work on as your day progresses. This majorly improved my morning schedule which I would otherwise spend on checking emails, partially reading HN & Medium, oscillate between applications and be distracted. This also improved my productivity and I felt I should be checking off items one by one. The balance from the day would move to the next day, if applicable.

Why did I pause: The same reason OP started this thread for. I wanted to have a better way to handle the habits, and get an idea on how I perform and my completeness ratio. There are certain habits that get replicated across days. Notes is just meant to be a note-taking app. I wanted to try Trello with lists for each part of the day, but again, the completeness part is what I am really interested in.

</comment><comment><USER26> After using kanban for Dev and Ops work and really digging it I started using a Trello board for my personal tasks and found it to be invaluable

Each task gets a Trello card and goes in one of four columns: Backlog, Ready, Doing, Done. I also have a bunch of labels (which Trello colour-codes) for things like "house", "blog posts", "projects" etc so I can see at a glance what type of task a card represents.

If I have a random idea for a project or something I might get to when I have some free time I stick it in Backlog so I remember it and can add notes etc. Things that need doing like "Mow the lawn", "Put down a batch of home brew", "Get the car serviced", "Call X about Y" go into Ready in rough order of priority. If something has a hard deadline I can add that to the card.

When a project or a blog post idea is at a point where I'm ready to start it I move it from Backlog to Ready, also roughly prioritised amongst the other cards. When I start a task I move it from Ready to Doing. As is generally the goal with kanban I try not to have too many tasks in Doing at once. Try to finish one thing before starting the next.

When I finish a task I move it to Done. Very satisfying...:)

Trello is free, has a great web interface and an excellent mobile app that will give you notifications when deadlines are coming or if other users comment on your board (if it's shared).

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm a freelancer, and I set my own schedule.

I've logged virtually everything I've done in the past three years into Google Calendar. This is a way to get feedback on my actions, rather than listing my intentions.

If it's a task I need to do daily, I build it into my morning or nightly routine. For example, my "sit down at desk" routine is to review and block out my time for the day in gcal. If it's not important enough that I don't remember it, don't have an automatic email reminder or it's not already on my calendar, than it's not important enough for me to think about.

I also have built a habit of "frontloading" work, and doing necessary but distracting (domestic) things as soon as possible so they are off of my plate.

Giving full concentration to tasks in my brain requires multi day thinking, so I have to sort of 'soak' in the project context. For concrete deliverable based tasks in development I'll use whichever PMS is appropriate and block/log my time appropriately.

I have a dev-journal.org for things I want to remember or side project tangents I'll want to go down later, as well as tracking arcane bash commands I rarely use etc.

I used to use iCal (I find it superior to gcal for many reasons) until I moved to using Debian full time.

<comment><USER28> So do you put current or future tasks on your Google Calendar, with expected start and end times, at the level of feature to be implemented, say (assuming you mostly a coder)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> I use org mode to write what is in my mind when I wake up and when I'm close to go to bed. And I record some current stats too (like weight, humor, anxiety, etc). Have been doing it for 2 years. It helped me a lot to get back on track after a failed startup and set long term goals, like get and keep a job.

</comment><comment><USER30> I recently started using an obscure app on Mac called DayMap. I'm really loving it. I'm usually working on multiple projects and this has a nice day/task/week 1-screen view split by project that helps me keep the big picture in front of me all the time.

<comment><USER31> I like the one called priority matrix -- it syncs between all my devices. The mobile version is free [https://sync.appfluence.com/manage/downloads/](https://sync.appfluence.com/manage/downloads/) It has a high priority/low priority urgent/nonurgent split

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> No, but one thing that has helped tremendously: at the start of every day I figure out the total hours that I will work. Then I make a list of tasks I want to get done and put a guesstimate of how long each should take me. I start with the most important task and use timer-tab.com on stopwatch mode to see if my guesstimate was right. Sometimes things take longer than I've guessed, but it's consoling to know I'm making progress on the most important thing that day, even if it's the only one. When I finish a task a bit quicker than I've estimated, it's a great feeling. Whatever is undone just goes on the following day's list.

</comment><comment><USER33> Pretty low tech, but I use a notebook with a pen.

<comment><USER34> Me too. Best app so far, lol

<comment><USER33> Haha exactly.

I just can't imagine using a mobile/web app to replace that part of my workflow.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I've started doing this and it has done great things for my productivity. I just sit down with the trello board for my current project in one window and google calendar in the next window. I pick two cards, think about if I need to reach out to anyone in order to do them, and block out the time on my calendar. During the day, if I change what I'm doing, I change the events on the calendar. It makes it much easier to focus more intensely on one thing.

I tried this when I was in uni and it didn't work at all --too many different assignments and I was trying to schedule out my whole day rather than 9:30am-6:30pm.

<comment><USER28> So you create an event "calling tom" from 09:00 to 09:30, then call tom? Then check how long that took, and adjust on calendar?

<comment><USER35> Yea, though I'm not strict about it. If the call was from 9:05 to 9:40, I leave the event alone.

Note that I've not tried doing this for a day when I've got a bunch of little tasks to push through.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I use an app I wrote: [https://GitHub.com/ioddly/meditations](https://GitHub.com/ioddly/meditations)

The point of it is more to encourage habit formation; I don't microplan my day, I try to do the same things every day. Wake up, meditate, exercise, code for several hours. When you have a strong routine established, deviating from it feels strange.

I have found limiting recreational internet use to be as important or moreso than any kind of planning for being productive.

nb. I just rewrote the whole frontend so apologies if anything is broken.

</comment><comment><USER37> I collect appointments from Outlook (sigh!) and set a theme for the day in my private journal, using my own [https://knowfox.com](https://knowfox.com) for this.

<comment><USER38> Interesting software, but I could hardly read the almost-white-fonts on the almost-white-background. :-(

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I spent a lot of time trying different systems and finding I couldn't stick with one. Now I embrace the chaos of multiple systems.

I keep a bullet journal, which is mainly for journaling and long-term planning.

Some days I write a list of tasks on a piece of paper.

I put events with a definite time in my calendar (add with Fantastical, review with Calendar app, Week Cal + Fantastical on iPhone, Calendars 5 on iPad).

I put "someday" tasks and tasks that have a definite due date in Things on Mac and iOS (the new version is one of the best pieces of software I've ever used). The new Things also integrates calendar events into the "Today" view, which is quite useful. But I don't look at it every day.

Previously I used "2do" with "smart lists" corresponding to a priority matrix ("important urgent", "important not urgent", "not important urgent", "not important not urgent.") It was a bit too complicated and I switched to Things when the new version came out a couple months ago.

I also used to have a daily checklist in 2do, but after it became habit, I found I didn't need it anymore. I highly recommend a daily checklist for anyone recovering from burn-out, depression, or similar.

I've just switched to doing high-level planning in a "Master Plan" document in Quip. It's already quite detailed and covers most aspect of my life.

Otherwise lately I organize my days into 3 or 4 timed 1-2 hour focused work "zones", with as much ceremony as time affords, to the point of making special drinks, listening to specific music depending on the theme, and lighting candles.

I'm also experimenting with 3 10-minute open-ended thinking periods per day, for which I have alarms set in my phone.

The latter two habits have been very effective. I'd tried Pomodoro in the past, but I find that ceremony is important.

That sounds pretty exotic, but the major insight from the past 10 years of trying things is that finding the _one right system_ is a fool's errand. Trying many different systems – the simpler the better – and letting them evolve naturally works best for me.

</comment><comment><USER40> I make a rough plan of my next day the night before, and then flesh it out in the morning while I'm having my first cup of coffee. I felt there was a bit too much friction when using a calendar app or reminders app for really granular hour by hour planning, so I built my own iPhone app:

[https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/long-day-day- planner/id10626...](https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/long-day-day- planner/id1062689795?mt=8)

</comment><comment><USER41> I use lists to organize everything I'm doing. Each separate project has a page with a list of specific tasks that will help me finish the project. I also have a general to-do list for chores that aren't recurring (fix the faucet vs take out the trash). Every morning I look at the lists and write a to-do list made up of the most pressing tasks that I think I can get done and what ever else I notice needs to be done that isn't written down. This is all with pen and paper

</comment><comment><USER42> I've always been a fan of old school RPGs, so I like using habitica. You put in your tasks, and when you do them, you get gold and experience to buy items and level up. If you don't do them, you lose health. It makes it like a game.

[https://frinkiac.com/video/S03E04/YYBQ9RpVADU0UvixOi_GW4i2E8...](https://frinkiac.com/video/S03E04/YYBQ9RpVADU0UvixOi_GW4i2E8E=.gif)

</comment><comment><USER43> Yes. Influenced by Cal Newport: [http://calnewport.com/blog/2013/12/21/deep- habits-the-import...](http://calnewport.com/blog/2013/12/21/deep-habits-the- importance-of-planning-every-minute-of-your-work-day/)

My tools: [https://github.com/galfarragem/hamster- gtd](https://github.com/galfarragem/hamster-gtd)

</comment><comment><USER44> I use Trello, with Todo, doing, deferred and done columns. If you want to go full scrum, great, but that's too much overhead. Signed wife up as well, so it works for both of us. I also have Alexa in four rooms to push my to do list into Trello via ifttt for those dishwashing moments. IMO, and off topic a bit, Amazon killed their dash button market when they packaged three Dots for $120.

<comment><USER45> I'm not sure why you are downvoted. It's not quite fair since you are answering the question. But in all honesty this kind of existence sounds strange to me.

Edit: changed horrific to strange. if my wife and I lived by todo lists on Alexa we would never have any fun.

<comment><USER44> I think I would agree with you, if I didnt have kids. But two kids under three, and you kind of dont know whats what after a few months.

My wife still uses pencil and pen so maybe someone will upvote me for that. Silly me thinking this was a tech audience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I use the _Action Day Planner_ which is designed with Allan's GTD method in mind. I do not follow it very closely and one problem is that I don't always have it with me, but it works better than anything else I've tried before. I combine it with a notebook for work and a notebook for private projects.

Electronic PIMs have never worked for me, not even _org mode_.

</comment><comment><USER47> I use software mindmaps for planning (all nodes always prioritized) and stickies for physicality when getting tasks done. 30 minutes per sticky, with the goal of only writing 30 minutes worth of work on a sticky. Brief break after some stickies. It works really well, too well sometimes. I have to limit the amount of stickies per day or I get burned out.

</comment><comment><USER48> Planning next day ahead reduces the randomness in your work. Wunderlist is best app to keep the focus on important tasks with deadlines. It helps you review the day too, whether you could accomplish whatever you had planned for the day.

The great feeling you get when the task completed is strikethrough when you press the tickmark.

</comment><comment><USER49> Teachers plan days, weeks, terms and years in advance. If you need some help planning take a look at how they do it.

</comment><comment><USER50> I have 20-30 hours of meetings a week and work about 50 hours.

My tools:

\- Calendar

\- Devonthink for Notes and meeting summaries

\- adhoc notebooks made out of waste paper

\- Due for routine deadlines (file your expenses, etc)

The key is to get your stuff as done as it needs to be and be able to shut off work when you leave. Don't fetishize capturing every task. Delegate tasks as soon as possible to others.

</comment><comment><USER51> If I have a particularly complex day tomorrow, especially if there's lots of travel, I write down all the important stuff I need to do in schedule format on a 3x5" card. At the end I put down all the facts I might need, like important contacts or access codes or whatever.

</comment><comment><USER52> TaskWarrior, sync'ed across several machines through inthe.am, isn't perfect, but it has made my life better.

Start simple, as a to-do list, then add complexity if you need it. The documentation is sufficient. Tagging, projects, and priorities are all interesting/useful.

</comment><comment><USER53> Nope. After many tries at todo apps, organizational techniques, etc I've decided I am simply not busy enough to need to plan anything. The only thing I am organized with is my sleeping (always sleep at 12am, always wake up at 7am).

</comment><comment><USER54> I have been using the 5 minute journal to plan my big goals and reflect on what I accomplished in a day.

As for specific todo lists, I use either a notebook for longer lists or Google Keep app to hold shorter todo lists.

</comment><comment><USER55> On a per-day basis, generally only based on my electronic calendars (personal=gcal, work=outlook).

On a week to week or month to month (and longer term) basis, I have rough notes sketched out in a plaintext file.

</comment><comment><USER56> First task of my day is to fill out my calendar. So at least I have an idea of what I should be working on. That way I can focus on execution, instead of spending all day on hacker news.

</comment><comment><USER57> I usually plan my day/week ahead but the amount of yak shaving I face everyday working with DevOps tools is so great I just give up. It's one time sink after the other.

</comment><comment><USER58> I don't really plan my next day. I do a bit of triaging once my current task is done to re-prioritize my todo list, which is a simple text file.

</comment><comment><USER59> I find using a outlining tool like workflowy.com as the most simplistic and effective.

</comment><comment><USER60> In my personal life I set appointments in my phone's calendar for anything more than a week out. For anything within a week I just remember what I'm doing.

For work my team uses JIRA in a SCRUM fashion. So the sprint is loaded with tickets that have priorities but the team chooses what they're doing each day.

</comment><comment><USER61> I try to, but to paraphrase Von Moltke, no plan survives contact with the email inbox or the bosses whims.

Perhaps once or twice a month, I can actually execute a day planned the afternoon before, so I have largely given up and reverted to a slightly demoralizing reactive mode.</comment>


Visualizing Tolkien - <AUTHOR> http://5013.es/p/1/

<comment><USER2> >One of the reviewers argued that it was the hardest book to read because 'and' was the most used word in the book.

I think the author took this way to literally. Granted, it inspired some fun (albeit odd and basic) data analysis. But the point of the reviewer isn't about word counts but about style and pace. That, narratively, the Silmarillion just felt like it continued on and on without clear sections of rising and falling action or significant breaks. Sentences were long and atmospheric, rather than short, quick and active.

<comment><USER3> I haven't gotten through the whole book, but it's also written in a style which makes it hard to immerse yourself in it. Characters aren't described in detail, major events are described in a few words, and entire lifetimes are glossed over... Certainly epic and at times quite beautiful, but completely different to LoTR.

<comment><USER4> Sillmarillion is just meant to be read in pieces, I think. It's very similiar to the Old Testament, and I don't know a single person that read the Old Testament in one sitting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Where's the sentence length statistics? Average word length? Commas per sentence? All are surely much more indicative of reading difficulty than that "originality index" he came up with.

Why didn't the author try the most obvious test of reading difficulty of all: Flesch-Kincaid? [1]

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readabil...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readability_test)

<comment><USER6> Hi, author here.

First, it's she, not he.

Second, because I hadn't heard about that obvious test at all back then. I never pretended to do a superserious scientific analysis but rather answer to the questions that came to my mind, by using a computer to validate hypothesis.

But many thanks for the pointers & suggestions, though! I was thinking about rebuilding this to make it realtime+interactive so that more than one text could be analysed/visualised, so I'll make sure to introduce the new tests.

<comment><USER5> Hi author, I really liked the visualisations, especially the black hole thing.

I think I may have misunderstood the purpose of your article: I first read it as a serious attempt to use textual analysis to do a comparison of the comprehensibility of Tolkein's best-known works, in which case you fell way short of the mark by going no further than word counting. I think it started off like that, but on re-reading it I see that you say you hit a brick wall (paraphrasing) and decided to have some fun visualising your results so far; something you did very nicely. So perhaps I got the wrong end of the stick.

I thought about what you've taken on here. Doing things at the word level is pretty easy. Taking into account grammatical structure to get things like sentence lengths and clauses per sentence, or breaking words up into syllables (needed for F-K, for example) is considerably harder. I'm interested to hear what you come up with. Flesch & Flesch-Kincaid are US inventions so perhaps not obvious to everyone.

On he/she: I agonised over that for a good ten minutes over my breakfast. I read around your blog and your twitter page this morning for clues as to the appropriate pronoun. In the end I couldn't tell, so I went with 'he' because I stereotyped you. I nearly changed my wording to use constructions like "the author," "they," and various other mealy-mouthed alternatives but they were too ugly. So I did try, but I got it wrong. I apologise.

<comment><USER7> Isn't FK determined almost completely by sentence length? That is what I recall from messing with MS Word docs in high school.

<comment><USER5> FK combines average sentence length (total words/total sentences), average syllables per word and some fixed coefficients to come up with an equivalent school grade.

Flesch Reading Ease score, which is what I actually meant, does the same but with different coefficients to come up with a more granular difficulty score, usually in the range of 30-100.

They're both pretty arbitrary. The more I read up on this subject the more respect I have for the author's own attempts at an originality score. It's all subjective ultimately.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The painstaking lengths people go though in honor of Tolkien is amazing. Along those lines I think <http://3rin.gs/> deserves a mention, especially as maps are a "visualization" of sorts. I met the author this summer. The attention to detail is staggering.

</comment><comment><USER9> Great post, I love the thinking out loud thought process portions.

Some suggestions: try removing stopwords (the, and, etc.), it'll bring out more variation on the analysis. Particularly in the circular graphs.

Try unique n-gram analysis, I suspect that will show something interesting. At the very least 2-gram (bigram/digram) analysis might show something cool.

Some other interesting comparative measures, since the author already has all of the tokens, try the Jaccard index between book pairs to look for similarity. (may even want to break the books down into major sections: e.g. LOTR can be viewed as both 3 and 6 books.

Some others to try, sentence length, word length, distribution of tf-idf scores, etc. etc.

fun fun!

<comment><USER6> Yes--maybe I am thinking out 'too loudly' sometimes, but I think it's interesting since that explains how one can come to a conclusion, and maybe if it is wrong, it can be corrected as you know how the conclusion was reached. It's like you can "debug" a thought process, in a way, as you have a "trace" :-)

And thanks for all the suggestions! I've made a note of them all. Good to hear from people who know more about the topic than me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think the author should have filtered out stopwords. The big "The" in the middle of the visualization seems kind of obvious. It would be much more interesting to see the words that make this text different from other english texts.

<comment><USER11> I did some work while still in college doing analysis of texts from Project Gutenberg. Removing the stop words made the analysis far more interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why does everyone find the Silmarillion hard to read? Am I the only one, who had no problems with that style?

<comment><USER13> I was thinking the same. I never had problems with Silmarillion. Couldn't read Messages from Middle Earth however, that was just not enough connection. But Silmarillion, man, that's an _epic_ collection of stories. I think it might be a cool material for a TV series. Say, one season for every major story with the same characters, plus some creative freedom for the screenwriters of course.

Just think about it - battles with hordes of orks, hero elves AND 30 or so Balrogs. And loosing / winning a battle doesn't just blow up a tower, it creates _spasms in damn middle earth_. The ring wars got nothing on that..

<comment><USER14> Later parts of the book might be good (or even great) in movie format, but there's _no way_ one can turn Ainulindalë into a movie... Or can they? For years I was passionately against the idea, but now that I think about it again, maybe I'm just being over-pessimistic? I mean, LOTR turned out to be quite good...

<comment><USER13> IMO quite good is an understatement, it has become the best any LotR fan could have ever hoped for. And about Silmarillion: Think about how good some TV screenwriters have become in recent years - IMO they turn out more high quality TV scripts than movies nowadays, mostly because the big budget movie industry needs to always take the safe bets (and so you get stupid flicks like battleship et al.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I do research in this topic. While word level features are readily available and provide some interesting insights, I'm more interested in syntactic phenomena (e.g., recurring phrases). But in the case of The Simarillion the "reading difficulty" could be beyond even that; I suspect it might be because it doesn't build up suspense the way the traditional narrative of a novel does. Unfortunately, that might be hard to capture in a programmable test.

</comment><comment><USER16> "Visualizing English Text" seems more accurate a title. Cute process, but the result is entirely generic.

<comment><USER17> Agreed. It's just applying some standard (albeit amusing) tools to a particular text (amounting to 1 book in 5 parts) and getting results no different from any other text. Word clouds etc have been done, but all still result in pretty much the same sort of textual haze, with nothing inspiring a unique view of a unique tome.

Mapping semantic associations would be more interesting. Something akin to <http://xkcd.com/657/> generated by the in-text juxtaposition of names & related verbs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> " _I wrote a simple program who counted how many times did each word appear in the [_ The Silmarillion _]._ "

Out of curiosity, where did the author get a copy of the text to analyze?

"Turin" is the only name in _The Silmarillion_ graph? Interesting.

<comment><USER6> Author here.

I got them in txt files, online. I own the original books too. I would have typed them in if I had all the time of the world, of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> While I find this somewhat fascinating, I think this kind of analysis would be similar to trying to figure out how to make great food by examining the molecular contents of the final product.

</comment><comment><USER20> I almost closed the tab right away because the text only started below my fold. The 4 graphics fit the screen perfectly so I assumed that was all. Make sure you scroll!

</comment><comment><USER21> You need to remove the stop words before visualizing them. Words such as 'the' 'and' etc don't need to be in the analysis

<comment><USER6> They are included because they were the reason people gave when asked why "The Silmarillion" was so unreadable.

(I'm the author)

<comment><USER22> The problem with stop words is that they tend to be the most common words in _every_ piece of text[1], regardless genre.

So, in order to test the hypothesis "Silmarillion is harder to read because it has lots of stop words", you need to calculate the relative frequencies of lots of other texts and see if there's something special about Silmarillion's top 10 versus all other's.

Surely, you have already done that using LOTR and The_Hobbit, but a much bigger sample is needed. At the very least, you may want to use 10-15 other works of fantasy from different authors, and that will be just like a back-of- the-envelop test to see if it is worth to pursue this experiment with a statistically significant sample.

[edit] 1\. Provided it is sufficiently large.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> ok great. but will you read the damn book already?!?!

;)

</comment><comment><USER24> rather: Wasting time and attention on useless statistics and pointless visualizations.

<comment><USER25> Says the one with a nickname from mythology/fantasy (Darkover-Cycle)... ;-)

<comment><USER24> I'm not sure what you mean. I was criticizing the viz, not the literature.

Incidentally, I never read anything by Lovecraft, but am a big fan of Tolkien. I came up with this nickname on the spot.

<comment><USER26> Err---that would be Marion Zimmer Bradley (see: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Zimmer_Bradley>), not Lovecraft. It's possible she got it from "The King in Yellow" usually referred to as 'The Yellow Book', but not know for sure. See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_in_Yellow></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Definitions of Software Architecture - <AUTHOR> http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/definitions_software_architecture.html <comment><USER2> Every definition of architecture I have ever heard has never really helped me in any way after hearing it except one:

"Architecture is that which contains entropy."

<comment><USER3> Something like that is basically my guiding principle when evolving architectures.

I generally start with minimal grouping/barriers, but eventually areas start appearing as likely candidates as things that could end up developing complexly.

When those surface, I see my job as something like setting up bulkheads to constrain the flow and development of complex regions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Software Architecture is different than being a Software Architect...

I always relate my processes to home building, especially when i am speaking with non-technical people. For every project I work on there are numerous roles where technical skills and understanding are not required (e.g. accounting, schedule management, and sometimes the entire client side does not know email from a toaster oven.

As a Solutions Architect, I often design Software Architecture, but I also design developer workflows and host infrastructure, set up a test environment and work on the more technical aspects of the project schedule, coordinating materials with clients that will go into the home building project, solving problems and constraints as they arise, all without having to deal with budget issues beyond not exceeding cost. So in this case, relating the situation to home building, Here I work as a General Contractor on the home building process - managing plumbers, electricians, carpenters, etc...

As a Software Architect, I create all of the diagrams for the software's design, usually in conjunction with devs, but a lot of the time all on my own. At this point I mostly make critical decisions about what framework is used after finding what dev talent is available and conducting interviews if the team is not already assembled. Then I usually set up project management tools and documentation tools, attend requirement gathering meetings, and actively contribute to development and code reviews, while also contributing to pretty much every other aspect of the project that involves technical detail, like the schedule's design, prototypes and demos, and resolving security issues in conjunction with DevOPS teams. So in this case, relating the situation to home building, Here I work as a home architect would. I regularly create "floor plans" and diagrams to drive techs in finishing the project, while actively working with groups to ensure quality and resolve issues based on my designs...

The Software Architect role has grown a lot and will keep going. I remember when employers used to squeeze this role out of me as an underpaid dev... But Architects are now considered essential to pretty much all high value projects because they dramatically improve quality and organization while keeping things on schedule.

Lastly, the Software Architecture consists of the documentation that comes out of planning, requirements, and design sessions for the project. The way an application is designed, the requirements from the customer that are incorporated, the way deployments are being made for updates, all of the things that involve a system's design and maintenance become the Software Architecture. Relating this to home building, it is just like the architecture of a home, the framing, plumbing, the window locations, etc... The architecture here serves as "blueprints" for the development process, and the home can be built with substituted materials while are equivalent to changing platforms, APIs, or even languages altogether just like a bathroom tile can be changed without changing overall functionality of the bathroom.

</comment><comment><USER5> I have a really hard time with the idea that there is this thing called Architecture and it is separate from some other property or activity like Code/Coding.

If you show me the implementation of a low-level component (a file, class, namespace - depending on your design idioms and PL) in your system... basically, a set of functions/methods organized and composed into a whole -- then I can tell you if you have an Architect on your hands.

For any business offering (any system/product line) the skill set required to factor this into a decoupled/maintainable whole is the _same skillset_ required to compose a lower level subsystem or component.

(Granted there is typically some knowledge/experience at the higher level system required --eg, around database systems/tradeoffs/theory, distributed system tools/properties/theory, etc -- but the core skillset of _factoring_ is the same.)

If you can't decouple a component into set of compose-able functions serving some component contract (I call this _coding_ by the way), then you should not be trusted to compose an architecture for a system/offering. Similarly if you can do this decoupling at the low level and do it well, then you can do it at the higher level -- again, assuming you have experience and are familiar with the data structures typically found at those higher levels (queues, dbs, coordinators, stream processors, etc).

There's a single fundamental skillset. It's the ability to instinctive decouple a system -- any system at any level -- into proper parts.

One might say - well, an Architect is someone with this skillset. The non- Architects, the Juniors can be left to code up the smaller pieces, where problems stemming from their lack of skill can at least be marginalized.

This is weakly true and a simplistic view, however. Because decisions made at lower levels can have permeating effects quite rapidly. Another way to put this is that as one problem-solves within an overall system architecture, one encounters novelty on the regular, so to speak. And the solution/s to this or that novelty has to be slotted _first_ at the right level of the system... in one instant, you will find that the top-level systems need a slight adjustment to accommodate things, in another you'll find that nothing needs to be perturbed above the component at hand.

If you say the Junior needs to tap the Architect's shoulder in each such instance, then you'll find quickly that this is pointless and the Architect would do better to write some code.

You either have people with the skillset or you don't. If the skillset is there, the architecture will be organically established. If the skillset is absent, whether you have an Architect in title bears less on the technical quality of your system but you may get a win on the team/organizational side of things.

<comment><USER6> Having worked at a company with a useful architect described above, it's impressive to see what can be made to streamline developer lives.

Also, the amount of knowledge developers can absorb from the arch team code base to use in the future is amazing. Ie; personal projects, etc...

I think to help offset the junior bothering the arch. Team, knowledge transfer meetings + documentation is always necessary.

Thank you for the other perspective of how architect can go wrong!</comment></comment>


How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later, Philip K. Dick - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20080125030037/http://deoxy.org/pkd_how2build.htm <comment><USER2> "The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. George Orwell made this clear in his novel 1984. But another way to control the minds of people is to control their perceptions. If you can get them to see the world as you do, they will think as you do. Comprehension follows perception." \--Philip K. Dick

<comment><USER3> Ursula K. Le Guin also pointed this out, at least in her book "The Dispossessed". For example: "This is my brush" vs "This is the brush that I use" regarding -- in part -- the concept of ownership [be it personal or communal].

<comment><USER4> That idea (words shaping thought) is near the top of my list of "stupid things that smart people believe and repeat".

Think about the history of words with a negative connotation that people try to replace, and how the new euphemism acquires the previous negativity.

dang doesn't like it when people say correlation is not causation, but dammit, the fallacy is everywhere! Changes in language accompany changes in thought, but it's not causal.

<comment><USER3> I mentioned an author using a fictional society's phrasing to influence that society's thought process on ownership. It was relevant to what I was commenting to.

Please do share more about this "stupid idea" regarding "words shape thought"; as you say, I seem smart enough to share and repeat something stupid so I must be able to understand you further.

<comment><USER5> The problem is that often you hear things like "Tribal people X have no word for 'lying' in their language" as if that meant that they couldn't understand the concept. But of course they do, even if they call it "not telling the truth". Similarly, people like to point out words in languages like German that are compound words, and as amusing as things like "Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän" (Danube steamship company captain) are to English speakers, it isn't as if we can't understand the concept. There just is no evidence that people of different languages think differently.

<comment><USER6> > _There just is no evidence that people of different languages think > differently._

Languages are used to express ideas. We have debates on this very website about the expressiveness of languages, how expressiveness of language enables (in)efficiency, and which languages are best for a given task.

The expression of a thought influences and, in some cases, limits the kinds of thoughts that can be expressed. This is evident when you see things like someone "writing Java in perl".

<comment><USER4> I've been writing perl in VBA. It seems to me that this, or your example, demonstrate the opposite of language controlling thought. People have thoughts that are very different from the norm in the language they are using, and they find a way to express them. In fact, I've been recently trying to express my usual programming concepts in a language that's far more of a straitjacket than VBA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you liked this, I highly recommend reading his book VALIS. It's psuedo autobiographical, and deals with the odd "visions" and "revelations" PKD experienced later in his life. He was likely suffering from some sort of mental illness, but to close the discussion there ignores the lessons PKD himself taught us in his earlier works. Reality is weird and slippery, and we don't really know what's going on.

<comment><USER8> You know, I'd have to suggest "Intergalactic Pot Healer" as a soft introduction into the whole scene.

Thing about reality being slippery we have a tendency to acknowledge the fact when we're reading the books but then to comfortably return to our regularly scheduled mundane existence the minute the books are closed.

I still haven't been able to reconcile the sheer madness of the world with the workaday banality and obedience I've experienced in this cursed industry.

<comment><USER7> I had some bad drug trips earlier this year, and one of the things that's stuck with me is the realization of how bizarre our reality and existence is. It manifests as an existential dread, where I realize that we're all walking around in a world we don't understand, where most people don't seem to be questioning that fact.

It's like, we all just started existing one day. You can trace that back to your parents, to being born, to evolution, to the laws of physics, to the big bang, etc, but that doesn't remove the bizarre fact that we exist and are conscious for some reason but we have no idea why. (Or if the question of "why" even makes any sort of logical sense.) Even the reality we think we perceive is unlikely to be anything like what's actually going on. Isn't that just so weird?

It's been about 5 months now, and I still get hit with these feelings multiple times a day. It's accompanied with a strong feeling of anxiety, so I wish I could go back to the old banality.

(Yes, I've been considering therapy for awhile, but it's difficult to get an appointment with a therapist right now.)

<comment><USER9> I've been through some very similar stuff. It was two years after "I" was blown to pieces before I had really integrated these strong pangs of anxiety, memories that I was nothing at all and that ultimately reality is terrifyingly absurd. It's been a long process of learning that these pangs are important learning experiences, that they are fuel for compassion for others, that curiosity and awareness transform them into something else... etc. etc. down the rabbithole of self-care for the unwilling mystic.

If you're interested in what I did with all that since then, I'd be happy to chat more and share what I've learned, where I'm at, and where I'm headed. Seconded on the cup of virtual coffee, /u/artsyca, although of course I'm perfectly happy not to crash y'all's party.

<comment><USER7> That sounds really similar to my experiences, and I'd love to chat.

> and that ultimately reality is terrifyingly absurd

Yep, this is exactly what I felt, and now deal with on a daily basis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

Heard that a bunch of times. I was today years old when i discovered it was PKD who said it.

<comment><USER11> If it didn't go away, did you really stop believing in it?

<comment><AUTHOR> is there awareness without belief?

what is the nature of belief?

what is the nature of consciousness?

is consciousness the same as thought?

is there consciousness without thought?

<comment><USER12> The more I meditate (13 years now), and the more 1/5/6 seem to be yes/no/yes. It is congruent with many meditators exerience and teaching, which of course could be influencing this conclusion, not to mention it's not measurable nor objective.

I'm not sure 2/3 are something we can ever answer.

And that spawns many interesting questions about the physical characteristics of cousciousness. Does it start and end? It is present spacially? If you don't need thought, do you need the brain to be conscious? Do you need neurons? Can something without it be conscious? Is there only one form of consciouness? Is it persistent? Is it a whole? It is homogenous? Is it something in itself, or an emerging phenomena? Does it have a support, or is it a support in itself?

Unfortunatly, people tend to immediatly reach for spiritual, religious or mystical answers to those.

<comment><AUTHOR> what do you make of the confessions of sages? respectfully: perhaps, do you prefer to stick to what can be understood from direct experience?

i personally can't help but wonder how it is that many sages in different times and places seem to arrive at corroboratory confessions of what they've experienced as the ground of being.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It appears there really was a Snakes of Hawaii published in 1972 by V. Ralph Knight ([https://www.amazon.com/Snakes-Hawaii-Nature-guides- world/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Snakes-Hawaii-Nature-guides- world/dp/B0007134U0))

</comment><comment><USER14> I searched online for a while but does anyone know (or have a source for) where he gave this speech?

<comment><AUTHOR> > In his undelivered speech "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart > Two Days Later," Dick recounts

according to the Wikipedia article for "flow my tears… ", The speech was never delivered

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_My_Tears,_the_Policeman_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_My_Tears,_the_Policeman_Said)

<comment><USER14> Ahhh. Thank you for digging that up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hahahaha I gotta find that story about how mice can't be made to be humans.

</comment><comment><USER16> in Valis terms: The Empire Never Ended

</comment><comment><USER17> Or, in other words, "Not Our Universe".</comment>


Windows 8 Metro UI can only launch IE (not chrome, Firefox, etc) - <AUTHOR>

From the Windows 8 Developer forum thread: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winappsuidesign/thread/e74cce2d-9a1f-4bf9-a5f2-733c15e4f297
Metro IE is a special app.  You cannot invoke an executable from Metro style apps.
Metro UI is incapable of executing any desktop applications, except for the "special" case of Internet Explorer. That means you can't have a Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera or any other tile--just IE. To me this wreaks of trying to lock in the browser market. Sure you can run your favorite good browser from the desktop but for all intents and purposes with as much focus they are putting on Metro they clearly intend for Metro to be the primary interface. Primary meaning the interface regular Joe users will (only) utilize.
The more we find out about Metro UI the more I'm hating it. Hate is a strong word, but in this case I'm afraid its deserved. Under the cover of its "fresh" and "innovative" appeal there are some really seedy forces like monopolization and censorship [censorship coming from the inability to sideload apps for Metro--everything must be approved and delivered through the store].
What Id like to see to resolve this issue, is a simple implementation of having Metro app require permission from the user to launch desktop apps. The permission could be granted on a case by case, range of time or permanent basis. <comment><USER2> No. I already have a Chrome tile and didn't have to anything special to make it happen. It showed up when I installed Chrome: <http://imgur.com/xhnDi>

I believe what this is saying is that Metro Apps cannot launch non-metro executables.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank's steverb, that's good news.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It just means Firefox and Chrome have to make a Metro app. No biggy.

I just hate that you're making a big deal out of it.

<comment><USER4> The point being missed is IE is the only program that can wrap Win32 with a metro UI. Only IE gets to maintain a single rendering engine/ code-base. Chrome/ firefox have to maintain a Win32 and WinRT version.

<comment><USER5> That's because Metro is supposed to run lean as a tablet experience so they don't want every Tom, Dick and Harry just wrapping their windows apps to run on it. Chrome/Firefox/etc. already have Windows apps so now they have to create an app for Metro. No different if they were to create a Firefox/Chrome for Iphone vs MacOS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Obviously Microsoft is taking a page out of Apple's book, but this is going to far. Micrsoft needs to recognize it's long-term strength has always been the open(ish)ness of their platform.

Hopefully they recognize the error of their ways and make the app store the best place to get apps, not the only one.

I don't necessarily have a problem with using IE, if IE10 is a decent browser, most people would have no reason to change as the numbers of IE6 has proven over time. If the majority of users aren't going to install another browser anyway, why lock down those who will?

</comment><comment><USER7> Nor can ChromeBooks run Trident or Gekko.

<comment><USER8> ChromeBooks (ChromeOS, actually) isn't the market leader.</comment></comment>


Kickstarter: An electric scooter that fits in a backpack - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1181257820/impossible-0

<comment><USER2> Wow, this is awesome. 85kg limit is a bit of a bummer though.</comment>


Facebook Secret: Want to See Who's Monitoring Your Facebook? Follow These Steps - <AUTHOR> http://www.anonews.co/facebook-secret-monitoring/ <comment><AUTHOR> I think it's keying on the nicknames.

Why people have "Facebook Security" as a nickname is another question.

</comment><comment><USER2> Instead of "Facebook Security" type in "Facebook".

<comment><USER3> That gives a never-ending list, only a few of whom seem to even be employees... including lots of obviously fake accounts.

I got "No Results" for "Facebook Security".</comment></comment>