How to Prototype a Game in Under 7 Days (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130848/how_to_prototype_a_game_in_under_7_.php <comment><USER2> Somewhat related, I designed and created the prototype for my tabletop game Burger Up[1] in around 2 hours, including an hour with scissors and pencils, drawing rough sketches of burger ingredients on cardboard (with lots of help in that area from my partner), the night before a playtest/pitch session with a publisher.

Once the publisher picked it up, many hours of playtesting and many iterations followed (although once we cut it back to "what made it fun" it ended up surprisingly close to the original foundation).

I think that unless you're doing something completely groundbreaking, people who operate in that space can see the potential in a prototype/MVP and can visualize what it will look like with improved assets, etc quite easily. If the core isn't "fun" then you don't have anything (yet).

[1] [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/186701/burger](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/186701/burger)

<comment><USER3> As someone who came from making video games and now I'm working towards getting my first board game published, I like the prototype process of board games a lot more. One reason is because it is SOOOO much faster and easier to prototype a board game than a video game.

Need to try a new mechanic? Tell your players "okay, this time, instead of doing this we will do this." And five seconds later you're trying a new mechanic. You don't have to spend hours or days rewiring a bunch of things to get it to work. Sometimes it just takes a sticker on a card and things get changed.

Need some components for your game? You don't have to create them, or search for the right thing in unity asset packs. Open up one of your existing board games that has cubes or discs or dice or meeples or whatever and you can start trying your idea out in five minutes.

It's great, and it's hard to go back to the comparatively much slower process with video games afterwards.

Video games still kick the pants off board games when it comes to ease of distribution and sales channels for small developers, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Jonathan Blow (creator of Braid, The Witness) also has many interesting talks on indie game development. Here[0] is his talk on prototyping games.

\---

[0]: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISutk1mauPM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISutk1mauPM)

</comment><comment><USER5> Can anyone give some kind of update on how things have changed in the past decade since this was written, and thoughts about what resources to go to as a result? That might be really helpful and received with love and gratitude from readers here.

<comment><USER6> This article focuses mostly on design and the principles of rapidly prototyping a game, and I would say very little has changed in those areas over the years.

Something that has changed is the available tools for rapid game development. Ludum Dare is a regularly occurring game jam (next one starts Aug 26), and their tools page is a good resource: [http://ludumdare.com/compo/tools/](http://ludumdare.com/compo/tools/)

Somewhat unrelated, but a lot has also changed in the commercial market for indie games since this was written. On one hand, it has gotten much easier to commercially distribute indie games. But on the other hand, there is much, much more competition in this space now.

<comment><USER7> Nice list, thanks for posting it!

Prototyping in unity is not as fast as flash back in the day (for me at this time anyways). Can anyone compare GameMaker: Studio or another modern product that is good for fast prototyping?

<comment><USER6> GameMaker is usually the go to recommendation for rapid prototyping, and game development at a higher level of abstraction than Unity.

I've lately been hearing some positive buzz around Godot, particularly for 2D games. But I also get the impression that there is a learning curve. [https://godotengine.org/](https://godotengine.org/)

If you want to bring your flash skills into the modern world, Haxe might be worth looking at: [http://haxe.org/](http://haxe.org/) particularly with a framework like OpenFL. [http://www.openfl.org/](http://www.openfl.org/)

Here is a good article on the post flash gamedev world: [http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LarsDoucet/20150915/252693/Wh...](http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LarsDoucet/20150915/252693/Where_have_all_the_Flash_developers_gone.php)

I haven't tried any of the above. But I've heard good things about all of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A lot of this simply isn't true, though. For instances, many games' source of fun comes not just from gameplay mechanics but the richness of its composition. When you take away the design of assets or the particular sounds or music that a game is made up of, you have an entirely different game.

Too many people in gamedev are fooled by this concept. If anyone could make Minecraft and make it just as fun, why don't other voxel-based games ever seem just as fun?

What's fundamentally the difference between CS, CS:S, and CS:GO? Surely they're all the same game since the mechanics haven't changed dramatically.

<comment><USER9> You've missed the word "prototype".

The point isn't to have a perfect game at the end of the period, it's to have something to validate further time investment.

Take a look at the game Braid from prototype/concept to finished product.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Braid- art-1.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Braid-art-1.jpg)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Braid- art-2.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Braid-art-2.jpg)

This article is about how to get to something like the first image up and running. If it's fun, then work on making it look like the second image.

<comment><USER8> And you've missed my point entirely. You can have a game that simply _isn't fun, until the point of it actually being polished._

<comment><USER10> Can you give an example? (I don't mean to be snarky but I'm actually curious)

<comment><USER11> The Stanley Parable? I mean, without the script and voice acting, it would seem pretty dull.

<comment><USER12> Wouldn't you prototype the script? Just having a stage direction [SOMETHING WEIRD HAPPENS] would work in lieu of transforming a 3D environment.

I bet you could protoype The Stanly Parable in a week in Twine/Z-code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For some reason I misread this title as "How to Prototype a Game in under 7 seconds" and I was like, FINALLY!! Someone gets the web. I was so ready to click and spend not just 7 seconds but 30, 60, 90, 120, hell, 20 minutes if that's what it took.

Imagine my disappointment when it turned into 7 days.

This article is on the right track. But "Rapid is a State of Mind" can be a state of mind.

I am exaggerating with the 7 seconds - but only a little. People need to go much farther in the direction that this article, correctly, advocates :)

 _EDIT: the downvoters are on the wrong side of history and I 'm not changing one word._

<comment><USER14> > People need to go much farther in the direction that this article, > correctly, advocates :)

Prove the downvoters wrong, and build some awesome 7-second games. It hasn't been done...and so you're seeing skepticism. If it takes you an hour to make something like that, maybe you can have a dozen a day, and maybe 80 per week. Showing off a few dozen decent game prototypes in a week of work (or even just one, running in under an hour and popularly judged worthwhile) would be great.

<comment><USER13> I would say most programmers working today do not so much as open their programming environment in 7 seconds, that is not the environment that is set up let alone exposed to outsiders, without signup, through a simple URL.

So I am saying that the direction the article advocates is completely correct, yet the maxim "Rapid is a State of Mind" can be taken further, we can think in even more rapid terms. If you can't imagine clicking a URL and immediately creating a game that has never been made before then you're on the wrong side of history. I am simply not going to elaborate. (The 7 seconds is a bit of an exaggeration, as I noted.)

<comment><USER15> You definitely should elaborate. Right now what you're saying has absolutely no substance and only reminds me of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

One thing I learned long ago is that people who are cocksure of themselves yet won't explain anything are almost always the ones on the wrong side of history yet are completely oblivious to the fact.

<comment><USER13> okay, I elaborated here - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12283627](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12283627)

if you really want to, set aside about three minutes, try tinkercad and model a 3d object that is ready to 3d print and has never existed before, no installation required, and then come back and tell me how a similar level of simplicity would never be exposed by anyone anywhere to make it possible for non-programmers to create and publish a game in a few seconds.

your talk about being cocksure and obliviousness is dangerously close to a personal attack, so unless you make a constructive reply I think this conversation is over.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cash-strapped councils switch off CCTV cameras across UK - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/cashstrapped-councils-forced-to-switch-off-cctv-cameras-across-uks-towns-and-cities-10271267.html <comment><USER2> The lack of public awareness about the nature of surveillance troubles me. UK public must wake up to risks of CCTV.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a shame you're being downvoted. (I upvoted you, but your comment is still grey.)

The man who made the announcement in the submitted article - Tony Porter (the English surveillance commissioner) has previously said similar things as you.

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/06/tony-porter- sur...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/06/tony-porter-surveillance- commissioner-risk-cctv-public-transparent)

> The increasing use of surveillance technology – including body-worn video, > drones and number plate recognition systems – risks changing the "psyche of > the community" by reducing individuals to trackable numbers in a database, > the government's CCTV watchdog has warned.

> In his full first interview as surveillance commissioner, Tony Porter – a > former senior counter-terrorism officer – said the public was complacent > about encroaching surveillance and urged public bodies, including the > police, to be more transparent about how they are increasingly using smart > cameras to monitor people.

Opinion polls differ, but it seems that most people in England just don't care about CCTV and that is worrying.

<comment><USER3> I live in the UK and care about CCTV because three guys on bikes snatched my iPhone in central London and it wasn't covered. Install some more as far as I'm concerned. Also one time in Ireland I had a different three guys thinking of beating me up and then reconsider when they figured I was on camera. There are loads of cases of CCTV catching or deterring criminals. Is there a single case in the UK of someone innocent being harmed by the use of CCTV?

<comment><USER4> The issue isn't that people are suffering direct financial loss or bodily harm due to surveillance. The issue is that it enables authoritarian and repressive governments. You lose your privacy. Anything you do is essentially public information and can be used against you. As shitty as it is, people should have the right to do something like cheat on their spouse without some government official waving the evidence in your face for compliance. Or maybe you're into weird porn, or you read/write embarrassing things on the internet, or you're having sex with your second cousin, or you're gay but also a Christian minister. People shouldn't have to live in fear of their legal actions being used against them.

<comment><USER5> > As shitty as it is, people should have the right to do something like cheat > on their spouse without some government official waving the evidence in your > face for compliance.

A lot of these avenues of privacy were only really enabled by the growth of large metropolitan areas.

In smaller districts, you can't go to the inn and sleep with another woman because the innkeeper went to highschool with you and will tell your wife.

For the vast majority of human society, you had to try a lot harder to hide your activities if you wanted to go against the current social mores. It's not really clear to me that the level of privacy we can easily attain today, even if it is a social good, is not outweighed by the group benefits of social cohesion, and newly found benefits of catching criminals after the fact that CCTV would provide/encourage.

<comment><USER6> The difference is that the inn keeper, a single person with no authority, a small social network, and a visual range measured in feet, is replaced by an invisible, omniscient, omnipresent organisation with the power to bring arbitrary legal troubles down on your head.

Only if all CCTV were to become publicly viewable at all times by everyone could we speak of it as a force for social cohesion, rather than a mechanism for amplifying differences in power.

<comment><USER5> What I understand is that in Britain, for most cases CCTV is actually owned by private companies---like a shop will have a CCTV that watches its alleyway.

Even in the case where CCTV is owned by the government, its operated by individual city districts.

It's not a singular invisible omniscient organization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If the cameras / threat of punishment work as a deterrent then simply leaving the cameras in place without someone watching the screens should still have a crime fighting impact.

The "tough on crime" crowd overlaps the "starve the beast" crowd, an interesting tension.

<comment><USER8> Exactly.

If data on specific cameras remains publicly unavailable, then the threat from the majority of cameras remaining online serves to keep the fear of getting caught essentially _as high_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> 'Cash-strapped' Hah you must be kidding! I also think 6 million cameras for a total population of 60 million is a little bit high dontchathink?!

<comment><USER10> UK local authorities are famously poorly funded and have been squeezed by the government further over the last 5 years. The one that sticks out for me is Newcastle Upon Tyne - here's some pretty astonishing figures from a long-ish article[1]

"In fact, the city's predicament already seemed impossible. The council cut £37m from its spending in 2013-14, and another £38m is set to follow this year. Then, according to current projections, there will be further annual cuts of £40m, £30m, and £20m"

I think "cash-strapped" is putting it lightly.

[1] = [http://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/nov/24/-sp-is-saving- ne...](http://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/nov/24/-sp-is-saving-newcastle- mission-impossible)

<comment><USER11> In the interest of balance:

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/4330721/35-billion- black-hole-in-council-pensions.html)

<comment><USER10> I had no idea, that's very eye-opening. When pension funds go underwater like this, what are the options? Do the council (or indeed any organisation) have any ability to renegotiate them if they are as "gold-plated" or outrageous as the Telegraph suggests?

<comment><USER12> Not usually. Final salary schemes were considered normal, not "gold plated", and of course worked ok while average wages were rising, council revenues were rising, the stock market was rising, and interest rates were high (which makes the value of future liabilities lower). Now they are becoming a vast income transfer from poorer young people to well off old people. In the US bankruptcy has been tried, but not sure that is an option in the UK.

<comment><USER13> > vast income transfer from poorer young people to well off old

Hooray someone who gets it. How on earth did you escape the UK hive-mind?

Do you like how they put all the UK pension costs under the main "welfare" heading then demand benefit cuts (excluding pensions) because the welfare bill is too high?

Do you know anyone else in the UK who knows or cares about any of this?

<comment><USER14> Heh.

I think essentially every young person in the UK realises this and cares deeply.

I have a bunch of middle class friends. Many of their parents started out, got a decent job, bought a house. House is now worth 500K+.

For us to ever obtain that (without inheritance; i.e. in the same way they did) we would have to earn over £100K, or have dual income of 70K, ish. That's 5% if not 1% territory; it's essentially limited to business owners/senior mgmt and bankers.

So everyone rents. Who are they renting from? Well, not young people.

Of course, all of this capital will flow down the generations eventually, but only to a select lucky few. It's as if we had a golden age; a few decades of mobility for people to work hard within; and now family wealth is basically crystallised.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm curious as to whether this will be an effective cost-saving measure in the long term.

If it makes some police investigations take longer, that seems like a more expensive tradeoff.</comment>


Why Research Labs Fail at Innovation - <AUTHOR> http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2007/why-research-labs-fail-at-innovation/ <comment><USER2> I once suggested an alternative to research depts. Instead have a group that builds tools for the people building products. That way you still get to be one step removed from random customer needs, but you're also helping the guys who do face them.

<comment><USER3> I remember that essay, and my employer works a little like that (we have a platform that all of our products are built upon). IMHO, it doesn't work quite as well as it sounds like it should.

Problem is, information is lost every time someone communicates their needs. Customers don't actually need what they _say_ they need; there's always some detail that they forgot to mention that only shows up when you watch them use the product. That usually changes the tools that the programmers need, which often aren't the tools the programmers say they need, because programmers have their own preconceptions about how the solution should be implemented. Someone who's only done JavaEE programming will likely say "I need a tool that automates maintanance of my Hibernate and Spring configuration files", when they really mean "I need to store my user's session data between sessions."

There's often a strong organizational pressure to use the output of the toolmakers, even if the tools aren't suitable for the job. In my case, I'm not sure that I'd use our platform if just given our customer's requirements and my choice of toolset. But I can't really say that, because it harms morale and makes me seem like a lone wolf who can't work with other people. (Okay, I _have_ said that, with the expected result.)

The nice thing about research labs is that nobody expects them to be useful. Other programmers can pick up or drop their work based on whether it actually _is_ useful, not by some corporate policy. Unfortunately, the people most likely to pick up an interesting research lab project generally refuse to work for a big company. So there's a long history of guys in garages ripping off the best ideas of corporate research departments, and eating the parent company in the process.

If I were managing a large, cash-rich corporation, I'd have a small exclave a mile or so away from the main campus. It would have two buildings: a top-notch research lab, and an incubator (and a shared cafeteria, of course). The research lab would be staffed with high-priced Ph.Ds and tenured professors, the best in their fields. The incubator would be full of high school dropouts on grad student salaries, but with $40M+ stock grants contingent upon building something that millions of people will use. All executives from the parent company would be prohibited from setting foot on this campus.

Come to think of it, this sounds a lot like grad school, but without the bullshit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> R&D; labs fail at innovation because they're not designed to innovate. They're designed to invent. And they do a pretty good job at it as well.

Without R&D; labs we wouldn't have digital cameras, laser printers, the GUI, the mouse, cell phones, pharmaceutical drugs, etc.

If you want a good book on the subject, grab "Open Innovation" by Chesborough. It does a good job explaining why Xerox PARC wasn't able to monetize many of its inventions even though its managers were highly competent leaders who were following the best practices of the time.

<comment><USER5> I would actually say they don't fail at it, in much the same way that dolphins don't fail at flying -- they aren't even trying.

After the researchers at Xerox PARC invented, they innovated by splitting off into different start-ups to innovate, i.e. introduce the new product that had already been invented.</comment></comment>


Humble Book Bundle: Python Programming by No Starch Press - <AUTHOR> Just saw about Python Humble bundle [1]. Al Sweigart, author of some of the books in the bundle, put up a post on reddit [2] adding details about the books in the bundle. Python Software Foundation gets benefited from this bundle.<p>[1] https://www.humblebundle.com/books/python-programming-no-starch-books<p>[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/csl01v/humble_book_bundle_python_programming_by_no/ <comment><USER2> "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python" and a couple of other books from the bundle are available for free at the author's website:

[https://automatetheboringstuff.com/](https://automatetheboringstuff.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the first time I've gotten anything from HB. The timing is good because my Python is self-taught and has many gaps that I want to fill.

Checkout was a little strange. CAPTCHA issues twice, then Stripe said my payment method was "no longer available," whatever that means. Finally it all went through when I chose the Apple Card. So strange. But at least I'll learn some python today!

</comment><comment><USER4> Normally, I don't like upvoting an ad, but this one is exceptional.

Along with Pragprog, No Starch Press is my favorite tech book publisher. Getting their books for less than $1 each is a _ridiculously_ good value.

<comment><USER5> Are all their books really that good though? The Rust book is excellent (I ended up buying a paper edition) but a the few others I skimmed a few years ago were extremely average (some of them are included in the bundle).

<comment><USER6> If you're into security books there's no better publisher than No Starch.

For programming books, they do lean heavily towards beginners, but you can say that about every publisher. No Starch has a higher percentage of above average and even excellent books than any other publisher I'm aware of. Some are mediocre, but for most publishers 90% of what they put out is mediocre.

They have a few great books on low-level programming IMO. They are introductions to that topic but they are topics that I wouldn't consider introductory.

Learn you a Haskell and Clojure for the Brave and True are both No Starch. They just don't have the typical No Starch cover.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It seems like they've offered this same bundle a couple of times now. I bought it years ago, and one or two books may be different but I've seen a roughly similar bundle a number of times.

</comment><comment><USER8> I buy a lot of books from HB but most of the programming ones have been mediocre, worse than a free article. Maybe this one might be good.

<comment><USER9> No Starch and O'Reilly have been consistently good, in my experience.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, thank you. I just snagged it</comment>


Silicon Valley's Diversity Problem Is an Innovation Problem - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/code-like-a-girl/silicon-valleys-diversity-problem-is-an-innovation-problem-ebc407074828#.8aafugcmh <comment><USER2> I find the linked HBR article• quite interesting since it proposes a mechanism for diversity improving performance: in non-diverse environments, out-group members receive less support for their ideas. Assuming performance is equivalent and that the ideas are just as good, it means you're throwing away some percentage of your employees' ideas without justification. That's just hamstringing yourself.

Another one mentioned there is the bit about success among certain groups correlating with whether you have a member from that group. There are others like that but I hadn't heard about the first thing before.

• [https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive- innovation](https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation)

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it is time to begin pushing back more against articles like this and their underlying data, which is superficial at best and genuinely dishonest and one-sided at worst. They may have a couple positive diversity studies, but when I look out my window I see Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, Apple, Tesla, Alibaba, DJI, Google...all founded by men of various descriptions, all destroying their global competition.

Could they really be "better" by having female CEOs? Is that really true? Should we really continue to entertain this fantasy in order to avoid being screamed at online?

If the answer is "yes," then the conclusion is that there is a massive global conspiracy to prevent women from succeeding. This conclusion leads directly to the massive undercurrent of resentment and social persecution that is now the norm in tech. Tech has been made much worse by this...to the point where I no longer even want to participate in the community.

If the answer is "no," you get reality: Men simply tend to out perform at engineering and mathematical extremes and this results in more male CEOs. Men are also genetically predisposed to _having_ to win economically in order to find a mate...is it any surprise they tend to be more competitive?

None of these male CEOs had their success handed to them, they had to annihilate a huge field of competitors to win and that effort and brilliance deserves respect. With "diversity think," suddenly, all these brilliant CEOs no longer deserve credit for their accomplishments - After all, they had it handed to them by the system!

That seems deeply wrong to me, it also seems inconsistent with values that made America the leader in the world: Great people rise to the top, no matter what.

I know many highly successful engineering and technical women. The more successful they are, the less they are concerned with diversity-related issues. The most successful technical women I know in engineering and venture capital do not whine and complain and blame other people for their failures - They _bulldoze_ their competitors and they win by being truly better.

My problem is not that there aren't advantages to diversity in some situations, my problem is the cultishness of the opinions being expressed here and the refusal to question many of the relatively superficial data points which are brought forth to "prove" these statements.

The fact that these opinions are so viciously defended and people asking questions so viciously persecuted makes me certain that they can and should be questioned more frequently and treated with less reverence.

I have noticed over the last five years, the diversity-related content in many Meetups and Conferences has grown to the point where it is now 30% of content by weight. Fail to include a woman in your speaking line up, get excoriated online. Make someone uncomfortable by making an off-color comment, get banned from an event like Doug Crockford did without explanation.

What started as a positive desire to promote inclusiveness became a dogmatic and viciously enforced standard: YOU MUST BE DIVERSE OR WE WILL FUCK YOU UP AND GET YOU FIRED, RUIN YOUR CAREER!

I used to organize three large meetups. Once I began seeing how organizers are treated for not paying this "diversity tax," my desire to ever organize a conference or event ever again shrank down to nothing.

Quite frankly: There aren't a whole lot of women in tech because they may not generally want to take some of the jobs available here. Engineering sucks. It is not glamorous work, it is right below plumbing as a job in how it is treated at many large tech companies. I was an engineer and I saw many women try it out and then move on to other roles with more human interaction, operational and social components such as design or product management. I do not blame them.

Am I literally the only person who feels this way? Who is with me?</comment>


Why Are We in the West So Weird? A Theory - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/12/books/review/the-weirdest-people-in-the-world-joseph-henrich.html <comment><USER2> [http://archive.is/7qN8i](http://archive.is/7qN8i)</comment>


Please Give Feedback on My Launch - <AUTHOR> http://www.studyhallnotes.com

<comment><USER2> The font is bland, and changes midparagraph. The format is poor: there is no visual structure. The links up top are all white and I can't see them. You have too many categories for too few posts at the moment. The search bar seems awkward in the center. Ditto the RSS.

There is no organization. No reason why you have games or widgets on your site if it's a blog. If it's not a blog stop making it look like one.

Your registration page is thin, narrow, and long. Consider multiple columns. Also consider explaining what you are more concisely, and in a better format on the site than a mere About page.

Why is the box on the bottom gray? Why is there no space between "notes" and "is" in that box?

"Student Body" should be "Users," and I don't know why you list a user directory in the first place. Is this a forum? Then make it look like one. Is it an isolated network of separate schools? No need for a user directory. In any case, don't make people guess what the links are. I did that with the first forum I built, and the lesson I got might help you: if you're trying to distinguish features with names because they're the same features you can find anywhere else, it means that you need new features.

You need a lot of formatting. Like, a _lot_. This is ugly. Add breaks between paragraphs, remove the Share button unless you can customize it to look like something else.

Am I correct in assuming the Add Schools form is just a disguised Contact form? And the "Powered by Knowledge" is just a disguised "Powered by Wordpress?"

It looks like this is one of your first efforts to make a site, if I'm not mistaken. In that case, could I give you some advice? First off, try experimenting with other management systems, not Wordpress. Try them all. Look for "groups" functionality in each of them. That's the best way to implement a school system. I think Plone and Joomla have them. (Drupal's Organic Groups module runs far too slowly for a production-level environment.)

I was in the same situation as you, a few years ago, and I was trying something similarly ambitious. It's easier to start with something small, but if you want to go for ambitious, you'll need to learn how to code manually. Get a good FTP editor. Get a good visual CSS editor. Start opening up files in CMS's and learning how things are done. Look at the hacks you install (modules, plugins, whatever) and see what their code's doing. Try and get a visual feel for how it should work, and try tweaking things.

The thing is, PHP is really simple. If you want to code a Groups implementation by hand, you probably could in about a month even if you know no PHP at the moment. (Some people will disagree, but take a few good tutorials and mash them up and you can almost certainly get things exactly how you want them to be, even when you're starting off.) Styling a web site takes CSS: if you have a visual editor, it suddenly becomes a matter of just learning what looks good and then learning how to reproduce it. Smashing Magazine is a godsend. Avoid A List Apart at first: it'll seem scary and complicated when you're first starting. Smashing Magazine organizes itself in ways like "10 CSS Hacks To Make A Nice Registration Form" which is really nice. And again, this might be unpopular on this site, but keep messing with CMS's. They don't work for everything, but they handle the simple stuff so you can add on top and mess around and get a feel for coding.

As for your site concept itself: you need to figure out how to _inform_ teachers and staff about your site, and to _reward_ them for participating. In planning my site, which will eventually market to teachers, I worked with a few teachers from my school. And teachers are apathetic. Some barely know what a computer is. Some don't care about interacting with students. You need to figure out how to make _them_ want to use your service, and that's extraordinarily difficult. They're apathetic and hard to reach and will make any excuse they need to make if it means them not having to learn a new service. So you'll have to simplify as well.

Hopefully that helps! If you've got any questions either respond to me or drop an email. Best of luck in the future!

</comment><comment><USER3> Phew! Attractive website, obviously somebody put a lot of effort into the design. I've never seen a site like this. There are seven themes?

I can't find anything I'm interested in actually reading. I browsed the categories, tag cloud, etc. Most of everything seems to be links and ads.

The page loads very slowly, and something about the theme produces visual artifacts while scrolling (the body of a content item scrolls one frame before its header, so while scrolling up it overlaps briefly). This is on Firefox 3 on Linux. So the site feels "sluggish" to use.

What are the buttons at the bottom? "Study Break"? There's no content there. Do I have to add it myself?

Who is "Dean of Students" and why does this person seem to make up the majority of posts? If it's you, why don't you use a name?

<comment><AUTHOR> What exactly are you considering to be the seven themes and is that good or bad?

The site is farely new. Traffic has yet to increase and the plan is to eventually have the posts and comments all be from members on the site.

The slow loading and visual artifacts are being worked on by my partner.

There should be content in the StudyBreak. It's some games people can play while on the site. I am actually considering removing that.

Dean of Students is also the webmaster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> (loads really slow & no favicon)

Interesting UI, are there any case studies on how recreating the desktop appearance works on the web?

How are you going to monetize this site?

<comment><AUTHOR> My partner is working on the slow loading and favicon. As far as monetization, that will depend on what traffic the site initially attracts. Eventually it will be advertising and employment listings after website format is converted to something with a larger database. I handle the marketing, I have a partner who handles all IT issues.

What is it you find interesting about the User Interface?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The design is a little loud for something that is content driven. I should notice topics and comments before anything else (my eyes were drawn to the nice looking background image).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the input. I will definitely take that into consideration.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is this just a blog, am I missing it?

If it's a blog, I'd recommend changing from the default wordpress theme; at the very least make a custom banner at the top.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's really not just a blog. As people register, the school they wish to post under can be added to the site as a category if it is not already available.They can then post info geared toward that school and its students and it's students. Each category does have a blog format. If you read what the website is about under "About Us", it explains that.

<comment><USER7> that sounds like a blog</comment></comment></comment>


Memories of Steve (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://donmelton.com/2014/04/10/memories-of-steve/ <comment><USER2> Great read. While I was a writer at Apple, I was invited to attend a few monthly staff meetings of the Graphics and Imaging team. At one of these meetings, Don Melton gave a fascinating presentation on the developmental history of Safari. I don't remember much about the content of the talk, but I remember thinking I was in the presence of a brilliant mind and a great project leader.</comment>


Enthought Canopy: comprehensive Python analysis environment - <AUTHOR> https://www.enthought.com/products/canopy/

<comment><AUTHOR> If you haven an Enthought Python Distribution (EPD) subscription, you can get Canopy for free. Get it from:

<https://www.enthought.com/downloads/>

That isn't very clear on their website.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you schedule your life? - <AUTHOR> Also, how do you keep sticking to that schedule? <comment><USER2> I got married (answers both questions, I'm afraid). I often wonder if that is a really bad way of doing things since I tend to simply do what my wife wants. If I want "me time", I need to tell her in advance so she can put it in my schedule. However, I've always been super easy going in that respect. My wife loves organising things and trying to optimise stuff so that everything fits. She even optimises the meal preparation so that we _never_ throw out any food (it's a miracle as far as I'm concerned). However, on the weekend I often want to cook and my wife will say, "I'd like paella. Please use up the mushrooms, milk, sauerkraut and pickles". So, I have to be pretty creative.

To be a bit more helpful (because I don't really want you marrying my wife -- it would be inconvenient for me), I think the real key is to ask yourself why you want a schedule. Where are the places you are hurting? It might be better to address those pain points directly rather than trying to overhaul your approach to living life. At least as far as I'm concerned (being very easy going in this respect), there is nothing wrong with not having a schedule. In fact, it is completely liberating. However, you need to have priorities and make sure that your priorities are addressed.

<comment><USER3> For me, at home, it works in a similar way.

There is a downside though.

I'm very very forgetful, so sometimes, my wife needs to remind me to do a certain task 3 or 4 times before I actually do it. I started noting things down to avoid forgetting as this puts some strain on our relationship.

<comment><USER4> I've been trialing the Things app recently. Pressing F12 anywhere, even when using some other app, pops up a window where you can quickly add a todo. When you're doing something else, and suddenly remember something you might want to do later, it's very easy to store it.

When you have the popup open it has shortcut keys for associating it with a certain project or date. If you're in a hurry, you can skip that and move it to the proper place later. Because of the shortcut and being able to organize later, it's completely effortless to note something.

Everything you add shows up on your phone as well, so it's really convenient for taking notes around a topic and not forgetting stuff. You can have daily repeating tasks too, which are nice for habit-building.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't have any strict schedule really, but I've made one weird thing recently, which seems to be making a difference. Not really long term yet, but over this weekend I seemed to actually do more useful things, than usually.

I've listed all the things I tend to do while procrastinating, instead of doing things that matter. Then I've layered them on top of each other, like "I should do X", but "instead I think about doing Y", and then "instead of doing Y, it seems I am actually doing Z instead". X -> Y -> Z -> U -> V -> (...). On some levels it splits into branches too, when I consider things of equal importance.

These layers seemed to align pretty well with my priorities, i.e. further "down the chain", I get less and less important things. (The last, least important activity, seemed to be "desperately seeking attention". :D)

Then I've noticed that this realization about doing many useless things, actually motivated me to do things from "the top of the chain" (important/useful/urgent). Not sure if it would work for everyone, but maybe worth a try. :) Personally at least I'm going to try to keep using this approach.

UPDATE: there, I've obfuscated it a bit, and put it online with sources - [https://bl.ocks.org/nnrtw/43c0b5d4fed216c7d98bb65645212495](https://bl.ocks.org/nnrtw/43c0b5d4fed216c7d98bb65645212495)

<comment><USER6> > but I've made one weird thing recently,

Doctors hate him!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I use [https://crushentropy.com/](https://crushentropy.com/) It's like markdown for planning the day, with easy revisions.

<comment><USER8> This is really cool, going to try it out tomorrow, although it could really do with a view optimised for mobile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I have ADHD, so I'm not naturally an organised person. That being said, I've developed some really good systems to help me out. They've varied a lot over the years, but here are some key elements that I've found to stick around.

1\. Writing everything down

I make sure to write down every event, task etc as soon as I can, and then process it. This makes sure that I don't keep things in my head. Just this alone gives huge returns.

2\. One week at a time

I organise my life one week at a time. First, write down all your time commitments for the week (things you've already committed to doing). Then look at the time you have left. Once you have that, look at your backlog of tasks/things you want to do (from element 1) and select the things that you can reasonably do in that week. I then schedule these tasks roughly for each day.

I found that setting a few tasks for a day meant that I was able to focus on one or two tasks, rather than dealing with the weight of all my different life facets at once. This was especially useful to me during university, when I was balancing multiple subjects and clubs.

3\. Plan, record, reflect cycle

This part is quite simple, and could also work on its own. First you plan your week (See 2), then during the week you write down notes for yourself. This could be: \- Where you failed (e.g. I was late for work today) \- How you felt (e.g. I really enjoyed hanging out with x friend) \- Any random thoughts/observations (e.g. I tend to get scared by strangers in hats)

I tend to set goals for each week, and then record relevant metrics (e.g. Hours on my phone if I'm trying to cut down, or days taking my medication)

Once the week is done, I do a reflection over the past week and look at what I want to change for the following week. Because I iterate weekly, there's no harm in me trying radical things with each week as an experiment.

Just the weekly iteration has been incredibly valuable for me, and has lead to some great insights.

</comment><comment><USER10> Getting things done and time blocking are good methods. The worst ist setting all up so you can start over with this methods. It's a lot of work but in the end, it's an awesome feeling. In the beginning, after setting it up, you really need to stay focused on this methods and stick to them. After a while, you get used to it and it becomes much easier.

If you want to learn more about it, I can recommend this articles about GTD [https://zenkit.com/en/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-getting- thin...](https://zenkit.com/en/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-getting-things-done/)

Time Blocking [https://zenkit.com/en/blog/why-you-should-be-time- blocking-a...](https://zenkit.com/en/blog/why-you-should-be-time-blocking-and- not-just-writing-to-do-lists/)

<comment><USER11> GTD has too much upkeep even when setup properly. It gives the illusion of progress because it indirectly focused on efficiency not effectiveness.

As a project manager with multiple projects where my work was to have others do the work it was a good methodology.

As a DevOps guy that is heavily in the dev side I find it destructive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've got a few different complimentary systems for different things:

\- For working out, I rely on habit. I forced myself to go to the gym at a certain time for long enough that I just feel like doing it now, so I go automatically.

\- For personal projects, I work off a queue based system. While I'm working on a task, I try to minimize task-switching, but if I come up with a new idea, or something else I want or need to work on related to the project, I note it down in my project management software. Then when I'm ready for a new task, I pick up the one I most want or need to work on from the queue.

\- As far as the actual scheduling/time management strategy, I work from the model that will power and focus are limited resources, and that distractions and issues interfering with work tend to accumulate over the course of the day. Therefore, I start each day by pulling tasks from the queue which need the most focus, and put off communication with the outside world for at least an hour or so (or until my "first wind" starts to wear down). Getting up early helps with this.

\- Other than that, I work more or less intuatively. When I find myself no longer able to focus effectively, I put down the work and knock out whatever administrative tasks I have to take care of, and when that's sorted I relax and do something I enjoy.

<comment><USER11> How do you keep track of your queue?

Also is it FIFO, LIFO or a priority model?

My queue seems to bloat, then I tried to mitigated that by telling myself if something is in the queue for X amount of time remove it.

Nowadays that removal just becomes a JIRA story but it's rather inefficient for me.

<comment><USER12> It's a pretty loose priority system, with the basic heuristic being that I try to choose the task that brings the most value to the project at the given moment.

That usually means I end up sort of ping-ponging between feature development and refactoring/tech debt. I develop features until I feel like structural issues are annoying/slowing me down, and then I focus on code quality until I can move fast again.

But honestly it's a very loose system and it's fairly sensitive to what I am most driven to work on in a particular time period. But I'm not really trying to micro-optimize the project, my main goal is to have a system which lets me be consistently productive. That means it's loose enough to not get in my way when I'm in flow-state, and it's organized enough that I can have a list of achievable goals to work through when I'm lacking in intrinsic motivation.

I also don't mind having a pretty huge back-log. When I'm totally uninspired it's nice to be able to pick up on ideas I haven't thought about in weeks and play around with them with fresh eyes.

edit:

> It's a pretty loose priority system, with the basic heuristic being that I > try to choose the task that brings the most value to the project at the > given moment.

I built my own _very simple_ tool for that. It's a bit redundant since there's a lot of great tools out there, but it does everything I want and nothing I don't, and it's very low friction/distraction free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I use Todoist to plan my life (and work), and try to stick to it.

If you are interested to know what is Todoist and how does it work, I have written a blog post on it. Have a read.

[https://www.kashifaziz.me/todoist-productivity- tips.html/](https://www.kashifaziz.me/todoist-productivity-tips.html/)

<comment><USER14> This is what got me through college. Since then I've continued using it for everything from appointments to bills and I never forget to do anything I put on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It depends on the time of year.

I'm still in university in a math degree. I hope to continue on to the PhD program. During the school year my schedule is mostly tight and math-focused. I work between classes and on off-days. Occasionally I take a break to write or make art. I keep a little list of due dates and deadlines, but apart from that the schedule is not very strict. I don't like to get caught up in the mindset that "school is your life", and like to be a little flexible and give myself space to recuperate or work on my hobbies.

I look ahead five years. In five years I'll hopefully have my PhD, and in the next two years I'll find some undergrad research. In the next year I'll start TA'ing for classes I enjoy. Beyond that, I have dreams. I keep a close eye on my dreams-- that is, I wait for them to change, if they change, and then update my "path" to point more in that direction. But only a little bit! I point in the general direction of my dreams while keeping myself open to new possibilities. And I keep a few back-up plans, or general sustaining plans I can follow if stuff gets a little slow or doesn't work out. For example, tutoring in my country starts at $25/hour. If for some reason I'm not up to continuing my education after the bachelor's right away, I'll go into tutoring full time, then save up enough money to get back to school or really anything else. I might get a bachelor's in computer science in that case, or I might go traveling.

In the summer I do "computery" stuff-- coding challenges, coding games. I'll write more and solidify my understanding of certain math concepts that interested me during the school year.

Don't look too far ahead and don't find yourself in a position where you aren't dreaming-- yet still, don't let your dreams consume you. Always make sure you're taking one step forward. Plan your next steps or meander, but press on.

</comment><comment><USER16> I just live a life that doesn't require scheduling much at all. Though, I understand it's not for everyone.

I work, I eat, I do hobbies, I sleep. Repeat ad nauseam.

When I do have to schedule/remember or outline things, a simple to-do list and/or Calendar app is adequate (or phone reminders, which work quite well for me)

</comment><comment><USER17> > Ask HN: How do you schedule your life?

Logically, we use iCloud, since all of us have iPhones/iOS. We subscribe to calendars and it helps everyone know what's going on. Each person in our family has a calendar, there's also a catch-all calendar to which can be "assigned" to anyone. When something's changed or added, all of us find out.

If something's not on the calendar, you can't legally get mad about forgetting about it in our house. Just the rule.

This is easy to implement right now as all three kids are under 6, so it's just my wife and I administrating it. But should be easy for everyone else over time.

I've considered implementing an always-on calendar setup in the kitchen with an old iPad. A previous job used this for meeting room scheduling and it worked really well.

</comment><comment> a-saleh On macro-level I have a shared calendar with my wife. We try to put there all planned vacations together, my business trips, nights-out, friends visiting, who needs to babysit when e.t.c

On micro level, I don't have a schedule. I try to cultivate habits. I.e. for past month I managed to wake 30 mins earlier than my daughter to drink my tea in peace and do some quick workout :-) It really helps me with the structure of the day.

</comment><comment><USER18> I don't. I put things on my to-do list if they are important (it has never been more 20 or so items, some stay on there a long time too) and I put scheduled events on a shared Google calendar with my wife.

Aside from that I have rough goals during the week that I try to achieve such as working out 3 times, cook so and so dish, go grocery shopping, play X game, etc.

I'm pretty happy with the results.

</comment><comment><USER19> I use the GCal CLI and document my life every 30 minutes. I use it both retroactively and to plan the future. It helps me analyse my weeks, months and years and figure out where I wasted most of my time and try to optimize it.

</comment><comment><USER20> Trello plus Google calendar.

It's taken me several years to get a good system down but I think it's pretty pretty good at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER21> Just write stuff on the calendar if something needs to be scheduled.

</comment><comment><USER22> I use Google Keep. Its very helpful and convenient.

</comment><comment><USER23> Married with children. Google Calendar and Todoist.

<comment><USER24> Google cal + google docs, searchable!

Plus: small 8x11 white board sitting around the kitchen for reminder items for each other. Simple efficient reminder so you're not always cracking open the computer.

Also, let some things slide till tomorrow. If you do EVERYTHING that needs to be done, you'll just be busy all the time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wouldn't worry too much much about sticking to the schedule. Just be sure you skip it for a good reason (e.g you realize you have run out of milk, so you postpone your haircut to go shopping).

Also, and all credit to this is to Jordan Peterson, make sure you schedule something you can actually _do_, e.g make sure to schedule no more than you are willing to do, and make sure there is space for fun things in the schedule.

</comment><comment><USER26> Just Remember. (R)</comment>


A rant: "See Plans and Pricing" - <AUTHOR> http://mattkempster.co.uk/see-plans-and-pricing/

<comment><USER2> If it means transparent fee structures and straightforward trials that don't require the intervention of a salesperson (and the ensuing followups) then I'm all for it.

Some of the sites you linked to suck for far worse reasons, anyway - why would I want to see AMPC's pricing when the homepage gives no indication of what they actually _do_? (something to do with postage and " _exclusive industry benefits_ " apparently)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is just three brief sentences, barely more than a half-formed HN comment, inexplicably whining about the use of single snippet of clear, concise and standard business English. In other words, a complete waste of pixels. I wish someone would do a rant about people who add links to random words in a sentence.

</comment><comment><USER4> So rather than using consistent language, so that users learn that no matter what SaaS site they are on, to look for the "See Plans and Pricing" link, each site should come up with their own copy? Do you even understand UI/UX consistency at all? Also self promoting your own crappy blog on HN is pretty lame.

</comment><comment><USER5> It depends on your goals, I suppose. If you want something that clearly converts well you should use what people found to work as a good starting point. But if you want to please some guy named Matt then you should clearly strive to be original.

</comment><comment><USER6> This guy is so bent on being unique that he uses an unreadable scrawl in a link rather than the actual twitter logo. Aren't graphic designers taught that things that are alike should look alike?</comment>


The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest - <AUTHOR> http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/index.html

<comment><USER2> I was going to enter this several years ago (late '80s), but never got around to sending in my entries. I have no shame, so here is what I was going to send (warning: tasteless and offensive material ahead):

• "My encounter with the Genie didn't turn out half bad," thought Lance as he sat down at the tiny piano to rehearse for his new job with the circus.

• David Ben MacGoldstein was considered cheap even by the other Scottish Jews.

• Dave's theory that placing a metal plate in the microwave oven would shunt away the dangerous radiation, thus making it safe to dry the cat, proved to be wrong, although the experiment was not a total loss, for Dave was at least able to prove that Fluffy did NOT have nine lives.

• As he had done every evening for the past ten years, Bert poured himself a shot of whisky, and sat down to reflect on that strange twist of fate that led him, once the most respected student at Harvard Medical School, to become a veterinary proctologist.

• In the race for the "Best Serial Killer, 1991" award, Jeffrey Dahmer was eating up the competition.

• "Up, up, and away!" cried Bean Boy, America's newest Superhero, leaping toward the sky, as his unique method of propulsion ensured that the uncounscious criminals would remain that way until the police arrived.

<comment><USER3>
        • In the race for the "Best Serial Killer, 1991" award, Jeffrey Dahmer was eating up the competition.

This is gold.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is time to ask what has tormented me for years. What's so bad about "It was a dark and stormy night"? It seems decent enough. "Dark night" is redundant, I guess, but then some nights _are_ darker than others. So I don't get it—why the worst-ever reputation?

<comment><USER5> There's nothing bad about the phrase "it was a dark and stormy night" per se. However, that's not the full opening line. What follows is the most abysmally convoluted sentence imaginable:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."^[0]

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Clifford](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Clifford)

<comment><USER6> And the opening paragraph gets worse from there, something about lighting his pipe with a "promethean torch." Whether it's a change in tastes over the years, or a continuing annoyance is subject to debate, but the general style is called "Purple Prose".

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_prose](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_prose)

<comment><USER7> Tastes have changed, largely because media have changed. Back in the day, there were no movies, video games, TV, or radio. Novels were the only form of personal, portable, escapist entertainment (aside from opium, I suppose). As such, they were very "visual." Readers enjoyed long bouts of description. It helped to set the scene.

Sample some mass-market Victorian fiction, and you'll find a lot of openers like that one. The style is anachronistic today, though it survives in some genres, and it has its famous practitioners. (George R.R. Martin is about as purple as they come.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's also the Lyttle Lytton contest[0], which is a similar contest that limits entries to 200 words, plus has some additional contests. I'm a fan of the Found contest, which is a competition to find the most unintentionally bad/silly thing that's actually been published.

[0] [http://adamcadre.ac/lyttle.html](http://adamcadre.ac/lyttle.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> "E-mail entries should be in the body of the message, not in an attachment (and it would be really swell if you submitted your entries in Arial 12 font)."

I don't understand. Maybe because I've only used Mutt for 20 years. Is it a joke?

<comment><USER10> I think it's a polite way of requesting that emails not use garish fonts and colors. Just imagine how many submissions he must get in illegible "handwriting" fonts.

<comment><USER11> Parent uses "Mutt", an email program using a UI so old it's probably endorsed by the Society For Creative Anachronism; the notion of "fonts" or "colors" in email, however garish, is incomprehensible to him. For that email client, content is ASCII text, nothing more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like the general tone of the page.

"Finally, in keeping with the gravitas, high seriousness, and general bignitude of the contest, the grand prize winner will receive … a pittance."

<comment><USER13> We mustn't misunderstimate the bignitude. Ever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I originally discovered this through the "fortune" program that's still available in many Linux package managers.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've been following this for years-even before I discovered my biological family is Lytton, the one and the same. Yay me!</comment>


How to learn techniques about cloud and big data? - <AUTHOR>

I am really interested in the technology about cloud and big data. I have a high expect for using these techniques in the future medicine when the personal genomic era is coming.
Therefore, what kind of techniques I need to learn? If I want to build a business around this, what will it be? Thank you. <comment><USER2> Check this post from a couple of days ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3768822></comment>


Ask HN: Companies that don't use whiteboard coding interviews? - <AUTHOR>

In light of the recent submission on how almost everyone sucks at technical interviewing, I was wondering if anyone knows of some good companies that don't use the "write code at the whiteboard" approach of interviewing.
Background: I'm a junior level engineer.  I can talk about technical topics (I was a math TA in grad school, and I have no problem talking about code I've written), but coding in front of anyone induces extreme performance anxiety.  I'm therefore interested more in companies that do a homework type problem and then have candidates talk about their solution in the interview.
From the previous post, I know Matasano and npm do this.  Who else? <comment><USER2> There are very few companies that do not follow the standard interviewing practices. So if you try to filter them, you won't have enough to get a job.

Instead, you can try approaching things differently. People want to judge your abilities when they feel that it's critical to get the best employee. So you basically need to eliminate their fears. Networking and making friends works pretty good. If you are recommended by an existing employee, the interviewer will take it easy on you. Internships also work pretty good. There is less pressure. And when you prove yourself after a couple of weeks you can demand a salary or walk.

Homework is never a good idea. Searching for a job usually takes you through many companies. If at least half of them give you homework, you will waste days or even weeks just solving imaginary problems that nobody cares about. Solving tasks at home sounds like a good idea at first. But after you do it and the company chooses someone else, all you get is a bitter aftertaste.

As a personal note, it really helps if you treat the interviewers like stupid children. Some readers may be offended by this, but it really works. When you finally accept that he has no idea what he's doing, it will be much easier to control the interview.

Interviewers are rarely good programmers. If they start with something like FizzBuzz, you can easily tell that they don't have the ability to understand things. They just take ideas from somewhere and run with them. No originality, no abstract thought and no critical thinking. Once you see that and realize that you are better, performance anxiety will no longer be a problem.

You're basically being judged by people following a generic checklist they got from a blog or "top 10 interviewing tips" article. Understand their reasoning and you will own them.

</comment><comment><USER3> Your best bet are probably very small companies that do not have very many engineers on staff. There are many businesses desperately looking for the value that engineers bring, that don't have the people on hand to grill you for 6 hours in a conference room.

Looking for remote gigs can also help you avoid whiteboards, but that might be harder to do as a jr. engineer (but certainly not impossible).

At the end of the day though, interviewing, including whiteboard coding, is all about "being judged". As someone mentioned, it's a skill worth practicing, either at home with the help of friends, or by applying to a ton of jobs just to practice the interview process. I still find it brings me anxiety after 10 years of working/interviewing, but so much less so than when I started in the industry. I dislike and am annoyed by interviews and whiteboard coding, but I don't _fear_ them any longer.

</comment><comment><USER4> For most medium sized companies, hiring is an important but very time consuming process. So, almost every part of the process is designed to scale as the company grows. While there are companies which have a take-home problem, most will require you to write code on a whiteboarding discussion in a face-to-face round later anyway.

My suggestion here will be to take a few interviews without much expectations and to use them as opportunities to get better at this. There are going to be many times when you will be sharing your code with your colleagues - e.g. during code reviews, pair programming etc. and whether you like it or not, people are always evaluating you even in those cases :)

</comment><comment><USER5> We[1] have previously given a candidate a (small) work sample test to solve, and allowed them to use either their own system or one of ours to solve it. We don't watch them while they attempt the solution and we allow them full access to the internet. It seems to be revealing enough as to their competence.

1\. [http://ldrinteractive.com/](http://ldrinteractive.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> As a lighthearted suggestion: have you tried purchasing a whiteboard and practicing writing code on it?

<comment><AUTHOR> :)

The whiteboard itself isn't really the problem[1]. It's the "writing code in front of people who are judging my performance" part.

[1] Although I do prefer chalk boards. :-) What can I say? I was a math major. ;)</comment></comment>


DHH on learning - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-w4FQNmyQQ <comment><USER2> I've been reading some Cal Newport books, particularly Deep Work (where DHH makes an appearance) and all the examples are from very famous and/or smart people: Knuth, Bell Labs people, Jung, and a handful of successful writers. Listening to part of this interview got me thinking about the fact that I spend a lot of time learning about and reading about the skill of being able to work deeply in problems without distraction, but I realize I don't have 1% of the ambition of people who have really taken advantage of it.

I mean, I'm not lazy. I finished college, program for fun and work, maintain some open source projects, and I try to learn new things everyday. But at the same time, I just don't have the drive or desire to make a big splash in the world, start my own company, become known in a field or business, or solve the hardest problems there are. I always wonder if I waste time learning how the Greats can be so productive when my life goals are such that I can stay the same and still achieve them.</comment>


Donald Trump and the nuclear codes - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21709999-mr-trump-will-soon-control-americas-nuclear-codes-donald-trump-and-nuclear-codes <comment><USER2> Inaccurate. Authentication of the order is required, involving the Sec Def. There are also provisions for the cabinet and or congress to declare the president unfit.

<comment><USER3> The secretary of defense has no veto power though, right? He can resign, but the President can still go right on ahead.</comment></comment>


Customer powered support doesn't work - <AUTHOR> http://blog.uservoice.com/entries/customer-powered-support-doesnt-work

<comment><USER2> A very clever post by CEO Richard White to differentiate UserVoice from Get Satisfaction - and he is right that the two products are different.

However I don't agree that customer support doesn't work - it depends on the vertical, type of product and price point.

In the UK we have a new mobile phone carrier that is totally customer support driven - you don't get the level of customer service you would normally get but the prices are significantly cheaper (aimed at teens and students who have little money but enjoy hanging out on social platforms).

<comment><USER3> As a soon to be poor student very likely to be studying in the UK, what carrier might this be? All I can think of on the low end are Tesco and 3, and both those have decent CS.

<comment><USER4> I do believe Ben is talking about Giff Gaff (giffgaff.com)

<comment><USER2> Yes, it is GiffGaff.

I am a fairly happy Sprint customer here in the US but when I return to my motherland I put a GiffGaff SIM in my GSM phone as they have the best prices for data access bundles.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Customer powered support might be fine if you don't mind your users getting a high percentage of wrong answers or no answers. Just look at the non-vendor support forums whose business models is to cash in on user-supplied answers. (E.g., google for 'Why is my Mac hot?') If you're willing to go through three or four of these for every question you have, you might find an answer. But you'll also find a number of wrong answers, often in the same thread.

</comment><comment><USER6> Do they have a competitor whose angle is customer-powered support? I don't know anything about this business, but this sounds like a response to a competitor.

<comment><USER7> They are working to create a distinction between their service and a service like GetSatisfaction.

<comment><USER8> GetSat and UserVoice are seen as competitors (even though they're really not). Also, the submitter is the CEO of UserVoice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I am the CEO of UserVoice, I did submit this post and I approve this message. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Or we do crowd-sourced support or the company pays for their own user support. This is so white and black.

Why don't we look into a well thought of mix of both options. I would work on a strategy where both are possible.

I would create a support kb where we create content solving common and known problems. The hardest trick is guiding people to the right solution. This can be done by searching, good taxonomy or plain old direct question via phone or forum. The crowd-sourced support can be a part where they help people guide to the right information.

Another part can be that the crowd-sourced support can spot bad formulated articles, wrong articles, out of date articles, ... Just create some tools you can get feedback on your content and involve your customers.

But only go on the crowd-sourced route is not an option and won't be benificial for your company.

</comment><comment><USER10> Another thing I've noticed is that if I see a support forum where most of the answers are given by customers rather than employees, it gives me the feeling the company is not listening or keeping in touch. I get the feeling of laziness, which paints a poor image in my mind.

<comment><USER11> Indeed, I've experienced that as well, One example being the google picasa support forums (<http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Picasa>).</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Computer Vision and AR project ideas - <AUTHOR>

I need to choose a summer project in Computer Vision or Augmented Reality. We will be given project suggestions in the coming week, but are not limited to these.
I would like to create something packaged and fun but technically interesting (that's the dream at least) that I can show people, rather than say, coming up with a slightly improved camera stabilisation method.
Any ideas would be very much appreciated. <comment><USER2> Can you make something that looks at what someone is wearing, and then alters colors, patterns, etc? So I try on a certain shirt type, and then it'll show what I would look like with other shirts of the same cut?

I would also enjoy a gesture controlled UI for a simple computer. Maybe something that can turn sign language into typed English?

I've got no idea how difficult these systems would be to build -- absolutely no experience in the field.

<comment><AUTHOR> Changing shirt colours would be a fairly straightforward segmentation problem. Applying patterns accurately would require some kind of 3d reconstruction, which is obviously harder.

I like the gesture controlled UI idea. Understanding sign language is probably several steps too far - I think it relies heavily on facial expressions to give the gestures context, and it almost certainly isn't a straight mapping from gestures to words.. Will hunt around for literature though, as even understanding a small subset would be fascinating and I'd love to learn to sign.</comment></comment>


Startup Idea: User Retention as a Service - <AUTHOR> http://paulstamatiou.com/startup-user-retention-lifecycle-email <comment><USER2> If you find yourself writing a "tl;dr", consider just writing a clean, full English sentence instead.

For example, INSTEAD OF....

"tl;dr Trying to draw attention to the importance of lifecycle marketing. I build up the case, talk about where lifecycle marketing makes sense, show an amateur first attempt at it, then proceed to layout a grand idea for a lifecycle email marketing service I want to see someone build. Please share this post."

...write THIS INSTEAD:

"I want this essay to draw attention to the underappreciated art of 'lifecycle marketing.' In the paragraphs below, I'll define the term, show an amateur first attempt at it, talk about where the practice makes sense, and then outline a comprehensive lifecycle marketing service I hope someone else will build."

A formally declared "tl;dr" with sentences that are super concise, to the point of being ungrammatical, is better than no summary at all. But good writers can gracefully communicate to readers the essence of material to come using nothing more than plain words. Doing so does far more to encourage the reading and sharing of your entire essay than an explicit "please share this post."

(Apologies for veering a bit off topic.)

<comment><USER3> In the Real World™, a tl;dr is called an "Executive Summary." It's a nice way of saying "Here's what this writeup means if you don't have time to read it or aren't bright enough to understand it fully."

<comment><USER4> > In the Real World™, a tl;dr is called an "Executive Summary."

Umm, no. "tl,dr" means "I didn't read it, don't think that you should, and now I'm going to tell you how smart I am."

Executive summaries are written by people who bothered to read {whatever}. Some are even written by folks who aren't tooting their own horn.

<comment><USER3> That's a good point. Originally tl;dr was written by _other_ people who were summarizing an overly long post. Now people preemptively tl;dr their own overly long posts.

Write more concisely and make a point instead of tl;dr'ing yourself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> FWIW: Even the dumbest _possible_ implementation of this, which is "Send someone an email 1 day after signup and 6 days after signup, with both goals just trying to use the service again" prints money in my experience.

<comment><USER6> so true. poor retention is far better than no retention

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> We (Custora, YC W11) are hard at work on exactly what you're asking for:

<https://www.custora.com/home/tour_lifecycle>

<comment><USER8> How does it work? "the latest algorithms being discovered at leading academic institutions" reads like marketing fluff to me.

<comment><USER7> Whoops! Thanks for the feedback! That's an old page that was supposed to be replaced on our latest redesign.

The simplest explanation is pattern matching: we analyze customer and transactional data to understand how different customers behave. Using this understanding we can make predictions for how each user will behave in the future.

We use all of that analysis to power actions - take actions on the right user at the right time, optimizing for CLV.

Here's more: <https://www.custora.com/home/customer_lifetime_value>

<comment><USER8> That says a little bit more. Do you treat it as a reinforcement learning (RL) problem, or as a classification problem? It seems like a sequential decision making problem, so RL is appropriate but AFAIK there is no RL algorithm that generalises over states while still retaining some error bounds. I suppose you could brute-force a Bayesian solution via MCMC.

<comment><USER9> There are two big problems that we deal with. First is estimation of customer lifetime value. We use a latent attrition model, which is the 'pattern matching'

The second is figuring out which promotions/emails go to which people. This is a supervised learning problem. We train the model with users past responses to discounts and their past behavioral states (which are the posterior probabilities from the latent attrition model). Then we use this to predict how users in those states will respond to similar promotions in the future.

<comment><USER10> Are your predictions visible in the web-interface so we can verify if they hold water?

<comment><USER9> Yes. In addition to the lifecycle marketing product, we have a section of the application devoted to predictive analytics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So one YC startup (Picplum) is begging for a service that another YC startup (Custora) has evidently already built and is publicly promoting?

Maybe YC is too big :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I should have remembered about Custora... I bought their office chairs from them when they moved out!

<comment><USER12> dat shit cray

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> To me this sounds - a litte - overengineered.

To do more than 99.9% of the companies out there it would be enough to just send generic follow up autoresponders based on sign up date. Email them on day 0, 1, 3, 7, 11, 14 ... etc.

You can do this with AWeber, Mailchimp, Getresponse and a dozen other services.

Just tell the customer what he can do with your service and ask a lot of questions: "Have you tried this?", "Did you know you can...", "How can we help?". Use the feedback you already have to come up with ideas for content. Point them to a lot of your help and learning resources. In each email tell them you are really interested in their feedback and give an easy option to contact you. Then read the feedback as it comes in - like manually reading, with your eyes ;-) - and respond promptly and indvidually.

Setting his up takes a day or two - and mostly consists of coming up with ideas for the content. After having this running for a few weeks you might come to the conclusion that you don't need a complicated machine learning, metrics based system :-)

I've written about this in another context earlier this year, basically about how we handle the trial period: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2979048>

TL;DR: "Eighty percent of success is showing up." (Woody Allen)

</comment><comment><USER9> We're offering this service at Custora. You upload as many creatives as you would like, and then our product figures out who and when to send them.

Say you have emails suggesting TASK X, TASK Y. You upload the four creatives, and we can tell you that TASK X worked for new users and inactive users, and TASK Y worked for active users. We also close the loop and look at the effect of the email actual actions (sign-ins or purchases depending on the business) rather than just email opens.

The goal is to send fewer, but more relevant emails. Rather than emailing everybody every week, just send emails to the customers when the become inactive.

<comment><USER14> How does this compare with, say, Marketo?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sounds like an useful service. Though, I'm not sure whether email bombarding is a good idea. You used the example of AppSumo but I unsubscribed after 3 emails sent too close together. Most people don't unsubscribe but rather just ignore the email.

I don't need an email every time a small feature is released, or pushing me to come back... there's a reason I don't revisit, and it's not because I forgot. What I like are emails that give me something of value whether it's free content, a story, a free tip, etc. Teach me something new.

<comment><AUTHOR> It definitely sounds like a lot of emails in my article. But let's say you never engage with the service. You might receive 2 in 2 months and then never hear again. Smart, not abusive.

While I mentioned reminders often as it's easiest to describe, "Teach me something new." is exactly right. Engaging mailers should offer help, tips and such.

<comment><USER16> I would agree with AznHisoka. Periodic mails are like shouting in the room to gain attention. When everyone else is quiet, it works like a charm. The others pick up this trick. Soon no-one can hear anything, and those who do not want to be disturbed, wear earplugs ;-)

That's precisely what I did with my Gmail account when it became near-unusable after I used for several signups for startup services which I eventually was not interested in - just signed up to try out. Someone send me an email that does not pay me back with something useful for the minute of the attention I spend reading it - I create a filter to send it to 'adware' folder, which rarely, if ever, gets read.

This is of course my personal behavior, which may or may not be more typical.

<comment><USER17> Be nice to newsletter statistics, unsubscribe.

<comment><USER16> Why ? I've already paid with my attention to the mails that I did not need.

But more than that - in more than one case my attempt to unsubscribe gave zero results. Once I even had an exchange with a _human_ person, who promised "oh of course we will remove me". And that did not happen. So why would I invest my time into further attempts ? I'll just use the solution that works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Awesome post Paul. We've been thinking quite a bit about this at Mailgun.

As usual, we default to giving developers more tools to help build this. We are rolling out some exciting stuff early in the new year to make this a lot easier.

</comment><comment><USER19> Your theory that the current state of a user's account and their past usage patterns should determine which mailers and communications the user receives essentially refers to the techniques outlined in Seth Godin's book "Permission Marketing". Check out Seth's book - I would imagine your readers and users could also use a summary or refresher of the principles behind "Permission Marketing" - it's powerful stuff!

</comment><comment><USER20> My startup, Apptegic, www.apptegic.com is building a "user retention as a service" service. On a per-user basis, we can track events, patterns of events, and business usage (like # of photo batches sent). We can combine these to score engagement and we can segment and filter groups of users based on these combinations.

There are lots of other ways our Beta customers are using this info already. But many have asked for the ability to do targeted emails based on usage and engagement. We don't have email system integration into MailChimp, Constant Contact, and others like Paul described yet but we are working toward it.

Do you have suggestions on what a a minimal viable email system integration would be? Let people script a download of the list of emails that fit a criteria and script upload that into their mail system of choice?

If you have suggestions please comment below or contact me at kwirth at apptegic dot com.

</comment><comment><USER21> Great article, but URAAS isn't exactly the best acronym. :)

With regards to your article, I remember an article - which was probably submitted to HN - whose author had a great method for engaging (loyal) early users. Instead of using scripts that sent the users tailored messages, he had scripts sending _him_ alerts on important days like, say, birthdays or registration anniversaries.

This allowed him to give the first hundred users who had stuck with the site some personal e-mails that weren't computed by scripts, but himself.

This obviously is intended for early-stage start-ups, but it is important never to go full Google and use robots, AI, and whatnot to face the users instead of human beings, or what sounds like it.

I don't think Disqus would have got the traction and success it had, if Daniel Ha's insane user engagement weren't there to humanize the transition to a new comment system, especially for the people who don't know anything about programming and web services.

Perhaps ironically, it's obvious that Disqus use analytical tools now to alert them whenever someone is having problems with the service or saying bad things about them, and the automation and ambiguous motivation for the Twitter response tends to dehumanize the service, even though they may use the alerts with the best of intents. Daniel Ha also didn't do the best job of giving users a sense of participation in making feedback; he kept using a phrase along the lines of "it is on my list - we will get to it eventually", although many never came to fruition. This was back when Disqus had its own "forum" at disqus.disqus.com (as I recall), which created a small, tightly-knitted community that had to go, as the site picked up its pace.

There are some incredibly important good and bad things to be learnt about Disqus, but I honestly believe that the core business model of Disqus had more to do with the user engagement than it had to the service and its efficacy itself. People simple weren't allowed to be antsy about trying the service, if Daniel Ha could help it.

</comment><comment><USER22> What would you say to someone that refuses to email users at all and even rejects the idea of collecting email addresses at signup? They think asking for email addresses and using them for anything is only for spammers. Sadly they also have a retention problem.

</comment><comment><USER23> Funny, I just did an "Ask HN" about something similar yesterday and didn't receive any feedback [0].

I recently launched LetterPush, a basic email newsletter service [1]. I've been thinking of focusing on adding lots of developer features (robust API, webhooks, etc) to help automate marketing and transactional email processes.

I think that most businesses stop at MailChimp email blasts and "Welcome" emails on user sign up. Having a service that marries MailGun to your CRM/CMS tools would be absolutely brilliant (and quite profitable, I imagine).

[0] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3375802>

[1] <http://letterpush.com>

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm not sure if I'm in the majority but I'd find this annoying. If I dropped out of your 12 step sign-up process at step 4, don't bug me with emails about it, make your damn process simpler.

Further, I basically don't even open unsolicited email unless it's from a person (person, not company) I know. It's like ads on a web page, it hardly even registers. If I get enough of it from one sender to take notice, it's more likely than not that I'm not going to be happy.

<comment><USER25> So true. One more e-mail from the service which i don't care can turn my ignorance to "anger". And yes, there is something called bad marketing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Great post and I couldn't agree more on how important retention is for web businesses. Our product, Nurture (<http://www.nurturehq.com>), addresses this need in a flexible fashion and is being used for exactly this requirement (User Lifecycle Marketing for improving engagement) by a few customers.

</comment><comment><USER27> It's a neat idea, but it sounds like what you're proposing is a subset of marketing automation, which has not been mentioned almost at all in this post.

I would recommend doing a bit more research about what marketing people are already using, what other products your product may interact with yours, and how it would fit in the arsenal of marketing tools.

</comment><comment><USER19> Here is a follow up post and video response to Paul's article: [http://www.getspotta.com/user-retention-as-a-service- lifecyc...](http://www.getspotta.com/user-retention-as-a-service-lifecycle- marketing/)

I agree with Patio11 - even a super simple implementation with minimal business rules is still better than zero communication.

</comment><comment><USER28> [http://turbo.paulstamatiou.com/uploads/2011/08/picplum_step1...](http://turbo.paulstamatiou.com/uploads/2011/08/picplum_step1_drag.jpg)

Slightly OT but I find something very confusing about the styles of the 3 tabs in that screenshot.

Each tab seems sort of different when really you should just have an on style and an off style.

<comment><USER29> It looks like step 2 is already done, and the user is now doing step 1.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> HubSpot has a lot of this functionality as well. You can send out automated "personalized" emails that are triggered on certain events. Their software is usually used for inbound marketing before the user activated (aarrr), but I'm sure you could use it for after a user is signed up.

</comment><comment><USER31> Hubspot does this, they acquired Performable which was doing this before and its now integrated into the Hubspot product offering. Other companies do this stuff too but not so much selling to startups and more to the enterprise (e.g. Marketo)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I want to see more companies do this that aren't enterprisey. I remember Performable and even went through some video tutorial they had long ago but it definitely seemed to be more oriented towards ecommerce/shopping cart applications?

<comment><USER14> I'm not familiar with any of the mentioned companies but I'm curious, what exactly does make products such as Marketo "enterprisey"? Just more features that you don't need right now?

<comment><AUTHOR> For one, I can't even find out how to sign up for Marketo. I don't want to chat with a sales specialist, I want to start setting up and importing events, and making filters/campaign triggers. They have way too many products -- it makes me wonder if they even spent enough time working on the lifecycle marketing product of theirs. I want a company that just works on that one thing and does it amazingly well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Someone needs to build this. Now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Happy birthday James! You're the reason I blogged about this. Your email asking me to blog about the email template stuff got me thinking about this too haha.

<comment><USER33> So James & Paul, are your needs covered by Custora or one of the other services? Or is there something more that one or both of you need?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Like a few others - we're working on a similar idea, and in fact applied for the last YC batch with it. But yeah there are a couple of companies already focusing on it... But could be alot better...

</comment><comment><USER35> I'm sorry to be off topic, but are those slow cookers cooking PG's recipe in the first picture?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup! It was tuesday, so dinner was being prepared. Bigger picture: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/186198/Screenshots/vmeh.png>

<comment><USER35> Amazing!

Was it PG's rice and bean Ramen Profitable recipe? I don't remember slow cookers used in that recipe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> may be its just me.... The copy in both places (picplum and custora)is too confusing to understand the service they offer.</comment>