Reverse Culture Shock - <AUTHOR> https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/c56075.htm <comment><USER2> A German-born American with 11 years total living in Germany. Almost all of it with the iron curtain in place. A white guy, I now live in a neighborhood that's 3/4 black, 10% Hmong for 16 years, I feel very normal being permanently out-of-place. In Germany I am the "Amerikanischer". Here it's "he's German".

But I'm permanently alone in a crowd, too. Always on the outside looking in. Suspicious of the herd. Skeptical of consensus. Circumspect. Cantankerous at times. I am, simply, permanently, "the other".

It's all not bad. You notice things other people don't wherever you go. You're the first person to seek out the people who don't fit in and hold out your hand in friendship. Because you know, deep down, that with all the divisiveness we're experiencing right now, that we will never get through it any stronger without the greatest concern for _each other._

<comment><USER3> Hi. I feel the same way. When I was a kid, once a week my family would drive to the other side of town (the 99.99% black side) to visit my grandparents and uncle (they were the .01% white folk). I would spend all day Sunday hanging out in this area of town full of dirt poor people (just like my family there). I've never felt at ease and at home as I felt there. The people were friendlier than I could imagine. There were very, very few black people on my side of town, and it seemed weird and wrong.

When I was in my 20's at college, I would sometimes find the bad part of town and just ride around on my motorcycle. I'd do this when I was lonely and needing that "belonging" feeling.

So, from that early age on the other side of town, I've embraced otherness, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

<comment><USER4> Were you ever 'eyed down'? I got that recently at my childhood home.

<comment><USER3> I'm unfamiliar with that phrase, but I'll say:

I went back in the 80's to see my uncle, after my grandparents died. The house was falling down around him, but the rest of the neighborhood was in a similar state (still poor, still all black). When I knocked, a girl on a stoop across the street told me "the white man that rides the bicycle" wouldn't be back for a while. So I hung around. Because I was there during the week, instead of the weekend, it felt different. But, I was a lot older, too. I still felt at home, though.

A few years later the church across the screen bought my uncle's house and made it a parking lot. It was a good deal for them, since the house had been condemned by then. I haven't been back to my home city, but I did look at the street on google street view. Made me sad.

<comment><USER4> Given an aggressive stare as a nonverbal threat.

That sounds similar to what's happening to my dad's place. The city reconnected a main street to circumnavigate his entire mobile home community a few years back.

<comment><USER3> Never had that, but as an adult I only went back that one time. Who knows what it'd be like now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I lived 3 years in the UK, and now I am back in Denmark for a while, I hope to return, but lets see what Theresa May & co figures out. I always thought I wanted to go for the dual-citizenship, but not anymore.

It is difficult to live in a new place, you don't really feel integrated even though you have friends, speak the language, go to events, pay your taxes, and get the jokes, you will always be the dane and a foreigner.

A thing I noticed when I was away is how stupid and mundane Danish everyday local politics look, and the same with the news cycle. I think it is refreshing and healthy perspective, and I would encourage everyone to go to another country just to get out of their bubble. And also to get some ammunition against people that keep spouting "If I moved to another country, I would assimilate".

When I returned I had adjusted to British service levels, and how fast it is. I was used to get a coffee within minutes of ordering, and when I went to a store and looked a little out of place, I would instantly get help. I got to observe my fellow Danes as a tourist, and oh boy, I now understand why they all seem to think we are rude, and don't really care at all!

But the most odd thing about being back home is that I don't really feel at home, my thoughts and language is some sort of strange danish/british amalgamation, and I feel like a foreigner, even though I bike the streets of my childhood, say hi to people I went to school with, and walk the forests and beaches I was going on adventures in as a child.

<comment><USER6> As an American, I experience almost (not to same degree, but same kind) when I visit Kansas where I grew up. I now live in Washington, and the two states in the same country are entire worlds apart.

The people I know in Kansas, I can tell that my thinking has changed a bunch in a multitude of dimensions.

<comment><USER7> Western Washington or Eastern Washington?

<comment><USER8> 100 to 1 odds Western Washington.

<comment><USER6> 6 miles west of Seattle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The old adage is that a man can never step into the same stream twice; for it is not the same stream, and he is not the same man.

Stepping back home (in our case, moving back to Australia after 2+ years living in London) is much the same - you have changed, and home has changed, but you don't expect either to be different.

I think a big part is expectations. When we left, we were expecting something different, unusual, full of surprises (how bad is London coffee?) and annoyances. But returning 'home' you have no such expectations - you just 'expect' to slot back in.

But you've travelled the world, learned a different culture (although I don't profess that in our case it was enormously different), moved on with your life in some way ... and so too have all those people who stayed behind, and indeed the city/town/country itself. So you're surprised, and you were expecting it to be effortless. Shock!

(And it is the weird little things. For the first year I was always one block off with my directions. But thankfully the coffee was as good as I remembered it.)

<comment><USER10> A Greek friend of mine said of the Greek diaspora here in Melbourne that when they came out post-war, they became 'hyper-Greek' as a coping mechanism, embracing their culture more fully. They then travel back to Greece for whatever reason, and complain about how decadent it's become.

Of course, he says, Greece hasn't really changed, it's just that now the ex- pats are seeing it through the lens of being 'hyper-Greek' now.

<comment><USER11> I've heard this is indeed often the case, emigrants embracing their home culture in a more fundamental way. Maybe the imagined state of one's culture is often that of the grandparents' time, always a bit behind of the reality.

<comment><USER12> British expats certainly are notorious(+) for doing this - epitomising some kind of Imperial Britain that may not even have existed when they were born.

The most ridiculous subset are those people who live in Spain and complain about "immigrants" in Daily Mail comments. They may be in for a surprise if the hard Brexit they supported happens and they lose their right to reside in Spain because the UK won't guarantee residence for Spanish nationals.

(+) Not All Expats

<comment><USER13> Calling them British Expats does not help. They're migrants (weather migrants I like to call them when someone mentions "economic migrants") and live in a mental -and often physical- ghetto.

The problem is that a big majority of them does not speak the language and, in case of creation of a points visa like some Brexiteers want for migrants coming to the UK, they will fail due to their lack of integration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've lived in other countries a handful of times for fairly brief periods (no longer than 6 months), and it is really true. I've know some people who've spent years abroad, come back to the U.S. and nope right back out as fast as they can find employment back where they came from.

It's not a statement about the quality of a place, but really having to go through an adjustment to get used to your new home and then having to readjust back to where you came from (only you keep telling yourself you shouldn't have to since it's your home) and then constant comparisons between places, which you already did as part of your learning of a new place, but now you start to see all the bad stuff about where you're from, but you were used to doing the reverse instead.

It takes a while for all the differences to average out in your mind.

I don't think I've ever had to too bad, but I've definitely spent a few weeks angry at how terrible Americans drive after coming back from Germany, or how bad service is when coming back from Korea.

But I've also had kind of the opposite feeling. After one long stay in Germany, and feeling very foreign, I remember coming home and it not really registering that it happened until I got in the taxi and the driver was playing some R&B. I'm not even an R&B fan but the _Americaness_ of it, after hearing weeks of Europop, hit me like a stick and I suddenly felt very very home.

<comment><USER15> Have lived in Japan for about eight years now, with a year-and-a-half somewhere in the middle spent bouncing around Germany.

Originally, it felt... very odd, every time I came back Stateside, especially when visiting the podunk suburb where my parents live (and incidentally, where I grew up).

Going from a city of 13 million that has quite possibly the best civic infrastructure in the world, to an aging and slowly dying town that barely breaks the 80k mark in terms of population is quite a transition.

I think the best way to explain it is... divergence? As in, my path, and the path of that place have diverged. Everything from before that point feels "natural", and everything afterwards feels strange.

Now that I've been an expat for awhile, and have bounced around quite a bit, that feeling of oddness seems to have vanished for pretty much everywhere I visit.

Sure, things are different in different places, but everything seems to fall into a slot of "this feels right" or "this doesn't suit my tastes", and there really isn't anywhere that has a perfect mix of everything.

Although I'll admit, the urge to return stateside has gotten quite a bit stronger over the years. I'm very comfortable in Japan, speak the language, and have a solid social network, but at the same time, I find myself missing a lot of the daily aspects of American life (especially the grocery stores!)

There's a really good article on the subject as well; On Being A Triangle (And Other Tips For Repatriation): [http://naomihattaway.com/2013/09/i-am-a- triangle-and-other-t...](http://naomihattaway.com/2013/09/i-am-a-triangle-and- other-thoughts-on-repatriation/)

<comment><USER14> My experiences in Asia come mostly from Korea. Over the last decade or so I've noticed the grocery stores and selection there have dramatically improved such that I can usually find a reasonable analog for just about anything I want (so long as I don't get too fancy or want good cheese). But I've never lived there long enough to probably need that _one_ thing.

I think also, I've been married into Korean life so long, most of my home grocery shopping occurs at big Asian grocery stores anyways, so the experience isn't that much to translate.

What do you miss about groceries in Japan that the U.S. has?

<comment><USER15> Fruit in Tokyo is both ludicrously overpriced and, in general, mediocre. Japanese people prefer soft fruit, so crunchy apples are very hard to come by.

Many common ingredients in Western cooking don't exist -- I would kill for a supply of fresh jalapeños, or potatoes suitable for baking (you only find two varieties of potato in Japanese supermarkets).

I can't legally have a barbecue, either, so it's _really_ hard to escape from fried meat here. My cholesterol numbers shot up quite badly when I moved to Japan, even though I'm not that much of a meat-eater (maybe 2-3 times per week).

A decently-sized kitchen with room for a stand mixer is basically unobtainable unless you spend serious money on an apartment, not to mention a proper oven. Japanese homes don't have ovens, so you have to buy your own. Ovens sold for the consumer market here are only slightly larger than microwaves, and while they come with more inbuilt computing power than AWS, simple things like "cook at a low temperature for three hours" are impossible.

I could go on, but suffice it to say: Japan has many wonderful things, but they don't line up with my hobbies and interests.

<comment><USER16> > I can't legally have a barbecue, either, so it's really hard to escape from > fried meat here.

Isn't Yakiniku fairly common? Though a personal shichirin would probably impossible if you're in Tokyo itself, just as having a BBQ usually isn't an option if you're in Manhattan or London "proper" unless you have a huge top- floor condo.

Japanese cooking definitely seems to be on the fast side though, despite the long and extensive prep'.

<comment><USER17> Couldn't you do it on the balcony though?

<comment><USER16> Technically yes[0], legally not necessarily, and practically you'd be bothering your neighbours which probably isn't recommended and may get you in trouble with your landlord as well.

[0] assuming you have a balcony which isn't always the case

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Yup. I'm a "trailing spouse" for an American diplomat, and this is so true.

One thing that always, always, always happens to Americans when we repatriate is the "grocery store freakout". At some point, you will go to a grocery store, and freeze.

"Man..." you'll keep saying, "Americans really love breakfast cereal..."

<comment><USER19> _" Man..." you'll keep saying, "Americans really love breakfast cereal..."_

Though it's true to some degree, I wouldn't go that far. My sense is that the higher the margin on a product or product-line, the more money the manufacturer and distributors have to purchase shelf space. Cereal, Chips, Crackers, Ice Cream, Mayonnaise.

The last time I was at the store I counted 21 separate varieties of Triscuit, 10-12 flavors over three sizes.

Don't freak out, it actually is weird.

<comment><USER20> That explains too much... why aren't high-margin products in other developed nations' grocery stores treated the same way? Or, if they are, why isn't breakfast cereal one of them? Perhaps because _Americans really love breakfast cereal_?

<comment><USER21> My theory is milk. Breakfast cereal is designed to be covered in milk, but compared to North America and Western Europe, milk and milk products are far less popular in most of the world. I think I remember reading that there's even a biological reason, ethnic Europeans have some enzyme for digesting milk (and cheese etc) that others lack.

This would imply that other milk-drinking Western countries would also eat a lot of breakfast cereal. And indeed it's something I notice when I go back from China to Belgium or the UK.

(Disclaimer: I haven't been to the US, so perhaps Americans like breakfast cereal even more than Europeans)

<comment><USER14> American here, I grew up on breakfast cereal (for better or worse). Cereal seems to be one of those things that exploded in variety and marketability in the U.S. I've never seen anything like an American cereal aisle in any of the other countries I've been to anywhere in the world.

What I find really interesting though is how that's slowly starting to change as other countries start to adopt more of the quick-eat consumerist culture similar to the U.S. What's more fun is that the local solutions to snacks and cereals are usually very interesting and designed for local tastes.

The first time I went to Europe, 20 some odd years ago there really was a slim selection, mostly variants of Muesli mixes. When I was in Russia in the 90s, I really wanted some breakfast cereal and there was a big effort to get milk and some corn flakes. In Germany I had more selection, but not hugely.

The first time I went to Korea about 15 years ago it was the same.

More recently I notice the amount and selection of breakfast cereals is exploding on those countries. Most of my experience has been in Korea, and there are now full-on cereal aisles with an entire list of different products. Not as many as the U.S. but definitely getting there.

So what's fun it that not only do I get to eat all the American varieties, but as other countries add other cereals to their cultural inventories, I get to try and enjoy those as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Long time lurker here, first time poster.

I am an American living in Japan and enjoying all the trials and struggles of living somewhere utterly different from where you grew up. In Japan I'm American, however back home I am Asian-American. Among Asian Americans I'm further subdivided into another category. I have very few close friends of my own ethnicity and those that I have I would consider as just Americans anyways. The thing is that even with people of my own ethnic group, I don't have much to relate to since I don't speak the language and I grew up somewhere completely different. I discovered after coming to Japan that the thing I relate to the most is being American. However it's funny that in the US I knew I was American but I always felt I had to put an asterisk on that or a hyphen since I wasn't part of the majority.

My point is that I've always felt as somewhat of an outsider no matter where I've gone, but still I have a concept of home and that is the US. I think it took going to somewhere completely different to REALLY cement my own self- identity and self-image.

Coming here I had no idea what I would come out identifying as culturally, but I think it should have been obvious that it's the place that I grew up in and spent most of my time despite feeling like an outsider at times.

I'm likely going to go back home soon for many reasons (culture differences, language barrier, heavily reduced respect/pay for programmers over here, missing friends/family) and I'm curious how I will handle the reverse culture shock. From this experience though I'll gained have a stronger identity and how important being an American is to that.

<comment><USER23> I also had this feeling of only learning about my own national/cultural identity by being the foreigner in another country. Suddenly you even realize there are things you're proud of, although you've never thought of yourself as being proud about your country before.

And I'm jealous that you know about the reverse culture shock. Gives you some time to prep for it. I'd be really curious if it helps. For me and probably many others the reverse shock was actually much worse. Took me about a year to get any kind of life back. And it was really disappointing that all the new things you've learned you couldn't just not really share with old friends and family, they don't really care. Otherwise they would've taken the trip with you, right? So for them you are not the smart, cool guy who managed to do something extraordinary, you're the idiot who did lots of crazy things and now pesters them with all of the experience they could have told him before would be troublesome and weird.

What helped a little was having contact with expats in the other direction who I could communicate with after returning face to face, and keeping all my friends from the foreign country at least digitally close by.

Good luck with returning! Hope it works better for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> What a coincidence, I just got my `Carte De Sejour` (Residence Card) today. I am a Ugandan living in Paris.

Uganda was colonized by the British so the official language is English, I grew in the capital city (a different tribe from mine with a different culture and different language ) so back home when I visit my relatives who live far from the city (my ancestral home) I feel like a foreigner (they used to call us `city borns`).

Here in France, the French expect most black people to speak French and know about French culture (they colonized a number of West African countries ) but again in our country we speak English so you feel awkward and out of place.

To make things even more complicated my fellow East Africans (Kenyans, Tanzanians) speak Swahili so when they meet you they have this Swahili vibe but again Ugandan's don't speak Swahili we speak English... So a foreigner at home and a foreigner abroad, HN is home :-).

<comment><USER25> Sounds like you need to get to the U.S, bud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've lived in the US for almost half my life. I went back to visit my home country in West Africa for less than a week just a few years back ... I was so stressed out by everything there that I fell sick for almost two days. Then I moved my departure date up by a day just to get out early.

No credit card machines, nothing resembling customer service (I'm talking actively rude or disinterested store attendants), Nightmarish traffic since traffic signals and lanes are just a suggestion and not enforced by police, Hyper religiosity, rampant and casual homophobia (they're all convinced America is going directly to hell because of gay sex), truly shit roads, with cars that shouldn't be on the road EVERYWHERE, right beside Lamborghinis and Mercedes, barely-there running water, internet and most importantly, unpredictable electricity supply and the ever present drone of diesel generators that supply power to individual houses because the electricity supply is so useless.

It was too much. I've never been so happy to see a starbucks in my life.

<comment><USER27> This sounds more like what we used to call "This Be Africa" when I lived there, rather than reverse culture shock per-se.

<comment><USER26> dunno about that. I grew up there, so at one point, all this was completely normal to me. It wasn't till I went back that I realized how INSANE it all was.

My family ask me every week, when I'm moving back. lol

<comment><USER28> This may have also been exasperated by such a short visit?

When I visited India for a couple months in 2004, it took me a couple of tries to even be able to go out to the street (in Delhi). But after a couple days I started getting used to it and a week or 2 later it was "fine" and not really that shocking (albeit still annoying at times).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Heck, I grew up in the Bay Area, and I get reverse culture shock when return to visit for more than a few days.

So. Much. Traffic. People packed into trains. Everyone so...not exactly rude, but not nearly as friendly as I've grown accustomed (I live near Boulder, Colorado).

I feel like my blood pressure is higher the entire time I'm there. Of course the air pressure is higher, so that may have something to do with it, but I think it goes beyond that.

On the other hand, I've never been in great shape, and the first day down at sea level and I feel like I could run a marathon...

<comment><USER30> I always hated driving in SF.

I can deal with traffic.

I can deal with the pedestrians and cyclists.

I can deal with the slew of drivers who thought signaling was optional.

I can deal with paying for parking.

But holy shit the lack of paid off-street parking lots in numerous parts of the city bugged me, alongside the absurdly inexpensive on-street parking. I never understood why the city didn't raise the price of on-street parking spots given the demand. The city which I currently live in has 4x the population of SF yet it's significantly easier to find parking spots in most parts of the city as the parking rates properly reflect the true cost of parking.

<comment><USER31> Oh man, I will never forget the time my wife and I drove to Northbeach, looked about 40 minutes for a parking spot and then drove back home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> To someone who has not tried living overseas this may sound like a classic 'first world problem', and I suppose it is.

But what I can't stress enough is how __severe __it can be. I went and lived in various places around the world for a decade, from about 23 to 33. The place I settled down most was in Ecuador, where I learnt the language, met my long term partner, and made some close friends and integrated with the culture. But I spent years in Europe, the USA, and Asia too.

All of the above was achieved just by coding software and selling it off some wordpress websites I put together.

And now I've been back in New Zealand for exactly 3 years, and it's __awful __. Life is so repetitious and small and boring. I 've never been more miserable. And it's for the same reasons in this article, and that other people are mentioning in this thread.

The funny thing is that before I left I had no particular desire to go (I just did it because it was easy and my friend wanted to), and I was happy. But now, because I have had those life changing experiences, I'm not.

<comment><USER33> Can you give us an example about the difference in your life between Ecuador and New Zealand?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I disagree that the jarring bit about home is that it's changed. For me, it was that so little had changed.

At the supermarket I worked at when I was 16 were some of the same people, working the same cashier job.

Friends were still talking about "getting back into college," doing the same thing they had done every weekend for years.

It depressed me.

<comment><USER35> This. I grew up in a medium sized town in Michigan. Haven't lived in MI for 20 years and haven't visited my hometown much since then since my parents now spend most of the year elsewhere. I spent almost a week there this Xmas and came to see how a community with strong union labor ties could vote for a candidate like Trump. Almost nothing had changed there in 20 years and what little had changed was almost exclusively for the worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Even just visiting Japan (I'm originally from Japan) causes this for me. Short stay is fine, but I feel really foreign, maybe more so than "foreigners" as people in there can detect disconnect of my appearance and mindset by my subtle deviation from expectations of how I act in there.

<comment><USER37> I can sympathize. Whenever I come back to the US from Japan, I find myself bowing at the supermarket and persisting lots of little Japanese mannerisms. Sometimes for days. Japanese culture seems to demand more...commitment...than some of the other places I've visited and lived. Perhaps Japan is a stronger source of reverse culture shock.

<comment><USER38> Bowing st the supermarket ? I've been in Toyko for over 10 years I've never seen customer bow at a supermarket. Is that a thing in some other part of Japan?

What I notice going back to the USA is how it often feels like the 3rd world countries my dad would tell me about as a kid indirectly trying to tell me how great the USA is.

Now I just see crime, corrupt police, etc. Came back for 6 months got my car broken into twice. Once in LA, once in SF. Try to hang out at a coffee shop to work but have to pack up my stuff and give up my seat to use the restroom because otherwise my computer will be stolen. I never feel safe riding public transportation in SF where as I never not feel safe riding in Japan.

Another is convenience. After 9:30 in Venice Beach, if I haven't eaten by 9:30 nothing is open except 24 supermarkets in have to drive miles to. Compare to Tokyo where there's almost always a conveniece store within 5 minutes and they actually have reasonably good options.

Food is bland and large. Americans seem to prioritize quantity over quality in general. At least in the suburbs.

I could rant about Japan too but the topic is reverse culture shock.

<comment><USER37> "Bow" might be the wrong word. More like the subtle forward nod/thrust that you make with your head when you thank or acknowledge someone. Most Americans might not even notice it, to be honest.

I lived in Gunma for several years, for what it's worth. That was about a decade ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Did a military long tour in Germany in the 80's. Returning was jarring. There were TV _series_ that I had missed entirely or major parts of, ("V", "Miami Vice", etc) that had become part of the culture. Public trash cans freaked me out -- all the ones on military bases and in major German cities had been removed because of the Red Army Faction terrorist threat.

Walmart went from "Who?" to "OMG this place has everything!"

Finally got to eat Pop Tarts again.

</comment><comment><USER40> I spend 1/3 of the year in San Francisco and 2/3 in Turkey. Educated and lived in US for a long time previously.

I feel home at some aspects of each country: Respect for pedestrians (US), friendly warm helpful people (TR), diversity in food and people (US), a hometown where I'd love to live my last days on earth (TR), rich language (US), humble people (TR), startup and business culture and experienced people (US), paradise like vacations (TR), optimism and good luck surface area (US), family (TR).

</comment><comment><USER41> Another phenomena that can creep up on well-traveled folks is "the curse of the traveller" (obviously not a technical term, but I've not heard another name for it).

Essentially, you subconciously collect "likes" about each place where you spend a sufficient amount of time.

The food in this place, the coffee shops somewhere else, a street market culture here, the women/men there. A language, the climate, pace of life and attitudes from other places.

With time, the mind constructs its own personal Shangri-la (which contains _all_of these things) and you, explicitly and/or implicitly, spend the rest of your life dissatisfied with the delta on your actual experience.

In practice, for me this has been more of an "ah... that's happening, heh" thing that I observe going on in the mind rather than a difficult-to-live-with curse.

I'm curious, however, what the effects will look like another 10 or 20 years in. I suspect it could grow worse with age as we are able to travel and do less? That's hopefully just a matter of managing perspective, though.

<comment><USER42> It can be a positive when people bring back the stuff they found better when abroad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I have lived overseas for over a decade, and while I have no current plans to move back to my country of origin, I think I know what moving back would feel like, and it matches what other people have told me.

The article talks about things having changed when you get back. I'm not so sure that's the big issue. I think the biggest problem is that you yourself have changed so much, and your views are greatly expanded. While when you come back, nothing had really changed. That local grocery store is still there, and things are pretty much exactly where they were all those years ago.

I feel some of this every time I go back to visit my family, and at the end of the trip it feels very relieving to go back.

I think if my home country looked very different, as they suggest would be a problem in the article, going back would be a much more exciting experience.

<comment><USER44> Completely agree with this. I too have lived abroad for a while and it amazes me how much things remain the same back in the United States. The culture shock is always more about how much I have changed, not America.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> As an EU citizen living in the UK for 7 years, worried as we all are about my Brexit bargaining chip status, the part about "involuntary/unexpected reentry" is sad and terrifying to read.

</comment><comment><USER46> Perhaps not culture shock per se, but when I fly back to LA, I am always shocked at how gray and brown everything is from the air.

<comment><USER47> I just moved to LA from Beijing. I'm shocked at how clean the air is, there are never bad AQI days (at least nothing over 200), and...I can smell flowers. I visited often enough, so it shouldn't have been a surprise, but I realized I wasn't really smelling anything but dust and air pollution for 9 years.

<comment><USER48> Beijing air is horrific. I can't imagine putting up with it for nine years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I left the US when I was 11 and lived in Europe until I was 18, returning to the US for University. So to mine was added the fuzzy memories of childhood.

Wal-Mart absolutely blew my mind. Also, America is _huge_.

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm six years in Japan. I think staying in touch with your home country makes a big difference. I'm yet to move back for good, but I find that two things have made my readjustment when visiting home much easier:

      1. Keeping up with family via Facebook
      2. Getting an AFL streaming subscription

If you're not Australian it's hard to understand, but once you've experienced the greatest sport in the world it's hard to give it up.

<comment><USER51> As someone who is not an Australian (i.e. born/raised in the USA), I will agree with you that Australian Rules Football is one of the greatest sports in the world. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Just to comment on minor reverse culture shock I had... A few years ago I spent a fair amount of time in some Slavic countries, and I couldn't believe how clean the streets of NYC were when I got back.

<comment><USER53> That's how I felt coming back to NYC from San Francisco.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Interesting article. I feel very much at home in places like the UK, Netherlands and Spain. Not so much other European cultures.

Coming back to the US, no real problems adjusting. Maybe I didn't stay in Europe long enough or popped between cultures with enough frequency to not have anything "imprint".

> the psychological, emotional and cultural aspects of reentry

I thought "reentry" was an odd word choice here. I immediately thought "mission to Mars".

</comment><comment><USER55> I'm a NZ permanent resident and moved back after nearly 5 years living there. My shock is mostly politically related; I'm hyper aware of the polarized nature of the country now as well as the lack of understanding of UHC. The inability of our government to streamline and adopt modern technologies into the governance process(downsize), hyperbole and rhetoric on both sides, etc.

</comment><comment><USER23> All this culture and reverse culture shocking taught me to get sensitive about all the adaptions we have to make often and don't think about. E.g. when moving from New York to LA people talk about being "homesick" but people don't talk about culture shock. But it's the same, just more small scale since people still speak your language and have a somewhat similar culture compared to different countries on different ends of the world.

Right now I'm in the process of moving to another city and can appreciate a lot all the things I learned about culture shock and can handle it quite well, e.g., the overpowered feeling of loneliness that sometimes hits you really hard, or that you must be careful about sharing experiences since others don't consider the same things weird as you.

</comment><comment><USER56> Living in Switzerland for a year, and then returning to San Francisco, I had a feeling of disaffection and disappointment for about a year afterward. It took me all of the that time to again be able to enjoy the things around me -- SF restaurants, the weather, &c -- in the way that I did before I left.

</comment><comment><USER57> I love it. "Home has changed. You have changed. You have adapted to another culture and now you must readapt." Don't be bitter about it. Get on with it.

The advice that "People at home aren't as interested in hearing about your foreign experience as you are in telling them about it" also resonates with me and can be a tough pill to swallow. In some ways it's similar to oversharing upon returning from a holiday. It shouldn't hurt too much when most people don't care how amazing or difficult it was. When your foreign experience is part of your identity it can be easy to take that disinterest personally. If you look/sound/act at first impression as the other culture it can feel like every introduction starts with satisfying the person's curiosity. When that curiosity is immediately followed by disinterest the incongruity can be jarring. For my partner's reentry I suggested that we have a short one sentence answer explaining where we were so that the conversation could move on quickly and save the rest for those who are genuinely interested.

I think wtbob's comment that "It's not about better/worse; it's about different." is very helpful. There is a time to compare and denounce the absolute and relative merit of an aspect of a culture but it can be unhelpful if those criticisms are just an outlet for frustration.

For the cross-culturally mobile parents in the crowd please please please consider that your children's experience might be very different than your own. The Reverse Culture Shock - Managing Reverse Culture Shock page [1] has lots of practical advice. I also highly recommend reading Third Culture Kids : Growing Up Among Worlds [2]. I would also recommend it to those who are reflecting upon their own childhood intercultural experience.

[1] [https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/c56076.htm](https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/c56076.htm) [2] [http://www.crossculturalkid.org/third-culture-kids- excerpts/](http://www.crossculturalkid.org/third-culture-kids-excerpts/)

</comment><comment><USER58> > Your commute to work might be more time consuming. > You may need to spend > more time in the car for > shopping, picking up kids at school or playdates, > > or running errands. These are not necessarily bad > things; you simply > have to adjust to a new routine.

Sad they had to call out these specifically. When I moved back to the US and landed in San Jose (South Bay Area), I thought I was smart and would live "downtown." I only lasted 3 years before meeting a European woman and moving to a very culturally different part of the US.

</comment><comment><USER59> This would fit so well into George Carlin's Euphemisms bit:

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

</comment><comment><USER60> Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed. [http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/t...](http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/)

</comment><comment><USER61> This is absolutely a thing. I've spent months in another country before, and took a ~4 month round-the-world trip a couple years ago. It takes some adjustment to re-enter your home country. I can't imagine what it must be like for people who've lived abroad for years.

But what's nice about it, if you can engage with it this way, is the fresh perspective on your (formerly) habituated world this state can offer.

</comment><comment><USER62> lived better half of decade in China, returning back to EU was pretty much smooth:

\- sky here is always blue

\- drivers in EU are kinda annoying stopping and letting me pass when just standing next to crossing even when I dont really intend to cross yet

\- streets are completely empty

\- sidewalks are empty, not full of trash and people occupying them with their illegal stuff

\- cashiers are kinda lazy, you have to take stuff out of your basket and put it on moving belt, already used that in China cashier was doing everything

\- shops are closed half of the time, very ealy in evening, almost all weekend, not open 7 days a week like in China

\- almost nobody stares or pay attention to my nonwhite wife despite currently staying in very small town, I was being stared at all the time even in cosmpolitan Beijing

\- people here in EU in general are very soft and weak caring too much about others instead of being selfish, more agressivity would be sort of welcome, though it is to my advantage

\- cars have to wait for dumb green light when turning right (always green in China)

\- I can go straight from my apartment to train or subway without single check, unlike like 7 checkpoints in Chinese train station

\- cash is still very common when buying things like ice cream though Visa paywave is very convenient in bigger shops, just touch terminal and you are done, in China you can live with Wechat payments in your phone but very inconvenient with scanning QR codes instead of just touching card to terminal in Europe

\- even in very small town you can find people speaking English or at least some basics, you would have trouble even in cosmopolitan Beijing, dont dare in some smaller place

Overal I am glad I moved back, though life in China was more easy going and less serious, because it was considered more like videogame than real life, because we all know as foreigners there is no future there and you have to go back sooner or later.

<comment><USER62> Oh yeah and i forgot - I FUCKING HATE eurocoins, always need to be aware of that crap and trying to get rid off it, since you cant use card everywhere. These eurocoins seem like some third world country which cant afford plastic banknotes. Good old eastern Asia where I could live just with banknotes and online payments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I've experienced it after only three months away from the US.

</comment><comment><USER64> It's takes 3 months in India to show me how weird, grey, twee, pompous and reserved England is.

</comment><comment><USER65> It's time and space. Northern Virginia in 1978 and now. That's a mindf*ck.

</comment><comment><USER66> This was called repatriation shock, surprised to see its placed here on state.gov

</comment><comment><USER67> I get this when returning to the Midwest from California...

</comment><comment><USER68> Is this a new addition to their website?

<comment><USER69> Not particularly, according to the earliest cached version on the Wayback Machine [https://web.archive.org/web/20160801000000*/https://www.stat...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160801000000*/https://www.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/c56075.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Is this the science behind smooth deportations?

</comment><comment><USER71> Why call it reverse culture shock? It's simply a realization that the United States not the best country in every regard. And in many regards it's failing badly. Personally, I call it the I-can't-get-healthcare shock, or the I-can- only-find-chain-restaurants-in-flyover-country shock, or the NYC-subway-is- not-as-nice-as-the-Asian-country-train-system-I-just-left shock.

<comment><USER72> > Why call it reverse culture shock? It's simply a realization that the United > States not the best country in every regard.

That's completely not it at all. Culture shock is what happens when one visits another country and realises that certain things one takes for granted aren't, and other things one thinks are negotiable aren't. It's the same phenomenon which young historians have when they first read of a technologically advanced, trading culture which also casts every firstborn child into a furnace (e.g.).

Reverse culture shock is the same phenomenon, when one returns back home. It's caused by the fact that one has assimilated to one's guest culture to some extent, and upon returning home … one finds that certain things one had grown accustomed to taking for granted are not, and other things one had grown accustomed to thinking negotiable are not.

An example is the wide variety of cereals in American groceries, or the limited variety of organ meats. If one has grown accustomed to just buying 'müsli,' and one suddenly has a dozen different varieties, one claiming to be good for keto diets, one claiming to be vegan, another gluten-free, another paleo — _that 's_ a culture shock. If one has grown accustomed to making kidney pie, then returns to America and must make a conscious effort to source kidneys — _that 's_ culture shock. If one has grown accustomed to horse or whale, and returns to find that they are _illegal_ — well, _that 's_ culture shock too.

It's not about better/worse; it's about _different_.</comment></comment>


Master's dissertation on Lolcats - <AUTHOR> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/37681185/MILTNER%20DISSERTATION.pdf

<comment><USER2> To give you a flavor of it without downloading, here's the introductory paragraph:

<quote> The rise of 'Web 2.0' (O'Reilly, 2007) has changed the way that people interact with theworld and with each other. Developments in ICT have enabled changes in commerce, politics, and interpersonal communication. Widespread consumption and creation of user-generated content (UGC) has ushered us into an era of participatory culture, breaking down the barriers between producer and consumer (Bruns, 2007), and allowing us to "take media into our own hands" (Jenkins et al., 2009: 29). This has contributed to the election of the first African-American President (Painter, 2009), and provided new tools for fighting governmental corruption (Shirky, 2010a). It has also given us Peanut Butter Jelly Time. </quote>

</comment><comment><USER3> It's disheartening to see the strong negative reactions to this. If human society and culture is worth studying, then "internet culture" is a necessary part of the story. I know from experience that there are multiple distinct communities that orbit the lolcat universe. There's more than enough depth here to warrant academic study.

Live and let live.

<comment><USER4> I also wonder how many people have read it at all, let alone the entire thing. It would seem evident that when you have as many people online as we do, and a rather large chunk finds LOLcats and the like really funny, than studying the phenomenon shouldn't be this off putting to so many people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is it not worth studying such a pervasive aspect of our culture, especially if it says something novel about ourselves?

I'm also quite interested in the rise of Rage Comics as a new medium and what it might evolve into. Certainly people love telling and listening to short stories, but today's tools are quite crude, yet still addictive (much like very early video games). I'd love to see the successor to Rage Comics 10 years from now.

<comment><USER6> Having seen so many amazing cultural events appear and disappear over the course of the internet timeline, I'm very happy that we are finally starting to get internet culture historians such as KnowYourMeme popping up to record and analyze these events for posterity.

As for rage comics, I'm confident that their crudeness is an important feature that let's ordinary people feel comfortable telling their ordinary stories without feeling they are required to be extraordinarily polished and professional just to have a voice.

Here is a wonderful rage comic that was made by an 86 year old man which has been viewed 2.8 million times. <http://imgur.com/Cpdaq> I doubt that his story would have ever been told without an MSPaint-based storytelling movement to work within. I doubt that many people would have the patience to read a professionally illustrated and typeset remake of the story even if it existed.

<comment><USER7> First time I've seen that rage comic. Thanks for linking :)

Rage comics have always fascinated me. Simple and intentionally 'bad', but more relatable than anything I've seen prior. That's a great example of how effective they can be in communication - both for producing and consuming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Two people with master's degrees bumped into each other on the street.

One's dissertation was "Preparation of Substituted Enol Derivatives From Terminal Alkynes and Progress Toward the Total Synthesis of Nigricanoside A."

The other's was "An Investigation Into the Appeal of LOLcats."

"Hi, I have a master's degree," said the one.

"Hi, so do I," said the other.

Guess who punched who in the face.

<comment><USER9> Guess who punched whom in the face.

<comment><USER8> I humbly accept this correction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My view on a dissertation -- whether it be for a masters degree or a Ph.D. -- is that the contribution is not the important part. Instead, the goal is to demonstrate an ability to do "good research" (TM). People find very narrow topics because thesis advisors prefer it. If you had an already well-studied topic, it is more difficult to access as original work. Yes, ideally you want to find something novel, narrow, and _practically useful_ , but grad students primarily want their degree first.

</comment><comment><USER11> For some reason I get really upset when people try to analyze internet culture. Especially if it earns them a Master's degree.

Is this normal?

<comment><USER12> On the first point, I might say, "Don't sweat it so much", especially if it yields some new previously undiscovered trend that wasn't widely known prior to the research(i.e. "People who enjoy LOLcats, on average, are immune to the common cold"), but if this were real I would definitely be upset.

The majority of me feels that this is satire strictly meant to explain LOLcats in a way that strongly resembles Master's thesis(especially the manner in which the acknowledgments are written), but another tiny part of me feels compelled to email Ms. Powell and ask if she's aware of this paper.

<comment><USER13> This looks pretty real. Who would write 100 pages as a joke?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> While I think that the rise of internet subculture is very interesting from a sociological point of view, I doubt the phenomena is researched enough to warrant a study as narrow and specific as this.

<comment><USER13> This thesis includes new research including focus groups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The transcript for the focus meetings is hilarious...

MODERATOR: So the Lolspeak made sense to you?

JT: The Lolspeak made sense to me, and I found um, the Lolspeak translator, and I started sending all my emails in Lolspeak—

RK: That exists? I'm learning so much now!

MODERATOR: Well AB, the Cheez Town Cryer is almost all in Lolspeak, and—

AB: Uh, the Cween speaks perfect Lolspeak

RK: Hee heee!

Also, make sure to look at the focus group content full of Lolcats.

</comment><comment><USER16> New title suggestion: "I can haz dugree plz?"</comment>


Backblaze's Custom Data Center PDU - <AUTHOR> https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblazes-custom-data-center-pdu/ <comment><USER2> I love that these guys are validating the idea that you don't need "enterprise" hardware to run an enterprise.

You can even see in their photos that they are using consumer power supplies, albeit higher quality ones. They also have a lot of data comparing consumer to enterprise drives. The enterprise drives do not impress, especially considering the very high price premium.

<comment><USER3> Yev from Backblaze here -> Yea, it really is just about seeing what works well for our environment and our use-case. We certainly COULD go out and buy enterprise-grade power supplies, but the system is designed for failure, so the added expense often is not worth it!

<comment><USER2> How do you handle failover with these PSUs? Or are there merely two because of the high power requirements?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks like they just found a cheap pdu - by geist.</comment>


How Hack the North wasn't the bomb - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@tsani/how-hack-the-north-wasn-t-the-bomb-5beefe8baf1b <comment><USER2> From said code of conduct: "If what you're doing is making someone feel uncomfortable, that counts as harassment and is enough reason to stop doing it."

This is a mechanism by which anyone could be expelled for saying anything someone else doesn't like. It's a clear policy, which either you support (by attending their events and avoiding saying anything anyone else might find offensive) or not (by staying home and doing what you like).

(I must disclose I have a juvenile and often offensive sense of humor. At events with codes of conduct - and MLH's is based upon a popular one, O'Reilly's contains similar language - I only act myself with people I know who are comfortable with it, and play my filtered persona otherwise. Putting stuff on an event's Facebook group is like being on stage, you gotta be careful of being yourself - keep jokes to people you know.)

<comment><AUTHOR> MLH had no authority to kick out the students. The hackathon is run by a separate group of Waterloo students, whereas MLH is a for-profit hackathon organization that just helps colleges with sponsorships.

<comment><USER3> You've written this a few times, but there's no proof that that is the case.

MLH obviously had a commercial relationship with the University and that would likely entitle them to certain authorities. Unless your privy to the contract, or the University has officially stated otherwise, what source are you using to back this up?

<comment><AUTHOR> My other sources have to remain private unfortunately. (official responses haven't been crafted yet)

But I can say that even if it ends up that they technically had the authority to do this, then us Hack the North organizers were mislead to an extraordinarily large degree about the nature of the relationship between MLH and Hack the North.

<comment><USER3> Hack The North's official statement supports the cations taken by MLH. [http://hackthenorth.com/hackthenorth- response.pdf](http://hackthenorth.com/hackthenorth-response.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Summary: Author made comments on a message board in the context of the Texas clock-bomb thing:

X => "Anyone building a clock for their hack?" Author => "We're building a bomb actually looks just like a clock though" Y => "yeah my clock is the bomb come check it out"

And got thrown out of the event for violating code of conduct.

Relevant South Park IMO: [http://www.cc.com/full-episodes/h4o269/south-park- stunning-a...](http://www.cc.com/full-episodes/h4o269/south-park-stunning-and- brave-season-19-ep-1901)

<comment><USER5> The third guy got thrown out too. Anyone's guess why they didn't can the first guy as well, just to cover all the bases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 4 / 6 PayPal founders built bombs for kicks in High School: [http://valleywag.gawker.com/peter-thiel-admits-the-paypal- ma...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/peter-thiel-admits-the-paypal-mafia-built- bombs-in-hi-1632734435)

<irony>That's even more dangerous thank just those joke. I guess the world would be better place if we lock them out.</irony>

Looks like there is a whole class of things that are criminalized/punished that used to be the norm. Like letting your 6 and 10 old walking a mile alone home.

Relevant PG essay: [http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems like a total over-reaction to me, given the context. (It's still a bad joke, but talking to him and saying "hey, we don't think that's funny" would have been fine)

Why they threw out the second guy I don't get at all. I mean, I guess they could have gone completely "thorough" and thrown out the guy asking the question as well if that's the standard.

Kudos to the author for his level-headed post.

</comment><comment><USER8> He made a slightly distasteful joke that included the word bomb. Is MLH trying to mimic the TSA?

</comment><comment><USER9> So, they got kicked out because "some participants felt unsafe"? How is that different from that boy with the clock situation? Seems like the organizers really have no self awareness.

</comment><comment><USER10> It was dumb joke but I think Swift overreacted. I would be quite enough to tell them to remove their comments and apologize.

</comment><comment><USER11> That kind of thing (expulsions and accusations over harmless jokes) makes me feel unsafe about participating in public events, especially if they have a "code of conduct".

</comment><comment><USER3> In looking into who MLH were, I found their comments on the event: [http://news.mlh.io/when-jokes-go-too-far-09-19-2015](http://news.mlh.io/when- jokes-go-too-far-09-19-2015)

In honesty, I completely agree with the actions of MLH in the expulsion. It is their event to run, and they have final say in the kind of discourse they accept from the attendees. It was obviously a joke, but obviously also distasteful so whether the decision was overly punitive is really the only debate.

If I were the author, I wouldn't write about what transpired. There is nothing to gain by taking it publicly and now there is an easy to locate record of your mistake for future event organisers and employers. Should just let it rest.

Edit: To clarify why I find it is distasteful — In context of recent events this is just a poorly and honestly unfunny joke. But the point isn't whether it was a joke though, the point is that universities have a long history of being the centre of vicious and deplorable acts of violence, mass violence. In the context of the university environment, I can see how jokes like this are unsettling and reminiscent of real social media posts that often precede real attacks that maim or kill real people. The authors insensitivity to this is what I find shortsighted.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is not their event. MLH stands for major league hacking, and they are just a separate group that helps out colleges with hackathons.

The problem is that they kicked someone out even though they had no authority to do so. The real people in charge have objected to what happened.

<comment><USER12> > The real people in charge have objected to what happened.

Have they objected publicly, and made it clear that MLH's actions were unacceptable?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes.

Here is a link to the response of one of the Hack the North Directors:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/uwaterloo/comments/3ln4cz/two_hacke...](https://www.reddit.com/r/uwaterloo/comments/3ln4cz/two_hackers_get_kicked_out_of_hack_the_north_for/cv7oip3)

From the link: "For the record: MLH kicked him out. HTN did not. I feel like I definitely need to make it clear that none of the directors of Hack the North were involved in this decision. As for me, personally: I am extremely unhappy about the decision."

<comment><USER12> I absolutely respect that guy and his principles, but that's not a public statement from the organization stating its official policy, that's a Reddit comment stating a private individual's views.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> MLH should have expelled everyone who liked the comments as well.

</comment><comment><USER14> Second Wiio's law [1]:

«If a message can be interpreted in several ways, it will be interpreted in a manner that maximizes the damage.»

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiio%27s_laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiio%27s_laws)

</comment><comment><USER15> This is the future you chose.

</comment><comment><USER16> You deserved to be kicked out. Many, many school shooting start with similar jokes about "bringing a gun to school lol!" Example: [http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=93924&page=1](http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=93924&page=1).

All I see in this thread are a bunch of whining millennials bickering over policy details. How about: Don't joke about killing people at a public event? Your words and social media posts are your public record and indicate your intent, don't post stupid things online, learn that now before you do something really dumb that gets you fired.

<comment><USER17> Many more non-killings start out with a joke about bringing a gun to school.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "At Hack the North, volunteers approached us after receiving a report from an attendee who felt unsafe after viewing the posts on Facebook." \- from the update[0]

Unfortunately if someone feels unsafe then it's escalated past a joke in poor taste. Personally I think the students should still have been allowed to participate and be barred from placing, but I wouldn't call expulsion an overreaction.

[0] [http://news.mlh.io/when-jokes-go-too- far-09-19-2015](http://news.mlh.io/when-jokes-go-too-far-09-19-2015)

<comment><USER5> > _Unfortunately if someone feels unsafe then it 's escalated past a joke in > poor taste._

I'm happy to describe myself as a Social Justice Warrior, capital letters and all, but there has to be a limit somewhere, or anyone can screw anyone else by claiming to be offended by the color of their T-shirt. No reasonable person could have taken this as an actual threat. I could see saying "Hey, please don't make jokes like that," but going straight to kicking people out is not reasonable.

<comment><USER18> I agree that it's strange that someone would feel unsafe over something that's obviously a joke, but there's a decent chance said person could go to the media about that and turn it into yet another culturally insensitive tech industry thing. Better to be safe and leave a few college kids pissed off.

<comment><USER12> Such a policy puts you at the mercy of every unbalanced person -- or every person with an agenda -- who wanders by. If someone was determined to create the "culturally insensitive tech industry" narrative, they are going to find _something_ , even if they have to make it up. Anyone who genuinely believes that this clock joke was somehow malicious is not the sort of person who was concerned about facts in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Don't make bomb jokes dude, what the heck. <\- Any Reasonable Person

(I've shot my mouth off and gotten in trouble for it a few times, and learned not to do this)</comment>


Crime Has No Gender - <AUTHOR> https://eumostwanted.eu/crimehasnogender/ <comment><USER2> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime#In_...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime#In_the_United_States)

</comment><comment><USER3> Males commit far more violent crimes than females. What is the article trying to say?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's just Europol publicity stunt. I thought the idea was cool but the execution lacking : the UX is sub-par imo.</comment></comment>


Light Agile Development - <AUTHOR> http://blog.cozycloud.cc/technic/2013/09/05/light-agile-development/

<comment><USER2> * Small teams excel at self-organizing, which is a viable structure ... if they stay small. The larger an organization gets, the greater the need for coordination. Validated processes ("formal" agile) are useful as the consequences of such structures are more well known.

* The most essential functions of process are 1) to make sure the right things are being worked on (aligning individual work with organization goals), and 2) the stuff being produced is what's being asked for (ensuring goal completion). Later on, making sure already working stuff doesn't break is important too. I haven't seen much on "light agile", but as long as you've got these covered, you're on the right track.

* Motivation (and an individual's validation) isn't really a component of agile, but it is certainly worth considering. It wasn't (explicitly) clear how the adopted structure improves motivation.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are definitely right. About the motivation, I think that when people can actively participate to the decisions and are responsible of a subject, they are more motivated. Because agile and specially Light Agile empower every member of the team, they act as good motivators.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Incompetent people are promoted how to deal with it - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> It really depends on your situation / perspective.

Some places the situation could be untenable for you, either because you just can't handle it, or because there are real outcomes that are pretty negative for you (such as the guy who posted recently that his boss refused to meet with him).

Other times maybe it is time to realize that not everything is easily measured metrics or technical skill and so forth.

I've worked with a lot of younger guys fresh out of school and their approach is very academic where they really enjoyed the feedback / praise / clear pecking order of things like grades. Very good grades always rewarded them and they were told exactly how to get them. Then they entered the world where things were far less clear. Some really struggled when they felt like they were passed over for someone they thought were of lesser skills than them.

Sometimes they were right that the other person wasn't very good at their job, other times they simply didn't appreciate the other aspects that went into that job that aren't easily measured and the fact that the other guy's code or work that wasn't as academically "better" really wasn't part of the equation... as much as they wanted someone who could talk to customers, or get along with coworkers, or something like that.

In short, it depends on your situation.

</comment><comment><USER3> The best book for this question is: "Seeing Systems" [https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Systems-Unlocking-Mysteries- Or...](https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Systems-Unlocking-Mysteries- Organizational/dp/1576754553)

It give insights a) on why this happens and b) what scope for action you have (a lot).

ad b) i recommend two sided strategy> continue to do your best work while not caring about it. - and - start "beening open for new oportunities" side project job hunting & networking. it might cost some energy, but either the situation in your job improves and you can keep your job, and if not, you have a head start when your job hunting gets serious.

</comment><comment><USER4> You have barely given context to your question so it's hard for me to give you the benefit of the doubt. Playing devil's advocate, how exactly do you know they are incompetent? There's more to success and bringing value to an organization than hard technical skills.

In a typical business environment there are usually multiple stakeholders who attack a given problem from different (often times opposing) angles. This doesn't automatically make one side more correct _or_ more competent than the other.

</comment><comment><USER5> Life ain't fair, and it's certainly not a meritocracy.

When you rise to power you can take better care to promote the right people. But according to what "right"? This is not a one dimensional problem.

Then we have the issue of 70% of the population thinking they are of above average competence.

...

That said, if it's a significant issue at your current work place I suggest you start looking for a new, better, place. And highlight the issue. People will get angry, and you might loose your job.

</comment><comment><USER6> First thing to do is stop talking about "meritocracy"; the cream does rise to the top to some extent, but the awful truth is that the best jobs are more rare than the best talent.

</comment><comment><USER7> This is part of being a professional. You have to learn to deal with it, as it will happen wherever you go. You cannot just pick up and leave every time this happens.

</comment><comment><USER8> Start by asking a fully formed question on HN.</comment>


Biz guy with good idea looking for someone to do all the work - <AUTHOR> Me:  Good ideas.  Proven track record.
You:  Ambitious, talented, hustler who can make decisions and get things done.  Full-stack developer with UX skills preferred, but open to designer who can hire the right people, manage things, understand and execute my vision.
Funding:  I will invest $50,000 into this project
What's in it for you?:  Depends on your skills and what you're looking for, we would need to iron out the details.  Up to 50% ownership, vested over time, or combination of ownership and monthly stipend (which comes out of the original $50k investment).  More importantly, this will be a good opportunity to absorb my 15+ years of marketing and product development experience.
<comment>-----
I realize this sounds crazy (oh sure, another biz guy that wants me to do all the work), I get it, no need to comment on how terrible this is.  You just have to assume that I'm not BSing, either you're interested or you're not.
Send email introducing yourself to:  firstname.lastname@example.com
please include examples of your work and/or accomplishments. </comment><comment><USER2> > You just have to assume that I'm not BSing, either you're interested or > you're not.

Assumptions are the mother of all fuckups. You want examples of work and/or accomplishments? Fair enough.

 _Show us this proven track record of yours._

What products have you developed? What have you successfully marketed?

<comment><USER3> Yes please, show and tell. If you are successful, then why not let the whole world know?

As for the $50k? That barely gets you to MVP. If you are so confident of your great idea, then why not incorporate a company, pitch in say $1m and then hire competent people who can and will execute your vision? That is how successful business people operate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What kind of product? Who are you selling to? (businesses, consumers, enterprise?) Who's going to do the sales? Not that Technology isn't important, but just as important or more is the person that goes out and sells it. You can fake a product for a few users to validate you can get customers. Also, why not just spec out what you want and have off shore contractors do the building?

<comment><AUTHOR> this is not a saas product, doesn't involve traditional sales. I'm looking for entrepreneur-types, not offshore contractors.

<comment><USER4> Is it a marketplace? viral product? education based? hardware? ecommerce? lead generation? having some kind of idea of the area will filter people that aren't going to have an interest your idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Has this approach ever worked for you or is this first time you've tried it? Not a positive or negative comment, although I assume "no". Just curious.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not expecting it to work. Mostly experimenting, you never know.

<comment><USER3> Which is exactly why "ambitious, talented, hustler[s]" on HN are not likely to get excited by your offer of sweat equity on something that even you have doubts about.

<comment><AUTHOR> never know unless you try

<comment><USER5> Actually, you do know (almost) without trying. Any person here that you would actually want to work with or start a company with would have told you that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ć Programming Language - Compile C# subset to C, Java, C#, JS, AS, Perl and D - <AUTHOR> http://cito.sourceforge.net/ <comment><USER3> If I ever create a programming language, I will call it either ♫ (pronounced music) or . (pronounced dot).

That's one thing brainfuck didn't get right. Even they couldn't predict how incredibly stupid programming language naming would become :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Great, another programming language we can't google!

Please rename it to Membranous language.

<comment><USER5> Or for that matter, type. At least C♯ has "C#".

Maybe we can use C' ?

<comment><USER6> At least in OS X, you can type Ć by holding C and pressing 2:

[http://i.imgur.com/6xCSVW5.png](http://i.imgur.com/6xCSVW5.png)

<comment><USER7> I don't have this functionality. Could you explain if I have to enable something for it to work? It would be a great help, since I have that letter in my last name...

<comment><USER8> I was going to say that on OS X 10.6 and earlier, you can type Option+E, then type C, but it turns out that doesn't work. Option+E only lets you add the ´ to vowels, like Á. I confirmed that using the Keyboard Viewer (search for it in System Preferences).

However, you _can_ create a custom keyboard layout with Ukelele ([http://scripts.sil.org/ukelele](http://scripts.sil.org/ukelele)), in which you replace some character you never use (option+something) with Ć. I use a custom layout myself, in which I swapped some keys around so it's easier to type smart quotes ' ' " ".

<comment><USER9> Opt+E, C works fine in US Extended keyboard mode, which supports a lot more accented letters. US Extended is also required for writing in certain obscure Latin-based writing systems, such as Esperanto or Chinese Pinyin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a really interesting project. However...

It's licensed under GPLv3 -- in my experience, that's an instant turnoff for most .NET (C#/F#/VB.NET) developers. If you changed the license to something like Apache 2.0, I think you'd get much more interest; not only new users, but new _contributors_ too.

<comment><USER11> What's wrong with GPLv3? I thought the only thing that changed from v2 was preventing tivotization?

<comment><USER6> I think he means commercial use in closed-source projects. So it's not v2 vs v3, but GPL vs Apache or MIT.

<comment><USER10> Yes, that's what I meant.

Most -- nearly all -- major open-source projects written in C# (or other .NET languages) are permissively licensed. Yes, that means people _could_ just grab the code and use it in their own closed-source projects without giving back; but, as far as I've seen, most devs are happy to contribute back to the projects they use in whatever way they can.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nice idea, but please give it a name that makes the language easy to discuss and search for.

There's no way I'm going to work on Monday and discussing: 'did you see that new language that I have no idea how it's pronounced that was on HN?'

<comment> iso8859-1 Almost all other languages have ASCII names. How do you think South Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, etc refer to them? They figured it out, just like you would, if you wanted to.

<comment><USER13> The name of something makes a big difference in the USA though. If it sounds ridiculous or has a non-obvious pronunciation, people won't take it seriously.

Rationalize all you want...the issue makes it a non-starter for many people.

<comment><USER6> I doubt name makes a bigger difference than usefulness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> See also the C~ language that the author of Scintilla created for the purpose of building a retargetable text editor component:

[http://www.scintilla.org/SWPortability.html](http://www.scintilla.org/SWPortability.html)

He wrote his text editor component in C~, then compiled it down to C++, Java and C#. Kind of interesting - I actually used SinkWorld in a product once.

</comment><comment><USER15> That's awesome. I remember I spent some time rewriting the code I had from C# into Java and wishing there was a way for me to just write it once and reuse in multiple places. Just so that I do not have to patch multiple locations as I add features.

Maybe Objective C for the next iteration? :)

</comment><comment><USER16> Pronunciation: [http://www.asusilc.net/scr101/les1/s1glas.htm](http://www.asusilc.net/scr101/les1/s1glas.htm)

"ch or tch as in: church, fetch, pronounced softer than the English sound"

<comment><USER17> I'd say it's more like 'ci' (sounds closer to 'ty') in Italian 'ciao' and less like 'ch' in 'change'.

<comment><USER18> In American English (and perhaps other dialects), Italian 'ciao' is an allophone with English 'chow'. (Really two allophones, 'ch' and 'ow'). Most Americans won't be able to hear a difference.

<comment><USER19> "ciao" and "chow" are homophones, not allophones. Allophones are different phonetic representations of the same phoneme found in complementary distribution. For example, [t] and [th] and [ɾ] and [ʔ] are allophones of /t/ (the first in 'cat', the second in 'tack', and the third and fourth in 'cutter' , depending on your regional variant. Also, the initial phoneme in Italian "ciao" is for all purposes identical to the one in English "chow" (the vowels are a bit different) - it is written as: /tʃ/

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I really like this concept. It would make a good counterpart to Haxe.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is great. Glad to see Perl support as I'm working in both these days. I have a C# DLL I'm planning on porting and I think I'll give this a whirl. If it can do a good port I'll be very impressed.

</comment><comment><USER22> Does it do garbage collecting in all the target languages? The question is mainly about C, cause I can imagine it can rely on native garbage collector when targeting Java, Perl, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> It only has manual memory management. No GC.

But if you don't target C, you can just skip using "delete".

<comment><USER23> Right, from the documentation (albeit hidden in the Arrays section):

 _Since there is no garbage collection in C, you must free the dynamically allocated array with delete. delete translates to C as free and nothing in other (garbage-collecting) languages._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Time to start working on Č I guess.

<comment><USER25> We've all got a language in our back pocket, haven't we?

My first thought on seeing this name was that I ought to rename my project "Ç".

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Great idea, but _why another new language?_ Why not just pick a _subset of C#_? (or Java, or D, but subjectively speaking, C# is the most "friendly" language from that list)

<comment><USER27> It _is_ a subset of C#. And giving that subset a name is much easier than talking about »that subset of C# that compiles cleanly to Java, D, Perl and C«.

<comment><USER28> Except when the name is Ć.

<comment><USER27> Cee acute? Doesn't strike me as that horrible.

<comment><USER26> ...unless you have no idea what "acute" means or you've never seen it in your life, because you haven't been exposed to French or English musical notation before (which applies for, I'd bet, over 80% of programmers worldwide :) )

<comment><USER29> But most programmers probably have studied basic geometry.

<comment><USER30> And? There are a _lot_ of diacritics to choose from if you don't know all their names, and that's assuming you even catch on that it's supposed to be a diacritic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I guess I'm of the very few ones in this thread who know how to pronounce this name :D

</comment><comment><USER32> What was the need for this?

<comment><USER15> Second statement from the article:

 _Ć is a new language, aimed at crafting portable programming libraries, with syntax akin to C#_

<comment><USER32> That's the purpose, is there really such a need?

<comment><USER23> Right. Who would ever want to be able to write libraries that can run on any platform?

<comment><USER32> I'm not saying there isn't a need, but I'm interested in knowing of another need. Hasn't this been done in C already? C pretty much runs anywhere, after all. What exactly does this bring to the table?

Sorry that people thought I was being negative (as per all the downvotes - <USER2> people really aught to comment), I'm just curious as to why other languages don't fill this gap.

<comment><AUTHOR> >C pretty much runs anywhere, after all. What exactly does this bring to the table?

1\. No, C doesn't run everywhere. I can't compile C to Java, C#, JS, AS, Perl and D. Or compile it to any other language (PHP, Objective-C, Pascal, ...) just by writing 500 lines of generator.

Look how huge project Emscripten is: 1 537 390 lines according to Ohloh. But JS generator for Ć is only 457 lines.

2\. C# is easier than C. You can write Ć in Visual Studio C#, the best, easiest and fastest IDE in the world.

<comment><USER32> 1\. A compiler translates from a higher level language to a lower level language.

2\. I disagree. They have the same level of complexity, C# possibly more if you use advanced concepts. And you can write C in Visual Studio...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> If they just wanted the name to be a variation of 'C', they could have called it 'Ç', since I'm guessing that most people can type that easily with their keyboards.

</comment><comment><USER34> Why not support floating point number type?

<comment><AUTHOR> I asked the language creator. Float, double, short types are going to be added within 1 month. 64 bit integers are not possible because Javascript doesn't have them.</comment></comment>


Free/Forgetful Adjunctions - <AUTHOR> https://bartoszmilewski.com/2016/06/15/freeforgetful-adjunctions/ <comment><USER2> Monads are just round the corner :)</comment>


Show HN: My week project - FundingList.us - find out any startup's funding. - <AUTHOR> http://fundinglist.us

<comment><USER2> I like the idea, it's a nicer interface than dealing with EDGAR.

Unfortunately, any company who's filings are scanned-in (not submitted electronically) will not show up. (and that's fair... that would be a lot of extra work).

Edit: I'm referring to REGDEX filings, which are (always?) scanned paper documents declaring offerings of under $1 million.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks nice and clean to me. Just lacking in entries. With time, this could be quite interesting. I didn't find any typos, FWIW.

</comment><comment><USER4> I couldn't find many startups. I understand that it is limited to SEC filings, but advertising "any startup" seems false.

</comment><comment><USER5> Design isn't too good, lots of typos, nice idea though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you point out the typos? I'd be happy to fix them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Isn't this what CrunchBase does already?</comment>


Why We Don't Need Offices - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2013/10/01/8-indisputable-reasons-for-why-we-dont-need-offices/

<comment><USER2> Good for you. I'd rather be in my office. I like delineating working space from fun space. I've worked a day a week from home for a few years. Every time I think it'll be a Good Thing and every time I regret it. And that doesn't lead to particularly good productivity.

I have a desk job. I spend a lot of time sitting. Who's going to shell out for a nice desk + chair? Who's going to pay for my internet connection? Heating costs?

Lots of problems can be solved by walking over to a colleague. More problems than I can think of are caused by remote working, including code quality.

You probably have the opposite point of view. Everyone's different. For lots of people an office is more suitable. For lots of people home is suitable. For lots of people a mixture. We do need offices.

<comment><AUTHOR> I submitted the link, but I don't agree with the article (but the great thing about HN is the discussions). I think face-to-face time in software development is essential. Virtually every day I discus different aspects of a problem or a design with colleagues (often using a whiteboard), and it is quite striking how often I come away with a better solution and a better understanding of the problem. I've used video conferencing in the past, and I doesn't come close to being in the same room. I touched on this subject in one of my blog posts "Programmer Productivity – Interruptions, Meetings and Working Remotely" [http://henrikwarne.com/2013/04/02/programmer-productivity- in...](http://henrikwarne.com/2013/04/02/programmer-productivity- interruptions-meetings-and-working-remotely/)

<comment><USER2> I didn't mean you personally! I meant the author of the article. And 'you' at the end referred to anyone reading. Not particularly clear, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I can work from home.

It is vastly less effective than being able to rotate my monitor towards a team member and say "What do you think of this?" and get an instant answer.

Shared spaces lower friction, and this is incredibly useful when working closely.

</comment><comment><USER4> forbes.com == full page advert == close the page

I really need to get into the habit of checking the URL before clicking on articles.

<comment><USER5> May I recommend the same link but via unvis.it?

[http://unvis.it/www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2013/10/01/...](http://unvis.it/www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2013/10/01/8-indisputable- reasons-for-why-we-dont-need-offices/)

<comment><USER4> Nice, now I just need a scriptlet to do that automatically...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Bullshit. The "We don't need offices" cheerleaders are always upper management --WHO HAVE OFFICES.

</comment><comment><USER7> As a person who has worked in an open office environment for the past five years, our next office will not be open.

There's nothing more frustrating to a developer than hearing four sales calls happening simultaneously.

</comment><comment><USER8> If I had an office, with floor to ceiling walls, and a door that closed and even locked, I would like it very much.</comment>


Extract Chords From YouTube Videos - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcolabs.com/3027777/how-to-extract-sheet-music-from-youtube-videos <comment><USER2> Very nice. I just ran a half dozen varying songs which we perform through it and it mostly matches my chord sheets.

For some bands this will be a dynamic changer. Singers who can not write down chords sometimes don't want to impose on the instrumentalists by bringing in new material. If they can bring in a rough whack that barrier is lifted.

Some notes:

• Not all music is in 4/4\. Ok, mixed meter and obscure meter, but 3/4 really ought to be either recognized, or let me tell you. Even when the song is in 4/4, it sometimes loses track of where "1" is.

• It doesn't like to (maybe can't) write more than a 3 note chord, and I didn't see any "sus" chords, but maybe I didn't feed it a good sample. Not understanding 4 note chords will probably add ambiguity to the results, say a Em7 being mistaken for a G if there isn't enough E going on.

• It appears to cache well. When I hit popular songs through their cleanest YouTube URL the results pop up instantly. Well done!

Looking forward to progress, but it goes in the toolbox now.

</comment><comment><USER3> A worthy (free) alternative: CLAM Chordata: [http://clam- project.org/wiki/Chordata_tutorial](http://clam- project.org/wiki/Chordata_tutorial)

I've used it before, it's pretty interesting, especially for its visualisations of the chords being played. It works better for songs with a clear chord structure, though. Too bad the project seems kind of dead. There are other projects listed elsewhere in this discussion (e.g. Chordino+NNLS Chroma) which seem viable.

Tangentially, Melodyne's "Direct Note Access" promotional video was very exciting when I saw it years ago, but I have to wonder how well it ever worked (when it finally came out).

<comment><USER4> I've used Direct Note Access several years ago (soon after it was released), and it's really good. Like creepy good. I put some full-band bluegrass tunes through it and it pretty much caught every note. It doesn't attempt to separate out _instruments_ , so the output was just one MIDI track, but I could easily go in and separate out bass notes, mandolin solos, etc.

It had trouble with most pop and rock music, presumably because of the crushed dynamics and drums. Of course, it's not even designed for analyzing multi- instrument recordings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Chordify is great! Their backend is written in Haskell, and part of it is open source as well: [http://hackage.haskell.org/package/HarmTrace](http://hackage.haskell.org/package/HarmTrace)

<comment><USER6> they did a couple papers describing algos:

[http://ismir2012.ismir.net/event/papers/295_ISMIR_2012.pdf](http://ismir2012.ismir.net/event/papers/295_ISMIR_2012.pdf)

[http://ismir2012.ismir.net/event/papers/LBD2.pdf](http://ismir2012.ismir.net/event/papers/LBD2.pdf)

(There's usually a few "doesn't work" comments, but imagine how much extra processing is required to get the fundamental when you run guitars thru delay/ reverb, overdrive/distortion, chorus/tremolo/vibrato etc effects)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Curious about the real-world results, I quickly grabbed a link to an artist > I know, Andy Zipf, and put his song through Chordify. I played along with > the results for most of the song, but wanted to see if the chords were > right, directly from the source. I sent Zipf a message on Twitter asking and > he responded, "Looks correct."

> [http://t.co/aMUnHJiQcP](http://t.co/aMUnHJiQcP)

Perhaps I'm foolish to question the artist about the chords of his own song, but it certainly doesn't look quite right to me. Each phrase in the verse starts on an A, and the algorithm misses that a few times. When the whole band starts, a lot more chord changes get missed, which seems odd to me based on the description of the algorithm.

Also, it would be nice if the tool attempted to identify a tonal center ("key") of the song, and use that to spell the chords more appropriately. For a lot of pop music, this would be fairly easy and reliable. In this song, the tonal center is clearly E, and it would be nice if the C#m wasn't spelled as Dbm.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, those chords certainly don't look quite right. There's some missed changes and some that show up a beat too early or too late. It's also missing a lot of subtleties, like 7th chords and inversions.

For a much more blatant example of Chordify just failing to spot _really obvious_ things, check out their results for "Get Lucky":

[http://chordify.net/chords/daft-punk-get-lucky-jay- lee](http://chordify.net/chords/daft-punk-get-lucky-jay-lee)

This song has a completely fixed chord scheme (Bm/D/F#m/E). Each exception in the chord sheet is a mistake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Actual scientific relevant dissertation:

[http://dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/handle/1874/226713/haa...](http://dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/handle/1874/226713/haas.pdf?sequence=4) [pdf]

</comment><comment><USER9> You might also like the Yanno chord extractor, with super-academic-looking but quite easy to use UI here: [http://yanno.eecs.qmul.ac.uk](http://yanno.eecs.qmul.ac.uk)

If I remember aright, both Chordify and Yanno use NNLS Chroma for the feature extractor but they use different methods to segment and label the chords. (Yanno uses Chordino which you can find at [http://isophonics.net/nnls- chroma](http://isophonics.net/nnls-chroma) with the NNLS Chroma plugin.)

</comment><comment><USER10> This doesn't actually extract sheet music, only the chords present in the music.

</comment><comment><USER11> Harmonic extraction algorithms are _cool_. Make a recording of yourself standing in a stairwell hitting a wok with a spoon, push that through the algo, and you get avant-garde jazz out the other end. Sometimes. It's certainly easier than spending 30 years learning to play the keyboard.

I guess with it hooked to youtube we can rapidly try out all sorts of unusual inputs.

<comment><USER8> Many musicians consider themselves 'composers' because they know harmony. Harmony is 'composition for dummies'. To compose real stuff you have to study counterpoint for lifetime.

And there are even worse algorithmic composing systems like Lyle Murphy's Equal Interval System, Schillinger, etc... I love algorithms but that's not art.

<comment><USER12> Depends what you mean by "real stuff" I guess. You could just as easily argue that musicians consider themselves composers because they read Fux. Counterpoint is important for certain styles of composition and irrelevant for others.

At its most basic, composition is the creation of a musical score. What form the score takes, what genre the piece is in, the method of composition, the evaluation of the resulting work, are all flexible depending on the style of music and the quirks of the particular composer and audience. Whether something qualifies as "art" is almost entirely subjective -- if it speaks to an audience (including the composer!) it's worth something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is so cool!

Makes me wonder what the next step would be. Seems like they're essentially decomposing a song into its ingredients. I wonder if they could use their algorithm to convert a song from one genre to another like auto-creating the hiphop or dance version of a given song :)

<comment><USER14> Actually, they are taking a "big picture" approach, since it's easier to find out the chord produced by an unknown number of instruments than to find out how many instruments are playing and what they are playing, separately. Doing these things you describe would require the second option, I believe.

From the article itself:

 _"The problem with 'full polyphonic transcription' is that the computer doesn't know how many voices and instruments sound together and what the characteristics are of these instruments," says De Haas.

"When you transcribe chords, we examine the mixture as a whole and examine what the prominent frequencies are in the spectrum."_

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Perhaps related: There's an app called "Shapes" on iTunes where the devs deconstructed popular songs into "shapes", basically a set of keys that will sound good with the song no matter what you play: [http://www.playshapes.com](http://www.playshapes.com)

</comment><comment><USER16> Melodyne works really well for extracting actual sheet music for polyphonic audio

Here is a demo: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFCjv4_jqAY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFCjv4_jqAY)

It works best with single-instrument signals - not so much with a mix of multiple instruments.

</comment><comment> tech-no-logical

       this youtube video is not available in your location
       this deezer song is not available in your country
       this youtube video contains content from [x]. it is restricted from playback on certain sites.

on the first three clicks. oh well...

<comment><USER17> Are you in Germany by any chance?

<comment> tech-no-logical close, the netherlands.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I tried it with a song I knew had a very simple chord structure (C A- F G7) and it gave some pretty weird results…

Then I tried it with _Don 't think twice it's alright_ and it pretty much nailed it. I wonder if it was tuned on Dylan. :)

</comment><comment><USER18> tried to use this and the results were completely off...

BUT i was trying to use it on Moonlight In Vermont by the Johnny Smith Quintet. I am expecting that the type of harmonic structure used in the jazz chord melody style is probably beyond the current capabilities of this technology.

Even still though, i mean the results seemed to have no relation at all to teh music being played, chords were shown on silent parts of the song and vice versa.

<comment><USER19> fwiw, this uses software [1] that has dozens of dials to adjust yet not giving access to those dials. That's probably why. One of the key challenges (i've tried to write chord detectors personally) is that different instruments sounds have different harmonic falloff rates (in different frequency ranges no less).

[1] [http://isophonics.net/nnls-chroma](http://isophonics.net/nnls-chroma)

<comment><USER20> I think you nailed it. Yes, the algorithms can't figure out all the proper tuning yet.

For instance, the lowest frequency (among the strongest amplitude candidates) is often the bass line, & thus the chord. However, those type of general rules are common, yet often broken to make the music more interesting in the first place. Esp. when notes are "left out" to open things up & let you mind fill it in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I've found the results to be hit and miss, but I find for me it is a good starting off point to figuring a song out.

</comment><comment><USER22> This is great, wondering if there's an open source version of something like this.

<comment><USER14> Take a look at [http://isophonics.net/nnls-chroma](http://isophonics.net/nnls- chroma)

<comment><USER9> Which you can run in, for example, [http://sonicvisualiser.org/](http://sonicvisualiser.org/)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask News.YC: where can I find a good Javascript/AJAX/web designer to do outsource work? - <AUTHOR>

Here's my problem: I'm working in a European company that's having a hard time getting a really good Javascript/AJAX person to come in and help us design a new part of our web site.  Where can I find someone (geography is irrelevant to me if they are good)?  Any recommendations? <comment><USER2> I've used all the freelancer type sites (elance, rentacoder) and have found oDesk.com to be the best.

Primarily because you can get candidates to do technical tests (i.e. javascript tests) that I've found to be a fantastic predictor of success.

</comment><comment><USER3> I know a guy who's very good at JS and AJAX. He doesn't do web design though (I do that part). He's mostly into EXT, and I like jquery/prototype/mootools depending on my mood. We're teaming on a project together.

Not sure if I should give out his name... you can contact me though if you want more info. firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment><comment><USER4> Try Elance/Rentacoder. Craigslist is also a good option. (Not as popular in Europe, but popular in some US cities.)

<comment><USER5> eek. I've not have good experience with any of those sites...

Craigslist has been the worst.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Try Digitalpoint forums, and choose someone who has consistently high itrader and positive ratings. I am working with a guy from there.

</comment><comment><USER7> Does it matter what library they use? Are you guys particular to mootools or jquery or scriptaculous?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are using prototype and scriptaculous currently. We don't have any religion about a particular library (except, perhaps, YUI which is heavyweight).</comment></comment>