Show HN: FIND – an indoor positioning system for smartphones and laptops - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/schollz/find <comment><USER2> For those of you curious how it works, it's a parasitic radar system using the wireless APs of you/your neighbors to triangulate it's own position.

[https://github.com/schollz/find/blob/master/FAQ.md#how- does-...](https://github.com/schollz/find/blob/master/FAQ.md#how-does-it-work)

<comment><AUTHOR> > it's a parasitic radar system

That's an accurate description, though I'd avoid the negative terminology. The system does derive its data from nearby WiFi routers, but it is in no way exploitative, like real parasites. WiFi scanning is something all smartphones do all the time, so this system merely tries harnessing it into something useful at the same time.

As for the technical side - this system uses a Naive Bayes estimator for the signal levels from mac addresses, as well as the presence of mac addresses it sees during scans. Before it can be used it needs to "learn" by visiting all the locations you want to identify. After learning it "tracks" by classifying the location used the Naive bayes estimators.

<comment><USER2> Parasitic is a technical term.

<comment><USER3> Passive might be a better term.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This would be a valuable addition to other methods of determining presence in building automation systems. What would it take/cost to build a tiny dedicated device that would wake up every, say, 5 seconds, analyze wifi signals (what's called the 'fingerprint' in this system if I understand correctly) and ping the server with that data? More concretely, would it be possible to build such a device for low prices (<50USD) with > say, a month, of battery life?

<comment><USER5> It would probably be best to use a microcontroller instead of a full cpu. I really like the Particle Photon. It costs $20 and is a joy to work with. It barely needs any power in sleep mode, and you can set it to wake up at scheduled intervals. Depending on the battery you use, a month of battery life shouldn't be an issue if it sleeps most of the time.

There are other microcontrollers with Wifi and similar capabilities that are even cheaper, like the ESP8266 at around $5, but I haven't worked with those before.

EDIT: I just saw you want it to wake up every five seconds --- in that case sleep won't help much and you'll need a big battery for a month of use, since wakeup and scanning for networks takes a few seconds. Waking up less often (eg. every 15min) would be more feasible, but it really depends on your intended use.

<comment><AUTHOR> Home automation has always been my main goal. I've been working with some electronic devices as you mentioned. For those interested, Sparkfun has "The Thing": [https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13231](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13231) which is a good way to get into the ESP8266. I've also tried using Raspberry Pis, which works pretty well but are still too big with the battery to go carry around a building. I'm hoping to try the Pi Zero in the future with a small LiPo battery.

<comment><USER5> This looks neat; the integrated Lipo charger is a welcome add-on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome, I wonder what this combined with some electronic automation can do. Eg, I walk into a room and lights turn on, i walk out, lights turn off (depending on time of the day etc).

<comment><USER7> Motion sensored room light has been available for at least 15-20 years.

<comment><USER2> This is billed as a replacement for motion sensors in home automation. Though it does beg the question, "what if someone moves their router?"

<comment><USER7> It adds a lot of complexity and point of failure for a system that I can install for 15 bucks from most hardware stores (with a solid track record).

<comment><USER8> Yes, but your detector creates more problems than it solves:

* pets set it off,

* it cannot differentiate between different objects in motion. So several people could be moving at the same time and it would only trigger as one event,

* it cannot detect people who are present but motionless (eg watching TV),

* it doesn't remember how many people are present in a room, so you could have 2 people watching TV then when 1 person leaves the detect would think the room is empty,

* it requires multiple detectors,

* detectors are generally visible, which some might find an eyesore (at least WiFi APs can be hidden a little more as fewer needed).

I'm not saying FIND is perfect either, but you have implied that your solution works just as well as FIND and stated that your solution is less complex; which is simply is not true. Your solution creates more problems than FIND and addressing them creates just as much complexity (as I detailed in my other post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11519159](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11519159))

<comment><USER9> Motion detectors have a variety of usage, outdoor lighting, indoor room lighting, grocery store fridge lighting, etc. FIND is a bit more specialized because of the huge drawback of requiring each user to carry a specific device.

I can't use it at my work because we don't all have Android. I can't use it at home because my wife uses in iPhone. Cool idea but limited use compared to motion detectors.

<comment><USER8> Indeed, but that was never in dispute. FIND was never pitched to replace motion detection sensors to begin with. The argument was whether motion detectors are comparable to FIND for the specific specialised problem that FIND addresses to solve; not whether FIND can replace all the generalised purposes that motion detection is utilised.

My point was always that the two technologies aren't necessarily interchangeable and in an indirect way you're just saying the same thing with your counterargument.

<comment><USER9> The original comment was about turning lights on and off. You implied FIND is better than motion detectors at this ("your solution creates more problems than FIND..."). In most cases this is false, due to the negatives I outlined above.

<comment><USER8> I think the confusion here is there's two different use cases for turning lights on and off.

I have acknowledged in another post that motion detectors are advantageous if you're dealing with strangers and/or situations where there's lots of movement and/or lights that can be automatically timed out. eg public spaces halls, public restrooms, security lights, etc. But I don't think it's fair to lump these in the same category as "home automation".

Home automation is a little more of a complex problem as you need the lights in the room to not only turn on when someone enters, but also turn off when they leave. Motion detectors can spot someone moving in a room but they're not to great at detecting when people have left since it's the same sensor that would be triggered. They're also not great at detecting if people have entered a room and are still in the room if those people have stopped moving (eg they are watching TV) - since those people aren't triggering the motion detection. And lastly, motion detection isn't great at detecting the number of people in a room - which matters if you don't want the lights to turn off when someone leaves the room but other people are still in there and watching TV.

Motion detection solved some of the problems of home automation, but creates some problems as well. Which is why I said motion detection is just too simplistic of a solution for home automation despite it being a great solution for other types of automating lighting.

Granted you could place more sensors, network them up, and have a centralised unit logging movement. That would likely work. But then it quickly becomes as complex as the solutions we're trying to avoid.

However even if all these things were easily addressed, motion detection still has issues for me personally as I have two cats. This is the beauty of proper home automation systems: they give you the granularity to personalise things so pets don't set off the same triggers that people do. Or my two year old doesn't trigger the same automation that my wife and I do (eg unlocking the front door). This is where I think the future of home automation lies and is what really gets me excited.

So you're right that there is overlap between motion triggers lights and home automation; but the latter is intentionally a more complex problem by design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What is wrong with inertial navigation? Just need to mark a starting poing ( like, your house door ) and then just walk around and mark the places.

I've seen in the past some Android apps that do this, not sure now what's the situation.

EDIT: found some paper about it and how it worked: [http://hkr.diva- portal.org/smash/get/diva2:475619/FULLTEXT02...](http://hkr.diva- portal.org/smash/get/diva2:475619/FULLTEXT02.pdf)

<comment><USER11> The problem is integration drift. I don't think it's really feasible to do inertial navigation with a smartphone.

The paper you linked is also discussing use of WiFi and Bluetooth.

Edit: here's a good overview: [http://stackoverflow.com/a/7835988](http://stackoverflow.com/a/7835988)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> There was a startup in Berlin called 42 Reports that was built around this idea but for tracking people in shops and malls, word is it bombed owing to the technology just not being accurate enough, i think now they've pivoted and scraped an exit.

<comment><USER13> Isn't this why beacons and iBeacon are supposed to be the next big thing in retail? I've got a friend who just got hired to do sales in Asia for a beacon company. Apparently, they're blowing up (or trying to)?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> They claim a typical accuracy of 10 square feet (< 1 square meter) which would be really really good. Even systems with beacons are not better.

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't take my word for it, you should try it out!

It really depends on how many routers are in your area. For places in cities, there are tons and tons of routers so its very easy to get pretty good resolution. For places more remote, you might not see many routers and then you would be for more limited in your resolution.

<comment><USER15> Assuming you wanted to very precisely map a small area (50mx50m or so) to the maximum resolution possible, and you had a budget sufficient to buy and place 20 or so wifi routers, what sort of resolution could you get?

I'm looking at this for gaming applications. Don't need milimeter accuracy but +- 30cm would be good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Can some one explain me, why just not use bluetooth LE? I understand you need BLE beacons, but any other reason.

<comment><USER14> No, you don't need beacons here. It works using "fingerprints" (and machine learning) of nearby APs.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right. Bluetooth beacons are a piece of hardware you would have to buy. Basically this tries to accomplish the same thing with just software. Here there is no hardware other than the server (which is provided) and a client computer (which you probably already own).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Cool project. I have tried using both wifi and IMU motion sensors for mapping indoor and it's not really that impressive yet. This is still a very hard problem to solve. Google seems to be working on it: [https://www.google.com/atap/project- tango/](https://www.google.com/atap/project-tango/)

There have also been many other projects like [http://wearnotch.com/](http://wearnotch.com/)

For now, External distance cameras (Kinect-like) seems to be the most accurate and usable method. Something like what these quadcopters use: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiCFtmdrvHM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AiCFtmdrvHM)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the links! I haven't seen those.

I know that this already exists in many variations: [https://github.com/schollz/find/blob/master/FAQ.md#doesnt- th...](https://github.com/schollz/find/blob/master/FAQ.md#doesnt-this-already- exist)

Still, I've never seen one that is open-source that works pretty well, so I thought I'd put mine out there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> ~10sq feet in resolution

Seems like that should be in the first 3 lines of the description, not near the end of the FAQ.

Very cool project.

</comment><comment><USER19> Once finger printing has been done can that info be shared with other cell phones?

<comment><USER20> I don't see why you couldn't. You're just shipping serial numbers through the air at that point.

<comment><USER21> devices have different antennas, in different places and with different orientation.

<comment><USER2> A wifi antenna should always be vertically oriented because radio waves are polarized, and if you aren't in line with the polarization you'll lose gain.

<comment><USER21> What is the polarity of ipad antenna on your lap? :) Then you have multipath (reflections). This is why wifi cards had diversity switch and two antennas even before MIMO, and with 11n gained spatial diversity and beamforming.

random google result: [http://www.theruckusroom.net/2011/06/a-polarizing- problem.ht...](http://www.theruckusroom.net/2011/06/a-polarizing-problem.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Thinking about corporate applications...

Does it accommodate mobile APs on smart phones or personal hot spot devices? Seems those might confuse it in an enterprise setting.

Also, I would assume that the software will differentiate APs with the same SSID as in an enterprise situation and rely on MAC IDs. But just so I don't have to assume, can you confirm that it does?

<comment><AUTHOR> > can you confirm that it does?

Yes, it will differentiate APs with the same SSID as it relies on MAC IDs. I use it at my university with no problem (which is an enterprise situation).

> Does it accommodate mobile APs on smart phones or personal hot spot devices?

It uses mobile hot spot information, however if the hot spots disappear it will not affect the results too badly, as long as there are some permanent AP fixtures. Anecdotally, I've used this system in airports (which house many personal hotspots) and it still has good recognition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> For this to replace motion sensors for home use, I think it'd have to run on an Android smartwatch, and one of the ones that's slim enough that you'll actually wear it all the time.

It still wouldn't work so well, though, for basic use cases like "turn on the dimmer lights to 40% if I enter the bathroom in the middle of the night".

<comment><AUTHOR> That's an awesome idea! I'll look into that!

<comment><USER23> The closest to 'ideal' would probably be one of those fitness band form- factors that can be and is intended to be worn at all times, but I don't know if any of those can run general-purpose Android without having a terrible battery life.

<comment><AUTHOR> There may be ways of making a client that doesn't need Android - like a simple WiFi chip that simply sends the information needed by the server. I'm currently looking into this!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Awesome. I tried creating something like this to help get around our very confusing corporate headquarters, but gave up. I will almost certainly use this now!</comment>


Horace Dediu talks about Apple and Siri (3 minutes) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBky8xXIkHU

<comment><USER2> "For what purpose? To sell more iPhones? I think that is naive"

A bit paranoid but it is food for thought.

Personally I am more on the side of: Apple is simply putting something innovative and useful for people out there.

Apple might be a walled garden, but so far they have been extremely well with privacy and personal data management and not being evil in that context.</comment>


How Microsoft rewrote its C# compiler in C# and made it open source - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/microsoft-open-source-stories/how-microsoft-rewrote-its-c-compiler-in-c-and-made-it-open-source-4ebed5646f98 <comment><USER2> Is Microsoft publishing on Medium now? Remember what happened after they started using github to publish their open source code?

How long before they buy Medium?</comment>


Which are todays pioneering startups using blockchain technology? - <AUTHOR> Which "blockchain startups" do you consider being among the top 20 worldwide, not based on current revenue but on disruption oriented business models? <comment><USER2> [https://www.bernstein.io](https://www.bernstein.io)

</comment><comment><USER3> WannaCry</comment>


Hide Your Data With A Fake Phone Jack - <AUTHOR> http://www.instructables.com/id/Hidden_USB_Storage/

<comment><USER2> If you owe the "IRA" money, they just kneecap you, so hiding your data isn't going to help.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

</comment><comment><USER3> The cable is clearly the weak link here. Would it be that much more difficult to hide a NAS device in the wall?

p.s. Isn't there a rule about linking to the original source? <http://www.instructables.com/id/Hidden_USB_Storage/>

</comment><comment><USER4> Cool hack but basically useless... You could just hide the USB key in the wall.

Also, you might want to encrypt the data too.

<comment><USER5> You could just hide it in the wall, but it wouldn't be easily accessible. With modded usb->rj-11 cord I can easily access my usb key, and have it hidden when I'm not accessing it. Of course, if someone finds my modded usb->rj-ll cord, they will catch on quickly.

<comment><USER6> Indeed. In fact, putting the USB device on the premises itself is a problem, as someone could simply disassemble the wall to find it.

If only someone had invented a way to securely transfer data from one computer to another without the need to transfer physical media. Now, _that_ would be a game-changing invention, I tell you. Probably a startup or seven in that idea...</comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: Template Syntax Error on HNOfficeHours.com - <AUTHOR>

I visited the site via a member's profile here and found a broken page. Link below, in case it is not known to the operators:
http://hnofficehours.com/profile/list/
(I think the above URL is linked to from almost all pages of the site thus:
List orphaned links here: All Users) <comment><USER2> Really doesn't make sense to put this on HN, contact one of the creators: <http://hnofficehours.com/about/></comment>


Ask HN: What do you do when you suddenly feel like not working anymore? - <AUTHOR> 1. It's Saturday morning.
2. You start coding in your side-project.
3. A couple of hours go by.
4. You feel like, "I'm tired. Let's do this tomorrow.".
5. You also would like to ship it ASAP too.
What do you do? <comment><USER2> Firstly.

> 5\. You also would like to ship it ASAP too.

Take that away from your mindset immediately! You can't do anything ASAP. I am a firm dis-believer of, "I can build it in a weekend".

Take a bit of paper and actually map out the project. Break it down into small pieces. Now start to work on the first piece, then take a break if needed. When you start again, work on the next.

Doing things this way, gives you multiple benefits:

1) allows your brain to focus on the task at hand. Otherwise it starts to focus on the entire project and thats when you short-circuit.

2) gives you a sense of accomplishment and you see your project go from start to finish.

3) allows you to easily come back to the project if you decide to take a long break from it.

It's also important that if you see things that you want to change. STOP! Take out another piece of paper and write down things for version 2. Now carry on with the work.

It's also worth mentioning, perhaps to keep some kind of journal with notes. So you can tell yourself things to investigate should you come across them in dealing with a problem.

Once you have finished and shipped version 1. You can then decide if you want to start again or wait until other things happen. Such as a community forming, you get stars on github, do a show HN. Whatever the ultimate goal is for the project.

Or you can decide to write another side project.

Ultimately, it's your time. Learn to use it well.

Btw, this is coming from someone who has built 40 side projects that easily could be their own SaaS start-ups thus far.

<comment><USER3> ASAP doesn't mean "immediately", it means "as soon as _possible_ ". What's "possible" depends on what's being done and expectations. Managing expectations is key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I do chores - it's a great tool for gauging how unwilling you are to code at the moment.

Yesterday my bathroom sink received some much needed care.

Also eventually you'll get so fed up with this that you'll gladly return to your side project.

Conversely guilting yourself into programming when you really don't want to is one way to abandon any after-hours work altogether.

<comment><USER5> This is one of my favorites, especially if the chore has been ignored for a while.

<comment><USER6> chores are my best thinking time! I can't recommend doing the chores for restoring intellectual productivity plus the very probable (if you're not living alone, but satisfaction either way) boost from doing good by your roommates.

I am certain that the benefits of doing chores for intellectual stimulation arise from the very familiar, routine like properties of most household chores.

Chop wood, carry water, as excellently pointed out below, is the most demonstrative chore I can think of right now: some task that's manual, involves a element of physical labor, and repetitive.

I began to notice my attention and motivation becoming more pronounced in cycles, when I began writing in languages that are heavily defined as boiler plate syntax and library based languages. Somehow the repetition, but with a small amount of variation in eg the cell of a array being addressed, dulled my personal flow of thought. Because I was spared from having to think beyond my immediate line's purpose, because all kinds of detail from memory management to types was sweetly abstracted away, I became more disengaged from the very process of thought involved in what I am writing. Even on the 3460 where

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Chop wood, carry water.

In other words, keep on keeping on. "A couple of hours" of focused work is actually fairly productive, more productive than most people get. It's like writing: do a little bit every day, pretty much no matter what, and it'll get done by accident.

<comment><USER7> My advice is identical to this.

However, it's worth noting that you should expect to not want to do things sometimes. Often pushing past the first part is the key.

Set. Minimum amount to accomplish. Nothing ambitious but something you can easily do. (2 hours if you don't have kids. 45 min if you do)

If you find yourself not wanting to do it week after week then you might consider changing your role. Partner with a CTO, raise money, write about it etc.

You don't have to do what you love, but you should avoid what you hate.

<comment><USER3> I'd amend this--you cannot always avoid what you hate. You can try, but life often gets in the way (as do the dirty dishes).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> 1) Assess I'm feeling any one of HALT - Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired.

If I'm feeling hungry, I'll make myself a healthy meal. Tired? Take a 20 minute nap, then do some jumping jacks and listen to up-tempo music. Lonely? Call it quits for the day and go find social interaction. Angry? Either I need to re-examine my expectations for myself, Take a step back and get a better understanding of my tools, or stop using selenium and switch to [https://www.cypress.io/](https://www.cypress.io/)

\----

> You also would like to ship it ASAP too.

Things take time. Either cut the scope of the project or work on accepting that things take time.

<comment><USER9> I agree with HLT, but your anger evaluation is too simple.

There are so many different things that can lead to anger. Many different causes which might have nothing to do with your expectation. Often it also happens that the first thing that comes to your mind that you think is making you angry is not the real reason. Builtup frustration and stress can lead to being angry at anything at anytime.

As you can see, always reexamining your expectations might not work.

<comment><USER8> True. Anger is a more complex emotion than it seems

<comment><USER3> I'd argue it's _more_ complex than most others--it can be a "stand-alone" emotion, or an amalgamation of several others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If it's a side project, just stop and wait for when you feel like working again. For me, forcing myself to work on something that isn't putting food on the table just builds resentment.

<comment><USER11> > For me, forcing myself to work on something that isn't putting food on the > table just builds resentment.

I know this feeling. A lot of people burn out quickly on Github when their shiny new toy fails to make money at every turn. Even with clear and adequate payment channels used (Patreon / Paypal / Gumroad), the feeling of financial failure (can be) enough to kill a project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Write documentation. I know that sounds the same as "keep working on it", but it's surprising how often going through updating/fixing docs gets me unstuck. And if it doesn't, at least I've done something productive.

If the docs are fine, there are usually other things to improve or experiment with (file organization, build process, tests, editor plugins...etc).

<comment><USER8> hypothesis: Writing docs for your project helps because it leads you to clarify concepts in your mind and thereby reduces the cognitive cost of working with those concepts and thereby makes future work less hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Exercise. Bike, blade, or run. I go and rollerblade the Embarcedero.

You get some sun, you tire yourself out in a different way, your eyes get to focus more than two feet in front of you. There are people around but you don't have to be social if you don't want - moving at a different speed means you can still think on your mental problem.

Finally, you work up an appetite that sitting at a computer just doesn't give you, and you can reward yourself with some nice noms that you feel you've earned and will give you the energy to return to code work.

Edit: I forgot to mention podcasts or audiobooks. If you want some external input for your mental stimulation you can do that at the same time!

</comment><comment><USER14> > _5\. You also would like to ship it ASAP too._

I suspect number 5 is a stress factor. I believe stress can cause fatigue and/or procrastination.

Try to accept the situation. Take your time and enjoy the task.

</comment><comment><USER15> I push myself when I don't want to do it. But also limit myself to the allocated time when motivation is aplenty. Especially the latter.

btw John Cleese is an amazing inspiration on how to be (consistently) creative [https://genius.com/John-cleese-lecture-on-creativity- annotat...](https://genius.com/John-cleese-lecture-on-creativity-annotated)

<comment><USER16> Wow, what a great and unexpected talk by John Cleese. Thanks for that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Discipline is doing the thing you should be doing, even when you don't _feel_ like doing it. It's also sometimes called perseverance. Discipline is a skill you can develop.

I've started two successful companies (one bootstrapped, one VC backed) and they both took an enormous amount of discipline and perseverance. I'm now on my third and it's pretty much the same, but many things are easier this time around.

So, what do I do when I don't feel like working anymore? I keep working. :-)

</comment><comment><USER18> _what you 're about to read is anecdotal, subjective, and comes from personal experience. Take what resonates with you._

Sometimes it is what it is, just accept it and do something else.

From my experience, the factors below highly impact this behavior:

1\. Is the project too big to chew on? 2\. Are your tasks very well defined and the finish line is clear? 3\. Is the expected outcome for fun or you're hoping to make it big when it's done? 4\. Is the project solving a problem you care about dearly or a general problem you're trying to solve to make a business out of it? 5\. The project is very motivating, everything is going well but you're unaware that you're working on a very uninteresting task that's part of the project and you're chewing on it slowly as a result.

When you sit on the chair and you feel it's kicking you off to get up instead of sucking you in then probably there's a conflict of interest between what _you_ think you should work on and what your brain is interested in working on.

Do consider the possibility that you're probably assigning yourself a boring project or a project that deep down you don't care about or it's too big and overwhelming.

As we gain more experience and pile up failures, it becomes more challenging to get on a project. From my experience, the best projects I worked on are ones that have no monetary value nor related to launching some sort of a business and I am working on them just because they have challenging and very interesting problems for my taste, or they solve a problem I face.

</comment><comment><USER19> Go run a quick 5K. Or 3K. Or brisk walk around the block. Get the blood pumping.

Make a to do list of the tasks you are attempting to achieve today. Do one thing only today. When it is all too overwhelming, break it down into tiny self-evident steps. Micromanage your brain.

Not too much coffee.

<comment><USER20> >> Not too much coffee

Or more coffee/caffeine if you have add/adhd. If you can drink a pot of coffee before bed and then go right to sleep, then caffeine might do the opposite to your brain chemistry and level you out. Talk to your doctor, as that you might need something more than caffeine to function. Think of your brain in the aspect of a cpu, where as some cpu's natural clock speed is a little slower than the average, some are faster and easily distracted. So you might need to adjust something to not burn out a days energy to fast, and feel like the poster does.

Running releases different chemical compounds that affect the brain, so does smoking, eating, drinking caffeine, etc... you could be deficient on vitamins and it could be diet.

Everyone is different, and it will take trial and error until you find a working balance. Which means talking to your doctor about how you are feeling and, also taking the time to self-reflect on how you are actually feeling every day to gauge what's working and what's not.

<comment><USER21> I have exactly this with coffee.

I would even say that it makes me sleepy sometimes, and certainly never interfere with sleep or sleep patterns.

The kind or volume of coffee did not matter (some coffees I like, style other not but the lack of impact is the same).

Interestingly my brother is the same with coffee

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Do something analog. Find something to do that is not with a computer until you get tired of that. Then build a balance chart, draw a circle, draw lines to quarter it, then lines between those. You should see a what looks like a wagon wheel. Each spoke is an aspect of your life. Label each spoke with the 8 important things in your life. This will show you the importance of keeping the spokes "8 things in balance. One spoke could be your job, another your side project, another your family, a hobby, social/friends, downtime, etc... the wheel represents you, giving to much time to a single spoke makes the wheel lopsided and it won't turn. So as you devote your time to things, imagine which of the 8 is suffering and not getting your time. Try to devote equal time to each.

This is the best way I have found to get things done, and not get burned out/ or saying things like "my give a damn is busted." It also gives you 7 other things to do when you feel like you do now. Then after you do one of the others see how you feel, go back to the one you didn't feel like doing or do one of the other things until you feel like it.

</comment><comment><USER9> What's the point of doing something you do for fun if you force yourself to do it? To me that is a contradiction and which is why I don't do side projects anymore since I started doing coding for full time.

</comment><comment><USER22> 1\. Set a Pomodoro timer (25 minutes).

2\. Tell myself "just work on the project/problem for just five more minutes."

3\. __* Work and allow no interruptions __*

4\. Pomodoro timer rings.

5\. "Wow. I didn't notice time passing."

Almost always, the satisfaction of surpassing the 5 minute goal is enough encouragement to continue for a good long while.

Personally, this works as well (if not better than) changing my work venue.

</comment><comment><USER23> Go for a long walk, until I'm so hu angry I could eat anything I pass that smells good. I stop and pick something out I want to eat and eat it. Then go lay outside in the shade and let my mind wander about how amazing and strange the universe is, and how thankful I am that I am experiencing life.

</comment><comment><USER24> From my personal experience programming (for my own pleasure) has three phases just like any other addiction.

1) Expectations phase where I love opening my laptop, touching the keyboard etc. and I have some sketchy ideas what to do.

2) Extatic phase - where I am working for 16-18 hours solving problems I didn't expected I would be able to solve and writing a code that I later keep re-reading just to appreciate it's dense beauty.

3) Diminishing returns phase where I am still trying to get some kicks from it but it isn't coming anymore.

If you are in a phase 3 then it is clearly a time to stop, get sleep, do yoga, meditate, go for a run or get on a bike. Don't look at a laptop for a few days.

</comment><comment><USER25> Time away from the keyboard makes you more effective at the keyboard.

Take a break, let your brain breathe. Do some other tasks, hobbies or chores and you'll find yourself thinking about code soon enough.

</comment><comment><USER26> It'd Saturday. I'll be doing stuff I enjoy, not working.

<comment><USER27> Some of us actually enjoy coding and love spending our free time on side projects. 'Work' is coding someone else's crap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Sleep. Just finshed a long week. Slept from 9pm until 8am. When work is done: sleep. Eat. Exercise. Chores. Then "fun", if there is enough time sunday night.

<comment><USER29> That sounds so very sad - there is far more to life than work.

<comment><USER30> His health will be improving, sufficient sleep 8hrs+ and excessive. Very good in my mind. Sounds like a solid monk mode approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Know why. To push myself i need to know why. Without it, i get distracted too easy. I've now returned back to the tried and tested way of writing down (in a personal wiki) my long term goals and how I plan to get there. And a personal notebook (updated every 1-2 days) shows me my near term tasks. I go thru the wiki frequently, cleaning up and rearranging things. This keeps my long term visions in check and gives me purpose and motivation to complete my tasks.

</comment><comment><USER32> I go and do something non-tech. Shoot some hoops with my kids, groceries shopping, chores. Anything but tech. I find that it gives my brain a rest.

</comment><comment><USER33> 45 yr old developer here, been at this for a long time...

While it can be tempting to just push through, that can be dangerous. Sometimes that "meh" feeling is a symptom of burnout. Did you have a long week? Lots of hours? Put out some fires? Decompressing now will be better than fully burning out in a few months with some shoddily coded side project to show for it.

That said, it's also possible that you need to "chop wood, carry water" as mentioned by another poster, but if you do that, take a moment to look at your side project from another level. Are you slogging because of some architectural debt, or because you're just poking at the problem to see what works? Personally, I get bogged down when I haven't thought through the problem at a higher level. Sometimes I'll just write a series of steps to get from where I am, to where I need to be, and identify the thing I am dreading doing.

TL;DR: Sometimes you need a break, sometimes you need to step back and take a 10k foot view of what's bugging you, and sometimes you just need to push through. It depends ;)

</comment><comment><USER34> Start with shipping from day one. Before any coding. If it's a web app create a new hello world project push it to a git repo. Get a cheap server from a hosting company deploy your hello world app to it. Point a real domain to it and install an ssl cert on it. Now you have an actual app running on the open web. From then on you can iterate by completing one endpoint/controller action at a time and immediately pushing that live and getting user feedback on it. Then on to the next one. One additional point is that you can get a generic domain name which will allow you to endlessly pivot your app without having to setup a new domain and hosting if you change your idea. This implies that you always have just one side project that will change over time and never work on multiple side projects.

</comment><comment><USER35> If you're asking on ways to combat the urge to stop, I'd create a Trello board, and split it into the smallest pieces possible. Even if you have to stop, perhaps you can work on a 10-minute piece. Typically, those small wins keep me going.

</comment><comment><USER36> If you feel like that constantly and it doesn't matter which side-project it is, you should consider that you may be going through a burnout. Only a long time away from the offending activities might restore your energy to do them again.

</comment><comment><USER37> I tell myself: "Holy crap, look at how much money you're being paid. Do you remember the labor jobs you used to have?"

Then I think about some nice things I'd like to buy. This is usually enough to get me going.

</comment><comment><USER38> No solution here but I have been struggling with this for a couple of weeks now (5ish) but just in general, not only for side projects.

Thus I am quite interested in this thread myself :)

</comment><comment><USER39> It's Saturday morning, I would do something I enjoy then see how I feel. No point feeling guilty about a side project get outdoors and enjoy life

</comment><comment><USER40> I think it's probably important to figure out WHY #4 happens. If this is something you're passionate about, or something that you need to pay the bills soon, I would think that your motivation or excitement level wouldn't wane so quickly.

After those couple hours, if you stop working on it, what do you do? Do you take a break and get back at it? Or do you follow through on waiting til tomorrow?

<comment><AUTHOR> I usually return to it an hour or two later.

<comment><USER40> I think that sounds like a pretty good "work" to "work break" ratio. 2 hours on, 2 hours off, and then maybe 2 on again? As long as you're feeling like you're flowing for the time that you're actually working, getting 2 solid hours of uninterrupted work in, followed by a couple more later in the day, is probably more productive than many devs!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> You need at least half day break from focused pursuits. After that channel energy into other focused pursuit

\- playing guitar, piano etc

\- studying math, EE, physics

\- learn foreign language

\- sports, yoga

</comment><comment><USER42> Keep working on open source to court attention, avoid becoming homeless. Keep working after becoming homeless and most friends have left. Now considering crimes to get shelter via jail... felony would help employment via protected status. Unsure if I'm joking, as those are our society's chosen incentivized paths.

</comment><comment><USER43> On a Saturday? Come on. Point 5 can wait till Monday (yes, it can). I'd go outside and enjoy the sun.

<comment><USER44> A side project is usually something you work on outside of business hours. So weekend work isn't something that can wait until Monday, because Monday is back to real work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I write code that generates music, controls external gear.

[https://lowveld.bandcamp.com](https://lowveld.bandcamp.com)

Once I accomplish something that sounds good to me, I put it on and go back to my side project ;)

</comment><comment><USER46> Use the pomodoro technique, it is ideal for this type so situation. It helps you get into the flow. Having a list of focused things you need to complete before you apply this technique is also a requirement.

</comment><comment><USER47> I never feel like working. Work sucks. It's summer. Go to the beach.

</comment><comment><USER48> Anyone have a good book/article for the exact topic?, What's on my mind is deepwork by cal newport

I'm working on my thesis but have a hard time to keep the motivation high

</comment><comment><USER49> I just stop and do it tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER50> I come here

<comment><USER51> Me too!

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Play guitar to backing tracks on youtube. Plan my next workout.

</comment><comment><USER50> Start yet another side project

</comment><comment><USER53> Do sports. Dig up the garden and get into raising your own vegetables. Gardening is the spice of life.

</comment><comment><USER54> Pat yourself on the back for working a couple of hours then go online and write comments about lazy homeless people looking for handouts.

<comment><USER55> Don't forget to upvote any thoughts and prayers threads. Slacktivism at its finest.

But seriously although I hate to delve too deeply into stereotypes the fact of the matter is many people like me on HN and elsewhere may be somewhat introverted by nature. And yet to answer the original poster's question I find volunteering or otherwise doing something to get me out of my shell invigorating when taken in small doses.

This is something I never would have discovered on my own: my wife's crowbaring me out of my comfort zone is the only reason I know.

But even volunteering aside there are many things you can do that (stereotype again, sorry) satisfy our predilection to learn new things and if not solve problems then learn how others solve problems. For instance two of my favorite things I've done were taking Citizen's Fire Academy and Citizen's Police Academy put on by the City of Houston. I don't want to be a firefighter or policeman. But getting to see the behind-the-scenes view into their world was fascinating. And when else will you get to go up in a ladder truck, ride in a police helicopter or put on bunker gear and watch as flames roar by a few inches over your head?

They actually present what they do in great amount of detail and are happy to take questions and even demonstrate their equipment and techniques. For a nerd like me it's damn entertaining.

It made me better appreciate what those people do for a living and and very thankful for the opportunities IT afforded me. It's a little more concrete for me that I'm very unlikely to be set on fire or shot while learning how to integrate CEPH and Kubenetes.

Tl;Dr: If you're bored or unmotivated with a side project do something completely different and outside your comfort zone to get perspective.

<comment><USER54> No objections to this! As a very introverted person myself and clearly not against posting comments on the Internet, my intentions here are merely to inspire consideration of challenges in overcoming prejudice.

I love the HN community but I doubt the HN community loves me back. I really struggle with the libertarian Darwinism so popular here. This thread concerns what it might call a weakness but I would call a necessary element in beauty.

It's like 'negative space' in motivation. If we were always inspired, we might not be any different than drones. To lack a sense of purpose or connection with a task is useful to society. It makes a space for connection. When we engage with new things, it can improve our society. _But_ it can also do the opposite; particularly when resources don't allow for new engagements. _Such is the case for homeless people!_

Humor is not always funny, and I know my kidding here is not entertaining. I just hope for a better world for my children and I believe in the people of HN to make that possible. I just fear them missing the opportunities to do so in the name of pride and self-justification.

This post gives me hope. And your comment as well, although I know it was meant as a lesson. And to be certain, it was that too.</comment></comment></comment>


It's the Umami – Why the Truth About MSG is So Easy to Swallow - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/food/2013/11/its-the-umami-stupid-why-the-truth-about-msg-is-so-easy-to-swallow/ <comment><USER2> This article is both accurate and highly misleading. The author is correct that there is very little reliable evidence that links glutamic acid and/or glutamate to health problems. The backlash against MSG as a result of the "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" craze, was not rooted in scientific inquiry.

However, MSG is not just a source for glutamate like seaweed and tomatoes are. MSG is the sodium salt of glutamic acid and contains not just glutamate but also sodium ions. Having 2000mg of natural glutamate should be harmless. Having enough MSG to give you 2000mg of glutamate means you're getting a shit ton of sodium. That's not good for you, especially if you're one of the many people for whom excess sodium intake adversely affects your blood pressure. So while MSG is presumably no worse than NaCl (and is perhaps better in that the umami flavor means you don't have to use as much sodium to get an equally rich taste), to say that MSG is totally harmless without even mentioning sodium and hypertension is ridiculous. Even in terms of short term effects, I've had plenty of MSG-free hot and sour soups that made my head itch. Not from MSG but from thousands of mg of sodium found in their gratuitously added soy sauce and table salt.

<comment><USER3> It's not the sodium, it's the glutamate (the "G" in MSG).

Glutamate is an excitotoxin, and it's an additive in almost all processed foods, in various forms with many different names ([http://www.truthinlabeling.org/hiddensources.html](http://www.truthinlabeling.org/hiddensources.html)).

Excitotoxicity is the "pathological process by which nerve cells are damaged and killed by excessive stimulation by neurotransmitters such as glutamate and similar substances" ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitotoxicity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excitotoxicity)).

As the article says, when glutamate is consumed naturally, it is intertwined with fiber and other chemicals that regulate its uptake; however, glutamate additives are not and thus flood your body with glutamate, which can overload your blood-brain barrier ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood%E2%80%93brain_barrier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood%E2%80%93brain_barrier)) and disrupt the delicate balance.

This is akin to Dr. Lustig's ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lustig](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lustig)) findings on sugar (fructose): Eating whole fruits is fine because you're consuming fiber with the fructose (nature provides the antidote), but fruit juice is all fructose and no fiber so your body is flooded with fructose, which is toxic ([http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html?_r=0)).

<comment><USER4> But nobody eats MSG by itself like fruit juice, won't mixing it to food that contains fiber and 'other chemicals' have the same effect?

<comment><USER3> No, because adding extra glutamate means the ratio of glutamate will be higher than the counterbalance.

<comment><USER4> That went over my head. What do you mean?

When making a risotto I might use 100g of parmesan cheese, which can amount to ~8g of MSG according to the internets, plus eat tomatoes on the side. That's the equivalent of 12g of Ajinomoto, I can't imagine adding that much to _any_ dish.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The MSG allergy is a myth, plain and simple. There have been plenty of scientific research studies done on the substance, and they found absolutely nothing. I don't know why this myth has persisted so long in popular culture. I compare it to people who rave about homeopathy. Any (perceived) effect is either anecdotal or placebo in nature.

What most people don't know, is that MSG occurs naturally in many foods. Beef, Chicken, Spinach, Tomatoes, etc... If you don't get an MSG allergy when you eat those foods, you don't have an MSG allergy. Source: [http://zidbits.com/2010/12/is-the-msg-allergy-a- myth/](http://zidbits.com/2010/12/is-the-msg-allergy-a-myth/)

<comment><USER6> Uh. I actually have an MSG sensitivity which took me forever to figure out what it was. For decades I'd occasionally be eating in a restaurant and my lips, tongue and/or back of my throat would go numb. It wasn't until I bought MSG and started putting it on pretty much everything in larger doses that I realized it was the culprit.

I can reproduce it pretty easily by simply putting nothing but MSG on my tongue. It takes a good bit to do it however and seems to cause me no other problems so I tend not to worry about it, but it is clearly some kind of sensitivity or allergy which is easily reproducible and not the slightest bit vague (lips going numb is a pretty easily identifiable sensation). Claiming it is all completely made up seems a bit premature.

<comment><USER4> It is said that the human body itself produces up to 50g of glutamate _every day_ ; an allergy to it should result in much more terrible effects than superficial numbness. Someone already posted a longer explanation: [http://www.metafilter.com/131105/Dorito- Powder#5147903](http://www.metafilter.com/131105/Dorito-Powder#5147903)

<comment><USER7> > produces up to 50g of glutamate every day

But not as free glutamic acid, and that makes a HUGE difference.

<comment><USER8> Really? Please observe the differences between [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:L-Glutamate_Structural_Fo...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:L-Glutamate_Structural_Formulae.png) and [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Glutamin...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Glutamins%C3%A4ure_- _Glutamic_acid.svg) . The only difference is the relocation of hydrogen ions, which is a normal and expected occurrence of all molecules in the presence of other molecules. The equilibrium of these different forms of the same molecule is mediated by pH, among other things. They are in fact the same molecule. The word "acid" only means that it likes to give up a hydrogen ion when given the opportunity.

<comment><USER7> You understood me in reverse.

In the body the glutamate (acid or not) is bound up with other things, i.e. not free.

I said acid because my understanding was the MSG disassociates from the sodium once ingested.

<comment><USER9> I read some glutamate metabolism papers last night and I don't think this is likely to be true at all. I think it's a manifestation of the naturalist fallacy: you believe the "free glutamic acid" released by the dissolution of MSG to be artificial and are trying to rationalize a distinction for the glutamates that the body produces that doesn't exist.

In reality, glutamic acid isn't simply an amino acid that happens to be present in the human body. It is fundamental to the way our bodies work; it's required for nitrogen metabolism! Glutamate toxicity seems very unlikely.

<comment><USER7> > ... naturalist fallacy: you believe ... distinction ...that doesn't exist.

I believe no such thing.

I don't know what you read, but in the body glutamic acid doesn't just float around randomly, it's carefully stored near the nerves that need it. Excess glutamic acid where it doesn't belong causes nerve problems.

It's like the difference between sucrose and starch. Chemically they are the same, but the effects are very different because one needs more digestion than the other.

<comment><USER9> Your body can't metabolize nitrogen without glutamic acid. It's part of how you, and I think maybe all the rest of your siblings in phylum chordata, build proteins. I don't see a lot of reason to believe that it causes "nerve problems" in the human body, but would welcome a citation to the literature that shows that.

It gets worse for your argument. Here's a paper that demonstrates that very large oral doses of MSG in both mice and humans don't even significantly raise the plasma concentration of glutamates.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136011/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3136011/)

This should probably be unsurprising. Your body is designed to deal with consumption of glutamates; in fact, even though it's so vital to your system that you produce it yourself, humans get most of their glutamic acid from dietary sources. Hypersensitivity to dietary glutamate would be maladaptive.

The idea that your body has carefully delineated locations where it's safe to have glutamic acid (probably not coincidentally in the nervous system, the most complex part of the body), and that ingesting "artificial" sources of glutamic acid throws that out of whack, is again I think a manifestation of the naturalistic fallacy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There was a long thread at metafilter about MSG fairly recently, and I found this comment from a biochemist to be a really good, straightforward primer on what exactly MSG is and how it is metabolized:

[http://www.metafilter.com/131105/Dorito- Powder#5147903](http://www.metafilter.com/131105/Dorito-Powder#5147903)

</comment><comment><USER11> Sorry if I'm being insensitive, but how is Chinese Restaurant Syndrome "absurdly racist"? If people were having health problems as a consequence of eating corned beef, I would, as a Jew, have no problem with that condition being called "Jewish Deli Syndrome".

<comment><USER12> A better analogy would be to say losing all your money due to corrupt and greedy bankers is "Jewish Banker Syndrome". Still not offensive?

<comment><USER13> A marvellous false analogy.

<comment><USER12> Really?

Evil bankers exist of lots of ethnicities and faiths but lots of people do (often but not always subconsciously) link greedy bankers and jewish people.

Just like using unhealthy or even dangerous additives is often linked to Chinese cuisine even though they're used just as much in tons of other cuisines as well.

Equating an existent stereotype with one which doesn't actually exist and saying "it's not that bad, I wouldn't be offended by that" is the false analogy. Because then it doesn't have the personal impact a prejudice or misconception you've actually been exposed to has.

A white person might say that if someone joked "all white people are lazy", they wouldn't be offended so a black or latino person shouldn't either. A black person is much more likely to be offended by "all black people are lazy" because that's something that's actually rooted in societal prejudices. Change it to "all white people are racist" and suddenly by their defensive tone, you'll note that you've hit a nerve and they're actually uncomfortable and/or offended.

<comment><USER11> I didn't originally see the connection between MSG and Chinese food as coming from a place of racism, but you might be right. I'm still not so sure though. If somebody said to you "I got food poisoning from a Chinese restaurant last night", would you say "That's racist! An Italian restaurant could have just as easily given you food poisoning."?

It's pointless to try to tell people what is and isn't offensive. Normally, I err on the side of thinking that if somebody is offended, they must have reason to be and I should be sensitive to that, but in this case I had no idea what racism the author was referring to.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps the stereotype of Chinese restaurants specifically being untrustworthy/unhealthy/unhygienic (i.e. Chinese chefs don't care about their customers / they're not up to our western standards) isn't universal, but it definitely exists in some parts of the world. MSG is an example of that, another one is the myth that you might just be eating cat or dog being advertised as something different (also often applied to Korean food in a similarly racist way).

Not saying it's high on the prioritised list of racist tropes we need to be fighting, but yeah, it's there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It isn't the MSG that will kill you. MSG, sugar and salt are all naturally occurring in health food and the key is moderation and balance.

The problem is we have turned something which is harmless in moderation into a massive food business build on a model of addiction.

The thing that will make you unhealthy is highly processed food devoid of nutrition that is made entirely of starch, vegetable oil, sugar, salt and MSG that has replaced a healthy diet.

If you eat fresh fruit, vegetables and a moderate amount of meat, cooked healthfully and sprinkle a bit of seasoning on it for flavour you will likely be no worse off than consuming the healthy stuff without seasoning. Though if you use good ingredients you probably don't need the extra refined product. There are plenty of natural ingredients rich in glutamate.

</comment><comment><USER15> This reminds me about people who are fanatical about avoiding nitrates in Bacon, not realizing that the "natural" celery salt added to Bacon means that actually the expensive bacon sold in Whole Foods actually has more nitrates than conventional bacon. It's just "natural" nitrate, so it must be ok.....

</comment><comment><USER16> I use MSG in cooking and it's a great way to lower salt while dramatically increasing flavor. It doesn't make bad food magically good, but it makes good food great. Especially good in soups and stews. I bought a bulk container in the ethnic food aisle of a grocery and it has lasted a couple of years and is now just about gone. It's amazing how much a little pinch goes.

Amazon has a 1LB bag available for $6.50 and is Prime eligible: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001OCP02Q/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001OCP02Q/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001OCP02Q&linkCode=as2&tag=prsboos)

<comment><USER7> > I use MSG in cooking and it's a great way to lower salt

It might lower salt a bit, but it's hardly a great way, the S stands for sodium, which is exactly what you want to avoid. Perhaps the trade off is worth it if you can use less, but you need to calculate it carefully.

<comment><USER17> MSG has something like a third of the sodium content of an equivalent volume of salt.

<comment><USER7> Is volume the right way to measure this? To provide equivalent flavor you use equal volume of salt or MSG?

<comment><USER17> In my experience, you use a lot less MSG. I'll use a relatively large quantity of kosher salt where a little pinch of MSG is sufficient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> One pet peeve of mine is foods that advertise to be MSG-free and then contain yeast extract as an ingredient.

Yeast extract contains MSG, but it also leaves an unpleasant aftertaste in the mouth for hours.

</comment><comment><USER19> If you think MSG is fine, try eating a tablespoon of it with nothing else.

Then another time try eating a bunch of mushrooms or similar by themselves with a similar quantity.

Likely not the same feeling. Digestion and absorption of food changes with how you consume it. Eating a sweet potato or a bunch of sugar doesn't hit the bloodstream the same way.

In my teens and twenties I found I got migraine headaches after eating certain foods; with a little experimentation I found foods (all kinds, not just Chinese) containing added MSG gave me a headache within 2-4 hours. Eliminating those foods eliminated the headaches. Later in life I found I was less effected though with sufficient quantities I could still get one. It was pretty clear the only food that affected me this way had MSG in it. Most people seem not to be affected.

Personally I don't mind if people add it to foods as long as it's labeled honestly so I can choose to avoid it. No different than with peanut allergies or sodium content or trans-fats. Adding yeast extract or hydrolyzed vegetable protein (proteins broken down into amino salts including the glutamate) to foods to avoid mentioning you did it for the MSG is the only thing that bugs me. It's like saying a food is low-salt because you added Natural Ocean Water instead of salt.

<comment><USER20> > _If you think MSG is fine, try eating a tablespoon of it with nothing else._

If you think salt is fine, try eating 10 tablespoons of it with nothing else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> In New Zealand we were always taught that MSG was bad, until they did an actual study on it and decided that 0.01% of the population has an allergic reaction to MSG that causes Migraines, Vomiting, etc.

Ever since, no one in NZ gives a shit about MSG now. Seems Australia is still really anal about it.

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

"Australia and New Zealand[edit] Food Standards Australia New Zealand[29] (FSANZ) cites "overwhelming evidence from a large number of scientific studies" to explicitly deny any link between MSG and "serious adverse reactions" or "long-lasting effects", declaring MSG "safe for the general population". It does, however, describe that in less than 1% of the population, sensitive individuals may experience "transient" side effects such as "headache, numbness/tingling, flushing, muscle tightness, and generalised weakness" to a large amount of MSG taken in a single meal. People who consider themselves sensitive to MSG are encouraged to confirm this through an appropriate clinical assessment. Standard 1.2.4 of the Australia and New Zealand Food Standards Code requires the presence of MSG as a food additive to be labeled in packaged foods. The label must bear the food additive class name (e.g., flavour enhancer), followed by either the name of the food additive, MSG or its International Numbering System (INS) number, 621.[30]"

In NZ - no one cares

In Aus - everyones like "ZOMG MSG, BAD FOR YOU" and try to avoid it.

Food in NZ is way better than Australia. (Australians don't know how to cook steak)

<comment><USER22> Be careful about making your generalisations too broad. I live in New Zealand, and would have said that everyone in New Zealand thinks that MSG is ZOMG BAD FOR YOU. I suspect that each of us can only speak for our own social group.

That said, that you for your information about MSG. I wasn't aware that FSANZ had declared it to be effectively harmless.

<comment><USER21> I'm only basing it on experience, in my late teens no one seemed to care for MSG anymore, I remember people joking about it saying stuff like "who cares if it does turn out to be bad, it makes food taste SOOO much better"

I moved to Australia to live for 5 years and I remember being at work in Sydney and people saying "Oh I'm not eating that, its probably full of MSG" and I would say its not bad for you and they are like "well every study disagrees with you..." and if you mention FSANZ declaring it harmless they are like "oh whats that?".

I live in Singapore now, no doubt everything has MSG, but ZOMG I LOVE FOOD HERE! :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've heard that the sickness associated with MSG is more likely due to ingesting old rice.

If you want to get glutamates in your food, when cooking with meat proteins, add mushrooms, seaweed, or even a single prawn or anchovy.

<comment><USER24> > I've heard that the sickness associated with MSG is more likely due to > ingesting old rice.

Yes, I remember there being a British, I think, study in 2011 or 2012 that bought samples of cooked rice from various oriental food sellers and found that some were contaminated (moist warm food left out for hours); the reasoning is that when people report sickness or allergy to the MSG that oriental food in the West is notoriously prepared with, they're actually having issues with the rice.

<comment><USER25> Huh, is this bad? I typically cook enough rice in a rice cooker for two days and leave it out and haven't had any adverse symptoms...

<comment><USER26> It's considered a dangerous practice. The general rule is food has four hours outside of its proper storage environment before it must be thrown away. Eg, leave the milk on the counter for an hour, put it back in the fridge, leave it out another three hours, and now you should throw it out. I don't have a link, but I'm citing ServSafe, a program that nationally certifies people for food safety (targeted to federal and state requirements for food service).

You might also consider the ambient temp of your kitchen. Pro kitchens run several hours a day, staying fairly warm the whole time (might have several ovens, tens of burners, and other hot equipment running throughout the day). Your kitchen, even with the rice cooker going, might stay fairly cool, and so bad bacteria has less time to grow.

Food safety is also talked about in terms of risk to different groups. Young children, pregnant mothers, and old adults are at higher risk than younger adults.

<comment><USER27> Two hours between 39F-140F is the official limit. This may be a bit conservative depending on one's consitution, gut flora, etc. (I've gone almost 20 years without losing my lunch, eating at hundreds of restaurants from spotless to quite dodgy over that period, so who knows...)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_zone_(food_safety)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_zone_\(food_safety\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Also, your body is actually better at processing MSG than salt, so supplementing your food with MSG can allow you to get good flavor with a considerable salt reduction.

<comment><USER29> > your body is actually better at processing MSG than salt

A citation or source would be much appreciated.

<comment><USER28> Sorry about that, from the wikipedia page on MSG:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate#Safety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate#Safety)

The oral lethal dose to 50% of subjects (LD50) is between 15 to 18 g/kg body weight in rats and mice respectively, five times greater than the LD50 of salt (3 g/kg in rats).

Which references:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10736380](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10736380)

<comment><USER29> You neglected to mention the very next line after the one you quote:

 _> > Therefore, the intake of MSG as a food additive and the natural level of glutamic acid in foods do not represent a toxicological concern in humans._

<comment><USER28> I didn't think it was relevant, as my assertion was just that it was easier on your body than salt, but thanks for pulling that out if you think it will help.

<comment><USER30> Differences in LD50 does not directly imply that one is easier on your body to absorb than the other... It says that one will kill you faster, by eating absurdly large amounts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > _Would you use these crystals in your kitchen if they were called "super > delicious umami crystals?"_

I use those crystals in my kitchen and they are labelled "monosodium glutamate" (Ajinomoto). A pound of that easily lasts me 2 years. You only need a dash here and there (and only if it isn't umami on its own).

I also eat/use Parmesan, Dashi, tomatoes, and so forth.

</comment><comment><USER31> My qualm with MSG doesn't involve its health effects, but the fact that MSG makes telling the difference between good food and crap far more difficult.

If you'd like to see a demonstration of what I mean, boil a pound of dried beans, and add some MSG. I find you'll eat the otherwise unflavored, bland beans with the same mechanical compulsion as a bag of potato chips. In that way MSG spoils the sport of preparing delicious food.

That should also raise the issue of portion control and satiety in your mind. If you're reading this, I assume you're more concerned with maintaining a steady weight than tricking your body into desiring greater quantities of food. MSG'll thwart you there, and unfortunately it's usually used on foods that are already pure starch and fat rather than nutritious fare.

<comment><USER32> That could also be a good thing though. Eating all of those beans vs eating fatty salty potato chips.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Different rates of uptake. That's the difference. That's why eating a box of cherry tomatoes and a bowl of ramen have drastically different effects on your sense of well-being.

At the very least, people should be made aware whether it's in certain foods. Then they can choose what's best for them.

Personally, MSG bedrocks me. I have to take a sick day off work in some cases after eating an MSG-laden meal. I've developed the skill to taste it now, after a brief tour through Asia. So I guess I can manage.

The surest bet is just to eat natural. What have humans been eating for the past 2,3, 10 million years? Please, give me a plentiful variation of all that.

But this practice of deeming artificial foods "safe" for consumption after a few year's testing reeks of greedy arrogance.

<comment><USER9> That notion has been studied and refuted. Give a mouse, or a person, a high oral dose of MSG, and their plasma levels of glutamate are not significantly changed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I still think "umami" looks out of place next to the other basic taste words. All the others come in adjective/noun pairs: sweet/sweetness, salty/saltiness, etc. Where's the adjective for "umami"? "Umami" again? "Umami-tasting"? It doesn't work well (and importing the Japanese adjective "umai" would make things worse, not better).

Instead, I highly prefer the adjective sapid with its corresponding noun sapidity. Sweet, sour, salty, bitter, sapid. Sweetness, sourness, saltiness, bitterness, sapidity. Much better.

<comment><USER35> probably because it's a japanese word and the rest are english?

<comment><USER36> It seems strange that there wouldn't be an English word to describe what MSG tastes like.

In general, I think MSG simply tastes salty, even though I understand and agree that it doesn't precisely taste like a salt.

MSG doesn't have a flavor unfamiliar to western cuisine. Chicken soup has flavors that fall within the realm of MSG (even without the MSG found in canned soups). Gravies too.

<comment><USER35> "savory" i think is the english term normally used

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> You know what? This generalization of what is good and bad for you - is just a generalization to find a common food product which is easily mass producible and consumable by the entire planetary populace. However, just as shirts are tailored, I believe we may be entering an age of tailored foods for 7 billion + individuals. MSG can depend on who you are, how old, what else do you eat, are you on a plane. We will get there. Quick! Somebody make an app and Hadoop it.

</comment><comment><USER38> I really do not like these articles that say "science says not to worry, you must be a very stupid and uneducated person to be worried about this." Any honest scientist will tell you that science does not know exactly how the human body processes food and there is no model which will exactly predict the effects of the human body ingesting a certain food.

Saying that the experimental results are mixed does not make me feel better. Experimenting with humans is very difficult, and certain types of experiments are downright impossible. Thus, effects of foods that do are not immediate and drastic are very hard to determine in human experiments.

Think about a food that we now know is very dangerous: trans fats. Humans had been eating trans fats for about 80 years when they were definitely found to cause heart attacks. Only then there was enough data to make a definite connection. And while there were some scientific articles that suggested a connection in the 60's someone could always say "there is no definite proof." Many people died of heart attacks before the statistics became such that a connection was obvious.

Then there is the tendency of people to wrongly assume that compounds that are kind of similar will have the identical effect on the body. Thus, for a long time carbohydrates were all bunched together because they were very similar molecules. People would often say that carbohydrates cannot be bad for you because humans have been eating rice and wheat for centuries without negative effects. But it turned out that fructose is a little different than other carbohydrates and it can be bad for you.

And then there is the fact that the same thing can be benign or very dangerous depending on what form it is in. Thus, fructose is absolutely benign when eaten as part of a fruit or vegetable, but quite harmful when eaten in a refined sugar or high fructose corn syrup form.

So I am very very suspicious of any food additives. The only rational decision for a human being is to eat the type of foods humans have eaten for tens of thousands of years before and for which our bodies have evolved. Maybe MSG is benign. Or maybe it is actually bad for you. I would prefer not to become one of those statistics that allows scientists to prove many years from now that MSG is indeed bad for you.

MSG is especially worrying because there are some studies that show negative effects of MSG and the fact that other studies show no effects does not quite negate these. Furthermore, I myself feel negative effects when eating certain foods that I suspect of containing MSG.

<comment><USER5> " _MSG is especially worrying because there are some studies that show negative effects of MSG_ "

Have you read the actual studies? There are no "mixed" studies, they're all conclusive. One of the biggest studies done was a decade long and found absolutely _nothing_.

Sources:

[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2222.2009....](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2222.2009.03221.x/abstract)

[http://www.livestrong.com/article/408512-neurological- effect...](http://www.livestrong.com/article/408512-neurological-effect-of- monosodium-glutamate/)

[http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-52156839.html](http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-52156839.html)

<comment><USER38> Did you read the article this discussion is attached to? It said in part:

"Initially, researchers had success proving both the short-term and long-term dangers of MSG: mice injected with the additive showed signs of brain lesions, and humans fed 3 grams of MSG per 200 ml of soup presented symptoms congruent with "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome." "

If you believe the original article is wrong, then you should perhaps make a comment in the main thread explaining why it is wrong instead of contradicting me. I merely assumed what the article said about the studies was more or less correct.

<comment><USER39> It's like your eyes refused to show your brain the words that you didn't want to read.

"Subsequent studies, however, provided mixed results: some confirmed findings of brain lesions in animals or symptoms in humans, but other studies were unable to replicate the results. Double-blind studies often showed little correlation between MSG and adverse symptoms. Parties on both sides of the debate slung accusations at the other, with the anti-MSG researchers claiming that studies were being funded by MSG producers, and pro-MSG researchers accusing the other side of fear-mongering.

From the FDA to the United Nations to various governments (Australia, Britain and Japan) the public bodies that have investigated MSG have deemed it a safe food additive. The FDA states on their website:

FDA considers the addition of MSG to foods to be "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS). Although many people identify themselves as sensitive to MSG, in studies with such individuals given MSG or a placebo, scientists have not been able to consistently trigger reactions.

Scientific interest in its deleterious effects seems to be waning: one of the last studies to gain public attention was published in 2011. The authors of that study claimed to have found a link between MSG and obesity, though those results have been questioned. While the general scientific consensus seems to be that only in large doses and on an empty stomach can MSG temporarily affect a small subset of the population, MSG's reputation is still maligned in the public eye."

That last sentence is important.

<comment><USER38> I very clearly mentioned in my original comment that there are other studies that show no effects. My point was and still is that if there are some studies that show negative effects and some studies that show no negative effects, the latter do not (for me at least) cancel out the former. It is entirely possible that there are negative effects that are not picked up by some studies. The fact that the FDA believes that MSG is "generally recognized as safe" does not guarantee it is safe. To use my previous example, the FDA also used to believe that trans fats were safe.

So all my comments have been logically consistent with each other and my actual honest opinion. Thus they are quite undeserving of your half thought out response.

<comment><USER40> Your attempt at a rationalization is logically flawed to the point of embarrassment.

<comment><USER38> If you think there is a logical flaw in my argument say what it is. If you do not feel like saying what it is, then do not post. You must be very proud of yourself for composing a sentence with several big words in it, but it means absolutely nothing.

<comment><USER40> The logical flaw is that you assume that all studies are worthy of consideration, and the hidden inference that equal weight should be given to a study regardless of its methodology or rigor.

Good information generally cancels out bad information. I have no particular opinion about the veracity of any MSG claim, but there have been _so many bad_ dietary studies published. I would urge a skeptical default position on any result, and only moderate skepticism based on evidence of sample size, methodology and rigor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> A great way to get some Umami in your cooking is Vietnamese fermented fish sauce

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm not familiar with chemistry but I am pretty sure that MSG (glutamic acid bonded with sodium) can have different properties (or be handled differently by the body) than glutamate...the amino acid.

</comment><comment><USER43> See this great talk by Chef David Chang on MSG & Umami. [http://www.madfood.co/david-chang-3/](http://www.madfood.co/david-chang-3/)

</comment><comment><USER44> isn't it interesting that msg "syndrome" is associated with chinese food, rather than japanese, even though japanese food is also loaded down with it?

hmm.

<comment><USER17> I'd venture a guess that Chinese takeout restaurants are probably more common (or have been for longer) than Japanese places.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I'm just going to leave this here...

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t73urU2Degw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t73urU2Degw)

 _MSG 'd!!! Ow, my stomach lining!!_</comment>


The Mid Life Entrepreneur Crisis - <AUTHOR> http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2007/05/the_mid_life_en.html <comment><USER2> I have a feeling that age doesn't matter, but lifestyle (due to commitments) is incredibly important.

the case where you not only have zero leisure time but indeed work so hard that you endanger your health.

<http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html>

If you can't work that hard due to commitments then you are going to have a hard time of it.

</comment><comment><USER3> I guess if you don't have a family to support and don't plan on having one, you too can be an entrepreneur, no matter your age.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd like to take this moment to thank my patient wife and her job at Oracle...

</comment><comment><USER5> Hey, look! I'm not too old (at 34)! :)

<comment><USER6> Randall, we're not too old, although hanging around here may give you that impression. YC focuses on younger founders because they're undervalued, not necessarily more plentiful or successful in absolute terms.</comment></comment>


Unilever is latest brand to boycott Facebook - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/2020/06/26/883941796/unilever-maker-of-dove-soap-is-latest-brand-to-boycott-facebook?t=1593203268423 <comment><USER2> What's interesting here is that these big brands see Facebook advertising as non-essential to their business. I suspect a large part of Facebook's market cap may rest on the assumption that it's an essential advertising outlet. If so, the knock-on effect of this would be much larger than just the loss of revenue, hence Zuckerberg rushing out a response.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure if it necessarily means Facebook is non-essential. This actually makes me think social media has entered a deep stage of maturity. Anyone else here remember how advertisers were primary regulators of content on TV? That unusually offensive content was avoided out of fear that companies would pull their commercials? I think we see the Facebook has now entered this stage.

<comment><USER4> It's an interesting perspective, yet a TV a ban on 1 show or network was pretty limited for the advertiser since there was proper regulation on media at the time. I.e. dropping the most popular news program still left you with ~50% reach in the same category on the other 2 networks.

An advertiser dropping a major tech company today is refusing to be seen in all social contexts of one type, or all searches, etc.

If advertisers go ahead with this on a permanent basis it is a very interesting message, and I think we don't know so much about this since our past regulations were really based on outcomes with individuals and small companies as the victims of bad markets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's interesting that no advertisers had even a hint of concern when informed about the massive privacy invasions, many of them highly illegal, that Facebook performed for a profit.

<comment><USER6> This is because not enough people were actually upset about that... there are enough people upset about the latest rounds of scandals that advertisers are deciding it is worth pulling advertising.

That, or they are realizing they aren't getting a good ROI on facebook ads and figure now is a good time to pull out.

<comment><USER7> I think the latter reason is correct. If it were an important generator of business they would never leave. Its clearly not as valuable to them as maybe Facebook thinks it is.

<comment><USER8> A significant portion of advertising is about building brand identities and associations in consumers' minds, not about driving direct sales.

This is why some companies worry so much about their ads appearing next to objectionable content. They're not trying to get you to go buy something: they're trying to get you to associate their brand with a certain lifestyle and identity.

If the context changes so those associations become negative, the value of that advertising can swing rapidly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Fox News has been the target of an ad boycott every year or two for the past decade. They did not lead to any meaningful change.

Every time they get rid of the most egregious hosts and replace them with new ones. The new ones start out moderate, then inevitably drift to extremism. The advertisers have plausible deniability for half of their employees and customers. The other half don't care or are cheering Fox.

Mutual fund companies do something similar with underperforming funds. They cull the worst performers and the remainder make the whole fund family look good due to the magic of survivorship bias.

Facebook is obviously drastically different than Fox. That said, they are a large company and organizational inertia is very hard to overcome. Right now FB is optimized to promote quantity of engagement without regard to quality. Turning down the heat and promoting civility would result in fewer posts, which would mean fewer ad impressions. That's not happening.

<comment><USER10> Fox News doesn't change because apparently they don't get most of their money from advertisement, but rather from cable bundling

[https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/31/1933075/-If-you- hav...](https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2020/3/31/1933075/-If-you-have-cable- you-are-subsidizing-Fox-News-It-might-be-time-to-cut-the-cord-Here-s-how)

<comment><USER11> I'd imagine individual shows are still more wholly tied to ad dollars. Doesn't defeat your point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The cynic in me thinks this could be a great way to cut costs in preparation of the Greater Depression while hiding behind a worthy PR cause.

<comment><USER13> Unilever has made a statement saying they are shifting the money to other advertising companies but are not planning on cutting back on ads.

<comment><USER14> Did they mention who exactly?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Don't forget that loudly leaving and quietly returning is the nature of many supposed changes in the world.

<comment><USER16> This reminds me of congressional hearings where $tech_exec_du_jour gets grilled publicly, and begged for funds privately.

It also reminds me of a remark from Henry Paulson about a conversation with Barack Obama during the latter's campaign, which took place in the midst of the financial crisis. Paulson recalls ([https://youtu.be/QozGSS7QY_U?t=2166](https://youtu.be/QozGSS7QY_U?t=2166)):

""" _He very nicely warned me: 'You better take care of the Republican candidate because if I start hearing populist anti-bailout rhetoric from him, I'm going to have to start talking that way'._ """

The fact I registered that nonchalant remark probably is telling of why I wasn't drawn to operate in politics where shape shifting is sine qua non.

Speaking of Facebook, you could see Joel Kaplan, Facebook's VP of Global Policy, also known as the guy sitting behind Zuckerberg in practically every hearing, in some shots.

EDIT: confusing quote edited as per [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23658571](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23658571).

<comment><USER17> Your quoting is unparseable without watching the video...

Paulson said about Obama: "He very nicely warned me, 'You better take care of the Republican candidate, because if I start hearing populist anti-bailout rhetoric from him, I'm going to have to start talking that way.'."

I.e. Paulson claims Obama said the sentence starting with "You better...".

And just reading this sentence makes me wonder what the context of why Obama said this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> >Facebook brought in nearly $70 billion in advertising revenue last year.

What % of that was from companies that are now boycotting, including Unilever?

I have to imagine a company like Unilever was spending no small sum on Facebook ads.

<comment><USER19> [https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/26/unilever-pauses-facebook- and...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/26/unilever-pauses-facebook-and-twitter- advertising-for-rest-of-2020-due-to-polarized-atmosphere-in-us.html)

This article has some more details about some large companies spending habits on FB ads, including this quote:

> The consumer products giant has spent more than $11.8 million in the U.S. > this year on Facebook, according to marketing analytics firm Pathmatics.

<comment><USER20> Interesting chart in this article: [https://fm- static.cnbc.com/awsmedia/chart/2020/06/26/Top10Ad...](https://fm- static.cnbc.com/awsmedia/chart/2020/06/26/Top10Advertisers_Facebook.1593190628109.png)

<comment><USER21> I'm shocked a mattress company that I've never even heard of spends that much on facebook ads.

<comment><USER22> I too am surprised.

This mattress company [1] was founded in 2015 and acquired for $1.1 billion in 2017. That's an exit comparable to Instagram in speed and scale.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_(company)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_\(company\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > Unilever, the maker of Dove soap and Hellmann's mayonnaise, will stop > advertising on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in the U.S. through the end > of the year. The company cited a need to end divisiveness and hate speech > during a polarized election season.

Why was Twitter included in this?

<comment><USER24> Probably because Unilever thinks Twitter is a source of divisiveness and hate speech.

<comment><USER25> Probably because the recession side effects are real, and advertisements are costly.

<comment><USER26> I would bet that marketing departments for companies like Unilever have a hard time showing ROI on Facebook advertising. Why not get some marketing attention for cutting your spend?

<comment><USER27> I don't think I've ever seen a Facebook ad that wasn't trying to get me to do something, to go to some page or to click through to a store full of tracking garbage and buy something. Surely for all of those you can very easily measure RoI?

I'd understand this argument for something like YouTube where most ads seem to be TV style and not trying to get me to click away to buy something immediately, but Facebook ads seem to always want me to go do something they can trivially track.

<comment><USER28> Advertising isn't necessarily about buying something right now. There is some focus on building familiarity so the next time someone buys something they buy [brand X].

The ROI of that effect is typically real, noticeable and impossible to directly attribute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Official statement: [https://www.unileverusa.com/news/news-and- features/2020/driv...](https://www.unileverusa.com/news/news-and- features/2020/driving-a-responsible-digital-ecosystem-during-these-polarized- times.html)

> Given our Responsibility Framework and the polarized atmosphere in the U.S., > we have decided that starting now through at least the end of the year, we > will not run brand advertising in social media newsfeed platforms Facebook, > Instagram and Twitter in the U.S.

> We will maintain our total planned media investment in the U.S. by shifting > to other media.

<comment><USER30> > the polarized atmosphere in the U.S

That's smooth.

Almost as good as MS saying they're removing update settings to 'prevent confusion.'

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is huge because Unilever is a conglomerate of B2C brands. Online presence is a big budget item for them.

<comment><USER9> Does Unilever really need to run ads on Facebook? They sell soap and ice cream[1]. That budget would be better spent on product placement with influencers on some type of image/video centric site like Instagram, Snap, TikTok, etc.

Edit: Apparently they are pulling out of Instagram as well. Maybe that didn't meet their ROI expectations?

[1] [https://www.unileverusa.com/brands/](https://www.unileverusa.com/brands/)

<comment><USER32> It's a good play. See pictures of your ex-boyfriend with his new girlfriend and feeling a little blue? What's better than a nice hot shower and a pint of Ben & Jerry's?

That coupled with brand recognition and I'm surprised companies don't spend more than they do.

<comment><USER9> Haha, I was thinking about paying users with >100k followers, not the platform, to mention the soap tangentially or have the ice cream in-frame in a picture supposedly about relaxing.

I'm surprised the platforms haven't rolled out scalable middleman services for this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> In 2011 I worked at a startup in the online marketing / advertising space.

It was a surreal, over-crowded, confusing, fact-light, peer-pressure driven, mystical, big promises, metrics-resistant, yet bewilderingly optimistic market place.

In the past decade it's gotten much, much worse.

Compare the field in 2011 [1] to now [2].

Then consider that there are people to whom all of this makes sense.

[1] [https://chiefmartec.com/post_images/marketing_technology_lan...](https://chiefmartec.com/post_images/marketing_technology_landscape.jpg)

[2] [https://cdn.chiefmartec.com/wp- content/uploads/2020/04/marte...](https://cdn.chiefmartec.com/wp- content/uploads/2020/04/martech-landscape-2020-martech5000-slide.jpg)

<comment><USER34> The image resolution on (2) is too low to clearly see everything, but it also looks like they're including more & more (sub-?)industries over the year.

E.g., SEO wasn't included in 2011 but is in 2020.

<comment><USER33> It's clear that there _were_ increasing numbers of sub-industries, and players in those sub-industries, over time.

SEO in 2011 certainly wasn't nascent, but it was a bit of a black art, and not an especially large sector.

I don't think there were (m)any that were offering exclusively SEO products -- from memory it was more of a bundled / add-on offering for other services.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Unilever's marketing team rightly recognizes this as a moment when temporarily boycotting running facebook ads gains them more attention and good will for free than their ads that were previously running on facebook did for pay.

</comment><comment><USER36> > saying it profits off bigotry, racism and violence.

People in glass houses...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huileries_du_Congo_Belge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huileries_du_Congo_Belge)

<comment><USER6> If no institution that ever participated in bigotry, racism, and/or violence is allowed to take a stand against those things now, there will be no organizations left.

If the United States tries to pass laws against those things, are you going to point out that the US had slavery 160 years ago? BMW made equipment for the Nazis.

<comment><USER37> Unilever the company that kept killing people by adding hydrogenated vegetable fat to most of its products long after the disastrous effects of trans fats on heart health were well known.

Unilever the company that when it finally removed the hydrogenated vegetable oil decided to replace it with Palm Oil. Which, given the amount it uses (the world's largest consumer) has massively contributed to the destruction of the planet's remaining tropical rainforest.

Then we've got enormous amount of plastic pollution ...

So, is Unilever really attempting to occupy the moral high ground? Or is it just an attempt to sell more of it planet destroying sh*t to a particular demographic?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Hmm, welcome from Unilever, the brand that promoted the "fair and lovely" creams in India and created a whole well-marketed industry of fair skin being better. In which itself promoted hatred of darker skinned people.

</comment><comment><USER39> Note that some brands under Unilever (like Ben & Jerry's) had already stopped their Facebook ad spend. Unilever is also only pausing advertising on these platforms in the US.

</comment><comment><USER40> This all has reminded me of the laws preventing big tobacco from running television ads.

I might be getting my details crossed but remember reading all the major cigarette brands ended up seeing this as a long term win because of how much money it'd save them to not have to advertise through an expensive channel, knowing their competitors couldn't either.

I'd imagine if enough major consumer brands all sort of agreed not to compete on Facebook ads, it might end up helping them all in the long run.

Of course prisoners dilemma and all...

</comment><comment><USER41> Just look at FB's stock over the last week. Wew lads, this is actually pretty big. From ~245 to 215 at market close today.

<comment><USER42> That's got more to do with the resurgence of Coronavirus cases than anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This helps me out in arguments about whether a corporate priesthood is just throwing its weight around and hiding behind moralizations to do it. Thanks, Unilever!

</comment><comment><USER44> Good. Facebook is just an echo chamber for hate speech and mis-information. Looking at you high school friends.

<comment><USER45> You think your other sources of information are better? You're sure that Hacker News isn't an echo chamber?

<comment><USER46> HN is an echo chamber on certain topics, but not on hate/racism or easily gamed to push a mis-information agenda

HN loves:

\- LSD microdosing

\- intermittent fasting

\- Tesla

\- Mastodon

\- contrarian views to whatever the top comment is

HN despises:

\- Blockchain

<comment><USER47> HN also has views on privacy that are not shared by most of the non-techie population. Most people like privacy, to be clear, but would not be willing to sacrifice as much for it as many here.

I have always found it odd that an interest in privacy would coincide with an interest in tech.

<comment><USER22> > _I have always found it odd that an interest in privacy would coincide with > an interest in tech._

Perhaps knowledge of tech makes you aware of how easily it can be (ab)used to track you and invade your privacy.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>