React v0.14 - <AUTHOR> http://facebook.github.io/react/blog/2015/10/07/react-v0.14.html <comment><USER3> A lot of great ideas in this release and it makes me excited for the future of React.

I've been on 0.14-rc1 and my favorite feature so far is stateless function components. So much cleaner than class-based components.

One downside is that hot reloading doesn't work with it yet (AFAIK). Hopefully that will come soon now that 0.14 is officially released. (And I believe Dan is/was on vacation.)

Andrew Clark (core contributor to Redux and creator of Flummox) just released Recompose which provides powerful capabilities for stateless components: [https://github.com/acdlite/recompose](https://github.com/acdlite/recompose).

Some of the benefits of stateless function components as outlined in Recompose's readme:

* They prevent abuse of the setState() API, favoring props instead.

* They're simpler, and therefore less error-prone.

* They encourage the smart vs. dumb component pattern.

* They encourage code that is more reusable and modular.

* They discourage giant, complicated components that do too many things.

* In the future, they will allow React to make performance optimizations by avoiding unnecessary checks and memory allocations.

<comment><USER4> The idea of giving special consideration to "stateless" UI components in this sense seems ill-conceived, because adding or removing UI-related state should not have any extra implications.

For example, if you display photos in a table, there is no state, but if you display photos with a carousel, then you have state as the current page, but these two components should otherwise have the same interface and implementation. Also in general the current selection and scroll position is state, albeit stored in the browser, so any UI component can potentially have state, even if it is only stored implicitly in the DOM objects.

What really matters is whether the component holds any state with "semantic" meaning or that needs to be persisted (like a date the user selected in a date picker) or whether all the state is "presentational" (like the month a date picker is showing).

What you should do in React is not hold any "semantic" state in components, unless it's a component that is solely designed for holding and managing such state (e.g. Relay container components, or a root App component).

EDIT: slightly reworded to be clearer and more correct, since having the same API interface regardless of statefulness is implicit in React

<comment><USER5> You embed stateless (function-based) components just like you do for normal components. There is no interface difference; the caller doesn't need to know whether the component it is using is stateless or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Like always, we have a few breaking changes in this release. We know changes > can be painful (the Facebook codebase has over 15,000 React components), so > we always try to make changes gradually in order to minimize the pain.

Since React is a semver project, from the website:

> How do I know when to release 1.0.0?

> If your software is being used in production, it should probably already be > 1.0.0. If you have a stable API on which users have come to depend, you > should be 1.0.0. If you're worrying a lot about backwards compatibility, you > should probably already be 1.0.0.

<comment> eric-hu I came in here to comment on this. React sounds exciting from what I've read about it, but I didn't realize it was pre-1.0.

To teams who are using it in production, did you talk about this? What are arguments for using it despite it not being 1.0?

<comment><USER7> Why do you care about an imaginary number? FB (and many other large companies) heavily use this in production, and have to migrate their own apps. FB even goes farther and uses the master branch (well, synced every week or so). That's a far heavier endorsement than whatever side of a decimal a number falls on.

<comment><USER6> > Why do you care about an imaginary number?

It's not imaginary, it represents stability. By not going 1.0 you are saying it is alpha software and should not be used.

Not everyone has Facebook's budget or resources to upgrade every 2 months.

<comment><USER8> React upgrade path is stabler and smoother than 90% of >1.0 libraries I have seen. Please don't jump to conclusions. ;-)

<comment><USER9> It's about the perception that the number provides.

<comment><USER8> Fixing this is on the roadmap: [https://gist.github.com/zpao/6e12ee0f46ce87af2287#versioning](https://gist.github.com/zpao/6e12ee0f46ce87af2287#versioning)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The enthusiasm around React is infectious and I'm thinking about integrating it into one of my projects but I can't quite tell what exactly it's supposed to be used for. Is it only for SPAs or is it reasonable to consider react when you just want to add some interactions and dynamism to a page that was rendered server side?

React seems kind of like an all-or-nothing approach. It seems like overkill if you just want to provide a little more structure to jQuery spaghetti code.

Can React be a competitor to, say, Knockout? React seems more in the realm of angular or ember to me.

<comment><USER11> React is really 2 things. One is an implementation of web components which makes it a competitor to Polymer and is is useful on almost any project. Secondly, React is an implementation of the Flux architecture (one-way data binding) which is most useful for SPAs, but doesn't disrupt a static site as much as Angular does.

<comment><USER12> React is not an implementation of the Flux architecture. Flux is an architecture that works well with react.

I would argue that the primary contribution from React is not the web component aspect but the declarative, immutable-friendly approach to UI rendering

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> React is cool. Switching to React helped me do :

1\. Get rid of any jquery-like library.

2\. Get rid of my HTML/Handlebars files :)

3\. Generate dynamic CSS classNames for my components allowed me to get rid of stylesheets naming conventions / strategies ( BEM, etc. )

4\. With the help of Flux ( yahoo's implementation ) I got rid of writing two code-bases ( front-end / back-end ). Now I'm putting everything in one place, this is awesome! ( I did it with server-side rendering, so I didn't loose anything at all )

<comment><USER14> Can you please elaborate on 3.?

<comment><USER15> I think he's talking about css modules. Postcss or something like that. Webpack can generate unique names for you when you use that loader. I think it's more about webpack for #3 than react.

<comment><USER13> Yes it is. But those tools usually rely on your Javascriptified HTML, which is something that React does.

So React is a prerequsite on that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wohoo! .getDOMNode() is finally gone!

Edit: Haha, I just noticed that someone else was also happy about this.

Also, now that classnames is standalone module, I recommend that people start using a standalone implementation of keyMirror (for flux) as well!

<comment><USER17> Would you mind explaining? As a jQuery believer, to me this looks like a selector method - getElementByID or something. I'm guessing this is against the whole idea of React.

<comment><USER16> Refs are simply references to DOM nodes that you have to specify through the ref (HTML) attribute. You can give a DOM node the ref value "foo" and then later reference it in a react component with this.refs.foo (previously this.refs.foo.getDOMNode()).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm glad they separated out react from the DOM. This makes it much more likely that people will export the ideas _and the API_ of React to other languages. The API is sane for data-flow programming and the lifecycle is well-defined. The separation of properties from state can be useful in other contexts.

</comment><comment><USER19> Great news. I just upgraded our app to 0.14-rc1 last week and particularly enjoy "refs" being direct references to the DOM nodes. Can't wait to move some of our stateless components to functional.

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm fairly new to react, and have wondered if I was using it correctly (as intended). Almost always I have a root component that manages state, passing it to children via props. All changes to state go through that root component, either by callback (also passed as prop) or some external event.

Is this update in a sense validation of that approach?

<comment><USER21> What you've described is pretty similar to Flux or one of its variants. The main difference would be that instead of managing state inside of the root component via setState, you have an external state ("store"), which would handle the state logic and provide the appropriate values as props to the root component. So yes, it sounds like you're doing it "right".

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is there some sort of React component repository or something?

<comment><USER3> [http://react.parts/web](http://react.parts/web) and [http://react- components.com/](http://react-components.com/)

<comment><USER23> Thank you so much for this! [http://react.parts/web](http://react.parts/web) is very useful (particularly that it shows stars and download counts next to each component entry).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I have a question, why is dirty-checking so great?

Whether it's Angular doing dirty-checking in the $digest cycle or React walking the virtual DOM and doing dirty-checking?

Why not just subscribe to events and update things when the model changes? That would seem to be far more efficient, and also make clear the mapping of dependencies of views on data.

<comment><USER25> React does not do dirty checking.

<comment><USER26> Well, it kind of does when comparing virtual DOMs before and after changes.

<comment><USER8> Usually people say "dirty checking" when they mean "keep checking in some kind of event loop whether external entity modified some object, and if so, do something".

In React there's no such event loop where it checks virtual DOM—React _knows_ if it needs to _compare_ virtual DOM trees (not arbitrarily check models for changes, for example) because all changes are explicit and happen either due to `setState()`, `forceUpdate()` or `React.render()` top-level call.

So React doesn't do dirty checking in the sense Angular does, unless by dirty checking you mean all kinds of comparisons.

<comment><USER26> Right. I guess it really depends how people define "dirty checking". What I was trying to say is that at the end of the day you do diffing on some data structure: model in Angular and virtual Dom in React.

Loop vs. one pass is an important distinction, agreed. But when we bring Angular we should be noted that Angular 2 doesn't do those checks in a loop but does comparisons in one pass only.

<comment><USER27> My biggest complaints about angular aren't really the dirty checking system that it uses (though one of them is a side effect).

My biggest complaint is the weird dependency injection system that makes it difficult to track down where something comes from. It's better in 2, but still not as straight forward as React, where your child components are simply import/require statements that you can follow through to either an installed npm module, or a relative path. I try to avoid DI in JS wherever possible, it's almost never needed, and there are almost always simpler ways.

My second largest complaint on angular, is that I find that the way it handles state (though many are moving to a more react-like approach) leads to anything outside of the "angular way" being _very_ complicated to work around. The fact that $scope.apply() is a thing kind of sums it up pretty nicely.

For most applications (we're not all building facebook level interactions), either comparison approach is not a performance issue in practice. What I do find is the flux/react way tends to have a bit more cognitive overhead to get started with, but additional features add less additional complexity than with angular.

<comment><USER28> A bit offtopic, but DI (via IoC container) is for managing runtime dependencies, which can get complex as an app grows. DI of the IoC container flavor is never necessary (I would argue that pure DI in itself is only a good thing though for clean separation of code), but one can say many things are not necessary - its existence is for making things simpler when working with complex apps. Without an IoC container, one has to manually pass around services to those requiring them if there is some complex runtime code - <USER2> sucks greatly when working with increasingly complex code, far more than using a system with an injector to manage the runtime constructs and to act as a fetcher that retrieves the necessary instance when requested. An example of the convoluted nature of handling dependencies without such a system is when one needs to test one service that say depends on another service that is x services removed in a dependency chain. In order to properly mock for testing, one has to potentially dig x levels deep to mock all relevant methods, instead of mocking the one service of interest.

It should also be noted that imports are orthogonal to the utility of DI. ES imports does not address the runtime dependency tree, and can certainly live alongside a tool such as DI - DI is for handling runtime dependency management, importing/exporting is more for handling initialization/compile time dependency management. Confusing the two is not understanding the problems they are meant to solve.

Angular 1's DI, while extremely convenient for testing, unfortunately does rely on a hacky implementation. Angular 2's DI system is extremely robust though, using the proposed ES7 decorator standard to more properly implement DI via IoC by using the services themselves (which are imported in) to fetch the appropriate instance - Angular 2's component system also makes it extremely easy to consume the injector with one line, or even creating new injectors to silo sectors of an application into runtime modules.

Angular 2 also espouses many of the ideas that React has pioneered in frontend web development - in fact, the Angular team would be quick to admit the faults present in Angular 1, which didn't have the benefit of the current state of HTML & JavaScript in the late '00s when it was conceived (ES module standard, annotations/decorators being a potential language feature, strong browser standards support across the major 4 browser vendors, etc.). Flux-like patterns can be easily implemented in Angular 2, and may see a surge in popularity given its popularity in the React ecosystem. Uni-directional data flow is at the core of Angular 2's component system.

<comment><USER27> What does one have to pass around? You can `require`/`import` service modules directly... for that matter, with a system like redux/react, you can easily pass anything needed via properties. You can create pretty complex applications without muddying where your services come from...

I've been following Angular2, and while much better than Angular1, still think react+redux as a workflow/render solution with separate state management reducers/handlers is a better workflow... especially as feature count goes up, because complexity doesn't climb as steeply as with Angular.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Are there any good component libraries for React ?

JSF ecosystem is a good example of component based web UIs.

</comment><comment><USER30> Anyone find a list that says what is broken by this update? I couldn't find an easy to parse list of functions/methods/etc that have changed ||&& are broken.

<comment><AUTHOR> Were my "Upgrade Guide" and "Breaking Changes" sections not clear? I tried to make it as clear as possible but you still seem confused…

<comment><USER8> If you didn't see warnings running code under 0.13, nothing should break per se, right? And if you see warnings now, that's the stuff that will break in 0.15 but works for now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, with the exception of the React.initializeTouchEvents() removal and the ReactTestUtils change I noted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Well i think it will take some time for libraries and components to be updated. For me currently at least react router should provide a compatible build with react 0.14</comment>


VMWare to Bring Traditional Windows Apps and Desktops to Chromebooks - <AUTHOR> http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2014/02/vmware-to-bring-traditional-windows_12.html <comment><USER2> Title ("Windows on Chromebook at last"... will probably be changed by mods since it doesn't match the source post) is somewhat misleading in that this is just a remote desktop client to VMWare Horizon.

I'm sure this solution is nice for people that are already invested in the VMWare Horizon infrastructure, but for people with Chromebooks who are already tied to physical Windows machines just using Chrome Remote Desktop (which has been supported on Chromebooks for quite a while) is probably the better solution.

<comment><AUTHOR> If they've got one more appropriate I welcome the change.

Yes, initially for enterprise, but once the door is open and traveled by experts a bit to wring it out and simplify it it becomes everyone's egress. The fact of an app store app for it (mentioned at the bottom) portends that future.

<comment><USER3> This has been around for a while, and there are plenty of other solutions: Citrix and Ericom both have a similar product.

There is also the Google developed RDP client for Chrome[1].

Outside of enterprise (and development) it isn't a very interesting market - the fraction of people who _need_ Windows apps, have a Windows machine _and_ a Chromebook, and are bothered enough by having to physically access their own Windows machine is pretty small.

The "remote assistance" market is somewhat different, but that is served by quite a lot of applications.

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-remote- desk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-remote- desktop/gbchcmhmhahfdphkhkmpfmihenigjmpp?hl=en)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is interesting. Where are the public-facing Windows machines? I wonder if there's an opportunity in creating "Windows as a Service?" So many of us live on Mac OS or Linux and only need Windows on those rare occasions when someone sends us a .docx file or when we need to access some horrible web application that only works with Java SE 1.6.36_2 running on IE.

<comment><USER2> "Windows as a Service" is essentially exactly what this is. Despite the hype I've seen in a few places suggesting this is some radical way to run Windows on Chromebooks what it actually is is a Chromebook-hosted client for VMWare's Horizon "DaaS" (desktop as a service) platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is more like "Citrix / Remote Desktop client on Chromebook" than "Windows on Chromebook"

<comment><USER6> That's great, because "Windows on a laptop" isn't exactly a novel idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

Someone had to be laughing when they typed that. At this point *aaS is just overused that I don't know how anyone typing another instance of it could be serious.

<comment><USER8> It used to be VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), and I remember a lot of hype around 2008; I guess the *aaS is easier to understand because it sounds more familiar.

But you're right. I remember joking with a taxi driver about the abuse of buzzwords and we agreed he was in the "CaaS" business (car as a service).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm not sure this will work wonderfully. As someone who tried to spend a big chunk of time sitting at a MacBook and using Windows via RDP, it's a royal PITA as the keyboard differences are pretty big and the mappings are unintuitive. The ChromeBook keyboards are pretty much a rip off of Mac keyboard so you're getting into interesting territory of no F-keys and odd delete behaviour for example.

It's not going to be pleasant.

Windows can be driven very effectively and easily by keyboard only (unlike MacOS and ChromeOS) and this advantage is lost so power users at least and a lot of office workers accustomed to using their devices via keyboard are going to be shot.

I've had to go back to a PC for RDP sessions to be honest as it's the only thing that's bearable.

</comment><comment><USER10> So this DaaS is supposed to be accessed through an HTML5 client. I wonder if this will nudge Amazon into developing a web client (maybe coinciding with the end of the limited preview) as well so their similar DaaS product (WorkSpaces)[1] can compete with VMWare for the Chromebook market. At the moment, WorkSpaces supports Mac, Windows, iPad, Android, and Kindle Fire [2].

[1]: [http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/](http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/) [2]: [http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/details/#desktop-and- mobile...](http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/details/#desktop-and-mobile- clients)

<comment><USER11> Yes, I hope Amazon come up with a good case for this as AWS is really designed for compute and web servers. So I don't need all of the server features like advanced NIO or support for clustered SQL servers. Just want a simple VM that I can dial down or up RAM and processing power if I want to do more complicated stuff.

Awesome if they can come up with MacOS VM for iOS development; or even a optimized VM for Android development.

<comment><USER12> > Awesome if they can come up with MacOS VM for iOS development

Unless Amazon can cut a special licensing deal with Apple, for now the only legal way to run OSX VMs is on top of OSX itself on Apple hardware. Since Apple discontinued the rackmount Xserve line in 2010, that would require a datacenter full of Mac Pro towers on shelves or something, which sounds unlikely to be appealing to Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> While initially aimed at enterprise the fact that there will be a fairly simple app for this in the app store could radically change Microsoft's role in the marketplace.

My shelved Chromebooks for Seniors project is now off the shelf. I came to realize that they would not appeal to those who already have Windows computer experience, by far the largest share of those with experience. That group is rapidly becoming the majority of seniors. Having a unified hardware platform that can be shared among the complete set of users totally changes the game.

This might be the final correction to the deviant path taken away from thin clients with the advent of the PC.

</comment><comment><USER13> This seems like some wonky hack where you're running a Windows VM on a remote server and sending the GUI back to the Chromebook.

Is there any real reason you couldn't just install Windows on Chromebook hardware? Do they lock the bootloader?

<comment><USER14> While I'm guessing there are many Chromebooks which can run Windows, note that many others have ARM CPU's.

<comment><USER13> They could run Windows RT /s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I already use this via AWS and rooted ChromeOS, Crouton and the rdesktop ARM client. Very excited about Amazon Workspace!

</comment><comment><USER15> "traditional" "apps"

</comment><comment><USER16> I hope not</comment>


Myspace Expected To Lay Off At Least 150 Employees On Wednesday - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/27/myspace-expected-to-lay-off-at-least-150-employees-on-wednesday/

<comment><USER2> Facebook needs engineers, Myspace is on fire sale, so why doesn't Facebook buy Myspace?</comment>


EBay publishes, then deletes message asking all users to change their passwords - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/21/ebay-paypal-password-notice/ <comment><USER2> Would this also include Paypal?</comment>


I wanted to punish my daughter with a no-frills phone but it didn't go to plan - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-04/punishment-phone-teenager-did-not-go-to-plan/11371136 <comment><USER3> This is intended to be humor. Don't take it too literally.

 _eating-uncooked-instant-noodles-straight-from-the-packet_

My sons learned that from me. I began doing it during my second pregnancy when even saltine crackers were not plain enough for my level of nausea.

Yes, it's mind bogglingly messy.

<comment><USER4> this is a very popular south korean snack!

[https://www.theramenrater.com/tag/ppushu- ppushu/](https://www.theramenrater.com/tag/ppushu-ppushu/)

<comment><USER5> Half Korean.

I thought I figured out some amazing snack when I started eating ramen straight out of the pack. My brother and I would mix it with microwave popcorn (two unhealthy snacks cancel each other out, right?)

So it came as a shock when my cousin from Korea came to visit and wasn't impressed with our ramen snacks.

"Doesn't everyone do this?"

Turned out my Half-Korean friends were doing the same thing (we were all Army brats). They were equally surprised to find others doing it.

<comment><USER6> I've seen characters do this in anime, though it's usually presented as cluelessness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've used a burner phone exclusively for ~6 months because of lack of financial funds. I loved that thing. Crystal clear calls, and while my fiancee had to recharge her smartphone every night I almost got to 2 weeks without charging and almost forgot that you actually have to charge it. It's a certain feeling of freedom. Unfortunately they don't run Slack so I just got an old S4, bought a huge aftermarket battery for it and optimized the kernel for energy saving and now I can still go 4-5 days in standby. Battery life is like drugs.

<comment><USER8> I was the last of my circle to switch to a smartphone; I only made the leap about a year ago - the old dumb phone finally died, and when I looked online for a replacement all I could see was senior phones. I decided I wasn't ready for that yet - so marketing works I guess - so bought the smallest smart phone I could find (a Unihertz Jelly, fwiw).

I have to say, I'm not impressed.

* battery life down from two weeks to two days on standby. People assure me it's not just my choice of model, this is the new normal and I should just get into a habit of charging it every night.

* generating dial tones during a call, as call tree systems generally require, is super awkward: you have to slide an unlock slider, then tap an icon to bring up the keypad, then dial the digit you want - all while looking at the screen, because unlike a real dial pad you cannot do this by feel - before the call tree prompt times out. Makes you feel like James Bond trying to defuse a bomb.

* texting is awkward: instead of generating text with nine tactile buttons, you swipe around a drawing qwerty keyboard twice the size of your thumb in total.

* I can't run the blackberry apps for connectivity to work because the Android version is incompatible, so it's no use as a smartphone for software reasons

* The UI generally feels like an unfinished intern project: the phone takes ages to boot, apps are slow to open and crash often, some settings do not survive a power cycle, etc etc. Having worked with many Android devices in a previous job, I'm pretty convinced this is not actually down to my choice of phone model; they're all flaky and people are just used to it. iOS devices are noticeably better in this regard, but suffer from other problems (the worst of which is Apple's disregard for third party software - every OS update breaks something, and major ones break most things, so every year or two all the actually smart parts of the smartphone stop working, you lose whatever you had stored in them and have to switch to new ones).

* The device is too small to comfortably read or browse internet on except in an emergency

Some of that is on me for picking a tiny phone, but the bigger devices aren't really much better until they get too big for a jeans pocket, and fitting into my pocket really _is_ a hard requirement for a device whose primary purpose is something I carry on me all the time to stay in touch with people. Like any self-respecting techie I have a tablet for reading/web browsing on a decent screen, and a laptop for when I want a real computer, so the flaky unreliable value-add does not seem to justify the broken core functionality of a mobile phone.

I have now settled down into a working relationship of mutual hatred with the device, but I do miss the old phone that was just a phone. Maybe it is time to declare myself a senior after all.

<comment><USER9> "battery life down from two weeks to two days on standby. People assure me it's not just my choice of model"

It's your choice of phone. I have a cheap Samsung phone for work and I don't touch it for a week at a time and it's still charged. I suspect I could get it to last longer if I disabled some of the google syncing (assistant type stuff, checking for updates etc) but it's not my phone and i'm only on support for a week at a time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This reminds me of my kids responding to my gaming ban by playing space vs backspace in the windows login prompt

<comment><USER11> Is that like being without quarters, but figuring out which arcade games actually DO something on the attract screen when you move the controls?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Back when the Motorola razer was the most popular mobile phone on the market, my sisters boyfriend had the sweetest tiny little flash drive sized dumb phone that I still think would be awesome to own every time I go on vacation and really want to leave reddit/Facebook/Snapchat and even hackernews at home without loosing the ability to call emergency services or fellow travelers when needs arise. Sadly that market is nowhere near attractive enough these days for anyone to care.

<comment><USER13> Get an Apple Watch, it has cellular

<comment><USER14> How long does the battery last?

<comment><USER15> On cellular, without exercise tracking it'll last for about 10 to 12 hours without a phone, provided it is fully charged in the beginning.

That's my anecdotal experience

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I settled on a cheap iPhone from Walmart for son which is almost totally locked down. He can call, text, listen to music. Not much else. As my child counselor told me "you are either the jerk or the sucker" \-- I choose to be a jerk.

</comment><comment><USER17> I would like to try a dumbphone for a while but no one here uses phone calls and SMS anymore, they have all shifted to Whatsapp and sometimes Instagram, so that's a bummer.

<comment><USER18> I think people use SMS and regular phone calls if they can't find you on whatsapp. Fortunately all have the "Phone" and SMS app already installed.

<comment><USER19> That situation pretty much doesn't happen, at least in the UK. Except people over 70, _everyone_ has WhatsApp.

<comment><USER20> Sweeping generalization is sweeping. Not even 50 here.

<comment><USER21> 39, never used WhatsApp.

<comment><USER22> You wouldn't get a message from me.

I no longer get any minutes or texts with my mobile plan - data only is half the price, and I've never met anyone without WhatsApp.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I once punished my then-seventh-grader by locking all the apps on his iPhone for a week with a passcode. A few days later he forgets he's been punished and sends a text in front of me. "Hey! I thought I locked that down!" Turns out he found the instructions online to backup his phone and change the passcode.

It took a bit of effort and technical understanding, and since I didn't even know it was possible, let alone that easy, he didn't get in trouble. (Though I told him if he did it again, he'd be in Serious Trouble, which is the top level of trouble above big and major).

I'm a geek - if you can out-tech me, you win.

</comment><comment><USER24> One party trick some people miss about me is that for a number of years I carried around an iPad mini (with cellular) in my front jeans pocket. It was my primary and only mobile device. It was somewhat more inconvenient than a smaller phone, but not by as much as one would expect it to be. Having its bigger screen was an advantage in many situations though.

I downsized to a large phone a year ago (partly because Apple neglected the iPad mini and I gave up waiting for a better version to come out).

<comment><USER25> What was the party trick?

<comment><USER26> My main device used to be a cell-enabled Galaxy tablet. I would make calls over cell internet with Google Hangouts. It's big but it fit in my back pocket so I loved to just randomly pull it out and pretend I was taking a call. People who hadn't seen it before we're usually astonished, "Holy shit dude, that's a huge phone!"

I guess not everybody had seen a tablet at that time, circa 2013 or so, and it worked almost every time. That was my party trick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> That sense of humour certainly runs in the family.

Also, teaching your kids about radio is a nice bonus.

</comment><comment> Luke-Jr Doesn't he know there are parental control apps?

(Although my 10 year old figured out how to bypass those in a matter of days each time I closed the previous bypass-hole... and that was using a rooted OS I could SSH into. So maybe not so effective.)

<comment><USER28> Using parental controls is a great way to get kids to become hackers and learn to break said parental controls.

<comment><USER29> It made me change to linux. I'm glad for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is "burner phone" Aussie slang or something? Anyway, I like it :)

<comment><USER31> If you've never heard "burner phone" before, you probably haven't watched Breaking Bad, which was an American cultural touch-stone she mentioned, and an excellent show you'll likely enjoy (and I envy you being able to binge watch it now, instead of waiting week after week for the next episode):

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

And then there's the "Breaking Phones" spin-off we really all wanted to see:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNzS66iRcjw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNzS66iRcjw)

The actual "Breaking Bad" spin-off "Better Call Saul" has a whole multi- episode sub-plot about burner phones:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89wXeYOls7o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89wXeYOls7o)

You can see how cool that burner phone must have made her daughter feel!

<comment><USER32> Not just Breaking bad. It's a very common term in all kinds of mafia/heist/drug dealing/espionage/etc stories, long before Breaking Bad.

<comment><USER31> Yes, but she wrote in the article "It's my daughter who's breaking bad," not "It's my daughter who's like all kinds of mafia/heist/drug dealing/espionage/etc stories". I was referring to that specific cultural reference in the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I honestly wouldn't mind a minimal feature super lightweight long battery life cell phone most of the time. Basically phone calls and SMS.

<comment><USER34> They never stopped making them, they got better and better in terms of battery and weight. But you are not very likely to find them in a brick n mortar shop (at least not good ones), they only want to sell smart phones because that's where the money is. Shop online and there is plenty of choice... just don't cheap out on the £10-20 phones because they will really piss you off with bad UX, they might do mainly calls and text but you will be surprised how bad they can make that experience.

I've got a £50 dumb nokia phone, it's lighter than any smartphone and last for 1-2 weeks on battery (it's about 5 years old), impossible to break, i never have to think about it or worry about it, it doesn't distract me until someone really needs to communicate with me... I love it, but then I never liked smart phones.

<comment><USER35> Are there any that work with Verizon? I'm still using a phone that I got in 2011 because from what I can tell none of the feature phones work on Verizon towers.

<comment><USER36> Look for their prepaid phone offerings. There's some feature phones in that line up, and it'll work with any plan.

On Amazon, search by carrier, sort by lowest price. Some are low end Android, but some are feature phones. In my experience really low end android phones have such little storage they might as well be feature phones. You could only get 1-2 apps on max if you tried.

<comment><USER37> Because I was curious (and I am a Verizon customer), I took a look. Verizon Prepaid has exactly one feature phone available now: [https://www.zteusa.com/cymbal-lte](https://www.zteusa.com/cymbal-lte)

Amazon lists at least one more but look at the fine print, if it's a 3G model it can't be activated after the end of 2018.

<comment><USER34> Can you not just buy a phone separately from your network provider?

In the UK i can just buy any unlocked phone I want online and stick my sim card in it, the networks let you use whatever you want. My current phone is only 3g but this has worked everywhere I have traveled so far, Europe, Asia, Mexico, but not tried US.

<comment><USER36> Yes, you can buy the phone separately from the provider. The issue is if you want to be able to access all the frequencies the network provider uses. If you get a phone that doesn't cover all the relevant frequencies, you will have degraded service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> You know iPhone has amazing MDM controls. Just download Apple Configurator and lock it down. You don't need a burner phone.

</comment><comment><USER39> FZ One is a really good phone for this.

Parental controls are baked into the OS network stack with a locked bootloader.

</comment><comment><USER40> Kids are smarter than us though!

</comment><comment><USER41> Hey, that was fun :-).

</comment><comment><USER42> Woah, who would have guessed? Kids are resourceful and can adapt?? Go figure. /s

</comment><comment><USER43> Has anyone tried the user interface of a burner phone?

Recently I tried exchanging numbers with a friend who has a burner phone - <USER2> replacement for a lost phone.

Yes, good luck with dialling a number or storing a number in the contacts. Even sending a text is a trial of user experience, an intelligence test akin to solving a Rubik's Cube.

So it is good to see that a 12 year old can work out some of these functions. I completely failed to exchange phone contact numbers with my friend, with ten minutes of trying.

<comment><USER44> > good luck with dialling a number

You literally unlock the phone, type the number and press the call button.</comment></comment>


Show HN: A new, declarative spin on client-side package management - <AUTHOR> http://embed.plnkr.co/EcNfDLzLybFD5KafQerY/preview

<comment><AUTHOR> You might ask why this is 'declarative' and that would be a good question. Here is why I consider this declarative:

Your dependencies are declared in the markup by special data attributes added to script and link[rel=stylesheet] tags. The dependencies get parsed and the markup can be automatically updated to the best available set of packages that satisfy these dependencies. What is neat is that the system will resolve dependencies as deep as needed and will insert the relevant script and link tags in the correct order.

Why is this different?

Most package managers focus on the offline development world. This scheme was designed specifically for Plunker [1] which is an online front-end development tool. This means that there are several constraints as well as several opportunities to change the front-end package management workflow.

I wanted users to be able to add packages to their existing html markup, however strangely they might have designed it. I also wanted the markup to look 'ok' after these new packages are inserted. This was quite a challenge. I also didn't want to include all of the packages' code in each Plunk as that would really slow down the service and increase storage costs.

As a result, a trade-off (and possibly benefit) I've achieved in this system is that all package ressources must be accessible online (ideally via CDN).

The result is a system whereby the markup declares package dependencies and can be introspected and updated to newer package versions and/or to identify existing packages.

<comment><USER2> What is plunkr and how are you using this?</comment></comment>


Getting Rid of RDBMs - <AUTHOR> http://www.productionscale.com/home/2007/8/11/getting-rid-of-the-relational-database.html

<comment><USER2> What a terrible article. Leaving aside the grammar and spelling mistakes, the quote from Stonebraker is taken _completely_ out of context (in the interview, he is talking about the architecture of systems for doing algorithmic trading, not relational databases in general: latency is indeed critical for algorithmic trading, but far less so for typical database applications and web apps). Then there are content-free statements like:

"This means you should be paying attention to your code quality, optimization ... There are built in limitations as dictated by clear and proven underlying mechanisms that prohibit current modern database and application technology from scaling much further."

More broadly, I don't agree with the idea that if something makes sense for the Amazons and Googles of the world, it should be adopted for run-of-the-mill web applications. Amazon and Google can afford to write tons of infrastructure from scratch and hand-tune it to match their performance and scalability requirements; the typical web app developer cannot, but then again, the typical web app has totally different requirements. Simply generalizing from the top end of the cost vs. scalability tradeoff downward doesn't make a lot of sense. Doing joins and referential integrity in the application layer has real costs -- discarding 30 years of technology overnight has real tradeoffs that the article doesn't even bother considering.

The article does have one redeeming feature: the linked-to interview with Stonebraker and Margo Seltzer is worth reading. [http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1260000/1255430/p16-stanik.h...](http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1260000/1255430/p16-stanik.htm?key1=1255430&key2=3880943811&coll=&dl=ACM&CFID=15151515&CFTOKEN=6184618)

</comment><comment><USER3> The question remains in the air: how do I perform more complex queries without SQL? The proposed distributed hash table won't do it.

The article mentioned eBay's scaling PDF offering a link at the bottom. I followed the link read every page of that PDF and have not found any evidence of them abandoning (or minimizing use of) RDBMS. eBay still runs Oracle, but uses in-house built index for listings search, but that's hardly a solution for general problem of running queries more complex than SELECT * FROM Foo WHERE ID=n. Besides _NOBODY_ uses SQL to do complex full-text searches, even small companies I worked for. We used Lucene.

I would love to have a "distributed SQL": scaled-out SQL server in proper sense of the word, capable of running complex SQL queries on distributed sets of data. Hopefully by the time we grow to eBay size someone will innovate in that regard. Or, perhaps, it exists already?

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't get it. I don't design systems including databases, so I may not be qualified to speak (I've studied information system design a bit, though). What's wrong with relational theory and Codd normalization rules? It looks like a good way to organize data and keep it coherent. Just because it's 30+ years old isn't a reason to reject it!</comment>


Show HN: Comment the best content you make with ClipDis - <AUTHOR> https://clipdis.com/

<comment><USER2> [https://clipdis.com/v/UMNLZ](https://clipdis.com/v/UMNLZ)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://clipdis.com/v/UMNLZ](https://clipdis.com/v/UMNLZ)

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://clipdis.com/v/b0okL](https://clipdis.com/v/b0okL)</comment>


Apple Human Interface Guidelines - <AUTHOR> http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/XHIGDesignProcess/XHIGDesignProcess.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40002718-TPXREF101

<comment><USER2> Nice quote (from the 7th paragraph)

"Recognize that, as an application developer or interface designer, you have a greater wealth of knowledge and a more intricate understanding of your application than your customers are likely to have. Although you should use that knowledge to choose the best default settings or decide the best presentation of information, remember that you are not designing the program for yourself. It is not your needs or your usage patterns that you are designing for, but those of your (potential) customers."</comment>


Show HN: BhagavadGita.io (Bhagavad Gita – Simplified) - <AUTHOR> https://bhagavadgita.io/app/ <comment><USER2> This is very cool. I like the fact that you also have an API @ [https://bhagavadgita.io/api/](https://bhagavadgita.io/api/) (I did find a typo there fyi, search for "documenatations"). I think you can add features like a leaderboard and games and quizzes based on the Gita. Very cool project.

</comment><comment><USER3> I looked it up on whois and is guarded. I don't understand why ? Appears to be a hindutva group from India

<comment><USER4> Regardless of what group it is, whats wrong with having a whois guarded (in general) ?

<comment><USER5> whois helps to know who is behind the content. Without that information it is hard to trust the app. Say you are in the government and you install this app on your phone and it turns out to be a spyware.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, you are right but having the information public makes it a target for spammers. People send spam emails about hosting and stuff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice ! Good luck

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for your feedback.</comment></comment>


Facebook turns 12 – trillions in productivity wasted - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/04/facebook-turns-12--trillions-in-time-wasted.html <comment><USER2> That's a pretty ridiculous way to frame Facebook's usage. Leisure time has always existed, and I doubt there is much evidence that Facebook is causing people to forego labor in favor of leisure time on their web site. Certainly none in that article.</comment>


How to stop feeling lonely - <AUTHOR> http://wtsui.org/blog/how-to-stop-feeling-lonely/ <comment><USER2> This article is an excellent start :-)

It is particularly relevant in relation to that article that surfaced here, about mapping out emotions arising from a large sampling of people.

I will say though, that thoughts do not simply arise from emotions in introverted people -- it arises like that in pretty much everyone. Some extraverts are just that in tuned with their bodies, emotions, and intuitions; others use talking as a way to avoid getting in touch with feelings, much that same many thinkers use thoughts to avoid getting in touch with feelings.

Lastly, loneliness tends to be a particular feeling lodged in the chest (for a lot of people). Regardless of whether you label that sensation as loneliness or not, there are physical exercises that can work with it directly. The main thing is to relax the muscles and tissues surrounding the chest cavity and give those sensations an opportunity to move and flow. It is best done when your arms are (physically) wide open.

Loneliness comes from a feeling of not getting sufficient emotional connection from others. There are lots of configurations that can lead to that. One of the main ones is that, the very act of connecting to someone else requires opening up, and opening up usually leads people to feeling the vulnerability that they don't want. Physically opening up the arms and the body helps you get used to feeling open, and being so, it becomes easier to connect with others.

Hope this help some of you folks -- good times :-)

<comment><USER3> You seem to be knowledgeable about this topic. Have you ever heard about bioenergetics?

If not, the general premise is that neurosis is expressed physically in the musculature. Specific kinds of movements can target and eliminate neurosis, which emerges as tension in chronically contracted muscles. Any exercise is bound to help somewhat, probably for more reasons than something like bioenergetics can claim, but still there are specific approaches for eliminating neurotic behavior in different character types. These specific exercises are accompanied by psychoanalysis in order to cultivate a conscious relationship between the mental and physical constructs of the patient's neurosis.

It seems like a pretty obvious insight to me now, having read a little bit about the subject. For example, flinching is a very pronounced, instinctual movement, and occurs in response to danger, right? So, if our environment can impel us to move, then certainly there are other movements, like flinches, that are more subtle in their expression, but reflect some internal, psychological mechanism, like a response to fear. Perception of body language, such as bad posture, supports this.

I have yet to read a satisfactory amount of info about the subject, but I can recommend what little I've read if anyone's interested.

<comment><USER4> I'd be really interested in scientific information about this.

I have been practicing Qigong for a little more than a year and a half and I can absolutely say that it is the best thing that has ever happened to me. It feels like it's tapping right into what it seems you're talking about. It's amazing, the power of the body (which, in a dualistic culture like I've grown up in may be an overly reductive word).

<comment><USER5> You won't find scientific information about it, because like Qigong, it's pseudoscience.

<comment><USER6> For approximately 500 years [science's] argument for its pre-eminence was that it could create beautiful toys: aircraft, railroads, global economies, television, spacecraft. But that is a fool's argument for truth! I mean, that's after all how a medicine show operates, you know: the juggler is so good, the medicine must be even better! This is not an entirely rational way to proceed.

-Terrence Mckenna

<comment><USER7> "Chi" "flowing through the body"? And, from another comment "quasi-quantum biological enzymes"? (NB: quantum theory pseudo-scientific-bollocks klaxon)

Qigong may get results, but it's certainly pseudoscience. And I bet science will be what eventually explains why it gets results.

<comment><USER2> Apparently, you have not read that that bollocks klaxon of a paper on arxiv :-) I know a lot of folks see the words, react with aversion, and stop thinking, simply dismissing it out of hand. Bots and all.

As for scientific explanations of qigong: there are a few things that cannot be explained, as it hits the limitations and nature of linguistics and narrative. There will probably be adequate, scientific models of Qigong, but by its very nature, scientific method requires a separation of observer from the observed, and is therefore simply inadequate for explaining anything related to existence or experiencing. You can talk all you want about gravity, but it isn't the same as taking a dive off of a cliff. As such, even though scientific theories may have great predictive powers, they are ultimately not essentially any different than folklore and myth.

And just to be clear: I don't particularly consider qigong as science or even pseudoscience. I consider it a method, or perhaps a strategic advantage. People try to use the "pseudo-science" to persuade others to try qigong. I have no incentive or desire to try to persuade you of the efficacy and validity of qigong.

<comment><USER8> .. but I think we can all say with certainty there is nothing particularly "quantum" about it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is a cultural undercurrent to loneliness too

In my previous job (with others from India) at a North European company which ran out of one of their towns. The loneliness of a beautiful North European town (100% conservative white population with a sprinkling of chinese immigrants, we were the first brown people to be seen there) (during short biz visits) was a striking contrast to our lives in India. So much so that in weekends, we rushed to get up and catch morning trains to the nearest city, just to be around a crowd of people (even in the city, we could find what we needed only in their excellent railway stations cum malls)

The same experience in San Jose, US but worse still as you practically good as dead without your own car. We (a female colleague and I) tried the fledgling (2001) train service there and ended up wishing we were wiser. Public transport in US West seemed to be used only by the socially discarded. I had to coax our hosts to get a car rented by a US colleague with me as a secondary driver (due to my foreign car license!) and then only it was FREEDOM! :-)

New York on the other hand, I felt at home. Get down from your hotel and you are into a sea of walking people Yay!

So an additional point can be being in a place with substantial amount of people, even if they are strangers gives you a relief from loneliness.

<comment><USER10> Very interesting! I'm from one of those beautiful frozen North European towns and I have the opposite problem when I visit places like China or Japan :) I do think it's easier to get used to living in crowded places than the other way around though. What town/country did you live in if I may ask?

<comment><USER9> Putten, Netherlands

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is basically the perfect collection of thoughts for me to be reading right now. I, and extreme introvert, just moved into my brother's new house. He is an extreme extrovert.

What struck me most was point "2\. Find people who give you time to speak".

I find myself often surrounded by those people who don't have any of the empathy to realize I need to let me thoughts work their way to the surface. It has created a lot of failed attempts to reach out to other people. I get frustrated, because it leads me to feel like the other person just isn't listening, because as soon as I do start saying something the other person will usually jump to a(n incorrect) conclusion about what I'm starting to say, and interject based on what thought just entered their mind. As a result, I've spent years with those types never getting to know me, and my attempts to open up becoming more curt and infrequent.

Conversely, maybe this empathy is why so many people tell me I'm a good listener. I don't jump to conclusions about what another person is saying. I rarely even try to work out my response while the other person is still talking. I let them think, speak, and reason all before reacting. Of course, with real Type-A personalities this means they will tend to go on forever, and I don't know how to get them to shut up. Ha. But, they still come away feeling like I get them. And the effect is quite magnified with anyone who is less than 100% Type-A.

And perhaps validating this article, taking the time to let these "feelings" and "thoughts" rise up, I'm finding myself in much greater agreement (and understanding of self) and will recommit to attempting to surround myself (most of the time, thought not all of the time) with people who can help me work in my strengths. The great challenge that will prove while living with my brother.

<comment><USER12> I think #2 is awesome. But I've also had to learn to assert my need to be heard. Sometimes I do that explicitly. E.g., "When you interrupt me like that, I feel like you're not interested in what I have to say."

But some of it has been observing extroverts interact with one another and learning their conversational protocols. A lot of people take not-interrupting as a signal to continue endlessly, and are perfectly happy to be interrupted if done in certain ways.

Adopting their protocol never feels perfectly comfortable to me. But, then, neither does trying to figure out how to fake a heart attack so I can get out of somebody's monologue.

So you might try watching your brother with his friends and see how they manage to get heard and/or not kill him.

<comment><USER13> > Sometimes I do that explicitly. E.g., "When you interrupt me like that, I > feel like you're not interested in what I have to say."

Please keep doing that! I struggle with shutting up or not interrupting people, because I get carried away and because I grew up in a household where everyone always forcefully asserted themselves (to the point where less- forceful friends thought we were fighting all the time).

I often feel quite bad afterwards when I realize that I hogged the conversation, especially because I've had periods in my life where I was excessively shy and felt awful when people did this to me. My only saving grace, perhaps, is that while I might not seem to be listening, I soak up everything the other says, and often get back to that or let it influence my opinions. It's mostly a conversational 'style'.

But please tell people like me to shut up. It works, we deserve it, it makes us aware that we get carried away and, from what I've seen, most of 'us' quickly get over the reprimand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm becoming more and more convinced that being able to share secrets with someone (the last point by the author) is the most important aspect not feeling lonely. Knowing that someone cares about you enough to listen to your problems, and respect you enough to not blab them everyone means that you aren't in this alone.

<comment><USER15> Sharing painful secrets anonymously with random disposable strangers on the internet via chatroom helped me a lot when I had to un-love a girl and had no friends to help me go through this. After less than a year of such chats when I felt especially sad and lonely I got bored with my own sad story and people in general and I was cured of my loneliness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> By definition, I am a chronic loner. I've been a loner for most of my life. I've had periods when I'd stay awake at night because it would scare the hell out of me. Lonely people will inevitably start questioning themselves. They'll start thinking that something is wrong with them. They'll start ripping chunks out of their soul. Eventually the confidence diminishes and things go downhill from here.

I said earlier i am a loner by definition. However, I don't consider myself one. A few years ago I decided to change things. I pushed myself to do something outside of my comfort zone. In an attempt to lift my confidence I decided to fly out to France and walk all the way across Spain to the Atlantic coast on the trail of El Camino de Santiago. After a little over a month of walking in all kinds of ungodly conditions with nothing but a backpack full of essentials and meeting and hearing amazing people and their stories, i came back with an entirely different outlook on life. I came back with my life priorities figured out. I stopped worrying about life. But most important of all, i gained my confidence back and i knew that no matter where i am tomorrow - i will be okay. As a result of all this, i started traveling more and soaking in as much of the world around me as i could. I decided to live healthy and entirely transformed my body. Recently, I picked up paragliding and I'm now working on a paraglider pilot license and hopefully start flying solo this summer. I wouldn't have dreamed about any of this a few years back.

Alone? Fuck alone! Look at the world around you!! Do something crazy for once and discover how many doors this opens and what you'll learn about yourself that's currently hiding behind 10 layers of self-pity.

<comment><USER17> Your reply reminds me of the fact that people often confound loneliness and boredom. When your life isn't very engaging you start to feel like you don't have enough people in your life, and you need people to vent your frustrations to.

I think if you look at people that have very full busy lives they are not the sort of people that will often complain about loneliness.

If you look at the top comment for this thread - the suggestion of getting a significant other is _actually_ about fighting boredom. It's about filling in all the gaps in your life with what he characterizes as trivial conversations and concerns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The feeling of loneliness is one thing. The article gives good advice on how to feel lonely less often.

Being alone is another and much more fundamental. For what I've learned, accepting the fact that you're here, in this life, alone is the precursor to any meaningful relationships. Connections with other people are limited, you've got some things together with one friend and some other things together with another friend. You probably have lots of things together with your spouse but there's nobody just like you, and there's no missing half of you out there that would make you whole.

Everything you need on this journey is within yourself.

And in the end, being alone in this whole world is something that you need to accept first before integrating other people in your life in any meaningful (i.e. non-superficial) way. If you know you can handle it: if you know you can deal with yourself and your life even if you never meet anyone who can give you all, or at least most of what you need then you're probably set for a good life -- a life where you have something to give to others too, and where you have people who give to you as well.

<comment><USER19> Kind of like learning to love yourself before others can love you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> > A big part of my loneliness was I refused to accept that I am actually a > pretty introverted, non-verbal person

The author was a senior when I was a freshman in college. He was one of the upperclassmen that I looked up to. He was very smart, good looking and we hung out sometimes when he would give me good advice. It never occurred to me that he's introverted and that he should have a reason to feel lonely. Quite a strange feeling when I saw this post from twitter. I feel guilty for not understanding him enough but it's nice to see this useful and positive post.

</comment><comment><USER21> There is a famous book saying loneliness is the ultimate feeling coming along with us. So don't be afraid of being lonely. I read another blog post here talking about enjoy aloneness, which is also great.

If you are confident from inside, ultimately you can overcome the negative feeling, but enjoy the peaceful feeling for being lonely. At least there is no hurt from other people.

I agree that you have to give them time to surface. Actually frequently practicing meditation will help you clear up your mind and let the feeling surface. Make ourselves strong psychologically will keep us away from feeling lonely. Of course, always having goal to pursue, you don't have time to feel lonely.

<comment><USER13> I almost never get lonely, and love being alone. A big part of this is just personality, I think, but there are two other factors that contribute. First of all, as you mention, I practiced being comfortably alone. I intentionally traveled alone, and sometimes chose to sit in a bar all by myself, just taking in the sights and (initially) feeling very self-conscious. But another important factor is that being alone is a choice for me. If I don't want to be alone, I have plenty of close friends, acquaintances, and activities that would alleviate loneliness.

In fact, the latter might be a much bigger factor that I've realized. The only times I recall feeling lonely were when I felt a need to socialize or talk to a friend, but couldn't, or being at a party with nobody to talk to.

<comment><USER21> You are socially and mentally rich since you can really choose and enjoy being alone and rarely feel lonely. Good for you. But for some other people, when they feel a need to socialize or talk to a friend, like you said, they may not be able to find somebody to talk to or share their feelings with. I guess this is what the blog post meant.

I wish that all of us could enjoy aloneness, this is really something precious, not only from productivity point of view. When we spend too much time living or socializing with other people, we enjoy the sharing of the information and emotion, but we may also lost ourselves. And only when we are alone, tons of ideas come to us. If you we always are surrounded by some people, we are drown like drunk. So we need to have time to keep us alone.

However, some people are more or less mentally relying on other people. They almost need other people's attention every day from time to time, otherwise they feel lonely. That's why a lot of people are addictive to FB. That's why I said we need to learn to be mentally and psychologically strong, like you, so that we don't feel lonely is negative. Hope this is helpful.

<comment><USER13> Exactly! I am happy being alone because it's a choice. And you're right that the blog post is about loneliness, not solitude.

I had the luck of being dragged out of my loneliness by some wonderful people (I'm not necessarily mentally and psychologically strong at all), and I only learned to be happily alone after that. But the ability to choose is crucial indeed.

<comment><USER21> Me too! I learned over the years and met some people when I was extremely lonely. I still remember the spark of light when I was "dragged out", it's unbelievable.

If people are not lucky enough and still feel lonely, I think mediation can help a little at least. When I first tried to do that, even sometime later, once I'm in the deep mood, all the feelings from the sub-consciousness level burst out. Then I become calm and peaceful, because my mind is cleared up. This is the way we can help ourselves, sometime is even better than helped by other people.

Some people told me that happiness is a choice. Initially it's hard for me to accept. But now I feel that if we can make happiness and aloneness as our choices, we become so powerful in our inner world which makes us really strong in spirit. But it take time and effort to reach there and stay there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> My experience with curing loneliness is very contrary to what the article states in the sense that I found a way to not feel lonely by being more disconnected from other people. I realized that I only felt lonely when my expectations as to how other people should give me their time/attention were not met, so I purposefully decided to decrease the number and intensity of interactions with other people.

I haven't felt that soul crushing loneliness that cripples you in about a year now, and I like to think that that only happened because of lowered expectations (over time as you interact less intensely with people you'll naturally come to expect less of them) and because of learning how to be alone (being alone and being lonely are not the same thing). The article states you should be around people you know every day and I find that pretty weird. I think the best way to learn how to not feel lonely is to learn to be content with yourself, otherwise you'll always rely on other people and so your feelings of loneliness will fail to go away as soon as other people fail you.

Kinda related: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c&hd=1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HbYScltf1c&hd=1)

<comment><USER21> Yes, I think you have the two points:

1) Lower your expectation. Most of our feeling comes with our expectation. If we adjust our expectation, things will be much different.

2) Do not rely on other people. It's not only for loneliness. We should rely on ourselves more and be more confident.

One of the solutions is to find something you can really dedicate to work on that sucks most of your energy. You will feel less lonely but more rewarded by the outcome of the work, may it be a game or a business.

<comment><USER23> I completely agree with your number one, but personally I find number two to miss the mark.

One of my resolutions for 2014 is to be less independent. To be open with the people that I love about what is happening with me, and to have the hard conversations, instead of letting my hurt stew inside of me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Loneliness is severe. Stopping this feeling is quite hard and I slightly doubt that the article's content will help but as somebody wrote, it's a great start to dig deeper.

1\. What one needs: ideally, you have a significant other (SO) -- I know it's damn hard to get one but let's first understand why a SO is the number one fix for loneliness. The SO is somebody no one else can replace, even not your best friends. Why? There are many reasons but the most important is that we all require a lot of communication and interaction with like-minded people to be happy -- this is one of our core needs and if this is lacking just one (!) day we get depressed. A SO fulfills those communication and interaction needs much better than any other person because the quantity of communication with your SO can be very high while the quality can be low. So, what does it mean? You can call your SO anytime and tell her really minor stuff like 'they have awesome apples in the store, shall I get some?' or when going to bed you can talk about how the day went, that traffic today was a pain or you show her some funny posts on Reddit. Just imagine how many words of unimportant communication you exchange with an SO in a week vacation. All this sounds nitty-gritty and totally irrelevant, but the SO is 'always-on', will listen to any crap and this is something we terribly need. And you can't call or text your best friend or close co-workers before going to bed to tell them that today's apples were really juicy. Moreover, we get other amenities like sex or endearment.

2\. If no SO is present then the next thing you need to not feel lonely are good or very good friends or let's call them best friends, people who you really connect to. To find those is as hard as finding your SO and usually you don't get that a person is about to be your best friend before meeting him/her over a long period of time. But 'best friends' won't stay -- it doesn't take too long and the connection you had with them loosens up but you still stick to them (because they 'are' your best friends), so don't spend too much time on finding the 'best' friend, any friend will do. However, best friends are important but can not replace a SO.

3\. The next level of people you need or are rather nice to have are close or like-minded co-workers. But this is something you shouldn't aspire for and those connections are very fragile/dynamic because work and life sometimes doesn't play well together and disappointment is hard-wired. Still, best friends can be won from co-workers.

So, we know now what we need, let's now find an answer to the question how to get there.

Finding a SO is very hard and the best way is to go out and create as many leads as possible -- very helpful is the PUA literature, just google it and find tons of wisdoms. A lot of stuff is crappy but you will find as much excellent advice there. And don't think that good looks is the key to find your SO, it makes life a bit easier but it's definitely not the key.

Similar to before you should go out and meet many, many people -- very good for this are meet-ups.

But the most important thing: you should NEVER go out and look for _the_ SO or _the_ best friend. This doesn't work and makes you ultra needy and people will find you awkward. Simultaneously, you will be disappointed because everybody you meet seems to be a douche, so start slowly and don't expect wonders. Connect to MANY people and try to keep relationships superficial, slowly intense those relationship which look promising but look that you still connect to MANY people because most people won't match (for being a SO or best friend). A hint: good matches are usually your close peers, people who are in similar situations, contexts and/or face same challenges. However, to have a good evening often you do not need a best friend (of course it's better and more convenient to have one) but sometimes just some random people work out too. What can also help: find a personal mission you pursue which is NOT 'finding best friends', starting a startup, a meetup, whatever -- to create a relationship you need always some hook.

And then after few months everything will come by itself. It's definitely some work involved but everybody can master it, even the introverts (which is just often a weak excuse).

To survive the lonely times before -> exercise every day, eat and live well and most important, stop any kind of drugs, they make your lonely times even worse.

A side note regarding founders, when starting their business entrepreneurs have a hard time but this struggle will be rewarded in future and feeling lonely is often part of the job.

<comment><USER25> I understand what you are trying to say, but I think mercer (in a sibling thread) has it right. A lot of us are in environments that feel like they are designed to keep us separated after we enter our professional life. This is particularly true for people that have moved by themselves to a different state or country and basically need to build a social circle from scratch. And this gets more difficult as you grow older.

I live in a central European country for four years now and I find it extremely hard to meet new people even for a superficial friendship.

\- I have very few coworkers, but even if I didn't, people tend to keep professional and private life very separate here. Some actually think they have "enough" friends and you might never get through to them no matter how much you try.

\- In my home country I would usually meet people through friends of friends, but here my friends will rarely bring anyone else of their circle when we go out (even when asked).

\- Meetups are also a big failure for me. Most of the time they involve huge groups that are very impersonal. They involve people that are here for a month up to people that have been here for 20-30 years and have their own cliques within the meetup. The first year I kept going to the same meetup and kept introducing myself to the same (more or less) people and held the same discussion over and over. Each meetup was as if I was there for the first time and needless to say, I didn't make a single friend from that. Even in the smaller ones, it seems that most participate either to spend a night away from their spouse/"real" friends or just for the activity.

\- Going up to talk to random strangers is also not very common here, but even if it was, it is unfortunately impossible for me. I feel incredibly self- conscious and uncomfortable. I tried it when I was in the US where people are more open and I honestly hated myself. I doubt PUA literature would help.

Anyway, I don't want to be too negative and I also have me to blame for the situation. What I wanted to highlight is that it also depends on the cultural environment and the particular circumstances. To me, it is quite indicative that we have dating websites and meetups and social web sites and whatnot but we are generally more lonely.

<comment><USER24> Thanks for your reply. I don't have the time to answer your post in detail, so I give some brief thoughts. I don't know how big your city is but maybe you should consider to relocate. Capitals are usually the way to go, most people, open minds. Also some countries/mentalities are more open and some not, so maybe you should change the country, too. Don't get me wrong but your post sounds pretty negative, I agree that getting out of loneliness is hard but it's not impossible. And believe me there is some life-changing pua literature out there which is very sophisticated and rather about deep psychological concepts. So, don't judge them before reading them yourself.

> it also depends on the cultural environment and the particular circumstances

Then, why don't you change them?

<comment><USER25> > I agree that getting out of loneliness is hard but it's not impossible.

I don't disagree there. My point (which I probably didn't really make) was that you can't have a recipe for it. Too much depends on the particularities of the person and their situation.

> I don't know how big your city is

I live in Munich, which for Germany is big and quite international.

> Don't get me wrong but your post sounds pretty negative

Maybe I focused too much on the bad stuff. I do have some friends, I do have the opportunity to go out from time to time. It is just that these relationships are superficial and not as fulfilling. Curiously, others do not seem to mind at all.

> Then, why don't you change them?

I am actually in the process of doing that even though, professionally, it is probably a bad move. I've been applying to different places and positions for some time now, unfortunately I haven't had much luck so far due to various reasons.

<comment><USER24> Munich is neither bad nor small but still I can imagine that finding friends there is hard: in Munich you find those networks and circles which exist for decades and over generations. The people are nice but the fluctuation is too small, the city is not dynamic, night-life is quite limited, you would need 10 years to get into the society and still some parts would not welcome you.

=> change quickly to a real capital

<comment><USER26>
      Munich is neither bad nor small but still I can imagine
      that finding friends there is hard: in Munich you find
      those networks and circles which exist for decades and over
      generations. The people are nice but the fluctuation is too
      small

Compared to the US, you find _decades old networks and circles_ nearly in every part/city of Europe (at least in Germany). This is just a result of a quite immobile society until recently. In Munich, fluctuation among _young professionals_ (20-40) is actually pretty high, or at least higher as you describe: Munich is one of Germany's economic powerhouses with lots of German graduates and professionals from the rest of Europe moving to.

      the city is not dynamic, night-life is quite limited, you
      would need 10 years to get into the society and still some
      parts would not welcome you.

I don't really know what you want to imply here: how do you define _dynamic_? And what should it mean in this context? Munich might not be as _dynamic_ as London/NYC/SF/Berlin/whatever, but calling it _not dynamic_ doesn't do it justice.

The rest of your statement is also very prejudiced: it does not take you _10 years to get into the society_ , and that some parts of _every_ society are not open to foreigners is neither unique to Munich, nor to Germany or Europe.

Regarding Munich night-life: it is definitely not comparable to Berlin night- life, but still it is quite vibrant. There are two of Germany's biggest universities in Munich, and roughly >110k students in the city. In summer time the whole city is out drinking/eating in one of the millions of beer gardens where it is quite common to sit with total strangers at the same table.

      => change quickly to a real capital

Depending on your field, Munich sometimes is THE place to go/work in Germany: i.e. you won't find a lot of engineering positions in Berlin, but lots of in Munich (or generally speaking in southern Germany; but then Munich most probably is the most open/international city there).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Loneliness has been one of the issues consistently on my mind for at least the past few years. From my early twenties on I've always lived in big cities. During my studies I was part of a student organization (very much like a fraternity), and after that I moved around between cities and as a result I made many friends, particularly 'expats'.

As I got closer to them, no matter what personality or lifestyle they had, loneliness was a common feeling. This often led to intense unhappiness and even outright depression, and some of these friends eventually returned to their home cities or college cities because they missed their friends.

Over time I started thinking more and more about this issue, as it clearly seems to be a problem, and a big one at that. I thought about the causes, but most importantly I tried to think of solutions.

When it comes to causes, one tentative conclusion I have come to is that the (post-?) modern Western European lifestyle basically sets us up to be lonely. We compartmentalize our lives to a degree that I haven't experienced as much in developing nations. Our work is separate from our 'personal' life, as are our variety of relationships. Our spouses might have never met our colleagues, our colleagues never met our friends, our friends might never meet our parents, and so on. The result is a fragmented life where you aren't automatically part of some community, but where you actively have to maintain individual and group relationships.

Another effect is that we can (and might have to) be so many different people in so many different situations, and that we often have to start from scratch because we move, change jobs, break up, and so on. On top of that, we often live alone, and put a big emphasis on our individual goals and happiness.

Contrast this with a more 'traditional' society with many family-run shops, often inside or near the house, huge families that often live in proximity, and a strong sense of responsibility for these family ties. It's hard to be lonely in such a situation (although it does exist, and when it does it can be quite severe).

I've reached a point where I sometimes wonder if our individualism and emphasis on freedom is worth the drawbacks, of which loneliness is a big one.

In my surroundings at least, loneliness needs to be actively fought. And one could argue that the pressure resting on a partnership or starting a family is sometimes too much of a burden, precisely because it is, at least in my world, one of the few remaining approaches (or at least 'convenient' approaches) to not be alone.

I've been thinking a lot about experimenting with different ways of living together and creating new forms of community. I've seen successful neighbourhood initiatives, for example, where people start interacting more on a local level. I've seen many flatshares that play a part in keeping loneliness away. And I've spent much of my life living in 'communal' environments that were wonderful, especially growing up.

The odd thing about all this is that I am quite solitary and don't generally feel lonely. I can easily spend days, even weeks, mostly by myself. And yet this problem bothers me tremendously.

I've been rambling and my apologies for any lack of coherence or over- generalizing. Let me end with a quote that hopefully does contribute something. It prescribes what I've personally experienced to be a surefire way to avoid loneliness, and to foster real connections (and fast, often!):

"We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved, and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time.

When we hesitate in being direct, we unknowingly slip something on, some added layer of protection that keeps us from feeling the world, and often that thin covering is the beginning of a loneliness which, if not put down, diminishes our chances of joy.

It's like wearing gloves every time we touch something, and then, forgetting we chose to put them on, we complain that nothing feels quite real. Our challenge each day is not to get dressed to face the world but to unglove ourselves so that the doorknob feels cold and the car handle feels wet and the kiss goodbye feels like the lips of another being, soft and unrepeatable."

<comment><USER27> > _I 've been thinking a lot about experimenting with different ways of living > together and creating new forms of community._

When I was in college, I lived in a student cooperative during my senior year. (Ridge House in Berkeley — any co-opers up in here?!) Living, studying, working, cooking, and partying together with 37 other people in a beautiful old house that was, however briefly, our collective property, was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. For once, even as a life-long introvert and loner, I felt like I was part of a close-knit community that stretched back for decades. I saw so many lifelong friendships and relationships form during my brief time there, and I've been looking to recreate that experience in my adult life ever since. (From what I've seen of my fellow ex-co-oopers, many of them feel the same way.)

<comment><USER28> There are housing co-ops that are not student only, so that would be one option. I'm far from an expert on this, never lived in a co-op myself, there may income restrictions, etc. But there are people interested in co- operative/communal living past college.

I love the concept, unfortunately I find living with lots of people pretty stressful, though fun.

<comment><USER13> Here in Berlin living in shared housing post-college is quite acceptable. It doesn't necessarily mean that you share much, but it's always more communal than living alone. I think it's a very good thing, and I'm happy to see that this is becoming more common in other cities too (sometimes for 'bad' reasons like housing prices, but still).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is there any more information about #1, "listen to what your body has to say"? I've come across this idea in several places lately and want to understand it better, but haven't found any good resources. Maybe something from cognitive or somatic psychology? Where does it originally come from? (Psychology? Meditation?)

<comment><USER30> I can't help you with a defined origin, but check out the book "Focusing" by E. Gendlin for a good start on experiencing/understanding the concept.

<comment><USER31> I agree, point #1 comes straight from Gendlin and should be attributed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Interesting understanding. For me this article would be better named "how to be less shy". I fight the feeling of loneliness not with other people but by finding it's source and improving my emotional balance through doing other things like sport, discovery of new stuff etc. Fighting the feeling of loneliness with people for an introvert is like fighting the desire to eat with food for fat people. It solves the feeling problem but not everything else. For example when I am around other people I often don't feel less lonely and instead also feel under stress, boringness etc.

</comment><comment><USER33> Some people think you are lonely if your way of living is different from theirs. More annoyingly, they repetitively tell you that you are lonely. If you yield to this brainwashing, then you really feel lonely.

<comment><USER21> Some people are needy and always expect to entertained. They keep telling you not because you are lonely, but they are. If you have this kind of friends, probably you have to provide something to fill in their loneliness and make them happy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Years ago my (now ex) wife and my friends would tell venial sins on road trips. It started out as a bit of a joke, but as we got going the level of intimacy grew quickly.

<comment><USER35> Where does a venial sin stop and a serious sin begin?

<comment><USER34> For us, we realized we entered into something when we starting discussing why we viewed the particular 'venial sin' in that certain light.

Like everything dealing with morality and what-not, there's no clear division. From a traditionally religious standpoint, there isn't really much of a division either. Christians would say that Jesus died for all sins, not just a handful of the most interesting ones.

I would say that the line between venial and mortal was a line drawn by man to feel something.

<comment><USER35> Interesting. Thanks for the reply. I think you're a whole 'nother level than me in regards to thinking about this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> ...or get marry.

<comment><USER15> ... results may vary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Beautiful writing - thank you for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER38> If anything I probably should be _more_ lonely. Like a person who bleeds to death without knowing it because he has no pain receptors where the cut occured.

<comment><USER38> Well, that came out a bit too over-dramatic. But I still like the pain receptor analogy.</comment></comment>


A Professor Tried to End a Sit-In with Bolt Cutters. Now He's Been Fired - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/11/us/johns-hopkins-povey.html <comment><USER3> I watched the video linked in the article. When the professor grabs someone's arm (someone trying to obstruct him), this is labeled (by the video) an 'assault'. When he is dragged out of the building, being restrained by multiple protesters, this is not an assault - but the person punching one of the protesters, I assume to try and get them to let go of the professor - <USER2> _is_ labeled an assault.

And the professor's plan to enter the building is labeled a 'premeditated attack'. The six people he had with him (far outnumbered by the protesters) are labeled a 'mob'.

Oh, and the video (in which the worst thing is a punch seen from afar) starts with a scary content warning for "physical assault and violence, abusive language, swearing".

Protests have been reduced to victimhood competitions, but rarely have I seen them become _this_ pathetic.

</comment><comment><USER4> I feel bad for the guy; had to be horrible watching your life's work being destroyed.

Chaining buildings shut is a fire hazard at the minimum, but felony trespassing + breaking & entering in reality. I understand the university officials desire to not make a scene, but not doing anything is just as bad.

<comment><USER5> As opposed to not having students arrested for trespassing in Garland Hall for 34 days? The disparity in consequences is striking. Why would you not expel the students who participated? Why did Baltimore's prosecutor drop all charges against the sit in participants who refused to leave after being offered immunity? You have the right to protest, but not for your protest to be consequence-free.

<comment><USER6> > You have the right to protest, but not for your protest to be consequence- > free.

I don't understand what you mean here. Do you mean that you have the right to protest, but then you can be punished for protesting? That doesn't sound right.

<comment><USER5> The constitution protects your rights with the government, not your college.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> To those that don't know, Povey is something of a giant in Speech Recognition. It's hard to find a recent ASR paper that doesn't cite him. So while his behavior is reprehensible he's probably not wrong that someone will hire him anyway.

</comment><comment><USER7> I hope these protesters realize that the building they're holding hostage from the university costs money to run and maintain - which will probably be a factor in tuition costs getting even higher when they go to pay their bill next year.

If I was the university - I'd start by cutting power and water to the building. They're being too nice by giving them an out by granting immunity if they leave.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't be so sure - at the more desirable schools, tuition is mostly a function of what people are willing to pay. That is why it increased so quickly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> "He said he had tried to take the building back from the students in part because a computer server that hosted his research was inside and malfunctioning."

If he had been successful this would have been a nearly perfect xkcd - [https://xkcd.com/705/](https://xkcd.com/705/)

I realize that's a little glib, but there isn't much of substance to say about something like this. If a university wants to abandon one of its buildings to students (or squatters, etc) going rouge and trying to take the building back isn't likely to end well for a university employee, regardless of the politics in play.

</comment><comment><USER9> > _Povey, 43, also wrote a 1,600-word essay about what happened, along with a > treatise about how he believes white males are discriminated against in > "this environment" and how he is expected to act like a "neutered puppy-dog. > "_

If I had any inclination to feel sorry for the guy, it just evaporated.

(quote comes from a Baltimore Sun version of the article since I'm hitting the NYT paywall)

<comment><USER10> Note that neither paper gave the full quite in context.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is bizarre. What was wrong with:

"Hey guys, I'm professor so-and-so, I need to get inside to fix the computer which I use for my research."

"Oh, professor so-and-so, nice to see you. Sure, come inside and we'll unchain the door to your lab so you can get in."</comment>


Secret + Quora = Quibbles - <AUTHOR> https://quibbl.es/

<comment><USER2> I don't have any problem with the idea - I think that it's interesting and worth trying - and yea, might not be a "company" but more of an "art project" \- but that's kinda what all great social media companies started out as.

I'm interested to ask you gals and guys what you think about things being "overdesigned". Is this a thing? We see the massive success of simple and maybe not the sexiest products all the time. I think part of that is the crappier it looks, the more likely it's someone just doing something in their garage for fun versus trying to juice user engagement to raise $1M. I like supporting individuals trying new things honestly. I'm conflicted with the latter.

Thoughts?

</comment><comment><USER3> I really don't want to be the first to comment, and being unnecessary critical... but: Quora is Quora because of the whole real name aspect. Quality answers and everything else comes after that BECAUSE of the real name, not despite of it: readers can judge the credential of the one answering the question, and additionally, users seems to be much more hesitant in putting up crap with their name attached to it.

I guess I'm just pointing out that an "Anonymous Quora" sounds (to me) similar to a "Google without a search engine" (in the early day of Google, at least), or an "Antisocial Facebook".

<comment><USER4> StackExchange has a network of question-answer sites that are, in my opinion at least, quite good and very useful. And they don't require real names.

I don't use Quora so I can't compare, but I disagree with the idea that real names are required for quality responses and comments.

<comment><USER3> I didn't mean to say that real name is the only way to have good answer. There are definitely other ways of enforcing good content for your site. I'm just saying that the defining feature of Quora is the "real name" \- at least that's the feeling I get from it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Secret + Quora = Reddit

<comment><USER6> Yeah, novelty throwaways are the first thing that come to mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> [http://www.reddit.com/r/askreddit](http://www.reddit.com/r/askreddit)

</comment><comment><USER8> It's anonymous, but have to login with a facebook account to post? Useless.

</comment><comment><USER9> <sarcasm> The questions are nothing what I expected. </sarcasm>

</comment><comment><USER10> Seriously? Quora has an ask anonymous function</comment>


Perpetual Novice - Years of Experience vs Skill - <AUTHOR> http://www.selikoff.net/blog/2009/04/12/perpetual-novice-years-of-experience-vs-skill/ <comment><USER2> I think the only people who don't value experience are those without it.

Skill is almost always a result of experience. Yes, there are those who "just get it" and can code circles around others but without the experience, they are having to reinvent something (perhaps albeit elegantly) that people with experience already know.

Case: Write me a bubble sort. You probably learned this in college and having gained that experience, it's probably easy now. A 16 year old gifted coder first has to consider the process while you are already writing it.</comment>


Map: Where Can You Find an Affordable 1 Bedroom Near BART? - <AUTHOR> http://ww2.kqed.org/pop/map-where-can-you-find-an-affordable-one-bedroom-near-bart-san-francisco-bay-area-oakland

<comment><USER2> Super interesting and useful map!</comment>


Ask HN: What are the drastic changes in Mountain Lion? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> The only changes I've really noticed is:

\- notifications thing let me get rid of growl

\- to get rid of growl I had to go download an uninstaller for it

\- to run the uninstaller I had to enable running apps from anywhere in the Gatekeeper settings

</comment><comment><USER3> Messages.app on OS X synchronized with iOS Messages.app</comment>