Body Work: The curiously self-punishing rites of fitness culture - <AUTHOR> https://thebaffler.com/outbursts/body-work-ehrenreich <comment><USER2> man, i'm actually a huge fan of barbara ehrenreich (especially nickel-and- dimed), but i feel like i could write an article like this about _any_ subject. for instance, here the subject is some people who are trying to be more healthy and take care of themselves. but it's made sinister through some sprinkling of conventional villains (humorless gym owners, corporations with fitness programs), a caricature (people tracking their workouts on clipboards) and some topical/social-justice tie-in (people who cannot afford gyms, headphones that remove you from normal interaction).

i can do this as easily for, say, education. you thought it was about people trying to learn stuff, but it's actually about drones doing rote memorization in ivory towers (which the urban poor can ill-afford), all for the benefit of soul-sucking corporations which will use that knowledge to destroy the world, even while the system oppresses those same students through massive loan debt.

or, how about programming? you thought it was about having fun creating stuff that people find useful, but it's actually about pencil-necked dweebs who got abused in high school and are now taking their revenge on the world through will-sapping social networks, even while the government lets them steal your private data consequence-free and lets them get so rich they all buy teslas (which the urban poor can ill-afford)

someone give me a topic, any topic! i can make it so sinister and hateful you'll soon be too afraid/cynical to do anything more than cower in your basement -- which, you thought it was just cowering in your basement, but it's actually about sociopathic loners hiding from the world, probably polishing assault weapons and stockpiling canned goods (which the urban poor can ill- afford) while forgoing their sacred duty to vote, thus allowing republicans and corporations to pillage the world

this really brings home for me why kim stanley robinson avoids writing dystopias.

<comment><USER3> You offer your view/counterview narratives as skeptical trial balloons but I think you needn't be so skeptical.

That is, interpretation of any phenomenon--fitness, education, programming, etc.--can be done enthusiastically or critically, as an encomium or a critique. (There are other modes, but I'm focusing on these two here.) Being able to do both is central to understanding that interpretation or judgement is not an objective act of reception but a guided act of perception.

Without the skeptical mood, your narratives reveal that none of the acts of fitness, education, and programming are unalloyed goods or unmitigated problems. Rather, they are things that can be perceived differently depending on what one takes into account.

Knowing this enables us to make decisions with greater information and, hopefully, deeper wisdom, even as it complicates what from a more limited perspective may seem straightforward.

EDIT: add "more" in last sentence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think that there's a very good point here which is being ignored: that in order to be in the manager/director/CxO class it has become a near-requirement to go to the gym. Once upon a time attendance at church would have been mandatory; any candidate who didn't belong to a church, or the Masons, or whatever, would have been 'not quite our type'; now someone who's not physically fit is 'not really a cultural fit.'

As far as I can tell, it's really status signalling. Once upon a time the wealthy were overweight, as a show of their superior access to resources; now that our society is so rich that anyone can be fat, the wealthy are fit, as a show of their superior access to the resources of time (to exercise) & money (to belong to a gym/hire a trainer/eat fancy engineered food).

And the thing is, I don't think it's actually relevant to the jobs of managing, directing or being CxO.

<comment><USER5> This is nonsense.

Being in good shape is a direct visible sign of self discipline, ability to work towards goals despite pain, resilience, impulse control, patience, long term thinking, and many other positive traits.

It's literally the diametric opposite of what you suggest, in many ways it's arguably the _only_ truly meaningful status symbol you can't buy, inherit, or win via lottery. You have no choice but to work for it.

Not to mention, besides its usefulness as a proxy for positive traits, it also has direct effects. Exercise leads to improved mental health and other effects that are directly applicable to doing a better job.

<comment><USER6> All true but as someone who lives in Santa Cruz, the home of CrossFit, I will say there is a strong subjective correlation between fitness douchebags and CrossFit. To paraphrase Bill Maher, it's not that all CrossFit people are douchebags, it's that most of the douchebags I meet in the gym are doing CrossFit routines requiring them to alternate between 2 or 3 machines in a precise rhythm which we should not interrupt for any reason or there will be horrible consequences.

The best example here was this body beautiful couple that never smiled in the gym for any reason whatsoever. When they wanted your machine, they would each man the machines on either side of you with very low weight and sit there slowly pumping reps on it whilst glaring at you to try and get you to give the machine to them. After a few instances of this, I responded by slowing down my routine and throwing in extra exercises just to mess with them because this was hella annoying. They could have just asked me when I would be done, which would have been in about 2 or 3 minutes, but apparently forming words was too much work for them so it became an eternity of 5 minutes instead.

When my membership expired, I left that gym and never returned.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't know what kinds of gyms the author is going to, but in my years of taking an active interest in fitness I have never seen a gym employee tell anyone to stop dancing, nor have I ever heard anyone tell me to "crush my workout". I'm not really sure what the point of the article is aside from "I did this thing and now I don't and here's a long winded article about it", but I'm glad the author ended up listening to her body in the end and hope she's in a good place now with her health.

</comment><comment><USER8> Many people just enjoy their workouts. Of course there is a small number of obsessives in any activity. Of course there are people that hate working out but just want the result. But from years of experience I can tell most people just feel good both during and after their gym visits.

</comment><comment><USER9> I wouldn't bother reading this article, it's just an anti-exercise polemic. The author prefers to act as though she's observing some kind of pointless alien culture without acknowledging even the obvious reasons people go to the gym.

<comment><USER10> s/article/website

It's always been that way... the dark, snarky side of Harvard's self-loathing. It's ideology is really the antithesis of what goes on at HN. Try reading some other articles in the Baffler....

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > The major interaction that goes on in gyms is not between members or between > members and staff, but between the fitness devotee and his or her body.

That's exactly what makes a gym a palatable place for asocial types like me.

</comment><comment><USER12> Quite fitting that this article comes in the beginning March, when resolutioners come to the realization that fitness, like everything else, requires dedication and focus to reap rewards, and subsequently create ridiculous excuses for giving up.

The most ridiculous claim in this essay is that gyms are classist towards employees when, in reality, getting certified as a trainer is one of the most accessible paths to a solid income for someone without a college degree. But that, of course, requires dedication and focus as well, so the author is blind to it.

</comment><comment><USER13> 'Functional' exercise is often underrated (e.g. boxing, martial-arts, crossfit).

I used to be very healthy when I went to my local boxing gym regularly. Unfortunately there's not a boxing gym near where I currently live.

Interestingly, I joined the local (regular) gym for a year (cancelled my membership in January) and I'm in the worst shape I've been in for about 9 years.

edit: added a word

<comment><USER14> Totally agree with you. I do judo and workout at a regular gym and I'm in pretty good shape.

If people want a good fun workout I think they should give combat sports a try. If they don't want to actually fight fitness boxing could work. Or spar and not get hit judo or bjj are good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's not about punishment but enjoying to feel resistance in the forces of nature.

<comment><USER16> Paraphrasing from Henry Rollins: The iron doesn't lie. 200lbs will always be 200lbs, and that's a nice constant to rely on.

Taking it even further, exercising for me is all about making my everyday life easier. Being stronger than average means I have a much easier time opening jars, taking down kitchen machines from the top of the cupboard, moving around furniture and countless other things that people do all the time.

I started out not even being able to do a single pushup, and I felt like a fat slob (because that's what I was). Now I'm stronger and fitter and everything physical is just so much _easier_. I'm still not at my goal of getting rid of my beer gut, but so much better than where I used to be. I can run up stairs now, I couldn't even imagine trying to lug myself up the stairs at work if I weighed 200kg.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> With the cherry picked attacks on the article and author, coupled with the competitiveness of the deeper threads about it on HN (example: 270 pounds? That's nothing! Not following a regimented process? Lack of discipline! Your body's fitness is a useful proxy for positive leadership traits!), I can't help but conclude that the crowd here has validated the article quite nicely.

It's no longer just about being healthy; it's about social and virtue signalling. Even HN in't immune.

</comment><comment><USER18> This 'article' seems pretty biased toward ignorance of the body, or even what 'fitness' is. Most gyms incentivise use of easy to maintain machines at the cost of your fitness. This is commercial chain gym culture, quite distinct from fitness culture. The author seems to be rationalizing having given up on their body, by reframing it as refusing to 'pusnish' it. Unadulterated garbage.

</comment><comment><USER19> > At my zenith, I could draw spectators for my leg presses at 270 pounds

I had to make sure I wasn't mistaken about what a leg press is [1]. 270lbs on leg press doesn't draw spectators anywhere, it's a warm up set for most people. This line throws into question the credibility the rest of the article...

[1] [https://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Quadriceps/SL45LegPress](https://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/Quadriceps/SL45LegPress)

<comment><USER20> yeah i'd agree but maybe if you're a tiny woman it could?

Not sure but i know 16 year olds that can do that much

<comment><USER19> Ah, "Barbara", yea maybe... even still I see women doing 360+ regularly at my gym

<comment><USER21> She is 76 years old, if that changes your computations. (I don't think I've ever noticed anyone actually using the leg press machines in anger at my local gym.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> >A regimented dancelike experience, as in aerobics or Zumba, is fine, but unsupervised dance moves reek of hedonism, and working out is supposed to be a form of work. Most people come with a plan like "legs and shoulders today" or "forty-five minutes of cardio and fifteen minutes of abs," usually preceded by a warm-up and topped off with several minutes of stretching on a mat.

>[Insert:] Despite the pulsing pop music and comfortable clothes, gyms are not sites of spontaneity and play.

>Working out very much resembles work, or a curious blend of physical labor and office work. Members not only lift weights, for example; they often carry clipboards on which to record the number of reps and sets and the amount of weight lifted for each workout, like a supervisor monitoring a factory worker's performance.

God forbid people set goals for their bodies and approach them in an efficient, systematic manner instead of running around like children. This article is beyond useless, and there are few things I find more pathetic and loathsome than condescending social critics who squeeze other people's pursuits into their sentimental, rigor-averse narrative. Any lifestyle or socio-economic conclusions drawn from this set of assumptions about how a gym ought to be are just begging the question.

<comment><USER23> > running around like children

> their sentimental, rigor-averse narrative

Me, I experience a positive correlation between gym-affinity and tediousness in the people I meet.

> there are few things I find more pathetic and loathsome than condescending > social critics

Do you perchance derive a feeling of superiority from your rigorosity?

<comment><USER2> ah, the knife cuts both ways. do you perchance enjoy a feeling of superiority when you use the term "sportsball"? how much more cerebral and refined you must be than those sweaty grunts!

i find people who spend their days "coding for fun" or whatever tedious, but i don't attempt to ascribe their habits to sinister cultural forces or paint them as self-obsessed egotistical narcissists

<comment><USER4> > do you perchance enjoy a feeling of superiority when you use the term > "sportsball"?

Yes, because I'm a grown man who doesn't feel a deep emotional need to watch a bunch of men wearing spandex running around on some grass.

 _Playing_ sports is a really awesome thing, and everyone should do it. Enjoying the occasional game is probably okay. _Following_ sports is IMHO a kind of mentally unhealthy extended adolescence.

> i find people who spend their days "coding for fun" or whatever tedious

I _am_ tedious — but fortunately we live in a world where people with my kind of tedious personality are well-rewarded for our skills. A few centuries ago and no doubt I'd have starved to death.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Take your startup on tour in Southeast Asia - <AUTHOR> http://www.hackerparadise.org/startups/

<comment><USER2> Sounds much better than paying £1000+ rent in London and taking a break from the fog.</comment>


Ask HN: Business ideas for solo developers? - <AUTHOR> What are some business ideas that a single software engineer can successfully develop on their own (generate income on par with being employed at an average -not SF- company)? Does one need a fundamentally different skill set to run a small business? What are some stressing cons to consider? <comment><USER2> Consulting. If you really want to be successful in this industry, then yes you need a different skill set from engineering: Sales, marketing, being able to network with people and talk about your work, accounting.

There's this idea of a T-shaped skill set that I think very much applies to this kind of business: You have your primary skill (i.e. the service you offer, in your case engineering expertise), in which you have in-depth knowledge, and then you have supporting skills (like accounting) in which you're no expert but which you know sufficiently well enough to be able to market your services.

Finding the right balance between earning sufficient revenue sustainably (and the always reasonably full sales funnel required for that) and not taking up more work than you can handle can be particularly stressing.

<comment><USER3> > T-shaped skill set that I think very much applies to this kind of > business...

Solid advice, I might add the wisdom Alan Weiss is a must read for new consultants > [https://www.amazon.com/Million-Dollar-Consulting- Professiona...](https://www.amazon.com/Million-Dollar-Consulting- Professionals-Practice/dp/1259588610/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> To me, there seem to be two successful paradigms for running a business, being engaged by the administrative side of the business or being engaged by the operations side of the business...these of course can be merged into some single notion of being engaged. Plain old working for money is on the close end of the spectrum to the first. Putting up with the pain of running a business for the sake of the work is along the spectrum toward the other.

The biggest stressor for the owner's of most small businesses is not getting a regular paycheck.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you're willing to do even a modicum of the business leg work you can make 2x what an SV dev makes as a consultant, while working far less.

<comment><USER6> Why not be specific? Or would that be the modicum of legwork required?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> There are many great Micro SAAS idea you could build on your own any day and make an income of. A skill that is needed is focused on running a SAAS business, but there are so many great content and tools out there to support you.

Go for it!

See : [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9877881](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9877881)

</comment><comment><USER8> [http://7daystartup.com/](http://7daystartup.com/) is a great resource

</comment><comment><USER9> Stressing concerns; I would say the IRS (and alike).

<comment><USER10> Agreed -- I've been a one-man-band for 13 years now, & it's the business administrivia which is the biggest time-suck. That and finding health insurance.

<comment><USER11> I'm branching out on my own with a few freelance projects. Two questions:

1\. What tactics do you use to ensure a stable income? 2\. What percentage of your time is spent actually developing?</comment></comment></comment>


The coronavirus may sink the cruise-ship business - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/business/2020/03/31/the-coronavirus-may-sink-the-cruise-ship-business <comment><USER2> "They are now approaching Florida, and their holiday has been anything but elegant, comfortable or luxurious. More than 1,000 people have been confined to their cabins since March 22nd. As of March 30th at least 193 had fallen ill with flu-like symptoms, several have tested positive for covid-19 and four have died."

Honestly that's brutal.

[http://irlande28.kazeo.com/tu-recherches-du-travail-en- irlan...](http://irlande28.kazeo.com/tu-recherches-du-travail-en-irlande- voici-une-proposition-a120647466)</comment>


Dodo: 6502 Portable Game System Kit - <AUTHOR> http://www.dodolabs.io <comment><AUTHOR> Just went on sale last night (PST) for $199. [[https://www.tindie.com/products/pnoyes/dodo-6502-portable- ga...](https://www.tindie.com/products/pnoyes/dodo-6502-portable-game-system- kit/)]</comment>


NeutralinoJS: Lightweight Electron alternative using native browser controls - <AUTHOR> https://neutralino.js.org <comment><USER2> I feel like nobody cares too much if they're running _one_ Electron app; people do have the headroom for an extra 1-2GB of RAM usage. The problem comes when they run _several_ Electron apps at once, and each comes with its own "base" overhead (i.e. the runtime memory consumption of the browser-runtime as a whole, independent of how many render contexts are open.)

Chromium is built to share a lot of things between tabs efficiently, but this economy-of-scale doesn't translate over into having multiple instances of Chromium running. Each instance gets its own GPU renderer process + font-glyph tile cache, its own network-request cache (i.e. its own in-memory key-value store with its own LRU limit), etc. Running multiple Chromium instances at once is a bit like running multiple copies of an RDBMS on the same machine and expecting them to not fight over memory.

Does anyone know what exactly this "base" overhead in Chromium consists of; and, more importantly, how often it changes relative to Chromium releases? Because I'm wondering whether it'd be possible to factor most of it out into a separate layer from the highly-iterated-on "browser engine" DLL stuff (the renderer + DOM + JS layer) into its own sort of "Chromium Core Services" DLL, which could be relatively-more ABI-stable.

If you had that factoring-out, you could achieve a pretty good memory + CPU savings just by having Chromium + application frameworks like Electron all share one copy of the Chromium Core Services between them, while keeping their own higher-level "renderer+VM" DLL on top (which would hopefully be pretty stateless in terms of shared state, only adding the ~50MB mmap(2) overhead of the DLL-image itself, and then whatever memory the individual render-contexts consume.)

Alternately, of course, you could build Electron as a pseudo-browser where Electron "apps" are just separate windows running in its memory space, and the native Node processes are all just distinct V8 Execution Contexts in the same process. But 1. this would lose you the ability to develop for a particular version of the renderer, which is what Electron gains you over projects like Neutralino in the first place; and 2. this wouldn't give you the benefit of Electron sharing service-memory with Chrome itself.

<comment><USER3> Given that everyone brings this up every time Electron is mentioned, and Electron apps keep proliferating, I expect a future version of Windows and macOS to have Chromium bundled with the OS. There will be some platform independent open standard that Electron will use under the covers.

Native desktop apps are never coming back. It will either be Electron or mobile apps emulated on desktops.

<comment><USER4> Behind my two Safari windows is the text editor I use for my technical writing job: BBEdit, a native desktop app. (For coding, though, I prefer to use MacVim, a native desktop app, although I've lately been trying out a beta of the forthcoming Panic Nova, a native desktop app.) I also use Marked, a native desktop app, for Markdown previewing occasionally. Of course, I spend a lot of time in the Terminal, a native desktop app, running command line programs and shell scripts, which are not native desktop apps but are certainly native apps. When I need to run a diff or merge tool, I tend to use Kaleidoscope, a native desktop app. Because I'm in an open office, I sometimes have to resort to headphones, which I primarily use with iTunes, a native desktop app.

Now, as I finish up this response to you in Safari, a native desktop app, remind me what were you saying about native desktop apps again?

<comment><USER2> Offtopic, but if you'd like an elegant hybrid† Markdown viewing/editing experience, I'd suggest [https://typora.io/](https://typora.io/), another nicely-polished low-memory-consumption native app.

† I don't know what to call this editing paradigm. It's somewhere between source-editing and WYSIWYG. Document markup nodes are rendered as their source syntax when your cursor is "inside" them, allowing for plaintext modification of the syntax; but then, when your cursor leaves a node, it switches to rendering as its formatted output instead. You can cursor back into the node to edit it more at any time. It's pretty unique. It's the editing style that Slack's new input box wishes it had.

<comment><USER5> I use Typora myself, but it's definitely an Electron app (neither native, nor lightweight).

[https://support.typora.io/What's-New-0.9.66/](https://support.typora.io/What's-New-0.9.66/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I see projects like this pop up every once in a while and get abandoned.

A simpler approach may be to just publish a basic web server as your app (express on top of node would do) that runs on the local machine on some random port and have users just go to that URL with their regular installed browser. Bonus points for no leakage of security / CORS / etc. issues from the UI side of things, every unsafe thing needs to be node-side where it can be better controlled. Also enforces asynchronous and efficient communication between the UI and the "local backend".

<comment><USER7> Does the browser really have access to all the same apis as electron? Doesn't electron have broader access to the file system (e.g. all the stuff that vscode does).

<comment><USER8> What the parent posted is stating is that the local web server has that system-level access, which the browser doesn't need in order to access the app.

The "back end" web server can be running on whatever language stack you like, be it Go, Rust, Haskell, Common Lisp or whatever. Syncthing is one example, where it's nominally headless, but there is a local web server that can be pulled up to set preferences, monitor status and so on. Works great.

<comment><USER7> oh yes you're right. i got confused for a moment. thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Looks kind of like WebView [1] which I earnestly tried but eventually abandoned. Using the system-provided web engine is great for space savings, but terrible for cross-compatibility and feature availability owing to having to use IE on Windows.

[1] [https://github.com/zserge/webview](https://github.com/zserge/webview)

<comment><USER10> Isn't the "system provided web engine" now Edge on Windows 10, and has been fore a while?

<comment><USER9> AFAIK, there's a difference between MSHTML (internet explorer) and EdgeHTML (edge / trident). But even then, Edge can be somewhat lacking depending on your use case [1]. For simple apps that just need a simple UI without spending time developing cross-platform, this solution is great! Unfortunately the projects I've had to develop require newer features and/or performance lent by using the Chromium Embedded Framework that simply aren't possible, even if Edge was available.

[1] [https://caniuse.com/#compare=ie+11,edge+12,chrome+80](https://caniuse.com/#compare=ie+11,edge+12,chrome+80)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > There are some drawbacks such as Windows edition is based on IE etc.

This alone is a major reason to use Carlo[1] instead, which is arguably more secure (by virtue of not using IE) and produces even more lightweight bundles than NeutralinoJS.

1\. [https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/carlo](https://github.com/GoogleChromeLabs/carlo)

<comment><USER12> Is Carlo maintained? The last commit in master was eight months ago.

<comment><USER13> It's not.

(I was part of the team that launched it.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Doesn't work on Mojave for me, since it's apparently linked with 10.15 libraries:

        ./neutralino-mac
        dyld: lazy symbol binding failed: Symbol not found: __ZNSt3__14__fs10filesystem14__current_pathEPNS_10error_codeE
          Referenced from: /Users/rcarmo/Downloads/New Items/neutralinojs-v1.3.0/./neutralino-mac (which was built for Mac OS X 10.15)
          Expected in: /usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib

        dyld: Symbol not found:  __ZNSt3__14__fs10filesystem14__current_pathEPNS_10error_codeE
          Referenced from: /Users/rcarmo/Downloads/New Items/neutralinojs-v1.3.0/./neutralino-mac (which was built for Mac OS X 10.15)
          Expected in: /usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib

        zsh: abort      ./neutralino-mac

</comment><comment><USER15> This is the correct way of doing it when a PWA doesn't cut it.

No need to push a full browser engine when the OS already has enough of them available.

<comment><USER16> It definitely is the 'correct' way of doing it, but it will mean you use IE when in windows, which is often/normally not the correct way

<comment><USER15> We still need to support IE 11 on our projects anyway.

Welcome to the corporate world.

<comment><USER17> > We still need to support IE 11

Not all of us. I'm happy to lose the 2.16% [1] in return for saving a lot in time and effort.

[1] [https://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php](https://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php)

<comment><USER15> Lucky you, I usually do internal corporate applications.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you want anything from the web to work on Windows as native why not just use PWA utilizing Microsoft's (1) own PWA Builder (2) including the availability of proper debugging tools and acceptance in the store? It doesn't matter what tech it uses. The more important thing is it will be supported and updated. There won't be any surprises.

(1) [https://developer.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/pwa/](https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/pwa/) (2) [https://www.pwabuilder.com/](https://www.pwabuilder.com/)

<comment><USER19> But it works on only Chrome at the moment. Firefox or Safari users wouldn't install Chrome just for your PWA.

<comment><USER18> What are you talking about? Read my comment. You have stand-alone native-like app that Microsofts creates for you from your web service. The app could also be installed directly from the Windows Store. No browser required at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why is it called `Neutralino`? As a supersymmetric partner it's much heavier than the Standard Model particles.

<comment><USER21> Neutrino was taken:

[https://neutrinojs.org/](https://neutrinojs.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> WebWindow is another library that takes the same approach. It's still in progress but is very promising. It was very easy to get running when I tried it last.

[https://github.com/SteveSandersonMS/WebWindow](https://github.com/SteveSandersonMS/WebWindow)

</comment><comment><USER23> A hello world Electron app uses about 50 MB of memory.

The problem with Electron apps is not so much Electron or Chromium but how they are designed & developed. Most developers view memory optimization as an after-thought. This is especially true for multiple document interface applications. The tooling is all there to monitor and optimize memory, but few make real memory budgets part of their build & integration testing process.

Developers have 16-32 GB of memory (or more) workstations and typically work on individual features that don't exercise the edge cases of large datasets. They don't bother to implement proper LRU mechanisms, paging, and often do performance optimizations that sacrifice memory for speed.

It gets worse if they aren't forced to dog food their own creations or aren't users of their app themselves.

</comment><comment><USER24> Stupid question: instead of embedding an entire browser in each-and-every app and trying to keep that secure, why not package the native desktop framework as a shared, versioned component and the app as a tiny thing that depends on it?

<comment><USER25> I'm generally pretty old school when it comes to development practices but I can totally understand how appealing it is to effectively ship your entire environment as part of your application instead of relying on shared dependencies. Dealing with dependency incompatibility is a _huge_ maintenance burden in my experience, and it's super tricky to debug if you don't have access to the problematic environment (which is most of the time if you deal with public projects).

That's why I really try to get into docker for instance, sure good old unix sysadmin and configure scripts might arguably be more elegant and efficient but it's a huge pain to maintain and can (and eventually will) break out the blue after a system update because of a regression in some obscure library. Meanwhile docker images should work mostly everywhere without any effort and you only update your dependencies when you want to update them.

So now that storage is cheap and RAM is plentiful I think shipping the dependencies as part of the executable is a reasonable approach most of the time. The problem with electron is that the dependencies involve a full web browser and half a trillion libraries. That's the insane part. I have full python virtual envs for non-trivial apps that are a fraction of the footprint of an electron hello world. It's the core technology that's broken, not the packaging.

<comment><USER2> I think the grandparent comment is envisioning something more like Docker than like e.g. the JRE.

This is actually already how the Microsoft Visual Studio C Runtime (aka MSVCRT) is distributed: each application embeds or streaming-downloads the _exact_ [ABI] version of the runtime it needs, but only one of each exact [ABI] version of the runtime needs to exist per system, and each of those runtimes can be upgraded by the OS to resolve security problems (while never altering the ABI guarantees that version distribution makes.)

As such, a runtime built this way is a lot like a base layer in a Docker image: it's a static dependency of the app, installed during the app's installation, and held in a pseudo content-addressable store that deduplicates it from other apps' demands for the same dependency.

<comment><USER26> >each application embeds or streaming-downloads the exact [ABI] version of the runtime it needs

Except when they don't. Took me way too long to accidentally install the right redist to have fn-key OSD (volume up, mute, airplane mode, et cetera) on my ThinkPad.

Because why bundle it with the drivers? No error messages either. Just mash the buttons and have no visual feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> So if I understand right, what makes this lighter than electron is the fact that only webkit2 is used instead of embedding the whole chromium app.

<comment><USER28> I don't understand, it seems like it runs in any browser? Are they using webkit2 as a replacement for node and the system browser for the GUI?

<comment><USER27> It seems to me that the Javascript runs in the client.

The Javascript side calls the system via the local network, passing through this router: [https://github.com/neutralinojs/neutralinojs/blob/master/cor...](https://github.com/neutralinojs/neutralinojs/blob/master/core- linux/src/router.cpp)

I hope that there is some form of authentication to make sure no random web apps are accessing the API.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> What is the difference between this and [https://github.com/zserge/webview](https://github.com/zserge/webview) which it's based on? Or what do I get from this that I don't from webview (which I've been considering in Rust)?

<comment><USER30> Webview author here. I have to mention that neutralino is based on a slightly outdated webview, the new version is to be merged in March, which includes EdgeHTML and Edge/Chromium support on Windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm currently working on an app built with Electron app. One thing I love is not to have to worry about whether the APIs I'm using are supported by the browser, since the browser is packaged inside the app. (if it works on my machine, it has a decent chance or working well on my users' machines).

The perf overhead (memory, bundle size) is big, but it's not stopping anyone from shipping Electron apps (Visual Studio Code, Slack, WhatsApp, etc..).

A nice to have compromise would be to have currently running Chromium Electron instances to host newly launched Electron apps, it doesn't solve the bundle size issue, but at least solves memory bloat and the number of Chrome main processes running.

</comment><comment><USER32> Why no macOS in the comparison?

[https://github.com/neutralinojs/evaluation](https://github.com/neutralinojs/evaluation)

For a moment I thought Neutralino didn't support macOS.

<comment><USER33> Presumably the person who did the benchmarks doesn't own an Apple computer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I don't think using a local web port for the UI of a desktop app is a good idea, at least for security reasons. I guess much of the resources of the alternative solutions are used to mitigate just that (in addition to having a powerful backend framework). So if you don't want either, than maybe it is an option, but it severly limits the scope of the architecture.

</comment><comment><USER35> Surprised not to see the license clearly on the site, but it's under MIT License: [https://github.com/neutralinojs/neutralinojs/blob/master/LIC...](https://github.com/neutralinojs/neutralinojs/blob/master/LICENSE)

</comment><comment><USER36> Reminds me of Nidium, but nothing is happening there anymore

[https://github.com/nidium/Nidium/](https://github.com/nidium/Nidium/)

</comment><comment><USER37> Sharing this as another alternative, unfortunately unmaintained:

[https://github.com/pojala/electrino](https://github.com/pojala/electrino)

</comment><comment><USER38> It's an awkward transition period toward a universal virtual machine, universal bytecode format JIT based runtime that runs in browser and out of it. Ultimate cross platformness. The Holy Grail. Lot's of people trying several things that tackle some of it but not all. All of them will perish as all things do but they'll pave the way for the future. Let the revolution begin;

</comment><comment><USER39> SpiderEye [1] is another project with the same approach, while Ultralight [2] is very different but with similar goals in some ways (light cross-platform application UI).

1\. [https://github.com/JBildstein/SpiderEye](https://github.com/JBildstein/SpiderEye)

2\. [https://ultralig.ht](https://ultralig.ht)

</comment><comment><USER40> _Neutralino offers a lightweight and portable SDK which is an alternative for Electron and NW.js also with many advantages. No extra dependencies are required. SDK is fully portable. Debug applications using a web browser. An uncompressed Neutralino app is only ~5MB and compressed app size is ~1MB._

</comment><comment><USER41> In time all possible words will have a different, overloaded, meaning within the context of computer science.

</comment><comment><USER42> If I understand it's like Google Chrome Native Messaging but with a generic multi-purpouse server. [https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/nativeMessaging](https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/nativeMessaging)

</comment><comment><USER43> Electron's value prop is running the same code as your website, and also being able to use latest features from Chromium, Node and JS for unified development.

Neutralino uses MSHTML and WebKit so its already outdated, and it won't run on the web. So why would I use it?

</comment><comment><USER44> When I click on the comparison button on my mobile browser it just opens the left menu

</comment><comment><USER45> This looks interesting. I was confused because the name is very close to an established JS build tool: [https://neutrinojs.org/](https://neutrinojs.org/)

</comment><comment><USER46> > There are some drawbacks such as Windows edition is based on IE etc.

What does this mean?

<comment><USER47> It uses whatever the system webview is. So on Windows that is IE, on Mac it's WKWebView, not sure about Linux.

It's a trade off: it's much more lightweight but loses cross platform consistency. For some that might be absolutely fine, for others it may not.

<comment><USER48> I wish we had a step inbetween. Something more than "just a webview" but something less than, well, all of electron. Give me like a really cut down browser that's consistent across platforms and embed it.

<comment><USER47> It's a shame Sciter hasn't seen more adoption:

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

But a) it's a commercial product and b) uses it's own scripting language instead of JavaScript. But from some initial noodling around with it the browser engine is very capable and the footprint small.

<comment><AUTHOR> The weird language is the big turn-off for me, not the license. This is also a turn-off for Flutter and Lazarus.

WHY do these projects insist on doing this? What is it about UI that leads people to think this is a good idea? _Do not make me learn yet another language just to use your UI library._

It's not that FreePascal or Dart are bad languages. It's that they're another language to consume yet more precious attention and head space, and there's nothing compelling enough about them vs. C++, Rust, Go, Python, JS/TypeScript, etc. to make it worthwhile.

<comment> c-smile You can use Sciter in C++, Rust, Go, Python, Delphi, C# and D projects : [https://github.com/sciter-sdk](https://github.com/sciter-sdk)

<comment><AUTHOR> You can't write your GUI in those languages.

<comment> c-smile > You can't write your GUI in those languages.

What do you mean by "write GUI"?

If to declare DOM structure then HTML is for that.

If to initialize DOM structure from code at runtime then this (C++ here):

       use namespace sciter;

       element root = window.get_root();
       element div = element::create("div", L"Hello world");

       root.append(div);

       div.attach_event_handler(my_controller);

Or do you mean something else?

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoa... I didn't know it let you do that! In that case that's quite interesting. It opens the potential for using the web renderer but not having to code everything in JS.

<comment> c-smile "It opens the potential..."

Applications that use Sciter for their UI are native applications. Like Norton AntiVirus for example. Or any other app of these vendors: [https://sciter.com/#customers](https://sciter.com/#customers)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> There's [https://github.com/patr0nus/DeskGap](https://github.com/patr0nus/DeskGap) which seems little more mature?

</comment><comment><USER50> Web devs have ruined the web and now they're ruining the desktop. I wish people would go back to native UIs.

</comment><comment><USER51> Does this support WASM? I'd expect not given it's so small, but worth asking.

<comment><USER52> That probably just depends on whether the system browser that it launches supports wasm, I think it's passing off the dependency.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> The docs page is just white for me

</comment><comment><USER54> using the word "lightweight" to describe anything involving js and an html renderer should be prohibited

<comment><USER55> I wonder why. Given the popularity of HTML you'd think some large organization would've developed a reasonably fast _and_ memory efficient browser engine by now but everyone seems to be aggressively optimizing for speed.

<comment><USER56> Bloated specs with tons of historical cruft and edge cases. And a renderer needs to support it all. The problem stems from trying to use something designed to share documents with some custom styling as a universal GUI for applications instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Looks great, I will definitely try it!</comment>


Crowd-funding Preventive Treatment for Breast Cancer - <AUTHOR> https://www.microryza.com/projects/can-we-prevent-the-transmission-of-brca-mutations

<comment><USER2> How is anyone supposed to evaluate the scientific merits of something like this? Or do we want funding based only on buzzwords, SEO, and video production skills?

<comment><USER3> NIH and NSF are often criticized for slow decisions, but a major reason for that is: experimental science is difficult and slow. Software people find this hard to comprehend, e.g. why would it take 10 years to find a new treatment? That's because you find an affected family (if it's hereditary), find appropriate controls, map the mutation, make a mouse model, use the mouse model to screen for pharmacological agents, and return to humans for testing them.

Microryza needs a vetting mechanism, at the very minimum, perhaps a dedicated science advisory board. Otherwise it runs a high risk of becoming a platform for snake oil salespeople.

<comment><USER4> Agreed...but: the NSF and NIH are sadly underfunded these days. Good research is getting left behind, because funding levels are up in the top 1% of grant applications.

I'm not sure if this is the right model for funding research -- regular people are _completely unable_ to select scientific projects for their merit -- but combined with a legitimate peer review system, it just might work.

What I'd like to see is Microryza incorporate NIH grant scores, or some other established peer-review metric. If the public could crowd-fund interesting, _legitimate_ scientific research, there's definitely a need for the money.

<comment><USER5> The disease foundations and other charities are possibly a better model for this kind of funding, although there may be political and efficiency problems there too.

I actually really like the kinds of science education and literacy projects featured on Microryza's homepage, and fun ecology projects involving pandas and lemurs. That kind of stuff is very underfunded, and the $20k can actually make those projects happen and make a difference, while getting the broader public excited about science in general. But it's a mistake to pretend that this is any sort of solution to problems with NIH funding.

<comment><USER6> I strongly disagree with you, in that the big potential solution we offer is to simultaneously help small foundations and eat their lunch. The whole notion of someone at a desk stamping papers to identify what research to fund, when there is just not enough funding to go around anyways, is inefficient and wasteful. The real power of crowdfunding is that it allows people to really dictate what they want to care about, and not rely on some proxy to do that for them.

There are information completeness problems, but those are technical (in my opinion) and very solvable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Using PARP inhibitors to prevent transmission of a BRCA mutation seems like an exceedingly risky strategy, when pre-implantation diagnosis or selective termination are effective and have pretty well-defined risks. Messing with DNA damage detection and repair machinery is probably not something you want to do in gametes.

Even if this worked in mice, it is difficult for me to imagine how a trial could even be done to allow it to be approved for human use.

</comment><comment><USER7> BRCA mutation they mention : <http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/BRCA>

If anyone's feeling disillusioned at this point on the lack of obvious progress: I'm not entirely sure if the problem at this point is funding as much as it is the correct allocation. Research branches off to many things, naturally, and that's how we find cures or even potential cures, but how much of it is effectively being allocated to promising areas vs just shotgunning everything? That's why I hope this project does take off.

</comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone have a feel for microryza's near-future plans?

Looking at the grant applications on the first page, there are [5 5 25 4.7 9 6 17.5 10] * $1000 in goals. None of these can support a grad student for a year, let alone a postdoc.

Are they planning to broaden out into larger-scoped projects, or is the plan to stay small and get successful with small grants?

<comment><USER6> We do have several larger scoped projects in the works. The project sizes have been kept intentionally small up until now.

<comment><USER8> Thanks! Best 'o luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's sort of a sad statement about our society that the Veronica Mars kickstarter project has raised $4.1 million with time to spare, while all of the worthy projects on Microryza combined couldn't do it.

Someone needs to make a for-profit movie/violent video game company with the goal of using the profits to fund this stuff.

<comment><USER5> People donate a lot of money to medical research through organizations like the American Cancer Society and many more specific foundations.

Just because crowdfunding is cool, it doesn't follow that it makes sense as a funding mechanism for science.

<comment><USER7> Of course, there are other funding sources, but I don't think it _doesn't_ make sense for funding science. The problem is the never ending list of charlatans that can siphon badly needed funds from legitimate reserach, so a lot of these need some sort of strict vetting (especially for biological research) from qualified professionals. Unless they too are volunteering their services, that's an added cost right there.</comment></comment></comment>


How We Kill Geniuses - <AUTHOR> http://blog.wired.com/business/2009/02/ted-how-we-kill.html <comment><USER3> I'll go out on a limb (especially since this is HN! run by YC!!): entrepreneurship is killing genius. In my lifetime I've witnessed the slow slide from blue sky research being rampant in corporate America around the time I was born (early '80s), to being found only in academia ('90s), to even academia being expected to turn a profit ('00s). My university even has a vice-Provost in charge of turning research into new businesses.

Not every good idea can make a profit. When you demand that all ideas do, you'll be missing out...

<comment><USER4> Genius created the apple computer. Entrepreneurship brought it to the rest of us. There's probably about the same amount of genius as ever, there's just a lot more people hawking it these days.

<comment><USER5> Depends on how you're defining it, but attributing products to "genius" sounds awfully like a creationist fallacy. It's interesting that you should cite Apple; Woz's work on the Apple I and their current design process both seem exceptionally darwinian.

<comment><USER4> I'm going to have to disagree with that. It took surprising insight for the Woz to look at the same parts catalogs as everyone else and then (without even having the parts at first) do such extraordinary things with them. Many people had access to the parts, more experience, and the technical ability to do this earlier, they just didn't.

The iterative improvement that Apple uses to design and perfect products is somewhat darwinian but it lacks the random mutation and recombinative aspects that define evolution. I'd have to say (since the water has already been clouded by this new little corollary of Godwin's law) that it more nearly approximates intelligent design.

<comment><USER6> Not just Woz. Jobs did it too. Back then, and still today. If you think that the people who conceptualized and designed the iPod and iPhone aren't artists through-and-through, you've got another thing coming. The team works together, yeah, but you don't design beautiful things by committee.

Incidentally (to the OP), you _always_ make multiple designs before you pick one. That's not loss of artistic process. I've got three drafts of a single chapter of the book I'm working on now. I've got something like 5 different possible melodies to fit a song I've been Garagebanding. That doesn't take away from the power of the individual when it comes to designing a product. (Considering how in-depth people have looked at Jony Ive's design process and inspiration, I find it sad that people still think Apple products are made through a generic idea-forming process, that the people barely matter in the creation process.

(Also, this author is not a particularly good one, and the fact that she's citing Tom Waits is not a good sign. Waits is a legendary practical jokester and story spinster, and all reports of his songwriting I've read say that he undergoes a very strict process when constructing his songs.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I dunno. I think it's wrong to view genius as being an inherent quality of a person. I think it's equally wrong to view it as an external force that just happens to visit people at certain times.

In my experience, genius is the result of turning over a problem in your head over and over, learning all the angles, and then relaxing and forgetting about it for a while. While you're forgetting about it, your brain can make subconscious connections between everything you've learned that seem to come from nowhere. But _you have to have the background knowledge_.

I find that I have tons of creative ideas when I'm just starting out a project. They almost all turn out to be bad ones. Then once I explore a bit, learn everything there is to know about the area, I'll _occasionally_ get a decent idea. If I don't think too hard about it.

</comment><comment><USER8> From the amazon reviews of her book: "I could not finish this book. When the author burst into sobs yet again in the middle of prayer, or a conversation, or walking down the street, or (more likely) on the floor of yet another bathroom, I gave up. This is the type of person you meet at a cocktail party and RUN in the other direction after a few minutes when she starts spewing out all her problems at you with no end in sight."

<comment><USER9> Elizabeth Gilbert wrote the best treatise on writing (and by extension, creative expression) I think I've ever read. Here are some excerpts - <USER2> believe its worthwile reading the entire essay many times:

"I often hear people say, "I'm not good enough yet to be published." That's quite possible. Probable, even. All I'm saying is: Let someone else decide that. Magazines, editors, agents – they all employ young people making $22,000 a year whose job it is to read through piles of manuscripts and send you back letters telling you that you aren't good enough yet: LET THEM DO IT. Don't pre-reject yourself. That's their job, not yours. Your job is only to write your heart out, and let destiny take care of the rest."

"There are heaps of books out there on How To Get Published. Often people find the information in these books contradictory. My feeling is -- of COURSE the information is contradictory. Because, frankly, nobody knows anything. Nobody can tell you how to succeed at writing (even if they write a book called "How To Succeed At Writing") because there is no WAY; there are, instead, many ways. Everyone I know who managed to become a writer did it differently – sometimes radically differently. "

<http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/writing.htm> Submitting essay link for what it's worth..

<comment><USER6> I really wanted to dislike that essay - I was annoyed at how she treated writing like a sacred task - but it was good and definitely worth the few minutes it took to read. Thanks for the link!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This article reminded me of the story of Robert Oppenheimer. In that case, at least, I think the story of how we destroy our heroes rings true.

If any of you enjoy biographies, stories of scientific and engineering heroism, and haven't read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," please do. It is an extraordinary story.

<comment><USER11> _Oppenheimer himself at his 1954 security clearance hearings denied being a member of the Communist Party, but identified himself as a fellow traveler, which he defined as someone who agrees with many of the goals of Communism, but without being willing to blindly follow orders from any Communist party apparatus._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer>

Oppenheimer destroyed himself, allying himself with the only orthodoxy [but somehow being _not_ orthodox] that was more murderous than fascism.

<comment><USER10> How is agreeing with some of the goals of an othodoxy the same as allying with it?

<comment><USER12> Further, how is an orthodoxy/political belief murderous? I thought only people could commit murder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Briefly: based on anecdotes, some may be more creative if they psychologically attribute their creativity outside their ego

<comment><USER14> Frankly, I don't know. It seems the most creative people are also self- confident. They're both arrogant and humble. Plus, we should rate someone's achievement by his best output, not his thousands failures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Interesting starting point to a real problem with "genius," but not a great strategy. If she's arguing that internalizing blame for not being constantly brilliant or being able to maximize your brilliance puts undue stress on amazing people, then maybe learning to live with that fact rather externalizing the blame to something imaginary would be a better idea. That way, you will at least be comfortable enough with your own mind to maybe begin exploring real ways to improve your genius productivity (see also: [http://nomediakings.org/time_management_for_anarchists/free_...](http://nomediakings.org/time_management_for_anarchists/free_anarchomic_released.html)).

</comment><comment><USER16> Much of achievement is circumstantial: a product takes off because people need it (which is something outside the product). You notice a connection between two things, because you knew about them both and happened to be thinking about them. You can't _arrange_ to discover things that are unknown - by definition. All you can do is be out there looking, doing things, trying things. _Inspiration strikes he who is at the typewriter_

</comment><comment><USER17> Talk about superstition.

<comment><USER18> Why must hackers be so literal with everything? Just talking about inspiration as coming from an external entity doesn't imply superstition, it doesn't mean somebody has strong faith-based beliefs about the exact nature of spirits and little green people.

If you're willing to loosen your grip on the necessity for all ideas to be fact-based, and let some of the fuzzy in, the idea of a muse can serve as a useful perspective on the creative process. It's a hell of lot more useful than sticking electrodes on people and trying to quantify creativity with statistical analysis.

Even hackers have muses.

<comment><USER17> "...we should view the brilliance as a gift from an unknowable outside source..."

I'm OK with fuzziness, but mysticism appals me.

<comment><USER18> Why? Because people use it to take advantage of other people?

<comment><USER19> As if that alone isn't enough reason.

<comment><USER6> Precisely. Any artist that thinks his mind isn't responsible for the beautiful things they create is doing himself a disservice. Perhaps you will never fully understand your mind, but that's a testament to _the power of your mind_ , not a sign that a divine being is necessary.

Frank Zappa had an excellent quote about this. When discussing spiritualism in music with a fellow musician, he said: "Look, these are just instruments. Find out what the range is, and start writing." And that's what it is. Writing music is difficult, and requires a degree of brilliance to come out with even a comparatively mediocre song, but there's no magic to it. It takes work and thought. It doesn't take superstition.

<comment><USER20> Most historical genii I know of attribute their greatest work to something outside of them. Is there a good counter to this observation?

Even if we start with your premise, that it's only the person's brain, the brain itself is an amalgamate of many, many other things, very few we have direct responsibility for. So, even then, it doesn't make sense to take full responsibility for any genius we may possess.

<comment><USER6> I find that a very repugnant attitude.

No, you don't live in a vacuum. Newton was indeed standing on the shoulders of giants. But to go from there to saying you don't deserve responsibility for what you've done is a grossly illogical step to take.

You could argue that Zappa did everything because of circumstance. You could make a good and utterly meaningless case because of that, that everything is responsible for everything. It's good because it's generic enough to be obvious; it's meaningless because if everything causes everything it's the same as nothing causing anything.

In Zappa's case particularly: I know of no other musician that learned music through modernist composers and then translated that into rock music, who started off playing drums in a small band, took control of that band, taught himself guitar and became a virtuoso, and produced 90 albums in about 30 years in every genre imaginable. Nobody even comes close in that regard, and nobody has ever done anything like it. So, who's responsible for that genius? The record stores, for selling albums that caught Zappa's eye? Zappa's parents, for letting him buy records? The band members who ducked out and let Zappa take control? Those aren't genius acts. The genius is the thing that Zappa provided that came from him and him alone.

 _Most historical genii I know of attribute their greatest work to something outside of them. Is there a good counter to this observation?_

Shakespeare didn't. Joyce didn't. Beckett didn't. The author of my favorite novel, Daniel Handler, is quoted as saying something to the effect that the only sacred thing about his writings is that he took the time to revise them. Bach wrote _for_ the church but I've never read something saying that he was merely writing for God. The attitude stated here, that genius comes from an outside force, is incredibly rare. I've never heard anybody who's made anything truly extraordinary crediting anybody but themselves. The act of creation requires ego above anything else.

<comment><USER20> First of all, where do I say people do not deserve responsibility for genius? They just do not deserve sole responsibility. I do not think genius is without effort. Genius requires supreme effort.

But, do you think there's a difference between the deep insights we call genius and someone who achieves a lot? I do. The people who are most celebrated for such insights vs. only being prolific seem to have a common claim to a transcendent source of insight. Off the top of my head: Homer, Plato, Dante, Einstein. Plus, Bach dedicated his work to God, not the church.

Like the speaker says, people saying that they are the genius is very recent. Having read a fair amount of the Western corpus, I'd agree. Makes sense too from an etymological standpoint, since genius means some kind of spirit, like genie. Plus, the individualist attitude seems to coincide with a derth in good art, so it looks like modern artists are missing something. It also leads to the really lame idea that good art means being totally original, which actually results in no one being original and mostly just incoherent instead. Finally, for what it's worth, my own experience validates this idea. Any ideas that seem truly good to me seem to be something outside of myself that I've grasped. Haven't you had this same experience?

<comment><USER6> "Insight versus prolific" is a tough thing to debate. Zappa fans believe that the Beatles offered nothing to music. Some people think Sex Pistols are nothing but noise.

We don't know much about Homer, Plato's concept of "the gods" was one that said humans had their own free will and were _not_ tools of the gods (brush up on Greek mythology, particularly Prometheus), Einstein gets called religious but wasn't actually. Dante you may be right about: I haven't studied him enough to know.

People claiming brilliance goes back as far as Shakespeare, who was known for being hotheaded and arrogant with his writing. It certainly goes back further, though I couldn't name specific names earlier than Shakespeare, who's pretty much the perfect null hypothesis. If Shakespeare thought he was good in and of himself, that means possibly the greatest artist of all time rejects this theory of divine inspiration.

Art isn't about _originality_. It's about _personality_. Art is partly about technical expertise, partly about artist ego. You only know yourself: the process to genius in art is the process of discovering your own standards.

For what it's worth, I've never had that experience. I know exactly what caused me to have the ideas that I do. I analyze my ideas until I understand what drives me to create them. As a result, I'm extraordinarily egotistical. It's why I thought it was worth denying the statements from the original post.

<comment><USER20> First, to clarify. By inspiration, I do not mean that someone hears a voice telling them what to do. Instead, I mean the person has a vision of something higher, outside of themselves, that they try to replicate in their art. Maybe you already think this, and we're just talking past each other.

Homer starts off the Iliad with an invocation of the muse. Read Plato's dialogue Ion, where Socrates says exactly what I'm saying. Plus, you will find the same idea in Phaedrus, Republic, and the Symposium. I'm not saying Einstein is religious. He's obviously not a theist. But, he did think his ideas were not merely constructs out of his own mind but following some higher sense of beauty.

pg writes a similar idea in his essay on taste:

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

He says taste is not subjective, not something people just create. There is a timeless logic to it.

Finally, in closing, here's a relevant cite from the very end of Dante's Paradiso:

As the geometrician, who endeavours

To square the circle, and discovers not,

By taking thought, the principle he wants,

Even such was I at that new apparition;

I wished to see how the image to the circle

Conformed itself, and how it there finds place;

But my own wings were not enough for this,

Had it not been that then my mind there smote

A flash of lightning, wherein came its wish.

Here vigour failed the lofty fantasy:

But now was turning my desire and will,

Even as a wheel that equally is moved,

The Love which moves the sun and the other stars.

<comment><USER6> Okay, yep! We secretly agree. I thought you were saying that all genius comes from non-humankind. I agree that there's an objectivity to taste and that we all approach it.

I'd differ, though, in saying that we are our own standard. The greatest art is that which most reflects its creator.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What exactly the hell is a "quantum equation"?

<comment><USER22> Discrete mathematics ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'll take two 16 ounce Mystical Fairy Juices and a two cookies, please.

</comment><comment><USER24> Everyone here on HN is genius, so even if a few get knocked off there are plenty to step up and replace them.</comment>


Ask HN: A tool for Covid patients to "flag" people/places they may have exposed? - <AUTHOR> This is just a thought, but I'm surprised I haven't seen any effort along these lines.
It would be useful if people who have tested positive for the virus could flag people and locations they came into contact with in the days before they became symptomatic.
This might be useful on a variety of levels:
1) informing the potentially exposed individuals without requiring the patient to individually contact each person
2) let others avoid those who have a higher probability of exposure (or at least give them a data point to help them make a risk-benefit estimate)
3) identify "hot spots" (businesses, restaurants, etc)
4) making the spread or potential spread of the virus more tangible for people who don't personally know anyone who has contracted the virus
Plus it would just be a fascinating dataset for visualizing the spread through communities.
Of course, I see the potential for this to exacerbate panic and enable social shaming/exclusion. I expect the perception that you're "throwing people under the bus publicly would decrease utilization of this tool even if it existed. Any ideas for how to avoid that perception?
Seems like this could be implemented pretty easily on top of Facebook APIs for Friends and Business Pages. <comment><USER2> I m sure ppl have considered various similar ideas, but the legal risk seems too large to take, esp. for a sector that has been conditioned to sell virtual trivialities for decades</comment>


The Worst-Run Big City in the U.S. – San Francisco (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big-city-in-the-u-s/ <comment><USER2> San Francisco's budget last year was $6.8 billion. Chicago's was $6.3 billion San Francisco has 800,000 people. Chicago has 2,700,000 people.

Oh, and this is a map of the Muni: [http://0.tqn.com/d/sanfrancisco/1/0/U/N/-/-/sanfranciscomuni...](http://0.tqn.com/d/sanfrancisco/1/0/U/N/-/-/sanfranciscomunimap800.jpg)

This is a map of the CTA elevated line: <http://www.transitchicago.com/assets/1/maps/ctatrainmap.png>

This is a map of Caltrain: <http://www.caltrain.com/Assets/maps/Caltrain+Zone+Map.jpg>

This is a map of Metra: [http://www.mrl.ucsb.edu/~yopopov/rrt/us/chicago/rr_chicago_m...](http://www.mrl.ucsb.edu/~yopopov/rrt/us/chicago/rr_chicago_metra.gif)

I found this quote interesting: "For all its scotch-soaked flaws, the city of yore did not suffer from these problems. While archaic and stridently antidemocratic by today's standards, the system of government cobbled together by a citizens' commission in 1931 largely did what our forebears wanted it to do — mind the store and eliminate rampant corruption."

I think municipal governments should be run by benevolent dictators. If you leave everything up to the market, you get disasters like Northern Virginia. If you go to the ballot for everything, you end up with disasters like San Francisco. No, benevolent dictators are the way to go. I'm a huge fan of Guilliani and Bloomberg's work in NYC. Love them or hate them, you'd rather live in NYC circa 2013 than NYC circa 1993. I have high hopes for Rahm Emmanuel in Chicago. He apparently came up with his last budget using a process for soliciting input from others in the government that boiled down to "fuck you!"

<comment><USER3> Not quite an apples to apples comparison, though. Chicago is a prime example of purely flat, grid design; whereas SF has to contend with a geography of nightmares for public transit. It is _tremendously_ easier to build transit systems in Chicago.

<comment><USER4> Japan has no problems and look at a map of Tokyo. There are few straight streets in the entire city. It's also got plenty of hills. So does LA and they used to have an amazing transit system. (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric_Railway>)

So no, you don't need a flat grid to have great public transit.

<comment><USER5> Whoa, Tokyo is totally flat! No comparison, and also Japan cities spend a lot more money on infrastructure than even American cities do.

Best to compare San Francisco with...Lausanne...or Chongqing (or any city with a bunch of hills that is fairly vertical).

<comment><USER6> Doesn't Lausanne have pretty good public transport? Here's a live map: <http://simcity.vasile.ch/lausanne/>

<comment><USER7> The Lausanne metro is fantastic. The M2 cuts straight through the hills and the M1 runs parallel to Lake Geneva and can get you to, say, EPFL in no time. On top of this there are the commuter trains which can get you to Geneva in about thirty minutes.

How fast can you get from 4th & King to the SJC?

Nevertheless, comparing San Francisco to Lausanne is unfair. Lausanne provides better infrastructure for a smaller population.

<comment><USER5> They have similar topologies, that was my only point (and that I've lived in both cities to know...).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > You can't get San Francisco running efficiently, because that would require > large numbers of unionized city workers to willingly admit their redundancy > and wastefulness. Inefficiency pays their salaries.

I predict we will all have this problem before too long. Every time you hear a politician talk about "creating jobs", this is what they are talking about: work as welfare. Gotta right to live, gotta work to live, so you gotta right to work-- never mind if, by working, you're actually damaging the economy.

Right now it's only a few obsolete unions and they sound crazy, but the robots will come for all of us eventually. We need to start working yesterday on a society that can conceive of supporting even those who contribute nothing, or I fear that the era of free food will see us all starve to death.

<comment><USER9> I think a lot of people will be more productive under basic income by working on things they're actually passionate about rather than compromising (with a 9-5 office job where they're paid mostly to show up and play the game of appearances) to pay the bills.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, my prediction in that scenario is we would see less nominal growth, but more actual innovation in the things people care about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> MUNI is just one of the problems with SF. There are many more.

Firstly: this is a city of transplants. You'd be hard-pressed to find a native SF'an in your daily interactions. (I know just a couple, and I've been here 6 years). As a result, many of them don't vote; or if they do, they don't have the context to see through the bullshit that is put out there. They'll take a politician's word, when a long-term resident will remember that that fucker has been lying for 20 years. As a corollary to this, you can control the City if you can put together a decent-sized voting block. So, for example: the City has 25,000 employees. If you can get the City employees on your side, then their votes alone are enough to swing most elections in your favor. For example: many years ago, the MUNI drivers got the City Charter amended to guarantee that they would be at least the second-highest paid drivers in the nation! Can you even imagine the clout they had to modify a city's constitution? (Thankfully, this was repealed a couple of years ago).

Secondly: the City has a lot of money to spend. The people in power stay in power via a huge game of doing (and getting) favors. For example: the City spends over $500 million/year on various "non profits". Your non-profit won't get a dollar unless you employ "consultants" who will help you write the proposal; and these consultants are very well-connected people. And they get a ton of money for a few days work (it's not uncommon to see such consultants be on payroll making $300K at a non-profit, but noone ever sees them at work).

Thirdly: the City is exceedingly corrupt. If you know the right people, you can get away with anything. This is why you have leeches like (Slick) Willie Brown and Rose Pak running the show. They know how the system works, and make a living just by greasing the wheels and pulling strings.

This is why, during elections, I vote for the people who are the most removed from the corridors of power. Anyone who has had anything to do with the System doesn't get my vote. It may be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but the City needs an enema.

<comment><USER11> The homeless problem in the city is freaking insane, and I'm sorry to say, but the more they spend on it, the more they simply attract them from other places.

My mother is a chronically homeless drug addict. Obviously, despite attempts from my family over the years to help her, she is beyond our help. Money is poured into drugs, she refuses to work, and her mental illness contributes to the problem. One thing that she, and many, many homeless people I have encoutnered in my visits to shelters, are good at is finding cities that offer handouts and finding a way to get to these cities. My mother is a member of an entire counter/sub/culture which bounces from city to city, moving when the city's time limit on free handouts runs out. When conservatives criticize welfare dependency, this is what they point to. I don't agree with them, but this is a real problem.

San Fran draws homeless drug addicts like a moth to a flame. As a city, the thought is that these programs are a compassionate thing to do. Enabling drug addiction is not compassionate to the homeless, and it certainly isn't compassionate or caring to the citizens of the city who have to fund this ridiculous garbage. When you provide a soft landing to drug addicts, you are enabling them.

Its not just the Tenderloin. My first time in the city in many years, back in 2004, I got off the BART with my brother, who had never been to the city. Literally, within minutes of us arriving near Fisherman's Wharf, (I wanted to show him some sights) a drunk homeless man attempted to punch me in the face. He was much smaller than me, so it wasn't dangerous, but it certainly would have been bad for a smaller person or a woman.

My niece is in fashion school in the city, and has been groped and grabbed by homeless on multiple occasions. It is out of control, and it gives liberalism a bad name.

Are conservative cities assholes to homeless? Yes. Do they treat them like human beings? No. Do citizens of said cities get harassed? No.

Many cities have a middle ground, such as having zero tolerance for homeless intimidating/touching citizens. If you touch, you are no longer welcome.

There are many who would call me heartless. But when a mentally ill/drug addicted person becomes a predator, and attacks a loved one, they quickly change their tune, especially when they find out that the predator was attracted to their neighborhood by handouts purchased with their own tax dollars.

<comment><USER12> Reminds me of:

 _Homeless Are Fighting Back Against Panhandling Bans_

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/06/us/homeless-are- fighting-b...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/06/us/homeless-are-fighting- back-in-court-against-panhandling-bans.html?_r=0)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The url for all 6 pages of the article in one is: [http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big- ci...](http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-12-16/news/the-worst-run-big-city-in-the- u-s/full/)

<comment><USER14> How'd you find it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Worst run transportation system in the country. But on the good side, it's what has enabled Uber and Sidecar to thrive.

In SF, even the disfunction is startup friendly.

<comment><USER16> Dysfunction! The prefix comes from dys- which is the Greek for adding a "bad" sense to the word.

Dis- is from the Latin for "apart, between".

You like this? On-demand editing services: firstname.lastname@example.com

Clickable: <http://www.edithero.com/>

<comment><USER17> Do a Show HN post instead of spamming in the comment section

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I find it hard to believe that any city could be run worse than Detroit.

<comment><USER19> It doesn't help that it's much poorer than any of the other cities mentioned yet is far bigger than SF and Chicago combined...

<comment><USER20> But it didn't start out poor.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> From 2009 but a good read and I'm sure as valid as ever.

</comment><comment><USER22> Why is this 2009 article trending now?

People want to live in San Francisco in spite of the city government, just like the summers there.

</comment><comment><USER23> We actually do this on purpose. It's a hazing ritual. And it's how we keep the city weird. You are free to leave!

<comment><USER24> This won't last for long. The influx of "tech transients" will force changes on the landscape and the machinery.

[http://www.missionmission.org/wp- content/uploads/2012/08/fuc...](http://www.missionmission.org/wp- content/uploads/2012/08/fuck-off-yuppies-560x560.jpg)

[http://www.missionmission.org/2012/08/22/fuck-off-yuppies- sa...](http://www.missionmission.org/2012/08/22/fuck-off-yuppies-says-new- graffiti-on-299-valencia-condo-complex/)

So I'd say, count your days. They're numbered. Your anti-gentrification rage is pointless.

<comment><USER23> Right, until they all move away to the suburbs in < 10 years because 'It's just a lot _nicer_ out there, you know what I mean? Not so many homeless people.'

If you think this bubble is going to force any permanent change on San Francisco, youre delusional.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> yes, blame the city's problems on the head of the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. is this supposed to be journalism?

</comment><comment><USER26> Philadelphia is so much worse. Bigger, poorer, more corrupt. There is good reason to believe that the political "ruling families" trade off power, and pay each other not to run.

Here's an example: City infrastructure like sewer pipes and water mains are owned by a private company, who doesn't appear to ever do maintenance. And when the 100+-year-old pipes inevitably break, causing sinkholes in major roads, the city pays the company to "fix" them. Which is why a major intersection 3 blocks from my house, in one of the busiest & most touristy parts of the city, has been closed for 4 months aaaand counting.

Also… Public transit? Ha!

School funding? HA! There's an epic budget shortfall for education but city hall is spending something like $40-50 million to build a park in front of city hall: [http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/Bids- due-...](http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/inq-phillydeals/Bids-due- for-50M-rebuild-on-City-Hall-park.html)

Comcast and other major corporations pay zero taxes.

Still a better place to live than SF though, if you ask me, but I avoid all talk about politics like the plague, and I take taxis and donate a car payment's worth to local DonorsChoose projects every month.

<comment><USER27> Sewer pipes and water mains in Philadelphia are owned and maintained by the Philadelphia Water Department, a government organization.

SEPTA bus, trolly, and train service is not too bad. There are parts of the city that are not well covered, but with Regional Rail, it's somewhat easy to get around.

I'll give you school funding, but Dilworth Plaza was a pretty awful place and the remodel looks nice.

Philly's not perfect, but with it's size, age, and location in the rust belt, it's not doing too bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Richly pertinent here is a recent post on the Muni by Bryan Goldberg.

"As I've written before, and will write more about in the future, California and San Francisco suffer from "The Italian Complex".

Our state is a lot like the nation of Italy. It has a beautiful natural landscape and weather that most people would envy. It is geographically diverse — we enjoy great sunshine and great skiing in relatively close proximity. The people are culturally pleasant, love life, and you can strike up conversation with gentle strangers. We are intellectual and passionate about both arts and science. They gave us the Renaissance, and we gave the world the Digital Age. But for all the natural and cultural brilliance, we are held down by an incompetent and pathetic government.

And if the city of San Francisco is at the heart of our political incompetence, then the Muni system is like the left and right ventricle.

The problems with Muni are so tremendous and infuriating that I don't even know where to begin. But here are a few points off the top of my head (with a little help from Google).

Muni generates a mind-bogglingly small proportion of its own funding…

Muni charges people fares to ride, and you would think that these fares could cover at least a meaningful portion of their immense operating costs. But no. They cover a measly $198 million of the $821 million budget. That's not even one quarter of the cost. The biggest contributor to Muni's budget is parking tickets and fines, which should surprise nobody. But this is really just an accounting gimmick to charge taxpayers for Muni, because in most cities parking tickets would be used to fund an array of services.

Nobody is saying that Muni should operate at profit. Or that it should come even close to profit. But how about covering half of its costs through revenue from its users?

In comparison, the NYC MTA generates over $7 billion from fares and tolls, which covers more than half of its $13.4 billion annual budget.

The Chinatown political machine ensures that they get the lion's share of the benefits

The epicenter of Muni is on Stockton, Powell, and the other major arteries that run through Chinatown. By 'coincidence,' this is also where the new super-expensive subway will run. People who ride the bus know about the "Dirty 30" and "45" lines that needlessly take Marina and Pac Heights commuters through the congestion of Chinatown en route to their jobs downtown or in Soma.

This is not because such routes and investments serve the people of San Francisco. It is because the Chinatown political machine controlled by Rose Pak — who basically put our mayor into office — decrees it to be the case.

The political machine keeps rolling. The big infrastructure money goes to Chinatown. Naïve hipsters with high salaries have no idea it's going on. And the virtuous cycle continues.

But I'm sure that the camera shops, trinket stands, and street-side produce markets of Chinatown are the ones providing the city with most of its tax, jobs, and commerce income.

Muni is basically useless, anyhow. Walking is better.

Taking Muni is basically a waste of effort and money. You will be stunned by how little time you save by riding the bus vs. just walking. Riding a bike is so much more effective than taking the bus that it's laughable.

This is a tiny city, and you can walk from any one point to another in 45 minutes most of the time.

But, back to walking. Anyone who is traveling in a North-South direction to commute (i.e. Marina to Downtown) knows that by the time the 30 or 45 bus gets to Chinatown, you can get out and walk faster, plus you don't feel like a sardine. That walk is a no-brainer.

But what about East-West commuters (i.e. Lower Haight to Downtown)? To illustrate, I will use my old commute and Google Maps. I used to live at Fillmore/Hayes, which was two full miles from my office at Kearny/Sutter. By San Francisco standards, this is a fairly typical distance from work. According to Google Maps, the walk will take 34 minutes. If you take the N-Judah, the absolute fastest you can do the ride is in 20 minutes, but that assumes no wait for the bus, which is unlikely. Throw in a reasonable wait for the bus, and now you save maybe five minutes door-to-door. Plus it costs money and you get way less exercise. And you may get sick from having twenty people within two feet of you. So there's that cost too.

In short, Muni is basically useless."

I agree in full.

Source: [http://pandodaily.com/2012/12/29/muni-is-100-years-old- too-b...](http://pandodaily.com/2012/12/29/muni-is-100-years-old-too-bad-it- wont-die-like-a-human-that-age/)

<comment><USER28> Part of the problem is San Francisco's (and Phoenix/Tampa/etc/etc) fascination with rail. They spend billions and billions of dollars to construct and maintain rail systems that simply don't attract that many riders. And of course since the fares don't come close to covering the cost of the rail, the cities are forced to suck that money away from other areas like buses (which are far cheaper and have the added benefit of being more flexible). So, cities like San Francisco end up with monstrous rail costs and a resulting inability to fund fundamentally better transportation, like buses.

<comment><USER2> The problem isn't rail. Chicago and NYC have perfectly functional systems built on rail. The problem is that the rail doesn't go anywhere you want it to go.

<comment><USER28> You don't see this as a problem? I find that akin to saying "The Soviet Union had a perfectly functioning economy. The problem was just that half its citizens were starving."

One of the best aspects of buses, aside from the cost, are they can go anywhere you want. If a lot more people move into the Mission, you can spend a few million dollars and double the number of buses (as opposed to literally billions of dollars to build a rail line). If people move away from the Tenderloin, you're not stuck with billions of dollars of infrastructure that now isn't needed. Just move the bus routes.

Also, lets look at NYC, one of the most successful rail systems in the world. As OP states, it costs nearly $14B a year to operate and only generates $7B a year. That means people who don't use it are paying $7B/year to the people that do use it. I wouldn't call this "perfectly functional". And as I mentioned above, the more rail you build, inevitably the less resources you have for more efficient and economical transport.

<comment><USER2> "The rail doesn't go where you want it to go" comment is directed at Muni, not Chicago's or New York's system. Chicago's and New York's largely goes where people want it to go because development springs up around the transit.

The problem with buses is capacity. If you city is relatively sensibly laid out and commuters tend to follow certain predictable routes, you can get far more capacity on a rail line than on roads. Not only does a bus carry a lot fewer people (an NYC reticulated bus can carry about 120, a full NYC subway train about 2,000), but as a practical matter you can't run the buses as fast or as frequently as you can run trains.

Predictability is also a problem. Buses are at the mercy of street traffic. Trains run on a schedule. My commute from northern Virginia to d.c. by highway used to take anywhere from 40 minutes to 80 minutes depending on traffic. My commute from westchester to new york city by train (which is actually 2 miles longer) takes exactly 34 minutes almost every day. About once a month a train will be 5-7 minutes late (which is consistent with the ~95% on-time performance of Metro North). I can leave my house 5 minutes before the expected departure time (with a 3-4 minute walk to the station) because I can count that the train will arrive within a minute of its scheduled time. You can't replicate this by car or bus in a dense metro area.

Pollution is another problem. Air pollution has huge externalize costs in a city because of the density. With electric rail, you can build the power plants out in the country where the pollution affects fewer people. With buses, you're clogging up the air breathed in by several million people in close proximity. Buses are prime contributors to sulfurous and particulate pollution in cities.

Moreover, it's not like bus infrastructure is free. You have to build and maintain the roads, and if you want to replicate the capacity of trains you need to build isolated bus highways through the city. These are not cheap, and have a very damaging effect on the communities they run through by cutting them in half. Highway construction inside a city is an absolute terrible idea from an economic point of view.

It's wholly inappropriate to compare the operating costs of transit to revenues. First, the shortfall in the MTA isn't because it can't charge high enough fares, but because the ticket prices are kept artificially low ($100 for unlimited rides per month!) as a subsidy to low-income people. Second, transit infrastructure generates high positive externalities. You have to look at the net impact on the whole economy instead of looking at just a piece of it. E.g. consider the highway system. It brings in a few tens of billions in revenue each year via gas taxes. Is that the whole of the economic benefit of the system? Are people like me, who don't drive, subsidizing people who do? Imagine if we got rid of the highway system. What would be the impact on GDP? A hell of a lot more than a few tens of billions, I can tell you.

<comment><USER29> _because development springs up around the transit._

bingo, and with SF's difficult at best development issues, it simply hasn't been possible for the city to develop as it should have around the rail.

<comment><USER30> Exactly. If the commissions that regulat how many new housing units were both competent and not corrupt, I reckon the rail options would be far more profitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This person has clearly never been to Honolulu, as our system load and human capacity problems are evident even to tourists on a weekend-long stay. And yes, folks, it's directly the fault of the city and county of Honolulu for not creating infrastructure to accommodate the growth. It's a very backwards political system; one that dreams of a long-gone Honolulu from the 1940s. This island is pushing a million people, and our systems simply cannot withstand the amount of friction being applied to them. The whole system breaks down continually.</comment>


Should you ever fire a client? - <AUTHOR> http://www.colestreet.com/should-you-ever-fire-a-client/

<comment><USER2> Absolutely. Being able to politely walk away from a negotiation not in your favour is a powerful psychological edge and will actually contribute to the bottom line. You should be mentally willing to fire any of your clients at any time,while in practice this should be a very rare event this will help you mentally "frame" yourself as a cool polite professional rather than as a doormat.In negotiations if your not willing to walk away you are at a massive psychological disadvantage. Be polite and communicative,go the extra mile sometimes,deliver and socialise with your client,but always pursue your own interest.If you dont get what want be willing walk away.</comment>