Guided meditation for beginners - <AUTHOR> http://quietkit.com/ <comment><USER2> I'm a full-blown a cynic, but after OCD and anxiety got the best of me, my therapist recommended I try meditation to both start and end my day, I've started to notice huge improvements.

Can't recommend it enough. It's frustrating at first, the mind will just not stop wandering to worries every 10 seconds, but almost always on cue, the guided meditation would remind me "is you're mind wandering? no big deal, bring your focus back to your breath."

Here's where I recommend starting - [http://www.nytimes.com/well/guides/how- to-meditate](http://www.nytimes.com/well/guides/how-to-meditate)

There are a few moments now where my mind will go entirely blank, and it's the most relaxing feeling in the world. I still get too excited when that happens to keep it sustained, but I can sense it starting to work.

It's really helpful to check in for a few minutes throughout the day as well. Take something in visually, observe a feeling, listen to what your body is telling you.

Sounds hippy-dippy, sure, and I'm not pretending to be a doctor or make medical recommendations, but for me, It Just Works (TM)

<comment><USER3> When you've been doing it for a while your mind will be blank all the time, which sounds kind of bad but it's actually great, but the interesting thing is once you can control your own thoughts you'll start to realise that not all of them are yours.

People are like radios and broadcast their thoughts, and you'll be picking them up without knowing it. You'll also be able to project them i.e influence people. Those powers known as 'siddhis' are just a fraction of what you can attain.

Much like everything western though guided meditation is a horribly bastardised version of the real thing, if you're interested look into Raja Yoga when you're ready.

Edited: [http://www.yogebooks.com/english/atkinson/1906-09rajayoga.pd...](http://www.yogebooks.com/english/atkinson/1906-09rajayoga.pdf)

This is the definitive course guide, the first lesson can take a year, 10 years, or a lifetime, don't go past the first lesson till you're ready. You'll know when you are.

<comment><USER4> If this were true I'd expect to see yogis running the world.

Instead, running the world are people who I suspect aren't much into meditation.

<comment><USER5> Why would yogis want to run the world?

<comment><USER6> I don't think the parent said he wanted yogis to run the world.

I believe he said that if yogis could really project their thoughts, it would be a super-power which would enable them to run the world.

The conclusion is that since they do not run the world, they likely do not possess such super-powers.

<comment><USER7> I do not believe that one can achieve supernatural powers with meditation either (for I have not seen someone with those).

Assuming they have such superpowers, they also need the desire to run the world. Hence, this way of concluding that they do not possess such powers does not seem right.

<comment><USER6> I like this mental exercise.

I agree that it is possible that they have the mental projection superpower and no desire to run the world. That would make sense, at least from my cursory knowledge of yogis :).

However, their philosophy has a central tenet of minimizing suffering. Wouldn't they use their superpower to eliminate suffering to any extent possible?

And a counter-point to that is, what if they do have the superpower, and they do use it, and that is why there is less suffering in the world than there otherwise would be.

It looks like what we need is a double-blind study.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For those interested in learning more, The Mind Illuminated is by far the best book I've come across on the topic. It's an extremely systematic college level manual for learning how to meditate. The author has a PhD in physiology, has been meditating for 40 years, taught neuroscience for years, and speaks Pali and Sanskrit, so he's able to read and interpret the original Buddhist texts. These combined allow him to teach with a unique depth and precision.

Take a look at the Amazon reviews, and ask yourself if you've ever seen anything so highly rated: [https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation- Integrati...](https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating- Mindfulness/dp/1501156985/ref=dp_ob_title_bk)

I hope you find it as valuable as I did :)

<comment><USER9> Frustratingly, you can't get the kindle version if you live in the UK (I actually live in the Netherlands, which Amazon doesn't operate in at all, but my account is from the UK). The kindle version even shows up on the US site until I log in.

EDIT: I tried to use Amazon.nl (they do have a kindle store, just not regular Amazon), they have the kindle version of the book but when I log in after buying it I'm told it's not available in my country

<comment><USER8> Email me (in my profile).

<comment><USER9> It's not in your profile

<comment><USER8> Thanks, fixed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The recording seems okay, but I find it really odd that the scripted voice says "feel your chest rise on an in breath, and feel it fall back down on an out breath." Chest-breathing is something to be avoided, especially in mediation, as it creates tension. The proper method of breathing is diaphragm- based breathing, otherwise called belly-breathing.

This is not a trivial issue for meditation, really strange that they get it wrong. They should be saying, "feel your belly rise on an in breath . . . " and there should also be some instruction on proper method of breathing, since many people are unaware of the difference.

<comment><USER11> I think "proper" is a bit strong. Sure there are some religious systems that prescribe breathing methods, but from my understanding of mindfulness, the entire point is the quality of awareness, not the quality of your breathing.

<comment><USER10> I don't think it's too strong. Meditation is a wholistic activity, if anything is. It involves putting your entire body in a relaxed state and mind being aware. With bad quality of breathing, which is what you get from "chest- breathing" it is impossible to properly relax. Here's what the mayo clinic says about breathing in meditation:

"Relaxed breathing. This technique involves deep, even-paced breathing using the diaphragm muscle to expand your lungs. The purpose is to slow your breathing, take in more oxygen, and reduce the use of shoulder, neck and upper chest muscles while breathing so that you breathe more efficiently."

[http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/meditation/in- dep...](http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/meditation/in- depth/meditation/art-20045858?pg=2)

I would challenge someone to find any (good) resource on meditation that recommends chest breathing. I'm sure there are resources out there that recommend chest breathing for meditation, but they are either (1) uninformed or simply not carefully edited, as in website we're discussing in this thread, or (2) it's something way different from the normal, garden variety, meditation that beginners should be doing (which website in our discussion is not).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Dalek Relaxation Tape

[https://youtu.be/e59guruVL4o](https://youtu.be/e59guruVL4o)

<comment><USER13> It relaxes me just knowing that it exists!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I hate guided meditation... to me this is complete opposite of what meditation should be.

You can do this initial few times, but after that, you don't need any voice but your own in your head. That is if you are really doing meditation, if you want to pretend... then headspace yourself.

Again, this is my view as someone who actually meditated for like 20+ yrs.

<comment><USER6> I hate training wheels on my bike... to me this is complete opposite of what riding a bike should be.

You can do this initial few times, but after that, you don't need any help but your own sense of balance in your head. That is if you are really riding a bike, if you want to pretend... then continue using training wheels yourself.

Again, this is my view as someone who actually rode a bike for like 20+ yrs.

\---

Comes off a bit snarky, doesn't it?

I think I see what you are trying to convey, and wrote the above so that others could get a feel as well, using a more tangible analogy.

<comment><USER14> :) It did came out quite a bit snarky. Completely justified criticism. It was late in a day.

Oh, and I did rode my bike for more then 20+ years. I can prop it on back wheel and do few stunts even today. Impresses my kids.

<comment><USER6> However it came out, I appreciate you sharing your experience and point of view. As someone who is off of training wheels on the bike but still on commercial guided meditation courses, it's great to know that there's a lot more to come.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For those who might be interested in additional resources, a classic treatment of discursive meditation in the Western Christian tradition, a.k.a. _" mental prayer,"_ can be found in the Fifth Treatise (pp. 247–354, original numbering) of Fr. Rodriguez's masterpiece:

[https://archive.org/stream/PPCV- Manresa#page/n273/mode/2up](https://archive.org/stream/PPCV- Manresa#page/n273/mode/2up)

And here is a fine essay on Lectio Divina, written sometime in the early 2000s:

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QcuUot_6BQ3jgj1wJtsx-C5Y...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QcuUot_6BQ3jgj1wJtsx-C5YrSUCZE2fOdpG4k5k8pg/)

<comment><USER16> To add on, I've been interested in Vinay Gupta's approach to meditation, which he recently codified/packaged with some other folks into an app: [http://cuttingmachinery.org](http://cuttingmachinery.org)

It basically revolves around an hour of meditation, but switches from mantra, to open awareness, to feeling negative emotions in 10 minute intervals. I'm probably not going to say this correctly, but I believe the intent is to get beyond just the ability to feel calm but have a better awareness of things (how we interact in the world, our emotions, how much it really matters, etc.) in our lives. There's also a multi-part podcast interview of him (which led to the app) starting at [http://futurethinkers.org/enlightenment-vinay- gupta/](http://futurethinkers.org/enlightenment-vinay-gupta/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> "The guided meditations from QuietKit offers three main benefits to anyone who uses them:

Decreased stress and anxiety

Increased focus

Increased mindfulness (the ability to be aware of what's occurring at any given moment, but being able to choose how to act, as opposed to just reacting)"

Are those three benefits purely anecdotal?

<comment><USER18> There has been quite a bit of research surrounding mindfulness meditation for a couple decades now.

Here are some cursory studies addressing your three questions. They are easy to find on Google Scholar.

Decreased stress and anxiety [http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2010.0142](http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2010.0142)

Increased Focus (specifically for people on the ADHD spectrum) [http://www.ahc.umn.edu/img/assets/20825/MindfulnessADHD- Zylo...](http://www.ahc.umn.edu/img/assets/20825/MindfulnessADHD- Zylowska_et_al.pdf)

I have to imagine mindfulness is a difficult concept to disentangle from meditation itself, however there do seem to be attempts to create measures for this: [http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1073191107313003](http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1073191107313003)

Here's a meta-analysis summarizing many studies about the effects of meditation. Effect sizes seem consistently positive albeit on the smaller side: [http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-012-0101-x](http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-012-0101-x)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm probably an ideal candidate for meditation because just the thought of it is nearly unbearable. "Wasting a whole ten minutes doing nothing?!"

But it's hard for me to get past the feeling that it's a waste of time. As someone who is on public transit for two hours a day, and an owner of a nice pair of noise cancelling headphones - I wonder if I could make use of that time by doing this. Guess I'll give it a try.

<comment><USER20> I've dabbled in meditation, and I should certainly keep up with it because I noticed benefits as well, I just lack the self discipline. But your situation of "I'm too busy to meditate" reminds me of the old Zen quote that goes something like: "You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes a day. Unless you're too busy, then you should sit for an hour."

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> A couple of things: If you want to learn meditation find yourself a teacher who will be able to guide you with your specific and personal needs, advantages and deficiencies in focus, character and views on outside world and on yourself, through this process. We are never taught what meditation is and how to do it right. None of the sources mention such important pre-requsite as understanding of human energy movement in breathing, human energy anatomy and physiology. So if you want to play with meditation is one thing, doing thing right will mean you have to have guidance.

Second, As Salvador Dali said: don't be afraid of perfection, you will never reach it. Blank minds is a good but also a very hard and advanced concept beginner meditators will most likely not reach. It is very hard for the uninitiated person (by previous karma or other spiritual training) who is used to focus attention on outward to be able to go inward, let along still the mind. The best way is to distract your mind from 'uncomfortable' nothingness with count while you are doing breathing and visualization.

</comment><comment><USER22> There's also a well-known affect on blood-pressure (lowering) that comes from the breath control that's at the core of most meditation practice.

[http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/stress-raising-your- blood...](http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/stress-raising-your-blood- pressure-take-a-deep-breath-201602159168)

I don't think that the cause of this is completely understood, but CO2 is a potent vasodilator. I've seen hatha yoga (physical yoga) practioners ditch hatha for prana-yoga (breath yoga) because they said it's a more powerful way to get to wherever yoga takes you.

<comment><USER23> One small nit to what you've said. Breath control is core to yogic practices, as you've mentioned, but it is not part of most meditative practice. Meditation typically involves breath awareness, but specifically not control. The idea is to observe the breath as it is, not how we would like it to be.

<comment><USER24> I'm not the OP, but it is an important distinction, breath control (pranayama) is yogic.

While I can't speak for other traditions that feature meditation, at least in Theravada Buddhism, training of the breath is an essential part of the practice for the development of mindfulness (sati), beyond "observing the breath as it is." This gets de-emphasized in the modern vipassana movement focusing on "bare attention", but canonical interpretations of the Anapanasati Sutta [1] on the mindfulness of breathing to indicate that one only uses bare attention to "discern" long and short breaths, but "trains" oneself to become aware of the whole body, to calm bodily fabrication, and the rest of the items on the list. This is taken to mean that one can use right effort to breath in ways that are conducive to being aware of the whole body or ways of breathing that calm bodily fabrication, etc. So, while definitely not as gross as counting fixed durations like on the site linked, exerting oneself to influence the breath has a place in at least one very prominent non-yogic tradition.

[1] [http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.118.than.html](http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.118.than.html) (perhaps the second most important sutta related to meditation in the Pali Canon, next to the Maha-satipatthana Sutta [2])

[2] [http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.22.0.than.html](http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.22.0.than.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> [http://www.10percenthappier.com](http://www.10percenthappier.com) is my meditation for skeptics site. Worth checking out as well. They have a lot of good videos and a podcast.

<comment><USER26> meditation is to become happier, make more money etc

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I started getting into meditation a few years ago after realizing the reason the world felt less 'real' than it used to was because I could never 'get out of my head' and have more direct interactions with external things. (For example, I finally went to Tokyo and moved to San Francisco and the difference each made was pretty minor—like looking at high res photos on the internet; it was a stark contrast to when I visited NYC seven years prior and was blown away just walking around. ) It soon became my number one priority after also realizing that all the times I remembered _really_ enjoying myself, I was in that 'out of my head' state (you have a much better sense of presence, the 3Dness of things is much more apparent, smells, tastes, interpersonal interactions are all way richer).

Anyway, I decided to make a wide survey of meditation resources from old religious texts to modern neuroscience inspired teaching, to a number of things in between.

The first source that really made things click for me was watching some of the youtube videos from Ajahn Brahm. He's English, but trained as a monk in Thailand for many years, and has a background in physics. I think it's a combination that makes him pretty well-suited to explaining these concepts to techy Westerners. He's also got a light, humorous style to his lecturing, so it's easy to watch (if a bit cringeworthy [due to corniness] at times. And you'll get an occasionally bit of religiosity [he is a monk after all], but he mostly keeps it out.) I'd recommend this one for starters: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEw2mHpVv9A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEw2mHpVv9A)

I also found bits of Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Full Catastrophe Living" to be very helpful in the early stages (it focuses on another form of meditation called 'body scan' which has some unique benefits, and can be easier for beginners. It's often the choice of style when teaching for therapeutic purposes).

Edit: I'll also add the way I see meditation instruction fitting into the practice: there aren't that many concepts, but each has extraordinary depth, so you just have to keep revisiting regularly; you'll often find that if you've improved in your practice, you can go back and see the same old lecture and interpret it totally differently, even though it made a kind of sense the first time. You'd think you wouldn't need to be told, e.g., "just allow your thoughts to arise and disappear on their own" like a hundred times, in different ways—but you probably do :)

</comment><comment><USER28> A question, and one that probably shuns any kind of methodical thinking and science, but there's always talk about 'rewriting' or 'rewiring' the brain. Plasticity and all that stuff.

Are there thoughts I -should- be thinking, patterns I -should- be training or ideas I -should- be following to maximise the positive changes meditation has the potential to bring?

<comment><USER29> Most of the day we are aware of our 5 senses. We notice new sounds, new sights, and new sensations. But many times we don't notice new thoughts, new emotions, and new feelings. We're blind to ourselves most of the the day.

When we practice mindfulness we practice listening, seeing, and feeling our thoughts. The whole point is to strengthen the awareness of our mind. Allowing us to notice changes to our inner world as we notice changes to our outer one.

The way we practice this is by focusing on our breath, and noticing when our mind wanders. I first thougt the important part of meditation was the focusing. It wasn't. It was the noticing. That's what we're training when we meditate. And that's the part that we're rewiring.

<comment><USER30> ^^ this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Curious to hear from folks who have consistently meditated for a prolonged period of time (6mos+). What effects have you noticed?

<comment><USER32> Don't do it as much now, though have consistently over long periods in the past. Some benefits I experienced (subjective):

\- Thoughts do not have a grip over how I act as often. \- probably related, lower likelihood of compulsively doing things.

\- Feeling more collected and relaxed in traffic and 'stressful situations.'

\- More likely to be able to pay attention to who I am talking with, what I am doing, etc, right now instead of thinking of things besides that.

\- Start of realization that who I am is not the internal dialog and procession of thoughts. This one is hard to explain. I think I am certain things due to my thoughts; that's just my thoughts though.

\- Noticing that thinking constantly about things using language puts reality into categories that are essentially made up.

Anyway, your experience may be different. I highly suggest trying it.

<comment><USER33> > \- Start of realization that who I am is not the internal dialog and > procession of thoughts. This one is hard to explain. I think I am certain > things due to my thoughts; that's just my thoughts though.

This one for me is huge. You are not your thoughts. Took a really long time to understand.. it's almost like I am two people, the one who is thinking and the one who observes the thinking. Helps me distance my emotions and reflect on them in a more rational way (not obsess over mistakes, or worry too much about the future).

<comment><USER23> Just to expound a bit, since I've had the same revelation during meditation...

Buddhists believe that the mind is another sense, just like sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. The only difference is that it's a sense that devoted to looking inward instead of outward. And during meditation you can really start to see it as such. In the same way that you can let your eyes glaze over and see without processing the images or tune out what you're hearing, you can think without paying attention to your thoughts. It's can be trippy to experience, especially when you have the related revelations that pain or other discomfort is, similarly, just a thought that you can likewise ignore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It might be worth visiting a Zen center in your area to meditate with monks. Meditating alone, it's harder to focus.

</comment><comment><USER35> Is it better to meditate with the sound of rain as provided with quietkit, or no sound at all?

<comment><USER24> If you happen to be a quiet place it will likely be easier to concentrate without the rain sounds. "Easier" in this sense is a bit relative, however. An environment with fewer external distractions will lead to a selection effect where you "catch" yourself more frequently and return back to the breath. Thus, you may feel like you're not concentrating well, since you "keep getting distracted." It's kind of like the Dunning-Kruger effect of the beginning meditation :)

On the other hand I find music and background conversations especially distracting and like to listen to pink-noise or other non-varying noise sounds to make concentrating easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Has anyone experienced an improvement in any physical diseases/ailments from meditation?

<comment><USER37> I think meditation's primary effect, perhaps its only noticable effect for most, is lowered anxiety via learning how to focus thought which tends to lead to less worrying and such. Less anxiety means better sleep, earlier bedtimes, less cortisol in the body, etc. Over time these can affect us physically in an beneficial way.

An eight week mediation course shrinks the part of the brain involved in anxiety:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired- life/wp/2015/05...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired- life/wp/2015/05/26/harvard-neuroscientist-meditation-not-only-reduces-stress- it-literally-changes-your-brain/)

From an anecdotal perspective I found taking a anti-cortisol herb (Rhodiola and Ashwaganda) gave me a comparable, but stronger, effect compared to what 30-45 minutes daily meditation gave me.

Meditation lowers cortisol:

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23724462](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23724462)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> is better practice meditation not alone, but with a master or an experienced practicer of many years. Meditation can bring to light unconscious content. In ashtanga yoga of Patanjali (yoga sutra) the meditation (dhyana) is considered an high state of practice. For general relax and for stress, is better learning yoga(for example yoga nidra and some light pranayamas), some forms or chi kung and/or taichi

</comment><comment><USER39> It would be funny the narrator... "Now I'm slowly reaching into your pocket... to steal some of your money..."

I'm usually freaking out all the time in my mind... "Oh god oh god oh god... this and that..." I find showering is where I collect my thoughts. Think about some problem I'm trying to solve. I don't know.

</comment><comment><USER9> I use the app "Headspace" as a meditation beginner. The monthly price after the first 10 sessions is a little steep (can't remember the exact price) but there's a lot of extremely high-quality content covering mindfulness in almost every aspect of life. I think it's worth the price.

<comment><USER40> I used this and got upto the 30min sessions. After a while Andys voice becomes counterproductive....but definitely good to get into it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm a little late on commenting, but I'm gifted with Aphantasia. I've found it naturally contributes to meditation as I experience no visuals in my mind's eye. No visuals means no-thinking if you can wrangle the internal dialog under control.

</comment><comment><USER42> Are there any similar resources in spanish? I'm interested in passing this info to my wife, but unfortunately her english is not so good, so it would be a problem for her to follow the guides in the comments.

<comment><USER43> I can recommend the App Insight Timer. It is free and distributes user- uploaded guided meditations. Lots of languages and content to choose from! Highly recommended! edit: here is a link to their spanish content [https://insighttimer.com/meditation-playlists/spanish- medita...](https://insighttimer.com/meditation-playlists/spanish-meditations)

<comment><USER42> thanks! I'll check it

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Cool! Love to see anything that promotes mindfulness and makes it more accessible to folks. Interesting that the sessions are so short -- I'm not sure I've seen anything shorter than 10 minutes before.

</comment><comment><USER45> [https://smilingmind.com.au/](https://smilingmind.com.au/) is a great resource to get started as well.</comment>


Could you sell like this kid? - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PrleqeCAPw

<comment><USER2> Bombay meri jaan!</comment>


HumaneJS - Simple, modern, browser notification system. - <AUTHOR> http://wavded.github.com/humane-js/

<comment><USER2> I don't like this style, mostly because they don't "stack".

Here's an example:

* User clicks on the good button, notification pops up. * User clicks on the bad button. Notification still there. * User clicks clicks clicks. Alert finally shows, but 5 times in a row.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was thinking about that as well, I'm game for adding stacking or having the option for the timeout to not finish before showing the next message. This is controllable somewhat by setting the timeout to something less.

e.g. humane.timeout = 500;

<comment><AUTHOR> added forceNew option to make new message replace old immediately

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This looks cool. I'm a fan of notifications in general and I like thinking of how notifications can be improved and such. I will say that this is a departure from notifications I usually see on the web with the sliding block that has an 'x'.

Comparing it to humanmsg, the messages themselves are similar although it would be better if it had (not sure if it does and was disabled) the message log.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thought about this too. IMO this can be handled better so many different ways by different apps and I wanted to keep the main part simple. Perhaps an add on?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why would I use this rather than the notifications api? To support IE? Any other reason?

<comment><USER5> Firefox doesn't support the notifications API either. Currently only Webkit browsers do.

<comment><USER6> Actually, only Chrome does.

Example's can be found here: <http://www.html5rocks.com/tutorials/notifications/quick/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Please don't take it personally, but I would never use that and neither should anyone else. First of all, building a 'notification system' is incredibly easy, it's just javascript popups. Reading through your code and adapting it to my own application would be a waste of time. Pick any decent js framework and you can do this within fractions of an hour. Secondly - don't do popup notifications ever. They are the antithesis of user intent. Nobody ever 'wants' to see a popup.

<comment><USER2>
        First of all, building a 'notification system'
        is incredibly easy, it's just javascript popups.

No it's not "just javascript popups". Notification systems are clean, and non- intrusive ways of notifying the user of an important event or alert. There is no such thing as "just javascript popups". It takes an understanding of both UX and UI to create.

        Secondly - don't do popup notifications ever.
        They are the antithesis of user intent. Nobody
        ever 'wants' to see a popup.

I rarely "go with the grain", but I think Apple, Ubuntu, and a huge amount of web applications would say you're wrong. Users like to be notified of things, but they don't like to be interrupted. Notifications like this are the best way to achieve this.

<comment><USER7> > I rarely "go with the grain", but I think Apple, Ubuntu, and a huge amount > of web applications would say you're wrong.

I don't think you understand what a notification is. A notification is purely for informational purposes. Popups in general can sometimes be better than the alternative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Beautiful.</comment>


Password authentication - <AUTHOR>

i want to know if there is new  methods and concepts(any thought, idea)to protect the password authentication of web application over the network. <comment> Lorenz-Kraft Hi, what is "new" for you? Have you read the Mozilla "Persona" approach? Or are you familiar with OpenID?

Greets,

Chris</comment>


Ask HN: How do you focus your studies? - <AUTHOR>

I think many of you out there are like me in that I am a super curious person. I love to learn about how things work and why they are so. Specifically, many areas of computer science greatly interest me. The downside to this is that I end up spending equal time on many different areas and am left being "decent" at a couple things but not "great" at anything, which makes me feel like I don't have a lot of value. I have the capability and the drive to be really good at something if I could just decide on a single path worth pursuing.
If you are/were like me, I want to hear your personal experiences in how you picked something to focus on and if you would do it the same way if you had to start over.
If it makes any difference, I am 21 years old majoring in CS. I have made it a point to try out CS classes in several different areas throughout my stay here. Also, I do not plan on going the PhD or large company route: I like the idea of startups. <comment><USER2> I'm interested in many areas as well, so I don't try to spend too much time in every one of them. In other words I do not try to become expert in one them, I'll study specific area as long as I understand specifics and how it functions, then as much as it interests me at the time.

After you understand how things work, only practice will make you better. So before you find out what really excites you, try to explore as many areas as you can.

I'm still in college (cs & it), one year left. Still interested in many areas, but now see that I spend more and more time in web. Social aspect of it makes it interesting. There are still many ways to incorporate social interactions on the web.

</comment><comment><USER3> Pick up a project based on your area of interest. Learn by getting your hands dirty. This will be interesting and hence you will definitely focus more. Also in the long run such projects will help in your startup path.</comment>


Mapping the Mass Animal Die-Offs - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/mapping_the_mass_animal_die-offs.php?sms_ss=hackernews&at_xt=4d26819dbca71465%2C0 <comment><USER2> I like this map myself:

[http://www.zerohedge.com/article/and-now-some-apocalyptic- bi...](http://www.zerohedge.com/article/and-now-some-apocalyptic-bird-pattern- recognition)

:)</comment>


Ask HN: Would love your feedback on my artificially intelligent resume - <AUTHOR> http://ai-resume.com/

<comment><USER2> It's borked all over the place. Thinks I've visited 20 times. Bombed me with a pop over with your phone number on it: 555-555-5555.

It also seems to think I'm in mountain view.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is referring to the # of times that specific resume has been viewed. The popover is to demonstrate the ability to initiate custom messaging. Mountain view is where the employer, Y Combinator is located. Hope this clears things up :)

<comment><USER2> It does. Sorry, but in that case, it's not broken insomuch as it is terrible UX.

<comment><AUTHOR> The resume would only be viewed by the targeted employer. The DEMO as it has been clearly outlined, is a DEMO of the product so people can see how it would look when you submit an application. Therefore the UI/UX is focused upon the final employer looking at the application.

<comment><USER2> You're on crack if you think that that's an excuse for such god-awfully brittle design. Moreso if you think that your 'target employer' won't fall through the cracks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> "Developed wearable technology clothing that shielded wearers from electromagnetic radiation."

I wouldn't be putting that on my resume if I was you.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am putting things on my resume that I have been involved in. I have learned a ton from all things so each has it's own place and each has given me unique skills.</comment></comment>


Kodak shares up as it announces KODAKCoin cryptocurrency - <AUTHOR> https://www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/Press_center/KODAK_and_WENN_Digital_Partner_to_Launch_Major_Blockchain_Initiative_and_Cryptocurrency/default.htm <comment><USER2> >Utilizing blockchain technology, the KODAKOne platform will create an encrypted, digital ledger of rights ownership for photographers to register both new and archive work that they can then license within the platform. With KODAKCoin, participating photographers are invited to take part in a new economy for photography, receive payment for licensing their work immediately upon sale, and for both professional and amateur photographers, sell their work confidently on a secure blockchain platform.

There is no use case that KODAKCoin meets that other cyrptos don't, except that it's owned in house by Kodak. I really hate this trend of companies trying to create their own nonsense currency and then justifying it with "blockchain is great!". If blockchain was the reason you could just transact in almost any currency that isn't bitcoin (because fees). There's no new technology here, it's just Kodak trying to ride the free money wave of cryptocurrency speculation.

Pulling rights fees automatically could be accomplished via smart contracts, and without the mess of 'debt' being involved.

<comment><USER3> > it's just Kodak trying to ride the free money wave of cryptocurrency > speculation.

Our company made a massive push last year for developers to be "using blockchain technology, now." No real direction as to what exactly needs to be solved with it, just that we need to be seen using it.

This was before several months before the whole Long Island Blockchain fiasco. Apparently, last year, "block chain experts" were meeting with CEOs of major companies and explaining to them that the blockchain is going to change the world and they need to start using the tech, lest they be forgotten.

Low-and-behold, six months later, there's a massive influx of companies announcing blockchain technologies (that don't make any sense). Makes me wish I asked who these "experts" were when I was told about it.

<comment><USER4> I keep seeing ´blockchain´ in proposals and start-up documents where the whole thing has been dragged in by the hair and through the weirdest of reasonings be made to seem like an integral part of the plan. It is a surefire way to end in the wastebin, but as long as there is enough dumb money tracking these projects I am afraid it will continue for a while to come.

<comment><USER5> It's the new buzzword. Blockchain has very specific technical use cases that are not appropriate for networks where all participants know and trust each other.

I'm more curious why alternative governance models are not achieving more traction. The corporation as a way of governance is obsolete compared to a DAO.

<comment><USER6> Count me sceptical. Traditional companies have been doing fine for more than a thousand years. I'm not sure DAOs have managed to launch a single productive enterprise. Given that companies are basically groups of people doing some enterprise there is something to be said for them being able to meet in a room and chat as opposed to the DAO model of semi anonymous crypto holders voting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Somebody was really rushed to publish this. I mean good lord the site they link to [https://www.kodakcoin.com/](https://www.kodakcoin.com/) still has lipsum and what I can only assume are placeholder photos. Unless Jan Denecke really is a man of many faces.

Edit: Oh my god the background is an Adobe stock photo complete with watermark.

Edit2: No, Kodak you don't get to just take the site down. The internet never forgets. [https://imgur.com/a/LtI2s](https://imgur.com/a/LtI2s)

<comment><USER8> They must have some incredible cloning technology - the CEO, the COO, and the CTO are all clones!!

<comment><USER9> It's a storage optimization in the kodak photo technology - replacing one face with another.

It's the next step beyond the Xerox photocopiers: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/06/xerox_copier_flaw_m...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/06/xerox_copier_flaw_means_dodgy_numbers_and_dangerous_designs/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Something like this already exists: [https://www.ascribe.io/](https://www.ascribe.io/) # I had to use it to submit some photos to a call for work a couple of years ago. After the call I wanted to delete the work, because I didn't want it hanging around in public view. Oh look! You can't! Because It's blockchain!

Immutable history is not always a compelling requirement, in fact sometimes it is at odds with many a use case.

<comment><USER11> This is what my criticism is, as well. A few days ago I had been pondering a similar concept of a blockchain-based platform for tracking image ownership. The main blocker I encountered while thinking about it was the problem of immutability. Specifically, what happens if something is wrong?

Like, the first problem I see here is a troll just importing images from all over the Internet and claiming ownership. If something like this happens, would it be possible for the actual artist to ever regain "ownership"?

 _You really think someone would do that? Just go on the blockchain and tell lies?_

<comment><USER12> If the photo was already on the internet in a server, there are already records (like the Internet Archive) to verify that it had to have been created prior. The blockchain only adds an additional proof, but can't revert some past history that some other entity can verify actually happened.

<comment><USER13> Then why add the extra complexity of the blockchain at all?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In some respects this seems like a better application of blockchain than a lot of ICOs.

On the other hand, it isn't clear how they're going to solve the oracle problem of deciding who has the canonical rights to a given photograph.

<comment><USER15> Without having read the details (I cbf) I assume Kodak is the sole oracle here and the problem is solved by you trusting them to reliably provide accurate data to the chain. Which technically negates the entire point of a blockchain here, but it's a lot more sexy to be using a blockchain than a database.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't get the value in the ICO.

Photographer licenses image on KodakONE, receives KodakCOIN as payment. KodakONE uses blockchain to sell and protect the image from theft down the line. KodakONE uses lawyers to DMCA those who don't attribute or pay for the image.

<comment><USER17> The same problem can be solved if they just used Ethereum

<comment><USER18> The same problem can be solved if they just used a bit of PHP in 1995.

The killer feature is "lawyers armed with DMCA", not the crypto-themed CRUD app.

<comment><USER17> Agreed. Essentially, a decentralized ledger does not give you the feature of "enforcing copyrights" for free, unless you have systems built outside of the ledger that does the enforcement. That piece can be built in the meat-world in the form of "an army of lawyers".

<comment><USER18> The idea of creating a single online market-place that does the enforcement/rights management component in addition to storage/search/sale is interesting.

But that's already a crowded marketplace, and it's not clear to me why Kodak announcing they're going to enter a crowded marketplace would push their stock. Especially given that the announcement is paired with an up-front admission that they're accruing lots of useless technical debt at the beginning of the project.

I would be _more_ inclined to invest in Kodak on the basis of this announcement if it didn't mention cryptocurrency at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wow. Attach some Blockchain jargon to your product and get valuation pop. This is getting slightly ridiculous.

<comment><USER15> Indeed. [https://twitter.com/FortWorth_SEC/status/950397035714371584](https://twitter.com/FortWorth_SEC/status/950397035714371584)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I know HN isn't too spiced up about Crypto, but it's important to realize that lots of these "cryptocurrencies" are built atop Ethereum -- that's part of what makes it magical.

This is leveraging Ethereum, to create a currency, to address a market need: photographers getting appropriate renumeration and accreditation for their work.

Picture this: you snap a photo, its hash is on a decentralized public record. If someone uses this photo, you're aware of it and can be rewarded/credited appropriately.

We can scoff at the blockchain-ization of all these applications, or realize that they really do have far-reaching implications. Whether the investors are patient enough to wait for the benefit to become actualized, though, is a whole 'nother matter.

<comment><USER21> > Picture this: you snap a photo, its hash is on a decentralized public > record. If someone uses this photo, you're aware of it and can be > rewarded/credited appropriately

How will you be aware of it? And what prevents someone from tweaking one pixel by one bit, changing the hash of the new image?

<comment><USER22> >How will you be aware of it? And what prevents someone from tweaking one pixel by one bit, changing the hash of the new image?

I suspect this would be solved by visually comparing the two images and noticing that they are one in the same. Than you can just see which had their hash published on the block-chain first to see which is the real one.

<comment><USER23> Yes, but if you can identify an image in that way then you can claim the copyright anyway. Searching for copyright violation is the challenge.

<comment><USER22> >but if you can identify an image in that way then you can claim the copyright anyway.

Just identifying the images are the same doesn't prove which was the original though. The hashes being publicly available is the key, because you can easily tell which came first.

<comment><USER24> That would only work if the knockoff image is registered on-chain after the real image. If I'm going to rip off an image, I'm not going to submit it back to the entity that created it.

Hashes don't verify the date that something was created. The blockchain provides a date for the hash, but it provides no guarantee that the hashed item didn't exist long before when it first appeared on chain. If I simply modify the image metadata to say that my knockoff photo was taken at an earlier date and flip some bits, I can still claim that mine is the original and that I didn't submit it to the blockchain when I created it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> We've hit Peak Coin.

<comment><USER26> "I knew I had made the right choice to stay out of cryptocurrencies when my taxi driver launched an ICO." \-- Warren Buffet, sometime in the future

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> If the cycle is:

1 photographer uploads photo;

2 photo consumer (e.g., magazine) pays USD to Kodak for photo usage;

3 Kodak pays KodakCoin to photographer;

Then it looks like a cash grab and the chances of success may be limited because there is no demand driving the price of KodakCoin.

If the cycle is:

1 photographer uploads photo;

2a photo consumer buys KodakCoins from exchange;

2b photo consumer pays KodakCoins to Kodak for photo usage;

3 Kodak pays KodakCoin to photographer.

Then it may be viable because requiring the consumer to purchase coin creates demand for the coin.

</comment><comment><USER28> Is your stock down? Don't worry, create or invest in a cryptocoin and profit...It's cheaper than a stock buyback.

</comment><comment><USER29> At the risk of a very low value comment...

The fact that this wasn't called KODAKoin seems like a major oversight.

<comment><USER30> Too easy to misinterpret as KODA Koin.

Brand guidelines are important especially at a company like Kodak.

<comment><USER31> They've been there before, with great success: Kodachrome.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I jokingly told my father-in-law he can get his full retirement now (he retired from Kodak as over 3 decades). I don't think I'll ever look at the Kodak tower again...

The only benefit Kodak has done for it's hometown is foster a entrepreneur hub in Rochester as all the people who once worked for them left to form their own companies.

</comment><comment><USER33> Is this a landing page that was put together last minute? It seems like it. Look a the teams page, the same two people are the placeholder image for every team member. How serious is Kodak about this really?

[https://www.kodakcoin.com](https://www.kodakcoin.com)

<comment><USER34> Crazy theory, but their stock very steadily this year and a lot of retail investors probably had short positions that they've been holding as a result. Lets say they threw this whole thing together betting that it would cause a bump in value. I'd bet the stair step on the price chart was a cascade of margin calls against all the short sellers because all the brokerages were forced to buy the stock to cover, further raising the price.

<comment><USER33> hmm it would be an insane reputation risk for the private equity firm behind Kodak, but still very plausible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The shtick is "efficiently managing the post-licensing process" which basically translates to automatically debiting KODAKCoins instead of issuing DMCA take-downs. Seems like a great way to throw debt collectors onto the whole IP protection mess.

Sounds like hot garbage.

</comment><comment><USER36> Just waiting for this insane cryptocurrency bubble to pop hard. Riches are being made, but a ton of people are going to end up broke and broken, and the bigger the bubble grows the worse the popping will be.

</comment><comment><USER37> lol, this is dumb that adding a cryptocurrency would have that profound impact on their stock. Just pay them in USD or some other currency with real-world proven value.

<comment><USER38> Euphoria and bounded rationality... People see Crypto + Public Traded Company and they lose their shit. Especially true for a company that has struggled so much to compete in the market for the last 15 years...

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Easiest short opportunity of the year.

<comment><USER40> "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent"

<comment><USER41> And this "surge" only takes the price back to where it was 3 months ago. Which in itself is less than half of 12 months ago.

It looks like an easy short but you could easily get burnt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Part of me wants to call this Cryptowashing, but I don't know enough about modern photography. Is Kodak a brand that professionals use to shoot? Would they patent this "integration" so that others can't easily do it in various markets?

<comment><USER43> Kodak has more or less shifted to focus on printing and packaging. Building it into their printers would let photographers get credit when someone prints one of their photos (authorized or not).

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> > WENN Digital, in partnership with Kodak, is the creator of the KODAKOne > platform and the KODAKCoin cryptocurrency. WENN Digital is an experienced > development and operations team with deep expertise in proprietary > blockchain development, big data, copyright law, AI-enabled image > recognition and post licensing monetization systems. WENN Digital has a > strategic relationship with the Deloitte Analytics Institute in Berlin and > the Deloitte Blockchain Institute in Munich. <

Kodak is basically licensing their brand to a company that using another company's technology. Sounds like a safe bet /s

</comment><comment><USER43> Possible use for this not well-served by existing systems: people looking to license photos in places or communities payment processors don't serve or don't serve well can potentially use this.

The microstock sites have spent the last several years driving the value of an image down to the point where you're lucky to get 25 cents (only because it's currently the guaranteed minimum), so it's already in reach of places with low cost of living. Those are the same places where buying stock from people based in already heavily-developed places is complicated by transaction fees and anti-fraud measures.

</comment><comment><USER45> >Get in on the ground floor

To all those wondering where the value added is, there is none. If you want to know how they solve the oracle problem, they don't. This is a pyramid scheme, they even use the marketing language word for word.

</comment><comment><USER46> One need only take a look at Kodak's sales in the last decade to see why this is happening. Just like we got Long Blockchain as a ploy to keep the company stock from being delisted,I'm sure we'll be seeing many more companies that are circling the drain looking to blockchain as a hail mary. This doesn't mean that there aren't legit use cases for the tech, but we're gonna be seeing a lot of shoe horning into blockchain in the coming years by failing companies.

</comment><comment><USER47> Come on guys, this is really the sign of cryptocurrencies about to crash. "When the paper boy on the street corner is giving stock advice, that's when you sell."

</comment><comment><USER48> >The initial coin offering...is open to accredited investors

Is this fairly common now? Most of the ICOs I've read about before were basically open to everyone.

<comment><USER49> This is SEC rules for ICOs. ICOs that don't have that limit are a) likely scams or at best b) probably a gigantic legal mess.

<comment><USER48> Has this always been the case (ICOs are only open to the accredited), or does this only apply to ICOs after the SEC's Dec 11th, 2017 statement?

<comment><USER49> All of them, always, though there was no _official_ guidance for a while most knowledgable people in the space have been saying that for... at least a year.

Of course they got yelled down by the gold-rushers... but it was nevertheless true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Can somebody explain the value-add of the blockchain portion of this vs just licensing the photo by uploading to a website?

<comment><USER51> The former makes your stock price double overnight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> It is blindingly obvious we are in a bubble. I find it crazy that everyone cannot see it.

</comment><comment><USER53> Have ICOs 'jumped the shark'?

Definitely starting to feel that way with solution(s) looking for problems that don't need this complexity, reinvention of the wheel, not invented here, or hype train (FOMO).

</comment><comment><USER54> Any one remember 'e-company' phase in 1999? Looks like it is all over again. This will lead to speculation in stocks and we all know how that ends.

</comment><comment><USER55> I'm just waiting to buy some pets.com coin

</comment><comment><USER56> I'm sure no one will figure out how to claim other peoples photos on the blockchain..

</comment><comment><USER57> Oh for fuck's sake

</comment><comment><USER58> Short kodak.

<comment><USER59> Why? They're using the blockchain for what most people said it was supposed to be used.

I'm actually pleasantly surprised they're moving forward with some innovation and I guess the stock rise reflects that.

OTOH yes, I'm pessimistic they'll actually accomplish something, but who knows? I don't know if the market will discount this soon.

<comment><USER58> Blockchain might be useful here, sure.

Is that use worth 44% of their stock? Doubtful.

<comment><USER60> You're overestimating how much of Kodak is actually a viable business. Most of their revenue still comes out of their "Print Systems" (!) division. KODK's latest 10-K is filled with albatross risk statements like "The ability to generate positive operating cash flows will be necessary for Kodak to continue to operate its business."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Prepare for the blockchain gold rush

</comment><comment><USER62> It's really sinister of these companies to do ICOs when the coin doesn't give you ownership of the company

<comment><USER63> > _the coin doesn 't give you ownership of the company_

Why would you give something up when there are pools of dumb money willing to take nothing?</comment></comment>


Nortel as an Entity is Finished - <AUTHOR> http://www.glgroup.com/News/Nortel-as-an-Entity-is-Finished-37435.html

<comment><USER2> Source link has some more details: [http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/death- and-life-nortel/200...](http://www.fiercetelecom.com/story/death-and-life- nortel/2009-04-13)</comment>


Garry Kasparov on IBM's Watson - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/02/exclusive-garry-kasparov-on-ibms-watson/71584/

<comment><USER2> _Worse, by definition they do not understand what they do not understand and so cannot avoid them_

Kasparov didn't seem to see what I did. Watson seemed very consistent in knowing what it did not know. There was maybe two questions I recall where it actually got the question wrong with 50%+ certainty. I believe it answered, "leg" when it should have been "mising a leg". The other it answered the 20s when the answer was the 10s. And I think for neither of those the percentage was much beyond 50%.

Also Kasparov seems to miss that Watson in medicine would be used with humans. I doubt a doctor will say, "Watson says to cut off his left leg -- I would just given him aspirin for the headache, oh well. Hopefully cutting off this leg makes his head feel better."

What Watson hopefully will do is help diagnosis. Especially tricky ones.

There's a great story in a book I read, I wish I could recall the name, but it begins with a lady who has some stomach issue that she has for like 20 years. Everyone thinks its in her head. She finally happens upon a doctor who happens to have seen something like this before, she gets diagnosed and healed. But she had to live with it for like 20 years after seeing doctor after doctor. Watson would be able to greatly help situations like this, I hope.

UPDATE: The book is "How Doctor's Think". Here's an excerpt that talks about this case, [http://harvardmedicine.hms.harvard.edu/bulletin/winter2007/7...](http://harvardmedicine.hms.harvard.edu/bulletin/winter2007/7.php) \-- just in case anyone cares. :-)

<comment><USER3> Totally agree. It's shocking how many doctors seem to be lacking basic knowledge about things like drug sideeffects or lesser known symptoms about common diseases. You obviously still need both specialists and general practitioners but I think it's time to revisit the idea of a medical expert system .

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here are the reasons I was disappointed in Watson's showing (despite handily beating the human competitors). The most obvious was that Watson' auto-clicker was a big advantage over human thumbs, so that Watson got 100% of the points for clues to which all competitors knew the answer (if you asked Watson and the two humans "what's five plus five", Watson would win, but that's not necessarily proof of any sort of computer superiority).

The second reason is that IBM was representing Watson as something of a big push in knowledge representation (I just watched a video where they talk about Watson's "informed judgments" about complicated questions for instance). It looks instead like Watson just has an improved ability to disambiguate words relative to previous systems and to do quick lookups that match those words with nearby key terms.

For example, on the clue "Rembrandt's biblical scene 'Storm on the Sea of' this was stolen from a Boston museum in 1990", Watson correctly answered "Galilee". But its next two answers were "Gardner Museum" and "Art theft"; no one who "understood" the question in any conventional sense would even consider these as answers because they don't make any sense. Clearly, Watson looked for instances of "Rembrandt", "Storm on the sea of", "stolen", or other phrases from the clue in its text corpus, and found that "Galilee", "Gardner Museum", and "art theft" all frequently occurred when together (because the painting was stolen from the Gardner museum in an instance of art theft), and relatively rarely when not together. "Galilee" probably won out of these three because Watson is tuned to Jeopardy clue styles (whenever there is a quoted phrase in a clue followed by the word 'this', it's always asking for the answer that completes the phrase).

Similarly, Watson was far less confident on the clue "You just need a nap!" You don't have this sleep disorder that can make sufferers nod off while standing up." It still got the right answer of "Narcolepsy", but with a relatively low confidence of 64%. "Insomnia" had a confidence of 32% despite clearly being the opposite sort of sleep disorder, and "deprivation" appeared at 13%, despite not being a sleep disorder. Here Watson gets confused because the only term of the clue that appears more frequently with "narcolepsy" than "insomnia" is "standing up"; my guess is that if "standing up" had been replaced by some oddly phrased, uncommonly occurring synonym, Watson wouldn't have been able to come up with an answer, despite the clue conveying exactly the same information.

This kind of cleverness is certainly impressive, but it seems like it's an advance in tuning existing techniques to the format of Jeopardy, not an advance that will spark other successful projects down the line. IBM's goal of giving us "the computer from Star Trek" doesn't seem any closer; I don't see any evidence that Watson could have answered a question that required more thought or understanding than a simple text search. If there was the question "how many kings ruled England in between Henry the Fourth and Henry the Eigth" (8), then Ken and Brad would have been able to answer relatively easily, while my guess is that Watson would be stumped.

<comment><USER2> _For example, on the clue "Rembrandt's biblical scene 'Storm on the Sea of' this was stolen from a Boston museum in 1990", Watson correctly answered "Galilee". But its next two answers were "Gardner Museum" and "Art theft"; no one who "understood" the question in any conventional sense would even consider these as answers because they don't make any sense._

But I think your peek into Watson's inner mind may give you a more insight than you have about the human mind.

I'm reminded of a story about how a girl told me she was good at froggy when it came to basketball. I was like, "What's froggy" and she said "when you get the ball after someone shoots it". I said, "I think its called a rebound". And she said, "that's the word, rebound... but froggy and rebound, they remind me of each other"

And your narcolepsy v insomnia example is a mistake I think a lot of humans make. Like if you ask me which way to turn a lightbulb to remove it, my brain will have both clockwise and counter-clockwise as responses. And clockwise is probably 80%, but counter clockwise is probably at 20% -- I have been known to accidentally tighten a bolt, rather than loosen it.

<comment><USER5> I can't count the number of times my father, when using my name, starts out my brother's name and corrects himself midway through. I've done similar things with pairs of friends I met at the same time and know in only one domain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not quite clear on why people keep pointing to the 'Toronto' question as proof that Watson is fundamentally flawed in some irreconcilable way.

<comment><USER7> That's not at all what Kasparov said:

        My concern about its utility, and I read they would like it to answer medical questions, is that
        Watson's performance reminded me of chess computers. They play fantastically well in maybe 90% of
        positions, but there is a selection of positions they do not understand at all. Worse, by definition
        they do not understand what they do not understand and so cannot avoid them. A strong human Jeopardy! player,
        or a human doctor, may get the answer wrong, but he is unlikely to make a huge blunder or category error--
        at least not without being aware of his own doubts. We are also good at judging our own level of certainty.
        A computer can simulate this by an artificial confidence measurement, but I would not like to be
        the patient who discovers the medical equivalent of answering "Toronto" in the "US Cities" category,
        as Watson did.

        I would not like to downplay the Watson team's achievement, because clearly they did something most
        did not yet believe possible. And IBM can be lauded for these experiments. I would only like to wait
        and see if there is anything for Watson beyond Jeopardy!.

If IBM wants to fix the "Toronto" problem, have at it. But those sorts of "embarrassing" errors could be quite costly in medical situations. During the show they showed Watson's progression from really stupid answers very frequently to less frequently, which makes me personally believe their fundamental process is flawed (not necessarily irreconcilable) and their current algorithms are just a bunch of hacks thrown together on top of Google rather than something more sophisticated like Wolfram Alpha.

<comment><USER8> > but I would not like to be the patient who discovers the medical equivalent > of answering "Toronto" in the "US Cities" category, as Watson did.

Surprise, that kind of mistake happens far too frequently in the medical field _now_.

Why is Kasparov commenting on something so far out of his recognized area of expertise relevant anyway? I don't go to Knuth for advice on chess, nor Hawking for snarky banter on economics, etc. (Although if I had access to either of those 2, I might try it.)

<comment><USER7> Would Watson make that mistake happen more or less often? (Bringing in Watson can lead to blindly trusting or blindly ignoring the "stupid computer" depending on the doctor; seems like a problem with doctors rather than a lack of tools?)

> Why is Kasparov commenting on something so far out of his recognized area of > expertise relevant anyway?

Isn't the asking obvious? (I won't comment on the relevance; people do and read many irrelevant things every day.) People asked for his thoughts 'cause he got beat by IBM's Deep Blue and he's had a lot of experience with computers in their relationship with chess (specifically combining humans and computers to make really strong opponents). People also asked for Ken Jennings' thoughts and AI isn't his expertise. And people recently asked Hawking for his thoughts on aliens...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Kasparov is spot on in that Watson's DeepQA has yet to prove itself in a meaningful way. If it proves itself as an effective medical advisor, that will be far more impressive than the Jeopardy win (as impressive as that was in itself).

I think everyone was disappointed in the applicability of the Deep Blue accomplishment in other fields. Were any of the special purpose ASICs used to defeat Kasparov used in any other application? As far as I know a significant part of the Deep Blue development team left IBM relatively soon after the accomplishment.

</comment><comment><USER10> As noted in Paul Hoffman's recent book "King's Gambit", after his matches with both "Deep Blue" and "Deep Junior" Kasparov was exhausted:

"As with Deep Blue, he had once again let an encounter with a machine play games with his head. He had been obsessed with the idea that Deep Junior would never tire. 'The machine is never distracted by an argument with its mother," he told me, 'or a lack of sleep.'

And in the linked piece Kasparov alludes to the reported next approach IBM wants to take with Watson - support in medicine.

Kasparov's human reaction to his encounters with Watson's distant cousins brings up one obvious benefit in the use of technology like Watson for supporting medical decision-making - simply that such software will be less likely to miss something. Software is less likely to miss considering a diagnosis, ordering a crucial test, or following up on a finding - unlike the fallible 'I' who may have skipped a class in med school, or was up all night on call and just can't think straight, or am just occasionally more stupid than usual.

Diagnosis is the first thing people think of with technology like this, but in my opinion that's not the big problem Watson should tackle. Medical diagnosis in and of itself (dramatizations like the TV show 'House' notwithstanding), is not really that difficult 99% of the time. When you hear hoofbeats, you're very likely going to find horses and not zebras. A future Dr. Watson might occasionally be very helpful in pointing out very obscure (but uncommon) diagnoses. However, in my opinion the most helpful thing a Dr. Watson could provide is collecting, evaluating, and comparing evidence and outcomes as they are developed globally and locally (ie across broad swaths of medicine, but also within a single physician's own patient population), continuously educating the physician, and monitoring cases.

There is plenty of untapped medical data/evidence out there, but it's almost all hidden away in plain sight...text/natural language. I have to agree with Kasparov here, in that the primary advancement Watson represents was in moving farther down the path from syntax to semantics.</comment>


Uber's Restaurant Empire - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-24/uber-s-secret-empire-of-virtual-restaurants <comment><USER2> In reflection, it's a good idea. Consumer preferences are hard to gauge; there isn't much of a feedback loop right now with restaurants beyond you either have business and are sustainable, or you don't and lose it all. This is comparable to YouTube giving you different advertisements, but that these ads (restaurants) are really expensive to run and experiment with. Virtual restaurants essentially bring A/B testing from the digital realm to the physical one. They provide and shorten the feedback loop, lowering the cost of exploration by centralizing and by economies of scale; and resulting in greater exploitation (not in the economic sense but in the multi armed bandits framework).

</comment><comment><USER3> Seamless had virtual restaurants at least 5 years ago. I remember in particular my wife liked to order burritos from a certain restaurant, named "Coastal" on the UWS. We tried visiting the restaurant based on the address, and found out that it was actually "Citrus", an upscale latin american place with an entirely different menu (that has since closed).

<comment><USER4> I used to live on the UWS and remember Citrus. Never encountered Coastal but do recall an eclectic menu. (No burritos though!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this is pretty common across industries where a platform acts as an aggregator/marketplace. Case in point services like Amazon.com, Netflix have their own brands/content as well. Netflix is known for using data of people's content consumption to make new content. I think this makes sense for two reasons:-

\- Tighter control over what you produce, so higher margins and potential differentiators(like the burger example in article).

\- Acts as a defensible strategy for the aggregator if it can tie these brands with itself.

The only scary thing is when these marketplaces/aggregators just kill small businesses because of controlling the "storefront", discovery and leveraging economies of scale. Example search in Amazon: [https://imgur.com/a/zHDueIk](https://imgur.com/a/zHDueIk)

<comment><USER6> In the case of "virtual restaurants", centralized, high volume kitchens are much more cost efficient - for example they can get salmon for $6/pound instead of the $9-$11/pound restaurants pay, and can save maybe up to 85% on labor.

So thinking that a small business could play in the "virtual restaurant" industry, is probably not realistic.

<comment><USER7> And yet, most of the centralised places have shut down. I'm thinking of Maple and others, which I enjoyed using in NYC, and yet they are gone now.

<comment><USER6> Since this new market is just being created, it makes sense that a lot of companies will be shut down, in that search for the best business model.

One possible guess is: in this very competitive market it's really hard/expensive to get new customers. But here, UBER had a big advantage.

Also, customers aren't loyal. But in the case of UBER, even if those customers change a virtual restaurant brand, they're very likely to stay in the UBER app, and UBER may have some power to guide them.

And if many "virtual restaurants" share the same highly-efficient commercial kitchen, and aggregate their orders from suppliers - they still get most of the efficiencies of a large commercial kitchen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm still waiting for someone to figure out how to make "Etsy for food" work at scale. My guess if/when it happens it will look somewhat like what Uber has i.e. rent licensed "ghost kitchens" to small cooks by the hour and make all deliveries originating from those kitchens.

<comment><USER9> This was tried most recently by Josephine (josephine.com) in the bay area. They ran up against laws that forbid selling food cooked at home.

I don't think it is a matter of figuring out but rather legislation.

<comment><USER10> I hope someone can figure out a model like Josephine had, I had some really tasty homecooked meals

<comment><USER11> Meals on wheels and similar meal services for elderly and disabled people have been around for years. The menus are usually home cooked style food. Some smaller ready to cook kitchens have been in my area for 10-15 years at least.

I understand you might have used homecooked to describe literally home cooked food but smaller mom and pop food prep places are really good. Personally I usually cook but a lot of friends use ready to cook places.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Op-ed from a former power user: Uber eats caters in part to the socially anxious and introverted demographic with moderate to high levels of disposable income. It pushes high margin, low-quality, foods at 2x or more pricing - particularly pizza, wings, chinese, and burgers. With some exceptions a large portion of these restaurants delivered already for lower prices, but with less convenience such as order tracking or ordering through an app. Over-time many "power users" of Uber eats and similar apps will regress to only a couple favored restaurants or stop using the app entirely. Uber eats will optimize for these power users to the detriment of non-chosen parties for the worst of the ecosystem as a whole.

<comment><USER13> > the socially anxious and introverted demographic with moderate to high > levels of disposable income

I've began wondering if Silicon Valley is intentionally growing this demographic. If your customers need you because they are mentally unable to order food without you . . . well that's even better than a lifetime prescription of your medication or selling cigarettes.

It's twice as good if I can slowly train my customers to develop social anxiety by removing transactional interactions with minimum wage earners. That sort of interaction would traditionally service as a stepping stone in developing and maintaining social skills.

Add in social media which constantly has self-condemning memes about social anxiety, embarrassing moments, and so on; and you've got an extremely fertile ground for social anxiety.

<comment><USER14> I don't know where this whole idea of minimum wage interactions being a stepping stone in developing social skills came from, because I don't think these sort of rote, algorithmic interactions help anyone develop anything.

<comment><USER15> Football players train by dodging around predictable, stationary obstacles, even though on the field they'll need to dodge around unpredictable, moving obstacles.

Just because you need to use 6 skills at the same time in a real game, doesn't mean there's no value in an exercise that only develops 3 of the skills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There are two fundamental issues in food delivery business:

1\. Per hour cost of a delivery person is usually $20 after taking in to account vehicle, gas, down times etc. If you assume each delivery takes minimum of 20 mins (accounting for restaurant-customer-return hops), we are talking average of $6+ per delivery. Considering a cost of a meal is usually $10-20, this is significant barrier. My question is: Does these startups taking on losses to build customer base?

2\. Cooked food is notoriously perishable. Think about eating burger lying around for 30-60 mins before you eat. This not only limits items you can deliver but also puts on pressure that you are always running against clock. One mistake and you are bound to lose a customer for factors not in your control.

So, food delivery idea is not new. It had been tried and failed to takeoff probably couple of dozen times mainly due to above two issues. What really has changed now to mitigate these two issues?

<comment><USER17> > we are talking average of $6+ per delivery. Considering a cost of a meal is > usually $10-20, this is significant barrier

I don't understand. Why does the value of the thing being delivered make a difference to the value of the fact that it's delivered?

Should we expect it to cost more to deliver a more expensive item? I don't see why. Why should it cost less to deliver a less expensive item.

<comment><USER18> You are correct that the value of the delivery does not change with the cost of the item. As a cost impact, it makes sense to instead compare to the time and cost of traveling myself to get the item.

But the OPs point is valid if you think about the impact to your budget. Saying a meal delivered represents a 50% markup in your food entertainment budget is a legit consideration. Were we talking about a 5% or 10% impact to the budget it would less dramatic.

<comment><USER19> In an urban area, there's two related costs; money and time. Depending on where you're trying to go and how to get there it can be a lot. Not everybody can afford the time to go out, and throw in parking a car in there and you can easily waste way too much time trying to get food. And that's assuming you can even find free parking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> See Mac'd from the last yc batch as well. There's some cool stuff happening in food. Ghost kitchens have existed for a while, and I've had a restaurateur friend mention them to me quite a few years ago, but it seems like they're hitting scale and getting very interesting.

</comment><comment><USER21> I will not order take out from Uber. I've seen drivers with the food on the floor with passengers sitting over it. Deliveries also aren't quick.

<comment><USER22> Weird; in the two cities I've seen them, all UberEats drivers use mopeds, they don't drive people as well. How does that even work? I don't think the apps let you coordinate the delivery and ride.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The most interesting part of this is their use of user data. Traditionally, it seems like there isn't a great way to judge demand for a restaurant until you open it, so it makes sense that user tracking (to gauge interest) and the ability to operate out of an already profitable space (reduced upfront cost) gives establishments a significant advantage (although the article doesn't exactly comment on number of failed online restaurants, so selection bias cannot be ruled out.) I wonder how competitors like GrubHub use data to gauge interest...

</comment><comment><USER24> What's annoying is when you try to order from an existing restaurant and notice they marked up their menu across the board for Uber Eats, then there's delivery on top of that.

<comment><USER25> That's because Ubereats (and most food delivery platforms) take a huge cut (up to ~30%).

Many low-margin restaurants wouldn't be able to survive without making that up somehow. I sometimes wonder why restaurants bother to list on food-platforms at all. Maybe they figure it's loss-leader marketing?

Or perhaps being that food markups are usually in the ~50%, and drinks are several hundred percent, they can afford to make less?

<comment><USER24> Restaurants are low margin because of fixed costs and a limited number of customers for their fixed space. Delivery doesn't add to their fixed costs, and their gross margin is high.

FTA:

>For restaurateurs, it can be a chance to spread their fixed costs over a higher volume of orders.

<comment><USER25> Makes sense. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The thing that really impresses/surprises me about the growth of services like these is that people have so much disposable income to pay for stuff like this. In the news one reads constantly about how people are stressed financially. Maybe people are diverting money they once would have spent on other luxuries (cable tv maybe?) toward this kind of expense.

<comment><USER27> The inequality slope is increasing. There's a fairly large upper middle class of people who work+commute long hours and are prepared to pay for extreme convenience. While at the same time there's _also_ a precariat of people for whom earning a small and variable amount outside normal working hours sounds like a good idea, providing cheap labour to these services.

[https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/02/changing-relative- pri...](https://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/02/changing-relative-prices.html) : "In Agatha Christie's autobiography, she mentioned how she never thought she would ever be wealthy enough to own a car - nor so poor that she wouldn't have servants..."

Perhaps that is now reversing. Or the gap is wide enough to have a servant with a car.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> hmmmm.... I wonder if Uber eats can do what AirBnb did to the hotel business by allowing home chefs-after-6pm to take low risk experiments and launch micro Uber only restaurants from their home kitchen or a common kitchen (managed by Uber eats to deal with sanitation challenges).

<comment><USER29> It would have to be from a commercial kitchen to pass health regulations in most places. There are a few restaurants than share kitchens with the one next door, and I would not be surprised if they had a virtual restaurant or two for delivery only.

No reason that the kitchens that food trucks use can't support this as I suspect they dont have much demand for space around 5pm.

<comment><USER30> I agree with your point on kitchen sharing, but I'm wondering if we sharing an incorre assumption:

should we expect that the laws will be followed? Policing unlicensed taxis _should_ have prevented Uber from succeeding. I recall early Uber being a considered "ride-sharing" in attempt to avoid this problem.

How will unlicensed restaurants be enforced? Will people simply call the practice food-sharing or splitting-meals? Start from the same model: two friends living across the city but one didn't cook, the other makes large meals. Uber meals is just a delivery service. Combine with money transfer app: it's not a restaurant, is a group of friends pitching in for a good meal.

Uber successfully managed to get driver's to assume the risk when running unlicensed taxis. It wouldn't surprise me if they could reimagine that success here. The biggest hurdle I foresee: keeping the branding, and scale small enough to fly under the radar until it's well established

<comment><USER31> > How will unlicensed restaurants be enforced?

One story about a dead cockroach or rat feces making into a meal will let market forces take care of it. The story doesn't even have to be true.

<comment><USER32> _One story about a dead cockroach or rat feces making into a meal will let market forces take care of it. The story doesn't even have to be true._

On the other hand, it's a virtual restaurant. So all you have to do is pay some kid on Fivrr five bucks for a new logo with a different name, and you're back in business!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Had never thought about this, but it's pretty smart idea. Wondering if this will become more and more the norm, especially catering singles. Is there a way to search for these online only restaurants exclusively?

</comment><comment><USER34> Seems similar to this: [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/28/deliveroo-d...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/28/deliveroo- dark-kitchens-pop-up-feeding-the-city-london)

Which talks about "dark kitchens" i.e. existing, well-known chain, having a branch that purely serves delivery services.

</comment><comment><USER35> I have always thought this space will turn into the Netflix of food. First you differentiate by having a good array of content (food) but will eventually need to create original content with exclusivity (Uber creating or funding their own restaurants just for delivery) to differentiate.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> It would be interesting to have access to an anonymized uber eats order dataset.

</comment><comment><USER36> The biggest thing I've noticed with uber eats is the outrageous delivery fees. I'm not really interested in paying an extra $6.99 for a meal and I'm surprised other people are fine with it.

<comment><USER37> In my area, a lot of them are either free or $1.99, $2.99. (It will vary by demand though).

I think my threshold is $2.99 - in some scenarios when I'm extremely sick.

<comment><USER38> in mine, fees used to be around there. I was comfortable with the 2.49 or lower fees. Around 1 month ago they raised delivery fees by ~$2-$3 across the board.</comment></comment></comment>