Many elementary teachers don't understand math, and it makes them anxious - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-11-21/math-anxiety-elementary-teacher <comment><USER2> For over a decade, I have run a successful tutoring center focused on math and science for elementary school students in a developing country. Our students won numerous awards both at the national and international levels.

We usually employ teachers with degrees in math or science, or sometimes engineering. Occasionally for early elementary levels (grades 1-3), some teachers have a degree in another discipline. Regardless of major, we _always_ test them for math aptitude. The test includes competitive exam questions focused on mathematical understanding and problem solving skills, rather than advanced math knowledge. (The other part of teacher selection is interviewing for teaching skills and trial teaching with student and expert evaluation.)

Somewhat surprisingly, even some PhD candidates in engineering may fail these tests, while a few liberal arts degree grads passed the lower levels of these tests. So math aptitude is not limited to those who majored in math, science, or engineering. (Note that many of our elementary school students who have studied with us for a couple of years also pass them at a high level.)

It seems that countries with successful math programs, like Singapore, also utilize a rigorous teacher selection process that favors subject matter specialists even for teaching at an elementary level.

This is crucial for math, which is particularly hard to catch up later on with shaky foundation.

(In fact, kids are great at absorbing their teacher's attitude toward the subject. It is no surprise many kids may sense "math fear" from their teacher. Having a teacher with positive attitude toward the subject they teach is essential!)

<comment><USER2> For those curious, below are some _kinds_ of primary math questions we model after to test teacher applicants.

In my experience, many kids are much more enthusiastic about this kind of "challenging" problems than the drills in many standard textbooks, as long as the problems are chosen to match their level. They definitely learn a lot more as well.

Note that although they do require a little arithmetic to solve, the challenging part is _not_ arithmetic.

Some problems focus on geometry, logic, patterns, or other kinds of puzzles. More examples can be found at the source below.

"\- The edge of a cube is 8 cm. All the faces are painted orange. It is then cut into small cubes of edge 1 cm. How many small cubes have exactly two faces painted?

\- What is the greatest possible number one can get by discarding 100 digits, in any order, from the number 1234567891011121314151617…57585960?

\- Eleven consecutive positive integers are written on a board. Maria erases one of the numbers. If the sum of the remaining numbers is 2012, what number did Maria erase?

\- You must color each square in the figure below in red, green or blue. Any two squares with adjacent sides must be of a different color. In how many different ways can this coloring be done? Figure at question 11 here: [https://gato- docs.its.txstate.edu/jcr:450cce10-3b6a-4ddd-a19...](https://gato- docs.its.txstate.edu/jcr:450cce10-3b6a-4ddd-a195-5c26efe39bed/2012_PWMC_individual.pdf) "

Source: the Primary Math World Contest (usually held in Hong Kong) [https://www.txstate.edu/mathworks/PMWC/previous-pmwc- tests.h...](https://www.txstate.edu/mathworks/PMWC/previous-pmwc-tests.html)

<comment><USER3> _Eleven consecutive positive integers are written on a board. Maria erases one of the numbers. If the sum of the remaining numbers is 2012, what number did Maria erase_

This is a very challenging problem. Without a calculator (or computer), it took me a system of an equation with an inequality in 2 variables, using the fact that the solutions are integers, to solve it.

I would be very surprised (and excited) to meet an 8th grader (let alone a 6th) who could solve this problem without any external help the way I did. I would not expect an elementary school student to have this kind of algebra knowledge. Most elementary school students around here don't even know what algebra is.

<comment><USER4> You don't need algebra. You know that 10 numbers are 2012, so on average 201, so the middle of the numbers needs to be around there. After that you just try a few sequences around 201 and you'll find it pretty quickly, most can add 11 numbers pretty fast in 6'th grade.

Forcing yourself to only rely on the solution strategies taught by school makes you very bad at problem solving.

<comment><USER3> I specifically set out to find a solution that doesn't involve any brute force (trial and error). Trial and error can waste all of your time and get you nowhere on nontrivial problems.

<comment><USER4> You wondered how a sixth grader could solve it, I showed you how. Being able to do it using formal methods is good, but my point is that sixth graders are still pretty smart and can use more creative methods which still works very well as I showed.

Also ny solution wasn't brute force or trial and error, there are very few possible sequences of 11 numbers around 201, so you are guaranteed to find the solution quickly.

<comment><USER3> I'm a pure math student and when I first found the problem I sent it to my friend who is a stats student. She solved it very quickly, but admitted to using a calculator. None of my exams permit calculators, so I've gotten used to never using them.

Perhaps the elementary school math contest permits the use of a calculator? That would make it very quick for sixth graders to solve it using your method.

<comment><USER4> You could do it without a calculator like this:

Assume the middle of the sequence is 201 since 2012 / 10 ~= 201. Then the sum of the 11 numbers between 195 and 206 would be 11 * 201 = 2211. Subtract the sum of the values we didn't remove to get 2211 - 2012 = 199. 199 is between 195 and 206 proving that it is a valid answer.

Edit: Also I did my masters in pure math, doesn't mean that I cannot use common logic without the formalism.

<comment><USER3> _199 is between 195 and 206 proving that it is a valid answer._

Try the same trick with this modified problem:

 _Fifty consecutive positive integers are written on a board. Maria erases one of the numbers. If the sum of the remaining numbers is 2009, what number did Maria erase?_

You'll find that it does not work. The trick you did relies on the specific problem as stated. It is not true in general.

2009 / 49 = 41. 41 * 50 = 2050.

2050 is not the sum of the numbers 17..66, 2075 is, and subtracting 2009 from 2050 just gets you 41 again, which is not the correct answer.

<comment><USER5> Due to a parity issue (50 here is even) we need to adjust username90's solution. In particular, a sequence of consecutive integers of even length has a half-integer in its middle.

In this case, let's consider the sequence of 50 consecutive integers 16, 17, ..., 40, 41, ..., 65 where 40.5 is in the middle and the sum is 40.5 * 50 = 2025. Subtracting 2009 we get a supposed erased value of 2025 - 2009 = 16 and this indeed correspond to a valid solution:

16, 17, ..., 65 => 17, ..., 65

We also could've considered the sequence 17, ..., 41, 42, ..., 65, 66 centered at 41.5 and this would've led to an erased value of 41.5 * 50 - 2009 = 66 which is another solution:

17, ..., 65, 66 => 17, ..., 65

<comment><USER3> Right, but we are talking about sixth-graders here. If a sixth-grader saw username90's solution and tried to apply it to the adjusted problem, they would not know that the result is incorrect without actually summing up all the numbers to check, an undesirable chore on a math contest with other problems to worry about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I _still_ don't know why long-division works. I don't think I even remember how to do it as an adult.

I've always had a very intuitive grasp of math, which meant I excelled at solving things in my head but struggled with (and resented) having to show my work in the arbitrary algorithms we were taught. I understand division _despite_ my education.

They really should try to come up with algorithms that are more intuitively linked to a spatial comprehension of the numbers. That underlying grasp is really all that sticks with you into the real world (and it's also what makes math engaging). If students aren't getting that, they're wasting their time in my opinion.

<comment><USER7> I don't understand why long division would be a mystery. It's just repeated subtraction - you are finding how many times you can subtract the divisor from the dividend, in a systematic way.

<comment><USER8> Because the algorithm is so astronomically complicated that people can't see any pattern or reason in it anymore and it becomes an opaque mystery.

I have a PhD in computer science but I cannot understand long division.

<comment><USER6> Bud, I really hope you can grasp more complicated algorithms than that if you have a PhD in computer science. It's one thing to call it unintuitive and not worth your time, but let's not be hyperbolic.

<comment><USER8> No I have genuinely tried to learn it and I have no understanding why I am doing any of the steps in the algorithm.

<comment><USER9> Try again? Long division, dividing A by B, is a for loop that maintains the invariant A = QB + R, where Q is the number written on top (initially 0) and R is the number written on the bottom (initially A), by subtracting values of the form B(C)(10^N) from R and adding values (C)(10^N) to Q to compensate.

        func Longdiv(A, B) {
            // Assume A > 0, B > 0.
            N = floor(log10(A))
            Q = 0
            R = A
            while (N >= 0) {
                // Invariant: A = B * Q + R
                // Invariant: B * 10^(N+1) > R
                C = 0
                while (B * (C + 1) * (10 ^ N) <= R) {
                    C += 1
                }
                // C is the largest C such that  B * C * 10 ^ N <= R
                R -= B * C * (10 ^ N)
                Q += C * (10 ^ N)
                // R is still positive.
                // Invariant A = B * Q + R is maintained.
                // We know B * 10^N > R because otherwise we
                // would have picked a larger C.
                N -= 1
                // Invariant B * 10^(N+1) > R is maintained.
            }
            // By loop invariants, we have
            // A = B * Q + R and B * 10^0 > R.
            return (Q, R)
        }

This is ten lines, not "astronomically complicated."

<comment><USER8> This is just re-stating the algorithm for the umpteenth time. I can read the algorithm. I just can't intuit why it works or why it has been designed this way.

I mean your very first line has a logarithmic operation that was not mentioned anywhere in your text or your comment! Just pops in there out of nowhere. I guess it's about the number of decimal digits? But why? Why are we doing things in decimal?

A dense ten-line algorithm like this seems far more complicated than other algorithms we try to get school children to memorise.

<comment><USER10> > Why are we doing things in decimal?

I think this is maybe the crucial part that you might be missing. All this long division (and long multiplication) stuff works on base-n represenations of numbers. I.e. if you have an number like 3376, it is actually a short hand for

      3*10^3 + 3*10^2 + 7*10^1 + 6*10^0.

And if want to divide it 4 and, suppose, you cannot do it in your head, you do it step by step, by clever regrouping with the distribute law:

      (3*10^3 + 3*10^2 + 7*10^1 + 6*10^0) / 4 ==

      3*10^3/4 + 3*10^2/4 + 7*10^1/4 + 6*10^0 / 4 ==

(3/4 does not work, so let merge the first two again)

      (3*10^3 + 3*10^2)/4 + 7*10^1/4 + 6*10^0 / 4 ==

      (33)/4*10^2 + 7*10^1 /4 + 6*10^0 / 4 ==

(now we have progress)

      (33)/4*10^2 + 7*10^1 /4 + 6*10^0 / 4 ==

      (32+1)/4*10^2 + 7*10^1 /4 + 6*10^0 / 4 ==

      (32)/4*10^2 + (1)/4*10^2 + 7*10^1 /4 + 6*10^0 / 4 ==

      8*10^2 + (1)/4*10^2 + 7*10^1 /4 + 6*10^0 / 4 ==

(now merge the 1 and the 7 group)

      8*10^2 + (17)/4*10^1 + 6*10^0 / 4 ==

      8*10^2 + (16+1)/4*10^1 + 6*10^0 / 4 ==

      8*10^2 + 4*10^1 + (1)/4*10^1 + 6*10^0 / 4 ==

      8*10^2 + 4*10^1 + (16)/4*10^0 / 4 ==

      844

The same works for other bases. If you were to implement some bignum library, you would also choose some base n representation for you numbers. Base 10 is not so optimal for computers, so maybe you chose base 2^32. If you then were to implement a division function, you would use similar algorithms.

<comment><USER11> Hell yes! You finally made this clear for me why we can go through the dividend number by number (or power of 10 by power of 10) to apply the divisor. Thank you so much!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Research also shows that, compared with other college students, future elementary teachers are especially prone to math anxiety —apprehension about doing math that's so severe it interferes with actually doing it. That anxiety remains once they are in classrooms, and studies show that students learn less math from a math-anxious teacher._

Reading this paragraph gives me a strong hunch that it could be gender related. I'm wondering what the gender skew is like in elementary school teaching, similar to nursing ?

While research hasn't shown any difference in STEM _ability_ between genders, it most definitely has when it comes to intrinsic _interest_ (and I know this is controversial, but contrary to what is commonly said it's not because of some evil patriarchal plan to keep girls out : gender-related "things vs people" affinity has been found in baby monkeys too, and seems correlated to pre-natal testosterone exposure !)

One can easily imagine a bunch of people-orientated young female students going into this field for the kids and people interaction not being too thrilled with the topic.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a consequence of refusing to acknowledge math as a required course. Teachers and schools loathe to fail a student--especially one who is actually displaying effort and is otherwise a good student.

My high school had an elaborate system of ways for people to avoid doing math. Even though Algebra was technically required to graduate, there were enough loopholes and alternative classes that students could effectively skip learning _actual math_. Fail an exam? The teacher would give extra credit: presenting about a famous mathematician--certainly interesting work, but does not really show that the student actually understands the core math material.

This is how you get incoming first-year undergrads who don't know how to reduce fractions even though their curriculum indicates they should have learned it multiple times over. They have managed to avoid jumping through the hoop so many times because we gave them a rope to skip instead.

</comment><comment><USER14> The author of this article does not understand math :). Learning math is difficult. There're two things you need to learn: fundamental concepts and skills. These two things are related and commingled. Mastering both requires extraordinary effort.

I come from a skill-focused math education. I was pretty good with skills. But I didn't understand fundamental concepts. I still remember my struggle with prime numbers. Those problems were the hardest for me. I didn't understand why prime numbers are popular. In college, I discovered the meaning of prime numbers and their applications. Then, I was reading a lot about prime numbers just for fun.

My kids are now learning in the American education system. I feel like there is a shift to skill-focused math education. I suppose American educators feel like we need to "catch up" with other countries in terms of test scores. I find those objectives silly. Comparing test score is very easy. Gauging concept understanding is much harder. I myself will encourage my kids to understand the fundamental concepts.

<comment> barry-cotter Being able to mechanically perform an algorithm is the first step on the road to in some sense actually understanding it. If you think you understand the fundamental concept but you can't solve a problem using the algorithm you probably don't.

> Young man, in mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to > them. - John von Neumann

<comment><USER15> And the best way to test you really understand all the details is to teach a computer the algorithm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > If math knowledge is limited to "when I see this sort of problem, I do that" > it's inflexible; if problems are phrased just a little differently, the > student is often stumped. And once students hit algebra, math increasingly > demands thinking through a sequence of steps and picking the right > mathematical tool for each. That's hard if you don't understand what the > tools actually do.

That's easy to say, but hard to do. I find in my math experiences that I often don't truly master a concept until I am a level or two beyond it. I learned fractions when I was in grade 5 or 6 and could demonstrate adding, multiplying, reducing, etc. I think if you asked me 'why can you multiply across when multiplying fractions' I may have said I knew, but I don't think I _actually_ mastered that until high school--when I had the skills to derive the fraction operation rules. Ditto with things like FOIL, completing the square, etc which I don't think I mastered until I was out of high school.

And of course, everything seems easy and obvious in hindsight.

I suppose what I mean is: I don't think there is anything new about what the author lauds as a goal. It's what everyone has been trying to do for 50 years. It just isn't easy, and so far no one has found a magic bullet aside for lots of hardwork and practice.

</comment><comment><USER16> On the flipside, I was in a Calculus lecture at uni and turned to the girl next to me who was crying. I asked her if she was ok, and she said she didn't understand why she had to sit in the lecture learning Laplace transforms when she "only wanted to be a primary school teacher". From the sounds of it, it was a prerequisite?

Edit: Oh :) I just worked it out - I was taught to fold the subtraction and carry right in one step. I'm an idiot!

<comment><USER13> There seems to be a culture of proud ignorance around math more-so than other subjects. While I am sure there is some engineering student out there griping about having to take a psychology course, they don't seem to complain as much as when non-mathy people have to study math.

I think it is a mistake for our education system to treat math as something superfluous and abstract from daily life. While neither Laplace transforms nor Shakespearen analysis are necessary to live, the former is probably more useful than the latter.

<comment><USER17> > While I am sure there is some engineering student out there griping about > having to take a psychology course, they don't seem to complain as much as > when non-mathy people have to study math.

This is the underpinning of every conversation where engineers say college is a waste of money. If anything, I see engineers complaining more loudly about taking any course that isn't directly related to engineering. This not only includes the humanities, but also things like business.

> While neither Laplace transforms nor Shakespearen analysis are necessary to > live, the former is probably more useful than the latter.

Learning Shakespeare is typically tied to learning how to communicate through reading, writing, and comprehension. IMO, that is much more generally useful than learning anything about a Laplace transform.

<comment> barry-cotter > Learning Shakespeare is typically tied to learning how to communicate > through reading, writing, and comprehension. IMO, that is much more > generally useful than learning anything about a Laplace transform.

Learning to do a poor quality imitation of early twentieth century literary criticism is at best a really inefficient way to teach communication through reading, writing and comprehension. Vocational pseudo reasons to teach the humanities are and always have been horse shit, detracting from the pleasures of those who are actually interested, whether as teachers or students.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Huh. I'm from India, and from what I can tell, maths is taught much better here than in the US, at least till 10th grade, after which it's no longer compulsory. It's actually taught in a very intuitive manner, and most students "get" it quite well.

Edit: the textbooks are freely available on the web, if anyone wishes to take a look. Look up "NCERT class 10 maths textbook".

<comment><USER19> My experience has been the opposite. Indian kids can solve math problems in the "curriculum" quite well but ask them to do anything WITH the math and they're lost. Ask them how the theorem relates to the natural world and they don't know. Ask them what applications it has and they don't know. Ask them to extrapolate their current knowledge base to a theoretical future and they are completely lost on what a "next step" would look like.

Information is laser focused on getting into an "Engineering college" and not actually on "knowing" anything. It's like teaching someone about spoons and forks but never giving them any food to actually interact with but vaguely mention "food will be relevant when you get a job, not right now"

Better than american kids sure but i'm not sure anything more of value is earned by making these kids essentially memorize theorems and algorithms

<comment><USER20> I can pretty much agree with you. Especially in state boards, it is just knowing how to solve problems given at end of textbook..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wonder why math is such a problem. Growing up in the Ukrainian school system I was doing very well in math for 3 years and was doing double exams in the span of one.

Moved to the US, math was easier and it kinda fell off. Was back to Ukraine for some time, but it was never the same afterwards, and now I have the same math anxiety many other people do.

</comment><comment><USER22> I struggled with maths as a kid, but gained a much better grasp as an adult, when I had to use it for practical applications.

I really think the abstract nature of the way maths is taught (at least in the UK) is a big problem that holds people back - kids don't understand the _point_ of the more complex stuff.

I recall asking my secondary school maths teacher what the point of learning about some concept was (logarithmic equations, I think), what practical applications it had - he couldn't answer that.

If I'd understood how such concepts could be used in the real world for interesting things, I'm certain I and others in the class would have been better able to "get it", and would certainly been more enthused.

<comment><USER23> I never understood people that questioned the practical applicability of math. Surely they must realize that these things are so elementary that there is no way there was no practical use for them. Logarithms specifically allow you to multiply values quickly by looking up their logarithm in a table, add the values and do a reverse lookup in the same table. This is the foundation of slide rules, which is the way engineers did calculations before computers were common.

<comment><USER24> I have never once in my life used logarithms in that fashion. I've used them in other ways, but why would you do it that way instead of just hitting the "*" button?

<comment><USER25> Because you did not have a * button?

<comment><USER24> You don't have a calculator, so you're calculating logarithms by hand?

<comment><USER25> You understand that slide rules existed before calculators, yeah?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Routinely we have to explain to users in a crypto related business that 0.00835 Satoshis is the same as 0.008350 Satoshis. Adult humans don't handle decimals.

<comment><USER27> Why does it even matter?

Sub-Satoshis are used only as transaction fees in lightning network, and even there 1 milli Satoshi is the smallest amount that's allowed for now AFAIK.

<comment><USER26> It's a hypothetical example based on actual customer cases. Change the units to BTC/LTC/whatever if you'd like to make it more precisely simulate the user interaction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Or: why do so few people who understand math teach elementary school?

Once someone learns math, what incentives do they have to choose teaching elementary school over alternatives?

I could imagine that the skills to learn math don't overlap with the skills to teach elementary school and that time spent one detracts from the other. If mastery in each takes a decade or so and few people dedicate themselves to double time in school for a lifetime in communities that misunderstand them, I could see teaching k-12 math as a career and life disaster.

<comment><USER29> I would love to teach math to elementary students but I make a base-10 order of magnitude more as a software engineer for a FAANG. I'd take a pay cut of a factor of 4 or 5 to do it in a heartbeat... but having to go back to school to get a teacher's certificate (and likely a master's degree) to get paid 1/10th as much is challenging. I may end up doing it in a couple of years when I'm even more solidly financially independent, but we as a society should probably just be paying teachers a lot more across the board.

I guess there's more money in advertising than educating the next generation.

<comment><USER30> Also consider FAANG pay 2-3 times more than other software development jobs. When the next bust comes some of these problems will be alleviated.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Perhaps base 10 is the problem. In base 2, you can learn the "multiplication table" in 10 seconds (0 X n=0, 1 X n=n, we're done.) The long multiplication algorithm for n and m is just multiply by n by the least significant bit of m, add to the accumulator, left shift, repeat. You can do subtraction by adding the two's complement (just flip every 1 to a zero and every zero to a one - trivial for a child to learn) instead of using the "borrowing" algorithm. You never have to "guess" when doing long division in base 2. All of these operations can be justified in terms of the Peano axioms with very short arguments: prove the associative and distributive properties, and the multiplication algorithm is obvious, etc.

Arithmetic in base 2 is so easy, you can literally teach your pet rock to do it (assuming your pet rock is a reasonably pure silicon wafer with scattered boron and phosphorous impurities shot through with thin veins of copper.)

And no, I'm not advocating teaching kids to convert between different bases, which they almost universally find confusing - I'm saying we should teach kids arithmetic purely in base 2, and only expose them to base 10 once they understand the fundamental concepts.

Am I being serious? Well, it's certainly a lot easier to dismiss this approach out of hand then to pinpoint what - if anything - is actually wrong with it.

<comment><USER32> The real world depends on base 10, and so it's way more practical to learn calculations in base 10. I said calculations, not math.

I think there is a big confusion between math and calculations. Kids learn calculations, not math. Learning the multiplication table is just a way of how to do quick calculations inside your head.

I need to pay 35.15 euros, so how much do I get back? That is calculation not math. In my opinion the most practical thing that kids need to learn first. It's more about remembering than logic.

When the get older, math comes into the picture. They can leave calculations up to calculators or computers, and learn the language of math.

So in my opinion, there needs to be a more clear distinction between calculations and math, because they are definitely not the same.

<comment><USER33> Wasn't the premise of the article that the reason U.S. students perform so poorly in math in higher grades is because they are only being taught to memorize arithmetical facts and algorithms without properly learning the reasoning behind them? It seems you're prescribing the cause of the problem.

<comment><USER32> No, I'm saying that they are 2 different things, which seems to both end up in the "math" bucket.

Both have their applicability, but knowing one doesn't imply knowing the other.

Each one also has a proper age group to start teaching it. Little kids have great memory but limited reasoning skills. That changes when they are older, so at that point you should switch from calculations to math. Dropping calculations for math is just as stupid as dropping math because you think calculations are enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I have a hard time explaining to my children how addition of fractions work. Not how to do that, but how to feel the intuitive way. And percentages, to some extend.

The sad part is that I have a PhD in physics and an engineering degree in CS. I used to teach physics at the uni and loved it.

My children like me to explain them physics because I love it so much and they appreciate the analogies, their limits etc. It is just these freaking fractions and their convoluted addition I do not know how to properly convey.

<comment><USER35> When I was first taught fractions in primary school, the teacher had a bunch of rods of equal length. Each rod was divided into segments of different colours. Each segment could be "fractured" off the rod because they were attached by magnets. I think they went from 1 to 10 or so segments.

This allowed for a great visual (and tactile) illustration of how fractions work. 1/2 + 1/4? No worries, just break off some pieces and add them together. Then you can compare the length to various other configurations, and you can viscerally experience that 3/4 really does equal 6/8.

I don't know whether this is a standard way of teaching fractions, or whether this teacher was particularly motivated or whatever. But it made a lasting impression on me. Thanks, miss Annie.

<comment><USER33> I believe they are called Cuisenaire Rods [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisenaire_rods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuisenaire_rods)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I am a math professor. I teach in a SLAC, St Michael's College in VT. In our state education majors must also major in another subject (on an approved list). Every year we graduate one or two future Elementary Educators who are math majors. They take the same courses as any other math majors, and do just as well.

One thing it helps is that they are quite employable since their resume stands out.

</comment><comment><USER37> A couple examples from the article:

>> A colleague told me of vainly trying to persuade a college student that .015 was less than .05; the student insisted "but 15 is more than five."

>> To [students], [the equals sign] doesn't signify equality, but instead means "put the answer here." Imagine their confusion when, in algebra, they first encounter problems with numbers on both sides of the equal sign.

<comment><USER38> _> > To [students], [the equals sign] doesn't signify equality, but instead means "put the answer here." Imagine their confusion when, in algebra, they first encounter problems with numbers on both sides of the equal sign._

Is this really true? I'm sure I and my children (in the UK) were presented with fill in the box questions like:

7 + [ ] = 10

at the very earliest stages of arithmetic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> The worst part is that female students are more likely to notice the teacher's fearful body language, so you get this never ending cycle of girls developing fear of math, going into teaching and passing the fear on to the next generation.

<comment><USER6> That seems like a stretch.

<comment><USER39> University of Chicago study for you to peruse

[https://news.uchicago.edu/story/female-teachers-can- transfer...](https://news.uchicago.edu/story/female-teachers-can-transfer- fear-math-and-undermine-girls-math-performance)

<comment><USER40> Even assuming the study holds up, that doesn't mean that only the girls picked up the fear. It means only the girls were affected by the fear, by overly generalizing from this one example.

<comment><USER39> Yeah it could be that the boys noticed and ignored the fear. The impact on the girls is troubling though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The author of this article is a researcher in cognitive psychology specializing in education. He wrote a pop-sci book detailing how cognitive science explains what's wrong with school, and it's very much worth a read if you're at all interested in the topic. Link is [https://www.amazon.com/Why- Dont-Students-Like-School/dp/0470...](https://www.amazon.com/Why-Dont- Students-Like-School/dp/047059196X).

</comment><comment><USER42> When I was in school, the problem was the way it was taught. There was no real explanation of anything or questioning that would lead to learning the fundamentals until the higher grades, when kids were already expected to understand things that they'd never been taught.

They could have taught us about arithmetic, but instead it was "Just stare at this table until your attention wanders off, then daydream until the bell rings and hope by chance some bit of it sticks in your memory."

No phonetics or linguistics to explain how things were spelled, instead just "Write this word over and over until your hand cramps, then do the same with the next one." As if by getting enough hand cramps you would magically learn how language works.

Just recite "In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue." Never any question into why the Portuguese, with their lead on exploration and colonization, did not end up with a bigger overseas empire than the British. As if that should be obvious as long as you can recite that rhyme and get the date right.

If the teachers are around my age, most of them were probably taught the same way, which explains why they wouldn't understand math.

</comment><comment><USER11> > If you know that to divide one fraction into another you should "flip the > numerator and denominator of one, then multiply them," is it important to be > able to explain why it works?

This is, of course, a well known and reliable way of solving fractional division problems, but it seems to be the _only_ way I've seen people solve fractional division problems (by using the reciprocal rule). What would be the approach that doesn't involve using multiplication?

</comment><comment><USER43> This is such a vicious cycle. The worse we teach math, the worse our math labor force, including teachers. The worse our labor force, the more of a pay cut it takes to teach math for the rarer and rarer people who really get it. To cut this cycle, I'm tempted to say we just need to throw money at it for a while. Pay people who really get math to teach it. Pay them enough to draw them away from whatever industry would pay them to do. Pay for them to be trained to teach well.

Or maybe require more stringent testing to become an elementary school teacher in the first place. If this means too few eligible candidates, pay more. It seems like a no brainer use of tax dollars.

I'm appalled that it's so acceptable to let people who don't understand a thing teach it. Maybe it just comes down to "pay teachers more."

</comment><comment><USER44> In my kids elementary school time. I had the interesting situation that while the teachers weren't strong in math, their boss the principal was an actual mathematician (or at least he had a real degree in Mathematics). Generally principals seem to have a psych background but not this one. Good times!

</comment><comment><USER45> > But many elementary students don't understand the meaning of the equal sign.

Some people might not have made the connection, but by and large programming languages make this mistake too. All the major ones are using the = glyph for assignment.

<comment> purple-again What mistake is that? The left hand variable equals the right hand value assigned to it.

Foo = bar and 1 = 1 are equivalent in my mind.

<comment><USER46> The mistake is assuming "=" is a statement of fact (as in mathematics), rather than a request for assignment (as in programming).

Depending on which programming language you're using, "foo = bar" can mean either "make foo now equal to what bar is" or "is foo equal to bar now?". Neither one is the same as in mathematics, which is "foo is categorically equal to bar".

Consider:

        foo = 1
        bar = 2
        foo = bar

In mathematics, this would be a logical contradiction, and either you'd realize you made a mistake, or you'd jump back to the step where you said "now assume ..." and say "now we've proven this can't be true".

In programming, this is perfectly valid, and means "ok, ignore what I wrote just 2 lines ago, and now make foo equal to 2, also".

You say you think it means "the LH var equals the RH value _assigned_ to it", but you don't say what you think it means to assign to the literal 1.

<comment> purple-again Thank you for your well thought out explanation! It is clear now and I was committing the cardinal sin of speaking generally while assuming context that was explicit only to my understanding of the situation. Have a great day!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Absolutely correct, but it's worse, since they don't truly understand math, they taught in such a way that confused/misled students, no wonder USA had to import so many STEM engineers(and graduate students to fill college classrooms) from other countries, and it's getting worse.

The fix is to have specific teacher undergraduate or graduate degree, or education departments or state-funded full-blown normal universities, pay them well, make teacher profession a honorable career, only then the best will seek a position in k-12 schools and our next generation can keep getting better.

</comment><comment><USER48> Leave to journalists to constantly dictate this so often used phrase:

"X... and that should scare you"

I would really wish the emotional appeal journalism would make its way to the door but it doesn't look like that will ever go away.

</comment><comment><USER49> My ex taught grade 6 geography. Is a principal now. Thought the seasons were due to earth tilting back and forth. Didn't get that the tilt was the same, but the position around the sun was different

<comment> barry-cotter Your ex was correct.

[https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/seasons/en/](https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/seasons/en/)

What Causes the Seasons? The Short Answer: Earth's tilted axis causes the seasons. Throughout the year, different parts of Earth receive the Sun's most direct rays. So, when the North Pole tilts toward the Sun, it's summer in the Northern Hemisphere. And when the South Pole tilts toward the Sun, it's winter in the Northern Hemisphere. It's all about Earth's tilt!

Many people believe that Earth is closer to the sun in the summer and that is why it is hotter. And, likewise, they think Earth is farthest from the sun in the winter.

Although this idea makes sense, it is incorrect.

It is true that Earth's orbit is not a perfect circle. It is a bit lop-sided. During part of the year, Earth is closer to the sun than at other times. However, in the Northern Hemisphere, we are having winter when Earth is closest to the sun and summer when it is farthest away! Compared with how far away the sun is, this change in Earth's distance throughout the year does not make much difference to our weather.

<comment><USER4> Yes the seasons are due to earths tilt, but the tilt still doesn't change between seasons as his wife thought, only earths position compared to the sun does.

<comment> barry-cotter The tilt of the earth relative to the sun does in fact change. That's what the seasons are. If the earth was tilted but the tilt didn't change over the course of the year the areas that had longer days due to being tilted towards the sun would be permanently hotter than the areas tilted away. There would be a permanent summer and winter, rather as at the equator it's always summer.

The _changing tilt of the earth relative to the sun_ is what the seasons are.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure what you are trying to say, you probably misunderstood what elcheif said. Earth is tilted towards the sun in the summer and away from the sun in the winter due to its tilt changing, not due to its position changing. That is what you are saying, what I am saying and what elcheif was saying. What elchaif's ex thought was that earths tilt actually changed over the course of the year instead of earth just moving to the other side of the sun. There is no energy which could alter earths tilt like that, instead the tilt was set in motion a very long time ago and has been basically fixed ever since.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I suppose this is what happens in a teacher shortage.

[https://www.epi.org/publication/the-teacher-shortage-is- real...](https://www.epi.org/publication/the-teacher-shortage-is-real-large- and-growing-and-worse-than-we-thought-the-first-report-in-the-perfect-storm- in-the-teacher-labor-market-series/)

</comment><comment><USER51> Was evicted once from the class by a teacher that said 5^0=0 and I proved on board it was =1.

</comment><comment><USER52> If we are serious about trying to "break the cycle", one obvious solution is to pay teachers more. Imagine if teaching paid as well as software development.

<comment><USER53> > Imagine if teaching paid as well as software development.

I'd love this personally. But the organizations that employ teachers do not make the same amount of money, per employee, as organizations that employ software engineers.

Depending on your state, your property taxes would need to double or triple to make the math work out.

To be clear: I'm not making a comparison of the value provided, just the accounted-for profit. Society as a whole would obviously benefit from exceptional math teachers at every school, but we would need to get creative to pay for it. Perhaps we should be spending less on wars.

<comment><USER54> Its weird that education is payed for completely by property taxes in the US. The benefits of education go to more than just the (parents of) the recipients of that education. You also get weird incentives for people to reduce these taxes if they send their children to private schools.

<comment><USER53> > The benefits of education go to more than just the (parents of) the > recipients of that education.

I think this is exactly the intent — get the whole county / district to pay, not just the parents, right? And these payments are usually compulsory regardless of whether you have children or send them to private school...

<comment><USER54> It should be spread to the state / country level rather than being based on districts is my point.

<comment><USER53> At least in California, it is indeed apportioned at the state level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I feel like anyone should be anxious if they don't understand math. How does one get through life without understanding math? Probably by getting had a lot.

<comment><USER56> Math is taught so badly, that it may seem more complicated than it really is. For instance, many students come away from their math classes, convinced that math is subjective. They believe that, like in English class, the correct answer is the one that the teacher wants to see, and that there is a "trick" for producing this answer.

I saw this, teaching college math for one semester long ago, and also in talking with adults about their experience in high school and college math.

As a consequence, a person may be completely functional at basic math, such as balancing their checkbook, while simultaneously believing that they don't understand math.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> This could be written about essentially any school subject. Many elementary school teachers don't understand history, science, or writing either.

</comment><comment><USER58> Or they think there is actually more to elementary math than meets the eye

</comment><comment><USER59> The author unfortunately has a misunderstanding of equality.

Quoting him, "The equal sign is another mathematical concept that's often misunderstood. It means, of course, that whatever is on either side of the equal sign is equivalent." This is actually wrong.

The equals sign (=) is a shorthand for stating not that the two sides are equivalent, but that they are the same (i.e., they are equal).

If they were just equivalent, we would use another sign, like ≡ (unicode U+2261).

<comment><USER60> (2 + 3) and 5 are not "the same". If we're using ordinary English language to discuss this issue I think "equivalent" is a sensible choice.

<comment><USER59> As expressions, sure, they are not the same. But "2 + 3 = 5" is a statement about numbers, not about expressions. When you talk about numbers (the object of study), you do not (usually) talk about arithmetic expressions. Arithmetic expressions _are part_ of the language used to talk about numbers.

When talking about arithmetic expressions themselves, you would use a meta- language (e.g., English). The arithmetic expressions would then be called the object-language (the language being studied). All of this should be pretty clear after taking a serious course in Logic.

I am not saying the choice of words is not sensible, I'm saying it it factually wrong.</comment></comment></comment>


A Puzzle of Clever Connections Nears a Happy End - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-puzzle-of-clever-connections-nears-a-happy-end-20170530/ <comment><AUTHOR> It's interesting that George and Esther Szekeres dies within an hour of each other after nearly 70 years of marriage, according to their obit ([https://www.smh.com.au/national/a-world-of-teaching-and- numb...](https://www.smh.com.au/national/a-world-of-teaching-and-numbers- times-two-20051107-gdme4e.html))

Here's the Numberphile video on the Happy Ending Problem: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPk3SZiFEvQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPk3SZiFEvQ).</comment>


How to Give a Catastrophe-Free Presentation - <AUTHOR> http://h30565.www3.hp.com/t5/Feature-Articles/How-to-Give-a-Catastrophe-Free-Presentation/ba-p/2594 <comment><USER2> How to prep for: blown bulbs, laptops left in taxis, projectors that get indigestion over your digital input, and viruses that spasmodically stream porn video. Can we use the term "ejaculate' instead of "stream?" It's kind of the same thing, right?</comment>


Ask HN: How do you validate the idea/s for a startup? - <AUTHOR> Is there a system that you follow in order to filter out the idea around which a company can be built? How to differentiate b/w ideas worth chasing and the ones which are merely good to have?
Any books/teachings that may have helped you in this?
Looking out for all the serial founders here to share their wisdom. <comment><USER2> One way is to talk to people who (you think) are your potential customers. Most people don't do that but even those who do it, can do it badly. I recommend "The Mom Test" (my summary: [https://blog.kowalczyk.info/dailynotes/note/b4u674cvj43jdajd...](https://blog.kowalczyk.info/dailynotes/note/b4u674cvj43jdajdsukg- summary-of-the-mom-test-book-about-validating-business-ideas)) to learn how to talk to people to validate an idea.

Also, [https://30x500.com/academy/](https://30x500.com/academy/) is an on-line course dedicated to that topic.

But the question shows a backwards process. You want the process to be:

1) come up with an idea

2) validate the idea

What 30x500 preaches is more like:

1) notice a problem people are having that you can solve with software

2) that is your idea

Following that process, the job changes from "come up with many idea" to "look out for signals that point to problems that are solvable with software".

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes, talk to who the users would be/are. Then talk to them some more. And then some more. If your users are excited, communicative, give feedback, and telling their friends about your product, you are onto something. If not, you need to work on it further or on something else altogether.

</comment><comment><USER4> One advice I read recently was to focus on the problem you are trying to solve, not ideas.

</comment><comment><USER5> how do that?</comment>


Revolution OS Movie Review - <AUTHOR> http://codejustin.com/revolution-os-movie-review-dvd-film/

<comment><AUTHOR> My review of the computer documentary Revolution OS!</comment>


Vim – Should You Still Use Vim? - <AUTHOR> https://matthewmullin.io/should-i-use-vim/ <comment><USER2> >it's surprisingly rare that I find myself editing only one file at a time.

Vim can edit multiple files at once.

>Most of my time is spent flipping between multiple files, ctrl clicking into function calls, cutting code out of one file and pasting it into a new one

Also, look into ctags

<comment><USER3> Right? You'd think two weeks in Vim would have gotten at least `:vsplit /file/path` worked out... or at least `:buffers`. That said, he does not seem to be a terminal oriented guy so there are likely compounding effects here rather than just needing to learn Vim.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nano all the way... Always liked Nano better than Vim, but nice to have a choice.

<comment><USER3> I would argue that the two editors are completely and totally different in focus, ability, and approach. Nano works for editing a quick file or writing an e-mail in Alpine... but is not really functional for full time code editing at all, in my opinion. That said, I'd love to be shown how I am wrong about nano. It seems pretty ubiquitous around my workplace where most of the developers did not grow up at the command line...</comment></comment>


The Verizon DBIR relies on questionable vulnerability data and poor analysis - <AUTHOR> http://blog.trailofbits.com/2016/05/05/the-dbirs-forest-of-exploit-signatures/ <comment><USER2> This is going to read like super ultra inside baseball for most people on HN, but I can sum it up quickly for you:

Every year, Verizon publishes a report, called the DBIR, that aggregates the preceding years security incident data. It's a marketing thing for Verizon, which has a large security consultancy, but it has also become pretty important to Fortune 500 security teams. People make budgeting decisions based on it.

This year, Verizon teamed up with a company called Kenna to add an additional section about vulnerability prevalence. The section is supposed to tell Fortune 500 security teams which vulnerabilities were most likely to have been exploited last year.

Kenna's analysis is gravely flawed. You don't really even need to know the details to see that it is. That's because the "top 10" vulnerabilities they produced, ranked by "successful exploitations", included the TLS FREAK vulnerability.

FREAK is an important TLS research finding with public policy implications, but it is not important to enterprise security teams, because it is unlikely that it has _ever_ been exploited on the public Internet. It's a MITM attack whose payoff is a reduced-strength RSA factoring problem that costs $75-100 per session to complete. Were Kenna's data accurate, it would impute to attackers over $330,000,000 in factoring CPU time costs. A more likely figure for the amount spent by attackers to solve RSA problems to capture the contents of individual TLS sessions after MITMing them is $0.

Remember that whatever your thoughts on FREAK's real-world applicability, the DBIR report claims FREAK is in _the top ten of all exploited vulnerabilities on the Internet_.

So the fascinating thing about this is that you have this super important result where it's clear that nobody who understands a key topic it reports on could possibly have checked the result.

<comment><USER3> I hope this will become a parable for applying "data science" without sufficient input from practitioners in the field.</comment></comment>


Show HN: My Shop Squad – aggregate suggestions from friends before shopping - <AUTHOR> http://myshopsquad.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I can haz reviewz?

I have been collecting useful inputs from friends and a handful of strangers. Eager to hear the thoughts of a wider audience!</comment>


I quit my job but feeling guilty now - <AUTHOR>

I let my employer know that I'm leaving my job because I wanted to study and there wasn't any growth in the current company. It's great company to work in terms of the people working there. It's fun. However, I had written mail 2-3 months early saying I don't want to be an 9-5 employee, I need more responsibilities, I want to excel and asked them what plans do they have for me. I didn't get any reply. My boss didn't even called to talk about it. I don't even know what's going in the company, what they are planning and there is no process of development.I decided to quit. Now they're trying to hire a new person as there is an urgent project. I stayed in the company for 9 months and now I feel bad that I let them in bad shape, I feel like I betrayed them...... <comment><USER2> People are replacable. I've worked in countless companies where a tech lead or an important person that seemingly keeps the whole ship floating leaves, and the company is ALWAYS fine after.

This urgent project might have done better without you. The company might royally fuck it up. You shouldn't feel guilty for leaving a company, because a company certainly won't feel guilty if they had to get rid of you.

Like others have said, these are the sort of conversations that are best had face-to-face. There are countless reasons as to why they've not emailed back, but personally I wouldn't dwell on it. I'm sure they'll be fine, and I'm sure you will be too.

<comment><USER3> Same experience here.

We all grossly over estimate how important a single individual is.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks mate !!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is an example of why it is sometimes better to ask for a meeting than to dash of an email. Conversations allow you to gauge the situation better.

Anyway, what's done is done. Don't worry. If they really cared, then they would have responded to your email and explained the upcoming urgent project. It's even possible they were wanting you to leave. You spared them the pain of firing you to make room for a new person.

Good luck with finding a job where you are better appreciated and given the extra responsibilities that will let you showcase your skills and dedication.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks mate !!! means a lot ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Forget it and move on. Honestly, they will get over it and forget it too in a few months, or sooner.

</comment><comment><USER6> Dont worry, whats done is done. You now need to move on. You should use your remaining time to document your work to make your leave as trouble free as possible and reduce the chance of the company trying to contact you in the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> Almost done documenting, thank you for the comment, it means a lot !!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Don't worry. Companies are not your daddy or your momy. If there wasn't a project, they wouldn't hesitate to fire you right away. You cannot betray a soulless machine.

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed. Thanks mate !!

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> We all feel this most of the times.

I left my last company after a year, right after I managed to push one of my brain child through. It was a bit awkward because of that. But they recovered and so did I.</comment>


Git Easter Egg, calls you clever when amending a dirty index - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/23215385/why-does-git-call-me-clever-when-i-reword-the-last-commit-message

<comment><AUTHOR> Apparently there are other Easter Eggs in git as well. I tried the one in [this blog post][0] but couldn't get it to work. If you do `git grep "Yeeah"` in a clone of the Git repo though, you'll definitely see that the line is still there, even in version 1.9.0.

[0]: [http://gal.steinitz.com/blog/2011/06/18/easter-egg-cause- git...](http://gal.steinitz.com/blog/2011/06/18/easter-egg-cause-git-to-say- already-up-to-date-yeeah/)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you coalesce multiple blogs into a readable stream - <AUTHOR> As not everyone blogs on the same platform, some use medium, some use their own site, some with RSS feeds, some without. Has anyone identified an easy way to pull and organize these into a simple reader view? <comment><USER2> Came here from a recurrent automated search (HTML) that gets transformed to a feed (RSS/Atom), filtered, highlighted, transformed to email (HTML again), and sent to a silo where I read my alerts in batches, all with a mostly consistent layout and handy keyboard shortcuts.

Should give you an overall idea. I do this to thousands of sites. I like it very much.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm also interested in knowing how such aggregate should deal with credits to the authors.</comment>


MiniRHex: a surprisingly capable six-whegged robot - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-hardware/minirhex-makes-wigglylegged-unstoppability-tiny-and-affordable <comment><USER2> If anyone want to build a hexapod with legs instead of whegs, check out: [http://vorpalrobotics.com/wiki/index.php/Vorpal_The_Hexapod](http://vorpalrobotics.com/wiki/index.php/Vorpal_The_Hexapod)

It's 3d printed and the design is fully open, but you can buy a full kit for under $200 if you don't want to buy and print everything yourself.

Disclosure: One of my relatives did a lot of the design.

<comment><USER3> I like this kit, but the price really jumps when you go "full kit" \- but it's still cheaper than just about any other 6-legged robot kit.

That said, one of the nice things about whegs vs. legs is that you get almost all the benefits of legs, with a much simpler (and lower cost - in theory, if you don't go with Robotis servos, etc) design. Basically the whole "80% of the functionality for 20% of the cost" idea...

But the Vorpal is cuter...heh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The ability to get over obstacles is very impressive. If you have ever watched a RoboMagellan [http://robogames.net/rules/magellan.php](http://robogames.net/rules/magellan.php) competition, you will have seen _many_ robots fail to do what MiniRHex can do.

The odometry has to suck, though. The rest of your nav stack had better be able to compensate.

Overall, very performant. It gives me the itch to go out and build one.

</comment><comment><USER3> Kinda late on this, but I found something similar recently, that was also inspired by the original RHex:

[http://robotsquare.com/2013/07/17/zebro- light/](http://robotsquare.com/2013/07/17/zebro-light/)

I can't recall where or how I found it (there's a good chance it was mentioned here on HN)...

</comment><comment><USER5> I feel like there should be a [sic] after 'whegged', because I assumed it was a careless typo.

<comment><USER6> Googling for that word gives quite a few hits. whegged = wheeled leg.

<comment><USER7> wheg = wheeled leg

whegged = wheeled legged

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So it begins

<comment><USER9> I, for one, welcome...

But, seriously, I think just aesthetically, these whegged robots are a lot less creepy than robots with articulated legs; a lot less robot like.</comment></comment>


Facebook Takes Legal Aim at Man Who Claims 50% of Zuckerberg's Shares - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/05/26/facebook-legal-aim-paul-ceglia/ <comment><USER2> I wonder who the email providers were for the concerned correspondence.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html>

They try everything except focus on what really matters: How the contract is false/doctored.

<comment><USER4> A couple of things to keep in mind:

1\. Judges typically read right past the adjectives and adverbs, and can even get annoyed if the rhetoric is too inflamed. Most litigators know this.

2\. Litigators also know that the court of public opinion can be almost as important as the court of law. This can be especially true for public- or soon-to-be-public companies.

3\. Defamation law is always in the back of litigators' minds when they handle high-profile cases.

4\. If you want to say bad things about a lawsuit adversary, you're far safer doing so in a court document than in, say, a press release. That's because, with certain important exceptions, statements made in a court concerning a case pending there are pretty much absolutely immune from liability for defamation.

5\. My guess, unburdened by any factual information: When the lawyers crafted this court filing, they knew full well that the press would be looking for quotable quotes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was wondering what happened to this...</comment>


Show HN: Uber for Events - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/drop!in/id1038351294?mt=8 <comment><USER2> The uber reference is very unclear here. You're not ordering anything that comes to you.

</comment><comment><USER3> There is already something called Uber Events - [https://www.uber.com/events](https://www.uber.com/events)

</comment><comment><USER4> TIL "Uber" is the new word for "App"

</comment><comment><USER5> This isn't really an "Uber for x" product...

<comment><USER6> This person has made the common mistake of thinking "Uber for x" means "an app for finding x on a map."

OP: the innovation of Uber has nothing to do with their car-finder app. It has to do with the fact that they've figured out a way to compete with a huge established business that historically has required huge capital expenditures to build a fleet of cars, and they've done it by tapping a massively underutilized and very cheap resource: other people's idle cars. This is precisely why taxi companies can't respond just by building a great app for hailing a taxi.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Would probably help to mention the name of the product. Is this delivering events to you?

</comment><comment><USER8> "Uber for x" click-bait title.

For shame OP, Uber isn't a common noun.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Didn't actually make it. Use it and thought it's cool.

</comment><comment><USER9> This used to be called Upcoming, but Yahoo shut that down.

</comment><comment><USER10> It actually looks pretty cool. I'll definitely check it out, congrats on shipping!

And good use of an attention-catching title. No fault there.

<comment><USER8> No fault there?

Since when do you load up the Uber app just to see what cars are around you? Going window shopping for rides to nowhere? At best it's "Living Social" without the discounts.</comment></comment>


Coala – Code Analysis Application - <AUTHOR> http://coala-analyzer.org/ <comment><USER2> Regarding the community of this project, it is one of the best I have seen. The project management and review processes are top quality. I have been contributing to this project for a more than a month now, and it has been a great ride so far!

If any of you are looking for a top-notch repository to contribute to, drop in at our gitter channel[0] and say hi!

[0] [https://gitter.im/coala-analyzer/coala](https://gitter.im/coala- analyzer/coala)

</comment><comment><USER3> So it's language agnostic.

Can anyone tell me the rocket science behind this?

How would a library know if a code and its libraries are performing software development/engineering best practices?

What types of algorithms do you use and are there other libraries that already does this that is language agnostic?

<comment><USER4> I think you're expecting it to be something more exciting than it is (I was too at first.) It's just a front end for static analysis tools. Coala doesn't do any analysis on its own. Everything is delegated to other tools. It just provides a way to pass configuration in and to parse the output so you know what lines in the source file have problems.

Code Climate does something similar with their Engines[0] specification. Personally I like how they make use of Docker containers to perform the analysis. It is perhaps a bit heavyweight for simple analyses but it makes it really easy to install different language runtimes and tools.

[0] [https://github.com/codeclimate/spec](https://github.com/codeclimate/spec)

<comment><USER5> Oh btw. coala allows automatic fixes for source code, most tools like code climate are usually reporting only and can be more annoying than helpful.

<comment><USER4> Agreed that such tools can be annoying without the proper configuration. But I also don't really want anything automatically fixing my source code. That's a personal preference though.

<comment><USER5> coala always leaves you in control, you can tell it to e.g. show a patch before applying. If you explicitly configure it you can set it to automatically apply patches that are coming from certain analysis routines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would work on your video. Watching the developer make spelling mistakes, then backspacing and uneven text input rate etc is somewhat painful.

<comment><USER5> Thanks, I've filed an issue at [https://github.com/coala- analyzer/website/issues/27](https://github.com/coala- analyzer/website/issues/27) . We'll definitely look at that. You probably know how manpower in open source projects with no commercial backing behaves :)

<comment><USER6> Absolutely and I didn't want it to be perceived as negative.

<comment><USER5> Your comment? We love constructive feedback, thanks a lot :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Utterly missing from this article is what kind of analysis you can do.

<comment><USER5> Thanks, I added a link right on top of [http://coala- analyzer.org/](http://coala-analyzer.org/) to clarify it a bit. The website isn't particularly good, we're working on a new one which provides lots of cool things and better information, probably implemented by a GSoC student.

<comment><USER8> Great effort with the project.

However, I must say that very critical info for first-time users is still unavailable or very vaguely documented. For example, I still have no clue what sort of analysis can be obtained from this page : [https://github.com/coala- analyzer/coala-bears/wiki/Available...](https://github.com/coala- analyzer/coala-bears/wiki/Available-bears). I can see a bunch of Bears but that's your terminology. I would rather prefer a brief summary of the tool's analysis or atleast a link to the static analyzer which a specific bear wraps over. For e.g. "AlexBear" \- I honestly have no clue what that or 90% of the other bears end up doing with my source code.

You have put so much effort in the implementation, please improve clarity/coverage of documentation.

Also, installation (pip3 install coala-bears) fails on OSX. Any ideas on how to fix that ? Here is the error message : [http://pastebin.com/tP3dZsik](http://pastebin.com/tP3dZsik)

Thank you.

<comment><USER5> Hey, upgrading pip should solve your issue.

I filed an issue for the missing info at [https://github.com/coala- analyzer/website/issues/30](https://github.com/coala- analyzer/website/issues/30) , thank you for your feedback!

<comment><USER8> Thanks a lot for incorporating the feedback. I have been working on a similar, internal tool within my company and I have realized the hard way how all capabilities can go waste if not communicated correctly to the stakeholders (developers in this case).

I look forward to contributing to coala if I end up incorporating it alongside my (internal) tool and would like an unimplemented functionality. Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cool project, but gotta say that abbreviation feels a bit too forced....think it deserves more fitting name (no trolling, just thinking it would be easier to remember if the initials actually mapped to the keywords)

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. You don't owe explanation to a brand name (even a weird spelling one) - especially in the heading. The FAQ can have the origin.

<comment><USER5> Good suggestion, I've created a FAQ stub and we're tracking this here if you're interested in how this goes: [https://github.com/coala- analyzer/website/issues/22](https://github.com/coala- analyzer/website/issues/22)

Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> The real estate above the fold is your most important one - use it responsibly. :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How much free time do you have? - <AUTHOR> https://erikrood.com/Posts/free_time_calc.html <comment><USER2> Really depressing. Between work, long commute, gym, and part-time grad school, I have 18 free hours a week out of 168. Makes me wonder what the hell I am doing when I have other hobbies that I would love to be pursuing. Most of the time I simply don't have the mental energy to pursue much of anything in my 18 free hours. Sometimes I just need to turn my brain off.

I find myself to lash out in weird ways when I am particularly stressed. For example, I am much more likely to spend a lot of money on something that seems like it has the potential to make me happy or book a vacation spontaneously. It seems like keeping my head on straight requires so much willpower that I can't save any for other aspects of my life. Who knew life was hard?

<comment><USER3> I'm in the middle of a four day weekend. I'll probably get absolutely nothing extraordinary done in it. Despite there being plenty of things I could be doing. The 40 hour work week is tyrannical.

<comment><USER4> > The 40 hour work week is tyrannical.

If you are stating this seriously, I often wonder why there isn't a great movement toward a reduction in working days/hours in the modern workplace.

It's kind of mind boggling to me why we have to trade most of our waking hours for the majority of the prime of our life to make a living wage. Modern society should be solving for this.

<comment><USER5> It is solved. Everybody can choose a job where they works less hours or become a freelancer and work as many hours as they want. This doesn't work on a global scale, but as an individual, that choice is possible.

The problem is that people want to buy more than they can afford from doing less work.

There is no way to resolve this. As long as there are status goods like sneakers for $1000, people will have to work the hours needed to afford them. You can only have fewer hours if everything is standardized to the point that machines do all the work. But who wants to live in such a world of uniformity?

<comment><USER6> I don't agree, humans worked for 80 hours a week and then together reduced to 40 hours a week. I don't see why they could not reduce it to 30 or 20 hours a week.

Everyone worked on a Saturday then suddenly most of the people stopped working on the Saturday, I don't see why it would be impossible for most of the people in the society to stop working on Friday too.

<comment><USER5> Because 40 hours a week are, if you remove vacations, holidays and sick leaves, on average roughly 4 hours per day. That's the amount tribal people work per day. There is no inherent human need to reduce that time further.

As I said, people can already work for 30 or 20 hours per week. Why is it not enough for you if you stop working on Friday?

Do you want 30 or 20 hours per week with equal pay? Then indeed you have to reduce the supply of work to rise hourly wages. But then, less is produced, the supply of goods is reduced and thus things cost more, most likely disproportionally more than the increase in wages.

<comment><USER7> > Because 40 hours a week are, if you remove vacations, holidays and sick > leaves, on average roughly 4 hours per day.

I'm sorry, but who told you this?

The median amount of PTO in American companies is 10 days + 8 days of Federal holidays. That 18 days vs 260 weekdays, or 7% of the work year, meaning the average American works 7.5 hours a day, not 4.

<comment><USER5> Tribal people don't have weekends. It's 2*52 days + 18 days = 122 days out of 365. That's 5.3h per day. To me, that is close enough to 4 hours that people don't feel stressed to the point that there is a desire for change.

In comparision, people spend 3 hours on average watching TV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am always somewhat puzzled by the focus on free time without taking into account the energy balance of a person.

I find often that when someone says "I don't have the time", what they really mean is that they don't have energy left to take on something else.

In my case, I find that there's often enough hours, but I don't always have the energy to be active 100% of that time and just end up taking some rest.

<comment><USER9> The trick seems to be to identify your various different out-of-energy states and what activity is consistently restorative for each. Then, get experience with those activities when you're fresh so that you have less of a hurdle to jump over when you really need them.

The biggest issue, of course, is that it requires you to experiment with new things when you're dead tired in order to figure out what helps in the first place. A more subtle problem is that some activities help at first and then cause problems later- Television/YouTube is like this for me; sometimes, it's the most effective way of resting but if I'm not careful I'll go straight through energetic into a different, harder to escape lethargy.

<comment><USER10> I think there are two problems. Tiredness and boredom. TV's sweet spot is when you are mildly bored and pretty tired. It tires you even more but alleviates boredom a bit.

I had after-school routine. When I was comming back from school I was bored and tired but too bored and not tired enough to go to sleep immediately. So I watched TV for an hour or two becomming slightly less bored and completely tired. After that I slept for few hours and after that wake up and be semi- funtional human again, able to do homework or enjoy myself for a bit.

The problem was I got addicted to TV and I watched it even if I wasn't that tired and theoretically had energy to entertain myself with something that had better joy/effort ratio than TV. Instead I always defaulted to TV which costed me too much energy for enjoyment provided.

Eventually I had to ask my mom to put a parental lock on TV and even then after school I was lying in front of turned on TV that showed no channel (due to parental lock) pushing buttons at random trying to unlock it. I even managed to unlock it once (3 digit code) but couldn't repeat it.

Eventually my dumb brain learned that lying in front of a TV no longer gives me any joy (because I can't turn the channels on) and I shook the addiction.

<comment><USER9> In my experience, there are a lot more than two sliders but the general idea seems right. By choosing the right program, television can help fulfill all sorts of emotional needs: social, excitement, creativity, escapism, curiosity, etc.

The problem is that it's effective for such a large range of needs, it promotes the illusion that, if you only found the right thing to watch, it can fix anything. So you end up channel surfing, wondering why you can't find anything you're interested in, when what you really need is a stroll outside.

<comment><USER10> > television can help fulfill all sorts of emotional needs: social, > excitement, creativity, escapism, curiosity, etc.

Yes. I totalle agree. I think social was most important for me. The problem with TV is that it fulfills those needs but very inefficiently. It takes a lot of time of lying inert in front of TV to get any significant fulfillment. And the insidious part is that because people are lying down they think they are resting. But that's rarely true. Lying down especially for hours tires you even more.

So TV provides you with versatile fulfillment but at very slow rate and at a significant cost that's not easy to notice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Some feedback about the formula from a parent:

The formula needs to account for the reality that with young children your "parental duties" expands to occupy all free time when kids are awake. And also shifts other chores into any free time slots when kids are asleep.

Kids are asleep. Time to clean the kitchen, do the dishes, switch the laundry, cut some veggies for tomorrow's dinner, and then find somewhere softer than last night to pass out.

<comment><USER12> I try to make it a point to do all the chores when the kids are awake. When they are asleep is time to relax; not do mundane tasks

I don't feel it's my duty to entertain my kinds every waking hour, so if they have to settle with watching me fold the laundry or unload the dishwasher, so be it.

This probably won't win me the father-of-the-year award, and it is parenting- style me and my girlfriend don't always agree about, but I refuse to sacrifice all my free time for my children.

<comment><USER13> How would you feel about this choice if one of your children died of cancer?

Would you still think you'd made the right choice, or would you regret prioritising laundry over your children?

<comment><USER14> Literally nothing will prepare you for that. No amount of time is enough. Living your life in abject fear of that morbid possibility is crippling.

<comment><USER13> "spending time with my kids" is not "living in crippling fear of them dying".

<comment><USER15> It sounded like you were opposed to doing mundane daily chores or otherwise not giving 100% of your free time to them while they're awake for fear that you might regret that choice if they died young of cancer. That doesn't seem that far apart to this reader.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I spent several years working toward the goal of maximizing my Free Time, and hit a point a couple years ago where I'm effectively as Retired as I want to be, at any given moment. The SaaS businesses tick away in the background and seldom require my intervention apart from a quick customer service email sweep every couple days.

I'd recommend this path over the VC + Co-Founders "Startup" life that gets promoted here so often, since I've never seen an outcome from that track that appears to me to be relaxing and enjoyable.

Anyway, regarding the calculator submitted here, it seems to use a bunch of the things I do in (what I consider) my Free Time to deduct from the amount of (what it considers) my Free Time. When I have the chance, I go out Bouldering (which it counts as fitness) or play with my kids if they're off school (which it dings as parenting).

Every hour you're not working for somebody else in exchange for money aught to be considered "you" time. All the other things on that list seem like perfectly fine ways of spending that time.

<comment><USER17> The hard part is actually finding a viable business, not technical chops.

Still trying to find a way to do it since I don't want to work for a salary all my life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think commute time should count two or three times. I sit in the car for 80 minutes a day and I am totally shot in the evening so I get nothing done even if I have time. . On the days I work from home I work the same amount. After work I relax for half an hour and can do things after. Commuting is a real soul killer in my view.

<comment><USER19> You just made me realize how lucky I am. I'm commuting 2x 55min per day. I always think it's too much, but it's mostly by train. There is about a 50% chance of me getting 2x 35min uninterrupted reading time out of it (depending on the crowd).

<comment><USER20> Man, I ride my motorbike to work every day and it usually takes 15 minutes each way on average. Yet I wonder what it'd be like to jump cities and double my income. comments like yours and the OP really make me understand and value my free time substantially.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Nice thought provoking presentation. I once billed 150 hours in a 7 day period, and they were honest hours, too. Since then I've stopped working and raised a daughter; and parenting was harder work than the insane "i have no life" schedule I used to push.

Bit over a decade into the family thing, it's certainly more rewarding. Other people would find other choices rewarding and that's great too.

We're all too apt to forget that in the end, this time is all we have. Are we really using it like we want to?

<comment><USER22> >150 hours in a 7 day period

Doing what? Just curious. I could only image doing something like that if the job was extremely lax - like a toll booth operator in a slow town, or something.

<comment><USER23> >> 150 hours in a 7 day period

> Doing what? Just curious.

I can't speak for the GP (as I am not they), but can say I pulled a 118 hour work week once doing s/w development. Four 20 hour days for one client and the other 38 for another.

Suffice to say it was not a fun week.

<comment><USER24> At that point, wouldn't it have made more sense to set expectations that their 1-week turnaround is realistically a 3-week ask, instead of working 20 hour days?

<comment><USER20> That's a difficult argument to make when you're contracting or a consultant and are expected to deliver X and not work Z hour.

<comment><USER24> I know, and I've been there.

There, meaning working absurd extra hours in order to deliver to the client as reneging would mean I have to own up to the client the fact that I totally fucked up the scoping (usually it's scope creep or changing requirements, but you can't really blame them even if it's their fault).

I've done that before, and perhaps other people here are getting paid more to consult than I, but it's not worth it IMO to sacrifice your life for the client.

<comment><USER23> > There, meaning working absurd extra hours in order to deliver to the client > as reneging would mean I have to own up to the client the fact that I > totally fucked up the scoping (usually it's scope creep or changing > requirements, but you can't really blame them even if it's their fault).

The client for which I did the four 20 hour days had a project manager that committed to a milestone delivery with _their_ client and did not run it past the dev team. So I did everything possible in order to deliver for the client.

Were it that I underestimated the scope of work (which I have done many times), I definitely would have conveyed that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> what is "free time"? I consider doing most of those things on my "free time". When I go excercise, I have no obligation do to so, I do it on my "free time". If I had kid, I'd consider spending time with them as "free time with my kids". I dont like this pessimistic perception of time, and it's not mine. The only non free time I have, is the one I "owe" to my employer. And this time, I freely give it to him, and If I wasn't contractually require to do so, I'd probably do the very same thing (I teach and research at uni).

<comment><USER26> > If I had kid, I'd consider spending time with them as "free time with my > kids"

It's really not, though. Before parenthood I had all these romantic 'Swallows and Amazons' ideas about lazy summer days on riverbanks and meadows.

In reality time with young kids is about mundane things like making meals, doing homework, playing what _they_ want to play, trying to coax them to help with chores that you need to get done, finding craft activities to deflect them from screen-time etc etc

It's not in the slightest bit free-choice or frankly enjoyable. I've just got up on Saturday to find that it's raining heavily, my heart sank. Now to find 14 hours of indoor child-oriented activities...

<comment> em-bee it gets easier as the kids get older. it also helps to have interesting hobbies yourself that you can involve your kids in.

so instead of asking: how am i going to entertain this bunch on rainy weekends, ask: what hobby might i like to pick up that i can get my kids interested in.

i have been struggling with that too. i am considering things like learning an instrument, programming, playing board-games.

i found a simplified version of DnD, made it even easier and combined it with using lego to build the environment (including treasure boxes)

and when it's not raining there are plenty of outdoor activities to choose from.

<comment> em-bee _what hobby might i like to pick up that i can get my kids interested in_

i'd actually like to rephrase that a bit. kids are naturally interested in everything their parents do. so the question is not whether i can get the kids interested, but rather, whether is is something that is interesting for me, yet suitable for kids.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't know if that's how free time works once you have kids. "Parental duties" takes the free time. You get some time when the kids sleep.

<comment><USER28> Kids from elementary school onward have homework, friends, books, games, TV, etc occupying several hours of most nights. It's not like they're interacting with both parents continuously for every moment between work/school and sleep.

<comment> em-bee for a first grader in a country where schools are very intensive, it takes 100% parental involvement for every minute of homework. have more than one kid, and both parents are busy...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> While I think it's good to take stock of "where does my time go??", the calculations here are pretty misleading IMO. For example, I think, for most people, if you had absolutely no other external obligations (e.g. you are independently wealthy, no kids, etc.) and you had exactly 5 years left to live, I think most people would consider that you have "5 years of free time left". By taking out things like sleep, eating, grooming, chores, and even discretionary things like "going to the gym", and then converting the remaining hours _back_ to years by dividing by 24/7/365, you're left with some really misleading numbers.

<comment><USER30> Yup. If I retired right now, I'd show as 20 free years and 17 busy years. But I would feel like I had 32 free years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> One thing that everyone needs to take into consideration is that it is not a static thing. When I was younger (30's) I had 0 free time probably, but now I am semi-retired and work out of my home freelance which I do mostly for something to do. Which means I have tons o free time, more than 60 hours a week easily. I think it is good to work hard earlier in life so you can enjoy more free time later on.

</comment><comment> r-s Working remote at a company with good culture, 0 commute, no children, and minimal housing upkeep. At 32yo I have never had more free time in my life.

I spend very significant amounts of time in the gym (which I love), and in the outdoors. Rarely bored. I sometimes dream of having the 40 hours I work in a week free too.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm 46 with a 3 year old I spend a lot of time with (21-24 hours a week). I love that time but it's a little depressing to only have 5 years of free time left.

Pretty eye opening to see it as a total number.

<comment><USER33> > _with a 3 year old_

This was my first thought. The calculator is fine, but not all free time is equal. If the kid's having a not-great night, and is _finally_ asleep by 10pm, I theoretically have an hour before I have to go to sleep, but I'm tired and realistically I'm just going to click around for awhile before going to bed. Ditto if I'm up at 6:30; I theoretically have 30 minutes, but who knows when the kid'll wake up. Maybe I have 30 minutes, maybe I have zero.

It's as if free time had a half-life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> ~70 hours free time/week or 10 per day, wohooo...freelancing all the way baby!

<comment><USER35> what do you do with your free time?

<comment><USER34> Enjoying life my friend. Wife and kids, they are there to make your life fulfilled, not to be a nuisance or chores, as the tool had one of the fields - I put there 0, I don't have any chores to do in my life.

<comment><USER36> No chores? Don't you have to do cleaning and cooking? Groceries?

<comment><USER34> No. I pay other people to do chores. That's why I make money. As for groceries I don't consider this part of "chores". I usually do groceries with my kids, whenever my wife will let me do it, since every time we just fool around and buy a lot of unnecessary stuff just for the fun - which my wife hates it. Like I said, enjoying life with my family.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I don't really consider sleeping, eating or fitness wasted time really, you basically need it and most I personally find it enjoyable and excluding sleeping, it's practically a use of free time. I think would love some checkbox that signifies a "waste" in a sense.

Also, your application doesn't seem to like accidental space-bars being pressed in inputs. Causes NaN and its hard to figure out why.

Regardless pretty cool/interesting

<comment><USER38> Author here - I find a lot of those mentioned personally enjoyable too, but what I was essentially trying to do was quantify my own 'must do' activities (e.g. if I don't sleep ~8hrs/night things go downhill fast, etc) regardless of whether or not I enjoy them.

From there, I view the remaining time as truly open, not requiring working, or general meat sack maintenance. Categorization can definitely go either way though. Part of the message, aside from just quantifying how limited time is, would be to find enjoyment where you can in your 'mandatory' activities too as they'll represent the bulk of your life.

<comment><USER39> > Part of the message, aside from just quantifying how limited time is, would > be to find enjoyment where you can in your 'mandatory' activities too as > they'll represent the bulk of your life.

I wish I could give this comment more upvotes. I'm slowly learning this lesson in my personal life - I wish I could learn it faster, but the goddamn brain is just too much more insistent than the body..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> This reminds me of an incredible dialogue from a remarkable Seinfeld episode (S02E02):

> GEORGE: They always make me take stock of my life and how I've pretty much > wasted all of it, and how I plan to continue wasting it.

> JERRY: I know, and then you say to yourself, "From this moment on, I'm not > going to waste any more of it." But then you go, "How? What can I do that's > not wasting it?"

</comment><comment><USER41> In my probably unpopular opinion, parenting shouln'd be on the list. It's not a forced activity like sleeping or eating or commuting. It's a conscious choice people make between it and other hobbies.

<comment><USER42> That sounds very naive. Yes people have chosen to have kids (and some haven't) but you also chose where and how you work so by similar logic we should discount those choices. Once you have kids there are a lot of things that aren't optional, and unlike a long commute aren't easy to change.

<comment><USER41> You choose how and where to work, yes, and this is already factored in the form by the duration of the commute. Unlike having kids, you can't elect to not work though, because you need money to pay for buying food and shelter. (Unless you are in survival mode, in which case the concept of free time is probably foreign anyway).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> The Story of the Mexican Fisherman

[https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican- fisherma...](https://bemorewithless.com/the-story-of-the-mexican-fisherman/)

</comment><comment><USER44> I tried to be realistic but it comes out as -7.5. I must be lying about sleep.

</comment><comment><USER45> 61.5 pw free. Work for myself, no commute, kids are 14 and 11 so pretty self sufficient. Run rather than gym (saves travel and fannying about time), don't sleep massive amounts...

The default 7 hours a week "grooming"? Wtf?

I'm obviously scruffy and unclean, too.

</comment><comment><USER46> A few ways to get more free time:

\- combine commuting with working out. Even if you only run 1/2 way and still have to catch a train for the second half you'll still be getting time back. \- hire a cleaning service if you can afford it. Maybe a Roomba? \- move closer to work to reduce your commute time. \- don't keep your phone by your bed. If you are like me you'll waste time in the morning and evening. \- don't make more chores for yourself than necessary. For example, you can often wear pants 2 days of the week without issue.

</comment><comment><USER47> I feel very strongly the amount of free time is, to a great extent, a social standard rather than some economical constrain. I believe 35 hours work week is no less productive (or even more). I wonder how many believe the same and whether we can push it as a community.

One of my biggest satisfactions in life is killing jobs. Finding out about a solution to make some work obsolete, even my own work. But this game is also a team game. To work together to make things simpler and cultivate the free time enabled by this.

</comment><comment><USER48> Well I know the author of this certainly has more free time than me. 7 hours a week at the gym? What and incredibly laid back lifestyle.

<comment><USER22> >7 hours a week at the gym? What and incredibly laid back lifestyle.

What a strange thing to pick at - is there a joke I'm missing? And it's not strictly the gym, it's 'gym/fitness'.

<comment><USER48> Oh well that certainly makes a difference!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I am probably at the other extreme, in having too much free time. Not that I don't have things to do, although I'm self-employed, my income depends on a complex system I've built that needs constant refining. My todo list is long. But it can easily be pushed off.

So, that's what I'm doing at this very moment while thinking about how much free time I have.

</comment><comment><USER50> Sigh, quantifying this is depressing

</comment><comment><USER51> I think of free time as time spent doing something you want to do, not necessarily time spent doing nothing.

If you find work that feels like play, then I'd consider that "time spent doing what you want to do."

</comment><comment><USER52> Reading HN wasn't an input box, that's my free time.

</comment><comment><USER53> NaN! I have immeasurable free time

Either I need to revisit my work life balance or we hugged this site to death. Or both

</comment><comment><USER54> So I'm 20 and I've only got 26.5 hours of free time each week. I think this is... terrible?

</comment><comment><USER55> Expected an article about how do deal with boring free time. Got an existential crisis instead

</comment><comment><USER56> I would put eating/cooking in the free time category. Arguably sleeping as well.

</comment><comment><USER57> If you have less than 24hrs a day for fully-expendable time, at your own leisure, you are doing something wrong.

Let the mexicans work, man, you are doing something wrong.

24 hour club. All day every day!

<comment><USER58> Damn I only got 116. How do you avoid sleep completely?

<comment><USER59> Ah, well, I might be misconfigured. Anyways I consider sleep a good thing, so, it's all in the game. It's volentary sleep, to say the least. But good call. I am mistaking and not you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> In answer to your question: 5 hours.

</comment><comment><USER61> I have 1 free year left

</comment><comment><USER62> Parenting.

</comment><comment><USER63> 79 as the average life span? Is that worldwide? I fully expect to make it to 90.

<comment><USER64> According to Wikipedia life expectancy worldwide is 69.

Japan has the highest life expectancy of any country at around 85.</comment></comment>