Changes coming to Get Satisfaction: Community moderation tools no longer free - <AUTHOR> http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/2010/02/16/changes-coming-to-get-satisfaction/

<comment><USER2> While I have always liked Get Satisfactions product, 37signals did make a good point about some of their practices:

<http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1650-get-satisfaction-or-else>

While every company is entitled to a profit, this could certainly be considered extortion by those in the 37signals camp.

</comment><comment><USER3> Much more interesting to me is getting to see their pitch deck. That's reason enough to click through.</comment>


Man who threatened to kill Ajit Pai's children pleads guilty, faces prison - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/09/man-who-threatened-to-kill-ajit-pais-children-pleads-guilty-faces-prison/ <comment><USER2> I have conflicting thoughts about this.

On one hand, threatening someone (or someone's loved ones) with death is utterly wrong and despicable except for crimes committed by that someone with similar impact where emotions may run really high and would be understandable under the circumstances. A net neutrality defeat is not one of those situations when its direct impact is looked at. [To expand further, I also believe that death threats or attempts even for the most heinous crimes is wrong for a few different reasons, though it's understandable why someone may think that's right.]

On the other hand, without further information on whether the convicted person could or would actually carry out the threat (the assessment of which may not be an easy endeavor), and when the person doesn't have a prior record, the following stance by the US Attorney's office seems way too harsh to me:

> The US Attorney's office in Virginia opposed the motion for bail pending > sentencing.

> "Incarceration is, by its very nature, a hardship, and neither the > defendant's mental health status nor the nature of his conviction is rare or > uncommon, particularly when compared to other offenders," the government > wrote.

We know that law is meant to reduce discretionary decisions, but discretion is also there in the actual sentencing and in bail decisions. Somehow the attitude of US Attorneys to get a very high conviction and sentencing rate, as measured in person-decades, seems more like a stepping stone to future political growth of the attorneys and less about viable deterrence of crimes.

If we were to take a poll asking people if and when they wished a certain prominent figure would just disappear (or die) because of some decision that was believed to be incorrect and damaging, I'd guess the majority of the population everywhere would say they've had those thoughts several times in several instances. Humans are emotional creatures, and our reactions to many things are emotional, with rationality probably struggling to reign in the emotions. In a sense, everybody is emotionally unstable at several points in life. I feel we ought to come up with better ways to handle these as a society.

<comment><USER3> Everyone has thought that the world would be better without someone in it, but he didn't stop there.

This isn't your average internet "ill kill u noob" death threat.

He emailed Pai with a list of local schools and threatened his children. He said Pai was responsible for children's suicides and threatened to kill him. He showed clear malice and intent.

You shouldn't be conflicted about this, what he did was wrong. Even if you hate Pai or net neutrality what he did has tarnished net neutrality advocates as violent nutters.

<comment><USER4> I get no one likes Ajit or what he's doing, but no one deserves to get it taken out on their children.</comment></comment></comment>


Data Runner Watch Prototype – Modded Casio F91W - <AUTHOR> https://n-o-d-e.net/datarunner.html <comment><USER2> Wow, apart from obviously cool project I'm super impressed with the minimalist website design, aesthetics, effort put in the video to match the aesthetics and all without any JS.

Either this is the first time I'm visiting this site or I don't remember; But I wonder how they are managing to compete with Node.JS in the search engines with that name. Google doesn't respect even N-O-D-E, where as DDG brings up the site as first result for N-O-D-E. Not to mention there's another famous Youtube channel by the name Node by Corridor Crew.

They seem to sell some items based on their design along with the stuff they make at their store of the same name, I would like to know how they reach out to their audience from any regular subscriber of their work.

<comment><USER3> I also liked the transcript below the video so you can read along. I wish more sites would do that. I'm not hearing impaired (though it's definitely a boon if you are), but it's a lot more convenient to just see the words sometimes.

<comment><USER2> I agree. I think transcripts beside graphical formats are absolutely necessary or at least it's empathetic.

Self plug: I have a startup related site which is text only and occasionally I draw some comics which always consists of transcription.

[1][https://hitstartup.com/tags/comics/](https://hitstartup.com/tags/comics/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I used to buy F91W watches all the time. they were fun and practical, but wasteful.

the most shameful fact about the F91W isnt its spartan design or its affordable price, but the fact that the timepiece with its ten year battery will easily outlast its resin strap, and its springbars are nothing more than pot steel held into the soft plastic lugs by friction alone. Chances are, when you replace the band after a few years youll pay just as much as the watch to do so, and run a pretty good risk of damaging the springbars to the point of rendering them warped or broken. the simple act of removing the springbars themselves is enough to strip out the lugs sometimes.

the clearances between the lugs and springbars are also very tight, so it discourages aftermarket additions like NATO bands or third party straps.

the B650WB is somewhat more durable.

<comment><USER5> I was curious about what "pot steel" was - for anyone else who hadn't encountered it before: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot_metal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pot_metal)

<comment><USER6> It's nice to know all those Casio watches I've been wearing for years and years probably have lead exposed on them :/

<comment><USER7> Modern pot metal alloys are nearly all lead free, partly due to the EU's RoHS regulations and partly because lead is a lot more expensive than zinc.

It's also worth pointing out that metallic lead isn't all that toxic - it's lead compounds that you need to worry about, especially organic compounds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Similar to Travis Goodspeed's goodwatch project, which is a replacement board for Casio calculator watches that contains a sub-GHz programmable radio. I've built a few of them and had fun writing software for it.

[https://kk4vcz.com/goodwatch/](https://kk4vcz.com/goodwatch/)

[https://github.com/travisgoodspeed/goodwatch/](https://github.com/travisgoodspeed/goodwatch/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Bought one in silver. As a massive product play, making this and other retro era watches into a fido authenticator would be the use case functionality that would make it huge.

I was going to do an Atari 2600 case based wifi router a while ago, and this idea of taking design classics and adapting them to minimalist modern use cases would be a company.

</comment><comment><USER10> They also have a really cool zine that's loaded with 90s hacker culture. [https://n-o-d-e.net/zine/index.html](https://n-o-d-e.net/zine/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Wow I'm amazed by the option of adding a chip from a tap to pay card.

This would be a lot better than an NFC chip on a standard smartwatch as the F91W could last for years with that chip inside it.

The F91W is cheap, and really reliable. I've always fantasized about modding one, and this exactly would be my dream. Sadly, I don't have enough time on my hands.

If it were for sale, I'd buy it immediately !

<comment><USER12> Your wish is _almost_ granted: [https://n-o-d-e.shop](https://n-o-d-e.shop)

The link is at the bottom of the site, but it's pretty subtle, and I _think_ these watches have the same mods.

Edit: These have NFC, but no SD card, so maybe they will show up with enhanced storage later, but anyone wanting the NFC features with the watch it looks like they are available.

Edit Edit: The NFC chip in the ones for sale is not tap-to-pay :( still neat though!

<comment><USER13> It is possible to scavenge the NFC antenna/chip from an Oyster card or indeed any other card, which the author alludes to in their video. There are details floating around on how to do it, by dissolving the card in acetone.

However, the relevant authorities might take a dim view of repurposing the transit card in this manner and probably have certain restrictions in place, to deter people from defacing their property. On another note, the author is using a NTAG213 on the watches sold via the shop and Oyster is Mifare, from what I can remember. There might be issues with response times regarding the proximity to the reader, if you wanted to experiment.

<comment><USER12> I follow someone on twitter who explained how to do this at one point, using a Caltrain Clipper card, and put it in a resin ring :)

I could dig that up if it's helpful but in general I think it's pretty straight forward, just some risk of destruction :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here's another F-91W mod:

[https://github.com/carrotIndustries/pluto](https://github.com/carrotIndustries/pluto)

<comment><USER15> I built one of these, modified the firmware to show leap seconds: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQaPtOPP09U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQaPtOPP09U)

<comment><USER16> I ended up making an "app" to do hundredths of seconds for TSD rallies. Awesome project. My build is 2-4 years old (IIRC), so it has some power issues, sometimes I'll catch it waking itself up more than usual, and I can hear the wakeups in the piezo which doesn't help.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Please add a few bullet points on the top of the page, it takes way too long to figure out what functionality you added, when I open the page all I can see is you starting with "It's a mod of this model watch" and then you talk about how it looks now, and how you put it together...

</comment><comment><USER18> Nice to see someone hosting his own video instead of using YouTube.

</comment><comment><USER19> To me, the name of this sounded like it was going to be squeezing some kind of running/sports watch functionality into a Casio F91W (and ideally GPS!). But it's not that, it turns out (a few paragraphs later) that it's adding NFC for close-range data sharing and some other cool mods. Which makes more sense considering how small the watch is.

</comment><comment><USER20> This is awesome. As I watched the video I was thinking how great it'd be to have an NFC chip for payments and transit in my watch. Of course, I remembered shortly after that my Apple Watch does this already but I never use it for NFC because it's easier to hold your phone up to a reader than to twist your wrist and arm.

</comment><comment><USER21> Neat mod. I like the nod to Johnny Mnemonic.

The mod could be used by spies to authenticate each other on a data drop. NFC powers the device and validates the key is correct. Once the two users are validated the data is exchanged and the data runner exfiltrates the payload.

</comment><comment><USER22> Does anyone know what NFC transponder they might be using? I might have filtered too much on Mouser and missed it, but I'm struggling to find an 8KB module with that case. I also can't find it on the site since there's no BOM.

<comment><USER23> Freeze the video at 1:47 and you'll see K352 4SDYU from STMicroelectronics. Dug a little and came up with M24SR16-YDW6T/2 which can be found in DigiKey here: [https://www.digikey.com/products/en?keywords=M24SR16-YDW6T%2...](https://www.digikey.com/products/en?keywords=M24SR16-YDW6T%2F2)

That one is only a 2Kb though. They also make an 8Kb 4SFYU: [https://www.digikey.com/products/en?keywords=M24SR64-YDW6T%2...](https://www.digikey.com/products/en?keywords=M24SR64-YDW6T%2F2)

<comment><USER24> I am pretty clueless when it comes to NFC, does adding such a chip mean i could copy my Mifare Classic card onto the watch? That would be neat!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I really like this idea. I'd prefer a more traditional or minimal looking watch, but I like some of the extra functionality I get from my Apple Watch. I would love something more in between the two.

</comment><comment><USER6> Now I just need a TV-B-Gone on my F-91W!

[https://learn.adafruit.com/tv-b-gone-kit](https://learn.adafruit.com/tv-b- gone-kit)

</comment><comment><USER26> I've been wanting a fitness tracker version of this watch for some time now.

Anyway, cool to see that this watch isn't only a favorite of terrorists.

</comment><comment><USER27> Couldn't you put the NFC chip in the watch band and use it with whichever watch you like?

</comment><comment><USER28> I like how it takes 10s to render any text because the font's don't load ;)

But cool project!</comment>


DoorDash Raises $127M in 'Down' Round - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2016/03/22/doordash-raises-127-million-in-down-round/ <comment><USER2> The most important piece of this article.

>DoorDash isn't profitable and has struggled to keep some of its delivery staff, known as "dashers," from remaining with the company for longer than a few months, raising costs to attract and train employees, according to people familiar with the matter.

>A DoorDash spokesman said the company is "cash flow positive" in its "earliest markets," including applicable marketing and overhead expenses. He declined to name those markets. Overall the company operates in 22 urban areas in the U.S. and Canada, according to its website.

<comment><USER3> Earliest markets are Palo Alto and Stanford.

<comment><USER4> It is good then that these markets are typical of the rest of the USA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was visiting Palo Alto one afternoon last year and as we were grabbing dinner one thing I noticed (from the tshirts) were all the "dashers" waiting for take away just like we were.

Considering all the time we had to wait I could not help but think that, surely, it would have been more efficient to schedule other deliveries in the mean time and just come pick up the food when it was ready? As a logistics company you want to minimize the time your couriers sit around...

The kitchen already knows roughly how long it's going to take anyway, and with enough data computers could do that automatically too, I guess all delivery services work the same but I never use them, do other incumbents do these things more efficiently nowadays?

<comment><USER6> The trick with DoorDash is that many (most?) of the restaurants in the system aren't voluntarily participating with DoorDash.

A smart system that summoned delivery people when the food was ready/close to ready would require integration on the restaurant's part (see: Seamless/GrubHub/Caviar), but DoorDash seems to be going in a different direction.

This has been a point of controversy - DoorDash offers delivery for restaurants that do not participate in delivery by simply sending someone there, ordering, and bringing you the food. This is terrible for the delivery people obviously, and DoorDash has also been caught marking up the prices on these menu items without informing the customer.

Overall, highly doubtful about the sustainability of this business model. Or the ethics.

Side note: Postmates also does similar - some of the restaurants in their system are not official partners, and so the delivery person gets to make the order and wait around. This is a large part of why I stopped using them - they're getting paid peanuts as it is and now they're sitting on their ass for 20+ minutes to bring someone $20 of food and foregoing much needed tips.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> sure, there is plenty to be skeptical about with doordash's business model but they just convinced some of the best-funded venture funds in the valley to invest in doordash. rather than simply tearing them down, it would be more fun to try to figure out how and what he said in those closed-door meetings, like...

      * who could be a likely suitor waiting in the wings to snatch them up?
      * what do the unit economics look like in their best and worst markets?
      * have they actually found a novel solution to the massive logistics problem they face with individual deliveries?
      * do they have a viable plan to pivot/expand to non-food deliveries?
      * are they getting a big contract from a giant corporation to be their last-mile delivery service?
      * is there a strategic partnership that changes their business for the better?

there is certainly something(s) that got previous and new investors excited about doordash's prospects. what is it? what could it be? the suspense is killing me! =D

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't see how delivering somebody else's food can be profitable, or even how they can guarantee that the food is edible as a middleman.

Maybe somebody can explain what the business model is here.

It sounds like the founders get to play big shot for a couple years while they bleed their VCs.

<comment><USER9> It's a straightforward and logical business model. Restaurants want a way to deliver food to their customers. They provide this service, and are compensated for it.

They ensure that the food is edible by working with restaurants that customers already dine-in at. Sure, they can't guarantee that the food is edible, but no delivery service can guarantee anything about the product that they are delivering. They have to rely on the reputation of the sender.

The problem is instead that this is too common of a business model. There doesn't appear to be anything particularly innovative about what DoorDash is doing, and they don't appear to be executing very well. It's not a fundamentally flawed business; it's just a uninspiring one that was probably overvalued.

<comment><USER10> Deliveroo, Hungry House, Deliverance, Just Eat. That's the (well entrenched) competitive landscape in London alone. And I doubt those are sucking in numbers like 127m of funding (at god knows what valuation). These guys at doordash must have one helluva good pitch.

<comment><USER11> Deliveroo raised $100M (~£66M) back in November '15, that's $27m short but still. source: [http://uk.businessinsider.com/london-startup-deliveroo- has-r...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/london-startup-deliveroo-has- raised-100-million-for-its-restaurant-delivery-service-2015-11)

<comment><USER10> Fair enough, at valuation of more than 1billion GBP so double that of doordash.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The business model is broken. Surprised they managed to raise more funds at all.

</comment><comment><USER4> How can I invest in this company as a common stock holder?

<comment><USER13> Companies like SharesPost and EquityZen allow accredited investors to invest in some venture-backed companies.

<comment><USER4> I think I need to make my snark a little more obvious.

I am sure that there are some common stock holders in DoorDash looking to offload their stock, but I can't think of a more certain way to lose all your money than to invest in the common stock of a startup who has just taken a down round.

<comment><USER14> Sometimes, the devaluation might be just due to a wider market correction and not specific to the company itself (which in this case appears not to be if its having the problems described). But if that's the case, then it would be an opportunity to invest, wouldn't it be? That is if the fundamentals of the business are on a strong base?

<comment><USER4> It might be if the earlier investors didn't have preference shares. Typically once you have a down round the common stock holders are wiped out if there have been a significant numbers of preference share issued.

<comment><USER15> > Typically once you have a down round the common stock holders are wiped out > if there have been a significant numbers of preference share issued.

That all depends on several unknowns at that time. It definitely increases the chances of the holders of common stock to be left without compensation if and when the company sells or there is some other 'liquidity event', but it definitely is not a given.

A down round is simply the issuing of new shares at a different valuation than the previous shares. There could very well be a round at a higher valuation later on, the difference between the previous share issue and the current one could be small, the number of shares issued could be small to the number of shares already outstanding and so on.

<comment><USER4> Jacques all of these are true, but more typically once you go through a significant down round with a lot of new capital raised the common stock holder is wiped out. The holders of preference shares may be smart about it and make sure the current employees are protected, but you don't want to be a normal common stock holder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is an excellent example of throwing good money after bad.</comment>


A Meta-Layer for Notes - <AUTHOR> https://julian.digital/2020/09/04/a-meta-layer-for <comment><USER2> The author is correct that notes function best when they aren't soloed, but that's true of applications in general.

Why do mail programs maintain their own database of messages? It used to be quite handy to organize your projects by directory or tree, with mail files, presentations, code etc all kept together, greppable and with some choice of which program to run. Now if I am working on a couple of projects I have to search around (was that a slack note? An iMessage? Mail? Or perhaps it was a comment in a document?

<comment><USER3> That's an interesting observation. An e-mail client that would allow you to route e-mails to different folders on your system (not folders within its own filesystem or database) would be very powerful, especially for developers. Do you know of such a program?

<comment><USER4> On a similar vein, how easy is it to programmatically process emails? I receive a report every day as an email attachment that I would like to process automatically. Right now, I'm doing part where I open the email and download it manually.

<comment><USER2> You could retrieve it from your mail server via IMAP (say with tiny program like fetchmail) and pope them through whatever program you like.

I run my own server so info stuff like this automatically as the mail comes in.

The people saying "use smtp" don't know what they are talking about: SMTP is the protocol for _delivering_ mail to a host. You want to process the message as or after it arrives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The proposed functionality of attaching a note to a semantic context (eg. a note attached to a person, popping up in email, LinkedIn, chat, etc.) is well taken, but the spatial aspect hasn't been thought through enough.

Attaching a reminder to a door only captures part of the intended context, it very much matters whether you are reminded upon leaving, arriving (or both). In meatspace, we can capture that additional context by placing the note on the inside or outside surface of the door (placing it outside also has the effect of making the note public, but we can ignore that aspect initially).

I think that in order to show up in most of (and mostly just in) the relevant contexts, true digital sticky notes would have to be both pretty smart and shoulder-surf your activity, which could be quite invasive.

Relatively benign example: should you be reminded of the 5-year-old note you posted for a hotel if you're booking a flight to the city the hotel is in? Does it matter if the note's sentiment was positive or negative? How about your note related to a person who lives in that city? After booking the flight? While making a hotel reservation in that city? How about while reading a Wikipedia article related to the history of that same city? What if the hotel is a historical landmark? What if the person is a historian?

All too easily, you could end up wading through a flurry of your own notes, reducing the odds you will notice the one you would want to see, but a false negative ends up negating the utility of the note entirely.

You can categorize notes and show or hide whole categories as "layers" over whatever you are doing, but now you are mostly back to having to interact with a silo to deal with that.

</comment><comment><USER6> You can achieve this with Amna! (disclaimer: I built it). The described sticky notes approach can actually fall flat on two levels. One is that notes lack order. We learned this from our user interviews. Users lose track of post it notes all the time. Things just "slip". The other side effect is that it can be overwhelming to have a bunch of notes everywhere. You're back at square 1 if notes exist in the apps. Rather, the app must exist in the note (idk if that makes sense, I can clarify)

With Amna, you start with a task, and for each task start pulling information. Email is just one of many sources of action. Everything from a GitHub PR to Slack Message is an action waiting to be taken and notes to write. A todo app that connects everything better can be really powerful. It becomes the point of entry to get running. ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23780781](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23780781))

</comment><comment><USER7> I love that this problem space is getting more attention! I totally agree information is way more useful in context and in a common place. A meta layer would be very interesting, but I struggle to see how it would be technically possible to implement (outside of the browser) -- maybe for anyone except for Apple. We've been approaching a similar problem to what hey is tackling from a different angle, at [https://www.twobird.com](https://www.twobird.com)

<comment><USER8> We built a sub-100ms OCR system for Mac and built an accompanying app that sort of did this, but eventually pivoted away. It's on my GitHub though, two different versions of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The obvious answer to the title* "er, sticky notes" would miss the more interesting observations of the article, particularly wrt spatial and event based note taking.

Mentioning this, as the title might be off-putting in the seeming banality of its question; it's not necessarily about Stickies or similar products..

*EDIT: original title here was "What's the digital equivalent of sticky notes?"

</comment><comment><USER10> Reading this reminded me of part of Bret Victor's 2006 "Magic Inc" [1]. The utopia Victor envisions is somewhat related to this post, but taken further and extended to all kinds of data - not just notes.

The idea is fairly fundamental - ultimately, each application should know about whatever is relevant in their context, especially if other applications already know it (Victor goes into applications making smart guesses through ML methods or sensor data as well, but a big part of it is having access to data from other apps).

Of course, if you actually want to get all your apps to talk to eachother without causing a babylonian mess and/or compromising privacy completely, things get extremely tricky. But I do feel like OSes could develop further in this regard, at least for fairly standard data like events, notes, etc.

1\. [http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/](http://worrydream.com/MagicInk/)

</comment><comment><USER11> I just submitted this for the related (but oft-forgotten) project - _Lifestreams_ :

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24391846](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24391846)

<comment><USER6> another gem: [https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aura/](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~aura/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> On target.

Would be a killer Chrome extension if such an extension can work across domains in this manner. Take my money.

<comment><USER13> Working on something similar for a while now. Soon!

<comment> lachlan-sneff I'd be grateful if you could notify me when you release what you're working on. Email is in profile. Thank you :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The best I have found is ... not like sticky notes, but rather to form a habit of using lists, a few alarms, and a calendar (and anki or the like), using whatever tools (such as my [http://onemodel.org](http://onemodel.org) , but there are many choices). This way I make a "self program" so I am reminded of the right things at the right times and not distracted by them otherwise. Some people also appreciate the whole GDT thing.

<comment><USER14> Edit: I also treat email like a to-do list, but it defers to my knowledge management system (linked in my parent comment) which tries to be complete like the OP suggests, but is AGPL, and has a similar but broader vision (not all features present yet, but hoping, and I use it every day). In it, every bit of knowledge is treated like the real-life "thing" that it is, and linked with everything else desired.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've hard the first part for years with boomerang (there are other similar things, and google baked in most of the functionality) to get emails back when you're ready for them.

Also, I would send myself an email within the email thread.

Things that have been possible for quite some time.</comment>


Show HN: 2048 Console (Weekend Game Project) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ankitaggarwal011/2048-console/ <comment><AUTHOR> It's a weekend game project to defeat boring weekend. 2048 for console loving people.

Playing 2048 on console is actually pretty fun. It's implemented in Python.</comment>


Avoid Windows Malware: Bank on a Live CD - <AUTHOR> http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/10/avoid_windows_malware_bank_on.html <comment><USER2> Hey guys its real simple to bank online first you download this iso then you burn it to a disc then you put it in your computer and make sure the bios is set to boot from cd... then you can bank online easy peasy using an new operating system.

Then when you have to actually do something with things you are used to just reboot and take out the cd until you have to bank again.

I doubt the majority of people with malware on their windows machine get past burning an iso to cd (unless they have windows 7 which has native iso burning technology).

<comment><USER3> Banks could distribute the cds themselves (and customise them so that people are prompted to login to their bank account as soon as it's connected to the network).

Wifi drivers would probably be a bigger issue than working out how to boot from cd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Don't use Microsoft Windows when accessing your bank account online.

There are about 6 words too many in that sentence.</comment>


Developing Erlang at Yahoo (2008) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://cufp.galois.com/2008/slides/GerakinesNick.pdf <comment><USER2> It's fun to see that deck since my first (software) job out college was working with that team (about a year after this slide), when only two of those four mentioned individuals remained on the team, but consequently I got the pretty rare/fun opportunity to write Erlang.

We had a major advantage for new technology rollout as we did "devops" (e.g. the ops team decided they did not have bandwidth to support us and we needed to launch), and were building greenfield technology (Y! BOSS) with relatively few integration points with existing Y! technology (except for Vespa which is similar to SOLR/ElasticSearch and some weird C++ libraries that were somehow mislabeled from "junky prototype" to "high technology" and were ported forward).

Years later, my sense is that the biggest initial stumbling block was getting the existing devs to have any interest in learning a new technology / way of doing things. I think we lacked some perspective there, and should have made a much larger effort to get the team excited and trained with the technology (in jobs since, I've never had a team who turns down technology training), and could have probably won our local team over if we'd been more intentional.

Ultimately though, the final stumbling block was Y! itself, which was very focused on keeping the number/diversity of technologies low. I think at the organizational level this is probably the right decision, so I can't really fault them for that. Ironically Node.js popped up just a year or so later as the great language hope to rescue Y!, and did manage to get significant traction, so if you wanted to study adoption, finding someone who could explain how they got Y!'s Node.js adoption going in the right direction would be pretty fascination.

</comment><comment><USER3> The weaknesses they point out pretty much still holds today - gaps in documentation and no critical mass/small community. The small community size means you have a hard time finding API's for anything but the most mainstream databases/services which is the major drawback with Erlang.

<comment><USER4> I think it has become a lot better today with Elixir coming into the picture, as the two can communicate pretty much seamlessly and Elixir has been gaining a lot of steam lately, it's improving.

Not to mention that one of the big focuses of the Elixir community has been better documentation too.

That's not to say there isn't a long way left to go though, there is definitely room for improvement still.

<comment><USER5> Very true. We are adding Elixir team (very happy with it so far), most Ruby shops I know are either looking at Elixir or started using it. Given current rate of grows it looks like it will be very sizable community very soon.

<comment><USER6> Where is Elixir gaining most of its traction with companies? What types of problems? I've seen the Phoenix web framework mentioned many times, for example:

[http://www.phoenixframework.org/docs/overview](http://www.phoenixframework.org/docs/overview)

<comment><USER7> I'm using it to convert a rails app into a stateful websocket-based service. Honestly I'm barely using the Phoenix framework aside from the channels and potentially presence. (Which isn't a knock on Phoenix, which is awesome, has great documentation for the most part, a very helpful community) I expect I'll make more use of it at some point but if you treat your app as something deeper than basic CRUD this is where the stateful processes of BEAM really come in handy.

In another app that was green-field we're using it to build a highly scalable estimation engine, which is to say, a glorified calculator over a somewhat complex data model.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ironically, delicious has been down for a long time (months?)</comment>


Reorientalism: White Passports Became Worthless - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@indica/reorientalism-how-white-passports-became-worthless-b8b509728379 <comment><USER2> "The failed states of the west will be left behind."

Best laugh I've had in a long time, thanks.</comment>


Kinect Gestural UI: First Impressions - <AUTHOR> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/kinect-gesture-ux.html

<comment><USER2> :O --> "On the one hand, Kinect is an amazing advance, especially considering its low price. On the other hand, the 25-year time lag between research and practice for gesture UIs is slightly worse than the usual fate of HCI research advances. For example, 20 years lapsed between Doug Engelbart's invention of the mouse (1964) and the first commercially feasible mouse-based computer (the Mac in 1984)."</comment>


How AR Startup Used Machine Learning and Knowledge Graph to Reinvent Search - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/ar-startup-blippar-launches-blipparsphere-a-visual-browser-2016-6 <comment><USER2> This is really cool stuff!

<comment><USER3> you bet

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's cool !

</comment><comment><USER3> can it recognize my dog's breed?

<comment><USER5> It recognized my German Shepard perfectly. I like the UI and functionality. From my dog to ABBA was a fun journey.

Google better watch out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Amazing</comment>


Amazon drops price on their Kindle 2 to $299 - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00154JDAI?ie=UTF8&tag=f033-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00154JDAI

<comment><USER3> Yarr, smooth use of an affiliate tag there, kirse.

<comment><USER4> I guess you're not being critical, but I'm going to defend kirse anyway.

I think it's disingenuous to use affiliate links if someone said, "Hey, where can I buy a Kindle?" or "what's the best ebook reader I can buy online?". But in this case, if you saw this link and said "Oh crap! This is news to me and I've been waiting for a price drop" . . . then by all means kirse deserves an affiliate payout.

<comment><USER3> Hmm. Getting sidetracked, but how is it disingenuous to use your affiliate link when someone asks you where to buy a Kindle? They're only available on Amazon, and it doesn't raise the price at all if they buy through an affiliate link.

In my opinion, lines are crossed when you suggest a less than optimal solution/link because it'll earn you more money. For example - on my NIN site, when an album becomes available for pre-sale, I list each vendor that we find along with their price, even if they're selling it cheaper than Amazon. If I were to ONLY suggest Amazon for pre-orders when I knew better deals were to be had, that's where I feel one starts losing ethics points.

I think the bottom line, for a site like HN, or a message board, or anything like that -- it's up to the owner/administrator of the site. I don't know how much work goes into the administration of HN, but the content is almost entirely crowdsourced. Were it my site, I'd probably strip (but not replace) all affiliate code from links, but I don't really think it's unethical to have posted that to HN with a link. Were it me, I'd have commented in the interest of full disclosure.

And that's pretty much all I was doing with my first post - <USER2> something that may be of interest to readers here :)

<comment><USER4> yeah, Kindle's not a good example -- I was lazy to use that.

I just wanted to comment mainly because I always see people going way out of their way to disclose affiliate links (and conversely -- people pouncing on undisclosed ones like they've found a witch) and I always think "do people really get so offended by them?". But yeah, I totally agree that it's wrong to recommend a sub-optimal product b/c you're an affiliate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I so hope they lower the DX next.

</comment><comment><USER6> i would buy it immediately if is supported chinese

<comment><USER7> I would buy immediately if it supported GSM networks (or, at least, wi-fi)

<comment><USER8> Why? The EV-DO modem is plenty fast and requires no user intervention whatsoever. WiFi in this case would simply add more user configuration with negligible benefits (you're downloading BOOKS, not YouTube videos).

And why would GSM/CDMA matter at all? It's not as if you're paying for the service...

<comment><USER9> GSM would allow it to be used in markets without EVDO, although Amazon would need to figure out some kind of roaming agreement, flatrate data pricing, etc.

I use my Kindles (K1 and DX, I've seen other people with K2...I'll probably buy one myself for completeness) here in Afghanistan, and am probably going to set up a semi-pirate 1xRTT network, as USB gets old fast. The K1 only does EVDO (for which BTS gear is expensive), but the K2/DX do 1xRTT, so you can hack firmware on some of the consumer femtocells to remove GPS checks or spoof GPS.

<comment><USER7> Amazon doesn't need to figure out any roaming deals. i have my own country- wide (and Brazil is pretty wide) data plan and adding one more device would be trivial.

As for the wi-fi, I have a big library sitting on my network and it would not fit in a Kindle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> just launch in UK

<comment><USER11> In the rest of the world too. Just allow me to put my own data SIM in it.

<comment><USER7> And, while we are at it, please include some wi-fi in the bundle. It's a shame to market it to students and not letting them use on-campus wi-fi data links. 3G when there is a wifi link available seems such a waste of spectrum...</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you concentrate? - <AUTHOR> Recently, I've found my concentration is becoming increasingly bad.  I blame this mainly on co-workers and the internet keeping me from things that I need to get done (it's hard to program when I can only keep focus for about 10 minutes at a time).<p>What are tips/tricks you use to help "build" your concentration? <comment><USER3> 1\. Do not have access to the internet on your work machine. If you don't have 2 computers, get a netbook for < $300 and connect it to the internet. They should be in 2 different workstations, ideally in 2 different rooms. The thinking is that if you have to get up, you'll only do it if it's really necessary. It works pretty well.

2\. You should have 2 modes: coding and not coding. For coding, you should be at your desk coding. For not coding you can be anywhere, but _not at your desk_. One of my biggest problems is that I often find myself in one mode when I should be in the other. If you're having trouble writing code, then you probably don't know what to write. Grab source code listings, pen, & paper and _get away from your computer_. Don't come back until you know exactly what you're going to be working on. Better yet, until you're _dying_ to work on it. OTOH, if your doing analysis and are stuck, stop. Go back to the computer and code something, anything small, just to get going.

3\. End every day in analysis mode. Don't go to sleep until you have tomorrow's plan ready. You should wake up knowing exactly what you're going to be working on and excited to do it. More about that:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=191275>

4\. Never text or IM when working. Have the cell phone nearby only for emergencies. For email, go to the other computer once an hour (see #1 above).

5\. Try 48 minutes on, 12 minutes off. For long coding sessions, this works pretty well for me:

[http://successbeginstoday.org/wordpress/2006/09/the-power- of...](http://successbeginstoday.org/wordpress/2006/09/the-power- of-48-minutes/)

6\. Ipod.

<comment><USER4> You are a wealth of information on productivity. Everytime I see your posts there is always something of great value in them. You really should start a blog (unless you have one?) and cover these subjects there as well as I really enjoy hearing about your routines and experience.

Now I'm off to setup a timer on my G1 so I can test out the 48/12 method.

<comment><USER3> Thank you, thismat.

 _You really should start a blog_

Thanks for reminding me, I forgot...

7\. Don't blog.

Blogging is one of those things I'd love to do (along with bridge, piano, & foosball), but I don't because I don't want to do it "half way". I'd be afraid of having 3 posts one week, then none for the next month. And I don't want any of these things to interfere with the time I dedicate to my projects. I know that by the third Wednesday night, I'd have to choose between coding and blogging, and I don't want to be in that position (at least at this point in my life).

So instead I come here. hn is perfect for someone like me; I come when I can and don't come when I'm really busy coding. I suppose my posts here comprise my "pseudo-blog".

Getting work done really isn't all that complicated, and I'm glad to share what works for me. Most importantly, work on something you're passionate about and find those habits that work best for you. All the rest is details.

<comment><USER4> I was thinking from more of a concentrated, documented library of your productivity tips instead of a social blog, but I definitely see your point and commend you on your "productivity > x" mindset.

I'll just have to start saving clips I've read that have been very inspiring for reference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Practice.

Something I've discovered is that the more I let my mind and my mouse wander away from what I'm supposed to be working on (ie: right now), the harder it is to maintain focus. I suspect this has to do with the reward circuitry in my brain - when I desire something (going on the internet, sending a text message, etc) and IMMEDIATELY receive it, I become habituated to that. So much so that when I desire something and don't immediately get it, my dopamine drops, and it becomes extremely important that I get it right away. It works the same way as addiction, really.

So to avoid it, you just need to get used to denying yourself - <USER2> your reward center will get used to not getting what it wants immediately, and your dopamine will return to normal levels.

</comment><comment><USER6> If I really need to block out everything I use <http://simplynoise.com/> and turn the brownian noise all the way up and turn on oscillation. It both calms me and lets me focus on what I need to do for extended periods.

<comment><USER7> I've tried it for a few minutes and I like it.

I've tried downloading the loopable brown noise file, but when I put it on a loop in quicktime there's a break at the end of the loop which is annoying.

Anyone knows how to make a seamless loop?

edit: I've tried it in iTunes and the break isn't quite as annoying (though still there). You can make it a bit more "full" by playing the website (oscillating) and the loop file at the same time.

<comment><USER8> Try with audacity, import the audio file, select a region then I think its shift + space to loop

<comment><USER7> I've found that - on a Mac - you can simply make a Dashboard widget with it. You have to go in the options and uncheck "Play audio only in dashboard", though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> 1\. Stop using IM. Period. Not just when you're working. All the time. You don't need it. There's email, SMS, phone calls, Twitter, and other social messaging services. IM is the most brutally distracting and easiest way to waste time when trying to work.

2\. Stop using Growl or equivalent. You're training yourself to constantly be looking for distractions in the periphery. You don't need that information, I promise - even for your fancy CI system that tells you when tests fail. Knock it off.

3\. Quit anything remotely interruptive for the duration of your work session: IRC, Campfire, Twitter client, email client. This can be tough if you're working remotely, so let clients and coworkers know when you'll be available online and when you're focusing. As long as you communicate your goals and intentions clearly, they'll understand.

4\. Get yourself some noise-cancelling headphones. I like the Bose QC 3. Added bonus: take 'em on plane trips and they help to dull the engine noise.

5\. Listen to something engaging but not totally engrossing. Ambient music and noise generators were mentioned in this thread, and I like them, but sometimes you need something with more "oomph" to get you through a dull task. Minimal techno is my staple, as it rarely has distracting vocals and typically maintains a steady, not-too-fast, not-too-slow beat. There are tons of sites out there with free DJ mixes, just search around.

6\. A personal preference: work standing. I find that standing helps keep me focused and helps to distinguish work from relaxation.

7\. Get a really big monitor and cover it in your code, terminals, documentation, etc. The only thing that should be in view is the material you need to get your task done.

8\. Make a list of stuff to do, and do that stuff. Doesn't matter whether that list is in some fancy GTD app, a bug tracker, or on a piece of paper. It's helpful to see the list and know that you get to cross off an item or close a ticket when it's done.

9\. Block work time out on your calendar. I refuse meetings after lunch (from 1PM to 6:30PM), and I'll only make exceptions for truly exceptional circumstances (candidate flew across the country to interview, has one day, there's no other time to meet with him/her). This is essentially pg's idea of the "Maker's Schedule", although I'd been doing it for several months before he wrote about it.

10\. Meditate. This sort of speaks to the comment in this thread about practice. Meditation is conditioning for your brain. It's really, really hard to do well, and even harder to find the time to do it. I don't do it as often as I should, but when I do, I find it much easier to concentrate on hard problems.

Hope some of the above helps.

<comment><USER10> For point #5, listening to music, I'd like to emphasize sticking away from vocals. It's weird, but my brain can listen and code just fine to non-lyrical music, or music which has repetitive samples (they meld into the background like another instrument). Once you start adding in someone singing though, it all changes for the worse.

Psychedelic trance, like Infected Mushroom or Psycraft, is my favorite stuff to code to at the moment. In fact most electronic music lacks lyrics and is favorable to coding IMHO (if you haven't heard of it, check out "Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music" to find some electronic songs/genre's you might like - <http://bit.ly/10ZP9>). Beastie Boys is ultimate death, unfortunately. Too much damn lyrical style.

Small hack: I've found that you can listen to vocal music without distraction, but only if it's sung in a language you don't understand. But for the life of me, I can't find any songs about Assembler... ;)

<comment><USER11> I like Podrunner (<http://podrunner.com>). Intended for runners, but it's got a good beat. Occasional remixed lyrics can be a bit distracting, but much less so than pop (not all tracks have vocals, and they're repetitive so it's easy to tune out). Also, the mixes are an hour which is a great chunk of time to disappear and come up for air later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I take speed.

After 30 years I decided I probably have ADD. Talked to a doctor and he agreed.

Very small doses give me hours and hours of concentration.

Only about six months in, but the difference is night and day.

<comment><USER13> Are you concerned about medium/long term damage to your brain or endocrine system? I'm not judging at all, but for me, the fear of damaging what is my #1 asset has kept me away from anything beyond the occasional cup of tea. The idea of being "in the zone" easily and for hours is very appealing, but the unknowns and risks make my shy away. What are your thoughts?

<comment><USER12> I take this: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisdexamfetamine> in the lowest dosage available.

I'm worried about tolerance.

I run regularly, and eat reasonably well. There are risks, but the difference is so dramatic i think it's worth it. As i understand it, amphetamines have been around forever, and are pretty well understood.

To be clear, i tried everything many times. personal organizers, schedules, regular exercise, diet, avoiding stimulants like caffeine and depressants like alcohol, meditation, weird reward systems where i'd buy myself stuff if i did well for x days. I didn't do the full powerset... maybe there is some combination that would work, but my search for a system i could live with for the rest of my life was not successful.

My current personal theory is, I wear glasses cause my eyes are a little screwy, and take speed cause my brain chemistry is a little screwy.

I'd suggest doing everything else first. 5 hours of exercise (or so) a week is a big win. If you only eat horrible food, diet changes help ... if you occasionaly eat horrible food not so much. Meditation helped, but if you only do 1 thing, pick exercise.

If you still suck at finishing things after you've done all that, talk to your doctor.

<comment><USER14> "My current personal theory is, I wear glasses cause my eyes are a little screwy, and take speed cause my brain chemistry is a little screwy."

I wish this POV was more prevalent, and I hope that more people talking about neurochemical imbalances will help that.

Most people have no trouble with the idea of taking insulin shots to handle diabetes, but somehow taking brain drugs is de facto spooky bad. Pretty much, "Oh, psychiatric stuff. So you're like, crazy?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In the context of tackling a niggling problem that really could be dealth with in minutes, but appears to be taking forever - I find that a short nap (about 15-20 mins tops) helps me focus and gather my thoughts.

If you're in a crowded and/or noisy work environ, noise-cancelling headphones are useful for zoning out, and are more obvious than earphones, so people around you can see the reason for you not responding to them.

But as for "building" concentration because 'co-workers and the Internet' keep you from getting work done? No amount of mindhacks can help if you want to continue 'blaming' them for your distraction. Hard to fix a problem you claim to not have control over..

<comment><USER16> Maybe those people can follow the AA method. Accept that the Internet has control over you, and cut yourself off from the Internet by accepting Jesus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For the love of all things good in the world, block Google Reader.

I disable auto-checking for new email.

Quit Tweetie.

Quit your IRC client.

Listen to some slow, drone-like ambient music (favorite: "The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid" or a Buddha Machine).

Also, while in school (when I _really_ had to and _wanted_ to concentrate), I had very good success listening/experiencing binaural beats. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_beats>

<comment><USER18> +1 for Stars of the Lid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have read that meditation helps build a control circuit in the brain and I practice it regularly. I often listen to music or some well known old TV show, something that flows familiar impressions to block out external noise but does not command my attention. Finally, my somewhat silly but surprisingly effective method is budgeting my time with a vibrating watch. <http://www.epill.com/medos.html> I set this up with a 60 minute countdown and commit myself to work for that hour. The alarm is subtle and doesn't distract others, just a small vibration. Then, I take a break. My goal is always to do that 1 hour work, so I take a break for long enough that I feel I can do the next 1 hour sprint. Then, I figured out how many I could do in a day (started at 4, now working on 9) and moved it up, just like working out. That is not to say I don't do other work as well, but these sprints are both more productive and more stressful.

</comment><comment><USER20> I am only distracted when I have no problems. Show me a good problem or show me money, and nothing can pry me away from work.

I am a heavy chain smoker, averaging 30 cigarettes a day .. except when I am in hack mode. I can go for up to 10 hours without even noticing I haven't had smoke all day.

The other thing that motivates me is phone work and emails; when I have a contract or a deal in my sights I am in predator mode :-)

</comment><comment><USER21> I know this is weird, but for me the best way for me to concentrate is to lie down on my stomach with a laptop in front of me. Not good ergonomically, and I think its because as a kid I did all my homework lying on the floor in front of the TV.

Hard to do in an office environment without strange looks. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER22> This might sound weird, but under no circumstances start concentrating and working unless you've previously jerked off. Or unless you're absolutely sure your mojo's not going to be awake for some time. This thing distracts you like in a moment when you're really starting to get deeper into the code and it's really hard to concentrate again. Ejaculation frees your mind.

</comment><comment><USER23> I find the thing that most kills my concentration is lag. For example, right now I'm at work and we're facing a crucial deadline, but I'm not working. Why? Because I just made a change that requires re-running an integration test, which takes several minutes to run. I'm not about to sit there staring at the test, so I switch over to my feed reader and catch up on news.

Logically, I know this is devastating for my productivity, but so is staring at a progress bar for 10 minutes after every change. After the iteration, I focus on fixing the one or two serious lags that hurt productivity. It's not always possible (I've no idea how I'll speed up this integration test), but it's a worthwhile effort.

It is for this same reason that my company spares no expense on dev workstations. When a build takes 10 minutes, the productivity hit is at least twice that, and it's a recurring penalty.

<comment><USER11> This.

I suspect this is not an uncommon problem. I have found a solution that works pretty well, though (though it's nothing fancy): don't do that.

By that I mean, when you find yourself faced by one of those waits, and are about to switch to some time-sucking activity, ask yourself, "will I _really_ stop this before the wait is over, or I lose track of time?"

I've lost so much time to these sorts of things that I do one of two things during the wait. 1) I just stare at that progress bar. Boring, but at least I won't find myself reading Wikipedia in an hour or something. I know that I'll only waste 10 minutes instead of an hour. Alternatively, I 2) spend a few seconds thinking of a task that won't suck me in but needs to be done. For example, I go through my code and see that everything's formatted well, or commented well. Or answer a few emails (I don't tend to get sucked into emails, I know some do).

You have to train yourself to respond _right_ when you feel that tug of "what can I look at next?" You end up telling yourself "no" hundreds of times a day. It's a challenge, but it's worth it.

</comment></comment><comment> n-named Exercise, meditation, yoga, spending time in nature. Sleeping regularly. Eating breakfast. Spending enough time per day not working, i.e not overdoing it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Meditation is a tip that others have referred to me. Any good resources for meditation?

<comment><USER24> I can't answer that question, but I find that simple breathing exercises can help.

<http://www.abc-of-yoga.com/pranayama/complete.asp>

-Sit comfortably, either on a chair or on the floor. Close your eyes.

-Lengthen your spine up towards the ceiling, as if a string were attached to the crown of your head.

-Relax your shoulders by rolling them down your back.

-Breathe slowly and deeply through the nose. Fill your lungs from the bottom up. Focus on feeling your abdomen push out, then the middle of your chest, and finally your upper ribs.

-Breathe out through your mouth in the reverse order - compressing your chest from the top down (ribs, solar plexus, lower abdomen).

Repeat this a few times, breathing slowly, deeply and _mindfully_. To breathe mindfully means to focus on the act of of breathing, and how it feels inside of you. Notice the temperature and moistness of the air in your nose, the ribs expanding, the shoulder blades being stretched, the sound the breath makes...

The idea is to calm your body with deep breathing, and calm your mind by focusing solely on the breathing. Try to allow your muscles to relax and be stretched by the breaths (but keep the back straight). Your mind should be empty at the end of this.

It may take a few practices before you're able to completely clear your mind. You might consider taking free meditation workshops or yoga classes offered by your community centre.

P.S. - HN - how do I do bulleted lists?

<comment><USER25> You don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> record every hour of your day in an easy-to-record system such as OSX's iCal. facing your inefficiencies and patterns is crucial for doing better. combine what you learn from your past with what others here are saying about better planning and habits. <http://github.com/diN0bot/iCal-Analyzer>

</comment><comment><USER27> If you really do need a network connection to do work I've found that the Leechblock plugin for firefox helps me regain at least some measure of control. You can set it to allow yourself a certain number of minutes per hour of "freedom" and the rest of the time it simply blocks the sites that you tell it to. It's amazing how many times per day I see that block page. (And at the moment, hacker news seems to have slipped through my filters :) <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4476>

</comment><comment><USER28> One thing I had to work hard to figure out is that I code in two different ways, and I need to alternate them. They are physically incompatible -- I can only be doing one or the other in a given hour or so.

One of these is design. When designing (software, not visually) I need to avoid getting into ruts. I need to rethink constantly and brainstorm frequently. I should consider wildly different or thoroughly impractical structures for code and programs, because those frequently lead to more practical but non-obvious ideas. Design mindset is facilitated by having enough sleep/rest, having eaten reasonably (especially protein, but not too much), and not having much else on my mind.

The other mindset is for execution. I need to take that design and churn through it. I'm not rethinking, I'm building. This mindset is excellent for churning out a lot of code fast when I have a good understanding of it. I do less of this in Ruby than in C (less grind-work!), but it's still important on occasion. Execution mindset is helped by minimal distractions, caffeine or other stimulants, and being slightly tired and undernourished, as long as it doesn't get too extreme.

These states alternate, and different coding tasks call for different proportions of one versus the other. Planning which and making sure I'm physically well-adapted to the appropriate kind of work for the task help me a lot.

</comment><comment><USER29> 1\. Right click rescue time in sys tray. 2\. Click "Get Focused" 3\. Enter three digits (at least) 4\. Get back to work.

Not being facetious here at all. The internet for a computer worker is the biggest concentration killer out there. Blocking it all means losing part of your toolbox (i.e. googling some obscure/unknown language reference or topic), but relying on you being able to kill your temptation is not effective.

RescueTime solves this problem brilliantly. (There are other programs too, I just happen to use RescueTime)

</comment><comment><USER30> The right kind of background music really helps me concentrate on a task. It has to be something with enough energy to get my pulse up, but brainless enough not to distract me.

I've been listening to <http://www.philosomatika.com/> a lot lately. 24/7 streaming psychadelic trance.

</comment><comment><USER31> I would recommend some of the tracks by the group All india radio <http://www.myspace.com/allindiaradio> . I use it effectively to differentiate the signal from the noise ! :) Anything without lyrics works for me

</comment><comment><USER32> Taken from "Time Management for System Administrators", however I feel this particular principle applies towards your situation:

Figure out if you're a "morning/mid-day/late-afternoon/night" person when it comes to your brain activity. Some people, for the life of them, can't get their brain functioning when they get up. Others can't seem to concentrate until they've gotten lunch and feel "established" in the day.

Figure out your natural cycle and make sure you attempt to get good quality coding time in during your best times. If this is not possible, then apply the other response suggestions and hopefully you can increase the range of your concentration time.

<comment><USER33> I want to add that this book has a lot of good advice for all sorts of jobs, if you look at how to apply it. Two advices I like are to list your next day's activities before leaving your work for the day, and to work out a blocking system with coworkers so they handle incoming questions for you so you can spend the time focused. The blocking would be handled in an alternating fashion every-other day. It is a really quick read and written in a conversational tone - check it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Listen to music. Get the headphones that encompass your entire ear so you don't hear other people talk. I've done this for 10 years now. Also possibly get people to write you emails instead of dropping by the office even if you're 5 feet away. Work from home or from somewhere else occasionally, and work hours when other people aren't there.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've started working from one day a week and have found I can get significantly more done away from the office. Maybe going into work a couple hours before others would help too...

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I love to work on things that interest me, like coding up a back-end for a site. If it's interesting, I start thinking about solutions, I get in the zone automatically and just code away.

Be careful to not overdo it by having balance between hacking (analytical) and dreaming (creative), lest you get burned-out, in which case concentration becomes impossible.

my 2cents

</comment><comment><USER36> Perhaps, this best advice works for you!!

<http://productiveblog.tumblr.com/>

</comment><comment><USER37> I switched from talk radio to music. It helps me focus better. I also force myself to close my RSS reader and email because the alerts were pulling me away from what I was trying to get done. I open it up every hour or two, or after I reach a milestone. Those two small things have helped me immensely.

</comment><comment><USER38> I was having a big problem concentrating and getting work done so I tried something my friend told me to do. Sit for an hour, and do nothing. Don't plan, hardly think, just sit. It's hard to explain, but it feels like hitting the motivation reset button. I would say it's definitely worth trying.

<comment><USER39> I have to say this always works for me too. The thing is there are always forces pulling us away from what is most important. When i meditate sometimes it becomes more clear what is most important. Usually about 30 minutes into it I visually see something related to a goal. After that I just follow the vision. I worked with a guy who graduated from Pepperdine University for his MBA, and he said they are teaching meditation techniques to business majors now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I do my best to give myself ridiculous deadlines, and then do my damndest to meet them.

If I absolutely _have_ to meet something, I will. Granted, I can only keep it up for a couple of weeks or so, but during that time I can productively code for > 10 hours at a time.

</comment><comment><USER41> I normally try to schedule blocks greater than 4 hours for programming and i do everything else on the remaining block of time. This normally requires a little bit of planning the day before and may be disrupted by peers or emergencies, but it works for me.

</comment><comment><USER42> Try to work on something interesting. Hate to sound snarky, but it's that simple for me.

</comment><comment><USER33> When are times when you can concentrate? Do they have patterns that you can see? Can you artificially re-create these patterns?

Are you disengaged from your daily work? Maybe you need more interesting endeavors?

</comment><comment><USER43> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Test-driven_development> helps me a lot in concentrating on my work.

</comment><comment><USER44> i use <http://rescuetime.com> its free and helps me track what i waste time on and gives me a target to focus on when developing

</comment><comment><USER45> Did you see this? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=868967>

</comment><comment><USER46> First I write a test.

Then I write just enough code to make that test past.

Then I refactor my code so that it meets the 4 rules of simplicity.

Then I write another test.

<comment><USER47> How does this help you concentrate?

<comment><USER16> I'm thinking it helps concentration by having short small goals and a definite plan for working on them. Sometimes lack of concentration is due to lack of a structured plan of attack on your 'todo' items. Breaking it into small pieces can also help by not making it some sort of 'monumental' task that you feel is going to take a long time causing you to allow yourself time to do other things because the task isn't going to be immediately done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I turned off email notifications. I put on earbuds and listen to instrumental(sometimes ambient) music and focus.

</comment><comment><USER49> try adderall. you might be adhd.

<comment><USER50> Don't know if you were trying to be facetious but I downvoted because this is potentially dangerous advice. Just because he can't concentrate with coworkers and other noise around, doesn't mean he has ADHD.

OP: For noise, really good noise reduction headphones are the key to my sanity in the workplace.

As for internet distraction, I found two things helpful. 1) Eliminate non- essential immediate/push notifications. and convert them these tasks to on demand type tasks. Turn off twitter notifications on the iphone, shut down your IM client, and only check your feeds when you want to, not when they get pushed to you. I find the interruption of the notifications plays hell with my concentration. 2) install rescuetime and track (or even block) your internet sites.

<comment><USER51> Yeah, definitely don't just take Adderall. I'm diagnosed with ADHD and I take Adderall every day and I _still_ have a lot of trouble focusing. Especially when the problem gets boring. Especially when I want to solve a much more generic problem than the one I really need to get done. Especially when I'd rather be outside doing God knows what. If you seriously suspect that you have trouble focusing even on things you are interested in--and I mean _seriously_ suspect; I routinely get distracted from very enjoyable activities like eating or sex, so it's not just "I can't focus at work"--go see an appropriate professional.

Honestly, I tend to use my imagination to concentrate. I mean, really stupid things like imagining that my code is slaying dragons or something, or that I'm actually developing software for an asteroid mining platform. Really, use whatever it takes to make yourself INTERESTED in what you are doing.

Also, avoid Hacker News. ;)

<comment><USER52> Specifically who would be considered "an appropriate professional"? Just go see my general practice physician, or is there someone more specifically I should go to instead?

<comment><USER51> It's hard to say. I'd probably ask your general practice physician for a referral to a therapist that specializes in adult ADHD. And I say therapist rather than psychiatrist intentionally: A therapist is usually someone with a PhD in psychology or counseling, and is less likely to take a purely "better living through science" approach than a psychiatrist, who is usually an MD specializing in psychological health, and is more likely to simply prescribe drugs and send you on your way. If you see a therapist, and they recommend medicine (they usually will), they will write up a recommendation to your primary physician to prescribe you that medicine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I take breaks, not concentrating on anything.</comment>


Startup Idea: Guilder - Simple iTunes-based Payments - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/dominiekth/guilder

<comment><USER2> Love it; was thinking of similar things.

Anyone know the maximum price of an in-app purchase?</comment>