The Bookish Life: How to Read and Why - <AUTHOR> https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/11/the-bookish-life <comment><USER2> As I read this piece I was able to predict the direction it would go and the evidence that would be presented for each opinion. By the end I had been neither surprised nor enlightened by anything presented in it.

The author likes old books, dislikes digital reading devices and audiobooks, dislikes most things written since his own birth unless they were written about the western canon or by people trained entirely in the canon, is uninterested in reading books from other cultural traditions, and is completely self-satisfied with his extensive and erudite form of intellectual provincialism.

It is an infuriating piece that describes a small mind that looks large to the consciousness inside it. I would propose this alternate subtitle: "How Reading the Western Canon Allowed Me to Achieve an Entirely Unremarkable Relationship with Culture and Thought"

If you haven't read the article yet I'd recommend you not bother.

<comment><USER3> Similar thoughts here. Furthermore, the author's writing style is annoyingly old fashioned and unnecessarily long.

>Like the man—the fellow with the name Solomon, writing under the pen name Ecclesiastes—said, "Of the making of many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh

Why not just "Solomon, writing under the pen name 'Ecclesiastes', said..."?

> I recall some years ago a politician whose name is now as lost to me as it > is to history who listed reading among his hobbies, along with fly-fishing > and jogging.

What was the point of this? Why not just "reading is my hobby"?

> But for the road to acquiring the body of unspecialized knowledge that > sometimes goes by the name of general culture, sometimes known as the > pursuit of wisdom, no map, no blueprint, no plan, no shortcut exists, nor, > as I hope to make plain, could it.

Had to read this 3 times to parse the grammar.

<comment><USER4> There always seems to be someone on HN willing to bemoan any prose style that aspires above the perfect perfunctoriness of API documentation.

<comment><USER5> Orwell would have written _superb_ API documentation.

(Even if every deprecated end-point was described having a faint smell of boiled cabbage.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Western education drills into us the mantra that reading books is virtuous. It certainly is something that children need to learn how to do, like eating and sleeping. But like eating and sleeping there are limits to the benefit you will get from reading books, and I don't think this is widely recognised. The prevailing opinion still seems to be that reading is unreservedly Good For You.

Why do I say that? Because reading is ultimately a form of consumption. The quality and quantity of that reading matters, just like it does for eating and sleeping. Someone who spends all day reading isn't necessarily in any better position than someone who spends all day playing video games.

Don't get me wrong, I do love and recommend reading books - but the right amount of the right stuff.

<comment><USER7> There is a big difference between 'reading for pleasure and self-education', and 'reading for a specific purpose'. I agree that one can do too much of the former but I'm not so sure about the latter. There's plenty of academics and writers, of all stripes, who would not be able to do what they do if they did not spend most of their time reading.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The best reading breakthrough I had was to eliminate my need to complete a book.

If I've lost the plot, I throw the book away. If I've got the advice author's gist, I move on.

It's allowed me to enjoy reading fiction again, get to the books I need in the moment, and move faster through my reading list.

<comment><USER9> I learned to do that not too long ago, I started reading Asimov's Fundation trilogy, but I struggled picking the book from my desk every single time, I was supposed to love it, everyone loves Asimov, so I had to love it too, but I just couldn't, I felt guilty. Then I realized that the point of reading a novel was to enjoy it, if I was not enjoying it then I was just reading in a pretentious way. Since then I only keep reading if I like what I'm reading or if it will help me in any way.

<comment><USER10> Honestly... I grew up reading Asimov, but I didn't read Foundation until my 20s, and I was... underwhelmed. I still adore his short stories (I often re- read them and discover something new), and I have fond memories of his Robot Detective novels and the standalone book "The Gods Themselves". But I also didn't love Foundation. So, don't feel bad.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> OK.. .shameless self plug.

[https://getpolarized.io/](https://getpolarized.io/)

We announced it here the other day but we specifically designed it for people very very serious about reading.

For me I put all my books in it and everything is manageable, I can go back to them, see what I've read, keep all my notes in one place, etc.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps I missed it, but i didn't see anything about physical copies, i.e. it seems this is focused (exclusively?) for the ditigal reader. Is that the case?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wrote (what I consider to be) a slightly more accessible post last month on the same topic after I really picked up reading books four years ago.

My argument is that reading is a must for profressionals to learn and remember the ability to distinguish biases, trends, novelty, etc.

Furthermore, I don't recommend "literature" as a starting point but must-read books in your field. It can be easier to start because the material is closer and because it doesn't feel like reading was a waste of time.

Afterward diversifying to economics, psychology, domestic and foreign history, management, etc. and fiction become easier to make time for and easier to see the benefits.

[http://notes.eatonphil.com/why-and-how-to-read- books.html](http://notes.eatonphil.com/why-and-how-to-read-books.html)

</comment><comment><USER14> That was a pretty good essay but some of the words were too big and I didn't know them

</comment><comment><USER15> > How can one know if a book is interesting until one has read it; memorable > until time has or has not lodged it in one's memory; rereadable until the > decades pass and one feels the need to read it again and enjoys it all the > more on doing so?

Well, 'interesting' is an opinion that an individual forms after having experienced something. In other words, there is no way for someone to not ever read an 'uninteresting' book. They must first read, to find out.

<comment><USER16> "If an interesting book exists but there is no one to read it, is it interesting at all?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think the premise that you can't obtain a list to be cultivated is extremely wrong.

That's exactly what happens in a danish gymnasium, where the content is meant to enlighten as much as educate, and the difference between choosing the "regular" humanism route takes you so much further than one of the technical routes.

I know because I took the technical route and I married into a family who took the humanities. I've spent years catching up on philosophy, art, history, psychology and culturally important fiction, and I'm still not really part of the cultivated conversation when they really go at it.

I don't mind, they can't talk math or engineering or even business management, but they're all very similar because they followed a list.

I've often wondered why there aren't any easily available lists on the internet, because it's really just the works you'd go through in your four- five year path, that's shared among all humanities.

Obviously there is a difference between reading platon on your own and reading it in a curated environment where you can discuss its meaning with your teacher and your peers, but don't tell me those teachers couldn't compile you a list.

I think the real issue is that we killed blogs. A route to cultivation isn't going to pop-up in a Facebook discussion, and if it is, then it won't be searchable. And teachers or members of the humanities in general, seem to be much less likely to have an online jourbal which covers their professional life than people in tech. I read a news paper with a books section, and you'll see this exact issue covered often in regards to new works, but those articles are only available on print or in an online archive you have to pay to access or even search in.

So the lists are absolutely there, we just can't access them outside of our educational system or closed discussions had by the people who wouldn't need the list.

<comment><USER18> If you were to create a list based on your readings, I'd be very interested in having a copy.

<comment><USER17> With my rant, maybe I should, though the majority of it would be Danish works as I'm Danish.

Until that I can recommend Bill Gates lists, it's a really great resource for modern international works. Some of the recommendations in gates notes are very humanitarian, but others, like Sapiens, have made it into the book shelf of most cultivated people I know and I only read it because it was recommended in gates notes.

<comment><USER19> I'm not a big reader but I've read a fair few books I saw on Gates Notes and they've all been right up my street ("Sapiens" included). Great recommendation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> " _This is the first of your three free articles for the month._

" _READ WITHOUT LIMITS_ "

Irony, thy name is this website.

</comment><comment><USER21> Is there a way to quantify the positive benefits of reading? I would like to track it just like any other variable (body fat, resting heart rate, etc.)

<comment><USER22> The benefit of many things is neither well understood nor objectively measurable.

How do you track the value of friends? The value of meditation?

Heck, how do you track the value (negative or positive) you get from reading this site?

Each of those things affects your mental state in some way, but we have no good way to directly track mental state.

We can track the effect of a good mental state by observing that one is more productive, or marks higher on a happiness scale, but those are second-order effects and there will always be many confounding factors.

We still can't evaluate intelligence nor longevity well enough to track any changes in those regards, and that is likely the area you would need to evaluate for tracking the impact of reading.

If reading makes you feel more content or more knowledgeable about subjects, or if anecdotally things you read seem helpful in conversation or in life, that's probably as good as you'll get.

I personally think that attempting to track and optimize even the most minute details of life is ultimately detrimental, but that's a rant for another time.

<comment><USER21> Tracking mental state - that's a good idea!</comment></comment></comment>


Researchers Suggest Broiler Chicken Will Denote Our Current Geological Age - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2018-12-broiler-chicken-hallmark-anthropocene.html <comment><AUTHOR> Original Paper: [https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.180325](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.180325)</comment>


Free Data Recovery of Wet Phones and Hard Drives for Hurricane Harvey Victims - unkown-unknowns https://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/2017/08/30/drivesavers-offers-hurricane-harvey-victims-free-data-recovery-of-wet-phones-and-hard-drives/ <comment><USER2> I've called upon Drive Savers before, when an employer's RAID 5+1 drive lost two disks in one afternoon, the second halfway through a rebuild—and then the proprietary, ancient RAID controller board died before we got somebody onsite. Unfortunately, all the RAID configuration was stored in the dead board and the data layout on disk was proprietary.

We ended up paying about $7,000 to Drive Savers and they managed to recover all my employer's data. Drive Savers is definitely a class act.

So this offer is a big deal: This isn't some fly-by-night company just trying to market their services. This is a very high-end recovery operation which normally costs a lot of money.

<comment><USER3> Unless they have built-in encryption or similar, RAID controllers generally have pretty straightforward on-disk layouts; staring at the disk contents in a hex editor for a little bit will usually reveal the solution.

In any case that's still a logical recovery, which is far easier than the presumably physical recovery being offered here.

<comment><USER2> Well, as noted above, there were two physically failed disks—one which triggered the rebuild, and a second disk which failed with read errors during the rebuild. Then the RAID card died. According to the official policy, the equipment should have been replaced almost five years earlier.

So this recovery involved physical recovery of at least one disk to meet the RAID's minimum threshold, then a logical recovery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is certainly an awesome and generous gesture and Drive Savers wholly deserves all the attention they get here. (No sarcasm!)

Meanwhile, this is the donation page of Save the Children for the victims of the South Asia Floods:

[https://secure.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.95...](https://secure.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.9535065/k.66C/South_Asia_Floods_Childrens_Relief_Fund/apps/ka/sd/donor.asp)

Clicking on this link is probably not much harder than clicking the upvote button on this story.

</comment><comment><USER5> As a former (and future, should the need arise) customer of Drive Savers, I can attest to their remarkable abilities and standout service. I've met reps from the company at a few trade shows and when I told one that my (then) employer sent them lots of business, I was introduced to several of their techs. Even when I wasn't playing the role of 'paying customer', everyone was extremely friendly.

Even still, this is a surprisingly generous offer. Good PR for them, obviously, but right in line with the encounters that I've had in the past.

Trivia: DS successfully recovered a full episode of the Simpsons. This was relayed to me at a trade show.

</comment><comment><USER6> I was watching the news and and a woman was recounting how her family escaped the flood, and in particular the things she wished that she had done differently. One of the things which struck me was that she hadn't considered the effect of the water on her phones which she and her family put into their pockets. The phones of course they were dead when they arrived at the shelter. I'm guessing this was a pretty common experience, and without something like this free service coming along I have to assume that they would just be writing them off and be focused on rebuilding/relocating. This is a really amazing thing to offer people are absolutely devastated, good PR, but also just good behavior.

In particular for those people who lost everything, it might be that some of the only photos they have are on those phones.

<comment><USER7> Maybe it is because i grew up in a more rural setting. But i am gladly taking a more bulky and low spec phone if it means it is more rugged in various ways.

<comment><USER8> My last couple phones have all been Sony Xperia phones simply because they are water proof/resistant. It's hard to go back to anything else after you get used to it. Never have to worry about damage in the rain and its great being able to use the phone in the shower.

<comment><USER9> > its great being able to use the phone in the shower

?!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A great service to the victims of Hurricane Harvey and also a great marketing opportunity. It seems like everyone wins in this situation (well, except DriveDavers' competitors), and that's not common.

Having used them in the past for a water-damaged hard drive I'd say a good portion of those people will get their data back.

</comment><comment><USER11> As an IT person who's ended up having to use Drive Savers a number of times (don't ask), I can speak to their great service. They're a standout in an industry of nickel & dimers.

<comment><USER12> > having to use Drive Savers a number of times (don't ask)

It's weekend - don't tell :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm in Australia so this question isn't for me, but it might be relevant for anybody slightly closer.

Could/should people who want to volunteer contact this company and offer their time? Are there things people with limited expertise in data recovery could assist with?

It's certainly obvious that quite a few areas in data recovery - <AUTHOR> relocating disk platters, Flash/SSD chip resoldering, etc - need a clean room, hands that are _proven_ steady, and a good handle on what can go wrong and how to deal with it. This can't be taught in a day.

Waterlogged media probably means tons of controller board replacements. That's not a completely unskilled job either, and one I would be cautious about helping out with.

When I think of waterlogged phones I immediately go worst-case-scenario and think of Flash chip desoldering because PCB + battery + water == disaster. Nope. I _don 't_ have the skill for that!

It's (unfortunately) also quite possible that water-damaged media has also been impacted due to the rough-and-tumble of rescue efforts as well.

Then I think about the software side. Manufacturer and/or in-house recovery tooling that operates at such a low level (on the same order as BIOS updates etc) is likely going to require attention to detail and high awareness (and knowledge of what a proper run looks like) to get an intuitive sense that something's working or not. Then there are probably "this tool never existed" NDA things on top of that.

My main consideration is reputation. It's cases like these where a 32-year reputation is cemented even further - or blown out the door if dozens of failures are reported at once.

Now I've just thought of all this I feel like I've answered my own question in the firm negative - but I'll ask anyway, since others (particularly those near one of the ~18 (!) drop-off locations - [https://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/contact- drivesavers/](https://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/contact-drivesavers/)) may benefit from knowing "no, definitely not useful" or "yes, these jobs are very hard to get wrong if you know the basics".

<comment><USER3> These are almost certainly physical recoveries, so definitely requiring very specific skills and training.

But it wouldn't hurt to ask. Maybe they would much appreciate things like cleaning off the exterior dirt and otherwise washing drives in distilled water.

(One of the tips I've read is that if you have wet electronics that can't be immediately dried thoroughly, flush thoroughly and then keep them submerged in distilled water to prevent further corrosion.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is definitely a great gesture, and will probably require a lot of labor on their part. I wonder why they did not restrict it to households with income below a certain level? That way they would have received both the positive publicity as well as reduced the free labor they need to provide.

<comment><USER15> > That way they would have received both the positive publicity as well as > reduced the free labor they need to provide.

not everyone has an agenda. perhaps this was just about helping people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Off topic, I am wondering what will happen to drivesavers business model given mechanical hard drives are on the way out.

<comment><USER17> I am sure ssd and flash recovery will keep them plenty busy.

<comment><USER13> And recovering from phones (same thing as flash pretty much, but with different mechanics in terms of getting access)

<comment><USER18> I'd imagine that phones are usually the easiest to recover, assuming the storage is not encrypted and the flash chip is not physically damaged. Just pop off the flash memory, pop into a socket, and go to town. No dealing with controllers or servo track or anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Seen as a market mechanism, it is really weird that when a service is most needed, it becomes free.</comment>


Jakob Nielsen: making the 1% of websites that don't suck even better - <AUTHOR> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/extreme-usability.html

<comment><USER2> I hope this article applies to me someday. I just got a raft of newbie feedback and haven't fixed the half of it yet.</comment>


The Methane Detectives: On the Trail of a Global Warming Mystery - <AUTHOR> https://undark.org/article/methane-global-warming-climate-change-mystery/ <comment><USER2> I raised this issue quite few times here and other places when there endless was banging on about CO2 exclusively, plus the soot/dust issue with the glacier melt, got called all sorts of things, climate change denier, at the kindest.

Climate change is is not a one dimensional problem and the science has a long way to go, based on lack of demonstrable predictions alone.</comment>


AOL Is Still the Weirdest Successful Tech Company in America - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/aol-is-still-the-weidest-successful-tech-company-in-america/275673/ <comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure a good chunk of their profits are coming from people who have gone _years_ without realizing they can cancel their "AOL" and still have access to the internet via the DSL/Cable they are paying the phone/cable company for.

I've seen this many, many times.

<comment><USER3> I don't know...this sounds apocryphal. I've seen the occasional AOL email address but I've haven't seen anyone claim they use AOL for internet in years.

<comment><USER4> My parents up until 2010 did not switch to a high-speed ISP and continued to use AOL dialup until 2008, which is when they switched to NetZero which was marginally faster but far cheaper.

In some ways, perhaps dial-up is a better proposition than DSL or cable due to its slowness. It does discourage distraction and waste of time on the net, and since I don't browse YouTube and use

      links2 -g

to browse the web, perhaps it isn't such a bad idea. Although, I would have to go to Starbucks whenever I wanted to download a new Linux distro. ;)

As for email, I still do use an AOL email address. I use it for Facebook and AIM, but I use my Hotmail (now "Outlook") for personal email and inquiries.

But AIM. Can't live without it.

If AOL calls it quits on AIM, I will probably shed a few tears. There is nothing like AIM left. Facebook is locked-down and doesn't support buddy lists, MSN is dead, Skype is proprietary and forces you to use its own client, and nobody I know has a Google Talk account and my IM client doesn't support it, even though I've tried to set it up as a Jabber/XMPP account.

<comment><USER5> > Facebook is locked-down

Facebook Chat has a Jabber interface.

Among my social group, everyone now uses Facebook Chat, iMessages, or Google Talk. I think I only have one or two people still on AIM. I think the problem with AIM is the lack of a default mobile client. Everyone's phone has Facebook installed, or comes with either iMessages or Google Talk. Nobody bothers to install an AIM client (I'm not even sure if there's an official one, and if it supports Push notifications)

<comment><USER6> Except for, y'know, AOL's AIM client.

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aim-free- edition/id281704574...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aim-free- edition/id281704574?mt=8)

(not that I've ever used it, mind you. Just wanted to make it clear that it existed)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is what makes stuff like closing AOL Music even sadder- AOL is in a really weird position where they're making a ton of money where they shouldn't be- they are in a prime position to do some really interesting things on the net. But they don't.

<comment><USER8> It's actually pretty much the main problem with capitalism. Innovation often drives prices down, and prices going down means less profit, so at a point, there is an absolute disincentive to innovate. Obviously in theory people would leave the inferior product, but that is clearly not the case in situations like this.

<comment><USER9> It happens in any type of economic system, except in capitalism, it happens much slower. I'd prefer eventual stagnation with the possibility of reviving innovation to a forced stagnation by a particular economic system.

<comment><USER10> I wouldn't consider capitalism an economic system. It is more of a description of the behavior of organisms. Free markets naturally produce monopolies just like humans have monopolized Earth. Once the monopoly is achieved, the motivation to innovate diminishes along with the entity's competitiveness. Eventually, someone will challenge the monopoly-holding alpha entity and the cycle continues. It happens in economies, societies, ecosystems, and any domain where evolution takes place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> >> [dialup subscriptions] plus revenue associated with services like AIM, accounts for more than 100 percent of the company's profit

More than 100 percent of its profits? Can someone explain that to me?

<comment><USER12> Maybe the amount of profit from those two equals say a number that is 120% of their total net profit, but losses in other divisions bring their total net profit down.

Therefore, the profits of those two divisions is greater than the profit of the company?

<comment><USER13> Effectively, their customers are paying to be advertised to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I find it hard to believe those media properties like Huffpo are losing money. I didn't read their financial statements but I wonder if it's just a financial artifact caused by deprecation/amortization. They bought Huffpo for $315m a few years ago for example... if they're amortizing that over several years, they could really be printing money but ending up with an accounting loss.

<comment><USER15> Goodwill does not depreciate, thus your accounting explanation doesn't make sense. Huffpo cannot be that profitable because their ad inventory is total garbage. That site is probably worth less than $1 CPM. They probably make a mere million dollar per billion page views.

<comment><USER16> If they are getting $1 CPM it would be a miracle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So they profit from idiots? That is a pretty good strategy, they will never run out.

</comment><comment><USER18> This does not consider market cap. Yes, AOL's stock price has done better, but the total revenues are a tiny fraction of Apple...

<comment><USER19> Yes.

Stock A rising more than stock B only means that the market has been more pleasantly surprised about A than B.

So given that the point of the article is "AOL is doing surprisingly well thanks to low expectations", it'd be natural that the stock would gain more than companies that people expect more from.

Also, I'd have a hard time calling AOL successful (which the article does). They're _net profitable_ , but on something that's doomed. And the thing that's supposed to save them, selling ads against content, is looking pretty sickly as well. Profit is correlated with success, but they're definitely different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was just asked for an Interview by AOL for their Streaming Media business. The recruiter told me that the media business was totally profitable as I questioned AOLs future.

I guess now, in hindsight, im glad they were working with tech I didn't want to put my hands into or someday, I would be looking for another job.

</comment><comment><USER21> AOL also own Winamp, my favorite music (and internet radio) app since the 90's :(

</comment><comment><USER22> I am wondering they don't run TV ads targeted towards this demographic.

</comment><comment><USER23> Revenue for that division/activity happens to be larger than overall company- wide profit. The author's use of "accounts for" implies some sort of causality, but I suspect literary flourish and innumeracy.

</comment><comment><USER24> MapQuest.</comment>


The mobile device lab at the Prineville data center - <AUTHOR> https://code.facebook.com/posts/300815046928882/the-mobile-device-lab-at-the-prineville-data-center/?hn=1 <comment><USER2> Prineville is a lovely place and as an Oregonian I'm thrilled that high tech jobs have come to a rural town that does not get many opportunities like this.

<comment><USER3> The promise of jobs from these data centers usually comes in the form of construction work. After that, there are very few people who actually work at these places - if they could keep the lights off they would.

<comment><USER4> Yep. The datacenters in the western part of NC for Apple, Google, and Facebook are all the same. Lots of incentives from the local government with very few high-tech/high-paying jobs going along with it. So basically the company gets the land really cheap, doesn't have to pay much if any taxes, cheap electricity, and few people to hire. What's not to like if you're a high-tech company? Still, I'm sure the local construction companies benefited. And there's something to be said for raising the profile of the area.

<comment><USER5> Honestly, what's the alternative. The land would sit unused otherwise. If they did build it in a more developed area they would be competing against commercial and residential interest, and for what gain? Servers don't care about a 2 hour commute, or how far they are from the airport. In the sticks or downtown, it's the same to computers.

Now that one company has done the research of getting electricity, network backbone, roads, and other infrastructure built. Now, others can come along and build their datacenter next door because they know the infrastructure is there. Which is exactly what's happening in NC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My team builds something similar at Sauce Labs. With the added fun of making it a SaaS. (HaaS?)

Our design is totally different though. Really looking forward to seeing the specs Facebook is promising, although I suspect it will be hard to apply it to different environments.

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if the 4ft gap could be eliminated by reducing the TX power on the AP. Most data must be AP->phone direction.

</comment><comment><USER8> This reminds me of game development when we had racks filled with PCs with every graphics board on the market.

</comment><comment><USER9> The camera attachment -> Ethernet USB hack seems like it might have been useful here.

</comment><comment><USER10> The software automation part of this seems potentially more interesting than the hardware imho.</comment>


Ask HN: What is going on with the US stock market? - <AUTHOR> Explain me this: the US stock market is at an all-time high <i>and</i> US unemployment is at depression era levels.  How is this possible?  It doesn't make sense to me. <comment><USER2> Since most of the money went into the hands of big companies, rich people, etc... that means that the price of assets they usually buy into are going to inflate.

Basically if you have nowhere good to put your money, you'll just throw it into stocks.

</comment><comment><USER3> The stock market goes up when _expectations_ are exceeded, and it goes down when they aren't.

</comment><comment><USER4> Some believe that stock market investors are not rational. Some believe that all trades necessarily involve an adversary called "Greater Fool" and that both parties believe the other is this fool.

I think the reality is that many investors sell when they think they hear bad news and buy when they think they hear good news. It does not matter anymore (if it ever did) what the net present value of all future profits is.

</comment><comment><USER5> The stock market is not a direct reflection of how healthy the US economy is at large. As others have mentioned, gains in the stock market are being driven by a select group of companies that investors believe are poised to seize an advantage during these times.

This advantage can be a product that is well positioned for this situation (Zoom, Slack, Amazon), having large cash reserves to weather the storm and potentially buy competitors (Uber with UberEats + Grubhub), or a myriad of other reasons. Not many of which apply to companies in the wider economy.

</comment><comment><USER6> The market is not much more than a collective guess as to where things are heading. The market today is a reflection of where investors think things will be in the future. That's why the market tanked before the economy did and why it is up before the economy actually recovers.

It's also totally irrational, might be rigged by the fed, and is almost certainly a glorified ponzi scheme.

The reason it shot up yesterday and this week is because the unemployment numbers for May were better than expected. There are numerous reasons to be skeptical of this data but, like I said, the market isn't rational.

</comment><comment><USER7> Money is still cheap. Companies got a bailout from COVID-19. The current administration puts profits over people.

</comment><comment><USER8> A couple of companies dominate the indexes: Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, FB etc. They will do good no matter what, and are helped by "staying at home". So theres 90% of your answer.

In another obvious blunder by government ruling, the big companies that are publicly listed have had their competition literally shut down. So imagine you're a small hardware shop, well sucks to be you, because the government deemed you "unessential". Whereas Walmart has been left open because they sell food and hey wouldn't you know it, they also sell hardware items as well! What is better than having to compete for business? Have the government mandate your competitors out of business for you.

Then by that same token, do you expect to fly somewhere in the next 3 years? Do you expect people will buy cars and drive? Do you expect them to still use banking services?

If so wouldn't you want to buy the stocks now ? What does this forced shutdown and not-so-deadly-virus-that-we-were-scared-of have to do in 5 years from now?

</comment><comment><USER9> Matt Levine (Bloomberg) gives a convincing explanation in a recent newsletter: [https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-01/stocks...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-01/stocks- are-trying-to-forget-2020)

In a nutshell, he argues that stock price is a reflection of the long-term value of a company ("the present value of the company's expected future earnings", which is what stock price _theoretically_ is). With low interest rates, the bad results of 2020 are drowned out by the expected return to normal earnings in the coming years.

> A pandemic crushes revenues. Stocks fall on general uncertainty and a fear > of financial crisis and widespread bankruptcies, which would wipe out > profits in perpetuity. The fears of financial crisis are resolved, more or > less by the Fed and Congress pumping money into companies to prevent panic, > so the bankruptcy risk is more contained. Stocks return to a price level > that suggests a terrible year, followed by mostly normal.

As an aside, I highly recommend subscribing to his _Money Stuff_ newsletter. Entertaining and pedagogical, it's a great way to learn about the theory, inner workings and quirks of modern finance.

</comment><comment><USER10> > [...] the graph below plots US stock market returns against real GDP growth > in the United States, using quarterly data [from 1960 to 2020] Note that > there is almost no correlation between stock returns and real GDP growth > contemporaneously, and while the correlation grows as you look at GDP is > subsequent quarters, it is still modest even four quarters ahead. If the > relationship between stock returns and measures of economic activity is > weak, as both logic and the data suggest, it should be even weaker right > now, where every measure of economic activity is ravaged by the crisis- > driven shutdown. To those in the media and the investment community who > profess to be shocked by the latest economic numbers, my question is whether > you are just as shocked to see your speedometer at zero, when your car is > parked in the driveway, or when your pie does not bake in an oven that is > not turned on? In short, there is almost nothing of use to investors from > poring over current macroeconomic data, which is one reason why markets have > started ignoring them. That will change, as the economy opens up again, and > markets start looking at the data for cues on how quickly it is coming back > to life.

> My estimated value for the [S&P 500] index is about 2926, which would lead > to a judgment that the index was over valued by about 6% (based upon the > level on June 1, 2020). As with my March 2020 valuation, I am fully aware > that my numbers are just a reflection of my story and that each of the > inputs has a range around it, and I have brought in that uncertainty into a > simulation below [...] Note that I have centered the simulations around the > median estimates of earnings for 2020 and 2021 from analysts, while building > in the range in the estimates into the distributions. The median value from > the simulation is 2932. On June 1, the S&P 500 was trading at close to 3100, > putting it near the 80th percentile of the distribution, bolstering the > "market has gotten ahead of itself" camp, but there is something here for > everyone. If you are more optimistic about earnings in 2020 and 2021 than > the the median analyst, and about how quickly and completely the market will > recover from the crisis shock, you will arrive at a higher value than mine. > If you are more pessimistic about the future, perhaps because you think the > market is under estimating the likelihood of a second wave of shutdowns or a > surge in company defaults, your valuations will be much lower.

\-- Damodaran , [http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-viral- market-u...](http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-viral-market- update-ix-do-it-yourself.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> There's a guy by the name of Lee Adler at liquiditytrader.com that does a great job of explaining all this financial market stuff. One thing that he always says is "Don't fight the Fed". The Federal Reserve was pumping billions of dollars per day to stop the market from falling. Now it sounds like leverage is taking the market to extreme levels again, while the Fed is quietly pulling back its support. Nothing good is going to come out of this.

</comment><comment><USER12> Yes, sometimes the vagaries of the stock market can be confounding. But the in addition to expectations already mentioned, investors often compare the potential return from stocks vs. other investments primarily interest bearing such as bonds. If interest rates are very low, then stocks will be more attractive. Right now, the Federal Reserve is maintaining a very low interest rate to help combat a possible recession due to the covid19 crisis. I think the low interest rates is also one major factor (although there are a lot of others).

<comment><USER13> Yes we should remember that stock markets pale in size compared to bond and currency markets. Money leaving another market can buoy stock markets in a way that is almost mechanical, separate from attempting to value individual stocks.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Would love to hear your points of view on this!

</comment><comment><USER14> And another question: How can the Fed/Treasury pump Trillions of dollars into the economy with apparently zero concern for inflation? My grade school understanding is that every dollar "printed" devalues all the money by that amount. I buy silver shares thinking it will go up with all this increased money supply. But no.

<comment><USER15> I don't know much more than you on this, but I've seen this explained as such: inflation requires the injected money to actually be circulated in the economy in order to dilute the value of the currency. of the money distributed to companies and individuals during the pandemic, how much of it went to everybody's "rainy day funds" and war chests? Most folks I know that are on unemployment right now have touched <20% of their funds, and Americans just hit a record savings rate[1] last month. Schwab has an article[2] that explains the monetary effects of this better than I.

[1]: [https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/29/us-savings-rate-hits- record-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/29/us-savings-rate-hits- record-33percent-as-coronavirus-causes-americans-to-stockpile-cash-curb- spending.html) [2]: [https://www.schwab.com/resource- center/insights/content/stim...](https://www.schwab.com/resource- center/insights/content/stimulus-inflation-why-it-may-be-different-this-time)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it necessary to be a child prodigy? - <AUTHOR>

To day I visited a so-called seminar (which was more like a sales pitch) of a company. The company provides different online courses. There is an option of doing business with a referral system in it. And as such things turn out, the company now focused completely on the business part. As much as I find it foolish that people are paying money to become a member so they can make members and get money and the other members are also there just to make more members which completely leaves out education part, I noticed something strange there. People have actually made money through this (exploiting the foolishness) and all of them were not above 21 or 22. And that too so much that they could buy two or more cars.That made me wonder how dull a life I am living. I mean I am 18 but there is no chance that I would have that kind of money in 4-5 years if I keep working the same way as I do (which is concentrating on my college). I dont know whats the future of these people but there present is sure glamorous.
Now I do not compare things which are not comparable. But this is just sticking in my head. I mean if I look around myself there are dozens of child prodigies around, so much so sometimes I wonder if a person can be successful after the age of 25 or 28. This sometimes scares me.
So I as HN, as most of you are people here made there own self,usually from scratch. You made startups, you built your own personality, your own fame. You may not have that much money to start with but surely you got there in time. Is it necessary to be a child prodigy to enjoy the money you earn on your own self or if you want to be your own boss?
Disclaimer: This post may feel majorly mismanaged, with ideas and words all over the place, but this is because my mind is still whirling with thoughts. <comment><USER3> hey Rick,

Don't become a part of any pyramid schemes!

Regarding the rest of your post:

In my opinion it is absolutely not necessary to be a child prodigy at all, what is necessary is a certain drive and some self discipline.

If you work only marginally harder than your peers it is quite amazing how that pays off over the years.

And of course you can be successful after 25, I know a guy that is now in his sixties that only started his first company when he was 54. He makes more money than all the youngsters that I know _combined_.

The lucky few that manage to be ahead of the game by the time they're 25 are solidly outnumbered by the number of people that are well of by the time they're 40 or 50.

But everybody loves a good story, that's why the media will focus on the 20 somethings.

50 year old guy makes a million is not as good a story as 18 year old guy makes a million.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand the media point of view but sometimes I get really scared. There are not much opportunities where I live and such pyramid schemes are actually very lucrative. They also gave a blown up figure of Rs 24,00,000 in one year which was presented by a person, from a college which works closely with my own, who had done it in his second year. I was almost compelled to join

<comment><USER4> Hey did you know that Pyramid Schemes or "MultiLevel Marketing" is illegal in India???

Also, anything that promises you cash for doing literally nothing is a scam.

One company I knew only paid out cash to a few people. As more people joined they started giving out gift cheques. Problem was they really weren't cheques and could not be cashed. Never get involved in an MLM scheme, you are being swindled out of your time and energy.

<comment><AUTHOR> It(the business i am mentioning) cannot be deemed illegal because the actually are offering something, a degenerate list of courses related to IT. I have seen the courses, there are even courses for windows 98 and DOS.There is a course for linux, which uses the a redhat distribution so old that even the devs may not have the source of it.

But just for an academic discussion, the name of the company is ebiz.com[1]

[1]www.ebizelindia.com/

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> These referral schemes basically consist of selling junk to your friends. If doing that is what you consider prodigal and worth aiming for, I don't know what advice to give you.

College: you typically go to college only once. You have the rest of your life to earn money and buy lots of cars. While I don't consider college a strict necessity anymore, I think it can be fun and worthwhile (and it probably costs more than buying two cars btw). Which would you rather have, 4 good, unforgettable years at college or two cars?

Younger and younger successful people: sure, it is scary. But they will grow up, too, and on the internet, nobody knows you are a dog. Meaning it is the product or service that counts, not your age. So if you find a spin to make money later on, where is the problem?

As a side note, I would not believe everything people tell you at such sales seminars.

Edit: they don't mention the "sell stuff to your friends" part until you sign up.

<comment><USER6> The other scam those referral schemes is having your upstream / recruiter person give sales pitches to your friends and family members as "training". In reality, all they're doing is milking your best sales prospects (and offending your friends and family).

Run away.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Everything that you saw in the "seminar" was staged. Run for your life Rick.

<comment><AUTHOR> I already did run for my life from there. But you know the energy was really very good even if fake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's worth noting that the average person starting a successful company is not in his early 20s. [http://www.startups.co.uk/6678842907756695817/the-average- en...](http://www.startups.co.uk/6678842907756695817/the-average- entrepreneur.html) That's one article discussing this, there are others. The reason you hear about all the rich millionaires is that they make good stories and they're rare - people just don't talk about the guy working hard through his thirties to make a few million. Also, look at the big entrepreneurs - <USER2> very often come from MIT, Stanford, etc. and get their initial funding either from rich family or connections made at those schools.

</comment><comment><USER9> Remember that one method scammers use to exploit the ignorant and unfortunate is to tempt people with a glamorous lifestyle. If you think there is a scam going on and you aren't already "in" on it then you could be a target. Don't be fooled.

Make something people want. If you're young then you have plenty of time to succeed by doing something worthwhile instead of ultimately impoverishing everyone through trickery.

</comment><comment><USER10> It's more important to be able to identify and act upon opportunities if you want to make money (or just be lucky).

<comment><USER3> I think it is a combination of both. "luck favors those that are prepared for it".</comment></comment>


An Interview with Martin Scorsese: Faith, Film and 'Silence' - <AUTHOR> https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/interview-martin-scorsese <comment><USER2> Counterpoint: "'Silence': Scorsese's Flawed, Frustrating White Savior Tries to Save Japan From Itself" [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/18/silence- sco...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/18/silence-scorsese-s- flawed-frustrating-white-savior-tries-to-save-japan-from-itself.html)

<comment><USER3> This piece seems to have its own agenda than just critiquing the film.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also worthwhile is Amy Welborn's recently published reflection on Endo's novel. She wrote it in anticipation of the film's theatrical release:

 _Reading_ Silence _for the first time_

[http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/5281/reading_isilenc...](http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/5281/reading_isilencei_for_the_first_time.aspx)</comment>


Fun Agile Development Software - <AUTHOR> https://crocagile.com/main <comment><AUTHOR> It's meant to be lightweight yet powerful, where common agile tools and popular chat/collaboration services are combined to keep your team connected in one place.

You earn badges and points as you work. Give it a try and let us know what you think. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

Optional ( Our goal questions )

1\. How did you feel about the onboarding? 2\. What did you like about Crocagile? 3\. How can we improve? What are we missing? 4\. Would you use it? If not, why? 5\. Did our message meet your expectations? 6\. How would you describe Crocagile? 7\. What do you use now?

Cheers, and thank you :)</comment>


How immigration reform is the latest battle for gay rights - <AUTHOR> http://www.rollcall.com/news/reid_expects_menendez_will_survive_probe_pushes_immigration_gun_measures-222104-1.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The key paragraph comes toward the end:

 _Reid also said binational gay couples should be allowed the same family preference privileges under the bill that heterosexual couples would receive, although this might make passage more difficult in the Republican-controlled House._</comment>


Google on Trial in Italy  - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8282293.stm

<comment><USER2> See also: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=855793></comment>


Leveling Up: Career Advancement for Software Developers - <AUTHOR> http://peterlyons.com/leveling_up.html <comment><USER7> This is a nice start, but after reading "Pillar #1 - Technical Competence", this sounds more like a guide for systems administrators than for developers.

Don't get me wrong, everything in Pillar #1 is important, but I think there are much more important things for an aspiring developer to consider.

Just off the top of my head:

      - program structure and organization
      - variable typing, naming, & use
      - function/subroutine strategy & use
      - frameworks & APIs
      - <USER2>
      - database design, structure, & access
      - <USER3>
      - performance tuning
      - <USER4>
      - <USER5>
      - testing philosophy and strategies
      - systems analysis
      - systems design
      - <USER6>

To better understand the difference between a software developer and a systems administrator, I often use this analogy:

My users/customers are race car drivers. We developers build and maintain their cars. Systems administrator build and maintain the racetrack itself. Every link in the chain is necessary, but in my experience, smooth pavement with poorly running cars is the norm. So we developers need to focus more on building better software and leave as much admin as possible to those experts.

<comment><USER8> As someone in the enterprise IT space I would like to re-emphasize the writer's point about technical skills being less important than communication and being a valuable team member to management.

I have yet to encounter a manager (in the enterprise) who actually cared to take a closer look at the things mentioned in your above list. Managers promote those who make their lives easy and make them look good. They care alot more about whether your status report is up to date, if your time sheet is on time and if you are meeting deadlines than what your program structure is.

In fact, as long as it works and conforms to requirements, most managers don't care at all what your program actually looks like and it won't factor one bit into your yearly evaluation.

Granted, a poor program structure and organization may make you fail at any of the above mentioned points, which will lead to poor reviews, but the structure itself doesn't matter from my experience.

To me, as a technical architect and someone priding myself on my work...it does...but not necessarily to management.

<comment><USER9> Yes, this is why so many developers hate the enterprise. But it's hard to imagine any way it could be different (at least outside of the Googles and Facebooks of the world).

One powerful remedy to this is contributing to open source. Granted that may be easier said than done depending on where you work, but open source is where you can build a powerful reputation based primarily on technical excellence. In some ways this can be a parallel career ladder where reaching the top means you get the best of both worlds: a high corporate salary plus the freedom to work on whatever you want. That's pretty rare, but in my experience even very modest open source contributions opened doors for me in shockingly short amount of time.

<comment><USER10> > _Yes, this is why so many developers hate the enterprise. But it's hard to > imagine any way it could be different (at least outside of the Googles and > Facebooks of the world)._

Huh? This is a false dilemma. There are plenty of places that aren't Google or Facebook that are software technology companies: where managers are technical, where engineers are judged on their technical skills and application thereof. Of course, non-technical skills matter everywhere and generally the larger the company is, the more important self-promotion and politics become. Yet if you're good (not just great), you should be able to find a place where management is technical and your technical skills are an asset: if you haven't, keep studying the fundamentals (interviews heavily focus on Computer Science) and take an active role in your industry (open source, etc...): connections you make, that can vouch for quality of your code _will_ be able to make references that actually get you in the door.

<comment><USER9> > _There are plenty of places that aren't Google or Facebook that are software > technology companies_

Hint: "Googles and Facebooks of the world" could in fact refer to a company that is not Google or Facebook.

<comment><USER10> Sure, but it also connotes brand name and mainstream recognition. It also suggests that such companies are few and in between. Finally Google and Facebook aren't just technically impressive, they're stand out financially. If it's just a technical organization you're looking for, your choices are much wider.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is like Dale Carnegie's advice to remember friend's birthdays. Its a good advice, it may even work for you but there is something mundane about it that I don't like it.

Moms always teach their kids to be a good boy/girl. That only makes you how to fit in with the crowd and be mediocre.

What I learned from Hacker news is completely different.

Have the balls to break the rules. Try new things, new approaches, new ideas and fail often. Take risks, whats the worst that can happen? live and adapt the world to your ideas, build something that people use even if you don't have anyone's approval.

Your career need not be this precious brittle thing that you want to be so careful and follow this many rules to be visible to your managers, not pissing off anyone so that you can become a middle manager yourself someday being a good corporate citizen and living inside a box.

outliers do not follow rules.

<comment><USER12> I think it helps to figure out the system when you are trying to do one better.

<comment><USER13> You know, I completely agree with you in spirit because a lot of the advice was pretty good.

But I rebel at the echo I hear of "You have to learn the rules before you can break them." If you're only doing something so that you can defy it at the proper time, you are still obeying the rules so precisely as to defeat the purpose.

The whole point is that _we make the rules_, as a species, a company; as individuals. If a rule doesn't make sense to us, then fuck it. If we create a rule to fix a situation (fail early/often), and it starts failing, then fuck that rule, too.

There's nothing sacred about the system or our understanding of it. Figure out what rules you like, and discard what you don't like even knowing you might come around to it later.

Of course, I've just said what you said (in a sense) with far more words. But I never want to be held to respecting a dysfunctional system just because it currently exists; I want to have to respect an invalid rule because I understand the reasons it is still _valid_--but desire and _will_ move away from it at earliest opportunity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> For some reason this really reminded me of the "The Unwritten Laws of Engineering" posted a couple days ago. If you're interested see there:

HN POST -- <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2512740>

Part 1: [http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/October/Unwritten_L...](http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/October/Unwritten_Laws.cfm)

Part 2: [http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/November/Unwritten_...](http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/November/Unwritten_Laws.cfm)

Part 3: [http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/December/Unwritten_...](http://memagazine.asme.org/Articles/2010/December/Unwritten_Laws.cfm)

</comment><comment><USER15> Interesting read. But, don't skip the intro (even though it gives you an easy way to) because it clearly calls out:

> The optimal target audience is the following group of people: Professional > software developers ...in junior positions ...working in large software > companies

I don't work in a large software company (I'm allergic), and as a result not much of this felt relevant to me.

<comment><USER16> I work in a large software company, and while the advice is valid and valuable (you should strive for professionalism and clear communication wherever you are), IMHO it's far from reliable in terms of career advancement.

If your goal is maximizing compensation, luck, and being in the right place at the right time has a huge factor also. If you're working on mind-numbing, cost-center corporate systems, it really doesn't matter how on top of the ball you are and how well you organize/communicate, your salary isn't going to grow by leaps and bounds.

After watching the industry and people in it for a couple of years now (and experiencing BigCo software for myself), I'm convinced that the only reliable route to big raises is moving jobs. I've seen many people leave this place for a big raise, and then come back 2-3 years later with an even bigger raise, outpacing even the most dedicated, professional people who decided to stay the course.

So, secret to getting paid in BigCo software land: switch jobs as much as you can, stopping short of being seen as a flake (2-3 years each is good).

<comment><USER17> I concur! My current role you get max 4-5% pay rises, if you are lucky, and that is with a promotion. I'm planning on moving cities soon to find better opportunities. Cannot wait to hand my resignation in. The only way I will work at a large company ever again is on contract work.

<comment><USER18> If you move to another job, you'll probably get at least a 10% salary bump, if not more. Salary jumps from 20-40% are not uncommon, and it's a big reason why people 'job hop' (man, I hate that label).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Many people suggest that you can increase your job security by becoming an "irreplaceable" member of the team, by becoming a domain expert (the article's "go-to guy"). But my boss advised the opposite: if you cannot be replaced, then you are _stuck_. Management may prevent you from switching teams or being promoted to a different position if no one else can cover your irreplaceable knowledge. And you will be the one fighting all the fires on nights and weekend. Always ensure you have an "escape plan" by sharing your knowledge and grooming your possible successors.

And these days, there is no such thing as job security. If your employer cancels your team's product, you will still lose your "irreplaceable" job.

</comment><comment><USER20> It seems the article is for "junior software developers". This allows the article a pass since junior developers do need some level of guidance in how to work in a corporate environment, and think about which aspects of it they need to give more importance to (eg communication).

The thing is, after about 10-15 years of work, it seems like one doesnt want to play games like this anymore. Bottomline: Understand programming concepts in depth which allows one to learn new languages/paradigms quickly, and pretty much everything else melts away. Being a good corporate citizen ceases to hold much charm, and the focus shifts to doing good work on one's own terms. And in the process, the realization that communication is important (not just in a corporate setting) already happens and is ingrained.

So for that kind of a developer, this article wouldnt really help. From what I have seen, the HN crowd is mostly of the latter kind.

</comment><comment><USER21> "Like it or not, you must learn at least the bare minimum about Windows"

This might have been true in 1995. It's not true today.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed this is somewhat debatable. But the language "bare minimum" still applies I think. Remember, this is at a large software development shop, so there will still be dozens of windows machines. Google is the only company I have heard of that drew a hard line saying no windows machines on the development network.

<comment><USER21> There are many companies that are entirely non-Windows, actually.

And Web developers don't need to waste time learning "the bare minimum about Windows," they only need to learn how to install Windows in a virtual machine so they can use IE for testing purposes.

<comment><USER22> But are all of the customers non-Windows as well?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think that when taken in the offered context (working in IT/Dev at a large corporation) that this document could be very valuable for someone just starting out.

And yes, unfortunately when attempting to increase salary or position at a large bank or transportation company soft skills do outweigh knowledge of algorithms and the such.

To this point I just witnessed last week one of the best programmers I've ever known be walked off the premises because he was not able to get with the program so to speak.

In a large mature organization that is in the "Management" stage, software is typically built in "delivery projects" where the team is given just enough time to hack together the business requirements then the team is restructured to move on to the next set of business requirements that may be on completely different system with a new set of team mates.

This by default makes things like self-initiative, communication, leadership and organization much more valuable in managements eye than someone who can just write pretty code that is optimized to the Nth degree.

</comment><comment><USER24> Technical competence is where you should spend your efforts. What I mean for this is that if you pretend any sort of career advancement you have to invest your time in self studying by reading at least a technical book every three months, do tutorials on new languages/technologies and have hobby projects to develop on your own. Don't do this for the cash, do this because getting better and better at something is cool. What is mentioned in the article is important for sure, communicate properly, don't be an asshole, play nice for your corporate overlords, but in terms of guidance for career advancement you can do much better than this article.

</comment><comment><USER25> _So one of our consultants took it upon himself to install and configure a MoinMoin wiki we could use to collaborate on technical documents and projects. He had it up and running before he even mentioned it to management. The wiki quickly became one of the company's most valuable IT assets and completely mission critical._

And I'm sure that the system administrators were totally and perfectly happy with having a new piece of (possibly improperly configured) software, running on a development box or taking up server space. I'm not saying that its bad to take initiative and bring in the tools that you need to get the job done. Its just that before you do so, you should think a little about what sort of maintenance your solution will require. Will it require updates? Does it need to be configured in a particular fashion to avoid security risks? Is the data stored in the tool easy to export or backup?

A more programming related example is that of the Excel spreadsheet + VB macro "application" created by somebody in accounting that turns into a mission critical app. Typically, by the time management recognizes that their entire company relies on something that's been extended far beyond its initial intent, the code is typically in an unmaintainable state, and significant effort has to go into cleaning it up.

<comment><USER26> The flip side of this is that "management hell" of large companies beats it into you that it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Official channels are the path of most resistance.

Programmer: "Hey, we could really use a wiki/hudson server/maven repository/whatever to ease the pain on some of this stuff, can we get a box stood up?"

Manager: "The sysadmins are already overextended, I'll look into it, but don't hold your breath"

12 months later: Still no tool.

You only play that game once or twice before you just stop asking and just start doing, or you brush up your resume and move on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I did not see this explicitly called out in the article however one of the very strong benefits of the work log being advocated is the motivation and focus provided by a list of daily accomplishments.

Similar to other articles on hacker news like Jerry Seinfeld's "don't break the chain" calendar, seeing a list of your daily accomplishments shows at a glance how productive you are (or are not) being.

I also find that having a long list of accomplishments can help with motivation and avoiding burnout by providing a sanity check for how far you have actually come when things feel like they are piled up to unmanageable levels.

</comment><comment><USER28> Did anyone else see the author's resume on this site? It appears that despite his extensive experience in making a auccessful career at a BigCo, he quit to build a Rails app and do his own startup.

That speaks volumes to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't regret working up the ladder at BigCo. I'm ready for something different now, that's all, and I wanted to share my tips for folks going down that path. Please don't interpret the fact that I'm not currently working at BigCo anymore as evidence that I think there's something fundamentally wrong with being an employee at a large or medium company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> On becoming a go-to guy:

 _There's a formula you can follow to achieve this. Select an area that is difficult, annoying, or otherwise undesirable to most of your peers. Dig in deeply to this area, and get to where you are an expert. Everyone else will run from those issues and you can step up with confidence. Management will notice this._

I had a coworker like that. He cultivated the reputation of being the go-to guy. He could confidently provide answers immediately. The problem was that his answers were nearly always wrong, to one degree or another. However, there were enough technical layers that his failures could be fudged and nobody on the 'outside' would notice. Said technical layers prevented anyone else on the team from intervening in time for the correct answer to be relevant. This was the same guy who was always busy at work, generally fixing bugs introduced by his code changes, or manually performing tasks that he couldn't be bothered to automate.

 _Within a few weeks of me leaving for a mail merge call and returning successful and unscathed after 30 minutes, word got around that I was the "go- to guy" for envelope printing and mail merges. All the tickets for this started to come to me._

Ah, so become the go-to guy by never documenting your findings and sharing them.

I think this is actually good (bad) advice: keep your value close to your chest. This, of course, runs contrary to software engineering principles (as well as my own), but I believe you can document and refactor your way out of a job, just as you can fail your way into raises and promotion.

By the way, I don't recommend the above at a 'true' startup, where technical output can and will be noticed. However, once you're at the oh-so-common 'startup' that's been around for the better part of a decade, it's game-on.

<comment><USER30> Those are some interesting observations. I've observed that the "go-to guy" can backfire as well. People have used it to their advantage, but others have been stuck doing the difficult, annoying, or otherwise undesirable things and not promoted because they are seen as someone who's willing to shovel the manure.

Being willing to stand up and take on jobs is important, but one really does need to communicate with management to move up at BigCo, which is what the article seems to be directed toward.</comment></comment>


SV Seeker: The boat the internet built - <AUTHOR> http://www.svseeker.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> (Also relevant: the introduction video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znt5KTOClWY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Znt5KTOClWY))

I found out about the Seeker last year via a YouTube video recommendation and went out and volunteered with Doug in June. He's an amazingly driven man and the project is super cool and just weird: you're in Tulsa, Oklahoma working on this giant boat that's taking up his entire front yard and you're 1000 miles / 1600 km away from the nearest ocean (he has a plan for that).

Almost everything on this boat is handmade and crowd-sourced in design. If you have ever wanted to learn how to weld/plasma cut/machine/... Doug will teach you whatever you need to know and can potentially even host you if you plan far enough out. I'm headed out there again this May and can't wait to get back in to it and see how it's changed in the past year.</comment>


Best Practices for Scylla Applications - <AUTHOR> https://www.scylladb.com/2019/03/27/best-practices-for-scylla-applications/ <comment><AUTHOR> While this blog was written for Scylla, other NoSQL database practitioners (users of Cassandra, etc.) may find many of the tips also useful (such as data modeling, batching based on partitions, and so on). Also, if you have your own favorite database tips & tricks, chime in below.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Speaking of the new CQL Optimization Dashboard, this is a deep dive into the gauges and graphs:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19513171](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19513171)</comment>


Many States Have Laws Against Wearing Masks in Public - <AUTHOR> https://reason.com/2020/03/25/is-wearing-a-face-mask-in-public-to-ward-off-covid-19-a-crime/ <comment><USER2> In Florida it was amended adding that it has to be with the intent of concealing identity when committing a crime or intimidating, threatening or harassing another person to be illegal.

</comment><comment><USER3> Could not wearing a mask also be a _civil_ crime? Could I be sued by some nut that managed to get video of me going into a grocery store without a mask? Who wins? Would people be likely to settle to avoid the hassle despite being unable to prove I infected them? Has this already happened?</comment>


Redesigning: Architect vs. Team Consensus - <AUTHOR> Our project is getting 7 years old now and is sagging in parts and would benefit from a bit of a redesign.
I'd like people on the team to evaluate alternatives and agree on a great solution, but I'm not sure how well that would work. I'm worried about design-by-committee problems, maybe its best to choose someone to do it their way and everyone else help out.
Anyone have experience or suggestions? <comment><USER2> > choose someone to do it their way and everyone else help out

If you choose wrong you are going to have a team following someone that nobody else thinks it's right.

The solution is to have an arbiter,some one that makes sure that compromises are reached and the design moves forward.

Document all decisions and stuck to them unless a major problem doesn't allows it. Some people will try to reopen closed discussions if the result was not the one that they wanted.

To find a great solution requires a lot of time, and trial and error. Don't get to change all the system at the same time. Do small improvements in the agreed direction. Get feedback often about the quality of the changes. If there is any major flaws you will need to go back to design.

In the future is better that redesign is part of the normal process. Don't let the project get old. Technical debt accumulates easily, remove it as soon as possible.

But it's going to be difficult depending on the state and size of the project. Follow up all decisions,and support the team if they break something while doing the improvements.

Depending on the size you can read The Phoenix project. It's a book on how to work with improvements to big projects.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, the system really has been modernized along the way so isn't a huge tech debt as it could be. I just want to put in a good management process to do this properly, maybe there isn't one.</comment></comment>


After Withholding Mail, Army Allows Chelsea Manning to Read EFF Writing - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/03/army-allows-chelsea-manning-read-eff-writing <comment><USER2> > Initially, the mail had been withheld under provisions that both limited the > number of pages an inmate can receive from the Internet and allowed the > prison to block Internet pages that it believed may violate copyright laws.

Would the important information the EFF produces be easier to get to people who need it but don't have internet access if it was available as a published book or magazine?

I suppose you would need a lawyer and/or court case to know if a collection of posts from eff.org collated together and published in a short run on Lulu.com counts as a "published book", possibly available through the prison inter- library loan system, or a "printout from the internet" for this purpose.

<comment><USER3> >Would the important information the EFF produces be easier to get to people who need it but don't have internet access if it was available as a published book or magazine?

Unlikely. An analog to this is prisoners subscribed to 2600 Magazine. They're regularly prevented from receiving them despite 2600 Magazine being a published periodical, assigned an ISBN, and available from several libraries.</comment></comment>


Unintuitive JSON Parsing - <AUTHOR> https://nullprogram.com/blog/2019/12/28/ <comment><USER2> In cases like this, the parser and lexer can often produce a better error message if they are written to accept a more lax input and then check it for errors.

For example, instead of faithfully implementing the grammar from the specification, allow numbers with leading zeroes and then produce an error for them.

Another situation where this comes up is parsing language keywords. Instead of writing a separate lexer rule for every keyword, write a single rule for keyword-or-identifier, and then use a hash table lookup inside of that to determine if it is a keyword or identifier.

<comment><USER3> > instead of faithfully implementing the grammar from the specification, allow > numbers with leading zeroes and then produce an error for them.

But that's the problem. The tokenizer doesn't talk to the grammar parser (and vice versa)

The tokenizer could understand numbers with leading zeroes and throw an error there.

Something to think about: do languages - not json - interpret -1.2 as [MINUS][NUMBER] or just [NUMBER]. Or how does languages deal with 1.0-2.0 compared to 1.0+-2.0

<comment><USER4> If you know you are expecting an expression, then it is easy for the parser to understand '-' as a unary negation if it is the first symbol, otherwise it must be a binary subtraction operator.

        Expr: '-' Expr {
                return -1 * $2;
                }
            | Expr '-' Expr {
                return $1 - $2;
                }
            | '(' Expr ')' {
                return $2;
                }
            | ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The parser will not complain about leading zeros because JSON has no concept > of leading zeros.

Of course there is no logical reason why the parser shouldn't have this concept just because the spec doesn't require. IMO, beyond basic correctness, user friendly error messages are the main differentiator between excellent parsers and crappy parsers.

<comment><USER6> Reporting the last valid input and the start of the first invalid location (possibly repeating the first couple characters of invalid content, filtered for safety) is what I'd generally prefer in an error message.

<comment><USER7> For some reason the author truncated the error messages reported by Chrome and Firefox to not include the line/column.

The message in Firefox is: JSON.parse: expected ',' or ']' after array element at line 1 column 3 of the JSON data

In Chrome: Unexpected number in JSON at position 2

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was initially surprised that all the lexers treat "[01]" as four tokens, but it makes sense from the state diagram.

In the past I've encountered JSON lexing that only considers token boundaries on "special" characters i.e. ",}]:" and whitespace. This will return a lexing error when it sees "01" (equivalently "truefalse").

<comment><USER9> You're right. Current parser violates the [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishm...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment) when it breaks a string of characters without a whitespace into several tokens.

One could imagine first tokenizing only based on whitespace, then only starting to figure out what the tokens are. Which means parsing them individually. Which means another parsing step.

I think this would match human more closely: structure is more obvious based on visual separation than detailed analysis.

I guess it wasn't done that way because the current way of operation means one parser to rule all sources, and that parser can handle more complicated cases. That kind of design decision is more surprising later, but is kind of understandable when you draft a language as the same time as your first parser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What possible reason could someone have for wanting to do this? It is explicitly not recommended in JavaScript:

[https://developer.mozilla.org/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Error...](https://developer.mozilla.org/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Errors/Deprecated_octal)

See for yourself:

        > 'use strict'; 01;
        SyntaxError: "0"-prefixed octal literals and octal escape sequences are
        deprecated; for octal literals use the "0o" prefix instead

<comment><USER11> Octal notation is traditionally used in several contexts - file mode probably being the most common. If you were writing a JSON object to describe a file to be created, and you were under the mistaken impression that JSON supported octal with a leading zero (like most languages), it would be entirely reasonable to write something like:

        {
            "path": "/foo",
            "mode": 0644,
            "contents": "bar"
        }

<comment><USER10> Yeah ok, but its also explicitly not allowed by the specification, both in text:

> A number is very much like a C or Java number, except that the octal and > hexadecimal formats are not used.

and image:

[https://json.org/img/number.png](https://json.org/img/number.png)

as shown literally on the JSON home page:

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

I am all for good error handling, but at some point you do have to blame the user.

<comment><USER12> Error messages are "blaming the user".. its job is to help inform the user the mistake he made.

You can silently beat your child everytime he makes a mistake, until he accidentally does the job correctly (and doesn't get beaten), but it seems to me that making use of our ability to communicate can be much more efficient (and significantly less painful for the child).

And json is merely a (very innefficient, and somewhat problematic) protocol for information exchange; it's not something you should expect people to have read the spec for, especially when its whole popularity stems from it being "intuitive" \-- that is, you don't really need to read the spec to deal with it effectively

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The article leads with an incorrect statement. JSON is now a subset of JavaScript: [https://github.com/tc39/proposal-json- superset](https://github.com/tc39/proposal-json-superset)

<comment><USER14> According to the proposal, this has been shipped in V8 in Chrome 66 (from the V8 bug report: The ECMAScript ⊃ JSON proposal shipped in V8 v6.6 and Chrome 66). And yet my Chrome version 79 does not parse "[01]", throws the same error as described in the article. Same error in Node 12.14.0 (which includes V8 7.7.299.13). Something doesn't add up.

<comment><USER15> Not sure what's confusing. "[01]" is not valid JSON. JSON being a subset of JavaScript means that all valid JSON constructs are valid JavaScript constructs. So, the subset statement says nothing at all about "[01]"

<comment><USER16> That said, in theory, shouldn't:

JSON.parse("0o10") === 8?

I get SyntaxError: Unexpected token o in JSON at position 1

<comment><USER17> No. Valid json is valid JavaScript. Valid JavaScript is not, necessarily, valid json.

<comment><USER16> Thanks, I misunderstood the proposal, which apparently applies mostly to "unescaped LINE SEPARATOR or PARAGRAPH SEPARATOR characters" within strings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The problem with octal formatted numbers, and why JSON (and strict mode JS) explicitly disallow them dates back to the JS engines of the time.

Essentially you have Netscape and IE. Netscape added support for "octal", IE did not, that meant that you had code like `x = 017` that had different values in the two engines. Given the early JSON parsers essentially just called eval() on the string that wasn't ok behavior for a data interchange format.

Then you have the absurd behavior of the Netscape octal implementation, which leads to such wonders as `018-017==3`, which make it a super terrible footgun.

Sensibly modern syntax makes the difference between octal and decimal very explicit with a 0o prefix, just like 0x, 0b, etc. I wish I knew why it was originally decided to not use 0o when 0x was in use.

</comment><comment><USER15> Why is concatenated json a thing?

In what sense is: {0}{1} better than [{0},{1}]? Presumably, if a few bytes are a major concern, you aren't using JSON anyway.

<comment><USER19> If you have a file or network stream with millions of separate JSON items, then you might want to parse and process each item separately as it is received, and the surrounding structure just gets in the way. That being said, it's properly better to explicitly acknowledge that you're using something- like-json-but-not-really-json like [http://jsonlines.org](http://jsonlines.org) does instead of simply concatenating json objects.

<comment><USER15> With the application understanding that the top level object is an array of independently parsable json objects, it should still be possible to stream the format I suggested, assuming you use a streaming / sax parser.

<comment><USER20> Streaming parsers are very inconvenient to work with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Its possible the parser was laid out to choke on octals as a way to protect the 'standard'. Its one decision to not support octals, and its another to make octal-style an error so those numbers are not parsed as base10.

<comment><USER22> You have it all backwards. What a string in any language means is defined by the language specification. If the JSON spec doesn't say that '01' is an octal number, then it's not an octal number. What you would like it to be, or what other language specs say, is completely irrelevant for what that string means in JSON.

Also, making a language X parser accept anything that is not in fact language X is nothing but a terrible idea. If there is one thing that standards are good for, it's interoperability. And if there is one thing that hurts interoperability, it's having different implementations of supposedly the same standard accept and reject different inputs. That's how you get websites that work in one browser, but not another, because one browser was so helpful to make up some meaning for your creative markup instead of rejecting it with an error message, which obviously helps you absolutely nothing with the next browser that is of a different opinion. If you think the spec is stupid, you have to change the spec, if you don't manage to do that, you still should implement the spec, because interoperability is more important than whether your program can read some input that isn't JSON and that therefore no other JSON parser is guaranteed to understand anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> So is it incorrect (Technically, at any rate) for a parser to support leading zeroes in its implementation?

<comment><USER16> Yep. It's technically incorrect.

It seems honoring this type of technical correctness matters a lot. For example, imagine if ECMA added a new feature (e.g. 0-prefixed octal literals) in 2020..

Another issue: security. Imagine a hacker figured out that you used a mix of JSON parsers on your application (e.g. V8 and jq), and they produced different output.

For a vaguely related example, consider that some URL parsers interpret N (U+FF2E - fullwidth latin N) as ".", meaning you can sneakily add a ".." to the URL with NN (see [https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-17/thursday/us-17-Tsai- A-Ne...](https://www.blackhat.com/docs/us-17/thursday/us-17-Tsai-A-New-Era-Of- SSRF-Exploiting-URL-Parser-In-Trending-Programming-Languages.pdf))

<comment><USER23> I believe what you're _actually_ saying is that regardless of whether or not it is technically correct, it would be incorrect (and I agree with you there).

My question was more "for inputs not defined as being valid by the spec, is the result undefined (a la C++ UB where anything and everything is legal in response) or is it required to reject said input".

The sibling response says extensions are allowed, but that wouldn't come into play if an input is _specifically_ called out as disallowed (vs simply not taken into account whatsoever).

<comment><USER16> Section 9 of the RFC would indeed technically allow interpreting 01 as you please, but section 6 states:

"Numeric values that cannot be represented in the grammar below... are not permitted"

Regardless I agree we should not do such things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Either the leading zero is ignored, or it indicates octal, as it does in > many languages, including JavaScript.

This is false. In JavaScript, a leading zero, unless accompanied by a lowercase oh ('o') does indicate the number is written in octal.

08 === 0o10; // true

Here, the left side is still base 10, while the right side is base 8.

<comment><USER25> I wouldn't say it's false, I would say it's _no longer true in strict mode_.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Refe...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Errors/Deprecated_octal)

Javascript for many years has assumed a leading zero means an octal prefix, and it's only recently that behavior has changed.

EDIT: Also your example does not disprove this. Here's another example that you should try running in the console:

        011 === 11; // false
        011; // 9

<comment><USER24> Thanks for the link!

EDIT: Also, yes, I the mistake with my initial example -- as '8' doesn't exist in octal, we have no choice but to interpret the leading '0' as padding and '08' as base ten, whereas '11' can be interpreted as base eight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> IMHO if it's not going to support octal anyway, it makes zero(!) sense to artificially limit/special-case things like this, because then it's much simpler and more consistent to have leading zeros behave like any other digit.

<comment><USER27> JSON was made to be "based on a subset" of Javascript. The only way to be compatible with JS while removing octals is to disallow leading zeroes entirely. Doing otherwise would lead to JSON and JS behaving differently with the same input.

Of course, until recently JSON wasn't a strict subset of JS but that was an oversight rather than by design.

<comment><USER28> I've been programming for 30 years, across many different languages from assembler and up. I've yet to use octals for any code.

What am I missing out on? Why are they included in modern languages like JS?

<comment><USER29> If you ever want to count in base-8 (or a subset), or have an abbreviated form of binary, or pack decimal in a way that's easier to reason, or divide a number in half (down to 1) without getting fractions, or represent file permissions (a grouping of four octals).

Is JS a modern language? It was made 24 years ago as a prototype for a scripting language loosely mimicing Java. Presumably octals would have been still used often on recent machines.

<comment><USER28> > If you ever want to count in base-8 (or a subset)

So far I haven't ever had that need it seems.

> have an abbreviated form of binary

Yeah ok, but why octal over hex? After all, hex maps better to the underlying storage.

> pack decimal in a way that's easier to reason

How'd that work? I know about BCD but I don't see how octal improves the situation, being base-8.

> divide a number in half (down to 1) without getting fractions

Huh?

> represent file permissions (a grouping of four octals)

Ok, I get that for C and such, but how often do you do that in JS?

> Is JS a modern language?

Compared to C, where octal support is understandable, I'd say yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I think JSON would be vastly improved if it were to just allow comments. Maintaining configuration in JSON is unnecessarily painful due to this pointless feature gap.

<comment><USER25> While I agree, that seems off-topic and it comes up most every time issues with JSON are brought up.

I found this to be a rather interesting article, and it'd be a shame if the discussion around it centered on such a well-tread topic.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Twosome - app created originally for my girlfriend - <AUTHOR> http://www.twosomeapp.com

<comment><USER2> Aaww, that is adorable, even if it is advertised by sickeningly youthful models who shouldn't even be holding hands without a chaperone. Good luck with it.

Please let us know if your sales figures are ever an odd number.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not hating, but something about that site makes me glad I haven't been 15 in a long-ass time.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think this is a great idea. FWIW, Couple (<http://trycouple.com>) seems way more complete than the OP's twosome.

<comment><USER5> Holy smokes, that intro video is almost tear jerking for some reason. Wow. I don't even know why but it tugged at my heart strings. Sheesh.

<comment><USER6> Watch it again and look closely at how the video focuses on the woman the entire time. She's child-like and the only one who seems emotionally involved in the relationship… but in almost exclusively passive way. (All the dude does is smirk for a fraction of a second when something "nice" occurs.)

Every interaction focuses on her. She kisses him on the cheek; he just looks at the camera. She kisses his picture during the "shaving" scene. She watches him walk down the street and talk at her on video… the only personal expression element of the "story" is his. She simply receives it. When she's upset, the focus is on what he does to her — the arm, the drawing, she receives the apology but never participates in a make-up.

It looks like the boyfriend is a prop. But the joke is it's that the woman, the focus of everything, is the prop, because it's from the boyfriend's PoV and she's just this super-emo recipient of his actions. Except when she's delivering outsized love he doesn't return (omg! the fawning! the kissing! the posing! the crying! all while he looks on and, if he expresses any emotion, just a smirk).

And if you don't believe about the childlike thing, it's capped by the scene at the end where she's hiding under a sheet with one stripey sock sticking out, a direct echo of "kids reading under the covers when the lights are out." No adult does that.

So: the video is assuming you, the male viewer, are a narcissist (everything is about you, and ps, you don't have access to real feelings), and that the object of your affection (not "girlfriend" because that implies a two-way street) is a baby.

This video is insulting to everyone. Sheesh!

<comment><USER7> Amy, I agree with your analysis, except for what you leave out:

Most couples are like this.

The woman IS a silly, child-like, passive, docile baby, and the guy IS a silly, narcissistic, self-absorbed robot.

These are the ways women behave, and these are the kinds of guys women fall for, because that's what our culture encourages.

If you detect a sexist tone in what I'm saying because I seem to be blaming women, I can only say this: in modern western culture it IS women who ultimately choose who sleeps with who. Criminal activities like rape aside, it is women who choose which guys get to be in a relationship with them and which guys don't. So I don't think it's unfair to attribute the bigger part of this to women.

Anyway just my opinions.

<comment><USER8> I'm pretty sure I get to choose who NOT to sleep with, and so do women. All rape aside of course, ho ho ho.

The tone of your comment depresses me. It sounds so bitter. And confused. As if you hadn't had sex or a healthy relationship in a very long time, if ever, and feel powerless to change that.

If it's so, I hope it changes soon.

<comment><USER6> Sadly, not having a relationship can be a cause or… a symptom. Not speculating about this commenter cuz who the hell knows, but… most of the people I've known who were truly alone were people who drove everyone away.

<comment><USER7> No need to speculate. I don't have a relationship, and I've never really had a proper relationship.

This isn't something I'm ashamed of, because I don't base my self-esteem on other people's judgements of me.

Especially not on womens' romantic interest, which in my opinion (based on my observations) has a lot more to do with pre-determined evolutionary subconscious emotions than conscious, rational judgement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> D-Coder I'm waiting for ThreesomeApp.

</comment><comment><USER9> Also - <http://trycouple.com/>

</comment><comment><USER10> if my gf gets that I'm gonna hate you

</comment><comment><USER11> It's brilliant.

1\. onetime investment of a few minutes while you install the app and sync

2\. secretly uninstall or turn off the app

3\. your SO gets to feel like you're being sickeningly cute together constantly, and you don't have to do anything!

<comment><AUTHOR> Just one note: uninstalling the app will cancel all notifications. Just turn the app off to stay connected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _WHAT TWOSOME NEEDS Twosome has to be installed on your and your sweetheart's phone. To create the special link you need a connection to the internet just for the moment both of you bump your phones. It doesn't matter how Twosome gets the connection (WLAN, EDGE, UMTS,...). From this moment on, NO further connection to the internet is required._

I must be missing something, if "no further connection to the internet is required." How does it send messages between two devices without an internet connection? Presumably if it's on iOS it's not using SMS...

<comment><USER13> I'm guessing it's syncing a seed to srand(), so neither of you control when the messages pop up

<comment><USER2> That's elegant.

So, OP, I have to know: did you come up with the synced seed first and then try to build an idea around it, or did the idea of simultaneous, server-less, auto-generated endearments drive you to this solution?

<comment><AUTHOR> I had the gift idea for my girlfriend a few years ago. How to implement it came next (even so the tricky part was how to sync the seed)

<comment><USER2> Interesting. I really do like it. It's naff but in the best possible way. (I'm working on something related for my wife at the moment but it's even cheesier than Twosome - not sharing it here :])

Do you do some sort of seed exchange/negotiation? Something like swap current system times, and use the higher as the seed?

<comment><AUTHOR> Something similar: both phones exchange a random seed and compute the arithmetic mean in order to get a common seed :)

<comment><USER14> This biases the chosen seeds towards the middle.. You could do something like add them both together modulo the size of whatever the random seed is on the platform, that should be unbiased.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sorry to the maker of this - but it just makes me want to be sick having an app like this..

I guess there are others that may enjoy this!

</comment><comment><USER16> Sorry to the maker of this - but it just makes me want to be sick having an app like this. [2]

I just keep thinking that people are so overwhelmed with this "there's an app for this" thing that they're forgetting to solve real problems.

</comment><comment><USER17> I feel sick reading the copy on that site. FOREVER ALONE.

</comment><comment><USER18> On the main picture: She's holding him but looking at me.

</comment><comment><USER19> related, from the creator of Google Reader: <https://avocado.io>

</comment><comment><USER20> facepalm.</comment>