Crazy new Swedish bill makes sharing music and TV as bad a "crime" as manslaughter - <AUTHOR> https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2018/02/crazy-new-swedish-bill-makes-sharing-music-bad-crime-manslaughter-yes-really/ <comment><USER2> I don't know Swedish law, but I will guess that like American law, any parliament/house member can introduce basically any bill saying anything. Presumably the bill will not pass if it's terrible and the other members are sane/not-corrupt. So the presence of this bill is unfortunate, but I doubt it would get passed.

The money in politics problem has been increasing in much of the development world, so we have seen corporate interest laws pushed and often passed. The US of course is one of the worst offenders of this, and unfortunately this corporate-government system has been spreading to Europe and Scandinavia.

Fortunately for the world, the current US political circus has finally become so absurd that the global corporate right wing spread has slowed (based on elections in the last year). Maybe it will reverse once thinking populations finally realize the outcomes of the non-public-serving policies that their corrupt politicians have been pushing.

Yes this all sounds a bit dramatic, but there really aren't other adequate words to describe the direction of politics in the last 20-30 years. It really has been a problem of corporate money in politics, and it snuck up on "the people". But eventually the results begin to show, whether by excessive gun violence, increasing financial deficits (think "Kansas/Brownback"), perpetual wars, increasing first world poverty, etc. The absurdity reaches a point where it impacts enough of the comfortable people that they start caring what their politicians are actually doing, and then you start seeing big turnovers and upheavals as we're starting to see in US states now.

<comment><USER3> > I don't know Swedish law, but I will guess that like American law, any > parliament/house member can introduce basically any bill saying anything.

So this "bill" is the result of an investigation started by the government. The investigation concludes (document posted by me elsewhere in this thread (in Swedish)) that it would be appropriate to change the law, and what the "bill" should look like.

Have not found the stage of the bill yet, the suggestion for a bill in the final document of the investigation is what I found so far.

The investigation appears to have been performed by people from various instances; governmental, academic, and industry. Only one person from industry; "Film och TV-branschens Samarbetskommitté", whose role was "sakkunnig"/subject expert.

<comment><USER2> Ok, that's interesting then. That suggests that the typical Swedish person feels that sharing copyrighted content is a heinous crime, on par with homicide.

Do you think that's accurate?

Why would the average person feel so strongly negative about this topic?

<comment><USER4> Swede chiming in here. No. The typical Swede feels that it's one of the less serious crimes there is. Under speeding, far under DUI, under possession of drugs for personal use, maybe on par with parking violation.

We had quite a movement for digital freedom about a decade ago when the Pirate Party was on the rise and there was opposition against surveillance from FRA (Swedish equivalent of NSA), but the average person doesn't care and I think even the previous activists have been in a state of fatigue and silent acceptance for years now.

<comment><USER5> I would imagine that Swedish politicians are also vulnerable from lobbying and US diplomatic pressure.

<comment><USER4> Indeed. Antipiratbyrån (The Anti-Piracy Bureau) was a lobby organization representing copyright holders in films and computer games until 2011. They surveilled people, breaching privacy laws but got exempted in court because it was done for a good cause. Infiltrated a Swedish ISP, tracked down filesharers online and took them to court and influenced the political debate a lot.

I don't have any illusion of lobbying and diplomatic pressure having lessened since.

<comment><USER6> > got exempted in court because it was done for a good cause.

Wow...as described here, your legal system sounds...useless.

<comment><USER3> It is very bad indeed.

1\. The judge in the pirate bay case was a member of an organisation "Svenska föreningen för upphovsrätt"/"The Swedish Organisation for Copyright" (my own translation), and it was decided not to be partial to the pirate bay case. See for example [0].

2\. Even if there were diplomatic pressures on Sweden from the US (which there were [1], their actual impact is what is in question), it should be impossible for a minister to influence the police directly [2]. Which makes for the pirate bay take down to be a ridiculous coincidence.

3\. Sweden allows lawyers with their own, so called, "intellectual property" interests to defend suspects of file-sharing. See for example [3] which do give credit for this lawyer doing a good job, but just in principle this seems absurd (imo). I hope he is not allowed to be the defence lawyer if it is his own material at least.

[0] (Swedish, summary in English) [https://lup.lub.lu.se/student- papers/search/publication/3800...](https://lup.lub.lu.se/student- papers/search/publication/3800778)

[1] [https://torrentfreak.com/how-the-us-pushed-sweden-to-take- do...](https://torrentfreak.com/how-the-us-pushed-sweden-to-take-down-the- pirate-bay-171212/)

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

[3] (Swedish) [https://overklass.wordpress.com/tag/fildelning/](https://overklass.wordpress.com/tag/fildelning/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not surprised when I see on swedish news how a pedophile gets 3-4 years for molesting hundreds of children and a bank robber gets 5-8 years for not hurting a single person but stealing millions.

It's a long standing dark gag here that financial crime is being treated much worse than violent crime.

<comment><USER8> "Do you understand what I'm saying?" shouted Moist. "You can't just go around killing people!"

"Why Not? You Do." The golem lowered his arm.

"What?" snapped Moist. "I do not! Who told you that?"

"I Worked It Out. You Have Killed Two Point Three Three Eight People," said the golem calmly.

"I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr Pump. I may be–– all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!"

"No, You Have Not. But You Have Stolen, Embezzled, Defrauded And Swindled Without Discrimination, Mr Lipvig. You Have Ruined Businesses And Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Do Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Backs. For Sport, Mr Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The Game."

― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

<comment><USER9> It's far more nefarious to steal $1.00 from a million people than $1M from one.

<comment><USER10> Stealing $1.00 from a million people who won't miss it is more devious as you're less likely to get caught and if you get caught people are less likely to bother pursuing it.

But I think it is impossible to say one is objectively worse than the other. It depends so much on how the crime affects people. If you steal a million from a multi-billionaire, he might not even notice. If you scam a clueless person out of a million that they got in debt to hand over to you, that will ruin their life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Comparing this to a bank-robbery doesn't really scale, being two completely different crimes. However, this suggestion came at the same time as the Swedish government suggested raised penalties for weapon crimes, meaning you can get up to 4 years for carrying a automatic weapon/hand-grenade you are not licensed for while you can receive a 6 year for providing copyrighted material to the public. Common punishment for rape in Sweden is 1-2 years. It's clear to me the Swedish government are not helping Hollywood in the best interest of it's citizen's but due to lobbying from the film industry. Just my 5 cents.

</comment><comment><USER12> Ever seen the movie Idiocracy? I feel like society is becoming more and more like that. Laws like these are being passed and people are too numb to care.

<comment><USER13> The world of Idiocracy is a utopia. They're not only willing but _eager_ to appoint the smartest man in the world to high office. President Camacho steps aside as soon as he realises that there is someone better qualified to be president. The movie shows a world that is deeply dysfunctional, but also devoid of any signs of bigotry, hatred or totalitarianism. There are no death camps, no migrations of starving people, no persecuted minority being scapegoated for the food crisis. We should envy those happy idiots.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmZOZjHjT5E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmZOZjHjT5E)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Attempts at this type of legislation make me almost irrationally angry.

This is a quote from the article that the PIA post linked to (translated from Swedish by Google so wording may be slightly off):

"Today there is an organized online piracy that has major consequences for the whole community. Therefore, it is good that the punishment crimes for these crimes have been overlooked as the sanction is proportional to the seriousness of the crime"

I just fail to understand how someone causing a multi-million/billion dollar media corporation to lose some money is a crime so serious that that person should be imprisoned for up to six years.

<comment><USER15> Are we still saying piracy loses money for somebody? Even after the EU paper about it?

Why is it so hard to believe research?

[https://juliareda.eu/2017/09/secret-copyright- infringement-s...](https://juliareda.eu/2017/09/secret-copyright-infringement- study/)

<comment><USER9> You cite a single article, which goes against the past two decades of experience, where illegal downloads have decimated much of the entire music industry.

<comment><USER16> lmao, you sure know what you're talking about, the music industry is just in tatters these days huh

<comment><USER9> Have you compared it today with what it was circa 1995? Yes, it is in tatters.

<comment><USER16> look, i get that you've gotten yourself into a career where you're adjacent to the legal system so you have no ability to critically evaluate anything beyond "it is/isn't legal therefore it is/isn't good" but if you try talking to a young person you might realize the number of independent artists has been exploding every year for a decade and we now have more people creating quality music than ever before in the history of the world (more people per capita than ever before as well, I'd wager). the ability to share and expose others to these new artists faster and easier than ever before is what makes this possible. sorry that no one cares that the big record labels and top 40s that made all their money on CDs are losing ground to distribution methods that aren't utterly unable to adapt to the industry's current landscape

<comment><USER9> "we now have more people creating quality music than ever before in the history of the world"

Where exactly are you getting this? I find it extremely unlikely, and I'd bet the opposite. Just because it's now easier to discover artists, does not mean that there are more of them. My position is based on the many former artists I know who abandoned what they did b/c of the futility of being able to support themselves.

But the issue is bigger than just creating the most amount of art. On a moral level, an artist should have some ability to control how their art is distributed. Just because it can be easy or free for others to enjoy it doesn't mean that everyone is entitled to it.

<comment><USER17> _> "we now have more people creating quality music than ever before in the history of the world"

Where exactly are you getting this? I find it extremely unlikely, and I'd bet the opposite. Just because it's now easier to discover artists, does not mean that there are more of them. My position is based on the many former artists I know who abandoned what they did b/c of the futility of being able to support themselves._

There are absolutely more bands now than ever before. In the olden days, you needed a studio full of expensive gear, and sound engineers to work the gear. You needed production facilities to press LPs/CDs and you needed distribution and promotion deals to get your name out there and make something for people to buy. All of this necessitated a big investment, so the concept of the record deal was born, and the labels grew fat and happy, mostly because they exploited the hell out of the struggling artists, with onerous contracts.

Even just being a garage musician was more expensive back then, as instruments and gear used to cost a lot more than it does today.

Today everyone with a PC can record music inexpensively. Reaper is an absolutely fantastic DAW and very fairly priced, and high quality audio interfaces with good preamps can be had for a couple hundred dollars. That's not to say that these people will produce anything of notable quality, but the bar is so low now that basically anyone can give it a go.

For promotion, you can very successfully go by word of mouth on social media, instead of relying on traditional promotion.

For distribution, it is easier now than every before. Anyone can create a Bandcamp profile and upload their music. Bandcamp handles the layouts, tagging, re-encoding and provides streamlined shopping, both for downloadable tracks and for physical merchandise. Their terms are easy and uncomplicated, there are no long confusing contracts, and they're extremely friendly and easy to deal with, in my experience. They take a 15% cut, which reduces to 10% if you sell over a certain amount per year: [https://bandcamp.com/pricing](https://bandcamp.com/pricing)

 _> But the issue is bigger than just creating the most amount of art. On a moral level, an artist should have some ability to control how their art is distributed. Just because it can be easy or free for others to enjoy it doesn't mean that everyone is entitled to it._

Yes, the artist should _absolutely_ have control over how their art is distributed, which is why the big labels need to die, along with their onerous contracts and manipulation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This, [0], appears to be the conclusion of the investigation that resulted in the bill, which contains a suggestion for a law.

[0] (Swedish) [http://www.sou.gov.se/wp- content/uploads/2017/01/SOU-2018_6_...](http://www.sou.gov.se/wp- content/uploads/2017/01/SOU-2018_6_webb.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER18> This is frankly surprising to me. Didn't the Pirate Party win seats in the Swedish parliament? What happened to them?

<comment><USER19> They won seats in the EU parliament, but didn't manage to enter the national parliament.

Since then their main issue has mostly died, the law allowing FRA to spy on all our outgoing communications passed and the pirate bay people where taken down. But there's not been much action about these issues since then, and as a protest party option they are completely eclipsed by the racists.

<comment><USER20> Lesson learned: Don't mess with the copyright mafia.

They won America with DMCA. They're even beating computer nerds in Sweden. The only win we've had lately is Trump killing the TPP. Thank goodness for that man.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Thinking about it, part of the reasons music labels got big is for economy of scale when mass producing CDs for example. Of course, such economy of scale was not needed anymore with the move to digital distribution. This didn't work well with the current debt-based economy where shareholders depends on stocks always going up for things like retirements and companies treat people as "consumers" to be extracted from. I assume that Hollywood has similar problems, right?

</comment><comment><USER22> In a just world, any musician, actor or artist that 'steals' time from an audience to espouse political opinions should be subject to unlimited free file-sharing of their content.

Yes, I like that idea.

</comment><comment><USER23> As a swede, I am unfortunately not surprised. While we have a surge in violent crimes mainly due to mass immigration this kind of shit gets pushed.

When I was young, explosions and gang criminality were extremely rare and uncommon but today it is unfortunately being more common. I have several friends, including me, that has been the victim of either threats or violence in the recent years but the perpetrators always walks free due to our incompetent police and justice system that doesn't even investigate even the most obvious crimes where the perpetrator is known.

Some examples:

\- My uncle was beaten down and had to be in the hospital for tring to stop 3 people from stealing a bike. No further investigation.

\- I am/was being threatned several times by a guy, which I reported to the police several times and they haven't even started to look at my case yet (this was several months ago). I am very certain that the preliminary investigation will be canceled.

\- Several sexual crimes towards children isn't even being investigated due to "heavy work burden" [1]

The development is really pissing me off and I am even thinking about moving from Sweden since I often times don't feel secure anymore. If this bill gets through it is simply more proof how insane our politicians are. They don't give any reason to believe that they even care the slightest about civilians security, just the image of the country as a whole. This kind of legislation will be used in the same way the drug policies are used, they increase the statistics for the police to make it look like they solve a bunch of crimes when in reality they do not solve most crimes of importance.

[1]: [https://translate.google.se/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=y&prev=...](https://translate.google.se/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fnyheteridag.se%2Fsexualbrott- mot-barn-laggs-pa-hog-polisen-har-inte-resurser%2F&edit-text=&act=url)

<comment><USER24> > When I was young, explosions and gang criminality were extremely rare and > uncommon

Are you sure about this? Crime has decreased significantly over the past decades in most countries. I also can't remember any crime from when I was young but my area was much more dangerous back then. But as a child, you don't notice subtle signs of crime and won't get beaten up because you try to prevent people from stealing a bike. And even if that happens to a family member I'm not sure parents tell their children the truth. But asking your parents won't help, memory is always biased, my memory of the area I lived in as a student is also much better than it deserved.

More communication by social media has probably also played a role, it's much easier to track crimes nowadays. But even where crimes were reported back then it's really hard to compare that unless you use official statistics.

<comment><USER23> Yes I am sure.

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

[https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=1637&ar...](https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=1637&artikel=5925764)

[http://www.dagensjuridik.se/2017/09/sverige-i-topp-med- antal...](http://www.dagensjuridik.se/2017/09/sverige-i-topp-med-antal- skjutningar-svart-hitta-motsvarighet-i-andra-lander)

> In Germany [solved crimes involving shooting] they are close to 90 percent > and in Finland more than 90 percent. In Sweden, as the firearm has > increased, the level of clearance has also declined steadily since the late > 90's.

But yeah, downvote me for stating facts.</comment></comment></comment>


Tech Luminaries - "a Charlie Rose-style interview show for the tech industry" - <AUTHOR> http://techluminaries.com/

<comment><USER2> This is a great idea.

Charlie Rose's show always has interesting, intelligent guests. And he usually asks intelligent, thoughtful _good_ questions. But one thing that he doesn't get is tech. I remember watching when he had Arianna Huffington on a few weeks ago, and he asked the question: "What does it mean to link?" After which Huffington was attempting to explain to him how the concept of linking works.

<http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9705>

it's @ about 3:20 - 3:50

Now I know Charlie asks questions in the way that he wants gets the most out of every guest, helping his audience to "learn something," they might not otherwise have known, but this was just funny.</comment>


Is there evidence that drugs can help programmers produce "better" code? - <AUTHOR> http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/171618/is-there-any-evidence-that-drugs-can-actually-help-programmers-produce-better <comment><USER3> You tend to use the very specific phrase "nootropic drugs" to talk about drugs which help with productivity or creativity or some other aspect of working life. Asking whether there is evidence on nootropics, is just asking whether there are any heavily-tested nootropics. Asking anything else--to lex it out, whether "drugs that have no productivity-enhancing aspect, enhance productivity" is just playing the fool to incite extremely subjective flamewars.

So, let's avoid that, and just focus on nootropics. Is there evidence that they work? Depends on the drug. We have drugs (caffeine, theanine) that are in foods we've been consuming since the beginning of civilization, so we've heavily researched those and are pretty confident in what they do.

On the other hand, new, synthetic compounds, like modafinil, are only really created and pushed through FDA approval if there can be found some sort of therapeutic, non-nootropic purpose in their use: in modafinil's case, treating narcolepsy. This means that their use _as nootropics_ is much less well- researched, and consists mainly of anecdata (however much there is) shared over the internet.

The best you'll find, I think, in terms of data for efficacy of various drugs, is people who have set out to do double-blind studies on themselves: <http://www.gwern.net/Nootropics>

After reading data-points like these, you might be convinced to try some of them on your own. But be aware that people's body-chemistries can vary widely --especially where things affecting neurochemical balance are concerned--so everyone's reactions to these will still be different. Not in a sense of a "bad trip", usually; just that some things which other people swear by might not have much of an effect on your particular chemistry. So, the best thing to do, as in most situations: first research, then experiment.

<comment><USER4> I'm not an expert, but I'd like to comment on your statement that discussing non-nootropics in this context is pointless. I think it is not, and my argument goes like this: you code better when in mood to do so. Certain psychoactive substances make it easier to fall in certain moods, easier to change your mood or even forcibly change your mood for you (like some of benzodiazepines or MDM, MDMA). Their working is not "nootropic" (as in it does not necessarily improve any mental functions) but you're in generally better disposition to code after using them. This is true even for coffee, and even without developed dependence - if you're feeling sleepy, your code will be worse than when you're feeling wide awake, and coffee, being a stimulant that it is, can give you that feeling.

So, what I want to say is that not only measurable enchancement of "cognition, memory, intelligence, motivation, attention" (as with nootropics) can result in you doing better job. For example, while benzodiazepines generally _lower_ cognitive ability, they enable people with depression to actually do something (to code, for example :)). Of course, when overdosed or just not fit for your particular brain, the same psychoactive substance can lower mental function so much, that no amount of optimistic thoughts is going to help you.

I just want to point out that there is more to productivity than memory, intelligence and concentration and that this means that when discussing productivity there is a place for not-strictly-nootropic drugs in the discussion. Although, I have to admit, that place is rather marginal due to very, very varied responses to such a substances among individuals.

<comment><USER3> Certainly, if you have a problem with your mood, whether caused by stress, chemical imbalance, etc., that is _damping_ your productivity, then using a mood-altering drug can remove that damping effect and let your productivity return to an optimal level. This is different, though, I think, from "enhancing" productivity, which usually refers to things that can be used to move someone "beyond" the normal human optimal performance in some way.

What a part of me wants to say is, "the literature for returning humans to optimal mood is broad and well-researched, and shouldn't really be the topic of Amateur Medical-Advice Hour on a social news website; the best thing to do if you have a problem with your mood is to speak to a therapist/psychiatrist, who will recommend you a course of action based on current medical best practices." But...

I have to admit that that really isn't exactly true. Therapists and psychiatrists aren't required to have any more knowledge of neurochemistry than any other doctor; they'll be able to follow a guide and tell you that if you're depressed they should take you through cognitive behavioral therapy and prescribe you an SSRI (and then an SNRI if that doesn't work, and then a TCA if that doesn't work, &c) but they probably _won't_ think about the serotonin production pathway and suggest that you might need more Vitamin B. This is one benefit of the internet: the people who are experts on their little staked claim of knowledge can give it to the people who seem to need it, instead of those people having to go around and talk to experts in all sorts of different fields to get the perspectives from those fields. On the other hand, it's pretty useless to give these pieces of advice to no-one in particular, without a specific problem at hand to solve. It's a bit like doing science without a hypothesis to test; everyone sees their own--more often than not false and overreaching--interpretation of the data.

The one good thing that does come out of these threads is that they tend to get more people to say "wait, that sounds like me, maybe I have [X mood disorder]," ask their doctors about it, and it turns out that they _do_. This is in stark contrast to usual hypochondria surrounding most diseases; where a person will be quick to diagnose themselves with [X cargo-cult symptom- matching thing-they-don't-understand] to explain why their neck always aches or they keep coughing up yellow phlegm, people are wary of assigning themselves mood disorders, since most people feel that society will still consider them "guilty" in some way for having the problem ["you're just lazy" &c], and they definitely don't want to bring it out in the open to the point where they _identify_ with it. Discussions with a bunch of people chiming in to say "oh, yes, I thought I was [X fault-of-character], but really I just had [Y chemical imbalance] and some [drug] fixed it right up" can really push people to investigate this sort of thing where they otherwise wouldn't consider it.

I think the best compromise is that _solutions_ should be discussed in the context of particular _problems_. Nootropics are an exception, because they don't solve any particular problem, other than the problem of wanting your life to be "even better-er"; but, for example, a root-level comment in this discussion about marijuana use really won't have anything good happen to it; each person will be looking at it in the context of a different problem and either implicitly accepting or rejecting the idea _prima facie_ because of that. Better to ask a specific question, like "what drugs and/or therapies could be used to cope with stress-induced anxiety in the workplace"; then the discussion could actually go somewhere worth reading :)

<comment><USER5> The whole issue of "better living through chemistry" is a big experiment and the "professionals" may have better training but they can only guess as to what may or not work for an individual. In the end it's always a try and see approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From what I understand there is only one study on the relationship between creativity and LSD:

 _Psychedelic agents in creative problem-solving: a pilot study._ Harman WW, McKim RH, Mogar RE, Fadiman J, Stolaroff MJ. Psychol Rep. 1966 Aug;19(1):211-27.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelics_in_problem- solving...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelics_in_problem- solving_experiment)

The results suggested that LSD has a positive effect on creative problem solving. I think it is a shame that no follow-up experiments have been conducted.

<comment><USER7> I wonder how many adherents Steve Jobs have dosed LSD because of his advice.

<comment><USER8> I recently read the book _What The Dormouse Said_, which is about the early days of silicon valley computer culture and the interaction of that culture with the counter culture.

According to that book, there was a notable portion of the people in that early SV culture who at least experimented with LSD, and there was even an organization called the "International Foundation for Advanced Study" in Menlo Park that was founded by an engineer to study the possible benefits of LSD use among engineers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Define drugs. I know Ritalin is an invaluable tool when it comes time for me to sit down and hack, but can also be counter-productive in limiting my creativity.

I think it would be self-evidently false to suggest that no mind-altering substance could lead to a state of consciousness more conducive than the baseline for a given activity, but I would stop short of recommending any particular drug for programming. If it works for you, do it. If not, don't.

<comment><USER10> You do realise that you're doing something quite dangerous by turning to dopamine-influencing drugs to motivate you, right? This class of drugs can change brain structure, promote cancer growth and generally make you devoid of emotion. At the very least, protect yourself with anti-oxidants and NMDA antagonists. There are plenty of less serious things you can take/do if you simply lack motivation. Exercise, cut out sugar and caffeine entirely and try Noopept.

Also see:

* <http://www.nih.gov/news/health/feb2009/nida-02.htm>

* [http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2006/05/ritalin_causes_cancer...](http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2006/05/ritalin_causes_cancer.html)

* [http://www.cchrint.org/2010/11/15/adhd-ritalin-%E2%80%93-bra...](http://www.cchrint.org/2010/11/15/adhd-ritalin-%E2%80%93-brain-damage-heart-attacks-hallucinations-liver-damage/)

But for the love of god, think about what you are doing to your body. There _are_ other ways, just look a little harder.

<comment><USER11> He may be prescribed it. I understand your sentiment, but Ritalin may make him take a shower and actually make the morning commute.

<comment><USER9> Nothing at all like that. I was prescribed it for ADHD as a child. Now, I take it if I'm cramming or spending all night in the lab. Generally, less than once a week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> We have to mention the famous mathematician Paul Erdős <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s>

      After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of
      whom bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month. Erdős won the
      bet, but complained that during his abstinence mathematics had been set back by a
      month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with
      ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the bet, he promptly
      resumed his amphetamine use.

He also liked coffee.

Note: effective programming in the real world is absolutely _not_ the same as mathematics - but some would argue that the essence of it is.

</comment><comment><USER13> According to popular wisdom, "There are two major products that came from Berkeley: LSD and Unix. We don't believe this to be a coincidence." It's, of course, incorrect (<http://www.lemoda.net/people/jeremy-s- anderson/index.html>), but, in any case, it's a funny one.

Now, on a more serious tone, a lot of programmers these days take some kind of drug, be it to control their ADHD, Asperger and other assorted medical conditions, be it to supplement something they think their brain is burning through faster than our hunter-gatherer heritage made us budget. I have noticed, however, some friends of mine who started taking ADHD medication (Methylphenidate, the only ADHD drug approved for use in Brazil) that became, indeed, much more focused and productive (amazingly so, sometimes), but that's not a double-blind study.

It would be fun (if horrendously complicated) to design a good study for that.

</comment><comment><USER14> LSD: I have found it possible to use it to gain insight. (Cisco systems had some key person(s?) using LSD to design products.) The problem is that you can trick yourself quite easily into "discovering" things which end up not meaning much. So you do need some care, and perhaps someone to help guide you. For beginners, I'd say LSD's bigger benefit is being able to reshape how you think and handle life rather than understanding some new data structures. It's definitely a "must do this at least once in a lifetime" type of thing.

Stimulants are fantastic. Amphetamines provide focus as well as a nice perky feeling to keep you happy while coding. Ritalin (methylphenidate) works too, but I find it harsher and not as pleasant as speed. As the name hints, it makes you fast at things. Talking, thinking, calculating, coding. I notice with Ritalin, doing mental math happens instantaneously - I surprise myself. The focus can be a drawback: if you don't plan, you can end up focusing on something "interesting" yet time wasting. So prepare your day, first.

Opiates (such as time release oxycodone) are fantastic for keeping optimism. By keeping your mind in the right state, you can end up being much more productive. Again, the benefit is the drawback: being overly optimistic means your risk calculations and general decision management might be way off. (Biggest downside here is addiction, but it _is_ manageable, at least if you have money.)

Pot I've not found useful for much as far as work. I did try coding on it, and ended up writing an infinite loop and thinking it was the coolest thing in the world. Alcohol can sometimes be slightly helpful, in a similar manner as Xanax; just by relaxing and getting one into a better mindset.

<comment><USER4> > Opiates [...] (Biggest downside here is addiction

Dependency. Addiction is very similar for all the things you mention, physical dependency is unique to opiates (at least in comparison with LSD, pot and amphetamine).

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I scale the Ballmer Peak on a regular basis. I've semi-scientifically mapped out the exact amount required to get the desired effect. I've started trying to plot the continuous consumption rate required to spend more time at the summit.

I have spreadsheets.

<comment><USER16> In case anyone is unfamiliar with the "Balmer Peak" : <http://xkcd.com/323/>

For extra points, I would love to see your spreadsheet data plotted as a xkcd- style graph ([http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/11350/xkcd- st...](http://mathematica.stackexchange.com/questions/11350/xkcd-style- graphs))

<comment><USER17> Does this actually seriously work? I've never tried coding while intoxicated, let alone heard of the Ballmer peak till now.

Wonder what variables you would track? Type of drink, percentage alcohol in it, how long since you last ate, how quickly you drink the alcohol, your height and weight? Should there be a variable for being Irish (high tolerance) ;-) Last one was a joke btw!

<comment><USER9> A couple of beers will definitely get the juices flowing, just as several more will tend to obviate any prospect of productivity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Define better code. Code at that point/moment in time in comparision, maybe. Code later on that is more robust and well documented so that others can understand and change if need be better, probably not.

People say drugs help you do this and that, but over time you gain tollerance, have downsides when drug wears off. So is this another tortoise and hare comparision nomatter how it is thought thru.

Now if drugs help you to do what you can't, be it atheritis or the like, or pain medication. Something that counters a condition you normaly have that limits your abilities, then sure they do make better code. But as a rule it has too many exceptions to make such a brash statement by using such a losely drifined term as drugs in a title without better focus onto specific groups/types/needs.

What goes up must come down, employers don't pay for your comedown, nor do they pay for your supply, so beyond the offcie coffee or prescription mecial needs. I'd say meditation and better mind focus and planning/whole mental approach can do more for anybody to produce better code than any off the shelf solution. On balance take the free coffee and run with it.

<comment><USER14> This comment reads as some general pondering about "no there's no way ahead except hard work". Just because there are tradeoffs doesn't mean there's not a clear advantage.

Thinking that humans have somehow evolved to behave at maximum performance for engineering or software design is an odd belief.

As far as "it must come down, it can't last", there was a leader (for 10 years) of one of the world's top air forces that was a morphine addict. Using "office coffee or prescription" is just a no true Scotsman argument.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Posted on HN 49 minutes ago, closed as "not a real question" 48 minutes ago. Wow.

<comment><USER20> > It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, > vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably > answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it > can be reopened, see the FAQ.

It seems pretty specific to me. If you have evidence, present it.

I can see an argument for it being too broad, but it saddens me that a question such as this is closed when it has the potential to be very interesting.

I suppose it also has the potential to devolve into a giant drugs flamewar, which may be why it was really closed.

<comment><USER21> Ironically, if you posted the same question on stackoverflow you'd probably be directed (or have it moved) to programmers.stackexchange.

Frustratingly, I can't find anything in the FAQ which would indicate why the thread (and countless others) have been closed: <http://programmers.stackexchange.com/faq>

Questions which are similarly open ended and perhaps more subjective are still left open ( [http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/99445/is- micr...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/99445/is-micro- optimisation-important-when-coding/99473#99473) ). If anyone has more insight into how/why questions get closed on programmers.stackexchange I'd love to hear it!

<comment><USER22> Power trip.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> That reminds me of the time I was taking pot while in college. During one class I was completely zoned into the cursor and moved it back and forth 5-6 pixels across the screen.

My experience though it is anecdotal seems to rule out at least cannabinoids.

<comment><USER24> Dosage is an important consideration, though. I know someone who used to use pot as a programming aid, but he had to be very careful with the dosage. By using very small amounts spread out over the day, he could maintain a flow state that let him churn out code for hours and hours. He didn't find it all that helpful for design and planning, but for large projects that involved an overwhelming amount of fairly boring work, he found it to be a helpful tool.

The problem was that if he used too much, he'd be pretty much useless until it wore off some. Smoking a plant is not exactly what you would call "precise dosage administration", so this was a fairly significant issue.

<comment><USER25> flywheel has an interesting reply to this, but he has been hellbanned. Go to your preferences and turn _showdead_ on to see it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This question is basically a medical question, so it is best answered with the principles of science-based medicine in mind.

[http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/about- science-...](http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/about-science- based-medicine/)

First of all, do we have a clear evaluation criterion for "better" outcomes? If the question is about writing better code, is there agreement at the start of an experiment about what "better" means? I'm not experienced in evaluating software code (I'm much more experienced in evaluating psychological and medical research), but it seems to me, from reading HN, that better code could be code

a) that is able to pass all the unit tests with an earlier deadline,

b) that has a smaller total bug count when subjected to code review,

c) that solves a problem that other programmers in the same workplace didn't solve until later,

d) that works around an intellectual property claim by a competing company more convincingly,

e) that meets company stylesheet requirements more exactly,

f) that can be maintained by less skilled subsequent programmers,

and perhaps other criteria.

Any sound experimental study has to meet a lot of other criteria

<http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html>

to be worthy of believing, and in human drug studies the criteria include

1) sufficiently large sample size (n = 1 just doesn't do the job)

2) treatment-control design (so that some subjects of the experiment get the drug, and some subjects do not)

3) double-blind administration (the subjects of the experiment should not know if they are getting the drug, nor should the experimenters know which subjects are getting the drug)

and many more, especially

4) rigorous statistical analysis afterward.

As Richard Feynman said, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that."

<http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm>

So anecdotes along the lines of "I took this drug, and I wrote much better code" can be completely discounted, because we don't have access to the coder's before-and-after work product (nor to the coder's detailed dosage history) to know what really happened.

</comment><comment><USER27> Psh, anything that gives you a different perspective on life is important. LSD gives you a vastly different perspective on reality, so I guess if you relate that to life in a meaningful way, is fairly important.

</comment><comment><USER28> A group of scientists from the University of Illinois at Chicago have shown that moderate consumption of Alcohol may boost creativity.

... and there is of course the Ballmer Peak

<http://duvet-dayz.com/archives/2012/04/13/1199/>

</comment><comment><USER29> And better music. And better paintings.

Many great people did drugs. But don't mess correlation with causation please. Maybe great people are just more predisposed to drugs, while drugs actually harmed them.

</comment><comment><USER30> I don't know the answer, but I am reminded of John Markoff's 2006 book _What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry_ [1].

If you've forgotten what the dormouse said, listen: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WANNqr-vcx0>

[1][http://www.amazon.com/What-Dormouse-Said-Counterculture- Pers...](http://www.amazon.com/What-Dormouse-Said-Counterculture- Personal/dp/0143036769)

</comment><comment><USER31> Doug Engelbart took LSD. Probably other prominent hackers around there/then, but I don't remember. (From Markoff, _What the Dormouse Said_.)

I can't answer about helping with coding.

</comment><comment><USER32> Question should rather be : "Should writing better code be a reason to take drugs?"

For that matter, it's not the best code that makes a good product. A good code is just part of it.

</comment><comment><USER33> Insofar as programming involves problem solving I believe the answer is an unqualified "yes".

In _The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide: Safe, Therapeutic, and Sacred Journeys_ by James Fadiman, Ph.D a chapter is devoted to discussing the results of a study on the use of the psychedelic substance mescaline to enhance creative problem solving.

[http://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide- Therapeuti...](http://www.amazon.com/Psychedelic-Explorers-Guide-Therapeutic- Journeys/dp/1594774021)

This study was conducted at the Institute for Psychedelic Research at San Francisco State University.

I'll quote at length from the book chapter: "The participants were 26 men engaged in a variety of professional occupations: 16 engineers, one engineer- physicist, two mathematicians, two architects, one psychologist, one furniture designer, one commercial artist, one sales manager, and one personnel manager."

"Nineteen of the subjects have no previous experience with psychedelics."

The subjects were selected based on their psychological stability and motivation to solve a specific problem they had at work.

They met in small groups for several days before the psychedelic session and were told what to expect and given instructions in the use of the drug-effect for problem solving.

The subjects were given 200 milligrams of mescaline.

After six weeks the subjects were given questionnaires on how the effects of the session had effected their ongoing creative ability as well as how valid and acceptable the solutions conceived during the session seemed to them at that time.

Some (but not all) examples of solutions obtained by the subjects under the drug-effect:

* A new approach to the design of a vibratory microtome

* A commercial building design, accepted by the client

* A mathematical theorem regarding NOR-gate circuits

* Design of a linear electron accelerator beam-steering device

There are several tables full of numerical data. Table names include "Application of Solutions Obtains in Experimental Sessions" and "Work Performance Since Session".

My conclusion: Psychedelic substances can be used to enhance creativity - <USER2> as always who is using them and how they go about it makes all the difference.

<comment><USER33> I just found a short essay by Benny Shanon, <http://pluto.huji.ac.il/~bshanon/> , called Ayahuasca and Creativity.

<http://www.maps.org/news-letters/v10n3/10318sha.html>

Quotes from the above article that I feel are most salient for this discussion of drugs, creativity and problem solving:

"As explained in Shanon (1998b), ayahuasca can also induce very impressive ideations. It is very typical for ayahuasca drinkers to report that the brew makes them think faster and better -- indeed, makes them more intelligent. Several of my informants reported the feeling of potentially being able to know everything; I too had this experience. While, this overall feeling is not objectively provable, my data do reveal some ideations which are truly impressive. Especially let me mention philosophical insights attained by drinkers without prior formal education. Some of these resemble ideas encountered in classical works as those of Plato, Plotinus, Spinoza and Hegel. Significant insights are more likely to be encountered in domains in which drinkers have special competence. Personally, with ayahuasca, I had many insights regarding my professional field of expertise and to which, following further critical scrutiny, I still hold. I have heard the same from other persons."

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> For me, "better" code seems to come from a combination of confidence, creativity, and concentration (maybe not all at the same time).

I need a certain amount of confidence to go after a difficult chunk of work that may not really lead anywhere or may turn out to be too big a task to accomplish in the available time.

I need a certain amount of creativity to come up with new avenues to try when I'm stuck on a problem or starting to brainstorm a new project.

And I need a certain amount of concentration to power through a hard coding task (both to tune out distractions and to keep a lot of information in short- term memory).

I have zero experience with hallucinogens, but my understanding is that they can help immensely with creativity but are really lousy for concentration (anyone care to chime in?).

Straight depressants don't really help me with any of the above, although I gather some people get more confident after drinking. I tend to go straight from "pleasantly unwound" to "I really need to get to sleep".

My experience with (legally prescribed) stimulants is that they're really pretty great for confidence and concentration. I also find that being slightly behind on sleep is less of an impediment to coding, and when I get into social settings I'm much more engaged and generally better at interacting with people.

The flip side is that I often can't sleep well, and I can rarely nap, so if I get too far behind I end up clicking around the web like a zombie all day. Paradoxically I'm a lot less _interested_ in socializing, even while I'm better at it. All told I would say it's neutral to negative on creativity.

I'm also not totally comfortable with what effect five, ten, or twenty years of daily use will have, and part of me really wants to maximize the portion of my life spent without taking a pill every day. So it's a mixed bag.

</comment><comment> lost-theory I think stimulants and amphetamines definitely have an effect on programming. Maybe it affects quantity more than quality, but Paul Erdos, one of the most prolific mathematician ever, comes to mind:

      His colleague Alfréd Rényi said, "a mathematician is a machine for turning
      coffee into theorems", and Erdos drank copious quantities. After 1971 he also
      took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham)
      bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month. Erdos won the
      bet, but complained that during his abstinence mathematics had been set back by
      a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled
      with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the bet, he
      promptly resumed his amphetamine use.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erdos#Personality>

</comment><comment><USER35> Define "better code."

There are medications that can influence focus, energy levels, productivity.

Problem is - we still don't really understand how the human brain works. The implications of introducing outside chemical stimuli can be horrendous. You may have noticed that big pharma companies are now focusing less on psych meds.

</comment><comment><USER36> Real evidence would require a double-blind test, but there is already such a large productivity difference between programmers you'd need a pretty large sample.

And what possible metric could you use to determine if the code is "better"? That's a really subjective thing.

</comment><comment><USER37> Recreational drugs can certainly be part of a happy, functional social life when used responsibly by people with non-addictive personality types. Hallucinogenic drugs can give profound and life changing insight on your mental processes, although YMMV. Coding while actually high will _not_ help you produce quality software.

</comment><comment><USER38> In regards to the original question, Yes. Contrary to some peoples' beliefs, experiencing new perspectives is good for learning, problem solving, living. Francis Crick supposedly discovered the DNA helix while in the alternate universe that is an LSD trip.

</comment><comment><USER39> Spiders not programmers, but definitely a graphic indication of ability to create - or not - detailed patterns while on various drugs <http://www.trinity.edu/jdunn/spiderdrugs.htm>

</comment><comment><USER40> Legend has it that Bill Joy created Vi while on LSD, or at least came up the the idea...

</comment><comment><USER41> I'd suggest looking at the book Imagine by Jonah Lehrer. It doesn't refer to coding specifically but he talks about ways to foster focus and inspiration. The author looks in to all ways to get to these states of mind including drugs.

</comment><comment><USER42> Drugs in programming, as well as other occupations, play an emotional role as much, or more so, than a cognitive role.

If Habit A helps a programmer who'd otherwise be sidelined by emotional problems stay in the chair, it may help that programmer be more productive than they would be otherwise. Of course, addictions don't help us face those problems in the long term, and often let them get worse.

All sorts of drug-related behaviors exist among programmers. Many shops full of brogrammers celebrate beer o' clock at 4pm. Other programmers sneak out alone or with friends at lunchtime to a bar or convience store to enjoy some alcoholic drink.

Many programmers abstain from intoxicants at work, except for the common stimulant caffeine. Others are hooked on opiates after being perscribed them for chronic or acute pain.

LSD, even the weak stuff common in North America from 1970 to 2001, is profoundly distracting. Years ago I ate a pinch of mushroom dust and found that 25 minutes later, I couldn't keep my eyes straight to even look at a computer screen. On the other hand, it's the only sacrament that's clinically proven to more create spirtual experiences than a placebo -- the ability of hallucinogens to create profound changes is practically unlimited.

Long before the statute of limitations, I once received a gift of several dexedrine pills from a friend diagnosed with ADHD. I took one on the the first day of a new project and felt euphoric. I wrote several hundred lines of beautiful code that would serve the nucleus of a system that was planned to replace critical functions of a production system that tens of thousands of people depend on every day.

A week later I had a more sobering experience. I was tasked with upgrading another production system, and with the dexedrine tab in me I felt cocky and by 9:08 am I'd deleted the master instance of the production system.

I got forbearance from my co-workers because we had a backup ready, and a tested restore procedure, so we had the system back in 13 minutes and soon proceeded with the upgrade.

That was a portent of things to come. The project I was working on had no project manager and a group of stakeholders that hated each other. I tried to code my way of a difficult interpersonal problem and ultimately it all came apart. A year later I deployed the new system with hardly any testing and of course it didn't work. After a week of month of daily patches, each bug fix breaking something else and spreading database corruption, we threw in the towel and reverted to the old system.

My contract didn't get renewed at that employer the next year, and that was the beginning of my being a "journeyman" as a mercenary maintenance programmer.

Perhaps I shouldn't blame two amphetamine pills for something that was so much bigger; but I like the story that the pills started the project out in a state of spiritual misalignment. Had I listened to people instead of coding, things might have worked out differently. I might even have quit and had an easier time getting my next job.

Some programmers adocate nootropic drugs like Piracetam but I think those are just as bad as speed. They mess up your reward pathways and make you feel like you're Tony Stark but they don't really make you a genius.

I for one am addicted to caffeine and find it quite difficult to stop, even though it screws up my digestion almost to the point where I throw up. It's terrible, but at least I'm better off than the alcoholic and dope addicts I've met.

<comment><USER43> Sobering reminder. Performance = output/time. so the timeframe is critical. its trivial to increase productivity in the "short term". in ways that are unsustainable (or: unhealthy). Exogenous modification of brain's chemistry is, however, rarely healthy, over long-time-horizons. At least given the evidence to date.

<comment><USER38> Yeah, but when you think about, everything you put in your mouth is an exogenous modification of, at least your body's chemistry, if not your brain's chemistry.

We live in a world of gray areas, not black and white.

<comment><USER43> _but when you think about it_

There's sense, and common sense. lots of things in nature will kill you if you eat them. lots of things in nature are unhealthy if you eat them in excess, over the long run. phschoactive drugs? are no different, even naturally occurring ones in food-like form. common sense and experience will illustrate that your body is ~self-regulating. if you f@ck with it (too much), it will f*ck with you back. =/

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This comes to my mind: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/22926987@N00/2198300/>

</comment><comment><USER45> Hearsay: During WWII the code breakers of Bletchley Park were provided with benzedrine tablets.

</comment><comment><USER35> The Jobs example was about vision, not "code".

</comment><comment><USER46> Yes.

</comment><comment><USER47> Which drugs? I've been writing an application for 4-5 years. It's my "learn a new language" project and it's pretty complex and I recently rewrote it and exclusively worked on it under an influence of one or another of things, but nothing like Adderall or Ritalin. I just finished the final version of this project in Go and it is far and away the most readable, performant version I've written. It's also the first version to properly protect against all types of races.

</comment><comment><USER48> Paul Erdos famously swore by their productiveness.

From Wikipedia:

His colleague Alfréd Rényi said, "a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems",[31] and Erdős drank copious quantities. (This quotation is often attributed incorrectly to Erdős,[32] but Erdős himself ascribed it to Rényi.[33]) After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month.[34] Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence mathematics had been set back by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine use.

</comment><comment><USER10> Who wouldathunk that doing LSD could turn someone into a complete asshole with no regard for an open culture and a penchant for superficial things which don't matter in the least (like one button devices)?</comment>


Ask HN: Anybody on Forrst? - <AUTHOR>

I'd love to get an invite. I applied for one on the site but am not holding my breath :( <comment><USER2> Well if you get in, how 'bout shoot me an invite? I think I made a mistake with the site I linked to for my "show us something you built" link... I'm a developer, not a designer, but I linked to a demo of something I'm working on... and it really shows that I'm NOT a designer... but maybe people look at it and think "WTF, this guy's a crap designer, not inviting him." Maybe I should have linked to the github page instead, so it was clear I meant it as a representation of my coding ability not my design ability!

Oh well... you win some, you lose some...

<comment><USER3> I can send you an invitation, drop me a line with your github.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If its full of potential clients looking for creative services, I would do it. It doesn't appear to be that.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have a couple of invitations, just drop me a line to my mail with your portfolio.

</comment><comment><USER5> I got my invite within a day or so of applying. Was a bit surprised at the time.

</comment><comment><USER6> I have 2 invites if anybody would like one just shoot me an email.</comment>


Programming Style Evolution in Perl - <AUTHOR> http://perliscope.blogspot.com/2010/01/programming-style-evolution-in-perl.html

<comment><USER2> Am I the only one who (1) doesn't see much wrong with the early examples other than weird/dumb whitespace and the lack of a comment explaining %tree, and (2) thinks that the latter examples really don't bring much to the table? I guess the Moose stuff is supposed to make it all clearer, but I just don't see it.

The complaints about the early examples are mostly straw men about variable naming and whitespace. The (comparatively) _hard_ part here is the understanding of how the data structure works, and that's something you could stick in a 6-7 line comment...

<comment><USER3> Nope. I'm right with you on this. Personally, I would go farther--I would say that Moose stuff is actually value negative.

For a simple thing like this, it makes perfect sense to use a simple procedural style and keep it in one file. The Moose version just complicates it beyond necessity. That's true of plenty of real-world programs, too.

<comment><USER4> _The Moose version just complicates it beyond necessity. That's true of plenty of real-world programs, too._

Learn what object-oriented programming is, then come back and tell us what you think.

<comment><USER5> For the example given? Nonsense.

It's very difficult to choose good examples for programming tutorials. In this case, the example was too small and self-contained to support modern Perl practices intended to help manage programs of hundreds of lines or more.

<comment><USER4> Dunno, I use Moose for my small scripts and find them to be significantly more maintainable than they would be if they were a bunch of code in a file. Hence MooseX::Runnable.

"Procedural programming" is a generally meaningless term (even less meaningful than "object-oriented programming"), but I find opportunities for abstraction even in small programs. The procedural makes it difficult to exploit these opportunities.

<comment><USER2> Again, that's kind of a straw man. All scripts are "just a bunch of code in a file". You're equating your organization using Moose to the _inability_ to organize code without it, which is silly.

You're also equating "abstration" with "good", which it isn't. You abstract for practical reasons, not for its own sake.

<comment><USER4> The abstraction makes it easy to reuse parts of your "one-off" scripts. For example, look at the number of CPAN modules/programs that implement some sort "restart when file is changed" functionality. There are a lot.

If you use MooseX::Runnable, though, you write an introspectable class instead of a script. Now a plugin can handle adding this functionality to your script in a structured way, and all you, the developer, have to do is say "mx-run +Restart::Auto My::Class" instead of implementing that functionality manually in your script.

Reuse is always good. Not writing code is even better.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Broken features aren't used - <AUTHOR> http://www.tedunangst.com/flak/post/broken-features-arent-used <comment><USER2> There is also the corollary that if you have a feature that no one uses then make sure it works before deciding that your users don't like it. A feature can be awesome in its desired form but if it's janky as hell or unreliable then it won't get used. If the implementation sucks it's not proof that the feature sucks.

<comment><USER3> The contrapositive would then be that if you find some really janky/unreliable feature that people are using, it must be pretty important to them and you should tread lightly when modifying it.

<comment><USER2> True. I should have specified that the volume of use for poorly implemented features is only not useful for determining that it is a bad feature. Lots of use indicates that it may be a great feature, or that it's not the feature you thought it was ([https://xkcd.com/1172/](https://xkcd.com/1172/))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Rather bizarre logic regarding unit tests. Surely the correct thing to do is to add telemetry to the application to get metrics on feature usage.

Of course this may not be practical for small utilities, like ls in the example. By the way ls -p (well, -F actually) was quite useful in the time before coloured output. I remember it being turned on by default on some systems I used way back when.

<comment><USER5> > Of course this may not be practical for small utilities

It's utterly undoable for utilities (small or not) even if you ignore the likely blowback à la W10 telemetry.

<comment><USER4> Lots of large applications have extensive telemetry without any significant blowback (as far as I'm aware). MS Office, Firefox, Chrome, ...

It's not undoable for utilities either, just the effort/benefit ratio probably doesn't justify it.

<comment><USER5> > Lots of large applications have extensive telemetry without any significant > blowback (as far as I'm aware). MS Office, Firefox, Chrome, ...

Not sure about the others, but AFAIK Firefox telemetry is only enabled (or at least sent to Mozilla) on pre-release channels.

> It's not undoable for utilities either

It's undoable in the sense that you'll be bundling more telemetry code than there is actual utility code, and downstream is going to remove it as soon as it lands.

<comment> vertex-four Firefox Health Report is on and shared with Mozilla by default on release builds - it prompts you about it on first run. There's additional telemetry in pre-release builds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Interestingly I use `ls -p` all the time, just to list directories:

         # ls for Directories.
         function lsd
         {
             ls -1p $* | grep '/$'
         }

Works nicely.

<comment><USER7> I use that or "ls -1 */."

<comment><USER8> Don't you need -d as well (as in "ls -d _/." or "ls -d _/")?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Tests prevent you from accidentally breaking features. If you want to deliberately break a feature to see whether anyone uses it, you can still do that. Surely it's better for this to be a conscious decision rather than random accident.

</comment><comment><USER10> I remember hearing about some feature being removed from OpenSSL not long ago after it was discovered that it couldn't have been used because... it didn't actually compile(?), if memory serves. Sorry, I don't remember all the details at the moment (it's almost 7am and I've been awake for ~36 hours).

I'm assuming that's what this is about but maybe not.

<comment><USER11> That was the notorious Dual_EC_DRGB which was backdoored by the NSA but was broken inside of OpenSSL without anyone noticing: [https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/12/22/the-openssl- soft...](https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/12/22/the-openssl-software-bug- that-saves-you-from-surveillance/)

</comment></comment><comment> martin-adams What about adding a deprecation notice and see who comes screaming.

<comment><USER12> Depends. You want only the contents of a directory when you ls it. Many scripts and programs depend on determinable output from utilities like ls, find, ps, etc.

<comment> martin-adams Very true. You could also add a suppression flag to keep scripts running. I think I'd rather have a script die from a deprecation notice than the feature being removed.

<comment><USER12> The thing is that it may not die, but instead use the warning as input.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a weird one, but it seems the point isn't "Broken features aren't used" but rather "unused features don't get maintained and tend to break" and also the point of the article isn't broken features but "on whether to remove features, and which ones to remove"

</comment><comment><USER14> Have just added alias ls="ls -p" to my .bashrc.

<comment><USER15> "ls -F" is more usual

<comment><USER16> I like "ls -Fl --color"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have used -F (a bit more extensive version of -p) since forever. Adding an alias from ls to "ls -F" is the first thing I do on a new system.

I surely can't be the only one, and I'm surprised that the article's author suggested it's never used.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is pretty much the only way drivers for very old hardware get removed from Linux, too. If it's been broken for years without any complaint...

</comment><comment><USER19> The only reliable way to find out who uses a feature is to release with it removed. And that is the problem.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the best startup pitches you've come across? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Good question! At the student level, I was quite impressed with the polish shown by the startups at Princeton's eLab. Here's a link to their demo day presentations. Including the "hangover-cure" Thrive+, which eventually did a Shark Tank deal.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-WfgaSzEKA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-WfgaSzEKA)

The one every is talking about today is of course, The Final Straw. Yes, its "just" a non-disposable drinking straw.

[http://www.core77.com/posts/77205/FinalStraw-This-Folding- Me...](http://www.core77.com/posts/77205/FinalStraw-This-Folding-Metal-Straw- is-Killing-It-on-Kickstarter)

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't know which startup pitches are the best, but here's a list of the worst ones to avoid at all cost :) [https://www.inc.com/matt-hunckler/startup- pitches-that-fail-...](https://www.inc.com/matt-hunckler/startup-pitches-that- fail-most-end-up-being-best-heres-why.html)

Hope this is helpful

</comment><comment><USER4> I'd say any pitch that has: \- A great, relatable story (emotion) \- The key features highlighting the value (reason)

You might also want to check out this: [http://startupfundraising.com/best- startup-pitches-of-all-ti...](http://startupfundraising.com/best-startup- pitches-of-all-time-videos/)

Let me know if this is of any help :) Cheers

<comment><AUTHOR> This is awesome man . Thanks :) . I'm also putting together a Telegram group - where founders can get their pitches reviewed by other founders. Feel free to hop on .

[https://t.me/joinchat/Gmq-Ew3dAdF7KuoZ2EZw1Q](https://t.me/joinchat/Gmq- Ew3dAdF7KuoZ2EZw1Q)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all the responses :) . I'm also putting together a Telegram group - where founders can get their pitches reviewed by other founders.

Feel free to hop on . [https://t.me/joinchat/Gmq- Ew3dAdF7KuoZ2EZw1Q](https://t.me/joinchat/Gmq-Ew3dAdF7KuoZ2EZw1Q)

</comment><comment><USER5> Excellent question, I usually resort to famous startups' decks for inspiration. You can fin some here for instance: [http://bestpitchdecks.com/](http://bestpitchdecks.com/)</comment>


What does "Ookaboo" mean? - <AUTHOR> http://about.ookaboo.com/a/about/why_the_name

<comment><AUTHOR> yo editors, I think I've got the right to pick out a juicy quote. (stands arms akimbo, looks up at you, has an impossible hair color)</comment>


Men who like cats are less likely to get a date, new study finds - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/22/world/cat-men-dating-study-scli-intl-scn-wellness/index.html <comment><USER2> so that explains it! but seriously it makes sense... I wouldn't be surprised if men who are pictured with e.g. a Pit Bull score higher

<comment><USER3> It's a news headline. It's far more likely to be a mistake or a misinterpretation (either deliberate or accidental).</comment></comment>


FPGA Design for Software Engineers - <AUTHOR> https://www.walknsqualk.com/post/014-tiny-fpga-bx/ <comment><USER2> Ten years ago, in grad school, I co-wrote a video conferencing module in VHDL [0]. I haven't touched HDLs since but here's what I remember very clearly from that project:

* It took > 3 minutes to compile our code.

* DMA made a huge performance difference once we figured it out.

* Realizing that we had to be one with the clock tick took a lot of time. Understanding synchronous based programming (if that's the term) was a paradigm shift for my partner and I.

* The utter delight when we got frames streaming across the wire. The performance (though over a LAN) was silky smooth and you could tell immediately this was different than the run-of-the-mill x86 desktop program.

[0] - [http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~sedwards/classes/2009/4840/repo...](http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~sedwards/classes/2009/4840/reports/RVD.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Your PDF link is a 404.

<comment><USER4> Maybe fixed? Not a 404 for me anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The problem of FPGAs is their proprietary nature, and Verilog/VHDL are far from the best languages. Gladly there is a number of open-source projects aiming to close this gap - Yosys[1], SymbiFlow[2], Chisel3[3]/FIRRTL[4]. Some time ago I suggested[5] different open source projects should unite and reuse the common intermediate language, akin to LLVM in many software development and analysis tools. From my point of view, FIRRTL is the best designed one, there is a huge problem of being implemented in Scala though, especially for C/C++/etc written projects. Hopefully, there will be more collaboration one day. Either reimplementation from scratch, e.g. in Rust or C++, or using Scala Native.

[1] [https://github.com/YosysHQ](https://github.com/YosysHQ)

[2] [https://symbiflow.github.io/](https://symbiflow.github.io/)

[3] [https://www.chisel-lang.org/](https://www.chisel-lang.org/)

[4] [https://www.chisel-lang.org/firrtl/](https://www.chisel-lang.org/firrtl/)

[5] [https://github.com/SymbiFlow/ideas/issues/19](https://github.com/SymbiFlow/ideas/issues/19)

<comment><USER6> If you're just learning, I'd _highly_ recommend that you stick to the toolchains supported by the manufacturer of the chip you're using. The various open source toolchains are very cool, but they have sharp edges and limitations that won't be obvious to a beginner. Many of them also focus on high-level synthesis, which isn't good for beginners, because you really need to learn the ins and outs of digital logic to be able to debug the output of a high-level synthesis tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I am curious, why System Verilog isn't mentioned in this article. It is much much better than Verilog and is used in industrial applications.

What I am missing are 2 topics: timing analysis and debugging. Static timing analysis and proper timing constrains are crucial for functional design. No tool can differentiate without constrains a slow signal signal toggling LED every 10 seconds from DDR3 533 MHz differential clock line.

Debugging FPGAS design cannot be avoided. Even if design works in simulator, it fails very often on real hardware. And then real fun starts. Xilinx has Integrates Logic Analyzer, Intel has Chipscope. Other vendors have their own similar tools. There are best FPGA designer's friends. But these tools can't be trusted, they break sometimes design in unexpected ways. Designer must develop gut feeling, what's happening. Synthesis of design with integrated logic analyzer takes much more time than regular one. Debugging cycles are insane long. Forgetting one signal can mean 2 hours waiting, so add them all at very beginning.

Writing hardware description language is easy part. As somebody already mentioned, everybody can count ones and zeros. First problem every software engineer encounters is simple: there is nothing to program. FPGA design is about describing your system with these ancient language. Second problem is using bulky toolchain. It's more than compile and debug buttons. In fact, there is huge machine processing code to bitstream. And it's complexity naturally takes time to understand, you don't need to be smart to be FPGA designer.

<comment><USER8> > I am curious, why System Verilog isn't mentioned in this article. It is much > much better than Verilog and is used in industrial applications.

Probably because it has very limited support in open source tooling, same as VHDL.

<comment><USER9> That is not true: Verilator is an excellent tool that compiles a large subset of synthesizable System Verilog to C++. Companies like Tesla use it and report speed ups of up to 40 compared to commercial tools. Similarly for vhdl there exists ghdl, which seems pretty feature complete and has an LLVM backend

<comment><USER8> Right, but these are simulators, while the article is looking for a language to both simulate and synthesize using open source tooling.

Yosys (which AFAIK is still the only non-toy open source synthesis tool) supports a _very_ small subset of SV, and does not support VHDL (at least in the open source version).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a pretty nice tutorial! My courses in FPGA design in school taught me a ton about 1) concurrency and 2) good state machine design. In modern backend web development these topics receive so little attention (from interviewing all the way to writing technical specs, I've rarely encountered these topics brought up explicitly) but are important. I was a bit hesitant for this guide to suggest using C++ since I tend to dislike mixing traditional languages with hardware languages but I realized it was just for testbenches, which is very reasonable (and even VHDL exposes things like `for` loops that are really only useful for testing and meaningless otherwise - sans some special cases[1]).

[1] You can abuse some imperative paradigms to implement things like Conway's Game of Life as a systolic array - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systolic_array](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systolic_array)

<comment><USER11> I disagree about for loops, you actually end up using these quite a lot in vhdl/verilog (with understanding about what logic you are going to end up with), if you want to do the same operation on multiple things:

      input [NUM_OF_MULTIPLIERS*32-1:0] a_in,
      input [NUM_OF_MULTIPLIERS*32-1:0] b_in,

      output [NUM_OF_MULTIPLIERS*64-1:0] mult_out

      reg [31:0] tmp_a, tmp_b;
      reg [63:0] tmp_mult;

      always @(*) begin
        mult_out = {(NUM_OF_MULTIPLIERS*64){1'b0}};
        for (i=0; i<NUM_OF_MULTIPLIERS; i+=1) begin
          tmp_a = a_in>>(i*32);
          tmp_b = b_in>>(i*32);
          tmp_mult = tmp_a*tmp_b;
          mult_out |= tmp_mult<<(i*64);
        end
      end

Would give you NUM_OF_MULTIPLIERS multipliers. If you wrote each multiply out, it would be more code and also wouldn't allow you to parametrize the code.

<comment><USER12> The key is that for loops are essentially pre-processor macros (like C) so they must have a fixed number of iterations known at compile time. So yes, you have a for loop, but it's very different to what you expect from a for loop in software.

<comment><USER13> Yes, the key is that loops are always unrolled so the number of iterations (number of copies of the hardware) is fixed. But whether the output of each iteration is used or not can be entire dynamic, potentially resulting in something very similar to a loop in software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wrote tetris in verilog that can output to VGA 10 years ago for a university project. The code is here: [https://github.com/jeremycw/tetris- verilog](https://github.com/jeremycw/tetris-verilog) for anyone interested. Comments are sparse but it might be interesting for anyone looking for some example code that's relatable.

</comment><comment><USER15> I recently got a TinyFPGA-BX, and have been slowly working through the tutorials. The amusing thing is that, for the actual applications I'm working on, a contemporary microcontroller can actually keep up just fine, and is easier for me to comprehend. Still, one of these days, a use will for an FPGA will crop up for which I'll be glad that I learned.

<comment><USER16> I picked up a TinyFPGA BX to make a VU-meter with strips of neopixels for a Halloween project (keystep+volca keytar with lots of reactive lights). You can do this with microcontrollers but I wanted to stretch myself and see if I could get a crazy-responsive 7-band meter working. I'm like 95% of the way there after several months learning verilog, testbenches, how a few modules off github work, the I2C protocol, and how to use a logic analyzer -- but I'm stuck trying to get a ADS1115 to do one-shot conversions reliably and probably have to implement the VU-meter with an arduino to get it done for Halloween. It's absolutely thrilling to be working with nanosecond-scale operations and totally parallel design though.

<comment> rough-sea Sounds like a fun project.

You might find this video helpful: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us2F8wAncw8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=us2F8wAncw8)

I think his design is very interesting, showing how to mix custom peripherals with picosoc so you can get very good response but also be able to program in C.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For people who are curious about FPGAs looking to dip their toes in, I'd highly recommend taking a look at cocotb [https://github.com/cocotb/cocotb](https://github.com/cocotb/cocotb)

It's kind of similar to verilator, in that it lets you write test benches for your designs in programming languages as opposed to HDL. Whereas verilator lets you write c++, cocotb is python based.

Both of these are probably best to take up after spending some time with an hdl, so you learn to think from a hardware perspective.

Also check out the zipcpu blog

</comment><comment><USER18> That's a good intro. What I always have to remind software guys who switch to FPGA design is remember each line you write is eventually going to end up in hardware.

That means when you write something you should have some understanding of the underlying hardware inferred. So is this going to give me some combinatorial logic, a register or a RAM? It's very easy to keep the software mindset of if it compiles then it's good.

</comment><comment><USER19> Great article, I wish the discussions around clocks had gone a bit more into how the tradeoff of pipelining vs longest operation ends up impacting designs. That and SRAM vs DRAM access latencies were the things that really connected the dots from how performance optimization on the software side of things is rooted in physical hardware limitations.

<comment><USER20> Might you or anyone else have some links or references you could share on these two topics? Was there a specific book that helped connect the dots that you could recommend?

<comment><USER21> Here's a greatly simplified example. Let's say you're trying to calculate y = mx + b in your FPGA. You want this operation to run at 100 MHz. Great, you write the code, synthesize and implement. Uh oh, the tools report that your design has failed timing analysis. What now?

Looking at the output of the tools, they'll say something like "x to y setup time: -2 ns slack". That means your desired operation can't meet the 10 ns clock period; it actually takes 12 ns for all the logic to ripple through. So now what?

You can break up the operation into two steps. Let's say the multiplication takes 8 ns, and the addition takes 4 ns. In timestep 1 you do z = mx, and pipeline c = b. Then in timestep 2 you do y = z + c. This way your operation takes two clock cycles = 20 ns total in terms of latency, but you can maintain a rate of 100 MHz.

Alternatively, you could choose a slower clock rate, say 75 MHz, and have a clock period of 13.333 ns. Then you would be able to meet the logic delay requirements in one cycle.

Again this is greatly simplified but it's similar to what one ends up doing in real FPGA designs. At the beginning you're usually trying to achieve maximum performance. Then later on you add more features to the FPGA, only to find that in doing so, you've caused an existing portion of the design to fail timing, so you need to twiddle things around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've been looking for something like this for a while. It's hard to break into FPGA design coming from a Software Engineering viewpoint, but I think it teaches how the machine REALLY works and can produce better Software developers.

<comment><USER23> I found Digital Design by Mano and Ciletti to be a nice introduction to the basic building blocks of digital circuits. Four weeks later I'm studying laplace transforms and transfer functions please send help.

<comment><USER4> Good on you, every idiot can count to one.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Widlar#Fairchild_Semicondu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Widlar#Fairchild_Semiconductor_\(1963%E2%80%931965\))

<comment><USER24> This audience is software developers. They will not have an appreciation for Widlar's genius.

<comment><USER25> Where do all the EEs hang out?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If any of you are interested in FPGA's after reading the article I highly recommend:

Introduction to Logic Circuits & Logic Design with VHDL by Brock J LaMeres

He was my instructor in college and the text itself is extremely helpful for all things FPGA.

</comment><comment> denton-scratch Thank you, that was interesting. I've programmed microcontrollers, but I've never tangled with ASICs or FPGAs. Too scared, I guess.

Your article has reduced my fear (and also, you mentioned the price of that Tiny FPGA board; at that price point, I don't mind too much if the magic smoke gets out).

</comment><comment><USER27> FPGAs are getting larger, more complex, and significantly harder to verify and debug [https://semiengineering.com/fpga-design-tradeoffs-getting- mo...](https://semiengineering.com/fpga-design-tradeoffs-getting-more- difficult/)

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm surprised that no one has brought up the Lattice IceStick. It's an oversized USB stick with an ice40 FPGA on it and it's the cheapest option I've seen.

<comment><USER29> The cheapest options with much larger amount of logic are: Upduino v2.1 ($20) and the never dying EP2C5T144 board ($10).

The latter requires a USB blaster dongle to program things so the Upduino has the upper hand IMO, especially because it also has very lightweight open source tools.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Wow this is a gift from God. I was doing fpga for my CV and this just made my life a lot easier

</comment><comment><USER31> Cool! Back in college we used fpgas with verilog! The labs always took some finagling to get working, but still very fun!

</comment><comment><USER32> Small error in the article: 200*10e6 is 2GHz, not 200MHz.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha, good eye. corrected to 1e6 :)

<comment><USER33> Nice work. FPGA design appears to be _very_ similar to GPU shader programming. First time I've read anything about FPGA design that connected. Usually FPGA stories get lost in data flow jargon and I learn nothing.

<comment><USER7> There is no programming in FPGA at all. You describe your hardware using hardware description languages like VHDL or Verilog.

<comment><USER34> Then no programming exists at all. When writing a C code you are describing a program that runs on the C abstract machine. The same thing holds for all "programming" languages.

<comment><USER7> Sorry, I am not ready for philosophical discussion. We can take definition from Wikipedia: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_programming](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_programming) Programming involves code execution on computer. There is no computer in FPGA.

<comment><USER34> Then why did you start the discussion? An FPGA is a computer just as well as any CPU.

<comment><USER7> Technically FPGA is a piece of memory. The functionality of the FPGA device depends how the bits in this memory are set. Size of this memory is constant This information is not public, brave hackers are working hard to reverse engineer this. You can make a CPU in FPGA, no way for the opposite performance wise. Complex simulation with couple 4k resolution pictures takes days.

Edit: the people here are decent enough to start a discussion.

<comment><USER34> Yes an FPGA is a different computer then a CPU. It's still a computer though. This is the definition of a computer:

> An electronic device for storing and processing data, typically in binary > form, according to instructions given to it in a variable program. [1]

It fits an FPGA perfectly.

[1] [https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/computer](https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/computer)

<comment><USER7> There is a term "variable program" in your link. When you add peripherals to the chip on the printed circuit board it looses flexibility very fast. The whole system is made to very specific task. But yes, you convinced me that FPGA might be treated as a computer in an extreme case.

<comment><USER34> FPGA accepts "variable program"s. What you are talking about are peripherals. A CPU with certain peripherals can also be completely inflexible. That is completely outside the scope of what a CPU or an FPGA are though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> little nitpick:

it's "combinational circuits", not "combinatorial" (that's whole another part of math)

<comment><USER13> Do you have a reference for that? I'm genuinely curious since both terms are used in literature.

<comment><USER35> "combinatorial" was used predominantly in 1970s books for whatever reason.

In most of contemporary books and university courses "combinational" is used and with a note that you should not confuse it with "combinatorics" and "combinatory logic"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Good reference!

</comment><comment><USER37> True</comment>


Open Book Finances - <AUTHOR> http://lincolnloop.com/blog/2012/may/21/open-book-finances/

<comment><USER2> The benefits of open book finances is that everyone is aware of how well/bad the company is doing.

Not the usual cloak and dagger hush hush style, where no-one is aware they may actually be close to bankruptcy or that the actual money earner is product B not the glorified Product "Novergoingtowork".

Or that hardware cost was 1% of expenditure while salaries was 70% of which pointless meetings accounted for 30%...

Good idea. Open and honesty prevails. Now who dares opening their books publicly? To their customers and competitors...

<comment><USER3> Interesting thought experiment. Say I open the company books, maybe with some simple replacement -- "dev1" instead of "jane doe" and so on, as well as "vendorN", "customerN", ", etc., and maybe some sanitizing of the notes about the expenditures, (e.g. 10 servers instead of "inventory spec: 10 servers, cpu:x, mem:y").

What does that get me?

* Vendors can come to me and say "look you spend this much, we can cut that by 20%"

* customers relying on me can see I won't be going out of business soon (hopefully), and put more faith and $ into my product

* customers curious about why it costs so much to do $foo, can see the expenses.

* forces you to not over-aggrandize yourself

* others? (please chime in)

How does it hurt me?

* employee poaching becomes easier

* customers can start using this to lower thier costs and eat away at your margin

* a bad week/month can scare away customers

* vendors may try to collude and gouge you

* misunderstandings from the peanut gallery may get you a bad rep

So the single best feature I see from doing it, compared to the risks, is vendor competition becomes easier.

A question since I don't know - is there a small business/startup oriented RFP site/service that gets you the same sort of competition amongst vendors?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've brought this idea up on occasion with one of my inlaws who runs a small business, nothing sexy but it makes money and is profitable and growing. He hates the idea, when I ask why he responds with "it's just not how it's done" I think it's a shame though as it is a family business with a few employees and I recon they would find those employees would feel much more empowered to see the business do well and feel more a part of it. It is after all their work as well which goes into make the business grow.

</comment><comment><USER5> I believe Apple tried this in its early years, some time after Jobs returned from India and prior to his ouster, and that it didn't work so well. There were problems with employees comparing salaries and feeling slighted at pay differences and whatnot.

I just recall reading that in one of the books about Jobs and Apple, but don't recall the details or which book. Anyone else more familiar with this episode in Apple's history?

<comment><AUTHOR> Everybody sets their own pay, so I don't think we run the same risk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is very important in startups (probably all size companies, but I've never worked at a xx,xxx person scale company to say).

Everyone wants to know this info and so if you don't share it explicitly someone has to construct an excel sheet or something every couple of weeks to send to the team. Why pay someone to do that when your interested coworkers can do it themselves?

Also, it makes things like giving everyone a company credit card much easier to manage - if Bob can see what Alice is buying on her card (and vice versa) it keeps everyone honest.

</comment><comment><USER7> How do you prevent against sabotage/espionage?

One benefit of hidden finances is that someone new employee can't come in, run analysis on your books, then leave (while courting big $$) and make it themselves (and maybe poach key people who they know aren't asking for their fair value in pay).

There is a popular saying that someone's checkbook embodies their priorities... if this is the case, opening your finances would basically completely reveal your strategies and tactics. Why is Apple so secretive about their supply chain?

<comment><AUTHOR> We make our workplace and compensation such that nobody would want to leave. We have almost no turnover.

The only reason you leave is because you think you could do better or make more money. As it stands, people here would rather see Lincoln Loop do better and make more money (which directly benefits them) than try to start their own company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Another upside is you end up with a company full of auditors so its unlikely there is going to be much funny business going on.</comment>


XKCD provides a better radiation chart - <AUTHOR> http://www.xkcd.com/radiation/

<comment><USER2> While this is much, much better than what the (german) media has on this, I still miss the one thing I would really want: To actually know what this means for the people living near the plant, or just somewhere in Japan. Will everyone living under 10km away get cancer and die? Will eastern Japan have to be evacuated? Will nothing change at all, except for a small rise in cancer rates for people who live next to the plant?

<comment><USER3> _Will nothing change at all, except for a small rise in cancer rates for people who live next to the plant?_

Nothing will change at all, even for people who live right next to the plant.

Someone sitting at the front gate of the plant for the past week would have absorbed approximately 100 mSv of radiation. This is a significant amount -- equal to the recommended annual limit for radiation workers -- but too low to cause radiation sickness (symptoms of acute radiation sickness start at between 250 and 500 mSv).

The cancer risk from radiation is roughly 0.01 cancers per Sievert, so this individual would have a 0.1% increase in his chance of getting cancer. People living further away would naturally have even lower probabilities of developing cancer.

Based on the population density of the surrounding area, there is a low probability of _any_ cancers being caused by the Fukushima nuclear incidents, _even if the residents had not been evacuated_.

(Does this mean that the residents should not have been evacuated? No. It means that the evacuations were a precautionary measure to keep them safe in case the situation got worse than it has in fact gotten.)

<comment><USER4> What about the amount from those TSA machines under normal operation and the amount apparently emitted by mistake recently?

<comment><AUTHOR> It would have been helpful to get that number on that chart - just because it would help dispel bad information about the backscatter x-rays as well. The regular amount of radiation emitted by one of those machines is 0.1µSv (according to the chart - equivalent to eating a banana). The supposed mistake would have made the emissions 10 times higher (couldn't find a real µSv reading, just the 10x statement[1]) which would be 1µSv, or the same as using a CRT monitor for a year.

[1] [http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/03/tsa-radiation- test-...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/03/tsa-radiation-test- bungling/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For some reason the traditional media won't show anything nearly as clear as that - it's needed for understanding the proportions. Good job, Randall!

</comment><comment><USER6> Sorry, OT, but this really makes me appreciate the readability of bitmapped Monaco. I find it unfortunate that Mac OS X has such crappy support for bitmapped fonts in general...</comment>