Practical Data Ethics - <AUTHOR> http://ethics.fast.ai <comment><USER2> Fast.ai really is a one stop shop for all things related to being a deep learning practitioner.

I used to manage a deep learning team, concentrated on using TensorFlow properly, etc. I am all but retired now so I am making the switch to using the fastai libraries and materials. Since I am now a "gentleman scientist" (being retired) I still enjoy projects and some research, but I am also cutting out all unnecessary time wasting activities to concentrate on things that most fascinate me.

Off topic, but I think this is good general advice: try to not follow the crowd, but rather, go for what most resonates with who you are, where you want to steer your career, etc.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for your insight, I appreciate it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a very important topic given how mainstream AI and ML solutions are getting. Also that a lot of Bootcamps are just churning out high potent Data Scientists, This is an essential area of discussion and everyone working in Tech should be aware of! I'm glad and thankful to Jeremy and Rachel for their work on this and fastai in general.

<comment><USER5> I tend to think the opposite trend is occuring, for every IBM who gets out of human recognition, you have 10 ClearView AI's jumping at the chance to get any contract they can. Without meaningful regulation, nothing will change; expecting people to quit their jobs (and ability to provide for their partner and children) because of an ethics video series seems like a hollow solution

<comment><USER6> > _expecting people to quit their jobs (and ability to provide for their > partner and children) because of an ethics video series seems like a hollow > solution_

Why are you making straw man arguments? The person you're replying to didn't state or imply such an expectation, not did the OP.

In fact, meaningful regulation is discussed at length in the course. People involved in technology policy are one of the audiences that it's designed for.

<comment><USER5> I think the idea of this being an "area of discussion" is disingenuous, as those who consume the course (employees/creators of the software), have very little control over the ethics of AI. There will always be another coder who just graduated and looking to make money. I just disagree on the premise that having some engineers learn ethics can meaningfully change the state of things

<comment><USER7> Is there a quantity/critical mass of engineers who learned ethics that can meaningfully change the state of things?

If not, who can change the state of things?

<comment><USER5> The people funding massive amounts of development? That was my point in relation to ClearviewAI, as long as we allow bad actors, we will have a negative state of things. There will always be someone else out there to take new contracts because money talks. If these projects were illegal, corporations would avoid them.

The way to change the state of things would be to "write your congressman" (I really enjoy Sorry To Bother You's take on this idea). Basically we're fucked in terms of expecting ethical uses of AI

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I found this video, (linked as required reading for lesson 2), really interesting:

> 21 fairness definitions and their politics

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

It feels accessible to people with stats 101 under their belt, and pays a lot of attention to the human factors involved in these problems.

<comment><USER6> Arvind Narayanan, who did that video, is amazing. It's astonishing how he's achieved such expertise in computer science, machine learning, cryptocurrency, and technology policy. [https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~arvindn/](https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~arvindn/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's the announcement of the new course this submission links to: [https://www.fast.ai/2020/08/19/data- ethics/](https://www.fast.ai/2020/08/19/data-ethics/)

<comment><USER6> ...and this is the syllabus: [http://ethics.fast.ai/syllabus/](http://ethics.fast.ai/syllabus/)

</comment></comment><comment> site-packages1 I do like fast.ai for a lot of things. Their video production is very, very lacking though. I've tried to watch some of their DL courses and really they're about as good as some stogy old non-tech savvy professor attempting to make an instructional video. Lots of echo, sound coming in an out, basically filmed from the back of an auditorium, etc. I can't comment as much on the content as it was hard to get through. Some MIT OCW courses are similar. But from the fast ai content I've read, it's very good.

An example of well done video is an Andrew Ng Coursers course. Great sound, great pacing, easy to follow like you're on a zoom call with him directly, etc.

<comment><USER6> That's all fixed for this year's courses. (This is the first of this year's courses to be released.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I always find it fascinating that immoral cultures invented "ethics" because they created economic systems that were inherently immoral and needed a way to rationalize the hurtful actions the system they created now requires them to take.

<comment><USER11> What defines an "immoral culture"? Wouldn't defining that concept require a notion of ethics?

<comment><USER12> Arguably every culture is immoral to some degree; you can't reach perfection.

However, GP has a point: people follow incentives like water flows downhill. Most talk about ethics exists to highlight situations where economic incentives make people do immoral things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Could who watched it give a review of what it covers?

There's a lot of ethics lectures that follow a formula of 1) show (usually slightly misleading) news stories of bad outcomes from automation / AI like the Target diaper story, 2) say that these things are a problem and we need to think more when designing this software.

I was wondering which of these videos cover more concrete guidance or solutions, so I can focus my viewing.

<comment><USER6> You can see the syllabus: [http://ethics.fast.ai/syllabus/](http://ethics.fast.ai/syllabus/) .

There's a free book chapter that covers a subset of the material, so you might that a more focused approach if that's what you're looking for: [https://github.com/fastai/fastbook/blob/master/03_ethics.ipy...](https://github.com/fastai/fastbook/blob/master/03_ethics.ipynb)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Fastai is awesome. I had no experience with deep learning a couple weeks ago, but using their resources, I made cryptocurrency prediction software that I am testing now.

I'm definitely not a quant, but I could build this quickly. Because of this, I think deep learning will truly be commoditized in a short time.

</comment><comment><USER15> > Lesson 6: Algorithmic Colonialism

What a choice of words.

<comment><USER16> Why is that? > "When corporations from one country develop and deploy technology in many other countries, extracting data and profits, often with little awareness of local cultural issues, a number of ethical issues can arise"

Seems like it is drawing comparison to power dynamics, and resource flows of historical Colonial systems, and practices for handling data, and providing Algorithmic services in countries with a colonial history.

<comment><USER15> Because colonialism is about a mindset in the first place. Here, you assign a mindset where it might not exist. Which is ridiculous.</comment></comment></comment>


Flipkart raises $1B from Tencent and Microsoft - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-20/flipkart-said-to-raise-1-billion-with-plans-for-1-billion-more <comment><AUTHOR> One thing I have seen Indian startups do is try to get every pennny from customers at the cost of quality of services.

This happened to Flipkart as well. They were the poster child of Indian startup scene followed by Snapdeal and others. Some years back their services started deteriorating and at the same time Amazon entered Indian e-commerce scene. Now amazon have taken most of their market share by being best at customer service and support. Flipkart keeps fooling customers.</comment>


Switching from jQuery Mobile to Twitter Bootstrap - <AUTHOR> http://blog.pamelafox.org/2011/09/switching-from-jquery-mobile-to-twitter.html <comment><USER2> Note: I wrote this nearly a year ago, not sure why it's popped up today. Since then, both Bootstrap and jQuery Mobile have improved. I encourage you to consider both options (amongst a host of others, some of which I overviewed in this talk - <http://mobile-app-strategy.appspot.com/>) and pick what works best for you. :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> Back in January 2011, I built a little website (<http://www.airportgasfinder.com>) to help people find gas stations near airports, so they wouldn't have to worry about refueling rental cars on the way back to the airport. I built it on Rails 3.0, with jQuery Mobile for the mobile interface.

I let the site go dormant for a while, but resurrected it recently. When I rebuilt it, I used Bootstrap for the UI and decided to rip out jQM in favor of Bootstrap's responsive features. It took me a lot less time to build the new mobile UI, it feels faster and less clunky, and it has reduced my workload going forward, since I no longer have to maintain parallel sets of views (e.g. index.html.haml and index.mobile.haml).

I cannot imagine ever using jQM for another project.

<comment><USER4> This is a really neat idea. I'm never sure how close to the airport I should be to refuel- too far out and it might not be "full" enough for return, but too close and you might miss the last gas station!

<comment><USER3> I got the idea after my girlfriend and I went to Maui for Christmas. I had never been there before, and had no idea where I should get gas on our way back to the airport. Like you said, too close and you might miss the last station. Plus, I was already concerned about missing our flight. The last thing I needed was the extra stress of watching for gas.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is this really front page because it has 2 buzz words in it? The article is non-substantive and attempts to compare a mobile app framework with a css toolkit.

<comment><USER6> Your experience is showing ;)!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This seems like a superficial dive. JQM has a ton of things Bootstrap doesn't, like separate pages based around div tags, hierarchical navigation and app- like transitions between those pages.

Not disagreeing with most of the points raised, but I don't think its the full story.

<comment><USER8> Exactly - these are two different tools with two different purposes. Glad he could opt for the TBS responsive stuff in this case but it's misleading in general.

<comment><USER2> :%s/he/she :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We're contemplating this as well but I'm worried about how many little gotchas we'll have to rebuild from scratch to get similar support on many different mobile browsers.

</comment><comment><USER10> This might work well for a single page site, but one of jqm's features is to out every page into divs and have the JavaScript deal with the page transitions. I'm wondering how that would be replicated using bootstrap. I love bootstrap and it only takes a few minutes to make it look distinctive from other tb apps. I also love how jqm does much of the tedious work in building mobile friendly apps.

<comment><USER2> @hnriot - I responded to a similar comment above, see <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4339604>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> You can always use Bootstrap for scaffolding (the grid is the coolest thing), and use jQM for interface elements and rest of the stuff. They are two different tools with different goals, just that several bits (or "features") of them overlap.

<comment><USER12> Have you been successful in combining these tools? I am trying to use bootstrap (or Zurb Foundation for that matter) to accomplish the responsive layout, and use jQM to achieve swipe functionality, transitions, etc.

The 2 just don't play well together. When I Include all the CSS and JS files Bootstrap needs to perform all of it's functions, and then include the jQM CSS and JS file - much of the bootstrap functionality breaks or layouts no longer look acceptable.

I have been searching everywhere for a working example/solution for combining jQM's functionality into a truly responsive layout framework! Any guidance would be appreciated.</comment></comment>


Tested investment strategy for amazing returns(upto 40% CAGR) in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rbhatia46/Greenblatt-Magic-Formula-Value-Investing <comment><AUTHOR> Disclaimer - This is purely for educational and research purposes, I am in no way responsible for any monetary loss/gain you make using this, I highly encourage you to view this as a learning resource and not as an investment advice.</comment>


What Google Learned from Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html <comment><USER2> Something I always wish existed was a recruiting platform that hired a team as a whole. Today it's pretty much just a recruiter coming to me, and saying "Hey wanna change the future at xyz?" where the only criteria that I might work is based on my skill set on my resume. Instead i'd rather fill out a survey, and get matched with some people I would probably work really well with. Maybe you hack together for a weekend. Once your team has a set of strengths and weakness, and a price, companies can bid, and the team as a whole judges where to go.

I think how well a team works together is sometimes more important then how much knowledge you may have of some arcane framework.

<comment><USER3> Just a couple of anecdotes: one thing I've seeing in 2 diff companies now is the new CTO bringing in their posse. It not only didn't work (for the CTO and his gang), it also undermined the rest of the company, who immediately felt "left out".

I've also watched an entire frontend team quit and go work at a different company because, well - they were a pretty well-knit team, but more loyal to each other than to the company...

<comment><USER4> I think management "teams" are a completely different beast to "regular" teams that are mostly individual contributors. I think it would only really be smart to hire a "regular" team as a unit.

<comment><USER3> The frontend team case in point didn't actually have any managers. That's complicated because what you're buying there is a group of people with already-set practices and that works well together - if you're not careful, you'll end up with a "silo" that just doesn't communicate with the rest of the company.

That kind of thing happens when a big company acquires a small startup, for instance (and it's the main reason I always see acquisitions/acquihires failing spectacularly) - again, all anedoctal...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Even if it turns out this is a puff piece supplied to the Times by Google, it's still a very well written and insightful article explaining a bit of why psychological safety is critical for teams to perform optimally. It's probably my favorite Google-related article this year, actually. I'd much prefer reading about companies trying to improve their working environments than about whatever incremental new product feature they're launching.

<comment><USER6> I love the topic and like this particular article. Having said that, this still feels like a puff piece. The notion of psychological safety certainly matters but not always. My experience is it matters less when you have teams made up more of "thinkers" (vs "feelers"). Also matters less when the team has a clear vision and set of requirements and just needs to adapt their past expertise to minor variations in new problem. Sometimes teams are more efficient and innovative when truth wins over harmony. Depends on team's purpose, etc. Let me be clear, I prefer the more psychologically safe mode of group work. Yet it's still pretty clear to me that hinders, not helps, in plenty of cases.

<comment><USER6> Good points, these replies. I think it is fair to question what truth/harmony we are talking about. The "truth vs harmony" dichotomy has become a bit loaded especially with all the folks invoking truth as a license to be jerky intellectual bullies.

I definitely don't mean that. More like, there are always tradeoffs. There is cost/benefit in being truthy just as there is cost/benefit in being harmonious. Each has it's own type and you get to choose which make more sense for the situation, team, etc.

I don't think you can "have it all" so much as you can choose to set the tradeoff point somewhere in the middle rather than at the extremes. For example, in the Rust code of conduct example, it sounds like they have decided they want a nice mix. This will cost them though. Maybe the cost is as small sending $some_multiplier_above_1 the amount of emails between the team because things are worded more indirectly to not offend and therefore more disambiguation has to take place. If their team instead committed to be as direct as possible, the could spend less time on follow up emails but now they'd probably turn of or drive away some good folks from the team who decided they didn't like all the directness and send of urgency.

Personally, I like a nice mix. I think it is just worth being clear with myself it is a mix and not two independent things where you can have an infinite supply of each.

<comment><USER7> Where are you getting this "harmony" junk? Maybe you're right, there is a tug of war between truth vs harmony, for some definition of 'harmony'. But who's calling for something called 'harmony'?

I believe you may be misunderstanding something about the idea of psychological safety. I can't think of any definition of "harmony" that has anything to do with psychological safety.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> They used 'meeting behavior' to predict team performance. And not in the way you would expect. Its not about productivity in the team meetings. Its about feeling safe, respected, and sharing the load.

Makes some sense. Team meetings are not where anything gets done after all. If team members are engaged with their peers, they may invest in team goals and perform better.

Issue: they correlated team meeting metrics (talking time; socialization time vs problem solving time etc) with team success at achieving goals. They could have used behavior outside the meetings (communications per day; social interactions after work) and predicted successful teams that way. It doesn't mean that "Meetings that go like this indicates good teams"? I.e. changing your team meetings to look like what good teams do, may not improve your team at all. That might be put under 'cargo cult management'.

<comment><USER9> "Its about feeling safe, respected, and sharing the load."

You know, I think it's worth pointing something out about the word "safe" given the sense it has been used in lately. In this case, it means people feel _safe to express dissent_. Not "safe from dissent", as the term is often used nowadays.

Of course the two usages shouldn't be overlapping much anyhow. It shouldn't surprise anyone that a team where people actually attack each other's personal identities is not going to be very effective! But it's still worth pointing out the two very different ways the term can be used, and important not to accidentally substitute one definition for the other.

<comment><USER10> Something the Recurse Center also put a lot of work into is making it safe to express lack of understanding/knowledge. There's a huge difference between a meeting where someone feels able to say "I'm totally lost, can we rewind" and one where they just quietly panic.

That's somewhat in tension with being able to express dissent, in that being able to dissent constructively requires both social skill and an underlying environment of trust.

It's easy to cultivate only one of those (eg most OS mailing lists choose dissent) but cultivating both is harder and I haven't seen it ever happen by accident - all the communities that come to mind are ones that direct a lot of attention and effort to community structure and expectations.

<comment><USER11> The Recurse Center's social rules are really well thought-out. After I learned about them, I started to see how people who violate the "no feigning surprise" rule can make team members feel excluded and belittled, often unintentionally. This includes myself, and have since changed my behavior.

I feel the "social rules" are quite valuable both inside and outside the workplace. I wish more employers and groups practiced them: [https://www.recurse.com/manual#sec- environment](https://www.recurse.com/manual#sec-environment)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'd be willing to bet that Sakaguchi has read "The 5 dysfunctions of a team" [1]. One of my favorite books about how people jell together in groups.

Like him I was also in a military setting before I became a programmer. I haven't yet experienced the same level of engagement and team cohesion outside of the military but I believe that the answers are to be found in the kinds of insights that studies like this uncover.

[1] [http://www.tablegroup.com/books/dysfunctions](http://www.tablegroup.com/books/dysfunctions)

 _edit_ formatting

<comment><USER13> @boothead: As somebody who's never been in the military (drafting for military service was suspended just before my number came up) I'm curious. Does the level of engagement and team cohesion you speak of only occur in, or afterwards derive from, combat situations, or would it theoretically be possible to recreate these levels outside a military context as well?

<comment><USER14> I think the key element is 'shared hardship'. Personally, I didn't see combat, but military life in general sucks; doing a lot of stupid stuff at the whim of others. I think you see this in other areas of life as well, sports teams, project teams meeting tight deadlines, etc...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> They tested group IQ on the brainstorming tasks!

So they took wastly (40% worse) suboptimal method of groupwork [1], which emphasizes only communication abilities and then they try to infer general claims from that.

Of course they will find that "emotional senitivity" makes "teams" that work in such conditions better.

And of course they won't find "common patterns for successful teams" in their meetings because, basically, meetings are not where decisions are made.

What a clueless research.

[1] [http://observer.com/2015/05/brainstorming-does-not- work/](http://observer.com/2015/05/brainstorming-does-not-work/)

<comment><USER16> The linked article doesn't support your claim that brainstorming "emphasizes only communication abilities"; it only claims that brainstorming in groups is a worse way to generate ideas than to have people generate ideas individually & then combine them.

<comment><USER15> Brainstorming is a social activity, with heavy use of communication abilities of ever participant.

Would not you agree?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This Woolley paper [0] cited in the article gives three reasons for effective teams. The NYT only tells you two behaviors. True enough. The third is not a behavior. It is "the proportion of females in the group".

Paper says "Finally, c was positively and significantly correlated with the proportion of females in the group (r = 0.23, P = 0.007). However, this result appears to be largely mediated by social sensitivity (Sobelz = 1.93, P = 0.03), because (consistent with previous research) women in our sample scored better on the social sensitivity measure than men [t(441) = 3.42, P = 0.001]. In a regression analysis with the groups for which all three variables (social sensitivity, speaking turn variance, and percent female) were available, all had similar predictive power for c, although only social sensitivity reached statistical significance (b = 0.33, P = 0.05)."

[0] [https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ab/Salon/research/Woolley_et_al_Scie...](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~ab/Salon/research/Woolley_et_al_Science_2010-2.pdf)

<comment><USER18> It seems to make sense to not cite that as an additional factor, given that it is almost fully mediated by one of the factors already listed. There is an interesting observation in here that women have on average higher social sensitivity, though it looks like measuring social sensitivity directly in job interviews and other team building processes is just more effective than looking at gender (though a bit harder to do, I would guess).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Oh this is good.

Some conclusions:

\- Teams and focusing on team cohesion, team building, and team performance is far more important than individual performance.

\- Understanding psychology (of individuals, of individuals in teams, and of organizations) is critical for making companies work. "Psych Safety" amounts to the foundation of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, as but one example.

This stuff is important. Build good teams, don't just hire good individuals.

</comment><comment><USER20> It is interesting that Agile movement has in general enshrined idea of time boxed team meetings for software teams. And in general - we engineers are wary of long meetings.

And yet - most of us measure ourselves, how we are performing in a team by things that happen in team meetings(according to the article anyway):

1\. Is idea my ideas heard and debated before being accepted/rejected?

2\. Do I get opportunity to present my idea at all.

A time boxed meeting does not by nature leave room for idle chit-chat or from my experience even opportunity to hear everyone's thoughts. Part of the problem of course is, meeting rooms in lot of companies are a scarce resource, so you better clear out after time is out.

This is really curious because we hate meetings and yet we have adopted them in a sort of haphazard way which creates more problems than solves.

<comment><USER21> Agile standups are designed to give everyone a minute to share info, not debate or reject anything. Debate is for targeted follow-up meetings.

<comment><USER20> I didn't mean standups as meetings. I think standup is a good idea as it is and for most teams it lasts hardly more than 5-7 minutes (and some teams have moved it to emails).

I meant 20-30 minute meetings that teams typically have, like retrospective or something.

But I was not talking about Agile per-se. I meant in general most meetings of software teams are time boxed nowadays- no matter which development methodology they are following. I am also not criticizing time boxed meetings since I have no data to back that claim.

But I am just curious, what if as a rule - teams decided to have fewer meetings but meeting last as long as they have to not because someone is knocking on the door for next slot. Will it make things easier?

<comment> squeaky-clean The retrospective and sprint planning are supposed to be much longer than that, and not timeboxed, as far as I know.

Also one of the core ideas of Agile is adapting to suit your team, rather than following some process from a book as if it were written in stone. If time limits on certain meetings are causing your team more grief than they help, remove the timeboxes! Talk to your team and see what they think, that's what the retrospective is meant for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The 3 word summary I infer is "egalitarian golden rule." If you work with people that are respectful, that listen, that care about you as a person, you're far more likely to work hard and be successful both individually and as a team.

</comment><comment><USER23> "But the kinds of people who work at Google are often the ones who became software engineers because they wanted to avoid talking about feelings in the first place."

Problematic stab at engineers. I don't think people go into software because they prefer computers to humans.

<comment><USER24> It's a broad stereotype, but I don't think it's entirely wrong. My social awkwardness definitely contributed to my spending more time on the PC as a kid, and that got me excited about computers.

I've since improved my social skills a ton, but it's natural to expect different psychological trends in a population of engineers than in, say, people who go into sales.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> There is a concept in Japanese culture, Wa (和), or "group harmony" that seems to nicely complement ruminations on "collective intelligence". Perhaps most interesting is how fragile the cohesion really is, a single person, a single sentiment expressed poorly even, is enough to break the spell.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa_%28Japanese_culture%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wa_%28Japanese_culture%29)

<comment><USER26> I really liked your point and the Wikipedia link. Group harmony is the essence of the piece. Wa succinctly captures the point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Nobody has done more research on this than the US Military, specifically the special operations community.

The key takeaways that you find in very effective SOF teams are:

1\. Clear and accepted authority chain (Top guy _earned_ their place at the top)

2\. Candid and constant communication/feedback between all members

3\. A clearly defined, proven effective and specialized role for every member with each member knowing how each others role plays together

4\. Common sense of purpose (Objective etc...)

5\. Common experience (BUD/s, Q, FTC etc...)

If you have all of those then pretty much everything else falls into place. Note also that this has no requirement for everyone to being an "A" personality or whatever and has basically no bearing on what they do outside of work. Those aspects can help, but they can equally hurt depending on the egos involved.

<comment><USER28> These are great qualities for making a team which follows orders and makes field decisions within a extremely narrow scope.

These are terrible qualities for teams who are self-assigned, entrepreneurial, and have to disrupt standard accepted behaviors in order to create new products.

For example in Number 4: How does this work when the teams assignment is to come up with an objective, rather than just have one assigned to them.

Answer: They would splinter and struggle because they are following a chain of command.

Which follows to Number 1: To make products you need a diverse set of leaders who share authority in varying decisions, not a chain of people who wrongly think themselves to be universal experts. This does require Number 3, but in a different cultural fashion that isn't so rigidly hierarchical.

Basically these are great for teams who just take commands from the actual guy makes the decisions. Google and the NYT are interested in the teams that make decisions. I think the modern workplace is actually trying to UNDO these very narrow minded and ultimately damaging behaviors and their misapplication to the creation process.

<comment><USER27> No offense but I don't think you understand Special Operations. You are describing how conventional forces largely operate.

SOF on the other hand are typically given a problem and asked to figure out a solution. Watch Charlie Wilson's war or read any of the books about the weeks after 9/11 in Afghanistan as a good example of this in practice.

 _For example in Number 4: How does this work when the teams assignment is to come up with an objective, rather than just have one assigned to them._

 _Answer: They would splinter and struggle because they are following a chain of command._

This is completely wrong. In fact the majority of the problems SOF are given are within the domain of objective identification for effects. When problems come down, everyone works together equally (back to the communication piece) to come up with a solution just like we do with startups. When it's time to execute, you execute within that chain and take direction based on your role.

 _Basically these are great for teams who just take commands from the actual guy makes the decisions._

Again, that's not how it works. Often the "commands" are even more nebulous than within narrow software domains. For example: "Keep [wartorn city] stable enough to allow for elections to run."

<comment><USER28> I think your answer shows how you are already narrowing and then differing to an authority to give you scope. Relative to you, that might seem like creation, but its actually just following through on a pre-planed, however vague, agenda. This is common among military-mindset types who scope out the problem they can't process and then claim to have solved it. They are rightly trained to ignore what is "above their pay grade."

The "higher pay grade" problem a team must solve in your example is to shift a popular mindset in a region to inspire them to create elections, not keep the city safe while elections occur as assigned from your superior officer.

These teams need to decide the human social agenda, not just the strategy and execution of one given to them.

<comment><USER27> _narrowing and then differing to an authority to give you scope._

I think the difference is that you assume that is _not_ happening in the entrepreneurial world. In fact it is, only guided by consumer demand, or some broadly defined corporate niche or group of uncoordinated individuals [1].

But that gets off the point however. Lets be clear here though, the scope of the article was how Google builds teams within the already defined "higher pay grade" problems. So by definition that is the context of what I am discussing teams already within a system. As it relates to Google they have "higher pay grade orders" from the Executive team of Page/Brin etc.... This is not Valve we are talking about here.

I think you are trying to make a larger statement about entreprenurial endeavors in sum total at the economy level which is not the scope of this discussion and it not relevant.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessne...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessness)

<comment><USER28> The larger statement is that civilian teams are focusing on optimistic futures to create value and military teams are focusing on horrible realities to mitigate loss. The team configurations for those two things I think should be radically different.

We become dystopian when we apply the ultimately violent tactics of the military to the creation based goals of civilians.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > "It seemed like a total waste of time," said Sean Laurent, an engineer. "But > Matt was our new boss, and he was really into this questionnaire, and so we > said, sure, we'll do it, whatever."

I started cracking up at this point because me and every engineer I know would have said the same thing in response to a survey designed to promote team building.

<comment><USER30> The irony is, a lot of the time these "dysfunctional teams" were formed due to some managerial decision, and basically without the team members input. So it's natural to eye-roll when the same management structure comes in to preach about "you need to gel together! We need to measure you!"

When people mostly pick who they work with and how, it's usually quite automatic and natural for things to work out without managerial baby-sitting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I liked this until the "my life is my work" part. What is it with Silicon Valley that always ends up in "you spend all your life at work and it's a good thing" ?

<comment><USER32> I understood it differently: He's saying work is a large part of life and therefore should not be treated as if it's something apart/different. That does not mean that one 'should spend all your life at work'. It means one should try and have fun and not take things so seriously all the time.

And I would completely agree with that. In STEM I'd say the majority does not understand the concept.

<comment><USER33> I think you're right. Treating your work life as a separate component of your life is not something that's natural for humans and our social traits. Treating work life as part of your life does not imply anything about how long you work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Google's conclusions, summarized: [https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five- keys-to-a-successful...](https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a- successful-google-team/)

</comment><comment><USER35> It's a huge mistake to frame this in terms of safety rather than belonging. Any criticism of someone who feels out of place will cut them to the quick, no matter how much you pad your language.

If your standing within a group is assured, you can call each other dumb assholes all day and it won't matter. This is the classic phenomenon of male friendship. What works in a group isn't an absence of criticism, it's a sensation of security of your belonging in that group.

How do you make people feel secure? The only real way it occurs is if everyone actually has respect for one another's contributions and work. This can't be faked, unfortunately, and respect has to be earned, and everyone's respect is earned slightly differently. Some peoples' respect algorithms are more compatible than others.

An interesting study might be to try organizing people by what they value most in their co-workers.

<comment><USER16> > This is the classic phenomenon of male friendship.

Why do you single this out as an especially male phenomenon?

<comment><USER8> Its stated as a classic phenomena of male friendships. Not only male. Not all male. Just a strong mode, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Aren't psychological safety and forced ranking fundamentally at odds? Who will be generous when only the fittest survive?

These results seem like a condemnation of any management practice based on competitive exclusion.

<comment><USER37> This is a strange cultural thing. On the surface I agree with you. And I'm not a huge fan of forced ratings. But I will say that at some of the places I've worked, there was such a strong culture of sharing that this transcended the forced ranking system.

If anything, I've seen the lack of sharing a bigger issue in places with a culture of competing metrics. "You get paid on revenue, and I get paid on time to completion." I've seen terrible sharing behaviors absent the forced ranking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Being able to understand the emotional state of your fellow man is key to more than just good teamwork: it's key to a successful marriage and to keeping close friends.

</comment><comment><USER39> I've been part of good teams before and loved it. However it wasn't until I was part of a "bad" team that I learned why it's so important to be inclusive. When it became difficult for me to make mistakes, immediately I went into self preservation mode with everyone else. That kills creativity and happiness.

Now that I've felt the hammer of that first hand I want nothing to do with it. I try and be conscious of my teammates. What are they feeing? Do they have an idea that they are scared to share? What are they scared of?

</comment><comment><USER17> > Sakaguchi had recently become the manager of a new team, and he wanted to > make sure things went better this time. So he asked researchers at Project > Aristotle if they could help. They provided him with a survey to gauge the > group's norms.

Does anybody have an idea what that survey was or looked like?

</comment><comment><USER40> This has changed the way I think about teams. I used to think I am pretty good at "figuring out this team work business". A few times in this article I had to go.. wtf?. The title of the article seemed to suggest (my mistake, I jumped to the conclusion) that this is all fluff. Not so. This is very well written.

If you think you are very good at this and don't need conclusions driven from poorly controlled experiments, please do yourself (and others) a favor and read through!

</comment><comment><USER41> Early in my career, I emphatically asked my managers to work on most highly important yet most visibly failing products. They would look at me in shock. Why would I put my career at risk with such a thing? But, they would reluctantly agree. And, this may sound like masochism to some, but really I just liked a good puzzle and challenge, and I've always viewed work as a game.

So, over the next 10 years and many products, I'm extremely proud to say, _none_ of those products ended up failing. And, most eventually exceeded expectations. Who knows, it could have been by chance. Or, maybe it was regression toward the mean. But, I like to think that my focus on the problem and my motivation helped solve it.

Over all of this, I was rarely directly credited, which is not surprising. Often I wasn't the 'manager' or even the 'technical lead'. I was just some relatively smart dude on the team, and I was in it for the thrill and enjoyment.

The key is to

1) be a good manipulator (or, more politically correctly, a good 'influencer')

2) clearly understand the strengths, personalities, motivations, and goals of each member of the team

3) view each person as a potential 'force multiplier' (to take another word from the military)

4) strategically coordinate the right activities between the right people at the right time

5) lead from the bottom, by example

6) be positive and optimistic

7) recognize potential conflict early and extinguish it subtly

If you have a really awesome manager, they can do this from the start. But, as many of us know, management (in the U.S., at least) is a status position, and it attracts those who like status or competition. I've only worked with one manager (out of dozens) who has been able to do this, well. It's a rare skill.

</comment><comment><USER42> Read the other articles in the issue too (top nav bar) - they're all as good.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'd be willing to bet that Sakaguchi has read "The 5 dysfunctions of a team" [1]. One of my favorite books about how people jell together in groups.

Like him I was also in a military setting before I became a programmer. I haven't yet experienced the same level of engagement and team cohesion outside of the military but I believe that the answers are to be found in the kinds of insights that studies like this uncover.

[1] [http://www.tablegroup.com/books/dysfunctions](http://www.tablegroup.com/books/dysfunctions)

</comment><comment><USER43> So, basically, it's about the principles of differentiation and integration applied inside teams.

Differentiation comes from "feeling psychologically safe" so you are able to be creative and express your ideas. When you feel safe to be different you do your most creative work. In the beginning of the article I thought the author will conclude that teams made of people with different skill sets would work better than teams with more similar members. The Google 20% time for creative work is also boosting differentiation through creativity.

Integration comes from balancing speaking and listening. When everyone can speak, they become mutually integrated. Your ideas have a fair chance of being heard and influencing the group decisions.

The same pair of principles (differentiation and integration) are present in other systems like the brain, the ecosystem, the free market and the open source community. I originally discovered these concepts from Giulio Tononi's consciousness theory of integrated information. The same two ideas interestingly coincide in name with the basic operations of calculus and are founding principles in the European Union.

</comment><comment><USER44> I enjoy reading these articles because they always seem to trick me into thinking I got to know of a new insight when I didn't. I don't know why we still cling to psychology when its been shown over and over that the vast majority of psychology is junk science that cannot be reproduced.

<comment><USER45> I don't understand what is wrong with their methodology as described in this article that makes it junk science. Can you source something that says that the vast majority of psychology can't be reproduced (studies, etc)?

<comment><USER44> >I don't understand what is wrong with their methodology as described in this article that makes it junk science.

There is nothing wrong with this article and their methodology because it's not about real science at all. Science produces models, with predictability (among other things) where you or I could go out and get the same results. That is far from what Google has actually demonstrated - and I don't know whether they intended to do that in the first place.

Psychology has never been accepted as a science because they don't produce accurate, reproducible models. I don't want to sound rude, but all this stuff isn't exactly new and can be searched for online. A random set of links from 10 seconds of googling:

[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/27/study- delive...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/aug/27/study-delivers- bleak-verdict-on-validity-of-psychology-experiment-results)

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20447-journal- rejects...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20447-journal-rejects- studies-contradicting-precognition/)

[http://psychsciencenotes.blogspot.com/2011/05/failing-to- rep...](http://psychsciencenotes.blogspot.com/2011/05/failing-to-replicate- bems-ability-to.html)

<comment><USER45> No rudeness taken; I just would rather people making the claims to have some links for people who don't really search for the reciprocity of fields of pseudoscience/science.

What would you call this thing in the article that people did then? Statistical analysis?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The article pulls you in making you think there is some subtle dynamic. Then the first discovery is psychological safety. Very important but not that insightful because everyone is looking for this environment. I wonder if Alan Turing's enigma project had a psychologically safe environment?

Now this notion of psychological safety is interesting because it makes me think of our larger environment (too much a leap!) that it's similar to our personal safety ( perhaps requiring more surveillance?). It reminds me of Hayek's notion in "Road to serfdom" opining that submitting to less freedom for more safety will make you worse off. I do have to say I would probably submit to more safety - it's so much easier.

</comment><comment><USER47> Cool article - though I have to wonder how they measure team performance, given that it is our all important response variable.

In modern animal breeding, our goal is typically to improve some trait through genetic means. We extract the animal's DNA, sequence it, and compare it across many different families in order to evaluate how that individual differs from others and how its genetics affects our trait of interest. We call this trait our 'phenotype', and in animal breeding, phenotype is king. We can do all of the analysis we want, but if our phenotype is inaccurately measured or uninformative, it's all a waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER48> Wow - how do we even _classify_ this - it's clearly not just a story. Is it a case study? Series? It feels like it's almost book length - sort of thing we'll be readying for days (if not weeks).

Has NYT ever done an article in this format before?

The "Blind Hiring" section starts off great:

 _A few years ago, Kedar Iyer, an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, became acutely aware of a problem in his industry: A surfeit of talented coders were routinely overlooked by employers because they lacked elite pedigrees. Hiring managers, he thought, were too often swayed by the name of a fancy college on a résumé._

<comment><USER49> Let's not go crazy here, it's 11 pages / 5.6k words. While it's unusual to have magazine articles that length these days, it's not a huge amount of time since that was more normal.

It's an excerpt from a book:

> Charles Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times > and the paper's senior editor of live journalism. He is the author of ''The > Power of Habit'' and the forthcoming book ''Smarter Faster Better: The > Secrets of Productivity in Life and Business,'' from which this article is > adapted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> > [Sakaguchi] wanted everyone to feel fulfilled by their work. He asked the > team to gather, off site, to discuss the survey's results. He began by > asking everyone to share something personal about themselves. He went > first..."I have stage 4 cancer."

Is this what is required to have a team jell at work? I imagine the same sentiment could have been achieved with a different question, but the article continually references this one. Does it make me a non team-player if I don't want to share my health issues with my coworkers? (In addition: is this legal to do?)

</comment><comment><USER51> "People on the more successful teams in Woolley's experiment scored above average on the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test."

I wonder if giving this test during interviews would help in building better teams.

</comment><comment><USER52> I recently read a (fiction) novel, The Affinities, that focused on the ramifications of optimizing productivity of teams, raising the collective I.Q., not just professionally but socially as well. It's a pretty light read, but I recommend it to anyone else who finds this subject fascinating.

[https://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Affinities.html?id=z...](https://books.google.ca/books/about/The_Affinities.html?id=zPd- BwAAQBAJ&hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER53> IMO and experience, the best way to build a team is to exploit comparative advantage so that the whole is stronger than any of its parts. Assuming you've avoided hiring a sociopath, group cohesion follows from everyone having a critical skill they bring to the project uniquely.

This is of course 100% anecdotal.

This of course runs 180 degrees against the concept of fungible engineering and Google's generalist fetish.

Or TLDR: I prefer building the A-Team instead of trying to be Agile.

<comment><USER54> I tend to agree with you. I think back through a decade of coworkers, and when I take your "A-Team" approach I find myself picking "The Sysadmin" and "The UX guy" etc. And when I ask myself how they stand up against even the best generalists I met at big5 companies, well, it's no competition. (In that the specialists wipe the floor with the generalists, and I say this as someone who has followed more of the generalist route)

There is fundamentally too little time in the day, and too much to know to truly be GREAT in a domain, to expect anyone outside a select few (certainly not enough to fill out general employment at google) to be able to bridge these domains meaningfully and still be as deep as possible.

Now; there is a massive benefit to the specialists having sufficient understanding to communicate with other domains. But this to me is not what being a generalist means, and is an asset that is often looked over even in the generalist-focused agile orgs I've worked for; "are we communicating well internally in general".

(To bring this back to the article as well, I've also found the specialist groups with "eigenvectors" of skills to be MORE cohesive, as it's a great trust builder when someone can say "I'll be supporting your work in Y with X" and you know that they'll be doing X _light years_ better than you could, and you can truly TRUST them to have your back. Not that the same thing isn't very feasible in other environments, but that's an "easy way in" to trust.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I feel that the alluded conflict of personal efficiency vs team efficiency is something that is overlooked in the perennial open-plan vs office debate. It is easy for individuals to measure our own efficiency, but hard to measure, or even appreciate team efficiency. My suspicion is open plan offices are better for team efficiency than private offices, but worse for personal efficiency.

</comment><comment><USER56> I didn't read every paragraph of the article but it seems it doesn't describe what "success" means?

In the outside world, the success of a company can be measured quite objectively; but inside one company, what defines success?

Isn't it possible that patterns are hard to find because "success" is vague and, fundamentally, random?

</comment><comment><USER57> > what Silicon Valley does best: figure out how to create psychological safety > faster, better and in more productive ways.

How do you get a group of cynical alphas to take-off their game-face for work? This screams for a How To manual.

<comment><USER58> How many people felt psychologically safe in a meeting with Gates, Jobs or Ellison?

<comment><USER59> And how many people are Gates, Jobs or Ellison? The CEO design review isn't where the vast majority of people spend their time, or where ANY of the important work gets done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> There is no such thing as perfect team. A perfect team in one context can become an average team in another context. Good Teams embrace values as they solve problems while still having fun. End of story!

</comment><comment><USER61> This is just a conclusion from data mining; what is google doing to experimentally confirm this finding? Or how would I use this insight to engineer a better team?

</comment><comment><USER62> Wow. Lots of interesting points, and a few things that made me say WTF and wonder how much this will be torn apart in the comments.

In other words, a very worthy read.

</comment><comment><USER63> This reminds of the comment I had left about another post here about the "Costs of under-confidence", where I posted what I though made a great team. Essentially, that we create a "safe zone".

The article in this post echos what I had felt: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10731071](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10731071)

 _This is an interesting article since he cites a pub quiz and sports - something I participate in.

I've been playing for about 4 years in a pub quiz. We've won once and are considered a strong team. However, the difference between the a strong team, and the better team in a night, is the fact that our team fosters a "no suggestion is a dumb suggestion" policy. No matter how stupid you think your answer is, you are encouraged to say it. In fact, if we see body language from a person hesitating we're quick to jump in and say "Spit it out! Just say it!"

We essentially create a safe zone for our team members to not worry about the consequences of a wrong answer. There were so many times where a completely wrong suggestion makes another teammate say, "Hey! Wait, I think I remember!"

We also have a policy of if a person has a different answer than the rest, then he/she has to "fight for it". That is, you have to convince the rest of the team. By having a "fight for it" rule, we put controlled confrontation on the centre of the table and let people hash it out. There is no regret, or fear, or worrying about feelings. It's just a normal part of our evening that is done with humour and friendliness. Firm, but friendly!

By doing the above, we instil confidence in every team member. Those that are more confident by their nature, can still be challenged by anyone and keeps them in check, and the weaker confident ones feel safer to step forward when they need to. It balances out and our team has absolutely great chemistry because of it.

I've also played team sports for most of my life and some of the best teams I've played for had former professional athletes. Since they were stronger than the rest and more confident, they always raised their hand and took the blame for any mistake! It was quite funny because we knew my screw up was not their fault, but they would make an excuse about how they should've done 'X' and I wouldn't have screwed up.

Needless to say, that allowed players like me that weren't former pros, to be at ease and to be more confident and give my best, knowing that the strongest player on the team wasn't going to look down on me for every mistake.

It was a very interesting dynamic where the more confident person ensured that the less confident person is playing their best and it raised their confidence. Again, it is a kind of delicate balance that can change on any given night._

</comment><comment><USER64> Is there a summary for this? I've read 3 sections but it only contained fluff about people and not the point of the article.

</comment><comment><USER60> So have they figured it out? I couldn't tell from reading the article.

</comment><comment><USER65> The standup in a scrum lets people speak for equal amounts every morning.

</comment><comment><USER66> I really want to finish reading the article but the browser keeps locking up. Anyone else having their experience crippled like this?

<comment><USER66> Shockwave ad. Thankfully this nonsense is on its way out :)

<comment><USER67> > Thankfully this nonsense is on its way out

Do you mean Shockwave, or ads? ;)

<comment><USER68> The former is likely out before the later but ads on the web in general are in dire needs of improvements or they will be erased from existence by browsers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I don't understand why this is such a mystic secret to the corporate world. This is common sense to anybody who has served on a military deployment. Google could have saved a crap load of time and money by funding the military to conduct this study and simply applying the results internally.

<comment><USER70> And what would the military do to take a team that was functioning poorly and turn it into a team that is functioning well?

<comment><USER69> Many things. There are a great many ways to address that question (too many). The correct answer depends more specifically on the nature of the problem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Psychological safety is a double edged sword. If you feel free to interrupt people, express dissent, and joke around during meetings then people might begin to resent you. It's a big risk. Despite feeling "safe", it's still a risk that could affect your job security and finances.

<comment><USER45> It's about being able to determine when people are resenting you and why. The article focused on people who were sensitive enough to determine when others in their group were feeling upset or left out or something. Also if everyone speaks and interrupts and jokes as much as you, they should be allowed to also express their dissent in that they don't think your jokes are appropriate or that you don't listen or whatever.

<comment><USER71> Even if it feels safe it doesn't mean it really is. If you aren't paranoid about these things you can lose a lot.

<comment><USER45> Like I said, isn't that where being a highly socially sensitive individual comes in?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> TLDR guess after two paragraphs: Is this how grades/salary/individual rewards will poison pill any imposed group goal dynamics?

<comment><USER72> Hm, now that I read well, I feel this research group does too much "snapshotting" of dynamics. Groups not performing well could have had their "norms" subjected to a harsh external force, such as, say, performance reviews, hire / fire / downsize / layoff, etc.

And where is the discussion of sociopathy and other classic psychological manipulations? You'd figure that subtle disruptors would be critical to the study, since I argue that middle management collapses in most large organizations due to the Machiavellian predilections of petty power brokering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I am a self-professed terrible team member, and I scored "average" (27 out of 36) on "Reading the Eyes" test. Its not that I can't read people's faces, its that I don't care.

</comment><comment><USER70> If the teammates respect each other, and feel respected, then they will feel safe, there will be a safe zone created by the respect.

If the teammates don't respect each other, they will ignore what the others are saying, even if they are forced to listen to them.</comment>


BulletTrain EXpress: Mac keyboard and trackpad in laptop form - <AUTHOR> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/bullettrain-express-keyboard-platform?mc_cid=f5d1370a74&mc_eid=dc2aed238c#/ <comment><USER2> This is a rebuild of the original:

[http://www.amazon.com/BulletTrain-Aluminum-Keyboard- Platform...](http://www.amazon.com/BulletTrain-Aluminum-Keyboard-Platform- Bluetooth/dp/B005FHZTMM)

<comment><AUTHOR> It is. It is the new version for the new Apple Keyboard and Magic Trackpad launched in late 2015.</comment></comment>


Trying Out LLVM 4.0's LLD Linker - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=lld4-linux-tests&num=3 <comment><USER2> Wrong URL. Try resubmitting again.

Correct URL: [https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=lld4-lin...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=lld4-linux- tests&num=3)

Anyway, some comments:

It's confusing that each graphic has a different order. I'd like that for example in each graphic the order were LD / Gold / LLD or something.

I'd also like a final table with all the values. Perhaps normalizing them so LD has always time=100%, or perhaps that in each benchmark the slowest has time=100%.</comment>


MyMBACircle.com democratizes access to MBA admission advice - <AUTHOR> https://mymbacircle.com <comment><AUTHOR> Applying for an MBA is a daunting process. From studying for the GMAT to creating essays, 100K MBA applicants globally struggle to pull together cohesive applications that will impress admissions officers at highly selective programs. At the same time, MBA consultants are alarmingly expensive, offering solutions that cost thousands of dollars. This limits admission support services to only an exclusive group of applicants that can either afford MBA consultants or have an existing MBA network to leverage to get a competitive edge in their application. We aspire to close this gap and democratize access to top MBA programs.

MyMBACircle.com democratizes access to MBA admission advice by connecting MBA applicants with curated mentors from top schools through low cost, on-demand, personalized coaching.</comment>


Story of Ejunkie - <AUTHOR> http://www.pluggd.in/sell-digital-goods-online-ejunkie-297/

<comment><USER2> I've been a happy customer of them for more than three years now. They're awesome -- super-responsive support, _absurdly_ low fees, and very very easy to set up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, I have used them once and found out their service was super simple to use. Awesome stuff.

The post has an interesting number "$1 million", which is their revenue. Good to see hear they are making that much of money by keeping things simple (and not raising money).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "37signals' Getting Things Done"?</comment>


Ask HN: Best way to make a hardened Tor exit node? - <AUTHOR>

I find myself lucky enough to have an abundance of bandwidth available at my home. Rather than let that potential go to waste, I would like to set up a Tor exit node. I have already contacted my ISP and they are fine with me running it as long as I'm willing to deal with the hate mail.
My question is, what would be the best platform for running a hardened exit node? Here's my thought process: an exit node would paint a pretty big target on my systems and I want to ensure the security of anyone wanting to utilize that exit. I want this segregated from my home network, and have found out that I can set up a switch to get a separate IP address from my ISP.
I was thinking ideally this would be run from a dedicated device (was hoping for something like a Novena but I currently lack the funds). Since I'm going for a hardened system, my first instinct is to go for OpenBSD as the base system.
If you were looking to do something like this, what hardware would you use? Would you go with OpenBSD or a different OS? <comment><AUTHOR> Naturally, I find some information immediately after posting this question. This was after searching for an hour prior to my posting on here. Anyway, here's some of the information I have found: [https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorRelaySe...](https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorRelaySecurity) [https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/Operationa...](https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/OperationalSecurity)

Even with these articles, I am still looking for hardware recommendations.</comment>


Fast-food chains are slashing dozens of items from menus-a shift in the industry - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/fast-food-chains-slash-menus-2018-1 <comment><USER2> Look at this menu from McDonald's in the 1950's.

[https://i.pinimg.com/736x/8d/46/a7/8d46a7a1b752ac0a12db97cc7...](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/8d/46/a7/8d46a7a1b752ac0a12db97cc7fca2327 --mcdonalds--s.jpg)

<comment><USER3> Looks remarkably similar to a Five Guys menu

[https://media- cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/07/e8/42/a5/...](https://media- cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/07/e8/42/a5/menu-and-prices.jpg)

I am a little irked that Dunkin Donuts cut the only kind of donut I actually like - the chocolate butternut</comment></comment>


Which rating is better, mathematically speaking? - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/8idr1WZ1A7Q <comment><USER2> It's cool to see the math/statistical analysis behind this, as it's something I've always done just intiutively I guess.

I will always have more trust for a 93% review with 1,000's of reviews, versus a product with a 100% review with only ~20 reviews. Much too easy to manipulate and/or pay for reviews to trust a product with such small sample size of feedback.</comment>


Show HN: f.ilter.us [filtered Hacker News] - <AUTHOR>

I made a small application over the weekend that I'm sure has been done a thousand times, but it's a filtering website done for Hacker News and has sorting by points and most recent (similar to reddit and other sites). Was wondering what the community thought, room for improvements, etc. I wanted some way to look at HN on the iPad (ended up using Twitter's awesome Bootstrap), so here it is: http://f.ilter.us/<p>The code is also available here on GitHub, if that's useful to anybody: https://github.com/maskact/hacker_news_filter <comment><USER2> Pro: Pretty cool, being able to close/hide stories I've read and don't want to see in the list anymore.

Con: I couldn't switch to browsing HN this way without a link to the comment thread for each post.

</comment><comment><USER2> Clickable link: <http://f.ilter.us/></comment>


What does human centered AI even mean? A conversation w Microsoft's Josh Lovejoy - <AUTHOR> https://innovationforallcast.com/2019/06/12/human-centered-ai-josh-lovejoy/ <comment><USER2> Love this: "by seeking to address the needs of people- especially those at the margins- in ways that respect, restore and augment their capabilities, we can invent forms of technological innovation that would have otherwise been invisible."

</comment><comment><USER3> "When a system begins to remember us forever, and wherever we go…. we will not be our true selves. We will be the self we know it's okay to remember."

Interesting point about the (not so) ephemeral nature of the web. Will have to listen.</comment>


Introducing Sketch: A Playground for React Native from Expo (YC S16) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.expo.io/sketch-a-playground-for-react-native-16b2401f44a2#.2fzbgbca8 <comment><USER2> Change the name fellas. Sketch is a brand new tool that's about to replace Photoshop for almost all web design work.

<comment><USER3> Brand new? And no, I don't think so. Sketch is awesome but it isn't a substitute for work that you would do in Photoshop.

Unless you were doing wireframes in Photoshop.

<comment><USER4> I'm a designer at Twitter and our design team has been using Sketch for UI design for the last few years. I believe the same situation occurs at FB and many other design teams unless doing very particular photo work or iconography/illustration.

<comment><USER3> I don't disagree with that. I also work at Twitter and use Sketch.

I'm just saying that Sketch is not a substitute for Photoshop. It never was, nor should be. You completely misunderstood me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great job Expo team! :)

I think between Sketch and Create-React-Native-App, you guys are solving the single biggest problem in React Native right now: getting started. The relatively complex environment setup really discourages newcomers. Once they try it in the browser first, they're sure to love it :) After that, Create- React-Native-App makes setting up a breeze.

I plan on using both of these things in my React Native classes, since they're going to save a lot of time and effort!

<comment><USER6> Sketch, create-react-native-app and React Native Express are a great combo I think ;)

(for people who aren't aware of it, React Native Express is a fantastic site for getting your bearings with React Native: [http://www.reactnativeexpress.com/](http://www.reactnativeexpress.com/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I really don't understand how this product can be called Sketch in good conscience. Sketch is already a disruptive gorgeous product that has changed ux and digital design. It should be respected and given room to breathe. Change the name of your product.

<comment><AUTHOR> We think the products are so different that people won't get confused but if it turns out to be a problem, we'll figure something out.

Sketch the design tool is great. We use it.

<comment><USER8> Why not just call it React Native Playground? or Expo Playground.

<comment><USER9> "React Playground" would be a good possibility, too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For anyone who does not understand why it always shows a QR code and a "Download from app store" buttons, there is a close button on top right corner to close that modal.

Not sure it was a great idea to always show that modal, it took me a while to figure out that I can close it, I thought it's an ios app...

<comment><USER11> We show the QRCode because you need to scan it and open on the phone to be able to view it.

Yeah, we will change the styles to make it more obvious that it's modal. Sorry for the confusion.

<comment><USER12> I actually lost interest and closed the tab when I saw the QR code.

<comment><USER13> How else would they do it? QR code seems justified in this case.

<comment><USER12> Sorry, I should have clarified.

I'm not against using QR codes. I just didn't realize that I could close the modal window, and thought that I had to jump through hoops to try out Sketch.

Given the amount of crap that can be found on the internet, I have a very low threshold for losing interest.

A better approach would have been to remind me later than I can scan a QR code to access the page on my mobile device.

<comment><USER13> The thing is that you need the Expo app on your phone to even try it out. Just closing the modal will show you the code but nothing else unless you installed the app and scanned the QR code.

I understand your point though. I suppose they can improve it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's a fun example of a pretty common UI pattern -- the header transitions into another as you scroll, and the hero image scales / fades depending on scroll position too: [https://sketch.expo.io/SyVvB3Hjx](https://sketch.expo.io/SyVvB3Hjx) \-- it uses React Native's native animated driver with ScrollViews :)

<comment><USER14> Thanks for sharing, this seems like the new jsbin/jsfiddle/codepen for native apps.

There should definitely a list of those, so I started one: [https://github.com/Dorian/sketch-reactive-native- apps](https://github.com/Dorian/sketch-reactive-native-apps)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I will grant you the initial QR code bit was a tad confusing (might be fixed with messaging), but when I made my first change and saw it reflected immediately on my phone I was instantly floored. This is really incredible guys keep it up!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The magical feeling from seeing things update right away after every keystroke is my favorite part of it too.

We'll keep working on making the flow of navigating to your sketch on your phone as smooth as possible. Certainly some work to do there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I imagine an integration with Appetize[1] would be very useful, as well as an opening for a possible revenue stream. Being able to build an RN app and then run it right in the browser removes another barrier for sharing RN code easily.

[1] [https://appetize.io/](https://appetize.io/)

<comment><AUTHOR> This is integrated! Click the Preview switch at the bottom and you'll see it.

<comment><USER16> I can't believe I missed that, for me that's a killer feature. I can't wait to try this out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A couple graphics demos:

Basic THREE.js example: [https://sketch.expo.io/rkpPMg8ie](https://sketch.expo.io/rkpPMg8ie)

OpenGL "from scratch" (no wrapper libraries): [https://sketch.expo.io/SJaCWirsg](https://sketch.expo.io/SJaCWirsg)

<comment><USER18> Very nice! I'll shamelessly add a little Game of Life comparison in SVG[1] and REGL[2].

[1]: [https://sketch.expo.io/H1Z4WGIix](https://sketch.expo.io/H1Z4WGIix)

[2]: [https://sketch.expo.io/HkjUrfIje](https://sketch.expo.io/HkjUrfIje)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Yesterday, I played around with CRNA (and it was amazing). This is even more useful. You can get started here, do quick prototype, and as things start to get more complicated, move to CRNA project. Do rest of the stuff in CRNA, and when CRNA cannot handle it, do an eject!

</comment><comment><USER20> Expo is awesome and Sketch looks like the best way to get started. Great work!

In my opinion Expo and GraphQL is a power combo and it so happens that we just released a new cli to generate hosted GraphQL apis (also on the frontpage) so that would be a really easy way to get started.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13870379](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13870379)

</comment><comment><USER21> Name is already taken. You should have payed attention.

</comment><comment><USER22> My team usually checks out each other's branch and runs the mobile app in simulator during code review. I see this tool being incredible addition to dev teams if instead of checking out a dev's branch and running the app on reviewer's simulator, the reviewer could just play with it using expo. Is this a use case you are considering?

</comment><comment><USER23> Here's an example we made using the Animated library: [https://sketch.expo.io/HyobXP7oe](https://sketch.expo.io/HyobXP7oe)

And a basic SVG example: [https://sketch.expo.io/H1ucC8Xsg](https://sketch.expo.io/H1ucC8Xsg)

<comment><USER24> Note: the blinking Expo logo in the first example is the actual example, not a loading screen for something ;)

Took me 2 minutes to figure that out...

<comment><USER23> Oh the first example should be a heart that explodes when you touch it. Sounds like something went wrong loading it. Sorry about that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Ah, so you have an app that links to the "fiddle" and downloads the RN JS bundle and runs it for you, instead of an emulator. Nice!

I'm still trying to figure out whether it is possible to run RN directly in the browser using an interpreter instead of an emulator, along with something like emscripten (might have to run an emscripten-compiled JVM, too haha). Sounds really tricky, for one thing, any Android or iOS SDK calls would need intercepted and re-written for the browser, much like what WINE does.

<comment><USER26> I've written a little game in React Native, and I was really surprised when react-native-web just worked almost out of the box. If you don't have many native libraries, then it's really easy to write an app that works in a browser.

<comment><USER23> Definitely! [http://www.reactnativeexpress.com/](http://www.reactnativeexpress.com/) uses it and it works really well for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> We just deployed a change to make the modal overlay more transparent. Hopefully this will make it more obvious that there's an editor underneath the modal.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hi! I worked on this and am happy to answer any questions about it :)

<comment><USER27> My initial reaction was to associate this with Sketch App for Mac [1]. How do you plan to prevent confusion?

[1] [https://www.sketchapp.com/](https://www.sketchapp.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> We thought it was such a different product that people wouldn't be confused at all. But if it turns out to be a problem, we'll figure something out. Thanks for the feedback!

<comment><USER28> How will you know whether it's a problem?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> And of course, I am left out of the fun. Why did I have to buy a Windows Phone...

<comment><USER30> With a little luck, maybe Microsoft is already working on React Native support for Window's phone.

<comment><USER31> [https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native- windows](https://github.com/Microsoft/react-native-windows)

Works well enough that I was able to get up and running with a Windows Universal app on hololens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is history! Being able to write native apps from anywhere, from chromebooks, from any random computer, and shareable, etc.! This is extremely great!

</comment><comment><USER32> So now if something like this gets integrated into the OS and gets deeplink support and some OS-wide back button on the desktop [0] I think we actually may be one step closer to interlinked, insta-updateabble, native apps!

Maybe we'll someday see the browser dethroned after all...

[0] [https://github.com/ptmt/react-native- macos](https://github.com/ptmt/react-native-macos)

</comment><comment><USER33> Seems really similar to the React Native tutorials where you can already type in a text box and see changes in a phone preview immediately: [https://facebook.github.io/react- native/docs/tutorial.html](https://facebook.github.io/react- native/docs/tutorial.html)

<comment><USER23> Those examples are using this library: [https://github.com/necolas/react- native-web](https://github.com/necolas/react-native-web). It's really fast but the downside is that you can't use any native APIs, so things like gyroscope and push notifications won't work. Since we have an actual app we're able to support all those APIs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Anyone else stuck on the loading (maybe error?) screen, after clicking the "Open with Expo" button on iOS?

> This is taking a while… Press this text to stop loading and scan another QR > code.

</comment><comment><USER35> So, when you came up with the name, did you look in the mobile space to see if, maybe, there was another popular tool with the same name that might be confusing?

<comment><USER36> If you're talking about Exponent, this the same company. They rebranded recently, see [https://blog.expo.io/exponent- expo-b172fb6725a7?gi=922dca1bc...](https://blog.expo.io/exponent- expo-b172fb6725a7?gi=922dca1bc9bd#.mcnq2nbo6)

<comment><USER37> I think he's talking about the app Sketch[0], which is very popular amongst UI designers.

0\. [https://www.sketchapp.com/](https://www.sketchapp.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Sketch to React Native... awesome! oh wait, it's just the exact same name and has nothing to do with Sketch at all. Name should be changed IMO.

</comment><comment><USER39> This team is honestly moving and building user requested features faster than any other team I have seen.

</comment><comment><USER40> Quick question for the creators: Isn't updating apps without running them through Apple against their TOS?

<comment><USER41> Not the way Expo, Microsoft Code Push, and myriad other tools work that have been doing it for years now. In short, updating the js is not against the tos. No new native code is updated over the wire.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'd love TypeScript Support.

</comment><comment><USER43> It's it's a Playground, maybe consider 'Expo Playground'

</comment><comment><USER44> Name really needs to change.</comment>