Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds in the U.S. Earn More Than Their Parents Did at 30 - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-american-dream-is-fading-and-may-be-very-hard-to-revive-1481218911 <comment><USER2> Compound that with the percentage of income 30 year olds spend on housing, education, health care and child care compared to their parents and we have a recipe for disaster.

<comment><USER3> The sense of entitlement is a lot higher these days. I grew up in a 900 sqft house with 1 bathroom. Yet all my peers (myself included) seek out homes 2x, 3x or bigger.

Same with cars.... my parents bought used, reliable cars. Today we want fancy things.

Growing up we had cable tv and a phone line. Probably spent $50/month total. The family cellphone bill, home broadband, various tv services easily top out over $300/month.

We went out to eat once a month. Tops. It was a treat. Nowadays people (myself included go out 1, 2 or more times per week.

Earnings aside, current generations are spending way more because they want more.

<comment><USER4> I hear this sentiment expressed a lot, as well as the sentiment that millennials only loaded up on education debt to fuel a 4-year party. In my experience they are both wrong in 90%+ cases and are typically used to invalidate any calls to pay more attention to growing inequality in this country.

You are probably noticing the people who go out to eat and have nice cars/nice things much more than the people that sit in their cubicle and eat their homemade lunch, etc. Probably don't pay attention to (or don't even have a clue about) the people you deal with on a day-to-day basis that rent a portion of a room (not even a whole room - eat your hearts out boomers).

Also, you are comparing your parents spending WITH A FAMILY to people who are likely single or DINKS. This is not a worthwhile comparison.

Your point with housing is semi-valid, but there are very few small homes where I'm living in southern California. I know tons of people that would jump at the chance to have a tiny house if it meant it was actually affordable.

<comment><USER5> I certainly don't mean to disparage college education, particularly as someone who has never gone to college but firmly believes that it can be a very rewarding experience, but from my own anecdotal experience it seems that for a not insignificant number of people it does seem to be more or less four years of partying.

I'm fortunate to have a diverse social group with many friends who did go to college, and even count a CompSci PhD among my close friends, but from my interaction with them I get the impression that not all programs are of even remotely equivalent rigor. In particular, I get the impression that for the non science/engineering related disciplines it can be somewhat easy to coast through the curriculum depending on the school.

Again, this is just based on my own observations as someone who has never gone to college so it should be taken with a large grain of salt. Normally I would completely discount my own opinion here as observation bias, the only thing keeping me from doing so is my feeling that if college was as universally rigorous as many say it is, and placed as great an importance on critical thinking and independent thought as I've been led to believe, we should be seeing a much more conscientious and knowledgeable citizenry considering we are living in a time were more people are going to college than ever before. I'm not sure that's the case however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What makes me upset is that the economic realities do not match what is taught in large swaths of America. We are taught (at least in my community, and I am 30 now still living within 20 miles of where I grew up) that a very achievable ideal is a middle class existence with one parent working, and a small house in the suburbs. I am in the top 1% income earners for my generation and do not even come close to this.

I think it's important for young parents to start breaking this cliche that economic prosperity is an American standard. Instead we should be teaching that life is hard and you should count your lucky stars if you are able to afford anymore more than an apartment.

<comment><USER7> Life is not hard for the rentiers extracting labour for your right to exist in said apartment.

Where is all your labour going? Food? No. Transport? No. Energy? No. Rent? Bingo.

Why is this happening? Because we came off the gold standard and there is no limit to the expansion of fiat money, therefore it expands via mortgage lending to mop up all productivity gains. Get the women out to work! Land prices up. Efficiency gains? Land prices up.

We bid for land. The more we have available after basic living costs the more we can pass over to the rentiers.

We need land value tax to suppress rentier activity.

<comment><USER8> Gold standard has nothing to do with it. What money is, at a fundamental level, is a promise you can later redeem for real goods and services. Why there's so much mortgage and student loan debt follows directly from the demographic changes - the retiring generation needs promises to provide real goods and services (both directly through saving, and indirectly through pensions and the like), so capital markets seek out the best opportunities to extract these promises and provide them.

<comment><USER7> No, banks are creating credit.

[https://bankunderground.co.uk/2015/06/30/banks-are-not- inter...](https://bankunderground.co.uk/2015/06/30/banks-are-not- intermediaries-of-loanable-funds-and-why-this-matters/)

By creating credit faster than the underlying wealth creation of an economy banks are appropriating real goods and services and the wealth generation later (or rather now as they lent for decades like this) and they walk off with the goods whilst we all drown in asset inflation.

I would agree that demographics played a big part. Boomers borrowed heavily as though the demogrpahic inversion were not a problem, and banks played along. Now we have the money supply collapse as we have more olds than young, meaning a collapse in credit supply which is a problem as the model requires that principal + interest is paid back which cannot happen unless more debit is issued into the face of loan expiry which destroys the credit but still requires the interest be paid from some other debt source.

Why else do we need constant QE and ZIRP? To encourage more borrowing to try and maintain the rate of credit creation to keep the money supply up as boomers pay down at their end of life.

What a nuts system and also a terrible one as all productivity gains are soaked up by adaptable pricing on land to capture all gains.

excited for my HN "you're submitting too fast" soon when anything about banks or rentiers is mentioned!

<comment><USER8> Credit is money - there's literally no distinction between the two. Precious metal currencies are only money because it takes way less systemic trust to believe that the bearer of precious metal coins can get things for them later. Gold-backed paper currencies are an interesting intermediate, basically adding trust that you can exchange them for the actual metal at banks.

<comment><USER7> Credit costs nothing to produce. Expansion can cover infinite productivity gains to appropriate for the usurers/rentiers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> People who will have children ("eventual parents" for the purpose of this comment) are healthier, smarter and wealthier than people who will never have children. If the question is whether things have gotten harder for the average person, it is misleading to compare a group consisting only of eventual parents with a group composed of both eventual parents and non-parents. A better comparison would be 30-years-olds of today versus 30-year-olds (whether the 30-year-old has or goes on to have children or not) of the past.

ADDED LATER. A careful study or newspaper article on the question of whether people have it harder or easier than they did 30 years ago or 45 years ago would try to avoid comparing populations that a reasonable person would expect to differ for reason other than things in the country getting harder or easier. Whether or not my sentence above containing the phrase "are healthier, smarter and wealthier" is true, clearly one might reasonably expect _systemic differences_ between people who have children or will go on to have children and people who do not.

Even if the "nonparent" group were on average _more_ intelligent than the "parent" group, that would also be a reason to avoid omitting the "nonparents" from the older cohort in the study.

The fact that the OP does not even try to avoid those systemic differences suggests that either the author is not sufficiently skilled at statistics to be writing about what he or she is writing about or someone is trying to argue for some conclusion he or she is attached to, e.g., "it is awful how hard things have gotten in this country for the average person" or the article author is making the headline more dramatic than the situation actually is in order to get more clicks.

<comment><USER10> I agree. I've seen a lot of people who have no intention of "settling down" or "having kids" become surprised when their peers who do exactly that become more "successful" (earn more money, move up in job position, etc.). I think making the decision to have kids instills a bit of discipline to get something stable in life.

<comment><USER11> IIRC there are also studies that suggest employers are more likely to give you raises, promotions, and increased hours if you have a family.

<comment><USER12> It's anecdotal, but I think my employer does the same thing. If true, it seems strange to reward a person for a personal choice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well. I guess the "No Politics week" wasn't going to last.

This goes to the core of socialized healthcare, Social Security, Universal Basic Income, and the dismantling ofsaid systems that exist.

The Baby boomers pulled the ladder up when they climbed up, and left us all in the lurch paying for them. You know, "Get the government outta my life, but dont you dare touch my medicare".

<comment><USER14> > _I guess the "No Politics week" wasn't going to last._

We ended it early for reasons I explained here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251).

<comment><USER13> Ah. I must have missed that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> People who are 30 now were 22-23 in 2008-9 during the Great Recession. This particular cohort (plus/minus a year or two) of graduates will likely have slightly depressed lifetime earnings relative to those a couple years older or a couple years younger. I would expect this year and next to represent the bottoming out of this trend.

<comment><USER16> This is based on a history of recessions. Unfortunately this one is different (really)... We've never had interest rates so low for so long. It's possible, and I consider it likely, that those younger will be even more affected. Consider the possibility that parents run out of money and living in the basement isn't even an option. Also consider there is a decent chance for another recession before this one is even over.

<comment><USER17> The last recession ended in 2009.

<comment><USER18> Yes, for large corporations and banks of which directly benefited from the FLOOD of free credit (aka money) and ballooning asset prices provided by the FED, the recession ended. For the rest of us, all we got were higher asset prices and more taxes.

More than 50% of people in this country do not have 1000 bucks to cover an emergency, whether medical (LOL like 1k would do anything here) or a broken water heater, etc. More and more people are living on the edge, while large companies announce stock buybacks and mergers funded with cheap credit printed by the FED paid for with our money and our futures.

Yeah, glad the recession is over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> About half earn more, about half earn less. Wouldn't that imply that the average earnings are about the same? If so, I don't know that I'd complain because that indicates stability.

<comment><USER20> > About half earn more, about half earn less. Wouldn't that imply that the > average earnings are about the same?

Actually no, though this is a fairly standard misunderstanding of statistics. For an easy counter-example imagine generation one being [0, 100] and generation two being [1, 2]. Average wealth goes down, while every element is higher than 50% of the previous generation.

<comment><USER21> This depends entirely on the underlying distribution of the data. In your example, the distributions are not at all similar, so it makes sense that you can't compare medians or averages between those populations.

I suspect that the distribution of incomes in the US remains fairly similar to what it was 40 years ago. Thus, if the median has remained the same, then the average probably also has.

<comment><USER20> > I suspect that the distribution of incomes in the US remains fairly similar > to what it was 40 years ago. Thus, if the median has remained the same, then > the average probably also has.

If the distribution of income had gone unchanged, the spread of wealth would also be unchanged. But it has changed, see [http://inequality.org/wealth- inequality/](http://inequality.org/wealth-inequality/) or the source of your choice.

If the distribution of income had gone unchanged, the percentage of the population receiving minimum wage would have gone unchanged. But it has changed, see [http://www.weeklystandard.com/bls-percentage-of-hourly- worke...](http://www.weeklystandard.com/bls-percentage-of-hourly-workers- earning-minimum-wage-or-less-in-2013-falls-to-4.3/article/786466) or the source of your choice.

I could go on... but I think that's probably sufficient. While I have you here, quick question: why did you let yourself get away with saying "I suspect" rather than just looking it up? It takes all of 10 seconds to do and once you get in the habit you'll be right way more often.

> I suspect that the distribution of incomes in the US remains fairly similar > to what it was 40 years ago. Thus, if the median has remained the same, then > the average probably also has.

The metric in question isn't the distribution's median. It's the percentage of children earning less than their parents.

median: sup k : { Count(xi >= k) / Length(xi) <= 0.5 }

earns more: Count(xi >= pi)/Length(xi)

These are very different values. So while I'll need to think more about the idea that medians say something about distribution similarities, thankfully those thoughts don't pertain here. For another example, of "earns more" not behaving the way you're expecting: if you set the earnings of everyone's parents to their wage - $0.01, we'd have a 0% "earns more" but extremely similar distributions.

<comment><USER22> _> If the distribution of income had gone unchanged, the spread of wealth would also be unchanged._

How so? Let's say I build a popular, free, social media network. My income from the free service is zero, but the popularity has investors (which could even be average Joes pooling their money together) quite willing to buy it for millions of dollars. My wealth has now increased by millions without a respective change in income.

<comment><USER20> If you click on the only link in the article, you will see they are measuring children's and parents' pre-tax incomes at the household level. This absolutely does include retirement account investment income.

While I have you here: why didn't you check that before replying? (I'm actually really confused why this seems to happen constantly on HN. These are really easy things to check before posting.)

<comment><USER22> I'm not sure I follow? The point is that wealth can be created out of nothing. It does not require income to amass. As such, income can go unchanged, while wealth can concentrate among those producing specific things of value.

Your link does not help clear up my understanding of your premise. Perhaps it would pay to be more specific when composing your comments?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This chart from the article is rather painful:

[https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN- RD331_CHETTY_1...](https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN- RD331_CHETTY_16U_20161208111711.jpg)

(I think that'll work without the workaround)

<comment><USER24> That chart is the core of the article and answers several questions from the comments here: yes it's inflation-adjusted, the ratio has gone down over time (90% of people born in the 1940's earned more than their parents at 30, and it's gone down to 50% now).

<comment><USER25> Is that really that surprising? People born in the 1940's would have lived through a massive economic upswing post WW2. While their parents probably experience the Great Depression through their 30's.

<comment><USER26> It would be interesting to see the same chart extended back another 50 years...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How can they earn more when all the money is at the hands of Trump and others who make up 1%? The current capitalism is not distributing the wealth very well and it's certainly nearing a disaster. I wish the left had an answer but they don't. They're stuck with political correctness and more extreme are can't see that they don't have an answer to capitalism and that everything they've tried in the past has failed, and working class have found a billionaire to be their champion and think that migrants and non-white and non-Christian people are to blame for their suffering. And nobody is willing to attack the current system and inequality it's created. Especially in US.

<comment><USER28> > I wish the left had an answer but they don't.

The left is the 1% as well. How much money do the Clintons have? A lot. How much Wall Street support did Obama have? A lot. If Hollywood isn't the 1%, what are they?

> ...working class have found a billionaire to be their champion...

Thiel is interesting partly because he's a business leader that talks about politics and isn't explicitly liberal. That is, he's an exception that proves the rule.

> ...and think that migrants and non-white and non-Christian people are to > blame for their suffering...

Some do. But most have more complex motivations involving economics, democracy, and fighting (in their minds) corruption and hypocrisy. The Left won't make any positive progress here unless they try to understand their neighbors.

This is why "Love Trumps Hate" rings really hollow to most of the people I ask about these things.

<comment><USER29> The problem is the political landscape has lurched so far to the right that we've hit a point where some people actually consider Obama and Clinton to be 'left'.

<comment><USER28> Nationalized healthcare has always been on the left in America.

And I'd argue that Trump has much more in common with progressive-era Democrats (like Wilson) than he does with "the right" in modern America.

If this isn't the election where we throw away (or at least officially redefine) the concept of "left" and "right", I'm not sure there will be one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Of course they don't; every time wages rise in a particular sector, this is seen as a "labor shortage" that has to be corrected. In order to differentiate themselves into a higher "class" of labor equivalent to what their parents were doing, those same 30-year-olds were forced to spend another 4-8 years in expensive schooling before they could enter the job market.

The solutions in the article are laughable. "Better education", ie more expensive & longer. More transfer payments (how does this address wage growth?).

Reduce entrance to the labor pool and allow people in that labor pool access to jobs regardless of the paper they hold.

</comment><comment><USER31> Is it just me, or does this seem like an effort to spin positive news negatively? Why not "Median income for 30-year-olds has increased since their parents were 30"? Or "Over Half of 30-year-olds earn more than their parents did at 30?"

<comment><USER32> If your child is two feet six inches tall at two years old, and two foot seven at 32 years old, they did get taller, but at a far slower rate than you would expect.

It's as if there had been no productivity gains in 30 years for the poor median 30 year old, while the fictional average 30 year old is doing better than ever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Note that the median income for males have been in decline since the 70's, it isn't strange that they get frustrated with the current situation.

[http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/the- uncomfortab...](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/the- uncomfortable-truth-about-american-wages/?_r=0)

</comment><comment><USER34> Well, I just tried to get a job in my company's QA department writing unit tests. Come to find out, my company ONLY hires non-leadership/senior positions in Belarus and Bangalore. I have friends in management, they can't bypass it. Rule was set high up.

The job I interviewed for is managing teams over in those places, and I'm not entirely qualified because I haven't worked in QA. So I'm just left no where. I always thought if I worked hard and did the right things, I could get ahead. It's not true.

I don't know if I'll ever achieve my goals without moving to India to get a job, then working my way back to the USA. But it certainly might be related as to why only half of 30 year olds earn more then their parents did. I'm going to keep trying but I've worked so hard and have a great reputation at work. I've done so much on my own time.

I for one, am fairly demoralized.

</comment><comment><USER35> Suppose 30-year-olds make exactly the same as their parents did at 30. Then _we would expect_ that barely half of 30-year-olds earn more than their parents did at 30.

This title is stupid. It implies "oh hur dur the economy is so bad" when in reality it says nothing.

<comment><USER36> Economic growth is not 0.

So, really it says that 1/2 the population is flat our worse off. Further, _a rising tide lifts all boats_ is a complitly false analogy, and anyone using that phrase to talk about the economy is lying.

<comment><USER35> >Economic growth is not 0.

The numbers are in real USD, not nominal. So in reality, it's a huge fallacy to say that we're so much worse off that in the 1970s. We're almost _exactly the same as the 1970s_.

The main difference to point out here is that the 1970s 30-year-olds made much more real USD than their parents' generation, while 30-year-olds today are making almost exactly the same. Just because income isn't growing as much doesn't mean the 30-year-olds today are worse off.

<comment><USER36> If the economy was static then zero real growth is fine. However, not all costs rise 1:1 with inflation. Housing for example requires land which _is_ zero sum so when people fall behind they really are worse of in real terms.

Remember, if 1/2 your costs double then it does not matter how much the rest of your costs decrease. AKA the inverse of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law)

<comment><USER35> You make a good point. I agree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> never got behind the paywall, so i have to ask: What about the distribution? Is it more of an general stagnation or did the wealth concentrate more? Also, if the gap widened, got the few lucky (high-earners reproducing itself) or is social mobility intact?

</comment><comment><USER38> Isn't this to be expected? That overall, the population will maintain its purchasing power _relative to itself_ , and inflation will rise to match in a relatively stable environment?

</comment><comment><USER39> This is WSJ red meat political controversy stuff. The story devolves into the usual "tax the rich" and anti-welfare state debate as any other political click-bait. I thought HN wasn't doing that for a week...

I actually agree with the premise and many of the conclusions, and if it popped up on Drudge or Breitbart or whatever I'd be fine with it, but why here? Why must every popular site devolve into either a virtual political cage match or another addition to the echo chamber?

<comment><USER40> Just a note: you _have_ to "tax the rich". Nobody else has enough money to pay the bills!

The question isn't whether to "tax the rich" or not - it's "How should we tax the rich" and How much should we tax the rich?" that we need to answer.

Meanwhile the correct answers are:

\- Bring back heavy estate ("death") taxes to prevent wealth from being passed from generation to generation,

\- Create heavy wealth taxes so that persons who are merely lucky don't monopolize the wealth.

Both the above should be done b/c goverment needs the money. Of course the other thing we need to decide is how much should the government spend, but that seems to have no limit these days.

<comment><USER41> I don't think you necessarily have to tax the rich. Their share of income should be reduced to the share they had maybe 40 years ago. Stronger unions would help for example. Having the owner class deciding they need more and more money can't work in the long run.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I wouldn't be surprised if large number of parents of the 30-in-197X'ers were massively impacted by ww2.

Imagine growing up during the great depression and 'losing' 2-4 years of your young adulthood in the army. You'd expect that'd set you back earnings-wise by the time you hit 30.

It'd be a surprise if the folks turning 30 in 1972 _didnt_ make more than their parents, if you compare depression+world war to the postwar rebound (especially in the USA)

</comment><comment><USER43> I know it's not what's happening...but if we were to close the salary gap between the rich and the poor (so poor people made more money, and rich people make less), instead of keeping the gap the same but shifted up, or widening the gap...wouldn't this happen?

So in theory, it wouldn't be that bad a thing. Now, if it's just that the gap stays the same but things are shifted down, well obviously that's bad.

</comment><comment><USER44> Could my parents afford an iPhone? No of course not. Among many other things.

$$$ isn't the only quality of life indicator.

When doing this calculation, you of course adjust for these things. an iPhone would cost billions of dollars in 1970. Is that the figure we should use? Probably not. But it means that these calculations are largely arbitrary since we don't know the true value of an iPhone to a person in 1970.

<comment><USER45> Who cares about iPhones? They could afford education, healthcare and housing. These calculations are far from arbitrary. We have a reasonable idea of the sorts of things that people need to live a decent life, and these things have gotten more expensive. (Ok, so another commenter pointed out that maybe housing isn't as expensive as it's made out to be, but it's certainly not cheaper.)

<comment><USER22> _> They could afford education_

To be fair, they could afford it _because they didn 't care about it_. The degree attainment rate has doubled since 1980. If the student population reverted back to those levels, price would plummet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I always forget, what is the workaround for WSJ?

<comment><USER47> Right click the web link to open in an incognito window. Open the top result of the resulting search.

<comment><USER46> Actually worked without incognito for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> It's really frustrating that articles like this never state if they are comparing inflation-adjusted numbers or not.

<comment><USER49> "In our baseline analysis, we measure income in pre-tax dollars at the household level when parents and children are approximately thirty years old, adjusting for inflation using the CPI-U-RS."

It wasn't easy to spot but was mentioned.

<comment><USER50> So essentially this whole debate centers around how realistic one thinks the CPI-U-RS rates are... If you think they underestimate the purchasing power of money in 2016, then you'll disagree with the conclusions of the washpost article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> _sigh_ This week of political detox on HN is not really working out, is it.

<comment><USER52> it has been cancelled... [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Screen capture for those who had trouble with the pay wall.

[http://i.imgur.com/9eihuWG.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/9eihuWG.jpg)

<comment><USER54> Click "web" under the article and to the left of "comments" then click the first link on Google.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Is this in inflation adjusted dollars? Maybe I missed it, but I don't think the article specified.

<comment><USER46> It does mention that it is adjusted for inflation. And as a side you wolframalpha is great for checking. You can do searches like "1 1970 dollar" and you get $6.34 back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> And then this generation needs to pay for the entitlements (and debt) that their parents enjoyed.

</comment><comment><USER57> This statement means that they earn the same as their parents, right?

<comment><USER58> I suppose it means they earn as much as, or less than, their parents.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I object to the subtitle "It becomes harder to reverse this trend" like it's an inexorable march without any possible cause. Just look at the difference in context between today and the 1972 reference date for the start of the study. Globalization and automation have taken a huge chunk out of the manufacturing sector, but the US economy has by now (at an aggregate) replaced those positions with knowledge/retail/service sector positions. What did those manufacturing jobs have that the new jobs don't?

Powerful unions, a strong social safety net, and a government that accomplished both because it didn't think taxing rich people was heresy.

United States political parties used to split along Labor/Capital lines until the Civil Rights movement in the 60s shifted politics to a racial fault line. Over the last 50 years Capital quietly co-opted both parties while the populace was duking it out over things like segregation, voting rights, and Affirmative Action, and people have finally realized what happened while they weren't paying close attention.

Trump didn't win "because racism". It's not an accident that a significant subset of voters "somehow" liked Obama, Bernie Sanders AND Donald Trump, while hating all of Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, AND Ted Cruz.

These people are tired of Capital (aka "globalist elites" or "corporate overlords" depending on the side of the aisle you sit on) winning every battle. They viewed the entire election cycle as a dog-and-pony show between hand-picked corporate surrogate A and hand-picked corporate surrogate B. They chose Option C. "Literally Anyone Else, Yes Even That Guy".

<comment><USER60> The problem with Trump from that perspective is that Donald Trump is not exactly on the side of powerful unions, strong social safety nets, and taxing rich people. He did leverage anti-elite sentiment, but he did it unfortunately with walls and "keep the Muslims out", not unions, safety nets, and progressive taxation. Donald Trump as far as I know is largely anti-union, not on the side of more progressive taxation, and not on the side of strong safety nets.

I do agree that people _are_ aware of the economic problems (hence the Sanders crossover in particular), I just think that identity politics right now is more powerful than economic politics in the United States. It seems like the issues that dominate the media headlines on "the left" and "the right" \-- and, in fact, the angry rants on my Facebook feed, anecdotally, are very identity politics oriented. Unfortunately I think politicians take advantage of this. A classic example of this being North Carolina's "transgender bathroom" controversy. In my opinion, the provision that was far worse of that law was the aspect that limited individual cities from raising the minimum wage (economic politics). But it did not dominate the headlines, the identity politics did.

You are right that people are tired of Big Capital / globalist elites. They have reason to be. But to reverse this trend, we need stronger protection of the service industry (which is in effect the new manufacturing job) and we need stronger education systems to promote knowledge work. As long as identity politics obscures economic policies, I'm not sure how this is possible.

<comment><USER61> > Donald Trump as far as I know is largely anti-union, not on the side of more > progressive taxation, and not on the side of strong safety nets.

Actually a big part of his appeal was that he was strongly for attempting to keep existing safety nets. Particularly when compared to the Paul Ryan "true conservative" wing.

His tax policy is a little more mysterious because it's fairly clear from his speeches that he wasn't reading any of the proposals that his campaign was putting out.

He worked in construction, real estate, and running hotels / casinos. And he tried to avoid hiring illegals. So he has a history of working productively with unions. Although I'm sure there are some nasty disputes in his past.

So I'd say he's more pro-union and pro-safety net than a typical Republican nominee.

<comment><USER59> > he's more pro-union and pro-safety net than a typical Republican nominee.

That would be true if he had the first interest in actually governing. So far his approach appears to be "Hand off decisions to existing Republicans and talk shit on Twitter".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> While this is interesting, technically it's political.

<comment><USER14> It is, but having learned as much as we were going to, we ended the no- politics experiment early: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251).

Back to the normal guidelines now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> WSJ, I heard they did news once.</comment>


Show HN: First Employees - <AUTHOR> http://www.firstemployees.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> In the startup world, people always say that building an awesome team is critical to the startup's success. But how do you decide the team composition of your first 10 hires?

As a founder I've always wondered, when's the most appropriate time for your first non-technical hire? How about the first office manager? HR specialist?

To answer some of these questions, we at Codementor researched the first employees of world's top tech companies - Airbnb, Dropbox, Uber, and more.

Take a look and learn how unicorn companies built out their early team.</comment>


A Guide to Learning Artificial Intelligence in Two Weeks - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@jessicamleee/a-guide-to-learning-artificial-intelligence-in-two-weeks-1057882ccb1c <comment><AUTHOR> I completed 5 two week sprints on a variety of technical and non-technical topics. This is the second post in a series centered around the topic of learning about AI.

<comment><USER2> Ooh neat. How to stay updated on this ongoing series?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll be publishing the rest over the next few weeks on Medium: [https://medium.com/@jessicamleee](https://medium.com/@jessicamleee)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to Find Open Source Projects to Contribute To - <AUTHOR> I want to start contributing to open source projects(javascript). How do you usually go about finding good projects to contribute to?  Mind you, I don't have much experience with a lot of libraries outside of jQuery and Bootstrap so the usual "pick one of the libraries you use a lot" doesn't really work in my situation. Also, I'm a bit of a novice, so I am also looking for contributions that are fairly simple to get my feet wet. In also assuming that low hanging frit is what most other people go for too so I can see finding relative easy stuff to work on as being a bit of a challenge. <comment><USER2> First think to consider is what you're interested in, there are many places to look at, like github.com, sourceforge.com (lot of orphaned projects), openhatch.org, google code of course and you should also check [http://open- advice.org](http://open-advice.org), is somewhat different from the others:

"Open Advice is a knowledge collection from a wide variety of Free Software projects. It answers the question what 42 prominent contributors would have liked to know when they started so you can get a head-start no matter how and where you contribute. "

Good luck!

<comment><USER3> Go see [http://codetriage.com/#javascript](http://codetriage.com/#javascript) \-- they monitor active projects with simple tasks that need to be done. You can sign up to be nudged by email every month or so. Good luck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is how I do it:

First, I made a habit of contributing to open-source everyday, it might be hard in some situations such as traveling, etc, but it helps you learn A LOT. You won't believe how much I've learned by contributing to open-source.

First, explore GitHub, using [http://github.com/explore](http://github.com/explore) or by just browsing people's profiles, etc.

Subscribe to Changelog Nightly which sends you a daily digest of interesting github repositories. [https://changelog.com/nightly/](https://changelog.com/nightly/)

Also look for other places to contribute, such as Mozilla, you can contribute to Mozilla products easily, they mentor you (the mentors are friendly and great) and you will learn a lot working on big projects (There are a lot of opportunities to work on using JavaScript, see whatcanidoformozilla.com)

As you go further, you'll even find more ways to contribute.

Don't forget that creating something and publishing it as an open-source software is a contributon and it's great! So if you find an idea which might help people, code it, open-source it, share it!

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure if I can help you but just wanted to say thanks for thinking about donating your time and skills for the community. Maybe my friend Sallar (@sallar in twitter) can help you with finding a good project. Cheers!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you Amir, I will try reaching out. The best way to learn is by doing so I figured instead of working on some useless side project/tutorials, it'd be more productive to give back to the community that has helped me learn so much.</comment></comment>


Android 1.6+ gets Fragments API, allows apps to easily scale for tablets - <AUTHOR> http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/03/fragments-for-all.html?

<comment><USER2> This is a really big deal, because if you previously wanted your app to feel like a native Xoom app, you had to write off the Samsung tablets and all phones. But now that the fragment API has been backported, it's possible to work well on the newest tablets and gracefully degrade on older devices and phones.

</comment><comment><USER3> Android got screwed big time by the carriers, and it looks like Google is now trying to make up for that, by exposing new features through libraries. Too bad it has come to this ...

<comment><USER4> Considering that many developers have suggested that the solution to OEM/MOs not updating Android devices fast enough would be to back port stuff..its a welcome sing from Google.</comment></comment>


Animated Antennagate Spoof - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn-YesqzvNk

<comment><USER2> This isn't a spoof - it's an actual Taiwanese news recreation of Antennagate. Slightly ridiculous yes, but actually _used_ in a news broadcast.

<comment><USER3> Taiwan's lack of journalistic standards is a win for the rest of the world.

<comment><USER4> It was deserving of a good chuckle.

I bet Tiwan thinks that americans walk around dueling lightsabers on a daily basis. Sure everyone's missing a limb and steve jobs/bill gates go around strangling people, but thats alright, eh?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> OMG that was hilarious and I don't even have/care about iphone.

The subtle things like AT&T shackles and the lightsabre cutting off fingers is surreal.

</comment><comment><USER6> Taiwanese creative "re-enactments" are awesome and I hope that the format gets widely copied.

Televised news has become a complete farce, so why not inject some humor into it?

</comment><comment><USER7> George Lucas wants to talk to NMANews, how dare they infringing on his idea.

NMA News and HTC are both Taiwan-based.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is so hilarious. And no wonder it is Taiwanese. - PRC would never let this clip to show up.</comment>


Valve confirms jumping into hardware - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/3/3289689/valve-confirms-hardware-plans

<comment><USER2> Where by 'says' it hasn't confirmed anything, nor even 'said' anything to The Verge, nor 'confirmed' anything.

<http://www.valvesoftware.com/jobs/job_postings.html>

<comment><USER3> Valve really has confirmed it, and they don't need to say anything to anyone specifically. From that page:

 _"We're frustrated by the lack of innovation in the computer hardware space though, so we're jumping in."_</comment></comment>


Ask HN: I am wasting so much of time, what can I do? - <AUTHOR> Hi guys.. I am wasting so much of time, working few hours, although I have so much of work and pressure, but I am still just surfing the internet and waste time..
I hardly deliver jobs on time, and my clients are annoyed because of that.
What can I do to solve this horrible issue? Any tips pls? <comment><USER3> Consider the following three steps:

1) Pomodoro Technique. Aim for something like 14-18 pomodori per day. (Assuming 25 minutes per pomodoro.) If you do the math you may think "oh that's not much" but you'll be exhausted by the end of it.

2) Install Rescuetime and religiously use it to track how your time is spent during the weekday. Use their "Stay focused" function when you are sprinting on a pomodoro.

3) Get a second device, like a tablet, which you use for surfing, reading, and leisure. Your laptop is no longer for that. It's exclusively for producing and for serious work.

<comment><USER4> I second the third point. My most productive times are when I have my iPad right next to my laptop ready and waiting for me to need the internet. If I need to look something up I'll do so on the iPad and keep it open if I need to refer to it or turn it off again when I'm done. I find that not switching between windows really helps me stay in the zone. As soon as that code goes out of sight behind a browser, it's so easy for it to go out of mind.

<comment><USER5> That idea is the first one I have seen that would justify the cost of a tablet to me. Not just a toy or a third or .*th computer, but a device to limit your distraction. I like that a lot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In a first step you really have to find out _why_ you are wasting time!

I thought for a long time that I am kind of addicted to the internet and that this is the reason I am wasting a lot of time there. Over the years I tried a lot of stuff to cut down consumption but nothing really worked.

What finally helped was the realization that the excessive internet usage is really just a sympton of more underlying problems and not the problem itself . (For example if there is no internet, I use books instead):

I use (and still use) the internet as a way to flee from reality and all its associated problems. Especially at work when I have a difficult project I automatically open the browser to hide from all the problems which comes from the project.

So in order to get to work I have to make a list of smaller task I have to do for this project and then start with the one which is the easiest one because this reduces the likelihood that I distract myself.

Some more infos on my specific situation:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2886218>

</comment><comment><USER7> Okay, so this is gonna be a bit longer, but bear with me, because I think reading this might help you.

I've been exactly where you've been. AND I did almost all the things that people here suggest. Thought I had ADHD and took Ritalin. Thought I had a depression and took Prozac (both of which I definitely cannot recommend, as they screwed badly with my short term memory).

I've tried gazillions of plugins, "hacks", to-do lists and the like, only to see that if you're smart (I assume you are because you're posting here), your subconcious is only smarter. If there's one universal truth I got out of these, it's: You can't shit yourself.

I've personally read Getting Things Done, The Now Habit, Eat That Frog and consumed lots more of self-help from some of the distinguished authors there are, including Tony Robbins, David Allen, Steven Covey, Brian Tracy, Keith Ferrazzi, Leo Babauta etc. (just to name a few).

I can honestly say that all of those books gave me something, some pushed me over the edge for a week, but then I slipped back into procrastination and self-pity. So here's the deal: For some of us, it's just much harder to stay focused on our goals and dreams. All that can and will change, but only with the right leverage, and your missing piece of the puzzle might be a different one that someone else needs. Anyway, I'll be listing the things from all those excellent books above that helped me most (repeating some of the excellent suggestions here), and finishing with my personal missing piece, that I only received a few weeks ago.

So what helps?

\- Get rid of your TV if you have it. Completely. That's really just a senseless time-sucker and you won't miss it within a week.

\- Babysteps, babysteps, babysteps. Taken from today's Hacker News: "I can not emphasize how important baby steps are. They are the key to avoiding fatal frustration. I have a law that helps define the size of subtasks: DO NOT EVER LEAVE THE COMPUTER IF YOUR PROGRAM DOES NOT RUN." [http://all-things-andy- gavin.com/2011/09/11/video-game-progr...](http://all-things-andy- gavin.com/2011/09/11/video-game-programmer-method/)

\- Fighting your urge to "procrastinate" all day long leads to lots of decision fatigue that will make everything just worse: [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer- fro...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-from- decision-fatigue.html?pagewanted=all) . The best way around this is to create habits, as they will get you on autopilot through difficult procrastination situations within a month. Some great thoughts on this from Leo Babauta: <http://zenhabits.net/will/> My personal take on this: The key is starting out VERY slow (one habit a month at the most) and keeping your expectations really low. The habit itself needs to survive through all times and is more important than the actual outcome. Example from me: I do exercises right before showering, but the least I do is 5 pushups. That sounds like nothing, and actually it isn't but I do them no matter what - drunk, late, sad, happy. Habits will eventually carry you through everything, but you just stick to them. Suggestions for you: Not reading e-mail after or before a certain time, turning of the computer completely at a certain time. Stuff like that.

\- Building on that, affirmations and meditation are extremely powerful as a habit too. I've written an article on this if you're interested: <http://www.growinup.org/?p=5>

\- Gym and sports definitely helps your willpower, as long as you don't discover another way of procrastination in there. It can happen ;-)

\- Knowing what you really want. Maybe you know already (I certainly did), but you're too scared and unfocused to really take action. If you're too scared, watch this: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk0hSeQ5s_k> If you're too unfocused, read this: <http://focusmanifesto.com/> Anyway, know what you wanna do and where you're going.

\- All these things helped me in a way, but the final piece for me comes here as promised. I've had a huge fight with my wife for all kinds of reasons related to my procrastination, and she told me something I've never forgot. I've distilled the essence of what she told me on a paper and I read it every night. Here it is, for you all to read:

"Every time I pray, I feel you falling down this black hole, but I cannot help you. Only YOU can do it. No amount of reading or games or [insert your timesucker here] can fill that emptiness inside of you. So don't do stuff out of an impulse. Do it conciously. Whatever you do, choose to do it and accept the consequences. Don't be guilty about anything anymore - just accept that you made your choice and be responsible. There's no need to lie to yourself. It's just ok. Live, breathe, be gentle. There is one and one way only out of the frustration, anger and depression: Accept your choices. Love yourself. Leave the guild behind and FOLLOW YOUR HEART".

Since then I've been living by it and haven't gone back to bad. Truth is, I HAVE been reading Hacker News and playing a round since then. But I chose to do it because I felt like it. I didn't hide it, I didn't feel guilty about it. Taking responsibility for every single thing that you do sounds harsh, but it helps you grow enormously. Think of it: That way you also reap full honor and appreciation for everything you do. So next time you feel that urge, just do the following: Think about what you're about to do. What will it lead to? Will you accept that outcome and take full responsibility? And then just do it - <USER2> not. It works the same way if you're already in the middle of that procrastination mess. The second you see you made an unconcious choice, make a concious one instead. Will you continue - or stop and do something worth it?

I told you it's gonna be a pretty long post. So you finally arrived here, congratulations. You already took the time to read it - now take the time to do it, and you won't fail anymore. Promise.

Best,

Dominik

</comment><comment><USER8> Go Start->Run type in notepad and press enter (or equivalent on your platform)

* begin bullet pointed list

           -break down steps to achieve each bullet point

           -some could be as simple as "google xyz"

As dumb as it seems this switches your mind from "meander mode" as I call it to "focus on work mode".

<comment><USER9> You could even use (gasp!) a real notepad. The tactile effect of writing down (and especially, crossing off) the tasks and intermediate steps by hand is not to be underestimated. In addition, you get the benefit described by ktrgardiner above, that switching to your task list doesn't obscure your productive work. You always have that piece of paper staring at you reminding you what you're working on.

<comment><USER10> I find it relaxing to actually use my calendar. If I have stuff that I can schedule somewhere in near future, but I don't have the time to do it now, It's lot nicer looking at my calendar than my TO DO list.

<comment><USER9> A calendar or a formal todo list are both too formal for me. I use Post-It notes, or a pad of paper on a busy day.

<comment><USER11> I use a kind of combination. I would probably be drowning in post-its scattered about my cube at the end of the day. Outlook ToDo's are kinda strange to use, so I picked up a steno pad and I write down all my tasks for the day every day in the morning. I go through and put +/*/- next to each one (after I'm done) for priority. As stuff comes up I add it to the list and assess its priority then.

When I start to work on a task, I open up onenote and break that task in to sub tasks that are more bite sized (a la pomodoro) that I can strikethrough when I'm done. Strikethrough you can add to your quick bar in Office 2010. Using onenote I can expand subtasks if I find they're too large, and if I have to stop working on task A to go to B I know approximately where I left off. Inserting text is difficult on paper.

When all the subtasks are done I delete it from onenote and strike it through on the paper.

Pomodoro is a bit too rigid for me in the office where anyone in the cube farm can interrupt you any time of the day, but it certainly did help me crunch through my 10 page paper during my last semester in college.

<comment><USER9> Nice thing about post-it notes is that I can easily steal one from the boss's desk when he starts talking about "Can you please fix A, B, C, D, and do some research on E". If I don't write them down right there and then, I'll never remember all five items.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Lots of great tips here. I'd also suggest taking the time out to talk to your doctor. I was in a similar position as you -- my productivity fell immensely within the last two years. After speaking with my doctor, I was diagnosed with a minor form of ADHD. Now that I'm on some light meds (20mg Ritalin), I feel I can focus better and get more out of my time.

</comment><comment><USER13> 1) Force yourself into a position where doing your work will seem better than the alternative. Since you are at home, it is automatic for you to surf the internet. If you were working some part-time job where the other alternative would be to chit chat with the 30 year old ladies about their ex-husband, you would naturally adapt and find a way to do something more interesting to you (your work?)

2) Try using a program like VitaminR, <http://www.publicspace.net/Vitamin-R/> which acts as a timer to keep you focused. You might find that working becomes a sort of game, and you will be less tempted to abort your work because you can see that you only have 5 min to go.

</comment><comment><USER14> The first question I need to put out there is: are you bored or simply burnt out? This can often masquerade as an inability to concentrate. Fact is, if you like what you do it's a lot easier to just do it.

That being said, many (most?) people benefit (or even need) a relatively distraction-free environment. This means no TV near your computer (particularly relevant if you work from home), stopping distractions from other people and can go so far as cutting yourself off from HN and other prime sources of distraction (there are various programs, plugins and extensions for this kind of thing).

As for distractions from other people, this can take many forms. If you work from home, it means saying that certain time blocks are for work and you're not to be disturbed. It's easy for other people to fall into a pattern where they'll ask you for stuff or to do stuff simply because you're there.

In my case I can't stand people walking around me, particularly behind me. I position my monitors such that I don't really see people walking by and, where possible, position my desk such that no one walks behind me. If that's not possible, I at least ensure I don't have a thoroughfare behind me.

Other people can distract you by asking things they could easily find out themselves. Joel Spolsky talked about this [1] as a reason for giving engineers private offices. It's too easy to ask a colleague "where is X?" when you could find it in 30 seconds thus crashing them out of "the zone".

Headphones help a lot here. Some people are distracted by music. Many will argue they're not. Testing indicates otherwise [2]. Still I find the right music with its distractions, at least for me, tends to trump the distractions of other people so it's still a win. People tend to bother you less when you're wearing headphones (it's a psychological barrier).

There's also a certain "fake it til you make it" aspect here too, which is another way of saying that your inability to focus is the sum of many behaviours. You probably have many bad habits and you need to change them one at a time. Blocking distractions like HN, reddit, etc is one way of doing this.

Another is, well, just grinning and bearing it. This can take you far but could lead to burnout. Part of this is attitude though. If you're stuck doing something uninteresting (or simply an uninteresting phase of something otherwise interesting) finding little challenges and measurable milestones in that can go a long way.

[1]: <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000043.html>

[2]: [http://www.quora.com/Does-listening-to-music-while- programmi...](http://www.quora.com/Does-listening-to-music-while-programming- really-increase-a-programmers-performance)

<comment><USER15> Just use the headphones without music to only get the wins from this. It's not like anyone except you can tell the difference.

<comment><USER16> I do this all the time. Unintentionally - I start working and forget to hit "play" :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Change your work environment if you can. I lately started working one or two days a week at a friend's office. It worked wonders for me. I have a _lot_ less distractions this way. First of I have no coworkers there. And second, clients call me less, only if it is really important. I suspect this is because they actually need to look up a number to reach me, and that cuts down a lot of noise.

</comment><comment><USER18> 1) Sit down in front of your work

2) When you feel like stepping away from your work (which may be immediately), attend to the thoughts, emotions and physical sensations you are experiencing at that moment.

3) Report your findings here.

</comment><comment><USER19> Procrastination and not getting work done can be caused MANY different things. There is no way that a few sentences exchanged with strangers will crack this problem.

You have to find the root cause of your problem in your own way. For some that means seeing a counselor or talking to a loved one or mentor who understands you.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's counterintuitive but try reducing the amount of work you take on until you start seeing a reduction in the amount of time you spend procrastinating.

<comment><USER21> I find the same thing. My focus is much better when I remember to get away from the work take care of myself.

At a friend's recommendation I started going to the gym when I feel myself drifting into procrastination. I was skeptical of the benefits at first but now it consistently clears my mind and sets me on the right track. I think it has something to do with the dopamine release that exercise provides.

It might also be worthwhile to examine -why- you're procrastinating. In my experience, procrastination is caused by anxiety about the project I'm working on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> There's a few ways I combat this:

* Multiple desktops, each with ONE purpose. Alpha does email (in mutt over ssh) while Beta does web browsing, Delta gives me an IDE and Gamma gives system info.

* My email and my browsing are seperated. This lets me focus on email, then on browsing. Since I do a lot of web development, I run two browsers, Firefox for my normal everyday stuff and Chrome for my development.

* I use a little time-tracker. Teatimers and other such things are great for this. Since I use XFCE a lot of my development machines, I use the "Timer" plugin. The activities I dont want to do for long call 'xscreensaver-command --lock'. It forces me to get up.

* I regularly stand up, walk around, get my mind some more oxygen.

* I keep a todo list in Tomboy. + items are done, - items aren't, ? items are 'do I need to do this today'.

* When on Windows, I use The Guide on a flash drive to do my todo lists. I also keep track of time with a buzzer timer.

* I listen to music which lasts 5 minutes at a time (often chiptunes) which keeps me on task. This is a personal preference.

Your best bet is to sit down, allot yourself X minutes to chekcing email, Y Minutes to check news and the rest is 'work' time. If you start dwadling off on other things, stand up, take a break and just get back to what you have to do.

</comment><comment><USER23> Here's my newest workflow which hasn't totally solved the problem yet substantially helps.

Each morning I wake up, do the dad thing, have a bowl of cereal (food is important) and try my hardest to sort my email on the laptop/phone before heading into my office. Inbox zero is something to be proud of when you can keep it up. When I say sort my day, i mean not only email but take the bigger tasks of the day and block them into my schedule around phone calls, lunch and all. This gives me a clear overview of ONLY what im concerned of for one day, and is very liberating when you've got more than 3-4 things on your plate at any given time.

I start my day by leaving my calendar up on my laptop/device on my desk and focus in 1.5hr chunks on projects at a time. If I have to bump something I will, but try my hardest to stay super focused for that block of time. This means I do not send email from my work machine while in that 1.5hr block (productivity move) nor do I pick up the phone. Voicemail is there for a reason and i can send from my laptop on the side quickly if it's important but code/work stays visible all the time to help me get back into it quicker.

5-10 mins before that 1.5 hr block is over (changes daily of course) I notate where im at and stop working. That's a hard thing when you're on a roll, but it's key to feeling better about focusing. Spend 15 mins to get caught up on email or anything I missed and the last 15 to get up, get a drink, walk outside, etc.

I'm a week into this new routine and it's helped a lot. I stil have the fatigue of having too much with not enough time, but teamed with a whiteboard for the macro level, I really enjoy the day-by-day structure and feel much more accomplished by dinner.

</comment><comment><USER24> Forgive the plug, but give my blog a visit. I've been using it to document my struggle with procrastination and perfectionism since the beginning of the year. The main reason I put it out there was so what I've learned could benefit someone else. Drop me a comment if you find any of it useful. Here is the link: <http://www.itneversleeps.net>

</comment><comment><USER25> Lots of good comments I think, but before considering all those options, I think the first thing you should try is to _push yourself_ in the "zone" [1]. To me entering the zone can be hard sometimes - my brain is inventing all sorts of distractions, why it does that is still a mystery to me since I love my job - but it's not that hard: I just need to _force_ myself to get in the zone, and I do that by _ignoring my desires_ and by _getting started with my tasks_. Once I get started, very quickly I'm in the zone, and it's quite easy, natural and mostly enjoyable to stay inside the zone, as long as I avoid interruptions (short breaks every hour or so are good, as long as they are mental rest, like lying down and/or watching the clouds, short breaks are not a good time to read hacker news).

If this fails for you, then it could be a multitude of reasons, and you should consider some of the options recommended here (maybe change your job?).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)>

<comment><USER26> yes..that is an awesome approach...only for the initial 30-45 mins do you have to kinda force yoself...once you start hacking some problems your mind will want to keep hacking!

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I just stumbled upon this interesting article on HBR: How to become a great finisher.

[http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/06/how_to_become_a_great_finish...](http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/06/how_to_become_a_great_finisher.html)

Rather than thinking in terms of how much time you do or should work, set your objectives and make sure to finish what you started.

</comment><comment><USER28> First, there is nothing wrong with you. I, and it sounds many in HN, have similar time management issues, and I choose to believe we all rock more than not.

Second, you've chosen a path that aggravates your seemingly short attention span. I was in a similar situation, working alone and producing very little. After much trial and error, including trying therapy, medication, and numerous self management techniques, hiring an assistant proved to be the simplest solution.

My assistant helps with everything not directly related to what I do to generate value. She schedules appointments, nags me, runs errands, and a wide variety of more complex things. It took some practice getting used to working with her, but my productivity shot through the roof my and more than covered the costs of paying her. The most important part is that she works right beside me, and I sublet a small office space for this reason.

My email is in my profile if you want more info.

</comment><comment><USER29> While every situation is different, I have some issues with my work style and concentration/focus too. Now I'm 2 weeks into an 8-week meditation program and starting to feel its effect. Without more information and expertise, I think this is a pretty safe bet for you.

Here are some links:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/14/magazine/is-buddhism- good-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/14/magazine/is-buddhism-good-for- your-health.html?pagewanted=all)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/health/15chen.html?pagewan...](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/health/15chen.html?pagewanted=all)

some counterarguments: [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/health/research/27budd.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/27/health/research/27budd.html?pagewanted=all)

I am using (the first few chapters of) "Full Catastrophe Living" with the tapes.

Bon courage!

</comment><comment><USER30> If you do it, stop masturbating and watching porn, it fucks with your head and self discipline. Check <http://yourbrainonporn.com> and <http://www.reddit.com/r/nofap> for more info.

</comment><comment><USER31> $ sudo apt-get remove firefox chromium pidgin telepathy ekiga skype ^_^

update: the situation you describe indicates that you just don't like your job. You have no joy in doing what you're supposed to do. So, consider the possibility of changing your job to something you're really like and enjoy.

</comment><comment><USER32> You have to find new things that excite you. Maybe switching IDEs ? Working on Visual Studio all the time ? Try Notepad++. Working on windows all the time ? Try linux/mac.

Working on Classical OOP languages (c++, java) all the time ? Try prototypal oop languages like JS/Lua.

Working on too much higher level/web application stuff ? Delve into the linux kernel.

If none of these work, take a break. By break, I mean ABSOLUTELY no computers at all. NO BOOKS either. Go off to play some ping pong, go to a movie, or better - go someplace where you don't do ANYTHING for around 1 week except roaming and watching nature or any kind of beauty.

Maybe it's 1 week, maybe it's 2 - but if you really enjoy hacking - you will find yourself raring to get back to your PC and begin hacking away after this break.

</comment><comment><USER33> I used to feel the same way, earlier when I was in a cushy job, waiting to get into my own startup. And I used to search for ways to avoid procrastination, wasting time etc.,

Then I just decided to quit! And got into my own startup. Boy!!! Now I am not finding time to do anything that does not help my goal of building a company ground up. I can see through my own eyes that it is just lack of a passionate goal and a worthy cause that has just tricked my mind into surfing & wasting time on internet.

So, my suggestion for you would be to take up a goal worthy of you. If you want to continue in the same job revisit your goal and one that is extremely challenging as if you are running your own company and not working for another one. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER34> It seems that your issue is not that you are easily distracted or undisciplined, but you are lacking the drive to work. You should try thinking about what you are working for. Are you working to support your family? Build something that will change the world? If you don't have something to work for, then it's no surprise that you are not motivated.

If I'm wrong and you are just easily distracted, then consider getting rescue time. I used a similar iPhone app to condition myself to work for most of the day. After a few weeks I would feel not feel accomplished if I didn't see in my reporting that I worked for the allotted period that day.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've been struggling with my studies for years. I was supposed to graduate as civil engineer.

Now I'm finally getting better, but it took several things:

1\. Baby steps. Spring 2010 was the first time that I understood that taking less courses means that I have more energy per course. So I started with one, then two, then three. Now I have five ongoing courses at the same time, and I don't (quite) feel overwhelmed. My studies progressed last year at modest speed that is about 1/3 of the speed usually recommended, but my grades improved significantly.

2\. Seeing psychologist. She told me about the benefits of taking it easy at first. And my friends didn't have to listen to all of my troubles.

3\. Doing something really interesting. I switched to mechanics. I'm particularly into product development. I really don't seem to mind a single course that is not so interesting if it gets me closer my goal (this was actually a big surprise to me).

4\. No TV. But movies with friends is a big YES.

5\. Getting good IRL friends. I don't feel the need to IRC anymore.

6\. Clear shift between work and leisure. If I walk 800 meters to school and spend there 8 hours I can count that I get something done. I might check HN few times, but I just cannot browse the Internet for the whole day.

7\. Might seem counterintuitive, but no work on Sundays. Jews we're right. Having at least one day a week when you just don't do anything productive can boost your productivity a lot. And it surprisingly helps to actually have really good time when you're not working, you might think that it drains your energy, but it doesn't.

8\. I don't really know if it truly helps or not. But I often think about what I want in life, and how I'm going to get there fastest.

9\. For some reason, it seems that getting older helps a little. Maybe it's because you get a stronger feeling about wasting your life.

10\. There is no word "should". You either do, or you don't. Sometimes you might do something. Some stuff you haven't yet started, but it's stuff you're going to do, not something that you should do.

11\. & 12\. Make starting easy for yourself and plan what you're doing. I find it easiest to start by planning. So I plan what I do today and I actually start doing it tomorrow. Planning what I'm going to study tomorrow takes like 30min so it's not a biggie. I feel like I have started so it's easy to continue. And I get sense of control of what I do. Planning counts as doing!

13\. Don't ever plan to grind through everything at one go. Those 14 hour work days are going to ruin your motivation to the next job.

14\. Get a calendar and a clock. Use them. Then get completely rid of them when you have a day off.

Everything here actually just boils down to three things. Remember to have free time and make it good and remember to plan really well what you're doing.

</comment><comment><USER35> Lots of comments, but I didn't notice any questions. It would be ineffective to prescribe a solution based on what is said because there is not much information. All the proposals here seem to be for a problem diagnosed in the commenter.

Where do you work? (industry, firm size, position, geographic location, etc.)

What are your coworkers like? Do you enjoy being around them?

Has the problem come up lately or has this been ongoing? Did it start with a current project? Office organization? For as long as you remember in your life?

What are the consequences going forward? What have they been in the past?

How old are you?

</comment><comment><USER36> There is an amazing (short) book called "Self Discipline in 10 Days" helped me get over a few of those inevitable slumps/burnout periods and prevented them for the most part since then.

Here are a few ZenHabits articles that help too: [http://zenhabits.net/how-to- defeat-burnout-and-stay-motivate...](http://zenhabits.net/how-to-defeat- burnout-and-stay-motivated/) [http://zenhabits.net/the-lazy-manifesto-do-less- then-do-even...](http://zenhabits.net/the-lazy-manifesto-do-less-then-do-even- less/)

</comment><comment><USER37> This is probably the best thing I've read on the subject:

<http://www.wickedfire.com/1279950-post39.html>

Not sure of the original source, but it's just a paragraph or so, easier than reading a whole book. Some discussion of it on reddit here: [http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/h7cce/the_purpose...](http://www.reddit.com/r/seduction/comments/h7cce/the_purpose_of_this_document_is_to_provide_you/)

</comment><comment><USER38> Is it a chronic problem or something more recent?

If you are thinking a lot and have unresolved issues in your mind, get a notepad and write out everything EXACTLY as your mind is thinking of them. You don't have to do any analysis just because you are writing. Keep writing until you have nothing else to write about. You should find yourself thinking a lot less about those unresolved issues now that you've taken inventory of them by writing.

</comment><comment><USER39> I've always had trouble finishing projects, no matter if it's for school, work or hobby. When I run out of interesting problems, I just stop caring.

The easiest way I'm able to finish things is by working with others. People I care about, and who in turn cares about getting the work done. I.e. caring by proxy. [1]

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_neuron>

</comment><comment><USER40> I was recently in the same position.

I was bored and not doing what I really wanted to do. I was suppressing my dreams and taking the safe (and boring) path.

</comment><comment><USER41> Before you go to sleep write down on a post it note ONE thing you want to get done and put it on your monitor. Tomorrow first thing work on that ONE thing and get it done. After a while add one more additional thing to have TWO things to get done tomorrow. And finally once you've mastered completing two things a day, add another for a max of THREE things. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER42> Think about an emergency vacation. Will fix things to just get away from it, no internet connectivity, etc. I love short cruises for this.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys... thanks to all of you for these great tips.. I started to use <http://www.rememberthemilk.com/> since yesterday, and it put me under pressure that I have a TO DO list, that I must finish on time.

I never used such an app before, which is very important to remind that you have something to do.

</comment><comment><USER43> Create a new pattern to replace some of the patterns you want to change.

Changing an existing pattern is much harder than starting a new one. Strong associations in your brain link things together.

Creating new pathways may not be as easy as following old ones, but is more flexible. And it helps keep your brain young.

</comment><comment><USER44> I downloaded the leechblock plugin for firefox to block certain websites during working hours. Now, whenever I load hacker news (or whatever) during working hours it forwards me to a failure motivational poster. It has actually helped me a lot.

</comment><comment><USER45> My standard answer for these type questions: Look to your health. Eat right, exercise, consider that you may have hidden health issues. Getting healthier has done a lot for my ability to focus, be productive and all that.

Best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER46> Read the book "War of Art". What you are experiencing is "resistance".

<http://toblender.com/comic/resistance-the-war-of-art/>

</comment><comment><USER47> Read EAT THAT FROG by Brain Tracy, it would surely change your life.

</comment><comment><USER48> Are you in a position to set better deadlines? If you know you can work X hours per day, try to schedule around that, rather than assuming you can suddenly work X + 2 hours per day.

</comment><comment><USER49> It is possible that you either secretly don't like the work that you are doing, or that you secretly don't believe you are capable of completing the work.

</comment><comment><USER50> If you're on a Mac, check out Self-Control. Great application.

<http://visitsteve.com/made/selfcontrol/>

</comment><comment><USER51> Try shifting your work hours. I find i get much more done late at night. It might not be healthy, but it works in a pinch.

</comment><comment><USER42> Read 2 books:

1.Getting things Done

2.The Now Habit

If it's just getting mired up in what to do, the first will help

If you have agreed to do silly things, the second one will.

</comment><comment><USER52> find a partner to work with. many people can't work on their own and need somebody to work with and spur on etc.

don't stress about it - happens to everybody

</comment><comment><USER53> I'll repeat what I said the last time this came up: consider that it may be depression. Depression can cause ADHD-like symptoms. It can creep up on you slowly, so you don't even realize you've become depressed. And it can be very, very hard to get out of on your own.

Aside from that, the Pomodoro technique helps me quite a lot. Not only do the 25-minute stretches provide a clear, definite period of focus, getting yourself to think about tasks in 25 minute chunks _forces_ you to more deeply plan how you'll spend your time. Often, we don't get started on tasks because we feel overwhelmed, because we don't have an actual plan or scope. As a side benefit, I'm seeing my time estimation skills getting better as I work on this.

<comment><USER54> I recently lost my job (unrelated to work performance) and I have to say, I was so damn happy. Like cletus mentioned, I was burned out, and just generally unhappy in life because of it. Now I'm happier, job hunting, and learning Java because I want to make a game for the fun of it.

I don't know where my next paycheck is coming from, but god I'm smiling.

(Yes, that in itself causes some awkward feelings, but I'm dealing.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Lots of people say "read this", "read that", "following this technique". That's just attaching yourself to the problem in a stronger way.

I say take a holiday somewhere nice and peaceful without a computer or book in sight. Just sit and think. Let the noise in the mind pass.

</comment><comment><USER56> Study Buddhism - you'll stop worrying about it.</comment>


PurpleProse issue 1 is out – Free to read fiction magazine - <AUTHOR> https://purpleprose.ink <comment><USER2> The name is probably ironic, but I immediately found it offputting: "In literary criticism, purple prose is prose text that is so extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw excessive attention to itself."[1]

I'm still going to read the full first issue.

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Ha, I said the same thing when discussing the name, but the rest of the team simply liked it. I don't regret it though, we get to prove we publish the exact opposite. Thank you!</comment></comment>


Getting President Obama To Play With Your Product - <AUTHOR> http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2012/04/getting-president-obama-to-play-with-your-product.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed:+FeldThoughts+(Feld+Thoughts) <comment><USER3> I love this. It shows how important it is to keep your ear to the ground to look for opportunities like this.

More importantly, it shows what happens when you have the confidence to go out and ask someone to do something. I argue that most would not have the confidence to go up to President Obama and ask him to try out their app. It is essential to be willing to get out there and hustle.

</comment><comment><USER4> Non-swipe link - [http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2012/04/getting-president- ob...](http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2012/04/getting-president-obama-to- play-with-your-product.html?onswipe_redirect=no)

</comment><comment><USER5> Very cool. I'm just shocked that secret service let something like this happen. The red flag mechanism in their brains must have been doing backflips.

</comment><comment><USER6> Obama bump much better than Colbert bump.

</comment><comment><USER7> Prepare for the unexpected. A good startup trait.

</comment><comment><USER8> That's awesome. Are there any statistics regarding a bump in sales or page views after this happened?

<comment><USER9> I'm sure as hell thinking about buying one. Never heard of this before - <USER2> looks really neat

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Well, why not take advantage of the guy? He's taking plenty of advantage of you, after all.

"I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing. Does it exalt dunderheads, cowards, trimmers, frauds, cads? Then the pain of seeing them go up is balanced and obliterated by the joy of seeing them come down. Is it inordinately wasteful, extravagant, dishonest? Then so is every other form of government: all alike are enemies to laborious and virtuous men." H.L. Mencken

<comment><USER11> They add precise little for the trillions they cost us.</comment></comment>


Android as we know it will die in the next two years and what it means for you - <AUTHOR> http://venturefizz.com/blog/android-we-know-it-will-die-next-two-years-and-what-it-means-you

<comment><USER2> Doesn't make much sense. Another doomsday monger.</comment>


America Has Two Feet. It's About to Lose One of Them - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/science/foot-surveying-metrology-dennis.html <comment><USER3> I'm mostly surprised that the standardization of the American measurements and the development of the metric system happened nearly at the same time. A few years could have meant a huge difference regarding the American adoption of the metric system.

</comment><comment><USER4> Pretty interesting article. What stood out for me was why the US didn't standardize to metric:

They standardized the whole country on something because they had to - <USER2> much people from different places came together, each with their own measurement system.

The rest of the world standardized later. I assume the overhead from conversion only became unbearable when some level of commerce between different nations was reached. When they standardized, they had better science available.

So now there are 2 landmasses, each big and integrated enough to have internal units, not feel too much pain from using a different kind of units. Everything goes reasonably well, unless they meet.

<comment><USER5> I do feel pain anytime a NASA spacecraft explodes or I need to find and need to replace a screw and wonder which unit it is in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article was way more interesting than the headline makes it seem. It's about the 1893 vs 1959 definitions of a unit of distance.

</comment><comment><USER7> It should lose both, saves them from stupid conversion mistakes...

<comment><USER8> And also using a rational date format (yyyy/MM/dd or dd/MM/yyyy) would be nice.

<comment><USER9> We do mm/dd/yyyy because that's how we say it. In Europe if you ask someone the date do they say 2020, August, 18th? or 18th, August, 2020?

Stuff like this really isn't a big deal. I don't get why people get so hung up on it.

<comment><USER10> Except for cases like the 4th of July, in which case it's suddenly DD/MM again. Much like the UK's relationship with metric/imperial, the problem with US dating is that it's not consistent.

In the UK we'd say "18th [of] August, 2020"

<comment><USER9> Because when we say "4th of July" it's not being said in the context of a date, it's an event. It's used in the same context that Christmas or Thanksgiving would be used. You don't say that we're inconsistent because we call Christmas "Christmas" instead of December 25th. We also call the 4th of July Independence Day. It's just colloquial usage.

If you ask someone what date Independence Day is they'll say July 4th, 1776. Not 4th of July, 1776. Test it.

> In the UK we'd say "18th [of] August, 2020"

Cool. In the US we say August 18th, 2020. So that's why we do MM/DD/YYYY. If you have any American colleagues or friends you can text this by asking them what the date is. They'll say August 18th (maybe with the 2020 part depending on how specific they want to be).

I really don't understand why people are so hell bent on changing our culture. We do it this way and like it. It's not a big deal.

<comment><USER11> I just asked 4 people "what date Independence day is", got 3 weird looks and 4 answers of "4th July", no year specified.

Non-US people don't like it because it's (a) different, _and_ (b) illogical. If it were different and logical (ie: the numbers were in some hierarchical sequence), there'd be a lot less criticism of it, IMHO.

<comment><USER12> If you asked US people, it makes sense that you'd get weird looks -- they think that you're asking because you don't know the date (and they expect that you would), whereas you're _actually_ asking just to see how they say it. Also, as other's have pointed out, Independence day is an anomoly in how the US says dates -- we actually call this one _" The 4th of July"_

A less conspicuous date might work better. "When's Valentine's Day?" or "When's St. Patrick's Day?" (Feb 14th and Mar 17th, respectively).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Opportunity to switch to metric lost? While I think it's a bit dumb to not standardize, I grew up in the UK with gallons of petrol, quarters of sweets, weighed myself in stones and drank pints of beer. And none of those things are relative to each other in my head and don't need to be standardized. They're units of communication that work for us because we all have a common language and a context, so it's fine. When they're units of measurement, everything goes sideways.

I've just about gotten to grips with fuel expressed in litres. I suspect it was only changed to make the unit price look cheaper from a distance.

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://archive.is/sIrFG](https://archive.is/sIrFG)</comment>


Ask HN: ad server recommendation? - <AUTHOR>

Hi, my startup will (probably) be serving ads and we are looking for a platform.
To be clear, we are not looking for an ad network like DoubleClick, but simply the software to do the serving and management. We'll do the selling, in other words.
Of course we could build our own, but that would be so much reinventing of wheels. We prefer not to install software on our own servers, it should be SAAS, but it's not a dealbreaker.
We will look at configurability (things like CPM vs CPC, weighting, keywording, URL targeting) and reporting as the main drivers. Of course, reliability and performance matter too.
Do you have any recommendations based on experience? Thanks! <comment><USER2> In addition to OpenX, check out Google Ad Manager/DFP. I tested both a couple years ago: found OpenX to be more robust and customizable, but Google had a much better UI. Both products have evolved since then. Either could fit your needs.

<http://openx.org/ad-server/hosted-packages> <http://www.google.com/admanager/>

<comment><USER3> For the money (free, hosted) GAM is hard to beat. Google just kicked off a major update of GAM and are rebranding it as DFP and will be charging higher volume customers.

I haven't looked at OpenX in two years -- would love to hear recent experiences with OpenX.

<comment> jim-greer Google Ad Manager is free up to 90M monthly impressions, I believe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Back when I was in the need for an ad server, I remember using phpAdsNew, now called OpenX I believe.

It's not for everyone, so I recommend you give it a spin before deciding anything, but it does offer a lot of configurability and analytical tools.

</comment><comment><USER5> AOL (I mean, Aol; actually the former AdTech) has a pretty good self-service solution. It has a pretty dashboard, good management interface, and getting campaigns up and down is fast. Not sure on price.

<http://www.adtechus.com/Home>

</comment><comment><USER6> I have two clients using OpenX, and they are both quite pleased. One started out with the free, hosted version, and recently migrated to our own install of OpenX due to poor performance on the hosted version. Our local install performs quite well, though.

OpenX is pretty easy to install and keep running, it does the job, and its straightforward to configure. Don't let the poor performance of the hosted version scare you away.

</comment><comment><USER7> Google Ad Manager is pretty dead simple to use. OpenX if you want a native solution.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the best device for reading technical books/PDF's? (2020) - <AUTHOR> Reading on my laptop introduces far too many distractions, so I'm looking into a tablet/e-reader device. What is your preferred device? <comment> mono-bob I would really like to know this as well. I am thinking about a large iPad pro with apple pencil for annotating, but it seems a little overkill for this purpose only.</comment>


Congressman Nunes sues Twitter for $250M, claims platform is a content provider - <AUTHOR> https://www.scribd.com/document/402297422/Nunes-Complaint-3-18-19 <comment><AUTHOR> "Introduction

1\. Twitter is an information content provider. Twitter creates and develops content, in whole or in part, through a combination of means: (a) by explicit censorship of viewpoints with which it disagrees, (b) by shadow-banning conservatives, such as Plaintiff, (c) by knowingly hosting and monetizing content that is clearly abusive, hateful and defamatory – providing both a voice and financial incentive to the defamers – thereby facilitating defamation on its platform, (d) by completely ignoring lawful complaints about offensive content and by allowing that content to remain accessible to the public, and (e) by intentionally abandoning and refusing to enforce its so- called Terms of Service and Twitter Rules – essentially refusing to self- regulate – thereby selectively amplifying the message of defamers such as Mair, Devin Nunes' Mom and Devin Nunes' cow, and materially contributing to the libelousness of the hundreds of posts at issue in this action.

2\. Twitter created and developed the content at issue in this case by transforming false accusations of criminal conduct, imputed wrongdoing, dishonesty and lack of integrity into a publicly available commodity used by unscrupulous political operatives and their donor/clients as a weapon. Twitter knew the defamation was (and is) happening. Twitter let it happen because Twitter had (and has) a political agenda and motive: Twitter allowed (and allows) its platform to serve as a portal of defamation in order to undermine public confidence in Plaintiff and to benefit his opponents and opponents of the Republican Party. In this case, Twitter contributed materially to the illegal conduct of defamers Mair, Devin Nunes' Mom and Devin Nunes' cow. Twitter, by its actions, intended to generate and proliferate the false and defamatory statements about Plaintiff in order to influence the outcome of the 2018 Congressional election and to intimidate Plaintiff and interfere with his important investigation of corruption by the Clinton campaign and alleged Russian involvement in the 2016 Presidential Election. Twitter knowingly acted as a vessel of opposition research."

<comment><USER2> Looks pretty DOA to me.</comment></comment>


Makefile Tutorial by Example - <AUTHOR> http://makefiletutorial.com/ <comment><USER2> A far better way to learn about GNU make would be to read the actual manual.

[https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/](https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/)

This doesn't seem like a well thought out introduction. There's quite a lot of randomness. For example, the first makefile says:

        This makefile will always run. The default target is some_binary,
        because it is first.

        some_binary:
    	echo "nothing"

Actually, it's not true that that will always echo nothing because some_binary isn't declared as phony and so if some_binary exists on the CWD echo "nothing" will not happen.

Also, the language here is weird. The tutorial talks about makefiles running and targets calling targets.

4.8 states:

        1) We do not use *.o, because that is just the string *.o,
        which might be useful in the commands, but is only one
        target and does not expand."

That's not true. Consider the following

        *.foo: ; @echo $@

If there are any files in the CWD that match *.foo then it is expanded and rules created for each file.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, RTFM! :)

<comment><USER4> Not sure if your comment was meant to be sarcasm, but I do find the GNU Make Manual very clear and well written.

For example, it starts with a rough description of what a Makefile is composed of:

[https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Rule- Intr...](https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Rule- Introduction.html)

And then directly jumps into nice a real-world example:

[https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Simple- Ma...](https://www.gnu.org/software/make/manual/html_node/Simple- Makefile.html)

This is a good compromise between abstract and concrete knowledge.

Most manuals either cover only some special cases and leave you alone to find out what's more. Then they cover only the whole syntax as BNF, or a whole API doc, or something. But nothing in between, drawing the connection between practical usage and abstract description of what's all possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I usually use this tutorial as a help if I write Makefiles: [http://www.ploxiln.net/make.html](http://www.ploxiln.net/make.html)

<comment><USER6> As an alternative to Grunt and Gulp for Frontend Developers:

[http://www.sitepoint.com/using-gnu-make-front-end- developmen...](http://www.sitepoint.com/using-gnu-make-front-end-development- build-tool/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Missed an opportunity to demonstrate that since make already knows how to make quite a lot of things, you can start w/ no Makefile at all, e.g.:

        $ echo 'int main() {}' >foo.c
        $ make foo

</comment><comment><USER8> What I'm really looking for is a tutorial about autoconf, automake, and friends.

<comment><USER9> I've found this thoughtbot article very helpful to grasp autotools: [https://robots.thoughtbot.com/the-magic-behind-configure- mak...](https://robots.thoughtbot.com/the-magic-behind-configure-make-make- install)

<comment><USER8> This seems nice, thank you. I'll read it later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is great. i wish a lot more things were like this. ie by example. it's also good for jogging one's memory on details.

</comment><comment><USER11> Things like this are good for a basis of understanding. But if you need help figuring how to tie stuff all together, the suckless[0] guys are masters of brevity.

[0] [http://git.suckless.org/dwm/tree/Makefile](http://git.suckless.org/dwm/tree/Makefile)

</comment><comment><USER12> The tutorial is allright but I would prefer for it not to exist (or not need to exist) because Make is so arcane and touchy that it should've been replaced a long long time ago. I really hate Make. There are better alternatives out there (e.g. SCons)

<comment><USER13> People hate Make because it doesn't define any conventions for its use. You can use it to do anything, but it does very little by default. This gives you a tremendous amount of freedom to declare exactly what it means to "build" an arbitrary component, but it also means you have to declare it yourself.

Many of the modern build tools move away from that. CMake, for instance, drops the ability to build arbitrary assemblages of files and focuses almost exclusively on giving you a nicely-constrained language for defining compilation targets and allowing you to support many different compilers.

Maven, Ivy, and it's ilk focus on declaring run-time dependencies and on some concept of a "build l lifecycle."

Having used all these systems, I find that there are things I need to do when running a build that I can easily do in Make, but which are encumbered significantly by other tools.

Make's syntax sucks, and it expects you to know a bunch of arcane stuff about how your project is built, but in exchange you get the ability to build literally anything.

<comment><USER14> In fact there is a lot of convention typically installed by default:

      $ make -pf /dev/null | wc -l
           359

Those suffix rules are enough for many projects, and a great example to follow if you need something different.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is 2015, there's no reason to manually write a makefile like an animal.</comment>