The Coolest Business Plan Ever - <AUTHOR> http://ricksegal.typepad.com/pmv/2008/05/the-coolest-bus.html

<comment><USER2> I got my first job offer for a startup (as a co-op/intern) by email with a document that contained the changes for every employee contract they had given out, including the cofounders. I got to see exactly how much money and the number of shares for everyone. The company was funded by a VC that had some central lawyers/HR folk that handled everything like this, so there really was no excuse.

</comment><comment><USER3> Be cool if they intentionally left the tracking in it. Good way to vet for a VC with a sense of humour and fun.

<comment><USER4> Would be really funny to put in comments like "Try not to mention what an amazingly awesome VC Fred is. He'll just think it's ass kissing."

"Don't tell him we're already making $100MM/year in revenue. That's not public information yet."

<comment><USER5> In fact it could be an excellent strategy to "plant" bits like that in your documents and hope that some smart ass will find them. I'll probably do that from now on :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wow. Just...Wow. Man, that's really funny, you made my afternoon, thank you.

</comment><comment><USER7> Thank you for the amusing antecdote about an interesting experience with an unsolicited business plan.

\- Replace "What a douchebag! Fricking hilarious!" with "Thank you for the amusing antecdote about an interesting experience with an unsolicited business plan".

<comment><USER8> I find it amusing that "fucking" was euphemized while "douchebag" was not :-) IMHO the latter is more "shocking" :-p

<comment><USER9> In radio land, m-----fucker and cock----er are the big no-no words. They're component parts, however, not so much. So it's actually completely fine (in some circumstances) for radio to bleep the only word "mother". Or "sucker". I always found that funny in my college radio days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nobody has written a sarcastic comment about MS Word that made this all possible, yet. Strange.

</comment><comment><USER11> That is GOLD!

<comment><USER12> I upmodded you because my sarcasm detector trembled ever so slightly. In fact, the post is pretty dumb for being at #1 two days running.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where did you learn about stock market/startup economics? - <AUTHOR> In the startup world, you come across terms like equity, shares or vesting very frequently, like when you're reading how Steve Ballmer got rich.
I've got a vague sense of what those terms mean and I feel like I don't understand a lot of what everyone knows, like I have no idea how to talk about equity/stock options if I get a job, or how do they relate to other things, or how the whole stock market works. Let's just say I have zero knowledge of economics.
So where did you learn about it? I'm looking for resources which teaches you only the essential stuff. In depth resources on are also welcome. <comment><USER2> In terms of startups, I can't really comment but what I would advise everyone to do is open your own direct trading account. I've learnt more in the past couple years trading my own stocks (and made better returns) than by sitting on the sidelines like most in a bank managed mutual fund.

This will give you a direct line into the transactional world of finance. I learn best by getting my hands dirty.

Start simple, start with a little bit of money. It's crazy exciting to see when you're making money but terrifying when you're seeing it go down. The best thing about having your own trading account is that you're in control. Buy and sell, whenever and whatever you want. Major banks can open one up for you, or there might be other services that offer this as a service (more so in the US than Canada).

Basically, it costs money to put in an order (to buy or sell stuff). The cost for an order generally gets lower with the higher amount of money in your account and varies by companies offering trading accounts. It's usually around $10 a trade. So $10 to put in an order to buy stuff... then $10 to sell stuff.

My 2 cents, buy what you understand. If it's tech, go with tech. If it's farming, go farming. The biggest burns I've personally had was getting into things I don't fully understand.

Do your research on companies, learn what they're doing, read the news. When are their quarter reports released? Are they making money or not? This is the biggest key to make it work. You have to invest time researching what you think can be profitable.

<comment><USER3> Is this really true? A significant amount of actively managed funds are beaten by index funds. [1] Unless you're an industry expert on a certain field, I feel that this advice will make a lot of people lose a lot of money.

[1] [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/whack-a-mole-fund- managers-...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/whack-a-mole-fund-managers- cant-beat-index-funds-2014-05-14)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> venture hacks is a good resource [1]. Check the employees section for some of the stuff you are talking about.

[http://venturehacks.com/archives](http://venturehacks.com/archives)</comment>


The Candy Hierarchy for 2016 - <AUTHOR> http://boingboing.net/2016/10/31/the-candy-hierarchy-for-2016.html <comment><USER2> Are Tootsie Rolls not even worthy of a negative mention? We gave out about ten pounds... and I don't think anyone threw them back in our faces or on the ground.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just what I'd expect: Kit Kat, Snickers, Twix, and Reese's Cups are at the top of the list.</comment>


Show HN: Mongolytics – Native BI for MongoDB - <AUTHOR> https://mongolytics.io <comment><AUTHOR> Author here: I've been sitting on this for so long and feel like I just have to post it here so I can stop stressing about posting it here. I use it every day, and anyone I do contracting for I set them up with a free account so they have more visibility into their data. It's been live for around 4 months now and I've just been struggling with SPA prerendering/seo and so just never started to push it. I put so much time into it kind of a shame that I don't know how to push / market it but here we are. Any thoughts, questions and feedback are very much appreciated.</comment>


Russia's Retro Lenin Museum Still Runs on Decades-Old Apple II Computers - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/retro-apple-computers-lenin-museum-russia <comment><USER2> The irony that you have to use a computer from your main enemy for your main ideological museum.</comment>


Making your browser browse like an iphone - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jasonsemko.com/post/51029116325/making-your-browser-browse-like-an-iphone

<comment><USER2> Which browser is it? 2 vague sentences and a green arrow, awesome!

<comment><AUTHOR> If you don't recognize Chrome you need to debug your code in the browser more! :P</comment></comment>


Crash Course – Educational course videos on YouTube - <AUTHOR> http://thecrashcourse.com <comment><USER2> Youtube is my main jam these days.

Today, I did the following today on youtube

1\. Followed along Yoga lesson (I've done yoga for many yrs but its fun to follow along a guided path)

2\. Watched graph theory (for an interview )

3\. Watched air crash investigation while eating lunch.

5\. Listened to podcast/music on youtube red when was out running errands around the town.

6\. Yet to decide what to watch before bed :)

That said, I am not impressed with this course collection. I went to the history section and clicked on Egyptian history it was 10 min video of some guy reducing a great civilization to a cartoonish caricature. That's no way to inspire kids, we need to stop replicating classrooms. Classrooms suck. I would instead have my kids watch 'Great Egyptians' series on youtube

[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=great+egyptians](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=great+egyptians)

<comment><USER3> Are you expecting significant depth from a video series called 'Crash Course'? The _point_ of the series is to give a broad overview of events, not to be scholastic courses on specific periods.

<comment><USER2> sorry, didn't make that connection until it was too late to edit my comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you like crash course, you probably want to read this list of educational youtube channels:

[https://medium.com/@bibblio_org/60-youtube-channels-that- wil...](https://medium.com/@bibblio_org/60-youtube-channels-that-will-make- you-smarter-44d8315c2548)

(and here's my favorite channels that I would like to add to this list: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10203992](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10203992))

<comment><USER5> If you like that, check out Cody's Lab: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu6mSoMNzHQiBIOCkHUa2Aw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu6mSoMNzHQiBIOCkHUa2Aw)

One of my favorite channels.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been going through U.S. History. This series is really great, highly recommended.

<comment><USER7> After that, go through

\- The Great War: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB2vhKMBjSxMK8YelHj6V...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB2vhKMBjSxMK8YelHj6VS6w3KxuKsMvT)

\- Extra History: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbBHk_zLTmY&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbBHk_zLTmY&list=PLhyKYa0YJ_5Aq7g4bil7bnGi0A8gTsawu)

<comment><USER8> The Great War is fantastic, learned so much. 10/10.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Youtube is full of hidden gems, all a matter of taste.

Meta-programming: [https://www.youtube.com/user/jblow888](https://www.youtube.com/user/jblow888)

Math'n'music edutainment: [https://www.youtube.com/user/Vihart](https://www.youtube.com/user/Vihart)

Science edutainment: [https://www.youtube.com/user/Vsauce](https://www.youtube.com/user/Vsauce)

Feats of incredible gaming skill: [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz4GCnY4I0380v7GmXQQSWw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz4GCnY4I0380v7GmXQQSWw)

Tidbits of hacking ingenuity: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB6eY73sLV0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB6eY73sLV0)

Looking for heart in pop culture: [https://www.youtube.com/user/Nerdwriter1](https://www.youtube.com/user/Nerdwriter1)

You can get lost in the maze of excess information. It's great - i think...

</comment><comment><USER10> > 90% of your cells in your body are bacterial

seriously, they are still propagating that myth based on no serious data?

<comment><USER11> Yes that's wrong, but the paper that corrected this misconception wasn't published until January of 2016. I think you should give them at least a year to update before unleashing the disapproving scowl.

<comment><USER12> The new paper estimating roughly equal numbers of bacteria and human cells:

[http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/01/06/036103](http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/01/06/036103)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really like the idea of this kind of thing, but I thought it was going to be nicely animated presentations. I was disappointed to see it's that Hank guy talking. He speaks in an annoying version of a newscaster voice, and it's distracting that they keep showing him instead of focusing only on the content. He also speaks too fast and jumps over concepts. It's disappointing that the most popular pop science stuff on YouTube involves this guy. I'd rather something more like Khan Academy, with better animations. He speaks in a more normal voice, and goes slow to really cover a concept.

<comment><USER14> Being a longtime fan of "that Hank guy," I obviously disagree. But I can see where you're coming from. The humanities are covered by his brother, who you may find less annoying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I really like the Philosophy course. The new one on video games is leaving something to be desired though.

</comment><comment><USER16> I love the US government, economics and world history courses. School would have been so much more interesting with these videos.

I really like the Patreon funding model for crash course. I watched them almost every day for a few months then started giving $15 a month because of how much value I'd gotten out of them. Plus the promised they'd make a physics course when they hit the next target and now they've delivered.

</comment><comment><USER17> I've gone through a few courses. The Histories, Philosophy, and particularly Astronomy are very good.

Maybe I'm not cut out for them but I'm finding the Physics and Chemistry courses far less approachable. I'm having to go back in the video over and over to understand a concept. I think they'd be great if I already understood the concepts and wanted to review, though.

</comment><comment><USER18> I watched almost half of them.

World History (1 & 2) and Astronomy are my two favorites.

</comment><comment><USER7> Can anyone recommend a good youtube series on [software] project management and team communication?

</comment><comment><USER19> Of course, Crash Course oversimplifies a lot and that is to be expected, but I would still avoid the philosophy courses. I mean ffs Hank makes a mistake in the first 12 seconds of this video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TFCMK4i2lo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TFCMK4i2lo)

Or this video [https://youtu.be/YaDvRdLMkHs](https://youtu.be/YaDvRdLMkHs) which is riddled with mistakes like calling Nietzsche a nihilist or him embracing nihilism

<comment><USER20> "Hank" didn't make the mistake. He's just reading a script. Dr. Ruth Tallman is the writer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Been a fan of Crash Course for some time, a good bite-sized video to tune into when you have a little bit of spare time. World History & Astronomy were my tops, currently watching the Games series which they have not yet finished.

</comment><comment><USER22> Interesting inclusion of intellectual property as a top level subject.

</comment><comment><USER23> As Med student, i really enjoyed watching anatomy & physiology course. It's accurate and not over simplified. I have recommend it to a ton of people !

</comment><comment><USER24> I love these. I was introduced to these via sci-show. I love having them on as background noise when Im doing something mindless: Working out, yardwork, etc

</comment><comment><USER25> I started with their Economics course and I really loved it.

Their ongoing course on Video games...is less stellar than I hoped.

<comment><USER26> Depending on what you are looking for ExtraCreditz might be an excellent alternative.

[https://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraCreditz](https://www.youtube.com/user/ExtraCreditz)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I really enjoyed few courses I found on the site. I think my kids would enjoy it too.

</comment><comment><USER28> What a nicely curated site!</comment>


Show HN: Make Medium Readable Again - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/thebaer/MMRA <comment><USER2> Makes me think of Kill Sticky [0], a small Javascript thing that attempts to remove all sticky headers on a page.

But really, any sort of thing that blocks, as the Github README says, "annoying, user-hostile software", is a good piece of software in my book.

[0] [https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky- headers/](https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/)

<comment><USER3> What the hell is a "bookmark bar"? That's the first thing that goes away when I configure a browser. It's like a permanent sticky header.

<comment><USER4> I put folders of bookmarks there, rather than keeping dozens of tabs open.

<comment><USER5> For the most frequently used links, I have them outside folders but rename them to 1-4 letters or none if the icon is distinct enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hacker news is easier to read on mobile than many so called made for mobile sites. It's as if made for mobile means: "abuse the small mobile screen to show as much as possible spammy bars and social network buttons on it and make them even bigger when you zoom in, while hiding actually relevant information that you can see on the desktop version of the site"

While IMHO mobile optimized should mean: wrap the text automatically at the width of the screen, in a readable size in portrait mode, don't hide anything that's visible on the desktop site (like dates, user comments, version history, ...), and support zooming in in a sane way

Even Wikipedia fails at showing the user comments pages and sane zooming in of pictures (it's always those sticky bars that ruin it)

<comment><USER3> Most "mobile" versions of web sites are objectively worse than their "desktop" versions.

Actual advantages of mobile devices are:

* High DPI, handheld. You can look at a mobile screen from different distances for different use cases and screen contents.

* Less eye movement required than for using a typical HD desktop monitor. This makes it easier to navigate unknown applications / web sites.

* Easier to tap anywhere than to click anywhere with a mouse.

* 360° scrolling with high accuracy and intuitive control over the velocity.

* Zooming with quick and intuitive gestures.

Mobile devices are perfect for navigating wide, complex web sites. That's why "mobile" versions that ignore the advantages of mobile devices are usually worse than the desktop versions.

How "mobile-optimized" apps / web sites often fail:

* Overly large elements and fonts that cannot be zoomed out from. High DPI goes to waste.

* Fixed elements that obscure parts of the screen. They make the scrollable area so tiny that you have to move your eye balls quickly when scrolling.

* Hiding important elements in hamburger menus or making them inaccessible. Finding stuff has to require multiple taps so that it is even slower than with a mouse.

* Horizontal scrolling is evil except in awfully implemented code snippets. It is unimaginable to the modern web developer that someone would double-tap a column of text to read it and scroll around afterwards to discover what else the site has to offer.

* Vertical scrolling is too hard even though a touchscreen is perfect for that. All the "important" shit has to be fixed because users would be too stupid to find the menu by scrolling. A fixed "back to top" button is the icing on the modern web cake.

* Zooming is too hard so it should be better disabled, bugged or useless.

<comment><USER7> > * Easier to tap anywhere than to click anywhere with a mouse. > * 360° > scrolling with high accuracy and intuitive control over the velocity. > * > Zooming with quick and intuitive gestures.

I disagree about those. "taping" lack a lot of precision a mouse has. And don't get me started on the typing experience as you can't use all your fingers and have no tactile return. Also Ctrl-F "the thing I'm looking for" anyone ?

The intuitive gestures are all but intuitive if you have never used them before. My first reflex to zoom is sure not to move diagonally 2 fingers on a picture.

<comment><USER8> On iOS you can put find in page in the bottom row of the screen that pops up when you hit the share button. I also put request desktop site there for easy access (although I recently accidentally discovered that that's available by long pressing the reload button.)

<comment><USER9> Long pressing the reload button ... wow ... yep it does that. I wonder: Is there some site that just lists all the different tricks for mobile safari in a list?

I feel like I am 8 again bombing random walls / burning random trees in Zelda looking for a super secret fabled (atleast in my grade school) green potion of unlimited refills when I'm using iOS safari half the time.

Also, I feel like double tapping the address bar used to scroll to the top of the page too but it seems like it doesn't do that anymore so showing what was ninja patched out would be useful too.

<comment><USER10> On iOS, tapping the middle of the status bar will scroll up to the top.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's amazing how many sites, Medium included, become so much more readable just by turning off CSS and JavaScript.

Sure, they look far more bland and become less interactive, but I came for the content and not the author's idea of "design".

<comment><USER12> Contemporary design is overly focused on curb appeal. IMHO, it's an understated problem.

IMHO, the cause is a combination of commercialism and of visual designers being inculcated with inappropriate values and training from traditional print design.

<comment><USER13> > IMHO, the cause is a combination of commercialism and of visual designers > being inculcated with inappropriate values and training from traditional > print design.

I judge that it got a lot worse around the time the print-trained designers started to be pushed out of decision-making positions by the digital-trained ones.

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure I follow. Web design hasn't gone downhill over time - it's definitely improving, simply because the tools have allowed it do so. Perhaps you could provide some examples from the era of print designers and the era after them?

What I have observed has been that, while technology has allowed screens to become a more expressive design medium, visual designers tend to be content to cargo-cult techniques from the static, vastly simpler, and more expansive medium of print, and it shows.

<comment><USER13> I think we probably disagree about what good design is. I think that precisely

> static, vastly simpler

is the right way to go.

This is mere consistency on my part. I hated (most) Flash sites back in the day, and wasteful giant images, et c. I hate (most) JS/CSS cycle-burner sites and giant wasteful images today. Consistency is good. Shit not moving around on my screen is good. Controls working the usual way is good. Consistency, predictability, and clarity _are_ good UX.

The basic 2-or-3-column layout with a thin header was fine, with maybe some tweaks for smaller screens these days. Early-period web's allergy to non- content large media files was good. Design mostly gets in the way, while making everything more expensive. I think its function was described perfectly by someone the last time we had a design thread: it's peacock feathers. Keeping up with design trends is harmful to function, but signals wealth (=stability, reliability, social proof of value) precisely because it's so costly and pointless. This doesn't mean it improves my experience on the Web.

<comment><USER12> _> > static, vastly simpler_

 _> is the right way to go._

Right, and this is the problem. Digital information is frequently neither. Denying this and shoehorning it into techniques that work for simpler, more static information is hiding the message for the medium. It's bad design.

>The basic 2-or-3-column layout with a thin header was fine, with maybe some tweaks for smaller screens these days. Early-period web's allergy to non- content large media files was good. Design mostly gets in the way, while making everything more expensive.

This wasn't because print designers were in charge. It's because the design industry, for the most part, is allergic to innovation and was ignoring the web. The web designers weren't designers - they very junior developers with none of the pretensions or preconceptions that come with formal training as well as all the problems that come with that, and a really primitive medium.

It's rather telling that returning to those pre-css days would improve things, is it not?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> You can also use uBlock (or any sufficiently sophisticated ad/content blocker) to block certain elements just by pointing your pointer at them. See: [https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Element- picker](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Element-picker)

<comment><USER15> One shouldn't spend 2 minutes blocking elements in a page that you would read hardly 5 minutes. That's counter productive and annoying and should be automated. An extension helps in that.

<comment><USER16> The picker creates rules that are persistent, so it would be 2 minutes over however many times you visit the site. Not too dissimilar to looking for the extension and installing it.

<comment><USER17> That's what I thought as well, but I repeatedly find myself blocking the same elements on Medium. Maybe there's some element of randomization in the ids of the offending elements, or else I'm using the extension wrong and only creating temporary rules somehow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is the sort of thing that is probably typically better handled via a user stylesheet; one I found from a quick search: [https://userstyles.org/styles/140923/medium-com-removing- bot...](https://userstyles.org/styles/140923/medium-com-removing-bottom-and- upper-banners)

This extension, however, has the advantage that it checks for a <meta property="al:ios:app_name" content="Medium"> in the document instead of applying to a hardcoded set of domains.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, a user stylesheet would easily do the trick. And a nicely-packaged extension makes it accessible to more people, especially non-technical users.

<comment><USER19> > And a nicely-packaged extension makes it accessible to more people, > especially non-technical users.

I followed the links on parent comment. Installed _Stylish_ for FF[0] to manage userStyles. The link provided by parent[1] now shows _install style_ :)

After installing the userStyle, medium is so much more readable as default without me having to click an extra 'readability' button to reload.

Very nice! I'm going to have a lot of fun experimenting with some other (annoying) sites.

[0] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- Us/firefox/addon/stylish/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- Us/firefox/addon/stylish/)

[1] [https://userstyles.org/styles/140923/medium-com-removing- bot...](https://userstyles.org/styles/140923/medium-com-removing-bottom-and- upper-banners)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is awesome and will hopefully prod the developers at Medium to rethink the design (if your users need a Chrome extension to make your product usable, it's got some immediate problems that deserve a resolution). The sticky nav bars are really just terrible, and sometimes render parts of the page completely unreadable. It's surprising that these problems were not caught during basic usability testing. Thank you OP for fixing them!

<comment><USER21> It's not the engineers, it's the managers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wish there was something I could do like this on mobile. I've given up trying to read these pages on my phone now, it's just too distracting to have all their UI clutter in the way.

What I don't understand is how they let it get this bad?

<comment><USER23> I downloaded this app called 'Unobstruct' the other day. It does just this for mobile safari.

[https://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/unobstruct/id1255281426?l=en...](https://itunes.apple.com/nl/app/unobstruct/id1255281426?l=en&mt=8)

<comment><USER24> Been looking for something like this for months. Trying it out right now!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> A bit off topic, but why does Medium add random numbers and chars at the end of their URLs like the example below[0]? That's annoying and distracting when referring from other platforms. Is that a git hash or something? If so, can I check revise history of the article?

[0] [https://medium.com/@soleoshao/how-i-used-docker-for-latex- on...](https://medium.com/@soleoshao/how-i-used-docker-for-latex-on-mac-os- yosemite-cd29c0713cad)

<comment><USER26> The hash at the end of the URL is actually the article ID, the part before that is just for SEO/readability, and has no affect on loading the article.

e.g.: omitting the article title from the URL still works ([https://medium.com/@soleoshao/cd29c0713cad](https://medium.com/@soleoshao/cd29c0713cad)) as does changing it to something else entirely ([https://medium.com/@soleoshao/i-like-turtles- cd29c0713cad](https://medium.com/@soleoshao/i-like-turtles-cd29c0713cad))

Both those URLs still load the article in question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> While I applaud the effort, I think you should vote with your X button and stop reading articles that have a hostile UI.

<comment> martin-adams I disagree, the action taken to create an extension and get it on HN sparks the discussion that can trigger real change. A boycott only works when you have a sufficient number of people doing the same, or in this case, a sufficient number of people bypassing the hostile UI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Funny thing is I avoid reading hackernoon blogs because of the green banner hurting my eyes. Not trying to be funny but I genuinely find it uncomfortable. So interesting that in the README file of this project hackernoon is shown as the example lol

<comment><USER29> Yeah, and as a contributor I have been surprised to see that they are now injecting (neon green) advertising banners into some of my articles. I don't mind it at the bottom, but I don't love it at the top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Anything to help make the comment section of Medium more usable?

<comment><AUTHOR> How would you like to see it improved?

<comment><USER30> If there was a way to get _all_ of the comments to show inline per their thread on the main page that would be helpful.

Having to click a link, go to another page, have that page jump around on you and still need to click another link to show the replies is pretty terrible.

Here's a GIF of my gripe: [http://imgur.com/a/35YJs](http://imgur.com/a/35YJs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I'm waiting for "Show HN: How to blog with a static site generator". Medium is getting to be too much. If you're a programmer, at least use a static site generator (Metalsmith, Hugo, Hexo, etc.). You can deploy to Github pages with git or via drag-and-drop to a service like Netlify.

</comment><comment><USER32> A possible improvement: automatically remove all the f-ing animated gifs people think they really really must insert in between each paragraph.

<comment><USER33> Absolutely horrible for readability. Nothing makes me give up on an article faster.

<comment><USER34> I've written some ... spicy ... emails to _The New York Times_ over this practice.

I tend to go to a W3M dump instead.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Remember the good old days, when Medium prided itself on being beautiful and readable?

<comment><USER36> Yep. That seems to be a trend with user content driven sites. They start off promising a clean, minimalistic look (like Medium, Imgur, Reddit, etc) and then gradually end up cluttering their site with more and more useless trinkets.

Indeed, it's so bad for image sharing sites that they seem to get replaced every year or two when the last one starts becoming more and more hostile towards their users' experience.

<comment> irq-1 "Brands" generally follow the same pattern: grow the base, then cheapen the products to increase profits. Eventually the Brand will be replaced with the next big thing, or the Brand will survive long enough to provide a consistent product that people accept.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Userscript Version: [https://gist.github.com/luke3butler/3ff89de4fb6564669eaa50d2...](https://gist.github.com/luke3butler/3ff89de4fb6564669eaa50d2b04dd49c)

</comment><comment><USER38> I use Firefox in reader mode. Works like a charm. Firefox mobile also has this feature which has become indispensable for me.

<comment><USER39> I'said it before, I'll say it again:

ctrl+alt+r

However, while it is lovely when it does work, it crashes my browser rather often.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I for one am shocked, _shocked_ , that independent publishers colluded with a single company in establishing a near-monopoly in hosted content delivery because of their "publisher-friendly policies" and said company is now taking advantage of that position.

</comment><comment><USER41> Does this kill the share on highlight crap? If so, you have another install.

<comment><USER42> I had the same problem. Found this:

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/medium- highlight-o...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/medium-highlight- off/lfhbdbplpphacepapppdobnenkfimagn)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> (in my humble opinion) they should just as much look at the content they publish as how they publish it. The amount of clickbait quality articles on medium is sky rocket high.

</comment><comment><USER44> This has slowly been driving me insane. I will for sure use this. I'd think the bars would be common criticisms and medium would have done something to limit them by now.

</comment><comment><USER45> Does anyone have a problem with Medium on Firefox? For me, it doesn't have the top and bottom bars. I've switched uBlock off and this is still the case. Is all of this extra chrome, a Chrome only thing or some A/B testing?

I do see the problems on Chrome.

[https://medium.com/@andrey_cheptsov/making-java-code- easier-...](https://medium.com/@andrey_cheptsov/making-java-code-easier-to- read-without-changing-it-adeebd5c36de)

<comment><USER46> I see them in Firefox, with uBlock installed and active. This problem is easily solved by clicking the reader mode button in the url bar though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Thank you. Just FYI ... I use the [Mercury Reader Extension]([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mercury- reader/okn...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mercury- reader/oknpjjbmpnndlpmnhmekjpocelpnlfdi)) which works fantastic!

An added benefit, is its ability to send the article to my Kindle to read later at leisure.

</comment><comment><USER48> One of my favorite things about Medium posts is the completely irrelevant hi res image that they nag you to add.

Definitely contributes to the story. Clap clap clap.

</comment><comment><USER33> I use Just Read[1] for things like this. It attempts to pull out the relevant text and put it in a user editable style sheet (the default is fine for many).

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/just- read/dgmanlpm...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/just- read/dgmanlpmmkibanfdgjocnabmcaclkmod?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER49> I don't see how it can be useful. Here for example, I just have to scroll a little (little) bit and all the bar are gone. [https://blog.mindorks.com/understanding-interpolators-in- and...](https://blog.mindorks.com/understanding-interpolators-in-android- ce4e8d1d71cd)

Am I on some sort of special version?

<comment><USER50> You must be on some sort of special version. Scrolling provides me with an additional social bar and removes nothing

<comment><AUTHOR> You'll get a different (less annoying) experience if you're logged in. However if you haven't logged in on a Medium site (these [0][1] might be some), you'll get the annoying sticky bars.

[0] [https://hackernoon.com/the-rise-of-influencers-in-a- digital-...](https://hackernoon.com/the-rise-of-influencers-in-a-digital- age-28c251df4018) [1] [https://imrat.com/medium-custom-domain-cloudflare- db76b8a9b2...](https://imrat.com/medium-custom-domain-cloudflare-db76b8a9b284)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> Firefox -> URL bar -> click ::book icon:: -> read.

EDIT. Huh. No astral plane unicode allowed in HN comments.

</comment><comment><USER52> Wow. Thanks for creating this awesome tool. I've felt the same for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER53> I use Kill Sticky for this: [https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky- headers/](https://alisdair.mcdiarmid.org/kill-sticky-headers/)

</comment><comment><USER54> Is there anything like this for Gmail? The two large sticky bars (the bar where the search box is on, and the toolbar bar) are wasting too much of my screen estate. Thanks in advance.

</comment><comment><USER55> Thought this was referring to the decline of its content at first

</comment><comment><USER56> It's really sad to see Medium turning into this. I used to like Medium, now I avoid any site that uses them (which is getting harder as they now allow custom domains).

</comment><comment><USER57> Dear web designers:

Tall screen? Use a topbar.

Wide screen? Use a sidebar.

<comment><USER34> I'd actually strongly encourage using a _non-fixed_ set of _bottom_ navigation in most instances.

I'm increasingly finding sidebars ... bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> It's me getting old and grumpy or was it really better back in the days of Greasemonkey?

</comment><comment><USER59> What are the alternatives to Medium?

<comment><USER36> Static website generators and GitHub pages, WordPress.com, Blogger, typical hosting sites. I think some forums and Reddit style link aggregators have places for longform content too.

I was considering my own direct alternative to the site, but at the moment I have other things to work on.

<comment><USER59> AFAIK Medium's selling point is the network, i.e. the easy access to potential followers. My website is static via org-publish, but nobody knows it and if I wanted to popularise it I'd have to do many things. With these networks+hosting services like Medium and Tumblr all you have to do is put some tags. I was asking for this sort of alternatives.

<comment><USER36> Then I'll say that I'm working on something similar, it's just not ready at the moment. I'm retooling my gaming site into a gaming alternative to Medium and the likes, and will hopefully launch a general version for all subjects at a later date.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> It seems to be commonly regarded that Medium has the most excremental reading experience of any publishing platform.

Remember when they used to publish blog articles about making the web a better reading experience? That seems a bad joke now.

So Medium have trashed their brand. But my question is: do they know? Do they care? Do they read all the articles about how appalling the reading experience on their platform is? What's going on?

<comment><USER61> > do they know?

Maybe

> Do they care?

Sure, if they know.

> Do they read all the articles about how appalling the reading experience on > their platform is?

Doubtful

>What's going on?

They don't know how to monetize any better than any other web site. They're following what other sites do to try and engage the people who do visit Medium longer. The problem is, what works for sites where the reading experience is secondary doesn't work for a site whose reading experience is primary. Somehow they either don't know that or cannot think of anything better to try.

<comment><USER62> They're probably seeing an uptick in signups, subscriptions, and all the other metrics they care about---so they keep going down the rabbit hole of adding more modals and call to actions, and popunders. They don't realize at the end of that track is a brick wall of 0% growth as new visitors are instantly turned off.

If I werent' already committed to using Medium, I'd click away the instant I saw the site as it reminds me too much of spam-blog pages.

<comment><USER63> I just reached the point of "ew, no" when I'm about to click a link that I can see is going to go to Medium due to the popups that start, "You've read N articles on Medium, ..."

I can't recall what the rest says because by the time I've scanned the first part I've already right-clicked to "inspect" to delete the element. (Then I cleared all Medium cookies, but that doesn't prevent them from showing the popup again, and it still has the N so obviously they are storing it server- side. :-( )

Bleah.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Stop. Using. "Make X Y/Great Again". Headlines.

Thanks,

Pretty much everybody

<comment><USER65> The formula works! If it can get _that_ guy in the White House, it can sell _anything_.

Also, I think it's kind of delicious when a variant like this is used to actually describe a previously "Y/Great" thing (Medium _was_ readable at some point). Kinda hijacks the meaning from the original phrase and makes it less shitty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> thank you...

</comment><comment><USER67> Basically every online newspaper is much, much worse than Medium. I don't get all the whining.</comment>


Is golang good fit for chess engine? (performance wise) - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20401135/is-go-a-nice-fit-for-a-chess-engine

<comment><USER2> There are some parts of the engine like move generation and searching that are nicely parallelizable with goroutines. As far as I know Go provides limited support for intrinsics, but you can always use C or assembly to provide access to things like __builtin_ffsll or _BitScanForward64 if you're using bitboards. You should be able to avoid any GC based slowdowns by using stack based variables for most functions, so in that respect it shouldn't be any slower than the corresponding C code. I've only dabbled in Go myself, but from what I've seen it's at least worth a try.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the answer. I just wonder why was it so hard for people on stackoverflow to put meaningful answer instead closing the question for no reason..</comment></comment>


Wireless Carriers Caught Throttling Netflix and YouTube - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/it-sure-looks-like-wireless-carriers-got-busted-throttl-1828823399 <comment><USER2> Of course they did.

Too easy. Create problems, sell solutions.</comment>


Ask HN: Weekend wasted again - <AUTHOR> Hello All,
I decide to do something over the weekend may be a small project or learn something new or prepare for interview, but Saturday and Sunday goes by and  I do nothing but to browse internet, facebook, youtube and going through links.
At the end of Sunday, I feel like, I wasted my weekend and get little bit depressed.
If anyone has gone through process, can you please share how to got out of this loop on every week end? <comment><USER2> Not sure what HNs opinion of this will be....

I used to have similar issues. It was mostly down to procrastination and overwork/stress.

Weekends were really bad since I was so busy/stressed from the week that I would get into an attitude of "i'll start doing it in an hour" and eventually it was so late that it was too late to get any work done. I had a lot to do, just very little impetus to do it _now_.

Fixed it by starting to smoke pot. Not even kidding. I set a timeline for my weekends for when I was working and when I was done. When I work, I work. When I'm done, I go smoke. Basically every weekend for a few months.

I've probably tripled, if not more, my weekend productivity by giving myself a defined period of work and a defined period of relaxation and a reward for getting there.

<comment><USER3> What you do is called unscheduling. It is a method of time boxing where you define your me time as the highest priority thus creating a sense of urgency and reward for your work time. You could as well decide to go for a run at a certain time instead of smoking pot. Pot is just easier because you will shut down automatically thus releaving you of the duty to care for your mental hygiene through other means.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When this sort of thing happens to me it is usually because either I didn't have a concrete plan on what I was going to do beyond describing it as "useful" (or the project wasn't really interesting), or I had been deprived of relaxation due to being very busy for more than a week and the mind is "reclaiming" its time.

If the reason is latter, I wouldn't worry too much. But in order to make my weekends or off days productive, I try to sneak in a small share of web browsing on working days - it basically works like rest/sleep. As for former, I let the interest or necessity generate naturally and not force myself to do something useful and think its a crime to relax.

<comment><USER5> > I try to sneak in a small share of web browsing on working days.

I personally find that the time I spend distracted on the internet does not rejuvenate my brain. To actually do this I need to sleep, go for a walk, build something physical, or hang out with friends. YMMV, but you should take some time to examine yourself and discover what genuinely refreshes you.

<comment><USER4> > YMMV, but you should take some time to examine yourself and discover what > genuinely refreshes you.

I hope by 'you' you mean 'one'.

<comment><USER5> yes, generalized you.

<comment><USER6> 'The Royal You'

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> gaurav-gupta The solution might be how you spend your weekdays, finding out what you "really" enjoy doing and how you approach the weekend project.

If your stress level steadily rises from Monday to Friday, you'll need the weekend to wind down. This is the first problem to solve. Do fun things in the week days to wind down before the weekend (ideally wind down every day). What are fun things? I can recommend some ideas, but its different for everyone, but getting some form of physical execise is a BIG plus. Walk, run, swim, play... whatever floats your boat.

How to approach the weekend project? This is what works for me. Breakdown the weekend project into really small pieces. I don't mean you make a project plan for the weekend project. Just find the first one or two mini goals, something you can accomplish in an hour. Hit the mini goals. If you don't feel motivated to hit the mini goals. Find out why and iterate. Maybe try a 15 minute goal. Maybe a different project. The point is make really small nudges in the direction you want to go. If it doesn't work, find out why and fix it. When small nudges start working, it'll build up momentum and will eventually become a full weekend project! Have fun! That's the whole point of weekend projects!

</comment><comment><USER7> I have ADHD, so I've done this a lot. :)

First take a look at this from a few days ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12734671](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12734671) on a book: Deep Work. Basically just some of the tactics ADHD people have been using for ages.

The whole world seems to have developed some mild sub clinical ADD thanks to social and phones. So first off don't be surprised you're struggling.

Understand that web browsing and social are variable reward machines. Click a link and you have another new snippet to read, or video to see. Each one gives you a reward and a small dopamine boost. Now compare with preparing for interview, or thinking about a side project. Where's the rewards? Later. Maybe not even today! It's a luxury cheesecake vs diet fruit portion question.

Look at the pomodoro technique and break tasks up with small rewards. 25 mins productive, 5 mins social (if you can stop at the next beep). Get a cheap $5 kitchen timer to sit next to you. If your willpower is lacking, add a browser extension to set limits on social cheesecake sites. If the phone is main distraction add an app to silence notifications, or remove the strongest distractions - the social ones!

Same goes for desktop on your laptop - remove the candy, set it up for productivity. Maybe separate logins - one for productivity, one that permits you near the fun stuff. :p

For god's sake don't keep todo lists and such on your phone. Turn phone off, use a notebook, post it or pad, or text file on the laptop! Otherwise you're now holding the crack, and hoping not to be tempted. Just 5 minutes, I can handle it...

Accept that your attention _will_ wander, and get used to checking in and trying to bring it back. That timer helps. If you struggle add another timer to beep every few minutes - as a checkin. Don't get depressed if you trip up. Forgive yourself, and try again - you're building a new habit, and that will take time and many mistakes.

Last, lots of exercise, fluids, healthy eating and breaks away from keyboard will keep you fresh.

</comment><comment><USER8> This entire thread is worth checking out: The "I want to do everything but end up doing nothing" dilemma: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9049208](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9049208)

<comment><AUTHOR> Entire thread is very good source. It has lots of links. Liked the pomodoro technique. Thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sorry I can't shed much light on how to get through this. I'm stuck in the middle of it as well, ending my weekend being frustrated and angry that I wasted it. I don't believe that lack of enthusiasm is necessarily at play here. However, I used to be very good at this, putting in several hours of work and several hours of learning/projects over the weekend. Things that I believe (but haven't tested) helped me then: Feeling accomplished during the week, not sleeping in on Saturday, optimizing my home work environment for productivity, and setting very small/realistic goals.

To that last point, I believe both of us could benefit from the "GTD" (David Allen) approach. In particular, utilize the "Clarify" step to write out 1-3 small things you want to do each day. Instead of setting yourself up to "build a small thing" or "learn a subject," split the day's tasks into easy stuff like "init git repo" or "read first chapter of intro to Go."

But, if your week burns you out (my main motivation for a lack of will on the weekends) you may be better off resting. Schedule your downtime in addition to your learning/project time. Give yourself time before and after your project to zone out and click links aimlessly. And, if it suits you, get a buddy to be accountable with. Someone who's going to ask you on Sunday evening if you've taken at least one step toward your goal. Hope this comment helps.

</comment><comment><USER10> Maybe the problem is not where we search for it. There is a theory that willpower is a limited resource [1]. If this theory is true, it means productivity hacks cannot work, because the problem is not in our weekends, it is in our weekdays: in our work that demands all of our willpower, in our relationships, social interactions, or in our inability to relax.

I read an article some time ago that I cannot find. It stated that extreme procrastination is the result of a form of drug abuse: we need our daily dose of fb, youtube, etc to keep us functioning, but that takes all the time, and when we realize we wasted another day, it makes us sad, and the cycle begins anew. It is also no secret that these sites are designed to be addictive.

This article might help you too (well, the original, but I couldn't link that because, most likely, the author of the original essay procrastinated the renewal of the web page for too long, and it cannot be reached): [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/sep/07/change-...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/sep/07/change- your-life-procrastination-burkeman)

[1] [https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/willpower-limited- resource.pd...](https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/willpower-limited-resource.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER11> Genuine question here. Why is it that some lack the discipline to just do things that they want to do?

Its a common theme that appears in most books (heck Just Fucking Ship is a whole book on this) and I have noticed this over time with different people but never understood it.

Is there a psychological reason behind this? Is it something that needs to be overcome with the ways listed here? I guess what I am asking is why is that many cannot just decide to do something and do it without trying to hold themselves accountable using techniques.

<comment><USER12> > Why is it that some lack the discipline to just do things that they want to > do?

If I find myself unable to do the things I want to do, I have to ask: do I really _want_ to do these things, or do I just _want_ to want to do them?

Let's say I'm convinced I need to learn a new programming language / library, and study to interview for a new job. But is this new language or new job really the thing that's missing in my life?

Maybe what I _really_ want to do is make some music, or explore my neighborhood. Maybe part of me knows I should be going out, meeting girls, getting married, and starting a family.

When you try to make yourself work on things that don't address your real needs, you end up with priority inversion. If you find yourself saying "I can't do anything until X is done, yet I can't make myself do X", that could be a sign to say "Fuck X, what I really want to do is Y."

<comment><USER13> And then some of us look back over two decades of half-finished projects, and think, "Wow, many of these Xes were really cool, I wish I had just sucked it up and finished a few of the Xes, even though at the time all I wanted to do is start yet another project like Y".

The real issue is that some humans have a harder time integrating their short- term and long-term desires.

<comment><USER12> It's always possible to revisit a decades-old project and pick up where you left off. If you don't have the time or motivation to finish it today, you can hardly blame your past self for making the same decision.

Leaving your abandoned project in a somewhat "working state" can go a long way to facilitate this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I started volunteering. Most Saturdays I'm out early in the morning building a house with Habitat for Humanity. Then I go home and nap, feeling content that I did something worthwhile with my weekend.

After that, it's easier to actually work on computer-y things. Don't fool yourself into thinking that you can do thought-heavy things all the time. You need physical activity! Mind and body must both be healthy in order for either of them to work at the highest levels.

</comment><comment><USER15> 1\. Set the daily goal

2\. Identify steps required to reach it, write them down. It's better to do it with pen and paper, no to-do apps or anything like it.

3\. Take the first step right away, do not postpone it.

4\. Log your progress and time on each step. Archievements and failures too.

5\. At the end of the day look through your log, asess your achievements on 10 grade scale, set goals for tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is what I have done : using password generator to have a password I cant remember + 2fa . Auto destruct cookies in browser . It actually prevents me from trying to login to fb , gmail etc as its too much work . After some time now I have a control over my urge to login . And start working friday night or early saturday morning .

<comment><USER17> This is great!

I usually block sites in my /etc/hosts file. It's not a ton of work to unblock them but it's enough that when I go to facebook and it doesn't load more often then not I will alt-tab back to my editor or something productive.

<comment><USER18> I use Leechblock, which lets you block sites at certain times of day, on certain days of the week, group sites to enable/disable them as a group, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I ban the time sinks like Reddit and Facebook till after the work is done whenever that is. But it's unrealistic to keep working all day without browsing internet even for a little while if you're addicted to clicking links. To solve that I allow myself visits to a number of sites that are updated (with new links/stories) less often. Vice and Snapzu, for example. I let myself visit them as many times as I want for as long as I want during work. Since these are "slower" kind of sites, you'll start spending more and more time with your own work rather than chasing clicks. By the time work is done and Reddit is unlocked you'll be so exhausted you'll only spend a little time on it. After a while this breaks your addiction to Reddit. The best part is you don't have to time your work time vs leisure time.

</comment><comment><USER20> I just finished 'Deep Work'. It's a book from Cal Newport that I think it might be helpful in your situation.

Here's the link: [http://calnewport.com/books/deep- work/](http://calnewport.com/books/deep-work/)

</comment><comment><USER21> I was doing OK until the election news started getting superheated. Weekends, evenings, weekdays, all chopped up now. Hoping I can get things back together after 8 Nov, but worry I'll be susceptible to the the next new major news story. Damn you Nate Silver!

<comment><USER5> [https://freedom.to/](https://freedom.to/) can block [http://fivethirtyeight.com/](http://fivethirtyeight.com/) on both your phone and your laptop. Unlike /etc/hosts, your less diligent self can't unblock it until the timer is over.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm going to answer this two-fold and relate it to what I'm going through. Feel free to shoot me some advice as well.

On the surface, you clearly don't have passion driving what it is you want to do. I can relate to this because I'm learning to code. It was a struggle until I found Codewars, at which point I was able to easily turn on some music and sink hours at a time solving coding challenges. Turns out that the skill of solving these things doesn't transfer to.. anything. I struggle to sit still going through any tutorial and I still have no idea how to build things. So, on the surface, find something that motivates you.

Digging deeper, this inability to finish anything I start seems like a personal issue. I've worked a lot harder than this before. I think there are facets of my life, and probably yours, that need to be put into order first.

There's a satisfaction with life that I've had before and currently it's missing. I'm unable to stick with anything because I immediately seek cheaper forms of satisfaction. I think attaining a more genuine satisfaction with myself would eliminate this urge. Maybe you feel similar.

Also it obviously sucks to do things alone. Meetups, even when they lead to nothing, are still a big source of motivation. Personally I notice my productivity correlates with how often I'm going to meetups.

</comment><comment><USER23> The benefit of any productivity hack / book / app is ephemeral before you are back to your "mindless" browsing (I wrote about it sometime back [1]). It's a great business isn't it? Write a book / app about procrastination — something that everyone is looking to "fix" and start raking money. You can write daily / weekly / monthly goals for all you want but a "guilt-creating" laundry list of tasks doesn't really help.

Although, I do have my share of procrastination but I have gotten a lot better than I was an year back when I used to spend all the free-time on movies. This weekend, I read lots of New Yorker articles, a small book, and finished writing an article. To an extent, I think I can do better by working on a small side-project but then again, there is always room to feel guilty.

You just have to hate wasting time and gradually, things will get better. There is no secret sauce towards working; if we had Facebook wouldn't be a multi-billion dollar company.

[1]: [https://shubhamjain.co/2015/06/28/why-productivity-tricks- do...](https://shubhamjain.co/2015/06/28/why-productivity-tricks-dont-matter/)

</comment><comment><USER24> What you need is basically to become more aware of the value of your time.

Every day you get 86400 minutes offered to you. You can either not do anything with it or use it to accomplish your goals.

Time is on of the only things you can't buy. Every one is equal on this level, this si the most precious and the most volatile ressource everyone has.

But first you must define your goals precisely.

So stop whatever you are doing, get a piece of paper and write what you want to accomplish within 1 week, 1 month, 1 year.

That done, try planning your week ends so that you get shit done and eventually your accomplish your 1 week, 1 month, 1 year goal.

Helpful to keep to you schedule : identify your "time stealer". All those things that wast your time like useless tv, uninterested facebook posts and so on. Realize that every minute you spend doing something you consider useless is wasted.

Then, most important, try getting some rest BEFORE being tired : that way you won't procrastinate in the "I might rest just a little while before i get to it" spirit.

I hope this can be helpful to you. I just spend the last year trying to get out of the loop you're talking about so I know exactly how you feel about it. I'm succeeding one little step after the other.

It's a lot of discipline, but I can tell you the trip is worth the effort.

<comment><USER25> 1440 minutes in a day :)

<comment><USER24> Indeed, my bad

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My tools for combating this:

\- [https://freedom.to/](https://freedom.to/)

\- Have a specific plan in mind, not a generalized "learn something new"

\- On Tuesday, post on facebook asking a friend if they want to do a work- along day on any hobbies. Then hop on appear.in together or hang out in person.

\- Keep yourself well-fed and well-rested.

</comment><comment><USER26> The best thing I did was get a hobby that got me out of the house. For me it is drone racing, but it could be jogging, swimming, or even go fly a kite.

Once I get back into the house, I've burned off some energy and can focus on my side project. For whatever reason if I sit in front of the computer all weekend I have a hard time getting started.

</comment><comment><USER27> We all require some sort of forced schedules. Don't beat yourself too much about this.

Next weekend try this:

For every 55 min of YouTube/Facebook etc, put in 5 min of serious work. Just 5. But be disciplined about this schedule. Time yourself so that you don't do a minute more of the work!

Learn the schedule habit first.

<comment><USER28> I would reverse the times... limit 5 mins of facebook/youtube for every 30 mins spent on side project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Get kids! You'll never have a single moment to yourselves ever again. Problem solved :D

</comment><comment><USER30> I become productive based on deciding I'm going to do something.

Pause on that word: decision. We all have impulses, wishes, desires, etc. But you're only ever going to progress when you stop, think about what you want, be realistic with if you can actually achieve that with everything else going in your life - then DECIDE that you are going to do it.

Once you've decided, that is when you follow through every time (if you've done the first steps correctly). Then it's basically autopilot and you don't ever feel like procrastinating. I dunno - works for me.

<comment><USER13> In the past, I have followed through with what seemed like good decisions at the time. As the years went on, I started to have doubts that they were not- so-great decisions, but I continued to follow through anyway, because of my awesome willpower. I definitely got some things 'done', but in some instances, they were at best a colossal waste of energy, and at worst, actually ran counter to my true goals.

Life is a process of self-discovery and adaptation. I actually agree with you, that simple 'decision' carries immense power. But if that power is wasted or ill spent, then future uses of that power carry a pall of distrust, which makes the power harder to use.

I cannot find the quote right now, but it is something like: "Some have inside themselves a volcano, and some have a glacier. Neither should take advice meant for the other."

I have a volcano in my heart, and I can spend many lifetimes spewing forth lava in all directions, for the ultimate good of no one. My lifelong struggle is to learn how best to focus that energy.

But be careful if you are a glacier, that you don't tell a younger version of myself to just start spewing in any direction. Likewise, I won't tell you to stop and make sure that you're moving in the right direction before you take any steps at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> 1)I get up early in the morning on weekends (relatively early like 7). I have sleep at a sane time on the night before to do this, instead of staying up and watching netflix till 3 in the morning on the night before.

Waking up at noon ruins the day for me. YMMV

2) Limiting the things you want to do. I had this nagging feeling that I should read all the interesting articles that come across in HN etc. I solved but installing a "save to wunderlist" chrome extension. I tell myself that I would read it later (which rarely happens).

<comment><USER5> > which rarely happens

If you genuinely feel like you want to keep up with news, switch to podcasts. Then, get your news while you tidy your flat, do laundry, or buy groceries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Side projects are hard to get around to sometimes -- I don't try to force it, because it's much worse to waste your time and build bad habits than it is to just admit that it's not happening today and make the most of your time.

I try to get outside and move every day that I can. I surf on weekends and it makes my life a lot better. Then the day is already in the "win" category, so if I feel like working on something, there's less pressure.

</comment><comment><USER33> I set a timer that just went off every hour.

And if i was doing something unproductove like youtube facebook etc I closed the tab.

Another thing was that instead of theorycrafting and worrying about O(n) for the smallest projects ever I just went ahead and got something running. Its pretty easy to be disappointed if you cant see your results.

For preparing for interviews you dont really need the internet. Just get a piece of paper and use the cracking the coding book.

</comment><comment><USER34> Get up early, and try not to do anything before getting started on what you wanted to do. If you have a place you can go to that is not your home to go do it, go there and avoid staying home. If you are depressed like now, because Sunday is already gone, plan to get up at least a couple of hours earlier than you normally would tomorrow, and use those two hours to at least start doing some of what you wanted to do.

</comment><comment><USER31> You said "prepare for interview". I was doing it a few months back and I didn't enjoy it. One reason was I was thinking in the back of my mind about all the interesting (for me) thing I could be learning instead of the interview prep. I used to devote sometime to study something that genuinely interested me, regardless of whether it was helpful for interview.

Again, this helped me a little bit, YMMV

</comment><comment><USER35> I sometimes go to the library. I also quit facebook.

</comment><comment><USER36> What worked for me is, this fall I canceled my smartphone service and bought a flip phone from Walmart. Saves a ton of money, but more importantly, I hardly even look at the Internet on weekends and evenings now.

Failing that, have you considered getting a cabin in the woods? Or maybe a boat? Get as far as you can from an internet connection, as often as you can.

</comment><comment><USER37> Well this is the latest trick I'm pulling on myself, and I can say it does help, but due to its nature YMMW: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/go-fucking- work/hi...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/go-fucking- work/hibmkkpfegfiinilnlabbfnjcopdiiig?hl=en)

<comment><USER5> I find [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/momentum/laookkfkn...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/momentum/laookkfknpbbblfpciffpaejjkokdgca?hl=en) and [https://freedom.to/](https://freedom.to/) to be better.

The red is harsh and makes you feel ashamed, which makes you want to escape into the world of reading about the Great Boston Molasses Flood.

<comment><USER37> GFW messages actually have a white background. The shame part is correct though, that's its purpose :).

Shame is one of the most powerful tools to get us to change behavior, which is why it's so naturally ingrained in our brains. But again some people find it too harsh to the point they work less and/or may even have so little self- discipline that they'd disable the add-on; so my "YMMV" message stands :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Simple. I quit facebook and dont watch TV.

<comment><USER22> I haven't watched TV for a long time. That means nothing; implying otherwise is to suggest that people where somehow magically more productive without electronic media.

I've watched most Pando Monthly interviews, most Foundation interviews (Kevin Rose), much of Y Cominator's youtube account - after having missed Startup School '16 live I messaged them asking to upload. Not sure if that was why but shortly after they started releasing SS videos for the first time in 2 years (though they've only eeked out 3 videos so far). I actually fell asleep listening to the Startup Radio podcast last night - I'm listening to it currently - and I'm reading novel. And this is just the flavor of the week. None of this is changing the fact that my productivity is close to zero.

The elimination of perceived bad habits just creates a vacuum waiting to be filled by a different vice. It's a pretty common concept of replacing bad habits with good and I think it's smart to take a holistic approach; mixing career related goals with personal ones, and probably going a little heavier on the personal ones.

An alternative would be to go so hard on the career goals that they begin to give you personal fulfillment, but I don't think that's easily attained.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Start working on a project Friday afternoon and well through the night. It sets the tone for the weekend.

</comment><comment><USER40> So I have found that I do best if I schedule time for slacking off. I generally will do 30 minutes of work followed by 15 minutes of downtime. This downtime can be anything from watching YouTube, browsing HN, or doing some household chores.

</comment><comment><USER28> This may help: [http://qz.com/770768/how-to-stop-procrastinating-with- tips-f...](http://qz.com/770768/how-to-stop-procrastinating-with-tips-from- harvard-research/)

</comment><comment><USER41> Ask a friend to be your 'boss' and make sure you get it done.

</comment><comment><USER42> Catch yourself off guard and just do something.

Internalized guilt over not being "productive" isn't helpful.

Fix your home environment so that it doesn't encourage you to sloth.

</comment><comment><USER43> I didn't do it for a year anymore.

But I used to plan such things like trips.

Met with a friend (or alone) and we coded the weekend (or week) away.

</comment><comment><USER44> I go somewhere where others are working on their own projects. Hackerspaces and coding meetup groups are examples.

</comment><comment><USER45> I use the wasteNoTime plugin to block websites on safari. Also, hide the plugin so it makes it even more difficult to unblock the website. [http://www.bumblebeesystems.com/wastenotime/](http://www.bumblebeesystems.com/wastenotime/)</comment>


C# 9 Preview - <AUTHOR> https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/article/c-sharp-9-preview/ <comment><USER2> I'm fine as long they keep the output compatible to the ratified C# 5. All the changes since 7 are something done by external tools or third party if it were any other language. I get the point changing on language level is to equalize the tools on every platform. It's a bit diservice to beginners who now can't separate between OOP concepts and scripting, autoclass, autoproperty etc. Only thing I don't get is this ref usage: "return ref myStruct;". Why on earth the JIT passed "return" as "byval" ? Sometimes I wonder if C# design team is disconnected from inner workings for the .net engine...

</comment><comment><USER3> Records are meant primarily for immutable cases such as DTOs. If you use them for mutable data, my guess is it uses some structure sharing to not duplicate all properties but instead hold pointers to the old unmutated properties. That's how a lot of immutable paradigms work but I don't know what C#9 does under the hood

</comment><comment><USER4> I am missing the Discriminated Unions :(</comment>


Show HN: Steganographer – Script allowing hiding data in image files - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/gsurma/steganographer <comment><USER2> Does this work for image types that use lossy-compression, or just lossless (e.g. png, tiff, etc.)?</comment>


My experience selling apps on the Android Market - <AUTHOR> http://blog.endlesswhileloop.com/post/980406977/my-experience-selling-apps-on-the-android-market

<comment><USER2> Don't worry about it, it's still early for you.

My first Android app made $198 in 6 months. My second app made $65 in 5 months. Then another is at $256. (all games)

I have some more games out that don't have this problem :)

It's like throwing darts at a board and hoping one sticks, then after one sticks, and you have it figured out, you start going for the bulls-eye.

NOTE: To hit the bulls-eye you'll need to create something of great value and high quality, plus it should take time and passion to build. My best app took the longest amount of time to develop, has the most polish, required the most logic, and I am still updating it often.

<comment><USER3> Do you maintain websites for your apps? (I looked in your profile, no links there). I may want to try your stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not really, I have this: <http://endlesswhileloop.com/apps/> but it's more of just a web page that lists everything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thanks for the post!

It seems like you have a great opportunity, at low risk, to try some things:

        - Cranking the price up to say $5
        - Adding in license server code, and logging piracy
        - Defeaturing your free version.

Any of these tests would make for a really interesting post, and also indirectly promote your app.

I'm not at all disparaging your efforts, but it seems like an instapaper client should be able to make a lot more money than $130.

I'm also wondering whether, in general, quality Android apps will settle out at higher prices than comparable iOS apps, just simply due to there seemingly being fewer people willing to spend.

</comment><comment><USER5> If I were you, I'd explain what Instapaper is on your post. I had to google it separately. Basically, it lets you save a website page to read later on any computer you have the plugin installed on.

</comment><comment><USER6> Can you--or any other Android app developers--share what your active install* percentages are? I'm curious what's normal for the Market.

You're fairing a lot better than I am. I put my first Android app out a month ago (Gas Log) and have made a whopping total of $2.80 in ad revenue. (With an active install rate that fluctuates in the 40%-50% range.)

* active installs are the number of people that downloaded the app and kept it (i.e. did not uninstall or return the app).

<comment><AUTHOR> 40%-50% seems standard, some novelty apps my friends have out only have like a 20%-20% install rate

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For anyone interested in getting detailed metrics on revenue, I just released an app for making plots of income from the Android Market over time. It grabs data automatically from Google Checkout, allows you to distinguish between apps, and overlays price curves.

I've made about $5K over the last year on 4 paid apps. I've posted a bunch of revenue plots here: [http://sites.google.com/site/droidful/my-apps/devrev- develop...](http://sites.google.com/site/droidful/my-apps/devrev-developer- revenue) There's also a QR code for the revenue tracking app.

</comment><comment><USER8> Thanks again for Hard Copy. It's the best Instapaper app for Android. Well worth the price. :)

</comment><comment><USER9> here are my numbers to compare, including install base, etc. I wonder how representative these are of the market as a whole.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1620072>

</comment><comment><USER10> Interesting post.

How many hours would you say it took to write the app?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure of the hours, but I would definitely make more money of I was doing contract work for someone else.</comment></comment>


Artificial Intelligence's White Guy Problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/opinion/sunday/artificial-intelligences-white-guy-problem.html <comment><USER2> I recall CS221 (Intro to AI) at Stanford was a little less than half asian, half white and the rest other.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe the correlation is economic? This phrase caught my eye:

NYT> "...this could result in more surveillance in traditionally poorer, nonwhite neighborhoods, while wealthy, whiter neighborhoods are scrutinized even less"

replace that with:

"...this could result in more surveillance in traditionally poorer neighborhoods, while wealthy neighborhoods are scrutinized even less"</comment></comment>


Online, incremental calculation of statistics in a sample with replacement - <AUTHOR> https://glastra.net/online-calculation-of-mean-variance-and-standard-deviation/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey! I documented (and extended for removals) this somewhat obscure method of efficiently calculating mean and variance of a discrete distribution online and I figured it could be interesting or useful for some.

Has anyone seen other online or incremental algorithms for things that we usually take for granted?</comment>


Ask HN: How is that legal for companies to send spam/ads letters? - <AUTHOR> Any time I move, create a new business or change company address, I start getting a tone of spam and advertising to my physical address. They know my name, company name, and address etc. Companies like Spectrum act like nothing happened when I complain to them, they just send me a link to some form to unsubscribe. Well, I never subscribed in the first place. How is that legal? How to stop it? It is getting out of hands just like those robocalls. <comment><USER2> I used to call every company that sent me spam mail (I got them from target, sephora, ulta, safeway, yellow pages, ISPs, citi, etc... pretty much everywhere) and I never once had a single company stop. Like you, I never signed up for any of them, I just started getting them. As far as I can tell, there is literally nothing you can do to stop them. Some companies will pretend to take you off their list but don't be fooled, another letter is coming soon...

One thing I've heard is that if you mail back junk in the prepaid letters they'll stop since they have to pay for it, but I never bothered trying so I can't confirm that.

<comment><AUTHOR> I use virtual office and paying for each incoming mail, so this really costs me money.</comment></comment>


The vim learning curve is a myth - <AUTHOR> http://robots.thoughtbot.com/post/13164810557/the-vim-learning-curve-is-a-myth

<comment><USER2> I agree with most of the post. I use emacs, not because I think there is something fundamentally wrong with vim, but because emacs is a much better fit to how I think. I actually tried to use vim (it might have been elvis, I don't remmeber which distro I was using at the time) in the late 1990s. I used it exclusively for two weeks, learned all the common commands, but then went back to emacs. I just could not learn to think in command/append modes. I'd regularly, as in _almost every other time_ I went into command mode, forget to go back into append or insert mode and lose whatever I typed before I either noticed or typed "a" or "i".</comment>


Curta: a mechanical calculator - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curta

<comment><USER2> Found a Type I on eBay a few months ago. Had a repaired handle so it was marked down quite substantially, but it looks and works great. Sits on my desk, I love it to death - it just _feels_ so good.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think we should try to build a modern version, with 3D printed parts.

If anyone's interested...I have no idea what it would take, but I have dedication bordering on obsession?

</comment><comment><USER4> wasn't this the underlying theme of gibson's pattern-recognition book?

<comment><USER5> Yes. There's even a section on it in the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ah, the math grenade.</comment>


Ask HN: Leap to entrepreneur: How to do medical insurance? - <AUTHOR>

I am a married 30-something American with 2 young children at home. Recently, I have been in committed talks to go the route of an entrepreneurial path instead of working for a large (and relatively secure) corporation. My main concern is that if someone is sick, I want them to be able to go to the doctor without bankrupting my account.  I understand that choosing to be an entrepreneur has risks associated with it and finances are a relatively large assumption.  I wish to mitigate the health area as much as possible, so I am seeking advice about how others at HN have accomplished this feat.  Thanks for your time. <comment><USER2> Few different options.. At the start, COBRA will last you around 18+ months, which gives you some time to make a decision.

Depending on the state, "small group" plans will cover corporations that have at least 1 (or in some cases 2) employees. You might get better quotes as a small group than as a self-employed individual, but it will depend... Some states have programs that are tailored for individuals.

FWIW, some people have reported decent rates with UHC, ehealthinsurance.com, tonik.com, etc. But I would get quotes from your preferred carrier.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your response. I will check into those solutions you have posted. My initial Google searches exhausted with nothing of discernible value and I suppose I'm anxious to hear about how others bridged the gap.</comment></comment>


Draft Policy on Open APIs for Government of India [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://mygov.in/uploads/documents/Draft_Policy_on_Open_APIs.pdf

<comment><USER2> Super excited by the Indian Government's focus on e-governance and technology!

Also see [http://attendance.gov.in/](http://attendance.gov.in/) \-- This is such a beautifully designed website that it blows my mind that the Government designed it!

Our startup ClearTax ( [http://cleartax.in](http://cleartax.in) ) is made possible by the APIs of the Indian IRS.

The APIs aren't completely open but the registration process is not very onerous. The most interesting aspect is that the Indian IRS is keen on improving the APIs. When we make bug reports, they usually push fixes within 48 hours which is almost unexpected from the Government! Not everything is great but its one of the most advanced tax APIs in the world imo. The bug reporting process is a bit broken, but after the bug was reported they called us back and gave us information about the fix!

I am also deeply optimistic about India's progress in the next decade because of the new PM and the strong focus on development. See also: [http://www.makeinindia.com/](http://www.makeinindia.com/) a new initiative by the Government to get entrepreneurs building in India.

<comment><USER3> Incidentally, attendance.gov.in seems to be down. Perhaps someone can confirm from their side.

As for the design - they've used a stock "analytics" template based on bootstrap (as I remember seeing in their source code when the site was up, having been surprised at the design goodness myself!).

One of the most interesting things is that the Modi government is _not_ pioneering biometrics attendance. It's been around since 2009 [1] and an early version of the dashboard did exist, but on a domain that languishes with disuse. So if anything, there are pushes being made with a lot of PR about tightening this and that - but honestly, in the 6 months that the new government has been in power, I'm hardpressed to find _real_ measures of technological advancement in terms of policy or implementation. And let's be realistic - 6m is not enough time for any advancement in technology at the scale at which it needs to be meaningful.

I would give them props on the dahsboard being made anew, but unfortunately, that has also been frought with glaring issues. [2]

For now - fingers crossed.

[1] [http://www.babusofindia.com/2010/08/chidambaram-to- tighten-a...](http://www.babusofindia.com/2010/08/chidambaram-to-tighten- attendance-norms.html)

[2] [https://medium.com/@troysk704/attendance-gov- in-4e87acae39b7](https://medium.com/@troysk704/attendance-gov-in-4e87acae39b7)

<comment><USER4> Let's do a bit of political sleuthing and indulge in a smidgen of sincere speculation, here.

This is not to judge his leadership early but to set realistic expectations in a country where hope in transformational leaders, is all too often, cruelly crushed.

So lets ask this: what clues has Mr. Modi left so far - in the present term and in his previous stints as the Chief Minister of Gujarat - to lead us to believe that he is a stickler for lasting change and not impetuous acts of political theater.

Does his track record show a penchant for thoroughness and completion?

He is known not to trust underlings, delegate little and in general not given to relinquishing control.[1]

Again these are early days, but is anyone prepared to share their hunch on how effective this man will prove to be in transforming India, say four years on?

[1] Defying Expectations in India, Modi Begins Key Trip to U.S.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/world/asia/narendra- modi-d...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/26/world/asia/narendra-modi-defies- expectations-with-mix-of-soft-and-severe-in-india.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 1\. Build a small, centralized team to assist every department with API design (not implementation). This would help keep things relatively consistent and interoperable, and may also assist in component reuse.

2\. Design in the open — publish proposed APIs early and get public feedback, preferably at a single place (apidocs.gov.in?).

3\. Build a centralized authentication/authorization system with libraries for all the popular languages. Mandate that every department with sensitive data use it rather than roll their own.

4\. Other than that, give implementation teams freedom to make their own technology and architectural choices. Express a preference for, but do not mandate, open standards. (It goes without saying that HTTP/REST and JSON should be added to the list of preferred open standards!)

5\. Mandate that all implementations be open source (provide a standard license) with a public issue tracker and pull request mechanism. Provide a centralized project hosting with these features, but allow project teams to use alternatives if they choose.

</comment><comment><USER5> For the Indian government it's very remarkable that (1) they are thinking about open APIs and (2) they've published a draft, presumably for feedback although there is no information on how one might provide it.

The title of this post is misleading though. It should be "…input on upcoming policy for Open Data and E-Governance APIs". There is no specific API here, just a rather broad set of guidelines for each government department to build their own APIs.

Most of the actual guidelines seem to be on the three documents linked from this one. Unfortunately two of them are on a domain with certificate errors, and one leads to a 404. Here are the two that work (at least if you accept a certificate issued to egovstandards.gov.in by "Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers Company Ltd."):

[https://egovstandards.gov.in/sites/default/files/Published_S...](https://egovstandards.gov.in/sites/default/files/Published_Standards/Technical%20Standards%20for%20IFEG/Technical_Standards_for_IFEG_Ver1.0.pdf)

[http://ogpl.gov.in/NDSAP/NDSAP-30Jan2012.pdf](http://ogpl.gov.in/NDSAP/NDSAP-30Jan2012.pdf)

Edit: These documents are only tangentially related to the Open API project. The first one is a broad catalogue of acceptable data formats in "e-governance", the second are guidelines for how government departments must upload data sets to data.gov.in.

<comment><USER6> _although there is no information on how one might provide it._

On Page 4:

 _All queries or comments related to the "Policy on Open APIs for Government of India" shall be directed to the Joint Secretary (e-Governance), DeitY at firstname.lastname@example.com._

<comment><USER5> Aah, I stand corrected. Although I do hope someone from deity (clever name) also reads HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The UK Govt API [http://data.gov.uk/](http://data.gov.uk/) is a good place to start and study.

Here are the 7 design principles that guided them in the design process

1\. Start with needs* 2 Do less 3 Design with data 4 Do the hard work to make it simple 5 Iterate. Then iterate again. 6 Build for inclusion 7 Understand context 8 Build digital services, not websites 9 Be consistent, not uniform 10 Make things open: it makes things better

Here is more about that [https://www.gov.uk/design- principles#first](https://www.gov.uk/design-principles#first)

</comment><comment><USER8> Providing an API is good. Developers would come up with many innovative solutions. One of my friend built an android app to find location based loo finder using the data public domain.

Not sure if you guys are aware about the data sets which are already publicly available.

[http://data.gov.in/](http://data.gov.in/)

</comment><comment><USER9> JSON. No XML please. Please!

EDIT: The entire doc is completely light on details. It doesn't say anything apart from the fact that every department needs to have an API.

It needs

1\. More technical details.

2\. What data, as a bare minimum, each government department needs to expose via the API.

3\. Timeframe for compliance.

<comment><USER10> It appears to be a DRAFT! Filename: Draft_Policy_on_Open_APIs.pdf

Edited: From sec 6, point 1: A more detailed guidelines will come after public comment.

       6. Implementation Mechanism
       i) GoI shall formulate detailed implementation guidelines for rapid and effective adoption of the policy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's very important to have this data machine readable, query-able and inter- operable.

1\. I suggest that it should be available in RDF ([http://www.w3.org/TR/2014/NOTE- rdf11-primer-20140624/](http://www.w3.org/TR/2014/NOTE- rdf11-primer-20140624/)) format.

2\. The government should create a Top level ontology to define the broad level classes and relations.

3\. Each department would then create their own child ontology which they can map with the top level ontology.

4\. This satisfies most of the requirements and has scope to grow and make this platform truly open.

The work done by wikipedia (along with researchers) in the form of dbpedia ([http://dbpedia.org/About](http://dbpedia.org/About)) is very good example and can be set as a north star.

</comment><comment><USER12> There's this notion that "you get what you measure."

Therefore, it would be good to see metrics that reveal how corruption cases at various levels are being dealt with.

Not trying to be negative about India, it's just that having the ability to measure this will allow people to see where positive changes is happening, and where it is not.

I would have the same kinds of comments if this were a US API: what tools is it giving us to see what the inspector general is and is not doing for various aspects of government performance.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is the same government that is mandating compulsory biometric IDs for its population with nary a thought about security. Its a mess, third party contractors with no exposure to IT or security are doing the scanning and data entry right now despite the Indian supreme court saying this should not be made mandatory. This is a government that is openly violating its own supreme court.

</comment><comment><USER14> Hi - Created a Github Repo to add design, APIs and Code Samples as soon as they are available.

[https://github.com/IndiaGov-OpenPlatform](https://github.com/IndiaGov- OpenPlatform)

There are two important documents that you can take a look at and provide you feedback.

I think sharing these files in a forum like setup will help to easily share, discuss and capture the feedback. Any suggestion?

1\. Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy: [http://goo.gl/VdWH9o](http://goo.gl/VdWH9o)

2\. Interoperability Framework: [http://goo.gl/MKrqY4](http://goo.gl/MKrqY4)

</comment><comment><USER15> The problem is this would take a long time.You are talking about removing a large quantity of paperwork from organisations which move to bigger offices to accommodate the paper work. And also when it comes to security,You saw what Anonymous did to Ukrainian government.The government in itself is not capable of such a large endeavour.I hope the implementing organisation selection depends more on their reputation instead of tenders and briberies.

<comment><USER16> You are underestimating what Indian Govt can do. Until recently (two months back), I was part of Ministry of Corporate Affairs, which completely eliminated paper for company registration. The implementation project started sometime in 2006 and was rolled out pan-India by 2008. Since 2009, no physical paper is used for registration; all are done electronically. Company registration in India now takes a week which used to take 3 months until 2006. It's a huge success. Similar thing is done for Passports too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My personal opinion: stop focusing on the technology of how to put it out there and just put it out there. Another API is another API that open data developers need to work with, which may or may not be better than any of the existing solutions (Data.json, CKAN, ESRI, the UN data platform, etc).

If they really want to create open government, just post up the _raw_ files on an ftp server and open it to the public.

Edit: a typo

</comment><comment><USER3> Someone somewhere in the huge machinery that is the Indian Government clearly has a sense of humor. To quote,

All queries or comments related to the "Policy on Open APIs for Government of India" shall be directed to the Joint Secretary (e-Governance), _DeitY_ at firstname.lastname@example.com (emphasis mine).

Presumably that is the email address to send feedback to.

<comment><USER18> DeitY - Department of Electronics and Information Technology ([http://deity.gov.in/](http://deity.gov.in/))

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Its great Govt is finally understanding the need for 'Accessible' data and solutions.

Hopefully this will bring in more transparency and efficiency in otherwise slow and opaque system.

</comment><comment><USER20> So Indian government way of doing things. Long MS Word document with fluff language and big words, but no sample API.

</comment><comment> andrea-estrella What kind of data exactly would be accessible?</comment>


A VC: Thinking About Online Photo Services - <AUTHOR> http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2007/03/thinking_about_.html <comment><USER2> I for one do not understand why FlickR sold itself so cheap. perhaps because the M&A; had not picked up by the time Yahoo! bought them?</comment>


Why should we have eight hours' sleep? - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6546209.stm <comment><USER2> "I was told at uni that sleep is cyclical and that as long as you wake up during the lighter part of the sleep cycle you will feel fresh and alert. Wake up during the heavy sleep part and you will be a like a bear with a sore head all day." \-- John D, Glasgow, UK (from the comments of the article)

I have found this to be the case. If I wake up alert, I find it much easier to dive into a problem, which then keeps me awake.

<comment><USER3> I've noticed the same thing. I've been forced to wake up with an alarm clock at 6am for the past several years, but in the past (and I hope the future) I never used an alarm clock because it doesn't pay attention to my sleep cycle.

<comment><USER3> Okay..not quite all alarm clocks: <http://www.axonlabs.com/products/smart.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This was an accidental submission but it's a good read anyway. I know I rarely get eight hours; productivity ramps up at night for me.</comment>