Jeff Bezos to Princeton's class of 2010 :"We are What We Choose" - <AUTHOR> http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S27/52/51O99/index.xml

<comment><USER2> > I will hazard a prediction. When you are 80 years old, and in a quiet moment > of reflection narrating for only yourself the most personal version of your > life story, the telling that will be most compact and meaningful will be the > series of choices you have made.

I keep coming across this theme again and again. "One day you will tell your grandchildren..", "When you're lying in your deathbed..", etc. As if the younger human has an obligation to work to create the perfect set of memories for the older one, which then would be enjoyed for at best a few years. Toil for 50 years of your life to create the perfect last 2 years!

It's perverse, really. We seem to enjoy imagining ourselves enjoying the memories of our present lives..

<comment><USER3> I smiled when I came across that line because I frequently use it--even down to the 80-year old number.

It helps put things in perspective, especially with respect to fear. We fear so many things and not do it. And yet, a lot of the fear is just imaginary-- something the 80 year old you can see looking back but the current you cannot.

So I ask myself "what would the 80 year old me think of it?" and if it says to do it, I try to do it.

Example: you want to take a temporary crappy job to get back to your feet but you're afraid friends will see you working there and lose respect.

Present me: afraid I'll lose my friends, ego hit

80-year old me: proud I followed my dream!

Now I totally understand if this doesn't work for you and don't expect it to work for everyone or even most people. But I just thought I'd provide some background on how people who do use this to motivate themselves are using it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Jeff Bezos seems to suffer from selection bias. We don't always have those choices, count yourself lucky if you do and then make the right ones but don't fret about it if you do not.

Not all of us will become billionaires by simply making 'the right choices', plenty of people made the choices the right way and ended up average or dirt poor.

Count your wealth in the number of smiles you see when people meet you again after not seeing you for a while.

<comment><USER5> Huh? Everyone has to make the choice between being clever or kind. The point of the talk wasn't "make the right choices and you'll end up a billionaire." The point of the story was the quality of your life, your own happiness, and your real worth is determined by the choices you make, not what gifts you have because, as Jeff pointed out, they're just gifts after all, you didn't earn them.

His implicit point was an average intelligent person with average wealth can be just as satisfied with his/her life as a highly intelligent, highly gifted billionaire provided they both made quality choices about how they lived their life.

Edit: clarified last sentence.

<comment><USER4> That's easy to say when you have a few billion in the bank. But most people simply don't have the liberty of choice at all, their lives are driven by requirements, not by freedom of choice.

Freedom of choice is for the most part an illusion, it is only true freedom if you determine what's on the menu. To be able to choose 'left' or 'right' when you want 'straight', 'down', 'reverse' and so on as valid choices but you don't have them because of the constraints placed on you by every day life is a false kind of freedom presented in those limited choices.

So, in practice, your average billionaire has more (many more) choices available to him than those lower on the financial ladder. The reason Jeff Bezos had the choice to give that speech or not is not because he's particularly happy, but because he's rich.

<comment><USER5> Many less choices doesn't mean no choices.

I lived and worked for two years in the Philippines amongst some of the poorest people in the world. These people were constrained in many ways as you describe in job choices, educational attainments, opportunity for travel etc. But regardless of how poor they were they still had the choice of to be kind or clever, to forgive or seek revenge, to pursue worthwhile activities or fritter away their time/money on drugs and alcohol, etc. There were many many very happy people I met in the worst of slums.

The most important choices we make in little have absolutely zero to do with how much money we have.

For a more extended essay on the topic, read "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl who survived a Nazi concentration camp.

To pull one quote off its Wikipedia page: "Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him – mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp."

<comment><USER4> > He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.

A key insight in ethics is that truly ethical decisions almost always go against the person making the decision.

A situation such as a concentration camp brings out the worst in some and the best in others in very stark contrast because of the environment, not because of the people in it. In less polarizing circumstances those on opposite ends of the spectrum might very well get along just fine.

A couple of movies and books bring that out really well, 'Der Faelscher' for instance, and the diary portion of the Odessa file as well as plenty of first hand accounts, such as the one you reference but also many others. The scary thing is that such an environment will also bring out the worst in otherwise decent people, and that our society in some ways does the same thing to its inhabitants, even if not on such a drastic scale.

<comment><USER6> >A key insight in ethics is that truly ethical decisions almost always go against the person making the decision.

What? Which theory of ethics are you using? I don't agree with this at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> From the article:

Tomorrow, in a very real sense, your life -- the life you author from scratch on your own -- begins.

How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make?

Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions?

Will you follow dogma, or will you be original?

Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure?

Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions?

Will you bluff it out when you're wrong, or will you apologize?

Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love?

Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling?

When it's tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless?

Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder?

Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?

<comment><USER7> That seems like a fairly cliché series of dichotomies. Life isn't black and white; if choices were always this clear-cut then they wouldn't be hard.

<comment><USER8> Agreed. But motivation seems to be pretty black and white (you're either making it happen or not), at least in the short term, and cliches (or rather, heuristics) are the best way to keep the motivation revving.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Video of the speech (starts at 5:45 roughly): <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBmavNoChZc>

<comment><USER10> <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBmavNoChZc#t=6m15s>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nowhere near as good as Steve Jobs' address at Stanford a few years back, which remains the gold standard for these things.

This one seemed mainly like Jeff congratulating himself on the neat things he's done, with very few actionable take-aways for the audience. The ending in particular, with its repetitive "Will you A, or will you B" device, smacked of laziness, as if it were hastily dashed off the night before.

<comment><USER12> Most graduation speeches are fairly formulaic; regurgitations of the same few bits of inspirational wisdom that we all already know (but can occasionally afford to be reminded of, in the appropriate setting). Even the speeches which acknowledge and play with the formula are still pretty formulaic.

The Steve Jobs version of the speech wasn't really any better than the Jeff Bezos version, and neither of those is any better than the version given by some guy you've never heard of at some fifth-rate school in the middle of nowhere.

<comment><USER13> I thought David Foster Wallace's speech was exceptional.

[http://publicnoises.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-foster- wallac...](http://publicnoises.blogspot.com/2009/05/david-foster-wallace- kenyon.html)

<comment><USER14> That was fun to read. Afterward I looked for another commencement speech, and read Bill Gates' speech at Harvard. It's interesting to compare and contrast them.

> There were always lots of people in my dorm room late at night discussing > things, because everyone knew I didn't worry about getting up in the > morning.

[http://humanity.org/voices/commencements/speeches/index.php?...](http://humanity.org/voices/commencements/speeches/index.php?page=gates_at_harvard)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The boss he's talking about is David E. Shaw.

</comment><comment><USER16> _"I didn't think I'd regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all. After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I'm proud of that choice."_

This really speaks to me. For a long time it was just a really obvious overrepeated cliche to me. Then recently I've been going through a rough patch with my startup, and hearing/reading it from other people has become critical to my motivation to keep going forward.

With stability, money in the bank, and a dream, it was easy to say "I'll be happy even if i try and fail, but i don't want to live with not trying; wondering will eat me up."

All of the sudden, trying and failing, it became really hard to see how failure was a better path. Hearing other people say it reminds me of why I wanted to take the risk.

</comment><comment><USER17> This hit me pretty hard.

<comment><USER18> Me too. My gag reflex, mainly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would choose to be a mensch. That's what I keep striving for.

<comment><USER20> What's that?

<comment><USER19> It's a Yiddish word that I picked up when living in the US (and working/living around many American Jews). It roughly means "an honorable person" and I've heard it used as an honorific term to describe another person (as in, "he's a mensch").

MW says: "a person of integrity and honor". It's my desire that people might view me as a mensch one day.

<comment><USER21> I know enough German for the idea of Jewish people talking about Mensch vs. Unmensch to make me feel uncomfortable; probably because while I _do_ understand the language, I still lack the cultural references. Anyone care to enlighten me? I read the wikipedia entry, but that somehow isn't enough. I'd love to hear from people using this word in everyday life.

<comment><USER22> Uncomfortable, how? I'm not a German speaker, but my idiolect contains a fair amount of Yiddish, and "mensch" is a word I use often enough.

As much as I am surprised to say it, the Wikipedia article is actually pretty good.

Here's an example from real life, of someone calling Roger Federer a mensch: [http://www.sporttaco.com/rec.sport.tennis/Federer_still_one_...](http://www.sporttaco.com/rec.sport.tennis/Federer_still_one_to_beat_3895.html)

Here's a reference to Tom Valenti as a mensch: [http://www.seriouseats.com/2008/09/tom-valenti-is-a- mensch-s...](http://www.seriouseats.com/2008/09/tom-valenti-is-a-mensch- standup-guy.html)

And here's one about Bill Murray: <http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ1204-DEC_MURRAY_rev_>

This latter one is instructive, as it contrasts Bill Murray with Mickey Rourke, who the author refers to as a douchebag.

And, perhaps this is as good a way as any to understand the usage of "mensch": consider it the antonym to douchebag.

You know how there are some people that make you almost instinctively say to yourself, _"Man, he's a real douche!"_? On the flip side, there are people of whom you'll say _"What a mensch!"_

Does that help?

 _EDIT: fixed language_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> IMHO, pales in comparison to the address of his Steveness: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA></comment>


A Million N95 Masks Are Coming from China–On Board the NFL Patriots' Plane - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-million-n95-masks-are-coming-from-chinaon-board-the-new-england-patriots-plane-11585821600 <comment><USER2> Are these the ones France claimed they'd bought but the U.S. got there first?</comment>


Electric Black Cabs Are Taking Over in London - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-17/electric-black-cabs-are-taking-over-in-london <comment><USER2> >taking over

> _" There are 34 on the road at the moment"_

>"There's no luggage space at all, but ..."

Yeah, sure.

<comment><USER3> To be fair, I've never seen the boot used in a black cab. The passenger compartments are huge and provide enough room for luggage with passengers.

I can imagine it might be awkward if you want to get a wheelchair/pushchair in as well, but Transport for London are very aware of accessibility (in new projects at least) so I expect they've taken that into consideration.

Besides, they are taking over: [https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low- emission-zone/cle...](https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/ultra-low-emission- zone/cleaner-greener-taxis)

> New licensing requirements from 1 January 2018

> From 1 January 2018, taxis presented for licensing for the first time will > need to be ZEC. This means having CO2 emissions of no more than 50g/km and a > minimum 30 mile zero emission range

> A first-time taxi vehicle licence will no longer be granted to a diesel > taxi. ZEC taxis with petrol engines will need to meet the latest emissions > standard (currently Euro 6)</comment></comment>


Why I'm Returning My Kindle Fire - <AUTHOR> http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=338317

<comment><USER3> I returned mine too. It's not safe to let the kids use it. Amazon insist you have one-click purchase set up even to watch free prime content, and they don't let you set up a pin or a password just for the pay-for stuff. So it's trivial for my children to run up outrageous bills.

(I installed and very soon thereafter uninstalled the amazon prime app on my TV for the same reason: when you watch free prime content, they still seem to send you a $0.00 invoice for every single free thing you watch. Then when your children watch something else, they charge your card, and the "invoice" gets mixed up with all the other $0.00 invoices in your amazon folder or inbox. Fuck That Shit. At least Netflix is safe against that shit.)

If it wasn't Amazon, it'd be a clear-cut scam. But it's Amazon, so I have to hope they come to their senses. Until then, we're getting an ipad, and we're sticking with netflix (even though we have prime ... for now anyway).

</comment><comment><USER4> I also returned mine. I was expecting a more polished experience from Amazon. Even for $200 the software feels unfinished and nowhere near as responsive or intelligently designed as iOS. The lack of hardware volume controls and placement of the on/off switch are the killing blows.

This isn't buying a Honda and expecting a BMW-class experience. It's buying a Honda and getting a car that only starts after three tries, only reads square CDs, only streams music from EMI, and refuses to brake until the pedal is pressed in the exact special way at the exact time. The iPad just drives.

<comment><USER5> They're struggling to compete both high and low. The iPad is pressuring them to put out a product that can use Amazon's VOD while BN is pressuring them to put out a device with a price that competes with the nook which has partnered with Netflix.

I doubt Netflix has any interest promoting either iTunes or Amazon services. It would be as stupid as Borders allowing Amazon to run their website. Hopefully this creates a nice trifecta of choice that benefits everyone.

<comment><USER6> On a side note; Borders was powered by Amazon from 2001 through 2008, until they decided to go separate and compete directly with Amazon. Of course this only mattered until Borders merged with B&N in 2010.

<comment><USER7> Borders did not merge with B&N.

<comment><USER6> Ah, indeed, I was wrong - B&N purchased the brand and customer list - <USER2> merger was something that was rumored, but never happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I tried using this for just a few minutes, since my friend has one.

The slowness is quite staggering. For example, there was a copy of a dictionary on it; I tried to use Search to find a word (since paging through from "A" would be ridiculous) and it took like 20 seconds to show ANY results. This kind of functionality isn't just unacceptable, it's so bad that the Search function _might as well not exist_.

The ability to hold it in one hand (albeit with stretched fingers) was nicer than the iPad; but since there's no practical way to use that same hand to operate the device it doesn't really matter. When I have to stop and use both hands to operate a smaller device or a larger one, I would prefer to just have the larger one.

</comment><comment><USER9> Not to dismiss his criticisms. The Fire has problems. But this device was clearly designed for a different market. He acknowledges it _"I had read that the Fire is designed as a consumption device for Amazon products"_ But he decided to buy it anyway.

It seems odd to write a lengthy criticism of a product he anticipated wouldn't suit him.

EDIT: grammar

<comment><USER10> He acknowledges it after he bought it and as part of the analysis, not before buying it.

Either way, I don't quite buy the argument. Amazon was hailed as the one company that could rival the iPad ecosystem. So its not just a conduit for people buying stuff on amazon. So my expectations for the tablet are pretty high even at that price.

<comment><USER11> "Rivaling the iPad ecosystem" doesn't necessarily mean "replicating" it. And I'd point out that I believe that's concept is something overexcited journalists decided, not something Amazon promoted.

Amazon seems to have mostly promoted the Kindle Fire as a Kindle with video and games, for less than you used to pay for a black and white Kindle. For $199, that seems like a good deal and I haven't seen many reviews done on that basis. Doing a review that compares the Fire to an iPad or another $500 tablet is like reviewing a Kia and complaining it doesn't accelerate as fast as a BMW.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I went few phases:

1\. Wow, first tablet..this is aweseome!!!

2\. Hmmm, some slowness, buyer's remorse, should I keep this?

3\. Started using it for web surfing, games and reading.

The more I use it, the more I like it.

It needs more apps (the amazon appstore is limited, a good RSS reader would be welcome, can't use the same one that I use on my phone).

Perhaps a software update or two can fix the speed issues?

I'm keeping mine for now, I use it way too much.

<comment><USER13> > _Perhaps a software update or two can fix the speed issues?_

I think this has been the primary complaint about Android from discriminating users for years now. I swear there have been multiple rumors that "the _next_ version of Android will fix that" (by providing hardware acceleration of native UI elements or some such), but I will believe it when I see it.

Until then, I suspect every Android device will be continue to be unusable, including the ones with fancy _n_ -core _x_ gigahertz CPUs that are theoretically _y_ times more powerful than a modern iPhone. When a flagship Android device obtains UI performance on par with the original iPhone, maybe I'll start taking Android seriously.

<comment><USER14> The day I got it, my Nexus One was noticeably faster than my original iPhone, and that was pre-JIT. It's not as polished and smooth as iOS, but claims that it's "unusable" are dishonest at best.

<comment><USER13> I'm not sure we're talking about the same things when you say "faster." Obviously, a Nexus One has a much faster CPU than the original iPhone, and will perform much better on benchmarks (graphics, JavaScript, etc.). However, I've used a Nexus One fairly extensively (as well as even more powerful Android phones like the Galaxy S II), and I think it's completely reasonable to say that the basic UI elements are more consistently smooth and responsive on the original iPhone. Granted, it's been one year since I had hands on an original iPhone, so perhaps I should amend the comparison to the iPhone 3GS.

I'll also concede that in the strictest sense, Android phones are usable: I do have the _ability_ to use them, and many people do use them. Of course, I would also call IE6 unusable, even though it's also clearly usuable in the strictest sense.

I use the term "usable" to describe any product that I would use if someone gave it to me for free and I wasn't allowed to sell it. If you gave me the current best Android phone for free, I guarantee you I would not use it.

<comment><USER15> My 3GS is struggling with iOS 4.2.1: seconds of nonresponse in certain situations. I'm planning on jailbreaking and rolling the OS back sometime soon if I can figure out how to do it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'd love to read a review comparing it to the Nook Color. I have a Nook Color and it's not an iPad substitute. Nevertheless, loaded with CM7, it has a useful place for light web browsing and reading recipes in the kitchen.

<comment><USER17> Is this what you were after? [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/reviews/2011/11/lean-mean- con...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/reviews/2011/11/lean-mean-consuming- machine-reviewing-the-nook-tablet.ars)

<comment><USER16> That's a review of the Nook Tablet, which is a completely different product from the Nook Color or the Kindle Fire. (Not rootable apparently either ...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I bought one for my wife as a birthday gift. After reading the reviews, she didn't want the Fire. I returned it and got the $109 no-keyboard no-touch kindle instead, and she loves it. E-Ink is just such a better reading experience than a LCD.

<comment><USER19> Add: battery lifetime, real personalized recommendations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I disagree with his statement about the Kindle Fire not having built-in support for .mobi files. I am currently reading Land of Lisp in .mobi format on my Kindle fire with no problems. The one quirk I did notice is even though I uploaded the .mobi file to the books directory, the book shows up in the Docs view. It seems only books purchased directly through the Kindle store are allowed to show up in the Books view. I generally like my Kindle Fire but I do find some of the on screen buttons require multiple presses to respond, particularly the back button. Hopefully this will be fixed in a software update.

<comment><USER21> I was puzzled by that too, but from what I've read there's a tag defined in the Mobipocket format that specifies whether something is a "book" or a "doc". Previous Kindles (and, apparently, a lot of ebook generation software) ignore this, but the Kindle Fire does not (possibly "doc" is the default if the tag is not present -- unclear on this). You can supposedly fix the tag using Calibre, but I haven't bothered. Now that I know where they are, it doesn't really bother me.

I don't think the criticism wrt AVI is appropriate, either. I wouldn't have expected it to play AVI, and in fact am somewhat surprised that anyone is still using that as a distribution format. As a format for editing, it's somewhat understandable, but it's not the best choice for media distribution/consumption and hasn't been for quite a long time. Why would you expect a random Android device to play an obsolete/obsolescent proprietary Microsoft format?

I like the Fire, personally. It's not going to replace my iPad or eInk Kindle, but it sure is handy for reading in bed.

<comment><USER22> AVI is still the major format for non-HD videos from the torrent sites...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I bought it primarily for reading books and figured any other use I got out of it was a plus. I've since found out that it's great for video less so for other stuff. I think overall it's an outstanding value for the price.

</comment><comment><USER24> From what I've read, the kindle fire has been underwhelming. I think this is largely due to our expectations for tablet computing, given that we now have android tablets and ipads. Would it be fair to say the kindle fire is a better kindle, but not a tablet computer?

<comment><USER25> In playing with my friend's e-Ink Kindles, and then playing with my new Kindle Fire, I would answer "no: this is a step backwards"; note: I also love reading on my iPhone 4 (which is actually where I get books; the Kindle Fire is just for development), so it is not because I'm attached to the e-Ink. The Kindle Fire just has this feel of the software having been roughly hacked together at the last minute...

I realize they probably couldn't have for numerous reasons, but the simpleton opinion is: they really should have delayed shipping it, and by the time they get it together the existing poor press is likely to have already killed them. (That that happens is something I think is stupid, btw, and causes poor incentives to not ship things: old news should rot faster, and people should care more about updating old articles with "the tiny software update they released a week after I wrote this article makes everything I said obsolete".)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Got one free last week, and for me 7" is the perfect size for typing in landscape mode. I actually quite like the Amazonized android too for the most part. Side-loading apps is a bit of a hassle, but at least you can install any android app. I put Dolhpin HD on it, runs fine. It's also not sluggish at all (maybe they've pushed an update since the early reviews?). It's much zippier than my LG revolution. Some apps seem to run way smoother than on my phone (e.g. TuneIn Radio has been flawless so far). Battery life is good. The easy to accidentally press power button at the "bottom" (using it upside down can actually occasionally be an issue for some apps that only run in one mode), and lack of a SD slot is really dumb. I'd still buy one for $200.

</comment><comment><USER27> I bought one. First tablet. I find it just fine for the price tag and it is extremely portable. Since buying it I have used my laptop about 70% less. For some reason I cannot log into HN from the Fire. If I was able to, then frankly I would only use my laptop for development or writing long form.

I am only using it for reading books and browsing. I have also downloaded a couple of books in PDF format and sent them to my kindle email address. They read just fine, although you will need to pinch-zoom every page if the text is too small.

Sometime it freezes, and frankly I had to replace the first one (I bought it in store).

I have no idea what people expect for $199. I find it very valuable for the money. I have a feeling by the second or third iteration they will have a dedicated audience just as Ipad and Iphone do.

<comment><USER28> >I have no idea what people expect for $199. I find it very valuable for the money.

Thing is, there are other vendors who are creating REAL Google/Android tablets in the $199 range, as he mentions. From those tablets you can get the entire Android experience, unlike the Fire (unless you root it and put another OS build on it, of course -- though that won't fix the lack of GPS or cameras).

<comment><USER29> At least for me, part of the reason I like the Fire is that it isn't the full Android experience - I have a Archos tablet, that I don't use for any reason other than to test things. With the Fire I look past/don't see the parts of Android that I dislike - and I think a lot of that is that I really only use the Kindle for the occasional E-Book/App, watch a streaming video, or listen to music.

For the subset of things that I actually want it for, it does well - very well in my opinion. I'm sure it likely falls flat if you expect more out of it (which it sounds like he did).

<comment><USER28> What version of Android is the Archos tablet running: 1.6? Even 2.2 is clunky compared to 3.0, and 4.0 looks wonderful.

More to the point, none of the Archos tablets (that I'm aware of) come with the "full Google/Android" experience either. They use appslib.com to distribute apps, which has less coverage than the Amazon AppStore, and it comes with none of the other Google apps either.

So you're comparing the Fire, a non-Google experience, with the Archos, another non-Google experience. Not relevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> There is the Blackberry Playbook that is exactly the same device for the same price but a lot nicer in UX. Lenovo also has the Idea Pad A1 that is slightly more in ($229) price but same form factor.

Both of these devices will get you the full Tablet experience minus the lag and general unfinished feeling of the Fire. Plus both have the Kindle app so reading amazon content is not a problem. So there is no real market for the Fire from what I can see. sure the Silk browser seems cool but Laggy execution will kill any perceived advantages.

For about $100 more you can also get the ASUS Transformer (my current Tablet). I have literally stopped using my laptop except at work once I got this. The attached Dock makes it a perfect device for my usecases.

<comment><USER31> The Playbook is only available for 200 dollars at Best Buy under a current sale, otherwise you're looking to be set back more like 250 dollars. The Idea Pad A1 only has a single core and costs more so I'm not sure it's exactly the best alternative.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I checked out that vizio, it's single core and 1/2 the storage (has an sd slot though). Unless you care about the GPS and camera, seems rooting the fire is a better choice. I doubt I'll root mine though, I'm one of the few that seems to like it.

<comment><USER32> i'm with you.

i'm rooting after the warranty expires

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Since Nobody else on this thread commented about the .mobi support yet, I'll put this here: [http://www.artima.com/forums/flat.jsp?forum=106&thread=3...](http://www.artima.com/forums/flat.jsp?forum=106&thread=338317)

From the comments and googling it appears that the Fire supports .mobi just fine, except that it puts them in the "Docs" index instead of "Books". Something about some meta data that distinguishes them.

</comment><comment><USER34> Thoughts on the Kindle DX which is on sale for $259? The original Kindle screen always seemed too small to me and the DX always seemed too expensive, but now...

<comment><USER35> It doesn't have wifi, unfortunately. I have a first-gen DX (and have had several of every model of Kindle since the first, actually), and am sort of considering upgrading/adding another one.

It is the best PDF viewing solution out there. If you read CS papers in PDF format, it's great.

Wifi and some way to keep in sync with a folder on my desktop (or in dropbox) would sell me completely. I don't want to pay Amazon every time I upload a PDF to the device via email.

<comment><USER36> > It is the best PDF viewing solution out there.

How is it better than iPad? I've long wanted large PDF viewer but only option DX was $$$ and b/w. I got iPad for unrelated reasons but fallen into using it for PDF reading. It's great. most my PDFs are image/graph/color intensive .5/11" non reflowable. I need to jump around lots rather than read cover to cover so page flip latency is kind of a killer.

<comment><USER35> I use both an iPad (generation 1; eagerly awaiting iPad 3) and kindles.

The kindle is much better in direct sunlight or high ambient light environment, and because it lacks other apps, is better for distraction free reading of large amounts of text.

I've used iPad, Kindle DX, and a computer simultaneously -- someone's paper on the Kindle, coding on the computer, and the iPad for all communications activity (the computer was not on the Internet).

For reading journals/journal submissions on the beach, the DX is the hands- down winner.

<comment><USER36> Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I think the problem is people are expecting all the functionality of the iPad, this is simply a e-reader on a little bit of steroids. For me the device has been good, the issue with the .mobi files confused me also but really they just appear in the Doc section. If you go to this expecting for an iPad, you will hate it. If you want a simple e reader that lets you browse the web and download some apps, then its great.

</comment><comment><USER38> Amazon made it very clear from the beginning that the Fire was designed first and foremost for consuming Amazon content, and it does that very well. I do not regret spending the $200 on it.

It was never advertised as a tablet or a competitor to the iPad, so I don't understand all of the backlash from the people who wanted to use it that way.

<comment><USER39> Actually it kind of was by Bezos' letter. The whole thing about "some companies are about ripping off customers with expensive stuff, we're about providing value". Well, it turns out the more expensive thing _is a nicer experience_ so his little sucker punch was a bunch of nonsense. I think _that_ is the biggest source of backlash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I was debating the Fire vs. the Playbook given the similar prices. It sounds like you get a lot more with the Playbook.

</comment><comment><USER41> I refuse to go Android with another device until they implement hardware acceleration and improve the user experience. The staggering that occurs when scrolling and moving between applications is just plain unnatural and I have a mini-aneurysm every time it does it. Plus, the battery drainage is atrocious on the phone I have. That said, I haven't sprung for a tablet yet, so we'll see where both the iPad and the best Android offering compare when that times does eventually come.

</comment><comment><USER42> The Kindle Fire is simply a great device for $199. I am keeping mine.

<comment><USER42> And will buy the next generation when it is released.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> damn did you try and use calibre??? I used it to upload into kindle 3g and kindle fire. works seamlessly

</comment><comment><USER28> I just recently predicted consumer backlash with the Fire:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3269095>

...so I guess I'm not surprised.

<comment><USER28> Wow, downvotes on HN with no explanation? Unusual, but I guess that's what happens when a site gets popular.</comment></comment>


Technical Intelligence vs IQ - <AUTHOR> https://vividcortex.com/blog/2013/04/03/what-is-technical-intelligence-tq-and-why-is-it-part-of-our-mission-at-vividcortex/

<comment><USER2> From the submitted blog post: "In it's raw form, IQ stands for intelligence quotient, and is based upon a test invented by famous psychologist William Stern."

That sentence has two bad mistakes right there. The author of this post has no idea what he is writing about.

"So, while IQ might indicate intelligence, it's not a great predictor of how you actually perform in life."

The stupidity here is claiming that something else is a better predictor of how you actually perform in life. The author's term "technical intelligence" is so vaguely defined in the blog post, with no standardized example of how to estimate it, that the suggestion to look for technical intelligence ends up being useless.

See

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5227923>

for a recent posting of a FAQ about the most optimal way to hire capable workers (if that is your concern) for technical jobs, with a lot of links to careful research on the issue.

</comment><comment><USER3> That page seems very keen on the twice-featured paragraph attempting to define "Technical intelligence":

 _Technical intelligence involves the accurate appraisal and expression of the ability to interact with machines in a way that enhances living._

But is that a helpful definition? Or at least is it a helpful first definition? Could we start with something simpler? Something beginning "Technical Intelligence is", rather than "Technical intelligence involves"?

It doesn't even seem like a helpful definition in the context of the company, which deals with MySQL monitoring and analysis. This talk of Technical intelligence makes the product _harder_ to understand, it's just uncomfortably bolted on ("We're delivering Technical Intelligence for MySQL" - so training then? No, it doesn't seem like it...)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Thanks for the comments. I think the concept of IQ not being all that important is challenging to admit, but at the end of the day the point is that there are a variety of factors that influence success and positive outcomes in our world, one of which seems to be largely ignored.

I'm not sure why no one has talked about interaction with machines but it's clearly important. By no means is this a science, just a commentary on cultural factors that should be relevant in today's world.

@JDGM we are purposely vague about our product as we are still in early alpha, but you can think of us like New Relic for servers.

P.S. We don't do riddles, IQ tests or puzzles in our hiring process and we prioritize attitude, workplace fit and a variety of other personal factors.

</comment><comment><USER4> I might be mistaken, but it seems like "technical intelligence" is another way of saying "high tolerance for poor UI," i.e. a person with very low T.I. needs something really well designed, and a person with high T.I. can still be effective despite poor design.

</comment><comment><USER5> _This isn't right. This isn't even wrong._ -Wolfgang Pauli

</comment><comment><USER6> This is nonsense.

> Technical intelligence involves the accurate appraisal and expression of the > ability to interact with machines in a way that enhances living.

That is so vague as to be completely useless. A mechanic interacts with machines in a way that enhances living. So does a chef. So does a doctor. So does a computer programmer. Almost every job today involves interacting with machines in a way that enhances living.

This is pseudoscience wrapped up in a serious sounding blanket of nonsense.</comment>


The Unbearable Inevitability of Being Android, 1995 - <AUTHOR> http://counternotions.com/2010/12/28/the-unbearable-inevitability-of-being-android-1995

<comment><USER2> "What happens when one company ties its market destiny to another's rate of innovation? The movie "One OS, Many Partners" that we've seen before in Wintel theaters didn't have a happy ending."

Except for the proliferation of cheap unimaginative grey PC boxes, all over the world. In my life time, yeah. no happy ending.

<comment><USER3> _Except for the proliferation of cheap unimaginative grey PC boxes, all over the world. In my life time, yeah. no happy ending._

You mean those cheap, upgradeable machines with interchangeable parts which DO come in many colors if you want them? Those same machines would double in performance every 18 months (24 months now), they were and still are wonderful.</comment></comment>


Let's kill no-reply - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@iffy/lets-kill-no-reply-d451c80ba8be <comment><USER2> I wholeheartedly agree with these bloggers in despising the "noreply" practice, and here is a rule in my Exim mail server config that I've had there for years:

      deny
        message = MYDOM does not accept SMTP traffic from "noreply" senders. \
                  E-mail is a "two-way street". \
                  If you want us to accept \
                  your mail, then please accept replies.
        senders = ^.*noreply.*\$ : ^.*do.*not.*reply.*\$

Unfortunately, this has to be immediately followed by a whitelist:

        !senders = *@sourceforge.net : github.com : [ ... others ]

<comment><USER3> Having managed email queues, the no reply email is essential, because everyone and their uncle uses auto replies. That said, I'm all for including a real email address somewhere so a user can reply.

<comment><USER4> Auto relies could easily be weeded out with some simple code.

<comment><USER3> I've never seen it. I'm sure that works "in theory"

<comment><USER5> Couldn't you filter most of them out by the timestamp? If you get a reply that was sent faster than a human could have responded, ignore it.

<comment><USER6> The auto-reply is probably sent by a desktop email client, which are often offline and/or configured to only check for new email every few minutes. So you'd fail to mark a lot of auto-replies.

<comment><USER7> Exchange configures it on the server because generally people have their computers turned off when on holidays.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We decided against 'no-reply' emails when we started our business 6 years ago and it's been a great way to get our customers to engage with us.

Every email we send out has a blurb like this:

"Please let us know if you have any questions. You may reply to this email or reach us at support@..."

Yes, we get some bounces and vacation/out of office auto-replies but the benefits far outweigh having to delete a few auto-replies that got through the filters.

<comment><USER9> Are you dealing with 10s, 100s, or 1000s of customers?

<comment><USER8> 1000s

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's actually very easy, just feed the responses to your customer support service. Since it's an email you know, it will be associated to the customer account.

Not only it's good for the customers, it's good for you because you definitely want customers to contact you when they have a problem (or when they believe you're sending too many emails). You want them to contact you to give you a chance to make them happy customer who stay with you, not grumpy customer who quit your service before even giving you an opportunity to fix their problem.

<comment><USER3> I've worked email queues. The customer's account will be full of auto- responders and it'll be impossible to find the real communications.

<comment><USER11> That's highly disingenuous. Unless you've been spamming your users, it's typical that less than 1% of emails are automated responses. These can be deleted/skipped very quickly.

In my company's case, it's more like 0.1%, but perhaps some are higher.

<comment><USER3> When you have tens of thousands of customers that's a lot of emails.

<comment><USER12> I think that's the point of the article too. If you are not prepared to handle 1% auto-responder rate which you can weed out which some code; you are sending too many emails.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Perhaps startups should send email from email@example.com to encourage customer feedback and iterate faster? As pg wrote in Do Things that Don't Scale, "The feedback you get from engaging directly with your earliest users will be the best you ever get... That's one advantage of being small: you can provide a level of service no big company can."

<comment><USER14> For a smaller startup (< 10 people), I'd recommend going with a person's email. Bonus points if you use your own.

We do that and get the occasional reply, but when we do, people are usually happy to get a quick, personal response.

Once you're larger, using more purpose-suited emails that route correctly is better (e.g. email@example.com or email@example.com routed to the correct customer service teams).

<comment><USER15> Possibly a personal quirk of mine, but I've never really liked that for automated emails. Getting an automated sign-up email from name@company just feels disingenuous to me.

Similar with the hi@company suggested below - I've seen hello@company used a lot (PR companies seem to love it) and always found it weird to not know who (person or role) I am addressing.

<comment><USER14> I always tack on a "this email is automated, but responses will be read by a human". You can also set the reply to header for a person/role, so you could use firstname.lastname@example.com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Companies often use noreply@… as sender and add a real address as Reply-To so their staff does not have to deal with bounce messages.

<comment><USER17> Hackish workarounds will be the death of us.

<comment><USER3> Hackish? This is a great design: [http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Mai...](http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Mail- Headers.html)

<comment><USER18> As near ad I can tell, the whole damned Internet is pretty much hackish workarounds. It's not amazing when something breaks, it's amazing that it works at all. From HTML being used for more than markup, to NAT routing, to a complete disregard for standards...

It's kinda impressive, actually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Companies should definitely have an easily-discovered means of contacting them if you have a concern about an email you received.

But actually allowing replies to the email itself is just asking to get a lot of low-quality spammy replies that now you have to pay someone to wade through.

<comment><USER20> And bounces, and out of office autoresponders, and so on

<comment><USER21> We do it anyway. It's easy enough to filter those types of emails. I think it's a huge plus for customer service to be able to say "Have a problem or question? Just reply..."

<comment><USER22> How do you know if you've been filtered? Not getting a response would lead to a lot of frustration.

<comment><USER21> We only set really obvious filters, as to filter too little than too much. But of course, it's not perfect every time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I've seen noreply@ useful/necessary in cases where the original message contained sensitive information that you wouldn't want forwarded to support staff if someone chose to reply.

<comment><USER24> That's sounds pretty easy to solve redacting the sensitive content when it hits your mail server before going to support staff. If you're sending out HTML email you can also make easy and extensible by having a custom class for redactable contents.

Realistically customers are going to fwd those emails anyway so this approach is more robust.

It seems like most information in these emails would be available to support staff typically though. It sounds like a niche case.

<comment><USER25> > _That 's sounds pretty easy to solve_

Everything does if you just glance at someone's comment online and dash one off.

How do you recognize which is the sensitive content and which isn't? How do you handle the case where you send out HTML emails, but the response strips all of the HTML and sends plain text back?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This certainly also has to do with the value of the customer. If you are an insurance company the value of the customer may be measured in thousands of $$$. If you are a lean e-commerce middleman the value you extract from ordinary end-customer might be some cents. Engaging with the customer in email conversation may cost tens of dollars.

While customers may love email, some (many?) customer service people actually don't. The trouble I have heard couple of times is that with email you usually never manage to solve the issue in one pass. Customer fires off email with insufficient details. Your service center checks the case, asks for more details. Customer does not respond immediately. When the reply comes, the person who originally handled the cases is not at work or has forgotten the details. You can call up the customer - if the customer has provided you the number, but that has it's own challenges. Customer can't talk right now, you need to call back at certain time etc.

In some cases it simply does not work out financially to provide personalized customer service. Too many customers are so cheap that they prefer to deal with your competitor who automates things.

</comment><comment><USER27> This seems like a problem that could be solved by micropayments for sending and receiving emails.

I've seen proposals[1] for a solution where the sender of an email pays a small fee to the recipient of the email. If you are sending as much email as you are receiving you wouldn't have to worry about using up your email. If you are sending a mass email, you will end up paying for it.

In the case of no-replies, it would discourage the sender from sending an email that doesn't need to be replied to.

</comment><comment><USER28> I've personally setup noreply accounts for some selfhosted services.

These emails are truly noreply, there is no inbox, any incoming mail is blackholed. There is no sense in receiving it, it's automated and the software does not react to incoming mails. There is no reason to reply, there is no sense in replying, there is no way to reply, why demand the ability to reply?

Why would I have me reading the garbage that piles up there? If you have a problem, contact postmaster/webmaster/root/etc.

If _I_ send you mail from a real human account, you can reply there. Simple as that.

It seems a bit like someone demanding that the radio should respond to their choice of music. Sure, if you want that, get a music app (aka a meat-email) and stop listening to the radio (aka the machine-email)

<comment><USER29> Why not send the email "From" postmaster/webmaster etc in the first place, or at least set the Reply-To header to that?

<comment><USER28> Because there is no reason for it. If you have a problem there is a contact email in every mail included.

I do not feel like I should be sending mail from postmaster and the reply-to header does not feel any more appropriate.

These emails are 100 percent automatic and do not require you to reply. Ever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's done to prevent a loop where an automated response causes an automated response.

<comment><USER31> Not sure this is entirely true. RFC 3848 ([http://www.rfc- base.org/txt/rfc-3834.txt](http://www.rfc-base.org/txt/rfc-3834.txt)) covers the implementation detail, and a lot of consideration was given to the prevention of email loops.

Section 4 states that auto-responders should send the response to the email address given by the Return-Path header (usually set to a VERP address for identification of bounces) or if absent then fall back to the email address given in the From header.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I agree wholeheartedly. This practice is up there with "No Caller ID" calls.

</comment><comment><USER33> I always wondered why is this and I think it's just a habit and somebody do it because everybody else is doing it.

<comment><USER34> Fake it until you make it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> If a customer really wants to contact you they'll find a way. Life always finds a way.

<comment><USER36> I did get the Ian Malcolm reference.

<comment><USER34> I always preferred his line from he sequel:

        "Oooh, Ahh", that's how it always starts.  But then later there's running, and screaming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Send as noreply@ with reply-to header pointing to a valid address.

</comment><comment><USER3> TLDR, an article by someone who doesn't know how email works nor how companies use email queues.

<comment><USER38> Author here.

I'm writing from the perspective of a customer. As a customer, I don't care how your email queues work. I do care that you sent me an email and forbid me from replying to it. It chafes. And you want my money?

From the perspective of a company, I can sympathize. I've been directed to create noreply-sending mailers in the course of my job. In every case, it would have been better sent from support@, but because of understandable but dumb reasons (bureaucratic laziness; not-my-problem-itis), it's way easier just to turn on the mailing hose and forget replies. So that's what we did.

I've also worked on handling bounces of both email replies and (cringe) faxes. Yes, handling bounces can be annoying, but to create a good customer experience I think it's worth the cost.

<comment><USER39> I hope I don't seem critical because that is not my intent. It seems like this is about misusing no-reply@ not that no-reply@ is inherently bad. Github completing a merge of a branch onto master seems like a fine use case for no- reply@. Using no-reply@ to tell someone they are overdue on their bill is not. Or are you saying there is literally _never_ a reason for a no-reply@ address?

Additionally, if a service is over sending, there are lots of unsubscribe laws and rules to address that to your own personal preference.

<comment><USER38> I won't say never. I think your distinction (GitHub merge vs bill overdue) might strike the right balance, but I'm having trouble sorting out what the principle is that distinguishes those two.

As I've never even paid attention to the sending address of GitHub merge notifications, perhaps the principle is: "If someone notices that your email came from noreply@ then you shouldn't use noreply@"

(And, no, you don't seem critical -- more like thoughtful)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Thank god, a Medium post on how to fix email. Guess that's fixed now, isn't it?

/s

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> If slack can disrupt chat, then maybe another company can disrupt no-reply.

I feel like this predicament resembles the story in the children's book: Half Magic ([http://a.co/e8JrhbU](http://a.co/e8JrhbU)).

</comment><comment><USER41> "Don't make me hunt for a way to ask it."

And this post makes me hunt google to find what "kthxbye" means...</comment>


Promises/A+ - <AUTHOR> http://promisesaplus.com/

<comment><USER2> It's worth noting we are _very_ close to finishing up a 1.1 revision of the spec, which clarifies a few things mainly around how promise libraries interoperate with each other's promises. You can find the work in our master branch (as opposed to gh-pages):

[https://github.com/promises-aplus/promises-spec](https://github.com/promises- aplus/promises-spec)

Including a changelog:

[https://github.com/promises-aplus/promises- spec/blob/master/...](https://github.com/promises-aplus/promises- spec/blob/master/changelog.md)

And the issues still open versus closed in the 1.1 timeframe are at

[https://github.com/promises-aplus/promises- spec/issues?miles...](https://github.com/promises-aplus/promises- spec/issues?milestone=2&page=1&state=open)

We were hoping to do a revision of the website's look at the time of the 1.1 release as well, mainly adding links to additional resources in the repository (like the implementations list, credits, etc.). A bit sad that we haven't moved fast enough to finish that before making the front page of Hacker News!

</comment><comment><USER3> I have just started doing development in Node.js. Originally using the excellent caolan/async library ([https://github.com/caolan/async](https://github.com/caolan/async)) for handling synchronous situations. Now started moving towards Promises but finding it quite hard to locate any "Promises for Dummies" type guide. Most of the libraries like "q" etc ([https://github.com/kriskowal/q](https://github.com/kriskowal/q)) just give you a list of functions to use and related syntax but I have yet to come across a guide that goes into detail as to exactly how and why you use certain functions.

I am kind of figuring things out as I go along but if anyone here can point me to such guides, I would be most grateful.

<comment><USER2> I have given several talks, for which slide decks and one video are available:

[http://www.slideshare.net/domenicdenicola/callbacks- promises...](http://www.slideshare.net/domenicdenicola/callbacks-promises-and- coroutines-oh-my-the-evolution-of-asynchronicity-in-javascript)

[http://www.slideshare.net/domenicdenicola/promises- promises](http://www.slideshare.net/domenicdenicola/promises-promises) with video at [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNxnHbyzhuo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNxnHbyzhuo)

[http://www.slideshare.net/domenicdenicola/boom-promisesa- was...](http://www.slideshare.net/domenicdenicola/boom-promisesa-was-born) which is more inspirational and motivational than practical

Otherwise, in the Q readme we try for a "graduated tutorial" approach; would welcome any feedback you have to make it more friendly. We try to relegate the "list of functions" to the API reference at [https://github.com/kriskowal/q/wiki/API- Reference](https://github.com/kriskowal/q/wiki/API-Reference)

<comment><USER3> Hi Domenic, Thanks for those links - I will check them all. There is another one of yours (co-speaker) that I thought was excellent: Redemption from Callback Hell ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf1T_AONQJU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf1T_AONQJU))

<comment><USER2> Oh yes, I always forget about this one because it's not on my SlideShare, but you're right, it's really excellent! Michael did a great job putting that together and I was honored he invited me to share the stage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> My beef with JS Promises (uppercase "P") is that, as a programming idiom, I prefer _once I have X, Y and Z, do something with X, Y and Z_ over _get X, then get Y, then get Z_. In the former case, the provisioning logic is a separate concern; it could be done in parallel, serially, or via some combination of both. In the latter case, it's inherently serial.

I wrote an alternate implementation of promises in JS (lowercase "p") that uses the former approach: [https://github.com/greim/await.js](https://github.com/greim/await.js)

<comment><USER5> I don't understand your comment (or this is related to the lack of good introductory material noted in another comment).

You _can_ retrieve the results of promises in parallel, serially, or via some combination of both. That's part of their power versus straight callbacks which enforce a serial approach.

Check out this link to q's documentation: [https://github.com/kriskowal/q#combination](https://github.com/kriskowal/q#combination)

<comment><USER4> My main point is that Promises don't have any concept of parallelism; all() is specific to the Q library, not part of Promises/A+. Obviously that's the intent—low-level building blocks—but it leaves one feeling like Promises don't actually solve any hard problems. You still have to solve them yourself.

<comment><USER6> Promises/A+ is not a promise library. It's not a spec about "what should a promise library do". It's about interoperability - "how can I exchange data AND promises between libraries without relying on a shared library/on everyone using the same library for flow control?". Also the spec makes error handling non-surprising, I don't need to read through the docs of a library to know how errors propagate. It looks like your promise library would have been easy to make comply with the spec by just calling "onkeep" "then" (and maybe adapting a few minor details).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The great thing about Promises/A+ is that it's so small. I have implemented it in 375 bytes, and was even able to add two convenience functions: [https://github.com/timjansen/PinkySwear.js](https://github.com/timjansen/PinkySwear.js)

<comment><USER8> Great project name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> I gave a talk at JSConf US 2013 about the genesis of this spec, and how I believe it plays into the future of open, developer-driven APIs for the web platform. I hope the video is up soon, but until then, the slides are at [http://www.slideshare.net/domenicdenicola/boom-promisesa- was...](http://www.slideshare.net/domenicdenicola/boom-promisesa-was-born)

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe I'm missing something, but I find C#'s async/await much more intuitive (not having written any C# and currently working on a pet project using promises with Node and Q).

My issue with promises is that I find myself working around the API/language when I actually want synchronous code. My app calls a JSON API and then writes the results to three tables (in sequence). In "normal", blocking code:

      results = getResults(); writeTable1(results.foo); writeTable2(results.bar); writeTable3(results.baz);

Using Node and Q:

      db.load().then(()-> setupDB(db)).then(()-> collectData(db)).done()

In which setupDB() returns a chain of three promises and collectData, which loops through the results and attach a new promise to the chain in order to return a chain of `n` promises.

Are these just growing pains of learning a new paradigm or am I using the wrong tool for the job?

Can someone point me to any projects that actually use promises?

<comment><USER2> It's worth noting that C#'s async/await is based directly on promises; they are called `Task<T>` in .NET. Indeed, they share a common ancestor I believe; .NET 4.5's `Task<T>` is derived from F#'s `Async<T>`, and both `Async<T>` and JavaScript promises are based on E's promises.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, I think the big difference for me is the language support. You can just await a method call instead of having to wrap the remainder of your block in a function.

Perhaps I should look into IcedCoffeeScript ([http://maxtaco.github.io/coffee- script/](http://maxtaco.github.io/coffee-script/)) instead of plain CS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I wrote a library a while ago that nearly fulfills this entire spec. I've added/changed things that I thought were more intuitive. [https://github.com/kolodny/wttt](https://github.com/kolodny/wttt)

<comment><USER6> The point of having the spec is that libraries can freely exchange data and promises, even if they depend on totally different flow control libraries, while still being certain that error handling and chaining works as expected. It looks like if I build on top of your library, I'm locked in.

This is not to say that it invalidates your library or that every promise library has to comply to A+ or that A+ is the only good way to design promises in JS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > 188.8.131.52 If onFulfilled is not a function, it must be ignored.

This is idiomatic JS I guess, but it bugs me to bits. IMO the parameter should be a function or it should be null; anything else should throw an error.

<comment><USER2> `then` is meant to return a promise, i.e. return an asynchronous value; it should never synchronously throw an error.

That said, I somewhat agree (although in JavaScript it should be `undefined`, not `null`). If we were starting clean, instead of with tons of code in the wild that did `.then(null, onRejected)` or `.then(false, onRejected)`, we would have the resulting promise be rejected with a `TypeError` if `onFulfilled` was neither `undefined` nor a function.

<comment><USER11> Hmm null is easier to pass on purpose and undefined is easier to pass by accident.

Sending in undefined for a non-trailing argument takes effort.

I think the literal null is far more communicative of the developers intent.

But the general point is, JS APIs tend to fail silently on error by design and that's something that bugs me, literally. Bugs. Lots of them.

I agree regards returning a failure rather than throwing an exception, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Thanks for this discussion... after reading Domenic's slides, watching his talk, and going through the questions here and on the gist, I've filed a bug to try to move Enyo's async implementation to promises after our next release. ([https://enyojs.atlassian.net/browse/ENYO-2700](https://enyojs.atlassian.net/browse/ENYO-2700)) Currently, our code is more like the jQuery 1.5 implementation, but it really lacks the nice error semantics that Promises/A+ has.

</comment><comment><USER13> wouldn't it be good to explain somewhere, early on, that this is for javascript?

<comment><USER2> This is actually a really good point, haha! Filed, and will fix in the upcoming so-close-to-done 1.1 revision: [https://github.com/promises- aplus/promises-spec/issues/135](https://github.com/promises-aplus/promises- spec/issues/135)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Promises are coming of age too late, and still have unsolved fundamental issues.

Meanwhile, ES6 generators are coming to node v0.12, already in FF and soon to be in Chrome; _that_ is a whole different game.

<comment><USER15> It's still better to use promises as an underlying mechanism, so that you can "yield* promise" or "yield* generator". This approach is now implemented in python tulip framework, and it solves the problem of combining the existing callback-based code with coroutines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Just out of curiosity, why don't we use node's event emitters to wrap callbacks as promises?

<comment><USER6> Because promises resolve to one value which can be retrieved long after the promise was resolved. This is a fundamentally different approach than EventEmitters. node's streams are the closest thing to "promise meets event emitter" I'm aware of. But maybe I'm missing the point of your question.</comment></comment>


Elon Musk uses seventh-grader language on earnings calls, according to algorithm - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/22/teslas-musk-uses-seventh-grader-language-on-earnings-calls.html <comment><USER2> this is only a problem if you believe elon musk has the intelligence of a 7th grader. He would be a poor communicator if those calls were just non stop technical jargon. He should simplify things for his audience and talk in language they can understand. The average newspaper only requires a 9th grade reading level. Maybe 7th grade is a bit lower than expected, but it's not far off from what it probably should be.</comment>


Tell HN: How to find karma thresholds in the HN source code - <AUTHOR>

Sure, you could ask pg to tell you what the karma thresholds are, but the fact of the matter is he's already told you -- it's just embedded in a sparsely commented, 2600-line file that is only distributed as part of the ARC language package.
Behold!  The three-line recipe that will enlighten you in several ways:

  wget http://ycombinator.com/arc/arc3.1.tar
  tar xf arc3.1.tar
  grep -n -E "\(= [^-]+-threshold" arc3.1/news.arc
 As of 2009/09/30:
1) topcolor threshold is 250
2) downvote threshold is 200
3) flag threshold is 30
As an exercise for the reader, figure out what the comment and poll thresholds are.
Bonus points: what is the mysterious leader threshold? <comment><AUTHOR> I realize I should also point out what the regexp is doing, since it's pretty simple and it's the meat of the recipe.

It starts off by looking for the open paren that is the beginning of any LISP expression.

Next, it looks for an assignment statement. LISPs use prefix notation, so the function comes before the arguments. Contrast with infix syntax, which would put the assignment operator between its arguments (i.e. = a 2 versus a = 2).

Last, it looks for a string of characters that are followed by -threshold, which is the naming convention used by pg for variables that store threshold data.

<comment><USER2> Never has a Lisp used = for assignment. It's always a variant of "set".

Here is a page with various call-graphs for new.arc along with visualization tools:

<http://arclanguage.org/item?id=8876>

[Edit: Whoever downvoting me, could you please contribute a pointer to a Lisp that uses '=' as assignment other than Arc?]

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, but arc nevertheless is a Lisp, and for whatever reason, news.arc is certainly using '=' to perform assignment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Tip: if you don't have wget installed on your fresh Mac, run curl -O instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah - note that vulpes typed "dash oh" instead of "dash zero." The latter will send an HTTP 1.0 request (since curl defaults to HTTP 1.1) whereas the former will Output the file to disk (otherwise curl defaults to stdout).

...or just cut-and-paste, since vulpes typed it correctly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The arc release is not 1:1 with the arc running HN.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. With the recent experiment involving hidden comment scores, I understand pg was updating the code in the REPL.

...but if you want to grab the source code, is there any other way to get it, aside from the version that is bundled with arc?

<comment><USER4> No, PG explicitly said that there is some stuff in HN that will not be released, here is the reference:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=830838>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reference! I suppose he _could_ release news.arc as a separate file a little more frequently than the arc codebase.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I might as well point out that grep -n will give you line numbers in the output, so you can quickly reference the source code to figure out a little more from the context.

You could use grep -C3 to get some context right on the command line, but the output is a little cluttered for my taste.

</comment><comment><USER5> Downvote and flag make sense to me, but (pardon me if this is defined elsewhere) what's this "topcolor" thing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Topcolor is the hex code of the bar across the top of HN.

Check this out:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/topcolors>

It's a neat little page that displays a bunch of colors and hexcodes from live users' profiles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You karma whore! (That said, consider yourself modded up.)

Also, please accept my apologies for writing as if I were on Slashdot.

<comment><AUTHOR> :) Well, I noticed the issue of karma comes up more than once per year, and the thresholds are mysteriously different each time. I was about to ask (since I was _certain_ I had read the downvote threshold was 100) when I realized I could just check the code. It turned out to be surprisingly hard to _find_ the code, so I figured there must be some others in the HN community who will enjoy this quick demo.</comment></comment>


Debugging Firefox 7 with gdb, fixing the bug, and submitting a patch - <AUTHOR> http://cheater.posterous.com/hacking-firefox

<comment><USER2> ...with a bonus rant on FOSS! I have expanded the part after the asterism quite much after initially posting, it talks about Mozilla's and generally FOSS business practices in relation to the OS dev community. This might end up being split off into a separate article, but I think the steps I did when debugging are important as an illustration of what I talk about in the further comments.</comment>


Drawing Lines is Hard – an interactive look at GPU line rendering - <AUTHOR> http://mattdesl.svbtle.com/drawing-lines-is-hard# <comment><USER2> Yeah, it is hard to do properly. Been looking into several different methods and implementations, and this is the one I went with on my project (missing from the article):

Shader-Based Antialiased, Dashed, Stroked Polylines [http://jcgt.org/published/0002/02/08/](http://jcgt.org/published/0002/02/08/)

This is a very throughout implementation with many different drawing features and beautiful results. The actual implementation provided with the Python examples is a bit difficult to understand and not perhaps the most optimal, but still the paper and the theory behind it is one of the most comprehensive I've found.

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks great. I'm tempted to add it as another implementation. :)

<comment><USER3> Do it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish OpenVG/NV_path_rendering were more supported, especially on mobile platforms where they're needed the most. I'm making an app that involves hardware-accelerated line/path rendering and dealing with triangulation, color, batching, stroke vs. fill, patterns, etc. manually is a pain. Libraries like MonkVG and nanovg exist but they're a little half-baked at the moment.

<comment><USER5> OpenVG has been thoroughly dead for a while now. I think the half-baked libraries are as good as you're going to get.

<comment><USER4> Yes, but it's a _good idea_. And there's plenty of software that relies on hardware-accelerated vectors: maps, browsers, animations, games, etc. The problem is that everyone has their own implementation!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> By some wonderful coincidence I need to implement antialiased line rendering this afternoon. Previously I'd done the 6-triangle method (but I also rasterized any kind of path with all sorts of fancy fills, and it made more sense for that).

Thanks for such a clear write-up and all the links.

</comment><comment><USER7> It gets even more fun when you get into curves, or try to draw 1MM lines!

(If this sounds like your cup of tea, message me :))

<comment><USER8> Are you hiring?

<comment><USER7> Yep! Our fullstack / GPU / infrastructure spots are full (team of 5), but we've been holding two spots open here:

* infoviz lead: handling design+impl of high-density data viz (imagine interacting with million node graphs). Coding-wise, clientside WebGL, D3, and serverside, node + c + opencl + our custom (GP)GPU cluster stack. It'll involve pushing what's possible in data viz, both in design & performance.

* frontend lead: UX/app/product design, meaning JS/CSS/whatever frameworks you want to bring in (e.g., React). GL is not necessary, but you'll probably want to get your hands dirty.

Msg email@example.com and we can figure it out!

<comment><USER8> Sounds interesting. I'm probably too dumb. But I referred a friend to your post!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A good example (a little out of date now, circa 2003) showing invariance in OpenGL implementations across hardware:

[http://arek.bdmonkeys.net/bugs/invariance/index.html](http://arek.bdmonkeys.net/bugs/invariance/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER10> Another good article on this subject is [https://www.mapbox.com/blog/drawing- antialiased-lines/](https://www.mapbox.com/blog/drawing-antialiased-lines/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Slightly off topic, I was messing around with the triangulated lines demo, and I get this rendering glitch:

[https://imgur.com/FPEaVTC](https://imgur.com/FPEaVTC)

Anyone know the reason behind this? I'm guessing it's sort of triangle bounding error where something is being divided by a tiny divisor. It happens when I draw the snake in an arc, then retrace the arc from the same angle but in the opposite direction.

<comment><USER12> He actually mentions it in the article:

 _Note: a drawback that comes with miter-joined lines is sharp edges. When the angle connecting two segments is very sharp, the miter length grows exponentially toward infinity, and causes huge artifacts in rendering. In some applications this may not be a problem, in others you might want to limit the miter or fall back to another join (i.e. bevel) when the angle is too sharp._

<comment><USER13> there is a solution to this called 'mitre limiting' its quite simple really. beyond a certain angle (dot product) threshold between adjacent segments you don't mitre the corner, but you 'cap' it, either with a simple triangle filling the gap, or with a fan to create a nice, rounded appearance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wrote some animated SVG's in the past. It was often slow but good enough for most tasks. Quality was/is browser-dependent, but it worked well in overall.

I'm not sure what people want to achieve. So, how well works Scalable Vector Graphics for you?

<comment><USER13> you need to render the SVG data somehow and the problem being discussed is how to achieve that.

the format in which the strokes or shapes are stored is not relevant.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What iOS HN reader is good these days? - <AUTHOR>

Now that news:yc is unusable on iOS 7, what's your preferred replacement? <comment><USER2> By posting in Ask HN, I'll assume community discussion is important to you. So I'd recommend my app, Pivit. Besides having a great threading system (with ability to copy), it was designed for iOS 7 and utilizes:

・Dynamic Type

・Content deference

・Background Fetch

It has a one-of-a kind article indicator for both posts you've read and ones you've decided not to read, and support for opening in Safari and saving to your Reading List.

I also didn't overdo the HN orange.

Pivit — [http://appsto.re/i6xC4GD](http://appsto.re/i6xC4GD)

</comment><comment><USER3> Right now I'm using [http://ihackernews.com/](http://ihackernews.com/) and setting a bookmark for it on my iDevices.

The bookmark icon is very clean and I get all of the functionality of HackerNews.

I've tried a bunch of free apps (not going to pay to read free HN) but was disappointed with all of them. Either they don't look very good or the ones that do, don't refresh to show previous posts so all you get are the first page of highest ranked or first pages of newest posts.

</comment><comment><USER4> MiniHack

See also user minihack's comment here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6489349](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6489349)

<comment><USER5> Minihack works well, although the hit areas get a little wonky sometimes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Mert Dumenci and I a few days ago release our iOS 7 Hacker News client, Hack Later. It's focused on reading articles quickly and saving them for later, and so is fairly minimal and extremely lightweight and fast. You can check it out on our site: [http://BrushedType.co/](http://BrushedType.co/) or the HN thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6489349](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6489349)

<comment><USER7> Looks great, but an important note relevant to OP's question: "and includes no support for comments. Read, save, refresh."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm using Hackerful, great & full UI.

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hackerful-ycombinators- hacke...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hackerful-ycombinators- hacker/id578256868?mt=8)

</comment><comment><USER9> I really like [http://hn.premii.com](http://hn.premii.com). It's not a native app, but it works so well it feels like one.

<comment><USER2> This is really slick. Had I known about this, I might not have built one! But background fetch in my client feeds my addiction.</comment></comment>


Change the official Presidential anthem to Santana ft. Rob Thomas' "Smooth" - <AUTHOR> https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/change-official-presidential-anthem-hail-chief-santana-ft-rob-thomas-smooth/GR7fshx0

<comment><USER2> I love the idea of grassroots online petitions. This site pulls from both our democratic spirit and technological resourcefulness.

In practice, though, it often just reminds me of West Wing's fifth episode, "The Crackpots and These Women," where a sort of open house allows staffers to hear policy proposals from UFO enthusiasts and those who want to build a costly national highway system exclusively for wolves.

(Currently, the highest rated petition calls for the deportation of Justin Bieber.)</comment>


Roll your Debian - <AUTHOR> http://rollingdebian.com/install-grive-and-keep-documents-syncronized-with-gdrive/ <comment><USER2> Most cron daemons understand /10 to have a job run every ten minutes. And installing random binaries from the web is rarely a good idea – especially since this very version of grive is already in Debian (unstable/testing):

      $ rmadison grive
       grive | 0.2.0-1 | jessie | source, amd64, armel, armhf, i386, ia64, kfreebsd-amd64, kfreebsd-i386, mips, mipsel, powerpc, s390, s390x, sparc
       grive | 0.2.0-1 | sid    | source, amd64, armel, armhf, hurd-i386, i386, ia64, kfreebsd-amd64, kfreebsd-i386, mips, mipsel, powerpc, s390, s390x, sparc

Edit: And git-annex apparently already has a googledriveannex, giving you all its nice features (e.g. local encryption).

<comment><AUTHOR> Why you say "random binaries"?</comment></comment>


Show HN: I published my first app: A Journaling app called Introspekt - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=introspekt.app <comment><AUTHOR> I made a compact journaling app where you can write about your day! It also shows you your days at a glance with a line chart showing you your highs and lows. The app can also track your goals and the frequency with which you want to work on them!

</comment><comment><USER2> cool!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!! Let me know if you have any feedback! I know the color scheme might be a bit much but I'm working on a new one!</comment></comment>


Show HN: A search engine powered by Jimmy - <AUTHOR> https://jimmified.com/hackernews <comment><USER2> Hey everyone! Jimmy is hard at work getting through responses. If you want some reading while you wait, check out the source on Github. [https://github.com/jimmified/](https://github.com/jimmified/)

<comment><USER3> Quality code you got there, thanks for open source it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Thought about this yesterday when searching for some tutorials. 10 years ago, they were made by enthusiasts for free. Now they are made by companies for money and is generally of lesser quality. I need Jimmy to guide me on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER5> Ok, I don't understand what this is.

<comment><USER6> You're not missing much.

 _Jimmified is a JaaS (Jimmy as a Service) application currently operating the Jimmy search engine. When you make a search, a push notification is sent to Jimmy through the Jimmy Mobile app, which allows him to respond with Jimmy- curated search results. This may sound inefficient, because it is just about the least efficient way to operate a search engine._

 _This site was created as part of a running joke that replacing a computers job with a human is jimmifying it. The joke stems from a previous project where Jimmy minified the codebase for a Chrome extension by hand._

[https://jimmified.com/#about](https://jimmified.com/#about)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> HN hug of death incoming. Poor guy.

<comment><USER2> In this case, the hug of death is his three-year-old nexus 5 melting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's also an expo client: [https://expo.io/@adierkens/jimmified](https://expo.io/@adierkens/jimmified)

</comment><comment><USER9> This got some love. Wish I had enough free time to play around a bit more to do some crazt dev like this.</comment>


The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire but Reject Creative Ideas (2010) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1457&context=articles <comment><USER2> From a meeting last year: "We want to come up with creative ways to present this information, but we don't want to spend any time on things we won't end up using."

For me, that says it all about the bias against creativity.

Creativity requires a tolerance for uncertainty and risk. Don't ask for creativity unless you are willing to accept that.

<comment><USER3> I'd even say that creativity requires waste, or at least a kind of attitude where wastefulness is okay.

<comment><USER4> Can confirm this. In a lot of design schools (I went into architecture school) students are taught to iterate, iterate, iterate to improve and refine on their design. It's very rare to see great designs 100% complete on the first try, and often you see early models and prototypes tossed to the side after the final product is due.

From the short-term, economic perspective, watching someone hammer away at something when "tried-and-true" solutions exist (with some 'creative' twists ofc) can even seem irrational and wasteful. One famous Modernist architect, Phillip Johnson, even quipped that,"Architecture is the art of how to waste space."

People who can't handle the waste in design probably would never shell out for proper R&D or scientific developments either. Hardly anyone gets it right on their first try, even in research.

It's funny because when creative endeavors finally pay off, they can pay off big and then they themselves become the "tried-and-true" trend that people follow.

<comment><USER5> I went to a design school, and one of my early classes was traditional drawing. Our professor would set up a still life, have us begin, and over the course of weeks have "random" days where he would require us to erase everything on the sheet and start over, no matter how good you were doing or how far along you were. I think the lesson was heavy handed but I've always remembered it... The idea, I believe, was "get used to throwing away your work and trying new things, even when you don't want to".

In the end I think desensitizing yourself to the idea of erasing work is a good practice. I have projects full of code that has been commented out for over a month, simply because I'm afraid I'll have to go back and see it again... Recalling this story, I may just as well delete it and rewrite it if needed. Chances are the rewrite will be cleaner.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It would be interesting to scan HN for startups that launched years ago and evaluate the sentiment of the comments. Then, group the startups into "successful" and "unsuccessful" and see how user sentiment at the time of the launch matches up with the startup's level of success. Would there be a trend?

<comment><USER7> My guess is that sentiments are almost always negative on average and do not strongly correlate to outcomes. Its very easy to pick a reason why any startup will fail, and 99/100 times, the average reason is correct.

<comment><USER8> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863) is a great example (spoiler alert: DropBox)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> People say they want creativity but they only really want it when they themselves are the source of the creativity. People want creativity for themselves but then want to shoot down everyone else's ideas so theirs can be the only one standing. I think the Silicon Valley has not been able to rid itself of this aspect of traditional corporate settings.

It feels like people are constantly in competition with others on their team and creativity suffers as a result. Lately, I have found myself giving people room to collaborate on (or do) things I would typically do myself. They can get satisfaction out of being a contributing part of the creative process. I also don't feel as though them being creative or succeeding is a failure on my part or a negative reflection on me.

<comment><USER10> I thought Google's Project Aristotle [1] nailed the problem.

TL;DR: They propose two traits of an effective team. First, long term everyone speaks about the same amount even if the meeting to meeting amounts differ. Second, there is a general awareness among team members that if they take interpersonal risk (i.e. say something that may turn out to be wrong) they wont be embarrassed, rejected or punished.

And I think this paper's results fall in line with that train of thought. If "risky"/creative ideas are shot down on sight your sense of psychological safety and probably your average amount of talking is going to take a big hit over time.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google- lear...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from- its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html) (If you decide to read it the second half is the meat/results, the first is background info)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Atlantic did a piece on the bias against creative ideas[0], and provided a suggestion for overcoming resistance:

"Film producers, like NIH scientists, have to evaluate hundreds of ideas a year, but can only accept a tiny percentage. To grab their attention, writers often frame original ideas as a fresh combination of existing ideas. 'It's Groundhog Day meets War of the Worlds!' Or 'It's Transformers on the ocean!' In Silicon Valley, where venture capitalists also shift through a surfeit of proposals, the culture of the high-concept pitch is vibrant (Airbnb was once eBay for homes; Uber, Lyft, and Zipcar were all once considered Airbnb for cars; now, people want Uber for everything)."

Paul Graham gets credit for the 'x for y' format.

[0] [https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/why- new...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/why-new-ideas- fail/381275/)

</comment><comment><USER12> _people can hold a bias against creativity that is not ne cessarily overt, and which is activated when people experience a mot ivation to reduce uncertainty._

Translated: When people actually try something new and it gets tough, they get scared, give up and go back to the same old way of doing things.

</comment><comment><USER13> Evaluating creative ideas is hard. That's the big problem. Generating creative ideas that are hard to test is a huge headache for organizations.

<comment><USER14> > That's the big problem.

I disagree. I have been working on a self-evidently great idea for over 5 years. Even now, with millions joyfully invested by a collaborator, incredibly good PR optics, and success on all fronts, a significant group of internal leadership hates it.

For a non-trivial set of great ideas, it's not even jealousy of the idea. It's jealousy of the subordinate's time and position. Who the hell let that pion have an idea and then let them work on it?

<comment><USER15> Parent and GP are both right. Evaluating creative ideas is hard for the same reasons evaluating competence is hard. The people doing the evaluating (and making funding decisions) tend to be less creative and less technical than the people they're evaluating, so they fall back to criteria they understand: Do I like this person? Does my boss like them? Is he/she in the group that is expected to be creative, or are they in the "interchangeable cog" group?

Successful creativity is always political. If you suck at politics, it's hard to be creative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> New ideas take an effort to understand and most new things don't work or even if they do work they remain unadopted. Including apparently wonderful and well-developed ideas.

Come to thing of it we have only a partial understanding of the role of _present_ technologies. In evolutionary terms, things persist for multiple reasons and we can't identify all of them. Small wonder we can't predict the _future_ of technology and remain sceptical of implied claims to the contrary.

</comment><comment><USER17> How do they know the bias is "against" novelty? In order to make this claim you would have to know the probability that an idea is good given that it is novel.

</comment><comment><USER18> Word. Anything out of the ordinary will be shot down asap to protect the egos involved. Social Darwinism; it's all one big competition these days, and in a competition you either win or loose.

<comment><USER19> That doesn't appear to be what the research is suggesting. From this, it's not about ego, it's about the fear of uncertainty.

<comment><USER20> Same thing. Nobody wants to look stupid if they're wrong.

<comment><USER19> Ummm. No. Or is the only reason you're ever worried about things going wrong down to your ego?

<comment><USER20> If you want creative solutions, then pay the price which is having room to experiment and sometimes fail. If you're not willing to give people the resources they need then it's asking for all the benefit while undertaking none of he risk, a strategy that is unlikely to be successful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> remember this next time your coworkers shoot down your next great idea.

<comment><USER22> The lesson here is really that if you want your brilliant idea to be taken seriously you need to mitigate the risks and limit the uncertainty before you even present it.

<comment><USER20> For which you frequently need a budget. How about just changing the power structures or decision making process? The best way to do that is to open it up to a wider pool of voters.

<comment><USER22> What? Neither I nor GP were talking about elections, voting, or government.

<comment><USER20> Neither am I. Businesses and departments therein have budgets, committees, and so on. A flatter networked corporate structure where more employees can vote on proposals may be better than pyramidal hierarchies.

Why you would assume I was talking about government is beyond me. This article is literally discussing creative ideas being shot down by committees, and committees conduct votes.

<comment><USER22> I assumed you were talking about government because I have never heard of a company "voting."

<comment><USER20> Shareholders and boards of directors vote all the time, albeit with varying degrees of impact. I'm astonished that you wouldn't know this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Because vast majority of these creative ideas belongs to category of a naive popular bullshit like "chakras", "tantric sex", "veganism" or a border wall with Mexico?

</comment><comment><USER24> Double spaced text is so irritating to read.

Are there any services or browser addons that will convert pdfs to web pages? Then I could apply my own style sheet and correct some of that.

<comment><USER25> The double-spaced is because this is a draft/preprint and not the final version; it makes it easier to copyedit and modify before the final layout. You can of course read the final version instead with normal typesetting: [http://journals.sagepub.com.sci- hub.bz/doi/pdf/10.1177/09567...](http://journals.sagepub.com.sci- hub.bz/doi/pdf/10.1177/0956797611421018)

<comment><USER26> The double spacing is also (mainly?) because the formatting dates from an era of manuscripts typed on a manual typewriter, with a single choice of fixed- width (large) font, and a fairly limited ability to make generous margins. In such a context having blank lines is the easiest way to give proofreaders a place to write comments and corrections. The typewriter legacy is also how we get two spaces for new sentences, and outrageously wide half-inch paragraph indentation, with indentation even for the first paragraph of new sections.

It's in my experience just as easy to write notes and corrections on documents which are written in smaller type with standard amounts of leading in a reasonable-width text block, with generous margins. And it's much easier to _read_ such documents.

Unfortunately, since the typewriter format was standard at the time when computers started to be used for manuscripts (and school assignments, and theses, and legal documents, etc.), it just got copied over for computer- prepared documents, so we ended up with a standard of a 7.5" wide single column of 12 point type, double spaced. Microsoft enshrined the 12 point size, 1 inch margins, half-inch tab stops, Times New Roman typeface, etc. as defaults in Word, and now all kinds of document specifications are stuck limping along with forced ugly semi-legible formatting.

<comment><USER27> Double spacing predates typewriters. It was common practice for typesetters to use a wider space after punctuation. Typewriters merely emulated it albeit crudely.</comment></comment></comment></comment>