Stuff (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/stuff.html <comment><USER3> Depending on how you look at it, I either own 20,000 plus five things, or just two plus five things.

I'm exaggerating, but I've got a core point:

There are two things that I spend a LOT of time on and get a lot of enjoyment from:

* cooking

* wood and metalworking

I've got two meticulously organized sets of things that reflect that:

* a great kitchen with all sorts of implements, frozen stocks, a hundred spices, etc.

* a great workshop with all sorts of tools and supplies

I keep those two areas perfectly organized, because this increases my enjoyment of them on a daily basis. ...and I have no desire to prune them. My workshop has a long tail: I may not need the #3 dental pick every month, but when I want it, I really really want it. So it's in a drawer with a label. I may use it just three times a year, but I use SOME long-tail item every day or two.

Outside of my kitchen and shop, though, I abjure clutter. I own one coat, one sweater, five shirts, etc.

I entirely agree with Paul that one of the biggest expenses is the mental expense of keeping things cataloged.

My advice: if there's something you really enjoy that requires tools, get them and use them. ...but aside from that, yes, be a minimalist.

My two cents.

<comment><USER4> That is a great distinction. Sadly I've got a bunch of robotics stuff that realize I'll never make into robots.

I gave away all of my 68HC11 gear, the boards, the chip programmers, the data books, the spare chips, everything because I realized I was never going to build another robot with a Motorola 68HC11 at its core.

Now of course, I don't miss it, but at the time, shipping it out to the silly silly folks who offered to take it off my hands it felt like giving up some precious treasure. And I realized the 'treasure' was the memories of what I had done with this stuff, not the stuff itself. I've been slowly reconstructing my robotics site to honor those memories.

I also find that I have a hard time with stuff that "could" be useful to "someone" but I can't just throw it away. I put a box of stuff like that on the table at Hacker Dojo with an exhortation to use it to hack cool things, but there was no one there to "accept" it so I don't know if it was useful or not. It was sufficient for me though to create the possibility that it "might" be useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The amount of stuff you have is the difference between the amount of stuff you acquire and the amount of stuff you sell or discard. This essay does a pretty good job of covering the former, but the only mention of the latter is the following:

        And yet when I got back I didn't discard so much as a box of it.
        Throw away a perfectly good rotary telephone? I might need that
        one day.

I wish this idea was expanded upon more. One of the contributing factors as to why poorer people tend to have more stuff is because the cost of discarding or selling and subsequently replacing stuff is higher than simply storing it. If you have a well-paying job or are otherwise independently wealthy, it's easy to throw away a $20 rotary phone because you know you can just go out and buy a new one without inconvenience.

There's also the compunction against discarding something that still works or is still useful. For example, I know quite a few people that have old computers gathering dust because their owner has subsequently replaced them with faster machines, but hasn't discarded the old ones because they're still operable and might be useful for a side project or something.

I'm not really sure what the solution to either of those things is. Perhaps we need some sort of market where stuff is more of a liquid commodity than it is now - if there's less of a financial penalty to selling and repurchasing, and if it's easier for perfectly good items to be sold for another's use, it might enable people to have the option to have less stuff.

<comment><USER6> > some sort of market

Garage sales! Seriously, though, garage sales exist because most stuff is so cheap and disposable to begin with that if you tried to sell it for what someone would actually pay for it, you'd be lucky to break even after any shipping, transaction fees and the value of any personal time/effort you put into the process. So, you have a garage sale: you sell it (or at least show it) in all bulk, all at once to minimize effort, with zero transaction or shipping fees. Of course, making the effort to visit a garage sale has a non- negligible cost for the (potential) _buyer_.

There are already thriving markets for stuff that's not cheap and disposable - electronics/phones, recreational/sports equipment, furniture, cars, etc.

As for the compunction against discarding something that still works, my solution is to donate it to Goodwill (whatever you do, don't throw it away if it's "perfectly good") and take it as a lesson learned - think harder before buying this item, or an item like it, again.

<comment><USER4> For stuff that is hard to characterize (like the aforementioned "vintage" computers) garage sales don't really cut it. At my previous garage sale I had a VAXStation 4000/VLC with a VT-220 terminal on it running VMS for sale ($25 or make offer). A lot of "Oh I remember those!" but no actual interest in acquiring it. Whereas EBay used to be a good venue for that, because there was a critical mass of people you could often find at least _one_ person who would buy something.

That said, I bought my HeNe laser at a garage sale nearby for $15. It is of course much less convienient than a laser pointer and at 2mW not very bright, but scores for me on the coolness factor. I always wanted a laser as a kid and being able to acquire one scratched that itch.

<comment><USER7> Isn't it cheaper to throw old stuff away than sell it on eBay/garage sale/etc.?

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately yes, and that is rapidly making our world a worse place to live. We keep throwing away stuff and making more, instead of reusing the old, thus wasting resources and unnecessarily polluting.

<comment><USER9> Waste of resources is self-correcting. If we were ever to run short of e.g. aluminium, scrap prices would go up and it would become worth selling old things rather than throwing them away.

<comment><USER8> Yes, but entropy is not self-correcting. We're wasting (as in, destroying, _foerver_ ) easily extractable material and energy. It's much easier to drive 10 000 tons of aluminium out of the mountain with trucks than to collect and melt enough scrap to get the same amount of metal for your factory from junk.

Economy is a leaky abstraction, it is ultimately subject to physics and it _will_ break down if we push it too far hoping that market will correct all side effects of bad decisions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I used to think books were special, too. Having thousands of books is expensive: they are literally expensive, you buy or build shelves for them, they take up a lot of space, they're extremely painful to move, you have to organize them, and you keep mental space for them -- I own this book, I don't own that one -- otherwise, you might as well not have them. You don't use them constantly. Moreover, you can get an instant electronic copy or a physical copy in minutes, or at most a day (Amazon prime).

Also, you confuse quality (good) and fragility. Most of the stuff I have is very high quality, which is why I use it every day and I don't have to worry about it falling apart.

<comment><USER11> Exactly. Unless you make notes (most) books are instantly replaceable. I have one shelf of my absolute favourite books & dvds (so I can loan them out). Plus a kindle for everything else.

The reality is knowledge is even cheaper than food these days, and books are backbreaking whenever you move. A rational cost/benefit analysis will tell you to rid yourself of books before clothes. A favourite shirt is nearly irreplaceable, a favourite book can be replaced in a day.

<comment><USER12> Of course one big problem with going digital for books today is Amazon can erase your entire library quicker than a dandelion seed in a forest fire.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's all well and good to minimize the amount of stuff you accumulate, but I wonder how you handle having kids. Children are natural hoarders--I can't remember a single Christmas where I didn't want more and bigger toys. I spent almost as much time flipping through Lego catalogs fantasizing about playing with the biggest and most elaborate Lego sets as I spent playing with my actual Legos. Sure, you can just get your kids less toys, but then your kids have friends who have more toys and they pick up this kind of greed as a consequence of that. Is minimalism something kids can learn, or is it something you have to mature into?

On another note, my parents passed away awhile back, and the single most overwhelming day-to-day challenge was how much stuff they had, which in effect meant how much stuff I had. It didn't really hit me all at once, though, since every single object was its own epiphany. By no voluntary effort of my own, _I_ own a _chainsaw_! A _shotgun_! A bookshelf filled with _deranged right- wing books_! A _C-band satellite dish_! Another chainsaw! Another shotgun!

Fortunately, there's such a thing as an "estate sale" where other people will actually come in and sell all of your stuff out of your house for you. All you have to do is go through and pick out the things you actually want to keep, as well as papers and photographs. The trick to this is, you don't actually have to be dead to have an estate sale, although you probably need to have so much stuff that it's worthwhile to take the time whitelisting the possessions you want to keep rather than blacklisting the ones you don't want to keep. Ironically, this only exists on the backs of the hoarders pg writes about. You can get amazing deals on "perfectly good" stuff at estate sales.

The papers and photographs alone, though, can be overwhelming. Easily most of the stuff I kept were papers and photos. [1] I could justify all the advances ever made in computing simply by looking at an attic full of papers and photographs and contemplating the fact that they would all fit in my hand were they digitized.

[1] The rest were either items of genuine sentimental value or--my own weakness--"perfectly good" "vintage" computers, including a pair of NeXTs! If anyone here knows of a good Apple museum, by the way, please email me, because I don't want my attic to be it.

<comment><USER14> In these modern times, Craigslist, Ebay, and Amazon exist as wonderful ways to offload items that may contain value for someone else that no longer contain any value for you. Goodwill stores exist as great places to donate things that have become clutter that will not sell quickly. When I have children, I plan to regularly donate or sell toys that are no longer played with. The old legos will of course be added to the standard Giant Bin of Legos.

<comment><USER13> Ebay and Amazon require you to separately list and ship each item, and Craigslist is both unreliable and requires much of the same thing. But they, along with Goodwill, were what I was referring to when I mentioned blacklisting the things you don't want. At some point--and estates are certainly one of these--it's so much easier to whitelist and outsource the getting-rid-of process for the rest.

Unless you're talking about my NeXTs. I'd rather make a personal connection with someone who would appreciate them more than I would than just let anonymous hooligans on Ebay buy them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In 2007 I would have agreed with pg regarding books being different. In 2013, I've gotten rid of all but maybe two dozen books with sentimental value.

<comment><USER16> I couldn't agree more.

Books are big, heavy and don't hold much value#. They cost a lot to store and a lot to move from place to place. I got rid of almost all mine, and now use the local library extensively, which is very enjoyable.

# Unless you have a signed first ed. or something, in which case you're collecting antiques, not books

<comment><USER17> I just switched to ebooks. Now there's no weight problem, no space problem. I can't sell them, but as you said; they didn't hold value anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> After being in Central and South America for two years, the biggest shock upon retuning to North America was the amount of stuff people have, and how easy it is to buy.

It blows my mind that most houses I drive past every day have two cars, a boat, an RV, a snow machine (or two), a quad, skis & snowboards and that's just what I can see when they have their garage door open in spring.

Not only do people have lots of stuff, they have so much they have to pay people to store it for them (self-storage). I had completely forgotten about those, because they simply don't exist in places where people don't have excess stuff.

I highly recommend getting out of the developed world for a while to get perspective on how much stuff everyone has.

<comment><USER18> I had some stuff in self-storage when I once went away for several months. Spending some time there made me want to get rid of all my stuff. It's a very strange and sad place. One could write a novel about it. It's a place of transitions, and I got the impression that most of the transitions were not for the better.

Ever watch that show where they get people to bid on abandoned self storage lockers? It's so weird that people pay money to store a bunch of junk. Not that the people are weird, just that humans are wired in such a way that we'd pay $150 a month to store a comparable dollar amount of stuff, because of the way it makes us feel. Maybe it's to avoid the way it makes us feel to get rid of it. That's what people are paying for. So they're basically being held ransom by their stuff I guess.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Funny this was posted, I just came to this realization myself recently. I've always known it, but I didn't really /realize/ it until about two weeks ago. So, I've begun selling things on craigslist. I've made $147 so far, which doesn't seem like a lot, but it's probably the $147 I'll be most proud of earning this year.

Stuff is generally like lines of code in software: writing it (acquiring it) is fun, but the real fun starts when you figure out how to delete it. A good refactoring with a net negative number of lines brings me great joy, just as getting rid of this stuff on craigslist has.

In fact, it brings me so much joy that for the forseeable future, I have a new rule: if I buy something, I must figure out how to sell/recycle/trash something of equal or more mass. This will force me to physically reduce the amount of stuff in my life. Obviously, mass isn't a fantastic approximation, but neither is the number of lines of code.

</comment><comment><USER20> I grew up in the back of a junkyard and watched my father collect "stuff" my entire life. It's a minor mental disorder, irrationally rooted in a fear of having nothing. To my father it was his security blanket. He would look out across the junkyard and see money. Everyone else would just see junk. As long as my father had something in the yard, he felt financially safe. Junk can't fire you and no one was going to steal it. (Only tweekers steal junk) Try stealing a broken down steam roller or a 1 ton gold smelting machine or a 10mb hard drive so big it had wheels. It's pointless. To my father, everything had value, but to everyone else it was just junk. The only people who ever purchased anything were other junk collectors.

Watching this as a child and eventually as an adult, I've put the collection of "stuff" on a 10 point scale. 1 being a pure minimalist and 10 being an extreme horder. We all fit somewhere on that scale. I'm probably a 3 or 4. My father is a 10. Understanding where you are on this scale is important to de- cluttering your life.

Sometimes value gets set by factors other than price. Value & price are not equally correlated. Value can be translated as functionality, prestige, vanity, security, companionship, etc. People get value of things beyond price and each person sees a different value for each product based on their psychological needs.

All PG seems to be saying is to question an objects value before you purchase it. Otherwise, you could end up with a house full of junk that you and no one else will ever use again. In other words...Question everything, including value.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'll make the obligatory comment mentioning the Hacker News custom of titling the submissions of older content with the date, generally like so:

Stuff [2007]

</comment><comment><USER22> > _Books are more like a fluid than individual objects. It's not especially > inconvenient to own several thousand books,_

Only thing I disagree with in this essay (I have many many bookcases that have gone back and forth across the US multiple times.)

I am quite jealous of the younger gen: Their bookcases will be an iPad.

<comment><USER16> Why move them around when you could just borrow them from the local library?

<comment><USER22> The local library doesn't have my collection of tech books (semiconductor physics, circuit design, math math and more math, physics, physics, and more physics...)

<comment><USER16> And they won't get them in for you?

When a book is requested at my local library they'll either purchase it to add to the lib catalog, or they'll borrow it from any other library in the country that has it so I can borrow it.

<comment><USER22> > _And they won't get them in for you?_

Perhaps, but they don't live on startup time. Or perhaps I'm an impatient beast. Both are possible.

<comment><USER16> Right on.

Interestingly, I've always found impatience to be a huge factor in stuff accumulation.

i.e. Can't wait for something-or-other, so just buy it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate when you're not paying attention. I had so much stuff and it didn't help me at all. It only prevented me from moving when I wanted. So I recently sold all my stuff, threw out all the rest and moved country.

I live a just as luxurious life as I did before. I just find solutions to stuff that doesn't require owning the physical goods. Keep in mind half of this stuff is only possible because i'm living in the US now. And the rest is pretty obvious. eg.

\- Rent a furnished apartment.

\- Use car sharing services

\- Buy ebooks instead of physical books

\- Use Netflix/Hulu instead of owning a tv

\- Use pdf digital signing software instead of owning a printer/scanner/fax

And really the only physical things I need now are some clothes and my laptop.

<comment><USER24> To add to your qualification:

you are living in the US

AND

you have money.

I don't mean this as a criticism of you, but instead the minimilist movement in general: There is something self-indulgent about middle class, talking about how "cool" it is to throw away stuff, and be minimalistic... It's almost a statement about how privileged you are.

<comment><USER19> I don't see how it is at all related to privilege; in almost every case he cited, it's cheaper to go minimalist. Let's look at his (perfectly reasonable) list of examples:

\- Rent a furnished apartment.

This one you do need more $$ for. I don't have a furnished apartment, but I've spent less than $100 on my furniture (including getting some off the side of the road). I will feel no qualms about leaving it on the side of the road when I move.

\- Use car sharing services

This depends. If it's more economical to use a car service, do it this way. For me it's not, so I own a car (but not a nice one, which keeps insurance and body-work costs low).

\- Buy ebooks instead of physical books

Here there's no privilege either, since in my experience e-books cost about the same as regular books. (Maybe slightly less, but that will only offset the cost of the reader.)

\- Use Netflix/Hulu instead of owning a tv

Again, no privilege. A reasonable cable subscription in the US is going to be $30, a hulu plus subscription is $10. Plus, you can sell your TV.

\- Use pdf digital signing software instead of owning a printer/scanner/fax

This doesn't work all the time, because you still do have to print stuff every once in a while (trust me, I've not owned a printer for the last 7 years). However, usually you can just print stuff at work, or in a pinch, at kinko's. I've probably spent less than $5 over the last seven years at professional printing places, and their printers are much nicer than the crappy ink jet you get at best buy.

<comment><USER24> I think my definition of privilege and yours are at very different levels.

> \- Rent a furnished apartment.

You have your own place to sleep at night, with (nice) furniture.

> \- Use car sharing services

You have access to cars!?

> \- Buy ebooks instead of physical books

> \- Use Netflix/Hulu instead of owning a tv

> \- Use pdf digital signing software instead of owning a printer/scanner/fax

You have access to high speed internet, and advanced electronic devices, and live in a society that supports them.

Most of the people in the world, don't have these things. It's easy for us to sit in 1st world countries and talk about how we aren't privileged because we didn't go to private school, or we buy cheap ebooks on our iPad... but even these things are out of reach for most of the world... that is what I define as "privilege".

<comment> barry-cotter _I think my definition of privilege and yours are at very different levels_

I didn't downvote your previous post in this thread until I read this one. Almost everyone who can read this website is privileged by your standards. Everyone in my apartment block here in Shanghai is privileged by your definition. Some of them are from Anhui province, or other poor ass provinces, where there are people in the Bottom Billion, people who live on less than a dollar a day.

If you are politically tone deaf, you should confine the use of political/sociological terms of art to arenas where you will be understood by everyone or where everyone agrees with your already.

<comment><USER24> I would guess that everyone on this website is privileged as well.

My definition is based on _fact_ , I realise those facts are confronting, but not invalid.

Privileged people who think they aren't just have blinders on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> One sure fire way to cure stuff-itis is to move house a lot. I have moved at least every 2 years since I was 16 (I moved a lot before that, too but I wasn't in charge so I didn't really notice).

EDIT: I'm 32 now

In some cases I would live somewhere only 6 months, so I've moved a LOT.

I am now completely allergic to stuff. I throw things out wantonly and refuse gifts. I buy things only when they are something I critically need, and even then I wait a while.

There is not only the mental cost of stuff that PG mentions, but the cost of transportation, storage and disposal (a cost which has become much more significant - garbage tip costs in Australia seem to have gone up several orders of magnitude faster than everything else since I was a kid).

I'm not sure if you can achieve a cure vicariously or if you actually have to go through the mentally scarring process of moving the same 12 old PCs that you'll freecycle one of these days through 8 houses, but try asking yourself "If I buy this now ... How would I feel about moving it?"

EDIT: several typos (after moving off my mobile keyboard)

<comment><USER13> A lot of people just have a workaround--their parents have a house, so they'll stash all their stuff that they want to keep but don't actually use at their parents' house. The last laugh is on them, though--when their parents die, not only do they have to deal with all that stuff again, but also all their parents' stuff, and that can be the hardest stuff to worry about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Attitudes toward stuff change slowly because you learn them from your parents.

My grandmother used to save everything starting from plastic bags, strings, plastic food containers, used nails and screws to electricity, water, heat and money. I suspect it is because when she was young there was a serious lack for everything from food to building materials.

I can see the same attitude in my parents except that they hoard a bit more expensive stuff like books, tools, electronics, music containers and furniture.

I used to collect electronics, music, comic books and MTG-cards but at some point I just stopped. The need to collect more stuff that I had learned from my elders wasn't useful anymore. It is also apparent that some companies are trying to market and exploit this behaviour for their own gain.

I still own too much stuff to fit in my apartment. I find it extremely hard to throw away 'perfectly good' stuff if I feel that it could be useful to someone. Yet it is quite laborious to sell it or to find someone who needs it.

</comment><comment><USER27> It's interesting how close his comments are to Fight Club. :-)

From <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/quotes>

"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off. "

Does this mean that the first rule of Hacker News is nobody talks about Hacker News?

But seriously, the movie (and Paul's article) hits a nerve because we are indeed consumed by our stuff. There is a carrying cost for everything - <USER2> idea in our head, every physical item, every piece of clothes.

Similar to what others have said, going abroad helped me realize how little I really need. I remember shipping all these boxes with me, only to not open most of them after I arrived. If I didn't think of something back home in storage over 6 months, would I ever need it? But it's still hard to avoid the weight of possessions.

</comment><comment> alok-g A common thing I find many people don't realize is that they accumulate too much stuff, find their home is too small, and then move to a bigger home. They are accumulating stuff often thinking they are saving money (e.g. buy wholesale from Costco), or not throw old stuff that still has some future utility to them. The money they are subconsciously paying just for the _space_ for these things may actually be more than their worth.

</comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if video games warped my view. My characters in Ultima III could carry a practically unlimited amount of equipment, and the price for buying and selling was the same, so stuff was as good as cash if you were in a towne.

In reality, it's very hard to sell random stuff yourself, especially if you want even a fraction of the "market price" someone would pay to get the equivalent object at the store.

<comment><USER29> Definitely something I've had to realize as I got older. One of the lies that I tell myself is that I can buy new stuff because I can easily sell it a year later for so close to what I bought it for, I'd be a fool NOT to buy it!

Apple products are the only things that this has been true for ultimately.. And honestly, having a laptop around enables me to make money so it's a no brainer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Love this, so so true. I've done rather well for myself financially and can buy most things I want, or thought I wanted, and now realise that rarely does stuff, beyond the essentials of life, bring much happiness. My recommendation is to spend more on experiences.

</comment><comment><USER31> reading that piece made me think of an article that I came across a while ago, about a photographer who went around rural China convincing people to cart all their 'stuff' outside their home and would take a photo of it all...amazing to see their life possessions on display; <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19648095>

</comment><comment><USER32> Gotta watch this: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac>

<comment><USER29> ... and a book!

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I was 50/50 on posting this, because contrary to the point of the article it wouldn't work if stuff was universally valueless, but I made FreelyWheely (<http://www.freelywheely.com>) precisely as a means of getting rid of completely usable but, to me, less than worthless stuff.

What I have discovered is that there are some things that are almost universally worthless (e.g. CRT tvs and monitors), not so surprising, but there are also a lot of people out there who really are quite desperate for very basic things, front yard full of cars or not.

</comment><comment><USER34> My favorite hack to avoid buying stuff that I really don't need is to photograph it in the store with my phone. I tell myself that I need to look into the product reviews when I get home to my computer, and the photograph is a reminder and documentation of the price and model. If it checks out ill come back and buy it.

95% of the time I've completely forgotten about it when I get home.

Also, obligatory Geeorge Carlin bit on stuff: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLoge6QzcG>

</comment><comment><USER35> <http://video.reboot.dk/video/486788/bruce-sterling-reboot-11>

"Four variety of items: Beautiful things; emotionally important things; tools, devices and appliances that efficiently perform some useful function; and category four, everything else."

[http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2011/02/transcript- of...](http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2011/02/transcript-of- reboot-11-speech-by-bruce-sterling-25-6-2009/)

</comment><comment><USER36> my rule to my family at christmas: don't get me anything i can't eat.

telling relatives "don't get me anything" never ends up working, so if they're going to get me something, at least it will be delicious.

</comment><comment><USER37> Loved this essay. I think pg nailed it when he said that after some point, it's like you don't own stuff anymore. They own you. And the stuff we keep may become serious dependency in our life, which reduces our flexibility and freedom to do new stuff.

I just read this article, glad I did in a point of my life where it really makes a huge difference.

</comment><comment><USER38> It really comes to a thing that my folks taught me about money. Don't buy something unless you've wanted it three times

\--- Larry Wall

</comment><comment><USER39> I have a hard time getting past the "poor people have more stuff" idea in the beginning. This is akin to thinking that rich people are cleaner. My observation is just that rich people have help. I'd be highly curious to know if there are good numbers into these claims.

<comment><AUTHOR> I ran a quick search for articles or data to support pg's idea but couldn't find any.

I'm wondering if, on average, "rich" and "poor" people have a similar amount of stuff/junk, but the rich have higher-quality junk and more room to spread it out so it looks cleaner or more minimalist.

<comment><USER39> Pretty much my thoughts. If you ever find anything on this, I'd be interested.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I disagree with his assertion that clutter doesn't bother kids as much as adults. My kids always play more contentedly for longer periods after we've done a big purge or simply organized their toys. I think they get overwhelmed but don't know how to articulate it.

</comment><comment><USER41> This is a great essay, especially a great timing for me. As a 22 year old graduate student, I've only just saved enough money (from my assistantship) to consider spending on leisure items (a portable gas range was particularly hard to say no to at a garage sale).

I'm greatly comforted by his opinion on books though. I _never_ sell my books (except really bad textbooks). So, I've already accumulated a somewhat large library. I was considering donating it to a library, but I'll think more about that now.

<comment><USER42> I'll argue that you'll get more utility out of a portable gas range than out of almost any book randomly pulled from your shelf, or any 10 books. I could go to my bookshelf right now and probably select 20 books that I have never more than glanced through and quite honestly will likely never read. Maybe someday I'll find a burning need to refer to a VAX architecture manual, but if I want to go camp out even once or twice a year, the portable range would be more useful.

Now, a portable gas range won't get you the massive HN/San Francisco cred you'll get from a house full of books, that's a given.

<comment><USER13> I dunno. Camping can be pretty boring, you should probably bring something to read. A VAX architecture manual sounds interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I've moved 7 times in 9 years and figure I've discarded, given away or sold over 2,500 lbs worth of stuff. Crazy when I think of it this way. Feels great.

</comment><comment><USER43> George Carlin also had something to say about "stuff".

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac>

</comment><comment><USER44> If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, of what then is an empty desk a sign? / A. Einstein

</comment><comment><USER45> The things you own come to own you. --Tyler Durden

</comment><comment><USER46> Do any other software engineers here (who rent) have almost nothing outside clothing, laptop and smartphone?

</comment><comment><USER47> Replace every occurrence of stuff with shit and the article works even better.</comment>


Show HN: Psychstudio – Create complex behavioral experiments without programming - <AUTHOR> https://www.psychstudio.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm Ben Howell, founder of Psychstudio. A while ago, I built a one-off custom web experiment for linguistic research because I couldn't find any suitable web application that allowed me to build, host and execute such an experiment. To my surprise I found that it was almost impossible to build any novel online experiment on any existing platform without programming.

I trialed a few web-based experiment platforms that claim programming isn't required, but as soon as I moved past simple demonstration experiments, I was forced to code (and yes, I consider markdown and writing lines of code in spreadsheets as programming).

So I interviewed experimental psychologists, and collected papers and experiment designs from colleagues, friends, advisers and other professionals. Having confirmed the need for a programming-free way to build and execute online experiments, I built Psychstudio to address the problem.

Tech-wise, the backend is Clojure and Postgresql, and the client-side is ClojureScript (reagent, re-frame, sente).

I've learnt a lot in my journey of bringing Psychstudio into the world, and the absolute rule of "no programming" for the end user has led to some surprising and powerful features (too many for this comment) that I otherwise would never have designed or built.

All feedback, advice and criticism is greatly appreciated.</comment>


Ask HN: Is PHP worth learning? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Any language is worth learning, but I'm not so hot on PHP anymore. I use it for websites for customers so that they can find cheap hosting, but I mainly use Node for newer projects and even started actually using Python for some projects. It's an easy language to learn and use, but that's its' weakness. There are still many many jobs for it and it powers like more than 90% of the web (don't quote me on that)...

</comment><comment><USER3> Why not learn Perl? It's more fun.

PHP is used everywhere so it can be good for getting a job. Better focus on "modern" PHP then. Lately I am seeing a shift towards Nodejs so if you don't mind using JavaScript that is perhaps more popular with "cool" employers.

</comment><comment><USER4> It is widely used and you can find a job easily.Latest versions have improved a lot.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you ask a php dev they will probably say yes. If you ask a python dev they will probably say no.

So its up to you :-) Ask yourself will it bring you joy? if so do it if not do something that will.</comment>


Non-Hierarchical Management - <AUTHOR> http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/management?

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a lot of advice here, but the part about hiring seems to me by far the most important. Firstly, it's actionable - it sets a very specific guideline to follow. Secondly, it's crucial for the other things to work. If you don't hire the right people - those that are interested in building whatever you're building, no management voodoo will save you.

 _I have never found the traditional methods of hiring — resumés, interviews, quizzes — to be helpful at all. Instead, I look at two things: what someone has done and whether I enjoy spending time with them. The first shows not just their talent but also their ability to execute. If they haven't made something interesting, whether as a side project or at a previous job, then they're probably not worth hiring. It's not that hard to sit down and accomplish something; be wary of people who haven't._

 _Similarly, you need to keep in mind that you're not just hiring a robot — you're hiring a flesh-and-blood human who you're going to need to spend a lot of time with during the day. That means they need to be someone you not just get along with, but enjoy being around. A formal interview, with all its stress and structure and contrivance, is a pretty bad environment for seeing if you like someone. Instead, just go get coffee and chat._

And also:

 _there are few things more fun than working hard with a really nice, talented group of people._

<comment><USER2> I couldn't agree more. If you don't have people that are interested in what they're doing and happy working with the other people that are also doing what they're doing, then you're going to have a weakest link scenario on your hands. The dead weight will be unhappy because they don't like what they're doing, and everyone else will be unhappy because they have to pull the dead weight (and the dead weight is complaining about being pulled!).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I was nodding in agreement at most every point, and then I wondered why there are no citations and whether Aaron has experience successfully using this strategy.

<comment><AUTHOR> I thought the same thing - via chat, Aaron said he's coming from his experiences in working on open library, watchdog, and infogami.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I fundamentally believe in this idea of "manager as servant." The problem is, that the people who get promoted, don't.

<comment><USER5> I'm the CTO of a startup and have been VP of Engineering or CTO of others before that. I like the idea of being a servant and working with people smarter than me. Right now I've got a team of 9 people working for me and most of my day is spent dealing with stuff so that they don't have to deal with those things.

Yesterday I did IT rubbish all day, and right now I'm fighting HP over what looks like poor support of multicast IP in one of their access points. These are things that need to get done and it's more effective if I deal with them, than involving the team. They need to get on with the coding.

I'm very happy to be in this position. But perhaps I'm an odd ball.

<comment><USER4> Perhaps I'm overly cynical.

<comment><USER5> Reading your posts here it seems that you've been exposed to some really poor managers. Me too!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Nice article. I would have liked to see more discussion of motivation. Nothing is more important as far as I'm concerned.

</comment><comment><USER7> Leading, Managing, Administering, Manipulating and Using people require different skills altogether.

</comment><comment><USER7> It depends on the type of culture. In Japan, if you wanted to address a person you should append "SAN" to their name, irrespective of his position in the hierarchy . SAN is equivalent of SIR in British.

</comment><comment><USER8> By the way. Did you hear about Orhan Pamuk? He got the Nobel prize in literature 2006? The book called "My Name Is Red". There are much more about project management in his book that in this page. =)

Of course you must be a servant for those, who doing things that you unable to do. Of course, you must forget yourself when you're doing your job. Of course, you must pay respect and attention to the people around you sincerily.

</comment><comment><USER9> I see. I wonder if this philosophy works at Apple. Do you really think apple products would be better if Steve Jobs always deferred to his staff by saying "you're the expert." Ridiculous. All of this stuff is very situation specific. I am sure that is what he does at Pixar (probably less) and not at all what he does at Apple, and rightly so.</comment>


My First 10 Seconds on a Server - <AUTHOR> http://jerrygamblin.com/2016/07/13/my-first-10-seconds-on-a-server/ <comment><USER2> I find the post strange. DO supports snapshots / creating vms from images. Why would you use a common script to run after boot rather than creating your own image to boot from?</comment>


How Google does disaster recovery - <AUTHOR> http://googleappsdeveloper.blogspot.com/2010/03/how-google-does-disaster-recovery.html

<comment><USER2> What disasters has Google had to deal with, so far?

(I'm sure the same systems that have given them such resilence against a myriad of failures at scale so far will be helpful -- but there hasn't yet been something like a major bay-area earthquake over their whole existence.)</comment>


Samsung Plugs Remote Wipe Flaw, Urges Galaxy SIII Owners To Update - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/26/samsung-speedily-plugs-remote-wipe-flaw-urges-galaxy-siii-owners-to-update/

<comment><USER2> The article is kind of misleading, the exploit was part of Android rather than anything to do with Samsung and was patched in AOSP as of 4.1.1(?). This meansn it was an issue on any phone that dialled automatically and doesn't run a build with the patch applied. Also the patch from Samsung was part of an OTA update from at least a week ago in the US, I know it pinged up just after I booted the S3 I bought on Saturday in the UK.

<comment><USER3> In what way was the exploit a part of Android? I thought it was a touchwiz dialer issue that it automatically dialled USSD numbers without secondary confirmation from the user?

<comment><USER4> No, I've confirmed that a random sample of HTC & Huawei phones around my office are also vulnerable. Nothing specific to TouchWiz. The thing that MIGHT be specific to Samsung is the actual remote wipe code, but relying on that is simply security-by-obscurity. I'd bet ALL phones have got some USSD code you'd rather not be instantly triggerable by a web page.

<comment><USER5> From what I understand stock Android doesn't have the problem. Multiple manufacturers seem to have introduced the flaw in the same way with their customizations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well done to Samsung for getting the update out quickly (although obviously better not to ship with the vulnerability).

Is this something the carriers get to block or is it direct over the Internet to everyone? One of my big concerns about Android is about the ability to get security fixes. The slow major updates are very public but if security fixes are better distributed much quicker that isn't so much of a worry.

In the absence of reassurance my advice to friends and family if asked would be to avoid Android (except the Nexus models which I think can always be updated).

<comment><USER7> This (updates of any kind) is 25% of why my Galaxy is sitting in my sock drawer (75% being the cost of the data plan and "being a hotspot" fee).

I discovered that I bought a computer that cannot be updated except by the whim of an intermediary, the telco. I watched for a year while my phone languished under its originally installed version of Android, while the update rolled out around the world and my carrier (Sprint) said "no shit really, soon, real soon now." That's too much bullshit for too much money.

<comment><USER8> What is your alternative?

<comment><USER6> Phone OS has direct ability to query the manufacturer for updates and download them if available/requested by the user.

Works for Apple. (Until iOS 5 download to PC and install with iTunes was required but now phone can directly download.)

Works for Sony TVs (and probably many others too) that are connected to the internet. Broadcast (with digital TV at least in Europe) can also be used to update OTA but may need broadcaster approval. In this scenario using both approaches makes sense as not every TV is connected to the internet or broadcast signals.

A better question is how to make it happen. I would suggest that Samsung is big enough and their phones high profile enough that they should be able to insist and still have their phones offered by the operators. However they would need to consider it an important point worth arguing for and may have to trade something else whether it is price or customization support or something else.

<comment><USER8> That solves your update problem. But you are still under control of a central entity that has its own interests and tightly controls their ecosystem and the apps you can install on the product you bought. You have replaced your carrier with the hardware manufacturer. A better alternative would be to buy your smartphone without contract to begin with, which comes down to the same price very often.

<comment><USER6> For most users it is the update problem that I'm concerned about, particularly from a security point of view. The contract is completely irrelevant to this issue isn't it? An iPhone on contract is completely updatable, I don't know if it is relevant with Samsung's phones or not. Even if non-contract Samsung's are updatable that makes advice to friends/family even more complicated.

The freedom problem is an issue with all the mainstream phones on the market but isn't a problem for most users. The solutions with the current market products are jailbreaking/rooting or joining developer programmes. In the Apple case developer programme costs $99 and additional agreements (in practice you need a Mac too). Or using a web app to get round the limitations.

There real solution will be when there is a real open source open platform on the market. And personally I wouldn't sacrifice much performance/capability to get it although the option would be nice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow, that was quite fast. I'm an iPhone fanboy and I have to admit I'm a bit jealous of that kind of turnaround. I'll be stuck with this for a while I bet: [http://www.tuaw.com/2012/09/20/safari-exploit-used-to- gain-c...](http://www.tuaw.com/2012/09/20/safari-exploit-used-to-gain-control- of-iphone-at-pwn2own/)</comment>


Marissa Mayer on Kalanick: 'I just don't think he knew' about toxic culture - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/27/marissa-mayer-reportedly-excuses-travis-kalanick.html <comment><USER2> More like he didn't care.

Culture and the stuff that - at least at first - is much harder to measure, so as long as you don't care about it, who cares - you are building a sexy company and making a lot of money doing it. And don't stop while things are going on.

The problem, of course, is that it crashes and burns because the same people that would have stopped it early wouldn't have built the sexy spaceship</comment>


Ask HN: What were the most promising YC startups that ultimately failed? - <AUTHOR> And why? <comment><USER2> The most disappointing YC-backed product I tried was Stypi.

I teach community college and sometimes I wonder about the thought processes behind some of my students' papers. Paul Graham linked an essay he wrote in Stypi, where you could watch him write it in real time. This was clearly the greatest computer-assisted tool for teaching writing ever, and I immediately incorporated Stypi into one of my writing assignments. I wanted to know how much my students proofread, how they structured essays, and what they struggled with as they wrote. I was so excited about it that I wrote the entire assignment in Stypi and linked my students to the replay in case they were interested.

It was a disaster. So many students lost essays in browser crashes or were flat out unable to use the software. I ultimately had to apologize to my class, give everyone an extension, and cut Stypi out of the project.

Apparently they were acquired though, so I guess they made someone happy.

<comment><USER3> Couldn't they (Stypi) commit all unsaved changes to localStorage (couldn't possibly be more than 5mb) in case of a crash?

<comment><USER4> They certainly could have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You should check HomeJoy. They were a cleaning company (they subcontracted cleaners) that went through YC, had a huge growth and raised about $40M, but went on to fail. Look for them in HN search, it has been discussed a lot.

<comment><USER6> But is it really more than Molly maid + an app? It never struck me as groundbreaking.

<comment><USER7> Isn't that one of the underlying themes of the last few years? There has been too much money, so sometimes weaker ideas with good teams get funding.

<comment><USER6> Exactly :) But that is why I wouldn't put it on the list of a "Most promising startup that failed". To me a promising startup that failed would be someone who invented a nanobot to go scrub cancer from your body that ended up killing people and going bankrupt. Someone that tried really hard for a really cool idea that failed.. not an app for house cleaning.

<comment><USER7> I guess you're right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One simple way to evaluate this would be to look at press attention.

I did a quick check using Mattermark data of which YC companies got the most news since 2013 that are not still alive. It yielded (num articles / startup): 67 Homejoy 13 Tipjoy 13 Buttercoin 6 Tutorspree

<comment><USER9> Tipjoy shut down in 2009, how could it possibly be 13?

<comment><USER10> Tipjoy's founder started another company, got into YC again, got funded again, and got lots of press again. A lot of that press mentions the founder, and names his previous startups, including Tipjoy.

<comment><USER9> That makes sense. He's me btw

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Buxfer was a very interesting company I loved to use but strangely they didnt go as far as I thought they would</comment>


Why does flat Earth belief still exist? - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/why-does-flat-earth-belief-still-exist/ <comment><USER2> I'm still convinced that the majority of so-called "Flat Earthers" are just trolls who are taking the piss out of the rest of us.</comment>


Understanding Free Cultural Works - <AUTHOR> https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/public-domain/freeworks <comment><USER2> The important thing about CC0 is that it's an active declaration of permissivity that bypasses a bunch of the various public domain laws around the world. Just stating that something's believed to be in the public domain is useful as a starting point but it's not an explicit licence.

<comment><USER3> This is a bit misleading, IMHO. The important difference between CC0 and public domain is that PD is a copyright status, while CC0 is a license. Which means you use CC0 to grant PD-like status to works you hold the copyright for. You cannot (should not) attach a CC0 to somebody else's work just because you think it is PD. And vice versa: while stating "I release my work into PD" is probably usable in the US, it is really incompatible with the continental construction of copyright; for that, the explicit granting of a "most possibly free" license is a better fit. (Even though you might doubt even CC0 is bulletproof there...)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I feel that Creative Commons had a lot of mindshare ten years ago, but today next to nobody really thinks or talks about it.

Is it just me?

Also, is Lawrence Lessig still active?

<comment><USER5> > but today next to nobody really thinks or talks about it.

How much that is similar on how Linux evangelization is also harder to find? Linux won the battle, Cloud computing is mainly an unchallenged Linux realm.

I see many institutions adopting Creative Commons and similar permissive licenses. So, there is no need to pontificate about Creative Commons anymore. From teacher to newspapers use Wikipedia as a reliable source. Even The British Museum ([https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and- permis...](https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and-permissions)) uses Creative Commons licenses.

For me it seems that Creative Commons is the status quo and the focus rather changes towards the content itself and what can be produced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not discussed in this, but important in understanding Free Cultural Works: how does the person who creates a Free Cultural Work pay their bills while doing it?

<comment><USER7> this needs to honestly be discussed more. Even though the article is more about discussion restrictions on the concept, the whole point of non-free culture should be to ensure the artist can realize monetary gains from his work in order to reward the time spent. Also to enable the artist to have some control over the distribution and direction of his work, as well as incentivize new and original work.

CC doesn't do anything for the artist.

it's great for distributors, who can aggregate and monetize free content, and remixers, who have a base of ready-made content to use as a basis for their own works. And of course the audience. But i don't really see the point of it as an artist.

<comment><USER8> Saying that "providing works that other people are free to build on doesn't do anything for the artist" is rather short-sighted.

Imagine someone living on a river saying, "Keeping the river water clean doesn't do anything for me!" OK, maybe your pollution doesn't affect you, it only affects people downstream of you. But if the people upstream pollute the river, you'll wish they hadn't.

It's also untrue that artists are distinct from remixers. Is "West Side Story" just a remix of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"? I think often of The Time John Fogerty Was Sued for Ripping Off John Fogerty: [https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/27501/time-john- fogerty-...](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/27501/time-john-fogerty-was- sued-ripping-john-fogerty) Fogerty was just trying to write songs, but unsurprisingly his new songs sounded similar to his old songs, which had ended up under someone else's control. Was he "remixing" himself? Making art that is entirely new and does not relate to or reflect on any past art is almost impossible.

As Lessig put it:

\- Creativity always builds on the past

\- The past tries to control the creativity that builds upon it

\- Free societies enable creativity by limiting this power of the past

\- Ours is less and less a free society

<comment><USER9> > Free societies enable creativity by limiting this power of the past

How does the "limiting" part of this work?

<comment><USER8> Two obvious examples of limits on copyright are (1) copyright terms not lasting forever, copyrighted works should eventually enter the public domain, and (2) some uses of copyrighted work not requiring permission from the copyright holder, "fair use".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I trace free licenses to the GNU General Public License [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License), which is why I believe that in time Richard Stallman's influence will become greater than those of contemporaries like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.</comment>


Chrome gets Mac deadline, extensions foundation  - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/chrome-gets-mac-deadline-extensions-foundation/ <comment><USER2> I was really excited by Chrome's announcement and very disappointed by the delay in getting a Mac version. I think the delay comes down to two things:

1\. Mac users are already using standards compliant, fast JS browsers. That means that Chrome's gotta bring something else to the platform, whereas on Windows it's already so much better than IE.

2\. Google ultimately plans on dumping a lot of money in the laps of OEMs to get Chrome installed as the default browser. That's not going to happen on the Mac.</comment>


Introducing Code.xyz - <AUTHOR> https://stdlib.com/blog/stripe-code-xyz/ <comment><USER2> The $2m in funding from Stripe is also a pretty big deal. This title explains nothing.</comment>


Tesla Unveils Its New Line of Camouflaged Solar Panels - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2016/10/tesla-unveils-new-line-camouflaged-solar-panels/ <comment><AUTHOR> Elon Musk: "Should mention that the Tesla solar roof is robust against any weather, incl heavy hail. Also, higher insulating value than a standard roof."

\-- [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/792213393943826432](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/792213393943826432)

</comment><comment><USER2> "It needs to be beautiful, affordable, and seamlessly integrated. If all of those things are true, why would you go any other direction?"

I'm pretty sure only two of those things are true at best. I can't even begin to fathom the cost of the shingles themselves compared to ordinary shingles, let alone the installation costs of setting up a bunch of tiny solar panels.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Elon Musk: "Solar glass tiles can also incorporate heating elements, like rear defroster on a car, to clear roof of snow and keep generating energy"

\-- [https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/792218248917811204](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/792218248917811204)</comment>


Qanat - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat <comment><USER3> I first encountered this word reading Frank Herbert's Dune, so it was a bit odd when I encountered it in other literature. Later I realised one of the great things about Herbert's SF - he uses many real-world cultures as sources for his world building

<comment> david-given Hah. I've just reread these, and I have been vaguely intending to look up 'qanat' to see if he made the word up.

Incidentally, I just came back from a holiday in Madeira --- amazing place if you like mountains; the average altitude of the island is 1300m --- and it's covered with a network of tiny canals called levadas. These collect trickles of water from the high summits, which are usually covered in cloud; it doesn't rain much. So they're kind of the opposite of a qanat. Instead of the water table being underground, it's way up high.

[https://goo.gl/photos/a7eNGyJtiztiDFA86](https://goo.gl/photos/a7eNGyJtiztiDFA86)

Epicly, a lot of the levadas are in grooves chipped into the side of cliff faces. You can just about extrapolate the slope in that picture. Unfortunately in the really scenic bits I was too worried about not falling off to take photos. Safety railings are things which happen to other people in Madeira...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There was an interesting problem about qanats and excavation cost minimization in the 2015 ICPC World Finals problem set.

(Problem H) [https://icpc.baylor.edu/worldfinals/problems/icpc2015.pdf](https://icpc.baylor.edu/worldfinals/problems/icpc2015.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER5> The section about using qanats for cooling and ice storage by the Persians around 400 BCE [1] is fascinating.

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

<comment><USER6> the last photo in the link was 10 min walk from my house. At that time (20yrs ago) they'd turned it into a ball pool for kids to play. Currently they've turned it into a Zoorkhaneh ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pahlevani_and_zoorkhaneh_ritua...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pahlevani_and_zoorkhaneh_rituals)). This is nostalgic!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Related technology: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windcatcher)

<comment><USER8> Those look a lot like Dune's wind traps. Coincidence?

<comment><USER9> Considering that Dune is a metaphor for the Middle East and borrows heavily on Islamic history, maybe not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is there an etymological link between "qanāt" and "canal"?

<comment><USER11> It's the exact same thing.

For example, Suez Canal is called "Qanat al-Suez" in Arabic.

<comment><USER12> That doesn't answer the GP's question of whether there's an _etymological_ link. That is, are the two words derived from the same root in some ancient language? It is a reasonable question since they are phonologically similar, but from different language families.

<comment><USER13> And just because two words sound similar doesn't mean they have similar roots. The word for "dog" in the Australian Aboriginal language Mbabaram happens to be "dog," not because they have the same root but by coincidence.

[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UtFqXQosVP0C&pg=PT283&lp...](https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UtFqXQosVP0C&pg=PT283&lpg=PT283&dq=steven+pinker+aboriginal+word+dog&source=bl&ots=6Gb5JBDGOw&sig=RsAyB8VkPzKqVNGmzbJRkIn- qIE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiBzPfQ8-LMAhVBBcAKHSoqAQEQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=steven%20pinker%20aboriginal%20word%20dog&f=false)

<comment><USER14> There's a great list of these at

[https://web.archive.org/web/20070227031854/http://members.ao...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070227031854/http://members.aol.com/yahyam/coincidence.html)

<comment><USER15> This one btw doesn't include the one that is strangest to me: that Chinese for _mom_ or _momma_ is 妈妈 "mama" and _pop_ , _pappa_ is 爸爸 "baba".

<comment><USER16> These are nearly universal AFAIK. I've heard stipulated a link between this and the fact that these are the first sounds a child will learn.

<comment><USER17> > these are the first sounds a child will learn.

Not really, no. 'Gaga' or 'kaka' are just as easy yet aren't universal. The mystery is not solved. (Could be just areal effects, for example.)

<comment><USER18> Easy for an adult, not so easy for a baby. Bilabial and coronal sounds don't take much tongue dexterity: you just need to be able to open/close your lips and leave your tongue in its natural resting position respectively to produce them. Velar sounds, on the other hand, require you to flex the middle of your tongue to touch your palate, which is as significantly more difficult sound to produce.

It's no coincidence that sounds like 'gaga' and 'kaka' tend to be associated with either more distant relatives or with defecation: the kid's going to be older when those things get introduced.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> As a sometimes Scrabble player, I was familiar with the word and I knew it was some kind of aqueduct. It's nice to know more. Amazing that ancient people not only knew to make them, but that they could pull it off. This must have been no small engineering feat.

<comment><USER20> the arabic word for them, FALAJ (and its plural AFLAJ) are also useful scrabble words (lowish probability, but very useful when you do have them playable)

<comment><USER21> Quite interesting how plural form is an simple anagram of singular form. Is it common in arabic or just a lucky coincidence?

<comment><USER22> I know absolutely nothing about Arabic, and stumbled across this page about Broken Plurals on wiki:

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

Look a few rows into the patterns table, and you start seeing fun rearrangements for patterns such as CaCaC -> 'aCCāC, the example being sabab -> 'asbāb.

Pretty fascinating stuff!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Such (ancient) technologies plus state-of-the-art computing and communication systems is prime material for science fiction novels about highly advanced civilizations.

I think we should strive towards that - use the wisdom of our ancestors to build zero-energy systems, powered by naturally occurring energy, controlled and enhanced by computers.

There are lots and lots of things that have already been invented in the past, we should just listen to our grand grandparents a bit closer.. After all, they built them for future generations, including us..

<comment><USER24> I'd add nature to that 'list'. There's so much we can - and have - <USER2> from what sometimes appear to be dumb or primitive processes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> My first thought is: can I make something like this work in Dwarf Fortress?

</comment><comment><USER6> Its funny to see this on HN! I was born and grown up in a warm area in Iran full of qanats and to me it seems such a natural thing. I caught my first fish from a qanat!

</comment><comment><USER26> The Arabic countries led by the Muslims were the most advanced scientists/engineers in the world, until they let the religious crazies take over. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_science_and_engine...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_science_and_engineering_in_the_Islamic_world)

<comment><USER27> Being overrun first by primitive Mongol hordes that looted their wealth. This is like saying the Romans were advanced before the Christian crazies took over.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There is also this video about Qanats in Iran: [https://www.facebook.com/32848633159/videos/1015351116587816...](https://www.facebook.com/32848633159/videos/10153511165878160)

Sorry for the fb link, could not find it in YouTube

<comment><USER28> The section of the wikipedia article on qanat's in Iran is huge (3700 words) in general, and especially compared to the sections about qanats in other countries. Between that and this video on qanats in Iran; what makes them so much more important/studied/etc.? Is it just that they were invented there?

<comment><USER29> > Is it just that they were invented there?

Well probably not _just_ , but Qanats are persian tech and spread from there, even today the majority of qanats (both historical and extant) is in Iran, with still-active qanats more than 2000 years old. So it makes sense that this is where they have the largest cultural presence, and understanding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> You might also want to learn about _Karez_ that is used in Balochistan, Pakistan.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhpjbi93Jzg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhpjbi93Jzg)

</comment><comment><USER31> My first thought (even though it's a bit of an overused meme) is that these look exactly like the holes in Japanese horror manga master Junji Ito's /The Enigma of Amigara Fault/ (don't look that up if you're claustrophobic or not cool with body horror).

</comment><comment><USER32> Another article:

[http://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/201405/the.water.below....](http://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/201405/the.water.below.htm)

</comment><comment><USER33> Even better Scrabble-Word: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qat)

</comment><comment><USER34> I saw lots of these in Morocco, between the mountains and the Sahara.

Well, what I saw were the regularly spaced mounds of earth at the top of the access shafts.

</comment><comment><USER35> I am trying to do pilot. Any good I can prefer?

</comment><comment><USER36> We have them in Azerbaijan too.

</comment><comment><USER37> ⵜⴰⵔⴳⴰ

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra I've watched a movie where they even have those in Palermo (Italy).</comment>


The Git project selects SHA-256 as the next-gen hash function to migrate to - <AUTHOR> https://email@example.com/ <comment><USER2> From the email discussion:

> _to support SHA-256, we would simply use the system 's crypto libraries ... > I think this is probably the single strongest argument for sha256. "It's > just there"._

Sounds reasonable and well... boring. Just the kind of technical decisions I like

<comment><USER3> What was the case against SHA-512/256? It's the same size as SHA-256, is faster on 64-bit hardware, and is often more difficult to attack. It's just a truncated SHA-512 hash, which is widely supported. The only drawback I know of is that it's slower than SHA-256 on 32-bit hardware.

edit: I found the email where they compared 256-bit hash functions [1]. It seems Apple Common Crypto, gcrypt and NSS don't implement SHA-512. A new twist to the performance story is that OpenSSL's SHA-256 is faster than SHA-512/256 in the AMD Ryzen tests, possibly due to the recent introduction of hardware support.

[1]: [https://public- email@example.com...](https://public- email@example.com/)

<comment><USER4> Well, sha512 with different initialisation vectors. Even OpenSSL doesn't support sha512_256 yet, but it's coming in the next major release.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. I hadn't realized it started with a different initial value. That small difference really cuts down on availability of implementations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Anyone know how the migration is intended to work? I'm guessing that git's storage model includes a table of SHA-1 hashes to object files/locations, and it will just need another lookup table... and then what? Maybe a fallback to SHA-1 hash to verify objects in older repos?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's explained here: [https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/technic...](https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/technical/hash- function-transition.txt)

<comment><USER6> Unless I missed it, it doesn't seem to address the usage of shortened sha1 hashes. It seems like sha1 hashes will stay in the repo, so how does it know if 'abcd12345' is sha1 or sha256?

<comment><USER7> I believe the SHA-1 hashes get 'translated' into SHA-256. [0] So though SHA-1 references stay in the repo, the preference is for SHA-256 hashes. But, an edge-case like this may not get a full explanation until implementation.

They go into it a bit more here. [1] Where what they mean may change depending on the transition timeline. To begin with, prefer SHA-1, but convert internally to SHA256. Output names to users in SHA-1 still. Only late in the transition begin to use the SHA256 names.

However, the mode of operation can be changed by your git config.

[0] [https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/technic...](https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/technical/hash- function-transition.txt#L289)

[1] [https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/technic...](https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/technical/hash- function-transition.txt#L567)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm sure others already asked: "y u no sha3?" on the git dev lists. Assuming quantum computers with many qubits land, aren't prime factorization, EC and matrix math crypto basically DOA?

<comment><USER9> That's answered by one of the cryptologers. With quantum bitsizes need to double, i.e from 256 to 512. Which will be the next stage in 10-15 years. Enough time, not DOA.

They just factored RSA-230, which was labelled to need 17 core years. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17825383](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17825383)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Impossible! That doesn't fit in 80 columns!

<comment><USER11> It does if you represent it in base64

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Can someone explain why the change?

<comment><USER7> The Background section of this [0] document explains it.

In short, git migrated to a hardened SHA-1 hash after the SHAttered [1] attack became known.

However, in the future more attacks against SHA-1 may be found, so git is trying to future-proof itself.

However, even in the case a hash function is no longer cryptographically secure, git doesn't lose out completely, just losing signing and shorthand fetches over the git protocol.

This project focuses on git with SHA256 and SHA-1 interchangeability, but doesn't address the git protocol side of things yet, which can come later.

[0] [https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/technic...](https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/Documentation/technical/hash- function-transition.txt)

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

<comment> p-squared "Hardened SHA-1 hash" is a confusing way to characterize git's current hash behavior. There is no change in the hash--it continues to be SHA-1. The change is in git's business logic: it will detect hash inputs that look like a SHA-1 collision attack, and will refuse to proceed.

<comment><AUTHOR> The SHA1DC algorithm implements a different hash function, since it doesn't return the same hash as SHA-1 for all inputs, those inputs just happen to be really rare.

This is SHA-1:

        hash = SHA1(input)

This is SHA-1DC in "only detect collision mode":

        collided, hash = SHA1DC(input)

Where "hash" for SHA1DC(input) will be the same value as SHA1(input), then there's the mode to work around such collisions:

        hash = SHA1DC_safe(input)

In this case "hash" will be the same as SHA1(input) in all cases, except those where the input is detected to be malicious (as in the SHAttered attack). Then SHA1DC_safe(input) will return a _different_ ("safe") hash than SHA1(input) would.

So depending on the mode you use it in it's a different hash function than SHA-1. The Git project only uses it in the "detect a collision and die" mode: [https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/sha1dc_git.c#L17-L23](https://github.com/git/git/blob/master/sha1dc_git.c#L17-L23)

Here's the part of the code where you can see it's implementing a different hash function: [https://github.com/git/git/blob/v2.19.0-rc0/sha1dc/sha1.c#L1...](https://github.com/git/git/blob/v2.19.0-rc0/sha1dc/sha1.c#L1728-L1763)

I.e. if _detect_coll_ and _safe_hash_ are set, it will return different hashes than SHA1() for the same input.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Url changed from [https://git.github.io/rev_news/2018/08/22/edition-42/](https://git.github.io/rev_news/2018/08/22/edition-42/), which points to this.</comment>


Reglib vs JQuery - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.sun.com/greimer/entry/reglib_versus_jquery

<comment><USER2> I use livequery to handle Test #1-#4. I don't have a problem on any of my sites that would see if livequery would handle test #5.

<http://brandonaaron.net/docs/livequery/>

</comment><comment><USER3> one of jquery's main strengths is the sheer number of plugins for it. so far only prototype comes close.</comment>


Hard-Disk Drives: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - <AUTHOR> http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2009/6/28493-hard-disk-drives-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/fulltext

<comment><USER2> Author needs to read (or re-read) Strunk and White. Specifically, "Omit needless words."

Even skimming this article made me tired.</comment>


Real-time thought process while I launched my website on HN - <AUTHOR> http://aschuenemann.com/real-time-thought-process-while-i-launched-my-website-on-hn

<comment><USER2> categories would really help

<comment><AUTHOR> They will be added soon.</comment></comment>