"Committed on 22 May 1981" - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mist64/msdos1/commit/16d08abe4ff316cc621db1301896a32bec689fb7

<comment><USER2> Yeah, but that's clearly after-the-fact. :) Here's the oldest commit in Discuss, the conferencing system written for Project Athena:

[https://github.com/mit- athena/discuss/commit/207670ad8bf752b...](https://github.com/mit- athena/discuss/commit/207670ad8bf752b21f73c7971d61cab2b96d4a21)

That's an _actual_ commit in RCS from 1986, which got imported to CVS, which got imported to SVN, which got imported to git last year. The entire history is now on GitHub:

[https://github.com/mit-athena/discuss/commits/master](https://github.com/mit- athena/discuss/commits/master)

The codebase is still in use and still developed, although (as you might be able to tell from the recent commits) it's kind of old code. I've got one commit in there replacing a printf(s) with a printf("%s", s).

<comment><USER3> It's very comforting to see commit messages like [https://github.com/mit- athena/discuss/commit/6359a0ae817ddda...](https://github.com/mit- athena/discuss/commit/6359a0ae817dddadce88bcc82a0a161eb046d141) and [https://github.com/mit- athena/discuss/commit/911e5877bf2e9cc...](https://github.com/mit- athena/discuss/commit/911e5877bf2e9cca0f8756961345a8732deeb88f), even from as far back as '86\. Developers have occasionally felt stupid and unmotivated for a loooong time :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> go has a commit from 1972: [http://bit.ly/1sYa7qR](http://bit.ly/1sYa7qR)

We recently had a look at first commits [1]. Most large projects start out as a code dump, so are less interesting.

[1] [https://blog.wearewizards.io/first- commits](https://blog.wearewizards.io/first-commits)

<comment><USER5> It's my understanding that - because of obscure constants in the git codebase - it's a bad idea to use dates before Sat, 03 Mar 1973 09:46:40 GMT because the usable git epoch is 1970 + 100000000s. More details available here: [https://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=625480](https://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=625480)

FWIW: I routinely start my git repos with an empty commit to allow history rewrites and use Jan 1st, 1974 as my own epoch.

<comment><USER6> FYI: git supports rewrites to the implicit root commit with `git rebase --root` (and similar), there isn't a need for an extra empty commit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> how did Git preserve the actual created-at date of the file? I was under the impression that it would log down the date at which you committed the file, but no the date at which the file was actually created.

<comment><USER8> git-commit lets you set any commit date you please.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> These two files were renamed after Microsoft more or less parted ways with IBM.

IBMBIO.COM became io.sys.

IBMDOS.COM became msdos.sys.

<comment><USER10> Actually this difference between PC-DOS and MS-DOS has been there from the beginning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> 1981 is cool, but you know what's also cool? 3012</comment>


Thinkster: A better way to learn AngularJS - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinkster.io

<comment><USER2> My spoiled self was expecting screencast, but this will do as well, Thanks.</comment>


WinTheTrophy's New API Service Lets Developers Hack Sports Betting - <AUTHOR> http://winthetrophy.com/betbot_press_release <comment><AUTHOR> I've been one of the devs working on the API portion of <http://www.winthetrophy.com>; it's finally been opened to the public. For examples of bet bots, check out <http://github.com/belucid/WinTheTrophy- BetBots> . My particular bet bot is hosted on heroku ( <http://andrews-wtt- betbot.heroku.com/> ); the source code is here: <http://github.com/ph0rque/long_odds_bot> .

</comment><comment><USER2> I've always wondered what kinds of data services are available for getting listings of games, teams, players and if any of them are open source.

Anyone know where the data for a service like this comes from?

</comment><comment><USER3> this is very cool, can't wait to do some damage</comment>


Onion Map - <AUTHOR> http://us.onionmap.com/web/us/ <comment><USER2> Pretty cool. Had a look at BCN and spotted my house :) Need to be able to zoom. What's it all about?

</comment><comment><USER3> I was expecting some sort of mashup using stories from The Onion, but was sorely disappointed.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ok, so it's not THE onion, but it is fun looking. Like Sim City - though I miss Godzilla.

Good start. Google mashup might have been easier, or fire eagle data more compelling.

</comment><comment><USER5> Anyone had any luck getting the help/how to use pages to come up?

Interesting that it still lists the Mayor of London as Ken Livingstone, who was elected out back in May.

</comment><comment><USER6> A 'global people map' that doesn't mention Africa?

</comment><comment><USER7> i like this, but what's with the odd name?

</comment><comment><USER8> any competitors in this space?

</comment><comment><USER9> Great Idea, but it really needs some serious polishing. I see it being very useful for tourists, and/or if you are looking to moving to a new place.

I like the "Big Mac" index. In the US, I use the "Starbucks Late" index, when compare costs between cities. They seem to reflect the local cost of living pretty well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Latte Index <http://money.cnn.com/2004/01/16/news/funny/latteindex/>

I wonder what this kind of variation tells us:

'Starbucks latte and the Big Mac cost $2.80 in the United States. In Hong Kong, a tall latte is $3.22, but a Big Mac is only $1.54'

<comment><USER10> _Starbucks latte and the Big Mac cost $2.80 in the United States. In Hong Kong, a tall latte is $3.22, but a Big Mac is only $1.54_

My first instinct is that the Hongkongnese don't drink coffee.

<comment><AUTHOR> May be. But the two products target completely different demographics.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Dev stays without pay to finish Mac Graphing Calculator as skunkworks project - <AUTHOR> http://www.pacifict.com/Story/ <comment><USER2> Every time I read, or hear anyone speak about, working for Apple, I always think, "Who would put up with crap like that from a multi-billion dollar corporation?"

And yet, many people do. Just goes to show what good design, maniacal focus, and a charismatic leader can do, I guess.

<comment><USER3> This story taking place 1993-1994, Apple would have actually been without its charismatic leader.

<comment><USER2> Jobs still built the corporate machine and culture. It takes a while for that kind of thing to wear off or evolve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "We wanted to release a Windows version as part of Windows 98, but sadly, Microsoft has effective building security"

For once they do something good, are they still being bashed for it :)

</comment><comment><USER5> A great classic.

People who enjoyed it are urged to read more like it at the mac-oriented Folklore website:

<http://www.folklore.org/>

A treasure!

<comment><AUTHOR> Steven Levy's book about the creation of the original Macintosh is also wonderful.

[http://www.amazon.com/Insanely-Great-Macintosh-Computer- Ever...](http://www.amazon.com/Insanely-Great-Macintosh-Computer- Everything/dp/0140291776/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246522804&sr=1-1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> They gave a talk at Google about it: <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7497796873809571567>

</comment><comment><USER7> _The secret to programming is not intelligence, though of course that helps. It is not hard work or experience, though they help, too. The secret to programming is having smart friends._

I think there's a lot of truth to this. It's the real reason some of the best software comes from universities.

</comment><comment><USER8> I had not seen this before. What a beautiful marvelous story.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is a good story, well worth the time spent reading it. Mac developers devotion to duty is admirable. :)

<comment><USER10> That was not their _duty_ to do that. they were not on a pay roll, and nobody assigned that project to them. It seems they wanted to do some kind of commitment. Nice to see some people works not just for money, but for a higher good. I wish more people, and not just in software industry, have this kind of motivation.

<comment><USER11> You'd be amazed to see how much time some people spend on free software projects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Previously: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1741>, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=169149>, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=170373> (video)

It would be nice to add year to the title if the article is old.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry. I didn't realise it had been posted before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> uhm, call me cynical but maybe he could have spent his time more profitably? Could he have launched this as a $2 app?

<comment><USER14> In the This American Life episode referenced at the bottom of the story, it is mentioned that they ultimately received a sizable royalty check for licensing it to Apple.

<comment><USER13> nice! I scanned, lots of text for an at work distraction (:

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "We wanted to release a Windows version as part of Windows 98, but sadly, Microsoft has effective building security."

Best line.

</comment><comment><USER16> Awesome story. I love the final line.

</comment><comment><USER17> very enjoyable read. thanks.

</comment><comment><USER18> i like these oldies but goodies, too, but can a story from 2004 really be considered (hacker) _news_ ? i don't think the chronologically "what's new" aggregator is not the right solution for "best things of all time".

it's no good if this story pops up every year. hacker news should prevent duplicate urls, and perhaps provide more browsing options, eg monthly top stories.

<comment><USER19> 1\. Despite the name, it's not just for news.

2\. Some people weren't here a year ago and haven't seen it before.

3\. There are 50-100 items per day on the front page - it won't kill you to see a few repeats a week.</comment></comment>


How to Email Busy People - <AUTHOR> http://www.humbledmba.com/how-to-email-busy-people <comment><USER3> Be brief and say what you want.

<comment><USER4> I think this should apply for any kind of email, not just for busy people. Actually, this applies to most kinds of writing too.

It'll come off much better if it's well-worded but simple and to-the-point. The more fluffy sentences you add to your email, blog post, internet comment or product copy, the less professional it starts to sound.

<comment><USER5> True, but long copy sales letters have been shown to be effective. It all depends on the audience.

<comment><USER6> long copy sales letters tend to be aimed at the bottom 1 percent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's something I learned: don't be wishy washy. Avoid pandering to the person you're emailing - it takes up words and sounds pathetic.

I've done this in the past and been the recipient. It just goes bad.

Busy people work on short terse communication, unless they are actively in a conversation with you. And, in general, they will appreciate the first few emails you send them being of the same - condensed and full of content.

Never worry about being rude by not saying please every other word.

On another note, I mildly dislike this one:

 _Show your target respect by responding to everything immediately. Just because the VC you're emailing might not get back to you immediately, doesn't mean that you have the same privilege. Ron Conway famously makes immediately email responses a pre-condition for investment._

I'm a busy guy, I get a LOT of work email each day. And yet the people we work for seem to see slow response as an indication of laziness :S Even though it takes them a week to respond. Yes, you're important to me, you are potentially worth a lot of money to me and I really want to keep you happy. But give me a fracking chance!

So, investors, cut founders a bit of slack :)

<comment><USER8> I doubt Conway is that stupid to correlate email responsiveness with entrepreneurial ability, but on the other hand he probably appreciates prompt responses so he lets people believe that.

Also, there's a pecking order. If you are some unknown founder who really needs Conway you _should_ respond as fast as humanly possible. On the other hand, if Conway wants something from Steve Jobs he probably should respond quickly.

<comment><USER7> It was a copy/paste error to include the reference to Conway; from what I have read about him I very much doubt he expects instant, the next second, replies. Just reasonably prompt replies.

Which is not really what that point was saying.

I just think that the time between sending and email and a reply is not a good measure of how important you are to that person. Certainly, if someone replied within a few seconds of my email to them I'd have to pause and question _why_ they responded so fast. Are they literally desperate for my input? Why? (of course, usually being desperate for that input is fine, and part of being excited to have a chance with someone who can really help you - <USER2> occasionally it is a marker of someone dodgy).

Basically: it seems something of a shallow way to judge things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've had some success with sending email that has a short and long version (or if you include the subject itself, 3 levels). Ask your main question in the first sentence or two, enough to provide context, detail, and what you want.

At the end say "[more detail below if needed]". Draw a line in the email ===== and include more detail below that they can dip into if necessary.

<comment><USER10> It's nice to see that a journalism degree is universally applicable.

What you describe is basically an inverse pyramid news article.

Hook Lead Background News

Putting it into 5 sentences is where the art comes in...

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> i get a ton of email from people who want stuff. i try to reply but it's a barrage.

Some stuff that makes it easier:

\- understand that I am likely to read your email on an iPhone. keep it brief, don't write an essay.

\- if i reply and say something like "interesting, please send an executive summary" or "i'd love to see a demo" then do that or offer something equivalent/better. i do not want to meet you to see your demo, etc etc etc.

\- don't ask for extremely unlikely things and expect a reply

\- it takes me a week or two to get to low-priority stuff. don't email me and ask for a detailed response within an hour. if you do have a deadline, tell me so, so i can prioritize appropriately. i'm looking at you, journalists.

\- if you are pitching a startup, don't pitch investors who have clear and obvious conflicts.

\- if you are offering an advisory role, be up front about offering equity or something.

that said, i try my best. that guy who had acquisition questions a few months ago on Ask HN? i got him to someone who got the deal done.

</comment><comment><USER12> As a former founder and now VC, I am thrilled about this post. It's so true. There is nothing I like more than learning about startups and helping entrepreneurs and founders. If that wasn't the case I would find some other line of work.

That's why I'm so sad when people view my inability to get to email in a timely fashion as a proxy for my interest or the type of person I am.

I just get a ton of email and it's impossible to respond to it all, much less in a timely fashion. I'll try my best to get to it all, but if for some reason you haven't heard back in awhile try again and again. If nothing else I'll notice your determination and provide some feedback.

<comment><USER13> Could You please specify if there are undesirable mails in the ton of mails you get or if you are just saturated of information ? Suggesting as a solution to retry sending mail again and again will worsen the problem. You'll get echos in addition to signal.

Maybe people in your situation should use a pull method (~on demand messages) using a web service for this purpose. People who want to get in touch with you see the number of messages in the queue and you may pushback (temporarily suspending message submission) and provide priority to users. They'll see their queue position and eventully some feedback once processed tldr, not understood, contact me @xxx, ...

<comment><USER12> if it's undesirable email that keeps getting sent then I'll either ignore it forever (unlikely) or more likely respond with a reason I'd rather not get your email.

If someone repeatedly puts effort into emails to me then I will respond because they deserve that much for taking the time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I agree this advice does not only apply to emailing VC's. It applies to emailing ANYONE in the course of doing your job: interns to CEO's.

5 sentences often is too much. If you can get it down to 3 sentences (or even 1 or 2 with judicious subject line) that is better. Just state the situation and what action you request.

For christ's sake, above all, don't resort to voicemail.

<comment><USER15> I agree on the voice mail, although I've come to realize that some people avoid email and online communication altogether and if you don't call them, you won't talk to them.

<comment><USER16> Many people do this to avoid a papertrail. Sometimes its a good idea to followup with an email summarizing the conversation when working with these types.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _Include a Short, Professional Signature My standard signature includes my name, company, blog, Twitter, and LinkedIn. If I want a phone call or fax or meeting, it'll include phone number, fax, address._

Four lines is not short. Nobody cares about your blog, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

I sign my emails either "--Jon" or "Regards, Jonathan Rockway" depending on who the intended recipient is. If you want to read my blog, just type my name into the nearest search engine.

<comment><USER18> This is an example of where the person who came up with a term screwed up. You're talking about how you sign your email, but the post is talking about the signature line (or lines), which are not a substitute for signing your message.

For personal emails I don't use a signature, I just sign it. For business emails I sign the email and have a signature line with my name, title, business group, phone numbers, and group website. --This information fits on one line and is easy to refer to or ignore as per the recipient's needs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Question, relating to email etiquette.

Do people send "thanks" emails at the end of a discussion? Sometimes I'll have a discussion with someone online. Sometimes there's no more to say, and I always wonder if I should send a "thanks" email. No content, but just something to close the loop and a minor show of gratitude. But it seems wasteful. In a verbal converation it's a no-brainer to just say, "thanks for the time", but in email its not clear if its better to do it or to just end the convo by not sending another.

</comment><comment><USER20> I just weighed in on this in a slightly different way... how to email people for the first time: [http://chriscoyier.net/2011/05/04/how-to-write-an-email- to-s...](http://chriscoyier.net/2011/05/04/how-to-write-an-email-to-someone- for-the-first-time/)

</comment><comment><USER21> As I said in the comments, isn't there a little irony in an essay on concise communication that opens with _seven_ mostly content-free paragraphs? Much more effective, I suspect, would be to rely on the title as a hook, launch right into the prescribed methods, and argue the case in each one.

As it is, how to actually email busy people is an entire window scroll away.

</comment><comment><USER22> These are some good advices, and they're not limited to VC. In the academic domain researchers and professors also have a lots of email to deal with, maybe not as much but we also have to consider that reading email is even less their job than a VC (and they have enough freakin administrative tasks that take on their working time). As a matter of fact, I've _always_ had quicker (and often better) responses when I wrote email that more or less follow the rules described in the linked post, for instance when looking for an internship, or requesting a specific paper.

</comment><comment><USER4> >If you can fit the entire question into the header, just do it and include #eom at the end, which means 'end of message'. Yes, it feels weird. Do it anyways.

This I cannot agree with, however. I receive a fair amount of email, and I just cannot stand when people do this. It annoys me to no end and will most likely earn an instant-delete to the email.

<comment><USER23> Any reason? Or just a pet-peeve?

<comment><USER4> Mostly a pet peeve, I guess. The subject should describe what the message is about, the body _is_ the message. After opening the message, I automatically look down to read or skim the body. When there's nothing there, it annoys me to no end.

Worst case… at least repeat the subject in the body. Also it annoys me to no end when messages aren't formulated in correct english. (Text-speak is a big no-no.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If it doesn't all fit in the subject line, put what you're asking for in the first sentence. This makes the purpose of your email immediately clear, and if the recipient is interested in the details they can read the next four lines. A busy person will appreciate you getting to the point and not beating around the bush.

<comment><USER25> The message body should stand on its own, even if it means repeating information from the subject line. I hate long, rambling subjects only to find something like "So how about it?" in the message itself. Like the contents, the subject line should be short, concise and to the point, only _moreso_. This is especially important if I'm reading the email on my phone, where a long subject will be mercilessly truncated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I've found that sending emails when you know they'll be at work (so they'll notice it) is tremendously useful -- say 9am, 2pm, 5pm. People will tend to answer immediately incoming messages before a long queue of messages from the previous day that need attention.

A little shameless self-promotion, that's exactly one of the use-cases we envisioned for our company's product, Momentomail ( <http://www.momentomail.com> ).

My co-founder and I actually do this with each other, schedule messages so they'll be received sometime in the morning when we're both likely to be working through our mail queue from the end of the day and night before.

</comment><comment><USER27> I actually almost invariably use the same template for all my communications; 3 straight to the point paragraphs, leaving the details to further discussion (if need there is). Start with the context, followed by the matter at hand and finally the expose the solution, proposal or action required by the recipient. Work in most cases.

I also use the Boomerang plugin for Gmail to schedule my emails to be sent at 9:30 AM, local time of the recipient (you want to be at the top of the inbox when he grabbed his coffee and starts going through his emails).

</comment><comment><USER28> Sometimes, if you've recently met the person, it's just good to send a "nice to meet you" follow-up with no ask at all. You're very likely to get a response, and once the response has been made, you can make the simple ask (once they've responded once, they're probably more likely to respond again).

This is akin to the "one-line hook" in online dating: <http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/match-messages/>

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm trying to work out emailing for sponsorships for projects that we're running. It's generally cold-calling, but not a shotgun approach - we work pretty hard to come up with companies who would have something to gain from the project.

I'm going to try some of these tips, but would an email with 'Seeking Sponsorship' in the subject get caught in your personal spam filter?

<comment><USER30> I suggest being as specific as possible. Seeking Sponsorship for [whatever]. Otherwise, it seems to comes off as an impersonal, mass-bcc'ed email, spammed to like a thousand email addresses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Here's my tip: give me something actionable. The e-mails that sit around unanswered are those with wishy-washy requests that require me to think about what the person _really_ wants. The ones that get fast, useful answers are direct and obvious. The "five sentences or fewer" item will get you most of the way there.

</comment><comment><USER32> People often ask me for writing advice. The number-one tip is always brevity. Cut, cut, cut!

</comment><comment><USER33> For someone just getting involved with this space, these tips definitely seem helpful. Seems like this is a bit contingent on prior contact and not first- time intro. Should it be in person > then e-mail? A bit confused...

</comment><comment><USER34> I find it works best to keep each email short and direct. Provide a title which has real content. Keep on topic. NEVER mix two topics in an email; inevitably all but one of the topics will be ignored.

</comment><comment><USER35> One of the reasons i keep it to 5 lines mails is that most of the top shots I know are reading their emails on devices like the blackberry. Short and simple, even telegraphic gets you responses.

</comment><comment><USER36> How do you pitch someone while seeking a job/project in 5-6 lines of email? Especially when you are going in as a team rather than sending individual resumes!

<comment><USER37> The same way you pitch your company in a 60 second elevator ride. Pare it down to the simplest possible (and most compelling) idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This advice more or less matches my experience with busy people, although there are some people who just won't read your email no matter how you write it.

</comment><comment><USER39> i used to use <http://five.sentenc.es/> as a guideline.

i tried to use <http://three.sentenc.es/>, but as i am not a native english speaker, it's hard for me to be compact AND understandable at the same time.

<comment><USER40> I'm curious what your experience has been using the (two|three|four|five).sentenc.es guides? Do people respond better/worse when you've got that in your email? My thought is most people receiving this message would view it negatively...

<comment><USER39> i can't say.

i noticed that busy people themselves tend to write very short letters: a pair of questions, no hello/goodbye, nothing personal. seeing that, i started to think that writing five sentences is a respect for their attention and time; i include the disclaimer (signature) to the bottom to indicate that i am not just a dumb, but trying to be short for the recipient's sake.

if they ask specific questions, i elaborate in many sentences (just like i do now :), and then they sometimes don't respond (if we didn't met) or respond after a month (if a person knows me personally). i right imagine how they see the Tolstoy's War and Peace novel, get upset, but as they generally like me, move my lame english masterpiece to some Later folder and move on.

the initial cold emails of any number of sentences stay 90% unanswered.

thrice i shot messages on facebook to the complete strangers that i read about in press (3 sentences: "cograts with new post, would you consider project like ours, if would, i'd be glad to blah blah blah"). and once i got a respond, which forced me to write a long letter which was also answered...

so i dont know if it really works (cold emails are unlucky by nature), but i like to think that being short is a new form of politeness.

(i even tend not to write cold emails at all now! zero sentences, hehe)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I think most of the points are important for every way of communicating. You can exercise them every day.

</comment><comment><USER6> the shortness is very important...before I used to spell everything out thinking it'd help them make their decision...and my response rate was horrible.

now it's just a simple...would your company be interested in X...and if they say yes...thats when I send the rest of the details

</comment><comment><USER42> in cases like this, i always tell people to write like a news article: open with your conclusion!

nobody wants to read through as you try to explain all the reasons for your conclusion. if you can't draw them in in the first line, you've lost them

</comment><comment><USER43> My best advice: read "Made to stick". Not just once - at least once per year.

</comment><comment><USER44> You can't explain it in 30 seconds, so they'll ignore it</comment>


Giving Up Paying Off $186,000 Student Loan Debt - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/ive-given-up-on-my-student-loan-debt-2013-5 <comment><USER2> To me, this is the flip side of the "predatory lending" coin: People who did it to themselves. I'm not even sure what the point of the article is supposed to be, if not a warning against financial irresponsibility.

This person made mistakes. Yeah, we all do that, and some people's have worse consequences than others, but we're all pretty much stuck with them. In this case, someone went to law school, made some very contradictory life decisions (having kids -- and failing to prevent having more -- kind of takes away whatever victim angle might have been there), realized they were doing _very_ poorly but kept going anyway, and then... for years and years... did not pursue a career that could possibly have any chance of addressing the debt before the rates ballooned.

So we end up with someone who screwed up, screwed up some more, and then decided she'd screwed up so much that she's going to screw up again, by just not even trying to address the negative results of the previous screwups.

Not very responsible, in my opinion, and certainly not a good lesson to pass on to your kids (along with your debt, because guess where that's going when you die, since you've decided not to pay it off?).

I guess I'm still just not sure what the article is going for.

<comment><AUTHOR> Public loans are discharged upon death, so there's that. Private loans are not though, and there can still be tax consequences for public loans.

I think the most important theme to this article, aside from the individual story of debt and irresponsibility, is that this looks an awful lot like the way the housing bubble came about. Cheap debt that the borrowers are unable to afford long term. The difference here is that student debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy, so it seems there would be more people defaulting.

As a side note, the price tag of a degree should not be so high that a career with that degree cannot pay back the debt. This story is unique in that the debt is much older and ballooned due to interest accrual, but there have been a lot of recent graduates with high debt right out the gate with degrees that are much less employable than they used to be.

<comment><USER3> > Private loans are not though

Really? Who takes responsibility for the deceased person's loan?

<comment><AUTHOR> The estate, just like with other private debt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > _She graduated in 1994 with more than $100,000 of debt. Within three years, > she had one daughter, a surprise set of twins, and was earning less than > $50,000 per year._

3 kids while earning < $50k and trying to pay off > $100k in debt? If that's not the embodiment of America's dire lack of financial and family planning skills, then I don't know what is.

> _"I've stressed to my daughter the importance of not borrowing any money."_

Maybe she should just teach them to make responsible decisions instead? Borrowing money can be the right thing to do, but you need to carefully measure the costs and benefits.

Also, it would help not to have 3 kids when you're up to your ears in debt and only earning enough money to support yourself.

<comment><USER5> Your primary moral duty is to repay debt, eh?

Unimportant things like "giving your life meaning" are unimportant.

<comment> mc-lovin As a consumer your only duty is to obey they law.

However, moral duty is relevant when it comes to how society should think about debt. Everyone has things they would like to do if they had more money. Society should not be arranged to give people a free pass just because they _want_ to do something that requires money.

<comment><USER6> > However, moral duty is relevant when it comes to how society should think > about debt.

A debt is a contractual obligation and should be treated as such. One should not moralize contractual obligations.

E.g. During the housing crisis, there was a lot of moralizing about homeowners walking away from their underwater mortgages. Moralizing about debt in that way is bullshit. When lenders make a loan secured by collateral, they take the risk of the value of that collateral dropping. There is absolutely nothing immoral about forcing a lender to eat a risk it knowingly on.

Similarly, a corporation would not hesitate for a second, on moral grounds, to restructure its debts through bankruptcy, and neither should individuals. No moralizing needs to enter the equation. There is a penalty for declaring bankruptcy and failing to pay your debts, and that is future lenders being wary of lending you money. There is no need to add a moral dimension to the issue.

<comment><USER7> > _a corporation would not hesitate for a second, on moral grounds, to > restructure its debts through bankruptcy, and neither should individuals._

I see what you're saying, but I really dislike that way of thinking, because it's justifying something bad by saying "That's what others are doing"

That's like saying that because BP are spilling oil into the oceans and getting away with it, you shouldn't stop doing it yourself.

The world would be a better place if morals were used in more decisions, not less.

<comment><USER6> You're begging the question. Spilling oil into the oceans inherently hurts people and the environment in an uncompensated way. Bankruptcy, meanwhile, is just part of the rules of the game, just as much as enforceable debt obligations are part of the rules of the game. Everyone knows, a priori that repayment obligations can be enforced by recourse to the courts, and everyone also knows, a priori, that those obligations can be discharged by those same courts (what the federal court giveth it can taketh away). Because bankruptcy is part of the rules of the game, it's priced into interest rates. When a bank loans you money, it expects you to default with some probability and charges you a premium for that risk. There is nothing immoral about forcing them to eat the consequence if the risk you compensated them for.

It's not a matter of ignoring morality. It's a matter of not ascribing a moral dimension to something that doesn't inherently have one.

In that vein, Google "efficient breach."

<comment> jack-r-abbit But by your own words, this woman's bankruptcy does hurt other people... the people looking to get a loan later. They are now paying the even higher interest rate due to her bankruptcy being priced in. The more people that default, the higher the probability that the next person will default and the higher the premium the bank charges for that risk.

<comment><USER6> The rates for subsequent borrowers will only go up if her bankruptcy was unexpected. That is to say, if the bank charged her interest assuming 10 of 100 loans would default, and she is one of those 10, then her bankruptcy does not change the interest rate the bank charges. On the other hand, if the default rate is higher than the bank expected, whose fault is that?

<comment> jack-r-abbit They can only do so much to predict the future based on the past. When they fund loans today based on today's default rate they have no way to know what crisis hits in 3 years to cause a spike in defaulted loans. The system must correct itself with enough padding to cover the smaller fluctuations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This story is mostly about TERRIBLE money management, not the cost of education. Her parents paid for her undergrad in full and she got a full scholarship to law school. So really, none of this money went directly to education.

Apparently she couldn't work and focus on school at the same time, so she started taking out loans to cover living expenses. She took out $26k in federal loans each year (starting in 1994) to cover these expenses. Factoring in inflation, that would be like taking out a loan for nearly $41k/year in 2013 dollars. I think it's a hard argument to say that was even close to reasonable.

The article doesn't say how long she was in school, but if I'm doing the math right, it took her at least three years (isn't that a long time for a full time law student with no other job?).

Then, after school while she's studying for the BAR, she takes out another $20k in private loans to cover living expenses ($31k in 2013 dollars).

She screwed herself, plain and simple.

<comment><USER9> > it took her at least three years (isn't that a long time for a full time law > student with no other job?).

Nope, that's the standard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have seen a lot of these articles on student debt, and they use the most bizarrely unsympathetic subjects. The meat of this article is not that student loans are bad, but rather that you shouldn't go to law school (or any graduate program, in my opinion), without first deciding what you want to do and your priorities in life. It's way too common to see people watch a lot of Law & Order and go straight through from college (my wife calls them "K-JD's") and then realize that $200k of debt is a lot and they really don't like working 12-14 hours a day at the beck and call of clients. Your first 80 hour work week sleeping with your Blackberry under your pillow is a shock, and you should really get it out of the way and decide if you're okay with it before you're $200k in the hole.

</comment><comment><USER10> Wow. She can cry me a damn river.

She HAS a degree. She HAD a 6 figure job that she quit because it was "too hard" She still HAS debt.

Me? That's right. Injured, under Voc rehab. I'm going to a 2 bit state school (drafting, cad). Right now, I can't afford the GAS to get to and from school. Voc rehab (state agency) will pay for it, only after a 6 week wait. And I don't have the money.

What I'd need is a few hundred to get to and fro school. Food would he nice, but soup kitchens provide that. I can sleep in my car to reduce trips.

Where's the help for people like me?

<comment><USER11> It's not coming, because the business media intentionally uses articles like this in order to pit the members of struggling underclass against each other (and it doesn't matter what your job title is, if you have >$100,000 in non- dischargeable debt you are a serf).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If she had a full tuition scholarship how did it cost $26k a year to live in the '90s? I started college in 2005 and could get by spending $11k to $15k a year for rent, food, books, and such. It ought to have cost even less in the '90s... (Of course I did without a car for nearly 4 years and lived in cheap apartments and such, but that seems pretty normal. And I'm pretty sure my cost of living wasn't even as frugal as some.)

</comment><comment><USER13> Son of a bitch that is a lot of debt. It stresses me out just reading about it. I guess few people do the math correctly when they go get a degree.

Can anyone here who opted to take a student loan for a technical degree speak to whether it is daunting to them or they are comfortable with the trade?

<comment><USER14> It was the worst thing I ever did. I'm not as bad off as this women but I have around 80-90k in debt for school loans and whats worst is one of them is a private loan so it has some ungodly high interest rate compare to my others.

<comment><USER15> Pay close attention to politics.

The reason your federal loans don't have an ungodly interest rate right now is that as part of the economic stimulus student loan interest rates were lowered. The temporary extensions have kept it down since then, but they could jump back up at almost any moment.

<comment><USER16> That jump is for new loans, fortunately. All previous federal loans are locked in at the rate they were originally signed for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a pretty fluffy article. It says she borrowed $26k/year during law school, even though she was on a scholarship with tuition paid, and took out another $20k in private loans.

Hard to judge anything just based on this article, but I'd have to say that if you have a full tuition scholarship and still need to take on 100k in debt you might want to rethink it. Also she had 3 children within 3 years of graduating, which would make it impossible to pay off anything unless you get a much higher paid job.

A friend of mine and his wife took out something in the neighborhood of 100k/each, so they have(or had, been paying a bit now) 200k of student loan debt recently. I think it was a bit of a bad investment, since I think they could have gone to cheaper schools, however they stayed in NYC and make enough for this.

Short story: If you want to take on a big student debt, paying it off is going to require you to go where the high paying jobs are. If you want to raise a family and work for the state, don't take on the debt, your life will be easier.

<comment><USER18> _If you want to raise a family and work for the state, don't take on the debt, your life will be easier._

If you have Federal Loans and hold a public service job for ten years (and make your payments of I believe 10% of your gross income), your remaining debt is forgiven. The same is true after 25 years if you aren't in public service I believe and I think Obama just railroaded a change to make that 15 years using Executive Order. This is the reason why if you are struggling with Federal Loans DO NOT consolidate them through a private lender. Their terms will suck for you if you think you will struggle to pay them off.

<comment><USER19> More details [http://finance.yahoo.com/news/student-loans-killing-heres- li...](http://finance.yahoo.com/news/student-loans-killing-heres- little-165103390.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm not sure what sort of choice she has, besides not working again. You can't clear student loan debt through bankruptcy, so unless she decides to not work again, I'm not sure what her options are to never pay off the debt. Maybe this is a negotiation tactic with the debtors to pay a fraction of the loan instead?

<comment><USER21> It wasn't until 1991 that student loan debt was no longer dischargeable through bankruptcy.

So, although unlikely, she may have based her decision on the possibility that, worse case scenario, she could have declared bankruptcy.

Now the $20,000 personal loan for living expenses, I assume would still be dischargeable in bankruptcy.

<comment><USER22> I read the article as her using student loans to cover living expenses.

Which made sense at the time, since it was being subsidized.

<comment><USER21> I have a hard time believing she could obtain a student loan without any further classes to attend, that is why I assume it is a private loan.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I thought this article was going to be somewhat insightful as to another option for me, as, like many others, I have quite a bit of student loans. Including interest, I owe about $250k (BS and MS). I don't regret going to the school I went to - the experience and what I went through there was life changing for me; however, it does put a severe stranglehold on what I am actually able to do in life right now. I am basically forced to work for others at a decent salary (which I am certainly very fortunate and thankful I'm in the software engineering field) instead of being able to completely set off on my own.

<comment><USER24> I'll also add that I do understand what you're saying. I have been self employed for 16 years and my wife worked as well so there was somewhat of a cushion. Back in 2008, though, my first son was born 3 months premature and I had this "oh shit" moment where I thought, "ok, wife isn't working, I have a sick baby, we have a mortgage and two car payments, there is no way this is going to end well". I stepped up my hustle big time and five years later we have two kids, very little debt and things are fine. You really just have to take look at the glass as half full. As a software engineer, you're in a sellers market. There are SO many companies out there looking for people like you, you just don't realize it yet.

Either way, best of luck. If you do want to strike out on your own, please don't wait until you're "comfortable" because it will be too late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm sure we can all pick this apart and talk about all the bad decisions she's made. The fact that she'd allow an article to be written about her regarding this just shows that she's certainly not the sharpest tool in the shed. The only thing I would ask is if she's not going to pay for her education, go ahead and take down that law degree that your private practice is established on and find some other kind of work. I know it sounds ridiculous, but so does her whole story. Not going to pay for it? Don't use it. You can't have it both ways.

</comment><comment><USER25> If you "give up," your lenders will eventually garnish your wages anyway. Better to pay what you owe voluntarily than have the choice of how much and how long to be taken away from you.

<comment><USER22> She can just go the destitute route. If they will take N% of her pay, why bother working at all?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> One of the great advantages of third world countries - good education is cheap. A student at a top rated engineering school (iit/nit) in India pays less than ~$2k/year in tution, and about ~$200/month in other expenses. Sure, even this is not affordable to everyone without loans, but the salaries these people draw make the ROI tremendous. No wonder these schools are so hard to get into.

</comment><comment><USER27> Where exactly is the guy who fathered these three children? Is he at least paying child support or am I missing a chunk of this story? It seems like with that money she would have been able to get the loans paid with her own money.

The article sounds like bad career planning given the missing or unwanted partner.

</comment><comment><USER28> Chapter 13 bankruptcy is practically made for her case: They can change the monthly payment amount to something possible to pay.

Student loans have a high standard, but not an impossible one.

</comment><comment><USER29> I suspect this is a possible case incomplete journalism.</comment>


The PhD Comics creator was detained in the UK for being a cartoonist? - <AUTHOR> http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1243

<comment><USER2> So he earns a living as a cartoonist. Because of that he's invited to give talks. He gets money for these talks. How is this not working?

I can just imagine doing the same in the USA. Not.

Not so long ago when my wife (British) and I (Australian) went to Melbourne she was invited to give a lecture related to her work. The advice we were given was - accept no money at all, even for expenses.

If he didn't bother to check on these things then I have very little sympathy. The other countries almost certainly have similar conditions, and mostly things are fine if you check in advance.

</comment><comment><USER3> If he's receiving payment for those lectures, he may need a work visa. They're pretty strict about that stuff at the border.

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe they were afraid he would draw a cartoon of Muhammad and cause an international incident. No, on second thought the work visa theory makes more sense.</comment>


Leaf: machine intelligence framework in Rust - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/autumnai/leaf <comment><USER2> It's unfortunate that just because Tensor Flow was released, you felt the need to replace references to deep learning (which is a somewhat well-defined application) by "machine intelligence" [1], which could mean so many things.

Otherwise, it's great to see such initiatives in Rust. I'm unsure if there's an equivalent that implements more traditional ML algorithms (logistic regression, decision tree, random forest, SVM, etc.)

[1] [https://github.com/autumnai/leaf/commit/58bfa92abd5721eae116...](https://github.com/autumnai/leaf/commit/58bfa92abd5721eae116b44e86103cbd850aee23#diff-04c6e90faac2675aa89e2176d2eec7d8)

<comment><USER3> We wanted to make clear that we are not "just" doing deep learning with Leaf. A lot of other ML algorithms that don't fall under the deep learning label can benefit of the tools provided (e.g. solvers) and can be implemented as layers. While not too popular, there are papers showing this being done with e.g. a SVM[0].

[0] [http://deeplearning.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/dlsvm.pdf](http://deeplearning.net/wp- content/uploads/2013/03/dlsvm.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great work -- very exciting to see a Rust ML framework!

Dist-Belief (TensorFlow's predecessor) was oriented around layers (as Leaf is) but TensorFlow (like Theano) is graph/flow-based rather than layer-based. I think in particular the layer-based approach makes it awkward to represent more complicated models since not every model can be decomposed into backward/forward passes.

Do you worry that by adopting a layer-based paradigm you are boxing yourself in? A graph-based approach does seem more flexible (and distributable across machines).

<comment><USER3> I am very optimistic concerning our plans to make Leaf work in a distributed fashion. It's not quite finalized yet, but the rough outline consists of abstracting other parts of the Network away as a special type of layer and using capnproto + zeromq for transportation. Sadly I haven't come across a good implementation of model parallelism to learn from, so that might become a bit tricky.

I think there is still a lot of room for improvement for layer-based networks, but even if the graph-based approach will become more prelevant I think the Rust trait system gives us great tools to migrate and reuse a lot from our layer based approach.

<comment><USER5> I just curious about is there any good Actor model library in Rust, just like Akka for Scala/Java, so there is a better model for transportation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am very excited to finally see this type of library in a modern (strongly typed) language, let alone my current passion language. In my opinion your pitch (ok, Readme), should put emphasis on the productivity and usability gain of types and a generally "smarter" language moreso than the not-offloaded-to-C performance (do people care what they code gets compiled to?)

I was pretty excited about the tensorflow announcement but I'm actually saddened that it might cast a shadow over this library, which in my opinion brings more to the arena (e.g. improvements on the current scripting approach of theano, torch et. al)

Your product, Autumnai, sounds exciting as well

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback!

We love Rust for a lot of reasons, but couldn't really fit them all in the Readme ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Since there seems to be an uptick in submissions related to machine intelligence projects lately (or rather since Google released [http://tensorflow.org](http://tensorflow.org)) (e.g. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10537697](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10537697)) does anyone dare to make a comparison?

I am currently just getting started in this area due to my interest in AI and I am not quite sure which route to choose.

<comment><AUTHOR> MJ here - founder of Autumn and creator of Leaf.

I can give a quick comparison on Leaf vs. TensorFlow - although this might seem somewhat biased.

We like what the Google engineers did on TensorFlow and share a lot of similar ideas on how future Machine Learning should be structured and implemented. Especially that in the end it is just a performant pipeline for numeric information processing.

We feel that the biggest difference (besides the different stages of the project) is the language and the ecosystem that it embraces. We are strong believers in Rust and think that it might have good chances to succeed in the long run - which we outline in more detail in the Q&A[1].

Due to your question I would recommend picking up on the basic concepts of machine intelligence and then going with whatever ecosystem fits the task/stack. Might become similar to choices of web frameworks in the next couple of years. I think Neon[2] - as a Python framework - seems to be easy and performant as well.

[1]: [https://github.com/autumnai/leaf#why- rust](https://github.com/autumnai/leaf#why-rust) [2]: [https://github.com/NervanaSystems/neon](https://github.com/NervanaSystems/neon)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Leaf is a open source framework for machine intelligence, sharing concepts > from TensorFlow and Caffe.

That was fast. (Like, I know that's a documentation change, but stil.)

</comment><comment><USER9> Exciting to see this! I haven't taken a look at TensorFlow code yet but it looks very similar (method names and all) to Caffe. I've wanted a CNN library for Rust for a while.

It sounds like performance is important to you. Are there any plans to add GPU paths soon? If it's CUDA, are you going to use cuDNN?

<comment><USER3> Yes, GPU support has high priority but we are still investigating what library/tools we want to go with, since the current options in Rust are not that great. Maybe we'll use Arrayfire, maybe we'll use CUDA/cuDNN (would require writing Rust binding) or maybe something else.

<comment><USER10> If you're going for GPU support then _please_ do not use CUDA. It's non- portable (NVIDIA only), proprietary, clunky and it requires a huge SDK which is very awkward to install. I highly recommend OpenCL which is portable, requires no SDK, is open and for properly optimized code is just as fast as CUDA.

<comment><USER11> While this sounds attractive, OpenCL performance just doesn't seem to be there at the moment.

In CNN benchmarks[1] the CL based implementations consistently finish at the bottom. I _think_ this is mostly because of the weak nVidia OpenCL implementations, but that doesn't help, since most people use nVidia (eg, Amazon GPU instances are nVidia based)

[1] [https://github.com/soumith/convnet- benchmarks](https://github.com/soumith/convnet-benchmarks)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I like your idea very much, especially implement in Rust. As we need more powerful computation, the native low-level language is a very good choose, we can control the memory, and call the native library to run on CPU/GPU.

Even the development of Rust may not very high enough compared with Java/Go(I do not sure), but we can keep the core as simple and steady, and use high- level language such as Python/R to implement the API.

Hope to hear more wonderful news about this Project.</comment>


Introducing the MongoDB Driver for Rust - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mongodb.org/post/56426792420/introducing-the-mongodb-driver-for-the-rust-programming

<comment><USER2> Cool projet.</comment>


Show HN: Hackchain – Continuous Bitcoin-Inspired CTF Competition - <AUTHOR> http://hackcha.in/ <comment><USER2> This sounds like Core War [1] meets blockchain.

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

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed it is, thank you for the link!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This seems similar to 857Coin [https://github.com/davidlazar/6.857coin](https://github.com/davidlazar/6.857coin)

<comment><AUTHOR> It looks like they are not too much similarities, except that they are both took some structure from the Bitcoin. Hackchain is less about signatures, public keys, mining the blocks; and is more about the output/input scripts in the transactions.</comment></comment>


Super Mario 64 completed in 5 minutes - <AUTHOR> http://www.geek.com/articles/games/super-mario-64-completed-in-5-minutes-2011013/

<comment><USER2> Wow... Watching this video made me feel really silly about having spent literally weeks of my life playing this game. Then again, that was 13 years ago as a freshman in high school. It's understandable that game companies will keep a tight lock on the source to protect them for re-releases, but it would still be cool to dig in and hack around. I wonder if, in years time, people will do ROM hacks on these the way they do for NES games?

</comment><comment><USER3> Very interesting. Those glitches/breaks seem difficult to pull off, which makes it a good feat in my eyes, though perhaps I'll have a different opinion once I give it a try.

Interesting that some of us spend weeks working through level after level, while others master hacks and exploits in the same manner.</comment>


Lovefilm: Why we're switching from Flash to Silverlight - <AUTHOR> http://blog.lovefilm.com/uncategorized/why-were-switching-from-flash-to-silverlight.html

<comment><USER2> I though Microsoft was going to, or might abandon Silverlight?

<https://duckduckgo.com/?q=silverlight+microsoft+abandon>

"Streams for sure."

</comment><comment><USER3> Seriously - Silverlight?

This is a dead product!

Flash is only dead on Mobile - Silverlight is just dead.

I can't believe that anyone saw this as a strategic decision.</comment>


The Knowledge Age – Learn To Appreciate It - <AUTHOR> http://futurephilanthropreneur.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/the-knowledge-age-learn-to-appreciate-it/

<comment><USER2> I do agree with the general sentiment here, that people should try to historically put their lives in context: our instant access to information is unrivaled in any history of which we are aware.

However, I've written before on the important difference between information and facts (<http://tumbledry.org/2009/11/20/when_information_overwhelms>) -- when the filter for publishing and disseminating bits becomes so low, the onus transfers from the distributors to the consumers for important tasks like fact-checking, context, and bias-hunting.

Furthermore, "any piece of knowledge, ever created, accessible literally at our fingertips" is still a stretch -- some of the most valuable information (untranslated, undiscovered diaries, research, historical texts) those remain offline. To tell people that "Google can access any piece of information you can ever think of in 0.15 seconds" is to narrow their understanding of sources for true knowledge and understanding.

It's a good article, but one that needed a few caveats. I hope I've provided those.

<comment><AUTHOR> You bring up some really good points. Thanks for the examples. I will check out your blog post as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > I recently read a stat that claimed that 80% of college graduates NEVER READ > A BOOK AFTER FINISHING UNIVERSITY. This sounds like utter bullshit. What > about the statistics that say people read so and so many books each year? > Any references?

<comment><AUTHOR> I looked it up, and found the stat. I remembered the 80% wrong, actually 42%. The 80% were for book purchases last year. Should be changed on the post. Thanks for reading

p.s. here's some more stats: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/08...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/08/21/AR2007082101045.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Question: If everybody has "any piece of knowledge, ever created, accessible literally at [their] fingertips", how does the author _know_ whether people are taking advantage of it? Is the author privy to everybody's online habits? Getting "the" top 10 web sites is tricky because it depends on who you ask, but Google and Wikipedia are generally on there, among other things that could be interpreted as at least potentially "searches for knowledge".

And I think that's a pretty good ratio. It's OK that Facebook is up there too; we're still human, after all.</comment>


150 Years of Nature - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/immersive/d42859-019-00121-0/index.html <comment><USER3> I went to a 125th anniversary lecture day organised by Nature and I still remember it (25 years later) as an outstanding day. Speakers included Richard Dawkins, Stephen J Gould and Carl Sagan, who used his 'pale blue dot' lines in his talk. A truly stunning array of the great luminaries of the day. It's great to see Nature continuing.

One of the more amusing moments was when one of the speakers - <USER2> mankind vs the environment (or something, I don't precisely recollect now) - finished by saying something like "...and so you see, Nature will always defeat Science", referring of course to Nature the journal's rival journal. Unfortunately someone in the audience didn't make that connection, and tried debating with the speaker about the primacy of science and technology. Oh well.

</comment><comment><USER4> I subscribed to both Science and Nature for a while but dropped my Nature subscription about 2 years ago. They constantly spin off specialty titles and limit archive access to 1997 and later. They were also adding a lot of sponsored content that wasn't clearly marked. For a comparable cost, Science allows full archive access and the publishing group has fewer titles. I'm more likely to find articles in a field I haven't heard of before. Science's sponsored content, and it does have it, is easier to spot and ignore.

</comment><comment><USER5> Science to me means observing and experimenting with nature, then honestly reporting the results.

With the science around the environment so conclusive and the timeline for preventing suffering so short, I consider the most important task of a scientist to make the results usable -- not just understandable and meaningful, but clear in what to do. That means living sustainably ourselves. When Greta gave scientific results to the US Congress, they still didn't know what to do with it.

Since few leaders will learn science, scientists learning to lead will make a difference. Fact, figures, doom, gloom, and such, however correct, aren't leadership. Nor is telling people what to do, which generally motivates people to keep doing what they were.

Individual action isn't widespread change, but scientists who don't follow their advice undermine that advice and lead others also not to follow it, which is why sites like [https://noflyclimatesci.org](https://noflyclimatesci.org) are so important.

It's not the only solution, but until we make scientists who live unsustainably go the way of a surgeon general who smokes, all our results will become like the Library of Alexandria after nature corrects our population.

<comment><USER6> > Science to me means observing and experimenting with nature, then honestly > reporting the results.

Then what is the relation between computer science and nature?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Love the little videos Nature puts out, you can find a bunch more on their YouTube channel. I'd be interested in seeing a similar map based on some measure of semantic/vocabulary similarity rather than just citations. There are probably a lot of connections between papers that aren't captured by citations

<comment> xkcd-sucks The lab that did it actually got the full text archives of Nature, but the NLP was tricky so they fell back to a citation network to finish the project in time. BTW internally they call the vertical individual-papers plots "carrots"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice visuals. Wonder what did they use for those sparkly web of light..

Sidenote: Today was Starbucks 150 year too

<comment><USER9> I think Starbucks was founded in 1971, but I do agree the visuals for Nature's 150 year anniversary page are beautifully executed.

<comment><USER8> You are right. They have me fooled with their 150 offer. I should have googled about it.</comment></comment></comment>


Dan Bricklin (VisiCalc) on developing his iPhone app Note Taker - <AUTHOR> http://danbricklin.com/log/2009_12_05.htm#notetaker

<comment><USER2> Downloaded it- it's actually surprisingly useful.

<comment><USER3> Are you using a 3GS? I find the writing on my 3G to be too laggy for a normal writing speed, so I end up writing at about the same speed as I type in the 'regular' Notes app. I love the attention to detail and thought that has gone into it though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Shame it requires iPhone OS3.1, as I'm unwilling to upgrade due my love of the jailbreak-free tethering possible on 3.0

Can any iPhone developers comment as to what was added in the 3.0 to 3.1 upgrade to make you target the newer OS?

<comment><USER5> The biggest new features in SDK3.1 were related to video, the rest were minor additions. A lot of developers target 3.1 accidently though because it's the default.

Full list of API changes: [http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/releasenotes/Gener...](http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/releasenotes/General/iPhone31APIDiffs/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Awesome idea. It wouldn't surprise me if this interface "influences" some future apps that come along..

That said, it's verrry crashy on my iPhone, and other apps tend to be pretty solid for me. If he irons out the bugs over time, I could see this becoming a must-have for me. Distinct from other 3G commenters here, though, I found it more than fast enough to keep up with my scribbles.

<comment><USER6> FWIW, I found another app called FastFinga. It's not any good for doodling or drawing diagrams, but for the writing part, it trumps this app in usability (and non crashiness).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Putting the author's name in the title of the software reminds me of the eighties... In fact he's had his name registered as a trademark since '89. Smart move probably.</comment>


Leti's Got Game: Do you?  - <AUTHOR> http://theideascout.com/2011/02/04/leti%E2%80%99s-got-game/

<comment><AUTHOR> I am curious to know what the HN community thinks about this start up in Ghana? "Leti Games"</comment>


Artist Recreated His Childhood Doodles as Digital Pics 20 Years Later - <AUTHOR> http://mic.com/articles/93720/an-artist-recreated-his-childhood-doodles-20-years-later

<comment><USER2> This concept is always interesting (albeit not that original any more). I've got to say though, I'm not overly impressed with the quality of this lot —pretty mediocre Photoshop skills on the whole. I still prefer prefer the original Monster Engine: [http://www.themonsterengine.com/artwork](http://www.themonsterengine.com/artwork)</comment>


A Toxic, Closed-Off City on the Edge of the World - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/545228/my-deadly-beautiful-city-norilsk/ <comment><USER2> "Located nearly 250 miles north of the polar circle, Norilsk is home to 177,000 people, many of whom are employed by the world's largest mining and metallurgy complex, Norilsk Nickel."</comment>


How the Wall Street journal stipple drawings are made - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/video/how-wsj-stipple-drawings-are-made/91955BD8-9F31-4E50-AEF1-26A61B3AA2FB.html

<comment><USER2> This is the first time I've watched an online video which started with an advert and decided "You know what, I can't be bothered to watch an advert just for this."

I have a hunch this is going to become more frequent for me. I've reached my tiring point. Taking 15 seconds of my time just so I can decide if I want to skip through the video to find 5 seconds of interesting content is just not acceptable. Video content is not that special. Would you sit through a 15-second flash ad to see an article? Me neither.

<comment><USER3> Incidentally, the way the ads are delivered means AdBlock can block them. I was shocked to discover a few months ago how many ads there are on YouTube. I had been blocking them without knowing. (Something went bad with my filter subscription, and I had ads for a few minutes while I googled the fix.)

Honestly, ads are so invasive and easy to block that I'm surprised they work at all. I can't wait until Microsoft realizes they don't make money from ads and starts shipping an adblocker with Windows :)

<comment><USER4> That would seriously hurt Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I appreciate the fact that the drawings are made by real people. Still, I wonder how much better these actually are compared to a carefully customized set of photoshop filters.

<comment><USER6> There's certainly an air to having your dot sketch in the WSJ from what I hear, though I imagine that's faded after its years of remodeling itself and its time under new ownership. That said, the difficulties with using an algorithmic filter for creating this stipple effect are, based on my past attempts:

(1) robustness to lighting conditions

(2) recognition of continuous shapes, such as hats (captured well in [1])

(3) avoiding stipple effect on facial features (e.g. lips, eyes)

I'm not saying it's impossible, just that I haven't been clever enough to encode it correctly. :)

[1] <http://gazeandstare.com/pic/nolinovak_01.gif>

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Known as 'hedcut': <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedcuts>

Some WSJ artists:

<http://www.nolinovak.com/>

<http://nancyjanuzzi.com/>

</comment><comment><USER8> It seems with some work, you could make a program that imitated this well enough that it would be difficult to tell the difference. The fact that the artist noted that it took a human touch suggests to me that they feel a bit vulnerable.</comment>


Ask HN: What are the most useful Chrome extensions in 2016? - <AUTHOR> In other words, what are your favorite Chrome extensions and why? <comment><USER2> "Empty New Tab Page", pretty self-explanatory: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/empty-new-tab- page...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/empty-new-tab- page/dpjamkmjmigaoobjbekmfgabipmfilij)

"Rapportive" shows LinkedIn profiles when you mouseover an email address in Gmail: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rapportive/hihakjf...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rapportive/hihakjfhbmlmjdnnhegiciffjplmdhin)

</comment><comment><USER3> My current top three would be:

uBlock Origin - Block annoying ads

Link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock- origin/cjpa...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock- origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm)

LastPass - Easily manage passwords

Link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lastpass-free- pass...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lastpass-free-password- ma/hdokiejnpimakedhajhdlcegeplioahd)

The Great Suspender - Save RAM by suspending unused tabs

Link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great- suspende...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great- suspender/klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg)

<comment><USER4> Similar list here, but I'd add Ghostery and Google Hangouts to the list. Along with React and Redux dev tools if you use them.

<comment><USER5> Use PrivacyBadger, not Ghostery. Ghostery let's some stuff through.

<comment><USER4> Will take a look, though some stuff I want through (mainly disqus, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Besides the ones people have already mentioned (uBlock, LastPasst, Great Suspender), I like:

Tabli - Easily find the tab you're looking for (Ctrl - . shortcut is great)

Link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabli/igeehkedfibb...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabli/igeehkedfibbnhbfponhjjplpkeomghi)

Disable HTML5 AutoPlay - Site are getting more aggressive about playing non-ad video automatically, which I rarely want and this disables

Link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/disable- html5-auto...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/disable- html5-autoplay/efdhoaajjjgckpbkoglidkeendpkolai)

Google Translate - For translating web pages Chrome doesn't realise aren't in english

Link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google- translate/a...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google- translate/aapbdbdomjkkjkaonfhkkikfgjllcleb)

Bookmark Manager - A better chrome://bookmarks page

Link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bookmark- manager/g...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bookmark- manager/gmlllbghnfkpflemihljekbapjopfjik)

</comment><comment><USER7> As a developer my favorite are:

Strict Workflow - a simple way to manage your time and increase your productivity. Link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/strict- workflow/cg...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/strict- workflow/cgmnfnmlficgeijcalkgnnkigkefkbhd?hl=en)

Wappalyzer- Identifies software on the web Link:[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wappalyzer/gppongm...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wappalyzer/gppongmhjkpfnbhagpmjfkannfbllamg?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER8> I've found these extensions to be super helpful for me since my Chrome window always ended up with hundred of tabs opened. Now, it's only 10-15 tabs the most.

Clutter Free - to avoid duplicate tabs

Link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clutter-free- preve...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/clutter-free-prevent- dupl/iipjdmnoigaobkamfhnojmglcdbnfaaf)

The Great Suspender - suspend unused tabs

Link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great- suspende...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great- suspender/klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg)

Toby - Replace the default new tab with a much better tab manager

Link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/toby-manage- your-t...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/toby-manage-your- tabs/hddnkoipeenegfoeaoibdmnaalmgkpip)

<comment><USER9> If you have hundreds of tabs open, unused tabs etc, I would suspect that you'd have more to gain by fixing whatever is wrong with your work methodology than by downloading extensions. Food for thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> On my laptop I've found The Great Suspender has helped to limit memory use and increase battery life.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great- suspende...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great- suspender/klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER11> * uBlock Origin - Lightweight adblocker

Link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock- origin/cjpa...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock- origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm)

* Tab Snooze - Removes clutter by hiding a tab for later. We can pick the time & date. Can use this as a reminder.

Link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab- snooze/pdiebia...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tab- snooze/pdiebiamhaleloakpcgmpnenggpjbcbm)

* One Tab - Push all current tabs into one tab. I use this with Tab Snooze, mostly. All tabs related to a project are snoozed till I get to work on them again.

Link: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbo...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbolifaimnlloiipkdnihall)

* Papier/Workflowy New Tab - Have a text document in the new tab page. I usually have to-dos or jot down some quick notes here.

Link1: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/papier/hhjeaokafpl...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/papier/hhjeaokafplhjoogdemakihhdhffacia)

Link2 : [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/workflowy-new- tab/...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/workflowy-new- tab/nfmnfkpjdcgodkcdjhhgfefpjbcnkfhi)

</comment><comment><USER12> SessionBox lets me have multiple accounts open on 1 site: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sessionbox-free- mu...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sessionbox-free-multi- log/megbklhjamjbcafknkgmokldgolkdfig)

Super Auto Refresh lets me set per-URL auto-refresh timers: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/super-auto- refresh...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/super-auto- refresh/kkhjakkgopekjlempoplnjclgedabddk)

iGive Button sends a portion of all my online shopping spending to the charity of my choice: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/igive- button/igcjd...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/igive- button/igcjdamjhkmdccbmbilbpabpofenchge)

Wandertab gives me awesome photos in my 'New Tab': [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wandertab-by- hitli...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wandertab-by- hitlist/fobdcmnamenjmkffajcbljjpgiolooeh?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER13> Papier - markdown notepad as new tab page: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/papier/hhjeaokafpl...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/papier/hhjeaokafplhjoogdemakihhdhffacia?hl=en)

I've been using Papier as a daily todo list and found it's helped me not get distracted by having social media on the new tab page.

<comment><USER14> I like Papier a lot but wish it would synchronize accros chrome instances.

<comment><USER11> If you have a workflowy account, this syncs well and is similar to Papier.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/workflowy-new- tab/...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/workflowy-new- tab/nfmnfkpjdcgodkcdjhhgfefpjbcnkfhi?hl=en)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> G.lux - makes the screen easier on my eyes [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/glux/hinolicfmhnja...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/glux/hinolicfmhnjadpggledmhnffommefaf?hl=en- US)

Deluminate - also makes it easier on my eyes [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/deluminate/iebboop...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/deluminate/iebboopaeangfpceklajfohhbpkkfiaa?hl=en)

Video Speed Controller - saves me time. i speed thru videos on youtube and vimeo [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed- contro...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/video-speed- controller/nffaoalbilbmmfgbnbgppjihopabppdk?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER16> Google dictionary [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google- dictionary-...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-dictionary- by-goog/mgijmajocgfcbeboacabfgobmjgjcoja)

Double click on words and you get the definition, or translation if it's in another language. Works for non-dictionary words as well, normally giving the Wikipedia definition.

</comment><comment><USER17> If you do any kind of outreach/cold emails, you may find Nymeria ([https://www.nymeria.io](https://www.nymeria.io)) as useful as I have. It's really great for finding personal emails as well as business emails.

</comment><comment><USER18> None. I don't trust Chrome extensions anymore. I've been bit more than once by popular extensions being sold and updated to install malware.

</comment><comment><USER19> I developed BriefTube.com - It's an instant video summarizer (better put TLDR; for long videos)

I use it a lot myself, mostly for lectures on youtube and coursera.

</comment><comment><USER20> Vimium and stylish haven't been mentioned yet.

<comment><USER21> I'm a power vim user and tried a vim extension for Firefox. I didn't find that command mode for coding translated very well to browsing the web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "Remove trending Facebook"

</comment><comment><USER23> Tabbie and tab suspender

</comment><comment><USER9> For me:

HTTPS Everywhere: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/https- everywhere/g...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/https- everywhere/gcbommkclmclpchllfjekcdonpmejbdp?hl=en)

uMatrix: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/umatrix/ogfcmafjal...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/umatrix/ogfcmafjalglgifnmanfmnieipoejdcf/reviews?hl=en)</comment>


Ask HN: Best developer oriented landing pages? - <AUTHOR>

Whether it's for a library, SDK, an API or a text editor, which is the page you you like and convey the message of the "product" the best?<p>inspired by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9440208 <comment><USER2> Homebrew is nice and simple [http://brew.sh](http://brew.sh)

Bourbon [http://bourbon.io](http://bourbon.io)

CouchDB [http://couchdb.apache.org](http://couchdb.apache.org)</comment>


Ask HN: Is there any demand on time-series data mining? - chaotic-good

Hi HN!
I'm building time-series database. It seemed that there is some demand for solution that can store metrics and draw graphs (something like graphite or influxdb).
My db is different. I'm trying to create database that can be used to mine time-series data efficiently (at low cost and low effort). It will be able to perform similarity search (given one time-series find the most similar), motif search, clustering and so on. Functionality is very similar to jMotif only implemented as distributed database. No graphing and no interaction with graphite so far! :)
Is there any demand for such thing in software industry? <comment><AUTHOR> Lots. If you could make one, it would sell quite well. This leads to question… why nobody did so earlier?

The problem is, that everyone's problem is different. "Time Series" is a very broad topic; you apply widely different algorithms to time series related to social activities (e.g. energy usage over the year; lots of seasonality, anomalies), financial activities (e.g. stock prices; modeling various market limitations), machine-generated events (e.g. server logs; text parsing, usually simple statistics), scientific experiments (e.g. intensity of an observation in a short time span; very specialized algorithms for basically any experiment). Moreover, even in a single class of data, most actually good ML algorithms require heavy tuning in terms of setting parameters, evaluating performance, etc. There are algorithms that don't have many knobs to tune, but their performance is often subpar too.

In the end, you'd end up with a product that either is so generic that it doesn't do anything well, a product that basically only stores data and does simple statistics (influxdb, druid…), a specialized product for a specific market (there are already lots of them, e.g. for server logs there's Splunk, which is basically `grep` on steroids).

I'm a pessimist here, but only because I'm actually working with time series data in two of those settings (server logs, scientific experiments), and had to evaluate what's on the market (I use a commercial package for the first one, and I ended up writing my own scripting in `R` for the second because, seriously, there's no software package that would be powerful enough to have all the knobs I need, yet be simple enough to use). I'd love to see an actually featureful time series software, but I fear starting from a generic "Time Series" database will bring nothing new to the market.</comment>


What Can America Learn from Europe About Regulating Big Tech? - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/what-can-america-learn-from-europe-about-regulating-big-tech <comment><USER2> Why would we ever want to copy European tech? So that we can become irrelevant outside ourselves too? For all the talk of protecting users most advocacy from the cyber crowd boils down demonizing large companies simply for being large and inventing new forms of damage because consumers don't feel especially harmed by the current environment. The tech scene that is showering users in free and useful products didn't come from Europe or European practices.</comment>


Delegate or die: the self-employed trap - <AUTHOR> http://sivers.org/delegate <comment><USER2> To be honest, though, you already had 98% of the delegation problem solved. The biggest hurdle isn't telling employees "here's what we stand for, I trust you to make decisions according to our philosophy". The biggest hurdle is to _actually find people you can trust with it_. It sounds like you already had a team of competent, skilled people whom you just micromanaged, and then realised they were competent enough to act on their own and let them.

This is trivial compared to actually _finding_ such people (at least for me, I guess).

<comment><USER3> Actually my hiring policy was ridiculous.

Because I was "too busy to bother", I'd just ask my current employees if they had any friends that needed work.

Someone always did, so I'd say, "Tell them to start tomorrow morning. $10/hr. Show them what to do." And that was that.

To be fair, this was a mail-order CD store, so most of my employees were in the warehouse. But I even did this same approach when I needed a CTO. ("Anyone have a friend who's good with Linux? Yeah? Is he cool? OK - tell him to start tomorrow.")

But maybe that they were friends-of-friends helped with the trust part.

<comment><USER4> I wonder why hiring isn't done this way more often? Specifically the "friends- of-employees" approach.

<comment><USER5> It's relatively common for tech companies to try to encourage employees to recommend people, with a ~$500-$2k bonus if you refer a friend who ends up getting hired. Not sure if it's actively taken into account on the hiring- decision side, though, or if it's just seen as a way of getting in more applicants.

<comment><USER6> From my perspective, most referral bonuses aren't big enough to make it worth my while to try to get a friend in the door. When I know that my referral saves them $20k on a headhunter fee, getting < 10% of that rubs me the same way a nickel-an-hour raise would.

<comment><USER7> Then I'm not sure you're the person to be working as a startup employee.

<comment><USER8> Really? I'd expect a startup employee to be more interested in, ah, 'extracting value' than a regular employee. I mean, you've gotta have /some/ reward for all that risk.

(I mean, it's different if it's a company that wouldn't have paid a headhunter anyhow; but I think the grandparent was objecting to the difference between what you are paying the headhunter and what you are paying the employee, more than the absolute amount you are paying.)

<comment><USER7> Extracting (appropriate) value, yes, but how and when becomes the issue. If the company is going through a cashflow issue - far from unheard of in a startup - insisting on extracting the full value of your pound of flesh there and then would be counterproductive. Equally one's startup should be increasing in value by more to than the cost of the hire so again it could very well be in your interest as that sort of employee _not_ to extract the full value if to provide the lead for free could permit a far earlier hiring than would otherwise be the case.

<comment><USER8> eh, if you can afford to pay a headhunter $18K, you can afford to pay your employee little more than a grand. (Most programmers, rightly or wrongly, once they judge a few recruiter-arranged candidates, believe that recruiters bring no value, so the very idea that you are using a recruiter implies waste.)

On the other hand, like I said, if you can't afford to pay the headhunter, then your employee shouldn't whine about not getting a recruiting bonus. I've personally referred many people who got jobs, and I don't think I've ever gotten more than a free beer out of the deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I agree with the importance of delegating, but perhaps the work-at-home, not getting any questions after two months was also related to a major employee problem Derek mentioned somewhere in another post: employees began to feel as if he was too distant, they were doing all the work, etc, etc.

If I recall correctly, there was mutiny brewing among the employees and was the main reason he decided to sell the company.

This doesn't take away from what I think is great advice in this post, but maybe those employee issues were inevitable side effects from the super- delegation approach.

<comment><USER3> Yeah - different lesson, so different story.

I learned, the hard way, that over-delegation can lead to abdication.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Derek, you've been a huge inspiration for me, but I remember hearing you say at a conference that your employees started to hate you a while after working remotely -- to the point that you shutoff the website for a few hours to realize you needed to sell the company.

Do you have any thoughts on what can be done to keep rappore up amongst employees in the office while still working remotely?

NOTE: sorry I don't remember where you said it, might've been towards the end of your lessconf presentation [http://b.lesseverything.com/2010/2/3/derek- sivers-speaks-at-...](http://b.lesseverything.com/2010/2/3/derek-sivers- speaks-at-lessconf2009)

<comment><USER11> I'm not Derek, but as a remote-working team member for a business that has many other remote-working team members, this is a similar problem I've been trying to solve by encouraging use of a private twitter-like network through Status.net (free) or Yammer (paid).

It provides that ambient awareness of what coworkers are up to / thinking about, gives you an easy way of soliciting helpful but non-essential feedback without adding to email overload, and allows for realtime information sharing. It's potentially a good substitute for in-office community when that's not an option.

<comment><USER10> Good to know. I know some other companies (e.g. Facebook) use IRC as another way to keep folks communicating.

I've been in a position where I've practically been a one-man software team for half a decade, but my boss has basically told me I can't work remotely even though a couple other senior folks do. I've tried helping ease the fear of me not being there by creating canned responses for other coworkers to follow, and getting a support system in place. New plan now though is to bleed a little, find a new job, and opt to not work remotely ONLY if I'm going to gain a good mentoring/apprenticeship experience from the people I work with.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I learned about this at one of my old corporate employers. One of our local contractors was ostensibly doing very well, and I presume he was making a lot of money, but when he wanted to go on vacation, he couldn't leave for over eight months because of his obligations that he had to personally fulfill for clients. Seeing this and thinking about the futility of being self-employed in the name of freedom but running your business such that you are more trapped than a normal "working-for-the-man job" in almost every sense, I decided I would always delegate aggressively when I had the opportunity to do so in my own businesses.

What's the point in having millions of dollars if you have never the time to enjoy any of it? Also, a company that is overly dependent on one individual is unable to ever exceed the capacity of that individual; he becomes a bottleneck that slows (usually to a complete stop) the growth of the whole company. In a few years when he finally cracks, the whole thing goes down with him.

I'm glad Derek found this out before it all collapsed; many business owners don't.

</comment><comment><USER13> What did you do to keep the manual clear and organized enough to be useful? Many companies I've worked with have an internal wiki for information like this, but things seem to go south pretty quickly and it becomes hard to distinguish stale content from relevant content.

<comment><USER3> Actually, the new people learning it would clean it up.

If they found anything hard to understand, we'd apologize and ask them to make it easier to understand for the next person.

Since they had just felt the pain of it being unclear, they were in the best position to fix it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Sivers,

I'm in the process of doing this exact thing myself. I'm creating on average 5 training videos a day since my business is pretty much all web and information based.

I've already started being a lot more productive. One thing that I hadn't thought of was having them create the training themselves.

The first draft of these videos are fairly crude as it's mostly a brain dump and I'm figuring out the best way to explain what is in my head. This means sometimes I spend 15-20 mins to create a 5 minute video or 2 hrs to create a 22 min one (example from yesterday) when you take into account retakes and editing.

I could just create a crude one and just have them create the clean version after they learn it. It would save me at least an hour a day. Not too shabby. Thanks for that.

Mel

<comment><USER15> Do you script your dialog or roll free?

<comment><USER14> First draft is always free roll. For 2nd (and usually final draft), I create an outline which I use as a visual inside the video itself. This part is just inside Textmate with the font size increased to like 20px or something gigantic. The narration is always on the roll but I usually remember the phrasing from the first draft and only tweak what needs changing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not a lot of love on HN for Tim Ferriss, but his first book "The 4 Hour Work Week" is a great discussion of the self-employed trap.

</comment><comment><USER17> It seems like the author built a good system for operations that required little of his time, so he could focus on innovation. It's interesting that in order to delegate operations, he had to build a system (or manual in this case) to train people and keep standards consistent.

Derek - I'm curious how you handled innovation. Was it by yourself? Or did you have a team for that?

<comment><USER3> The innovation was really just me.

It was usually just looking at places where our operations were very un- optimized or ineffective, and figuring out a way to do it better.

That better way usually meant me programming some new aspect to the site, or our in-house intranet systems that ran everything. But sometimes it led to a whole new public-facing feature.

Examples:

<http://cdbaby.org/stories/04/02/14/3035318.html>

<http://cdbaby.org/stories/04/12/31/3116514.html>

<http://cdbaby.org/stories/06/07/31/4461455.html>

<comment><USER17> In retrospect do you think you could have innovated better with a team? Or would it have just distracted you?

<comment><USER3> I'm a natural introvert. I prefer to work alone.

It seems the 1% inspiration --> 99% perspiration ratio is kept, this way.

But really it's just that I like being alone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I really like the advice about asking your employees to keep a manual where answers are kept. Way better than trying to start with some sort of comprehensive statement of principles.

</comment><comment><USER19> This level of communication is hugely important not just to employers but employees as well.

I want to know that my boss trusts me enough to let me make these sorts of decisions.

Bad managers will not bother to rise to this level of communication - or in some cases will purposefully withhold it in order to maintain their dominance.

</comment><comment><USER20> Great advise. And I too recommend The E-Myth Revisted by Michael Gerber; it's definitely a great book and can really help to establish in one's mind the right way to go about working _on_ your business and not _in_ it, a key distinction.

</comment><comment><USER21> One important thing in delegation, I find is to not fix things yourselves, even when they would be easy to fix for you. Explain the theory behind it and let them fix it themselves, next time they do it better.

Also, if you over-delegate, make sure you have properly consolidated power at the top. When your employees get too independent, they start to get ideas about creating their own company or they start refusing to take instructions.

</comment><comment><USER22> Love this idea. I build my entire business around it: <http://www.fancyhands.com>

</comment><comment><USER23> My experience is that this applies to "normal" management as well, not only self-employed. A manager of a team above some size can't possible know and control everything. Either he finds a way to delegate, or his team will be disfunctional.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is a technical problem. In companies the same questions get answered forty times. I finally gave up and spent a weekend writing an app that fixed the problem for me.

</comment><comment><USER25> Hire smart people and let them do their job. If you can, after a few weeks break in period turn them loose and step back unless a serious problem arises.

Micromanagement = Macrofuckups

</comment><comment><USER26> How does the "micropreneur" achieve this?

Is it the cheap personal assistant?

Most things seem too technical for that, and I wouldn't want to be obliged with hiring one for so many hours each week.

</comment><comment><USER27> Dereks post are invariably excellent..

Im sure Im not the only person expecting him to publish a physical book with all these articles in one place.

Title?

</comment><comment><USER28> I read somewhere "If you are the candidate of work it is difficult to delegate".

</comment><comment><USER29> This seems a better explanation of "process" than attempted here <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2131105>

</comment><comment><USER30> No need to read the article. The title is all you need to know!

</comment><comment><USER31> hmm, this smells kind of familiar. Some of it is almost a direct quote from page 110 of "4-hour workweek". Good advice for sure, but I question the originality.</comment>


Ask HN: How to surrender shares? - <AUTHOR> Hi guys, looking for some alternate viewpoints on this. Throwaway account, obv. Left the company with many shares vested, remaining partners sold off a subsidiary for cash... which went to the top of the debt stack... surprise! I'm nowhere near the top. So the parent company reports a bunch of profit this year, and I'm stuck with a hefty tax liability. Thing is, I don't want it - I've mentally written off the value of my equity/debt held in the company. What's the typical process for surrendering my equity/writing off the debt? Any chance I'll be able to get this closed out by end of year to avoid a huge tax liability for '15? <comment><USER2> Talk to an accountant. You might be able to donate it to a charity to get it out of your life.</comment>


Seven alien, Earth-sized planets found just 39 light years from Earth - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/these-seven-alien-worlds-could-help-explain-how-planets-form-1.21512#tpw <comment><USER2> tl;dr - This article is from Feb 2017 and is about TRAPPIST-1

</comment><comment><USER3> No reason to put "alien" in the headline expect to make it more click-baity.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Alien" actually doesn't refer to little green/gray humanoids from the movies...by the very definition the plants are "alien," since they differ from Earth and are unknown (or foreign) to us.</comment></comment>