The Art of Not Thinking - <AUTHOR> http://tiffanymatthe.com/not-thinking <comment><USER3> If you are in a similar boat, it's likely that when you consider an upcoming dreaded task, there is at least a small part of you that admits the possibility that you _will not do the task_. And because there is, and because your brain realizes it, it expends mental energy trying to convince you not to do it. Once you are actually doing the task, or it's done, or you realize that you must start doing it immediately, you suddenly find that while plenty of physical energy may be required, there is almost no mental energy required at all _.

A trick I've learned is to lie to yourself. Say you're excited to do it, that you can't wait, and that you enjoy it. Your brain is easily convinced if you're willing to let it be.

_ Sometimes this is not the case, because your brain entertains the idea that it can stop doing the activity it doesn't want to do. Once you are able to convince your brain that is not an option, this mental energy is returned to you as well. i.e. Pain is mandatory, but suffering is optional.

<comment><USER4> I think this is all abysmal, dangerous advice. The author says to 'become a robot' and you're saying to 'lie to yourself'. It's all very anti-Zen. I think Alan Watts would say it leads to double-binds and discordant psychological feedback loops that will cause you suffering.

Your brain isn't a separate part of you. And you should simply be mindful and fully aware of life, do what you want and enjoy doing, when you feel like doing it.

No wonder there is such an issue with anxiety and depression when culture seems intent on mind-games that trick people into spending life doing things that they don't really want to do.

<comment><USER5> My problem with this is the fact that, as it turns out, what I enjoy doing is browsing Reddit/Youtube/Netflix etc. to the exclusion of everything else.

The internet has provided me with sufficient distractions-and they are immediately enjoyable enough-that longterm enjoyment/skill-building just doesn't provide me the sense of 'I want to do this' that other shortterm, immediately rewarding activities do.

<comment><USER6> you know, i'm sort of in the same boat except i realize its more of an addiction than an actual joy that leaves me fulfilled. i hate scrolling through reddit mindlessly and yet i always get pulled back into it. and i bounce between here and reddit for like 20 minutes until i snap out of it. short term im feeling satisfied, but deep within i feel like shit.

the best feeling i get is when i pick up a book or watch a documentary or go and enjoy the weather outside. it truly boosts my mood and makes me feel like a human

<comment><USER7> I found it interesting that you are saying that HN and reddit are comparable things. I recently turned off both my FB and Twitter account (never been a user of reddit or I would have done the same thing to it), but still enjoy the time here and probably will keep browsing interesting news/opinions here.

English is not native to me. Even though I can read and write English article, the speed is just slow. To me, the short-term entertaining part of HN almost doesn't exist. I always have to be dedicated to some interesting but hard article to understand it in some degree.

<comment><USER6> i only compare the two because sitting around for hours on HN is still (in my eyes) mostly a time waster. the articles are still hit or miss, but youre definitely right, its not as mindless as reddit

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Similarly I tried to get myself to exercise for years and years.

I must have discovered the same approach as this author.

I stopped any kind of thinking about it and focused on _observing_ myself drive to the gym, get in the pool, do the strokes, etc.

If my verbal ("thinking") centers of my brain needed to say something I would only let them describe what I was doing ("You are driving to the gym", "you are putting your swimsuit on", etc.)

Never did I let any other "thinking" or "reasoning" enter the picture. It was all observation. I was able to keep an exercise routine for years this way.

\---

I think her post fails in the last section "Do the easiest part first". This is too much thinking, reasoning and I think will backfire. She should delete this section. I think this idea is hard for people to understand. You want ZERO REASONING to come into the picture when the time comes, not even a shred. Only pure observation of you doing the task.

<comment><USER9> I've also recently started trying to do this: to try to have my conscious mind be in charge of observing/understanding only. It works, but it kind of scares me.

It scares me because it feels similar to the mindset I have when watching a movie. What if I become more interested in the plot than the well-being of the main character?

<comment><USER8> Your engagement of the plot _in any manipulable way_ can only come if you are not simply observing. So if you find this happening, you're doing it wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anything you do consistently for a long time will have to become part of "who you are" not just "what you do". If you can't find a way to make it mesh together with your self conceptualization it won't last.

You have to come up with a background, a connection to your past and your being, a story that makes sense why this is who you are.

How this looks can be entirely personal. It may be a rugged individualistic stubbornness story to learn to face adversity, a story of family, about health and treating your body as a temple, or whatever else.

If you have a stronger competing story for your identity (eg my kind of person doest jog, that's some silly Instagrammer avocado soyboy thing, my kind of person drinks beer and watches TV) then you'll not keep doing it even if you successfully force it for some days or weeks.

Stories carry and propel us through life to a large extent.

</comment><comment><USER11> Thanks for sharing that Tiffany.

This has been the way I've worked for decades.

I've found that stuff _gets done_ , once it becomes habit. It doesn't always become _enjoyable_ , or even effortless, but it does _get done_.

There's a saying: _" Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways: I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out. I will do at least two things I don't want to do, as William James suggests, just for exercise."_

I usually have the second part down by 7AM. The first is not always guaranteed, each day, but I pull it off, every now and then.

Getting Things Done has been my pattern since I was eighteen years old.

This being HN, I have also learned to "think less" while coding. I've established coding habits; often with the help of LINTers[0], and now produce a _lot_ of good code, at a blistering pace. My designs are almost fluid; often reconfiguring in the middle of implementation, as I take a "JIT" approach to design[1]. That's not something that can be taught. It only comes with a great deal of experience.

In my experience, the less thought I have to give stuff, the better.

[0] [https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/swiftwater/swiftlint...](https://littlegreenviper.com/miscellany/swiftwater/swiftlint/)

[1] [https://medium.com/chrismarshallny/evolutionary-design- speci...](https://medium.com/chrismarshallny/evolutionary-design- specification-a2a459f63020)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice to see it works for others as well. And thanks for sharing how you code while thinking less, it's interesting to see how this can be applied to different areas in life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> For the main example given (exercise), I think for people like me there really is no thinking involved. It's purely an emotional aversion to discomfort and disenjoyment of physical activity. I think the better advice is to search for physical hobbies you enjoy rather than to 'just do it' (tm).

<comment><USER13> Problem with this theory is that you may not always find hobbies that are equivalent to good workout. I.e. walking will not get your heart rate up.

<comment><USER12> Running is bad for the knees and isn't really a great substitute either for most people. It depends on the person. The point I was making is that not thinking and blindly doing exercises you don't like is not the best argument to make the case in the article.

<comment><USER14> Running badly is bad for the knees*.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >After years of feeling guilty about not wanting to do everything...

Has the author asked themselves why they feel guilt about not wanting to do "everything"?

Is it possible that the form of discipline being promoted here under the tag "Productivity" is entirely unnecessary for a satisfying human existence, and that it is primarily caused by cultural forces?

Is it possible that such a focus on this relentless productivity, caused by our society, is related to the feeling of guilt that comes with perceiving oneself as 'undisciplined'?

Anyone who is commenting on how this opposes the nature of zen or other mindfulness lineages is on the right track and anyone who is still justifying cramming as much activity into every moment of their lives in the name of productivity is doomed to repeatedly feel the guilt and shame that comes along with not living up to these cultural standards.

<comment><USER16> I agree with this, and know people who have an unhealthy ambition for "doing productive things" with no time set aside for compensatory energy recovery through relaxation. I see these people fall into de-facto relaxation through exhaustion. They end up relaxing, but will feel guilt during it. This kind of audience would not benefit from productivity advice, as they are already operating on an extreme level.

On the other end of the scale are people like myself, who have a real problem motivating themselves to do tasks which really do objectively need to get done (e.g. mowing the lawn, cleaning the bathroom). Why do they need to get done? Because if they don't they would have a net negative effect on your quality of life / even basic hygiene. It's people closer on this end of the spectrum that I think benefit from advice like this.

Certainly there is no absolute law that says you "have to" do anything. That's freedom of choice which we all ultimately have. In practical terms though, unless you are willing to accept an extremely low standard of living, certain basics do need to get done. People with depression will probably be able to understand where I'm coming from with this :)

<comment><USER15> I agree and have been there in terms of looming depression preventing you from getting the basic human activities done, but I can't separate that depression from the spirit of my comment either. It was largely related to feeling trapped by our western work culture.

In terms of the basic activities of living, it can still help to address the aversion to the task head on by realizing the actual nature of the task.

The task isn't what it appears, but is in fact just a concept we impute to aggregate phenomena.

Is washing dishes standing at the sink? No. Is washing dishes the running water? No. Is washing dishes holding a single plate and sponge? No. Is washing dishes dispensing soap onto the sponge? No.

Washing dishes is the combination of several interdependent causes.

Tasks that we're averse to are simply aggregations of various other imputed concepts, and so the unified activity that triggers our sense of aversion isn't actually based on anything substantial.

Speaking personally, aversion arises for me a lot of the time as a sense of lost time to one activity or another, but the concept of 'just being' suggests that whatever activity you do is perfectly fine on a fundamental level.

No time is wasted because every activity you do is 'of one taste' essentially - it's all the same in terms of being aggregate phenomena wrapped up into a unified concept by humans that triggers aversion based on our individual conditioning.

So realizing that the aversion isn't real and substantial, reflect on the positive nature of completing the task and the positive effects it will have. Instead of repressing your negative thoughts (forcefully not thinking), see them as insubstantial.

Thanks for your reply :)

<comment><USER17> Who _are_ you?

Now, don't take this personally; there's just not many people that I know that could out-smart plain old dishwashing on such a fundamental philosophical level. I'd love to know what's your background and how you learned think in this way — and I'm asking mostly because I could use some of this way of thinking in my life as well.

I am what most people would call a "productive person" — I'm at one of the best universities in my country, have top grades, have a part-time position in a pretty good research facility, and I'm also slowly chipping away at my startup idea.

Sometimes I'm all happy about this, but other times I see that there's not much time for being "myself" between all these activities. Now, please, bear with me — it's hard to put it in words.

Often I ask myself whether I actually care about these activities, or whether I do them just because it is easier to fill my free time with all sorts of different things and delegate the question of "what should I do next" to external factors. The fact that I don't really care for good grades but at the same time act as if I did care, for example, made me wonder whether the values I have been raised with are really _my_ values, or whether I follow and fulfil them just due to some kind inertia mixed with inability to find my own values. And I'm sure that not only my cowardice and the imprinted values are at fault — the western culture is surely doing its part as well.

But don't get me wrong — I enjoy being the best, I enjoy programming (@ the startup) and the hard work (@ the facility). I just don't know whether it's me enjoying the stuff or some frankenstein of my parents' values and general cultural views occupying the space inside my head... I'm not exactly unhappy, I'm just not sure whether I'm taking the right path here, that is to say "my path" [1]. I think that learning how to think about things on a fundamental level, as you did, could help me in my case as well.

[1] A little side note: From the practical point of view, being raised to be "the best" has its warts — e.g. when your entire self-worth depends on external measures of "bestness" and crowds of people that praise you for your brilliance. So, even though I'm not unhappy, I foresee that I certainly will be at some point in the future if I don't rethink my values and a big chunk of my life — so I might as well start right now.

[2]: In case this is too OT for HN, I'd be happy to chat at wybitul [at-sign] evzen [dot-sign] dev.

<comment><USER15> Hello Eugeleo,

I'm no one special, just a person who has finally made some progress on these very issues.

I've struggled for quite a while with the same fundamental questions about self as you seem to be struggling with now.

>I'm at one of the best universities in my country, have top grades, have a part-time position in a pretty good research facility, and I'm also slowly chipping away at my startup idea.

All of this takes hard work, these are certainly accomplishments that bring temporary satisfaction and happiness.

>Sometimes I'm all happy about this, but other times I see that there's not much time for being "myself" between all these activities.

This is a very subtle form of suffering. Things are going well, there isn't necessarily something obviously wrong, but still you can't shake the feeling and it has the potential to cause (a lot of) anxiety.

>I'm asking myself whether I actually care about these activities

There's no need to find yourself at one extreme or the other (caring or not caring). You do care about these things, but perhaps you overestimate their ability to provide you with lasting happiness and satisfaction. As you say, it's a never ending search for the next source of momentary satisfaction: "what's next for me?".

>Often I ask myself whether the values I have been raised with are really _my_ values, or whether I follow and fulfill them just due to some kind inertia mixed with inability to find my own values.

Inevitably, it's both. All of us are a result of an unbroken chain of cause and effect which started long before we were ever born. Part of your value system comes from your parents, part of theirs came from their parents, and so on. On top this, your personal experience and conditioning is overlaid. Recognizing this fact is important if you would like to break out of this cycle of questioning.

>To be frank, I'm not sure what to do about this. I'm not exactly unhappy, I'm just not sure whether I'm taking the right path here.

Yeah, I get you.

\--

To answer your technical question, I stumbled into the Tibetan school of Buddhism known as Dzogchen several months ago, this has exposed me to the wider landscape of the Madhyamaka (or middle way) view in Buddhism. I hesitate to scare you off thinking I'm trying to convert you to a religious practice, but as I've discovered myself, this is a highly logical and first-person oriented form of scientific philosophy that had been developing in India for at least 2500 years before Hinduism took over. Buddhism continued to develop in Tibet and has been well preserved by the Tibetans. In fact, quantum physics and modern science and the Madhyamaka view are in stunning alignment when it comes several factors, including the reality that things do not exist exactly as they appear to us.

There are two techniques (neither involving faith) to decomposing phenomena as I displayed with washing dishes.

The first is known as Shamatha, which means quiescence, calm abiding mind, singled pointed concentration, or even meditative equipoise. Shamatha is the act of meditating single-pointedly on some object with unwavering focus. This leads to mental stability overtime because through the process of cultivating Shamatha you develop right-thinking about discursive, roving thoughts, and eventually the waves settle (so to speak) and you're left with a very calm mental disposition (which can easily bring you joy). You may know of similar westernized meditation techniques in the mindfulness genre, they were almost certainly developed based on Shamatha, where one of the most popular objects of meditation is the breath or "mindfulness of breathing".

The second is known as Vipassana, which means wisdom, true seeing, or true insight. Vipassana is a form of analytical meditation in which an object of meditation is decomposed and deconstructed over and over again, forcefully illustrating the true nature of the object (which is always empty of inherent existence). Emptiness does not mean that the conventional world we live in does not exist, but rather that nothing in the conventional world exists in its own right as an independent object (as we humans tend to take for granted), but that everything manifests from one or more interdependent causes. This is known as dependent origination. Lucky us in the modern world, we already know that every thing we see is actually composed of sub-atomic particles which are constantly in a state of flux. This was actually something that took people a LONG time to fundamentally accept in the ancient east.

A common example in the literature is a chariot.

What is the chariot? Is there anything substantial to this notion of a chariot?

Is the chariot the wheels? Is it the axle? Is it the bars that connect to the horse? Is it the seat for the rider? Is it the wood?

Of course, the answer is no, that none of the parts are the chariot, and that even the parts themselves are empty because they can be decomposed all the way down to the sub-atomic level.

Therefore, the chariot is simply an imputed concept over an aggregate and has no inherent existence, even though it appears to simply exist when we look at it.

Okay, now ask yourself how do phenomena that are essentially empty trigger afflictive thoughts and emotions (which are also empty)? Then ask yourself, if thoughts and emotions are fundamentally empty, how can they cause me to suffer?

The answer comes from not seeing reality as it really is and is at the core of my example about the dish washing, which is a display of Vipassana.

There are countless entrypoints to this philosophy, some lean more on the classical Buddhist side and some lean more towards a purely secular approach, although like I've said, if you think that Buddhism is based on faith, then you're 100% misconceiving its nature. Therefore I don't view it even in the slightest as a faith based religion. The Buddha Shakyamuni himself urges you not to trust his words any more than you'd trust gold you buy at market, which is to say you must test and experience these truths yourself for there to be any lasting benefit.

I'll point you to two books by the same westerner. This was not my entrypoint, but it may serve you well and he's been immersed in Tibetan studies for most of his life so he is legit I promise. It's called Minding Closely by B. Alan Wallace (a great person indeed)[1].

If you'd like to continue this discussion or have any questions, simply reply again and we can link up over email or something. I hope this brief introduction helps you if even in the smallest way.

[1] - [https://www.shambhala.com/minding- closely-2302.html](https://www.shambhala.com/minding-closely-2302.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> A more specific tactic I have discovered to avoid thinking and start straight away is to make a very quick promise to myself:

That I can quit as soon as I get too bored or hit a block of some kind - <USER2> relieves me of all the concerns that I might need to worry (think) about upfront, I waved those requirements when I allowed myself that quick exit.

Most of the time you just end up persevering, and due to the nature of these unimportant tasks - not planning just doesn't make any meaningful difference.

<comment><USER16> I really like this one. It's similar to another one I've used: Just commit to doing the task for an extremely small amount of time (e.g. five minutes or even one minute). That dramatically reduces the perception of pain in your brain associated with the task, since you're containerising it down to a level where it cannot possibly _not_ be achieved.

For particularly anxiety-inducing tasks I have been known to use a 30 second time box ;) Safe to say, this always tends to build the requisite momentum to follow through with a much greater bracket of time, even if it's not a conscious decision to do so (this is probably the key point - the mental shortcut).

Another tactic which can be useful when the procrastination is driven by perfectionism: embracing the notion of "wrong action". Simply by initiating some kind of action in the interests of the task at hand, and it doesn't matter how "wrong" you think that action might be. Obviously, since you have a base level of expertise, even your so-called "wrong" action will in fact be a useful step towards the goal. This is a bit like the "beginners mindset": stripping preconceptions that are obstructing any kind of progress.

</comment></comment><comment> d--b Something also that I noted is that it is somewhat easier to do the task you don't want to do when you're tired / sleep deprived - mostly because effectively, my brain is too tired to argue against doing the thing.

<comment><USER19> This actually worked really well for me after a hell week and a presentation at the end. Often I get self conscious and freeze up at some point, but I was so wiped I just powered right through without a hitch. It was kinda weird.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Another great trick is when you don't have the energy to do something, do miscellaneous things only to get ready to do the thing at another time. Once you have the idea that you're explicitly not doing something the prep part is incremental, trivial/negligible units of effort. Often I find once all the prep is done, I'm actually psyched to start and will start on the spot or at the very next opportunity.

<comment> swagasaurus-rex Mise en place - "Everything in its place," a french phrase for food preparation where you ensure everything is ready before even starting the act of cooking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Once you've got a task to do, it's better to do it than live with the fear of it." \-- Logen Ninefingers

[https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/logen- ninefingers#:~:te...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/logen- ninefingers#:~:text=%E2%80%9COnce%20you've%20got%20a,with%20the%20fear%20of%20it.%E2%80%9D)

<comment><USER22> But also "You have to realistic about these things".

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Don't you think there's too much thinking involved in an article about not thinking?

I just watched Joe Rogan's interview of David Goggins[1], and he lives the essence of what this article is trying to express. I think his perspective is far more succinct and sharper, its sort of an anti-motivation motivation. Its definitely worth a watch if anyone is interested.

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tSTk1083VY&t=4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tSTk1083VY&t=4s)

</comment><comment><USER24> My trick I perfected in college is to set my alarm for a couple hours earlier than I would normally wake up and start doing the task right when I wake. My mind isn't awake enough to come up with any resistance so I start the day with momentum. This worked for studying or projects. It continues on in the work world where if I have tasks I'm low-key avoiding, I'll set it for first thing in the morning. The more I'm avoiding it, the earlier I have to start in the morning to make sure I tackle it.

</comment><comment><USER25> Fear also works. That's why cramming for exams is so easy. Not the act, but getting yourself to do it.

You can also barter with yourself. Have a list of harmless splurges to reward yourself with. Kyoto cold brew, a Sapporo black beer, or a few hours of gaming are on my list.

I recon the most professional approach is to clear your schedule, remove all distractions, and simply give yourself enough time or even unlimited time to do it. I often find they get done faster than expected, since most of these tasks aren't particularly difficult. Like taxes. The problem isn't that they're hard or challenging. They disgust me :/

</comment><comment><USER26> I've found planning ahead to work, to great success. Almost ridiculously so. It's come to the point where I don't really need my usual distraction blockers.

I've found: 1\. I can fit a lot of things into my day, than I assumed. 2\. I often overestimate how long things take, on top of that.

Point 2 is particularly interesting, since I know if I just bang out my tasks, I'll keep find "free time" that I over-planned for. By the end of the day, I get a couple free hours to do whatever I want, and it's lovely.

<comment><USER27> Would you mind going into a bit more detail about the systems that work for you? Is it just like a checklist at the beginning of each day or?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's very difficult for me to do anything like this because I end up forgetting things so much - good old ADHD, not something funny pills alone can solve. Creating a routine and sticking to it works best for me, but I've never been unable to stick with it through more turbulent times. Everything is fine until something, say, an unexpected family visit or a worldwide pandemic, disrupts my everyday life and routine and then I just fall back to my old ways.

<comment><USER29> I feel you. Two things I've picked up that may be helpful:

First, as a sibling comment said, having a notebook always on hand is a huge help to me (I like Field Notes as they fit in my pockets and hold up to abuse well). Writing things down with a pen avoids all of the possible distractions of picking up your phone, and frees you from any structure imposed by task apps.

I write stuff down constantly--sometimes I write down tasks, random ideas, or just doodle. Later (ideally in the evening or first thing in the morning) I read my ramblings and organize the ones worth remembering into a more permanent place. Tasks go into a digital todo app, notes and ideas into OneNote, etc.

While this scribbling thoughts and organizing them later is barely a routine, its proved to be enough to get me through crazy times and back into a "real" routine.

The second thing: don't worry about your routine collapsing. It happens, it's natural. Accept it, write down the crazy business in your head, and slowly start building a new routine.

<comment><USER30> > and slowly start building a new routine.

Something that helped me was instead of building a new routine, I went back to the old one but in stages. There are things I don't absolutely have to do, so they get tacked on the end and are optional so I can just skip them without much disruption in turbulence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> AN Whitehead, on separating data and control planes:

"Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments."

To understand this, one must realise that a horse can only go full out (<20 HP) for a minute or two, and even at 80% will be exhausted in under 15 minutes. Infantry may, and does, grind, but cavalry relies on timing[1]. (Why use cavalry then? Because, properly deployed, they turned minor routs into decisive victories. Consider Guagamela.)

[1] There is a nice anecdote about von Seydlitz and Frederick the Great. Von Seydlitz is waiting with his cavalry squadrons for opportunity to ripen. Frederick sends a messenger to him to attack. Von Seydlitz responds, "later." A new messenger comes, "you are ordered to attack." Von Seydlitz responds, "in due course." Finally a messenger arrives, "the king says if you do not attack instantly you will be beheaded." Von Seydlitz responds, "please inform his Excellency that my head will be at his disposal _after_ the battle, but _during_ the battle I still need to use it in his service."

</comment><comment><USER32> My trick is to tell my brain to do whatever is comfortable so for e.g. don't tell it you want to run 5km say you will run 100m or whatever is comfortable. Once you put on your shoes and go on track half the battle is already won and may be you won't run 5km but you may run say 3km slowly as you keep on doing it you will find achieving your goal.

</comment><comment><USER33> For things like textbooks, I'll start easily but then, when I reach a new point or new chapter, I will rationalized my self to stop it there and call it a done work, when in reality I worked only 30 minutes instead of and hour.

it's like my mind is rationalizing itself to settle for a sub goal.

<comment><USER34> That's where the Pomodoro technique might be useful. If one adheres to it, it does what the article describes as "making the decision in advance." After you take a break after the stopping point, the technique makes you continue on. But of course, that means you have to embrace the plan and not resist against it, either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I think the art is in actually finding yin/yang.

At the end you oscillate in-between.

I don't think you can really get away from it.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true nothing ever follows a straight line from where you start to where you want to end up. You can't get away from the oscillating, but I do believe you can minimize it through practice and techniques.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> This reminds me of when I did my master's thesis. At a certain point I had the distinct experience of being forced to turn off part of my brain to get through it. I described it as "mashing the keyboard while screaming through the feelings."

</comment><comment><USER37> I'm now chanting "I am not thinking" as I finally clean my home office xD

<comment><USER38> I regularly end up pushing through drudgery by repeating "Don't think just do. Don't think just do..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> For me, motivation is like a car engine. Once the crankshaft is turning, the pistons are moving, and the fuel is igniting, motivation is self-sustaining and can keep me going on a particular task. But it has to be started. Something external has to turn the engine over a few times until the self- sustaining process kicks in. Usually, this takes the form of forcing myself to work a tiny bit on the task. Once I get that tiny bit done, I'm in a headspace to where getting a bit more done is much easier, and I can keep going like that.

</comment><comment><USER40> When I was younger, I could work out just fine, off nothing more than pure motivation and drive. I did that for a solid 5 years - lost 70 lbs, gained weight and muscle, and transformed my body. Good times.

But then around my mid 20s, working out just got boring. My body started deteriorating, which made working out even harder.

Sad to say, these days I can't even do a light jog without something to distract me from the jogging itself. Either music in my ears, or some TV- screen on the treadmill.

But once I can focus on something else, I can work out just fine.

</comment><comment><USER41> My trick is to delay the task to a specific day and/or time. I use a reminders app to create a schedule of sorts, and I've trained myself to do the task right when the reminder pops up.

The presumption here is that I've already thought about how long the task will take and what I'll need to complete it, plus I'm aware of what else is going on and taken that into account, so I have no real excuse for not doing the task right when the reminder pops up.

It's a bit of moderated procrastination, but it works for me.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good technique for removing all possible excuses. It might take some effort in the beginning to actually follow the reminders, but as you said, after some training it becomes easier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> This rather reminds me (very inexactly) of Behavioural Activation Therapy [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_activation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_activation)] although in that case the task intended isn't necessarily inherently disagreeable, simply overwhelming to a person with depression.

</comment><comment><USER43> My advice- do the thing you dont want to do as the first thing in the morning. You will end up having a great day

<comment><USER44> Eating the frog is what it's called.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I usually attach something fun to the tedious tasks: if I am to walk our dog in the rain, I am going to listen to armchair expert: I never listen to it in the regular day - so that acts like a treat. For biking - it is my fascination with being outside and so on. Eventually it becomes into a habit too!

</comment><comment><USER46> Been doing this for a few years without assigning a name to it. It works wonders for someone who is a chronic procrastinator like myself. I'd also like to add: If you can set a schedule to "just to it" for a reoccurring task, that helps immensely in reducing brain strain.

</comment><comment><USER47> One dumb trick I've had success with when it comes to exercise is to just put on my gym clothes.

It may be several hours before I actually go on that run, but now the task of running needs to be executed before the clothes can be taken off.

<comment><USER48> I do this as well - if doing a task seems too overwhelming I'll say to myself "well I'll just do this small subtask instead".

It starts small.

"I'll just stick on my shoes" "I'll just walk to the gate" "I'll just run to that post" ...

Before you know it you've completed the thing you didn't feel like doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> For certain tasks, of course, you can also make them enjoyable, or have a built-in (immediate) reward: you have a podcast or audiobook you want to listen to, but you only do it while exercising/cleaning/whatever.

</comment><comment><USER49> Don't make decisions just anytime/anyday/anywhere. Make decisions when you are thinking clearly and rationally. And follow through.

</comment><comment><USER50> > Do the easiest part first

Yes.

Once you've started it will be easier to keep going. Also, it's harder to not to finish something the more time you've spent on it.

</comment><comment><USER51> Just stick to something for a few months without exceptions and it'll become who you are.

</comment><comment><USER52> waking up at 4am to get that sunrise photo.

</comment><comment><USER53> TL;DR - Don't think about it, Just Do It. Nike had it figured out all along.

</comment><comment><USER54> TL;DR: Discipline beats motivation

<comment><USER55> I'd say habits beat motivation

<comment><USER56> What's the difference between 'habits' and 'discipline'?

<comment><USER57> discipline is like keeping promises you make to yourself and habits are just things you do cyclically and sometimes even without thinking but which you had to learn to do at some point (washing hands after using the toilet, brushing your teeth, etc..)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does anyone regularly spend a lot of their day in VR? What do you do? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I had dk2. The best thing I found was watching 360 videos on youtube.

but I can only wear it for 20 minutes at most. otherwise I will feel sick.</comment>


Strong and Light-Weight Metal Using Ceramic Nanoparticles - <AUTHOR> http://wtexas.com/content/5256-strong-and-light-weight-metal-developed-ucla-research-team-using-ceramic-nanoparticles <comment><AUTHOR> Seems like a pretty decent technical summary, but I'm not qualified to really evaluate the specific merits of their new nano-mag.

I think the big advancement is in the technique used to evenly distribute the nanoparticles? It sounds substantial especially if the technique works across a broad range of metals and particles.

Infusing custom particles into metal seems like a big "next step" in metalurgy (even call it alchemy). Someone will probably say 'they have been doing this for years, this is nothing new' but it's nice to imagine we will soon be getting to play with better metals.

I bet a lot of this science happens behind closed doors in labs funded by Apple and such? A metal improvement for them is worth so much they would have to invest in it.</comment>


Pineapple – Web tutorials, tools, and resources that don't suck - <AUTHOR> http://pineapple.io/about/?utm_source=hn

<comment><USER2> Love it, I hadn't seen it yet. I've been trying to handle links to tutorials, links I find while reading tutorials, resources that might be useful later when I'm already familiar with what I'm trying to learn, and it was clumsy. Tried Delicious, Kippt etc, but a focused service is much better—and more likely to have good links from other users.

Already found some interesting tutorials and posts while searching for something I intend to start learning this month. Thank you.

Addendum: a problem I've found while trying to find good learning material is that of the unknown unknowns ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns)): when you're starting out, you don't know what you have to learn yet. Maybe guides that tell you what you have to learn, in what order... A way of letting the user organize tutorials that lets the user "patch" holes in their knowledge by adding other tutorials, or revisiting some tutorials... Well, this is beyond the scope of Pineapple, but it's an interesting problem to think about.

<comment><AUTHOR> I already attempted this here with the wiki: [http://pineapple.io/wiki](http://pineapple.io/wiki)

But the scope of that is so huge that it's kind of a daunting task, hehe. I chip away at it slowly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I saw the image of a million bookmarks as the problem it sought to solve, which is great. So I bookmarked it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, whatever makes you happy.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> My site was submitted 1 year ago, and I have since made an awful lot of updates. There will be a ton of gems on here that you will find, I assure you of that!

<comment><USER4> I like the concept, it looks quite nice.

I actually signed up, which is unusual for me.

Best of luck with it!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'm at the point now where I will see something simply incredible that blows my mind, I'll submit it to my own site... and it will already have been submitted like 6 months ago, and I completely missed it the first time, heh.

I've tried to make it easy to find what you're looking for (tags, search by tags as well as text, categories, wiki, etc).

I should also mention that it is quite heavily moderated, similar to HN. People sometimes don't agree with that, but you can see from the quality of HN it beats anything like reddit, because grammar and quality are important. I'm sort of the same way, but related to resources. That really helps the signal- to-noise ratio, and even though some might not like that, it's very important to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> TallboyOne is a good curator. That makes the site worthwhile.

</comment><comment><USER6> I've been following this site for a little while now, it's turned into a great resource for me and I've really enjoyed watching it come along. Nice job.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks man, that makes my day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks great. I've been kicking around a similar idea for a few years but never got around to building it.

A platform for ranking the best resources to learn anything and everything would be amazing. You could then have "verified experts" in the field help curate tracks and syllabi on top of that information that users could then follow like a regular college major plan.

</comment><comment><USER8> I see the inclusion of paid tutorials. In the interest of your claim of only including things "that don't suck", have all of these been curated and reviewed? Does the tutorial provider give you free access to give it a proper review? Or is this just a list of tutorials, and the Reddit style votes will determine what sucks and what doesn't?

<comment><AUTHOR> I review each link that gets submitted for quality (in addition to people voting), although you're right about paid ones, I can't always see the real details. It's fairly easy to tell when something is good quality though, even without seeing the real meat. For example, these are paid, and look very good, just based on the demo, etc: [https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts](https://www.destroyallsoftware.com/screencasts)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been using this site since the OP posted it in a web design subreddit. I've found this site to be very helpful.

</comment><comment><USER10> Nice!

Why aren't the resources tagged "ruby on rails" also tagged "rails" and "RoR"? People will try searches on various tags, not just the first tag you thought of. Maybe you allow users to tag the content, but maybe I arrive at the site just wanting to search and find what I searched for.

<comment><USER11> Good point, but what ways are there to solve this problem and why solve it? Having 4 different tags for RoR show up under an item is probably not a good idea for a variety of reasons. One of the problems would that some items might be tagged with only 'RoR' and not 'Ruby on Rails' resulting in the user having to aggregate more tags to get a fulfilling search. However the point you make is valid, so it is a problem which should be looked into imo.

Maybe an implementation of an underlying thesaurus could solve this? It might however be hard to maintain it. Any other ideas for how to solve this problem?

<comment><USER10> Yes an underlying tag thesaurus would be good. Or tag synonyms as leepowers called (I think) the same idea above.

Just to state here a metric for what the end goal is, whatever method is used would ideally provide the same or a pretty similar hit list for any searches for different synonyms with the same meaning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A few minor things, which might be worth considering.

1\. Changing from standard view to compact view clears the search.

2\. Some sorting when doing 'text-based search' would also be nice.

3\. What does 'All time'-sorting do? Is think it's the top rated entries, but I am not sure.

</comment><comment><USER12> I came up with the same idea recently, only I wanted to build it around StackOverflow, but this is much, much better :D

A note: You should separate profile and favorites pages, I don't like watching my own face all the time :D It would be more useful if favorites would get more space.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, right on. Thanks for adding lots of good stuff btw.

I see what you mean - in the meantime you can click the 'favorites' link at the top right (instead of your name) and that will skip the profile section, unless you have a huge monitor that is.

<comment><USER12> I see, but I think they (profile and favorites) belong to separate pages. Another suggestion: A flagging or some other solution would be nice for incorrect info (bad/missing tag, wrong description, etc.) so users could help you out marking content which needs improvement. Or like on SO, a user with enough reputation could edit tags, etc.

What forum software do you use? Did you wrote it yourself?

<comment><AUTHOR> All of it I wrote from scratch.

And yes I agree, a flag feature has been on my mind for quite some time :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's also: [http://www.agiledesigners.com/](http://www.agiledesigners.com/)

And my own [http://thetoolbox.cc](http://thetoolbox.cc) (although it's not really being kept up to date at the moment)

</comment><comment><USER14> Are the tags user created? One thing I've learned through experience is user created tags are almost universally useless (this is especially true when the service gets popular, and people start adding completely false tags to content, in hopes of garnering more attention).

<comment><AUTHOR> They're not entirely user created. You need a certain score to add new tags, and by that point you have gotten the feel of Pineapple where I'd trust that user to add new tags. I also moderate all new ones that are added, and update tags for all new resources added. I also delete redundant tags, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nice site. I think the only thing that I would like to see is the name of the site as well as the page title, so that I can see if there are multiple tutorials from the same site. Thanks for the collection, I'll be sure to use it when searching for learning material.

</comment><comment><USER16> Awesome work! I'll start adding some links that I've been saving for myself.

</comment><comment><USER17> I really like this idea. In a way, it is like a wiki, but tubular and tagged.

</comment><comment><USER18> How did you come up with the name Pineapple? it gives off such a nice aura.

<comment><AUTHOR> A lot of sleepless nights... :)

It took me 3 months to pick a name, then it hit me and I said yes, that is so perfect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I love the concept. It's like a reddit for tutorials.

</comment><comment><USER20> When I search for c#, the first three results have nothing to do with c#. I think it's searching for "c" internally.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah interesting, I will look into that. In the meantime you could use tags:

[http://pineapple.io/tags/c-sharp](http://pineapple.io/tags/c-sharp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Very neat concept, glad to see it moving along well. Do you have any plans or ideas on monetization or is it just a hobby for you?

<comment><AUTHOR> At the moment it is a hobby. It gets quite a lot of traffic, but I'm more interested in providing a really solid resource for people rather than making a few bucks off ads and taking away from that experience.

I was thinking about offering paid tutorials however, recorded how I would want to see them (more live coding, and more complex topics. Also more start- to-finish projects).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think by default it should sort by "all time" instead of "what's hot". But that's just me.

</comment><comment><USER23> Ironically I added this to my sea of bookmarks =(

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, that gave me a good laugh :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I need one more vote to hit a magical 100 :]

</comment><comment><USER24> I love pineapple. dude your a genius!

</comment><comment><USER25> BTW, the tag cloud at the bottom of the page is unclickable...clicking on a tag name doesn't do anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, where exactly? Everything seems to work right, unless I'm missing something.

<comment><USER25> The very bottom, where the headline reads:

Lots of Topics The amount of resources on Pineapple is growing every day. If you don't choose to participate, at least check back often and browse, that's okay too!

I guess that tag cloud is actually an image file...can't it just be a repeat of the sidebar-cloud, for convenience? If not, I guess I had expected either the image or the headline to be clickable and take me to a categories listing.

(this is on Chrome, Mac OS X)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh right, yes that's an image for this link:

[http://pineapple.io/tags/all](http://pineapple.io/tags/all)

That is a good point though, I'll add that in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> the jiggling logo is annoying...

<comment><USER12> I find it the opposite :)</comment></comment>


What did the Big Red Button on IBM mainframes do? - <AUTHOR> http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?7185-What-did-the-Big-Red-Button-on-IBM-mainframes-do

<comment><USER2> According to "IBM System/360 Model 65 / Functional Characteristics" (A22-6884-3):

 _EMERGENCY PULL Switch

Pulling this switch turns off all power beyond the power-entry terminal on every unit that is part of the system or that can be switched onto the system; therefore, the switch controls the system proper and all off-line and shared control units and 110 devices.

The switch latches in the out position and can be restored to its normal position by maintenance personnel only.

When the EMERGENCY PULL switch is in the out position, the POWER ON pushbutton is ineffective._

\-- System Control Panel / Page 13

[http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/funcChar/A22-6884-3_360...](http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/funcChar/A22-6884-3_360-65_funcChar.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> I had a mainframe guy once tell me they had a red button that would call home for tech support. Another big system he worked on would trigger a halon flood. And on another it was just a off switch.

</comment><comment><USER4> My favorite of the 'do not push' buttons on the front of the mainframe was the IMPL button, stood for 'Initial Micro Program Load' and it forced the loading of the micro-code into the CPU.

</comment><comment><USER5> Party button. If you pressed it, a disco ball would drop down and the latest disco hits would play.</comment>


Mathematical secrets of ancient tablet unlocked after nearly a century of study - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/aug/24/mathematical-secrets-of-ancient-tablet-unlocked-after-nearly-a-century-of-study <comment><USER2> Ugh. The writing is so bad.

> a series of trigonometry tables which scientists claim are more accurate > than any available today.

Given that we are able to calculate the exact value of any trigonometric function, the above sentence is pretty meaningless. Not to mention, if we wanted to calculate any trig function to some given arbitrary precision, we can do that pretty much instantly these days.

I'm sure this is a really cool find. I just wish they'd be a little more careful with their wording.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Norman Wildberger

This throws up warning flags to me. He's a somewhat notorious crank.

[http://goodmath.scientopia.org/2007/10/15/dirty-rotten- infin...](http://goodmath.scientopia.org/2007/10/15/dirty-rotten-infinite- sets-and-the-foundations-of-math/)

<comment><USER4> Is it just me, or do cranks in mathematics seem more coherent than those of other fields?

<comment><USER5> There are two kinds of "cranks" in math and science:

1\. People who are flat out nuts. Their understanding of the field is broadly wrong on many different levels.

2\. People who have a good understanding of the field, but disagree with specific things that are widely accepted by mainstream practitioners. In all but that area where they disagree, they often are accomplished respected practitioners with perfectly "normal" books and papers to their credit.

These areas of disagreement are often down in the foundations of mathematics, such as over what axioms to accept, or how to construct mathematical systems.

There are often multiple ways you can axiomatize and construct mathematical systems that provide everything we normally need for most or all applications of mathematics, so often both sides in these disagreements end up with mathematical systems that are equally useful from the point of view of everyone who is not working in the foundations of mathematics.

You could have type 2 cranks in science fields outside mathematics, but I think it is much less likely than in mathematics. Those fields tend to deal with things that objectively be proven or disproven. You usually only get "coherent cranks" in those fields when a major change in how we understand something is happening.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _" With Plimpton 322 we see a simpler, more accurate trigonometry that has clear advantages over our own."_

I wonder if there's anywhere one could learn this simpler, more accurate trigonometry.

<comment><USER7> Apparently "rational trigonometry" is related? [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_trigonometry](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_trigonometry)

<comment><USER8> Wait, so this fellow came up with "rational trigonometry" more than a decade ago and just happened to find a Babylonian tablet suggesting that the Babylonians used his technique? That's... awfully convenient, isn't it?

<comment><USER5> If "rational trigonometry" was something completely weird and totally out of left field, then yeah, then that would be a little unbelievable.

But really, if you think about it, measuring angles by ratios of sides of right triangles is not weird if your primary interest in measuring angles is for practical applications rather than abstract theory.

Accurate rulers are easier to make than accurate protractors, and are easier to work with on the construction site. So it would not at all be surprising if some ancient peoples worked with sides instead of angles.

Since Wildberger advocates that kind of approach to trigonometry, it makes sense that he'd recognize when someone else might be using such a system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems that each and every news outlet has this, see:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15097301](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15097301)</comment>


Ask HN: Check out our web app, AgileTask - <AUTHOR>

A couple buddies and I wrote a web app to help with your personal backlog. It is an agile take on traditional task management tools. Basically, we found that most of the systems and apps we were using at our day jobs weren't fitting in with our work style, so we wrote our own. Let us know what you think.
http://agiletask.me
Thanks. <comment><USER2> I like it. Too many task managers are weighed down by feature bloat. I've ruminated on a similar style task manager for some time now.

Any plans on integrating it with Google Apps and selling it in the Apps Marketplace (<http://www.google.com/enterprise/marketplace/>)? Google Apps is a phenomenal value for small businesses, but is currently in sore need of a decent task manager.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not a bad idea, I'll check it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think you're asking for money too soon. I don't really have a good idea of how your app works or if I would even use it. I'm not going to pay $24 just to find out if it does anything worth while for me.

<comment><USER4> If you sign up and don't pay there is a limited account, but maybe we should make that a little more clear. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Make more of the text for the image on the landing page visible. You have one shot to show people what your product does.

<comment><AUTHOR> What's your feeling on the quick screencast videos on the front page?

<comment><USER6> A screencast is fine in addition to the above. But anything in the screencast should also exist in text and images.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's definitely a good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's cheap, brah. Huh?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is interesting. We've got a lot of feedback just on that phrase. We were just having a little fun with it, but since it seems to be a distraction to a fair amount of people we'll just drop it from the UI.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> click click <http://agiletask.me>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We are considering "seeding" the integration front using our public API. What type of third-party integrations do you think would be the most useful to you guys and which do you think we should we tackle first?

</comment><comment><USER9> I like it a lot also. I agree with getting it integrated with Google Apps. Let me get to it with one click from my gmail (without having to log in again) and I'm sold.

</comment><comment><USER10> A demo or a trial period would be useful.

<comment><USER11> There is a trial version after you sign up, the link is really small on the same page as the paypal button.

<comment><USER12> I agree, make the demo one of your calls to action on the home page.

Generally speaking, without a demo I wouldn't spend any more time investigating this type of app.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice. Some enlargeable screenshots on the main page would be cool.</comment>


Advice when you're just starting out - <AUTHOR> I've been dabbling in freelancing lately. Somehow I've managed to hook some decent sized projects that will take a couple months to a year to develop. As you can imagine they all want their project started tomorrow.
Some people have advised me to as for $40-50k to retain my services. Some have advised me to ignore everyone except the current client.
Ideally I'd like to get someone(s) to help me so that I can make everyone happy.
Sorry if this isn't appropriate here, kinda' burned out from 60 hours a week and hoping for some outsiders' perspective. <comment><USER2> You might consider handing off a project to a trusted friend by introducing him/her to the client with a recommendation. It would be reasonable to get a "finder's fee" from the friend. The reason I suggest this is that I've learned that preserving mental health needs to be a top priority and juggling too many clients can be very harmful all around.

</comment><comment><USER3> Congratulations on hooking several projects. That is a sign that you are offering something that is in demand.

As @eschutte2 suggests, lighten your workload. Offload some of the work to maintain your health and sanity.

Finish the current client's work. Then revisit the other clients and ask for more money. It's the old supply and demand balance. If there is that much demand, then you should be able to raise your rates.

</comment><comment><USER4> I know patio11 has some great resources on freelancing in general. You might find some great information here [1]. Good luck!

[1]: [http://www.kalzumeus.com/blog/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/blog/)</comment>


Ask HN: How to release co-founders? - <AUTHOR> We started the company as three friends but they have made it clear to me it is just a project or hobby to them. I've also done 80% of the work. How should I handle this? <comment><USER2> Write down as a group what needs to be done next, and who will/can do it. Then agree on an equitable split of equity considering dollars time and expertise committed going forward. Think of it as a round of finance where sweat is valued more than dollars.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is this the same if we have not incorporated yet? Right now we are three guys in college working on a "project". I just treat it as more than a project.

<comment><USER2> Yes - exactly the same. It's really important in either case to get expectations of what you will do and who gets what actually written down, even if in email form.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> What are your previous agreements or understandings, even if unwritten?

Is there an entity, or are you solely individuals collaborating?

Are they willing to let you own their contributions?

Might you work together again on other projects?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I don't think so. They are just not that motivated and I am. We have not incorporated so I don't know if that is a good or bad thing.

<comment><USER3> OK. It appears that there was no corporation that your work was contributed to. The personal intellectual contributions of your partner-founders are the assets to discuss, and that you will desire to have fully released to you to use going forward.

If they are done with the idea, a conversation about the value or worthwhileness of releasing their contributions to you is appropriate. Those initial contributions are not worth much if they cannot do the really hard work of making the idea live, sustainable, and perhaps completely changed by later understandings about finding your audience of paying users.

The concept is "ideas are cheap--implementation and the people committed to the implementation are everything".

If there were a corporation, and employment agreements stating that the work and IP became the property of the corp., the conversation would be about ownership or vesting and non-vesting of the departing founder's shares in the corp. Early departing founders get nearly nothing.

It is typical in venture funded startups for the funders to to demand that founder's stock vest over several years so that the startup is not controlled or excessively influenced by (subsequently) departed and non-contributing founders. You have now met the reasons for this kind of arrangement.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I totally agree and will share so with them. Execution is everything and we were so early that no agreements were made. I also do think it would be wise to get their leave in writing. You don't want a founder to come back later if the venture was in any way successful.

<comment><USER3> Words including ideas such as "release all interest in copyright, trademark, and business methods and business ideas in relation to project X to person Y" are part of your conversation.

If your partners were to receive even 5% in total, of the resulting follow-on entity would be a very large amount (if they even received anything).

<comment><AUTHOR> On it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> What is your goal? Ask them to move on? Will you pay them for their 20% (in your estimation)

<comment><AUTHOR> My goal is to build build a great company that makes housing easy for students. They don't buy into the scope and hard work involved. I think compensation for their 20% is fair but we have not even incorporated yet?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe talk to them now, since this probably should have been asked anonymously and it was easy to track down who your co-founders are (unless this whole thing is a "growth hack" scheme)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha I wish I was that smart! An ironic thing is that they are so non- technical they have no idea what Hacker News is and will never know about this post. But yes, I do need to talk with them and just be frank.</comment></comment>


Optimizing websites with genetic algorithms comes with a few pitfalls. - <AUTHOR> http://20bits.com/articles/the-dangers-of-genetic-optimization/ <comment><USER2> Here's the problem -- you're throwing a lot of user data away. Are you saving the mouse position every mousemove or click? Are you continually monitoring if that page has focus? Are you turning on the videocam to see where they're looking at, if they haven't turned away towards something else?

A/B testing could work, with enough similar page widgets and enough data, but people need to collect orders of magnitude more data.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you are going to A/B test in that manner or with Google Web-optimizer, you need to be aware of how your tests are setup.

There needs to be a clear and measurable action such as a sale to determine success. However, this is only a piece of the puzzle for most online sites. There are many other goals such as user retention, enjoyment and approval.

That A/B testing can be adequate for something like a sales page (37 signals testing was a good example), but falls short if you don't have clear measurable goals.</comment>


Ask YC: Help on authorization for iframe embedding - <AUTHOR>

Hi All,
Does anybody have tips on how to allow only authorized websites to embed a web page I control into their website. My first thought was to use the HTTP_REFERRER, but thats not reliable.
My second thought was to create an algorithm that only the authentic website and my website knows. The authentic website would send through a hash of the result of the algorithm, which my page checks. This could be something like a mixture of the day, month, year and hour of the request, multiplied and summed in different ways, concatenated with a password/pin number.
I'm not great at Math, so don't have much of an idea if this would be secure or not. But to my untrained eye, it seems it would be more than enough to stop script-kiddies from just copying the source of a page .. but how much would it slow down someone more experienced and persistent?
Any thoughts? <comment><USER2> What is the cost of failure in your scenario?

Are people going to be able to make serious money off of cheating you, or are you going to get a few misimpressions from buggy browsers?

If the cost and risk are low, then HTTP_REFERER is good enough.

If not, then you are going to get very friendly w/ javascript and authentication of untrusted requests.</comment>


DNS Changer Check-Up - <AUTHOR> http://www.dns-ok.us/ <comment><AUTHOR> Never heard about this before today...apparently this virus triggers on July 9th?

<http://www.dcwg.org/></comment>


Anish Kapoor is given exclusive rights to Vantablack, the purest black paint - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3467507/Artists-war-sculptor-given-exclusive-rights-purest-black-paint-used-stealth-jets.html <comment><USER2> From the video, it looks like they're growing carbon nanotubes on the surface. The process is limited to high heat applications (since the feedstock for the material is high temperature carbon bearing gasses). It's pretty impressive that they've commercialized the process - I've only seen it done in small quartz tubes with diameter < 3". Is it fair to say that CNTs are probably as toxic as death and you should stay far far away from them?

Establishing a material monopoly for an artist is a dick move, but certainly can't say it hasn't been done before. Yves Klein probably did it best.

</comment><comment><USER3> The artist Anish Kapoor: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anish_Kapoor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anish_Kapoor)

</comment><comment><USER4> It's interesting, although not surprising, that the substance also looks unnerving even in photographs, as if weird Photoshopping has taken place.

</comment><comment><USER5> Url changed from [http://hyperallergic.com/279243/anish-kapoor-gets- exclusive-...](http://hyperallergic.com/279243/anish-kapoor-gets-exclusive- rights-to-the-worlds-darkest-pigment/), which points to this.</comment>


How to Watch 3D Blu-Ray Movies on the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift - <AUTHOR> https://www.tchapin.com/how-to-watch-3d-blu-ray-movies-on-the-htc-vive-or-oculus-rift-without-having-to-re-encode-the-movie/ <comment><USER2> And this is why I end up downloading or streaming films - physical media DRM is now so hostile to the user it actively impedes the licensee from using the media in predictable and normal scenarios. I spent Christmas repeatedly explaining DRM to my mother who didn't understand why half her content wouldn't work with her new TV & Blu-Ray - I had chipped her old one so she could use discs from multiple regions as she lives on a boat.

On another note - VR has ruined 3D films for me - the scale is all wrong - watching Rogue One recently, my VR-adjusted brain struggled with the toy-scale spaceships. You get used to scale being correct quickly, and it being wrong is jarring - never mind being stuck to a single vantage point. I now prefer 2D films and my 3D _really_ 3D.

<comment><USER3> That's because Rogue One is fake 3D. It wasn't actually filmed in 3D. [http://www.realorfake3d.com/](http://www.realorfake3d.com/)

<comment><USER4> They should add an exception or * for Ghostbusters. It was filmed in 2D but the IMAX version had 3D elements extending out of the cinematic letterbox.

[http://www.polygon.com/2016/7/15/12200134/ghostbusters-3d](http://www.polygon.com/2016/7/15/12200134/ghostbusters-3d)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the main reasons I got the GearVR was to watch movies in VR, but once I watched a couple I completely stopped. While the movies looked great in VR, almost as good as watching them on an IMAX screen in a real theater, the headset was just too bulky and uncomfortable to bother with.

I haven't tried the Vive or the Rift, but I expect them to be not that much better as far as comfort goes, and comfort is really the main thing that will determine whether it's worth the bother to wear a VR headset for hours on end, over and over again, once the novelty wears off.

<comment><USER6> I'm curious if you've tried the new Daydream headsets?

[http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/10/13578012/google- daydream-...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/10/13578012/google-daydream- view-vr-review-mobile-headset-pixel)

Seems like a much improved design.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> does anyone know how to watch them using Daydream View?</comment>


Arctic ice cap GROWING massively, returns to 1980s levels of cover - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/21/arctic_bounces_back_world_returns_to_sea_ice_levels_seen_in_1980s/

<comment><USER2> The article links to [http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily....](http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg)

I'm not sure what that means. IMHO 1980 was a bad year so comparing to it is perhaps not fair, but it's difficult to know what is fair here. 1996 was a good year and 2011 was a very bad year. This looks too noisy and difficult to interpret.</comment>


Show HN: Upload pictures to Instagram from your Mac - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id969998518

<comment><USER2> [http://i.imgur.com/C7MwHxF.png](http://i.imgur.com/C7MwHxF.png)

Free of charge, huh..

<comment><AUTHOR> Free of charge succeeds the object "photo effects" in the sentence, thereby showing that that feature comes not as an in-app purchase, but free (thus, not denoting the price of the entire product).</comment></comment>


Ask HNs: Why do people expect so much from a free apps? - <AUTHOR> I publish a few popular apps on the play store. They have about ~10k Users. Most people usually say nice things or have legit issues and I try to look at them. However some users will hound me about a feature or a bug. One guy was like I am going to use a different app if you don't fix something by tomorrow. I didn't really reply.<p>Why do people think they are so entitled especially when it is a free app? <comment><USER2> A lot of people don't appreciate the amount of work that goes into building an app.

</comment><comment><USER3> If he wants to use a different app he should do that.</comment>


Plagiarism is a distinctively American problem - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2016/7/21/12247032/melania-trump-plagiarism-history <comment><USER2> It doesn't explain why it's "distinctively American", only that it's a modern Western belief.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism) point out, for example, that "A passage of Laurence Sterne's 1767 Tristram Shandy, condemns plagiarism by resorting to plagiarism"

At [http://listverse.com/2014/09/18/10-of-the-worst- plagiarists-...](http://listverse.com/2014/09/18/10-of-the-worst-plagiarists- in-history/) we read:

> "Few men have fallen further in the eyes of their scientific peers during > their own lives than [19th century English biologist] Richard Owen ... Owen > did a large amount of surprisingly blatant plagiarism, often stealing credit > from people that were alive and in positions to respond. ... During debates > about dinosaurs, Owen made his own accusations of plagiarism to discredit > his opponents. He was ultimately voted out of the Council of Zoological and > Royal Societies." Wikipedia says it was due to his plagiarism.

Or at [http://mentalfloss.com/article/21761/4-famous-cases- plagiari...](http://mentalfloss.com/article/21761/4-famous-cases-plagiarism) we can read about the 18th century Scottish literary forger William Lauder, who tried to discredit Milton's "Paradise Lost" by claiming it plagiarized from earlier works, which in actuality Lauder forged.

Or at [https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiat](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiat) we see the French perspective:

> "Ce n'est qu'au XVIIIe siècle que le droit d'auteur se forme dans sa > conception moderne, et que le plagiat devient juridiquement distinct de la > contrefaçon. Diderot qualifie à cette époque le plagiat comme étant « le > délit le plus grave qui puisse se trouver dans la République des Lettres »"

Google Translates says: "It was not until the eighteenth century that the copyright forms in modern design, and that plagiarism is legally separate from the infringement . Diderot describes plagiarism at that time as "the most serious offense that could be in the Republic of Letters" .

So, how is it "distinctively American" when English and French sources before the American revolution also decried plagiarism?</comment>


Americans lose confidence they can sniff out social media bots - <AUTHOR> https://techxplore.com/news/2018-10-americans-confidence-social-media-bots.html <comment><USER2> I'm having trouble understanding the terms being used by the article. First off - bots. Generally I understood them as automatic agents doing something a person otherwise would do themselves. This doesn't seem to be the definition in use here:

> why would a small percentage, though small, find anything positive about the > bots, about being lied to

Under the "bots = automation" definition, this is similar to saying "why would anyone find anything positive about computer programs".

Instead, this article is saying:

bots = lies

Does the article actually talk about astroturfing trolls leveraging automation? The automation part doesn't seem to be relevant, as paid trolls are the problem.

In the end, I understand that the article has a problem with lying on the internet, but what does "bot" mean to the society at large these days?

<comment><USER3> This is similar to the futile struggle to get people to stop calling "crackers" "hackers". "Bot" has now come to encompass "bot", "troll", "sock puppet", and "shill".

<comment><USER4> Or for that matter, the struggle to get people to stop calling bullies, harassers, bots and sockpuppets 'trolls'. Troll used to mean 'someone who who said/did things for the sole purpose of annoying people'. Not 'annoying person/bot online I don't like'

But as with hacker, these terms have basically lost all meaning now.

<comment><USER5> _these terms have basically lost all meaning now_

Hell, someone the other day passed me their phone and asked me to take a "selfie" of them...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Wouldn't this be an end goal for malicious bots? I also think this article puts too much emphasis on people "being lied to" by __all __social media bots with statements like: "One question begs for closer analysis; why would a small percentage, though small, find anything positive about the bots, about being lied to, that the information is not free of salary packet or automated word strings?", when that's absolutely not true for all bots.

For example, a National Weather Service severe weather social media bot just posting severe weather warnings probably isn't lying to you.

<comment><USER7> An NWS Twitter bot (although I would actually expect it to be a human posting) isn't telling the truth because of the content of its tweets but because it accurately represents itself.

If a Twitter bot named FSB Social Media Account #5527 posted commentary about American politics, there would be very few problems regardless of content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article talks about people's _perception_ of whether or not they can distinguish between bots and humans on social media. A more interesting question is whether this perception is correct. Are bots actually getting better at fooling humans or is there simply more cynicism about social media bots? We can't tell from this article.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's weird that people have an issue with bots when the bigger issue is astroturfing. But no one wants to get rid of astroturfing bacause that's every brand's bread and butter.

<comment><USER10> Bots allow cheaper astroturfing, they go hand-in-hand.

<comment><USER9> Tangential, but curious as how one would classify the various national astroturfing propaganda offices (think China, N Korea, India, Russia, etc.) Since they are human operated, they're not bots but actually fit the astroturfing definition but I often see them confused or conflated with "bots".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> In my opinion this is due to people increasingly reappropriating the term 'bot' much in the way 'troll' has been. Troll originally had a clear meaning. It was people posting things _exclusively_ to obtain incensed reaction. Now somehow 'troll' has increasingly been applied to anybody stating something somebody else strongly disagrees with.

And now the same thing is slowly happening to bot. It's not only people 'trolling', but it's being done by 'bots'. I believe this is largely a product of the increasing antagonism and radicalism in different 'sects' of our country today. By referring to people you disagree with as 'bots' and 'trolls' it works exactly like wartime propaganda - it dehumanizes and delegitimizes the 'enemy'.

<comment><USER12> I've noticed the conservatives? Alt-right? People on T_D on Reddit? Have started calling liberals "NPCs" (non player characters in video gaming terms). On both sides it's a worrying trend of dehumanizing the other. A trend of cutting economic ties (boycotts, getting people fired) is also worrying, because you don't go to war with people you trade with. Cutting economic ties is a sign of impending conflict.

<comment><USER13> Countries do go to war with countries they trade with. People were saying record high levels of trade would prevent war ... in Europe, right before world war 1

<comment><USER14> To be fair they were totally right that going to war would be a terrible idea but they did it anyway - given that World War 1 pretty much killed off the ruling aristocracy, lead to countless suffering, and stagnation. If they were smart it would have prevented the war but as Bismark predicted it all blew up over a fool thing in the Balkans.

It is like MAD - the assumptions are based upon rational actors which is why they are terrified of proliferation beyond just others getting in their clubhouse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why are they calling them "bots"? Is it because they themselves censored the usage of the term "shill", when they were themselves the ones shilling?

<comment><USER5> They call them NPCs now

<comment><USER16> That'd make sense actually.

Unfortunately, the term "NPC" seems to be just a childish insult more often than not. I guess the word "shill" is typically an insult and rarely ever used to actually attack an actual bot or paid-marketer (even though that's the implication).

Troll is the most accurate word I think. I think people are generally happy when a paid employee interacts with the audience (technically a "shill" but... in the case of MMORPGs and such, people like feeling that the game-masters are listening to them).

I'm personally going to stick with the word "troll". I don't really care if they're paid or not, or foreign or not. If they're hampering the discussion, they're a troll. If they're helping the discussion, then they are welcome. So "Troll" is the best distinction, and the main one that matters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Does it actually matter if it is a bot rather than a person with malicious intent?

<comment><USER18> Does it matter if a robot can build a car? People can build cars.

Of course it matters. A bot can scale to appear as millions of people. So whoever wields the most compelling bots gets a massive force-multiplier for their opinions and objectives. Or more likely, grants that power to the highest bidder.

<comment><USER17> > A bot can scale to appear as millions of people.

Meanwhile, labor in Asia is quite cheap ...

Also, they might use bots for the "easy" people, and real human workers for more alert people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> How about a browser extension or app that highlights suspected bots as you're using Twitter or other social media? How difficult is this problem to solve?

<comment><USER20> It would be really easy for the developers to highlight their political adversaries as 'bots', and people would be none the wiser since they forfeited their ability to perform critical thinking to have a 'bot' do it for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Isn't the point of social media to turn people into bots? Sounds like mission accomplished.

</comment><comment><USER22> I have a plan - instead of combatting the bots make their influence smaller by limiting the access to them. Hike up the mobile internet prices would be a good start.</comment>


Oblong Industries brings gesture-control technology from Hollywood to offices - <AUTHOR> http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2014/startup-oblong-industries-gesture-control-interface-0905

<comment><USER2> oh how exciting! can't wait to get this as a low-power commodity single chip package with OTS sensors at a hand-held device form-factor with wide-scale production at consumer price ranges - like the S5 _almost_ has - but with higher fidelity. You know, like the leap but lower cost with better sensors and a higher range.</comment>


Running bash commands in the background properly - <AUTHOR> https://felixmilea.com/2014/12/running-bash-commands-background-properly/ <comment><USER2> Another approach would be to use cron/anacron/launchd. Although these are technically serve a different purpose (running commands automatically), I find a lot of my background commands also should run regularly.</comment>


Planning Bus Trips with Python and Singapore's Smart Nation APIs - <AUTHOR> http://www.lihaoyi.com/post/PlanningBusTripswithPythonSingaporesSmartNationAPIs.html <comment><USER2> This is great. It was so easy to set up and get working and the explanation was great as well. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER3> Awesome stuff! BTW, I didn't realised you're in Singapore.</comment>


Live just now: Summer of Startups Demo Day (Helsinki) - <AUTHOR> http://bambuser.com/channel/aaltoes/broadcast/982977

<comment><AUTHOR> As I post this the pitching competition is just starting. Is it just me or is the sound missing?</comment>


SuperTCP: accelerate any TCP-based application's upload by up to 4 times - <AUTHOR> http://www.supertcp.com

<comment><AUTHOR> So, "what's the magic?" is the question you're asking. The answer is relatively simple: SuperTCP is a better algorithm for TCP. TCP is the protocol that rules the internet. Any internet traffic (besides most real-time or "streaming" traffic) uses TCP to send data back and forth from your computer to the server you're talking to. Unfortunately, TCP was developed over 30 years ago and hasn't kept pace with the incredible changes the internet has gone through. The internet now has connections with huge amounts of bandwidth over massive geographical distances. This results in high bandwidth, high latency connections which TCP is notoriously bad at using effectively. SuperTCP tries to do better. No matter what the latency, jitter or random packet loss your connection is encountering, SuperTCP can use up to 99% of the available network bandwidth.

Effectively, this means that whether you're sending a file across the room or across the globe, your only limit is how much bandwidth is available to your application. This can result in 4x to 10x faster data transfers when using SuperTCP versus classic TCP, which means you can back up 100Gb of your precious data in 15 minutes instead of 2.5 hours, or upload a YouTube video in 5 minutes instead of 50. No change to your workflow. No new software: just a better internet for everyone.</comment>


Everything It Will Take to Get Faster Wi-Fi on Planes - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/06/the-flying-wi-fi-machine/530394/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> How about faster Wi-Fi at home for people who are stuck with DSL and Dialup?</comment>


Learn and use fork(), vfork(), wait() and exec() system calls on Linux - <AUTHOR> https://www.linuxtechi.com/learn-use-fork-vfork-wait-exec-system-calls-linux/ <comment><USER2> _Following is the c-programming example which explains how fork system call works._

      shashi@linuxtechi ~}$ vim 1_fork.c
      #include<stdio.h>
      #include<unistd.h>
      Int main(void)
      {
      printf("Before fork\n");
      fork();
      printf("after fork\n");
      }
      shashi@linuxtechi ~}$
      shashi@linuxtechi ~}$ cc 1_fork.c
      shashi@linuxtechi ~}$ ./a.out
      Before fork
      After fork
      shashi@linuxtechi ~}$

How exactly is that demonstrating how fork() works? The article is completely missing any explanation - like why 'After fork' was only printed once and not twice as would be initially expected (It's unclear to me: while stdio buffering can cause strangeness if you don't flush buffers before a fork(), surely in this case both processes will exit cleanly and should flush their post-fork outputs?)

<comment><USER3> It _should_ print `after fork` two times, they just wrote it wrong. They clearly wrote the whole thing manually, since they used `vim` and not `cat` to display the contents of the file, and they show it printing `After fork` and not `after fork`. I think they just forgot to put the line twice. The fact that they have `Int` and not `int` means their example doesn't actually compile, so I don't think they tested this one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not a very good article IMHO. In addition to not explaining things well, it doesn't discuss posix_spawn or clone which are much preferable and more extensible ways to launch processes.

<comment><USER5> > _posix_spawn or clone which are much preferable and more extensible ways to > launch processes._

My understanding is that `fork()` is a nice wrapper around `posix_spawn` and, in particular, `clone()`. And in some ways you're right: as an experienced developer I can really appreciate the _extensibility_ of using `clone()` instead of `fork()`.

Unfortunately if I were to use `clone()` _ever_ then I would be immediately chastized by the architecture lead. He's not a C dude. I don't think he even understands the concept of programs sharing an address space (he's also anti- thread). All of it stems from "make programs simple" in an effort to minimize maintenance costs down the road. And in many ways _he 's right too_. `clone()` is anything _but_ simple despite being more extensible and `posix_spawn()` is just a more complex `fork()` in that regard.

<comment><USER6> > My understanding is that `fork()` is a nice wrapper around `posix_spawn` .

Not really, you can't implement fork on top of POSIX spawn, but you can do the reverse. On linux they are both implemented on top of a lower lower level primitive (clone).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The fork/exec approach to process launch is a kludge from early PDP-11 UNIX. It's done that way because it had to work when you didn't have enough memory for both program images. Fork originally worked by swapping the process out to disk, then updating the process table so that the in-memory copy and the swapped out copy became separate processes. Most of the troublesome semantics of "fork" come from that history.

</comment><comment><USER8> vfork is perfectly predictable as long as you follow the basic rule: only invoke async-signal-safe functions until you call exec. they're explicitly listed but basically boil down to: any functions that more-or-less map directly to a system call, and nothing that could possibly modify process memory or attempt to take a lock (including memory allocation)

it's meant for cases where you want to avoid a bit of the fork overhead or if you need to spawn a subprocess from an existing memory-heavy process without getting a KILL from the kernel if overcommit is disabled (as the fork COW doubles your claim on memory even if you don't actually trigger a copy)

<comment><USER9> In general signal safety is lost because the C standard library maintains global and thread-local data. For example, the various I/O functions make use of global buffers. Using the read and write system calls directly is safe: when interrupted, they either report their progress or return EINTR.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> All these systemcalls (except wait(2)) are just facade for clone(2), which has a whole bunch of options.

Basically everything from threads to program invocation is just this one powerful systemcall.

<comment><USER9> Clone is a great system call, it allows the programmer to specify which resources are shared with the new task. The problem with clone is the C standard library maintains global and thread-local state. For example, using clone is not supported by glibc:

> If you use clone() you're on your own.

[https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10311](https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10311)

Sometimes it feels like the standard library is holding C back. I wonder how many great Linux-specific features go unused because of it.

<comment><USER4> This looks like more of a case of glibc not working well with one particular combination of options. I don't think libc really holds anyone back considering it does still expose a syscall wrapper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I agree with the authors of [https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/uploads/prod/2019/0...](https://www.microsoft.com/en- us/research/uploads/prod/2019/04/fork-hotos19.pdf) that we should not be teaching fork and friends to people anymore except out of historical context. Yes, there is large swaths of software that make extensive use of it but that software should be re-written in my most humble opinion.

</comment><comment><USER12> As another resource, I just finished up the chapters of _The Linux Application Programming Interface_ [0] that described this.

Highly recommend this book, its filled with fun tidbits of Linux-lore.

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System- Ha...](https://www.amazon.com/Linux-Programming-Interface-System- Handbook/dp/1593272200)

</comment><comment><USER13> Don't forget unfork()! [https://github.com/whitequark/unfork](https://github.com/whitequark/unfork)</comment>


Venture Capitalists' Failure to Make Money is a Problem for Entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/money/article/venture-capitalists-failure-to-make-money-is-a-problem-for-entrepreneurs-scott-shane

<comment><USER2> A 4.3% return on the 5 year funds is quite low indeed.

I think the problem is that VCs aren't investing nearly enough in mobile social music local search review aggregators.

<comment><USER3> > mobile social music local search review aggregators

Seriously?

<comment><USER3> Thou art jesting, I am sure of it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If all else were equal, I would agree. Less money to invest means less money invested.

However the cost of doing a startup has also gone down. By more than the availability of venture capital. Therefore more startups can get going. Also companies like Facebook and Google have more willingness than companies had in the past to buy small companies that otherwise might be looking for venture capital.

When you put these factors in, it is not at all clear to me that the situation is worse for entrepreneurs.

</comment><comment><USER5> Several people have remarked that this doesn't seem to be affecting technology entrepreneurship much, which seems true from what I've seen of software technology startups in my area. However, not being able to get funding profoundly impacts other types of startups that have higher initial/research/production costs: green energy, manufacturing, basically anything that isn't just a website and iPhone app. And that's really a bad thing, because it seems that far too many entrepreneurs are now going the cool webapp/facebook plugin route because there's a seemingly high potential for profit in the area. But honestly, we need non-software startups too, and for that we need venture capital!

<comment><USER6> It's not a bad thing if they were bad investments to start with. Mal- investment creates bubbles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lack of huge upfront $$ to cloud an idea's success is not a problem.

I think it is good for a CEO to start from scratch (relative term, but..), since it teaches some important core business principles that many seems to be oblivious to. Like, make more money than you spend. Immediately.

One of the things I really enjoy that comes out of 37Signals is their Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud Blog.

Those posts hit the spot every time for me.

</comment><comment><USER8> I admit that what follows is tangential to the post. However, as a freelance developer who, of late, works for startups, I've been mulling this a great deal.

Startups are acquiring money from somewhere. While VCs may be raising less funds and funding fewer startups, the demand for technical hires is soaring! In my particular areas of expertise, Ruby and Ruby on Rails, demand seems, frankly insane.

So what's going on? If there's less VC money in play, unless people are exiting the software development market faster than new people are coming in, one would expect that we software developers would be suffering employment issues like the rest of the US.

And yet I know extremely few Ruby on Rails developers who are wanting for work.

Is it perhaps that my perspective is limited? I know a fairly large group of developers. The only ones who are looking for working (and we're always looking for that next gig) are freelancers.

Is this the Google/Facebook "brain-drain" effect at work? That these megaliths have hired so many of the talented people that, despite reduced VC funding, startups are still suffering hiring issues?

What gives?

<comment><USER9> Before the majority of the investment went towards capital expenses to build infrastructure. Now most of the invested capital goes towards salaries for the development of the idea.

If the idea is successful then cloud computing is utilized to grow the business. If sufficient scale is reached then you'll see companies take large late rounds to build their own data centers and infrastructure out (such as Zynga and Facebook).

So while total invested dollars are down, the cost to invest is down significantly and "big money" doesn't need to be spent until you know you have a success. VCs are poised to make much better returns over the next decade if they manage their funds correctly.

<comment><USER8> Ah, thanks. I hadn't considered just how much cheaper cloud computing is making starting a business -- even though I've actually experienced same myself. Excellent points!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's not very surprising that new investment into funds would tick down a bit in 2009, the year they are discussing. These investments aren't made on the spur of the moment, and the planning period of 2008-2009 was dead in the middle of the largest economic downturn in 80 years. All sorts of people took money off the table while they watched to see what would happen. It's actually more surprising that they point out various metrics that "hadn't been this low" since 99/97 etc - those were of course grand days for venture capitalists.

The article notes an uptick in 2010. With all of the stories about money chasing deals, big early valuations and term sheets being brought to first meetings, I'd bet that uptick is probably a bit more than slight.

The effect of individuals bypassing funds and investing directly in early rounds shouldn't be overlooked. The article is very dismissive of the practice, but it is taking its queues from research done by an association with venture capital in it's name...

</comment><comment><USER11> The majority of the statistical data used to support the article's thesis is from 2009. The effects of the financial crisis of 2008 obviously had a major impact on investment decisions and results. If we choose a different metric for how to measure the opportunities for entrepreneurs, real world economic potential, the ongoing growth trends of social networking services, new internet based businesses like Groupon, and the explosion of mobile device app markets demonstrate that tech sector investments still have massive upside potential.

</comment><comment><USER12> The "angel investors won't make up the slack" part wasn't totally convincing. It might be true, but quoting average investment by a single angel versus a single VC isn't really the important number. It'd be more convincing to see aggregate figures: total VC dollars are down $x billion, are angel dollars up more or less than that amount? The article quotes figures for total VC dollars, but none for total angel dollars.

</comment><comment><USER13> Congress badly damaged public capital markets with Sarbanes Oxley, which is stifling the most important exit avenue for startups-- the IPO.</comment>