Posterous takes on Tumblr - <AUTHOR> http://blog.posterous.com/hey-tumblr-users-got-comments-want-video-grad

<comment><USER2> This is a really low blow. This is what companies do when they are clutching at straws - they spread misinformation.

Considering:

* Most tumblr themes have Disqus integration, and the "tumblr way" to comment is via reblog.

* Multiple people can contribute to Tumblr blogs, I can also submit posts even if I'm not a user, and ask the authors questions (formspring style)

* I can also password protect my Tumblr.

They also missed the giant Tumblr plus - the community.

Also, given that Posterous bootstrapped their themes _from the Tumblr theme community_ stabbing Tumblr in the back is hardly cool. To clarify, I mean this: [http://www.nbrightside.com/blog/2009/09/18/posterous- leverag...](http://www.nbrightside.com/blog/2009/09/18/posterous-leveraging- tumblr-themes/)

For a company as cool as Posterous I have no idea why they're resorting to such shammy PR.

<comment><USER3> I have a major bone to pick with your characterization of Posterous themes. I hardly think the theme community is unhappy about suddenly being able to use their themes on millions of other blogs that aren't Tumblr.

Also, the themes that we build into our service are 100% licensed via partnership with the theme designers.

Attacking the ability to use Tumblr themes in Posterous is absurd. It's like saying Google Apps isn't allowed to open Microsoft Word documents.

<comment><USER4> Some honest feedback from a long time hacker news participant and innocent bystander...

It looks like pclark is providing feedback of some kind to a product represented by rantfoil, who is responding.

I have no opinion about the issues being discussed in this thread, in fact I'm not sure I even understand many of them. But this much I do understand...

rantfoil, you appear to be arguing in a public forum. Don't. By definition, you can't win.

You responses may be perfectly valid (who knows), but language like

 _I have a major bone to pick with your characterization of Posterous themes._

 _I hardly think the theme community is unhappy about..._

 _Attacking...is absurd..._

make you and all that you represent appear confrontational.

It doesn't matter who wins this battle, rantfoil will lose the war if this is the public perception of the corporate face. Find a way to address this feedback that will attract innocent bystanders, not scare them away.

<comment><USER2> Eh, its cool to be passionate about your own startup - I didn't realize rantfoil was the founder. :) As I said, I think Posterous is a cool company and they're better than this. I didn't want to ruffle anyones feathers, just state my opinion on these kinds of messages to users. He was probably right about my comments on their theme policy, he certainly knows better than I do, I tried to clarify my post a bit. We should be glad we're having a discussion about this - maybe we all learn something :)

<comment><USER3> I'm a hacker, just like all of you. It's hard for me to avoid having an emotional response over something I've poured my soul into.

Mea culpa. Edw, you're right. Pclark, thanks for the feedback.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Maybe they should add "Adds hidden affiliate codes to your links. Posterous: YES. Tumblr: NO." ([http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/30/posterous-starts- automatica...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/30/posterous-starts- automatically-inserting-affiliate-links-into-sites-forgets-to-tell-users/))

<comment><USER5> Do you KNOW that Tumblr doesn't do this? Dig a little and I think you'll be surprised how many other services (including Tumblr) do this too...

<comment><USER2> Tumblr absolutely does not do this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Free service number 1 with no business model in sight wages war against free service number 2 with equally no business model in sight. "web2.0" is the new "New Economy".

<comment><USER7> Spot on.

I can't recommend people post their longer form content and media on platforms that have an opaque path to generating revenue.

I do recommend that they have someone create a self-hosted open source platform for sharing their content online.

The custom post types that have finally arrived in WordPress 3.0 allow people to create their own mini-Tumblrs on their self-hosted website.

I feel that if someone works hard enough to create their own content then they should give some serious thought to their publishing platform too.

<comment><USER8> You could be cute and say that Marco has seen the writing on the wall with his Mac-only backup client (<http://www.marco.org/277762675>). :)

I belong in the group of people who have yet to be convinced of the financial stability of Tumblr, but its free hosting, great themes and ways to get exposure using the platform in combination with Fusion, Deck and other ads is very attractive; you would not risk any economical loss using Tumblr.

To be fair to Tumblr, most of the people using the service don't seem to blog with writing content with staying value in mind; you could argue that the microblogging serves as a Zeitgeist echochamber similar to what Twitter can be in some instances.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Oh god, feature-checklist-itis.

I don't think that post is going to convert anyone who didn't want to convert already. Lack of comments on tumblr is a feature*. Like, how is 'ability to moderate them' also a feature? More like a hellish burden given down by a cruel god from on high.

<comment><USER10> I have a wordpress blog that I abandoned because one post was popular and now my comments get spammed to death. I'd much rather have comments on my blog posts where they were syndicated - twitter, hacker news, reddit, etc. This keeps each set of responses within the context of the community the traffic came from as well as prevents blog-post footers turning into "first" and shouting matches.

<comment><USER11> Removing comments from blog is one mouse click away on wordpress. You can even permanently remove comments from your theme by removing just one line of code.

Edit: Self-plug My new blog <http://blogriot.com/>. No comments, no sidebars, no distraction. Just me and my writing. Well, not much writing just set it up few days ago. I had the domain unused for few years so I thought, what the hey! why not use it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't think this is the right focus for posterous. I really like their approach to blogging, but bad-mouthing other services can backfire in the long run.

<comment> tsetse-fly Yes, I rather dislike the tone of their post. If anything, these sorts of childish insults makes me want to avoid using Posterous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Missing entry on the feature checklist: "World's tiniest fonts by default".

Do the Posterous guys work in 800x600 or something?

</comment><comment><USER14> I moved from posterous to tumblr because the administrative control panel UI/UX was so bad. The default posterous skin is hideous. Tumblr is much easier to use and looks better out of the box. I couldn't care less about the features in the checklist.

</comment><comment><USER15> I like the Posterous guys and have sent a number of users to their service before we (WordPress.com) had our own email feature. I hope when they launch the WordPress one it's nicer in tone. I've been very impressed that even though Tumblr is growing aggressively they've consistently taken the high road,

</comment><comment><USER16> Nice move. But the community and dashboard are what make tumblr good. I use both actively.

They should make it easy to import my entire dashboard. They could also turn the Posterous dashboard into an rss reader. That would be incredibly useful.

Reblooging is better than comment moderation administrivia.

</comment><comment><USER17> I love these checklist format comparisons that they do. It's an easy signal for me, "These people do not understand why one product is chosen over another." If these are the dimensions by which you think Tumblr can be beaten, I wish you good luck but do not have high hopes for you.

It's sort of like when someone uses the word "skinning" in reference to UX. I just immediately know to disregard everything they say as a total waste of time.

<comment><USER18> I agree. I also wonder who this blog post is written to. On the surface, it seems like it's written to tumblr users, to introduce them to posterous, but I don't think they'd assume that the best way to get tumblr users to switch is to insult them. (Unlike a car owner to whom a car dealer says something like, "Tired of driving that old clunker? Need a new car?", people are not limited by their budget when choosing a free blogging tool.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The timing of this is unfortunate.

I imagine that there is a way to prevent the "post via email" hack demonstrated last week but I haven't seen an official response from Posterous (they could send me an email?) which says to me that they don't take the threat seriously.

I enjoyed having Posterous feed my entire online presence (twitter, facebook, etc.) but I turned this all off in the wake of the exploit.

I'm sure there is a way to "fix" this, but I don't have time to try and figure it out myself; so it's easier to just turn it off until Posterous has time to tell me how to do it.

Now we have this marketing campaign and a "we're the greatest" and "we can do everything" attitude; it feels very "going Facebook" to me...

I think it's time to go find "the next".

<comment><USER3> Here's the official response: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1443143>

The exploit only involved a limited set of users and was fixed within hours of discovery.

<comment><USER19> I guess that's kind of my point, I mean, shouldn't this information been posted somewhere more obvious (the official posterous blog perhaps?) or even better, as an email to registered users?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> They're not going to get many new blogs from this. People use Tumblr because of the community, and most users spend a lot of time reblogging content from other blogs that they like. Posterous doesn't offer that. This may be good for people actually using Tumblr as a traditional blog, but those people are in the minority.

<comment><USER21> This is actually the most relevant argument. I don't think any self respecting Tumblr user would contend that they speak in a vaccuum. The dashboard is central to the UI, and it's for this reason that they probably have yet to release a full API or even an RSS publicly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Yeah, it's a stretch/sketchy campaign, but at least they're taking the gloves off, right? I personally am frustrated by the quirky Tumblr features (after many tries, I still don't get the formatting of reblogging) and miss plain on comments (when they don't have Disqus installed).

Will be interesting to see which of the easy-blog-tools wins out.

Right now, my bet would be on Tumblr.

<comment><USER23> I don't know, personally, I'm frustrated by Posterous too.

They're adding one useless features after another, but that email posting still cannot get even such a basic thing as paragraphs right. Just piles of br's after each line. And they are converting every nonascii character to HTML escape sequences. So after each post, I have to edit unreadable crap full of HTML escapes to put there at least that paragraphs (because otherwise, with larger font sizes, there'd be line break because of whole text-field width and then, after just a word or two, because of those hard breaks in HTML).

On the benefit side, there are things like TypeKit, which seems quite useless to me, as I couldn't find any way to explicitly display only fonts that have Czech diacritics characters, which is essential to me. Facebook like buttons that I don't want… And so on. It's quite tiresome. At first, I liked Posterous because it was easy to setup and worked really well, but I'm getting quite weary of all those, seemingly unimportant, deficiencies.

<comment><USER3> I hear you on the email cleanup thing. We've put some measures in place to clean up markup, but there's much more to do here. If you have more feedback, I'd love to hear it -- my email is firstname.lastname@example.com

We're a work in progress like any other. But we're iterating as fast as we can.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Posts like this remind me to give thanks that I'm technically proficient enough not to have to depend on third party services for a communications platform.

</comment><comment><USER25> I have no posterous neither Tumblr account, but only because of that post, I'll give a try to tumblr.

</comment><comment><USER26> All you need is a URL and an email address? So, I can automatically import _any_ tumblr blog, even if I don't own it? That's a bit scary.

<comment><USER27> That is actually how the Tumblr API works. You don't even need the email address.

<comment><USER26> Interesting. Throw /api/read at the end of a tumblr blog and you're set. Interesting approach, I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The only advantage Posterous has is built-in comments. Yes, you can use Disqus on Tumblr, but it's a bit of hack, and Disqus has it's own issues. Regardless of your opinion about comments, it should at least be an option for a blog.

But here is where Tumblr wins, you can't include any JavaScript in your Posterous theme (<http://posterous.com/theming/porting>). So if they don't support a feature you want (like comments or TypeKit), you can't add it on your own like you can with Tumblr.

</comment><comment><USER29> Even if hey don't convert a lot from Tumbler I'm sure as a whole all the converters will be very successful. It's a sign that they are really confident in their product now that they are aggressively push for people on other platforms to check them out. You may only get one shot at getting people to consider your product that are already on other platforms.

</comment><comment><USER30> no import from picasa, google reader, last.fm, rss means no tumblr/posterous for me :F

I find soup.io just the perfect tool for me, btw ;)

<comment><USER31> Tumblr can import all these things, any RSS feed you throw at it.

<comment><USER30> Is there some overview somewhere what automatic imports tumblr supports? Didn't find it on the page.

<comment><USER32> Go to 'Customize' for your tumblr site and click 'Services.' At the bottom is 'Automatically import my...'. Choices include Delicious, YouTube, Vimeo, etc and RSS. Support is definitely lacking though and documentation is virtually non-existant.

<comment><USER30> I see, thanks. It's a shame that they don't advertise those features better. It's a major point why i use soup.io.

<comment><USER32> Definitely. I even emailed support about it and the response was 'This is not supported' -- like they had never heard of it. Go figure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> My main problem with Posterous imports is that they don't preserve the URLs of my previous posts. I have custom domains set up, so redirects are broken. I was hoping that with the latest Tumblr import they had fixed it, but no go.

</comment><comment><USER34> Boiling tumblr to a set of bullet points /entirely/ misses the point.

</comment><comment><USER35> Good for them for encouraging the competition to step up. I'm not a user of either service, but heating up the game is good for everyone in the end.

</comment><comment><USER36> Aggressive marketing would be a woefully insufficient characterization. As both an entrepreneur and target user, this crosses my personal moral standard. Having said that, its definitely clever and very well written! I will stick with my high school friends on Tumblr though. And so will all of the HiiDef blogs. Tumblr has always been really good to me.

</comment><comment><USER37> I wonder what Posterous's arguments were for going for the direct attack route instead of an offer to purchase or merge? You can get bigger quicker by purchasing competitors than by swiping their clients I would think.

</comment><comment><USER38> I'm a happy Tumblr user. What does Posterous offer that Tumbler doesn't?

<comment><USER39> Well, dickishness, apparently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> One reason this won't work: Tumblr users don't read the Posterous blog ... Perhaps they can set up a tumblr account and promote it there? That would be true guerilla style.

</comment><comment><USER41> I absolutely LOVE this whole campaign (one service a day with auto-switching imports). It's good, creative PR and will probably get them as many new users as it converts from other services.

[edit: one service a day, not week]

<comment><USER42> On the other hand, when they really have something meaningful to say I will have gotten long past the point where I click on posterous stories on hn. imo the interestingness quotient on posterous stories has been running pretty low off late.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is good for the market and the internet as a whole. Competition creates better products and innovation, which means my mother will eventually get to the world of easy posting of content. End of story.

</comment><comment><USER43> Too bad the import from tumblr feature doesn't work...

</comment><comment><USER44> Feature wars are so trite.</comment>


The Dark/Dank/Deep web isn't any more dangerous than browsing the surface web - <AUTHOR> https://beta.trustory.io/claim/1151 <comment><USER2> uMaxtrix to the rescue!</comment>


Striking Back At Recruiter Spam - <AUTHOR> http://blog.42floors.com/striking-back-recruiter-spam/ <comment><USER2> I rather like Atlassian's take on the issue: [https://www.atlassian.com/company/careers/recruiters](https://www.atlassian.com/company/careers/recruiters)

<comment><USER3> That's a great policy. It doesn't completely remove time or energy from the HR/hiring manager at Atlassian, but it clearly outlines objectives of working with recruiters with a very real, tangible penalty for spamming. Nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Called the number - surprisingly real sounding, nice execution.

Still, seems like a jerk-move. I can see this backfiring in some way or another.

</comment><comment><USER5> I hope they're keeping statistics on how long people are on the line before hanging up.

</comment><comment><USER6> Is that a fixed recording of someone reading out 5 random job descriptions, or are you dynamically getting 5 fresh descriptions and using text-to-voice? Its probably the former, but if not, that is amazing text-to-voice, and I'd love to know where its available!

</comment><comment><USER7> As much as i agree that recruiters can be annoying getting the right recruitment/recruiter help can be the most amazing leverage tool for your startup and to be honest this comes across really childish. That said recruitment is ripe for disruption.

</comment><comment><USER8> I admire the execution of this and simultaneously condemn it for its douchebaggery.

</comment><comment><USER9> If legal, they should make recordings of the reactions.

<comment><USER10> "this call is being recorded for quality purposes"

Not sure this allows the recordings to be divulged, though

<comment><USER11> "This call is being recorded for quality purposes and may be used for marketing or other purposes at our discretion."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a waste of time and money.

</comment><comment><USER13> This makes me sad. It's petty vindictiveness and it doesn't help our industry. Rather than accepting that recruiters have wasted his time, and moving on, the author decides to waste even more time to get back at them. And for what? Does anyone think that the recruiter who wasted the author's time is going to reflect deeply on this and change his ways?

Rather than striking back with some ego-stroking revenge, maybe educating the recruiter on why his behavior was shitty might help more? Maybe making a general page that you could easily refer him to that explains why his tactics are disrespectful so that he can _learn_ from this, rather than just having his time wasted? You could also refer other pushy recruiters to that page.

This isn't my company though, so the author is free to do what he wants. I'm wondering if people look at this and think "that's awesome, I can relate! I want to work there," or if they look at this and think "that guy has no problem spending time being mean to people he thinks deserve it, I might stay away."

<comment><USER14> I don't see it as vindictiveness but as some kind of "spammer's honey pot" \-- while the recruiter is listening to this at least he's not calling someone on their team.

But I was disappointed about the low-tech quality of the approach; I was hoping for some kind of evolved Eliza-like HR robot that could sustain some form of conversation for some time.

If this caught on, at some point recruiters could never be sure they're talking to a real person.

\- - -

I very often get calls at home, from people trying to sell me either new windows for my house or some low-cost mobile phone service.

I used to hang up on those calls, but not anymore!

Now I put them on speakerphone... and give the receiver to my four-year-old. He's very excited that someone wants to speak to him, and starts talking about his day right away.

This has transformed a very annoying experience into a great form of entertainment for the whole family (not to mention it "shifts the burden of rudeness" to the caller... how do they dare hanging up on my son!!!?!)

<comment><USER15> Training an Alice bit for this task (and similar marketing talks) should be relatively easy, especially because the marketer wants to stay on the line and will make allowances for wonky conversation.

[http://alice.pandorabots.com/](http://alice.pandorabots.com/)

[http://alicebot.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/mitsuku-wins- loebner-...](http://alicebot.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/mitsuku-wins-loebner- prize-2013.html?m=1)

(Sorry for mobile links)

I'm surprised it hasn't already been done.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Ughhhhhhhhhh people keep emailing me to offer high paying jobs and I have to click archive."-The most first world problem in the history of the universe.

<comment><USER5> They're actually dealing with recruiter spam on the other side. "I see you need people, I have 'great candidates' for the roles that I would love to setup for interviews."

And they said some go to the lengths of calling the mobile number of every engineer at their company. So basically the recruiter is just an extremely persistent salesperson who distracts the entire company in hopes that they'll find a way to sell their product.

<comment><USER17> When entrepreneurs do that, HN calls it "hustle"</comment></comment></comment>


The first video interview with the creators of BRAIN, the first PC virus. - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnedOWfPKT0&feature=channel_video_title

<comment><USER2> Slick production value. Wonder who made the video for them.

<comment><USER3> It was directed by Taito Kawata from a company called Cocoa. There were three of us in Pakistan to shoot this.</comment></comment>


Show HN: My grandfather died so I created RIP - <AUTHOR> http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1985104686/rip-a-place-to-remember/

<comment><USER2> $30k to build this? this could be done in a few hour hackathon, no?

<comment><AUTHOR> The basic foundation maybe, but I want to make sure the server infrastructure is sound and scalable, and that requires more than a few hours. It's a pity the project hasn't gained the interest I was hoping it would.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Any feedback is welcome!</comment>


Executives who are exceptional at chess - <AUTHOR> http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=8293

<comment><USER2> "Excelling at chess has long been considered a symbol of more general intelligence. That is an incorrect assumption in my view, as pleasant as it might be."

\- Garry Kasparov

[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/feb/11/the- che...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/feb/11/the-chess-master- and-the-computer/?pagination=false)

</comment><comment><USER3> Post hoc ergo propter hoc. What do all these execs have in common? An obsession with chess as a youth.

I bet 90% of successful execs had a sweet baseball card collection when they were 10 years old, too.

</comment><comment><USER4> Realize that the difference between 2500 and 2200 is truly remarkable.

Those under 2000 should probably be considered enthusiasts rather than exceptional.

<comment><USER5> Yes, indeed. Breaking the 2000 barrier is really hard. But becoming a grandmaster is unimaginably hard. There are only a thousand living grandmasters on the planet today (the highest there has ever been in the history of humanity) out of 7 billion people. In 1972 there were only 88.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> chess is old school. i want to see a list of founders who are exceptional at starcraft.

(only half-joking)

<comment><USER7> what about go?

<comment><USER8> Exactly what I wanted to ask, but you'd probably find that list on a Chinese/Korean/Japanese website...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> heh that's interesting i went to high school with vivek rao, he was a couple years behind me iirc. he said once (i think he was quoting someone else):

a good chess player is the sign of a good mind. a great chess player is the sign of a wasted mind.

<comment><USER9> a little research turns up: "The ability to play chess is the sign of a gentleman. The ability to play chess well is the sign of a wasted life." -- Paul Morphy

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> If he chose bridge rather than chess, there'd be some really high-recognition names on the list: Bill Gates (a good enthusiast), Warren Buffet (an excellent player), Jimmy Cayne (former CEO of Bear Stearns, a national champion), and many others.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder what the Go list would look like. US-only, probably somewhat random and maybe even obfuscating, but world-wide is a far more popular game.

</comment><comment><USER12> The lower rated players on this list tend to be cofounders and CEOs while the higher rated players tend to work in finance. I wonder if that's a coincidence.

<comment><USER13> I think there's a selection effect at play. There are many more lower rated players, but fewer CEOs and cofounders. Remember that this list is about executives. As they go up the list, the pool of players narrows. And thus, they have to dig a bit farther down into corporate ranks to find their execs.

However, the finance correlation would be unaffected by this effect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If anything, it seems like an enthusiasm for chess may be a good way to get introductions or jobs. That's good news if you're not into golf.

</comment><comment><USER15> really cool</comment>


Ask HN: How do you pull all-nighter+dayers - <AUTHOR> Would be interested to hear techniques people use to stay awake for extended periods of time.. <comment><USER2> I don't. I think it is extremely unhealthy and unproductive to stay awake and work for such long periods of time.

<comment><USER3> That's right. The correct technique for pulling an all-nighter is to realize that you're making a terrible mistake and not to do it anymore. Your brain really doesn't work very well without sleep. You may learn to pretend that it does, but that's not helpful.

Having said that, back when I didn't understand this I did figure out that it was a waste of time to stay up _literally_ all night. At 3am or 4am you should go to sleep for two or three hours.

<comment><USER4> Actually, tiredness can attenuate some AD(H)D symptoms. I sometimes used to procrastinate until the last minute, then put in an incredibly productive night/morning to wrap up a project. And I cranked out some pretty good stuff.

But, I was young, then, and those projects were relatively limited in scope. I didn't know at the time that ADD existed; this was just the way I'd found to get such things done. (And I hated all the fear and dread it put me through.)

So, it may not be an optimal approach, but in some circumstances, the all- nighter can perhaps be enabling.

<comment><USER5> I'm not sure if it's the tiredness. The impending deadlines push me into overdrive, which I use to finish work.

But if an all-nighter is truly the only option, then 20 minute naps every 2-3 hours works well combined with a cup of coffee.

Method: Drink a cup of coffee, immediately nap for 20 minutes, wake up and work for 2-3 hours. Rinse and repeat.

<comment><USER4> I don't have a reference at hand, but I recall reading somewhere that the tiredness attenuates some of the distractibility. Perhaps the mind is a bit less "agile"; it therefore foregos so readily jumping from topic to topic.

There is the counterpoint of hyperfocus. Something that is intensely interesting -- whether due to the topic itself or consuming pressure to get it done (NOW!) -- also lessens distractibility.

<comment><USER4> This would seem to argue the contrary, and I'm not finding an online reference to what I seemed to recall in my previous comment.

<http://www.physorg.com/news93623459.html>

So, take my comment with a good grain of salt. If I find a relevant reference, I'll follow up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Concentration and motivation from the task at hand. Most of my all-nighters have been unplanned and were reactive to a software upgrade gone bad.

A memorable one was a software upgrade to Cascade switches at AADS. Turns out the new firmware consumed more RAM than anticipated and we ended up with 10's of thousands of circuits down throughout their network of ~250 backbone switches. I spent 3.5 days straight with nothing more than a couple of two hours naps and LOTS of pizza, coffee, soda, etc. The magnitude of the situation pretty much prevented me from sleeping. Had a couple of other 36 and 48 hour shifts during that same job. Every time I've done any marathon sessions, it was always unplanned and urgent.

</comment><comment><USER7> Can't speak from personal experience, but from I'm read this is near ideal. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modafinil> Don't get the Indian generic, it is reportedly not equivalent.

And don't pull all-nighters, you're much better off getting _some_ sleep if not a full 6-7 hours.

<comment><USER4> Also, there was a Canadian medical advisory recently that a rash can indicate a potentially severe reaction to modafinil. It sounded quite unusual, but something to remain cognizant of.

<http://www.pslgroup.com/dg/219836.htm>

<http://www.napra.ca/pdfs/advisories/Health-prof-Alertec.pdf>

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find coffee to be terrible for all-nighters. I find the best method to be a combination of 15-20 minute naps and either lots of strong black tea or small sips of sugar-free energy drinks.

Of course, as most posters point out, actually sleeping is always best, but sometimes it just has to be done.

</comment><comment><USER9> fear tends to work well.

</comment><comment><USER10> Have a snack every couple hours and drink lots of water.

</comment><comment><USER11> goog polyphasic sleep instead: 2-4 hours/day

<comment><USER5> I think the evidence surrounding this technique is mixed in terms of brain functionality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> BCAAs. Tho' I second st3fan's advice.

<comment><USER13> Got any research links for this? I haven't seen any that would point to BCAA's as a solution for tiredness - I am interested.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Take some naps.

</comment><comment><USER15> booze, lots of it</comment>


"Learning How to Learn," the most popular course on Coursera - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/education/edlife/learning-how-to-learn-barbara-oakley.html?hpw&rref=education&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well <comment><USER2> Took the course. A lot of it is cruft and motivation for the underlying core ideas. The techniques suggested are things many people are already familiar with: recall, deliberate practice, interleaving, spaced repetition, Einstellung, Pomodoro, Feynman Method, Cornell notes or similar (to force recall), exercise regularly, sleep well, focus on concepts not facts (chunking), etc. A composite of these dramatically enhances the learning process.

I can post some of the notes I took on the course if anyone is genuinely curious. The key premise of the course is that the brute force approach people usually take to learning is highly inefficient and ultimately ineffective (you'll forget).

EDIT: Notes [https://pastebin.com/JNbGxvpQ](https://pastebin.com/JNbGxvpQ)

<comment><USER3> _> > A lot of it is cruft and motivation for the underlying core ideas._

Someone else made the exact same remark about Cal Newport's book "Deep Work" earlier this week in another thread.

I find this to be true about a lot of books/courses/content of a "self-help" nature that are designed to be practical and applicable - the real helpful stuff boiled down to its essence could fit in a tri-fold pamphlet (or a 350-line pastebin), but you can't make money selling a tri-fold pamphlet, so the content gets augmented with tons of case studies and variations on variations on variations of the core ideas to justify 200 pages or a multi- week course.

I stopped buying these kinds of books. Every one turned into "thumb to about page 60 to skip the intro/life story/motivating metaphor, read a few pages, and skim the beginning of each chapter after that."

<comment><USER2> Agreed. There's a serious problem of information density in content these days. Most publisher-driven content is almost intentionally sparse. It takes tremendous expertise to weld information with context in a way that doesn't feel hollow and commercial.

Two books I've come across recently that do well to circumvent that problem: Sapiens by Yuval Harari and Designing Data-Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann. In both cases, you get a sense of the author distilling a lifetime's worth of knowledge and expertise into a form that seems hopelessly condensed, and in fact provokes you into further study. That's the mark of excellent exposition in my opinion.

<comment><USER4> The problem of low information density isn't new. Most of the "classics" of western literature have the same problem. We're just more attuned to it now because we've been trained by internet articles to expect an idea to be introduced, explored and concluded in 1000-2000 words. Beyond that, these days many people won't even bother with that if there isn't a quick hook or a TL;DR that sucks them into reading further.

<comment><USER5> > The problem of low information density isn't new. Most of the "classics" of > western literature have the same problem.

I would submit that you may not be tuned into the value in them, if you think that. Maybe it's true of some, but most are just an acquired taste of the same sort as, say, the freer-form varieties of jazz, or classical music. It takes some work and some experience before you get what they're doing, before you understand their rhythms, learn to recognize when they're telling you to pay attention (and to what, which may not be obvious at first), when _and how_ they're simply _playing_ and what about the particular play they're engaging in makes it remarkable and worthwhile, and so on.

There's a sensitivity required for much (not all) of the body of classic literature that most people have to work to develop before they really get it, and lots of allusions that have the chicken/egg problem of requiring you already to be familiar with a lot of literature before they start to land with any frequency—again, same as some genres of music, like classical and jazz again, hip hop especially, others too, but usually not as much as those. Just because you can read doesn't mean you _get_ literature, just like being able to see doesn't mean you _get_ fine art, though in either case you might still enjoy at least some of it, and you might still develop strong opinions about the works you don't enjoy.

Movies and TV are similar. You're not born recognizing good film-making, understanding _why_ it's good, how the way the camera moved in that shot actually _contributed meaning_ rather than just being an artifact of the medium, how that shot was a reference to some DW Griffith movie and what purpose that might have, how that shot is weak and works against the tone or action of the scene in a way that makes it bad, and so on. Most people who watch and enjoy film never bother to develop an actual understanding of it, but that doesn't mean the things that go over their heads are bad.

That's just how all art is, really. Sure there's some posturing and BS mixed in with it all, but you in fact do have to put some serious hours and effort into arts to get the most out of them that you can—even just on a critical or enjoyment or character/intellect/empathy-building level, not even getting into _making_ art—and very probably by the time you've done that a bunch of things that seemed like worthless overrated crap when you started won't seem that way anymore.

<comment><USER4> I've spent a lot of time digging through the major works of post enlightenment philosophers. Even fairly "concise" (by the standards of the day) writers like Hume, Nietzsche and Bertrand Russell belabor points far beyond what was necessary for me to apprehend their meaning.

I'm of the opinion that if you have to be "trained" to find a work aesthetically appealing, it isn't inherently aesthetic. By analogy, some women find pretend rape and pain sexually gratifying, but I don't think anyone would argue those acts are inherently erotic.

<comment><USER6> Minus the weird and out-of-place analogy about sexual role playing and bdsm, this kinda sounds like a child talking about the bitter taste of coffee or beer, when soda is so much sweeter.

<comment><USER4> The real child is the person who cultivates "sophisticated" preferences to try and elevate themselves above others. A child that is genuine is ironically being far more emotionally mature.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find this interesting for two reasons.

I think I recall that not too long ago, the most popular course on coursera was Ng's ML course. It is ironic that people are now more interested in teaching oneself how to learn versus a machine. This change could be attributed to other reasons like change in user demographics, or, market saturation, so that naturally popular courses will change once a large majority moves from one to the next. But I want to believe there is a more interesting phenomenon occurring where reading about abstract notions of learning causes a person to question how they themselves learn, and if the same abstract concepts apply. This is more a whimsical thought, than a serious one.

The second reason this is interesting is it could be surfacing a real issue with the way we have become accustomed to ingesting data. Could it be that we are becoming aware and fearful that the long term effects of suckling the internet's spout of instant gratification is causing serious harm to our ability to "actually learn".

Neither may be the case, but it seems like there is something interesting going on here.

<comment><USER8> It is the most popular course on Coursera because it's ~3 hours of lectures and ~3 hours of study and it seems to be advertised for everyone who logs on to Coursera.

Andrew Ng's Course is 11 weeks and it's about ~5 hours a week and on top of that you'd really want to be quite able at High School Maths and have some programming background.

<comment><USER7> Easiness of the course is could be a big factor in it's popularity. A simpler explanation :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Dr Oakley also wrote "A Mind for Numbers", which is essentially this course in text form. The book is great as a a basis for the theory of learning, and dives into the same content (diffuse vs focused thinking, skimming chapters before reading etc.).

I find having a text reference with dedicated time makes me learn more, so if you're interested in the course you'd probably also love the book.

<comment><USER10> Ah! I bought this book and loved it, but couldn't remember how on earth it got recommended to me. Now I recall reading up on this course and deciding to try the book instead (video courses tend to waste too much time saying what you're about to learn, barely expanding on it, and then reviewing what you just learned).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a pretty good summary of the core concepts: [http://www.math.toronto.edu/nhoell/10rules-of- studying.pdf](http://www.math.toronto.edu/nhoell/10rules-of-studying.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER12> This course revolutionized my views on learning. After taking it and applying the suggested techniques I've seen an amazing increase not just in my competence but my confidence. It left me feeling empowered. I was almost a bit sad when I reached the end.

<comment><USER13> This. I learned that it's ok to feel dumb when learning difficult ideas, and to take a break, let your mind do some diffuse thinking, and come back to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> CrashCourse has a study skills course: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNcAJRf3bE1...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNcAJRf3bE1IJU6nMfHj86W)

It's geared more toward a younger crowd, but it's still pretty good, at least so far.

<comment><USER15> The guy hosting that course (Tom Frank) runs a really good blog, collegeinfogeek.com which despite being college focused has great motivational/discipline tips.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great summary on the course from reddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivated/comments/5950tm/text_i...](https://www.reddit.com/r/GetMotivated/comments/5950tm/text_i_just_finished_the_online_coursera_course/)

</comment><comment><USER17> I'll report in too. I took the course and thought it was excellent. I love learning and have been learning new things for decades and thought my techniques were pretty good. I'm a very fast learner. The course helped me more than I was expecting and my learning speed and ability to memorize noticeably improved. Especially with the foreign language I'm studying. And the theories around how the brain works were interesting. And it's a pretty short course.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is this any good? I've had it in my list of things to check out for a while but I suspect it might just be TED-talk pop-psych voodoo stuff.

<comment><USER19> This is a zero-bullshit course. I completed it in about a week an a half (definitely not a lot of work) and it's drastically changed the way I look at learning and my perspective about the difficulty of earning new skills.

My pace on reading programming books for instance has gone down such that it takes about 2-3 times it would normally take to go through the material, however the difference is unmistakable with respect to how much I know the material. It took me 2-3 years of additional work experience to be at a comparable level in other topics.

<comment><USER20> So you read through the books more slowly, practicing, and recalling the material? Can you elaborate on your process now?

<comment><USER19> I work several subjects in parallel (three books currently). I go through each chapter twice. Once to understand the material then moving on to another book.

When I come back to the former book I go through the chapter again creating Anki cards for anything notable. The sheer amount of material I notice I had completely forgotten on the second reading is astounding.

I go through the Anki cards daily, in the morning I cover the material created from two of my books. In the evening I go through the third book (which I deem more valuable in a deep sense/abstract).

I have yet to have solid a strategy on chunk-building (as the course pushes you to do), however I can still see some bigger units emerge with time.

<comment><USER21> Can you elaborate on why it's valuable to go through different books in parallel? My goal has always been to do one thing at a time, so the idea that the opposite if beneficial is interesting.

<comment><USER19> The course emphasizes how memory works, you would think that to remember things you have to write the information well-enough in it so it sticks. But in reality, the information has been there the first time around the issue for the brain is finding the information like locating a product in a large warehouse.

It is the process of recall that makes things stick to memory as opposed to repeated memorization. Working on several subjects at a time spaces out sessions and prevents the illusion that you have access to the knowledge you worked for when in fact you don't.

<comment><USER21> Very interesting. Thanks for the info. I honestly haven't given much thought to how much I recall; I figured that I remembered what I remembered and that was that. Perhaps that should receive more attention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Here's a great playlist featuring Richard Hamming with a CS focus on a similar topic: [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FF649D0C4407B30](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2FF649D0C4407B30)

</comment><comment><USER23> Am I the only one who thinks this is a cynical ploy to tap into the anxieties people have about not being successful?

<comment><USER17> I took the course. I love learning and have been learning new things for decades and thought my techniques were pretty good. I'm a very fast learner. The course helped me more than I was expecting and my learning speed and ability to memorize noticeably improved. Especially with the foreign language I'm studying. And the theories around how the brain works were interesting. You're probably being a little cynical. ;-)

<comment><USER24> What's that foreign language and how do you study it? (If I might ask)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Quite an awesome course. I highly recommend it. In a day and age, we feel outdated by minute, sets right perspective and gives a good system for knowledge worker of any domain.

</comment><comment><USER26> Took the course, loved it. Bought the book, loved it. Encouraged my partner to check it out, she stuck through it. 3 years later she's about to graduate from college with her basic counselling education and experience behind her where she hit top of the class. She's about to set out on her own. This course was a massive driver and I'm not sure she'd have gone this way this quickly without it.

</comment><comment><USER27> I took the course as well and wrote a post about applying the lessons learned as a developer: [https://medium.com/learn-love-code/learnings-from- learning-h...](https://medium.com/learn-love-code/learnings-from-learning-how- to-learn-19d149920dc4)

Feedback welcome! Would love to learn what other techniques devs use to learn and level up

</comment><comment><USER28> I haven't followed a course on Coursera since the first iteration of Crypto I. I heard that it became really bad, asking you to pay for a lot of courses.

<comment><USER29> You heard right, it is really bad. REALLY bad. They don't even audit the courses they sell to see if they work. I've seen blatantly missing material, completely bricked dev environments, assignments with rubrics that don't match up with their grading criteria, repositories with several errors in code marked, 'DO NOT EDIT', the list goes on.

Rough stuff. Look elsewhere for online courses. Coursera is all about pushing sales, not learning.

<comment> Al-Khwarizmi I suppose it depends on the course. I have really fond memories of the "Chinese for Beginners" and "More Chinese for Beginners" courses from Peking university I took on Coursera. They managed to engage me, I really enjoyed the teaching style and I learned a lot in relation to the time spent, it was probably the most efficient Chinese learning method I've taken.

Then I went into a course in edX and the website was way better, the platform was miles ahead, the forums were better, the video player was amazing with the ability to change video speed and add subtitles, etc... but I dropped out in like two weeks!

Now this post has motivated me to look again in Coursera and there are two specializations for Chinese that didn't exist before, one from Peking University (with different teachers to the one I remember) and another from Shanghai Jiao Tong... I'm going to choose one and give it a try :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Can anyone of you report any long term benefits from these kind of courses? Personally, I think those classes (haven't looked into the coursera one) only present obvious stuff.

I've once worked through "Make it stick", a book that is often recommended when it comes to learning. What I've found is that there is nothing wrong with the content but it did not really help.

I imagine that most people who struggle with learning deal with some kind of psychological issues that need to get addressed. They need to learn how to deal with stuff like frustration, worries, perfectionism or self esteem.

<comment><USER31> > Can anyone of you report any long term benefits from these kind of courses?

None. It's like all self help books or "learning to read" books or etc. The only thing it does is make you feel like you are accomplishing something and actually "learning". But you are just wasting time.

The title is even self-defeating. "Learning how to learn". How can you learn to learn without already knowing how to learn in the first place.

In order for the class to be useful to you, you would have to already known how to learn to learn the material.

Ultimately, those truly motivated would have gone on to learn what they wanted regardless of this course. And those unmotivated will not go on to learn regardless of this course.

<comment><USER32> This is completely antagonistic, and close-minded, without providing evidence. The course is by people who have studied these things and back up the methods with research (evidence).

The goal is long-term retention and learning. The course addresses bad habits that people use for learning that don't accomplish this goal, and suggests better methods.

I haven't taken the course but I'm familiar with some of the methods, such as spaced-repetition. Spaced-repetition hasn't falsely "made me feel like I am accomplishing something" and I've been surprised with the results over time. There is a body of research and evidence showing positive results.

> How can you learn to learn without already knowing how to learn in the first > place.

This might feel like a clever comment but it's pedantic and doesn't contribute to the discussion. Most people have some minimal capacity to learn new things, and can also improve how they learn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> For those who read her book and did the course, is there anything in the course that isn't covered by the book? what's the advantage of the course over the book?

As a side note, I have found that the most powerful technique for me is recalling.

<comment><USER34> Which of her books are you referring to?

<comment><USER33> A mind for numbers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Fantastic that resources like this now exist. In some ways it seems to be reminding us about how we _used_ to learn. Children spontaneously go back again and again to things that delight them (spaced repetition) and they switch activities when bored (Pomodoro). Unfortunately, perhaps as a result of schooling, or other hard knocks, the spontaneous impulse gets lost. Adults suffer from mixed motivations and seem to be fairly clueless about what they find genuinely interesting. It becomes difficult to approach topics playfully.

<comment><USER2> Adults are forced to be much more pragmatic and less volatile. Plus, most of us suffer from time scarcity. There's a specific pivot point in life wherein you shift from primarily a learner to primarily a producer and I think the shift in how we approach knowledge and our own interests is the unfortunate baggage of that transition.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I highly recommend this course. One thing i learned and have been practicing was how useful was memorization and spaced repetition practice of things i would like learn and understand.

</comment><comment><USER37> There is a book from the 80s with the same name "Learning How to Learn" by Gowin & Novak. The book was very influential to the UX field. Concept Maps -the technique presented in the book- is used a lot to understand user mental models. The book is 80% discussion about how to apply the technique in a classroom... 20% explaining the technique, but anyways it's worth the read.

Edit: small correction, according to google the book was published in 1984

<comment><USER38> There is a modern book called "Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning" by Peter C. Brown that I quite liked.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I find that learning how to learning how to learning how to learn is a good way to spend my time when I don't actually want to accomplish anything.

</comment><comment><USER40> I love to learn how to learn. Using what I learnt to learn stuff is hard, so I don't do it.

</comment><comment><USER41> Interesting article, personally I think this is more useful: [https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules](https://www.supermemo.com/en/articles/20rules)

</comment><comment><USER42> I took this course it is wonderful and good. Also read her book.

I now always try to skim the index of a book or chapter before reading it. Also try to study in smaller sessions, every day, instead of cramming a ton of info in just one day.

</comment><comment><USER43> I haven't done that course but I have to agree. Learning how to learn is vastly important and really hard to do on your own, because the requirement is the same as the result.

</comment><comment><USER44> I have heard that the way it is presented is very dry. I have read a summary on reddit and I think it is good, but I just don't have the time to spend on it.

</comment><comment><USER45> Which i neatly tagged away in my bookmarks feeling good about envisioning taking it some day in the future. :) :(

</comment><comment><USER46> This reminds me of a book I read years ago: Learning How to Learn by Idries Shah

It was an interesting look at Sufi thought.

</comment><comment><USER47> Wasn't this the course also provided by the teaching company?

</comment><comment><USER48> I saw the title and initially thought this was about AutoML.

</comment><comment><USER49> took the course, I think it is pretty good, it follow the rhythm our brain to remember something.

</comment><comment><USER50> The very first sentence:

> The studio for what is arguably the world's most successful online course is > tucked into a corner of Barb and Phil Oakley's basement, a converted TV room > that smells faintly of cat urine.

I feel embarrassed on the Oakley's behalf. But I'm not a cat owner so maybe a room in one's home smelling (however faintly) of cat urine isn't particularly embarrassing.

Am I unreasonable in thinking that the author is an asshole?

<comment><USER51> To me that sentence reads as a factual description devoid of judgement.

EDIT: I am surprised so many feel strongly about this and it didn't strike to me as insensitive at all. Just makes me realize that being sensitive to others is quite hard, specially while writing for platforms with such diverse set of users. How would one know? :)

<comment><USER52> You're right, but it's a totally irrelevant fact that _other_ people will still judge on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> What's the best MOOC on Compilers?

</comment><comment><USER54> Sounds to me like a lot of people are searching for a course which will allow one to overcome a lack of intrinsic motivation. But all the best tools in the world wont make you a smith, if you find no fun in hammering red hot iron.

</comment><comment><USER55> Previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14936265](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14936265)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15084059](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15084059)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15068785](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15068785)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14930203](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14930203)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14928598](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14928598)

<comment><USER56> zero comments. We do get a lot of resubmissions but if there wasn't a previous discussion, we just wasted our time clicking those links.</comment></comment>


Gaijin Engineer in Tokyo - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@xevix/gaijin-engineer-in-tokyo-aaa9be8919b2 <comment><USER3>
      You're Not From Here

      You are a foreigner. You were a foreigner before you arrived, you are a foreigner while
      you are in Japan, and when Japanese go abroad they will still refer to you as a
      foreigner, ironies be damned. This cannot be understated and will be a recurring theme
      in the stories to come. Never forget, you're a foreigner. They won't ever forget.

Well, I experience exactly the same situation and I'm a Greek living and working in the UK, so it's not something that's particular to the Japanese. It seems a sizeable chunk of most people you'll meet when you live abroad will be constitutionally unable to let go of the fact that you didn't grow up within the same national borders as each other.

<comment><USER4> > It seems a sizeable chunk of most people you'll meet when you live abroad > will be constitutionally unable to let go of the fact that you didn't grow > up within the same national borders as each other.

So what's the problem with that? I'm an European, currently living in Singapore. I am a foreigner (Angmoh). People know that. I know that. Cultures clash here and there but there is no problem with it.

<comment><USER5> In my opinion that is the right attitude to have. I actually enjoy being a foreigner!

I'm happy to follow the social protocols while never feeling like needing to belong (which is already hard enough even if you were born a native...).

<comment><USER6> > I'm happy to follow the social protocols while never feeling like needing to > belong

I used to be a "digital nomad" before coming to Australia, I lived in many cities across S. E. Asia and South America and, like you, for a while I really enjoyed being able to "taste the soup while not diving into it"[1].

However things change when you decide that the place where you are living is where you want to settle down and build a family (see my other comment in this sub-thread).

[1] This is a (probably not accurate) quote by writer and journalist Tiziano Terzani, unfortunately I'm unable to find a link to a source at the moment.

<comment><USER5> Not everyone wants to build a family. Some people are quite happy to be single throughout their life.

<comment><USER6> Sure, I wasn't implying that, just pointing out that it may be a possibility. Also, being single doesn't preclude you from deciding that you want to live somewhere indefinitely (the point that I wanted to make in my comment was more related to nomadic vs resident lifestyle, than single vs. married).

<comment><USER5> I'm actually not nomadic. Born in India, but moved to Canada a decade ago.

Things are pretty good here. Because of cultural differences people don't necessarily have to 'accept' me as one of theirs (it is just human nature to be so). And that's fine by me. If being emotionally accepted was a factor, I would have chosen to live among my extended family back in India.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's really hard to overstate just how bloated emails are in Japanese. They seem to follow a very strict script. Once you learn the key words, it's easy to write and understand, but it's so much fluff for so little meaning. I've gotten dozens of lines from single emails just asking me about confirming a skype interview date, while any normal English message would literally be no more than, "Sure, let's talk at X:XX PM. Contact us beforehand if you have any troubles."

<comment><USER8> I consulted for a Vietnamese tech company some years ago and was surprised to see that most internal emails among top management (most of whom had attended university overseas) were in English, rather than Vietnamese.

The reason? Written Vietnamese is too formal, and they prefer English for getting to the point quickly.

<comment><USER9> What do you mean by formal?

I've always assumed Asian languages to be very informal as a lot of it has to do with context. At least that's how some of my friends talk to each other. And one of the reasons why it's so hard to blend in. It could also be possible that they rarely talk formally in person, and I've yet to experience it.

<comment><USER10> > I've always assumed Asian languages to be very informal as a lot of it has > to do with context.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, but if you're thinking about "East Asian languages omitting 'necessary' grammatical parts all the time", then you might be talking about this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro- drop_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-drop_language)

Note that this is a grammatical phenomenon exhibited by some languages (i.e., the characteristics of a language as a whole). Formality/informality is a concept associated with a particular "speech" inside a language, which is orthogonal to this. (You can say a particular speech in English is formal or informal, but it makes little sense to say that "English" as a whole is a formal or informal language.)

<comment><USER9> Interesting. I've mistakenly assumed that there is a relative difference between formal and informal counterparts. Considering the extreme informality of Eastern Asian languages, I didn't think their formal language was on the opposite end of the spectrum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think you should try working at a smaller company. I've also been an engineer in Japan for a while and found startups a lot easier to deal with than mid-sized or larger companies. For example, you almost never have to send e-mails because everything is over Slack and surprisingly casual. Working with other teams is easy because there are only a small amount of engineers and everyone knows each other. Google Docs instead of Excel so you don't have to worry about SHIFT-JIS. Go somewhere without middle management where you work directly under the CTO or at most one other guy and you'll see less meetings. Of course, you'll still see some of the classic Japanese bureaucracy, but nothing compared to the bigger places.

My main gripe with Japanese companies is that they simply don't pay as well as American ones do.

<comment><USER12> _> My main gripe with Japanese companies is that they simply don't pay as well as American ones do._

Fair, but Tokyo can be much, much cheaper than SF or NYC (in my personal experience, rent alone is up to a 2-3x difference. Same with dining out - <USER2> 1500¥ dinner easily runs you $30-40 with tip in SF).

<comment><USER13> I think the implication is that Japanese companies in Japan pay generally less than American companies in Japan, which seems true at least when comparing Japanese and American big names. It's also the case outside engineering/tech. It's fairly common knowledge among Japanese workers and foreign residents living in Japan. One hypothesis (which I like) is that Japanese companies offer a higher non-monetary compensation (I am not talking about flex-time).

<comment><USER12> Oh I see. I didn't get the "American companies in japan" subtext. Yes, that makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I don't know why this is always made a topic, but I never felt offended by "gaijin" or the Chinese counterpart "laowai". No big deal.

However I also don't think that "they don't think it's offensive" has any relevance. Some people think the N-word is not offensive. It still is. Some men don't think calling a female colleague "babe" is offensive. It still is.

<comment><USER15> I spent a year abroad studying in Japan with a group of 10 westerners. At the beginning of the year some people were apprehensive when they learned about the word 'gaijin'. By the end of the year every member of the group used 'gaijin' in their regular conversation.

This was far outside of Tokyo and seeing a 'gaijin' was a genuinely rare occurrence. More than anything the word seems to fit a real communicative need. "I had an interaction with someone that was different from the norm because they did not look Japanese" is quite a mouthful and invoking the word 'gaijin' starts to happen quite naturally.

My biggest problem with the word is that it is used sloppily. It conflates race, culture, language and nationality and assumes a kind of all or nothing approach to them. My black student who was born and raised in Japan fulfilled 3 out of those 4 categories but would be considered gaijin everywhere he went.

<comment><USER16> > My biggest problem with the word is that it is used sloppily. It conflates > race, culture, language and nationality and assumes a kind of all or nothing > approach to them

Westerners are no better - the US does the same for everyone who is not "default" (i.e. white) where they are differentiated by a prefix, usually their heritage, which conflates "culture, language and nationality". Your black Japanese student would be considered "African American", which is beyond absurd.

<comment><USER17> >Your black Japanese student would be considered "African American", which is beyond absurd.

No they wouldn't, for the same reason Americans don't call Africans "African American."

<comment><USER18> They would. Listen closely to how you and your friends tell stories next time. Race and gender are almost always used to describe people. "My landlord, who's a black guy, <STORY DETAIL THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BEING BLACK OR BEING A MAN>"

<comment><USER17> >Race and gender are almost always used to describe people. "My landlord, who's a black guy, <STORY DETAIL THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH BEING BLACK OR BEING A MAN>"

I don't refer to people primarily by their race, and I don't recall my friends doing so. While I don't deny that sort of conversation happens, it's probably not as idiomatic as you seem to believe.

I'm sure you can understand how easily a stereotype like that can fail when applied to a country as populous and diverse as the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Mister Wainzinger,

Sorry to ask for your time, but if it is possible for you to let me know, I would love to read about a Japanese engineer living in the US. Are you aware of any related articles or response articles on this topic? I understand that it may be an inconvenience to tell me about these articles, but your cooperation is greatly appreciated in this matter.

Apologies and thanks,

Thien, Chip

<comment><USER20> I don't think you'll get a reply to this because this article wasn't posted to Hacker News by its original author, and I don't think the original author is participating in this comment thread at all. You might want to find a different way of contacting the author.

<comment><USER21> I'm 99% sure it was a joke, written in the style described in the article.

<comment><USER20> Could be! Poe's Law has come up pretty often on Hacker News recently; maybe I'm the latest "victim". :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think people put too much meaning in Japanese set phrases, imagining them to have their literal meaning when that is not what they actually mean. The author provides this transcript:

       Me: This is clearly broken!
       Tanaka: Yes, you're right.
       M: Shouldn't we do something about this?
       T: Nothing can be done.
       M: This is easily patchable!
       T: I'm sorry.
       M: Who's responsible for this code?
       T: Team X.
       M: Somebody on our team should talk to them.
       T: Yes, you're right.
       M: Well, can I talk to them?
       T: Ah, it's not impossible.
       M: Does that mean I can?
       T: Who knows.
       M: …

I've had this conversation in English with American coworkers more times than I can remember:

       A: This is clearly broken!
       B: Yeah....
       A: Shouldn't we do something about this?
       B: It's not a priority.
       A: This is easily patchable!
       B: I have to work on Project X now, they've been bugging me about it for months and their manager is getting mad at _me_ now.
       A: Who's responsible for this code?
       B: Team X.
       A: Somebody on our team should talk to them.
       B: I already have 8 meetings this week, I don't have time.
       A: Can I talk to them?
       B: They never answer my email.
       A: I'll email them.
       B: Good luck!

It all boils down to the same issue: the person you're conversing with doesn't consider the matter as urgent as you. The words used are different but the message is the same: "meh". This isn't a Japanese thing or an American thing... it's a people thing. And honestly, a lot of times, they're right.

</comment><comment><USER23> I noticed something similar in my company:

\- Meeting, a lot of meeting, on average 2 hours a day.

\- Scrum is also meeting heavy, for a 5 days Sprint, the first 3 days is to write the document, splitting tasks into smaller subtasks (so that anyone can code for it), the rest 2 days are for actual coding.

\- It's very hard to track responsibility due to 'group think' \- HoRenSo.

\- Disputes aren't resolved completely but just shoved under the rug. The one who tries to pursue it will be alienated. They have a proverb: "The nails that stick out shall be hammered".

\- A lot of engineers don't have formal computer education. But they make up for that by putting a lot of effort in learning how to code, so they can catch up with their peer in one or two years. For example, one programmer was working as a system admin for 2 years, and before that she studied marketing in university.

\- Community events are mostly for middle aged people, not students or young one.

Overall I think it's interesting to work in a Japanese company, there are a lot to learn from them.

EDIT: Format

<comment><USER24> Had the same experiences in western corporations. I think people like the idea that this is all a Japanese phenomenon.

The majority of "engineers" I've worked with (including the best) don't have computer science degrees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> >The thinking goes, if everyone is involved in the decision-making process, then when something inevitably goes wrong, there's no individual person to blame! Problem solved.

This is _exactly_ how life in the US Govt. IT sectors go.

<comment><USER26> A co-worker gave me a great phrase for this: Fix the blame. I've run into a bunch of companies that spend far more time fixing the blame, then actually fixing the problem. Good luck with that business model.

<comment><USER25> Most of the 13 year experiences I have there can be summed up as: if it isn't broke, fix it until it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Bit off-topic but I don't think the "Cultural Differences" dismissals are unique to Japan; One of my friends from the US will often try to explain disagreements away with "must be different over there" and other similar statements. It's endlessly infuriating.

<comment><USER28> In the US, that roughly translates to "I'm tired of this conversation; go away".

<comment><USER29> Depends. It could be, "let's agree to disagree and still be congenial."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've noticed their thing about paper before. Oddly, it was in videos of Japanese offices during earthquakes, where my concern was that people were going to get hurt by all the falling binders and documents that were coming off the bookcases.

</comment><comment><USER31> Funny thing, although the PDCA process is always popularly related to the Toyota Production System, apparently it was created by Deming, "father of modern quality control", who divulgated it through Japan. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDCA](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDCA)

<comment><USER32> And before Deming, there was Sarasohn ([http://honoringhomer.net/wp- content/uploads/2014/08/cringely...](http://honoringhomer.net/wp- content/uploads/2014/08/cringely.pdf)). In fact, Sarasohn recommended Deming for the job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Got a design meeting? Print high-quality printouts of the mockup for every person in the room. Then mark them up with pens, make the changes digitally, and reprint everything and repeat._

I work in a design studio in Silicon Valley. We do this, and it is extremely common in any design studio. Essentially, there is simply no digital device that matches the ease of annotation, the resolution, and the size compared to printing on a 11x17 piece of paper. You can put them up on the wall for everybody to see, and have a 10 meter wall covered in comps if that's what you need... impossible to do with any digital tool.

</comment><comment><USER33> You've reminded me of the horrors of "keep, problem, try"

Let's discuss this every week, and then not take any actual action

</comment><comment><USER34> Almost everything under "real cultural differences" seems to describe culture as it exists in corporate America as well.

Edit: even some of the other stuff seems to be more about tech vs non-tech, as opposed to Japan vs US.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is excellent. I would love to read one written from the same outsider (gaijin?) perspective about Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER36> You wouldn't be seen as a "perpetual foreigner" (gaijin) like that, and American culture is much more lenient on foreigners carrying along their old customs compared to in Japan. Overall I'd expect an easier time, particularly in that it's always achievable to be seen as American (more in some areas than others, especially SV, not to say the US doesn't have any problems with discrimination), but in Japan a foreigner or even foreign-looking native is never truly accepted as Japanese, as pointed out here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16612178](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16612178)

<comment><USER37> SV is segregated based on class far more than race or ethnicity. Not all of America is lenient, but more so than any other country I'm aware of (though Canada seems close), anyone can become accepted as a citizen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> A little late, but I think one of the most important distinctions between "otherness" in a place like Tokyo versus a place like the US is the fact that you can "become" an American in at least one sense if not completely, but you can basically never be Japanese in almost any sense.

It's always felt that America is the kind of place that once you've put in your 6 years (I think it's 6 now) on the way to citizenship (or however you get your citizenship), and are sworn in/become a citizen, the next person that implies you're un-american you're free to punch in the face (most of the time not not literally). People may imply it, but the way the country is built/the culture is structured is at least supposed to imply that once you choose to join "Team America" so-to-speak, you're a team-member and that's that. America struggles with the divisions and history between the cultures/races within it, but I think that's natural, sometimes healthy, and to some degree inevitable -- there's no way you're going to have lots of cultures mix without conflict/racism. So if you start with the preconception that friction is a 100% certainty, the question is whether you can see it, and whether the culture is one where you can freely discuss it or not.

Japan on the other hand, is like 95%+ Japanese last I checked -- there just isn't enough mixing at any sort of scale to widen the idea of what a Japanese person is, and much of the segregation is intentional (which is fine by me). Even Japanese people who go abroad for a long time as children and return are treated differently, and have to be careful when re-entering society, there just isn't any hope of melting into the society in any reasonable sense for someone who is in actuality 100% gaijin (and looks nothing like a japanese person).

While I haven't lived in the UK, I imagine it's the same, they seem to have a melting pot culture very similar to the US in this sense, in some ways they seem even better mixed than the US -- I feel like I see less overt racism there.

I don't think this phenomenon is limited to Japan of course, just happens to be on topic right now -- I imagine being a white person in Nigeria or some other prosperous African country would be a somewhat similar situation as far as otherness goes.

</comment><comment><USER39> >> Do they have X in gaikoku? (you'll be amazed what people will ask about, I was once asked if gargles exist in gaikoku)

What are 'gargles'?

<comment><USER40> I think he's referring to gargling. I've gotten the same question.

I've also gotten "How many colors does a rainbow have in your country?" which is just beyond me

<comment><USER41> Perception, or rather expression of color is cultural, so that question is quite astute.

[https://www.sapiens.org/language/color- perception/](https://www.sapiens.org/language/color-perception/)

Similarly, when my cousin from Ohio asked if the French people I was visiting in the winter celebrated Chrsitmas, it was ignorance, but a well-intentioned question none-the-less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Once you reach certain good level of Japanese mastery, suddenly those phrases and behaviors you considered very polite and which deeply impressed you, turn out to be jokes, fun Japanese had with you. Or talk to Japanese escapees to Europe that work for non-Japanese companies and hence can have some life for an explanation.

</comment><comment><USER43> Does Japan still have the crazy working hours they were famous for?

</comment><comment><USER44> This holds true for Japanese companies outside Japan, my wife was working as a developer for TOTO Mexico and they had a lot of personnel rotation because of these differences, mainly the meeting culture, it would often get in the way of the work and people ended up quitting or getting fired. It was however a good experience because of the high quality and standards it kept up with the product.

</comment><comment><USER45> Great novel (and movie) about cultural misunderstandings in Japan from prolific author Amélie Nothomb. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Trembling_(novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_and_Trembling_\(novel\))

</comment><comment><USER46> > You are a foreigner

This is a big pro than a con. You can really think and act on your own with out bothering too much thinking about society pressure. One can act independently in a manner which is not possible within the society he was brought up.

</comment><comment><USER47> Although this blog post is about work in Japan and its "foreigner" consequences. In my opinion, this writing explains exactly why the USA is the best place for work, and perhaps the most welcoming environment for foreigners.

</comment><comment><USER48> Are mechanical keyboards frowned upon in the silent open offices of Japan?

<comment><USER49> I would frown upon it in our not-silent-at-all open space, so I suppose yes. No idea what the reaction would be though!

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Aren't some of these things actually good? Preserving social harmony. Lean into it more. It's a job it doesn't matter so much. Adapt yourself to these values and enjoy your time more. Being in another culture you get the chance to do things their way so try it. Give you a chance to maybe see that the things you think are so important don't actually matter. Maybe you can have a better time and enjoy your life more if you just go along with the way that everyone does them there.

Power harassment. Stop being such a savior and assuming that your morals are better. Open your eyes and see what's good and see how things got together.

<comment><USER51> You managed to be vastly more condescending than the author.

Every culture has its strengths and weaknesses, noticing and commenting on them is fine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Nice article. In my experience, the "Real Cultural Differences" section sounded like every enterprise company I've interacted with in the US.

</comment><comment><USER24> TL;DR "I moved overseas it was sometimes frustrating, challenging and different"

Having lived and worked overseas myself in European country none of this persons experience comes as a surprise honestly.</comment>


Northeast blackout of 2003 - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003 <comment><USER2> Remember that one. It was so strange. People didn't quite know what to do with themselves. Usually they'd go home in the evening and watch TV. TV was not working so they they just kind of ended up going outside and met neighbors they had never talked to before. It was great.

The food was going bad in the refrigerators and freezers so neighbors got together and those who had generators offered to store some of the food. People were firing up their grills and grilling out together, talking, socializing.

In the morning they were used to hitting Starbucks to get their caffeine fix but local Starbucks was out of power, so I remember a few neighbors complaining among other things that they have coffee headaches.

Next thing when the power came back, everyone went and bought generators. Spent thousands of dollars on those things. But I don't remember them being used much after that as there were no other such major outages since.

Oh and also they promptly went back to watching TV (and now probably browsing the web) and being just as isolated as before from each other.

<comment><USER3> I wasn't in NYC for this, but it reminds me of two events I was in NYC for: The earthquake of 2011 and the aftermath of hurricane Sandy.

During the earthquake many people fled their buildings, so we wound up at a kind of impromptu block party at the restaurant across the street with everyone excitedly telling their stories.

After Sandy, lower Manhattan was still dark. But people were out kind of giddily enjoying the bizarre experience of dark Manhattan and sharing stories, which gave the town an interesting sort of social buzz.

Anyway. The moral of the story: Despite NYC's grouchy reputation, New Yorkers seem to immediately come together during these events to talk, hang out, help, etc. It's a reminder that we live in a good town.

<comment><USER4> Everything is an event in New York. Even a minor earthquake 300 miles away that shakes your silverware.

<comment><USER3> No, actually surprisingly few things are "an event" in New York. Even stuff as major as the NYE Times Square Ball Drop are completely ignorable in most of the city if you turn off the TV.

Earthquakes, though, are rare. And if you haven't felt one before, kind of a crazy novelty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Two things about this incident have always struck me: How incredibly calmly New York City handled what movies tell me should be a riot-worthy moment; and how I have never met someone who wasn't living in the Northeast at the time who is aware that this occurred (I mention it off-and-on).

<comment><USER6> Chicagoan here (W suburbs). Not only was I aware of it, I used it to justify a $40,000 natural gas generator installation at my home (I'm a work-from-home radiologist, so outages are unacceptable [and also need back-up internet, of course]). Also have a full disaster-management plan and supplies in place. I got plenty of jeers from neighbors and colleagues when I had everything installed. Kept us going during a several-day outage during a heat wave about 5 or 6 years ago. We hosted 3 families for almost a week, with always-on AC, refrigeration and basic lighting.

Couple shorter brownouts since then. Nobody laughing at me now.

(PS: I'm not advocating for general installation of these things, as they are a major investment. But this was in my threat model.)

<comment><USER7> Now days you could install a battery system (e.g. Tesla Powerwall) and solar, instead of the generator.

This would probably come in significantly cheaper than the $40k, and pay for itself over time through reduced energy bills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was on the overnight Amtrak from NY to Chicago when this happened. I was only 7 or 8 at the time, so I had no idea what was going on - I was just thankful for the extra ~10 hours to explore the train (and find the unlocked snack cabinet in the cafe car).

</comment><comment><USER9> SE Michigan here:

We'd just had a long power outage (hours, from the night before) restored around noonish at home. Few hours later... poof - all of Michigan gone due to this. Quite annoying! :)

</comment><comment><USER10> It hit during my last final exam of the summer term. We were lucky that our prof let us complete the remainder of our exam under the glow of emergency lighting.</comment>


So HIIT Training has been pushed on us incorrectly - <AUTHOR> http://www.sportsci.org/2009/ss.htm#_Toc245522384

<comment><AUTHOR> A quick intro to the paper [http://www.mensjournal.com/health- fitness/exercise/80-20-tra...](http://www.mensjournal.com/health- fitness/exercise/80-20-training-run-slower-get-faster-20140923)

Surprisingly this crossfit paper quotes Dr. Stephen Seiler's work: [http://www.crossfit.com/journal/library/10_03_metab_cond.pdf](http://www.crossfit.com/journal/library/10_03_metab_cond.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER2> Please don't editorialize titles. The site guidelines ask you to use the article title unless it is misleading or linkbait. If you want to call attention to a specific aspect, the place to do so is in the thread, not the title.</comment>


Useful Android resources - <AUTHOR> http://www.sapandiwakar.in/technical/useful-android-resources/

<comment><USER2> Maybe it's because I'm new, but how do you vote down a story in HN, will I get that privilege with karma increase?

<comment><USER3> I recommend you read the unofficial FAQ [1] and the official guidelines [2]. In short, you can't downvote a story but you can "flag" it, which penalizes by pushing it down the page. You can downvote comments if you have atleast 500 karma.

[1]: <http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+Unofficial+HN+FAQ>

[2]: <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

<comment><USER2> thank you, that's what I was looking for</comment></comment></comment>


HSBC whistleblower given five years' jail over biggest leak in banking history - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/nov/27/hsbc-whistleblower-jailed-five-years-herve-falciani <comment><USER2> HSBC is the bank the americans didn't prosecute because as they said, HSBC would surely lose their banking license and that would be bad for the economy.

The swiss, yeah, profiting from the proceeds of fraud, keeping the proceeds when banking customers die (or are murdered like crime bosses and dictators often are) and their one excuse for their whole private banking system, protection from persecution, lost all credibility when they turned the Jews back at the border to die, kept their money and destroyed as many of the records so the descendants of those they sent back to die couldn't get it back.

So now the Swiss are on the side of HSBC when HSBC have, yet again, been caught out in criminal behavior. Is anyone surprised by it?

</comment><comment><USER3> "...he had brought his own laptop with him, which the company had no control over. He was able to install his own software on it. The laptop's USB ports, into which memory sticks are inserted, were not blocked.

From October 2006 until he was questioned by police on 22 December 2008, Falciani used his privileged access to download data including bank account numbers, client names, addresses and dates of birth, and sums held in accounts.

....his actions, including approaches to banks in Lebanon, suggested he had wanted to sell the stolen data.

.... Falciani had given a series of different reasons: that he wanted to "conduct a simple test", that he was using fictitious data, and that he wanted to test the bank's security. "

Sounds dodgy in the extreme

</comment><comment><USER4> Did he sell the data? How can prosecutors accuse him of personal gain if he did not gain anything personally? What a kangaroo court.</comment>


HNews, an android HN client that tries to not suck - <AUTHOR> https://market.android.com/details?id=com.gabriele.hnews

<comment><USER2> Great app, I really like the way it deals with nested comments. Just a couple suggestions:

* Maybe you could visually distinguish the "headline" item in any given view from the items under it? E.g. when you're looking at a story and its comments, they're all displayed like visually identical items in a single list. Maybe the story (or the top comment, if you're reading a thread) could be made to stand out somehow?

* An icon to jump directly to stories from the home page?

* You could register the app with an intent filter for urls under <http://news.ycombinator.com/> (like e.g. Reddit Is Fun does for their app – see the app manifest in their GitHub repo for details)

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) and 3) are in the TODO :D

i don't understand the 2), in what way the "home" button is different ?

EDIT: now i understand the 2) -.-' yeah, i was thinking about implementing a gesturehandler to handle a swipe and open the link :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I love the HNDroid app - <https://github.com/amir/HNdroid> \- which is open source and community-driven.

For $1.15, I'll download this and compare the two. But I'm certainly biased in favor of improving existing services and apps vs. recreating the wheel since its easier than collaborating (plus improving existing is certainly the road less traveled.)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> ok, understood, gonna set it free, and upload it on github. hope the community would get interested in it and give me some advice :D

<comment><AUTHOR> ok, it's now free

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> <https://github.com/ga2arch/HNews> :D

that's the source code, it's ugly i know, but it's the best i can do for now :S

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> maybe i should just set it free and make it opensource ? i don't see anyone buying this :S

let me know, it's my first app and i don't have any experience at all, ( i'm an 18 years old )

<comment><USER4> There are several competitors already, have you tried them all and found shortcomings? Is that what you're alluding to with the comment about not sucking? (I have, just wondering if you had the same experience)

Suggestion: Make use of android's press-and-hold feature, where if you hold a button or link for a second or two, it can pop up a menu. Put your upvote link there. Check out the opensource 'Reddit is fun' Android app, it's really good and might give you some more ideas as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> yes, i have tried them all ( i think ) and i haven't found any of them good enough ( at least for me ).

but the "tries to not suck" also stands for "i hope my first app will get positive comments :D"</comment></comment></comment>


Boundless Informant: the NSA's secret tool to track global surveillance data - <AUTHOR> http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/nsa-boundless-informant-global-datamining

<comment><USER2> from: [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/08/boun...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jun/08/boundless- informant-nsa-full-text)

Stack is: Java/Hadoop/Tomcat/cloudbase using Machineshop([http://machineshop.io&#x2F](http://machineshop.io&#x2F); ?) data input is protobuf/queries are translated to a map/reduce job by cloudbase Client uses Ext GWT (Java Component UI Library for Google Web Toolkit |)

cloud based, not sure which cloud. Docs aren't clear if machineshop hosts the actual data..wow</comment>


What Jenson Button Winning Means for Startups - <AUTHOR> http://springboard.com/day-41-guest-post-what-jenson-button-winning-means-for-startups-ben-hall/

<comment><USER2> He was actually in 21st place at one point, which, because three drivers out of a field of 24 had dropped out, was last.

It was an amazing 20 or so laps.

</comment><comment><USER3> Haha love the points here Ben. Who knew the F1 could teach us so much? ;)</comment>


Viktor Bout, arms-dealer extraordinaire - Flying anything to anybody - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/world/international/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12795502 <comment><USER2> There is a book about the man (published prior to his arrest several months ago) which goes further into detail about his trafficking operation: [http://www.amazon.com/Merchant-Death-Money-Planes- Possible/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Merchant-Death-Money-Planes- Possible/dp/047026196X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230093918&sr=8-1) It's an worthwhile read if you're interested in learning about the business of arms smuggling.

Another worthy link is this list of the world's largest arms exporters: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_dealer#World.27s_largest_a...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_dealer#World.27s_largest_arms_exporters)

</comment><comment><USER3> Now thats a world class entrepeneur...</comment>


Android and the Linux kernel community - <AUTHOR> http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/android-kernel-problems.html?seemore=y

<comment><USER2> If this interests you, I suggest checking the discussion over at lwn.net: <http://lwn.net/Articles/372419/> , which includes comments by Google's Chris DiBona, if I'm not mistaken.

(Six days ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1099016>)</comment>


PushingBox - Notifications in the cloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.pushingbox.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> An example on how to use this service is here: <http://makeprojects.com/Project/Notifying-Doorbell/2165/>

That project will help you to hack your doorbell to send Push notification to your iOS-device and an email with an attached picture when somebody's at the door.</comment>


GNU Taler first release - <AUTHOR> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-gnu/2016-06/msg00002.html <comment><USER2> Would be curious to hear any evaluations by "people who understand these things" about where this could potentially go.

</comment><comment><USER3> Current discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11840453](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11840453)

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://www.taler.net/](https://www.taler.net/)</comment>


Time out for your kid's mobile devices - <AUTHOR> https://techden.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I don't have kids so not sure if this is needed but what do you guys think ?</comment>


NASA's Long-Lived Mars Opportunity Rover Sets Off-World Driving Record - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/july/nasa-s-long-lived-mars-opportunity-rover-sets-off-world-driving-record/index.html <comment><USER2> The rover that held the record until now:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_2](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunokhod_2)</comment>