Ask HN: Things They Don't Teach You In Computer Science  - <AUTHOR> Like many of you, I have a Computer Science/Engineering degree. Over the years I've become somewhat entrepreneurial and have tried venturing into startups. (I'm still chipping away at it). As I became more and more involved in the startup world, I've come to realize that my education gave me the technical skills I needed but did not adequately prepare me for the real world. What are some of the things you've learned over the years if you could teach or tell your old self that would save you lots of time and agony. I think the HN community here has a wealth of knowledge and experience that could be really helpful to anyone looking to start their own thing.<p>For me:
1) broadening my horizon in terms of nontechnical skills. I used to just read technical books and dive deep into technology whilst ignoring most other skills such as business, marketing, finance, social etc which is very detrimental. 2) networking and forming new relationships. When you are in school and have a job, your social network tend to be your classmates and your coworkers. I think that if that's all the people you hang out with, you develop this narrow vision of the world and miss a lot of opportunities that may be just around the corner if I had just bothered to venture out of my corner of the world. <comment><USER3> 1\. Girls are just as horny as you are. 2\. Those business guys are even dumber than you think they are. (doubly so for the current crop of dotcom guys) 3\. What's new is not necessarily better. Do not ignore the lessons (and successes) of the past.

<comment><AUTHOR> #1 - I keep hearing that over and over. As for lessons of the past, I try to read up on that lately.

<comment><USER3> It really isn't something you can study. You have to be constantly absorbing new knowledge. Have a huge amount of past knowledge at your fingertips so when you see something that is isomorphic with something else in the past you can use that knowledge.

To put it more plainly a lot of supposedly "old" business practices turn out to be the best. I keep on seeing people reinventing things that were common in the 1800-1900's and think to myself "Why bother? That's _just_ a $FOO problem.". Stand on the shoulders of those before you and you have a better chance of success.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think that we all experience this to one degree or another. Albert Einstein described the phenomenon as this:

"The knowledge that we have can be analogous to a circle. Inside the circle is what we know and what we call knowledge; outside the circle is what we don't know and need to explore. As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it. So the more we know, the more we feel that we don't know."

</comment><comment><USER5> what you have said is true. I mean im from oz and when we were all at uni there wasnt really much talk of startups and starting our own businesses, not in my circle anyway.

It was all about getting the best grades to kick butt at the interview. Because that was my circle thats all i knew at the time. Now after doing the _grades_ and doing the _9-5_ i know NOW what i would have told my younger self. I would have told my younger self that there is a better way.

The funny thing is ! i know that my younger self would just tell my current self to buzz off cuz a stable job is the way to go, its tried and tested.

I guess the lesson learnt is there are alot of things the computer science/engineering degrees dont teach because its not possible to teach these things unless someone has gone through the motions and their own experiences click in.

Comp Sci/Eng degrees can give ideas and direction but sometimes at the time you dont see them as ideas, you just see them as a waste of time cause you want to go to the next programming, algorithms or electronics class, not this stupid, project management or business for engineers class ...

<comment><USER6> Also being from Oz yet perhaps closer to the 'younger self' you described, I feel compelled to reply. Although it is fun to romanticise about alternate paths you are quite correct: had you not taken the path you did, you would not have come to the realisation you now have.

I graduated from my CS degree with strong results in 2007 and bucked the trend of my peers to live the entrepreneurial dream while freelancing on the side to sustain me. I was rather naive. While freelancing I had no idea how to quote, bill, manage scope, protect myself from being taken advantage of, etc. You pick these things up along the way, but the experience can be painful. My entrepreneurship endeavour fared even worse as I quickly fell into the trap of trying to produce perfection in a vacuum. The saving grace of this period results from my dabbling in the share market which has proven to be rather profitable.

I made the stark decision to give the 9 to 5 a shot and quickly landed a job in one of the large IT consulting firms. It has been the best decision I've made so far, if only to give me exposure to the significant problems that exist in enterprise software. If there's one industry that deserves to be innovated to the hilt, this is it. I feel invigorated and more motivated than I ever have been to break out on my own. I also am the most capable I've ever been, having stripped away some of my nativity (although hopefully some remains - I suspect it can be valuable).

<comment><USER5> I guess we are in a mirror image at the moment :) i worked at a big consultancy company then worked overseas for 3 years then came back here again. When i was overseas i worked in asia and it was there that i really met with some great business people. I then decided to do business myself and at the moment its working out ok. But i was only able to come to this realisation after the work i did in the various companies be it crappy work unfulfilling work or not.

When i look back at it, i feel that it is unfulfilling but i cant deny the great skills that i learnt from the various companies. Anyway, best of luck with your endevours :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Two things that hasn't been mentioned here yet:

#1 - is that you need to develop a filter for the advice you'll get. You need to learn when to ignore advice, how to make it so that you don't piss people off when you ignore their advice, and how to handle it when you do ignore their advice yet they were actually right. You also need to develop self confidence in your own independent decision making ability

#2 - is that, just because someone has "been there, done that, been successful" doesn't mean that their advice/approach will work for you. Many startups hire on big, powerful people who have had exits/successes yet they don't work out. There can be any myriad of reasons but just remember: "past success != future success".

</comment><comment><USER8> Your QA guy (if you're lucky enough to have one) is you best friend in whole wide world. When he/she finds bugs in your code...hug them and buy them beer, because your users/clients could have found them instead.

</comment><comment><USER9> More generally what they don't teach enough about in university is knowing when to make time for certain people and knowing when to stop making time for certain people. This is a skill that I think is really key, and no program of intense academic learning will naturally lead to you knowing such.

</comment><comment><USER10> The more people in middle management (i.e. people who are not officers and people who are not leaf nodes) the more difficult it will be for the organization to make rational decisions, and the more compromises will be made to the quality of the product in lieu of other considerations (schedule, metrics based on invalid assumptions, etc.) In general, these people will find that they have no actual way to contribute to the product, so they will attempt to contribute to the organization instead, which bogs everyone else down.

On the technical front, CS will not teach you anything relevant to the practice of software development. You will not learn things like how to correctly factor code for automated testing, or good strategies for source code control branching and build pipelining.

</comment><comment><USER11> Write something that solves a pain. Then drown yourself in that pain and see if your solution really solves it. Few people take step 2.

</comment><comment><USER12> In school or universities, generally they teach only the thoerical part. The real world scenario is another important part, that everyone discover it himself. It's later called "Experience" and "Career".

If you want just to be an ordinary guy, just take a job. Most luckily, you won't need to know much about finance, business... you'll just do what they want you to do.

However if you want to build your startup yourself or start a company and be the leader, then you need knowledge. You don't really need deep knowledge on Marketing, but just small ideas to get you started.

<comment><USER13> Yes CS programs teach more theoretical stuff, but it's the fundamentals you're less likely to learn (correctly) on the job, but which will make you much better at your job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Build something. Then listen really hard to what people say. Don't take it personally - just make it so it works for people. And Iterate!

</comment><comment><USER15> The main thing is to be aware that there is a whole reality out there that you don't know _and nobody else does either_. If you can crack it, you can have great success.

Cracking it takes alertness and endurance more than raw intelligence, because inspiration comes from new data - not from solving a pedagogically designed problem. New data is, by definition, not known beforehand. You get new data (that no one else has) by looking, by being there and doing the work, and noticing interesting opportunities.

In a way, marketing is more aware of this _unknown_ that science, because it changes more quickly for marketing (and no one believes a marketing success represents the fundamental underlying truth of reality). That is, marketing says "what do people want?" I think it's this, you think it's that. Let's ask some people - but they don't know either until they see it. OK, so let's _invent the future_ , and see if anyone likes it once they see it. But underlying is the conviction that _we don't know_. For a Science, computer science is full of dogma and religion (it even has "religious" wars). Oh well, paradigms are inevitable I guess.

I like paul graham's definition of business, "build something people want" = new product development + marketing.

A tech degree teaches you some theory about "build something" (and not the practice of source control, testing, deployment, usability etc); but it teaches nothing about "people want", which is basically looking from the user's point of view.

I don't think there's any silver bullet that would help my younger self overcome the vampires (to maintain the metaphor). I believe that marketing is the key skill, which I define as making something that is potentially useful to people, and then bringing about the state of affairs where it is actually being useful to many people each day.

There are all kinds of entrepreneurial ventures; mainstream ones are popular at the moment, which Y-Com advocates (or appears to); but there are also highly technical ventures in the general category. For me, a deeper grasp of discrete mathematics might have been useful (but it's never been intuitive for me, and I note that the people for whom it is intuitive seem to lose their connection with what is usable for ordinary people - I welcome counter- examples to this point). I'd also like a deeper grasp of parsing theory (but much of parsing theory seems inappropriate for the way I want to use it - <USER2> maybe it's best to appreciate the state-of-the-art, without drinking its koolaid).

For me (very personally), it's crucial to (a) be able to build something; (b) to notice that a problem can be solved fundamentally better (and see how to solve it); (c) to be able to communicate the solution in terms of what some people need.

 _Disclaimer_ : As you'll have sensed, this is a personal philosophy rather than ordinary business practice. Many, _many_ successful businesses have no need of this focus on the unknown. But this is the basis of many huge, cool, revolutionary, "disruptive" businesses.

The one thing I wish I'd learnt (it's more an attitude than a skill): avoid premature optimization _including usability_. Usability is extremely important; it's second only to _understanding what you are doing_. Keep things simple, even at the expense of usability. Don't add special cases that make it easier to use (not yet). If you let it get complex, you might still just understand it in isolation, but as it combines with other complexities, sooner or later you won't. This goes for a business as a whole, as well as for a computer system.

<comment><USER16> Of course there is no silver bullet to help you overcome such things; they have no effect on vampires.

<comment><USER15> You're right; I meant werewolves. I'd edit but the edit period has expired.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> One thing I wish I could have more experience or training with is office politics, at the very least to defend myself with. There are a ton of dirty tricks that unscrupulous co-workers can and have tried, to pull on me and I wish I had more of an idea of what goes on.

</comment><comment><USER18> Here's a list from a few months back. [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/258548/what-is-the- most-i...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/258548/what-is-the-most- important-thing-you-werent-taught-in-school/258559)

<comment><AUTHOR> I missed that list. thnx

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> 1\. Business school people are more entrepeureally minded and tend to have more of a personality (no duh...)

2\. You can take school courses that would help you later in your career, like several business courses. I would take the more concrete ones, like business law or introductory accounting, otherwise the value can be questionable. With business law, those contracts you sign suddenly make ALOT more sense. (And what implied statues would be put in your business activities). With accounting, you know how all the financial statements work. I've found 1st level marketing classes tend to be a bit stupid although. Too abstracted from real applications.

</comment><comment><USER20> Just use a hash table.

</comment><comment><USER21> How to program well.

</comment><comment><USER22> How to read code, use version control, write code in a professional environment, find libraries that can help you, and keep abreast of current technology. I think that CS grads should be expected to be contributing to open source projects by senior year.

The marketing, business, and work/life balance problems are important, too, but they don't really belong in a CS course, and CS professors are not experts on these topics anyway.</comment>


Meet the new Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://twitter.com/newtwitter <comment><USER2> Firstoff, thats a very well-done video. Inspired employee with a 5dmk2 or professional? The UI looks pretty nice, but of course Ill need to actually use it before I make that. And props to them for keeping it under wraps successfully for so long.

<comment><AUTHOR> Twitter's YouTube account credits Jeremy Briggs(@briggletweets) and Maggie Utgoff(@mutgoff) for making the Twitter recruitment video (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU6epAkC9wg>), so I would assume they are probably responsible for this video as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's not activated for me yet, but it looks cool. They learnt from twitpic and long-tweets :) I've never wanted to use third party applications for that before

</comment><comment><USER4> One UX question that I haven't figured out from watching the video: how does scrolling of the timeline work?

<comment><USER5> Looks like mouse scroll-wheel / trackpad in the video. I'm guessing that the scrollbar at the right is just cut off to make the video look nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The new twitter. Digg is toast.</comment>


Show HN: FaaStest – Serverless Platforms Benchmark Made Easy - nwb-ella https://www.faastest.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is cool. And yes for those considering "serverless" those latencies are real world typical even apart from cold starts ;)

I use httpbench quite a bit. It's replacing CLI tools like ab, siege. And you get programmatic access to concurrent loads.

Building an enterprise-grade front end could actually generate real customers. Is there any chance you'll provide an interface that allows anyone to run any arbitrary uploaded code for testing performance?

<comment> nwb-ella Thanks! and Yes - for specific tests you can use FaaSbenchmark. If there is something you believe that other people in our community will find helpful - you can create a pull request. [https://github.com/nuweba](https://github.com/nuweba)</comment></comment>


Four views of statistics: Frequentist, Bayesian, Likelihood, Info-Theoretic - <AUTHOR> http://labstats.net/articles/overview.html

<comment><USER2> This explained the issues well. Thank you for posting it.

Other reading material that may be of interest: The) Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century

Taleb's The Black Swan and MoneyBall (especially if you enjoy baseball)</comment>


A Disturbing Number of People Think Coronavirus Is Related to Corona Beer - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdvvd/a-disturbing-number-of-people-think-coronavirus-is-related-to-corona-beer <comment><USER2> I think this is more likely to be people like me googling that to see all the Corona Beer memes

<comment><USER3> I was going to take food dye to the bar tonight

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As Einstein said:" Two things are infinite - the Universe and human stupidity. I'm not so sure about the first one."</comment>


Ask HN: What is the most underrated GitHub repo you found lately? - <AUTHOR> I've recently started to browse Github for inspiration and see what others are building. I've found a lot of great repos that in my opinion are underrated and should receive some sort of promotion and sometimes some help in their code.
Here are the repos I've found lately (I am not affiliated in any way with any of them):
PHP Machine Learning Library: https://github.com/php-ai/php-ml
Laravel Ecommerce: https://github.com/ant-vel/antVel <comment><USER2> When sourceforge was the github of its day, they used to have a "featured project" on their front page. The "featured project" page would also include a short interview with project team. It was quite an interesting read.

<comment><USER3> GitHub does have something similar, called showcases: [https://github.com/showcases](https://github.com/showcases)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I recently started looking into what's new with Pharo Smalltalk and associated projects since last I had a look... There are many that are underrated, like the new(ish) cog virtual machine:

[https://github.com/OpenSmalltalk/opensmalltalk- vm](https://github.com/OpenSmalltalk/opensmalltalk-vm)

Cuis Smalltalk:

[https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Cuis-Smalltalk- Dev](https://github.com/Cuis-Smalltalk/Cuis-Smalltalk-Dev)

SquakJS: [https://github.com/bertfreudenberg/SqueakJS](https://github.com/bertfreudenberg/SqueakJS)

and it's inspiration, lively:

[https://github.com/LivelyKernel/LivelyKernel](https://github.com/LivelyKernel/LivelyKernel)

A vr community tool/framework for the web in the spirit of open croquet / openqwaq:

[https://github.com/virtual-world-framework/vwf](https://github.com/virtual- world-framework/vwf)

And last, but not least:

[https://github.com/moosetechnology/Moose](https://github.com/moosetechnology/Moose)

"Moose is an extensive platform for software and data analysis.

Moose is an open source software. It was started at the Software Composition Group from University of Bern in 1996, and is currently contributed to and used by multiple partners. It offers multiple services ranging from importing and parsing data, to modeling, to measuring, querying, mining, and to building interactive and visual analysis tools."

<comment><USER4> I suppose I should throw in Amber Smalltalk (another js Smalltalk) as well, even if they've moved hosting off github:

[https://lolg.it/amber/amber](https://lolg.it/amber/amber)

[http://amber-lang.net/](http://amber-lang.net/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If I had to choose only one, I'd go with replikativ:

[https://github.com/replikativ/replikativ](https://github.com/replikativ/replikativ)

At its core, replikativ is a Clojure/ClojureScript library that provides a set of confluent replicated data types (CRDTs) to enable developers to build decentralized apps that need to deal with keeping data in sync.

The end-game vision of the project is actually much more ambitious, however. I'd encourage checking out the "Motivation and Vision" section of their README [1] for a more thorough appreciation of what they're trying to do, but here's my poor attempt at a quick TL;DR:

> The goal of replikativ is to build a distributed web and edit data > collectively, while still allowing the right to fork and dissent for > anybody... the vision [of replikativ] is to decouple data from the > infrastructure and allow an open system of collaboration... by creating open > data systems instead of just optimizing the privatized Internet of data > silos...

This matches perfectly with my utopian vision for the future of the internet.

Users, not corporations, should own and control data. Users can then grant access rights to applications & services on a case-by-case basis, and finally be able to freely move between applications and services without having to maintain separate sets of the same data under different formats in privately owned silos like in the status-quo.

Only then can we have a truly robust marketplace of apps and services that can compete on the strength of their value proposition to users, rather than relying on the strength of their network effects to lock out new players.

I'm definitely looking to build some apps with replikativ myself to contribute to their efforts once I get a chance to hone my ClojureScript skills. I'd also love to hear about similar efforts in the decentralized data space if anyone here happen to know any of them.

[1] [https://github.com/replikativ/replikativ#motivation-and- visi...](https://github.com/replikativ/replikativ#motivation-and-vision)

</comment><comment><USER6> Hypothesis - Property based testing (QuickCheck style) in Python [https://github.com/HypothesisWorks/hypothesis- python](https://github.com/HypothesisWorks/hypothesis-python)

<comment><USER7> I love Hypothesis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> [https://github.com/coala-analyzer/coala](https://github.com/coala- analyzer/coala) — 'Language Independent Code Analysis'

Love the idea, love the execution, the maintainers are amazing people, and it somehow only has 250 stars.

<comment><USER9> Cool idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://github.com/freeciv/freeciv-web](https://github.com/freeciv/freeciv- web)

</comment><comment><USER11> I found "slib" [1]. It is a Java library dedicated to semantic data mining based on texts and/or ontology processing. They can be used in the context of information retrieval, data analysis, recommendation system design.

I think this is a cool library since it was hard to find "updated" library that can calculate semantic similarity between words. Beside that, this library implements many methods on semantic/ontology research.

[1]: [https://github.com/sharispe/slib/](https://github.com/sharispe/slib/)

</comment><comment><USER12> [https://github.com/bustoutsolutions/siesta](https://github.com/bustoutsolutions/siesta)

especially reading the readme is a joy from start to end

</comment><comment><USER13> [https://github.com/js-joda/js-joda](https://github.com/js-joda/js-joda) \- JS-Joda, JodaTime for JS

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://github.com/houshuang/madoko](https://github.com/houshuang/madoko)

</comment><comment><USER15> Awesome list on of materials regarding targeted individuals [https://github.com/aemxdp/awesome- paranoia](https://github.com/aemxdp/awesome-paranoia)

dg programming language, basically Haskell over Python [https://github.com/pyos/dg](https://github.com/pyos/dg)

<comment><USER15> Symta is a novel dialect of Lisp [https://github.com/saniv/symta](https://github.com/saniv/symta)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Shameless plug: [https://github.com/purpleidea/mgmt](https://github.com/purpleidea/mgmt) But I do think it's worth looking at! Full disclosure, I'm the main developer.

</comment><comment><USER17> Sniffy is a lightweight low-overhead Java profiler which shows the results directly in your browser

[https://github.com/sniffy/sniffy/](https://github.com/sniffy/sniffy/)

</comment><comment><USER18> Mathematica packages are rare on github. This one is really nice and handy:

[https://github.com/szhorvat/MaTeX](https://github.com/szhorvat/MaTeX)

</comment><comment><USER19> A go-lang based open source BaaS [https://github.com/SkygearIO/skygear- server](https://github.com/SkygearIO/skygear-server)

</comment><comment><USER14> [https://github.com/eliangcs/pystock- data](https://github.com/eliangcs/pystock-data)

</comment><comment><USER20> [https://github.com/legomushroom/mojs](https://github.com/legomushroom/mojs)

<comment><USER21> 7.5k stars is "most underrated"?

<comment><USER22> You should have seen it before it got mentioned on HN :D</comment></comment></comment>


"Universe", NFB documentary from 1960 that inspired "2001 a Space Odyssey" - I-M-S https://www.nfb.ca/film/universe/ <comment> I-M-S Does anyone else find it poignant by commentary professing that planet Venus is still a mystery, assertion that Mars almost certainly has vegetation, and counting Jupiter's 12 moons VS 69 we are aware of today?</comment>


Ask HN: Do you slack comments make people upset? - <AUTHOR> Hi folks. Recently I've had a minor issue where occasionally a comment I make in Slack will ruffle some feathers. From my point of view I'm just being direct, for example: asking for clarity about a process or pointing out a comms failure. But sometimes, apparently, other things are being read into my comments, like I'm accusing a team or a developer of a process failure, and I end up making people upset.<p>The solution to this is easy: try to add more context/tone hints to my comments if I have to make them, or just talk to my manager first. But I am curious, is anyone else having this problem? <comment><USER2> It is hard to express tone through text, even between people who know each other well. Situations worsen depressingly quickly, it's too easy to feel offended.

From experience, I refrain from giving any negative feedback through Slack and go speak face to face. I also watch out for any misunderstanding lasting longer than a few minutes, even if it's between others people.

Hedonic index increased tremendously at work in a few weeks when co-workers started doing the same.

<comment><USER3> Doesn't work for immigrants -- language (or is it cultural?) barrier, even a tiny one, makes face-to-face feedback to be accepted way too negatively, because those subtle tone hints are really hard to master.

<comment><USER2> I think writing would be worse, especially in case of communication issues, since it would hide the misunderstanding.

In that case I would start by explaining very clearly that is the intensity of the words to be used, whether they express low/medium/high scale. And I would also explain even more clearly what's the level of intensity for me, so that the person understands what is at stake. In fact, I do it even with native speakers, clarity is godsend.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> That really depends on the other person. The more STEM-y they are, the easier it is for them to abstract off personalities and focus on content.

</comment><comment><USER4> The problem is never the communication medium. More often than not the problem is the way a person chooses to communicate.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the % of ownership of GitHub founders? - sahin-boydas <comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2018/06/04/github- ac...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkirsch/2018/06/04/github-acquisition- mints-new-billionaires/#6e6893993c75)

> Microsoft announced on Monday that it would buy software development > platform GitHub for $7.5 billion in stock, minting new billionaires in the > process.

Based on Forbes estimates, GitHub cofounder and CEO Chris Wanstrath will receive as much as $1.5 billion in Microsoft stock. He is GitHub's single largest shareholder, a source familiar with the company's finances told Forbes. Wanstrath's cofounders Tom Preston-Werner and PJ Hyett will walk away with an estimated $1.25 billion and close to $1 billion, respectively.

From this I would infer:

Chris Wanstrath: 20% Tom Preston-Werner: 16.67% PJ Hyett: 13.33%

Take this with a pinch of salt.

<comment><USER2> I think Kyle, Scott, Melissa and Ryan can also expect a pretty good payday if GitHub followed the startup tradition of giving early hires a substantial amount of stock.</comment></comment>


ASMR: The videos which claim to make their viewers 'tingle' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30412358 <comment><USER2> If you had told me that ASMR was a real thing five years ago, I probably would not have understood, and thought it was a bunch of baloney.

About a year ago, gross as it is, I noticed I actually kind of enjoyed the sound of one of my coworkers chewing with their mouth open. Then somebody came in with a big mechanical keyboard several months later and started clonking away, and I enjoyed that, too. The unevenness of the clicks and clacks make little patters and pops in my head that are like tiny little itch bubbles that are scratchpopped the same moment they blip into existence.

These are sounds I used to find extremely annoying and I don't know why it changed. But when I started looking up mechanical keyboard sounds on youtube so that I could listen to them at home, I came across these ASMR videos and discovered that apparently, it's a thing.

For me, in-person sounds are always more satisfying. They are less predictable and less uniform. The videos some people try to make to capture the ASMR feeling have the idea right, but are not uneven enough. It's like when you ask someone to write 50 iterations of a coin flip and they end up having max substrings of the same character in a row that are only 2 characters long. Real randomness isn't like that - you'll have some 4's and 5's, and 1's with wide padding.

I think if you don't already feel this phenomenon yourself, watching some ASMR videos to discover what it's like will probably not give you the feeling. It's like eating a food you always hated, or jazz music - you don't like it until suddenly, one day sitting there, you realize that you probably would if you tried it again. And then you go, and you do. Before that, you don't really get the appeal. It's just the fermentation of the brain. After a certain amount of time, it just has a different taste.

For me, in these whisper videos, it's not the soft voice that triggers the feeling, but the clicks in the speech - the "sk" and "st" sounds, and simple pops of the tongue while it's being rearranged in the mouth between words. Those noises made by the water in the mouth and not the air.

Just thought I'd share.

<comment><USER3> I don't think i've ever heard anyone say that, but i had my first experience with ASMR through something completely mundane: Listening to music with good bass headphones on.

The high frequency percussion of albums like these, would result in a feeling like a direct brain massage:

Psydrop - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPy- fYprejc&index=5&list=PL3...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPy- fYprejc&index=5&list=PL364BC39EC4705C40) (In fact, the very narrative of the linked track explains the feeling.)

Infected Mushroom - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU2i_xOu4gk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU2i_xOu4gk)

Infected Mushroom - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBjuOtgTe6U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBjuOtgTe6U)

It was 8 more years until i found that ASMR videos that did the same.

<comment><USER4> I wonder if you were experiencing the related, but different phenomenon of _frisson_.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisson)

<comment><USER3> I get that too with certain music, but the brain massage effect is distinct from that. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I noticed a similar phenomenon, but I'd distinguish 3 different kinds:

1\. As a child (and still as an adult) I sometimes get this tingling sensation in my scalp when someone does something very mundane (e. g. when I watch the barber cutting my hair). I definitely have to be in the mood for that. So, this scalp sensation comes mostly when I see and observe something. Sometimes, it also comes when someone tells a story in a soft voice. My father could trigger that when I was a child.

2\. Some music just gives me the chills. This tingling sensation is mostly "goosebumps down my neck and spine", less in my scalp. I found that "Brutal Dubstep Drops" never fail to cause it quite strongly and fast. E. g. this one: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQU9RFTR_84](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQU9RFTR_84) (edit2: this never gets old and almost always works, how weird. If you listen to it, listen at least the first 1:30 minutes)

3\. If someone touches my neck or back and uses fingernails to stroke me very softly. I get goosebumps and my body doesn't get used to it for 15-20 minutes if done right.

I guess 2+3 are different from ASMR, but I definitely experienced it. Quite enjoyable.

Edit: Also this video, as cheesy as it might be: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc&list=PLFC4EE4355...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc&list=PLFC4EE4355ADEBDB1)

I think, for me, it has something to do with fascination, mix of repetitiveness and variation, and a relaxed state of the person I observe.

<comment><USER6> #2 is a separate sensation called frisson:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisson](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisson)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there any hard psychological or neurological research being done on ASMR?

Not to detract on people's experiences (I believe you!), but right now it looks as though there are a lot of different manifestations of the experience which are being grouped into one "ASMR" category, ranging from "it calms me" to "It feels nice" to "I get a tingling sensation" to "I am sexually aroused". I think this is why there is a lot of defensiveness about it being branded a fetish.

<comment><USER8> I'm gonna need a source on that one. I experience ASMR, and the tingling sensation definitely calms you and feels nice, but it has nothing sexual attached to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think it may be partially attributed to what Bret Victor calls Picture Under Glass [1].

Bret talks a lot about how we use our phones and tablets all day handling representations of real things beneath glass. We are not interacting in a tactile way with our environment - not like we used to. So perhaps what's happening is that maybe AMSR viewers are yearning for the authenticity of touch that we are losing. This to me seems why watching someone paint their nails would be so potent for some people.

Might need a neurologist to weigh in now.

[1] [http://worrydream.com/#!/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionD...](http://worrydream.com/#!/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign)

<comment><USER10> I can weigh in as someone who gets ASMR.

I've been experiencing it for my whole life, literally as long as I can remember, and I was born in 1990, before tablets were a thing. That theory is trash.

Also, painting of nails does nothing for me, everyone seems to get different effects from different things.

The one thing that seems to set off everyone with ASMR is Bob Ross:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX2AEfZpWT8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FX2AEfZpWT8)

<comment><USER11> Confirmed that Bob causes it! In addition, he does some great drawings so what a bonus!

He also has pretty impressive big hair.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I remember having this as a 10 year old watching another child draw something. I always now get it when having an eye test or haircut - strangely, even remembering an eye test causes it. I wonder if that's because I have a photographic memory or something? I would be interested in what is actually happening mentally, with tests done as an ECG.

Some of the videos are "triggers" for me, strangely even the "hair salon" one. I have never been to a hair salon in real life but the quiet whispering / personal attention given causes it.

Unfortunately when trying to explain it this does sound like some weird sexual thing but it really isn't. I think trying to explain it only causes more problems. Amusingly, trying to explain it to my wife: she said that she gets a feeling when scared when being chased. That wasn't the feeling I was trying to explain - that's fear haha.

I have a twin so perhaps I should see if he experiences it too?

</comment><comment><USER12> What a superficial article.

That word - "braingasm" should be completely removed from ASMR and almost everyone in community (at least r/asmr) agrees with it. It has a very bad influence on the way outsiders view ASMR and treat those who experience these tingles.

I've had had number of arguments with people who after short search in YouTube assumed that ASMR is nothing more but some weird perversion and simply because number of the girls who make those videos are attractive. Had to force people to look more - to see that there's a lot of videos that do not feature women. Man showing his pen/coin/knife collection without featuring his face or body - yeah, we all dig that. /s

And here I thought author actually made some effort to get to know the community - he talked to some of the artists, but apparently either not enough or he didn't ask right questions.

<comment><USER13> The article is a summary of a ~five minute report on the Today programme. It isn't intended to be an in depth exploration of ASMR, just to introduce it to people who haven't come across it. Your critique come across in the same way as a Star Trek fan complaining about bring called a Trekkie rather than Trekker.

<comment><USER14> There was a time when an article of that length would be thoroughly researched before publication. Now, it seems acceptable to fill such articles with "going on a journey" narrative - e.g. "I personally, the reporter, sometimes had this, and it made me wonder this, so I looked it up. On YouTube there are lots of videos about it. It is called T.H.I.S. Nobody knows who invented it, but there have been lots of tweets recently. One video contains a picture of a that, and it has had 7 million views, although the sound quality is poor.." and on and on and on it goes like a junior school report.

Admittedly it does at least get a bit better as it goes on, but this style of "journalism" is very off-putting once you notice how insubstantial it really is. It really just is a long-form narration of a clicking-around-on-Google session.

<comment><USER15> "There was a time when an article of that length would be thoroughly researched before publication."

And when was that exactly?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's a subreddit for this: [http://reddit.com/r/asmr](http://reddit.com/r/asmr)

I watch some of these videos every now and then, it's just kinda relaxing.

I definitely wouldn't consider it as a viable alternative to therapy....

</comment><comment><USER17> This visualisation triggers it for me! [http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/12/11/0900Z/wind/surface/l...](http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/12/11/0900Z/wind/surface/level/orthographic=-124.80,34.67,1154)

I also experience the 'frisson' sensation mentioned in the article. It usually happens when I visualise something slightly strange or funny! I have to physically shake it off.

</comment><comment><USER18> I've experienced this since childhood. Among other things, eye exams, as well as having any exam with an otoscope can trigger it. I noticed that this is especially so if I can hear the doctor breathing.

The experience seems to be the "opposite" sensation of, say, fingernails on a chalkboard. I seem to be especially sensitive to those annoyances, and others, such as forks scraping plates, etc. I wonder if there is a proportionate increased sensitivity to ASMR experiences.

Some NPR programs, such as "All Things Considered", also seem to invoke ASMR. Interestingly, Family Guy did a gag [1] wherein it was an annoyance, which I thought odd. Makes me wonder if this really would be considered ASMR and whether it really does irritate some people, where others are soothed by it. So, some experiences can invoke the pleasant ASMR-type response in some, while invoking its opposite in others.

[1] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQSO0RbmHBI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQSO0RbmHBI)

<comment><USER19> > So, some experiences can invoke the pleasant ASMR-type response in some, > while invoking its opposite in others.

I can control which one I get! I have ADD. Unmedicated, it's the unpleasant kind. Medicated, it's the pleasant kind. If this generalizes, it probably says something about how ASMR works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was up all night working on a demo, and had to go home and catch a few hours of sleep before giving the demo in the afternoon. Outside my flat (in Glasgow), they were sawing open the cobblestone street with a loud screeching circular saw, which sounded almost as bad as Sarah Palin's voice (however it wasn't saying anything stupid or nonsensical). It went on and on, and it was very loud, and I could not block it out, so I just let it into my mind, concentrated on it, and relished the sound, and got a wonderful pleasurable tingling sensation, like endorphins being released, which made me feel rested and refreshed without actually sleeping! I guess that qualifies as making lemonade out of lemons. Maybe I should search youtube for a recording of circular sawing cobblestones and see if it still works on me!

</comment><comment><USER21> I'll throw my hat in by saying I noticed I had this sort of reaction before I ever heard about it. Certain sounds would just cause a reaction I can best equate to getting a scalp massage. The sounds that trigger the effect are pretty widely varied.

It was actually pretty bizarre when I realized it wasn't a universal thing. In fact, I think the most interesting facets of the whole thing is this divide. It makes for one of those weird situation where if you don't experience it, you just have to take people's word that it's not something akin to a placebo effect. And I fully admit it sounds like it's made up, and I probably would be skeptical if I didn't have firsthand experience.

</comment><comment><USER22> Well that explains a lot. I had no idea that this was a thing, although I seem to recall an MP3 I had on my phone which was a "3D" recording of a barber- shop. The whole thing gave me a weird sensation in my scalp as I listened to it. After that I realised that a lot of sounds do that.

At the moment I'm really into Dubstep/Techno/Electronic music - when I hear a song that is really well layered (think Skrillex, Madeon) and you hear one of the lower layers like a tambourine or a tiny synth it will give me the same feeling. I can't explain why, but it's something about it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Interesting. At home I give this sort of feeling to my son playfully. I go close to his ears and keep talking very slowly but with normal voice like " do you know one thing that...." And give a pause and again slowly taking deep breaths and blowing air... And suddenly I make slightly loud voice.

This whole thing give him experience of thorough tickling and GOOSEBUMPS. That shows how much tickling he felt. It's good fun and kids njoy this connection.

Though these videos gave me tingle, I didn't get goosebumps. But still it's good feel esp around my right ear and neck.

</comment><comment><USER24> ASMR artists worth watching (imho, anyways, and in no particular order):

      * https://www.youtube.com/user/HeatherFeatherASMR
      * https://www.youtube.com/user/ASMRrequests
      * https://www.youtube.com/user/GentleWhispering
      * https://www.youtube.com/user/OliviaKissperASMR
      * https://www.youtube.com/user/Hlvillaire (Hailey WhisperingRose)

</comment><comment><USER25> I seem to only get the tingles with binaural speaking close to the ear. But I like to watch ASMR videos that don't trigger it because they are simply comfortable and relaxing. Like the polar opposite of TV which is constantly loud, fast and in your face. These days I have a preference for the guys, especially Dr Dmitri...

</comment><comment><USER26> This American Life had a great segment introducing this: [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/491/t...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/491/tribes?act=2#play)

</comment><comment><USER27> I first heard about this from an online friend of mine (from Norway, female), who described the feelings similarly. I don't experience it myself, but I can understand it to some degree. Funny that the BBC finally caught up though, lol

<comment><USER28> but can you really understand it? I used to tell people that I could understand what the difference between Red and Green are, and I really believed that I could tell just a little bit. I no longer believe that. I have no idea what is Red and what is Green...

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > _I sometimes experienced a pleasant physical sensation in my scalp when I > was especially intrigued or fascinated by something_

I get this feeling as well, but the ASMR videos really does nothing for me.

<comment><USER30> I can remember when I was in 2nd grade, and I had missed the assignment instructions. A classmate faced me and started giving instructions. I was totally mesmerized. Same happens today. Salespeople explaining/selling a product can also trigger this in me, and they're usually happy to do so. But in videos it's mostly miss for these types of things. The pop and crackle ones work though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> For me, the coda of Comfortably Numb almost always does it. Interestingly, there is a refractory period too! I haven't considered it a worthwhile exercise to scientifically measure it.

<comment><USER12> Hm,I've ever experienced refractory period. I'm a man, so I'm well aware of that phenomenon, but I do not experience it with ASMR. If video quality is good and triggers are lined nicely I can experience tingles in waves without any change in my mental state. And after that I can return to anything I've been doing prior. Actually it helps very much to clear my head after lengthy coding sessions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Ten paragraphs before they expand the abbreviation ("Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response")!

</comment><comment><USER33> I registered asmr.me a while back, and i've been trying to think of an interesting way to use it (rather than just a cut down version of youtube). I thought perhaps some sort of tool for video creation, but it doesn't spark my interest enough to spend the hours coding it.

</comment><comment><USER34> More rubbish dreamed up to scam money from the gullible.

<comment><USER12> Another inane comment from the person who brushed over something he doesn't experience and goes ahead and dismisses it as some sort of a hoax or a way to scam money.

Here's a thing - there are thousands of people who experience ASMR (including myself) and I only recently found out that it is a thing. Previously I had assumed that everybody feel it, but simply don't talk about it. Apparently not. How am I being scammed out of money then? This is not something somebody imposed on me - I had it all my life.

<comment><USER28> i don't think it's inane. I think that's his honest experience that he can't feel what you feel. I think it's interesting. Like synesthesia. Some people can't feel what other people feel... that in itself is pretty interesting.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: so who likes to code for fun And who does it for money? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> The fun comes first, then the money. Many of the things I've played with in my free time have turned out to be useful in later professional work.

</comment><comment><USER3> Both. It's a requirement for me that it be both fun and provide a good living. If it didn't deliver on either of those I'd have a different job.

</comment><comment><USER4> I do both. For fun is to learn and grow. For money cuz, well, I need money. Sometimes the two overlap.

</comment><comment><USER5> For fun.. I need to get a job in the web industry though as that's where my talent and interests lies.

</comment><comment><USER6> both.</comment>


New FAA drone rule is a giant middle finger to aviation hobbyists - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/new-faa-drone-rule-is-a-giant-middle-finger-to-aviation-hobbyists/ <comment><USER2> I still don't understand how this is supposed to work in areas without internet coverage.

If the drone loses connectivity, is the pilot supposed to file reports to the NTSB?

</comment><comment><USER3> Why didn't this get more interest? This is a huge deal and a terrible rule.</comment>


Ask HN: Firefox, Wikipedia and Khan Academy are looking for donations right now - <AUTHOR> Is there a single organisation that you can contribute to and then that will disperse the money to a group of non-profits like Firefox, Wikipedia, Khan Academy etc.
Kinda like a Humble Bundle for non profits?
If it doesn't exist and enough people think it is a good idea, does anyone want to create it with me? <comment><USER2> Personally I have never liked the idea of a middleman when it comes to charity, among other things. Similar to how micro payments can work well only with really low transaction fees, charity needs a low overhead to make proper sense. If your goal is to help small organisations that need donations, then improving on micro-payment technology would be a good start. In fact, this could better allow individual contributors of open-source projects to be compensated, which is something that has been needed for a long time now. If you think about it rationally, who is currently being compensated the least for their efforts -- _individual hands_ or the _central websites_ that benefit from these hands?

<comment><AUTHOR> The goal is to help people who want to donate but don't want to manage 10+ separate donations</comment></comment>


Facebook is Doomed: Forrester Says Ads Tell a Sad Story - <AUTHOR> http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/facebook-doomed-forrester-says-ads-tell-sad-story-142946812.html

<comment><USER2> Facebook isn't doomed, they're going to end up like Yahoo, in my opinion. Granted some consider that worse than death.

Their core product is going to grow stale and begin to erode. Younger demographics will abandon the uncool service in favor of the latest platforms. And there will always be a new, cooler service for young demographics to join instead of the network where their parents hang out.

The dominance Facebook once enjoyed will peak and fracture.

People don't stop using Google because it's boring (which it has been for a long time, it's a search engine after all). People will however never start using Facebook in the first place if it's lame. I'd argue we're going to see a lot of that in the next five years, as the first teen generation to have a wide adoption of smart phones comes through, with tons of good apps to choose from. And to the extent that younger users sign up for Facebook, they'll use it a lot less.

Five or six years from now, Facebook will be a slow growing, very mature social network. They'll be profitable, and Wall Street will be bored, and will give them a drastically lower multiple (leaving their stock not worth much more than it is today; $4b or $5b in profit * 20 to 30 multiple). It'll probably stick around in that stagnant shape much like Yahoo has, for a very long time.</comment>