How to Downsize a Transport Network: The Chinese Wheelbarrow (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/the-chinese-wheelbarrow.html

<comment><USER2> An interesting fact I learnt from the article is that both European and Chinese went backwards in terms of infrastructure at some point. So maybe dark age is not a singular historical event, and could re-occur in the future?

<comment><USER3> Interesting. Wouldn't having a lasting archive of previous knowledge and advancements prevent another dark age?

In the past, most knowledge was transferred among people verbally or located in geographically separate areas.

<comment><USER4> Preservation of knowledge itself is insufficient to prevent things from being lost.

It's something the US is dealing with, particularly in military and aerospace. You stop doing something long enough and, despite having schematics and documentation around, nobody is left that _actually_ knows how to do it. See for example the retirement of the Space Shuttle and the resumption of classical capsule-based spacecraft, we're still in the process of re-learning a lot of knowledge we already gained during the Apollo era. And that's merely a few decades.

Not to mention "dark ages" aren't necessarily the loss of knowledge, but rather the loss of governance. Neither China or Europe ever lost the ability to build roads, but yet the infrastructure deteriorated and was not replaced. This suggests economic, political, and/or religious causes, not the loss of knowledge.

I don't think we've figured this governance thing out to the point where we're safe from regressing to a state where public infrastructure breaks down in a massive way.

<comment><USER5> Coordination is huge, too—most things have a huge number of upstream dependencies. Knowing how to build advanced circuits is of little use if the chip foundries can't make semiconductors and ship them to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The european wheelbarrow is used for short distances at construction sites, farms etc, and the wheel is at the front to enable tipping the wheelbarrow forwards for full unloading. Different use case, different design.

<comment><USER7> You can do that with the chinese wheelbarrow as well. Here, its design enables more use-cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am unconvinced by "The Europeans[..]did not adapt and subsequently lost the option of smooth land transportation for almost one thousand years."

By the subsequent text, "Roman road infrastructure remained relatively useful until about the 11th century AD" and they started building them again in the late middle age. The middle ages by definition in the 15th century so the 11th is already near the late middle age.

Moreover:

"New roads appeared during the economic revival of the late Middle Ages, but these were not paved or hardened in any other way. This made them at best inefficient in good weather and nearly impassable when (and after) it rained. "

But that is also true of the chinese ones. I imagine pushing a wheelbarrow balancing on a single central wheel in the mud is not easier than a two wheeled cart.

Good article nonetheless, but I thought the "dark ages" trope was already discredited?

<comment><USER9> You may find one of the comments on the article interesting. Here's a excerpt:

      > "Niether can you compare the road systems. Europe never
      > had a mercantile road system because it never needed
      > one because of the excellent water transport. Europe
      > has the highest density of navigable rivers in the
      > world as well as the longest fractal coastline. Few
      > places in Europe were more than a half-day travel by
      > wagon from water transport. All they needed were short
      > stretches of local road to connect
      > to the nearest water transport.

[1] [http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/the-chinese- wheelbarr...](http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/the-chinese- wheelbarrow.html?cid=6a00e0099229e8883301630458494f970d#comment-6a00e0099229e8883301630458494f970d)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Fascinating look at technology history. People in the past may not have had modern materials or design but they were still really smart about how to make things work.</comment>


DConf 2020 Cancelled - <AUTHOR> http://dconf.org/2020/index.html <comment><USER2> They should have moved it online. I believe all business gsuite accounts have had their GVC maximums increased and the ability to live stream to 100k folks. Now is a great time to be remote first in everything we do.</comment>


Ask HN: Private Domain Name Registration - <AUTHOR>

(Sorry, I couldn't find my answer on either google or searchyc.)
What's the best way to register a domain name without making the owner's name publicly available?  Are some registrars known for being better at holding on to your info?  I recall someone mentioning on here that Godaddy doesn't try very hard at keeping that info secure if they are pressed, though I may be wrong. <comment><USER2> While I, personally, have no experience trying these thresholds, NearlyFreeSpeech.net seems to be committed to giving their customers the widest possible range of legal freedoms and playing everything by the book legally, including giving you and opportunity to respond to legal papers filed against you, etc. And they seem to value your right to privacy quite highly.

Added perks: fairly reasonable prices and at least a decent level of technical competence.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. I'll check them out tonight!</comment></comment>


Watch Me Write This Article (video at Bottom) - <AUTHOR> http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/watch-me-write-this-article/

<comment><USER2> This reminds me of the Monty Python skit where sportscasters watched a novelist sitting at a typewriter composing his next book.

There actually was a great TV show in 2001 about a 24-hour newsroom that was also _broadcasting_ behind-the-scenes footage of the newsroom on a second channel. The show was called "The Beast" \-- on the premise that the audience was an always-hungry beast that had to be fed information, hour after hour....

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> A professional writer re-writes every single one of his sentences multiple times. I need to stop complaining when I have to iterate my writing.</comment>


Ask HN: How is the Udacity's Nanodegree Plus worth it? - <AUTHOR> Initially when the program launched, people were concerned that the "job guarantee" could be met with minimum wage job. Has anyone on HN done the Nanodegree plus? If so, what was your experience? <comment><USER2> Udacity is great for learning what you need to learn. From what I've heard they do a good job of providing you the tools you need to get started but I don't think any of these online nano-degrees should be considered a means toward a job. So to answer your question "is it worth it?" maybe

I haven't used Udacity personally but I've used Treehouse and Lynda to learn some specific technologies. I used what I learned to take on side projects and those projects have been impressive enough that resulted in getting interviews and eventually a job with a YC company. (I would also note that I have a four year Bachelor of Science in Computer Science).

I've never considered finishing their courses as a certification that would entitle me to a job. So whether it's worth it or not it all depends on what you get out of it. For me, I wanted to do something specific, their courses covered what I needed to learn to do it, so I took them and used what I learned to do what I wanted to do. What I ended up building with my new found knowledge got me the interviews and eventually a job. So you can say it was worth it for me.

<comment><USER3> I think OP is asking because Udacity said they would give you the money back if you don't get a job after graduating.</comment></comment>


[Linux] Tile windows conveniently without using a tiling window manager - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/SDX2000/tile_active_window

<comment><AUTHOR> I welcome your comments on the tool as well as the python code. It will help me improve both the tool as well as my programming skills in python.

Please note I have tested this only on xfce4 on ubuntu. However I think it will work on other Linuxen too.</comment>


Judge attacks nine errors in Al Gore's 'alarmist' climate change film - <AUTHOR> http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23416151-details/Judge+attacks+nine+errors+in+Al+Gore's+'alarmist'+climate+change+film/article.do <comment><USER2> I don't think this really needs to be on Hacker News but this is an interesting argument over word choice. So I think it is important to remember that people can listen to the same presentation and assume far different meanings.

[http://ninepoints.pbwiki.com/low- lying%20inhabited%20Pacific...](http://ninepoints.pbwiki.com/low- lying%20inhabited%20Pacific%20atolls)

"That's why the citizens of these pacific nations had all had to evacuate to New Zealand." Is Ambiguous if it's saying all the people who left for that reason then it's true as some people did. If it's saying everyone who was there left it's false because there are still people there.

<http://ninepoints.pbwiki.com/Hurricane-Katrina> [http://ninepoints.pbwiki.com/shutting-down-the-ocean- conveyo...](http://ninepoints.pbwiki.com/shutting-down-the-ocean-conveyor) <http://ninepoints.pbwiki.com/Sea-level-rise> etc.

PS: If you're going to do a demo / presentation try it out on a friend who does not know anything about what you are saying to see how they interpret your words. Having coworkers listen to a presentation it's like proof reading while you type it's hard to distinguish what you meant from what you said.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think type of article is specifically mentioned as not appropriate for YC News.

</comment><comment><USER4> Did more than one version of "An Inconvenient Truth" circulate, or is error #1 just totally made up?

From my recollection seeing the movie, and from the transcript below, Gore never claimed that a 20 foot rise was inevitable 'in the near future.' He said that scientists have been surprised at the higher-than-expected rate of melting, and that the potential exists if all the ice melted to have a 20-foot rise.

Other "errors" also seem to be much more definitive statements than what was actually said in the movie.

[http://forumpolitics.com/blogs/2007/03/17/an-inconvient- trut...](http://forumpolitics.com/blogs/2007/03/17/an-inconvient-truth- transcript/)

<comment><USER5> The movie is basically an enumeration of: (1) Evidence that global warming is occurring. (2) Consequences of global warming.

Clever parsing aside, do you really want to argue that he wasn't suggesting that catastrophic ice melt wasn't in (2), but just a random fact thrown in?

<comment><USER4> It doesn't take any clever parsing to see that if person A says "X is possible" and person B says, "No, you're wrong! It's not 100% certain that X will happen!" then person B is misinterpreting person A, either mistakenly or deliberately.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> GW is actually quite convenient for Gore.

"It is the most dangerous challenge we've ever faced but it is also the greatest opportunity that we have ever had to make changes that we should be making for other reasons anyway," Gore said.

<http://in.news.yahoo.com/071012/137/6lvvz.html>

He's been pushing basically the same program for decades, well before the global warming excuse.</comment>


Next Y Combinator cycle: fully or partially remote - <AUTHOR> https://www.ycombinator.com/apply/ <comment><USER2> Hi everyone,

We're launching a live course on software startup formation with Shawn Kung, Venture Partner at AV8 Ventures, a VC firm based in Silicon Valley. He's also an angel investor at Y Combinator Demo Day as well as a Stanford Lecturer. The course includes:

\- 6 weekly live lectures with Shawn and all the other students (2h each)

\- Guest speakers (founders & investors from Shawn's network)

\- 1-1 office hours

\- Unlimited Q&A on the course private Slack channel

\- Startup mini project where students will form teams and pitch a business idea to Shawn

\- Lifetime access to Shawn's Slack channel & private LinkedIn group for alumni

We are 75% full. Class is capped at 50 students. The live course will kick off on July 23. Schedule for the lectures is 5-7pm PT.

Link: [https://flatwyse.com/venture-startup- formation](https://flatwyse.com/venture-startup-formation)

</comment><comment><USER3> Are you talking about YC or another accelerator?

Not sure why you linked yc page either way?</comment>


Ask HN: Why is Ruby on Rails the absolute Best programming language? - <AUTHOR>

I'm 24, non-technical, involved with a software start-up.
I know there's somewhat of a generation gap between development platforms, what are young developers using? What should I avoid?
I hear Ruby on rails is sexy, php is sexy, VB.net is not sexy, Java (html and css) are good as all-around foundations, html 5 is sexy...
But I want to hear it from the horses mouths. What languages are appealing for developers to KNOW for building startups, Also helpful to see examples of what people have built in each.
Seeking buzzwords like 'agile, flexible, developer community around the technology, ' <comment><USER2> Charles Babbage comes to mind: "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

This is like asking professional writers what words they think aspiring writers should know, and what kind of pencil they use.

<comment><AUTHOR> "The, And, If, Love, courage, fear"

"If you're taking an exam, a #2"

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I also wanted to add that the right tool may also be dependent on price.

You wouldn't buy a $2,000 nail gun if you were only building a bookshelf, despite the fact that a nail gun is far more efficient than a hammer. Think developer salaries and cost of tools.

<comment><AUTHOR> What are some age trends (in general do younger developers get into ruby/django/python for building web applications? )

Vs using something like VB.net

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi,

First of all RoR isnt the absolute best programming language in the world. There isnt a best programming language in the world but there is language more suited to your needs !

Ruby on Rails as a Ruby Framework and Django as a Python framework are often praised to be good language to build a MVP. Because with RoR/Django you can build a product relatively quickly and easily.

If you want to learn how to develop, there is vibrant community for both of these frameworks and yes that is important if you want to start !

IMO: Choose your project then choose a language.

</comment><comment><USER3> From a pragmatic point of view, Ruby on Rails does generally take less code for web applications than comparable languages and frameworks. This makes it faster, but only if you know RoR.

Other languages and frameworks may not be considered sexy because they take a lot of code to do common functions, aren't concise languages, or don't have an easy or "right" way to do some things. RoR is also sexy because of the ecosystem of plugins (gems) that solve a lot of boilerplate problems.

However, I agree with everyone else, choose the right tool for the project.

</comment><comment><USER5> "What should I avoid?"

Does anyone have any further input this?

Also, can you break down which languages are good for which types of projects?

Thanks all!

</comment><comment><USER6> RoR is not a programming language in first place.</comment>


MLB.TV hidef not supported on Mavericks (OS X 10.9) - <AUTHOR> http://alvinalexander.com/photos/mlbcom-nexdef-plugin-not-supported-mac-os-x-109 According to the MLB.tv site, OS X 10.9 isn't a supported device - and this is still true today, opening day of the season.  Seems amazing they haven't figured this out as the OS has been out quite awhile now. (The NextDef plugin required has issues)<p>And here I was all set to give them my money, but as my macs are both at 10.9, I can't watch hi-def.  Seems like quite a boondoggle!<p>(I know, first world problems, etc) (alos, I'm not the poster of the article above) <comment><AUTHOR> According to the MLB.tv site, OS X 10.9 isn't a supported device - and this is still true today, opening day of the season. Seems amazing they haven't figured this out as the OS has been out quite awhile now. (The NextDef plugin required has issues)

And here I was all set to give them my money, but as my macs are both at 10.9, I can't watch hi-def. Seems like quite a boondoggle!

(I know, first world problems, etc) (also, I'm not the poster of the linked-to article above)</comment>


216 postive words not in the English language - <AUTHOR> http://www.drtimlomas.com/#!language-lexicography/ud582 <comment><USER2> You've broken the HN guidelines by rewriting this title to make it more misleading and linkbaity, not to mention adding the arbitrary sort of number (216) that the guidelines ask you to take out. Please read them so your submissions can follow the rules in the future:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Weird, a lot of "words not in the English language" are described with ONE English word. Like "Asabiyyah = togetherness"; "Sumud = steadfastness". So it seems those words in fact ARE in the English language.

edit: Also, at least a lot of the German words have really strange (or simply wrong) translations:

Fingerspitzengefühl is NOT "the ability to think clearly about multiple phenomena". Wikipedia has a better definition[1]: "It describes a great situational awareness, and the ability to respond most appropriately and tactfully. It can also be applied to diplomats, bearers of bad news, or to describe a superior ability to respond to an escalated situation."

A "Schnapsidee" is not "an ingenious plan hatched while drunk". In fact, most "Schnapsideen" are, while often imaginative, quite stupid, unrealistic or just weird.

"Feierabend" is not the "festive mood at the end of a working day" but simply "the end of a working day". "Feierabend-Stimmung" or "Feierabendlaune" would be what describes the mood.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerspitzengef%C3%BChl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerspitzengef%C3%BChl)

<comment><USER4> > A "Schnapsidee" is not "an ingenious plan hatched while drunk". In fact, > most "Schnapsideen" are, while often imaginative, quite stupid, unrealistic > or just weird.

I'd love a website to collect examples of these.

The Japanese Chindogu are perhaps similar, but for inventions not ideas.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chind%C5%8Dgu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chind%C5%8Dgu)

[http://www.chindogu.com/](http://www.chindogu.com/)

<comment><USER3> Inventions would count as Schnapsideen too, so most Chindogus could probably be called a Schnapsidee ;)

I'm sure there must be a website collecting Schnapsideen somewhere, one just has to find it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Totally wrong about Hungarian. "Pihentagyú" (literally "relaxed-brained") is a _negative_ word. It implies the person hasn't had to used his brain in a while (for normal day-to-day worries) and so he comes up with some crazy ideas. It could be some terrible pun, some stupid "life-hack" or prank. When someone looks like they were bored and tried to get creative but ends up looking silly or hurt himself. The typical funny "fail" videos where someone feels they have a new "clever" way of something, like tie a sledge behind a tram or similar.

It's totally mistranslated.

</comment><comment><USER6> This list is a bit... off. Speaking Dutch, I can say that:

\- Borrel could be translated as drinks. Usually there will be small snacks as well, but that often goes together with drinks as well.

\- Gezellig is not just cosiness. If that was it, there'd be an English word right?

\- Gunnen is the only one, besides gezellig, that seems to really not exist. Gezellig is rather famous for it because it's difficult to translate. Gunnen on the other hand can easily be described with other words: "ik gun het je" ("I 'gun' it [to] you") would be "I'd like for you to have it" (e.g. the last piece of cake).

\- I never heard of Janteloven or anything similar. Turns out it doesn't exist: [http://www.woorden.org/woord/janteloven](http://www.woorden.org/woord/janteloven)

\- Queesting does not exist, either. I never heard of that.

\- Lekker is tasty or nice depending on context. It has different meanings in different contexts, but that doesn't mean there is no translation. It doesn't mean all of the possible contextual translations at the same time.

\- Uitwaaien is getting some fresh air.

<comment><USER7> Some background on Janteloven:

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

<comment><USER8> So, as stated in the parent comment, not Dutch.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Mistitled. It's not words that aren't in English, but words categorized by language, many of which are (naturally) not English.

There is, however, a category for English language, and other languages have words that have migrated to English, like "Tao" and "wanderlust".

</comment><comment> T-R Looking at the Japanese and Korean, it seems there's some over-romanticization here.It's a little odd seeing the Japanese "nakama", the word Monkey D. Luffy constantly throws around to refer to his crew, described like it has some deep philosophy behind it. Similar goes for Korean "Sarang", which is probably the first word every Korean student learns, and the most common word said by any K-Pop star - if its usage isn't in any way distinct from the English word for "love", it shouldn't be described like some alien concept. On the other hand, Japanese "Ai" would actually be slightly distinct, since people use "Suki" for anything more casual.

</comment><comment><USER10> Cafuné is a Brazilian Portuguese word and is not very common in other Portuguese speaking countries. It originates from "kifumate" a word in Umbundu, a native language in Angola, that designates collective grooming, the activity of picking lice and parasites from someone's hair.

The explanation for "desenrascanço" is wrong. It actually means the verb "desenrascar", similar to the English "dodging a bullet". Desenrascanço is a substantive and means the trick actually used to avoid the trouble. It is a word used mostly in Portugal, most people would probably not understand it in other portuguese-speaking countries.

</comment><comment><USER11> Myötähäpeä: vicarious embarrassment.

This is one of my favorite words in Finnish. It is so apt and describing. I totally get it. I cannot, for example, watch a lot of reality tv because I feel so ashamed and embarrassed for the person on tv.

</comment><comment><USER12> If you like such words there's whole subreddit with them: [https://www.reddit.com/r/doesnottranslate](https://www.reddit.com/r/doesnottranslate)

</comment><comment><USER13> speaking for the Italian side of things, 'sprezzatura' is a 16th century term, don't think I've ever heard it used by anybody before.

Rather than 'sprezzatura' I would have put something like 'bella figura' which is instead in wide use and not present in English as far as I can think of, it could be taken as meaning to present oneself at one's best, sort of like showing off but without the negative connotations associated to it.

This can be related to dress, or to doing something really well, to having really good etiquette, etc. etc.

</comment><comment><USER14> 'Tuko pamoja' translates literally to 'we are together'. Not only is it not a single word, but it's literally translatable to English. Tuko - we are, pamoja - together.

</comment><comment><USER15> I can't speak for other languages, but Toska is not a positive word. It means "boredom" or "homesickness". What's the criterion for inclusion anyway?

</comment><comment><USER16> A couple of corrections.

> Prostor (простор): desire for spaciousness and freedom.

The direct translation is "open range." I wouldn't call it a desire.

> Razljubít (разлюбить): the feeling a person has for someone they once > loved.

To fall out of love with someone or something.

Here is a few I'd like to add:

милосердие (miloserdie) - Showing mercy and compassion

истина (istina) - the ultimate truth

Великодушие (velikodushie) - unselfish compliance, indulgence? I'm not sure how to translate this one lol

</comment><comment><USER17> Speaking both Finnish and Swedish I think it is a little mislabeled. just two examples Finnish: 'Sisu' could be translated 'Grit' and in Swedish 'Trygghet' can be translated 'Security' or 'Safety' depending on context.

</comment><comment><USER18> In French, "flâner" is a negative word. It directly translates to "loitering".

I only ever see it being used on these signs: [http://frenchpotatoes.r.f.f.unblog.fr/files/2008/07/dsc01060...](http://frenchpotatoes.r.f.f.unblog.fr/files/2008/07/dsc01060.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER19> The transliteration for قاموس is also wrong. He has 'tarab' but it should be something more like 'qaamus'.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The link is for the raw list; additions seemingly welcome.

This link gives more of an explanation about it:

[http://digest.bps.org.uk/2016/01/there-are-at- least-216-fore...](http://digest.bps.org.uk/2016/01/there-are-at- least-216-foreign-words.html)

<comment><USER20> Oh dear: "Publishing his initial findings in the The Journal of Positive Psychology, Lomas' hope is not only that we might learn more about the positive psychology of other cultures, but that hearing of these words might enrich our own emotional lives. [...] Lomas' method was to trawl websites devoted to "untranslatable words" (i.e. words that don't have a single corresponding word in English), then to do some googling and finally to consult colleagues and students. This way he ended up with a list of 216 untranslatable words for positive emotional states and concepts."

<comment><USER21> Wait you mean they didn't ask people who are actually native/fluent speakers of each language? Seems like that would be a pretty minimal bar for publishing...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I suppose you could argue that "Schadenfreude" counts as a positive word, for at least one of the parties involved anyway.

</comment><comment><USER23> Just looked up Finnish quickly. I never thought of it before but its very strange to me that a basic word like jaksaa is missing from English. It seems as basic a word as want or cant. In English you have to say something cumbersome "I don't have the energy to do that" in Finnish or Swedish you say that in 3 short words.

<comment><USER24> "Meh"

<comment><USER23> It took me a while to get that. Yes thats a very useful word. Much information per character. If we could use it as a verb also it would be very useful. Ex: I meh calling her, could you do it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Thank you, I registered Bitmoun.com. I like the ring of it and the Arabic meaning is great "building up good social Karma" I also found another translation may be "I owe you." It would also lend itself nicely to a Bitcoin related service. If anyone can confirm this Arabic translation I would be very grateful.</comment>


What Language Is Today's Python as Described by Paul Graham in 'Python Paradox'? - <AUTHOR>

Link to the 2004 essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html <comment><USER2> Although he named it the Python paradox and wrote mostly about Python being chosen by Java programmers, he doesn't think of Python too highly. He mentions Perl, Ruby, Icon, Joy, J, Lisp and Smalltalk. He also speaks about esoteric languages, but based on his other essays, he probably means any language better than the average.

Since the average language depends on the type of the program, it depends:

        - if Java is the average: Clojure, Scala, Groovy, Python, Ruby, Go, Erlang
        - if Javascript: CoffeeScript, TypeScript, ClojureScript
        - if C/C++: Rust, D

That's not exhaustive and highly subjective of course.

And since programming languages are such an important topic of his, any language that is considered the best overall language by clever hackers would fit the description.

</comment><comment><USER3> I also would throw Scala in.

It has it drawbacks because it has to run on the JVM. But that is one of it's strengths as well.

If you once have programmed Scala for a while, you do not want to bend your mind around java anymore ;)

<comment><USER4> > If you once have programmed Scala for a while, you do not want to bend your > mind around java anymore ;)

I'm having that exact experience with Clojure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> IMHO Scala would be the present day equivalent. Go would be a close second.

<comment><USER6> Go? Hah, you almost had me there, until you said "Go".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Clojure. It's funnel is filled with people who solve the seriously complex real world problems that live on the JVM. Because learning Clojure requires the sort of investment that professional programmers make because they are professional and because Clojure attracts people who are attracted to lisps, it tends to filter out people who are just interested in lines of code for a paycheck.

Big pipeline through a highly selective filter.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think it still would be Python. Can't think of any language that has leap- frogged the Python that Paul Graham described back 11 years ago.

<comment><USER9> From how I interpret the linked article, it's not about language features, but the willingness of people to embrace/challenge better ideas that might not be mainstream.

        And people don't learn Python because it will get them a job; they learn it because they genuinely like to program and aren't satisfied with the languages they already know.

I might suggest Haskell (re-emergent of pure functional, but statically typed) and Go (improved type system but without resorting to language lawyering and re-emergence of coroutines (besides Lua)).

<comment><USER4> That pretty much covers why I elected to pick up Go and Clojure lately. I actually love programming, and my old tools were feeling rusty.</comment></comment></comment>


Circle's Allaire: Bitcoin is Good Money - <AUTHOR> https://www.circle.com/2014/07/25/bitcoin-good-money-global-digital-era/

<comment><AUTHOR> "Further, this energy and computing power bound paradigm creates a dynamic such that, as economic activity in Bitcoin expands, it naturally drives humanity to find sources of energy efficiency, thereby aligning Bitcoin with our global need for sustainable, inexpensive energy sources."

I don't recall anyone making this point before, though no doubt someone has done.</comment>


Can IMDb's Ranking System Be Trusted? - <AUTHOR> https://features.wearemel.com/can-anyone-trust-a-ranking-system-where-the-shawshank-redemption-is-number-one-45f1e1b507d4#.7ynqaxdeh <comment><USER2> > As you can see, these voters — the ones that manage to break through the > algorithm — are overwhelmingly male and between the ages of 18 and 29.

Males rated the movie 9.3, females rated it 9.2. That's close enough that there being more males than females is irrelevant.

> It's also interesting to note that the breakdown is mostly international, > and these high-scoring movies seem like what you might be into if you were > perhaps, a young person in South America or the Middle East who was trying > hard to show that you had "good" American taste.

US users rated the movie 9.3, non-US users rated it 9.2, so as with male/female this is insignificant (and if it was significant it is in the wrong direction for the author's point as the international users rated the movie lower).

<comment><USER3> > Males rated the movie 9.3, females rated it 9.2. That's close enough that > there being more males than females is irrelevant.

That's not the point the author is making at all. His point is the exact sentence you quoted.

 _Of course_ the highest ranking movie is going to be equally favored by males and females. You should expect that for it to be ranked above all others.

If you require seeing numbers that "look different" to understand, check farther down the list.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I know people who wouldn't watch a movie if it has an IMDB ranking of less than 7. LOL</comment>


Ask HN: How do you deal with support for your young project? - <AUTHOR> We have been working diligently on Scatter (https://get-scatter.com/) for the last year or so. Entirely bootstrapped and fairly successful, but not successful enough to hire a dedicated support team. It sucks a lot of time and energy from us and well, I'm wondering how you guys have dealt with this kind of situation. <comment><USER2> Every app will be different, but I found (at first) that doing support myself, and doing a light "first principles postmortem" on every email that came in was a good way to drive support down over time. Essentially asking "what do we need to do to make this the last time anyone writes in with this question?"

Sometimes that means better documentation and self-serve content. Or adding better search terms to your support content so people can find it more easily. (If someone writes in on a question your help center doesn't cover, copy your answer to them and paste it into your help center CMS. If someone writes in with a question you already answer, pull phrases and keywords from their email and add them to the answer / tags in the CMS.) Sometimes it's making it clearer within the UI what your app will or won't do. Sometimes it's writing a new feature to appease people.

You want to maximize the number of ghost tickets — the ones that never come in, because they never had to get written in the first place. As with code, "No ticket is faster than no ticket."

Making your support content more present within the app itself, or hooking up your "need support?" request flow so the customer has to go through the support content first can also help. (Obviously, there's a balance between making them jump through hoops and just having an open line to you.)

Eventually I hired one of my most vocal customers (opinionated, but polite) to handle support part-time. Hiring her at an hourly rate meant I didn't have to worry about a lot of the normal staffing issues that come with a full-time employee.

If you do go the route of hiring someone, I highly recommend looking for someone with a librarianship/infoscience background. They're trained to communicate well, to discern the question behind the question, and to do self- directed research. They're also in a market where jobs are harder to come by.</comment>


Why I got off the career treadmill and joined a startup - <AUTHOR> http://jwheezy.com/2011/02/04/joining-the-darknet-why-i-got-off-the-career-treadmill-and-joined-a-start-up/

<comment><USER2> tldr version: i switched jobs because i wasn't passionate about it. i became passionate with some other passionate people and we achieved our own measure of amazing success.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Classic.</comment>


NLP Overview: An integrated platform to learn about modern NLP techniques - <AUTHOR> Do you want to learn more about the modern deep learning techniques applied in NLP, and keep track of emerging trends, dataset/code releases, and state of the results in the field? In collaboration with Soujanya Poria (an NLP researcher), we are open sourcing an online learning resource for NLP researchers and developers called "NLP Overview". The project contains an overview of recent trends in deep learning based natural language processing (NLP). It summarizes implementation details behind deep learning techniques such as recurrent neural networks (RNNs), convolutional neural networks (CNNs), and reinforcement learning used for various NLP tasks and applications. The site also contains a summary of state of the art results for NLP tasks such as machine translation, question answering, and dialogue systems. You can find the learning resource at the following address: https://nlpoverview.com. <comment><USER2> this should probably be on Show Hn [https://news.ycombinator.com/show](https://news.ycombinator.com/show)

<comment><AUTHOR> do you suggest I delete and repost again?

<comment><USER3> My opinion - don't delete (I don't think it'll let you), but yes, post again as a Show HN

So you'll do Show HN: [title] and the URL will be your url, and then your text you won't post in the main post, you'll post it in a comment after your post is submitted</comment></comment></comment>


Gamers are more aggressive when playing strangers than friends - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17868-gamers-are-more-aggressive-to-strangers.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

<comment><USER2> This isn't a measure of gamers vs non-gamers, as the headline might lead you to believe.

The study shows that people are more aggressive when playing games against strangers and less aggressive when playing against their team mates.

</comment><comment><USER3> Fascinating.

I would also like to mention that this article was simultaneously relevant, interesting, informative, and based on real research rather than conjecture. It's quite refreshing.

</comment><comment><USER4> On a practical level you could probably extend the analogy to illustrating the effectiveness of using "us" against "them" rhetoric.

</comment><comment><USER5> Classy headline. Misleading. Jackasses.

</comment><comment><USER6> Correction: UT2004 players are more aggressive to strangers. It's a bit of a stretch to extrapolate that to mean "every multiplayer game."</comment>


Elegant 0-day unicorn underscores "serious concerns" about Linux security - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/11/elegant-0day-unicorn-underscores-serious-concerns-about-linux-security/ <comment><USER2> Please don't link to blogspam. The original article is here: [https://scarybeastsecurity.blogspot.com/2016/11/0day- exploit...](https://scarybeastsecurity.blogspot.com/2016/11/0day-exploit- advancing-exploitation.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Pretty cool</comment>


Private Multi-Party Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> https://pmpml.github.io/PMPML16/ <comment><USER2> Slides from the scheduled presentations[0], as well as most of the accepted papers[1], are available.

This is some seriously mind-bending stuff. Google is represented by a couple of papers, but I was really hoping that the privacy-preserving techniques they used in training the network for Inbox Smart Replies would be explained. No such luck.

[0] [https://pmpml.github.io/PMPML16/#schedule](https://pmpml.github.io/PMPML16/#schedule)

[1] [https://pmpml.github.io/PMPML16/#papers](https://pmpml.github.io/PMPML16/#papers)

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder why nobody of these guys has been there [http://www.enigma.co](http://www.enigma.co)</comment>


On-demand updates to transactions data - <AUTHOR> https://blog.plaid.com/transactions-refresh/ <comment><AUTHOR> Just came across this while refactoring an older implementation and found it quite interesting. We actually integrated this kind of functionality on our end before this came along, so since it was already in place, we didn't rip that part out and replace it. I imagine this is most useful for new customers or any who haven't yet added refresh?</comment>


Ennui: How to Overcome Chronic Boredom - <AUTHOR> https://effectiviology.com/ennui/ <comment><USER2> Aristotle's conception of eudaimonia, happiness consisting in "activity of the rational soul, conducted in accordance with virtue or excellence"[1] helps here. Lack of such activity perhaps leads to ennui.

Not entirely in the individual's hands, as he goes on to say "Someone who is friendless, childless, powerless, weak, and ugly will simply not be able to find many opportunities for virtuous activity over a long period of time, and what little he can accomplish will not be of great merit. To some extent, then, living well requires good fortune"[2].

Surprised I didn't see this mentioned in the article. An adjacent, perhaps more controversial, formulation of this point: Meaninglessness can be countered by the voluntary adoption of responsibility. (e.g. having children)

[1] [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle/) [2] [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle- ethics/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/)

<comment><USER3> > Meaninglessness can be countered by the voluntary adoption of > responsibility.

This reminded me of Jordan Peterson

<comment><USER4> I listened to him on Joe Rogan and he seemed like a pretty down to earth guy. However on the show it seemed like he was treated as a controversial figure.

<comment><USER5> That's because he says lots of down to earth things except his philosophical warrants for these things are insanely conservative

<comment><USER3> > However on the show it seemed like he was treated as a controversial figure.

Well, I guess this answers that (and maybe more).

But to give my personal perspective, I'm not sure what Peterson's motives are. He has stated that he used to have severe clinical depression, which might help contextualize some of his more "grim" lectures/videos. (He and his daughter are able to mitigate their depression by having a carnivore diet. Strange, but it seems to work for them.)

<comment><USER6> It seems to me that there is a financial motivation, they're for getting attention and monetize that attention. Both JP and his daughter are selling snake oil. Having said that, it's a huge turn-off to try to understand what his ramblings really are about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Usually, it happens to me when I'm mentally exhausted, or when I do nothing for a long period of time.

Here are a few tricks that work for me:

* Don't force yourself to get things done. You need rest, not shame.

* Get properly bored. Mindlessly consuming content just makes it last longer.

* Do something easy and different. I usually run myself a bath or go for a walk. It's enough to get me off the computer and to get ideas flowing again.

* Get some rest. Write this evening off, and relax for a bit. The rest will wait.

<comment><USER7> Oh and I forgot:

* Put a few things back in their place. I don't know why, but it's a surprisingly effective way to get out of a rut. Usually, I end up cleaning the whole flat, even though I hate cleaning.

<comment><USER8> Oh interesting. A bit dark, but I've noticed many prisoners have a set routine of constantly cleaning their surroundings. Possibly because it gives them something to do.

As for myself, I have noticed there's something calming about moving things where they belong (even if initially it doesn't seem very exciting).

But it's easy to forget.

Thank you for the reminder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sigh... I hate this type of content. This is just trying to use an archaic term for something which is basically a symptom of a current mental health pandemic (depression). I feel the same vibe as with borrowed concepts like Hygge or other crap with the only purpose of selling something or driving traffic. Pseudo-scientific bullshit is what it is, half-baked superficial advice with a protestant work ethic and self-sufficiency tone. Hey, we found a subtle difference between some terms so here's some free subpar mental health advice from an anonymous unqualified internet entity. Pls like and share. Cheap self-help porn targeted at overachievers.

> The term 'ennui' is often used interchangeably with 'boredom'. However, > various distinctions have been drawn between these two terms, and in > general, the main difference between boredom and ennui is that 'boredom' > refers to a mental state that is short-tern and driven primarily by > situational and environmental factors, while 'ennui' refers to a mental > state that is chronic and driven primarily by dispositional (personality- > based) factors.

so... chronic boredom?

Shit, just talk to a professional, don't read online articles about how to deal with your mental health challenges. Just reach out and ask for help. The stakes are too high. If you feel chronically bored, you're most likely heading towards burnout or you're depressed but not realizing it yet. The tone of the article is very shallow wrt to depression. It more nuanced than ' it's possible for someone to suffer from depression but not ennui, as in the case of someone who experiences deep chronic sadness and lack of energy, but not the existential boredom that characterizes ennui'.

<comment><USER10> > Cheap self-help porn targeted at overachievers.

Pretty much my thoughts on this. I'm bipolar and is this article is just bad.

There multiple types of depression with various causes and different treatments. I've had just about all of them.

Any person can burn out or find life pointless simply by grinding away at life without taking care of themselves.

A good book on cognitive behavioral therapy is going to fix a lot more problems than articles like this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The article makes it sound like a medical term, but I think Ennui is "boredom" in French...

I often recommend to switching from a consumption mind to a producing one. Instead of looking for the next Netflix show that will cure your boredom, or for a person to entertain you, make something. Of course, this is easier said than done. Boredom doesn't disappear because you decided to do something.

One issue is that boredom is developed over a long period of time, to the point that it becomes a habit. Once you decide to do something about it, expect it to take just as long to part with it.

You can still watch your Netflix show, but make a schedule for your boredom breaking habit. Every evening at 6 write for 30 minutes. Try to run a mile in the morning without any earphones. Practice a musical instruments once a day. Read a book for 30 minutes a day. Nothing to drastically change your lifestyle, but over the course of a month, these habits replace your boredom.

<comment><USER12> Don't forget the opposite. Some people have the opposite problem. If all you do is produce/create then you're going to burnout and feel like you don't care anymore.

Consuming gives you new ideas on what to produce and enthusiasm about what you could create. You can't produce without consuming, and you likely won't be satisfied just consuming indefinitely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This overlaps like 80% with clinical depression as currently defined, no? How does this entire article not include "anhedonia", which is literally the inability to enjoy things you previously enjoyed- and is a classic marker for clinical depression.

<comment><USER14> Alternative explanation: maybe our medical classification changed the label for something the ancient greeks found valuable, leading to a semantic slide (ataraxia => anhedonia => depression) as it is no longer appropriate in the current society for whatever reason.

Maybe people feel better when their are busybodies because culture/media feeds the message they should be unhappy if they don't do something or help others. Maybe society couldn't function if most people felt no desire to have kids or work besides the minimum required for shelter and subsistence.

The post below yours at the moment calls for having a kid, which is both taking a responsibility and according to most parents the equivalent of finding a greater purpose that yourself.

It strikes me also as very convenient bargain for a society that couldn't function if the population and the economy was always shrinking.

Do you really think most people would bother waking up to go to work if they had no kids but a place of dwelling and food on the table (say through UBI or anything)? The creative hackers, maybe, but I think most people would find videogames and drinking with friend quite sufficient.

The post pandemic will be a great experiment to check if the price elasticity of work has been permanently altered by a few weeks of isolation, and reflection.

<comment><USER15> Society? You think the desire for children is something cooked up by evil capitalists? How exactly did humans not go extinct before 1800?

<comment><USER13> Strictly speaking it didn't matter much what people wanted back then. Babies happened regardless. Women had very little say in whether they had babies. Family planning is very new.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The recommendations in the article are just a bunch of generic advice for whatever is in style right now. Zero evidence any of it will work. It might actually make you feel worse.

</comment><comment><USER17> Have a child. Problem solved for many years.

<comment><USER18> There is nothing as boring as a child, have you ever tried to engage one in conversation?

<comment><USER19> It's different when it's your own child. You see the world through their eyes and the mundane becomes interesting again. Something like tying shoes is such a feat for a kid to achieve. They are on cloud nine for a week once they learn it. This is infectious.

<comment><USER20> Some people have that feeling on a more general level. It seems I'm lucky that some of them work in the kindergarden where my two youngest kids go.

Somewhat related: while I've always cared about others after I grew up it is much stronger now. How much of it that comes from having children an how much comes from becoming a new person because of deliberate decisions I don't know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Ennui sounds like a boring old depression

<comment><USER22> The difference tends to be ennui is caused by lack of stimulation where depression is caused by chemical imbalances in the brain.

<comment><USER13> Maybe, but

lack of motivation

unable to enjoy things you previously liked

disinterest in the future

constant low energy

Are classic signs of clinical depression. Nobody gets diagnosed with clinical depression based on brain chemistry, they get diagnosed on symptoms. And these symptoms are basically the same ones.

<comment><USER22> That would be a diagnostic failure. Treating someone with anti-depressants when they do not have clinical depression could ruin their life, even end their life (suicide is a side effect of many anti-depressant medications).

<comment><USER13> Depression is diagnosed based on clinical symptoms, not brain chemistry. Read the list of symptoms from the DSM V and compare- "chronic ennui" as defined in the article would get you most of the way there.

[https://www.psycom.net/depression-definition- dsm-5-diagnosti...](https://www.psycom.net/depression-definition- dsm-5-diagnostic-criteria/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Maybe it's not always something to overcome? Sometimes there is no point to doing something you used to enjoy.

There's nothing wrong with acknowledging the pointlessness of something. You don't always have to be doing something and you don't always have to be happy.

</comment><comment><USER24> "Someone who is friendless, childless, powerless, weak, and ugly will simply not be able to find many opportunities for virtuous activity over a long period of time, ..."

This is B.S. I don't believe in categorical statements like this. Life is not a constant. A person may be friendless, powerless, weak and even childless for two decades. But all of that can suddenly change. As for ugly, I've seen the ugliest people marry the most beautiful people. And some of these ugly people were total shy, introverts.

So if you are ugly like me, and if you're down in your life like I've been at times when my startup failed, be patient and continue on with life. It will get better. And for love of all that is holy, stay away from these sorts of nonsense absolutisms.

<comment><USER25> In my own personal experience, some aspects of that list may be indicative of, or lead to mental health issues that may indeed have a substantial negative effect on the ability to seek out such opportunity.

Irregardless of the truth each aspect of that statement, its commonly understood that beautiful people have easier access to opportunity than ugly people; we as humans are biased based on appearance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Great another thing to self diagnose, except now you can sound pretentious too. Most people, myself included, don't have anything truly wrong with them other than bad habits and bad discipline that will just take a year or more time horizon to struggle and work through until resolved. It's not that they're not real. I just don't like the idea of adopting something as a title or ownership "I have depression/I am depressed" vs "I am experiencing depression as a symptom from a lack of exercise and an abuse of the internet and entertainment."

Also therapy is more available than ever and talking to a real person is guaranteed healthier than reading WebMD. If you can't afford a therapist talk to your friends. It takes a bit of courage to admit your feelings but everyone has experienced these feelings to some degree and likely has great advice. Even finding out, for example, that it took one friend a few years to get over something is helpful since it means you don't have to beat yourself up about not getting over it today.

</comment><comment><USER27> 1\. Have hobbies 2\. Get married 3\. Have kids

2 & 3 cancel 1 out, and you're never "bored" again.

<comment><USER28> You may not be bored, but you can certainly get tired of being stuck in a rut, which is more like ennui.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Looks the same as depression to me. Though I wonder if referring to it as ennui might make it more manageable. Depression has suicidal connotations, and if perceived as such can lead to a downward spiral.

</comment><comment><USER30> > while 'ennui' refers to a mental state that is chronic and driven primarily > by dispositional (personality-based) factors.

Anecdotally I would think it's more prevalent in people with narcissistic personality traits during depression (speaking of friends here not acquaintances), maybe it even could be medication dependent . Off course it ought to be more common but maybe not expressed in other personality types, a depressed person with schizoid traits probably wouldn't even complain in a first place, so who knows.

</comment><comment><USER31> This article is not optimized for people with ennui.

</comment><comment> more-entropy I'm sorry, but this is complete bullshit, written by person who have no idea of what boredom, depression, apathy is.

</comment><comment><USER32> This article is not very good. Any article on ennui this long that does not mention depression _at all_ is clearly not thinking deeply or widely about the topic at hand.

I do think there is a good article about ennui that could have been written. And, in particular, how to distinguish it from depression. Both feature anhedonia (life is not pleasurable), monotony, dissatisfaction, and a vague sadness. To me, the key difference is drive.

With depression, it is as if your own motor is turned off. Everything you do brings you no pleasure, you can't imagine them bringing you pleasure, and you don't even have the energy to try. Both the world is empty _and you are too_.

With ennui, the inner component is different. The world feels boring and unsatisfying, but the internal drive to fix that problem is still present, just unguided. You know you aren't happy and _want_ to do something about it, you just don't know _what_.

Ennui is restless where depression is inert.

This makes it a relatively easier problem to solve because it's essentially external. The feeling is caused by your actions and not a fundamental chemical imbalance. Addressing it requires understanding your own values and motivations. What gives your life a sense of meaning? Look back on days that you felt were particularly gratifying—the ones you want to reflect on on your deathbed. What made them that way? What did they have in common?

Often, ennui comes from trying to replicate the same actions that brought us joy in the past without realizing that the context has changed. So there is a generalization step. It's not that doing X was meaningful. It's that doing X _because it meant Y_ was.

For example, I used to be a game developer. After about six years, I was pretty burned out. It wasn't as fun anymore. I kept doing it but felt more and more ennui. Why did the same activity that used to make me feel gratified no longer do so?

It's because the underlying context—my own internal state—changed. A big part of the gratification came from:

* Learning a new domain and seeing my skill in it improve.

* Proving to myself that I could accomplish shipping a real AAA game.

After several years, my knowledge had plateaued, and I had already proven to myself several times over that I could do it. Those aspects were gone. What I took away from it is that internal growth—learning new skills—is important for me to feel that something is meaningful. Once I "max out" in a domain, it is no longer gratifying for me.

This may not be true for others where their satisfaction comes more from providing value to others, or demonstrating mastery. I value those too, but in the absence of learning, they aren't enough.

<comment><USER33> The articles _does_ mention depression at the very end but I kept finding myself thinking the same thing: that there's no use in not calling what you're describing by it's commonly accepted name. Generally I would say that feelings of this type that manifest over a period of time definitely qualify as clinical depression.

<comment><USER32> No, I do believe that there is a significant difference between depression and the ennui the article talks about. I think the article just fails to clarify the difference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Just letting yourself be less connected helps IMO.

I ditched Netflix and listen to podcasts for example. I tend to not want to sit and do nothing while listening so I clean more or end up going for a walk.

</comment><comment><USER35> The Corona crisis really helped with my Ennui problem.

</comment><comment><USER36> This makes me think of every role Bill Murray has played in the last 20 years.

<comment><USER37> I recently saw Groundhog Day for the first time and loved it! Definitely a good example of ennui (at least until the end of the film).

<comment><USER36> Check out Rushmore or Lost In Translation

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Wanted: Arch Nemesis

</comment><comment><USER39> Not to be confused with the dockless mini cars standing in the way everywhere from Ennu [1].

[1] [https://enuu.ch/](https://enuu.ch/)

</comment><comment><USER40> Not to gatekeep but this comment was so profound, I cried.

"This makes you realize that you're taking color(vision) for granted. There are people who not only are colorblind but are completely blind-- blind from birth. And I'm just sitting here, like, "Oh, I'm so bored." And I'm surrounded by colors!" -Michael from VSauce

Source: YouTubers React to Colorblind Man Sees Purple for the First Time [https://youtu.be/FANiL2dPCCg?t=530](https://youtu.be/FANiL2dPCCg?t=530)

Ennui is bullshit. You don't get the privilege/right to say, "I'm bored." Ever.

<comment><USER41> Disagree. Boredom is an important part of life. We need boredom to become creative.

<comment><USER40> "The day you realize that nothing can stop you, because you are a MAGIC SKELETON packed with MEAT and animated with ELECTRICITY and IMAGINATION. You have a cave in your face full of sharp bones and five tentacles at the end of each arm. YOU CAN DO ANYTHING, MAGIC SKELETON" Source: [https://twitter.com/ChuckWendig/status/1029345631578587137](https://twitter.com/ChuckWendig/status/1029345631578587137)</comment></comment></comment>


Harvard estimates U.S. Needs 20M Covid-19 Tests Per Day to Reopen Economy - <AUTHOR> https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/4/23/safra-center-20-million-tests/ <comment><USER2> This is about a report by the "Safra Center for Ethics".

The Harvard Global Health Institute estimates that 500,000 tests per are needed.

Given the focus of these institutions, I think that the global health institute is a more meaningful report (and people actually pay attention to it). Therefore, the headline is misleading. In fact, the original headline explicitly says "Harvard's Safra Center" and not just "Harvard".

</comment><comment><USER3> No, that's not what "Harvard" estimates. One group, including "ethics experts", is estimating that it would take that many daily tests to completely eliminate all "social distancing" without any risk.

Whether correct or not, you could reopen the economy fully in the official sense, and people would still distance themselves somewhat, be more likely to get takeout than eat in a crowded restaurant, wash their hands more often, be more likely to wear masks on public transport, etc. You'd get some ongoing level of excess illness that is very hard to predict but is not likely at this point for the US to get much worse than Sweden, which remained officially "open".</comment>


Rapid prototyping as burnout antidote - <AUTHOR> http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/08/rapid-prototyping-as-burnout-antidote.html

<comment><USER2> I noticed a somewhat similar effect which I named "ProcrastinaBoost" (patent pending, obviously).

When working on a long/difficult project A, I keep one smaller but equally interesting (ROI-wise) project B on the side, and ensure I procrastinate in a time-boxed fashion on the useful project B only (vs. more classical procrastination).

The time-boxing ensure this stays at the hobby level, and regularly project B becomes difficult too to kick you back into project A.

It also gives me some times to relax and think about the issues on the other project.

To be used with careful time tracking of course :)

This removes a bit of the burn-out feeling, while still working on something that moves us along.

<comment><USER3> Prior art: <http://www.structuredprocrastination.com/> .

<comment><USER2> Amazing, thanks! That's really one of the things I like most about HN (useful, insightful comments).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, this really works.

Sort of the way some teams seem to keep a set of blog posts on the shelf, ready to go, we have a list of small tangential projects.

These are all three-days-to-a-week type things where we are already pretty familiar with 80-90% such that we can move through it quickly, but also get exposure to something new that we've been meaning to pick up. That combination of quick tangible progress plus learning really clears out any negativity.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is _very_ true. The only problem with this approach is that you can end up with a lots of "little fish" projects instead of making headway on your "Moby Dick" one.

<comment><USER6> If the goal is to cure burnout, that's only a problem if you feel compelled to continue work on the little fish projects. I find that if I get a new project, it tends to push an old one from my mind, so there's not much more mental clutter than before.

<comment><USER5> I guess, but I was thinking more of the case where you end up in a cycle of constantly taking new ideas and making minimum viable products out of them _without_ developing them (or your big idea) further.

Of course, that's a much better "problem" to have than to be mentally constipated for long periods of time without bringing anything to fruition ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I hope I'm not flagged as a spammer over this, since I tend to make this point every chance I get. Namely, how exactly do you go about rapid prototyping? I figure in all likelihood it's a bit of an art and requires a lot of experience and knowledge. I realize I may not be there yet. Still, are there any highly recommended references?

Books are OK, but in particular videos would help the most. Seeing how experienced programmers kick off a project could (I think) shed much light. PeepCode looks serious, but it focuses too much on one particular technology.

Thanks, and sorry to keep bugging with this...

<comment><USER8> This is the first time I've seen your question, so it isn't spam to me :-)

To me, rapid prototyping is any technique that will allow you to build 'something' that will give you a feel for what working with a deployable version might be like. Such prototypes can be paper-based, built in PowerPoint, built in an easy-to-prototype language (i.e, Lisp), etc. The key is to quickly see what the 'final' version _might_ be like so you can think more clearly, talk about it, demonstrate it, get feedback, etc.

Or, am I answering the wrong question? (See, even my answer is a prototype ... it allows me to get feedback).

<comment><USER9> People also often model what you want to do in the Excel / Access / Mathmatica world first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This isn't startup specific! I work on projects with long development cycles, and rapid prototyping outside of work is very therapeutic. You can amplify the healing power with the right tools: in my case, Python and Git. There's nothing more satisfying than creating something in a few days, or extending an existing project to do more. Be sure to let someone know you did something! Thankfully my girlfriend listens to me babble about my minor wins, even when they sound ridiculous or incomprehensible.

</comment><comment><USER11> There's no such thing as burnout. It's really heartache in disguise.

<comment><USER12> I'm not sure I understood what you mean. What I know is that burnout, as it is commonly described, is perfectly real.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It absolutely works for me. It's called "strategic procrastination." It let me channel my creative energy to a different use when working in a long and difficult project. Retaining control over creative freedom is very important for motivation and avoiding burnout. The nice thing about being your own boss is that you can change the schedule anytime you want. :)

</comment><comment><USER14> yes.</comment>


Introducing the HTML "PORTAL" tag – Make loading disappear - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2zqwMBBvIs&list=PLNYkxOF6rcIDA1uGhqy45bqlul0VcvKMr&index=15&t=0s <comment><USER2> I find the UX patterns in the demo section pretty jarring. Having new pages animate in from off screen feels like it requires a fair amount of cognitive load to model the navigation hierarchy in your head (especially on a per application basis)

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. I think the tag has potential but the UX they demoed it with is just not good.</comment></comment>


April First., I hate it - <AUTHOR>

This the one day in the year when otherwise perfectly sensible people think it OK to interrupt your day and waste your time with sophomoric jokes.  If you happen to have a large family as I do it is almost guaranteed to get calls, emails and experience various creative ways to play this game throughout the day.  From your mother is pregnant to my cat got run over by a car to we won the lottery.  Un-friggin-believable.
It isn't that I have no sense of humor.  I love a good joke as much as anyone.  I simply object to a workday filled with unnecessary interruptions that dislocate your train of thought and get in the way of getting your work done.  When your father in law decides to call you because he is going to get you with a good one you can't just blow him off.  So there goes a half hour on the phone.  Because, you know, I just sit in front of a computer all day.
That said, I've learned it is virtually impossible to control others.  No calls.  Don't click on any links.  This too shall pass. <comment><USER2> Yeah, I'm not a big fan of it either. I got on the bus today and my bus pass didn't work. The bus driver said "April 1st." I sort of chuckled and thought to myself, "Oh, its an April fools thing." So then I swiped my bus pass again and the driver said "It's April 1st, your pass is expired." Slightly embarassed, I said, "I'll have to get a new one!"

tl;dr: I hate having to think twice about whether I'm being pranked in the most mundane of situations.

</comment><comment><USER3> I generally enjoy it. However some joker decided it would be super funny to exchange the red and green icons on the build server.

Me: It's not funny could you please revert it?

He: Nope

Me: ಠ_ಠ

I could have hacked into the build server but decided blowing my backdoor for this was not worth it. Instead I added him to my black list.

</comment><comment><USER4> Actually they moved April First to May this year.

</comment><comment><USER5> Turn your phone off, close your email, get off IM and dont check hacker news.

Remember, like you said, its only one day in the year.

<comment><USER6> Agreed. A good excuse for a news and internet fast.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I do look forward to the RFCs that are published on April 1, though. So there's that.

My all time favorite: [https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3514](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3514)

And a list: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day_Request_for_Co...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day_Request_for_Comments)

I suppose you'd like for me to leave your lawn now :)

<comment><USER8> Re: favorite. I read the RFC and it seems ambiguous as to whether the bit should be set during a penetration test.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Am I getting old? I used to think they were funny. The quirky ironic nostalgic news, the impossibilities, the 'creative' lies. Then, somehow, in the last ten years or so it kind of soured for me.

I think it might be the relative length of a year to my life lived so far. When I was 22 I thought they were a blast. 1/22 = 4.5% of my life. Now that I'm near 40, 1/40 = 2.5% of my life. That's every April fools happening almost twice as much "perceptivly", as in the relative size of a year is becoming smaller and they're flying by 'faster'.

Sure, a year is still 365 days, but we're talking about like/dislike, and aging, totally subjective things. I'm sure a quick quiz could put this easily to rest. How old are you? On a scale of 1 to 10 how funny do you think April Fools day is?

Then again it could be a temperament thing. I'm not saying OP is old, it's more of a personal jab at myself.

</comment><comment><USER10> Main issue is people making the same jokes over and over again thinking somehow they are the first one to do this one. I'm talking about centuries old jokes.

</comment><comment><USER11> I think one should take it in good spirit. After all you get to work without interruptions for the rest of the year.

</comment><comment><USER12> Sometimes they're pretty funny (like the google maps pac-man) And I suppose they serve to tune people's credulousness. But hasn't spam taken over that function?

It'd be nice if people could put this kind of energy into something fun and useful. World openly connect things day?

</comment><comment><USER13> I was looking forward to it at first, but now my gripe is that it's hard to distinguish the jokes from the legitimate news articles.

Yeah the jokes were funny at first but now I wish they'd stop.

<comment><USER14> > it's hard to distinguish the jokes from the legitimate news articles

that's the point?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> As an expat living in the anglosphere, I get to have two days like this, April fool's day and the holy innocents day.

</comment><comment><USER16> Amen.

</comment><comment><USER17> why so serious, son? ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> 'cause I am not 15 years old?

<comment><USER8> I think the problem is that the people around you are too annoying about it. They need to learn how to prank more lightly.

<comment><AUTHOR> Probably true to some extent. Most of the issues have to do with phone calls. As an example, when your father in law calls you to prank you that invariably turns into a 30 minute conversation. At that point you are completely out of flow and it takes you another hour to get back to the same mental state.

<comment><USER8> New policy: "Hello, you have reached my voicemail. Since today is April 1st, why don't you just leave a message and I'll call you back when I have time for pranks, and then we can both enjoy it? Until then, stop breaking my concentration, it takes an hour to rebuild." There are so many things wrong with that idea, but still.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Patrick Collison's Bookshelf - <AUTHOR> https://patrickcollison.com/bookshelf <comment><USER2> I was very pleasantly surprised to see Don Kagan's "Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War" in the list. His "Introduction to Ancient Greece" class is really good (and available online for free).

I'd also strongly suggest anyone interested in that topic to read Thucydides' original "History of the Peloponnesian War," which is probably the most influential history book ever written.

</comment><comment><USER3> When I see this unsorted list that takes multiple scrolls to see it all, I feel annoyed. My need for order isn't met. Could he order by his own ranking? I can't even Find his top suggested books (unless I fiddle in View Source).

> I flagged a few books that I thought were particularly great in green and > those that I thought were substantially above average in light blue.

</comment><comment><USER4> On a related note, I find very interesting Patrick Collison's curated bookshelf on successful industrial/applied research labs: [https://patrickcollison.com/labs](https://patrickcollison.com/labs)

I'm currently reading "Dream machines: JCR Licklider and..." and enjoying it very much.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you guys would condense this list to the absolute essential must-reads, what would be left on your list?

<comment><USER6> I think it would depend on what you're into, but these are my picks:

Quantum Electrodynamics (Feynman): A summary of how almost EVERYTHING works (albeit explained simplistically).

Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger (great insights / worldly wisdom from one of the world's greatest investors).

The Vital Question: Energy, Evolution, and the Origins of Complex Life

The Princeton Companion to Mathematics (Great overview of mathematics).

Quantum Mechanics: Concepts and Applications (Great QM book).

Wooden on Leadership: How to Create a Winning Organization (Great leadership / management insights).

Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (An extremely simplified historical overview of how we got here).

The Book of Disquiet (Serpent's Tail Classics) (Random journaling from one of the world's greatest prose writers: Fernando Pessoa).

Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software (Excellent explanation on how computers work from bottom -> top).

The Machinery of Life (Includes excellent visuals in biology).

The Character of Physical Law (Great insights in physics by Feynman).

The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement (Great book on business process improvement).

How to Win Friends & Influence People (Nothing groundbreaking, but still a worthy read).

Coders at Work: Reflections on the Craft of Programming (Great info and insights from some of the greatest software developers of all time).

The Periodic Table (Great read and some of the greatest prose writing you'll ever encounter).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Highly recommended is the interview on Econtalk with him. What an erudite man.

</comment><comment><USER8> He seems to be like me: no matter how many times I read about quantum fields and quantum mechanics, I never seem to get it, and I read a different book on the same topic.

<comment><USER9> You should read a book that presents classical mechanics in a simple way, then read both a book that presents classical fields and a book that presents classical mechanics in a complicated (modern) way, and then finally go back and read a book that is about quantum mechanics.

Although QM textbooks usually begin with a deceptively elementary introduction, it's actually there as a compressed review of many semesters of learning that was expected to have taken place beforehand. I don't think anybody has ever picked up a book on QFT and understood it without first having learned the foundations.

<comment><USER10> For me the best way is to forget the physical motivations and the historical development during first encounter, I know it is controversial but it helps you to starts calculating fast and not get boggled in philosophical stuff. Take everything "on faith" then after you know how to work with the mathematical machinery, go back and study a different book, based on the historical development and with more physical intuition.

<comment><USER9> The list of prerequisites isn't really the historical motivation, in fact is almost impossible to find the historical perspective in textbooks. It's secretly a way of teaching math and concepts to students who do not already know them. If you already know all of the necessary math you can come in "sideways" like you are describing, and it is not that controversial. Granted you will have no idea about what's going on if you don't understand Newton's laws and friends.

<comment><USER10> Plenty of books dedicate the first parts of the course to the experimental evidence of the need of a new theory, namely:the ultraviolet catastrophe of the blackbody radiation, the photoelectric effect, the unexplained stability of the electron position in an atom among others. From there you introduce, the Planck constant, the quantum of light concept, the de Broglie particle- wave duality and the Schrodinger equation and off you go. It is a pretty standard approach. As per the study of QM as a mathematical probabilistic theory you dont need Newtons Laws at all. The 5,6 postulates are pretty standard, and you take the position operator and the Hamiltonian definitions as part of them , no need to relate them to classical counterparts, at least until you prove the Ehrenfest theorem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I understand why People of Twitter might want to read his whole library, but what do you find interesting about this personally? To me it just looks like a random list of book titles.

At least contrasted to a resource like this: [https://sivers.org/book](https://sivers.org/book)

<comment><USER12> You can learn a lot about who a person is trying to become by the books in their library. My interest, limited though it might be, is primarily who does Patrick Collison want to become ?

I use Goodreads for the same principle.

<comment><USER13> > My interest, limited though it might be, is primarily who does Patrick > Collison want to become ?

No offence but what does that question even mean. Can't a person wish merely to become better read, more knowledgeable, both stoke and satisfy a lifelong inquisitiveness?

<comment><USER14> The person you've described seems like they are choosing a person to become. A person who wishes to become better read and more knowledgeable wants to become a different person than a person who wants to read solely pulp mysteries.

Patrick Collison is widely regarded as a smart, thoughtful, and accomplished, and I don't think it's weird to want to know what he thinks is important to know in the future.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Awesome Java - <AUTHOR>

Fresh out of university and having already finished projects for several companies, I asked myself what to do next in the big Java world to gain proficiency. The typical answers suggested to learn Java EE or a specific web application framework.
In attempt to find important, good and inspiring libraries for Java, I searched and searched and finally saw that there was no concise list of interesting libraries for this language. So I created a simple GitHub repository where everyone can contribute and separate the wheat from the chaff.
Unfortunately, this list depends on practical knowledge and not just the theoretical advantages of a specific library. So we need individuals that contribute their knowledge to fill the gaps. If you are interested, please have a look and add new or remove old items. Thank you!
https://github.com/akullpp/awesome-java <comment><USER2> No mention of Ant/Ivy in build tools? :(

Edit: I see you did mention it, shame you feel this way about it.</comment>


Noble or savage?  Hunter-gatherers - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10278703

<comment><USER2> Q. Why does misery and inequality seem to coincide with technological progress?

A. Because the dead don't fill surveys.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The current Economist issue contains a letter on this story by Stephen Corry, Director, Survival International, London. From the letter:

"The Sentinelese are not the only tribe of hunter-gatherers who still resist contact with the outside world ("Noble or savage?", December 22nd). There are over 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide, many of them hunter-gatherers. Nor are the Sentinelese warlike. They defend their tiny island with good reason-- intruders have shot and killed Sentinelese, and neighbouring tribes have been wiped out after contact with outsiders."

[http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=1...](http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10530066)

</comment><comment><USER3> Darwin was almost right. Technology enables the weak to survive just long enough to breed. How else would you explain cancer, obesity, and Britney Spears's child custody battle?</comment>


Sesame Credit: China Gameification of Obedience - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHcTKWiZ8sI <comment><USER2> And for those interested, an article on the subject: [http://theantimedia.org/china-just-launched-the-most- frighte...](http://theantimedia.org/china-just-launched-the-most-frightening- game-ever-and-soon-it-will-be-mandatory/)</comment>


Ad platform Decisive thinks transparency makes for better mobile ads - <AUTHOR> http://pando.com/2014/04/22/ad-platform-decisive-thinks-transparency-makes-for-better-mobile-ads/ <comment><USER2> Not to be too much of a jerk, but how is this special? Why would I use you for a client and not the GOOG?

All of these things are possible with Adwords. Some of them require a little bit of scripting (ex. [https://developers.google.com/adwords/scripts/docs/solutions...](https://developers.google.com/adwords/scripts/docs/solutions/bid- by-weather)). Yeah, even most agencies don't know how to do this, but it's something that's known enough and written about in textbooks that it is not exactly a shocking new adtech innovation.

I wanna be excited about this, but when the feature your press release isn't just something that Google might clone, but actually exists already and has existed (albeit not as a core feature accessible via GUI), you kinda have a problem.</comment>


Show HN: Flockport – A New Container Management and Orchestration Platform - <AUTHOR> https://www.flockport.com <comment><AUTHOR> We are previewing Flockport's new container orchestration and management platform. It's been designed to massively simplify orchestration, overlay networking, distributed storage, discovery and more.

There is also an app store with a large collection of apps users can download and run in minutes, and a container build system that uses recipes.

Containers are useful and provide many advantages compared to VM's but as an industry many will acknowledge there is a real risk of putting people off containers due to ballooning complexity. Flockport is a small step towards providing a simpler alternative.</comment>


I've launched my alpha (using Heroku); thoughts? - <AUTHOR>

I have just recently launched the alpha version of my app:
http://ezlearnz.com
There are still major pieces of functionality missing, e.g. anything that has to do with user profiles, comments, voting, and other things. I'll be implementing them in the coming weeks/months. But before I do so, I will eat my dogfood and create some lessons/courses.
Please be gentle in your (constructive) criticism; I was an absolute newbie when I got this idea ~9 months ago, so I had to learn html, css, a bit of javascript, and ruby on rails in order to make the app. Incidentally, I'm looking for a co-founder.
Thanks for your feedback! <comment><USER2> I think you should retool your design because:

1\. The site requires me to have my browser window full screened at 1280x1024 resolution, otherwise it forces me to scroll horizontally.

2\. The top of the site is wasted.

3\. It looks strange to me for the background color to extend in to the main "content area" -- maybe consider making the background in the middle all the same color.

Beyond that... The site doesn't really tell me what it does, you should give me some more info, and don't assume that I know what SourceForge is, although I think Wikipedia is widespread enough to use that reference.

"try it out! In the left column..." -- the left column, immediately below that, is your Features image with the pic of the kid.

The "comment on this" link doesn't seem to do anything, neither does "vote on this" or "revision history." I click it and get a busy mouse cursor for a second, but nothing actually happens.

Whenever I saw a link to a quiz or test, it just takes me to a set of blank rich text input boxes. I don't see any questions or a way to submit what I assume are answers.

When editing a subject, I don't see any way to rearrange the Lessons. Drag and drop, ajax style, would be nice for that, in addition to an integer value for the position.

Beyond the usability stuff, I'm not sure how much sense it really makes for anyone to be able to edit the courses. It seems like only the teacher should be allowed to do that, as the teacher should be an expert in his field and should not need to have his lesson plan corrected in the middle of a "semester."

All in all, it looks like you've got an interesting concept there. One possible use I can see for the technology is that, once you get some courses on there that are proven to be correct, you could export the whole course, or a set of courses, to CD and sell or donate them to developing nations. You might even be able to partner with the XO and other laptops aimed for kids who might not have access to quality education.

You also will eventually need to get teachers to create lesson plans on the site. I think a good way to do that would be to approach private schools and sell them on the benefits of having that info online -- the parents can see exactly what their kids are studying, the teachers, if they're any good, will feel good because they're able to teach more kids than just those who sit in front of them, the school can get some philanthropic benefits out of it, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I'll be working on design improvements over the next few days. Drag and drop, along with the things mentioned in the submission, is something I'll be working on in the near future.

You're right about the landing page not being informative enough as to what ezLearnz is. That's something that will probably take a while for me to be able to come up with a pithy one-liner to describe what it's about.

Once the user resource is implemented, it will be so that once you start editing a course, it is added to your "teaching cart", for lack of a better description. (To extend the analogy, if you add a course to your "learning cart", the editing ability disappears). Thanks for the business model suggestion, as well; I have lots more in mind; just need to make the site a reality first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I know domain-names are tough to come by these days, but I just don't dig on slang mis-spellingz in an edumacational site. You feel me cuz?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not everything that ends with a "z" is slang. I'll be happy to purchase ezlearn.com, or learn.com, once I have the money and they're available.

For the record, my first name for the app was wikinstitute.com :~).

<comment><USER3> For some reason I always associate the 'z' in place of an 's' as pretty juvenile slang (though funny its right place.) You'd be surprised, there are tons of good names still out there. This is probably not one, but may be a good jump off point:

wisdomgrasper.com

It's unregistered. I say this b/c I am in the midst of a name change. What was funny and cute late at night is now tedious, obscure and cumbersome. Best of luck to you...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip. I guess I've thought in terms of ezLearnz for so long that it feels noble and dignified to me :~). Also, the tentative slogan is "making learning easy", so I thought ezLearnz was particularly appropriate. If anyone comes with any better suggestions, let me know...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The UI looks a lot better than the last time you submitted the link. The logo is slick, and looks quite cool all-round. I don't really know what it does (but I'm probably not the one who's going to be using it).

I am guessing it's a mix-and-match kind of coursework that can derive course credits (and/or such) from various sources, existing, new, contributed. I'm guessing this because I have thought of projects like this and this is wishful thinking, but I'm not sure if I'm right. If I am, it's not clear from looking at this.

Edit: on second glance, it seems to be exactly that. Kudos for taking it on; this is a very difficult problem, and has so many unknowns (to me) that I don't think I have a good strategy for it.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the first time I submitted the link to news.yc; I think we may have had private communications in the past perhaps.

<comment><USER4> Oops, you're right! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It seems like you have something decent going on here, but I'm so far out of your target audience that I won't try to review it. If you want teachers to use it, it's important that your CRUD screens closely resemble the tools that teachers already use. I've learned that from other contexts.

Drop the ads until you get traffic. I don't know how many times I've told people that.

Sidenote: This is a good example of how screwed up google's adsense is. I'm seeing all of these advertisements for "OpenVMS Support" and "VAX & Alpha migration"....all because he referred to his app as an "alpha" version. Geez.

</comment><comment><USER6> You really have to make a better summary of what your product does. I'm not really sure what it does or it's purpose. The top "500 pixels" is really important to tell people what your product does.

Look at mint.com or backpackit.com for good examples. For example, mint.com says: we're a money manager (nice summarizing screenshots), and this is how we're better.

backpack says: We're your simple, easy small business intranet. (notice the feature summarizing keywords in the top 500 & the title. And WHAM, a demo video to see what it is right away.

</comment><comment><USER7> I loved the idea! I would really make the subjects stand out a little more. It seems to me your site is all about content, and at the moment content is not king. Make the content column stand out more, and probably use different fonts for subject title and description.

I love the idea, and I think making the subject list stand out would make your sight more appealing

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed; content is probably the highest priority right now. I'll be working on that (and getting friends to help); if you have a subject you've been itching to teach, jump in ;~).

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A couple things I would do for now is get rid of the ad's and add more initial content. I think more content would convey what you are trying to do better. I know this is supposed to be user generated content, but to bootstrap some of the content up maybe have some friends write some stuff. How do you like heroku ?

<comment><USER9> echo mk here. I'm not too sure what it is you're trying to do. Is it just a place to store lesson plans?

Also, Like ____ for _____ is evil. You should try to explain it without referencing another product.

Good luck to you!

<comment><USER10> I mostly agree with your second statement, though I'm not sure I'm convinced it's evil. "Like Flickr for video" worked out, in fact, far better than Flickr for photos.

<comment><USER9> Well, there's always an exception to the rule. :-)

<comment><USER11> "the rule is that there are no rules"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Summary:

1\. Improve Usability 2\. Build Content "Content is King" 3\. Make it claer to the user what your product does 4\. Wasted space with the design, and the color may not go well 5\. remove ads (I showed a friend and he said the same thing)

Great work so far.

I think you should come up with a clear plan and don't just keep coding.

I.e. how you will reach your audience/build content.

That's the biggest problem -- nobody, seemingly not even you, knows what your product is, who it is for, how people will use it, or how to take or teach classes.

I think that's an important thing to figure out.

"the future of learning is here and free"

<comment><AUTHOR> It's not that I don't know my product; it just takes several paragraphs to describe it (<http://blog.ezlearnz.com/post/29205280>). It will take a while to distill that into the one-liner that I keep referring to. Thanks for the suggestion, tho.

I'll be removing ads in the next several days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd love it if I had time to sit down and critique your site's design, but I don't. However, I do think the idea is great.

I'm not quite sure the name might is entirely relative to a powerful learning environment. It's the Z in 'learnz'.

In terms of the design, I think you could greatly benefit by comparing your site to the site <http://quizlet.com/> . It's a great site with a similar goal in mind, and I think if you can match wits and be competitive with Quizlet, you have some great potential.

</comment><comment><USER14> I agree with what others are saying about usability, but it's great that you're making your idea a reality.

Keep up the good work!

</comment><comment><USER15> The intention needs to be a lot clearer, also you could do with some javascript pop ups on your controls up in the corner as the alt info isn't fast enough.

</comment><comment><USER16> You need to hire someone with usability expertise.

p.s. Anyone as a spare Heroku invite (lpgauth at gmail)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to, once I have the money.

Also, invite sent; enjoy!

<comment><USER16> If you can't pay for one, copy/inspire yourself from mainstream 2.0 website.

Thank you for the invite.

P.S. Don't quit, knowledge should be free!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> i appreciate your effort to learn everything in 9 months to bring your dream come true - good luck</comment>


A Bean Bag That Delivers Web Widgets - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/15/technology/personaltech/15pogue.html?em&ex=1210910400&en=6a1c34cead595323&ei=5087%0A <comment><USER2> Sounds like a nice disruptive technology. I'm curious to see how it plays out.</comment>