The Quiet Ones - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/18/opinion/sunday/the-quiet-ones.html?pagewanted=all <comment><USER5> My life has been a search for quiet for as long as I can remember.

I think the fundamental problem with noisy people is not that they're inconsiderate, but that they don't have any train of thought to interrupt, and they thus don't realize the havoc they're wreaking.

When I was living in Providence, working on _On Lisp_ , I told my loud but well-meaning neighbors that I was writing a hard computer book, and that made them be quiet. Ordinary people can understand that you need quiet if you're working on some specific, hard task, like doing math homework. What they don't grasp is that someone would want their mind to work that way all the time, as a matter of course.

<comment><USER6> I keep late hours in part because, once everyone else goes to bed -- not just housemates but my entire town -- everything becomes still and quiet, and in that stillness I'm finally able to think more deeply, more clearly, about anything.

You've probably already had your fill of argument for the day, but I think that assuming that noisy people don't have a train of thought to interrupt is a little bit uncharitable. (I'm assuming the best interpretation of what you said, which is that they don't have a train of thought while they're being noisy.) I've met enough people who can think and consider things while maintaining a non-stop chatter that now I think it's just another of those quirks of personality: I require solitude to think about things, they do not.

<comment><USER7> This reminds me of an anecdote from Feynman about what sorts of mental things he could and could not do while counting seconds, and how it was different for different people. His counting was internally verbal and he could do anything that didn't require him to speak or anything else that was internally verbal.

On the other hand, a mathematician he knew was able to do lots of mental things while counting that Feynman couldn't, and wasn't able to do other mental things while counting that Feynman could, because the other guy counted visually.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Cj4y0EUlU-Y#t=101s)

<comment><USER8> Some nights, when I lay on my bed trying to sleep but my mind is still racing, I try to calm down by counting or something that requires concentration in order to forget everything else. I noticed how I cannot count without having another train of thought talking or replaying a song I was listening to the same day. It's like having two threads running in parallel.

Trying to count visually is almost impossible, I lose track before reaching twenty. As a friend of mine put this, "I can't count sheep to sleep because they are always cheating."

<comment><USER9> Have you tried thinking about the process of breathing ?

Ask yourself, "how do I know I am breathing?": there is some physical sensation that tells you that you're breathing, whether it's a whistling noise in your nose, the feeling of air rushing past the tip of your nose or the back of your throat, the feeling of wanting to return to the neutral position that your ribs give you during a deep breath.

For a lot of people, just one of these sensations is the most dominant one. If you can pick one, just lie quietly and concentrate on it and notice it every time you take a breath.

This process is more about noticing sensation than doing any kind of cognition, so I find it very useful when trying to take a mid-day nap (I haven't had trouble sleeping at the end of the day since I had children, funny that).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I sympathize with whoever criticized the guy for loud typing. Seriously, it's distracting/disruptive. I learnt to type on (manual) typewriter too but laptops and keys don't need to be stabbed with the force of a thousand suns to register the press.

It can be just as loud as people talking and (IMHO) can be harder to tune out. After all, we're used to hearing people talk all the time.

Oh and while I'm in the mood for ranting, people who eat with their mouths open--particularly when it's something crunchy--or who slurp in any way are going to be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

I don't catch long distance trains in the US at all. I sometimes take the subway but more often than not you're just standing for 10-15 minutes. In Germany, I don't recall having a lot of problems with noise (although, on one train back from Oberhausen, the smoke was so thick you couldn't see one window from the other in a very Cheech and Chong moment). England varied but was generally fine.

What I'm not looking forward to is when cellphones become usable on planes because you know someone is going to sit there and talk loudly for the entire flight.

One tip though: my Bose noise cancelling headphones are worth their weight in gold.

<comment><USER11> >I sympathize with whoever criticized the guy for loud typing.

I actually don't mind typing: to me, it sounds like ideas. It's also regular enough to become part of the background, whereas something like music isn't, because it's too variable.

>my Bose noise cancelling headphones are worth their weight in gold.

I'm going to be that obnoxious guy: Amazon lists Bose QC 15s (the model I have) as 7.4 ounces. The spot-price for gold right now is about $1,700 per ounce. Are they really worth $12,580?

<comment><USER12> >Are they really worth $12,580?

I hate to be the other obnoxious guy that responds to the self proclaimed obnoxious guy, but I see the quite a bit lately, even paraded in XKCD. Is there a significant group of people that absolutely abhors all rhetorical figures of speech? Or is it only specific ones, such as metaphors and hyperbole, with simile being mostly OK? Just curious.

<comment><USER11> The deeper I get into writing, and what it means to write well, the harder it is. Reading Martin Amis's _The War Against Cliche_ was a particularly pernicious moment for me. So was Lakoff and Johnson's _Metaphors We Live By_.

I think the question is this: does a rhetorical figure of speech help the reader or writer see the things being compared or figurized in a new way? If the answer is no, then perhaps we should look at those rhetorical things as literal, in order to remind ourselves of the power of rhetoric.

I favor metaphors and hyperbole like politicians favor hand-shaking and baby- kissing. But it to be done well.

<comment><USER13> Orwell, "Politics and the English Language", 1946:

"By using stale metaphors, similes, and idioms, you save much mental effort, at the cost of leaving your meaning vague, not only for your reader but for yourself. This is the significance of mixed metaphors. The sole aim of a metaphor is to call up a visual image. When these images clash -- as in _The Fascist octopus has sung its swan song, the jackboot is thrown into the melting pot_ \-- it can be taken as certain that the writer is not seeing a mental image of the objects he is naming; in other words he is not really thinking. "

"Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print."

<comment><USER11> Thanks! I assign "Politics and the English Language" to my students every semester.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Oh, the quiet car. I ride the quiet car every weekday to and from work into and out of Chicago (except ours is Metra, not Amtrak). His description of it is completely accurate. The people on the quiet car tend to be thinkers, readers, writers, and I dare say just a bit more intelligent than the average rider.

I've had the same experience before. For some reason people think the signs and the announcements don't apply to them and it just boggles my mind how much self awareness they lack! There's been a guy I've seen on the quiet car twice last week who for some reason had his iPhone at full volume and texted for the entire hour I was on the train. The problem wasn't the texting but that the iPhones clickers clackety keyboard sounds were on. Is that really necessary? And on the quiet car no less? A woman did the same thing a few weeks back. Of course no one said a word but we were all very annoyed. And then you get the oblivious guy who doesn't read signs or listen to the 3 announcements who talks on his cell the whole ride. And don't get me started on the teenagers who seem to be visiting the city for the first time and for some reason need to scream at each other despite being centimeters from each others face in a car full of completely silent people. The signs are obvious. The announcement are loud, clear, and numerous. So what the fuck, man?!

That's life now. It seems we have a whole generation of people who are just completely lacking self-awareness and have a serious problem with entitlement. But it's not young people this is specific to. I'm only 26 and I'm good on the quiet car (though I have had my moments I'll admit). There are people of all ages,miracles, and genders who behave this way and though I think humans are like this by nature anyway I also think the Internet and cell phones have made it worse. It seems like a learned behavior.

I just blamed Internet and cell phones for a portion of the world's ills. I'm going to go think about how old that makes me sound now...

<comment><USER15> While we're on this subject, a related rant/question:

Why are so many people so totally oblivious to so many announcements, signs, and otherwise?

You've all seen it: Boarding a plane, for example. "Ladies, and Gentlemen, we're boarding rows 1 - 5 now. Thanks." And as sure as Spring, there will _always_ be someone from row 324 who gets in line. The staff are far more polite than I'd be: "Sir, we're boarding rows 1 - 5. You're in row 324. I literally just made this announcement four seconds ago." And still, more people from other rows will attempt to board.

This happens endlessly, everywhere. "Please don't stand here." Someone will stand here. "Please step forward if you have a yellow ticket." Someone will say "But nobody called the yellow tickets?"

Perhaps I'm too attentive or perhaps I shouldn't be annoyed by this, but I am and I am.

<comment><USER16> The profusion of announcements negates them.

Just yesterday I noticed that a single bus door had SIXTEEN warning signs on it. I dare suggest that nobody else noticed any of them that day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> On a related topic: if you are a developer and are forced to deeply concentrate in public places, after three years of doing that daily I arrived at a system that could keep me coding.

1\. Figure out what earplugs work well. Working well means good sound suppression but also means earplugs that you can have in your ear comfortably for long stretches. I can sleep the entire night in the ones I settled on (I buy them bulk: [http://www.amazon.com/Moldex-6800-Pura-Fit-Soft- Earplugs/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Moldex-6800-Pura-Fit-Soft- Earplugs/dp/B00900WTHI/) ).

2\. Get over-the-ear headphones, the kind that physically enclose your entire ear. Mine are noise-canceling as well but most of the benefit comes from the enclosure.

3\. Play a white noise mp3 into the headphones. Turn the volume up to the point where you can just hear it through the earplugs you're also wearing.

With that setup, I would not even notice people talking next to me. People would often have to wave their hand by my laptop screen to get my attention (to ask me to share the coffeeshop's power outlet or what not).

I rent an office now and am happy that is not a daily situation for me, but that's how I made the best of it after much experimentation.

<comment><USER18> Good advice, but don't you think there is a possible danger in you not hearing outside noises? There is a reason we have ears you know, to alert us in case of danger when it is not necessarily visible to the eye.

<comment><USER19> Yes, of course there is danger, but the probability of a really hazardous event, which you may avoid by hearing, is very very low for most modern civilised environments where people spent prolonged periods of time, like sitting in plains/trains, or being in city rooms together with other people.

I would not consider reasonable using earplugs while walking in a jungle, or standing in a road/open space, or when driving a car myself :-) .

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Sometimes, the urbanites on HN will pile on suburbia, wondering how anybody can live there. This is one of the reasons I often feel the same way, only in reverse. As I sit here, I can not hear any sounds not originating in my house. While I certainly visit the places with Musak, loud bars, et al, I don't _live_ there. It isn't as grating when there is surcease.

I'm not saying that Here It Is, The Reason Suburban Living Is Better Than Anything Anywhere. I'm just saying, if you're one of those people who just _can't_ imagine what anyone would find appealing about the lifestyle, but were also nodding your head in agreement with this piece... now you can.

<comment><USER21> I'm in suburbia now, and the noise is nearly constant, year-round. I grew up on a farm, have lived in the hearts of major cities, the middle of an isolated mesa -- basically covered the spectrum of sound environments.

Nowhere has the noise gotten to me like in suburbia. Two words: leaf blowers.

<comment><USER22> The other day I was awakened by the... most... annoying... sound... in the universe: a leaf blower outside my window.

Worse! They blew everything _directly into the bicycle parking row_! Years' worth of dirt on my bike in one minute. Debris and filth in all the works. Earthworms. Had to completely detail the whole bike.

Meanwhile, leaves are some of the best compost available. Why do we blow them noisomely to rot on the "unused" areas of the pavement (i.e., bike parking, bike lanes)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm surprised no one found this condemnation of a society "constantly getting louder with this new internet generation" to be oddly similar to the idea that "each successive generation is getting more and more immoral" -- an idea that I would argue has not only been thoroughly debunked, but also rather impossible as well.

Of course I'm not saying that overall our cities haven't increased in their background volume by virtue of more people and things such as air planes and leaf blowers, but to go another step further and call a entire generation of people inconsiderate and loud because they're used to being on a "solipsistic" internet smacks of a classic sense generational moral superiority.

And I'm also just as surprised that to come here, with as good of a community as I feel HN has, after scanning through the comments section, not a single person mentioned this in the first comment in each comment-tree. Instead it was a mess of "well, yes, us quiet people are so superior...".

<comment> qu4z-2 It seems plausible that with the steadily increasing population density the overall loudness or chances of being near a source of loudness is actually increasing.

Also, "more immoral" is a claim going back thousands of years, which is in large part what makes it unlikely. The claim that the internet generation is louder is only making a claim about a trend in the last 20 years or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The article notes: _"In his recent treatise on this subject (its title regrettably unprintable here), the philosopher Aaron James posits that people with this personality type are so infuriating — even when the inconvenience they cause us is negligible — because they refuse to recognize the moral reality of those around them."_

Out of curiosity, I searched for Aaron James and found the book whose title could not be mentioned: _Assholes: A Theory_.[1] From Amazon's review of the book:

 _What does it mean for someone to be an asshole? The answer is not obvious, despite the fact that we are often personally stuck dealing with people for whom there is no better name. Try as we might to avoid them, assholes are found everywhere—at work, at home, on the road, and in the public sphere. Encountering one causes great difficulty and personal strain, especially because we often cannot understand why exactly someone should be acting like that.

Asshole management begins with asshole understanding. Much as Machiavelli illuminated political strategy for princes, this book finally gives us the concepts to think or say why assholes disturb us so, and explains why such people seem part of the human social condition, especially in an age of raging narcissism and unbridled capitalism. These concepts are also practically useful, as understanding the asshole we are stuck with helps us think constructively about how to handle problems he (and they are mostly all men) presents. We get a better sense of when the asshole is best resisted, and when he is best ignored—a better sense of what is, and what is not, worth fighting for._

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Assholes-A-Theory-Aaron- James/dp/03855...](http://www.amazon.com/Assholes-A-Theory-Aaron- James/dp/0385535651)

</comment><comment><USER25> Off topic, but I think that's the most beautiful illustration I've ever seen accompanying an article. And the animation - just wonderful.

(I've visiting from my laptop. Assuming mobile version probably doesn't look the same.)

<comment><USER26> I concur. It's both beautiful and understated—I appreciate the visual acuity, but I am more impressed with the fact that NYT, of all, is finally growing past the era of crying "we're interactive!!!" out loud and starting to make good, subtle and tasteful use of unique properties of the Web. This is elegant.

<comment><USER27> This was incredibly evident during the election. They're really leading the pack in terms of using newer technologies as more than a tool to draw attention to their articles, but to actually add depth to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The funny thing is that two months ago when I was taking a train in France with some friends, instead of having a quiet car, they had a _noisy_ car. And it was really quiet in there, by our American standards. There were quite a few elderly couples in the car, it seemed. We were talking and laughing and were probably the loudest on the car. At the end, the person I was traveling with who knew French remarked that the family next to us was talking about how loud and annoying we were. No one told us to be quiet, of course, since this _was_ the loud car.

<comment><USER29> One of the following things is true:

* Americans speak louder than other people

* Something about the American accent means spoken American travels further and more piercingly than other languages

* People expect Americans to be louder, so there's massive selection bias at work...

Having travelled long and far, I suspect it's all three...

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "Respecting shared public space is becoming as quaintly archaic as tipping your hat to a lady, now that the concept of public space is as nearly extinct as hats, and ladies."

...and there you get it. It's really about someone pining for the golden age, and habits that weren't as innocuous as he presents it.

Nowadays we have to live in the same space with millions of people, who all have different needs and habits. The kinds practicing rap on public transport are probably using one of the few spaces they feel safe to do so. It's annoying to you, but in your golden age half of them probably wouldn't grow into their current age, and the rest would be working in a factory. And just your hat-tipping-gentleman social position would mean that you can order them around. Unless you're unlucky enough to actually be one of them. Is this really something we want to present as more civilized? Because for me, the respect is obvious in that people can do a lot more than in your golden age (which was mostly more stinky and loud than in your icons).

We get quiet cars. We are able to acoustically isolate areas in libraries to an extent impossible. And at least Swiss quiet cars are actually quiet cars, so your headphones and typing is annoying others, and you will be reproached for it, so please use a notebook.

While settling down I talked a bit with my neighbors. And there's one thing I found out: I'm not the quiet one. We all were. Just at different times. When I shut down on the weekend, my upstairs neighbor likes to exercise. At time I like playing computer games, she does late work from home stuff. And your noisy teenagers may turn out to read books or code at home. No matter how impossible it seems to you that a woman with a cellphone might actually be a coder, or an artist.

Ah, and more and more railways are carrying quiet cars. So maybe portraying them as last vestiges of your vow-of-silence lifestyle is somewhat misguided.

<comment><USER31> That was a very nice post. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Oh lord, yes. My particular nemesis: leaf blowers.

My office is in a residential neighborhood. The sound of a gas powered leaf blower is at just the right frequency to penetrate the double-pane windows, my noise-isolating earbuds, and it somehow overcomes all background noise. The whine and revving is audible. All. Day. Long. From every direction.

I imagine to the operators it seems like a sensible choice -- What harm can I possibly be doing? I'm just one guy blowing some leaves around! But to me -- the guy four blocks over trying to write code for a living -- it hurts deep in my soul, and I wonder when exactly we became so fearful of physical activity. When did we forget how to USE A RAKE?!?!

I know, I know. Cry me a river.

<comment><USER32> Agreed. Those things are the worst. Hopefully the broom and rake have a renaissance.

<comment><USER33> Doubt it.

The person using a leaf blower isn't using one because they enjoy it. They have another 5000 places to manicure afterward—a rake no longer enters the equation since its coefficient of expedience is so low. This in turn, of course, impacts price. The employer of said manicurist passed the buck because they didn't have the time to rake it themselves.

I'd imagine that for those irritated by things of the sort, when it comes to irritants, unkempt yards would also somehow find a way to break concentrations as widely as loud leaf blowers.

<comment><USER21> If it truly were an expedient, I would be able to understand a little better, but based on observations of my neighbors' leaf blowing routines, it is no faster than I am when I'm raking the yard. Even the professional landscapers that swarm the neighborhood take their sweet time. A good rake can push a huge amount of leaves across a yard in no time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I am nearly driven to madness by the torrent of noise in public environments. I don't expect places full of people to be quiet, per se, but I do not understand why every such space needs to have eight screens and speakers every ten feet pumping some kind of inane music.

I spend a lot of time in airports, and I'm always amazed at how hard it is to find _any_ space that is not subjected to either Fox/CNN or whatever insipid music they've decided would be "good for this space." I'm always grateful to find one of those ridiculous chapels that tries not to offend anyone of any religion while still being "spiritual." Because -- praise God! -- at least it's _quiet_.

Honestly, I just want to read and think. I respect those who would rather talk, or sing, or whatever; I can move away from that if it's bothering me. But how do you move away from environments that are deliberately designed to make sure you are never without noise?

<comment><USER35> You should never move to Brazil, lol. It's the capital of public noise and, more so, the public kind that invades the private space. Everyone accepts it and takes part in it, meaning those who want quiet are virtually nil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I suspect the author will be unhappy to hear that the key message I took away from his nice little story (with David Foster Wallace quotes, no less) - <USER2> that he was identifying himself as the jerk who loudly whacks away at his keyboard, annoying the crap out of people around him. When I'm near those people in a public space, I always wonder if they are having some kind of mental-breakdown, or whether they are passive-aggressively trying to get people to move away from them. Or perhaps some combination of both.

Ironic, in that what he was trying to communicate was some concepts regarding recognizing the moral reality of those around him, when, in fact, he was one of those clueless types who likely hadn't considered the possibility that his whacking-away at his keyboard was really annoying others.

As to why the "riff-raff" tend to be a little more considerate on public transport - One reason is usually because you don't want to piss somebody off and get a punch to the head. They tend to play things a little more roughly on Oakland public transport than they do on Amtrak.

<comment><USER37> > _Ironic, in that what he was trying to communicate was some concepts > regarding recognizing the moral reality of those around him, when, in fact, > he was one of those clueless types who likely hadn't considered the > possibility that his whacking-away at his keyboard was really annoying > others._

I think that was his point.

<comment><USER36> No, I suspect that he likely doesn't realize that he is "that guy." I'm almost certain that he believes he is one of the elite, civilized folks who recognizes the "moral reality" of those around him, and that this is just an exceptional situation, which is not a typical example of his behavior.

In reality, he's probably a jerk that ignores others.

<comment><USER38> If you read his comics [1], you'll see that he's quite self-aware of his own failings and realizes that he is often a jerk himself (sometimes unknowingly). I also got the sense from just this article that he was quite aware of the fact that he was being the asshole.

[1] <http://www.thepaincomics.com/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I think this being loud is particularly ingrained on the US culture. I have to say, tourists from the US are notably loud on Argentina. We have a large amount of tourists on Buenos Aires, but it's always the US accent you can hear all the way across a crowded train wagon or room. I can't imagine why that is.

<comment> shawn-butler Given our evolutionary history as a tribal species, perhaps the human brain and auditory system is predisposed for survival purposes to make it seem as though unfamiliar dialects/voices/sounds are louder than they actually are.

Without taking an objective measure of the decibels involved you might just be giving in to a stereotype?

<comment><USER39> It is possible that it's some sort of auditory bias, but there's people from all over the world here (big tourist city and all), and it's almost always people form the US that I notice are loud. Even with the British, I can't normally hear them without being quite close, so it's not the language. Of course, I can't tell how many quiet Americans I've walked by without noticing because they are quiet.

<comment><USER40> That's interesting, I've had the opposite experience, so I'm guessing it's a perception issue. I'm from Buenos Aires and currently live in New York, both loud cities. I find Argentine tourists around here are especially loud. Maybe I'm tuned to pick up my own accent, or maybe tourists are louder than locals? (the excitement of the new?) Or maybe, as you point out, we just don't notice the quiet ones and assume they are locals...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I used to love the quiet car. I appreciated the serenity and the opportunity to listen to just the noise of the train. But the hostile shushing (2-3 times near me per trip, usually) started to bother me more than the transgressions. I began to worry constantly, checking and re-checking to make sure I had my phone on silent mode. Now I sit one car back and relax. The quiet car is good for people who can deal with it, and that's fine with me.

</comment><comment><USER42> Is the "Quiet Car" really as intellectual as Kreider makes it out to be? Is it really full of readers and intellectualists, people that take pride in knowledge and are aloof from the mundane?

This is an interesting situation: put the people you're most likely to enjoy a good, thought-provoking, intellectual, factually-backed, philosophical conversation in a car together... where they take a vow of silence for the duration of the ride.

<comment><USER29> > Is the "Quiet Car" really as intellectual as Kreider makes it out to be? Is > it really full of readers and intellectualists, people that take pride in > knowledge and are aloof from the mundane?

No.

> This is an interesting situation: put the people you're most likely to enjoy > a good, thought-provoking, intellectual, factually-backed, philosophical > conversation in a car together... where they take a vow of silence for the > duration of the ride.

Perhaps the worst place imaginable to find interesting conversation is in groups of self-selected "intelligentsia". People talking to each other who are getting a sense of validation from sounding clever leads to the kind of drivel that makes Ayn Rand fans over-excitable, and other people despair of the state of humanity.

If you're looking for thought-provoking and intelligent conversation, cultivate a group of friends who you like listening to, but at NO POINT advertise it as some kind of salon. If you're in a big city, there are often large groups of people who work in finance with brains the size of planets, and absolutely no intellectual outlet. I have had great success with "dinner clubs" where the stated aim is to eat good food and drink nice wine... Alternatively I have been led to thoughts of homicide by people gathering to have "clever conversations".

<comment><USER43> You perfectly summed up what I have been feeling about quite a few people ever since I first met them.

Very typically they are the "oh no I do not own a television set" type because allegedly 100% ALL of TV is just pure nonsense and not a single good program has EVER been shown on TV, according to them. And they always make it a very grave point in ever conversation that they read books and a certain book said this-and-that. As if the fact they read a printed book alone really sets them apart from the rest of the population and this kind of information could have never been shared on TV or a good website. Yet they fail to apply anything they read in an actual conversation where they are actually responding to the other person and adapting things to the given context of the conversation and not just dropping names and empty, allegedly-sophisticated phrases.

And then they always make it another grave point to tell everyone how much they value and require intelligent conversation and how they see themselves as educated and well-read and they make sure to drop the right names and point to that fact as often as possible.

I think that is why those self-proclaimed "intelligence salons" are so horrible, specifically because they attract this kind of people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Did anyone else notice the hidden text "#@$%&!" at the end of the last paragraph? Does this have some kind of meaning or purpose, I can't figure out why it would be there...

<p itemprop="articleBody"> We're a tribe, we quiet ones, we readers and thinkers and letter writers, we daydreamers and gazers out of windows. We are a civil people, courteous to excess, who disdain displays of anger as childish and embarrassing. But the Quiet Car is our territory, the last reservation to which we've been driven. And we can be pushed too far. Our message to the barbarians who would barge in on our haven with their chatter and blatting gadgets like so many bulldozers is: <span style="color:#fff;"><em>#@$%&!</em></span> </p>

<comment><USER45> I read this article in the printed newspaper at a coffee shop today.

The "message" at the end of the article was a graphic of a finger over a pair of lips. Presumably from the description in the article it is Amtrak's "Quiet Car" logo.

No idea how or why it ended up the way it did online.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> The problem with the quiet car is that offenders usually do not realize they are in it. Unless you travel on Amtrak frequently (I don't do it often but certainly more than the average person) you may not even realize a quiet car even exists. It isn't common to have a quiet section on an airplane or any other form of public transportation so I can see why people would not expect this.

Ignorance is no excuse for being loud repeatedly after this is pointed out but I almost always travel in the quiet car and have found that conductors only infrequently make announcements explaining that the car has special rules- perhaps 25% of the trips I've taken.

I cannot blame someone for missing the sign that says, "Quiet Car" but I can place some responsibility on Amtrak for not making the quiet car and the rules that go along with it more obvious.

<comment><USER47> Not every Amtrak line even has a quiet car - long-distance lines don't have them, and even some regional lines don't have them (such as the Pacific Surfliner).

<comment><USER46> I usually go Boston to CT or NY where there is always a quiet car but my point about it not being made obvious enough to those that aren't aware of its existence seems like a fairly simple fix.

There will always be the people that do not feel the rules apply to them but most of the loud people I encounter in the quiet car did not realize where they were.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> A lot of the problem is caused by cell phones. People talking on phones are usually louder than in-person chatter. And while a conversation is distracting, half of one is worse. Also, cell phone conversations on public transit seem to be more common than talking in-person. Everyone has a phone, but not everyone takes the train with a conversation partner.

Different cultures have different rules about mobile phones. While vacationing in Japan, I noticed that _nobody_ talks on their phone on trains. It's wonderful. As soon as I came back to the states, I was crudely reminded how horrible American cell phone etiquette is.

A few years ago, I bought a cell phone jammer. It has paid for itself many times over. If you find yourself distracted by obnoxious people on cell phones, buy one. You won't regret it.

<comment><USER49> They've done studies showing that listening to half the conversation is the key to why it's annoying [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2010/05/cellph...](http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2010/05/cellphones- driving-annoying.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Unless I missed it, the author fails to mention the other front line in this battle: the airplane. Sure, the roar of the engines can be deafening, but the cellphone ban more than offsets that. I've found that more than anything else flying reminds me of just how productive you can be when free of distractions. Heck, the nature of productivity itself changes: instead of measuring it by how many emails you've answered, it's measured by how much progress you've made in thinking about problems or expanding your knowledge. Part of me is disappointed with the prevalence of wifi on flights now -- it was inevitable, but being put in a situation where I had no other choice but to read a book I've been meaning to read or to simply just sit and think for a few hours provided a really important ballast in maintaining sanity.

</comment><comment><USER51> I'm one of those people that enjoys a certain level of noise... usually music without lyrics. I can work without it but I find that I can more quickly get into "the zone" when I have a beat.

I'm also not a huge fan of sitting in especially quiet libraries or buildings. In college, the buildings were old enough that you'd start to hear the buzzing of the lights, the tick of an old clock, the hum of an air conditioner, a heating pipe clanging in the distance. When I think of the "quiet car", I just assume all the little things would get annoying (as it seems in this article). I always found that more distracting than creating my own baseline.

That being said, with all the flying I've done the past few years a $300 set of Bose noise canceling headphones has been a bargain investment. My music, my work, and a whole lot less of everything else.

<comment><USER52> It's a "quiet car", but it's still on a moving train. It's not going to be anything like the deafening silence of an old empty building that you describe. You're always going to have the noise of the train.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Having grown up in Eastern Europe, I was always reminded by my parents not to talk loudly in public places. The habit is so ingrained that even now I'm uncomfortable speaking up when strangers are around.

When I visited North America for the first time, I was of course surprised by loud voices everywhere, but I just shrugged it off and assumed that it was a cultural thing.

And now this article surprised me again.

<comment><USER54> I am from Central Europe and was brought up similar way. But this kind of upbringing is rare here.

Even some older people (I guess they should know better) tend to be loud, obnoxious and really don't care about their fellow passengers.

Also, nowadays it's completely normal for a parent to let their kid loose and don't mind at all that it is screaming or bothering other people. They're happy as long as said kid is not troubling them.

I'm always surprised how calm and orderly are children of Asian descent (usually immigrants' or tourists').

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Woah is that...? It is!

Author Tim Kreider may be better known by some of us Internet folk as purveyor of the fine web-comic "The Pain": <http://thepaincomics.com/>

</comment><comment><USER56> I am surprised no one has brought the topic of working from Coffee shops. This is one of the things that I have tried but never worked for me.

Worst yet, me & my friend were consulting for a startup, whose co founders worked from a coffee shop. One day some discussion was required around certain design elements and we had a Skype call scheduled. when the call started, there was unbelievable noise from their side. I asked them to call later. 3 times this happened and there was always tons of noise. Somehow it was perfectly fine for them, but we couldn't hear anything. I tried politely asking to give respect to hours we are spending for them.

It is odd, how people ignore effect of noise.

</comment><comment><USER57> I guess I'm one of the people who ruin it for everyone else. I'm ADD as all get out when it comes to something I'm not really into, but when I'm lasered in on something interesting, it would pretty much take a fire drill to break me out of that. I even prefer a background din in that situation over dead silence—so I've never been bothered by, or spoken out against, any of the trends away from silence. I love open-plan workspaces since I can have an ear open for anything particularly important or interesting (especially if it's relevant to what I'm working on).

<comment><USER58> I would happily re-mortgage my house to afford surgery which would leave me with a brain that works as you describe.

<comment><USER59> Buy some earplugs. Same effect, much cheaper.

<comment><USER58> I assure you that it's really just not that simple.

I am adversely effected by all manor of sensory offence — including motion in my peripheral, heat, smells, unpredictable vibration.

The real problem is that it's a downward spiral: if something is bothering me and I become agitated, I am far more likely to become aware of other things which conspire to keep me from being productive. Ultimately, I fall into a state of manic anxiety and get really down on myself for feeling so ineffective.

I really wish I could just put in earplugs. They irritate my ears.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Imagine a future, where you could simply switch your hearing ability on and off.

When I first thought about this, I got so excited, that I started writing a science fiction story around the implications. Unfortunately, I'm a horrible writer.

I am not talking about noise canceling headphones or ear plugs but something like a neurological switch. I assume the "easiest" way to do this, would be a surgery in which one cuts the nerves between the ears and the brain and installs an electronic switch. But I know nothing about this stuff.

<comment><USER61> I've actually envied people with cochlear implants for having this ability. The idea of being able to turn on and off senses at will is kind of an amazing thought. I personally have a hypersensitive sense of touch, and it is an almost constant distraction. I can't count the number of times I've wished I could toggle or perhaps just filter my senses.

It's still undoubtedly far off in the wings. I'm not sure if anything has been done on the purely organic side, but I know that at least on the ECE side of things our ability to effectively interact with organic systems is still quite ineffective and brutish. The professor I had for digital signal processing last year does some work with cochlear implants. He spent a lecture talking about the current technologies, and the implantation and interfacing he described was very destructive. There would undoubtedly be severe ability loss if they were used on an otherwise capable person to try to enable this ability. It would be nice if we evolutionary developed some high-pass preprocessing. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that will take a good bit longer to develop than man-made alternatives.

I'd be interested to read what you've written if you'd like another set of eyes on it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> In Japan, you get a level of public acoustic courtesy that is wonderful. Coming back here made me realize how outrageous it is that we tolerate things like people talking on a cellphone on an otherwise silent bus.

<comment><USER63> I remember taking the Shinkansen when you could still smoke on the train. Coming back here made me realize how sane it it is that we don't tolerate things like smoking indoors.

<comment><USER62> yes, I'm not saying Japan is strictly better...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> It amuses me when people from western countries complain about noise(most comments contain clues to location).

Having lived most of my life in India, noise has never been an issue for me, even while doing tasks that require intense concentration. It's like the brain implements a band pass filter for most ambient noise, you never notice it. I have also noticed that the more I concentrate on a task at hand, the less I notice anything else around me.

On the other hand, I have been living outside India for the past few years and I notice noise a lot more.

Make what you want of this but it has lead me to believe that our perception of noise is a function of our state of mind, the ambient noise level and our conditioning/habituation. The takeaway being that it is possible to learn to ignore noise, since in most situations one may not be able to control the source of the noise.

<comment><USER65> I get that too, if I'm reading or writing then nothing short of shouting or a physical tap on the shoulder can bring me back to reality.

But I'm not convinced everyone can learn it. I know people who are light sleepers and get jolted awake in the night because of noise. You'd think if their brains could adapt to filter out the ambient noise then they would have for the situation. Regularly interrupted sleep is probably pretty annoying.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> I gave up reserving seats in the quiet car after last time - a man sat next to me and handed his grandson (aged 3 or 4) a Bopit. Yes, one of these: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fH4XHwefPVY>

There followed a short argument where I questioned why he would book the quiet car in advance and give the kid a toy where noise was the point of the game, and not, say, a colouring book.

Anyway. It's just less stressful to be in part of the train where noise is expected, because I have /never/ been in a quiet car which didn't have people on mobile phones, clacking keyboards, and kids with headphoneless gameboys.

</comment><comment><USER67> Makes you wonder, if the quiet car was full, would the author have come to this civil resolution?

And where does one draw the line.. someone would call for a quieter car.

Interesting read but doesn't suggest anything other than it is hard to find silence in public places.

</comment><comment><USER68> I travel two hours each way to work to London, and likewise, I sit in the quiet carriage.

I've been that person to stand up, walk over and have a quiet word, but all to often I'm met with hostility and shock that we should even dare to police our own quiet space.

The regular commuters in the whole are respectful and as the writer alludes to, treat the carriage as their personal quiet time, but as Brits, confrontation such as this is a cultural misnomer, we just don't tend to do it and I can't think that I will ever feel happy about having to do so, much more I just wish people would be more respectful.

</comment><comment><USER69> London Underground is a wonderful mixture of opposites in this respect.

During the very crowded morning rush, it is almost a capital offense to make a sound (except perhaps some noise escaping from headphones). You can forget about talking to another passenger, even a friend. Even looking happy while not obviously reading something that might be funny is met with embarrassed glances at feet at ceilings.

In the evening though, after about 9 or 10, the tube is full of groups on their ways home from the pubs - then there are people singing, often whole carriages will silently giggle at someone being an extrovert centre of attention.

Finally, there is the etiquette surrounding when one must offer a seat to someone else. the order of priority appears to be:

        * pregnant and (obviously) disabled people, plus new mothers.
        * old people (ladies first)
        * children (especially medium sized ones who look like they might actually sit
          down, and/or shut up if given a seat)
        * the rest of us, in a reserved, passive aggressive scrum.

(also, obviously, talking to a complete stranger on the tube is a massive faux pas, no matter the time of day...)

On quiet coaches specifically, I have to say that on British "mainline" trains there is a big problem, which is reservations. For example, on virgin trains there is always a quiet coach (both a standard and first class one), and a coach with no reserved seats. If you want a seat at a busy time of day, you must be one of the first to arrive at (on Virgin it's coach E) and take one (it is even possible to get the prized window-side-facing-forwards-at-a-table seats this way.) However, these coaches never coincide. Thus, if you want to be in the quiet coach you must book a seat in advance, which is cheaper but restricts you to a particular train - if you're late you must pay twice, and if you're early you have to wait. This is important when you're on the tube (which frequently has delays) and the trains from Euston to Manchester are every 20 minutes (and absolutely packed in the evenings, especially Fridays, in spite of this.) Given the convenience factor, I usually plump for coach E, and risk the screaming babies/mobile chatterers - as another commenter pointed out, this is why I paid £80 for a pair of headphones.

</comment><comment><USER70> I'm one of those loud Americans (ENTJ - for what that's worth). To those who know me, they'll say that I'm one of the most talkative people they know. I'm not always proud of my talkativeness, but let me try to explain why we act the way we do.

For extroverts, social interaction energizes us. I'm almost like a vampire if I'm around introverted people. It may be the difference between tribal vs. modern relationships, but in many big families (generally with less income, but not always the case), you need to say something loudly and constantly to get what you want.

We also tend to feel noise is comfortable. I've lived in urban areas, where if there isn't noise, it is discomforting if not dangerous. You may have felt the same way at a get-together when there isn't any background music or when you meet a stranger for the first time.

For many people in this world, they have the TV on all the time or music blaring 24/7. I'm not saying it's more productive. God knows watching tv while doing anything beyond rote tasks is not a recipe for success, but it makes the task more bearable.

As to why we're loud... sometimes it's opinion, sometimes it's emotional release, while other times it's just social pruning. It doesn't mean that we're not thinkers though, it just means we think out loud. It was a key difference between me and another friend I had an argument with, where I wanted to talk it out and she wanted to run away and breathe for a bit.

For us, noise/discussion is just as important to the Quiet Ones as quiet.

P.S. one caveat, I need quiet when I'm writing, working, reading, or even watching a movie, so I'm not the typical type.

</comment><comment><USER71> I lived in the "quiet" floor in my dorm in college. No greater farce has ever been endured. I really wish noise-cancelling headphones existed then.

<comment><USER72> Enh; I have the best, Bose QC-15s, and they don't do much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I am a 'Quiet One' and I used to search high and low for locations I could find peace. But recently I've stopped depending on my surroundings being quiet and started listening to white noise on my phone or laptop. I use simplynoise.com (they have an app) and I can find my quiet place even in a crowded coffee shop. I also use it often in the office when I need to get work done without distractions.

</comment><comment><USER52> I can deal with just about any noise of any volume as long as that noise doesn't include any intelligible speech. Muffled voices are fine, the combined voices of an entire crowd are fine as long as I can't make out what any one voice is saying. But as soon as the part of my brain responsible for interpreting spoken words gets activated, I lose the ability to concentrate on anything.

</comment><comment><USER74> Quiet spaces are important to some of us, but my bbrother always has music or the TV on. He admits disliking quiet.

The small town where I live has strong no noise laws. You can't generate sound that can be heard outside your yard unless it is gardening noise - <USER3> business hours. Noise is one reason I no longer want to live in a city.

<comment><USER75> Where do you live? I need to move there.

<comment><USER74> Sedona Arizona. Do a Google image search :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Are the random white characters at the end of the last paragraph a message about blending in?

[http://a7d0f80a5fa1647cdaad-1414aef150de5db27755b8a53ed3a9c0...](http://a7d0f80a5fa1647cdaad-1414aef150de5db27755b8a53ed3a9c0.r40.cf2.rackcdn.com/Screen%20Shot%202012-11-18%20at%207.36.18%20PM.png)

<comment><USER77> Hm. Interesting. Might it be 'quiet!'?

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> _> "I'm not talking about cellphone conversations," he said, "I'm talking about your typing, which really is very loud and disruptive."

I was at a loss. I learned to write on a typewriter, and apparently I still strike the keyboard of my laptop with obsolete force. "Well," I said, trying to figure out which of us, if either, was the jerk here, "I don't think I'm going to stop typing. I'm a writer; I sit in here so I can work."_

Funny, keyboard 'strikers' bug me too, but thought I was alone in that. Unless your keyboard is dying and requires force to operate, a light touch does less wear and tear, conserves your own energy (marginally, fwiw), and is much quieter for those around you. There's no apparent reason for the way some people almost attack their keyboard, other than misdirected zeal, eagerness, or angst.

</comment><comment><USER79> An article titled "The Quiet Ones" was posted by user "wallflower"? That's like a pun. A quiet pun.

<comment><USER80> Article resonates with the user!

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Has anyone noticed even the libraries are not immune to cellphones? Someone should start selling phone booths to libraries: people who need to take a call can use the booth.

I have carried ear plugs with me for years (two fresh pairs in a small pill bottle, in my briefcase). In a moment of sleep-deprived delerium in an airport, I bought the Bose QC-15s. I love them. I am a huge fan of instrumental music. We have an offer in on a house one bedroom smaller than our current rental, which is perfect: I have an excuse to get a writer's shed.

I would pay a membership fee to anyone who could build a Quiet Car Hacker Space within 5 miles of my house. QCHS: where are you?

But seriously: phone booths in libraries: it's brilliant. Somebody: do it!

</comment><comment><USER82> Here's to the quiet ones. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. While some may see them as the quiet ones, we see genius. Because the people who are quiet enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

</comment><comment><USER83> I'd like to add "photo" pollution also to this. It is near impossible to go to a party, or a tourist spot and _actually_ enjoy the place/occasion. Photos/flashes everywhere, all the time - even the most useless/mundane things being photographed, all the time.

If you are in new york city, you can't even walk peacefully on the road - you'll have to stop to be "considerate" to the people who are blocking the sidewalk taking pictures. I went to a speech - the room was quite dark, that still didn't stop people from taking pics. It seemed that most people there were interested in taking pics than the speech itself, which I find very disrespectful to the speaker.

All of it is just annoying.

</comment><comment><USER84> I find it crazy hard to tell people that they are noisy. Mainly because i feel like im very egocentric for wanting quiet times. We sit in a large room with a lot of people and i guess we have to make space for each and everyone if we want to get along. But since im the only one writing code and the rest are mostly making graphics, im the only one that requires some sort of quiet time around me. It can be really hard to tell people what you need when your the only one that really needs it. I mostly ends up sitting with my headphones on and listen to noise like rainymood.com to block other peoples noise out. Seems weird but it works for me.

</comment><comment><USER85> As I once heard someone say in Spain - I prefer the noise of life to the silence of death

<comment><USER86> Those aren't your only options.

<comment><USER87> Yes, they are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> This reminds me of "The Pedestrian", by Bradbury. [http://mikejmoran.typepad.com/files/pedestrian-by- bradbury-1...](http://mikejmoran.typepad.com/files/pedestrian-by- bradbury-1.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER89> I've worked next to someone that was extremely harsh on their keyboard - <USER4> blown hammering the keys, with the whole desk shaking - and even in a medium- noise office it was infuriating to work next to.

After a few light-hearted suggestions that he be a bit lighter on the keys, I ended up having to point out how much it was putting me off my work. Thankfully he was good enough to change his habits while he remembered, but he would soon idly begin bashing again.

On a similar note personal space invaders are even worse, but I'll contain my vitriol on that subject for now.

</comment><comment><USER90> I'm a bit surprised that so many people NEED a dead-silent environment to concentrate on their work. Maybe it's because I grew up with a snoring dad, but I can completely tune out a crowd of people without breaking a sweat, while all my coworkers would go crazy without their headphones. Honest question: is this truly such a difficult skill to cultivate? You'd think it would be a whole lot more beneficial in the long run than investing in an expensive set of noise-cancelling equipment. But I don't know, maybe I'm just going deaf!

</comment><comment><USER91> Actually, the article has it wrong. The signs on the quiet car say this: "Please refrain from loud talking or using cell phones in this car."

They don't say you need to whisper. I only remember because I saw people shushed that weren't loudly talking and glanced up at the sign to double check if you weren't allowed to talk at all and the sign only mentions "loud talking."

Here's a link with a picture: [http://roiword.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/conflict-and-the- qui...](http://roiword.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/conflict-and-the-quiet-car/)

</comment><comment><USER92> Did anyone notice the last line?: "Our message to the barbarians who would barge in on our haven with their chatter and blatting gadgets like so many bulldozers is: #@$%&!"

The symbols are in white font.

</comment><comment><USER9> A "finger-pressed-to-lips" icon is shown at the very end of the article. As much as some HN denizens like to obsess over detail and polish (especially in iconography), how can everybody not have noticed that the hand is facing the "wrong" way?

Nobody shushes by putting their own hand in front of their own mouth like that, they turn it 90 degrees. The only time the pictured arrangement happens is when you put your finger on another person's lips, a very intimate and unmistakable gesture.

</comment><comment><USER93> I've had the exact same experience on Caltrain. Although Caltrain does not have a 'quiet car' per se, most of the every day commuters are aware of the unspoken conduct of silence. Although there are a few folks who just cant get off their phones and like to yap about non-stop. The worst part of it is that most often, I end up being the asshole telling them to keep it down. I dont know why some of the other folks dont speak up, even though they are equally annoyed as I am

</comment><comment><USER94> _Respecting shared public space is becoming as quaintly archaic as tipping your hat to a lady, now that the concept of public space is as nearly extinct as hats, and ladies._

\-- QFT

</comment><comment><USER95> I had an interesting thought experiment after replacing "quiet" with "privacy".

While not everyone may not agree on the word replacement, I go through similar emotions (as the author describes) when someone posts a photo (that has me and others) on facebook without permission. I like to think that there are others out there like me. I am one of those "quiet" snobs.

</comment><comment><USER96> That's funny, the sentence at the end, before the pictogram, has the following censored expletive in invisible text: #@$%&!

</comment><comment><USER97> For people who can't get the quiet they need to do their work, try drowning it out. I highly recommend Rainy Mood <http://www.rainymood.com/> which just plays the sound of rain continuously. In open plan offices, sometimes it's the best you can do.

</comment><comment><USER98> Silicone keyboard skins cut down on typing noise. It's a little weird at first, but I've found them to be helpful at keeping debris out as well as being the guy typing in a meeting without people looking at me. I always bring earbuds with me wherever I go as to not be distracted by other people.

</comment><comment><USER99> The search for quiet and some peace, maybe that is why I like to go hiking in remote places during colder weather. Yes there is still sound, but for some reason I find the sound of water or a light wind far more peaceful than the sound of people and the machines and gadgets they bring along.

</comment><comment><USER100> I prefer the moderate din of places like coffee shops for this reason. There's usually enough background chatter, music and random noises going on that it's easy to not actually _listen_ to any of it. It's only when there are but a few noises that it becomes a problem, I think.

</comment><comment><USER101> Idea for any startup founders out there: Have quiet breakout rooms where one can't talk in anything but a whisper. Hell, make it so that one can't even use a Das Keyboard in there. I would be curious to run an A/B test on productivity (say number of features produced). :-)

<comment><USER102> Someone already did the experiment, basically: [http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/06/study- of-t...](http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/06/study-of-the-day- why-crowded-coffee-shops-fire-up-your-creativity/258742/). :)

<comment><USER101> Let me try to answer the question seriously: I have worked in coffee shops with ambient noise which I have been able to tune out. I believe that the experiment is subtly different that what I had proposed because it is looking at a different dimension of noise. The problem with noise at work is that it gets harder to tune it out especially when some of that noise might be relevant. This means that you get more distracted than when listening to some person with a nasally voice is asking for non fat soy latte. Well, that is my hypothesis anyway. :-)

<comment><USER103> I can filter out 99% of the noise at a coffee shop, because I can be certain it doesn't apply to me.

I can filter out 50% of the noise at work, because it probably doesn't apply to me.

I can filter out 10% of the noise at home, because if my wife is talking or our cats are meowing, it's almost certainly directed at me.

<comment><USER101> > I can filter out 10% of the noise at home, because if my wife is talking or > our cats are meowing, it's almost certainly directed at me.

IMO the only advantage of working from home is that you can control all those free variables that make you distracted: E.g. Get a quiet study where you tell your wife, cat(s) etc that you cannot/will not be distracted during work hours. Doing that at work can be tried but depending on the work place, may not be kosher.

I personally prefer working in the library. I have been most productive doing that back in school and sorely miss it.

<comment><USER103> > E.g. Get a quiet study where you tell your wife, cat(s) etc that you > cannot/will not be distracted during work hours.

Well, sojacques already addressed the cat point, so they only thing I have to add is that I live in Manhattan, in a very spacious place by our standards, but one that doesn't really come with a study - not unless I wanted to tear down everything in the closet, toss my wife's things into a box, and have a space the size of a desk to work in :P

<comment><USER104> No no no, you have it all wrong. You clean out the closet and all, then you put the cat AND the wife in there so you can work outside...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> Ha this is a great article. I too look for quietness and find myself more and more turning off music just to allow myself to think properly. And yes- one of the virtues of staying late in the office is the actual quietness, which is a shame.

</comment><comment><USER106> My saving grace is that I live a mile away from a library that has study rooms and actual encourages quiet in the adult areas. I also wear earplugs and shooter muffs at home to block out the noise from my spouse and pets.

</comment><comment><USER107> One thing I have noticed, about myself and others, is that people are more oblivious to noise and how much they generate when they are in a group. It seems that a group doing most things makes many think its just fine.

</comment><comment><USER108> I wonder how "The Quiet Ones" would handle someone with a disability like Tourettes syndrome or with some sort of medical equipment that made an annoying noise. I'd give anything to watch the moral dilemma play out.

</comment><comment><USER109> The quiet car is great for returning home in the morning with a hangover...

</comment><comment><USER110> Are there societies that are notorious for being quiet? Finland, maybe?

</comment><comment><USER107> They say a single noise bothers people more in the country than the same noise does in the city. Perhaps the same is true on the train. It seems like stress I don't need.

</comment><comment><USER111> In Sydney they've instituted the same idea - on the inter-urban trains the first and last carriages are now quiet cars. It's great!

</comment><comment><USER72> I look forward to the day when workplace noise is treated like second-hand smoke.

</comment><comment><USER80> Why can't you control yourself instead of the outside circumstance?

</comment><comment><USER112> I fear for you lot when this article is revealed as satire.

</comment><comment><USER43> There are two things I am always wondering about... one is what all these people are actually talking about for hours on end. I am a very quiet person but I see and hear pretty much everything going on around me even if it appears I am dis-connected. I just don't open my mouth unless I really actually have something to say. So I just have no idea what I might be missing in my life that I don't have all these things to talk about for hours and hours.

And the second thing that baffles me even more: I basically have to apologize at work when I have my ear plugs in because my over-sensitive boss feels like "we are ignoring her" when actually we are just trying to get some work done and that takes focus and I need all the noise blocked out for that. But someone who has never done any software engineering work probably really cannot relate and understand why that matters.

</comment><comment><USER113> i haven't read this entire thread, but i've read enough to say this: custom earplugs? noise cancelling headphones? white noise soundtracks? are you serious? the problems discussed here took place in a space specifically designated for quiet. why can't people make an effort to comply? if you want to make noise, go somewhere else. i literally cannot believe what i'm reading here. shaddap!!!!

this brings to mind the BWCA in northern minnesota. pure, unspoiled wilderness. many want to change that, introducing cellphone towers, water slide theme parks, boats with motors ...

to which i say: the vast majority of america has been "civilized" -- can't you leave one place alone for refuge?

in this case it's the quiet car. everywhere else is noisy, which is great/fine, but cannot you respect the desires of people wanting refuge in one tiny place? sheeeeeesh.

<comment><USER114> Dear Sir,

I wish to protest the previous letter, which makes all people who type WORDS in CAPITALS seem INSANE. Many of my friends type like this, and only a few of them are RANTING LUNATICS.

Yours sincerely,

Major Charles Smith, Deceased (Mrs.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER115> Hell is the "ordinary people".)

<comment><USER43> Curiously enough, this Sartre quote (originally _l'enfer, c'est les autres_ ) is used in a very different sense from what it originally meant. Typically people like to quote it as an allegedly-educated way of saying all people are annoying - when originally it was nothing but the end of Sartre's novel "No Exit" in which one of the main characters is baffled by the fact that hell doesn't need torture devices but just a group of people you can't escape for eternity. The "can't escape for eternity" part is key.

<comment><USER115> A little bit broader interpretation, it seems, also valid.)

Actually it was a weak joke, paraphrasing pg's passage about ordinary people.

<comment><USER43> I think it is just a wrong interpretation, really, because people present it as if "even" Sartre said all people are hell, whenever they are feeling reclusive or disappointed in humanity.

None of that is in the original quote since it is way more specific and context-oriented.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Hive - A Petabyte Scale Data Warehouse using Hadoop - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=89508453919 <comment><USER2> I love it. I hate it. I love it because its a very powerful way to run SQL on petabytes of data. I hate it because SQL needs to die.

Personally, I'm really looking forward to Apache Pig having both a SQL and dataflow abstraction available.

<comment><USER3> There's nothing stopping you from just running Map/Reduce scripts. Hive just compiles the SQL down to Map/Reduce.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hive is great, but it's noted that like most Hadoop things, it's alot better when you have 100 machines than when you have like, 2.</comment>


EFF Outlines Plan to Fix the Broken Patent System - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-outlines-plan-fix-broken-patent-system <comment><USER3> Most of these are really excellent, such as the suggestion to require example code for claims implemented in software, to allow the regional courts of appeal to decide patent cases, and to defer most discovery until after claim construction.

On the other hand, some of the suggestions simply beg the question. What is a "software patent" or a "patent troll?" Software is eating the world-- mechanisms that would have in the 1990s been implemented in ASICs are implemented in microcontrollers. What people think of "software" they think of typical application code that mostly moves bits from point A to point B or react to user input. Software where each individual line of code is straightforward and requires little thought. An R&D project might spend millions of dollars to write a bunch of code that will be thrown away--and can still be considered successful if it yields useful algorithms. These are qualitatively different kinds of software, but it's devilishly difficult to draw the line.

Of course the easy solution is to eliminate software patents. I'm not convinced that's a good thing long-term. I look at the tech industry, and see one where product companies rather than hard R&D companies make all the money. The folks at SRI who invented Siri get a small license fee, while Apple makes billions by wrapping it with a candy shell. It's an industry where there is tremendous pressure to vertically integrate, because you can only justify R&D on basic technologies if you also control the product that gets sold to end- users.

<comment><USER4> > What is a "software patent" or a "patent troll?"

Patent trolls are Non Practicing Entities who file lawsuits against companies who are actually practicing an invention. The problem though is that when the United States was created, it chose to drop the requirement to practice for a very specific reason: it discriminates against the poor and middle class, who might be smart enough to invent some world changing technology but have no way to raise millions of dollars to produce their invention. Such a requirement was seen as anti-democratic by the founding fathers, and historically NPEs have actually made huge contributions to human knowledge... E.g. the person who invented the computer didn't have the money to actually go out and build one.

There certainly have come to be a lot of abuses with the current system that need to fixed. But it's worth keeping in mind that while Mark Cuban himself might not be a bad guy, the reason the founding fathers chose to let people file patents without having to build out the invention was precisely to protect us from people like him, who could come in and just steal someone else's efforts wholesale because they happen to have more money. And in the past couple years, a lot of law professors who were originally against NPEs have now reversed their opinions and acknowledged that the situation is more complex than they had originally believed.

<comment><USER5> Citation needed. Specifically, the patent office required that inventors submit working models of their inventions until 1880 [1]. That doesn't sound to me like the founding fathers' decision.

Edit: And they still require working models of anything claiming to implement perpetual motion.[2]

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/18/business/18PATE.html?pagew...](http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/18/business/18PATE.html?pagewanted=all)

[2] [http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s706.html](http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s706.html)

<comment><USER6> > _And they still require working models_ //

Sorry, can you perhaps quote the bit that says that. In that link I see they reject perpetual motion machines under 35 USC 101 but I don't see the part saying that such an objection can be combated with presentation of a model, or indeed that the objection is made in a form of "submit a working model to continue this application".

The USPTO likely has no facilities to examine or even store such models.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The solution to the patent system is to abolish it. The whole thing. Seek compensation for the act of coming up with innovative ideas instead of trying to apply artificial state granted monopolies to them after the fact. It would be so much healthier to have money pumped into the R&D of common utility goods for the sake of the innovation than to continue to perpetuate patent warfare while trying to attach a flawed profit motive to intellectualism.

<comment><USER8> The usual retort to that is "so you don't want to cure cancer then". The pharmaceutical industry very strongly depends on patents, and would easily be able to convince government through money and "cancer" not to abolish it.

The practical thing then is to come up with a solution for pharma, and then abolish the patent system.

<comment><USER9> The patent system is very badly designed for pharma. The cost in pharma is in the clinical trials, but the patent is awarded for creating the drug -- long before the trials.

Rather than being a reward for brining an innovation to market, the monopoly (patent) is awarded long before the bulk of the work has been done. No reward is offered in the patent system for doing the hard and expensive part -- proving efficacy and safety. But the patent means that even if you choose not to spend the money to bring it to market, nobody else is allowed to.

Something like 95% of pharmaceuticals fail to be effective and safe. In other words, 95% of pharmaceutical patents are for inventions that ultimately don't work.

"A patent for something that does not work" ought not be allowed -- the pharmaceutical patent should only be awarded after efficacy and safety has been proved (incentivising the hard part).

<comment><USER10> What's to stop the FDA enforcing 'patents' and market exclusivity in their approval process? I.e. Instead of approving Chemical-X, approve only DrugCorp brand Chemical-X?

Possibly with some stipulation that the first company to submit and pass approval gets a N-year exclusivity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm disappointed by the EFF's stance here: it simply isn't strong enough.

I'm in the camp that believes there shouldn't be software patents _period_. Simple as that.

As for ending the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals on patent case appeals, I assume this is because that court has frequently been overly friendly to patent plaintiff claims. Some might argue it's gone so far as regulatory capture. What's more, the court has repeatedly been overturned by the SCOTUS.

That's a fair argument but what they're forgetting was that the USCoAftFC was introduced to solve a problem. We have the problem now that there is inconsistent treatment of patent cases in Federal district courts, leading plaintiffs to file cases in "friendly" jurisdictions, most notably East Texas.

Prior to 1982, you had the same problem at the appeals level and you had a rush to file appeals in friendly jurisdictions. This court was certainly _intended_ to provide consistent treatment of patent cases and--ideally--allow for experts in patent law to handle such cases.

But the fact that this court has really had trouble finding a patent they didn't like is a sideshow: the real problem here is software patents.

You can't patent a mathematical formula and as anyone with any kind of Computer Science education could tell you, an algorithm is essentially indistinguishable from a mathematical function. The fact that the US courts have ignored this or simply been unable to comprehend it is at the root of the problem.

<comment><USER12> This is what is supposed to be true in Europe: software "as such" can not be patented. The issue we have is that corrupted patent organizations such as the EPO twisted the "as such" so much that they managed to reverse the original meaning (ie. you can not patent a software "as such", but patenting its use inside of a computer is legit - I love lawyers)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Man - this guy might have the best title I've seen in a while:

Daniel Nazer Staff Attorney and the Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents Electronic Frontier Foundation firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER14> Is that usage correct? Shouldn't he be described as the holder of the Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents, rather than being described as the Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents?

Also, every time I read about the Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents I have a mysterious urge to watch "Zoolander".

<comment><USER15> The usage "is the ____ Chair" as opposed to "holds the ____ Chair" isn't that uncommon in the academic world (treating the Chair as a unique title, rather than only a position). A few random examples from Google:

[https://www.design.upenn.edu/city-regional- planning/graduate...](https://www.design.upenn.edu/city-regional- planning/graduate/people/eugenie-l-birch) Professor Birch is the Lawrence C. Nussdorf Chair of Urban Research and Education.

[http://www.thelancet.com/lanres/advisory- board](http://www.thelancet.com/lanres/advisory-board) Professor Klugman is the William H Foege Chair of Global Health at Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.

[http://www.bahaipeacechair.umd.edu/events/apr29-2015](http://www.bahaipeacechair.umd.edu/events/apr29-2015) Professor AMITAV ACHARYA is the UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance and is Professor of International Relations at the School of International Service, American University, Washington, D.C.

[https://www.law.louisville.edu/faculty/interdisciplinary- cir...](https://www.law.louisville.edu/faculty/interdisciplinary-circle) Professor Tony Arnold is the Boehl Chair in Property and Land Use.

[https://www.american.edu/provost/human-rights/Faculty- SIS.cf...](https://www.american.edu/provost/human-rights/Faculty-SIS.cfm) Professor Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies who studies American society through the experiences of the Muslim community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady How do other countries patent systems compare with the US'? Can inspiration for changes be drawn from them or are they just as bad/worse? I ask because I only ever hear of trolling in the US system.

<comment><USER16> I know of one important distinction between the US and India with regards to medicine patents. In India you can only patent the means of making a medicine, not the medicine itself. So if you can come up with a substantially different way of making the same thing you have equal rights to it.

<comment><USER3> This is a good law for India, because they have the capability to manufacture medicine, while lacking the capability to invent them. It's one of the many ways the world freeloads on U.S. medical R&D spending.

<comment><USER17> > lacking the capability to invent

citation needed

<comment><USER3> New drug development in India is in its infancy: [http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/09/piramal-exits- drug...](http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/09/piramal-exits-drug- discovery-india)

("This admission reflects the view that Indian drug companies are finding it difficult to develop successful new molecules. Discovering new drugs requires huge investment, and has not been favourably looked upon by risk-averse Indian investors. Several Indian molecules have failed in the clinic, including Piramal's head and neck cancer candidate P276 in 2012. Even the antimalarial Synriam (arterolane and piperaquine), which Ranbaxy hailed as India's first domestically developed drug, was originally discovered elsewhere.")

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This doesn't really go far enough. It's doesn't address the more basic problems of a for-profit patent office (the USPO has been required to be self- sustaining since Bush), nor does it address unfair practices of high upfront and ongoing renewal costs and worse, the inherently unfair practice of being able to buy expedited service. It is also counter productive to shorten the time span of patents b/c it means all the money required to develop it has to be recouped very quickly. Better to have longer periods, but with clearer and stricter requirements for what is actually patentable.

</comment><comment><USER18> Honestly, I think the best way to get rid of this nonsense, keeping everyone happy, is to allow patents but to enforce a "profit cap".

Basically, if an entity has invested $X into RND for patent Y, then patent Y should be valid until some $(Z*X) has been earned by the entity. Where Z is some constant; or stepped like tax brackets.

Example: A company develops some new software: it cost $500,000 of Engineering effort. They are awarded a patent. The patent should be valid until that company has earned $5 million (Z=10; ie 1000% ROI).

Example: A company develops some new drug: it cost $5,000,000,000 for RND. They are awarded a patent. The patent should be valid until that company has earned $50 Billion (Z=10; ie 1000% ROI).

I agree it may be hard to prove "amount spent on patent" or "profit earned from patent". However, at least to me, it seems as hard as the IRS auditing a company's taxes, or as hard as auditing a public companies quarterly financial disclosures.

<comment><USER19> I think any such scheme should be based on revenue rather than profit, or else Hollywood accounting[1] might be encouraged.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This might be naive on my part but it seems like we could help the situation quite a bit, at least for software patents, by just reducing the amount of time for which new software patents are valid. It's simple, easy to understand and implement, more consistent with the speed at which the software market evolves, would reduce the perceived value of bogus patents making trolling less likely, free up technology sooner for everybody to benefit and still offer some protection to innovators.

Right now they're good for between 14 to 20 years (1) which seems too long to me. I'm not sure what the right number is, maybe between 5 - 10? Even that seems long, but then again I don't have anything innovations to patent so I'm probably biased.

(1) [http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/312/how-long- are-...](http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/312/how-long-are-patents- valid)

<comment><USER16> It's not a good idea. Ideally rights should be for as long as the life of the inventor. Instead of a cut-off time, I've heard people espouse a system of valuation and, in some cases, taxation, so that over time a patent becomes increasingly affordable for others to buy out and put into the public domain.

<comment><USER21> i have to disagree to your statement, which misses foundation.

First copyright is always a life long idea, but the focus of patents have always been to incentivice long term research efforts that have budget constraint by having a mid-term monopoly

problem today: a lot of trivial design-patents and even patents that are used in the wars between big corps. as one of my advisor board state - screw that patent, we cannot defend it anyway Behind a lot of those patents there is no research in the sense but it rather came out of "usual" engineering.

i think that the proof of non-trivial has to be a part of the application and is better suited than discussion about life-time - because patents could still have a strong point in basic-research

Problem is what to do with the already existing bogus patents - <USER2> suggestions?

<comment><USER22> _First copyright is always a life long idea..._

Not true in the USA until Disney started twisting the law. This idea has a longer history in Europe.

See [http://www.arl.org/focus-areas/copyright- ip/2486-copyright-t...](http://www.arl.org/focus-areas/copyright- ip/2486-copyright-timeline#.VOvVLUjmv0g) for a more detailed history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I hope that after the Alice vs CLS Supreme Court ruling EFF & Co reintroduce the abolishing of "business method" patents, which Microsoft and IBM fought so hard to take out of the previous bill.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2013/11/20...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the- switch/wp/2013/11/20/software-patent-reform-just-died-in-the-house-thanks-to- ibm-and-microsoft/)

</comment><comment><USER24> I've often thought that a simple change would be to require you to prove that it is in the public interest for your patent to be enforced. Patents only exist for public benefit anyway.

I don't think that a patent troll, for example, could prove that the world would be a better place by them enforcing their patents. If they could, then we'd be better off letting them do it (by definition).

</comment><comment><USER6> > _If the patent is invalid or there's no infringement, patent trolls should > have to pay the winning party's legal fees._ //

Wow, I can't believe award of costs isn't standard in such cases already. Incredible.

</comment><comment><USER25> The PDF document lacks the last endnotes. 189 is the last one on page 28, but the endnotes list stops in the middle of 167.

</comment><comment><USER26> Let's look at the EFF's proposals:

 _1\. The patent term should be shorter for software patents. It should last no more than five years from the application date._

Software doesn't move that fast. The Internet is now over 30 years old. It's been 61 years since the first FORTRAN compiler. At various times in the past, aircraft technology and radio technology advanced at least as fast as computer technology. Computing is not special; it's just a currently active area.

 _2\. If the patent is invalid or there's no infringement, patent trolls should have to pay the winning party's legal fees._

This provides a way for big companies to intimidate patent holders. A small patent holder can be threatened with huge legal bills. The odds of winning a patent infringement lawsuit are about 40-50%, and even if you have a strong patent, it's common to lose.

 _3\. Patent applicants should be required to provide an example of running software code for each claim in the patent._

The USPTO has the right to demand a working model if they are not convinced the patented concept would work. At one time, they did. (Patent models are cute collectables now.) Current USPTO policy is to demand a working model only for things such as antigravity machines or perpetual motion machines. Unworkable patents do not seem to be a problem in the software area.

 _4\. Infringers should avoid liability if they independently arrive at the patented invention._

Absolutely not. Infringers will routinely lie about that, claiming independent invention, and it's really tough to prove intent. There's a provision in current law which allows for a defense of independent invention for, I think, one year after patent issue. That's sufficient.

 _5\. Patents and licenses should be public upon filing. Patent owners should be required to keep their public ownership records up-to-date._

Patent applications are already published at the 18 month mark.

 _6\. The law should do more to limit damages so that a patent owner can't collect millions if the patent represented only a tiny fraction of a defendant's product._

A patent is the right to say "no, you can't do that". Infringers aren't entitled to practice the patent at all and then just pay damages if they lose.

 _7\. Congress should commission a study and hold hearings to examine whether software patents actually benefit our economy at all._

The purpose of the patent system isn't to "benefit the economy". It's to "promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts", according to the Constitution.

As for "patent trolls", according to the EFF's own database[1], there are only a few real "patent trolls", with one firm in Texas being the big generator of threatening letters. The top firm has 15 letters in the EFF's database. (They've sent more.) There are a very small number of patents being "trolled".

The EFF was arguing for this in the previous session of Congress. Once it came out how weak their case was, the legislation was dropped.

[1] [https://trollingeffects.org/lawfirms](https://trollingeffects.org/lawfirms)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you adquire basic cumputer literacy? - <AUTHOR> Hi,
So here is the backstory. My mother's supervisor sends her an e-mail with "texts" as a jpg image. My mother's works with computers mostly involve pdfs and office documents.
When she tried to open the jpgs, which she thought where pdfs. She contacted me because "it wasn't working".
Would she had carefully read the screen, the info was there. Then she would have need to install an image viewer. That is what I would have done. But, how do you learn that that is the solution? <comment><USER2> What kind of ancient computer is your mom using that she would have needed to "install an image viewer".

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a linux install after the windows 10 fiasco. Probably my fault not to have the image viewer installed. And XFCE not to provide one, altough they are lightweiht so it makes sence.

Why did you assume the computer was old?

Edit: also mfw.jpg when HN answers are the same as 4chan</comment></comment>


Launch HN: Tardigrade–Decentralized Cloud Storage with Client-Side Encryption - <AUTHOR> Hi HN! I'm JT Olio. You might know me from previous posts such as "Go channels are bad and you should feel bad" (bad example), "Whiteboard problems in pure lambda Calculus" (good example), or being one of the first to write about switching my company from Python to Go back in 2014.
I've been working with the team here at Storj Labs to build a decentralized Amazon S3-compatible cloud storage service that is affordable, private, and secure. We just launched our new service called Tardigrade (https://tardigrade.io/) and I'd love to get input from more developers. It's open source (check out the GitHub repo at https://github.com/storj/storj) and we're primarily using Go (naturally).
If you haven't heard of Storj, the simplified explanation is that we are the Airbnb of hard drives. We take extra HDD space, aggregate it, incorporate Reed Solomon and other techniques to create resiliency, and sell it as a service to people who need object storage. The end result is a service that is encrypted by default, as fast as the big 3 cloud providers, and half the cost.
We've gone through a bit of a rebirth in the last few years. After hiring Ben Golub (Docker, Gluster, Verisign) as our new CEO, in 2018 we launched a 90 page, very detailed, technical whitepaper (https://storj.io/storjv3.pdf) for our new storage system, in 2019 we launched our alphas and betas, and now we're launching open access to our service! If you'd like to give it a try and share feedback, I can give you some credit to play around with. I'm also happy to answer any questions or share some more details around testing we've completed. Let me know what you think! <comment><USER2> Any thoughts on some kind of host for usage type system for community type resources. Things like common crawl, creative commons hosting, large data-sets for deep learning.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great idea we are asked about frequently. We've been heads down, focused on getting the core of the product ready for a while now, but expect us to start looking much more earnestly at these types of use cases this year!

Currently, organizations can sign up and serve data out of Tardigrade with their account, but they would ultimately pay for egress. The reason is that storage node operators also like to be paid for egress. We are considering an option where storage node operators can choose to donate their resources to community data sets, which would then allow those community data sets to be hosted with much less cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> can I use this to host images, js files, a database file?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, though it's worth pointing out that Tardigrade has a per-object fee and has per-account resource limits as circuit breakers. We are currently targeting archival use cases more than content delivery, and while we expect to start edging into content delivery, until we do we recommend that you add a caching layer on top to avoid running into account resource limits.</comment></comment>


Why giving birth in the U.S. is surprisingly deadly - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/01/giving-birth-in-united-states-suprisingly-deadly/ <comment><USER2> The elephant in the room is most doctors (et al) in the US seem to be functionally incompetent, because their attention has been "optimized" into (useless) 10 minute slices. And in a hospital, this goes doubly so.

I've started just making it a point to go with my father to his appointments, to make them actually do their job. They're all personable and knowledgeable, but also just looking to do the medical equivalent of making one tiny edit, starting a recompile, and going back to browsing the web. For example, one specialist goes through a spiel about the next step being to do a certain test - I had to remind him this was the follow up for the results. He disappeared for 5 minutes to reread the file, then came back and had the real appointment.

What's needed isn't "more care", it's _any care_.

</comment><comment><USER3> Because C-Section's are used a lot in the USA, increasing the babies survival rates, but reducing the mothers survival rates.</comment>


Show HN: Find an Awesome .COM Domain - <AUTHOR> http://www.namemesh.com/#

<comment><USER2> +1 Pretty cool. I wanted to work on something similar using synonyms. Also liking the Google Ventures-esque pillow background. And the load on scroll. Care to share your behind-the-scenes with the HN community? Doesn't seem to be using a thesaurus, but rather truncates and elongates words, coupled with jQuery goodness. Am I right?

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the feedback.

I am using thesaurus + more stuff and basically covering most of the tips suggested here - <http://mashable.com/2012/10/04/startup-naming/>

things like - synonyms, antonyms, related words, portmanteau, misspellings, phonetic variations, short url, acronyms, suffixes, prefixes

truncating and elongating is also one part.

the idea is to cover all the ways of creating a good brandable name.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are your favorite programming books? - <AUTHOR> I'm sure this question as already been asked, but I couldn't find it, so here I'm asking: What are your favorite programming books? <comment><USER2> Essentials of Programming Languages.

Engineering a Compiler.

Managing Gigabytes.

Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment

Unix Network Programming

On Lisp

Advanced Compiler Design and Implementation

Concepts, Techniques and Models of Computer Programming

Design Concepts in Programming Languages

Lambda-Calculus and Combinators (the new Hindley/Seldin book, just got it 2 weeks ago)

Optimizing Compilers for Modern Architectures

Abstract Computing Machines: A Lambda-Calculus Perspective

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm away from my books right now, but here are the ones that come to mind:

Norvig, _Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming_ (I agree with plinkplonk and am quoted on Norvig's web site saying as much; a good book about all of {AI, Lisp, programming}).

Hunt and Thomas, _The Pragmatic Programmer_ (no big surprises but lots of little insights and very little I disagree with; nicely written).

Bentley, _Programming Pearls_ (absolutely superb for the sort of low-level algorithm-heavy stuff that, er, hardly anyone does any more).

Cormen/Leiserson/Rivest/Stein, _Introduction to algorithms_ (best single- volume algorithms text I've seen, but not for the faint-hearted; might be well supplemented with Skiena's _The algorithm design manual_ , a very different sort of book).

</comment><comment><USER4> Peter Norvig's Paradigms of Artificial Intelligence Programming. _The_ most awesome programming book ever (imho).

To quote Darius Bacon [1]

"It's not just that Norvig is smart; he's specifically skilled at writing really good code, apparently because that's something he cared about and worked on. ..

Norvig's book _Paradigms of AI Programming_ has 900+ pages presenting code as instructive as that Sudoku solver; I've never seen a better collection. <http://norvig.com/paip.html> "

[1] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=863660>

</comment><comment><USER5> _Higher Order Perl_ by Mark Jason Dominus.

Now available freely online: <http://hop.perl.plover.com/book/>

</comment><comment><USER6> Not straight programming, more about software engineering

The Mythical Man Month <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month>

</comment><comment><USER7> Why's (poignant) Guide to Ruby

Freely available: [http://www.ember.co.nz/resources/whys-poignant-guide-to- ruby...](http://www.ember.co.nz/resources/whys-poignant-guide-to-ruby/)

</comment><comment><USER8> I liked Programming Language Pragmatics, as it touches a lot of areas without going too deep in any.

</comment><comment><USER9> Code Complete

Programming Pearls

The C Programming Language

Effective Java

<comment><USER8> +1 for Effective Java. It is my fav book for a particular language.</comment></comment>