The Distribution of Users' Computer Skills: Worse Than You Think - <AUTHOR> https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/ <comment><USER3> I think we underestimate how much time is required to be really good with computers. I'm very knowledgeable about computers, but I've been using them heavily for 22 years.

We have this innate comfort and familiarity with using computers, but as hackers it's a huge part of our lives. People have other ways of life than us, and have other expertise. We shouldn't dismiss their computer illiteracy as stupidity; it's just as bad as them writing us off as "computer nerds".

There's also this tendency for non-computer-literate people to be overly self- deprecating. I noticed this with mathematics, when I tutored people @ uni, but with computers it's the same shit. I constantly hear "yeah, I'm awful with computers, it's all black magic to me". But the person saying that is often not even trying, which is frustrating. It's like a helpless excuse to be lazy and let someone else do the work, which is often not that complicated.

<comment><USER4> I don't know about that. There seems to be something innate about one's ability to use computers.

My father is 85 and is quite good with computers; he uses email constantly, writes documents and books using word processors and understands the concept of files, reads on a Kindle, etc. But he had never touched a computer before he was maybe 70 (let alone own one), and before that he wasn't technical at all. He was trained as a Latin teacher (!) and spent his professional life in politics, never having to type anything by himself.

My father-in-law is very good at many manual tasks including woodworking, electricity, electronics, and was an officer in the French army for many years, where he was responsible for maintaining highly technical weapons. He too is 85 and he can't seem to understand computers, although I have known him for 15 years and have been trying to help him for that long. He seems to want to learn but isn't really interested in what one would call "the big picture", he just wants to know a list of actions that will get them to where he wants to go. Of course that approach fails miserably whenever something happens that's not on the list.

I have two friends who have been to top engineering schools who, I discovered recently, type whole urls not in the browsers' bar but in Google's search form. My eldest son is 11 and doesn't confuse the two. My younger son is 7 and doesn't seem much interested.

<comment><USER5> Typing URLs into the search bar of Google is very common. I see it all the time. If google is your default new tab page there's really nothing wrong with it. One extra click maybe.

<comment><USER6> It does imply that the user is not (sufficiently) aware of the difference between a browser and a for-profit search engine. It's a type of behaviour that makes people dependent on a service where no dependency is needed. Also, how many of these users are both aware that they are sharing large parts of their browsing behaviour with Google and are okay with that?

<comment><USER7> Well, most browsers are for-profit too. Typing an address into Chrome's address bar will still send it to Google so they can give suggestions back, I think. (E.g., if I type "[http://www.abc"](http://www.abc") into the bar, it suggests an autocomplete to "www.abcnews.com", which I have never visited. Doing the same in a 'Private Browsing' window turns off this autocomplete.) I'm not convinced that distinguishing between address bar and search field is either a necessary of a sufficient condition for understanding Internet privacy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I analyzed technology proficiency level vs adult literacy level. Listing the equivalent literacy level with relatively equal % of population. ie, level 3 proficiency is 5% of population; above a college reading level is 5% of adult population:

      Cant use computers ~ Under 4th Grade level including illiterate
      Below level 1 ~ 4-6th grade reading level
      Level 1 ~ 6-10th grade reading level
      Level 2 ~ 10th-college reading level
      Level 3 ~ College+ reading level

Literacy %'s from [https://contently.com/strategist/2015/01/28/this- surprising-...](https://contently.com/strategist/2015/01/28/this-surprising- reading-level-analysis-will-change-the-way-you-write/)

<comment><USER9> This is not adding up... 32% of US population has Bachelor's degree but only 5% has college level reading skills? I think original survey probably has some fatal flaws. May be they should re-publish results after only taking in to account individuals of age 25 years or more _who actually respond_.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_th...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States)

<comment><USER10> Anecdata: I know a lot of well educated people who don't read. At all.

What reading level would you expect for someone who got a degree in their early twenties then didn't read anything more complicated than People magazine for decades after.

<comment><USER11> Level 1 or 2. They may have never been functional at level 3 (not that there is anything wrong with that).

Level 3 means that someone can consistently read and comprehend the full meaning of college-level texts. In the US, one does not need to read at this level to graduate from college (or even many grad schools).

There are many people in the world who are smart and/or very knowledgeable who don't consistently read and comprehend at level 3 across the range of topics covered in a typical college curriculum.

Source: Me. I have trained people in both reading literacy and tech literacy. My experience is both theoretical and practical. Feel free to ask follow-up questions if you have any.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Even most programmers are distributed like this. My team recently was doing usability tests of a networking library that I work on. We screen recorded a few random programmers try to install it and then make a simple app with it, giving them access to our tutorial and Hello World demo.

It was painful to watch them stumble about, trying to debug installation errors that seem obvious to us. Just like trying to watch a lay person try to use a computer, watching these other people made me want to blurt out the answer.

Any of the lessons that you take away from designing simpler UI for lay people applies just as much to professionals. Write a better API, a better library, and better documentation.

<comment><USER13> Being blunt, it's also possible that your library was garbage from a usability perspective. It's nearly impossible to recognize how painful it is to work with your own code since you are so intimately involved in writing it.

<comment><USER14> That's most likely true. Most libraries are horrible to install and configure and only make sense to the people who wrote it.

I gave up on learning PHP and Laravel recently when I went to install Laravel and they recommend Homestead. So I went to install Homestead, but they require Vagrant. Of course Vagrant requires VirtualBox, and VB can't find my kernel source code on RHEL 6.5. Okay, so let's skip Vagrant... Okay, now I need to install Composer instead of Homestead... what's this? SSL operation failed... failed to enable crypto... operation failed in command line code...

Yeah I give up. Yeah, I could take the time to work through this nonsense, but I shouldn't have to. Getting multiple layers deep of having to install dependency A to satisfy dependency B which satisfies dependency C is not my idea of fun.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Links like this illustrate what a distorted bubble the typical HNer lives in.

I've lost track of how many times I've seen a product or company posted here and HNers will say "I can already do that myself." For instance, I still chuckle at the "you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially" comment in the Dropbox HN post nearly a decade ago.

<comment><USER16> Even within HN there are bubbles inside the bubbles.

I keep seeing _sec people make statements that only makes sense if one is the administrator/dictator of a company network or server farm, and that are basically impossible to implement on a personal computer without effectively treating the user as an attacker.

<comment><USER17> > Even within HN there are bubbles inside the bubbles.

sup dawg...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> They should have included a category 'below 0': "User attempts to complete task by using the interface provided to him. Gives up in disgust after 15 minutes. Spends next 8 hours to (in this order) use common automation tools to reach his goals, write small scripts, reverse engineer the data and network formats, and disassemble the executable to inject his own hooks. After still failing to accomplish task, user tries to gradually replace parts of the provided software with his own versions; first using quick glue languages, eventually having to resort to rewrote large core parts in C just to have enough control of all components to make them interoperate. After 4 weeks of caffeine-fueled 16 hour days, user declares war on the vendor and starts writing his own version of the software and ecosystem to free humanity of the plague that is this god-forsaken piece of crapware. After 8 months of battling 30 years of legacy interoperability, data exchange formats and interfaces and the 8th question from Suzy in Admin about where the button that made the one thing with the blue border go away and then made the green other thing go bleep bleep has gone, user flees to off-grid cabin in the mountains with a beard below his collarbone and a crazed look in his eyes, while muttering 'they drew first blood. They drew first blood.' The end."

(bonus upvote for the first person to recognize the movie reference)

<comment><USER19> I don't know where this is from but it literally made me laugh out loud, so thank you.

<comment><USER18> It's [OC] so thank you - and I'm not ashamed to admit that during the first few hours after I posted it, it was up/downvoted a bit and it even got to -1 for some time; and that at that point I cried a tiny little tear inside, filled with essence of the programmer's existentialist anxiety...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I would like to think about the set of skills that don't revolve entirely around coincidental interfaces made by a few mega corporations.

Are there computer skills more general than the ability to use iMessage or Windows Live Mail? Because if using iMessage means you now know how to chat, then what happens when NewChat(tm) comes out with a new brand experience?

What happens when Microsoft goes Metro or Windows 10?

As a society, should we be paying for user training for specific familiarity with proprietary interfaces? Shouldn't Microsoft or Apple be paying for this stuff? This is why I'm generally very suspicious of what people mean by "computer skills" in schools. They generally mean user training for Apple, Microsoft, or Google.

<comment><USER21> >Are there computer skills more general than the ability to >use iMessage or Windows Live Mail?

wouldn't that be knowing how to program?

<comment><USER22> >> I would like to think about the set of skills that don't revolve entirely around coincidental interfaces made by a few mega corporations.

> wouldn't that be knowing how to program?

Nearly all programming languages or instruction sets for assembly languages are also coincidental interfaces (this time for programming), often (though not always) at least originally designed by some "megacorp":

\- Assembly languages: typically the respective processor vendor

\- C: Bell Labs (AT&T)

\- C#: Microsoft

\- Go: Google

\- Java: Sun (now Oracle)

\- Javascript: Netscape

\- Objective-C: NeXT (now Apple)

\- R: A reimplementation of S (originally by Bell Labs; later commercially offered by TIBCO Software (another megacorp) under the name "S-PLUS").

\- Swift: Apple

So what I would consider as more general computer skills is rather the mathematical or the electrical engineering side of computing.

<comment><USER23> "Nearly all programming languages or instruction sets for assembly languages are also coincidental interfaces (this time for programming), often (though not always) at least originally designed by some "megacorp":"

Nearly all the mainstream, massively successful ones, yes. But the vast bulk of languages are not, and there is little evidence to be provided that there is some sort of massive advantage to be gained by "normal users" for any of them. There are _better_ ones than those for some purposes, yes, but after many thousands of languages it's not like there's one that is clearly better for non-programmers, and this after at least several dozen and probably several hundred attempts explicitly aimed at that purpose.

Asking for people to understand the math is an even larger ask than asking them to understand the programming, which I base on the fact you can still find a very significant percentage of professional programmers, possibly even the majority, who have disdain for the mathematical elements of computing.

<comment><USER24> This is a not-very-generous reading of "most", because while I read that as "most programming languages (weighed by how often they are used)" you can _also_ read that as "most programming languages (weighed by counting them)" if you want to prove some point.

<comment><USER23> In the context of discussing whether or not there is a more non-programmer friendly programming language, the fact that there are dozens or hundreds of attempts at that specific problem, which have largely failed, is relevant. The programming world is not defined by the top 10ish commercial languages; they're merely "very important".

It is also not an unfriendly reading when my _very first words_ (which I have not edited) acknowledge the alternative readings.

<comment><USER24> I might just be confused, but I'm having a hard time understanding what point you're trying to make. I've read your comments and the context a couple times now and now I'm only sure that you're reading something in other comments that I'm simply not reading.

Yes, there are programming languages aimed at non-programmers. Many of these are also "commercial" languages, or at least were commercial in origin (like C). Smalltalk (Xerox), Hypertalk (Apple), the efforts towards 5GLs in the 1980s, Visual Basic (Microsoft), etc. We agree that these are relevant, I'm just not sure what point you're trying to make with that relevance, and I'd love it if you could elaborate.

<comment><USER25> _> , I'm just not sure what point you're trying to make with that relevance, _

I'll make an attempt to explain why jerf's response looks out of place.

Basically, wolfgke and jerf looked at the 2 groupings of programming languages (mainstream megacorps vs unknown) as evidence for _2 different goals_.

wolfgke: _generalization path_ \-- dominance of megacorps languages means you must keep going one level lower in hierarchy of computer science concepts to learn _universal_ concepts instead of _proprietary_ syntax.

jerf: _pedagogy ease of use_ \-- megacorps languages are not provably any harder to learn than specialized toy languages

How did those two end up talking about 2 different things?!?

If you look at the comment chain from posters _threatofrain-- >bryanrasmussen-->wolfgke_ ... they started a dialogue that keeps diving lower and lower in underlying principles. It's a variation of the XKCD comic about "purity".[1]

jerf's response doesn't continue that purity dissection. Instead, his emphasis on _pedagogy_ seems to point back to the original article by Jakob Nielsen which prompted this thread. That article says that elite users (like HN readers) can use complicated computer software and we forget that most others can't. The communication breakdown was assuming that wolfgke listed the megacorps language as a (ease-of-use) response to J Nielsen instead of a specific (purity) reply to bryanrasmussen.

But then again, I might have misunderstood _everybody_ and I have no idea what people were trying to say.

[1][https://xkcd.com/435/](https://xkcd.com/435/)

<comment><USER22> > wolfgke: _generalization path_ \-- dominance of megacorps languages means > you must keep going one level lower in hierarchy of computer science > concepts to learn _universal_ concepts instead of _proprietary_ syntax.

Correct, with the additional (IMHO important) fact that threatofrain criticized "coincidental interfaces made by a few mega corporations" and looked for more general skills, bryanrasmussen meant that "knowing how to program" is such a skill, but I analyzed that most popular programming languages are also just "coincidental interfaces made by a few mega corporations" (this time for programming instead of the general user), so that we have nothing won concerning the original problem of "coincidental interfaces made by a few mega corporations" \- we are just some layers deeper. So I suggested that if you look for more general skills, you probably have to look even deeper into the mathematical or the electrical engineering side of computing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I would have liked to see screenshots of the UIs they used, but they seem to be absent from the OECD report.

A lot of the standard tasks we do with office/business software are unintuitive, but easily learned once someone shows you or you Google it. Even as a designer or developer, it's not always clear what each button does.

> _participants were asked to perform 14 computer-based tasks. Instead of > using live websites, the participants attempted the tasks on simulated > software on the test facilitator's computer. This allowed the researchers to > make sure that all participants were confronted with the same level of > difficulty across the years and enabled controlled translations of the user > interfaces into each country's local language._

Same with the language used in software: Sometimes tranlating UI buttons actually makes usability worse, because now you have to learn the shared language all over again. The descriptions on UI elements are often useless, unless you already know what the buttons do.

<comment><USER27> I've been telling my SO to "google it" for years. She won't do it unless I ask her to. Then when she does, I do this -> 0_o because, really, why are you typing that? Do you not know how to google?

Anyway, all this misses the point. If you have to google how to use a GUI the software has failed at a fundamental level.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> You can take the technology part of the test here:

[http://www.oecd.org/skills/ESonline- assessment/](http://www.oecd.org/skills/ESonline-assessment/)

I have to admit I found it somewhat difficult, it's not surprising that most people performed poorly on it.

<comment><USER29> I took the test (demo test at least).

Only 2 out of 6 questions had anything to do with UI/UX - the rest were either reading comprehension and/or basic math.

From the 2 that dealt with UI/UX, both were extremely hard, in one of them I had to send an email, get a token and navigate the site to send another email.

If this is what the results are based on, I wouldn't base any UI/UX decisions for web products on the results of this test.

<comment><USER30> The simulated environment also makes it more difficult. I accidentally tried to go back in the real browser instead of the simulated browser and broke the test. The simulated environment is also very slow.

<comment><USER31> And I requested the code 2 or 3 times until I realized there was a email tab at the bottom.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I see the argument of "not enough hours of practice" in some comments. I disagree. That would be true if there was a direct correlation between moderate proficiency in computers (e.g.: ability to independently reinstall your machine completely and diagnose which hardware component to replace after a failure).

The unmentioned problem here is that people are actively reluctant (this is tested, too) to learn the skills that would let them be more independent. I doubt this is entirely related to the total amount of hours spent at a computer.

In some way, computer literacy seems to be a similar scenario than cars: the homo simplex doesn't want to understand how it works, he/she just wants it to work while enjoying the luxury of not needing to understand it while posting duck faces on Instagram.

Let's face it, computer illiterates understand less, pay more and end up having lower purchasing power. Considering that this is entirely under their control, I find this quite fair (I have different opinions about Seniors, but that's another discussion).

To be honest, I can find only one valid reason for this to be an issue: civil liberties and human rights.

I'm intimately and increasingly concerned by how much civil liberties have been taken from citizens in "developed" countries in the recent years, and I am under the impression that this is the direct effect of computer illiteracy spread across all levels of the population.

Citizens are being asked to vote on laws relying on technological concepts they don't understand, and which end up in striping them from their rights.

That's what computer illiteracy is about and that's what (I think) the article should talk about... :(

<comment><USER33> my father is a professor and has been asking my mom the same questions about microsoft word for the past 20 years, never learning it. he spends a lot of time on it too.

<comment><USER34> I understand that some software really sucks.

For exmple word processors, I really hate them with all my heart, but when getting a degree, I had to write much stuff. So I sat down and learned the core functions of Libre Office Writer and it made my life better.

Even my profs. were amazed how good my papers looked. Not because they were really good, but because none of my fellow computer science students bothered to learn the software and make them look good.

<comment><USER35> You wrote a scientific paper in LibreOffice?

Not LaTeX?

<comment><USER34> I thought it would take too long to learn latex.

Writer had a nice DSL for math terms, so I had everything I need.

<comment><USER35> (Yeah, alright, I have written a scientific paper in LibreOffice as well. But it was one that was started by someone else, I just finished it. And I didn't inhale.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This reminds me of a UX lecture I attended in undergrad in the UK.

The lecturer flashes up a picture and says "who is this?". There is a sea of blank faces as a reply. The picture was of Roy Chubby Brown [1] who by some measures was the most popular comedian in Britain at the time. Out of nearly 100 people no one had any idea.

You are not average. Not even close.

<comment><USER37> Random trivia: the fictional town in the cult TV series "The League of Gentlemen" is named after Roy Chubby Brown:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This would have been surprising until a week ago when a friend of mine sent me this image of course offerings for those signing up for unemployment: [https://imgur.com/gallery/tCG6J](https://imgur.com/gallery/tCG6J)

Side note: If anyone is looking for an experienced technical sales person in Boston let me know! They have experience with startups, IPOs, large corporations, channel sales, and has the sales gift in a non sleazy way.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'd like to see the data for people below 25. It's unclear how much of that distribution is due to adoption lag.

<comment><USER40> All kids have been experts on computers for about three generations now. Its no longer a valid meme.

There's kids now that don't know what VCR was, but you can assure them that their Grandpa was the only person in the household who could figure out how to program the timer.

<comment> yoz-y The idea that kids or young people are better with computers is not actually true. Yes they can use apps, some of them can install them, but for the most part they are clueless when it comes to actually fixing a problem with a computer.

[http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use- comput...](http://coding2learn.org/blog/2013/07/29/kids-cant-use-computers/)

<comment><USER41> In fact everybody who seems to be a 'computer expert' is probably comfortable at just one layer or two. Layers include

       running applications
       installing applications
       writing applications
       installing services and drivers
       writing services and drivers
       installing operating systems
       writing code for operating systems
       writing kernel code
       designing hardware
       designing chips
       designing chip technologies
       chemistry and physics

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> The clear message of the article is about increasing awareness of users' limitations, but I'm also wondering what can be done to increase people's computer literacy. When we see statistics about functional illiteracy in the traditional print sense, we might think about ways of minimizing demands for people to read things, but we might also wonder _how we can help improve literacy_.

So, believing in the analogy between print literacy and computer literacy, I want to ask that question here too. What helps or doesn't help, and what can change? How early would different interventions have to start to be helpful?

<comment><USER43> In my kids UK primary school ICT (Info & Comp. Tech) amounts to playing games, not even computing focused ones just crappy flash games.

It's like teaching literacy by giving them only picture books. They'd be able to handle books, turn the pages, etc., just not actually use them properly.

With games like lightbot, apps like turtles and Scratch, and sites like code.org I can't really see the excuse for this.

<comment><USER44> At the very list give them dosbox and make them enable extended memory.

<comment><USER45> Your comment caught me off guard and made me laugh out loud.

There were so many things about those early systems which were not universal skills at all, but simply hardware limitations (or holdovers from previous hardware limitations - or just terrible design).

And yet, after watching my kid learning to use a computer, I do feel a deep nostalgia for the single-purpose simplicity of the command line I grew up with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> There is a scene in Silicon Valley (the series) where Richard thinks the interface of the platform is really simple and intuitive, but turns out he only asked Level 3 people and above and it was not easy to use at the Level 1 people.

</comment><comment><USER47> Well, in Turkey, because of frequent bans on websites, a good amount of younger people know what DNS is, what a VPN is, how do they work, which one is better than the other, etc. I can say that people on Level-1 use these tools to solve "problems" and people on level-2 can set these stuff up for them.

</comment><comment><USER48> >26% of adults were unable to use a computer

What? This is really surprising. I expected some people to be really poor at using computers, but not being able to use them at all? Wow. TIL

<comment><USER49> I didn't realise this until I heard that Hillary didn't know how to use a desktop computer and could only use a specific version of blackberry. Apparently it's still possible to be to totally functional without using technology.

<comment><USER50> Trump either:

 _The New York Times reported on Nov. 6 that Trump "does not use a computer," which explains why he was perplexed at his campaign spending millions of dollars on digital ads._ \- [http://qz.com/829647/donald-trump-and-hillary- clinton-dont-k...](http://qz.com/829647/donald-trump-and-hillary-clinton-dont- know-how-to-use-computers/)

[http://gizmodo.com/has-donald-trump-ever-used-a- computer-176...](http://gizmodo.com/has-donald-trump-ever-used-a- computer-1762376695)

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/09/27/trump_kno...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/09/27/trump_knows_terrifyingly_little_about_computers.html)

<comment><USER43> He probably doesn't drive or cook either. Is that perhaps as much a rich person thing as anything? I suspect he does most things by proxy?

<comment><USER49> I'm sure he _knows_ how to drive. Its getting to the point where not being able to use a computer has the same impact as not knowing how to read.

<comment><USER14> I don't think that's true anymore. If anything we're getting _past_ the point where not knowing how to use a computer is harmful. Smartphones and tablets have really lowered the barrier to entry for modern (high-tech) life.

Desktop operating systems are complex and hard and if you do the wrong thing, you can break everything. Mobile OSes don't give you those options.

<comment><USER51> "Smartphones and tablets have really lowered the barrier to entry for modern (high-tech) life."

This is true - however these devices have also completely taken away our computational freedom as well. In fact, I'd argue that computer literacy is more important than ever. The only thing that has changed is that now society suffers as a whole from computer illiteracy, instead of just the computer illiterate. They can still post cat photos on social media, but a growing segment of the population has no idea how any of this works, and is at the mercy of Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook, Zynga, etc.

As someone who grew up with computers and started making Doom maps when I was 8, and programming C++ on Linux when I was 14, I see this trend as an oncoming storm. Its as if we were replacing libraries with cable television. Computers (phones and tablets specifically) are transforming from a platform that enables us to do anything we want, to a sort of Disneyland marketplace where nothing exists unless there is money to be made, regardless of ethics.

I think its more important now than ever for people to understand how to identify and select legitimate software that doesn't have ulterior motives, and put together a system which serves no one but it's owner. I suppose this is exactly what TFA says is impossible, but damn is it important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Good news for politicians. Only 5% of the population actually understand how dangerous they are for civil liberties.

</comment><comment><USER52> This is a great topic and an informative article. As a probable exception to the rule, I'm an "older" individual with decent computer skills. No doubt it's attributable to managing and programming computers out of necessity since the IBM PC days. Having to learn everything the hard way has its merits.

Related to the article I created and maintain a database application for an non-profit arts organization. It involves membership, artwork inventory and exhibitions. It's a fairly complex task, almost all the work goes into the web-based UI, while the PostgresQL backend/server is pretty straightforward.

The challenging part is getting the artists and volunteers to _actually use_ the DB program. The UI is as simple and unambiguous as I can make it. There's only so much to do to make a record with two dozen fields to fill in "simple".

One method is using dropdown options to select from where that fits. Also avoiding hidden "tricks" the user would have to know, giving on-screen examples of proper field format (like date or time entries) and providing concise, specific, instructive error messages.

Even with all that effort, convincing users to try it out has proven the biggest hurdle to success. I've come to realize a key to the tool's utility is constant encouragement. Live demos are often a useful way to help people "get over the hump" of fear and resistance.

Ironically, the "power users" often show the greatest resistance to trying out the web app. While it's made to work as directly as possible, power users fear they will look "dumb" if they don't instantly grasp the operation of every feature.

What I've learned (again) is it requires empathy for users' fears and sense of intimidation, and assuring the app is designed with "foolproof" safeguards preventing accidental disasters. Above all it takes enormous patience training users, listening to user feedback, answering questions and _never, ever_ criticizing when people make mistakes.

</comment><comment><USER53> I wish they had breakdowns by age. I think it would be marginally better for younger people, but probably not as good as one would hope.

</comment><comment><USER54> I admit I still catch myself accidentally hitting the browser's back button on a multi-page Ajax form without its own back button. Or having to fill out a form again because, instead of opening a modal or a new tab, the current page changes (e.g., TOS). I've come across countless UX developers who don't consider these subtle details.

And this is only a small part of nuances that a typical user faces. I don't care how beautiful or fancy your UX is. Familiarity is king in design, and if you stray too much away from the current experience, I won't hesitate to say that my toilet has better UX.

<comment><USER55> Ajax _can_ behave nicely with your browser's back button, but you're right that it's impossible to tell if it will before you try.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Interesting that Japan has both the highest level 3 percentage and the highest can't use computer percentage.

<comment><USER57> Not very surprising actually. They have good chunk of people who are heavily reliant on mobile devices and that predates smartphones. I have heard more than few cases where university professors commenting about student's lack of computer skill, to the extent that some of their student submit their essay using their phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> This is fantastic news. I am glad to hear I am in the upper echelons and computing literacy - let alone programming literacy - has not caught on. My skillset would be useless if everyone could do it.

</comment><comment><USER59> I found it funny that the researchers refrained from assigning a computer skills "level zero" to avoid the negative connotation. To experienced computer users zero is just the first number

<comment><USER60> I've heard the zero vs one indexing as offset vs position. The first element has offset zero.

Edited to add relevant xkcd: [https://xkcd.com/163/](https://xkcd.com/163/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Level 7: Rewrites browser software in Emacs LISP before proceeding

<comment><USER62> Level 8: Writes driver software in HTML.

<comment><USER63> Why would a smart person complicate their life with no gain?

(unless the goal is learning all the its about Lisp or web browsers)

<comment><USER64> Blub.

[http://paulgraham.com/avg.html](http://paulgraham.com/avg.html)

<comment><USER61> I read this piece for the first time about four years ago. I've been revisiting it at intervals ever since. As it happens, I had been assigned to a Javascript project at that time after a decade of working with Java. I had been initially dismissive of the "toy language" of Javascript but I also felt that as I learned it, I grew inexplicably fond of it. The Graham essay helped me put the puzzle pieces in their right places and realize that Java was really a pretty clunky language and that Javascript was, in fact, superior. Never went full LISP though -- I had tried Scheme in the past and failed to wrap my head around it -- but it definitely made me respect the ideas behind the language.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> yoz-y What is with the needlessly complex description of tasks?

> Tasks are based on well-defined problems involving the use of only one > function within a generic interface to meet one explicit criterion without > any categorical or inferential reasoning, or transforming of information. > Few steps are required and no sub-goal has to be generated.

It reminds me of times when I was writing articles for journals and had to find filler to reach the required arbitrary page count.

<comment><USER65> My thoughts exactly. As UX authority, you'd think they at least write clear descriptions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> The report covers roughly 1 billion people if you take the working population of the 33 countries involved.

At a sample of 215942 the margin of error is fractions of a percent.

But, what this doesn't account for is that in the original report ([http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/skills- matter_9789264...](http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/skills- matter_9789264258051-en)) you do see a significant variance in the distribution of skills based on:

-Country

-Age

-Income

Example:

In Japan, only 4.3% of adults are at a "Level 1" where as in Indonesia it is 37.2% which is to be expected when Indonesia is the bottom of the ladder in GDP Per Capita ([http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset- Management/oecd/educati...](http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset- Management/oecd/education/skills-matter/per-capita-gdp- usd_9789264258051-graph7-en#page1)) and in literacy scores ([http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset- Management/oecd/educati...](http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset- Management/oecd/education/skills-matter/literacy-proficiency-by-educational- attainment_9789264258051-graph3-en#page3)).

While this report says it takes the 'average cross the OECD countries' it's not clear on which factors were weighted or adjusted.

The information isn't wrong - it's just worth taking it with a grain of salt depending on how you are using the information. That said the US market for example lines up very close to the average, which is still staggering.

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm not surprised. Typically "computer skills" are taught as "click here, here and here to edit a word document". I think going back to basics and teaching people how to do things from the command line would improve literacy dramatically, especially with the younger generation who have been shielded from the concepts of "files" and "programs".

<comment><USER67> Why _should_ the typical computer user need to understand concepts like files and programs? That sounds akin to saying that before someone can drive a car they should need to learn how to strip down an engine. There probably are those who advocate that but they're in the minority

<comment><USER44> Because those are the primitives that make computers work. Interfaces change like fashion but something like "saving a file" is something that was useful 30 years ago and now.

Stripping down the engine would be more akin to coding the programs themselves. This is more akin to saying that before someone drives they should know about the accelerator, brake and steering wheel, the basic tools that they use to interact with the car.

<comment><USER68> > This is more akin to saying that before someone drives they should know > about the accelerator, brake and steering wheel, the basic tools

No, this is something in between, but an analogous system does not exist in cars. If cars had trim, like airplanes, that might be analogous.

<comment><USER44> To follow the analogy further, it's both. We've never had a machine as general purpose as computers are. I'd classify it as more like writing and mathematics than any piece of technology. And with those we teach from the bottom up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Some if this has nothing to do with computers or interfaces. A lot of people couldn't do the find info across emails and schedule meeting whether the inputs and ouputs were paper, people, whatever. The problem is they lack ability, in shirt, to problem solve. Something we excel at we can't imagine being hard for others. Being able to discern what the problem is, wgat are the assets, what's the done condition, how to divide up and order problem, what steps to take, what order to take them. How to focus. Curiosity, ability to explore, trial and error. Just being able to formulate a test, determine result of test, and fathom whether the result is applicable to your task.

Just so hard.

</comment><comment><USER70> I think the labels are quite harsh. Level 1 can be quite functioning for certain applications:

      - below level 1: can receive and reply to electronic communication (once told how)
      - level 1: can retrieve information from knowledge archives of all sorts. Can google alright.
      - level 2: can organize archives/folders/mail, can organize communications in a group, can find information in less obvious places and google quite well
      - level 3: has skills that go beyond what is currently needed in 90% of non IT-related jobs.

Stunning though is the ~20% that can't do the simplest task. I wonder if they are capable of using an ATM.

</comment><comment><USER71> Neilsen Norman Group writes articles that convey important technical information in very easy to understand language. Reading their writing makes me feel smarter, and I think it's more than a feeling.

<comment><USER72> I'm not a web developer, I'm a web user but I have sometimes programmed computers. Quite a bit of human-machine interface, where mistakes have an extreme need to be avoided. For decades.

If I was going to do a website, I always thought I would want the kind of thing that would make Neilsen proud. For decades.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I think each of us computer experts should at least once in a while face a technical situation that completely befuddles us. Maybe this way we can get a sense of what it's like to be a normal "non-computer" person.

I'm not talking about the challenge of learning a new programming language or framework. We know that will have its difficult spots. I don't even mean chasing down the trickiest bug. That's what we were born and trained to do!

I mean something that you would think _should_ be simple and obvious, but you're stuck, have no clue what to try next, and think the whole world must just be broken.

This just happened to me. Night before last, my car's ESC (Electronic Stability Control) light came on. I thought I must have bumped the ESC disable button, but tapping it a few times did nothing.

A little while later, the Check Engine light came on to keep the ESC light company. Uh-oh. I explained to my friend that it didn't mean we had to stop _right now_ , unless that light started blinking. It didn't blink, and the engine sounded fine.

Isn't it funny how a car has this one all-purpose light that could mean just about anything, and the car knows which of those many things it actually is, but it won't tell you?

Unless you're a mechanic. Or unless you're smart, like me, and had an OBD-II device that comes with an app for your phone. Now I can just read the code myself!

So I opened the app, tapped Connect, and there it was: Motorola Roadster 2. Um, that's my speakerphone. No OBD-II?

I went to the website and read the manual for my OBD-II device and found my mistake: I needed to push the Bluetooth pairing button on the device before I could connect. So I pushed it, saw the blue light blinking, went back to the app and tapped Connect once more. No sign of the OBD-II device, just the speakerphone again!

Something was really messed up and I had no idea what it was. I'd connected to the device before without any problem, but I'd also done a factory reset on the phone since then, so whatever it was wasn't working any more. Rebooting the phone didn't help, and turning the car ignition off and on a few times didn't either. I gave up for the night (and the next day).

Finally today I got the courage to try again. First, of course, I tried all the things I tried before, thinking that maybe this time they would work.

No such luck. Finally I got the idea of going to the Bluetooth menu on the phone to see if I could find the OBD-II device that way.

You can guess the rest of the story: after I pushed the pairing button on the device, it showed up in the Bluetooth menu and I paired the phone with it like I'd done a long time ago before that factory reset. And then the OBD-II app connected and showed me the error:

P0504 Brake Switch "A"/"B" Correlation

I looked that up online and found the good news: indeed this was not an engine problem but a brake switch problem that also disables ESC. And the bad news: I'd been driving around with _no brake lights_ and thought I had an engine problem instead.

It was only sheer luck that I happened to think of checking the Bluetooth menu. When the OBD-II program showed me the list of available devices (only the Motorola speakerphone), it didn't say anything about what to do if my OBD- II device didn't show up in the list. And when I found their manual online it didn't offer any clue either.

I was just supposed to "know" that I should go to the Bluetooth menu before trying to use the app.

I still tend to think of myself as some kind of computer expert (in fact many of you have used code I wrote), but I'm grateful for this experience - <USER2> taught me to have a bit more sympathy when people get so frustrated with their computers and devices.

<comment><USER41> Stuff like that happens all the time. Totally stumped by something because the path forward simply doesn't occur to me.

Computer technologists differ from 'everybody else' in that, they keep trying until they succeed. In other words, you don't lose until you give up. In fact as a consultant its really my job to struggle through issues to the conclusion. My critical value is that they can waste my time with stuff like that instead of their own employees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> I sometimes act like a "level 1" user when dealing with applications that I will only use once or twice.

Why spend hours trying to re-learn how to do something very basic and simple? I have better things to do with my time, even though I might be capable of using a complicated application.

</comment><comment><USER75> I worked at Redfin building tools for real estate agents and my ex was at Expedia doing tools for call center employees. Most of them don't even know about multiple tabs. We are in our little bubble about tech competency.

</comment><comment><USER76> I mildly interested in how the distributions break down by age cohort.

</comment><comment><USER77> Salient tl;dr

> The main point I want to make is that you, dear reader, are almost certainly > in the top category of computer skills, level 3. In the United States, only > 5% of the population has these high computer skills. In Australia and the UK > 6% are at this level; in Canada and across Northern Europe the number > increases to 7%; Singapore and Japan are even better with a level-3 > percentage of 8%.

> Overall, people with strong technology skills make up a 5–8% sliver of their > country's population, whatever rich country they may be coming from.

> You can do it; 92%–95% of the population can't.

A lot of smart people price themselves too low because they're simply being kind. I'm one of these. It is worth remembering that, as a HN reader, self- selected for such content and community, you may also be too kind.

<comment><USER78> I hope in a decade, distribution shifts greatly to more computer literacy.. I get so tilted just thinking about things like... oh why browsers dont have regex search by default... it's because majority of people don't know regex.

<comment><USER12> Not to be morbid, but it definitely will. Young people today will be literate, and the older people will no long be part of the population.

<comment><USER79> I'm not so sure the next generation is going to be significantly more computer literate. With the trend towards curated devices (read: smart phones and tablets) general purpose computer skills are being pushed back into the niche they used to occupy in decades past.

<comment><USER33> yeah. my teenage cousin has no knowledge about computers other than using them to play Minecraft and watch Netflix. even his typing skills are poor.

<comment><USER80> However, in the future he may want to install/create mods for Minecraft, which would start him on the path for further skills.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> Appears the link has changed to: [https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer- skill-levels/](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/)

Derived from: [http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/skills- matter_9789264...](http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/skills- matter_9789264258051-en)

<comment><AUTHOR> Of course it doesn't help that I'm silly and left a bracket on the end of the URL and can't change it.

<comment><USER82> you've been demoted to Level 2.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER83> These numbers are actually shocking. I wonder what the statistics are on level 4 and above, assuming level 4 is programming.

</comment><comment><USER84> This actually sounds like a measure of reading comprehension and reasoning skills.

</comment><comment><USER85> Serious question: why does anyone still listens to this hack?

The majority of his results are either questionable or completely obvious, and he's clearly not very good at accounting for his own biases. Some of his work has set back the field of design quite a bit - like the nonsense about users not reading on the internet that has transformed itself into an unkillable monster.

p.s.: if you're coming to say "but dude, users really don't read on the internet" then reflect on the irony of doing that in a discussion forum.

<comment><USER86> I'm blind, you insensitive clod!

Seriously though: you provide no evidence or reference, so this comment is kind of pointless.

<comment><USER44> > I'm blind, you insensitive clod!

Are we bringing this back?

<comment><USER87> Only if we get enough to make beowulf cluster of old memes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Worldwide deaths from conflict at 25-year high, driven by Middle East conflicts - <AUTHOR> http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-global-conflict-peaceindex-idUKKCN0YU0LX <comment><AUTHOR> Also:

 _The economic cost of violence over the past decade was $137 trillion - greater than the global GDP in 2015, the IEP showed._</comment>


White nationalists operate openly on Facebook. The company won't act - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/21/facebook-white-nationalists-ban-vdare-red-ice <comment><USER2> "White nationalists operate only on Facebook"

Uh? Totally false title, is that a typo?

<comment><USER3> I think maybe typo - at least at this moment I see the title at the Guardian site "...are openly operating ..." not "... operate online on.."

not sure if the title has changed or it was not input different than title at submission.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > "There's no question that every single one of these groups is a white > nationalist group," said Heidi Beirich, the director of the Southern Poverty > Law Center's (SPLC) Intelligence Project [..] Many contemporary proponents > of white nationalism fixate on conspiracy theories about demographic change > and consider racial or ethnic diversity to be acts of "genocide" against the > white race.

Fun fact: SPLC's Mark Potok keeps a close eye on the declining US white demographics, and the SPLC considers pretty much any group opposed to immigration a 'hate group': [https://www.debatepolitics.com/general-political- discussion/...](https://www.debatepolitics.com/general-political- discussion/355479-splc-tracks-declining-white-percentage.html)</comment>


Ask HN: Is anyone else unhappy about the recent push for grid interfaces? - <AUTHOR>

With touch screen devices becoming more and more common among electronics, major operating system providers are beginning to really change the user interface, and I'm not sure it's for the better. Windows is coming out with Metro, a major rework of the desktop interface, and to be honest, I think we can do better.
For years, user interfaces were all about data presentation, and efficient use of space. I could open up the start menu and have a few dozen applications displayed in a list, and easily accessible to the eye. But recently, it seems that interfaces are becoming fatter, with a less efficient use for screen space. Large buttons are replacing lists, big images are replacing text..  Instead of all my apps being in a neat list, my apps will now be on several screens that I have to scroll to. Does anyone think that this new interface can have enough pros to outweigh the cons involved in this change? I feel like Microsoft is just creating this dramatically new interface to spark curiosity in the consumer's eye, to make the customer believe that Microsoft still has a shred of imagination left in the once great company. But to be honest, I feel that Microsoft is creating the world's next gimmick. A ditch effort to turn their sales around in a market that they're losing to Apple. And i have doubts that this interface is really worth switching to for someone who is competent in the user field? Are we on a downhill slope with the efficiency of data presentation? Are we catering to being incompetent? I'm not saying the desktop environment shouldn't change, but I really have my doubts that the grid menu system is the best direction. What are your thoughts?
I'm sorry if there are spelling errors. I don't have my computer tonight, and I typed this out on my phone ironically. Thanks in advance for your thoughts! <comment><USER2> Is your phone a Windows Phone by any chance?

I've been using WP7 for a few months now, and it has a similar interface to the new Windows 8 UI. Though your concerns may be valid for power-users, the average user has and uses much less apps than you probably think. The most important thing is the browser, maybe an e-mail client and then a media player, and a few other apps. 10 buttons would likely be a lot for the average user.

At the same time, I somewhat agree that having a list is important. I suspect that hiding in Win8 somewhere is an alphabetical list of apps with search, just like in WP7.5</comment>


Steve Jobs and the Purpose of the Corporation  - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/10/steve_jobs_and_the_purpose_of.html <comment><USER3> Although I agree with this article, I would take it one step further and say that the reason for a corporation to exist should be to improve society as a whole. Society grants corporations certain expanded rights and protections (more now than ever) because we believe it is a net improvement to the world. We should therefore expect certain behavior. If a corporation damages the public at large for the benefit of a few shareholders what have we gained?

<comment><USER4> The entire idea of the free market is that, once externalities are internalized and the market is properly governed, the best way for a corporation to improve society as a whole is to increase its own profits. It turns out that improving society as a whole is a vaguely defined and difficult goal, while increasing profits is directly measurable. The market works by taking something vague and difficult for anyone to set out to do on their own (improve the well-being of society) and turning it into a direct, self- interested, measurable goal (increasing profit).

There are other systems that work a similar way. For instance, the adversarial system in criminal justice works by throwing together two opposing lawyers, each of whom wants only to win the case, and as a result does a pretty decent job of both enforcing the law and protecting civil rights.

<comment><USER3> You're absolutely right about how that should work in theory.

 _once externalities are internalized and the market is properly governed_

If a company chasing down profits hurts the general public it is a failure of the market, not the company. However, for this to work in practice, there needs to be a strong firewall between the companies competing, the regulators defining the market and even the media informing the public about what is going on.

We're watching a rigged game where the coaches have paid off the referees and the sports reporters have realized there's more money in becoming promoters.

<comment><USER4> So the market only _partially_ works. Perfection is an unattainable goal. Fine.

As you run a business, it should be pretty obvious to you whether you're profiting by exploiting flaws in the system. If you're not exploiting flaws in the system and you're still profiting, I don't think you need to worry a great deal about whether you're actually benefiting society. Most businesses do a small, dull, unexciting part of benefiting society, and that's fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Publicly held corporations usually side with the shareholders' wants and needs first. That's one of the reasons Apple was so remarkable.

Steve Jobs realized that if you give people stuff they'll love, they'll fork over their hard earned money, and that is ultimately what shareholders want so they let him do it over and over.

Have people at all levels with vision, commitment, and passion for the work they do. They must be cross-disciplined and most importantly they must understand that their actions and decisions connect directly to the success of the company as a whole.

Then you will have some of the magic of Apple.

<comment><USER6> This seems like markets 101 (and I mean that as no dis to above commenter, but as amazement that so few companies get this).

Apple worked like markets are supposed to work. That Apple was exceptional means that there is still a lot of cruft to be cleared out.

<comment><USER7> The key is again the temporal timeframe: shareholder value NEXT QUARTER? or shareholder value two decades from now? The American car companies, for example, always look for the former (hence pushing trucks and whatever'll sell this season through marketing expenditures rather than innovation)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > [Shareholder pressures] have led many business leaders to manage to the > "expectations market" of the public stock exchanges. This in turn has led to > narrow short-termism, accounting manipulation, cutting of ethical and legal > corners, failures to invest in the long-term, and to the financial crisis.

I've actually heard from a salesperson at a big SaaS company that it's normal to delay sales to the next quarter once your sales quota is fulfilled for this quarter.

This surprised me because it's obviously worse for the company as a whole to not capture that revenue as soon as possible (and to put it at risk entirely) and potentially worse for the customer. However, it's better for the salesperson to have an easy win next quarter, and easier for the management to show nice quarter-over-quarter growth. I think this is a good example of putting short-term gain before the interests of the company, and it seems to be quite common.

<comment><USER9> Look at how Apple's stock price got a short pounding this week because they "didn't meet analyst expectations", citing a fall in iPhone sales.

 _People were waiting for the new phone to launch_. Apple moved nearly USD $3,000,000,000 in product _in a single weekend_ just after the quarter ended and before the earnings report. And still, the stock got sold off.

I've heard that Apple tends to underestimate their earnings, and I'm starting to wonder if Jobs played the 4S launch date just to screw with market analysts even more.

<comment><USER10> I wonder if it is by trading machines running algorithms.

<comment><USER11> too expensive for most HFTs to play with

<comment><USER12> If there was a stock trading tax of X cents per share, would it wipe out HFT? What would X have to be?

<comment><USER11> The reason why AAPL is so expensive is because of the TAF (a tax assessed by the SEC). Currently its 19$ / million dollars sold. Note that this fee is proportional to dollars sold, not per share (other transaction costs are per- share).

Let's say you received $.0020/sh for adding liquidity and paid a commission of $.0001/sh. The tax would be, assuming aapl is $400/sh, $.0076/sh. This is much larger than the rebates, which means you need to buy at least one cent below your sell price on every trade.

Now look at bank of america. It's been hovering around 6.50 for the past week. The tax there is .000114, so in fact it's possible to buy and sell BAC at the same price and make money!

But getting back to your question, blind market making loses money when the tax exceeds the returns. For the larger players, they make .00295/sh before commissions (and ostensibly they are free because larger shops have their own clearing divisions), so X would have to be close to .29. For alpha-based (generating a predictive signal) trading, most HF signals have an amortized edge of .2 cents per share after fees, so I would say something like X=.2 would wipe out HFT

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Perhaps it's only obvious to me, but unless a corporation has great products that customers want to buy, the long-term shareholder value can only fall. Customers buying a corporation's products is a prerequisite to profits at said corporation. Isn't that what shareholders want?

If a company goes bankrupt, pays penalties, has bad press, etc because executives can't take a long-term view, how is that good for shareholders?

</comment><comment><USER14> Nobody ever created a business with the goal of 'maximizing shareholder value'. That is a mission of companies who have lost their purpose and passion.

<comment><USER15> If you ever start your own company - trust me, you'll be extremely interested in maximizing shareholder value. You may also want to satisfy customers and build amazing experiences but as the owner of the company, you will also care very much about the value of your shares.

<comment><USER14> I have started two companies. I'm not suggesting that the value of the company isn't important, but I've seen many times where the quality of the product drops due to a focus on shareholder value, resulting in a drop in that very value they were trying to protect.

<comment><USER4> There's definitely a cognitive indirectness here, in the same way that it's in one's long term self interest to act unselfishly, but it's rather incoherent to say that it's wrong to focus on shareholder value because it damages shareholder value. If you want to maximize shareholder value and you're smart enough to realize that focusing on product quality is the way to do that, you'll focus on product quality.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The purpose of a corporation is not to maximize shareholder value, per se. It's to allow a group of people to work together under a legal framework, which includes things like public offerings of stock. Shareholders can buy into that for whatever reason they want.

(Also, this article makes business theory sound frighteningly simplistic and divorced from markets. I hope I am wrong.)

<comment><USER7> ..a legal framework whereby the owners of the company have limited liability for the company's financial obligations

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's not much of a story here. If a corporation delivers great products - profits and increased shareholder value will follow. If not, or if they stop doing so, profits and shareholder value will drop. They can get gimmicky all they want for a short while, but eventually they will drop.

The only exception to this would be the banking/finance industries - <USER2> pretty much create nothing yet historically for the most part generate enormous profits for themselves.

</comment><comment><USER17> I am wondering what good does Apple do to customers when it forbids users from using software not paying to Apple or buying content that has nothing to do with Apple without paying Apple.

<comment><USER18> Good, quality, affordable software, of course. Have you seen how easy it is to buy a high quality 79c game and play with it in a few minutes?</comment></comment>


Deprecation of Legacy TLS 1.0 and 1.1 Versions - <AUTHOR> https://webkit.org/blog/8462/deprecation-of-legacy-tls-1-0-and-1-1-versions/ <comment><USER2> [Also posted in corresponding discussions for Firefox ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18223672](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18223672)) and Chrome ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18221281](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18221281)) ]

If you want Nginx to use TLS v1.2, this is what you need:

      ssl_protocols TLSv1.2;

…and if you compile a recent Nginx from source and bake in OpenSSL 1.1.1 while you do that, you can have TLS v1.3 with a TLS v1.2 fallback, too:

      ssl_protocols TLSv1.3 TLSv1.2;

See also:

[https://caniuse.com/#feat=tls1-2](https://caniuse.com/#feat=tls1-2)

[https://caniuse.com/#feat=tls1-3](https://caniuse.com/#feat=tls1-3)

<comment><USER3> I don't believe the order in "ssl_protocols" has any relevance. The client and server should negotiate/choose the highest mutually supported protocol version.

<comment><USER4> Yes, as I wrote in one of the three other threads about this co-ordinated release, the Right Thing isn't a list but a minimum version setting, and if you really want it, maybe a maximum.

Programs like web servers that expose a list here are doing that because the libraries they use did that, not because it makes any sense to configure it this way.

Of course the real fix is to change libraries to offer an appropriate API but handling the distance between what a pre-existing library does out off the box and what users want/need is the whole point of application software.

<comment><USER5> Imagine that TLS 1.3 is found to have a critical flaw and more vulnerable than TLS 1.2. You then set your min/max to 1.2.

Later TLS 1.4 comes out. How can I allow new TLS 1.4 and existing TLS 1.2 clients without allowing TLS 1.3 clients using your method.

The server software would have to be updated to include a blacklist or go back to being an ordered list.

<comment><USER6> Why not support both configuration strategies?

<comment><USER7> Because that gives the application even more chances to do the wrong thing, which is what we were trying to avoid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does this affect other users of NSURL too?</comment>


LiquidWeb was down for 40 minutes and all I got was this tiny stinking update - <AUTHOR>

   "A subset of customers were affected by an apparent power surge which took a UPS system offline and tripped the breaker protecting that system. Power has been restored to those affected. We are working to completely restore all services. We will provide regular updates via this support page. As always please feel free to contact us via ticket or by calling our toll-free support number."
 http://www.liquidweb.com/support/
During the outage, their phone support was down, and they did not respond to a helpdesk ticket, and their live chat was unavailable.  Heroic support this is decidedly not.
The closest thing to an update was a reply to my tweet (sent at the start of the downtime, thanks to Pingdom) 15 minutes into the downtime.  The decided lack of an apology on their part leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Ugh. <comment><USER2> _The decided lack of an apology on their part leaves a bad taste in my mouth._

To be fair, the apology might just be waiting until they've finished investigating and know exactly what they're apologizing for.</comment>


Outbound Sales for Beginners: Lead Generation - <AUTHOR> http://blog.amplemarket.com/lead-generation-prospecting/ <comment><USER2> Reading this... I just hate sales. This is a playbook for generating all those spam messages I get all the time that I don't want to receive.</comment>


GitHub hit by DDoS attack - <AUTHOR> http://status.github.com/ <comment><USER3> This is an article [0] summarizes what happened. It is however in Chinese. So let me put a simple summary here:

Baidu has Baidu Analytics, a service similar to Google Analytics. In short, a website includes a javascript file from Baidu and Baidu will report some basic analytics to the site manager like how many visitors per day, how much time they spent on average per page etc.

Someone in the middle between a client outside China and Baidu, allegedly it should be the Great Fire Wall, changed the javascript file from Baidu and added some code so that any client executing the javascript file will periodically access [https://github.com/greatfire/](https://github.com/greatfire/) and [https://github.com/cn-nytimes/](https://github.com/cn-nytimes/). This means any user who is accessing a site using Baidu Analytics will be an attacker to github.

Here is a simple solution: Block any javascript from Baidu if you do not use it. For chrome users, add the pattern [*.]baidu.com. See here[1].

Edit 1: Added a solution.

Edit 2: Format.

Edit 3: Oh, it's not only Baidu Analytics. Baidu Ads' javascript is also being hijacked and changed [2]. Imagine that all sites containing Google Ads use their visitors as attackers to attack github. Now it is literally what is happening to Baidu and its customers (and their customers' visitors.) The javascript is only changed for visitors outside China. This is why people believe that is done by Chinese government --- the only entity who has total access to all out-going routers in China. Since many Chinese users use VPN or other types of proxy to access Internet, they are all considered as visitors outside China.

0\. [http://drops.wooyun.org/papers/5398](http://drops.wooyun.org/papers/5398)

1\. [http://www.howtogeek.com/tips/how-to-block-javascript-and- ad...](http://www.howtogeek.com/tips/how-to-block-javascript-and-ads-for-a- single-site-in-chrome/)

2\. [http://www.solidot.org/story?sid=43489](http://www.solidot.org/story?sid=43489)

<comment><USER4> According to this[1] post GitHub (or someone else in between) started changing the responses to alert("Malicious Script Detected")[2]. That's an awesome counterattack - this stops the script from looping indefinitely and annoys the users.

1\. [http://insight-labs.org/?p=1682](http://insight-labs.org/?p=1682)

2\. [https://github.com/greatfire/](https://github.com/greatfire/)

<comment><USER3> For github, this is a smart move.

But, really, you can hardly negotiate with Chinese government. I'm pretty sure that they will deny this attack and re-emphasize their so-called Internet policy.

If I were github, instead of a warning message, I would redirect the workload to some Chinese government's website and let them suffer what they've created. Let's face it, they are waging a war on the Internet first.

Edit: Disclaimer: I know that my post is quite biased, especially this one. I'm not suggesting that people should wage a war to Chinese government. Please take my words just as a (biased?) sample from an ordinary Chinese citizen who is really tired of the government's censorship.

<comment><USER5> How would github redirect the load?

<comment><USER6> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_301](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_301)

<comment><USER7> I think you are underestimating the volume of traffic. Simple generating that many 301s would be an issue. And... where would you redirect to?

<comment><USER8> Generating a 301 is certainly less work than rendering the entire user's profile page.

<comment><USER9> Generating a 301 is likely more work. Profile pages are simple database hits, and they may be dynamically or even statically cached (for popular pages). You're probably severely underestimating how much traffic China can produce [1].

1\. [http://furbo.org/2015/01/22/fear- china/](http://furbo.org/2015/01/22/fear-china/)

<comment><USER10> A 301 avoids a database hit, and avoids having to go through the cache framework all together.

It just says given this URL, we return an header that tells the browser to redirect. The only thing faster would be just dropping the connection as soon as its given to you.

<comment><USER11> Excuse me, Why no 403 or 404?

<comment><USER12> If I scroll up a bit, I see the reason is:

> redirect the workload to some Chinese government's website and let them > suffer what they've created.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Baidu's javascript cdn is being Hack by national firewall, inject these JS attack script. If other webseit include some javascript library from Baidu's javascript CDN will automatically run JS script that will DDOS attack Github. The attack JS script is here:

[https://gist.github.com/zhufenggood/7bb040b1effb71d14bcc](https://gist.github.com/zhufenggood/7bb040b1effb71d14bcc)

Here is deobfuscate version using [http://jsbeautifier.org/](http://jsbeautifier.org/)

[https://gist.github.com/zhufenggood/6a38c2a2b2185977b3cb](https://gist.github.com/zhufenggood/6a38c2a2b2185977b3cb)

Github notice that, it replace that DDOS http request respond with a alert("WARNING: malicious javascript detected on this domain"). That is why some Chinese guy gets a weird pop-up with English text when visiting Chinese websites.

<comment><USER14> clever move we should say ? or any better idea ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Looks like another case of Chinese traffic being tampered with to load resources from another domain - in this case Baidu searches: [http://insight- labs.org/?p=1682](http://insight-labs.org/?p=1682)

<comment><USER16> This is far more interesting than the OP. Thanks for sharing.

<comment><USER17> You mean TFA.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is a reminder that having a single service, like Google Analytics or Google Fonts, injected into just about every major site on the web might not be a great idea.

<comment><USER19> This!

Even though I don't think this would have proactively helped this DDoS, but it can't be closer to the truth.

CDNs hosting libraries / fonts / resources for the web are going to be targeted more and more, it is just too attractive to malicious people.

<comment><USER20> This is why I wish we could have a file hash attribute added to certain tags (such as script). It could improve caching across domains and validate the content you're serving up. I proposal was posted here a while ago.

<comment><USER21> _Subresource Integrity - W3C Editor 's Draft_ [http://w3c.github.io/webappsec/specs/subresourceintegrity/](http://w3c.github.io/webappsec/specs/subresourceintegrity/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Someone turning a widely-used third-party-hosted JS into "evil" seems like an incredibly difficult layer 7 DDoS to address. Assuming you have great capacity to filter on the edge (CloudFlare, being Google, etc.), but a limited backend, it's still very hard to identify legit vs. non-legit traffic and do filtering.

(Obviously if the attack is against, say, Chinese users, and your site's legitimate users are mainly in Estonia, you can do filtering, or if the attack only hits an obscure URL, but the attack doesn't have to be weak in that way.)

There are a bunch of potential ways to address it, but they all work best if you have a site with a defined community of users. If you're a large public site, without login, it's hard. Some of the better techniques are in-browser challenges (JS, CAPTCHA, etc.), but it's conceivable with enough endpoint with real browsers and real humans on them, these could get defeated.

<comment><USER23> GitHub seems to have done just this. Both attack URLs return

>alert("WARNING: malicious javascript detected on this domain")

They can probably serve that without hitting their database servers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> A good warning sign for companies that only have their codebase at Github which seem more common to me nowdays. If you run your own server at least you can like physicaly restrict the access to local network only.

<comment><USER25> First of all, physically restricting access to a local network pretty much makes the benefits of using Git redundant. Ignoring that though..

I don't think there are many companies who have the depth of info security knowledge that Github can draw upon. You might believe that running your own server and locking it down to your local network ( _as best your team can do that_ ) is better, but I'd rather trust Github even if that means my code is available online. While the chance of being victim to a non-specific attack is far higher (Github is a much bigger target; I'm affected if they're attacked), the chance of someone targeting my code and actually getting it are far, far lower because Github is better at making things secure than I am, and they have people who are paid to make sure things stay that way.

A policy of only having your code on Github has it's flaws but making sure it's secure isn't one of them.

<comment><USER26> > I don't think there are many companies who have the depth of info security > knowledge that Github can draw upon

That's true and I believe in that as well. However, GitHub also poses a much larger attack surface than any single company and it's safe to assume that once someone is in, they're going to get _everything_. Apart of that, you're also vulnerable to having GitHub disgruntled employees accessing your data, and the inherent vulnerability in having a remotely accessible repo in the first place.

<comment><USER27> I think google protected your data from employees. Can't github do the same ?

<comment><USER26> It makes sense that Google protects your data from most employees, but there's always a core of employees that have everything accessible. It's probably a small operational core in Google (still probably way bigger than the entire headcount of Github).

<comment><USER28> It depends I know that old school telcos use security Vetting for people with wide access to systems and this is DV Developed Vetting or TS (in American usage)

And our Internal security team (BT Security) was bad news if you where investigated - they have a ferocious reputation

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> We use bower and npm for our project. Every couple of months github is under attack by a DDoS or not working correctly leaving us with broken deploy scripts. What is the best way to fix this? We don't like the idea of commiting the node_modules or bower_components folder. Is there a tool which will cache the npm and bower sources so they only have to be downloaded if something changes?

<comment><USER30> Committing downloaded packages is not a bad practice. Yes, it can be a bit big, but otherwise I don't see much problem with it. You will be always sure that the installed packages are compatible with each other.

<comment><USER29> To be sure everything that we know works together we use things like npm- shrinkwrap files. We don't like it because it makes the git changelogs a lot bigger and almost unreadable if you want to compare a pull request.

<comment><USER31> You could commit them to their own repository so they don't taint your main repo. Then use a submodule to pull that repo in to the main repo...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Making the not unrealistic assumption that the data is _not_ normally distributed, mean is a useless average here. You should be looking at median, which will be much less distorted by the long tail.

<comment><USER33> Would be interesting to see the 10/90% too.

<comment><USER34> This, or if you are evil and know that your competitor has a stupidly-designed build process that _depends_ on GitHub being available - by DDoSing GitHub itself you'll make your competition unable to work.

<comment><USER35> Some smaller companies depend on github. I think its stupid, but I know of at least one ivy league university subgroup who depend on github for everything. Management wanted to outsource everything they could, they just saw developers and IT as cost sinks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> What we really need is a free and open source distributed version control system.

</comment><comment><USER37> Could github whitelist ip addresses who did commit to protect normal users from DDoS effects (splitting traffic to two sets of servers during DDoS etc)?

<comment><USER38> Seems like a reasonable strategy to me, but probably very infeasible for an attack already in progress if this tactic weren't planned and ready to go in advance. It would be something I'd investigate post-attack however to see if it's a viable strategy for mitigating future attacks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> maybe the point is to scare people into preemptively blocking Chinese IPs so the Chinese gov doesn't have to swat flies with the Great Firewall. it's good marketing too: "look at all those foreigners who refuse to let us access the free internet!" "anti-Chinese prejudice!" etc etc

<comment><USER40> If that is their plan it seems to be working, judging by some of the comments here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> They should redirect the attack to the server hosting the script as a friendly encouragement to use encryption.

</comment><comment><USER42> Still getting lots of instability in spite of the status page.

</comment><comment><USER43> Why the hell would anyone launch a DDoS attack against GitHub? Seriously, the only point I see in DDoS-ing GitHub is to prove yourself that you can DDoS it.

<comment><USER44> Given that the DDoS wasn't targeted at "[https://github.com/"](https://github.com/") but rather "[https://github.com/greatfire/"](https://github.com/greatfire/") and "[https://github.com/cn-nytimes/"](https://github.com/cn-nytimes/"), two projects that can reasonably be described as not being pro Chinese government, it seems that github was targeted for hosting anti-Chinese 'propaganda'.

<comment><USER43> Thanks for the clarification!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I wonder what's the positive effect of sharing the same Internet with the chinese. I never visit nor I know someone who visits sites from China.

Major ISPs from the west should definitely consider blackholing all traffic coming from there to avoid DoS attacks, spam, etc. – From my experience, this would mitigate spam by a 50% or even more.

<comment><USER46> So you agree with the Chinese government and think we should just censor the Internet for all Chinese citizens?

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> If someone wouldn't mind explaining, what could the motive possibly be for the Chinese government to be doing this?

<comment><USER48> Maybe because the github repo is for this website: [https://zh.greatfire.org/](https://zh.greatfire.org/) ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I have written a brief summary of issues, as a tweetstorm: [https://twitter.com/bitinn/status/581350026217013248](https://twitter.com/bitinn/status/581350026217013248)

</comment><comment><USER50> Anyone in europe having trouble with github this morning? I cant get bower to install and it fails with cannot connect to github error, status page seems to suggest everything is working

</comment><comment><USER51> Did Baidu or its employee said anything about their script being used to attack Github? Would like to know how they think about it

</comment><comment><USER52> The internet is so cool. I hope no one ever fixes the ability for shit to go crazy online. It makes me so happy to be alive in the age of data leaks, ddosses, and malware. It's all the more awesome that it isn't just individuals but entire nation states fucking shit up. This is a really neat attack. I hadn't thought of a MITM being used on a such a massive scale, and to leverage uninfected computers as a botnet is pretty great.

Props to China. 很好!

</comment><comment><USER53> What I think is most interesting of all is not that a foreign country is attacking a US company nor that the company has no support from the wast pool of three letter agencies but the fact that github as a company designed their architecture in such a way that a sub site is allowed to eat all of the resources bringing the whole company down. Kudos to all the engineers and architects with +100k salary over there.

</comment><comment><USER54> Is it confirmed the Chinese government is behind this? Could it be possible to also be a competing company?

<comment><USER55> Given Snowden's recent allegations that the Canadian government is engaging in false flag operations (causing havoc and placing the blame on other nations), it could even be another country that just wants to make China look bad. To be honest, I would expect an attack from China to be a little bit more subtle... Of course it could be a double bluff... but then... Basically, it's pretty hard to know what the heck is going on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Question, way can't `code.jquery.com` help here? or has the attack moved passed this MIM attack?

</comment><comment><USER57> Apologies - it seems my earlier comment was made during a brief respite.

</comment><comment><USER58> And we're down again

</comment><comment><USER59> the page says that everything is operating normally, but the main github.com page doesn't even load for me...

Edit: works again now

</comment><comment><USER60> def noticed this like 5 minutes ago. DNS completely failed for a second.

</comment><comment><USER61> oh boy, think we have to go home early today and its tgif.

</comment><comment><USER62> How is this news ?

</comment><comment><USER63> Fxxx GFW!

<comment><USER63> To the guys who gave me -1: If you cannot visit Google, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and many other websites, you will say "Fxxx GFW!" too.

<comment><USER64> I didn't downvote, but I can understand this getting pushed down as it doesn't bring anything to the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> However, I still prefer [http://gitlab.com](http://gitlab.com) :-)

</comment><comment><USER57> It seems fine for me - <USER2> [http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/github.com](http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/github.com)</comment>


Experiment HN: Idea day - <AUTHOR>

The world is full of problems that need solving. They're all around us. I'd say we run into at least 5 frustrations every day, whether those are frustrations we experience first hand or ones we overhear others complaining about, but we probably don't think much of them. So let's train our eyes/ears to recognize them!
So how about for the next day, November 12th, we try and pick up on 3 potential problems/complaints/frustrations we see ourselves and/or others facing. At 8PM Pacific time, I'll post another thread where we can all share our findings and possible solutions.
I figured it'd be a good way to get into the habit of recognizing problems, because really, no problem is too small.
What do you think?
EDIT: Some are saying that there are problems that just can't be solved ( a terribly attitude! ) like traffic lights, etc. Maybe then keep your problems to ones that can be solved within reason, like with a capable team. <comment><USER2> Finding doctors is a huge problem. When you move to a new city, you are given a list of 2000 PCPs and told to pick one (after calling around to see if they are accepting new patients). When you need to see a specialist, you are given a referral. People in the health care industry know that many of the specialists are untalented losers who push patients in and out as quickly as possible, and would never let someone close to them see them. The general public has little idea.

<comment><USER3> Angie's list includes doctor opinions. I have never used it for that personally so I cannot exactly recommend it but I find them useful for other service providers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> a lot of problems can't really be fixed with software...

\- corporate meetings that accomplish nothing

\- nagging girlfriend

\- traffic congestion (well maybe some software here might help)

\- stupid shitty and cold weather

\- an IT department that's incompetent

\- annoying neighbors

\- etc...

If only software solved everything.

<comment><USER5> Well...

PROBLEM: corporate meetings that accomplish nothing

SOFTWARE: Collaboration software. If everyone is informed, meetings don't have to happen.

PROBLEM: nagging girlfriend

SOFTWARE: Tweet often and have them sent to her phone. All she really wants is a leash, this should do the trick.

PROBLEM: traffic congestion

SOFTWARE: I already check my city's online webcams of traffic before I have to go somewhere congested so I know what route to take.

PROBLEM: stupid shitty and cold weather

SOFTWARE: See Superman 3. It'll happen, don't worry.

PROBLEM: an IT department that's incompetent

SOFTWARE: yosho must work for the man... are you sure the problem isn't between the keyboard and the chair? ;)

PROBLEM: annoying neighbors

SOFTWARE: Damn. I got nothing. After all that, you win.

<comment><USER6> >PROBLEM: corporate meetings that accomplish nothing

Well, I work from home, meetings happen on IRC or conference calls. Now, this being news.ycombinator.com, remember that when you launch your own startup, being "the boss" gives you the power to summon and dispel meetings at will! :)

>PROBLEM: nagging girlfriend

High-maintenance relationships aren't a fact of life, they're choices. It's only a problem if you want it to be.

> PROBLEM: traffic congestion > PROBLEM: stupid shitty and cold weather

Telecommuting make these seem a lot less threatening :)

> PROBLEM: an IT department that's incompetent > PROBLEM: annoying neighbors

Well, I don't really have a solution for these. Sometimes you just gotta work with less-qualified-than-we'd-hoped-for people, and you also gotta live somewhere.

I take those as facts of life, and then you have to decide what mindset you'll take on when dealing with those "problems".

Realizing you too can be annoying and also incompetent in a number of things can surely add some perspective do it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> How about a global effort to achieve post-scarcity? (The quicker the better.)

Before I go on with the steps, let me remind you all how far we've come in the past fifty years: We have the internet. All electronically-reproducible data is now virtually post-scarcity.

We are also on the cusp of everyone owning a high-performance personal- fabrication machine. Twenty years from now, You will be printing (or pirating) all manner of toys, tools, and electronic devices. The Reprap (and even laser printers) can print circuits right now. Printing an iPod isn't too far off. How much longer until we're printing meat and vegetables? Welcome to the future, everyone.

Step One: Make the populace care. Without a culture that encourages learning, diligence, and scholastic achievement, Step Two is irrelevant.

Step Two: Educate the populace. Better public schools and libraries, and more time spent studying at home.

Step Three: Divert investment and time from more frivolous pursuits.

It's 3:30 in the morning, so I might not have said all that with optimal clarity, but you get the gist of it. Everything will be free soon; let's make it happen faster.

We need cheaper means of producing and reusing raw materials, we need really fantastic nanotech, and ... tons of other crap. I'm going to bed now before I make an ass of myself :)

<comment><USER8> Step 1 cannot be done. Step 2 is very, very hard. Step 3 cannot be done.

Good luck :)

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I guess I need to offset those steps by one, and insert Step One: Become Dictator.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How surprising that no reply mentions a child-like approach to the world: curious, inquisitive, playful, fun-seeking.

I believe the simple and sad reason most people won't recognize problems or unaddressed issues around them is because they've been trained not to.

It's called "education", and is a double-edged sword. It'll take you places, but then it'll take places away from you, too, if you're not aware. The very places you need to "think out of the box".

The brain will stick with "what works" and "what's often used", but great insights and breakthroughs don't come from the masses, but rather from individuals exploring the less-traveled paths.

As Pablo Picasso says, "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child".

Funny things, a child asks "why? why? what if?" and most people won't pay attention. Then a bearded grownup asks "why? why? what if?" and gets to be called a visionary!

Have fun!

</comment><comment><USER9> One thing I've been doing is keeping an annoyance diary. Haven't come up with any great ideas yet though.

<comment><USER10> Is it online?

<comment><USER9> It is not, though I've tweeted at least one annoyance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> That's an excellent observation, frustration really is key to sensing where the world can be improved.

The problem is that one mans frustration is another mans income, so it would probably be easier to limit this frustration guide to those areas where you are not going to be facing opposition right away.

On the other hand that might cut off fruitful avenues and maybe we shouldn't be that timid about this.

Thanks for the idea, looking forward to that other thread and I'll do my best to think about your challenge while going through the day.

</comment><comment><USER12> 1) Wanted to quickly test something with a Japanese IE6, after a few hours still haven't done it. Had to evaluate VMWare, Parallels etc. and also hunt for suitable image. Too much work and too costly for just a simple check.

2) If I want to play some new game at 30+ fps, what kind of machine do I need to buy?

From a friend:

1) Printer didn't work. They never do.

2) Too cold to be outside.

3) Takes too long to know if your recombinant bacteria genetic modification failed or not.

</comment><comment><USER12> Another thing I've been thinking about is how can we learn more about problems in other domains. For this idea day, my frustrations would probably be dev- related, but what about the problems people have in professions other than coding?

<comment><AUTHOR> That's actually what I meant. It's not supposed to be developer specific. I was thinking about problems you may experience as you get ready to head to work, hear others complain about on the train ride over, or from those eating in the booth next to you at lunch, etc etc etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Good idea.

<comment><USER14> Bad idea: tossing your cousin Penny into a fountain to make a wish. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8PhzrmBgMI>

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Traffic lights are totally fixable, there's just a huge amount of legacy hard and software systems. Ten years, better tracking systems, and some fuzzy logic. Problem solved.

<comment><USER16> Don't forget the political/social implications of convincing the world's population that these need to be changed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Unknown or expired link.

This should be fixed.

<comment><USER18> There's "Resurrect Pages" for Firefox, which has buttons for Google cache (for recently dead pages) and archive.org (for longer-dead pages). <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2570>

<comment><USER12> I think he means the situation where if you are browsing HN, then take a trip to Mars and after you continue clicking, the links no longer work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think I spend all damn day whinging (mostly in my head) about problems that nobody else will fix for me. Anything and everything from the lack of software I want to the poor design of my headphones to the stupidity of traffic lights. 90% of everything is rubbish and nothing is perfect. Problems problems problems, they're endemic, and OK.

I think that if you cultivate this habit without also driving yourself to fix problems, it will just make you miserable and grouchy. Avoid if possible.

<comment><USER20> It'll drive you miserable and grouchy if you think of them as petty annoyances. Thinking of them as opportunities for improvement is more healthy.

<comment><USER21> People here don't know who you are, Mongoose. Why don't you put a link to "Rules for my unborn son" in your profile? Amazing site.

<http://rulesformyunbornson.tumblr.com/>

<comment><USER20> What? I'm not affiliated with 1001 rules for my unborn son.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> this sounds like a potential startup, unless anyone knows of a site like this

<comment><USER20> <http://idea-ne.ws/>

<comment><USER23> I've been there many times and the ideas just aren't good. Seriously, a "jump to conclusions mat?" It was funny the first time i heard it, but to be the number one item on the site this long makes it look like a farce.

<comment><AUTHOR> Jump to Conclusions Mat is a reference to the movie Office Space. It's a great movie you should check out some time.

<comment><USER23> Ugh. I know. But it's a joke and the fact that everyone there takes it seriously means _they_ aren't serious. It's a waste of time. If the site is trying to be a funny place to go talk about stupid ideas, then it succeeds, but if it's trying to be a serious place to talk about real ideas, then it fails.

That's all I'm saying.

<comment><USER24> I think the real problem with a site like that is that many people like to guard the tractable problems they think of. It's one thing to talk about your ideas and get critiqued with close friends, it's quite another to post it on the public internet!

Edit: Changed "this" to "that" so it doesn't sound like it's referring to HN

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Idea for this site: up/down voting decrements ones karma points. It is not related with the concept of the karma, but we do not have live-span values here.

</comment><comment><USER26> Good thinking, I'll try to do it.

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm still waiting for my flying car....

<comment><USER28> <http://www.threepanelsoul.com/comics/103.png></comment></comment>


Slowing the Speed of Light Down to 2 M/S–What Special Relativity Feels Like - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udqihUBGuZ8 <comment><AUTHOR> I think the most interesting visualization is the length distortion around here [https://youtu.be/udqihUBGuZ8?t=521](https://youtu.be/udqihUBGuZ8?t=521)</comment>