The Entrepreneurship Industry and the Rise of the Veblenian Entrepreneur - <AUTHOR> https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3479042&utm_campaign=Matt%27s%20Thoughts%20In%20Between&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter <comment><AUTHOR> Abstract:

> What is driving the declining quality of innovation-driven entrepreneurship? > In this paper, we argue the growing entrepreneurship industry is an > important yet overlooked explanation. This rapidly growing industry has > transformed the nature of entrepreneurship and encouraged a particular form > of low-quality entrepreneurship. It has done so by leveraging the Ideology > of Entrepreneurialism to mass-produce and mass-market products that make > possible what we term Veblenian Entrepreneurship. This is entrepreneurship > pursued primarily as a form of conspicuous consumption. Aside from lowering > average entrepreneurial quality, Veblenian Entrepreneurship has a range of > (short-run) positive and (medium and long-run) negative effects for both > individuals and society at large. We argue that the rise of the Veblenian > Entrepreneur has contributed to creating an increasingly Untrepreneurial > Economy. That is an economy which superficially appears innovation-driven > and dynamic, but is actually rife with inefficiencies and unable to generate > economically meaningful growth through innovation.

I was hoping this paper would have some good stats about this potential phenomenon of "fake" entrepreneurship, but it seems to be a fluffed-up blog post with a few more citations for the most part. Still a good thing to investigate in the future though. I did find this quote striking:

> Freeman et al (2019) found that engagement in entrepreneurship (irrespective > of failure) was associated with higher levels of depression, ADHD, substance > abuse and bipolar disorder, while only 24% of entrepreneurs have no mental > health issues.</comment>


Harvard to Make All Classes Online March 23, President Says - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-10/harvard-to-make-all-classes-online-march-23-president-says <comment><USER2> "Harvard is asking students not to return to campus after its spring break amid coronavirus concerns"

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's a list of a few more institutions going to online-only: [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/colleges-universities- going-o...](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/colleges-universities-going-online- coronavirus- fears_n_5e66a6b7c5b605572809cbec?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACr973lm9X3HoOs11bVBA0MYwh1UBWvpm- POA9OzsVjAKkt2VZSNl0c22R4FdDWz9jp3QnTq8G-Ae1gPU-b7Lac0o85MHzz55A1PANHlJ5mUUDf7yQpq6BbWCn-Y8ZkTICJPheEq9QTXOn_vG35vXVdFS1p_Y7YhFY0iZecGoT6u)

</comment><comment><USER4> MIT is expected to follow suit. Wild times

</comment><comment><USER5> NYU is doing the same.</comment>


The Development of the C Language - <AUTHOR> https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/chist.html <comment><USER2> I think it is worth noting that C is special in the sense that compared to other programming languages it is semantically low-level, pretty much on par with assembly. Which is why it offers less opportunity for automatic optimization than most of other languages do.

Therefore, just like with assembly, there is nothing too "unfortunate" about the language's design (including its "treatment of arrays"), and the fact that C has been, and still remains, highly popular is just the result of healthy competition, IMO.

There are a few little things that I wish were different (for example, I see the arrow symbol '->' as noisy and unnecessary - the simple period '.' would work with pointers just as well; also, the "semicolon cancer"...), but the language seems to be pretty usable the way it is.

</comment><comment><USER3> _On the other hand, C 's treatment of arrays in general (not just strings) has unfortunate implications both for optimization and for future extensions. The prevalence of pointers in C programs, whether those declared explicitly or arising from arrays, means that optimizers must be cautious, and must use careful dataflow techniques to achieve good results. Sophisticated compilers can understand what most pointers can possibly change, but some important usages remain difficult to analyze. For example, functions with pointer arguments derived from arrays are hard to compile into efficient code on vector machines, because it is seldom possible to determine that one argument pointer does not overlap data also referred to by another argument, or accessible externally. More fundamentally, the definition of C so specifically describes the semantics of arrays that changes or extensions treating arrays as more primitive objects, and permitting operations on them as wholes, become hard to fit into the existing language._

Ritchie notes the difficulty with optimization and aliasing and as far as I know the only portable C89/99 convention for this is using the appropriate function if what you want to do is memcpy() or memmove().

I love C and programming is mostly a hobby for me. But my language experience does not really extend beyond C and C++, other than reading about D, Lisp, Rust, etc. I also think the STL is the beautiful thing C++ gave us, and having it as a library is better than building these structures into the language. The STL relies heavily on iterators of course.

My question to HN is: do any languages that really emphasize pointers and iterators over arrays and indices have a non-cumbersome way of telling the compiler when no aliasing is expected? As a hobbyist, I am more interested in something like slices from D or parameter type restrictions than trivially obvious global guarantees like ``if you mutably borrow it then there is no aliasing''. Do D programmers find the slices helpful and easy? Is the syntax and/or semantics such that the programmer can provide the compiler with aliasing info? Are there a small number of type concepts for this or does it explode with the number of different data structures.

I know there is the restrict keyword, but I have always been too lazy to use it in C and even in C++ it seems (quadratically?) unlikely you would be energetic enough to properly declare which pairs of entities could not alias.

<comment><USER4> > I also think the STL is the beautiful thing C++ gave us, [...]

It did not. STL was given to us by HP and SGI, and then C++ adopted STL into its standard library.

<comment><USER5> Alexander Stepanov gave STL to ANSI C++ working group, after implementing it originally in Ada 83.

What HP and SGI did was to provide the first C++ working implementations of it, outside the ANSI C++ working group work.

<comment><USER6> It would be nice if the STL would be a common denominator across a few languages.

<comment><USER5> When Java came out there were a few commercial offerings that were kind of "STL for Java", but with 1.2 Java got its own Collections API and the interest faded away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _" Although the first edition of K&R described most of the rules that brought C's type structure to its present form, many programs written in the older, more relaxed style persisted, and so did compilers that tolerated it. To encourage people to pay more attention to the official language rules, to detect legal but suspicious constructions, and to help find interface mismatches undetectable with simple mechanisms for separate compilation, Steve Johnson adapted his pcc compiler to produce lint [Johnson 79b], which scanned a set of files and remarked on dubious constructions."_

Yet it took up all these years until clang for anyone to start taking static analysis seriously in C, and even now many still ignore it.

<comment><USER7> _Yet it took up all these years until clang for anyone to start taking static analysis seriously in C_

In some circles maybe, but some industries have decades of experience applying static analysers to their C code, and companies have been selling static analysers throughout.

<comment><USER5> Outside industries where MISRA-C is part of the daily vocabulary, I never seen any appreciation for C static analysers.

<comment><USER8> Some embedded systems places do this, even ones that are not safety-critical. It's more common as the level of concern rises. Medical instruments, for example, aren't MISRA, but at least some of them run static analyzers on C/C++ code. (All _should_...)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I love stories like this. All the history behind a very young but rich science.

For example I always assumed C came from a strong typing background and its premises was always about being portable. Neither of them are true.

<comment><USER10> No, indeed! This obsession with "undefined behavior" and the desire to eliminate it from the language spec is something recent; when I learned C, we all just understood such gaps in the spec to be places where the compiler writer would do whatever was reasonable for the target platform.</comment></comment>


IBM undercuts Google with discount e-mail service - <AUTHOR> http://www.seattlepi.com/local/6420ap_us_tec_ibm_google.html

<comment><USER2> $14 dollars less, but only 1 gig of storage - compared to Google's 25. 1 gig is laughable in the age of sub $100 TB disks.

</comment><comment><USER3> Who in their right mind would choose Notes over anything else (Gmail, outlook, pine, telnet)?

<comment><USER4> Not only that, but which corporation would outsource their email to a third party like IBM, Gmail, Microsoft or anybody else for that matter ?

I know that plenty of companies do it, but I really wonder if they've thought it through.

Email services are not just an expense item to be outsourced, it's a very critical item that is best kept in-house under your own control as much as possible.

<comment><USER5> Even if you hire IT staff, how much of it is really under your own control? Do you really control your IT staff more than you control an outsourcing firm?

<comment><USER4> I'd say yes. They have a direct stake in the well being of the company. A free or nearly free email service provider does not.

You can't outsource responsibility.

People working for you have a contract with you, and a detailed list of their responsibilities.

I'd trust them a lot more than some large company providing a similar service for free or a really small fee. The incentives are completely different as is the relationship.

<comment><USER6> If you have ~250 employees you are stuck in the black hole where you can't directly higher top tier talent to handle email, but you start to need actual infrastructure. Paying Google 1250$ a month is probably the best you can reasonably do without paying ~10x that for single competent staff, HW, software, and a significant support contract.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This quote is one of the better mainstream-media explanations of cloud computing I've seen:

"Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM is responding to the increasing corporate demand for inexpensive e-mail that's run on computers owned by an external supplier instead of the company relying on the service. This approach has become trendy enough to get its own catch phrase - "cloud computing.""

</comment><comment><USER8> "None of those features are included in IBM's package.

Even so, IBM believes its service, called LotusLive iNotes, can beat Google because it has a much larger sales force and relationships with corporate customers going back long before Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were even born in 1973."

I give up.

</comment><comment><USER9> IBM "wishes" it undercut Google with discount e-mail service</comment>


Can You Overdose on Happiness? - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/60/searches/can-you-overdose-on-happiness <comment><USER2> Some 8 years or so ago I experimented with triggering mood changes using a meditative technique. I had long been doing 'centering' meditative exercises so that I could bring more focus and clarity to seated practice. I wanted something more practical that would affect my everyday life.

I eventually settled on two 'states'. A 'centered' state and a 'joyful' one. Any time I noticed myself outside of one of the two states, I performed the quick ritual to bring myself back to it.

After a few days of practice, I found myself shockingly good at performing quick, directed mood shifts, in any situation I found myself in. I settled into a routine that lasted a few weeks.

It didn't suck, I never 'overdosed'. It was every bit as cool as you can imagine it being.

However over time I lost the desire to keep it up. Eventually I realized that, in the end, being able to relate to others requires a certain amount of empathy, and being blissed-out all the time made it really difficult to do that.

It might get easier if _everyone around me_ also could stay centered or joyful, but if I want deep fulfilling relationships with others, being able to feel what they feel and not what I want to feel is important.

This is ultimately what makes addiction so caustic to relationships IMO. Your mood stops moving and flexing with your social environs. It's a feedback loop that closes you off from those that sustain you and you lean heavier on the substance.

<comment><USER3> I too have bumped into this during meditation, but being in my early 20s and not having a teacher or instructions, I ODed on bliss.

I was living in a state of bliss I could turn up and down for years. I could turn it up so high I'd pass out from it.

After years of this, something happened and I stopped being able to feel bliss at all. It was like a part of my neurology had been fried. I assumed it was something I had done so I turned to suttas to try to figure out what was up, assuming it was a meditation problem. I learned Buddhism, I solved my psychological problems, even ended suffering, but at the end of the day the bliss was gone never to come back.

Doctors call it depression, but I'm optimistic and enjoy life. They may have never bumped into anyone like me before.

At the end of the day I'm grateful for the experiences I've had, but if you live high as a kite for years, you can OD on it. I imagine someone who ODs on a benzo or meth might have a similar experience.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, another reason I eventually gave it up. Emotions are ultimately more fun when you mix them together like music, not just hit one high note all the time.

<comment><USER3> Really it comes down to a middle ground and not overdoing too much of a good thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You can, but most people have a built-in defense mechanism for dealing with excessive happiness; they indulge invented troubles and make themselves miserable. Some large fraction of contemporary news headlines are attributable to this phenomenon; most people aren't actually clever enough to invent their own troubles so they adopt the invented troubles created by others.

<comment><USER5> I also have this view. Curious whether you know of any resources to read up on this some more? It's one of those things that's hard to search for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There's a quote in Bojack Horseman that has a similar theme:

> I guess I got a happy ending, but every happy ending has the day after the > happy ending, right? And the day after that. So the wedding was so much fun. > It was the happiest day of my life. But, you know, what does that say about > all the days I have left?

I've always liked that quote, because it is something that gets a bit glossed over in books and movies, but is important; the first derivative of happiness after something amazing is almost invariably negative.

<comment><USER7> This is absolutely not so. Just because one flies high one day does not mean if you fly low the next day that it is negative at all. Because hey - you are FLYING! There are different joys in all levels of flight (or to leave the analogy, of life). Additionally IF one does have an exceptionally negative day, it can be used to even more appreciate the exceptionally happy days. And another way to understand this is that the happy times, if truly pure and happy, never lose the positive buoyancy they shed on the rest of your days; so in that way those days have raised your overall abundance of life.

<comment><USER6> > Just because one flies high one day does not mean if you fly low the next > day that it is negative at all. Because hey - you are FLYING!

Sure, and maybe that mentality works for you, but I feel like a lot of people are more sensitive to differentials than actual quality-of-life.

For example, if I get a big raise at work, then that's great; I will probably be happy for awhile, and after that, I'll probably equalize to more or less the level of happiness I was before. Imagine that I then lose that raise, going back to the same salary that I started with. I would probably be pretty depressed over that, despite the fact that I wouldn't, in practice, be any worse than how I started.

I'm not saying it's rational, I'm just saying that's how I (and I think a lot of people) would react.

<comment><USER8> Hedonic adaptation works both ways, you would normally equalize to the same level after the cut, so it is a good thing.

And if you keep that process in mind and maintain perspective, you can flatten both bursts of happiness and bouts of depression. Paradoxically, this might actually raise your settled level of happiness.

<comment><USER6> I don't disagree with that at all; as I've gotten older I've tried to keep that mentality in mind, especially when I'm sad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I kind of skimmed the article, but it did remind me of another one I read about babies. Once a baby gets to the point they express emotions, they will look at their parents and fill with so much joy, their sub-conscious forces them to look away so they can calm down and don't hurt themselves.

<comment><USER10> Wow my kid does this. I attributed this as "bashful". And my wife says I do this too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Interesting yet disturbing. On the one hand, a possible treatment for severe treatment resistant depression, which would relieve the misery of many thousands of suffering individuals. On the other, a possible gateway to the sci-fi concept of wireheads ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_(science_fiction)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirehead_\(science_fiction\)) ) or a mechanism to involuntarily pacify dissidents or other disaffected members of society.

I'm really not sure what to think.

</comment><comment><USER12> According to St. Thomas Aquinas, no you cannot, because the immortal soul presupposes a participation in the infinite and eternal. Aristotle made this clear, which St. Thomas then expounds on:

"Man's ultimate happiness consists in the contemplation of truth, for this operation is specific to man and is shared with no other animals. Also it is not directed to any other end since the contemplation of truth is sought for its own sake. In addition, in this operation man is united to higher beings (substances) since this is the only human operation that is carried out both by God and by the separate substances (angels). (Summa Contra Gentiles, book 3, chapter 37)

and

It is impossible for any created good to constitute man's happiness. For happiness is that perfect good which entirely satisfies one's desire; otherwise it would not be the ultimate end, if something yet remained to be desired. Now the object of the will, i.e., of man's desire, is what is universally good; just as the object of the intellect is what is universally true. Hence it is evident that nothing can satisfy man's will, except what is universally good. This is to be found, not in any creature, but in God alone, because every creature has only participated goodness. Therefore, God alone can satisfy the will of man, according to the words of the Psalms (102:5): "Who alone satisfies your desire with good things." Therefore, God alone constitutes man's happiness." (Summa Theologica Part 2. Q.1. Article 8)

</comment><comment><USER13> Happiness and suffering are tow sides of the same coin. They follow each other closely. Overdose of happiness will lead to an equal amount of suffering. Better to be indifferent to either and focus on equanimity, peace and harmonY.

<comment><USER14> Is there scientific evidence that the more we have highly happy moments the more we have highly suffering moments? I does not match my experience of life.

<comment><USER15> I think it's more of the other way around. To have happy moments you have to have suffering moments to compare to how bad it could be.

Basically: who gets happier when they get a gift? Someone who doesn't get gifts a lot, or someone who's always getting gifts?

<comment><USER13> Bingo!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Interesting comment from the Nautilus comment section from user Zdenek Husak:

> What an incredibly flawed piece; sensational, unscientific and condescending > to patients suffering from depression. All decorated with opinions of a very > controversial scientist: [http://alison-bass.blogspot.com/2011/05/helen- > mayberg-case-s...](http://alison-bass.blogspot.com/2011/05/helen-mayberg- > case-study-in-why-we-need.html)

<comment><USER17> There is also a rebuttal to that blog post: [http://daviddobbs.net/smoothpebbles/alison-bass-your- facts-o...](http://daviddobbs.net/smoothpebbles/alison-bass-your-facts-on- helen-mayberg-are-wrong-wrong-and-wrong/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> An LD50[1] for a happiness level? I don't think so.

OD'ing in sense of "my happy chemicals are depleted so now I need to recover a bit", suuuure :)

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

<comment><USER19> Sounds like MDMA abuse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I knew a guy who I always thought was basically the opposite of clinically depressed - I thought of him as "clinically happy".

In some ways I was a bit jealous of how he never seemed to let things get to him. But on the other hand, he would let certain aspects of his life fall apart in ways that seemed to me his perpetual good humor perhaps didn't allow him to address. If he had felt a bit more discomfort I think he would have taken a different path from time to time and ultimately wound up in a better place overall.

<comment><USER21> Totally get what you're saying, have known people like that. But then it begs the question -- end up in a better place for what reason? If being "in a better place" wasn't going to improve how he felt internally, why bother? I think its hard for us normies to understand people like that, because its so obvious how it would be "better" to have more money, stability, etc, but perhaps the definition of enlightenment is to be truly happy regardless of circumstance. If that's the case, is there really a reason to do those things (if it truly won't change your internal state in any way)?

Like if you knew that no job or money you made would ever lead to any fulfillment of any kind, and you would be equally happy without the job / money, would you still do it, just because its a "better situation" (how we define better is again tricky here)...

This is extreme, but there's an old zen koan about a teacher who tells his servant to leave him alone while he drinks tea, as his house burns down. He then walks back to see it burned down, and no one can understand why he did that, and he says something like "I was enjoying my tea". The house was as meaningless as if someone had said "if you don't come quick a leaf will blow off your patio" \-- totally meaningless and of no impact to your present mood.

<comment><USER22> I think our emotional responses exist to guide us towards good decisions. If you take a reinforcement learning system and you always give it positive reinforcement, it will not learn much of anything. I guess I'm saying your enlightenment is irrelevant if it's not improving your survival.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Happiness = Money + Children

[http://archive.is/LvxSN](http://archive.is/LvxSN)

<comment><USER24> yeah, not quite. children actually tend to make you less happy than your peers. at least until they're old enough to largely fend for themselves. At least in western cultures.

I suspect households with more than 2 adults the equation changes significantly. My experience is every child is a pleasure for 2 hours, no matter how badly they are misbehaving. So a household with enough adults to hand off the children may be able to maximize some kind of child additive happiness, though now you have to deal with added adult drama...

<comment><USER10> Ancedotes... My baby has made me incredibly happy.

But also frustrated and tired.

But now that we hit 4 months, it's mostly happy and rarely tired and frustrated.

<comment><USER25> I'm not sure one can make much of a statement about how happy children make you after you've had one for four months...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> RANT: This is rationally the most interesting topic I've ever read. It's not subjective, this is clearly the currently known most effective way to maximize hapiness and maximizing happiness is the only rational policy: utilitarism.

But there are so many obvious questions unanswered: I incrementing from one volt to another had significant mood alteration, why didn't the doctor improve granulairy,why didn't they tried e.g

If changing from one volt to another has such a big impact on mood alteration, why couldn't they try floats ? (e.g 3.265 volts) Also the happiness benchmarcking should be much more rigorous (we're talking about permanently altering a human mood behavior) e.g how much is increased or decreased the response to stimulis such as consuming music, arts, orgasms, or laugh ability. How much does this affect social behavior, ability to focus, working memory, creativity, etc. Is the alteration only changing baseline well being or does it affect the propensity of having mood spikes (high low, high up). I'm just a random guy on the internet,the scientists should have measured all of this.

Other obvious things: The field should be massively be financed by state research. The voltage should be dynamic in real time and changeable though a smartphone application. Philosophers and data scientists should make consensus on optimal strategies (setting a right voltage for a right situation)

Also, the stimulation only affect one brain region, I expect that the recompense system is far more complex and thus we should have as many electrodes as there are concerned brain regions. Indeed, each with differing voltages.

Deep brain stimulation seems to be the successor of a widely used paradigmatic technology: Psychotrophs. Cannabis mostly have the structure of dopamin and thus can pass the blood brain barrier and stick to dopamin receptors. Here hapiness is controlled chemically not electrically. So can the recompense system be totally controlled electrically or only a subset of moods states/substates can be controlled electrically?

Also, does the stimulation inherit some downsides of cannabis?

Bonus: Instead of having a dynamically changing voltages in real time but in a continous manner, would it be useful to make rapid non continous volts switching having a "rhythm" like a music? Could we create new fine grained feelings on demand?

<comment><USER10> If there is electrical current, can we make hats that measure EMF?

<comment><USER14> I didn't knew what is an Electromotive force and still doesn't really understand what you meant, can you ELI5?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Humans are awesome difference tellers, but once you have too much of the same thing you will be indifferent to it. As with happiness that could happen, there is a limit of sustaining higher highs. Unless that person can stop and notice around them and be grateful of what they have by noticing the suffering around. Something to that degree

<comment><USER27> So, if by some feat of governmental magic, my city were able to eliminate the homelessness problem, I might be less happy because I wouldn't see as much suffering around me?

<comment><USER28> It sounds strange to say it but at some level, isn't it possible?

Sometimes YouTube shows me videos of natural disasters (I have a strong interest in the extremes of physics, weather, nature, etc. generally) and some of those videos feature widespread human suffering on display. When I see these videos, I remember that my life is actually pretty great despite the minor nuisances that may have me feeling ticked off that day. Couldn't seeing homelessness around you could remind you how lucky you are that you don't suffer from the conditions that lead to homelessness?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Sweet, well here's at least one mental illness I'll never have to worry about...

</comment><comment><USER30> "Dissatisfaction will find its level."

</comment><comment><USER31> "Why not allow patients to set their own moods to suit their own circumstances and desires?"

Can't most people to some extent do that?

<comment><USER32> It seems like such therapy is aimed at people whose capacity to affect their mood positively is diminished somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm intrigued by the idea that electrical brain stimulation might somehow take the place of damaged or disconnected parts of the brain. I stumbled onto these links the other day while researching concussion and depression:

[https://www.myrighttime.com/concussions- depression](https://www.myrighttime.com/concussions-depression)

[https://msktc.org/tbi/factsheets/depression-after- traumatic-...](https://msktc.org/tbi/factsheets/depression-after-traumatic- brain-injury)

[https://www.brainline.org/article/depression-after-brain- inj...](https://www.brainline.org/article/depression-after-brain-injury)

[http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/17/study-reveals-how- conc...](http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/17/study-reveals-how-concussions- can-trigger-depression/)

In my case, I was a rambunctious kid who bumped his noggin dozens of times and I always wondered if that had an effect on my mood. I've struggled with depression off and on since my late teens, although I think that most of it was environmental. It can be difficult sometimes as creative people to find satisfaction in the workaday world when it's so far removed from the life of invention and fulfillment that we might imagine for ourselves.

The interesting thing about concussion is that it doesn't always show up on brain scans because it can be microscopic tears in the white matter connecting different regions, rather than acute damage to a specific area. So maybe everything is working, but there is a delay or diminishment in inner monolog that makes everything feel like a struggle or seem like tasks require additional motivation that is difficult to maintain.

It could manifest differently for everyone though, and the damage may or may not be permanent. I think that some of the trouble comes because we might rewire ourselves to cope with temporary damage, and then find ourselves caught in dysfunctional habits after the brain repairs itself via neuroplasticity. Similar things happen in the body with referred pain, where nerves report pain months or years after a muscle strain heals, for example. I've been experimenting with a TENS machine and after just 3 half-hour sessions, the pain in one of my shoulder blades is about 1/3 less than before.

I also think there might be a connection with the limbic system, or whichever centers connect thought with external action. I've noticed that I can brainstorm like no tomorrow, or perform physical tasks like lifting weights, but combining the two to adapt physically under changing mental requirements and do things like home improvement projects can be taxing sometimes. The end result being that I'm not quite the self-motivator I once was, because it's easier to procrastinate reading/writing about my interests or take direct orders from a boss than start my own project.

So I've been experimenting with separating my goals and performing them temporally, using a to-do list. Maybe list what to do in the morning, then perform the steps in the afternoon or the next day. The idea being that any of us can write an outline of how to achieve our dreams, hopefully incorporating mindfulness meditation practices (aka The Secret), then diligently follow those steps by reporting to ourselves as our own boss and achieve some level of spiritual independence and satisfaction in our lives.

Some keywords that helped me research this are SSRI, SNRI and adult crawling. YMMV though as I'm a bit of a mind hacker (certainly not a doctor) and have never been on antidepressants.</comment>


Show HN: I made a bot with Dialogflow to automate LinkedIn sales - <AUTHOR> https://wcurl.io/ <comment><USER2> Are people using this on their legit accounts, or creating "burners" for the use case?</comment>


Wmail – Desktop client for Gmail and Google Inbox - <AUTHOR> https://thomas101.github.io/wmail/ <comment><USER2> I've used Mailplane for years - [http://mailplaneapp.com](http://mailplaneapp.com)

Yes, it is "just" a wrapper, but it's nice having Mail and Calendar in a separate dedicated app. I can restart my browser without impacting my mail, and the integration with the desktop (e.g. mailto: links just work, I can use quicklook on attachments, better drag and drop support, etc.) make it worthwhile.

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks like the Google API client ID and client secret are stored in clear text shipped with the released app:

      WMail.app/Contents/Resources/app/bin/shared/credentials.js

, and this seems to be used in authentication with Google: [https://github.com/Thomas101/wmail/blob/master/src/main/Auth...](https://github.com/Thomas101/wmail/blob/master/src/main/AuthGoogle.js#L61)

<comment><USER4> I think "secret" is a misnomer here.

 _The process results in a client ID and, in some cases, a client secret, which you embed in the source code of your application. (In this context, the client secret is obviously not treated as a secret.)_

[https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/OAuth2](https://developers.google.com/identity/protocols/OAuth2) (under "Installed Applications")

<comment><USER3> Interesting. Thanks for the link! I wonder why they still require a client_secret in installed application?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So it's just the website in a chromium wrapper? So I'd be downloading ~50mb for something that I already have in Chrome? I'm trying to find a feature it has that I can't get through Chrome...

<comment><USER6> > I'm trying to find a feature it has that I can't get through Chrome...

An individually dockable app with a badge icon showing unread messages?

<comment><USER7> And if you use something like Fluid.app you can create an app per email account and even have a separate app for your Calendar like me! Unfortunately Fluid.app is poorly maintained and based on Safari...

<comment><USER8> Check out [https://github.com/jiahaog/nativefier](https://github.com/jiahaog/nativefier), it's like fluid in that it builds a standalone app for any website, incl. support for badges and segregated cookies.

<comment><USER9> I've used nativefier to create apps for Gmail (two separate accounts), facebook, trello, and soundcloud. Even though it feels ridiculous to create a huge app to just wrap a website, it works quite well.

For some odd reason I couldn't get the badges to work well for gmail though.

<comment><USER8> The badges work, just not very well; I noticed that it takes a long time for them to get displayed/refreshed. Like you, I created one for Google (mostly to keep tracking cookies segregated), Facebook and GMail, but I've switched to WMail because the new mail badge works flawlessly there (and I need a reliable new email indicator).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I use a mutt setup like this [http://stevelosh.com/blog/2012/10/the-homely- mutt/](http://stevelosh.com/blog/2012/10/the-homely-mutt/)

Besides the efficiency of the CLI, I like having a local copy of my mail.

<comment><USER11> I use mbsync and alpine but obviously since alpine is just an interface to the local maildir I can hop between different mail clients without anything breaking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> So it's not an email client, it's some app exclusively for Gmail and Google Inbox (using OAUTH for authorization ), not that it lessen the value of the app in anyways but it's important to note.

<comment><USER13> That's more of a good thing than a bad thing for Gmail users: Gmail's search based inbox does not logically map to IMAP and Google don't have a full public API for Gmail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Are there any CLI gmail clients which can handle 2FA? I'd like to have a way to read my work email in emacs, but I'm pretty sure work would be unhappy about me putting an app-specific credential on my hard-drive without 2FA.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've been using Kiwi for a while now. I enjoy my email separate from my browsing. And it keeps work and personal email accounts close. I can't forget to open one and not the other.. etc.

Kiwi looks to be about the same as Wmail but without the Google Inbox. (and it is a pay product)

[http://kiwiforgmail.com/](http://kiwiforgmail.com/)

</comment><comment><USER16> Electron apps are very big in size. It's like having multiple instances of Chrome running. Remind me of Java apps all over again.

<comment><USER17> This is even worse. While with Java you have to install one JRE instance, Electron duplicates whole browser for each app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looks great. But it makes me really wonder why somebody is doing Google's job.

<comment><USER19> It reminds me of Radiant[0], which does the same thing for Google Music.

Google has bet big on web apps. They are pushing hard to make the web app the way of the future. I don't have a problem with that, and to an extent I'm getting used to it (while simultaneously moving my clients in that direction like I've been doing for ten years), but in an age when it's still very transitional, it is nice to have these wrappers to make everything a little smoother.

If they published desktop apps, folks would never migrate. They would complain about the poor experience on the Chromebook, etc.

[0] [https://github.com/radiant-player/radiant-player- mac](https://github.com/radiant-player/radiant-player-mac)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why "missing" though? On Windows 10, Mail is quite nice. On OSX there's Airmail. On Linux there's bupkis, but that's really not what Linux is for.

<comment><USER21> This desktop client appears to load the inbox interface and gmail interface in a iframe and has extra related functionality on the side . So it isn't just an email client. Looking at it I don't see how it is much Of a desktop client unless they added offline functionality .

<comment><USER22> It's not actually a desktop client. It's just a webapp in a thin chromium wrapper.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Speaking of it, can Google deny access to one's email from a non-google client?

<comment><USER24> Many people use third-party email clients via POP, IMAP, or an application- specific password. Just think about all the people using Thunderbird, mobile email clients, etc. The day they stop permitting that is the day they no longer offer an email service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Does anyone know if this is what Chromixium uses?

</comment><comment><USER26> Top notch. This is really lovely.

</comment><comment><USER27> Any ETA on the Windows version?

</comment><comment><USER28> > Wmail os open source.

There is a typo here.

</comment><comment><USER29> haha I'm a huge fan of the vulcan salute icon!

</comment><comment><USER30> Windows support?

<comment><USER25> "Coming soon"

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> >the efficiency of the CLI

lol

<comment><USER32> Please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN.

We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11155781](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11155781) and marked it off-topic.</comment></comment>


When sites like Digg and Reddit revert to the mean -- is HN next? - <AUTHOR> http://www.michaelalanmiller.com/?p=1996

<comment><USER2> "Perhaps give an actual, real IQ test to use a site. There are several 10- or 20-question tests that have a .85 or higher correlation to full-length tests, and that is probably good enough for internet work."

Suggesting a short-form IQ test as a way to cure the problem of site degradation suggests the author hasn't read many sites populated by people who have scored high on IQ tests. They can be appalling too. Rationality and IQ are orthogonal

[http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/reviews.asp?isbn=97803001...](http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/reviews.asp?isbn=9780300123852)

<http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~russell/papers/aij-cnt.pdf>

and there are plenty of people with high IQ scores who don't know how to behave themselves in online discussion. For some really pathetic examples of IQ tests identifying high-scoring ne'er-do-wells, see

<http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/>

and especially

<http://www.eskimo.com/~miyaguch/history.html>

for what really happens when high-IQ people get together. (Sometimes those unusual IQ tests are not validated, but then again validation is just another problem with IQ tests. )

To light a candle rather than curse the darkness, I would suggest that the way to keep an online forum on-task, civil, and useful is simply (difficultly) to moderate it well. As I recall, Reddit's "no censorship" policy has been manifested with very minimal moderation. Deal with the user's overt behavior on the site, and don't worry about the user's IQ score. Smart is as smart does.

<comment><USER3> Wow, fascinating links.

I've never understood people older than, say, 15 who still insist on things like IQ tests. I've never noticed a correlation between IQ and observable intelligence: in many cases, quite the opposite. Many bright people don't apply their intelligence and learn to use it, and then their insistence on their mind belies their ignorance, much to the irritation of everybody else. There's more to intelligence than testing.

<comment><USER4> Raw natural ability can be pretty crippling to development in most fields. But people with raw natural ability who also develop discipline, humility, a willingness to fail/endure/persevere come out to some of the most amazing people of all time.

<comment><USER3> Yep! Last week on my blog I wrote something that went like this: "Technique without personality is craft. Personality without technique is shit. Together you get art." And it's the same for intelligence: you can be disciplined without being that bright and still bring your focus towards doing something. You can be bright and unfocused and fascinate people without ever getting big things done. It's when you bring the two together that you get incredible things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A more interesting question would be: why shouldn't HN revert to the mean?

EDIT #1: The speed at which I'm being down-voted warrants some further explanation...

The article headline raises a question about the potential decline of HN as a "quality community". The fact of the matter is that with all things being equal, HN is just as susceptible to decline just as much as Digg or reddit - HN follows the same "social news" principle after all.

So then why shouldn't it follow the same principle?

In attempting to answer this question I'm hoping that members will forward ideas to counter this principle _in general_ , given that all things are equal in this space.

EDIT #2 [on a separate note]: I should add that the future of HN (or Digg or reddit) ultimately depends on the demand of the community. If we get an influx of users that want to discuss:

Ruby vs. Python

Emacs vs. Vim

Bootstrapping vs. Funding

Or whatever else comes to mind, then so be it. Btw, we've been good as a community in avoiding religious discussions, so I'm pretty happy to be insulated from the whole Mac OSX vs. Vista debate!

The bottom line is that we can draw parallels to other communities that have risen/fallen based on the whim of the dominant memes that come and go, but eventually the fate of this place relies upon what memes we choose to propagate.

<comment><USER6> One important difference is that you need 100 karma to start downvoting people. It makes HN more resistant to invasion, though not entirely so. Perhaps people could be required to have been members for a month before upvoting stories or something as well.

Unfortunately, this requirement is less effective if people cheapen karma by not being judicious with their upvotes, as I try to be here much more so than on reddit. Upvotes effectively shape HN; upvoting witty one liners and puns, etc, is the path to becoming reddit.

<comment><USER7> one easy way around that would be to set the various karma thresholds as a function of the number of registered (active) users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There's a very simple fix for this that has been proven to work: charge for admission and moderate incredibly heavily. Charging some small sum, say $10, weeds out lots of younger people (no credit card). Moderating heavily deters people from joining and causing a fuss because they will quickly lose their investment.

Content (and members) need to be pruned constantly. Comments with too low a karma rating should disappear; they're just noise. Submissions that are turning this place into "Economic News" should be removed before they get to the front page and get random up-votes to create even more noise (if I have to flag something on the front page, that's wrong).

I have moderated many forums and though I've never modded a for-pay community, I know strict moderation works. Some people will complain, but the people who come for good content and good camaraderie will thank you for taking out the trash on a daily basis.

<comment><USER9> I'm all for this, too -- but pg doesn't like the Metafilter community, which uses this model.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Of course it's next. It's just a matter of time. This is obviously the natural life cycle of internet forums, and has been since the beginning.

Story quality is directly linked to user growth. When you have a small niche site with "niche-expert" users, you get a high interest and visible actions; as the site grows, individual actions matter less, the niche is expanded into those that may only have a casual interest in the topic, and the forum inevitability changes to meet the needs of the average user - which _is not the same type of user that previously existed_. As the more windows are broken, the more "decay" is introduced into the forum. But the site is doing exactly what it's supposed to do - mirror the average demographic. It's that demographic that changes.

You simply cannot grow a website like this and maintain a niche focus. So if you choose to welcome more and more people, this is the end result. The sites that have been successful at maintaining focus control either the story submission (/.) or the entry of users (MeFi).

Sites like HN and reddit need to limit growth the same way a small startup shouldn't focus on growth per se if they want to retain that particular environment.

How to do this successfully is another problem altogether.

<comment><USER11> _Of course it's next. It's just a matter of time._

One can always claim this about something that hasn't happened yet. But it's already been two years and 15x growth and the sky has not fallen. So you could just as easily argue that what has saved us so far (killing fluff stories, insisting on civility in comment threads) will continue to work.

<comment><USER12> Philosophically HN is different than reddit and Digg in that the person who runs the site is active in shaping the ongoing conversation. Reddit and Digg ultimately became for-profit companies and in doing so, embraced the democratic method of policing their sites.

HN on the other hand is somewhere between an oligarchy and meritocracy; and can only work that way because pg doesn't appear to want to monetize it.

My point is that reddit and Digg are far more similar than reddit and HN or Digg and HN.

<comment><USER10> _Philosophically HN is different than reddit and Digg in that the person who runs the site is active in shaping the ongoing conversation._

While true, I don't think this matters in the long run. Reddit's founders are pretty active, and clearly the decline started prior to the sale.

What I do think though is that the items you bring up work to accelerating the effect, certainly.

(Oh, and someone give the parent a free up-mod since I hit the down arrow when I was copy/pasting his comment. Thx)

<comment><USER11> The level of conversation on Reddit didn't decline because the founders were apathetic. They still care a lot about the site. But they are committed not to censoring anything, either comments or stories, and that tends to make the site something of a free-for-all. A massively successful free-for-all, incidentally:

[http://siteanalytics.compete.com/reddit.com+ycombinator.com/...](http://siteanalytics.compete.com/reddit.com+ycombinator.com/?metric=uv)

For most users the change in the character of Reddit couldn't accurately be called "decline," or their traffic wouldn't still be growing so fast. It just seems like a decline to the small minority that includes us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I know a handful of people that have reasonably high IQ's (above 130 or so). Many of them also have infantile senses of humor, short attention spans, and live with their parents well into their late 20's.

It's been said a few times already, but raw processing power doesn't necessarily say anything about a person's maturity, rationality, or interests.

What could work, however, is a Maturity Captcha! When a user submits a story, (s)he's presented with a series of snarky headlines and/or lolcats and asked "Do you think this headline is funny?" or "Isn't the kitty clever?". Or maybe word problems: "Jack wants to buy a Wii, but he only has enough to pay his rent. Should Jack buy the Wii anyway?". An answer of "yes" to any of those would have some negative repercussion (instant user ban, posting ban, lower karma, public humiliation, etc).

Getting past the captcha would be ridiculously easy for 14-year-old geniuses, but at least there will be a constant reminder of exactly what's unwelcome.

On the other hand, aggressive censorship could take care of the chaff pretty effectively. After all, the problem is, generally: "how does a small ruling- class of individuals shape the growth of an entire community". There no sense in deceiving ourselves about what that means: elitism, exclusivism and in some senses, totalitarianism.

But hey, if it's YOUR community, do whatever you want!

<comment><USER14> I like the question about the Wii. Here is another maturity filter question which might sound familiar to many folks: "Does it make more sense to you to: (a.) buy a semi-dorky used car and pay off your student loans, or (b.) buy a brand-new car and take on 5 years of car payments and allow your student loans to chase you well into your thirties?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think HN has a few advantages that give it a fighting chance:

1\. It's not a business, or at least a direct one, so the site owners are not focused on growing the audience infinitely. 2\. It is not dependent on advertising revenue, so there is no pressure to go "mainstream" to attract bigger advertisers. 3\. The members are passionately self policing. Seems like every other day there is a thread about HN going off the deep end.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's very interesting to me that so many other people had the same experience with Digg and Reddit that I did. At first, I read it obsessively but now I can barely stand to scroll through the headlines. HN has gone through a different cycle so far. At first I only read the front page because it had enough of content for me, but now I skip many of the front page stories and go directly to the "lost" gems on the new page.

<comment><USER17> I hang out in the new section a lot too. I can't tell if many people also do or not, I assumed before that it was a popular place to sift through. But now I am not so sure, e.g. HN founder pg does not seem to mind if the new queue becomes a firehose:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=475779>

I am going to miss a good S/N ratio there, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I understand Digg has this problem and I stopped being a regular user there over two years ago. However, with reddit, it's pretty much a la carte. You subscribe to the subreddits you find interesting and your home page will only show those. I do not subscribe to the most popular subreddits like politics, pics, business etc. and instead subscribe to smaller, niche subreddits like wikipedia, long-text, and space. My wife subscribes to funny, cute, and health subreddits and reddit has material customized for both of us.

Yes, it is more work to make sure I get to keep seeing interesting things and it does take some time to find more interesting subreddits to follow but it is much better than seeing typical mainstream news on it all day.

</comment><comment><USER19> I was wondering out the meta-phenomena of community members complaining about decreasing quality. While it may be valid, doesn't it make more sense to make a more concrete argument about why the quality is going down.

More along those lines here: [http://www.discerniblepreferences.com/2009/02/dilution-of- qu...](http://www.discerniblepreferences.com/2009/02/dilution-of-quality-in- social-aggregators.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> hmmm... community management

1\. Nightclubs are an intesting example of the steady rise and decline of new ideas. They attract copycats and their followers and the club dies, because the initial 'intellectually curious' crowd gets run over. Meanwhile, clubs that are overly elite and gated just don't have the style and communication culture. I've seen this, as a music fan, in Munich, Germany, over a period of 10 years. Often places that look like a dump are able to maintain their fans (that's one of the strategies).

2\. Gated communities become stale quickly. Silicon Valley culture developed, because it was beneficial to work together with others as the pie was growing for everybody. (That's also why the industrial revolution created a middle class). The academic community is a stark contrast to this, because there is no tenure position out there for everybody. IMHO (5 years work at university) the communication culture is probably in the order of 50% toxic intimidation games (noise).

</comment><comment><USER21> One key difference is that HN can be seen as "startup news" not "tech news". This is a much tighter niche, which reduces the appeal to certain demographics. It also means that if HN starts down a "slippery slope" that it starts from a point further away from base, giving more time to adapt/confront it.

<comment><USER22> Would discussions of top ten movie lists, politics and excessive meta- discussion qualify as starting down a "slippery slope"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> What if you could just have some settings: 1) I don't want to see any submissions from people who became "members" after me. 2) And, I don't want to see ANY comments from people who signed up AFTER me.

So the site stays about the same for ME. Even though it may look different to someone else.

</comment><comment><USER24> I don't think HN is going down the same path as Digg. It's still keeping it's focus for the most part.

</comment><comment><USER4> Having a semi-gated community can work. One of the best places for statistics/business/intelligent discussion in baseball is sonsofsamhorn.net - you need to get invited to get a membership, but there's a "Sandbox" that non- members can post to. Anyone can read SOSH, but the quality stays high due to mostly only qualified members posting/discussing.</comment>


Landlord installs Faraday cage to block phone signals - <AUTHOR> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/08/02/landlord-installs-faraday-cage-to-block-phone-signals-because-so/ <comment><USER2> Whilst I like the sentiment, and when I have parties at my house I try to encourage the whole "leave your phone by the door" thing, I don't really like this.

When I'm in a pub, I'm generally not on my phone, and I'm quite conscious of trying not to use it unless I'm sat waiting for someone or similar. However, I always have a phone with me in case of emergencies (which means being reached, not just making calls out), and I'd hate the idea of that being blocked.

Not just that, but I'm often on-call (with either a phone or pager) but will still go out and socialise, in this situation this establishment is one that has to be avoided.

Good idea/sentiment, bad execution.

</comment><comment> jon-wood Its a neat gimmick, I'll give him that. I do deeply dislike the claim we've forgotten how to socialise though, I'm willing to bet that people said the same thing when home phones became a thing, and doubtless back when papers and pen started to be available people were claiming that the writing of letters was going to prevent socialising. Times change, lets embrace that!

</comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunately, I would be unable to patronise their establishment. If the babysitter calls, I need to be able to answer.

I would fully endorse and patronise a facility that had a policy like: "If that call or text is so important you need to answer it immediately, we'll assist you out of the facility so that you can deal with the emergency."

</comment><comment><USER4> Treating your potential customers like kids who don't have self control? Yes, that's how you go bankrupt.</comment>


Ask HN: Did you work on a personal project over the holidays? - <AUTHOR>

If you did, tell us about it! Post a link if applicable.
I'll get us started. I wrote a iPhone application that lets you load up an image from the camera or your photo album and point around in the image to find what color is at that point. Right now it breaks the color down to it's RGB value but I may include an option to see CMYK instead.
I did the project because my girlfriend is an artist and it's embarrasing when we talk about color and I don't know anything about it. I figured I can use this to figure out what color things are around me more precisely. As a side effect, I now have a much better understanding of CoreGraphics which is nice.
Between family fun, friend fun, catching up on sleep and catching up on movies I didn't find enough time to really finish and polish the app but I did prove the concept to myself. I'm hoping to find time over the next month to polish it up and publish it to the app store as a free app.
Hope everyone had a happy holidays. <comment><USER2> I had very little time since my wife just had a baby, she wanted something to do besides blogging while she is home, and I wanted to learn a bit about drupal so...

<http://papersubmit.com>

It's not finished but it's close. My wife will edit the content and post it. I figure it'll be a way to get some original content pretty easily. Maybe a few flyers at the local colleges. Anyone have any suggestions for getting some inbound links?

I'm an asp.net developer by day...I gotta say drupal is very nice. You can do a lot quickly with CCK + Views.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm working on the finishing touches for the next phase of my "A Startup A Day" project. The goal is to bring together experienced entrepreneurs, high- potential hackers/designers, and (eventually) investors in a step-by-step process to build new companies.

First, users can collaborate to identify major market opportunities (aka 10x problems that desparately need a 10x solution). Members can then brainstorm potential solutions and the corresponding business model. After getting feedback from the community, members who want to tackle the idea can get paired up with a compatible co-founder and kick out a prototype. Members provide feedback on the prototypes and work with the team to help promote the app once it's ready for prime time.

Right now I'm keeping it invite-only for the alpha, but if you're a killer hacker with a keen sense of the big problems that everyday internet users are facing, drop me a line at email@example.com and I may be able to hook you up.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wrote a blog in Django(not gonna use it, im a happy blogger.com user, just wanted to learn Django). Most of the time i was just reading documentation, because i don't know the API, the actual code is really short, like 2 classes and a handful of functions for the entire site.

Also, today my mouse died(good thing i had a spare), and i used its transparent case, its USB cable and a few LEDs i had laying around and made a desktop lamp to light my keyboard.

Mostly toy projects, to amuse my self, nothing worth showing to people, hope to improve next year :D

</comment><comment><USER5> This WordPress plugin was technically a client project, but it's for a non- profit so I did it for free as long as I could release it as open source. It being the first OSS I've started (rather than just contributed to), I got very attached to it. It is still short a few features, but I'm very happy with it and it seems to fill a much-needed niche in the WP community.

<http://nerdlife.net/custom-taxonomies/>

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting post, I wish you'd elaborate a little bit more about what your iphone app does. From your current description, it sounds like a glorified color-picker.

And yes, I've been working on some interesting stuff which (coincidentally) also deals with image processing. I will show once I'm done with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's pretty much right. I'd call it de-glorified if anything since you can't do anything after you "pick" a color. But the only other free alternative to this app was to take photos of stuff, somehow (email, iPhone sync, etc) get them on my computer, and then use some desktop image editing software to check out the colors in the image.

The app is much more on demand and I think it'll be fun to use when I'm doing non-brainy stuff like grocery shopping or sitting in a train.

More importantly, it's been really fun to write since I didn't really understand CoreGraphics before I started. I thought the app would be really easy to write since the idea is so simple but it's actually taken quite a bit of grunt work and a considerable amount of crawling through Apple developer docs.

I plan on sticking the app in the app store just for fun. I couldn't find an app that does what mine does for free. I think there were two alternatives, one that cost 10 bucks and was pretty sweet and one that was 5 bucks and sucked. If mine sucks, at least it'll be free! And if even 100 people download it I'll probably extend it to be able to email color swatches to people and save favorite colors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I put <http://myholidayapp.com> up right before t-day to give people a place to let others know about their apps.

This holiday break, I worked on a charitable giving site, hopefully will have an initial release out by the end of the month.

</comment><comment><USER8> I spent a good amount of time writing code for <http://overtrainer.com> including adding a blog and incorporating some of the feedback I was given here on HN (Thanks again HN!)

</comment><comment><USER9> Yes, I did actually.

I conceived and (almost) finished building a rails app. I'm gonna post it on HN shortly for review.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am starting a Hip Hop ad network. I did all the back end work and website development over the break.

MapJak.net

</comment><comment><USER11> I've been spending the time working on a server-side javascript platform I'm calling Rapture. Uses lighttpd, V8 via llv8call(the v8 engine is freaking FAST), and couchdb. It's still very early but it's been really fun to work on. It's definitely me scratching a huge personal itch.</comment>


How Digg Found a Way to Make Money - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2010/02/26/how-digg-found-a-way-to-make-money/

<comment><USER2> FUIs (fake user interfaces) are bad business.

Even magazines have the decency to print "Special Advertising Section" at the top of their faux articles.

<comment><USER3> Press releases disguised as breathlessly praising blog posts also seem like bad business.

Edit: s/described/disguised/

<comment><USER4> I think you guys are underestimating the consumers. Ads are supposed to be entertaining, just like tv shows and movies. They're supposed to blur the line between real and fake. At the end of the day, it will be up to the viewer if they'll believe it or not. If you point out that it's fake from the start, it kinda defeats the purpose of ads.

<comment><USER3> If the ads are meant to be entertaining, they could be more clearly labeled as ads and still be entertaining. They're supposed to "blur the line between real and fake" by being creative and entertaining on their own, not by mimicking the real content.

<comment><USER4> I disagree. Mimicking real content is a valid expression of creativity and entertainment.

<comment><USER3> It can be. But when the primary goal is to get unsuspecting viewers to click (by mistake) on ad content, it's not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This really makes me sad. Webiste are moving from "click-the-monkey" ads to "camouflage" ads.

Surfing... Surfing.... Doh! (Clicked on camouflage ad).

Facebook is using this hard - it takes considerable horsepower to try to determine what's linkbait vs. what's actually going on in your social network.

I'm hoping that someone (hopefully a HN member) will come up with a "better way" and in turn make the web a better place.

// updated Dow -> Doh

<comment><USER6> I was just going to say the same thing. Disguising the ad has value in that most users of digg have no clue how digg makes money outside the overt ads. Same goes with google. I would dare say 99.99% of google users have no idea how google makes money because the text link ads look so much like regular search results

<comment><USER5> The more I think about it, you're right. We were recently explaining to one of our clients about some basic SEO topics. They did not understand that the links on the side of Google are paid links.

I wonder what the CTR is for Google Ads on typical Google search?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You mean they didn't find a way to make money when they drowned out the content with all the other ads?

I wonder how long they'll continue pulling traffic, the community aspect of the site looks a lot like it's in its death throes.

<comment><USER8> to be fair AOL,MySpace, and yahoo social stuff has looked that way for years. idiots don't know any better. and idiots is a huge demographic.

<comment><USER9> I prefer "unwashed masses" to "idiots". Definitely a huge demographic though!

<comment><USER10> so what you're saying is that hackers are a part of the "washed" masses?

<comment><USER11> nope, unwashed loners :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm getting tired of people bashing Toyota. I recognize that it's a serious problem, but I think they did the right thing and I just feel like the media is trying to drag it out like it's some huge scandal.

(FWIW, I've never even owned a Toyota, but this recall does not make me any less likely to buy one in the future.)

</comment><comment><USER13> The most interesting (and least shady) idea here seems to be paying for internal links. This could work in the local model: restaurants could pay for Digg links to their reviews for example. Sounds really promising.

</comment><comment><USER14> I know that in England at least Newspapers have to clearly distinguish content from adverts.

Doesn't this completely violate this principle?

On a side note, I've also always though Google's sponsored links were also pretty shady in that they barely distinguish themselves from actual search results (very slight colour difference, 'sponsored results' tag hidden in top right).

Just makes me wonder if this is actually a viable business model or will turn out to be something that legislators slap down in the next few years to level the playing field.

<comment><USER15> However, I think there's a pretty big difference between Google and Digg in terms of the service they provide. Digg is way more reliant on their user's participation in order to be relevant. If Digg alienates their user base somehow (perhaps with camouflaged spam?), they're toast.

I actually think google's advertising is significantly less annoying than any other company that provides even less value to their consumer.</comment></comment>


Google appears to be down for specific ISPs - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/google/comments/4e4j5n/all_google_services_not_loading_saying_no/ <comment><AUTHOR> I'm very curious how it's possible that just Google services seem to be down for these ISPs (seems like primarily TWC).

Anyone have any insight?

<comment><USER2> Might be DNS issues? I'm with TWC and DNS isn't resolving.</comment></comment>


Dataviz and the 20th Anniversary of R - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/nightingale/dataviz-and-the-20th-anniversary-of-r-an-interview-with-hadley-wickham-ea245078fc8a <comment><USER2> I just recently decided to try R to analyze some data ive been generating. I've always looked down on it as a "worse & less flexible python", but boy was I wrong. You can theoretically do all the same things in python as in R, but the R experience is so much smoother. 20 lines of setting up stuff in python is reduced to like 10 for the R equivalent.

ggplot2 is super intuitive compared to matplotlib. The inbuilt dataframes + tibbles are just as good if not better than anything pandas does. Besides all that, the libraries R has seem to be much higher in quality and in number, than python has, for data-science related stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can't view article without medium account .

Seems to work if you view from twitter first: [https://mobile.twitter.com/W_R_Chase/status/1247154986783514...](https://mobile.twitter.com/W_R_Chase/status/1247154986783514624)

For my input, I think R (in particular ggplot2) is amazing for static graphs and rapid prototyping. When used with something like adobe illustrator for polishing, you can make some beautiful newsroom publication quality charts as well (see BBC).

However, JavaScript is the language of the web, and that dependency will never be removed from creating high-quality interactive visualizations. (Sure, you can write wrappers in R/Python, but you'll still need to know the JavaScript under-the-hood to do anything bespoke/custom).

<comment><USER4> Don't disagree but you can get pretty far before you need to drop into js. Shiny [0] is one of the nicest UI frameworks I've come across. Period. I'm not a front end developer and it's always a mental struggle to get started with something that just looks nice. Shiny does - straight out the box. For interactive apps (e.g. dashboards) it's really quite compelling.

For non-interactive content, R Markdown is also pretty good. At the risk of being cast out as a heretic, I prefer Rmd to jupyter for report style docs (the kind of data science thing jupyter is meant for). Rmd isn't limited to R; it has multiple back ends including Python (which is also supported in the RStudio IDE).

So again: not disagreeing. If you need to get the polish that e.g. D3 can give, you'll need to get dirty with JS. But you can get a pretty long way before that.

BTW: I have no affiliation with RStudio the company, just a very happy user of their offerings (paid and open source).

[0] [https://shiny.rstudio.com/](https://shiny.rstudio.com/)

[1] [https://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/](https://rmarkdown.rstudio.com/)</comment></comment>


Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Up, Up, Up, Up - <AUTHOR> https://help.netflix.com/en/node/8552 <comment><USER2> A friend of mine worked on the netflix debugging tools for a majority of their players (tvs, blu-ray players, consoles, etc) and there are a number of remote combinations like that inside the players to bring up all sorts of goodies.

<comment><USER3> I'd love a combination to keep Netflix signed in on my Samsung TV. It's something like a 50/50 chance every time I load it that I have to sign in again.

<comment><USER4> I'd suggest grabbing a dongle. TV-based apps are notoriously buggy overall and rarely updated to fix bugs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Heh, it's pretty close to the Konami Code, I wonder if that was the inspiration? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Code)

<comment><USER6> Agreed, I was thinking "... and your TV will jump up, flip, and deliver a crushing hammer blow to its opponent!"

Related anecdote, I was trying to explain covert channels to a new engineer as a means of sending a message through something which wasn't really designed to send messages (my goto example was using screen dimming to send code data) but they immediately came back with "Oh like the secret moved on Street Fighter!" Yes, it made me feel old.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Every time I need to unlock developer settings in a recent Android phone I get a little nostalgic for the codes of old.

If you're of that era you likely also remember...

007 373 5963

...and...

JUSTIN BAILEY

\</comment><comment> </comment><comment>

<comment><USER8> I'm also disappointed that cheat codes don't seem to make it into release builds any more. (Or do they? I haven't seriously played anything modern for a while now - I'd love to be proved wrong.)

<comment><USER9> Some companies realized you could charge money for them and thus was born the pay to win version of free to play games.

Consider Contra's 99 lives cheat code vs candy crush's extra lives for cold hard cash.

Though by far the most popular is a version of starcraft's instant build cheat coupled with a persistent RTS game.

As to traditional cheat codes, there more common in RPG's. Skyrim console being a great example of a classic cheat codes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My first thought was that it was a sequence for a Mortal Kombat fatality.

</comment><comment><USER11> The contra code . . . you'll never forget . . .

popularized among North American players in the NES version of Contra, for which it was also dubbed both the "Contra Code" and "30 Lives Code"

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

<comment><USER12> Very close to the Contra code, not quite though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Partially OT: For Roku users (e.g. Netflix app on same), this page describes some hidden controls (bit rate et al.):

[http://mkvxstream.blogspot.com/2013/01/secret-roku- troublesh...](http://mkvxstream.blogspot.com/2013/01/secret-roku- troubleshooting-screens.html)

I ran across this when my Roku XD (generation 1) started glitching again due to a known issue with its marginal wall-wart transformer.

</comment><comment><USER14> When I saw the title for this post at first, I imagined I was going to enter the sequence on the site and see something crazy happen...

<comment><USER15> Somewhat related, but have you ever tried entering the konami code on reddit. At least, it _used_ to do something cool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I suppose with a limited controller, you need a way to get to less used functions (such as logout) without accidentally triggering it. It's not _that_ annoying of a sequence, compared to something you don't want regularly popping up.

</comment><comment><USER17> I have unfortunately had to use this before seeing this post on a Samsung TV.

I honestly didn't believe the documentation at first. I remember Googling it again and then found someone's post that said, 'No really. That is how you do it."

</comment><comment><USER18> Not "Up, Up, Up, Up"; "B, A, B, A" of course.

<comment><USER19> _bzzt_. The Konami code only has one "B, A".

<comment><USER20> Yes, and some games needed "Start" as well in the end.

For a real nostalgic magic code, have a read about Xyzzy: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xyzzy_(computing)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xyzzy_\(computing\))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Is this the way out of the maze in Colossal Cave Adventure?

</comment><comment><USER22> HADOUKEN!

Whats a vizio device by the way?

<comment><USER23> [http://www.vizio.com/en-ca/tv-overview](http://www.vizio.com/en-ca/tv- overview)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> "'I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,' he told me. 'It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.' No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. 'It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.'" - Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson's biography.</comment>


Ask HN: Please review my startup, Crowdbeacon. - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN!
Like other review-seekers, this is my first submission. That said, I read HN often and I'm a huge fan of the community (have been fortunate to meet a few members in person). Along with the support of a small, boot-strapped team, this week we launched our location-based service called Crowdbeacon, and would love your feedback.
http://www.crowdbeacon.com
Crowdbeacon is a location-based service  (I know, I know but bear with me) that was created for one purpose: to help people find what they need. To make this happen, we developed a platform that prompts users to "Ask for anything"… with their questions delivered to local experts and businesses based on self-identified category, subcategory and keywords. On top of that, since we can't guarantee that questions will be answered by users or businesses we comb other APIs (Yelp, Foursquare and Wishpond for now) and search them for what the user is looking for, hopefully finding the answer along the way.
We've had a lot of success in the first three days (articles in TechCrunch and LifeHacker resulting meeting our initial user goals) but of course realize there is a long road ahead.
Any feedback you can provide on the product, marketing, and potential for growth is much appreciated. <comment><USER2> I'd put a way to ask a question right on the front page. People want to be able to test the merits of your service quickly (at least I did). I wanted to quickly type "Good wings in Toronto?" but couldn't find a place to do so, unless I signed up (I think?)

Optimizely (I'm not affiliated with them) gets this part down pat. You can start using their service right away without any signup.

<http://www.optimizely.com>

<comment><USER3> Sorry -- I posted this as a comment below:

waterside. Thanks for the feedback. We are adding this functionality in the next few days, because to your point we want people to be able to use the site to ask anything about any location they want. You're spot on, and we appreciate that feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think your homepage doesn't do your mission justice.

"Turning location into communication" left me confused. I think it would be more helpful to say something like, "Get answers from local experts."

Also, your call to action is weak. "Join now, I'm an individual/business" feels like an obligation. It might be more helpful to say, "Ask your question" and/or "Answer questions."

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback. We'll definitely make adjustments to the call to action based on your thoughts (you're most likely not alone in your sentiment).

A question I have is:

"Get answers from local experts" only covers 50% of our product offering as we see it, and leaves out the fact that we are very focused on integrating external APIs to add implicit value for users. Our position is that this is really critical, because the problem in the past that has sprung up time and again with services similar to ours is that in low-density population areas functional, real-time Q&A is extremely difficult. Or do you think that this doesn't matter?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a nice looking site.

On <http://www.crowdbeacon.com/how-works.aspx> the video was a little slow to load so for a while it looked like a blank page above the fold.

Some of your FAQs don't sit well with me:

Why did you start Crowdbeacon? Consider ditching, "Also, because the future of life as we know it is rapidly becoming mobile and we wanted to make our mark early in the game." It comes across as a long-winded way of saying "this is a me too startup" rather than focusing on your USP.

How do you make money? Comes across very much as a non-answer. I suggest you remove this one entirely.

<comment><AUTHOR> Streety- Thanks we'll look into the video. You make some good points about the FAQ's as well.

<comment><USER3> FAQs = Already changed :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Clickable <http://www.crowdbeacon.com/>

</comment><comment><USER3> waterside. Thanks for the feedback. We are adding this functionality in the next 5 days, because to your point we want people to be able to use the site to ask anything about any location they want. You're spot on, and we appreciate that feedback.</comment>


A programmer's modifications for efficiently operating a Mac - <AUTHOR> http://tmsh.posterous.com/zen-and-the-art-of-efficiently-operating-a-ma

<comment><USER2> I have to heavily second the Quicksilver.app recommendation. I can't really use OS X without it. Here's a link to the latest build of Quicksilver [http://github.com/downloads/tiennou/blacktree- alchemy/Quicks...](http://github.com/downloads/tiennou/blacktree- alchemy/Quicksilver-b58-3841.tar.gz)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for that; I'm a complete Quicksilver addict also and hadn't thought to look for an update recently as I thought development had stagnated. I'd been using β56 (3823).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How can an article talking about this not mention automator?

<http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/automator/></comment>


The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Origin_of_Consciousness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind <comment><USER2> Undoubtedly the best nerd book title ever. When I first saw it I was struck speechless with envy, knowing that, with it's publication, book titles had peaked and that from then on any new publications' titles would pale in comparison.

I once examined the tentative hypothesis that some people lacked consciousness - that their behaviour seemed to be missing certain key components of introspection. So this book caught my interest (and of course because it had a great title). But "Origin" proved to be a tedious read providing weak support for its hypotheses.

Nonetheless, when I find a copy in the wild (usually they're in great condition, not much handling) I buy it and put it on the shelf. When someone is IMO pestering me unduly, I hand them the book, ask them to read it and get back to me. That's good for at least 3 months of peace, a small price to pay for quiet time.

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe this criticism is old hat, but I can't avoid thinking about it.

You would assume that there would still be lots of people living in this bicameral state, as human populations have been very fragmented for the last few thousand years.

But as far as I know, there aren't any.

It would seem extremely unlikely that such developments would have occurred worldwide in isolated populations at the same time.

It is well documented that various people (be it indigenous or "western") use hallucinatory drugs to get into states with reduced sense of reality. They do not live like that all the time, and indeed could not survive so.

<comment><USER4> We had a discussion a while ago here (see my comment history) where I shared my experience of schizophrenia (through a drug-induced schizoaffective disorder which I subsequently got under control.)

I haven't read the book yet (it's on my Kindle by now though) but from what I've read it's very similar to that state of mind and, if that is so, then many 'mystics' actually do stil live that way.

<comment><USER3> That is interesting, but, as far as I know, only a very small percentage of people have schizophrenia.

I would imagine that in a primitive environment, you will be eaten if you can't trust your hearing.

But I might be totally wrong, I haven't read the book.

<comment><USER5> Schizophrenia is a clinical diagnosis. It is made on a scale and based on thresholds both for specificly exhibited behaviors and aggregate number of behaviors exceeding the threshold. In other words, a person could exhibit several behaviors consistent with schizophrenia but not meet the clinical definition.

E.g. clinical science does not pathologize people who claim to hear god during prayer and admit acting upon what they heard when the claims are in the context of organized religious practice and the behavior does not disturb the peace too much.

<comment><USER4> That captures it very nicely.

In my experience religion/spirituality felt very much like controlled schizophrenia (or my experience felt like an unconstrained version of it to be precise.)

<comment><USER5> Married to a clinical social worker, I am. One of my grandparents had 'a breakdown' during the Great Depression, another fought what we would now call PTSD from his combat experiences during the Second World War.

Mental illness is pretty common but remains somewhat taboo. That's unfortunate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The set of posts at Melting Asphalt was where I was first introduced to Jaynes. It's a great exposition of his ideas and had me pondering consciousness for weeks.

[http://www.meltingasphalt.com/mr-jaynes-wild- ride/](http://www.meltingasphalt.com/mr-jaynes-wild-ride/)

[http://www.meltingasphalt.com/accepting-deviant- minds/](http://www.meltingasphalt.com/accepting-deviant-minds/)

[http://www.meltingasphalt.com/neurons-gone- wild/](http://www.meltingasphalt.com/neurons-gone-wild/)

[http://www.meltingasphalt.com/hallucinated- gods/](http://www.meltingasphalt.com/hallucinated-gods/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I remember really being blown away by this book when I first read it. Since then, it has come up many times in other scenarios, when learning about other things. For example, the origin of King Alfred's original Saxon laws. They read totally differently if you've read Jaynes's work first.

Recently though this theory has come back in a new way for me. I'm very interested in gamma waves and how they are by products of our brains synchronizing it's many disparate compartments to create a single coherent experience.

Also, a couple of weeks ago there was an article on HN about extreme isolation. I saw many details in there that made me think of this book.

So king Alfred and Saxon law, gamma waves, and isolation are all interesting things that have resurfaced for me with respect to this book. It's a great theory, pretty sound argument if you read the whole thing and try to understand it. It's just so unbelievable no one else has really taken a stand. Someone famously once said (I'm paraphrasing) "Jaynes is either incredibly wrong or is stupendously right but we don't know".

<comment><USER8> Can you briefly summarize the Saxon/Bicameral connection? This is all new to me. I first remember reading about the bicameral mind on a online book called "Saturnian Cosmology". But I had no idea it could overlap with Saxon law.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> One strange possibility this may imply is that some people still untouched by the modern world are really not conscious and introspective. What a weird proposition.

Also, those of us who do not share direct ancestry with modern cultures (I am a pacific islander), our cultures would possibly not have had consciousness until our contact with outsiders...for my culture, that would be around the late 1700s.

Our oral history does talk about gods, demigods and such. Looking back at most of the oral legends, they tend to be about the gods and mythical events that teach us morals. I think there was one story that might show introspection (a god child who was found in the woods and was raised by human parents) although something like true higher order thinking? I'm not sure, I'd have to think a bit.

Still, it's such an interesting idea. Perhaps that is one way to test the hypothesis, comparing notes with first contacts with indigenous, uncontacted peoples.

<comment><USER10> I wish we'd stop confusing what we can prove with what is.

Chances are not only all people are conscious and introspective, but most animals are to some degree (it's not an on/off switch, it's an emergent property, the sum of all your reasoning skills).

As for bicameralism, it's just a demonstration of the lengths at which our wrong assumptions can reach when the subject we're creating conjecture about (ancient people) are no longer around, or otherwise unable to explain themselves.

There are plenty of people in the modern day, which claim to have heard the voice of god (or the devil, or aliens, or what have you), which might be a mental disturbance, or quite often is a simple confusion (a dream taken for reality, and so on).

It's just how the mind works to this present day. Sometimes we misinterpret input and make up reasons.

Heck, the theory of bicameralism seems like an example of making up reasons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The great thing about this hypothesis, even if it happens to be false for homo sapiens, is that it separates the concepts of "intelligence" and "consciousness". Jaynes shows that it is at least logically possible for a being to be intelligent, but not conscious.

I think this has clear implications to AI.

<comment><USER10> Did we honestly need this to know both aren't related? We have plenty of proof in the AI scene.

Also, it hits me as some awful mutation to be using your "external protocol" (voices) for internal communication.

Is the claim they were literally hearing voices? Can't be right.

First you'd constantly be getting startled or confused whether someone in your head said something, or someone outside your head said something.

Second there's an inherent lag in converting speech to information and back, when the brain is interconnected well enough with much more efficient ways of communicating internally.

Speech is also highly inaccurate. Same sentence can have multiple meanings. Imagine the hilarious misunderstandings between you and your internal voice.

Which brings another point. How do you answer back? Do you speak out loud, or does the mind have a dedicated "internal speaker" for you to say things into?

Another awkward redundant apparatus.

<comment><USER12> All of these obvious questions are quite well addressed by the actual book in question, as would be expected from a serious and respected work, since its entire raison is to explain why this seemingly counterintuitive idea does in fact make sense and fits much evidence.

Here's a simple intuition pump to get you started: Do you think that you don't hear voices? Do you know about the concept of "internal monologue?"

<comment><USER13> Most of my "internal monologue" is visual. I see things. Language enters into it when needed, but it's much less common for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This was my first adult pop-sci read. A little bit thick but after middle- school me read one crazy science book I went on a tear: Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Dan Dennett, Hofstader, and never really stopped. Fun to wake up and see it on HN.

</comment><comment><USER15> One of the necessary components of consciousness is short term memory. Have you ever driven spaced out and then "came to" and realized you've been doing it on "autopilot" for the last few blocks?

[http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/o...](http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/2006/august-06/memory- and-consciousness-consciousness-to-unconsciousness-and-back-again.html)

Also look up Alien Hand Syndrome. When we are conscious of our ACTIONS we literally are able to call up a memory of DECIDING to do those actions. Otherwise even if we onserve those actions they seem as having been done by SOMEONE ELSE.

Thus, identity and consciousness is relates to memory.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is interesting. If human consciousness and thinking was changing today, how could you detect it? Perhaps the increased amount of information that we need to process is changing how we think?

Sometimes I have a feeling that our grandparents or parents are not thinking or introspecting as deeply as my generation. They are just doing things, but we seem to be thinking more about the consequences of our actions. Is there a way to measure this? Or is this just the usual "generation gap" thing?

<comment><USER17> > Sometimes I have a feeling that our grandparents or parents are not thinking > or introspecting as deeply as my generation.

I have that same feeling, and David Foster Wallace touches on that in his essay on television ([http://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf](http://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf)).

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's a tempting hypothesis - it does feel instantly plausible if one has a decent grounding in ancient literature and history. But as others have said, short of building a time machine and kidnapping an Etruscan farmer... how could we ever disprove it?

Come to think of it, even that wouldn't do it - testing one farmer wouldn't tell us anything about his compatriots and rulers.

<comment><USER19> well, that's kind of an issue with consciousness - it's so meta, and intangible.. sort of like trying to guess which OS a machine was running, just by looking at the CPU.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I love this idea. I suspect it is utterly wrong, but it is wonderful speculation nonetheless.

Both Snowcrash by Neal Stevenson and Distraction by Bruce Sterling make good use of some of the concepts from it, so even if it is wrong, it has helped in the genesis of some great fiction.

<comment><USER7> Interesting, I've never heard those authors I'll have to check them out. Can you say what you think about Jaynes's theory is wrong and why?

<comment><USER21> The first is "Neal Stephenson," no "v." I enjoy both but much prefer Sterling's earlier work (Islands in the Net, Schismatrix, Heavy Weather).

<comment><USER20> Oops. thanks for picking up on that.

I haven't read Islands in the Net or Schismatrix yet. I should really get around to them at some point. Heavy Weather was pretty good, there's a copy of that within three feet of me right now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > Jaynes built a case for this hypothesis that human brains existed in a > bicameral state until as recently as 3000 years ago by citing evidence from > many diverse sources including historical literature [...] For example, in > the Iliad and sections of the Old Testament

Greek and Semitic societies were in close contact 3000 years ago so a trend towards unicamerality would be intertwined, but I'm wondering about societies separated from the West until later such as China which didn't begin contacts with the West until about 2000 years ago after being cut off for over 50,000 years. Was Confucius (2500 years ago) conscious? If so, then it seems such bicameral mind breakdown evolved separately in West and East.

</comment><comment><USER23> Keep in mind this is a hypothesis and lacks significant supportive evidence. Even after 38 years.

<comment><USER5> In which one should it be kept?

Any theory of mind - unicameral, bicameral, polycameral - is naught but an hypothesis because the claim that there are such things as minds is itself an hypothesis. One that for some is as scientifically plausible as souls and essences...or consciousness.

If one wants to argue over the material character of the mind, bicameralism seems a bit late to be drawing a line in the sand. The enemy has landed, breached the city walls and occupies the lower floors of the innermost keep.

I read Jaynes about twenty years ago. It's thoughtful and entertaining and it's ideas plausible...what is this voice that formulates these words as I type? Certainly better than Penrose who was running rampant over the alt.philosophy at the time. Jaynes is very readable.

<comment><USER24> Well the existence of a whole group of "not even wrong" theories doesn't make any single one of them less deserving of complaint when it shows up on its own at a party like HN

<comment><USER5> To me theories of mind are like programming languages, there's room for lots of them and having one in my toolbox doesn't mean that I cannot have others...and if one is not suited for a particular task or just doesn't appeal to me...well that doesn't make the whole raft of them bad.

And I take the analogy between programming languages and theories of mind seriously. We don't dismiss programming languages because they don't describe the physical flipping of particular bits that happens on the computer and we don't throw out client-server architectural models when we are working with only one machine. Physicalism when it comes to computing is absurd in most contexts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> While I think this book has a beautiful premise, even 15 years ago when I read it, falsifiable parts already had been falsified from what I understood before reading it

</comment><comment><USER26> A classic. I remember when my english teacher first mentioned this. It was a first step towards the much larger world of hypothetical neuroscience.

</comment><comment><USER24> Someone here didn't like it. Article is deleted, replaced with a redirect to 'Bicameralism'

<comment><USER27> The original linked to an empty wiki page with just the title of the book linking to Bicameralism. So the edit saves some clicks as the link actually goes somewhere with some content now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why is this link so highly ranked on HN when it leads me to a page which simply links to another page?

<comment><USER28> I guess it's a hack around the rules on HN submission titles - and that title is definitely more interesting than "Bicameralism (psychology)".</comment></comment>