CKKim

The article makes me wonder what would make someone want to be around a social group "all the time, or even on a frequent basis".

When I was a child of course I wanted to hang around with my friends as much as possible: there were activities which necessitated being in the same place and they were so fun that there never seemed enough time for them. e.g. trading Star Wars cards and playing videogames (no XboxLive in those days, we had to use a 'multi-tap' and splitscreen!). We were all about the "all the time" and "frequent basis".

In adult life the equivalent seems to be those people who are always getting me out to play soccer or jam with them. Still activities that necessitate being in the same place and, for some, still activities that they love so much that there's virtually no such thing as spending 'too much time' on them.

But I don't think that's it. I think that when you meet up with the same people a lot, doing things the group broadly enjoys, whether you really like ALL of them as individuals or not, you build a camaraderie and that's what makes you come back and hang out "all the time" and "on a frequent basis".

The wild misuse of "26-Hour Day" here would make me question doing business with this person. So many startup folk who have made a good first impression on me have blogs full of clangers like this, which should have been a clue as to problems of comprehension and honesty I would experience with them down the line.

For me this is the bit which really rings true:

"I successfully avoided my picture taken. Not so much consciously, but more with the knowledge that it would come out not particularly flattering."

It reminds me of a point Tina Fey made in her Google talk that she just had to learn a particular expression which would make her look good and then bust it out whenever her radar picked up someone taking a photo. I started mimicking that idea, along with various body language tricks and found myself pleased with the results. It makes it much easier to get motivated to work out and dress stylishly when your starting point is already better than you thought because of a few powerful little modifiers. In the spirit of the OP, that's not the end - it's the start of getting better at something!

The increasingly magnified images remind me of playing with fractal-viewing programs, with one major difference: here the zooming in leads to distinct patterns at specific resolutions, rather than repetition of one at a different scale. Once you get to the clearly visible "blocks" of Detroit and LA you're learning something completely different. Fascinating.

This seems to be the most important/interesting part:

"There is a simple rule of thumb in speech recognition: The smaller the application domain, the better the recognition accuracy. [...] Simon can now re-configure itself on-the-fly as the current situation changes. Through "context conditions" Simon 0.4 can automatically activate and deactivate selected scenarios, microphones and even parts of your training corpus. For example: Why listen for "Close tab" when your browser isn't even open? Or why listen for anything at all when you're actually in the next room listening to music? Yes, Simon is watching you."

It is one of the best subconscious techniques humans use both for listening and reading, so it makes complete sense to implement it here. I do find the choice of words in the final sentence somewhat ominous though!

I've not had any posture or RSI problems, but here comes that word: YET. A few people have commented that whenever I stop typing I like to stretch my arms right down to the fingertips and adjust my position on the chair, sometimes getting up completely and straightening my clothes. It's an unconscious habit so I find it hilarious when people point it out but that could be something that has helped me.

These sets look very familiar to me as similar core exercises to ones I've done as part of rowing and yoga, but there are a few new ideas here I can't wait to try. Thanks!

After the first couple I thought these were jokey, a la Viz's "top tips". I read on for the humour and by the end wasn't sure any more. I think it's a mix of mostly gags but with a couple of serious-sounding ones thrown in for contrast.

I'm seeing much skepticism and criticism of Lanier in the comments here, which would be my position too, based on 99% of what I've watched or read about him (a scene with an Aibo comes to mind especially!).

However, there was a 1% where I felt he really shined and that was in a bloggingheads discussion with Eliezer Yudkowsky. It's been about a year since I last watched it but I've seen it four times in total and every time there are large periods where I'm really locked into the points Lanier is making and find myself in agreement. Check it out here (go on, Yudkowsky is always good value!): http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/1849.

It is a confusingly-written comment, and I think the final bit especially is simply the wrong wording for what the author means, but beneath all that there's still a valid criticism of Google Flights over Expedia.

The unambiguous part is that Google Flights failed to account for the nature of the seats it had identified as "available", and went ahead with the recommendation when in fact they were not appropriate. The unclear part is whether Expedia did actually find the same flight and seats (as the author appears to be saying) but has some way around the security features (an agreement with the airline?), or whether Expedia was aware of the inappropriateness of the seats Google Flights recommended and in fact provided different ones on a different flight.

It would be nice if the parent had been clearer in the explanation but it seems that either way: Expedia 1, Google 0.

Fascinating. I always wondered if this sort of thing was possible when I noticed as a child that pressing multiple buttons at the same time on my parents calculator made the screen show stuff that wasn't actually real numbers (things like a 2 with a part missing, etc.). Likewise seeing which buttons on the VCR have precedence (e.g. if I hold down "play" and press "stop" then what happens? And vice versa?). I always assumed the device wouldn't be designed comprehensively to handle all possible inputs like that, so there was a chance some of them would allow you to do funky unintended stuff.

Given the complexity and freedom of access that a videogame has, I'm not surprised that this hack is technically possible, but it is very impressive that someone's managed to do it!

Regarding your first line, my initial response was exactly the same on reading the title of the submission on here. But before commenting I read the article and came across this:

"A multiplayer game like Battle Dungeon requires servers to host matches – servers that Hunted Cow has to pay to maintain. ”If they were all legitimate sales, it would have given us the resources to work on it further, however the way it was going it just wasn’t viable.”"

That seemed like a reasonable explanation to me. Since I assume you too read the submission before commenting, I'm interested what part of the above explanation you disagree with.

Having recorded myself using a computer and watched it back to analyse my habits, I've noticed that I don't begin highlighting when reading an article but if I consciously highlight part to reread for comprehension (or to look up a word) then this triggers twitchy highlighting for the rest of the piece.

The twitchy highlighting seems to follow three patterns: bored methodical clicking to help get through big dry paragraphs, fast erratic clicking when something is exciting, and sporadic clicking when I've stopped reading to think about something in the article.

When I worked in a high school I noticed almost the exact same behaviours as described, exhibited by students and younger staff. Pretty much all the computery kids were hyperactive click-highlighters and it was only the students who seemed positively uncomfortable around computers who didn't do it at all.

Whenever these posts come up I question to myself whether an ideology for "stuff" is actually required, desirable, or helpful at all. They are usually thoroughly entertaining and informative, but I always leave feeling it's been therapy for the writer, a defense of their preferences whipped up into a reassuring formal-looking philosophy.

Like much writing, the damage is in the contextual assumptions imposed on the reader before the article even begins. Once you've started reading and focusing on the details of the piece, it's too late - you've unwittingly accepted the assumptions and are playing by the author's rules. In these cases, one such assumption is that an overarching, complete and consistent methodology can be applied to personal property in the first place (and that certainly if there's a good one then it can be knocked out in a few hours on a blog post...).

This is part of a larger pattern I'm falling into of scrutinously questioning the motives behind articles posted on personal blogs. I could be going in the wrong direction entirely but it seems very often to be validation-seeking behaviour, whether by submitting one's views for the approval of others, or simply that writing it all down gives it some mental gravitas to assuage personal doubts that the individual might be "doing it wrong". It certainly appears consistent with the range of submissions to Hacker News related to personal improvement (or, "lifehacking", as the internet seems to be running with these days).

Why did these authors write these two pieces? It's very difficult to analyse! If "for validation" seems a little condescending...well, I'd prefer it to the standard interpretation: "The Best" is unsubtle status-signaling, "The Worst" is equally unsubtle counter-signaling.

What an excellent comparison, I totally see that. I remember playing Doom on my graphing calculator in college! (http://youtu.be/LVMOdZdKuqI). What's the equivalent? Well, I suppose Minecraft on the exact same model of graphing calculator - one area where progress hasn't been marching... (http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/08/what-y...)

If the author had simply chosen a few examples of good commenting in code and exhibited them, then he wouldn't have had to write this article explaining his point..or would he?

I completely agree with this and always find it instructive to examine wording thoroughly when posing problems or solutions. However, I think you could come across more likably by offering a better wording yourself in your comment. I'll have a shot at it:

"Given two random points inside a square, what is the probability that the center of the square lies in the circle formed by taking the points as diameter?"

I'm not happy with my opening clause there though, possibly because I omitted to explicitly state the distribution (that is, uniform - all points are equally likely). It seems there is a convention to assume uniform when no other information is given, but I still don't like "random" there. What would be your wording?

That's very jolly! I like how cleanly constructed it is. On a DIY hacking project that kind of attention to neatness can make all the difference between "oh, cool idea" and the feeling of an actual product (even though it's in fact one of a kind).

I wonder how feasibly the opaque parts could be replaced with transparent ones and whether that would look cooler or just plain tacky?

Fair enough about the "overly dramatic response" and probably equally fair downvote(s) on my comment. From the guidelines, then:

  > Please submit the original source. If a blog post reports 
  > on something they found on another site, submit the latter.

I'm interested, what is this?

I think people have different definitions of blog spam and it's a matter of taste. Personally I began to grind my teeth after the first cliche-ridden paragraph ("cliche-ridden" again being subjective, but the "there should be a Nobel Prize for..." format has been done enough now that it just seems lazy to me) and by the time I got to "the Button 2.0 is approximately a thousand times more useful" (emphasis mine, to highlight particularly clunky hyperbole) I was hovering over the tab with my finger over middle-click.

Here's the thing: this kind of overwritten article is so easy to put together and IMO so inferior to the clean, straight-up no-nonsense page on the Shapeways site that I don't feel "blog spam" is so inaccurate. I don't feel strongly enough to call it out as such as "benologist" did, especially as I know that to others on here (such as yourself?) it's not, but I hope this explanation helps you see it from both sides. To "benologist" this sincerely is blog spam and the fact that they linked to the cleaner article gets them an upvote from me.

For an article which seemed to jump about so much, I found this unusually readable. I think it's because each paragraph has at least one "nugget". e.g.

  > As late as the mid-1800s, an English gentleman was expected to beat
  > a boorish cabman or bargee for an affront we would now consider trivial.

This is a style of writing which instead of drawing facts and anecdotes to support a thesis rather draws a thesis to sew together facts and anecdotes - in this case the "American castle" theme. This is Malcolm Gladwell done short and sweet.

Thank you, that's really cool.

EDIT: It answers one of {how, what} but not the other. Anyone got any more?

Do we know the specifics of the final funding? In the discussion yesterday there were good comments flying around about founders maxing out credit cards, general trends of most funding being in the first 72 and last 24 hours of a Kickstarter campaign, and various other interesting arguments (not all optimistic). I'd be curious what it came down to in the end.

  > Just 30 minutes later, Michael Bolan tweeted that the cake was gone.

This has me thinking of that scene in Mike Judge's Office Space where Milton always happens to be in the wrong part of the crowd relative to the cake and never gets a piece. Cruel but hilarious.

I don't know how many people there are in that office, but I hope it's sufficiently few that no-one got Miltoned :).

This was my first thought when seeing the current submission too. I have no problem with reposts, but one thing I would question is when one provides the date in the title. 2011 is too recent to do so? I don't know, for me that seems borderline. It is not in the guidelines. What do we think? Ought we to have a "[Repost]" tag? Is someone posting a link to the previous submission in the comments sufficient? I think I lean towards the latter, but agree with my sibling that an explanation of the link is preferred.

> The Bank of England has been including historic characters on its notes since 1970.

The use of the word "characters" here seems comical to me. It makes me think of Dennis the Menace, James Bond, etc.

This is funny, but it's only a mirror in a mirror if I write and post the article. Why one would do that is exactly what I'm trying to understand.

But then, I have been commenting actively here and "Why do that?" is almost the same question. Trying to step away from myself and answer honestly I think it's because I've been a lurker on HN for years but don't feel like a proper HNer without 500 karma. A few weeks ago I tried to start posting more. It's difficult, because before I click reply I always try to rigorously break down my motives. Usually I don't like what I see, and close the tab.

Thank you, that's a good answer.

I think there's a clash between lifehacker/Tim Ferriss and '[wanting] to share the results, maybe even give back to the "productivity community"', rather than an affinity as you seem to suggest. The former are profit-generating enterprises whose business is selling productivity techniques. Lifehacker is fairly authentic, but a Gawker-owned for-profit nonetheless while I don't personally place Tim Ferriss far from Tony Robbins et al. Whether that's overly harsh or not, I don't think either are comparable to independent folk posting their productivity systems on their personal blogs when their businesses are not related to selling books of those techniques, or making money from ad revenue their productivity tips attract.

I'm cynical, but '[wanting] to share the results, maybe even give back to the "productivity community"' doesn't seem like a complete answer to me. And I'm not trying to get anyone to admit secret motives, I just think there are subconscious things going on when people post their productivity solutions, and I'm trying hard to figure out what they are.

> You could ask the question for almost every blog post

Indeed. Usually I perceive the motives are to increase the author's employability attractiveness, promote their business, or build status within their community. Some productivity posts fall into those categories too I believe, but usually to me the validation model is a better fit.

> i think this one is not much different why posts on codehorror are written.

Which is?