PieSquared

Whoa, what?!

I definitely agree with a lot of the things you're pointing out, so I'm guessing the real truth (if there can be one) is the usual: everything is good in moderation.

Doing things that aren't fun is often important (well, how else would we deal with things like taxes, or marketing for tech startups, or etc etc); equally, if you live based only on what is important (rather than letting yourself do what sounds fun), you might not have a very pleasant or rewarding lifestyle.

It's really too bad we can't come up with a lifestyle philosophy in under 144 characters, since we have to compromise all the time. (Although I guess that could be one: "Everything in moderation" is only 24 characters.)

Because if we apply that philosophy to everything then chances are we'll just be sitting thinking about what we could do for 90% of our time. :)

Hah, wow, thanks for the layman's description. That made sense!

It also triggered one of those 'holy crap I have so much to learn' moments, followed shortly by a 'what the hell am I doing wasting my time with all these silly things I do' moment. ;)

I cannot agree more. Then it would get me off my butt and make me learn something about the topic, too.

Do you mind sharing? :D

I wouldn't be so fast to dismiss it as a 'stupid philosophy for life'.

It's one thing when you have people depending on you, a family to feed, a house to upkeep, etc. But if you're just in college or grad school, or for any other reason aren't being depended on, then this might be a good way to decide what you want in your life.

I certainly found that since I recently started thinking about this, it's improved my life.

For instance, I was recently trying to pick a martial art to start learning, and after seeing a few Wushu schools, I saw my Capoeira school. While the Wushu schools seemed, 'ehhh, pretty good I guess', the Capoeira school was an instant 'Hell yeah!' - so now I'm doing Capoeira and having a beyond great time. I had the same experience with finding a job last summer, and, similarly, greatly enjoyed it when I found one.

In summary: sure, this might not be the best way to live if you have significant responsibilities to others, but if you are trying to enjoy your life and are living freely this may be a great philosophy to adopt.

By the way, Audrey, welcome to the HN community. :)

Just noted that you were new here, or at least, the account was. Enjoy your stay!

Our of curiosity, how did you get that picture? Did you take it a few hours ago just for kicks? Or what?

Just curious, since they seem to have changed the pics now.

Go ahead, don't spend money on his business.

But there's no need to make a huge deal out of it, as the boycott is doing. Just read the article, and read the 'About' section on their website, and see whether one seems a justified response to the other.

Is that an assumption or something you've tried?

If it's the former, he addresses that concern on his site.

Not if that type of compensation is irrelevant to what you're testing. That would be like having a control group which wasn't fed.

I think that the fact that he was enthusiastic about his subject and clearly wanted to tell people about it came across as unpleasant or pushy or something.

I thought that just made it better - people who are interested in what they're talking about and want to tell you about it tend to be more interesting than those that just do it because they need to.

The idea isn't that a group is paid vs unpaid.

Salary, in this case, is not the type of incentive we're talking about. Having a decent salary is just to get the employee willing to work - not as an incentive to work at max capacity.

What we're talking about, really, is already past salary: is a group of fairly paid people more efficient and creative when motivated financially (say, by extra bonuses or salary increases) or by promises of autonomy (say, 20% time).

Thus, the candle problem, when placed in the real world, would have three groups: a control group which is paid 'decently and fairly', and a group that is paid 'decently and fairly' and is given financial incentives beyond that, and a group that is payed 'decently and fairly' and is given autonomy as an incentive.

No?

Dunno, but I actually found the site to be very pleasantly straightforward and relatively easy to read. Ctrl - Scroll UpDown in the future to change font size; it's a nifty thing.

While I'm not fluent in spanish, the gist I get from the article is that it was vetoed and sent back to Congress in 2006; perhaps it has only been passed recently?

I think it was a Christmas present to the HN community at some time.

Do you mind saying what happened when you called?

Is anyone hiring part time?

(And while this may not be the most appropriate place... Advice on finding a programming job for a 16 year old with a year+ of programming (job) experience and significant knowledge of multiple popular languages?)

I sometimes wear a bathrobe. Not one I actually use as a bathrobe... Just instead of a trenchcoat. It's ridiculously comfortable, and gets people to talk to me.

Why? What did he do that was so linkbait-y?

From what I can understand, his aim was to create an article interesting to read for the community around Hacker News. This article itself was an observation about what the community finds interesting, as well as a note about an anomaly he observed. Is there something wrong with that?

Hah, well done. That's one place I didn't even think looking. ;)

I'm bookmarking this. Just for the times when I need that reminder, like now.

And, if you look at the source, you'll find this comment, too:

  <!-- There really is no secret. It's worth repeating. -->

>Okay, then search. Seriously? This is also something that most geeks have written at some point and would have no problem dusting off.

Of course, because search is really quite a solved and ridiculously easy problem... You know, it's so easy I could probably reimplement Google in the same weekend, too. :P

Not to be rude, but brushing off basics like search, upvotes and downvotes, etc as something 'most geeks have written' and can easily write again is a mistake. The amount of these minor features makes a real reimplementation in a weekend utterly impossible.

Sigh. How many software revolutions can there be in a year...?

Wow, thanks. Hearing something so upbeat, positive, and motivated just makes me want to buck up and finally deal with all the things I need to deal with which prevent me from being satisfied.

I like this idea. I think the clearest way to do this would be to have an Agree and Disagree link, which led you to a page with a reply textbox and a confirm button. If you wrote a reply, it would post it as a reply; otherwise, it could just count it as an agree/disagree thing, like facebook does it. (Then, next to the first line of each post, it could say "5 Agree; 2 Disagree" or something like that.)

That way, agreement/disagreement and good/bad are separated, and displayed nicely.

I would enjoy an HN-like site with a greater focus on algorithms and other more complex material.

HN sometimes gets these posts on things like closures, functional programming, monads, y combinators, etc. A lot of these are just posts from Wikipedia or such, but they're interesting and generate a lot of discussion.

Similarly, I enjoy the more physics and chemistry oriented tech articles.

To summarize: I'd love an HN for theoretical CS, physics, chemistry, etc, more focused on the actual sciences than on marketing, sales, deployment, etc. I'd be there in an instant.

I'm 17, so that's not only less than thirty but also less than what most people consider 'adult' at all.

Is screwing with my sleep cycle a bad idea at this age? Or is age irrelevant? Biphasic sleep especially sounds attractive to me, but I do not know whether it would be healthy to try.

Given that you are a sleep researcher, I was hoping perhaps you could provide some insight?