I'm trying to see if there's a pattern in software which makes users happier (not more efficient, etc.).
If there's an application/webapp that is particularly enjoyable to use, comment! Maybe there's a pattern we could uncover, replicate and make life better for everyone around! :)
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=125233
Paul Graham told me via email that up and downarrows aren't for arbitrary karma operations and then a couple days later he took away my ability to vote on any comment or story. I upvoted this story to 4 but it didn't count because I can't vote anymore. I find the whole scenario somewhat bizarre.
b) Your email to me was harsh. My response was "Sometimes I think you take yourself too seriously" which was meant not as "fuck you" but "have a sense of humor about up and downarrows."
Taking away rms's voting rights isn't about improving the discourse of this site. It's about your own sense of self superiority.
As for Rms: he abuses the voting system, I send him an email asking him to stop, he won't stop. And when I suspend voting for his account after this, it's out of my own "sense of self superiority?" WTF? Any forum administrator would do the same under the circumstances.
(I upvoted you but it didn't count)
I'm sorry to learn of your temporary lack of moderation weight. The sentiment is greatly appreciated.
And before pg says "it's in writing somewhere" -- the system shouldn't require people poking around the blog to figure out what will work or not.
The whole karma thing gives me a headache. It's supposed to be for good articles, except in the case where you use it to agree or disagree, unless you disagree and you don't have enough karma, unless you use it too much, in which case...
Ugh. It's like by insisting that it's a simple up and down arrow we've made the whole thing much more complicated than it needs to be. But hey! It looks simple on the page! I guess that's something.
I don't agree with that. The Internet has allowed way to many folk's inner Id (i.e. Id, Ego, Superego) to run a muck. They see some snippet of something or other that offends their delicate sensibilities and they go apeshit in the comments. HN is based on what should be a simple idea: don't say anything in the comments that you wouldn't be willing to say to someone in person. There are variants on this theme: be thoughtful, don't be abrasive, [perhaps] keep your politics to yourself, etc. If someone gets riposted for their comments they ought to ask themselves, what am I doing wrong? Not, what's wrong with the community. If they're incapable of doing that, they probably don't belong here in the first place.
Have you ever seen THX 1138? It's a good movie.
In all seriousness... lets try to admit there are problems here. I lurk more than I post for simple fear of bothering someone's sensibilities. In fact, when I do post, I tend to generalize so I don't lose half my karma.
I have. It's shocking to see Robert Duvall so young. I saw [Edit: not One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but To Kill a Mockingbird -- duh] recently and I couldn't believe he was Bo Bradley.
Anyway... I've found the people on here to be a bright group. Even when I post comments that get downvoted, I understand the reasons. Frankly, losing my karma doesn't bother me too much. As long as you can make your case intelligently, you'll be fine. For example, I made a comment defending spanking (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=127794) which I knew wouldn't be a popular stance. However, my approach was measured and, even though the majority disagreed, the comment itself wasn't viciously downvoted. The internet tends to distort one's sense of humanity. The bulk of the people out there are reasonable, the existence of 4chan notwithstanding.
However, I'll add the caveat that things tend to get a little crazy around YC application deadlines. My feeling is that some people seem to feel the need to 'fall in line' around that time.
You saved me looking it up :)
Let's say I posted a comment, "I love monkeys" and got down-voted to like -10 or something. Aside from relevance questions, perhaps HN is an anti-monkey society. How, from just the score, am I supposed to know that? In other words, by limiting my choice to simple up or down arrows, it makes the other guy scratch his head trying to figure out exactly how his comment was misconfigured for the group. So then he has to plead for somebody to explain that to him. Hopefully, he will get an explanation from somebody who represents the majority of downvoters, but that doesn't have to be the case. He's just as likely to receive advice from somebody, as in this case, who didn't know other huge parts of the community rules.
I love the social networking aspect of the site. But I'm not a fan of the current software as a communication tool between users or as something that would increase (instead of decrease) that experience. BTW, that's why so many "here's my picture of Dilbert" articles are posted -- there's less risk in offending anyone, and heck, you can't figure out what you did when you get downvoted anyway, so might as well go with easy, fast, and funny content over content that might have more substance (and be riskier from the point of view of the submitter)
Photoshop3 didn't have many features but it was the best application in its field. However, after using Photoshop4 for short period, you looked upon the previous version as clunky, even though you never noticed the shortfalls when using it. This cycle of improvement continued for the next two versions.
For web browsing, Mosiac1.0 was a fantastic program. When it was written, it was the best in its field. However, if you've used a modern web browser then it would only take about 10 minutes to make you entirely frustrated with Mosiac. Let's run through some of the features. A single, non-presistent connection to web server. Caching of previous pages in history only. No incremental rendering. Awful responsiveness, especially when using multiple windows. No scripting. No tables. No background images. No font styling. No text alignment. And on very early versions: no forms. It also crashed frequently. Regardless, it was an absolutely fantastic program which made impossible tasks trivial and saved lifetimes of effort.
Important aspects that make me happy in decreasing priority: make it open source; make one task trivial; make it crash less; make it more responsive; make the repetitive parts of interaction take decreasing amounts of subjective time.
Of course that could be just me! :)
If every site did this the world would be a better place.
So I invested some time in learning Squeak, and now I'm starting to get it the productivity is rising sharply. And as it's relatively such a joy to program, I find I'm putting in much more solid hours as well.
I tried but couldn't think of any software that I use which made me happier and was less efficient than something else.
@pistoiusp: Any that makes you more efficient + happier (not just more efficient)?
Your feedback will be appreciated (and conclusions shared at news.yc, of course). Thanks!
The other thing that made me happy was when I wrote up a bunch of bash/python scripts to make my day easier at work.
See a theme? Yes, I'm lazy.
Also, Fullscreen Homestar Runner addon for Firefox. Required for happy viewing of H*R if you use your HD TV as you monitor.
The only software that makes me happier are music players (Exaile, Amarok, etc) because they let me hear the music that I love in my PC.
I relax by building stuff in 3ds max. Much cheaper than building stuff in the real world, and almost as fun. Currently I'm building a yacht. I am even thinking of actually building it for real when I finish.
The macro programming software for my PC gamepad makes me happy because it makes playing certain games effortless. I don't worry about the interface. I just do. The software gets out of my way.
My favorite online computer game, Final Fantasy XI, make me happy, but in a different way. It is the social aspects which keeps me coming back every time. A more cynical person would say it is the Skinner box effect, but I'm not that jaded yet.
Most especially, the ambassador from Blow'k-bibben-gordo in Planetfall.
During long and lonely coding sessions, they remind me that I am not alone.