chavesn

The author has a fair point, but I was left hanging waiting for a "so, what?" at the end. I was hoping there would be something more constructive to this than just a complaint.

What should be done about it? What are people really looking for? How can a network with the goal of connecting more people deal with the inevitable noise? How soon should they worry about that?

Was Facebook perfect 4 years ago, or is there a gap still left to be filled? How can a social network really figure out who is most relevant to you and link you to them?

I think these are great questions. I would love it for authors who know/care about this topic to look at Facebook, Twitter, and Jelly with solution glasses instead of just problem glasses.

You can also CMD+click and drag (or double click as long as it's not a URL, which will open) to add to the text selection (like multiple cursors in Sublime Text 2).

Also, Option+click and drag gives you column selection mode.

Bypass paywall (maybe the paywall only starts after 1 day?):

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.economist.com/blogs/g...

I really recommend watching this video of the author, Clayton Christensen, talking about the same thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQSG_d0mmf0

> ""...by competing against non-consumption, all they had to do was make a product that was better than nothing. And so when you have a new product, it's actually really important that the kind of customers you target, are people whose other option is nothing at all, and that way they'll be thrilled with a limited product."

I've heard this same line of thinking many times, usually in allusion to Git but often not stated explicitly. But I've never heard a good answer to the question of how you can actually have an adequate SCM-merge unless it's language and refactoring aware (and even then...)?

Every SCM that exists will fail spectacularly at merging two refactorings that touched the same code. You simply can't solve this with software today.

Enter... merge pain.

The only real solution that doesn't involve developers avoiding refactoring unless they really need to (either because it's painful or because they don't know they should be doing it), is trunk-based development.

As a footnote, for what it's worth... multiple services with SoC is definitely a good thing, but I don't think trunk-based development precludes that.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised at all if those who jump in to denounce Myers Briggs have similar personality types.

Among all those I know who've taken it, myself included, it's been strongly indicative of their personality. And as I noted in another comment, three different tests have yielded the same results for me.

Exactly. I guess I don't totally understand all the complaints about "Pseudo-science" if its so consistent. That at least means something. This is the third time I've taken the test, and given the same result every time.

As I understand it, ENTJ and INTJ are no more than 9% of the general population[1] (12% max, if male only), and yet they are dominating the poll here; and that very much aligns with types expected to be common among the Hacker News population. That has got to mean something.

But then, I guess that's why I'm not a Guardian type[2] (Enforcing/Certifying specifically[3]).

[1]: http://www.capt.org/mbti-assessment/estimated-frequencies.ht... [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardian_temperament [3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keirsey_Temperament_Sorter

Contractors hate him! How "one weird trick" will get you hired...

...really.

It also just occurred to me that this is a near-perfect real life use case for Regex Golf...

[0]: http://xkcd.com/1313/

[1]: http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/norvig.com/ipython/xkcd1313....

As a corollary, I try to think through this any time I say something "isn't a big deal". Is it really not a big deal to me?

What people often mean when they say "it's not a big deal" is "it's a big deal to me, but it shouldn't be to you". Usually, they don't have any right to make that decision for you and it's really just a manipulation technique.

Come on. We're supposed to doubt the merits of this entire article about Twitter's philosophy and general large-organization engineering practices because someone outside can't imagine how so many people fill their day? Because maybe a thing which we can't hope to gain an accurate perspective of indicates they're doing everything wrong?

This reminds me of the story of a walk from SF to LA illustrating why software estimates are always so wrong:

http://www.quora.com/Engineering-Management/Why-are-software...

Instead shouldn't we just evaluate the content on its own merits?

I disagree; as long as we're generalizing about how "Hacker News" any one comment is, let's call yours the perfect HN comment: Bikeshedding (as if the world is black and white, no less) about who is the most wrong in a discussion. The commenter above you was at least still on the point, made an attempt at an alternate solution, and still left reasonable room for shades of gray.

The only thing that could top your comment is mine; now we're two meta levels deep, not even discussing the original article anymore.

My initial thought: This is terrible, because how would we ever know which sites we can trust? Something as tiny as an extra space would change the hash value.

But on second thought, the real problem is that we (the web technology community) have assumed domain names are even a remotely suitable proxy for trust. I don't think most common web users actually get this point. That's why phishing is so easy (except for the part about getting a phishing email past spam filters).

Do you think most people really know (or notice) the difference between webaccess.bankofamerica.com and webaccess.bankofamerica.x8.co? I doubt it.

So the real fix for this situation is creating a true trust system that most actual end users can understand and rely on.

Then, it seems only natural for something like this to be the future. UUIDs will act as the underlying addressing technology with "whatever you want" as your display name.

And as a bonus, it will really cut down on the cybersquatters' profitability.

Paid by Apple? He doesn't need to be paid by Apple. Have you seen his sponsorship prices[1]?

Of course part of the reason he does what he does is because it's paid off so well for him through blogging as a business. His business has been his own creation, though, and that in and of itself is quite impressive.

I don't know if every word is genuine, but one doesn't have to be on an official corporate payroll to make money through coverage/praise of a popular subject.

To answer your question seriously, he has mentioned getting early demo devices by Apple (for a couple years, he's been in the in-crowd of journalists to do so) but I sincerely doubt he's a puppet paid under the table.

[1] : http://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/

Is Gruber's goal to break sweet stories or deliver exclusives?

Two days after a story breaks no one cares anymore about the breaking of it. But a smart and thoughtful editorialist is likely writing pieces that hold value for years.

Certainly not everything Gruber writes is gold or even worth reading, but he is trusted for his opinions and insight, not for how early or accurately he gives you some "inside scoop" (even if he occasionally trumpets his playing of that game).

Yes, exactly!

What I don't get is how hard it would be for someone to say "Hmm, maybe redirecting to the home page is actually a pretty awful idea. If that's the best we can do, maybe we should only auto-redirect pages where we actually know the equivalent (static pages and such) until we can afford a better solution."

As a side note, I've just realized it's things like this that are why I can't stand front-ends that are built on or tightly integrated with the same ORM the backend uses.

By far the biggest mobile-website sin for me is that a high percentage of sites that auto-redirect to a mobile version actually don't work right at all:

- Redirects to home page

- Page not found on mobile site

- Mobile version has reduced features that were the primary reason for visiting the page

- Redirecting to new mobile-specific URLs that make sharing with desktop users difficult (or impossible!)

- No way to not get the mobile version (no link, or doesn't remember preference).

If auto-redirect actually suited the visitor's needs, then in many cases it would be fine. Instead, I find that many seem to be implemented in the most naive way -- probably one of those circumstances where a novice developer said to the site owner, "automatically showing the mobile site to mobile visitors is EASY!".

I don't know what the few years after the transistor's first appearance actually seemed like, but we've got 65+ years of perspective working for us to appreciate it.

Those "papers" do represent actual inventions, no matter how condescendingly you say the word "papers". And inventions only a handful of years old at that.

I'd venture a guess that many of AT&Ts inventions were (or would be, given a wider audience like we have today) looked down upon in a similar way - there were probably people who said "Ha! A toy like that? A couple of screws and some silly wires? We've already got _____ that can get that done, that clunky thing will never be practical."

---

Then again, I also think its a good thing that with more resources at our disposal we can take such a critical eye to work being produced by capitalistic companies, and as practices and inventions enter the industry, more easily take them for what they are really worth.

I can think of one more; some sites use referrer to allow you to bypass a paywall if (and only if) you came from search results.

The problem is, all of these "features" allowed by referrers are user-hostile actions.

If referrers went away tomorrow, users wouldn't notice the difference or care. Publishers would get angry and think "we can't milk our content/visitors for as much money anymore!" But that doesn't really change the relationship with the customers who value your product or business so I personally can't believe it will make a sizable difference in the end.

> people who want to learn to code today have a marked advantage over those who wanted to learn in 1996.

True, but they aren't competing against job candidates from 1996.

Not that the whole movement is about finding a job. In fact, I think it will be more healthy for industry and students alike if "learn to code" is not a promise for a direct payoff at all, but a push to develop a useful core skill like math, communication, and understanding of science and humanities.

Remember to take into account that doing something similar to SO but scoped more narrowly could actually hurt the help/answer community through fragmentation more than help it.

Why do people assume that RTFM does not have a cost?

In fact, it's probably higher than searching SO through Google. This is why I'm hugely in favor of even basic questions getting answers on SO.

I feel ashamed to say that I clicked "Meet the Brick" twice (link to home page, apparently) before I tried scrolling.

But, I bet I'm not alone.

I appreciate the detailed reply. I guess I'm naturally skeptical in two areas:

- I don't quite see how you are factoring in the 60% batting average above (seems like it would water your returns down quite a bit from an average 2% "per move"

- I'm not sure how well I believe that a casual trader can bat 60%. That sounds quite generous to me, especially on short-trades.

I think your ability to execute this strategy as high as 60% is going to vary year-to-year as well, although (thinking out loud), maybe this is a good strategy to play in obvious bull (2013) or bear (2009) markets, but not in flat markets (2012), when it's going to be hard to predict the outcome of any given drop or bounce.

I believe this is one of the most, if not the most, under-appreciated "features" of websites and software (all types, including games).

It directly affects usability and therefore user engagement. And that means it directly affects the bottom line for most companies.

But most companies fail to see or ever really do anything about it.

I'm sorry, but huh?

By "easily" do you mean it happens for some measurable number of small-money participants (of which there are many, of course)?

Or do you possibly mean that you invest in 10 different stocks and one doubles?

This sounds like optimism bias.

There is no basis for returns to "go down as numbers go up", except if you are forgetting to average in the losses when the numbers were small. (Maybe because they are small they don't feel like they "count"?)

That's true, and an important point: if you expect your personal earning power to grow at a rate far greater than 8%, then investing your principal now will have little effect one way or the other. But investing later will, so it's good to be prepared with the right strategy for you (whatever that is).

> "it's approximately equivalent to accepting 1 or 2 extra short contracting gigs."

Except:

- You don't have to do the work (you are free to do more work or relax)

- That's one or two gigs every year (until you choose to spend the money)

- The gigs compound: in 9 years, it's 2-4, and in 18, 4-8 per year.

I'm just providing an alternate viewpoint, but I don't disparage your right to play "the lottery" this way. I think that's a perfectly valid basis for a personal investment strategy.

As you pointed out, it might be statistically worse, but you aren't interested in the median return, either.

A couple of the statements are inaccurate or a bit hyperbolic:

- "In other words, the answer to "do we believe that our stock selection ability is significantly above average?" has to be a resounding, objectively justified "yes." " -- Actually, our "selection ability" doesn't need to be above average, since the average stock picker is not picking index funds. Index funds are used to proxy the average of the product (market), not the professional investor. Since index funds are the theoretical alternative, that's all we'd need to beat.

- It probably doesn't change the overall point about IPOs, but I don't think having or lacking a "desperation" for money changes anything.

What it all really boils down to is this: virtually all the information is already "baked in" to every stock price out there. There's no guaranteed bet, ever. If you aren't living and breathing the markets, it's extremely unlikely you'll be able to account for the market forces in a way that others haven't already.

So really "the rest of us" are just guessing. The only justification for an amateur to play the markets is for fun - like sitting down at a Blackjack table in Vegas.

The $1 transaction fee seems crazy wasteful to me on purchases under $50 or so. I would consider just buying the whole item for a friend (through Amazon, letting Amazon eat the transaction fee) before I'd give anywhere from 5-10% extra to a third party.

If the average item was $20 and the average contribution was $5, banks would also be making 10% or more per wishlist item when they would normally make 3% or less.

That just rubs my cost-effectiveness sensitivities the wrong way.