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It's not an apples to apples comparison though. The US can't "just implement" the same health care systems that are up and running in other nations because we differ from a those nations in a lot of ways. PBS NewsHour sums up a few reasons here[1].

That being said, our current health care system is broken and needs to be addressed. I'm not convinced ObamaCare is a good solution, but at least the issue is being tackled.

[1] http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/10/seven-factors-dr...

I would argue that planners do understand the formula for making pleasant urban neighborhoods - it's usually the developers who don't get the placemaking concepts.

That being said, I'm interested in the neighborhoods/buildings you mentioned being so bad. Could you share which locations you're referencing?

"You get pages of results: mostly garbage, some scams, and a few legitimate coupon sites. Unfortunately, the codes listed on those sites are a year old: you missed your chance."

It frustrates me when I see a coupon code box and cannot find any working codes. Oftentimes the most recent codes for a retailer on RetaiMeNot haven't been active in months or years. On the flip side, when I find a code that saves me anything, even free shipping, I am ecstatic. I feel like I am responsible, thrifty and savvy and I have a proclivity to purchase more items from that retailer later on.

I think these emotions are worth evoking in customers and banning the coupon code box destroys this ability. A referral link doesn't capture as much of the emotional satisfaction as seeing your cart totals drop after typing in a string of characters and clicking "Apply to Cart." Retailers could just hide the coupon code box when there aren't any active coupons. When a coupon is active, the box reappears.

Thanks for the Richter recommendation! Another good minimalist album is In C by Terry Riley[1].

My favorites by Glass are Glassworks[2] and Einstein on the Beach[3].

[1]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K9P8gG_MHE

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Stu7h7Qup8

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezOI3sPqWPU&list=PL37FBBBABCF...

Edit: I just stumbled upon the IBM Glass Engine... This will keep me occupied for a while: http://www.philipglass.com/glassengine/

Yeah that's a great point. Here's a dataset of libraries per capita by state[1] that supposedly includes a map but it's not loading in Chrome...

[1] http://www.statemaster.com/red/graph/edu_pub_lib_tot_lib_per...

I think the CMS selection depends on the kind of organization that will be ultimately using and maintaining the site.

For small groups/projects like student organizations and blogs with multiple editors, Wordpress can be a godsend. I was part of a student organization that needed an informational website with a blog component so I quickly set up a Wordpress site that 5-10 people used to populate the site with content.

As an aside, the individual who took over my role as web admin has since moved the site to Dreamweaver :( The older members of the org are frustrated that they can't individually add content to the site anymore and the org is transitioning the site back to Wordpress in the fall.

Exactly. Personally, I like playing around with static site generators but when somebody asks me how to start a website (or if I'm setting up a website for a non-technical individual) I almost always refer them to Wordpress.

I think Wordpress's greatest strengths are its ability to handle many users updating the site, personalization through a plethora of freely available themes, and its ability to handle and display many different kinds of content. All of these features are readily available without having to delve into a single line of code.

Your last sentence makes me think of HAL from the Space Odyssey series. HAL wasn't explicitly programmed to harm anyone, but he attempted to kill the entire crew in order to fulfill his programmed orders. This creeped me out when I first saw the film, and reading the end of this article rekindled the same feeling.

The invite-only nature makes me think that Square has been working on this for a while, but since Google beat them to the punch they were forced to roll out Square cash ahead of schedule

One of my coworkers bought his three-year-old nephew a picture book as a birthday present. The three-year-old tried to "pinch-to-zoom" on one of the book's pictures and threw the book away in disgust when he realized it wasn't interactive.

When I first heard this story, I thought it indicated a worrisome trend in the youngest generation. Now I'm not so sure. The article notes that kids growing up with tablets isn't necessarily a bad thing, and the reasoning given makes sense.

The kids in the article play with iPads at the dinner table silently, but the author notes that it would be similarly bad for them to be coloring at the table silently. The current hypothesis is that spending less time interacting with people harms the development of some communication skills.

This is only relatively related to the article's content, but I would be interested in a study that analyzes the effects of children using tablets for creative purposes like drawing, puzzles and games, etc. versus consuming content passively.

> They're rent-seekers, pure and simple, with no value add at all. Half the time they don't even have stock!

That's a major oversimplification. Car dealers can provide a lot of value to individuals looking to purchase a vehicle, both at the time of purchase and after the fact via test drives, financing, and discounts for future maintenance at their service centers. There are plenty of shady car salesmen that take advantage of vulnerable people, but that should not negate the benefits that many dealerships provide.

The stock issue is tricky, as many local dealers can't afford to carry a wide range of models and configurations. Stopping by the local dealership looking to buy a specific model vehicle same-day may result in disappointment. However, dealerships are very good about acquiring a vehicle that you are interested in purchasing. All you need to do is ask.

That being said, I agree with you that buying a car should be more similar to buying an iPad than it currently is. There are ludicrous laws that stifle innovation in the vehicle purchasing process, such as the Massachusetts Franchise law 93B[1] that prohibits manufacturers from owning dealerships. I think Tesla's vision[2] for first party dealerships and vehicle distribution is a step in the right direction.

[1] http://www.malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXV/...

[2] http://www.teslamotors.com/nl_NL/blog/tesla-approach-distrib...

I'm curious as to whether or not this recovery method works on an iPhone. On Android, if at least one snap is left unopened, every photo sent to you via the service is recoverable. That seems like a lazy implementation of the delete function.

"It’s the repetition that leads you to getting into a creative state. It’s not the rituals themselves--they don’t have any particular special power--that lead you into this zone. It’s more that these artists tried to stick with the same pattern every day."

This paragraph boils down to "work every day at the same time, even if it's only for a short period of time." I've found that this helps stimulate creativity, but the biggest benefit from this consistency is productivity.

Creative flow states are not useful unless the ideas and inspiration they generate are applied to some tangible output. Establishing a routine for creative work helps ease the transition from 'creative idea' to 'creative solution' because the mind is primed to be productive for a finite amount of time and it expects to get things done.

As an aside, I find it interesting that many successful creative people have substance abuse problems. Frances Bacon is cited in the article, but creative types from Ernest Hemingway to Charles Dickens to The Beatles have regularly abused substances throughout major stretches of their careers. All of these individuals would work at their craft daily at set times, which apparently was enough to overcome the damage they were doing to their bodies.

PG put it best in his essay "Startup = Growth"[1]:

"Let's start with a distinction that should be obvious but is often overlooked: not every newly founded company is a startup. Millions of companies are started every year in the US. Only a tiny fraction are startups. Most are service businesses—restaurants, barbershops, plumbers, and so on. These are not startups, except in a few unusual cases. A barbershop isn't designed to grow fast. Whereas a search engine, for example, is."

A barbershop is a great example of a small business. A barbershop is obviously different in nature from a search engine because it's not designed for rapid growth.

[1] http://paulgraham.com/growth.html

Great point. The API access restriction hasn't stung TapBots yet but the token caps are frustrating and potentially stifling to future growth.

I'm interested to see what Twitter will do when Tweetbot starts to approach the maximum number of tokens allowed. My guess is Twitter will grant Tapbots extra tokens. I think the API restrictions are geared towards preventing new companies from using Twitter's APIs in unintended ways (like Flattr) than shutting down established Twitter clients like Tweetbot and Echofon.

I think the statement "if you're building your platform on another platform; you're at the mercy of the underlying platform" is more accurate.

Facebook and Twitter have changed their Terms of Services/APIs multiple times which has resulted in bad times for Facebook applications like Vintage Camera and MessageMe[1] and Twitter services like Flattr[2].

However, Tapbots has been successful in adapting its Tweetbot client to comply with Twitter's API changes[3]. While the API changes cost Tapbots extra development time to bring Tweetbot up to snuff, their core business was not adversely affected. I don't think Tapbots has a bad time because they make Twitter clients that rely on third-party API access, but they are at the mercy of Twitter continuing to allow third-party API access.

[1] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788732439280457836...

[2] http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/04/16/flattr-twitter-paym...

[3] http://tapbots.com/blog/news/dont-panic

This posting has generated more points and comments than the first posting so no need to apologize :)

I noticed that the description of the article said '(2012)' so I figured it might have been posted around the time it was written.

I searched for 'mind management' on HNSearch and found the original posting on the first page of results.

This post was on HN six months ago[1] but I'm glad it was posted again because I missed it on the first go-around.

The "Is there something I can do to get myself into the right mental state?" section resonated with me, particularly where the author argues that specific environments can get you in the right mental state for different kinds of work.

The author references a study from the Journal of Consumer Research[2] that explores the relationship between ceiling height and thought processing. The gist of the study is higher ceilings help stimulate creative thinking processes while lower ceilings help stimulate thinking in terms of item-specific data.

I'm studying/cramming for finals now, so I'll test this hypothesis by studying for a memorization-heavy exam in a low-ceiling classroom while encouraging my classmates to study in a high-ceiling study hall :)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4661747 [2] http://www.csom.umn.edu/assets/71190.pdf

Also working great on Firefox Nightly

Is anyone aware of cases where the government - whether local, state or federal - has reached out positively to a small company in violation of laws or statutes? The 'Progress & Persist' notice should actually be a thing, especially in a city with as much innovation as San Francisco.

I would also be curious to find out which areas of the world have governmental bodies that actively try to seek and promote innovation.

I'm a student at the University of Michigan and I just used this in Ann Arbor. Students celebrated St. Patrick's Day today and Instahood did an amazing job collating everyone's pictures from the festivities.

I agree with jgh that the interface isn't the best, but that's something that can be fixed. The underlying concept of seeing everyone's Instagram pictures in your immediate vicinity is extremely appealing to me. Great work and I hope you keep refining this!

The guy at the beginning of the article consumed only ~600mg of caffeine, but he consumed between 7,000 and 8,000 mg of taurine which is over 2x safe daily consumption[1]. I don't think that drinking 600 mg of caffeine is good for you, but I don't think it's the primary culprit for hospitalizations. I'm thinking the other ingredients in energy drinks, such as taurine and guarana, play a major role.

Here's an interesting quote from a recent Atlantic article[2]: "Still, despite the fact that a Starbucks venti coffee has three times as much listed caffeine as a can of Monster, some people swear they're more wired after drinking an energy drink. That may be because of the extra caffeine in guarana. Energy drinks can advertise that they have the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee; but when you include guarana, they have a much stronger stimulant effect."

I found this chart from the Seattle Times comparing stimulant levels in energy drinks[3]. Not only does Monster have 160 mg of caffeine in each can, it also has 5,000 mg of guarana and 2,000 mg of taurine. That's a lot of stimulants for one can. I would be interested in seeing more in-depth studies on guarana and taurine.

[1] According to the Mayo Clinic, the recommended maximum daily intake of taurine is 3,000 mg (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/taurine/AN01856)

[2] http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/how-much-c...

[3] seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/health/links/energydrinkchart10.pdf