mblake

I've been very affected by this myself.

It happened the most while attempting to study research papers.

A lot of times I would be unable to finish reading what I had planned, because I had stumbled upon an interestingly-looking concept and then proceeded opening up another paper on that subject and so on.

And then, of course, having returned back to the original paper, I would have to re-start reading from beginning to freshen up my memory.

Terribly exhausting process, so I can perfectly understand your frustration.

The only solution I found was to un-clutter my computer 'work-space' as much as possible: close any non-essential apps, unplug internet cable and each time I have the urge to stop reading and go research a newly discovered subject, I remind myself that I am only allowed to do it after finishing what I'm currently reading.

Another helpful thing for me is to remind myself what I'm trying to accomplish with whatever I'm doing at that particular time and what my long-term goals are.

For instance, if I'm working on a project for a client, the goal is to get the work done as soon as possible and obviously get paid. I am not working on said project to primarily enrich my knowledge, but to make money.

I can use the time after the project is delivered to draw conclusions from the experience or do further research.

This may sound trivial, but it really does help to constantly remind yourself of what your goals are, it keeps you in check.

For extra effect, every time you have the urge to let your mind wander too much, try imagining the possible consequences of not completing your task (on time).

This can be particularly effective if you're doing client work. Imagine how embarrassing/unprofessional would have to explain to your client/employer that you won't be able to deliver on time because of something that you could've prevented.

Side-note: you have not provided enough info, but you may have obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is nothing to be ashamed of, but you can only 'solve' this with medication, so you would need to see a doctor.

Sadly I have experienced this.

I was in mourning after losing a relative and refused to participate in an overtly cheerful activity.Not only was I reprimanded for it, but later heard the professor felt the need to complain to other people as well about yet another kid 'whos grandma had died'. It just so happened that my grandma had not died, nor would have I cared much if she would've had, but a much more cared for relative.

Thankfully it was quite a lot of years ago.

Very interesting point of view, I have never thought about it that way. I think you're right.

Finally a contest with more substantial prizes. I can't help feeling that lately virtually all companies have been launching contents to solve (very) difficult problems, but instead offer only rewards that coincidentally, just the persons with the most experience/most qualified, would consider undignified. (like the recent NASA ISS contest or most of the competitions on Kaggle).

I like this and I think I'll actually start using it.

Overall interestingly done, although the small 'the' overlaid on the main 'New Republic' title irks me to no end. It really, really does not fit with the rest of its surroundings and looks added at the last minute.

Interesting, but ow my eyes, everything is so big.I'm on 1920x1080 and even so, I have trouble getting a global 'view' to properly navigate around. I like the fact that the tooltips are theme-able.

Ugh, should've put a [pdf] warning in the title. Other than that, R can indeed be hot, but maybe just in the special 'flavor' Revolution Analytics developed, otherwise it's one of those languages you dread using but are forced to because so much scientific code/packages etc has been written on it, some with no equivalent in other languages.

It's pretty sad, but not because I knew him in any capacity, or actually have heard of him until now.

It's sad because he clearly had a psychiatric issue and only if people were more educated on this matter, they could've reached out to him and offered him help to get his problem under control, instead of just laughing at him.

To an uninformed, uneducated person, it's likely that this is all he was: a pathetic, over the top compulsive liar.

I presume he died because he killed himself, which is something someone would do after at least temporarily snapping out of the psychosis that made them do all of those things and realizing it wasn't something they would ever be able to take back or sweep under the rug, thanks to the 'wonders' of the internet.

This is very interesting, thank you for sharing.

Not exactly related to the post's contents, but I'm so excited I found out how this sort of this is called: topology optimization. I've been thinking about designing an 'object' under certain constraints and I didn't know exactly where to start.

Agreed. Change the colors at least. Colors + the fact that he italicized the logo make it way too similar to PayPal's logo. Really not a good move.

Does anyone else just click-hold the browser scrollbar most of the time when visiting a site while deciding on what to click on next?

I feel like I can't be the only one who does this.

I thought of using CrazyEgg in a few situations myself, but I think it would not work well if there would be more visitors behaving like I would than they presumably have anticipated.

PS: Nice work on Sipsmith!

Ahh, posts like this are like magnets for front-page HN. Mm, maybe I'm just a bit jealous. I should buy a boat. Or start a blog of my own.

Go with a Lenovo as someone else recommended, or get an Asus G46VW; sadly twice your budget, but it's of amazing quality.

Too difficult for me to pick just 3 but I'm up-voting so other people can see the post and jump on the shopping-spree wagon :)

Moniker. I've used them for years and haven't had any issues. Haven't really looked into it, but at least they give out the impression that security is really tight and that both your domains and your privacy are protected.

I've also used Name.com, but not enough to be able to recommend it to someone else.

What an exaggerated titled. Does the pic show anything compromising/very intimate? It appears it does not. Then why all the fuss about it? This could've went swiftly under the radar if she simply would've handled it privately.

A simple direct message on Twitter: 'hey, that's not supposed to be public, can you take it down please? and delete your tweet too.'

Simple and I can't imagine she would've been denied the request, for the very same reason, that she's a Zuckerberg.

Does this mean that Google is violating their terms by listing them in search results? I think someone from Google should maybe try to comply with this, I bet VS will be thrilled ;)

Thanks!

Like the idea, good marketing strategy too, but have a deep hatred for Lobster font :(

Excellent write-up btw; thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

This reminds me of the day one of my work 'colleagues' asked me what my star sign was and various other similar questions, indicating he was evaluating me as a potential mate.

Disregarding the sheer immaturity of the approach and inappropriateness in a work-related context, I had a good amount of laughs over it with one of the company's bosses.

I feel for you. Internet hugs!

Bad design most likely. Looking more carefully at the link in the initial email they sent you: 'confirm_migrate?'. This almost gives it away.

I strongly recommend CrashPlan for backups. They may not be marketing aggressively like Dropbox, nor will you find them mentioned N times a day on HN/similar venues, but they provide a damn good product/service.

You will not have such issues with them.

Have any specific steps been taken into monetizing his app?

Actually, let me re-phrase, what is the biggest problem he's facing?

I see that most of his visitors are from Asia, then why not reach out to Alipay payment processor? I am not overtly familiar with them, but maybe they have a cheap payment-by-sms product or similar (where users could pay a small price using their phone via txt message).

It is a very popular payment method in some areas of the globe for micro-payments.

After quite a few years studying 'data', I can confidently say that you can take the mini-courses from School of Data, then plunge into Coursera courses, then stop by your local library, if you have money throw them at cherry-picked books from Amazon.com, bribe friends from college to get you papers from science journals and at the end of this, you will still find things you won't know.

Statistics, Probability, Data Analysis, Data Mining, Decision Theory, (Digital) Signal Analysis, Machine Learning, Algorithmics, Graph Theory etc.

One of the main reasons why I bought your book is the fact that it is well-organized and free of the usual 'extras' that one finds in a blog that in the end distracts from the reading experience.

I've almost finished reading it and I can pretty much guarantee that it would've taken me a lot more time to navigate through your blog and make myself read beginning to end.

Off the top of my head, I think https://leanpub.com/ is similar to Hyperink. I think if you do a bit of Google digging you can find stories from authors who decided to self-publish with specifics analysis of their process (what they used, how much time it took, revenue analysis etc.)

I think the new blog posts that were added to the book serve as an incentive to buy it, probably a lot of the HN users were already familiar with Patrick and might've needed a little 'push' to click on the purchase button :) Just one of the possible reasons.