CKKim's comments

"I am addicted to porn"..."I would look about once per week"

It seems odd to me that being addicted to porn would go with only looking "about once per week". I think I understand how this could still be technically an addiction, but compared to other addictions and - I imagine - especially porn addictions, it seems rather bizarre. Certainly if pornography was only being consumed once a week then the rate of let's call it "stimulation inflation" can't have been that high, or can it? Could you elaborate?

I believe the problem is in the way we make "special", or "intelligent", or any one of countless others, an actual part of a person's identity. I'd like to get away from describing the individual and instead concentrate on their specific achievements. It may not make us feel very good about ourselves, but it's a great deal more precise, and it focuses on reality rather than cherry-picked descriptors to encapsulate a "character".

Every time I read an 'about' section of a personal site and see something along the lines of "I'm a blogger, a technology geek, a cyclist, a photographer, and a serial dabbler" I wrinkle my nose a little because it seems like they're writing the person they want to be, rather than focusing on what they have to show for it.

One of those articles where a lot of ideas have been put down that aren't exactly "true" so much as it would be convenient if they were, to better justify the path the writer has decided to take in their life.

Great example, and I believe complementary to my observation. If talk show interviews are to be believed then when Hugh Laurie began on House he wasn't famous in America, and most people didn't have any idea he was British. The show was a hit, everyone loved him, and then it's far too late for anyone to erroneously pick apart his flawless accent.

It's almost impossible to imagine, but if Hugh Laurie had been popular in America, and his natural voice widely known, then the reception to that series could have been very different, purely from unfounded criticism of the accent. And if this is starting to sound a little far-fetched, let's not forget it all began with someone saying "British actors trying to do American accents, which never fool me".

"Really never, or do you just never notice?"

Indeed. Folks seem unbelievably harsh on accents they know not to be the native one, which is every time a famous actor does an accent, but all those no-names doing even not very good ones fly straight under their radar, making me highly skeptical it's not just confirmation bias.

Christian Bale often keeps his American accents for interviews and press. There might be something in that...

A similar effect can be heard in "Skwerl (How English sounds to non-English speakers)": http://youtu.be/Vt4Dfa4fOEY (speaking starts at 0m30s).

It's not quite as good, is it? I wonder if this effect is easier to achieve in a song or if it's more a case of how much time, talent, and effort goes into making it.

At first this looks like another submission about the value of objects, a la "The Best" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4755470, "The Worst" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4838109, and countless others in between.

However, it's really a (roundabout) way for Peter to tell us how much he likes using pen and paper, and what advantages he sees in them over the alternatives.

This is the right way to look at objects: suitability. Not best, not cheapest, not highest-quality, but most suitable for the job.

Crucially, by the end, the strongest point made in the first 80% of the article has not been addressed:

"The problem with pens that cost more than a dollar is that, well, you lose them at the same rate you lose pens that cost less than a dollar."

I look forward to a follow up post when he has misplaced it, given up using it for fear of misplacing it, or perhaps treasured this wonderpen so much that it is still faithfully by his side after 6 months of note-taking. In short: how suitable really is it?

You did, and I think this submission found me in a mean mood. For people who have read about polyphasic sleep etc. the phrase "26-Hour Day" has an intuitive meaning which led to disappointment on clicking to the article.

I stand by my point about entrepreneurs' blogs providing clues to their character, but I retract the judgement on your use of "26-Hour Day". You could have been clearer in the title rather than waiting until the third paragraph, but then there is a reason you seller types are what you are: you're good at hooking people in; after all, you got me to read the article.

I'm broadly with you on this and upvoted both your comments, but I don't feel quite strongly enough to call him out. I find more and more that "hack" is used figuratively not only in the way you describe but also in the "hacking down a tree" or "hack writer" sense. Before everyone rushes in and says "this is Hacker News, we all know which version we mean", I'd like to point out how often the phrase "hacked together" is used to describe work in our field done in a somewhat scrappy or unpolished fashion that nevertheless gets the job done. If I'm to give him the benefit of the doubt, I think "I've hacked this productivity schedule quite a lot" is just about alright, but boldly describing it as "a hack" is a little too far.

Bingo.

I'd reserve judgment on anything before having a good shower, dressing in fresh clothes, and eating some real food. Plus lots of water and a nap or workout, if necessary. Biology > Internet ;).

The article makes me wonder what would make someone want to be around a social group "all the time, or even on a frequent basis".

When I was a child of course I wanted to hang around with my friends as much as possible: there were activities which necessitated being in the same place and they were so fun that there never seemed enough time for them. e.g. trading Star Wars cards and playing videogames (no XboxLive in those days, we had to use a 'multi-tap' and splitscreen!). We were all about the "all the time" and "frequent basis".

In adult life the equivalent seems to be those people who are always getting me out to play soccer or jam with them. Still activities that necessitate being in the same place and, for some, still activities that they love so much that there's virtually no such thing as spending 'too much time' on them.

But I don't think that's it. I think that when you meet up with the same people a lot, doing things the group broadly enjoys, whether you really like ALL of them as individuals or not, you build a camaraderie and that's what makes you come back and hang out "all the time" and "on a frequent basis".

The wild misuse of "26-Hour Day" here would make me question doing business with this person. So many startup folk who have made a good first impression on me have blogs full of clangers like this, which should have been a clue as to problems of comprehension and honesty I would experience with them down the line.

For me this is the bit which really rings true:

"I successfully avoided my picture taken. Not so much consciously, but more with the knowledge that it would come out not particularly flattering."

It reminds me of a point Tina Fey made in her Google talk that she just had to learn a particular expression which would make her look good and then bust it out whenever her radar picked up someone taking a photo. I started mimicking that idea, along with various body language tricks and found myself pleased with the results. It makes it much easier to get motivated to work out and dress stylishly when your starting point is already better than you thought because of a few powerful little modifiers. In the spirit of the OP, that's not the end - it's the start of getting better at something!

The increasingly magnified images remind me of playing with fractal-viewing programs, with one major difference: here the zooming in leads to distinct patterns at specific resolutions, rather than repetition of one at a different scale. Once you get to the clearly visible "blocks" of Detroit and LA you're learning something completely different. Fascinating.

This seems to be the most important/interesting part:

"There is a simple rule of thumb in speech recognition: The smaller the application domain, the better the recognition accuracy. [...] Simon can now re-configure itself on-the-fly as the current situation changes. Through "context conditions" Simon 0.4 can automatically activate and deactivate selected scenarios, microphones and even parts of your training corpus. For example: Why listen for "Close tab" when your browser isn't even open? Or why listen for anything at all when you're actually in the next room listening to music? Yes, Simon is watching you."

It is one of the best subconscious techniques humans use both for listening and reading, so it makes complete sense to implement it here. I do find the choice of words in the final sentence somewhat ominous though!

I've not had any posture or RSI problems, but here comes that word: YET. A few people have commented that whenever I stop typing I like to stretch my arms right down to the fingertips and adjust my position on the chair, sometimes getting up completely and straightening my clothes. It's an unconscious habit so I find it hilarious when people point it out but that could be something that has helped me.

These sets look very familiar to me as similar core exercises to ones I've done as part of rowing and yoga, but there are a few new ideas here I can't wait to try. Thanks!

After the first couple I thought these were jokey, a la Viz's "top tips". I read on for the humour and by the end wasn't sure any more. I think it's a mix of mostly gags but with a couple of serious-sounding ones thrown in for contrast.

I'm seeing much skepticism and criticism of Lanier in the comments here, which would be my position too, based on 99% of what I've watched or read about him (a scene with an Aibo comes to mind especially!).

However, there was a 1% where I felt he really shined and that was in a bloggingheads discussion with Eliezer Yudkowsky. It's been about a year since I last watched it but I've seen it four times in total and every time there are large periods where I'm really locked into the points Lanier is making and find myself in agreement. Check it out here (go on, Yudkowsky is always good value!): http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/1849.

It is a confusingly-written comment, and I think the final bit especially is simply the wrong wording for what the author means, but beneath all that there's still a valid criticism of Google Flights over Expedia.

The unambiguous part is that Google Flights failed to account for the nature of the seats it had identified as "available", and went ahead with the recommendation when in fact they were not appropriate. The unclear part is whether Expedia did actually find the same flight and seats (as the author appears to be saying) but has some way around the security features (an agreement with the airline?), or whether Expedia was aware of the inappropriateness of the seats Google Flights recommended and in fact provided different ones on a different flight.

It would be nice if the parent had been clearer in the explanation but it seems that either way: Expedia 1, Google 0.

Fascinating. I always wondered if this sort of thing was possible when I noticed as a child that pressing multiple buttons at the same time on my parents calculator made the screen show stuff that wasn't actually real numbers (things like a 2 with a part missing, etc.). Likewise seeing which buttons on the VCR have precedence (e.g. if I hold down "play" and press "stop" then what happens? And vice versa?). I always assumed the device wouldn't be designed comprehensively to handle all possible inputs like that, so there was a chance some of them would allow you to do funky unintended stuff.

Given the complexity and freedom of access that a videogame has, I'm not surprised that this hack is technically possible, but it is very impressive that someone's managed to do it!