buckler

Do you feel the moderation over there is enough though, even on the "nicely moderated places" that you mention?

Compared to other communities where admins/mods delete users' comments to a much higher frequency relative to Reddit and freely edit or move unfitting submissions & comments, I've always felt the lack of moderation on Reddit for the most part has been the reason for attracting trolls and users making hateful comments.

And the thing is, Reddit looks to be a very hard place to moderate as large number of Redditors seem to become very mad when heavy moderation happens (seeing from the large # of "I thought this site was all about freedom of speech"-type comments when r/jailbait got banned few months back).

When the lack of moderation attracts all those characters who post "shit", filtering via voting just becomes useless as you mention in your other comment.

To add to this, it also feels as that in most cases, for every topic that a niche subreddit (or multiple similar subreddits) covers, there usually exist better online communities dealing with the same topic elsewhere on the Web.

For example, let's say you're interested in airplanes and aviation. Relevant subreddits such as r/aviation just doesn't compare to communities like airliners.net with its sheer amount and high quality of content.

Quality of content aside, other communities in such instances also seem to have better organization, more strict moderation (although some subreddits do have very good, dedicated moderators), and certain culture that's not prevalent on Reddit (e.g. compared to some other communities that I visit, there doesn't seem to be a culture of searching before posting on Reddit, ultimately resulting in a lot of reposts), leading me to go to those places rather than the subreddits that cover the same topic.

If you're interested in books published in 2011 and that are not necessarily picked by HNers:

http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2011/11/online_b...

This blogger aggregates "Best of 2011"-type book lists from all types of sources you can imagine (well, English-based ones anyway); thought it might be of interest to some of you here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churnalism

I'm not sure if the same term is used in the U.S., but few British journalists have spoken out about what you've mentioned - the race to get the story out first without applying strict fact-checking standards, all happening in an industry where resources are being cut all over the place and making matters worse.

Do you usually ask the same question to white Canadians as well ("Where are you from?", "Oh, where are your parents from then?")? It would be safe to assume that white Canadians are generally confronted with those questions with much less frequency than Asian Canadians are.

May be some do have a sense of self-hatred like you said, but I would guess most people are simply annoyed by those questions so they respond adversely. Like others have mentioned already, it's really frustrating from a point of view of a person who might be a 3rd generation Canadian, as the questions can make him/her feel like perpetual foreigner. Why can't you take "Canadian" as an answer when those people have lived there for all their lives and might have never even visited their grandparents' country of origin?

As you've said you're an immigrant, your ethnicity and the fact that you're a first generation immigrant might be a big part of who you are (if you do treat them importantly, that is). For second generation Canadians and on, that might be not so true. It's not that they are embarrassed by their respective ethnicity, but it just doesn't play a big part in their lives in their thoughts.

As for the post-it/to-do lists, what helps me is to develop a point system (scale of 0~5 or whatever) and assign a point next to a criterion at the end of the day, depending on how well you think the task was accomplished. It works even better if the tasks are something that's repeated weekly (e.g. organisation of your living space), as you'll end up with a collection of points.

While easy and non time-consuming, it's powerful in a way that it creates a feedback process. Of course, there's bunch of different reward systems people use besides scoring high points, like earning oneself a cigar, for example. So you can develop one that suits you for more fun.

Just as an additional note, MIT came up with a set of OCWs for introductory courses back in January that are specifically intended for independent learners (IIRC, one of the MIT's original aims for the OCW project was to provide materials for educators rather than learners). These 'OCW Scholar' courses contain complete course material, and I'm guessing we'll have more of these as time progresses.

Link: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/ocw-scholar/

Previously:

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1606148

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=868006

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=576677

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1365094 (entrepreneurship & specific subreddits)

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=625854 (art)

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1315103 (bio/med, started by one of our own, kyro)

Bias put aside, you get to detect certain patterns about the articles after you read BBC's online news service for a while. Most of the time, they seem to lack depth as well.

If you're familiar with their articles, you've probably seen a pattern where articles of ~4 paragraphs come up on the site when a breaking news occurs. You get the sense that they're only concerned with speed rather than accuracy - contents in those 4 paragraphs will change throughout the day, while they'll add about 10 more paragraphs containing some background information and/or interviews. So unless you don't read the "finished version," it's likely that you didn't read the most accurate information.

The way the BBC writers work gives them hardly any time to check facts as well. They're expected to write news tickers, e-mail the news desk about newly written stories, and make a post on Ceefax service as well (hence the 4-paragraph rule). Then they are also expected to harmonize their articles with news from other BBC outlets (e.g. BBC Radio services, BBC News Channel, etc.) so the writers multi-task and constantly have to keep an eye on those services.

I cannot agree more with this. Perhaps this might apply to almost all discussion-based sites, but often at HN (especially Ask HN posts), it's sometimes frustrating seeing how new conversations regarding a specific topic - most likely as a result of a frequently asked question - keep popping up.

It's not that I find presence of FAQs frustrating, but has more to do with how useful information contained in different discussions tend to get increasingly decentralized. Furthermore, depending on the topic, the nature of discussions might change as time progresses, and those who might want more "classic" advices on that topic could really benefit from this proposed style of wiki.

For example, "recommend materials for learning higher maths" type of questions keep appearing consistently. Each time there's a new discussion that contains unique advices. If I were to refer a newcomer to past discussions right at this moment, I could come up with at least 5 of them (which I have done in one of my comments few weeks ago). A HN Wiki that centralizes gems from different discussions in this situation would be highly beneficial, a time-saver for many.

I suppose alternatives are tagging and improved search functions which are common elsewhere, but a somewhat-active wiki community (whether official or unofficial) where people are willing to organize useful information would be just fantastic.

There was a pertinent discussion about height adjustable desks few days ago, see here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1285775

I highly recommend them, if you can get one for your home office (or if you work in a office that allows desk of your preference). Some people go even further and get a treadmill underneath the desk, but I like to switch between sitting & standing personally. Standing up while working gives me an active feel to it, and I find myself avoiding procrastination since my legs would get tired if I were to spend hours surfing the Web (sure, I could adjust the height so that I can comfortably sit again, but the decision becomes more 'conscious' in a sense).

May be you've seen these HN threads about self-learning maths already... if not, hopefully you'll find these textbooks useful. Here's a little HN link dump, in the order of time at which the discussions took place (from the oldest to the most recent):

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=108723

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=201913

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=458926

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=755043

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1058359

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1193352

One caveat is that many of these textbooks do not come with a solutions manual. So, in terms of practice, I think that's where the dearth of uploaded lecture materials could come in. Sometimes, there might be no e-learning/opencourseware material for the topic you're interested in. In such cases, I found that if you look through universities' Websites closely enough, professors upload a lot of course materials on their personal pages. You can do this by finding a random university's math dept. page, then searching from course/faculty listings.

Last of all, I'm pretty certain you've heard of this site already, as it's being circulated quite a lot lately, but many have professed that videos from khanacademy.org to be quite helpful when grasping basic mathematical concepts.

Relevant HN discussions from the past:

-http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=108723

-http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=201913

Just had to post a comment to say thanks. Even the archives on searchyc is good enough, but this will surely save me a lot of clicks. Cheers.

A dedicated site (rather than personal blogs that are already in place for this purpose) would be great.

At the moment, I keep a Delicious account to index learning material and look for additional content using relevant tags or looking through others' accounts hoping to find other users like myself - time consuming/inefficient task however.

If you've had this idea for some time, I'm just curious as to whether you've thought of a way to search for (& gather) such material.

Wasn't WoW supposed to be the new golf amongst the Silicon Valley lot?

Dude, asking out of curiosity, could you elaborate on your experience?

Did your health literally get worse? Did you miss out on a lot occasions/opportunities during the time you read heavily? Was it too much of an information overload than one could handle?

Personally, I'm mainly curious about how another individual's brain reacts when dealing with intake of such huge quantity of data.

In case you're unfamiliar with the IAmA series on Reddit (which I see is getting positive feedback from HN readers, needless to say), a 'starred' post such as this one means that the OP has verified his/her identity with a subreddit moderator.

Just wanted to point out since this new process was implemented only few days ago.

From the viewpoint of a HN lurker:

-pg - Because he's PG

-edw517, mechanical_fish - Due to frequent sighting of their comments

-tokenadult - You'll always find him in threads that contain discussions about human intelligence/alternative education

-potatolicious - U.S. immigration discussions + Canada vs. USA issues

-markbao - Entrepreneur, 16 years old

-mahmud - A technology nomad (originally from the Washington DC Metro, now in Australia)

These are the ones I can recall from top of my head. I do recognize many other usernames, of course. Also, I would like to point out I have no inclination to upvote the individuals mentioned above. I think it's more about frequency, since most of them tend to partake in discussions that cover a wide range of topics.

Just because they're experts in one area doesn't mean I'll find their opinions insightful no matter what. Each posting/comment is taken into consideration.

For some reason, I've heard the exact same thing from residents of Chicago, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, etc.

So does "average" exclude major (maybe East Coast) U.S. cities? Should I look at cities of smaller scale... say Oxnard, CA? Which criteria should one consider when deciding a city is "normally" segregated? Just want to know how things are different in the average American city with a significant number of ethnic minorities.

Technological:

-Compilation of "Best How-To and DIY Sites" from PC Magazine (includes Instructables, WikiHow, Expert Village, WonderHowTo, etc.) - http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2347650,00.asp

-DIY from Popular Science - http://www.popsci.com/diy

-"Type of Skills Everyone Should Know" (originally "100 Skills Every Men Should Know") from Popular Mechanics - http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/how_to/4284709....

-"64 Things Every Geek Should Know" - http://laptoplogic.com/resources/64-things-every-geek-should...

Intangible/"Lifehacks":

-How to do better socially - http://www.succeedsocially.com/

-Productivity section of Lifehacker - http://lifehacker.com/tag/productivity/?refId=0

-Studying strategies - http://www.studygs.net/

Financial:

-Mint.com's blog - http://www.mint.com/blog/

Past Discussions (search for more):

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=576677

- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=199103

Suggestions:

- http://similicio.us/search.php?url=news.ycombinator.com&...

- I was also going to suggest stackoverflow.com, but you got that down

- http://episteme.arstechnica.com/

Usual hacker suggestions (not necessarily communities):

- http://research.google.com/video.html (Google Talks)

- http://www.ted.com/

- http://lwn.net/ (Linux Weekly News)

- etc.

It isn't a documentary to begin with, but an investigative news program (rather a sensational one at that). Can't speak for shows in non-English speaking countries, but I'm sure we all have shows like this one in our respective countries of residence. I've watched BBC Panorama episodes this year that are just as biased & fear-mongering for example. If you want serious American documentaries, sample PBS's Frontline or NOVA series (via file-sharing =]) before jumping to conclusions.

Yes sir, Kindle 2 does it (via http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/E-book_Reader_Matrix).

If you have certain areas that you're particularly interested in, make a customized feed. For example, I've used Yahoo Pipes to create a feed to filter out Delicious Popular items that contain words (topics) that do not interest me (e.g. Twitter, Illustrator, etc.). I simply load the customized feeds on Google Reader for efficient browsing.

If you come to Hacker News mainly to read through discussions, I've found subscribing to AskYC RSS feed helps (or to visit AskYC archives on searchyc.com), since they seem to contain the most interesting opinions & discussions to me. Other than that, make a commitment to check HN only twice a day (e.g. once in the morning and night) or something, since you won't miss out on top items that will be on the front page all day long.

With the option limited to expensive/not very well-built iRex iLiad at the moment, I am happy that more large-screen devices are coming out. Meanwhile, after researching & researching, I'm still reluctant to adapt to the new technology (dedicated ebook readers) as the "perfect" device still seems a couple of years away or so. Just feels like any upcoming devices will become outdated very quickly.

At the moment, I simply want neither e-ink devices nor LCD devices. While color & refresh time are attractive, LCD devices come at a cost when it comes to serious reading (eyestrain, battery life). Also, like others have mentioned here, I'd want a dedicated reader w/o the distractions. However, the prospects are still enthralling though, with Mary Lou Jespen's Pixel Qi developing LCDs specifically designed for reading for example. Whether it's new e-ink devices, CrunchPad, or the Apple tablet, the innovations (& lowering costs) are just so exciting for an avg. consumer here.

I'm curious about the extent to which traditional publishers will shape this market. They must face the similar dilemma at the moment... As for the large Kindle, there's the monochrome constraint & Amazon's control over functionalities, pricing, etc. With something like Apple's tablet, they would be reluctant since users would simply browse free content available on the Internet.

I also agree with this notion. Also notice the absence of spam here... In addition to human editing by the admins, active users on HN here really care about the quality on the site.

It's as if sites like Digg, Reddit, & Slashdot have set some sort of a precedent, and people now have a better sense of what to avoid, moderate, etc.

This solution pertains to Delicious (since I assume it's the best option for now). If you were to create a new account (just to start off fresh) and import your bookmarks, you do have an option to set all of them as private. For future saves, tick off the 'do not share' box each time - of course, it's not the optimal solution, but if you don't mind that extra click...

I do get a gut feeling that Delicious will ultimately come up with an option to set a profile as private.

Or you could just start a new service, as the person above suggested. =)