Elearning project

Cloud Productions is hiring a full stack developer to help us create an elearning platform and work on a few other products in various states of readiness.

You'll take an MVP (currently in use by a few of our customers) to a market-ready state. Product currently utilizing:

Go, Fabric, AWS, MySQL and typical front-end stuff.

The main product is a leadership development tool based on the bestselling books and private executive coaching experience of psychologist Dr. Henry Cloud. The application uses video and various question types to instruct users on how to become better leaders. Clients are mostly managers and executives at medium-to-big companies, but will eventually launch to the public.

Big pluses would be experience in working on quiz-based elearning products, using data to build user dashboards.

We are a small, very close-knit team. We're all friendly, understanding, tolerant, caring people trying to build something really big and exciting. We meet up for company retreats in nice locations 3 or 4 times per year, and some of us get together to work in person for a few days at a time a couple times per year. Otherwise the position is completely remote.

Replies should start going out on Tuesday, September 5.

Send your resume and any relevant links and info to greg@drcloudteam.com

Rather than stating that you don't know why it would be relevant to mention the man's race, why don't you just actually ask yourself the question? Why does it matter that he is black? You all are great problem solvers. I think you can come up with some interesting answers.

I'll respectfully disagree with that. I think the rules set up in HN around both manual and automatic flagging mean that controversial stories quickly get buried, and only very straightforward, non-controversial articles get visibility.

Many users think this is a positive feature. I'm deeply ambivalent about it, but have come to accept that HN is simply not a place where controversial things are discussed with any measure of success. But don't mistake that for HN being a progressive haven.

EDIT: prophecy fulfilled. This submission got flagged off the homepage.

You might be making a meta statement regarding other stories. Still this is pretty benign stuff.

But power can be exercised in more subtle ways, including limiting what gets discussed in the first place or leaving comments like 'Thanks for not making it political' on threads about Haskell.

The flagging and downvoting of what I would call progressive but others would call 'political' themes falls under that category.

If only. Far worse is the number of replies saying that he isn't black enough. It's so weird when you get racially policed by white people if you don't conform to a media stereotype, or if you're not dark enough.

How about "of sub-Saharan African descent?"

Also, it shouldn't be confusing that the descendants of northern Europeans and Sub-Saharan Africans look Mediterranean. It really makes a lot of obvious sense.

Its really not, though it includes some member of the progressive segment of the community (as well as the diametrically opposite segment) and a moderation policy which suppresses neither, so it can sometimes appear to be either extremely progressive or extremely regressive (but mostly just a mix of both, and positions in between and off to the sides.)

I can answer to this. His race is mentioned because today's radical left wing journalists think that separating minorities and putting them on a spotlight is progressive and going to fight against racism.

Well...that's pretty much absolute bullshit. Actually it's doing the complete opposite. For example in this article the credit for the achievement is stolen from the person himself and given to a generic group of people with only thing in common being the race. This is active way of telling his not "us", but his "them".

When journalists and people stop seeing black, white, yellow, green, gay, straight etc. or just stop caring about race and start seeing just people we most certainly won't have society without racism but we might have a society with much less racism from all sides.

Your statement is belied utterly by almost all of the below replies and it is savagely disheartening.

The alt-righters pop up once and again but they are usually downvoted out[0] when they turn to race baiting and blatant propaganda (posting of sketchy research supporting inherent differences between the races, for example).

[0] Hell, just look at the comments down in this section.

We lived in a world where racism exists, regardless of your own personal attitude. This is just like global climate change - simply because you personally are carbon neutral doesn't mean we don't have a systematic crisis on our hands. You are far, far too willing to wash your hands of the whole topic, and it is very naive. The fact of the matter is that advantages and disadvantages are built into your socioeconomic class, and race is a very strong indicator of your class affiliation. On top of this, like or it not, there are a huge number of racists of all types, ranging from people who proudly burn crosses to much more subtle or unintentional racism. Denying that people's attitudes is something that must be taken into consideration is just... staggering. To put it quite simply: the fact that you, an enlightened individual, do not take race into your moral consideration is laudable but it in no way affects the fact that hundreds of millions of people are already racist and you are willfully putting blinders on to this fact. The most concerning part is that many of these actively (or passively) racist people are in positions of power. Ignoring that is just childish. [There is a strong analogy to this comic by XKCD about the ridiculous beliefs of US Senators.](https://xkcd.com/154/)

> And if you can't accept that people view this issue differently and think there are different solutions, you are part of the problem.

Pot, meet kettle.

Is it better for me, as an individual, to treat you the same as I do anyone else and wait for gradual societal pressure to push others to do the same, or is it better for me, as an individual, to highlight the oppression that very much still exists, in a bid to make others notice?

I don't think there is a right and wrong answer here, just different approaches to a problem. The good thing is that we can all agree the problem exists, which isn't always a given.

However, in the end, my point is this: I am of the opinion that collective action is necessary to address this issue and I believe the weight of the evidence is on this side. The point that you (appear) to have made, and I am reacting to, is that ignoring the problem is the best way to address it, and I think that is demonstrably ineffective. It is just not the world in which we live.

I think you are misunderstanding the point treehau5 wanted to make. I think he wants to say the same thing as I [1], we should take action to boost disadvantaged groups in order to close existing gaps as quickly as possible but that should be done in away that avoids focusing on the distinction one wants to go away. It is not about ignoring an existing issue, it is about not additionally emphasizing it.

What good is it, if you want to get rid of racial bias, to point out the race in a context where it does not matter at all? Maybe you could argue that there are people believing that black people made no significant contributions to our world and you are trying to correct that but that does not seem a very strong argument to me.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13707121

> I understand the sentiment, but I also understand that if you truly want to get rid of racial bias, gender bias, whatever else bias completely, then not paying it mention in any sphere is how you get there.

I do not see how that is open to interpretation and it appears to run entirely contrary to your point.

My interpretation as a non-native English speaker focused on »mention« and so I did not interpret it as excluding any actions. But with you pointing this out and after having a second look I can see how »in any sphere« could make the point stronger than what I thought.

I the end I am neither in the position to judge what the correct interpretation of the phrase is, nor what statement treehau5 actually intended to make. I of course stand by my point, whether it is the same one treehau5 wanted to make or not.

However, here it is pretty clear to me, and likely why he deleted his post, that he meant "we should just ignore it." Which I don't think is a particularly defensible position.

There are black people who are very privileged (e.g. Obama) and white people who are very unprivileged (e.g. the homeless). So focusing on race will inevitable lead to bosting outcomes of some privileged people and ignoring other non-privileged people.

A better way to solve this problem would be to focus on people from disadvantaged backgrounds (== poor), regardless of race.

The playing field is not level. I truly do not know why this point is so hard to communicate.

You can be the wealthiest, smartest black man alive - you are never going to be a grand dragon in the KKK. That should be quite obvious.

Now back down from that hyperbolic example - what about being a black man in the Mormon Clergy? That was impossible until very recently.

Now what about being a black man as a corporate CEO? Definitely doable. There have been 14 such individuals in the history of the Fortune 500: http://fortune.com/2017/01/16/black-women-fortune-500/ # But it may be less doable depending on the organization. Don't you see there is a continuum here? That the qualifications of the individual, including their privilege, are irrelevant when the ladder that individual is trying to climb has a "no [characteristic] need apply" sign at the third or fourth rung? Why is this so hard to understand?

# Note that this is a pretty low number.

The status quo doesn't change if people don't talk about, analyse and challenge it.

Maybe it can help get through to people who write code all day that racism is built up technical debt, and ignoring it doesn't mean it will go away?

There are real divisions between people, socially constructed ones. That will likely always persist, and discussing categorical representation (or lack thereof) is an important part of making genuine strides toward diversity (in the workplace, in culture, etc). The goal is not to have everybody be the same, it's to make the 'thing' representative of the the diverse people that make up the 'thing'.

Do you not agree that a young black kid deserves black heroes that she can relate her own story to? Why ignore that aspect of the story?

Some NPR story about US Cybercommand responding to Russian cyber attacks, 'at place and time of our choosing.'

'Some you might hear about. Some you might not.'

FFWD to a couple days ago, NPR story about a botched European and Russian lander.

Today, US Eastern Seaboard is seeing connectivity disruption due to DDoS attacks.

*

Unwinding the stack, the latest news is these DDoS attacks are not likely state sponsored.

Russia pulling off a coordinated attack that soon after and in response to my theorized US retaliation seems unlikely.

US attacking a joint partnership between Russia and Europe civilian space program seems unlikely.

As an aside, my son was born 12 lb 1 oz, he now weighs 31 lbs at 5 months. The same weight as my 3 1/2 year old daughter.

That's approximately 100% efficiency converting dietary calories into body mass, or massive water retention.

You could cure starvation across the world if you good identify the source of that.

I don't know you, and I wouldn't presume to know anything about you other than what you've revealed in your comments, but what I can say is that you've been handed enough lego blocks to build anything you want to, and it seems like you've set them aside because they're not the specific blocks that you had in mind to build the thing that you envisioned at some point in the past.

No one automatically receives happiness. But you have an obligation to work on yourself, to do better than you seem to be doing, at building a happy self out of the life that you've made. That obligation is a result of choices you've made to build a family. Like it or not, you owe it to your wife and children to do the extra work of finding the meaning and sense of significance that is absolutely there waiting to be uncovered by you, and put to use by you.

All of the extrinsic life experiences you've mentioned in your comments do not entitle you to wait for something to click, to be more than a 'yawning void of nothing'.

If what you're talking about is something that you face no matter how many good, wise, smart moves that you make, then you may need to face the reality that you need treatment for depression or some other issue.

No amount of travel or physical trials that you've put yourself through can supplant the reality that you can build for yourself by simply looking inward. In fact, it seems as though by constantly abstracting the search into various physical or worldly concerns, you've done the opposite.

Happiness and fulfillment are moving targets. Personally, I suspect that I may never get all the way there. But I've spent some time on the road you're describing, and I know it's a dead end road. It's ego, it's self-indulgence, it's blame, it's a withering loneliness that makes you a small island, one that can be described in just a few seconds with cliches, easily traversed by foot, and forgotten or ignored by others.

Whether or not you're clinically depressed, you should probably work on the quality of your relationships. Are there people that you can authentically connect with? If not, find them. They're out there. Are there people with whom your connection leaves you feeling bad or more isolated? Get rid of them. Are there people that you keep trying to connect with but it doesn't happen? Stop trying, and refocus your energy on authentic connections. Are there superficial connections that satisfy some social or validating urge that you have? Figure out whether your relationships with those people can be evolved into authentic, meaningful connections or not, and work on the good ones and discard the bad ones.

It's an absolute tragedy to waste all of the time and beautiful experiences and memories that you could be accumulating with all of the people in your life, for lack of addressing a few relatively simple and totally fixable issues.

Not only family but I have a high stress business to run and people counting on me! Thanks for taking the time to write that out though.

In reality, all you write is correct generally. This wasn't intended to be a mini-therapy session, but for what it's worth the same message you state: "Happiness comes from inside" has been repeated to me literally as far back as I can remember. It's not practical though.

I've had probably a dozen therapists over the years, found mentors I looked up to, tried to find meaningful relationships with peers, studied what fulfillment is etc...A few years ago I came to the conclusion that searching for "happiness" in all of these things was just not working. And beyond that the fact of the search turning up dry is a compounding problem.

I'm not sure what happened, but as Rodney Dangerfield called it "The Heaviness[1]" is getting bigger.

But I've spent some time on the road you're describing, and I know it's a dead end road.

I'm curious what "road" that is?

waste all of the time and beautiful experiences and memories that you could be accumulating

Is there value in accumulating experiences? I mean I've accumulated a shitload of them, the problem is there isn't anything to do with them. It's like saving Polaroids. Is there a reason to other than looking at them again for a serotonin bump?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zdjYmhrA-A

This is not necessarily bad. It can, in fact, be a virtue. With true nihilism, comes true freedom to do anything. Right now happiness is the greatest unifying force in our society. Everyone has to be happy. It's a dictum you listen to from birth to death. Be happy. Acquire things. Do this, do that, give us money, spend spend, make more, spend more. It will make you happy. And you want to be happy because we all told you that happiness must be your ultimate goal in life.

Fuck that. There's no need to be happy. Do whatever you want.

As the great Keanu Reeves once said: "You need to be happy to live, I don't"

Passive nihilism can be found in Schopenhauer, Zen, Buddhism, Vedanta, detachment from the self and the fulfillment of idle fantasies [desire]. It is related to a monastic/ascetic lifestyle and can be very hard to deal with or fully espouse when one lives an active life inside modern western society (too many distractions).

Active nihilism is best described by Nietzsche, in his concept of the Ubermensch or the Antichrist. This is a strong individual who creates and projects his own morals, imposing his own Will upon the world whilst living his own life as a work of art. John C. Lilly's concept of metaprogramming and various mystical "systems" can also be seen as forms of this discipline.

The fundamental problem is "desire", of any sort, which stems from the Ego. Individuals who, through circumstances or deliberate means, manage to chip away at the Ego, pretty much all go through this "dark night of the soul".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death

Have you read Nietzsche? His concept of the Übermensch is particularly useful I feel.

Also John C. Lilly and his concept of metaprogramming. If all that can be said to exist is the Void, then the first step to finding peace, is to give yourself fully to it. On this, the occultist Aleister Crowley used the concept of Babalon which exacts a heavy price (the blood of the adept, meaning his self-identity).

When that realization sets in and there is no fixed "I" there anymore, everything becomes easier.

One becomes what one imagines...

Writing this as someone who went through SCUBA training (but never took the open water dive) and also went through an intensive private pilot training course (but never went on the check ride), I feel a sort of kinship here.

Have you tried CBT or REBT? (REBT has the word "rational" right in it).

The premise is that our thoughts can sometimes put unreasonable demands and pressure on us which results in nasty emotional consequence. You can give REBT a test drive via a few sample chapters from a reputable author here: http://threeminutetherapy.com/my-book-three-minute-therapy

Another useful book is: How to Refuse to Make Yourself Miserable about Anything: Yes Anything! https://www.amazon.com/Refuse-Yourself-Miserable-about-Anyth...

Then there's meditation. It's not all yoga pants and spiritual mumbo jumbo. I've described a simple method here: https://medium.com/@John_Chacho/engaging-the-senses-to-quiet...

These aren't magic solutions. My brain resists this stuff with ninja-like elusiveness, but when I remember to practice it, it does steady my outlook and behavior.

In short, the various CBT methods combined with meditation can turn the confrontation with the "yawning void of nothing" into a peaceful, sometimes even joyful experience.

The authors of the REBT books I mentioned are at odds with most everyone other type of therapy. One of the books strongly critiques psycho analysis (searching one's past for psychological wounds) and concepts like AA. For this reason (being at odds with other therapies) the authors recommended therapists that specialize in cognitive behavior therapy alone to get the maximum benefit. Again there are slightly different therapies: CBT, CEBT, REBT, DBT - I don't make a distinction that I probably should.

In essence it's about getting in the habit of talking to your brain, interrupting a thought that can easily become a habitual pattern, and disputing what one thinks by default. It's a search for evidence for the thoughts we believe without question because they come from our own brain.

In a conversational sense it's a bit like separating yourself from your thoughts and telling your brain: "That's an interesting thought. It's ridiculous because there is no evidence to support it and it's self-defeating because all it does is harm my mood - but it's interesting. In all the ocean of thoughts that are available you bring me that? How about you go back to the well and bring me something constructive, positive, or at least funny. I don't have time for nonsense."

What I find useful - and again I've only read books about these techniques - is that they can also be applied to negative people in my life. It works externally just as well as it does internally.

When something is hard and you can't manage to get the desired result no matter how hard you try, consider that rather than to keep working 'hard', you just try something different.

I know you haven't (and couldn't, on this forum) encapsulated the breadth of all of the things you've tried to overcome this lack of meaning that you've been experiencing throughout your life. But, and please forgive me if I'm oversimplifying your search, it seems pretty clear that you've been looking in the wrong places. Trying something different doesn't necessarily mean trying a different activity, or finding a new thrill, or a new drug, or anything like that. Put simply, it means try doing something that you wouldn't otherwise do.

When you say that the people around you hate it, that's what I'm getting at when I say, 'Can you imagine what it's like being on the other side of you?' Are you giving the people close to you the access and information they need to help you? Do they know you need their care? Do they know what things they do that give you energy, and what things they do for you that are demotivating and de-energizing? Simply giving them access to 'where you're at' can do a lot to empower them to help you. You can't get through this alone. You need to do everything you can to let them know that you're working on it and that they can help.

When you say that 'everyone else seems fine', that's a symptom of the lack of authentic connections in your life. If you're like most of the people on this forum, it's possible you spend a likely unhealthy amount of time working. That makes it crucially important that you have some professional relationships that can help fuel you to do the best work you can do (for the sake of your own business, your own sanity, and just generally making the world a better place by being easy to work with), and to get through the business of being a human being within the constraints of our economy. I don't know what business you're in, but I would be shocked if you couldn't improve it by being better connected to the people you're working with.

Whatever is stopping you from improving those connections, whether it's introversion, a sense of superiority, or simply being a low-friction provider of a minimal interaction service, just be aware that there are steps that you can take to make those connections stronger. There is not nothing you can do.

The fact that happiness comes from the inside is so easily written off by so many people is a persistent and vexing concern. Think of how much you contain, honestly. Within you is all of the pain and all of the joy of every Russian novel, every bit of the dazzling, puzzling, frustrating and ecstatic complexity of every single film, poem, painting, song, etc, ever made. The degree of difference between you and me and every other human being is infinitesimally small if you zoom out just a little bit. So, if someone else is able to apply that idea that happiness originates from within, so can you. I hate myself for writing things that contrived, but it's true. For what it's worth, you may have to take someone at their word that they were able to build happiness just with what was contained within them. Trust it. It's true. Set aside the practical dilemma of working it out in steps that can be described to fit your life, and understand that it's possible.

You mention having a dozen therapists. That sucks to go through that many therapists and not find 'the one', but please keep searching. It's the same with mentors. The compounding problem of trying to attain happiness and to have massive amounts of real effort turn up little reward is a huge and understandably discouraging one.

Despite the absurd and self-aggrandizing length of this reply, I have no answers and no wisdom that couldn't be more succinctly expressed through common idioms. The only thing I can offer is my own experience, and to vouch for the experience of some people I know that were able to slough off the feeling of torpor and malaise that can set in when hopelessness comes easier than hope.

Your Rodney Dangerfield example is well appreciated. The best comedians give us the pain of the world wrapped in a bow. I have found that in my own life, I get both much happier, and also experience much more sadness and even depression as I open more and deeper connections with other people, and with the world at large. In general, you just feel more. That is one of the beautiful (and obvious) things about connecting with others... you get to feel more.

The 'road' that I mentioned sharing with you was probably a bit presumptuous on my part... the road that I was talking about was basically my own history of trying to obfuscate my needs and feelings with more-than-casual drug and alcohol use, believing that the reason 'things' weren't 'happening' had mostly to do with people/influences/circumstances/other factors outside my control, which led to blame and avoidance and some bad stuff that comes along with those things.

Your example comparing the accumulation of experiences/memories with saving Polaroids is concerning because, sure, collecting Polaroids is a bit boring if they're all the same picture, but ideally they shouldn't be. But anyway the analogy doesn't really work, because the important factor is not that they 'happened', but instead that they accumulate, which leads to deeper connections, new connections, etc.

Sorry in advance for the ridiculous length of this post.

That helps me as much as asking me to breathe water, or see infrared though.

Those deep relationships you speak of; when trying to have these kinds of conversations the response is mostly "I don't know what that's like so I really can't help, sorry." Or you say, ok I need your help by being patient, but that only goes so far for so long, and then for their sake you just start faking it or maybe not just faking it but at least not dwelling on it, ask again everything looks just fine.

To extend the comedy analogy, very introspective comedians discuss this frequently. Marc maron, garry Shandling, Bill Murray etc... have all discussed (all with Charlie rose Incidentally) their impossible yearning for self actualized contentment only to not find it. I appreciate you taking the time to write that out.

Charlie Rose interviews with comedians (specifically the types that you're referring to) are one of my favorite things to fall asleep to.

The way you've described your life reminds me of a book I've (partially) read: Mindfulness in Plain English. Even if you think Buddhism and meditation are a bunch of malarkey, the book itself is worth a read. What specifically comes to mind are parts where the author discusses why one should bother with meditation:

...you are human. And just because of the simple fact that you are human, you find yourself heir to an inherent unsatisfactoriness in life which simply will not go away. You can suppress it from your awareness for a time. You can distract yourself for hours on end, but it always comes back--usually when you least expect it. All of a sudden, seemingly out of the blue, you sit up, take stock, and realize your actual situation in life.

There you are, and you suddenly realize that you are spending your whole life just barely getting by. You keep up a good front. You manage to make ends meed somehow and look OK from the outside. But those periods of desperation, those times when you feel everything caving in on you, you keep those to yourself. You are a mess. And you know it. But you hide it beautifully. Meanwhile, way down under all that you just know there has got be some other way to live, some better way to look at the world, some way to touch life more fully...

...you suffer from the same malady that infects every human being. It is a monster in side all of us, and it has many arms: Chronic tension, lack of genuine compassion for others, including the people closest to you, feelings being blocked up, and emotional deadness. Many, many arms. None of us is entirely free from it. We may deny it. We try to suppress it. We build a whole culture around hiding from it, pretending it is not there, and distracting ourselves from it with goals and projects and status. But it never goes away. It is a constant undercurrent in every thought and every perception; a little wordless voice at the back of the head saying, "Not good enough yet"...

Maybe the Buddhists have got it right. Perhaps the more worthwhile goal is cultivating a clear and unbiased perception of reality. Honestly, I have no clue; just putting forward an alternative to consider if you haven't already. If you do figure it out, I'd love to know...

Here's a link to the book btw: http://www.budsas.org/ebud/mfneng/mind0.htm

EDIT: reading firstworldman's sibling comment provoked another thought which may head off a semantic issue. Maybe 'happiness' is neither a meaningful nor meaningless objective; it's simply an ill-defined, subjective concept. So when people talk about 'attaining happiness', its possible what they mean by 'happiness' is objectively different to what other people think it is. From what I understand firstworldman to be saying, he has found 'authenticity of experiences and relationships' to be a worthwhile and attainable goal. Incidentally, this seems to square with Buddhist philosophy, which is largely concerned with attaining 'perception of authentic reality' (i.e. 'enlightenment').

The other issues also need to be treated. Those are comparatively complex issues... Homelessness is, by comparison, not complex. Put people in houses. As evidenced by examples in Utah (and apparently Canada too, about which I was unaware until this thread), this is the fiscally smart move. The smart move and the right move aren't always in alignment, so this should be a no-brainer.

There are likely no homeless people who actually prefer to be homeless. There are people whose lives have been so massively changed by their circumstances that adjusting to a more comfortable housing situation might take some adjustment, and probably some therapy, assistance, and monitoring.

The sticker shock of doing this is what seems to keep it from getting fixed at once, as it's apparently much easier to periodically ask for money to develop ineffective piecemeal solutions.

The letter to Ed Lee reads like a parody. It will doubtless be forgotten, but I hope that's not the case. It should be one of a few artifacts used to encapsulate the historic moment we're living in.

'Worst of all, it is unsafe.' Sure, it sucks that it's a safety hazard to area residents. Is that really the worst part though? If you think the worst part of the homeless crisis is that it makes you and your well-to-do neighbors unsafe, you should probably ask yourself what exactly makes you so important.

'My girlfriend was terrified and myself and many people ran out of the theater.' I can't judge anyone for what scares them, and sure, the incident sounds like it would have been a surprise... But this guy makes it sound like an actual monster came into the theater and ran everyone out. A homeless person came in and did something that interrupted the film. Things like this will occasionally happen in a city that has a terrible homeless problem. Justin Keller's reaction is everything you need to know that he doesn't have the emotional or psychological maturity necessary to process homelessness as an issue separate from the effect it has on himself.

San Francisco is a city rich with ideas and capital, but I don't know how you can incentivize tech-community participation in solving this crisis. I keep thinking that we've reached peak obliviousness, and then something like this letter comes along, and frankly I didn't expect to find so many people here basically affirming the sentiments. I really worry that this is how a sizable portion of SF's tech community feels, whether they admit to it or not.

The BBC Radiophonic Workshop is more influential than they're ever given credit for, even now that the story is somewhat well known. And they were at the time too... If you're looking for 'pop' musicians who were influenced by those experiments in early electronics, check An Electric Storm by White Noise (band that featured Delia and Brian from BBC RWS), as well as United States of America's self-titled 1968 record. Both radical and timeless.

Not so pioneering, but Broadcast did some awesome stuff in a similar vein in the '00s, eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og7m71xuFbA

That's a Bowie quote I think of with unusual regularity. It appeared 16 years ago in Spin Magazine. He was asked why his then newest album wasn't as contemporary sounding as his previous album, Earthling.

It's advice that may be applicable to the projects worked on by many here as well.