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Posted by cjbarber 2 days ago

Facts about throwing good parties(www.atvbt.com)
940 points | 408 commentspage 4
pjs_ 2 days ago|
This is great advice, parties are a lost technology in some parts of society, like the pyramids. We should throw more parties

For a dinner party specifically I like to force everyone to go for a walk before dessert. By that point they’re all hot and drunk, sending them outside for a quick lap cools everybody off, gets them talking, and is good for the digestion. Then you can come home and crack into that bottle of wine someone brought

highfrequency 2 days ago||
> 1) Prioritize your ease of being over any other consideration: parties are like babies, if you’re stressed while holding them they’ll get stressed too. Every other decision is downstream of your serenity: e.g. it's better to have mediocre pizza from a happy host than fabulous hors d'oeuvres from a frazzled one.

This is great, and applies broadly to parenting.

hamstergene 2 days ago||
Endless volume escalation is known as Lombard Effect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lombard_effect

At parties it is mainly due to room's echo.

The best and cheapest is open-air, where voices fly into the sky and never return, it would take like a thousand of people before it stops being enough.

Second best are large open windows, missing walls (porch/balcony) or multiple rooms.

Beyond that I don't think there can be a solution without some sort of room soundproofing, which is usually no-go for rented spaces and private houses. The closest one can get is to maximize soft surfaces (rugs, curtains esp. along walls).

Speaking of which, I wish bars, restaurants and other venues were required to place echo reducers on the ceiling, such simple and cheap measure would dramatically improve ability to talk there when they're full.

saghm 2 days ago|
> Speaking of which, I wish bars, restaurants and other venues were required to place echo reducers on the ceiling, such simple and cheap measure would dramatically improve ability to talk there when they're full.

It's possible they aren't aware, but I have to wonder if it's sometimes intentional. As someone who doesn't drink, I find most bars close to if not entirely intolerable as places to hang out in, not because I mind being around other people drinking, but because they're always so loud. I've always assumed that drinking is what makes this tolerable to people, so now that you bring this up, the idea that this could be a way to sell more alcohol occurs to me. Probably a silly conspiracy theory, but who knows!

lan321 2 days ago||
Also probably to do with cost. Acoustic panels are pretty expensive. I can imagine selling this to a manager/owner won't be easy since it's not clearly bound to return on investment.
barbs 2 days ago||
> " Parties are a public service, you’re doing people a favor by throwing them..Throwing parties is stressful for most people, but a great kindness to the community, so genuinely pat yourself on the back for doing this."

I sort of agree, but I also think they're intrinsically a lot of fun, and if you're not enjoying yourself and only doing it to provide the service then you probably shouldn't be throwing them.

Also, in my experience the best parties were the ones that, at a certain point, would carry themselves forward from their own momentum. Everyone participates in their own way, so if the music needed changing or there needed to be more alcohol, it would sort of work itself out automatically. Basically, it's less about the host providing everything and more providing the environment for the party to run itself.

fragmede 2 days ago||
I'll probably get uninvited from the party for pointing this out, but Partiful is free for users because they are datamining the shit out of us. If Palantir gives any here the creeps, just fyi, Partiful was founded by several former Palantir employees, including CEO Shreya Murthy and CTO Joy Tao.
0_____0 2 days ago||
They have a page that claims they don't sell user data. Not that this makes me trust them.

https://help.partiful.com/hc/en-us/articles/26526557943067-H...

sodality2 2 days ago|||
Also from their (presumably more binding) privacy policy:

> We don’t sell your personal data as a source of revenue, unlike most apps -- we make money by selling drinks & snacks for your event via our Group Order feature

cube00 2 days ago|||
> We don’t sell your personal data as a source of revenue

A well compensated lawyer could drive a truck through that statement, we'll start with the classic "sharing with our (allegedly) trusted 1000 partners" that you always see on cookie popups.

Cheer2171 2 days ago||||
> We don’t sell your personal data as a source of revenue

What a curiously specific phrase. So if they traded your data to Palantir in exchange for hosting or services, this would still be allowed. The fact that they have another revenue stream says nothing about your data privacy. Or if Thiel has a backdoor to snoop on Silicon Valley's most intimate social networking data.

fragmede 2 days ago|||
If the ex-Palantir CEO (who has subsequently left Partiful) gets Palantir stock, and that stock goes up in valuation, and that CEO sells the Palantir stock (which has gone up due to Partiful giving them the social graph and Palantir being able to data mine it) and uses the money from that sale to fund Partiful, is that considered selling user data?
varenc 2 days ago||
Besides the founders being ex-Palantir (left in 2018), is there much evidence for this? Their platform doesn't feel particularly data hungry to me at all.
fragmede 2 days ago||
Absolutely none! This is all based on FUD. But! Does knowing that an organization that's building out a social graph for as much of the developed world as they can has ties to Palantir, which has ties to governments, leave you with a warm fuzzy "I wanna give them my data!" feeling, or something else?

As far as it not feeling particularly data-mine-y: You give them your name and your phone number. Unless you're doing a lot of extra work to hide it, with data brokers and public data breaches, that's enough to get the rest of your info these days, your address, your job, you bank accounts, your family. You're giving them a list of friends, that's what they're building the site in order to ask for!

If you're findable via http://FastPeopleSearch.com, why would Partiful need to ask you for that information?

johnnyanmac 2 days ago||
>Does knowing that an organization that's building out a social graph for as much of the developed world as they can has ties to Palantir, which has ties to governments, leave you with a warm fuzzy "I wanna give them my data!" feeling, or something else?

I think he point is that most people won't ever even know that this is happening.

>why would Partiful need to ask you for that information?

well that site had a lot of annoying stuff when entering my name. Probably from my mom. But I'm happy to report that it did not actually have my phone number on record.

But that's not even a dig on my mom's internet habits. She's a government worker so a lot of that is probably public record. They were just able to piece together a lot of my info based on that.

jll29 2 days ago||
I've (co-)organized parties of varying sizes (N=2..50+) and I would say volume hasn't been the top problem, ever.

- As hosts, the main problems are finding a suitable date to hold the party, chasing attendance confirmations and getting people to dance (esp. once they're over 30).

- As attendees, the main problem besides whether on should go or not (which is often made dependent on who else is going) is figuring out what kind of "party" exactly it is (formal/informal, dance party/potluck, enough food?). The definition of "party" is very broad, even leaving aside cross-cultural norms, ranging from "let's sit around the table and play board games" to "let's outdo Hangover I/II/III [except for the giraffe]".

HK-NC 2 days ago||
"Once an event crosses a threshold (maybe 70%?) of male-or-female dominance, most people of the other gender are likely to decline"

Most guys I know would be eager to go to a party that had more women.

johnnyanmac 2 days ago|
It's a dangerous game. 30/70 is probably still appealing. 10/90 might be where it starts to feel like you're invading in someone else's space.
cube00 2 days ago||
> try to encourage standing for those who can e.g. by having high-top tables, or taking away chairs from around tables

Why do people feel it's their role to take away choice if someone wants (or need) to sit down?

I don't buy the attempt at inclusive language either because it's nobody's business to determine "for those who can".

Have chairs available for those who need them rather then forcing them make themselves known by asking the host for a chair or trying to drag one in from another room.

As a bonus you won't have to lug chairs out of the room only to put them back later.

selfawareMammal 2 days ago||
> Once an event crosses a threshold (maybe 70%?) of male-or-female dominance, most people of the other gender are likely to decline (or just not-come to your next party) as a result.

This is not true for men.

zeroCalories 2 days ago||
I don't know. Probably depends on your demographic. I already have a partner, so if I feel like I won't connect with the crowd I'm probably gonna decline.
karel-3d 2 days ago||
It really is.

Men actually don't feel comfortable when they are at majority women party. They start to feel insecure.

eertami 2 days ago|||
I suspect what OP meant is that if the party is majority men, then they are still happy to hang out.
johnnyanmac 2 days ago||
It says "of the other gender".

And yes, I get it. If it gets to a poitn where it feels more like a female-only space, I'll be less inclined to go next time. I don't want to feel like I'm invading.

I'm perfectly fine with a sausage fest, though. That's the default in tech circles, after all.

CrimsonCape 1 day ago|||
When a guy walks into a minefield, do you accuse him of being insecure?
drooby 2 days ago|
Surprised no mention of space per person. The sweet spot is not yet fully known to me. But maybe about 8-10 square feet per person. You want that intoxicating social energy, but people need the space to bop from circle to circle
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