Improving the way kids are taught to read - <AUTHOR> https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/02/12/582465905/the-gap-between-the-science-on-kids-and-reading-and-how-it-is-taught <comment><USER2> I'm disappointed that nowhere in this interview is there any actual indication of what is done badly, or what teachers should do to improve how kids are taught to read. I get that there is apparently a gap between how kids are taught to read and the science behind how kids should be taught read.

I would much prefer a single understandable, actionable insight. Without it, this interview seems rather hollow. From this interview, I'm led to expect that the real insight from the book is that "teachers should study behavioral science, congnitive science, and brain development," which is too loose a central thesis to capture my interest.

I suppose what I've really gathered from this interview is two things: firstly, I would like to know a bit more about the gap is between how kids learn to read and how they should learn to read; secondly, I do not intend on reading Seidenberg's book (i.e. the book this interview is centered around) to find out.

<comment><USER3> What is actually done is that teachers have children do tons of worksheets focusing on small aspects of reading. This allows teachers to check the boxes showing that they've covered the relevant standards, because this is what's supposedly covered on standardized tests. The standards are difficult to turn into lesson plans (even if that was a good idea), so often they use the clip- art encrusted crap available on the web (e.g. [https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Browse/Grade- Level/First...](https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Browse/Grade- Level/First/PreK-12-Subject-Area/Literature))

Occasionally they will actually read short passages from readers. After they read anything they will have to fill in some sort of (standards aligned) paperwork. They will never have extended reading time in class.

As an example, a 1st grade reading teacher needs to cover CCSS.ELA- LITERACY.RL.1.(1-10) (reading literature); CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.1.(1-10) (reading information text); and CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RF.1.(1-4) (but actually 15 substandards) (foundational skills).

Actual standards at [http://www.corestandards.org/ELA- Literacy/RF/1/](http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RF/1/)

<comment><USER4> My kids are in school doing common core and that's not what it's like at all. They do worksheets around learning specific small-bore topics, but otherwise do a ton of book reading and long-form writing assignments. Unless you have a cite, I don't think you're representing what the people in this article are talking about.

<comment><USER3> I wasn't addressing the article, just the GP. My experience was with my daughter's school. She was in 1st grade five years ago, but through 4th grade she was still bringing home piles of worksheets that had been done in class, and some more for homework(!). Talking with other parents at other schools at the time, they had similar experiences. I'd be thrilled if five years has made a huge difference, but I'm not optimistic.

I should note that we're in a not-terrific school district, and that there's a whole chain of people from the teacher up to state legislators on up to, I suppose, Betsy DeVos who can effect how the standards are addressed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this is the thread where I should recommend the best book to teach reading: Let's Read, a Linguistic Approach [http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Read-A- Linguistic-Approach/dp/081...](http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Read-A-Linguistic- Approach/dp/0814334555)

I got the recommendation here in HN and I used the book with my 2 daughters. I started with my first daughter when she was 4.5 years old. I started with my second daughter at an older age because she was showing a slight case of dyslexia. It took 2 years to finish the book with each of them. After they were done they could read everything. My second daughter is 9 and is almost done with Oliver Twist. Read this comment by tokenadult: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4665466](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4665466)

<comment><USER6> I would appreciate links to similarly helpful tools for early childhood education for any subject (or language).

"Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" has been recommended ancedata- ly to me.

<comment><USER7> I've also anecdotally heard good things regarding "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" \-- does anyone have direct experience with both that book and "Let's Read: A Linguistic Approach" (and if so, a recommendation for one over the other)?

<comment><USER8> I'm currently using "Teach your Child to read in 100 Easy Lessons." with my 3 year old. He hasn't had trouble with the reading, but a few of the exercises were too long for him.

It uses the DISTAR method which seems to have the most empirical evidence supporting it. (The controversy over DISTAR appears to me to be that it's boring for the teacher)

<comment><USER9> I used it on two kids. They now both score on standardized tests as reading far in advance of their grade level. This leads to difficulties wherein much of the material available at their level of technical proficiency does not match with either their maturity levels or with their specific interests.

Neither of them actually _finished_ all 100 lessons. At some point, they both preferred moving on to actual books rather than doing the remaining lessons. So a little boring for the student as well, apparently.

<comment><USER10> I had the same exact experience with 2 of my sons. Will start the third (5) on it (Teach Your Child to Read...) this summer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "The reasons are numerous, but one that Seidenberg cites over and over again is this: The way kids are taught to read in school is disconnected from the latest research, namely how language and speech actually develop in a child's brain."

This is almost certainly wrong and even logically absurd. I am sure there are more optimal ways to learn to read but any kind with a fair IQ who aren't dyslexic can learn to read.

My son isn't a genius, but he have been practicing reading since he was 5 and today at 8 he reads Harry Potter.

The trick (as with almost any other field)? Practice, practice, practice. That's it. There is no magic sauce there.

One thing that we found that actually increased his lust for reading (he definitely would rather play soccer, Minecraft or Rayman) is to give him a Kindle which has a kids app with achievements and daily reading goals.

It's sad that so few kids read at their grade level but it's not because of sub-optimal teaching methods that much is for sure.

<comment><USER12> Could you let me know the kids app that you are speaking about.

<comment><USER13> Kindle free time is what we use on our kids. It's built into the Kindle and you can upgrade it to a 3$ per month Kindle unlimited for kids books.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I want to share the experience I had with my daughter Greta (now 5 yo). She learned to write and read independently. At 3 she was already able to write simple words (not memorized, you cold say "write <any-4-or-5-letters-word>"), and at this point at 5 she can fluently write. All this without spending more than, maybe a total of a few days once she were already capable of basic reading/writing. The question is, how she figured out how to write and read independently? I'm not sure, but my wife and I read she books since she was 1 month old, every night before bed time, and often she wanted to look at the books, so I guess she became accustomed to the shape of letters. Later she played a lot in one of these rubber carpets where there are the shapes of the letters ([https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/PCwAAOSwM5JZma4a/s-l500.jpg](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/PCwAAOSwM5JZma4a/s-l500.jpg)), and my guess is that this also helped. At some point when she was like, 2, she became obsessed with "A". This is letter "A" she could say during a few weeks. Later she started to compose the "A" with three sticks, and so forth. Basically with this process she learned all the letters and the sound. Btw what I was able to observe was: 1) It is a lot of work for kids to learn to write and read. Greta succeeded in doing so only because without we even noticing much, he basically spent a lot of time thinking about letters, drawing them, reading them. 2) When we tried to teach her better, like sitting together, we almost stopped this process... because it started to be annoying, so we avoided it if not for 10 minutes every month to say like, how groups of letters sounded. 3) I believe that one of the key point was reading a lot of books, because her language skills where very impressive already at 1.5 yo or alike, and I believe this is potentially the result of reading books.

<comment><USER15> Do you have more than one kid? One of mine learned reading super easily, the other struggled. Both of them do very well in high school now.

I don't think one approach fits all and I'm certain teachers are sick of being told they are doing this or that wrong. My advice: leave the kids and teachers alone, they'll figure it out.

<comment><USER16> Which child performs better, the first born or second?

When I was a child, my parents worked on phonetics with me, and encouraged me to work with my sister on hers. She didn't perform as well academically as I did, but now that we're in our mid/late thirties, that discrepancy is nothing but a footnote.

<comment><USER15> First one had a harder time reading. Once she discovered the "Warriors" series there was no stopping her, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is it advertisement for the book? The article doesn't really tell what teachers need to do better exactly.

<comment><USER18> There are some resources at the author's site: [https://seidenbergreading.net/home/](https://seidenbergreading.net/home/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I have seven kids, and they are all voracious readers. One of the kids read all of the Harry Potter books when he was 8 years old. I honestly didn't think he could comprehend what he was reading (i.e., I thought the books would be beyond his reading comprehension level), but when we asked him questions about the books he always knew the answers.

What we learned works is:

1\. Take them to the library a lot. Let them check out whatever they want. Let them check out as many books as they want (up to the limit allowed by the library - ours only allows 100 books per library card and we frequently run up against that limit).

2\. Let them get their own library card as soon as the library will let them. When they are older let them ride their bikes to the library (obviously this depends on your location and situation) so they can check out things on their own.

3\. Read to them from the time they are young, a lot.

4\. Check out audio books from the library and let them go to bed listening to stories when they are too young to read. When they are older make sure they have a flashlight or two so they can read after lights out.

5\. Greatly limit access to TV and game systems. We don't have cable or streaming subscriptions. We only use our TV for movies or TV shows on DVD from the library which they can watch on occasion when their chores and homework are done (unless it's a nice day outside then they have to be outdoors playing or reading in the hammock).

6\. Fill the house with books. We have thousands of books across all age groups and topics. There are books everywhere in every room just in piles. The kids beds are covered in books.

7\. Don't be a book snob. If they want to read comic books, let them read comic books. It doesn't matter what they are reading, as long as they are reading. Like any skill, the more you do it, the better you will get at it and the greater success you will have at reading more advanced material when the time comes.

8\. Let them see you reading. Talk to them about what you are reading. Recommend books to them.

9\. When they are older, get them jobs at the library. Libraries always have a need for people to help shelve books! One library in our area has a service night when the library closes early and volunteers help clean the library. There is pizza and soda and the kids absolutely love this night.

10\. Listen to books on "tape" in the car. Get them used to both reading and hearing things being read to them.

</comment><comment><USER20> Once you get past phonetics, symbol/sound relationships - the only metric that really matters for basic literacy is # of words read.

Should it be challenging? Yea, sure - but ten short books or two long ones doesn't matter a bit. They just need to read more.

Source: I'm a k12 English teacher. The data that makes it into my hands almost always comes back to this point.

</comment><comment><USER21> It is amazing how irrational even smart people act about learning to read. Maybe specifically smart people. Please, read the current research.

Kids learn to read best out of interest -- with reading material they are interested in and when they are ready to learn. And it makes them better.

My parents fought not to teach me to read. I didn't learn to read until I was 11. When I was 12 I went to school for the first time (unschooled) and was the top reader in my academically inclined private school.

Everyone else learned phonics and other permanent reading crutches and I read shapes because I wasn't told how or when to learn when I was little.

I still read weirdly fast compared to classically trained people who are otherwise smarter than me. What is faster I/O worth to your future?

All it involves is not ramming phonics and other Prussian nonsense down your kids throat and waiting for intrinsic motivation to kick in.

<comment><USER22> Are you saying the current research argues _against_ teaching children the ability to read at a young age?

While forcing children to learn is not ideal, sometimes intrinsic motivation doesn't flourish in the individual naturally. How would you deal with a child that never wants to learn how to read?

<comment><USER23> > How would you deal with a child that never wants to learn how to read?

All children will eventually come around to the idea that reading is useful. Some children are traumatized by do-gooders trying to force them to learn how to read before they're ready.

As I said in another comment here, "I think John Taylor Gatto pointed out that some children learn to read when they're 2, some when they're 8, and by the time they're 12 you can't tell the difference."

<comment><USER22> There are adults who are illiterate and still resist the idea that they would be better off if they learned how to read.

I agree there's a level of proficiency that, once reached, seems to be sufficient to tackle most reading challenges.

If you can read at 2, then you've 10 years of reading experience on the 12 year old who just learned. It doesn't necessarily make you a better reader, but you've had access to a much wider range of information and knowledge that the 12 year old couldn't access.

It seems objectively better to encourage your children to learn to read at the earliest age possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> _What I point out in the book is that in order to grasp the research, [teachers] need basic scientific literacy to be able to understand it...._

 _The political solution was called "balanced literacy," which called on teachers to use the best of both approaches. But it left it up to teachers who had been trained to dismiss phonics and brush off the science._

There's the key. Teachers get their educational ideas from their education and spend the rest of their career defending them from parents, administrators, ideological "reformers," and other random bystanders who are mostly well- meaning but who are all convinced they have a magic trick to fix everything if the teachers would just stop being dumb about how they do their job. Everybody's got an easy answer, 99% of them are just arrogant bystanders, and teachers very quickly start tuning out. And the teachers are _not_ scientifically literate, so they don't know the difference between a scientist who does research on reading and a random yahoo.

Plus the calls for educational "reform" usually have a partisan tinge. Republicans say just drill harder and longer and keep the desks separated in 90º grids instead of circles and other commie bullshit; Democrats say give kids books that connect to their unique cultural heritage and respect their cognitive differences and they will magically know how to read. All the more reason for teachers to ignore all outside input and assume they know best.

Not to mention the educational companies that have to manufacture excitement about new teaching fads every year so they can sell new classroom materials.

With all this bullshit going on, you can't blame teachers for being closed- minded and cynical. Most of them receive an idea of what progressive, smart teaching looks like in college, when they're still optimistic and open-minded, and cling to it for the next forty years. So I think this guy will be pleased by the response of teachers who are currently in college. They'll take in the current consensus and run with it.

</comment><comment><USER25> The main gem of wisdom that I took away is that we need an army of reading tutors at a very young age, like K-3. The Reading Partners group that I belong to in Dallas, TX is exactly the prescription that the doctor ordered. We allow the children we tutor to pick a book to read to them, we do some phonics teaching as to pronunciation, word meanings, and then have the student read to us. 45 minutes, usually twice a week. The only thing I'd change, if we had enough tutors, would be to make this a DAILY one-on-one until we got the child up to proficient. Nonetheless, if you want to help out in a big little way, check out Reading Partners and help a child get that reading edge... incidentally, many third world countries have already realized that we need an army of tutors to make sure no kiddos are left behind.

</comment><comment><USER26> For anyone interested in this topic, there's an education documentary covering three teachers who resort to leveraging brain science so as to break through the boredom and disinterest of their students: a great exploration of the personal journeys that led three teachers to use a neuroscience-based teaching model, and showing that model in action within their locales and student age brackets (Roland Park Elementary/Middle School in Baltimore, Maryland; a high school in upstate New York, and a community college in Western Pennsylvania). What really struck me in this documentary was the intimacy with which some students and teachers respond to the model- and it's a very human showing of the personal factors that drive education - both from a teacher and a student standpoint. Told more from the human-experience standpoint, it also covers practical aspects of using brain-based teaching.. worth a look for professional development credits. [http://www.greymattersdocumentary.com/](http://www.greymattersdocumentary.com/)

</comment><comment><USER27> The best way to teach kids to read is to have their parents read to them, and sit with them individually and work with them on sounding out words.

Then you just read with them over and over and over. Every night you read with them, and then you provide them with access to books. Take them to the library check out as many books as they want and then you sit and read with them every single night. That is how you teach kids to read.

</comment><comment><USER28> > Mark Seidenberg is not the first researcher to reach the stunning conclusion > that only a third of the nation's schoolchildren read at grade level. The > reasons are numerous, but one that Seidenberg cites over and over again is > this: The way kids are taught to read in school is disconnected from the > latest research, namely how language and speech actually develop in a > child's brain.

I presume that at some point in the past most kids could read at grade level, because presumably when it was initially decided what grade level was it was based on how kids actually performed at the time.

So how was reading taught then? They certainly did not know today's latest research on language and speech development in a child's brain.

Did they just stumble into the right approach, and so a reading program based on the latest research would end up being similar to how reading was taught in, say, the 1920s?

Or was the 1920s (or whenever kids were at grade level) approach also flawed, and it is just that today's approach is even more flawed, and so if we based reading programs on the latest research most kids would end up above grade level?

<comment><USER29> The scales are made up. Many of them are formulaic, counting sentence length or syllables or whatever and digesting that into a number.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readability_test](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Readability_test) links various measures.

I'd be curious to go back and see what and how much my grandfather read in ~1910, after he stopped school in the 8th grade.

<comment><USER30> When my grandpa got the news that he was going to ship out to the Pacific in WWII, the CO said to the men: "Gentlemen, there is a time and a tide." None of them had more than a sixth-grade education and they all knew what poem he was referencing.

Edit: it appears I have misquoted it myself, or I can't find the reference. It's probably the Shakespeare thing though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Larry Sanger's essay on Baby Reading may be of interest: [http://larrysanger.org/2010/12/baby- reading/](http://larrysanger.org/2010/12/baby-reading/)

<comment><USER32> And the site he's helped build based on the technique:

[http://www.readingbear.org/](http://www.readingbear.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> (I taught my daughter to read, my wife currently working on our son, both with a phonics based curriculum, but more in a Vygotsky style)

One of the motivations we have used is comic books. (Yes, that death of classic reading!) Both of our kids are My Little Pony fans, so we read a lot of those comic books for story time and gave them the books as they were learning to read. Wanting to read is a requirement for learning to read.

</comment><comment><USER34> Two Paragraphs in the interview are actually talking about the topic area / science, the rest is devoted to a political discussion and isn't terribly helpful / insightful. I was pretty disappointed in what I thought would be a more meaningful piece from a relatively reputable news source.

</comment><comment><USER35> Does anybody have any insight into the "reading wars," why phonics has fallen out of favor, and why it might still be important in certain contexts? All of this intrigued me in the interview and I was very disappointed that none of it was explained.

</comment><comment><USER36> Easy fix: cash bonus to teachers based on average year-end score of their student's reading comprehension.

<comment><USER29> That does usually prove to be a terrific way to improve scores.

The hard part is a test that actually measures something like reading comprehension rather than preparation for the particular test.

<comment><USER37> Teaching to the test is so much work, the smart teacher will just lobby administration to get the weaker students removed from the class.

[https://fredrikdeboer.com/2017/03/29/why-selection-bias- is-t...](https://fredrikdeboer.com/2017/03/29/why-selection-bias-is-the-most- powerful-force-in-education/)</comment></comment></comment>


Recruiter fee agreement? - <AUTHOR> I received a call from a recruiter, who mentioned that his firm wanted me to sign an agreement that should I be placed in some firm and do not stay the minimum 90 to 120 days, I would be liable to them for "a percentage of the percentage" of their fee, which is between 20% to 30% of the salary. I haven't seen this agreement yet (I'm not sure that I want to). Is this standard? <comment><USER2> Any recruiter who wants money to place you is incompetent at best and a scammer at worst.

To put this agreement in perspective, this recruiter has reduced their direct financial incentive to match you to the right company.

For a $80,000 a year job, they're looking at $16,000 for placing you. If they charge you 20% of that if you don't work out, that's $3200. If they spend 40 hours placing you, that's not a bad yearly income - if they just shotgun your resume, they can make real money.

And if the salary, fee, and your percentage are significantly higher, they can make really good money.

</comment><comment><USER3> Run very far away from that. I've dealt with a bunch cold-calls from recruiters and I've never heard of anything like that. It's possible that it's even illegal (I don't think you can charge job seekers but this might skirt that) but IANAL.

<comment><USER4> I agree. It may be in a legal gray area.

Even if it was legal, I would run as fast as I could in the other direction. Think of it this way: what happens if you start the job and come to find out the company is into some shady business and you wanted to quit?

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> They emailed me the agreement, which they wanted back with my signature before an "in depth" discussion with them (another odd sign). It turned out to be worse than they let on: liability for the entire amount, with an additional 20% in case the fee has to be turned over to a collection agency. I replied in email that I was not interested in doing business with them and would not enter into any agreement.

One thing I neglected to mention to this recruiter: I free-lance as an expert witness in computer forensics cases. I've done this for a labor lawyer in the state where this firm operates. I will forward this "agreement" to the lawyer.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'll answer my own question: a modicum of research shows that this is indeed a nonstandard practice. There must be a need for such a service, however. There probably are workplaces that benefit from coercive recruiting agreements that punish employee turnover.

</comment><comment><USER5> No it is not standard</comment>


America's Goodly Veneer Was a Lie - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/americas-goodly-veneer-was-lie/601105/ <comment><USER2> It's the job of mass media to promote this lie and they're doing a damn good job. I suppose The Atlantic isn't mass media since it caters to a particular educated audience. Even readers of Hacker News sometimes happily consume these lies, thinking their interests are aligned with special interests promoting them.</comment>


Use caps lock as a language switch - <AUTHOR> http://marinin.xyz/thoughts/capslock/ <comment><USER2> Some OSes (I know at least Linux does) support what's called "two-shift caps lock": if you hit both shifts, together, you get caps-locks. If you hit only one (on either side), you get a normal shift key.

This frees up the CapsLock-the-key for whatever you want, _and_ you get to keep CapsLock-the-function. (And, you don't have to "move" it, such as in the "Swap CapsLock and Control" schemes: you get to have normal Control, CapsLock key for whatever you want, _and_ the capslock functionality.)

I mapped my CapsLock key to "Level3 shift" at home, and mapped various interesting characters into the homerow, and space. I figured "_" is a word separator, and space bar is for separating words, so Level3+Space = "_". Level3 + the home row is stuff like ()[]{}; things that are normally way out.

Not sure how good the layout is, since I'm still trying to get used to it, and old habits die _really_ hard. I was heavily inspired by the Neo keyboard layout[1].

[1]: [http://neo-layout.org/index_en.html](http://neo- layout.org/index_en.html)

<comment><USER3> Thanks for your reply. After reading it, I went out searching on how to enable "two-shift caps lock", because I sometimes need the caps lock (in Brazil almost all government related documents demand caps for items such as your name, etc.), but I also need a good compose key. I've been long using the caps lock key as the compose key, but the lack of an alternative caps lock did annoy me at times. Thanks to you, now I have the solution that perfectly fits my personal needs!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Am I the only one who actually uses caps-lock for its intended purpose on a regular basis? I use it pretty much any time I have to type more than two capital letters in a row, which is frequently when I'm programming.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you program in SQL? (I've just pressed Shift and released it after I typed SQL, hey)

Using Caps Lock for its intended purpose means that it's another mode that you need mental resources to keep track of.

Historical aside that's not related to your comment: early Soviet computers modeled after IBM PC had Latin key, that basically worked like Shift, but it changed layout from Cyrillic to Latin and vice versa. This idea died after MS Windows, that didn't (and still doesn't? I don't know) have this option, took over the market.

<comment><USER5> Has anybody seriously been mentally bogged down by confusion from keeping in mind that they have caps lock on? That sounds entirely implausible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> On windows, I have capslock mapped thusly:

If pressed and released without another keypress in between, it sends ESC.

If pressed in combination with another key, it's CTRL.

I haven't found a way to do this dual mapping on OSX, so it's just CTRL there. I use AutoHotKey for this on windows.

<comment><USER7> I don't have my Mac in front of me, but you can do this using Seil[1] and Karabiner[2]. From recollection, you disable caps-link in OS X settings, use Seil to map caps-lock to control, and then use Karabiner to map tapped-ctrl to escape. Sounds a bit hackish, but it works very well.

You can also do the same thing on Linux using xcape[3]

[1]: [https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/seil.html.en](https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/seil.html.en) [2]: [https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/index.html.en](https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/index.html.en) [3]: [https://github.com/alols/xcape](https://github.com/alols/xcape)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is problematic for Emacs users: You can't put Switch Lang there, you need Control there!

However, you could bind this to lcontrol, and get the capslock light to turn on when it goes.

Also, am I the only one who at some point rebound ralt to rshift? I've stopped doing it now. I don't know what I was thinking.

<comment><AUTHOR> Language switch is problematic for Emacs users in general, 'cause it messes with bindings.

So when I do emacs I use mule, which is mapped by default as C-/. It is not so bad if you remap Caps to Control, but still not one key.

<comment><USER8> Well, the idea is that you're using emacs for your code, and then you jump over to your mail client (all the emacs mail clients don't really work for me), and hit a key to switch over to russian, or whatever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am a Vim user. Mapping Caps Lock to Esc has been pretty valuable and it only took me about a week to get used to the change.

<comment><USER10> Have you tried the jk chord? for me, it feels faster because the j key is where my right index finger parks.

:inoremap jk <esc> [http://learnvimscriptthehardway.stevelosh.com/chapters/10.ht...](http://learnvimscriptthehardway.stevelosh.com/chapters/10.html)

<comment><USER11> Oh, you mean hitting j and k in sequence, not an actual chord.

Is there a way to make it trigger when pressing both keys at the same time? I'd rather not have a letter sequence that can kick me out of insert mode, especially when I'm pasting into my terminal.

<comment><USER12> No; there's absolutely no way for vim (terminal vim at least, but gvim inherits lots of terminal quirks) to see a chord like that.

But, never fear -- if you paste while in paste mode (:h 'paste or :h 'pastetoggle) imaps, iabbrs, etc. do not get activated. If you paste when not in paste mode then things tend to get messed up anyway and those are probably the least of your worries.

Or paste using the clipboard -- "+p in normal mode, or <c-r>\+ in insert mode. (The other clipboard is in the asterisk register, but HN keeps eating the character)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I mapped caps lock to ctrl on Windows and to command on MacOS. Using the system wide default shortcuts feels much easier this way, because caps lock is on the same middle row where my fingers usually rest.

I got this idea from the custom layout of the HHKB keyboard: [https://elitekeyboards.com/proddata/doc/hhkbp2_basic_layout1...](https://elitekeyboards.com/proddata/doc/hhkbp2_basic_layout1500.png)

<comment><USER14> This is a great tip for chromebooks users, as these machine dont have such key!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Speaking of multilinguals - note that Swiss people actually _need_ capslock to type things like 'Ö' because if you press SHIFT + 'ö' then you get 'é' on a Swiss layout (well, I guess you could type '¨' first and then 'O', that also assembles to 'Ö'). Gotta accomodate for both German and French. Just a bit of trivia you might not have known.

<comment><USER16> Try the US-International Layout on US-QWERTY. It works well with German and French as secondary languages.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#US- International](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#US-International)

The Windows version makes more sense to me, but I'm getting used to the Mac one too.

<comment><USER17> Indeed. On my bog standard US+International layout I can simply do:

AltGr + e = é

AltGr + p = ö

Adding Shift to the mix produces É and Ö, respectively, as one would expect.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I use Caps Lock as an extra general-purpose function key (F20), which I can then bind as I please depending on the application.

Mapping it as an extra modifier seems a tad unergonomic. Ideally, each modifier key should be located on either side of the keyboard, so that you can always engage it with the opposite hand. To that end, I also remap the Menu key on my MS Natural Keyboard[1] to act as a second Super modifier.

Furthermore, since I'm multilingual and need an AltGr modifier on both sides as well, I map the combo Ctrl+Super to act as AltGr. See my US+International XKB keymap[2] should you happen to want a similar setup on Linux.

[1] [https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en- us/products/keyboar...](https://www.microsoft.com/accessories/en- us/products/keyboards/natural-ergonomic-keyboard-4000/b2m-00012)

[2] [https://gist.github.com/ucs1/fe673a3606442911dbd7d016a372646...](https://gist.github.com/ucs1/fe673a3606442911dbd7d016a3726465)

</comment><comment><USER18> I love Caps Lock. It's just a free key on the home row to reprogram to whatever you want. I change mine to ESC for easier Vim interaction.

</comment><comment><USER19> The caps key is clearly destined for the compose key, quite useful if you sometimes need to type different languages. "şçäë"

</comment><comment><USER20> Caps_Lock should be mapped to Control_L so you can type it in the home row with less stress to the hand/fingers. (no twisting)

Additionally, one of the better changes I made years ago was mapping redundant/useless modifiers to the bucky bits[1] in my ~/.Xmodmap.

        Phys Key | New Modifier Mapping
        </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-----
        CapsLock | Control
        Alt_L    | Meta
        Alt_R    | Alt   (mod4)
        Win_L    | Super (mod3)
        Win_R    | Hyper (mod5)

To my surprise, quite a few programs support the higher modifier bits.

[1] [http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/B/bucky- bits.html](http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/B/bucky-bits.html)

<comment><USER21> Or you could use the edge of your left palm to hit CTRL. This reduces strain and is much faster.

It's the way I could use Emacs to write my thesis and only wonder about those stories of RSI. On Mac and Linux, I have CTRL-Number set to switch workspaces.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Under windows you don't need to use 3d party apps.

Regedit HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Input Method\Hot Keys\Your_Language_IME

Set the key modifier to 00 and set the virtual key to the key you want caps lock is 04 iirc. [https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/dd3...](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/windows/desktop/dd375731\(v=vs.85\).aspx)

I think there was also a way to hack it through HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Keyboard Layout\Toggle but I'm not sure if it's used anymore.

</comment><comment><USER23> I actually think you can take it a step further. I have my caps lock mapped to esc on single press and as opt + control when held but I also use something I call sticky keys that allow me to keep my hands on the keyboard and on the home row at all times.

[Here it is and how I use it.]([https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/dotfiles/tree/master/karab...](https://github.com/nikitavoloboev/dotfiles/tree/master/karabiner))

</comment><comment><USER24> CAPS_LOCK -> L_CONTROL.

Long-time emacs use has permanently changed my left pinkie.

</comment><comment><USER25> I used caps lock as backspace for a long time, I quite enjoyed it.

</comment><comment><USER26> As an "academic" touch typer, I use Caps Lock as intended (for typing more than 2 all-caps letters in a row), however since I need that much less frequently than Ctrl, I swap Ctrl and Caps Lock on every computer that I call home. As far as switching between 3 keyboard layouts (dvp, Armenian, Russian), I map that to Option+Command+Space, but now that I think about it there's probably a better combination to be found.

</comment><comment><USER27> I mapped caps lock to left click and then used eviacam to control the mouse pointer with my face. No more keyboard<->mouse back and forth. Works great!

</comment><comment><USER28> Well this is just magic. I had set it up to Ctrl+Space since I speak Spanish, English and learning Japanese. I am not fluent enough in Japanese yet, but it becomes a burden when trying to write a website in Spanish.

You can just do this instead in Ubuntu: Text Entry Settings => click on "Switch to the next source using" => Caps Lock

</comment><comment><USER29> I've been doing this for a while. I agree it's the most natural map for a multi-lingual ({en-US, zh-CN, ja-JP} here).

AutoHotkey on Windows 10:

        CapsLock::#Space
        +CapsLock::+#Space

</comment><comment><USER30> I hold caps lock for ctrl, and tap it for escape. Right then left shift is my caps lock, tap shift to unlock.

</comment><comment><USER31> I don't even have a caps lock key programmed on my ErgoDox keyboard.</comment>


Show HN: A single, searchable API for all social networks, news, and blogs - <AUTHOR> https://streamified.me/developer/

<comment><USER2> You lost me here: "We think that formats like RSS don't make sense for today's internet".

And honestly.. another API? So it only works as long as you are in business (which is based on what by the way?) or decide to kill or change it? And also posting to my social media will be going through your machines? Seriously?

If you'd offer me an opensource script that I could call like "localhost/post?message="hello"&where="twitter,blog,facebook".. that would be different story. But hey, good luck locking others in your new service.

<comment><USER3> RSS format sucks because XML sucks.

I agree that it would be awesome if it was opensource so you could mitigate any risks by having it run on your own hardware, but really it's a valuable service and they deserve to make some money, which will play into keeping the service alive.

<comment><USER4> Thanks!

The stack which is required for the Streamified API is really quite large, too. Between node, mongo, elasticsearch, and a few other pieces of software... plus a few dozen node modules and even some custom linux configuration, it's really not feasible to expect devs to install it on their own machines ;)

<comment><USER5> You could open source it anyway, though, or parts of it. NewsBlur does this: <https://github.com/samuelclay/NewsBlur>

One could run their own NewsBlur, but Samuel has stated it requires a lot of resources to pull RSS feeds, and so in practice it's much easier to pay them $2/month. (This may not apply if you plan on having business customers who are paying orders of magnitude more than that.) But it alleviates any fear that the service users depend on may disappear; in the worst case, run it yourself.

<comment><USER4> Fair points, thanks. I'd have to discuss with the team if this is an option, ultimately. I can promise that if we ever did go away, I would certainly aim to opensource it (why not?) But as a company w/ investors, it's not a decision I can make myself right now ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I could have used this about two months ago. Instead I built a simple npm module – <https://github.com/switz/melt>

This is far better, though.

<comment><USER4> Nice! That's where we started, then got carried away... very, very carried away ;) Hope you find it useful; we'd love to hear from you!

<comment><USER6> I'd definitely consider implementing it into <https://tweezer.io> – send me an email!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a nice announcement to see, especially your support of searchable article feeds. Quick question: I see in <https://streamified.me/developer/#concepts> that we can search news articles, is there a list of sites that you cover, or is it safe to assume that you crawl over all major news services (tech, politics, money, etc)?

Also like your support for ADN. I have an account there that is sitting empty, might build something up over the weekend.

<comment><USER4> Thanks!

We should cover all major news sources. We have at least 250,000 different sources we're scraping, plus we also "crowdsource" news discovery. That is: organically (stream-discovered) content gets indexed as well.

Hope to hear from you! firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I try this with js sample app + twitter auth. I get Error: {"type":"Authentication","status":401,"details":{"message":"OAuth Authentication Failure: invalid oauth_token syntax"}}

In the other hand, this could be handy for my news reader app for ipad. This notify of new content? Is this suitable for manage several users, each one with their own rss subscriptions?

<comment><USER4> Hey mamcx,

Would you mind shooting me an email to firstname.lastname@example.com so we can discuss?

And yes, you could easily manage many users' RSS feeds :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Looks nice, just a note: the redirect from <http://streamified.me> is broken.

        $ curl -I http://streamified.me
        HTTP/1.0 302 Found
        Cache-Control: no-cache
        Connection: close
        Location: https:\/\/streamified.me

<comment><USER4> I'm not following... how is this broken? The headers return a 302 code, pointing to the proper HTTPS site. If you click the link you pasted, your browser should properly redirect (tested in FF, Chrome).

<comment><USER9> Those slashes are escaped with backslashes _in the response_

<comment><USER4> Oh, yikes! Weird, wonder why it works on browsers, then. Hm. I'll have to dig into this ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The idea is good. But clarifying it further, how many API calls per month do you offer or plan ? Correct me if I am wrong, searchable means topic/keyword parsing with context analysis (i.e. intention analysis)?

<comment><USER4> Our courtesy limit is 1k requests per day to the API. Beyond that, we're happy to discuss what makes sense, we obviously just need to prevent abuse.

Yes, our searching capacities include everything from categories to sentiment to tags to media... you name it. ElasticSearch powers our backend, which is powered by Lucene, so anything in an article can be searched. Check out the articles/search endpoint: [https://streamified.me/developer/#endpoint=GET%20articles%2F...](https://streamified.me/developer/#endpoint=GET%20articles%2Fsearch)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Really love this idea. I've started something similar for my content platform Amplifize.com, but am still in very early stages.

How can folks help build this out? Could it be an open service?

<comment><USER4> Thanks! I'm one of the devs on the project; you can contact me directly at firstname.lastname@example.com.

To your questions: one of the major benefits of the service is the "crowdsourced" aspect of it. That is: the more people using the same API, the more news articles get found and indexed. Furthermore, the API actually hooks into other paid APIs, so it actually wouldn't work very well for you to run it on your own servers unless you wanted to also pay for them. For all these reasons and more, we think that a hosted API is the best solution.

<comment><USER11> Totally agree with all of the above. I'll send you an email to keep the conversation going.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If this depends on the individual APIs (especially twitter) and sees any sort of traction, isn't there a massive risk that one of the providers could block access to streamified?

<comment><USER4> Per our "whitelabeling" philosophy, Streamified actually uses your own app IDs (not ours). From Twitter's perspective, we're just acting as a middleman to help you use their API better; any blockage, then, would be a result of your implementation of their API (throttling, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sweet, looks like something I could really dig into for unscatter.com

I'm curious, are you proxying apis or crawling and keeping the information local to serve?

<comment><USER4> Thanks! Be sure to drop us a line if you want to dig a bit deeper into integration.

For social networks, we're proxying the APIs (essentially). For articles and news, we both aggregate organically discovered articles from streams, as well as scrape 250k+ RSS feeds and other news sources. So, articles are stored local to the server (which is why we have such a large collection of them), but sensitive social information is a pass-thru to the social network.

However, in both cases, we're doing lots of analysis on top of the data per our "normalization" philosophy.

<comment><USER13> sure I have a couple questions, I'll shoot you an email

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Hey just wanted to say that I appreciate the API and it has very nice docs! Ignore the naysayers, it's not for everyone but I can already imagine a ton of uses.

<comment><USER4> Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Who's behind this? There's not a single name anywhere on the .me or .com sites. It's hard to trust a platform service without knowing who is building it.

<comment><USER4> Streamified, Inc.: Zane Claes and David Lee You're welcome to contact us directly @ email@example.com and email@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> This sounds a lot like <http://singly.com/> \- how is it different?

<comment><USER4> Sure, we both cover social login and sharing. However, Streamified supports a whole bunch of news features, and a lot more social endpoints, which Singly doesn't begin to touch on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is a fantastic resource... I'm finding myself trying to come up with a project to use it on.

</comment><comment><USER17> Totally not readable on a mobile. Left sidebar uses nearly the full screen even if you zoom in.

<comment><USER4> Sorry, but this is a developer portal -- not a news source or blog -- and really isn't meant to be used on a mobile device. I acknowledge that this may not be the answer you're looking for, but we didn't design the site for mobile because what it needs to do isn't really appropriate (or feasible) on mobile -- eg, the API console.

<comment><USER17> Well it is a news source, called hacker _news_. You telling me a developer doesn't read stuff on a cell is just complete BS. I never said i want a mobile site. Just a css that doesn't completely break on small resolutions. If you don't want to fix it fine. But don't give me such a BS answer.

I acknowledge this might not be the answer you were looking for.

<comment><USER4> I'm sorry, I think I misspoke. What I meant is: you're right. What we should have done, though, was link to a blog post for you to read, rather than the dev portal itself. It just wasn't realistic to build a mobile enabled dev portal, so we should have posted something mobile friendly instead.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


WebRender newsletter #18 - <AUTHOR> https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2018/04/16/webrender-newsletter-18/ <comment><USER2> I'd love to be able to resize fonts at 60fps. Hopefully other browser vendors figure out a GPU font glyph renderer soon as well.

<comment><USER3> Or they can choose to just use Pathfinder. It's licensed under Apache 2.0.

<comment><USER2> My guess is that Apple and Microsoft probably won't use any core tech that involves OpenGL anymore, moving to their own DirectX/Metal.

<comment><USER4> Pathfinder's main approach is on the CPU. The OpenGL parts are pretty minimal and easily ported.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why Care About the N.S.A.? [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000002571435/why-care-about-the-nsa.html

<comment><USER2> Excellent video!

</comment><comment><USER3> Good video.</comment>


How Google drove Samsung away - <AUTHOR> http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/208357/how-google-drove-samsung-away

<comment><USER2> Strange how a paragraph from Florian Mueller's blog seems to be getting repeated round the internet as an official Samsung statement.

Exhibit A:

 _" "If Samsung truly believed that Google's takeover of Motorola Mobility was going to be helpful to the entire Android eco-system at large, it would have waited until that deal was closed before concluding the license agreement with Microsoft," said a Samsung official.

"Samsung knows it can't rely on Google. We've decided to address Android IP issues on our own.""_

[http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2011/09/133_95716....](http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2011/09/133_95716.html)

Exhibit B

 _"If Samsung truly believed that Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility was going to be helpful to the Android ecosystem at large, it would have waited until that deal is closed before concluding the license agreement with Microsoft. But Samsung probably knows it can't rely on Google. It decided to address Android's intellectual property issues on its own."_

[http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/09/samsung-takes- androi...](http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/09/samsung-takes-android- patent-license.html)</comment>


Show HN: Tool for maintenance notifications: Emcee - <AUTHOR> https://emcee.online <comment><AUTHOR> Emcee is a public beta, and free to use. "Master the ceremony of maintaining and updating (software) systems." The ideas behind Emcee are simple: if you manage (software) systems that require maintenance, let the users of these systems know before, during and after the maintenance.

[https://emcee.online](https://emcee.online)

Let users know about the upcoming maintenance events in a manner that is structured, standardized and recognizable.

Let me know if you have any questions, and I'd love your feedback, or otherwise just to welcome you as a user (again, it's free). Thank you.</comment>


Kim Dotcom now plans to give New Zealand free broadband pipe to US - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/11/kim-dotcom-now-plans-to-give-new-zealand-free-broadband-pipe-to-us/ <comment><USER3> This is a stupid article written for stupid people. Here's the probably original reporting: [http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/7904696/Dotcom- trumpets-fr...](http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/7904696/Dotcom-trumpets- free-fibre)

with such quotes as:

        Morgan, who was chairman of Pacific Fibre, said: "I
        haven't talked to him [Dotcom] but I would be happy
        to have a chat.

The only story here is Kim Dotcom is desperate for attention and whore journalists are desperate for pageviews.

<comment><USER4> I'm getting tired of the predictability of "this article is bad and you should feel bad" being the top-rated comment for any submission on HN. Comments such as these are pseudo-deep: they're easy to write, and easy to agree with, without really adding anything to the discussion. It reminds me of Hitchens' quip that "George Bush is stupid" had become the joke that stupid people laugh at.

And yes, I'm aware of the irony of this comment. I'm unsure of how I could phrase it differently, though.

<comment><USER5> I think it's more fair to hate on blogspam summaries of original reporting, still, since there's a clear cure (link to the original source). It's one step away from "there was a posting about this same article with a different url, discussion is here" type postings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those unfamiliar with the back story of Pacific Fibre - it failed partly because of US opposition to Chinese commercial and technological interests in the project.

While Kim Dotcom might be willing to fund the cable, the issue of US protectionism doesn't go away. If the US blocked Chinese involvement for spurious security reasons, does anyone think they'll be more enthusiastic to facilitate their piracy nemesis _du jour_ from building a haven for his _new_ business, purportedly using money won from suing the US government for shutting down the old one?

So, yes it's pure PR, to suck in tech journalists.

</comment><comment><USER7> "high-speed link would make New Zealand an attractive location for data centers"

Why would anyone want to host in a data center with such high latency?

<comment><USER8> Kim Schmitz isn't the smartest person and just has a second lower education. He isn't a hacker as well and not good with computers, so how should he notice it? He had luck that he got rich with fraud, but that doesn't make him a business man. He was and always will be seeking for attention to overact his missing skills and low IQ.

Just translate some of his usenet postings and you will see it yourself. <http://arnold.babsi.de/KIMBLE.txt>

<comment><USER9> Why does his level of education impact on this? He has made several intelligent and important people in New Zealand look rather stupid - so at a bare minimum he plays a shrewd political game.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This statement means nothing. This is the same guy that claimed he had an army that will hack Al Qaeda. Obviously, neither one will happen. He says things.

</comment><comment><USER11> "Think Big" certainly applies to Kim Dotcom ;)

<comment><USER12> 8-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I would not give that man $400 million.

<comment><USER14> Neither would I, but IF this happens it'll be the other way round - <USER2> would be giving Pacific Fibre $200 million. Their spokesman says they need a cornerstone investor with that amount to get the project off the ground.

Sadly New Zealand has very few billionaires, and the ones we do have are very risk averse. They'll pump millions into tried and trusted dairy farms and shopping malls, but won't touch things like Pacific Fibre. Unfortunately the same people run the government, so it won't take the load either.

I'm not going to comment on Dotcom's legal shortcomings, but at least he is stirring up our very staid political and business communities delightfully.</comment></comment>


Intro to the Objective-C Runtime - <AUTHOR> http://www.mikeash.com/?page=pyblog/friday-qa-2009-03-13-intro-to-the-objective-c-runtime.html

<comment><USER2> Really nice, concise summary. The importance of "isa" cannot be overstated. It's the key to Objective C's dynamic nature. It's sort of fallen out of style now, but it used to be common practice to do some really interesting stuff with "isa-swizzling" (these days there's API that replaces most of the old hacks/tricks).</comment>


The Only Mammals Reckless Enough to Eat Hot Peppers Are Humans and Tree Shrews - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/tree-shrew-hot-pepper <comment><USER2> Tree shrews don't fly the space shuttle, however.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yet</comment></comment>


Teen entrepreneur who invented a smartphone lens magnifier - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/11/12/teen-toby-liew-invented-smartphone-purchase-magniband_n_8544730.html?utm_hp_ref=uk <comment><USER2> I've seen this for sale in Japan for years now. And clip on lenses that work with most phones are, what, 10 years old? And priced at 2-10$?

"Unlike other macro photography lenses, which can cost hundreds of pounds, Toby's product costs a fiver, and slips straight onto any smartphone."

I feel horrible for the reporter if they can only find _hundreds of pounds_ priced smartphone lenses. Unless of course they're making the comparison between some megazoom professional lens and a rubber band...

I guess I fail to see the excitement of this article.

</comment><comment><USER3> These actually have been around for many years. I wrote an article on one I had created out of $1 laser pointer a few years ago and it got circulated by a bunch of tech outlets.

</comment><comment><USER4> Meh, I guess it's kind of neat, but if you're getting serious enough about photography that you need more magnification you should likely just get an actual camera.

</comment><comment><USER5> I guess that's one use for the iPhone's huge top bezel.</comment>


Show HN: Open-sourcing our large Clojure(Script) Re-frame/Hasura web app - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Vetd-Inc/vetd-app <comment><USER2> I'm newish to Clojure(Script) and interested in learning the stack you're using. Mind adding some setup instructions to the readme? Thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> It was a really fun stack to work with; I'll try to add some setup instructions later today. For the time being, you might be able to figure some things out from this commit tree which includes some setup code that I redacted (don't worry those creds are dead): [https://github.com/Vetd- Inc/vetd-app/tree/4b6d51421e8d28e78d...](https://github.com/Vetd-Inc/vetd- app/tree/4b6d51421e8d28e78d621374ce58fa6012e44011)</comment></comment>


A new online video platform for businesses only. Better than YouTube or Vimeo - <AUTHOR> http://vipleyo.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> When a company or a business owner turns to video and puts a face alongside their brand, products or services, they achieve two things no other form of advertising or outreach can. First, they prove they are genuinely committed to their products and services and are willing to stand behind what they offer. Second, it shows the company truly cares about the customer and takes them seriously as a person who deserves engagement and information.</comment>


Google Appengine will support Python 2.7.2 - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/googleappengine/issues/detail?id=757

<comment><USER2> Interesting. Wonder if/when they'll move to Python 3.x. Should be easier for them than most - no external libraries to worry about.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's about time. I'm tired of switching virtualenvs whenever I have to deal with GAE.</comment>


Help Needed - <AUTHOR> I am experienced full stack software Engineer having 3 years + experience in developing web applications in python/django,angular,html,css and others.Recently i got unemployed and moved back to freelancing to which i was quite new  already.I have no response from freelancing(meaning no order booked yet).I am 26,and i am depressed by my state that my friends are working in big companies and stuff and i am unemployed.Heck i have no big side project working,nor i have created some startup Company etc <comment><USER2> This Wednesday there will be some official "Who is hiring/freelancing/whatever?" posts. Remember to look there in case you can find something interesting and post a message in the correct thread.

For the previous edition, see: [https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks alot for your support and reply.yes sure i will post on that thread as i previously did posts on these threads

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would highly recommend applying to some jobs on Upwork until you can land some more quality freelance gigs via your own brand. Also, another good tactic could be to find local businesses with poor websites and go pitch the in- person.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks alot for your support.Yes i am applying to jobs on upwork through my profile but no success yet.Also the thing here in my country is that people are not willing to spend good money on their websites and stuff.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is my fiverr profile [https://www.fiverr.com/abdurrehman91](https://www.fiverr.com/abdurrehman91)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> where do you stay now?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am living here in Pakistan.i am open to remote work opportunities as well</comment></comment>


Apple announces redesigned Mac Pro - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/3/18646424/apple-mac-pro-redesign-new-specs-features-photos-wwdc-2019 <comment><USER2> That whole segment was just pure computer-porn. I think that's what Apple needed to win back the confidence of Pro customers.

<comment><USER3> No NVIDIA, so no CUDA. (Of course, one can buy a card, but that was already possible with USB-C and an eGPU enclosure.)

Is there a particular reason they stopped shipping Macs with NVIDIA?

<comment><USER2> I dunno, but the PCI slots will make it much easier to add your own

<comment><USER4> Problem is there's no Mac drivers for the latest Nvidia GPUs. Bit of a problem that.

<comment><USER5> I am hoping that now that there's a Mac with proper PCIe slots it might make more business sense for nVidia to make drivers for macOS. Previously, there were Thunderbolt eGPUs which could allow using nVidia GPUs with (non- Hackintoshed) macOS but it may not have brought in enough sales to justify the cost of developing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I noticed that they addressed one of the major problems with the old (2003) design... the handles. The old handles would cut into your hands when you picked the computer up.

</comment><comment><USER7> Looks like cheesegrater.

Seriously the specs look fantastic. 3 streams at 8K or 12 at 4k among others

</comment><comment><USER8> I never used a Mac Pro but I'm surprised how many people are having issues with the price tag... Is 6K a lot for what they are providing? Most of the workstations I use at work average around $6K for heavy loaded work. Some of the render machines can go up to $10K [1]. Is their pricing off because it's geared towards "Prosumers"?

[1][https://www.boxx.com/systems](https://www.boxx.com/systems)

<comment><USER9> I think most of us recall the $1899 - $2499 Mac Pro entry point in the late 2000's and early 2010's. It's kind of a bummer - but you're correct that Pro performance has moved a bit up-market. Heck. The 8-core Xeon-W costs almost $3000 at retail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> How can apple justify $1000 for a stand?

<comment><USER11> You could hear the crowd gasp when they listed $999 for the stand.

<comment><USER12> In case anyone is wondering, this refers to the display stand. I guess you don't pay the $999 if you already have a display arm.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> base price of $11k to have an Apple display + desktop. wow. no thanks.

<comment><USER14> When you're paying a graphic artist $80k/yr in salary, is $3k a year for 4 years for this tool really that out of line?

<comment><USER13> no, it is not, but they are pricing out the "prosumer" and small business and leaning quite hard into mid-size and above professional.

<comment><USER15> So you're not the target market. Apple didn't become the most valuable company in the world by making products for everyone.

<comment><USER16> When they did that they were never more than 10% of the personal computer market much less the world.

Making products for everyone is _exactly_ how they did it, with universally popular iPods, iPhones, and wearables. The two biggest revenue drivers for them are iPhones and Services(Music, Pay, App Store, etc) ([https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/Q2%20FY19%20Consolidated...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/Q2%20FY19%20Consolidated%20Financial%20Statements.pdf)), they sell almost as much in iPads alone as they do in Macs. Those are all services that they famously made broadly popular and target towards the average consumer. It's only really in the Mac space that they target primarily the "high end" consumers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Edit: Product page up now [https://www.apple.com/mac- pro/](https://www.apple.com/mac-pro/)

More details: [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/apple-unveils- powerfu...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/apple-unveils-powerful-all- new-mac-pro-and-groundbreaking-pro-display-xdr/)

</comment><comment><USER9> It would have been a really pleasant (and highly unlikely) surprise if Apple _also_ re-introduced the plain old "Mac" at $1499-$1999 using prosumer-grade SKUs and PCIe expandability. Think of it as a big brother to the Mac mini - and parallel to the iMac 27". It would sell better than _all_ Mac Pros ever sold. Really a damn shame.

</comment><comment><USER17> Target user for $6000 computer???

Video editors? Recording studios?

<comment><USER18> My thoughts exactly! Don't they have render farms for this sort of thing? What's the value of having all that power under your desk to get turned into so much slag with one beverage malfunction!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> The old cheesegrater look is back. Its almost like how the car companies bring back the old car with a redesigned look.

<comment><USER20> Coca-Cola "Classic" is the new Mac Pro to the trash can's "New Coke".

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Sounds like what a lot of devs wanted except the GPU cards look like they need to be Apple specific versions? Also no Nvidia support mentioned yet

<comment><USER22> Nothing has really changed on those fronts. (i.e. I think they've always required Apple-specific versions of cards and nVidia support has been an issue for much of the past decade as the two companies effectively stopped working with each other)

<comment><USER23> I remember the famous video where Linus said that Nvidia has been the single worst company he ever had to work with. I assume it's not just the linux kernel, but also companies like apple.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Optional wheels!</comment>


Ask HN: What info do you wish every job posting included? - <AUTHOR> There seems to be a broad range of different approaches to job postings. Some have salary info, some don't. Some describe their interview process, some don't.<p>If you had it your way, what info would every job posting include? <comment><USER2> Salary range, description of office environment (and/or actual pictures), remote work policy, expected hours, dress code, tech stack details, some details on what the project actually _is_ , and a quick "Joel test" like summary of the current development practices.

Also, a note indicating whether or not managers refer to people as "resources". Also, the name of the _actual_ development methodology (if any) that is in use (eg, don't just say "Agile" \- tell me if you're doing Scrum, SAFE, XP, Crystal, UP, or your own made-up thing, etc).

<comment><AUTHOR> > Also, a note indicating whether or not managers refer to people as > "resources"

This made me chuckle. It's a pretty accurate measure of a companies culture though.

<comment><USER3> At my last job we had a rule: if someone (usually a new manager) called people "resources", we called them "overhead".

Ex. "I could get more people on my team if we had less overhead".

It helped that our lead Agile Coach was the main advocate of this particular approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm in academia and I wish job ads would be more honest and straightforward. They are usually full of boilerplate about how great their college is and diversity statements and you have to read between the lines to find out what they really want.

I wish they could just say, "we already have someone we want to hire but the dean is making us do an formal search." I know they can't really say that but it would be nice if they could say something like "we want someone to teach X, Y, and Z," "we have listed a bunch of specialties but we really want someone who researches X," "this is a new position," or "the person that had this job retired."

</comment><comment><USER5> Was the person I'm replacing promoted, fired, or did they leave voluntarily, and how long did they work there? What are the criteria for promotion? Describe three people in the group (in the last decade) who were promoted. What made them special?

How many hours of meetings each week? What fraction of my time is spent _outside_ creative software development (req specing, designing, and coding)?

</comment><comment><USER6> 1) Photos of the office, I mean the actual office, not the cafeteria or the hall at the entrance :)

We have something like that in France, that's called "Welcome to the jungle" (Guns N' Roses reference maybe), but again, you mainly see photos of the coffee machine.

2) a commentary on the position by someone at the same or equivalent role at the company

</comment><comment><USER7> Remote (yes, no, how often).

Salary. Over here in .be, it's very difficult to compare salaries. When posted at all, it's usually a single monthly number before tax. It's impossible to compare that with other postings, because one offer might contain a better pension fund, or a company car (what kind?) or meal vouchers (worth?) and dozens of other potential forms of non-cash wages. I'd much rather see an annual number which includes the net worth (or employer cost?) of all that nonsense.

Company size and/or size of whatever the team the ad is for.

Office, pictures or description.

</comment><comment><USER8> Remote possibility, salary range, the future manager/team_leader name (or better: a link to online identity), recruiter contact information, responsibilities, expected work time per week.

</comment><comment><USER9> Salary. It's almost never there.

</comment><comment><USER10> \- Does this job posting represent a real, urgent need or are you just fishing?

\- Team Size

\- Can I choose my own tools, or are you going to force Eclipse on me (deal- breaker)?

\- Office environment. Open (no thanks)? Cubes (Meh)? Private offices (nice)?

\- Salary range

\- Average number of hours per week. Don't say 40 if it's really 60.

\- Employee development. Do you send people to conferences (this is rare nowadays, and can really differentiate you as an employer)? Tuition assistance/reimbursement? Books?

\- Health care benefits information (This is so variable that I always ask for this information before accepting an offer).

<comment><USER11> > Does this job posting represent a real, urgent need or are you just fishing?

Why does a "real need" have to be urgent? In my team, all important needs are covered, but we still add new people when budget is available because there's always more stuff in the backlog. Six people can usually do more than five, and 21 people can usually do more than 20. (Although 20 people do not necessarily do more than 5 because [insert comment about middle management culture] but that's not my point.)

Also:

> \- Health care benefits information (This is so variable that I always ask > for this information before accepting an offer).

This bullet point sounds absurd to my European ears.

<comment><USER10> > Why does a "real need" have to be urgent?

Because continuously reposting the same position for months/years and interviewing hundreds of candidates just in case a god of computer science happens to apply to your company wastes candidates' time and makes us hate you ("He would be prefect except for that thing he does with his eyebrows while he talks, so let's pass and wait for a better candidate.")

> This bullet point sounds absurd to my European ears.

I'd rather my employer just hand me a (large) wad of (tax-free) cash and say "Go buy yourself some health insurance", but that's not what happens. My current employer's prescription drug plan (Express scripts), for example, is the worst thing in the universe. I'd much rather be able to shop around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I know that's too much, but:

\- A link to senior executives explaining their worst mistake and what they learned from it;

\- The same, but their actual reaction to: "What are your corporate values? -- Those are the same corporate values as Enron."

\- Noise curve in the office;

\- what the interviews are testing for.

<comment><USER12> Oh, and non-technical leadership explaining what are code regression, technical debt, project creep.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What the team dynamic is like and how they collaborate. Not the tools they use, but how they communicate with each other.

I can work with terrible people if they can communicate. And I can learn to hate the softest soul if we can't get on the same page.

</comment><comment><USER14> Clear description of the project and customers. Accurate description of the team, philosophy, tooling, and culture. Reliable salary range. Links to employment contract and any NDA that might be required.

If the company is private, a link to a fiscal summary equivalent to the SEC's 10-K.

If any of the statements above are intentionally misleading, the job candidate is due compensatory damages.

<comment><USER15> >>> ISL 18 minutes ago [-]

"If the company is private, a link to a fiscal summary equivalent to the SEC's 10-K."

Good luck with that.

<comment><USER14> Posed question asked: "If you had it your way, what info would every job posting include?", not "What can you realistically expect an employer to share?"

In practice, though, assessing the financial future of an employer before committing your most essential resource, time, is important.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Salary, part-time possibility and work-life balance info in general, and whether REMOTE is possible _outside_ US or no.

</comment><comment><USER17> Interview process, team size, salary (or reasonable range), desired starting date and latest starting date.

</comment><comment><USER18> Whether or not the office is an open floorplan.

<comment><USER19> Honest question: do you ever come across companies that _aren 't_ open floor plans? I don't, so it isn't a very useful question.

<comment><USER20> My employer has a cube farm.

Even though it may be technically accurate, I don't really see that as an "open floor plan". To me, "open floor plan" means a bunch of desks strewn all over with no dividers.

I love cube farms (and I generally prefer conservative, enterprisey companies), and I refuse to work at a company that uses open offices like I described above, so it matters to me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Salary range, remote work possibility, tech stack, job responsibilities

</comment><comment><USER22> Besides the obvious, I'd also like to see:

      - Salary range for that specific position (not for the whole department (I've seen that))
      - Remote work policy
      - Visa sponsorship policy
      - Vacation policy
      - Interview process
      - Link to future manager's technical background

Also, please avoid using cute/hipster phrasing shit that's full of puns, hearts and whatnot. Just get straight to the point.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm an EE with RF design and antenna chops, but I've been hired into a few jobs where I had only the vaguest idea of what the work actually is. One was a configuration management role, and the other was a software test engineer (and I've coded maybe 150 lines in my lifetime).

Neither of them had any mention of these activities in the postings, and both of them were specifically for EE's with requirements to understand antenna and radio systems. The interview started to shed light that it wasn't exactly what I had in mind, but certainly there would be the opportunity, so I was told.

To me, a disclaimer that mentions you may not be doing anything actually related to this posting would be nice.

Generally speaking:

1) what is the actual, physical, tangible, product?

2.) What is my actual, specific, day-to-day role for this product? Or how will I fit into the creation of this product?

</comment><comment><USER24> Salary range - "What's the least you're willing to pay a barely-concious droid who squeaks by with the bare minimum of effort to not get fired, versus the top-end for the 'does it all and then some' purple-squirrel candidate who ascends your corporate achievement ladder with a Greek chorus of rainbows and unicorn-giggles?"

Fully remote? Yes or no would suffice. I just might _be_ that aforementioned purple secret squirrel for your role, but my 50 square-mile chunk of rock might be nowhere near your 50 square mile chunk of rock. Would this discrepancy be resolvable by a convenient global communications network and low-latency link to same, or are you mired in last century's "manager must be able to see your butt in a chair at all times" model of employment?

</comment><comment><USER25> If not remote, what my colleagues interests are, so I know that they won't talk too much about sports.

</comment><comment><USER26> How much my colleagues are getting salary on same post?

</comment><comment><USER27> Churn rate at the company and if there are people who left their phone number as references.

</comment><comment><USER28>
      Salary (Competitive salaries aren't competitive, they are average).
      Vacation policy.
      Remote work options.
      Office plan (Do I have my own office?).
      Tooling used (including hardware provided and upgrade policy).

</comment><comment><USER29> A link to the whole HR manual. Some places have insanely condescending HR policies (requiring doctor's notes to 'count as sick', or strict hours for a job that could be done remotely, strict dress codes, weird rules about lunch etc).

Usually HR policies are treated as a second thought and presented to you _after_ you've accepted employment, but these details will impact you and your quality-of-work. For instance, places that require doctor's notes will have people come in to work while sick more frequently, meaning you can expect to get sick more, etc.

<comment><USER11> > places that require doctor's notes will have people come in to work while > sick more frequently

Huh? When I'm sick, I automatically go to the doctor, so I always have a doctor's note.

<comment><USER29> Really? You wake up with a stuffed nose and immediately rush to the doctor's office? I don't. If it feels like a cold or flu (the most frequent sicknesses at work), I'll just rest at home for a few days and I'm better. This is what most people do with colds; a doctor's not needed, and if you do contact a doctor with cold symptoms, they'll tell you to stay home and rest. What's more, I don't get my coworkers sick if I'm staying at home resting.

If, on the other hand, I work somewhere that has a 'doctor's note' policy, I'll probably convince myself the cold is 'not that bad' (certainly not worth losing pay or whatever the HR penalty is for not having a doctor's note), come in to work and get coworkers sick. Others do the same. Over time, this adds up. I've worked at places that strictly enforce 'doctor's note' policies and basically it means everyone has colds all the time, and if you work there, so will you.

I would like to know this about a work environment before I join.

<comment><USER11> > You wake up with a stuffed nose and immediately rush to the doctor's office?

So that may be the difference here, because I have a septum deviation, which means that my nose is permanently somewhat stuffed. But when I have temperature and feel sick, I absolutely go to the doctor every time. There's a few things that a doctor can do and I can't that can distinguish between "just a cold" and something more serious. For example, I cannot look into my own throat or into my own ears.

Your other comments indicate to me that this may be a cultural difference though. In Germany, it's normal to ask a coworker who appears to be sick to go to the doctor. Everywhere I've worked so far, there's a shared awareness that working while sick is a huge cost on the entire team. That goes for managers, too: They know that when e.g. a workplace accident happens and the person causing it was sick, the insurances are going to be asking a lot of uncomfortable questions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> * Company mission statement, department mission statement, role mission statement, and how all 3 of those things fit together. I want to make sure that people actually know how they fit into the grander scheme of the company.

* Salary range

* Actual responsibilities and day to day activities. If the job is going to be to hack on some awful legacy code base then you should say that.

* How large is your company, where are you at with funding, and where are you at with product development.

* Interview process

</comment><comment><USER31> Since I am a functioning adult and therefore have various obligations outside of work, I need an unambiguos breakdown of salary, holidays, overtime, flexitime and pension.

You can choose to be coy about it, but you will have to tell me eventually, so you might as well let me know up front. It will save time for all of us.

</comment><comment><USER32> What's involved in the interview and how much of a time commitment the interview process is.

</comment><comment><USER33> Interview process, organization / team structure, salary range, technology stack, benefits / vacation / freedom and a good description of the business domain.

</comment><comment><USER34> If there is actually a need for this position? I've recently run into a few positions where they are just fishing and aren't necessarily filling an existing position.

</comment><comment><USER35> The hoops you will have to jump through for an interview. Build a mini app that will likely take you more than a weekend? Hackerrank?

</comment><comment><USER36> # of hours of mandatory meetings per day.

</comment><comment><USER37> A list of alumni so I can see where people go afterwards or how long they stay

</comment><comment><USER38> Who the company is (beyond their name), what they do, or what their mission is.

</comment><comment><USER39> These are all great questions to ask in interviews for newbies as well.

</comment><comment><USER40> Communication stack, documentation, and development methodologies.

</comment><comment><USER41> What level of flogging can you expect in the interview.

</comment><comment><USER42> Link to bio of hiring manager, example project brief

</comment><comment><USER43> How many people have work on the position before

</comment><comment><USER44> Pursued/actual level of gender equality.

<comment><USER45> Wouldn't having a specific target be illegal?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Salary of peers.

</comment><comment><USER46> Actual work location, if not 100% remote.

</comment><comment><USER47> Salary, location.

</comment><comment><USER48> Visa sponsorship

</comment><comment><USER49> time to response

</comment><comment><USER50> Entirely selfishly - absolutely nothing.

I'm quite happy to find a phone number and call the company directly if I want to know something. In my experience that gives me a _huge_ advantage over 99% of candidates who are only willing to read adverts passively.

<comment> V-2 Having to do this for every single ad you _might_ be interested in certainly is some way of proving patience, persistence or phone handling skills, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to work at a company where that's what is seen as a huge advantage over other candidates...</comment></comment>


In the Beginning Was the Command Line (1999) - <AUTHOR> http://cristal.inria.fr/~weis/info/commandline.html <comment><USER2> Dupe - 1 day ago this got 50 comments. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20684764](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20684764)</comment>


Why I Indent My Code 8 Spaces? (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://simplystatistics.org/2018/07/27/why-i-indent-my-code-8-spaces/ <comment><USER2> The very same reason why your eyes are aging is the reason why you should not use spaces at all, but tabs.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/c8drjo/nobody_t...](https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/c8drjo/nobody_talks_about_the_real_reason_to_use_tabs/)

Discussed:

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341354](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341354)

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20381027](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20381027)

<comment><USER3> Very true. The only way to get consistent formatting across tab settings is to use tabs for indentation and spaces for aligning things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> >Tabs are 8 characters, and thus indentations are also 8 characters. There are heretic movements that try to make indentations 4 (or even 2!) characters deep, and that is akin to trying to define the value of PI to be 3.

This is flat wrong. Tabs are one character, not 8, and they always take a variable amount of space. Proof: type 3 spaces. Now type <tab>. Your cursor will not be 11 "characters" over. It will be at the next tabstop multiple, which will likely be either column 4 or 8. The fiction that tabs are somehow composed of a fixed number of multiple "spaces" (a completely unrelated whitespace character) is only sustainable by restricting tabs to the beginning of lines; programmers who fail to understand this and treat tabs as "a typing shortcut for lots of spaces" will inevitably be burned when they try to use tabs for alignment.

Tabs are not made of spaces. They do not have a globally defined or even a locally fixed width. This is right and proper and really not that complicated.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is measuring X by observing side effect Y. If you want to avoid high indent levels or high cyclomatic complexity, setup your environment to check for it. Indent width is just a poor proxy for that.

</comment><comment><USER6> I may be one of few that actually do not care about the tabs versus spaces "argument." I meet others that use one or the other, and then realize how insignificant that choice is at the end of the day, especially when most IDEs will manage and convert from one convention to another, with ease.

</comment><comment><USER7> Missing 4 character comparison. I find 4 chars easier to read personally.</comment>


Show HN: Wake Up Time – A calculator that helps you wake up refreshed - <AUTHOR> https://wakeupti.me <comment><USER2> The Android app "Sleep as Android" [1][2] is awesome as well. Uses ultrasound to detect your movement/breathing and wakes you up at the correct part of the sleep cycle, even if your calculation goes wrong due to falling asleep later.

[1]: [https://sleep.urbandroid.org/](https://sleep.urbandroid.org/)

[2]: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.urbandroid...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.urbandroid.sleep&hl=en_US)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I always thought that 8 hours was the best amount of time to sleep but so often I'd still wake up feeling groggy and tired.

Sometimes I'd go to bed at 1AM and wake up around 7AM and feel so refreshed and awake. What's up with that? Turns out, getting 8+ hours of sleep is less important than waking up aligned with your body's sleep cycles, which for most people is every 90 minutes.

I created Wake Up Time so I could quickly see the best wake up times before setting my alarm each night. Because time math is hard... Especially when you're tired.</comment>


AWS Elastic Beanstalk Survival Guide: Introduction - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/aws-elastic-beanstalk-survival-guide/chapter-1-introduction-8b3ef79d3395 <comment><USER2> I would strongly recommend people steer clear of Elastic Beanstalk with Docker. Every 20 or so days I have to completely terminate all of my instances as commands begin to fail. This didn't seem to happen as much when the projects we have on Elastic Beanstalk were under heavier development (10-15 deploys per day) but it seems like the instances go stale.</comment>


Why don't software communities serve as job hubs? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fiveyearitch.com/2013/06/why-dont-software-communities-serve-as.html

<comment><USER2> It is fairly simple: having a GitHub account and being active on StackOverflow don't appeal to the majority of developers. Those sites will capture far less than 1% (made up, but probably close) of developers making them not the best location for hiring managers to look.

IMO, if you want to find developers to hire then LinkedIn and recommendations from other developers are still the best route. Having a successful GitHub project doesn't always translate to "great team developer" as different skills are required for each. Being helpful on StackOverflow for a very specific thread doesn't always mean you are a master of your craft. Having both experience and recommendations from the industry and category being hired for is more of a "guarantee".

Disclaimer: I use both GitHub and SO.

<comment><AUTHOR> > GitHub ... and StackOverflow don't appeal to the majority of developers. > Those sites will capture far less than 1%

Yes, exactly. That's what the proposal at the OP link is aimed at: Letting experienced developers sign up to be poached, but using their affiliation with an online community as proof of their seriousness.

That's less valuable than a good GitHub repository, but the usual interview process can take it from there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just one caution - when I was helping to set up a local user group, a lot or companies wanted a guarantee that no poaching would occur, and tried to make that a condition of their participation.

Of course, we couldn't do that, but at the same time, we wouldn't make it a prominent part of the user group's mission either.

So, great initiative, but if you're gonna bring this into your community, just consider the effects (if any) on corporate sponsorship.

<comment><AUTHOR> How did that work?

Usually user groups are independent initiatives by developers, with at most a room or minor funds provided by a sponsoring company or two.

Companies can't keep their employees from going to the Ruby/Java/C++ User Group in their spare time.

So what was the situation there?

<comment><USER3> We were pretty successfully rather quickly, and the attendees quickly grew past most local company's ability to host our meetings. Costs in Norway for rooms/food & drink is higher than normal; plus, we tried to bring in a lot of external speakers. So, all in all, we were pretty dependent upon a decent amount of funding.

I wasn't suggesting that companies we were working with would stop people coming; but at least when we were starting, getting people to actually attend was a struggle. Building the community can require a bigger outlay that people assume - it's not just "meet up and they will come". So, I'm just saying that some communities might want to think twice about this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> StackOverflow does have Careers 2.0: <http://careers.stackoverflow.com/> . Is StackOverflow a "software community" for the purposes of this article? I used StackOverflow a lot at one point, and i got a job out of Careers 2.0, so it looks roughly like it to me.

I suspect Five Year Itch probably see Careers 2.0 as a competitor, or at least a resident of a nearby niche, so they may have a deliberate blind spot towards it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, Careers 2.0 is good. The jobs space is _very_ big, plenty of space for everyone.

Among other differences, Careers 2.0 focuses on StackExchange karma, which is useful, but not everyone wants to go in that direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If people want to do open-source as a way to get a job, they should be contributing.

But not every GitHub account gets job offers. If you're an acitve part of a community, then absolutely, it would be for their good and yours if they can help you get a job.

</comment><comment><USER6> You know, open-source sites and User Groups already get job postings.

But I like your idea: The programmers should say "come, make me an offer", so long as you can make sure the offers are good.

<comment><USER7> The job market is messed up. Why can't hackers do something about it, at least for the jobs that WE want???

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> They just don't have the time or the tools. But if you can make it easy for them, then wow! This is a big win for everyone.

Resumes, recruiters, job ads -- yuck! Hacker communities -- yay!</comment>


18 Year-Old Girl Invents 20-Second Cell Phone Charger - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzBq-j_LCo4 <comment><USER2> This has significant discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5730887> (nbcnews.com)

Here are some other submissions:

\+ <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5737582> (dailytech.com)

\+ <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5737910> (dailymail.co.uk)

\+ <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5738327> (dailymail.co.uk)

\+ <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5738595> (techspot.com)

\+ <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5741949> (cnn.com)

\+ <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5742227> (twocircles.net)

\+ <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5743341> (sfgate.com)

\+ <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5756554> (mashable.com)

\+ <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5764556> (digitalversus.com)

\+ <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5785136> (indianexpress.com)

Some of those have links to other documents that may or may not explain more about it - I'm not qualified to judge.

<comment><USER3> Thank you... Not very interested in watching a youtube video about it, just want to read.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a great lesson is how to sell a story to the media.</comment>


Goodbye "Democratic" HN - <AUTHOR> Goodbye and thanks for the fish. <comment><USER2> The answer to your issue is at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21319738](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21319738). Now would you please stop breaking the site guidelines like this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Don't worry I won't break them ever again. Replied to you at above link.

cheers

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What happened here?

</comment><comment><USER4> I will follow, unfortunately :(</comment>


Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, Radicalization in US Politics - <AUTHOR> https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/mobile/view/10.1093/oso/9780190923624.001.0001/oso-9780190923624 <comment><USER2> Why do these sorts of articles mainly pop up on HN when the Dems are struggling? It's no different than after Trump won and suddenly everyone cared about the electoral college.</comment>