Ask HN: What else do you do besides computers? - <AUTHOR>

I seem to spend way too much time on the PC. 9 hours as a job. And then comes the hobby / personal hacking. And then there are news/movies and knowlege, and other entertainment.
For inspirational purposes, what do you do that does not involve a PC? <comment><USER2> Over the years hobbies have come and gone, but some of my other interests include:

Mountain Biking

Wrestling (amateur wrestling, that is. I wrestled in High School)

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu / Submission Wrestling

Powerlifting / strength training

Running (mostly trail running these days, when I run)

Live music - I'm mostly a metal-head and I love a good live metal/rock show. But I also like classical, so I'll go to an NC Symphony Orchestra performance every once in a while.

Watching Doctor Who and Torchwood.

During football season I like to go out to a sports-bar and eat wings and watch the Miami Dolphins games. I'm also a UNC Tarheels fan, but I am not as into the college game as I am the NFL.

Every now and then I like to do the dance club scene, although not as much as when I was younger.

Reading is big: I like horror, suspense/thriller stuff, sci-fi, fantasy, urban fantasy, and all sorts of non-fiction topics. Most of my non-fiction interests are fairly typical geek fare though: various topics on science, math, philosophy, economics, etc.

I'm also something of a Libertarian activist and actually ran for Lieutenant Governor of NC in 2008 (I wasn't elected.)

<comment><USER3> No shit? You're Philip Rhodes? I voted for you (and then got the hell out of NC).

<comment><USER2> Yeah, that's me. :-)

Oh yeah, and thanks for the vote! I didn't win, but I did pretty well by historical standards for a LP candidate for state-wide office in NC.

<comment><USER3> Well it was good to have LP candidates to vote for. I hope you guys make some inroads even though I won't be around to see it.

I went to Wake Forest, stayed around for a few years after in Winston-Salem and found that, as my friends from college moved and were getting better jobs elsewhere, I wasn't making new friends and my career was fairly stagnant (Winston isn't the best job market).

<comment><USER2> Yeah, Winston-Salem isn't exactly a hotbed of activity. :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I'm married, with a baby on the way and a couple of dogs. That eats up most of what I used to call 'fun time'. I don't do any hobby or personal hacking, although I do consulting outside of my day-job and am able to scratch that itch that way.

When I can find 'fun time', I abuse the hell out of my Netflix membership, mostly by watching historical foreign films, documentaries and crime dramas. I am also a fairly skilled bowler, with a 186 average. I am an unskilled but enthusiastic golfer with an average closer to my bowling average than I'd like. I read as well, although my tastes are a bit unusual (last book I read to completion was Vergil's Aeneid in the original Latin - I'm working through Atlas Shrugged at the moment).

Not sure what inspiration you can draw out of that, but I'm sure this will put Google one step closer to tying all my online identities together.

<comment><USER2> _I'm working through Atlas Shrugged at the moment)_

What do you think so far? How far into it are you?

 _Not sure what inspiration you can draw out of that, but I'm sure this will put Google one step closer to tying all my online identities together._

Heh, I've given up hope on that front. I suppose you could say "officially" now, since I mentioned earlier the one thing that's an absolute, sure-fire dead giveaway to my real-life identity. <shrug /> Oh well, if somebody can connect the dots of all my various online accounts, more power to 'em.

<comment><USER3> I'm only 150 or so pages into it - Dagny is reminiscing about her teenage years with that prince she used to date (don't remember his name right now). I still have a ways to go, and the family makes it hard to make big chunks of progress into the book. I carve out 15-20 pages here and there, but I always feel a little sad when I have to put the book down and deal with something else.

As for how I like it, thus far I am a little concerned about one point. The characters that I think I'm supposed to like (Dagny and the prince boyfriend) all seem to have gotten where they are by being born into awesome situations. Don't get me wrong - Dagny is a hell of a lot more sympathetic than her brother, for example - but it's hard to look at her as a "self-made woman" when the railroad has been a family business for like 5 generations. I'm hoping Hank Rearden shows up more, because he seems more in line with someone I'd sympathize with.

Other than that, though, I like it quite a bit. It's almost like my own thoughts are echoing back to me. I think it would be interesting to see what Rand would have done had she been alive now and whether the advent of the Internet, for example, would have changed some of the isolation she writes into her characters. Also, Dagny would have been able to track down that missing symphony she heard the train conductor whistling a lot easier.

<comment><USER2> _The characters that I think I'm supposed to like (Dagny and the prince boyfriend) all seem to have gotten where they are by being born into awesome situations. Don't get me wrong - Dagny is a hell of a lot more sympathetic than her brother, for example - but it's hard to look at her as a "self-made woman" when the railroad has been a family business for like 5 generations._

That's true, but there seems to be a concerted effort throughout the story to tie her - in a sort of spiritual sense - to her grandfather who built the railroad originally. She thinks about him a lot and you get the sense that she is - at times - asking herself "Can I be as good a person as he was, can I be that brave, that strong, etc?"

By the end of the book I felt a lot of sympathy for both Dagny and Rearden.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Guitar practice

Sailing (both small one-designs, and helping crew on things like catalinas)

Drawing

Going for a drive and listening to music or talk programs

The never ending quest for a new or better pizza

Social online mixer type real-world events

Museums

Conferences, and generally travel

Ham radio (oops, mostly PC hah)

Kites (and kite aerial photography)

Swimming

I would like to get more into rock climbing

Visiting family, friends, small business owners

</comment><comment><USER5> Nothing like going flying..

As much as I can, I go fly Airplanes, Sailplanes, Paragliders or go Skydiving. In all this activities I am forced to focus 110% on the activity at hand, leaving no space for work stuff to keep running in the subconscious, making the activity incredibly freeing.

(It is kind of a kill -9 for work related zombie processes )

Ps. Recently I found out Yoga also does the trick

</comment><comment><USER6> Powerlifting/Strength training

Comic books

Reading

Record Collecting (late 70s punk,60s/70s soul, and new house and techno 12"s)

</comment><comment><USER7> Reading. Cooking. Wine. Travel. Gardening. TV. Sailing. Guitar. Cats.

I didn't do much of this when I was in my 20's, was all about work. My 30's seemed to be about spending time with myself, less with other people. Now I'm over that phase (and nearly the age bracket), I'm looking for more social things to do in the out doors (other than bbq and beer). Rafting, live music, fishing and hunting are things I'm trying to do more of.

Pretty much anything that involves one or two of my friends. I'm obsessive about reading, actual print books and tend to consume them bibliographically. Just finished a run on our first founding fathers. Last year was history of sail, wars and politics. Pretty boring to talk about with non-interested parties, fascinating to read, but isolating.

</comment><comment><USER8> >> What else do you do besides computers?

Wife and one child provide a lot of 'doing' :)

I have a mountain bike that I ride around nearly every evening for at least an hour (a lot longer on weekends)- I ride that same bike to a gym three times a week;

Read a book;

</comment><comment><USER9> Cooking is definitely my top hobby. It allows almost unlimited creativity, and you get to _eat_ the results. Does it get any better?

</comment><comment><USER10> Does playing with my smartphone count (it is not a pc)? Hehe.

Seriously: Reading books, tennis, swimming, lifeplanning, occasionally going out for a drink with friends.

</comment><comment><USER11> Scout leader, enable a game club at the local high school, support a disabled vet, go to classical music concerts.

</comment><comment><USER12> Kendo, Photography, Cooking, Reading... though the reading is on a Kindle, which may count as a computer for you.

</comment><comment><USER13> Painting, cooking, and photography.

</comment><comment><USER14> Triathlons

</comment><comment><USER15> martial arts and guitar

</comment><comment><USER16> get wet (surf), get lost (travel), get warm (icehockey).

</comment><comment><USER17> I raise a family ;)</comment>


Ask HN: Updating Mac OS X Office 2016 Preview Release - <AUTHOR>

Is anyone else having trouble updating the newest Mac OS X Office Updates? I've managed to update Outlook, however, 2011 and the remainder of the 2016 apps are reporting back:<p>Sorry, there's a problem with the downloaded file, so you can't update now. Please try again later. <comment><USER2> This was the first google result I found when searching for this same error message and problem.

I dug around and found the last line of ~/Library/Caches/Microsoft/uls/com.microsoft.autoupdate2/logs/<hostname>-20150415-0724.log contained the following error:

04/15/2015 14:29:36.753 com.microsoft.autoupdate2 0x10e91f000 com.microsoft.autoupdate2 AutoUpdate.DownloadWindow ibcu7 Error File signature not verified: [http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/0/C/70C26EA7-EF6D-4...](http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/0/C/70C26EA7-EF6D-4521-9805-BE8403739785/Office2011-1449Update_EN- US.dmg) 1C6F7480-A6A5-4D71-B86A-FFE6385302B0

I downloaded this .dmg myself and successfully installed it. After this, letting AutoUpdate pull and install the remaining three updates worked as expected.</comment>


Cascadia Cypherpunk Convergence- April 11th - <AUTHOR>

A cypherpunk is someone who uses cryptography and similar methods to achieve societal and political change.
<comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-
Over the last two decades we have seen the Internet transformed from a tool of emancipation to the most insidious threat to human liberty the world has ever seen. But amidst the seemingly intractable rise of a transnational surveillance society, there is a small spark of hope endowed on us through the power of mathematics. It is possible to formulate a math problem (an algorithm) so difficult that even the mightiest superpower cannot decipher it. It is this fundamental property of our physical universe that provides some measure of hope in what otherwise seems to be very dark times.
Through this conference we hope to increase how networked our movement is and raise public awareness about issues of privacy, technology and social change in the digital age.
Downtown Portland Oregon Portland State University Smith Memorial Student Union Building- Second Floor Saturday April 11th 2015 10am-7pm </comment><comment><AUTHOR> cascadiacypherpunk.net

<comment><USER2> Hosted on Wix. Not exactly hearkening to the days of yore here.</comment></comment>


ScoreYard has launched - <AUTHOR> http://www.ScoreYard.com

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a project of mine that I have worked on in varying degrees for the past year and I'm very happy to see it go live, even if it's not 100% yet.

I created ScoreYard because, as a parent of 3 kids who are active in different sports, I thought it was ridiculously hard for me to keep track of their ever changing schedules, and for the coaches to communicate out to the parents. Some use email, some use phone trees, some use smoke and a blanket...

Then you add in the complication of me keeping out of town family updated on schedules (they would often be in town for a weekend and want to catch a game), and my head nearly exploded.

Anyways, I started building ScoreYard on my own last year. I had the idea, I had the skillset to build it, but I just didn't have the man hours. So, in Jan of this year I brought on two co-founders. One rockstar developer, and one socially connected marketer.

After bringing on the co-founders, a lot has changed. We basically scrapped 99% of the code I had written and started fresh. Now we're in the mindset of "get it out there" and will be pushing new features as quickly as we can.

Right now we're most focused on getting feedback. We aren't building this in a silo and want do our best at building out features users actually want vs what we think they want. Be it design feedback, functionality feedback, or just bug reports, we want to hear it.

Feel free to contact me directly: email@example.com</comment>


German submarine U-1206 - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_submarine_U-1206 <comment><USER2> First, it wasn't sunk by its toilet, it was sunk by a combination of operator error and allied bombs.

Second, there's a lesson here for design. Correct operation was complicated and required special training, and the implications of failure were potentially fatal. The toilet failed because of operator error, but having a toilet that complicated _and_ in a location where failure put seawater into the battery is a design error. The 'old' system was fine and something similar remains in use. I'm a former submariner-- I've seen myriad shitty things happen from sanitation tank operational errors, but an uncontrolled seawater leak is not one of them.

<comment><USER3> I don't necessarily disagree with your theory on design, but every complex war machine ... has some level of controls that if used improperly could be fatal. They are inherently dangerous systems.

Designing fail safes for such things has to be a sort of balance between added complexity / options for failure, and safety.

In the military there are plenty of "don't touch that, let the person who knows how to do it touch it" and I suspect that is often the right design.

<comment><USER4> > don't touch that, let the person who knows how to touch it

Practically, how would that work for a toilet?

<comment><USER5> It could be designed in such a way that multiple people could use it with reasonable comfort with a small holding tank and then periodically someone comes along and flushes it.

<comment><USER2> Indeed, that's more or less the current system!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Someone Left a Hatch Open and Crippled India's $2.9 Billion Submarine Water damage put the submarine out of action for ten months.

[https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy- ships/a147838...](https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy- ships/a14783891/someone-left-a-hatch-open-and-crippled-indias- dollar29-billion-submarine/)

<comment><USER7> >>> Not leaving hatches open that could potentially sink a ship, particularly a submarine, is basic common sense.

Hatches are left open all the time. This sub was not at sea but in harbour. A sub is an enclosed/confined space. While in port it would have been undergoing all sorts of maintenance work. Hatches are left open for ventilation, access, even to run power cords for electric tools. It is not unusual for someone welding stuff inside a ship to require the nearest hatch to be left open for a long period of time.

<comment><USER8> Do submarines have "lockout-tagout" procedures for this kind of thing?

<comment><USER7> They are supposed to. Whether such safety procedures are actually used is another matter. Submarines, like everything else in the military, are great at looking very professional on the outside while being total chaos on the inside.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's interesting how the english version only notes the official report, and puts the alternative story in a single sentence. The german versions also reads (before citing the official report):

"When the Commander, Lieutenant Captain Schlitt, operated the flushing of the toilet on April 14th, he ignored an order according to which the flushing was to be triggered exclusively by the specialist on board.

Sea water, mixed with Schlitt's excrement and urine, poured into the submarine at high pressure through the open valves.

The toilet specialist was no longer able to close the toilet closures. According to reports of a survivor, the boat sank 'like a stone' into the depths."

To the incident itself: Shit happens. (scnr)

<comment><USER10> They needed a toilet specialist?

<comment><USER11> reminds about enterprise systems, at least the ones i've worked with and the roles i've performed. The Sales and the high PMs and suits helicopter in and take a huge [censored] what we're supposed to deal with. Since the early morning today has been doing emergency plumbing on 3 Fortune500 class battleships from corporate navies across the world (and clock). Probably should update my LinkedIn with such an informative title.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > On 28 March 1945 the submarine departed from Kiel for its first training > patrol in the North Sea, returning on 30 March.

I find it amazing that at this point in the war when the end was imminent, they were still going through the motions of doing training patrols.

<comment><USER13> I would imagine it was less of a "training patrol" and more of a 2 day shakedown to ensure that there were no critical issues before sending it into combat. It's the nautical equivalent of a test drive or QA.

Consider that the same process usually takes months for a modern warship, even of a proven design.

<comment><USER14> Indeed - clearly the training was cursory and did not effectively cover at least one important issue...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Similar to HMS M2, which was a submarine aircraft carrier. Likely cause of the sinking was opening of the hanger door to try and beat their personal best for launching an aircraft. This wreck is accessible to scuba divers.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_M2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_M2)

</comment><comment><USER16> See also the thresher, one of the reasons us nuclear subs are so safe today they can be run mostly by 24year olds

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_(SSN-593)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_\(SSN-593\))

</comment><comment><USER17> Only semi related:

If you are ever in Chicago, find time to go to the Museum of Science and Industry and pay extra to go on U-505, she's beautiful and if you like technology and engineering at all it's well worth the cost to walk through her. Even just walking into the cavernous room she's in, is an awesome experience itself.

About 3/4 of the way down this post I have a phone of her in the massive room [https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2019/3/4/21ad- after...](https://www.ryanmercer.com/ryansthoughts/2019/3/4/21ad-after-dad- letter-to-my-father-2019)

</comment><comment><USER18> FTA:

> The site survey performed by RCAHMS suggests that the leak that forced > U-1206 to surface may have occurred after running into a pre-existing wreck > located at the same site.

<comment><USER19> I was wondering about that. Did they run into the wreck and then make up the toilet story for a scapegoat?

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Word on the Water, London's only floating bookstore was also sunk by its toilet [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/world/europe/london- canal...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/world/europe/london-canal- bookstore.html)

</comment><comment><USER21> "misuse of the new toilet caused large amounts of water to flood the boat"

Misuse of available tools and then sinking the whole product sounds like a quite familiar story in software engineering.

</comment><comment><USER22> For those interested in a book about both management AND nuclear submarine safety I highly recommend this book:

[https://www.amazon.com/Turn-Ship-Around-Turning-Followers- eb...](https://www.amazon.com/Turn-Ship-Around-Turning-Followers- ebook/dp/B00AFPVP0Y)

One great example: Junior folks kept hitting the wrong buttons during safety evaluations so the crew instituted a "positive action" e.g. "I am about to turn on this device" before they did anything.

During the safety review, the reviewers came back and said:

"You performed fewer errors than anyone we've ever tested. Actually, we take that back, your crew was ABOUT TO make as many mistakes as normal but the verbal call out meant that everything was double checked leading to such a lower error count"

<comment><USER23> Sort of like Japanese train operators who point at everything. I guess it works well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The History Guy has done an episode on this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfr0nsh0Ghc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfr0nsh0Ghc)

</comment><comment><USER25> > When submerged, the boat could operate for 80 nautical miles (150 km; 92 mi) > at 4 knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph); when surfaced, she could travel 8,500 > nautical miles (15,700 km; 9,800 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)

I always pictured submarines would spend most of their time submerged, but how is that possible if its maximum submerged range was 92 miles?

Was it really possible its surfaced range was over 100 times greater? Or was it just that it needed to surface occasionally then it could submerge again?

<comment><USER26> You are thinking of nuclear submarines.

Submarines of this era would have a bank of batteries, using 1940's technology, which they could use to run the boat whilst submerged. Once they were flat, they would have to stay at or near the surface long enough to charge them again(they could run at the surface using a 'snorkel' to bring in air for the engines.

They would submerge only to attack or to hide. So looking at it from a range perspective is perhaps not the best way. They could have stayed submerged under water for a long time, but they couldn't be cruising flat out whilst doing it.

<comment><USER27> Which explains the shapes of submarines in the two eras: they're optimized for their preferred mode of operation. Diesel submarines were shaped approximately like a regular ship, with a angled and tapered prow to cut the waves. Nuclear subs are shaped like a torpedo, roughly cylindrical with a rounded prow, to move through deep water.

<comment><USER28> The shift in thinking about submarine hulls occurred at about the same time as changes in propulsion, but they were separate developments. USS Albacore was the first to prototype the hull shape. A short-run class of diesel-electrics were designed to that shape before being completely overtaken by nuclear propulsion in the US.

All modern submarines, including AIP, diesel-electric, and nuclear, use hull forms optimized for underwater operations.

<comment><USER29> There are some neat ones employed by Sweden that use Sterling engines powered by liquid oxygen and diesel which is pretty neat and makes them really quiet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I've been wondering for a while, is there a reason that U-boats all had numbers instead of names? German surface warships had names, as far as I know.

<comment><USER30> As I heard it once it was an order by Kaiser Wilhelm II. He didn't like them much and thought they were cowardly weapons and did not deserve names.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Wonderful talk on engineering failures from Pete Cheslock on the Vasa:

[https://pete.wtf/vasa/](https://pete.wtf/vasa/)

[https://vimeo.com/221068308](https://vimeo.com/221068308) \- direct video link.

Engineering fails on seafaring vessels is a very old thing.

</comment><comment><USER32> >> U-1206: The Nazi submarine that was sunk by its toilet.

Iiiish. More precisely, the leak forced it to surface and it was sunk by allied bombs once on the surface.

Edit: And like lgrebe says, the toilet may not have been the sole reason for the leak - they may have struck an older wreck.

</comment><comment><USER33> The boat was very likely not an SA assault troop nor an SS secret police unit (both paramilitary branches of the Nazi party), but rather a normal Wehrmacht naval unit. So a "German U-boat", instead of a "Nazi U-boat".

Someone will perhaps reply with their more encompassing definition of Nazis, etc., but I don't mean to engage with whatever discussion that generates. I only point out the standard terminology that you'll see in most books, etc.

EDIT: Looks like someone has changed the title from "Nazi U-boat" \-- thanks!

<comment><USER34> A boat designed, built, and operated at the order of the Nazi government is a "Nazi boat". Even if most of the crew weren't party members.

Similarly, many American military bases around the world are built and staffed by mostly locals. But this is done at the direction of the American government (usually with the incentives of payments to and defense of the local government). But we still call them "American bases" because the Americans exercise most of the control.

<comment><USER35> Right, we call them "American bases" rather than "Republican bases" or "Democrat bases" depending on which party is in power at the time. That's the point the GP is trying to make.

<comment><USER34> Okay so this would be a "Third Reich boat"? Because the nation wasn't really anything resembling "Germany" at that point.

<comment><USER35> It was officially called the German Empire or Greater German Empire, and the usual adjective was "German". So normally this would be a "German boat". In the same way, for example, the _HMS Belfast_ would be a "British ship" even if it was built outside Britain or some of its crew came from the rest of the British Empire.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> the ship laid down on 12 JUNE 1942 at danzing and then went to service on 16 march 1944 & the boat's emblem was whte stork on a black shield with green break & legs.and it wasn't sunk by allied bombs it had accident near scotland & sum of them survived.

</comment><comment><USER37> 16 days in operation, no victories. Should be in a book of greatest enterprise failures.

<comment><USER38> It's important to note that most of the advanced technology that Germany gets credit for in WWII was designed, built _and_ destroyed all in a matter of a decade or two.

The Bismarck is another good example. It was the largest, heaviest, strongest, most advanced battleship of it's time. There was no single allied ship that could match it's performance or firepower or withstand combat against it for very long.

And the Bismarck was sunk 9 months after she was commissioned. Not by a toilet, not by inexperience; but because the entire British navy identified the gargantuan risk and superflous symbology of destroying the pinnacle of German tech. That, and it sunk the symbolic HMS Hood (arguably second best warship at the time) battleship in an almost comedic display that lasted mere minutes. The Titanic took hours to sink but the Hood, a ship of similar size and weight, was gone in mere seconds after being hit by the Bismarck's deck guns. After that the Bismarck was the only thing Britain cared about.

The reason German tech didn't last wasn't because the tech was inferior. It was because for every one unit Germany built, there were 5 allied units with crosshairs trained on it. The hunting was simply better for the allies than it was for Germany towards the end of the war, after Germany had been crippled by allied carpet bombing.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Denmark_Strait](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Denmark_Strait)

<comment><USER39> >There was no single allied ship that could match it's performance or firepower or withstand combat against it for very long.

This is something of a myth. The Bismarck was roughly comparable to contemporary British battleships (e.g. the KGV class) in terms of protection and firepower. The Hood was a much older design, and the Bismarck got a lucky hit.

<comment><USER40> And the Hood was a Battle Cruiser

<comment><USER39> Kind of. It's arguably more accurate to call it a fast battleship, as its armor protection was equivalent to that of a post-Jutland British battleship. At the time it was built, the Hood was both fast and heavily armored. Its armor protection scheme was somewhat dated by the 1940s.

<comment><USER38> With light deck armor, larger plunging shells would drop down from the top rather than piercing through the side (like hood was designed to withstand). Had the fatal shot been lower and closer she might have taken the blow, but alas, they fell right into her magazines.

Also I'm not a history major or anything so there will be inaccuracies in my posts. I'm just the son of a WW2 buff who himself is a WW2 buff, repeating most of this from memory. It's been a fun conversation so far though!

<comment><USER39> The Hood's deck armor was dated, but the range was too close for that scenario when the fatal shot was fired. The shot must have pierced Hood's main belt (or somehow snuck around it).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Facebook ad split testing tool - <AUTHOR>

Hi<p>About a month or two ago, somebody posted a link to a 3rd party A/B testing tool for Facebook ads. Does anyone know what it could have been or any tools that do this? Thanks <comment><AUTHOR> I've found it. It was initially called XA.net but now it seems to have rebranded to <http://optim.al></comment>


A practical guide to writing technical specs - <AUTHOR> https://stackoverflow.blog/2020/04/06/a-practical-guide-to-writing-technical-specs/ <comment><USER2> This endless lost of spec sections sounds a lot like waterfall. It's a formula for a gigantic document that one person writes and nobody ever reads. And when they do, the real world has already caused half of it to be outdated.

<comment><USER3> I believe some parts of this are important:

1\. Describing the problem, the business value, and the key words/definitions

2\. Defining the goals _and non-goals_ for the project

3\. Describing the implementation's logic and data model (a simple schema with boxes and arrows)

I like how it is done in "Domain Modeling Made Functional". However I agree too much of this is counterproductive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The spec itself is not so important but the process of creating it. Because all stakeholders are forced to think through the problem and the implementation beforehand, come to an agreement and are on the same information level before starting.

<comment><USER5> "In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

\- Eisenhower

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is this an April Fool's joke?

You don't know 80% of this stuff before you start.</comment>


97% of Airports Fail at Cybersecurity - <AUTHOR> https://www.softwaretestingnews.co.uk/97-of-airports-fail-at-cybersecurity/ <comment><USER2> I thought I'd seen this story before, so I did a quick-n-dirty search to see what I could find. Here are the results:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22234663](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22234663)

      Only three of the Top international airports pass basic security checks
      (zdnet.com)
      2 points by keydutch 7 hours ago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22224437](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22224437)

      Only three of the world's top airports pass cyber security test
      (itweb.co.za)
      1 point by keydutch 1 day ago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22212562](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22212562)

      97 of 100 World's Largest Airports Are Vulnerable to a Cyberattack
      (securitymagazine.com)
      2 points by ajaviaad 2 days ago | 2 comments

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22209873](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22209873)

      Cybersecurity lacking at most of the world's major airports
      (immuniweb.com)
      1 point by keydutch 3 days ago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22205209](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22205209)

      Cybersecurity lacking at most of the world's major airports
      (scmagazine.com)
      3 points by LinuxBender 3 days ago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22201531](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22201531)

      Airpors Have Cybersecurity Risks
      (techrepublic.com)
      1 point by keydutch 4 days ago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22201445](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22201445)

      Biggest Airports Aren't Protected Against Cybersecurity Risks
      (sensorstechforum.com)
      3 points by massacre 4 days ago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22194646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22194646)

      97% of airports showing signs of weak cybersecurity
      (grahamcluley.com)
      1 point by keydutch 4 days ago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22190840](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22190840)

      State of Cybersecurity at Airports
      (irishtechnews.ie)
      33 points by keydutch 5 days ago | 9 comments

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22190819](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22190819)

      97% of Airports Fail at Cybersecurity
      (softwaretestingnews.co.uk)
      3 points by keydutch 5 days ago | 1 comment

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22179126](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22179126)

      State of Cybersecurity at Top 100 Global Airports
      (immuniweb.com)
      1 point by keydutch 6 days ago</comment>


Fallacies of Distributed Computing Explained (2006) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.rgoarchitects.com/Files/fallacies.pdf <comment><USER2> For more context, I'd recommend this resource - [http://www.hpcs.cs.tsukuba.ac.jp/~tatebe/lecture/h23/dsys/ds...](http://www.hpcs.cs.tsukuba.ac.jp/~tatebe/lecture/h23/dsys/dsd- tutorial.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> Just a note this has ZERO to do with _decentralized_ computing, which is probably a more popular topic nowadays.</comment>


Get-shit-done - Easy way to stop distractions - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/leftnode/get-shit-done <comment><USER2> I once wrote a similar script which was configurable and it installed as a service. It would periodically scan /etc/hosts to check I wasn't cheating.

      $ sudo /etc/inid.d/procrastination-ctl start
      OK.
      $ sudo /etc/inid.d/procrastination-ctl stop
      You need to wait 59 minutes before you can stop.

Managed to waste a whole day on that one.

<comment><USER3> > Managed to waste a whole day on that one

I love the irony.

<comment><USER2> I always wanted to rename the script to "/etc/init.d/procrastination" whereby the command "stop" would start the service and vice-versa.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nowhere near as broad-ranging, but I'll make the note for HN users not aware of it - if HN is your sole (main?) distraction, you can use the noprocrast feature on your user page. Change to Yes, add a max time you allow yourself to visit HN and then the min time you want to be forced to be away.

As I say, nowhere near as broadly applicable or useful as the OP, but worth noting especially if (like me) HN is your distraction of choice and you have minimal technical skills.

<comment><USER5> After playing with noprocrast, I found very good settings for me are

maxvisit: 20

minaway: 1

That means, every 20 minutes HN kicks me off for one minute. I leave it like that constantly - it means if I'm spending time on here nonstop for an hour or two, I get a couple little reminders to ask myself if I really want to be on here. If I do, it's not a big deal to get up and make myself a tea or whatever until 1 minute passes, if not I close the tab and get to business, and it's low enough that I don't cheat by logging in with another browser or Chrome Incognito Mode.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I do this, although only by saying

        sudo cp hosts.play /etc/hosts

or

        sudo cp hosts.work /etc/hosts

It's simple, and surprisingly efficient.

<comment><USER7> The only problem with this method is that if you modify your hosts file, you have to modify both.

<comment><USER8> Just create a Makefile or something that cats together hosts.common and hosts.work or hosts.play.

      all:
          cat hosts.common hosts.work.in > hosts.work
          cat hosts.common hosts.play.in > hosts.play

Make common changes to hosts.common and easily build your final hosts files.

      play:
         cat hosts.play | sudo tee /etc/hosts > /dev/null

      work:
         cat hosts.work | sudo tee /etc/hosts > /dev/null

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I used StayFocusd for a day or two and realized I was a lost cause when I found myself opening its sqlite database in my Chrome profile to add time to the clock.

<comment><USER10> Unfortunately you can just right click and disable extensions on chrome. Since the exit barrier is so low, I was always able to exit even when I shouldn't have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why such interest in this script? Besides being written in php, it's also a fairly kludgey approach to managing /etc/hosts. Is it the vulgarities?

        #!/bin/sh
        [ $UID -eq 0 ] || { echo "You're not root, asshole."; exit 1; }
        [ -f "/etc/hosts.$1" ] || { echo "/etc/hosts.$1 doesn't exist, asshole."; exit 1; }
        cat /etc/hosts.{$1,tail} > /etc/hosts

...

        sudo ~/bin/stopfuckingoff play

<comment><USER12> It was a sad day when Red Hat removed the insults from sudo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> For Mac users, SelfControl is a GUI approach to this idea: <http://visitsteve.com/made/selfcontrol/>

<comment><USER14> One of the best features is that it runs on a timer and you can't cancel it prematurely. Even if you restart.

<comment><USER15> You can. It uses ipfw, and I think you can reset the rules. At least I managed when I tried it, but this was some 3 years ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Sorry to be the guy decrying PHP, but the only arguments I've found in it's favor are it's ubiquity and being sometimes "the right tool for the job" if you're quickly hacking together a dynamic webpage.

Surely a simple cli app isn't the right job for this tool.

Now, all that said, it _does_ work, and blahblahblah.

<comment><USER17> Yep, beware I didn't even tested it:

        #!/usr/bin/env zsh

        (($#<1)) && {
            print -- "usage: $0:t (play|work)"
                exit 1
        }>&2
        blacklist=(
                reddit.com
                ycombinator.com
                slashdot.com
                )

        hostfile=/etc/host

        if [[ $1 = "play" ]]; then
            if [[ ! -e $hostfile.orig ]]; then
                cp $hostfile{,.orig}
            else
                print -- "You're already playin" >&2
                exit 1
            fi
            cp $hostfile{.orig,}
            for elem in $blacklist; do
                print -- "127.0.0.1\t$elem" >> /etc/host
                print -- "127.0.0.1\twww.$elem" >> /etc/host
            done
        fi

        if [[ $1 = "work" ]]; then
            cp $hostfile{.orig,}
            \rm $hostfile.orig
        fi

        /etc/init.d/networking restart

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thank god! Let me just waste some time getting this installed and then I'll waste some more time testing it, then I'll waste some more time posting this comment to hacker news.

</comment><comment><USER19> <https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/leechblock/>

does windows of access, allows for x minutes, has grouping. Course, it's FF only where hosts file gets your whole connection.

<comment><USER20> StayFocusd for Chrome Users - [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/laankejkbhbdhmipfm...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/laankejkbhbdhmipfmgcngdelahlfoji)

latest version has a neat feature which tracks links from blocked pages. Ie if I give myself 15 mins of HN a day, but end up wasting 2 hours because I only spend 10 secs on HN opening up tabs to read, it now tracks that. Any links you click from HN will count towards your time limit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Isn't the point of this approach to be _difficult_ to switch back and forth? Next thing you know there will be a chrome extension that swaps your hosts file and you will be separated from procrastination by a single click.

<comment><USER22> I found it useful to force myself to manually comment/uncomment lines in my hosts file. It gives a critical few moments for a bit of humiliation to set in, as you realize how desperate you are for diversion. On the other end, it gives a moment to mentally pat yourself on the back for eliminating the distractions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> i'm actually surprised at the amount of time people spend procrastinating on something to help them stop procrastinating...

or even more surprising might be the amount of time i've spent procrastinating by reading about people who've procrastinated by making tools to aid their procrastination...

...I'm going to get back to work :)

</comment><comment><USER24> Instead of doing work, I got stuck modding this to get better behavior for Mac. First I tried to figure out what the $restartNetworkingCommand mac equivalent was (dscacheutil -flushcache for those who are curious). This works pretty well for non-Chrome browsers (i.e. browsers that don't have absurd caching behavior). Then, given that Chrome (which maintains its own DNS cache-- a decidedly not absurd caching behavior, I acknowledge) is my browser of choice, I also set out to fix it so I didn't need to restart Chrome. This endeavor I have accomplished using one of my favorite jank-tastic tactics: running applescript from the command line.

So here is my (Mac OS X 10.6+?) change:

$restartNetworkingCommand = 'dscacheutil -flushcache; osascript <<EOF tell application "Google Chrome" make new tab at end of tabs of window 1 with properties {URL:"chrome://net-internals/#dns"} activate delay .5 set URL of active tab of window 1 to "javascript:document.getElementById(\'clearHostResolverCache\').click()" end tell delay .5 tell application "System Events" to keystroke "w" using {command down} EOF';

This, of course is made even more jank-tastic by manually sending command-w to close the window-- googling the proper command was more difficult than just doing it live :).

So yeah-- clearly I needed this script before reading this post, but if I had it probably would have done some terrible things to the space-time continuum... I guess I'll just amortize the one-time cost by actually using the script. Starting now.

<comment><USER24> yikes-- that formatting got butchered... anyone know if there's a better way to put code in comments?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> <https://github.com/killsaw/Timeguard>

A similar script, but with an 'addsite whatever.com' command.

</comment><comment><USER26> For anyone interested, I rewrote this entirely in bash.

<https://github.com/cdown/ncrast/blob/master/ncrast> <http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=48731>

</comment><comment><USER27> I do this, and my scripts have actually gotten kind of complicated.

To start, it's a command line utility. I need to answer the question "Do you want to waste your time?" with "yes" to turn off the filters.

Then I didn't bother running in a way that the script had permissions to edit /etc/hosts so I need to enter my system password every time I want to make a change.

I also automatically turn the filters on every hour.

I also log both the number of times I turn the filters off and whether the filter is on at about 1pm.

I'm running a test right now to not turn on the filters automatically every hour and there is already a noticeable decrease in productivity in my rescuetime.

I'm about to update the logger to use the google charts API to save a historic graph of performance to a directory that is used as my desktop background.

</comment><comment><USER28> Use to use cumbersome hacks with block lists in routers, but I discovered the SiteBlock extension for Chrome: make a list of "dangerous" sites, and give yourself a fixed time per day to visit them. In my casa, one hour works fine (although I'd probably prefer 2 :p)

Address: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pfglnpdpgmecffbejl...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pfglnpdpgmecffbejlfgpnebopinlclj)

Website Blocker seems to be similar, but without a time limit: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hclgegipaehbigmbhd...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hclgegipaehbigmbhdpfapmjadbaldib)

</comment><comment><USER29> I've ported this to a Bash script which is simpler and more extensible. It uses env variables to facilitate customization.

<https://gist.github.com/955437>

</comment><comment><USER30> A crude implementation of Get-shit-done in Python. <https://github.com/dananjayavr/get-shit-done>

</comment><comment><USER31> For mac users, the Self Control app works really well. <http://visitsteve.com/made/selfcontrol/>

</comment><comment><USER32> A Chrome extension that I use pretty regularly for this sort of thing is Stay Focused: <http://goo.gl/gHWFQ>

</comment><comment><USER33> I permanently blocked all from my laptop and only surf from my iPad now. Works great for me.

<comment><USER34> Curious, how do you permanently block the sites?

<comment><USER22> I think it just means that the sites stay redirected in his hosts file.

<comment><USER33> Correct. If I ever catch myself surfing to a website from my laptop, it gets bookmarked for my iPad and blocked in my /etc/hosts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I took a really simple approach: removing HN, Facebook, Clicky, and Google Reader from my bookmarks bar. Having to type them in manually instead of compulsively clicking is enough to limit me to an hour or two of dicking around per day.

<comment><USER36> I don't even use bookmarks because it would take longer to click a bookmark than typing "n" for HN (or "r" for reddit or "f" for facebook) and letting Chrome auto-complete and pressing enter, so this wouldn't help me that much.

<comment><USER35> Oh, I guess I would call myself a "burst typer", so I usually find it faster to just type all or most of the domain than to type one letter and check to see if Chrome got the right thing. But of course that requires a little bit of effort, so it's still just enough to make me consider whether to go there or get some work done.

I just subconsciously don't trust one-letter autocomplete I guess.

<comment><USER37> in firefox i have 'red' <down> <enter> already ingrained for reddit, same with 'new' for HN ... it's automatic and you can't tell me typing it all out is faster :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Thankfully this was the first link on the HN homepage. Just reading the articles and comments made me feel sufficiently guilty to stop reading any more :)

</comment><comment><USER39> Throw in some ASCII art to make things sweeter:

      figlet -f univers time to work! | boxes

      figlet -f starwars game time!   | boxes -d dog

</comment><comment><USER40> How does this compare to Programming, Motherfucker?

</comment><comment><USER23> this comment thread is turning into quite the social experiment. is ADD a prerequisite for being a good programmer/hacker/etc...?

</comment><comment><USER41> Just a quick hack. I added timer-applet in ubuntu. I work on 30 mins intervals and then rest 5 mins. It is pretty handy.

<comment><USER42> Similar to this, I use eternity time tracker on my iphone to work in 30 minute intervals. During the interval, no email, news sites etc. It has worked really well for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Safari users might like <http://www.mindfulbrowsing.com>

</comment><comment><USER44> treating the symptoms rather than the disease is only a good choice for short term or for incurable diseases

<comment><USER45> You may be right. But repeating an action forms a habit, or in this case learning to not repeatedly open up HN or Reddit can become a long-term habit for anyone with the right mindset.

<comment><USER44> my main point being that if they stop with HN/Reddit something else will fill that gap. Not working is the issue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> oh no !! i checked the list of sites being blocked, now have more of them to check up on ....

</comment><comment><USER47> Does it block Outlook because thats the real reason I can't get anything done these days.

</comment><comment><USER48> Does it have a timer to keep me from modifying it every 2 minutes?

<comment><USER49> Use FreeBSD, set the kernlevel to something above the minimum, and add the flags to the file so it can't be changed, then until you reboot you won't be able to modify the hosts file =)

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I'd call it git-er-done

</comment><comment><USER51> So distracted by this.

</comment><comment><USER52> I might as well plug tasktop - it's great.

</comment><comment><USER53> Block reddit in /etc/hosts.

Memorize reddit's IP.

</comment><comment><USER54> This will obviously leave me continuously trying to access hacker news while preventing me from doing so. My continued attempts will block all other operations [i.e. work] hence creating a race condition.

Far preferable is the event-driven technique whereby I make a cursory attempt at doing some real stuff until the HN bot tweets something of fleeting interest, at which point I defer said real stuff to a background thread to be completed in an asynchronous fashion.

</comment><comment><USER55> Is this really worthy of HN frontpage? Seriously, who among us couldn't write something similar in 5 minutes or less?</comment>


Ask HN: what are the best non-cash employment benefits you've heard of? - <AUTHOR>

What are some of the best non-cash employment benefits that you've heard of?<p>I'm interested in anything really interesting/fun/creative/worthwhile or even the boring stuff like life insurance.  If it's of value to you as an employee then it's worth listing. <comment><USER2> Between my experiences at several jobs:

      -In office music
      -In office shower. Somewhere to store extra clothes and items
      -In office kitchen (and a good one at that)
      -Bike rack
      -Basic bike tools on-hand at office
      -Easily accessible set of basic hand and small power tools in office. Stuff happens. You need them.
      -Motorcycle parking
      -Chair budget. Get what you want/need to work best
      -I liked Pixar's office/cube budget, although I've never worked for them, search for it.
      -Ability to have whatever keyboard/mouse/display/computer best suited me. Don't make me use the shitty company's logo mousepad if I want something else. Don't force an IDE on me. If I use textmate, allow me to use that. If I'm a vim or emacs guy, allow that. Results matter- not my IDE.
      -Give me a software budget, or better yet no budget at all. If I want software that is tangentially related to my work, I should be able to get it
      -Massive company library. Geeks love books/knowledge. Being able to take these home is good. Being able to order anything and add to it is even better.
      -Food and drinks available.
      -Cabs home if needed- no questions asked.
      -Ability for me to receive packages at work (that may not be work related). When I have an office I *always* ship my packages there as to not miss them.
      -I loved being able to do laundry at betahouse.
      -Encourage and pay for employees going to social events, even if they aren't 100% tied to their daily work functions. Social employees are worth much more.
      -A 'quiet room' where someone can work/study/sleep without being bothered. A nap/dark room is a good idea too if you can fit it space-wise.
      -Your office layout matters. Think how you position people and how the arrangement of power sits. I liked sitting right beside the CEO at my first startup (and we were 20 people, so this wasn't a given). I count him as a good friend because of this.

But also, don't skimp on basic benefits either. Make sure everyone is financially sound. If someone has something they need bailed out of, let them know you are there. The last thing you want is some employee worrying about the bills from replacing a major appliance that blew up at home. Issue small loans, or better yet, convenient bonuses on a need-only basis. Make sure your employees are healthy. Find out what they actually feel about their health insurance. Most younger employees will not care, but a few will. Listen to them. You want them healthy and happy- their families too. Most companies these days skimp on partner healthcare and no longer support the needs of a family.

Other small things that we miss now in society do matter to people.

      -Anniversaries, birthdays and important dates to that person. Doing more that just posting to facebook is a way to show thoughtfulness. This can just be a card.
      -Even in politically correct 2010 and with many of us working at home, we do have holidays that we appreciate having noticed. Small gifts are very noticed.
      -Just as you want your employee to go above and beyond, think about how you can go above and beyond for them. This will come back to you.

<comment><USER3> That is one huge list :) Sometimes it felt little one sided. But most make sense for big firms.

<comment><USER2> I doubt any company could or should do it all. But picking a healthy list of those is useful. I got a huge portion of those between working for gamerDNA and then working at the betahouse coworking loft in Cambridge (but of course not all).

Each company should figure out what is right for their particular culture. Defining that culture in a meaningful way can be rather difficult.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a software developer, it means a lot to be working on a powerful machine with at least two large screens, _my choice of OS if possible_ , and a generally nice desk. Most companies provide decent machines, but every place I've worked at required me to run their stock Windows XP (now 7) with Outlook.

The worst part of my day, every day, is managing windows (the application windows) in Windows (the OS). It's terrible. We build Java software that has a web front end. It really shouldn't matter which OS I use to develop (assuming I test in IE frequently), but I'm forced to use Windows. _sigh_ A really really simple thing that many companies could do is to let their software developers have a bit more control over their environment.

<comment><USER5> Along with your comment about a powerful machine and choice of OS, I'd like to add root access.

I don't have root access on my current computer, and it's a royal pain. For some boneheaded reason, no idea why, svn wasn't installed on it. I had to bother IT for three days to get it installed.

Thankfully, I'm about to get a new box on which I have been promised root. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> 1) Shower in the office: makes it easy to cycle to work and feel fresh afterwards.

2) Smart colleagues: for work and non-work conversation.

3) Fridges stocked with healthy food: junk food is cheaper, but leaves you unable to think clearly.

</comment><comment><USER7> I am currently in the process of negotiating an employee agreement that limits IP claims to stuff reasonably related to the official line of business, rather than the more normal "everything you think about until you leave belongs to us".

<comment><AUTHOR> Something that works well here is "everything you think about until you leave belongs to us" PLUS "company will give written permission for you to own IP of any personal/open source project that is not work related, permission will not be unreasonably withheld"

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a professional, I appreciate the ability to dress down or in casual wear like jeans a t-shirt. this is forbidden in legal and accounting fields so its basically an unfulfilled dream...unless you work for yourself =D

<comment><USER9> I agree with you. Happily, it does not have to be this way. In fact, the nation's biggest law firm devoted just to business litigation, Quinn Emanuel, is known for its casual dress:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinn_Emanuel_Urquhart_%26_Sull...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinn_Emanuel_Urquhart_%26_Sullivan#Firm_culture)

More firms should follow suit. (Pun not intended.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nap room. Seriously. I'm often dragging a bit by 3-4PM, between general tiredness and food coma from lunch. I'd love to be able to crash out for an hour or two, and come back to what I'm doing refreshed.

<comment><USER11> I actually find the the post-lunch coma to be really distracting and wonder if companies could benefit trying to feed their employees _twice_ a day with a light late breakfast and then later light lunch.

<comment><USER12> Pivotal labs does this by offering everyone free catered breakfast at the start of the day. As I understand it, the motivation was to synchronize everyone's lunch hunger so half of a pair-programming team wasn't hungry earlier because they hadn't eaten lunch but their pair had. It also served to mitigate mid-afternoon food-coma somewhat.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One of my favorite non-cash benefits is the ability to use the shipping department for my outgoing packages. (I assume that everyone allows delivery at work.)

It's really nice to be able to take your outgoing packages to the shipping folks, give them some money, and have them take care of fedex/ups. It's much better than leaving work to go to fedex, ups, what have you.

Most large companies already have shipping departments, so the only additional fixed cost is the ability to take money from employees.

And, if fed ex/ups/etc have minimums, this helps meet them, so it may even reduce some company costs.

<comment><USER14> > I assume that everyone allows delivery at work.

Not a safe assumption, unfortunately. I had to make a huge stink to not get this taken away last year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Best I've heard of so far: Working without a fixed schedule. I can't concentrate for a full 8 hours; however, I can work at odd hours and still get things done.

</comment><comment><USER16> Ability to pick which projects I want to participate in. Also, being able to provide and revise estimates (as opposed to having someone with a 10 week management course and a fresh install of MS Project telling me that I should have been done implementing an obscure spec 2.5 days ago). Also, having a boss that understands life circumstances. Also, the option to work from home. Lastly, working on interesting stuff with intelligent and friendly people.

Wow, I guess I've been pretty lucky so far...

</comment><comment><USER17> I spent 2 months last year working in China consulting for "the Facebook of China" (not actually Facebook).

One thing that I loved about the office - every day at 6pm, caterers would come round with lunch boxes for everyone. Plus soup, plus drink, plus fruit. And every day it was different! (and delicious)

Sure it's a far cry from Google's 5-star catering with 10 page menu or whatever, but I remember feeling super happy every day when the food came round. Everyone ate, chatted, played games for a bit, then got back to work. It was good for lifting spirits.

Edited to add: this was for about 1000 people, every day.

(Of course, this was good for the company too as it meant people stayed that little bit longer at the office)

<comment><USER18> You ate at 6 pm and then went back to work? How long was the workday?

<comment><USER17> By 9pm most people were out the door apart from most of the department managers who usually stayed until 10pm-ish.

Coming from Japan, I felt this was fairly normal. Long working hours are part of the culture.

<comment><USER18> Oh wow, you worked 13-14 hours a day? Jesus, when did you live?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The best benefit I've ever heard of is Matasano's unlimited books budget. I have absolutely no clue why nobody else (AFAIK) does this. I'm sure it more than pays for itself just by making people more productive, never mind the value to the employees themselves.

<comment><USER20> Think what would happen if this became widespread. Book publishers start charging exorbitant prices because most of their buyers don't care. Employers push back and negotiate deals for themselves with publishers. Do you really want the book market to look like the US healthcare market?

<comment><USER18> "Unlimited budget" doesn't mean "unlimited spending". I'm pretty sure people would only buy things they needed, so the situation you describe wouldn't happen any more than it does now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A friend of mine works for Maruti(Indian subsidiary of Suzuki Motors). They let you 'buy' a Maruti car and pay the loan installments for you over 4 years. You become eligible for a new car every 3 years or so. If you ever leave, you keep the car, but take over the payments.

After 4 years, the car is yours.

<comment><USER3> Hope they are talking any car? 3yrs to be eligible then 4yrs payment. So 7yrs relationship for a car :). Some play the game really well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> WTH? 51 comments and nobody's mentioned vacation time yet? I would take a job with a proper amount of vacation time over a job with the American mandated minimum (1 week) but double the pay. It was different before I had a wife and child, but now, vacation is more important than anything.

2 weeks to visit family at Christmas. 1 week to visit family during the summer. 2 weeks for a proper vacation in Europe or Asia or whatever 1 week for home renos. There's nothing like swinging a hammer for a week to destress. 1 week to create a few extra long weekends to get stuff done, show visitors around the city, et cetera.

total: 7 weeks, which is relatively common for professionals in Europe. Unfortunately, I don't live in Europe.

</comment><comment><USER23> I would _kill_ to work for a company that bought decent chairs. I mean, I know they seem pricey, but an Aeron chair is at least no more expensive than the computer they buy me. And it will probably last a hell of a lot longer too.

</comment><comment><USER24> Free food is the best. It's actually a really strong incentive to get employees to stay at work longer, and who doesn't like free food? Now it is becoming more and more of a standard perk at startups which is a great thing!

<comment><USER13> I don't like free food.

In most cases, it isn't the food that I'd pick myself and it often leads to weight gain.

<comment><USER25> We have fairly healthy food. The signs are all labeled green, yellow, or red to indicate healthfulness and there's salad and vegetables every day. Of course no one is going to stop you from going up for seconds if that's what you want to do, but I've found I eat much healthier at work because it's difficult and time consuming to prepare that variety of food and vegetables for a single person. One of my coworkers lost 60 pounds since starting.

<comment><USER13> > We have fairly healthy food.

I know what it takes to keep my weight in check and it's a small subset of what is considered "healthy".

> One of my coworkers lost 60 pounds since starting.

Good for that person. Untill I'd done it, I didn't know how hard it is to do.

Yegge says that the typical experience at Google is +10. Is he wrong?

<comment><USER25> People joke about the Google 15, but I don't know of anyone that actually put on much weight. I ended up putting on 15-20 pounds, but it was muscle mass that I was trying to gain, so I'm not sure that counts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Having "ops" take care of things you're not particularly good at, or which scale well -- shipping, renting cars, being a 24x7 phone contact, etc.

If your ops department is good enough that people list it as their "in case of emergency" contact number, in preference to family members, you're doing it right. (obviously ops will contact your spouse/etc., but I'd rather have "Ryan has been kidnapped" or "hurt in a car accident in Malaysia" responded to by someone who can actually bring serious resources to bear, vs. someone who will get emotional.)

</comment><comment><USER27> I used to work for a web retailer selling outdoors gear (skis/snowboards, camping, climbing, &c). During the ski season, on powder days, we were encouraged to go play in the snow before showing up at the office. People at their desks before noon when there's fresh on the slopes were often asked what they were doing at work, and executive "going to get a couple runs in" lunches were the norm the rest of the time.

On top of that, we were eligible for significant discounts on season passes to many of the local resorts (in the Salt Lake City area). Between that and the free day passes that were handed out as rewards by team leads, project managers, and the like, it was hard _not_ to get in some serious slope time.

(And, of course, there was the discount on gear...)

</comment><comment><USER28> The place I work now either pays for parking or public transit pass. I take the public transit pass.

</comment><comment><USER29> Allowing employees to donate 10% of their work time to nonprofits of their choice. Employees feel like their company gives a crap and helps them feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves.

<comment><USER23> This is good, but these kinds of deals are almost always more of a gimmick than anything else. If I work 36 hours and volunteer 4 hours, chances are I'll probably still be given 40 hours of work rather than 36.

<comment><USER29> Yeah, I suppose it depends on the type of business. If the business espouses the 37Signals philosophy of not overworking employees, then it can be a good thing. If not, then it could just lead to more work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Free flying lessons -- Avidyne wanted everyone to be a private pilot.

</comment><comment><USER31> \- Free Drinks / Snacks / Lunches

\- 20% Time

\- Music/Stereo System in the office

\- Work from Home Days (where everyone does)

<comment><USER32> I'm not convinced by the music thing. We have music at our office but in practice it rapidly trends towards whatever offends the least people which is normally some kind of "easy listening" dreck. This doesn't seem to work for most people, given that a fair number of us still listen to our own music on ipods or whatever.

I suppose it would be a nice little benefit if the music played was interesting and cool, but I'm not convinced that's likely to actually work very often.

<comment><USER33> Not everybody likes working with music on, either. I can do it some times but not others, and if I have music on, it has to be something I know/like, otherwise it's too distracting. I had a job where people played music on a stereo and it was frustrating most of the time.

So it's something to be wary of and not a benefit in my book.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Where I live, a company-paid car lease is pretty much standard for every non- junior developer. It sounds decadent and it probably isn't the "best" non-cash benefit one can come up with, but it does bring a lot of value since paying for a car myself would be a significant portion of my income.

</comment><comment><USER35> Nobody has said it yet?

Equity.

<comment><USER26> If I could get everything else I wanted, I could see giving up equity, especially the amounts common at a lot of companies. Spend 4 years there then be a founder yourself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> We started in an old mansion, and offered a washer and dryer free at work.

amazing results.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I guess Google 20% time is one of the most well known.

</comment><comment><USER37> This isn't in the programming domain, nor does it originate in private enterprise, buy my cousin retired at... about 52, from a county health department, with full health benefits through to Medicare eligibility (as I understand it).

They can now work as much or as little as they wish (including in private enterprise), where they wish, on a contract basis, and not worry about health care.

It's not a _cash_ benefit nor one you can buy with cash (other than being wealthy enough not to have to worry about such things), so I see it as a significant "non-cash" benefit.

Recently, they were working in an office where the management and politics were wearing them down. When their commitment ended -- even though the organization wanted them to remain -- they were free to decline and look for something more comfortable.</comment>


Wordpress 2.7 is the Real Deal - <AUTHOR> http://www.markevanstech.com/2008/10/05/wordpress-27-is-the-real-deal/ <comment><USER2> Sure, a new shiny version with a lot of bells and whistles will make it more writer friendly while adding to the bloat, but it's sad to see lot of people out there spending more time upgrading and spending more time meddling with the back cms system rather than the spending time writing actual quality posts.

Wordpress is nice, I've used it since 1.5 something, but recently dropped it completely and wrote my own just because the bloat was unbearable and there are too many features that I won't ever use. And if I skip out on updating, then comes the script kiddies using all the holes to exploit the site and others to plug ads and spam. And when I get around to updating, all the customization hacks done to the wordpress installation either completely goes fubar or everything comes to a screeching halt.

/rant

Spend a day, write your own cms and save a ridiculous amount of time in the long run while having total control over your features.

<comment><USER3> Perhaps I'm not as talented, but it seems it'd take far more than a day to write a robust, production-quality cms.

<comment><USER4> Yeah. Though to the OP: are there any good tutorials you'd recommend to those of us who would be INTERESTED in making our own?

<comment><USER2> Straight PHP and MySQL. <http://www.tizag.com/phpT/> <http://us.php.net/tut.php> or just google for PHP and MySQL.

Understand that a blog is nothing more than a list of posts/entries. Simplest case is have one php script that just dumps the entries from the SQL database on to a page (you can improve up on that with things like pages, tags, trackbacks, etc) but those are all extras.

Comments are just entries, except they have a extra field that specify which post/entry they belong to.

Posts and Comments, the only two things required for a blog. Now just improve upon that.

Do a few PHP/MySQL tutorials and you should be able to do this pretty easily.

And this can be done very short too... mine is 1700 lines (that includes whitespace and comments) running janitha.com right now * Posts/Pages * Comments * A Captcha-like Implementation * Gallery Intergration * A simple Plugin/Widget Architecture * Simple Admin Interface for adding/modifying/deleting posts * RSS * URL Rewriting * Automatic Static Caching

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _This most noticeable change will be the navigation bar being moved to the left-hand side of the page._

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure what to think about the casual use of the term 'lebensraum', originally the Nazi rationale for invading and displacing eastern european peoples, to describe a new, more-spacious HTML page layout.

Is it a positive sign of how far we've come from the horrors of WW2, or a negative sign of how much we've forgotten? (I wonder the same thing about the bay area record store called 'The Vinyl Solution'.)

I'll be an optimist and consider it a positive sign, but it's still jarring to me in context.

[*] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum>

</comment><comment><USER7> No thanks, I'll take stability over new features.

WP 2.6 has been a disaster for me with media and backend issues.

<comment><USER8> What are you using?</comment></comment>


Two Farmers and Common Knowledge - <AUTHOR> http://brooker.co.za/blog/2014/11/30/two-farmers.html

<comment><USER2> Greatly appreciate someone able to translate this from parable-speak to logical-speak for me.</comment>


Extending NAPALM's Capabilities in the Salt Environment - <AUTHOR> https://mirceaulinic.net/2019-04-24-extending-napalm-salt/ <comment><USER2> Has there been discussion of renaming Napalm, the Python project?

Napalm is infamous for having been designed and used as a horrific weapon.

Quote from "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm#Development"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napalm#Development"):

> One of Fieser's colleagues suggested adding phosphorus to the mix which > increased the "ability to penetrate deeply...into the musculature, where it > would continue to burn day after day."

Also, the photo: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Thi_Kim_Phuc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phan_Thi_Kim_Phuc)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I know, and I completely agree. It was meant initially to be a pun, and nobody expected back then the library would eventually so much traction. Even worse, I personally was giving a talk in Vietnam a couple of years ago, and you can probably imagine that I felt like an ass.

It has been discussed indeed, but unfortunately nobody volunteered yet to take the entire work of re-documenting everything and many other things that have to be done. But it's definitely something intended for the future.</comment></comment>


Resisto.rs: No frills resistor color codes - <AUTHOR> http://resisto.rs/#4.7k

<comment><USER2> Do you have any plans to allow the user to input colors and get the value?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice, that's pretty slick... I also have to admit, sweet domain name (that's one I'll remember for sure :D).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've just updated the site to show 4 band vs 5 band resistors (by popular request).

</comment><comment><USER4> amazing website/tool, wish i had this site a few years back when studying electrics...</comment>


Apple taken to task for reporting partners' child labor violations - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/02/27/apple_taken_to_task_for_reporting_partners_child_labor_violations.html <comment><USER3> Let's look at this rationally, despite child labour laws in western countries our governments gladly allow minors to take care of their disabled or infirm parents or siblings instead of covering the cost of care workers. This is the most ungodly form of exploitation in western countries, no child is going to refuse caring for their parents because they have no knowledge that they're unlikely to graduate high school and will have employment problems their entire life. Even if they did know, they're incapable of making that choice and will likely always choose to care for their family, but our governments have configured our labour laws to allow this to take place and readily admit they have no intention of changing the laws. Most western countries even give out awards for 'young carers'. These are children exploited 24/365, with overtime pay this work would easily be 6-figure income on minimum wage, and children as young as a few years old are regularly doing things they shouldn't have to.

Beyond that, we readily allow our children to babysit, mow the lawn, rake the leaves, and a whole host of tasks that exploit children for reduced expenses, and we readily allow this in our own homes. Yet we complain about child labour in third world countries, why? Because the poverty level is so high in these countries that the children need to work to help provide for their families.

The main, and often only cause, of child labour is parental poverty. If you solve parental poverty, you solve child labour. Once the parents can support themselves be it by better wages, unemployment or disability insurances, then those very parents will be free to exploit their own children like we do our own. Once the parents can support their families, their children will be voluntarily babysitting and doing chores.

If we don't evaluate babysitting as child exploitation in a first world country, then we have to seriously re-evaluate what child exploitation means in a third world economy. I'm certain the majority of these children are doing it exclusively to provide for their family, and forcing them out of legal employment will force them to illegal employment. This means forcing underage children into criminal organizations that will allow them to get money. For many children this will quite literally come down to a child working in a factory vs working in a gang or working as a child prostitute.

I don't particularly want children working in factories, even if the conditions are vastly better than what my great-grandfather went through. However, in my opinion, even if it prevents only a single girl from working as a prostitute, it's a moral fucking victory. However, it's likely to prevent thousands of young girls from working as prostitutes, and thousands of boys from joining gangs and dealing drugs.

</comment><comment><USER4> Note that Apple is prominently linking to this document, one of their supplier audit reports, from the front page of apple.com.

</comment><comment><USER5> Two part terribleness of globalization - we port manufacturing jobs overseas to cut costs. The cost savings are based on acceptable exploitation in another land. Meanwhile the US transitions to an icky service economy and lose core middle class manufacturing jobs. (I'm ok paying more for transparent and/or domestic.)

<comment><USER6> _The cost savings are based on acceptable exploitation in another land._

Come on, this is ridiculous. The cost savings are based primarily on a dramatically lower cost of living, differences in exchange rates, etc. If I can hire someone in NYC for $125 / hr or hire someone in Arkansas for $50 / hr and the Arkansas guy has a _higher_ standard of living in Arkansas, how am I exploiting him? It's no different on an international level.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, yeah, I know my comment was too off the cuff and sentimental.

But the ethical evaluation of labor practices is not as simple evaluating an improvement in standard of living. There is a line that can be crossed - <USER2> line certainly isn't crossed in your NYC vs. Arkansas example, but it /can/ be crossed (min age, min wage, max hours, safety, etc.).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Apple never should have allowed this stuff in the first place, but if other companies see Apple making a change for the better, and then only getting pummeled for it, what incentive will they have to change?

<comment><USER8> Apple _didn't_ allow this stuff. Their suppliers did, while trying to hide it from Apple. Unlike most companies, Apple actually bothered to investigate their suppliers and uncover these abuses rather than simply taking them at their word.

<comment><USER9> It's an abuse from a Western point of view where we are comfortable enough to ban child labor and even consider it "exploitative".

For the family of that child, it's a disaster. For the Chinese economy, it's one less cheaper worker to drive the engine of progress. If the child find any job at all, it may be prostitution, scrapping metals, and other much more less savory work. He may be lucky to find a higher paying job for his family.

Now, it's perfectly in the right of Apple(Or the CEO officiating the policy) to do this, as they have the right to dictate whatever voluntary contracts to their suppliers. They may have even seen the temporary profit margin loss as a win in the long run.

But where is the moral justification for banning child labor, and a voluntary one at that?

<comment><USER10> From the actual report:

"Apple discovered three facilities that had previously hired 15-year-old workers in countries where the minimum age for employment is 16."

Hiring 15 year olds was illegal in these countries. The "Western point of view" had nothing to do with it.

<comment><USER11> Okay, _that's_ silly. A fifteen year old is basically a sixteen year old, so if a company wants to hire him, it's stupid that they have no way of doing so.

Also, that issue isn't really related to the core child labor morality debate.

<comment><USER12> But the minute you say that, I will respond, "Okay, _that's_ silly. A fourteen year old is basically a fifteen year old."

So since you've argued that a fifteen year old is basically a sixteen year old, then by parity of reasoning...

And the next thing you know, we have nine year old kids in factories and William Blake rolling over in his grave.

<comment><USER11> Cute, but it dodges the issue that it's hard to define what a "child" is. I think having a minimum accepted age, and a way to hire special children under that age (but with greater working restrictions) is a good compromise.

<comment><USER13> So you think that there should be no minimum age at all? Would you be comfortable having 6-year-olds working in a factory, even if it's just for 1 hour/day?

China sets an absolute minimum age of 16, and mandated special working conditions for workers between 16 and 18. This allows for a sort of "sliding scale" for that transition period between childhood and adulthood. And I think that saying, "we don't want any workers younger than X years old" is legitimate policy.

It's also a lot easier to enforce an absolute minimum age as opposed to special working conditions.

<comment><USER11> What? I didn't say that.

I said, I think a minimum age is a good solution, _as long as_ there are ways for businesses to hire underage gifted children. This would prevent bullshit like "Even though you're an amazing programmer and we want to hire you and this job could be the best thing to ever happen to you, we can't hire you because you're fifteen, not sixteen. Also once you reach sixteen, this opportunity won't be here anymore."

I say all of this because I WAS in that position (I was 17) and I almost lost out on a very awesome graphics programming job in the game industry just because I couldn't legally sign an NDA. Thankfully it worked out, but it was a really unpleasant thing to see this awesome opportunity slipping away for reasons completely beyond my control. Don't you think that's a valid concern?

Also, it sounds like an awesome thing to offer a gifted six year old a cool internship (one hour per day) at a factory with a safe working environment. This would give the six year old a sweet story to tell, and could easily net him a job later.

<comment><USER14> _Also, it sounds like an awesome thing to offer a gifted six year old a cool internship (one hour per day) at a factory with a safe working environment. This would give the six year old a sweet story to tell, and could easily net him a job later._

That is utterly bizarre. I am assuming you don't know any six year olds. The part about " _...could easily net him a job later_ " made me burst out laughing. Imagine what kind of person would put "1 hour per week factory internship at age 6" on a resume. I am still laughing. Good one, if this was a joke. However, from the context of your other posts, I fear you are serious.

<comment><USER11> Hehe. I know it's a bit of a stretch. But imagine if you were a potential employer and some young person wanted to get a job there, citing his internship at some other business as previous experience. You don't think that might help him land the job? _Really?_ :)

But yeah, six is more than a bit of a stretch. I just think the minimum age should be decided on a case by case basis by the company and the parents, based entirely on the context of the situation.

You see my point, I hope?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This article is incredibly poorly written. Apple did a good thing by investigating their suppliers' practices. Why are they being "taken to task"?

<comment><AUTHOR> I believe that's the point of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why is a service economy "icky"?

<comment><USER5> I myself am from a former steel/rail/textile boom area and have seen the effects of the exodus of big manufacturing in the states on a local level. I suppose a service economy isn't "icky" in and of itself - it's that people often operate with a simplistic evaluation that an improving economy (GDP or whatever) is a healthy economy. Meanwhile certain manufacturing sectors have atrophied to the point of nonexistence with disastrous effects on many communities. And what has picked up the slack over the last 50 (?) years to keep us all peachy with the economic shift? The service sector.

There's lots to talk about in regards to why the shift occurred, but one contributing factor is the unsavory (unethical?) labor systems abroad that we so conveniently continue to overlook.

p.s. Some might argue these days that a service economy is "icky" when a fair amount of the services are financial services.</comment></comment>