Can I fire someone if I don't like them? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking to dismiss an employee (5 weeks in; still in probation) who I have trouble with. This is a bootstrap startup.
Performance wise, the employee is doing an above average job. However, we have a lot of personal conflict. These conflicts drain a lot of energy from me which I cannot afford to lose because I need my energy and focus to run the entire company. I lost a lot of productivity because of the stress.
Ethically and legally, I understand it is not the employee's fault if I have conflict with them. As result, I'm willing to offer severance (one or two months of salary) just to ship this person away even though it is not required by the law.
I will be consulting with an employment lawyer on Monday. I just want to hear what you guys think about the situation.
For the sake of my startup and my own well-being, should I terminate this employee and offer some severance (not required by any law)? <comment><USER2> Just don't do anything as a surprise - make sure the person understands the possible outcome - and give her enough time to reflect your position. She might think that she's doing good for the company, even if she have to argue with you, and she might be actually right, but at the end, it is you who is paying so you're the client - so make sure the service provider understands what are your needs - including things like "don't argue with me, even if you're 100% sure my decision will harm the company".

You mentioned personal conflict - so this might be arguing on some irrelevant subjects. Even in this case, it might sound odd for her but she should clearly understand your PoV - "Justin Bieber is better than Led Zeppelin, if you disagree vocally, I'll fire you!" \- again, this might sound odd to her, but it depends on her compensation package whether she accepts your conditions or not.

<comment><USER3> I'm astounded that this was downvoted by someone. Anyone who has founded a company and hired employees would recognize this as good advice. The old HN? Mostly guys who have experience in this area. The new HN? Apparently it's mostly people who have no experience in this area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So dumb question - have you taken him/her aside and explain your issues? I don't want you to go through each and every issue/problem but have you discussed in private the problems you've had?

I can only tell you what I've seen in the past, but I think best practice is to have a private talk with the person in question and then provide the issues you've had in writing, signed by yourself and HR. I'm not an HR/legal expert, but I believe having those issues documented in writing is important from a legal standpoint.

And if you have not discussed things privately then I would advise to go that route. You did not say if you made these comments (like about being late) in public or private but I would try to minimize the shaming that a public criticism would bring if you did it in front of other people.

I assume you've already weighed how hard it can be to find tech skilled people in this economy and what it will be like to replace them. They're only 5 weeks in so there isn't much tribal knowledge this person has just yet. At the very least write down the issues, tell that person they are doing above average work but the problems they are causing is hurting the team and morale. The "it's not you its us, here is your severance" seems like a smart route as well. But please consider the documentation of issues for legal purposes, and try to get a feel for their response. If it is still hostile or resistant then you might have to let them go.

</comment><comment><USER5> Ethically it's not how things should be done in the business world. This won't be the last time you come across an employee or client you won't get a long with. It happens and it can be toxic for the work environment and other employees.

A couple months severance pay is a nice gesture. I would explain to the employee you think they are great and highly talented, but you feel as though they are not the right fit for team and environment. Acknowledge conflicts, but whatever you do, don't go pointing fingers and shifting blame.

Amicably end the employment and offering a couple months severance pay will ensure that it definitely ends amicably. Most people don't find themselves in a situation where an employer is willing to compensate for things the employee cannot change.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks DigitalSea. To confirm, I should do whatever it is the best for my business and not being overly concerned by guilt?

<comment><USER6> I'm not an employer, so maybe I do not have a good perspective on this. But, as a business owner you probably depend on this business financially, perhaps you have family who depends on the business, and perhaps you have other employees who like working there. So it seems the choice is between upsetting one employee, or you can upset all those other people by not having your business run as efficient as possible. So I think your guilt would be multiplied if you upset all those other people.

You didn't state what the personal issue is, I hope it's not something that's protected under discrimination laws.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If they are still in the probation period and haven't signed an employment contract then I don't believe you are legally bound to pay them any severance but IANAL and the rules vary widely by jurisdiction. Check with an employment lawyer before doing anything. You won't regret spending that money.

I would not recommend trying to buy yourself out (i.e. pay to relieve your guilt). Save the cash for your business and do only what your lawyer says you have to do. There's a chance this employee will see it as a sign of guilt or weakness and try for more. It happened to me.

If this employee does good work but is toxic to the work environment, you might want to suggest a contract arrangement instead of full time employment. You could pay him to take on well defined tasks (offsite) and keep the interpersonal interaction to a minimum. That way you keep the talent but lose the friction.

Add "good communication skills" and "plays well with others" to your job description for the next round and tighten up your employment contract to provide for a probation period where any party can terminate within the first N days. You write up the conditions but get an employment lawyer to help you draft it into something legally enforceable in your jurisdiction.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sorry if I offend anyone, but I would be ruthless: warning probably before taking any action. Money is a limited resource and you need to spend it building something cool: both product as employees. Remember if you're getting drain out, the rest of the employees are or some of them will be in the same situation.

Paying someone to drain you off is not what anyone would want nor the nod-like person. One thing is having someone who may play devil's advocate and a totally different story is having someone who has an attitude and manners problem.

</comment><comment><USER9> Hire slow. Fire fast.

If you're in a right-to-work state, the law says you don't need much reason. Either party can terminate the employment agreement, at any time, for any reason.

Anyone can be trained for skill, "fit" either happens or it doesn't.

Like some of the others have suggested a couple month's severance is a nice gesture... and doing that is certainly a LOT cheaper than keeping someone around who you either don't get along with, or isn't contributing to the business.

<comment><USER9> Okay, so I can't edit this... but I got a snarky email from someone saying it was hard to take my advice seriously.

I had the "at-will employment" and "right-to-work state" concepts backwards.

The simple fact of the matter is this: in the US there is very little in place to protect the employer/employee relationship. If an employer wants to let you go, for almost any reason... it's pretty easy to do so. There is no contract, to speak of.

Contrast this with Europe (where I lived for 2 years, so my speaking of it isn't just theoretical) where you sign a contract of definite length with an employer... and the employee has way more protection and stability than what is here in the US.

Disclaimer: IANAL and I am not HR. I learned these things from people I worked with and talked with over there, so I may have all the particulars right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm a tech employee bootstrapping something on the side.

Once I worked with a co-worker who had an absolutely brilliant mind. He was a perfectionist, and came up with stunning solutions to write fast code in PHP (imagine that!).

Unfortunately, he would constantly break the API he exposed to us, creating weeks worth of work for all of us. When told our needs, he would argue and argue and argue, creating even more work. He would never listen.

Yes, I believe our team would have been better off without him, and I also believe that there is a niche somewhere that is perfect for him. I hope he found it.

About a year later I got fired in a different team. The lead would write kilometers of spaghetti code fast, and measured productivity by hour fast you can solve problems. It never occurred to him that it is a bad idea think it is fast to keep solving problems that might never have come up if you put a little more thought into your work.

I immediately got another job at startup where I'm half architect half developer, work just with the CTO, and essentially keep doing what I think needs to be done unless I hear anything different, which rarely happens. It's a darn paradise!

I found my niche.

So, by all means, don't force something that just isn't going to work. There is such a thing as giving up too quickly, but all the thought and consideration you're putting into it and your willingness to give him severance are strong indicators that you are not taking this lightly.

I admit it hurt to get fired. A lot. It took me a while to get over it. But I did. That's life. Shit happens. It's grave. But you can do something grave ethically as long as you know it's grave and treat it accordingly. Which you are.

As an added thought, if you were firing him for questioning your technical decisions, I would advise you to reconsider. Also, if he had said "I'm sorry I'm just a mess before 11 o'clock and I always miss the bus", I would advise to work out some kind of solution. But if he's just a darn pain to be around and doesn't seem to notice or care, that's just plain inconsiderate. If I ever heard of a good reason to fire someone that's it.

By the way I felt compelled to share all this because it moved me how conflicted you are about firing someone...

</comment><comment><USER11> > However, we have a lot of personal conflict.

A long time ago, my first 'IT' job, and it came time for my first rating. I got marked down, because, per our supervisor, 'Sergeant P. had problems with you a few months ago'.

He never said anything about it. It was just 'do this' or 'do that' and I did those things to the best of my ability. He .. never .. said .. anything. How could I correct whatever it was that bugged him about me if he didn't _say_ anything.

I _still_ remember how damned irritating that was, twenty-three year later.

You spent some money, and time, hiring this person. Talk to her about whatever it is that is causing the conflict. See if you can resolve it.

</comment><comment><USER12> Manage your guilt by making sure you have had a frank, honest conversation with the person. Not by throwing money at it. The money may seem like a small amount now but bootstrapped generally means strapped, and you will regret it in 6 months if it wasn't 100% necessary.

Make sure you aren't doing this for some protected class reason, not saying you are, just obviously that is a way different situation.

Don't let anyone convince you to put up with an asshole just because they are smart. This is one of the worst decisions you can make. I don't care how smart someone is, if they aren't able to work on a team or work constructively with you get rid of them and do so quickly. And don't try to isolate them, this usually makes the problem worse and again causes you or someone on your team additional work to manage a specialized work breakout, not doable when you are small and bootstrapped.

If this was my situation I would likely go down this path. (But make sure you check with the attorney if you aren't sure/aware of the laws in your jurisdiction.) Sit with the individual and have an honest above board conversation (no finger pointing, name calling, etc) and say something to the affect, you are super smart and talented which I respect, but the situation as is can not continue because I do not feel it is in the best interest of the company and also feel it isn't good for you or the team (team to be). So if we can't come to some middle ground, it is best for you to find someplace else to be quickly. But leave the door open to the person wanting to change. Sometimes passion is misunderstood, or mistaken as someone being an asshole when they are really just trying to fight for the company.

My own complaint about some of the advice I read here. Don't worry about what might happen/not happen in a month, fix the problem you have today. Not that you should go blindly, but worrying about what could/couldn't happen just paralyzes you in fear and means you will fail. Any decision is better than no decision, either do it or make the commitment to fix it, but don't allow status quo to continue as it is obviously affecting you. From what you wrote I think you already get this, but just a point.

</comment><comment><USER13> Take them out for lunch, talk to them and try to understand why they are the way they are. You said they are doing an above average job, what more could you ask for. It could be because they are new they are just trying to make there mark but going the wrong way about it.

You could fire them and hire someone else you get along with but what if this person needs help doing even the simplest tasks. You dont want to spend the day wiping there arse. You would soon be wanting the other guy back even though they annoy you slightly.

</comment><comment><USER14> The hardest thing a person can do is to accept another person exactly the way they are.

I would say there is something to be gained from conflict. It is easy to find people that will nod and agree.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi ibstudios,

I understand what you said. I love when people disagree with me because I always learn from them. However, what happen with this employee is completely different.

For example, the person was 30 mins so I asked this person to be on-time. This person then said "why are you targeting me when so-and-so is always late as well?".

This person is only 5 weeks in but has an attitude to deflate responsibility and bringing others into the discussion.

<comment><USER15> Was this person right? I ask this because the other thing you need to think about is how this action will be perceived by the other employees. Will they think you treated this person unfairly? Will they resent having to take over this person's workload until you find a replacement? If so, then you may want to consider if getting rid of one person is worth poisoning your relationship with the other employees.

Ultimately, the decision is yours alone. Make the decision and won't worry about validating the decision with a random internet audience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> If that's the reason, then I don't see a case for ethical issue. It's you who have the biggest stake in seeing your start-up get up and running.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks ethana. To confirm, I should do whatever it is the best for my business and not being overly concerned by guilt?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> (not a lawyer, this is not legal advice)

Offer severance if (and only if) they resign. You were going to offer it anyway, but now it actually buys you something.

</comment><comment><USER18> You would rather work with below-average employees who always agree with you, even when you're wrong?

</comment><comment><USER19> Learn to get along with the guy! This will save you money and be good for your business!</comment>


Show HN: Web Design in 4 minutes - <AUTHOR> http://jgthms.com/web-design-in-4-minutes/ <comment><USER2> This is a pretty nice demo of the process of turning a basic page into a "design" (in the sense that applying positioning, spacing, contrast, and things like typography is visual design - I might call it layout instead).

However, if you run Chrome's Accessibility Audit ([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/accessibility- deve...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/accessibility- developer-t/fpkknkljclfencbdbgkenhalefipecmb?hl=en)) on this page, you get warnings about low contrast for 100+ elements and a link to [https://github.com/GoogleChrome/accessibility-developer- tool...](https://github.com/GoogleChrome/accessibility-developer- tools/wiki/Audit-Rules#ax_color_01).

So although you claim black text is harsh on the eyes and gray is more comfortable, it in fact is not - it just makes it harder to read. The very first time you load the page and see black Times New Roman on a white background is actually a better user experience for a larger number of people, purely from the point of view of legibility.

Try having someone with less than stellar eyesight look at this page. Or someone who's trying to read it on a smartphone outside in sunlight or with the brightness of their screen set at less than maximum. Design isn't about what looks nice, it's about what works well - pages that a portion of your audience cannot read don't work well.

<comment><USER3> I will just post this link here : [http://contrastrebellion.com/](http://contrastrebellion.com/) .

So that more people can spread word about how low contrast/less readable text hinder accessiblity.

<comment><USER4> Interesting. I have on gripe with that page is that the examples of bad contrast say "NO CONTRAST" while the good examples say "HIGH CONTRAST". The bad examples should be more accurately labeled "LOW CONTRAST".

<comment><USER5> The definition of contrast is "a striking difference".

\- "No contrast" means that there is no striking difference.

\- "High contrast" means that the difference is highly striking.

I agree that "low contrast" also makes sense, but I still think "no contrast" is a better fit.

<comment><USER6> Yours is _a_ definition of contrast, but not the one used in design or vision science [1, 2], where contrast is defined as a difference in luminance or color between regions of an image that makes objects and textures visible. If an image has no contrast, it is a solid patch. If an image has low contrast, the brightest or most colorful regions are not too different from the other regions, as if seen through a dense fog. If an image has high contrast, the brightest or most colorful regions are quite different from the other regions.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrast_(vision)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrast_\(vision\))

2\. [https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/09/design- principles-c...](https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/09/design-principles- connecting-and-separating-elements-through-contrast-and-similarity/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lovely! Definitely like the style here and the focus on content first. Like other people have said it's similar to Motherfucking Website[1], and a Better Motherfucking Website[2]. I'll need to start including this when I link to those two.

For my website[3] I'm really trying to keep weight on the wire down too so I am opting to skip the custom font and header image. It's quite nice to have 10-15kb pages in the age of the web obesity crises[4]. A header image and a custom font does have a big effect on how personal the content ends up though.

[1] - [http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/](http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/)

[2] - [http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/](http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/)

[3] - [https://hugotunius.se](https://hugotunius.se)

[4] - [http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm](http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm)

<comment><USER8> You left out Best Motherfucking Website! [https://bestmotherfucking.website/](https://bestmotherfucking.website/) (It's my favorite.)

Also I really like your personal site. The design is beautiful.

<comment><USER7> Wasn't aware of that one, glad to see new ones keep cropping up. Thanks for the kind words

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been working on a related project — Typography.js that vastly simplifies web design. It ships with 30 pre-built designs and I'm working on tools to make it really simple to create custom typography themes in-browser.

CSS is a very low-level language for expressing design intent. It's great if you want to set the background color but if you say: "I'd like to add white space to my typography" — it could take dozens of recalculations + css changes to test your idea.

Typography.js's goal is to create the most elegant/powerful API possible for defining your site's typography and remove a lot of the tedium/difficulty around experimenting with your design.

Would love feedback / help!

[https://github.com/kyleamathews/typography.js](https://github.com/kyleamathews/typography.js) [http://kyleamathews.github.io/typography.js/](http://kyleamathews.github.io/typography.js/)

<comment><USER10> This is incredible!

<comment><USER9> Thanks! Just a note, the design tools on the website are only 1/2 baked. Still need to add support for manipulating remaining options + way to export your designs.

That being said, the core engine is quite solid and the themes are ready to be used.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Black text on a white background can be harsh on the eyes. Opting for a > softer shade of black for body text makes the page more comfortable to read.

No, it doesn't. The low contrast text is definitely harder to read in direct comparison with black. This is the point where I suspected that the page might be a parody of modern web design. Unfortunately it seems to be serious.

The syntax highlighting is similarly awful and the grey background makes it even worse.

<comment><USER12> Yeah I found this assertion pretty troubling too. The "black" on most displays is already "soft" since even black pixels are leaking light. I've never read a page in a book and thought "you know, this ink is too black, it's straining my eyes".

<comment><USER13> I've never thought the ink in a book was too black, but once in a while, I do think the paper is too white. Usually actual paper is a lot more friendly than #FFFFFF, though.

<comment><USER12> You should be able to turn down the brightness of a display to comfortable viewing levels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Reminds me of a Motherfucking Website[1], and a Better Motherfucking Website[2]

[1] - [http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/](http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/)

[2] - [http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/](http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/)

<comment><USER8> Don't forget Best Motherfucking Website! [https://bestmotherfucking.website/](https://bestmotherfucking.website/) (It's my favorite.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Please, do not specify "Arial" or "Helvetica" in your font-family... just use "sans-serif" by itself... Just use sans-serif as your main fallback font after specific web-font. This will use the browser default (often Arial in windows, Helvetica on OSX) which is usually the best looking Helvetica-like font, or the user's preference.

Yes, sometimes it's a different font, but usually a better looking default. Helvetica looks hideous on windows, which is why it's often "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif... that said, just use sans-serif unless you want a specific font (with webfont option).

/rant

\-- edit to be less inflammatory.

<comment><USER16> _> Gah... Do NOT specify "Arial" or "Helvetica" in your font-family... just use "sans-serif" by itself... In windows this will be an Arial font, and in OSX "Helvetica" and on other platforms the closest default alternative_

You aren't wrong - but this isn't exactly true. It will be the _browser default font_ which the user can change themselves [0]. Which is even better! For the small group that don't force their font choices by default yet change their default font settings, it is better to use serif/sans-serif instead of specifying a font family to respect the user's choices.

I force my font choices to be used _everywhere_ , so any CSS that specifies a font-family is just mild bloat on the CSS file in the end. I understand people like to take into consideration the font choices for their design, but it really should be in the user's hands without having to jump through hoops.

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/HSocAdt.png](http://i.imgur.com/HSocAdt.png)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> My litmus test for web design typography is mixing fonts. For coding-related things especially mixing fixed-width with normal fonts. This page clearly fails [0]. Not even the baseline aligns due to 2px bottom padding. Usually only the x-height mismatches, which means "x" (fixed-width) does not have same height as "x" in normal font (serif or sans-serif).

Here is a good example from my website [1]. Note how "use" and "mu" have the same height. It is not perfect, but matching cap height as well is maybe impossible without buying fonts.

[0] [https://imgur.com/a/Qs6dJ](https://imgur.com/a/Qs6dJ) [1] [https://imgur.com/a/ij1uI](https://imgur.com/a/ij1uI)

</comment><comment><USER18> Sort of reminds me of what Bob Ross from the Joy of Painting does in a couple of strokes... :)

</comment><comment><USER19> Good work!

This is when you design in the browser with the medium in mind.

Problem is when someone gives you a PSD made by someone who badly ripped off someone else website with no idea about what the box model actually is, asking you to make a 1:1 replica in the browser.

Oh, and of course it should work on mobile too!

</comment><comment><USER20> > Long lines of text can be hard to parse, and thus hard to read. Setting a > limit of characters per line greatly enhances the readability and appeal of > a wall of text.

I agree with this 100%.

What I don't understand is why many developers argue that this principle does not apply to code and that we shouldn't have line length limits "because it's not 1970 and we have large monitors." If long lines of prose is difficult to parse, then long lines of code are even more cumbersome to parse, especially when you are either 1) slowed down by having to scroll horizontally all the time or 2) distracted by the awkward naive line wrapping done by the editor.

</comment><comment><USER21> Interestingly, I can't reach the site because our corporate security software (Sophos) categorizes this site as "Weapons." I suppose, in a sense, good design can be a secret weapon... :/

</comment><comment><USER22> Can't go back. Usability points: -1

Why not make it into multiple web pages?

<comment><USER23> On the plus side, they didn't break the scrolling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Love it. One typo I noticed in the image section, "Graphics and icons can be used either as ornaments to support your content, or _take actively part in the message_ you want to convey".

</comment><comment><USER25> A good framework to help you build response, accessible design with proven typography: [http://tachyons.io/](http://tachyons.io/)

</comment><comment><USER26> Clear, quick and simple. It would be interesting to have such elegant introduction for other topics. Well done !

</comment><comment><USER27> I've wondered this for a while: does actually ever actually use those share buttons at the end? I don't think I've ever seen anyone using em.

The way I see it... You can just share the URL. And if you're the type of person that frequently shares content, presumably you'd use a browser plugin of some sort, just so you can get a consistent experience across sites.

<comment><USER28> I think there's no harm in adding them, some people may use them even if they are just a reminder to share. I think they should be kept fairly simple though, no JS etc.

<comment><USER29> I'd agree - except for the tracking behaviors that come with the most common solutions - copy paste a line of js, or enable a plugin that has the same js, etc.

Simple self hosted share links that were just links would be reasonable, but it seems not many take that route.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've been trying to find some opinions on the "first rule", i.e. "Centering".

Phones and tablets are already a book-like viewport. Desktop browsers are a different matter, for these presumed reasons:

\- most monitors in 2016 have lots of pixels along the X axis

\- most browsers are maximised or run in full-screen mode

Joe Designer also has lots of pixels and/or a maximised browser, hence squashes content into a column.

Some do it wrong, which means some websites end up looking like a thin column of text on your cinema display.

What I'm getting at is this: I run my desktop browsers already in a book-like viewport (using Spectacle.app on Mac and XMonad on Arch Linux, or a simple resize-with-trackpad when I don't) so I'm a few keystrokes away from having to parse long lines of text. I don't really like it when website authors choose my viewport width on my behalf.

Choosing your own typefaces and colours - fine. Layout? Not so much. What do others think?

</comment><comment><USER31> Beautiful. Personally, I would've probably stopped at the "Custom font" step (I don't really like header images and the share buttons) to keep it simple, but hey that's just me.

Nice work!

</comment><comment><USER32> Love this! Step by step explanation of how to do something which literally shows rather than tells.

</comment><comment><USER33> Like the simplicity of this, also nice work on Marksheet.io!

</comment><comment><USER34> For a web noob like me, I thought this was pretty awesome. I'm trying to build myself a website now, in 2016, when the last time I legitimately did it was 1999. This actually helped quite a bit with the way I think about it. Sure I'm using a Bootstrap template, but this made me think about why things are the way they are by default, and why I might want to consider some changes.

</comment><comment><USER35> "What is the first thing you need to work on?" – Apparently the first thing is to enable Javascript... not quite what I had in mind.

</comment><comment><USER36> The back button is broken. Also, not sure if changing the fragment identifier is the right abstraction.

<comment><USER37> While clever, there's a few problems with the navigation on this site.

1\. The back button doesn't undo the changes. Abstractly, clicking on a link performs some navigation which the back button is supposed to reverse. That doesn't work here.

2\. Fragment links don't work. [http://jgthms.com/web-design- in-4-minutes/#centering](http://jgthms.com/web-design-in-4-minutes/#centering) should take me to the 3rd step. Instead it just dumps me on the first step.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> His longer tutorial [http://marksheet.io](http://marksheet.io) is great, and his CSS framework, [http://bulma.io](http://bulma.io), is also really handy.

<comment><USER39> bulma.io looks similar to bulimia. But yes, great resources!

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I have created a static site generator "minni" that powers my blog at - [http://jyotiska.github.io/blog/](http://jyotiska.github.io/blog/). It is super simple, has less than 10 CSS declarations and no JavaScript. I don't really expect anyone else to use it since it was created according to my own design preferences. Here is the link in case any one wants to take a peek - [https://github.com/jyotiska/minni](https://github.com/jyotiska/minni)

<comment><USER17> Me too. Here is a snapshot: [https://gist.github.com/qznc/6fbdc37ad33e6853911a](https://gist.github.com/qznc/6fbdc37ad33e6853911a)

I made my own due to some very unusual choices. For example, publishing a post is done by adding a line to a collection file. Posts not in there are considered drafts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> MFW and BMFW did this better. Why? because most of the stuff this added over BMFW is actively user hostile. Besides, I just want my freaking content to look good, with minimal page load.

Don't add any unecessary weight. If your content (not SPA, not "web 2.0," CONTENT, the stuff that actually makes up most of the web) takes longer to load than HN, you're doing it wrong. Thankfully, this site seems to understand that.

As for colors, just leave them the user's default, set black on white, or use Solarized or another high-contrast theme.

</comment><comment><USER42> Wonderful! For a moment at the start though, I wondered how such a poorly designed page, could teach anything about web design. Then I clicked the first link... :)

<comment><USER29> By way of contrast, I first looked and thought holy crap, someone made a clean, readable site!

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> FYI, in IE 11, only the header gets centered and not the whole body.

I'm not sure if this was intended or just a bug with IE though.

Nice intro to web design. I love the simple presentation.

<comment><USER44> Needs to add width: 100% to the max-width statement. Annoying nuance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> >Providing space [...] around [...] your content can increase the appeal of your page.

Just like black bars when the aspect ratio of a movie doesn't match that of my monitor increase the appeal of said movie. I find margins on mobile pages a complete waste of horizontal space. My device screen is only 6cm wide and already surrounded by plenty of space in my field of vision. Why make it even narrower?

</comment><comment><USER46> Impressive work to say the least. Can't wait for the etcd integration. Bravo for nice build instructions on you github page - if only more projects did that. Love the choice of SQL and JS, and the native HTTP interface. And, for a beta, the documentation and architecture information is solid as well. High quality work. Keep going! And THANK YOU for releasing this to the world.

</comment><comment><USER47> "Times" font isn't "unstyled", it's styled to a newspaper, which I've found o be easy to read in a newspaper and hard to read on a website, I don't know why, but it has nothing to do with one being "styled" and another not; in fact, serif is more "styled" because of the serifs.

<comment><USER48> I think Times New Roman, if you just fix the line height and page width, can be beautiful, legible, and familiar.

Random example: Frank Chimero's site renders with Times New Roman body text on my Mac, since I don't have Minion Pro or Calluna which are prioritized before Times in the stylesheet, and it looks lovely.

[http://www.frankchimero.com/writing/the-webs- grain/](http://www.frankchimero.com/writing/the-webs-grain/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> That was beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

I wish there was a similar simple demo showing how to style mobile apps.

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm a big fan of Bulma, and used it to get started on a project [http://pokestop.help](http://pokestop.help)

Thanks for the write up, with CSS I never know where to start, this helps to think about it.

</comment><comment><USER51> Ha, such a smart way of introducing web design for a novice. Nice work homie!

</comment><comment><USER52> This is really well done, kudos! It actually feels a little like I'm learning by doing here as the design firms up in place as I proceed. Very cool idea!

</comment><comment><USER53> Hi OP! These were the best spent 4 minutes of my day :) At first I was confused but you really presented it well.

</comment><comment><USER54> Love it except when I came back here to upvote the navigation was totally broken!

</comment><comment><USER55> Not perfect in every detail, but absolutely lovely. Well done!

</comment><comment><USER56> really great story telling.

Changing font color mid way was a mistake, it's breaking too many discreet conventions, sfart with the grey and it will be much easier for the user.

</comment><comment><USER57> This is very good, thanks and congrats.

</comment><comment><USER58> This is great! thank you for sharing!

</comment><comment><USER59> Thanks. Nice, simple and useful !

</comment><comment><USER60> Very cool, nice job Jeremy!

</comment><comment><USER61> Nice.

But, wait! Where's all the javascript? Don't you need React?

</comment><comment><USER62> Neat! Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER63> Awesome Job!

</comment><comment><USER64> Awesome... nicely done.

</comment><comment><USER65> Very well done! kudos

</comment><comment><USER66> nicely!

</comment><comment><USER67> Very nice, but I have to disagree on two points:

First using grey blocks for code, while widespread, in my opinion is a visual interruption to reading flow. Indentation is preferable (and using the courier/monospaced font).

Second sans-serif. I understand the history - serifs are delicate and look clunky on <200 dpi screens. But as we move to widespread retina displays, isn't the old lesson of typography, namely that serifs help legibility and convey an image of "seriousness", about to make a comeback? Some will argue about the legibility point, but even from a styling standpoint, aren't we getting just a little bit tired of helvetica and its brethren everywhere?

</comment><comment><USER68> Web design in 1 minute:

Bootstrap template #581

Stripe

...

profit.

</comment><comment><USER69> um, nice but the title is misleading. It took me only 1 minutes. 40 seconds of Times New Roman related profanities followed by 20 seconds of clicks :)

</comment><comment><USER70> Cute.

</comment><comment><USER71> Brilliant</comment>


Facebook experiments had few limits - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/articles/facebook-experiments-had-few-limits-1404344378?mod=WSJ_hp_RightTopStories <comment><USER2> Informed consent is a bedrock of ethical psych research. If a lowly undergrad is expected to get consent before administering any sort of dinky survey, why is Facebook exempt? They created a study which purposely manipulated the emotional state of their customers in order to publish results in a scientific journal. So Facebook doesn't have to give a shit about ethical research because they're Facebook? I don't understand how people here can't understand why these protocols are in-place and why others see a problem when they are ignored. It was completely unethical.

<comment><USER3> Eh, so someone made up a bunch of rules and stamped "ethics!" on them, and now, completely independent of the original justification, it's somehow the law of the land. But, at least as applied here, it's pretty bogus.

Think of this way: there's some sort of algorithm that controls what goes on your Facebook feed. There has to be, basically, or else they just have to show you everything. The algorithm takes in sentiment analysis as part of making those decisions, which seems perfectly reasonable. So far, just by building something that interacts with users and affects their emotions, FB has a completely uncontrolled experiment. If they show negative stories vs positive stories, what happens? So far, they just don't know, which seems really bad. Well, to find out the consequences of what they actually do, they have to dial up and down some knobs and see the effects. If they can't _try things and find out what happens_ , how do you expect them to do anything? Just guess? Even worse, if they just guess, they're still experimenting, but now with way less information.

This is completely normal, and every business does it. They have to answer questions about what effect the things they do have, or get stuck not doing anything. A huge part of what businesses do is interact with people, so a huge part of that effect is actually the impact on their customers' emotions. What if we make the colors on this display brighter? What if we play different music in our store? Psychology experiment! You can call it "manipulation" if you want, but you're really just going for cheap connotation points. Almost any editorial decision you could make on any subject with any audience is manipulation. Being systematic about it doesn't make it more so. Do you think you should be asked for consent before being subjected to an A/B test on an ecommerce site? Because you're definitely being manipulated in the relevant sense.

It sounds to me like the objections are not so much that FB _ran an experiment_ so much as it's that they _published a paper about it_. You could argue that that really is dispositive, but, well, nobody is. And it seems if they're going to do some research, we should actually encourage them to share their results.

<comment><USER4> Extreme example (IANAL): a person who uses Facebook heavily and is part of the "more negative stories" group commits suicide. Is Facebook exposed to any legal risk because of this?

IMO, it would have been pretty easy to ask some random users if they wanted to participate; from asking around my group of friends, we all would have opted in because we find it interesting, especially if the findings would be published.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. Most people would be delighted to be asked if they wanted to be part of Facebook's 'Insider' test group or somesuch, and they don't have to know what they're being tested on ahead of time. The FB researchers certainly knew what standard practice in this area was, any psychology/social science/economics paper that depends on tests or surveys spells the participation invite out first thing in the methodology section.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > The little-known group was thrust into the spotlight this week by reports > about a 2012 experiment in which the news feeds of nearly 700,000 Facebook > users were manipulated to show more positive or negative posts. The study > found that users who saw more positive content were more likely to write > positive posts, and vice versa.

Ok, this seems like it should be about as controversial as a supermarket that plays downbeat music and tests to see if sales decrease.

That's not to say that the study was manipulative, involuntary, and barely consented to, but hey, that's Facebook in a nutshell.

The tone of this article is "these studies happened with no oversight!" but it never suggests who would oversee Facebook, except Facebook, which doesn't really seem like oversight at all.

<comment><USER6> Quite a few conferences now require that experiments involved human subjects be reviewed by an ethics committee of some kind _before_ being carried out. Universities have such committees and they do oversee themselves pretty effectively.

So no, I do not think that Facebook overseeing its own researchers is so far fetched. The ethical review board would probably consist of a combination of lawyers, PR people, and people with research backgrounds. The lawyers and PR folks would not have seen this experiment as a "great opportunity for research that was previously impossible" so much as "lawsuit bait" and "PR nightmare."

<comment><USER5> That's a good point. It is possible for a panel of professionals to qualify and limit the kinds of work are ethical. That's what ethics are! Accountants, lawyers, and doctors are all good at that.

The critical difference, in my mind, is that academic research takes place more or less in the public sphere. Even when it's not, an academic can always be counted on to challenge and discredit a fellow academic.

An in-house council of research practice could exist, but it would take a group of professors with reputations on the line. And then again, to my main point, Facebook's central business practices revolve around manipulating users in ways that are even _less_ concerned about the user's well-being.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm genuinely scared by the number of people who do not understand what is wrong with Facebook doing this without consent. I guess that was just a classic case of Projection on my part, thinking that other people felt the same way I do about this.

One of the questions this raises for me though is if these people who don't see this as an issue feel that way because they've already submitted to the oppression that is Facebook? Is it the case that Facebook has already "broken" them, as you would a steed?

</comment><comment><USER8> What a brilliant and effective tool for propaganda and other forms of social control.

We should be sure to only show people patriotic words on July 4th so they can think patriotic thoughts and suffer none of that negative criticism stuff about the government they are so abused with normally. Maybe we should do that for all National holidays. Or maybe we should just do that all the time.

Good thing it wasn't a military branch providing funding for this. That would be scary.

</comment><comment><USER9> I've honestly been ignoring all of the articles on this subject up to now. Finally decided to read one and see what all of the fuss is, and I still don't see the point. Are we supposed to be upset that they manipulated which things show up on the news feed in what order or something? At the end of the day, it's still just Facebook.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was a bit surprised by the opener:

 _Thousands of [Facebook] users received an unsettling message two years ago: They were being locked out of the social network because Facebook believed they were robots or using fake names. To get back in, the users had to prove they were real._

I vaguely remember the fuss about this at the time on HN, and was a bit disturbed to discover that it was staged. I haven't used Facebook for more than an hour or two since 2010, but for many other people it seems to be their 'home on the internet' and the notion that they would be arbitrarily locked out of their accounts under false pretenses is a troubling one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I cannot recall in which book I read this, but there was a similar experiment completed before. (Possibly an NLP book)

A University professor asked students to solve an anagram. After they were done, they had to walk into the professor's office to tell him the word. In his office he'd be pretending to have a conversation with a visitor.

The words the the students had to solve were either positive, negative or neutral.

The result was that students that had a negative word, were far more likely to interrupt the professor's conversation with the visitor more quickly than students that had a positive or neutral word.

After the students told the professor the word, he asked the students if they believed the word had an impact on their emotion. All of the students said no, but the data showed the negative words had an impact.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wish this had all come out in time to have been a part of this week's "This American Life." The episode was called "The Human Spectacle"[0]. There are so many interesting parallels with several of the pieces presented (most notably, Acts 1 and 2)

It's staggering to think that out of all the Facebook users, 700,000 is still only a small portion of the total available users. I wonder what Facebook's ongoing role will be as a source of anthropological data?

0: [http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/529/h...](http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio- archives/episode/529/human-spectacle)

</comment><comment><USER12> > "They're always trying to alter peoples' behavior."

Just like every customer of the Wall Street Journal that's not a subscriber. All of the sophisticated advertisers for the Journal, online and in print, are running similar tests.

</comment><comment><USER13> This will go down as a case study on how to _not_ publish a study for the mainstream. The reality is that companies are running experiments similar to fb all the time in order to optimize revenue. But most companies don't publish their results like fb chose to do.

</comment><comment><USER14> I generally refrain from posting a comment but the current debate is just getting ridiculous. Its more about people hating facebook rather than any real ethical issues. The worst part being, how the IRB's are invoked as if they are filled with ethical gods. A similar situation has happened before as explained here in the NYTimes article by Atul Gawande [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/opinion/30gawande.html?_r=...](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/opinion/30gawande.html?_r=1&oref=slogin)

The key question is at what point is a certain method a quality control decision vs a research experiment. What Facebook did was an internal quality investigation. What are they supposed to do show posts at random, for this to qualify as an "experiment" we need a baseline. In reality there is no such baseline.

<comment><USER15> Yeah I seem to be in the minority in that I find it hard to get upset here. In fact, the lesson I take away is that if you, as a company--especially a highly visible one, do any sort of A/B testing which might be remotely seen as manipulating behavior by anyone (which covers broad ground), you probably shouldn't make it public.

I'm not sure I see how this is all that different from running a bunch of ads with different messages and/or emotional content and seeing how they differential ly perform.

<comment><USER16> No...

You should tell your users and include it in your TOS. (not do it, then add it to your TOS after the fact).

<comment><USER17> Yup, that's the big issue in my opinion. Their TOS never had research as condition that you accept. When Reddit decided to use their data-set for research and make it available, they had a public blog post explicitly calling it out and had an option to disable your data for research. Naturally I opted out. I was informed of the change and I acted on it. Those users on Facebook never agreed to the research component of the ToS (because it didn't exist yet), did not know they were involved, and were included in a PNAS study that had Cornell researchers involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What's next? Facebook studies showing that users who were shown more baby pictures in the news feed became more likely to have babies within the next 2 years?

</comment><comment><USER19> This reminds me of the short story titled "The Wave."

</comment><comment><USER20> making a link [https://gist.github.com/](https://gist.github.com/)

</comment><comment><USER21> :D

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm just thinking, let's say McDonald's was putting something in our food to alter our emotional state and measuring the outcomes.

Would food industry people be coming out in support of them the way it seems half the people here are fine with what Facebook is doing...? "Hey, it says Happy Meal on the box, and they're delivering!"

<comment><USER23> It's really incredible; the number of people with full-blown Stockholm syndrome in this thread is staggering.

Why do so many people here think this kind of thing is okay when Facebook does it? Is it simply because they feel kinship to a tech-related company?

<comment><USER22> > Why do so many people here think this kind of thing is okay when Facebook > does it? Is it simply because they feel kinship to a tech-related company?

Yup. It's like asking in a wolf forum if having the sheep for dinner is considered ethical.</comment></comment></comment>


Google Chromecast and Google Home Causes Wi-Fi Drops - <AUTHOR> https://www.myce.com/news/confirmed-issue-google-cast-causes-temporarily-wifi-drops-around-world-83428/ <comment><USER2> ChromeCast is such a frustrating product. It does exactly what I want in theory. In practice I have to wait 10 to 60 seconds to get it to connect, or reboot my phone. I've started giving up and just using the computer attached to my TV.

I don't think I've been having the particular Wi-Fi issue described in the article, but ChromeCast has been just slow and flaky in my experience. I've had both v1 and v2. It seems to have problems with older phones, but that's not the only problem.

mDNS on Linux with Avahi doesn't seem particularly reliable either (e.g. pinging a Linux box from a Mac.)

Computers barely work :-( I guess this is why Apple insists on owning the whole stack. The compatibility matrix becomes tractable.

<comment><USER3> I have a similar experience, though I think a lot of the issues are actually with the apps - e.g. Netflix and Spotify will consistently not show my cast devices unless I quit the app and relaunch it, while other apps work ok.

Google needs to get far more vigilant about ensuring the third parties are implementing it properly though - even if the bug is actually with a third party, it reflects badly on their product.

<comment><USER4> Yes, Netflix is pretty bad when it comes to connecting to Chromecast

<comment><USER5> Well Netflix's android app is pretty bad period.

<comment><USER6> If you want to help make it better [https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/367](https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs/367)

<comment><USER7> The implication of this comment is that the poor quality of Netflix's Android app is due to Netflix having been unable to access sufficient engineering talent to produce a better quality app. As an outsider that has experience developing software, I'm extremely doubtful that this is the case and am apt to blame it on executive-level prioritization almost out of hand.

<comment><USER6> Oh I didn't mean to imply that at all, I am sorry if that is how it came across. All software is imperfect. If there is software that you care about and want to make better and get paid to do so, that sounds like a potentially good fit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Lots of anecdotal experience in this thread about how bad Chromecast is so I'd like to offer my opposite:

Chromecast has been one of the nicest additions per dollar for my home. It has been working well for me for a year or so. I even used it today (for the first time in a week or more) while cooking and it worked like a charm first try.

The only _real_ problems I've had with it, I switched hardware, but used the same SSID and it was confused as all heck. To its credit, though, so was my "Smart" TV. I gave up and just used a new SSID and everything worked again without all of the weird-ass problems.

<comment><USER9> I agree. I also regularly say that it's the best value money I have ever spent.

The only unreliability I have is with certain apps that don't appear to have implemented the functionality that well. The "NFL Game Pass Europe" app for instance sometimes forgets that it's attached to the TV and you can no longer pause/stop (there are workarounds). Other apps like Netflix have been extremely solid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Got a pixel 2, Chromecast and a Google home and now have lots of wifi woes. The timing being exactly after the pixel 2 (turned in cast and home before, didn't have problems).

Edit: turning of guest mode on all cast devices makes things better (less wifi dropouts) but still bad. Turning of wifi on both the android phones in my house has cleared up the wifi problem (which was really annoying as even spotify kept failing to stream with phones on wifi).

I wonder if Google employees need to test their consumer devices outside the googleplex where the internet is super fast and the industrial grade networking gear deals with such issues automagically.

<comment><USER11> In the Googleplex they have networks designed to be slow and crappy to test exactly this.

All people working on consumer facing apps and sites are encouraged to use these crappy networks on a day to day basis.

<comment><USER12> I wish there was more evidence that they used them. Far too often their software seems to assume a superb connection.

Personal "favourite" is their Newsstand - it will ditch cached stories whilst out and about because it briefly got a connection on the Underground, only for the content to not download (precisely because you're on flakey Tube WiFi) and boom the best use case for that software is ruined!

<comment><USER13> I was in Costa Rica last week with a slow wifi connection and had a similar experience with a 5MB offline PDF file in Google Drive. For some reason, drive decided to redownload it, but after only a minute it timed out and gave up. I just ended up going for two more days without the file, but I found it pretty ridiculous that Drive failed so miserably on such a simple use case.

I had a nearly seamless (albeit slightly slower) experience browsing Instagram on that slow connection despite the fact that all of the content was photo/video media, so I know the connection was not completely useless. It seems that Google engineers can't even fathom the possibility that someone would have a slow enough connection that a 5MB file might need more than a minute to download. This is frustrating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It's blamed on MDNS packets being spaffed out at high speed. I've got 3 Chromecasts of various flavours in the house and have never seen this behaviour. Has anybody else had the problem?

<comment><USER15> I have been having wifi issues for the last 3 months and I have 2 Chromecast's Ive had them for much longer but after reading this I'm going to segregate them to a different wifi network and see if the wifi gets better but my understanding of the issue makes me think it won't get better without a Chromecast update

<comment><USER11> This specifically needs an android update.

Androids the fault here not the Chromecast

<comment><USER16> Specifically, it sounds like Play Services Cast support has fairly pathological behavior in common circumstances.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "...If your router vendor has not released an update for the issue..."

Ah good, I feared Google needed to update their devices to stop DDOS-ing my home network, luckily for them they don't get blamed and we think that the router vendors should add more robust DDOS-protection.

</comment><comment><USER18> Interesting. I have 2 Google Homes (1 regular and 1 mini), a Chromecast and a Chromecast Audio, and a Pixel 2. I haven't noticed any particular network issues.

My network is all Ubiquiti gear. A USG, switch, and AP AC Lite. I have the private WiFi on the same network as my desktop PC and Steam Link. My home lab is on separate VLANs. Other then that its a pretty default configuration.

Not home right now but when I get home I shall look into it a bit more. Curious if whatever update thats causing this hasn't rolled out to Canada or if the Unifi products are handling it better/some special way.

<comment><USER19> This is unrelated but could you explain what the Chromecast Audio offers over just playing audio on a regular Chromecast?

<comment><USER18> The Chromecast Audio allows me to plug it into any standard stereo. Bang for the buck I can get much better speakers for the dollar when buying just normal speakers instead of "smart" speakers. I then plug the Chromecast Audio into it and get the same ability to Cast to it, and include it into groups. The ability to add it to Cast groups is one of the key reasons I like it over just a Bluetooth connection.

So to sum up: * Bang for the buck get better audio quality * Still get all of the same Cast features (WiFi casting, group casting, etc.)

Hope that helps! :)

<comment><USER20> I just got the Google Home Max. It sounds better than the Google Home, but not as good as I'd expected. I'm tempted to send it back and replace it with a Home Mini and a regular set of home stereo speakers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I haven't noticed this problem. I've got a Chromecast v1, Chromecast Ultra, Home Mini, Pixel phone, and Google onhub + WiFi mesh, plus a bunch of other non-google devices. Perhaps the Google routers are able to handle the burst? I do wish that Chromecast was in general a little faster at connecting / playing etc.

<comment><USER22> Oh me either, but then I just have Apple TV and iPhone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Well, this certainly explains why my wifi has been feeling pretty iffy for the last couple of weeks.

There was an awful lot of mDNS traffic coming from the (new to me) Google Home, and the two android phones, and mythtv (0.27) was sending every couple of seconds too. Running this tcpdump helped me track it down.

        tcpdump -n host 22.214.171.124 and port 5353

For the google home, I just turned it off; does anybody know of an offline voice activated clock/timer? That's the most compelling use for me. (yo clock, what time is it and/or you clock set a timer for 3 minutes / set an alarm for 5:30)

For the phones, in settings / google / cast media controls, you can turn that off, I also turned off 'nearby links' in the google menu, in case that was related.

</comment><comment><USER24> I've got a pretty good ($100) TPLink router and a 100Mbps Comcast connection in my 1BR apartment. I can almost never find the 5Ghz channel and get constant drops on my laptop, particularly the Linux one.

I've got a 1st Gen Chromecast, a Google Home Mini, and a Pixel XL.

Sounds like this is my culprit. Finally.

<comment><USER25> I have the same router I bet (Archer c7) and I'm convinced it just hates Android devices in general.

Every time my phone has a connection hiccup it takes several minutes to renegotiate DHCP... But if I turn off WiFi and count to 15 and turn it on, it reconnects in 3 seconds flat.

I'm tempted to throw out my wifi gear but I'm having trouble who in the industry isn't total garbage, because I have an Asus AP that sure isn't helping.

<comment><USER26> Hmm. I got my parents an Archer C7 based on it being the Wirecutter's pick for Best Wireless Router. It has been having a lot of problems with WiFi dropping out, like you describe. But I now see the Wirecutter have updated their comments [1] on the Archer C7:

 _" This is the single biggest reason we're no longer recommending our former pick, the Archer C7. Though the C7 has great range and good single-device performance, it doesn't have band steering, which means that it stumbles when several devices are connected and there's a lot going on. The problem is compounded by the router's relatively weak single-core CPU."_

 _...our former pick, the Archer C7, leap all the way off the top of the chart into "oh, this is horrible" territory shortly past the 75th percentile — which means that roughly one out of every four page loads will leave you wondering if you should hit reload._

[1] [https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-wi-fi- router/](https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-wi-fi-router/)

<comment><USER27> Well, I'm somewhat relieved to read that, in that I purchased one for the same reason but have been rebooting it at least once a day for a while now. I was initially relieved to see it may have been the Chromecast. Now I suppose it's both!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I thought it was the fios router just being shitty but I believe that I've been experiencing this issue aswell.

</comment><comment><USER29> Sounds like this issue affected my household as well. Been having wifi issues after bringing Pixel and Pixel 2 on to network with Google Home. Initially thought dropouts were due to so many neighbors in proximity.

</comment><comment><USER30> I have a Google Home and a Pixel 2. I didn't have problems until we added two Google Home Minis. It's knocked out 5G on the Verizon Quantum Gateway router and 2.4G drops out every now and then.

<comment><USER31> I'm having the same issue. Just bought a Google Home in December and my Verizon quantum router has been dropping repeatedly. I've had a Chromecast and Nexus 6P for years and never had any issues with it. I'm glad I finally discovered the issue, thanks to this article!

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Interesting, my wifis been terrible since christmas, ive had casts and a google home for a while but my partner got a pixel 2, the first android device in the house. Could be it!

</comment><comment><USER33> Weird, I have a Chromecast and Google Home but have had no problems, though I do have Google Wifi...

<comment><USER34> I have an Onhub with four chromecasts and five google homes and have experienced the issues described. I noticed that sometimes if I wake my galaxy s7, other devices in the room might lose connectivity for a few seconds. I couldn't place why it would happen sometimes but not others, but this makes sense. I wonder if it might also explain why if a media app is casting and goes to sleep, it forgets that it's casting when it wakes up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I was doing some home automation stuff with Node-RED and spotted that when I tried to figure out when a Chromecast was online - mDNS using ZeroConf would blow up Node-RED for no apparent reason, using SSDP worked OK. Now I know why...

</comment><comment><USER36> 1\. My Chromecast is far less reliable than it was a mere 3-4 months ago. I regularly am unable to cast from my desktop and have to resort to my phone. YouTube, especially with multiple tabs, on desktop is a nightmare to use with the Chromecast.

2\. I'm basically desperate to find something to take it's place. I'm tired of the Apple-ification of Google, and I resent having to boot up Chrome just to be able to cast a video (they have it locked down to where they effectively control both sides of the infra, such that Firefox can't implement Chromecast support).

</comment><comment><USER37> Not sure if it's the Chromecast.

> Normally the device should send a couple of packets every 20 seconds, but in > recent Android versions the apps sometimes send large bursts [...]. The > longer the device has been in sleep mode, the more packets are send.

I wonder if it's a side effect of aggressive battery optimization in the newest Android version (Deep sleep/Doze, etc) where packets are withheld intentionally to only be delivered in bursts and have the wifi/radio sleep in between. Naturally, Pixel get updated first.

edit: typos

</comment><comment><USER31> Does anyone know if Google is aware of this and is working on a fix?

</comment><comment><USER38> Has anyone found a good way to troubleshoot and confirm these suspicions? This aligns with our experiences as well since adding more Chromecast devices and Google Home devices.

<comment><USER23> This tcpdump should show mDNS packets -- if you're getting hundreds per second (in some seconds), like I was, that's probably a good indication that something is misbehaving (or that you have a _really_ big network). If googlecast shows up in the name, it's probably Google Cast misbehaving.

        tcpdump -n host 22.214.171.124 and port 5353

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I love Chromecast but a few issues keep making me sad.

1\. Casting a photo from Photos app, pressing Android back button makes the TV screen go black. Have to remember to swipe left or right instead, or use in- app back button.

2\. Photos on 4k Cast-enabled TV are shown in horrendous quality. It's definitely not 4k and compressed as hell with contrast loss. Same for videos.

There used to be a ton of race conditions in YouTube TV app but those are thankfully fixed.

</comment><comment><USER40> I use to have my Chromecast plugged into my TV so people could stream videos and photos easily to share with people during gatherings. We use Roku for streaming. Then we took it on vacation and forgot to plug it back in. I realized the reason our WiFi was so awful in that room when I eventually plugged it back in and everyone started complaining.

Now it is only ever used for vacation.

</comment><comment><USER41> I am also having issues with chromecast and WiFi, weird slowdowns that never happened in the past. Casting pandora to the audio's and mini's always has problems. The phone will eventually start playing different songs than the cast, and at this point you are unable to control or reconnect to the cast. Like others I assumed this was a app issue.

</comment><comment><USER42> I use DD-WRT so there won't be a router update to fix this.

I love my three chromecasts, however I can't really put up with this bug.

What to do?

<comment><USER43> Maybe some QoS rule on MDNS could help.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Got a chromecast, and my phone has a lot more trouble connecting to it than it used to have. Sounds like this might be the issue. Hopefully now that it's been identified, it'll be fixed.

</comment><comment><USER45> I set all my chromecast/ home devices (9 devices) to have an assigned IP from my DHCP router (ASUS). Situation has definitely improved. But still not perfect

</comment><comment><USER7> It would certainly seem like both the Chromecasts and the routers are misbehaving in this case, no?

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm fairly certain a similar issue is being caused by the Wii U.

</comment><comment><USER47> I have 7 Google home minis, 2 Chromecast Audios, 3 Chromecasts. Everything has worked fine up until a month or so ago. I've been using Chromecast since its initial launch and have never had these issues until now.

Google severely broke something recently, that's for sure. We had a Christmas party and I gave up playing music because it kept dropping off every few minutes. It seems like it has improved the past few weeks, but still pretty shoddy.

</comment><comment><USER48> imho, routers either handle this somehow or drop packeta. because mdns is higher level protocol than wifi and mac, router should not deal with those.

also, with same hardware what happens there is whatsapp/hangouts video call? its about firmware

<comment><USER49> Routers deal with IP traffic (and even have to mess with TCP, e.g. clamp MSS), not just the 802.1 and 802.11. For SOHO routers, high PPS multicast UDP may be something hardware-accelerated routing doesn't particularly account for. And if software routing kicks in, high packet rate can very easily overload poor device's CPU.

<comment> X-Istence It's due to the way multicast packets are transmitted on Wifi...

[https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-mcbride-mboned-wifi-mcast- pr...](https://tools.ietf.org/id/draft-mcbride-mboned-wifi-mcast-problem- statement-01.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I've done a LOT of chromecast development/hacking. They are to put it politely, unreliable.

</comment><comment><USER51> Google employ a small number of people to write TCP/IP core stack functionality. This is not a 'twenty hundred fiddy' people problem, its a six rising ten people problem.

The core issue is: how do we get the team in question to acknowledge and respond, with a timely code change?

<comment><USER16> It doesn't sound like it's a core TCP/IP stack problem, it sounds like it's a Google Cast support in Play Services problem.

<comment><USER51> The packet explosion in multicast had me thinking some upper layer call is being made, which the stack interprets to mean "keep going" in ways which then bomb the link layer out of existence. Its not TCP/IP I agree. I mis- characterized that. But I think the essential quality is the same: this heads to a single, or small number of people. Google chooses modes of operation which isolates those people from the feedback channels. I have had experience of this: go into a room, present on observed behaviour of a google service, zero outcome. Go into another room, repeat, the guy who can fix it walks to the microphone and says "thanks, I fixed that"

There is no strong git, or feedback-driven path which determines success or failure notifying google about code problems. Some work, some which used to work don't work now, some which didn't work then work now. Its unstable. Its unpredictable.

(for example, feedback inside bug reporting channels for Android, where the most common response from google staff is "this is the wrong channel to provide that feedback" including things which are bugs)</comment></comment></comment>


Don't Fall In Love With Your Model: The Cautionary Tale of my Recent proof that P=NP  - <AUTHOR> http://www.math.rutgers.edu/~zeilberg/Opinion98.html

<comment><USER2> The article is (obviously) a joke. But it raises an interesting point about computation (namely, it's a small miracle that practically computable problems are usually those with polynomial time solutions.)

<comment><USER3> We might talk about polynomial time like that's reasonable, but few useful algorithms are worse than X^2 * log x.

After all, the man issue is not the size of the algorithm but how long f(N) takes and all to often we see N > 1,000,000,000 which limits what's reasonable.

<comment><USER4> I think matrix multiplication is O(N^2.71), and there are a few problems in abstract algebra that have doubly exponential algorithms.

<comment><USER5> Yes, but that is for an N x N matrix. It is more useful to express the complexity in the size of the input, in which case matrix multiplication is N^1.5 or better. (As far as I know, the best known algorithm is pretty close to linear, but it's not known if a linear one exists.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> crackpottery</comment>


Ask HN: My eyesight is not good enough to read HN. What can I do? - <AUTHOR> I own an iPad and an Android phone. The text on HN is simply too small for me to read.
Before HN added CSP headers, I used a bookmarklet to change the font size. But since the CSP headers were added, FF and Chrome both refuse to execute the bookmarklet.
Some might suggest to use an app instead. But I don't use apps. As a programmer I know how bad the app security models are.
Is there any solution, or am I effectively cut off from HN? <comment> mike-cardwell The existing HN CSP policy allows inline styles. A bookmarklet which just does the following would work:

document.querySelectorAll('*').forEach(d => d.style.fontSize='20px')

I find it odd that mobile browsers don't allow you to set the font size like desktop browsers do.

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! I was creating a style element and added it to the head. The CSP do not allow that.

Now that I know I can alter the elements directly, I will do that instead.

Hacker News - I'm back!

<comment> mike-cardwell Using a style element should have worked too. The HN CSP policy has unsafe- inline which covers both of these things.

Perhaps your problem wasn't with CSP at all, but something else. Maybe a CSS specificity issue?

[edit] - Yeah, I just created this bookmarklet and it worked fine:

javascript:(function(){s=document.createElement('style');s.textContent='*{font- size:20px}';document.head.appendChild(s)})()

<comment><AUTHOR> Even better!

My solution was a link element with a data: URI. Yours is much more elegant. And works!

Thank you very much!

<comment> mike-cardwell That would be the problem. The HN policy for styles is:

style-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline'

This means they can include CSS from the same origin, or inline. It would need "data:" adding to the list to allow data URI's as an accepted source.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> nils-m-holm I have impaired vision myself and I find HN to be one of the most accessible sites around. I have set all font sizes to 32-point and do not allow any smaller fonts. Also I have chosen a font that easy to read for me and do not allow sites to select any other fonts. On bad days I disable CSS so I can have my default bright-on-dark color scheme.

Using these settings, HN is a pleasure to read! Other sites suffer, of course, because large fonts destroy their layouts, but those sites are FUBAR (from an accessibility point of view) anyway.

<comment><AUTHOR> These sound like solutions for the desktop? I'm looking for a solution for mobile. Well, thanks to mike-cardwell, I have one now!

<comment> nils-m-holm I'm using the same approach on my smartphone. Good to hear you found a solution!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I'm blind and am reading HN right now.

On an iPhone:

1\. Hold down the home button to summon Siri.

2\. Say "turn on Voiceover."

Now when you touch parts of the screen, that element will be read to you. If you're focused on a button or link, tap twice to activate it. Scroll with a three finger swipe.

Will definitely take some getting used to, but in some ways it's actually superior to sighted reading. No strain or fatigue, you can control your phone without taking it out of your pocket, and you can listen while walking around.

An alternative, and I also do this, is to do this workflow:

1\. Get an RSS reader with HN hooked up to it.

2\. Read all the article titles and open the ones you think sound interesting in the browser.

3\. Use the Pocket for Chrome extension to add those items to the Pocket app. It's Mozilla, it's not particularly evil or leaky.

4\. Read the articles on your phone in a readable font You can change the text size in settings.

There are some other alternative workflows for getting text read aloud on the laptop, message me if you're interested.

<comment><USER3> If you dont mind me asking, how do you reply on HN? Your post is very well formatted to have been done using any speech to text service.

<comment><USER2> I used my computer. But it's entirely possible to type while blind on the iPhone using Voiceover, though I admit I'm rather slow. If I have to send an email on the phone, I usually use TTS, then go through it one character at a time to correct formatting using Voiceover.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> On iOS, it's possible for App Store apps to add actions to Safari's share sheet that execute arbitrary JavaScript on the current page. This can act as a substitute for bookmarklets. (There's no way to have extensions run automatically, though.)

From a quick search of the App Store, here are two apps that may help – I haven't tried either of them, though:

Font Size App Extension: [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/font-size-app- extension/id10...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/font-size-app- extension/id1041572869?mt=8)

Safari Snippets (lets you add custom JS snippets to execute): [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/safari- snippets/id1126048257...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/safari- snippets/id1126048257?mt=8)

I'm assuming that by "I don't use apps", you just mean you don't want to use a specialized HN reader app. If you don't want to install any apps at all, I guess the above won't help… though you could always write your own app.

edit: The above may be unnecessary if, as mike-cardwell suggested, the issue isn't that the bookmarklet isn't executing, but that it tries to add a style tag and isn't allowed.

</comment><comment><USER5> Just wanted to comment to raise awareness for those of us without 20/20 eyesight.

HN staff: please consider having a typographer/UI designer make a few improvements to the base stylesheet. I realize the codebase may be old, but it's a paragon of Lisp purity so it should be easy to change, no? ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> My experience ist that everytime a designer touches a website things get worse :)

Current example: The Reddit redesign. It's a nightmare.

Changes to HN that _would_ help me are:

Get rid of the CSP headers

Change the output so that the browsers reader mode can understand it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why don't you just zoom in? This seems so obvious to me that I am sure I am missing something.

I set the hn zoom level to 120%, and firefox remembers my zoom setting for the site so I don't have to set it every time.

<comment> mike-cardwell On mobile Firefox, when I pinch zoom on HN, it means I end up having to constantly scroll horizontally to read anything. Maybe that's why?

<comment><USER7> You want Command + or the equivalent, not pinch zooming.

<comment> mike-cardwell Yeah. I use that regularly on my laptops and desktops. No idea how to do it on mobile phones though, which is what is being discussed here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I used to have bad eyesight, just zoomed-in the page with `Cmd +` to 110% or 125%.

Unrelated to reading HN, if LASIK or similar is an option for you I would suggest you to talk to your ophthalmologist. Having eyesight corrected has been one of the best decisions I've made. It had such a drastic impact on my quality of life.

<comment> nils-m-holm Good to hear that it worked for you!

However, LASIK and similar approaches are not without problems when your vision is really bad (10 diopters or more), so I would recommend to inform yourself thoroughly before taking this step!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you are using the Opera browser on Android, then when you zoom, the text resizes but then reflows to fit on the screen. I cannot fathom why the other phone browsers do not have this feature, it makes every site readable without any scrolling left or right.

<comment><USER10> Came here to say exactly this! Text Reflow works great and imho must have for every mobile browsers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> >> As a programmer I know how bad the app security models are.

Don't understand this. What does this mean? And then do you not use any apps at all?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, I don't use apps.

Apps can do millions of things you don't want an untrusted party to do on your device.

<comment><USER12> Browsers are apps too and your statement is too vague.

Please explain what you're afraid of.

To me, it sounds like you're talking about third party apps, and your fear is about third party developers having access to your web accounts. In that case, that makes a bit more sense but then I hope you're not using any browser extensions as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, with untrusted parties I mean developers of third party apps.

And yes, I don't use browser extensions either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Please take a look at Bookmarklets Context Menu, a WebExtension that allows to execute bookmarklets as privileged scripts:

[https://github.com/mems/bookmarklets-context- menu](https://github.com/mems/bookmarklets-context-menu)

[https://addons.mozilla.org/es/firefox/addon/bookmarklets- con...](https://addons.mozilla.org/es/firefox/addon/bookmarklets-context- menu/)

Not sure if it'll work in the mobile version of Firefox though, works great in desktop.

<comment><USER14> Taking it one step further, you can install an add-on like Tampermoney and run full user scripts (works on mobile as well) [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/tampermonkey/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/tampermonkey/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I use to make some js for that (Css filters, brightness, contrast etc): Here is a demo on this current page: [https://media.giphy.com/media/8lZ5Cyp6rRvrLoXMc1/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/8lZ5Cyp6rRvrLoXMc1/giphy.gif) And the project sources with explanations: [https://github.com/webdev23/ponyFilters](https://github.com/webdev23/ponyFilters) HN disallow script embedding, but it still can be injected via console, then by using greasmonkey, settings are kept for next displays.

</comment><comment><USER16> On Android I've been using Hacker News Reader for years - [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.manuelmaly...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.manuelmaly.hn).

It's open source ([https://github.com/manmal/hn- android/](https://github.com/manmal/hn-android/)), works great and it has a bunch of accessibility settings. It's basically a read-only experience, though - no commenting.

<comment><USER17> In Chrome just go to settings, accessibility and increase the font size. Works on my android phone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I set the zoom level to 130% in Firefox for this site only. It is persistant. I don't have to do it every time I visit the site. And it doesn't effect other sites.

<comment><USER19> I do the same, except for me it's permanently at 240%.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> For the iPad, you could try a browser app called iCab mobile. It comes with an extension to increase the text size. That works with HN as well.

See it in action in this screenshot: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/nh9kjn4vgec694l/IMG_0073.JPG](https://www.dropbox.com/s/nh9kjn4vgec694l/IMG_0073.JPG)

(If alternate browsers count as "use an app" advice, I apologize for my suggestion.)

</comment><comment><USER21> iOS has excellent accessibility features built in. Take a look at VoiceOver or Zoom [1]. You should be able to toggle either on easily via the Control Center.

[1] [https://www.apple.com/au/accessibility/iphone/vision/](https://www.apple.com/au/accessibility/iphone/vision/)

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a lot of stuff in the iOS accessibility tools, but unfortunately nothing that makes the text on HN bigger.

Ironically, setting the "dynamic text size" makes all kinds of text in the OS way too big but lets the text on HN as small as before.

And I don't want to "zoom" because that makes the text overflow the screen on the right.

<comment> gm-conspiracy What about reader mode in mobile Safari?

Or maybe some JS bookmarklet (never tried w/ iOS Safari), personally.

I also thought there was an "Accessibility Zoom" that uses 3-fingers (for all iOS, not specific app)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Well, you could always try creating your own HN frontend[1]

I made one myself for about an hour or two. [http://morphical.ml:4000/s/17111778](http://morphical.ml:4000/s/17111778)

[1][https://github.com/HackerNews/API](https://github.com/HackerNews/API)

</comment><comment><USER23> Since I have no idea if Firefox also offers this on its mobile version, I would suggest the read function. In addition, the font could be made extra large.

[https://postimg.cc/image/60ouxm7wr/](https://postimg.cc/image/60ouxm7wr/)

</comment><comment><USER24> I can't help but wonder how you are going to read all the responses here?

</comment><comment><USER25> Could use a front end on mobile, something like [https://hn.premii.com](https://hn.premii.com) which allows to change the font size.

</comment><comment><USER26> Magnifying glass? Or how about a magnifying monocle?

Accessibility settings on ipad has some zoom features too.

Or just write a quick scraper.

</comment><comment><USER27> Curious why Cmd+/zooming doesn't work?

<comment><USER28> Hint: can you tell me where to find the command key on your iPad?

(User is specifically asking about reading HN _on mobile devices_ , not a desktop OS.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Try a user stylesheet with your browser.

<comment><AUTHOR> Afaik mobile browsers don't support user stylesheets.

<comment><USER30> A dark mode extension I'm using on Firefox for Android works as an css injector. One would only have to configure a custom stylesheet instead of a dark theme.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-mode- web...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dark-mode- webextension/)

uBlock Origin, the content blocking extension I'm using on Firefox for Android, can inject css rules as well.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock- origin...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/)</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Generating CUBA applications from annotated DDLs - <AUTHOR> https://postgresapps.com/cuba <comment><AUTHOR> Typical business applications have 100s of tables. Many of them follow similar patterns (lists, master-detail). All these need CRUD forms.

It takes a lot of time if we write them manually. CUBA Studio is great for creating tables and screens with visual designers but who wants to repeat this for 100s of tables?

I wanted a tool which would generate CUBA entities and CRUD forms from an annotated CREATE TABLE statements.

This is what I came up with: [https://postgresapps.com/cuba](https://postgresapps.com/cuba)</comment>


Imgur XSS - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/4chan/comments/3lutoo/imgur_is_doing_fishy_things_with_4chan_screencaps/cv9lqrt <comment><USER2> This was a pretty major exploit.

Imgur has acknowledged the exploit: [https://twitter.com/imgur/status/646109742004224000](https://twitter.com/imgur/status/646109742004224000)

Looks like the exploit was a combination of a misconfiguration in the way direct images are displayed on Imgur as well as some kind of Adobe Flash zero- day.</comment>


Why Yammer believes the traditional engineering organizational structure is dead - <AUTHOR> http://firstround.com/article/Why-Yammer-believes-the-traditional-engineering-organizational-structure-is-dead

<comment><USER2> Great article. Given the rapidness of releases and product development, how does marketing / sales get foresight for their customers? How do you plan campaigns in advance?

</comment><comment><USER3> This assumes traditional engineering == big teams

<comment><USER4> That wasn't the assumption I went into the talk with at all. In fact, our team was quite small when we saw problems from traditional horizontal or vertical engineering org structures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> interesting post... reminds me of '9 women cannot make a baby in 1 month'</comment>


Expansion strategy: Is Facebook's Platform a mistake? - <AUTHOR> http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/03/03/facebook-s-platform-strategic-mistake-0

<comment><USER2> It's a very good point--but its lost in translation. There is nothing that aggrevates a reader more, whether consciously or subconsciously, than being told "THIS IS THE CONCLUSION". It is? Really? Are you sure? Criticisms, however well thought out, are ineffective when you cannot convey the thought properly.</comment>


Ask HN: Has Google bricked your chromium app because they did hours - <AUTHOR> As of Nov 21st our Chromium app called Pure Browser has not worked anymore.  When you load a site it just stays a white screen.  We have not made any changes to our app but it seems Google has done something outside our control on our Chromium app.  Anyone else have this issue?  Any ideas?<p>https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.purebrowser&hl=en_US <comment> n-gauge [https://www.xda-developers.com/google-chrome-android- droppin...](https://www.xda-developers.com/google-chrome-android-dropping- support-android-4-1-4-3-jelly-bean/)

The current minimum API level for Chrome is Android 4.1. According to a recent commit, it will soon be bumped up to Android 4.4. KitKat.

Your app is 4.1, Maybe bump that up to 4.4?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for this advice!

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> You might want to pivot into a browser _extension_ , instead of a full fledged browser.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think you can make browser extensions for mobile browsers right?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with anxiety around wasting time? - <AUTHOR> Hi guys, I'm a pathological hoarder. Be it karma points to books, I have a serious issue where if I'm not allowed to hoard digitally, it makes me uneasy.
However, the bigger problem is trying to consume what I've hoarded. I know there are urgent topics that I discovered on HN that I've raised multiple flags for me to spend time reading (because of it's potential ROI) but failed to because
If it doesn't seem like work it seems like a waste of time and if it seems like work it seems like I should be resting.
Meaning, there is a real anxiety around doing anything but work. When I try to get into a good book or an article, the panic starts to set in and I get an overwhelming urge to stop and do something that I perceive to be work related. <comment><USER2> Working less can actually make you more productive ([https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/11/10/work-life-balance- so...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/11/10/work-life-balance-software- engineer/)) but there's a bigger issue: _why_ are you working?

What is the point?

You need to have a good answer for that, or work is just a way to avoid thinking about what you should be doing in your life. Especially since work- work-work-work-work isn't actually efficient or productive, it's just a way to pretend that you're achieving something while actually being exhausted and burned out.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's helped me to realize that not working is an important part of being productive. When you get that "brain fog" effect from working too much, you can be _more_ productive by taking a break and relaxing for a bit. Try to reframe the situation in that light.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am not a medical professional and nothing I say should be construed as medical advice. That being said, you might want to compare what you're experiencing against checklists for occupational burnout [1] or some form of anxiety disorder.

Some suggestions:

\- Re-evaluate your perspective. "Work to live; don't live to work" may sound corny but it's true. You need to reflect on what's important in life for you and, for most people, that seldom involves work.

\- Meditation and other stress reduction techniques. They can be quite useful in clearing your head, so to speak, though they don't work for everybody.

\- Seeking therapy and/or medication. Stress and anxiety related disorders are sufficiently common now, unfortunately, that there's much less stigma about seeing a therapist than there used to be.

[1] One of the known potential symptoms being "I'm not getting enough done; I must try to work harder", causing the subject to get even less done

</comment><comment><USER5> Studies show that a significant amount of muscle is created while sleeping / resting after a workout.

Similarily, if you're truly trying to maximize productivity, adding periods of downtime is necessary.

Working continually may address your anxiety fears, but you're not actually maximizing productivity.

</comment><comment><USER6> Mindfulness based cognitive therapy.

If you can, consult a professional (e.g. a therapist) who can help you formulate a plan, etc. Other than that though there are lots of great books on the topic that are helpful (one I'd recommend is "Full Catastrophe Living").

Mostly mindfulness based cognitive therapy is about developing new habits that eventually change the way you think and feel. Specifically for you a lot of it is about being able to treat your thoughts and emotions as things that don't necessarily "sweep you away" and force you down a particular path of behavior and emotions.

</comment><comment><USER7> That's how responsible people get burned out. You need to rest to get things done. Period. You can do twice as much if you take regular breaks.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hoard your commits!

</comment><comment><USER9> just remember that being anxious about it is a waste of time (mind/thought) on its own. it is a bit funny as well</comment>


NPR Audio - The Evangelicals Engaged In Spiritual Warfare - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2011/08/24/139781021/the-evangelicals-engaged-in-spiritual-warfare?

<comment><AUTHOR> Just wondering what your thoughts are on how the hacker community can/should respond, do we have any responsibility to?</comment>


Hackers Gather for Cyberwar in an Intense 48-Hour Sim - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2014/10/luca-locatelli-locked-shields/

<comment><USER2> that seems really cool, I'm kinda jealous of the learning experience that would bring</comment>