Avatar's green fascism - <AUTHOR> http://www.good.is/post/avatar-s-green-fascism

<comment><USER2> This is just too close to Godwin's law to be taken seriously.

"And what is fascism anyway? Good luck finding a concise or clear definition. We are kind of foggy on that. Presently, the word is most commonly used to cast aspersions on a particular political stance or belief. The implication is that if you are fascist you seek to impose a vision of the world on a group of people and that vision generally contains some notion of moral superiority."

What is the point of defining something as X if X can mean anything to anyone?

'Fascism' should mean a militarist, ultra-nationalist and authoritarian political regime within a precise moment in history. If it can mean anything than everything is fascist.

<comment><USER3> Fascism is an economic system based on government control of nominally private enterprises.

If fascism is limited to the political regimes within a precise moment in history, we lose a useful term.

<comment><USER4> We also lose a useful term if we define it that broadly, though. It's not only an economic system, but a complete political/economic system that comes with a set of aesthetics and a particular focus on nationalism, a strong state, and a strong leader.

Just government control of nominally private enterprises is much more common than fascist regimes; it'd also include the UK in the heydey of the East India Company, modern-day China, and even to some extent modern-day France.

<comment><USER5> The problem with that definition is that it also defines rather well most available instances of Communist states. So are you saying Fascism=Communism? Or that those states are not exemplars of "real" Communism but are in fact exemplars of Fascism?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As far as I'm concerned, once Godwin's Law has been invoked [<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwins_law>], the writer has lost all credibility.

<comment><USER7> And, as far as I'm concerned, in this case you're the one being intellectually lazy by making a knee-jerk rejection of the article on purely superficial grounds.

I don't completely buy the argument being put forward here (it certainly doesn't help their case that they at one point admit that they don't even know what "fascism" means), but it's interesting food for thought.

<comment><USER6> Almost everyone who invokes Godwin's Law has a very reasoned argument why they can connect the Nazi's to Topic X, that is nevertheless fully contrived and meaningless.

I did read the article, thoroughly, and found the classic intellectual laziness associated with Godwinesque arguments. And I quote: "Sontag's point is that the fascist sympathies and racial preoccupations that guide Reifensthal's work for the Nazis also can be seen in her photographic work on the Nuba people in Africa. You can uncannily substitute Cameron's name whenever Sontag mentions Reifensthal and substitute the Na'vi whenever Sontag mentions the Nuba. The entire Sontag article could just as well have been a review of Avatar."

In other words, So-and-so is a Nazi. So-and-so wrote an article. Substitute subject X for A and object Y for B, and it's practically a review of Big New Thing XY. Ergo, Big New Thing is Nazi-Fascist propaganda. QED.

Hogwash. This is an example of the same intellectual ineptitude that equates Obama with Hitler.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ah yes, the Na'avi were athletic and the fascists were athletic, therefore the Na'avi might be fascist. The Na'avi were sexual and the fascists liked sex, so the Na'avi must be fascist. And yeah it was _really_ sinister the way they preferred living in harmony with nature rather than turn over their home to be strip mined. Sheesh. I'm so glad he pointed this stuff out.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think we can all agree on what Avatar means.

Pocahontas. In space. In 3D.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think the writer presents interesting, if perhaps over-intellectualized, viewpoints. However, I don't believe him when he says he cannot find a real definition of Fascism. I think that's deliberate, for if he included conventionally accepted definitions, the rest of his article would be non sequitur. I've always understood it to be a confusion on Patriotism, where people align their beliefs behind the _government_ instead of aligning with the principles of their country. Where principles are misunderstood, or rejected, or under attack -- fascism takes hold. The word certainly has nothing to do with athleticism.

In this more conventional meaning, I fail to make the connections that the author makes re: Avatar.

<comment><USER11> I'm afraid the OP has it right here. From Wikipedia:

 _What constitutes a definition of fascism and fascist governments is a highly disputed subject that has proved complicated and contentious._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism>

<comment><USER12> One reason why I am likely it discount an argument that starts with calling something fascist.

The word has been so misused as to be parody now.

They may as well amend Goodwin's law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hey, I liked Battlestar Galactica too, but I don't want a religious nut bag running the country based on her crazy visions...

I think the main thing to get out of this article is this:

"many people have reported feelings of suicidal depression after seeing it because when they wake up the next day they realize that reality just doesn't measure up to Pandora."

Someone make an awesome 3d Avatar video game stat! Apparently the current incarnation isn't enough and is leaving people suicidal!</comment>


Agile Tool Eylean Introduces a Free Personal Edition - <AUTHOR> http://www.eylean.com/blog/2013/12/agile-tool-eylean-introduces-a-free-personal-edition/

<comment><USER2> Nice tool, the free trial for team version could be longer.</comment>


Building a BitTorrent client from the ground up in Go - <AUTHOR> https://blog.jse.li/posts/torrent/ <comment><AUTHOR> Over the holidays, I challenged myself to learn Go by torrenting the Debian ISO -- from scratch. This post is a bit of a brain dump about everything I've learned over the past week.

<comment><USER2> Wow, I've been looking for a BT tutorial at about this level of abstraction for two years or so. And would have liked to have read it a decade or two back as well.

Wondering if there are any similar docs or a book for implementing a server in Python, and a client in Python or Dart/Flutter? I know libtorrent bindings are a thing but the docs seemed quite dense and I didn't even know where to start—until now that is.

<comment><USER3> Here's a pretty good one in JavaScript: [https://allenkim67.github.io/programming/2016/05/04/how- to-m...](https://allenkim67.github.io/programming/2016/05/04/how-to-make-your- own-bittorrent-client.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome write-up and a great way to dig into the inner-workings of BitTorrent. Nice work!

Glancing at the wiki page for BitTorrent[0], I'm a bit surprised that there isn't more of an effort to create cross-platform libraries and clients using Go or Rust for this. Seems like a perfect use case? For example, synapse [1].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_clien...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_BitTorrent_clients#Libraries)

[1] [https://github.com/Luminarys/synapse](https://github.com/Luminarys/synapse)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think BitTorrent is a very 2000's/early 2010's technology. That's when it feels like it peaked, at least. The future is probably more toward WebTorrents [0] (with WebRTC) and IPFS [1]. And those have great cross platform libraries.

[0] [https://webtorrent.io/](https://webtorrent.io/)

[1] [https://ipfs.io/](https://ipfs.io/)

<comment><USER5> As a torrent newb, what's the tldr on on why webtorrent over BitTorrent?

<comment><USER6> Why would I download a sketchy ass torrent client when I can go to a website, download the torrent in my browser, and be able to rely on my browsers sandboxing against the torrent client? Even better, if it's video I'm torrenting, I can rely on my browsers sandboxing against the torrents contents too.

It's more convenient, it's safer, it sucks for other torrentors because I don't seed as long, but let's be honest, most people downloading torrents don't care.

<comment><USER7> Why a torrent client would be sketchier than any other software ? There are plethora of good open source clients like qbittorrent, transmission ... even aria2 ! At that rate, are you suspicious of wget too ? Even more of Chrome ? There are a lot of sketchy things going on in that one ! It is the user's responsability to choose in which software he trust, and a bittorent client is not worst than anything else ?

<comment><USER8> Browsers are far more battle-tested than just about any other web-facing application on your computer.

Of course, you could make the personal decision to trust a client, and that is fine. But if you aren't willing to blindly trust a client, the other guy's point still stands - browsers are probably just the better choice here from a security POV.

<comment><USER9> > Browsers are far more battle-tested than just about any other web-facing > application on your computer.

They also have a monstrous attack surface _because_ they are "web-facing". A specialized client that only implements one protocol without any connection to the "web" is far easier to reason about and debug.

If you only consider the number of man-years an application has been battle- tested, you imply that design complexity and attack surface doesn't matter. If we account for complexity by using a metric like "(man-years of battle- testing)/(magnitude of attack surface)", a well-tested specialized client that hasn't had many recent bug reports is a much safer choice than anything running in a browser.

> blindly trust a client

That's even _worse_ for the browser: you have to trust several orders of magnitude more code implementing a massive set of interdependent features. Yes, there are probably a lot more people working on fixing bugs in the browser, but there are also a lot of people adding/modifying features and thus creating new bugs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> A decade ago now, I wrote a bit torrent client [1] that started as a project for a software development class.

I think the focus of the class was roadmaps and other parts of the development process for a larger project. Most of the groups picked games or things like that. We chose to build a bit torrent client and I ended up continuing working on it for a year or so.

I was pretty proud of it at the time. I'm sure there are a bunch of implementation details that seemed like a great idea as a Sophomore in college that no longer sound so clever, but the implementation is pretty sound. I used it to download a lot of stuff over the years.

The part I think is most interesting is the code for managing the torrent pieces and writing them into the proper places for the various files within the torrent. (Not necessarily my implementation of it, just the math behind the process) [2]

I remember feeling really clever the first time everything came together and actually downloaded a full torrent. My first bit software development victory.

[1] [https://github.com/war1025/Torrent](https://github.com/war1025/Torrent)

[2] [https://github.com/war1025/Torrent/blob/piecereg/tcl/tm/torr...](https://github.com/war1025/Torrent/blob/piecereg/tcl/tm/torrent/file/impl/FileAccessManagerImpl.java)

<comment><USER11> > The part I think is most interesting is the code for managing the torrent > pieces and writing them into the proper places for the various files within > the torrent. (Not necessarily my implementation of it, just the math behind > the process)

Can you explain a little bit how this is interesting mathematically? On first thought, it seems like you would probably use a lot of pwrite, or if want convenience over safety, mmap all the files and write directly to memory. Not to diminish your achievement, but I didn't immediately see anything interesting here. Can you explain a bit more?

<comment><USER10> What I meant more-so was the math of a "piece" from a torrent is a fixed number of bytes.

The way the files are laid out for a torrent, they are listed in some order in the initial torrent file, along with their individual lengths.

The data for the torrent is then treated as the contiguous sequence of bytes for the files in the listed order.

That contiguous sequence is then broken into "pieces" of whatever fixed size. So finding which file(s) and what position within those files piece 148, for example, goes to involves some math that is pretty straight forward all in all, but is still rewarding when it's the first time you've done such a thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Strictly leeches (does not support uploading pieces)_

Be careful with using this client --- the swarm for a Linux ISO is probably a bit more forgiving, but you may get banned very quickly by the tracker or other clients, because they will definitely notice that.

</comment><comment><USER13> In the same vein, I started to implement a BitTorrent client in OCaml. [https://github.com/phlalx/sawadee](https://github.com/phlalx/sawadee)

Initially it was a project to learn about the Core/Async libraries. I will put it back to life at some point, but it grew quite big and became very time consuming for a single developer.

</comment><comment><USER14> Nice! Looks like a good idea to implement something from scratch to improve the understanding of a language and also a tool. Any other ideas about stuff to implement? Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> I built an http server and a markov chain library to learn python. They're both pretty worthwhile weekend-size projects.

I heard cryptopals [0] is really good for learning both crypto and a new programming language. It might be cool to build things like a DNS resolver, an X window manager, gameboy game, or something from coreutils like grep or tar

[0] [https://cryptopals.com/](https://cryptopals.com/)

<comment><USER15> > It might be cool to build things like a DNS resolver

I wouldn't recommend writing a recursive resolver as a weekend project, to many edge cases that you'll get frustrated by, but that said, I do use writing an authoritative DNS server as a great way to fully learn a new language. You get file handling, grammar parsing, serialization/deserialization, bitpacking, network I/O, data structures, both tcp and UDP socket handling, deamonization, concurrency, etc etc. Covers most of the more difficult parts of many languages and once you've done it once or twice, doing it again for new languages is less about figuring out how to do it, but rather how to do it in X language. At last count, I think I've done upwards of twenty languages now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Excellent write up and very readable code.

</comment><comment><USER17> I noticed a few things with the Go code that confused me. I haven't coded in Go in quite some time, so I may be way off.

`copy(buf[1:], h.Pstr)`

In this line, are you copying the entire buffer to a string? Doesn't it overflow into other data elements?

Also, and I may be wrong, in the following line, it appears that you are casting to a []byte when it's already a slice of bytes, which should still be fine.

`peers[i].Port = binary.BigEndian.Uint16([]byte(peersBin[offset+4 : offset+6])`

I really enjoyed the tone and the code. I'm not done with the article, but I love it so far.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you for the feedback! It's really helpful.

copy's arguments are like copy(destination, source) so we're copying the string into the buffer. Also, copy will never overflow because it will only copy up to the length of the shortest buffer.

you're right about the unnecessary cast to []byte -- that function used to take a string as arguments, and when I changed it, I didn't change the rest of it. I've removed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I played with this it requires go 1.13 and seems to time out and close if one of the trackers is unresponsive for more than 10 seconds. It has no command line options and crashes if no options are present. It also doesnt support magnet links, only torrent files.

</comment><comment><USER19> @eat_veggies The writeup is very useful. Can you describe the process of learning two concepts simultaneously? Or you knew before the parts of Bitorrent and how to implement it in some other language?

</comment><comment><USER20> Great write up, very clear explanation about the torrent protocol, and nice to see the rational behind certain code decisions.

</comment><comment><USER21> Any resources for doing the same thing in python?

</comment><comment><USER22> Can it be done in node.js under a VM so to isolate the traffic and force it to use vpn etc.

<comment><USER22> Found it based on comments here:

[https://github.com/webtorrent/webtorrent](https://github.com/webtorrent/webtorrent)

I guess the VM part is just to use a unikernel then try to find a way to auto use vpn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> i wanted to do the same not that long ago but i abondoned that idea when i could not find UI library i would like to work with and i was not looking to make a cli application.

</comment><comment><USER24> The blog doesn't discuss it, but the choice of DHT implementation in BitTorrent is Kademlia [0] whilst Chord is more popular, used by Amazon Dynamo and Facebook Cassandra [1]. One of the authors of Kademlia, David Mazières, later co-authored the Stellar crypto-currency protocol [2] with Jed McCaleb of Ripple fame.

That said, quite famously, Bram Cohen, the co-inventor of BitTorrent, failed the Google interviews.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18711980](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18711980)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3480480](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3480480)

[2] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16125920](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16125920)

<comment><USER25> Any sources regarding failed interview? Googles (ha-ha) says nothing.

<comment><USER24> May be the down-voters think I'm a troll? I thought it was an interesting note about the creator of a protocol responsible for a third of all Internet traffic. Or, does it highlight the alleged ineffectiveness of FAANG-style tech interviews?

Btw, here's a ref: [https://web.archive.org/web/20200105225938/https://www.there...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200105225938/https://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/05/google_interview_tales/)</comment></comment></comment>


The foodoo economics of meal delivery - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/business/2019/08/03/the-foodoo-economics-of-meal-delivery <comment><USER2> The _Financial Times_ also did a feature this weekend, see [https://www.ft.com/content/af232e7a-b516-11e9-8cb2-799a3a8cf...](https://www.ft.com/content/af232e7a-b516-11e9-8cb2-799a3a8cf37b) .. international print version was different. Both _Economist_ and _FT_ probably prompted by market research announcement.

Here in China, consolidation continues but there remain quite a number of smaller players. It's a brutal space, very high capex, very low USP, thin margins, no return unless you scale. Basically the main players exist through VC and eyeball trading. You have to wonder what security they have against eg. Tencent/WeChat just sidestepping them. Especially as there is a lot of history of nasty backstabbing marketplace-takes-your-model in China, eg. we saw Qunar do this to hotel reservation networks (I used to run one). One area of resistance to commodified last mile delivery seems to be large chains, like KFC/McDonalds, who offer their own delivery drivers in a bid to retain control, customer ownership and margins. A major play right now for delivery operators seems to be ghost kitchen establishment and operator partnerships.

We anticipate entering the Chinese consumer food retail market within the next two quarters with closer-to-consumer, robot-produced, personalized cuisine cooked to order in an autonomous kiosk format (wholly owned and operated).

<comment><USER3> KFC uses Grubhub for delivery, unless something has very recently changed.

<comment><USER4> Not just GrubHub. They partner with Just Eat.

I'm an employee at stuart.com and we handle a lot of their deliveries.

<comment><USER3> I should have clarified that in the US they use Grubhub.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://outline.com/Ucz9Tm](https://outline.com/Ucz9Tm)

</comment><comment><USER6> Shame. The article seems a bit weak - nothing on the actual costs and margins involved.

Homejoy is the poster child of why these "middle man for the gig-working class" type businesses are going to struggle (in general) with perhaps the occasional winner takes all. If borrowing money becomes more expensive most of these kind of businesses will die as funding dries up.

<comment><USER7> "Struggle in general with an occasional winner takes all" sounds bad.

But think about a market like... search engines. They struggle in general; almost all of them from the 90s died. There was just the occasional winner, Google, that took it all.

If you think about it that way, a market that can support even a single "winner taking all" is pretty promising and exciting.

<comment><USER8> The market and economics of search engines are wildly different from those of food delivery.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "The restaurants in particular are restive, not least because food is already a low-margin business."

Coupled with the recent survey from US Foods that 28 percent of food couriers admit to eating food from their deliveries(1) are some of the reasons for the consolidation in the food delivery industry.

(1) [https://www.usfoods.com/our-services/business- trends/2019-fo...](https://www.usfoods.com/our-services/business- trends/2019-food-delivery-statistics.html)

<comment><USER10> Dear delivery drivers: have a chip - I don't mind.

<comment><USER11> I do.

Cars (or worse... bikes/mopeds) don't have hand wash sinks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> IMO, this is a more sophisticated article on the unit economics of food delivery. (However, it is a little older): The Food Delivery Death Star (2016) [https://medium.com/@review/the-food-delivery-death- star-85f9...](https://medium.com/@review/the-food-delivery-death- star-85f9a121313)

<comment><USER13> Agreed, that is a better article, but even so - every time I read about this space I get more confused. I get that very smart people are throwing large sums of money at it, so there's obviously some logic that I'm not getting. For example, the Medium piece says that Uber has a lucrative monopoly, but then goes on to say that it loses 700M per quarter. How is that lucrative? And self-driving cars are held up as the solution to thin margins but to me it seems that the only saving grace for these companies is that they get drivers to bring their own cars, do their own maintenance, pay their own insurance, etc. Considering how expensive driverless cars will inevitably be when they first appear and the sheer number that these companies will require to actually replace their contractors/partners/whatever they call their drivers, 2030 seems a very optimistic target for profitability. But then I'm just some schmuck - surely the VCs have all had those thoughts and are ploughing on regardless because they know something else?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> An anecdote from Indonesia. One of the large on-demand companies moved into food delivery a few years back. Originally, the only cost was the (subsidised) price of transport borne by the consumer. There was no contract with restaurants. A driver pulled up and ordered a takeaway just like a consumer would.

However after awhile, most businesses began to see a good proportion of their sales (& a lot of new customers) from these drivers. When the on-demand company started contracting restaurants with a mandetory 20% markup to the price of food, it was a no-brainer for the restaurants to go along with it. As a result, this food delivery business now subsidises the core rideshare business.

At the end of the day it's eyeballs that matter, to both the restaurant and the on-demand company. And this is where the great divide between the super- apps and the delivery startups come into play. Trying to compete with one of these big apps is like trying to compete with Amazon with some niche e-comm site. Its possible, its just very, very difficult. And of course doesn't have anywhere near the same potential value.

<comment><USER15> One of the best lessons I've learned: a 1% chance of making 10B is worth 100M. This took a disturbing amount of time for me to digest, but it's absolute truth. Food delivery has a very slim chance of working, but oh baby if it works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> One of those rare times in which the title of the article sums up the article, and in a way that is just brilliant.

<comment><USER17> Especially if you're punjabi

<comment><USER18> [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.urbandictionary.com/define....](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.urbandictionary.com/define.php%3fterm=Fuddu&amp=true)</comment></comment></comment>


Leaked Cable reveals Hillary Clinton suspecting LulzSec to be related to Hamas - <AUTHOR> http://pastebin.com/9TmeP4Dv

<comment><USER2> I'm going to go out on a limb here and call bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER3> I guess the idea that there may be others outside of The middle east which may be anti-media and anti-corruption is not plausible to Mrs. Clinton. I sometimes get the impression that those in power have a warped view of the world as a result of living in a bubble. This is one of those times.

Not that I support Lulzsec or their actions, but I can understand their motives.

</comment><comment><USER4> Of all the indications that this is fake, the little-endian date is my favorite.</comment>


Ailing f/x sector spotlights creaky tentpole foundation - <AUTHOR> http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118066191

<comment><USER2> > _"They know what our margins are and they won't let us make any money," he > said._

Wow. When you depend on your customers to "let" you make money, you simply don't have a business.

Come back when they _need_ your service, and then force them to cover your expenses with some profit thrown in. Until then, go do something profitable.

<comment><USER3> Studios _do_ need their services. FX uses to be a _huge_ margin industry, until it became marginalized.

However, there are now so many competitors in the market, domestic _and foreign_ that margins are thin or non-existent.

In a nutshell, it's what is going to happen to the tech world when programming skills become marginalized.

<comment><USER4> No, studios _don't_ need their services because there are now so many competitors in the market, domestic and foreign.

I don't need the services of Nobu, but that doesn't mean that I don't need to eat.

<comment><USER3> Studios do need their _service_. They don't need _them_ to provide that service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a fairly accurate depiction of the current state of the industry. It's fair to say that it's difficult to think of a good reason to stay in vfx other than that the work itself is so darned enjoyable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I spent 7 years at R&H. Stayed because I loved the work. I left because the work demands require your entire being, day and night, leaving you no life at all.

<comment><USER6> Why is that? It always seems the case that vfx eats up everyone time, but it always seemed to me that it was that projects were terribly managed, and if they weren't, this wouldn't be as much of an issue.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a death of a thousand cuts: "We'll fix it in post", shots created by compositing multiple shots together (with different camera and lighting) and your job is to add the VFX and integrate it all so it looks realistic and natural, being informed the director has changed his thoughts about 1/3 of the film, that other vender working with us just went belly up and here's all their work with no deadline adjustment, coworkers crumbling and their work being distributed among every other surviving team member, wife/child/significant-other begging you to come home while they are awake just once...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: My manager suggested me to start taking Ritalin - <AUTHOR> I'm a Software Engineer, and I used to have a manager who in a 1:1 suggested me to start taking Ritalin to improve my focus. What are your thoughts about that? It's legal to suggest that kind of medical advice in a work environment? I don't feel like my focus is a problem. <comment><USER2> You can assume the worst and think your manager just wants you to work harder and longer while hopped up on amphetemines, or you can take it as not- particulary friendly advice to get yourself diagnosed for attention issues.

The best part of being diagnosed with ADHD as an adult and starting medication was my ability to sit quietly with my then 3 year old son and play blocks for longer than 10 minute stretches. Previously that was impossible. My diagnosis was a life-changing discovery that improved how I lived in a variety of contexts, both at home and at work.

Maybe your manager sees what he thinks your inability to focus as a real issue, and is, in a clumsy, intrusive way, suggesting you take it seriously. Or he's just an asshole and is trying to get more work out of you. That's for you to figure out.

<comment><USER3> Seems like a boundary issue to have a boss pushing meds. In fact, it could be illegal (IANAL).

Meds can help if there's a real issue, but there's almost always side-effects. Growing up, my parents were anti-medication and anti-psychology. It turns out I had untreated depression, Asperger's and ADD-I only diagnosed as an adult. Atomoxetine really helps me because I can't tolerate amphetamine stimulants or caffeine. I tried Adderal, Ritalin and Provigil, and they all made my anxiety and blood pressure much worse.

Also, I'm currently cross-titrating to my 14th anti-depressant. (The last one, mirtazapine, worked for 9 years at the expense of 25% weight gain.) Ketamine, LSD and invasive/ECT treatments are just about my last choices if this new one doesn't work. And the 12th one I tried gave me terrible vertical and horizontal nystagmus and whole-body, sporadic myoclonus. (Beware of extrapyramidal-causing and anticholinergic medications!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Find a way to get it in writing, and start looking for a new job, because your days there are numbered if your manager is giving unsolicited medical advice.

<comment><USER5> Was it unsolicited? If the poster confided to his boss that he has focus issues, his boss might have just been trying to offer a solution (albeit a bad one). I don't see what's unethical about this.

<comment><USER6> It's still not appropriate for a manager who is not acting in a medical capacity to make that kind of recommendation.

It's a huge huge leap to go from "I feel like your focus needs improvement" to "go get an amphetamine prescription because I feel you are not working hard enough."

<comment><USER7> I agree that it's inappropriate, but it seems like an equally huge leap to go from that to "your days are numbered" when we don't have any other context.

Of course our reactions are heavily biased towards our personal experiences. If my manager said something like that to me I'd laugh it off as a bad joke or a poorly executed gesture with good intentions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Disclaimer: Neither a doctor nor a lawyer nor HR. In my opinion, it is probably not appropriate for the manager to suggest a drug unless you asked their opinion. For sure, they could not prescribe it to you or require you to take it.

You might ask them why they feel you lack focus. If they do not have a good answer, then perhaps you could request a skip level 1:1 with their manager, or if you feel that is a no-win, you could speak with HR, or decide to let it go. You know your work environment better than any of us and would have to weigh the pros and cons. I agree with others that say this doesn't always end well.

<comment><AUTHOR> I know my self than my manager, my lack of focus, was because the work i was doing, super boring. My manager took all the "cool" decisions and make us struggle with that. So no motivation at all. But there is always a pill to solve our problems lol

<comment><USER8> It sounds like you made the right decision to find something better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why there are only bio-conservative comments are populating this question?

* You may not be aware that you have a focus problem. Are there any (personal) logs of your working hours? Are you getting things done within the deadline?

Your manager's attitude is quite reasonable. If you need some imporved focus, nothing wrong to take Ritalin.

</comment><comment><USER10> Note it down, bring it up to HR/your manager's manager.

Best case scenario, your manager is well-intentioned but is misinformed (or under-informed) about what is/isn't okay to say. Mild kerfuffle, not a big deal.

Worst case scenario, your manager is outright crap and the personnel around them is equally bad. (Aka the "you should really think about moving companies now" scenario.)

In either case, escalating is the way to resolve things.

</comment><comment><USER6> Totally inappropriate for a manager to make that kind of suggestion. Most likely not legal either.

Definitely get it in writing and then take it to HR. Alternatively, if you feel like this would fall on deaf ears, start looking for new employment.

</comment><comment><USER11> In a manager/report relationship I think it is inappropriate, but I had a colleague suggest I begin taking ADHD medication in grad school and it changed my life. Without knowing your relationship with your manager I can't speak to the appropriateness other than to say you shouldn't bring that up, but I have had very close relationships with some of my managers where I might have approached that level of honesty/vulnerability to make them feel like that was appropriate.

All of that aside, your manager is not a physician and you are free to ignore anything they say regarding your health. I would still reflect on why they might have said that and whether you are struggling in your role.

</comment><comment><USER12> I definitely don't think this is legal (disclaimer though: I am not a lawyer), unless your manager is also a MD, but even then, I don't think it's legal unless he's acting in that capacity.

If, as you note, you are no longer working there, I wouldn't worry yourself too much about it unless you think that you do have focus issues. If that's the case, I would try correcting the problem in non-medical ways first. There's a number of things you can try - keep a tidy workspace, listen to soothing music if possible, try meditation, keep a low sugar diet, etc. If you feel that you've expended your options, consult your doctor.

<comment><USER13> Get serious. It may not be tactful or appropriate, but I'd be very surprised if suggesting to a subordinate that they go get checked out for ADHD was illegal.

Would it be illegal if his manager told him to go get a Tamiflu prescription as well?

<comment><USER14> Yeah, or would it be illegal to tell him to go to a doctor to get vision checked and corrected? People give medical advice to each other all the time. It is up to you whether or not you follow through, but even then, to get prescription you do need to visit a doctor. Why would telling people to visit a doctor to get X and Y prescribed illegal? Is it actually illegal? If he were to tell him to obtain Ritalin illegally, then I can see how that would be illegal, but from what I gathered he did not do that.

I am not a doctor. I told a stranger (who is now my friend) to visit a psychiatrist because I suspected he has ADHD. His psychiatrist diagnosed him with that, and he got a prescription for a stimulant. His life has changed tremendously for the better. It turned his life around. I gave him other medical advice (because I learnt a lot of medicine) about a variety of things that has improved his quality of life. I have no regrets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> wouldn't be the first employer to suggest that the employee might be more valuable if they started doing speed

</comment><comment><USER16> I think that such a suggestion is huge Red Flag, and would either begin looking to be transferred internally so I had a different manager, or begin looking for work in another company altogether.

</comment><comment><USER17> Absolutely not okay. ADHD medication should only be taken if one has ADHD. Which can only be determined by a medical specialist. And even if you do have ADHD, you don't have to take meds. ADHD meds are often misused as drugs, so suggesting this is basically asking you to take drugs. Not okay.

If a manager has a hunch that one of their employees has an unknown medical condition they might tell them about it. If their relationship is good enough.

If, on the other hand, they notice a performance issue, they can talk about that and potential ways to fix this. Which would include a quiter workplace, more interesting tasks or an inquiry of underlying issues.

I have ADHD and would have been happy if I had been diagnosed earlier. But I became a Machine Learning engineer without diagnosis. And while meds are nice, they surely were not the end of my problems. I am glad you don't work there anymore, because the real problem there was this manager.

</comment><comment><USER18> In life, we all have blind spots. Things that are obvious to others with more experience but may be invisible to ourselves.

But it may have been a helpful suggestion from the manager based on observation or personal experience that the OP might have some attention deficit issues that may or may not be improved with medication.

Hanlon's razor may apply here also.

<comment><USER6> It doesn't matter if the manager was intending to be helpful. You don't suggest to an employee that they start taking drugs, full stop. The furthest you can go is to suggest medical diagnosis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> No. This is illegal. He's not a medical professional and should not be giving you advice on what medication to take.

</comment><comment><USER20> It's inappropriate, but it's hard to know his intent.

</comment><comment><USER21> "Oh wow, I didn't know you were a Medical Doctor as well! Where'd you go to school?"

</comment><comment><USER22> What a weird thing to do of your manager. How did he suggest this? Was he just like "I think you need to take Ritalin"? Did he suggest going to a psychiatrist, or did he want to sell some to you?

</comment><comment><USER23> Managers and companies existence is fueled by extracting as much energy out of employees as possible. They just usually aren't so brazen about that.

Idk about the legality but it's hugely unprofessional.

</comment><comment><USER24> Fireable offense in some environments. Big tech company or startup?

<comment><AUTHOR> Big company at that time. 14k employees when i left.

<comment><USER25> Yeah, any manager making a comment like that puts the company in legal peril for a number of reasons, the main one being that if they thought you needed some form of medical treatment and didn't follow through on making that happen then the company can be held liable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Clearly unethical. Take written notes. Join your union.

But a few side points:

\- ADHD is an actual condition that can cause lack of focus and/or hyperfocus

\- there are plenty of other reasons why a person can exhibit lack of focus and/or hyperfocus

\- in people with ADHD, stimulants are often very effective, but dosage and side-effects need careful medical management

\- in people without ADHD, stimulants often make them _feel_ like they are more focused that ever before, but blind studies have shown that their actual focus is not truly affected

<comment><USER27> Can you link anything that backs up your last bullet point?

<comment><USER26> [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3489818/#__sec7...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3489818/#__sec7title)

<comment><USER28> I don't see anything that backs up the claim you made in that paper. The closest thing I see:

"Stimulant drugs do improve the ability (even without ADHD) to focus and pay attention. One function, which is reliably improved by stimulant medications, is sustained attention, or vigilance. Stimulants improve sustained, focused attention, but "selective attention" and "distractibility" may be worsened, possibly because of a drug induced increase in impulsivity."

And that seems to contradict your point.

<comment><USER26> fair enough -- i was basing it on my memory of a documentary I saw once -- i looked up the documentary but could not find a list of the studies it cited, so I Googled for studies on the question

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This reminds me of when owners of a company told me to just give paracetamol to my 1yr old and leave at the nursery and come to work.

</comment><comment><USER30> I had a similar situation with a punch bowl of no-doze at a data center startup.

No job is worth your health, I think glass door is a good outlet for this type of information.

</comment><comment><USER31> Without the exact phrasing I don't think anyone can give any advice.

</comment><comment><USER32> Send an email asking them which drug they recommend. Then go see a lawyer with the printout.

</comment><comment><USER33> Based on that this AskHN exists, there may be implications.

</comment><comment><USER27> That stuff is highly addictive. Honest to god, if he suggested it, most likely he takes it too. Get out of there, his expectations are based around people abusing speed, which means he basically expects some unhealthy output.

Remember kids, all drugs work, until they don't. You can always take more I guess.

<comment><USER11> There are millions of people who take those medications as prescribed without addiction or dependence. If you are going off label then you have a problem, but in many cases these medications can make the difference between a successful life and a disastrous one.

<comment><USER27> Of course. So there's the nice way to talk about this (which is how you are talking about it), and then there's the real way to talk about it - you know like how a manager in our industry casually suggest you take up a schedule 2 drug. This stuff is abused pretty rampantly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Noise cancelling headphones playing Ambient Sleeping Pill helps me focus.

</comment><comment><USER35> Was (s)he a body hacker? I've seen people also experiment with nootropics in an aim to improve their output. The fact that it was a boss in a 1:1 is a bit weird but ... what if it had simply been a coworker telling you what worked for them?

<comment><USER36> Methylphenidate is not a nootropic. If you are wondering if amphetamines and their friends improve your work output, the answer is yes, yes they do. They won't make you smarter though.

<comment><USER28> I mean, by that definition of nootropic there are no nootropics lol. From Wikipedia:

"Nootropics are drugs, supplements, and other substances that may improve cognitive function, particularly executive functions, memory, creativity, or motivation, in healthy individuals."

So CNS stimulants like methylphenidate (which definitely increase motivation in healthy individuals) are nootropics by that definition.

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

<comment><USER27> It's a drug on the more potent end of the spectrum, it isn't benign. Take a few, you won't even need to wonder 'I wonder if this is a nootropic'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Better off taking Alpha GPC nootropic supplement. It's cheap and more effective, helped me recover From a concussion recently and I've kept taking it. Stuff is amazing.

Also - find a new job your manager is terrible. It's probably illegal and/or against company policy but you'd have to go around/above him to report this and honestly that never works out well.</comment>


My rocky first 24hrs with the Apple Watch - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/technology-musings/my-rocky-first-24hrs-with-the-%E1%B4%A1%E1%B4%80%E1%B4%9B%E1%B4%84%CA%9C-67c841702a70

<comment><AUTHOR> It seems many app designers makes the mistake of treating the watch as an phone strapped to your wrist instead of a device with a different use case.

Also it seems Apple has missed the mark one some fairly common use cases, like having sleep & don't disturb modes, or being able to dismiss multiple notifications.

I was thinking about watches and realized one mode I'd like is that only show notifications when prompted (like a force push). Then you could make notifications pull rather than push UX wise and don't have to be interrupted. Good for dinners etc

<comment><USER2> The iWatch does have a do not disturb mode. It also has a mute mode and you can control the haptic effect. These settings are easy to access. That writer is clueless. I have used the watch for a couple days and I'm really happy with it.</comment></comment>


A federal appeals court shoots down the FAA's drone registry requirement - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/19/a-federal-appeals-court-shoots-down-the-faas-drone-registry-requirement/ <comment><USER2> Regulations are important to keep people safe (it's pretty easy to build quadcopters that go 80-100mph), but I don't see what registration accomplishes. More accountability?

<comment><USER3> Accountability for those who register and post the ID on their machines. I look at it as a "show of good faith" \- ie, I build a drone and by registering it, I say "I will do my best to be safe with it, but should something happen, I will put my ID on it so you can find me, in the event that I don't own up to the issue".

At the same time, though, I think that some of the restrictions on what and how you can fly should be loosened up for hobbyists that agree to register. Certain design limits should be made larger or changed, and certain operating criteria should also be changed.

For example, if I register, I should be able to create a fully autonomous drone, and be able to have it fly out of line-of-sight (LOS), and/or have full first-person-view flight capabilities without my needing LOS to control it (or at least allow for a spotter to need LOS while the pilot can be sans-LOS).

Of course - this doesn't make much sense; if you don't register at all, and fly, then nothing would really stop you. But I guess if you were caught, heavy fines or something could be brought against you as punishment for not registering and causing a problem (above and beyond any other laws broken). Registration would not cause those fines or whatnot to kick-in, but it wouldn't protect you from any civil suit or other laws broken of course (maybe there could be insurance for that).</comment></comment>


Things I did wrong as a professor (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://matt-welsh.blogspot.com/2016/03/everything-i-did-wrong-as-professor.html <comment><USER2> This has parallels to professional life as well:

 _1\. Working on too many projects at once._

I joke with my team that "we're never short on problems". It's tempting to hear about something interesting and want to be involved—or worse, feel like you _should_ be involved. It's very hard to say no.

 _2\. Taking on high-risk projects with factors out of my control._

If there's one thing I'm good at, it's setting expectations. But combined with #1, handling too many projects mean you never have time to properly think (and mitigate) the risks.

 _3\. Taking on too many students._

You could flip this to "growing too fast," though that's not a problem I've personally had. There was a culture of mentorship at my previous company, which a pressure to take on mentees. Similar...

 _4\. Wasted too much time courting companies for money._

Probably an analog into the startup scene, but again, not a problem I've had.

 _5\. Way, way, way too much travel. / 6\. All the boondoggles._

Forget travel, the core message here is opportunities. The author says, "I found it hard to avoid this trap because you think, well, saying no means you're not going to get asked to do the more important thing next time."

Oh man, do I agree. And I agree that most of the time it's a moot point. But there's something to be said for "visibility" and there's a 1-10% chance that the one "boondoggle" you sign up for ends up yielding an opportunity you wouldn't have had otherwise. This is my major personal and professional issue, and I haven't solved it yet, either.

</comment><comment> purple-dragon Anecdotally, I'd say these aren't just mistakes he made; these are systemic problems I see with academia (I can only speak from my experience in the US). Every professor I know under age 40-45 did or does these things. Among its many causes are peer pressure, fear (of competition, of missing out), tenure anxiety, hubris, and "tradition".

<comment><USER3> It depends. I'm still under 40, and many of the things he considers mistakes I don't (yet). That said, three of the things on the list I've been able to avoid, and I think it's made the rest easier. 1. I was lucky to get a bunch of money early, and stopped spending a lot of time writing grants after the first year. 2. Made a conscious decision to not travel excessively, spend time at home, and vacation for all sorts of family reasons. That said, I've used twitter to supplement the backroom chatter I am missing and that's worked well enough 3. I initially took a lot of committee work but have backed off a ton in the last few years.

I do run a pretty big group, though I've downsized a bit (now 8 Phd, 3 postdocs, many undergrads). We work on too many things and most are pretty ambitious, but that makes it fun. I wouldn't change that much honestly. Maybe I need a few more years before I regret everything, but things are pretty good IMO, but again, I think you need a few chips to fall your way before things become manageable (e.g., like early grants).

<comment><USER4> Funny how "Get large amount of funding" solves most problems in most fields ...

Glad it worked out for you, but "hit the lottery" is, unfortunately, not a viable strategy.

<comment><USER5> Getting a research grant is not "hitting the lottery", it's being recognized for your previous work and having people believe that your new proposals make sense and that you have what it takes to carry on your new ambitions.

<comment><USER6> Those are the requirements to _enter_ the lottery.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Honestly, this sounds like a "reverse any advice you hear" sort of situation. Welsh did too much. However, from many people's perspective, Too Much is _exactly_ what you have to do to succeed in academia. You would really need a retrospective survey from those granted tenure to actually calibrate how much Too Much is _a healthy margin_ to move up in your job, versus how much is _actually way too much_ and harms your prospects.

(I'm assuming that to some degree it will harm your health. This is unfortunate but true in most competitive fields.)

<comment><USER8> > Too Much is exactly what you have to do to succeed in academia

I won't dispute that statement with respect to _his_ situation. Academia is very broad, and the expectations at Harvard are rather different from most of academia. At many academic institutions you can have a life and get tenure.

<comment><USER9> I think that statement is getting less true every year.

Increasingly, for instance, we seem to only hire people who would be tenurable today. So people are thinking they need to have a number of papers, etc., before they get a PhD.

It is an accelleration and a person wonders if it doesn't result in people churning out stuff because it it publishable, rather than because it is worthwhile. And when you reward that, that's what you get.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> At what point of this does he comment on the quality of his ability to teach students and lead them to become incredibly successful? This sounds more of a professional researcher than a professor.

<comment><USER11> This criticism is unfair for many reasons:

1\. Advising is teaching. In fact, _advising is the majority component_ of an R1 teaching load! So, he DID discuss the teaching component of his job. A lot.

2\. In terms of _classroom_ teaching, he was probably teaching 1-2 courses per year at Harvard. So _classroom_ teaching _really wasn 't_ the majority component of his job. It's unsurprising that he didn't spend much time talking about this minority component of his job, in the same way that it's unsurprising when a developer talks primarily about writing/reading/testing code rather than the ~20% of their workday activities that are something other than writing/reading/testing code.

Of course, one hopes that developers introspect on their effectiveness in various meetings, when talking to clients or internal stakeholders, and so on. But you'd be unsurprised if a dev, discussing their biggest mistakes during their first few years, focus on code-related mistakes.

3\. Maybe he felt good about his non-advising, classroom teaching? The title of the post is "everything I did wrong", not "a summary of everything I did".

<comment><USER10> > classroom teaching really wasn't the majority component of his job.

It's the title of the job: Professor.

<comment><USER12> I think monsky's comment and the exchange below hit on an important point: different understandings of what a professor does.

I would venture that most people equate professor with teaching. While many of the people that responded to monksy, understand that the position is much more than that. Seeing this dichotomy is important to having a productive discussion.

This happens a lot in life. Another example from higher education—University President. Most people equate University President with something along the lines of U.S. President and hold the requisite expectations for them. Reality = fundraising figurehead.

<comment><USER10> My point of contention is that professors who do not teach or do so badly, should be treated and considered differently.

There should be a title of Graduate Advisor, and Teaching Professor (those who teach others to become a professor/teach in a classroom). There should be specialization on being an effective teacher. There should be pathways to success. Pushing all students into research and half heartedly force them to learn how to teach only re-enforces this idea.

For those "graduate professors" who just consider advising and mentoring grad students teaching, you have to apply that same logic that by mentoring anyone in the field, you're now a teacher. (That's a dualism)

My big issue here: we're completely ignoring the issue that a student comes into the university to learn. (Even if it's a research institution) By assigning "professors" that don't actually teach you're doing a huge disservice to everyone. In those cases students are left to their own devices, they're not going to do well for research, community, or industry. Really what's happening is people are paying for an apprentiship to become a researcher.

<comment><USER11> _> There should be a title of... Teaching Professor_

This is already a job title! An alternative, often equivalent title is "Instructor". And these people _are_ primarily responsible for classroom teaching! And they _are_ primarily evaluated upon that teaching! What you are asking for already exists.

There are also colleges and universities where all people with the title "professor" are dedicated to classroom teaching. Harvard isn't one of them.

 _> There should be a title of Graduate Advisor_

There is. For historical reasons, at Harvard, the "Graduate Advisor" is called an "assistant/associate/full professor". But don't get confused by the name. These professors don't do much classroom teaching, just like most software engineers don't build engines. It's just a title, not a job description, and getting angry about it is just as silly as getting angry that most software engineers don't write software for engine control units!

 _> we're completely ignoring the issue that a student comes into the university to learn_

And assisting in that learning is not the majority component of the jobs of tenure-track professors at research institutions.

 _> Really what's happening is people are paying for an apprenticeship to become a researcher._

Research grants, not undergraduate tuition, pay for tenure-track professors' research at places like Harvard.

You seem to have a deeply flawed understanding about what a modern research university is, how it operates, and what undergraduate tuition money is spent on. That's perfectly fine, except that you're continually arguing with people who try to explain to you your misconceptions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When I interview and they ask me "Tell us about your biggest flaw" or something along those lines, I too always answer that it's that I'm too ambitious and that I work too hard.

<comment><USER14> If I get asked this question, I always stop intentionally as if I've never been asked this before, look out of the window (if there is one), then look back at the interviewer and say - with lots of pathos: well, I guess I'm too much of a perfectionist

<comment><USER15> Yes, that's the classic standard response to this question, because it makes a kind-of positive outcome.

But, really, isn't this the only kind-of positive response to this question? Is there any other response that works this way? And hence, why are interviewers asking this question in the first place? I pretty sure they know they will always get some variant of "I'm a perfectionist" as response, because that's the textbook answer to this textbook question.

<comment><USER14> I had one guy who was serious about this and I learned a lot through that: he sincerely asked this, but differently: "What are the things you are working on to be better at?"

At first, I was kinda startled and couldn't answer really, tried to bullshit him like the answer I gave above. He called it though and said that he is disappointed by such an answer and that he'd expect everybody to work on 2-3 things. Otherwise, he concluded, there is a lack of introspection to be assumed. Fair point, I thought

<comment><USER16> Introspection is analysing oneself, it does not mean taking actions about it, IMO.

<comment><USER17> The hiring filter in that case seems to be for people willing to take actions based on their self-analysis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > There were times when I felt that my airline status was more important to > maintain than my marriage

Oh my, I hope the marriage still survived if it was meant to.

<comment><USER19> Read the lyrics to "American Dream" by Casting Crowns sometime. It's sobering. You can lose your family for stuff like this, and it's not worth it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The author mentioned not taking on too much risk and avoiding straying to far from the lab.

When I studied CS I was never that excited with the pure, abstract CS-bits. I was a lot more interested in how we could apply those bits in the real world to affect change in peoples lives. Volcano sensors may be high risk, but may also have a lot more impact than more theoretical/abstract work.

That being said, I'm grateful we have researchers interested in the theoretical stuff, otherwise practical guys like me wouldn't have anything to apply. So it's important to realise that while "minimise risk" might be good advice for the author, for another researcher "maximise real-world impact" might be sounder advice.

</comment><comment><USER21> The funny thing about these type of thought exercise is whether you would be a better person?

I am who I am because of all the mistakes I have made, because of all the crisis I went though during my projects, because of the laughter and satisfaction in my life so far.

</comment><comment><USER22> Unless you have like a beachfront university, no one should be spending more than ~ 20-21 hours a week at actual working (commute included). Slight caveat 1. once decent VR gets here, and you can make it to a reasonably nice VR beach from home, sort of like in that Valerian movie... but more MMO style. Slight caveat 2. if your work is really fun or (reasonably) progresses the state of humanity to where no one really needs to work / everyone is supermodels / environmental and social problems are all solved etc.

(I say this with out considering it that deeply, but it's probably right.)

</comment><comment><USER23> Wow this guy seems so incredibly young to be a professor! Did he get a professorship right after finishing his PhD?

<comment><USER24> Yes - at the time Matt graduated, this was still the norm in CS. Things are changing and it's becoming more common to do a post-doc, but it's still not unusual to go directly (in the US).

<comment><USER23> Where do they go from there if they're already a professor from day one? Is there no promotion?

In the UK you won't get to be a professor until your forties, and many people never do.

<comment><USER25> You start at assistant professor.

<comment><USER26> To further clarify: The UK has the distinct titles "reader" and "lecturer" before "professor." In the US, if you have a PhD and you're teaching a college class, you're called a professor, even if you're an adjunct (not tenure track). The tenure track titles are "assistant professor", "associate professor" and then just "professor." Informally, we tend to use "professor" to refer to all of them, and it's common for people to say "Professor Doe" even if the person is an assistant professor.

<comment><USER27> The US still has lecturers (who normally have PhDs), but the title is different from the UK one.

<comment><USER26> I have never seen the title "lecturer" used in the US. Can you recall where you saw it? The title "instructor" is quite common when the person does not have a PhD.

<comment><USER28> Lecturer is used at the University of California for instructors with a PhD and no research responsibilities. Some of them even have a form of tenure, "security of employment."

<comment><USER29> A prominent example in computer science was Brian Harvey

[https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/](https://people.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/)

who designed and then taught the introductory computer science course (CS 61A) for many years and is now retired.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What is the best language/framework to write CLIs in 2018? - <AUTHOR> Hello HN,
I have an idea for a CLI and want to start writing it soon. I want a robust language/framework that is meant for writing CLIs. I have used Golang/Cobra before and I have done minor things using C++.
I also want this to be a learning experience. So I will be starting with the language/framework from absolute scratch.
So the secondary question behind this Ask HN is, which CLI framework should you know in 2018? <comment><USER2> It depends largely on what you're doing, and where it will be running.

If you're writing something that takes a bunch of flags, then parses text, I'd use perl. If you're using somethign that must be easily installed on 100+ hosts then perhaps a binary compiled from go - because that's easy to install.

For frameworks? That's probably secondary to the actual core of your application. If you're writing a complex UI with (n)curses then that's more interesting and complex than calling getopt a few times..

</comment><comment><USER3> I know you've used Go, but I personally think it's unbeatable mostly because it's statically compiled binaries make them super portable. Compile once and you can distribute a single binary file per platform.

</comment><comment><USER4> Granted, I've only ever written CLI apps using this and nothing else, but I've written a few smaller CLI apps in C# using [https://github.com/commandlineparser/commandline](https://github.com/commandlineparser/commandline) and found the library to be a pleasure to work with.

</comment><comment><USER5> I write all my CLIs in Python.

I find that I always need various random things to work together and have always found Python to be the most robust at this. Plus it has pretty much anything you'd need already implemented.

<comment><AUTHOR> Type safety is important to me. So not going for python.

Otherwise python is the go-to because of the libs.

<comment><USER6> > Type safety is important to me.

Isn't that what mypy is for?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In terms of portability and installed base Python or Perl probably are the best choices. They come installed with most UNIX, BSD or UNIX-like operating systems such as Linux.

<comment><USER8> Python can feel sluggish due to slower startup time so I would skip that and use either Perl or Go.

Definitely Perl for UNIXy stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Perl or Go for sure.

<comment><AUTHOR> Never used Perl. Would love to learn it. Just went through the overview. Looks like a high-level scripting language which inherits a lot from C.

After all the research, I am still highly inclined towards Golang. Since you said "Perl or Go", you seem to have used Golang. How does Perl compare with it?

<comment><USER8> Perl has decades worth of high quality libraries to do heavy lifting. [https://metacpan.org](https://metacpan.org) You can get away with easy scripting for creating significant programs.

UNIX commandline and Perl is a match made in heaven.

Using Golang will demand significantly more effort when doing more complex stuff but will give you concurrency, easier deploys/multi-platform support and better performance if doing CPU intensive stuff.

<comment><USER8> I use Go for what I previously maybe used C for.

Thanks to the quick compile time and good tooling Go almost feels like a scripting language when developing but especially for UNIXy stuff it can't replace Perl for me.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Alternative to TheDailyWTF - <AUTHOR> http://snipplr.com/all/language/php/

<comment><AUTHOR> I've just noticed that my comment didn't get posted... It basically said that while this could easily be taken as a throwaway snarky comment, it's not intended to be. I was genuinely shocked by the code I read.</comment>


New York Uncovers $1B in Sackler Family Wire Transfers - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/13/health/sacklers-purdue-opioids.html <comment><USER2> When I first heard that states were looking to confiscate $5B from the Sackler family, I was pleasantly surprised, only to find out that they're worth more than $13B.

As long as the financial punishment don't outpace this kind of behavior among the wealthy, it's really just a tax on them.

<comment><USER3> While I totally agree that the Sacklers should be considered like a criminal organization conspiring to kill people and would deserve long jail time, there is another goal to this confiscation than punishment.

It is a way to change incentives. I don't know what part of their $13B wealth comes from opioids, but this tax made it suddenly far, far less profitable. They will make their calculation of what would have been a better course of action, but if they had found a way to stay within the law and only lost $3B in revenues, it would have been profitable.

Fines are an efficient way to regulate companies and always welcomed, even if insufficient.

Not only this is like a tax, but there is a randomness factor it: it depends on a court decision. A lot of companies are risk-adverse so such a fine can have a chilling multiplier.

<comment><USER4> I think the argument of the comment you're replying to is that it _was_ profitable and they _did_ make the calculation. They're left with $7B, which is a lot. It's hard to make $7B.

And the multiplier works in the other way. Because of the non-deterministic chance of whether you get caught and whether you get punished and whether all of this happens before you donate all your money to charitable causes and die, the expected value of your loss is a _fraction_ of the fine. A truly effective penalty would fine them many times the illegal profit to account for that.

<comment><USER5> They also did not end up giving up any of their personal wealth in the settlement. $5B was just the starting bid.

> A truly effective penalty would fine them many times the illegal profit to > account for that.

How much of the profit was illegal and how would you go about quantifying that?

<comment><USER4> > _How much of the profit was illegal and how would you go about quantifying > that?_

I mean, I haven't done a criminal investigation of the Sacklers, so I'm the wrong person to ask.

But on general principle - if the goal is to use fines to disincentivize future criminal behavior (which seems reasonable to me, but it's not the only factor at play in setting fines), you should treat all profit that was related to the criminal behavior as criminal and not try to reverse-engineer "How much money would they have made if they hadn't done this crime." Otherwise you're still incentivized to try 10 different legally-questionable strategies and keep the profit from the 9 that were found to be on the other side of the line.

As a concrete example, if Google's copying of Java interfaces were ruled illegal (and to be clear I don't think it should be), then an appropriate fine is (some multiple of) _all_ profit from Android, not some attempt at retconning how much money Google would have made if they had used something other than Java or waited for OpenJDK.

(That's a fine, to be clear, not damages. Oracle's _damages_ should be calculated by retconning how much they would have gained had Google kept the laws, and nothing more.)

<comment><USER5> I mean, the first step is establishing a second crime. What's the crime on which to say any profit since 2001 is related to a crime?

The company and some executives already plead guilty in 2007 to, essentially, false advertising, during the 1995-2001 period immediately after the drug was developed. During that time, "OxyContin brought in $2.8 billion in revenue for Purdue Pharma."[1] Double Jeopardy means that specific crime during that specific period is done and settled.

The company paid out $600 million in fines and the execs another ~$35 million. So that's 22% of revenue in fines in that instance. (I guess the courts didn't agree with your notion that fines should be 100+% of revenue.)

The New Yorker estimated in 2017 that OxyContin has brought in $35 billion in total revenue for Purdue[2]; if that's true, subtracting the 2.8 from earlier suggests that it produced $32 billion in revenue 2001-2017.

Did Purdue Pharma commit another crime (or the same mislabeling / false advertising kind of crime) after 2001?

[1]: [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/business/11drug- web.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/business/11drug-web.html)

[2]: [https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family- tha...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built- an-empire-of-pain)

<comment><USER4> Right, my claim is the first crime should have been penalized more harshly, if committing it was net profitable. I'm not involved in prosecuting the case so I can't tell you if any other crimes have been committed.

<comment><USER5> Thanks, I understand better now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is it really possible that from Me Too to Purdue to tech anti trust that we are really at the beginning of a true populist backlash against entrenched power?

I am skeptical but there are many threads spinning here.

(Also, to be clear, I think the current Warren tech-are-utilities thing is bozo)

<comment><USER7> We're in the second inning actually, not at the beginning.

It started with the post great recession, Occupy Wall Street movement. That was the first major populist movement in the US in the 21st century. Even though that largely failed to result in anything draconian (fortunately), the US banking system was brought under far stricter control. The Fed with the Treasury is capable of dictating almost everything about the businesses of the large financial institutions. Today the US financial system is by far the strongest and safest financial system of any major economy. It's due in part to that populist response after the crash.

Trump's election was in fact also a massive populist backlash, against electing more of the same political dynasties (Clinton / Bush) that had come to rule the US. Trump defeated powerful, massively well-funded representatives of both entrenched dynasties to win the Presidency (which tells you just how dramatically voters were willing to reject a continuation of the old). Trump is the first populist President that the US has had in a century. Nearly every organization and individual that was part of the entrenched establishment was against Trump and he won regardless. And no matter what people think of Trump, his election will represent a permanent split with the past when it comes to the US political system. Things will never be the same, to put it mildly. AOC, as one example, is in Congress solely due to this cultural shift, new outcomes are possible (variations of Democratic Socialists were exceptionally rare in the past; they won't be rare in the near future). Obama was also partially responsible for and representative of this process that is underway; it's no coincidence he won immediately following the great recession crash, as the backlash and desire for a different direction is part of what made him possible (Hillary Clinton or McCain win that election otherwise).

<comment><USER8> Obama was also very populist. (I suspect at first he drank his own koolaid but that he was ground down from within.)

Trump is the kind of populist you get when the first one fails. Trump has many former Obama voters.

<comment><USER9> Obama promised Change but it was the same old machine. Trump is actually delivering Change (whether you see it as good or bad).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sounds like the kinda fraud that makes for no-knock raids in the early morning. Of course it is difficult to make a case if you never use the laughable barrier that is judicial consent to search.

<comment><USER5> Wiring money to yourself isn't fraud.

<comment> munk-a Wiring money to yourself right before declaring bankruptcy and telling the creditors "Oh darn, I don't have any money" is absolutely a form of fraud.

Purdue is going to declare bankruptcy eminently, that is one reason the settlements here are so soft - the government is trying to get what it can before they offshore everything.

<comment><USER5> I agree that what you describe is fraud, but I don't believe that's what the article is talking about.

To elaborate, I don't see where the article states they wired money _from their company_ to their private accounts right before declaring bankrupcy. The article instead seems to be describing shuffling of their personal assets between accounts.

<comment><USER11> Originally the State's Attornies were fighting for a significant portion of the settlement to come from their personal wealth and not the company. Family's offer was just company assets and none of their personal wealth.

<comment><USER5> I don't believe your comment is responsive to the thread.

My contention is that nothing in this article shows or even purports that the Sacklers committed _a corporate accounting crime_. Apparently people disagree with the position but I haven't seen any greatly articulated arguments why I'm mistaken.

Wiring around your own lawfully obtained money isn't a crime. Taking profits from your private company that isn't facing bankrupcy (2008-2016) broadly isn't a crime.

Negotiating a different deal with State's Attornies than _the highest offering bid_ by the SA's also isn't a crime. It's not the family's lowest offer; it's the mutually-agreed settlement.

There's a lot of reason not to like the Sacklers or Purdue Pharma! And there's a lot of reasons they should maybe lose some money or go to jail! Those reasons are just unrelated to the contents of this article — which is stirring up shit that looks bad to laypeople but isn't criminal.

<comment><USER11> My comment was adding context and presenting motive as to why they might be moving money around. The Sacklers were/are potentially facing fines against their personal wealth, not just the company's wealth.

So the potential exists for them to commit a crime should they face personal fines. It's not uncommon for people to hide assets during legal proceedings to reduce their liability.

There's a reason, when someone is under investigation, that they're not allowed to leave the country because it's easy to just not come back if they're charged. The same applies to money, it's easy to make money inaccessible which is why assets are often frozen during criminal probes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They should be absolutely bankrupted. And criminally prosecuted.

<comment><USER13> Do you think doctors should be criminally prosecuted, along with the AMA? After all, they allow the prescription of OxyContin and physicians are the only ones who actually prescribe them. The FDA also regulates the sale of OxyContin.

If doctors prescribe harmful drugs without evaluating their efficacy and without questioning the marketing, aren't they responsible ? They are ultimately the ones "pushing" OxyContin after all.

<comment><USER14> Doctors have been and should be prosecuted.

<comment><USER13> And the AMA? The FDA?

Should doctors not be allowed to prescribe OxyContin?

Very weird to me that the focus is on the people least responsible. Doctors, FDA, AMA all have to approve the prescription of OxyContin. The whole point of the FDA is to evaluate drugs using science instead of marketing.

If one accepts that Purdue is the party most responsible for the opioid crisis then one must consider doctors, the AMA, and the FDA all incompetent idiots, right?

<comment><USER15> This really isn't a hard concept.

OxyContin is a perfectly legitimate drug and it is reasonable for the FDA and AMA to sign off on its use. What isn't legitimate is doctors and pharmacists prescribing the drug over and over again when there was no reason to.

<comment><USER5> > What isn't legitimate is doctors and pharmacists prescribing the drug over > and over again when there was no reason to.

I.e., "pill mills."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Maybe now we know who bought that $1B BTC the other day.

<comment><USER17> "Bought" is inaccurate.

<comment><USER18> We don't know why that much BTC was moved, or by who. It could have been a sale.

<comment><USER19> It was probably an exchange move funds between cold wallets. OpSec would dictate you need to move wallets as employees leave, leaks happen, any number of reasons.

<comment><USER18> Indeed, but we don't /know/.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is confusing as hell.

So they are using financial records to claim that they are hiding assets...their evidence for this is...the financial records...that they have...already. How does that work?

And they went to the trouble of briefing against the Sacklers but don't explain what information they don't have already or aren't being given (i.e. why they believe something is being hidden). They just say: we have the records, boy there is a lot of them, we haven't gone through them all...but we know they aren't complete...the bois working hard there.

And why is the punishment related to individual wealth at all? Are limited liability companies not really limited when a state govt laywer changes their mind? If someone breaks the law then charge the person who breaks the law (the point here is a headline for a politican...which is unfortunate given that some people at the company were clearly acting improperly).

Also, transferring money to a Swiss bank account is not against the law. The lawyer quoted says it was moved offshore to "conceal" the source of money...that isn't how money laundering works. You need to move it to an account that won't report to the US authorities..this doesn't exist in Switzerland or anywhere in the world (a disadvantage of weak libel laws, I am pretty sure this would be actionable in Commonwealth law systems given how obviously erroneous and misleading the statement is).

The whole lawyer/politician thing in the US is entertaining as an outsider. It is utterly bizarre when considered using any kind of logic.

<comment><USER21> Transferring assets to different entities prior to impending bankruptcy is clear cut fraud.

The company was charged and convicted of a felony which would pierce the corporate veil.

<comment><USER20> It isn't. It is called fraudulent conveyance, and it is well covered by existing law (it is not fraud, it is not a criminal act). And the issue, as the article repeatedly says, is about personal wealth.</comment></comment></comment>


Battlecode – AI Programming Competition - <AUTHOR> http://www.battlecode.org/contestants/ <comment><USER3> If anyone is interested in more of these, I'm trying to keep a list here. [https://github.com/dakaraphi/development- resources/blob/mast...](https://github.com/dakaraphi/development- resources/blob/master/README.md#game-based-learning)

<comment><USER4> I've built two niche games as AI programming games in ruby: Bang!: [https://github.com/KevinMcHugh/mustached- nemesis](https://github.com/KevinMcHugh/mustached-nemesis) The Resistance: [https://github.com/KevinMcHugh/secret- nemesis](https://github.com/KevinMcHugh/secret-nemesis)

I'd like to find a community to share these with but have no idea what these things are even called.

<comment><USER5> I think it'd be neat to have a coordination service that runs tournaments for AIs playing games like Resistance. People register a URL with the service that exposes an API that lets the coordination service tell them the current state of the game, and responds with their next move, if any. People could then write these AIs in whatever they want (and bear most of the cost of running them for tournament style simulation).

<comment><USER6> You might be interested in [http://vindinium.org](http://vindinium.org) It has a REST api so it doesn't matter what language you write your bot in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This reminds me of Codingame, they have a similar challenge where you code an AI for a Dice Wars-like game and send it off to the ladder to compete against other people. It's great fun

<comment><USER8> I love codingame! I looked into it before recommending it to a friend and got all sucked in. I'm currently working on an AI bot there for a competition. It's fun and forcing me to go do research on AI concepts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If anyone is interested in learning more specifically about the Battlecode competition, I wrote a blog post giving a brief overview of the competition a few years ago: [http://cory.li/battlecode-intro/](http://cory.li/battlecode- intro/)

Also, we open sourced our winning 2012 bot on bitbucket here if you want to see the type of code that goes into it: [https://bitbucket.org/Cixelyn/bcode2012-bot](https://bitbucket.org/Cixelyn/bcode2012-bot)

</comment><comment><USER10> Sweet fancy Moses why is MIT still requiring Adobe Flash Player to watch the results in 2016?

In any case here is a link to the finals on YouTube which works with mobile devices:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4ruUyCbhnWg](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4ruUyCbhnWg)

<comment><USER9> The "watch" links let you watch the actual battle simulation results in a really old viewing engine written almost 6+ years ago in Adobe Air. It was amazing at the time since you didn't have to install the full Java client just to view the matches.

The devs probably have their hands full implementing the actual game -- pretty sure no one has had time to port the codebase to something more modern. The competition organizers are primarily MIT students doing this in their spare time, so they have classwork and other things to deal with as well. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wow, this reminds me of GISMO from 1991 or so. Teams of 8 tanks, 2 bases, terrain included water, mountains, forests, and plains. Implemented in dos and required a modem to compete.

Neat framework, well before it's time, very few competitors that worked. They resisted the recommendation to support TCP instead of modems and linux, even after it was ported.

It was modeled after the M1 abrams as part of a research project in AI controlled teams.

I tinkered with it, I liked it because the terrain was complicated enough to lend itself to quite a few strategies. I've not seen anything similar since.

[http://stars.library.ucf.edu/istlibrary/104/](http://stars.library.ucf.edu/istlibrary/104/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Cool! Reminds me of something that I did [http://javier.xyz/clashjs/](http://javier.xyz/clashjs/) a JS AI battle game :)

</comment><comment><USER13> Shameful plug: with a few friends we are planning to create another platform for such fun games. If you think it is a good idea, please sign up: [https://www.botolympiad.com/](https://www.botolympiad.com/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Is that a remake of the Google AI Challenged that ended after the awesome ant game?

<comment><USER11> What awesome ant game?

<comment><USER15> This one: [http://ants.aichallenge.org/](http://ants.aichallenge.org/) I greatly enjoyed it, and it taught me Python. I keep checking back in the hopes someone will get a new competition together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Are there competitive AIs generated by machine learning? Or is it all custom coded?

<comment><USER17> It's generally custom, although we've had teams use ML strategies to tune their bots in the past. (I'm one of the people who runs this competition).

We impose tight runtime limits on the code your AI can run - <USER2> limiting the number of bytecodes the JVM can execute per turn per robot. This is partly pedagogical; it kinda-sorta simulates embedded programming, like for a real robot. It's also practical; it keeps people from accidentally DOS'ing themselves or our servers with infinitely-looping AI.

On the other hand, 20000 instructions per turn doesn't give you much leeway for, say, matrix multiplication, so most sophisticated ML isn't possible at runtime. You can do simple things, but they have to be tightly written.

<comment><USER18> What does it mean that "supported programming languages are Java and Scala"? Are other JVM languages allowed?

<comment><USER9> Other JVM languages are technically allowed, but AFAIK they generate way too much scaffolding & reflection-based flow such that you end up burning your entire bytecode computation budget just in calling one or two functions.

So yes, you could probably use Jython or Jruby, but you wouldn't be competitive against the people writing straight Java.

<comment><USER18> I bet Kawa Scheme performs well in that regard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I used to play this game back in the day: [http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/omega_](http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/omega_)

</comment><comment><USER20> "Amaze your future employer!" "Free food!"

I guess that working for free food is pretty amazing for a future employer.

</comment><comment><USER21> This was worth reading for the team names alone! Awesome.</comment>


Ascii Art Generator - <AUTHOR> https://asciiartgen.now.sh/ <comment><USER2> Looks like a frontend for the command line utility FIGlet ([http://www.figlet.org/](http://www.figlet.org/)) or toilet ([http://caca.zoy.org/wiki/toilet](http://caca.zoy.org/wiki/toilet)).

<comment><USER3> Except it's actually worse than typical frontends. It's maybe cleaner looking, but it doesn't allow you to test all font types at the same time.

<comment><USER4> [http://www.network-science.de/ascii/](http://www.network-science.de/ascii/) This one exists since 1996 and allows all fonts to be rendered. Option is very far on to top of font selection drop—down.

Edit: that to this

<comment><USER5> This!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here is another one, that lets you test all styles at once: [http://patorjk.com/software/taag/](http://patorjk.com/software/taag/)

<comment><USER7> Prefer this one a lot, used it for a long time.

Figlet's still figlet at the end of the day

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The best ASCII art editor I've seen is [http://www.jave.de/](http://www.jave.de/) . It's basically like MS Paint, but for ASCII art.

</comment><comment><USER9> For Windows users, I strongly recommend trying this beauty: [https://ascgendotnet.jmsoftware.co.uk/screenshots/](https://ascgendotnet.jmsoftware.co.uk/screenshots/)

It has numerous features for customization, such as specification for characters to be used in the art, font face, size. It mat export to text or png of the text in color. It allows you to adjust the color levels of the source image, or crop it on the fly.

It is not exactly the same type of software, as it actually generates using a source image. I use it sometimes to make gifts for friends.

</comment><comment><USER10> Does anyone know a tool like this that doesn't send queries to the server? I know there are command-line options, but I'm looking for something like a github.io URL that has no server-side component.

<comment><USER11> There appears to be at least two ECMAScript implementations that are compatible with the FIGlet font specification:

[https://github.com/scottgonzalez/figlet- js](https://github.com/scottgonzalez/figlet-js)

[https://github.com/patorjk/figlet.js](https://github.com/patorjk/figlet.js)

<comment><USER12> There's something hilarious and wonderful about the phrase "compatible with the FIGlet font specification".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There is also Monodraw[0] for Mac which is an editor for ASCII art.

[0]: [https://monodraw.helftone.com/](https://monodraw.helftone.com/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Generating all the styles at once could be helpful. Nice work

</comment><comment><USER15> [http://patorjk.com/software/taag/#p=display&h=0&v=0&f=Doh&t=...](http://patorjk.com/software/taag/#p=display&h=0&v=0&f=Doh&t=Ascii%20Art)

</comment><comment><USER16> Generate your own (manually):

TheDraw

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

</comment><comment><USER17> Can someone explain the `eftichess` type here? It seems to be mapped to sounds, maybe? I'm not able to find much information about it.

<comment><USER18> Looks like it's chess symbols, by Michel Eftimakis. See the raw font: [https://github.com/xero/figlet- fonts/blob/master/eftichess.f...](https://github.com/xero/figlet- fonts/blob/master/eftichess.flf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Just what I needed to caption sections of code in SublimeText ...

<comment> proto-n There are plugins for that! [https://github.com/adamchainz/SublimeFiglet](https://github.com/adamchainz/SublimeFiglet)</comment></comment>


Scores of IBM workers in Research Triangle Park may lose jobs in cutbacks - <AUTHOR> http://www.wral.com/business/story/9174379/

<comment><AUTHOR> Any laid-off IBM'ers who are interested in possibly collaborating on a startup, give me a shout. The startup is based around open-source knowledge management, BI and analytics. The goal is to be "The Red Hat of KM, BI and analytics."</comment>


AT&T Internet Tethering Comes to iPhone OS 4 Beta - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/05/att-internet-tethering-comes-to-iphone-os4-beta/

<comment><USER2> As said in the article, we've been here before. iPhone tethering was in the last beta, too. It never saw release.

AT&T promised tethering _by last fall_. I find it strange that they're such close business partners with Apple, considering how woefully they under- deliver on their promises, when Apple's MO is basically the exact opposite. The AT&T/Apple relationship has been a black mark on my perception of the company, and I've been an Apple evangelist for 12 years.

<comment><USER3> The flip side of that, is that AT&T isn't charging $3/month for visual voicemail.

AT&T was a compromise from the beginning. But there are pluses _and_ minuses to that; and the minuses hinge pretty heavily on physical location.

Further, no-one saw the jump in data usage coming. I see no reason to expect Verizon would have done any better with it. I frankly expect VZW complaints to start kicking in next year, if they keep selling Droid devices they way they've been.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't think this is any closer to reality than it was 2 days ago. The setting shown in the screenshots are not in the latest beta build I installed on the 3GS. Other developers confirmed that it's not in their build either. I have yet to hear someone say they have it.

<comment><USER5> If you really want to see it, resetting your network settings will show it. It's not really worth it though, considering you can't do anything with the setting right now, and you'll have to re-enter your WiFi/VPN/etc. settings after the reset.</comment></comment>