Let employees work from home - <AUTHOR> http://www.midnightdba.com/Jen/2017/05/employers-let-people-work-home/ <comment><USER3> The crab mentality here is really appalling :-(

I work remotely for 6+ years; during that time I created some unique algorithms, traveled around the world, met diverse types of people giving me unexpected inspirations from which business benefited tremendously (unique stuff nobody else has). I have the big 4 companies trying to contact me all the time if I wouldn't want to work for them, however seeing inside e.g. crammed offices of Google in Zurich with monitor next to monitor, makes it very unappealing.

Remote work requires focus and discipline. Focus is way easier than in an open office, discipline is more difficult. I still remember finishing some server part and tests while laying on a beach in Barcelona using their public Wi-Fi, getting tanned, and whenever I felt like, dipped into the sea - it was super energizing and motivating to continue working. Also viewing sunset above the place of refuge on the Hawaiian Big Island from a rented cottage, while sipping a cocktail and working on some advanced algorithm was superbly motivating. Just because some managers need to control everyone around and enforce the same misery on their subordinates doesn't mean there aren't better ways to work. It's actually stupid not to give people WFH and make them miserable commuting (some people spend up to 6 hours/day in the traffic). The technology is there, but the perceived lack of control and insecurity of power structures must spoil it for everyone, "'cause everybody is doing it in the office and it can't be done other way well". Phew

<comment><USER4> You are an exception. I was a huge advocate for working from home because I would get things done and end up saving two hours of commute.

Your perception of this approach changes relatively quickly in a managerial role.

If you are shaving 1-2 hours off your commute, then the overall output should be in line with whatever it was in the office. I probably met two other engineers that kept that in check.

<comment><USER3> It's not for everyone. You can often see middle-aged men escaping their homes and working long hours because they feel miserable around their wives; for them office is the only "safe space" they have. But for self-motivated high- performing communicative people WFH might be a much better arrangement. They might have a different problem - not knowing when to stop and risking a severe burnout which would be limited by office hours.

<comment><USER5> I have seen this too, but it turns out they also hide from their wife at the bar afterward.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _> Objections to work from home fall apart_

Essays from workers like Jen McCown isn't going to work.

What works is to have massively successful businesses that beat the competition _because their employees work remotely_. Since no multi-billion dollar business has demonstrated that specific cause & effect, the idea doesn't gain traction.

Yes, businesses like Basecamp and Automattic have remote workers but I'm talking about significant business successes on the scale of Google/Apple/SpaceX/etc. If a remote workforce can demonstrate unequivocal superiority, there would be endless case studies about it in Harvard Business Review and every manager would be copying it like the Six Sigma craze a few decades ago.

What the WFH movement needs is _evidence of massive business success_ instead of essays. So far, the real-world evidence just hasn't tipped the scales yet.

<comment><USER7> I don't follow your logic.

The vast majority of businesses aren't like Google or Facebook. The vast majority of the nation's GDP isn't created by companies like Google and Facebook. Hundreds of thousands of businesses are the size of Automattic, Basecamp, or smaller. Those businesses employ the the vast majority of workers. Therefore, Basecamp and Automattic are excellent role models.

Unequivocal success does not mean the same thing as Unicorn. A sustainable and profitable business of any size is an unequivocal success.

<comment><USER8> I am a big proponent of remote work but I think it's harder to manage a remote company. Automattic and Basecamp have excellent people in leadership who have a clear understanding of their company.

A lot of mediocre middleman managers in the typical company aren't capable of setting expectations and evaluating work results.

You need very good workers and leaders in a remote company.

<comment><USER9> > You need very good workers and leaders in a remote company.

I think that's a point that some people miss. To have remote workers, you need people who can effectively work remotely. It's a learned skill, like any other, and not everyone will be good at it.

Saying "we're only local" or "we're only remote" is a bad idea, you can have both and call it a win on both ends.

<comment><USER8> "Saying "we're only local" or "we're only remote" is a bad idea, you can have both and call it a win on both ends"

Honestly, I think it needs to be one or the other. Mixing some remote people into an otherwise local team often doesn't work.

<comment><USER10> A big thing in this thread is "fully remote."

The fact is WFH does not need to be a full time thing for most companies. Just offer it as a benefit-if you want, you can work from home 2 days a week, or WFH if you need to be home to pick up a package or have a doctors appointment.

That alone will make your company much more attractive.

<comment><USER8> 2-3 days per week should be a no-brainer. Especially for developers writing code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I worked remotely, from home, for 5 years. These days, I work mostly in the office, with a 40 minute commute each way, despite the option for occasional working from home.

There's a few reasons to prefer working in the office. The single biggest one is the hard delimiting of the work day; when I'm not in the office, I'm not working, I'm not available on email or chat, and unless it's an exceptional situation, nobody will phone me either. My evenings belong to me and my loved ones only. That's precious. It's far too tempting to let one thing bleed into the other when working from home.

The biggest secondary one is influence on the business. Simply being present when decisions are being made, whether they're technical or business, means you have a chance to speak up and help set direction. Stuff that emanates over remoteable media like chat, email, project planning tools tends to be after the meeting, not before or instead of the meeting. This doesn't change for a company until most / all of the workforce is remote, and that's simply not true for most companies. If you're interested in a career, turning up is a significant boost for most people.

The final one is bandwidth and transaction costs. Chat is a dreadful medium for remote communication - if you've ever had to sit there waiting for a reply, and wonder whether it would be more efficient to switch back to what you were doing - it's almost impossible to come to a decision in good time in chat. I've seen 5 minute conversations take half an hour. Starting a video chat is far better, but it has a big barrier to entry; it's not like talking to someone a few desks over. Try and do it with 4 or more people, and it turns into a coordination problem, people dropping in and out, someone eating while not on mute, synchronization for startup, etc.

Frankly, I prefer email. You can put together a logical argument, a coherent or strawman proposal, and discuss things at length point by point. It's much higher bandwidth. But too few people read long emails, and even fewer respond correctly with inline replies. The days when people were trained on newsgroup netiquette are long gone.

<comment><USER12> > when I'm not in the office, I'm not working

This resonates very strongly with me. A "wfh" day for me means I get half as much done. My home is where I keep all my distractions!

> You can put together a logical argument, a coherent or strawman proposal, > and discuss things at length point by point. It's much higher bandwidth. But > too few people read long emails

My trick for this: I write the email, then I go back to the to start and write a 3-4 sentence summary of the rest of it. Often doing that leads me to delete the rest of the email entirely. Always check: are you writing at length to help someone else, or just to clarify your own thoughts?

<comment><USER9> I had a manager that asked me to put summaries at the top of my emails. It was super effective.

I also label sections as to who they target (ex, when something is a technical explanation that not everyone needs) and add footnotes (with raw data and the like) when it's appropriate.

I'm a serial long-emailer, but I've learned how to interact with normal society ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As a divorced single guy with not too many friends, I look forward every day to go to work and have people around me. I interact socially only with three or four of my office mates. Anyway, I may be the exception, but I am not an employee who wants to work from home.

<comment><USER12> Even as a married guy, apart from my wife the people I speak most to are the people at my office. I'd go nuts if I worked solely from home.

Are you also in the 30-something friend-slump? My parents (late 60s) have a more active social life than me.

<comment><USER14> Meetups and friends of spouses etc... Golf works as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This article essentially boiled down to: I want X. A few companies already offer X. You should offer X too.

There are sometimes advantages to offering full or partial work-from-home options to employees. For some projects and company cultures, it can work well. But honestly, this blog post was a rather shallow argument in favor of it.

<comment><USER16> I think what the article is _trying_ to say is that employers' arguments are more often bullshit than legitimate (and obviously, both sets of employers think their arguments are legitimate), so usually they should just give it a shot.

<comment><USER17> Unfortunately, that's not meaningfully different from, "I want X, you should offer X." It is basically the same as saying, "I want X, some companies do X, give it a shot" in persuasive power.

I love working from home and have done it for most of my career. The next job I take will probably be in an office though for a change of pace. I honestly find that despite my personal affection for it, most arguments in favor of remote work really just aren't very compelling.

"Some companies do it successfully" is not compelling to most companies. It's a disingenuous portrayal of the real difficulties and sacrifices that need to occur for remote work to be successful. Remote work rarely works partially, because without a deep seated remote culture the employees who are not in the office will be fundamentally left out of subtle but important group interactions. If you are the only remote employee on your team, they're not going to video conference with you to have a spur of the moment discussion that leads to a business insight. Conversely, asking a company without a remote culture to change is asking all of the employees who are already there to embrace a new, unfamiliar culture where they can't just lean over and ask someone a question.

It's my personal opinion that there is a very vocal minority that wants remote work to succeed, a more silent swath larger than the first that is indifferent, followed by a supermajority that silently disapproves (or at least, wouldn't want to work in such an environment). Even though I enjoy it, it appears selfish to me to ask companies to offer remote work without significant evidence it will work for them, all the while imposing a real communication cost on employees that work there who already thoroughly enjoy the status quo.

It seems to me like it's similar to a lot of other things in professional life: you can't have everything, and if this is really important to you then find a job that offers it. But don't expect companies to alter their organizational machinery to cater to you when they have no reason to.

<comment><USER10> Vacation days weren't compelling either. There is no business case for vacation days like you're asking for, except, similar to WFH options, it makes for happier employees. I'm sure you'd scoff at a company offering no vacation.

Also, it's sad to label employees preferring benefits and choice as selfish, vs huge companies sitting on piles of cash maybe losing .00000005% in productivity, if that's even true.

The same old arguments get trot out, and your arguments show where you are professionally. Business insight? Sorry to say but most people work to collect a paycheck. They don't make decisions, and typically their "insights" are ignored by management anyway. For every "insight" from a group discussion, there are just as many people working on their own, making important discoveries or taking steps forward.

This isn't band of brothers. I don't need subtle discussions or have to pick up on social cues nor am I a manager who has decision making power. I don't need to form lasting bonds with anyone. I just want flexibility with my hours to make my life more convenient-and a place that values that will get a lot more out of me than a place that doesn't. That is what the essay says: if you want to expand your options in hiring, offer at least partial WFH. And put me in the boat that agrees with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think WFH is a great idea, but until we can do multi-user video conferencing over the average home internet connection, it just isn't going to be as good as in-person interactions. However, once we can reliably see one another's faces in HD and share screens at the same time, it might even be superior to sitting next to someone and having them try to look over your shoulder as you show them something or ask a question. WFH is all about communication tech. If it's high grade, WFH works. If it's low grade, it doesn't.

<comment><USER19> Doesn't Google Hangouts let you do this? Is the average home connection not good enough for hangouts?

<comment><USER20> Just today we tried slack for video and screen share (I can only view in chrome on Linux, but that was enough for today). Slack was stable, clear, didn't drop and didn't heat up computers like Hangouts. Our two failed attempts on hangouts were right before trying slack.

We have on our list to request early access to Hangout Meet (if that is the right name).

We have a remote team, all with average home connections. The ironic part is when we try to have a meeting with the office and their network is the issue and all of us at home are still on the call and seeing clearly seeing each other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I like working from home sometimes. A line is crossed for me when a company goes 100% remote.

I would go crazy working from home day in and day out. I actually did have a borderline nervous breakdown years ago because I couldn't take being alone so much of the day. In fact if I have to work from home full time again I would pay to have a membership in a co-working space just to be around other humans.

I think work from home full time reinforces the idea that programmers and anti-social and not creative. The opposite is true for many (most?) of us. And for people who are social and creative you need other humans around.

I say let people work from home but make sure they have the option of an office.

<comment><USER22> Curious about the implied link between social-ness and creativity.. care to expound? I can think of several individuals who are highly creative but who prefer being alone.

<comment><USER21> > Curious about the implied link between social-ness and creativity

They are linked in that I think they are both related to working in an office.

\- Social interactive as it relates to an office environment is fairly obvious

\- As far as creativity... that requires more explanation. That was more a response to people saying things like "I can get more code done working from home"... as a manager who also still codes (a lot) I can say, I am paying you to solve problems not write code. If the problem gets solved I don't care if it is 10000 lines of code or 10. Solving problems takes creativity. And for many people, creativity is enhanced by being around other people. Other people expose you to new ideas. You can still do that work from home but but I think an office accelerates. Granted, history is full of people who were immensely creative but also recluses, so that can swing both ways.

<comment><USER23> _I am paying you to solve problems not write code._

Really glad to hear this, it's something that people seem to easily lose sight off

 _If the problem gets solved I don 't care if it is 10000 lines of code or 10. Solving problems takes creativity. And for many people, creativity is enhanced by being around other people_

That may be true for some people, but it's diametrically the opposite for others. Partly just pure personality, but I'd also argue that working with others biases towards "fine grained" solutions where your contribution dovetails with other pieces. Working alone for non-trivial increments of time makes it easier to step back and think about whether there's a single piece that can solve the whole problem.

Finally, the specific case of WFH often (not always) makes it easier to step away from the computer for an hour or two when you're stuck, perhaps prepare lunch or even go for a walk. That's a far more fertile setup for inspiration to strike than sitting in front of a blank text file.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The problem with work from home for companies is that they need managers that can actually evaluate someone's work. Most of the time this is not happening (either there are too many things to know or the manger never did any actual work for a very long time).

Also the problem is that companies want to hire the best and the brightest and then they quickly turn around and they don't trust their employees. Funny enough this is exactly how communist countries operated: they needed very smart people to fight the West but then they could not trust them because smart people had a tendency to like the West.

<comment><USER25> > ...they need managers that can actually evaluate someone's work. Most of the > time this is not happening...

When the situation that managers in aggregate do not know how to evaluate their staff's work prevails at a company, forcing everyone on-prem and letting the managers evaluate _that_ is likely what causes a lot of the organizational dysfunction we talk about. WFH definitely offers managers fewer readily- available cues to evaluate their direct reports, but I wonder what a quantification of those cues versus those available on-prem by a professionally-trained anthropology observation team might turn up.

I hear a lot of stories of people getting pissed off that a less-capable coworker is far more successful within the organization because the coworker was fantastic at say, face-to-face networking within the organization. Could such activity be much more difficult to pull off in a WFH-dominant organization, and fool managers who are deficient staff evaluators in an on- prem-dominant organization, sufficient to offset the drawbacks of WFH?

To a certain extent, I think the WFH-versus-on-prem debate obscures an overarching requirement that managers still must sweat out the details, and cannot delegate to a set of company policies the need to lead and manage, a core component of which is knowing your direct reports at a granular level in many dimensions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> We know that workers want choice, autonomy. Whether they really want to work from home is only an unanswered question because of a bigger question that isn't always answered very well.

How productive am I?

When teams do well in defining production metrics (aka key performance indicators/KPI), and employees have some way to know what conditions work best for optimizing their KPI, they figure out if they want to work from home, the office, the subway, etc.

I was probably most productive at a job that just had an enjoyable environment, three-quarter height cubicles (i.e. almost private, reasonable sound division) that were tucked away from phone users and conference rooms, solid team contribution on projects (inclusion of key players in kick-off meetings, without excessive status checking, but cooperative design from developers, design, business analysts, etc.) and... very occasional work from home. It helped that I lived less than 10 minutes away, too, and could come in at (what I consider) a reasonable hour, rather than forcing myself awake.

In addition, we had "billable" targets - we'd work together on estimates, and we'd try to spend 80% or more of our time measurably attributable to projects. We could readily access this information, and know how well we were doing.

But... there are other jobs where remote work is far superior. Noisy open spaces, cramped workspaces with not enough monitor real estate. Then I just want to get out of there. I want to have the choice, and the ability to know if I made the right choice, by looking at how productive I am.

</comment><comment><USER27> Efficacy of remote workers is just a thing some people really want to be true, but it's not clear that it's true at all. (It's also not clear that it isn't, but the evidence is nowhere near as overwhelming as some people make it out to be)

</comment><comment><USER28> I don't believe WFH actually works (as an exclusive means of working for everyone). I have done the WFH thing for a couple of years at a startup (where everyone was remote), and even leaving aside the camaraderie aspect, collaboration was always a challenge.

You're forced to give up several ways of communication which are valuable. You can't walk into a colleagues office for a quick whiteboard discussion. You have to schedule time when both of you are available. Not only that if the discussion brings up things that other people are working on you have to again wait and schedule time with them too. You also can't pickup on non-verbal cues, which can tell you if they're nervous/apprehensive/unhappy about something in the project, etc. You give up laughing at silly things over lunch, or sharing a quick joke as you pass someone in the hallway, or giving someone a hug on their birthday. All the little things that do lift your spirit when you're frustrated or feeling a bit low.

</comment><comment><USER29> To The Author:

Please show us some numbers to back up the claims? The few numbers that you do provide either fail to support your argument or can be construed to contradict it. (I am thinking of: everybody wants to the option to work from home followed by 35% would change jobs for the option to work from home, even if it is part-time.)

Also, anecdotes don't cut it. You can find counter examples to almost anything that is based upon human nature, particularly when it involves self-assessment or personal opinions. Businesses will care more about the quantifiable. The bigger the business, the more likely they are to care about the average over a large group of workers (rather than individual cases).

I am sorry, but most of the debate over working from home is based upon what people want rather than what businesses or even their employees need. Your article does nothing to change that. If you want to change people's opinions, please be more persuasive by dealing with the quantifiable rather than the subjective.

<comment><USER30> Hi there, author here. The article actually links to a NY Times article and the Gallup study that it cites. But remember, this is an opinion piece. I've been in the industry for 15 years...hang on, no, it's 20 years, but who's counting? And except for those stats and linked articles, these are my observations and opinions.

I can't write an article that will convince 100% of the people. A book deal and a set of long discussions wouldn't convince 100%. If you disagree with me, that's fine. I spent my time knocking down the most common arguments I've heard, and a little time talking up the observed benefits.

One final point: I think companies should take "what people want" as part of their career into account! Even big business doesn't completely dismiss trends in the workplace - which are indeed driven, in part by what workers demand. More places offer considerations for ergonomics, pleasant work spaces, tea and coffee rooms, snacks, health programs, and so on. This is just one more thing, and this is my small contribution to the talks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Imagine how much energy the world would save if most people where working from home. Electricity, transport fuel. How much less pollution and traffic jams. How much less need to build cars and transport systems. How much extra time to enjoy life would people have by not commuting.

With so huge positives. I don't understand why not more research is put into work-from home.

</comment><comment><USER32> I don't want to work from home, thanks anyway. Except on bad weather days.

Then again, I'm at a senior principle engineer level, and need to have face time with my VPs and directors in addition to other devs. I don't believe it would be possible to work at the level I'm at remotely, nor to be promoted to such a level. And my commute isn't horrid at ~25min.

<comment><USER30> "Except bad weather days."

Exactly! Your company has to offer any kind of WFH to allow that!

<comment><USER32> And I do work from home on bad weather days so this isn't an issue

<comment><USER30> That's marvelous. The point is that many companies don't allow that, and should.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Was in a management meeting the other week where HR mentioned they were considering implementing a more official work-from-home policy. What we're trying to get away from is hourly employees 'working from home' when really they're sick, by offering formalized remote work opportunities. Sounded great until they mentioned the 'monitoring systems' they were evaluating. I shared my very strong opposition to the proposed monitoring systems, went home and crafted a Less-Orwellian Remote Office policy. Shared the policy with HR the next day, and they really liked it, agreeing there were ways to accomplish the goals without surveillance.

Writing the policy was trickier than I expected. Started very much with a spirit of 'Hire people you trust,' but thinking about the policy, applied to specific people who have been hired, it brought some more specific guidelines to the policy. Here are the highlights:

Eligibility for Remote Work (pick 4 from: 1 year with company, management status, strong performance record or recommendation from team lead, one department-specific criteria)

Requirements for the Remote Office (minimum equipment, ample space, etc. clearly defined)

Approval Process & Remote Work Guidelines / Contract (lays out guidelines for working remotely and collects employee commitment to adhere)

Saw some commentary that the frequency of working from home shouldn't be a privilege (i.e. if you do a good job, you can work from home for a week), that it should be as routine as possible, so we're making eligibility to work remotely, on a set frequency, an attainable privilege (so it can be revoked if necessary).

For the alternatives to surveillance, we will be implementing some improved communication tools, and departments will be adopting the concept of an ultra- brief daily scrum.

Tried to keep it lean, will be interesting to see where it excels and where it can improve.

<comment><USER34> > Eligibility for Remote Work (pick 4 from: 1 year with company, management > status, strong performance record or recommendation from team lead, one > department-specific criteria)

I'm guessing "pick 4" is a typo, since you only listed four criteria, but "management status" strikes me as odd. Assuming this means "be a manager to qualify for this option", which may be an entirely incorrect assumption, I think this is actually backwards. Managers are the people who need to be on site most. 80% of a managers job is interacting with people. Unless their entire team is remote, a manager should really be in the office to quickly handle issues as they come up and be available to their team as needed. Difficulty around effective communication is the biggest down side to remote work, in my opinion.

This strikes me as favoritism towards the managerial class, rather than an actual good policy. Otherwise, sounds like an interesting way to handle it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I've a contrarian view on this. Not all IT jobs are amenable to remote work. Some work benefits from tighter collaboration than current technology offers. Sometimes that collaboration is with folks other than IT staff, who may be less comfortable using technology solutions for collaboration.

If the inputs and outputs of your job can be delivered entirely over email and version control commits, then work from home is a good idea. However, how do you deliver more value than someone from a developing country if your pipes are so narrow? I think there's still a lot of room for the value provided by teams working closely together.

<comment><USER36> Basically every piece of useful information that can be encoded using your voice can also be encoded using an email - and in a much more efficient way, since you don't have to keep deciphering emotional cues. Of course, expressing emotions, for example, can be harder, but I don't think engineers should be relying too much on expressing their emotion as a way to do a good job.

<comment><USER37> Text is the least efficient of all forms of commutations.

How long to write a long email? How long to speak to someone?

<comment><USER38> > How long to write a long email? How long to speak to someone?

A better question is how long to say something that is well thought out and matters vs. how long to write something that is well thought out and matters. I have found that talking leads to lots of talking with little real substance unless it is meant to be a brainstorm session. And even then, writing ideas down before hand help to quickly get to the sticking points rather than bike shedding over something trivial and wasting everyones time.

Writing out a page long email forces the writer to think through and address their idea more seriously up front. This is why Bezos famously requires a written memo for a new idea _before_ the meeting [0].

[0] [http://blog.idonethis.com/jeff-bezos-self-discipline- writing...](http://blog.idonethis.com/jeff-bezos-self-discipline-writing/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I have some IBMer friends that have been recently notified that their remote working privileges are going to be terminated.

</comment><comment><USER40> I switched to freelancing so I could work remotely without questions asked. Worked quiet well.

It also showed me that I have a problem with employment in general. People telling me when to work where and on what. It agitates me.

</comment><comment><USER41> I've always looked for companies that offer flexible working options. My employer has a default of being in-office but allows for flexible hours (like working 7 - 3, or splitting my day) and allows for occasional remote work. In return for this benefit I end up working more. Days I would have taken off for appointments, obligations, extremely bad weather, or mild illness I end up working remotely.

I also find that days when I work from home tend to be more productive - <USER2> pets and no family means I have no distractions at home, I can just sit and code all day.

</comment><comment><USER42> Careful what you wish for. If your company works out a system where everyone can reliably work 100% remotely, you become a very replaceable cog. Replaceable from a much cheaper labor pool.

<comment><USER43> Why does working from home make someone more replaceable than someone working from an office?

I would think in most IT positions the thing that makes one least replaceable is their value to the team. If you constantly provide in the form of More code written or servers maintained because you can focus better then you could be more valuable. I don't think working from home directly relates to values, and I think arguments can be made for value increase or reduction.

<comment><USER42> You compete with a larger pool when working 100% from home. Both skillwise and costwise.

<comment><USER43> That is an interesting take on it. I am comfortable with that, but I can see why many might not be.

I will have to think more on that to see all of the ramifications. Immediately, I can see how it looks like businesses might try to hire devs from inexpensive overseas shops, but I know why employers rarely do that a second time. Then there are the really expensive devs who are clearly some of the best in their field, but that is so expensive few shops would consider it.

as an aside, I suspect working from home as a cultural shift would allow some real estate prices to normalize. There would be less need to move many people into very expensive areas.

<comment><USER42> Sure. It doesn't have to be overseas though. A SV startup switching to work from home could save money by hiring remote developers from cheaper places in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The article assumes that making money is the primary goal of a corporation. If it was, then sure, WFH would make sense.

However, the corporation is not a sentient entity. It cannot desire anything, be it money or something else. It's only human participants that have incentives.

Of those, only shareholders have direct incentive to make profit, but even then they may own the shares for speculative purposes and desire share price to grow, not necessarily the profit. And even that's not necessarily true: Those who short their position may actually want the shore price to drop.

But shareholders in fact don't have much influence of business decisions of the corporation. Those are delegated to the management. The management, in turn, has incentives to extract as much rent from the business as possible. Thus, it cares about profits only to the extent where it adds to their rent. Increasing profit while decreasing the rent is a bad trade-off.

Regular employees, in their turn have incentives very similar to the management. They want to be paid as much as possible without losing the job.

All in all, you can think of it as of struggle for a limited resource (bananas, share of profit) in a group of chimpanzees.

Now, imagine what would happen if one chimpanzee refused to participate in the group's interactions, walked away, but still demanded his share of bananas. It's not going to work.

In the end, I would say that WFH would only work if everybody worked from home, completely changing the way the group interacts.

<comment><USER45> What if one chimpanzee sometimes stepped away from the group and all their bickering, noise, ego-driven shenanigans, and other distractions? Maybe that chimpanzee would pick more bananas (and share them with the group).

Office culture is often (I'd say usually) toxic and/or inefficient. Being in the office doesn't mean any useful work is getting done. And just because people are in the same general vicinity doesn't mean they're interacting in a useful/beneficial way or even interacting at all.

Working from home is certainly different from working in the office, but being in the office isn't some natural state of affairs or a particularly useful baseline.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> All I need as a programmer is a place where I can concentrate. If I can't do that at work, my employer has failed in a self-defeating way.

</comment><comment><USER47> I'm all for WFH opportunities, but just to play devil's advocate I do really think there's a difference in team dynamics when everyone's in the office collaborating in person versus working remotely.

I'm not saying it has a significant impact on productivity, but the team "connectedness" is sometimes not as strong if some people are never in the office.

</comment><comment><USER48> To the people who say`I'd go crazy if I worked from home`. The trick is not to work entirely from home, but to mix it up with an shared office, co-work space, cafe, etc. There's a big difference in having people around you that don't know you. They wont distract you because they won't talk to you or call you into a meeting.

</comment><comment><USER49> I feel like my current setup is perfect for me. I work at an office that is 15 minutes away by car with no traffic and 30-35 mins with traffic and via back roads. I can go in and leave when I want, as long as I am doing the work. I have _never_ been a morning person. Essentially, I wake up at 8, hang around my house til 8:45-10 depending on the day and zip into the office. I then work until 5 and do some more work either before or after at home. There are 2-3 days a week that I work from home if I feel like it. I will come in for a half day over lunch break. Or I will leave at or after lunch and finish the day at home. Basically, I am presented both options and do what I want. I don't think I would want either exclusively, but the ability to mix and match is wonderful!

</comment><comment><USER50> I'm the founder of my own company and my co-founder and I both work from home -- our respective homes that is. I know my experience is probably not what people have in mind when they think of a work-from-home employee, but for what its worth -- my productivity is orders of magnitude greater than it was when I was employed (at Yahoo!) Productivity is more a function of motivation(+) and bureaucracy(-) than anything else. Skype and telephone, and the commit log seem more than enough for us to keep abreast of each others' doings (although we definitely meet about once a week for a 5-6 hours) I would absolutely hate to have to micro-manage someone to the point that they have to be in the same room as me to get work done. (I'd rather hire a more self-driven individual)

<comment><USER51> So you are running a two person company? I think some of the issues with remote work come when the company scales up to 10+ people. Coordinating among multiple people becomes more complicated. The skill level of individuals start to vary. Something that could have been hashed out in 5 minutes on a white board takes half an hour.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Here's the problem I run into: I can get 90% of my work done at home, but my boss can't. So I have to come in every day because he has to. It's completely childish, and I imagine this is the same in a lot of places.

I personally would love to give the ability for my employees to work at home, even if I didn't. I don't understand the mindset where people don't want things to be better for someone else... even if they can't also be better for you. This happens even when those benefits to others come at no cost to yourself.

Does anyone else have any experience overcoming this with someone else? Like it's bad to the extent where if this person works late he'll be passive aggressive towards everyone who doesn't have to also work late.

</comment><comment><USER53> Or don't.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

There is a story of mysql as a company who had an employee who was not reachable for a few months.

Yahoo got there workforce back at the office.

I personally like to have the option to work at home when necessary and i might get more stuff done at home i also might just not work.

<comment><USER54> I'm not sure I would take anything Yahoo is doing as an example of a good idea.

<comment><USER55> They did buy a share in Alibaba! Yahoo's share in Alibaba is worth more than the total value of Yahoo. So, if you buy Yahoo, fire all its staff, close all its web sites, and then liquidate its share in Alibaba, you can make a lot of money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Having worked at home for many years the hardest thing i found was to switch of from work and have a home life. even after reading all the article on separating work/home life. now i work in a office i feel i get more done.

</comment><comment><USER57> An open plan office can be productive if people move long discussions to meeting rooms, and try to solve their problems via chat or e-mail.

An open plan office where everyone is trying to talk, quickly degrades into people raising their voice to be heard, becoming a yelling mess where it's impossible to do serious work unless you are very good at ignoring noise, or you are blocking noise physically... like using earplugs or moving to a meeting room.

Working from home, you can just focus and do your work. However this is not the case for everyone. If you live with a bunch of people or pets this might not be your case.

</comment><comment><USER58> I have been working remotely for 6+ years and it would be very hard for me to go back to an office. I have complete control over my life right now, can work from anywhere, make my own hours, etc.

</comment><comment><USER59> I have mixed feelings about WFH. I love the idea and it works perfectly for those that don't/can't commute. Can work independently with out direct supervision. Then there are some that need the office structure to get their work done.

But, sadly, there are some that abused WFH privilege. And we, for the most part know what the out come is when a small group of people abuse a privilege - it's gets removed as a whole.

</comment><comment><USER60> I worked remote from home, or at least a building 100ft from my home, for many years.

But then I founded a company and made that building its International HQ. So now I'm not remote any more.

</comment><comment><USER61> "Everybody – EVERYBODY, I say – wants at least the option of work from home."

I think his sentence nails it. I also prefers working at the office and interacts with fellow developers either formally (meeting) or informally (water-cooler talk), but it makes no sense to force anyone to be at the office all the time.

I'd like the flexibility of working remotely out of country or WFH during rush hours and commute whenever I want. This really affects my decision to join or leave the company.

<comment><USER62> Everybody wants it, few can handle it in a responsible way for more than a few days per month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> _I know a handful of professionals who don't want to work from home at all…but even those people admit that they want the flexibility to work from home on days when their kids are sick, the car has a flat, or workers are coming, rather than having to take time off of work._

Is this a problem that people who work in technical fields actually have? Even in companies with aggressively unfriendly WFH policies, I've had good luck requesting time at home in situations like the above.

<comment><USER30> Yes. I have a colleague whose kids get sick a lot, and they're very concerned that a firing is imminent for that reason.

<comment><USER14> Family Medical leave might be helpful.. You can schedule it e.g. take 1 day off a week or something. It's protected.

<comment><USER30> It's a lot harder to navigate that one might think, and FMLA is for serious illnesses, not "one kid got the flu this week and another got the runs last week and before that it was stomach upset and before that..." etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> I felt the need to write a full article as a response, and link it here in place of a comment in the hope that it won't be viewed as gratuitous self- plugging:

[https://likewise.am/2017/05/19/in-response-to-the-cult-of- re...](https://likewise.am/2017/05/19/in-response-to-the-cult-of-remote- working/)

</comment><comment><USER63> I can't help but think that a lot of this desire is driven by the existence of far-flung suburbs and painful commutes. I was planning to work from home today to receive a delivery that now seems to be delayed, so, since I live within walking distance to the office, I decided to come in anyway.

I guess if I lived an hour away I'd have preferred to stay home.

</comment><comment><USER65> I think these arguments are missing a big aspect of successful companies: culture.

How can you have good office culture if everyone works from home?

<comment><USER30> You're missing the point that WFH doesn't mean "all employees must WFH full time".

WFH is everything from "I gotta go home, the kid's sick" to "I'm going to WFH Wednesdays to concentrate", to "see y'all online!"

<comment><USER49> Exactly! That is what I have. I work from home about two days a week. The flexibility to work from home is what is golden. If my boss said "hey this week stay in the office," I am like can do. This also lets me visit inlaws and the like without using up loads of vacation. I don't have to worry about handling tedious things on weekends and it frees up my commute to do things like cut the grass. It is a win win.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Pro remote work but need like this tells me that maybe the tide is turning [https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2017/05/ibm-t...](https://arstechnica.com/information- technology/2017/05/ibm-to-remote-workers-come-back-to-the-mothership-or-else/)

</comment><comment><USER67> I charge almost double if client wants me on site, especially if all the company is crammed in open plan arrangement. You either can't focus well or have to keep destroying your hearing with headphones and work takes longer to complete. If WFH make sure to do a walk in the morning and after work and go somewhere for a lunch.

</comment><comment><USER68> I agree with many of the WFH benefits put forward in the article. However, I think it ignores & mischaracterizes many of the WFH costs.

Ignores:

* Face-to-face communication is often more efficient. Just my opinion, but conversations are usually faster and easier in person than over Slack or email. Asychronous communication can be nicer for certain things, but it sucks when that's the only option. Video hangouts are better, but there's a barrier to setting one up, and they're still not as effective as face-to-face.

* Presence in the office helps keep everyone in the loop. Team members are much more likely to speak to one another actively. They're more likely to understand what everyone else is working on. They're more likely to understand the business's main priorities and problems. Even physically just sitting a few desks away from someone, vs. right next to them, makes it less likely that two people will interact.

* The office provides important social interaction. If you work a lot, your office might be your main opportunity to have substantive interactions with other people. Some of my past coworkers have become my closest friends. People who work from home (I'd guess) are much less likely to form close bonds with their coworkers.

* A professional setting can be motivating. I find it energizing to walk into the office where everyone is working hard. My day is measured out in minutes and I feel a constant pressure to get something done. When at home, I feel the pressure less - it makes me feel better about what I get done, but it also makes me less productive.

* Boundaries between work & home are helpful for relaxation. The ritual of leaving the office helps reset the mind, I think. Otherwise, workdays easily bleed into evenings that neither productive nor relaxing.

Mischaracterizes:

* "Some people need close management". The internet is incredibly addictive & distracting. Sitting at home makes it much easier to succumb to that distraction. Obviously that can happen at work, but there's a limit: you can't watch Netflix, for instance. And you'd feel weird if your screen was constantly on Hacker News or Reddit or whatever every time someone walked by.

* "How do I know they're working if I can't see them?". This is a strong point and I agree that most managers over-emphasize face-time as a measure of productivity. But that doesn't mean it's useless. For non-routine, creative, or project-based work (e.g. engineering) it's hard to measure productivity. Deadlines can be great but oftentimes are artificial - much of the time, the most engineers can really promise is that they'll work efficiently, smartly, and to the best of their abilities during the workday. So it is of some benefit to the manager to see that the employee is there for 40+ hrs each week. Managers also want to know if their reports are frustrated, anxious, demotivated, happy, confused, etc. - much easier to get a read on that in person so that the manager can address it.

Many of my friends who are able to work from home choose to rent coworking space for many of the reasons above. Admittedly I rarely work from home, but I do manage people who work remotely. Also, neither me nor most of my friends are parents yet.</comment>


Ask HN: Realistic to apply for tech jobs as an undergrad in another country? - <AUTHOR>

I did SAT and AP in high school. However due to various factors I'm finishing my undergrad education in Hong Kong(I myself am not Hongkongese). I really don't see much point in doing a master's degree just for the sake of getting a job, not to mention the high tuition fee. I have decent experience in Ruby on Rails, having done programming job over a year for a startup, and also having built a web app on my own. I contribute to some open source projects and follow Hacker News regularly.<p>I don't know how difficult it would be for an undergrad from another country to get a job in places where programmers are highly remunerated. For a starter, you can hardly interview on-site. And from what I see, H1B visas are hard for smaller-sized companies to sponsor. I do hear somebody got hired by Google via some recruiting event they hosted outside of US, but that guy was an ACM-ICPC finalist. I don't know much about situations with smaller companies though. On the other hand, US-related information pretty much still dominate sites I usually go to, therefore employment situations in other countries such as Canada, Australia and Germany are less clear to me. It seems that people are crowding into the US in part because of its reputation in IT, but what about those other options out there. <comment><USER2> What citizenship/right to work in various countries do you have? Is your degree in computer science or software engineering? I think the US will require that you have a relevant degree in the field, or years of experience - I don't know if other countries have similar requirements.

I got a job with Microsoft in the US from Australia as an undergrad, and I know that they interviewed applicants from across Asia. Salaries are higher in the US than either Australia or the UK, from what I've seen, and there are many more jobs available in the US than in Australia.</comment>


My Thoughts on Codecademy - <AUTHOR> http://blog.oreillyschool.com/2011/12/my-thoughts-on-codecademy.html

<comment><USER2> The learning environments share a passing resemblance? How? Other than both being a screen with distinct areas for content, I'd say that they look fairly dissimilar.

A Honda shares a passing resemblance to a Toyota, but it's only because they share a common purpose.

Reads like a case of sour-grapes.</comment>


Ask HN: Can someone link me to the cartoon about forgetting how to dream? - <AUTHOR>

It was posted on hear a while ago, but I can't seem to find it. It was made like a children's story book; the premise was that we grow up and forget childhood dreams. I hate to use Ask HN like this, but I really want to use it as part of a presentation at school. I'll delete this immediately if anyone responds. <comment><USER2> I think you're looking for "An Awesome Book", by Dallas Clayton.

It actually _is_ a children's story book, and I bought a hardcover version the last time it came through here.

<http://veryawesomeworld.com/awesomebook/inside.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, thank you, thank you!</comment></comment>


Godwin's Law - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law <comment><USER2> People who invoke Godwin's Law are just like Adolf Hitler!

(End of discussion?)</comment>


Who's banned from editing Wikipedia this week? Congress - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/whos-banned-from-editing-wikipedia-this-week/

<comment><USER2> It seems like the recent vandalism was probably done for the lulz just because of the new Twitter bot that would be drawing attention to it. Even the protestation "Out of over 9000 staffers in the House, should we really be banning this whole IP range..." seems like a joke, as "birds in Omsk" may be a meme reference, and "KDE2 under FreeBSD" almost certainly is. Even "over 9000" is. (I see someone else has noticed this on the Talk page.)

Anyone who can write on a Talk page, can create an account or proxy to another IP, so the really nefarious edits are going to be made under different IPs or accounts. I wonder, are the obvious shady edits investigated by minimaxir in this thread, actually deliberately made public. E.g., Luis Fortuño (as an example, not an accusation) vandalizes his own page so everyone thinks his opponents did it.

[0] [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/welcome-to- omsk](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/welcome-to-omsk)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_does_one_patch_KDE2_under_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_does_one_patch_KDE2_under_FreeBSD%3F)

</comment><comment><USER3> I recently did an analysis of all Wikipedia edits made by Congress: [http://minimaxir.com/2014/07/caucus- needed/](http://minimaxir.com/2014/07/caucus-needed/)

There are many more IP addresses that the one mentioned in the article facilitating conflicts of interest.</comment>


What I Learned From A Code Review - <AUTHOR> http://www.matthewhughes.co.uk/my-code-is-bad-and-i-should-feel-bad-what-i-learned-from-a-code-review/

<comment><USER2> A bit unrelated to the point, but forward slashes can generally be used anywhere that backslashes typically are on Windows.</comment>


Ron Gilbert Publishes Source Code for Delores - <AUTHOR> https://grumpygamer.com/delores_dev <comment><USER2> Mostly closed license: "You may not use, alter or redistribute this Software for commercial purposes or in any manner that isn't for personal or hobby reasons. This includes, but is not limited to, selling altered or unaltered versions of this Software, or including advertisements of any kind in altered or unaltered versions of this source."

Also: "This repository does not include the source code for the engine, it is just the source for the game Delores." The engine is offered as a Win10 and macOS binary only.

Also: "Delores is coded in a custom language called Dinky that is based on and inspired by Squirrel."

Also: it requires the use of FMOD, a proprietary audio system.

These aren't knocks, just things worth being aware of before getting too excited at the headline.

</comment><comment><USER3> "P.S. The dev engine has all the same limitations as the game, so Mac 10.10, Win 10 (dx12) and unfortunately (at this time) no Linux build"

No Linux build yet. Ouch. Well at least better than nothing.</comment>


Show HN: cgen – A tool for writing C code with metaprogramming in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/saltzm/cgen <comment><AUTHOR> Hi! Creator of cgen here. cgen is a personal project of mine. As is, it has a sufficient amount of functionality for building a non-trivial project, but there are certainly many rough edges that will need to be found through further exploration and usage. I'd also like to emphasize that I find the paradigm of mixing code with code generation like this more fascinating and compelling than my particular implementation of it. I'd love to hear your comments both on the concept and on the particular implementation, and I'd be happy to look at pull requests for cool new usages or for improvements to core cgen.</comment>


Donate mozilla - <AUTHOR> https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/ <comment><USER2> Their FAQ ([https://wiki.mozilla.org/Donate#Don.27t_Mozilla_products.2C_...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Donate#Don.27t_Mozilla_products.2C_like_Firefox.2C_earn_income.3F)) contains pretty important information.

In particular, it answers why one should donate when Mozilla Corp makes money through corporate deals (e.g. Google and Yahoo search commissions). The answer is that all the money Mozilla Corp makes is reinvested back into Mozilla Corp (salaries etc). The Mozilla Foundation -- a non-profit which wholly owns Mozilla Corp -- is not funded by Mozilla Corp, but relies entirely on donations. Mozilla Foundations is responsible for philantropic education and awareness campaigns.

So this link is not about donating to Mozilla Corp, where the bulk of Firefox development happens. It's about donating to Mozilla Foundation.

<comment><USER3> This is exactly right. I'm an engineer at the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, and these donations keep us working towards our mission (found at [https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/about/manifesto/details/](https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/about/manifesto/details/)).

<comment><USER4> Now if only it all wasn't spent on the current massive expansion of the Marketing team and their new executive's salaries. The new CMO has a very checkered history with questionable results. Very much the nepotist who manages to pack his team with former colleagues.

Its a big and divisive internal issue right now. :(

<comment><USER5> At Mozilla _Foundation_? Got any links to discussions?

<comment><USER4> Admittedly, its all off record hearsay as it's not to smart to talk badly about your C-levels in public discussion. Though I must say, as a user its hard to sincerely distinguish the business motives of Firefox from other parts of the org. Especially in the recent push of the browser.

<comment><USER6> > not to smart to talk badly about your C-levels in public discussion

For certain things. But for badthink, seek and destroy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's a lot of stuff that Mozilla does, but I wish there were a way to donate and say "try your best to allocate my money for project X" within Mozilla (Corporation, which I now understand is not the one supported by donations). While Mozilla Corporation seems to primarily focus on Firefox and Firefox OS, I would like to see more attention and effort devoted on the following:

1\. Mozilla Thunderbird to get a lot more attention and a strong roadmap (something like the now defunct Mozilla Messaging initiative).

2\. A good high end Firefox OS phone that is widely available and gives a good enough competition to Android and iOS, even though it's quite late and it may not have an apps collection like the other platforms do.

3\. Reviving Persona/BrowserID, which many people here and elsewhere have asked for. From recent discussions I do understand this is not easy to do, but we need someone knowledgeable and available to take the lead and have Mozilla's brand pushing this for a wider reach.

<comment><USER8> You know what I bet'd really pique their interest around reviving Persona? Not a donation, but start talking about it and evangelizing it, and get together with other interested devs to get them to do the same.

Mozilla's going to respond a lot better to widespread public developer interest than to a $100 donation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Two donations made.

First, the money ($10).

Then, the post ([http://theunshut.com/2015/11/30/saving- mozilla/](http://theunshut.com/2015/11/30/saving-mozilla/)).

We'd be in a much different world today if Mozilla never existed. If any contributor/employee at Mozilla here reads this, THANKS.

<comment><USER10> contributor/employee at Mozilla here. Thank _you_.

<comment><USER9> ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think Mozilla is one of great organization and community. I love them as open source community. They are very polite and always helps and welcome to new bies. I really like the attitude of all the Mozillian. I think Open source world needed more polite and helpful people like Mozillians.

</comment><comment><USER12> While i do think mozilla is great, firefox is my main browser and i am following the servo project.

Just recently we had this article: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10630996](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10630996)

edit: @FooBarWidget had a good answer

<comment><USER13> Sorry, mistakenly downvoted :|

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> After reading the FAQ entry under "How will my donation be used", I have no idea what a donation would be used for. "In general, resources are dedicated to promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the Internet in ways that will benefit everyone." Extremely vague.

</comment><comment><USER15> I wish more people considered donating to Mozilla, Wikipedia, and other similar movements. I feel like many non-technical oriented people don't really understand that the software and websites they use are often times built completely with donated money, and cannot survive without it.

<comment><USER16> Wikipedia is big, stable, midly incremental and dominant[0]. Does it _need_ more money that its current baseload income?

If we applied the same traits to the browser market we'd be crying-out for an alternative.

I don't know _what_ that alternative is, so it's difficult to donate towards it. But I don't believe that encouraging more donations to Wikipedia is going to move collective human knowledge forward.

In contrast, Mozilla is constantly having to chase new technological targets and compete against well-funded corporate alternatives. I can understand why they need to keep expanding their income.

[0] deliberately setting-aside all the other subjective complaints about its internal processes.

<comment><USER17> Alternative would be encyclopedia Britannica. There every article is mostly behind paywall.

Wikipedia is dominant because it's better. They need money to keep servers running. If they don't get funding, they will simply die. There is no guarantee that similar project would ever fly again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This ship sailed when they purged Eich.

<comment><USER19> Wow, purged is right.

I don't generally follow tech. politics but reading about this episode is horrendous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Have they thought about coordinating with Amazon to make Mozilla a SMILE partner? I usually donate through them to the EFF, but it would be cool to throw some of it Mozilla's way.

<comment><USER21> Mozilla does have an Amazon Smile account. I believe you start at smile.amazon.com and search for Mozilla.

<comment><USER20> Oh, sweet! I guess I'll have to alternate between Mozilla and EFF now. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wikipedia and Mozilla are great products so I donate once a year for both projects.

</comment><comment><USER23> OT but what are they using to accept donations? I'm about to set up a donation page on a project I'm running and been looking for solutions. What do people recommend?

<comment><USER24> > OT but what are they using to accept donations? I'm about to set up a > donation page on a project I'm running and been looking for solutions. What > do people recommend?

Previously I worked at two different non-profits which needed to answer this same question. Both times, we chose Stripe, because it ended up being the best combination of simple for us to set up and fast for donators to use[0].

(Disclaimer: I now work at Stripe, but I'm answering your question based on my previous experiences as a Stripe customer, not in any official capacity).

[0] [https://stripe.com/checkout](https://stripe.com/checkout)

</comment></comment><comment> j-pb They are dead to me since they tried to kill WebSQL/WebDB. Mozilla has become to the web what Stallman has become for emacs.

</comment><comment><USER25> just wanted to add that maybe allowing to donate without javascript enabled could make easier for people to donate?

</comment><comment><USER26> Mozilla has become too politicized for me. When the board intervenes to fire the CEO for basic civic engagement which we should generally encourage in citizens, then they don't need my money any more.

<comment><USER4> I don't keep up too much, so what basic civic engagement issues have they acted on since the one highly publicized incident? A browser like Mozilla, and its place in the market, is overtly political in itself. It always has been; open source is politics. Heck, dozens of major OSS projects have the "don't donate to us, donate to our sponsored charity" thing going on. Those projects focus on very liberal, social justice issues too though with a more global focus.

But, what's happened since the one incident?

<comment><USER27> While many open source projects tend to get political, open source is not about politics any more than regular proprietary products are.

<comment><USER28> >open source is not about politics

This is a quite naive point of view that even very smart people hold. Open source software makes and breaks whole industries in software, of course it's political.

<comment><USER29> You don't think it's a bit silly to say that building a product or tool is the same thing as engaging in government?

<comment><USER28> Ah, but politics isn't limited to governmental affairs, it is everywhere: communities, technical committees and standard groups. Also some projects contribute more change to the structure of the society than most governments. I would say that linux and *bsds had a much more pronounced impact on global affairs than most countries governments.

<comment><USER29> Ah, but now you've made the term "politics" meaningless, as what I had for breakfast falls under your new definition that encompasses everything.

<comment><USER30> How is your breakfast meaningless? Did it contain meat, or genetically modified organisms? Was it grown with water in a drought-stricken area, or from a subsidized or non-unionized farm? Have you considered its carbon footprint?

Someone, somewhere, has opinions on that breakfast of yours...and some of those folks have the power to enact those opinions. If it somehow involves policy, power and status - no matter how petty - there are politics attached. See in particular definitions 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5: [https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_en...](https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/politics)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> well, donating to mozilla and not openSSL, freeBSD does not make a better internet.

Nowadays we have strictly __NO __LTS free /open source portable build chain of decent quality (compiler, linkers). (maybe also because of the norms)

When I say LTS compiler, I mean a compiler that can portably and reproducibly build code in C without flags on the CLI to the same exec and without developers having to archive their compiler every time compile to be sure to be able to build it once again with the same results.

You think this situation is not yet existing?

Hu hu hu hu hu ...

Houston, you have a problem.

Even though I appreciate LLVM/GCC, LLVM/GCC new major release may imply to patch specifically the C code for the $CC release.

And Ox flags may give weird unexpected results per compiler. And you may nowadays need GCC for some platform with specific code, and LLVM for others.

So how do we handle this complexity? The C code is less and less idempotent in time and architecture and performance...

How do we fully support long time support for reproducible multi platform build ?

<comment><USER32> If C compilers are such a problem then developers should move to better languages. It's not the 70s anymore.

<comment><USER31> No language other than C and FORTRAN have correct numerical libraries with a decent amount of speed.

Would you like the next plane that will make you travel to have the math done in javascript?

Would you like your pacemaker to fry 17W/h for a V8 engine and do you need mozilla embedded in it ?

Would you feel safe with nuclear plants control on the cloud?

Does a space probe rather needs support for an oauth2.0 or correct numerical analysis?

Don't you care that banking systems are correctly translating numerical amounts?

I mean computer are used for critical purpose too.

EDIT PS: numpy in python is binding on fortran libraries to do the job.

<comment><USER33> The idea of those things being built in a language without memory and good type safety (no ability to cast everything to void*) should terrify you.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is machine learning worth learning for hobbyists/pet projects? - <AUTHOR> I'm wondering if the field is accessible beyond pure theory for people who doesn't have exclusive access to datasets or powerful machines.<p>Can a regular programmer with a macbook achieve something at home? Or would I be stuck doing the same 3/4 basic programs like character recognition and hit a wall after the basics? <comment><USER2> Are you trying to do anything in particular?

ML can be used in a number of different facets. On one hand you can grab pre- trained models that people have sitting on github and glue them together to make working projects for your own use. The other extreme is working through the theory to create a new method on a dataset you've collected yourself. Most of the tradeoff is in how much time you want to invest in solving a problem or learning something new.

The major thing for hobby problems is learning how to best use what's already out there given your own restrictions on data and computational resources. The algorithms themselves can be quite complex, but as long as you're not targeting state of the art results, there should be plenty of tools to help get yourself started.

My general recommendation is to dive into some of the papers out there and blog posts on different methods to get a feel for the breadth of options as well as the cases which may not currently be within your own personal grasp.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think the best way to move on to the next stage is find a project you want to do. I find it really hard to just learn a tools if I have no real project for which to use it.

I don't know what suits your fancy, but some example projects could be:

\- image recognition: is that your cat at the door or someone else's?

\- voice recognition: app to add a product to shopping list from a voice command

\- etc

</comment><comment><USER4> It depends on your use case and what you're looking to get out of it. How much data will you need to crunch? 1 million rows of data should be fairly easy to crunch through on a personal computer.

</comment><comment><USER5> Machine learning is a bigger set of techniques than deep learning. Linear regression and random forests still work fine and can get good results in many problem domains without particularly much compute hardware. In addition non- learned feature engineering can get good results in computer vision if you constrain your input images.

Do you have particular application areas or problems you want to apply ML to?

<comment><AUTHOR> > Do you have particular application areas or problems you want to apply ML > to?

Not particularly, no. I've spent a ton of time reading about the math behind it and I feel as if I had been reading about functional programming or OOP without actually writing a single line of code... So I'm basically looking to get the practical approach, getting my hands dirty so to speak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'll think it depends on your end goal. Do you want to explore new network architectures and/or associated functions, or use (your own or public) data set to explore possible applications?

</comment><comment><USER7> The secret (and possible barrier) to doing something interesting with ML is to have an interesting dataset. It's definitely accessible if you're willing to put in the effort.

<comment><AUTHOR> Could you be a little more specific about that last part? Do you mean that interesting datasets are available somehow, or that the field itself is accessible?

<comment><USER7> Both! But it can take some hard work to acquire interesting data and then figuring out what to do with it.

<comment><USER8> Amazon has a great repository of open data. You can go wild with these. [1] NYC also has tons of open data for their smart cities initiative. [2]

[1][https://registry.opendata.aws/](https://registry.opendata.aws/) [2][https://opendata.cityofnewyork.us/](https://opendata.cityofnewyork.us/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why C Is a Great Language - <AUTHOR>

Alexander Stepanov, the primary designer and implementer of the C++ Standard Template Library (STL), gave an interview to Dr.Dobb's Journal back in 1995, sharing his insightful view on 'why C is a great language' (http://www.stepanovpapers.com/drdobbs-interview.html):<p>"Let's consider now why C is a great language. It is commonly believed that C is a hack which was successful because Unix was written in it. I disagree. Over a long period of time computer architectures evolved, not because of some clever people figuring how to evolve architectures---as a matter of fact, clever people were pushing tagged architectures during that period of time---but because of the demands of different programmers to solve real problems. Computers that were able to deal just with numbers evolved into computers with byte-addressable memory, flat address spaces, and pointers. This was a natural evolution reflecting the growing set of problems that people were solving. C, reflecting the genius of Dennis Ritchie, provided a minimal model of the computer that had evolved over 30 years. C was not a quick hack. As computers evolved to handle all kinds of problems, C, being the minimal model of such a computer, became a very powerful language to solve all kinds of problems in different domains very effectively. This is the secret of C's portability: it is the best representation of an abstract computer that we have. Of course, the abstraction is done over the set of real computers, not some imaginary computational devices. Moreover, people could understand the machine model behind C. It is much easier for an average engineer to understand the machine model behind C than the machine model behind Ada or even Scheme. C succeeded because it was doing the right thing, not because of AT&T promoting it or Unix being written with it." <comment><USER3> C is a great language in the sense that a F1 racing car is a great car. C's minimalism and portability gives great power but with it comes great responsibility to use it properly. Just like you wouldn't give grandma the keys to the F1 to go to the shopping mall.

C is a great language to write an operating system and its utilities in. But that doesn't make it suitable to write an ERP system.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's not that C is a great language imho - it's the C tool chain - I can compile a c program on _anything_ (except the coming windows 8 tablets - <USER2> I'm guessing it's a matter of time)

</comment><comment><USER5> The interview is from 1995 ... you should probably mention this in the title of your link.

<comment><USER6> What changed in these matters since then?</comment></comment>


Low-quality sleep can lead to procrastination - <AUTHOR> https://solvingprocrastination.com/study-procrastination-sleep-quality-self-control/ <comment><USER2> My father once told me, before he passed:

"No matter what you need to fix in your life, start with sleep and food. You'll have difficulties improving anything else if these two basic needs aren't fulfilled"

That sounded very Captain Obvious at the time, but as I'm getting older, I realize more and more he was so right.

<comment><USER3> "Sleep is the most powerful Performance Enhancing Supplement" is another remark that feels true.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is it possible that people who lack self-control also have a poor sleep schedule? I know that I personally can be rather poor at telling myself to go to bed…

<comment><USER5> I'm just one data point, but I have definitely noticed that I procrastinate more when I haven't slept as well.

From a shallow skim, it looks like this study compared the same people across multiple days.

<comment><USER6> Definitely the same here.

That's also why I end up here half the time.. back to work.

<comment><USER5> I've become a heavy user of the phone app and browser extension called Forest that lets you blacklist a set of sites for a variable amount of time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "you should first identify why you're going to sleep later than intended, and then create a plan of action which allows you to deal with your specific set of reasons for procrastinating instead of going to sleep."

If only it was this simple.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that this usually isn't easy to accomplish, especially if bedtime procrastination is a serious issue for you. However, if you do decide to try and tackle this problem, this approach (identifying why you procrastinate and then tailoring a personal solution) is the way to go.

For example:

* If you can't stop browsing social media before going to sleep, install an extension that cuts your access after a certain hour.

* If you feel too energetic to sleep, reduce caffeine intake/blue light exposure in the hours before bedtime.

* If you don't feel motivated enough to go to sleep, use motivational techniques such as marking down streaks of days on which you successfully go to sleep on time.

Again, I'm not saying that it's easy, but if you're willing to put in some effort, there are a lot of effective techniques you can use: [https://solvingprocrastination.com/how-to-stop- procrastinati...](https://solvingprocrastination.com/how-to-stop- procrastinating/)

<comment><USER8> > If you feel too energetic to sleep, reduce caffeine intake/blue light > exposure in the hours before bedtime.

I struggled with this for a long time. I'd decide that I wanted to go to bed earlier, and wake up earlier, but would always fail with the former. I'd get in bed in time, but would never be able to fall asleep. It turns out the solution is really simple...

The silver bullet was:

Don't focus on bed time. That will come naturally. Go to bed whenever you can. The key is to WAKE UP early, every morning. Regardless of what time you went to bed, WAKE UP at your target hour the next morning.

Also - exercise each day. For me, lifting heavy weights and sleeping too little, quickly fixed my "too much energy" at night problem.

<comment><USER9> I feel like one out of my every three posts on HN are about the same thing, but this is dangerous advice for people with bipolar disorder, who could be up to 2% of the population.[0]

Not long ago there was a stigma about this thing that wasn't just about hiding it, it was about "it won't happen to me, I'm not crazy". But you can be in your mid 40s or early 50s before you have a first episode[1]

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bipolar_disorder) [1] [http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516...](http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-44462004000700007&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en#fig1)

<comment><USER10> Go to sleep when you can, wake up early and lift weights is dangerous advice for people with bipolar? It almost seems like you responded to a different comment (pull an all-nighter to reset your cycle).

<comment><USER9> It is. Lost sleep is a snowball. It's very easier for bipolars in a manic or even hypomanic state to sleep 5, 4, 2 hours a night and feel well-rested and ready to pull weights.

But diagnosed bipolar people know this. This is potentially harmful advice because many people may not know they have a latent bipolar disorder that hasn't manifested yet. In my parent comment I gave a histogram of the age of onset of one's first episode -- it's well possible to be a nondescript software engineer in one's early 40s and literally go crazy.

Of course, your proposal also has merits, so people should weigh risks and benefits. Also note family history, history of depression, etc. which are also risk factors.

Here's a recent survey of what w know about bipolars and sleep [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4935164/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4935164/)

But basically this has been known empirically since old-timey asylums. Hippocrates probably has a hint of this as a factor of the "sacred disease". It's a fact.

<comment><USER11> But the prevalence of bipolar disorder in the population is like, 1% right? So if you have disturbed sleep in that sense (sleep 4-5h for weeks on end, but feel alert and well-rested) it is still quite unlikely to be due to undiagnosed bipolar? (vs needing less sleep naturally, using too much coffee, blue light, whatever)

<comment><USER9> Edit: maybe this communicates it better to some people - bipolar is a tail risk of sleep deprivation / experimentation with sleep schedules / etc. It is low-probability.

But not fucking with your sleep is "antifragile". If you agree with Taleb generally, you won't risk it. The downsides are immense. You can easily spend all your savings in one weekend buying soviet filmmaking gear. And that's just the financial side. Bipolar is treatable but doesn't go away. It's just easier to handle. You go to the grave with your pillbox in hand, just in case they buried you alive.

The minor disruption of having to take a handful of pills every night, 3 minutes times 365 days times 35 years = 2100 hours. You could probably learn French, German and Italian in that time. I'm refraining from talking about the major downsides. Educate yourself.

\--- You can also have a latent allergy to peanuts but you always ate small portions. Then someone says "eat only peanuts for a week" and someone says "beware, some allergies are cumulative-exposure, you could be especially sensitive". Then you weigh your risks and benefits. Maybe have someone around to help you if you choke.

With bipolar you won't know what's happening right away. It will seem you're having the best period of your life (and you are!). Weigh your risks and benefits. What's being proposed is a lifehack. You could also try to sleep right the way your mother taught you to.

<comment><USER11> That makes sense. I've never spent my life savings but I did behave in a way that was both way out of character and quite shameful once as a result of an inconvenient flight schedule. It's weird how people speak of sleep deprivation as, well, not exactly healthy, but not downright dangerous. I guess that's how they talked about cigarettes back in the day too.

Perhaps there need to be more pushback from us tech workers when we hear about, e.g., all night hackathons or polyphasic microsleep experiments or the need for nap rooms in offices to compensate for all those 2am coding sessions or something. That some people definitely experience adverse effects where the consequences can be hard to control and some people's lives can be literally wrecked by the thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> From my experience lack of sleep or low quality sleep will cause all kinds of problems. When I am sleep deprived I can't think straight, get irritable, anxious and depressed. And I think I observe this in other people too.

<comment><USER13> Lack of sleep causes lack of sleep for me.

I can't get anything done, so I lie away worrying about the things I didn't do. Repeat.

The only fix for me seems to be adrenaline. Working on something exciting, playing games, exercise - I don't feel tired. But brain work is hopeless and I struggle to get through the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The original study ([https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.0202...](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02029/full)) is not recent as the article kicks off with; it was Received: 14 January 2018; Accepted: 02 October 2018; Published: 02 November 2018.

Also, this seems to be observed only in those "who have low trait self- control".

Adjusting the title for those two points may be more helpful.

<comment><USER15> In the scope of research, that's super recent - it probably took the authors 2 years or more to conduct the research they described.

<comment><USER14> Of course, anything could be adjusted for recency if you adjust the scope. However, if you read new research everyday, that's far from recent.

As for the probable 2 years period, it doesn't look like it is the case in the paper; "Seventy one full-time employees participated [...] Participants completed a one-shot general electronic questionnaire"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Another commenter recently posted a link to a lecture by Tim Pychyl [0] on another post about procrastination. I decided to watch it and came away feeling deeply informed about procrastination, why we do it, and how to solve it. It's a nuanced topic. Highly recommended if you have an hour to listen to this articulated lecture.

[0] [http://youtube.com/watch?v=mhFQA998WiA](http://youtube.com/watch?v=mhFQA998WiA) (2012, 60 mins.)

</comment><comment><USER17> Pocrastination->loss of sleep-> procrastination->depression over procrastination->desperation->breakthrough->manic high productivity

That is my friends pattern. Kind of rough.

</comment><comment><USER18> Why not give participants a fitbit or a smart watch to monitor their sleep quality? Are they just not accurate enough at the moment?

<comment><USER19> Fitbit are quite accurate (and it seems they're the most accurate right now), but they're real scum and don't allow chronologic data export. I got one since they have that as a feature, but it's such a shitty dataset that it's impossible to do anything with it. It's even a stretch to call it a dataset.

I'm still using mine in comparison with pencil and paper sleep charts, they agree well. It's just a shame I can't show the data from fitbit to my specialist.

<comment><USER20> Chronological sleep stages data appears available via the API: [https://dev.fitbit.com/build/reference/web- api/sleep/](https://dev.fitbit.com/build/reference/web-api/sleep/)

What would a good export look like?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I recently found that nearly all of my procrastination problems in life could be relatively straightforwardly traced back to internet surfing on sites with infinite sources of novelty. As the meme goes, one nacho cheese Dorito has more extreme nacho cheese flavor than a medieval peasant would get in their entire lifetime. [[https://twitter.com/matthewpcrowley/status/62107825382700236...](https://twitter.com/matthewpcrowley/status/621078253827002368?lang=en)] Our brains just aren't equipped to deal with novelty of this magnitude.

I'm relatively convinced that if I want to achieve my goals, especially as a solo founder working from my apartment, I'm going to _have_ to make an extraordinary effort to curb this, since the default is to just consume all evening (and for a work from home person like me, all day). I also have recently wondered if I've brewed the perfect cocktail of procrastination for myself as I may have some non-hyperactive ADD combined with this low accountability environment.

So, all of the normal procrastination advice applies, but I found it useful to make it harder to access these sources of infinite novelty. Especially while working, but even during the evening. There are a number of blocking apps, but most of them can be trivially defeated by a developer with admin access.

The two that I've found to work the best for me are [http://getcoldturkey.com](http://getcoldturkey.com) for Windows 10 and [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.mobilesoft....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.mobilesoft.appblock) for Android.

I see no real reason to ever need to waste time on my phone. I've blocked apps like Chrome and the Youtube app permanently, and it's impossible to get around without wiping my phone (which I'm probably too lazy to do). I had to go ahead and install the Reddit app and mobile Firefox when I discovered I could install apps remotely through the Play Store on my laptop (ha!). I also block the Play Store app on the phone.

This makes my phone a phone, text messager, podcast player, audiobook player, and maps device rather than a source of infinite novelty.

For my laptop it's a little harder since I can't block the browser and and still do web dev, but the Cold Turkey app is the best app I've found to be as undefeatable as possible while still filtering specific sites. You can set up schedules, so I block sites after a certain time at night. Since, a key part of the procrastination cycle is staying up too late and then getting up later or tired, getting a bad start to the day, etc etc as the article suggests.

Cold Turkey can unfortunately be defeated if you are realllllly clever, but it makes a very strong effort to disallow itself from being uninstalled. It's a desktop application, not a browser plugin, so it can actually prevent the whole "I'll just use IE to browse Reddit" problem that Chrome plugin blockers have. And having admin privileges, it can actually enforce blocks.

This may be a bit extreme, but modern life isn't really "normal" in any possible way for our meat sack bodies and brains.

See also [https://www.sparringmind.com/supernormal- stimuli/](https://www.sparringmind.com/supernormal-stimuli/)

<comment><USER21> I wouldn't say I've exactly "solved" this problem, as I do still think relaxation and getting new information are valuable. But making Reddit more than just a ctrl+t -> r -> enter away is helpful.

A great book about all of this that was also helpful for further motivating me to try to be proactive here was Cal Newport's book Digital Minimalism [[http://calnewport.com/books/digital- minimalism/](http://calnewport.com/books/digital-minimalism/)].

It's not really a book about "quit Facebook", but rather "be intentional about the technology in your life instead of having technology happen to you. I've determined that Hacker News is a valuable use of my time within moderation, while Reddit doesn't really ever provide any sort of value, whether productive _or_ relaxing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am trying guided sleep to fall asleep faster and relaxed. It's helping me a lot.

I say this from experience that good sleep makes all the difference between a productive and a sucky day. You feel more focussed after a good sleep. Make good sleep a habit.

</comment><comment><USER23> That explains a lot. I guess I need to start getting better sleep. Maybe I'll start next week. Or maybe the week after that.</comment>


New Clues Suggest Satoshi Suspect Craig Wright May Be a Hoaxer - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/12/new-clues-suggest-satoshi-suspect-craig-wright-may-be-a-hoaxer/ <comment><USER2> Could Craig Wright be both Satoshi AND a hoaxer? If he wanted to keep his identity secret, then discrediting himself in this way would be a very clever way of doing so.</comment>


Facebook, Elections and Political Speech - <AUTHOR> https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/09/elections-and-political-speech/ <comment><USER2> cool cool cool, facebook is abdicating responsibility for keeping factually incorrect and/or hate speech off of its platform, as long as that speech is coming from a politician. that can't possibly be a bad decision, i mean, they hired Nick Clegg, former deputy prime minister of the UK to figure that out, so i'm sure he knows what he's doing.</comment>


The hidden hell of hot-desking - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/bff71b8c-ae34-11e9-8030-530adfa879c2 <comment><USER2> _Y. T.'s mom works in Fedland.

...

So Y.T.'s mom has clacked up the stairs in her black pumps and gone into her office, actually a large room with computer workstations placed across it in a grid. Used to be divided up by partitions, but the EBGOC boys didn't like it, said what would happen if there had to be an evacuation? All those partitions would impede the free flow of unhinged panic. So no more partitions. Just workstations and chairs. Not even any desktops. Desktops encourage the use of paper, which is archaic and reflects inadequate team spirit. What is so special about your work that you have to write it down on a piece of paper that only you get to see? That you have to lock it away inside a desk? When you're working for the Feds, everything you do is the property of the United States of America. You do your work on the computer. The computer keeps a copy of everything, so that if you get sick or something, it's all there where your co-workers and supervisors can get access to it. If you want to write little notes or make phone doodles, you're perfectly free to do that at home, in your spare time. And there's the question of interchangeability. Fed workers, like military people, are intended to be interchangeable parts. What happens if your workstation should break down? You're going to sit there and twiddle your thumbs until it gets fixed? No siree, you're going to move to a spare workstation and get to work on that. And you don't have that flexibility if you've got half a ton of personal stuff cached inside of a desk, strewn around a desktop.

So there is no paper in a Fed office. All the workstations are the same. You come in in the morning, pick one at random, sit down, and get to work. You could try to favor a particular station, try to sit there every day, but it would be noticed. Generally you pick the unoccupied workstation that's closest to the door. That way, whoever came in earliest sits closest, whoever came in latest is way in the back, for the rest of the day it's obvious at a glance who's on the ball in this office and who is -- as they whisper to each other in the bathrooms -- having problems._

(1993, and as prescient as always.)

</comment><comment><USER3> I did this for a period of time as a federal employee. You see people's interesting (read: dirty) habits and learn that there's simply no amount of trash cans, disinfectant wipes, and cleaning supplies that can be provided (for "free" by the government) that will have people clean up after themselves.

I've also seen some interesting behaviors as certain people will become very territorial over their preferred workstation, and generally the quality of workstations in general is lower as it becomes easier to move to a new workstation than try to fix the issue, or file a "ticket".

Cables & docking station parts go missing, keyboards get breadcrumbs & soda, chairs disappear (?!), etc. Once accountability for personal space goes away it seems a certain level of apathy kicks in

<comment><USER4> Textbook example of the tragedy of the commons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thankfully I've not yet been subject to this new angst.

But; I can imagine this has whispers and perhaps the discomfort many experienced in middle and high school of not being the one left out or left hanging at the lunch table. The stepchild of the Corp.

Is life so certain and determined that we yet need some form of uncertainty in our lives and in particular at work?

We hear about and experience dark patterns in the digital realm. These things, hot dealing and open offices are an affront to humanity and are whispering below our conscious "You're not really needed, as your desk and personal space are coyly violated, so is your presumed place in this company. You're welcome here so long as we allow you to be welcome. We're the boss of you."

</comment><comment><USER6> Funny new term "fresh working" \-- a fresh new desk every day.

Archived: [http://archive.is/aBNBj](http://archive.is/aBNBj)

<comment><USER7> The more apropos terms were "inmates, jailers, and guards".

Thank you for sharing the non-pay-wall version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> They tried pulling this crap at my current org. We were supposed to reserve our desks for two week stretches and clean your place out every day to pristine. Luckily we had lockers. I never did, and luckily never got kicked out of my desk. After three months of this nonsense they finally started giving us assigned desks.

Apparently some employees at the last location were getting really cozy and kept really messy workspaces. Hot-desking was the solution.

</comment><comment><USER9> Moving to this later in the year. We'll see if I tolerate it or not. Unfortunately, there's been no mention of the benefits that are supposed to go with hotdesking (flexible hours and work from home) so it's all downside at this point. I'd be ok with it if it meant I could work from home a couple times a week.

</comment><comment><USER10> Paywalled.

<comment><USER11> If there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the thread.

This is in the FAQ at [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html) and there's more explanation here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...](https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0&query=by:dang%20paywall)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where do you guys get logo work done? - <AUTHOR> I've worked on a zillion projects, never paid anyone to do anything design related. But for a couple recent that seem to be getting traction, I want to get something proper done for logo work. But I'm not apt to spend a bazillion dollars on a simple logo.<p>Have you found decent success with something like Fiverr for ~$100 or less? <comment><USER2> 1\. Friends 2\. Local Agencies

The tough part about paying for a productized service and not hourly services is they will try to get this done as soon as possible and not do any more work than initially scoped.

I would ask for 2 or 3 concepts then pick one to focus on. Then pay for changes as needed.

That all being said. Focus on the product first. You can always revise a logo/change branding. It's harder to revise a product. Initially, do you need a fancy logo? Can you do it yourself and use a premade icon and some text?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi thanks for the response, I do need a branded logo at this point. It's for a local business, that has picked up enough steam to warrant it. I figure for $35 on Fiverr, you get unlimited revisions, on two logo concepts, in five days or so. Worth getting brand recognition for that, and like you said, can change later.</comment></comment>