The Right to Read - Richard Stallman - <AUTHOR> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this essay, written in 1997, is worth another read in light of the recent iPad announcement, and the closed and locked down platform it provides.

<comment><USER2> Except that the iPad uses ePub - the standard, open, DRM-free eBook format.

<comment><USER3> Optional DRM, you mean. And I can't imagine that booksellers have yet reached the same degree of enlightenment that the music vendors have lately been reaching.

<comment><USER4> Well, except for the music streaming services. Which are as DRM infected as ever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In this more recent essay, Lawrence Lessig discusses how the copyright system might be reformed to prevent the same kind of issues Stallman exposes in the above: <http://www.tnr.com/print/article/the-love-culture> (Scroll down to "III" if you don't want to hear about documentary film or the Google book settlement)

(I submitted that to HN yesterday but I guess stuff that says "Stallman" attracts more viewers... it's worth your read though)

<comment><USER6> That was an excellent article. As someone who missed your post yesterday, thanks for thread-hijacking! ;-)

<comment><USER5> Hehe, thanks :)

I was hesitant whether this would be good HN etiquette, but then I figured that it's actually quite on-topic, and that it would be ok if I didn't spam a HN-thread link but a direct link to the article. I realise it's still a minor offence ;)</comment></comment></comment>


Porting Guix to GNU/Hurd - <AUTHOR> https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2015-08/msg00379.html

<comment><USER2> yay GSoC and congrats to Manolis</comment>


FISA Court Orders FBI to Start Cleaning Up Its Carter Page Surveillance Mess - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200127/19302343811/fisa-court-orders-fbi-to-start-cleaning-up-carter-page-surveillance-mess.shtml <comment><USER2> FISA warrants extend two steps removed from the target. Consider what this means for the Carter Page warrant:

1\. can spy on Carter Page

2\. can spy on anybody who communicated with Carter Page

3\. can spy on anybody who communicated with anybody who communicated with Carter Page

If a person exists who communicated with both Carter Page and Donald Trump, then the warrant allows spying on Donald Trump. It is nearly certain that such a person exists.

At the same time this was going on, restrictions on dissemination of the unredacted information were greatly reduced. The information was being put into briefings delivered to large numbers of people.</comment>


"Open Source" Ventilator Project by University of Florida - <AUTHOR> https://simulation.health.ufl.edu/technology-development/open-source-ventilator-project/ <comment><USER2> The spirit of all of this inspiring, however: I worry that a lot of these efforts are actually going to be detrimental to their intended causes.

We're talking about potentially needing _hundreds of thousands_ of these things. That's hundreds of thousands of pressure transducers, pumps, control circuitry, tubing connectors, and potentially millions of feet of pneumatic tubing.

As much as we're looking at a design problem, we're looking a supply chain problem. What I'm worried about is that thousands of hackers are currently buying up what could be valuable components for their prototypes, when they should be making those components available for mass producing an existing commercial design.

If you are hacker and want to help the problem: the hospital systems need you to make face shields. That's what they're asking for. If you are in the Phoenix area and can assist in printing the prusa face shield parts ([https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/25857-prusa- protective-...](https://www.prusaprinters.org/prints/25857-prusa-protective- face-shield-rc2)) please send me a DM to $firstname.lastname@example.com

We are currently coordinating the local effort with the hospital systems here.

<comment><USER3> shield using just office supplies [https://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-PPE- Face-Shield-3D-Prin...](https://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-PPE-Face- Shield-3D-Printer-Not-Needed/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Registered Respiratory Therapist first-time post here

Siemens Servo 900 Ventilator C/D/E consists of two separate units Electronic/Pneumatic driven.

Best for intensive care situations, but works in transport and anesthesia, Neonatal, pediatric, adult.

Interface panel settings with rotary dials. No GUI. When I was talking with Seimens sales rep, he said the original design was intended for anesthesia to make fine grain settings.

The design is excellent. I've used both C/E myself, 16 units per shift for three straight weeks 2006.

I've seen DIY vents floating around, if people are willing to go out on a pandemic limb, use something already proven.

servo 900c post test panel display [video] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d2uciOwlwY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d2uciOwlwY)

The c/d/e series have similar parts in a pandemic situation interchanged.

The inner components are easy to access lift the top cover exposes all the working parts that allow quick repair and cleaning.

Units can be found in the US, UK, and EU on eBay and refurbished medical suppliers. [https://www.bemesonline.com/siemens-900c-ventilator/](https://www.bemesonline.com/siemens-900c-ventilator/) Siemens 900C Ventilator refurbish

[https://www.ebay.com/c/24004926166](https://www.ebay.com/c/24004926166) 900E $499.99 / 900c $450.00

[https://www.ebay.com/c/1410306550](https://www.ebay.com/c/1410306550) 900c "spare parts only" $195.00

blog post: [https://siemensventilator.blogspot.com/2010/06/siemens- servo...](https://siemensventilator.blogspot.com/2010/06/siemens- servo-900c-ventilator-in.html) volume control with sight, pressure controlled, SIMV+ pressure support, CPAP

Might contain more links than usually allowed; I'm trying to point out there are many to be found we do not have to reinvent one. There might only be a few hundred, but they can be ready now.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The vent to room air even with a hepa filter is a tiny bit concerning, anyone present should be aware of the risk.

In a hospital, exhaust is (usually) sent to the scavenger for additional filtering and safer output area.

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

That is why you don't use a CPAP at home with anyone else present because it will aerosolize any infection.

<comment><USER5> What is one supposed to do if they need a CPAP to sleep and live with a loved one?

<comment><USER6> I sleep on the sofa, or in the guest's room.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is another project, simple but in a an advanced state of development. An automated manual AMBU type ventilator that uses a windshield wiper motor:

[https://www.oxygen.protofy.xyz/](https://www.oxygen.protofy.xyz/)

There are two versions: makers and mass industrial production.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is a crazy. The US (Connecticut) used eminent domain to seize people's houses to give them to a pharmaceutical company. They can use it to seize existing ventilator designs and publish them.

</comment><comment><USER9> Finally a proper design with proper engineering and reliability testing. Also, no 3D printing nonsense (which makes production of high volume components non- viable).

<comment><USER10> Did you read the article?

There's not much of a design. There are some specifications.

It seems they are currently trying to split up work.

It's definitely unfinished.

<comment><USER11> Can I get a link to your finished project? Thanks!

<comment><USER12> You don't need to be better to criticize.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There are a number of similar projects among the flood of ventilator threads, if anyone wants to compare:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=Ventilator%20comments%3E3&sort=byDate&type=story)

</comment><comment><USER14> It seems that all of the recent ventilator projects require intubation.

Have there been any non-invasive ventilator projects?</comment>


Google's Bold Plan to Overthrow Amazon as King of the Cloud - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/03/urs-google-story/

<comment><USER2> I don't trust Google because there are too many people in there coming up with new ways to fuck with my data.

<comment><USER2> Hey downvoters, are you Google employees or what? Google obviously uses whatever it can as leverage to push its other products, for example Google Plus.

In short, Google has an agenda.

When it comes to generic hosting, it is very important that my host has no other agenda than getting paid by _me_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Google might have technical advantages over their competitors, but as a developer and consumer, their name isn't exactly synonymous with customer service and when you're trusting a provider with your (critical) infrastructure, that's pretty important.

<comment><USER4> Isnt't that mostly valid for their free services, not the paid ones? (E.g. Google Apps for Business has 24/7 phone support.)

<comment><USER3> Quite possibly but if that's your only experience with them as a consumer, that's your (my) impression when evaluating them.

So maybe they'll gain customers that have had positive experiences with their paid services?

Plus, in my mind, I see Google with this huge AppEngine that's shared. Other services allow you a lot more flexibility to build your solution. Is this accurate? Not sure, but sometimes perception is reality in marketing.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Manticore – Static site generator in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blazephoenix/manticore <comment><AUTHOR> Manticore is a simple, minimal static site generator in Python. It can generate static blogs or a single page resume template. It's free and open source, and I would appreciate feedback. Try it out and let me know what you think!

This is my first contribution to open source, looking to make many more. Forks and pull requests, improvements on the codebase are all welcome!

</comment><comment><USER2> fwiw there's a popular symbolic execution tool with the same name [https://github.com/trailofbits/manticore](https://github.com/trailofbits/manticore)

Just got confused for a sec.

</comment><comment><USER3> PEP8. Do you speak it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not fluent. But I try</comment></comment>


The Collapse of High-Tech is Killing the Economy - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-collapse-of-high-tech-is-killing-the-economy-2014-03-07

<comment><USER2> I don't believe this is an entirely honest appraisal of the situation. I seriously doubt the correlation between IT spending and productivity gains is the same today as it was in 1978 or 1988. Open source software has boomed since the late 1990s, that alone would be enough to meaningfully reduce IT software spending growth. The cost of hardware, the value you get for it, and the inability of most businesses to tax even old hardware, explains a huge drop in IT equipment spending growth.

Also, the rise of and combination of various technologies has eliminated entire sections of the hardware field. Fax machines, copiers, printers, cameras, landlines (and related networks), expensive storage, complex intranets, expensive database systems, the need to upgrade corporate PCs every few years, uber expensive department software, and on and on it goes - all of these things have been impacted head-on or eliminated by the rise of cheap hardware, smart phones, open source software, and cloud services. As a simple example, how much storage do I need for docs in a small business network? That need hasn't expanded at even a fraction of the pace of storage.

Simply put, you can now spend drastically less, and get drastically more for it, than you could in 1998.

The drop in IT spending growth is not killing the economy. That's like saying: if we just spent money we don't need to, it'd fix things (break some windows!).</comment>


Swiping Right on Tinder, but Staying Put - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/style/modern-love-tinder-swiping-right-but-staying-put.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000

<comment><USER2> :(

That article makes me sad, pretty much the last line.

I'm supposing it's a commentary on millenials, intimacy and distance. Seems crazy not to meet, I suppose they are commenting on the joys of whispered sweet nothings that the turn to nothing's. It's almost a bit JD Salinger.

</comment><comment><USER3> So the author was just bored/lonely?</comment>


Show HN: Empirical – A framework for computational experiments - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/empiricalci/emp <comment><AUTHOR> I built Empirical to address 2 major inefficiencies slowing down modern science: discovery and reproducibility of experiments.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

<comment><USER2> Great work! A question: how do we scale the computations? I know how long my experiments normally take on a 40 core PC. How long will it take and how much will it cost if I use Empirical?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Currently we're focusing on single host experiments. We provide an open source client for you to run the experiments on your own hardware, so it's free. The use of the platform is also free for open source.

At some point in the future, once we gather more feedback we'll let you to run the experiments on our servers for a fee.</comment></comment></comment>


ATL-YC: Visiting next weekend - <AUTHOR>

Atlanta-YC,
I'm going to be working on a datacenter move next weekend and from what my co-workers tell me there are a lot of young guys with half racks working on their systems in the new facility. We're moving some of our equipment to qts in suwannee... are any yc hackers hosted there?
Just want to say hello to some startups while i'm there... keep pounding keys :thumb up: <comment><USER3> We were hosted at QTS for a little over three years. They are excellent - <USER2> were extremely helpful and knowledgeable, problems were very rare and were resolved quickly when they did occur. Much better than the hosting company we were at before them. Only reason we moved out is that we were bought and parent company owns two data centers with spare capacity.

Good luck with the move.

</comment><comment><USER4> Howdy migpwr,

We're hosting at Quickpacket down at 56 Marietta, but I hear good things about the Suwannee center and companies there.</comment>


Wantmore, Tweakmore, Totalscum, and the Tragedy of Boneheadia, by Charlie Munger - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2298582/pagenum/all

<comment><USER2> See also:

The art of stock picking as a subdivision of the art of worldly wisdom: <http://www.paladinvest.com/pifiles/MungersWorldlyWisdom.htm>

Academic economics, strengths and faults after considering interdisciplinary need: <http://www.tilsonfunds.com/MungerUCSBspeech.pdf>

And ultimately, the book of Proverbs: <http://bit.ly/olWKq5>

</comment><comment><USER3> A more technical explanation of the "formula"s can be found here: [http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-03/wp_quant?curr...](http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-03/wp_quant?currentPage=all)

</comment><comment><USER4> Very nice and well written summary of CDOs

</comment><comment><USER5> Very well written indeed.</comment>


Seems like we can't live without autocorrect anymore - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/i-turned-off-autocorrect-on-my-iphone-and-learned-a-terrible-lesson/ <comment><AUTHOR> Kind of sad that we have to use AI to write nowadays - I'm wondering where this will go, especially considering the pre-written suggestions Gmail has started to offer...</comment>


Who Needs Apple When the FBI Could Hack Terrorist iPhone Itself - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-04/who-needs-apple-when-the-fbi-could-hack-terrorist-iphone-itself <comment><USER2> This article sums up my view on this whole issue. I feel that the reason why the authorities are making this into a big issue is to 'make an example' of this case. It indeed seems like getting access to the phone would be a matter of electricity and time.

</comment><comment><USER3> I was taught that the first principle of security is physical security. Once your attacker has possession of your hardware, decrypting the data is only a matter of time.

They don't even need a brute force attack. If decryption works without a SIM card, then the key is on the device, protected by a code with a mere 10,000 possibilities. For the FBI, isn't that child's play?

<comment><USER4> Sounds like they could copy the data, extract the algorithm via reverse engineering, and then run it against the archive.

Though this should be ineffective for the secure enclave where additional fuse bits are set unique to a device that add more entropy and black box key derivation to the whole thing</comment></comment>


Boilerplate code says a lot about a language... - <AUTHOR> http://lispy.wordpress.com/2007/10/01/boilerplate-code-says-a-lot-about-a-language/ "That's the important point: the  difference between merely implementing something in a language and embedding something in a language so that you don't lose the original power of the language. Lisp is a lousy language for doing any particular problem; what it's good for is figuring out the right language that you want and embedding that in Lisp. That's the real power to this approach to design."  -- Hal Abelson <comment><USER2> The AntiPatterns book says (without citation, although this seems to match my personal observations) that only 1 in 5 programmers "get" abstraction.

This has a lot of implications; they pointed out the one for "democratic" design processes (those with a clue get outvoted, thus the architecture of so many systems is garbage), but this obviously extends to this "LISP is a ball of mud" (Moses) approach of designing and implementing a small language in which to program most of your stuff.

And in any language. LISP is used as an example since this is its natural style of use and it's lot easier, but if you can't get the proper abstractions agreed upon in the first place, it matters little how good or bad the language you'll then try to implement them in, boiler plate style or LISP....</comment>


Using temporal convolution to detect Audio Deepfakes - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/dessa-news/detecting-audio-deepfakes-f2edfd8e2b35 <comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN,

This is our first attempt to use temporal convolution to detect audio deepfakes.

We released a (still WIP) tutorial and code on how we built this. We will be providing a more technical deep dive soon.

Check it out [https://github.com/dessa-public/fake-voice- detection](https://github.com/dessa-public/fake-voice-detection)</comment>


Handsontable - Excel-like table editor in HTML & jQuery - <AUTHOR> http://warpech.github.com/jquery-handsontable/index.html

<comment><USER3> Nice. Try to use contentEditable for a better user experience, and auto align numbers to the right. That's it. Great job.

* Here, contentEditable cells on click, arrows up/dn for rows, tab/shft+tab for columns:

<http://georgenava.appspot.com/demo/spreadsheet.html>

Coincidentally I was playing with that yesterday for a project, but yours is a hundred thousand times better.

<comment><USER4> contentEditable is a terrible hack and difficult to use when you only want a subset of features. You need to blacklist a bunch of events like pasting, keyboard formatting (e.g. ctrl+i, drag and drop and inserting new lines.

<comment><USER5> Would be great if browsers could provide a "black and white" contentEditable that just lets the user edit the textContent in an HTML element.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How does it do with large datasets, say 5k rows+?

There are lots of table alternatives out there, but most croak when you start working with 1000's of rows.

<comment><USER7> same question. if it works well, i'll definitely use it instead of my own frankenstein hackery

EDIT: seems like no go: 500 rows take ~10sec to render

<http://jsfiddle.net/JKg33/>

caution: will freeze firefox while rendering

<comment><USER8> I am the dev of the plugin. Thanks for the info, I will try to address that. Notice that the performance is much better when you turn off row/col headers.

        rowHeaders: false,
        colHeaders: false,

Example: <http://jsfiddle.net/JKg33/2/>

That is the newest feature and I am sure it can be optimised.

It would be the best if you could help me with the plugin by issueing a ticket in GitHub. I do this for my own startup (www.giraffeapp.com) and I have to split time between this and other tasks.

<comment><USER6> The best way I've seen this problem solved is via using a viewport, where you only render what is visible at the time.

SlickGrid does this very well, but they don't have the Excel-like features that biz people fawn over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is there any JS spreadsheet library that falls-back to <table>s for non JS- enabled browsers?

Spreadsheets/tables are a great way to structure data. However, JS-'enhancing' such data makes scraping the data much more difficult. I am a little bit concerned that the web has been moving more and more away from connected data and towards isolated apps.

<comment><USER10> It should be trivial for the author to put the table in the document, then use JS to transform it into the fancy version.

HTML for content, CSS and JS for presentation, it's nothing a half-decent web dev hasn't heard a million times already.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Cool, was just about to start a search of projects like this. Does anyone know of any other similar projects (besides Active Widgets)?

<comment><USER12> DataTables ( <http://datatables.net> ) has some overlapping functionality, some of which is provided by plug-ins. For example KeyTable + Editor: <http://editor.datatables.net/tutorials/keytable> .

*Disclaimer - I am the author of DataTables.

<comment><USER6> DataTables is what we're phasing out in favor of SlickGrid (most likely); it simply croaks when you have 1000's of rows...too many DOM objects in the browser.

Of course, the paged option might alleviate that somewhat, but requirements won't let me use that.

<comment><USER12> Have you taken a look at the deferred rendering and/or Scroller options for DataTables ( <http://tinyurl.com/cr5usea> and <http://datatables.net/extras/scroller/> )? These can provide a significant speed increase - depending on your data source for the table and how you want to configure the table.

<comment><USER6> No, but I will now. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> JavaScript makes my head hurt.

1) JSON is what is used to init the table code right? 2) If it is JSON, JSON can contain logic? As in the match logic? 3) What is the function name? Is it match? Where does it get called from? How many paths are there to call it? 4) CSS style is hard coded into the (I think) JSON string, is mixing data (JSON), programming logic (if expressions) and CSS styling really the best new way to do UI development? So back in the day before MVC when we used to mix this stuff; we were doing it 'right'?

JavaScript is good for some things but WebGL and Excel-like spreadsheets are too much if not just for performance then also for maintainability, IMO.

</comment><comment><USER14> I had a summer internship in high school that foundered when we realized that we needed a grid tool to display and edit data in a web browser. The rest of the summer was spent trying to build this tool in Java.

Where were you guys 16 years ago?

</comment><comment><USER15> can't do any excel type formulas or functions... that's a limitation...

very cool that you can copy and paste though. I've often wanted a way for users to copy excel data into an app as opposed to making them inport a csv...

</comment><comment><USER16> What I would like is a super-easy server-side library that allows persistence for a table like this. Since I had a crap day at work where I got no development work done, maybe I'll bang this out tonight at home.

<comment><USER17> This is what you're talking about. <http://obeleh.thruhere.net/> Wait for it to load. It's connecting to the database ;)

NOTE Still in development ;)

What I've done is I wanted to have a Ms Access like application on the web. Everything "real time". As datagrid i use SlickGrid. Every change is being sent to a nodeJs webserver using NowJs. The change is then saved to a mongoDb database. When a change is saved all clients that are viewing that table get an update with the new data. On the right is my "meta" table. This table describes all columns that are in the database. The data in the meta table is only saved when you click save. But all the data in the left table is real time.

To see the real "power" of the application open two browsers and make sure you can see both. If you have two separate PC's this will also work. So now you have the same datagrid twice. Now when you do a change in one datagrid you will see that that change has been pushed to the other datagrid as well.

The datagrid has multi-column-sorting, selection, copy-paste and delete. I'm working now on having Comboboxes so that you can have a Cities table and a Persons table and you can select the right city for each person. The thing is, I need to keep my combobox options in sync with the database as well. And I want to store the ObjectID and not the CityName for example. Because names can change. ID's don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Looks great! But a word to anyone out there creating a jQuery Plugin - <USER2> list your browser support somewhere obvious!

Maybe I'm missing it but I can't see it anywhere in the Docs.

<comment><USER19> On that note it doesn't work (doesn't bring up keyboard) on iOS browsers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> SlickGrid is somewhat similar: <https://github.com/mleibman/SlickGrid/wiki/Examples>

</comment><comment><USER21> This just saved me a _ton_ of time! I'd been planning doing implementing something similar to this in my startup's webapp. The flexibility this provides is just awesome and should hopefully make things much easier.

Thank you Marcin Warpechowski / Giraffe for creating this and uptown for submitting this.

This is why I read HN daily.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is really nice work! The grid looks superb and the inline editing display is really slick.

</comment><comment><USER22> Can one do excel like formulas? Or any other library which can provide such a functionality?

<comment><USER23> I don't think that linked table supports equation. It should be possible to add them. You don't have to look further than google docs that it is possible. I did write excel like language in the past and it was quite simple. Obviously there is performance hit when comparing js to native, but it should be fast enough. Sorry but I cannot give you my code because it was written as my job, but as I said writing something like that should not be a big challenge.

(Edited to improve readability)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is great! Especially it seems to be working good when the page is zoomed out.

</comment><comment><USER25> I am curious about other table/grid editors for other JS libraries (for example ExtJS, Dojo, Kendo UI, Google Closure, ZK). Could you share your experience?

</comment><comment><USER26> Why do you need to specify the initial number of rows/cols? Or is that optional?

<comment><USER27> Seems to be optional.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Pretty slick, thanks.</comment>


5 JavaScript hacks to speed up your Javascript - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/p/acb44515497f

<comment><USER2> Aside from the last piece of advice: to have fun. This is a terrible list. Global vars are bad for application level logic and clutter your global namespace. Switch statements are great but only if you have more than 3-4 conditions. Set timeout is a neat trick but it can quickly get you into state based problems. Careful with this one. Buried within are some good nuggets of info, but overall it doesn't get deep enough into the techniques described to show anything like good practices.

<comment><USER3> I think this was supposed to be satire

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This list sounds like a page taken out of one of Douglas Crockford's talks — of everything not to do.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is great! At first glance I didn't catch the sarcasm, had to reread the first paragraph.</comment>


The Real Dark Web - <AUTHOR> https://www.sonniesedge.net/posts/real-dark-web/ <comment><USER2> Interesting observation, but author's analysis is a way off IMHO. I use sass not because I'm "unprivileged" or there're some special legacy requirements - I use it because it does the job wonderfully and I don't really need to mix css with js for the type of projects that I do. Speaking of observations, most of devs that I worked with who pushed for CSS-in-JS were really either newbies who like to play with new stuff or the folks who were not that good with css and sass, and then they tend to reinvent the wheel by using very little, very basic css and lots of js to achieve the same effects that can be handled in pure css much more elegantly. Obviously this is purely anecdotal, I totally understand that for complex animations or in big systems where modularity is crucial css-in-js makes a lot of sense. As with any tool, you need to choose the right one for your particular project.

<comment><USER3> CSS Modules give all of the benefits of CSS-in-JS plus the junior devs won't be tempted to put 300 lines of styles in the same file as the view component.

And you can still use SASS. With those benefits, I don't see any reason to use CSS-in-JS over CSS Modules in any project.

<comment><USER2> Css modules automate the process and it's totally OK approach, but with a bit of discipline imposed on the team members you can achieve the same effect manually and avoid the weird looking foo_532xy157678 classes. You just need a proper selector naming convention in place, and then make everyone stick to it. It's not a rocket science really, you just add a unique class (usually module's name works just fine here) to every module's root element, and then in sass you wrap everything related to that module with that class and that's it, it's namespaced... add some BEM to the mix and you've got yourself fairly easy to understand and maintain sass/css with zero overhead... obviously takes some practice to unlearn yourself from using overly general selectors, but it's like learning to write testable code, you quickly learn to pay attention to bad practices...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am reminded of a conversation I once had at Microsoft about some upcoming rocket science technology that wouldn't ship version 1 for a year or two — WPF? DAO? some such thing — and one of the managers referred dismissively to "legacy code". To which one of the others present responded, "to be clear, by 'legacy code' you're referring to _all existing code_?"

I'd also like to point out that in my experience actual "engineers" tend to pick the most boring possible technology to do something. Because it probably works. (The really interesting jobs are where even the most boring possible technology to accomplish it doesn't exist yet.)

<comment><USER5> > ...actual "engineers" tend to pick the most boring possible technology to do > something. Because it probably works.

That's because decent engineers understand that their job is not tech but business - tech is only a means to an end, and that end is to help business thrive.

I've been in the opposite situation of a bad dev pushing every big-data tech he took a fancy to, and the management not being clue-ful enough to understand where it was leading them. Big data frameworks are expensive in every way, and become heavy negative cost if the data is not big.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The headline (if it gets changed: "The real dark web") is terrible and clickbaity.

<comment><USER7> I clicked because I thought it would talk about the actual Dark Web[0] but instead I saw a discussion about how many people use a CSS abstraction layer called Sass

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Until I learned I'm behind the curve.

Look, I think CSS-in-JS is a great idea. It's cool, in fact I remember suggesting something similar to my lead dev as a newbie 12 years ago. He basically told me I was an idiot.

My point is you guys are getting fired up over things that are just variations on a theme. First it was mix presentation and logic. Then it was separate it all, html, css, js. Then it was put some restricted js functionality in html. Then it was f __* it lets just do it js.

Just... yawn. Think bigger.

<comment><USER9> > Just... yawn. Think bigger.

More specifically: Think subjectively, think what's relevant to your current context...

Most important, is to lose the "everything is a nail attitude" and instead find the solution that fits best for your current problem. It's very difficult to make unbiased well balanced decisions to use a solution when starting from the solutions perspective. It's better to start with the problem first and stop focusing too much on tools, methods, patterns etc. i.e be invested in your problem not some solution, you don't owe them anything.

None of these ideas e.g CSS-in-JS are absolutely good or bad, they can be good in one context and bad in another, however very often the distribution is such that they are bad to _generally_ apply - programming patterns being the worst and most often abused case of things that should not be generally applied and which are.

It's ok to talk about new ideas, it's not ok to forcefully apply the latest idea to everything you touch like it's your new religion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> One thing I've noticed is as I grow older I start to choose older and more mature stable technologies. Is that a normal progression of for developers?

<comment><USER11> Depends on the task. I've used more new stuff in the last few years than the previous decade and I'm 46. But I fully appreciate the tradeoffs.

No shiny objects is the rule. But break it if it's an obvious (necessary?) improvement and you know how to inject new technologies safely.

When you only have one principle to worry about, life is simple. More than one, you're always trading something off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Side note: I like the way that this site uses _twitter mentions /favorites_ to display the comments below the article, looks seamless and a low barrier to get feedback.

<comment><USER13> Those are not simple Twitter mentions/favorites. Those are Webmentions[0].

The author is probably using a bridge that converts tweets to Webmentions, but if you submit a Webmention from your own blog it will appear there as well, without needing Twitter in the middle. That's the beauty of it :)

[0] [https://indieweb.org/Webmention](https://indieweb.org/Webmention)

<comment><USER14> It probably makes use of the [https://brid.gy](https://brid.gy) gateway to display content from silos such as Twitter.

This is an intended usecase of the indieweb, see [https://indieweb.org/backfeed](https://indieweb.org/backfeed)

Implementing webmentions on your website is not hard. But if you don't want to selfhost your own webmention endpoint (or can't), take a look at webmention.io (that plays well with bridgy) to host your webmentions and expose a JSON API. This API allows you for example, when a building a page, to query the API for webmentions related to this piece of content so you can display those interactions nicely as on the original article linked.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > Most web developers are working on very "boring" teams. They're producing > workhorse products that serve the organisation needs. They aren't trying to > innovate.

This analysis is bogus, it assumes innovation is defined by bleeding edge technology and tooling... specific technology or tooling does not define or even positively correlate with innovation of the project itself.

In fact I would go as far as saying it potentially has a negative correlation - bleeding edge tooling or technology can be especially distracting unless the difference is fundamentally relevant - when I pick the simplest most boring tool it's often because they are well understood, mature and minimize the time I spent focusing on them, unlike bleeding edge things that pull me away from the core problem or thing I am trying to "innovate". These are not mutually exclusive either, you might have some people working on putting together build pipelines who are very "noisy" about up and coming technologies that can simplify or improve their systems somehow... and completely separately some other people who write the code that goes through that pipeline and may or may not care about it's exact makeup, they also may or may not be "noisy" about the patterns or strategies they came up with to innovate in their problem areas.

While it is true there is a visible and invisible part of the world of development (not everyone blogs), the analogy completely breaks down when you try to infer things from that observed absence of information because people are not amorphous matter. People are the complete entropic opposite, they are highly animate high entropy matter exhibitting some of the most complex behavior known - Attempting to infer a single quality of one of their most complex and intentional behaviors from a lack of information is not going to work... even for dark matter we only dare to infer extremely generic things such as quantity.

</comment><comment><USER15> See also [https://www.hanselman.com/blog/DarkMatterDevelopersTheUnseen...](https://www.hanselman.com/blog/DarkMatterDevelopersTheUnseen99.aspx).

EDIT: original comment sounded like I was implying plagiarism, which was not my intent.

</comment><comment><USER16> The credibility of the so-called 1% ended with the Leftpad crisis.

</comment><comment><USER17> > Dark matter permeates the universe. In fact it does more than permeate. It > is the universe. 85% percent of everything that exists is actually dark > matter. We can't detect it, we can't see it. But it's there.

Dark matter is so cringy and one of the most embarrassing moves from physics. Instead of admitting there is a massive flaw in the models, they decided to name it.

<comment><USER18> What "massive flaw"? The model works for most uses. Why can't there be matter that only interacts with gravity?

Do we have any explanation that makes sense without supposing the existing of dark matter?

<comment><USER17> > Do we have any explanation that makes sense without supposing the existing > of dark matter?

Why not just go with "God" /s? Being unable to explain things doesn't mean we should pretend to invent some. It literally is, in this case, the name for that which we cannot explain, without being forthright about it.

> The model works for most uses.

Newtonian physics also worked for 100% of cases for centuries.

The "massive flaw" is that a massive "85%" of the universe is composed of this thing that our models can't explain and our solution was to name it.

<comment><USER18> Okay, so you think dark matter is unfeasible but a supreme creator makes more sense to you. I was under the impression that I'll find some new knowledge of rationality or physics, but thanks for sharing your views nonetheless.

<comment><USER17> My point was they're equally weak explanations, not that God was the worth considering as an explanation. Added "/s" to clarify.

<comment><USER19> It is not an explanation it's a name for a phenomenon that no physicists will tell you is fully understood.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The business ppl eg. non-engineers are the ones who decide the tech stack. This makes software choise hype driven and basically becomes a sales/marketing process.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm not sure if some of that innovation whithout prior knowledge of older tech is really rediscovery or just plain theft of prior art.

</comment><comment><USER22> i voted for and still use sass but inside vue/nuxt - i have no desired to write css inside js, why? because I don't have time to relearn the wheel and I choose vue over everything else because I get to write code faster, not just css but html and javascript at the same time. I use the tools that work well for me so I can move prototypes to production faster.

<comment><USER23> The next step is to work with the tools that let your whole team work fast, on board new members fast, etc...

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> tl;dr rm hype</comment>


For $380 a month, this 23-year-old lives on trains instead of renting - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/10/1420182/-For-380-a-month-this-23-year-old-lives-on-trains-instead-of-renting <comment><USER2> No, she doesn't. She uses the train to wander between several free crash pads. Not really the same thing as "living" on a train.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Too bad we don't have as a good train system here :-(</comment>


Angering China Can Now Get You Fired - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/08/beijing-pressure-hong-kong-companies/596869/ <comment><USER2> Also not limited to HK. Last year, due to pressures from China, Marriott fired a social media manager for 'liking' a tweet that alluded to Tibet as an independent country: [https://gizmodo.com/after-china-got-mad-marriott-fired- a-soc...](https://gizmodo.com/after-china-got-mad-marriott-fired-a-social- media-mana-1823500225)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wait what did the globalists of the 90s think a communist regime would do ?

<comment><USER4> Become more open and liberal as it got more prosperous. At that time people thought Russia was going to transform into a European democracy. If that happened it was plausible to imagine a similar reform in China.

<comment><USER5> Did any of these people get fired for being so foolish?

No? Alright then.

<comment><USER6> Yes, everyone who thought something we now think of as foolish 25 years ago should be fired: economic liberalization of relations with the East will be a net positive, OOP solving all programming problems, Don't ask/Don't tell, Beanie Babies. Death is too good for them.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Does the film industry use stock options for compensation? - <AUTHOR> Maybe not stock options per se, but a payment structure where workers (actors, writers, artists, prop makers, editors, operators, ...) get a (risky) share of the profits of the venture? <comment><AUTHOR> Not knowing much about the industry I have 3 guesses:

1) they do but the options are for fame rather than financial gain. E.g. working for small productions hoping to get noticed.

2) No, because actors usually work with agents, and the agents want real money.

3) No, because everyone knows about "Hollywood accounting". ("Yeah the box office numbers are great, but we broke even, sorry!")

<comment><USER2> Re: 3, the studios aren't about to give the talent a cut of the real profits, see for example [http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2011/10/simpsons-a...](http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2011/10/simpsons- actors-have-a-cow-over-salary-cuts-series-could-end/)</comment></comment>


Massive network issues across Europe - <AUTHOR> Well I'm not sure exactly what it is but a twitter search has confirmed it is not just me.
Cloudflare sites (including reddit) are being very very slow and most requests end with a gateway timeout. Akamai CDN is the same (facebook images, twitter images)
See traffic map here: http://www.akamai.com/html/technology/dataviz1.html
21:42 BST - 4/6 European cloudflare datacentres are currently offline.
21:49 BST - It has been reported that Telias Transatlantic cable is down
21:51 BST - Cloudflare confirm that Telias cable has been cut
21:56 BST - Traffic now being rerouted <comment><USER2> Transatlantic cable down. Are they busy installing a prism?

<comment><USER3> Where is the USS Jimmy Carter?

<comment><USER4> For everyone else who didn't catch the reference, apparently this Seawolf- class submarine can tap undersea cables.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/politics/20submarine.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/20/politics/20submarine.html)

[http://cryptome.org/eyeball/mmp/jimmy- carter.htm](http://cryptome.org/eyeball/mmp/jimmy-carter.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > It was a scheduled job that went a bit wrong, says Bo Djurberg, manager at > Telia

from [http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article18915221.ab](http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article18915221.ab) (via google translate)

<comment><USER6> The text [now updated] says it was solved at around 23:00 CET, after an hours outage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > "One of our upstreams (Telia) appears to have a trans-Atlantic cable cut. > We're routing around in many EU locations now." @cloudflare

[https://twitter.com/CloudFlare/status/468494276691640320](https://twitter.com/CloudFlare/status/468494276691640320)

</comment><comment><USER8> I can pretty much only reach sites which are routed through the netherlands for me (like Cloudflare proxied HN, or Google). Everything else doesn't connect at all or times out after downloading 10% of the HTML. I'm connecting from Estonia.

The Digital Ocean status page [1] claims that "Preliminary investigation indicates that Telias Transatlantic cable are down." which would make sense, because my ISP is Telia and I can't connect to most of the internet.

Edit: Well, this outage lasted a bit over an hour. Now at 20:55 UTC I can access everything once again.

[1] [http://www.digitaloceanstatus.com/](http://www.digitaloceanstatus.com/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Its amazing how well traffic gets rerouted now days

</comment><comment><USER10> Hi guys, I'm very curious about the effects of this. What is the network like? Can you characterize it in terms of latency, dropped packets, bandwidth?

Say if you wanted to upload/download a megabyte of data to a datacenter in the US using TCP with retries, would it work eventually with high probability?

</comment><comment><USER11> It was really interesting how I could still communicate to some of the servers via connections that went through Level3.

Yet once I got back in the server (behind that indirection), the server couldn't even ping google, and its DNS was totally down.

Would've done a traceroute for fun if OVH's mirrors were reachable.

</comment><comment><USER12> Ah, thanks for the info.

Connections to our US broker failed at 10pm (dst) on different servers (based in Germany) and i had no idea why, I already wanted to blame our hosting provider.

</comment><comment><USER13> Clearly a test for who can withstand network partition...

</comment><comment><USER14> Germany: Dropbox unreachable, Tumblr very slow

</comment><comment><USER15> mostly unreachable from berlin: rackspace.com, amazon.com

but I see the traceroutes failing after they make it to the US.

<comment><USER10> Weird, why would it fail _after_ reaching the US?

<comment><USER16> It could be misleading. During the outage, I saw traceroutes like:

        1 someserver.in.europe 10ms 15ms 20ms
        2 someother.in.europe 50ms 60ms 50ms
        3 * * *
        4 * * *
        5 * * *
        6 * * *
        7 * * *
        8 * * *
        9 someserver.in.us * 500ms *
        10 * * *
        11 otherserver.in.us 900ms * *

So, it looks like for 10 and 11 hops we are losing a lot of traffic in the US, but that might as well be traffic that's lost in hop #3. The traceroute only tells you at some point between the start and hop #11 we lost 66% of the packets. It doesn't tell you where.

<comment><USER17> You can also get * on traceroutes (step 3-8) because the devices don't respond to ICMP. Network admins like to disable ICMP on their switches and routers so you can't trace the network topology. Your only definite packet loss is on 9 and 11 because you only got 1 of the 3 packets returned.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Russia starting a cyber-war?

<comment><USER19> Actually recent news show that this is US who has the most control over the internet. But this outage could be natual disaster :-)</comment></comment>


If you're still using ifconfig, you're living in the past - <AUTHOR> https://insights.ubuntu.com/2017/07/07/if-youre-still-using-ifconfig-youre-living-in-the-past/ <comment><USER2> <sarcasm> Great. You've got a new tool with incompatible options that will require rewriting network scripts worldwide. </sarcasm> Can you provide a good TECHNICAL reason why ifconfig fails to perform the task it performs every day? Would it have been too hard of a design task to make ip's command line compatible with ifconfig?

</comment><comment><USER3> ...or you're using about any unix other than Linux. This makes the post on par with the old joke that Ubuntu was supposed to be an ancient African word meaning "I can't configure Debian".</comment>


Amazon Pricing Error - lee-jon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Invicta-10299-Spider-Polyurethane-Watch/dp/B006YEATZ2/ref=sr_1_1?s=watch&ie=UTF8&qid=1364383533&sr=1-1 Nice pricing error on a watch. Wonder how many will get bought... <comment><AUTHOR> [http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_st?qid=1364385276&rh=n%...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_st?qid=1364385276&rh=n%3A560798&sort=-price)

<comment><USER2> I find it interesting that in the midst of the million-pound electronic products, there is a notebook (as in paper kind, not a laptop) costing £7.37. Rather confused as to how that gets there...

<comment><USER3> If you check its page one of the other sellers is listing it for £999,999.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> I especially like that the postage is £4.98 (why even bother adding postage to that price?), and also that the product description mentions how the watch is "affordable".

</comment><comment><USER4> Relevant: Amazon's $23,698,655.93 book about flies -- <http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358>

</comment><comment><USER5> Probably pricing bots gone into some kind of boundary loop, which is a lot more interesting than a fat fingering entry mistake, and reminds us of algorithmic stock trading.

See:

<http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=358>

and

<http://carlos.bueno.org/2012/02/bots-seized-control.html>

</comment><comment><USER6> IT's not Amazon selling the item directly, its from the Amazon market place. Which makes it likely that when ever the merchant put in a price they made a mistake.

</comment><comment><USER7> That's what they'd have to pay me to wear that minging POS.

</comment><comment><USER8> It's most likely been set there to put off anyone from buying it whilst they have none in stock.

<comment><USER9> I think it's more likely that it's a result of their automatic pricing gone a bit haywire. I'd think that if the item was out of stock, it would automatically be marked as none available, not change the price to some huge number because you don't think anyone will pay that price. The link above does a pretty good job of explaining how their automatic pricing adjustments can get out of control.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Anyone put that thing into his basket yet and checked out if it is worth the money?

<comment><USER11> One wonders if that is the max Amazon price, if you put in your basket and something else, does the number roll over and become negative?</comment></comment>


Anti-NIMBY movement is winning with a simple message - <AUTHOR> http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/11/12/homes-for-human-beings-millennial-driven-anti-nimby-movement-is-winning-with-a-simple-message/ <comment><USER2> In San Francisco, I think the real story is what YIMBYs are looking to do on the 2018 ballot: An initiative ([https://yimbyaction.org/prop/](https://yimbyaction.org/prop/)) to allow affordable housing and teacher housing to be built "by right" \-- which is wonky terminology for "The architect will be told the rules (zoning, etc) in advance, and as long as they design something that complies with all of them, a permit will be issued easy peasy".

Under current law, even if you abide by all the rules that were stated in advance, you still have to wait years and might be denied in the end anyway.

The reason I think this is such a key move is that until now, the landlords and homeowners who reap all the benefits from the status quo have somehow been able to dupe the housing have-nots who suffer from it (low-income renters, etc) into thinking that blocking housing construction will somehow keep their rents low or stem evictions. But anyone who stands against this measure won't be able to pretend they're doing so in the interest of the less-fortunate. They'll have to admit that they're really just looking to protect their view / parking space / skyrocketing property values.

<comment><USER3>
        They'll have to admit that they're really just looking to protect their view

I dunno, if I bought the most expensive thing I'll ever buy in my life and part of what I paid for was a good view, I'd be pretty choked if someone put a big building up and took that away.

<comment><USER4> I guess part of the counter argument is that you did not, in fact, pay for a good view. You may have thought you paid for a good view, and the person who sold to you may have told you you were getting a good view... but, since you didn't buy the land between you and what you were viewing, you weren't buying that view. You were just lucky to get it.

<comment><USER5> Similarly, you might have thought you were getting clean air...

You may not have legal authority over everything that happens, but there's more to the land you purchase, than the dirt within the lines.

Otherwise, why does anyone pay extra for a house near a school, or in a happening city? They didn't buy the school or the city, after all.

<comment><USER6> > They didn't buy the school or the city, after all.

No, but they didn't buy the right to control the school or the city either. And if they thought they did, they were wrong and had an unrealistic sense of entitlement.

<comment><USER7> "Sense of entitlement" comments like this show that what this debate really boils down to is control, with neither the "we have had control and don't want to give it up just because you want change" side nor the "we want to take some of the control" side coming off looking all that great. I happily wash my hands of all of it.

<comment><USER8> In all fairness, the comment he was responding to literally equated a nice view to breathable air.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you live in the Mission district of San Francisco and want to get involved, come to the Mission YIMBY general meeting at the end of November. I'm one of the organizers and we're looking to grow our membership base! [https://www.facebook.com/events/771212863081381](https://www.facebook.com/events/771212863081381)

<comment><USER10> "If you live in the Mission district of San Francisco and want to get involved, come to the Mission YIMBY general meeting at the end of November."

I am genuinely interested in what it means to be a Mission district YIMBY.

The recent history of housing politics in the Mission have pitted left-liberal progressives against housing development on the assumption that: new development will be market rate, this will bring "tech workers" and gentrification, ergo: new housing will (paradoxically) force more existing mission residents out of housing.

So it has been left-liberal, progressive, tenants-rights NIMBYs vs. gentrifying developers (and sometimes, very explicitly, "tech-bus- riders")[1][2][3].

BUT, the YIMBY movement _in general_ seems to present _itself_ as a left- liberal, progressive response to incumbent property owners.

Given that context, what kind of reception does "Mission YIMBY" receive and where does it fall in the politics of what is the Mission district in 2017 ?

[1] [https://48hills.org/2015/02/11/teachers-protested-google- bus...](https://48hills.org/2015/02/11/teachers-protested-google-buses/)

[2] [https://48hills.org/2016/01/25/problem-google-bus- program/](https://48hills.org/2016/01/25/problem-google-bus-program/)

[3] [https://48hills.org/2015/04/24/thebattle-over-sf-bus- stops/](https://48hills.org/2015/04/24/thebattle-over-sf-bus-stops/)

<comment><USER11> Most of the opposition to housing I've seen in the Mission has been to infill. Look at the controversy over development at the 16th street mission BART station. This would be dense housing in an urban core literally on top of public transit. It would displace a... Burger King. I find it hard to swallow that Burger King is a core component of a sustainable, progressive urban landscape, while high density housing with easy access to public transit is not.

<comment><USER12> Anti-gentrification isn't the same thing as xenophobia. It's not a fear of new (or even rich) people entering the neighborhood, it's the fear of even higher property values raising property taxes and rents for existing owners and renters, respectively.

The problem is that it's a virtual impossibility to build enough housing throughout the Bay Area in a short enough amount of time as to have a meaningful decrease in property values in _every_ neighborhood, thus preventing gentrification. So in the real world, with limited yearly construction, developers' aims will be to build upmarket housing.

You can't really work around this without dictating to developers what they can and cannot build. SF tried to do that with community approvals being a way for the community to de facto dictate to developers what they can and cannot build, but it's clearly not working.

<comment><USER13> > So in the real world, with limited yearly construction, developers' aims > will be to build upmarket housing.

I don't understand the line of thinking where this itself is a problem. Who cares what the new housing is, what matters is the total supply of housing. If we build new affordable housing, then lower-middle-class people will move there and upper-middle-class people will move to the older buildings. If we build new upmarket housing, then upper middle class people move there and lower middle class people stay in existing housing.

The problem with building only affordable housing, is that 1. it doesn't seem like you could ever build enough because as soon as you do you create pressure for more people who qualify to move to the city, and 2. there will always be a step function where someone just barely doesn't qualify for affordable housing but can't afford market-rate housing because you've been restricting the supply. Building a lot of both is the only reasonable way forward.

<comment> eric-hu > If we build new upmarket housing, then upper middle class people move there > and lower middle class people stay in existing housing.

If the Mission were a closed population, I would agree with you. However, there's a pool -- or rather an ocean -- of people on the housing market: people in different parts of the SF, people looking to move to the bay, etc. If the upper middle class in the Mission got new housing, I don't see the landlords dropping rent prices so the lower middle class can afford it, when someone from one town over is willing to pay the same or even +10% over their competition.

> Building a lot of both is the only reasonable way forward.

I agree with you here. I think new housing supply should meet demand across the market. My guess is that _new_ housing supply could be 10x what it is now in the bay.

There's something about the housing market in general that's different from typical goods markets. People buying a car don't care as much about depreciation, whereas people buying a house expect it to appreciate as much as possible over time. It's some kind of positive feedback mechanism that counters the typical negative-feedback that lowers price as supply meets demand. There's probably a name for this kind of market but I'm unfamiliar with it.

<comment><USER14> The outsiders are coming in anyway, renting existing Mission apartments when their leases are up. New buildings are not required to stimulate new residents - that's already happening.

(New buildings _can_ make a previously-ignored place newly attractive, but usually we're taking about neighborhoods that are already popular and/or have good immutable features like proximity and transit access).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you live in San Francisco you should consider supporting Sonja's campaign for the Board of Supervisors (City Council)

[http://www.sonja2018.org/](http://www.sonja2018.org/)

<comment><USER16> "I'm committed to ... preserving the Tenderloin as SF's most economically diverse neighborhood."

Re Tenderloin: I understand it's part of District 6 and her campaign website needs to say something, but that sounds like an anti-gentrification line, which in SF is usually used as an argument _against_ new homes. Is Sonja anti- development in the Tenderloin?

The area is rife with homeless and drug use. It feels to me like an area that would greatly benefit from some gentrification. (I.e. add some rich techies demanding cleaner streets and more policing, and the existing low income residents gain.) Yet I've heard more than once that to change the planning rules there is politically "untouchable". Can anyone explain why?

<comment><USER17> The city "pushes" a large part of the homeless population into the Tenderloin. They seem to be quite happy with this set up and don't want to have the homeless spread out throughout the city. It may be altruistic in that it is easier to help them out when you know where they live or a cynical approach to a problem but there isn't much interest in changing the status quo

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> They're not winning in Boulder. 4 of 5 seats on the city council were just won by Nimby supporters. And no wonder... the largest contingent here is wealthy boomers who moved to Boulder because its Boulder. Why would they want that to change?

I'm not one of them by the way. But I do think that increasing supply in crazy high demand markets is a linear solution to a logarithmic problem.

<comment><USER19> 1) O(linear) > O(logarithmic), I'm going to assume you mean polynomial instead of logarithmic. Soooo I'm going to address that. Increasing density in markets with large amounts of single family zoning is not a linear solution. Yimby is about turning 2-dimensional single family neighborhoods into 3 dimensional multi family zoned neighborhoods by adding a heigh dimension to the equation. It is by definition a polynomial solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is there any actual evidence of "winning" outside the headline? The best the article can muster is a single pending lawsuit that, if successful, would allow the construction of one (1) home in Sausalito.

<comment><USER11> > Is there any actual evidence of "winning" outside the headline?

The legislation that Scott Wiener was able to recently get through the state government, for one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> As a Bay area home owner, I will stop being NIMBY when I see housing advocates accept that schools, parks, roads and retail must see consistent investment also.

So far I see a lot of advocacy for housing density but no concerns for quality of life.

More units will just mean more new residents...developers have no obligation to build to serve existing residents.

If we build 100k new units now, that is just another 100k new residents who will suffer abysmal traffic.

<comment><USER11> > So far I see a lot of advocacy for housing density but no concerns for > quality of life.

I see density as correlated with quality of life. I want to be able to live near work (so no car needed), with easy access to restaurants, bars, music venues, easy access to cultural opportunities, farmers markets, grocery stores, etc. Neighborhoods with these things are an absolute joy to live in.

<comment><USER21> What you want are frankly the typical goals of those derided as NIMBYs. They tend to want amenities balanced with housing.

<comment><USER11> Without density you can't have these in a walkable neighborhood. It takes X number of customers to support a grocery store (or a bodega, or a restaurant, etc). If you want one nearby, you need more people in a smaller geographic area.

Besides, it is not one or the other. Ground level retail, upper level residential, and you get both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm very much a pro YIMBY kind of guy, but I feel like there's a hard pro- urbanization, anti-expansion aspect to this. And the reason that gets to me now is that, while I totally get the pros and cons of both urban and suburban settings, but this debate always seems to be binary, when in reality, it's like every other socioeconomic factor, and is just a matter of tradeoffs. I'm saying this as a guy who has done the 2+ hour commute each direction, but who also is fortunate enough to live in a suburb and my commute is a whopping 4 minutes, so I obviously am prejudiced here.

But I really think that expanding development into further areas brings with it economic advantages for those outlying communities (and yes, gentrification as well), and we have far more space right now by going out rather than up. Why not use it?

<comment><USER23> That's a complicated question to answer. Suburban sprawl certainly _can_ work to get low or lower housing prices, but it has its own set of downsides.

Suburban sprawl tends to cement car-dominant infrastructure in an area, and eventually leads to a situation where more people are commuting by car into the principal city than the roads can handle, but mass transit is not a feasible solution because most of the area has too low density to support the stations (and the people who live out there are now set in a car-only way and won't support his change). This also helps make people fat as hell.

Suburban sprawl is less environmentally friendly: takes more energy as a lifestyle, and necessarily means cutting more into nature to build homes.

Suburban sprawl tends to be financially unsustainable. The Strong Towns blog goes into this more if you're interested, but the gist of it is that sprawly development means more miles of road, power lines, water lines, etc. per person, without a commensurate increase in tax revenue. It works okay at first, but then thirty, forty, fifty years down the line when things need to be replaced, there's not enough money to do so.

<comment><USER22> I don't disagree about many of those trade-offs, because they do happen. However, car dominant southern California is also a very big chunk of economic activity and also has much of that infrastructure that is actually updated (though, yeah, not very often, but there is a separate debate about whether it's an inept state legislature that manages an extremely large land mass or whether it's sprawl itself).

I feel like much of that could be improved by businesses at that point though. Why not set up shop in one of those suburbs (which I've seen many a company do over the years) and use that as a way to not only build up that area, but also bring with it people who are skilled in different fields and reduce general congestion?

I grant that that's a little pie in the sky, but I have seen it done, and even from startup levels.

Maybe this is something academia could lead in, as I've seen a lot of colleges that are setup in non-urban settings, and they could be the initial hub of activity and a talent pool for businesses to draw from.

I'm not saying you won't have the downsides of not having a large concentrated talent pool, and it for sure makes recruiting more time consuming, but if you're looking to build a company that is sustainable long term, employee satisfaction and happiness can be greatly improved by a dramatically shortened commute and affordable housing, at least in California. The recruiting constraint also gives you a chance to explore alternative paths of hiring, such as hiring people with non-traditional backgrounds but who are uniquely gifted for what you're needing. I know we have found some of our best developers in people who graduated with a wide array of degrees that wouldn't make sense on paper.

<comment><USER23> > However, car dominant southern California is also a very big chunk of > economic activity

Oh, you mean the LA that's turning away from cars to solve its problems and is moving to walking, biking, and especially transit? That LA? [http://www.latimes.com/opinion/livable-city/la-ol-metro- elki...](http://www.latimes.com/opinion/livable-city/la-ol-metro-elkind- measure-m-transit-waste-20170317-story.html)

> Why not set up shop in one of those suburbs

That's a question you need to be answering. The suburbs are already cheaper and less crowded, so why don't businesses set up shop there? Do they hate money and love traffic?

> if you're looking to build a company that is sustainable long term, employee > satisfaction and happiness can be greatly improved by a dramatically > shortened commute and affordable housing, at least in California.

Employee satisfaction can also be improved by having a successful company, which I think is probably a higher priority for most businesses, hence why you've seen more companies recently moving _from_ suburbs to major cities (e.g. GE).

> The recruiting constraint also gives you a chance to explore alternative > paths of hiring, such as hiring people with non-traditional backgrounds but > who are uniquely gifted for what you're needing.

Whoa there bucko, maybe take off your hippie hat? "When you think about it, handicapping your recruiting is actually a _good_ thing!" No. No it's not.

<comment><USER22> > Oh, you mean the LA that's turning away from cars to solve its problems and > is moving to walking, biking, and especially transit? That LA?

That very one. Even with it's car issues, it has gotten to be successful. Those "solutions" don't work all that well in so cal because of the sprawl. I'm not arguing it's a 100% pro. There are cons, but I think you're missing my main point, which is that there are tradeoffs, and definite benefits and cons to sprawl, but it's the same with urbanization.

> > Why not set up shop in one of those suburbs That's a question you need to > be answering. The suburbs are already cheaper and less crowded, so why don't > businesses set up shop there? Do they hate money and love traffic?

They choose different tradeoffs, and I believe there may be an inherent preference of many people who start certain companies for certain areas for multiple reasons. The founder of my company had his life in the suburb we work out of, so it started there and remains there.

Some suburban spots are inconvenient to reach from only specific other suburbs, so there's an infrastructure issue involved as well.

Lastly, my point isn't that it's the right move for every company or even every industry. But I have seen and worked for companies that didn't even consider moving outside of certain urban areas because of image reasons. I'm just saying that there are other benefits worth considering.

> Employee satisfaction can also be improved by having a successful company, > which I think is probably a higher priority for most businesses, hence why > you've seen more companies recently moving from suburbs to major cities > (e.g. GE).

My point is that success and location aren't mutually exclusive. It's easy to fail in both types of areas, and a different kind of hard to get it successful. And the company doing well doesn't always lead to employee satisfaction. Not every company passes on those benefits, or the company culture is toxic.

> Whoa there bucko, maybe take off your hippie hat? "When you think about it, > handicapping your recruiting is actually a good thing!" No. No it's not.

Accepting a trade-off isn't handicapping anything, it's accepting reality and working within constraints. And constraints _are_ very often a good thing, and they're still there with urban cities.

At the end of the day, each company should pick whatever delivers the best economic outcome for them, and the smart ones make sure to account for the long term, which includes retaining smart and good people. If your company turn over rate is high, yeah, you'll need to focus on recruiting, but IMHO, that's not a good way to work in this world, hippie hat or not. Maybe it all comes down to how and where we prefer to work, but I think the benefits are often not even considered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I am wish even people who owned houses could improve on them. I own a home in the Bay Area. If I could extend it out near the sidewalk I could probably double my living space and get rid of a dead yard, but he setback rules make reasonable expansion impossible.

</comment><comment><USER25> Eventually they'll work out that land cannot ever be a functional market - because they don't make it any more.

A far more useful regulation would be to require those business owners funding these lobbying operations to release their own massive pads, demolish them and build high rise, high density accommodation for millennials. Then they get to feel the cost of over centralisation personally.

If you want to make a fortune out of this, buy land in the bubble areas and just sit on it. It's a one way bet.

<comment><USER2> There are already lots of people who _voluntarily_ want to demolish the house they own to build apartments; why not allow them to do so first, before we start talking about making people do it against their will?

<comment><USER25> Well it's about allocating the cost. Surely the cost of intensification should be paid by those needlessly intensifying.

Certainly amongst technology firms there is little need to be in a particular place. That requirement is largely down to a power play and lack of management and organisational skill

<comment><USER2> I think adding more people to a city is a benefit, not a cost.

Most people moving to urban areas do so because they like all the good things that come with high population density.

It's only a problem when you artificially restrict the supply of new housing and create a shortage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> San Diego seems to be keeping up with new housing demand. It's still California and on the beach.. Probably the best place to get in now.. Tech companies will develop there.

<comment><USER27> I recently looked at San Diego's housing market and was surprised to see how much more affordable it was than LA. Seeing that they're building enough units to meet demand is probably one of the reasons why it's still affordable. Because it's certainly a desirable location to live.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> That is all good, but what will they do with transportation? When the supply of the housing is increased, it will attract a ton of people who now simply can't afford (as many not-so-top, but still good coders - i know a ton of people who would move in, but can't afford the Valley rent). Can you imaging the traffic then?

<comment><USER14> The simple answer is to concentrate development around transit stations and to increase frequency and length of trains on existing service. For example, by- right authority to build towers, but only within half a mile of a BART station.

<comment><USER2> We don't even need towers; six-story apartment buildings would do. See [http://tinyurl.com/6storySF](http://tinyurl.com/6storySF)

<comment><USER14> The land near BART that's available for development in the near and medium term is the parking. Six story apartments on all BART parking is what, a couple thousand units? That's a drop in the bucket. To replace enough SFHs to make a difference with buildings of that height, we would need eminent domain seizures of entire tracts. Not gonna happen.

It's true that an entire city built out of six story apartments could work, but realistically development needs to squeeze in the gaps (infill). A mere six stories is a huge waste of a gap.

Path dependence is weird like that.

<comment><USER2> We absolutely would not need eminent domain. The city is full of tenantless low-density buildings close to transit hubs where the owners would voluntarily build six-story apartment buildings if we allowed them to.

(If they wouldn't, then why did it need to be forbidden?)

<comment><USER14> Of course they would build six story buildings if we allowed them to. But why would we stop them at six stories?

<comment><USER2> I'm saying, whatever height you want, there's no need for eminent domain. Plenty of landowners _want_ to build.

<comment><USER14> Appeals to Paris and vast tracts of six-story apartments as an alternative to high-rise construction are dangerous because they create the illusion that a six-story height limit is okay. If we could build the whole city over again tomorrow, it might be. Today, recognizing the reality that most existing low- rise structures are in it for the long haul, when there is an opportunity to build, every floor counts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> If your political opinions are little more complex than "does this involve government intervention", it'd be wise to avail yourself over whether the proposed alternative actually entails more state intervention or less.

</comment><comment><USER30> As much as I support what YIMBY is trying to do for San Francisco, I think this is trying to solve the symptom of a greater problem: that our economy has shifted to not needing (yet still somehow requiring) our workers to work in a physical office.

I recently became a remote worker and I cannot imagine going back. If this became the norm in the US I think this would do a lot for fixing the housing problems.

 _We have enough space to house everyone, the problem is we believe we need to house them close to where the "jobs are."_

But if employers allowed their workers to work from anywhere, then not everyone would need to live in NY, SF, LA, Boston, et al. The cities that experienced the worst emigration (e.g. Detroit, Cleveland, Milwaukee) could stabilize. Housing prices would normalize as a result of everyone not being forced to live within a 2-hr commute of the country's biggest employers. And those same employers _could pay less for talent_ because they wouldn't have to give them a salary to afford places where the average starter home is over $1mm.

And yet, we see articles in the NYT how big companies like IBM are already rescinding their offers for giving people more flexibility. We're not moving in the right direction.

<comment><USER6> Companies would love to encourage remote work if it would work out well for them. They would save tons of money by reducing their office space, and they could lower their salaries because they wouldn't need to support the big-city cost of living.

So, why don't more companies encourage remote work, and why are some companies rolling back remote-work policies? Because they learned from experience that it doesn't work out well. Maybe some of them are just being stupid, but others are well-established companies that have been very good at running their businesses.

I've worked at a company that had very flexible working hours and a generous work-from-home policy, and now I work somewhere that doesn't. I much prefer the situation I'm in now -- my coworkers are much more responsive when there is a problem, it's easier to schedule and conduct meetings, there are far fewer slackers, etc.

Ever worked at a company that has office locations across the country (or the world), and tried to conduct important meetings with people in those other offices over Skype or the phone, or even expensive telepresence equipment? It kinda sucks. Imagine that every meeting, and every interaction with your coworkers, and every "whiteboarding" session was like that. That's not a world in which business is easy to conduct -- in fact, it's so difficult that companies are willing to forgo the massive cost savings they could realize by encouraging remote work.

<comment><USER31> > it's easier to schedule and conduct meetings, there are far fewer slackers, > etc.

That's a lot less a problem with telecommuting work and a lot more a problem with your company not being able to hire effectively.

If employees are incapable of being responsive, or even productive, without someone over their shoulder, I'm really not seeing where that is _any_ issue but one of personal responsibility/capability, and if that's a question mark in enough employees to render a telecommute policy ineffective, I have to wonder how these people make it through the door.

<comment><USER32> Even if your company was able to hire only people who work well from home, all of those other people have to work somewhere.

Plus, how is a recruiter supposed to measure someone's productivity at home?

<comment><USER31> > Even if your company was able to hire only people who work well from home, > all of those other people have to work somewhere.

Well sure. I don't think going completely decentralized is something most larger orgs can embrace yet. But there's no reason that some engineering staff could not perform their work remotely. If on-site staff complain it hampers their productivity, then I ask why productivity is predicated on the "drive- by" model of engagement, which is universally disruptive to programming flow.

Most companies are paying for a combination of Slack/HipChat and WebEx/Zoom/Bluejeans, and you should make use of them liberally.

> Plus, how is a recruiter supposed to measure someone's productivity at home?

They're not. Their job is to ingress a pool of potentially suitable candidates into the hiring process based on experience, acumen, and career interests. The job of determining productivity, and ultimately fit into the environment, is up to the hiring manager/s and the interview process.

If you're already conceding that you can't determine whether an employee will be a productive contributor in their potential employment environment, remote or otherwise, that's a problem with your hiring process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Does California really want or need more people? If it's so hard to get housing, then move out. The rust belt has really good deals on housing. It just needs something to jump-start its economy. Something is out of whack.

<comment><USER34> If companies are hiring there... yes? Like, it is an objective "yes, California needs more people."

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Can someone "explain like I'm 5": why does this need government intervention? My gut reaction is that if these people can't afford to live in/near San Fran, a massive, amenities-filled city, they should find jobs elsewhere? If enough people take that approach, maybe the jobs will move elsewhere too? My family wanted to move to a big city but we saw the cost and decided not to. I don't want to assume it's an entitlement thing, but it sure reads like it.

<comment><USER36> Okay, but who will clean / teach / deliver to / cook for / care for (for example) your city of the rich?

<comment><USER37> This is non-economical thinking. If a city becomes too expensive for service workers, service workers will leave the city, lowering supply and increasing wages. Its a non-problem from an economic standpoint.

<comment><USER36> Has this ever happened in reality?

<comment><USER37> Do you think service workers in San francisco have the same wages than in Flynt Michigan?

Of course its reality. Wages can't go lower than subsistence for long, either people move out or wages go up.

<comment><USER38> Flint, MI.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> The big elephant in the room that no one wants to touch is the massive immigration to San Francisco Bay Area from all over the world. The population stands at 7.68 million. Just in 2010 it was 7.1 mil. And in 2000, it was 6.7 million. So you essentially have an extra million people living in what was already pretty densely populated area.

I doubt NIMBY or anti-NIMBY is going to solve any problems.

<comment><USER2> The San Francisco Bay Area is absolutely not by any stretch of the imagination densely-populated. At 332 people per square km (859/sq mi), it's a third as dense as Peoria. It could grow by 50% and still be on par with New Jersey, which isn't exactly Hong Kong.

Even if you're just looking at the city of San Francisco itself -- or even just the neighborhoods of the city that surround underground train stations -- the population density is a joke: [https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/3qu9uv/i_made...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/comments/3qu9uv/i_made_maps_of_all_the_fourstory_zoning/)

<comment><USER37> This is obvious to the naked eye. The mission is all 3 story buildings, for example. For the rental revenue you would expect everything to be torn down and built into complexes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm not sure the evidence suggests that building a lot of high-density housing will reduce rents.

Compare New York (very high density, very expensive) to Tucson (low density, very cheap).

Building more housing may just induce demand: more people will decide to move to SF but rents will remain the same.

<comment><USER2> NYC's demand for housing is more than an order of magnitude greater than Tucson. If you want to argue that increasing supply doesn't matter, you need to compare two examples with similar demand.

<comment><USER40> That is exactly my point. I don't see why we should expect San Francisco to turn out differently from New York. Building more housing will allow more people to move there, which will drive growth, which will in turn attract even more people...

<comment><USER2> We could debate how this works, but since neither of us is an economist, that would be as silly as a couple of non-scientists arguing about climate change -- when the overwhelming majority of scientists are all saying the same thing, just listen to the scientists.

In this case, an overwhelming majority of economists are saying that increasing the supply of housing in our cities would bring prices down.

SF's Chief Economist: [http://www.sfhac.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Ted- Egan-Pre...](http://www.sfhac.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Ted-Egan- Presentation.pdf)

California's legislative analyst's office: [http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2015/finance/housing- costs/hou...](http://www.lao.ca.gov/reports/2015/finance/housing- costs/housing-costs.pdf)

The Obama White House: [https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/Housing_Development_Toolkit%20f.2.pdf)

Even if they're all wrong, and we increase the supply of housing by 100,000 units and prices stay the same, that's 100,000 fewer families that get displaced.

<comment><USER41> Don't put science up on a pedestal. That's the magic: There is no priesthood. Anybody can do (and talk about, argue about) science.

<comment><USER41> Bizarre.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Classic case of over-regulation. "Let's solve it with more regulation!" I'm a millennial, and I apologize for my generation's stupidity.

<comment><USER43> > Classic case of over-regulation. "Let's solve it with more regulation!"

I find this to be a fairly feeble argument. Regulation, to me, is a necessary evil. Most especially when it comes to protecting the common good, or interests of those who do not have other forms of power to get a seat at the table. I'm also a millennial and I'd be just thrilled if you'd hold off on apologizing on my behalf. Regulation is not some bogeyman. It can be effective or ineffective in relation to particular goals.

<comment><USER42> I know regulation is necessary and I know it's not a bogeyman. That's why I addressed this specific problem and this specific proposed solution.

Less housing available in SF because of too much regulation. That's why the market is not able to satisfy demand. The correct solution is not "more rules" and "government-built housing". This is a typical case of trying to solve an issue caused by over-regulation with more regulation.

So will you address my point or just pick up some other strawman again?

<comment><USER43> My point is that "too much regulation" is an insufficient criticism. It means nothing, except that it suggests you think regulation itself is the problem. If you do indeed believe regulation is necessary, then we both accept that. It then becomes about what kind of regulation best addresses the complicated problem of housing in high-demand cities. I'd address your point but I don't know what it is, beyond what I've already said.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Here is the problem, the bay area is filled with hypocrites. After all, they are having formal galas for affordable housing. Let me explain. Most of the same people who are pro-affordable housing and homeless rights are making 200K a year plus and living comfortably in their $4,000 a month rent apartments. I fully expect this won't be a popular opinion, but I don't have a horse in this race anymore. I'm moving to Nashville Tennessee next month, but I believe in free markets. If you want to live in the bay area, then you're going to pay bay area prices. It really comes down to basic economics.

<comment><USER45> Why exactly is being rich and pro-affordable-housing hypocrisy? Generally the ballot measures they vote for involve spending their own tax dollars on the policies they advocate for.

<comment><USER44> > Why exactly is being rich and pro-affordable-housing hypocrisy?

Because some would claim they are the reason there is an affordable housing problem... I'm not one of these people though. Again, I believe markets set prices.

<comment><USER45> "I'm not one of those people" \- yet you still call hypocrisy?

The organizations in the article, backed by wealthy supporters of affordable housing, do believe that the market sets rents; the policies that they advocate are a) allow low-income people to get housing outside of the market, and b) to change market rules to encourage higher supply and lower market prices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I've met these "YIMBY" members personally, and only about 20% of them are actual home owners. The rest are renters. So first of all, it's not their backyard to say yes to. Secondly, these people are promoting the Hong Kong- ification of small cities such as Palo Alto and Mountain View. Yes to 20 story apartment complexes along the 101? Vote with YIMBY!

<comment><USER47> "Renters should have no say in what people are allowed to build - only the landed gentry have that right!"

<comment><USER42> The slogan is "Yes in my backyard." But the people saying it don't have a backyard. They should not be coercing people with backyards and imposing their will.

<comment><USER48> That might have something to do with not being able to afford a backyard.

<comment><USER42> How is that anybody else's problem?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Employers Have Gamified Work for Maximum Profit - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/how-employers-have-gamified-work-for-maximum-profit <comment><USER2> In spite of an advanced degree and decades of experience, the best job I can find is one that pays well, but micromanages this way via the tyranny of JIRA – I spend an hour every week haggling over story points for the coming week and snivellingly excuse my "score" for the previous week. The funny thing about this is that it's actually a lose-lose. I'm not motivated to work harder and produce better (or even faster) results: I'm actually motivated to exploit the system as best I can rather than just do actual good work. No matter how much they complain about my velocity, I'm hard (not impossible, but hard) to replace: I'm careful to manufacture some job security that way because I don't have any choice. My boss is actually one of the better ones: he realizes that reality is more complicated than a JIRA report, so he overlooks a bit of gaming of the system so that our reports look good even though we're actually doing work that advances the organization. I've worked, though, under mindless drones that took those reports completely seriously. The end result was somewhere between union (that's not my job) and prison mentality, and you can see the results in the finished product.

</comment><comment><USER3> Can we quit calling it "gamified", please? It's a stupid euphemism in this case. "Electronic whip", I like that one.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is such a great concept. It is a win-win scenario. The employee wins a better place to work, motivation and fun. And the employer gets loyalty, productivity, commitment and a better performance.

<comment><USER5> 'It pushes you mentally to keep working. It doesn't give you breathing space.'

The workers called this 'the electronic whip'.

We saw a higher incidence of injuries,' Topete said. 'Several people were injured on the job.' The formerly collegial environment degenerated into a race.

People started skipping bathroom breaks. Pregnant workers fell behind.</comment></comment>