The Non-Programming Programmer - <AUTHOR> http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/02/the-nonprogramming-programmer.html <comment><USER2> This is why I think that Codility (covered on HN earlier here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1039140> ) is such an amazing idea. You can administer a web-based company-appropriate FizzBuzz for rounding error next to the cost of doing an interview or (worse) hiring someone who can't do FizzBuzz.

Incidentally, if you think Java programmers who can't figure out how to count the number of occurrences of the letter "a" in the string "Java java java" are bad, you should see how many interpretations of "advanced oral and written Japanese proficiency" we've had. Oh boy. Let's hypothetically say you're a recruiting company and you get a candidate as far as our door without disclosing that their exposure to Japanese is, I kid you not, "I loved watching Kenshin in high school" -- we will not be doing business with you again. Hopefully ever.

<comment><USER3> See, honestly I think something like Codility misses the point of these coding exercises.

For me, a coding exercise is more than just a way for me to see if the person can produce something that works. It's also a kick-off point for other questions. Often there are things the person will do along the way to a solution that reveals some lack of knowledge, so I keep my eyes peeled as they talk through their solution for these potential gaps.

One of the biggest problems now is that you have people who can even pull of FizzBuzz but don't know much of anything beyond how to get something like that working. They don't understand data structures, algorithms, or how a computer really works.

A simple coding exercise like FizzBuzz _can_ reveal these gaps too, even if they get the problem right. The trick is to use their implementation as a way to probe their thinking.

For example, if they are just using a "sort" function, like in Ruby, ask them how it contributes to the runtime of their algorithm. Or, if they are loading a file into RAM instead of just iterating over reads on a file handle, ask them about it. Or, if they are iterating over the keys of a hash (h.keys), ask them how they think that works. (This recently revealed to me the candidate did not understand that a hash function was irreversible.)

None of the major gaps in knowledge I've found that separate mediocre from good candidates were found by just looking at their code and giving them a thumbs up or thumbs down. That's good for separating the mediocre from the morons. To find out if they're good, you have to probe.

To find out if they're great, well, that's another story entirely that is far afield from FizzBuzz :)

<comment><USER4> "That's good for separating the mediocre from the morons."

That's a lot, if you ask me - the morons usually make up the vast majority of candidates, so by filtering them out effortlessly at an early stage, you get to spend your time more effectively - identifying the great ones among those who at least hold a promise.

<comment><USER3> Yeah a good point, actually. I actually am just subconsciously responding to the implicit meme that seems to be spreading that if they get the coding question right, they win. I think for screening out morons, that is probably a good bar. But don't forget to do the next coding question in person, and drill into areas where they gloss over things that they may not understand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We were once hiring programmers for a small consulting firm.

We asked the prospective employees if the knew how to program for Windows, VB, etc...

They almost all answered 'yes', when we asked them to write a sample program the couldn't, so we asked them to describe how the would program something for windows...

Their answer: 'You put the CD in the drive and run the setup.exe'

They all thought that programming meant 'installing' software... Needless to say we ended up not hiring anyone.

</comment><comment><USER6> Whenever the FizzBuzz topic pops up on Hacker News in the back of my mind there is a nagging anxiety: am I one of these programmers that can't program? There is always some comment in the ensuing discussion that makes me question my own competence.

<comment><USER7> If you had contact information

1\. I'd send you one of my regular tests

2\. You could reply with your code

3\. I could tell you if I think you can code at this point in time, under the conditions you used.

Or you could email me. 30 seconds of searching didn't find contact details on the blog in your profile.

EDIT: amended 3 in light of insightful comment(s) below.

<comment><USER8> It's very easy for someone to misinterpret 3. as "I could tell you if I think you can _ever_ code, so I would amend it to "I could tell you if I think you can code _now_ ".

"Can't code now" could become "Is a great coder" later.

Everyone is at their own place on their path. We've all traveled that path. I look at some of my code as recently as a year or two ago and I'm embarrassed.

Nobody here should get discouraged. You should just get better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Could this phenomenon happen because of stress ?

I've done several interviews where I was asked to code and I really don't think it's easy, because you're under intense pressure of doing your task right the first time and under a very tight time frame. Sometimes even with your interviewer sitting next to you.

<comment><USER7> The whole point is to use a task so trivial that even moderate amounts of stress won't prevent your fingers from taking over. That's why people who criticize "FizzBuzz" as not testing the true requirements for a job are simply wrong. All you want is some real code that produces a correct answer.

My programmers wrote FizzBuzz in under 60 seconds. If you can't write FizzBuzz in 15 minutes in an interview then you are either unable to program, or _any_ level of stress will prevent you from doing your job. Either way, you couldn't work for me. I don't routinely stress my programmers, but stress is a matter of observable fact.

<comment><USER10> I don't think it's just stress. Few programmers actually write correct code on a whiteboard / pen and paper so expecting them to accurately program outside of their preferred environment can be vary hard for some people. It's something like asking an author to spell out an essay, plenty of people can do it but it's a separate skill from being a good writer.

PS: Try composing your response by saying one letter out loud at a time without typing it before you type it.

<comment><USER11> I've had employers ask me to bring my own laptop and have me write my code on it in front of them. That reduces the "whiteboard effect" tremendously.

<comment><USER12> That would be a good solution for me, too. For example: It's years ago since I used Visual C on Windows, but I use C++Builder daily. I can whip up a good looking, surprise-free, standards-adhering, well behaved GUI in minutes and flesh it out to a fully functional application without hesitation in the hours after. If you'd put me behind Visual C I'd probably be looking for minutes to find the Dialog Editor (errr.... is that Windows Forms nowadays? Hmmm, I should give .Net a look someday).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I can't remember the link, but I read about one job where they gave candidates an ssh login and asked them to write a simple, running, perl script. Something like 10% actually finished the assignment, and they hired one of them, but avoided screwing around with LOTS of screening phone calls, enthusiastic people who "were familiar" with Perl, Windows programmers who didn't really know what ssh was, etc.

<comment><USER7> <http://neil.fraser.name/news/2005/09/03/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think this article does a good job covering the second best way of selecting programmers - the technical job interview.

The best "interviews" aren't really interviews, though, they're recruiting sessions. A really strong, experienced software development manager who plans to employ programmers should have 1) a strong background in programming, and 2) a strong network of programmers who would jump at the chance to work with him again.

You already know your potential hires are good programmers, because you've worked with them before - in school, on side projects, at work, in various collaborations. You don't need to ask them to print all the nodes in a binary tree, and if you did, well, you'd probably lose the candidate.

I think Joel (on software) put it this way (I'm paraphrasing): if you're a small independent film maker, and Uma Thurman expresses an interest in your movie, you don't ask her to audition, you ask what you can do to get her on board. I think 37Signals is another example of a company that mainly recruits people they already know through programming projects (esp contributions to rails).

I won't say the technical interview is evidence of a "broken" recruiting system the way some people do, because let's face it, we don't all have the recruiting mystique to wave the magic wand and get top people to join us, and our networks just aren't big enough. So we _have_ to interview relative unknowns.

But I will readily admit that this shows that I'm not doing it the best way. This goes both ways. If I'm in an interview and people start asking me how to implement a singleton, I start to wonder if I'm going about my job search the wrong way. If I have to ask the candidate this, then maybe I'm going about the recruitment in the wrong way as well.

But if that's your reality, then yeah, make sure you screen well.

<comment><USER15> Except that even headline actors do audition - if the role is good, there will be competition.

<comment><USER14> Wow, I didn't know that. Brad Pitt actually has to audition for roles? Jeez. Well, that's the problem with analogies.

But I'm not really a fundamentalist about the code test. I've gone through many, many, many of them. I just had a little epiphany the last time I was in one. I was thinking, "why don't these guys already know that I'm a good programmer? Why don't they already know good programmers?"

It made me realize as a programmer and as a manager that I wasn't really building my career the right way. I decided that I wanted to build a network and a reputation that went both ways - essentially, I wanted to have a large number of people out there, in different organizations, who are both confident in my tech skills and my value as a manager. I'll step outside that network constantly, and when I do, I'll certainly validate programming ability (and I'd expect people to do the same for me).

But every time I do this, it's a reminder that I failed on Plan A, which is the best way to do things.

<comment><USER16> "I decided that I wanted to build a network and a reputation that went both ways - essentially, I wanted to have a large number of people out there, in different organizations, who are both confident in my tech skills and my value as a manager."

How did you accomplish this?

<comment><USER14> Well, I can't entirely say that I did!

So far, it hasn't been much more than doing a decent job in the different positions I've held, and working in a few different industry sectors. I've worked for a large silicon valley company, a couple of public sector organizations, and a couple of small startups, and I've taken on management and dev roles. I keep up my contacts.

When the startup I was working for folded, I got a bunch of interviews (lots of tech questions), but my best offer came from a former coworker who didn't bother with a tech test because he'd already worked with me.

While I wish I could say I'd done more (presented at conferences, made big contributions to open source, etc...), but in some ways this is a better story, because people start to think that if they need to be a total rock star. You really don't have to, just keep up your contacts and make sure you have a reputation for good work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I remember interviewing for the first time, where I'd asked lots of questions, and then called back potential candidates for a proper coding test if they passed the talking test. I know better now, but anyway, it was scary! The amount of people who can talk about the inner workings of compilers, internet protocols etc, and then can't do the fizzbuzz test is shocking!

The next time, I started with fizzbuzz and made life a lot better ;)

</comment><comment><USER18> Part of the problem here is that not all interviewers can recognize a candidates learning aptitude. Typically the interviewer is so enamored with his own coding style that if the candidate can't mimic his style the candidate is not acceptable. If the candidate does not communicate in the interviewers style the candidate is not acceptable and so on. As well, most programming projects are not about such simple problem solving tasks as printing out the contents of a text file backwards. Of course most people could figure this out and as my experience has been this is when most people think about such issues, when they are required to apply it to a larger problem at hand.

</comment><comment><USER19> First, as someone who has done a fair number of technical interviews, there are a lot of posers. I have had people claim to be experienced that had no clue how to do even very basic programming, just as described in this article. Even more common, I have had people that grossly exaggerate their skills and experience. One that stuck with me was someone who was a "senior DBA" but when I probed further it turned out he mostly ran stored procedures written by consultants and didn't really have the knowledge right then to do much more than that.

I would also like to point out that if you are up front about your lack of skills and applying for an entry level post, it can work out. I had one interviewee who had no programming skills, but was ready and willing to learn. She was up front about it, convinced the whole team of her sincerity, and willing to start for less than most people with a CS degree. By the end of her 3 month probationary period, she was competent. Still junior and with a lot to learn of course, but quite competent and a good hire overall.

</comment><comment><USER20> Just to state the obvious but all fizzbuzz really tests for is whether someone is familiar with the modulo operator or not. Arguably any good programmer should know about it, but I think it's not a very comprehensive check on the knowledge of any one particular individual. Suppose for instance, that the only bit of code someone has _ever_ written was something which required them to get very familiar with the modulo operator, but virtually nothing else. They could pass fizzbuzz, but not much else.

Note: The author of the 'non-programming programmer post' saw took my comment down when I had posted it there (which is why I posted it here). Guess there's no knocking of the fizzbuzz test allowed... :p

<comment><USER21> The first interview's purpose - whether in person, over the phone, or via e-mail - should be to weed out the obvious idiots.

If you don't know what the modulo operator is, door is right this way, operate it by placing your hand around the knob, turning clockwise, and pushing forward.

<comment><USER20> I've been programming for 3-4 years now, have memorized tons of functions and operators, across a variety of languages, and have never once needed to use the modulo operator for anything, so I personally don't place it at the top of list of priorities for what someone should know. As an employer and interviewer I'm more concerned the person has a grasp on general programming issues and the ability to problem solve than testing their knowledge of narrow subjects.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The post mentions a tool for live coding over the web (<http://i.seemikecode.com>) that looks simple but good. Etherpad (<http://www.etherpad.com>) is also real good for those and has some other features like line numbers.

<comment><USER23> Bespin (<http://bespin.mozilllabs.com>) is even better for this. It's slightly less realtime than EtherPad, however it is made for collaborative programming. It has syntax highlighting and a bunch of other features for coding.

<comment><USER24> Check your link: you're missing an 'a'

<http://bespin.mozillalabs.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I was recently contacted by a head hunter for a job I thought was worth investigating. I wanted to talk to the company directly, but the head hunter made it clear that Step 1 was _always_ a web-based programming aptitude test, no matter who you were. 20 questions. 18 correct was considered passing. They would only talk to candidates who got 19 or 20 correct.

So I took the test and got 20 correct (as I imagine many people here would do as well). I thought it was very easy. The headhunter later told me that in 9 months, she had sent 52 people to the test, only 2 of us got 19, and I was the only one who got 20.

I'm not really sure what this means. That there are a lot of posers out there? That she wasn't very good at screening talent? That the companies seeking the best talent gladly pay $100 50 times to save their time?

I guess my biggest feeling is one of disappointment. It's just not that hard to become a good enough programmer to get 20 right every time. All it takes is study, passion, a lot of dedication, and a lot of hard work. I wish more people would do that. There aren't enough of us.

<comment><USER25> Wish I could find the source, but the math is simple. If you're great (at programming and marketing yourself), you pick where you want to work and apply once (or more likely, are convinced to leave one good job for another). If you're good, you pick a few places and apply a handful of times. If you're bad, you end up applying constantly. The average unscreened resume is the average person in the job pool, who is well below the average programmer.

<comment><USER26> I decided this seems like something one should be able to calculate with conditional probability.

Let P(A) be the probability that someone is a pretty good programmer. (I said top ten percent, so .1).

P(A') is 1-P(A) = .9

Let P(E) be the probability someone is employed. I guessed and put that at 1-P(E'), guessing programmer unemployment rate at 6%. P(E) = .94 P(E') = .06

Here is a more wild assumption. Let's say that given that someone is a top 10% programmer, there is a 98% probability that he or she is employed.

P(E | A) = .98, and conversely, a .02 probability they aren not.

With these assumptions in place, I ran the calculations. I was intending to type them up, but it would be difficult with just a text area.

Here is the punch line (with those symbols, and assuming I did this correctly, which I did it on the bus on the way home, so probably not)...

Given that someone is unemployed, there is a .033 probability that they are in the top 10% and a .96 probability that they are somewhere among the rest. (The 'rest' includes a lot of pretty decent programmers though!)

In other words, 3.3% of applicants would be top 10% candidates, and that's assuming equal probability of them sending in an application in the first place.

I might rework it with different assumptions. Anyway, you said the math was pretty simple. If someone wants to see how I screwed it up I can type it up into latex and upload it somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Some of this may be due to selection bias. The good programmers find jobs quickly, whereas the non-programmers go to interview after interview, until they finally find a company dumb enough to hire them.

</comment><comment><USER28> It makes sense to me. Programmers who can program - and don't want to stop working as employees - give up programming to pursue higher paying careers, such as project management. Actually, many "programmers" nowadays can get by simply copying and pasting code from the Internet. If you ask them how things work, they don't know. That's my experience.

</comment><comment><USER29> I think that it is worse that most people who turn up for a Developer job are just programmers, have no design skills at all.

<comment><USER15> Most development outside web front-end work doesn't particularly require end- user UI design skills.

<comment><USER30> That is correct, of course (otherwise, I'd be unemployed!). But what you comment on might mean "design" as in "system architecture design"?

<comment><USER29> I do indeed mean architectural design.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> I would think "bring a sample of your coding" might be better. Non-programming might include: Query language "programming". Maintaining an existing "out of box application" Maintenance programming. End user support. Little real coding is necessary. These are programming jobs but not really programming as I see it but. Then there is the ability to learn new languages, processes, dealing with the end user, is the code maintainable, code by specs?, juggling multiple projects. I might start an interview by a sample code but that would not be my only criteria and if the person failed the "programming" test I would see it as a need for further discussion, not really a big red failure flag. Example: If the reason the programmer doesn't know sql is because they spent their time putting out fires and supporting the end users, I would hire that person over the others any day.

<comment> brown9-2 This is hard-to-impossible for those developers whose entire development career has been for companies (i.e. no OSS contributions).

<comment><USER32> Do most professional programmers not ever work on personal projects?

<comment><USER33> Most professional programmers probably view programming like any other job, rather than a passion like I expect most HN readers do. As a result, they leave programming behind when they leave the workplace.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Along with the CV I always used to ask for code samples. I wanted to see the code before I could develop any biases by talking to the person. I found it worked best to ask for "the last project/projects you had fun working on, or developed on your own time". If there are none...

</comment><comment><USER35> In early stages, aspiring programmers need mentors. It would be interesting to know how many people who consider themselves good programmers, spend a reasonable amount of time mentoring other jr. programmers. Looking back in 7 years, there were only two good programmers I learnt a lot from. I took every chance to read their code and ask them to review my code and pair program with me once a while.

I became convinced recently with a new approach to this problem. If you want an artist, pick someone with decent interest to learn art and put a brush in his hand and he becomes a painter. It takes time but this is overall good for the programing community.

</comment><comment><USER36> Out of curiosity, anyone want to share some of the questions they use or would use in these situations?

<comment><USER37> This is one test I've used: write a program that reads a text file and then prints out all the lines in reverse order.

<comment><USER38> I love interview questions that make Python look awesome.

<comment><USER12>
      python -c "print '\n'.join(open('file.txt').readlines()[::-1])"

Hmmm, slightly longer then the Perl version ;-)

      python -c "print '\n'.join(reversed(list(open('test.py'))))"

Somewhat more elegant, but still lots of parentheses.

<comment><USER7> It's also wrong - "readlines" keeps the "\n", and you've added another one between lines.

<comment><USER12> Indeed. A cosmetic refinement, but it should really be:

      python -c "print ''.join(reversed(list(open('test.py'))))"

That's even two characters less!

<comment><USER39> Good, but too easy. Assume you can't keep the file in memory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I'm not sure about that article at all, actually.

My C++ and Java are very rusty, and I don't think I could do it on the spot if I tried; let alone go into languages like python and ruby that are new to me. But if you gave me a week or two, I know I could get up to speed.

</comment><comment><USER41> Tough questions without also building rapport is also bad.

I've had some interviews where they asked tough questions and I got a job offer but I declined because I felt there was no rapport or interest in my career.

</comment><comment><USER42> It seems completely unfathomable to pose for a programming job. It's one of the rare professions where your skills and understanding can be tested very quickly, harshly and objectively.

It would probably be easier to lie your way (with mere knowledge and possibly some experience) into the position of a lawyer, an airline pilot, or a medical doctor than a programmer.

(At least I hope they don't test doctor applicants as like "Please operate this unfortunate cardiac surgery patient as an example so that we know you'll know how to do it.")

</comment><comment><USER43> Good article but didn't he write the same article in 2007 (as he mentions but ..)? This re-posting is a subtle shill for stackoverflow careers. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

</comment><comment><USER44> IMO if you're giving people 'gotcha' programming tests in an interview, then you don't know how to select candidates or interview in the first place.

You should be looking for competence by looking at their programming accomplishments, both in and out of work, as well as their ability and desire to teach themselves (probably the most important trait IMO).

<comment> brown9-2 This article doesn't mention "gotcha" programming tests.

<comment><USER44> I disagree. IMO asking someone whether they can program a loop that demonstrates the use of a mod operator is a 'gotcha' test because it proves nothing as far as their suitability as programmer and as an employee and is designed soley to weed people out based on one thing. Sure, _maybe_ they are completely ignorant... or maybe they were just nervous that day or unfamiliar with a particular language's mod operator. Lots of programmers don't do well in high-pressure situations... which incidentally programming is _not_ most of the time.

How about asking someone how they got interested in programming, or what sort of things they've created with their knowledge in and out of work, or what languages/technologies they've taught themselves in their free time, how they go about fixing puzzling software problems, or what they consider to be good vs. bad programming practices, or even what their hobbies are? - those kinds of things that will tell you IMO whether they are smart, passionate, and will make a good employee.

<comment><USER45> > unfamiliar with a particular language's mod operator

Just anecdotally, over some hundred interviews, I've never ever ran into a candidate who failed one of these FizzBuzz style loop writing tests because the didn't know the mod operator, or were nervous enough not to remember it.

I see a lot of candidates that can't remember what params some standard system call is supposed to take and I always tell them I'm happy as long as they define what they think it looks like. Heck, most of the time I have no clue myself.

I'm not claiming the candidate you describe (competent but can't remember a for loop) doesn't exist, just that I've never personally encountered such a beast. Quite the contrary, with a technically open minded interviewer it seems hard to get even the most introvert candidate to stop talking shop .. :-)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A new section of The Tau Manifesto: Getting to the bottom of pi - <AUTHOR> http://tauday.com/tau-manifesto?new <comment><USER2> "pi is a lie" and "pi is wrong" are incredibly disingenuous slogans. I would be really excited about this site if it weren't for these sensationalist remarks at the top. It's sad, because their main content is all about mathematical reasoning, which overall they do a fine job presenting.

pi is not a lie. It's not part of some conspiracy theory among math elites to mislead the masses. It's not about math bureaucrats refusing to admit they were wrong. Everything they told you about pi is true (or it isn't, but in that case it's not true of tau either). pi and tau are really just two different notations for the same concept. Only perhaps one is more elegant and convenient than the other, making it more fundamental in some mystical way (and perhaps preferable if you ever need to convince visiting aliens that you are intelligent).

<comment><AUTHOR> _"pi is a lie" and "pi is wrong" are incredibly disingenuous slogans._

For the former, you just need to know your meme:

[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=the+cake+is+a...](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=the+cake+is+a+lie)

For the latter, you need to know that it comes from Bob Palais' original article.

For both, you might need to lighten up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The last section nails it in a nutshell:

 _...imagine we lived in a world where we used the letter h to represent "one half" and had no separate notation for 2h. We would then observe that h is ubiquitous in mathematics. In fact, 2h is the multiplicative identity, so how can one doubt the importance of h? But this is crazy: 2h is the fundamental number, not h. Let us therefore introduce a separate symbol for 2h; call it 1. We then see that h=1/2, and there is no longer any reason to use h at all._

Color me converted as well.

</comment><comment><USER4> It seems like these guys are fighting an uphill battle, not that I'd want to discourage it. It's simply much easier to visualize the path traced when you relate the radius to the circumference of a circle rather than its diameter, since there's only one point to focus on at a time as you rotate around the axis. Pi is insidious as it's only much later that this foundation begins to appear problematic.

[My analogy was not very good. The circumference is the only dimension of a circle stated in terms of diameter, not radius, and so substituting tau for pi is simply relating the radius of a circle to its circumference instead of its diameter. Circumference = tau * radius. This has the benefit of bringing the circumference formula in line with all the other circle equations.

When we look at the area of a circle, tau is not very intuitive, however. The formula for the area of a circle uses the square of the radius, so there's not an intuitive way to factor two into the equation without just making extra mental work for yourself.

For volume, the effect is somewhat neutral. Volume = 4/3 pi * radius^3 = 2/3 tau * r^3. 2/3 vs. 4/3 doesn't seem to add much insight into the equation.

Circumference = tau * r

Area = 1/2 tau * r^2

Volume = 2/3 tau * r^3

4th dimension circle = 3/4 tau * r^4? : P

Maybe there's something to this...]

<comment><USER5> No, the tau manifesto agrees: radius is the more fundamental concept. That's why tau is better! Pi is an expression relating the diameter to the circumference, which as you point out is a little counterintuitive.

<comment><USER6> The problem with tau for introductory math is area = pi * r^2 = (tau/2) * r^2. Given the choice between having equations with 2x or other with 1/2 y most people feel more comfortable with 2x.

EX: e^(i * tau / 2) = -1 wait what?

<comment><USER7> If you read the Tau Manifesto you'll see why tau * r^2 / 2 is actually AWESOME (he actually refers to it as pi's coup de grace)

Just think of it like an integral (that's what it is, after all!), raise the power and divide by the power. Suddenly the origin of this formula is no longer obscured.

Regarding Euler's identity: e^(i * tau) = 1

<comment><USER6> Telling a 3rd grader to think of it like an integral seems to be putting the cart WAAAAAAAY before the horse.

Edit: Also that's is hardly a more fundamental equation because you could also say e^(1024 pi * i) = e^(4096 * tau * i) = 1.

<comment><USER7> It won't amaze third graders, but it would make a lot more sense the first time you learn integral calculus

<comment><USER6> Meh, so did 2 * pi * r > 2 * pi * (r ^ 2) / 2 = pi * r ^ 2.

The great thing about math is it's it works out either way. So, it really comes down to which is easier to deal with and students seem to have an easier time remembering and understanding 2 _pi_ r and pi*r^2, but in the end it's tau day so that's what people want to argue about.

<comment><USER7> "students seem to have an easier time remembering and understanding 2 pi r and pi r^2"

Are you speaking from empirical experience as a math teacher?

What makes 2 pi r easier to understand than tau r?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I live with 60 minutes per hour, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 360° in a full circle, a speed of light of 299,792,458 m/s, to name only a few cases of historical 'accidents'.

2π is arguably more fundamental than π, but given the things above, I don't care much.

If you want to tackle something worthwhile, update theoretical physics lectures to 'modern' notation (where modern means 1960s).

<comment><AUTHOR> _360° in a full circle_

That's one of the things tau can help solve. I suspect the main reason that people still use degrees so much is because using pi undermines the beauty and intuitiveness of radians.

<comment><USER8> No, the main reason why degrees are still in use is because most people have an easier time with 51° instead of 1/7 τ.

<comment><USER9> 51° is not 1/7 τ. 1/7 τ is (51 3/7)°, or 51.428571...°. If you round that to 51°, then presumably you're doing something where inexact numbers are fine, in which case you might then use "0.89 (radians)". My intuition is better for degrees here, but I think that would change if I spent ten minutes doing calculations involving real radian measures.

<comment><USER8> 51° is the latitude of the city I'm living in, and I chose 1/7 τ because it comes pretty close.

I could have used 0.14 τ to make my point as well: If you want to avoid fractions in common cases, you'll need to multiply with an arbitrary number like, say 100 (which has obvious benefits in a base-10 system), but arguments could be made for something like 400 (in which case we end up with gon) or, say 360, which has the benefit that it's the established standard (even though it's not the most obvious choice).

Actual radians (ie not expressed as fractions of 2π) are pretty user- unfriendly in a base-10 system.

<comment><USER5> > Actual radians (ie not expressed as fractions of 2π)

I think this is the source of your problem: you view an expression like "τ/8" or "π/4" as less an "actual" radian measure than the inexact ".785". That's a function of how a lot of us were taught math, I think, and I'm quite sure that it's only made worse by the fact that the use of π camouflages the fact that this is related to fractions of a circle. But your premise is faulty. Of _course_ radians expressed in decimal are user-unfriendly, but radians expressed in decimal are no less "actual" than radians expressed as fractions of τ _or_ π.

<comment><USER8> A physical quantity is given by numerical value and unit of measurement. Giving angles as fractions of τ changes the unit of measurement from radians to turn.

There are applications for which neither radians nor turn are a good fit. Similarly, oftentimes the 'messy' SI units are a far better fit than any 'more fundamental' system of natural units.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "For example, consider integrals over all space in polar coordinates:

\\[ \int_0^{2\pi}\int_0^\infty f(r, \theta) r dr d\theta \\]

The upper limit of the $\theta$ integration is always 2$\pi$."

This statement is false. If $r = r(\theta)$, then it can be the case (e.g., for a "looped" limacon $r = \cos(\theta)$) that $\theta$ will not range from $[0,2\pi]$. The upper limit is not necessarily "always" $2\pi$.

</comment><comment><USER11> This should probably link to the actual section of the page that was added: [http://tauday.com/tau- manifesto?new#sec:getting_to_the_botto...](http://tauday.com/tau- manifesto?new#sec:getting_to_the_bottom_of_pi)

<comment><AUTHOR> The reason I didn't link to the exact section is because the math needs some time to render. If you go right to the section, on many browsers you won't end up where you wanted to be. If instead people hit the top of the page, the math renders in the background while they're looking for the new section link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Huh. Section 5.1 (one of the new ones) is presented as this new epiphany about hyperspheres and tau, but I made a post back in 2010 about this ( <http://www.blahedo.org/blog/archives/001083.html> ), emailed Hartl at the time, and he said he'd already thought of that. Still, cool to see that my observation was worth (eventually) including in the manifesto itself. (He did elaborate on the idea considerably, of course.) ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> When I said I'd already thought of it, I was referring to the general observation that _n_ -sphere volumes support tau, not pi. You can find my original comments, dating from July 2010, at [http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=61958](http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=61958).

The "epiphany" refers to the specific realization that there are three families of constants, and in particular that pi is not a member of the family of volume constants but rather is part of a useless family of its own.

In any case, you certainly deserve mention, so I've added you to the acknowledgments. Thanks!

<comment><USER5> Nifty! I wasn't trolling for recognition so much as being puzzled why this was billed as a new epiphany---that makes sense though. I _love_ the idea of recasting the presentation from "list of complex formulae for area and volume" to "sequence of constants expressing ratios".

<comment><AUTHOR> I know you weren't trolling, but I'm a strong believer in giving credit where credit is due. Thanks again for your comments!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I know that as a kid I was all too sensitive to things in math "making sense" in a deep way. Any semi-arbitrary conventions that made my understanding less elegant, or which obscured the beauty of a concept, were fiercely protested.

So, up with tau!

</comment><comment><USER13> It's just semantics. Pi and tau are the same thing. You don't see physicists going around saying h is wrong and h-bar is what they need to use.

<comment><AUTHOR> _You don't see physicists going around saying h is wrong and h-bar is what they need to use._

Sure they do—or at least, they did. Physicists realized that h is "wrong", i.e., confusing and unnatural, because it's off by a factor of, um, 2 pi. They introduced h-bar precisely to rectify the problem. And the substitution worked: if you open up a standard book on quantum mechanics, the ratio of uses of h to h-bar is just about epsilon. (You'll also see lots of (2 pi)s.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Happy Tau Day

</comment><comment><USER15> Am in and converted!</comment>


Ask HN: How do you get mentorship experience in a small company - <AUTHOR> I'm a Junior Developer in a company that only employs one other dev who is my boss. I would really like to get some mentorship experience but I don't know how to without having someone to mentor. Does anyone have any experience in this? <comment><USER2> So if I'm understanding you correctly, you're a junior dev who wants to have a mentee? Shouldn't you be more concerned with finding a mentor at this point in your career? I suppose you could start with mentoring college and high school students who are interested in entering the field. Just my two cents

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm more of a mid-level dev really I would say, I'm a junior dev in title though. I'm quite confident in my code and work more or less autonomously without much issue, but I feel like in order to start moving towards the next level mentoring is a skill I need I'm just not sure where to start. How do you recommend finding high school and college students to mentor if I were to go that route?</comment></comment>


Twitter explores subscription-based option - <AUTHOR> http://in.reuters.com/article/twitter-subscription-idINKBN16U389 <comment><USER3> $1/month for every 10k followers over your first 10k. Small price to pay for "fame". 1,000,000 followers is $99/month. You don't think Trump and the Kardashians would pay that for the voice it gives them to promote whatever they promote?

<comment><USER4> Interesting concept. Wouldn't this encourage people to create spam accounts to follow people to force them to pay / pay more?

<comment><USER5> There's no direct benefit to the spammer. More effort would go into pruning spammers (from those who are paying, spam protection services) and if twitter credited their account for any payments related to an account marked as spam it seems like it could work. Definitely an interesting model.

<comment><USER6> You are right but Twitter benefit from Spammer and the people that sells followers. They have no incentives to go after them.

Any person that uses Twitter knows that many of their followers are bots/Spam.

<comment><USER7> That's very similar to the situation with click-based advertising in search engines. I wouldn't say that it isn't working for everyone involved (except those who pay the ads).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe if they had some CRM functions for brands to use, maybe using machine learning to automatically pick up on nasty tweets about your brand and add them to a queue of cases to investigate.

Seems like a lot of people turn to twitter to complain about products/services when things go wrong, give companies an easy way to handle those?

<comment><USER9> Yeah I built an integration like this for a hackathon at work (we did call center software, e.g. we serve the people that serve people). The system categorized tweets so that the customer could respond to issues and such - <USER2> obvious value add is it's unlikely a customer will come to you directly, but they'd likely complain online.

Somewhat related I've noticed that some of the really successful open source projects meet people where they are and are really accessible via channels like Twitter (SpringBoot and Auth0 are good examples of this, from my experience).

<comment><USER10> I also work on call center software. Care to say which company?

<comment><USER9> I left a year or so back, but it's based in IN (USA) and just got bought by a place in SF (USA). If there was any overlap that's probably enough to identify it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Super hypothetically, Twitter could monetize something like Reddit Gold, basically as a form of "super upvote/retweet".

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I was thinking a similar thing, but making it more direct: I follow lots of "creatives" on twitter - webcomic artists, bloggers, opensource contributors, citizen journalists, etc. A quick "tip jar" feature in Twitter would be great. Buy up something like Flattr and bake it into the UI.

<comment><USER11> Holy crap, this is a great idea. Building a Patreon-style paid content/subscription platform on top of Twitter seems worth exploring. By all means Twitter probably already has the userbase for it.

<comment><USER13> Absolutely agreed, this is brilliant. Ideally partner with Patreon to bootstrap it, but allow anyone with a Twitter account to have patrons. (That also gets more people providing payment information, useful for other future purposes, such as making "sign in with Twitter" support "pay with Twitter".) Then start combining that with a Patreon-style "patron posts" mechanism, increase the limits on "patron posts", and perhaps later introduce a "circles"-like mechanism for non-patron accounts.

<comment><USER14> Giving users a direct financial incentive to game your system would probably turn your platform into a 'low-effort but popular' content mill in short order. (Imagine what would happen if people could withdraw reddit gold to cash.)

Drawing a line for 'quality control' becomes the next obvious step, but whenever money gets involved (especially other peoples'), any decision you make trying to decide for users how and for whom your system can be used ends up making it less viable to them, even if it's in the best interests of your platform or its quality.

"X with micropayments" isn't a new concept, and it's not a funding model panacea for a reason.

<comment><USER15> You can't game the system if you're getting paid by other users. We can argue about tweet quality, but it's no different than any other product or service that some people find valuable and others don't.

What you're describing is possible if Twitter agreed to pay top Tweeters to generate popular content, independent of user's volunteering to pay for that content. This would drive low-quality, low-effort content which nobody is interested in, but Twitter pays for anyways.

<comment><USER12> To keep scammers out they could start with restricting the feature to verified users. That would discourage beggars and hucksters until they work the kinks of admining and monitoring such a beast out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I run a small horror news publication and we'd love to spend money on twitter. We've tossed some money towards ads and have had a nice return from it. What we can't figure out is how much money it'll take before they'll verify us. Maybe that's something they could just offer to businesses without having to submit a request and ultimately be denied for whatever reason.

I think it's fair to say I'd be very interested in throwing more money at twitter.

<comment><USER17> And what is the reason your business would benefit by being verified? I am unfamiliar with the concept I guess

<comment><USER16> Pretty simple, people see the checkmark and value you more. Also stand out in search and some threaded conversions.

<comment><USER18> I suspect it'll be a much weaker signal when every business has it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'd gladly pay $25 a year just to have a verified account. Be worth $10-20 million a year in earnings anytime they choose to simply turn it on.

<comment><USER20> $25 a year would be too low, everyone will be verified - which is kind of counterintuitive.

<comment><USER19> If they let you sort on it you could turn off anyone replying to your tweets that wasn't verified. A crude but probably pretty good filter for not seeing the Twitter mob.

One more thing, it's 2017 and if I am paying you money let me edit my tweets for a certain period after posting to correct spelling and grammar errors.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This should have been explored in its prime, not on its downfall.

<comment><USER22> If they tried to make money before the IPO it'd have only demonstrated how impossible it is for them to generate revenue.

Them actively searching for monetization strategies now seems to indicate an understanding that the capital well is running dry.

<comment><USER23> > demonstrated how impossible it is for them to generate revenue.

$2.5 billion in 2016

<comment><USER24> but they have been losing money? [http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/21/technology/twitter-10th- anni...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/21/technology/twitter-10th-anniversary/)

<comment><USER21> They have WAY too many employees. They need to cut half, and become profitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Twitter should leave the platform as is currently and clone into an alternate twitter-verse, ATV, where all kinda vices and foul language would be allowed and supported. Original Twitter would be more intolerant of trolls, related vices and foul language, outrightly deleting transgressing accounts even for incomplete, symbolized hybrids like f*$# and so forth.

Subscriptions to ATV would be based only on fake names and related credentials (including email addresses) and subscribers would be able to purchase troll units, (instanceOf)xVice units, etc.

To register, you would have to use your original Twitter email address initially and maintain an annual subscription to keep twitter-verse from disclosing your identity on Twitter. The revenue sources from ATV could be expanded further from this point.

<comment><USER26> You're essentially pitching "4chan, except you have to pay for it, and it's explicitly designed to blackmail you for using it."

<comment><USER27> > You're essentially pitching "4chan, except you have to pay for it

Funny you should bring up 4chan because some people actually do pay a yearly subscription to use it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The fact that this is Tweetdeck makes me believe this isn't a core initiative by Twitter's leadership, but probably a side project initiated by some individual contributors at Twitter. So this shouldn't be taken to be some big strategic shift by Twitter. IIRC Tweetdeck was also based in Europe so that accentuates the possibility that this is not a core project.

</comment><comment><USER29> As long as the mere mortal users like me don't have to pay. I like IMDB way. They have a Pro subscription that normal users won't need. But then there's this that they are tied tightly with Amazon and what all it sells.

On the other hand they could do something like an account verification process (subscription? one time payment?) for non-celebrity users too. Maybe add a celebrity badge for the biggies or show other (something watered down) badge for non-celeb users that just says the account isn't some anonymous/throwaway account. Or sell more than 140 chars for tweets (and on the website at least they can collapse the more than 140 part).

I just hope they are not doing what Medium is trying to do.

</comment><comment><USER30> There is a giant gap between the public client and their proprietary API.. something in the middle is the only sensible solution (50-100$ a year). I would definitely pay just for more options on getting their data.

This is going to cannibalize their gnip/API business but their pricing is in the thousands _per month_ and any small or midsize companies have so many work arounds to get the same information it's laughable.

</comment><comment><USER31> I love using Twitter, but what are the company doing ?

As a tech person, I understand that the platform can be difficult to scale, security, fake profiles, etc. But besides that? From an outsider, it seems like everybody is doing operations and no innovation in any area is present.

Twitter's homepage is still only a registration to closed social network like Facebook. People dont `get` twitter, and why join when it looks like just a facebook with text-limit?

Stop trying to be a social network, I dont have twitter friends.

Their trending topics are super nice, but nobody knows about it.

All the big tech companies work on speech, but not twitter ?

Tweets are mentioned all over the news, but still people are not using Twitter ? I can only imagine the amount of `Trump traffic` generated.

Their notifications simply blows!

Sorry the rant, I really want Twitter to succeed, because I dont like Facebook, I use Instagram because of family and Snap because of friends. But Twitter is like Hacker News a thing I just love.

<comment><USER32> I just can't get the appeal of Twitter. Who do you follow on it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'd pay $30/yr to twitter to keep the service running, in return I'd expect the option to opt-out of ads.

<comment><USER34> Price that low would not make sense to them. generously assuming 4% conversion to paid accounts (DropBox had 4% at some point) from their 320M MAU, they would make just 15% of their current revenues with your model.

I still think that their best bet is to work on their ad engine. Two of the 4 biggest tech firms, GOOG and APPL, make insane revenue on ads.

<comment><USER32> I assume you meant FB? Without checking numbers, FB average revenue per user is probably triple that of Twitter. Because of FB's scale, scope, etc, I can't see Twitter getting too close to FBs numbers. But yeah that still means Twitter should potentially be able to double its revenue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Would this change affect 'anonymous' posters? With KYC legislation anyone with a sufficient amount of followers who was unwilling to be unmasked (via payment trail) would result in removal?

I am unfamiliar with the intricacies of the verified account system, so perhaps large anonymous users are already suppressed.

</comment><comment><USER36> Welcome to 1998.

[http://www.nathanargenta.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/03/Ebay...](http://www.nathanargenta.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/03/Ebay-Seller-Account-Profile-3_2015.png)

</comment><comment><USER37> I would HUGELY pay for twitter feeds that actually provide useful information. Imagine having a twitter feed that actually gives you clueful summaries and links of critical information that helps you out in your work everyday.

</comment><comment><USER38> Honestly, I would love to pay Twitter to manage something like a Kafka queue. I would build entire apps with Twitter as my "DB". The subscription cost would come with tiered rate-metering, so I could make a small app feed for free, but a larger app would start to incur costs when I wanted to up the throughput.

</comment><comment><USER39> This must be part of the reason why you can't view profiles with_replies now if you're not logged in

<comment><USER40> It still works if you clear the cookies or open in incognito mode.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I started using TweetDeck because it remained untouched by Twitter's awful changes like promoted tweets, rearranging my timeline... I hope they keep their changes to TweetDeck to a minimum.

</comment><comment><USER42> Weibo already has such subscription thing for quite a while ...

Twitter steadily follows Weibo's footsteps to roll out features and business models :)

</comment><comment><USER43> I was begging for this five years ago. However, they have messed with so many parts of the service now that I find it almost unusable.

</comment><comment><USER44> I guess app.net was on to something after all.

</comment><comment><USER45> Interesting.

gab.ai just added subscriptions as well.

</comment><comment><USER46> Here is the thing : paid subs means customer service. I think Twitter doesn't want to bother with that. They'll have to get a customer service for each country in which they operate, pay some people locally to manage it, ...

</comment><comment><USER47> I'll pay $500 a month for an all-you-can-ban button.

</comment><comment><USER48> Finally. I would easily pay 100 a year for this

</comment><comment><USER49> I wonder how this will impact HootSuite.

</comment><comment><USER50> No sale.

</comment><comment><USER51> ...here come the ads....

</comment><comment><USER52> Twitter does not support the 10bn market cap. 3bn maybe, but it's overpriced by 300%

</comment><comment><USER53> Ah, fun to see the inevitable cash grab technique overvalued internet tech companies make as they drive off the stockholder cliff. All it takes is a hungry competitor. Maybe time to synthshort twitter.

I hope reddit is next.

</comment><comment><USER36> I have a completely different take on where twitter needs to go. The YC application I am submitting today is based on a twitter-like.

</comment><comment><USER54> Sounds great, would love to see fewer shitposts and spam. #BuildThePayWall</comment>


Running Windows under FreeBSD's bhyve - vezzy-fnord http://pr1ntf.xyz/windowsunderbhyve.html <comment><AUTHOR> The current BSD Now episode[1] has thoughts on this and the passing of @creepingfur[2][3] (Benjamin Perrault).

1) [http://www.bsdnow.tv/episodes/2015_12_16-im_talking_about_th...](http://www.bsdnow.tv/episodes/2015_12_16-im_talking_about_the_man_in_the_middle)

2) [https://twitter.com/michaeldexter/status/676290499389485057](https://twitter.com/michaeldexter/status/676290499389485057)

3) [http://pastebin.com/4BQ5uVsT](http://pastebin.com/4BQ5uVsT)

</comment><comment><USER2> I'm certainly no expert on XML, but it looks like there's a good chunk of the _Win2k8-AutoUnattend.xml_ file missing.

Unfortunately, at the present moment, that's probably the part of this that I'm most interested in.

ETA: Found the original XML file [0].

[0]: [https://github.com/pr1ntf/YetAnotherBhyveScript/blob/master/...](https://github.com/pr1ntf/YetAnotherBhyveScript/blob/master/Win2k8-AutoUnattend.xml)

</comment><comment><USER3> Poor guest support is why I ended up switching from FreeBSD to Linux for my test server.

I'd like to go back, but I can't justify a single box for a single instance - I run lots of VMs, using all operating systems.

So I'm glad to see this, and I hope they continue the improvements.

</comment><comment><USER4> I know very little about FreeBDS and bhyve. But, is it possible to pass direct access to the GPU to the virtual machine this way?

That way it would be possible to play the games in Windows or to use CUDA in a Linux guest inside bhyve.

<comment><USER5> bhyve would have to support what is called "PCI-E passthrough", and support such functionality via IOMMUs to allow device-initiated DMAs to work (which GPUs, >=10gbit NICs, storage controllers, etc, all require).

KVM, Xen, and ESXI all support this, so if bhyve doesn't support it yet, it most likely will in the future.

<comment><USER6> It should work for Intel's VT-d, but you're out of luck if you use AMD.

<comment><USER7> What? AMD has support for IOMMU.

<comment><USER8> The implementation is different to Intel's. AFAIK, bhyve has code to support one but not the other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Even though it looks like (and probably is, I can't easily try this right now) a lot of work, it's cool to see this running on bhyve</comment>


How FedEx Has More Bandwidth Than the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5981713/how-fedex-has-more-bandwidth-than-the-internetand-when-thatll-change?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

<comment><USER2> This is just a summary of <http://what-if.xkcd.com/31/></comment>


Help Recover Climate Data from Old Ship Logs - <AUTHOR> https://www.oldweather.org/ <comment><USER2> There are many other similar projects, which may be of more or less interest / difficulty than the ships logs.

[https://www.zooniverse.org/](https://www.zooniverse.org/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, this is quite hard.. a tutorial on how to read these logs would also be useful, specially to get the handwriting.

<comment><USER4> This forum post gives a flavor of what may be involved: [http://forum.oldweather.org/index.php?topic=4421.0](http://forum.oldweather.org/index.php?topic=4421.0)

<comment><USER5> That ship in their example,the Seneca (Bark) of New Bedford, Mass., has a super interesting history: [https://archive.org/details/logbookofsenecab00unse](https://archive.org/details/logbookofsenecab00unse)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Facebook Advertising Platform - <AUTHOR>

I had a client approach me to advertise on facebook. A year ago when I used them they were not as effective compared to Adwords and other options. But offlate I do see better ads and well placed, so was wondering if anyone can educate me on the status.<p>Please share any learnings/ opinion about your marketing campaigns and effectiveness on facebook? <comment><USER2> I had mixed results with a small sample of about 100 paid clicks.

Compared to AdSense, Facebook had 2X the percentage of users who signed up for a free account. However, it had only half as many goal conversions, where the goal was simply using a free application. Kind of weird. I probably need to buy some more ads and rerun the campaigns before I make any conclusive judgments though. Costs were similar between the two.

If I do PPC in the future, I'll probably do about 30% Facebook, 70% Adsense unless the conversion rates change dramatically.

</comment><comment><USER3> The upside is that you _sometimes_ get leads. The downside is that ads are overly-expensive for what you're getting. In my opinion, it's better to create a viral campaign and let others do the marketing for you ;).

Edit: thoughts from Aaron Patzer, founder of Mint: "All of our customer acquisition has been free -- through social media, blogs, and the press." (<http://www.inc.com/ss/aaron-patzer-made-170-million#5>)</comment>


Hard Questions - <AUTHOR> https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/06/hard-questions/ <comment><USER2> No mention of what Facebook's business is anywhere on the page.

Here are some _actual_ hard questions that would probably get you fired from the position of "Vice President for Public Policy and Communications" were you to post them to the official FB blog:

\- can a company which makes money as an advertising platform and data broker really protect the privacy of its users when that is directly at odds with its fundamental mission?

\- is there value for Facebook in figuring out how to remove fake news or content from terrorists or dead users from its platform vis-a-vis continuing on with business-as-usual?

\- is there actually any room for someone within the organization at Facebook to ask questions like this without violating implicit or explicit company norms about how Facebook is discussed, internally or publicly?

<comment><USER3> > can a company which makes money as an advertising platform and data broker > really protect the privacy of its users when that is directly at odds with > its fundamental mission?

It's not directly at odds with its fundamental mission. If FB violates the trust of its users and maybe even law, then they lose customers and revenue. It's important for them to respect privacy as much as it allows them to avoid controversy. For example, if a news story reported that FB violates privacy laws, and then they were sued for it, it would be a huge loss for them.

Ultimately the real issue is that there are no laws concerning how social media users' data is protected. There are huge fines for leaking personal medical information, but only for medical instituons. This is effective, have you ever heard of a nurse that leaked std info about a celebrity? Similarly there are fines for leaks of data if a company can accept credit cards.

However social media sites can store whatever information they want with no protections, and it's fine. To me, this is a tremendous oversight by the government to not protect the privacy.

<comment><USER4> Well, in America.

Data protection in EU is stronger and only getting stronger with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regula...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation) which will target EU citizen data stored worldwide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting, must admit I am skeptical of the earnesty here (PR...). I am at work so I couldn't flesh it out properly, but I sent a cobbled up list of topics that I would love an official consideration on (hell, if they want I would love to work with them on some of this)

1\. Digital selfdetermination. Having the right to not have pictures of you made public (where is a setting that automatically UN-tags me and blurs my face in pictures I don't approve?) as a private person vs. having a right to talk about public individuals, companies, filtering etc. without impedance

2\. Following on that, collaboration with law enforcement instead of deleting/censoring.

3\. Retroactive denial of usage. This applies more in the EU, but how does facebook plan to address the idea/need to revoke usage of my personal data after it has been used/possibly sold (IIRC you don't sell data directly, but that might have changed since then)?

4\. Data takeout: what about making it easy to download and archive all posted content, but also uploaded content related to the individual (tagged pictures, mentions)

5\. The status of facebook as a transnational, as "infrastucture" and it's relationship to the democratic and social systems in different countries

6\. The ethics of curating and counter curating topics in the feed/related content for powerusers

7\. The role of the defacto largest dataset on human communications and the use of that for AI research as well as the impact of AI and automation on society. Combined with that the position facebook would take on possible solutions like UBI

8\. The impact of the "highlight reel" on depression and mental health. Studies have shown that heavy facebook use correlates with depression

<comment><USER6> For point one, you can set it so as to have every tag of you in a post (not comments) be queued for review by you before they show up on your timeline. You can untag yourself during reviewing.

If you think Facebook should automatically recognise your face on other people's public posts (where you are NOT tagged) and blur THEIR pictures, I don't know if that's not just reverse censorship.

On a related point, FB could come up with a system that publishes any image with tags of personal profiles only after all those tagged profiles have approved their tags, or removed themselves, but that might significantly delay the post and inconvenience the poster.

<comment><USER7> Even if you don't have a FB account, people can upload pictures of you and tag you in them. It won't be linked to an account, but your name will be tagged to the picture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I expect that the answers to these questions will be "whatever makes facebook the most money without drawing too much public distrust."

This is the company that performed psychological experiments on their customers without informed consent. The same company that worked with the government of Pakistan to EXECUTE a citizen spreading 'blasphemy' on their platform.

Zuck seems to want to start getting into politics (kill me now) so probably the best way to combat facebook's continuous moral disasters is to hold him personally responsible for them.

<comment><USER9> Let's not go overboard with those "psychological experiments". It wasn't like they were injecting you with radium. They simply ran different newsfeed algorithms and tested for correlated change in behaviour.

<comment><USER10> Without consent, without any sort of internal ethics review.

The real problem is that they probably learned just to keep their mouth shut, not to stop doing those things. I'm sure it's all kosher by the TOS. But it's still the kind of actions any university's IRB would stop or require rigorous user protections, both to protect the University's brand and to treat people with respect.

<comment><USER11> so is A/B testing also immoral?

<comment><USER10> A/B testing is no more immoral than HTML, it's what you do with the tool that makes it moral/immoral.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > How can we use data for everyone's benefit, without undermining people's > trust?

How about not collecting so much data? I really don't see how my social data benefits anyone except Facebook and advertisers.

</comment><comment><USER13> > Facebook is where people... form support groups...

Geez. I hope not.

This brings up one a "hard question" we need to consider: discretion.

Many categories of communication are modeled really well by modern technology, including social networks. However, there is a real dearth of discretion- oriented communication available.

Privacy concerns are obvious and being discussed, but we're not really discussing discretion as a healthy part of our lifestyles. Some things _need_ to be shared, but only with particular people or groups. This is _absolutely_ social communication but it's basically unaddressed by any social network I can think of. Group discussions that revolve around substance abuse, significant health issues, survivors of violent crimes, etc. Even less structured conversations with loved ones that are about sensitive issues: health problems, money problems, relationship problems, etc.

And it's worth mentioning that these goals seem to be at odds with the goals of our governments (surveillance) and our social networks (data collection and mining).

Whatsapp (closed source encryption aside) helps a bit for one-on-one communication or permanent groups (like families), but doesn't lend itself to the conversations you might have with a counselor, priest, spouse, or support group.

It may be that "social networks" are entirely for _public_ discourse, but they don't seem to be modeled that way, with "friends", "private" messaging, and so on. In the meantime, we have no real medium for this type of communication and I suspect it's actively hurting our culture and society.

</comment><comment><USER14> And the next post: [https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/06/how-we-counter- terroris...](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/06/how-we-counter-terrorism/)

</comment><comment><USER15> Honestly this seems like the best we could hope for, not just from Facebook, but from any company. It seems honest and forthcoming. The conversations we're starting will be going for decades. This page clearly recognizes this.

Anyone who thinks they have the one true answer to any of those bullet points is full of hubris.

<comment><USER16> It's a good start.

I hesitate strongly to say "it's the best", as the whole concept of _starting_ such a dialogue is to _improve_ the discussion, the discussion process, the understanding, and the discovery of such truths as might be found.

This is much _better_ than I'd expected, and is much as what I've hoped to encourage from Google, in whom I generally put more faith than Facebook, and in whom I've been increasingly disappointed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Facebook is unprecendentedly widely used, global in reach.

It has become for many an essential service.

Facebook ( in many countries ) is a monopoly, unassailable competitively due to the size of its network.

In days of yore, such a huge monopoly that is a utility would be broken up like Ma Bell in the 1980s or like rail, water and electricity in the UK were nationalised.

Consumer data protections are currently woefully insufficient.

I propose that such vast walled gardens should be curtailed for the public good.

Thus Facebook should be just as viewable without signup, data exportable and deletable in whole or in part.

Facebook should provide an API so competing and extending services can be freely built on it, restoring competition and innovation and niche utilities it brings.

Consumers should be free to use whatever services and programs they choose on their own data whether stored on Facebooks servers or downloaded and held privately.

Huge transnational data monopolies should not be walled gardens.

<comment><USER18> > Facebook should provide an API so competing and extending services can be > freely built on it, restoring competition and innovation and niche utilities > it brings.

Facebook has _zero_ incentive to do this voluntarily. It would be good for users (effectively turning social media into something like email) but terrible for Facebook's platform lock-in and all-important quarterly advertising revenue.

As an example of them going in the opposite direction, they've shut down XMPP in the past to force users to use their messenger exclusively[1] rather than 3rd party chat applications.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9266769](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9266769)

<comment><USER19> > Facebook has zero incentive to do this voluntarily

I think the parent was suggesting some level of intervention and imposition. However, given the worldwide reach, which organisation could do this? I can't see how single nation government would be effective.

I wonder if Facebook could begin by unlocking data a fixed period after it has been posted? Assuming the value to Facebook of a posting erodes over time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My guess at the answer is that effectively the public debate will be shaped as a compromise between ad peddlers, spooks, and people who have nothing better to do than complain on Facebook. I'd rather have terrorists in my news feed.

</comment><comment><USER21> The orphaned words in that bulleted list is driving me crazy. Just throw an ` ` in between the two last words in each line and this will never happen.

</comment><comment><USER22> [off topic] I really love to have one of those "Save it for later" or "mark it important" button on SNs, I tend to keep wasting my time digging through endless posts and/or feeds to get what I briefly saw.

<comment><USER16> A workaround on several sites (G+ and Reddit come to mind) is to create your own archive -- a G+ Community or Collection, a subreddit) where you save items of interest. I'm not sure if there's an equivalent on FB as I don't use it.

This has advantages over the bookmarking suggestion in that _this is done within the context of the system itself_ , which _may_ make finding it somewhat easlier: "Oh, I know that was on (FB|G+|Reddit ...)". On G+, search of Communities is vastly better than of Collections. On Reddit, Subreddits themselves are searchable, whilst save lists are not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> A (hopefully brief) attempt at responses -- I'm working on a more detailed one.

Q: How should platforms approach keeping terrorists from spreading propaganda online?

Briefly: consider this from an epidemiological perspective. There are infectuous agents, hosts, and vectors of propogation. In public health, a combination of factors is used to limit the spread of disease, with exceedingly high effectiveness. _With greater effectiveness than all of acute and therapeutic medicine, by a factor of about 85% to 15%. See Laurie Garrett 's _The Coming Plague _.

Monitoring, innoculation, disruption, containment, elimination of breeding and development conditions, and avoiding _strengthening resistance to treatment* are all core elements.

The question of whose terrorist is whose freedom fighter also arises, as do questions over acceptable and unacceptable tactics in various forms of warfare.

Q: After a person dies, what should happen to their online identity?

This would be a very good thing to make a determination of whilst the person is still alive.

There is considerable prior art, on which I strongly recommend researching the legal definition and practice of _will_.

There's also a practice amongst librarians and academicians of access to personal writings, journals, etc., with consideration for both the deceased _and_ those still living who might be affected by revelations.

Q: How aggressively should social media companies monitor and remove controversial posts and images from their platforms? Who gets to decide what's controversial, especially in a global community with a multitude of cultural norms?

Cultures vary tremendously in norms, and in what is considered acceptable or transgressive. Communications, online or otherwise, breaks down the barriers between such cultures.

One possible response is to perhaps resurrect at least some of those walls, at least in part. There's a notion from travel, "when in Rome...". There's also a trope of travel, of the ugly tourist -- British, American, German, of late, Japanese, Chinese, or Russian. Issues extend to both the traveller and the native.

The dislocation of online space in violating a sense of "whose space is this" is a severe one. That was amongst the more toxic elements of Google's exceedingly ill-conceived Anschluss of Google+ and YouTube. Not only were privacy norms (enshrined only a few years earlier in YouTube's own privacy guidelines) violated, but members of each community found themselves overwhelmed by "intruders" from the other.

De-globalising the community would seem a partial response.

Q: Who gets to define what's false news — and what's simply controversial political speech?

Briefly: Someone who's exceedingly good at it. And reasonably unbiased.

Non-briefly: this is among the fundamental philosophical dilemmas. There is considerable prior art, there are authorities, they should be consulted (and questioned). This is not a greenfield. Making a list of those authorities and references, sharing it, _and the discussion_ , should help.

Epistemology, justice, the Scientific Method, the history of science (and where it has and hasn't succeeded, and at what rates), the history of free expression (and the limits placed upon it), including J.S. Mill (who did _NOT_ coin the expression "the marketplace of ideas", that was a free-market advocate, Francis Wrigley Hirst), and more.

Q: Is social media good for democracy?

Wrong question.

 _Every single change in communications and media has had profound impacts upon, and fundamentally changed, the societies in which they occurred._ See Elizabeth Eisenstein, Marshall McLuhan, and others who've written on the social impacts of communications. And by every, I mean _going back to speech itself_ , as well as writing, clay tablets, paper, print, radio, film, phonograph, television, the Internet, and mobile.

Facebook has to face the fact that it and Google are the two largest media institutions _in all of history_. Their reach is on the order of _billions_ of people. Contrast with the most-published books ever: a few billion for the Bible and Mao's Little Red Book, 500 million for _Don Quixote_. By contrast, "Gangnam Style" has been viewed over 2 billion times on YouTube alone.

That is great power. Spider Man on line 3 with a word about responsibility.

 _Social media is going to change democracy. Full stop._ It may end it. It may only interrupt it, as radio did in spurring on fascism. We want to look to history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, communications studies, information theory, and more, to get a sense of where the hell this is headed. Of late it's been more than a bit concerning.

Q: How can we use data for everyone's benefit, without undermining people's trust?

Wrong question. It presumes the answer, then poses the question.

Briefly: 1) respect people's boundaries, generally and 2) consider the public welfare, overall.

Non-briefly: this is among the fundamental philosophical dilemmas. There is considerable prior art, there are authorities, they should be consulted (and questioned). This is not a greenfield. Making a list of those authorities and references, sharing it, _and the discussion_ , should help.

Q: How should young internet users be introduced to new ways to express themselves in a safe environment?

Not solely by a party whose self-interests fail to align with those of the young. Which would exclude Facebook, amongst other present Internet Giants: FAAMG -- Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Google.

The risks of indoctrination at a young age are exceedingly great. This is a role I'd like to see placed _outside_ the control of any of the major participants to the extent possible.

Again: a partial response. There are questions not being asked by FB which should be, and much more which might also be said. I see serious limitations to this approach, and will be voicing criticisms.

 _But for all that, I applaud the initiative and approach, and hope that it evolves into an exceptionally necessary discussion. Facebook have out-shone the other principle participants in this space, and I truly hope they step up to the challenge._

I've alluded to prior art and works. In 2015 I suggested on a G+ thread that Google compile a bibliography or syllabus, _make it required reading of all employees and contractors_ , and _share it with the public_. I'll extend that suggestion to Facebook as well.

[https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/cKot7AKmtty](https://plus.google.com/+YonatanZunger/posts/cKot7AKmtty)</comment>


Ask HN: What still sucks about remote work? - <AUTHOR> Hey HN. Working from home a fews days per month can be pretty great. Less distractions, more time to think deeply about stuff, more natural to take breaks and, let's not forget, better coffee.<p>But what about working remotely still sucks? Be it from home, from a beach on Bali, or from a WeWork in Amsterdam.<p>(Im trying to get my company to be more remote-friendly and would like a nuanced view before I make my case.) <comment><USER2> I've noticed that it's hard to build rapport with coworkers when working remotely (especially if they are in an office and you're remote). In my experience, remote communication is mostly transactional and doesn't facilitate building relationships with people.

I'm not saying I need my coworkers to be my best friends or anything, but I think that you are more likely to have a well functioning work relationship with people that you're comfortable around. In my experience, those relationships are usually built through informal conversations.

If any of you have this figured out, I'd love to hear tips. Most of the other aspects of remote work are fantastic.

<comment><USER3> > If any of you have this figured out, I'd love to hear tips. Most of the > other aspects of remote work are fantastic.

overcommunicate. Share like you do IRL. Kvetch. Cheer. Share interesting finds. Say good morning. Ask team-mates how they're doing.

I find I build pretty good rapport with my team mates because I _don't_ limit communications to required transactions.

You build relationships by communicating about life and sharing feelings. So, communicate about life and share feelings.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is fantastic advice, thanks mattcdrake and masukomi!

Personally I think much of the benefits of remote work comes from the ability to close out the noise of the office, which includes thing like someone tapping me on the shoulder or grabbing my attention when Im deep in some mental exercise.

So what I wonder is how you couple the great things about (actively chosen) isolation with the need for social interaction and banter over time?

Perhaps it's a non-issue and remote work will never reach the level of distraction you face in an office. Still would be interested to hear your thoughts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Video Conferencing (we're using zoom). The "time to conversation" routinely take minutes of idle time or raging about the miserable state of technology.

Simple annoyances such as opening the laptop when using with an external monitor (1 out of 10 times making macos unresponsive for half a minute), to changing your bluetooth noise cancelling headphones for music to airpods, reconfiguring airpods tethered to your iPhone to macos. Making sure the wrong input/output audio is selected in macos...

People working from coworking space or a regular office, usually want to switch to a phone booth/meeting room, that takes them 2-3 minutes to walk to the next phone booth and get set-up.

Once you're up&running too often audio/video is unreliable, or simply airpods running out of battery.

I'm experimenting now with a tablet (with its own headset) dedicated to voice&video calls. While the audio/video setup now works seamlessly, there's still some usability issues that need workarounds.

<comment><USER5> People using bluetooth headsets in vc is irritating.

<comment><USER6> Can I ask why? What do you prefer? Genuinely interested.

<comment><USER5> It's irritating because they so often have trouble switching from their phones or whatever. Wired headsets even like a headphone with a microphone just work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 1\. Technology is still not good enough for conferencing.

2\. Some family members/friend thinks your work is easy and not that important. So you should run their errands or take extra responsibilities.

3\. As someone already mentioned, it is difficult to build team rapport. This affects badly in situations like sudden change in deadlines.

4\. If you don't have active social life outside job, it becomes very difficult to build new one.

<comment><USER8> Re number 2, my wife just doesn't get that when I'm working from home, I actually need to work

<comment><USER9> Same. Some people suggested having a separate office in the house. I think it's the best idea but we can't (we live in a small house). I ended up having a more firm discussion with her to explain how important it is for me to not get interrupted. Since then things improved but it's still a work in progress

<comment><AUTHOR> My gf is very extrovert and in need of social interactions to not get depressed. Having an "office room" helps, but not really solving the issue. Now she just feels ignored instead.

She gets it from an intelligent perspective that I need to work, but emotionally its a struggle.

<comment><USER10> What would she do if you worked in an office?

<comment><AUTHOR> I do work from an office most of the time so I can compare; it works way better since the "Im working/not working"-line is less fuzzy (I think).

<comment><USER11> I think this is the issue my wife has. She sees me at home and seems to think, well, maybe I can interrupt him just this once, and it happens a few times a day. I feel like I get more done in less time, but I also get less time, what with taking care of random errands.

When I worked on the office, she kept complaining that I came home too late (8 hours + ~1 hour commute). Now she complains when I work too late, but I work late because of the interruptions.

I've considered renting an office in my city, which would mean a ~5 minute commute by bicycle. This should help solve most of the issues we have, since I can be physically away, but not that far away. When I talk to her, things get better for a little while, but it's not really a permanent solution. I could probably make it work with 2-3 days in the office and work at home the other days.

<comment><USER12> Exactly (including the office situation) here.

Some days I would just do obligations like meetings and urgent stuff at the normal hours and leave the deep work to do when she and the baby were asleep.

This was definitely the hardest thing to balance...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've been working from home for about 10 years. The only thing that's ever been a problem is maintaining a healthy work-life balance. It took years to realize and resolve all of the various underlying issues before I started feeling comfortable without being complacent with things.

My advice for people new to remote work: reserve an hour each morning for exercise, start reading fiction, try out the keto diet, avoid alcohol as much as possible, try to limit your caffeine intake, open your windows to prevent co2 buildup, keep eye drops within reach for long hauls, try to get all of your chores done in the morning.

<comment><USER14> Do you mind elaborating on why you mention keto? I'm 4 months into keto and down 18lbs and I love it, but just wondering why you mentioned it with remote work.

<comment><USER13> In my experience, it's a little too easy to snack being home all day every day, especially when work slows down or during burnouts. Keto has played a huge role in managing snacking, or at least, unhealthy snacking.

Plus it compliments nicely with your morning cardio and provides a decent energy boost throughout the day without the need of caffeine.

<comment><USER15> For the snacks, intermittent fasting also helps a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Working at home, the existential dread and feeling of meaninglessness in my tasks increased with remote work for a time, given my separation from the distractions of workplace politics, drama, etc. that pervaded office life.

It is hard to make connections with coworkers, and it is so important to build a social life outside of work if you do not have one.

I find I work less hours in front of the computer, accomplish more, and have to spend more time "screwing off" to fill in that void of losing office banter, work lunches with coworkers, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very interesting. Would you rather solve this by having a larger network of local friends, or by having better ways of doing office banter and informal interactions with your co-workers?

<comment><USER16> I think it got solved on its own for me. Filling that void of social interaction can be taken as part of the time to adjust.

I cannot imagine how the informal interactions with co-workers would happen remotely, but I work in an unimaginative bureaucracy where my co-workers are about twice my age.

One idea that has been floated is meeting together for training with my teammates, but I have yet to meet anyone in six years -- even my boss.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been working 100% remotely for the past three years. I guess the specific challenges depend a bit on the nature of your work -- I used to struggle a lot with feeling isolated when I was doing more pure development work, but my job now (technical interviewing) requires a lot of video chat so I'm getting lots of face-to-face communication with teammates and candidates, and I rarely feel isolated or lonely.

The downside to having lots of video chat is that I'm really constrained to working from somewhere with good internet, and somewhere without a lot of ambient noise -- which somewhat ruins the "work from anywhere" appeal. It's definitely a trade-off I can live with, though.

Aside from those things, I'm honestly struggling to really come up with something that sucks about remote work. My experience with being fully remote has been fantastic and has brought so much more joy to my career.

</comment><comment><USER18> From a remote management perspective, when your presence is felt in an office, it reminds people to do the small things that keep the ship sailing smoothly - things that are outside of the scope of the current project, so they're on another to-do list, but still need to get done.

When you're a remote manager competing for staff time to get these things done with on-site managers it gets even trickier, as people want to please the people they have to face every day, even if they see them just in passing. You need to take extra steps (more reminders) to keep secondary projects moving.

<comment><AUTHOR> For the sake of argument; are you sure getting those secondary projects done is really a net benefit for the company? Compared to, let's say, doing more uninterrupted work on the primary project?

Im uncertain myself so further reflections on this would be interesting to hear.

<comment><USER18> Yes, of course. The primary work is client work. The secondary projects are things needed to assist the marketing team to increase conversions, increase hourly billing rates, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Conferencing, still. You'd think that we had gotten that covered now, but nope.

Not just image and audio quality, but Google Hangouts on my phone (so I can carry it around the house and get tea etc during a meeting) slurps up oodles of battery and the phone (OnePlus 5T) gets really really hot too.

No such problem with eg. Netflix and Youtube, guess those video codecs have some HW acceleration while Google Hangouts doesn't?

Further: I only work some 500km from the office, so I travel there (mostly by train) roughly once a month for a few days. Good mix of remote and on-site for me.

<comment><USER20> Audio quality is obv important, but is hd video quality needed, beyond screen sharing? I think a lot of tools use too much cpu time (and thus hang) for hd video, where a simple 320x240 from the 90s would do

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know, I think resolution is very important to get as many facial expressions as possible over via video. Those things that make in-person conversations smooth, but makes video feel stilted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I will give you the issues I have encountered during the brief times I've worked remote. I absolutely loved being remote and found work arounds for most of the issues. I would be eager to have another remote contract but my very large employer definitely isn't coughing one up anytime soon.

1) Stable, fast internet for endless video-chats

2) Visa/bank account issues.

3) Company politics.

These 3 things can make working remote a challenge. Video chats are needed to simulate "in person conversations" which company executives believe improves efficiency and morale. Companies are also worried about "how do we legally pay our employees if they claim to be in the USA but are really on a tourist visa somewhere". And third, companies will often has gossip and politics and power struggles where those who are in office have more face time and promotion potential than those who are remote.

All of these things can be easily fixed but it requires the employee and the employer to not be incompetent.

</comment><comment><USER22> For some reason, interacting with someone you see through a video camera just doesn't feel the same as interacting with someone you're in the same room as.

This is magnified x100 in group settings, especially group settings where more than half the participants are physically present and only a minority remote.

</comment><comment><USER23> Having to go to the yearly meet ups and pretend to enjoy it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I get ya, I truly do. But, are you at the wrong company, or are you a person that would never enjoy a company retreat no matter what?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> It would be great to have conferencing software which doesn't spin all fans on max speed on the latest mbp. Also one which can detect difference between a camera view and desktop sharing. Tiny fragments of text changing don't need same type of encoding as hd video.

</comment><comment><USER25> Developer roles are so much better setup to work well in an remote environment. The built in task list organization helps people not only stay on track but demonstrate their output regardless if they're on site or remote.

The problem is many non-engineering related roles follow similar organization around sprints and backlogs/task lists. Because of that I think there's a natural suspicion around productivity for people you don't get a chance to see everyday.

In other words work organization still sucks for non-engineering related remote work (sales excluded actually).

And then internal relationship building i think is also a challenge which impacts collaboration 100% - that still sucks.

</comment><comment><USER26> Human connection.

A major predictor of workplace happiness is if people feel like they have at least 1 other friend or confidant at work.

It's incredibly hard to build meaningful relationships over a conferencing system and makes the job feel more robotic.

Also I think I'd get incredibly lonely and depressed if I did remote work.

</comment><comment><USER27> I have 3 days wfh And 2 days wfo situation. Commute is 1 hr away so wfh works out great but man do I miss socializing at tge office. People definitely are the reason wfh sucks for me. This year I plan to move close to the office to work in the office all 5 days.

</comment><comment><USER28> The isolation when working remotely full time, especially when most people are in an office.

</comment><comment><USER29> See this recent thread for some insight: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20776655](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20776655)

</comment><comment><USER30> The better coffee argument is moot if your office is in a city center ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> Is it though? :D I prefer my own coffee over bought coffee 9 times out of 10. Not to mention the money saved.</comment></comment>


An Intimate Look at Italy's Saffron Harvest - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/travel/italy-saffron.html <comment><USER2> Abruzzo is amazingly beautiful. It is similar to California in that you can go to the beach and ski in the mountains on the same day.

My great-grandfather immigrated to the US from Alanno, a small village on the other side of the mountains from Navelli which is featured in this article. If you ever decide to go visit to see the saffron harvest for yourself, consider staying with my distant relatives on the family farm[0]!

[0] [https://www.agriturismo.it/en/farmhouse/abruzzo/pescara/LaMa...](https://www.agriturismo.it/en/farmhouse/abruzzo/pescara/LaMasseria-9650171/index.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> The geo-politics of Saffron: [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/dining/saffron- iran.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/dining/saffron-iran.html) (article is post-JCPOA, 2015)</comment>


Dice roller: how fair is my D20? - <AUTHOR> http://www.markfickett.com/stuff/artPage.php?id=389 <comment><USER2> I like the setup and the image recognition with OpenCV that is explained near the bottom of the article. But the statistical analysis is not very clear and perhaps it's not the best method. (I think it's not a good idea to use the average to analyze the fairness of the dice, but the explanation is not very clear.)</comment>


BrowserStack SpeedLab - <AUTHOR> https://www.browserstack.com/speedlab <comment><USER2> Hey folks - I'm a product manager at BrowserStack. Thanks @pulkitsh1234 for the shoutout!

SpeedLab is a free tool that our team built to help you test website speed across multiple browsers and real devices. You'll get a cumulative score of your website's speed across desktop and mobile browsers, so you can identify browser-specific or device-specific page speed issues.

We encourage you to take it for a spin. Questions and feedback are welcome!

EDIT: added that it is a free tool. No need to create an account too!

</comment><comment><USER3> Great product! Just tested my website's performance on multiple devices!

</comment><comment><USER4> Awesome news and super product

</comment><comment><USER5> Its amazing!

</comment><comment><USER6> Looks brilliant!

</comment><comment><USER7> Looks awesome

</comment><comment><USER8> Loving this!

</comment><comment><USER9> looks sleek.</comment>