Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware - <AUTHOR> https://ww.9to5google.com/2020/01/11/android-bloatware-privacy-open-letter/ <comment><USER2> Does anybody understand the economic point of making apps nonremovable? From the point of view of a vendor paying for access, presumably their goal is to spark interest and shift default choices. So I get why LinkedIn would pay to be on the phone when it leaves the factory. But if somebody doesn't want it, what do they gain by preventing removal?

To me it seems kinda like DRM: I'm sure some executives get woodies at the thought of having power over users. But I really doubt that it's an economically rational activity.

<comment> at-fates-hands The interesting thing I always found with Windows phones was how easy it was to remove any and all bloatware on their phones.

Don't the One Plus and Android One phones come pretty clean with only a few Google apps on them?

<comment><USER3> Yeah, and they start in the $300+ range. The others are paid for unremovable bloatware, which lets them come in at a lower price point.

The Xiaomi Android One line does manage to price in the $150 range without bloatware, and I'm not sure how.

<comment><USER4> Chinese spyware that doesn't even show as an "app"

<comment><USER5> You have any proof whatsoever for that or just a general uninformed guess?

I have an A1 and have logged it's network requests all day for fun. There's absolutely nothing remotely resembling "spyware". Compared to prolific unremovable bloat than many premium phones have it's an excellent phone. Ended up buying another for safekeeping if something ever goes wrong with it.

Android One, monthly security updates, official bootlock unloader, some of the best LineageOS support around. Compared to nearly everything else on the market (besides Pixels or Nokias) it's an absolute joy to actually have control over my phone.

<comment><USER6> Not proof, but my Xiaomi A3 (Android One) European version has a couple of China Mobile packages and what I suspect is China Telecom.

It also has com.wapi.wapicertmanage, WAPI as in World Association of Professional Investigators! No idea what it does but from the name, it sounds it's security related.

Do these belong on an Android One phone? Do these fit with the impression that most people seem to have about Android One?

<comment><USER7> The WAPI you're looking for is [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLAN_Authentication_and_Privac...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLAN_Authentication_and_Privacy_Infrastructure). Which, AFAICT, would allow the phone to connect to some Chinese wi-fi APs that were manufactured+configured to use the WAPI encryption standards.

You know how sometimes, cell ISPs ban certain baseband firmwares from connecting to their network, such that you have to upgrade your phone's firmware before it can connect? Now what happens if you live in some college dorm that has only WAPI-configured wi-fi APs? Guess your phone's a brick until you can find wi-fi somewhere else!

In other words, this is kind of a crucial package for a phone you're going to be using _in_ China.

(But also, it's government-mandated that phones released in China have WAPI support.)

<comment><USER6> Thanks, that makes much more sense. I only looked at the domain name matching the package name. I'd still like to remove it but it feels much less worrying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Motorola (edit: and Google, Nokia, probably other) phones come without bloatware - vote with your wallets. (The preinstalled Moto apps are very small and actually quite useful, like accelerometer-based gestures for quick acces to camera or flashlight)

I buy phones as a platform for software, so it makes sense to pay attention to more than the hardware.

<comment><USER9> I got a moto because of this. It has _almost_ no bloatware. LinkedIn, DropBoxNativeClient, and a few other apps I don't use cannot be uninstalled.

Edit: some others I can't uninstall from my international, unlocked Moto G6: Google Drive, Duo, Chrome, YouTube,

<comment><USER8> Oh wow. My Moto phones never had anything like that. Moto G3, G5, and One Vision. Bought in Germany without contract.

Edit: I don't see Google apps as an (additional) problem. Google already controls the phone and its apps don't waste CPU time or memory while not active.

<comment><USER10> > its apps don't waste CPU time or memory while not active The 20% of my > battery used by Google Play Services, despite the fact that the only Google > service I use on my phone is YouTube, disagrees

<comment><USER11> Google Play Services is a framework which other apps use. That battery usage is just imprecisely categorized usage of the other apps you have installed. Some of those apps might be Google's, but anything that wakes your phone or uses GPS will end up contributing a bit to that percentage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Google actually had a program that addressed this head-on a few years back, where it retailed 'Google Play Edition' versions of flagship phones like the Galaxy 7, updated directly from Google, with their own factory image and no bloatware. For whatever reason, they killed the program without it really going far or being marketed well, which was a real shame:

[https://www.xda-developers.com/discontinued-a-look-at- google...](https://www.xda-developers.com/discontinued-a-look-at-google-play- edition-phones/)

<comment><USER13> You have Android One today.

<comment><USER14> My Android One phone has xiaomi apps installed on the system partition. IIRC, the google play edition phones did not have any third-party apps.

<comment><USER15> My Nokia Android One had only a support app (visibly) installed.

It was still slow and updates took longer than I wanted to arrive.

I bought the cheapest new iPhone I could get last black Friday (around $600) and for the first time since my Galaxy SII in 2011 I got a phone that I have actually enjoyed.

FTR, phones I have _not_ enjoyed:

\- Samsung SIII (two, one was terrible, probably a defect part, luckily it bricked itself so I got a replacement, the second wasn't terriblę just disappointing),

\- Note (at least one, can't say for sure which),

\- Sony Z3 (screen detached from body - this might be my fault for disconnecting the charger half asleep many times, but more importantly installed Amazon adware during Android upgrade),

\- Samsungs S7 Edge (slow, microlag, generally disappointing)

\- and finally Nokia 6.1 Android One (slow, updates took long time to arrive even if in was Android One certified, spyware concerns - I'm not sure if mine was affected.)

<comment><USER16> The Nokia 6.1 camera app phones back to Facebook on every startup even if you don't have any account with them. Other than not being rootable, it's a reasonable device.

<comment><USER15> I tried to find out more about the issue where it phones back to Facebook but wasn't able to in a reasonable time. Do you have pointers?

<comment><USER16> Install NoRootFirewall. You'll see the camera app making Facebook requests on startup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Most of the bloatware comes from Google itself: on my Samsung Phone I have Google Chrome, multiple Google Play stores, Google Keep, Google Photos (sends your photos to the Google cloud), Google Drive, Google office apps, etc.

I've never wanted all those apps, I don't even have a Google account...

<comment><USER18> I think calling Chrome bloatware is a bit much. Is Safari bloateare on an iPhone? Is the Play store bloatware?

How would you even get anything on your phone the first time without the Play store or Chrome being installed?

<comment><USER17> Chrome is bloatware when Samsung Internet is a much better browser included with my phone.

The Play Store is not bloatware. The Play _stores_ are bloatware (books, games, movies, etc.)

<comment><USER19> Is Samsung Internet better than Chrome? I've always assumed it was bloatware since it's preinstalled and I haven't heard of people using it. I personally use the Firefox mobile browser, which I think works great.

<comment><USER20> I tested about a bunch of browsers on my Samsung phone (including Chrome, Firefox, Maxthon, Dolphin, Cheetah, Brave, Puffin, Opera, and Yandex), and eventually decided that the "Samsung Internet Browser Beta" was the best of them for me: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sec.androi...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sec.android.app.sbrowser.beta)

My main demands were a browser that had a reliable "reader mode", a black background "night mode", allowed reasonable ad blocking, and had a full screen mode with minimal clutter. The Samsung browser isn't perfect, still occasionally makes me mad, but definitely is worth trying if aren't fully satisfied with what you are using.

<comment><USER21> Dolphin! Man, I haven't heard someone talk about that browser in YEARS.

I used that ten years ago back when the play store was called Android Market because it had addons and I thought it was the bee's knees. I still rotate through chrome, chrome canary, Firefox, Firefox focus, opera, and sometimes nightly builds of Firefox just to see what's getting tinkered with lately. Firefox still my daily driver though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This will be good for the low end phones. My partner mother had an lg with 8gb of storage, it came bundled with all sorts of nonsense, 2 calculators, 2 alarms, some office suite. It made installing things like whatsapp or Facebook hard because of the bloat taking up the space. This only damages the reputation of these brands for me that do this sort of thing. Skins/ui and other functions are fine, but at least let me get rid of the junk

<comment><USER23> That's the thing that astounds me about buying an android phone. When you buy an iPhone you get one app from Apple for each task. Because it would be ridiculous to get more than one.

But if you buy an android phone you might get a copy of Google Chrome. And some sort of rebadged Samsung browser. And maybe a Sprint browser because you bought a Sprint phone.

Now repeat that for email. And text messaging. And a couple other things.

It's crazy. I'm amazed new users can figure out which one to use sometimes.

All because every layer of the supply chain has to add their "customization". To add "value".

<comment><USER24> They are adding value alright but it goes to invisible (to us) shareholders, not to the end users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> See: Android One

[https://www.android.com/one/](https://www.android.com/one/)

No bloatware, updates available.

<comment><USER26> This is a testament to how messed up Android is these days. Have a look at iOS. The minimal set of Apps they ship their phones with aren't bloated or anything besides useful. Guaranteeing updates if the vendor decides to ship them?

It's basically an example of how Apples strategy with tight grip on their platform makes so much sense. iPhone owners don't have to worry about any of that. Generally phones are supported way longer and updates available even for older phones.

<comment><USER27> >> aren't bloated or anything besides useful.

Really? I have a folder on my iPhone three pages deep called "apple junk" which is nothing but all the apple pre installed bloat apps that I never use.

Do some people find a use case for them? Sure. But there they are on my phone. Pre installed and just taking up space..

<comment><USER28> Why keep them in a folder? Uninstall them? 3 Pages Deep? That's 27 icons. I don't think a default iPhone comes with 27 pre-installed apps.

<comment><USER29> It's only been recently that you could uninstall them, and even then it just removes the icon but keeps the data for a lot of these pre-packaged apps.

<comment><USER30> It keeps the system frameworks they rely on. The app itself does go away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> As much as bloatware is awful and Google could probably have some better rules on this, Google itself doesn't ship bloatware on it's own phones. I guess it depends on your definition of bloatware, but YouTube isn't exactly bloatware on the same level as the junk that comes installed on most third party phones, and it can be uninstalled - a lot of third party bloatware is installed as a system app and can't be deleted.

If people don't like junk pre-installed on their Samsung phones or by Verizon, they should probably complain to them, or stop buying those phones. There are plenty of brands with stock Android that don't come with pre-installed junk.

</comment><comment><USER32> The two most common sources of bloatware I saw when I was using Samsung phones were: AT&T and Samsung. Not only the number of bloatwares is crazy, they keeps coming back (from OS update?).

<comment><USER33> As a samsung user i can confirm this , maybe it has its own contribution to competition, but i dont see any excuse creating and dictating your own ecosystem for every single bit of mobile functionality but i am pretty sure its not limited to samsung. Also what is wrong in my opinion is that they do prevent flashing stock images

<comment><USER34> Samsung doesn't want to be dependent on Google for a core business. They are hedging their bets by building out a parallel ecosystem to enable a future switch to another OS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I think this could be easily addressable by Google: remove the option to have uninstallable apps

<comment><USER36> All applications should be removable and all notifications should be disableable. Even Windows 10, which comes with all sorts of useless irritants, lets you do this.

<comment><USER37> Imagine how many people would accidentally uninstall the play store. Also, as near as I can tell, there is no actual legitimate "Phone" app available there.

<comment><USER36> They could have a functionality like the 5 tap thing to enable developer mode. The lack of an official Phone app is irrelevant since you could just download another one, assuming you want to be reachable via phonecall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This almost doesn't even matter. I swore I'd never buy an Apple product, but that changed after yet another Google "core" (nexus/pixel) phone got busted after an update. I've been happy with my iPhone for months now. The quality is just better in every single way—and most of the quality issues aren't going to be solved by tinkering with the deck chairs like this. These "bloatware" apps are just symptoms of a larger issue: Google isn't a hardware or consumer goods company, and it shows in every way in this product space.

<comment><USER39> I think this is an issue with both iPhone and Android. I had an iPhone 6 that was bricked by an update, but was out of warranty, so I ended up getting a Pixel phone and have been pretty happy with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I hope this works.

On Samsung devices, we have to use hacks like using Package Disabler Pro to disable stuff:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kinder.pks...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kinder.pksafety)

My phone is considerably faster and and battery life is much better after using this. No to mention this probably also closes some provacy holes.

Motorola, on the other hand, does a great job by using mostly vanilla Android with just a few really useful modifications.

</comment><comment><USER41> It's also one of the reason I try to keep phones for as long as possible until buying a new one. I loathe all that bloatware and hate dealing with it with every brand new one.

<comment><USER42> This is why I stick to Google's flagship phones- Nexus and now Pixel. Clean, up to date version of Android.

<comment><USER43> Any Android One phone runs stock Android

<comment><USER44> I can totally recommend the Nokia phones like the 7.2 or 5.1. They run A1 and have a great feature set for the price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> It's more "asked nicely" than pushed. "Pushed" implies the organizations have some leverage over google.

</comment><comment><USER46> I'm blaming mostly Samsung for this. Because of some, for me mind-boggling, reason, Samsung grew to be The Android manufacturer, and still is today. In earlier days I really don't recall their phones being any much better than their competition. But their software was and is bloated beyond good taste. And I guess because of that, other manufacturers just followed along.

<comment><USER36> It's still a problem with Android. If you buy a Dell laptop running Windows, it will come with a bunch of useless bloatware. But you can just uninstall it. On Linux, obviously you can uninstall whatever you want. On Android, you cannot, unless you happen to find the right incantations at the right time for your device before an update stops them.

<comment><USER47> Windows is proprietary though. If Google starts dictating too much of what you can and cannot install on Android then they'll get dinged with another anti- trust suit.

<comment><USER36> They don't have to dictate it any more than Microsoft does (since they allow PC manufacturers to install all sorts of horrific nonsense). They just have to make the OS such that you can uninstall any application. If this is impossible to do with non-proprietary software, then that's a point for proprietary software.

<comment><USER47> The OEMs will just add the uninstallable flag functionality back because Android is open source.

The only way to prevent OEMs from doing that is to tie it to the Google Play Services agreement which will, again, open Google up to yet another antitrust suit.

<comment><USER36> If this is the case legally, then it seems in the world of phones, an OSS operating system puts users at the mercy of more organizations (OS developer and phone manufacturer) rather than giving them more control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Cheesy preinstalled apps is the main reason I go iOS not Android.

<comment><USER8> There are brands without any annoying crap preinstalled. If you want iOS go for it, but "Android has crapware" is not a very strong reason.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> When your flagship $1000+ phone is filled with bloatware and you still buy it, it means you don't have a choice and Android is a monopoly.

<comment><USER50> How does it mean that? There are much cheaper phones without bloatware, and iPhones with very little "bloatware" \-- there are built-in apps but only one or two of them are shitty.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I'm afraid it's impractical to ask Google to do anything about this, because they don't control what a non-Google device vendor gets to put on a device.

In order to have that control, Google would have to supply a completely locked down pre-built image to all the third party vendors that they are no able to customize.

And, so then, how would the end users have any modicum of freedom.

No, this has to go from the bottom up: users have to be able to get a blank device from a vendor with nothing, and then install a clean OS of our choosing (whether that be Google or whoever else).

The idea that Google can somehow, or should force vendors to give users a clean(-er,-ish) image is downright wrongheaded. The image cannot pass through third party hands such that they have no control over it, yet the end user somehow does.

</comment><comment><USER52> You can install whatever you want on the phone before you sell it to me as long as you let me delete it. A few exceptions could be made for the home screen, Google Play Services, and Google Play Store just because many users would have a hard time reinstalling them.

</comment><comment><USER53> Could app removal be done via an app? This app could also provide a scan and tell you which apps are bloatware. Bonus if it was a global registry.

Or is it only thru ADB that you can remove (unless rooted)? [https://www.maketecheasier.com/uninstall-system-apps- without...](https://www.maketecheasier.com/uninstall-system-apps-without-root- android/)

<comment><USER54> Even through ADB is not a full removal, you just don't see the app on your "user profile".

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> The worst fucking thing on my phone, BY FAR, is the Google Assistant. I have literally thrown my phone multible times because that GOD DAMN google assistant keeps poping up and no matter how many hours I spend online I can't fix this issue.

Google Assistant and the Samsung program that does the same thing (namaly pissing my off and refusing to be deactivated). Its the worst experiance.

<comment><USER56> Open up your assistant, expand it to full screen, go to your user settings, then assistant, in the list of devices click on your phone and from there you can disable it.

<comment><USER57> I just did this. Assistant still pops up asking me to enable it when it takes me too long to move my thumb off the home button.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> It's a good initiative and what they're asking for is extremely reasonable - but it does imply Google having more control over the OEMs who are responsible for dumping this stuff onto phones. Microsoft went through this with "signature edition" Windows.

<comment><USER30> > Microsoft went through this with "signature edition" Windows.

…and somehow we still have Candy Crush bundled with "stock" Windows :/

<comment><USER59> (Lots of) people like Candy Crush. For them this is like how Windows comes with a nice solitaire game.

<comment><USER58> Microsoft wrote their own Solitaire game back in the Windows 3 days. It's not complicated, there's no reason they couldn't have written their own non- tracking properly free game.

<comment><USER60> They had a little run-in with antitrust regulation some years ago and probably want to avoid it. They kept bundling their own stuff, often with favored access to undocumented APIs, and people stuck to those defaults.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Really glad to hear this. Hopefully, Google will take action and I finally can get rid of those

</comment><comment><USER62> The lesson of history is that people don't learn from history.

Microsoft has gone through phases where vendors like Dell and HP crammed computers with "crapplets". Microsoft has leaned hard over a long period of time to improve the situation.

</comment><comment><USER63> For those that may have missed it: a step by step guide on how to remove Bixby and Facebook: [https://20-things.com/Thing?thingId=21](https://20-things.com/Thing?thingId=21)

</comment><comment><USER64> I'd like to petition 9to5google.com to not make me have to hit back 5 times to exit the page I just loaded on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER65> As far as I can see Google's antitrust settlement with the European Union specifically prohibits them doing most of these things in the EU.

Not sure why the organisations didn't think of that.

<comment><USER66> Why should Google be able to dictate what third party manufacturers _can't_ put on their phones? How would that be different than Microsoft telling manufacturers back in the day not to include Netscape?

Not that I have a horse in this race I buy iOS devices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER67> Google is half the bloatware on my samsung. Can't uninstall, and only disbled by a hack. Start by being the change you want to see.

</comment><comment><USER68> >Google pushed to take action against Android bloatware by 50 organizations

Google should start with ... Google. Lot of bloatware comes from them too.

<comment><USER69> Most apps can be uninstalled from Pixels / Android One phones these days (including Chrome, YouTube, Google assistant app, Play music/movies) etc. so they did change quite a bit these last years.

Unfortunately OEMs still love to abuse the "Don't allow installation" flag on APKs to prevent you from uninstalling Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. (I'm looking at you Samsung).

<comment><USER70> I really don't think you can uninstall play services from any phone. They have become slightly better by not installing apps like google+, but that's because they have killed those apps off themselves.

<comment><USER69> Ugh, sorry, I meant Google Play Music, Google Play Movies or what's it. I fixed the post.

Play Services are considered a core component and I think even app developers would be pissed if that could be removed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> this is why i never run stock rom</comment>


Faster memory comparison in C - <AUTHOR> https://macosxfilerecovery.com/faster-memory-comparison-in-c/ <comment><USER2> A few notes:

1\. memcmp is in <string.h>

2\. char is not the same as unsigned char

3\. Compilers like to remove loops. Notice how there are no labels, and no branches, in main here: [https://godbolt.org/g/DCTBb7](https://godbolt.org/g/DCTBb7) .

4\. There are benchmarks of various methods: [http://0x80.pl/articles/simd- strfind.html](http://0x80.pl/articles/simd-strfind.html) .</comment>


Root – Programmable bank account for software developers - <AUTHOR> http://Root.co.za <comment><USER2> Monzo seem to be doing something similar here in the UK

[https://developers.monzo.com/](https://developers.monzo.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> A bank account you can programme in Javascript. What could possibly go wrong?</comment>


Subsidies to Amazon Are Uneconomical, Un-American, and Unconstitutional - <AUTHOR> https://promarket.org/subsidies-amazon-unamerican/ <comment><USER3> > Amazon is not going to be more productive in New York than in New Jersey

That's a humongous assumption and one that I think simply isn't true. Not specifically that New Jersey is a worse place to run a business, but in general he seems to be assuming that geography is complete non-issue. That's just obviously not true. There's a zillion businesses that have set roots in NYC or other industry hot spots and most of them received no specific incentives. I mean, why did they even conduct this search if everyplace is the same? They could have put their HQ2 in the Nevada desert and saved way more than their tax breaks were worth.

<comment><USER4> Yea I found this a very weird thing to say, as engineering talent was a huge reason for choosing New York, and is a resource that New jersey does not have in anywhere near the same abundance.

I am curious where they would've chosen had subsidies actually been illegal, as this author says we should do. My guess is that they would've ended up in, you guessed it, New York and Virginia, regardless.

<comment><USER5> I find that very hard to believe given the close proximity of NJ to NY. In particular, Newark is literally just across the river from New York City.

<comment><USER6> On top of that, how many people working in NYC actually commute in from NJ? Meaning... they're actually _living_ in NJ in the first place.

<comment><USER7> You actually are wrong about this. No one here want to work in NJ. Few young people in the city keep cars. People would scratch their heads if you told them you were working out there. Might be just a psychological thing. but it's real. I wouldn't look for jobs in NJ unless they dropped into my lap.

<comment><USER6> i was responding to this idea to amazon located in NYC because that's where the engineers/workers are at. If there's actually more in NJ, locating there would have meant those jobs would have just dropped in your lap. But I don't have specific numbers on commuters from NJ, and suspect their decision was based on more than just staff availability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My understanding is that these tax breaks were never intended to be subsidies, but rather mechanisms to entice Amazon to set up shop in said area. Say you're a landlord, and you can't find a tenant for a unit. In response, you offer lower the rent. Is that a subsidy? Say you're at a car dealership, and you can't find a buyer for a given type of car. So you offer something like preferable financing, or extended warranty. Is that subsidizing the car buyer? I'd say no, they're offering incentives, not subsidies.

Sure, this may sound like spitting hairs but I do think calling the tax deals given to Amazon a subsidy is deceptive. In my mind, a subsidy is giving to support someone or something in need, that usually wouldn't be profitable otherwise. Like green energy, electric vehicles, or growing certain types of crops. The delals given to Amazon were tax incentives. Something Amazon doesn't need, but the city offers in order to entice Amazon into setting up shop there.

<comment><USER9> Comparing a landlord, which only represents the owners' interests, to the state, which represents all taxpayers', doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER8> In a sense, the state is the landlord of all the residents of the state. The state provides services to the people, and in return the people pay rent (taxes) to the state.

This is not directly related to the point I'm making though: the point of these tax deals is not to help Amazon's business (though that is likely a side effect). The point of these deals were to entice Amazon to set up shop in that location. Thus, it is better to call these deals incentives rather than subsidies.

<comment><USER10> > _Thus, it is better to call these deals incentives rather than subsidies._

Note the added emphases:

"A subsidy or _government incentive_ is a form of financial aid or support extended to an economic sector (or institution, business, or individual) _generally with the aim of promoting economic and social policy_." [0]

"a grant by a government to a private person or company to assist an enterprise _deemed advantageous to the public_ " [1]

"A subsidy is a benefit given to an individual, business or institution, usually by the government. It is usually in the form of a cash payment _or a tax reduction_." [2]

I don't think there's nearly as bright a line between "subsidy" and "incentive" as you're trying to paint here.

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

[1] [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/subsidy](https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/subsidy)

[2] [https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/subsidy.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/subsidy.asp)

<comment><USER8> This isn't financial aid since Amazon isn't short on cash. It also isn't promoting any economic or social policy (unless people see e-commerce and cloud computing as a social policy, which seems far fetched). So it at least fails the first definition.

Perhaps a better way to put my underlying idea into words is that these cities are still acting in _their own self interest_. Much like a dealer offering a few grand off sticker price, these cities are making a concession to Amazon but are still acting in their own self interest because they would be making even less money if Amazon decided to set up shop somewhere else. "Subsidy" often as the connotation of being something charitable to advance some social policy. These cities aren't being charitable to Amazon. They're acting in their own self interest by making themselves economically competitive. Much like the dealer accepting a lower price, they're accepting a lesser payment but the alternative is not making a sale at all. Sure, an argument could be made that Amazon would have chosen NY or DC with a smaller incentive - <USER2> that's more of a hypothetical criticism of the government's negotiations rather than the act of offering incentives in and of itself.

This is distinct from something like offering a subsidy to buy electric cars. This is a scenario where the government is making a sacrifice in order to promote an environmental benefit.

<comment><USER10> You seem to be asserting the unsubstantiated, and until now implicit premise that "subsidies" are necessarily somehow "charitable."

I don't find that to be at all supported, whether in the literature, in the behavior, or in your argument.

EDIT: That is to say, a "subsidy" can absolutely be used to serve the subsidizing party's interests, as you describe, alongside, or even _over_ the subsidized party's. Charity is an orthogonal question.

<comment><USER8> Two of your 3 definitions specified that subsidies are characterized by having the aim of promoting some sort of "social policy" or something "advantageous to the public". In my view, this means subsidies are "charitable" insofar as they are making a monetary sacrifice to promotr some sort of greater good, be it environmental (like green energy subsidies) or social justice (like grants to minority or women owned businesses) or something else.

I don't think any of the public officials framed these tax incentives to Amazon of having any sort of "social policy" or anything of that sort. They seemed to have been offered with the explicit goal of optimizing revenue in the long term, not trying to advance any sort of social good beyond bringing in more money.

<comment><USER10> You don't see any growth in the local economy that would result from HQ2-A (or is this one -B?) as an "economic [or social] policy" worth supporting, for its own sake, or that it's not somehow "advantageous to the public", under the kind of thinking that uses tax breaks to lure corporations like this?

The "greater good" under discussion is, IMO, the "rising tides lift all boats" notion that (at least some of) the people behind this policy believe will result from it.

That's _not_ charity; it's "optimizing revenue in the long term". It's purely about "bringing in more money".

EDIT: Not to say I subscribe to this theory, personally, but that's my understanding of the motivations in play.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have far more productive things to do with my time than to keep going in circles here.

<comment><USER8> No, the presence of HQ2 in and of itself is not a social policy, and yields no public benefit. It serves the interest of the government, by increasing revenue. Presumably they will spend that money on something that does have social benefits, but that's not directly tied to Amazon's tax incentives.

Sure, it is if we adopt a definition of "subsidy" that includes tax incentives that are offered with the goal of increasing tax revenue in the long run, but such a re-framing eliminates the root of a lot of outrage about these "subsidies". It's no longer correct to say that New York and Virginia are _giving_ anything to Amazon, because these governments are still receiving more taxes than they would have without Amazon's presence. The article linked by OP doesn't actually dispute that. The only piece of quantitative data it provides is a correlation between campaign contributions and subsidies. The article claims that the tax incentives (or if you prefer, subsidies) are uneconomical, but it does not actually put forth any data to demonstrate that NY or VA will see a net loss in the Amazon HQ2 deals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Government should not pick winners and losers. It is unfair for one company to get these great incentives. Also, the taxpayer ends up subsidizing all their monetary benefits for choosing the city. I am glad that both sides agree that this is wrong.

<comment><USER12> > the taxpayer ends up subsidizing all their monetary benefits

The taxpayer in NY ends up better off after this deal; even critical articles like the OP acknowledge that the subsidies are dwarfed by the increase in tax revenues that the state will gain.

To recap, Amazon is getting ~$1.5b in performance-pegged tax breaks over 10 years. The OP gives an estimate of $14b over 25 years in tax revenue added; that gives $5.6b over the same 10 year period, or over $4b net gain to NY taxpayers.

Note, if the office turns out to be less successful at generating tax revenue than projected, then the tax breaks scale down.

There are legitimate arguments against this kind of deal, such as that it encourages a race to the bottom where desperate cities offer close to zero net taxes. But we're pretty clearly quite far away from that equilibrium; cities still have bargaining power in these negotiations.

<comment><USER13> >The taxpayer in NY ends up better off after this deal;

you added a qualifier that OP did not add. Yes, the _new york_ taxpayer is better off, but this is rent-seeking behavior

New York is better off by subsidizing Amazon in the same sense as Luxembourg is better off compared to other European countries by being a tax haven. Hardly something applaudable.

<comment><USER14> NY taxpayers are collectively paying for something of benefit to them with their tax dollars. It's something which can only be paid for by aggregating many people's money together, and creates a spillover benefit for the people paying for it.

That's literally what taxes are for.

<comment><USER13> No, this is not comparable to a simple tax collection. In the usual case, people leverage a tax on people or property within their own jurisdictions to fund programs. That is to say, they themselves pay for their services.

What is happening here is that New York creates an incentive that is supposed to motivate Amazon to move economic activity out of some other location in the US to New York, at the disadvantage of everyone else, who now can either enter into this competition and erode their own tax base, or take the loss.

If you could simply increase your tax revenue by giving tax money away to companies, you would have invented a magical tax money printing machine.

<comment><USER14> > If you could simply increase your tax revenue by giving tax money away to > companies

I find it the height of irony that, on a site created by a startup accelerator, you're saying that you can't help a business by giving it cash

<comment><USER13> by funding a startup you are adding competition to the market. Funding startups is not a zero sum game. In fact fostering a local entrepreneurship community that can compete with amazon on the market would be to the benefit of workers, the economy, and citizens. Transplanting existing Amazon jobs from one place to the other, is a zero sum game.

related article precisely on this issue:

[https://hbr.org/2018/07/landing-amazon-hq2-isnt-the-right- wa...](https://hbr.org/2018/07/landing-amazon-hq2-isnt-the-right-way-for-a- city-to-create-jobs-heres-what-works-instead)

<comment><USER14> You think that Amazon has 25,000 jobs that are going to be transplanted to NY? Come on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > I am not a lawyer. As an economist, however, I can state with certainty that > there is no difference between discriminating through taxes and > discriminating through subsidies. I can also say that preferential trade > areas and preferential treatment for some companies are equally destructive > of free commerce. Hence, it is not unreasonable to argue that these types of > corporate subsidies are even unconstitutional.

The dormant commerce clause prevents states from discriminating against in- state businesses versus out-of-state businesses, not between in-state businesses. It's not a dormant commerce clause violation for a state to charge different local taxes to different local businesses. It's only a violation if the state imposes different taxes on otherwise similarly situated businesses on the basis of state residency. _E.g._ if New York gave people a sales tax discount if they purchase from an online retailer with an in-state presence.

<comment><USER16> Well one such example of different tax treatment would be professional such as lawyers. At least in my state lawyers are exempt from charging/collecting State sales tax for our services.

But there is a major difference in the legislature passing a law exempting certain types of businesses from charging/collecting sales tax vs opaque, back room dealing to carve out special taxes for a single company.

It was just recent a post made it to the front page regarding the proposed BEZOS Act for large companies to reimburse the Federal Government for federal welfare subsidies low wage workers receive. Even though the proposed Act didn't actually single out Amazon, they were used as an example as well as Walmart of companies that would fit into this legal framework. Still many here in HN screamed Bill of Attainder. I disagree (and personally like the spirit legislation).

I do think this is distinguishable, because obviously this is a personalized tax deal made for one company. Of course if this is constitutional for cities/states to just create individual tax deals, maybe all those other cities who got played by Amazon should take a que and go ahead and create a personalized tax deal for Amazon and tax the ever living shit out of Amazon so they effectively can do business in their jurisdiction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wow and this is from the quite conservative very free market University of Chicago (Milton Friedman's group).

Amazon is like an army undergoing the pincer movement and getting closed in from both sides...

<comment><USER18> Dominate the market, conservatives like it, liberals decry it. Take subsidies because you want to get some free money, you get the reverse edit: liberals also hate subsidy corruption (good note).

<comment><USER19> Liberals are also against baldly corrupt subsidies, of course.

<comment><USER20> Are they? The 2009 recession was full of corporate cheese and it seemed like a pretty solid front defending it.

<comment><USER21> Can you provide an example?

This might be the first time I have heard a critique from that angle.

Many of my capital-skeptic friends were against the bank and insurance bailouts without meaningful consequences.

They are still pretty irked TBH.

I think of these people as 'liberal' in the 'leftist' sense of the word. Maybe you mean 'neo-liberal', as in the economic sense?

Or maybe you just have a different demographic group in mind that I am unaware of.

Regardless, I would like to learn more.

<comment><USER20> In particular I GM in mind. A clear cut case of corporate welfare going to a badly ran corporation, but which had strong political connections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > If companies are successful in pitting one state against another, they will > end up paying no state taxes. As a result, the economy will not be one iota > more efficient

This was preceded by a claim that Amazon would employ 25000+ people at the new HQs. Those people _will_ pay taxes, and having 25k extra jobs in your state is, economically speaking, better than not having them.

</comment><comment><USER23> I've never been a fan of granting special treatment to specific businesses. It's completely unfair to local competitors who have been quietly paying their taxes; You can boast about the economic gains, but don't forget about the harm inflicted on the rest of the sector.

</comment><comment><USER24> I marvel at the power of NYC.

We in Wisconsin have been shouting this from the highest rooftop since the day Walker inflicted the Foxconn "deal" upon us. But there was not a single _word_ from places like U Chicago. I mean, Walker is part of the GOP, so if conservatives had spoken up it might have helped. Who knows?

Now, the way it stands, we're obliged to pay more than three times as much money as NYC, for less than _HALF_ the number of jobs. And, again, if all that weren't bad enough, the jobs at Foxconn will likely pay much less than the jobs at Amazon.

How do you get marketing like the people in NYC have? Because _man_ , we got _HOSED_ on that deal. I'd, at least, like a law that would restrict governors or mayors or whatnot from making deals like that without putting them to a popular vote.

<comment><USER25> > How do you get marketing like the people in NYC have?

Be the city with the HQ of most/all large US marketing firms.</comment></comment>


Trial of a blood test that detects eight common forms of cancer - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42736764 <comment><USER2> One of the things I am hoping for is a general database of cancers and the mutations they exhibit. By putting them in a database, we may be able to treat based off the mutation instead of the locality in the body. When my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, she was given chemo therapy for ovarian cancer that was unrelated to hers in everything but location. Since her cancer was very rare, there was no real study that could have helped. If we start keeping a database, it may help us find new treatments and stop giving dying people ineffective poisons.

<comment><USER3> Such databases exist, and they have helped a little, but they barely justify the investment, so far.

cancer mutations are a complex thing. It's not as simple as: linear function(vector_of_mutations) -> perfect diagnosis of cancer type.

<comment><USER4> Interestingly it is exactly this problem I am working on!

<comment><USER5> Tell us more!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This was the most exciting part for me:

 _It was trialled on 1,005 patients with cancers in the ovary, liver, stomach, pancreas, oesophagus, colon, lung or breast that had not yet spread to other tissues.

Overall, the test found 70% of the cancers. _

I expected it to be blood cancers only, but this list covers many of the most common forms of cancer. Could be a huge development.

<comment><USER7> They glossed over the false positive rate...

<comment><USER8> From other sources ([https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/891491](https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/891491)) I was able to find they had a specificity of >99%, with a sensitivity averaging 70% but was as low as 20% on certain cancers (esophageal cancer).

With such an excellent specificity this sounds promising as a cheap screening tool, although the sensitivity is too low in some cancer types to be used as a means to rule out cancer.

<comment><USER9> The problem with the idea of cheap screening tools is Bayes' theorem. If doctors go ordering this for most people since it's just a blood test, and if only 1% of people ever really have cancer when tested then the 1% false positive rate means there's only a 50/50 chance you have cancer given the test is positive.

<comment><USER10> So that's one "wasted" advanced screening for one where cancer is found. That seems great to me.

Also, I assume it would be mostly done on higher risk patients (certain work conditions, certain age, etc..). Only once in couple of years on younger population for example. Or if it's really cheap everyone could get it and then there could be more focused blood screening done next so you don't have to get full body cat scans.

<comment><USER11> It's not that simple. If the worst effect was some unnecessary secondary screening, it would be a no-brainer.

But first of all you need to account for the negative effects of a false positive, and they are much worse than that. They include anything from stress and psychological effects, cost and risks of all the additional screening, to the much worse issue that you also need to account for the fact that for some cancers in some instances it will be hard enough to determine if the growth is malignant in the sense that some proportion of cancerous growth will never pose a threat to the patient, but once diagnosed there tends to be a strong pressure to treat. As a result too frequent screening will save some, but will also result in a large amount of unnecessary chemo, radiation therapy and/or surgeries - all of which come with risks in addition to the pain and discomfort.

Then you need to account for _frequency_ of testing. A 1% false positive rate _per test_ looks distinctly worse if the test is repeated every year for a 10-20 year timespan, for example.

Then you'll also want to account for how much it improves _outcomes_. If the cancers it detects are ones that would generally be detected in time anyway, and/or have low mortality, and where treatment outcomes are good, the incremental improvement would not necessarily be big enough to justify the negatives.

For breast cancer, for example, there has in recent years been a push to _reduce_ large scale routine mammogram screening because it's not clear if it does more good than harm for many groups of patients (in large part because it leads to overtreatment). This article goes into some of the issues related to that in some detail (and presents both proponents and detractors of large scale screening):

[http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2009/04/mammography- screening-...](http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2009/04/mammography-screening-a- double-edged-sword/)

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure the pressure to treat is a real issue. Some types of cancers (lymphoma for example) are only monitored in early stages. So if this would result in increased early detection, it might be a standard procedure to just keep an eye on the cancer, even for wider ranges. It's better than waiting for symptoms to appear (and the tendency for people to ignore the symptoms for a year before seeing a doctor).

<comment><USER11> See the link - it includes details about studies done on breast cancer for example where overtreatment is a real issue. This is not a hypothetical concern, but a concern that's significant enough that large scale screening programs have scaled back in some countries in response.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The holy grail is a full spectrum metabolome screen that gets a histogram of both proteins and mRNA.

I expect this in the next five years commercially. It will wipe out almost all other tests, be available at your pharmacist.

<comment><USER13> What companies are working on this?

<comment><USER14> Nobody, it sounds too good to be true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Is there a way the general public can help this research or speed it up?

<comment><USER12> Most basic research is there. It is more of an engineering effort to get full spectrum mRNA and protein histograms cheap and fast enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is next-level badass and here's why: Not only can we detect cancers earlier and prevent them from getting worse, but if we can _detect_ cancer cells in the blood, we're that much closer to _killing_ them in the blood, preventing or mitigating metastasis and improving the treatment prospects for even later stage cancers.

Go science!

<comment><USER3> this is a bit optimistic; be aware that press-release-by-science almost always states near-term impact.

<comment><USER16> While it's too early to tell, what I'm suggesting is not that much of a stretch; currently we treat metastasis by dosing the patient up with chemo and hoping that the dose is enough to effectively wipe out the bloodborne cancer without killing the rest of the patient. Emphasis on hoping; the trickiest bit was always detecting small amounts of cancer cells in the blood. At a very minimum, it will mean more effective and knowledgeable deployment of chemotherapy, but it's not fanciful to imagine that more easily detectable cells are more easily targetable cells.

<comment><USER3> I would strongly suggest you spend a decade in the cancer business before making claims like this.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Courier - Microsoft's Secret Tablet? - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5365299/courier-first-details-of-microsofts-secret-tablet?skyline=true&s=x

<comment><USER2> I'll believe it when I can walk into a store and buy one.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I would love to have one, but Microsoft 'concept' videos have a tendency to outstrip their shipping products.

Here's hoping it works though, I would buy one for sure.

<comment><USER3> As a nice example, compare this (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9ifQvQCO7Y>) to what shipped as Vista.

And with Courier they are not even pretending it's a real shippable product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks like an interesting concept. I'm not too surprised to see it coming from MS R&D. They are well funded and have some great ideas. The problem with a company like Microsoft is actually getting those ideas into a real shipping product unmolested. I hope Apple's rumored tablet is more or less the same form factor and functionality.

<comment><USER5> Once Steve Jobs sees this it probably will be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The demo appears to use Google Maps, not Bing/Live Maps.

I disbelieve this is a Microsoft production.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think being a "booklet" is the only way Microsoft and Apple are going to protect a tablet device from in-use damage such as scratches and being dropped. But then again, look at the iPhone.

<comment><USER8> Another way is keeping it theoretical and perfect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Microsoft has a lot of the core concepts in the Courier video already built in to One Note. It's a nice little app for doing research and saving and annotating clippings, especially if you have a tablet.

I carried around a Windows tablet PC for a project at work for several months, and it was actually a really nice workflow. I'd love to see what they added in the Windows 7 tablet version.

The biggest problems were the weight of the machine (it was two years old) and the battery life on it sucked. And, the handwriting recognition really sucked when it came to user names and passwords. It was really hard to log in to a thin client application that I had to use all the time using the tablet.

</comment><comment><USER10> It seems like there's a lot of different applications, finger commands, pen commands, etc. If Microsoft can come with some kind of consistency across the different use cases, this could actually be a worthy piece of hardware...

</comment><comment><USER11> My first exposure to this was at the UIST conference in 2007, I've seen it pop up at a couple of other HCI conferences since then and I've always been skeptical of this interaction paradigm ever since I first encountered it.

Every time I meet someone working on this project, I ask them several hard questions which I've never managed to get satisfactory answers to:

* How is cross screen, pen interaction handled in a graceful & generalizable manner? How do you distinguish dragging to the edge of the first screen vs dragging onto the second * What is the persistence model between the two screens in independant mode? Do they share state or not? * Is this designed for specific, highly targeted applications or as a platform? If it's a platform, how do you intend to replicate the interaction paradigms of desktop apps such that they can either be trivially ported or completely rewritten?

My ultimate conclusion about this project has always been that it's been optimized to get papers into HCI conferences and not towards practical use.

</comment><comment><USER12> From Wikipedia:

"In March 2004, during a consumer class-action lawsuit in Minnesota, internal documents subpoenaed from Microsoft revealed that the company had violated nondisclosure agreements seven years earlier in obtaining business plans from Go Corporation, using them to develop and announce a competing product named PenWindows, and convincing Intel to reduce its investment in Go. After Go was purchased by AT&T and Go's tablet-based computing efforts were shelved, PenWindows development was dropped.[21]"

</comment><comment><USER13> Ken Hinckley's Blog

Handwriting recognition with Inkseine [http://community.research.microsoft.com/blogs/alpineinker/ar...](http://community.research.microsoft.com/blogs/alpineinker/archive/2009/05/20/inkseine- update-1-1-1714-0-now-available.aspx)

Codex, a DIY project...or is it? [http://community.research.microsoft.com/blogs/alpineinker/ar...](http://community.research.microsoft.com/blogs/alpineinker/archive/2008/10/01/microsoft- research-codex.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER14> It looks pretty interesting, however only the actual device photos looked real. The rest of the content (video/images) looked like very polished prototype mockups.

How that translates into real product remains to be seen.

</comment><comment><USER15> Hmm, on one hand it looks pretty awesome. On the other hand, it's going to have to do a lot my Pre cannot for me to carry it around. It's got wow factor but not sure about practicality.

Can't wait to see more.

</comment><comment><USER12> Even if this comes out, I see it as being a flop. It's too far fetched from the traditional computer, only the upper echelon of computer users will take the learning curve to use it.

</comment><comment><USER16> The video demonstration had a very Apple feel to it and was devoid of the word "Microsoft" I think they are learning.

<comment><USER17> Damn straight. It seems like a bizarre OS, a little clunky, but it's also very innovative. Now if only they've got quality hardware.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Sure

The same company that can't consistently release a successful operating system (unless you redefine success to fit Windows Visa performance) is capable not only of delivering a revolutionary user interaction paradigm with its Surface and of creating the ultimate videogame experience with Project Natal, but also steal Apple's cake by launching a tablet before their arch-nemesis can even announce theirs.

Or would it be simpler to explain Microsoft is just again using vaporware to create confusion in markets it is not ready to enter with a product, but that they feel are strategic to the maintenance of their monopolies?

On the other hand, if they are dedicating so much of their brainpower to Surface, Natal and Courier, this could explain Vista and Windows 7.

<comment><USER18> None of their demos are particularly outlandish. Surface has been duplicated n times; Microsoft has had the best, most polished implementation, that's all. If you look at the real Natal demos, they're certainly doable for a big company like Microsoft. This tablet also isn't anything new; multi-touch PCs have been around for a while.

I'm not even particularly impressed with their interface here. It doesn't have the consistency of design that Apple's does, and it doesn't look particularly intuitive. That doesn't mean that it's vaporware, however; in fact, it probably means the opposite.

Anyway, Microsoft's operating systems are more successful than everyone else's anyway. Windows 7 looks like it will be successful even relative to other Windows releases, no matter what you think of it. The buzz is right, and people are impressed.

<comment><USER19> Wasn't Surface a duplicate of the Perspective Pixel work? I certainly remember seeing YouTube videos before Surface was announced.

<comment><USER20> Work on Surface started around 2001 (as far as I remember). Jeff Han presented his work in 2006 at TED. So both were most likely developed in parallel.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Working from Home: Why It Sucks - <AUTHOR> http://geeksinboston.com/2009/01/26/working-from-home-why-it-sucks/ <comment><USER2> Not my experience - I love working from home. Going to work is just a matter of crossing the yard to get to my office. Almost no meetings, no office politics - bliss.

My only real complaint is that no-one ever reads past the first paragraph of any email. Sometimes emails have to be longer than that, so every now and again, I have to hop on a plane and go and explain to someone what all those second paragraphs said.

<comment><USER3> Most important "business" lesson I ever learned: never write a "document" in an email message; write it in Word and attach it instead, to activate the pointy-haired neurotransmitters.

<comment><USER4> Much as it's probably true, I absolutely hate that. Somebody once showed me a diagram demonstrating the increased efficiency gained by using a wiki instead of email - but the entire gain would have been nullified if they assumed that rather than entering stuff directly into the wiki, people would upload word documents to the wiki (which the pointy-hairs invariably do).

<comment><USER5> Just need to write something that automatically converts word docs into new wiki pages. Then the pointy-hairs can upload all they want and everyone else gets some sanity.

Don't even try to make the conversion full featured, just rip it plain text. When the boss asks why his charts and headers don't convert over, show him how easy it is to fix that in the wiki. By getting his feet wet this way, eventually he might not even bother uploading word docs at all.

Or maybe I have too much faith in pointy-haired bosses.

<comment><USER6> no, just fire the pointy-hairs. if somebody is uploading word docs to a wiki then they're not qualified to work with you. don't waste your time.

<comment><USER4> I wish it actually worked that way in the real world, but it doesn't. Yes, you can quit and do a startup, but then you end up with pointy-haired VCs instead of pointy-haired bosses.

<comment><USER7> It may be difficult to believe this while in US, but in other countries industries are dominated by engineers...I know of one bank in Chile where all the business guys were being replaced with civil engineers (in Chile, that means a guy with an extensive math + science background).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I hate articles like this. All the statements in the last couple paragraphs that start with "You start to fell..." or "You don't get..." should have the "You" replaced with an "I". I totally understand that someone why someone who works from home gets lonely, but that doesn't mean everybody who does gets lonely. It takes the right kind of person. This is my qualm with articles like this. People present their opinion as a sweeping generalization and fact. If you want to tell me why _you_ think working at home sucks, please do. It sounds silly when you try to speak for everybody.

<comment><USER9> agreed. I wonder why some people write that way. It's very difficult to write in second person successfully, because as soon as one presents information that is inconsistent with how the actual reader feels, the rest of the argument is nullified. Yes, it sounded silly when the writer tried to speak for me, in particular, when he knows nothing about me.

<comment><USER10> The pronoun "one" has mostly fallen out of use ("One starts to feel...") and the usual substitute in modern English is "you". It doesn't literally mean that the writer is talking about the reader.

<comment><USER11> I think in spoken English this is the case. However, using the more formal "one" in writing, even on a blog, is a good way to clear up any misunderstanding a reader might have. Though the use of "you" is more and more accepted in everyday situations, clearly the use of "you" instead of "one" caused some readers of this post some problems. In writing, one should try to be as clear as possible to get one's point across to the widest variety of readers, unless one is trying to obfuscate one's point on purpose.

<comment><USER12> kragen's point is that most people don't know how or when to do so. I think most of us would agree that it would be best for everyone to suddenly get much better at written English, but it's unlikely to occur.

<comment><USER11> Ah, okay. Thanks for clearing that up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The other problem with working at home is that you are always at work. It's easy to keep it separated at first, but after a year, it becomes an indistinct blur.

I don't know how many times I had people over, only to be thinking in the back of my mind that I should be working.

<comment><USER14> I had this problem too. On the advice of a fiend I started shutting down the work computer before dinner. That puts up a barrier to "just checking in" when you should instead be devoting some time to yourself, your family or friends.

If you don't have a separate computer for work then maybe a separate login would help in a similar fashion. Since the physical (distance) separation isn't there you have to find a way to create something similar.

<comment><USER15> I've had this issue in the past, but with my current employer, I have less of an issue.

I'm on the east coast. Most of my direct co-workers are on the west coast. I typically work from 06:00 to 09:00, then perhaps do other stuff for a few hours, then work again for a few hours in the afternoon. Then, depending on work load, I may get back at it for a few hours once my kids are asleep, which still allows me to interact with people on the west coast.

<comment><USER16> Its better to sometimes get paged at home for work than to hearing that "I'll need you to work till late today" or "We need you to come in the weekend" when working on an office.

And depending on your work, you'd probably get paged at home even if you work at an office anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I would LOVE to work from home, I could do so much more with my day If I was working from home (more productive stuff) and leave my work knowing I was actually able to get something finished for a change even lunch with my dog is a better prospect that lunch with some of the people I work with at the moment.

Not to mention that my home office is better equipped, quieter and I cant tell you how much better I would feel without someone watching over my shoulder all the time or my boss practising his micro management techniques on me.

I would even take a slight cut in pay for the privilege of working at home.

<comment><USER18> If you're married, working from home suddenly means you apparently have time to do the dishes, laundry, take care of the kid(s), let the dog out, run "quick" errands, etc. One of the tougher things about working from home is dealing with all the other people who don't. :)

<comment><USER19> At first I had that problem, people stopping by in the middle of the day because they thought 'working from home'/'self employed' was a pseudonym for early retirement. I have since created solid work hours (9:30-6:30ish) that I treat just like working for an employer. My family knows that within those hours I am as available/unavailable as I was when I worked for a corporation. I find that this puts me back on the same page as the rest of the world so during the evenings I am no longer running off to check up on something and whoever I am with has my full attention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I do agree, I'm working from home for 6 months, and being lonely is the hardest part. My dream for now is to work in a small office as a part of a small, talented and concentrated team.

<comment><USER21> The idea of "co-working" is gaining steam in many cities. You could certainly start up a group in your area if there isn't one. Basically you just get together with other people who work remotely, but perhaps in somewhat the same vein (web apps, a certain language, whatever), and you can form a team that you can bounce ideas off of and get support from. It could even just be occasional or for lunch every day or something like that, but it helps.

<comment><USER18> "Co-working" has kept me sane over the years. :) There's not too many locally who do this, but the ones I know drop by the same coffee shops on occasion and we run into each other. It's a welcome break from the loneliness of being alone all day. (Although I have a newborn at home now and have essentially become a stay-at-home dad in addition to working from home. You want stress, give that a try. :))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've worked from home in the past. The last stint was for about 8 months. I really enjoyed the freedom. But towards the end even with a live in girlfriend I still got a little depressed.

The problem is mostly assuredly the lack of human contact. Not physically seeing people every day got to be a little rough. I'd force myself to go out on weekends and be social but it still felt fake.

The other big problem was that since I lived in the PNW and winter was setting in. It would be dark when I got up, and dark when I shut down for the day. This mean I never really saw the sunshine. I wouldn't really leave my house for days at a time. This got to be an issue. I felt trapped, even worse than that corp job I took while in college.

Now I live in San Francisco. The startup I work for has an office. I see sun almost every day. Hell I walk 2 miles to and then 2 miles from work every day. Its great! I think the human contact combined with the daily walk has increased both my energy level and my moral.

As a caveat to this. I still prefer to work from home at least one day a week. As the break from the daily in office distractions (meetings, troubleshooting, lunch, etc..) is nice.

So I think proper life balance is in order when working from home. If almost a daily regiment that forces one to go stop working and go have meaningful human interaction.

</comment><comment><USER23> If you work from home and feel lonely, which is apparently this guy's entire argument against working from home, _get a hobby_.

I go to the gym every day right after I wake up. It's a great way to start the day and there are other human beings there, although I don't actually talk to them as I am not there to socialize.

I have a hard time rolling out of bed and working all day after a while, so it's helpful to have a way to "work into" the day.

</comment><comment><USER24> _"check company IRC, say good morning, make sure nothing's on fire yet"_ etc etc

The thing I get from this whole post is that the author lacks passion for his work. His tone makes his work sound like some terrible chore that he's forced to do. Don't get me wrong: a "good job" every now and then is always nice, but not receiving it shouldn't be the primary reason you shouldn't work from home.

If you're the type of person that gets bored easily or needs lots of external feedback in order to motivate yourself, working from home/starting your own business is going to be very difficult.

<comment><USER25> "If you're the type of person that gets bored easily or needs lots of external feedback in order to motivate yourself, working from home/starting your own business is going to be very difficult."

If you are the kind of person who is NOT motivated by external feedback, how are you going to be successful in business when so much of succeeding in business is responding to the external feedback you receive from customers? Not all of this comes from face to face interaction, true, but it would probably help to have such interaction with customers on occasion. Probably much of how your customers perceive and interact with your product, and how they perceive your company, will only be apparent from body language cues.

This is not to argue against working from home, but to argue that external feedback is almost always important.

<comment><USER24> Yes yes, you're right. What I meant was that you have to be internally _motivated_. You can't be the type of person who has to have people tell you to do things in order to get them done.

Feedback from your customers is very important and is one of the best ways to determine if you're on the right course (though as many have pointed out, you should often correctly ignore it.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> That article essentially says it sucks to work from home because you don't get out and get social interaction. Um, does it assume people work from 8am to midnight or something.

I work from home. I get lunch with friends. I get dinner with colleagues. I go outside. I'd trade a 6 figure salary for just barely scraping by/starting-up and working from home any day <% unless @married = 1 -%>.

<comment><USER3> I think your code marries anyone who executes it.

<comment><USER26> ;-P

<comment><USER3> Try the veal!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm currently working from home more and more with a small company, too, but I am being proactive to prevent these problems (which I clearly see are coming down the line if I don't do something).

Cultivating that rich feedback that he seems to be missing is hard. I think that IRC is a good start. Video chat is better. It may not work for this guy's company because they still have their "professional" personas active while chatting. You have to let your hair down and be comfortable with a flamewar once in a while. If the personalities of those involved aren't compatible with this, then maybe they shouldn't be in startup/small companies.

I hate to use so many cliches in one sentance, but you really have to be able to be agile and iterate quickly. The development infrastructure helps to address this. If you have good source control and a good project structure that lets you check out a branch to a new directory and just GO then you have a good thing going. If your product requires lots of setup and back-end things that take time and careful configuration, it's going to suck a lot.

</comment><comment><USER27> Like everything, working from home needs balance. Not just work/non-work time balance, but physical balance with a private office in your home and regular contact with the outside world. If you don't have a second bedroom for an office and you live alone, working from home is going to blow.

When I started working from home, the first thing I did was go out looking for a co-working studio in my city. I knew that I was going to do my best work from home at night, but I go to the "office" so I can still get coding done during the day. I have a full office setup in my apartment that I use from 6am until 11am almost everyday, I go to my "office" from 11am to 4pm and then come home, working from 9pm until midnight. It's a crazy work schedule and the thing that keeps me sane is splitting my time between my home office and co- working "office", so I'm not wasting so much time during the day with boredom/loneliness/the internet.

I understand that this may not be suitable for everyone, but it works great for me and I've worked out of almost every space you can imagine. To me, it is 100% worth it to get yourself a decent home office and/or a co-working office to be the most effective.

<comment><USER28> (Off topic :)) Do you find you're truly productive working so many hours a day? (I assume it's coding work?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> This person doesn't seem motivated, and doesn't seem to have enough work to do.

I've worked from home for one year and have been more productive, thanks in large part to dropping my commute and avoiding non-work-related office chat sessions that can suck up 30 minutes in a typical day. I also work longer, because I don't feel guilty about staying at work late and neglecting my family (being able to have lunch and dinner with them is huge). I typically work right up until dinner starts at 6:30, and often go back for another 30 minutes to an hour afterwards.

On the other hand, having face time with co-workers is very valuable. Many office chat sessions do involve projects or turn into idea-sharing discussions that are very important to the health of an organization and can't be easily duplicated using IM or email. For this reason, I try to visit HQ about once every two months.

</comment><comment><USER30> I worked from home for a little over 2 years. I have a lot of positive things to say about it. While my experience was generally positive, there were a few drawbacks.

The most bothersome drawback to me was that I felt judged by a different standard than those in the office. If I had an unproductive week, it was assumed that I was goofing off, while the same standard wasn't held for those that worked in the office, presumably because their butts were in chairs.

For the last four months of those two years, my wife was at home raising a newborn. It was nearly impossible for me to concentrate. I won't work from home again until my child is out of the house or until I build a detached office.

</comment><comment><USER3> My friend/ex-boss Mike had a permanent videoconference running during the day, so that everyone in the office had a "presence". And you can mitigate some of these problems with IRC.

But if you possibly can, get everyone on your team together every day in a shared space; <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=251884>.

</comment><comment><USER31> Easy solution... Don't work at home, go to a library, book store, coffee shop, anywhere with other people but not too noisy. Take headphones to block out times when you need more concentration.

Don't get an office if it will only be you working there. Do consider working at a hacker space/coworking place.

</comment><comment><USER32> Why it sucks for the writer of the blog post? He's an extrovert, and he didn't realize it.

</comment><comment><USER33> I usually work every Sunday on a sideproject with a team that lives in another city. Rest of the team(3people) gather together at same space and I just join them with Skype video.

I found using videochat very useful, since you can discuss about things and overhead other people discussing, get feedback in live, feel that you're working(since somebody might be watching you). You also need to take shower, dress up a little that you look somewhat sharp. It feels almost like going to work, except you don't need to commute.

(I have worked from home quite a lot as a freelancer and also had a job with regular telecommute, but never felt like I was actually "working".)

</comment><comment><USER34> Personally I love working from home though I will admit there are days when the kids won't stop screaming and the dog is trying to hump anything it can get it's paws on and THOSE days I would give anything to just hide lol... But as frustrating as those days are... I still love working from home esp since it allows both me & my husband to be home with our children...

Christina...

p.s. I would really appreciate if anyone would be willing to look at my site I just finished designing last night and would love to hear any thoughts, opinions or suggestions...

</comment><comment><USER35> I did most of my work from home for much of 2008 and there were times when I felt the way this guy did. It took me a while but eventually I realized how much I missed taking a lunch break with my coworkers and getting little comments and suggestions here and there (which occasionally made a big difference or saved me a lot of time). This year I'm making more of an effort to work outside my home even when that's not strictly necessary.

</comment><comment><USER36> I can get away with working from home, but either I don't need much human interaction, or I do need it but I've never had it so I don't know what I'm missing.

</comment><comment><USER37> Almost all of these are negative attributes & inefficiencies of the writer, not working from home.

</comment><comment><USER38> It depends 100% on the person. For some people working from home has significant downsides and/or isn't an effective way for them to work. For others, like me, it's almost all upside and allows me to be much more productive than being in an office.

</comment><comment><USER39> Depends what I'm working on. Often I enter the flow and become engrossed in what I'm doing and at that point, the surroundings become totally unimportant.

Then, of course, there's the other times when I play a flash-game 2 hours straight..

</comment><comment><USER40> It's called human interaction - most people need this to survive. When sheltered from the world like a person with Agoraphobia, it becomes hard to relate to people no matter how much email or twittering you do.

</comment><comment><USER41> Office is better in my view - you can talk to real humans and get honest feedback + there's still a connection (wrongly) between working at home and slacking.

Once a week + the weekend is definitely enough for me.

</comment><comment><USER42> I work from home and found that going out and do some sport (jogging) for an hour that makes me sweat helps a _lot_ fighting loneliness, depression, etc. and makes me more productive.

</comment><comment><USER34> p.s. to those of you complaining about the lack of human interaction... why not take your work to the streets? or fleamarkets? or the park? thats what I do when I need human interaction other than 3 boys under the age of 7 and a hubby who acts like a 4th kid lol

</comment><comment><USER43> _You don't get rich feedback when communicating over a phone, email, or text chat._

Then don't use those. Use immersive telepresence, instead. <http://www.hp.com/halo/introducing.html>

<comment><USER44> Nice suggestion, but hardly practical.

<comment><USER45> How different is it than people just using iMacs with iChat video?

<comment><USER43> A major factor in telepresence immersion is eye-contact. <http://www.google.com/search?q=telepresence+eye+contact> Perhaps someday a YC company will figure out how to inexpensively enable eye-contact over ordinary video chat (teleconferencing).

<comment><USER46> [http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/01/hack_lets_you_look_...](http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/01/hack_lets_you_look_someone_directly.html)

<comment><USER43> That's the half-silvered mirror solution (for full eye-contact teleconferencing). I was thinking of the _other_ solution: the software-based one that corrects the images in terms of pupil-direction.

<comment><USER47> That could get really creepy, really fast..

<comment><USER43> It seems to be what HP and Cisco are using for their immersive telepresence systems. I have seen plenty of rave reviews of Halo, and never any complaints.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I work from home and it's awesome. It fucks with your sleep schedule but other than that it's great. I do go into the client office a lot more than I thought I would, though. And when I say working from home I mean working from cafes. Working from home in the literal sense sometimes gets annoying because my neighbors have noisy kids. I've learned how to say "Grandma, look at me!" in Spanish. And about a thousand ways to say "shut up" or "don't do that" in Spanish as well.

The kids make me wish I had a flamethrower, but so do people who talk in the office, and the kids are at least cuter than the office people. Except some of the chicks. I sure hope they don't read that. Anyway, working from home is basically awesome, but yeah, you do need human contact, and context for conversation.

</comment><comment><USER48> I hate working from home now also, after doing it from near to 8 years. It sucks, it's lonely and it's difficult to get motivated. Also, you are in an insular bubble, you are not exposed to different ideas, and the years tend to repeat themselves.

That's why I'm giving up this life and going to work in a lab.

</comment><comment><USER49> Change is hard, but to change we must.

Hmm isn't intellectual ability the ability to adapt to your environment? If you think working from home is nice and you find out it's crap then use your fucking mind.</comment>


Our parents discovered leisure, we killed it - <AUTHOR> https://timeline.com/hobby-career-b5d199b0df18#.bn25t0977 <comment><USER2> >If the future of work is bliss, we still need to know when to put it down and pick up something else, whether it's family game night, hockey league, or just being with nature—happiness simply for the sake of it.

I will do this once I can stop worrying about earning enough to afford a house, kids, and family health insurance while also saving enough to theoretically have a meager retirement.

The writer, Stephanie Buck, sounds like a pretty out of touch California kid with rich parents. Her other writing and Instragram reinforce this. Self- shaming about staying in on News Years at the decrepit age of 28 with her husband, oh the horror and embarrassment. Now look at my thousands of photos of exotic expensive vacations while I write about the American working class trying too hard.

<comment><USER3> So instead of engaging or debating with the ideas presented in the piece, you immediately dig into the author's personal life as a way of disagreeing with it? The article is specifically about the middle class having two careers, with an explicit description of this being a "middle class phenomenon".

Perhaps that's just the era we live in--where ideas no longer are relevant without the context of the person delivering the idea--where human beings are unable to research or insert themselves into mental constructs due to their lack of 'perspective', that is, their lack of having a specific and acceptable background and history. Interesting that this is the exact frustration so many people express about political correctness, where arguments, ideas, and contributions are invalidated purely based on background, decisions, or other environmental factors.

<comment><USER4> >So instead of engaging or debating with the ideas presented in the piece, you immediately dig into the author's personal life as a way of disagreeing with it?

Parent commenter did exactly what you requested, before digging into the author. Noting that people don't have the wealth this article presumes, is a valid debate against the piece.

\---

The article mentions that hobbies arise out of disposable income and free time gained from economic prosperity, and then was lost when the economy faltered. But the article then claims "The American economy has fared better in recent years" \-- I'm not convinced that's an accurate picture.

Americans (as people) are not necessarily better off if America (the economy) does better. Today, most Americans (people) are still struggling financially, now often more than before, despite the fact that "the economy" has "recovered". But you can't see that from a desk in Manhattan, it's not visible if your only looking at census statistics or property values.

Which has created a weird disconnect where people who can sustainable (but only barely) afford housing / food / medical are routinely described as "middle class", even though they have far less disposable income and/or leisure time than their counterparts from the 1970's, or 1990's.

The recent explosion in ultra-high costs of housing, medical, and education likely play a role in this, absorbing money that previously would have become "leisure" spending. And the cash necessary to cover those costs seems to come by additional working through what used to be people's leisure time.

<comment><USER2> Unemployment is arguably the most important economic indicator that most people care about, and "realistic" measures of it show that it's just as bad as, if not worse than, 2009: [http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment- chart...](http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts)

Official unemployment numbers are so frustrating due to so many exclusions.

If GDP is up but all of that growth is going to 0.0001% of Americans, who cares?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I feel like this is at least partially attributable to how we get our entertainment too. During the postwar era, there wasn't an infinite variety of media to consume -- TV shows were on at a set time, on one of four channels, between 6:00pm and 12:00am. Compare that to binge watching on Netflix, and you see people engaging in hobbies less regularly, less intensely.

Couple that with the fact that travel is _way_ easier, and you see disposable income (to the extent that anyone has disposable income) being spent on fleeting things rather than the tools to engage in a serious hobby.

I don't feel like either of the above are a _bad thing_ , but they could just as easily be contributing factors to the lack of hobbies in the modern era. I'm sure that there are a wide variety of others, too, from lack of work/life balance (hello, corporate smartphone) to the lack of hobby education (bye bye, wood shop class, metal shop class, home economics class), plus ones that I'm not thinking of. What hobbies do people engage in now? Were those things hobbies back in the 50's or just necessary chores?

<comment><USER6> I agree, most people who would have been pressing flowers like the author's great aunt are now playing Farmville all day, also "just because they like it". In fact, I think this is more a problem with _older_ people and retirees – I don't exactly know why, but they seem to get into social media and useless games with a ferocity far exceeding that of younger generations.

<comment><USER7> Potentially because of having more free time, and a harder time doing physical activities?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I need my Dwight face to state with appropriate fervor, _wrong_.

There are two primary economic causes for the loss of leisure: the concentration of wealth since 1970 at the top, and, the absorption of additional income by inflation in real estate.

The stagnation of wages and erosion of benefits since approximately 1970 and the consequent accumulation of wealth into the top few percent in the US, has meant that every generation of working adults after 'our parents' (that is, from 1975 to present) has had to work harder to achieve an equivalent standard of living.

Women entering the work force had a profound and complex effect on the income of the middle class. And even when added child care costs [post my own latch- key-kid generation] are factored in, additional income was being generated.

That has masked until relatively recently the decline in purchasing power and the true long term costs for all but the most wealthy stemming from the erosion of both job security and the many benefits that used to adhere to full time jobs for the middle class and above.

Individual families bearing the cost of health care, retirement, and simultaneous full time care for children _and_ in many cases aging parents is shift of contract.

Leisure is a function of spare time and spare resources. Both have been monopolized by the mandate to maintain a standard of middle class comfort that was attainable on a single income a generation ago.

And incidentally, the rise in real estate prices in the US directly tracks the entrance of women into the work force.

TL;DR: real estate has acted like a sponge to absorb the nominal increase in resources of a two-earner family almost perfectly, leaving little or less than no additional resources for other pursuits. Like leisure.

TL;DR TL;DR: we've gone totally off the rails as a culture for the benefit of the very very few.

<comment><USER9> I would also add that as real incomes have not really increased since the 1970s the inflation in real estate has been accommodated by widespread increase in private debt, on which interest must be paid, decreasing disposable income and leading to increased insecurity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Unfortunately, it seems like in the "old days", it was ok - maybe encouraged - to be introverted. We've lost that with increasing new technology and "ways to connect to people". I find myself very disconnected to the connected world... the extroverts are winning...

<comment> norea-armozel Same here but for me it's more that I'm a very shy person. It seems that the world can only have one kind of person in it and that person has to be ready to say hi, shake hands, and invite the other person/people to dinner every other weekend; no alone time allowed. Honestly, I just have to wonder what a kid with a similar temperament like me is feeling. It really has to be a terrible situation tbh.

<comment><USER11> I'm in the middle of the spectrum myself. I'm happy to say hi, shake hands, but I need my alone time. I have plenty of friends and they all get it. I could disappear off the map and be a hermit if that's what I really wanted to do. But in the interest of not being without friends I make time to do both.

My son is in college and it's a struggle for him. He wants friends but doesn't want to gladhand to meet people. I get it, but you can't have met friends without meeting people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The Romans 'discovered' leisure, calling it "otium". The opposite gives us the word "negotiation".

(There is also a book by Robert Putnam called "Bowling Alone" on the decline of group hobbies, but I've not read it)

</comment><comment><USER13> I think it's instructional that the examples of collectors and hobbyists who are all "doing something" are not watching television ... we have the same opportunity but now we've got many more distractions.

</comment><comment><USER14> I struggle with this a lot myself. I think time to pursue some thing that just makes you happy makes you better at what you do in your day job. The pressure to constantly preform and grow. The growing difficulty of maintaining a middle class family. All these factors push you to always be earning. Some days I just want to be standing in a river throwing bit's of feathers and fur and not thinking about stress-causing real life.

First world issues, I know it really is but I personally find our modern Western capitalism driven lifestyles to really be missing a connection to anything important. I think one of the uses of hobbies that helped to smooth that over. We worry about making a new startup to "change the world" and ignore the river on fire because of pollution. I think that most hobbies in the post war era helped to tie people to something they valued, history, nature, or sport. Given our requirement to work so much I think people are driven to this new model to include that in there live.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think the author just misses the point - some people's hobbies (I bet a lot of people on HN) are programming or working on new business ideas, I know it's one of mine. What's important is doing things that make you happy and keep you entertained. I'm ok with not pressing flowers.

BTW, people still play basketball, I don't know why she's singling that out.

</comment><comment><USER16> I don't think hobbies are all that amazing. They appeal to a time when work stayed at work, and, implicitly, most work was dreadfully boring and you needed something, anything, to escape.

Most of these pursuits didn't feed back into the rest of the human world in any substantial way, had no audience and no conversation outside of the immediate family circle - all of which meant a lot of awkward "family members putting up with your weird interest".

Now we're so connected that the line between hobby and market activity blurs constantly. That can be diminishing in that you end up fighting against market incentives to pursue things in the way you want, but it also means that more of our work, in a relative sense, is work we can be engaged in, and can be done as part of a network with healthy feedback and social opportunities.

</comment><comment><USER17> Our parents discovered leisure and then did their best to use up all the means to achieve it on themselves.

</comment><comment><USER18> In _From Dawn to Decadence_ , Jacques Barzun mentions in passing the book _The Harried Leisure Class_ , published in 1970. One can probably find it in many college libraries. I remember it as an interesting and cogent book.

I am probably the age of Ms. Buck's parents, and I don't immediately see a great difference between how we and our neighbors of the same age spend our leisure and how our children do. OK, we aren't running marathons or riding bicycles across Iowa. But most of the persons I know of that age are not working insane hours; and in my generation I knew the occasional 20-something putting in very long weeks at the law firm.</comment>


Google Building Chrome Base at Universities in Exchange for Absorbing IT Costs - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/googles-17-million-built-in-chrome-os-users-2009-7

<comment><USER2> Seems like disingenuous reporting. The article is clearly about Google providing gmail and apps hosting to universities. That's old news, and yes, it may make people more open to using Google services.

But what does this have to do with Chrome OS?

<comment><USER3> I think the logic is they are getting millions of college students to use the core applications of Chrome OS and that will provide leverage at some point. A bit far fetched, but I suppose having the next generation grow up using your platform is a good thing for when you try and convince them to use your OS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sadly the college my wife is currently attending is changing their system over to Outlook online, which can only be used via IE opposed to their current system that can be used by IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari.

Not only is their in-campus system horrific for non-MS fanboys, but now their out-of-campus system is becoming an MS whore too.

<comment><USER5> I use Outlook Web Access with Opera and it works just fine...not sure which system your wife uses.

<comment><USER6> I'll grant you that OWA does _work_ in Opera (and other non-IE browsers) but it _really_ sucks compared to the IE version. Perhaps you've never tried it in IE; if so then you don't know what you're missing.

Thankfully, Exchange 2010 will finally bring full OWA support to non-IE browsers. <http://www.robichaux.net/blog/2009/04/exchange-2010-owa.php>

<comment><USER5> I have used the IE version as well, and yeah, it's better...but the Opera (and others) version is perfectly sufficient.

<comment><USER6> I guess you and I have different conceptions of what's "perfectly sufficient".

<comment><USER5> Possibly. What I meant is that the app is fully functional in Opera.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>